At the close of the twenty years during which Hiram had assisted Solomon in his buildings, the Israelite monarch deemed it right to make his Tyrian brother some additional compensation beyond the corn, and wine, and oil with which, according to his contract, he had annually supplied him. Accordingly, he voluntarily ceded to him a district of Galilee containing twenty cities, a portion of the old inheritance of Asher,[1489] conveniently near to Accho, of which Hiram was probably lord, and not very remote from Tyre. The tract appears to have been that where the modern Kabûl now stands, which is a rocky and bare highland,[1490]--part of the outlying roots of Lebanon--overlooking the rich plain of Akka or Accho, and presenting a striking contrast to its fertility. Hiram, on the completion of the cession, “came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him,” and was disappointed with the gift. “What cities are these,” he said, “which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul”--“rubbish” or “offscourings”--to mark his disappointment.[1491] But this passing grievance was not allowed in any way to overshadow, or interfere with, the friendly alliance and “entente cordiale” (to use a modern phrase) which existed between the two nations. Solomon, according to one authority,[1492] paid a visit to Tyre, and gratified his host by worshipping in a Sidonian temple. According to another,[1493] Hiram gave him in marriage, as a secondary wife, one of his own daughters--a marriage perhaps alluded to by the writer of Kings when he tells us that “King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, _Zidonians_, and Hittites.”[1494] The closest commercial relations were established between the two countries, and the hope of them was probably one of the strongest reasons which attracted both parties to the alliance. The Tyrians, on their part, possessed abundant ships; their sailors had full “knowledge of the sea,”[1495] and the trade of the Mediterranean was almost wholly in their hands. Solomon, on his side, being master of the port of Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea, had access to the lucrative traffic with Eastern Africa, Arabia, and perhaps India, which had hitherto been confined to the Egyptians and the Arabs. He had also, by his land power, a command of the trade routes along the Coele-Syrian valley, by Aleppo, and by Tadmor, which enabled him effectually either to help or to hinder the Phoenician land traffic. Thus either side had something to gain from the other, and a close commercial union might be safely counted on to work for the mutual advantage of both. Such a union, therefore, took place. Hiram admitted Solomon to a participation in his western traffic; and the two kings maintained a conjoint “navy of Tarshish,”[1496] which, trading with Spain and the West coast of Africa, brought to Phoenicia