ran diagonally through Kharu was
ensured by fortresses constructed at strategic points,* and from this
time forward Thutmosis was able to bring the whole force of his army
to bear upon both Coele-Syria and Naharaim.** He encamped, in the year
XXVII., on the table-land separating the Afrin and the Orontes from the
Euphrates, and from that centre devastated the district of Uanit,***
which lay to the west of Aleppo; then crossing "the water of Naharaim"
in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, he penetrated into the heart of
Mitanni.

* The castle, for instance, near Megiddo, previously
referred to, which, after having contributed to the siege of
the town, probably served to keep it in subjection.

** The accounts of the campaigns of Thutmosis III. have been
preserved in the Annals in a very mutilated condition, the
fragments of which were discovered at different times. They
are nothing but extracts from an official account, made for
Amon and his priests.

*** The province of the Tree Uanu; cf. with this designation
the epithet "Shad Erini," "mountain of the cedar tree,"
which the Assyrians bestowed on the Amanus.

The following year he reappeared in the same region. Tunipa, which had
made an obstinate resistance, was taken, together with its king, and 329
of his nobles were forced to yield themselves prisoners. Thutmosis "with
a joyous heart" was carrying them away captive, when it occurred to him
that the district of Zahi, which lay away for the most part from the
great military highroads, was a tempting prey teeming with spoil. The
barns were stored with wheat and barley, the cellars were filled with
wine, the harvest was not yet gathered in, and the trees bent under the
weight of their fruit. Having pillaged Senzauru on the Orontes,* he
made his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahr
el-Kebir, and descended suddenly on the territory of Arvad. The towns
once more escaped pillage, but Thutmosis destroyed the harvests,
plundered the orchards, carried off the cattle, and pitilessly wasted
the whole of the maritime plain.

* Senzauru was thought by Ebers to be "the double Tyre."
Brugsch considered it to be Tyre itself. It is, I believe,
the Sizara of classical writers, the Shaizar of the Arabs,
and is mentioned in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets in
connection with Nii.

There was such abundance within the camp that the