253 
fact, the sculptures which surmount, or intervene between the 
parts of a column of Assyrian writing are wholly independent 
of that writing ; having as little relation to its contents in or- 
dinary instances, as the illuminations of the capital letters in a 
medizval manuscript have to the passages which those letters 
commence. 
‘‘ The obelisk first found at Nimrid, which is now in the 
British Museum, contains several representations of animals, 
the names of three of which are certain. There is an elephant 
called alab, or alap; a name which is perhaps compounded 
of the Arabic article and the Egyption abu, the Latin abur, 
and the Sanscrit zbhas, as Benary thought that the Greek 
zhégace was compounded; but I incline to the opinion of 
Ewald and Rédiger that the Hebrew word for elephants, 
Dan, habbim, stands for halbim, of which halab would be the 
singular. The Assyrians had no means of distinguishing 
halab and alab. This word has been connected by Ewald 
with the Sanserit Aalabhas, which also signifies an elephant: 
the as in this word is the nominative termination. 
««Camels with two humps are figured on the same obelisk 
in two places; and they are in both instances called ‘ habba 
whose humps are double. The word habba has a determi- 
native character prefixed to it, which appears to denote beasts 
of burden; it is placed before the names of all animals of the 
horse kind. I believe that habba stands for-halba; just as the 
_ Hebrew habbim, according to Ewald, stands for halbim; that 
_ it is the plural of halab; and that this word, when it stands 
r alone, signifies an elephant; while the determinative of beasts 
_ of burden prefixed to it gives it the sense of camel. The 
 halab in this secondary sense was the dromedary, or Arabian 
camel; and when the Bactrian camel was spoken of, the ex- 
_ planatory words above mentioned, ‘ whose humps are double,’ 
were required to be added. ‘This was, however, not the only 
Assyrian word for the camel. In different copies of the in- 
_ scription of Sargon, in which he records the tribute or pre- 
: 
c 
. 
SS 
4 
