“I will travel overland,” he said. De Lesseps had still to carve the Suez Canal out of the desert sands. Why should Layard coop himself up in a ship and make his slow way all round Africa to India? It was then the usual way, but the usual way was not Layard’s way. He studied his maps and traced his route. Travelling overland would give him a splendid opportunity of seeing the world, and he hugged the secret thought in his heart that he would be able to wander in the lands of his dreams, to see Constantinople and Baghdad. He received £600 from his mother, to set him on the road to fame and fortune. Half this sum was sent to a bank in Ceylon so that he might collect it on his arrival, the other half he carried with him to pay his expenses on the long journey half across the world. He was only twenty-two years old when he said good-bye to his mother, and set out with a friend in 1839 to make his way to Ceylon. By the autumn they were adventuring in Syria. They had no one to guide them, no servants to wait on them. They tended their own horses, and for the rest relied on their youth and their weapons. Layard’s thoughts turned in the direction of Nineveh and Babylon, and his horse’s head was turned in the same direction. He realized that the opportunity of seeing the land might never recur. So in the spring of 1840 the two friends jogged along from Aleppo to Mosul. They were lucky to get through unscathed, for the Arabs were warring with each other on all sides. The dwellers of the deserts were raiding right and left, and Layard often happened on encampments that were picked clean by the marauders. Once or twice the young Englishmen came upon bands of the raiders, but their luck stood them in good stead and they passed on their way unmolested. The two friends made light of these adventures, yet there was always the chance that a bullet might stretch them dead on the desert sands and that they would for ever disappear in the East. The great mounds of Nimroud, opposite Mosul, wielded a potent spell over Layard. He climbed about them, dreamed over them, picked up bits of brick with arrow-headed writing on them. Often he asked himself what lay under his feet. He saw bits of alabaster sticking out of the soil where the rains had washed them bare. The remains of a dam peeped out of the river Tigris. He asked an Arab who built it. [Illustration: _By courtesy of the British School at Athens_ EXCAVATING THE THRONE ROOM AT KNOSSOS. THE STONE THRONE MAY BE SEEN IN THE BACKGROUND (_see page 185_)] [Illustration: _By courtesy of R. Campbell Thomson_ THE DESOLATION OF NINEVEH. THIS HILL WAS ONCE ONE OF THE WALLS OF THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA] “Nimrod,” said the Arab, referring to the great mythical god of the past.