The palace of Esar-haddon at Calah was built at the south-western corner of the Nimrud mound, abutting towards the west on the Tigris, and towards the south on the valley formed by the Shor-Derreh torrent.  It faced northwards, and was entered on this side from the open space of the platform, through a portal guarded by two winged bulls of the ordinary character.  The visitor on entering found himself in a large court, 280 feet by 100, bounded on the north side by a mere wall, but on the other three sides surrounded by buildings.  The main building was opposite to him, and was entered from the court by two portals, one directly facing the great northern gate of the court, and the other a little to the left hand, the former guarded by colossal bulls, the latter merely reveted with slabs.  These portals both led into the same room—­the room already described in an earlier page of this work—­which was designed on the most magnificent scale of all the Assyrian apartments, but was so broken up through the inability of the architect to roof in a wide space without abundant support, that, practically, it formed rather a suite of four moderate-sized chambers than a single grand hall.  The plan of this apartment will be seen by referring to [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Viewed as a single apartment, the room was 165 feet in length by 62 feet in width, and thus contained an area of 10,230 square feet, a space nearly half as large again as that covered by the greatest of the halls of Sennacherib, which was 7200 feet.  Viewed as a suite of chambers, the rooms may be described as two long and narrow halls running parallel to one another, and communicating by a grand doorway in the middle, with two smaller chambers placed at the two ends, running at right angles to the principal ones.  The small chambers were 62 feet long, and respectively 19 feet and 23 feet wide; the larger ones were 110 feet long, with a width respectively of 20 feet and 28 feet.  The inner of the two long parallel chambers communicated by a grand doorway, guarded by sphinxes and colossal lions, either with a small court or with a large chamber extending to the southern edge of the mound; and the two end rooms communicated with smaller apartments in the same direction.  The buildings to the right and left of the great court seem to have been entirely separate from those at its southern end:  to the left they were wholly unexamined; on the right some explorations were conducted which gave the usual result of several long narrow apartments, with perhaps one or two passages.  The extent of the palace westward, southward, and eastward is uncertain:  eastward it was unexplored; southward and westward the mound had been eaten into by the Tigris and the Shor-Derreh torrent.