Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ...the fallen man, and the next to suffer, makes a desperate effort to disengage his hands from their bonds, while those behind him look as though appalled at their coming fate. One alone has an attitude and action differing from all his fellows. It is the last figure, the Rhinoceros, or horn-capped Armenian chief. Against this most conspicuous of his prisoners, the wrath of "the Great King" seems specially directed. He seems to fix his eye on him, to reproach, and to snap his fingers at him as in scorn. The Armenian on the other hand, may be seen to stand fast, and, instead of moving on with his fellow-captives, to strain his neck against the rope until it drags him from the perpendicular, and to the point of strangulation. All this, as impartial eyes have observed, may clearly be discerned in the sculpture, but all this was learned by the present writer, not from the This action, very marked in Col. Rawlinson's Plate, is missed by Porter. Plate, but from the Inscriptions. These describe the desire of the Armenian to die by his own act, rather than by the mandate of his hated foe; and that, therefore, he stands fast to strangle himself. While, with reference to the figures on the opposite side, one word represents the guardsmen, as the sculpture also does, in the act of echoing their savage master's mockeries; another describes the king, in the very act depicted, as snapping his fingers in scorn at the obnoxious Armenian. This word and definition are too remarkable to-A--be pretermitted. The word is j jj y-nakar: its definition, Illisit pollicem medio digito, et inde divulsit crepitandi ergo. Snapping the thumb against the middle finger to make a noise. This very peculiar action, apparently overlooked by Colonel Rawlinson, ..."
