ON CROSSING THE MAHOWIL BRIDGE. 
295 
its base presented a most nitrous surface. At a few hundred 
yards onward again, another mound projected of still greater 
height, and from it branched subordinate elevations in several 
directions. I here had a fine view of the great oblong pile, 
called by the Arabs Mujelibe, or rather Mukallibe, “ the over¬ 
turned an attributive term, which, however, they do not confine 
to this sublime wreck alone; other remains, in this immense 
field of ruin, bearing the same striking designation of the man¬ 
ner of its fall. Mujelibe bore from the elevation on which we 
stood, south 10° west. Having proceeded about a couple of miles 
from the two canal ridges near Mahowil, we advanced to another 
and higher embankment, of a totally different appearance from 
that of a water-course. It ran almost due east and west, until 
lost to the eye in the horizon on both sides. I rode a consider¬ 
able way along its base, to examine whether there might not be 
some trace of a ditch, and though I did not discover any, nor, 
indeed, aught that was at all answerable to our ideas of what 
would have been even a fragment of the vast bulwark-walls of 
Babylon, yet I saw no cause to doubt its being a remnant of 
some minor interior boundary. Before this, I had particularly 
inspected the two canals adjacent to Mahowil, with the view of 
finding some clew to the ancient limits of the city ; but every 
thing in their construction, proved them to have been nothing 
more than mere water-courses. Any standing remains of such 
walls as those which the oldest and most respected authorities 
assign to Babylon, must have certain internal evidences about 
them, very determinate to the eye of mature investigation. 
Darius Hystaspes, in dismantling the city after its revolt from 
him, not only destroyed the gates, but beat down the walls 
(according to the computation of Strabo) to the level of 50 
