[Illustration: =Winged Human-Headed Lion. (N. W. Palace, Nimroud.)=]
“Behind the lions was another chamber.[6] I uncovered about fifty feet of its northern wall. On each slab was carved the winged figure with the horned cap, fir cone, and square vessel or basket. They were in pairs facing one another, and divided by an emblematic tree, similar to that on the corner-stone in chamber B. All these bas-reliefs were inferior in execution, and finish, to those previously discovered.”
The following extract shows the great variety of objects which present themselves among the buried ruins of Nimroud, and the large scale on which the Assyrian works of art were projected and executed.
“The change to summer had been as rapid as that which ushered in the spring. The verdure of the plain had perished almost in a day. Hot winds, coming from the desert, had burnt up and carried away the shrubs; flights of locusts, darkening the air, had destroyed a few patches of cultivation, and had completed the havoc commenced by the heat of the sun. The Abou-Salman Arabs, having struck their black tents, were now living in ozailis, or sheds, constructed of reeds and grass along the banks of the river. The Shemutti and Jehesh had returned to their villages, and the plain presented the same naked and desolate aspect that it wore in the month of November. The heat, however, was now almost intolerable. Violent whirlwinds occasionally swept over the face of the country. They could be seen as they advanced from the desert, carrying along with them clouds of sand and dust. Almost utter darkness prevailed during their passage, which lasted generally about an hour, and nothing could resist their fury. On returning home one afternoon after a tempest of this kind, I found no traces of my dwellings; they had been completely carried away. Ponderous wooden frameworks had been borne over the bank, and hurled some hundred yards distant; the tents had disappeared, and my furniture was scattered over the plain. When on the mound, my only secure place of refuge was beneath the fallen lion, where I could defy the fury of the whirlwind; the Arabs ceased from their work and crouched in the trenches, almost suffocated and blinded by the dense cloud of fine dust and sand which nothing could exclude.[7]