little water-course, and about it is a little fresh-looking vegetation.

Beyond this charmed circle, for miles on every side, stretches a weary

desert of sand and gravel, which produces a gray bunchy shrub like

sage-brush. A Syrian village is the sorriest sight in the world, and

its surroundings are eminently in keeping with it.

I would not have gone into this dissertation upon Syrian villages but for

the fact that Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter of Scriptural notoriety, is

buried in Jonesborough, and I wished the public to know about how he is

located. Like Homer, he is said to be buried in many other places, but

this is the only true and genuine place his ashes inhabit.

When the original tribes were dispersed, more than four thousand years

ago, Nimrod and a large party traveled three or four hundred miles, and

settled where the great city of Babylon afterwards stood. Nimrod built

that city. He also began to build the famous Tower of Babel, but

circumstances over which he had no control put it out of his power to

finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however, and two of them

still stand, at this day--a colossal mass of brickwork, rent down the

centre by earthquakes, and seared and vitrified by the lightnings of an

angry God. But the vast ruin will still stand for ages, to shame the

puny labors of these modern generations of men. Its huge compartments

are tenanted by owls and lions, and old Nimrod lies neglected in this

wretched village, far from the scene of his grand enterprise.

We left Jonesborough very early in the morning, and rode forever and

530

The Innocents Abroad