'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in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon.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.' [‎321] (464/474)

NO. XII.]
APPENDIX.
321
most ancient monument be halfe a yard thicke and three-
quarters of a yard long, being dried in the sunne onely; and
betweene every course of bricks there lieth a course of
mattes made of canes, which remaine sound and not
perishe, as though they had beene layed within one yeere.
The citie of New Babylon joyneth upon the aforesaid small
desert, where the olde citie was, and the river of Tigris
runneth close under the wall, and they may, if they will,
open a since, and let the water of the same river round
about the towne. It is about two English miles in com-
passe, and the inhabitants generally speake three lan
guages; to wit, the Persian, Arabian, and Turkish tongue.
" The people are of the Spanyard's complexion and the
women generally weare in one of the grisles of their noses
a ring like a wedding-ring, but somewhat greater, with a
pearl and a Turkish stone set therein; and this they do
be they never so poore."
Hakluyt's Collection of Travels. —Small folio, 1589, p. 239,
worke of Paule's steeple in London, the bricks being six inches
thicke, eight broad, and a foot long (as Master Allen measured), with
mats of canes laid betwixt them, yet remaining as sound as if they had
beene laid within a yeere's space. Thus Master Eldred and Master
Fitch, Master Cartwright also, and my friend Master Allen, by tes
timony of their own eyes, have reported. But I can scarce think it
to be that tower or temple, because authors place it in the midst of
Old Babylon, and neere Euphrates; whereas this is neerer Tigris. a
Isidore affirmeth that first after the Floud, Nimrod the Giant founded
Babylon, which Semiramis the Assyrian queene enlarged, and made
the wall with bricke and hiiwmQU.—Purchas his Pilgrimage, chap. ii.
p. 50, folio edition, 1626.
a The tower here described is evidently no other than Akerkouf,
in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, and a very Babylonian-looking
ruin, but situated not less than between forty and fifty miles distant
from the supposed Babylon of these travellers, and the real Babylon
at Hillah. — E d.
Y