Not far removed from the harbour-cities, whose ships discovered the land of silver, which carried the natural wealth of the West to the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the Nile, in order to exchange them for the productions of those countries, in part immediately upon the borders of the marts which united the East and the West, and side by side with them, dwelt the Israelites on the heights and in the valleys which they had conquered, in very simple and original modes of life. Even during the war against the ancient population of Canaan, immediately after the first successes against the Amorites, they had, as we have seen, dropped any common participation in the struggle, any unity under one leader. According to their numbers and bravery, and the resistance encountered, the various tribes had won larger or smaller territories, better or inferior districts. Immigration and conquest did not lead among the Israelites to a combination of their powers under the supremacy of one leader, but rather to separation into clans and cantons, which was also favoured by the nature of the country conquered, a district lying in unconnected parts, and possessing no central region adapted for governing the whole. Thus, after the settlement, the life of the nation became divided into separate circles according to the position and character of the mountain canton which the particular tribe had obtained, and the fortune which it had experienced. Even if there was an invasion of the enemy, the tribe attacked was left to defend itself as well as it could. It was only very rarely, and in times of great danger, that the nobles and elders of the whole land, and a great number of the men of war from all the tribes, were collected round the sacred ark at Shiloh, at Bethel, at Mizpeh, or at Gilgal for common counsel or common defence. But even when a resolution was passed by the nobles and elders and the people, individual tribes sometimes resisted, even by force of arms, the expressed will of the nation, or at least of a great part of the nobles and people, and the division of the tribes sometimes led even to open war.