brooks descending from that range are so weak that they
generally lose themselves in the plain before they have run many miles.
In one case only do they seem sufficiently strong to form a river. The
Tharthar, which flows by the ruins of El Hadhr, is at that place a
considerable stream, not indeed very wide but so deep that horses have
to swim across it. Its course above El Hadhr has not been traced; but
the most probable conjecture seems to be that it is a continuation of
the Sinjar river, which rises about the middle of the range, in long.
41 deg. 50', and flows south-east through the desert. The Tharthar appears
at one time to have reached the Tigris near Tekrit, but it now ends in a
marsh or lake to the south-west of that city.

The political geography of Assyria need not occupy much of our
attention. There is no native evidence that in the time of the great
monarchy the country was formally divided into districts, to which any
particular names were attached, or which were regarded as politically
separate from one another; nor do such divisions appear in the classical
writers until the time of the later geographers, Strabo, Dionysius, and
Ptolemy. If it were not that mention is made in the Old Testament of
certain districts within the region which has been here termed Assyria,
we should have no proof that in the early times any divisions at all had
been recognized. The names, however, of Padan-Aram, Aram-Naharaim,
Gozan, Halah, and (perhaps) Huzzab, designate in Scripture particular
portions of the Assyrian territory; and as these portions appear to
correspond in some degree with the divisions of the classical
geographers, we are led to suspect that these writers may in many, if
not in most cases, have followed ancient and native traditions or
authorities. The principal divisions of the classical geographers will
therefore be noticed briefly, so far at least as they are intelligible.

According to Strabo, the district within which Nineveh stood was called
Aturia, which seems to be the word Assyria slightly corrupted, as we
know that it habitually was by the Persians. The neighboring plain
country he divides into four regions--Dolomene, Calachene, Chazene,
and Adiabene. Of Dolomene, which Strabo mentions but in one place, and
which is wholly omitted by other authors, no account can be given.
Calachene, which is perhaps the Calacine of Ptolemy, must be the tract
about Calah (Nimrud), or the country immediately north of