ned from the extreme rapidity of the Mesopotamian rivers, on which
sailing boats are still uncommon. The unfailing strength of rowers was
needed in order to meet and stem the force of the currents; and this
strength being provided in abundance, it was not thought necessary to
husband it or eke it out by the addition of a second motive power.
Again, the boats, being intended only for peaceful purposes, were
unprovided with beaks, another invention well known to the Assyrians,
and frequently introduced into their sculptures in the representations
of Phoenician vessels. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 5.]

In the Assyrian biremes the oars of the lower tier were worked through
holes in the vessel's sides. This arrangement would of course at once
supply a fulcrum and keep the oars in their places. But it is not so
easy to see how the oar of a common row-boat, or the uppermost tier of a
bireme, obtained their purchase on the vessel, and were prevented from
slipping along its side. Assyrian vessels had no rowlocks, and in
general the oars are represented as simply rested without any support on
the upper edge of the bulwark. But this can scarcely have been the real
practice; and one or two representations, where a support is provided,
may be fairly regarded as showing what the practice actually was. In the
figure of a _kufa_, or round boat, already given, it will be seen that
one oar is worked by means of a thong, like the [--] or [--] of the
Greeks, which is attached to a ring in the bulwark. In another
bas-relief, several of the oars of similar boats are represented as kept
in place by means of two pegs fixed into the top of the bulwark and
inclined at an angle to one another. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 6.] Probably
one or other of these two methods of steadying the oar was in reality
adopted in every instance.

With regard to Assyrian commerce, it must at the outset be remarked that
direct notices in ancient writers of any real authority are scanty in
the extreme. The prophet Nahum says indeed, in a broad and general way,
of Nineveh, "Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of
heaven;" and Ezekiel tells us, more particularly, that Assyrian
merchants, along with others, traded with Tyre "in blue clothes, and
broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel." But, except these two,
there seem to be no notices of Assyrian trade in any contemporary or
quasi-contemporary author. Herodotus, writing nearly two hundred years
after the emp