Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/189

On the Representations of Animals. 159 herself on her fore paws. She still faces the enemy, her half opened jaws are at once agonised and menacing, and, as we gaze upon her, we can almost fancy that we hear her last groan issue from her dying lips. We might multiply these examples if we chose, but the two fragments we have reproduced will, we hope, send our readers to the British Museum to see the Hunt of Assurbanipal for them- selves. In any case they are enough to prove that the Assyrian sculptor studied the lion from nature. He was not without opportunities. He was, no doubt, allowed to assist at those great hunts of which he was to be the official chronicler. He there saw the king of beasts throw himself on the spears of the foot- men or fly before the arrows of the charioteers, and break the converging line of beaters ; he saw him fall under his repeated wounds and struggle in his last convulsions. Later on he could supplement his recollections, he could complete and correct his sketches by the examination of the victims. 1 At the end of the day the " bag " was displayed as it is now at the end of a modern battue, when the keepers bring pheasants, hares and rabbits, and lay them in long rows in some clearing or corner of the covert. In one of the Kouyundjik reliefs we see the king standing before an altar and doing his homage to the gods after the emotions and dangers of a hunt that was almost a battle. 2 He seems to pour the wine of the libation upon four dead lions, which his attendants have arranged in line upon the ground. There must also have been tame lions in the palaces and royal parks. Even now they are often to be met with in that country, under the tent of the Arab chief or in the house of the bey or pacha. 3 When captured quite young the lion is easily educated, 1 In one single series of these reliefs, there are eleven lions killed and seven terribly wounded. 2 The king sometimes found himself engaged with a lion at the closest quarters. In an inscription on one of these reliefs, Assurbanipal thus expresses himself. " I, Assurbanipal, king of the nations, king of Assyria, fighting on foot in my great courage with a lion of terrifying size, I seized him by the ear (!), and, in the name of Assur and Istar, goddess of war, I put an end to his life with the lance I held in my hand." (Fox Talbot in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xix. p. 272). 3 Layard, Discoveries, p. 487. As to the part played by the lion in the ceremonies of the present court of Abyssinia, see Georges Perrot, Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Chaldée, pp. 532, 53^, of the Revue des deux Monde for October 1, 1882.