205 
with the guardians of the mosque to allow me to do so, as all 
the land belongs to it. They merely mentioned the word 
“ Nineweh ” in the document, and when I asked them for the 
reason of omitting the common name of “ Nebbi Younis,” they 
said that that was the only legal name they could use. 
48. I had great difficulty in digging in that mound, as it is 
reckoned a sacred place by all Mohammedans; but as the 
guardians of the mosque were my personal friends, and pos- 
sessed immense influence amongst all classes of the community, 
they assisted me in managing the affair legally and satisfac- 
torily against the religious prejudices and fanaticism of the 
lower classes. The great difficulty which had always been 
experienced formerly in trying to dig in that mound was in 
persuading the landlords to let us buy their dwellings, because 
all the mound is either covered with tombs or private houses, 
and those who were disposed to sell were afraid either of the 
inhabitants of the mound, or were prevented from doing so by 
religious scruples. However, I succeeded, not without much 
trouble and opposition from the local authorities, in opening a 
few trenches in different parts of the mound ; but as the time 
of my return to England was drawing nigh, I was unable to 
make extensive excavations. I hope if I return again to 
that country to be able to examine that part of Nineveh more 
satisfactorily. 
49. The Ottoman authorities explored some years ago one 
part of the mound, not far from the mosque, but as they do 
not generally carry on their work systematically and energeti- 
cally they were not rewarded with any particularly good results. 
I myself merely found some inscriptions, and a terra-cotta 
tablet, unfortunately very much broken, on which is por- 
trayed in relief an Assyrian monarch, either Sardanapalus or 
Esarhaddon, his father, in close combat with a lion. The at- 
titude of both the king and the lion is so beautifully sketched 
out, and their limbs and muscles are so spiritedly marked, 
that it gives one pleasure to spend a few minutes upon ex- 
amining the clay relic. 
50. The mound of Nebbi Younis is supposed to have been 
inhabited by three kings, namely, Pul, Sennacherib, and 
Esarhaddon ; but from the annals of the latter king we learn 
he had built a palace “such as the kings, his fathers who 
went before him, had never made/' and which he called “ the 
palace of the pleasures of all the year.” According to this 
statement, the climate of that country must have been quite 
different from what it is now, because the heat of summer at 
the present day is so intense that no one in his senses can 
