I will now describe the ruins. It must be first observed, that they are divided into two distinct parts, undoubtedly the remains of two different buildings. A rampart or wall, the remains of which are marked by mounds of earth, appears to have inclosed both of them. To the west of the high mound, topped by the tower-like pile of masonry, is a second, which is larger but lower, and in shape more like the ruins on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. It is traversed by ravines and water-courses, and strewed over it are the usual fragments of stone, brick, and pottery. Upon its summit are two small Mohammedan chapels, one of which, the Arabs declare, is built over the spot where Nimroud cast the patriarch Abraham into the fiery furnace, according to the common Eastern tradition. Not having been able to excavate in this mound, I could not ascertain whether it covers the remains of any ancient building. Travellers, as far as I am aware, have hitherto failed in suggesting any satisfactory restoration of the Birs. It is generally represented, without sufficient accuracy, as a mere shapeless mass. But if examined from the summit of the adjoining mound, its outline would at once strike any one acquainted with the ruins to the west of Mosul, described in a former of this work.[200] The similarity between them will be recognised, and it will be seen that they are all the remains of edifices built upon very nearly, if not precisely, the same plan. The best published representations of the Birs Nimroud appear to me to be those contained in a memoir of that accurate and observing traveller, the late Mr. Rich. The mound rises abruptly from the plain on one face, the western, and falls to its level by a series of gradations on the opposite. Such is precisely the case with the ruins of Mokhamour, Abou-Khameera, and Tel Ermah. The brickwork still visible in the lower parts of the mound, as well as in the upper, shows the sides of several distinct stages or terraces. I believe the isolated mass of masonry to be the remains of one of the highest terraces, if not the highest, and the whole edifice to have consisted, on the eastern or south-eastern side, of a series of stages rising one above the other, and, on the western or north-western, of one solid perpendicular wall. The back of the building may have been painted, as, according to Diodorus Siculus,[201] were the palaces of Babylon, with hunting or sacred scenes, and may have been decorated with cornices or other architectural ornaments. There were no means of ascent to it. Nor was it accessible in any part unless narrow galleries were carried round it at different elevations.