that this common impression might possibly be erroneous. The present desolation of the country about Babylon is well known; the whole region, once so fertile, appears now to be little better than a desert, stripped alike of its people, its buildings, and its vegetation, all of which made, in former times, its surpassing glory and its wealth. If at one moment of a brief spring, grass and flowers are found upon those shapeless ruins, a scorching sun soon blasts their beauty; as for trees, these are so few that they scarcely appear in the general view, though, on nearer observation, some are found here and there. One of these, described by Mr. Rich, as an evergreen, like the lignum-vitæ, is so old that the Arabs say it dates with the ruins on which it stands, and it is thought that it may very possibly be a descendant of one of the same species in the hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, which are supposed to have occupied the same site. Immediately on the banks of the river, there is also said to be a fringe of jungle, and here willows are growing; but they are not described as the weeping willow. Speaking of the Euphrates, Sir Robert Ker Porter says: “ Its banks were hoary with reeds, and the gray ozier willows were yet there, on which the captives of Israel hung up their harps.” Now it is scarcely probable that a writer of the merit of Sir R. Porter, familiar with the weeping willow, as he must have been, would describe that beautiful tree as a gray ozier. Several other travellers also speak of the fringe of jungle on the Euphrates, and the ozier growing there. Not one of several we have been looking over, mentions the noble weeping willow; on the contrary, the impression is generally left that the trees are insignificant in size, and of an inferior variety. If such be really the case, then, and the term gray ozier be correct—if willows are growing to-day
