by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of four, in line with the pillars of the portico. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.] The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus uncertain whether their material was stone or wood.  They were probably light and slender, not greatly interrupting the view.  The hall was surrounded on all sides by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in which were doors, windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged.  The entrance from the portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front wall, on either side of which were two windows, looking into the portico.  The opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced the intercolumniation of the central rows.  Between the two doors which pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors.  The side walls were each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the front wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways and the back wall, were two recesses of the same character.  Curiously enough, these side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the intercolumniations.

[Illustration:  PLATE XLVI.]

No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting in the doorways, which however had in every case this kind of ornamentation.  The doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs figures of the king followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and the other a fly-chaser. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.] These figures had in every case their faces turned towards the apartment.  The front doorway showed on its jambs the monarch followed by the parasol-bearer and the bearer of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to the apartment, issuing forth, as it were, from it.  On the jambs of the doors of the side apartments was represented the king in combat with a lion or a monster, the king here in every case facing outwards, and seeming to guard the entrances to the side chambers.

At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very moderate dimensions.  The largest were to the rear of the building, where there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and another twenty-eight feet by twenty.  The doorways here had sculptures, representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes.  The side chambers, five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.

It seems probable that this palace was without any second story.  There is no vestige in any part of it of a staircase—­no indication of its height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet.  It was a modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space of an ordinary palace in Assyria. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.] Externally, it must have presented an appearance not very dissimilar to