-tower of the famous E-Temenanki: 'the
foundation stone of Heaven and Earth' (the Tower of Babylon). The
enclosing wall forms almost a square, and part has been excavated, but
all the buildings have suffered from brick-robbers. The remains of the
actual Tower are towards the south-west corner.

"Many ancient restorations were carried out here. Professor Koldeway
found inscriptions of Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus and thereafter
inscriptions of Babylonian Kings. Herodotus calls the group of buildings
'the brazen-doored sanctuary of Zeus Below,' and he describes the
zigurrat as a temple-tower in eight stages. The cuneiform records of
Nabopolassar relate how the god Marduk commanded him 'to lay the
foundation of the Tower of Babylon ... firm on the bosom of the
underworld while its top should stretch heavenwards.'"

The first impression of the Kasr is that of a shelled town or mined
flour mill, where nothing remains but the lower walls of buildings. From
a painter's point of view, the scene of this great city, about which he
has pictured so much, is somewhat disappointing. There is such an
absence of anything suggestive of palaces and streets. Frankly, the
ruins of the cement works at Frindsbury are, pictorially, far more
suggestive. I have always said that the hanging gardens of Borstal
knocked spots off the hanging gardens of Babylon, and now I know it. So
much for a first impression.

After awhile, however, wandering amongst these hummocks and pits, with
here and there a suggestion of a gateway or pavement, the glamour of it
all begins to return.

[Illustration: BABYLON THE GREAT IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN]

It is not to the eye that the appeal of poetry is made, but to the
imagination.

There is a figure of a stone lion trampling on a man, but this was
unearthed and set up by a French engineer, and is not explanatory of any
scheme of sculptural work. It is merely a monument. There is also a
brick pillar, the bricks being uncommonly like London stock bricks,
which might be part of a fallen chimney in a ruined factory. These are
the only architectural signs at first visible.

On descending to the passages and ways made by the base walls of
buildings, lions and monsters moulded in the brickwork appear, but they
are only to be seen at close quarters, and in one part of this vast
wilderness of brick, and do not affect in any way the general character
of the place--a place of loneliness and of utter desolation. The whole
ar