The tower of Nimrod, or Babel, is situated on the Arabian side of the Tigris, in a great plain, seven or eight miles from Babylon. Being ruined on every side, it has formed a great mountain, yet a considerable part of the tower is still standing, compassed and almost covered up by these ruins. It has been built of square bricks dried in the sun, and constructed in the following manner. In the first place a course of bricks was laid, then a mat made of canes squared like the bricks, and daubed with earth instead of lime mortar; and these mats still remain so strong that it is wonderful considering their great antiquity. I have gone all round it without being able to discover any place where there had been a door or entrance, and in my opinion it may be about a mile in circumference or rather less. Contrary to all other things, which appear small at a distance and become larger the nearer they are approached, this tower appears largest when seen from afar, and seems less as you come nearer. This may be accounted for, as the tower stands in a very large plain, and with its surrounding ruins forms the only perceptible object; so that from a distance the tower and the mountains formed of its ruins make a greater shew than it is found to be on coming near. SECTION III. _Of Basora._ From Babylon I embarked in one of those small vessels which ply upon the Tigris between Babylon and Basora, which are built after the manner of foists or galliots, having a _speron_[122] and a covered poop. They use no pumps, being so well daubed with pitch as effectually to exclude the water. This pitch they have from a great plain near the city of _Heit_ on the Euphrates, two days journey from Babylon. This plain full of pitch is marvellous to behold, and a thing almost incredible, as from a hole in the earth the pitch is continually thrown into the air with a constant great smoke; and being hot it falls as it were sprinkled all over the plain, in such abundance that the plain is always full of pitch[123]. The Moors and Arabs of the neighbourhood allege that this hole is the mouth of Hell; and in truth it is a very memorable object From this native pitch or bitumen the whole people of that country derive great benefit, as with it they pay or serve their barks, which they call _Daneck_ and _Saffin_. [Footnote 122: In imitation of the original translator Hickocke and Hakluyt, this word must be left untranslated and unexplained.--E.] [Footnote 123: This account of the hole which discharges pitch or native bitumen mixed with water is most true; the water and pitch running into the valley _or island_, where the pitch remains, and the water runs into the Euphrates, when it occasions the water for a long way to have a brackish taste with the smell of pitch and brimstone.--Hakl.]