* The Phoenician name of Ornithonpolis is unknown to us:  the town is often mentioned by the geographers of classic times, but with certain differences, some placing it to the north and others to the south of Sarepta.  It was near to the site of Adlun, the Adnonum of the Latin itineraries, if it was not actually the same place.

     ** Nazana was both the name of the place and the river, as
     Kasimiyeh and Khan Kasimiyeh, near the same locality, are
     to-day.

*** Autu was identified by Brugsch with Avatha, which is probably El-Awwatin, on the hill facing Tyre.  Max Mueller, who reads the word as Authu, Ozu, prefers the Uru or Ushu of the Assyrian texts.

It was already an ancient town at the beginning of the Egyptian conquest.  As in other places of ancient date, the inhabitants rejoiced in stories of the origin of things in which the city figured as the most venerable in the world.  After the period of the creating gods, there followed immediately, according to the current legends, two or three generations of minor deities—­heroes of light and flame—­who had learned how to subdue fire and turn it to their needs; then a race of giants, associated with the giant peaks of Kasios, Lebanon, Hermon, and Brathy;* after which were born two male children—­twins:  Samem-rum, the lord of the supernal heaven, and Usoos, the hunter.  Human beings at this time lived a savage life, wandering through the woods, and given up to shameful vices.

* The identification of the peak of Brathy is uncertain.  The name has been associated with Tabor:  since it exactly recalls the name of the cypress and of Berytus, it would be more prudent, perhaps, to look for the name in that of one of the peaks of the Lebanon near the latter town.

[Illustration:  267.jpg THE AMBROSIAN ROCKS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the Cabinet
     des Medailles.

Samemrum took up his abode among them in that region which became in later times the Tyrian coast, and showed them how to build huts, papyrus, or other reeds:  Usoos in the mean time pursued the avocation of a hunter of wild beasts, living upon their flesh and clothing himself with their skins.  A conflict at length broke out between the two brothers, the inevitable result of rivalry between the ever-wandering hunter and the husbandman attached to the soil.

Usoos succeeded in holding his own till the day when fire and wind took the part of his enemy against him.* The trees, shaken and made to rub against each other by the tempest, broke into flame from the friction, and the forest was set on fire.  Usoos, seizing a leafy branch, despoiled it of its foliage, and placing it in the water let it drift out to sea, bearing him, the first of his race, with it.