vicinity of Ramleh or Zernuka.

Altaku capitulated, an example followed by the neighbouring fortress of
Timnath, and subsequently by Ekron itself, all three being made to feel
Sennacherib's vengeance. "The nobles and chiefs who had offended, I
slew," he remarks, "and set up their corpses on stakes in a circle
round the city; those of the inhabitants who had offended and committed
crimes, I took them prisoners, and for the rest who had neither offended
nor transgressed, I pardoned them."


[Illustration: 028.jpg THE PASS OF LEGNIA, IN LEBANON]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph given in Lortet.

[Illustration: 028b.jpg Esneh--Principal Abyssinian Trading Village]

We may here pause to inquire how Hezekiah was occupied while his fate
was being decided on the field of Altaku. He was fortifying Jerusalem,
and storing within it munitions of War, and enrolling Jewish soldiers
and mercenary troops from the Arab tribes of the desert. He had suddenly
become aware that large portions of the wall of the city of David had
crumbled away, and he set about demolishing the neighbouring houses to
obtain materials for repairing these breaches: he hastily strengthened
the weak points in his fortifications, stopped up the springs which
flowed into the Gibon, and cut off the brook itself, constructing a
reservoir between the inner and outer city walls to store up the waters
of the ancient pool. These alterations* rendered the city, which from
its natural position was well defended, so impregnable that Sennacherib
decided not to attack it until the rest of the kingdom had been