[215] Strabo, xvi. 1, 5.
[216] Κεραμωι δ' ου χρωνται, says Strabo. These words, as Letronne remarked à propos of this passage, combine the ideas of a tiled roof and of one with a ridge. The one notion must be taken with the other; hence we may infer that the Babylonian houses were flat-roofed.
[217] Strabo, ii. 5, 11.
[218] See M. Amédée Tardieu's reflections upon Strabo's method of work, in his Géographie de Strabon (Hachette, 3 vols, 12mo.), vol. iii. p. 286, note 2.
[219] As to this singular people and their religious beliefs, the information contained in the two works of Sir H. Layard (Nineveh, vol. 1. pp. 270-305, and Discoveries, pp. 40-92) will be read with interest. Thanks to special circumstances Sir H. Layard was able to become more intimately acquainted than any other traveller with this much-abused and cruelly persecuted sect. He collected much valuable information upon doctrines which, even after his relation, are not a little obscure and confused. The Yezidis have a peculiar veneration for the evil principle, or Satan; they also seem to worship the sun. Their religion is in fact a conglomeration of various survivals from the different systems that have successively obtained in that part of Asia. They themselves have no clear idea of it as a whole. It would repay study by an archæologist of religions.
[220] Botta, Monument de Ninive, vol. v. p. 70.
[221] See above, page 118, note 1.
[222] Some rooms are as much as thirty feet wide. They would require joists at least thirty-three feet long, a length that can hardly be admitted in view of the very mediocre quality of the wood in common use.
[223] Gailhabaud, Monuments anciens et modernes, vol. i.; plate entitled Tombeaux superposés à Corneto.
[224] Place, Ninive, vol. i. p. 309. In this passage M. Place affirms that Mr. Layard discovered in a room of one of the Ninevite palaces, several openings cut at less than four feet above the floor level. It is, moreover, certain that these openings were included in the original plan of the building, because the reliefs are interrupted so as to leave room for the window without injury to the scenes sculptured upon them; but, adds M. Place, this example is unique, one of those exceptions that help to confirm a rule. We have in vain searched through the two works of Sir Henry Layard for the statement alluded to by M. Place. The English explorer only once mentions windows, and then he says: "Even in the rooms bounded by the outer walls there is not the slightest trace of windows" (Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 260).