When the supply of lions fell short, or when he was satiated with this kind of sport.  Asshur-bani-pal would vary his occupation, and content himself with game of an inferior description.  Wild bulls were probably no longer found in Assyria or the adjacent countries, so that he was precluded from the sport which, next to the chase of the lion occupied and delighted the earlier monarchs.  He could indulge, however, freely in the chase of the wild ass still to this day a habitant of the Mesopotamian region; and he would hunt the stag, the hind, and the ibex or wild goat.  In these tamer kinds of sport he seems, however, to have indulged only occasionally—­as a light relaxation scarcely worthy of a great king.

Asshur-bani-pal is the only one of the Assyrian monarchs to whom we can ascribe a real taste for learning and literature.  The other kings were content to leave behind them some records of the events of their reigns, inscribed on cylinders, slabs, bulls, or lions, and a few dedicatory inscriptions, addresses to the gods whom they especially worshipped.  Asshur-bani-pal’s literary tastes were far more varied—­indeed they were all-embracing.  It seems to have been under his direction that the vast collection of clay tablets—­a sort of Royal Library—­was made at Nineveh, from which the British Museum has derived perhaps the most valuable of its treasures.  Comparative vocabularies, lists of deities and their epithets, chronological lists of kings and eponyms, records of astronomical observations, grammars, histories, scientific works of various kinds, seems to have been composed in the reign, and probably at the bidding of this prince, who devoted to their preservation certain chambers in the palace of his grandfather, where they were found by Mr. Layard.  The clay tablets on which they were inscribed lay here in such multitudes in some instances entire, but more commonly broken into fragments—­that they filled the chambers to the height of a foot or more from the floor.  Mr. Layard observes with justice that “the documents thus discovered at Nineveh probably exceed [in amount of writing] all that has yet been afforded by the monuments of Egypt.”  They have yielded of late years some most interesting results, and will probably long continue to be a mine of almost inexhaustible wealth to the cuneiform scholar.

As a builder, Asshur-bani-pal aspired to rival, if not even to excel, the greatest of the monarchs who had preceded him.  His palace was built on the mound of Koyunjik, within a few hundred yards of the magnificent erection of his grandfather, with which he was evidently not afraid to challenge comparison.  It was built on a plan unlike any adopted by former kings.  The main building consisted of three arms branching from at common centre, and thus in its general shape resembled a gigantic T. The central point was reached by a long ascending gallery lined with sculptures, which led from a gateway, with rooms attached, at a