twelve miles below the mouth of the river.*

* The mouth of the Euphrates being at that time not far from
the site of Kornah, Bab-Salimeti, which was about twelve
miles distant, must have been somewhere near the present
village of Abu-Hatira, on the south bank of the river.

There they halted in order to proceed to the final embarcation, but at
the last moment their inexperience of the sea nearly compromised the
success of the expedition. Even if they were not absolutely ignorant of
the ebb and flow of the tide, they certainly did not know how dangerous
the spring tide could prove at the equinox under the influence of a
south wind. The rising tide then comes into conflict with the volume
of water brought down by the stream, and in the encounter the banks are
broken down, and sometimes large districts are inundated: this is what
happened that year, to the terror of the Assyrians. Their camp was
invaded and completely flooded by the waves; the king and his soldiers
took refuge in haste on the galleys, where they were kept prisoners
for five days "as in a huge cage." As soon as the waters abated, they
completed their preparations and started on their voyage. At the point
where the Euphrates enters the lagoon, Sennacherib pushed forward to the
front of the line, and, standing in the bows of his flag-ship, offered a
sacrifice to Eâ, the god of the Ocean. Having made a solemn libation, he
threw into the water a gold model of a ship, a golden fish, and an
image of the god himself, likewise in gold; this ceremony performed, he
returned to the port of Bab-Salimeti with his guard, while the bulk
of his forces continued their voyage eastward. The passage took place
without mishap, but they could not disembark on the shore of the
gulf itself, which was unapproachable by reason of the deposits of
semi-liquid mud which girdled it; they therefore put into the mouth