scord. But on the other hand they were as broad as they were high,
built entirely of dressed stone, hewn, no doubt, from the vast caves,
and surrounded by a great moat about sixty feet in width, some reaches
of which were still filled with water. About ten minutes before the
sun finally sank we reached this moat, and passed down and through it,
clambering across what evidently were the piled-up fragments of a great
bridge in order to do so, and then with some little difficulty over the
slope of the wall to its summit. I wish that it lay within the power of
my pen to give some idea of the grandeur of the sight that then met our
view. There, all bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles
upon miles of ruins--columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of
kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these
buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to
the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness
and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great
columns still remained standing.[*]

[*] In connection with the extraordinary state of
preservation of these ruins after so vast a lapse of time--
at least six thousand years--it must be remembered that Kor
was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but
deserted, owing to the action of a terrible plague.
Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate
of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, and there is very
little rain or wind; as a result of which these relics have
only to contend against the unaided action of time, that
works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry. --L.
H. H.

Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main
thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide, wider than the Thames
Embankment, and regular, being, as we afterwards discovered, paved,
or rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were
employed in the walls, it was but little overgrown even now with grass
and shrubs that could get no depth of soil to live in. What had been the
parks and gardens, on the contrary, were now dense jungle. Indeed, it
was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various roads
by the burnt-up appearance of the scanty grass that grew upon them. On
either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of ruins, each
block, generally speaking,