appears to have been regarded as the weakest, a series of outworks were
erected for the further defence of the city. North of the Khosr, between
the city wall and that river, which there runs parallel to the wall and
forms a sort of second or outermost moat, there are traces of a detached
fort of considerable size, which must have strengthened the defences in
that quarter. South and south-east of the Khosr, the works are still
more elaborate. In the first place, from a point where the Khosr leaves
the hills and debouches upon comparatively low ground, a deep ditch, 200
feet broad, was carried through compact silicious conglomerate for
upwards of two miles, till it joined the ravine which formed the natural
protection of the city upon the south. On either side of this ditch,
which could be readily supplied with water from the Khosr at its
northern extremity, was built a broad and lofty wall; the eastern one,
which forms the outermost of the defences, rises even now a hundred feet
above the bottom of the ditch on which it adjoins. Further, between this
outer barrier and the city moat wall interposed a species of demilune,
guarded by a double wall and a broad ditch and connected (as is
thought) by a covered way with Neneveh itself. Thus the city was
protected on this, its most vulnerable side, towards the centre by five
walls and three broad and deep moats; towards the north, by a wall, a
moat, the Khosr, and a strong outpost; towards the south by two moats
and three lines of rampart. The breadth of the whole fortification on
this side is 2200 feet, or not far from half a mile. [PLATE XXXVIII.]

[Illustration: PLATE 38]

Such was the site, and such were the defences, of the capital of
Assyria. Of its internal arrangements but little can be said at present,
since no general examination of the space within the ramparts has been
as yet made, and no ancient account of the interior has come down to us.