The land of Belad, mentioned in these inscriptions, appears to have been a district in the immediate vicinity of Nineveh, and probably on the Tigris, as these great masses of stone would have been quarried near the river for the greater convenience of moving them to the palace. The district of Belad may indeed have been that in which the city itself stood. Over the representation of the building of the mound there were two epigraphs, both precisely similar, but both unfortunately much mutilated. As far as they can be restored, they have thus been interpreted by Dr. Hincks:-- "Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Hewn stones, _which_, as the gods[43] willed, were found in the land of Belad, for the _walls_ (?) (or foundations, the word reads '_shibri_') of my palace, _I caused the inhabitants of foreign countries_ (?) and the people of the forests (Kershani), the great bulls for the gates of my palace to _drag_ (?) (or bring)." If this inscription be rightly rendered, we have direct evidence that captives from foreign countries were employed in the great public works undertaken by the Assyrian kings, as we were led to infer, from the variety of costume represented in the bas-reliefs, and from the fetters on the legs of some of the workmen. The Jews themselves, after their captivity, may have been thus condemned to labor, as their forefathers had been in Egypt, in erecting the monuments of their conquerors; and we may, perhaps, recognise them amongst the builders portrayed in the sculptures. From the long gallery, we have unfortunately only three fragments of inscriptions without the sculptured representations of the events recorded. The most perfect is interesting on more than one account. According to Dr. Hincks it is to be translated:-- "Sennacherib, king of Assyria ... (some object, the nature not ascertained) of wood, which from the Tigris I caused to be brought up (_through_ ?) the Kharri, or Khasri, on sledges (or boats), I caused to be carried (or to mount)." The name of the river in this inscription very nearly resembles that of the small stream which sweeps round the foot of the great mound of Kouyunjik. In the fragment of another epigraph, we have mention of some objects also of wood "brought from Mount Lebanon, and taken up (to the top of the mound) from the Tigris." These may have been beams of cedar, which, it will be hereafter seen, were extensively used in the Assyrian palaces. It is highly interesting thus to find the inhabitants of Nineveh fetching their rare and precious woods from the same spots that king Solomon had brought the choicest woodwork of the temple of the Lord and of his own palaces.