Of the great ruins of cities existing within this narrow district, which are those of Nineveh ? Since the recent explorations commenced, some authorities have said that the true position of ancient Nineveh was at Nimrud (Calah); M. Botta declares it was at Khorsabad; Professor Rawlinson denies that it was anywhere but at Ninua, opposite Mosul; while Mr. Layard and others hold that ancient Nineveh included all of those cities, and also Keremles.

Local tradition and ancient writers unite in placing Nineveh on the tract opposite Mosul. Nearly all of them state that it was built on the banks of the Tigris, but Strabo says merely that it was situated in the middle of Aturia, the angular district enclosed by the Zab and the Tigris. Immediately opposite Mosul, on the east bank of the Tigris, are some huge mounds of ruins, one of which is still called by the Arabs, Nebbi Yunus, or the 'Tomb of Jonah;' here also are the remains of great palaces, including that of Sennacherib; and, if we understand Mr. Rawlinson aright, the name 'Ninua' is found stamped on the bricks. Here then, despite the claims of Nimrud and Khorsabad, we should unhesitatingly place the site of ancient Nineveh, were it not for the disparity between the size of the ruined city opposite Mosul and that universally ascribed to ancient Nineveh. The ruins opposite Mosul show a city barely three miles long, with an average breadth of one mile; which is a mere fraction of the magnitude ascribed to Nineveh by ancient writers. It is undoubted that the walls of Babylon were more than forty miles in circumference, and a still greater extent was ascribed to the Assyrian capital. Diodorus (probably following Ctesias, who visited Mesopotamia while Babylon was still standing) says that the city of Nineveh formed an oblong, about eighteen miles long by twelve miles in breadth. And the writer of the book of Jonah, who lived while Nineveh was at the height of its greatness, says that it was 'an exceeding great city, of three days' journey,' i.e., sixty miles. Now, if this 'three days' journey' be meant to apply to the circuit of the city, which is the most probable meaning, then the circumference ascribed to the city by Diodorus, and by the Book of Jonah, is the same. On the other hand, the Nineveh' of Mr. Rawlinson has a circuit of only eight miles: it is only big enough to be a corner of the ancient Nineveh. Mr. Layard adopted the theory that the ruins of Koyunjik (Ninua), Khorsabad, Nimrud, and Keremles were integral parts of the ancient Nineveh-citadels, and royal quarters, forming the angles of the oblong described by Diodorus. Professor Rawlinson scouts this idea, and points out two objections to it: firstly, that no trace of a wall surrounding this vast space is discernible; and secondly, that the four

cities, so far as is known, were fortified equally on all sides, which would not have been the case had two sides fronted the inside of the town. Ninua, he especially points out, had her most elaborate defences on her south-east front, which, if the four cities had been joined by a wall, would necessarily have been free from attack until the assailants had got into the capital. It seems sufficiently certain that the four cities were not enclosed by a fortified wall; but to our mind this does not settle the question. It is a good argument against the theory as maintained by Mr. Layard, but it does not touch the theory in the form which we are inclined to support.

It is unquestionable that the four cities, or royal quarters,' of Ninua, Khorsabad, Calah, and Keremles, occupy the angles of such an oblong as Diodorus describes, i.e., of which the longer sides were eighteen miles, and the shorter sides twelve miles, giving a circumference of sixty miles, exactly as the Book of Jonah does. Diodorus and the author of the Book of Jonah are as mutually independent authorities as can be imagined; neither borrowed from the other, neither did they acquire their knowledge or information from the same source. Their testimony also is express, and identical; and there is no statement of any other ancient writer which contradicts it. In such circumstances it is absurd to maintain that ancient Nineveh is represented by the small circuit of ruins opposite Mosul. Instead of having a circumference of sixty miles, and consequently an area of more than two hundred square miles, these ruins are only eight miles in circumference and three square miles in area. Mark off such an area upon the map of London, and see how small it is. A line drawn westwards from King's-Cross to where the Marylebone Road joins the Edgeware Road; thence south by the Marble Arch and Park Lane to Piccadilly; then eastward through the Green Park, along Pall Mall, the Strand, and Fleet Street; then northward up Farringdon Street, Holborn, and Gray's Inn Lane, to King's-Cross: this is the whole area which Professor Rawlinson assigns to an exceeding great city, three day's journey,' according to the Book of Jonah, and which Diodorus, in like manner, affirms to have been sixty miles in circumference. Moreover, in Eastern cities, population is much more sparse than in ours. In populous Oriental towns, the average of inhabitants is less than 100 to an acre, which estimate would give to Mr. Rawlinson's Nineveh only 170,000 inhabitants; whereas the Book of Jonah states that the young children in the city-persons not able to distinguish their right hand from their left,'-amounted to 120,000, indicating a total population of at least 600,000.

The difficulties of the question may be narrowed to these.

Against Mr. Layard's theory it is to be noted that, so far as our present knowledge goes, the proofs negative the supposition that Nimrud, Keremles, Khorsabad, and Koyunjik ever formed integral parts of one fortified city. And as regards Professor Rawlinson's theory, we hold it to be impossible that a walled circuit, containing an area of only three square miles, can be accepted as the representative of the Nineveh which was sixty miles in circumference. What, then, is to be said? The most probable solution of the difficulty appears to us to be this: that theNineveh' of Diodorus and the Book of Jonah applies not to any single walled town, but to the cluster of cities which in succession, and in part simultaneously, were the capitals or royal seats of Assyria. These four cities stood close together; and there is reason to believe that the intervening space was occupied by lesser towns and villages, some of them (like the ruins at Salemiyeh), of considerable size. In such conditions, it is quite conceivable that to strangers' the name of 'Nineveh' should be applied to this metropolitan district-to this cluster of royal cities which rose like separate citadels, protecting and forming the angles of the great oblong within which lay a number of villages or buildings spreading along the main roads. For an illustration, though not a very perfect one, let us take the case of London. Hammersmith and Kensington, Highgate and Brixton, are, or at least were, separate towns, and yet are parts of London; and if they had been built in times of war and spoliation, doubtless each of them would have been surrounded by a wall, just as 'the City' was. And had these walls been maintained, what would be the aspect of London? It would be a cluster of walled towns, with intervening spaces partially occupied by houses, and also by the parks and residences of the princes and nobility. In like manner, the oblong space included and protected by the royal cities of Assyria was doubtless occupied to a considerable extent by buildings, and by the 'paradises' or great parks of the Kings and the leading nobles. A stranger would certainly say that London was twelve miles long and nine broad, extending from Hammersmith to Blackwall, and from Highgate to Brixton: and this is a perfectly correct description; nevertheless, when Macaulay's New Zealander comes and searches our records, he will find that we always speak of Hammersmith, Highgate, Brixton, etc., as if they were distinct places. Hence, Professor Rawlinson's argument that the four royal cities could never have been included as parts of 'Nineveh,' because each has a name of

1 As the Greek writers regard Ninus as the founder of the Assyrian empire, 'Nineveh' to them would mean simply the capital of the kingdom founded by Ninus. The name would be used somewhat in a generic sense.

its own, is worthless. Certain we are that his attempt to represent the ruins opposite Mosul as the city described by Diodorus and the Book of Jonah, will have to be abandoned; and, although our own view is not free from obvious objections, still, it seems to us the best, indeed the only feasible one, which in the present state of the inquiry can be formed.

The defences of these royal cities were of the most formidable description; consisting of vast castellated walls, protected by broad and deep moats, and also covered on the points most open to attack by outlying works of defence. This at least was the case of the city now represented by the mounds of Koyunjik and Nebbi Yunus, Professor Rawlinson's 'Nineveh,' which unquestionably was the chief city of the group. Xenophon, who beheld it in ruins, reckoned that the walls were 150 feet high; and Mr. Layard states that it is evident from the state of the ruins at the present day that the walls were 100 feet high, the height which Diodorus ascribes to those of the Assyrian capital. Their breadth, according to the estimate of Xenophon, was 50 feet, and judging from the existing ruins, it could not have been less. At the gates the breadth seems to have been upwards of 100 feet. The only gateway fully excavated shows a breadth of about 120 feet, the outer gate being apparently protected by two inner gates, between each of which there were on either side large chambers in the wall, places d'armes, in which a body of soldiers could be posted. These gateways were not open spaces reaching to the top of the wall, but were arched over; and above them, rising above the summit of the wall, were lofty towers from whence missiles could be hurled against the attacking force. Other towers, probably of lesser size, were erected at intervals along the whole circuit of the defences. These immense walls were constructed of sundried bricks, faced externally with stone blocks to the height of fifty feet. In truth, they would constitute as formidable a defence, even against artillery, as any that are to be found at the present day. The mud walls of Bhurtpore and Mooltan for long defied alike our artillery and our mining operations; yet, if we mistake not, the breadth of these walls was not one-third of those of Nineveh, and their height was equally inferior. On the side of the Tigris, the walls were unassailable; on the narrow southern front, the city was protected by a deep ravine and water-course; and on the two other fronts, which may be roughly called the eastern and the northern, the walls were covered along the whole extent by a broad moat or canal. The stream of the Khosr, which flowed against the middle front of the eastern wall, and which now, following its natural course, runs through the middle of the city to the Tigris, was obstructed

in its coursee-was turned to the right and left by artificial means, and made to flow in a broad and deep moat or canal along the base of the whole eastern and northern walls; while, by means of dams or flood-gates at its points of outfall, the inhabitants were able to raise the water in these canals to the full level. In addition to these defences, important outworks were erected on the eastern front of the city, the side most open to attack. Along the upper (northern) half of this front, the curving stream of the Khosr flows like a great wet-ditch about a mile from the walls, and within this space there are the ruins of a large outwork. On the under (or southern) half of this front, where no less than three roads converge upon the city, the outer defences are still stronger, consisting first of a lunette, formed of two walls with a moat between them, covering the portions of the front through which the three roads pass; and secondly, about half a mile from the city-wall, another outwork of a similar kind, covering the whole eastern front from the bed of the Khosr down to the deep ravine, which protects the city on. the south.

These defences, which would be extremely formidable even in the present day, were inexpugnable by any skill or force which the ancient world possessed. Neither the rude Scythian hosts nor the combined forces of the Medes and Babylonians (the latter of which peoples was well skilled in siege operations), made any impression upon the strong defences of Nineveh, which fell at last only before a mighty inundation of the river Tigris. But even when a besieging force had penetrated into the city, it would have encountered other defences of no small strength. The royal palaces were so constructed that they could be turned into citadels. They stood upon vast platforms, built of sun-dried bricks faced on all sides with solid stone, rising from sixty to eighty or more feet above the level of the plain. The platforms rose as high as the front of Charing Cross or Westminster Palace Hotels, and were a hundred times larger in extent. They were built in rectangular oblongs along the side of the river, alike for the purposes of defence and for the cool air from the river, and the wide unobstructed view of the surrounding country which such a position afforded. To give roughly an idea of the extent of the larger of these palaceplatforms, we may say: draw a line from the Thames at the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament to the Westminster Palace Hotel, from thence across the Horse-Guards and Trafalgar Square to St. Martin's Church, and thence back to the Thames along the eastern front of the Charing Cross Hotel: and imagine that the whole of this vast area was occupied by a platform rising perpendicularly in one unbroken front to the