The traveller then proceeds at length to describe the mounds in this region. The principal edifice among the ruins is called the Buwariyya, which is thus sketched

"Of the three great edifices which rise conspicuously from the surface of the ruins, that called Buwáríyya is not only the most central, but the most

lofty and ancient. At first sight it appears to be a cone, but, on further examination, proves to be a tower, built entirely of sun-dried bricks, 200 feet square. On excavating at its basement there was discovered, on the centre of each side, a massive buttress of peculiar construction, erected for the purpose of supporting the main edifice. Unlike Múgeyer and other Babylonian structures, the lower tower of the Buwáríyya is without any external facing of kiln-baked brickwork, the place of which was, however, supplied by the above-mentioned buttresses. This, together with the primitive manner in which the central portion is arranged, leads to the supposition that it is a very early structure. Sir Henry Rawlinson confirms this conclusion, by reading the name of King Uriah upon the brick legends of the buttress, which record the dedication of the edifice to Sin,' or the 'Moon,' by that monarch, who is supposed to have lived about 2200 B.C. The total height of the Buwáríyya is perhaps 100 feet above the desert plain, but only 27 feet of the internal brickwork emerges from a mass of rubbish, which slopes in a gradual descent from the summit and entirely covers up the buttresses. The sides are deeply cut, and furrowed by rain channels and ravines, The sundried bricks are of various shapes and sizes, which is contrary to the usual custom in Babylonia."

Such is the outside of the chief mound of Warka; let us now look at the inside. It is impossible for us to give the whole descriptive detail, but the following extract will give the reader some idea of the nature of the ruins :

"The locality at Warka, which furnished the most valuable and interesting fruits of my researches, was a small detached mound,* forty feet high, situated about half-a-mile south east of the Buwáríyya. One of my overseers picked up from its summit a few fragments of ornamental plaster, which induced me to make excavations. I was soon rewarded by the discovery of a

This mound yields two of the three coffins in the British Museum.

It was a perfect museum of architectural scraps, of a highly instructive and curious character. The unbaked brick floor was literally piled with broken columns, capitals, cornices, and innumerable relics of rich internal decoration, which exhibited undoubted symptoms of Greek and Roman influence on VOL. IX.

C

chamber, measuring forty feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, the mud walls of which stood only four feet high, and had been covered with coloured plaster.

Architectural Fragments from a Parthian Edifice at Warka.

Oriental taste. The smaller objects were wholly plaster; but the larger consists of moulded bricks, thinly coated with white plaster, many of which were fantastically coloured. One large fragment of cornice bore, among other devices, a spirited crouching griffin, which, at first sight, reminded me of the similar figures sculptured on a frieze in an inner chamber at the remarkable ruins of Al Hadhr, near Mosul. This emblem was accompanied by the well-known Greek echinus moulding."

From Abraham let us pass to Daniel, and pick up some relics pertaining to the prophet's history. Of course his name is a great one in those regions, and over many a spot it has cast its wondrous shadow. We must, however, confine ourselves to a few details concerning him. Our first extract concerns his tomb,—

"The reputed tomb of the prophet Daniel is an oblong edifice, forming one side of a large walled court, through which the pilgrim enters to reach the sacred threshold. Seen from across the little river Sháour, which flows at its foot, enshrouded in a dense mass of date-trees, konars, and jungle, its conical white spire rising above all, is a picturesque object, and is the more interesting from the associations so intimately connected with its origin. Entering beneath a low doorway, the visitor is ushered into the outer court, the opposite side of which is supplied with mangers and rings for the reception of horses and beasts of burden, for it is unsafe to leave them outside, on account of lions and other wild animals, which abound in the neighbourhood. On this account, too, the tomb is the frequent resort, for the night, of Arab parties on a journey from the deserts to the seat of government, and of plundering parties preparatory to their morning forays. Two other sides of the court are occupied by a low arched portico which conducts to the door of the sanctuary. This consists of two chambers, and a passage between them leading to a third apartment, in which the paraphernalia of the tomb are stored. The inner room is extremely dark and dismal, in accordance with the universal feeling that darkness is inseparably connected with the presence-chamber of death; here stands the supposed shrine, which, in the dim light of the place, appears to be a slab of white marble, but which is in reality only polished cement. It is enclosed within an open framework of wood, erected at a sufficient distance, however, to admit of passage round the sepulchre, the floor being covered with extremely dirty prayer mats, swarming with fleas. These, and a few old oil lamps of rude forms, black from smoke and grease, constitute the whole of the ordinary furniture. Religion in the East, at the present day, certainly does not boast of much outward display in this respect, nor is cleanliness in the temple esteemed essential to purity of worship. The externally 'whited sepulchre' is no criterion from which to judge of its internal condition, neither is the repeated washing of the sanctified seyid any proof of his religious sincerity. An arched verandah runs outside the wall of the sanctuary, overlooking the deep sluggish stream of the Sháour, and its deep green waters meandering through the dense mass of vegetation on its banks. The terrace upon the roof of the building is used as a sleeping apartment, by the pilgrims, during the hot weather, and it is not unusual to see it completely covered with prostrate sleeping forms. From its centre rises the tall white spire which denotes the character of the edifice, and partakes of the usual ornamental features, in imitation of the fir-cone, before alluded to in this volume, as peculiar to most other Oriental tombs. Beneath the sacred chamber, but without communication with it, is a vaulted room, entered from a doorway on the side of the Sháour, having apertures at the opposite extremity, through which flows a cool current of air."

Respecting Daniel, in connexion with Shusha or Shushan, we have the following statement. It is not without its interest, as adding to our acquaintance with the doings of that Prophet :

"That Shusha and Susa are one and the same we learn from the agreement of Josephus with Scripture. He mentions a famous edifice built by Daniel at Susa in the manner of a castle, which, the Jewish historian adds, was remaining in his time, and had been finished with such wonderful art that even then it seemed as fresh and beautiful as if only newly built. Within the edifice,' he continues, 'was the place where the Persian and Parthian kings used to be buried; and, for the sake of the founder, the keeping of it was committed to one of the Jewish nation even to that day.' It is true that the copies of Josephus, now extant, place this building at Ecbatana, in Media, but St Jerome, who also gives an account of it, and professes to do so, word for word, out of Josephus, places it in Susa in Persia. Josephus calls this building Baris-the same name by which Daniel himself distinguishes the castle or palace of Shushan-for what we translate, at Shushan in the palace, is in the original, Besh Shushan ha Birah. There is reason to believe that Daniel might have erected an edifice at Súsa, because in the reign of Belshazzar, he was evidently in office,-probably governor of the city, since he tells us that he did the king's business.'

In connexion with one of Daniel's visions, we have a statement respecting one of those rivers, mentioned by him. Our readers may have been puzzled with the expression in the 8th chapter of his prophecies, "between the banks of Ulai." They have thought it, perhaps, an inaccurate translation, or an Eastern idiom, or an incorrect form of expression. Mr Loftus, in a single sentence, clears this up, and shews how entirely accurate are the inspired words. No one could have written them but one who knew the region and was familiar with the two branches of the Eulous or Ulai.

“Pliny, referring to Susa, says that 'the Eulous surrounded the citadel of the Susians,' which might well be the case if a branch flowed on either side of it, and these were connected by means of canals or moats for defence.

"The most interesting explanation, however, afforded by the identity of the Kerkhah and the old channel with the two streams of the Eulous, is that of the remarkable passage in the Book of Daniel: 'And I saw in a vision ; (and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river Ulai.' 'And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai. As this expression stands it is perfectly incomprehensible, but if we understand it to mean, between the two streams of the Eulous, nothing can be more lucid or intelligible."

The mention of Susa or Shushan, suggests Esther and her history. Before noticing her, however, let us take the account of the city which was the scene of her story. It is thus briefly given :

"Whether we regard it in a geographical, historical, or scriptural point of view, there are few places throughout the East, more replete with interest

than that which is known to us by the various denominations of Shusan, Susa, Sus, or Shush. Of its primitive history we, of course, know little, but the records of antiquity point to its origin amid the dim obscurity of oral tradition.

"It would appear that Elam, the son of Shem, like the rest of the early descendants of Noah, founded a kingdom in the region we are accustomed to regard as the cradle of mankind,-this, at least, is the inference from the mention made, in Genesis xiv., of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, who, in alliance with four neighbouring monarchs, extended his conquests to the west of the Euphrates, during the time of the patriarch Abraham. We read, moreover, in Ezra iv. 9, that the Elamites were included among the dependencies of the Persian Empire; and, in Daniel viii. 2, that Shushan, the palace, was situated in the province of Elam, which name is undoubtedly likewise preserved in Elymais,' the title by which the Greek and Roman authors designated a portion of ancient Susiana. We are, therefore, fairly justified in regarding the site of Susa as the original capital of the Elamites."

Of the history of Shushan, in connexion with Ahasuerus and Esther, Mr Loftus thus writes :

"Shushan is repeatedly mentioned in the books of Scripture at this period, in connexion with the return of the Jews from captivity, and the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. One of the most interesting episodes in the history of the great Persian capital is that recorded in the Book of Esther, where the Jewish maiden is elevated to the queenly dignity, and by her influence over the mind of the king Ahasuerus,* enables her captive countrymen to defend themselves throughout the kingdom against the irrevocable decree of the cruel monarch. Thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men;' and in the king's provinces were no fewer than seventy-five thousand of their enemies slain."

* Almost every Medo-Persian king from Cyxares I. down to Artaxerxes III. (Ochus) has in turn been advanced as the Ahasuerus of Esther. An article in "Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature" so admirably sums up the question in favour of the Xerxes of Greek authors, that, although a lengthy extract, I cannot refrain from giving it entire :-" On the ground of moral resemblance to that tyrant (Ahasuerus) every trait leads us to Xerxes. The king who scourged and fettered the sea; who beheaded his engineers because the elements destroyed their bridge over the Hellespont; who so ruthlessly slew the eldest son of Pythius because his father besought him to leave him one sole support of his declining years; who dishonoured the remains of the valiant Leonidas; and who beguiled the shame of his defeat by such a course of sensuality that he publicly offered a reward to the inventor of a new pleasure—is just the despot to divorce his queen, because she would not expose herself to the gaze of drunken revellers;- is just the despot to devote a whole people, his subjects, to an indiscriminate massacre; and, by way of preventing that evil, to restore them the right of self-defence, and thus to sanction their slaughtering thousands. There are

also remarkable coincidences of date between the history of Xerxes and that of Ahasuerus. In the third year of his reign the latter gave a grand feast to his nobles, which lasted one hundred and eighty days (Esth. i. 3); the former, in his third year, also assembled his chief officers to deliberate on the invasion of Greece (Herod. vii. 8). Nor would we wonder to find no nearer agreement in the two accounts than is expressed in the mere fact of the nobles being assembled. The two relations are quite compatible; each writer only