city," Nahum iii. 1-A fierce lion, Jer. 1. 17-Excesses of The country exhausted Tobit foretells the approaching ruin-Secondary causes of the catastrophe-Nineveh besieged by the allied Medes and Babylonians-Foretold by Nahum, iii. 14-Overflow of the Tigris-Predicted, Nahum ii. 7- Fire-Charred wood found by M. Botta and Dr. Layard-The city taken and destroyed The tomb-Epitaph and funereal pall of Nineveh-Conclusion-These discoveries afford informa- tion connected with the history of the human race-Teach the insufficiency of knowledge alone to elevate mankind— NINEVEH: ITS RISE AND RUIN. LECTURE I. THE FOUNDATION OF NINEVEH, AND THE EARLIER NOTICES OF THE OLD ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. "Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days?" Isaiah xxiii. 7. BETWEEN the head of the Persian Gulf and the mountains of Armenia in Western Asia, there stretches a wide-spreading region, which Xenophon described as a plain throughout, and as even as the sea. If, indeed, the traveller look far away to the north, he will behold little else than a mass of mountains, with their snowy Alpine ridge hanging as in mid-air, like a cloud of burnished silver; but if he look around him, he will see a vast extent of level land, covered with sandy or stony deposits, or, as in the lower parts, with an alluvial soil, which innumerable mountain streams and two mighty rivers have, from the earliest times, washed down. B in their course. The higher districts are adorned with forest trees-the pine, the oak, the sycamore; whilst the lower tracts are covered with the olive, the date, and the mulberry; with corn and vine, wheat, rice, and maize; with the cotton-plant and the sugar-cane-in fact, with an abundance which has been compared with the fertility of Egypt." The plains are clothed with the most luxuriant pasturage, and form one vast meadow, enamelled with innumerable flowers of the brightest colours, and dotted here and there with the white flocks and black tents of the wandering sons of Ishmael. Such is the aspect of this region in the spring of the year, when it is made lovely and fruitful by the waters of the twin rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which, taking their rise in the mountains of Armenia, flow, as we have said, southward to the Persian Gulf; the former towards the west, and the latter towards the east. The level country which lies between these rivers was known to the early Hebrews by the name of Aram Naharaim, or Syria between the two rivers; the a The Assyrian commander, Rab-shakeh, justly described it as "a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive, and of honey," 2 Kings xviii. 32. "The same tract also bore the name of Padan-aram, (Gen. xxviii. 2,) or Champagne Syria, both of which designations agree with the description given of the country by Strabo."-Chesney's Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i. p. 118. Greeks called it Mesopotamia, a word of the same import, and by which it is still known amongst ourselves. There Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, was born and brought up, and at that early period, full two thousand years before the birth of our Lord, cities had been built, and idols worshipped by its inhabitants. Joshua, the valiant leader of the tribes of Israel, told them in his last address-"Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan," Joshua xxiv. 2, 3. Assyria Proper was not, however, included within these bounds, but lay on the further or eastern side of the Tigris, which divides it from Mesopotamia, and holds on its course through a deep alluvial soil on either bank. The physical characteristics of Assyria, therefore, are the same as those of Mesopotamia, flat and fen-like, till a ridge of hills is reached many miles from the river. Beautiful as these regions look in the vernal season, yet, when the heat of the summer has scorched the plains, their aspect is most dreary and desolate. The gloom is deepened by lofty mounds, that are scattered over the face of the country, but especially along the eastern bank of the Tigris. When stripped of the luxuriant herbage which covered them, they have a broken and ruinated appearance, which fills the mind of the traveller with awe and sadness. "In such a country as this," said the late Mr. Rich, "it is not easy to say what are ruins and what are not; what is art, converted by the lapse of ages into a semblance of nature, and what is merely nature, broken by the hand of time into ruins, approaching in their appearance to those of art."a "These colossal piles," says another traveller, "are found domineering over the dreary waste, to the uniformity of which they offer a striking contrast, being visible at great distances; and, although thrown by the mirage into strange and contorted shapes, yet they always appear, when seen upon the verge of the horizon, as if possessing colossal dimensions, and produce an effect in point of grandeur and magnificence which cannot be imagined in any other situation." Further, that enlightened scholar, to whose spirit of enterprise the learned world is so much indebted for the most curious and important discoveries in these regions-I mean Dr. Layard-says, "The traveller is at a loss to give any form to the rude " Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, vol. ii. p. 57. Ainsworth's Researches in Assyria, pp. 125, 126. |