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BT BRO . AVM . C ARPF . NTKR P . AL & P . Z . 717 . X . Closely connected with the history of Egypt aad of the Hebrews is that of Babylonia , Assyria , Ethiopia , Phoenicia , Arabia , & c , and how much

soever of their earliest history , like that of Egypt , is buried in oblivion , or but very imuerfectly known , their later history opens up pnges of great interest antl of much instruction to Ihe diligent student .

Some learned but eccentric scholars have peremptoril y asserted that the ancient kingdom of Babylon , as it is called , never had any existence , except in the imagination of misguided

writers . The almost universal belief amongst those who have investigated the subject , however , is , that the earliest of the Eastern monarchies WAS Babylon , which had a peoiile , language ,

architecture , and position , quite distinct from what is usually called the Assyrian Empire . It aj >|> ears to these investigators , that the earliest kingdom , occupying part of that tract of land

which lies between the Tigris antl the Euphrates , lay towards the south , and was called Babylon , from the principal town Babel , or Chaldea from the fact that the inhabitants of another great

state , Ur , were Khaldi , or Moon-worshippers . From Genesis x . we learn that the original kingdom was Hamite , but philologists are agreed

in stating that the Assyrian language is Semitic . . Here , then , is tlie first debt whicii orthodoxy owe > to the Babylonian excavations , for they

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have discovered traces of a kingdom more ancient than thc Assyrian , whose language , as far as it can be made out , has the Hamite element

most strongly prevailing in it . The grammar is but little known , the conjugations arc said to be intricate and difficultancl there are traces of all

the four great dialects of the world in the language—Hamite , Semitic , Aryan , ancl Turanian . Professor Rawlinson argues from this , that there may have been a mixed race , at first ; but it has

been suggested , that we may rather conclude , that we find in the old Babylonian , traces ofthe ori ginal language , as it was spoken previous to the distribution of men into the four great families . According- to the earliest record in existence

( Gen . x . ) , to which I have just referred , the foundation of the old Babylonian empire was laid by Nimrod , for although the English translation gives us , "Out of that land went forth

Asshur , and builded Nineveh , and the city Rehoboth , and Calah , and Resen , between Nineveh and Calah , " all the Targums , and , after them , Drusius , Bochart , Le Clerc , De Wette

Baumgartcn , Tuch , Gesenius , Knobel , Dehtszch , Kalisch , and most modern interpreters , prefer the marginal rendering , " From this land he went out into Assyria , " & c , and there appears to be

good reason for the preference , which the syntax fully admits of , and the general sense of the passage requires . Nimrod is the subject treated of . Asshur , the son of Shem ( ver . 22 ) was at

least a generation older than Nimrod , and he may have first colonised the country called after him , Asshur ( or Assyria ) , Nimrod , or one of his descendants , afterwards invading or governing it .

But to get the proper sense of the passage we must take in the preceding verse ( ver . TO ) " And the beginning ( or capital ) of his ( Nimrod ' s ) kingdom w . is Babel , Erech , and Accad , and

Cahieh , 111 the land of Shinar ( the region lying between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates , south ) . Outof that land , " Sec . Accordingtothis view ofthe history , the one state was founded by a Cushite ,

thc other by a Semite , the former , or his descendants , driving out the latter , and occupying the country , the dispossessed people retiring further north .

The assumption that , in a very early period of history , Nineveh , and its neighbouring cities were subject to a kingdom which had its seat in Babylon , accords , as Smith suggests , with

the tradition which makes Belus king of Nineveh before Ninus . But there is no evidence , as he observes , that the population of Assyria was ever other than Semitic : ancl the prevalence of

Semitic dialects throughout the whole of Mesopotamia shews what was its prevalent population . " If , " he adds , "the Cushite race , the presence of whicii is attested not only by what is said of

Nimrod , but also by the Turanian element in the language of the earliest inscriptions of Babylonia , was really intrusive in that country , its entrance may be not improbably connected with the

establishment of another great branch of the Semitic family in Egypt ; ancl civilisation may have had a divided origin , both in source ancl time , on the banks of the Nile and the

Euphrates . " That the ruling race of Babylonia , in the earliest historic times , was Cushite , and connected with the Hamite populations of Egypt and Southern

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Arabia is argued : —( 1 ) From the Biblical ' genealogy . ( 2 ) From the resemblance between the cuneiform and hieroglyphic ( or more exactly , the hieratic ) systems of writing . ( 3 ) From the

language of some ofthe Babylonian inscriptions , of which the grammar seems Turanian , but the vocabulary Hamite or sub-Semitic . ( 4 ) From the traditions of Babylonia and Assyria ( and '

also some Greek traditions ) which point to 3 ' connection of Bab y lonia with Ethiopia and Southern Arabia ( See Sir H . Rawlinson ' s Essay vi . to Herodotus , B . i . p 442 ) .

1 he Babylonians and Chaldeans , not content with being the first founders of a monarchy uponearth , claimed a most extravagant antiquity , pretending to have registered the transactions of

150 , 000 years , according to some , or 473 , 000 , according to others ( Diod . Sic . Bibl . Hist , lib . ii . p . 81 . ) , from the time when they first began to observe the heavenl y bodies , to the

days of Alexander . But the register sent by Callisthenes to Aristotle , when that prince was at Babylon , contained the observations of 190 a years , only , commencing 114 years after the

flood . Berosis , a priest of Belus , at Babylon , in the reign of Antiochus II . ( B . C . 2151-246 ) comp iled , from the archives in the temple of the god , a "history of Babylon , or Chaldea , " but ,

as with Manetho ' s work on Egypt , we haveonly some fragments of it , in Josephus , Polyhistor , Eusebius , and other chroniclers , an in the Christian Fathers . Like Manetho , he begins

with a mythical period , bu t one far surpassing the Egyptian , in the extravagance of its chronology . It is manifestly adapted to a conventional system of arithmetic .

The only tradition of this period thought to be worth mentioning , is , that which ascribes the origin of civilisation to Oannes , a being with the upper part of a man and the tail of a fish , who

came up from the Indian Sea , and to six other similar fish-men—a tradition which , if worth anything , indicates the belief of the priests of Babylon that their civilization began on

theshoresof the Persian Gulf . It is no part of my purpose , in these hints and suggestions , to enter into a consideration of this chronological ancl historical problem . Those who desire to see how it has

been treated , may turn to Smith ' s " Ancient History of the East " ( p . p . 204-217 ) , and to his references . From what has been said , it will appear that

the first Babylonians were derived from Ham , in the time of Cush and Nimrod ; though they were quickly supserseded by the posterity of Shem ; if , indeed these ought norj ( as I think they ought )

to be rather deemed the aborigines of thecountry ; for , upon the hypothesis premised , they only recovered , in the expulsion of the Cutheans , what had been first wrested from them .

Mr . Bryant insists that the Cutheans , called Chasdims before the Greeks mutilated the name , upon being defeated in their turn by the sons of Shem , spread themselves , under ^ the various

names of Cutheans , Hyc-sos , Arabians , and Ethiopians , westward as far as Egypt , and eastward as far as the Ganges ; occupying all the

Asiatic coasts , with the peninsula of Arabia j hence they crossed the Erythrean Gulf , and penetrated into Ethiopia ; that in process of time they got possession of Egypt , and the whole