pileser and the consequent deportations of prisoners
had decimated the tribes of Bit-Shilani, Bit-Shaali, and Bit-Amuhkani,
the principalities of the Kalda which lay nearest to Babylonian
territory, and which had borne the brunt of attack in the preceding
period; but their weakness brought into notice a power better equipped
for warfare, whose situation in their rear had as a rule hitherto
preserved it from contact with the Assyrians, namely, Bit-Yakin. The
continual deposit of alluvial soil at the mouths of the rivers
had greatly altered the coastline from the earliest historic times
downwards. The ancient estuary was partly filled up, especially on the
western side, where the Euphrates enters the Persian Gulf: a narrow
barrier of sand and silt extended between the marshes of Arabia and
Susiana, at the spot where the streams of fresh water met the tidal
waters of the sea, and all that was left of the ancient gulf was a vast
lagoon, or, as the dwellers on the banks called it, a kind of brackish
river, _Nar marratum_. Bit-Yakin occupied the southern and western
portions of this district, from the mouth of the Tigris to the edge
of the desert. The aspect of the country was constantly changing, and
presented no distinctive features; it was a region difficult to attack
and easy to defend; it consisted first of a spongy plain, saturated with
water, with scattered artificial mounds on which stood the clustered
huts of the villages; between this plain and the shore stretched a
labyrinth of fens and peat-bogs, irregularly divided by canals and
channels freshly formed each year in flood-time, meres strewn with
floating islets, immense reed-beds where the neighbouring peasants took
refuge from attack, and into which no one would venture to penetrate
without hiring some friendly native as a guide. In this fenland dwelt
the Kalda in their low, small conical huts of reeds, somewhat resembling
giant beehives, and in all respects similar to those which the Bedawin
of Irak inhabit at the present day.

[Illustration: 343.jpg ASSYRIAN SOLDIERS PURSUING KALDA REFUGEES IN A
BED OF REEDS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief reproduced in
Layard.

Dur-Yakin, their capital, was probably situated on the borders of the
gulf, near the Euphrates, in such a position as to command the mouths
of the river. Merodach-baladan, who was King of Bit-Yakin at the time of
Sargon's accession, had become subject to Assyria in 729 B.C., and