Moreover, the Israelites saw but little of the better side of the Egyptians. They lived in Goshen, on the outskirts of northern Egypt, where the native population was largely mixed with foreign elements. When they first settled there the Pharaoh and his court were Asiatic or of Asiatic descent. And in later days the rise of a purely native government meant for them a bitter bondage and the murder of their children. Between the Israelite and the Egyptian there was hostility from the first; Joseph began by confiscating the lands of both peasant and noble; the natives revenged themselves by reducing his kinsfolk to a condition of serfdom, and the last act in the drama of the Exodus was the "spoiling of the Egyptians." CHAPTER VI BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA While the influence of Egypt upon Israel may be described as negative, that of Babylonia was positive. Abraham was a Babylonian by birth; the Asiatic world through which he wandered was Babylonian in civilisation and government, and the Babylonian exile was the final turning-point in the religious history of Judah. The Semitic Babylonians were allied in race and language to the Hebrews; they had common ideas and common points of view. Though Egyptian influence is markedly absent from the Mosaic Code, we find in it old Semitic institutions and beliefs which equally characterised Babylonia. But the Semites were not the first occupants of Babylonia. The civilisation of the country had been founded by a race which spoke an agglutinative language, like that of the modern Finns or Turks, and which scholars have now agreed to call Sumerian. The Sumerians had been the builders of the cities, the reclaimers of the marshy plain, the inventors of the picture-writing which developed into the cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters, and the pioneers of a culture which profoundly affected the whole of western Asia. The Semites entered upon the inheritance, adopting, modifying, and improving upon it. The Babylonian civilisation, with which we are best acquainted, was the result of this amalgamation of Sumerian and Semitic elements. Out of this mixture of Sumerians and Semites there arose a mixed people, a mixed language, and a mixed religion. The language and race of Babylonia were thus like those of England, probably also like those of Egypt. Mixed races are invariably the best; it is the more pure-blooded peoples who fall behind in the struggle for existence.