land. As in the case of the Hyksos, the barbarian conquerors thus became
merged in the more civilised people which they had subdued. But the
successors of Gandish were unable permanently to retain their ascendancy
over all the districts and provinces, and several of these withdrew
their allegiance. Thus in Syria the authority of Babylon was no longer
supreme when the encroachments of Egypt began, and when Thutmosis
entered the region the native levies which he encountered were by no
means formidable.

The whole country consisted of a collection of petty states, a complex
group of peoples and territories which the Egyptians themselves never
completely succeeded in disentangling. We are, however, able to
distinguish at the present time several of these groups, all belonging
to the same family, but possessing different characteristics--the
kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmæl and Edom, the Moabites
and Ammonites, the Arameans, the Khati and the Canaanites. The
Canaanites were the most numerous, and had they been able to confederate
under a single king, it would have been impossible for the Egyptians to
have broken through the barrier thus raised between them and the rest of
Asia.


_III.--The Eighteenth Theban Dynasty_


The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thutmosis I. in Asia,
a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if we
could lay our hands on it. We know that this king succeeded in reaching
on his first campaign a limit which none of his successors was able to
surpass. The results of the campaign were of a decisive character, for