were collected within its walls, and the world would not believe that an enemy could enter its gates. Nevertheless, the prophets of God pronounced against it a doom of destruction as extraordinary as the pride and wickedness which procured it. Tyre, the London of Asia, was to "become a place for the spreading of nets" (_Ezekiel xxvi_ 5), The infidel, Volney, tells us that, "Its commerce has declined to a trifling, {138} fishery;" but even that implies some few resident inhabitants. Rabbah of Ammon was to become, "A stable for camels and couching place for flocks" (_Ezekiel xxv_, 5). Lord Lindsay reports that, he "could not sleep amidst its ruins for the bleating of sheep in the sheep-folds and the braying of camels in its ruins." Yet sheep-folds imply that their Arab owners would occasionally reside near its ruins. But desolation, solitude and utter abandonment to the wild beast of the desert is the clearly-predicted doom of the ancient world's proud capital: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in, from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their folds there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (_Isaiah xiii_, 19 22). Every traveler attests the fulfillment of this strange prediction. "It is a tenantless and desolate ruin," says Mignon, who, though fully armed and attended by six Arabs, could not be induced by any reward to pass the night among its ruins, from his apprehension of evil spirits. So completely fulfilled is the prophecy, "The Arabian shall not pitch his tent there." The same voice {139} that called camels and flocks to the palaces of Rabbah, summoned a very different class of tenants for the palaces of Babylon. Rabbah was to be a sheep-fold, Babylon a menagerie of wild beasts--a very specific difference and very improbable. However, after it was destroyed and deserted, one of the Persian kings repaired its walls, converted it into a vast hunting ground and stocked it with various kinds of wild beasts; and to this day the apes of the Spice Islands, and the lions of the African wilds meet in its ruins and howl their testimony to the truth of God's word. Only a few years ago. Sir R. K. Porter and Dr. Rich, saw two majestic lions in the "Mujelibe" or ruins of the palace.