was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering
shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on
the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled,
comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells;
to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons
and all luscious fruits--this is the picture that haunts the wandering
Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life.


THE LAND OF CANAAN

During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before Christ there was an
unusually good opportunity for nomads to settle in Palestine. Before
and after that time there were strong empires in control of the land
protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans long afterward
built a line of fortified towns east of the Jordan on the border of
the desert, whose ruins may be seen to-day. In similar ways the
Babylonians and the Egyptians had occupied and defended the country.
But just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, and for a
century and more afterward, both the Egyptian and Babylonian
governments were weak. And as the various petty kings of Canaan itself
were usually at war with each other, there was no strong government
anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face.

=The first invasion from the south.=--Very soon after leaving the
mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found themselves on the southern
edge of Canaan, in what was afterward known as the South Country,
south of Judah. Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron,
which was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to investigate
and report on conditions there. They returned with a glowing account