spear; and still others are having their tongues torn out.

[Illustration: ASSYRIANS FLAYING THEIR PRISONERS ALIVE.]

An inscription by Asshur-nazir-pal, found in one of the palaces at Nimrud,
runs as follows: "Their men, young and old, I took prisoners. Of some I
cut off the feet and hands; of others I cut off the noses, ears, and lips;
of the young men's ears I made a heap; of the old men's heads I built a
tower. I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of their city. The male
children and the female children I burned in the flames."

ROYAL SPORTS.--The Assyrian king gloried in being, like the great Nimrod,
"a mighty hunter before the Lord." The monuments are covered with
sculptures that represent the king engaged in the favorite royal sport.
Asshur-nazir-pal had at Nineveh a menagerie, or hunting-park, filled with
various animals, many of which were sent him as tribute by vassal princes.

[Illustration: LION HUNT. (From Nineveh.)]

REMAINS OF ASSYRIAN CITIES.--Enormous grass-grown mounds, enclosed by
crumbled ramparts, alone mark the sites of the great cities of the
Assyrian kings. The character of the remains arises from the nature of the
building material. City walls, palaces, and temples were constructed
chiefly of sun-dried bricks, so that the generation that raised them had
scarcely passed away before they began to sink down into heaps of rubbish.
The rains of many centuries have beaten down and deeply furrowed these
mounds, while the grass has crept over them and made green alike the
palaces of the kings and the temples of the gods. [Footnote: Lying upon
the left bank of the Upper Tigris are two enormous mounds surrounded by
heavy earthen ramparts, about eight miles in circuit. This is the site of