The Nineveh Excavations Are Carried On Most Extensively At Tel- Timroud, A District Where The Mounds Of Earth Are The Most Numerous. Tel-Nimroud Is Situated About Eighteen Miles From Mosul Down The Tigris.

We took our seats one moonlight evening upon a raft, and glided down between the dull banks of the Tigris.

After seven hours, we landed, about 1 o'clock in the morning, at a poor village, bearing the high sounding name Nimroud. Some of the inhabitants, who were sleeping before their huts, made us a fire and some coffee, and we then laid down till daybreak upon some rugs we had brought with us.

At daybreak we took horses (of which there are plenty in every village), and rode to the excavations, about a mile from Nimroud. We found here a great number of places which had been dug up, or rather, uncovered mounds of earth, but not, as at Herculaneum, whole houses, streets, squares, indeed, half a town. Nothing beyond separate rooms has been brought to light here, or at the utmost, three or four adjoining ones, the exterior walls of which are not, in any case, separated from the earth, and have neither windows nor doors visible.

The objects which have been discovered exactly resemble those in the neighbourhood of Mosul, but occur in greater numbers. Besides these, I saw several idols and sphynxes in stone. The former represented animals with human heads; their size was gigantic - about that of an elephant. Four of these statues have been found, two of which were, however, considerably damaged.

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