ives in modern Arabic. In the Egypt of
to-day land is measured by _feddans_, the _feddan_ (or _paddmi_) being
the equivalent of our acre. _Paddan_ was used in the same sense in the
Babylonia of the age of Abraham. Numerous contracts have been found for
the lease or sale of estates in which the "acreage" or number of
_paddani_ is carefully stated. The application of the name to the plain
of Mesopotamia was doubtless clue to the Babylonians. An early
Babylonian king claims rule over the "land of Padan," and elsewhere we
are told that it lay in front of the country of the Arman or Aramaeans.

It was in western Padan that the kingdom of Mitanni was established. Its
founders, as we have seen, came from the north. From the river Halys in
Asia Minor to Lake Urumiyeh, east of Armenia, there was a multitude of
tribes, most of whom seem to have belonged to the same race and to have
spoken dialects of the same language. The Hittites of Cappadocia and the
ranges of the Taurus have already been described. East of them came the
Meshech and Tubal of the Bible as well as the kingdom of Comagene, of
which we often hear in the Assyrian texts. But of all these northern
populations the most important--at all events in the later Old Testament
age--were the inhabitants of a country called Biainas, but to which its
neighbours gave the name of Ararat. Ararat corresponded to southern
Armenia, Biainas being the modern Van, and the Mount Ararat of modern
geography lying considerably to the north of it. In the ninth century
before our era a powerful dynasty arose at Van, which extended its
conquests far and wide, and at one time threatened to destroy even the
Assyrian empire. It signalised its accession to power by borrowing the
cuneiform writing of Nineveh, and numerous inscriptions exist recording
the names and victories of its sovereigns, the buildings they erected,
and the gods they served. The language of the inscriptions is strange
and peculiar; it seems to be distantly related to modern Georgian, and
may be akin to the dialects of the Hittites or of Mitanni.

If we may trust the representations of the Assyrian artists, the people
of Ararat did not all belong to the same race. Two ethnic types have
been handed down to us--one with beardless faces, resembling that of the
Hittites, the other of a people with high fore-heads, curved and pointed
noses, thin lips, and well-formed chin. Both, however, wear the same
dress. On the head is a crested