nt place in the national life than it did
either in Egypt or Greece. The monarch spent most of his time either in
hunting or fighting, and his court must have followed him to the field.
Moreover, when spring covers every meadow with deep herbage and brilliant
flowers, an irresistible desire comes over the inhabitants of such
countries as Mesopotamia to fly from cities and set up their dwellings amid
the scents and verdure of the fields. Again, when the summer heats have
dried up the plains and made the streets of a town unbearable, an exodus
takes place to the nearest mountains, and life is only to be prized when it
can be passed among the breezes from their valleys and the shadows of their
forest trees.

[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Type of open architecture in Assyria; composed by
Charles Chipiez.]

Even in our own day the inhabitants of these regions pass from the house to
the tent with an ease which seems strange to us. At certain seasons some of
the nomad tribes betake themselves within the walls of Bagdad and Mossoul
and there set up their long black tents of goats' hair.[247] Judging from
the bas-reliefs they did the same even in ancient Assyria; in some of these
a few tents may be seen sprinkled over a space inclosed by a line of walls
and towers.[248] Abraham and Lot slept in their tents even when they dwelt
within the walls of a city.[249] Lot had both his tent and a house at
Sodom.[250] Every year the inhabitants of Mossoul and the neighbouring
villages turn out in large numbers into the neighbouring country, and,
during April and May, re-taste for a time that pastoral life to which a
roof is unknown.

The centuries have been unable to affect such habits as these, because they
were suggested, enforced, and perpetuated by nature herself, by the climate
of Mesopotamia; and they have done much to create and develop that light
and elegant form of building which we may almost call the architecture of
the tent. In these days and in a country into whose remotest corners the
decadence has penetrated, the tent is hardly more than a mere shelter; here
and there, in the case of a few chiefs less completely ruined than the
rest, it still preserves a certain size and elegance, but as a rule all
that is demanded of it is to be sufficiently strong and thick to resist the
wind, the rain, and the sun. It was otherwise in the rich and civilized
society with which we are now concerned. Its arrangement and decoration
then called f