382 
RUINS OF BABYLON 
On quitting this first extensive sweep of mounds, which, for 
perspicuity at least, I shall designate by the name of the Lesser 
Palace, and keeping on in the same direction (south-west), we 
crossed a space of high grass and rank weeds for nearly a mile ; 
we then found the plain arid again, and undulated with multi¬ 
tudes of mounds, but of inferior elevation to those last described: 
these too were attended by the usual exterior fragments of ruin, 
spreading in a circular form rather better than half a mile in 
width. Having duly explored this second specimen of consi¬ 
derable remains, we came out upon a good deal of cultivated 
ground ; over which we took our course for more than a mile, 
when we arrived at the banks of a canal, the bed of which we 
crossed; and half a mile more brought us to an extensive wood 
of date-trees, in the bosom of which stands the village of Tha- 
masia. We did not halt there, but passed on over two miles of 
cultivation and high grass; at which extremity, a vast tract 
opened before us, covered with every minor vestige of former 
buildings ; and which appearances continued the whole way to 
the eastern verge of the boundary around Birs Nimrood, a dis¬ 
tance of nearly a mile and three quarters. These remains seem, 
to my apprehension, not only to establish the fact, that the 
western plain of the Euphrates sustained its portion of the city 
of Babylon, as well as the eastern bank, but that Birs Nimrood, 
otherwise the Temple of Belus, did actually stand in one division 
of the city. Indeed, if the recorded dimensions of Babylon are 
compared with the relative situation of that extraordinary pile, 
and the traceable buildings still extant, it will be found that the 
Birs must have stood even far within the computed limits of the 
city. I will not, in this comparison, take these limits to the 
very utmost boundary allowed them by some calculations, 
