In the same way the terms Zahi and Kharu were extended to
cover other and more northerly regions. Zahi was applied to the coast as
far as the mouth of the Nahr el-Kebir and to the country of the Lebanon
which lay between the Mediterranean and the middle course of the
Orontes. Kharu ran parallel to Zahi, but comprised the mountain
district, and came to include most of the countries which were at first
ranged under Upper Lotanu; it was never applied to the region beyond the
neighbourhood of Mount Tabor, nor to the trans-Jordanie provinces. The
three names in their wider sense preserved the same relation to each
other as before, Zahi lying to the west and north-west of Kharu, and
Lower Lotanu to the north of Kharu and north-east of Zahi, but the
extension of meaning did not abolish the old conception of their
position, and hence arose confusion in the minds of those who employed
them; the scribes, for instance, who registered in some far-off Theban
temple the victories of the Pharaoh would sometimes write Zahi where
they should have inscribed Kharu, and it is a difficult matter for us
always to detect their mistakes. It would be unjust to blame them too
severely for their inaccuracies, for what means had they of determining
the relative positions of that confusing collection of states with which
the Egyptians came in contact as soon as they had set foot on Syrian
soil?

A choice of several routes into Asia, possessing unequal advantages, was
open to the traveller, but the most direct of them passed through the
town of Zalu. The old entrenchments running from the Ked Sea to the
marshes of the Pelusiac branch still protected the isthmus, and beyond
these, forming an additional defence, was a canal on the banks of which
a fortress was constructed. This was occupied by the troops who guarded
the frontier, and no traveller was allowed to pass without having
declared his name and rank, signified the business which took him into
Syria or Egypt, and shown the letters with which he was entrusted.*

* The notes of an official living at Zalu in the time of
Mineptah are preserved on the back of pls. v., vi. of the
_Anastasi Papyrus III_,; his business was to keep a register
of the movements of the comers and goers between Egypt and
Syria during a few days of the month Pakhons, in the year
III.

It was from Zalu that the Pharaohs set out with their troops, when
summoned to Kharu by a hostile confederacy