ON THE EAST OF THE EUPHRATES. 339 
and which, doubtless, have been the cause of the interior pile’s 
comparatively unimpaired state. The yearly overflowing of the 
whole country, from the decay of the canals, made to draw 
off the superflux of the river, having for ages swept unimpeded 
over the faces of all the ruins which had not the protection of 
these, I may call them, break-waters, could not fail producing 
the devastation we see. All such exposed parts of the city, 
must necessarily be broken down into wider and more shapeless 
ruin, and be gradually washed down into lower and lower hil¬ 
locks, till, in most places, all traces would be entirely swept 
away. The piles which I am now going to describe have, 
therefore, not only been saved by their extraordinary magnitude 
from the over-topping of the floods, but their foundations greatly 
preserved, by the majestic length of these banks inclosing them 
nearly on all sides. The pre-eminent mounds are three in 
number. First, the Amran Hill, (M), so named by Mr. Rich 
in his “ Memoir on the Ruins of Babylonand who designates 
it by that appellation, from its supporting a small tomb erected 
to the memory of some personage of that name, said to have 
been a son of the Caliph Ali, who fell at the battle of Hillah. 
There must be some mistake in this tradition; Ali having had 
only two sons, Hassan and Hossein. The second pile is that 
called the Kasr, or palace, (k), which is separated from the pre¬ 
ceding by a distance of only 750 yards. ., The third is known by 
J J U k3.lli.0e J 
the appellation Mujelibe, (A), or Maefer&ra, “ the overturned.” It 
stands about a mile and a half northward from the other. But 
this last mentioned, being the first of the three descried on ap¬ 
proaching from Bagdad ; and having already described the 
ground between it and Mahowil, I shall begin my notice of the 
great ruins on this bank with a detail of the Mujelibe. 
x x 2 
