74 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALIXEA AND ASSYRIA. The chief atmospheric phenomena were also personified ; of this we may give one example. All travellers in Chaldaea agree in their descriptions of those sudden storms which burst on the country from a clear sky, especially towards the commencement of summer. Without a single premonitory symptom, a huge, black water-spout advances from some point on the horizon, its flanks i'jjj) V>~_ ~, - Fu;. ii. Assyrian Cylinder, in the National Library, Paris. Jasper. shooting lightnings and thunder. In a few minutes it reaches the traveller and wraps him in its black vapours ; the sand-laden wind blinds him, the rain pours upon him in solid sheets ; but he has hardly realized his position before the storm is past and the sun is again shining in the blue depths above. But for torn and overthrown tents and trees uprooted or struck by the electric FIG. 12. Assyrian Cylinder, in the National Library, Paris. Serpentine. fluid, a stranger to the country might almost believe himself to have been the sport of a dream. 1 The force and suddenness of these visitations could hardly fail to impress the imagination of a people exposed to them, and it is not surprising that Mesopotamia had its god of storms and 1 LAYARD, Nineveh and //.$ Remains, vol. i. p. 124. These storms hardly last an hour.
