any of them, and that it was to the worker in iron and not
to the worker in bronze that the traveller naturally turned when his
chariot needed mending. Even the word that is employed to denote the
metal is the Canaanitish _barzel_, which has been adopted under the form
of _parzal_. Nothing could show more plainly how characteristic of
Canaan the trade of the ironsmith must have been, and how largely the
use of iron must have there superseded the use of bronze. The fact is in
accordance with the references in the annals of Thothmes III. to the
iron that was received by him from Syria; it is also in accordance with
the statements of the Bible, where we read of the "chariots of iron" in
which the Canaanites rode to war. Indeed there seems to have been a
special class of wandering ironsmiths in Palestine, like the wandering
ironsmiths of mediaeval Europe, who jealously guarded the secrets of
their trade, and formed not only a peculiar caste, but even a peculiar
race. The word Kain means "a smith," and the nomad Kenites of whom we
read in the Old Testament were simply the nomad race of "smiths," whose
home was the tent or cavern. Hence it was that while they were not
Israelites, they were just as little Canaanites, and hence it was too
that the Philistines were able to deprive the Israelites of the services
of a smith (1 Sam. xiii. 19). All that was necessary was to prevent the
Kenites from settling within Israelitish territory. There was no
Israelite who knew the secrets of the profession and could take their
place, and the Canaanites who lived under Israelitish protection were
equally ignorant of the ironsmith's art. Though the ironsmith had made
himself a home in Canaan he never identified himself with its
inhabitants. The Kenites remained a separate people, and could
consequently be classed as such by the side of the Hivites, or
"villagers," and the Perizzites, or "fellahin."

If the _Travels of a Mohar_ are a guide-book to the geography of
Palestine in the age of the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty, the lists of
places conquered by Thothmes III., and engraved by his orders on the
walls of his temple at Karnak, are a sort of atlas of Canaanite
geography in the age of the eighteenth dynasty. The name of each
locality is enclosed in a cartouche and surmounted by the head and
shoulders of a Canaanitish captive. The hair and eyes of the figures are
painted black or rather dark purple, while the skin is alternately red
and yellow