=Solomon's Fortresses.= Solomon also fortified Lower Beth-horon, which was situated on the flat, fertile hill which commanded a wide view over the western plains. This stronghold guarded the important highway that led up from the coast, past Gibeon to Jerusalem, with an eastern branch running directly to the Jordan. In the same way the old Canaanite city of Megiddo, on the southwestern side of the Plain of Esdraelon, was fortified, thus enabling Solomon to control the great trade route from Damascus and Phœnicia to Philistia and Egypt. In the north the city of Hazor, a little east of Lake Huleh, on the road which ran north from the Sea of Galilee, was made the chief stronghold. It was a city often mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna letters, as well as in the story of an Egyptian traveller of the fourteenth century B.C. In the south, Jerusalem was the great military centre. Tamar, which is probably to be identified with the Thamara of Eusebius and Jerome, southwest of the Dead Sea, a day's journey from Hebron, guarded the road which ran to Ezion-geber and Elath on the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Baalath, the seventh stronghold, has not yet been identified. From its position in the list, it would seem to be one of the southern fortresses, though it may be identical with Kirjath-jearaim, which guarded the western approaches to Jerusalem through the Valley of Sorek. =Solomon's Strategic and Commercial Policy.= It is significant that Solomon apparently did not deem it necessary to guard his eastern frontiers. The conquests of David had delivered Israel from all danger of attack from this quarter. Solomon's chief defences were massed on the west and north, indicating that the foes whom he feared were the Philistines and the more distant invaders that might come from Egypt or northern Syria. The southern fortress of Tamar was evidently intended to guard the trade route to the port of Ezion-geber, from which the united fleets of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre made their long journeys past the coast of Arabia and out into the Indian Ocean. The situation of the land of Ophir is not certain, but the character and names of the products brought back by the Phœnician and Hebrew traders point strongly to India. The so-called "Land of Ophir" was probably either Abhira at the mouth of the Indus, or else a seaport of eastern Arabia, through which the products of India reached the Western world.