Layard was quickly stirred to action. Directly he discovered who the culprits were he galloped off to their camp, and in the very face of the hostile tribe seized the sheik and carried him off. Under the lash of Layard’s tongue that worthy soon repented, and ordered all the missing articles to be returned. On another occasion a sudden flood swept away many Arabs, and sent one of his rafts of sculptures swirling through a break in the bank into the swamps, from which they were rescued with the utmost difficulty. Even in those days lightning strikes were not unknown, for Layard contended with one on the part of his Arabs. His sculptures were all waiting to be placed aboard the raft, when the Arabs, who knew he dare not miss the spring floods, told him they were moving camp, thinking to induce him to give them more money for the work. Layard bade them good-bye, and galloped off into the desert to get helpers from another tribe. When the strikers came back, finding their bluff of no avail, they were already superseded. It is rather a striking commentary on the progress that has been made in three thousand years, to know that Layard’s methods in removing the bulls were almost identical with those of the ancient Assyrians who placed them in position. One of the sculptured slabs uncovered by Layard at Kouyunjik, furnished full particulars of how the ancients tackled the difficulty of moving such masses. The original huge block was brought from the quarry in the hills on rafts supported by skins, just as the bull was sent down to Basra. It was dragged ashore by bands of slaves, and the sculptor carved the block into the form of the man-headed winged bull, giving the statue five legs, as was the general practice in Assyria, so that four might be seen from the side and two from the front. The bull was then placed on a sledge, something like that used by the Egyptians for moving similar masses, and dragged and levered along, the lever used being a great pole to which ropes were attached for men to throw their weight upon. A sloping road was built up to the place where the bulls were to stand, and up this the statues were gradually hauled and pushed. The man directing the operations of the army of workmen is clearly shown, though whether he is signalling by blowing on a trumpet, or shouting through the first megaphone ever invented, is an open question. He appears to be using a trumpet, but for aught we know it might have been something to magnify the voice.