=12.= Until recently =the expression in the book of Joshua= (1:4) that the land of the Hittites extended “from Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates,” seemed to be an exaggeration. But the recent discovery of the ruins of their great capital, Carchemish, situated upon the Euphrates, and the mention of another city not far off, namely Pethor, where Balaam dwelt, beside many remains extending far into Asia Minor, all prove that it was no exaggeration, but historic truth, which is recorded in the book of Joshua concerning their extended empire. They were finally conquered by the Assyrians, and their great cities, Carchemish and Pethor, captured, 719 years before the Christian era, and they never again rose to power. The other Canaanitish tribes were unimportant. THE LANGUAGE OF CANAAN. =13. The discovery= in A. D. 1868 of the Moabite stone, at Dibon, the ruins of which city are twelve miles east of the Dead Sea, shows that the Moabites in that region spoke a language similar to the Hebrew. The date of this stone is about 900 B. C. Its inscription is a remarkable corroboration of the history contained in 2 Kings 3. Discoveries at Sidon, a Phœnician town on the Mediterranean, and at other places, show that a modified Hebrew was very generally the language of all the Canaanites. =14. The pertinacity= with which the more devout and learned of the Israelites held to the Hebrew during the captivity in Assyria, and ever since amid all nations and lands, proves that they never forgot the language which Abraham spoke, but cherished it during their residence in the land of Egypt, and it is probable that before their entrance into Canaan they had entirely ceased to speak what little they knew of the Egyptian tongue. They were the more able and ready, therefore, to receive the ten commandments and all the rest of those laws which were written in the Hebrew. And, moreover, there could have been very little if any difficulty in their understanding the language of the inhabitants into whose land they had now come. THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANAAN. =15. The land of Canaan= was bounded on the west by the Mediterranean, on the east by the Jordan, on the south by the desert, and on the north by the mountains of Lebanon. This was the land of promise. At Jericho the valley of the Jordan is a depressed plain about 850 feet below the Mediterranean, and the surface of the Dead Sea on the south is still lower, being 1,293 feet below the Mediterranean, so that from ancient Jericho to the Dead Sea, six miles distant, the valley of the Jordan falls rapidly. Jerusalem is very nearly due west of the mouth of the Jordan, and is placed on the highest land, with the exception of the Mount of Olives, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean on that line of latitude, being about 2,600 feet higher than the sea.