File:Nineveh and Babylon - a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851 (1882) (14580652979).jpg

Identifier: ninevehbabylonna00laya (find matches)
Title: Nineveh and Babylon : a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, & 1851
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Layard, Austen Henry, Sir, 1817-1894
Subjects: Nineveh (Extinct city) Babylon (Extinct city) Middle East -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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it rolledonwards, by its loud noise disturbed swarms of bats thathung to the sides and ceiling of the cavern. Flying towardsthe light, these noisome beasts almost compelled us to re-treat. They clung to our clothes, and our hands couldscarcely prevent them settling on our faces. The rustling oftheir wings was like the noise of a great wind, and an abom-inable stench arose from the recesses of the cave. At length VI.) VOLCANO OF KOUKAB. 143 they settled again to their daily sleep, and we were able togo forward. After descending some fifty feet, we found ourselves onthe margin of a pond of fresh water. The pitchy darknessprevented our ascertaming its size, which could not havebeen very great. The cave is frequently a place of refugefor the wandering Arabs, and the Bedouins encamp near itin summer to drink the cool water of this natural reser\oir.Mohammed Emin told me that, in the previous year, he hadfound a hon in it, who, on being disturbed, merely rushedout and fled across the plain.
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Volcanic Cone of Koukab. Leaving the cavern and issuing from the ravine, we cameto the edge of a wide crater, in the centre of which rose theremarkable cone of Koukab. To the left of us was a secondcrater, whose lips were formed by the jagged edges of ba-saltic rocks, and in the plain around were several otherssmaller in size. They were all evidently the remains of anextinct volcano, which had been active within a compara-tively recent geological period, even perhaps widiin the time 144 NINEVEH AND BABYLON. (Chap. of history or tradition, as the name of the mound, Koukab,means in Arabic a star and a jet of flame. I ascended the cone, which is about 300 feet high, andcomposed entirely of loose lava, scoria, and ashes, thus re-sembling the cone rising in the crater of Vesuvius. It issteep and difficult of ascent, except on one side, where thesummit is easily reached even by horses. Within, for it ishollow, it resembles an enormous funnel, broken away at oneedge, as if a stream of molten

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