t to appear in person meant little less than ruin.
Resistance to it was so surely to be counted on that such a summons was
often kept in the background more as a threat than anything else. Now and
then petty chiefs in Palestine and Syria withheld their bushels of corn,
their three oxen or their twenty sheep; or perhaps they were so sparing of
bakshish that the tribute itself was swallowed up and vanished entirely
from the accounts. It was scarcely possible to take costly measures to
punish such delinquents, so the business was turned over to some kind
neighbour of the recalcitrant chief, and a little war was soon fairly
ablaze. But when direct commands of royal ambassadors were treated as of
doubtful authenticity, it was hardly likely that the authority placed in
the hands of an equal would meet with much respect. Both leaders received
reinforcements; a third intervened at a moment favourable to himself; many
and often very remote quarrels broke out, and when at length the royal
commissioners hurried upon the scene it was hard for them to say whether
or not the original sentence had been executed. Certainly most of the
property of the original offenders had been largely lost or destroyed, but
the plunder had crumbled away in passing through countless hands, and the
royal official might seek it from Dan to Beersheba, or farther, but in
vain. Out of the first difficulty a dozen others had arisen, till the
suzerain seized upon his dues by force, yet without leaving peace behind
him. The tablets are full of references to these complicated struggles,
which it is not always possible to follow in detail.

Additional confusion was caused by the immigration of Bedawin tribes. In
the north the nomadic Sutu, in the south the Habiri pressed forward and
encroached upon Egyptian territory. It is evident that this further
pressure was calculated to bring matters to a crisis, for, like the
tribute, it affected pre-eminently the vassal chiefs and tribes. We find
the Habiri especially in the very act of ruining some of these petty
princes, others of whom preferred to make treaties with their unwelcome
guests, though this indeed was apparently in secret only. But the Sutu
reached the domains of more powerful vassals, and by two of these, Aziru
and Namjauza, were openly taken into pay. Obviously such alliances with
land-seeking plunderers could only prolong and embitter the strife. In
Palestine, no doubt, peace as regards Egypt would soon ha