[535] Gen. xxiii. 18. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 6, ‘Aretz tahtim-hodshi’ should be read, ‘Aretz ha-Hittim Kadesh,’ ‘the land of the Hittites of (city) Kadesh.’
[536] Trans. Soc. Bib. Archæology, vol. v. part 2, p. 354. They were then the paramount nation in Syria, from the Euphrates to the Libanus; and the Assyrians knew the region as Mat-Khatte.
[537] Wild work has been made with this word. Some render it ‘large’ (i.e. whale-like); the scholiast calls the Cetians a people of Mysia; others confound them with the Kittaians (Chittim = Cypriots) of Menander in Josephus (A. J. ix. 14; Cory’s Frag., p. 30; London, Reeves & Turner, 1876); others with the people of Kiti (the circle), the Heb. Galil or Galilee.
[538] ‘Two-river’ (land) is mostly applied to the great Interamnian plain, Mesopotamia. Here it must mean Syria proper; and Aram Naharayn (Highlands of the Two Streams) admirably describes Palestine, which is composed of a double anticlinal river-valley formed by the Iarunata (Jordan) and the Arunata (Orontes). The whole length and breadth of the country is distributed between the two, with the exception of the small Litani watershed.
[539] The ‘Aram wine from Halybon’ was produced at Helbún (Halbáún, the inhabitants call it), a gorge-village near Damascus. Being Moslems, they no longer ferment their grape-juice; but the fruit is still famous. The Helbún people speak the broadest dialect, and are a perpetual laughing-stock to the Damascus citizens. The Aleppites derive their ‘Halab’ (Aleppo) because Abraham there milked (halaba) a cow; but the place is older than the Genesitic flood, the Flood.
[540] This word is corruptly written Jerablus, Jorablus, Jirabis, &c.
[541] In Rawlinson’s Herodotus (i. 463) we find that the Southern Hittites numbered twelve kings.
[542] The decisive action is shown on an Egyptian tomb (Brugsch, i. 291).
[543] Ramses left as memorials of his invasion three hieroglyphic tablets cut upon the rocks on the south side of the embouchure of the Nahr el-Kalb (Dog or Wolf River, the Lycus), a few miles north of the Venerable Bayrut (Berytus, &c.). They mark the ancient road which ascended the rough torrent-gorge to its origin in Cælesyria (El-Buká’a). Even since these pages have been written the coffins and mummies of Ramses II. and his daughter have been found at Dayr el-Bahri in Upper Egypt, and conveyed from Thebes to Bulak by Dr. Emil Brugsch. The same collector has been equally lucky with the remains of Seti I., although Belzoni, who discovered the tomb, sent the sarcophagus to the Sloane Museum.
[544] Sesostris derives from Ses, Setesu, Sestesu, or Sestura, i.e. ‘Sethosis, also called Ramses’ (Seti-son?). The Greek Sesostris combines, I have said, the lives of Seti and his son Ramses. According to Brugsch, he is the ‘Pharaoh of the Oppression,’ and the son of the unnamed Princess (Merris? Thermutis?) who ‘found Moses in the bull-rushes.’