Description of the Area of Assyria in the 1800's

A missionary named James Fletcher visited Mesopotamia in the 1800's, and this is how he described the area: "Yet what a moral might be derived from the present condition of the capital of Assur. In lieu of lofty palaces and gorgeous temples, the eye surveys only the mounds composed of their dust, or the miserable huts which have arisen on their site. The gardens where Sardanapalus revelled are wasted and desolate, the sounds of soft and luxurious music that once floated on the soft Assyrian breezes have yielded to the silence of devastation or decay" - James Phillips Fletcher, Notes from Nineveh, and Travels in Mesopotamia, Assyria and Syria, 9 vols. (London: Colburn, 1850), vol. 1, 206