it was, would be ground between two stones, according to the universal Oriental practice even at the present day.  It would then he moistened with water, kneaded in a dish or bowl, and either rolled into thin cakes, or pressed by the hand into smalls balls or loaves.  Bread and cakes made in this way still form the chief food of the Arabs of these parts, who retain the habits of antiquity.  Wheaten bread is generally eaten by preference; but the poorer sort are compelled to be content with the coarse millet or durra flour, which is made into cakes, and then eaten with milk, butter, oil, or the fat of animals.

Dates, the principal support of the inhabitants of Chaldaea, or Babylonia, both in ancient and in modern times, were no doubt also an article of food in Assyria, though scarcely to any great extent.  The date-palm does not bear well above the alluvium, and such fruit as it produces in the upper country is very little esteemed.  Olives were certainly cultivated under the Empire, and the oil extracted from them was in great request.  Honey was abundant, and wine plentiful.  Sennacherib called his land “a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey;” and the products here enumerated were probably those which formed the chief sustenance of the bulk of the people.

Meat, which is never eaten to any great extent in the East was probably beyond the means of most persons.  Soldiers, however, upon an expedition were able to obtain this dainty at the expense of others; and accordingly we find that on such occasions they freely indulged in it.  We see them, after their victories, killing and cutting up sheep and. oxen, and then roasting the joints, which are not unlike our own, on the embers of a wood-fires [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 2.] In the representations of entrenched camps we are shown the mode in which animals were prepared for the royal dinner.  They were placed upon their backs on a high table, with their heads hanging over its edge; one man held them steady in this position, while another, taking hold of the neck, cut the throat a little below the chin.  The blood dripped into a bowl or basin placed beneath the head on the ground. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 3.] The animal was then no doubt, paunched, after which it was placed either whole, or in joints—­in a huge pot or caldron, and, a fire being lighted underneath, it was boiled to such a point as suited the taste of the king. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 5.] While the boiling progressed, some portions were perhaps fried on the fire below. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 5.] Mutton appears to have been the favorite meat in the camp.  At the court there would be a supply of venison, antelope’s flesh, hares, partridges, and other game, varied perhaps occasionally with such delicacies as the flesh of the wild ox and the onager.

Fish must have been an article of food in Assyria, or the monuments would not have presented us; with so many instances of fishermen.  Locusts were also eaten, and were accounted a delicacy, as is proved by their occurrence among the choice dainties of a banquet, which the royal attendants are represented in one bas-relief as bringing into the palace of the king.  Fruits, as was natural in so hot a climate, were highly prized; among those of most repute were pomegranates, grapes, citrons, and, apparently, pineapples. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 4.]