“I was returning to the mound, when I saw two Arabs urging their mares to the top of their speed.  ‘Hasten, O Bey,’ exclaimed one of them, ’hasten to the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself.  By Allah! it is wonderful, but it is true!  We have seen him with our eyes!  There is no God but God!’ And both joining in this pious exclamation, they galloped back to the tent.”

Layard hastened to the trench, and there saw what he knew to be the head of a gigantic lion or bull, such as Botta had uncovered at Khorsabad.  It was in admirable preservation.  The expression was calm, yet majestic, and the outline of the features showed a freedom and knowledge of art that was scarcely to be looked for at so early a period.  Says the explorer:—­

“I was not surprised that the Arabs had been amazed and terrified at this apparition.  It required no stretch of imagination to conjure up the most strange fancies.  This gigantic head, blanched with age, thus rising from the bowels of the earth, might well have belonged to one of those fearful beings which are pictured in the traditions of the country as appearing to mortals, slowly ascending from the regions below.  ’This is not the work of men’s hands,’ exclaimed Sheikh Abdurrahman, who had galloped to the mound on the first news, ’but of those infidel giants of whom the Prophet, peace be with him! has said that they were higher than the tallest date-tree; this is one of the idols which Noah, peace be with him! cursed before the flood!’ In this opinion all the bystanders concurred.”

The Arabs have a ready explanation for every fresh discovery.  When some years later Mr. Layard’s assistant and successor in the work of excavation, Mr. Rassam, uncovered, at Abu-habba, a remarkable bas-relief with the figure of the seated Sun-god and three approaching worshippers, the Arab diggers rushed to him, declaring that they had found Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and demanded a sheep to make a feast.

The report of the wonderful discovery of a royal palace, evidently older than those of Nineveh, with magnificent decorations in alabaster and cuneiform inscriptions, reached beyond Mosul to Constantinople.  Sir Stratford Canning was delighted with the result of his expedition.  He had a passion for discovery as well as diplomacy, and it is to him that the British Museum is indebted for the priceless marbles of Halicarnassus.  He now obtained for Mr. Layard a firman, permitting him to make what excavations he wished.  Then the news reached London, and the British Museum made a grant to support the work.  All difficulties were now removed.  Conditions were even more favorable for him than they are now.  There was then no Imperial Museum in Constantinople to which all objects found must be taken, but those that dug had the right to carry off their prizes to London or Paris.