Haran figures in the earliest chronicles of both the Assyrians and the Hebrews. For a long time it was the focus of all the roadways of northern Mesopotamia and a center of great wealth and prosperity. But a single well-attested fact shows the great change that has come over the face of the land round about Haran since its first mention in history. For what is now a sandy desert was then a well-watered region of remarkable fertility, with a rich flora and a notable fauna. This is evidenced by undoubted records according to which this part of Mesopotamia was a favorite hunting ground for the kings of Egypt and Assyria, for here big game was once as varied and as abundant as it is anywhere at present in equatorial Africa. Thus the Assyrian King, Tiglath-Pileser I, 1120 B.C., declares, “Ten powerful bull-elephants in the land of Haran and on the banks of the Habour I killed; four elephants alive I took. Their skins, their tusks, with the living elephants, I brought to my city of Asshur.”[306] To-day no elephants are to be found in the wild state nearer than far-off India. Their disappearance from Western Asia, where they formerly roamed as far westward as the Lebanon range, has long been as complete as is that of the American bison from the region east of the Mississippi. According to a tradition based on the book of Genesis, this once celebrated city was named after Haran, son of Thare, who was the father of the Patriarch Abraham. “And Thare took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan: and they came as far as Haran and dwelt there.”[307] It was here that Abram received from the Lord the command: “Go forth out of the country and from thy kindred and out of thy father’s house.” It was thence he went into the Promised Land which was to be the home of his children and children’s children until the advent of the world’s Redeemer. It was to his kindred in or about Haran that Abraham sent his servant from Canaan to get a wife for his son Isaac and it was in Haran that he found the fair Rebecca as she was going to a spring with a pitcher on her shoulder. It was this same region that witnessed that idyllic episode in the early life of Jacob so beautifully described in the book of Genesis. It was here that he spent twenty years in the service of his uncle, Laban--six years for the flocks that his uncle gave him, and fourteen years for his two daughters--“the tender-eyed Leah” and “the beautiful and well-favored Rachel.”[308]