350 
RUINS OF BABYLON. 
the river. The whole of this embankment is of considerable 
breadth and elevation; and all along its summit, as well as 
slopes, the usual marks of ancient building are evident; but I 
sought in vain for any trace of a moat. 
In casting the eye over the ground-plan * of the rampart¬ 
lines, from the open angle in the east, to the two expanding 
extremities towards the river, it looks something like a drawn 
bow whence the arrow had just been shot; the river forming the 
bow, and the two lines of embankment the string. But a great 
portion of this area takes a direct triangular shape, from an in¬ 
tersecting ridge of mound (^) commencing about 700 yards 
south-east of the invading passage of the Nil canal, and running 
right across the area to the opposite line of the rampart. This 
track of mound, from the point that the high road from Bagdad 
traverses the line of rampart to the north, becomes its causeway, 
the road running all along its ridge; and from this circumstance, 
in many places, the line of its elevation is reduced to little more 
than a gentle swell in the ground. It may, therefore, be con¬ 
ceived that what remains is daily decreasing, from the traffic con¬ 
stantly passing over it. About 200 yards to the westward of the 
commencement of this vanishing ridge, another begins (D), so 
much the nearer to the traverse of the canal. The mounds of 
this second line are seen rather low, till, after following them 
about half a mile from north to south, an opening occurs ; which, 
making a trifling irregularity in the angle it occasions, presents 
the ridge rising again, in greater, nay, even high elevations, 
covered with broken bricks, and other marks of building, (E). 
These parallel banks of mound, range about south 10° east. 
Their southern terminations, before they can quite reach that 
l 
See Plate LXXV. 
