'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in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon.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.' [‎55] (133/474)

OF BABYLON.
55
lubrious than that of the Tigris. Its general course
through the site of Babylon is N. and S # . I ques
tioned the fishermen who ply on the river, respecting
its bottom, and they all agreed that bricks and other
fragments of building are very commonly found in
it. From the gentleness of the current, regularity
of the stream, and equal substance of the banks, I am
of opinion that the Euphrates would not naturally
alter its course in any great degree, certainly not so
much as the Tigris, whose variations in a few years
are often very considerable. A variety of circum
stances may however have caused some alterations.
It is evident from what Strabo says, that the neglected
state of the canals had considerably injured the ori
ginal stream, and it is possible that a part of it might
have continued to flow through the channel cut by
Cyrus for a long time afterwardsf. That some
* In the year 1579 Balbi, a Venetian jeweller, travelling from
Aleppo to Bagdad, embarked on the Euphrates at Bir, on the 10th of
January, and arrived at Felugiah on the 21st of February. On the
24th, at sunrise, they passed a bridge over a stream which runs, when
the water is high, from the Euphrates to the Tigris, and came at noon
to the ruins of a city called Sendia, and then, in half an hour after, to
the beginning of Old Babylon, and going along by the same, at night
came to Nareisa, midway from Felugiah to Basdet, a place famous for
robbers and lions. Before sunrise next day they travelled again along
those ruins, leaving them on the left hand, seeing pieces of great walls
ruined, and one piece of the great tower of Babylon, till, coming to
Muscadon, they saw the towers of Bagdad or New Babylon. From
Felugiah thither the soil seems good; " yet neither is there tree, or
green grass, house, or castle, but mushrooms so good that the na
tives eat them raw."— Ed.
t Vide Rollin (see Appendix, No. 1), who quotes Arrian, whose
work I regret not having at present to refer to a .
a See Appendix, No. 2.— Ed.