One of the most valuable results of this inquiry is, that a philological reason is thus afforded for that general preservation of the names of ancient sites in Palestine, which has always been considered extraordinary, and perhaps doubtful. The language being unchanged, it is evidently natural that local names should be also unchanged, the original meaning being understood by the peasantry in most cases. Many instances of this might be brought forward, and the alteration which has occurred in the nomenclature of the country, as a whole, seems wonderfully small, almost every important site retaining its Biblical name. The investigation of the language appears to me to raise the study of identification from an empirical pursuit of fancied resemblances, to the level of a science governed by recognised laws of change and modification, laws which must be observed strictly in all cases of really satisfactory identification. If we may judge the origin of any people by language, then by their dialect, the descent of the Fellahîn, or “tillers,” may be traced from older inhabitants of Palestine, and perhaps from the pre-Israelite population, which--despite the fierce onslaught of the first Jewish conquerors under Joshua--was, as we may gather from the Bible, never entirely outrooted, but remained in the land (in much the same position as that which the Saxons occupied under their Norman rulers) as a distinct people, though members of the same great family (the Semitic race), regarded as inferior to the Jewish dominant class, “hewers of wood,” “drawers of water,” “the beasts of the people.” It was precisely to this peasantry that the educated Jews of the second century of our era assigned the Aramaic language; the holy Hebrew of the Sacred Books being confined to the priests, by whom chiefly, after the return from the Captivity, that more ancient tongue appears to have been studied. It is interesting to inquire whether foreign influence is traceable in the peasant language. Foreign words do indeed occur, such as “Burj” for a tower, or “burg,” and El Mineh for a harbour, which has already been explained to be a corruption of the Greek Limen; but these words, with many Crusading names of places which are attached to mediæval or later sites, cannot properly be said to be commonly used in the language; in fact, it is extraordinary to note how very small the influence of foreign conquerors, Greek, Roman, or Frank, seems to have been on the language. The pretentious titles, Eleutheropolis, Nicopolis, Scythopolis, etc., have quite disappeared, and the old native names of these cities, Beth Gubrin, Emmaus, Bethshean, etc., are those now known, with the important exception of Nâblus, the modern name for Neapolis, the ancient Shechem--a change which may perhaps be traced to Jewish hatred of the name of Shechem.