sought out the strongest and fiercest of the animals, provoked them to the encounter, and engaged with them in hand-to-hand combats.  The spirit of Nimrod, the “mighty hunter before the Lord,” not only animated his own people, but spread on from them to their northern neighbors; and, as far as we can judge by the monuments, prevailed even more in Assyria than in Chaldaea itself.  The favorite objects of chase with the Assyrians seem to have been the lion and the wild bull, both beasts of vast strength and courage, which could not be attacked without great danger to the bold assailant.

No doubt the courage of the Assyrians was tinged with ferocity.  The nation was “a mighty and strong one, which, as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, cast down to the earth with the hand.”  Its capital might well deserve to be called “a bloody city,” or “a city of bloods.”  Few conquering races have been tender-hearted, or much inclined to spare; and undoubtedly carnage, ruin, and desolation followed upon the track of an Assyrian army, and raised feelings of fear and hatred among their adversaries.  But we have no reason to believe that the nation was especially bloodthirsty or unfeeling.  The mutilation of the slain—­not by way of insult, but in proof of their slayer’s prowess was indeed practised among them; but otherwise there is little indication of any barbarous, much less of any really cruel, usages.  The Assyrian listens to the enemy who asks for quarter; he prefers making prisoners to slaying; he is very terrible in the battle and the assault, but afterwards he forgives, and spares.  Of course in some cases he makes exceptions.  When a town has rebelled and been subdued, he impales some of the most guilty [PLATE XXXV., Fig. 1]; and in two or three instances prisoners are represented as led before the king by a rope fastened to a ring which passes through the under lip, while now and then one appears in the act of being flayed with it knife [PLATE XXXV., Fig. 2.] But, generally, captives are either released, or else transferred, without unnecessary suffering, from their own country to some other portion of the empire.  There seems even to be something of real tenderness in the treatment of captured women, who are never manacled, and are often allowed to ride on mules, or in carts. [PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration:  PLATE 35]

[Illustration:  PLATE 36]

The worst feature in the character of the Assyrians was their treachery.  “Woe to thee that spoilest, though thou wast not spoiled, and dealest treacherously, though they dealt not treacherously with thee!” is the denunciation of the evangelical prophet.  And in the same spirit the author of “The Burthen of Nineveh” declares that city to be “full of lies and robbery”—­or, more correctly, full of lying and violence.  Falsehood and treachery are commonly regarded as the vices of the weak, who are driven to defend themselves against