Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/119

Rh recorded literally fulfils the prophecy of Nahum, and accounts for a stratum of pebbles and sand which has been found a few feet below the surface in the mounds of Koyoonjuk and Nimrood. The labours of Mr. Layard in the work of excavation, and his researches about Nineveh, render any further description of its ancient site, or of the wonderful relics which have been dug up therefrom, unnecessary and superfluous.

Mosul is situated on the western bank of the Tigris, and is surrounded by a good wall, about three miles in circumference, which encloses, besides the town, a large space covered with ruins, and some extensive fields. The houses are built of stone, with arched roofs, and the walls of the court yards partly faced with slabs of sculptured marble, or rather alabaster, after the manner of the buildings which have lately been discovered in the mounds of Nineveh and Nimrood. Many of the houses, however, are in a very dilapidated state, attributable in a great measure to the calamities which have befallen the city during the last century. In 1825 it was visited by a famine which lasted for three successive years; this was succeeded by a plague which raged for nine months, and swept away 18,000 persons in Mosul only. Again, in 1831, 2, the river rose to such a height that the town and much of the surrounding country were flooded for months together. And if we add to these misfortunes the ruin of the native manufactures by the importation of cheaper and better articles from Europe, chiefly the produce of our machinery, together with the misrule to which the place has been so long subjected, we cannot wonder that this once flourishing city has been impoverished, and its prosperity well nigh destroyed.

The only manufactures of Mosul at the present day are cottoncloths and soap, which find a market in the villages around. The principal articles of commerce are the gall-nuts which are