294 ENTRANCE ON THE RUINS OF BABYLON, 
poor little place, erected by a devotee of that name,) about eight 
miles from Iskanderia. Here we halted, to refresh our horses, 
and regale ourselves with coffee ; a beverage much increased in 
flavour by our Arab host adding a few cloves to its composition. 
Close to this place the road is intersected by a canal, full of 
water in the earlier part of the year; but when we passed it, 
not a drop of the genial fluid was to be seen. An hour more, 
however, brought us in view of something like moisture and 
vegetation ; the date-trees of the village of Mahowil rose be¬ 
fore us; and they were the first trees of any kind we had seen 
since we quitted Bagdad. Mahowil lies four miles from the 
Hadge’s khaun ; and is only separated from the plain more 
immediately connected with the remains of Babylon, by the 
embankments of two once noble canals, very near each other, 
and running almost due east and west. In the first, which we 
crossed by a brick bridge, we saw water. These canals seem 
at present to be regarded as the boundary, whence the decided 
vestiges of the great city commence; and we soon discovered 
their widely spreading tracks. In crossing the bridge, which 
leads to those immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and human 
habitations of every description ; now buried in shapeless heaps, 
and a silence profound as the grave ; I could not but feel an 
undescribable awe, in thus passing, as it were, into the gates of 
“ fallen Babylon.” 
Between this bridge and Hillah (something more than eight 
miles distant), three piles of great magnitude, particularly attract 
attention; but there are many minor objects to arrest investiga¬ 
tion in the way. A mound of considerable elevation rose on our 
left as we rode along, not five hundred yards from the second 
embankment; its sloping sides were covered with broken bricks, 
and other fragments of past buildings, while the ground around 
