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 inhabitants.

As time went on the invaders intermingled with the older population of the land, and the heads of the captives which surmount the names of the places captured by the Egyptian Pharaoh Shishak in the kingdom of Judah all show the Amorite and not the Jewish type of countenance.