The Assyrians made use of bronze bells with iron tongues, and, to render the sound of these more pleasing, they increased the proportion of the tin to the copper, raising it front ten to fourteen per cent.  The bells were always of small size, never (so far as appears) exceeding three inches and a quarter in height and two inches and a quarter in diameter.  It is uncertain whether they were used, as modern bells, to summon attendants, or only attached, as we see them on the sculptures, to the collars and headstalls of horses.

Some houses, but probably not very many, had gardens attached to them.  The Assyrian taste in gardening was like that of the French.  Trees of a similar character, or tall trees alternating with short ones, were planted in straight rows at an equal distance from one another, while straight paths and walks, meeting each other at right angles, traversed the grounds.  Water was abundantly supplied by means of canals drawn off from a neighboring river, or was brought by an aqueduct from a distance.  A national taste of a peculiar kind, artificial and extravagant to a degree, caused the Assyrians to add to the cultivation of the natural ground the monstrous invention of “Hanging Gardens:”  an invention introduced into Babylonia at a comparatively late date, but known in Assyria as early as the time of Sennacherib.  A “hanging garden” was sometimes combined with an aqueduct, the banks of the stream which the aqueduct bore being planted with trees of different kinds.  At other times it occupied the roof of a building, probably raised for the purpose, and was supported upon a number of pillars. [PLATE CXXXIX., Fig. 5.]

The employments of the Assyrians, which receive some illustration from the monuments, are, besides war and hunting—­subjects already discussed at length—­chiefly building, boating, and agriculture.  Of agricultural laborers, there occur two or three only, introduced by the artists into a slab of Sennacherib’s which represents the transport of a winged bull.  They are dressed in the ordinary short tunic and belt, and are employed in drawing water from a river by the help of hand-swipes for the purpose of irrigating their lands.  Boatmen are far more common.  They are seen employed in the conveyance of masses of stone, and of other materials for building, ferrying men and horses across a river, guiding their boat while a fisherman plies his craft from it, assisting soldiers to pursue the enemy, and the like.  They wear the short tunic and belt, and sometimes have their hair encircled with a fillet.  Of laborers, employed in work connected with building, the examples are numerous.  In the long series of slabs representing the construction of some of Sennacherib’s great works, although the bulk of those employed as laborers appear to be foreign captives, there are a certain number of the duties—­duties less purely mechanical than the others which are devolved on Assyrians.  Assyrians load the hand-carts,