ere obliged
to advance in single file, as best they could, exposed to the assaults
of a foe concealed among the rocks and trees. The tribes who were
entrenched behind this natural rampart made frequent and unexpected
raids upon the marshy meadows and fat pastures of Chaldaea: they dashed
through the country, pillaging and burning all that came in their way,
and then, quickly regaining their hiding-places, were able to place
their booty in safety before the frontier garrisons had recovered
from the first alarm.* These tribes were governed by numerous chiefs
acknowledging a single king--_ianzi_--whose will was supreme over
nearly the whole country:** some of them had a slight veneer of Chaldaean
civilization, while among the rest almost every stage of barbarism might
be found. The remains of their language show that it was remotely allied
to the dialect of Susa, and contained many Semitic words.*** What is
recorded of their religion reaches us merely at second hand, and the
groundwork of it has doubtless been modified by the Babylonian scribes
who have transmitted it to us.****

* It was thus in the time of Alexander and his successors,
and the information given by the classical historians about
this period is equally applicable to earlier times, as we
may conclude from the numerous passages from Assyrian
inscriptions which have been collected by Fr. Delitzsch.

** Delitzsch conjectures that _Ianzi_, or _Ianzu_, had
become a kind of proper name, analogous to the term
_Pharaoh_ employed by the Egyptians.

*** A certain number of Cossaean words has been preserved and
translated, some in one of the royal Babylonian lists, and
some on a tablet in the British Museum, discovered and
interpreted by Fr. Delitzsch. Several Assyriologists think
that they showed a marked affinity with the idiom of the
Susa inscriptions, and with that of the Achaemenian
inscriptions of the second type; others deny the proposed
connection, or suggest that the Cossaean language was a
Semitic dialect, related to the Chaldaeo-Assyrian. Oppert,
who was the first to point out the existence of this
dialect, thirty years ago, believed it to be the Elamite; he
still persists in his opinion, and has published several
notes in defence of it.

**** It has been studied by Pr. Delitzsch, who insists on
the influence which daily intercourse with