There are, opposite Mosul, the remains of two great cities. The most ancient of all Assyrian palace-cities is Asshur, the city of Tiglath-Pileser, whose name occurs in the Bible so often, that great spoiler of the Israelites, who reigned eleven hundred years before Christ. The ruins of this, now known as Kileh Shergat, are situated on the west bank of the Tigris, some distance below Mosul. Lower down still, where the Greater Zab River joins the Tigris, are the ruins of Nimrud, or Kalah,[14] the royal city of Asshurnazipal, who ruled Assyria from 884 to 860 B.C., and whose campaigns extended, like those of many of the Assyrian kings, to the Mediterranean coast. [Sidenote: NINEVEH] North-north-east of Mosul is the place called Khorsabad, a Kurdish name meaning “The place of the bear,” or a corruption of Khosruabad--“The Abode of Khosroes,” but known to the realm of Assyria as Dar Sharrukin, the palace of Sargon, a great ruler, who carried away the Jews “into Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,” _i.e._, in what is the western portion of what is known as Assyria proper. The River Habor is now called Khabur, a tributary of the Euphrates, in central northern Mesopotamia. Of the great cities of the Assyrians there remain Arbela, to be spoken of later, and Nineveh, probably the most famous of all. This is situated partially in the mound upon which the shrine of Jonah now stands, and at Koyunjik, a mile or two farther north, just by where we camped. This latter is the older Nineveh. Here, Sennacherib in 700 B.C. built himself a palace in the already ancient city in the fashion of his ancestors. Part of his life he spent in the wars with the Jews: he had summoned Jerusalem to surrender, had besieged it, had done his best to resubdue Judah and Israel, when he was driven off by a plague, a fact recorded by Isaiah. From Syria to Persia, from Armenia to the Persian Gulf, in the manner of his fathers, he waged war, and subdued again the ever-rebelling lands, finally retiring to his palace at Nineveh, to be foully murdered by his sons. His fourth and favourite son, Esarhaddon, succeeded him in 681 B.C., and in 670 B.C. commenced the palace of New Nineveh, the mound of Nebi Yunis, the other side of the brook Kauther, which we had crossed in the afternoon, and which in those days existed. In these mounds, of which four have been partially excavated, furnishing us with a wealth of precise information and glorious sculpture, there lies yet many a volume, and as yet Arbela, which is as ancient as any of them, is untouched.