' The country produces great quantities of barley and wheat in their wild as well as cultivated state ; but oats do not seem to be sown anywhere by the sedentary Arabs. Onions, spinach, and beans, are the usual vegetables ; and these are largely culti vated along the sides of the rivers, where, just after the water recedes, the progress of vegetation is sur prising. Some idea may be formed of the pro ductive qualities of the soil, from the fact of eight crops of clover having been cut in the neighbour hood of Basrah during the year. The domestic animals of Mesopotamia are camels, horses, buffa loes, sheep, and goats, all of a superior kind; but the cows and oxen are of an inferior breed. The more northern and hilly portion of this territory produces, in addition to copper, lead, and other minerals, honey, wax, etc. ; whilst the southern contains salt, lime, bitumen, and naphtha ; but the principal wealth of the people is derived from their vast tiocks.'—Chesney, p. toS.
The most remarkable production in ancient Assyria is the celebrated vegetable known here by the name of manna, which in Turkish is most ex pressively called Kudret-hal-vassiz, or the Divine sweetmeat. It is found on the leaves of the dwarf oak, and also, though less plentifully and scarcely so good, on those of the tamarisk and several other plants. It is occasionally deposited on the sand and also on rocks and stones. The latter is of a pure white colour, and appears to be more esteemed than the tree manna. It is collected chiefly at two periods of the year, first in the early part of spring, and again towards the end of autumn, in either case the quality depends upon the rain that may have fallen, or at least on the abundance of the dews, for in the seasons which happen to he quite dry it is understood that little or none is obtained. In order to collect the manna the people go out before sunrise, and having placed cloths under the oak, larch, tamarisk, and several other kinds of shrubs, the manna is shaken down in such quan titles from the branches as to give a supply for the market after providing for the wants of the different members of the family. The Kurds not only eat manna in its natural state, as they do bread or dates, but their women make it into a kind of paste ; being in this state like honey, it is added to other ingredients used in preparing sweetmeats, which, in some shape or other are found in every house throughout the East. The manna when partially cleaned is carried to the market at Mosul in goat skins, and there sold in lumps at the rate of 41 lbs. for about 2ad. But for family consumption or to send to a distance out of the country, it is first thoroughly cleansed from the fragments of leaves and other foreign matter by boiling. In the natu ral state it is described as being of a delicate white colour. It is also still, as in the time of the Israelites,
like coriander seed, and of a moderate but agreeable sweetness.'—Chesney, 123.
and Government. —The Assyrian domi nions, as far as we can yet learn from the inscrip tions, did not extend much further than the central provinces of Asia Minor and Armenia to the north, not reaching to the Black Sea, though probably to the Caspian. In the east they included the western provinces of Persia ; to the south Susiana, Baby lonia, and the northern part of Arabia. In the west the Assyrians may have penetrated into Lycia and perhaps Lydia ; and Syria was considered within the territories of the great king,; Egypt and Meroe (Ethiopia) were the farthest limits reached by the Assyrian armies (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 633).
The empire appears to have been at all times a kind of confederation formed by many tributary states, whose kings were so far independent that they were only bound to furnish troops to the superior lord in time of war, and to pay him yearly a certain tribute. Hence we find successive Assyrian kings fighting with exactly the same nations and tribes, some of which were scarcely four or five days' march from the gates of Nineveh. On the occasion of every change these tributary states seem to have striven to throw off the Assyrian yoke, and to have begun by refusing to pay their customary tribute. A new campaign was consequently necessary to bring them to obedience. We learn from the inscriptions that when a city or kingdom was thus subdued, however near it might have been to Nineveh, when not actually forming part of the imperial district, a new ruler was appointed to it, with the title of king' written in the same cunei form characters on the monuments as when applied to the head of the empire.* Mr. Layard further remarks that the political constitution of the Jewish kingdom was similar to that of the Assyrian empire, which illustrates the words of the sacred historian who says of Solomon that he reigned over all the kings on this side the river, r Kings iv. 21, 24.
The ancient Eastern monarchies were in all cases composed of a number of separate kingdoms, each under its own native king; and the sole link uniting them together and constituting them an empire, was the subjection of their petty monarchs to a single suzerain. The Babylonian, Assyrian, Median, and Lydian, were all empires of this type— monarchies wherein a sovereign prince at the head of a powerful kingdom was acknowledged as suzerain by a number of inferior princes, each in his own right sole ruler of Ins own country. And the subjection of the inferior princes consisted chiefly, if not solely, in two points; they were bound to render homage to their suzerain, and to pay him annually a certain stated tribute. —Rawlin son's Bampton Lectures, p. I04.