ebanon range from its turbulent neighbours, it
led a sort of vegetative existence apart from invading hosts, forgotten
and hushed to sleep, as it were, in the shade of its gardens.

The third road from Megiddo took the shortest way possible. After
crossing the Kishon almost at right angles to its course, it ascended
by a series of steep inclines to arid plains, fringed or intersected
by green and flourishing valleys, which afforded sites for numerous
towns,--Pahira, Merom near Lake Huleh, Qart-Nizanu, Beerotu, and Lauisa,
situated in the marshy district at the head-waters of the Jordan.* From
this point forward the land begins to fall, and taking a hollow shape,
is known as Coele-Syria, with its luxuriant vegetation spread between
the two ranges of the Lebanon. It was inhabited then, as at the time of
the Babylonian conquest, by the Amorites, who probably included Damascus
also in their domain.**

* Pahira is probably Safed; Qart-Nizanu, the "flowery city,"
the Kartha of Zabulon; and Bcerot, the Berotha of Josephus,
near Merom. Maroma and Lauisa, Laisa, have been identified
with Merom and Laish.

** The identification of the country of Amauru with that of
the Amorites was admitted from the first. The only doubt was
as to the locality occupied by these Amorites: the mention
of Qodshu on the Orontes, in the country of the Amurru,
showed that Coele-Syria was the region in question. In the
Tel el-Amarna tablets the name Amurru is applied also to the
country east of the Phoenician coast, and we have seen that
there is reason to believe that it was used by the
Babylonians to denote all Syria. If the name given by the
cuneiform inscriptions to Damascus and its neighbourhood,
"Gar-Imirishu," "Imirishu," "Imirish," really means "the
Fortress of the Amorites," we should have in this fact a
proof that this people were in actual possession of the
Damascene Syria. This must have been taken from them by the
Hittites towards the XXth century before our era, according
to Hommel; about the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, according
to Lenormant. If, on the other hand, the Assyrians read the
name "Sha-imiri-shu," with the signification, "the town of
its asses," it is simply a play upon words, and has no
bearing upon the primitive meaning of the name.

[Illustration: 202.jpg THE TYRIAN LADDER AT RAS EL-ABIAD]

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