* Haupt attributes to the name the signification holes, bogs, and this interpretation agrees well enough with the state of the country round the mouths of the Diyala, in the low-lying district which separates that river from the Tigris; he compares it with the name Haulayeh, quoted by Arab geographers in this neighbourhood, and with that of the canton of Haleh, mentioned in Syrian texts as belonging to the district of Radhan, between the Adhem and the Diyala.

At this point the Turnat, flowing through the plain, divides into several branches, which ramify again and again, and form a kind of delta extending from the ruins of Nayan to those of Reshadeh.  During the whole of the day the engagement between the two hosts raged on this unstable soil, and their leaders themselves sold their lives dearly in the struggle.  Sennacherib invoked the help of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nebo, Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela, and the gods heard his prayers.  “Like a lion I raged, I donned my harness, I covered my head with my casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart; the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it:  the whole host of obdurate rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as Kamman roareth.”  Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him, “of those who wore golden daggers at their belts, and bracelets of gold on their wrists.”  They fell one after the other, “like fat bulls chained” for the sacrifice, or like sheep, and their blood flowed on the broad plain as the water after a violent storm:  the horses plunged in it up to their knees, and the body of the royal chariot was reddened with it.  A son of Merodach-baladan, Nabu-shumishkun, was taken prisoner, but Umman-minanu and Mushezib-marduk escaped unhurt from the fatal field.  It seems as if fortune had at last decided in favour of the Assyrians, and they proclaimed the fact loudly, but their success was not so evident as to preclude their adversaries also claiming the victory with some show of truth.  In any case, the losses on both sides were so considerable as to force the two belligerents to suspend operations; they returned each to his capital, and matters remained much as they had been before the battle took place.*

* Pinches’ Babylonian Chronicle attributes the victory to the Elamites, and says that the year in which the battle was fought was unknown.  The testimony of this chronicle is so often marred by partiality, that to prefer it always to that of the Ninevite inscriptions shows deficiency of critical ability:  the course of events seems to me to prove that the advantage remained with the Assyrians, though the victory was not decisive.  The date, which necessarily falls