The third road from Megiddo took the shortest way possible.  After crossing the Kishon almost at right angles to its course, it ascended by a series of steep inclines to arid plains, fringed or intersected by green and flourishing valleys, which afforded sites for numerous towns,—­Pahira, Merom near Lake Huleh, Qart-Nizanu, Beerotu, and Lauisa, situated in the marshy district at the head-waters of the Jordan.* From this point forward the land begins to fall, and taking a hollow shape, is known as Coele-Syria, with its luxuriant vegetation spread between the two ranges of the Lebanon.  It was inhabited then, as at the time of the Babylonian conquest, by the Amorites, who probably included Damascus also in their domain.**

* Pahira is probably Safed; Qart-Nizanu, the “flowery city,” the Kartha of Zabulon; and Bcerot, the Berotha of Josephus, near Merom.  Maroma and Lauisa, Laisa, have been identified with Merom and Laish.

** The identification of the country of Amauru with that of the Amorites was admitted from the first.  The only doubt was as to the locality occupied by these Amorites:  the mention of Qodshu on the Orontes, in the country of the Amurru, showed that Coele-Syria was the region in question.  In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the name Amurru is applied also to the country east of the Phoenician coast, and we have seen that there is reason to believe that it was used by the Babylonians to denote all Syria.  If the name given by the cuneiform inscriptions to Damascus and its neighbourhood, “Gar-Imirishu,” “Imirishu,” “Imirish,” really means “the Fortress of the Amorites,” we should have in this fact a proof that this people were in actual possession of the Damascene Syria.  This must have been taken from them by the Hittites towards the XXth century before our era, according to Hommel; about the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, according to Lenormant.  If, on the other hand, the Assyrians read the name “Sha-imiri-shu,” with the signification, “the town of its asses,” it is simply a play upon words, and has no bearing upon the primitive meaning of the name.

[Illustration:  202.jpg THE TYRIAN LADDER AT RAS EL-ABIAD]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

Their capital, the sacred Qodshu, was situated on the left bank of the Orontes, about five miles from the lake which for a long time bore its name, Bahr-el-Kades.* It crowned one of those barren oblong eminences which are so frequently met with in Syria.  A muddy stream, the Tannur, flowed, at some distance away, around its base, and, emptying itself into the Orontes at a point a little to the north, formed a natural defence for the town on the west.  Its encompassing walls, slightly elliptic in form, were strengthened by towers, and surrounded by two concentric ditches which kept the sapper at a distance.