fertile valleys, sufficiently well watered to permit the growth of
cereals and the raising of cattle. The river-bed is almost everywhere
wide, but strewn with dangerous rocks and sandbanks which render
navigation perilous. On nearing the ruins of Halebiyeh, the river
narrows as it enters the Arabian hills, and cuts for itself a regular
defile of three or four hundred paces in length, which is approached by
the pilots with caution.*

* It is at this defile of El-Hammeh, and not at that of
Birejik at the end of the Taurus, that we must place the
_Khinqi sha Purati_--the narrows of the Euphrates--so often
mentioned in the account of this campaign.

Assur-nazir-pal, on leaving Sirki, made his way along the left bank,
levying toll on Supri, Naqarabâni, and several other villages in his
course. Here and there he called a halt facing some town on the opposite
bank, but the boats which could have put him across had been removed,
and the fords were too well guarded to permit of his hazarding an
attack. One town, however, Khindânu, made him a voluntary offering
which, he affected to regard as a tribute, but Kharidi and Anat appeared
not even to suspect his presence in their vicinity, and he continued
on his way without having obtained from them anything which could be
construed into a mark of vassalage.*

* The detailed narrative of the _Annals_ informs us that
Assur-nazir-pal encamped on a mountain between Khindânu and
Bît-Shabaia, and this information enables us to determine on
the map with tolerable certainty the localities mentioned in
this campaign. The mountain in question can be none other
than El-Hammeh, the only one met with on this bank of the