Barbara Toy followed the Mediterranean coastline of North Africa, travelling through what was then French Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, to Cyprus, then down through Lebanon, Syria and then through Jordan to Iraq. While in Iraq she visited several archaeological sites, including in May 1951 Sir Max Mallowan's excavations at Nimrud where his wife Agatha Christie was helping with processing the finds. The work on the site had just finished, and the finds for that season included the stele of King Assur-nasir-pal II. Her journey home is not described in the book, although in her second book "A Fool in the
Nimrud assigned to Nabu, the god of writing and the arts, and as extensive fortifications. Nimrud has been one of the main sources of Assyrian sculpture, including the famous palace reliefs. Layard discovered more than half a dozen pairs of colossal guardian figures guarding palace entrances and doorways. These are "lamassu", statues with a male human head, the body of a lion or bull, and wings. They have heads carved in the round, but the body at the side is in relief. They weigh up to . In 1847 Layard brought two of the colossi weighing each including one lion and