refuge in Susiana to
present himself before Esar-haddon's foot-stool at Nineveh. This
judicious step had all the success that he could have expected or
desired. Esar-haddon, having conquered the ill-judging Nebo-zirzi-sidi,
made over to the more clear-sighted Nahid-Marduk the whole of the
maritime region that had been ruled by his brother. At the same time the
Assyrian monarch deposed a Chaldaean prince who had established his
authority over a small town in the neighborhood of Babylon, and set up
another in his place, thus pursuing the same system of division in
Babylonia which we shall hereafter find that he pursued in Egypt.

Esar-haddon after this was engaged in a war with Edom. He there took a
city which bore the same name as the country--a city previously, he
tells us, taken by his father--and transported the inhabitants into
Assyria, at the same time carrying off certain images of the Edomite
gods. Hereupon the king, who was named Hazael, sent an embassy to
Nineveh, to make submission and offer presents, while at the same time
he supplicated Isar-haddon to restore his gods and allow them to be
conveyed back to their own proper country. Esarhaddon granted the
request, and restored the images to the envoy; but as a compensation for
this boon, he demanded an increase of the annual tribute, which was
augmented in consequence by sixty-five camels. He also nominated to the
Edomite throne, either in succession or in joint sovereignty, a female
named Tabua, who had been born and brought up in his own palace.

The expedition next mentioned on Esar-haddon's principal cylinder is one
presenting some difficulty. The scene of it is a country called Bazu,
which is said to be "remote, on the extreme confines of the earth, on
the other side of the desert." It was reached by traversing it hundred
and forty _farsakhs_ (490 miles) of sandy desert, then twenty _farsakhs_
(70 miles) of fertile land, and beyond that a stony region. None of the
kings of Assyria, down to the time of Esar-haddon, had ever penetrated
so far. Bazu lay beyond Khazu, which was the name of the stony tract,
and Bazu had for its chief town a city called Yedih, which was under the
rule of a king named Laile. It is thought, from the combinaqon of these
names, and from the general description of the region--of its remoteness
and of the way in which it was reached--that it was probably the
district of Arabia beyond Nedjif which lies along the Jebel Shammer, and
cor