, and given up to
shameful vices.

* The identification of the peak of Brathy is uncertain. The
name has been associated with Tabor: since it exactly
recalls the name of the cypress and of Berytus, it would be
more prudent, perhaps, to look for the name in that of one
of the peaks of the Lebanon near the latter town.

[Illustration: 267.jpg THE AMBROSIAN ROCKS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet
des Medailles_.

Samemrum took up his abode among them in that region which became
in later times the Tyrian coast, and showed them how to build huts,
papyrus, or other reeds: Usoos in the mean time pursued the avocation
of a hunter of wild beasts, living upon their flesh and clothing
himself with their skins. A conflict at length broke out between the two
brothers, the inevitable result of rivalry between the ever-wandering
hunter and the husbandman attached to the soil.

Usoos succeeded in holding his own till the day when fire and wind took
the part of his enemy against him.* The trees, shaken and made to rub
against each other by the tempest, broke into flame from the friction,
and the forest was set on fire. Usoos, seizing a leafy branch, despoiled
it of its foliage, and placing it in the water let it drift out to sea,
bearing him, the first of his race, with it.

* The text simply states the material facts, the tempest and
the fire: the general movement of the narrative seems to
prove that the intervention of these elements is an episode
in the quarrel between the two brothers--that in which
Usoos is forced to fly from the region civilized by
Samemrum.

Landing on one of the islands, he set up two menhirs, dedicating them to
fire and wind that he might thenceforward gain their favour. He poured
out at their base the blood of animals he had slaughtered, and after
his death, his companions continued to perform the rites which he had
inaugurated.

[Illustration: 268.jpg]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original in the _Cabinet
des Medailles_.

The town which he had begun to build on the sea-girt isle was called
Tyre, the "Rock," and the two rough stones which he had set up remained
for a long time as a sort of talisman, bringing good luck to its
inhabitants. It was asserted of old that the island had not always been
fixed, but that it rose and fell, with the waves like a raft. Two peaks
looked down upon it--the