n the roofs. The
window proper was almost unknown. We can hardly point to an instance of its
use, either among Assyrian or Chaldaean remains, or in the representations
of them in the bas-reliefs. Here and there we find openings in the upper
stories of towers, but they are loop-holes rather than windows (Fig.
38).[159]

[Illustration: FIG. 38.--A Fortress. From Layard.]

At first we are inclined to pity kings shut up within such blind walls as
these. But we must not be betrayed into believing that they took no
measures to enjoy the evening breeze, or to cast their eyes over the broad
plains at their feet, over the cities that lay under the shadows of the
lofty mounds upon which their palaces were built. At certain times of the
year and day they would retire within the shelter of their thickest walls
and roofs; just as at the present moment the inhabitants of Mossoul,
Bassorah, and Bagdad, take refuge within their _serdabs_ as soon as the sun
is a little high in the heavens, and stay there until the approach of
evening.[160]

When the heat was less suffocating the courtyards would be pleasant, with
their encircling porticoes sustaining a light covering inclined towards the
centre, an arrangement required by the climate, and one which is to be
found both at Pompeii and in the Arab houses of Damascus, and is sure to
have been adopted by the inhabitants of ancient Chaldaea. Additional space
was given by the wide esplanades in front of the doors, and by the flat
roofs, upon which sleep was often more successfully wooed than in the rooms
below. And sometimes the pleasures given by refreshing breezes, cool
shadows, and a distant prospect could be all enjoyed together, for in a
certain bas-relief that seems to represent one of those great buildings of
which we possess the ruins, we see an open arcade--a _loggia_ as it would
be called in Italy--rise above the roof for the whole length of the facade
(Fig. 39).[161] There are houses in the neighbourhood of Mossoul in which a
similar arrangement is to be met with, as we may see from Mr. Layard's
sketch of a house in a village of Kurdistan inhabited by Nestorians (Fig.
40). It includes a modified kind of portico, the pillars of which are
suggested or rather demanded by the necessity for supporting the ceiling.

[Illustration: FIG. 39.--View of a Town and its Palaces. Kouyundjik. From
Layard.]

Supposing such an arrangement to have obtained in Mesopotamia, of what
material were t