Then there are two great cities here, which I have a curiosity to see, Nineveh and Babylon; for I heard Sardanapalus and Nebuchadnezzar conversing about them, and each contending for the superior splendour of his own city.
BELPHEGOR.
You are not much conversant with Eastern history. You are come up some thousands of years too late to see the places you mention; not a trace of them remains. But do you see that man sitting in the desert and drawing, with his servants asleep, and his camels resting by him. That is an English traveller; and he is now taking a sketch of Babylon.
RECAB.
But how can he draw a town that is not there? He must be a great artist. I can see nothing but desert where he is looking.
BELPHEGOR.
He sits at least 200 miles from the place where that city really stood; but having found a few stones, he is drawing them as Babylon, and is determined that no man shall dissuade him from having really seen that famous city. When he returns home, he will make a great book containing this picture, and many others equally authentic; and his countrymen will delight themselves with looking at the true Babylon. He might as well confirm the validity of his work by a portrait of Belshazzar. However, those stones will represent Babylon as well as if they were true fragments of the great wall. Look there! far away where I point; there is a famous city.
RECAB.
But can I see it? or is it in the same condition as Babylon?
BELPHEGOR.