52 
RURAL HOURa 
that tliis common impression might possibly be erroneous. The 
present desohition of the country about Babylon is well known ; 
the whole region, once so fertile, appears now to be little better than 
a desert, stripped alike of its people, its buildings, and its vegetation, 
all of which made, in former times, its surpassing glory and its 
wealth. If at one moment of a brief spring, grass and flowers 
are found upon those shapeless ruins, a scorching sun soon blasts 
their beauty ; as for trees, these are so few that they scarcely 
appear in the general view, though, on nearer observation, some 
are found here and there. One of these, described by Mr. Rich, 
as an evergreen, like the hgnum-vitae, is so old that the Arabs say 
it dates with the ruins on which it stands, and it is thought that 
it may very possibly be a descendant of one of the same species 
in the hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, which are supposed 
to have occupied the same site. Immediately on the banks of the 
river, there is also said to be a fringe of jungle, and here willows 
are growing ; but they are not described as the weeping willow. 
Speaking of the Euphrates, Sir Robert Ker Porter says : " Its 
banks were hoary with reeds, and the graij ozier loilloios were yet 
there, on which the captives of Israel hungup their harps." Now 
it is scarcely probable that a writer of the merit of Sir R. Porter, 
familiar with the weeping Avillow, as he must have been, would 
describe that beautiful tree as a gray ozier. Several other travel- 
lers also speak of the fringe of jungle on the Euphrates, and the 
ozier ejrowino' there. Not one of several we have been lookintj 
DO o 
over, mentions the noble weeping willow ; on the contrary, the 
impression is generally left that the trees are insignificant in size, 
and of an inferior variety. If such be really the case, then, and 
the term grai ozier be correct — if wallows are growing to-day 
