much discussed. Oppert thinks they were Resen and
Dour-Saryoukin; others that they were Calech and Nineveh. The question is
without importance to our inquiry. In any case the circumference of six
parasangs (about 20-1/2 miles) ascribed by the Greek writer to his Mespila
can by no means be made to fit Khorsabad.

[171] See the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 113.

[172] BOTTA tells us how the courses of crude brick were distinguished one
from another at Khorsabad (_Monuments de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 57).

[173] Speaking of Hillah, GEORGE SMITH tells us (_Assyrian Discoveries_, p.
62):--"A little to the south rose the town of Hillah, built with the bricks
found in the old capital. The natives have established a regular trade in
these bricks for building purposes. A number of men are always engaged in
digging out the bricks from the ruins, while others convey them to the
banks of the Euphrates. There they are packed in rude boats, which float
them down to Hillah, and on being landed they are loaded on donkeys and
taken to any place where building is in progress. Every day when at Hillah
I used to see this work going on as it had gone on for centuries, Babylon
thus slowly disappearing without an effort being made to ascertain the
dimensions and buildings of the city, or to recover what remains of its
monuments. The northern portion of the wall, outside the Babil mound, is
the place where the work of destruction is now (1874) most actively going
on, and this in some places has totally disappeared."

[174] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c. p. 110.

[175] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 279. "The bricks had no mortar but the
mud from which they had been made," says BOTTA (_Monuments de Ninive_, vol.
v. p. 30).

[176] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c. p. 503.

[177] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 499 and 506.

[178] TAYLOR, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 261). This mortar is still employed in the
country; it is called _kharour_.

[179] The most plentiful springs occur at Hit, on the middle Euphrates.
They are also found, however, farther north, as at Kaleh-Shergat, near the
Tigris. Over a wide stretch of country in that district the bitumen wells
up through every crack in the soil (LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 46). As
for the bituminous springs of Hammam-Ali, near Mossoul, see PLACE, _Ninive
et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. p. 236.

[180] _Genesis_ xi. 3.

[181] HERODOTUS, i. 1