Letter from Rev. Dr. Smith on the Ruins of Nineveh. 121 
ing the shape of poplars are the most prominent objects. The 
branches of these abound with birds, and the space which sepa- 
rates them one from another, with wild animals. In this forest 
or park the king and his attendants are sporting; a bird is trans- 
fixed with an arrow while on the wing, and a servant is carrying 
a fox or hare, the evidence of previous success. 
But this is perhaps enough to give—all that is attempted—a 
general idea of the scenes represented. 'The character of the 
sculpture isin some respects interesting. Some figures but a few 
inches in length, are so perfect as to have the toe and finger nails 
plainly distinguishable. Strong passions are sometimes deline- 
ated on the faces, the dying appear in agony, and the dead seem 
stiff and quite unlike the living, who look as if in actual motion. 
In general the perspective is indifferent, that of groups bad, and 
that of the water scene above described,—to mention one case,— | 
is decidedly out of all reason. The costume of all the figures 
is much like that now worn in the East, the kings having a flow- 
ing tunic richly figured, and subjects a simple plain frock, hang- 
ing in plaits. The Persian cap, almost exactly as it is seen at the 
present day, is worn by some; rings are quite commonly suspend- 
ed from the ears, and round bars, apparently of iron, and made 
into helixes having two or three revolutions, are worn around the 
arm above the elbow, while the hair and beards of all are curled 
and frizzled in as nice a manner as it can be done in any of the 
courts of modern Europe.* 
Portions of some of the figures are painted red, blue, green, 
and black; the same is true of the trappings of some of the 
horses, and generally wherever fire is represented it is made more 
distinct by coloring the flame; but with these few exceptions, 
hardly worth mentioning except on account of their rarity, all the 
bas-reliefs now described are of the natural color of the stone 
from which they project. 
* Near the mouth of Nahr el Kelb or Dog River, a stream which empties into 
the bay north of Beyroot, on a large perpendicular and artificially smoothed sur- 
face of a rock are found figures dressed in similar costumes with some of these. 
Drawings of the two placed side by side, present so many resemblances that one 
ean hardly doubt but that the artists who made the originals, aimed to depict men 
of the same age and nation. This striking coincidence, and the fact that the in- 
scriptions at Nahr el Kelb are in the same character with those of the ruins at 
Khorsabad, seems to give some light as to the probable events which both com- 
memorate.¢ 
Vol. xtrx, No. 1.—April-June, 1845. 16 
