of Babylonia.  From one frequent spelling of the name, the meaning appears to have been Fortress of Duniash; to this Delitzsch preferred the translation Garden of Duniash, from an erroneous different reading—­Ganduniash:  Duniash, at first derived from a Chaldaean God Dun, whose name may exist in Dunghi, is a Cossaean name, which the Assyrians translated, as they did Buriash, Belmatati, lord of the country.  Winckler rejects the ancient etymology, and proposes to divide the word as Kardu-niash and to see in it a Cossaean translation of the expression mat-kaldi, country of the Caldaeans:  Hommel on his side, as well as Delitzsch, had thought of seeking in the Chaldaeans proper—­Kaldi for Kashdi, or Kash-da, “domain of the Cossaeans “—­the descendants of the Cossaeans of Karduniash, at least as far as race is concerned.  In the cuneiform texts the name is written Kara—­D.  P. Duniyas, “the Wall of the god Duniyas” (cf. the Median Wall or Wall of Semiramis which defended Babylonia on the north).

The people of Sumir and Akkad, already a composite of many different races, absorbed thus another foreign element, which, while modifying its homogeneity, did not destroy its natural character.  Those Cossaean tribes who had not quitted their own country retained their original barbarism, but the hope of plunder constantly drew them from their haunts, and they attacked and devastated the cities of the plain unhindered by the thought that they were now inhabited by their fellow-countrymen.  The raid once over, many of them did not return home, but took service under some distant foreign ruler—­the Syrian princes attracting many, who subsequently became the backbone of their armies,* while others remained at Babylon and enrolled themselves in the body-guard of the kings.

* Halevy has at least proved that the Khabiri mentioned in. the Tel el-Amarna tablets were Cossaeans, contrary to the opinion of Sayce, who makes them tribes grouped round Hebron, which W. Max Mueller seems to accept; Winckler, returning to an old opinion, believes them to have been Hebrews.

To the last they were an undisciplined militia, dangerous, and difficult to please:  one day they would hail their chiefs with acclamations, to kill them the next in one of those sudden outbreaks in which they were accustomed to make and unmake their kings.* The first invaders were not long in acquiring, by means of daily intercourse with the old inhabitants, the new civilization:  sooner or later they became blended with the natives, losing all their own peculiarities, with the exception of their outlandish names, a few heroic legends,** and the worship of two or three gods—­Shumalia, Shugab, and Shukamuna.