“These edifices, as it has been shown, were great national monuments, upon the walls of which were represented in sculpture, or inscribed in alphabetic characters, the chronicles of the empire. He who entered them might thus read the history, and learn the glory and triumphs of the nations. They served, at the same time, to bring continually to the remembrance of those who assembled within them on festive occasions, or for the celebration of religious ceremonies, the deeds of their ancestors, and the power and majesty of their gods.” This royal magnificence was well guarded. The external walls of the Assyrian cities, as we learn from the united testimony of ancient authors, were of extraordinary size and height. According to Diodorus Siculus, the walls of Nineveh were one hundred feet high,—so broad that three chariots might be driven abreast along their summit,—and fortified with fifteen hundred towers, each of which was two hundred feet in height. According to the same authority, the circumference of the city was sixty miles,—a statement which exactly tallies with the dimensions given in the Book of Jonah, where Nineveh is said to have been three days’ journey round about. This is an immense circuit,—but it must be recollected that the dimensions of an Eastern city do not bear the same proportion to its population as those of an European city. The custom, prevalent to some degree in Southern Asia, even in the earliest times, of secluding the women in apartments removed from those of the men, as well as the heat of the climate, renders a separate house for each family almost indispensable, and is perfectly incompatible with that economy of space, and close aggregation of dwellings, which we witness in the cities of the West. Moreover, within the circuit of those old cities there used to be a “paradise” or hunting-ground for the king, and orchards, gardens, and an extensive tract of arable land; so that the inhabitants, behind their impregnable walls, could bid defiance alike to force and to famine. From the expression of Jonah, that there was much cattle within the walls of Nineveh, it may be inferred that there was also pasture for them. Many cities of the East—as, for instance, Damascus and Ispahan—are still built in this manner; the amount of their population being greatly disproportionate, according to our Western notions, to the site which they occupy.