Amongst them was the figure of a man in long robes, carrying in one hand the Egyptian crux ansata, part of a crouching sphinx, and flowers designed with great taste and elegance. Awad, who had his own suspicions of the object of my search, which he could scareely persuade himself was limited to mere stones, carefully collected all the scattered fragments of gold-leaf he could find in the rubbish; and, calling me aside in a mysterious and confidential fashion, produced them wrapped up in a piece of dingy paper. "O Bey," said he, "Wallah! your books are right, and the Franks know that which is hid from the true believer. Here is the gold, sure enough; and, please God, we shall find it all in a few days. Only don't say anything about it to those Arabs, for they are asses and cannot hold their tongues. The matter will come to the ears of the Pasha." The sheikh was much surprised, and equally disappointed, when I generously presented him with the treasures he had collected, and all such as he might hereafter discover. He left me, muttering "Yia Rubbi!" and other pious ejaculations, and lost in conjectures as to the meaning of these strange proceedings. (Page 30.) Mr. Layard was peculiarly happy in dealing with the Eastern officials. The Pasha of Mosul had got a little bit of gold-leaf, which one needed a microscope to find in its envelope of most dingy paper. It had been brought to him, he said, by parties interested in watching the excavations. Mr. Layard suggested the naming of an agent to be present at Nimroud, and, in his Excellency's behalf, to take charge of all the precious metals that might be discovered. And so matters were left for the time. But the Cadi and others, misled by reports of disinterred wealth, began to stir up opposition. Many mounds were nevertheless opened, Mr. Layard being most anxious to ascertain the existence of sculptured buildings before any authoritative restraint should be imposed. During the few days of his absence, the excavations had been going on at Nimroud. Henceforth thirty men were employed, in three sets, on the south-west corner of the mound. It was found that materials taken from one building had been used in the construction of another. Mr. Layard's passion made manifold hardships light; and, animated by his presence, Chaldæans and Arabs continued their toils.-The historico-ethnographer will accept a sentence, found on page 38: The inhabitants of the plains to the east of the Tigris are mostly Turcomans and Kurds, mixed with Arabs, or with Yezidis, who are strangers in the land, and whose origin cannot easily be determined. A few Chaldæans and Jacobite Christians, scattered in Mosul and the neighbouring villages, or dwelling in the most inaccessible part of the mountains, their places of refuge from the devastat ing bands of Tamerlane, are probably the only descendants of that great people which once swayed, from these plains, the half of Asia. Two After much slow labour, the top of a bas-relief was found. slabs were exposed; on each of which were two bas-reliefs, with intervening inscriptions. Mr. Layard was struck with the elegant art displayed. There was, for example, a battle-scene, with chariots-each occupied by three warriors;-the chief person in each group, a eunuch, accoutred with suit of mail, helmet, and bow; the second, urging on the three steeds; the third, protecting with a shield the principal figure. The vanquished, of course, lay at the horses' feet. Again, there was the siege of a walled city; and again, a battle-piece which had been carefully defaced. Another of these sculptures "represented a singular subject. On the battlements of the castle, two stories high, and defended by many towers, stood a woman tearing her hair to show her grief. Beneath the walls by the side of a stream, figured by numerous undulating lines, crouched a fisherman drawing from the water a fish he had caught." It claims to be parti cularly observed that not only were the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad here surpassed, but a different character of inscription was traced. Great, on every account, was the difficulty of any probable conjecture as to the origin of the building. But now the wily Pasha of Mosul, large professions of kindness notwithstanding, chose to forbid the progress of the work. He pretended that graves, by Moslem law inviolable, were in the mound; that the Cadi and the Mufti (sc., in flattering version, the Magistrate and the Priest) had been complaining; that Mr. Layard was in peril; that the life of the Pasha's "dearest and most intimate friend was more valuable than old stones;" and so on. The truth is, that troops had been employed under cover of night to make graves there. "We have destroyed more real tombs of the true Believers," said their captain, "than you could have defiled between the Zab and Selamiyah. We have killed our horses and ourselves in carrying those accursed stones." It was necessary now to proceed with caution; but the discovery of more sculptures was an irresistible attraction. Near the western edge we came upon the lower part of several gigantic figures, uninjured by fire. It was from this place that, in the time of Ahmed Pasha, materials were taken for rebuilding the tomb of Sultan Abd-Allah, and the slabs had been sawn in half, and otherwise injured. At the foot of the S. E. corner was found a crouching lion, rudely carved in basalt, which appeared to have fallen from the building above, and to have been exposed for centuries to the atmosphere. In the centre of the mound we uncovered part of a pair of gigantic winged bulls, the head and half the wings of which had been destroyed. Their length was 14 feet, and their height must have been originally the same. On the backs of the slabs upon which these animals had been carved in high relief, were inscriptions in large and well-cut characters. A pair of small winged lions, the heads and upper part destroyed, were also discovered. They appeared to form an entrance into a chamber, were admirably designed and very carefully executed. Finally, a bas-relief representing a human figure, nine feet high, the right hand elevated, and carrying in the left a branch with three flowers, resembling the poppy...... I uncovered only the upper part of these sculptures, satisfied with proving their existence, without exposing them to the risk of injury, should my labours be at any time interrupted. Still no conjecture could be formed as to the contents of the mound, or as to the nature of the buildings I was exploring. Only detached and unconnected walls had been discovered, and it could not even be determined which side of them had been laid bare. (Pp. 47, 48.) A Firman (or order from the Porte) was needful to check the interruptions of which Mr. Layard had to complain. The wretched Pasha was meanwhile superseded. That it was high time, the state of the town, and of all its dependencies and arable lands, proclaimed. And now this man, whose tyranny had been within a few hours the general horror, was found “sitting in a dilapidated chamber, through which the rain penetrated without hinderance. Thus it is,' said he, with God's creatures. Yesterday all those dogs were kissing my feet; to-day every one, and everything, falls upon me, even the rain! Under the new Pashalic the Province seemed to smile. Mosul rejoiced. Villages were re-peopled, and lands re-tilled. The banks of the Tigris were again dotted with tents of Arab shepherds; and their flocks once more whitened the plains from which oppression had too long driven them. "Even on the mound the plough opened its furrows, and corn was sown over the palaces of the Assyrian kings." Amid these auspices of general good, Mr. Layard's enterprise was resumed in the beginning of the following year. "I rode to Nimroud," he says, " on the 17th of January, having first engaged a party of Nestorian Chaldæans to accompany me." But soon the officious Cadi was meddling again; and, under all the circumstances, it seemed best to suspend the work. In February the experiment was again quietly made, and the results were at once encouraging and perplexing. Sculptures came to light, which did not belong to the same period as the former. In the best-conditioned of these appears a king, standing over a prostrate warrior. A fan is held over the king's head; and he is preceded by a figure that Mr. Layard takes to be his vizir or minister, and attended by a group,-all these being about three feet eight inches high. Gigantic winged figures, in low relief, had covered the rest of the wall. It was clear that some of these had been purposely defaced; while others had yielded to the silent and inevitable pressure of ages. It is worth noting, that "inscriptions were carried across the slabs over the drapery, but were interrupted when a naked limb occurred, and resumed beyond it. Such is generally the case when, as in the older palace of Nimroud, inscriptions are engraved over a figure." In hope of finding remains in superior preservation, Mr. Layard went back to the chamber first opened, and directed his workmen to dig behind the small lions that seemed to mark the entrance. But this was on the edge of the mound; and, as the winter rains had formed a ravine penetrating to a considerable depth, it was determined also to open a trench in the centre. In two days the top of a slab was found; and two human figures in low relief, remarkably fresh, and of heroic size, cheered the spirit that labour could not exhaust. The ornaments delicately graven on the robes, the tassels and fringes, the bracelets and armlets, the elaborate curls of the hair and beard, were all entire. The figures were back to back, and furnished with wings. They appeared to represent divinities, presiding over the seasons, or over particular religious ceremonies. The one, whose face was turned to the East, carried a fallow deer on his right arm, and in his left hand a branch bearing five flowers. Around his temples was a fillet, adorned in front with a rosette. The other held a square vessel, or basket, in the left hand, and an object resembling a fir-cone in the right. On his head he wore a rounded cap, at the base of which was a horn. The garments of both, consisting of a stole falling from the shoulders to the ankles, and a short tunic underneath, descending to the knee, were richly and tastefully decorated with embroideries and fringes, whilst the hair and beard were arranged with study and art....... The limbs were delineated with peculiar accuracy, and the muscles and bones faithfully, though somewhat too strongly, marked. An inscription ran across the sculpture. To the west of this slab, and fitting to it, was a corner-stone ornamented with flowers and scroll-work, tastefully arranged, and resembling in detail those graven on the injured tablet, near the entrance of the south-west building. recognised at once from whence many of I the sculptures employed in the construction of that edifice had been brought; and it was evident that I had at length discovered the earliest palace of Nimroud. The corner-stone led me to a figure of singular form. A human body, clothed in robes similar to those of the winged men already described, was surmounted by the head of an eagle, or of a vulture. The curved beak, of considerable length, was half open, and displayed a narrow pointed tongue, which was still covered with red paint. On the shoulders fell the usual curled and bushy hair of the Assyrian images, and a comb of feathers rose on the top of the head. Two wings sprang from the back, and in either hand was the square vessel and fir-cone. On all these figures paint could be faintly distinguished, particularly on the hair, beard, eyes, and sandals. The slabs on which they were sculptured had sustained no injury......... There could no longer be any doubt that they formed part of a chamber, and that, to explore it completely, I had only to continue along the wall, now partly uncovered. On the morning following these discoveries I rode to the encampment of Sheikh Abd-ur-rahman, and was returning to the mound when I saw two Arabs of his tribe urging their mares to the top of their speed. On approaching me they stopped. "Hasten, O Bey," exclaimed one of them, " hasten to the dig gers, for they have found Nimrod himself. Wallah, it is wonderful, but it is true! we have seen him with our eyes. There is no God but God;" and, both joining in this pious exclamation, they An enormous human head, of the alabaster of the country, had been uncovered. It belonged, evidently, to a winged lion or bull. "The expression was calm, yet majestic; and the outline of the features showed a freedom and knowledge of art, scarcely to be looked for in the works of so remote a period. The cap had three horns, and, unlike that of the human-headed bulls hitherto found in Assyria, was rounded and without ornament at the top." The Arab mind was sufficiently impressed and amazed. "One of the workmen, on catching the first glimpse of the monster, had thrown down his basket and run off towards Mosul as fast as his legs could carry him." All who saw the head cried out, "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet!" "This," said the sheikh, "is not the work of men's hands, but of those infidel giants of whom the Prophet -peace be with him!-has said that they were higher than the tallest date-tree; this is one of the idols which Noah-peace be with him!— cursed before the flood." All assented.-A trench was dug southward from the head, and at the distance of twelve feet a corresponding figure appeared. Multitudes of men and women came to gratify their curiosity. Mosul was roused by the tidings. Nimrod had come to light! The Mussulmans were innocent of any exact knowledge whether Nimrod had been a true believer or an infidel; and equally careless to learn whether the mighty hunter's bones, or some monumental image only, had been uncovered. But their prejudices were all awake; and difficulties were thrown in the way of the adventurous foreigner. The work, nevertheless, advanced; and it was rewarded by the discovery of other winged and human-headed lions, with the human shape continued to the waist. These magnificent specimens of Assyrian art were in perfect preservation; the most minute lines in the details of the wings, and in the ornaments, had been retained with their original freshness. Not a character was wanting in the inscriptions. I used to contemplate for hours these mysterious emblems, and muse over their intent and history. What more noble forms could have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? What more sublime images could have been borrowed from nature by men who sought, unaided by the light of revealed religion, to embody their conception of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity of a Supreme Being? They could find no better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of the man; of strength, than the body of the lion; of ubiquity, than the wings of the bird. These winged human-headed lions were not idle creations, the offspring of mere fancy; their meaning was written upon them. They had awed and instructed races which flourished 3,000 years ago. Through the portals which they guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne sacrifices to their altars, long before the wisdom of the East had penetrated to Greece, and had furnished its mythology with symbols long recognised by the Assyrian votaries. They may have been buried, and their existence may have been unknown, before the foundation of the eternal city. For twenty-five centuries they had been hidden from the eye of man, and they now stood forth once more in their ancient majesty. But how changed was the scene around them! The luxury and civilisation of a mighty nation had given place to the wretchedness and ignorance of a few half-barbarous tribes. The wealth of temples, and the riches of great cities, had been succeeded by ruins and shapeless heaps of earth. Above the spacious hall in which they stood, the plough had passed and the corn now waved. Egypt has monuments no less ancient and no less wonderful; but they have stood forth for ages to testify her early power and renown; whilst those before me had but now appeared to bear witness, in the words of the prophet, that once "the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs......his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and This very fine passage is commended to the reader's meditation. It will not be denied that these composite figures are among the most wonderful efforts of ancient genius and art. Yet, in the religious aspect, all is monitory and affecting. The attempt to image the attributes of the Most High must be regarded as a perilous deviation from pure and primitive worship. And, in passing, we will just express our surprise that the fancy of discovering like emblems in the "cherubim," so truly Hutchinsonian, should have derived any countenance from graver theologues, as if reverent spirits could cease to adore the INVISIBLE and INCORRUPTIBLE GOD, or, forgetting the warnings of Holy Scripture, could accept any "similitude "" of His majesty. Some of the Assyrian slabs, it is to be observed, contain forms that represent foreign races. There are, for instance, traces of black colour over the face, and such peculiarities as denote captives bringing tribute to their conquerors. Among historical subjects, we have a castle on an island in a river,-warriors swimming across the stream, or contending against its current, a siege, with battering-ram and movable tower,—a king, holding in one hand a cup, in the other a bow,-and, in short, all the variety of martial adventure. The colouring, particularly in blue and red, was brilliant; but it faded on exposure to the air.* The most remarkable of the sculptures hitherto discovered was the lion hunt; which, from the knowledge of art displayed in the treatment and composition, the correct and effective delineation of the men and animals, the spirit of the grouping, and its extraordinary preservation, is probably the finest specimen of Assyrian art in existence. (P. 130.) [On one of the slabs] two kings stood facing one another, but separated by the symbolical tree, above which was the emblem of the Supreme Deity—a human figure, with the wings and tail of a bird, enclosed in a circle, and holding a ring in one hand, resembling the image so frequently occurring on the early sculptures of Persia......... Each king held a mace or instrument formed by a handle with a ball or circle at the end, and was followed by a winged figure carrying the fir-cone and basket. (P. 133.) Subsequent excavations disclosed in front of the large bas-relief a slab of alabaster, 10 feet by 8, and about 2 feet thick, cut at the western end into steps or gradines. It appeared to be a raised place for a throne, or to be an altar on which sacrifices were made: the latter conjecture was strengthened by a conduit for water or some other fluid, also of alabaster, being carried round the slab, which was covered on both sides with inscriptions. On raising it, a process of considerable difficulty from its weight and size, I found underneath a few pieces of gold-leaf and fragments of bones. (P. 134.) Around the neck [of a king, attended by eagle-headed figures,] were suspended the symbolical or astronomical signs, which are frequently found on Assyrian monuments; sometimes detached and placed close to the principal personages, * In Chap. vii. there is an account of copper-mines, in the Kurdish mountains, which were certainly worked at a very remote period. In the powder found in cracks of the encompassing rocks, our observant traveller detected the colouring material. |