"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." [‎١‎٥‎١] (٤٧٤/٢٣٩)

RUINS OF BABYLON.
15]
of lines of houses at right angles, like the surface of
a chess-board. This savours strongly of an ima
ginary arrangement. It might have been nearly
true of some divisions or quarters, yet I would
nowhere vouch for its mathematical accuracy. The
area of Babylon, we have every reason to believe,
was at all times very far from being thickly built
on ; a very considerable proportion of it was occu
pied by cultivation ; and the care with which the
river was fortified with an embattled wall and
brazen gates, guarding each bank through the
whole extent of the town, seems indicative of the
scantiness of the houses, even on the river; which
seems further illustrated by the ease with which
Cyrus turned the river, unknown to the inhabitants,
entered by its dry channel, and lodged his army
safely in the town, within the fortifications by which
it was guarded on the water side, before the Baby
lonians suspected what he was about.
Major Rennell in another part of the " Remarks"
(p. 127) says, he cannot persuade himself that
the parts of a building named the Kasr is a Baby
lonian structure. He believes it to be "one of a
much later date, possibly coeval with the circular
and other mounds of earth before mentioned
subsequent to old Babylon, but before the time of
Islam. His principal objection is, that it looks too
fresh, " which," he observes, " is not the character
of ruins more than 2000 years old." Neither is it
the character of buildings of the age which he