ip was yet in the Gulf of Suez. After this rest the professor
resumed his place on the rostrum.

"This is Babylonia, as it is now called to distinguish it from Babylon,
the city," said the instructor, as he pointed to the region along the
shores of the southern Euphrates, and to the city on both sides of it.
"In the Scripture it is called Shinar, Babel, and 'the Land of the
Chaldees.' It was and is a very rich and fertile country, extensively
irrigated in modern times. Susiana is now a part of Persia, and the rest
of the territory represented on the map is included in Turkey in Asia.

"The people were of the Semitic race; in other words, they were
descended from Shem, the son of Noah; but Babylonia in the past and
present is a land of many races and languages, and the readers of the
inscriptions have been bothered by the variety of tongues. The British
and the New York Museum have figures and tablets revealing the history
of Babylonia. But it takes an archaeologist to translate their
discoveries. The relations of the monuments indicate that the antiquity
of Babylonia reaches back about as far as that of Egypt. A stone in the
British Museum brought from this locality has the name of Sargon I.,
king of Akkad, is reliably vouched for as coming down from the year 3800
B.C.

"The ancient tablets inform us that Narbonassar ascended his throne in
747 (all these dates are B.C.). He reigned fourteen years, which were
taken up in wars with Assyria, in which the latter got the best of it in
the end. Then, in 625, invasions from the east afforded the Babylonians
the opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Assyria, and Nabopolassar
became king. In 604 he was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar, who was
accounted one of the greatest monarchs that ever ruled the empire.

"In the forty-three years of his reign he recovered the lost provinces
of the kingdom, and made his country the queen of the nations of his
time. He rebuilt the city of Babylon, and restored all the temples and
public edifices. It is said that not a single mound has been opened in
this territory in which were not found bricks, cylinders, or tablets on
which his name was inscribed. He captured Jerusalem, and a year later
destroyed it, sending most of its people to Chaldea. He died in 561, and
was succeeded by his son.

"This son was murdered; and there was confusion again till 556, when the
throne was usurped by Nabonidus, the son of a soothsayer, who became a
wis