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(Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Being the result of a second Expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum. By Austen H. Layard, M.P. London: Murray, 1853.

Layard’s Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series. London: Murray, 1853.)

The veil is gradually falling from one of the sublimest pictures that have been vouchsafed to the inquiring mind of man since he first addressed himself to the investigation of truth in the spirit of daring and heroic importunity. Upon the earth and above it, proofs of the wisdom and power of Omnipotent God, have long been accumulating upon us with a force and swiftness that might well challenge the respect of the sceptic and put to shame the audacious folly of the atheist. It has been left for our own time to deliver up from the very bowels of the earth evidence equally overwhelming and conclusive of the value and truth of those writings in which the doings of God’s chosen people from the earliest times find their only record. It is difficult to speak or write without emotion of the significant and extraordinary discoveries that have been made upon the site of ancient Nineveh. We have read as children of the devastating wars of Sennacherib, and been subjected to the awe arising from the perusal of events occurring at a period of time which it fatigued even the imagination to reach. We have listened, as children still, to the prophetic denunciations of Ezekiel, and trembled as we reflected upon the dismal fate of the gorgeous city he had doomed—once a city, a barren desert now. We have grown older and acquired at school some knowledge of those classic times in which, first Greece, then Italy, stamped the impress of civilisation upon the world, —times so remote as to be themselves buried in antiquity, yet not so near to the still far-off Assyrian epoch as to be conscious of the least remains of its once-surpassing glory. As children, as youths, as men we have thought of Nineveh and Babylon as of the world before the flood, —with interest, —with belief, —with amazement, and with dread; but, knowing nothing of their history beyond the intimations afforded in the Bible, how could we entertain the hope that their hidden story, kept back from the conquerors of the world 2,000 years ago, should be revealed silently, but absolutely, and in all its fulness now? Yet, so it is! What the Geeks knew not we clearly apprehend. Three thousand years have passed over the Assyrian mounds—three thousand years of storm, of passion, of darkness, and of light, and at length the grave gives up its dead. Athens has breathed her beauty upon the world, and expired. Rome has lived to prove the triumph of its institutions and the hollowness of its strength. Yea, the Son of Man has appeared among the nations to teach a heaven-born creed, which, happily for human progress, is taking root in every quarter of the globe. Dynasties have risen and been extinguished. Great countries have dwindled into molehills, and specks of earth have grown into the mightiest empires; and, at the end of all, the crusted earth, beneath which Nineveh has for so many ages been inhumed, cracks, bursts asunder, and reveals, not a miracle, but a petrified verity—the monumental history of its greatness, the imperishable witness of its once incomparable renown, the marble commentary of an inspired text. It is all there! The other day we had but a glimpse of the treasure, —today we discern more; and every hour is adding to the richness and the marvel of the unexpected sight.

The connected history of these Assyrian discoveries is scarcely less interesting than the revelation itself. But for the concurrence of many fortunate incidents, the mounds of Assyria would still have held exclusive possession of their booty; and, but for the combination of a second series of such accidents, the precious acquisitions, even won, would have been worthless for want of an interpreter skilful enough to decipher their meaning. Let the reader accompany us for a moment as we endeavour hastily to trace the current of events which has made us heirs to one of the noblest legacies ever bequeathed to man. Knowledge of the subject, though general, is somewhat indistinct. Men have heard that palaces have been dug up at Nineveh, and they have seen sculptured giants in the halls of the British Museum. But it is time to know more. That we may be prepared for discoveries greater than any that have yet been brought to light—and such disclosures most assuredly await us—it is well for us to have an exact conception of the wealth of which we already stand possessed.

France shares with England in the glory of these acquisitions. The two nations are coheirs in this startling bequest from hoary antiquity. France, never slow to recognise the claims of her citizens upon her gratitude and affection, will know how to apportion the credit that attaches to any of her sons for services rendered on the Assyrian plains. England acknowledges one renowned name in connection with her portion of the gains, and is proud, as well she may be, of her chivalrous Layard. It is easy to see that from no ordinary traveller could such results have been obtained as those which Austen Layard has collected together for our wonder and instruction. Passionate enthusiasm in discovery and research; intense labour and perseverance; a cheerful, patient mind; a strong frame; great knowledge of men, of books, and of Eastern countries and habits; perfect self-command; a resolute will; a modest and conciliating demeanour; the faculty of ruling others as well as of controlling himself, —all these conditions were essential to the success achieved by the young Englishman, and all were possessed in a degree that cannot fail to win our admiration and regard. Mr. Layard was but 22 years of age, when in 1839, after having wandered through Asia Minor and Syria, “scarcely leaving untrod one spot hallowed by tradition, or unvisited one ruin consecrated by history,” he experienced the irresistible desire to penetrate to those regions beyond the Euphrates which for all time to come must be identified with his name. In his first published work he informed us how his wanderings in Asia Minor had been conducted. One adventurous spirit only was his travelling companion. The pair rode unattended; their arms were their sole protection; a valise behind their saddles was their wardrobe; they mixed freely among the people, acquired their language and their habits, and partook gratefully of their hospitality. “No experienced dragoman,” he wrote at the time, “measured our distances and appointed our stations. We were honoured with no conversations by Pashas, nor did we seek any civilities from governors. We neither drew tears nor curses from villagers by seizing their horses or searching their houses for provisions. Their welcome was sincere; their scanty fare was placed before us, we ate, and came, and went in peace.” This early training had an incalculable effect upon the subsequent operations. The influence exercised by Layard over his miscellaneous workmen and among his Arab sheikhs is not that of a powerful stranger, but rather of a beneficent chief, ruling by affection and justice in the midst of his own people. It is without the smallest feeling of surprise that we learn, for instance, how that none but Mussulmans are admitted within the holy precincts of a certain tomb at Nebbi Yunus, though this privileged Englishman has “more than once visited the shrine, with the sanction of his good friend Mullah Sultan, a guardian of the Mosque.” How could it be otherwise, when tribes at deadly war with each other agree to suspend their feuds at his bidding, and afflicted races, persecuted by the Turk and by each other, implored his mediation in the spirit of brotherhood and with confidence unbounded? In tracing the history, therefore, of the Assyrian discoveries, let us never be unmindful of what we owe to the especial character of the discoverer—a guileless man, as he appears from his books, frank in his utterance—with no envy or unworthy jealousies at his heart—plain-spoken and conscientious—learned and laborious—venerating the traditions of the past, yet, by his activity and intelligence, becoming a living embodiment of the advancing spirit of the present.

In the month of April, 1840, Layard first caught sight of the ruins of Nineveh, near the city of Mosul—rude heaps, without form, deposited in a scene as desolate as the remains themselves. He tells us that the huge mounds of Assyria then made a deeper impression upon him, and gave rise to more serious thoughts and more earnest reflection, than the temples of Balbec and the theatres of Ionia. His curiosity was excited, and from that time he formed the design “of thoroughly examining, whenever it might be in his power, these singular remains.” In the summer of 1842, Mr. Layard was in Mosul again. Since his former visit, M. Botta had been appointed French Consul at that place, and had found means to prosecute the work which Layard himself was eager to begin. Opposite to Mosul was the great mound of Konyunjik, and here the enterprising Frenchman had first commenced excavations. But his success on this spot was small. He had obtained but a very few fragments of brick and alabaster, when his attention was called to Khorsabad, a village some five hours distant from Mosul, where he was informed sculptured stones had from time to time been thrown up by natives digging for foundations for new houses. M. Botta quitted Konyunjik upon the intimation, and formed a trench in the mound at Khorsabad. His reward, so to speak, was instantaneous. To his astonishment he found that he had entered a chamber, connected with others, which was “surrounded by slabs of gypsum covered with sculptured representations of battles, sieges, and similar events.” The style of the sculptures was new, and no clue was present to guide him to the history of the men who had placed them there. Moreover, the slabs were accompanied by inscriptions which it was impossible to decipher, for the character was no longer in use among men, and seemed to defy all scholarship. It is true that this character, being cuneiform or arrow-headed, must necessarily have belonged to an age preceding that of Alexander; but, beyond this knowledge, the fortunate discoverer had no power to travel. It was clear at the very first glance that the monuments were the work of a very ancient and a very civilised people. It was not until a later period that it became equally certain that “M. Botta had discovered an Assyrian edifice, the first probably which had been exposed to the view of man since the fall of the Assyrian Empire.” The mighty city of Nineveh could not be far off.

M. Botta communicated his discovery at once to the French Academy of Fine Arts, and the French government, with an enlightened munificence which it knows how to exercise at all times—whether it be the Government of a Republic or an Empire—sent to the Consul sufficient means to proceed with his excavations to the fullest possible extent. M. Botta lost no time. The work went forward, and by the beginning of 1845 the monument of Khorsabad had been to a large extent uncovered. The Consul, laden with fine specimens of Assyrian sculpture, many of them containing the most valuable, though as yet undeciphered inscriptions, returned to his country, a notability of his time.

Mr. Layard was at Constantinople during the progress of this singular labour. Drawings of the monuments came into his hands, and he publicly announced his conviction that the ruined palace brought to light by M. Botta owed its origin to the old Assyrian kings, and belonged to an age preceding the Persian conquest of Assyria. His anxiety to be upon the spot was now intense; for, although M. Botta had lighted upon an Assyrian palace, he was satisfied that Nineveh itself had yet to be discovered; and that the mounds of Nimroud below Mosul, as well as the ruins of Konyunjik, over against it, had treasures to give up, exceeding in interest and value even the important memorials rescued from Khorsabad. Sir Stratford Canning came to the help of the eager Englishman. He liberally advanced Mr. Layard from his own resources, sufficient money to carry on excavations for a limited period, and enabled him, in fact, to do all that he has since accomplished. Thus fortified, Mr. Layard quitted Constantinople in the middle of October, 1845, without acquainting any one with the object of his journey. He “crossed the mountains of Pontus and the great steppes of the Usun Yilak as fast as post-horses could carry him, descended the high lands into the valley of the Tigris, galloped over the vast plains of Assyria, and reached Mosul in 12 days.”

On the 8^th of November, Mr. Layard descended the Tigris, and in five hours reached Nimroud. He proceeded with his excavations in one of the mounds without delay; and, at the close of a day’s work, found himself in possession of a chamber, the sides of which were marked by 10 large slabs, all in good preservation, and all containing cuneiform inscriptions, similar to those on M. Botta’s bas reliefs. A quantity of charcoal and other evidences satisfied the explorer that the building into which he had penetrated had been destroyed by fire. At the end of three days more inscriptions were uncovered, but no sculptures; later, some bas relief sculptures were dug out; then came to light several gigantic figures, a human figure nine feet high, a pair of winged lions without heads, and more arrow-headed writings. Digging went on, and there seemed no end to the treasures. Before the end of March, two works of Assyrian art were unearthed, which threw all former discoveries into the shade—a pair of winged human-headed lions in perfect preservation, and most elaborately carved; “the most minute lines in the details of the wings and in the ornaments had been retained with their original freshness;” and the remains of colour might still be detected in the eyes. For hours, Mr. Layard tells us, he used to contemplate and muse over these mysterious emblems, the works of instructed races who had flourished 3,000 years ago.

“What more noble forms,” he exclaims, “could have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? What more sublime images could have been borrowed from nature by men, who sought, unaided by the light of revealed religion, to borrow their conception of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity of a Supreme Being? They could find no better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of the man; of strength than the body of the lion; of rapidity of motion than the wing of the bird. These winged, human-headed lions were not idle creations, the offspring of mere fancy; their meaning was written upon them.”

The entrance formed by the human-headed lions led into a chamber, round which were sculptured winged figures. Other chambers were dug out, and by degrees Mr. Layard was enabled, not only to collect the long-hidden sculptures of the Assyrian Kings, but also to trace out the form and character of the mighty structure of which they had formed so conspicuous and beautiful a part. He was master of the north-west palace of Nimroud.

The heat of the weather and the state of Mr. Layard’s health compelled him to suspend for a time his operations at Nimroud. He quitted the neighbourhood for the hot season, and proceeded on a visit to the Tiyari Mountains, inhabited by the Nestorian Christians. Before he set out, however, he took care to transmit to England the first results of his labours, and to satisfy himself, to a certain extent, of the relative antiquity of the ruins of Konyunjik. Opening trenches in the great mound of this village he discovered sculptures and inscriptions that convinced him that the most ancient palace of Assyria was the one he had excavated at Nimroud, that Konyunjik and Khorsabad belonged to a more recent epoch, and that in all probability the two latter were contemporary structures.

Upon his return to Mosul in September, Mr. Layard received letters from England informing him that the Government had granted to the British Museum funds for the continuation of the researches commenced at Nimroud, and that he might proceed with his excavations. The grant was miserably small and insufficient, and significantly contrasted with the liberal sum placed by the French authorities at the disposal of M. Botta; but Mr. Layard cheerfully accepted his commission, and determined to go forward. In October he was again at Nimroud. His success was greater than he could have expected from the scantiness of his means. Some admirably executed bas reliefs representing the wars of the King of Assyria were found, and in the centre of the mound was discovered a black marble obelisk about six feet six inches high, having on each side five small bas reliefs, and above, below, and between the sculptures a carved inscription 210 lines in length. The monument was well preserved, the figures were well defined, and the cuneiform inscriptions perfect. In the south-west corner of the mound discoveries scarcely less important were made at the same time. The southern entrance to the palace was formed by a pair of winged lions, and between them were a pair of crouching sphinxes. The sphinxes, when entire, were five feet in length, but it would appear that the fire which had consumed the building had raged severely in this direction, for the whole entrance was buried in charcoal, and the sphinxes were almost reduced to lime. One had been nearly destroyed; but the other, though cracked in a thousand pieces, was still standing when uncovered. Mr. Layard had scarcely time to make a drawing of the riven monument before it fell into useless fragments at his feet. On Christmas day 23 cases more, all filled with Nineveh monuments, and one of them containing the obelisk, floated down the Tigris on their way to the British Museum.

After Christmas Mr. Layard resumed his labours. By the end of April, 1847, he had opened twenty-eight rooms in the north-west palace of Nimroud, which had not been destroyed by fire, and had exhumed a variety of bas reliefs, figures, and ornaments, all affording remarkable evidence of the period to which they belonged. One specimen, consisting of two slabs, forming an entrance to a small chamber, contained the name of the King who built the Khorsabad Palace, and proved the greater antiquity of the building at Nimroud. So long as his money held out the indefatigable explorer went on; but, for want of means, Mr. Layard was at length compelled to desist from further digging at Nimroud. “There were too many tangible objects in view,” he writes in his first publication, “to warrant an outlay in excavations promising no immediate results; and a great part of the mount of Nimroud was left to be explored when the ruins of Assyria should be further examined.” We shall see hereafter, when Mr. Layard returns to his labours at Nimroud, how much he had still left himself to accomplish in these parts.

From Nimroud Mr. Layard proceeded to the mounds of Kalah Shergat, a village on the Tigris, a few miles below Nimroud, and by some travellers supposed to be the Ur of the Chaldees. Here a sitting figure in black basalt was uncovered, of the size of life, but much mutilated; on three sides of the block on which the figure sat were cuneiform inscriptions. The writing was in part defaced, but enough remained to enable him to fix the comparative epoch of the ruins. The same reason that induced Mr. Layard to suspend operations at Nimroud would seem to have influenced him at Kalah Shergat, and he accordingly returned to Mosul after having spent only two days on the spot. Having reached the city he despatched to England, under somewhat exciting circumstances, the largest and most important monuments he had yet secured. Such sculptures as he was unable to forward he restored to their former graves until more favourable circumstances should enable him to add sensibly to the interesting collection.

A small sum of money, however, still remaining in his hands, Mr. Layard resolved, before returning home, to make some inroad into the mound of Konyunjik, into which, it will be remembered, M. Botta had originally dug without waiting long enough to reap the fruit of his attempt. According to Mr. Layard’s theory, Nimroud, Konyunjik, and Khorsabad at one time formed part of the same great city, although each of the palace temples was probably the centre of a separate quarter. In his first work he distinctly states that the city was originally founded on the spot now occupied by the ruins of Nimroud—that the north-west palace was first built, and that successive monarchs added the centre palace and other edifices which rose by its side. As the population increased, and conquered nations were brought to settle round the Assyrian capital, the dimensions of the city increased also. A king, founding a new dynasty, chose a new site for the erection of a palace. The city, gradually spreading at length embraced all these buildings.

“Thus Nimroud represents the original site of Nineveh. At a much later period, subsequent monarchs erected their temple palaces at Khorsabad and Konyunjik. Their descendants returned to Nimroud. The city had now attained the dimensions assigned to it by the Greek geographers and by the sacred writings. The numerous royal residences, surrounded by gardens and parks, and enclosed by fortified walls, each being a distinct quarter known by a different name, formed together the great city of Nineveh.”

A month’s work at Konyunjik was not thrown away. By the end of that time nine chambers were explored (of the same character as those at Khorsabad and Nimroud), the largest of which was 130 feet long and 30 feet wide, and many bas-reliefs were uncovered. “The ruins,” writes the explorer, “were evidently those of a palace of great magnificence. The sculptures portrayed the battles, conquests, and triumphs of the Assyrian King, whom one of the inscriptions pointed out to be the son of the builder of Khorsabad.” By the month of June the sum furnished by the liberality of the British Government was expended, and Mr. Layard brought, for the present, his worthy labours to a close. He covered up the ruins, and the Assyrian palaces were once more hidden from the eye. It was time to return to England, and to urge upon the authorities the necessity of further exploration. The sculptures, attesting to the value of what had already been accomplished, were already on their homeward road. The inscriptions which promised to reveal the history and civilisation of one of the most ancient and illustrious nations of the earth, had been carefully copied. A year before not one Assyrian monument had been known beyond those which had been so fortunately discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad. The time of disinterment had been most opportune. Had the palaces been exposed to view some years previously, Mr. Layard contends that no European could have preserved them from complete destruction. Had they been discovered a little later, he adds, there would have been insurmountable objections to their removal. How can we sufficiently rejoice at having secured in our city the most convincing and lasting evidence of the magnificence and power which made Nineveh the wonder of the ancient world!

On the 24th of June 1847, Mr. Layard quitted Mosul for England. Having reached his own country, he prepared, but did not as yet publish, the memorable work from which we have, in order to bring the whole subject clearly before the reader’s eye, hastily collected the few preceding facts. “After a few month’s residence in England during the year 1848, to recruit,” as he tells us, “a constitution worn by long exposure to the extremes of an Eastern climate,” he received orders to proceed to his post at Her Majesty’s Embassy in Turkey. It was after his departure for the East that his admirable book was given to the world. It was welcomed as it deserved to be, and noticed in these columns at the time. Among its other effects was a request from the British Museum to Mr. Layard, to undertake the superintendence of a second expedition into Assyria. That gentleman responded cheerfully to the summons. On the 28th of August, 1849, he left the Bosphorus by an English steamer bound for Trebizonde. On the 28th of April, 1851, he again bade farewell to Nineveh. What he had accomplished in the meanwhile is contained in the charming and most instructive volumes, the titles of which we have given. We shall proceed to dwell with more minuteness upon their contents than we have thought it necessary to extend to the earlier production. During the first expedition Mr. Layard, so to speak, laboured in the dark, as a student busy with the mere alphabet of his science, or as a clerk patiently and humbly transcribing rare documents which he was not as yet privileged to decipher. He has derived knowledge and experience from his pursuit, and every fresh discovery has given him new confidence and additional strength. He is now a man where he was formerly a child—a free master, where he was once the laborious apprentice. The other day he had enough to do to collect and arrange his scanty materials; at this hour he generalises upon the accumulated results of his work, and proudly points to the connected and marvellous history he has built up from the broken but splendid fragments conveyed by his industry and zeal from the mounds of Assyria to the Museum of our own London city.

Before we trace, however, the latest discoveries of this intelligent man, it is due to another name, as well as to Mr. Layard and our readers, to advert briefly to other discoveries no less extraordinary and interesting than those with which we are immediately concerned, and of which, indeed, they form a most important feature. We have spoken of inscriptions found on the bas-reliefs. These inscriptions, written in characters no longer in use among men, and utterly unintelligible to the common eye, are freely rendered in Mr. Layard’s volumes, and are made to interpret events and to indicate facts of the most momentous kind. But for such rendering, all the excavations must have been to no purpose, and the sculptured monuments would have been worthless as the dust from which they have been torn. By what splendid accidents, then, has it happened that illumination has been thrown into heaps, and that art, interred for 3,000 years, becomes, when brought to light, in an instant as familiar to us all as though it were but the dainty work of yesterday? How comes it that these arrow-headed, or, as they are more generally styled, cuneiform characters, which bear no analogy whatever to modern writing of any kind, and which have been lost to the world since the Macedonian conquest, are read by our countrymen with a facility that commands astonishment and a correctness that admits of no dispute? The history is very plain, but certainly as remarkable as it is simple. Fifty years ago the key that has finally opened the treasure-house was picked up, unawares, by Professor Grotefend, of Gottingen. In the year 1802 this scholar took it into his head to decipher some inscriptions which were, and still are, to be found on the walls of Persepolis, in Persia. These inscriptions, written in three different languages, are all in the cuneiform (or wedge-like) character, and were addressed, as it now appears, to the three distinct races acknowledging in the time of Darius the Persian sway—viz., to the Persians proper, to the Scythians, and to the Assyrians. It is worthy of remark, that although the cuneiform character is extinct, the practice of addressing these races in the language peculiar to each still prevails on the spot. The modern Governor of Bagdad, when he issues his edicts, must, like the great Persian King, note down his behests in three distinct forms of language, or the Persian, the Turk, and the Arab who submit to his rule will find it difficult to possess themselves of his wishes. When Grotefend first saw the three kinds of inscription he concluded the first to be Persian, and proceeded to his task with this conviction. He had not studied the writing long before he discerned that all the word of all the inscriptions were separated from each other by a wedge, placed diagonally at the beginning or end of each word. With this slight knowledge for his guide, he went on a little further. He next observed that in the Persian inscription one word occurred three or four times over, with a slight terminal difference. This word he concluded to be a title. Further investigation and comparison of words induced him to guess that the inscription recorded a genealogy. The assumption was a happy one. But to whom did the titles belong? With no clue whatever to help him, how should he decide? By an examination of all the authorities, ancient and modern, he satisfied himself at least of the dynasty that had founded Persepolis, and then he tried all the names of the dynasty in succession, in the hope that some would fit. He was not disappointed. The names were Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes. Although the actual pronunciation of these names had to be discovered, yet by the aid of the Zend (the language of the ancient Persians) and of the Greek the true method of spelling was so nearly arrived at that no doubt of the accuracy of the guess could reasonably be entertained. The achievement had been worth the pains, for twelve characters of the Persian cuneiform inscription were now well secured. Twenty-eight characters remained to be deciphered before the inscriptions could be mastered. Grotefend here rested.

The next step was taken by M. Bournouf, a scholar intimately acquainted with the Zend language. In 1836 he added considerably to the Persian cuneiform alphabet by reading 24 names on one of the inscriptions at Persepolis; but a more rapid stride was made subsequently by Professor Lassen, of Bonn, who, between the years 1836 and 1844, to use the words of Mr. Ferguson, the learned and ingenious restorer of the palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, “all but completed the task of alphabetical discovery.”

While progress was thus making in Europe, Colonel Rawlinson, stationed at Kermanshah, in Persia, and ignorant of what had already been done in the west, was arriving at similar results by a process of his own. He too had begun to read the Persian cuneiform character on two inscriptions at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana. This was in 1835. In 1837 he had been able to decipher the most extensive Persian cuneiform inscription in the world. On the high road from Babylonia to the East stands the celebrated rock of Behistun. It is almost perpendicular, and rises abruptly to the height of 1,700 feet. A portion of the rock, about 300 feet from the plain, and still very perfect, is sculptured, and contains inscriptions in the three languages already spoken of. The sculpture represents King Darius and the vanquished chiefs before him—the inscriptions detail the victories obtained over the latter by the Persian monarch. This monument, at least 2,350 years old, deciphered for the first time by Major Rawlinson, gave to that distinguished Orientalist more than 80 proper names to deal with. It enabled him to form an alphabet. Between the Major and Professor Lassen no communication whatever had taken place, yet when their alphabets were compared they were found to differ only in one single character. The proof of the value of their discoveries was perfect.

Thus far the Persian cuneiform character! To decipher it was to take the first essential step towards reading the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls at Nineveh. But for the Persepolis walls, the Behistun rock, and Colonel Rawlinson, it would have been a physical impossibility to decipher one line of the Assyrian remains. In the Persian text only 40 distinct characters had to be arrived at; and when once they were ascertained the light afforded by the Zend, the Greek, and other aids rendered translation not only possible but certain to the patient and laborious student. The Assyrian alphabet, on the other hand, has no fewer than 150 letters; many of the characters are ideographs or hieroglyphics representing a thing by a non-phonetic sign, and no collateral aids whatever exist to help the student to their interpretation. The reader will at once apprehend, however, that the moment the Persian cuneiform character on the Behistun rock was overcome, it must have been a comparatively easy task for the conqueror to break the mystery of the Assyrian cuneiform inscription, which, following the Persian writing on the rock, only repeated the same short history. Darius, who carved the monument in order to impress his victories upon his Assyrian subjects, was compelled to place before their eye the cuneiform character which they alone could comprehend. The Assyrian characters on the rock are the same as those on the bas-reliefs in the Assyrian palaces. Rawlinson, who first read the Persian inscriptions at Behistun, and then by their aid made out the adjacent Assyrian inscriptions, has handed over to Layard the first fruits of his fortunate and splendid discovery, and enabled him for himself to ascertain and fix the value of the treasures he has so unexpectedly rescued from annihilation. As yet, as may readily be imagined, the knowledge of the Assyrian writing is not perfect; but the discovery has already survived its infancy. Another year or two of scholastic investigation, another practical visit to the ancient mounds, and the decipherment will be complete! Fortunate Englishmen! Enviable day-labourers in the noblest vocation that can engage the immortal faculties of man! What glory shall surpass that of the enterprising, painstaking, and heroic men who shall have restored to us, after the lapse of thousands of years, the history and the actual stony presence of the world-renowned Nineveh, and enabled us to read with our own eyes, as if it were our mother tongue, the language suspended on the lips of men for ages, though written to record events in which the prophets of Almighty God took a living interest! —London Times.

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