Part 3 — FOOTNOTES.

Again, Canaan is said to have been so called from Canaan son of Ham, and Canaan’s eldest son was, according to the same authority, Sidon, founder of the Sidonians, and his other sons were founders of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgasites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites (Gen. x., 15–18).

All this is most improbable, although in keeping with the practice of ancient chroniclers. Modern historians find more probable derivations in some local peculiarity or suggestive characteristic. Thus Argos, in Greece, is mythically derived from Argos, its 4th king; but Strabo tells us the word means a plain. Devonshire is not a corruption of Debon’s share or lot (Faery Queen ii., 10), but of the Saxon defn-afon (deep water). Similarly Canaan means low lands, as opposed to “Aram” (the highlands), and being suited to commerce from its nearness to the coast, the word in time became a general term for “a trader.”