At Kouyunjik he found the palace of Sennacherib, buried 30 feet deep under an accumulation of debris and soil, so deep, in fact, that it was quite impossible to open trenches from the top, owing to the prodigious quantities of soil to be removed. Layard met this difficulty by driving tunnels, and the whole mound was in time honeycombed with his gloomy passages. Occasionally a shaft was opened to the top to let in light, and the faint glimmer that filtered down lit up the most astounding sculptures ever seen by human eyes. Thus was Nineveh found lying in its grave, so overwhelmed that Layard had to mine a way into it. Once Layard gained enormous prestige among the Arabs, by telling them that the sun would be eclipsed, and the day grow dark. Sure enough the sun began to grow dim, and the Arabs, who thought that devils had caught hold of the planet, took up all the pots and pans they possessed, and nearly knocked the bottoms out of them in their endeavours to frighten the evil spirits away! The removal of the sculptures from the ruins and their safe transport to England, was not the least of the many problems that Layard had to solve. The river Tigris was the only highway to the sea, and as it was too shallow to allow steamers to steam up to Mosul, it was necessary to build rafts to float the sculptures down to Basra, where they could be transhipped to the vessels that were to take them to England. It needed a deal of persuasion to induce a native to build a raft big enough to support the weighty lion and the bull. The raft was eventually constructed and supported by six hundred sheep and goat skins, every one of which had to be blown up by the mouth of the raftsman and tied securely. It was a task which must have severely tested the lungs and temper of the blower. Layard made his plans carefully. As no timber was available, a man was sent high up the river to cut down mulberry trees to make a rude cart for transporting the bull and lion to the river edge. The trees were floated down the Tigris, and four solid wooden wheels a foot thick were cut out of the trunks and bound with iron. Big beams formed the body of the cart, and when it was ready half the population of Mosul crowded to see the buffaloes drag it over the bridge of boats spanning the river. The bull was buried 20 feet deep in the earth. Layard had no tackle for lifting a weight of fifty tons, so his diggers cut a sloping road from the statue to the edge of the mound, paving it with planks of wood. The bull, which stood upright, was to be lowered on its side to a frame of strong planks. The ropes were placed round the bull, and over a mighty rock some distance away. Scores of men slowly paid out the ropes, while the bull canted over on its side. The statue was about 5 feet from the ground, when all the ropes broke, the men fell backwards in a heap, and the bull descended with a crash.