e of the latter either
in or outside his chariot. Two or three led horses were always at hand,
to furnish a means of escape in any difficulty. The army, marshalled in
its several corps, in part preceded the royal _cortege_, in part
followed at a little distance behind it.

On entering the enemy's country, if a wooded tract presented itself, the
corps of pioneers was thrown out in advance, and cleared away the
obstructions. When a river was reached too deep to be forded, the horses
were detached from the royal and other chariots by grooms and
attendants; the chariots themselves were embarked upon boats and rowed
across the stream; while the horses, attached by ropes to a post near
the stern of the boat, swam after it. The horses of the cavalry were
similarly drawn across by their riders. The troops, both cavalry and
infantry, and the attendants, a very numerous body, swam the stream,
generally upon inflated skins, which they placed under them, holding the
neck in their left hand, and sometimes increasing the inflation as they
went by applying the orifice at the top of the neck to their mouths.
[PLATE CVIII., Fig. 3.] We have no direct evidence as to the mode in
which the baggage of an army, which must have been very considerable,
was conveyed, either along the general line of route, or when it was
necessary to cross a river. We may conjecture that in the latter case it
was probably placed upon rafts supported on inflated skins, such as
those which conveyed stones from distant quarries to be used in the
Assyrian buildings. In the former, we may perhaps assume that the
conveyance was chiefly by beasts of burden, camels and asses, as the
author of the book of Judith imagined. Carts may have been used to some
extent; since they were certainly employed to convey back to Assyria the
spoil of the conquered nations.

[Illustration: PLATE 109]

It does not appear whether the army generally was provided with tents or
not. Possibly the bulk of the soldiers may have bivouacked in the open
field, unless when they were able to obtain shelter in towns or villages
taken from the enemy. Tents, however, were certainly provided for the
monarch and his suite. [PLATE CIX., Fig. 1.] Like the tents of the
Romans, these appear to have been commonly pitched within a fortified
enclosure, which was of an oval shape. They were disposed in rows, and
were all nearly similar in construction and form, the royal tent being
perhaps distinguished from