Northern Syria, and the first achievement of his son and successor,
Amenôphis II., was its suppression. Ni and Ugarit, the centres of
disaffection, were captured and punished, and among the prisoners from
Ugarit were 640 "Canaanite" merchants with their slaves. The name of
Canaanite had thus already acquired that secondary meaning of "merchant"
which we find in the Old Testament (Is. xxiii. 8; Ezek. xvii. 4). It is
a significant proof of the commercial activity and trading
establishments of the Canaanite race throughout the civilized world.
Even a cuneiform tablet from Kappadokia, which is probably of the same
age as the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, gives us the name of Kinanim "the
Canaanite" as that of a witness to a deed. It was not always, however,
that the Canaanites were so honourably distinguished. At times the name
was equivalent to that of "slave" rather than of "merchant," as in a
papyrus [Anast. 4, 16, 2.] where mention is made of Kan'amu or
"Canaanite slaves from Khal." So too in another papyrus we hear of a
slave called Saruraz the son of Naqati, whose mother was Kadi from the
land of Arvad. The Egyptian wars in Palestine must necessarily have
resulted in the enslavement of many of its inhabitants, and, as we have
seen, a certain number of young slaves formed part of the annual tax
levied upon Syria.

The successors of Thothmes III. extended the Egyptian empire far to the
south in the Soudan. But its Asiatic limits had already been reached.
Palestine, along with Phoenicia, the land of the Amorites and the
country east of the Jordan, was constituted into an Egyptian province
and kept strictly under Egyptian control. Further north the connection
with the imperial government was looser. There were Egyptian fortresses
and garrisons here and there, and certain important towns like Tunip
near Aleppo and Qatna on the Khabûr were placed under Egyptian prefects.
But elsewhere the conquered populations were allowed to remain under