Part 18 (2/2)

The women hide in the innermost recesses to save themselves from insult; the ainst the seizure of their property When, at last, we had satisfied the tre people of Zerin that ere not Mussul Aious reasons, alth they made out that I was the Balios[174] of Mosul, and the Melek arriving at this crisis, ere received with due hospitality Our baggage was carried to the roof of a house, and provisions were brought to us without delay

Although, during his expedition into Tiyari, Beder Khan Bey had seized the flocks of the people of Jelu, and had coe contributions in money and in kind, he had not been able to enter their deep and well-guarded valleys

The Nestorians of Jelu have no trade to add to their wealth Many of thethe winter into Asia Minor, and even into Syria and Palestine, following the trade of basket-, in which they are very expert; but their travels, and their intercourse with the rest of the Christian world have not improved their morals, their habits, or their faith

The district of Jelu is under a bishop whose spiritual jurisdiction also extends over Baz He resides at Martha d'Ue froh orchards, by a precipitous pathway, to his dwelling The bishop ay He had gone lower down the valley to celebrate divine service for a distant congregation The inhabitants of the village were gathered round the church in their holiday attire, and received us kindly and hospitably From a belfry issued the silvery tones of a bell, which echoed through the valley, and gave an inexpressible charm to the scene It is not often that such sounds break upon the traveller's ear in the far East, to awaken a thousand pleasant thoughts, and to recall to memory many a happy hour

This church is said to be the oldest in the Nestorian , with a very s been the only one that had escaped the ravages of the Kurds, and as containing therefore its ancient furniture and ornaments Both the church and the dark vestibule were so thickly hung with relics of thewas co the undoubted antiquity of the church and its escape from plunder, I searched in vain for ancient e of Nara, where the bishop was resting after hisman of lofty stature and handsoaruished by a turban of black silk froure could scarcely be ih he seeave us his benediction as he drew near

It was difficult to determine whom the poor bishop feared most, the Turks or the American missionaries; the first, he declared, threatened his teave hied him not to reject the offer that had been ress on which eneration of his creed and race Unfortunately, as in the case of Mar Shae influences had been at work to prejudice the mind of the bishop

We were now in the track I had followed duringthe precipitous pass to the west of Baz, which, since my first visit, had been the scene of one of the bloodiest episodes of the Nestorianinto the valley of Tkhoma We stopped at Gunduktha, where, four years before, I had taken leave of the good priest Bodaka, who had been ast the first victims of the fury of the Kurdish invaders The Kasha, who now ministered to the spiritual wants of the people, the Rais of the village, and the principal inhabitants, came to us as we stopped in the churchyard But they were no longer the gaily dressed and well-ararard and wan The church, too, was in ruins; around were the charred reroeeds A body of Turkish troops had lately visited the village, and had destroyed the little that had been restored since the Kurdish invasion The same taxes had been collected three times, and even four times, over The relations of those who had ran away to escape froitives The chief had been throith his ar straw, and compelled to disclose where a little ers had been buried The priest had been torn froation Men showed me the marks of torture on their body, and of iron fetters round their li a few piastres from this poverty-stricken people, all these deeds of violence had been committed by officers sent by the Porte to protect the Christian subjects of the Sultan, whom they pretended to have released froes described in the account of my previous journey were now a heap of ruins From four of them alone 770 persons had been slain

Beder Khan Bey had driven off, according to the returns made by the Meleks, 24,000 sheep, 300 mules, and 10,000 head of cattle; and the confederate chiefs had each taken a proportionate share of the property of the Christians No flocks were left by which they ht raise money ith to pay the taxes now levied upon them, and even the beasts of burden, which could have carried to the markets of more wealthy districts the produce of their valley, had been taken away[176]

We reht in Tkhoma to see the Meleks who ca the valley, we crossed the high h Pinianish into Chaal, a district inhabited by Mussules of the Kurdish chiefs It presented, with its still flourishi+ng villages surrounded by gardens and vineyards, a vivid contrast to the unfortunate Christian valley we had just left

A rapid descent through a rocky gorge brought us to the Zab, over which there were still the reether by osier bands placed across the stone piers It almost required the steady foot and practised head of astream by this perilous structure The horses and mules ith much trouble and delay driven into the river, and after buffeting with the whirlpools and eddies reached, almost exhausted, the opposite bank

We now entered the valley of Berwari, and, crossing the pass of Ah a country I had alreadythe caravan and our jaded horses, I hastened onwards with Horht reached Mosul in the afternoon of the 30th of August, after an absence of seven weeks

CHAPTER XX

DISCOVERIES AT KOUYUNJIK DURING THE SUMMER--DESCRIPTION OF THE SCULPTURES--CAPTURE OF CITIES ON A GREAT RIVER--POMP OF assYRIAN KING--ALABASTER PAVEMENT--CONQUEST OF TRIBES INHABITING A MARSH--THEIR WEALTH--CHAMBERS WITH SCULPTURES BELONGING TO A NEW KING--DESCRIPTION OF THE SCULPTURES--CONQUEST OF THE PEOPLE OF SUSIANA--PORTRAIT OF THE KING--HIS GUARDS AND ATTENDANTS--THE CITY OF SHUSHAN--CAPTIVE PRINCE--MUSICIANS--CAPTIVES PUT TO THE TORTURE--ARTISTIC CHARACTER OF THE SCULPTURES--AN INCLINED PassAGE--TWO SMALL CHAMBERS--COLOSSAL FIGURES--MORE SCULPTURES

Whilst I had been absent in the mountains the excavations had been continued at Kouyunjik, notwithstanding the su at Niress had consequently beenthe earth from them Several chambers, discovered before I left Mosul, had been e sculptures had been explored

It has been seen that the narrow passage leading out of the south-west corner of the great hall containing the bas-reliefs representing the ed bulls turned to the left, and by another gallery connected this part of the edifice with a second hall of even larger proportions than that first discovered

The sculptures panelling the western ere for the n and a victory, and were probably but a portion of one continuous subject carried round the entire hall The conquered country appeared to have been traversed by a great river, the representation of which took up a third of the bas-relief

Next ca on the opposite bank of the saed with lofty reeds

The assyrian footmen and cavalry had already crossed this dike, and were closely pressing the besieged, who, no longer seeking to defend the for quarter On the other side of the river, Sennacherib in his gorgeous war chariot, and surrounded by his guards, received the captives and the spoil It is re which had not been wantonly mutilated, probably by those who overthrew the assyrian empire, burned its palaces, and levelled its cities with the dust[177]

In this bas-relief the furniture of the horses was particularly rich and elaborate Above the yoke rose a se the ie of a deity The chariot of the assyrian monarch, his retinue, and his attire, accurately corresponded with the descriptions given by Xenophon of those of Cyrus, when he marched out of his palace in procession, and by Quintus Curtius of those of Darius, when he went to battle in the eneral had seen the pos, and could describe it as an eye-witness[178]

The description of Quintus Curtius is no less illustrative of the assyrian monuments ”The doryphori (a chosen body of spearmen) preceded the chariot, on either side of which were the effigies of the Gods in gold and silver The yoke was inlaid with the rarest jewels _Froures of Ninus and Belus_, each a cubit in length The king was distinguished fronificence of his robes, and by the cidaris or mitre upon his head By his side walked two hundred of his relations Ten thousand warriors bearing spears, whose staffs were of silver and heads of gold, followed the royal chariot

The king's led horses, forty in nu for a little exaggeration on the part of the historian, and for the conventional nue bodies of footht suppose that Quintus Curtius had seen the very bas-reliefs I a, so completely do they tally with his description of the appearance and retinue of the Persian king

The captives, bearing skins probably containing water and flour to nourish the uards The women were partly on foot, and partly with their children on mules and in carts drawn by oxen Mothers were represented holding the water-skins for their young ones to quench their thirst, whilst in some instances fathers had placed their weary children on their shoulders, for they werethe heat of a Mesopotae clusters of dates on the palh the Desert to Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan and the cities of the Medes,[180] and we may see in these bas-reliefs a picture of the hardshi+ps and sufferings to which the captive people of Israel were exposed when their cities fell into the hands of the assyrian king, and their inhabitants were sent to colonise the distant provinces of his empire

On the south side of the hall, parts of four slabs only had been preserved; the sculpture upon the others had been so coer be ascertained The frage of the river by the great king The bas-reliefs represented very accurately a scene that may be daily witnessed, without the royal warrior, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates