As one contemplates the utter ruin and desolation which are here so overpowering and listens to the strange stories of the Arabs, one recalls the words of Isaiah—I quote from the King James version:
And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs[492] shall dance there.
Babil is one of the loftiest eminences in southern Babylonia and it is for this reason that we visited it before any of the other parts of the ruined Chaldean capital. From its summit, which towers seventy-one feet above the surrounding plain, one has a magnificent view not only of the ruins as a whole but also of many notable features in their immediate vicinity. To the west and southwest are the palm-fringed Euphrates and a number of Arabian villages and gardens along its banks. Several miles southward is Hillah with its gleaming minaret, while some six miles towards the southwest of it is the famous tower of Borsippa, called by the natives Birs Nimrud, and long supposed by many European travelers to be identical with the tower of Babel “the top whereof was to reach to heaven.”[493]
The prospect that greets the vision of the spectator from Babil is always interesting, but to the student of sacred and profane history the word interesting but feebly expresses one’s emotions. This is particularly true when, at the hour of sunset, the long amethystine shadows cast on the dun-colored plain, bring out into bold relief the rich golden lines of the spell-weaving ruins of that great city which, in her glory, ruled over the kings of the eastern world. Then the prospect is absolutely thrilling. Then one loves to be in media solitudine—such a solitude as Babylon is to-day—to watch the magnificent sunset—a burnished-gold splendor shading up starward into delicate rubies and emeralds—to be alone with one’s thoughts while musing on the vanished glories of what was once earth’s proudest and most powerful capital, where for centuries
The gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’red on her Kings barbaric pearl and gold—
but of which all we can now say is contained in the words of a Greek comic poet, quoted by Strabo,—“the great city is a great desert.”[494]
Babil—from the old Semitic name Bab-ili—which signifies “The Gate of the Gods,” was the ancient name of the city of Babylon. As locally used it now designates the most northerly mound of the great city. It is, doubtless, because of its name that many travelers have mistaken it for the Tower of Babel spoken of in the eleventh chapter of Genesis.