[673] In the Tablets we read of the ‘Star of the double Sword’ (Kakab gir-tab)
. ‘Hammasti,’ also, is the ‘blade of the double Sword.’
[674] ‘Ashur create a Son,’ b.c. 673. Assyrian Discoveries, by G. Smith (London: Sampson Low, 1876).
[675] For instance, that in the bas-reliefs of Burs Nimrúd, b.c. 1000, now in the Louvre. The hippopotamus is now never found out of Africa.
[676] With cavalry as well as infantry (Layard, p. 55). Upon this, a very complicated subject, I shall have much to say.
[677] Whence the French cravache.
[678] This abomination popularly derives from Semiramis (Sa-am-mu-ra-mat) of Assyria, and extended far and wide. Even in the earlier part of the present century eunuchs were manufactured for Christian and Catholic Rome. The practice is still kept up in Egypt, Turkey, and Persia, although strictly forbidden by the Apostle of Allah.
[679] Col. Hanbury exhibited it at the British Museum. Notes by Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, read April 6: Trans. Soc. Bib. Archæology, vol. iv. Part II. 1876.
[680] Nebo, in the inscriptions, holds a golden reed or rod, as the Homeric Hermes is Χρυσόρραπις; he also leads the ghosts to Hades. The Chaldæan gods were, like the Egyptian, deceased ancestors, and they were followed by natural objects, Anu (sky), Bel (earth), Hea (sea), personified into a vast and various mythology. Sun, moon, and æther, were the first Triad of Babylon. Thus the Chthonic gods of Greece, Uranus (the Egyptian Urnas), Gaia and Thalassa (Assyrian), preceded the Olympic anthropomorphism. Of course they were represented with human shapes. Presently the priest introduced as godheads cosmo-poetic causes and effects, which presently peopled the Pantheon with glorified men. For, I repeat, man worships only one thing—himself.