The letters themselves, in their general characteristics, resembled the contract tablets of the period which have been already described. They were written on small clay tablets oblong in shape, and as they were only three or four inches long they could easily be carried about the person of the messenger into whose charge they were delivered. After the tablet was written it was enclosed in a thin envelope of clay, having been first powdered with dry clay to prevent its sticking to the envelope. The name of the person for whom the letter was intended was written on the outside of the envelope, and both it and the tablet were baked hard to ensure that they should not be broken on their travels. The recipient of the letter, on its being delivered to him, broke the outer envelope by tapping it sharply, and it then fell away in pieces, leaving the letter and its message exposed. The envelopes were very similar to those in which the contract tablets of the period were enclosed, of which illustrations have already been given, their only difference being that the text of the tablet was not repeated on the envelope, as was the case with the former class of documents. The royal letters that have been recovered throw little light on military affairs and the prosecution of campaigns, for, being addressed to governors of cities and civil officials, most of them deal with matters affecting the internal administration of the empire. One letter indeed contains directions concerning the movements of two hundred and forty soldiers of “the King’s Company” who had been stationed in Assyria, and another letter mentions certain troops who were quartered in the city of Ur. A third deals with the supply of clothing and oil for a section of the Babylonian army, and troops are also mentioned as having formed the escort for certain goddesses captured from the Elamites; while directions are sent to others engaged in a campaign upon the Elamite frontier. The letter which contains directions for the safe escort of the captured Elamite goddesses, and the one ordering the return of these same goddesses to their own shrines, show that foreign deities, even when captured from an enemy, were treated by the Babylonians with the same respect and reverence that was shown by them to their own gods and goddesses. Hammurabi gave directions in the first letter for the conveyance of the goddesses to Babylon with all due pomp and ceremony, sheep being supplied for sacrifice upon the journey, and their usual rites being performed by their own temple-women and priestesses. The king’s voluntary restoration of the goddesses to their own country may have been due to the fact that, after their transference to Babylon, the army of the Babylonians suffered defeat in Elam. This misfortune would naturally have been ascribed by the king and the priests to the anger of the Elamite goddesses at being detained in a foreign land, and Hammurabi probably arrived at his decision that they