Christians, or so-called Christians of St. John.

rather than the Zoroastrian and Persian Ahriman, | of the profane. It might indeed, after all, be the eternal rival and equal of Ormuzd; he is no hardly more satisfactory than the perplexing Coimpersonation of darkness as opposed to light. The dex Nasireus, the sacred book of the Sabæan Yezidis seem to have none of the speculative hostility to matter, as the eternal principle of evil, We return to Nimroud. Our limited space which is the groundwork of Manicheism, as it had forces us to compress into a brief summary our been of all the Gnostic creeds. Nor is the evil account of the actual discoveries on this prolific principle the equal antagonist of the good. In mound. But we strongly recommend our reader all other respects their creed seems to be a wild to follow Mr. Layard himself in the successive and incoherent fusion of various tenets, either bor-steps of his operation; to catch, as almost the coldrowed from or forced upon them by other dominant est and most unimaginative will do, the infection of religions around them. Mr. Layard supposes the his zeal, to enter into his anxieties and his hopes; groundwork to be Sabianism, yet he does not de- to behold chamber after chamber, hall after hall, scribe them as paying especial reverence to the unfold themselves as it were from the bosom heavenly bodies, except perhaps to the sun, under of the earth, and assume shape, dimensions, the name of Sheikh Shems. They have a temple height; to watch the reliefs which line the walls and oxen dedicated to that luminary; and kiss the gradually disclosing their forms; as the rubbish place where his first beams fall. This, however, clears away, the siege and the battle and the huntis pure Zoroastrianism-(we ought to note that ing-piece becoming more and more distinct; the the researches in Nineveh are in favor of the Chal- king rearing more manifestly his lofty tiara, and dean origin of that mysterious personage and his displaying his undoubted symbol of royalty; the faith.) They worship towards the rising sun, and attitude of the priest proclaiming his office, someturn the feet of their dead to that Kubleh. They times his form and features, his imperfect and have the same reverence for fire-a still more pe- effeminate manhood; the walls of the besieged culiar mark of the Persian creed; they hold the cities rearing their battlements, the combatants color blue in abomination; are fond of white grappling in mortal struggle; the horses curvetlinen, and in the cleanliness of their habits and their ing; the long procession stretching out slab after frequent ablutions, they also resemble the Saba-slab, with the trophies of victory or the offerings. ans." They reverence the Old Testament almost of devotion; above all, the huge symbolic animals, with Jewish zeal, (a tenet absolutely inconsistent the bulls or lions, sometimes slowly struggling into with Manicheism ;) they receive, but with less rev-light in their natural forms, sometimes developing erence, the Gospel and the Korân. Their notion their human heads, their outspread wings; their of our Saviour is the Mohammedan, except that downward parts-in their gigantic but just prohe was an angel, not a prophet; with the Korân, portions-heaving off, as it might seem, the enthey take the Docetic view of his person, and deny cumbering earth. So in Milton's noble description, the reality of his sufferings. Their habits have if we add only the broad-horned bull to the lion and nothing of the asceticism of the Manichean sects; the stagthey do not even keep the Mohammedan Ramazan ; they fast three days only at the commencement of the year, and even that is not of necessary obligation. Wednesday is their holiday, on which the more devout fast; but it is not kept with the rigor of a Sabbath. Under their Great Sheikh they have a hierarchy of four orders, and these offices are hereditary and descend to females. They are -I. The Pirs or saints, who lead a holy life, intercede for the people, and are supposed to cure diseases and insanity.-II. The Sheikhs, dressed in white, with a band of red and yellow, perform the chief functions of the ceremonial, take charge of the offerings, and vend the relics.-III. The Cawals are the itinerant preachers, who go round to teach the doctrines of the sect, chant the hymns, and play on the flute and tambourine.--IV. The Fakirs, dressed in coarse dark cloth, perform the menial offices. We regret to say that the schoolmaster forms no part of the hierarchy. It is considered unlawful to learn to read or write. This legally established ignorance may well make us despair of ever solving the mystery as to the origin of the Yezidis. The only chance would be by obtaining the sacred volume of their traditions, their hymns, and religious ceremonial. It is in Arabic, but carefully concealed from the sight and touch

Now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,
The leopard, and the tiger-as the mole,
Rising-the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks; the swift stag, from under ground,
his branching head.
Paradise Lost, vii. 263.

Bore up

We can conceive, indeed, nothing more stirring, more absorbing, than, once certainly in the right track, to work away in these mines of ancient remains; to follow the lode, not after vulgar copper or iron, or even more precious metals, but after the images of the kings of ancient days, the records and pictures of victories-of empires almost prehistoric; to uncover the monumental inscriptions, in almost the oldest of written characters, which at least have in our own day partially surrendered their secrets to the inquisitive industry and sagacity of our Lassens and Rawlinsons; to disinter an Asiatic Pompeii, not a small, if elegant, provincial town, buried in the days of the Flavian Cæsars, but the life, the wars, the banquets, the state, the religion of the capital city of old Assyria; the great temple, in which reigned, and perhaps were worshipped, sovereigns contemporaneous with the

ASSYRIAN WARRIORS IN A CHARIOT (S. W. RUINS NIMROUD. ORIGINALLY BROUGHT FROM THE N. W PALACE

elder Pharaohs, and whose names had reached the | of which was partly faced by this slab, was more Greeks only by vague and uncertain tradition.

Layard, was rapidly acquired-soon penetrated deeper and deeper into the unknown and inviolate; till the three great edifices of different ages, adorned by sculptures of different character-one at the north-west corner, one in the centre, one to the south-east-revealed to the light of day the Nineveh perhaps of Ninus and Semiramis, of Salmaneser and Sennacherib, of Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus.

perplexing than satisfactory. As yet there were Mr. Layard's sagacity acquired before long a neither bas-reliefs nor inscriptions; and it was eviknowledge of the right mode of working these dent that this chamber had been opened beforeantiquarian quarries. The confident certainty with as it appeared, in the memory of living man, and which he at last proceeded, the sort of divination from a modern inscription, by a late pasha in search which he seemed to possess, that intuitive magical of materials for tombstones. But steady perse. rod which pointed to hidden curiosities, was no verance and skill, which, by such a man as Mr. less amazing to his perplexed fellow-laborers, than his motive in consuming so much cost and time in what appeared such unprofitable labors. This simple plan of discovery at which Mr. Layard at length arrived, the knowledge of which may spare great waste of trouble and money in future researches, was grounded on the system invariably adopted, probably enforced on the founders of the larger Assyrian edifices by the circumstances and nature of their country. The low level plains on Mr. Layard has rendered us great assistance in which they built their cities compelled them to his own summary of the final result of his operagive artificial elevation, both for strength and se- tions. He has given, (and we are inclined to curity, that they might be seen afar off and com- pardon the repetition, from the more perfect dismand the adjacent region. A great pavement, tinctness with which we have been enabled to acusually of unburnt brick, was first laid down, company him,) first, a topographic account, with commensurate with the design, on a mass of constant references to his plans, and then a picturbrickwork thirty or forty feet high on this pave-esque view of the mound, into which we descend, ment rose the palace or temple, with all its halls and behold his laborers-Arabs and Chaldeans, or chambers. The first object then in these re- Mohammedans and Christians-working together searches was to pierce down to this foundation in the utmost harmony, in all their wild attitudes, platform, (to penetrate deeper was vain and lost with their fantastic gestures and dissonant cries. labor,) and, having reached its level, to work on- We range with him through the whole circuitwards in any direction along its surface till the pass from hall to hall-contemplate the lions at walls crossed the way; then to follow the wall the gates, the sculptures on the walls-explore till broken by gates or openings which led into the rubbish for smaller articles of curiosity. other galleries or chambers. The gates of the more important chambers were usually designated by a pair of gigantic figures-bulls, lions, or of composite forms-the colossal warders of these vast halls. The gates or doors, if there were gates or doors, being of some less durable material, had entirely perished. This knowledge, however, of the fundamental principle of Assyrian architecture was gained only by observation and experience. It was employed in Mr. Layard's later excavations in the huge mound of Kouyunjik, in the plain beyond the Tigris, opposite Mosul; and in that of Kalah Shergat in all of which he was eminently, if not equally, successful. It might have saved M. Botta, if it had been known from the first, much toil; and even Mr. Layard, in the researches which he made at Khorsabad, after it had been abandoned by the French. Even at Nimroud, at the first period of his excavations, when he was eager without delay to avail himself of Sir Stratford Canning's liberality, this base of operations had not been discovered; the researches were less regular and systematic, guided by the external appearance of the mound, and the first indications of the tops of the walls, which seemed to invite the pickaxe and spade. Mr. Layard's original Arab guide, an intelligent man, well acquainted with the mound, pointed out a fragment of alabaster, cropping out, in geological phrase, above the soil. On digging down it appeared part of a large slab; but the first chamber, the wall

:

VOL. XXI. 3

Before Christmas, 1846, Mr. Layard had only opened eight chambers. The intelligence of funds placed at his disposal through the trustees of the British Museum enabled him to proceed on a more vigorous plan and on a more extensive scale. Before he closed his work, eight-and-twenty of these halls and galleries had come to light; and, with the assistance of his plans, we can trace the whole groundwork of the edifices. By his clever picture-writing, assisted, too, by many cuts executed with great skill by Mr. George Scharf, we are enabled to see the several parts of the mound, from a shapeless heap of rubbish covered with vegetation—a grassy hill of vast size but inexplicable shape-become gradually an assemblage of ruins, in which the walls, roofless indeed, but mostly erect, stand up before us. The chambers expand, many of them at first dazzling with rich colors, which faded unfortunately on their exposure to light; and faced with sculptured slabs. We understand the whole construction and arrangement, if not extent, of an Assyrian palacetemple.

The palace on the north-eastern corner of the mound, which Mr. Layard considers the most ancient of the Ninevite buildings, had evidently been the most magnificent edifice, displayed the more regular construction, was adorned with the finest sculptures, and covered with the more curious inscriptions. To this we shall return. But there were appearances which came to light, during the

ments.

the inscriptions-as yet but indistinctly read, and, if interpreted at all, still more indistinctly interpreted-shall render up their secrets.

operations about the centre of the mound, even ple seemingly Egyptian, or in some degree Egypstill more surprising. There was a kind of suc- tianized in manners and arts-closely allied, or cession in the strata of remains, which, without assimilated at least, to that now well-known race, demanding the incalculable periods of our geolo- with whom, in their own monuments, we have gists, showed an antiquity which may well per- become familiar to the most minute household orplex the historical inquirer. Above the buried naments and attire. The catacomb of one age remains of the Ninevite palace, some people-a must be pierced to arrive at the palace or temple people by every indication of great antiquity—of another: one generation makes its graves, had formed their burial-place. The excavators seemingly unconscious that far below are the had to dig through a layer of tombs, to displace dwellings of a generation much more ancient of the remains of the dead, which they did with course, and forgotten. Mr. Layard modestly congreat care. The tombs were not the hastily-piled tents himself with suggesting the questionssepulchres of a roving tribe-they were regularly What race occupied the country after the destrucformed of bricks carefully joined, but without tion of the Assyrian palaces? At what period mortar; some covered with slabs of alabaster; were these tombs made? What antiquity does others were large earthen sarcophagi covered with their presence assign to the buildings beneath slabs. Parts of a skeleton, and some of the bones, them? One thing seems clear-that they are appeared entire on opening one of the tombs, but neither Persian nor Greek: they belong to an crumbled into dust on the attempt to remove them. anterior period, when there was a close connecIn the first of these tombs were likewise found tion between the inhabitants of this part of Asvases of reddish clay, and beads, and small orna- syria and Egypt. These problems must yet ments belonging to a necklace. Besides, there await their answer, and can only be answered if was a cylinder representing a king in his chariot hunting the wild bull, a copper ornament, two silver bracelets, and a pin for the hair. It seemed that the body must have been that of a female. But they naturally lead to the more simple, yet In other tombs were found vases of green pottery, not less important problem, which is started by copper mirrors, lustral spoons, and various orna- the whole work of Mr. Layard :-What is the The whole of these ornaments were, in result of these singular discoveries? what light their character and form, Egyptian. Five feet be- do they throw on the history of mankind-on the low this cemetery appeared the remains of a build- origin, early development, and progress of human ing-but of a building in ruins. The walls, of civilization? How far has the great empire of unbaked bricks, could still be traced; but the Assyria, from a vast and vague Oriental tradition, slabs which had lined them, covered with bas-re- an imposing and mysterious myth, become a realliefs and inscriptions, had been detached from the ity? How far are we able to fill up its dim and walls, with the manifest intention of removing interrupted annals? The only trustworthy history them to some other place-it should seem of em- of Assyria, up to this time, has been that of its ploying them for some neighboring building. Mr. close from this-of which a proximate date can Layard asserts, and we think on solid grounds, be assigned-we must ascend (in such history the that these slabs were invariably, according to the upward is the only intelligible course) into its practice of Assyrian art, sculptured after they had more cloudy antiquity. We know, as near as posbeen set up. And here, in a space of fifty feet sible, the period at which Nineveh and her sovsquare, cleared by the removal of about twenty ereigns disappeared from the face of the earth. tombs, above one hundred slabs were exposed to Mr. Layard, we think, takes unnecessary pains to view, packed in rows, one against the other, as prove this absolute and total destruction of Nineslabs in a stone-cutter's yard, or as leaves of a veh and the Assyrian cities. It is quite impossigigantic book. Every slab was sculptured; and ble that within the range of history, after the fall as they were placed in a regular series, according of Babylon and the rise of the great Persian monto the subjects upon them, it was evident that they archy, any large capital can have arisen unnoticed, had been moved in the order in which they stood or any powerful sovereigns ruled on the shores of from their original positions against the walls of the Tigris. There can be no reasonable doubt sun-dried bricks, and had been left as found, pre- that all these ruins-those of Khorsabad, Kouparatory to their removal elsewhere. Mr. Layard yunjik, Kalah Shergat, as well as Nimroud, belong had little doubt, therefore, that this central building to the Assyrian Nineveh, of which the fall is dehad been destroyed to supply materials for the scribed as an historic fact, which, if he had not temple or palace at the south-west corner. The witnessed, had made an awful impression on the sculptures closely resembled those actually found mind of man in his day, by the prophet Ezekiel in that edifice; and there also appeared slabs with -Ezekiel who lived on the banks of the Chebar, the reliefs turned towards the walls. He was one of the affluents of the Tigris. The prophet compelled to the strange but unavoidable conclu- cites it as a terrible and notorious admonitory exsion that some considerable time even after this ample to the haughty kings of Egypt (ch. xxxi.) removal, in the acccumulated earth and rubbish, The date of the fall of Nineveh is brought even now stirred again for the first time nineteen cen- to a closer point. In Isaiah it is the Assyrian turies after Christ, was the burial-place of a peo-who is subduing Western Asia. Jeremiah knows