A RIDE TO BABYLON. 379 



site of a once immense city, whose inhabitants were 

 counted by millions millions who had never heard 

 of our miserable little island, or even of the seas that 

 surround it. Laying this fact to heart, how possible 

 it seemed that a time might yet be, within the womb 

 of ages, when our own great city would be but a 

 heap of ugly ruin. There is this hope and consola- 

 tion for us. No terrible doom of utter desolation, no 

 awful prophecies of sudden and entire destruction, 

 hang over the modern Babylon. Provided Father 

 Thames rolls his much-abused tide in the accustomed 

 channel, and we English are a nation, there is no 

 reason why Pali-Mall and Piccadilly should not exist 

 till the end of all things. 



We descended from the great mound, and made 

 for those lesser mounds which are supposed to be the 

 site of the hanging gardens of !Nltocris and Semir- 

 amis. In one spot the only thing we saw in the 

 shape of a building in a state of ruin was a mass of 

 vitrified brickwork, piercing the soil and debris of 

 centuries, angle upwards. The bricks were square, 

 of large size, and beautiful make ; the angles of some 

 clear and sharp, as if the brick had but left the kiln 

 yesterday, instead of nearly twice two thousand years 

 ago. Turning into a little hollow way between the 

 mounds, we came suddenly upon the colossal stone 

 lion. Time with his leaden hand had knocked away 

 at all sharp angles of the statue. The features of the 

 lion are completely obliterated, as are also those of 



