Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

92 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
to British interests in those countries, Layard's intimate
knowledge of the territory in dispute proved of great value
to Sir Stratford Canning (afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe),
then British ambassador at the Porte in Constantinople,
whither our traveller had hastened. Though for
apparent political reasons the Russian point of view was
finally accepted by England, much against Canning's protest
and his own very decided conviction, Layard had found
in
this man of influence a liberal patron, who during the following
years entrusted him with many important missions,
endeavoring all the time to have him definitely attached to
his staff". While thus waiting at the shore of the Bosphorus
for a much coveted position, Layard remained in regular
correspondence with Botta, whose reports
and drawings he
received before they were published. The latter's unexpected
brilliant success at Khorsabad brought him new
encouragement for his own plans, and increased his hope
and desire to return on some future day to Mesopotamia
and excavate the ruins of Nineveh. With his mind firmly
fixed upon this one object of his life, he commenced " the
studv of the Semitic languages, to which I conjectured the
cuneiform inscriptions from the Assvrian ruins belonged." !
But when he saw Sir Stratford making arrangements for a
temporarv return to England, he became tired of waiting
longer for his promised
attacheship, and one dav spoke to
the latter of his ardent desire to examine the mounds near
Mosul. To his great delight, his generous patron not only
approved of his suggestion, but offered j[6o (=$300) towards
the expenses which would be incurred in making tentative
1
Comp. *« Early Adventures," 2d edition, p. 409. We quote the
above statement literally, in order to show that Layard, with his well-known
intuition, divined the truth later established, even before Lowenstein expressed
the same thought in his Essai de dechiffrement de /' Ecriture Assyrieinie
pour servir a V explication du Monument de Khorsabad, Paris and Leipzig,
1845, pp. 12, seq.