History does not record who were the former possessors of this land; but towards the middle of the ninth century it was divided into several principalities, whose position and boundaries cannot be precisely determined. It is thought that Urartu lay on either side of Mount Ararat and on both banks of the Araxes, that Biainas lay around Lake Van,* and that the Mannai occupied the country to the north and east of Lake Urumiah;** the positions of the other tribes on the different tributaries of the Euphrates or the slopes of the Armenian mountains are as yet uncertain. * Urartu is the only name by which the Assyrians knew the kingdom of Van; it has been recognised from the very beginning of Assyriological studies, as well as its identity with the Ararat of the Bible and the Alarodians of Herodotus. It was also generally recognised that the name Biainas in the Vannic inscriptions, which Hincks read Bieda, corresponded to the Urartu of the Assyrians, but in consequence of this mistaken reading, efforts have been made to connect it with Adiabene. Sayce was the first to show that Biainas was the name of the country of Van, and of the kingdom of which Van was the capital; the word Bitani which Sayce connects with it is not a secondary form of the name of Van, but a present day term, and should be erased from the list of geographical names. ** The Mannai are the Minni of Jeremiah (li. 27), and it is in their country of Minyas that one tradition made the ark rest after the Deluge. The country was probably peopled by a very mixed race, for its mountains have always afforded a safe asylum for refugees, and at each migration, which altered the face of Western Asia, some fugitives from neighbouring nations drifted to the shelter of its fastnesses. [Illustration: 082.jpg THE KINGDOM OF URATU] The principal element, the Khaldi, were akin to that great family of tribes which extended across the range of the Taurus, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Euxine, and included the Khalybes, the Mushku, the Tabal, and the Khati. The little preserved of their language resembles what we know of the idioms in use among the people of Arzapi and Mitanni, and their religion seems to have been somewhat analogous to the ancient worship of the Hittites. The character of the ancient Armenians, as revealed to us by the monuments, resembles in its main features that of the Armenians of the present time. They appear as tall, strong, muscular, and determined, full of zest for work and fighting, and proud of their independence. [Illustration: 083.jpg FRAGMENT OF A VOTIVE SHIELD OF URARTIAN WORK] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Hormuzd Rassam.