The second year of his reign was no less fully occupied, nor did it prove less successful than the first.  At its very beginning, and even before the return of the favourable season, the Sukhi on the Euphrates made a public act of submission, and their chief, Ilubani, brought to Nineveh on their behalf a large sum of gold and silver.  He had scarcely left the capital when the news of an untoward event effaced the good impression he had made.  The descendants of the colonists, planted in bygone times by Shalmaneser I. on the western slope of the Masios, in the district of Khalzidipkha, had thrown off their allegiance, and their leader, Khulai, was besieging the royal fortress of Damdamusa.* Assur-nazir-pal marched direct to the sources of the Tigris, and the mere fact of his presence sufficed to prevent any rising in that quarter.  He took advantage of the occasion to set up a stele beside those of his father Tukulti-ninip and his ancestor Tiglath-pileser, and then having halted to receive the tribute of Izalla,** he turned southwards, and took up a position on the slopes of the Kashiari.

* The position of Khalzidipkha or Khalzilukha, as well as that of Kina-bu, its stronghold, is shown approximately by what follows.  Assur-nazir-pal, marching from the sources of the Supnat towards Tela, could pass either to the east or west of the Karajah-dagh; as the end of the campaign finds him at Tushkhan, to the south of the Tigris, and he returns to Nairi and Kirkhi by the eastern side of the Karajah-dagh, we are led to conclude that the outgoing march to Tela was by the western side, through the country situated between the Karajah-dagh and the Euphrates.  On referring to a modern map, two rather important places will be found in this locality:  the first, Arghana, commanding the road from Diarbekir to Khar-put; the other, Severek, on the route from Diarbekir to Orfah.  Arghana appears to me to correspond to the royal city of Damdamusa, which would, thus have protected the approach to the plain on the north-west.  Severek corresponds fairly well to the position which, according to the Assyrian text, Kinabu must have occupied; hence the country of Khalzidipkha (Khalzilukha) must be the district of Severek.

** Izalla, written also Izala, Azala, paid its tribute in sheep and oxen, and also produced a wine for which it continued to be celebrated down to the time of Nebuchadrezzar II.  Lenormant and Finzi place this country- near to Nisibis, where the Byzantine and Syrian writers mention a district and a mountain of the same name, and this conjecture is borne out by the passages of the Annals of Assur-nazir-pal which place it in the vicinity of Bit-Adini and Bit-Bakhiani.  It has also been adopted by most of the historians who have recently studied the question.

At the first news of his approach, Khulai had raised the blockade of Damdamusa and had entrenched himself in Kinabu; the Assyrians, however, carried the place