guages, but are apparently connected with one
or other of the dialects of Asia Minor.* The tenacity with which the
place-names, once given, cling to the soil, leads us to believe that a
certain number at least of those we know in Syria were in use there long
before they were noted down by the Egyptians, and that they must have
been heirlooms from very early peoples. As they take a Semitic or
non-Semitic form according to their geographical position, we may
conclude that the centre and south were colonized by Semites, and the
north by the immigrant tribes from beyond the Taurus. Facts are not
wanting to support this conclusion, and they prove that it is not so
entirely arbitrary as we might be inclined to believe. The Asiatic
visitors who, under a king of the XIIth dynasty, came to offer gifts to
Khnumhotpu, the Lord of Beni-Hasan, are completely Semitic in type,
and closely resemble the Bedouins of the present day. Their
chief--Abisha--bears a Semitic name,** as too does the Sheikh Ammianshi,
with whom Sinuhit took refuge.***

* The non-Semitic origin of the names of a number of towns
in Northern Syria preserved in the Egyptian lists, is
admitted by the majority of scholars who have studied the
question.

** His name has been shown to be cognate with the Hebrew
Abishai (1 Sam. xxvi. 6-9; 2 Sam. ii. 18, 24; xxi. 17) and
with the Chaldaeo-Assyrian Abeshukh.

*** The name Ammianshi at once recalls those of Ammisatana,
Ammiza-dugga, and perhaps Ammurabi, or Khammurabi, of one of
the Babylonian dynasties; it contains, with the element
Ammi, a final _anshi_. Chabas connects it with two Hebrew
words _Am-nesh_, which he does not translate.

Ammianshi himself reigned over the province of Kadima, a word which in
Semitic denotes the East. Finally, the only one of their gods known to
us, Hadad, was a Semite deity, who presided over the atmosphere, and
whom we find later on ruling over the destinies of Damascus. Peoples
of Semitic speech and religion must, indeed, have already occupied the
greater part of that region on the shores of the Mediterranean which we
find still in their possession many centuries later, at the time of the
Egyptian conquest.

[Illustration: 028.jpg ASIATIC WOMEN FROM THE TOMB OF KHNUMHOTPU]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

For a time Egypt preferred not to meddle in their affairs. When,
however, the "lords of