How far is Babylon? According to the poem, 3 points and 10 (or 70 miles). Babylon is today’s Iraq.

Places within 70 miles of Iraq are present-day Syria, present-day Turkey, Iran (formerly Persia, of course), Kuwait, and Jordan. Since the questioner uses miles and the miles are Roman, this suggests that the Romans occupied Jordan.

Babylon in the New Testament refers to Rome or refers to an evil place. The word Rastafarian combines these meanings and makes Babylon mean an oppressive system.

But this still may not be what rhythm means.

What is important is what happens next in the rhythm. Which can be reached by candlelight and vice versa. This surely rules it out as a real place.

Although 70 miles is not much today, it would be difficult to go that far overnight. It should be noted that she is traveling holding a sail; this surely means walking. I’m sure something is wrong here…

Well, the English version seems to be about walking, the Scottish version seems to be about a horse, and the questioner needs to have shiny spurs; he’s not sure what that has to do with fast travel.

It seems that Babylon is a far away (or apparently far away) city like Timbuktu today. How many people know that Timbuktu is in Mali? Not many, for most it’s just a convenient, faraway place.

Another theory is that Babylon is a corruption of the land of babies; this does not particularly hold up. It does seem that the name Babylon came from Babel, speak. This refers to the legend of a (Babylonian) tower that collapsed because everyone spoke different languages.

It seems that the place the traveler is going seems a little more real than that. Whatever it is, it’s a rhyme about the mysteries of travel.