For our knowledge of ancient Babylonian and Assyrian life, we are dependent largely upon scenes depicted on palace walls, especially the walls of royal dwellings. These scenes commemorate the doings of the king particularly, and where laborers, slaves and the common people are shown at all, they are seen at work, building palaces and temples, marching to battle, swelling the triumphal processions, or they are cultivating the fields, storing away the grain--all to the glory of the realm and consequently to the king. Naturally then, we know little about the pastimes of the masses. They no doubt thronged the streets on festivals, for then they were free from work. Even labor on royal palaces--always pushed with all possible speed--was then suspended. Every day in the year had its own significance, but five days each month were of particular importance, being sacred to the gods, and were duly observed. Worship and merry-making were in a measure mingled. Other days for popular observance were those in which the king and the army returned from successful wars. A triumphal procession passed slowly through the streets on its way to the temple, where thanksgiving was rendered the gods who had made victory possible. Such occasions were always holidays, and the people in gay attire, gathered to witness the home-coming of their sovereign, and to gaze in wonder at the booty and the captives. Two recreations pictured on the palace walls were enjoyed only by the nobles and the wealthy classes--the hunt and the banquet. In modern times, when those in high position have occasionally laid down important matters for a brief while to seek recreation in hunting, fishing and out of door life, they have taken opportunity to throw off much of the conventionality surrounding their every-day life and have found some diversion in "roughing it,"--in sharing the varying fortune likely to befall those who leave the certain comforts of home for the uncertain conditions to be met away from the centers of civilization. Such was not at all the case with the kings of Assyria when they left their capitals to hunt the lion in its distant jungles and marshes. In the palace of Sennacherib and Asshurbanipal, hunts have been depicted throughout their progress. We may see the king marching out of the city in his state chariot, his charioteer at his side, while behind him an attendant holds high an embroidered parasol over his kingly head to protect him from the rays of the sun. Nobles accompany him on horses and they, together with the guards and retinue of servants, make up a small army. Goats and cattle are driven along, that his majesty and his nobles may have fresh milk and meat throughout their absence; a sumptuous tent shelters the king when the procession stops for the night, while each noble tries to pitch his tent near the more splendid one of his king. Maspero has graphically described the hunt. Some wild oxen have been discovered, and the king gives chase: