* The Kharmis is the Mygdonios of Greek geographers, the Hirmas of the Arabs; the latter name may be derived from Kharmis, or it may be that it merely presents a fortuitous resemblance to it.

The plains extending southwards, however, contain, like those of the Euphrates, beds of gypsum in the sub-soil, which render the water running through them brackish, and prevent the growth of vegetation.  The effects of volcanic action are evident on the surface of these great steppes; blocks of basalt pierce through the soil, and near the embouchure of the Kharmis, a cone, composed of a mass of lava, cinders, and scorial, known as the Tell-Kokab, rises abruptly to a height of 325 feet.  The mountain chain of Singar, which here reaches its western termination, is composed of a long ridge of soft white limestone, and seems to have been suddenly thrown up in one of the last geological upheavals which affected this part of the country:  in some places it resembles a perpendicular wall, while in others it recedes in natural terraces which present the appearance of a gigantic flight of steps.  The summit is often wooded, and the spurs covered with vineyards and fields, which flourish vigorously in the vicinity of streams; when these fail, however, the table-land resumes its desolate aspect, and stretches in bare and sandy undulations to the horizon, broken only where it is crossed by the Thartar, the sole river in this region which is not liable to be dried up, and whose banks may be traced by the scanty line of vegetation which it nourishes.

[Illustration:  145.jpg THE VOLCANIC CONE OF KOKAB]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the cut in Layard.

In a country thus unequally favoured by nature, the towns are necessarily distributed in a seemingly arbitrary fashion.  Most of them are situated on the left bank of the Tigris, where the fertile nature of the soil enables it to support a dense population.  They were all flourishing centres of population, and were in close proximity to each other, at all events during the centuries of Assyrian hegemony.*

     * We find, for example, in the inscription of Bavian, a long
     enumeration of towns and villages situated almost within the
     suburbs of Nineveh, on the banks of the Khoser.

Three of them soon eclipsed their rivals in political and religious importance; these were Kalakh and Nina on the Tigris, and Arbailu, lying beyond the Upper Zab, in the broken plain which is a continuation eastwards of the first spurs of the Zagros.* On the right bank, however, we find merely some dozen cities and towns, scattered about in places where there was a supply of water sufficient to enable the inhabitants to cultivate the soil; as, for example, Assur on the banks of the Tigris itself, Singara near the sources of the Thartar, and Nazibina near those of the Kharmis, at the foot of the Masios.  These cities were not all under the rule of one sovereign when Thutmosis III. appeared in Syria, for the Egyptian monuments mention, besides the kingdom of Assyria, that of Singara** and Araphka in the upper basin of the Zab.***