All are familiar with the accounts of the building of this city by Asshur, (whence the name Assyria), and of the first empire under Nimrod. In this short record we have the first traces of political institutions and of great cities. They burst upon us, and as suddenly disappear from the world's history for more than a thousand years. A learned author of the last century[90] has endeavored to throw distrust on all that the Greek writers have written about these countries, because in the Persian historians he could not recognise the great Cyrus and other prominent characters which fill important places in the Grecian annals. But the revelations already made through the arrow-headed inscriptions must remove these doubts, as they substantiate in a remarkable degree the assertions of the Greek writers. The observations of a learned Orientalist are so well adapted to this subject that I cannot forbear quoting them. "The formation of mighty and civilized states being admitted even by our strictest chronologers to have taken place at least twenty-five centuries before our era, it can but appear extraordinary, even after taking into account violent revolutions, that of so multitudinous and great existences, only such scanty documents have come down to us. But, strange to say, whenever a testimony has escaped the destruction of time, instead of being greeted with a benevolent though discerning curiosity, the unexpected stranger is approached with mistrustful scrutiny, his voice is stifled with severe rebuke, his credentials discarded with scorn, and by a predetermined and stubborn condemnation, resuscitating antiquity is repelled into the tomb of oblivion."[91] A journey of much interest was undertaken by Dr. Robert in 18_3, who was directed by the French government to continue, in the west of the Himalaya range and the high region adjacent, the geographical, physical, and ethnographical observations which had been begun by M. Jaquemont. The latest accounts from this intrepid traveller left him in the inaccessible valleys of Chinese Tartary, from whence it was his intention to pass through Turkestan, for the purpose of entering China on the north.[92] In the same distant region we hear of the journeys of H.R.H. Prince Waldemar, of Prussia (cousin to the king). "Consulting only his ardor for science, and burthened with the usual load carried by a traveller on foot, he scaled the lofty Himmalayah, crossed the frontier of the Celestial Empire, and reached the table-land of Thibet."[93] The prince has already transmitted a large collection of objects of natural history, many of which are new, to Berlin. It is his intention to return to Europe by way of Affghanistan, Persia, and Asia Minor. The following list embraces the late works on Assyria and Persia, as well as those relating to the arrow-head inscriptions.