26/41 But whereas the Amalekites were the wild, untamable natives of the desert, the Ishmaelites came of a cultured ancestry, half Babylonian, half Egyptian, and the traditions of it were never forgotten. They lived a settled life in fenced villages and fortified castles, as their descendants still do to-day. Like the Israelites, they were divided into twelve tribes, the eldest and most important of which were the Nabatheans, who spread from the frontiers of Babylonia to Petra in the far west. Kedar was another powerful tribe; in the days of the later Assyrian empire its kings contended in battle with the armies of Nineveh. It is a name which belongs to Canaan rather than to Babylonia or Arabia. |