PREFACE. WHEN the news reached England that Mr. Layard had found the long lost Ninereh, and was opening its buried palaces to the light, very great and general interest ims escitecl. It seemed as if the Nineveh of the Bible were about to be once more re- stored for the contemplation of the Christian inquirer, and the Ninereh of the classics laid bare to modern gaze, to verify the faith of the scholar in the older historians. Mr. Layard9s book, when published, realized these anticipations. A city buried for more than twenty centuries offered its remains for comparison with the aspects of modern London or Paris and the sculp- tured monuments of a bygone race rose up to offer a contrast with the works of modern art. TVhilst this was the case in England, the French were almost equally interested, for they, too, had a diligent inquirer, Monsieur Botta, in Assyria, cligging and discovering and sending homc the spoils of superb ancient edifices to increase the treasures of the Loume. The English investigator had worked with limited funds supplicd from private sources the Frenchman, more fortunate, enjoyed the generous sppathies and liberal pecuniary aid of his govern- ment. Lapards story of his trials and successes vas given to thc world by the private cuterprise of an English pblisher. Botta, on the contrary, found his may into print at the espensc of the French nation. Vhen a series of good cheap volumcs -as in contemplat on for the NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY, the popularity of the subject induced an opinion that Bottns book, published in Paris in a series of huge and costly folios, might form the basis of an interesting work for the English public. Hence, the following pages, in which, whilst the labours of the French savant have been freely used, a considerable amount of original research has been employed that the volume might be rendered worthy of the place it occupies as one of a cheap and valuble series.