The two campaigns of B.C. 882 and 881 had cost Assur-nazir-pal great efforts, and their results had been inadequate to the energy expended. His two principal adversaries, Nurramman and Amika, had eluded him, and still preserved their independence at the eastern extremities of their former states. Most of the mountain tribes had acknowledged the king's supremacy merely provisionally, in order to rid themselves of his presence; they had been vanquished scores of times, but were in no sense subjugated, and the moment pressure was withdrawn, they again took up arms. The districts of Zamua alone, which bordered on the Assyrian plain, and had been occupied by a military force, formed a province, a kind of buffer state between the mountain tribes and the plains of the Zab, protecting the latter from incursions. Assur-nazir-pal, feeling himself tolerably safe on that side, made no further demands, and withdrew his battalions to the westward part of his northern frontier. He hoped, no doubt, to complete the subjugation of the tribes who still contested the possession of various parts of the Kashiari, and then to push forward his main guard as far as the Euphrates and the Arzania, so as to form around the plain of Amidi a zone of vassals or tutelary subjects like those of Zamua. With this end in view, he crossed the Tigris near its source at the traditional fords, and made his way unmolested in the bend of the Euphrates from the palace of Tilluli, where the accustomed tribute of Kummukh was brought to him, to the fortress of Ishtarati, and from thence to Kibaki. The town of Matiate, having closed its gates against him, was at once sacked, and this example so stimulated the loyalty of the Kurkhi chiefs, that they ha*tened to welcome him at the neighbouring military station of Zazabukha. The king's progress continued thence as before, broken by frequent halts at the most favourable points for levying contributions on the inhabitants.1 Assur-nazir-pal encountered no serious difficulty except on the northern slopes of the Kashiari, but there again fortune smiled on him; all the contested positions were soon ceded to him, including even Madara, whose fourfold circuit of walls did not avail to save it from the conqueror.** After a brief respite at Tushkhan, he set out again one evening with his lightest chariots and the pick of his horsemen, crossed the Tigris on rafts, rode all night, and arrived unexpectedly the next morning before Pitura, the chief town of the Dirrabans.*** It was surrounded by a strong double enceinte, through which he broke after forty-eight hours of continuous assault: 800 of its men perished in the breach, and 700 others were impaled before the gates. * It is difficult to place any of these localities on the map: they ought all to be found between the ford of the Tigris, at Diarbeldr and the Euphrates, probably at the foot of the Mihrab-dagh and the Kirwantchernen-dagh.