ally, however, they were obliged to follow their prey into
places where horses could not easily penetrate; then a hand-to-hand
conflict was inevitable. The lion would rise on its hind quarters and
endeavour to lay its pursuer low with a stroke of its mighty paw, but
only to fall pierced to the heart by his lance or sword.

[Illustration: 179.jpg LION TRANSFIXED BY AN ARROW]

Drawn by Boudier, from a bas-relief in the British Museum.

This kind of encounter demanded great presence of mind and steadiness of
hand; the Assyrians were, therefore, trained to it from their youth
up, and no hunter was permitted to engage in these terrible encounters
without long preliminary practice. Seeing the lion as they did so
frequently, and at such close quarters, they came to know it quite as
well as the Egyptians, and their sculptors reproduce it with a realism
and technical skill which have been rarely equalled in modern times.
But while the Theban artist generally represents it in an attitude of
repose, the Assyrians prefer to show it in violent action in all the
various attitudes which it assumes during a struggle, either crouching
as it prepares to spring, or fully extended in the act of leaping;
sometimes it rears into an upright position, with arched back, gaping
jaws, and claws protruded, ready to bite or strike its foe; at others
it writhes under a spear-thrust, or rolls over and over in its dying
agonies. In one instance, an arrow has pierced the skull of a male lion,
crashing through the frontal bone a little above the left eyebrow, and
protrudes obliquely to the right between his teeth: under the shock of
the blow he has risen on his hind legs, with contorted spine, and beats
the air with his fore paws, his head thrown back as though to free
himself of the fatal shaft. Not far from him the lioness lies stretched
out upon its back in the rigidity of death.

[Illustration: 180.jpg PAINTINGS OF CHAIRS]

The "rimu," or urus, was, perhaps, even a more formidable animal to
encounter than any of the _felido_, owing to the irresistible fury of
his attack. No one would dare, except in a case of dire necessity, to
meet him on foot. The loose flowing robes which the king and the nobles
never put aside--not even in such perilous pastimes as these--were ill
fitted for the quick movements required to avoid the attack of such an
animal, and those who were unlucky enough to quit their chariot ran a
terrible risk of being gored or tr