340 
RUINS OF BABYLON. 
This is the pile which Pietro Della Valle, and the Abbe 
Beauchamp, in two successive centuries, have described in such 
characters as to lead many of the learned in Europe to suppose 
that they there saw the remains of the Temple of Belus. Neither 
of these persons had ever seen the greater tower on the opposite 
side of the river; and where they really found the ruins of 
Babylon, it was not unnatural that they should fix on the most 
stupendous in their view, as the relic of that which had given 
the place “ a local habitation and a name.” The Mujelibe 
stands about four miles north of Hillah, on the eastern side of 
the Euphrates; and, perhaps, it is only second to the Birs Nim- 
rood in being one of the most gigantic masses of brick-formed 
earth that ever was raised by the labour of man. It is composed 
of these sun-dried materials, to the present height of 140 feet. 
The form, an oblong square; and like the Birs, facing the four 
cardinal points. The side to the north measures along its base 
552 feet; that to the south 230 ; that to the east 230 ; and that 
to the west 551. The summit is a broad flat, .when compared 
with the pyramidal Birs, yet very uneven ; its highest point being 
to the south-east, where it forms an angular kind of peak, 
sloping gradually down, in an opposite direction, upon the broad 
bosom of the mound, to a depth of about 100 feet. Regular 
lines of clay brick-work are clearly discernible along each face; 
and those on the western front bear every trace of a perfectly 
straight wall, that appears to have cased and parapeted this side 
of the pile. * The angle to the south-west is rounded off; but 
whether it thus marks the original shape of the corners, or that 
time has worn this so, I do not pretend to say. Towards the 
See Plate LXXVI. 
