Amongst the treasures of the Assyrian excavations there has luckily been found a tablet, giving, in a list of the nations, &c., along the Taurus range of mountains, a country bearing the name of Kusu, the same word as is used in the inscriptions to denote the country of Ethiopia; and from this and from other sources it is clear that two countries of this name were known to the people of the ancient world, the one being Ethiopia and the other Cappadocia or its immediate neighbourhood. It seems therefore likely that Nimrod and his followers, for some reason unrecorded, left his home in the land of Cush or Cappadocia, and journeying in a south-easterly direction, came to the land of Sumer or Shinar. There meeting perhaps with the Semitic population of the country, he did not go any farther, but settled there with his followers, and built Babylon, and Birs Nimroud, the supposed Tower of Babel. In course of time the new comers began to mingle with the original (Semitic) inhabitants of the country, and both races were obliged, for the purpose of trade and intercourse, to learn each other’s language, so that there must have been for several hundreds of years two tongues in use at the same time in Mesopotamia, and it was not until the twelfth or even perhaps the tenth century before Christ, that the Akkadian was entirely supplanted by the language of the Semitic Babylonians. The Norman invasion in England is a case parallel to the above, but with this difference, that whilst the invasion of England by the Normans was a conquest, the entry of these people (afterwards known as Akkadians and Sumerians) into Babylonia seems to have been otherwise; and the Babylonian language, therefore, while admitting very many Akkadian and Sumerian words, has not suffered, with regard to the grammatical forms, to the same extent as the English language. The entry of the Akkadians into Babylonia was the beginning of civilisation in that country, for they brought with them, along with their religion, their legends and traditions, their laws, their art, building knowledge, agricultural skill, and that great civiliser of nations, the art of writing. From this union of the intellectual Akkadian race and the warlike Babylonians arose the two nations of whom both tradition and history have preserved the record, as having been the mightiest of the nations of the ancient world, namely, Babylonia and Assyria, of whom so many tales are told, and whose power and high civilisation amongst the barbarism of the early ages of the world made so great an impression during the time of their supremacy. After the mingling of these two races, but long before the Akkadian language had died out, the Babylonians, as they will be henceforth called, sent out colonies northwards and founded the great cities of Assyria--Ninua (Nineveh), Resin, Kalhu (Calah), Assur, &c.