160 CONCLUDING REMARKS. Belus, (which was said to stand in the centre of one of the divisions,) at three and a half British miles to the N.N.W. of Hillah.* * See Rennell's Geography of Herodotus, section xiv.A learned and invaluable work, to whose pages all will be delighted to recur. CHAPTER VIII. Departure for Babylon.-El Mujellibah.—Curious tradition. -Description of this Ruin.--Mode of Brick-making.--Excavations. Superstition of the Natives.-Prophecies of Jeremiah.-Village of Elugo.-Remarkable Niche.—Discoveries of Mr. Rich.-Large earthen Sarcophagus.—Grandeur of the Ruins.--Extensive embankment.-Lofty elliptical Mound. Al Kasr, or the Palace.--Numerous Ravines. Square piers, or buttresses.--Inscriptions. Supposed site of the Pensile Gardens.-Granite Slab.-The Pensiles Horti. NOVEMBER 30th.-At daylight I departed for the ruins, with a mind absorbed by the objects which I had seen yesterday.* An hour's walk, indulged in intense reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic Northern mass, on the eastern bank of the Eu * See Appendix, Q M 162 EL MUJELLIBAH. phrates, and distant about four miles and a half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives, El Mujellibah, "the overturned:" also Haroot and Maroot, from a tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that near the foot of the ruin there is a well invisible to mortals, in which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with their heels upwards, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their wickedness.* This solid mound, which I consider from its situation and magnitude to be the remains of the Tower of Babel, an opinion likewise adopted by that venerable and highly distinguished geographer Major Rennell, is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty-nine feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes towards the north-east to a depth of a hundred and ten * See D'Herbelôt, and Appendix, page 257. |