Finally, in Northern Syria, 115 miles north of the Bahr-el-Kades, and about 60 miles N.W.W. of the Bahr-el-Melak, is the Bahr-el-Abyad (White Lake), or Sea of Antioch. [Plate.  VIII., Fig. 1.] This sheet of water is a parallelogram, the angles of which face the cardinal points:  in its greater diameter it extends somewhat more than ten miles, while it is about seven miles across.  Its depth on the western side, where it approaches the mountains, is six or eight feet; but elsewhere it is generally more shallow, not exceeding three or four feet.  It lies in a marshy plain called El-Umk, and is thickly fringed with reeds round the whole of its circumference.  From the silence of antiquity, some writers have imagined that it did not exist in ancient times; but the observations of scientific travellers are opposed to this theory.  The lake abounds with fish of several kinds, and the fishery attracts and employs a considerable number of the natives who dwell near it.

[Illustration:  Plate VIII.]

Besides these lakes, there were contained within the limits of the Empire a number of petty tarns, which do not merit particular description.  Such were the Bahr-el-Taka, and other small lakes on the right bank of the middle Orontes, the Birket-el-Limum in the Lebanon, and the Birket-er-Eam on the southern flank of Hermon.  It is unnecessary, however, to pursue this subject any further.  But a few words must be added on the chief cities of the Empire, before this chapter is brought to a conclusion.

The cities of the Empire may be divided into those of the dominant country and those of the provinces.  Those of the dominant country were, for the most part, identical with the towns already described as belonging to the ancient Chaldaea, Besides Babylon itself, there flourished in the Babylonian period the cities of Borsippa, Duraba, Sippara or Sepharvaim, Opis, Psittace, Cutha, Orchoe or Erech, and Diridotis or Teredon.  The sites of most of those have been described in the first volume; but it remains to state briefly the positions of some few which were either new creations or comparatively undistinguished in the earlier times.

Opis, a town of sufficient magnitude to attract the attention of Herodotus, was situated on the left or east bank of the Tigris, near the point where the Diyaleh or Gyndes joined the main river.  Its position was south of the Gyndes embouchure, and it might be reckoned as lying upon either river.  The true name of the place—­that which it bears in the cuneiform inscriptions—­was Hupiya; and its site is probably marked by the ruins at Khafaji, near Baghdad, which place is thought to retain, in a corrupted form, the original appellation.  Psittace or Sitace, the town which gave name to the province of Sittacene, was in the near neighborhood of Opis, lying on the same side of the Tigris, but lower down, at least as low as the modern fort of the Zobeid chief.  Its exact site has not been as yet discovered.