=References to the Israelites During the Egyptian Period.= The references to the Habiri in the Tell el-Amarna letters and in the inscriptions found in the mounds in Palestine imply that the majority of the Habiri either conquered the older Canaanite population or else coalesced with them and thus found permanent homes in the land. This infusion of new blood was, in fact, an inevitable consequence of Egypt's cruel, destructive policy in the treatment of Palestine. Seti I and Ramses II, of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty, in the record of their campaigns in Palestine, refer to a state called Asaru or Aseru in western Galilee. This was the region occupied by the Hebrew tribe of Asshur and would seem to indicate that by 1300 B.C., half a century after the invasion of the Habiri, this tribe was already firmly established in the land of Canaan. Merneptah, the son of Ramses II, refers to Israel in a connection which leaves no reasonable doubt that a people bearing this name were to be found in his day in Palestine. This is the earliest and only reference to Israel thus far found on the monuments prior to the ninth century B.C. That many if not a majority of the ancestors of the later Hebrews were already established in Palestine by the beginning of the thirteenth century B.C. must now be regarded as a practically established fact. =The Habiri in Eastern and Central Palestine.= The bounds of Palestine were narrow and the ancient population numerous. Some of the Habiri appear to have found homes in the east-Jordan land, where they gradually acquired the habits of agriculturists and reappear in later history as the Moabites and Ammonites. Naturally, some of these invaders retained their flocks and herds and nomadic mode of life. This was possible because of the peculiar character of Palestine. In the uplands of the central plateau, and especially in the south, the traveller still frequently comes upon the flocks and black tents of the Bedouin. According to the earliest biblical narratives it was here that certain of the Hebrew tribes remained for a generation or more, with their flocks and tents, tolerated by the city dwellers who cultivated the plains even as are the Bedouin by the inhabitants of Palestine to-day.