ly conveyed to
Nineveh, to be used in his public buildings.

The tenth campaign of Asshur-izir-pai, and the last which is recorded,
was in the region of the Upper Tigris. The geographical details here are
difficult to follow. We can only say that, as usual, the Assyrian
monarch claims to have over-powered all resistance, to have defeated
armies, burnt cities, and carried off vast numbers of prisoners. The
"royal city" of the monarch chiefly attacked was Amidi, now Diarbekr,
which sufficiently marks the main locality of the expedition.

While engaged in these important wars, which were all included within
his first six years, Asshur-izir-pal, like his great predecessor,
Tiglath-Pileser, occasionally so far unbent as to indulge in the
recreation of hunting. He interrupts the account of his military
achievements to record, for the benefit of posterity, that on one
occasion he slew fifty large wild bulls on the left bank of the
Euphrates, and captured eight of the same animals; while, on another, he
killed twenty ostriches (?), and took captive the same number. We may
conclude, from the example of Tiglath-Pileser, and from other
inscriptions of Asshur-izir-pal himself, that the captured animals were
convoyed to Assyria either as curiosities, or, more probably, as objects
of chase. Asshur-izir-pal's sculptures show that the pursuit of the wild
bull was one of his favorite occupations; and as the animals were scarce
in Assyria, he may have found it expedient to import them.

Asshur-izir-pal appears, however, to have possessed a menagerie park in
the neighborhood of Nineveh, in which were maintained a variety of
strange and curious animals. Animals called _paguts_ or
_pagats_--perhaps elephants--were received as tribute from the
Phoenicians during his reign, on at least one occasion, and placed in
this enclosure, where (he tells us) they throve and bred. So well was
his taste for such curiosities known, that even neighboring sovereigns
sought to gratify it; and the king of Egypt, a Pharaoh probably of the
twenty-second dynasty, sent him a present of strange animals when he was
in Southern Syria, as a compliment likely to be appreciated. This love
of the chase, which he no doubt indulged to some extent at home, found
in Syria, and in the country on the Upper Tigris, its amplest and most
varied exercise. In an obelisk inscription, designed especially to
commemorate a great hunting expedition into these regions, he tells us
th