ROUTE TO BABYLON. 
293 
his shoulder, conceals his neck and the whole of the lower part 
of his face. From the folds round his forehead, depend two 
twisted braids of long black hair ; which add not a little of 
the savage to the wily air of the lower orders of this tribe. 
November 10th. —- We left the khaun of Iskanderia at half¬ 
past seven o’clock this morning. Soon after clearing the nu¬ 
merous low heaps of ruins and rubbish diverging from the place, 
we discovered the golden cupola of Mosseib, reflecting the 
rising sun, in a direction south 40° west. Having travelled 
about four miles farther, the usual traces of former buildings 
spread a vast way on the left of our road; and one relic, not 
inferior in bulk to that of Boursa Shishara, stood very conspi¬ 
cuous. It was built of unburnt bricks, marked at their lines of 
union with no other cement than that of slime ; neither reeds, 
nor straw, appeared outwardly ; and at first I judged it to have 
been of more recent construction than the former pile I had 
ascended ; but, on examining some broken pieces of the bricks, 
which lay thickly around, I found several bearing remnants 
of cuneiform inscriptions ; proof sufficient of the antiquity of 
the materials at least. But whether the place, of which the 
edifice they composed had formed a part, were coeval with 
Babylon, or was afterwards erected out of her remains, cannot 
easily be determined. Yet, so extensive and numerous are the 
traces of former buildings on the spot, we must conclude that 
something like a town has existed here ; and if the historical 
accounts are to be depended on, that the original dimensions 
of Babylon extended to a length and breadth of fifteen miles, 
the adjacent great villages, or minor towns, usually attendant on 
metropolitan cities, might very well reach thus far. 
After a ride of newly awakening interest at almost every turn 
of our heads, we arrived at the khaun of Hadge Sulieman, (a 
