the attacks levelled against it, and no one can say how far the kingdom
extended in the direction of the Caucasus. It certainly included the
valley of the Araxes and possibly part of the valley of the Kur, and
the steppes sloping towards the Caspian Sea. It was a region full of
contrasts, at once favoured and ill-treated by nature in its elevation
and aspect: rugged peaks, deep gorges, dense thickets, districts sterile
from the heat of subterranean fires, and sandy wastes barren for lack of
moisture, were interspersed with shady valleys, sunny vine-clad slopes,
and wide stretches of fertile land covered with rich layers of deep
alluvial soil, where thick-standing corn and meadow-lands, alternating
with orchards, repaid the cultivator for the slightest attempt at
irrigation.

[Illustration: 080.jpg End of the Harvest--Cutting Straw]

History does not record who were the former possessors of this land;
but towards the middle of the ninth century it was divided into several
principalities, whose position and boundaries cannot be precisely
determined. It is thought that Urartu lay on either side of Mount Ararat
and on both banks of the Araxes, that Biainas lay around Lake Van,*
and that the Mannai occupied the country to the north and east of
Lake Urumiah;** the positions of the other tribes on the different
tributaries of the Euphrates or the slopes of the Armenian mountains are
as yet uncertain.

* Urartu is the only name by which the Assyrians knew the
kingdom of Van; it has been recognised from the very
beginning of Assyriological studies, as well as its identity
with the Ararat of the Bible and the Alarodians of
Herodotus. It was also generally recognised that the name
Biainas in the Vannic inscriptions, which Hincks read Bieda,
corresponded to the Urartu of the Assyrians, but in
consequence of this mistaken reading, efforts have been made
to connect it with Adiabene. Sayce was the first to show
that Biainas was the name of the country of Van, and of the
kingdom of which Van was the capital; the word Bitani which
Sayce connects with it is not a secondary form of the name
of Van, but a present day term, and should be erased from
the list of geographical names.

** The Mannai are the Minni of Jeremiah (li. 27), and it is
in their country of Minyas that one tradition made the ark
rest after the Deluge.

The country was probably pe