course of the upper Khabour, which rises from its flank at Ras-el-Ain.
The name of Abd-el-aziz is applied to this spur, as well as to the
continuation of the Sinjar between Arban and Halebi. It is broken into
innumerable valleys and ravines, abounding with wild animals, and is
scantily wooded with dwarf oak. Streams of water abound in it.

South of the Sinjar range, the country resumes the same level appearance
which characterizes it between the Sinjar and the Mons Masius. A low
limestone ridge skirts the Tigris valley from Mosul to Tekrit, and near
the Euphrates the country is sometimes slightly hilly; but generally the
eye travels over a vast slightly undulating level, unbroken by
eminences, and supporting but a scanty vegetation. The description of
Xenophon a little exaggerates the flatness, but is otherwise faithful
enough:--"In these parts the country was a plain throughout, as smooth
as the sea, and full of wormwood; if any other shrub or reed grew there,
it had a sweet aromatic smell; but there was not a tree in the whole
region." Water is still more scarce than in the plains north of the
Sinjar. The brooks descending from that range are so weak that they
generally lose themselves in the plain before they have run many miles.
In one case only do they seem sufficiently strong to form a river. The
Tharthar, which flows by the ruins of El Hadhr, is at that place a
considerable stream, not indeed very wide but so deep that horses have
to swim across it. Its course above El Hadhr has not been traced; but
the most probable conjecture seems to be that it is a continuation of
the Sinjar river, which rises about the middle of the range, in long.
41° 50', and flows south-east through the desert. The Tharthar appears
at one time to have reached the Tigris near Tekrit, but it now ends in a
marsh or lake to the south-west of that city.

The political geography of Assyria need not occupy much of our