t be regarded as inferior to her Asiatic rival--which
was indeed "a cedar in Lebanon, exalted above all the trees of the
field--fair in greatness and in the length of his branches--so that all
the trees that were in the garden of God envied him, and not one was
like unto him in his beauty."

CHAPTER IV.

THE CAPITAL.

"Fuit et Ninus, imposita Tigri, ad solis occasum spectans, quondam
clarissima."--PLIN. H. N. vi. 13.

The site of the great capital of Assyria had generally been regarded as
fixed with sufficient certainty to the tract immediately opposite Mosul,
alike by local tradition and by the statements of ancient writers, when
the discovery by modern travellers of architectural remains of great
magnificence at some considerable distance from this position, threw a
doubt upon the generally received belief, and made the true situation of
the ancient Nineveh once more a matter of controversy. When the noble
sculptures and vast palaces of Nimrud were first uncovered, it was
natural to suppose that they marked the real site; for it seemed
unlikely that any mere provincial city should have been adorned by a
long series of monarchs with buildings at once on so grand a scale and
so richly ornamented. A passage of Strabo, and another of Ptolemy, were
thought to lend confirmation to this theory, which placed the Assyrian
capital nearly at the junction of the Upper Zab with the Tigris; and for
awhile the old opinion was displaced, and the name of Nineveh was
attached very generally in this country to the ruins at Nimrud.

Shortly afterwards a rival claimant started up in the regions further to
the north. Excavations carried on at the village of Khorsabad showed
that a magnificent palace and a considerable town had existed in
Assyrian times at that site. In spite of the obvious objection that the
Khorsabad ruins lay at the distance of fifteen miles from the Tigris,
which according to every writer of weight anciently washed the walls of
Nineveh, it was assumed by the excavator that the discovery of the
capital had been reserved for himself, and the splendid work
representing the Khorsabad bas-reliefs and inscriptions, which was
published in France under the title of "Monument de Ninive," caused the
reception of M. Botta's theory in many parts of the Continent.

After awhile an attempt was made to reconcile the rival claims by a
theory, the grandeur of which gained it acceptance, despite its
improbability. It was sug