such as I have described in my visit to Sofuk, covered the small plain, near the banks of the river. A scene of activity and bustle ensued. Every one appeared desirous to outdo his neighbour in vehemence of shouting, and violence of action. A stranger would have fancied that there was one general quarrel; in which, out of several hundred men and women concerned, no two persons took the same side of the question. Every one seemed to differ from every one else. All this confusion, however, was but the result of a friendly debate on the site of the respective tents; and when the matter had been settled to the general satisfaction, without recourse to any more violent measures than mere yelling, each family commenced raising their temporary abode. The camels being made to kneel down, and the donkeys to stop in the place fixed upon, their loads were rolled off their backs. The women next spread the black goat-hair canvass. The men rushed about with wooden mallets to drive in the stakes and pegs; and in a few minutes the dwellings, which were to afford them shelter, until they needed shelter no longer, and under which they had lived from their birth upwards, were complete. The women and girls were then sent forth to fetch water, or to collect brushwood and dry twigs for fire. The men, leaving all household matters to their wives and daughters, assembled in the tent of the Sheikh ; and crouching in a circle round the entire trunk of an old tree, which was soon enveloped in flames, they prepared to pass the rest of the day in that desultory small talk, relating to stolen sheep, stray donkeys, or successful robberies, which fills up the leisure of an Arab, unless he be better employed in plundering or in war.

Leaving Abd'rubbou and his Arabs to pitch their tents and settle their domestic matters, I walked to the mound. The trenches dug by the workmen around the sitting figure were almost sufficiently extensive to prove that no other remains of building existed in its immediate vicinity. Had not the figure been in an upright position I should have concluded, at once, that it had been brought from elsewhere; as I could not find

traces of pavement, nor any fragments of sculpture or hewn stone, near it. Removing the workmen, therefore, from this part of the mound, I divided them into small parties, and employed them in making experiments in different directions. Wherever trenches were opened, remains of the Assyrian period were found, but only in fragments; such as bits of basalt, with small figures in relief, portions of slabs bearing cuneiform inscriptions, and bricks similarly inscribed. Many tombs were also discovered. Like those of Nimroud, they belonged to a period long subsequent to the destruction of the Assyrian edifices, and were in the rubbish and earth which had accumulated above them. The sarcophagi resembled those I have already described - large cases of baked clay, some square, others in the form of a dishcover; as at Nimroud, they were all much too small to hold a human body, unless it had been violently forced in, or the limbs had been separated. That the bodies had not been burned, was proved by the bones being found entire. They may have been exposed, as is the custom amongst the Parsees, until the skeleton was made bare by the usual process of decomposition, or by birds and beasts of prey, and then buried in these earthen cases. In the sarcophagi were found numerous small vases, metal ornaments, and a copper cup, resembling in shape and in the embossed designs one held by the king, in a bas-relief from the N.W. palace of Nimroud.*

Above these ancient tombs were graves of more recent date; some of them, indeed, belonged to the tribes which had, but a few days before, encamped amongst the ruins. The tenant of one had been removed from his last resting-place by the hungry hyenas and jackals, who haunt these depositories of the dead. The rude casing of stones, forming the interior of an Arab

*This cup was taken out entire, but was unfortunately broken by the man who was employed to carry it to Mosul.

†The Arabs generally seek some elevated spot to bury their dead. The artificial mounds, abounding in Mesopotamia and Assyria, are usually chosen for the purpose, and there is scarcely one whose summit not covered with them. On this account I frequently experienced great difficulty whilst excavating, and was compelled to leave unexamined one or two ruins.

grave, had been opened; and the bones and skull, still clothed with shreds of flesh, were scattered around.

Although I spent two days at Kalah Sherghat I was unable to reach the platform of sun-dried bricks upon which the edifice, now in ruins, and covered with earth, must originally have been built. Remains of walls were found in abundance; but they were evidently of a more recent period than the Assyrian building, to which the inscribed bricks and the fragments of sculptured stone belonged. The ruins were consequently not thoroughly explored. I saw no remains of the alabaster or Mosul marble, so generally employed in the palaces to the north of Kalah Sherghat. Unbaked bricks alone may have been used in the edifice; and if so, the walls built with them could no longer, without very careful examination, be distinguished from the soil in which they are buried.

The Tigris has been gradually encroaching upon the ruins, and is yearly undermining and wearing away the mound. Large masses of earth are continually falling into the stream, leaving exposed to view vases, sarcophagi, and remains of building. Along the banks of the river, several shafts of circular masonry, having the appearance of wells, had been thus uncovered. At the time of my first visit, we observed similar wells, and were at a loss to account for their use. I now opened two or three of them. They were filled with earth, mixed with human bones and fragments of vases and pottery *; which may have been originally deposited there, or may have fallen in from above with the rubbish. It is possible that these wells may have been constructed, at a very early period, for purposes of irrigation, or to supply water to the inhabitants of the city.

The principal ruin at Kalah Sherghat, like those of Nimroud, Khorsabad, and other ancient Assyrian sites, is a large square mound, surmounted by a cone or pyramid, which rises nearly in the centre of the north side of the great platform. Imme

* I found similar wells, containing human remains and pottery, amongst the ruins on the banks of the rivers of Susiana.

diately below it, and forming a facing to the great mound, is a wall of well-hewn stones, carefully fitted together, and bevelled. The battlements, which still exist, are cut into gradines, and resemble those of castles and towers in the Nimroud sculptures. The wall is therefore, I think, Assyrian. It is not improbable that much of the masonry, still visible on the summit of the mound, may be the remains of an Arab fort. Long lines of smaller mounds or ramparts form a quadrangle, and are the remains of the walls which once enclosed the town.

The principal ruin of Kalah Sherghat, is one of the largest with which I am acquainted in Assyria. I was unable to measure it accurately during this visit; but when on the spot with Mr. Ainsworth, we carefully paced round it; and the result, according to that gentleman's calculation, gave a circumference of 4685 yards.* A part of it, however, is not artificial. Irregularities in the face of the country, and natural eminences, have been united into one great platform by earth and layers of sun-dried bricks. It is, nevertheless, a stupendous structure, yielding in extent to no other artificial mound in Assyria. In height it is unequal; to the south it slopes off nearly to the level of the plain, whilst to the north, where it is most lofty, its sides are perpendicular, in some places rising to nearly one hundred feet.

I will not attempt to connect, without better materials than we now possess, the ruins of Kalah Sherghat with any ancient city whose name occurs in the sacred books, or has been preserved by ancient geographers. That it was one of the oldest cities of Assyria, is proved by the identification of the name of the king found on its monuments and bricks, with that on the centre bulls and obelisk of Nimroud; but whether it be Chalah, one of the four primitive cities mentioned in Genesis†, I will not venture to decide.

Having directed Mansour to continue the excavations, I prepared to return to Mosul. Abd'rubbou offered to accompany * Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xi. p. 5.

† Chap. x. 11.

me; and as the desert between Kalah Sherghat and Hammum Ali was infested by roving parties of the Shammar and Aneyza Arabs, I deemed it prudent to accept his escort. He chose eight horsemen from his tribe, and we started together for the desert. We slept the first night at the tents of a Seyyid, or descendant of the Prophet, of some repute for sanctity, and for the miraculous cure of diseases, which he effected by merely touching the patient. The Arabs were fully persuaded of the existence of his healing power; but I never saw any one who even pretended to have been cured, although there was certainly no lack of subjects for the Seyyid to practise upon. The old gentleman's daughter, a dark, handsome girl, was clained by a Sheikh of the Jebours, to whom, according to some accounts, she had been betrothed. The greater part of the night was spent in quarrelling and wrangling upon this subject. The Seyyid resolutely denied the contract, on the mere plea that one of such holy descent could not be united to a man in whose veins the blood of the Prophet did not flow. Abd'rubbou and his friends, on the other hand, as stoutly contended for the claims of the lover, not treating, I thought, so great a saint with a proper degree of respect. Although my tent was pitched at some distance from the assembly, the discordant voices, all joining at the same time in the most violent discussion, kept me awake until past midnight. Suddenly the disputants appeared to have talked themselves out, and there was a lull. Vainly flattering myself that they had sunk into sleep, I prepared to follow their example. But I had scarcely closed my eyes, when I was roused by a fresh outbreak of noises. An Arab had suddenly arrived from the banks of the Khabour the old pasture grounds of the tribe: he was overwhelmed with a thousand questions, and the news he brought of struggles between the Aneyza and the Asai, and the defeat of the former enemies of the Jebours, led to continual bursts of enthusiasm, and to one or two attempts to raise a general shouting of the war-cry. Thus they passed the night to my great discomfort.