a, it
would seem that they were commonly assigned as wives to the soldiers of
the Assyrian army.

Together with their captives, the Assyrians carried off vast quantities
of the domesticated animals, such as oxen, sheep, goats, horses, asses,
camels, and mules. The numbers mentioned in the Inscriptions are
sometimes almost incredible. Sennacherib, for instance, says that in one
foray he bore off from the tribes on the Euphrates "7200 horses and
mares, 5230 camels, 11,000 mules, 120,000 oxen, and 800,000 sheep"!
Other kings omit particulars, but speak of the captured animals which
they led away as being "too numerous to be counted," or "countless as
the stars of heaven." The Assyrian sculptors are limited by the nature
of their art to comparatively small numbers, but they show us horses,
camels, and mules in the train of a returning army, together with groups
of the other animals, indicative of the vast flocks and herds
continually mentioned in the Inscriptions.

Occasionally the monarchs were not content with bringing home
domesticated animals only, but took the trouble to transport from
distant regions into Assyria wild beasts of various kinds.
Tiglath-Pileser I. informs us in general terms that, besides carrying
off the droves of the horses, cattle, and asses that he obtained from
the subjugated countries, he "took away and drove off the herds of the
wild goats and the ibexes, the wild sheep and the wild cattle;" and
another monarch mentions that in one expedition he carried off from the
middle Euphrates a drove of forty wild cattle, and also a flock of
twenty ostriches. The object seems to have been to stock Assyria with a
variety and an abundance of animals of chase.

The foes of the Assyrians would sometimes, when hard pressed, desert the
dry land, and betake themselves to the marshes, or cross the sea to
islands where they trusted that they might be secure from attack. Not
unfrequently they obtained their object by such a retreat, for the
Assyrians were not a maritime people. Sometimes, however, they were
pursued. The Assyrians would penetrate into the marshes by means of reed
boats, probably not very different from the _terradas_ at present in use
among the Arabs of the Mesopotamian marsh districts. Such boats are
represented upon the bas-reliefs as capable of holding from three to
five armed men. On these the Assyrian foot-soldiers would embark, taking
with them a single boatman to each boat, who propelled the