belonged some to Mitanni and some to the regions further
away.

[Illustration: 215.jpg THE HEADS OF THREE AMORITE CAPTIVES]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

It would be a difficult task to define with any approach to accuracy the
distribution of the Canaanites, Amorites, and Aramaeans, and to indicate
the precise points where they came into contact with their rivals of
non-Semitic stock. Frontiers between races and languages can never be
very easily determined, and this is especially true of the peoples of
Syria. They are so broken up and mixed in this region, that even in
neighbourhoods where one predominant tribe is concentrated, it is easy
to find at every step representatives of all the others. Four or five
townships, singled out at random from the middle of a province,
would often be found to belong to as many different races, and their
respective inhabitants, while living within a distance of a mile or two,
would be as great strangers to each other as if they were separated by
the breadth of a continent.

[Illustration: 216.jpg MIXTURE OF SYRIAN RACES]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

It would appear that the breaking up of these populations had not been
carried so far in ancient as in modern times, but the confusion must
already have been great if we are to judge from the number of different
sites where we encounter evidences of people of the same language
and blood. The bulk of the Khati had not yet departed from the Taurus
region, but some stray bands of them, carried away by the movement which
led to the invasion of the Hyksos, had settled around Hebron, where
the rugged nature of the country served to protect them from their
neighbours.*

* In very early times they are described as dwelling near
Hebron or in the mountains of Judah. Since we have learned
from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments that the Khati
dwelt in Northern Syria, the majority of commentators have
been indisposed to admit the existence of southern Hittites;
this name, it is alleged, having been introduced into the
Biblical around text through a misconception of the original
documents, where the term Hittite was the equivalent of
Canaanite.

The Amorites* had their head-quarters Qodshul in Coele-Syria, but one
section of them had taken up a position on the shores of the Lake of
Tiberias in Galilee, others had established themselves within a sh