f old, and a friend of the rulers, and
listens to all the King's messages.

140 B.--_Zidriyara_ hears the message of the King, whose servant he is--"the
Sun from among the Heavenly Gods who has spoken"--and he will not neglect
the messages of the King his lord, or of the _Paka_ who is established
with him.

135 B.--Apparently without a name. He is only a dog, but will march with
chariots and horses to meet the Egyptian soldiers (_bitati_).

130 B.--_Sutarnamu_, of his city _Zicaruenu_,(364) bows to the King. He
asks for soldiers of garrison, as they are obstructing the district of the
King's land near him. Probably the site is the present village _Dhikerin_,
near Gath on the south, which was the Caphar Dikerin of the Talmud (Tal.
Jer. "_Taanith_," iv. 8), in the region of Daroma (now _Deiran_), near
Ekron (see Ekha ii. 2). He asks for soldiers.

131 B.--_Samuaddu_, of the town of _Sama'una_, listens to all the King's
messages. Perhaps _Sammunieh_, an ancient and important ruin immediately
east of Kirjath Jearim (_'Erma_), on the way to Jerusalem, by the Valley
of Sorek, is the place intended.

Nos. 79, 80, 81 B. M. are short and broken letters, which appear only to
acknowledge messages received. No. 80 is from a certain _Nebo_...; in No.
79 there appears to be no personal name, and in No. 81 it is destroyed.

The names of these villages establish a regular chain of posts from Gaza,
by Lachish, to the valleys of Sorek and Elah, which seem to have been the
most eastern parts of the country in which chariots were to be found.
There is no mention of chariots at Jerusalem, or at any village which was
not accessible by a flat valley-road. By these posts communication was
kept up, it would seem, with Jerusalem; and the messengers probably
travelled by this route, avoiding Ajalon. It was by this route that
Adonizedek proposed that Amenophis should come up to help him. Whether any
such expedition was attempted, none of the letters seem to indicate. The
troops had been withdrawn, and the Egyptian policy seems to have been to
call out the native levies of the Amorite charioteers. Perhaps, when the
five kings had been killed at Makkedah, no further steps were taken, but
the lowlands remained unconquered till the time of Samuel and David. Even
in Solomon's time Gezer was only received as the dower of the daughter of
the Pharaoh (1 Kings ix. 16) who had burned the place and killed its
Canaanite population. In Judges we read that