'Narrative of a journey to the site of Babylon in 1811, now first published: memoir on the ruins; with engravings from the original sketches by the author: remarks on the topography of ancient Babylon, by Major Rennell; in reference to the memoir: second memoir on the ruins; in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon. East India Company at Bagdad. Edited by his widow.' [‎29] (56/474)

INTRODUCTION.
xxix
of the 6th century speaks of Babylon as having been
a long time destroyed.
We thus clearly gather from these various autho
rities, that in the 5th century every purpose of the
Lord had been performed upon Babylon, to make
the land of Babylon a desolation without an inha
bitant ; and Babylon had a dwelling-
place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing,
without an inhabitant.*
Thenceforward the only mention made of Baby
lon by the Mahometans and early European tra
vellers is as a mass of unshapely, solitary ruins,
where the animals at enmity with man found a safe
refuge.
Ibn Haukal, in 917, speaks of " Babel as a small
village." The Persian geographer some time after
assures us " that hardly any remains of Babylon
were to be seen." From Benjamin of Tudela, the
Jewish traveller, we learn in the 12th century that
nothing was to be seen but the ruins of Nebuchad
nezzar's palace, into which no one dared to enter on
account of the quantity of serpents and scorpions
with which it was infested.
In the reign of Elizabeth an English merchant, of
the name of Eldred, sailed in the year 1583 from
London to Tripoli in Syria, from whence he pro
ceeded first to Aleppo, then in three days to Bir, on
the Euphrates, where he hired a boat, and sailed
down the river in twenty-eight days to Felugiah.
* Jeremiah li. 29. 37.