ably migrated from Babylonia, where the _zeru_
denoted the alluvial plain which lay between the Tigris and the
Euphrates. Kadesh, the southern capital of the Hittites, "in the land of
the Amorites," lay on the Orontes, close to the lake of Horns, and has
been identified by Major Conder with the modern Tel em-Mindeh. Tubikhi,
of which we have already heard in the Tel el-Amarna letters, is also
mentioned in the geographical lists inscribed by Thothmes III. on the
walls of his temple at Karnak (No. 6); it there precedes the name of
Kamta or Qamdu, the Kumidi of Tel el-Amarna. It is the Tibhath of the
Old Testament, out of which David took "very much brass" (1 Chron.
xviii. 8). The Maghar(at) or "Caves" gave their name to the Magoras, the
river of Beyrout, as well as to the Mearah of the Book of Joshua (xiii.
4). As for the mountain of Shaua, it is described by the Assyrian king
Tiglath-pileser III. as in the neighbourhood of the northern Lebanon,
while the city of the Beeroth or "Cisterns" is probably Beyrout.

The Mohar is now carried to Phoenicia. Gebal, Beyrout, Sidon, and
Sarepta, are named one after the other, as the traveller is supposed to
be journeying from north to south. The "goddess" of Gebal was Baaltis,
so often referred to in the letters of Rib-Hadad, who calls her "the
mistress of Gebal." In saying, however, that the name of the city meant
"Hidden," the writer has been misled by the Egyptian mispronunciation of
it. It became Kapuna in the mouths of his countrymen, and since _kapu_
in Egyptian signified "hidden mystery," he jumped to the conclusion that
such was also the etymology of the Phoenician word. In the "fords of the
land of Nazana" we must recognize the river Litany, which flows into the
sea between Sarepta and Tyre. At all events, Authu or Usu, the next city
mentioned, is associated with Tyre both in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna
and in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings. It seems to have been the
Palaetyros or "Older Tyre" of classical tradition, which stood on the
mainland opposite the more famous insular Tyre. Phoenician tradition
ascribes its foundation to Usoos, the offspring of the mountains of
Kasios and Lebanon, and brother of Memrumus, "the exalted," and
Hypsouranios, "the lord of heaven," who was the first to invent a
clothing of skins, and to sail upon the water in boats, and who had
taught mankind to adore the fire and the winds, and to set up two
pillars of stone in honour of the deit