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[Sources and Authorities:—The Times newspaper, 4th August 1881. The Times newspaper, 25th June 1886. "Egyptian Mummies," lecture by Sir Erasmus Wilson; Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883.]

When the tribes of Israel were preparing to pass over Jordan, they were told that they were going to possess nations greater and mightier than themselves, a people great and tall, whose cities were fenced up to heaven (Deut. ix. 1; i. 28). Of these early inhabitants of Palestine, the spies had reported that Amalek dwelt in the land of the South; the Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwelt in the mountains, and the Canaanite dwelt by the sea and along by the side of Jordan (Num. xiii. 29). We have indeed an enumeration of seven nations dwelling in Palestine at this time, and a testimony to their might:—"The Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou." (Deut. vii. 1). In these passages it is plainly implied that the peoples who occupied Palestine before the Israelitish invasion were in an advanced state of civilisation. Until lately we have known little or nothing about them, beyond the information which these Scripture passages afforded; but now at last the veil is beginning to lift.

As there were seven "nations" in Canaan, and the land itself is no larger than Wales, it was long supposed that each of the "nations" was but a small tribe, and was too insignificant to make any figure in history. But we have lately learned that if this was the rule, the Hittites were an exception to it. They were a great people, or perhaps a great confederacy or empire, spread over a vast region in