However this may be, the Hittite monuments of Asia Minor confirm in a striking way the evidence of the Egyptian inscriptions. They show us that the Hittites worked for silver in the mountains which looked down upon the Cilician plain, from whence the influence of their art and writing extended into the plain itself. They further show that the central point of Hittite power was a square on either side of the Taurus range, which included Carchemish and Komagênê in the south, the district eastwards of the Halys on the north, and the country of which Malatiyeh was the capital in the east. The Hittite tribes, in fact, were mountaineers from the plateau of Kappadokia who had spread themselves out in all directions. A time came when, under the leadership of powerful princes, they marched along the two high-roads of Asia Minor and established their supremacy over the coast-tribes of the far west. The age to which this military empire belongs is indicated by the Egyptian character of the so-called image of Niobê on the cliff of Sipylos, as well as by the sphinxes which guarded the entrance to the palace of Eyuk. It goes back to the days when the rulers of Kadesh could summon to their aid the vassal-chieftains of the Ægean coast. The monuments the Hittites have left behind them in Asia Minor thus bear the same testimony as the records of Egypt. The people to whom Uriah, and it may be Bath-sheba, belonged, not only had contended on equal terms with one of the greatest of Egyptian kings; they had carried their arms through the whole length of Asia Minor, they had set up satraps in the cities of Lydia, and had brought the civilisation of the East to the barbarous tribes of the distant West. CHAPTER V. THE HITTITE CITIES AND RACE. Of the history of the 'White Syrians' or Hittites who lived in the land of Pteria, near the Halys, we know nothing at present beyond what we can gather from the ruins of their stronghold at Boghaz Keui and their palace at Eyuk. The same is the case with the Hittite tribes of Malatiyeh and Komagênê. When the inscription which adorns the body of a stone lion found at Merash can be deciphered, it will doubtless cast light on the early history of the city; at present we do not know even its ancient name. It is not until we leave the mountainous region originally occupied by the Hittite race, and descend into the valleys of Syria, that the annals of their neighbours begin to tell us something about their fortunes and achievements. The history of their two southern capitals, Carchemish and Kadesh, broken and imperfect though it may be, is not an utter blank.