Soon afterwards, however, the Sidonian ships were compelled to retreat, and the Tyrian governor made ready to pursue them.  Meanwhile he sent his messenger Elimelech to Khu-n-Aten with various presents, and gave the king an account of what had been happening in “Canaan.”  The Hittite troops had departed, but Etagama—­elsewhere called Aidhu-gama—­the pa-ur or “prince” of Kadesh, in the land of Kinza, had joined Aziru in attacking Namya-yitsa, the governor of Kumidi.  Abimelech adds that his rival Zimridi of Sidon had collected ships and men from the cities of Aziru against him, and had consequently defeated him, but if the Pharaoh would send only four companies of troops to his rescue all would be well.

Zimridi, however, was not behindhand in forwarding his version of events to the Egyptian court, and assuring the king of his unswerving fidelity.  “Verily the king my lord knows,” he says, “that the queen of the city of Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has given her into my hand, and that I have hearkened to the words of the king my lord that he would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced and my head was exalted, and my eyes were enlightened, and my ears heard the words of the king my lord....  And the king my lord knows that hostility is very strong against me; all the [fortresses] which the king gave into [my hand] had revolted” to the Beduin, but had been retaken by the commander of the Egyptian forces.  The letter throws a wholly different light on the relations of the two rival parties in Phoenicia.

The assertions of Rib-Hadad, however, are supported by those of his successor in the government of Gebal, El-rabi-Hor.  Rib-Hadad himself disappears from the scene.  He may have died, for he complains that he is old and sick; he may have been driven out of Gebal, for in one of his despatches he states that the city was inclined to revolt, while in another he tells us that even his own brother had turned against him and gone over to the Amorite faction.  Or he may have been displaced from his post; at all events, we hear that the Pharaoh had written to him, saying that Gebal was rebellious, and that there was a large amount of royal property in it.  We hear also that Rib-Hadad had sent his son to the Egyptian court to plead his cause there, alleging age and infirmities as a reason for not going himself.  However it may have been, we find a new governor in Gebal, who bears the hybrid name of El-rabi-Hor, “a great god is Horus.”

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten’s mistrust of Gebal, which he calls “thy city and the city of [thy] fathers,” and to assert roundly that “Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord.”  Aziru had made a league (?) with the kings of Ni, Arvad, and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo of Num. xxii. 5) (See above, p. 64.), and with the help of the Amorite Palasa was destroying the cities of the Pharaoh.  So El-rabi-Hor asks the king not to heed anything the rebel may write about his