The notice of the capture of Nineveh will fall more appropriately under that article. [NINEvEsa.] The Country of Assyria. —Of the general charac ter of the country of Assyria, Scripture of course furnishes us with no materials to form an estimate. In its main geographical and geological features it must necessarily have remained unchanged, and for these we must turn to the pages of modern travellers. In Mr. Layard's two works, and in Colonel Chesney's survey of the Euphrates, there are sundry descriptive touches which are subjoined.
The general features of the country are plain, not to say monotonous, diversified only by occa sional ranges, such as the Sinjar, Makloub, etc. Mr. Layard speaks of the ' Assyrian plains uninter rupted by a single eminence and rarely shadowed by a passing cloud.' ' The detached limestone ridges running parallel to the great range of Kurdistan, such as the Mak loub, Sinjar, Karachek, and Hamim, are a peculiar feature in the geological structure of the country, lying between the ancient province of Siberia and the Persian Gulf. Hog-backed in form, they have an even and smooth outline when viewed from a distance, but are really rocky and rugged. Their sides are broken into innumerable ravines, pro ducing a variety of purple shadows, ever changing and contrasting with the rich golden tint of the limestone, and rendering these solitary hills, when seen from the plain, objects of great interest and beauty. They are for the most part but scantily wooded with a dwarf oak, and that only on the eastern slope ; their rocky sides are generally, even in spring, naked and bare of all vegetation. Few springs of fresh water being found in them, they are but thinly inhabited. In the spring months, when the rain has supplied natural reservoirs in the ravines, a few wandering Kurdish tribes pitch their tents in the most sheltered spots' (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 222).
Again he speaks of 4 pitching tents in a green lawn enamelled with flowers that furnished a carpet for our tents unequalled in softness of texture or in richness of colour by the looms of Cashmere' (p. 244).
' During our stay at Arban the colour of the great plains was undergoing a continual change ; after being for some days of a golden yellow a new family of flowers would spring up, and it would turn almost in a night to a bright scarlet, which would as suddenly give way to the deepest blue. Then
the meadows would be mottled with various hues or would put on the emerald green of the most luxuriant of pastures. The glowing descriptions I had so frequently received from the Bedouins of the beauty and fertility of the banks of the Khabour were more than realised. The Arabs boast that its meadows hear three distinct crops of grass during the year, and the wandering tribes look upon its wooded banks and constant greensward as a paradise during the summer months, where man can enjoy a cool shade, and beast can find fresh and tender herbs, whilst all is yellow, parched, and sapless' (p. 273).
` The plain, like all the country watered by the Khabour, was one vast meadow teeming with flowers' (p. 298).
Speaking of the district of the Zibari Kurds to the east of Mosul, Mr. Layard says : The country beyond or to the east of the Zab is broken into a number of parallel ranges of wooded hills, divided by narrow ravines. Small villages are scattered here and there on the mountain sides, in the midst of terraces cultivated with wheat and planted with fruit trees. The scenery occasionally assumes a character of beauty and grandeur as the deep green valleys open beneath the traveller's feet, and the lofty snow-capped peaks of Rahwanduz rise majestically in the clear blue sky' (p. 373).
Of the appearance of the lake of Wan, he thus speaks : A range of low hills now separated us from the plain and lake of Wan. We soon reached their crest, and a landscape of surpassing beauty was before us. At our feet, intensely blue and sparkling in the rays of the sun, was the inland sea with the sublime peak of the Subhan Dagh mirrored in its transparent waters. The city with its castle crowned rock and its embattled walls and towers lay embosomed in orchards and gardens. To our right a rugged snow-capped mountain opened mid way into an amphitheatre, in which amidst lofty trees stood the Armenian convent of Yedi (the Seven Churches). To the west of the lake was the Nimroud Dagh and the highlands nourishing the sources of the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The hills forming the foreground of our picture were carpeted with the brightest flowers, over which wandered the flocks, whilst the gaily dressed shepherds gathered around us as we halted to con template the enchanting scene' (p. 387).