Crossing the rickety bridge of boats, Layard rode along the bank back to Nimroud. With him were some irregular soldiers, to see that he did not dig any more. He dared not deliberately run counter to the wishes of the Pasha, and was not anxious to risk an outbreak of the mob.
He talked to the Arab in charge of the soldiers to such good purpose that the man’s tongue wagged a little more than the Pasha imagined was possible. It revealed an amusing conspiracy which the Pasha had hatched to stop further excavations. It was a trick worthy of the East. The Turkish soldiers actually dug graves in the dark, in order to point them out by day as having been violated. “We have destroyed more real tombs of true Believers in making sham ones, than you could have defiled between the Zab and Selamiyah. We have killed our horses and ourselves carrying those accursed stones,” the leader confessed to Layard.
Layard quickly hit on a simple plan of winning the soldiers over. He employed a few to guard the sculptures he had already uncovered, and the rest turned a blind eye to him if he happened to be digging instead of copying inscriptions, as he was supposed to do! The trifling sums he gave the soldiers for their nominal services were indeed well spent.
All the time Layard was digging he ran continual risk of being raided by the Arabs. He was compelled to organize defences, and more than one pitched battle took place between the hostile Arabs and those who guarded the mound of Nimroud. Often the excavator had to call his diggers out of the trenches to beat off marauders who coveted the belongings of the stranger within their gates.
It was extraordinary the way Layard followed the workings of the Oriental mind. In this direction he had a unique gift, and with such tact and judgment did he treat those with whom he came into contact, that his reputation soon spread abroad among the Arab tribes. Many of the chiefs held him in high esteem, and were dominated by his personality. In those days Layard exercised as much power among the Arabs, and went among them as freely, as did Colonel Lawrence during the Great War. He possessed a determination and intuition that carried him through everything. He lived with the Arabs, and liked them.
At his behest great slabs all carved with sculptures and inscribed with cuneiform characters saw the light of day once more, after lying beneath the soil for three thousand years. There were quaint figures, beautifully carved with the bodies of men and the heads of birds, while wings were attached to the shoulders. These were the ancient gods of the Assyrians. Winged lions were found partly destroyed by the fire which had raged over the palace. Great carvings of campaigns were found in a similar state.
One day, as he was riding towards the mound on his return from Mosul, some Arabs galloped up to him like madmen.
“Hasten, O Bey! hasten to the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself. Wallah, it is wonderful, but it is true. We have seen him with our eyes. There is no God but God!” they cried, and turning their horses they pounded away to the black tents of their tribe.
When Layard got to the trench he saw something concealed by Arab cloaks and baskets. The diggers tore the coverings off as he approached, and Layard beheld the giant head of a sculptured figure buried up to the neck in the soil. It was a human head, nearly as tall as a man, and belonging to one of those fine human-headed winged bulls now in the British Museum.
One Arab was so terrified of the monster that he dropped his basket and ran madly to Mosul. He babbled the most alarming tales of the terror that the stranger was releasing from the earth, and the rumours quickly spread through the bazaars. People for miles around rushed to the scene to gaze on the idol of the infidels.