the coronation of Shah Soleiman III. in 1666, and thus describes it :

"It was a little square cushion-stool, three feet in height; the feet of the pillars that supported the corners being fashioned like so many great apples; and to secure the seat, there ran as many cross-bars both above and below. The upper part was smooth and plain, without anything that might make the seat softer, being all the same materials with the rest, that is, massive gold very thick; the four pillars also and the feet being plated with gold, and set with little rubies and some emeralds. This same stool at other times is kept very charily in the Treasury Royal, which is a dungeon in the fortress of Ispahan, and so weighty that two men can hardly carry it."*

At other times the king sat on a throne of another form. It was a high elbow-chair or fauteuil, with a tall straight back, closely resembling those we see in old-fashioned mansions. Over the top was always thrown a cloth with an embroidered border,† which hung low down the back. A footstool supported his feet, which frequently had a high rim curving inwards, the use of which it is difficult to imagine, if it was really constructed as represented. But the rim was in all probability at the two sides, and only by the "Coronation of Soleiman III." 39 (Lond. 1686.)

+ See Homer :—

Then leading her toward a footstool'd throne
Magnificent, which first he overspread

With linen, there he seated her apart

From that rude throng, and for himself disposed

A throne of various colours at her side.-Odyss. i. 160.

artist's ignorance of perspective placed at the back. and front; that is, he has drawn it as if in transverse section. In the gorgeous Indian Tent in the Great Exhibition there is, in front of the carved ivory throne, a footstool of the same material, of two steps. The upper part on which the feet rested is margined on the back and the two sides, but not in front, by a rim or wall of considerable height. It thus affords an interesting illustration of these Assyrian footstools.

When the sovereign occupied this throne he commonly held in his right hand the tall golden sceptre, the foot of which rested on the ground, while his left hand held a small fan of feathers, or a bunch of pomegranates, or was laid upon his knee. The vizier usually stood before his lord, face to face, to give him the aid of his counsel and experience; when speaking he seems to have lifted up his extended right hand, while the left rested on the hilt

H

of the sword that he wore horizontally in his girdle. At other times, etiquette prescribed the folding of the hands in the attitude already described. The king, when speaking, raised the right hand, and laid the left on his sword-hilt in like manner, but is never seen with folded hands.

The Fly-flapper seems to have been indispensable, whenever the monarch was not in actual motion. The pertinacity of minute flies, and the torment they incessantly cause by their venomous punctures, in hot climates, is well known; when a person is in rapid motion, as on horseback or in a carriage, he can manage to evade their assaults tolerably well; but the instant he pauses, they throng around in humming swarms, and soon cover every exposed part of the person with their painful bites. It was, doubtless, as a protection against these formidable though tiny foes, that the fly-whisk was in such constant requisition. Very frequently two attendant eunuchs exercised this useful implement at once; they are sometimes represented as one before and one behind the king, and sometimes as both behind, and standing side by side, but we may be permitted

* In modern Persia "the prime-minister stands separate from the rest and nearest to the king. The persons expected to attend this court are the minister of state, the superior officers of the army and the court, and such governors and high officers of the provinces as happen to be in the metropolis. . . . No one sits-not even the heir-apparent-in the royal presence; all stand in a reverent posture. The only exception is made in favour of the two chief ecclesiastics, who, on the Friday attendance, are allowed to sit in the same room with the king, but only at a great distance from him. . . . The posture of respect is to stand motionless, with depressed eyelids, and hands laid over one another upon the breast, the right hand uppermost."-Kitto's Court of Persia, p. 91.

to suppose that their common place was one on each side of their lord. The fly-flappers usually carried a handkerchief or napkin (σoudápiov) over the shoulder or hanging on the left arm, sometimes held forward in the hand ready for the royal demand, which in such a climate, we may suppose, was pretty constant.

Almost equally indispensable beneath the torrid rays of the cloudless sun of Assyria, was the parasol; and accordingly we find such an implement carried by an eunuch over the head of the king, large and heavy, and requiring the support of both hands, but in general form closely resembling those used by ladies in modern times. Even when the monarch sat on his throne within his royal halls it was beneath the grateful shadow of the parasol; a circumstance which singularly favours the conjecture of Mr. Layard that the Assyrian palaces were, at least in their central portions, roofless, and open to the sky.

When the king travelled he was always attended by a Parasol-bearer in his chariot. In this case the instrument was generally of larger size, and sometimes the staff appears to have rested in a socket in the floor of the car, being held steady by the attendant. Sometimes it was rounded in shape, sometimes conical; the summit was usually adorned with an ornament, and depending tassels occasionally fringed the margin, ribs converged from the expanded arch to a socket around the staff, which from its appearance we conjecture to have been capable of sliding up and down, for the purpose of expanding

or closing the parasol. In the latter period of Assyrian history, a long depending veil or strip of cloth descended from the hinder part of the margin, nearly to the feet, thus rendering the shadow more extensive.

CHARIOT-PARASOL.

In the Great Exhibition, while we write these pages, there are specimens of royal parasols from India, the very counterparts of those of the Assyrian sculptures. The staff is sometimes of wood, painted, gilt, and varnished; sometimes of bamboo; sometimes of silver. The expansion is generally of silk, often fringed and embroidered with gold or silver.

The parasol appears continually in the Persian sculptures, of the same form as that used by the Assyrians, from whom the custom probably passed to