pears to be a mass of transported earth. If artificial, it occupied twenty thousand men six years to complete the platform. Its flat summit is annually plowed, which is the fulfillment of prophecy. The rains of the centuries have cut deep ravines down its sides, which are now channels for the torrents in the rainy season. On the northern end is a ruined village; near it is the white tomb of some Moslem saint; and between the village and the tomb is the broad, steep road that leads to the summit.

Ascending the beaten path in company with Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the distinguished explorer, we were soon within the excavated palace of the renowned Sennacherib. The great structure had been uncovered by Mr. Layard, so that we could now traverse its spacious courts, its lengthened halls, its many rooms, and examine with admiration its beautiful bass-reliefs, and contemplate its grand façades. It stood on an artificial platform ninety feet high, which was covered with a pavement of bricks. The public and private apartments were connected by a noble corridor two hundred and eighteen feet long and twenty-five feet wide, from which passage-ways led into the public courts, and from the latter other passage-ways led into the king's seraglio. From the two chief en trances extended immense halls, whose length was not less than one hundred and eighty feet, and whose width measured forty feet. From these halls were the entrances into the twenty large rooms and into the fifty smaller ones, all of which were elegantly adorned with sculptures in relief. When complete, with all its terraces, façades, courts, halls, and rooms, the grand palace covered an area equal to eight acres of ground. Lofty flights of marble steps led up to the three façades-one on the north-east, one on the south-east, and the third on the south-west;