ordinary level of the floods, which are entered by holes beneath the
water-line.

The rarest of all the animals which are still found in Assyria is the
wild ass (_Equus hemionous_). Till the present generation of travellers,
it was believed to have disappeared altogether from the region, and to
have "retired into the steppes of Mongolia and the deserts of Persia.
But a better acquaintance with the country between the rivers has shown
that wild asses, though uncommon, still inhabit the tract where, they
were seen by Xenophon." [PLATE XXVI., Fig. 1.] They are delicately made,
in color varying from a grayish-white in winter to a bright bay,
approaching to pink, in the summer-time; they are said to be remarkably
swift. It is impossible to take them when full grown; but the Arabs
often capture the foals, and bring them up with milk in their tents.
They then become very playful and docile; but it is found difficult to
keep them alive; and they have never, apparently, been domesticated. The
Arabs usually kill them and eat their flesh.

[Illustration: PLATE 26]

It is probable that all these animals, and some others, inhabited
Assyria during the time of the Empire. Lions of two kinds, with and
without manes, abound in the sculptures, the former, which do not now
exist in Assyria, being the more common. [PLATE XXV., Fig. 2.] They are
represented with a skill and a truth which shows the Assyrian sculptor
to have been familiar not only with their forms and proportions, but
with their natural mode of life, their haunts, and habits. The leopard
is far less often depicted, but appears sometimes in the ornamentation
of utensils, and is frequently mentioned in the inscriptions. The wild
ass is a favorite subject with the sculptors of the late Empire, and is