The hunter has a conversation with his father, who was with him, and the upshot of it is that they decide to communicate to Gilgameš an account of the terrible man whom they had seen. It was therefore decided to try to catch or, rather, entice him to Erech by means of a female named Samḫat. In accordance with the instructions received, therefore, the hunter took with him the woman who was intrusted to him, and they awaited Êa-banî in the same place, by the side of the water. After watching for him for two days, they got into communication with him, and the woman asked him why he dwelt with the wild animals, depicting at the same time all the glory of Erech the walled and the nobility of Gilgameš, so that he soon allowed himself to be persuaded, and, in the end, went and took up his abode there. Various things are then narrated, the most important of them being the episode of the Elamite Ḫumbaba, the same name, though not the same person, as the Kombabos of the Greeks. Gilgameš seems to have gone to a place where there was a forest of cedar-trees, accompanied by Êa-banî. Near this place, apparently, there was a splendid palace, the abode (?) of a great queen. Judging from what remains of the text, they ask their way of her, and she it is who seems to tell them how to reach the dominions of the potentate whom they seek. “A distant road is the place of Ḫumbaba. A conflict that he (Gilgameš) knoweth not he will meet, A road that he knoweth not he will ride, As long as he goeth and returneth, Until he reach the forest of cedars, Until the mighty Ḫumbaba he subdueth, And whatever is evil, what ye hate, he shall destroy in the l(and).” Evidently, from the extent of the record in this place, many adventures befell them, but the fragmentary lines and the numerous lacunæ make a connected narrative absolutely impossible, and it is not until we reach the first column of what Mr. G. Smith regarded as the fifth tablet that we get something more satisfactory than this. The hero has apparently come within measurable distance of his goal— “They stood and looked on the forest, They regarded the height of the cedar, They regarded the depth of the forest, Where Ḫumbaba walked, striding high (?), The roads prepared, the way made good. They saw the mountain of the cedar, the dwelling of the gods, the shrine of the god Irnini, Before the mountain the cedar raised its luxuriance— Good was its shade, full of delight.”