From the passage in question—­one of the few in the edifice—­no doorway opened out either on the right hand or on the left.  The visitor necessarily proceeded along its whole extent, as he saw the figures proceeding in sculptures, and, passing through a second portal, found himself in the great inner court of the palace, a square of about 100 or 160 feet, enclosed on two sides—­the south-east and the south-west-by buildings, on the other two sides reaching to the edge of the terrace, which here gave upon, the open country.  The buildings on the south-eastside, looking towards the north-west, and and joining the gateway by which the had entered, were of comparatively minor importance.  They consisted of a few chambers suitable for officers of the court, and were approached from the court by two doorways, one on either side of the passage through which he had come.  To his left, looking towards the north-east, were the great state apartments, the principal part of the palace, forming a facade, of which some idea may perhaps be formed from the representation. [PLATE XLVI.] The upper part of this representation is indeed purely conjectural; and when we come to consider the mode in which the Assyrian palaces were roofed and lighted, we shall perhaps find reason to regard it as not very near the truth; but the lower part, up to the top of the sculptures, the court itself, and the various accessories, are correctly given, and furnish the only perspective view of this part of the palace which has been as yet published.

[Illustration:  PLATE 46]

The great state apartments consisted of a suite of ten rooms.  Five of these were halls of large dimensions; one was a long and somewhat narrow chamber, and the remaining four were square or slightly oblong apartments of minor consequence.  All of them were lined throughout with sculpture.  The most important seem to have been three halls en-suite (VIII., V., and II. in the plan), which are, both in their external and internal decorations, by far the most splendid of the whole palace.  The first lay just within the north-east facade, and ran parallel to it.  It was entered by three doorways, the central one ornamented externally. with two colossal bulls of the largest size, one on either side within the entrance, and with two pairs of smaller bulls, back to back, on the projecting pylons; the side ones guarded by winged genii, human or hawk-headed.  The length of the chamber was 116 feet 6 inches, and its breadth 33 feet.  Its sculptures represented the monarch receiving prisoners, and either personally or by deputy punishing them:  [PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.] We may call it, for distinction’s sake, “the Hall of Punishment.”