enoed much difficulty in dragging the cart over the plain to the river side. Three days were spent in transporting each lion. The men of Naifa and Nimroud again came to our help, and the AbouSalman horsemen, with Sheikh Abd-ur-rahman at their head, encouraged us by their presence. The unwieldy mass was propelled from behind by enormous levers of poplar wood; and in the costumes of those who worked, as well as in the means adopted to move the colossal sculptures, except that we used a wheeled cart instead of a sledge, the procession closely resembled that which in days of yore transported the same great figures, and which we see so graphically represented on the walls of Kouyunjik. As they had been brought, so were they taken away. It was necessary to humour and excite the Arabs, to induce them to persevere in the arduous work of dragging the cart through the deep soft soil into which it continually sank. At one time, after many vain efforts to move the buried wheels, it was unanimously declared that Mr Cooper, the artist, brought ill luck, and no one would work until he retired. The cumbrous machine crept onwards for a few more yards, but again all exertions were fruitless. Then the Frank lady would bring good fortune if she sat on the sculpture. The wheels rolled heavily along, but were soon clogged once more in the yielding soil. An evil eye surely lurked among the workmen or the bystanders. Search was quickly made, and one having been detected upon whom this curse had alighted, he was ignominiously driven away,

with shouts and execrations.

This impediment

having been removed, the cart drew nearer to the village, but soon again came to a stand-still. All the sheikhs were now summarily degraded from their rank and honours, and a weak ragged boy having been dressed up in tawdry kerchiefs, and invested with a cloak, was pronounced by Hormuzd to be the only fit chief for such puny men. The cart moved forwards, until the ropes gave way, under the new excitement caused by this reflection upon the character of the Arabs. When that had subsided, and the presence of the youthful sheikh no longer encouraged his subjects, he was as summarily deposed as he had been elected, and a greybeard of ninety was raised to the dignity in his stead. He had his turn; then the most unpopular of the sheikhs were compelled to lie down on the ground, that the groaning wheels might pass over them, like the car of Juggernaut over its votaries. With yells, shrieks, and wild antics, the cart was drawn within a few inches of the prostrate men. As a last resource I seized a rope myself, and with shouts of defiance between the different tribes, who were divided into separate parties, and pulled against each other, and amidst the deafening tahlel of the women, the lion was at length fairly brought to the water's edge."

But the removal was not yet accomplished. While rafts were being made, down came the Tigris in a flood of unusual force, as if the "angry spirit of the waters" protested against the desecrative proceed

ing of the explorators. Even when once fairly rafted, the lions sustained both peril and injury; but they were at last got to the open main, and are now in the great National Museum of Britain.

Yet the excavations of Nineveh only tend after all to extend the dominion of historical mystery. An impenetrable obscurity surrounds the lives of kings, who were connected with the greatest revolutions and political changes in Asia. The same obscurity hangs over the three greatest characters in Assyrian history, and therefore it would be fruitless to attempt to frame a narrative of minor events from materials hitherto accessible. Still there are events to be revealed, and although history may have failed to chronicle the deeds of a nation which maintained its sway over the largest portion of the civilised world, and the traditions in which their memory was preserved may have perished before history could catch their dying whisper, the records of the people themselves remain; and, thanks to Sir Stratford Canning and Mr Layard, are now before us, and from them we may hope that learned investigators may yet be enabled to supply a blank in the world's history.

TYRE.

IF we allow ourselves to get into the habit of thinking only of what we have seen with our own eyes, and know from our own personal observation, we are sure to have but very contracted and imperfect notions of men, of things, and of the world. Few things are better calculated to enlarge our conceptions of man and his capabilities, than a survey of what he has been and what he has done, as exemplified in the history of some of the renowned cities of antiquity.

Bordering on the north-west of Palestine, along the shores of the Mediterranean, there lay a district of country named Phoenicia-its greatest length, from south to north, being about one hundred and fifty miles, and its greatest breadth, from west to east, about thirty miles. At the present time Beirut is the chief town of Phoenicia; but in the earliest period of its history of which we have any account, Sidon was the chief city. Homer frequently refers to the skill of the Sidonians. Thus the Queen of Troy, intending to offer a mantle to Pallas—

"Herself the while her chamber, ever sweet

With burning odours, sought. There stored she kept
Her mantles of all hues-accomplish'd works

Of fair Sidonians, wafted o'er the deep
By godlike Paris, when the galleys brought
The high-born Helen to the shores of Troy.
From these, the widest and of brightest dyes
She chose for Pallas; radiant as a star
It glitter'd, and was lowest placed of all."

Achilles, at the funereal games for Patroclus, proposes as the prize for the best runner

"A silver goblet of six measures; earth

Own'd not its like for elegance of form.
Skilful Sidonian artists had around
Embellish'd it; and o'er the sable deep
Phoenician merchants into Lemnos' port
Had borne it, and the boon to Thaos given."

Elsewhere a story is told replete with indications of the character and pursuits of the Sidonians. At the island of Syria

"It chanced that from Phoenicia, famed for skill

In arts marine, a vessel thither came,

By sharpers mann'd, and laden deep with toys." The sailors met on the beach with a woman belonging to the family of the chief of the island. She

was

"A fair Phoenician, tall, full-sized, and skill'd

In works of elegance."

And on being questioned, she tells her country

men

"I am of Sidon, famous for her wealth,

By dyeing earn'd."

No very long time, however, had elapsed before Sidon was thrown into the shade by Tyre. The first inhabitants of Tyre were probably a colony from Sidon. Hence, in Scripture it is called the "Daughter of Sidon." Its situation was, in every respect, favourable to its prosperity. It was on the confines of Palestine; and, as a part of the Mediterranean shore, favourable to every description of navigation. Tyre was, at first, exclusively a continental city. Opposite it, and about half a mile from the shore, there was a small island about two

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