nnacherib, who, seven centuries before our era, besieged Jerusalem
and invaded Judea; and Shalmanasaar, who carried away the ten tribes
of Israel. Later, the sovereignty of the Assyrian nation was
transferred to Babylon by Nebuchadonosor; and afterwards the Medes and
Babylonians laid the magnificent Nineveh in ruins, over which, many
centuries afterwards, Herodotus wandered wonderingly, and endeavoured
to glean from the pitiful wreck an idea of the bygone glory. The
centre of the ancient Assyrian empire was the present Turkish province
of Mosul; and hereabouts the researches of travellers have therefore
been concentrated. Opposite Mosul, the capital of the province, are
the two mounds which Mr. Rich hastily explored in 1820. These mounds
have long formed the subject of animated controversies; but it was not
before the year 1842 that any serious attempt was made to penetrate
beneath the grass that covered them. In this year M. Botta, the French
consul at Mosul, made some insignificant opening, but without
discovering any remarkable remains; and rumours having reached him
from Khorsabad, a few miles off, of some remains there, he caused some
vigorous excavations to be made there, and, aided by his government,
contrived to lodge an excellent collection of Assyrian sculptures in
the Louvre. About this time Mr. Layard was travelling through the
Turkish Asiatic provinces; and in the course of his wanderings paid
considerable attention to the mounds situated at Nimroud and near
Mosul. Convinced that under these hillocks lay precious relics of
antiquity, he procured an official letter to the Pasha of Mosul, and
in 1845 repaired to Nimroud, and hired Arabs to make excavations in
the mounds there. Even the first day's search disclosed valuable slabs
ornamented with bas-reliefs and inscriptions in the cuneiform
character, of the remotest antiquity, dating so far back as nineteen
centuries before our era, and conjectured to be part of the ruins of
the chief palace of Nimroud, destroyed about twelve centuries before
our era. If so, this point was the original centre of the great city
of Nineveh--that part said to have been built by Asshur; while the
surrounding mounds of Mosul, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik, cover ruins of
a later date. Of Mr. Layard's discoveries in Assyria, that room, which
the visitor should now enter (called the NIMROUD ROOM), is full. The
room, as the visitor will at once perceive, is divided into eleven
compartments