Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-08-06

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

s.Il Trares IN Armeaia, Rurdsas and ne Desert:
nm he result 81 Second Expeit'on undertaken for nc
gyu..ees Of he British MuseSn. BY AUSTEN H. LAYAsD,
snip New York: G. P. Putnam Co.. 1858. The
came work from press Of Harper Bros, 1868.
This is Mr. Layard,s second contribution TO our
knowledge Of Assyrian ruins and remains his
earlier work on Nineyeh opened to our inspection
new world of research and discovery. After its
eager perusal we seemed to have been reading some
romance Of the olden time or an Arab tale full Of
magic lamentations evoked by the potent wand Of
travelling dervish Instead Of genii and giants,
dwarfs and dragons, the imagination was startled
by visions Of human-heaaed lions, eaglebeaked war
riors, couchant sphinxes, and winged bulls, The
open sesame Of Mr. Laya-d introduced US into the
very Of the old Assyran robbers, and revealed
TO our astonshed gaze the monuments OF their
proves and the trophies of their marauding expe-
ditions. The treasures Of hoar antiquity long bu-
ried in oblivion were dsentombed by enterprisng
" Franks" and borne away from the land OF Shinar
to be cascd and ticketed in the British Museum.
These arid and sandy plains, traversed by Layard
and Botta were once in the highest sense the very
iacnndbnla GENTS notrd, the cradles OF the human
race for hence issued, as from great distributing
reservoir the nations which in after ages have filed
the earth. The tower of Babel once lifted its proud
summit to the sky which now looks down on the
novels and tents of a squalid and nonadic people.
In this plain Nebuchainezzar reared his golden
image, boosted of the great Babylon lie had built
" for the house Of the kingdom, by the might Of his
power and for the honor of his majesty" and here
too, he consorted with the beasts Of the field and
srass.7 III uuese marble halls, now as IL were
qiarrled aresh from the superacent ruins the tread
CT the mailed warrior once echoed, and the sound
of revery by night here rose and swelled to hea-
ven as reeking incense to the Assyrian Venus
Within these ruined portals, exhumed by modern
tourists Belshazzar with his lords, wives and con-
cubnes, while iuaing wine from the golden vessels
of the Lords house. turned pale before the hand
writing on the wall g In that night was Belshaz-
zar, the King of the Chaldeans, slain and Darius
the Median, took the kingdom" Between yon
cruinbling mounds, where stood the "two-leayed
gate the victorious Cyrus entered his errand of
rhetic doom Here too, in after times, Alexander
and saw and conquered AMI these massive ruins cover
the spot where he died And in this valley IN still later
days the Caphs reared the medreseh and the mosque
and lavshed imperial Baghdad the Abode Of Peace
al the resources Of Eastern wealth and art though the
stranger now seeks in vain for the palaces gardens
Harouna Reshid tile universities and paynim temples
of Al Mamoun Even the very names Of those great
princes, says Mr.. Layard the glory Of Islam,
almost forgotten only heard in the crowded coffee
house when the Arab soryteer reates his anciful tale
The land OF Shnar is 9 truly historic land.
Nineveb that great city" had long lain il her for
gotten tomb until IN these last days Mr. Layard and NJ
Botta have exhued from beneath the drfted mould and
sand Of centuries not only the site Of her resting place
but the very of her greatness and the records
OF her history and have restored to view by Mr.
Ferguson the very palace Of Sennacherb IS three thou
sand years ago it reflected in the waters Of the tt
girls Nneyeh destroyed about $50 years after the
founding of Rome, Coo B. c. When the ten thousand
creeks Ia their famous retreat marched this plain
they found in it, Is Xenophon records, ruined city call
ed Larissa, and il connexon with it We have descrp
ton Of what is known the pyramid Of Nimroud
hut the name Of Nineyeh had been already forgotten
very Site The walls which the prophet Jonah in his
day found enclosing exceeding grea. city Of three
days journey" and which Diodor1s S:c1lus informs US
fortyeight miles il circumference ard two hundred
feet high and broad that three chaIios might drive
them abreast had already erumbed and fallen been
buried y he sands Of The desert in this early period Of
the Greean annals total AMI complete the ruin OF
the bloody city," fo-etola by the Hebrew seers Ma
hum and zephan&h: - viii cast abOminable filth upon
thee and make thee vile. Niueyeh is laid waste
who shall bemoan her." The destruction which over
took sa7danapalus and his sybarte host "whie they
we're olden together thorns and drunken as drunk
ards" was completed b. Astyages King Of the Medes.
The German traveller Niebuhr was We believe, the
first who visited ard described the mounds which mark
The site Of Nineyeh II was nearly hundred years ago
IN 1920 Mr. Rich inspected the spot and carried of afew
sau-dred bricks inscribed with the mysterious cuneform
letters II was not until the year 1899 that rst hear
az Mr. Layard when we Snd him travelling through sy-
ria and for the irst time visiting the mounds Of Kalah
shergat AMI the ruins Of ElHaber As be oated down
the arrowy Tgrs from Mosul to Baghdad bis attention
WAS drawn the great mound Of Nimroud and he re-
solved al some future day to explore the nature and
tents Of these singular resins but meanwhile urged up
On II Botta the French Consul OF Mosul, 70
excavations al once in the mound Of Kouyunk, directly
opposite that city, who however soon transferred the
ssat II his abors Khorsabad, mound twelve miles
northeast Of Mosul ITO ~ Botta belongs the honor Of
having found the frst Assyrian monument" The words
are Mr. Layaris but may state that be himself first
directed IT, Bottas attention 70 the localities where such
remains would probably be discovered, and toe
bumations Of Layari Nimroud detailed in lis
hsr work and now at Kouyunjk, described in the
lume before Is transcend in number and value those
which VI Botta has given 70 the world in the series Of
.ngravDgs published 50 munifcendy tie expense q
ths French Government
Apart from the historical Importance Of Mr.. Layards
volumes they ore most interesting and valuable add
son 10 the Literature Of Travel The style Of the learn
ed and honorable author is Of the best either for
disquisiton easy narrative lie seems equally
at home whether in the excavation experimenting his
disordery workren, securing the desert his deou
10 company with the wandering Bedonin, OF sitting on
the velvet tapestries OF Turkish host smoking his
rire and slipping Mocha. His ribulatons from Pashas
and Sheikhs, Cabs and Uemas, though often irritating
enough never seem TO disoompose his temper, and were
indeed relieved by acts Of Kindness and courtesy without