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Of these streams the most northern, the Khabour, runs chiefly in an untraversed country the district between Julamerik and the Tigris.

Little by little rural and urban life overflowed the valley of the Tigris into that of the Chaboras or Khabour, the principal affluent of the Euphrates, until at last it reached the banks of the great western river itself.

He came in person into the emperor's camp, accompanied by a numerous body of archers, and bringing with him his sons as hostages. Severus must have hailed with especial satisfaction the adhesion of this chieftain, which secured him the undisturbed possession of Western Mesopotamia as far as the junction of the Khabour with the Euphrates.

Still the very fact that one early capital was on the right bank is enough to show that both shores of the stream were alike occupied by the race from the first; and this conclusion is abundantly confirmed by other indications throughout the region. Assyrian ruins, the remains of considerable towns, strew the whole country between the Tigris and Khabour, both north and south of the Sin jar range.

On the banks of the Lower Khabour are the remains of a royal palace, besides many other traces of the tract through which it runs having been permanently occupied by the Assyrian people.

Gozan appears to represent the whole of the upper country from which the longer affluents of the Khabour spring; while Halah, which is coupled with it in Scripture, and which Ptolemy calls Chalcitis, and makes border on Gauzanitis, may designate the tract upon the main stream, as it comes down from Ras-el-Ain.

Of these some of the more eastern have been described in a former volume: as the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Lower Chaldsea, and the Lake of Khatouniyeh in the tract between the Sinjar and the Khabour.

The force entrusted to Surenas comprised troops of both these classes. No estimate is given us of their number, but it was probably considerable. At any rate it was sufficient to induce him to make a movement in advance to cross the Sinjar range and the river Khabour, and take up his position in the country between that stream and the Belik instead of merely seeking to cover the capital.

Gibbon here boldly substitutes the Western Khabour and maintains that "the Roman frontier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris." He appears not to be able to understand how the Tigris could be the frontier, when five provinces across the Tigris were Roman.

Mesopotamia Proper, or the tract extending from the head streams of the Khabour about Mardin and Nisibin to the Euphrates at Bir, and thence southwards to Karkesiyeh or Circesium, is not certainly known to have belonged to the kingdom of Babylon, but may be assigned to it on grounds of probability.