els, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude. And Hezekiah himself I
shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage,
building towers around the city to hem him in, and raising banks of
earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape. * * * * Then upon
this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and he sent
out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem with thirty talents
of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a
rich and immense booty. * * * * All these things were brought to me at
Nineveh, the seat of my government, Hezekiah having sent them by way
of tribute, and as a token of his submission to my power.'

"There can be no doubt that the campaign against the cities of
Palestine, recorded in the inscriptions of Sennacherib in this palace,
is that described in the Old Testament; and it is of great interest,
therefore, to compare the two accounts, which will be found to agree
in the principal incidents mentioned to a very remarkable extent. In
the Second Book of Kings it is said--'Now, in the fourteenth year of
king Hezekiah did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against all
the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. And Hezekiah, king of
Judah, sent to the king of Assyria, to Lachish, saying, I have
offended; return from me; that which thou puttest on me will I bear.
And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah three hundred talents
of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the
silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of
the king's house. At that time did Hezekiah cut off [_the gold from_]
the doors of the temple of the Lord, and [_from_] the pillars which
Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave it to the king of
Assyria.'"

When Mr. Layard revisited Kouyunjik in 1849, there were no vestiges of
the sculptured walls discovered two years previously. The more recent
trenches, however, dug under the superintendence of Mr. Ross, were
still open; and the workmen employed by direction of the British
Museum had run tunnels along the walls within the mound, to save the
trouble of clearing away the soil, which had accumulated to a depth of
thirty feet above the ruins. Under the direction of Layard, the
excavations were resumed with great spirit, and before the lapse of
many weeks, several chambers had been entered, and numerous
bas-reliefs discovered. One hall, 124 feet by 90 feet, appears, says
Layard, "to