so familiar to us all from its associations with Nebuchadnezzar, the destroyer of Jerusalem. While the work of the explorers is far from complete, they have already been fortunate enough to discover the exact site of the great palace begun by Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, and completed by the latter. This edifice was famous throughout the ancient world. is this palace to which the author of the Book of Daniel refers in his story of the mystical handwriting on the wall that foretold the downfall of the great city. In it Cyrus, on his conquest of Babylon, in the year 538 B. C. [see PERSIA: B. C. 549521], took up his official residence, and the same

It

balustrade running round the tower to the top. It is probably this tower that the biblical writer in Genesis had in mind in narrating the curious tale of the dispersion of mankind. [See also TEMPLES: Stage of culture represented by temple architecture.] The city that is thus being brought to light through the pick and spade is essentially the creation of Nebuchadnezzar, so that the words which the author of Daniel puts into the mouth of the King, 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?', receive a significance through the excavations of the twentieth century far greater and

building two centuries later witnessed the pathetic death scene of Alexander the Great. Besides the palace the explorers have also discovered the exact site of one of the most important edifices in the entire history of Babylonia, the great temple of Marduk, or Bel, the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Although the beginning of this structure goes back to a very ancient period, it was Nebuchadnezzar who restored and enlarged it beyond its former proportions, and within the sacred precinct in which the temple stood he erected numerous shrines to various gods and goddesses, who constituted, as it were, the court of the chief god. A feature of the precinct was a huge tower of eight stories in height, formed by a series of stages, one above the other, with a

more realistic than was ever dreamed of."-M. Jastrow, Palace and temple of Nebuchadnezzar (Harper's Monthly Magazine, v. 104, pp. 809-810,

Nebuchadrezzar and the wall of Babylon."In all Nebuchadrezzar's [or Nebuchadnezzar's] inscriptions that have been found-and we have great many-he especially glories in his construc tions. He seems to have repaired almost every great temple in the land and built not a few new ones. .. But what he did at Babylon not only surpasses all his other works, but eclipses those of all former kings, even those of Sargon at Da Sharrukin, not so much in splendor as in the vastness and originality of his conceptions-an originality due probably to that besetting icra coupling adornment with military requirements

BABYLON

which consistently underlies most of the public works he undertook. In this, however, he appears to have followed a line traced out first by his father. Of some of his greatest constructions, -such as the new palace, the great city walls, and the embankments of the Euphrates,-he especially mentions that they were begun by Nabopolassar, but left unfinished at his death. Babylon, sacked once by Sennacherib, then rebuilt by Esarhaddon, had gone through a conflagration when besieged and taken by Asshurbanipal, and must have been in a sad condition when the Chaldean usurper made it once more the seat of empire. Hence, perhaps, the thought of reconstructing it in such a manner as would make it a capital not only in size and magnificence, but in strength: it was to be at once the queen of cities and the most impregnable of fortresses. The last time that Babylon had been taken it had been reduced by famine. This was the first contingency to be guarded against. For this purpose the city was to be protected by a double enclosure of mighty walls, the inner one skirting its outlines narrowly, while the outer was moved to such a distance as to enfold a large portion of the land, which was to be cultivated so that the capital could raise enough grain and fodder for its own consumption. This vast space also would serve to shelter the population of the surrounding villages in case of an invasion. It has not been possible to trace the line of this outer wall, which received the name of Nimitti-Bel, nor consequently to determine how many square miles it protected, and the reports of ancient writers are somewhat conflicting, as none of them, of course, took exact scientific measurements after the manner of our modern surveyors. Herodotus gives the circumference as somewhat over fifty English miles. A large figure certainly. But it has been observed that it scarcely surpasses that yielded by the circumvallation of Paris; and besides the arable and pasture land, it must have embraced suburbs, not impossibly Borsip itself, which was also well fortified at the same time. This is the highest estimate. The lowest (and later) gives forty miles. The Nimitti-Bel rampart was protected on the outside by a wide and deep moat, which at the same time had supplied the material for the wall.

The reports about the height and thickness of this celebrated wall vary still more considerably. Herodotus says it was 350 feet high (apparently including the height of the towers, which were built at regular intervals on the top of it), with a thickness of 75 feet. Now no effort of imagination, even with the knowledge that the walls of Babylon were numbered among the 'Seven Wonders of the World,' (q. v.) can well make us realize a city wall, nigh on fifty miles long, surpassing in height the extreme height of St. Paul's of London. The estimates of various later writers range all the way between that exorbitant figure and that of 75 feet,-very possibly too moderate. For the fact remains undisputed that the Nimitti-Bel rampart was stupendous both in height and in thickness; that towers were built on the top of it, on the edges, two facing each other, and that there remained room between for a four-horse chariot to turn. And the contemporary Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah, speaks of Babylon as 'mounting up to heaven,' of 'the broad walls of Babylon' and her 'high gates.' Of these there were a hundred in the circuit of the wall, according to Herodotus, 'and they were all of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts.' This outer wall Herodotus calls 'the main defence of the city.' The second or inner wall, named Imgur-Bel, he described as being 'of less thickness than the first,

BABYLON

but very little inferior to it in strength.' Then there were the walls which enclosed the two royal palaces, the old one on the right bank of the Euphrates, and the new one on the left,-and made of each a respectable fortress; for it was part of the plan of reconstruction that the city should be extended across the river, to gain a firmer seat and full control of this all-important thoroughfare; and an entire new quarter was built on the left bank around the new and magnificent palace. And as it was desirable, both for convenience and defence, that the two sides should be united by permanent means of communication, Nebuchadrezzar built [a] great bridge [across the river], but so that it could be kept open or shut off at will, as a further safeguard against surprises. This was effected by means of platforms made of beams and planks, which were laid from pier to pier in the daytime, and removed for the night. Of course one solitary bridge could not suffice for the traffic of a population which cannot have been under half a million, and the river was gay with hundreds of boats and barges darting with their load of passengers from bank to bank, or gliding down the current, or working against it. There were many landing-places, but no quays or broad paved walls bordered with handsome buildings, such as in our ideas appear as the necessary accompaniment of a beautiful river in a great city. The Euphrates flowed along imprisoned between a double wall, of burnt brick like the others, which followed its course on either bank and close to the edge from end to end of the city. Only where the streets abutted on the river-and these were disposed at regular intervals, in straight lines and at right angles-there were low gates to allow pedestrians to descend to the landing-places. The general effect must have been peculiar and rather gloomy."-Z. A. Ragozin, Media, Babylon and Persia, pp. 227-232.-"The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar occupied a square of which each side was nearly fifteen miles in length, and was bisected by the Euphrates diagonally from northwest to southeast. . . . The great squares of the city were not all occupied by buildings. Many of them were used as gardens and even farms, and the great fertility of the soil, caused by irrigation, producing two and even three crops a year, supplied food sufficient for the inhabitants in case of siege. Babylon was a vast fortified province rather than a city. . . . There is a curious fact which I do not remember to have seen noticed, and of which I will not here venture to suggest the explanation. Babylon stands in the Book of Revelation as the emblem of all the abominations which are to be destroyed by the power of Christ. But Babylon is the one city known to history which could have served as a model for John's description of the New Jerusalem: 'the city lying four square,' 'the walls great and high,' the river which flowed through the city, 'and in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits;' 'the foundations of the wall of the city garnished with all manner of precious stones,' as the base of the walls inclosing the great palace were faced with glazed and enameled bricks of brilliant colors, and a broad space left that they might be seen, -these characteristics, and they are all unique, have been combined in no other city."-W. B. Wright, Ancient cities from the dawn to the daylight, pp. 41-44.

Decline.-Use of ancient wall and buildings as a quarry. "The policy he [Cyrus] inaugurated in the provinces of his empire was a complete reversal of Assyrian methods. For the nationality of each conquered race was respected, and it was en

couraged to retain its own religion and its laws and customs. Hence Babylon's commercial life and prosperity suffered no interruption in consequence of the change in her political status. Taxation was not materially increased, and little was altered beyond the name and title of the reigning king in the dates upon commercial and legal documents. The sieges of Babylon by Darius mark the beginning of the city's decay. [See also BABYLONIA: Hammurabi: His character and achievements.] Her defences had not been seriously impaired by Cyrus, but they now suffered considerably. The city was again restless during Darius's closing years, and further damage was done to it in the reign of Xerxes, when the Babylonians made their last bids for independence. For Xerxes is said not only to have dismantled the walls, but to have plundered and destroyed the great temple of Marduk itself. [See PERSIA: B. C. 486-405.] Large areas in the city, which had been a wonder of the nations, now began to lie permanently in ruins. Babylon entered on a new phase in 331 B. C., when the long struggle between Greece and Persia was ended by the defeat of Darius III. at Gaugamela. For Susa and Babylon submitted to Alexander, who on proclaiming himself King of Asia, took Babylon as his capital. We may picture him gazing on the city's great buildings, many of which now lay ruined and deserted. Like Cyrus before him, he sacrificed to Babylon's gods; and he is said to have wished to restore E-sagila, Marduk's great temple, but to have given up the idea, as it would have taken ten thousand men more than two months to remove the rubbish from the ruins. But he seems to have made some attempt in that direction, since a tablet has been found, dated in his sixth year, which records a payment of ten manehs of silver for 'clearing away the dust of E-sagila.' [For Alexander's conquest, see MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323.] While the old buildings decayed, some new ones arose in their place, including a Greek theatre for the use of the large Greek colony. Many of the Babylonians themselves adopted Greek names and fashions, but the more conservative elements, particularly among the priesthood, continued to retain their own separate life and customs. In the year 270 B. C. we have a record that Antiochus Soter restored the temples of Nabû and Marduk at Babylon and Borsippa, and the recent diggings at Erech have shown that the old temple in that city retained its ancient cult under a new name. In the second century we know that in a corner of the great temple at Babylon, Marduk and the God of Heaven were worshiped as a two-fold deity under the name of Anna-Bêl; and we hear of priests attached to one of Babylon's old shrines as late as the year 29 B. C. Services in honour of the later forms of the Babylonian gods were probably continued into the Christian era. [See JEWS: 604-536 B. C. to 166-40 B. C.] The life of the ancient city naturally flickered longest around the ruined temples and seats of worship. On the secular side, as a commercial centre, she was then but a ghost of her former self. Her real decay had set in when Seleucus, after securing the satrapy of Babylon on Alexander's death, had recognized the greater advantages offered by the Tigris for maritime communication. On the foundation of Seleucia, Babylon as a city began rapidly to decay. Deserted at first by the official classes, followed later by the merchants, she decreased in importance as her rival grew. Thus it was by a gradual and purely economic process, and through no sudden blow, that Babylon slowly bled to death."-L. W. King, History of Babylon, from the foundation of the

monarchy to the Persian conquest, pp. 285-288 -"From this time onward the burnt brick of the ancient royal buildings was re-used for all manner of secular buildings. The Greek theatre at Homera is built of such material. Thus the pillared buildings of Amran and houses at Merkes, that are built of brick rubble, belong either to the Greek (331-139 B. C.) or the Parthian (139 B. C.-226 A. D.) periods, but to which of them cannot be determined. Át that time began the process of demolishing the city area, which perhaps was now only occupied by isolated dwellings, a process that certainly continued throughout the Sassanide period (226-636 A. D.). Amran alone was inhabited. and that only scantily, as is shown by the uppermost levels there, which reach down as late as the Arab middle age (circa 1200 A. D.). When we gaze to-day over the wide area of ruins we are involuntarily reminded of the words of the prophet Jeremiah (L. 39): 'Therefore, the wild beasts of the desert, with the wild beases of the islands, shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.'"-R. Koldewey, Excavations at Babylon, pp. 313-314.-"The walls of Babylon were destined to serve still another purpose. The spread of Mohammedanism caused new cities to be built, and Babylon was the quarry for their building material. The walls of Babylon were transformed into the sacred cities of Kerbela and Nejef. In the eleventh century, on the site of the southern part of Babylon, the city of Hillab was built. Hillah might be called a child of Babylon, for it is almost entirely constructed with Nebuchadnezzar's bricks. The walls of the houses are built of them. The court-yards and streets are paved with them, and as you walk about the city the name of Nebuchadnezzar everywhere meets your eye. Many of the ten thousand people living in Hillah still gain their livelihood by dig ging the bricks from the ruins to sell to the modern builders. The great irrigating dams across the Euphrates are constructed entirely of them. The people of Hillah, too, are a survival of Babyloniar times. Some are Arabs of the same tribes which used to roam the desert in Nebuchadnezzar's days Some are the children of the Hebrew exiles of old Some, calling themselves Christians, are the descendants of Babylonians, perhaps of Nebuchadnezzar himself. There among the ruins they still live in the same kind of houses, dressing the same eating the same food as did their ancestors when Nebuchadnezzar built the walls of Babylon."— E. J. Banks, Seven wonders of the ancient world. p. 67. See also BABYLONIA.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon.-The Hanging gardens of Babylon were considered by the Greeks to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They consisted of trees and flowers apparentis planted upon the roof of some building. The structure was one square terrace built upon another to about 150 feet in height and resting upon hollow pillars of burnt brick which were filled with earth. It was necessary to keep a force of men employed pumping up water from the Euphrates for irrigation. It is said that Nebuchadrezzar, aiming to please his Median Queen, had these gardens constructed so that they may recall to her mind the mountain scenery of her native land.-See also ARCHITECTURE: Oriental: Mesopotamia.

ALSO IN: A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Babylon -C. J. Fall, Records of the past.-C. J. Rich Memoir on the ruins of Babylon.-F. H. Weissbach, Das Stadtbild von Babylon.

BABYLON OF THE CRUSADERS. See CRUSADES: 1248-1254.

Land and its characteristics.--"Babylonia is the joint delta of the Tigris and Euphrates, and owes its prosperity and ruin alike to man's use or abuse of the gifts of these two rivers. The Euphrates, like the Nile, passes through three distinct phases in its course to the sea. Its two main sources lie deep in the Armenian highland, and carve out parallel courses of over 400 miles before their joint streams leave the mountains through a tremendous gorge. [See also ARMENIA: Physical features.] Then for 720 miles from Samsat to Hit the river crosses open treeless country, more level and barren as it recedes from the hills. From the west it receives only one important tributary, the Sajur, which comes in quite high up near Carchemish, and from the east only two, the Belikh and the Khabur, both in the middle third of this section. As far as the Sajur, both banks are habitable; and the east bank was formerly so as far as the Khabur, forming the district of Harran, and the ancient Kingdom of Mitanni. Beyond this the country is desert, both on the Arabian side and in the greater part of Mesopotamia, the region between the Two Rivers. The river itself flows with swift stream and intermittent rapids within a deep rock-walled bed, usually a few miles wide and capable of cultivation, but naturally a jungle of tamarisk and reeds, infested by wild pig. The few sedentary Arabs, who practise a primitive irrigation with water-wheels, pay blackmail to powerful nomad tribes of the desert. The palm replaces the olive about half way down. Above Hit the river has narrows and is full of islands; but at Hit itself solid ground ends in a reef of harder rocks with springs of sulphur, brine, and bitumen. The river here is about 250 yards in width, and still flows briskly through this last obstruction. The third section consists wholly of alluvial soil, and extends for 550 miles from Hit to the Persian Gulf. The river soon divides into two principal channels, and these into minor backwaters, the wreck of ancient canals. It first deposits copious silt, and then fine mud like that of the Nile. The shore line has therefore been advancing rapidly within historic time: Eridu, for example, which was a chief port of early Babylonia, lies now 125 miles from the sea. If the present rate of advance, about a mile in thirty years, may be taken as an average-which is, however, not demonstrable yet-Eridu may have begun to be mudbound about 1800 B. C. The course of the Tigris is geographically similar. Two chief sources, rising near those of the Euphrates, drain the southeastern ranges of Armenia. From their junction to Samarra, where the Tigris fairly enters the delta, is about 250 miles, first through rolling foothills, in an open valley which is the homeCountry of the Assyrians; then through steppe and desert. On the west bank there are now no tributaries, though there was formerly a flood-channel from the south-east of the Khabur basin. On the east bank, however, the copious drainage of the Median highlands, which lie nearly parallel with its course, is brought in by a number of streams, of which the most notable are the Greater and Lesser Zab. Consequently, the Tigris brings down eventually rather more water than the Euphrates: and also on its swifter current a good deal more silt. In the latitude of Bagdad, about 100 miles below Samarra, and consequently well within the alluvial area, Euphrates and Tigris approach within 35 miles of each other but soon diverge again to a distance of 100 miles. It was a little above this point that the Euphrates was first divided in an

tiquity into two main branches, of which the eastern Saklawie canal is in part, at least, artificial, designed to water a large district west of Bagdad, and also as an overflow, for in Upper Babylonia the Euphrates lies higher than the Tigris. Lower down, the levels are reversed, and the great Shatt-el-Hai canal, past the site of Lagash, relieves the Tigris, and at times overloads the Euphrates at Ur and below. In addition, the whole of the joint delta has been from very early times a network of canals designed both to distribute irrigation water, and also to defend the cultivated lands against the desert. The most important are the Shatt-Hindie, which diverges at Babylon, and follows the western edge of the delta, rejoining near ancient Erech; and the transverse Shatt-el-Hai already mentioned. The management of these great canals needs some skill; the rivers rise rather irregularly, as the mountain snow melts, from March to May, and often carry away the soft earthen dams and embankments. They also carry down so much silt, that centuries of deposition and dredging have raised the main channels, and the country near them, above the general level. The two main streams, whose mouths were still a day's journey apart in Alexander's time, now unite [near] Basra, 300 miles below Bagdad. Their joint channel, the Shattel-Arab, is 1,000 yards wide, and navigable. A little further down again, it receives on the east side the main stream of the Karun River, from the highlands of ancient Elam. Under careful management, the whole alluvial region is of amazing fertility. The date palm is indigenous, and wheat was anciently believed to be so. In ancient times it raised two, or even three, crops of wheat a year, with a yield of 200 or 300 grains from one seed. The rice, which is now the principal grain crop, came in under the Arab régime. The present desolation is due, first to the Turkish nomads in the eleventh century; then to the reckless behaviour of Mesopotamian Arabs. through the summer, the principal streams are navigable, or can easily be made so, and sailing boats ascend as far as Hit and Samarra; but by September the flood is over, and in November the rivers are at their lowest; and natural shoals and the remains of old dams are grievous obstacles.

All

"Such is Babylonia. But before we enquire what human enterprize was to make of it, we must note equally briefly the regions which enclose it. West of the Euphrates lies the great plain of Arabia (q. v.), rising gently towards the Jordan and the Red Sea. It is nearly featureless, grassland at best, and in great part utter desert now. Its nomad pastoral inhabitants, however, have exercised, as we shall see, an influence on the fortunes both of Babylonia and all other regions which fringe it, which is one of the great facts of history. Eastward, beyond the Tigris, towers the highland zone, range upon range of massive limestone mountains, till the passes to the plateau behind them rise to 5,000 and 6,000 feet, and the peaks to over 11,000 feet. The nearer parts of the plateau vary in altitude from 3,000 to 1.500 feet. The width of the mountain belt averages about 300 miles, and its parallel ranges from five to ten in number. Between them lie valleys of varying size and elevation, all more or less habitable, but secluded from each other and from the outer world on either side. A few have no outfall, but enclose considerable lakes, like Van and Urmia in the north, and Shiraz in the south; but the majority discharge the copious water which peur

from the snow-clad ridges, through great gorges into more westerly troughs, and so eventually into a few large rivers. Some of these, as we have seen, are tributary to the Tigris; others further south issue independently into the Persian Gulf, and form their own hot sodden deltas; while in a middle section three of the largest, Karun, Jarahi, and Tab, now join their mudflats with those of the Shatt-el-Arab, and have created an alluvial area nearly half as large as Babylonia 'between the rivers'; more encumbered indeed by silt, but with lowlands almost as fertile under cultivation. Above these foreshores the hills between Karun and Tigris, lying nearest to the ancient head of the gulf, rise gently at first, in a wide expanse of rolling country. Then, where the first mountains stand up, and catch the moisture from the winds, comes a long narrow belt of forest, dense oak below, passing to cedar and pine; and extending from the Diyala River as far south as Shiraz. Access to this, in a region so timberless otherwise, seems to have been one of the great objects of contention in ancient times. On the greater heights come more alpine conditions, with some moisture and hardy vegetation in deep valleys; but on the eastern slopes, prevalent drought, with aromatic scrubland locally, and some output of medicinal resins and gums. Then, interpersed with marginal oases, wherever a mountain stream runs out into the plain, begins a desolate and often salt-strewn plateau, the dead heart of Persia, ancient as well as modern. With this dead heart, however, and even with the fringe of oases-mediæval and modern Persia-we are not now concerned; only with the sequence of alluvium, foothills, and forest belt, which make up the ancient region of Elam (q. v.), and with the intermont plains and upland valleys which sustained the old Medes and Persians, the first highlanders to play a part in universal history.

"Pausing now for a moment to compare the situation in Mesopotamia with that on the Nile, we note first that through the difference in direction of the two valleys the Nile has its sub-tropical region upstream, and its almost temperate delta in the north; the Euphrates has its delta in one of the hottest summer climates of the world. The Nile has its cataracts all far upstream, so that the fall of the valley is concentrated at a few points, and a sluggish navigable fairway is reserved from Assuan to the coast: far away beyond these rapids, moreover, the Nile has already deposited its obstructive silt, and bears down to Egypt only beneficial mud, which is invisibly fine, and causes little trouble in irrigation. The Euphrates, on the contrary, descends rapidly, for so large a river, all through its upper course; its last barrier is at Hit, which in the anatomy of this valley corresponds rather to Cairo than to Assuan; it consequently enters the fenland still laden with silt, and in all ages has industriously blocked one bed after another, and spread the disastrous floods of which memory was preserved by Babylonian legends of a deluge which flooded even the desert; as we read in the best known version 'all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered: fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail'; and there are very few 'mountains' in alluvial Babylonia which would not be devastated by a flood of this moderate depth. Like the ordinary summer flood of the Euphrates which begins in April and May, and is highest in August, that deluge lasted about twenty-one weeks; and in September, 'the seventh month', it abated. Frob anxieties the Nile is free. In Egyptian religion it is the sun which is all-beneficent, or all-destroying, and therefore (in due course) chief god, and the

'power behind the throne.' His enemies are powers of dark and cold, not of wet. In Babylonia, and still more in Assyria, which lies closer under the hills, men and the high gods were alike powerless when the storm-demons were out. The first victory of good was the binding of the dragon which broods in dark water; a fit emblem of the creeping silt-shoal which grows till it throttles the canal. For many reasons, therefore, it is in the delta, and not in the valley, that Babylonian civilization grows; as it might indeed have grown in Egypt too, had not the valley culture ripened sooner. Consequently, again, the Babylonian centres-some dozen in all-lie in a cluster, not strung on one green thread for hundreds of miles. And as the Tigris and the Euphrates interweave their currents, first one receiving, and then the other, internal communication is abnormally complete; a striking contrast with the perils of crossdelta travel in Egypt. No one went up to Babylon to go from Lagash to Ur, as train and boat alike go almost up to Cairo from Alexandria to Port Said; almost every where there was direct canal. The Euphrates, however, is barred to large navigation at Hit, and though the Tigris is navigable by steamers to Mosul, ancient traffic on it, and on the Euphrates, too, was exclusively downstream; the rivers being over-rapid and unfit for towing; the upstream wind which overcomes the Nile quite absent; and the boats (or more oftes rafts) far more valuable for timber in so woodless a country than for laborious haulage upstream. The best were, and are, made like coracles, of skins on a wooden frame, and returned, folded up, on donkey-back.

"The basis of Babylonian culture was the intense fertility of the alluvial soil, wherever water could be applied to it in due amount. With excess of water it became noisome fen: in defect, it parched to a desert: and there are now large tracts of utter desert within the limits of irrigation. But the two valleys were there, nevertheless, and could bring goods in, if they could not convey them out They flowed, moreover, as we have just seen, from regions of produce which Babylonia lacked; wine in particular, and olive oil; timber, too, and bitumen from Hit, for building and for waterproofing; and stone, above all. It is difficult for us now to conceive the limitations under which an architect worked, when a stone door-socket was a rich gift of a king to his god, and was rescued from one ruin after another, to be re-used and proudly rededicated. Then again eastward, beyond Tigris, there was trade through the foothills to a nearer timber-country, and beyond it to sunburned lands of spices and drugs. Across the desert, too, you could reach another spice-country in the south; and westward lay the Red Sea coast. for coral, copper, and other hard stones. In return, what Babylonia had to offer was, first its inexhaustible surplus of foodstuff, corn, and dates. much wool, of finer quality, because better nourished, than that of the desert breeds; still richer cargoes of woven woollens, 'Babylonitish garments,' and in due time other kinds of manufac tures too. It became, also, needless to say, a supreme centre of exchange; a kind of ancient London, whither the world's produce converged into wholesale hands, and was retailed over vast distances by regular correspondents and branch houses. The beasts of burden were the ass and man; camel and horse alike belong to a far later age, the former introduced from Arabia, where it is native, the latter from the east beyond the hills."-J. L. Myres, Dawn of history, pp. 84-06 -See also COMMERCE: Ancient: B. C. 1500-1000. Historical sources.-"The sources for the his