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MNKVKII AND ITS REMAINS. 305 Eastward of the Tigris again, along the range of Mount Zagros, but at no great distance from the river, were found the Elymsei, Kossrei, Uxii, Paratakeni, etc., tribes which, to use the ex pression of Strabo, 1 " as inhabiting a poor country, were under the necessity of living by the plunder of their neighbors." Such rude bands of depredators on the one side, and such wide tracts of sand on the two others, without vegetation or water, contrast- ed powerfully with the industry and productiveness of Babylonia. Babylon itself is to be considered, not as one continuous city, but as a city together with its surrounding district inclosed within immense walls, the height and thickness of which were in them- selves a sufficient defence, so that the place was assailable only at its gates. In case of need, it would serve as shelter for the persons and property of the village inhabitants in Babylonia ; and we shall see hereafter how useful under trying circumstances such a resource was, when we come to review the invasions of Attica by the Peloponnesians, and the mischiefs occasioned by a temporary crowd pouring in from the country, so as to overcharge the intra-mural accommodations of Athens. Spacious as Baby- ion was, however, it is affirmed by Strabo that Ninus or Nineveh was considerably larger. APPENDIX. Since the first edition of these volumes, the interesting work of Mr. Lay- ard, " Nineveh and its Remains," together with his illustrative Drawings, " The Monuments of Nineveh," have been published. And through his unremitting valuable exertions in surmounting all the difficulties connected with excavations on the spot, the British Museum has been enriched with a valuable collection of real Assyrian sculptures and other monuments. A al canal between the Tigris and the Euphrates : see Xenoph. Anab. i, 7, 15. It is singular that Herodotus makes no mention of the wall of Media, though his subject (i. 185) naturally conducts him to it: he seems to have Bailed down the Euphrates to Babylon, and must, therefore, have seen it. if it had really extended to the Euphrates, as some authors have imagined. Probably, however, it was not kept up with any care, even in his time, seeing that its original usefulness was at an end, after the whole of Asia, from the Euxine to the Persian gulf, became subject to the Persians. ' Strabo, xvi, p. 744. - VOL. Til. 20OC.