the Hittites of the north. In days of which we are just beginning to
have a glimpse it had been a province of the Babylonian empire, and when
Egypt threw off the yoke of its Asiatic conquerors and prepared to win
an empire for itself, Canaan was the earliest of its spoils. In a later
age Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians again contended for the
mastery on the plains of Palestine; the possession of Jerusalem allowed
the Assyrian king to march unopposed into Egypt, and the battle of
Megiddo placed all Asia west of the Euphrates at the feet of the
Egyptian Pharaoh.

Palestine is thus a centre of ancient Oriental history. Its occupation
by Babylonians or Egyptians marks the shifting of the balance of power
between Asia and Africa. The fortunes of the great empires of the
eastern world are to a large extent reflected in its history. The rise
of the one meant the loss of Palestine to the other.

The people, too, were fitted by nature and circumstances for the part
they were destined to play. They were Semites with the inborn religious
spirit which is characteristic of the Semite, and they were also a mixed
race. The highlands of Canaan had been peopled by the Amorites, a tall
fair race, akin probably to the Berbers of northern Africa and the Kelts
of our own islands; the lowlands were in the hands of the Canaanites, a
people of Semitic blood and speech, who devoted themselves to the
pursuit of trade. Here and there were settlements of other tribes or
races, notably the Hittites, who had descended from the mountain-ranges
of the Taurus and spread over northern Syria. Upon all these varied
elements the Israelites flung themselves, at first in hostile invasion,
afterwards in friendly admixture. The Israelitish conquest of Palestine
was a slow process, and it was only in its earlier stages that it was
accompanied by the storming of cities and the massacre of their