d ford,
was about equally distant from Thapsacus and Samosata, and lay in a
rich and fertile province, which was so well watered that a drought or
a famine would not be likely to enter into the expectations of its
inhabitants. Hither pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, and all the wandering
denizens of the world were accustomed to direct their steps, and the
habit once established was perpetuated for centuries. On the left
bank of the river, and almost opposite Carchemish, lay the region of
Mitanni,* which was already occupied by a people of a different race,
who used a language cognate, it would seem, with the imperfectly
classified dialects spoken by the tribes of the Upper Tigris and Upper
Euphrates.** Harran bordered on Mitanni, and beyond Harran one may
recognise, in the vaguely defined Singar, Assur, Arrapkha, and Babel,
states that arose out of the dismemberment of the ancient Chaldaean
Empire.***

* Mitanni is mentioned on several Egyptian monuments; but
its importance was not recognised until after the discovery
of the Tel el-Amarna tablets and of its situation. The fact
that a letter from the Prince of Mitanni is stated in a
Hieratic docket to have come from Naharaim has been used as
a proof that the countries were identical; I have shown that
the docket proves only that Mitanni formed a part of
Naharaim. It extended over the province of Edessa and
Harran, stretching out towards the sources of the Tigris.
Niebuhr places it on the southern slope of the Masios, in
Mygdonia; Th. Reinach connects it with the Mationi, and asks
whether this was not the region occupied by this people
before their emigration towards the Caspian.

** Several of the Tel el-Amarna tablets are couched in this
language.

*** These names were recognised from the first in the
inscriptions of Thutmosis III. and in those of other
Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.

The Carchemish route was, of course, well known to caravans, but armed
bodies had rarely occasion to make use of it. It was a far cry from
Memphis to Carchemish, and for the Egyptians this town continued to be
a limit which they never passed, except incidentally, when they had to
chastise some turbulent tribe, or to give some ill-guarded town to the
flames.*

* A certain number of towns mentioned in the lists of
Thutmosis III. were situated beyond the Euphrates, and they