the soil, parched by the continuous heat, can scarcely be distinguished
from the desert. In fact, till the Sinaitic Peninsula and the frontiers
of Egypt are reached, the eye merely encounters desolate and almost
uninhabited solitudes, devastated by winter torrents, and overshadowed
by the volcanic summits of Mount Seir. The spring rains, however,
cause an early crop of vegetation to spring up, which for a few weeks
furnishes the flocks of the nomad tribes with food.

We may summarise the physical characteristics of Syria by saying that
Nature has divided the country into five or six regions of unequal
area, isolated by rivers and mountains, each one of which, however, is
admirably suited to become the seat of a separate independent state.
In the north, we have the country of the two rivers--the
Naharaim--extending from the Orontes to the Euphrates and the Balikh, or
even as far as the Khabur:* in the centre, between the two ranges of
the Lebanon, lie Coele-Syria and its two unequal neighbours, Aram of
Damascus and Phoenicia; while to the south is the varied collection of
provinces bordering the valley of the Jordan.

* The Naharaim of the Egyptians was first identified with
Mesopotamia; it was located between the Orontes and the
Balikh or the Euphrates by Maspero. This opinion is now
adopted by the majority of Egyptologists, with slight
differences in detail. Ed. Meyer has accurately compared the
Egyptian Naharaim with the Parapotamia of the administration
of the Seleucidæ.

It is impossible at the present day to assert, with any approach to
accuracy, what peoples inhabited these different regions towards the
fourth millennium before our era. Wherever excavations are made, relics