386 'ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



of pottery and jewelry, inscriptions &c. ; together with further por- 

 tions of the palace and its dependencies, one of the entrance gates to 

 the city, an extensive colonnade in marble - - of which twenty-eight 

 columns have already been found. All these trouvailles are of great 

 interest, especially those connected with the palace, as they prove the 

 Assyrians to have been accomplished architects. But perhaps the 

 most interesting discovery of all is the wine cellar of the old Assyrian 

 kings, connected with the palace. In it were found rows of jars still 

 standing in order, though many were broken and others filled with 

 sand ; and at the bottom of these jars was a deposite of a violet color, 

 evidently left by wine. M. Place has also caused excavations to be 

 made in diiferent hills on the left bank of the Tigris within thirty 

 miles of Khorsabad. These places are called Bachiccha, Karamtess, 

 Teu-Leuben, Matai, Karacock, Digigan, Barrain, &c. In most of them 

 he has found sculptures, vases, articles of jewelry, and small vessels 

 in metal, stone, and even in gold. At Digig.in, a large monument has 

 been discovered, which it is thought may turn out to be equal in im- 

 portance to the edifice of Khorsabad. At Mattai and Barrain numer- 

 ous bas-reliefs have been found, some of them cut in the solid rock, about 

 150 yards above the level of the plain. Gigantic personages, and a 

 train of Assyrian kings at full length, figure in them. 



/ O cj ' < > 



THE LOST TRAVELLER. 



AMONG the numerous victims, distinguished travellers, whose lives 

 have been sacrificed to the perils of African discovery, the world has 

 almost forgotten that of the unfortunate Jacques Compagnon, who under 

 the auspices of the Duke de Choiseul, left Senegal in 1758 to explore 

 the country to the north and east of Senegambia, penetrated as 

 far as the wooded desert of Simboni, where he was heard from 

 in 1760, and then disappeared, never, it was supposed, to be 

 heard from again. After ninety years of mystery and oblivion, how- 

 ever, the veil has been removed, and the secret of his fate has been dis- 

 closed by M. de Gaysa, a Hungarian explorer in Africa, from whom a 

 letter has been received by the Imperial Society of Vienna, disclosing 

 the discoveries which seem to place the fact beyond question, besides 

 giving it a very interesting aspect. M. de Gaysa writes from the 



which, they appear, from their own account, to have derived from a 

 stranger, a European, who died among them in 1775, and whose 

 memory was revered as that of a sage or good genius. That this stranger 

 was Jacques Compagnon, was proved by a number of circumstances, 

 not the least conclusive of which was several personal relics, regarded 

 by the people as sacred, one being a quadrant with his name engraved 

 upon it in full. It would seem, from such accounts and traditions as 

 M. de Gaysa was able to gather, that Compagnon was detained by the 

 Kommenis, and, being reconciled at last to his captivity, devoted him- 



