acres. It is loftier,
and its sides are more precipitous, than Koyunjik, especially on the
west, where it abutted upon the wall of the city. The surface is mostly
flat, but is divided about the middle by a deep ravine, running nearly
from north to south, and separating the mound into an eastern and a
western portion. The so-called tomb of Jonah is conspicuous on the north
edge of the western portion of the mound, and about it are grouped the
cottages of the Kurds and Turcomans to whom the site of the ancient
Nineveh belongs. The eastern portion of the mound forms a burial-ground,
to which the bodies of Mahometans are brought from considerable
distances. The mass of earth is calculated at six and a half millions of
tons; so that its erection would have given full employment to 10,000
men for the space of five years and a half.

These two vast mounds--the platforms on which palaces and temples were
raised--are both in the same line, and abutted, both of them, on the
western wall of the city. Their position in that wall is thought to have
been determined, not by chance, but by design; since they break the
western face of the city into three nearly equal portions. The entire
length of this side of Nineveh was 13,600 feet, or somewhat more than
two and a half miles. Anciently it seems to have immediately overhung
the Tigris, which has now moved off to the west, leaving a plain nearly
a mile in width between its eastern edge and the old rampart of the
city. This rampart followed, apparently, the natural course of the
river-bank; and hence, while on the whole it is tolerably straight, in
the most southern of the three portions it exhibits a gentle curve,
where the river evidently made a sweep, altering its course from
south-east nearly to south.

The western wall at its northern extremity approaches the present course
of the Tigris, and is here joined, exactly at right angles, by the
northern, or rather the north-western, rampart, which runs in a
perfectly straight line to the north-eastern angle of the city, and is
said to measure exactly 7000 feet. This wall is again divided, like the
western, but with even more preciseness, into three equal portions.
Commencing at the north-eastern angle, one-third of it is carried along
comparatively high ground, after which for the remaining two-thirds of
its course it falls by a gentle decline towards the Tigris. Exactly
midway in this slope the rampart is broken by a road, adjoining wh