SETS FORTH TO VIEW THE RUINS OF BABYLON. 2SS 
town on the Euphrates,) to take up a central position against the 
enemy. This disposition, being entirely in my purposed track, 
would enable me to pursue the researches I meditated, without 
much apprehension of disturbance from the belligerent Arabs ; 
and, accordingly, when the troops had advanced 'to the banks 
of the Euphrates, I prepared to follow. The time was soon 
settled ; and on the day appointed, having received every ne¬ 
cessary protection on the way from the pasha, and also his 
letter to the general in command, ordering that all attention 
should be paid to me; I set forth at 10 o’clock in the forenoon 
of November the 9th ; additionally escorted by some of Mr. 
Rich’s armed household, and accompanied by Mr. Belino. 
November 9th, 1818.—I was now fully embarked on my long- 
anticipated expedition ; and having passed the gate of the west¬ 
ern suburb, I looked around me on the vast extended Chaldean 
plain east of the Euphrates, with a delight that seemed for 
some minutes to send me on the win«‘ over its whole interesting 
tract; ranging both sides of that mighty river, and to wherever 
the majesty of Babylon had flowed down its venerable stream. 
Ptolemy, in describing the great plain of Babylonia, bounds it 
by the Arabian desert to the west, by Susiana to the east, the 
Persian Gulf to the South, and Mesopotamia to the north. The 
appropriation of the latter term here, (which, properly speaking, 
designates the whole country girt by the two rivers,) is to be 
received as meaning that part only, which stretches south-east 
from Mount Masius, to the celebrated Median wall, that closed 
the isthmus between Macepracta and Opis; nearly where the 
land draws in, something like the shape of an hour-glass. This 
wall is understood to have been built by the Babylonian mo- 
narchs, to prevent the incursions of the Median kings, when 
o o 2 
