s,
and has been identified with the modern region Ait ez-Zeitun
to the south-east of Sidon. It is very probably the Elaia of
Philo of Byblos, the Biais of Dionysios Periegetes, which
Renan is inclined to identify with Heldua, Khan-Khaldi, by
substituting Eldis as a correction.

Sidonian territory reached its limit at the Cape of Sarepta, where the
high-lands again meet the sea at the boundary of one of those basins
into which Phoenicia is divided. Passing beyond this cape, we come first
upon a Tyrian outpost, the Town of Birds;* then upon the village of
Nazana** with its river of the same name; beyond this upon a plain
hemmed in by low hills, cultivated to their summits; then on tombs and
gardens in the suburbs of Autu;*** and, further still, to a fleet of
boats moored at a short distance from the shore, where a group of reefs
and islands furnishes at one and the same time a site for the houses and
temples of Tyre, and a protection from its foes.

* The Phoenician name of Ornithonpolis is unknown to us: the
town is often mentioned by the geographers of classic times,
but with certain differences, some placing it to the north
and others to the south of Sarepta. It was near to the site
of Adlun, the Adnonum of the Latin itineraries, if it was
not actually the same place.

** Nazana was both the name of the place and the river, as
Kasimiyeh and Khan Kasimiyeh, near the same locality, are
to-day.

*** Autu was identified by Brugsch with Avatha, which is
probably El-Awwatin, on the hill facing Tyre. Max Mueller,
who reads the word as Authu, Ozu, prefers the Uru or Ushu of
the Assyrian texts.

It was already an ancient town at the beginning of the Egyptian
conquest. As in other places of ancient date, the inhabitants rejoiced
in stories of the origin of things in which the city figured as the most
venerable in the world. After the period of the creating gods, there
followed immediately, according to the current legends, two or three
generations of minor deities--heroes of light and flame--who had learned
how to subdue fire and turn it to their needs; then a race of giants,
associated with the giant peaks of Kasios, Lebanon, Hermon, and Brathy;*
after which were born two male children--twins: Samem-rum, the lord of
the supernal heaven, and Usoos, the hunter. Human beings at this time
lived a savage life, wandering through the woods