Layard rushed down from his post expecting to find it shattered, but it proved to be quite uninjured by its fall. Then the men began to haul the bull over rollers to the edge of the mound. The noise made by the onlookers was deafening. They danced and shouted and behaved like mad people. Gradually the bull was pulled up the incline until it stood just above the cart, which had been placed in an excavation to bring it on a level with the end of the road. The earth was dug away from under the bull, and it slowly settled in the cart. That was the beginning of a few strenuous days full of troubles. The buffaloes, upon being harnessed up, refused to pull. Cracking whips and the shouts of Arabs alike failed to have any effect, so at last they were taken out, and three hundred natives caught hold of the ropes and began to drag the cart to the river. The road had been carefully surveyed to make sure that there were no secret holes in which the villagers were wont to store their corn, but unluckily one was overlooked. A perverse fate directed the cart straight to it, and before any one realized what was happening a wheel suddenly sank into the covered hole, nearly capsizing the rough cart. Spades and timbers were brought to the spot, and the natives dug and hauled with all their might, but it was night before the cart was extricated. The next day saw the long lines of Arabs straining at the cart once more, and this time progress was stopped by a bed of soft sand in which the wheels sank. Not until the third day was the great bull brought down to the water’s edge. Here it remained until the melting snows on the Kurdish mountains made the river rise, and when there was a sufficient depth of water to float the bull down to Basra, the final task was undertaken. A slipway of poplar beams was first of all built from the bull to the top of the raft. This was thoroughly greased, just as the slipways are greased when a battleship is launched, and down this slipway Layard began to lower the bull. For a moment he thought all his carefully laid plans were to end in disaster. The natives hung on to the ropes in their attempt to check the descent of the bull. It was too much for them. Getting out of hand, the bull dropped with a thud on to the raft. The raft gave a terrific lurch, but luckily it withstood the impact, and all was well. Before the bull was embarked, Layard was faced with the prospect of being defeated by the marauding Arabs. He ordered all the felts and ropes and other materials to be brought down to Nimroud on a raft, but the raft, owing to its late start from Mosul, was unable to reach the mound before dark, so the Arabs in charge tied up to the bank to pass the night. In the middle of the night a raiding party swarmed down on them and stripped the raft of everything.