* As, for instance, the hero in the Story of the Predestined Prince, exiled from Egypt with his dog, pursues his way hunting till he reaches the confines of Naharaim, where he is to marry the prince’s daughter.

These merchants’ adventures and explorations, as they were not followed by any military expedition, left absolutely no mark on the industries or manners of the primitive natives:  those of them only who were close to the frontiers of Egypt came under her subtle charm and felt the power of her attraction, but this slight influence never penetrated beyond the provinces lying nearest to the Dead Sea.  The remaining populations looked rather to Chaldaea, and received, though at a distance, the continuous impress of the kingdoms of the Euphrates.  The tradition which attributes to Sargon of Agade, and to his son Istaramsin, the subjection of the people of the Amanos and the Orontes, probably contains but a slight element of truth; but if, while awaiting further information, we hesitate to believe that the armies of these princes ever crossed the Lebanon or landed in Cyprus, we must yet admit the very early advent of their civilization in those western countries which are regarded as having been under their rule.  More than three thousand years before our era, the Asiatics who figure on the tomb of Khnumhotpu clothed themselves according to the fashions of Uru and Lagash, and affected long robes of striped and spotted stuffs.  We may well ask if they had also borrowed the cuneiform syllabary for the purposes of their official correspondence,* and if the professional scribe with his stylus and clay tablet was to be found in their cities.  The Babylonian courtiers were, no doubt, more familiar visitors among them than the Memphite nobles, while the Babylonian kings sent regularly to Syria for statuary stone, precious metals, and the timber required in the building of their monuments:  Urbau and Gudea, as well as their successors and contemporaries, received large convoys of materials from the Amanos, and if the forests of Lebanon were more rarely utilised, it was not because their existence was unknown, but because distance rendered their approach more difficult and transport more costly.  The Mediterranean marches were, in their language, classed as a whole under one denomination—­Martu, Amurru,** the West—­but there were distinctive names for each of the provinces into which they were divided.

* The most ancient cuneiform tablets of Syrian origin are not older than the XVIth century before our era; they contain the official, correspondence of the native princes with the Pharaohs Amenothes III. and IV. of the XVIIIth dynasty, as will be seen later on in this volume; they were discovered in the ruins of one of the palaces at Tel el- Amarna in Egypt.

** Formerly read Akharru.  Martu would be the Sumerian and Akharru the Semitic form, Akharru meaning that which is behind.