The History of the Hittites. 21 natives, according to Robinson, do not apparently know the reason why the lake Is called Kades. Whatever may be the truth, the question Is one easy of solution, for the two sites are very little way from each other. We 51-50 East of Fan's • Nauke7rcK pe* ZeToli 14*I0- East of Greenwich 54*25 know now that Robin- son was not misled by mispronunciation or a sound imperfectly heard. Before him, Abul Fedah had mentioned the lake, which he calls Kedes, and which he considered owed Its existence to the hand of man.^ Thothmes III. Is the first Pharaoh whose line of march is known to us, but the route fol- lowed by the Egyptian armies for five hundred years, from Thothmes I., must always have been along the coast held by the Phoenicians and the Philistines. At Megiddo, Thothmes III. encountered the King of Kadesh and with him all the Syrian tribes, including the Phoenicians. The allies were defeated, and, leaving their chariots, took refuge within the walls of the city, unhindered by the enemy, centre. On the other hand, the Tell Neby Mendeh fulfils the conditions requisite in a fortified place. It rises about 6o m. above the level of the surrounding plain, and its base is sufficiently large to support the village on its slopes. It could be easily surrounded by water, for it is comprised in an angle formed by the Orontes and an arm on its right bank which joins the river a little below. The low ground around the hill is soft and marshy, and a dam would turn it in no time into a lake. Thus was obtained the Lake Homs, which is nothing but a shallow sheet of water, and probably not so old as recounted by local tradition, if we are to rely on a passage of the Talmud, cited by Ncubaur, which runs thus : " Why should not the waters of Hems be numbered among the seas ? Because they were due to the union of several rivers by the Emperor Diocletian" {Geography of the Talmudy p. 24).
- Upon Upper Syria, consult the Mtmoircs of I'Abb^ Vigoureux, from which we
have freely borrowed. Fig. 258. — Lake of Kadesh. After Conder.
