34 Wild animals. 



of Persia at the end of the seventeenth century, also mentions 

 trained lions as being employed in that country for a similar purpose. 



The Assyrians appear to have been most enthusiastic lion- 

 hunters. Tiglath-Pileser I. (b.o. 1120), vv^ho was called the 

 "powerful king, king of the people of various tongues," because 

 during the first five years of his reign he subjugated forty-two 

 countries and took the kings captive, seems to have been most 

 successful also in sport, for it is recorded that he killed 920 lions 

 in his expeditions, besides strong and fierce bulls and buffaloes. 



A visit to the room in the British Museum where those exquisite 

 and beautiful 6as-reh"e/s discovered in the years 1849-50 and 1854 

 by Sir A. H. Layard and Mr. Hormuzd Kassam are to be seen, will 

 amply repay the trouble. These slabs are historical chronicles 

 procured from the exploration of the entombed city of Mneveh, 

 and were found in that wonderful palace of Kouyunjik which was 

 built by Sennacherib. It must have been a truly magnificent 

 building, and its beautiful decorations were, and even now are, 

 marvels of man's workmanship. On many of the bas-reliefs will 

 be found faithful representations of several animals, especially on 

 those that portray the hunting scenes of Assurbanipal (Sardina- 

 palus I., or' Great, about B.C. 665, the grandson of Sennacherib, 

 B.C. 705). On them lions are to be seen under many circumstances 

 — caged, hunted, attacking, killed, and being skinned, and in various 

 attitudes, all carved with wonderful fidelity, and exhibiting such 

 exquisite art, that considering the period of their production, they 

 cannot fail to elicit admiration. The figure of the dying lioness, with 

 her hind-quarters paralyzed by the arrows of the hunters, is almost 

 perfect, and gazing on it, one is apt to doubt whether the skill 

 of using the chisel to such perfection in this style of work could 

 be very much surpassed even at the present day, although over 

 twenty-five hundred years have elapsed since the primitive artists 

 who executed the work have mouldered into dust or been embalmed 

 as mummies. 



The Greeks and Romans knew how to tame wild animals 

 successfully, for, as before stated, Hanno had a lion at Carthage 

 which was so tame that it followed him everywhere like a dog, 

 and although we have not any records of their ever using the 



