Shalmaneser thereupon collected his troops, and crossing the Euphrates and Lebanon, proceeded first against the Phœnicians. At his approach, the nations lost all hope of liberty. The Phœnician towns of Zidon, Acre, and even the ancient capital of Tyre, surrendered, probably without attempting resistance. From Acre, Shalmaneser advanced to the Samaritan kingdom by way of the plain of Jezreel. The inhabitants of the Israelitish towns either submitted to the mighty king or fled to the capital. Hoshea, undaunted by all these defections, continued his opposition, though, as it appears, the expected or promised help from Egypt was withheld. The capital, Samaria, which lay on a hill-top, could, if properly intrenched, hold out for some time. Meanwhile, Hoshea and the inhabitants of Samaria hoped for some unlooked-for event which might compel Shalmaneser to retreat. The walls, towers, and battlements of Samaria were therefore fortified, and rendered capable of defence; provisions and water supplies were also collected, and all the preparations needed for the defence of a besieged city were made. But the Assyrians were masters in the art of attacking and capturing fortified cities. The attack and the defence must have been carried on with great energy and endurance, for the siege of Samaria lasted nearly three years (from the summer of 721 till the summer of 719). But all the exertions, the courage and the patience of the besieged proved fruitless. The capital of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, after an existence of two hundred years, was taken by storm. The last king of that state, Hoshea, though he was probably caught fighting, was mercifully treated by his conqueror. He was stripped of his dignities, and kept in prison for the rest of his life. No pen has noted how many thousands perished in this last contest of the kingdom of Israel, or how many were carried off into banishment. So estranged was that kingdom from those who recorded the memorials of the Israelitish nation, that they devoted but few words to its decline. No lament resounded, as though the sad fate of the nation was a matter of indifference to the poets. The prediction of the prophets had been fulfilled. Ephraim was no more; the idols of Dan, Samaria, and other cities, wandered away to Nineveh, and prisoners in thousands were carried off and dispersed. They were sent to colonise the thinly-populated territories--the position of which is not precisely known--in Halah and Habor, on the river Gozan, and in the towns of mountainous Media. The kingdom of the Ten Tribes, or Israel, had existed for two centuries and a half; twenty kings had ruled over it; but in one day it disappeared, leaving no trace behind. Alienated from the source of its existence through the obstinacy of Ephraim, which disregarded the Law and its influences on national morality, liberty and political strength, it had fallen into idolatry and its attendant vices. The country vomited out the Ten Tribes, as it had