But the remembrance of the expedition did not last long. When civil war had weakened the power of Saul, and the march of the Philistine army to the north had left the south of Canaan without defenders, an Amalekite tribe again poured into Judah and sacked the Philistine town of Ziklag. The wives and property of David and his followers were carried off into the wilderness. But the marauders were overtaken by the Israelites they had robbed, and summary vengeance taken upon them. Men, women, and children were alike put to the sword; four hundred only escaped through the fleetness of their camels. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets we find the Bedâwin and their shêkhs playing a part in the politics of Canaan. Their services were hired by the rival princes of Palestine, and from time to time we hear of their seizing or plundering its cities on their own account. They have never ceased indeed to infest the land. Amalekite bands joined with the Midianites in devastating the villages of central Israel in the days of Gideon, and the Amalekite who brought to David the news of Saul's death was one of those who had hovered on the skirts of the contending armies, eager when the fight was over to murder the wounded and strip the slain. In a later age the "Arabs" who, according to the inscriptions of Sennacherib, formed the body-guard of Hezekiah were probably Bedâwin, and Geshem the Arabian in the time of Nehemiah seems to have represented the Amalekite chieftain of an earlier epoch. The Bedâwin still haunt the plains and unfrequented paths of Palestine, waylaying the traveller and robbing the peasant of his flocks. The peasantry or fellahin are the Perizzites of the Hebrew Scriptures. "Perizzite," in fact, means "villager," and the word is a descriptive title rather than the name of a people or a race. It denotes the agricultural population, whatever their origin may have been. Another word of similar signification is Hivite. If any distinction is to be drawn between them, it is that the term Perizzite was specially applied to the fellahin of southern Canaan, while the term Hivite was restricted to the inhabitants of the north. In two passages, it is true, "Hivite" seems to be used with an ethnic meaning. Esau is said in one of them to have married the granddaughter of "Zibeon the Hivite," while in the other we read of "the Hivite" who dwelt under Mount Hermon. But a comparison of the first passage with the later verses of the same chapter shows that "Hivite" must be corrected into "Horite," and in the second passage it is probable that "Hittite" instead of "Hivite" should be read.