[Illustration:  049.jpg THE FLEET OF SENNACHERIB ON THE NAR-MARRATUM]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

The fleet from Tul-barsip had merely to descend the Euphrates to reach the meeting-place,* but that from Nineveh had to make a more complicated journey.

* The story of the preparations, as it has been transmitted to us in Sennacherib’s inscriptions, is curiously similar to the accounts given by the Greek historians of the vessels Alexander had built at Babylon and Thap-sacus by Phoenician workmen, which descended the Euphrates to join the fleet in the Persian Gulf.  This fleet consisted of quinquiremos, according to Aristobulus, who was present at their construction:  Quintus-Curtius makes them all vessels with seven banks of oars, but he evidently confuses the galleys built at Thapsacus with those which came in sections from Phoenicia and which Alexander had put together at Babylon.

By following the course of the Tigris to its mouth it would have had to skirt the coast of Elam for a considerable distance, and would inevitably have aroused the suspicions of Khalludush; the passage of such a strong squadron must have revealed to him the importance of the enterprise, and put him on his guard.  The vessels therefore stayed their course at Upi, where they were drawn ashore and transported on rollers across the narrow isthmus which separates the Tigris from the Arakhtu canal, on which they were then relaunched.  Either the canal had not been well kept, or else it never had the necessary depth at certain places; but the crews managed to overcome all obstacles and rejoined their comrades in due time.  Sennacherib was ready waiting for them with all his troops—­foot-soldiers, charioteers, and horsemen—­and with supplies of food for the men, and of barley and oats for the horses; as soon as the last contingent had arrived, he gave the signal for departure, and all advanced together, the army marching along the southern bank, the fleet descending the current, to the little port of Bab-Salimeti, some twelve miles below the mouth of the river.*

* The mouth of the Euphrates being at that time not far from the site of Kornah, Bab-Salimeti, which was about twelve miles distant, must have been somewhere near the present village of Abu-Hatira, on the south bank of the river.

There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at the last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the success of the expedition.  Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of the ebb and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous the spring tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a south wind.  The rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume of water brought down by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are broken down, and sometimes large districts are inundated:  this is what happened that year, to the terror of the Assyrians.  Their camp was