of a bridge. The removal of slabs, and the destruction of sculptures, for similar purposes, may have been going on for centuries. There was, therefore, some reason to doubt whether any edifice, except in a very imperfect state, still existed in Kouyunjik. I knew that under the village, containing the tomb of the prophet Jonah, there were remains of considerable importance, probably as entire as those at Nimroud. They owe their preservation to the existence, from a very remote period, of the tomb and village above them. Portions of sculpture, and inscriptions, had frequently been found, when the inhabitants of the place had made the foundations of their dwellings; and when Ali Pasha of Baghdad caused a well to be dug for the benefit of the mosque, a pair of winged bulls had been discovered at a considerable depth beneath the surface. But the prejudices of the people of Mosul forbade any attempt to explore a spot so venerated for its sanctity.

The palaces of Nimroud, being far distant from any large town, when once buried were not disturbed. It does not appear that after the fall of the Empire any place of importance rose near them, except Selamiyah. This village is three miles from the ruins, and there are no remains near it to show that, at any time since the Assyrian period, it was anything more than a small market-town. It may, consequently, be inferred that the great mound of Nimroud has never been opened, and its contents carried away for building purposes, since the destruction of the latest palace; except, as it has already been mentioned, when a Pasha of Mosul endeavoured to remove one or two slabs to repair the tomb of a Mussulman saint.

There can, I think, be little doubt that the edifices of which the remains exist at Nimroud, Kouyunjik, and Khorsabad, at one time formed part of the same great city. Each of these palace-temples (for such they appear to have been) was probably the centre of a separate quarter, built at a different period, and having a different name. Thus on the inscribed bricks we find distinct names applying to the localities from which they are derived; and this will explain the names of Mespila and

Larissa assigned by Xenophon, respectively, to the ruins at Kouyunjik and Nimroud, and that of Evorita given to the palace in which Saracus, the last of the Assyrian kings, is said to have destroyed himself. Each quarter being, at one time, a royal residence, was surrounded by a wall and fortifications, and probably contained rather hunting grounds and gardens than fixed habitations. They resembled, in fact, the paradises or parks of the later Persian kings. The space between these quarters was occupied by private houses standing in the midst of gardens, orchards, and corn-land. I know no other way of reconciling the unanimous statements of ancient historians, as well as of the inspired writers, as to the extent of Nineveh, nor of explaining the fact that each of the great edifices explored owed their foundation to different kings, and that there are no remains, either at Kouyunjik or Khorsabad, of the same early period as those at Nimroud. The dimensions of the city given by Diodorus Siculus were 150 stadia for the two longest sides of the quadrangle, and 90 for the shortest, the square being 480 stadia or about 60 miles. Jonah calls it " an exceeding great city of three days' journey," the number of inhabitants, who did not know their right hand from their left, being six score thousand.* It is certainly remarkable that the three days' journey of Jonah should correspond exactly with the sixty miles of the Geographer, and that a square formed by the great ruins on the east bank of the Tigris, taking Nimroud, Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, and Karamless as the four corners, should give very nearly the same result. These fortified

*Various meanings have been assigned to this statement. Some suppose that young children are intended, who would form about one fifth of the population, which would then have been about six hundred thousand. Others contend that this is a mere allusion to the general ignorance of the inhabitants.

The distance from Kouyunjik to Nimroud is about eighteen miles; that from Nimroud to Karamless about twelve, the opposite sides of the square the same; these measurements correspond accurately with the elongated quadrangle of Diodorus. Twenty miles is a day's journey in the East, and we have, therefore, exactly three days' journey for the circumference of the city. These coincidences are at least, very remarkable. Within this space was fought the great battle between Heraclius and

quarters were not all enclosed within one wall: it is probable that in the event of a siege, the population of the intermediate spaces and suburbs took refuge within the different fortifications.

It would appear from existing monuments that the city was originally founded on the spot now occupied by the ruins of Nimroud. No better position could be chosen than the Delta formed by the junction of two large rivers, the Tigris and the Zab. The N.W. palace was the first built; successive monarchs added the centre palace, and other edifices which rose by its side. As the population increased, and conquered nations were brought, like the people of Samaria, from distant lands and settled around the Assyrian capital, the dimensions of the city increased also. A king founding a new dynasty, or anxious to perpetuate his fame, and to record his conquests, chose a new site for the erection of a palace. The city, gradually spreading, at length embraced all these buildings. Thus Nimroud represents the original site of Nineveh. The son of the builder of the oldest palace founded a new edifice at Baashiekhah. At a much later period subsequent monarchs erected their temple-palaces at Khorsabad and Kouyunjik. Their descendants returned to Nimroud, the principal buildings of which had been allowed to fall to decay, and were probably already concealed by a mass of ruins and rubbish. The city had now attained the dimensions assigned to it by the Greek geographers, and by the sacred writings. The numerous royal residences, surrounded by gardens and parks, and enclosed by fortified walls, each being a distinct quarter known by a different name, formed together the great city of Nineveh.

It is not difficult to account for the total disappearance of the dwelling places which occupied the space between the palaces. They were probably little superior to the huts of the present inhabitants of the country, and, like them, constructed entirely

Rhazates (A. D. 627.) "The city, and even the ruins of the city, had long since disappeared: the vacant space afforded a spacious field for the operations of the two armies."-Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xlvi.

of sun-dried bricks. As soon as they were allowed to fall to decay, the materials of which they were built became again mingled with the soil, and after the lapse of a very few years scarcely a trace of them would exist. Thus a modern village of Assyria, when once deserted, is rapidly replaced by a mere inequality in the plain. There is, however, still sufficient to indicate that buildings were once spread over the space I have described; for scarcely a husbandman drives his plough over the soil without turning up the vestiges of former habitations. The larger and more important monuments are fully represented by the numerous mounds which are scattered over the plain. It must be remembered that even the palaces would have remained undiscovered had not slabs of alabaster marked the walls.

We cannot identify in any other way than that I have suggested, all the ruins described with the site of Nineveh; unless, indeed, we suppose that there were more than one city of that name, the later rebuilt on a new site after the destruction of the earlier. In this case Nimroud and Kouyunjik may each represent the Nineveh of a different epoch. The size, which I have assigned to the city at the time of its greatest prosperity, cannot, I think, be deemed extravagant when the nature of Eastern cities is taken into consideration. They do not bear the same proportion to their populations as those of Europe. A place as extensive as London or Paris would not contain one-third of the inhabitants of either. The custom, prevalent from the earliest period in the East, of secluding women in apartments removed from those of the men, renders a separate house for each family almost indispensable.* It was probably as rare, in the time of the Assyrian monarchy, to find more than one family residing under one roof, unless com

*We learn from the book of Esther that such was the custom amongst the early Persians, although the intercourse between the sexes was at that time much less circumscribed than after the spread of Mohammedanism. Ladies were even admitted to public banquets, and received strangers in their own apartments, whilst they resided habitually in dwellings separate from the men.

posed of persons very intimately related, such as father and son, as it is at present in an Arab or Turkish city. Moreover, that gardens and arable land were enclosed by the houses, we learn from Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius, who state that there was space enough, even within the precincts of Babylon, to cultivate corn for the sustenance of the whole population in case of siege, besides orchards and gardens.* From the expression of Jonah that there was much cattle within the city †, it may be inferred that there was also pasture for them; and we learn from the sculptures that a large portion of the population even resided in tents within the walls, a custom still prevailing in Baghdad, Mosul, and the neighbouring towns; and a far larger space must have been required for such encampments than for huts or cottages. The cities of Isfahan and Damascus, with their gardens and suburbs, must, during the time of their greatest prosperity, have been little inferior in size to Nineveh.

A House. (Kouyunjik.)

The Interior of a Tent. (Kouyunjik.)

Existing ruins show that Nineveh had acquired its greatest extent and prosperity in the time of the kings of the second

*Diod. Sic. lib. ii. c. 9. Quint. Curt. v. cap. 1.

† Ch. iv. 11.

This house appears to resemble the model of an Egyptian dwelling in the British Museum. (See also Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii., woodcuts 98 and 99.) From a bas-relief discovered in the centre of the mound at Nimroud, it would appear that the upper part was sometimes of canvass.