A short time after the death of Alexander, Babylon became a theatre of contention between Demetrius and Seleucus. Seleucus had got possession of the city. When Antigonus learned this, he sent his son Demetrius with an army to drive him out of it. Demetrius, according to his father's order, collected all the force he could at Damascus, and marched to Babylon; where, finding that Seleucus had gone into Media, he entered the city without opposition; but, to his great surprise and mortification, he found it for the most part deserted. The cause was this: Seleucus had left the town under the charge of a governor named Patrocles; who, when Demetrius was within a short distance, had retreated out of the walls into the fens, and commanded the inhabitants to flee from the city. This multitudes of them did; some into the deserts, and others beyond the Tigris. Demetrius, finding the town deserted, laid siege to the castles; for there were two, both well garrisoned and of large extent. One of these he took; and having plundered, not only the city, but the whole province, of everything he could lay hands on, he returned to his father, leaving a garrison in the

as a single inhabitant left. Lest you should think that in process of time it may be re-edified, and again abound with joyful multitudes, it shall never be inhabited more; no, never dwelt in any more, from generation to generation; but shall continue a dismal waste through all succeeding ages: a waste so dismal, that none of the neighbouring shepherds shall make their fold, or find so much as an occasional shelter for their flocks, where kings, grandees, and crowds of affluent citizens were wont to repose in profound tranquillity. Even the rude and roving Arab shall not venture to pitch his tent, nor be able to procure for himself the poor accommodation of a night's lodging, where millions of polite people basked in the sunshine of the most luxurious prosperity. In short, it shall neither be habitable nor accessible; but a dwelling-place for dragons and a court for owls; an astonishment and a hissing. What was once the golden city and the metropolis of the world, shall be an everlasting scene of desolation, a fearful monument of Divine vengeance, and an awful admonition to human pride."

place. This robbery, however, did not go unpunished; for the Babylonians were so enraged at it, that on the return of Seleucus they received him with open arms; and thus began the true reign of that prince. He did not, however, long make Babylon his capital, but built Seleucia on the western bank of the Tigris, forty miles distant, over against the spot where now stands the city of Bagdad. To this new city Seleucus invited the Babylonians generally to transplant themselves. This they did; and Babylon became, in process of time, so desolate, that Strabo assures us that,* in his time, though once the greatest city that the sun ever saw," it had nothing left but its bare walls. The area within had been ploughed up.

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In the fourth century St. Jerome records that Babylon had become a park for the Parthian, and afterward for the Persian, kings to keep their wild beasts for hunting in; the walls being preserved to serve for a fence to the enclosure. No writer for several hundred years from this time has been found to mention this city, till Benjamin of Tudela, about 1169, visited the spot, and related, on his return, that he had found it wholly desolated and destroyed. "Some ruins," says he, "of Nebuchadnezzar's palace remain; but men are afraid to go near them on account of the multitude of serpents and scorpions there are in the place."

It was afterward visited by the celebrated Portuguese traveller Texeira, who says "That there was in his time only a few footsteps of this famous city; and that there was no place in all that country less frequented." In 1574 it was visited by a German traveller, Rauwolf. "The village of Elugo," says he, "lieth on the place where formerly

* About the middle of the second century, when Strabo was there, the walls were reduced to fifty cubits in height and twenty-one in breadth.

old Babylon, the metropolis of Chaldea, did stand. The harbour lieth a quarter of a league off, whereunto those use to go that intend to travel by land to the famous city of Bagdad, which is situated farther to the east on the river Tigris, at a day and a half's distance. This country is so dry and barren that it cannot be tilled; and so bare that I should have doubted very much whether this potent and powerful city (which once was the most stately and famous one of the world, situated in the pleasant and fruitful country of Sinar) did stand there, if I had not known it by its situation, and several ancient and delicate antiquities that still are standing hereabout in great desolation.* First, by the old bridge which was laid over the Euphrates, whereof there are some pieces and arches still remaining, built of burned brick, and so strong that it is admirable. Just before the village of Elugo is the hill whereon the castle did stand, in a plain, whereon you may still see some ruins of the fortification, which is quite demolished and uninhabited. Behind it, and pretty near to it, did stand the tower of Babylon. This we see still, and it is half a league in diameter; but so mightily ruined and low, and so full of venomous reptiles, that have bored holes through it, that one may not come near it within half a mile but only in two months in the winter, when they come not out of their holes."

* The soil of Babylonia, in the time of Herodotus, may be judged of by what that historian states: "Of all countries which have come under my observation, this is far the most fruitful in corn. Fruit-trees, such as the vine, the olive, and the fig, they do not even attempt to cultivate; but the soil is so particularly well adapted for corn, that it never produces less than two hundred fold; in seasons which are remarkably favourable it will sometimes produce three hundred; the ear of their wheat, as well as barley, is four digits in size. The immense height to which millet will grow, although I have witnessed it myself, I know not how to mention. I am well aware that they who have not seen the country will deem whatever I may say upon the subject a violation of probability."-CLIO, cxciii.

The next traveller that visited this spot appears to have been Della Valle, in 1616. When at Bagdad, he was led by curiosity rather than business to visit Babylon, which, he says, was well known to the people in that city, as well by its naine of Ba bel as by the traditions concerning it. "He found," says Rennell," at no great distance from the eastern bank of the Euphrates, a vast heap of ruins, of so heterogeneous a kind, that, as he expresses it, he could find nothing whereon to fix his judgment as to what it might have been in its original state. He recollected the descriptions of the tower of Belus in the writings of the ancients, and supposed that this might be the ruins of it." He then proceeds to give measurements; but better accounts have been received since.

The remains of Babylon have been visited in our times by several accomplished travellers, among whom may be especially noted Mr. Rich and Sir Robert Ker Porter. The former of these travellers has given the most distinct and circumstantial account; but, before we state what he has afforded, we will insert a passage from the latter, in which he describes his first entry upon the scene.

"We now came to the northeast shore of the Euphrates, hitherto totally excluded from our view by the intervening long and varied lines of ruin, which now proclaimed. to us on every side that we were indeed in the midst of what had been Babylon. From the point on which we stood to the base of the Mujelibé, large masses of ancient foundations spread on our right, more resembling natural hills in appearance than mounds covering the remains of former great and splendid edifices. The whole view was particularly solemn. The majestic stream of the Euphrates wandering in solitude, like a pilgrim monarch through the silent ruins of his devastated kingdom, still appeared a noble river, even under all the disadvantages of its desert-tracked course.

Its

banks were hoary with reeds, and the gray osierwillows were yet there, on which the captives of Israel hung up their harps, and, while Jerusalem was not,' refused to be comforted. But how is the rest of the scene changed since then! At that time these broken hills were palaces; those long, undulating mounds, streets; this vast solitude filled with the busy subjects of the proud daughter of the East! now,' wasted with misery,' her habitations are not to be found; and for herself, the worm is spread over her.' The banks of the Euphrates are, nevertheless, still covered with willows, as they were in ancient times."*

For the following particulars we are principally indebted to Mr. Rich, several years British minister at Bagdad. "The town of Hillah, enclosed within a brick wall, and known to have been built in the twelfth century, stands upon the western banks of the Euphrates (latitude thirty-two degrees, twentyeight minutes). It is forty-eight miles south of Bagdad. The country, for miles around, is a flat, uncultivated waste; but it is traversed in different directions by what appear to be the remains of canals, and by mounds of great magnitude; most of which, upon being excavated, are found to contain bricks, some of which were evidently dried in the sun, others baked by a furnace, and stamped with inscriptions in a character now unknown." "The soil of the plains of ancient Assyria and Babylonia," says Major Keppell, "consists of a fine clay, mixed with sand, with which, as the waters retire, the shores

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

4. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?PSALM CXXXvii.

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