One fact, however, appears to be certain in the midst of many hypotheses, and that is that the Phoenicians had their origin in the regions bordering on the Persian Gulf.  It is useless to attempt, with the inadequate materials as yet in our possession, to determine by what route they reached the Syrian coast, though we may perhaps conjecture the period of their arrival.  Herodotus asserts that the Tyrians placed the date of the foundation of their principal temple two thousand three hundred years before the time of his visit, and the erection of a sanctuary for their national deity would probably take place very soon after their settlement at Tyre:  this would bring their arrival there to about the XXVIIIth century before our era.  The Elamite and Babylonian conquests would therefore have found the Phoenicians already established in the country, and would have had appreciable effect upon them.

The question now arises whether the Beni-Israel belonged to the group of tribes which included the Phoenicians, or whether they were of Chaldaean race.  Their national traditions leave no doubt upon that point.  They are regarded as belonging to an important race, which we find dispersed over the country of Padan-Aram, in Northern Mesopotamia, near the base of Mount Masios, and extending on both sides of the Euphrates.*

* The country of Padan-Aram is situated between the Euphrates and the upper reaches of the Khabur, on both sides of the Balikh, and is usually explained as the “plain” or “table-land” of Aram, though the etymology is not certain; the word seems to be preserved in that of Tell-Faddan, near Harran.

Their earliest chiefs bore the names of towns or of peoples,—­N akhor, Peleg, and Serug:* all were descendants of Arphaxad,** and it was related that Terakh, the direct ancestor of the Israelites, had dwelt in Ur-Kashdim, the Ur or Uru of the Chaldaeans.*** He is said to have had three sons—­Abraham, Nakhor, and Haran.  Haran begat Lot, but died before his father in Ur-Kashdim, his own country; Abraham and Nakhor both took wives, but Abraham’s wife remained a long time barren.  Then Terakh, with his son Abraham, his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarah,**** went forth from Ur-Kashdim (Ur of the Chaldees) to go into the land of Canaan.

* Nakhor has been associated with the ancient village of Khaura, or with the ancient village of Haditha-en-Naura, to the south of Anah; Peleg probably corresponds with Phalga or Phaliga, which was situated at the mouth of the Khabur; Serug with the present Sarudj in the neighbourhood of Edessa, and the other names in the genealogy were probably borrowed from as many different localities.

** The site of Arphaxad is doubtful, as is also its meaning:  its second element is undoubtedly the name of the Chaldaeans, but the first is interpreted in several ways—­“frontier of the Chaldaeans,” “domain of the