of inferior station, or confined to peaceful occupations, is unarmed.

Then follows an eunuch, wearing a sword, with a belt across his breast passing over the right shoulder, apparently formed of three rows of pearls, one on each edge, and the other in the middle of the ribbon; the central row varied by rosettes of pearls at regular intervals. It has a singularly beautiful appearance. This officer appears addressing the king; both his hands are open, the right held down before him, the left elevated behind, as if introducing his subordinates, or beckoning to them to advance.

Now come the various articles borne along in succession towards the monarch. An eunuch approaches the one last described, less richly adorned, wearing a sword in the girdle, but no ornamental belt; and his bracelets are plain rings of metal. He carries on each hand a hemispherical vase or bowl, which he

supports on his finger-tips and thumb, elevated before him.

He is followed by another of like aspect carrying two cans or cups of curious form. They are much deeper than wide, nearly cylindrical, but broader at the bottom and at the lip than in the middle; the bottom is fashioned into a lion's face, and the margin is furnished with an eye or ring at two opposite points, from which passes over a looped handle of twisted wire. The bearer elevates one of these, and holds the other down in front of him. M. Botta thinks that these vessels were really formed of the skin of a lion's head and neck, prepared as skin bottles are; and he thinks that the form, narrower in the middle than at either extremity, is that which a vase of flexible material would assume under the weight of the contained liquor. But surely he forgets that the weight of a vessel formed of a lion's head and neck, and filled with fluid, would be vastly too great to be carried by a man with one hand, elevated in the air before him: besides that the size of these bears about the same ratio to the bearer as one of our tankards. We see cups of exactly similar form, moreover, in the hands of persons seated at banquets in other bas-reliefs, where they are evidently used as drinking-cups. We conjecture that they were formed of some precious metal, and that the fashioning of the bottom into the head of a lion was arbitrary and merely orna

The drinking-horn (¿vróv) used by the Greeks was a cup, the lower part of which was fashioned into the head of an animal, a boar, a dog, or a griffin. It had a small orifice at its extremity, that is, at the muzzle of

mental. The form is exceedingly elegant, and worthy of imitation by our own artists.

Then come two eunuchs similarly attired to their predecessors, bearing between them on their shoulders an object of a highly interesting character. It is evidently the king's pleasure chair, in which he was wont to take the air, or perhaps to move in solemn procession through the streets of his capital. The chariot, in which the monarch proceeded to battle, or to the scarcely less severe discipline of hunting savage beasts, had no seat, and was but little fitted for comfort or parade. In the car

before us, however, he could sit at ease.

It consisted of a high-backed elbow-chair or fauteuil, placed on a pair of low wheels, with a long draught-pole, proceeding horizontally for a portion of its length, then bent suddenly upwards, and terminating in a richly carved and caparisoned horse's head. It carried a cross-bar at the neck, the two ends of which were fashioned into the heads of gazelles. As there is no appearance of yokes or means by which harness could be fastened to the pole or cross-bar, we conjecture that the carriage was drawn by men, two on each side of the pole, the bar pressing against their breasts. The lowness of the wheels and the form of the pole, seem much more the animal, which the drinker put into his mouth, and thus sucked the wine from the vessel, or allowed it to run in. See figures in Hope's "Costume of the Ancients," pl. 59.

The Persians (Cyrop. viii.) prided themselves on the number and magnificence of their drinking cups; as did also the Asiatic Greeks. Athenæus (book xi.) has mentioned by name more than fifty different kinds or forms of cups.

suitable to such a mode of draught than to that by horses.

The chair itself was very curious. The back and seat were both high, the former straight, with a long

cloth hung over it; the elbow was smooth, rounded at the angle; the bar of which it was formed was supported by three carved figures of men, bearded in the Assyrian fashion, and wearing the sacred horned-cap. On the lateral bar which connected the legs of the chair, itself elaborately carved, stood the figure of a horse handsomely apparelled, with head and neck-furniture, in a bold walking attitude, his head projecting before the seat, and reaching a little higher than its level. The legs of the chair terminated in great reversed cones, truncate at the

extremities, and carved all over in imitation of the scales of a pine-cone. The use of the pine-cone to form the feet of chairs, thrones, and tables, was very general, and originally the resemblance was exact, but conventional treament gradually deviated from the natural model, so that we could scarcely have determined, in the present case, what was the object imitated, if examples had not been abundant in which the form and the scaling were more correct. *

The general form and apparent use of this vehicle recall to mind the "chariot" (or appirion DN, a word which occurs only this once) of King Solomon; which is supposed to have been a sort of moveable couch or palanquin, furnished with a canopy or "covering," which does not appear in the Assyrian representation.

King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem. Cant. iii. 9, 10.

Two other eunuchs now appear, wearing swords (of which the former are destitute), bearing in a similar manner the massive throne or chair, which was intended to remain stationary. In its general contour it resembles the former, without the wheels and pole; the back, from the seat upward, is formed

The pine-cone is a favourite ornament still in the East. In Burnes' Visit to the Court of Sinde (p. 44) he describes the Ameers sitting on a musnud of white satin, embroidered with silk and gold, the corners of which were secured by four massive and highly chased golden ornaments resembling pine-apples.