"سرد لرحلة إلى موقع مدينة بابل في ١٨١١، طُبعت الآن لأول مرة: مذكرات على الأطلال؛ مع نقوش من الخرائط المدبئية للمؤلف: ملاحظات على طبوغرافية بابل القديمة،بقلم الرائد رينيل؛ في إشارة إلى المذكرات: مذكرات ثانية على الأطلال؛ في إشارة إلى ملاحظات الرائد رينيل: مع سرد لرحلة إلى برسبوليس: طُبعت الآن لأول مرة، مع كتابات مسمارية نسخت في برسبوليس ولم تُنشر من قبل: كتبها الراحل كلوديوس جيمس ريتش، المحترم، المقيم البريطاني السابق لشركة الهند الشرقية في بغداد. حررته أرملته." [‎١‎٤‎٤] (٤٧٤/٢٣٢)

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SECOND MEMOIR ON THE
value in this case than Major Rennell seems to be
aware of.
Those who have investigated the antiquities of
Babylon have laid much stress on the authority of
Diodorus, probably adverting more to the quantity
than the quality of the information he supplies.
He never was on the spot: he lived in an age when,
as he himself tells us, its area was ploughed over:
he has therefore recourse to Ctesias; and it must be
owned that the want of discrimination in the an
cients, and the credulity of Diodorus himself, were
never more strongly exemplified than in his choice
of a writer who confounds the Euphrates with the
Tigris, and tells us that Semiramis erected a monu
ment to her husband, which from the dimensions he
specifies must have been of superior elevation to
Mount Vesuvius, and nearly equal to Mount Hecla.
(A) If these are not " fairy tales," I certainly
know not to what the term can be applied. When
an author can in so many instances be clearly con
victed of ignorance and exaggeration, we are cer
tainly not justified in altering what is already before
our eyes to suit it to his description. We have only
the very questionable authority of Ctesias for the
second palace and the wonderful tunnel under the
river; but even he does not say whether the Tower
of Belus stood on the east or west side. Herodotus,
who will ever appear to greater advantage the more
he is examined and understood, is the only historian
who visited Babylon in person; and he is in every