They were probably angular, not round; and instead of extending through the whole thickness of the wall, they were placed along its outer and inner edge, tower facing tower, with a wide space between them--"enough," Herodotus says, "for a four-horse chariot to turn in." The wall did not depend on them for its strength, but on its own height and thickness, which were such as to render scaling and mining equally hopeless.
Such was Babylon, according to the descriptions of the ancients--a great city, built on a very regular plan, surrounded by populous suburbs interspersed among fields and gardens, the whole being included within a large square strongly fortified enceinte.

When we turn from this picture of the past to contemplate the present condition of the localities, we are at first struck with astonishment at the small traces which remain of so vast and wonderful a metropolis.

"The broad walls of Babylon" are "utterly broken" down, and her "high gates burned with fire." "The golden city hath ceased." God has "swept it with the bosom of destruction." "The glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," is become "as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha." The traveller who passes through the land is at first inclined to say that there are no ruins, no remains, of the mighty city which once lorded it over the earth.

By and by, however, he begins to see that though ruins, in the common acceptation of the term, scarcely exist--though there are no arches, no pillars, but one or two appearances of masonry even yet the whole country is covered with traces of exactly that kind which it was prophesied Babylon should leave.

Vast "heaps" or mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood, and between the "heaps" the soil is in many places composed of fragments of pottery and bricks, and deeply impregnated with nitre, infallible indications of its having once been covered with buildings.