* The name Arvad was identified in the Egyptian inscriptions by Birch, who, with Hincks, at first saw in the name a reference to the peoples of Ararat; Birch’s identification, is now accepted by all Egyptologists.  The name is written Aruada or Arada in the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

** The Arvad Astarte had been identified by the Egyptians with their goddess Bastit.  The sea-Baal, who has been connected by some with Dagon of Askalon, is represented on the earliest Arvadian coins.  He has a fish-like tail, the body and bearded head of a man, with an Assyrian headdress; on his breast we sometimes find a circular opening which seems to show the entrails.

The whole island was surrounded by a stone wall, built on the outermost ledges of the rocks, which were levelled to form its foundation.  The courses of the masonry were irregular, laid without cement or mortar of any kind.  This bold piece of engineering served the double purpose of sea-wall and rampart, and was thus fitted to withstand alike the onset of hostile fleets and the surges of the Mediterranean.*

     * The antiquity of the wall of Arvad, recognised by
     travellers of the last century, is now universally admitted
     by all archaeologists.

[Illustration:  248.jpg]

There was no potable water on the island, and for drinking purposes the inhabitants were obliged to rely on the fall of rain, which they stored in cisterns—­still in use among their descendants.  In the event of prolonged drought they were obliged to send to the mainland opposite; in time of war they had recourse to a submarine spring, which bubbles up in mid-channel.  Their divers let down a leaden bell, to the top of which was fitted a leathern pipe, and applied it to the orifice of the spring; the fresh water coming up through the sand was collected in this bell, and rising in the pipe, reached the surface uncontaminated by salt water.*

* Renan tells us that “M.  Gaillardot, when crossing from the island to the mainland, noticed a spring of sweet water bubbling up from the bottom of the sea....  Thomson and Walpole noticed the same spring or similar springs a little to the north of Tortosa.”

[Illustration:  249.jpg Page Image]

The harbour opened to the east, facing the mainland:  it was divided into two basins by a stone jetty, and was doubtless insufficient for the sea-traffic, but this was the less felt inasmuch as there was a safe anchorage outside it—­the best, perhaps, to be found in these waters.  Opposite to Arvad, on an almost continuous line of coast some ten or twelve miles in length, towns and villages occurred at short intervals, such as Marath, Antarados, Enhydra, and Karne, into which the surplus population of the island overflowed.  Karne possessed a harbour, and would have been a dangerous neighbour to the Arvadians had they themselves not occupied and carefully fortified it.*