Van in the south, and Lake Urumiah further to the south-east.  The Assyrians called the former the Upper Sea of Nairi, and the latter the Lower Sea, and both constituted a defence for Urartu against their attacks.  To reach the centre of the kingdom of Urartu, the Assyrians had either to cross the mountainous strip of land between the two lakes, or by making a detour to the north-west, and descending the difficult slopes of the valley of the Arzania, to approach the mountains of Armenia lying to the north of Lake Van.  The march was necessarily a slow and painful one for both horses and men, along narrow winding valleys down which rushed rapid streams, over raging torrents, through tangled forests where the path had to be cut as they advanced, and over barren wind-swept plateaux where rain and mist chilled and demoralized soldiers accustomed to the warm and sunny plains of the Euphrates.  The majority of the armies which invaded this region never reached the goal of the expedition:  they retired after a few engagements, and withdrew as quickly as possible to more genial climes.  The main part of the Urartu remained almost always unsubdued behind its barrier of woods, rocks, and lakes, which protected it from the attacks levelled against it, and no one can say how far the kingdom extended in the direction of the Caucasus.  It certainly included the valley of the Araxes and possibly part of the valley of the Kur, and the steppes sloping towards the Caspian Sea.  It was a region full of contrasts, at once favoured and ill-treated by nature in its elevation and aspect:  rugged peaks, deep gorges, dense thickets, districts sterile from the heat of subterranean fires, and sandy wastes barren for lack of moisture, were interspersed with shady valleys, sunny vine-clad slopes, and wide stretches of fertile land covered with rich layers of deep alluvial soil, where thick-standing corn and meadow-lands, alternating with orchards, repaid the cultivator for the slightest attempt at irrigation.

[Illustration:  080.jpg End of the Harvest—­Cutting Straw]

History does not record who were the former possessors of this land; but towards the middle of the ninth century it was divided into several principalities, whose position and boundaries cannot be precisely determined.  It is thought that Urartu lay on either side of Mount Ararat and on both banks of the Araxes, that Biainas lay around Lake Van,* and that the Mannai occupied the country to the north and east of Lake Urumiah;** the positions of the other tribes on the different tributaries of the Euphrates or the slopes of the Armenian mountains are as yet uncertain.