116 Letter from Rev. Dr. Snuith on the Ruins of Nineveh. 
scattered houses, and perhaps even by one or more enclosed 
suburbs to the main walled town—before he began to preach. 
To remove objections to the view that Nineveh included more 
than one walled suburb, it may be well to mention some simi- 
lar cases in modern times. In the single and small district 
of Tiyary, which lies sixty miles to the north of these ruins, 
there are no less than three instances of several villages grouped 
under one name. Rumpta, Kaylaytha and Berawola are vil- 
lages composed severally of eleven, seven, and four distinct 
and somewhat distant groups of houses. By inhabitants of 
these places, each group is known, at least in the first two instan- 
ces, by some specific title, but away from home the division is 
no more recognized as a valid ground for considering them dis- 
tinct villages, than is the local division of Philadelphia, into 
Southwark, Kensington, Northern Liberties, &c., a valid ground 
for calling these districts, in general geography, so many cities. 
In Berawola this is more remarkable, as the groups of houses are 
separated by quite high and steep hills, and as, in this case, even 
the villagers among themselves seem to have no distinctive name 
for the several parts which go to make up the whole village. I 
refer to these examples, because occurring among a people (the 
Nestorians) living in the neighborhood of these ruins, and who, 
having long remained undisturbed,—perhaps even from the time of 
Nineveh’s overthrow, in the inaccessible fastnesses of their barren 
mountains, are more likely than any other to have handed down 
to us unchanged, the customs of those times. Other examples 
of something similar, and more weighty, because better known, 
may be found in Beirout, Constantinople, and Trebizond. These 
are seaport towns with walls, but a large proportion of their pop- 
ulation reside without them. Constantinople indeed has enclosed 
suburbs besides the main walled town, and if these were sepa- 
rated from it and from each other’ by gardens instead of water, 
they would exactly illustrate our idea of the places represented 
by the two ruined enclosures, spoken of as found on the east side 
of the Tigris near Mosul. The object of the remainder of this 
article, will be to give a brief account of the late discoveries of 
Mons. Botta, the French Consul of Mosul, in the more eastern 
and inferior of these ruins. 
These discoveries were made in a mound about ten miles to 
the northeast of the village of Nebi Yunis. This mound is 
