ces still standing in the city.

In the time of Augustus, the city is said to have been entirely
deserted, except by a few Jews who still lingered amongst the ruins.
St. Cyril, of Alexandria, declares, that in his day, about the
beginning of the fifth century, in consequence of the choking up of
the great canals derived from the Euphrates, Babylon had become a vast
marsh; and fifty years later the river is described as having changed
its course, leaving only a small channel to mark its ancient bed. Then
were verified the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the mighty
Babylon should be but "pools of water," that the sea should come upon
her, and that she should be covered with the multitude of the waves
thereof.

In the beginning of the seventh century, at the time of the Arab
invasion, the ancient cities of Babylonia were "a desolation, a dry
land and a wilderness." Amidst the heaps that alone marked the site of
Babylon there rose the small town of Hillah.

Long before Babylon had overcome her rival Nineveh, she was famous for
the extent and importance of her commerce. No position could have been
more favorable than hers for carrying on a trade with all the regions
of the known world. She stood upon a navigable stream that brought to
her quays the produce of the temperate highlands of Armenia,
approached in one part of its course within almost one hundred miles
of the Mediterranean Sea, and emptied its waters into a gulf of the
Indian Ocean. Parallel with this great river was one scarcely inferior
in size and importance. The Tigris, too, came from the Armenian hills,
flowed through the fertile districts of Assyria, and carried the
varied produce to the Babylonian cities. Moderate skill and enterprise
could scarcely fail to make Babylon, not only the emporium of the
Eastern world, but the main link of commercial intercourse between the
East and the West.

The inhabitants did not neglect the advantages bestowed upon them by
nature. A system of navigable canals that may excite the admiration
of even the modern engineer, connected together the Euphrates and
Tigris, those great arteries of her commerce.

The vast trade that rendered Babylon the gathering-place of men from
all parts of the known world, and supplied her with luxuries from the
remotest clime, had the effect of corrupting the manners of her
people, and producing that general profligacy and those effiminate
customs which mainly contributed to her fall.