tender-hearted, or much inclined to spare; and undoubtedly carnage,
ruin, and desolation followed upon the track of an Assyrian army, and
raised feelings of fear and hatred among their adversaries. But we have
no reason to believe that the nation was especially bloodthirsty or
unfeeling. The mutilation of the slain--not by way of insult, but in
proof of their slayer's prowess was indeed practised among them; but
otherwise there is little indication of any barbarous, much less of any
really cruel, usages. The Assyrian listens to the enemy who asks for
quarter; he prefers making prisoners to slaying; he is very terrible in
the battle and the assault, but afterwards he forgives, and spares. Of
course in some cases he makes exceptions. When a town has rebelled and
been subdued, he impales some of the most guilty [PLATE XXXV., Fig. 1];
and in two or three instances prisoners are represented as led before
the king by a rope fastened to a ring which passes through the under
lip, while now and then one appears in the act of being flayed with it
knife [PLATE XXXV., Fig. 2.] But, generally, captives are either
released, or else transferred, without unnecessary suffering, from their
own country to some other portion of the empire. There seems even to be
something of real tenderness in the treatment of captured women, who are
never manacled, and are often allowed to ride on mules, or in carts.
[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 35]

[Illustration: PLATE 36]

The worst feature in the character of the Assyrians was their treachery.
"Woe to thee that spoilest, though thou wast not spoiled, and dealest
treacherously, though they dealt not treacherously with thee!" is the
denunciation of the evangelical prophet. And in the same spirit the