The worst feature of all this splendour was its ephemeral character— though perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much about it—for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains would probably have been applied to other purposes long ago; but having been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The pillars that supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth, and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone suffice to bury the building up to the height of the sculptures. The gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their unprotected exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this: so that it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been growing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting positions not to be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries of mud-hut building would complete the process of entombment so completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the centuries during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great nations of antiquity. [Illustration: 73. Assyrian Temple, North Palace, Koyunjik. (From Rawlinson.)] [Illustration: 74. Bas-relief, representing façade of Assyrian Palace. (From British Museum.)] It is by no means improbable that at some future period we may be able to restore much that is now unintelligible, from the representations of buildings on the sculptures, and to complete our account of their style of architecture from illustrations drawn by the Assyrians themselves. One or two of these have already been published. The annexed woodcut, for instance (No. 72), of a bas-relief representing a little fishing-pavilion on the water’s edge, exhibits in a rude manner all the parts of an Assyrian order with its entablature, and the capital only requires to be slightly elongated to make it similar to those found at Persepolis.