He brought, for example, from Naîri such marble and hard stone as might be needed for sculptural purposes, together with the beams of cedar and cypress required by his carpenters. The mountains of Singar and of the Zab furnished the royal architects with building stone for ordinary uses, and for those facing slabs of bluish gypsum on which the bas-reliefs of the king’s exploits were carved; the blocks ready squared were brought down the affluents of the Tigris on rafts or in boats, and thus arrived at their destination without land transport. [Illustration: 236.jpg RARE ANIMALS BROUGHT BACK AS TROPHIES BY THE KING] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the cast in the Louvre. The original is in the British Museum. The kings of Assyria, like the Pharaohs, had always had a passion for rare trees and strange animals; as soon as they entered a country, they inquired what natural curiosities it contained, and they would send back to their own land whatever specimens of them could be procured. [Illustration: 237.jpg MONKEY BROUGHT BACK AS TRIBUTE] Drawn by Boudier, from the bas-relief in Layard. The triumphal _cortege_ which accompanied the monarch on his return after each campaign comprised not only prisoners and spoil of a useful sort, but curiosities from all the conquered districts, as, for instance, animals of unusual form or habits, rhinoceroses and crocodiles,* and if some monkey of a rare species had been taken in the sack of a town, it also would find a place in the procession, either held in a leash or perched on the shoulders of its keeper. * A crocodile sent as a present by the King of Egypt is mentioned in the _Inscription of the Broken Obelisk_. The animal is called _namsukha_, which is the Egyptian _msuhu_ with the plural article _na._