in the course of progress. The mist is being rolled away; fresh points of interest are ever coming into view; and it is not improbable that, in a few years our acquaintance with the Assyrian empire will be as full as hitherto it has been defective. The inscriptions upon which Colonel Rawlinson, Dr. Hincks and others, are laboriously employed, are of surprising value. They are, in fact, historical records full of particular and minute information. The sculptures and paintings, too, are of the greatest importance in reference to Assyrian history, because they afford abundant pictorial illustrations of the whole life of this wonderful people, from the sovereign down to the slave. Names and dates, the exact order and relation of events, may still puzzle the student; but broad glimpses of what the nation was -how the people ate and drank and dressed, built and hunted, fought and worshipped, and did a thousand things in the everyday acts of human life-these we have as clear as noon-light.

It is not our intention, in this elementary sketch, either to lead our readers into the bewildering mazes of chronological controversy, or to pass over in silence the wonderful stories derived from Ctesias-the only authority, as we have before remarked, who affords any fulness of information respecting the history of Nineveh and the Assyrians. We are extremely cautious when we come in the way of learned myth-theorists—men who resolve into pure fable—into mere imagination—almost all the glowing stories of the olden time. We never can believe that these are entirely fabrications—that from beginning to end they are no better than dreams. Such inventions would be unaccountable, and no satisfactory reason could be assigned for men's general belief in them. We are, of course, perfectly satisfied that very much of them must be exaggeration; nor are we able to distinguish correctly, at present, between the true and the false; but still we believe that there is a real historical element blended with the mass of fables; and in the case of Nineveh, possibly, some day, such new light may be obtained from the discoveries going on, as may give the critical historian the power of separating what is authentic from what is spurious. In the mean time, the best course to be pursued, perhaps, is to set down ancient tradition as we find it; giving, along with it, the distinct caution that it must not be altogether received as genuine history.

Ctesias was a Greek physician; and being taken prisoner in

the rebellion of the younger Cyrus against his brother, was kept in captivity at the Persian court for seventeen years, where he enjoyed the favour of Artaxerxes Mnemon, in consequence of the surgical skill he had displayed in healing a dangerous wound which that monarch had received. It was in Persia that he collected the information respecting the Assyrians which has been handed down to us from him, and therefore it has this historical value at least, that it shows the notions of Assyria and of its early state entertained by the people who established their own power upon its ruins. Moreover, it indicates the ideas on the subject which possessed the minds of some of the Greeks.

I.

Here, then, followeth the old story of Ctesias, concerning Nineveh and its kings.

Once on a time, in very distant ages, there was a king called Ninus, who ruled over the Assyrians, and was a man of great power, courage, and ambition. He was at the same time very wise and prudent, and carefully trained up the young men in his dominion to the use of arms, and to the practice of all warlike exercises. Finding the Arabians to be a powerful people, he cultivated their friendship, and entered into alliance with Ariæus their prince. Uniting their forces together, these two warriors marched into Babylonia; but at that time the great city of Babylon was not built, though there were many towns in existence with numerous inhabitants. These, however, not being well fortified, easily fell a prey to Ninus and Ariæus, and the two invaders conquered the country, and exacted tribute of the people; they also led away captive the king and his family, and afterwards put them to death. Next they went to war with Armenia, whose king, Barzanes, they forced to wait upon them with costly gifts, and allowed him to remain on his throne only upon condition of being the vassal of Ninus. Media was then subdued; and, according to an almost invariable rule, the thirst of conquest increasing the more it was gratified, the insatiable monarch set his heart upon being master of the whole of Asia. Very many, accordingly, were his successful campaigns, extending from the Tigris to the Hellespont, and from the Nile to the Caspian sea. The Bactrians were the only people who successfully resisted this mighty hero; and they were indebted

for their temporary safety to the formidable nature of their mountain fastnesses.

Ninus, having sent away the king of Arabia, began to build for himself, on the banks of the Euphrates (so Ctesias says by an odd mistake, instead of the Tigris), a great city, with high walls and very lofty towers; the former 100 feet, the latter 200 feet in height, and altogether 1500 in number. The city measured 74 miles in circumference; and so broad were the fortifications, that it is said, three chariots could drive along them abreast. The builder called the city Nineveh, after his own name; and after its completion he returned to war with the troublesome Bactrians, whom, in spite of their mountain strongholds, he was determined to subjugate.

Now, in connection with this enterprise, there occurred a remarkable event. Among the officers of Ninus, engaged in it, was one who had married a woman of extraordinary beauty and wisdom, called Semiramis. Her birth, it was alleged, was more than mortal, for she was supposed to have sprung from a goddess, and to have been miraculously nourished in her infancy by a flock of doves. She had come to Nineveh, where she had smitten the heart of Menon; and now that his services were required against the Bactrians, he had brought his charming and heroic wife along with him to the camp. There had been wondrous preparations made for reducing the capital of Bactria. Soldiers and chariots without end had been brought before it, but still the place held out against the invaders. Semiramis watched what was going on in the Assyrian army, and also detected certain points in the Bactrian fortifications which the soldiers had negligently left defenceless; and being a very brave and intrepid woman, she induced certain of the Assyrian troops to follow her up the sides of the rock on which the city stood, by which piece of strategy she managed to take possession of the citadel. When this became known to king Ninus, he, of course, was curious to see so marvellous a woman, and she was accordingly introduced into his presence. As might have been anticipated, the monarch fell in love with this brave beauty; poor Menon hung himself in despair; and the monarch speedily married the widow. It was thus that Semiramis became queen of Nineveh. Ninus died soon after his marriage with her, and left her the occupant of his throne. Semiramis was as ambitious as her royal husband; and, as he had built a very great city,

she determined, in order not to be outdone, to build another; and hence, under her direction, rose the mighty Babylon. Many other magnificent works she likewise accomplished, and among the rest a road called Semiramis' way. She spent much time in visiting her dominions, and even travelled into Egypt, where she was told by the oracle in the temple of Jupiter Ammon, that she would vanish from among men, and be honored and worshipped by some of the Asiatics, whenever her son Ninyas -whom she had borne to Ninus-should plot against her life.

We learn from Armenian history, that the present town of Wan, in Armenia, which is built upon the plateau of a large precipitous rock on the borders of a beautiful lake, occupies the site of an ancient city, embracing a royal palace of great magnificence, founded by Semiramis, and, after her, originally named Schamiramjerd. Here, in the delicious gardens which she had planted in the fertile plain contiguous to the city, and which she had watered with a thousand rills, she often sought refuge from the intolerable sultriness of a Mesopotamian summer, returning again, on the approach of winter, to her palace at Nineveh.

Ambitious of rivalling her husband's conquests, as she had been of emulating his architectural achievements, she led a great army into India, after having made vast preparations in the way of soldiers, stores, warlike engines, and bridges, wherewith to cross the rivers; but one thing she had not, which she knew was abundantly possessed in the country whose martial power she was about to encounter, and that was, a supply of elephants. So, in lieu of the real animals, she set to work and had sham ones made. Three hundred thousand great black oxen were killed, and the skins being joined, were put over camels, and so stuffed as to look as big and burly as elephants. All this was cunningly done within an enclosure, so that nobody should see it who would be likely to divulge the imposition to the Indian king. Stabrobates, for such was his name, prepared to receive the terrible heroine; he added to the number of his elephants, and at the same time sent messengers to reproach her for her conduct, and to declare that if she fell into his hands he would certainly crucify her. But she persevered, nothing daunted by his threats, and fought the Indians in a bloody battle on the banks of the Indus, where she completely vanquished them and took a multitude of prisoners. The king