GREAT EMBANKMENT OR RAMPART. 
849 
shew me his second manuscript on the Ruins of Babylon ; which 
gave me the gratification of knowing that my conclusions were 
right; he having clearly shewn that there are no traces of this 
canal having existed earlier than the eleventh century of our 
own era. 
Before I proceed to a description of the Kasr and Amran Hill, 
it may promote a clearer view of the whole subject to follow the 
entire course of the high embankment I have mentioned, as be- - 
ginning something west of the Mujelibe, in order to show how 
extensive an area it embraces, and how far it corresponds with 
the space described by ancient authors, as that of the castellated 
palace. This magnificent rampart, in its present ruined state, 
appears to commence a little beyond the north-west angle of the 
Mujelibe ; thence passes before the northern and eastern sides 
of that pile, running in a strait-forward line almost due south, 
till it is cut across by the Nil canal. At that point, about a 
quarter of a mile from the Mujelibe, it makes a curve; whence 
it stretches away south 45° east, for a distance of two miles and 
two hundred yards. * It stops there, but only to leave an open¬ 
ing of about 800 feet, once, probably, filled by some majestic 
gate of entrance. This opening forms the point of a great angle 
towards the east; for at its southern side, the rampart line re¬ 
commences, and runs in an answering expanding direction 
south-west, to the length of a mile and a half, where it unites 
with a cluster of low mounds belonging to the great mass of 
remains immediately to the south of the Amran Hill; but it 
may easily be traced through their lines, and thence followed in 
the same oblique sweep, south-west, till entirely lost in the 
recesses of a thick wood of date- trees, extending to the verge of 
# 
See Plate LXXV. B, B, B, B. 
