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OBSERVATIONS
ON VARIOUS
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE,
PLACING THEM IN A NEW LIGHT;
AND
» ASCERTAINING
THE MEANING OF SEVERAL, NOT DETERMINABLE BY THE METHODS
COMMONLY MADE USE OF BY THE LEARNED ;
ORIGINALLY COMPILED
BY THE
Ret. THOMAS HARMER,
FROM
RELATIONS INCIDENTALLY MENTIONED IN BOOKS OF VOYAGES
AND TRAVELS INTO THE EAST.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL in.
FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE FOURTH
LONDON EDITION.
WITH A NEW ARRANGEMENT, MANY IMPORTANT ADDITIONS,
AND INNUMERABLE CORRECTIONS,
By ADAM CLARKE, LLD.
Impellimur autem Natura, ut prodesse veliraus quamplurimis impriralsque docendo,
Itaque non facile est inyenire qui, quod sciat ipse, non tradat alteri.
Cic. de Fin. lib. iii>
CHARLESTOWN ;
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY S. ETHERIDGE, JR.
i8ir.
CONTENTS
OP THE THIRD VOLUME.
CHAP. VII.
DIFFERENT METHODS OF DOING HONOR TO THE DEAD.
Observation. Page.
I. Music joined wilh mourning ia the East - 9
II. Dead bodies ornanxented in the East - . - 10
III. Cutting ofF the hair in honor of the dead - - 12
IV. Funeral rites of the Jews in Barbary - - - 14
V. Going with the head and feet bare, a mode of honoring
the dead _ . - 16
VI. The head sometimes shaved in mourning for the dead 19
VII. Noise and tumult frequent at the death of a person in the
East - - - 20
VIII. Funeral feasts used in the East - - - 22
IX. Frequent visits paid to the graves of departed relatives,
with an account of various other modes of mourning for
the dead _ - - 23
X. Mourners at funerals - - 32
XI. Singing used in funeral processions both by men and
women - - - 33
XII. An account of the Irish Caoinan, or ancient funeral cry 38
XIII. Lamentations of the family of Housaain - 41
XIV. Some farther particulars relative to the lamentation for
Houssain - - - 44
XV. Beating the arms used in mourning for the dead - 47
XVI. Warriors often buried with their armour - 49
XVII. Burying persons within the walls of cities, a token of respect 51
XVIII. Sepulchral memorials used in the East. Curious account
of the written mountains - ' - ^^
XIX. Coffins anciently used for persons of distinction - 60
XX. Of embalming among the Asiatics - , - €2
iv CONTENTS.
Obs. Page.
XXI. Burning perfumes at the graves of the dead, designed to
do them honor - - 68
XXII. A very curious method of honoring deceased princes in
Persia - - - 74
xxiii. Particular kinds of food used by mourners - 76
XXIV. Of their tombs in the East, and their ornaments - 77
XXV. Songs and music used daily at graves, in commemoration
of the dead - - 83
XXVI, Of the places chosen by the ancient and modern Arabs for
the interment of their dead - - 85
XXVII. Boughs, flowers, &c. used in ornamenting sepulchres in the
East - - - 89
XXV III. White washing sepulchres in use in the East - 92
XXIX, Provisions placed near to or on the graves of departed
relatives - - 93
CIUP. VIII.
CONCERNING THE LITERATURE, BOOKS, ScC. OF THE EASTERN
NATIONS.
I. Curious methods of learning to write, used in the East 103
II. Of the form and materials of their books - 105
III. Method of preserving their writings - 109
TV, Of inscriptions, seals, &c. of letters - 113
V. Curious titles of their books - - 117
VI. The same subject continued - - 120
VII. Eastern MSS. highly ornamented - 122
VIII. Strong figures and metaphors used by the Eastern writers 123
TX. The same subject continued - - 125
X. The same subject continued - - 126
XI. A curious description of the spring, from an Eastern
writer, with remarks - - 127
XII. Solomon's portrait of old age - - 131
XI 11.. Solomon's portrait of old age continued - - 134
XIV, Further remarks on Solomon's portrait of old age 158
XV. Of their discourses, tales, &c. in their public assemblies
among the Asiatics . - _ 159
CHAP. IX.
OBSERVATIONS RELATING TO THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND MILI-
TARY STATE OF JUDEA.
T. Of water spouts on the Syrian and Jewish coasts 174
ji. Curious remarks on the brook Kidron ,- 175
CONTENTS. ' V
Obs. Page.
111. Remarks on the plain where Sodom and Gomorrha stood 177
Iv. Of hedges in the East - - ^'9
V. Of the roses and balsam of Jericho - 182
VI. A proof that by the horn of the son of oil, used by Isaiah,
Syria is meant - - - ^^8
vll. Of the fertility of Judea - • 189
vlll. Of the fish found in the Mediterranean, the sea of Galilee,
and the Nile - - 195
Ix. Of the mulberry trees mentioned in Scripture 196
X. Of the olive tree in the promised land - 198
xl. Of the dryness of the ground previous to the autumnal
rams - - - -"•■
xll. Curious account of certain kinds of seeds, mentioned by
Isaiah, chap, xxviii. 25, 26. - - 202
xUl. Different kinds of seeds, eaten with their bread 206
xl V. Eastern gardens not remarkably well stoi-ed with fruit trees 209
XV. Ancient method of gathering the olives - 210
xvl. Oil Jars frequently buried in the ground, the better to
preserve their contents - - ^12
xvll. Of the time when the vine and olive blossom 213
xvlU. Wine presses sometimes in the vineyards, but mostly in
the towns. — Curious customs of the ancient and
modern Greeks - - 218
xlx. Curious explanation of Gen. xlix. 22, 23 - 225
XX. Of the time in which the vine leaf falls off - 22/
xxl. Different kinds of wines in the Holy Land - 228
xxll. Superior excellence of the wine of Lebanon - 231
xxUl. Curious exposition of Hosea xiv. 5 — 7 - 234
xxlv. Fires often made in the fields, to burn up the dry herbage,
previous to the autumnal rains - - 239
XXV. Different kinds of destructive insects in Judea - 243
xxvl. Curious account of locusts - - 245
xxvll. Small flies very troublesome, and often destructive in
Judea - - " 249
xxvl 11. Different kinds of goats in Judea - 251
xxlx. Different kinds of sheep at Aleppo - 25
XXX. Of some peculiar quadrupeds mentioned in Scripture
xxxl. Judea at present swarms with dangerous wild beasts 258
xxxU. Great usefulness of storks in the Holy Land 260
xxxlll. Of the migration of different kinds of birds, and the use
to be made of it in agriculture - 261
xxxlv. Of the vast numbers of tame turtle doves found in
Bgypt,&c. - - 269
254
vi CONTENTS.
Ubs. Page.
XXXV. Olive groves, places of general resort for birds 273
xxxvl. The Mediterranean well stored with fish of different kinds 274
xxxvll. The luxury of the tlararas, very oppressive to the people
of the East - - ^277
xxxvlll. Public justice badly administered in the East - 281
xxxlx. Peasants, in Persia, permitted to approach the throne,
with complaints of oppression against their rulers 282
XL. Of the bastinado in the East - - 284
xlI. Prompt and arbitrary executions frequent in the East 285
XlII. Of the extermination of ancient royal ftmJlies in the East 288
xlUI. (>f the power and influence of ancient Palmyra and Balbec 294
XLlv. Certain particulars relative to Palmyra - 295
XLv. Some curious remarks on the Euphrates - 297
XLvi. Of the woods and thickets in Judea » 298
XiiVii. Of the wild beasts in the Holy Land - 301
XLviit. Hurtful animals common in the Holy Land - 302
XLix. Method of charmmg noxious animals - 304
t. Hollow rocks and caves, places of defence - 305
LI. Tents usually pitched near fountains - - 307
Lii. The great necessity of fountains and reservoirs of water in
the East - - - 309
Liii. Fountains, the lurking places of robbers and assassins 313
Liv. Of the water engines wrought by the feet - 314
Lv. Cutting down valuable plantations, one of the methods used
to distress an enemy - - 316
Lvi. Strong watch towers, built in the vicinity of cities, to keep
their inhabitants in check - - 317
LVI I. Curious particulars relative to A skelon - 519
Lviii. Of the importance of settlements near the Red Sea 320
Llx. Towers used for people to fly to, in times of insurrection
or danger - _ _ 325
LX. Further information concerning the use of these towers 327
LXl. Mountains also resorted to, as places of refuge 328
LXll. Nature of the encampments used in the East - 329
LXlll. Curious remarks on Habakkuk i. 8 - 3S0
LXiv. Of the ancient division of companies into ten men each 332
Lxv. A remarkable illustration of Gideon's defeat of the Mid-
ianites - _ . 334
LXvl. Curious illustration of 2 Kings vii. 12 - 338
Lxvll. Curious illustration of Joel iii. 3 - - 340
LXvUl. Stopping up the wells, an act of hostility in the East 341
Lxlx. Curious illustration of 1 Sam. v. 1 — 10 . 343
CONTENTS. ^ii
Obs. Page.
LXX. Manner of introducing a captive prince into the towns of a
victorious kingdom - - 345
Lxxl. Dust very injurious in the East — Of the bitter waters, &c. 348
X.XX11. Of the time of year, in which they usually began their cam-
paigns in the East - - 362
LXXlll. Further particulars on the same subject - 366
LXXlv, Hail and rain dreadful in the East - - SG7
Lxxv. Curious illustration of 2 Kings vli 15 - 368
LXXvl. A sword hanging at the neck, a token of humiliation and
subjection - - - 370
LXXvU. Curious illustration of 1 Kings xx. 34 - 372
liXXvlll. Barbarous customs used by victors in reference to the dead
bodies of their enemies - - 374
LXxlx. Particular places used for prayer previous to battle 375
LiXXX. People in the East often carry their vhole families with
them, when they go to war - - 377
Lxxxl. The granting of a banner, a sign of protection - ib.
Lxxxll. The heads of enemies cut off to serve for a triumph 379
Lxxxlll. Heads, hands, and feet, of state criminals cut off 381
LXXxlv. Curious accounts of Eastern prisons - 382
L.XXXV. Of their writings relative to the i:onveyance of property 385
LXXXvl. Sealing up the eyes, used in the East - 386
Lxxxvll. Treasures hidden under ground supposed in the East to be
discoverable by sorcery - - « 388
Lxxxvlll. Taxes paid in kind, i.e. by a part of the produce of the
field - - - 390
i.xxxlx. Money counted and sealed up in bags, or purses of various
amount - - - 391
xc. Of the hyperbolical compliments used in the East 392
xcl. Mode of drawing up decrees in the East - 394
xcll. Manner of the expeditions of petty princes in the East 396
CHAP. X.
CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING WILDERNESS, AND THE
RED SEA.
1. Of the boundaries of Egypt - - 399
11. Remarks on the title given to Ali Bey by the sheriff of
Mecca. - - - 401
111. Bathing in the Nile, one mode of expressing gratitude for
the benefits received from the overflowing of that river 402
Iv. Method of catching the crocodile in Egypt - -406
viii CONTEXTS.
Obs. ' Page.
V. Cause of the pestilence in Egypt - - ' ^H
vl. Explanation of the third plague ofEg}pt - 416
vll. Oil burnt in Egypt in honor of the dead, and in honor of
idols - - - 418
vlll. Of the illuminations made on the Nile - 422
Ix. Of the excellence of the waters of the Nile - 42r
X, Method of purifying the waters of the Nile, when muddy,
through the inundation of that river - 429
xl. The waters of this river unwholesome at the commence-
ment of the inundation - - 430
Xll. Further illustration ot Lxod. vii. 19 - 432
xUl. Of the plague of hail - - 435
OBSERVATIONS
ON
DIVERS PASSxVGES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
CHAP. VII.
DIFFERENT METHODS OF DOING HONOR TO THE DEAD.
OBSERVATION I.
MUSIC JOINED WITH MOURrfllTG IX THE EAST.
BiDDDLPH, the chaplain to the English factory at Alep-
po, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was greatly surprised
at observing, that the women in the Holy Land used in»
struments of music in their lamentations, and that, before
the melancholy event happened to which their wailing
referred.^ He would have been equally surprised, I
imagine, if he had met the companions of the daughter of
Jephthah, while she wandered up and down the mountains
bewailing her virginity,
" While I was at Saphet{a,"f says this traveller,
"many Turks departed from thence toward Mecca in
Arabia. And the same morning they went, we saw many
women playing with timbrels as they went along the
streets, who made a yelling, or shrieking noise as if they
cried. We asked what they meant in so doing? It was
answered us, that they mourned for the departure of their
husbands, who were gone that morning on pilgrimage to
Mecca, and they feared that they should never see them
* Collection of Voyages and Travels from the Earl of Oxford's library,
vol. i. page 814,
f Saphet in Galilee.
T©L. III. 2
10 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
again, because it was a long way, and dangerous, and many
died there everj year. It seemed strange to us, that
they should mourn with music about the streets, for mu-
sic is used in other places at times of mirth, and not at
times of mourning."^
The circumstances were considerably alike, though
not exactly similar. The female relations and friends, in
both cases, lamented those that were dear to them, though
not at that time dead, yet supposed to be in great danger
of death ; but the bewailing the daughter of Jephthah
must be supposed to have been much the more bitter, as
her danger must have been apprehended to have been
greater than that of the people of Saphetta, that had to
travel through the deserts of Arabia, for many of those
pilgrims return. Both arose from religious considera-
tions ; but ill-directed in both cases. In each they were
lamented in melancholy processions, and with mournful
music. t
OBSERVATIC?^! II.
DEAD BODIES ORNAMENTED IN THE EAST,
The ancient Greeks, we are told, J used to place their
dead near the doors of their houses, and to attend them
there with mourning : the same custom still continues
among the Greeks ; and might, perhaps, obtain among the
ancient Jews.
Dr. Richard Chandler observed the continuance of
this custom among the people of the first nation, when he
was lately travelling in Greece. A woman was sitting, he
tells us, at Megara, " with the door of her cottage open,
lamenting her dead husband aloud, "§ And again he tells
* This genUeman seems to have forgotten the manner in which tlie
daughter of Jairus was lamented, Matt. ix. 23.
■j- This is said on the supposition that Jephthah's daughter was really
sacrificed, of which there is no proof. Edit.
^ Potter's Antiq. book i, chap 3^ § Travels in Greece, page 195.
OF HONORING THE DEAD.
11
IIS, that wben at Zante, he saw " a woman in a house,
with the door open, bewailing her little son, whose body
lay by her, dressed, the hair powdered, (he face painted,
and bedecked with leafgold."^
The decorating the forehead and the cheeks of a Gre-
cian bride with leafgold, which he mentions p. 135, ap-
pears to us odd ; the adorning a corpse after this manner
may appear more strange : nor do I recollect any allusion
to this custom among the Jews in the Old Testament ;
but as the weeping for Tammuz is described by the Proph-
et Ezekiel,f as performed near a door of the Temple,
perhaps with a view to the custom of mourning near the
door among the Syrians, as well as the Greeks : so Abra-
ham's coming to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
Genesis xxiii. 2, seems to mean his coming from his own
tent, and seating himself on the ground near the door of
her tent, where her corpse was placed, in order to per-
form those public solemn i ites of mourning which decency
as well as affection led him to. A paper in the 5th vol-
ume of the Archieologia, relating to patriarchal customs,
takes some notice of this circumstance, but without observ-
ing that it seems to be an early rite of mourning, which
continuing among the Greeks, remains among their de-
scendants to this very time.
When Dorcas, the good woman of Joppa, died, she in-
deed, after having been washed, was placed, we are told,
in an upper roora,J consequently in a private and re-
tired apartment ; but it is to be remembered they did not
suppose her irrecoverably gone, since they sent to St.
Peter, under the hope that he might, as he afterward ac-
tually did, raise her up to life. In such a state, it would
not have agreed with their other management, to place
her at the door of the house to bewail her death, who,
they hoped, by a speedy resurrection, would appear in
the land of the living. This placing her then in an upper
chamber is no objection to the supposing the people of
* Page 300. f Chap. TJii. 14. i Acts ix. 37,
22 t)*' HONORING THE DEAD.
Syria placed their dead, for the bewailing Ihem, near
the doors of their Louses, as the Grecians did, and now do*
Perhaps ihe mourning of Israel at the door of each of
their tents, in the Wilderness, which so much displeased
Moses,^ was bewailing their relations, as if actually dead^
which they might apprehend would be the sure conse-
quence of their wandering without any support but man-
na, but it is by no means a decisive proof,
OBSERVATION III.
CUTTING OFF THE HAIK IN HONOR OF THE DEAD.
The cutting oiT the hair in mourning for the dead, is
an Eastern, as well as a Grecian custom ; and appear^ to
have obtained in the East in the prophetic times, as well
as in later ages.
That it was practised among the Arabs, in the seventh
century, appears by a passage of d'Herbelot. Khaled
ben Valid, ben Mogairah, who was one of the bravest of
the Arabs in the time of Mohammed, and sirnamed by him^
after Khaled had embraced the new religion he introduced
into the T;orld, the * Sword of God,' died under the
khalifat cf Omar, in the city of Emessa in Syria, and
he adds, that there was not a female of the house of Mo-
gairah, who was his grandfather, either matron or maid-
en, who caused not her hair to be cut off at his burial.f
How the hair that was cut off was disposed of, does not
appear in d'Herbelot. Among the ancient Greeks, it
was sometimes laid upon the dead body; sometimes cast
into the funeral pile ; sometimes placed upon the grave.J
Under this variation of management among the Greeks, it
would have been an agreeable additional circumstance to
have been told, how the females of the house of Mogairah
disposed of their hair.
* Numb. xi. 10. -I" Biblioth. Orient, page 984.
t Potter's Antiq. of Greece, book 4, chap. 5.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. ^^
We are equally ignorant of the manner in which the
ancient Jews disposed of theirs, when they cut it off in
bewailing the dead. But that they cut it off, upon suck
occasions, is evident from a passage of the Prophet Jere-
miah, ch. xvi. 6. Bolh the great and the small shall die
in this land : they shall not be btiried, neither shall^
men lament for themf nor cut themadveSy nor make
themselves bald for them*
The words do not seem determinately to cienn, that
those of the male sex only were wont to cut themselves,
or make themselves bald for the dead 5 but that there
should be no cutting of the fiesh made at all for them, no
baldness, leaving it uncertain which sex had been wont
to make use of these rites of mourning, who should then
omit them. So the interlineary translation of Montanus
understands the words.
Both practices seem lo have been forbidden by the law
of Moses ;f the soft and impressible temper of the female
sex might, it may be imagined, engage them sooner to de-
viate from the precept, than the firmer disposition of the
other. So here we see they were the females of the
family of Mogairah that cut off their hair at the burial
of Khaled : not a word of the men.
And accordingly we find among the modern Moham-
medans, the outward expressions at least of mourning are
much strons;er among the women than the men : the near-
est male relations, Dr. Russell tells us, J describing theic
way of carrying a corpse to be buried, immediately follow
it, "and the women close the procession with dreadful
shrieks, while the men all the way are singing prayers out
of the Koran. The women go to the tomb every Mon-
* It should rattier have been translated, Neither shall they lament for
them. The word men is not in the original ; the verb is in the third per-
son plural, with the masculine terminaUon indeed, but as to what follows,
it does not appear which sex it was that cut themselves, or made them-
selves bald, though both might, in general, lament.
t De»t. xiv. 1. * Descript. of Aleppo, vol. i. page 306, yol. ii. page 56.
VOL. III. 3
34 O^F HONORING THE DEAI>.
daj or Thursday, and carrj some flowers or screen ieaTesJ
to dress it with. They make a show of grief, ofteu ex-
postulating heavily with the dead person, * Why he
should leave them, when they had done exery thing in
their power to make life agreeable to him !'^ This how-
ever, by the men is looked upon as a kind of impiety ;
and, if overheard, they are chid severelj for it : and, I
must say, the meo generally set them a good example^
in this respect, by a patient acquiescence in the loss of
their nearest relations, and indeed show a firm and steady
fortitude under every kind of misfortune,"
OBSERVATION IV.
FUNERAL RITES OF THE JEWS IN BARBARY.
One of the rites of mourning for the dead, among the
Jews of Barbary, mentioned by Dean Addison in his ac-
count of that people, seems to be a very odd one, jet is
unquestionably a custom of very ancient date among
them : what ! mean is the muffling up the jaws, after the
same manner as the lower part of the face of a corpse is
bound up.
" They return from the grave," says the Dean, " to the
Louse of the deceased, where one, who as chief mourner
receives them, with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth,
after the same manuer that they bind up the dead. And
by this the mourner is said to testify that he was ready
to die with his friend. And thus muffled the mourner
goes for seven days ; during which time the rest of his
friends come twice every twenty four hours to pray with
him."t
* The natire Irish mourn over their dead precisely in the same warr
In the Caonian, or Irish funeral cry, besides a full chorus of sighs and
^oans, frequent expostulations with the dead for having left his honse>
possessions, friends, &c. are intermixed. See au exaixiple in Observatio*
XL EsiT.
t Page 218, 219.
OP HONORI^'G TilE DEAD. 25
As the mourning for seven days was a cusioni of re-
mole antiquity ; so it should seem was this raufi3ing the
inoufh in their mourning for the dead. Thus Ezekiel,
when his wife died, and he was coEnmanded to abstain
from the usual forms of njourning, was not to cover his
lips: Forbear to cry, make no mottrning for the dead,
bind the tire of thine head vpon thee, and put on thy
shoes upon thy feet ^ and cover not thy lips, and eat not
the bread of men, Ezek. xxiv. 17.*
The present mode among the Jews of Barbary cer-
tainly explains what is meant by covering the lips, or
the mouth, in Ezekiel, whether the interpretation put
upon the practice by the Dean, be right or not ; its being
designed as a testimony, that the party so muffled up was
ready to die with his friend.
The same rite was to be made use of by the leper, when
pronounced such by the Jewish priest, Lev. xiii. 45.
And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be
rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon
his tipper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. It is no
wonder he was to be muffled up like a corpse, for he was
unclean as a corpse, and was considered as a person half
dead. So when Aaron interceded for his sister Miriam,
who was struck with the leprosy, he said, Let her not
be as one dead ; of rvhom the flesh is half consumed,
when he cometh out •/ his mother^s 7vomb,-\
Whether this mode of mourning was dropped in the
country where the Septuagint Interpreters of the Old
Testament lived, or not, may be uncertain ; but they
* See also verse 22, 23.
t Numb. xii. 12. It was extremely natural to express the putrefaction
of the body, smitten with the leprosy, rather by the corruption that had
taken place in a stillborn child, dead a considerable time ; than by that of
a corpse kept long unburied, or visited after having laid long in the earth ;
for the first they must frequently have seen ; but as to the two last, they
Ijuried immediately, and for fear of defilement, according to their law,
would not easily be indaeed to take up a feedy that kad li«ea Isoried acy
€me.
16 OF IIONORIXG THE DEAD.
hare dropped this cirornstance of Jewish mourning out
of their translation : making the clause signify, not the
covering the lips of the ajcurner, bul (he rconrner'y being
ccmfcrled by the lips of others.
OBSERVATION V.
GOING WITH THE HEAD AND FEET BARE, A MODE OF
HONORING THE DEAD.
Addison's account of the modern mourning of the Jews
of Barbary, mentions another point of resemblance, be-
tween their mourning in late times, and thiat practised in
the days of Ezekiel.
In Baibary, " the relations of the deceased, for seven
days af«er the interment, stir not abroad ; or if by sooje
extraordinary occasion they are forced to go out of doorSj
it is without shoes ; which is a token with them that they
have lost a dear friend."^
The reader will recollect, when the Prophet Ezekiel
was commanded to abstain from the rites of mourning, he
was ordered to put bis shoes on his feet.
It is supposed by Ezekiel, that they went bare head-
ed, as well as with bare feet, in their mourning, but the
Dean has said nothing upon that head in his account^ I
would however take a little notice of it, as it seems that
the custom of the country in which the Prophet resided,
in the time of the captivity, differed from that of the coun-
try where the Seventy Interpreters dwelt. For the proph-
et, according to our translttion, was to bind that tire of hit
head upon him, which they wore in common, or in times of
prosperity and consolation ; whereas the Seventy explain
the order as signifying he should wear, as usual, the hair
of his head pleasingly adjusted, without any ether corer-
Jpg of the head. The custom of their country ice sccus le
* Page 218.
OF HONORING THE DEAD.
17
have differed froai that of Job's, for he shaved his head,
wlien he aiourneJ the loss of his chiidren,* the consum-
mation, as be might thsn epprehend, of his afflictions;
whereas the Seventy Interpreters supposed in mourning
they uore their hair only in si rough entangled state,
Ovx. icroci TO T^i^coi^x (Tn (Tvyizs'iTrAiyuivov iiti (re, Ezek. xxiv.
17, that is. Thy hair shall uGt be plaited on thee.
Turbans are now, though with some variety in their
forms,! worn very generally in the East. When that
mode began it may be difficult precisely to say, but they
Beeni to have been in use as early as the days of Ezekiel,
in some of the Eastern countries, and the putting on the
tire of his head, means, I should suppose, putting on his
turban, instead of going bare headed like a mourner.
To sum up the whole of what I have been saying upon
this subject, in few words : In the age and country of
Job, they seem in common to have worn simply their
hair without any other covering on their heads; and
when they mourned to have shaved it off. The Greeks
did the same. In the age and country in which Ezekiel
lived, when he received this order, the head seems to
have been always shaved, but covered in times of ease
and satisfaction with a turban, or something of that kind;
which was taken ofFin times of mourning, and the head left
as bare as that of Job. In the age and country in which
the Seventy Interpreters lived, it should seem that the
head was not shaved at all, but the hair made in a more
ornaaiental and pleasing manner than common ; and left
to grow at length, uncombed, and in a very disordered
state, in a time of mourning.
* Job i. 20. Then Job arose, and rent his mantlet ^^d shaved his head^
and fell dotvn upon the ground^ and tvurshipped.
f They all are formed of a cap of different shapes and colours, worn on
the crown of the head, surrounded at the edge with a long narrow strip ot
silk or linen of different colours, and artfully wrapped about in different
forms of convolution, according to ihc different nations, religions, profes-
sions, offices, and classes in life, to which the wearers respectively belong.
18 OF HONOKIXG THE DEAB.
Answerable to this, if these interpreters lived in Egypt,
I have somewhere read, though I cannot now point out
the passage, that the skull of a Persian could be distin-
guished from that of an Egyptian, in a generation or two
after the time of the Prophet Ezekiel, by their diifereni
thicknesses, or degrees of hardness, arising from one na-
tion's going bare headed, and the other with a thick cov-
ering on the head. So thick indeed, that Sir John Char-
din informs us, in the French edition of his travels, that a
modern Persian turban weighs twelve or sixteen pounds.^
The lightest half as much.
This is one circumstance out of manv, which shows
the great freedom of (hat translalion, which, however,
has this advantage attending it, that it gives us an account
of some circumstances, relating to the ancient Egyptians,
which might else have been lost ; and also sometimes de-
termines the meaning of a Hebrew expression, v/hich oth-
erwise would have been very dubious.
The whole of the divine order on this occasion to Eze-
kiel seems to be this : Thou shalt not cry out with the
same vehement noises as arc usual among the mourners of
thy country ;f thou shalt not weep with bitter sobbings ;
thou shalt not even suffer tears at all to appear. On the
contrary, be silent, and assume none of the common forms
of mourning ; put on thy turban as usual ; thy shoes on
thy feet ; muffle not up the lower part of thy face ; and
cat not the bread of consolation, wont to be prepared by
the humane, and sent to those in deep affliction.
* Tome ii. page 51. He explains in this same page what occasions their
being so heavy.
t As Tras done by the ancient people that saw the foundations of the sec-
ond temple laid, and recollected the splendor of the fcrst, Ezra iii. 12.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 19
OBSERVATION VL
THE H1EAD SOMETIMES SHAVED IN MOURNING FOR THE
DEAD.
Not onlj common readers, but even the learned tbeui-
sclves appear to be perplexed about the meaning of that
prohibition of the law of Moses, contained in the latter
part of the first verse of the 14th of Deuteronomy, Ye
shall not cut yourself, nor make any baldness between
your eyes for the dead ; but it seems to be clearly ex-
plained by a passage of Sir John Chardin, as to its ex-
pressing sorrow^ though it is probable the idolatronsness
of the practice may, at this distance of time, be irrecov-
erably lost.
Sir John tells us,=^ " that black hair is most esteemed
among Ihe Persians, as well on the head, as on the eye-
brows, and in the beard. That the largest and thickest
eyebrows are the most beautiful, especially when they
are of such a size as to touch one another* The Arab
Ivomen have the most beautiful eyebrows of this sort.
The Persian women, when they have them not of this
colour, tinge them, and rub them with black, to make
them the larger* They also make in the lower part of
the forehead, a little below the eyebrows, a black spot;
in form of a lozenge, not quite so large as the nail of tb<;
little finger." This is probably not of a lasting nature^
but quickly wears off.
These notions of beauty differ very much from
those of the ladies of Europe. None of them, I think,
are fond of having their eyebrows meet; but on the con-
trary take pains to keep the separation between them
very distinct.
But if the Eastern people are of a different opinion, it
is not at all surprising, that at the same time that the v
* Tome ii. page 52, 5$.
20 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
laid aside the Lair of their Leads, v;ith their mere arlificiaj
ornaments, in a time of mourning, they should make a
space bald between their ejcs too, since it was their
piide to have them meet when in a jojful state, and even
to join them with a black perishable spot, rather than
have interruption appear between the ejebrows.
But as the sacred writers admitfed the making; their
heads bald in mourning, while Moses forbids not only
idolatrous cuttings of the fiesh, but this making the
space bald between the eyebrows, it appears there was
something of idolatry in this too, as well as in those tut»
tings, though it is not easily made out.
After this circumstance, relating to Eastern beauty, is
known, the addition to bishop Patrick's account of the
heathens beinn wont to shave the eyebrows, in times of
mourning, will, I presume, give no pleasure : " Or,'* says
this worthy writer, " (which some think is the meaning
of between the eyes) the hair in the fore part of the head,
or near the temples, as R. Solomon interprets it. Which
seems to be the meaning of the Hierusaiem Targum,
which translates it, Ye shall not make any baldness m
the house of your countenance."'*
OBSERVATION YII.
NOISE AND TUMULT FRaQ,U3ENT AT THE DEATH OF A
PERSON IN THE EAST.
The assembling together of multitudes to the place
where persona have lately expired, and bewailing them
in a noisy manner, is a custom still retained in the East,
txnd seems to be considered as an honor done to the de-
ceased.
That this was done anciently, appears from the story
of the dying of the daughter of Jairus. St. Mark uses
* upon the placjv
OP HONORING THE DEAD. 21
(he term 0cpu/3o?-, which signifies tumultf to express (he
state of things in the house of Jairus then, ch. v. 38.
And accordingly Sir Joha Chardin's MS. tells us, that
now the concourse in places where persons lie dead is in-
credible. Every body runs thither, the poor and the
rich; and the first more especially make a strange noise.
Dr. Shaw takes notice, I remember, of the noise they
make in bewailing the dead, as soon as they are depart-
ed ; but he takes no notice, I think, of the great concourse
of people of all sorts on such occasions ; which yet is a
circumstance very proper to be remarked, in order to
enter fully into the sense of the Greek word Qo^u|3of.
But the most distinct account of the Eastern lamenta-
tions that Sir J. Chardin has given us, in the 6th volume
of his MSS. by which we learn that their emotions of joy,
as well as of sorrow, are expressed by loud cries. The
passage is extremely curious, and the purport of it is as
follows: Geo. xlv, 2. And he wept aloud, and the Egypt-
ians and the house of Pharaoh heard. " This is exactly
the genius of the people of Asia, especially of the women.
Their sentiments of joy or of grief are properly trans-
ports ; and their transports are ungoverned, excessive,
and truly outrageous. When any one returns from a long
journey, or dies, his family burst into cries, that may be
heard twenty doors off; and this is renewed at different
times, and continues many days, according to the vigour
of the passion. Especially are these cries long in the
case of death, and frightful, for the mourning is right down
despair, and an image of hell. I was lodged in the year
1676, at Ispahan, near the Royal square; the mistress of
the next house to mine died at that time. The moment
she expired, all the family, to the number of twenty five
or thirty people, set up such a furious cry, that I was
quite startled, and was above two hours before I could
recover myself.* These cries continue a long time, then
• It seems, according lo the marghi, that it was in the middle of the
night, Sir John in bed, and the cry so TJolent, tb»t he iwagined his owa
iServants were actuftllj murdered.
TOL. III. 4
ft *
22t' OF HONORING THE DEAD.
cease all at once ; thej begio again as sucldenly, at day-
break, and in concert. It is this suddenness Trbich is so
terrifying, together with a greater shrillness and loudness
than one could easily imagine. This enraged kind of
mourning, if I may call it so, continued forty days ; not
equally \iolent, but with diminution froii] day to dayo
The longest and most violent acts were when they washed
the body, when they perfumed it, when they carried it
out to be interred, at making the inventory, and when
they divided the effects. You are not to suppose that
those that were ready to split their throats with crying
out, wept as much ; the greatest part of them did uot
shed a single tear through the whole tragedy."
This is a very distinct description of Eastern mourning
for the dead : they cry out too, it seems, on other occa-
sions ; no wonder then the house of Pharaoh heard^when
Joseph wept at making himself known to his brethren.
OBSERVATION VIII.
i^UffERAL FEASTS USED IN THE3 EAST.
The making a kind of funeral feast was also a method
of honoring the dead, used anciently in these countries^
and is continued down to these times»
The references of commentators here have been, in
common, to the Greek and Roman usages ; but as it must
be more pleasing to learn Eastern customs of this kind, I
will set down what Sir J. Chardin has given us an account
of in one of his manuscripts ; and the rather, as some par-
ticular^ are new to me.
"The Oriental Christians still make banquets of this
kind, (speaking of the ancient Jewish feasts of mourning,
mentioned Jer. xvi. 6, 7, and elsewhere,) by a custom
derived from the Jews ; and I have been many times
present at them, among the Armenians in Persia. The
rth verse speaks of those previsions whick ace wont to
OF HOXOPJXG THE DEAD. 23
he sent fo the house of the deceased, and of those
healths that are drank to the survivors of (he family,
wishing that the dead may have been the victim for the
sins of the family. The same with respect to eating, is
practised among the Moors. Where we find the word
comforting made use of, we are to understand it as signi-
fying the performing these offices.'* In like manner he
explains the 6rertJ of men f mentioned Ezek. xxiv. 17,
as signifying, '* the bread of others; the bread sent to
mourners ; the bread that the neighbours, relations, and
friends sent."
OBSERVATION IX.
FREQ.UENT VISITS PAID TO THE GRAVES OF DEPARTED
RELATIVES, WITH AN ACCOUNT OP VARIOUS OTHER
MODES OF MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.
The Eastern people not only lamented their dead with
solemnity, upon their departure out of this world, when
carried to the grave ; but they did so in visits paid from
time to time to their sepulchres afterward ; all which
usages continue among them, iu one form or other, to XhU
day. They lament also with public solemnity those that
were absent from them when they died, and were buried
at a distance from the abode of their relations.
Irwin has given us a very amusing account of a mourn-
ing of this sort, in a town of Upper Egypt, which happen-
ed to be celebrated there while he was detained in it.
One of the inhabitants of this town of Ghinnah, who
was a merchant by profession, being murdered in the
desert between Ghinnah and Cosire, in a journey he was
making to this last mentioned place, he tells us, " The
tragedy which was lately acted near Cosire, gave birth
to a mournful procession of females, which passed through
the different streets of Ghinnah this morning, and uttered
«24 Off HONORING THE DEAD.
dismal cries for the death of Mohammed.^ In the cenlre
was a female of his familj, who carried a naked sword in
her hand, to imitate the weapon by which the deceased
fell. At sundry places the procession slopped, and
danced around the sword, to the music of timbrels and
tabors. They paused a long time before our house, f
and some of the women made threatening signs to one
of our servants; which agrees wifh the caution we re-
ceived to keep within doors. It would be dangerous
enough to face this frantic company ; whose constant
clamour and extravagant gestures give them all the ap-
pearance of the female Bacchanals of Thrace, recorded
of old." p. 254.
This, it seems, was on the 25th of August. On the
Srth his journal has these words : " I was awakened be-
fore daybreak by the same troop of women, which passed
our house the other day, in honor to the memory of Mo-
bammed. Their dismal cries suited very well with the
lonely hour of the night : and I understand that this relic
of the Grecian customs lasts for the space of seven days ;
during which interval the female relations of the deceased
make a tour through the town, morning and night, beating
their breasts, throwing ashes on their heads, and display-
ing every artificial token of sorrow." p. 257, 258.
How Mr. Irwin came to describe this as a relic of Gre-
cian customs, it IB not for mp to say ; but I presume it
was not only an unnecessary addition, but an inaccurate
appropriating to Greece, what was common to many
Eastern countries. Several Greek usages may be sup-
posed to have been introduced into Egypt, after its con-
quest by Alexander, and the assumption of its govern-
ment by the Ptolemies; but the Arabs are known to be
as little altered by the adoption of foreign usages as any
nation whatever, and this Mohammed was an Arab, as
* The naijae of the merchant that was murdered.
jjl TCTie ^vriter and his companions had been upon very ijl terms with hinic
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 25
were most of the inhabitants of Ghinnab. It is more
DHfura! then to believe it an ancient Arab or Egyptian
cus*oin, to mourn after this manner for the dead, whose
reh^ioa^ had not the opportunity of testifying their re-
gard to them in their other forms of mourning, that is,
their lamenting with cries, or with music, their depart-
ure, presently after their death ; tbcir bewailing thera
with the assistance of mourning women, trained up in this
profession, as they attended them to the grave : and sol-
emnly visiting their tombsj from time to time afterwards.
It seems from a passage of Josephus, which the
learned have not let pass totally unobserved, that this
kind of mourning the absent dead, was a Jewish custom^
fcr he mentions it as practised by them, at a time when
they were engaged, with great bitterness, in a war with
the heathen nations about them, having refused to suffer
the wonted sacrifices to be offered in the temple for the
safety of the Roman emperors, as being of a different re-
ligion from themselves.
The passage of Josephus is in the third book of the
Jewish war : in which he tells us, that, upon the sacking
Jotapata, it was reported that he, (who was at that time
a great captain among them, as he was afterward cele-
brated as an author in the world,) was slain, and that these
accounti occasioned very great mourning at Jerusalem,
which was many miles off, and in another division of the
Jewish country, Jotapata being a city of Galilee. In de-
scribing this mourning at Jerusalem, for Josephus and the
people of Jotapata, he says, " there was mourning in
single houses, and in families of kindred, as each of the
slain had connexions. Some mourned their guests,"
(he meant, I presume, those that had been wont to take
up their lodgings at the houses of these mourners, when
they came up to Jerusalem, at their sacred feast ;) " som^
their relations ; others their brethren. All Josephus.
So that for thirty days there was no cessation of then-
26 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
laitienlations in (he city. And many hived piperSy avAy^rxg,
who led ibe waj in these wailings."
I should imagine, that the passage 1 have transcribed
from Irwin, relating to the mourning of those Egyptian
Arabs, for that merchant that was slain in the desert, fur-
nishes an excellent note on this passage of Josephus, ac-
cording to whom single families mourned the death of
some; bodies of kindred others ; and the city in general
Josephus, in solemn mournful processions about Jerusa-
lem, making use of songs of lamentation, and sometimes
the additional sound of musical instruments of the melan-
choly kind, such as were wont to be used in the houses
of those that had just expired; of which kind of music
we read, Matthew ix. 23, where the same word 0(;cur3
which appears in Josephus, but is there translated min-
strel: When Jesus came to the ruler's house, and saw
the minstrels, ccv\yirocg, and the people making a noise, he
said unto themf Give place^ for the maid is not dead, but
sleepeth.
Whether the word minstrels, which our translators
have made use of here, is proper or not, I will not take
upon me to determine, but would leave that to the gentle-
men of the Antiquarian Society. The minstrels of former
limes are often described as playing upon harps : while
the original word used here certainly signifies people that
played on the pipe, and is accordingly translated pipers,
Kev. xviii. 22, the only place besides in which the orig-
inal word occurs in the New Testament.
If our old minstrels were never employed in the fune-
ral solemnities of the times in which they lived, but only
on joyous occasions, the impropriety is more striking
still.
But be it as it may, to keep to the point I have at
present in view, as mournful music,^ was made use of at
* When I say moiirvful music, I would not be understood to suppose,
the sound of the ancient pipe was essentially, or at all times, melancholy.
Pipes certainly were made use of on joyous occasions, as well as these
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 27
Jerusalem, ^hen (bey mourned the slaughter at Jotapata,
as these Egyptian Arabs did that of Mohammed of Ghin-
nah; sol think it most natural to suppose, fhey lamented
them in public processions, as these Arabs did : for how
else could it have been known, if it had been only a gene-
ral noise of weeping and groaning that had been heard in
Jerusalem, on this occasion, who they were that they
mourned for ; that some mourned relations, o'hers friends,
but all Josephus ? It is surely most likely, that the
mourners went about the streets, Eccl. xii. 5, declaring
by their rehement exclamations whom they lamented.
Sometimes only the females of one house forming a
mournful procession : sometimes a combination of those
of several, united together by relationship; and some-
tkat were melancholy, as is evident from the use of the kindred verb^
Matth, xi. 17, We have piped unto you and ye have not danced ; we have
mourned unto you and ye have not lamented. Where we see the contrary-
uses to which the pipes of antiquity were put : We piped to you such airs
as were played to those that dance, but ye would not dance : we havethea
tried you with those tunes that are used in times of lamentation, but yoa
•would not then act the part of mourners. The words of St. Paul, in 1
Cor. xiy. 7, will appear with the greatest energ}', if we consider them as
signifying, that for want of a due distinction of sounds, those by whom a
procession according to the usages of the East should pass, might be at a
loss to know whether they should join them with expressions of gratula=
lion, or in words of lamentation. Irwin has given an instance of such a
joining in the latter case, p. 245, where speaking of the singing in a fune-
ral procession, that went by his house, he says, " There was an Arabiaa
merchant on a visit to us, when the funeral went by ; and thoogh in com-
pany with strangers, he was not ashamed to run to the window, anri to
join audibly in the devotions of the train." If a pipe was designed to reg-
ulate the expressions that were to be made use of, if it gives an uncertain
sound, and sometimes seemed to announce a triumph or a wedding, and
sometimes a procession on account of the dead, how should a bystander
know how to behave himself? " Even things without life give sound,
whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how
shall a man know w hat is piped or harped ?" hew shall a man know what
the music is designed to produce ; congratulation, or condolence ? This is
a much stronger sense, than the supposing, if the sounds were irregular,
the Apostle meant, it was impossible to tell what dance was intended. In
(ruth, such an explanation would not well agree with the extemporane-
ousness of Eastern dances, for the hearer of the music might in that case
know what was to be done, and all that would follow froia it "would b?,
that if the music was irregular, so would the dance be.
2S OP HONOUING THE DEAD.
times a iroop of the principal ladies of Jerusalefiii
from all quarters, and unconnected by blood, or al-
liance, went about the city, lamenting with bitterness
the death of Josephus, the Jotapafene leader. Of
which various processions many, it should seeni, were
ennobled or rendered more sol«Din, by melancholy
music. If we are disposed to quit Josephus, and turn
to the sacred writings, I would ask, whether it is not
natural to suppose, that it was after (his manner that the
Israelites lamented the death of Moses? He wat> absent
from them when he died ; neither did they carry him to
the grave, Deut. xxxiv. 1, 5, 6. But they wept foi hica
in the plains of Moab, with some expressions of sorrow,
which after thirty days ceased, ver. 8. 7'hese ivere nei-
ther the lamentations wont to be made immediately upon
4he departure of the dead, in the house in which the
corpse lay ; nor the mourning of a funeral convey carry-
ing the body to the grave ; nor the after bemoanings over
the sepulchre of the dead : but it seems to mean proces-
sional solemnities of mourning through the camp of Israel,
if we are to explain matters by the Arab usages of modern
Egypt, or the customs of the Jews in the lime of Jose-
phus.
It is however to be remarked, that the customs of the
Egyptian Arabs and of the Jews differed in one point,
that is, the time of mourning : the first, according to Ir-
win, mourning only seven days, but the Jews of the time
of Josephus thirty^ which also obtained in the days of
Moses.
The mourning for Aaron, who died not in the camp of
Israel, but in mount Hor, Num. xx. 25 — 29, might be of
the same nature.
It is to be remembered that both Moses and Aaron
Were Egyptians by birth, and Israel were just come out
of Egypt ; it is not at all unnatural then to look for a re-
semblance in their forms of mourning.
This passage too of Josephus may, probably, illustrate
Zechariah xii. 11—14 : hi that day there shall be a great
OF HONORING THE DEAD.
29
mourning in Jerusalem., as the mourning of Hadad
Rimmon in the valley of Megiddon, And the land shall
mourn, every family apart, the family of the house of
David apart, and their wives apart ; the family of the
house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart, Src, All
the families that remain, every family apart, and their
wives apart.
Without attending to several questions that might be
proposed here, it may be remarked, from Josephus, that
in very severe and bitter public mourning, there were
only general processions of lamentation, but families
apart by themselves mourned ; not only their private
losses, but bewailed what was of a public nature too, and
by these more unusual particular lamentations, when the
subject was of a public nature, they testified the vehe-
Dience of their sorrow.
In general processions of mourning, decency might en-
gage people very universally to attend ; but when par-
ticular families formed extraordinary processions by
themselves, such processions expressed vehement emo-
tions of grief, which could not be relieved by general
mournings, without special^ separate, and distinct testimo-
nies of grief.
This observation accounts for families mourning apart ;
whether the men's mourning distinct from the women's
is designed to be marked out by the Prophet here ; and if
it be, whether it is intended to express, with augmenta-
tion, the bitterness of the mourning, must depend on the
construction of the particle 1 vau and : " Every family
apart, and their wives apart." That particle is hardly to
be understood, one would think, to be simply copulative, if
we consider, that the women alone, of the family of that
Egyptian Arab that Irwin speaks of, went about Ghin-
nah, in mournfnl processions, the men not appearing in
those several modern solemn lamentations ; and that the
Old Testament itself speaks of women, as more frequent-
ly appearing in the character of mouiners in public, than
VOL. III. 5
30 OF HONORING THE DEAIX.
the men. Its meaning then is, I should apprehend, either
explanatory, and equivalent to namely, or some such
word, and so the passage would signify each family, that
is, the women of it shall mourn apart ; or, as I much
rather am inclined to believe, the particle is to be under-
stood as signifying, as well as ;* the family of the house
of David apart, as well as their wives apart, &c.
So it expresses the unusualness of public mourning by
the men, compared with the appearing of the women in
that character ; as the mourning apart also expresses
bitterness of grief. And thus an apochryphal writer un-
derstood the mourning for Josiah to be by the men as
well as the women, 1 Esdras i. 32. In all Jewry they
mourned for Josiah, and the chief men rvith the women,
mc^de lamentation for him unto this day : and this was
given out for an ordinance to be done, continually in
all nations of Israel, The men in the Levant, now are
seldom, I think, spoken of as going to the sepulchres of
the dead to weep and wail there ; and even when they
attend a corpse to the grave to be buried, express
great calmness and composure ;f but as to this last par-
ticular, it appears to have been different anciently, from
what is said 2 Sam. iii. 31 — 34. David said unto Joab,
and to all the people that were jviihhim, Rend your clothes^
and gird you with sackloth, and mourn before Abner,
And king David Imnself followed the bier. And they
buried Abner in Hebron : and the king lamented over
Abner, and said, Died Abner as a fool dieth ? 8cc. And
all the people 7i'ept again over him. Perhaps also as to
the going to the grave to mourn, the men might anciently,
on some occasions, repair thither ; for many of the Jews
attended Mary when she went to weep, as they appre-
• So Noldius observes it is sometimes equivalent to 7iempe, nimirumt
(Sig. 38 ;) but he remarks, it sometimes signifies sicutf guemadmodumi
rSig. 62.)
t Russell, vol. i. p. 311<«-12i and Shaw, p. 219.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. g^
bended, at the grave of her brother Lazarus.* But pub-
lic mourning of the men was undoubtedly much less fre-
quent than among the women ; though, it may be more
common than in later times.
Before I dismiss this article, it may not be improper to
beg my reader to consider, whether the words of Jere-
miah, Lamentations ii. 19, may not be understood after
the same manner: Arise, cry out in the night : in the
beginning of the ivatches 'pour out thine heart like water
before the face of the Lord : lift up thy haiids toward
him, for thy young children, that faint for hunger on
the top of every street.
The clause translated for the life of thy young children
that faint, may signify, I apprehend, on account of the
loss of the life of thy young children. If it was for the
saving their lives, the supplication might as well have
been presented by day as by night ; but if it means
mourning their deaths, the night season, and in particular
the first watch of the night, was a proper time for that
kind of mourning, according to the present usage of the
women of Ghinnah.
The following part of the description of Lam. ii. of those
that lay in the streets, represents them as slain ; the lying
of children in the streets, should, in like manner, one would
think, be designed to express their lying dead there for want
of food, as those grown up lay there slain by the sword.
More especially when we find they are described in a pre-
ceding verse, as swooning as the wounded in the streets,
which swooning was unto death. The equiiocalness, at
least, of the expression will appear, if the words be trans-
lated, literally, from the Hebrew, "lift up thy hands to-
ward him over the souls of thy young children."! It
appears, from a drawing in the second tome of le Bruyn,
* John xi. 31.
t y^^'^y ^2} b;t yBD v^k \Na^
Saee elniv kappeek dl nephesh ohxlayik.
Lift up to him thy open h*nds over the ioul of thy little ones. Edit.
32 OT HONORING THE DEAD.
representing the mourning of the women of Ramali at the
tombs of their dead relations, that lifting up their hands on
high was one posture into which thej threw themselves.
And as the word ^jn ronneCf translated cry out, signifies
much more frequently singing than crying, it is not at all
improbable, that Jeremiah refers here to such modes of
mourning as were observed by Irwin at Ghinnah.
OBSERVATION X.
MOURNERS AT FUNERALS,
Having occasion lately to turn over the latter part of
Mr. Pope's translation of the Illiad, I was greatly surprised
to find a passage of St. Matthew strangely misunderstood^
which relates to the weepers by profession, that ancient-
ly attended funerals, and still do so in the Levant.
*' A melancholy choir attend around.
With plaintive sighs, and music's solemn sound :
Alternately they sing, alternate flow
Th' obedient tears, melodious in their woe."
Book xxiv. V. 900—903.
The note here is, " This was a custom generally re-
ceived, and which passed from the Hebrews to the
Greeks, Romans, and Asiatics. There were weepers by
profession, of both sexes, who aung doleful tunes round
the dead. Ecclesiasticus=^ xii. 5. When a man shall
go into the house of his eternity, there shall encempass
him weepers. It appears from St. Matthew xi. 17, that
children were likewise employed in this office. Dacier,'^
It docs not appear, I think, that children were hired to
mourn at funerals ; and if that could be shown from other
places, the passage ia St. Matthew would by no means
prove it, for it is evident that our Lord is speaking of the
diversions of children ; their imitating the transactions of
• It should liave been Ecclesias^es.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 33
malurer life, not of their serious emplojments. What
mourDers at a funeral would these children have been,
who, when their companions began the melancholj music,
refused to join them, with the usual forms of mouraing?
This might Terj naturallj happen when they were arous-
ing themselves with imitating the mournings at a funeral,
or the rejoicings at a wedding, but would have been in-
tolerable if thej had been performing a part in r«al life.
A commentator on Virgil might, with almost as good a
grace, represent the account of Ludiis Trojce, in the 5th
Eneid, as the description of a real battle in Sicily.
OBSERVATION XI.
SINGING USED Hi FUNERAL PROCESSIONS BOTH BY MEN
AND WOMEN.
The people of these countries are wont to be carried to
their graves, not only with violent wailings of the female
part of the funeral convoy ; but with devout singing of
the male part of this last : it seems to be referred to in
the Scriptures, as well as the first, though seldom, if ever,
mentioned in the writings of those that have explained
them.
Dr. Russell has mentioned this devout singing of the
male part of the attendants when a corpse is carrying to
the grave. " When the corpse is carried out, a number
of sheekhs,* with their tattered banners, walk first: next
come the male friends ; and after them the corpse, car-
ried with the head foremost upon men's shoulders. The
bearers are relieved very often, for every passenger
thinks it meritorious to lend some little help on such sol-
emn occasions. The nearest male relations immediately
follow, and the women close the procession with dreadful
f A sort of people among them supposed to possess great saoctitr.
34 OF HONORING THE DEAD,.
shrieks, while the men all (he way arc singing prayers
out of the Koran."=*
Mr. Irwin, I remember, mentions the like singing, as
observed by him at Ghinnab, in Upper Egypt.
There is so much resemblance, according to Dr. Rus-
sell, between the Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews
in the East, as to their nuptial observances and burial
ceremonies, that it is natural to suppose this singing is
common to all. It is not however a mere conclusion,
drawn from what the Mohammedans practise: Dean Ad-
dison has expressly told us he found it practised by the
Jews of Barbary.
" The corpse is borne by four to the place of burial, in
this procession : in the first rank march the Chachams,
or priests, next to them the kindred of the deceased, after
whom come those that arc invited to the funeral; and all
singing in a sort of plain song the 49th Psalm. And if
it lasts not till they come to the grave, they begin it
again."t
The Dean tells us, "It may not be unfit to observe,
that though the modern ceremonies of burial are neither
so numerous or costly as those of old among the Jews ;
yet they do not much vary from them : for the washing
the body was in use at the time of Tabitha's death : J and
the chief mourner spoken of before, as also the weekly la-
menting of the dead, refers to the women hired to lament
at the burials : and which the Scripture calls mourning
women, Jerem. ix. 17, the same with the prcsficcB among
the Romans. They likewise agree in the places of burial,
which are now, as formerly, without the towns or cities
where they live, excepting that in Fez they have a bury-
ing place within the city, adjoining to the Juderia, or the
part where they liTe."||
* Descript. of Aleppo, vol. i. p. 305—309. t Present State cf the
Jews, p. 218.
} Acts ix. S7. 11 P. 220.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 3^
Other writers have given an account of mourning wo«
men being retained in the East ;^ but the instances Dean
Addison has given, as proofs of the continuance of that
custom in these countries, do not seem to me to be happily
chosen : the chief mourner, who receives them with his
jaws tied up with a linen cloth, after the same manner as
thej bind up the dead, appears to have been one of the
nearest relations, not one hired to personate another in
affliction; as those that go now every week, and, I may
add, often more frequently, certainly are not hired peo-
ple, but relations, that go to weep there, as Mary the
* So the Abbot Mascrier tells us, from the papers of M. Maillet, that
not only do the relations and female friends, in Egypt, surround the
corpse, while it remains unburied, with the most bitter cries scratching
and beating their faces so violently as to make them bloody, and black and
blue, but " to render the hubbub more complete, and do the more honov
to the dead person, whom, they seem to imagine to be very fond of noise,
those of the lower class of people are wont to call in, on these occasions,
certain tvoinen, who play on tabors, and whose business it is to sing mournful
airs to the sound of this instrument, which they accompany with a thou-
sand distortions of their limbs, as frightful as those of people possessed by
the devil. These women attend the corpse to the grave, intermixed witii
the female relations and friends of the deceased, who commonly have their
hair in the utmost disorder, like the frantic Bacchanalian women of the an-
cient heathens, their heads covered with dust, their faces daubed with in-
digo, or at least rubbed with mud, and howling like mad people. Thir.
way of bewailing the dead has obtained even among the Christians oi'
Egypt' 1 myself have seen a young woman here, who v/as a Catholic,
and who, having lost her mother, who had resided in the quarter of the
Franks, sent for these tabor players to come and lament her. Scarcely
could the Capuchins prevail upon her to dismiss these Mohammedan wo-
men, who were wont to sing on such occasions." Lett. 10, p. 89. What
this writer says, shows the attachment of the Eastern people to this cus-
torn, since the Capuchins of Grand Cairo, who with some other religious
orders that are settled there, and with great zeal are said by him to labour
for the propagation of the Roman faith, had so much ado to prevail on one
of their own church not to employ Mohammedan hired mourners, to lament
her deceased parent, instead of recurring to those good fathers to sing a
Requiem to her soul, according to the papal mode. We Protestants may
suppose the singing of the one as efficacious as that of the other, and tht
motives of one as pure and disinterested as those of the other ; but this
conduct of a member of the Romish communion, for some time obstinate-
ly persisted in, shows the great force of the custom, and, consequently^
the universality of the practice among other people there.
3§ OF HONORING THE DEAD.
sisler of Lazarus was supposed by the Jews to do, whert
she rose up hastllj, and went out of the town, where Je-
sus indeed was, but near to which plpce was also the
grave of her brother, J(*hn xl. 31.
And as the Jews now, as well as the Mohammedans,
are wont to carry their dead to the grave with devout
singing, it cannot be unlikely that it was the common cus-
tom in the East anciently, for hymns to be sung by the
more sedate part of the company, as it was for the female
relations, with their hired companions the singing women,
to make use of very violent lamentations. It is admitted
by all, that this last practice obtained, and the following
passages are proofs of it, Jer. ix. IT, 18: Call for the
mourning womeiif that they may come ; and send for
cunning women that they may come. And let themmake
haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may
run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with wa»
ters. To which may be added ver. 20. Can it then be
thought difficult to admit the supposition, that the last
clause of Amos vi. 10, is to be understood of the more
sedate singing of portions of holy writ, according to the
modern practice of these countries : A tnan's uncle shall
fake him up, and he that hurneth him., to bring out the
bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is
by the sides of the house. Is there yet any with thee ? and
he shall say, No. Then shall he sny, hold thy tongue ;
for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord.
The 8th chapter of that Prophet, ver. 3, speaks of
many dead bodies in every place, and says, They shall
cast them forth in silence ; that however may be under-
stood of neglecting the sending for hired mourners to la-
ment over them 5 but ths other passage speaks of the not
mentioning the name of the Lord, which seems to refer
to something very different from the extravagant female
lamentations of the East of these modern times : and
most probably from the explanations of ancient hired
mourners*
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 37
The Jews of Barbary, of llie last century, were wont
to sing in their funeral processions the 49th Psalm. It
cannot I apprehend, be positively determined, what the
portion of holy writ was that they were wont to recite
when carrying their dead to the grave, in the time of the
Prophet Amos, but it might as well be the 49th Psalm, as
any other part of Scripture ; and as it was actually made
use of in Barbary a hundred years ago. it is, perhaps, most
likely to have been anciently made use of in the East.
Now in that Psalm, God is celebrated, as he that would
raise his people from the grave to life, after having long
laid there. The upright shall have dovnnion over them
in the morning ; and their beauty shall consume in the
grave, from their dwelling. But God will redeem my
so^d from the power of the grave : for he shall receive
me, Ver, 14, 15. But he had been celebrated by them
as the God that chastised the heathen,* but would not
cast off his people, or forsake his inheritance,! in this
present life ; when then appearances seemed contrary to
this, the heathen were ready to say, Where is their God ? J
and Israel were ready to be ashamed of avowing their
hope in him as to a resurrection from the dead, in a fu-
ture state of things, which the 49th Psalm celebrated,
when appearances in this present state were so contrary
to their expectations, and their songs of hope, asihey
were, when in a house so crowded with inhabitants, that
there should be ten men in it, all should perish by the
sword, by famine or pestilence, so that not one should re-
main, was it not natural, that in such a state of things, he
that searched through such a desolated house, should
say, at carrying away the last dead body for interment,
Be silent, it doth not become us to make mention of God's
care of Israel in hereafter raising us from the dead, in
• Ps. Ixxix. 9, 10. "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of
thy name ; an^ deliver us, and purge away cur sins, for thy name sake.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God ?"
f Ps. xciv. 10. T Ver, U.
VOL. Ill, 6
38 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
carrjing them to the grave, when he is thus visibly aban-
doning his mercj (oivard his people? or, in the words of
our translation, Hold thy tongue, for we may not make
mention of the name of the Lord.
The Bishop of Waterford, in his most laudable attempt
to illustrafe the Twelve Minor Prophets, which ha\e so
many obscure passages in ihem, thus translates this part
of I he verse,
■ "Then shall he say, Be silent.
Because they set not themselves to mention the name
of Jehovah."
And his comment on this verse, which he considers as
obscure, represents this part of it as probably signifying,
"Solitude shall reign in the house ; and if one is left, he
must be silent, see ch. viii. U, and retired, lest he be plun-
dered of his scanty provisions."
It is certain that those afflictions of the Jewish nation,
were considered by the Prophet, as the effect of their
forgetfulness of God; but the interpretation I am propos-
ing will readily be acknowledged to be more pointed and
lively, if it be admissible. Whether it be, or not, must
be left to my reader to determine.
OBSERVATION XII.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE IRISH CAOINAN, OR ANCIENT FU-
NERAL CRY.*
This subject may be further illustrated by an account
of the ancient Irish funeral solemnities, which, with many
others of their customs, bear a very near resemblance to
those in the East, and particularly to some mentioned in
the Bible.
The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes,
and ornamented with flowers, was placed on some elevated
* See the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy.
OF HONORING THE DEAD- 39
spot. The relations and Caoniers ranged themselves in
two divisions, one at the head, and the other at the feet
of the corpse. The bards or croteries had before pre-
p;ired the funeral cadi nan. The chief bard or head
chorus, began by singing the first stanza, in a low doleful
tone, which was softly accompanied by the harp: at the
conclusion, the foot serai-chorus began the lamentation or
ULLALOO, from the final note of the preceding stanza, in
which they were answered by the head semi-chorus; then
both united in one general chorus. The chorus of the
first stanza being ended, the chief bard of the foot semi-
chorus sung the second stanza, the strain of which was
taken from the concluding note of the proceeding chorus:
which ended, the head semi-chorus beganthe gol or lam-
entation, in which they were answered by that of the foot,
and then, as before, both united in the general full cho-
rus. Thus alternately, were the song and chorus per-
formed during the night.
The genealogy, rank, possessions, virtues and vices of
the deceased were represented; and a number of interro-
gations were addressed to the dead person : As, why did
he die ? If married, whether his wife was faithful to him,
his sons dutiful, or good warriors ? If a woman, whether
her daughters were fair, or chaste ? If a young man,
whether he had been crossed in love? or if the blue eyed
maids of Erin had treated him with scorn ?
Lhuyd, says, each versicle of the caoinan consisted
only of four feet, and each foot was commonly of two syl-
lables : the three first required no correspondence, but
the fourth was to correspond with the terminations of the
other versicles. Archaelog. Biit. p. 309.
After this account, follows in the Transactions of the
Royal Irish Academy, the whole funeral song or caoinan,
set to music, in which we find an address to the corpse,
then ihe first sernichorus, next the second chorus, and
then the full chorus of sighs and groans. All these
parts are thrice repeated, but in different notes and
45 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
expresfeions. The following is a translation of the ad-
dresses to the dead body of the son of Conna], whieh are
found in this ancient piece:
" O son of Connal, why didst thou die ? Royal, noble,
learned youth ! Valiant, active, warlike, eloquent ! Why
didst thou die, alas,awail-a-day !
" Alas, Alas ! he who sprung from nobles of the race
of Ile^ber, warlike chief ! O son of Connal, noble youth !
Why didist thou die ? Alas, O ! Alas !
"Alas! O! Alas! he who was in possession of flowery
meads, verdant hills, lowing herds, rivers and grazing
flocks, rich, gallant, lord of the golden vale ! Why did he
die T alas, awail-a-day !
" Alas ! Alas ! why didst thou die, O son of Connal,
before the spoils of rictory by thy warlike arm were
brought to the hall of the nobles, and thy shield with the
ancient ? Alas ! Alas !"
-The music of the above, though rude and simple, is
nevertheless bold, highly impassioned, and deeply affect-
ing. 1 have often witnessed it among the descendants of
the aboriginal Irish on funeral occasions. The ullaloo
of the Irish is precisely the same both in sense and sound
with the ^5>S> oolooleh, of the Arabians, which is a strong
and dreadfully mournful cry, set up by the female rela^
lives of a deceased person, the instant of his death, and
continued, just like the Irish caoinan,^t intervals during
the night. Dr. Russell says. History of Aleppo, vol. i.
p. 306, that " it is so shrill as to be heard at a prodigious
distance." From this word it is likely the bb' yalal of
the Hebrews, the oKoKv^ca of the Greeks, and the ululo of
the Romans, all proceed ; as they have been used in t ■ eir
respective countries, to express the deepest grief, and
especially on funeral occasions. Edit.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 41
OBSERVATION XIIT.
LAMENTATIONS OF THE FAMILY OF HOUSSAIN.
The nassionate excess to which hmentafions for de-
M.
cea'5ed rplatives are carried among the Asiatics, bears a
striking resemblance to the preceding, and will appear
still iurther by the following extract from the Tan2ea, or
lamentations of the family of Houssain,-^' who annually la-
ment his death, or, as they term if, martyrdom^ during
the Mohurrum,orninth month of the Mohammedan year:
" It is related, that upon the death of the /wan,f on
whom be peace, his faithful horse, 'Zu al Jinnah^X re-
mained near the body of his master in the utmost afflic-
tion, permitting no one to approach: and whosoever at-
tempted to lay hold of him, he instantly repelled by his
heels and teelh.
" When the infidels saw this they retired to a distance,
and pierced his body with a shower of arrows. Unable
to sustain this attack, he threw himself upon the ground,
and rolled in the dust, mingling his own blood with that of
the Iman. Then rising up he made to the tents where
the weeping family of his master remained.
* Heussain was the son of Alee, and married Fatioia, the daughter of
Mohammed. Beings persecuted by Yezid, who usurped the Khalifat, en-
deavouring to escape from Mecca to Coufah, whither he was invited by
the inhabitants, he was intercepted in the plain of Kerbela, with 72 of his
children and relations, by Obedalla, one of the generals of the usurper Ye-
zid, and cut to pieces. This happened the 10th day of the month Mohur-
rura, the 61st year of the Hijreh. This murder was the foundation of
that implacable enmity which subsists between the Ommiades and Abas-
aides to the present day. From the 1st to the 10th of this month which
answers to our October, the Persians observe a solemn mourning for the
death of these two Imans, Houssainf and Hussen.
t ImaTi) sovereign successor of Mohammed in things religious and
civil.
t Zu al Jinnahy the famous horse on which Houssain was mounted Mhen
slain in the plains of Kerbela.
42 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
" On his arrival, he began to neigh vehemently; and
those within, hearing the sound of his well known voice,
immediately rushed forth, hoping once more to see their
beloved patron return. But alas! O niisforlune! they
perceived the faithful ZiialJinnah pierced with wounds,
and covered with blood. At this sight the whole family
set up a loud lamentation. And first, the Lady Zineh^^
barefooted, and with dishevelled hair, rushed for<h from
the tents, and fell at the feet of the horse Zu al Jinnah,
and thus addressed him : —
" O horse ! what hast thou done with my beloved broth-
er? Where is the light of the prophet Mohammed Musta-
fah? Wherefore hast thou returned alone from the battle ?
METRE.
Say, O horse, where is the son o? Moi^taz Alee ?\
Where is the martyr of Kerbelaie l\
Whither is fled my comfort, my support ?
The favour'd of God, whither is he fled ?
After her came the youth Zcen id Ahedeen,\\ upon
whom be peace : at that time he laboured under a dan-
gerous fever: but regardless of aiiy thing but his grief,
he threw his arms about the neck of the horse Zu al
Jinnah, still bleeding from the wounds received in the
battle, and thus in passionate exclamations he addressed
him :
"O horse ! what hast thou done with the prince of re-
ligion? What is become of the fragrant flowers of the
garden o^Kheen ul Nissa .^§ Alas ! alas ! O misfortune
and distress T'
* Zineb, Houssain's sister.
f Mortaz Alee, the chosen of God, a sirname of \lee.
^ Kerbela, the plnce in which Houssain and his 7'i attendants were slain
hy Obedalla, who surrounded them with 10,000 horse. Houssain and his
followers fought desperately, and sold their lives at a very high price.
II Zeen ul Ahedeen, the eldest son of Houssain
§ K'een ul JVissa, the most excellent of women, Fatima daughter of Mo-
hammed, wife of Alee, and mother of Houssain.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 43
Nexf came the beauteous SekeenUf the daughter of the
Imnii. Pierced with the most poignant anguish, she rush-
ed forth from the tents, and with tears flowing from her
ejes, thus addressed the horse Zu al Jinnah :
METRE.
O horse stained with blood !
"What hast thou done with my father ?
That unfortunate, grief-smitten, much-enduring raa-a.
O horse, stain'd with blood !
Where lieth the crown of my delight ?
Where lieth the son of Alee, my friend ?
My companion — my morning — my evening.
O horse stain'd with blood !
Say, where lieth my father, my father ?
Say, where lieth the offspring of the victorious lion ?*
Sav, where lieth the prince of pure religion ?
O horse, say whither is the grandson of the prophet gone ?
Where is he who is slain by the points of the daggers ?
Where is the delight of the unfortunate Sekeena ?
Where is the Imari expiring with thirst ?
Where is the father of Sekeejia ?
Where is the bright taper of Sefreend's nights ?
Where is the support, the comfort of Sekeena ?
O horse, thou hast pierced with wounds the henrt of Sekeena ?
Thou hast borne her father to the field of martyrdom.
Say where is the life's blood of Fatima ?
Where is the Tmiin beloved of God ?
O ho'se, why is thy body stain'd with blood ?
Why is thy saddle in disorder ?
Alas ! I nov remain an unfortunate orphan !
My father, my protector, is no more !—
0 bot^e, stain'd with blood, I am thy sacrifice :
1 am the sacrifice to thy bleeding master :
I am the sacrifice to thy overflowing eyes.
O horse, T am the sacrifice to thy dishevelled mane.
Go, O faithful Zu al Jinnah ! once more return t6 the field of battle }
Perchance thou may'st restore my father to me.
O my oppressed and unfortunate father, where art thou ?
Wherefore art thou separated from Sekeena ?
Thou wentest forth, alas ? in search of water for thy family, expiring with
thirst ;
But, alas ! thou bringest not back consolation to the afflicted.
Return — O return, my father ! — our thirst is satisfied.
Without thee nothing can be acceptable.
O God ! by the hapless situation of the orphans,
* Victorious Lion, Alee, sirnamed Assad Allah, or the Lion of God
44 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
By the gi'ief oftlie Aveeping domestics; ^
Look upon us with the eyes of compassion.
And restore us the prince of the martyrs !
The address of Sekeena lo the horse of Houssain
may to a European reader appear perfectlj extravagant;
but it 13 exactly in the Eastern manner, and examples of
it are very numerous in the poetic and rhetorical works of
the Asiatics. The sacred writings also abound with it :
so the Prophet Micah, ArisC) contend thou before the
mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye,
O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong
fonndations of the earth ; for the Lord hath a controver-
sy with his people, and will plead with Israel, eh. vi.
2, 3. And Isaiah, Howl, O gate ! Cry, O city ! ch.
xiv. 31. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, for your strength
is laid waste, ch. xxiii. 14. And Moses, Give ear, O ye
heavens, and I will speak ; and hear O earth, the words
of my mouth! Deut. xxxii, L Examples of this kind
might be multiplied to any amount : but independently of
these references, the Lamentation itself, which is now
published for the first time, cannot fail to interest and
aflfect every intelligent reader. Edit.
OBSERVATION XIV.
SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO THE LAM-
ENTATION FOR HOUSSAIN.
It is not only customary for the people of these coun-
tries to repair to the graves of the dead, to lament their
departed friends, and to cover their tombs with tears and
with flowers, or herbs ; they lament those of a public char-
acter in anniversary solemnities at a distance, from their
tombs, with mournful music, and oftentimes in such a
manuer as they think may best represent the circumstan-
ces of their affliction or their death, as far as they can
with propriety: and traces of this kind of lamentation
may be found in the Scriptures.
OP HONORING THE DEAD.
45
The annual mourning of the Persians for the death of
Houssain, second son of All, and grandson to Mohammed
their great prophef, which Houssain Ihey believe to have
been the true and rightful khalif, but who was rejected by
the majority of the followers of Mohammed, and killed by
the troops of his rival: I say, the annual mourning for
Houssain by the Persians, is pretty well known, by those
that are conversant in books of (ravels, but is particularly
described by Sir John Chardin in his 3d tome, p. 173, &:c.
They visit his sepulchre, near the ancient Babylon,
with great devotion from time to time. Niebuhr, in the
second of those three volumes of travels which were pub-
lished after the publication of his account of Arabia, gives
an account of his visiting this celebrated tomb. But the
annual mourning his death takes place at a distance, for
it is ol}served through all Persia, whereas Kerbela, the
place where the tomb is, is in the dominions of the Great
Turk.
The account Chardin gives is, in short, that " the Per-
sians continue this mourning ten days, beginning with the
first day of their year, and finishing with the tenth day
appearances of joy and pleasure, and appear as mourners
of the first month, when he was slain ; that they suspend all
in their dress; that discourses of an affecting kind, relat-
ing to his being killed, &:c. are pronounced in numerous
assemblies of the Persians ; that to their mournful cries
of Houssain are joined the sounds of melancholy music;
that numbers personate Houssain, who at the time of his
death was overwhelmed with thirst, and covered with
blood gushing from his various wounds, some daubing
themselves with something black, to represent the first,
supposing that extreme thirst produced this eflTect on this
prince,* and others making use of some red substance to
make them resemble Houssain when covered with blood ;
he also mentions hymns sung on this solemn occasion, to
the honor of Houssain and his race, and this is done in
* See Lam. iv. 8, and ch. v. 10.
VOL. Ill, 7
46 OF HONORING TPIE DEAD.
the royal palace, in the hearing of the Persian prince him-
self, as well as in other places among the common people.
This account may enable us, probably, to form a slili
jiister notion of the Jewish way of mourning their death of
King Josiah in later, and perhaps of the daughter of Jeph-
thah in elder times, being added to a preceding article.
They were, probably, both of them annual mourninc;?.
The Hebrew word pn cliok, translated ordinance, (Jer-
emiah lamented for Josiah ; and all the singing-men and
singing-women spaJce of Josiah in their lamentations to
this day, and made them (prh lechok) an ordinance in
Israel, 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25,) seems to determine this;
as the mourning for the daughter of Jephthah, which was,
without controversy, an annual solemnity; It was a cus-
tom (pn chok or ordinance) iii Israel, that the daugrhters
of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah,
the Gil eadite, four days in a year.^ A consideration of
he nature of the thing strongly confirms the same thought :
for it could not be an appointment that these songs of
lamentation over Josiah should be continually sung ; or
nothing else sung on mournful occasions. But the sacred
writer seems to mean that this anniversary mourning for
Josiah continued to the time of his writing this history.
Melancholy music is used with songs in mourning for
Iloussain, and as music generally accompanies songs in
the East, both, probably, were used in lamenting Josiah.
The more powerfully to excite sorrow, the Persians
make use of some additional circumstances bearing some
resemblance to the situation of tliosefor whom they mourn :
their funeral panegyrics are delivered in places, accord-
ing to Chardin, hung round with arms of various kinds, as
Iloussain was surrounded with a multitude of armed men
when he died ; and some of the people besmear them-
selves with some black substance, and others with a red,
to represent him perishing with thirst and an effusion of
blood. In like manner the Israelitish damsels, who mourn-
* Judges xi. 39, 40.
OF HONORING TIIR DEAD. 4f
ed Jephlhah's daughter, might wander together in com-
panies lip and down the mountains, as she had done,
which were more covered with trees than the low lands,
and more proper for melancholy services on that account,
if we should suppose, their repairing to her tomb to mourn
there too inconvenient to be performed, in general, by
the virgins that dwelt in places remote from Gilead.
Whether any of the deadly instruments of war were made
use ofj to enliven the mourning, at the anniversary com-
memoration of the death of Josiah, particularly of that
kind which proved fatal to him, may be doubted ; how-
ever I have elsewhere shown from Mr. Irwin, that a sword
was used at Ghinnah, in Upper Egypt, by the women
there, that in a solemn procession, wilh songs and music,
bewailed the death of a merchant of that country, placing
themselves round a sword, by which kind of weapon he was
killed, in the desert between that town and the Red Sea.
The mourning for Houssain continues ten days; how
long the annual mourning for Josiah was, is absolutely un-
certain: four days we are told by the historian was the
time spent every year in lamenting the daughter of Jeph-
thah ; which might be employed by some in visiting her
grave with music and panegyrical songs ; and by the more
distant virgins, in wandering up and down the mountains
with their companions, with melancholy music and songs
of praise.
So among the modern Persians, some visit the tomb of
Houssain with great devotion ; others commemorate his
death, with solemnity, at a great distance from the place
in which he lies interred.^
OBSERVATION XV.
BEATING THE ARMS USED IN MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.
Among other rites of mourning made use of by the
Oriental Jews, in the time of St. Jerom, was the beating
* See a remarkable account of this mourning, Observalion XI. p. 53.
48 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
their arras with such vehemence as to render them black
and bhie. I should apprehend then, it would be no uh-
natural supposition, to consider Ezekiel's uncovering his
arms, when he was personating the Jewish people at the
time Jerusalem was besieged, as the exposing the bruises
of lamentation he had inflicted on that part, though it is
quite the reverse of the explanation that has been given
by those commentators I have consulted.
St. Jerom tells us, that on the return of the day on
which Jerusalem was taken by the Romans, and demolish-
ed, " the Jews were annually wont to assemble in great
numbers, many of them decrepit old women and aged men
in rags, bearing the marks of God's displeasure both in
their person and dress, and while the memorial* of the
death and resurrection of the Lord appeared with great
splendor, and the figure of the cross shone on the top of
Mount Olivet, these miserable people mourned over the
ruins of their temple, and though their cheeks were cov-
ered with tears, their arms black and blue, and their hair
all in disorder, the soldiers demanded money of themf for
the liberty of protracting their lamentations a little
longer.''};
What this ancient writer meant, by that circumstance
of their arms being bruised in that time of mourning, is ex-
plained by a passage of his commentary on Jeremiah, ||
to this purpose : He ordered mourning women to he call-
edf who are wont to lament with a doleful tone ofvoice^^
beating their arms with their hand, and so to excite the
people to weep. This custom, he observes, continued in
Judea to his time, that women with dishevelled hair, open
* Referring, I apprehend, to the magnificent structure that had been
built over the sepulchre of our Lord in his time; and to some gilded fig-
ure of the cross erected in, or on the lop of a Christian place of worship on
Mount Olivet. See his com meat on Ezek. xi. 23.
t This may serve to explain some part of the counsel John the Baptist
gave the soldiers of his time, when they censulted him, Luke iii. 14.
^ Comm. in Sophoniura cap. 1, ver. 14. f] Cap. 9. § Voce flebilL
OF HONORING THE DEAD.
49
bosoms, and a particular tone of voice, excited tears in all
that were present.
The coratnentalors on Ezekiel seem unanimously to
suppose, that Ezekiel's looking to Jerusalem was with
a threatening countenance, and his arm bare to express
the exertions of the besieging army ;* but in the preced-
ing directions given him how to behave himself, he uncon-
trovertibly was to represent not the state of the besieging
army, but of the distressed Jews in the city, who would
be forced to eai polluted food, and to want even a sufficien-
cy of that ; and I think it cannot be imagined that he
should be represented, in one and the same paragraph, as
personating two such different, and even opposite char-
acters.
OBSERVATION XVL
WARRIORS OFTEN BURIED W^ITH THEIR ARMOUR.
The burying warriors with their arms, seems also to
have been a method sometimes made use of, to do them
honor.
Ezekiel refers apparently to such a practice when he
says, They shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen
of the uncirciimciaed, which are gone down to hell with
their weapons of war : and they have laid their swords
under their heads, ch. xxxii. 27.
Grotius upon this occasion cites 1 Mace. xiii. 22, not
very happily, for the Prophet is speaking of burying their
arms, particularly their swords with warriors; and the
apocryphal historian is describing carvings on pillars, set
over the graves of such.
Sir J. Chardin's MS. note is, "in Mingrelia they all
sleep with their swords under their heads, and their other
» Ezek. iv. 7.
50 <^i'' HONORING THE DEAD.
arms by their sides ; and they bury them in the same
manner, their arras being placed in the same position."
This is all he says; and when we think of the little con-
nexion between Mingrelia and a Jewish Prophet, we read
the remark with some coolness. But things greatly alter,
when we come to reflect, that it has been supposed by
many learned men, and in particular by the extremely
celebrated Bochart, that Meshech and Tubal, of whom
Ezekiei is here speaking, mean Mingrelia, and the coun-
try thereabouts : this greatly excites curiosity, and Uiakes
strong impressions on the mind.
In the first place, it cannot but be remarked, that Eze-
kiei is speaking of the burial of several nations in this
chapter, Egypt, Ashur, Elam, Edom, &c. but no men-
tion is made of interring weapons of war in any of the
paragraphs, that only excepted which speaks of Meshech
and Tubal, which nations are joined together by the
Prophet. The burying warriors then with their weapons
of war, seems to have had some distinguishing relation
to Meshech and Tubal, or Mingrelia and the adjoining
country.
Secondly, The modern management there seems to be
derived from the customs of the very ancient inhabitants
of that country : and we are not to suppose, on the con-
trary, that the Prophet intends here to distinguish Me-
shech and Tubal from the other nations of antiquity, by
this circumstance, that those other nations were buried
with their weapons of war, whereas Meshech and Tubal
were buried without them : since the inhabitants of Min,
grelia are thus buried now : since customs hold a long
time in the East ; since we see nothing of this ujarlial
pomp in the interments of the modern inhabitants of the
other countries named here ; nor any accounts of their
burying them in this form there anciently, in any of the
sacred writings.
When the Prophet says, ver. 27, They shall not lie
with the mighty that are fallen of the imcir'cumcised,
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 51
which are gone down to hell, (or the grave,) with their wca*
pons of war, and they have laid their swords under their
heads, they must be the Egyptians he is here speaking
of; or he must mean that the Mingrelian warriors that
were cut off with the sword were, as totally vanquished,
buried by their enemies, and without the usual martial so-
lemnilies with which the people of that country were
wont lo have (heir dead interred.
It cannot well be understood in the first sense, because
the Piophel, all along, describes the Egyptians as being
to lie with the rest of the uncircumcised in the grave ; it
most probably is therefore to be understood in the second.^
OBSERVATION XVII.
BURYING PERSONS T^^ITHIN THE WALLS OF CITIES, A
TOKEN OF RESPECT.
The burying of persons in their cities is also an East-
ern manner of doing them honor. They are in common
buried without the walls of their towns, as is apparent,
from many places of the Old and New Testament, the
ancient Jews also were thus buried ; but sometimes they
bury in their cities, when they do a person a distinguished
honor.
"Each side of the road," says the author of the his-
tory of the Piratical States of Barbary,f "without the
gate, is crowded with sepulchres. Those of the Pasha
and the Days are built near the gate of Babalonet. They
are between ten and twelve feet high, very curiously
white washed, and built in the form of a dome. Hali
* This perhaps may be more easily admitted, if it is considered, that the
original words, translated, " and they hate laid their swords under their
heads, but," &c. are, *• and they have given their swords under their
heads, and their iniquities," &c. which may be understood of their swords
not being placed under their heads, but taken away by tlieir conquerors.
t Page 163. ■
52 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Dey, as a very eminent mark of distinction, was buried
in an enclosed tomb within the city. For forty days
successively his tomb was decorated with flowers, and
surrounded with people, offering up prayers to God for
his soul. This Dey was accounted a saint, and a par-
ticular favourite of heaven, because he died a natural
death; a happiness of which there are few instances since
the establishment of the Dej s in Algiers.'*
No comment is more lively, or more sure, than this, on
those that speak of the burying the kings of the house of
David within Jerusalem ; those sepulchres, and that of
Huldah the prophetess, being the only ones to be found
there. ^ But it is not a perfect comment ; for it is to be
remembered that a peculiar holiness belonged to Jerusa-
lem, as well as the dignity of being the royal ciiy, but
no particular sanctity is ascribed to Algiers, by those
people that buried Hali Dey there.
OBSERVATION XVIII,
SEPULCHRAL MEMORIALS USED IN THE EAST. CURI-
OUS ACCOUNT OF THE WRITTEN MOUNTAINS.
This burying persons in their cities is a very extra«
ordinary honor paid the dead ; sepulchral memorials are
a much more common one : they are, however, attended
with circumstances that want illustration, consequently
to be considered in this chapter.*
I would here examine those words of Job, O that my
words were now written ! O that they were printed in a
book ! That they were graven with an iron pen and leadp
in the rock for ever I Job xix. 23, 24.
The sense of th«^.so words, according to the translation
of the celebrated Schultens, and Dr. Grey's note? ex-
tracted from him, is this : Who will write my words !
* Liglitfoot, vol. 4, p. 21.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 53
Who will record them in a book! Let them be engraven
on some sepulchral stone, with an iron pen, and with lead,
so as to last for ever !
The word rock, which our translators have made use
of, se^ms to me to be more just than that used by Schul-
tens. It is certain that the word mi' tsttr, which is in the
original, signifies in other places of the book of Job, a rock;
and never there, or any where else in the Scriptures, that
I am aware of, and I have with some care examined the
point, does it signify a small sepulchral stone, or monu-
mental pillar. On the other hand I am sure, the words
that are used for this purpose, when the sacred writers
speak of the sepulchral stone on Rachel's grave; of the
pillar erected by Absalom to keep up his memory ; and
of that monument which marked out the place where the
Prophet was buried that prophesied against the altar of
Jeroboam, and which continued to the days of Josiah ;
are different.
Nor can the using this term appear strange, if we con-
sider the extreme antiquity of the book of Job; since it
is easy to imagine, that the first inscriptions on stones
were engraved on some places of the rocks which were
accidentally smoothed, and made pretty even. And, in
fact, we find some that are very ancient, engraved on
the natural rock, and what is remarkable, in Arabia,
where it is supposed Job lived. This is one of the most
curious observations in that account of the Prefetto of
Egypt, which was published by the late Bishop of Clog-
her; and is, in my apprehension, an exquisite confirma-
tion of our translation, though there is reason to think,
neither the writer, nor editor of that journal, thought of
this passage, and so consequently claims a place in this
collection.
The Prefetto, speaking in his journal of his disengaging
himself at length from the mountains of Faran, says,
*' they came to a large plain, surrounded however with
high hills, at the foot of which we reposed ourselves in
VOL. III. 8
54 OF HONORING THE DEA:Di
our fen(s, at about half an hour after ten. These hills
are called Gebel el Mikatab, fhat i^, the fVritten BIouii'
tains : for, as soon as we had parted ffom the mounlains
of Faran, we passed by several others for an hour togeth-
er, engraved with ancient unknown characters, which
were cut in the hard marble rock, so high, as to be in
many places at twelve or fourteen feet distance from the
ground : and though we had in our company persons who
were acquainted with the Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syri-
ac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, lllyrican,
German, and Bohemian languages, yet none of them had
any knowledge of these characters ; which have never-
theless been cut into the hard rock, with the greatest in"
dustry, in a place where there is neither water, nor any
thing to be gotten to eat.
" It is probable, therefore, these unknown characters
contain some very secret mysteries, and that they were
engraved either by the Chaldeans, or some other persons
long before the coming of Christ."
The mention of the English, the Illyrican, the German,
and the Bohemian languages, might at least have been
spared out of this enumeration of particulars: it would
Lave been sufficient to have remarked, they were in none
of the characters now in use in the East, or in any of
those in which ancient inscriptions before known are found
written in those countries.
The curious Bishop of Clogher, who most laudably-
made very generous proposals to the Antiquarian Society,
to engage them to try to decypher these inscriptions, was
ready to imagine they are the ancient Hebrew characters,
■which the Israelites, having learned to write at the time
of giving the law, diverted themselves with engraving on
these mountains, during their abode in the wilderness.
The making out, upon what occasion these letters were
engraven, might probably be very entertaining to some
of the inquisitive ; 1 very much question, however,
whether we can naturally suppose, this laborious way of
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 5^
writing was practised /or diversion. The Prefetto says,
Ihej were an hour passing by these mountains, by which,
however, I do not imagine he designs to insinuate that
this whole length of rock is engraven, but only that every
now and then there is an inscription, and that from the
first which they observed, to the last, was an hour's -
journey, or three Qiiles ; but cutting the letters of these
inscriptions into the hard marble, and sometimes at
twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, which is the
Piefetto's account, could not surely be mere diversion.
When, on the contrary, I consider the nature of the place,
there being neither water, nor any thing to be gotten to
eat ; and compare it with the account Maillet gives us*
of the burying place of the Egyptians, which is called the
plain of Mummies, and which, according to him, is a dry,
sandy, circular plain, no less than four leagues over ; and
when I recollect the account that Maundreil gives of
figures and inscriptions, which, like these, are engraven
on tables plained in the natural rock, and at some height
above the road, which he found near the river Lycus,f
which figures, he tells us, seemed to resemble mummies,
and related, as he imagined, to some sepulchres, there-
abouts ; I am ready to suppose this must be some very
ancient burying place. + Such a supposition justifies the
* Lett. 7, p. 5276. f Page 37.
^ Either of the Israelites when in the wilderness, in which case the ex-
amining the inscriptions will answer the same end, as if the Bishop of Clog-
her's supposition were just ; or of some warriors belonging to other na-
tions, who lay buried there ; or made use of upon some other occa-
sion, of which the memory is now lost. 1 must not however conceal from
juy reader, that since the first edition of this book, a paper of Mr. Wort-
ley Montague's has been published in the Philosophical Transactions, vol.
56, in which he seems to ascribe these engravings to pilgrims, in their
journies from Jerusalem to Mount hinai. But would they in that case
have been so numerous ? Or at least, would they have been engraven by-
such persons at the height of twelve or fourteen feet ? Perhaps there is a
mixture of both kinds of inscription. Benjamin the Jew, who lived six
hundred jears ago. tells us in his Itinerary, that travellers were then wont
to inscribe their names on certain remarkable places : he mentions one
56 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
explanallon of Grey, as to the alluding in these words io
a sepulchral inscription ; but would engage U3 to retain
the English translation as to the term rock, in contradis-
tinction to monumental pillars, or grave stones cut from
the quarrj.
But be this as It will, it is certain there are in Arabia
several inscriptions in the natural rock ; that this way of
writing is very durable, for these engravings have, it
seems, outlived the knowledge of the characters made
use of; the practice was, for the same reason, very an-
cient as well as durable : and if these letters are not so
ancient as the days of Moses, which the Bishop of Clogher
supposes, yet these inscriptions might very well be the
continuation of a practice in use in the days of Job, and
at Jerusalem, p 75. Ed. Elzev, 1633 ; and Rachel's sepulchre as another,
tvhere all Jews thtit passed by wrote their names, p. 83. In another page
he speaks of a great bui-ying place near Rama, which stretched out two
miles in length, p. 89 ^ Might not the written mountains be a burial place
half as long again as that near Rama? And might not travellers engrave
their names on these same rocks, as Benjamin tells us thp Jews of his
time were wont to do on Rachel's sepulchre, and mingling together the
memorials of those way faring men that tarried there only for a night,
and of those that were entered into their long home? The Greek and
Arabic inscriptions, which ** such an one was here at such a time,*' as
Montague assures us, are evidently the trivial memorandums of passen-
gers, written by people of different nations ; those engraven at the height
of twelve or fourteen feet, one would think should be sepulchral inscrip-
tions. Niebuhr mentions a great ccemetery in this same desert of Sinai,
where a great many stones are set up in an erect position, on a high and
steep mountain, covered with as beautiful hieroglyphics as those of the
ancient Egyptian mountains. The Arabs, he says, carriied them to this
hurial place, which is really more remarkable than the written mountains,
seen and described by other travellers in this desert ; for so many well
cut stones could never he the monuments of wandering Arabs, but must
necessarily owe their origin to the inhabitants of some great city near this
place, which is however now a desert. P. 347. Unhappily, he does not
tell us whether the hieroglyphics of this burial place are incrustated with
colours, like those of Egypt, or not.
■ The whole itinerary of Benjamin should be considered as a mere
romance, invented by a Jew, who never, probably, travelled a mile out of
his own country, the object of which was, by lying relations of flourishing
JeM'ish states, Jkc. to raise the drooping spirits of his miserable country-
unen. Edit.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 5f
tnav therefore be thought to be referred to in these words
oi\m, O thai they were graven . . . ijitherock for ever !
But however happy our translators have been in using
the word rock in the 24th verse, it is certain they have
been very far from being so in the 23d, as to the word
printed: it was absurd to employ a term that expresses
what does not appear to have been Invented prior to the
year 1440 ; and especially as it does not even by an im-
proper expression convey the idea of Job, which was the
perpetuating his words, as is apparent from the 24th verse,
records to which Job refers, being written, not printed
among us.
These written Arabian mountains very beautifully il-
lustrate these words in part, and perhaps but in part ; for
it does not appear from the accounts of the Prefetto with
what view lead is mentioned here, graven with an iron
pen and lead. Grey supposes tiie letters being hollowed
in the rock with the iron pen or chissel, were filled up
with melted lead, in order to be more legible ; but it does
not appear that any of these inscriptions are so filled up.
Indeed though some of them are engraven, most of those
Dr. Pococke observed"^ near Mount Sinai, were not cut,
* Vol. i. p 148. Dr. Pococke, however, himself saw some that were
cut, see p. 59; as indeed the expression, that most of them that he saw
were stained, implies that some were engraven. That paper of Wortley
Montague's, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 50, in like manner,
speaks of several inscriptions in this wilderness that were stained ; but it
tells us, that those of the written mountains were engraved with a pointed
instrument. Harmer,
As there have been some doubts entertained, relative to the existence
of the written mountains, I think it necessary to add the following note :
In a letter from Mr Montague to a physician, a particular friend of his
in London, dated Leghorn, June 21, 1773, he writes thus: " bis
returned from Abyssinia, and 1 dare say, that our natural history will be
gi'eatly obliged to his abilities, and extraordinary fatigue for important dis-
coveries ; but he seems to doubt of the existence of the ** -written moun-
tain" Indeed, he did not directly tell me so, but he said he had written
to Mr. Nieupurg, the only survivor of the Danish travellers, and received
for answer, " If Montague asserts any such thing, the Lori) have mercy
upon him !*' It is a place as well known as Cairo is among the Arabs, or as
Edinburgh is among us." — See European Magazine for 1792, p. 335.
Edit.
*» I suppose he means .T/r. Bruce.
58 OP HONORING THE DEAD.
but stained, making the granite of a lighler colour, which
stain he had an opportunity of being satisfied, sunk some
depth into the stone ; whether this was done with lead,
let the curious determine. The Septuagint do not ex-
plain this at all, though the painting of granite lorks was
very common anciently in Egypt, and those paintings,
stainings, or mere incrustations, as Norden took them to
be, extremely durable. " This sort of painting," sa^s
Norden, " has neither shade nor degradation. The fig-
ures are incrustated like the cyphers on the dial plates of
watches, with this difference, that they cannot be detach-
ed. I must own, that this incrustated matter surpasses in
strength all that I have seen in this kind. . It is superior
to the Alfresco, and the Mosaic work ; and indeed, has
the advantage of lasting a longer time. It is something
surprising to see how gold, ultramarine, and divers other
colours, have preserved their lustre to the present age.
Perhaps I shall be asked how all these lively colours
could soften together : but I D)ust own it is a question
that I am unable to decide."^ But if Job referred to the
writing with these durable staining materials on the rocks,
the Septuagint did not understand him to do so ; they seem
rather to have supposed he meant the recording things
by engraving accounts of them on plates of lead. Who
will cause my words to be written, to be put in a book
that shall last for ever : with an iron pen and lead, (i.e.
upon lead,) or to be engraven on the rocks ? Which cut-
ting letters on lead, marks out an ancient method, indeed,
of perpetuating the memory of things, but is 've,vy different
from that which Dr. Pococke saw had anciently obtained,
in Arabia, the country of Job, and to which therefore his
words may possibly refer,
I am inclined however, upon the reconsidering this
place, to believe, that the incrustating materials, that
were anciently used for the colouring the engravings on
the rock or stone, such as Norden saw in Egypt, are
* 2d part, p. 75, 76.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 59
iijeant by the word nn3;; opharetht translated lead here,
whether thej were preparations of lead, or composed of
other matters ; since we find it is used Lev. xiv. 42, 45,
for the plaster made use of to cover the stones of a build*
ing, and perhaps for the terrace mortar of the roof, being
applied to a building, in the same way as gold and silver
were to the walls of the temple ; the same verb being
used for the application of both to their respective build-
ings, 1 Ghron, xxix. 4. As it was a common practice in
Egypt to overlay their hieroglyphics with some coloured
plaster or paint, which the word translated lead signifies,
the same might be practised in Arabia in the time of Job,
though we are not expressly told that travellers have met
wilh such inscriptions ; or this Egyptian way of record-
ing things might be celebrated among the Arabs, and
other Eastern nations, as extremely durable, as in fact it
has been found to be ; and this might be sufficient to en-
gage Job to use this expression, O that my words were
written ! that they were recorded in a book ! that they
were graven with an iron pen, and incrustated with
£«me durable plaster, after the manner of the Egyptians,
whose memorials are supposed to be the most lasting of
any nations !
There is no necessity of supposing that the writing ou
the stones, mentioned Deut. xxvii. 2, 3, which apparently
was designed to be very lasting, was by inscribing them
an the plaster of lime, as has been imagined. The plas-
ter or mortar might be commanded, because it is made ex-
tremely strong and durable, for some works, in those
countries, a circumstance which both Maillet and Shaw*
have remarked ; whereas clay, or some such mouldering
material, might be thought sufficient for the cementing
the stones of common buildings. Nay, their monuments
were often heaps of stones, unconnected by any cement
whatever.f I am not ignorant, that the very learned
• Maillet, Lett. xii. p. 193, 193. Shaw, p. 206. t See Gen. xxxi.4«i
60 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Dr. Kennicott supposes,* that the whole stone was cov-
ered wiJh this plaster, excepting the letters, the stones
being, he imagines, naturally black. Travellers must
decide of what colour the great stones of that district
usually are ; but most probably these stones were only
cemented in this case to keep them in their proper place.
OBSERVATION XIX.
COFFINS ANCIENTLY USED FOR PERSONS OF DISTINC-
TION.
But previous to these sepulchral honors, there were
some methods of honoring the dead, which demand our
attention : the being put into a coffin has been, in partic-
ular, considered as a mark of distinction.
With us, the poorest people have i heir coffins, if the
relations cannot afford them, the parish is at the expense,
in the East, on the contrary, they are not at all made use
of in our times : Turks and Christians, Theienot assures
us,f agree in this. The ancient Jews probably buried
their dead in the same manner : neither was the body of
our Lord, it seems, put into a coffin : nor that of Elisha,
whose bones were touched by the corpse that was let down
a little after into his sepulchre, 2 Kings xiii. 21 . That they,
however, were anciently made use of in Egypt all agree,
and antique coffins of stone, and of sycamore wood, are
Still to be seen in that country ; not to mention those
said to be made of a kind of pasteboard, formed by fold-
ing and glueing cloth together a great number of times,
tfhich were curiously plastered, and then painted with
hieroglyphics. J Its being an ancient E'lypl Ian custom;
and its not being used in the neighbouring countries, were
doubtless the cause that the sacred historian expressly
• 2d Dissertation on the state of the printe«1 Heb Text. Note> p. 77..
t Part i. p. 58. i Thevenot, part i. p. 137.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 61
observes of Joseph, that he was not only embalmed,
but that he was put into a coffin too, Gen, i. 26, both
being managements peculiar in a manner to the Egyptians.
Bishop Patrick in his commentary on this passage,
t?kes notice of these Egyptian coffins of sycamore wood
and of pasteboard, but he does not mention the contrary
usage of the neighbouring countries, which was requisite,
in order fully to illustrate the place : but even this per-
haps would not have conveyed the whole thought of the
sacred author. Maillet apprehends, that all were not en-
closed in coffins that were laid in the Egyptian reposito-
ries of the dead, but that it was an honor appropriated
to persons of figure ; for after having given an account of
several niches that are found in those chambers of death,
he adds, ** But it must not be imagined that the bodies
deposited in these gloomy apartments, were all enclosed
in chests, and placed in niches. The greatest part were
simply embalmed and swathed after that manner that
every one hath some notion of ; after which they laid them
one by the side of another, without any ceremony. Some
were even put into these totiibs without any embalming at
all ; or such a slight one, that there remains nothing of
them in the linen in which they were wrapped but the
bones, and those half rotten. It is probable that each
considerable family had one of these burial places to
themselves; that the niches were designed for the bodies
of the heads of the family, and that those of their domes-
tics and slaves had no care taken of them, than the lay-
ing them in the ground, after having been embalmed, or
even without that. Which, without doubt, was also all
that was done, even to the heads of families of less dis-
tinction."^ After which he gave an account of a way of
burial, practised anciently in that country, which had been
but lately discovered, and which consisted in placing
bodies, after they were swathed up, on a layer of char-
• Lett. 7, p. 231.
TOL. iir. 9
62 OF HONORING THE DEAD.*
coal, and covering them with a mat, under a depth of sand
of seven or eight feet.
Coffins then were not universally used in Egypt, that
is undoubted from these accounts ; and probably they
were persons only of distinction that were buried in
them. It is also reasonable to believe, that in times so re-
mote as those of Joseph, they might be much less common
than afterward, and consequently that Joseph's being put
into a coffin in Esrypt, misht be mentioned wifh a design
to express the srf^at honor« the Egyptians did him ia
death, as well a«i in lif*;' : beine treated after the most
sirmptuous manner of the Egyptians, embalmed, and p»ut
into a coffin.
Agreeably to this, the S«*ntua2rint version, which was
made for Egvptians, seems to represent coffins as a mark
of sfrandeur, Job xxi. ^2.
It is no objection to this account, that the widow of
Nain's son is represented as carried forth to be buried in
a Ho^og or bier, for the present inhabitants of the Levant,
who are well known to lay their dead in the earth unen-
closed, carry them frequently out to burial in a kind of
coffin: so Russell in particular describes the bier used by
the Turks at A'eppo as a kind of coffin, much in the form
of ours, only the lid rises wifh a led^e in the middle.*
Christians, indeed, that same author tells us, are carried
to the grave in an open bier :f but as the most common
kind of bier there very much resembles our coffins, that
used by the people of Nain might very possibly be of the
same kind, in which case the word lo^o? was very proper.
OBSERVATION XX.
OF EMBALMING AMONG THE ASIATICS.
If the use of a coffin in burial was doing a particular
honor to the dead, the embalming them also certainly was ::
• Vol. i. p. 306*^ t Vol. ii. p. 5§.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 05
and the dissertations of the late Dr. Ward, published soon
after his death, have given occasion to the annexing this
Observation to the rest of this chapter. The Doctor
supposes the Jewish method ot einbaliuing was very dif-
fereni froai ttie Egyptian, and that this appears by sev-
eral passages of the New Testament. Both, he thinks,
swathed up their dead ; but instead of the Egyptian em-
bowelhng, he supposes the Jews contented themselves
with an external unction ; instead of myrrh and cassia,
they made use of myrrh and aloes ; to which he adds the
supposition, that St. John might mention the circumstance
of our Lord's euibalming, the better to obviate the false
report that then prevailed among the Jews, that the body
of our Lord had been stolen away in the night by his
disciples, tor the linen, he supposes, could not have been
taken from the body and head, in the manner in whicu it
was foJuid in the sepulchre, on account of its clinging so
fast from (he vjscous nature of these drugs, had they been
so foolish as to attempt it.
The moderii Egyptian method^ of applying odors
to the dead, certainly diflfers from that which was
anciently made use of in that country. The present
.way in £gypt, according to Mailiel,^ is to wash the
body divers times with rose water, which he else-
where observes, is there much more fragrant than with
us; they afterward perfume it with incense, aloes, and
a quantity of other odors, of which they are by no
means sparing ; they after this bury the body in a wind-
ing sheet, made partly of silk, and partly of cotton, and
moistened, as I imagine, with some sweet scented water,
or liquid perfume, though Maillet only uses the simple
term moistened ; this they cover with another cloth of
unmixed cotton ; to which they add one of the richest
suits of clothes of the deceased. The expense, he says,
on these occasions, is very great, though nothing like what
the genuine embalmings of former times cost.
• Lett. 10, p. 88.
64 or HONORING THE DEAD.
The modern Egyptian waj of embalming then, if it
may be called by that name, differs very much from the
ancient ; whether the Jewish method in the time of our
Lord differed as much, or how far, I know not. To pass
by the differen< e Dr. AVard has remarked between their
drugs, the Egyptians using myrrh and cassia, and the
Jews myrrh aud aloes, which might be only in appearance,
since more than two sorts might be used by both nations,
though these only happened to be distinctly mentioned,
if does not appear so plain to me as to the Doctor, that
the Jews were not wont to embowel their dead in embalm-
ing. Their hope of a resurrection did not necessarily
prevent this. And as all other nations seem to have
embalmed exactly according to the Egyptian manner, the
same causes that induced them to do so, probably occa-
sioned the Jews not to vary from them in this respect.
So the accurate editor of the Ruins of Palmyra tells us,*
(hey discovered that the inhabitants of that city used to
embalm their dead ; and that upon comparing the linen,
the manner of swathing, the balsam, and other parts
of the 3Iummies of Egypt, in which country they had
been a few months before, with those of Palmyra, they
found their method of embalming exactly the same. Ze-
nobia, whose seat of government was Palmyra, was origi-
-nally a native of Egypt, this writer observes ; but then
he remarks, that these bodies were embalmed before hep
time. So that passage which the Doctor cites f from
Tacitus, concerning Poppsea, the wife of Nero, supposes
it was the common ancient custom to fill the body with
drugs, and not merely apply them externally, Corpus
non igni aholilupi^ uf Romanus mos ; sed Regum exte-
rorum consuetudine differtum odoribus conditiir. i, e,
" Her body was not consumed by fire according to the
Roman manner, but was buried, after having been stuffed
with odors, after the way of foreign princes^" not merely
of the Egyptians, but of those that practised burying in
general, it seems.
• Page 22. f Page 142.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 65
If does not however follow from hence, that our Lord
was embowelled, though Sf# John sajs, he was buried
with spices, as the manner of (he Jews was to bury ;* for
these words do not necessarily signify, that all was done
that was wont to be done in those cases among (he Jews,
The contrary appears (o be ihe fact from (he far(her pre-
parations (he women made, who were not, 1 imagine, unac-
quainted with what had been done, though Dr. Ward
supposes the contrary ; since St. Luke expressly tells
us, that (he rvomen^ which came with him from Galilee,
followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his
body was laid.f
If indeed this be admitted, the Doctor's thought con-
cerning the diflSculty of taking off the bandages, besmear-
ed with very glutinous drugs, will appear to be ill founded,
for in that case the women could have done nothing more
as to the embalming him. That thought indeed seems
to have made all the impression on the Doctor's mind,
that the force of novelty, it might be expected, should
give it ; but aloes and myrrh do not appear to have that
very glutinous quality the Doctor supposed, so a much
more obvious account may be given of St. John's mak-
ing mention of a circumstance about which the other
Evangelists are silent. He appears to have published his
history for the use of persons less acquainted with the
customs of the East, than those for whose information the
others immediately wrote. The Doctor himself has re-
marked, in the32d Dissertation, that in giving an account
of the circumstances of the death of our Lord, St. John
has reckoned the hours after the manner of the Romans,
whereas the other Evangelists speak according to the
Jewish method of computation; the same reason that in-
duced him to do that, naturally led him to say to those
who were wont to burn their dead, that our Lord was
buried with spices, which was in general the Jewish
method of disposing of their dead, which he might very
• John xix. 40. t ^^^^ xxiii. 5S.
66 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
well do, though the straightness of the time did occasion
some deviation from what they comnionlj practised.
The shortness of time, we may believe, prevented them
also from swathing him with that accuracy and length of
bandage thej would otherwise have used : the Egyptians,
we are told, have used above a thousand ells of filletling
about a body, besides what was wrapped about the head.
Thevenot found it so, he informs us,* in a mumniy which
he examined. The Jews, it is reasonable to believe,
swathed them in socnething of the same form, which coyld
not have been nicely performed in such a hurry as the
disciples were then in, though not exactly after the Egyp.
tian manner: for the head not only of our Lord, but of
Lazarus, was simply bound about with a napkin ;f which
Chardin tells us, in hia MS. is used by the Mohammedans
at this very time.
And as the Jewish manner of covering the head of a
corpse, more resembled the present Eastern managements
than the ancient Egyptian, perhaps the rest of their grave
clothes did so too. They now, Dr. Perry J tells us, wrap
up the body in two, three, or more different sorts of stuff,
according to the circumstances of the deceased ; if the
Jews did so too, the spices those good women prepared,
might be designed to be placed between the outer and
inner wrappers; the ointment for the head ||
What Joseph and Nicodemus did with the mixture of
myrrh and aloes, does not appear. Dr. Lardner supposes
they might form a bed of spices.§ But with respect to
the quantity, which he tells us, from Bishop Kidder, a
modern Jew has made an objection against the history of
the New Testament, affirming that it was enough for two
hundred dead bodies, which is saying, in other words,
that half a pound of these drugs is sufficient to embalm a
• Part 1, p. 137. f John xi. 44. | P. 247.
II Matt. xxvi. 7, 12, intimates, that the anointing the head with ointment,
was one thing attending a Jewish burial.
$ Cred. of the Gosp. Hist, book 1, chap. 7. § 17.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. Qf
single body, I would observe, that our English surgeons
require a much larger quantity of druses for embalming;
and in a receipt which I have seen, of a very eminent one,
the weight of the drugs employed is above one third of
the weight Nicodemus brought. Much less indeed would
be wanted where the body is not embowelled, but even
the cerate, or drugs used externally in our embalmings, is
one seventh of the weight, I find, of the myrrh and aloes
that were brought for embalming our Lord. However,
be this as it may, as it appears from what Josephus says
of the funeral of A;is»obulus, the last of the High priests
of the family of the Maccabees, that the larger the quan-
tity of the spices used in their interments, tfie greater hon-
or was thought to be done to the dead;* we may easily
account for the quantity Nicodeinus brought in general,
though we may not be able to tell, with the precision that
could be wished, how it was disposed of. Dr. Lardner
has not, I think, mentioned this passage j but it entirely
answers the objection of this Jew.
A passage from Drummond's Travels ought not to be
omitted here, in which he gives an account of the manner
in which a larste quantity of spices and perfumes was made
use of, to do honor to the dead. It seems, according to
a tradition that prevailed among; the Turks, " x4n emi-
nent prophet, who lived in Mesopotamia many ages ago,
"whose name was Zechariah, was beheaded by the prince
of that country, on account of his virtuous opposition to
some lewd scheme of his. His head he ordered to be put
into a stone urn, two (eet square, upon the top of which
"Was an inscription, importing;, that that urn enclosed the
head of that great prophet Zechariab. This urn remain-
ed in the castle of Aleppo, till about eight hundred years
ago, when if w^as removed into an old christian church in
that city, afterward turned into a mosque, which decaying,
another was built near it, and the place where the head
• Antiq. lib. 15, p. 746, Ed. Haverc.
68 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
was deposited choaked up by a wall. About forty years
before Mr. Druramond wrote this account, which was in
December, 1748, consequently about tfaeyear 1708, a zeal-
ous grand Vizier, who pretended to have been admonished
in a dream to remove this stone vessel into a more con-
spicuous place, had it removed accordingly, with many re-
ligious ceremonies, and affixed in a conspicuous part of a
mosque: and in the close of all it is said, ** the urn was
opened, and tilled with spices and perfumes to the value
of four hundred pounds."^
Here we see in late times honor was done to the sup-
posed head of an eminent saint, by filling its repository
with odoriferous substances. The bed of sweet spices in
which Asa was Iaid,f seems to have been of the same
kind, or something very much like it. Might not large
quantities of precious perfumes in like manner be strewed,
or designed to be strewed, about the body of our Lord ?
This would require large quantities.
Zechariah of Mesopotamia had been dead so long, that
nothing of this kind could be done with any view to pre-
serve his head from decay, it was merely to do him hon-
or : the spices used by the Jews in burial might be for
the same purpose.
OBSERVATION XXI.
BURNING PERFUMES AT THE GRAVES OF THE DEAD, DE-
SIGNED TO DO THEM HONOR.
The ancient Jews, we are told in the Scriptures,}
were wont to make great burnings for their princes : but
whether this was when they carried them in procession to
the grave ; or from time to time afterward, when they
visited their tombs with solemn mourning ; or in any other
• P. 237, 238. 1 2 Chron. XYi. 14.
t lb. and ehap. xxi. 19, Jer. xxxiv. 5:
OP HONORING THE DEAD. G9
manner different from either of (hose two ; cannot be de-
termined, I believe, by (he Scriptures (hemsehcs : but
it may not be improper to set down here, an account that
is given of the manner in which the modern Jews are wont
to honor the graves of (hose they reverence, and which is
not commonly known, or at least attended lo.
When De la Valle visited the Holy Land, his curios-
ity carried him to Hebron, which is not often now, I
think, visited by Christians : but it is a noted place for
Mohammedan pilgrimages.^ He informs us,f that the
cave of Machpelah, in which Abraham and the other pa-
triarchs, with their wives, were deposited, is now covered
with a considerable building, which was once a Christian
church, but turned into a mosque. Adjoining to this is a
house, in which Abraham is supposed to have dwelt,
when he resided at Hebron, the Ciceronis of the Holy
Land, forgetting that by faith he sojourned in the land
of promise^ as in a strange country, dwelling in taber-
nacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the
same promise, Heb. xi, 9,
Neither into the cave, nor this mosque built over it,
nor this adjoining house of Abraham, it seems are either
Jews or Christians permitted to enter ; the nearest access
with which they are indulged is, according to him, certain
holes, made in the wall leading to this very sacred repos-
itory. ''There, we Christians," he says, "said our
prayers in the best manner we were able. The Jews
also attended with great assiduity, and poured out their
divers odoriferous things ; (hey burnt perfumes there,
some sweet scented kinds of wood, and wax candles."
Here we see the modern Jews honoring a sepulchre,
for which they have a great veneration, with lighting at
it wax candles. They then, perhaps, garnished the
tombs of the righteousjf in ancient times, in the same
* D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientate, art. Ktialil aud Hagge.
t Tome ii. p. 99. • ^ Matth. xxiii. 29.
VOL» III. 10
70 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
manner. And as they now burn perfumes here, they
might possibly aOer the same manner honor the graves of
those they reverenced, both kings and prophets, as well
as moisten them with odoriferous substances of a liquid
nature.
And as they now burn these perfumes at some dis-
tance from the cave in which the bones of Abraham are
supposed to remain, they might, in somewhat the like man-
ner, make a large pile of sweet scented wood, at some
distance from the mouth of the subterraneous repository
for their royal dead, which they had curiously scooped
out of the rock. At Hebron they are forced to burn
their perfumes at some distance, which they think, how-
ever, answers the purpose ; they might do the like an-
ciently for the saxce of convenience.
After all I must remark, that we have no account of
that kind of burning used for kings at their death, as used
for any other persons : neither for priests, or prophets.
Nor is the Hebrew word the same with that used for
burning incense ;^ but derived from that which expresses
the burning the bodies of Saul and his sons, after they had
hanged some time, on the wall of Bethshan, the nature or
design of which seems to be doubtful ; since after they
had undergone the disagreeableness of conveying the cor-
ruptiDg bodies so many miles from Bethshan to Jabesh-
Gilead, the place designed for their interment, it could
not then be necessary to burn the flesh from the bones,
on account of the ill scent they might by that time have
contracted. The mere laying those corrupted bodies in
the grave could be nothing, compared with the carrying
them along so many miles. It might be to honor them f
» The original, in 2 Clironicles xvi. 14, stands thus : TYD'M T]B'^\if H
13*11^1 vayhriiphu lo serephah gedolah And they burned a great burn-
ing for him. ^"^^ saraph therefore is the verb which is used to designate
this kind of funeral burning ; but "^iJp katar is the terra that is used to
cxprcis sacrificial burnings of incense offerings, &c. Edit.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 7|
it might be to prevent any attempt of the Philistines to
hang them up a second time.
A nswerable to this account of honoring (he grave of Abra»
ham, with burning perfumes in or near it, I know a gen-
tieman of great ingenuity and learning, who is disposed
to believe, the cdors the women carried to the sep-
ulchre of our LoRD,^ were designed to perfume that
sepidchral cave by burning them there, which would be
doing it honor : but it is to be remembered that the inten-
tion of them which the Evangelist gives an account of,
was for the anointing him. To which may be added,
that St, Luke expresslj calls the things thej prepared,
sp.ices and ointments,f or spices made into ointments.
But still it may be inquired in what sense thej propos-
ed to anoint him ; whether they meant to anoint the
whole body : or only a part of it ; or merely the linen
vestment in which it was wrapped.
The first cannot be admitted, as it is not agreeable to
the rules of Eastern decency for women to perform the
oflSce of purifying by washing, and consequently of anoint-
ing the body of one of the other sex. The rules now ob-
served in Persia, with regard to what is done for the
dead, of which Sir John Chardin has given an account at
large, J demonstrate this. Which is confirmed by the
observation, that these good women were in no wise con-
cerned in the preparing the body of our Lord for inter-
ment ; that appears to have been entirely in the hands of
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with their attend-
ants. The women were unconcerned.
As to the second, the anointing a part of the body, the
head or the feet, it could be of little or no consequence,
when he was wrapped up in such a large quantity of
gpices, or at least laid in a bed of them^ according to the
Jewish mode of burial.
* Mark xvi. 1. f Ch. xxiil. 56.
i Tome 2, p. 367. See also Dean Addison's account of the Jews of
Barbary, p. 219, $20, who obserTe the tame rules of deaeucj.
72 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
The same may be said of (he anointing the corpse as it
lay wrapped up ; in which case it would not have been,
rigidly speaking, the anointing of hiro, but of his windiijg
sheet. Tliis however might be adwilted, as to the sense
of the words, which oftentimes are to be understood with
considerable degrees of latitude. So we find, in some par-
ticular cases, when none of the same sex were to be had,
a relation of the other sex, if pretty near to the deceased,
may be permitted, according to the Persian rules, to ad-
minister purification to a corpse, provided it be closely
covered up, so as no part of the flesh be touched. In that
case it is the enveloping linen, strictly speaking, to which
the purifying water is applied, and which is rubbed with
the hand, yet still the dead body is considered as puri-
fied.* The anointing then the winding sheet of our Lord
might have been called anointing him ; but this would
have been to very little purpose, when he was buried in
such a quantity of myrrh and aloes.
And if the anointing the linen cloth in which he was
■wrapped ii'ight be called the anointing him, the anointing
his sepulchre might, in like manner, be called anointing
him, as it was anointing the place in which he was laid.
And when we consider this was an ancient practice,
and particularly performed by the women, in their mourn-
ing for the dead from time to time, it may probably be
what was meant by St. Mark.
It is certain the Greeks of those times, with whom the
Jews then had considerable connexions, anointed the
grave stones of the dead ; and it seems those that live
further East than Judea still practice it. The good
"women of Judea, the intermediate country, may naturally
be supposed not to have neglected this testimony of re-
gard.
So Archbishop Potter, in his Antiquities of Greece,
has shown, by apposite quotations, not only from poets,
* Chardin in the same pnge.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 73
but liistorians, that the ancient Greeks were wont to anoint
the monumenis of the dead with fragrant oils, or oint-
ments, as well as to lay sv» eet smelling flowers upon them ;
and though I do not remember to have remarked (he con-
tinuance of the custom, as to anointing tombs in those
countries the Greeks formerly inhabited, yet it seems it
is not Io3t in the East.
For Inatulla, an Indian writer represents this custom
as existing in the East still :* and though his Taljes are
of a romantic kind, they appear to be founded on the
real practice of those places, and the genuine occurrences
of human life there. *' Immediately she fainted away ;
and when she recovered her senses again, she found her-
self sealed upon a tomb stone.
"The sad reflection immediately recurred, that she
Lad lost her beloved father ; so drowning his lampf with
her tears, she sat in the shades of horror, conscious that
her undutiful conduct had brought a virtuous parent to an
untimely end.
" In a short time, she beheld her mother, with a weep-
ing train in the robes of mourning, carrying jars oi perfum-
ed oili and baskets oi flowers to strew the tomb ; so join-
ing their tears in one stream of aflSiction, she related her
tale in the ears of astonishment, &c."
Here we see the modern Indian joins |?er/i/?7?cJ 01/ with
flowers, in his description of the rites of bewailing the
dead, as did the ancient Greeks.
As to the Greeks, Potter gives us Cowley's translation
of some verses of Anacreon in proof of this point :
** Why do we precious ointments show'r.
Nobler wines why do we pour,
Beauteous powers why do we spread
Upon the mon'raents of the dead .'
* Tales, vol. ii.p. 101, 102.
f The translator remarks, in a note, that the •' Mohammedans hum
lamps to the dead." As a civil honor paid them, I presume he means,
Bot idolatrously.
f4 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Nothing they but dust can show.
Or bones that hasten to be so ;
Crown me with reses while I live."
To which he adds, from Plutarch, that Alexander arriv-
ing at Troy, honored the memories of \\\e heroes buried
there with solemn libations, and that he anointed Achilles'
grave stone.*
In like manner these female disciples of our Lord might
propose to begin those visits to the sepulchre of our
Lord, which they designed to continue from time to time,
by anointing the niche in which he lay with fragrant oint-
ments, which, probably, they could better apply than
flowers ; and which are often mingled with them, when
flowers could be^ and were, in fact, used.
OBSERVATION XXII.
A TERY CURIOUS METHOD OF HONORING DECEASED
PRINCES IN PERSIA.
Sir John Chardin, in his MS.f gives us an account of
a very whimsical honor paid the Persian princes after their
deaths, the driving their physicians and astrologers
from court. This he supposes to be of great antiquity,
and to have been the cause of Daniel's absence, when
Belshazzar saw the hand, writing his doom on the wall,
which writing no body that was then with him could
explain.
Daniel was not, it is certain, only occasionally absent
from this solemnity, which was managed in a manner af-
fronting to the God of Israel ;J for it appears from v. 13,
that he was not at all personally known to Belshazzar.
This has been supposed to have been owing to his having
been a vicious and a weak prince; Chardin supposes, on
the other hand, that the ceremonial of the Persian court
* Vol. 2, book 4, ch. 6. f Note on Dan. t. 1 J. * V, 2—4,
OF HONORING THE DEAO. 75
required it. The first reason hardly accounts for his ab-
sence, since weak and vicious as he might be, Nitocris
his mother, who appears to have been no stranger to the
great abilities of Daniel, who is said to have been a lady
of great wisdom, and who is believed to have had the chief
management of alfairs, might have employed Daniel in
matters of state, which in all probability, considering his
eminence, would have made him known to the king: he
did not, however, know him; she did not therefore em-
ploy Daniel : but whether for the reason assigned by
Sir John, is another consideration.
If that really were the reason, Daniel's retirement from
the management of the aflfairs of state, must have been of
long continuance, twenty three years, according to Dr.
Prideaux, for it must have commenced at the death of
Nebuchadnezzar.
Be this as it may, it is so extraordinary an usage, that
it deserves a place in these papers. <'I collect from
hence, says Sir John, that is, from the queen mother's re-
commending to Belshazzar to consult Daniel, that Daniel
had been masouled^ at the death of the king: for in the
East, when the king dies, the physicians and astrologers
are displaced ; the first for not having driren death away,
and the other for not having predicted it. This the 13lh
verse confirms."
Curious etiquette this ! Upon this principle Daniel de-
served to be reinstated in his office, since he now predict-
ed the death of Belshazzar. However, whatever was the
ground of their procedure, Belshazzar made him the third
ruler in the kingdom, Dan. v. 29; and under Darius the
Mede, the Prophet made a distinguished figure at court,
Dan. vi. 1—3,
• An Eastern term signifying displaced, used by Dr. Perry, in his View
of the Levant, p 41, &c. Sir J. Chardin's words are : Je receuille de la
que Daniel avait este mazoul a la mort du roy, car en orient, quand le roy
nieurt, les medecins & lea astrologues sont chassez les uns pour n'avoic
•hasse la mort, les autres pour ne 'I'avoir preditte. C'est ce que le v, 13,
eonfirrae. Tu es Daaiel ? &c.
76 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
According to this, the life of Daniel was extremely vari-
egated : a large part of it spent in conducliug affairs of
state : a considerable portion of it in a devout reliremenf. in
reading, meditation, and prayer, fie practised these things
when involved in the hurry of public businpss ;^ certainly
therefore when disengaged from affairs of state.
OBSERVATION XXIII.
PARTICULAR KINDS OF FOOD USED BY MOURNERS.
St. Jerom affirms, that the Jews of his time, in mourn-
ing their dead, wept, rolled themselves in ashes, having
their feet bare, and laid in sackcloth: to which he adds,
that, according to the vain rites of the Pharisees, lentiles
were the first things of which they eat in their mourning.f
He gives us an explanation of this usage, which certainly
was never derived from the Jews, but from his own lively
fancy, which furnished him with an inexhaustible store of
interpretations of the mystic kind, namely, that this cus-
tom marked out their loss of the birthright. J
Dean Addison has mentioned nothing of their eating
lentiles, in Barbary, after the interment of their dead, or
any other fixed and stated kind of food; but he says, in
some places, " the mourners use to eat eggs, out of no less
emblem, than that death is voluble as an egsr, aud to day
takes one, and another tomorrow, and so will come round
upon all. "II But perhaps a more probable reason may be
assigned for this usage. §
* Dan. ix. 2, 3.
f Fp. ad PaulatTi, super obitu Blesillje filice. tome 1, p 159.
I Gen. XXV. 34. [\ Ch. xxvi. p. 224.
§ Namely: the hope of U»e resurrectiou : on which account, it is said, the
Oriental Christians msike prestuts to each other of eggs at Easter, richly
adorned 'with painting and gilding.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 77
The eating lentiles on these occasions, by the Jews of
the age of St. Jerom, was merely, 1 should imagine, to ex-
press affliction, and even not only inattention to, but a
disgust against, the delicacies of life. So in the account
of the life of Hilarion, a celebrated hermit of that time,
that austere recluse is said for three years to have eaten
nothing but half a sextary^ of lentiles, moistened with cold
water ; and for other three years only dry bread with salt,
and some water. This then shows the eating of lentiles
was thought to be very poor living, though much eaten in
those countries ; and sometimes sent to soldiers attending
their prince.f
It shows also, in a very strong point of light, the pro-
faneness of Esau, who despised his birthright to such a
degree, as to part with it for a mess of lentile pottage.
OBSERVATION XXIV.
OF THEIR TOMBS IN THE EA.ST, AND THEIR ORNAMENTS.
WiNDUs,J speaking of the reverencing idiots as saints
among the Mohammedans, their kissing their garments,
and giving them every thing but money, which they are
not to take, adds, " And after their death, some great
men hears of their fame, and makes it an act of devotion to
beautify their tombs; or if they had none, to build one
over the grave, wherein they are laid."
He had a little before observed, that their tombs are
generally cupolas built with an entrance as wide as the
building ; and that " they are of several forms, some are
low pyramids, others square, and the body put in the
middle. But there is no rule, for Alcayde Ally Ben Ab-
dallah's is a great square of thirty feet at least. "(t
• About a pint. f 2 Sam, xvii. 28.
^ In his journey to Me^uinez, p. 55. \\ Page 53, 54.
YOL. III. 11
^
78 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
These passac^es naturally lead us to recollect the words
of our Lord, Matt, xxiii. 29, 30. Woe imto you, Scribes
and PhariseeSy hypocrites ! because ye build the tombs
of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the right-
eouSy and say. If we had been in the days of our Jattiers^
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood
of the Prophets ; and also to make some observations on
the matters there mentioned.
I would take notice, in the first place, of the nuraero>is-
ness of these Mohammedan sacred sepulchres. This wri-
ter having occasion to mention Sidi Cassem, in the road
from Tetuan to Mequinez, tells us, "The town takes its
name from a saint, who has a monument in it, to which
the Moors with great superstition resort to say their
prayers;" to which he adds, "a great many more saiuti
are buried in the road to Meq«iinez, having little monu-
ments over them, which the Moors will seldom pass with-
out praying at."^
He had a little before, in the plate he has given us of
Alcassar, p. 78, marked distinctly the monument of a saint
much resorted to; as a little after his account of Sidi
Cassem, he mentions a plain called Muley Idris, from a
saint who has a monument hard by, which it seems is
treated with such veneration, that the travellers to Me-
quinez go considerably out of their way to pray at it;
to which be adds, that the emperor himself often pays
his devotions there.
Since the same principle, which has produced such
numerous effects in late times in Barbary, is intimated by
our Lord, to have operated with great vigour among the
Jews of his time, T cannot but imagine there were then
many more of these sepulchres, in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem,! than now appear. Travellers are shown a
• Page 82, 83.
f S'lDce there, according to Luke xiii. 33, most of those of whose tombs
our Lord is speaking lost their lives : Jt cannot be that a. Prophet perish
out of Jerusalem ,• of course there we naturally expect to find their sep-
ulchres.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 7^
handsome structure, which is supposed to be the tomb of
Zicharias, slain between the temple and the altar ;^ be-
sides which there is only one more sepulchral structure
above ground, I think, relating to those of the old Tes*
tament,f which is called the sepulchre of Absalom,
against which both Jews and Mohammedans are said to
throw stones, to express their detestation of him, of which
there is a considerable heap.
Supposing this to be a mistake, as it cannot be imagin-
ed to be the tomb Absalom built for himself in his life
time ; and it can hardly be believed to have been raised
in honor of aim in any succeeding age ; yet still this would
make but two tombs of ancient Jewish righteous men,
suffering for truth and virtue, if instead of being a memo-
rial of an unnatural son, it should be understood to be the
resting place of a Prophet, or martyred saint, whereas
this same principle has made Mohammedan structures of
this kind very numerous.
Numerous, however, as these Mohammedan structures
are, all their saints have not received this honor, for this
writer tells us, that 'Mhose whom they reverence as
saints are led about, the people kissing their garments,
&c. and after their death, some great man hears of their
fame, and makes it an act of devotion to beautify their
tombs ; or, if they had none, to build one over their
grave, wherein they are laid.'*J Every one then of
these saints has not a tomb immediately erected over him,
though his sanctity was acknowledged and honored in
life ; it is not then to be wondered at, that it was some
time before the persecuted and murdered Jewish Proph-
ets had tombs raised over them, and that some of them
might not have been erected till the time, or very near
the time of eur Lord.
• Matt xxiii. 35.
t Rachel's sepulchre seems to be too far off to come into the account,
not to say that she died not a death of violence* t Pag« 55,
80 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
To the observations relating to the numerousness of
the tombs of the Mohammedan saints, and the erecting
them from time to time to (he honor of such as had been
at first neglected, I would add a third, respecting the gar-
nishing those that had been before built.
This possibly may be understood of the whilening
them, which is commonly done in Barbary,^ and of which
practice our Lord makes mention Matt, xxiii. *2T : but as
this among the Jews seems to have been universal, all
tombs being whitened, in order to give warning to people
not to approach too nigh, lest they should, according to
the Jewish ritual, be defiled ;f the word garnishing seems
to mean some different way of beautifying. The Moham-
medan sepulchres of their saints are at least not only
whitened, but otherwise adorned. It is to be considered,
whether the Jewish way of garnishing them was the same.
Among the Mohammedans, the tombs of their saints
are adorned with lamps. Pitts says, it is a mistake in
those who have aflSrmed that there are no less than three
thousand lamps about the tomb of Mohammed, their
great saint and lawgiver; but he acknowledges it is deck-
ed with some lamps, though he believed hardly an hun-
dred in number. J And elsewhere supposes that lamps,
or wax candles, were used to garnish the tombs of their
less celebrated saints, for he tells us, that the Algerines^
when in the Straight's mouth, are wont " to make a gath-
ering of small wax candles, which they usually carry
with them, and bind them in a bundle ; and then, together
with a pot of oil, throw them overboard, as a present to
the marabbot, or saint, which lies entombed there on the
Barbary shore, near the sea, and hath so done for many
scores of years, as they are taught to believe ; not in the
least doubting, but the present will come safe to the mar-
abbot's hands." p. 17. || The tomb assuredly was never
• Shaw's Trav. p. 219, 220. f Numb. xix. 16. i Page 156,
[I He mentions his observing the like done in the Red Sea, in honor of
another marabbot interred on the shore there, p. 114.
OF HONORING THE DEAD- gj
illuminated by these candles nor this oil, but the practice
shows in what manner they would wish to garnish the
tombs of their righteous men. This is confirmed by what
he says in the next page, where he informs us, that in
time of distress and danger, " they collect money, and
wrap i( in a piece of linen cloth, and make it fast to the
ancient staff of the sliip, so deoicating it to some raarab-
bot ; and ihere it abides until the arrival of the ship,
when they bestow it in candles, or oil to give light, or in
some ornament, lo beautify the marabbot's sepulchre.
For these marabbots have generally a little neat room
built over their graves, resembling in fissure their mosques
or churches, which is very nicely cleansed, and well
looked after," &c.
So Mr. Maundrell tells us, that at Damascus he was
shown an old tomb, said to be Ananias's, but how he came
to be buried there his guide could not tell, nor he guess :
" however, the Turks have a reverence for his tomb, and
maintain a lamp always burning over it.""*
Pitts, in some of the preceding citations, supposes the
money that was collected in times of danger, and dedi-
cated to some marabbot, which was frequently laid out in
candles or oil ta illuminate the sepulchre of the marab-
bot, was sometimes bestowed in the purchase of some
other ornament, but mentions no particulars. Other
writers give us however an account of several.
A carpet, more or less valuable, is wont to cover the
tomb itself, over which the sepulchral building, or vaulted
chapel, is erected. This tomb is made like a great chest,
or one of our altar tombs, to which carpet is sometimeg
annexed other ornaments. So Maundrell, speaking of a
mosque on the coast of Syria, built by one Sultan Ibra-
him, in which he is deposited, tells us, *« We were admit-
ted to see his tomb, though held by the Turks in great
veneration. We found it only a great wooden chest,
erected over his grave, and covered with a carpet of
• Page 13.
82 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
painted calico, extending on all sides down io (he ground*
It was also tricked up with a great many long ropes of
wooden beads hanging upon it, and somewhat resembling
(he furniture of a button maker's shop. This is the
Turks' usual way of adorning the tombs of their holy
men, as I have seen in several o her instances. The long
strings of beads passing in this country for marks of great
devotion and gravity."^
Several of their sacred tombs have much more valua-
ble ornaments than these ; the several large incense pots,
candlesticks for altars, and other church furniture, being
(he spoils of Christian churches at the taking of Cyprus,
which Maundrell saw in the mosque where Sultan Ibra-
him liesjf were I suppose, devout donations to the tomb,
not (o the mosque.
So Chardin, describing the tomb of a Persian female
saint, gives an account of several vessels of silver that
hang over it, of considerable weight, called candils, in
form somewhat resembling lamps, but not used to give
light, or indeed capable of holding any oil, besides the
tomb's being enclosed with a grate of massive silver, (en
feet high, and crowned at the corners with four large balls
of solid gold. J Other instances might be produced of
great riches lodged in the sepulchres of the Eastern
saints, reverenced by the disciples of Mohammed.
It seems then by no means natural to suppose, (he
garnishing the tombs of the righteous means only (he
white washing them; but it may be diflScult precisely to
say to what ornaments our Lord refers. Great riches, it
is said by Josephus, were lodged in the tomb of David ;
and Benjamin the Jew, in his Itinerary, speaks of a lamp's
burning in the cave of Machpelah, which he visited with
devotion, and speaks of casks of dry bones of many o^
* Shaw in like manner speaks of the tombs of the marabbots as adorned
with beads, ribands, and such trinkets, p. 8, note.
t Page 14. + Tome 1, p. 204*
OF HONORING THE DEAD. I3
Ihe Jews as lodged there, but says not at whose expense
the lamp was lighted up.*
Dr. Shaw has given an account of the form of the
Eastern sepulchres, hut he has mentioned no other way
of garnishing them, but the white washing them, and
strewing them with herbs and flowers. I thought these
additional remarks might not be wholly unacceptable.
OBSERVATION XXV.
SONGS AND MUSIC USED DAILY AT GRAVES, IN COM-
MEMORATION OF THE DEAD.
Among other methods of doing honor to those that
have been long dead, in the East, is the using music and
songs daily at their graves ; and some footsteps of this
practice may be remarked in the Old Testament, though
with less frequency.
Sir John Chardin found at Ujod, a Tillage in the south
of Persia, a small mosque, in which was the tomb of the
brother of one of their kings; over the entrance of the
mosque there was, he tells us, a gallery, in which, every
morning and evening, they played on the flute and tym-
bals, in honor of the prince who was buried there, and, it
seems, with a view of pointing out the nobleness of his ex-
traction.f
This seems to be stated music ; d'Herbelot has given
an instance of singing and music, in honor of the dead^
which appears to have been occasional. Babur, a prince
• Page 85, 86. He does not ; and if he did, who would believe him ? Is
not his whole Itinerary an arrant forgery, made on purpose to support the
spirits of his wretched countrymen, and to persuade them, that the sceptre
had not yet departed from Judah, nor a latvs-iver from between hiafeet i
for he pretends he found the Jews in great potver in different parts of the
East ; and that therefore the time for the coming of the Messiah is not
yet. EpxT.
t Tome ii. p. 96, 97.
84 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
descended from the celebrated Tamerlane, fell into a dan-
gerous illnes-?, from which he recovered very slowly
The better to re-establish his health, he resolved, for
the sake of change of air to remove from Herat to a city
called ToiiP, where it seems was the sepulchre of a great
Persian saint, called the Iman Riza, which circumstance
occasioned this city's being named Meschad Mocaddes,
which signifies the Holy Sepulchre. To this sepulchre
be made presents worthy of so great a prince. He ac-
companied this liberality with exemplary piety and de-
Totion, abstaining from wine, and passing whole days in
the mosque and sacred gardens belonging to it, which
mosque had been built in honor of this Iman. whose
praises he caused his musicians to sing.^
The word that is used to express the honor annually
done to the daughter of Jephthah, seems to insinuate
that they honored her 'grave with music and songs,
four days every year. Our translation, as well as that
of the Septuagint, supposes the word signifies their
lamenting her, which is without doubt the general
thought ; but what was the mode of their lamenting? by
talking with her, say our translators in the margin, which
supposes her life ; but most probably by music and songs
at her grave, as Persian saints of later times have been
honored.
The word in the original n)}ph letannoth^ certainly sig-
nifies to reward, and it appears to be used, in another
passage of the book of Judges, to reward by celebrating
with music and songs: Judges v. 11. They are deliv'
eredfrom the nois^e of archers in the places of drawing
water ; there (ijn' yetannn) shall they rehearse the right-
eous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts toward
the inhabitants of his villages in Israel : then shall the
people of the Lord go down to the gates.
The blessing of the Lord in the 9th verse, and the
speaking of travellers on horseback and on foot, perfectly
* Biblioth. Orient, art. Babur, or Barbor, p. 163.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. gj5
agree with the notion of their rehearsing, or rewarding the
righteous acts of the Lord with music and songs. I have
also ele-ewhere shown, that the Orientals are wont to
choose the neighbourhood of wafer for their parties of
pleasure, which are often verj musical.^
The using then this word by the writer of the book of
Judges, in the case of Jephthah's daughter, who evident-
\y appears to use it in the sense of music and songs in
another passage of that book, may be considered as a
trace, faint if you will, of that custom's obtaining among
the Jews which has since been observed, oh some occa-
sions in Persia. Josephus represents the death of Jeph-
thah*s daughter as very heroic, and also patriotic ; such
an annual solemnity at her grave then, by the virgins of
Israel, was extremely natural, and deserved to be record-
ed : her dying childless, on account of the meeting her fa-
ther with timbrels and dances, was naturally rewarded by
annual music and songs at her tomb.f
OBSERVATION XXVL
OF THE PLACES CHOSEIf BY THE ANCIENT AND MODERN
ARABS FOR THE INTERMENT OF THEIR DEAD.
A VERY ingenious writer, in his translation of the
book of Job, has given this version of Job's description
of the sepulchral distinctive honors paid to the Emirs, or
Arab princes and leading warriors of the land of Uz, and
its adjoining countries, in the close of the 21st chapter of
that noble ancient Eastern poem :
■• OuLlines of a Comment, on Sol. Song, p. 198, note.
f Still this supposes that Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed ; whereas
she only appears to have been consecrated to God so as to live in a state
o{ celibacy ; which state among the ancient Jews, was deemed a state
l>oth of affliction and reproach. Edit.
VOL. III. 12
86 OP HONORING THE DEAI>/
'* With pomp he's carried to the grave : his nasae
There lives afresh, in monumental tame :
There he enjoys, in some delicious vale.
Turf ever green, and springs that never fail ;
Preceded, followed, to his dusty bed.
By all the former, all the future dead."
And Iben gires this note^ on the 33d vere : The clods of
the valley shall be sweet to him. *' The soft clods of the
valley, made soft and tender by gentle showers, are sweet
to him. Their sepulchral grots; v. ere frequently in vallies,
cut in the bottom of rocky hiUs. Such a situation of a
tomb, together with sprinsis of water or moderate rains to
keep the turf perpetually green, was accounted a happy
sepulture among the Arabs, as being a means of preserv-
ing the remembrance of the deceased in honor." To
make no remarks on the little agreement between green
turf and grots in rocky hills together ; and not to inquire
how the verdure of a spot could have kept alive the re-
membrance of one buried hard by ; I cannot but make
this observation on the main point, the burying in \ allies,
that this seems rather to be a deduction from his supposed
sense of the text, instead of an account taken from Arabian
authors, or travellers into those countries, tendirig fo illus-
trate these words of Job. A management which too oftea
appears, even in eminent writers.
For 1 apprehend that in truth the Arabs, in elder and
later times, rather chose to inter their dead ia rising
grounds than in vallies.
As to the modern Bedouin Arabs, we are told, in the
account published by de la Roque of those of Mouni Car-
rael, " that the frequent change of the place of their en-
campment, not admitting their having places set apart for
their burial, they always choose a place son^ewhat ele-
Tated for that purpose, and at some distance from the
camp. They make a grave there, into which they put
the corpse, and cover it with earth, and a number of great
stones, lest the wild beasts should get at the body."t
* Scot's Job, p. 169. t Voy. dans la Palestine, ch. 23;
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 8?
In like manner the ancient bnrial place between Suez
and Mounl Sinai, wbicb Niebiihr visiled, V7as found on
the top of a high and sfeep ujountain.'^^ The noble sepul-
chres of the ancient Palmyrene Arabs, according to Mr.
Wood's account, were in the hills in the neighbourhood of
thai magnificent city. And thus we find the burial place
for people ot honor and distinction at Bethel, in the time
the ten tribes made a separate kingdom, was in the mount
there ;f and the sepulchre of Shebna, a great man in the
Jewish court, was in an elevated situation. J Git thee
iiido this treasurer^ even unto Shebna, which is over the
hoHse^ and say^ What hast thou here ? and tvhom hast thou
here, thai thou hast hewed thee out a septdchre here, as lie
that henefh him out a sepidchre on hig^h, and that grrnvelh
an habitation for himself in a rock ? Behold the Lord
will carry thee away with a mighty captivity.
From hence it is apparent, that if great men were some-
times buried in vallies, it was no part of the splendour of
interment among the Arabs, who were wont rather to
choose elevated places for the sepulture of princes, and
people of high distinction. How then, it is natural to
ask, came Job to speak of the clods of the valley, when
describing magnificence of burial ? I should suppose, in
answer to this question, thai Job is to be understood, not
as intending to mark out the wonted places of their inter-
ment, but the manner of ornamenting their sepulchres;
planting flowers and odoriferous herbsor shrubs, on or about
their graves : Clods like those of a valley or torrent, verdant
and flowery, shall surround him, and be pleasing to him.
The liveliness of Eastern poetry here representing the
dead, as having the same perceplions as if they were
alive in their sepulchres : he shall watch in the heap, of
earth or stones that cover him, for such, the margin of
our translation tells us, is the more exact import of the
* Descript. de I'Arabie, p. 347.
t 2 Kings xxiii. 16, €Ompar«d with 1 Kings xiii. 3. + Isaiah xxii. IS"— 17.
88 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Hebrew ; the clods around him, like those in some pleas-
ant vallej, or on the border of some torrent, shall be
sweet unto him.
Thus when it is said, The desert shall rejoice and blos-
som as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and re-
joice even with joy and singing : the glory of hehanon
shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sha-
ron : they shall see the glory of theljORD,and the excel'
lency of our God :^ it is visible that a glory like that of
Lebanon, an excellency like that of Carmel and Sharon,
is the thing that is meant ; not that the trees of Lebanon
were to be removed into the desert, and the verdure
and flowers of the two other places. The clods of
the valley are to be understood, I apprehend, after the
same manner. Clods like those of the vallies where
torrents run, which are verdant and flowery, shall be
pleasing to him.
So Dr. Shaw has told us, that a great extent of ground
being allotted without their cities, for the burial of their
dead, " each family has a proper portion of it, walled in
like a garden, where the bones of their ancestors have re-
mained undisturbed for many generations . . . In these
enclosures the graves are all distinct and separate ....
whilst the intermediate space is either planted with flow-
ers ; bordered round with stone ; or paved with tiles. "f
Mr. Blunt mentions an observation relating to this mat-
ter, which he made, and which I do rot remember to
liave met with any where else ; it is given us in these
words : " Those who bestow a marble stone over them,
have it in the middle cut through about a yard long, and
a foot broad ; therein they plant such kind of flowers as
endure green all the year long ; which seem to grow out
of the dead body, thinking thereby to reduce it again into
play, though not in the scene of sensible creatures, yet of
* Isaiah xxxv. 1, 2. I Page 219.
OF HONORING THE DEAD 89
those vegetables, which is the next degree, and perhaps
a preferment beyond the dust.*
OBSERVATION XXVIL
BODGHS, FLOWERS, ScC. USED IN ORNAMENTING SE-
PULCHRES IN THE EAST.
As thej sometimes plant herbs and flowers about the
graves of the dead, so Dr. Addison observed, that the
Jews of Barbarj adorned the graves of their dead in a
less lasting manner, with green boughs brought thither
from time to time ;f might not this practice originate from
the doctrine of the resurrection ? perhaps from that well
known passage of a Prophet, Thy dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they rise. Awake and
sing, ye that dwell in the dust : for thy derv is as the dew
of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Is. xxvi.
19 ; or if it was practised still earlier, might not this pas-
sage have reference to that custom?
It is admitted, that the practice obtained among those
that entertain no expectation of a resurrection, but in the
language of St. Paul sorrowed as people that had no such
hope. J The ancient Greeks practised this decking the
graves of their dead, but it might notwithstanding originate
from that doctrine, and be adopted by those of a different
belief, as having something in it softening the horrors of
viewing their relatives immersed in the dust ; and might
be thought to be agreeable bj those that entered into
medical considerations, as correcting those ill scented and
noxious exhalations that might arise in those burial places,
to which their women, more especially, were frequently
induced to go, to express their attachment to the de-
parted.
• Voy. 197, reprinted in the Collect, of Voy. and Travels from the
Library of the Earl of Oxford, vol. 1, p. 547.
t -Pages 220, 221. +1 Thess, ir. 13.
90 OP HONORING THE DEAD.
Maillet supposes (he modern Egyptians lay leaves and
herbs on the graves of their friends, from a notion ihat
this was a consolation to the dead, and believed to be re-
freshing to them from their shade.* This must indeed
be admitted to be truly ridiculous; the supposing a bo^y
covered with many inches of earth should receive any
benefit from the thin shade afforded by a few leaves, sup-
posing the sense of feeling still continued, which super-
stition itself can hardly imagine.
But was this lively Fiencb gentlemen sure of the fact ?
I should hardly think it of the Mohammedan inhabitants
of the East, who believe a resurrection. As their prayers
for the dead, as well as those of the Jews, have a refer-
ence to the resurrection ; why may not these vegetable
ornaments of their sepulchres be understood to relate to
that doctrine?
I leave at present, the examination of the opinions of
the Greeks and Romans, as to the strewing leaves and
flowers on the graves of those they lamented ; but would,
instead of that, inquire a little, whether there is any dif-
ference as to the plant made use of now in the East for
this purpose, and, if there be, what those differences are.
A speculation of some curiosity, and what must be
amusing.
What the plants are that are used by the Baibary Jews,
Dr. Addison has not told us. All that he says on that
subject is this : " Inquiring after inscriptions or epitaphs,
and though often in the burying place for that end, I could
see none, nor any other state about the graves than green
turf and boughs. But this remark respects the Jews in
Barbary, whom I conceive to come far short of those of
other countries, in this sort of funeral pomp." P. 220,
221.
* Cette verdure n'est pas au reste, comme on pourroit peut-etre le pen-
aer, q'une offrande faite aux morts. Le motif de cet usage est encore plus
ridicule, puisque par-Ik on cherclie a soulager les det'unts, qu'on eroit T€;
fraichir, en leur procurant de I'ombrage. Let. 10, p. 91.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. g|
Biif, as \t is a matter of some curiosity, and may be
amusing to souie minds, I would set down what 1 have
met wi»h in travellers, relating to this subject.
The women in Egypt, according to Mail let, go, "at
least two days in the week, to pray and weep at the se-
pulchres of the dead ; and the custom then is to throw
upon the tombs a sort of herb which the Arabs call ri-
haii, and which is our sweet basil. They cover them
also with the leaves of the palm tree."^ If they use
any other plants for this purpose in Egypt, he has ne-
glected to mention them.
Whether these precisely were the vegetables made use
of by Augustus, when he viewed the remains of Alex-
ander the Great in Egypt, Suetonius has not informed
us, in the account he has given us of the honors paid by
this Roman emperor to the remains of that celebrated
Greek. f We may imagine they were not, if he wrote
with perfect exactness, since he speaks of that emper-
or's strewing flowers on the cofBn, and mentions nothing
conrernin?; herbs or leaves.
It is reasonable to believe, that other species of plants
are made use of in E^ypt to adorn the sepulchres of their
friends; but not all indiscriminately, for, according to
Hasselquist, the mitre shaped aloe, which grows in large
quantities In the gardens of Cairo, is hung over the doors
of those that have returned in safety, after having made
a pilgrimage to Mecca, J and it is unreasonable to suppose
this plant should be used, as a token of their escape from
death in this dangerous journey, and at the same time
laid upon the tombs of those that could not escape.
Myrtle, however, which has been frequently used oo
joyous occasions, is made use of by these Eastern people
to adorn the tombs of the dead, for Dr. Chandler tells us,
that in his travels in the Lesser Asia, he found some
• Let. 10, p. 91.
f In Vit. Aug. cap. 18. Corona aurea imposita nc Jioribns aspersi?
veneratus est. ^ Page 114.
92 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Turkish graves there, which had each a bough of myrtle
stuck at the head and the feet.^"^^
Rauwolff mentions the same circumstance, telling us,
that at Aleppo there grow many myrtles, which they
diligently propagate, because they are beautiful and re-
main long green, to put about their graves.f
OBSERVATION XXVIII.
WHITR WASHING SEPULCHRES IN USE IN THE EAST.
The general meaning of a comparison used by our
Lord is obvious, when he said. Wo unto yoii^ scribes
and PhariseeSf hypocrites I for ye are like unto whited
sepulchres, ivhich indeed appear beautiful outward, but
are within full of dead men^s bones, and of all U7iclean'
ness, Matt, xxiii. 27 | but it will appear with greater life,
if we suppose, that the sepulchres about Jerusalem were
just then white washed afresh, which I should suppose is
extremely probable, as the present Eastern sepulchres
are fresh done upon the approach of their Ramadan.
Such is the account of Niebuhr, in the first volume of
his Travels. J Speaking there of Zebid, a city of Ara-
bia, which had been the residence of a Mohammedan
prince, and the most commercial city of all the country
of that part of Arabia, but which had lost much of its an-
cient splendour in these respects, he adds, '* that how-
ever, Zebid makes yei, at a distance, the most beautiful
appearance of all the cities of the Tehama, or low country,
which is owing to their clergy, who have found means,
insensibly, to appropriate a very large pari of the reve-
nues of the city and adjoining country, to themselves
and the mosques. From thence have arisen a multitude
of mosques and kubbets, which at that time, when
* Page 200. f Page *5. t Page 261,
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 93
Ramadan was near approaching,"^ had been almost all
white washed. These kubbets are little buildings, built
over the tombs of rich Mohammedans, who pass for
saints. ''f
The Passover was at hand when our Lord made this
comparison, as is evident from the context, and therefore,
it is likelj they were just then whited afresh, when the
season for such rainy and bad weather as is wont to wash
oflf these decorations was just over, and the time was at
hand when Israel were about to assemble in Jerusalem at
their national solemnities, which were all held in the dry
part of the year, or nearly so : the rain being at least just
over at the time of the Passover, by the time of Pente-
cost it was gone in Judea, and the Feast of Tabernacles
was observed before the rain was wont to return.
But whatever was the time of white washing the Jew-
ish sepulchres anew, we may believe it was often done ;
since to this day, the people of those countries have not
discovered any way of so whitening these buildings as to
make it durable.
OBSERVATION XXIX.
'PROVISIONS PLACED NEAR TO, OR ON THE GRAVES OF
DEPARTED RELATIVES.
The custom of placing provisions on, or near the graves
of those for whom they mourned, is not only very an-
cient, but practised by nations remote from each other,
referred to in the Apocrypha, and, it maybe, adopted by
* Which 18 a kind of Mohammedaa Lent, followed by a festival, as Lent
with us is followed by Easter.
f These kabbets are, I apprehend, uot only built over the graves of
them that pass for saints, but over the graves of other people who are
wealthy, as, if 1 mistake not, Niebuhr himself observes in other places of
this volume.
VOL. III. 13
g4 OP HONORING THE DEAD.
the Jews, of the time between the closing of the writings
of the Old Testament, and the appearances of those of
the New.
One of the first observations that Olearins made, on the
customs of the ancient Russians, rehtes to (his pracHce.
He had the curiosity, he tell* ns,^ to 2;o on the 24th of
May, 1634, the day before Whit-Snndav, to that part
of Narva which was inhabited by Russians, <o observe
the anniversary ceremonies of hat time, and their be-
haviour with regard to their departed rflafions and
friends. " The whole burial place was full of Mos-
covite women, who had spread handkerchiefs upon the
graves, eoibroidered at the corners with silk of various
colours, upon which they had set dishes full of roast and
fried fish, custards, cakes, and painted eggs. Some were
standing, others kneeling, putting many questions to their
relations, pourin? out tears on their graves, and express-
ins: their affliction bv most lamentable cries: but with
so little steadiness, that they lost no opportunity of
speaking, and even laughing with such of their acquaint-
ance as passed by. The priest, followed by two of his
clerks, walked up and down the burial place, with
a censer in his hand, into which he put from time to time
little pieces of gum to cense the graves. The women
gave him an account of the relations and friends they want-
ed him to pray for, pullina; him by the «urplice, in order
to gain the advantage of beinsj first. The priest perform-
ed these devotions in a very perfunctory manner, and paid
so little attention to them, as hardly to deserve the piece
of copper money they save him, and by no means the
provisions, which the clerks took care to gather together
for their master's benefit."
It is well known that the ancient heathens practised
something of this kind, from whence it was early intro-
duced into the Christian church. St. Austin mentions
♦Pages 11, 12, 13.
OF HONORING THE DEAD. 95
it, as well as the feas'insj at the graves of the martyrs,
and seeuis to suppose ihese fhinss were practised roore in
Africa, than in any other place in the world he was ac- ^
qnainted with, which had received the Gospel. There,
it seems, the lower class of Christians thought these feasts
and drinking bouts were not only honorable to the mar-
tyrs, but of advantage to the common and ordinary dead
buried there. ^ He complains of these managements in
other places, with great warmth and life.f and endeavour-
ed to have them suppressed. J But I have not been for-
tunate enou2h to tind any place in Si. Austin, in which
be supposes ?his was an ancient custom of the Phoen-
icians, derived from them to the people of Africa, and re-
maining to his time, which the celebrated expositor Gro-
tius seems to insinuate, in his comment on Ecclus. xxx. 18. .
It was certainly a Pagan custom ; and it might, in par-
ticular, be practised by the Phoenicians, and carried from
them into Africa, with their language, which undoubtedly
was derived from thence. But this practice was of much
greater extent among the G'^ntiles, and was brought among
the Russians, it seems, from the Gieeks, derived by them
from their heathen fathers. That it was known in the
East, appears to be highly probable, if there were no
other evidence for it, than that passage of the book of
Ecclesiasticus just now cited, which evidently alludes to
it : Delicates poured upon a mouth shut up, by bad health
and continual sickness, of which he had been speaking,
are as messes of meat set upon a grave.\\
» August. Aurelio, Ep. 64, tome 2, p. 203, 204, Ed. Bas. 1528.
•j- De Moribus Eccl. Cathol. lib I. tome 1, p 538. Not! raultos esse se.
pulchrorum et picturarun» adoratores: novi multosesse, qui luxuriosissimfe
super raortuos bibant, et epulas cadaveribus exhibentes, super sepultos seip-
sos sepeliaut, et voracitates ebrietatesque suas deputent religioai.
i Ubi supra, tome 2, p. 204.
I) It is also plainly pointed at by the author of the book of Barueh, eh. vi.
Qr. They set gifts before (idols) them as unt<i dead men.
96 OF HONORING THE DEAD.
Accordingly Sir John Chardin, in his manuscript nole
on this passage of Ecclesiasticus, observes, that it was the
custom of all the Gentiles, and especially in China, to
place food in great quantities upon the tombs of their re-
lations; and that manj of the Oriental Christians do the
same thing.
But the great point I would inquire into here, is, wheth-
er the Jews, in the intermediate time, between the pro-
phesying of Malachi and the apostolic age, in which time,
I apprehend, it is commonly thought many of the apocry-
phal books were written, and this of Ecclesiasticus in par-
ticular, whether, I say, the Jews of that time, adopted
this custom of placing food on, or near the graves of their
dead, by way of alms, which they hoped might be benefi-
cial to the souls of those whose bodies were deposited
there.
These words of Ecclesiasticus certainly determine noth-
ing upon this point ; the son of Sirach might allude to it as
a well known custom among the Gentiles, as well as if it
had been practised at that time among those of his own na-
tion ; but it may not be improper to inquire, whether
traces of it may not appear elsewhere. What, it may be
asked, is the precise meaning of Tobit iv. IT ? Pour out
ihy bread on the burial of the just, but give nothing to
the wicked. Does this zealous old Jew direct his son, to
send provisions to those families only of his nation that
mourned the death of relations that were good people ; or
does he direct them to set food by way of alms, on, or by
the grave of a good man from time to time, for the benefit
of the departed soul ?
Our translators understood it in the first sense ; and it
is certain somelhing of that kind was practised among the
ancient Jews, as it is now among some of the Eastern peo-
ple; but it may be, at least, as well translated, Pour out
thy bread on the sepulchre of the just : and if this trans-
lation is allowed to take place, it would prove that the
Jews were supposed, by this writer, to show their respect
OF HONORING THE DEAD. gf.
to the dead at that time, in the way the Russians of the
last centurj did.
And to make this translation appear more probable, it
may be observed, in the first place, that the ratcpof, used
in the Greek, in which this book is written, will not be
found, I apprehend, to have been used of the tltne or act
of interment, any where in the Septuagint translation of
the Old Testament, or in any of the apocryphal books
written in that lan,£;iiage ; but of the place. Lexicograph-
ers indeed tell us, it is used in such a sense as our trans-
lators have put upon it here ; but it does not app*^ar to
have been used in such a sense by any of these Hellenistic
writers.
Secondly. The Jews of that time seem to have im-
agined, that the actions of the living mieht be made profit-
able to the dead: at least the author of the second book
of Maccabees appears to have thought so. For speak-
ing of some of the Jewish nation who were slain in battle,
under whose clothes were found things consecrated to the
idols of the Jamnites, which things were forbidden to the
Jews, by their law, he goes on and tells us, that when Ju-
das " had made a gathering throughout the company, to
the sum of 2000 drachms of silver, he sent it to Jerusa-
lem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well, and
honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection, for if
he had not hoped that they that were slain should have
risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for
the dead ; and also in that he perceived that there was
great favour, laid up for those that died godly. It was an
holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a recon-
ciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from
sin." 2 Mace. xii. 40.*
* This is the principal text on which the Papists found their doctrine of
purgatory. Should the reader say, this is taken from the Apocrypha, and
therefore of no authority : I say, true ; but the Papists receive all the books
of the Apocryphal as canonical Scripture. Edit.
98 OP HONORING THE DEAD.
If the imagined sin offerings might be beneficial to the
dead; tbej might as well believe, that the 2;iving of alms
might produce something of the same salutary effect.
Thirdly, We find, accordingly, that the Moham-
medans, as well as the Christians of the East, of whom Sir
John Chardin speaks in his manuscript nole on Ecchis,
XXX. 17, have adopted this practice: for in his printed
description of Persia, he says, "People of the middling
and lower ranks of ife be«in to visit a sepulchre eight or
ten days affer the interment, and the women in particular
never fail to do it. The burial places are always full of
them, especially at some holy seasons, more especially
in the evening or morning, having their children wilh them,
both great and small. Ttiere they sit themselves to la-
ment tbe dead, with cries and tears, beating their breasts,
tearing their faces and their hair, intermingled with long
recitals of their former conversations with the deceased;
and the constant burthen of these lamentations is, Rouh !
rouh I soul ! spirit ! whither art thou gone? wherefore
dost thou not continue to animate this body? And then,
Body I wherefore didst thou die? didst thou want gold
or silver, garments, pleasures, the tender caresses of those
near to thee? and such like impertinencies.^ Their fe-
male friends comfort them, and then carry them away
wilh them, leaving sometimes offerings of cakes, fruits,
sweetmeats, which are, they say, for the guardian angels
of the sepulchre, to render them favourable to the de-
ceased."f
Authors that speak of the Eastern people's visiting the
tombs of their relations, almost always attribute this to the
women ; but it seems by this passage, that the men visit
• The very same custom, and precisely tlie same expressions are used
among the native frish to the present day. Another proof to those in Mr.
Ledwich, that rhnstianity was introduced into Ireland not by Popish Mis-
sionaries, but by Missionaries from the East. See also the Caoinan insert,
ed p. 38. Edit.
^ t Tome 2, p. 387.
OF HONORING THE DFAD. 99
them too, thous^h nof so frequently as the other sex, who
are wont to be more susceptible of the lender emotions of
grief than the men, and at the same time think propriety-
requires it of them ; v^^hereas the men commonly think
such strong expres ions of sorrow would not become
them. Accordingly we find, that some male friends came
fro-n Jerusalem, to condole with Mary and Martha, on
account of the death of their brother Lazarus ; who, when
they supposed that her rising up, and ^oing out of the
house, was with a view to repair to his grave to vveep,/o/-
lowed her, saying, She goelh unlo the grave to weep there,
John XI. 31.
It is no wonder that they thought her rising up in haste
was to go to the grave, to weep there, for Chardin informs
us in the same page, that "the raourning there does not
consist in wearing black clothes, which they call an in-
fernal dress, but in great outcries, in sitting motionless,
in being slightly dressed in a brown or pale habit, in re-
fusing to take any nourishment for eight days running, as
if they were determined to live no longer," &c. Her
starting up then, with a sudden motion, who, ii was ex-
pected, would ha\e sat still, without stirring at all, and
her going out of the house, made them to conclude it must
be to go to the grave to weep there, thoueh, according io
the modern Persian ceremonial, it wanted five or six days
of the usual time for going to weep at the grave : the Jews,
possibly, might repair thither sooner than the Persians do ;
if not, they could not account for this sudden starting up
any other way.
But to return from this digression. If the Jews in
the East readily adopt other usages of Eastern mourn-
ing ; if they deck the graves of their dead with green
boughs, as has been taken notice of under a preceding Ob-
servation, it cannot be unnatural to suppose, they might
adopt the custom too of leaving bread, or other eatableS;
in their burial places, in the time of Tobit, though if may
now be seldom, if ever done : since, accoiding to Char-
IQO OF HONORING THE DEAD.
din, the modern Persians now practise if, however not
often, but rather sparingly.
The Christians too of that country seem to practise
something very much like it, if not altogether the same,
according to Dr. Russell, who tells us,f "They are car-
ried to the grave on an open bier ; and besides, they have
many appointed days, when the relations go to the sepul-
chre, and have mass said, and send victuals to the church
and poor, many of the women go every day for the first
year, and every great holiday afterward." This sending
victuals to the church, seems to come very near the
placing eatables upon the tombs of the dead ; if the ex-
pression is not designed directly to convey that thought
to the mind.
He does not say exactly the same thing of the Jews of
Aleppo, but he tells us concerning them, that *< they
have certain days wherein they go to the sepulchres ; and
the women, like those of other sects, often go there to
howl and cry over their dead relations."f How far the
conformity of those other sects is carried, we are not told,
but probably it is very considerable.
Lastly. Such an explanation seems io agree best with
the restriction in Tobit's instruction to his son : Pour out
thy bread on the burial, or tomb, of the just; but give
nothing to the wicked. For the widows and fatherless
children of the wicked might want io have food sent them
by their charitable neighbours, when overwhelmed with
affliction occasioned by the death of a wicked husband
or parent, as well as others ; but if this bread was con-
sidered as purging away sins, or recommending the de-
parted soul to God, he might very well forbid his son's
giving bread on that occasion, as it would be expressing
a hope concerning the dead, that was not to be entertained.
The best of men have their imperfections, and the giving
of alms on their behalf might be supposed to purge away
their guilt : but no alms, in his apprehension, would re-
• Vol. ii. p. 56. t lb. p. $7,
OP HONORING THE DEAD. 101
move the guilt of an heathen, or an apostate from the law
of Moses : to them no mercy, he might apprehend, could
be expected to be shown.
St. Austin somewhere makes use of a like distinction,
I think, in a case a good deal resembling what, I should
suppose, it is not improbable Tobit had in view. I do by
no means take upon me to justify the sentiment of this
celebrated African bishop ; 1 believe, on the contrary, it
is by no means evangelical : the texts he cites from the
writings of St. Paul, prove it to be wrong. For we nmst
all stand before the judgmerd-seat o/.Christ; that every
one may receive the thiuors done in the body, according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad, 2 Cor.
V. 10. Thht HE hath done, not what others may do after
his death, in order to benefit him. But as this was the
best explanation of certain superstitious practices that
obtained in his age, more especially among weaker, and
less informed Christians, it is by no means an unreasonable
supposition, that the same sentiment might arise in the
mind of him who wrote the book of Tobit ; arise from a
similar practice, which seems to have obtained among the
Jews of his time.
The pollution that was supposed to attend the touching
of the dead, and also of their graves, according to the
law of Moses,* may be thought to afford a strong objec-
tion to the supposing, they were wont to give such alms
at the toaibs of their friends, which I have been proposing
as what, probably, was the meaning of Tobit ; since this
custom has been readily adopted not only by Christians,
but Mohammedans too, who have the same apprehension
of the impurity contracted by a dead body and a grave as
the Jews had. So Chardin observes, in his description
of Persia,f that they never bury in the mosques, because,
though the dead bodies have been purified, they notwith-
standing look upon them as rendering every thing they
* Numb. xix. 16—18. f Tome 2, p. 368.
VOL. III. 14
102 OV HONORING tIiE DEAD.
touch impure, and the places in which they are deposited ;
yef, according to the next page, which I cited just now,
they sometimes leave offerings of cakes, of fruits, and of
sweetmeats, at the sepulchres of the dead.
The Jews then might do the same in the days of Tobit,
notwithstanding their notion that the touching a grave
renders persons and things impure ; it is certain it does
not prevent their women's going often thither, to howl
and cry over their dead relations.
CHAP. Vlll.
CONCERNING THE LITERATURE, BOOKS, &c, OF THE
EASTERN NATIONS.
OBSERVATION T.
CURIOUS METHODS OF LEARNING TO WRITE, USED IN
THE EAST.
There is a distiuclion made, in that passage of the
book of Job which I was considering under an Observa-
tion of the preceding chapter, relating to the writing of
words, and writing them in a book, that I never faw re-
marked, though it seems to me that a very clear account
of it may be given.
O that my words were now written ! O that they were
printed in a book ! That they were graven in
the rock for ever !^ There is a way of writing in the
East, which is designed to 6x words on the memory, but
the writing is not designed to continue. The children in
Barbary that are sent to school make no use of paper.
Dr. Shaw tells us,f but each boy writes on a smooth thin
board, slightly daubed over with whiting, which may be
wiped off, or renewed at pleasure ;J and it seems they
• Job xix. 23, 24. t Page 194.
i Dr. Pococke represents the Coptis, who are used by the great men of
Egypt for keeping their accounts, he. as making use of a sort of pasteboard
for that purpose, from -which the writing is wiped off from time to time
with a wet sponge, the pieces of pasteboard being used as slates. Vol. i.
p. 191. Peter della Valle observed a more inartificial way still of writing
short lived memorandums in India, where he beheld children writing their
lessons with their fingers on the ground, the pavement being for that pur-
104 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
learn to read, to write, and to get their lessons by heartj
all at the same time : O that my words then, says Job,
might not, like many of those of the miserable, be imme-
diately lost, in inattention or forgetfulness, but that fhey
were written in order to be fixed in the memory I Tliere
are few, Shaw says, that retain what tbey have learned in
their youth ; doubtless things were often wiped out of the
memory of the Arabs in the days of Job, as well as out
of their writing tables, as it now often happens in Barbary :
Job therefore goes on, and says, O that they were written
ill a book, from whence they should not be blotted out !
So in conforruity to this, Moses speaks of writing things
for a memorial in a book. But books were liable to inju-
ries ; therefore Jeremiah commanded ihat the book that
contained the purchase he made of some lands in Judea,
just before their captivity, should be put into an earthen
vessel, that it might continue many days, Jer. xxxii- 12,
14: and for this reason also Job wishes his words might
be even graven in a rock, the most lasting way of all,
and much more effectual to perpetuate them than a book.
Thus the distinction betwixt writing, and writing in a
hook becomes perfectly sensible, and the gradation ap-
pears in its beauty, which is lost in our translation, where
the word printed is introduced, which, besides its impro-
priety, conveys no idea of the meaning of Job, records
that are designed to last long not being distinguished from
less durable papers by being printed.
pose strewed all over with very fine sand When the pavement was full,
they put the writings out : and, if neeil were, strewed new sand, from a
little heap they had before them wherewith to write farther, p. 40 One
•would be tempted to think the Prophet Jeremiah had this way of writing
in view, when he says of them that depart from God. they shall be -writ'
ten in the earth, ch. xvU- 13. Certainly it means in general, soon be blot-
ted out and forgotten^ as is apparent from Psalm Ixix. 28, Ezek. xiii 9.
H A R M E R .
Dr Bell's plan of teaching a number of pupils to read at the same time,
was taken from what he saw practised in the East ; and this is the plan
vhich Mr Lancaster has since greatly improved and extended. The
plan of writing on sand is still io use in the East. Edit.
CONCERNIISG THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 105
OBSERVATION II.
OF THE FORM AND MATERIALS OF THEIR BOOKS.
As to the form of tbeir books, and the materials of
which thfij are composed, I have nothing considerable to
offer. Sorue thing,s however, relating to the last of (hese,
should be taken notice of.
That theif books were rolled up, instead of opening in
the manner ours do,^ in the litwe of our Lord, appears
from some remains of anliquily ; that they were of the
same form much more anciently, we learn from Jer,
xxxvi, 2, Psalm xl. T, &C. this circumstance has been
often remarked, and for that reason I pass it oTer with
barely mentioning it.f
The materials of which their books were composed, is
that which is rather to be considered, and is what this
Observation is designed a little to inquire into. The an-
cient Egyptian books were made of the papyrus, a sort
of bulrush of that country, according to Dean Prideaux,J
which rose up to a considerable height, and whose stalk
was covered with several films, or inner skins, on which
* Sir J. Chardin, in a MS. note on Isai. viii 1, tells us, •* the Eastern peo-
ple roll their papers, and do not fold them, because their paper is apt to
fret." This observation may account for that inconvenient way, so long
retained, of rolling up their writings. The Egyptian papyrus was much
made use of; the brittle nature of it made it proper to roll up what they
wrote ; and it having been customary to roll up their books, J;c many
continued the practice when they used other materials, which might veiy
safely have been treated in a different manner.
■\ Many of the fine MSS. which have been discovered in the ruins of
Herculaneum are in rolls ; so are also those which have been taken
out of the ancient Egyptian Mummies ; but at pi-esent, books are sel-
dom made to roll up in the East. Many indeed of the very fine Per-
sian and Arabic MSS. are written upon a kind of thin pasteboard like pa-
per ; and being jointed at the back and front, fold up like pattern cards.
Edit.
i Connection of the History of the Old aad New Testament, part i.
book 7.
106 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
(he/ wrote. Maillet gives a different account of the pa-
pyrus.* But be (bis as it will, we are (old (he use of (he
papyrus for (hese purposes was not found out, (ill (he
building of Alexandria ;f (he rolls (hen that are mendoned
in (he Prophe( were not formed of this plant : for Alex-
ander (he Great, (he founder of (ha( city, lived after the
prophetic times. The art of engraving on stones and
metals was very ancient, as old at least as (he days of
Moses, as appears from Exod. xxviii, 11, 36 ; but these
ancient books were not formed of (able(s of s(one, or plate*
of metal, since they were rolled up ; besides which, we
find that the book which Baruch wrote, from the lips of
Jeremiah, was cut in pieces by king Jehoiakim, with a
penknife, and those pieces thrown into the fire which was
burning on the hearth before him, Jer. xxxvi. 23, which
liableness to being cut, and consumed in the fire, deter-
mines that they were neither of stone nor of metal.
Parchment, Dr. Prideaux shows in the same place in
which he speaks of the papyrus, was a later invention
than the Egyptian paper, and therefore one would imag-
ine could not have been the material of which the old
Jewish books were formed, which yet the Dean supposes,
imagining (hat if Eumenes of Pergamus was (he first
among (he Greeks (hat used parchmen(, he could not
however have been (he inven(or of it, since (he Jews long
before had rolls of writing, and who, says be, can doub(,
but that these rolls were of parchment ? He go6s on,
" and it must be acknowledged, (ha( (he au(hentic copy
of the law, %rhich Hilkiah found in the Temple, and sent
to king Josiah, was of this material, none other used for
writing, excepting parchment only, being of so durable a
nature as to last from Moses' time till then, which was
eight hundred and thirty years." But is this reasoning
demonstrative ? The very old Egyptians used to write
on linen, things which \hey designed should last long ;
and those characters continue to this day, as we are as-
* Lett. 0, p. 19. t See Prid. Conn, in the before cited place.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. iQ-jf
sured by those that have examined mummies with atten-
tion. So Maillet tells us, that the fillelting, or rather the
bandage, for it was of a considerable breadth, of a mum-
mj which was presented to hira, and which he opened in
the house of the Capuchin Monks in Cairo, was not only
charged from one end to the other with hieroglyphical
figures, but they also found certain unknown characters,
written from the right hand toward the left, and forming
a kind of verses. These he supposed contained the eu-
logium of the person whose this body was, written in the
language which was used in Egypt in the time in which he
lived. That some part of this writing was afterward
copied by an engraver in France, and these papers sent
to the Virtuosi through Europe, that if possible ihey
might decypher them ; but in vain*-* Might not a copy
of the Law of Moses, written after this manner, have last-
ed eight hundred and thirty years? Is it unnatural to im-
agine that Moses, w^ho was learned in all the arts of Egypt,
wrote after this manner on linen? And does not this sup-
*position perfectly well agree with the accounts we have
of the form of their books, their being rolls ;f and of their
being easily cut in pieces with a knife, and liable to be
burnt? The old Jewish books might indeed be written on
other materials; but these considerations are sufficient to
engage us to think, that their being written on parchment,
is not so indubitable as the Dean supposes.
The most considerable arguments that Prideaux makes
use of, are quotations from Diodorus Siculus and Herod-
otus, which give an account of the writing on skins by
the old Persians and Ionian?, long before the time of Eu-
menes; yet as to this, it is surprising that he should so
* Lett. 7, p. 278. There is a piece of writing of this kind now in the
British Museum, which was taken out of an Egjpiian mummy, and a sim-
ilar book was found in a mummy by Mr. Denon, an engraved foe sirniie
of which may be found in his Travels. Edit.
f The linen was first primed, or painted all over, before they begsku to
write, and consequently would have been liable to crack if folded.
108 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
confidently suppose those skins must of course he dress-
ed like parchment : it is visible that these skins must have
been prepared in a much more clumsy way, and have
been very unlike parchment, of which we are assured Eu-
menes was the inventor, and which, if found out before,
would have made the want of the Egyptian paper no in-
convenience to that prince. Such skins might do for
records, and some occasional writings, but would have
been by no means proper for books. Is it not then, upon
the whole, most natural to suppose the ancient Jews
wrote on linen as the Egyptians did ?^ If so, ink, paini, or
something of that kind must have been made use of, of
which, accordingly, we read Jeremiah xxxvi. ]8, But
their pens must have been very different from ours : ac-
cordingly the word 122^ shebet, which is used Judges v.
15, for a pen, they that handle the pen of the writer, sig-
nifies a sceptre, rod, or branch of a tree, and consequent-
ly may be thought to have much more nearly resembled
* Among other objections Monsieur Voltaire has made to the Antiquitj' of
the Pentateuch, in his Raison par Alphabet, seconde partie, Art. Moyse,
of which some are amazingly absurd, one is, that these five volumes must
have been engraven on polished stones, which would have required pro-
digious efforts and length of time ; too great, the insinuation is, to be cred-
ible- •• Les Egyptiens ne se servaient pas encore du papiros ; on gravait
des hJeroglyphes sur le marbre ou sur le hois. II est meme dit que les
tables des commandemens furent gravies, sur la pierre, 11 aurait done
fallu graver cinq volumes sur des pierres polies, ce qui demandait des ef-
forts et un tems prodigieux " But were there no other substances that
could be made use of but wood or stone, before the papyrus was brought
into use ? Could not linen ? Do not the mummies incontestibly prove it
actually was made use of before Alexandria was built, consequently before
the papyrus was wont to be written on ? What inattention, or what fraud,
■which you please, must this writer have been guilty of, when he supposes
the Pentateuch must have been engraven on wood or stone, if older than
the use of the papyrus ! How vain the consequence, that because the ten
commands were engraven on stone, therefore the whole Pentateuch must !
These things would have been very surprising in another Avriter ; but the
perversely witty Mons Voltaire has so habituated us to the expectation of
meeting in him with the most groundless assertions, urged with confidence
and grimace, that we are surprised at nothing which we meet with in his
^•ritings.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. |09
the modern pens of Persia, which are canes or reeds, "^
their paper not bearing such pens as ours, than the quills
we make use of. The other Hebrew wordf we translate
periy seems precisely to signify a thing with which they
lay on colours, and consequently is equally applicable to
a quill, a pencil, or a reed ; it is the using the other word
in poetry, which explains the nature of their pens, of
which we might otherwise have been ignorant, the proper
word for them not at all determining their nature.
OBSERVATION III.
METHOD OF PRESERVING THEIR WRITINGS.
Whatever materials the ancient Jews wrote upon they
weie liable to be easily destroyed by the dampness when
hidden in the earth. It was therefore thought requisite
to enclose them in something that might keep them from
the damp, lest they should decay and be rendered
useless. J
In those days of roughness, when war knew not the
softenings of later times, men were wont to bury in the
earth every part of their property that could be conceal-
ed after that manner, not only silver and gold, but wheat,
* Olearius, p. 857. See also RauwolfF, in Ray's Collection of Travels,
p. 87.
f There are two other words, which in our translation are rendered pen-,
O'^n cherett and ^^ et^ both of which seem to signify a style or graver
to cut letters on wood, metal, or stone. Edit.
+ So we find our parchments are very apt to decay that are kept in moist
places, as well as our modern paper. Our pictures also prove that moist-
ure is very injurious to painted cloth, and must be more so where oil is
not used. Writing on silk was not then known, which some later Eastern
writers have supposed should be made use of, in committing things to
writing that were highly valued, according to d'Herbelot, in the article
Macamat
VOL, III. 15
1 10 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
barlej, oil, and honey ;^ veslmenfsf and writinss too. J
For that I apprehend was the occasion of Jeremiah's or-
dering;, that the writings he delivered to Baruch, mention-
ed in his thirty second chapter, should be put into an
earth*^n vessel.
The experience of preceding ages must have informed
him, that lying in the earth, naked and unenclosed, would
soon bring on decay; if not, he had had himself a proof
of it. Take the girdle that thou hnstgot, said the Lord to
him, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates^
and hide it there in a hole of the rock. So I went, and
hid it by Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. And
it came to pass after many days, that the Lord said unto
me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and lake thy girdle from
thence, which I commanded thee to hide there. Then I
went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from
the place where I had hid it : and behold the girdle was
marred ; it was profitable for nothing.\\
To obviate this, and preserve what was buried more
effectually, the ancient Egyptians made use of earthen
urns, or pots of a proper shape for receiving what they
wanted to inter in the earth, and which without such care
would have soon been destroyed. Maillet, describing the
place in which those people used to bury their embalmed
birds, represents it as "a subterraneous labyrinth, froa2
which persons could not disengage themselves, were it
not for the help of a line of packthread. Its several alleys
are adorned on each side, with many small niches, in
which are found stone vessels and pots of earth, in which
are enclosed embalmed birds, which turn to dust as soon
as touched. What is admirable in this affair is, that all
the variety and liveliness of the colouring of their plu-
mage is preserved.''^
* Jer. xli. 8. f Josh. vii. 21. + Jer. xxxii. 14. || Jer. xiii. 4 — 7.
§ Let. 7, p 2^6. I seriously doubt this ; of different Egyptian embalmed
birds which I have seen, scat cely any thing remained but the bones. Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. ] ] 1
Iflhej buried in earthen pots the things they wanted
to preserve in Egypt, whose subterraneous caverns are
80 dry, and covered with several feet of burning sand ;
the Prophet Jeremiah might well suppose ii proper to
enclose those writings in an earthen pot, which were to
be buried in Judea, in some place where they niighi be
found without much difBculty on their return from cap-
tivily.
Two different writings, or small rolls of writing, called
books in the original Hebrew, their books being only each
of them a roll of writing, and these consequently being
properly little books, according to their notions of things,
were evidently to be enclosed in this earthen vesselj and
commentators have been sadly embarrassed to give any
probable account why there were two writings : one sealed;
the other open; according as it is commonly understood,
the one sealed up ; the other left open for any one to
read. One cannot imagine any cause why there should
be this distinction made between them, when both were
presently to be hid from every eye, by being buried in
some secret place ; and both were to be examined at the
return from the captivity. No account indeed that is
tolerably probable has been given, that I know of, why
there should be two distinct writings for this sale of land ;
but still less, why one should be sealed up, and the other
left open.
I would then remark, that though one of them is said
to be sealed, it does not follow that it was sealed in such
a manner as not to be opened. IVIany a conveyance of
land has been sealed among us, and rendered valid to all
intents and purposes, without ever being secured so as
not to be read. The distinction of one from the other by
the circumstance of its being sealed, while the second
was open, seems to have been the cause of its being un-
derstood to have been sealed up, so as not to be opened ;
to which probably may be added, their recollecting the
circumstance of a book being sealed, which on that ac^
k
112 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &o.
count could not be read, mentioned bj Isaiah, xxix. 11.
But though a letter, which in their style might be called
a book, might often be so sealed, it does not at all follow,
nor is it at all probable, that the book of the purchase of an
estate upon its being sealed so as to become valid, was
sealed so as to be shut up that none could read it. Let
us drop then the idea from its being hidden from the eye,
and only sealed so as to be valid : probably not with wax ;
but according to the present Eastern manner, with ink.
Next it is to be observed, that the word translated
opeiif the evidence or book which was open, is not that
which is twice made use of, Nehemiah viii. 5. And JEzra
opened (nnS'i vayiphtach) the book in the sight of all
the people (for he was above all the people,) and when he
opened it, all the people stood up ;^ but is a word which
signifies the revealing future events unto the minds of men,
by a divine agency ;t and it is, in particular, made use of
in the book of Esther, to express a book's making known
. the decree of an earthly king, chap, viii, 13^ " The
copy of the writing, for a commandment to be given in
every province, Was published {')bi galuee,) unto all peo-
ple," or revealed, as it is translated in the margin. They
that look on the original, will find it is the same Hebrew
yevhrhi galah, with that used in this 32d of Jeremiah,
and the very same participle of that verb. The open
book then of Jeremiah seems to signify, not its being then
lying open or unrolled before them, while the other
was sealed up ; but the book that had revealed the will
of God, to bring back Israel into their own country, and
to cause buying and selling of houses and lands again to
take place among them.
It appears, from the beginning of the 30th chapter, that
Jeremiah had been commanded to write down the decla-
• Nor that used Neh. vi. 5, where mention is made of an open letter ;
nor that in Dan. vii. 10, which speaks of sitting in judgment, and opening
books.
t 1 Sam. iii. 7—21. Dan. ii. 19—80. ch. x. I. -
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 513
ration God had made to him by the prophetic Spirit,
concerning the bringing back the captivity of Israel and
Judah, and their repossessing the land given to their
fathers:^ now that writing, or the copy of some other
similar prophecy, he produced upon this transaction,
and commanded Baruch to enclose them both in the
same earthen vessel, which might be exhibited afterward
as a proof of the veracity of their Prophets. I apprehend
then the open book means a book of prophecy, opening
and revealing the future return of Israel, and should some-
how have been so expressed as to convey that thought to
the reader's mind, not as a little volume not sealed up, in
contradistinction from the state of the other little book
ordered to be buried along with it, which was the pur-
chase deed.
The commentators I have seen do not give any such
account. Calvin comes the nearest to it ; but he only
tells us, that he could not but believe, that a prediction
of Israel's possessing again houses and fields, and vine-
yards, must have been written in these two little books.
But he supposed, according to the common notion, one
was sealed up, and the other left open ; and appears not
to have apprehended, that the prediction was contained
in one volume, and the deed of purchase properly sealed
in the other, much less that this was meant by the using
these two different words. At least nothing of this sort
appears in the account Pool has given of his sentiments,
in the Synopsis.
OBSERVATION IV.
OF INSCRIPTIONS, SEALS, &C. OF LETTERS.
I HAVE elsewhere observed, that the Oiiental books
and letters, which are wont both of them to be rolled up,
• See verse 2.
114 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
are iisuallj wrapped in a covering: of an elegant kind : I
would here add, (hat they have sometimes words on these
coverings, which give a general notion of what is contain-
ed in them ; which management obtained in much elder
times, and might possibly be in use when some of the
Psalms were written.
Sir John Chardin, describing the manner of disnii«^sing
the ambassadors and envoys that were at the court of the
Persian monarch, when he was there, after mentioning
the presents that were made them, goes on to inform us,
"That the letters to the crowned heads were sealed ; that,
for the cardinal patron was open :^ that for the pope was
formed so as to be larger than the rest ; it was enclosed in
a bag of very rich brocade, and sealed at the ends, which
had fringes hanging down the bag halfway. The seal was
applied to the place where the knot was on both sides,
upon red wax, of the diameter of a piece of fifteen sols,
and very thick. Upon the middle of one of the sides of
the bag were written these two Persian words, Hamel
Faselj which signify, excellent or precious writing, "j-
After which he goes on to explain the reasons that occa-
sion the Persian prince to treat the popes with such dis-
tinguished honor, which it would be of no use to consider
here. The remark I would make relates to the inscription,
on the outside of the rich bag enclosing these despatches,
and which, in few words, expressed ihe general nature of
what was contained in the roll within : it was a royal
writing.
This practice of writing on the outside of the case of a
letter, or book rolled up, seems to be at least as ancient as
the time of Chrysostom, according to a note of Lanibert
Boson the 39th Psalm, J as it is reckoned in the Septuagint,
verse 7. Chrysostom, we are told there, remarks, that
they call a wrappei|| theKi(pa,Kig, which is the word the
* The ambassador was a Dominican Monk. f Voy. tome 3, p. 246.
4; Which is No. 40, ia our version. || E/A»yu<t.
CONCKKNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 115
Septiiagint translators make use of to express the Hebrew
word n^JD megillath, which we translate volume : In the
volume of the book it is written of me. Chrysostora
seems to suppose there was written in or on the sacred
volume, a word or words which signified the coming of the
Messiah, But Chrysostom would hardly have thought
of such an interpretation, had it not been frequently done
at Constantinople in his time, or by the more Eastern
princes that had business to transact with the Greek empe-
rors ; or been known to have been before those times
practised among the Jews.
Chrysostom lived in the end of the fourth century.*
Aquila, who is believed to have lived above a hundred
years earlier, and is allowed to be a most close translator
of the Hebrew,-)- uses, according to Bos, the same word
g/Ajj^w^, or wrapper, to express the above Hebrew word,
which we translate volume. He therefore supposed that
what was written, to which this passage refers, was writ-
ten on the covering or wrapper of the sacred books.
Though not a native Jew, yet be became a proselyte to
the Jewish religion, and was well versed in their affairs.
This explanation, if it may be admitted that it is not
improbable, that the Jews even of the time of David, used
such short inscriptions on the outside of their books, ex-
pressive of the general nature of the contents of them, af-
fords a much more agreeable way of rendering the word
than our English term volume. In the volnme of the book
it is written of me, since every ancient Hebrew book was
a volume or roll ; consequently it is nothing more than
saying, In the book it is written of me. To what pur-
pose then is the circumstance of its being rolled up men-
tioned ? But if it may be understood of the cast in which
their books were wrapped up, the thought is not only-
clear and distinct, but very energetic, amounting to this,
that the sum and substance of the sacred book is, that the
* Vide Cav. Hist. Lit. f Carpzovii, Crit. Sacra, p. 557.
116 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
Messiah cometh, and that those words accordingly might
be wrote or embroidered, with great propriety, on the.
wrapper or case in which they were kept.
Maran-alha, the Lord cometh, is a Syriac expression,
which St. Paul makes use of when writing a Greek letter,^^
and should seem, therefore, to be some form of speech
frequently made use of among the people of those times,
and much noted among them ; perhaps then, these were
the very words the Jews in ancient times frequently had
inscribed on the covering of their sacred books.
A Greek Scholiast, according to Lambert Bos, has
remarked that the Jews kept up their old custom till his
time, of keeping their sacred books under such coverings.
This may be seen in the Jewish synagogues of our times ; "*
but I never observed any words wrought in embrbitl^ry
on these silken coverings, and suppose they are not now
to be found, at least in our country.
Another translation, if I understand Bos aright, renders
the word gv Tojwaj, which seems to suppose, that in his
apprehension this motto was inscribed on the cylinder, on
which books of this form are wont to be rolled. In such
a case it is to be presumed, that it was written on that
part of the cylinder, which reached beyond the parch-
ment, linen, or whatever material was used, and which
was convenient enough for exhibiting, in brief, what the
purport of the volume was. Thus I have sometimes been
ready to think, that the circle of gold, with the name of
one of our Saxon princes upon it, and ornamented after
the manner of those times, might be designed to cap the
end of the cylinder, or of one of the cylinders, on which
some book belonging to that monarch, or relating to him,
was rolled, of which ancient piece of gold an engraving
is given in the latter end of the seventh volume of the Ar-
chaeologia, or Transactions of the Antiquarian Society.
• 1 Cor. xvi. 22. It should rather be translated, our Lord cometli^
rhi«h is the literal meaning of these Syriac words. Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. ijf
This sort of capping to those cylinders was wont, I think,
to be called the AesteL^
There is only one remark more that I would make be-
fore I close Ihis article, and that is, the expression, vol-
ume of a booh, is made use of in two or three places, it
may be, where it cannot well signify (he wrapper of a
book, but the book itself^ and therefore is not to be con-
sidered as a tautology in other places, where I have sup-
posed it is requisite to understand it of a case, or wrapper
of a book; such, for instance, is that passage of Jeremiah,
Take thee a roily or volume, of a book, and write therein
all the words I have spoken unto thee against Israel, &c.
chap, xxxvi. 2. Now I here would remark that many
things were rolled up, much in the shape of an ancient
Jewish manuscript, which yet were not fit to write upon ;
the words then in this, and some other similar cases may
be understood to mean, Take thee a roll, or volume, fit to
be made a book of, fit to be written on, where it would be
no tautology ; whereas in such a case as in the 40th Psalm
it se*ems very much to resemble one, unless we understand
it of the wrapper,
OBSERVATION V.
CURIOUS TITLES OF THEIR BOOKS.
Many nice observations have been made on the titles
of the Psalms, but attended with the greatest uncertainty.
• See Dr. Milles's Observation on the Aestel. Archseol. vol. 2, No. 10.
The custom of writing some expressive word or sentence upon the out-
side of books is very frequent in the East. The following words are fre-
quently to be met with embossed on the covers of MS. copies of the Koran ;
None shall touch it but those who are purified ;
It is a Revelation from the Lord of the Universe.
See Al Kormiy Surat 5G, v. 80, 81. I have seen several sentences emboss-
ed on the covers of Arabic MSS. and particularly on the Jiap that covers
the fore edge. Edit.
VOL. III. 16
118 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &€.
Later Eastern customs, respecting the titles of books and
poems, raaj perhaps give a little more certainty to these
matters ; but great precision must not be expected.
D'Herbelot tells us, that a Persian metaphysical and
mystic poem was called the Rose bush. A collection of
moral essays, \he Gardrn of Anemonies. Another East-
ern book, the Lion of the Forest* That Scherfeddin al
Baussiri called a poem of his, written in praise of his Ara-
bian prophet, who, he affirmed, had cured him of a para-
lytic disorder in his sleep ; the Habit of a Derveesh ;*
and because he is celebrated there for having; given sight
to a blind person, this poem is also intituled by its author,
the Bright Star.f
The ancient Jewish taste may reasonably be supposed
to have been of the same kind. Agreeable to which is
the explanation some learned men have given, of David's
commanding the bow to be taught the children of Israel,
2 Samuel i. 18, which thej apprehended did not relate to
the use of that weapon in war, but to the hymn which he
composed on occasion of the death of Saul and Jonathan,
and from which he intituled this elegy, as they think,
the Bow.
The twentysecond Psalm might in like manner be call-
ed the Hind of the Morning ; the fiftysixth, the Dove
dumb in distant places; the sixtieth, the Lily of the
Testimony ; the eightieth, the Lilies of the Testimony ;
in the plural, and the fortyfifth, simply the Lilies.
It is sufficiently evident, I should think, that these
terms do not denote certain musical instruments. For if
they did, why do the more common names of the timbrel,
the harp, the psaltery, and the trumpet, with which
* Tlie BoRDAU, a famous poem by Al Baseeree, every couplet of which
ends with the letter ^ meem, the first letter in the word Mohammed.
f Other titles are as odd : as Gulistan, the region of roses. Jioostan
the garden. Derj el Durrar, the casket of pearls. Jijaeeb al Makhhok'
hai, the wonders of creation. Bahar Danish^ the spriog of knowledge.
J^igar Stan, the gallery of pieturesj b:e; Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &©. HQ
Psalms were sung, Ps.lxxxi. 2, 3, never appear^ in those
titles?
Do they signify certain tunes? It ought not however
to be imaSjined that these tunes are so called from their
bearing Jsome resemblance to the noises made by the
things meiuioned in the titles, for lilies are silent, if this
supposition should otherwise have been allowed with re-
spect to the Hmd of the Morning. Nor does the fifty
sixth Psaloi speak of the mourning of the Dove, but of
its dumbness.
It they signify tunes at all, they must signify, the tunes
to which such sons;* or hymns were sung, as were distin-
guished by these names : and so the inquiry will termin-
ate in this point, whether the Psalms to which these titles
are affixed, were called by these names ; or whethev they
were some other Psalms or Songs to the tune of which
these were to be sung.
And as we do not find the bow referred ty, nor the same
name twice made use of, so far as our lights reach, it
seems most probable that these are the names of those
very Psalms to which they are prefirxed.
The fortysecond Psalm, it may be thought, might very
well have been intituled the Hind of the Morningf be-
cause, as that panted after the water brooks, so panted
the soul of the Psalmist after God ; but the twentysecond
Psalm, it is certain, might equally well be distinguished
by this title, Dogs have compassed me, the assembly^ of
the wicked have enclosed me : and as the Psalmist in the
fortysecond Psalm rather chose to compare himself to
an hart than an hind^ the twentysecond Psalm much bet-
ter answers this title, in which he speaks of his hunted soul
in the feminine gender. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling, which in the original is feminine, from the
power of the dog.
* The hunlJBgs of the Eastern people, according to Dr. Shaw, are man-
aged b> assembling great numbers of people, and enclosiog the creature^
they hunt, p. 235.
120 CONCEIIXING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
Everj one Ihat reflects on the circumstances of David,
at the time to which the fiftjsixth Psalm refers, and con-
siders the Oriental taste, will not wonder to see that
Psalm intituled the Dove dumb in distant places : nor
are Lilies more improper to be made the title of other
Psalms, with proper distinctions, than a Garden of An-
emonies to be the name of a collection of moral discourses.
OBSERVATION VI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
The works of seven of the most excellent Arab poets^^
5who flourished before the times of Mohammedanism, were
called, d'Herbelot observes, Al Moallacat, because they
were successively fixed, by way of honor, to the gate of the
temple of Mecca; and also Al Modhahebatf which sig-
nifies gilded, or golden, because they were written in let-
ters of gold upon Egyptian paper :^ and d'Herbelot in a
succeeding page tells us,f that the Arabs, when they
would praise any one's poems, were wont to say, these
are the golden verses of such or such an one, which he
seems to suppose was derived from the writing of these
poems in letters of gold. J
Might not the sixtieth Psalm, and the five others that
are distinguished by the same epithet, be caWed golden,
on account of their having been, on some occasion or oth-
er, wrote in letters of gold, and hung up in the Sanctuary,
or elsewhere? Not, it may be, on account of their being
judged to have a superior excellence to the other hymns
of this collection, absolutely speaking, but their being
• Page 586. f P^S^ 593.
i A fine prose translation of these seven poejns may be seen in Sir Wm.
Jone&'s Works, vol. iv. p. 245, at the conclusion of which is the original
Arabic. Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, he. i2\
suited to some particular circumstances, which might oc-
casion their being treated with this distinction.
Hezekiah, we know, went up to the house of the Lord,
and spread the letter of Sennacherib before him there,
Is. xxsvii. 14 ; hung it wp, it may be, before the Lord.
What Hezekiah did with a paper of threatening, other
princes might do with these Psalms of encouragement and
hope.
Some have imagined they were called golden Psalms,
merely on account of their distinguished excellence.
That distinguished excellence however does not appear :
and what is more, the ancient Jews, it is certain, had a
different way of marking this out. The Song of Songs,
which is Solomon's,^ not the golden Song of Solomon.
Ainsworth supposes the word anDrs michtam signifies
a golden jewel.f That the affixing such a title to a Psalm,
would have been agreeable enough to the Eastern taste
anciently, we may believe from what appears in these
modern times. D'Herbelot has actually mentioned a
book, entituled Bracelets of Gold, containing an account
of all that history had mentioned relating to a month sa-
cred among the Arabs. J I cannot, however, easily admit
that this is the true meaning of the word michtam, because
there are several psalms which have this word prefixed
to them ; whereas, if it signified a jewel of gold, it would
have been intended, if we may judge by modern titles
of Eastern books, to have distinguished one psalm from
all the rest. To which may be added, that some of these
psalms have another name given them : the fiftysixth
being called the Dove dumb in distant places, and the
sixtieth the Lily of the Testimony.
I will only farther add, that this writing in letters of
gold still continues in the East. " The greatest part of
these books,'' says Maillet, speaking of the royal Mo-
hammedan library in Egypt, which was so famous, and
was afterward destroyed by Saladine, ** were written in
^ Cant. I, 1. t In his Annot. on the sixteenth Fsalm. ^ Page 714).
122 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &♦.
letters of gold, such as the Turks and Arabs, even of our
time, make use of in the titles of their books. ''^ And a
little after,f speaking of the ignorance of the modern
Egyptians as to the burnishing of gold, so that their gild-
ing has nothing of the ancient splendor, he addsj ** It is
true, to make up this defect, they have preserved the art
of making gold liquid, and fit for ink. I have seen sonje
of their books written with this gold, which were ex-
tremely beautiful."!
OBSERVATION VII.
EASTERIf MSS, HIGHLY ORNAMENTED.
St. John evidently supposes paintings, or drawings,
in that volume which he saw in the visions of God, and
"which was sealed with seven seals; the first figure being
that of a man on a white horse, with a bow in his hand,
&.c.[| We expect copperplates in our printed books, but
it may be, never thought of drawings in a manuscript.
The Eastern manuscripts however, are not without
these ornaments. So Olearius, describing the library be-
longing to the famous sepulchre of Sheekh Sefi, says,
that the manuscripts are all extremely well written, beau-
tifully bound, and those of history illustrated with many
representations in miniature. $
The more ancient books of the East are also found to
be beautified after this manner : for Dr. Pococke speaks
• Lett. 13, p. 189. t Page 192.
:f A copy of the Koran now lying before me, besides the most splendid
illuminations at the beginning and end, and on each leaf, has tXw^Jirtt,
middle., and last line in every page written in letters of gold. Many others
have their titles and the titles of chapters written in golden letters ; and
some in blue^ ret/, and letters q/^^g-o/rf alternately. Add to this, that most
of the finer MSS. have the whole surface of the x^'ji^^v powdered -with gold,
and each page enclosed in a splendid border of gold, blue and red, in the
finest style of what is called Arabetque. Edit.
11 Rev. vi. § Page 638.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 123
in hh travels of two manuscripts of the Pentateuch, one
in the monaslery of Patmos, and the other belonging to
the Bishop of Soijrna, adorned with several paintings,
well executed for the time, one of which is supposed to
be above nine hundred years old. Such a book, it seems,
was that St. John saw in a vision.*
OBSERVATION VIII.
STRONG FIGURES AND METAPHQRS USED BY THE
EASTERN WRITERS.
If they adorn their books sometimes wilh material
paintings, those of the intellectual kind are however
much more frequent. They continue still, as they were
anciently, very bold, but with a coarseness, oftentimes,
not very pleasing to our taste.
The curious have in general, long ago remarked this ;
but as I have met with some instances of this kind, which
may serve to illustrate some passages of scripture more
perfectly than I have seen them, and as 1 have also ob-
served some other passages of the modern Asiatic poets,
which may throw a light over some of those of the sacred,
I will here annex, to the preceding observations, a short
specimen of those illustrations of holy writ, which a
careful perusal of the Turkish, Persian, and Arabian poets
would soon enlarge. Parallel images are often introduced
into our commentaries on scripture from the writers of
Greece and Rome ; extracts from those of Asia would be
more curious, and as being more perfectly in the old
Jewish taste, would be more instructive.
• Persian MSS. are frequently adorned with very elegant paintings of
roen, women, birds, beasts, fishes, armor, musical instruments, &c. in il-
lustration of the different subjects they contain* This is particularly the
«ase ID books which contain an account of military achievements, and nat-
ural history. Fine copies of the Hhah J^ameh, Jjaeeb al Makhiookhafi
ic«. are thus ornameated. Edit.
124 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
As to (hose coarse images I was speaking of, and which
this Observation particularly refers to, Hustjai's compar-
ing David and his men to a bear robbed of her whelps, 2
Sam. xvii. 8, appears to us very odd ; but it shocks our
delicacy much more, when we find it applied to the
majesty of Heaven, Lam. iii. 10.
This is however, entirely owing to the difference of the
taste of the Europeans, from that of the people of the Le-
vant. We in I^ngland, when we compare a person to a
bear, always have something of a disagreeable fierceness^
and awkward roughness, in view ; therefore these paint-
ings give us pain. But though we do, the Eastern na-
tions do not blend these ideas with those of strength and
terribleness in displeasure ; that therefore which appears
an indecent comparison to us, was none to them, and this
image accordingly still continues in use among those peo-
ple. " Saladine," says Maillet,"^ *^ going one day from
Cairo up to the castle he had built there, and causing his
brother Sirocoe, who had accompanied him, to take a
view of its works and buildings :" 'This castle,' "said
be to him," ' aud all Egypt, will be one day in the pos-
session of your children.' ** Sirocoe replying that it
was wrong to talk after that manner, since heaven had
given him children to succeed to the crown ; Saladine re-
joined, " My children are born in Egypt, where men
degenerate, and lose their spirit and bravery ; but yours
are born in the mountains of Circassia, of a man that pos-
sesses the fierceness of bears, and their courage.' " The
event justified the prediction, the posterity of Saladine
reigning but a few years in Egypt after the death of that
great prince."
Here my reader sees Sirocoe compared to bears by an
Eastern prince, where an eulogium was intended, and not
the least disrespectful hint designed.
The name which a Hivite piince was called by, accord-
ing to Gen. xxxiv. 2, is full as grotesque: for Hamor sig-
• Lett. 11, p. 106.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 125
iiifies an ass. Such a name would be thought a reproach-
ful one among us, and very unbecoming the dignity of a
prince ; in the East they have thought very differently.^
Mervan, the last califf of the Ommiades, was sirnamed
according to Mons. d'Herbelot, Hemar, the ass, and the
ass of Mesopotamia, because of his strength and vigour.
And as the wild ass is supposed by the Oriental people,
to surpass all other animals in swiftness, Baharam, king
of Persia, he says, was sirnamed Jouv : a word which
signifies in the language of that country, a wild ass.f
OBSERVATION IX.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
As to the Asiatic poets, Aboulfarage Sangiari, a Per-
sian, who lived at the time of the irruption of the Tartars
* The modera Eastern people however, at least sometimes, seem to un-
derstand it as an affront : so Dr. Drumraond in his Travels, repeating the
unpolite answer the Turkish commander at Beer, in Mesopotamia, re-
turned tot*.heir request to see the castle there, tells us that he asked, " Do
they take me for a child, or an ass's head, that they would feed me with
sweetmeats, and dupe me with a bit of cloth ? No ! they shall not see the
castle," i^c. p. 206. I cannot forbear remarking here, that we find au
expression something like this in one of the prophetic historians, 2 Sam,
V. 8 : Then -was Abrier very -wroth for the vjords of hhbosheth, and said.
Am la dog^s head? &c. Some learned men, and some modern Jewish
writers, according to Bishop Patrick, have understood (his term as sigpii-
fying, he was treated as if he was captain of a pack of dogs, instead of leader
of the armies of Israel ; but this does not seem to me to be a natural ex-
planation, and this expression of the governor of Beer seems much better
to illustrate the complaint of Abner. Do they take me for an ass's head ?
seems to mean, Do they think 1 am stupid as an sss ! and, *' Am 1 a dog's
head :" seems to signify, Am I dog ? Which kind of complaining expostu-
latory expression we meet with elsewhere, I Sam. xvii. 43. If there is any
difference between these expressions, it seems to be, that as an ass's head
apparently means, like an ass with respect to understanding; so dog's head
sliould answerably signify, Are all my cares for thee of no more value in
thine eyes than those of a dog, one of the most impure and despicable of
animals, that amuses thee in hunting for prey ?
t Page 447.
TOL. III. 17
126 CONCERNING THETR LITERATURE, he.
under Genghizkhan, gives this clebcripiion ot" those inlsig^
rable days, " It was a time in which the sun arose ia
the West. That all sort of joy was then banishe.J from
the world, and men appeared to be made for no oU er
end but siiflfering. In all the countries throug,b which I
have passed, I either found no body at a!!, or met only
with distressed wetches."* Just so the Prophet A coos
threatened, that God would make the sun to go down at
noon, and would darken the earth in a clear day ; that he
would turn their feasts into mourning, and their songs into
lamentation, &c. ch. viii. 9, 10.
The sun^s going down at noon and its rising in the
West, are different expressions indeed, but they are of the
same import, and serve to illustrate one anolher: for
they both signify how extremely short their time of pros-
perity would be, how unexpectedly it would terminate,
and for how long a time it would be succeeded by suffer-
ing, of which darkness was often made the emblem.
OBSERVATION X.
^HE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
The Prophet Ezekiel has these words in his fwenf letb
chapter: ver. 47, Say to the forest of the South, hear
the word of the Lord, thus saith the Lord God, Behold
I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every
green tree, and every dry tree : the flaming fire shall
not be quenched, and all faces Jrom the South to the
North shall be burnt therein : this may be parallelled
by a passage of a modern writer. Upon receiving this
message from God, the Prophet observes that the people
were ready to say, his messages were parables, ver. 49.
Whether this declaration of God was really as hard to be
* D'Herbelot, p. 25.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, Ike. 12Y
ynderstood by them as a parable, I shall not take upon
me to say ; but d'Herbelot* has given us a passage of a
PeP'^ian poet, describing the desolation made by a pesti-
lence,f whose terms very much resemble the words of
the Prophet.
" The pestilence, like an evening fire, ruins at once this
beautiful ciiy, whose territory gives an odour surpass-
ing that of the most excellent perfumes.
"Oi all its inhabitants, there remains neither a young man
nor an old :
"Tnis was a lightning that falling upon a forest, consum-
ed I here the green wood with the dry.'*
So I he pestilence and coals of fire are mentioned to-
gether in the same verse of the Prophet Habakkuk, Before
him went the pestilence, and hurtling coals went forth at
his feet, ch. iii. S.
OBSERVATION XL
A CURIOUS DESCRIPTION OF THE SPRING, FROM AN
EASTERN WHITER, WITH REMARKS.
In speaking of the Eastern books, I have already had
occasion (o notice the liveliness of their images ; though
the genius of their writers received no assistance from
the labours of the sculptor or the painter, it may be pleas-
ing to add to former instances an Eastern description of
the spring.
Two of the three classes of medals which Mr. Addison
has exhibited and explained, consists of alegorical per-
sonages 5 cities and countries, virtues and vices, and the
* Page 330.
t This pestilence entirely ruined the city ©f Asterabad, in the time
©fapriace who died ia the year of our Lorb 997. Voy. d'Herbeloti
p. 140.
128 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, kc.
comparing (he descriptions of the Roman poets with theif
coins, is both ingenious and pleasing ; but there is no op-
portunity of making such comparison when we are exam-
ining Eastern writers. They are however not deficient
in giving their readers some lively representations of al-
legorical personages.
Especially the sacred writers. In them we find coun-
tries and cities described after this emblematical manner,^'
and other allegorical personages. f And as thus the sev-
eral stages of human life, the four quarters of the year,
the several divisions of the day, are represented among
us by fictitious personages ; so in like manner in the Jew-
ish Prophets we read of the womb of the morningt of the
dew of youth, oi the fiower of man's ag'f, and a time of
life that resenjbles -a. shock of corn fully ripe.
And thus amidst the present austerity, and perhaps
superstitious scrupulosity of the East, we sometimes meet
with lively images of this kind. So the spring is de-
scribed in a most pleasingly romantic manner, in two of
the four following lines, as given us by Chardin from an
Oriental writer:
The Spring shows itself with a tulip in its hand, which resembles in Its
form a cup.
To make an effusion of morning drops on the tomb of the king who lies
in Negef-t
In this same new year's day, Ali being placed on the seat of the
Prophet,
He has made the festival of new year's day a glorious one.((
The author of a paper, that describes the four quar-
ters of the year, and even each month, in a beautiful sym-
bolical manner, given us in a celebrated collection,^ rep-
• Jer. vi. Isai. xxiii. 15, 16. Ezek. xvi. 3, &c.
f Hab. iii. 4, 5. Ps. xci. 5, 6 Rev. vi. 5.
% All, the son in law of Mohammed, one of the great objects ©f Fersian
veneration, is the prince here meant.
y Chardin, tome i. p. 173. $ Spectator, No. 425,
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &o. |29
tesents the spring as a beaiititul youth having a narcissus
in his hand ; the tulip of this Eastern writer is much
more accurate, as, according to Di. Russell, =5^ the narcis-
sus comes into flower long before the day the spring is
supposed to begin, which is when the sun enters Aries,
being in blossoui the whole of the Murbania, which begins
the l'2th of December, and ends January 20th. The tu-
lip blossoms later, but in that country, time enough to be
placed in the hand of this imaginary person^ at its first
appearance.
The form of the tulip too, much better suited the views
of this elder writer, as much more proper for the holding
what was liquid, than the flat make of the narcissus :
" The tulip which resembles a cup." Not however a
cup for drinking, that appears not to have been his
thought, but a vase designed to give out its contained
fluids in drops, which kind of vessels are often used in
the East, for the sprinkling those they would honor, with
odoriferous waters, made sometimes like a long necked
bottle,f but might as well be made without the long neck,
and in shape like a tulip, before it is opened, and its leaves
spread out. By such a vessel, in form like a tulip, whose
petals are nearly closed together, an effusion may be
made of many drops.
Every body knows that the dew appears in drops in
the morning, and as the day advances they disappear :
the Scriptures frequently refer to this circumstance.J
They too first begin to appear on the approach of warm
weather. It is no wonder then, that the appearance of
these pleasing and enlivening drops of the morning is in-
troduced into a description of spring.
The introducing also an allusion to the Eastern manner,
of softening the horror of the repositories of the dead, is
very amusing to the imagination, and a beauty in this
* Vol. i. p. 70. t Niebuhr, Des. de I' Arab. tab. 1.
t Exod, XTA. 13, Hos. Ti. 4.
130 COI^CEKNING THEIR LITERATURE, &d.
description. They are wont to strew flowers and pleas-
ing herbs, or leaves of trees, on the sepulchres ol I heir
friends ; but more than that, Dr. Shaw tells ui^, ihat the
intermediate spaces between their graves are frequently
planted with flowers,^ as at other times paved wiih tiles.
We meet wilh the like account in some other writers.
Now in such cases, the same respect for the dead that
leads the people of these countries to visit their graves,
and to cover them with flowers, must excite them to wa-
ter those vegetables that are planted on or near these
graves, in a dry time, that they may flourish and yield
Ifaeir perfumes. With reference to such a management,
the spring is here represented as covering the burial
place of Ali, with enlivening drops of dew, a prince
^ whose memory the Persians hold in the highest venera-
tioo.
This however is to be considered as a mere poetical
embellishment, for the tomb of Ali does riot lie open to the
dew or the rain, but is under the shelter of a most sump-
tuous mosque, whose dome, and two towers, are said to
be covered with the most precious materials of any roof
in the world ; Copper so richly gilt, as that every eight
square inches and a half are coated by a toman of gold,
equal to ten German crowns, which makes it look extreme-
ly superb, especially when the sun shines.f
It cannot be certainly determined, by the French trans-
lation of these verses, whether they represent the spring,
in the person of one of the male or female sex ; but it
seems most probable that be meant a female, those of that
sex being much more assiduous in visiting, and adorning
the tombs of those Ihey love or esteem, than the men.
Upon the whole, the imagery of this allegorical de-
scription appears to be very beautiful.
• Page 219.
t Voyages de Niebuhr en Arabic, et en d'autres Pays, tome 2d, p. SIC.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &e. jg^
OBSERVATION XII.
Solomon's portrait of old age.
In like manner the images with which Solomon intro..
duces his description of old age, seem to me to be de-
signed to represent it as the winter of human life, in gen-
eral, and not as a part of that enumeration of its particular
evils, which he afterward gives us in a collection of
hieroglyphics, which have been not a little puzzling to the
learned, when they have attempted to decjpher them
with clearness and conviction.
Among others, the very learned and ingenious Dr. Meadj
proposing in the declining part of his life to explain and
illustrate the diseases mentioned in Scripture, has appro-
priated a chapter of that work to the consideration of Sol-
omon's description of old age, in the 12th of EcclesiasteSo
It is not to be supposed, that anj person was better
qualified to describe the attendants on old age than this
writer, in a medical way ; but it is much to be questionedj
whether such a scientific investigation is the best comment
on an ancient poem, written indeed by the greatest nat-
uralist in his day,=^ but designed for common use, and for
the making impressions, in particular, on the hearts of the
young. A more popular explanation then, is most likely
to be truer, if founded on Eastern customs, and the state
of things in those countries.
It will be of advantage too, I apprehend, to divide the
paragraphs into parts, contrary to the Doctor's supposi-
tion, who seems to think that the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th
verses are to be understood as forming one emblematical
catalogue, of the usual afflictive attendants on old age.
This has unhappily multiplied particulars, and added to
the embarrassment.
• I Kings IT. 30, 33.
132 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
On the contrary, I should think it most natural to un-
derstand the 2d verse as a general allegorical representa-
tion of the decline of life, as being its winter ; the 3d, 4th,
and part of the 5th verse, as descriptive of the particular
bitterness of that part of life; after that, as mentioning
death and the grave; and the 6th verse, as emblematic-
ally representing the state of the body after death, be-
fore its dissolving into dust.
It is, I am inclined to ihink, as? if Solomon should de-
sign to say, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy
youth, before the evil days come, and the winter of hu-
man life overtakes thee ; before that painful variety of
complaints, belonging to old age, distresses thee; which
must be expected to end in death; before thy body shall
be deposited, ghastly, motionless, and irrecoverably lost
to the life of this present state, in the grave, where it will
be laid, ere long, in expectation of its return to dust, ac-
cording to the solemn sentence pronounced on our great
progenitor, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return*
To this last part of the paragraph agrees a preceding
exhortation of this royal preceptor. Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might : for there is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave
whither thou goest.^ In the first part he calls men to a
due remembrance of their Creator, in other words to a life
of religion, in the days of their youth, before the winter
of old age should c©me, or those many ailments and com-
plaints take place, which commonly attend that stage
of life.
I suppose then that the words, verse 2, fVhile the sun,
or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened,
nor the clouds return after the rain, is a description of
winter, not of diseases : and to make this out is the first
point to be attended to.
* Chap. ix. Ip.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. J3^
it is unnecessary (o cite passages fo prove, that old
age is frequently compared to the evening of a day, or the
wintry part of the year, by modern writers in the West;
as youth on the contrary, is among them compared to the
s/3 ring" and the morning;^ but it may be requisite to
show that the same «fay of thinking obtains in the East,
This is not difficult to do. Sir John Chardin, giving a
translation of many pieces of Persian poetry, in his 2d
tome,f informs us, that a copy of verses, written in praise
of an Atabek prince, whose name was Mahomed, the son
of Aboubeker, begins with two lines, which signify,
** Happy youthfulness, brilliant morning, generous heart.
Which wears the gravity of age, oa a youthful countenance."
Here youthfulness and morning are used as equivalent
terms in Eastern poetic language. On the contrary, Ro-
coub alcoiisagf according to d'Herbelot,J are words
which signify " the cavalcade of the old man without a
beard. It is the name of a festival that the ancient Per-
sians celebrated at the end of winter, in which a bald old
man, and without a beard, mounted on an ass, and holding
a raven in one of his hands, went about striking all he met
with a switch." This figure represented winter.
Winter then, according to the taste of the East, as well
as of the people of the West, was thought to be properly
represented by an old man, far advanced in years. Con-
sequently the converse of this must have appeared nat-
ural to them : to represent old age by winter.
On the other hand, those words of Solomon in the sec-
ond verse \pll he found, on examination, to be an exact
* Thus Hafez represents the spring as the emblem of youth in the fol"
lowing couplet :
"The breath of the morning breeze will scatter musk ;
" The old -world will again enter into the path of youth"'
i.e. the -winter will shortly give place to spring-. Eeit.
t Page 195. :^ Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 718.
TOL. III. 18
134 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c/
delineation of an Eastern winter: hardly a cloud, accord-
ing to Dr. Russell, is to be seen all summer,^ but the
winter is frequently dark and gloomy, and often dark
clouds soon return, and pour down a fresh deluge, after a
great deal of rain had descended just before,f whf reas
after the first rains of autumn there is frequently a con-
siderable interval of fine weather before it rains again J
As then this second verse is such an exact descripiion
of their winters; as winter is by them represented by an
old man; and as Solomon passes on from one complaint
to another in the 3d and 4tb verses, without such a distinc-
tion between them as he makes between the 2d and 3d
verses; I think that, instead of explaining the darkening
of the sun, the moon and the stars, and even of the com-
mon degree of light in a cloudy day,of oneof the ailments
of old age, as Dr. Mead has done ; we are rather to un-
derstand him as speaking of old age under the notion of
winter, rising from the plain and simple description of
"evil days,'* and years, concerning which we are obliged
to say, we have no pleasure in them, to a more elevated,
a figurative and emblematical representation of ttiat time
of life which is the reverse of youth. Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, before evil days come,
and the years draw nigh, in which thou wilt find little or
no pleasure; in one word, before the winter of life, that
gloomy season commences.
OBSERVATION XIII.
Solomon's portrait of old age continued.
As the human body, is frequently in the Scripture com-
pared to a house, inhabited by the soul with its various
• Descr. of Aleppo, vol. 1, p 66.
t Ibid. Appendix. See also citations on the 1st vol. of these Observa''
tions from other writers.
i Page 14, 155, ht.
CONCERNiyO THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 135
powers,^ or other spiritual beings,f so Solomon here
makes use of the same thought in the first part of his em-
blematical description of the sorrows of old age ; from
wherj<".e with the unconfined, and seemingly to us irregular
operation of an Oriental genius, he passes on to images of
a quite different and unconnected kind. In the day when
the keepers of the House shall tremble, and the strong
men shall hoiv themselves, and the grinders cease, or fail,
because they are few, and those that look out of their win-
dows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the
streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, &c.
It ought also further to be observed herCf that as Sol-
omon compares the body to a House in a considerable
part of this description, so it is apparent that he repre-
sents it not as a cottage, inhabited by a solitary person,
but, more conformably to the circumstances of the writerj
and the pupil, || as a palace full of people.
But to dismiss preliminaries. Old age frequently brings
on the loss of sight : When Isaac was old, and his eyes
were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his
eldest son, Gen. xxvii, 13; The eyes of Israel were dim
for age, so that he could not see, ch. xlviii. 10; in like
manner we read, concerning one of the Prophets, Ahijah
could not see, for his eyes were set by reason of his age,
1 Kings xiv. 4. It is a common complaint.
It will easily be imagined that blindness, and the im-
pairing of the sight, is meant by that emblem. Those that
look out of the windows shall he darkened. Different as
men's apprehensions have been as to the other clauses, all
seem to agree in the explanation of this ; it may, however,
perhaps admit a clearer illustration than has been given
of it.
• 3 Cor. V. 1. t Matt. xii. 45. Luke xi. 26.
t The SOD of David, king of Jerusalem, ch. i. 1.
jl Whom he calls his son, ch. xii. 12, and probably meant ope of his
own children by that term, though it indeed sometimes means only »
younger person.
138 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c/-
The word nix'^n haraoth, which expresses those who
look out of the windows is feminine, and the allusion
seems to be to the circumstances of the females of the
East, who, though confined much more to the house than
those of Europe are, and afraid to show themselves to
strangers even there, are sometimes indulged with the
pleasure of looking out of the windows, when any thing
remarkable is to be seen, or of assembling on the house
top on such occasions.*^ But in common the shutters of
those next the street are closed, not only to keep out the
heat qf the sun from their rooms, but for privacy too,
their windows being only latticed, and consequently too
public for such a jealous people.
So among the ancient Jews, though the women had
more liberty than the females of those countries in our
times, yet they were wont not to go out, when the men
crowded the streets, but to look i\t what passed through
the windows. Thus we read, Judges v. 28. The mother
of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through tht
lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming ? And we
are told, that upon occasion of introducing the ark into,
the city of David, with music and dancing, and all th^
people in solemn procession, Michal his consort, the
daughter of king Saul, and consequently his principal
wife, was not there, but looked through a window to see
the magnificent procession, 2 Sam. vi. 16.
But when the shutters are closed, as Dr. Shaw tells us
those that open into the street commonly are,f they lose
the pleasure of seeing what passes abroad in the world;
though they doubtless feel the impressions of curiosity as
strongly as the women of the north and the west, and may
Trith great eagerness desire to see what is transacted
there.
How lively this image ! how severely are the blind wont
to regret the loss of their sight, and eagerly wish to see
what pa^ises abroad in the world! But in old age often,
* Irwin's Voyage up the Red Sea, p. 48, f Page 207.
CONCERNING THEIR LITER ATUP.E, &c. 13^
3nd in the figurative language of Solomon, the ivomen that
look out at the windows are darkened.
But besides the dignified women of an Eastern palace,
the wives and the daughters, that might be curious to
view what passed in the streets, there were strong men
entertained there as keepers oj the house, to guard it from
danger: so when Uriah the Hittite, one of David's
mighty men,^ came from the camp to that prince, as if
to answer some questions concerning the state of the ar-
my, instead of retiring to his house upon his being dis-
missed, he slept, the sacred historian tells us, at the door
of the king^s house with all the servants of his lord, and
went not down to his house.f So a guard kept the door
of Rehoboam's house, who bare the shields of brass
which that prince made, instead of the three hundred of
gold his predecessor had, J which Shishak king of Egypt
took away, when Rehoboam went into the bouse of the
Lord, and who at his return brought them back into the
guard chamber.§
Such keepers of the door of bis palace, Solomon, the
intermediate prince between David and Rehoboam, with-
out doubt had, aad to these he alludes in the two clauses.
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
and the strong men shall bow themselves : and to their
trembling at the approach of an adversary they were un-
able to resist, and their bowing down with submissiveness
before him.
So when Jehu slew his predecessor Joram, and wrote
to those that were charged with the over sight of the royal
palace, and the taking care of his children, and conse*
quently of Joram*s expected successor; when Jehu, I
say, wrote to them, and called them to stand upon their
defence, they trembled, and declared themselves ready
to bow down before him as his servants, according to the
prophetic historian, though expressed in somewhat differ-
• 2 Sam. xxiii. S9. t Ch. xi. 0.
I 1 Kings X. 17. § Ch. xiv. 27, 28-
138 CONCERNIXG THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
eat terms. Look even oiil the best and meetest of your
master^s sons, and set him on his father^s throne, and
fight for your master^s house. But they were exceed-
ingly afraid, and said. Behold, two kings stood not
before him : how then shall we stand ? And he that was
over the house, and he that was over the city, the elders
also, and the bringers tip of the children, sent to Jehu,
saying, fFe are thy servants, and will do all that thou
shall bid us ; we will not make any king : do thou that
which is good in thine eyes.'^
There is, my readers will observe, a near connexion
between these two clarises, as they are accordingly close-
ly joined together by Solomon, the keepers of the house,
and the strong men that are kept in an Eastern palace,
but distinctly mentioned, they seem to point out two dif-
ferent eflfects of old age ; weakness of the hands united
with paralytic tremblings, and the bending of the back,
when the body is enfeebled by age. They are both most
certainly attendants* on old age, and I think may bofh be
said to be pointed out in other places of Scripture, which
I believe will be found suflScient to direct us to all the
symptoms and complaints of old age here, without having
recourse to medical writers ; and if it will, su< h a popular
account must be allowed to be most natural, and conse-
quently most probable.
The stooping, or bending of the back, before old age
brings on death, is mentioned in Scripture : Therefore he
brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew
their young men with the sword, in the house of the sanC'
iuary, and had no compassio7i on the young man or
maiden, old man, or him that stoopeth for age, 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 17. The weakness of the hands, which is fre-
qjiently attended by paralytic tremblings, is sufficiently
expressed in the beginning of the 30th chapter of Job,
amidst all the obscurity that spreads itself over the last
clause of the 2d verse. But now they that are younger
* 2 Kings X. 3, 4, 5.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 139
than /, have me in derisiorif whose fathers I would have
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. Yea,
whereunto might the strength of their hand profit me, in
whom old age was perished ? Perhaps the true meaning
of the last clause maj be, " in whom old age had made
it, the strength of their hands, to perish ;" but, whether
the last clause is so to be understood or not, it is evident
that Job supposes the strength of their hands was gone
in these old peopk. It is to be considered then as one
of the infirmities of old age ; and as we find this debility
of the hands is frequently attended with paralytic trem-
blings ; so we find the Scripture speaks oi fear as pro-
ducing both effects: trembling is described as one of the
consequences o^ fear, Ps. cxix. cxx. Dan. v, 19, Mark
r. 33, &c. as weakness and loss of strength are in other
places, Jer. vi. 24, &c. Matt, xxviii. 4, seems to join
them together, as we often find them to be by what we
observe in the world. For fear of him the keepers did
shake, and became as dead men, losing all their strength.
Since then Solomon plainly represents the human body
under the notion of a great house or palace, and allego-
rically describes the decays of old age agreeably to this
notion in the first part of his account of them, or in other
wordsj in the 3d verse and beginning of the 4th, nothing
can be more natural than to understand the shaking of
the hands, and the bending of the back, previous to the
approach of death, the king of terrors, by the trembling
of the guards of an Eastern palace when a stronger than
he that inh^ibits it approaches, with a force they know to
be irresistible ; and the bowing down of the strong men
that are entertained there for support, with great submis-
siveness, when he that will assuredly conquer draws nigh.
This explanation of these two kindred clauses is so ob-
vious, that, I apprehend, it is generally, if not universally
embraced : it is certain these symptoms of old age are
naturally introduced ; and the allegorical manner of speak-
ing of them quite in the Eastern taste. The reference to
140 GONCERNLVG THEIR LITERATURE, &c. '
Oriental occurrences is indeed all that is new thus faf
under this article.
The next article relates to the female slaves, whose
business was to grind the corn, spent in great quantities
by the masters of Eastern palaces, in the time of youth-
ful jollity and high health, but which employment wast
wont to decrease in the time of old age. And the grind*
ers n^ml2T\ hatachanoth, in the feminine gender, cease
because they are few, or, as the words are translated in
the margin, «* The grinders fail, because they grind little.''
To which may be added a clause from the 4th verse^
Vhich has a good deal of relation to this; And the doors
shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grind"
ing is low.
There is a relation between these two clauses, but not
such a sameness as to forbid the making them distinct
parts of this celebrated description.
The first of these two clauses seems to relate to a bitter-
ness of this time of declining life, which the aged Barzillai
speaks of in a very feeling manner, / am this day four-
score years old: and can I discern between good and
evil ? Can thy servant taste what I eat, or what I drink ?
2 Sam. xix. 35.
I have before shown, that the Eastern people are wont
to grind their c6rn every day, as they want it | and that it
is done at home by the meanest of their/emaic slaves^ by
small handmills ; and that a great part of their food con-
sists of farinaceous preparations, which they diversify by
Tarious methods, that the palate, under every alteration
and change of taste the full fed are apt to feel, (according
to those words of Solomon elsewhere. The full sovl loath'
eth an honeycomb ; but to the hungry soul, every bitter
thing is swee/,^) may find something it may eat with
relish and pleasure. The preparing a mere sufiSciency
of food fully to support nature would not do ; but when
a prince, or even a man of Barzillai*s wealth, had lost the
' ProY. xxvii. 7.
eONCERNIMG THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 14I
powers of taste, and an ability to distinguish between the
different flavours of what was placed upon the table, such
a variety of preparations became needless, and one sort of
food would do as well as fifty, on which account there
would be much less occasion for grinding corn in his house,
than in the earlier days of such a man's life. Remember
ihy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days
come not, when the powers of tasting shall be lost, on
which account the grinders shall cease their labour much
sooner than before time, because they want to grind but
little.
Rice, if it was known anciently at all there, had been
introduced into common use in these countries long since
the age of Solomon. This is not commonly prepared
among them for eating by grinding, but is stewed with
different things, so as to acquire different tastes and col-
ours. Chardin gives an account of a feast at Tifflis, the
chief city of Georgia, where he was present, which consist-
ed of three courses, and about sixty dishes in each course.
The first course of which he tells us,^ was wholly made up
of different preparations" of rice, in which meat or other
things were mixed, so as to give the rice different colours
and flavours. The yellow was prepared with sugar, cinna-
mon, and saffron; the red with pomegranate juice ; the
white was the most natural, and at the same time most
agreeable. His account of the different preparations of
rice, in the form of a pilo, pilaw, as he writes the word, is
enlarged in his second tome,f where he mentions some as
seasoned with fennel, others with the juice of cherries, or
mulberries, others with tamarinds, besides twenty different
sorts diversified by the means of different kinds of meat,
butter, and the way of preparing them.
If they now have so great a variety in preparing their
rice, the great succedaneura of the wheat and barley of
former times, we have reason to believe, that the same
• Tome 1, p. 141. t Page 26^.
VOL. UN 19
|4*J CONCERNliNG THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
sense of grandeur, and difference of palate, which occasions
such a variety in modern times as to rice, led them to vary
their preparations from the flour of wheat and barley.
Several of them are probably now worn out of use and
remembrance. However, still there are various prepar-
ations of their flour in use in the East, of different tastes
and suiting different palates. Dr. Shaw mentions cnscas-
sowe, hamza, doweeda or vermezelli, bagreah.^ And
Dr. Russell gives an account of their having different
kinds of bread, besides a variety of rusks and biscuits,
most of which are strowed on the top with seeds of se-
samum or fennel. f
Though rice is now principally in use, they have still
a variety of farinaceous preparations, which were in all
probability still more numerous before rice was introduc-
ed; and the splendour with which a great man lived, in
ancient times, required the grinding much more corn, than
afterward, when the variety could no longer be enjoyed.
After this manner I would explain this clause, which, I
think, in a simple, but energetic manner, points out that
loss of the power of tasting, which Barzillai describes as
an attendant on old age.
The common way of explaining^ these words, by referr-
ing them to the loss of teeth, which certainly often attends
the decline of life, does not appear to me to be so prob-
ably the thought of Solomon here, though the frequent
applicatior> of the term grinding to the teeth, strongly
inclines the mind to it.
My reasons against adopting such an interpretation are
these: In the first place, if thit^ interpretation of that part
of the description were just, it would be answerable to the
other parts of the representation of old age here, which all
admit is highly allegorical : it would he too simple. In
the next place, if the way of preparing; their food then
resembled what is now in use auaong the Eastern nations,
* Page 230, note. f Vol. i. p. 1:16,
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 143
the grinding of the teeth was not much: the bread there
being, in common, soft, like a pancake ; their cuscassowe,
a preparation of flour in small pellets, somewhat resem-
bling; the minute fragments of spoon puddings; and their
animal food so thoroughly done, as to require no knives to
cut if, l)eing pulled into pieces by the fingers, so as tq
supercede the operation of much grinding by the teeth.
Lastly, I would ask, would the grinding of the teeth cease,
or not continue so long as formerly, because they were
few ? would not tiie fewness of the teeth make a greater
length of time necessary for the grinding instead of a less,
which Solomon supposes ?
As to that clause of the 4th verse, which bears some
resejnblance to the last I have been explaining, And the
doors shall be shut in the streets, rvhen the sound of the
grinding is low, I should suppose it is to be explained
of that love of retirement, and dislike of much company,
which may freqisently be remarked in the aged, and
which Barzillai strongly expressed in the above cited
place, in which he signified his desire rather to go home,
to a life of privacy and retirement, than to go to Jerusa-
lem, daily to converse with the courtiers of king David.
It seems by a passage in Isaiah, that the shutting the
doors of a house, was a mark, that no company of the
joyous kind was expected or desired there : All the mer-
ry hearted do sigh. The mirth of the tabret ceascth, the
noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harj)
ceaseth. They shall not drink wine with a song : strong
drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. The city of
confusion is broken down : every house is shut up that no
man may come in* Titer e is a crying for wine in the
streets ; all joy is darkened, the mirth of tlie land is
gone.^
A most ingenious and respectable author has translated
this tenth verse after this manner :
• Is. xxiv. 7— 11.
144 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
** The city is broken down ; it is desolate ;
Every house is obstructed, so that no one can enter."*
This imports, I apprehend, total desolation ; whereas the
61h verse speaks of inhabitants that were left, though few
in number, as does also the 13th verse. This then does
not appear to be intended to be a description of a total,
but onlj of a partial desolation. Not to say, that where
a city is entiiely desolated, the houses are not, every one,
so obstructed as that none can enter into them, though
some may.
The celebrated Mr. Wood, in his return from Palmyra,
foucd a village which was only abandoned for a lime, on
account of some troubles that then disturbed that part of
the connlry, whose houses were all open, every thing
carried off, and not a li\ing creature to be seen.f And
such, surely, would have been the state of the houses in
a ci(y quite abandoned : the houses that were not totally
demolished by the violence of war, would have been left
open, not obstructed in such a manner that nobody coul^
enter into any of them.
Accordingly I should think it not improbable, that the
keeping every house shut up, is intended to express, by
an additional circumstance, what the Prophet had pointed
out by a variely of other terms, namely, that the noise of
them that rejoiced was ended, that all joy was darkened,
and the mirth of the land gone.
If so, Solomon, in this his description of old age, when
he says, the doors shall be shut in the street, is to be
understood to mean, that as the aged cannot take that
pleasure themselves in a variety of food, that they did. in
former times ; so neither can they well bear, at their time
of life, a great deal of company, or take pleasure in pre-
paring large entertainments for their friends : they delight,
on the contrary, in retirement and solitude, like the good
* Bp- of London's new translation,
t Ruins of Balbec, p. 8.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE3 &c, 145
old Gileadite Barzillai, who attended king David as far as
Jordan, in his refiirn to Jerusalem.
Of course, as their doors are less open in this time of
their retired age, than in the more sociable days of earlier
life ; so the sound of the grinding, which was wont to be
long continued, and at the same time probably made more
lively and joyous, by the united voices of more people
than usual, employed in grinding corn for an approaching
feast, and perhaps singing with greater spirit than com-
mon on such festive occasions ; I say, the sound of grind-
ing in the time of aged solitude must have been compara-
tively very little : the work itself much less than in former
times ; and the temper of the master of the house requir-
ing them to be more moderate in their mirth : When the
doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the
grinding is low.
Among other bitternesses of life, Job mentions the want
of rest and sleep. When I lie down* I say. When shall
I arise, and the night be gone ? and I am full of toss-
ings to and fro until the dawning of the day.^ And
none feel the justness of this description more than the
aged; though it is not of them immediately that Job
speaks. Their want of sleep, their restlessness when in
bed, and the bone aches which disable them from enjoy-
ing the repose of the night, with any thing like the com-
fort which the young feel, is well known to be frequently
the situation of the aged, and seems to be referred to in
that clause, He shall rise up at the voice of the bird.
I cannot easily admit the paraphrase of Bishop Patrick
here : " Sound sleep departs from his eyes, and he awakes
early as the birds, but is not pleased at all with their
songs ;" since it is common to all, the young and the
healthy, as well as the aged, in the East, to rise with the
dawn, and consequently with the beginning of the singing
of the birds.
* Job vii, 4.
546 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
" In this country," Dr. Richard Chandler observes, "on
the account of the heat, it is usual to rise with the dawn."*
He immediately after adds, that about day break, they
received from a Greek with a respectable beard, who
acted as consul for the French in that place, a present of
fruit, which they had with other things for breakfast.
Rising then with the birds belonged to every age in
general in that country, but it is visible that rising earlier
than common was what Solomon meant. I should there-
fore apprehend, that the interpretation of Dr. Mead is
more accurate than that of Bishop Patrick, who supposes
the voice of the birdy means the crowing of the cock,
which is in the night, before the dawning of the day.f
Accordingly, we find Solomon does not speak of the birds
in the plural, but of the bird, whose voice was first heard
in the morning of all the feathered kind, proclaiming its
approach. The Septuagint indeed translate the Hebrew
liay tsippoff by the Greek word 2t^«0/ov, which signifies
any small bird, or particularly the sparrow; but this is
not the only instance, by which it appears that those
translators did not discover much judgment in their
version. J
The change of person in this clause may deserve some
attention, as it may show the connexion of this clause
with the succeeding, placing it in a somewhat different
light from that in which it has been commonly viewed.
Before, the royal preacher represented the decays of
age by what happened in a house to the servants, or the
women; here, he seems to speak of the master of the
house, HE shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and by
-• * Travels in Asia Minor, p 18.
t The third of the four watches of the night, according to St. Mark,
ch. xiii. 35.
^ As 7TT'i3V '^^/'**''fl^ signifies the morning; in several places of the Old
Testament, so it is likely that "^yQ^ tsippor signifies the cock here, or
moming^ birdy as it may be properly termed, seeing it is continually em-
ployed ia watching for, and announcing the approach of day. Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. ^47
that means disconcert the daughters of song, who, after
being depressed and much neglected, may become at
length quite useless. This must be opened a little more
distinctly.
And all the daughters of music shall be brought
low.
The words daughter and daughters are used in the
Hebrew, as well as the terms father and son, in a manner
not common to the languages of the West, and with very
different meanings. Sometimes the term daughter seems
to be added to a word, without any discoverable addition
to t!ie meaning. So Psalm xvii. 8, Keep me as the ap-
pie of the eye, is, in the original, " as the black, or pupil,
of the daughter of the eye," where the daughter of the
eye seems to mean simply the eye : the same may be
observed. Lam. ii. 18, Let tears run down like a river
day and night, give thyself no rest, let not the apple of
thine eye cease, which is, in the original, let not " the
daughter of thine eye cease," that is, simply, let not
thine eye cease, for the pupil is not the part from which
, tears flow.
At other times the words daughter or daughters seem
to add to the general idea something of a particular na-
ture. So Genesis xlix. 22, Josephis a fruitful bough
by a rvellf whose branches (whose daughters it is in the
Hebrew) run over the wall : here the word daughters ap-
parently mean, the lesser bearing boughs. Bath Kolj the
daughter of a voice, is a well known expression among the
Jews, which signifies, with them, not every voice that is
heard, but a voice supposed to have something oracular in it.
It may be difficult then, with nice precision, to ascertain
the meaning of the words, " All the daughters of music,''
or rather, all the daughters of song. Women, and those
probably both young and virgins were undoubtedly
employed in singing in the ancient Jewish palaces, for
Barzillai, when he declined going to reside with the king
in Jerusalem, says, Can I hear any more the voice of
l4S CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
singing men and singing women ? wherefore then should
thy servant be yet a burden to the king ? 2 Sam. xix.
35. But then men were equally employed. The daugh-
ters of song, therefore, mean not restrictively female sing-
ers, but probably every thing belonging to song, persons
of both sexes, instruments of all descriptions,^ every thing
concerned in song.
If the master of a great house rose before dawn, he pre-
vented the music of the morning, and disappointed the
musicians of the house ; but their being brought low, or
absolutely depressed, seems to mean something more, and
may probably point at that deafness of which Barzillai
complained, in the words just now cited, and which is
such a frequent attendant on old age.
To make every reader comprehend the meaning of the
last paragraph, it may be requisite to observe, that, ac-
cording to the Arabian Nights' Entertainments,! the
music in the Eastern palaces is supposed to pjay when
the prince begins to rise, the premature quitting the bed
then before the day dawned, must have been disconcert-
ing to the royal musicians ; but if deafness took place, ,
their music must be entirely useless as to the prince, and
might occasion their being brought low by a total dismis-
sion, as David was dismissed by Saul, after having played
before him for some time, J when the evil spirit of melan-
choly troubled him. Can I hear the voice of singing men
and singing women ? said Barzillai.
Feeble and tottering steps, which require the support
of a staff, are another attendant on old age, according to
the Prophet Zechariah, cb. viii. 4: Thus saith the Lord
of Hosts, there shall yet old men and old women dwell
* And accordingly it has been observed, that the verb ^Hiy yhhshachoo,
shall be brought low, is not feminine, which shows the word daughters does
not mean women precisely speakin];, but is to be understood of evervf
thing belonging to song.
fVol. 9, p. 21, &e. tl Sara. xvii. 15.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 149
in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff
in his hand for every age.
And to this effect of old aj;e those clauses of this 12tb
of Eccl. literally refer, Also when they shall be afraid
of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way ; but
tbej are designed, I presume, to point out the extreme
unfitness of old age, particularly in princes, to conduct
dangerous enterprizes.
Dr. Chandler frequently complains, in his travels, of
the troublesome and dangerous ascending and descending
high hills that he had to pass over, in his journeying in
the Lesser Asia ; Mr. Maundrell makes the like com-
plaint, as to several parts of his way from Aleppo to Je-
rusalem. An ancient person must have found it more
dangerous still. Nay, the shuffiing and tottering steps of
old age might make people afraid of their travelling in less
mountainous roads, as a staff is by no means a sure pre-
servative against falling. These clauses refer, I should
apprehend, to this well grounded concern for the aged.
Nor was travelling on horses or asses quite safe in many
of those roads, as they often found it necessary to alight
in places ; and if they did not, a consciousness of the
want of agility might well make them frequently tremble,
and their attendants for them, of whom this clause seems
to speak. They shall be afraid (tremble for them) on
account of what is high.
Dr. Mead was not willing to allow that the next clause,
And the almond tree shall flourish, was designed to ex-
press gray headedness, though it is very commonly so
interpreted.
Dr. Mead objects to this explanation, among other
things, that the colour of the flowers of the almond tree
does not agree to a hoary head, as they are not white, but
purple."^ As to this, I would observe, that they are, ac-
* Medica Sacra, p. 44. Prueterea, quod de amygdali fioribus aiunt,
huic rei minime convenire videtur, qui non album sed purpureum colored
exhibent.
VOL. III. 20
150 COJiCEHNING THEIR LITERATURE, ke,
cording fo the account of others, white, with a purpf^
tinge, so slight as to be whiter than a peach blossom ;*
and so as to lead Hasselqnist, when describing the beau-
ties of the t^pring about Smjrna, to tell us, that he found
the almond tree, on the 14th of February, snow white
with blossoms, adorning the rising grounds in the neigh-
bourhood of that citj,f If Hasselqnist represented the
almond trees as snow white, a writer of the age of Solomon
may well be supposed to compare an hoary head to an
almond tree in blossom, as the ancients, especially poets,
are by no means exact in their describing colours; a gen-
eral agreement satisfies them. J
The hair of the Eastern people is almost universally
dark :|| an old man then, with a white head, appears, among
those that are young, somewhat like an almond tree in
blossom, among the dark unclothed twigs of other trees.
The Doctor's explaining it of the deadening the sense
of smelling in the aged, is by no means natural.
Further : whether gray headedness be, or be not, what
is emblematically called the flourishing of the almond
tree, the gray headedness of the aged is frequently men-
tioned in the Scriptures, and therefore, one would think,
would be hardly omitted in this description of Solomon.
I am old and grny headed, said Samuel to Israel, when
he was giving up the government of that people, 1 Sam.
xii. 2; With lis are both the gray headed and very
aged men, much elder than thy father, said Eliphaz to
Job, chap. XV. 10; Thou shalt rise vp before the hoary
head, and honor the face of the old man, is a precept gi\ en
by Moses to Israel, Lev. xix. 32.
Before I dismiss this article, I cannot but take notice of
the explanation the lively and ingenious, but inaccurate,
* Lemery, Diet, des Drogues, Art. Amygdala. f Page 28.
^ Thus even St. John represents our Lord as saying, Look on the fields,
for they are -white already to harvest. Others represent the corn then as
of the colour of gold, and, rigidly speaking, it is undoubtedly more yello^y
than white.
\\ Russell, vol.i. p. 99.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 151
Monsieur Voltaire gives of (his clause of Solomon. He
supposes it means baldness, in a poem of his, in which he
pretends to give us the substance of this paragraph.
" Quand I'amandier fleurira, (c'est a dire, quand la (ete
sera chauve.^*) Too often this wittj and learned, but
prejudiced writer, apparently misrepresents the Scrip-
tures wilfully ; here he might very probably be sincere :
but it seems a very harsh mode of representing the strip-
ping the head of thai ornament that is so graceful, and
which has appeared to be so in the eyes of the generality
of people, as well as of Absalom,^ by the almond tree's
being covered with most beautiful blossoms, and appear-
ing in its most highly ornamented state. This, in another
writer, would be thought to look very much like a blun-
der, and would be considered as a strange want of taste
or recollection.
To which is to be added, that though baldness is un-
doubtedly a frequent attendant on old age, it is hardly
ever mentioned in the Scriptures in that view. It is taken
notice of there in no fewer than ten or twelve places, but
never, except possibly in one place, 2 Kings ii. 23, as a
mark of age ; it is, on the contrary, either spoken of as an
effect of disease, or else the voluntary laying aside that
ornament of the head, in token of affliction and mourning.
So the Prophet Amos says,f / will turn your feasts into
mourning, and all your songs into lamentation ; and I
will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon
every head ; and I will make it as the mourning of an
only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. How as-
tonishing is it, that this man of genius should make bald-
ness one of the circumstances of the bitterness of old age,
which the Scriptures neither mention, nor is it, in fact, one
of those things that render old age days concerning which
we are forced to say we have no pleasure in them ! And
if it did, how odd to suppose baldness, or the loss of hair,
• 2 Sam. xiv. 25, 26. t Chap. viii. 10.
152 CONCEllNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
was emblematically represented by the appearance of
blossoms on an almond tree, when young leaves on a tree
are so often compared to hair by the poets, and conse-
quently, the coming on of blossoms on an almond tree
must be understood to be the very reverse of baldness.
DifFugere nives ; redeunt jam gramina campls,
Arb oribusque coma.
HoR. Carm, Lib. iv. Ode 7.
Unluckily the thought does not appear in the transla-
tion of Francis :
The snow dissolves, the field its verdure spreads,
The trees high wave ia air their leafy heads.
Nor in this translation of the 21st ode of the first booL
Dauph.Ed.
Vos Isetatn fluviis, et nemorum coma,
Qujecunque aut gelido prominet Algido,
"Nigiis aut Erymanthi
Sylvis, aut viridis Gragi.
This leads me to remark, that though Dr. Mead's rea-
son against understanding the blossoming of the almond
tree as an emblem of gray headedness, deduced from the
colour of those blossoms, is not valid ; yet it must be ad-
mitted, that what he says of gray headedness being con-
sistent with vigorous and unailing old age, is very just j
to which we may also add, that it is very untoward to
suppose that the appearance of these blossoms, which
marks out the finishing of the winter, the coming on of
the spring, the pleasantest time of the year, and exhibits
the tree in all its beauty, should be used to represent the
approach of the winter of human life, followed by death,
and a disappearing from the land of the living. Surely
the one can hardly be intended to be descriptive of the
other ! and if not, some other explanation must besought
for ; though this explanation seems very early to have
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, kc. ^53
obtained, if we may judge from Ihe translalion of the Sep-
luagint.
I am not willing however (o admit the translation of this
clause, which supposes that writer meant, to point out
that kind of imbecilitj which attended the old age of Da-
vid, according to what is said, 1 Kings i. 4.
Such an effect of age, in the view of an Asiatic prince,
as we all know the writer of this book was, and who had
himself a most numerous seraglio, may be supposed to be
looked upon as one of the greatest bitternesses of old
age ; but in such a case the expression would neither be
hieroglyphical nor distant enough.
If then we consider that watchers were often employed
in royal houses, and mounted from time to time their place
of observation, to see how matters stood abroad 5^ and on
the other, that if we neglect the points, the Hebrew word
ipiff shakedf translated almond tree, may be translated
watcher. I should think the clause may naturally enough
be decyphered, by explaining it of the frequency of the
attendance of physicians, who appear oftenest at court,
and flourish most there, when the master of such a palace
is in a very declining state, and drawing near to death.
AsUf in the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was dis-
eased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great ;
yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, bnt to the
physicians.f
The function of a physician with regard to the body,
and of a watchman with respect to a palace are not un-
like ; they both appear from time to time at court, but
much more observable, as well as frequently, in seasons
of apprehension and danger, than at other times.
To go on : When the book of Deuteronomy would in-
form us, that Moses, though 120 years old, appeared to
have a vigour to the last, to which old age is, in common, a
* 2 Sam- xviii. 24 ; and still more Id point, 2 Sam. xiii. 34.
t 2 Chrop. xvi. 12-
154 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &«.
stranger, it expresses this circumstance in the following
terms : His eye was not dim, nor his natural force
abated, or, as the margin translates if more lileially, ac-
cording to the Hebrew, "nor the mois^ture fled," nnb 02
i6) velonas lecholi.^ Accordingly, I should think, that
it is of this disappearing of moisture in old age, thnt the
last clauses of this allegorical description of declining life
are to be understood : And the grasshopper shall be a
burden, and desire shall fail. But as this does not im-
jnediately appear, the sentiment ought to be a little ex-
plained and illustrated.
In the first place, I would observe, that the word which
is translated natural force, but which signifies moisture,
is used to express the moisfness of a living tree, or of a
branch just pulled off, in opposition to a tree that is dead,
or a branch that has been pulled offso long as to be dried,
having lost its freshness and its leaves : so it is used to
express the greenness of ihe withs hy which Samson was
bound ;f and the freshness of the twigs Jacob peeled,
and set before the cattle ofLaban ;J it occurs also in Ezek.
xvii. 24, And all the trees of the field shall know that I
the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted
the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made
the dry tree to flourish ; and in like manner in some other
passages.
In the next place it is to be remarked, that the learned
have taken notice, and with justness, that the verb ^DnD"*
yistabel, is improperly translated shall be a burden ; it
undoubtedly means, whatever may be the insect the
royal preacher had in view here, that this insect should
burden or load itself; should grow heavy by its feeding
voraciously.
Thirdly. It seems that Solomon refers not to the
grasshopper in this clause, but the locust ; and our trans-
lators have so rendered the original word, 3Jn chagab,
2 Chron. vii. 13,
* Ch. xxxiv. 7. t Judges xvi. 7, 8. + Gen. xxxr37.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. j^^
The insecteology of the Holy Land has not been ex-
amined with that accuracy, and to that extent that could
be wished ; but since God, in answer to that solemn prayer
at the dedication of the temple, according lo that passage
of the book of Chronicles which I just now cited, declar-
ed, that if he should shut up heaven, that there would be
no rain, or command those insects, that we are now in-
quiring about, to devour the land, or send a pestilence
among the people ; that if his people humbled themselves
before him, he would be attentive to their prayers in that
place, we cannot easily make any doubt of the word's
meaning the locust, or wonder that our translators should
so render the word in that passage.
For this declaration was made in answer to Solomon's
prayer at the dedication of the temple : but his supplica-
tion was, that if the heaven should be shut up, and there
should be no rain : or if there should be famine, if pesti-
lence, blasting, mildew, locust, or catterpiller, that then
God would hear them, when they should spread fortb
their hands toward that place ; to which is to be added
the consideration, that the grasshopper is an inoffensive
animal, or at least not remarkably noxious, and by no
means a proper subject for deprecation in the temple.
This circumstance also shows the cicada,"^ could not
be meant by the Hebrew term here, as some of the curious
have supposed ; for though the noise they make is ex-
tremely disagreeable and disturbing, as Dr. Richard
Chandler complains in his late Travels in Asia Minor,f
• An insect something like a gi-assbopper, and therefore the word ci-
cada is often so translated, but considerably different from it, and un-
known in England.
t The complaint this gentleman makes of them is, that they are ex-
tremely troublesome in the day time, making a very loud, ugly, scz'eak -
ing noise, as some affirm, with their wings ; and that if one begins, others
join, and the disagreeable concert becomes universal ; and that after a
dead pause, as it were on a signal, it commences again. Dr. Shaw, years
ago, made mu«h the same complaint, adding, that they are squalling some-
] 56 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
'yet it is not an insect so distressing to tbem, as to allow us
to imagine it was a subject of solemn prayer in the temple.
The disturbing them in their noontide naps, and the de-
vouring the fruits of the earth so as to occasion a famine,
are evils of a very different magnilude.
As to what is said in the 12th of Ecclesiastes, it will
easily be imagined, that their noise must be peculiarly
disagreeable to many of the aged, who naturally love
quiet, and are commonly unable to bear much noise : but
as this quality of old age has been before pointed out, it
would on that account be improper to explain this clause
of the cicada; and much more so, as I have shown, from
the answer of God to Solomon's dedicatory prayer, it is
highly improbable that the Hebrew word here can mean
the cicada, but it is very naturally understood of the
locust.
Now what is the consequence of the coming of destruc-
tive flights of locusts? Those that came upon Egypt,
Moses tells us, did eat every herb and all the fruit of the
trees, and there remained not any green thing in the
trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of
Egypt.^ Agreeably to which, le Bruyn tells us, that
when he was at Rama, near Jerusalem, he was told there^
that once they were so destructive, that in the space of
two hours they eat up all the herbage round Rama, and
that in the garden belonging to the house in which he
lodged there, they eat the very stalks of the artichoke
down to the ground. f
times two or three hours without ceasing; thereby too often disturbing
the studies, or the short repose that is frequently indulged in these hot
elimates, at those hours he means, from mid daj to the middle of the af-
ternoon, in the hotter months of the summer. P. 186.
* Exod. X. 15.
t Tome ii. p. 152. This also may be of use to show, that the depreda-
tions of the locust might be not improperly mentioned in speaking of a
house and its inhabitants : the great have not only their gardens some-
times adjoining to their houses, but various flowering shrubs in their court-
yards, according to Dr. Russell, vol. i. p. 33.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. J57
If in the last place we recollect, that green fields and
%'inejards, which the locusts are described as devourins*.
are represented as objects of desire, They shall lament
for the pleasant fields^ for thefruiiful vine^ according to
the margin, the fields of desire \^ again, Ye have built
houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them : ye
have planted pleasant vineyards, (or vineyards of desire,)
but ye shall not drink Ihe wine of them ;-\ we need not
be at a loss to understand what is meant by the royal
preacher, when, after having described the locust as
growing heavy by its depredations, he adds, and desire
shall fail, i.e. and every green thing shall disappear: to
which state of things in the vegetable world, when every
free was stripped of ils leaves, and looked as just dead,
he compares the human body, which through age appears
shrunk up, without moisture and ready to die.
Such appears to me to be an easy and popular way of
explaining these emblematical representations of age :
the circumstances pointed outare not those the knowledge
of which arises from deep medical learning ; but are ob-
vious to the vulgar eye, and are mentioned with greater
or less degrees of distinctness in the Scriptures. The
emblems also representing them are derived from customs,
occurrences, and the state of nature in the East ; and I
hope will appear sufficiently accommodated to the Orien-
tal taste. How far such an explanation may appear admis-
sible, I leave to the candour of the reader to determine.
But before I quit this part of the paragraph, I would
just observe, that I am sensible a very ingenious writer
supposes, that the first verse of this chapter refers to old
age; but the 2d, 3d, 4tb, and 5th, to some season of epi-
demic sickness, perhaps to a time in which the pestilence
rages ; and he illustrates this interpretation with a great
deal of ingenuity and learning, at a considerable lengih.J
* Isai. xxxii. 12. t-^^iosv. 11,
\ Gentlemen's Magazine for July and August, 1752.
VOL. III. 21
158 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
But as Ihis mingling the description of old age, and of
pestilential or other epidemic mortal diseases togeiher,
renders the subject too complex and intricate, on the one
hand; and on the other, that he opposes the days of
youth to this evil time that was to come, Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, whereas, according to
this writer he should rather have said, "Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy health," I have thought it
right to adhere to the common system, and suppose the
whole is a description of old age ; the 2d verst, of that
time of life in general, its winter; and the three succeed-
ing verses should be applied to particular circumstances,
which are wont to attend in common the decline of life^
some labouring under one coraplaiuT, and others under a
different kind of bitterness. Nevertheless, it must un-
doubtedly be admitted, that it becomes the young, de-
voutly to remember God in the early part of life, not only
oi> account of the sorrows that attend old age, but on ac-
eount too of the terrors, that must be expected to come
on the irreligious, in times of general sickness and mor-
tality ; and it ought to be acknowledged that he has illus-
trated his explanation with great ingenuity.
Nothing needs to be said by way of illustration of the
latter part of the 5th verse, which may be considered as
forming the third part of this remarkable paragraph of
Solomon, since every one admits that a man's long home
means the grave ; and it has been elsewhere shown, that
in mourning for the dead they went about the streets, or
drew themselves into a circle as they lamented them in
their procession in the streets.
OBSERVATION XIV.
FARTHER REMARKS ON SOLOMOn's PICTURE OF OLD AGE.
The latter part of this description, the very ingenious
Dr. Mead seems to have thought much more difficult to
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &g. 159
explain than the preceding irnnges, and indeed to be so
extreoaely eni«;maJica!, tliat nothing less than the penetra-
tion of an Oedipns could decypher if.* I cannot pre-
tend to any such sagacity ; but I should suppose, the
considering this sixth verse as descriptive of the state of
the corpse of a prince, after man is gone to his long home,
and the mourners Iiave gone about the streets, is an ob-
servation of great consequence to the due explanation of
that part of this celebrated paragraph.
That he is speaking of the state of things between the
interment of the body and its total dissolution, or return
to its original earth, is, I think, suflSciently clear. The
order in which he has ranged the particulars of the de-
scription, requires us to understand the words after this
mariner: first, he speaks of the infirmities attending old
age ; then the burial of the body, and the solemn mourn-
ing of survivors ; then of what succeeds until it is dis-
solved, and becomes mingled with the earth from whence
it was taken.
That it is the state of the corpse of a prince, after in-
terment, that is described, not only agrees best with the
quality of the writer, but the former part of the repre-
sentation ; for there he compares the body not to a com-
mon house, but a palace, where guards were posted, (when
the keepers of the house shall tremble ;) and musicians
were in continual waiting, and all the daughters ofmusif^
shall be brotisht low.
If it be the description of the state of the corpse of a
prince, after its interment, decaying, and returning to its
dust, it will not be disagreeable to introduce an attempt
to explain the description, by placing before my reader
the account Josephus gives of the state of King Herod's
body, when carried out to burial. It is given us in the
• Qixse hactenus dicta sunt, difficillimos explicatus non habent. Tria
autera, quse concionem coDcludunt, incommoda jrevera sunt senigraata, et
Oedipi conjectoris indigent ; qui tamen cum, saltern me judice, nondnm
repertus sit, ipse pro viribus ea solvere conabor»
IgO CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &:c,
irthbook of his Jewish Antiquities, and to this purpose,
Archelaus, being desirous to do honor to himself by bury-
ing his father Herod with great pomp, " the body was car-
ried forth and laid upon a couch of gold, adorned with pre-
cious stones of great value, and of divers kinds. The
mattress was purple, and it was wrapped up in vestments
of the like colour, adorned with a diadem, a crown of gold
placed above its head, and a sceptre was in its right hand.
His sons and kindred surrounded the couch. His soldiers
followed in due order. After them came five hundred
servants carrying perfumes. In this order they marched
to the place of interment."^
I do not at this moment recollect, that we have any
account of his sepulchre's having been opened ; but many
royal tombs have, as well as others in which persons of
great distinction have been laid. Some have been found
casually ; some have been designedly and respectfully
uncovered, in order to give an opportunity to the curious
to examine into the stale of the dead body, and its habili-
ments, after having been interred hundreds of years, and
been previously embalmed before burial, or undergone
other operations designed to retard its dissolution, ac-*
cording to the different modes that have prevailed in dif-
ferent countries or different ages. So I think the tomb
of Edward the first, in Westminster Abbey, was not long
^Jnce opened for these purposes.
But the last account of this kind, on which I have cast
my eye,f is that of a Tartarian prince, supposed to be a
descendant of Gengbiz-Khan, the founder of a very large
empire, which at one time comprehended almost all
Asia. J He is supposed to have been buried four or five
hundred years, when the barrow || under which he was in-
• Vol. 1, p. 848, 849, ed. Haverc. f Archaeologia, vol. 2, art. S3, 34.
^ Page 231.
[I The tumulus, or artificial hill of earth or stones, under which sort of
hills formerly in England the dead were buried, and of which many are
vtUl to be seen.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, fcc. 161
terred was opened, "^ by order of the Russian court, a
few years ago.
The officer that was sent on this employment, we arc
told, '* upon taking a survey of the numberless monu*
ments of the dead spread over this great desert, conclud-
ed that the barrow of the largest dimensions most prob-
ably contained the remains of the prince, or chief. And
he was not mistaken ; for, after removing a very deep cov-
ering of earth and stones, the workmen came to three
vaults constructed of stones, of rude workmanship, &c,
" That wherein the prince was deposited, which was
in the centre, and the largest of the three, was easily dis-
tinguished by the sword, spear, bow, quiver and arrow,
"which lay behind him The body of the prince
was in a reclining posture, upon a sheet of pure gold, ex-
tending from head to foot ; and another sheet of gold, of
the like dimensions, was spread over him. He was wrapt
in a rich mantle, bordered with gold, and studded with
rubies and emeralds. His head, neck, breast, and arms
naked, and without any ornament.
" In the lesser vaultf lay the princess, distinguished by
her female ornaments. She was placed reclining against
the wall, with a gold chain of many links, set with rubies,
round her neck, and gold bracelets round her arms. The
head, breast and arms were naked. The body was cov-
ered with a rich robe, but without any border of gold or
jewels, and w^as laid on a sheet of fine gold, and covered
over with another. The four sheets of gold weighed 40
lbs. The robes of both looked fair and complete ; but,
upon touching, crumbled into dust.*'J
The royal robes of Herod, in which Josephus tells us
he was buried, in like manner, soon crumbled, without
doubt, into dust ; and to the eflfects on the spices and
perfumes laid in the earth ; the loss of their fragrancy
which they must first undergo, and then their dissolution
into earth too, one would be disposed to think Solomon rcr
* Page 233. f In the third, lay the prince's horse.
i Page 223, 224.
162 CONCERNING THEIR LITKRATURE, &c.
fers in the 6th verse in which he describes (he events in
terv ening between man's being conducted to his long, hornej
verse 5, and the bod_y'9 returning to the enrtb as it was,
mentioned verse 7. There are four clauses in this 6th
verse, which Dr. Mead reduces to three particulars, the
pitcher's being broken at the fountain, and the wheel
being broken at the cistern, plainly relating to one and
the same thing, whatever it was; and as Dr. Mead re?
duced the four clauses to three particulars, I m^y be ex-
cused perhap"*, in bringing them clown to two ; the de-
struction of the insignia of dignity ; and the perfumes
which were placed with the corp>e in the sepulchre, be-
coming inodorous first, and afterward rotting, so as to be
undistinguishable from common earth.
So the admonition will amount to this, Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, before the winter of
life arrives ; before the various complaints of old age take
place, its blindness, deafness, &c. before thou art carried
to the grave ; before those effects appear that more im-
mediately precede thy mingling with the earth, and thy
becoming undistinguished from common dust ; for hope in
God can only cheer thee in the feeling, or the thinking
of any of these circumstances.
The thought will readily be allowed to be agreeable,
but the interpretation may be looked upon as arbitrary.
Let me attempt to spread a little probability over it.
Herod was buried in royal robes; but purple vestments
were not the only apparel worn by princes. When Herod
Agrippa was struck with death, in the theatre of Cesarea,
St. Luke tells us he was arrayed in royal apparel, and sit-
ting upon his throne;^ but Josephus, expressing; more
distinctly the meaning of this general term, informs us,
that he was dressed in a vestment all of silver, of admira-
ble texture, and that going early into the theatre, the rays
of the rising sun created such a splendour, as that some
flatterers took occasion from thence to salute him as more
than a mortal. f
• Acts xii. 21. t Antiq. lib. 19, cap. 8, sect. 3.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c» J63
There might be something particularly curious in the
workmanship of this robe, but the interweaving threads
of precious metal, along with other materials, was at least
as ancient as the days of Moses, and Solomon must have
seen the vestment, or one exactly like it that Moses was
directed to make, for the high priests to wear on particu-
lar solemn occasions. " He made the ephod of gold, blue
and purple, and scarlet and fine twined linen. And they
did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires,
to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scar-
let, and in the fine linen, with cunning work. And (he
curious girdle of his ephod, that was upon it, was of the
same, according to the work thereof; of gold, blue, &c."*
If gold was thus interwoven, every one must allow that
silver might, after the same manner.
And as the Arabs of the Holy Land now wear girdles
embroidered with gold, or of gold and silver tissue,f it
cannot be pretended, that it is incredible that such were
in use in the days of Solomon, who was so remarkable
for magnificence.
Farther, it appears from John xi. that whatever the
ancient Jews were buried in, whether a winding sheet, or
in some of their best garments, they were not merely
wrapped loosely about them, but fastened with proper
bandages ; for when our Lord called Lazarus to come
forth from the grave, he came forth, it is said, bound hand
and foot with grave clothes : and his face was bound
about with a napkin, Jesus said unto them, Loose him
and let him g'O. J
What length of bandage was applied by the ancient
Jews at their death, we are no where, that I know of,
told : nor are we informed, how it fastened the sepulchral
Testment close to the dead body. As to the old Egyp-
tians, we know that they made use of a vast length of
fiUetting, and the arms, legs, and trunk, were all covered
* Exod xxxix. 2, 3, 5.
t Voy. dans Isi Pal. par. M. de la Roque, chap. 16. t Verse 44.
164 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
over and over again with it. And though Mr. Wood, witb
all his care, and all his offers, could not procure a whole
Palmyrene mummy, ^ yet, from the fragments he found, he
was able to pronounce their way of embalming was per-
fectly like that of the Egyptians. But the manner of
applying bandages to a Jewish corpse is not known ; how-
ever, it is certain, from what is said of Lazarus, they were
not wrapped in their grave clothes loosely, but bound up
in them by a bandage, so as to confine them hand and foot.
This bandage, I suppose, is meant by the silver cord
here. A robe of cloth of silver was worn by Herod
Agrippa in life, suiting his royal dignity : and a bandage
resembling modern Eastern girdles, a bandage of silver
and fine linen, might be employed to swathe deceased
princes, in or before the time of Solomon. But after a
few centuries, these bandages, like the robes of the Tar-
tar prince, by the effluvia of the enveloped body and of
the surrounding earth, would be unable to keep the burial
clothes in a proper position, would decay, would lose their
hold, would crumble to dust. Remember thy Creator in
the days of thy youth, for the grave is thy long home
and all the magnificence of sepulchral habits, on which
thou mayest vainly set thy mind, as some softening to the
horrors of that abode, will fade, will vanish away :f it is
the resemblance of the power, the goodness, the faithful-
ness of thy Creator, that gave life at first, and who can
raise the dead, that only can give comfort to the wise
man, when he thinks of that state through which he must
pass.
If this explanation be admitted, the second clause will
not be difficult, being in course to be understood of the
diadem, the fillet or cap of honor which the Eastern
* Ruins of Palmyra, page 22.
f An apocryphal writer seems to have had a thought of this kind ia
view, when he compares an idol '* to a dead body that is cast into the
dark. And jou shall know them to be no gods by the bright purple that
rotteth upon thern," ke. Baruch vi. 71, 72.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. 165
|jrinces wore upon their heads, and in one of which the
head of Herod was enclosed, when he was carried tp
burial, according to Josephus.^
A diadem, into whose texture gold thread was wrought,
was equally liable to be rotted with silver bandages that
held the vestments of the head in proper order.
Our translators render the Hebrew word phi gullath,
bowl, " or the golden bowl be broken ;" but as the word
is derived from a root which signifies to roll round, and
from which is derived the word that signifies a book in
the form of a roll, it raaj be understood of what was worn
upon, or rolled about the head, by people of high distinc-
tion.
But it may appear more difficult to make out what con-
nexion there can be supposed to be between a sepulchre, or
the state of a body decaying in it, and a broken pitcher
or fractured water wheel. It must be allowed to be a dif-
ficulty. But when it is remembered, that pitchers and
wheels were made use of for watering gardens, on the
one hand; and on the other, that the Eastern sepulchres
are frequently adorned wiHi sweet smelling herbs and
flowers, as well as rendered less disgustful to the senses
by perfumes, and being anointed with fragrant oils, and
anciently by large quantities of spices and odoriferous
substances deposited in them : the representing the dis-
appearing of these matters in a long neglected sepulchral
edifice or cave, where the body is nearly reduced to dust,
by the image of a broken pitcher, or water wheel, may
not appear to be so remote from Oriental managements,
as to be more unnatural than some other expositions which
have been proposed, or patronized, by the learned.
But this, which I would propose as what may be a prob-
able solution of these words of this enigmatical paragraph,
requires to be set forth more distinctly.
* Who tells U8 the crown of solid gold was placed higher than his head j
the diadem, another royal ornament, wrapped about it.
VOL. III. 22
166 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, 8tc.
Many authors have given an account of the covering
the graves of the dead, among the Greeks and Roman*
of former times, with fragrant leaves and flower«5 and
some have observed that it obtains in more Ea«irern and
Southern countries. The Turks sometimes practise it, as
I have elsewhere shown, the room of Ali Dey, in Barbary,
being decorated, for forty days snccessnely, with flow,
ers, and surrounded with people praying for him ; but
what is more, Dr. Shaw, has remarked,^ that their burial
places are adorned with flowers planted in them and grow
ing as in a garden, as I had occasion to remark under a
preceding Observation. 1 have met with similar ac-
counts elsewhere. f
We shall not after this account, wonder at some articles
in d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orieniale, in which he tells
us, that the place in which is the tomb of the Iman Riza,
is called the odoriferous Garden ;J that the place in which
Mohammed the great Prophet lies interred is called, by
way of eminence, the Flowery Meadow, or the Garden ;|1
to which is to be added what he says under the article ra«
cudhah, in which he tells us, that this word, which sig-
nifies in Arabic a garden, or meadow full of flowers, is
often used by Mussulmen for the sepulchre of some per-
son celebrated for his learning or piety: for in fact such
burial places are often a sort of gardens.
If they are gardens, they must in that dry country fre-
quently want watering. Accordingly, the Prophet isaiah
compares the state of a people given up to destruction
and desolation, to that of an oak whose leaf faded, and that
of a garden that had no water § A sepulchre garden then
must want watering, as well as others : and accordingly,
I well remember to have read an account of the carrying
water to water those flowers, &c. that were planted in the
burial places, though I cannot at this time recollect the
. * Page 219. f See RauwolfF, in particular, p. 46.
i Art. Ali ben Moussa al Kadhera. \\ Art. Medinah. § Isaiah i. 30.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. jqJ
author; as well o^ others that carry fresh flowers and
Jeaves, from time to fime, to the tombs of their dead rela-
tions and friends, (o replace those they had before left
there, which having; been separated from the roots on
which they g^revv, of course soon fade and decay.
The Jews, in like rnannei, in ancient times were fond
of making their burial places smell agreeably. It was
their manner, S«. John teils us, to bury their dead with
perfume?, John XIX. 40; and for the same reason, in places
planted with flowers and sweet smelling hexbs, or gardens.
So we find Jo-^eph of Arimathea had prepared a tomb for
himself in a garden, "^ in which our Lord was buried ; so
we find kinq; Minasseh was buried in a garden,f the gar-
den of his own house, which the author of the 2d book of
Chronicles expresses by the phrase of burying him in his
own house. J According to this, Joab was buried too in
a garden, foi he is said to have been buried in his own
house in the wilderness, I Kings ii. 34. But whether the
place in which Juab was buried was a garden or not, it is
certain that of king Amon was, 2 Kings xxi. 26, as well
as where king Manasseh was laid.
Agreeably to this we find, in Dean Addison's account
of the Jews of Barbarv,).| that they there adorn the gra-ves
of their dead in much the same manner as do their Mo-
hanmedan neighbours, of which I was giving an account
from Dr. Shaw, in a preceding page; for though he could
find no inscriptions ov epitaphs in their burial place, which
he supposed arose from the poverty of the Jews of Bar-
bary, yet he found boughs set about their graves.
The breaking then of the pitcher at the fountain, and
the fracturing of the water wheel, which sort of machine
was in such general use for the keeping up the verdure
and the fragrancy of their gardens, may naturally enough
express the neglect into which a sepulchre in a long series
of years must be expected to fall, when, instead of flowers,
• John xix. 41. f 2 Kings xxi. 18. t Ch. xxxiii. 20. (| Page 220, 221.
168 CONCEUNIXG THEIR LITERATURE, he.
nothing perhaps but barren sand would be found there^r
and even the scent of those rich perfumes, in a bed of
which the body might be laid, be lost, the spices becom-
ing rotten, and crumbled to dust, the gums dissolved and
gone, and desolation and neglect in absolute possession.
" Remember thj Creator in the days of thy youth, be-
fore the winter of old age be come on; before its numer-
ous complaints have taken place; before thou shalt be
carried to thy long home; before the vestments of death
be decayed, the perfume of the grave vanished, and thy
body be turned to dust : for nothing but hope in God can
support the soul when struggling with disease ; can dis-
arm the king of terrors in his approach ; can enable thee
to reflect on the solitude, the corruplion, the dereliction
of the grave, and its being demolished, and its place no
more known. For even then the Giver of life, thy Creator,
can bring thee back into view, and, raising thee from the
dead, make thee a partaker of immortality."
The description from first to last, is highly figurative,
l^t it is to be hoped not as unintelligible as Egyptian hie-
roglyphics are wont to be. That the intention of Sol-
omon was to represent old age as the winter of human life
in the first place; then emblematically to set forth its
complaints; and then, after having spoken of the mourn-
ing for the dead, at the time of their departure, to repre-
sent the mouldering of the body until its being reduced to
dust, are points that seem to be pretty plain and deter-
minate.*
* Thus far Mr. Harmer ; and I suppose there is scarcely a man in the
nation who knows any thing of the structure of the human body, that will
hesitate for a moment to give a decided preference to the elegant illustra-
tion given by Dr. Mead of the words of Solomon. Edit.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c. igg
OBSERVATION XV.
OF THEIR DISCOURSES, TALES, ScC. IN THEIR PUBLIC
ASSEMBLIES.
To what has been said of Eastern books, may naturally
be subjoined some account of the discourses that have
been pronounced there in assemblies of ingenious, or at
least inquisilive men, which have not unfrequently given
birth to those writings that have been greatly celebrated
among them. Such assemblies have certainly been held
in these countries of later time; and to such held in his
time, Solomon seems to have referred in the 12th chapter
of Ecclesiastes, his words in the lllh verse of that chap-
ter being these : The words of the wise are asgoads, and
as nails fastened by the master of assemblies, which are
given from one shepherd.
If we suppose that he is speaking of assemblies of men,
and not of collections of stones, cemented and joined to-
gether to form magnificent structures, to what assemblies
is it most probable that he refers ? Not surely those gath-
ered together in the Temple, for they were for sacrificing
and singing the divine praises; not those in their Syna-
gogue, for the discourses there were not of the nature of
this book of Solomon's, being such as arose from the read-
ing the law and the Prophets, nor for the same reason,
those that might be pronounced in their colleges, or their
schools of the Prophet as they have been more commonly
called, for these, we have reason to believe, consisted of
regular and stated disquisitions relating to their law, and
possibly sometimes explanations of the Prophets : it would
best answer the circumstances in which Solomon wrote,
and the nature of this book of Ecclesiastes,* if we under-
• Dropping the consideration of its being the production of inspiration.
IfO CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
stand bim of discourses in assemblies of iriqiiisitive and
curious men, held occasionallj, and founded on Ibe gen-
era! principle of reason and experience, in a word, dis-
courses of an eloquent and philosophical nature.
That there have been such assemblies in these coun-
tries, since the time of Solomon, is the first thing to be
made out here.
31acamati according to d'Herbelot, signifies assemblies
and conversations, pieces of eloquence or academical dis-
courses, pronounced in assemblies of men of letteri. This
way of reciting compositions in prose and verse has been
as irequent among the Orientals, as it was anciently among
the Romans, and as it is now in our academies. The
Arabians have many books containing discourses of this
kind, which are looked upon by them as masterpieces of
eloquence. Hamadani was the first that published such
pieces, and his work is entitled, Discourses of the most
eloquent Man of his Age, for he was looked on as a mir-
acle of eloquence. Hariri imitated him, and, in the opin-
ion of many, excelled him, insomuch that the most learned
of the Arabian grammarians said, that his work ought not
to be written but on silk. These discourses derive their
names from the places where they were pronounced, the
first being marked out by its being delivered at Sanaa,
the capital of Yemen; and the last, which is the 50lh,
bears the name of Bassora, a city of Chaldaea, situated
near the mouth of the Tigris.^
They differ then from the academical discourses of
France, which are pronounced before societies of learned
and ingenious men, who regularly assemble together at
certain times; whereas these Eastern assemblies are sup-
posed to be people gathered together occasionally, with-
out any particular connexion, and brought together from
• Professor Chappelow, of Cambridge, has translated six of these dis-
courses of Hariri into English, which he has entitled, Assemblies, or in-
geuious conversations of learned men among the Arabians, upon a great
■variety of useful and entertaining subject?.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, he. |7|
a desire to hear some celebrated speaker, w!io is disposed
to discourse to as manj as are willing to hear Lim in bis
peregrinations from place to place, or to hold conversa-
tion among themselves.
But there have been other discourses of this kind, pro-
nounced in more elevated auditoiie?, but still occasionally
collected together, and not properlj' associated, of \\hich
d'Herbelot has made mention in the article of Arnak,
where he gives us the names of three princes, who were
great lovers of learning, and particularly of ihe Persian
poetry, which led them to endeavour, with a spirit of ri-
valship to engage the most excellent poets of that age^
which were then very numerous, to reside at their rc!*pec-
tive courts. KheiUier Khan^ who surpassed the other
two in power, outdid them also in magnificence, for he
was wont to hold a kind of academj^ where he assisted
in person, silting upon a raised part of the fioor, at the
foot of which were placed four great basins, full of gold
and silver coin, which he distributed among his poets ac-
cording to the merit of their compositions.
He afterward tells us, that the number of these learn-
ed men of signal merit, and who accompanied him every
where, striving with emulation to convey instruction ta
his mind by their conversations, or to animate him ta
glorj by their eulogiums, was commonly about an hun-
dred, to whom he gave very considerable pensions, and
then mentions the names of ten of the most illustrious of
them, among whom Rasclvdi seems to have been the
most eminent, who, after some time, was a contpetilor with
Amak, who had brought most of these eminent men under
the notice of the Sultan, and was as their chief and presi-
dent, and distinguished by the superiority of his appoint-
ments, or of the presents that were made him, being pos-
sessed of a great number of slaves, of both sexes, and
having thirty led horses richly harnessed, which excited
the en^y of the rest, and particularly of Raschidi, who
at length found means to supplant him.
1 72 CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, &c.
In another article^ speaking of the same Raschidi, but
a little varying the manner of spelling his name, he de-
scribes hira as living in the court of Atsiz, another Eastern
prince : he tells us, this prince was often wont to assem-
ble an academy of men of genius, in order to hold con-
ferences on matters of learning, and on the belles lettres.
These eleven eminent personages, mentioned under the
article Jmac, and particularly Amac and Raschidi, might
very properly be called in the Eastern style, masters, or
rather lords of assemblies, as the word, strictly taken,
signifies in Eccles. xii. 11, that is, persons that distin-
guished themselves by the superiority of their composi-
tion, on whom the eyes of all that heard them were atten-
tively fixed, and who conveyed exquisite instruction and
pleasure to the mind by their words. Agreeably to this,
we find Joseph called the master, or lord of dreams, in
the Hebrew, Gen. xxxvii. 19 ; so Exodus xxiv. 14, what
is expressed in our translation, a man that has matters to
do, is in the original an::"! b}:2 baal debareem, a lord of
words ; so a bird is called a lord of the wing, Prov. i.
ir. The collections of d'Herbelot prove, that the like
form of speech still prevails in those countries ; for he
tells us the word saheb signifies the master, author, or
possessor of a thing. So saheb al Sihah means the lord
or author of Sihah, the name of an Arabic dictionary ;
and saheb al Camons, the master or lord of Camous, the
name of another dictionary in that language. f So saheb
Asea, or saheb al Assa, the master or lord of the Rod,
is the title the Mnssulraen commonly give to Moses ; as
to Jonah, saheb al Noun, the lord or man of the Fish. J
Traces of such assemblies, of the occasional kind, in
the time of Solomon, seem to appear, I think, in the Old
Testament. Solomon^s wisdom excelled the wisdom of
all the children of the East country, and all the wisdom
of Egypt : for he was wiser than all men ; than Ethan
the Esrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, th^^
• Reschidi, p. 715. f Page 733. + Page 734.
CONCERNING THEIR LITERATURE, 8cc. 1^3
sons of Mahol ; and his fame was in all nations
round about, 1 Kings \v. 30, 31. Now if we consider
the scarceness of books, and trouble of copying them out,
on one hand, and on the other, the management of the
queen of Sheba, who did not content herself with read-
ing the writings of Solomon, but came from a great dis-
tance, to converse personally with him, and to prove him
with hard questions, 1 Kings x. 1, 3, 4, 8 ; it is most nat-
ural to suppose, the wisdom of the East country, and of
Egypt, was rather known by their discourses and con-
versation in assemblies of people occasionally drawn to-
gether, at which strangers, those more especially who
travelled professedly in quest of wisdom, attended from
time to time, who might also in some cases apply alone,
without any concern of the natives, to celebrate person-
ages to hear their discourses as the queen of Sheba did.
Such an explanation, I think, best suits the nature of
this philosophical discourse of Solomon's, which, per*
haps, would not have been very proper in a Jewish syna-
gogue, if we could suppose Solomon to have oflSciated as
a common teacher here. The assemblies there seem to
have been more like the princely conventions d'Herbelot
mentions, in which the speakers sought out acceptable
words, and examined different schemes of philosophy.
If so, the word shepherd, which is sometimes equivalent
to that of teacher,* in which sense it is to be understood
here, means God, the Father of lights, from whom com-
eth down every good and perfect gift ; not Moses, as
some have understood that clause, for the books of Moses
are not cited in all this disquisition of Solomon. f
* So it is said Jer. iii. 25, Jlnd 1 -will give you pastors^ another word for
sheyherds, according to mine o-wn heart, -which shall feed you -with knoivl-
edge and urider standing.
t Assemblies of this kind are still common in the East, but they are
chiefly confined to the reciting of tales, stoiies, &c. one man entertaining
the rest with wonderful relations, such as those in the Ara"bian Nights.
The Odes of Hafez are often recited at such meetings. A similar prac-
tice obtains among the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland ; whole families
VOL. III. 23
CHAP. IX.
OBSERVATIONS REL\TTNG TO THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA.
OBSERVATION I.
OF WATER SPOUTS ON THE SYRIAN A"ND JEWISH COASTS.
«
Natural philosophers often make mention of water
spouts, which are most surprising: appearances ; but hardly
any of the commentators, that I have observed, speak of
them, though our translators have used the term, Psalm
xlii. 7, and the Psalmist seems to be directly describing
those phaenomena, and painting a storm at sea. And
none of them, I think, take notice of the frequency of
water spouts on the Jewish coasts, and consequently that
it was natural for a Jewish poet to mention them, in the
description of a violent and dangerous siorm.
That this however is the fact, we learn from Dr. Shaw,
who tells us, that water spouts are more frequent near the
capes of Latikea, Greego, and Carmel, than in any other
part of the Mediterranean.^ These are all places on
the coast of Syria, and the last of them every body knows
in Judea, it being a place rendered famous by the prayers
of the Prophet Elijah. The Jews then could not be ig-
norant of what frequently happened on their coasts, and
David must have known of these dangers of the sea, if he
meet frequently during the winter at each other's houses, and listen to the
Tales of other times, which many of the old people relate with admirable
address and effect. Tales similar to those in Ossiao, are often the subjects
of entertainment on these occasions. Edit.
• Page 33S.
OF THE STATE OF JUDEA. 175
had not actually seen some of them, as Dr. Shaw did.
Strange then ! since this is this case, that commentators
should speak af these water spouts as onlj meaning vehe-
ment rains ;^ or that any should imagine that he com-
pares his afflictions to the pouring of water through the
spout* of a house, as Bythner seems to do in his Lyra,
when (hey have nothing to do with a storm at sea, which
the Psalmist is evidently describing.
Oihers have remarked that these spouts are often seen
in the Mediterranean, but I do not remember to have
seen i( any where remarked, before I read Dr. Shaw,
that they are more frequent on the Syrian and Jewish
coasts, than any other part of this sea ; and as the Doctor
has not applied the observation to the explaining any
part of Scriplure, I thought it was right to take notice of
it in these papers, and as it belongs to the natural history
of Judea, it comes into this chapter.
OBSERVATION II.
CURIOUS RIJMARKS ON THE BROOK KIDRON.
It is not at all to be wondered at, that the torrent Ki-
dron was dry in November 1774, though that was a rainy
month at Jerusalem that year,f since, if the ground re-
mained so dry, from the summer's drought, as to take in
the rain as fast as it descended, there could be no water
found running in the bed of a torrent.
The gentleman that favoured me with some account of
the Holy Land, which he visited in 1774, particularly re-
marked, that the Kidron was dry, when he was at Jeru-
salem, in November that year, though that month was, he
understood, wetter than that month usually is there. But
he observed that the rain was not at that time in very
large quantities, or without intermission.
• Vide Poll Syn. in loc. -j- See a preceeding Observation.
176 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
The bridge is a sure proof there is sometimes a co??-
siderable stream in (hat place, as well as the verbal testi-
monj of the inhabitants, by whom this gentleman was
told, that the run of water there was almost constant
through the winter, and earlj in the spring. He added,
that thou2;h it was dry when he saw it, there were evi»
dent signs of the passage of water in its channel.
The writer of these observations lives near a water
course, which is about half the size of the Kidron, ac-
cording to the account of le Bruyn,^ or somewhat more,
and, like that, has no water but what descends from the
clouds : he has often been surprised to find no water run-
ning in its channel affer considerable rains, when at olher
times the streams have been very violent, and the trus-
tees for the road which it crosses, and which has lately
had turnpipes erected upon it, have thought proper of
late to build a substantial brick bridge over it, which foot
passengers before passed by a bridge consisting of a couple
ot planks. The running of the water has been found to
depend very much on the earth's being saturated with
moisture, and particularly on the sudden dissolution of
snow. It is no wonder then to find the channel of Kidroi^
dry in autumn, or when the spring is far advanced.
It may have frequently appeared strange to many rea-»
ders, that all the travellers they have consulted have
found the Kidron dry : but it is to be remembered that
those who have published such journals, were not in the
Holy Land in winter. The people of Jerusalem, in 1774,
affirmed to the gentleman whose account I have been giv-
ing, that the water runs there in winter; and, answerable
to this, I have been assured by the author of the history
of the revolt of Ali Bey, and who lived, I think, some
years in that country, (hat he has seen the water run in
the channel of the Kidron.
• He tells us, in h*s second tome, chap. 48, that it is not above three
paces broad, which, I take it, means about filteen feet. It was dry when
he was at Jerusalem ia the year 1681, from the middle of October to the
faJddle of November.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDF.A. Iff
OBSERVATION III.
REMARKS ON THE PLAIN WHERE SODOM AND GOMORRHA
STOOD.
The description that is given us of some well watered
places in (he East of late times, may, I think, serve to en-
liven our apprehensions of the fruitfulness and the beauty
of the plain where Sodom and Gomorrha stood, before
God destroyed those wretched cities.^
That plain is compared to Eden, and to Egypt, in that
part of it near to Zoar. But we know not distinctly what
Eden was ; nor do we now know precisely the nature of
that part of Egypt near Zoar, as distinguished from the
rest of that celebrated country, which might be very well
known to the first readers of the books of Moses, and for
some ages afterward, and enable them to form a more
lively idea of the nature of the plain of Sodom, and of
Eden, the garden of God, than those could do who died
but a few generations ago.
The description that Sir J. Chardin has given us, of
one of the well watered places which he observed in the
East, may, possibly, produce something of this effect.
It is in the south of Persia, and is called Ma^n, which it
seems signifies a fish, and was so named, "on account of
their abundance there at certain times of the year. It is
a most delicious place. Rivulets of the best and most
beautiful water in the world run there, and so copiouslj',
as that for seven or eight months the country seems in a
manner under an inundation, and its territory is above
two leagues round. It is full of gardens, which produce
the most excellent fruits, and especially grapes and pome-
* Gen. xiii. 10. Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jor-
dan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrha, even as the garden of the Lord, like the l«nd of
i^gypt as thou comest unto Zoar.
V
If 8 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
granafes."^ He adds afterward, in the next page,
that it is near this place that some Persian authors sup-
pose the country and habitation of Job was. That this
appeared in no wise absurd to him, there being there
abundance of sheep, horse?, oxen, and asses, in which
the principal part of the riches of Job consisted, according
(o the account given in his history, which cannot be
equally affirmed of all the other places pretended to be
the land of Uz.
If this is the description of what the territory of Mayn
now is, and what the plain of Sodom formerly was, that
plain must have been intersected with many canals, and
at times, at least, full of fish ; must have abounded in
fruit ; have had the richest pastures ; and been a most
delightful district. But instead of being two leagues
round, it must have been vastly larger, if all that the sea
now covers was then a fruitful country, for Maundrell tells
us, that sea is twenty four leagues long, and six or
seven broad.f How large a territory this ! as well as
how delicious ! And something like this, but superior in
delectableness, Eden, the habitation of our first parents,
seems to have been. It is no wonder that Lot, when al-
lowed to choose, chose this fruitful country, so rich in its
pasturage. Gen. xiii. lOu
The evaporation of the water of this sea, seems to be
equal, or nearly equal now, to the waters that run into it.
It might be so anciently ; for though the surface of the
water in those numerous canals could not be equal to that
of the Dead Sea, yet the perspiration of the numerous
plants, &c. might produce a balance. Though the river
Barrady, according to Maundrell, is not quite so broad
as Jordan, J it comes pouring down from the mountains
with great rapidity, and brings a vast body of water, and
* Tome 3, p. 97. t t'age 84, ed. 5.
+ Jordan is about twenty yards over, according to Maundrell, p 83 ;
Barrady not so much, he says, as twenty yards, p. 121 ; but the mode of
expression intimates not much less.
MILITARY STATE OP JUDEA. X79
yet is all nearly consumed by the gardens and the inhabit-
ants of Damascus ;* the waters then of the Jordan, and
the other small rivers that run into if, might very well
have been dissipated by the inhabitants and vegetables of
this large district.
But however rich the pastures of Mayn may be, it does
by no means follow that Job resided there, any more than
that Abraham, who was very rich in cattle, as well as in
silver and gold. Gen. xiii. 2, resided in the plain of Jor-
dan. There were and are many places fit for feeding cat-
tle : it is surprising then, that a man of Chardin's pene-
tration should so far countenance this Persian notion.
The land of Uz lay certainly far from Persia, in or near
Edom.
OPSERVATION IV.
OF HEDGES IN THE EAST.
Our livins: fences of white thorn have been much ad-
mired, and I think there have been endeavours to intro-
duce such into some of the northern parts of Europe, par-
ticularly Sweden ; some of those in the Holy Land, in
later times, have been equally beautiful, or more so, and
perfectly answer those passages of the old Jewish proph-
ets, that speak of hedges made of thorny plants, and the
sharpness of the thorns of those that were then in use.
So Doubdan tells us, that a very fruitful vineyard, full
of olive and fig trees, as well as vines, which he found
about e'lzht miles southwest from Bethlehem, was enclosed
with a hedge, and that he found that part of it adjoining
to the road strongly formed of thorns and rose bushes, in-
termingled with pomegranate trees, the most pleasant in
the world. f
• Page 123. f ^^Y- de la Terre-Sainte, p. 154, 15f
180 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
A hedge, in which were many rose bushes and pome-
granate shrubs, of the wild kind, then in full flower, min-
gled with other thorny plants, must have made a strong
fence, and extremely beautiful. The wild pome^^ranate
tree, of which kind those used in fencing must, I pre-
sume, have been, is much more prickly, we are told, than
(he other species.* And when mingled with other
thorny bushes, of which they have several kinds in the
Holy Land, some whose prickles are very long, strong,
and sharp, must have made a hedge very difficult to
break through, as the Prophets suppose,
/ will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall,
that she shall not find her paths, Has. ii. 6. The way
of a slothful man is as a hedge of thorns, Prov. xv. 19.
The 7nost upright is sharper than a thorn hedge, Mich,
vii. 4.
This account, by Doubdan, of a modern thorn hedge,
in the Holy Land, may give us some idea of one
there in ancient days ; at least it may be considered as
amusing.
The same writer, I have observed, makes mention of
other enclosed lands being surrounded with walls of loosef
stones. Such, among others, is the place near Bethle-
hem, where it is supposed the angels appeared to the
shepherds at the time of the birth of our Lord, J but
which is now arable land, and which he tells is enclos-
ed with a little wall of loose stones, very low, and at
present almost demolished. H He mentions a like wall
of loose stones, without cement, in another place. § Is it
any wonder that a building of this kind, so full of chinks,
should be represented by Solomon as frequently a re-
ceptacle of venomous animals? He that diggeth a pit
shall fall into it ; and whoso breaketh a hedge, (it should
have been a wall) a serpent shall bite him, Eccl. x. 8.
*Voy. Diet, des Drogues, par Lemery, art. Punica. t Pierres seches.
i Luke ii. S. || Page 146. § Page 108.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 18i
Our translators themselves, in another place of the writ-
ings of Solomon, connect this term with the word stone,
which indeed the original words force them to do; but
that very necessity should have made them elsewhere
translate the wo-d by the terra wall, not hedge : / went
by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the
man void of understanding ; and to, it was all grown
over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof
and the stone jvall thereof was broken down, Prov. xxiv.
30, 31.
It seems it was anciently, as it is now, in general, an
unenclosed country ; but however there were several spots
fenced in, sometimes by a hedge, often composed of
thorny plants ; sometimes by stone walls, built without any
cement to strengthen them.
But the most extraordinary fence, to an European eye,
must be such as those de Tott mentions, observed by
him in the low lands of Judea,=?^ for he went no further
but from JufF, or Joppa, to Rames, commonly called Ra-
ma. Of this part of that country, he gives the following
account. " The space between the sea and the mountain
is a flat country, about six leagues in breadth, extremely
fertile. The fig tree of Indiaf supplies it with hedges,
and furnishes impenetrable barriers, which secure the
fields of the different proprietors. Cotton is here the
principal branch of commerce, and the industry of the in-
habitants employs itself in spinning. This part of the
* Memoirs, part 4, p. 93.
f " This plant," he tells us in a note, " is also called JRachet : by which
the French mean the opuntia, called by Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, p. 145,
the prickly pear, upon which the Doctor tells us several families live, dur-
ing the mouths of August and September : but he says nothing of its being
used for hedges. He remarks, that ** it is never known to tinge the urine
of a bloody colour, as it does in America, from whence this fruit originally
came." On this 1 would observe, that if the first knowledge of the plant
•was derived from America, no passage of the Scripture account of hedges
ean be illustrated by what we now know of this plant. It can have been
but lately introduced into Judea.
VOL. III. 24
182 ^^ '1'^^^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Holy Land is very remarkable for the remains of the Cru-
sades, with which it is covered."
OBSERVATION V.
of THE ROSES AND BALSAM OF JERICHO.
The roses of Jericho are a curiosity frequently brousrht
frora the Holy Land; and T saw one in the hands of the
gentleman that visited that country in 1774, and who
showed me the effect the putting the lower part of it into
water produced ; but they that save this name to that
plant, certainly could not desis^n the illustration of that
passage of Ecclesiasticus, in which he speaks of Wisdom's
being exalted like a palm tree in En^addiy and as a rose
plant in Jericho,^ since it is a very low plant, and of no
remarkable beauty, colour, or sweet scent, and the pro-
duction oftentimes of a desert.
A medical writer has described them as a very small
shrub, about four fingers high, woody, full of branches,
appearing like a small globe, of an ash colour, its leaves
and its flowers small, &c.f How such a plant caaie to be
called a rose, is not easy to guess; nor do I remember to
have found in any writer when it was first so denominated,
probably it was in times of superstition it was so distin-
«-uished, and owed its name to that cause. What I have
said makes it proper to set down Thevenol's account of
this plant here. J
" In the plain of Jericho, there are roses of Jericho, as
they call them, but they have not the virtues that many
ascribe to them, for they blow not unless they be put into
water, and they blow in all seasons, and at any hour, con-
trary to the opinion of those who &ay, that they blow not
* Ch. xxiv. 14. t Lemery, Diet, des Drogues, art. Rosa Jiiericontea.^
* Part 1, book 2, chap. 41.
MILITARY STATE OP JUDEA igg
but ID Christmas night ; and others, on all the festival days
of our Lddy ; wiih a great njany such idle tales. I found
of them also in ihe desert of Mount Sinai."
It is parficularlj untoward that this low plant should be
called the rose of Jerirho, when this ancient Jewish
writer, in de-scribing the superiority of Jewish theological
wisdom to that of other nations, describes it as exalting its
head as the most lofty trees of that country, in the re-
spective districts in which I hey grew: the cedjir in Leb-
anon ; the rose bush in Jericho.
Much of the plain of Jericho is now a sandy waste ; but
in the happier days of that country, it was celebrated for
its fruilfulness, and the preciousness of some of its veg-
etable productions. In that rich soil, and that favourable
temperature, the real rose bush must far have overtopped
the shrubs that produced Ihe celebrated balm of Jericho.
I have seen a rose bush rise up to the eaves of a house,
and I apprehend not less than fifteen or sixteen feet high,
here in England, and might therefore be very commonly
of that height in the plain of Jericho; but, according to
Maillet, the shrub that produced the celebrated balm,
which rendered Jericho so famous in the days of antiquity,
and was afterward transplanted into Egypt, and nursed
there with great attention and care, though now lost to
Egypt as before to Judea, was a very low plant. " It was
in the garden of Matarea," says Maillet, " that the famous
balm was produced, which entered into the composition
of the chrism, which the Coptic church made use of in
the baptism of infants, and its species now absolutely lost.
It is not, however, quite 200 years since, some stems of it
were in a little enclosed place of this garden, where a ba-
shaw of Egypt had placed them, persuaded that this pre-
cious shrub deserved a very particular attention. These
stems were then not above a foot high, and about the
thickness of an inch. Accordingly they say, that the
184 OF 'i'HE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
shrubs that produce balm never grow larger, and their
height never exceeds two or three cubits, "=^
Amidst these valuable plants, how towering must the
rose plant in so rich a soil have appeared ! probably con-
siderably superior to those that grew in most other places
of Judea,
The whole passage in Ecclesiasticus deserves to be
transcribed and considered, especially as there are some
remarkable variations between the Greek and Latin copies.
** I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress
tree upon the mountains of Hermon. I was exalted like
a palm tree in En-gaddi," (some copies read on the sea
shores,) ** and as a rose plant in Jeiirho, as a fair olive
tree in a pleasant field, and grew up as a palm tree by the
water. .... As the turpentine tree I stretched out my
branches, and ray branches are the branches of honor and
grace. As the vine brought pleasant savour, and my flow-
ers are the fruit of honor and riches." Verses 13, 14,
16, U.
* Let 3, p. Ill, 112. Tf any of my readers has a mind to see the fui'ther
description of this noble shrub, it is as follows. *' Out of this feeble trunk,
spring many very slender branches, ornamented with leaves of a most
beautiful green, nearly resembling those of rue, which grow in unevej^
numbers on each branch. The trunk is covered with a double bark. The
first of a reddish colour ; the inner one was much thinner, and entirely
green. These two barks seem to the taste much like incense and turpen-
tine; bruised between the fingers they sn.ell like cardamoms. The wood
underneath was white, and had no more taste or smell than common wood.
What was remarkable in this shrub was, that they w^efe obliged to cut it
every year in the same manner as the vine. Perhaps it was at that lime
that they gathered that precious liquor, which in former days was so much
celebrated " But though not to be found now in Egypt any more than in
Judea, yet it remains in Arabia, if it is the same that produces the Mecca
balsam, which, though scarce and costly, is sent in pots to Constantinople,
and other places of the Turkish empire. Niebuhr however tells us, in the
2d tome of his Travels, p. 280, that one of his associates found this plant in
flower the 4th of April, and had the pleasure of writing a description of the
tree under its shade ; and that it was said to grow in great abundance in
Yemen, the southern part of Arabia, and that the people there make no
other use of it but for burning, on account of its sweet scent. This shrub,
according to Niebuhr, grows to a much more considerable height, than it
seems to have done in Egyptj and therefore probably in the plain of Jericho.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 155
The vulgar Latin of Sixtus V. has these variations :
"I was exalted as the cedar, &c and as a cypress
tree in Mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in
Cades. ... I was exalted as a plane tree by the water
in the streets," &c.
Here I would remark, in the first place, that all these
trees are still fouad in the Holy Land and Libanus : the
cedar, the cypress, the palm, the rose bush, the olive, the
plane, the turpentine tree, and the vine ; and that the son
of Sirach selected them from the rest, on the account of
their height, their spread, their beauty, and their sweet
scent, mentioning the districts where they were found
most to flourish.
Secondly. When the Greek copies say, like a cypress
tree upon the mountains of Hermon, and the Vulgate in
Mount Sion, I should suppose the Latin translation gives
us the original reading, and that in the Greek copy here,
there is a designed change of the original term, in order
to prevent mistakes, as an unwary reader might be in dan-
ger, of understanding the words Mount Sion of the mount
on which the temple stood, which would by no means have
agreed with that precept. Thou shall not plant thee a
grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy
God, which thou shall make thee, Deut. xvi. 21. On that
account, an explanatory note seems to have been given
in the margin, signifying that one of the mountains of Her-
mon was meant, Sion being the name of one of the moun-
tains of Hermon, according to what we read, Deut. iv. 48,*
and so from the margin it appears to have crept into the
text. The son of Sirach then appears to have meant a
cypress tree on Mount Sion, one of the mountains of
Hermon.
Engaddi, the same as En-gedi in the Old Testament,
seems to have been the place which is celebrated here as
that where palm trees were very flourishing. Cades, in
* " From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even untp
3Iount Sion, which is Hermon."
186 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
the Latin translation, is visibly a corruption from Gaddi,
arising from some similarity of sound. Ev AiyiocKoi?, (on
the sea shores,) which is the reading h^mben Bos has
given us, seems to be owing to the misconception of some
Egyptian transcriber, on making use of a copy in which
'EvyciS'h was considerably defaced ; and being struck with
the height of those palm trees, which are some of the first
objects that present themselves to the eye of those that
goby shipping to Epypt, the coast being extremely low,
it appeared to him that Avyi»hoig must be the word he had
to transcribe.
Another difference between the Greek and Latin copies
is, that the first speaks simply of plane trees flourishing
when planted near water ; the other speaks of them as
growing by water in the streets. Here one would think
it more natural, for the Greek copies to have inadvertent-
ly dropped the words in the streets^ than for the Latin
transcribers to have added them. But whence this idea
is derived, it is hard to say. Perhaps some ancient city
in Judea, which the son of Sirach had seen, might have
somewhat resembled themodern capital of Persia, and be
in miniature what Sir John Chardin found Ispahan, A
river ran through a noble long place there, where they
were wont to take the air, and which was the most beau-
tiful place of the kind he ever saw or heard of. It was
crossed by streets in several places, he tells us, which are
large canals of water, planted with a double row of lofty
plane trees, the one near the canal, the other next the
houses.^ These trees not only made the streets in which
ihey were planted extremely beautiful and pleasant, but
it seems the Persians believed them to be very conducive
to the preserving that city in health ; for he says in an-
other tome, that the " Persians say it is owing to the plane
tree, that they are preserved from the pestilence; and
Kalife Sulton, the grand vizier of Sephi 1st, often said to
him, as 1 have heard him aflSrm, that it was from the time
• Tom. 3, p. 56, 57.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 187
that Ihe king bis father had caused these trees to be plant-
ed, in the city and territory of Ispahan, that the pestilence
had never visited them.**"^
We are not to suppose this is somewhat peculiar to
Ispahan, for he tells us in another page, that many other
cities of Persia are full of planted plane trees, and par-
ticularly that of Shiras ; the Persians being persuaded
of that tree's having the property of being good against
the pestilence, and every other kind of infection in the air.f
The trees, which are wont to be planted in our English
cities and towns, are lirae trees ; in Persia we find they
are plane trees, that are used to decorate their streets,
and where there is water they grow to a great height ; in
Constantinople they have abundance of cypress trees, J
the Turks using them not merely in their burial places,
but in their palaces, and private houses of distinction. ||
Whether this circumstance, the making mention of
plane trees in the streets, may be supposed to discover
any thinsi; of the countries into which the writer of the
book of Ecclesiasticus travelled, by making great impres-
sion on his imagination, I leave to be considered; certain-
ly the idea was not derived from Egyptian towns, they
are surrounded with palm trees, § which country the pre-
face of this book tells us he met with a writing, which
was the ground work of this compilation of wise sayings,
and where he gave it its finishing strokes. In the book
itself he is described as a Jew of Jerusalem, ch. i. 27;
but he is represented in another part of it as a great trav-
eller. A man that hath travelled knoweth many things:
* Tom. 2, p. 201.
f P. 11. Their being planted then of late at Ispahan, was owing, I ap'
pi'ehend, to the Sophi family's making Ispahan their capital, and for that
purpose greatly enlarging it, and endeavouring to make it as healthful, as
well as magnificent as they could.
+ De Tott's Mem. torn. 1, p. 5. Phil, Trans, abridg. vol. iii. part 2, cb.
2. art 39, p 464.
fl Russell's Hist, of Aleppo^ vol. i. p. 14. § De Tott, torn. iv. p. 63, 64;
|8§ OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, ANlJ
and he that hath much experience will declare wisdorHi
He that hath no experience knoweth little: but he that
hath travelled is full of prudence. When I travelled, I
saw many things, and I understand more than I can ex-
press. Ch. xxxiv. 9, 10, II.
OBSERVATION VI.
BY THE HORN OF THE SON" OF OIL, USED BY ISAIAH,
SYRIA IS MEANT.
The land of Israel is called by the Prophet Isaiah,
chap. V. 1, ^4 vineyard in the horn of the son of oiL
That curious expositor Vitringa seems to suppose it is so
represented on account of its height; and such seems to
have been the thought of our translators, for they render
the words, A vineyard in a very fruitful hill. Hills are un-
doubtedly the proper places for planting vineyards ;^ and
God might justly upbraid Israel with the goodness of the
country in which he had placed them, its mountains them-
selves being fertile: but if that was the sole intention, is
it not somewhat strange that the Prophet should on this
occasion, use an expression so ex-remely figurative? es-
pecially as the same Prophet elsewhere often speaks of
the hills with simplicity.
I will not deny, that it is agreeable enough to the East-
ern style, to express a hill by the term horn : for the
supposition of Bishop Pocockef seems to be by no means
unnatural) who tells us, that there is a low mountain in
Galilee, which has both its ends raised in such a manner
as to look like two mounts, which are called the Horns of
Hutin ; and, as he thinks, from this circumstance, and ihe
Tillage of Rutin's being underneath it. But then it is to
be remembered, that the term horn may equally well at
* Shaw, p. 358. f Vol. 2, p. 07.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 189
least be understood in a different sense ; so Sir John
Chardin inforois us, that a long strip of land, that runs out
into the Caspian sea, is called the utiddle sized horn,^ and
so d'Herbelot tells us, that the place where one of the
branches of the Euphrates falls into the Tigris, is called
the horn.f By the horn then of the son of oil, the Proph-
et might mean Syria, which is bordered on one side by
the sea, and on the other by a most barren desert, and
stretches out from its base to the south like a horn ; and
so these words will be a geographic description of Judea,
of the poetic kind, representing it as seated in particular
in the fertile country of Syria, rather than in a general
and intermediate way, as situated in a fertile hill.
The propriety of describing Syria as a country of oil,
no one will, I suppose, contest, as we find that oil was
wont anciently to be carried from thence to Egypt, Hos.
xii. 1 ; and as we find the celebrated Croisade historian,
William of Tyre, describing Syria Sobal as all thick set
with olive trees, so as to make prodigious woods that cov-
ered the whole country, affording its inhabitants in those
times, as they did their predecessors, a livelihood, and
the destruction of which must have been their ruin.J
OBSERVATION VII.
OF THE FERTILITY OF JUDEA,
This leads us to consider with aftenfion, the descrip-
tion that is given of the plenty of that country which
God gave to Israel. The Lord thy God bringeth thee
into a good land, a land of brooks of renter, of foun-
tains, and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills,
A land of rvheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees,
• In his accouDt of the coronatloQ of Solymaa III. p. 154.
t Page 353. + Page «83«
VOL. III. 25
190 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
and pomegranates, a land of nil olive, (or of the olive
tree of oil, according to the margin,) and honey, &c.
Deut. viii, 7, 8.
I would set down some passages illustratins; this de-
scription, just as they occur in writers, who have acci-
dentally had occasion to mention matters of this sort.
Hasselquist tells us,^ that he ate oli\esat Joppa, upon
his first arrival in the Holy Land, which were said to
grow on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusakm ; and that,
independent of their oiliness, they were of the best kind
he had tasted in the Levant. As olives are frequently
eaten in their repasts, the delicacy of this fruit in Judea
ought not to be forgotten ; fhe oil ihat is gotten from these
trees much less, because still more often made use of. In
the progress of his journey he found several fine vales,
abounding with olive trees. He saw also olive trees in
Galilee, but none further, he says, than (he mountain
where it is supposed our Lord preached his sermon. f
The fig trees in the neighbourhood of Joppa, Hassel-
quist goes on to inform us, were as beautiful as any he
had seen in the Levant. J
The reason why pomesranates are distinctly mentioned,
in this description of the productions of the Land of
Promise, I have had occasion to point out under a pre-
ceding Observation.
Honey is used in large quantities in these countries;
and Egypt was celebrated for the assiduity with which
the people there manas^ed Iheir bees, Maillef's account
of it is very amusing. || *' There are,'* says he, *' abun-
dance of bees in that country, and a singular manner of
feeding them, introduced by the Eiiyplians of ancient
tifues, still continues there. Toward the end of Octo-
ber, when the Nile, upon its decrease, gives the peasants
an opportunity of sowing the lands, sainfoin is one of the
first things sown, and one of the most profitable. As the
• Page lir. t Page 159. i^ Page 119. || Lett. 9, p. 24, 25.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 191
Upper Egypt is hoUer Ihan the Lower, and the inunda-
tion (here goes sooner off the lands, Ihe sainfoin appears
there firsl. The knowledge they have of this, causes
them to send their beehives from all parts of Egypt, that
the bees may enjoy, as soon as may be, the richness of
the flowers, w hich grow in this part of the country sooner
than in any o>her disliict of the kingdom. The hives,
upon their arrival at the further end of Egypt, are placed
one upon another in the form of pyramids, in boats pre-
pared for (heir reception ; after ha\ ing been numbered by
the people, who place them in the boats. The bees feed
in the fields (here for some days ; afterward, when it is
believed they have nearly collected the honey and wax,
which were (o be found for two or three leagues round,
they cause the boats to go down the stream, two or three
leagues lower, and leave them there, in like manner, such
a proportion of time as they think to be necessary for the
gathering up the riches of that canton. At length,
about the beginning of February, after having gone the
whole length of Egypt, they arrive at the sea, from whence
they are conducted, each of them, to their usual place of
abode. For they take care to set down exactly in a
register each district, from whence the hives were carried
in the beginning of the season, their number, and the
names of the persons that sent them, as well as the num-
ber of the boats, where they are ranged according to the
places they are brought from. What is astonishing in
this affair is, that with the greatest fidelity of memory
that can be imagined, each bee finds its own hive, and
never makes any mistake. That which is still more amaz-
ing to me is, that Egyptians of old, should be so atten-
tive to all the advantages deducible from the situation of
their country ; that after having observed that all things
came to maturity sooner in Upper Egypt, and much later
in Lower, which made a difference of above six weeks be-
tween the two extremities of their country, they thought
of collecting the wax and the honey, so as to lose none
192 OF l'^'^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
of tbera ; and hi( upon this ingenious method of making
the bees do it successively, according to the blossoming
of the flowers, and the arrangement of nature,"
If this soiicilude was as ancient as the dwelling of Is-
rael in Egypt, they must have been anxious to know
whether honey, about which they took such care in
Egypt, was plentiful in the Land of Promise; and they
must have been pleased to be assured it was. It contin-
lies !o be produced there in large quantities : Hasselquist,
in the progress of his journey from Acra to Nazareth,
tells us, that he found "great nuu»bers of bees, bred
thereabouts, to the great advantage of the inhabitants."
He adds, " they make their beehives, with litile trouble,
of clay, four feet long, and half a foot in diameter, as in
Esypt. They lay ten or twelve of them, one on another,
on the bare ground, and build over every ten a little
roof.""^ Mr. Maundreli observing also many bees in the
Holy Land, takes notice, that by their means the most
barren places of that country in other respects became
useful, perceiving in many places of the great salt plain
near Jericho, a smell of honey and wax as strong as if he
had been in an apiary. "f
By Hasselquist's account it appears, that the present
inhabitants of Palestine are not strangers to the use of
hives. They are constructed of very difTerent materials
from ours, but just the same with the Egyptian hives.
They seem to be an ancient contrivance } and indeed so
simple an invention must be supposed to be as old as the
days of Moses, when arts, as appears from his writings,
of a much more elevated nature were known in Egypt.
I cannot then well persuade myself to adopt that opinion
of some of the learned, J that those words of Moses in
Deut. xxxii, 13, He made him to snck honey out of the
rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, are to be understood
* Page 153, 154. t Page 66, and 86.
I- See Bishop Patrick on the place, and Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 338.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. I93
of his causing Israel fo dwell in a country, where some-
times thej might find honeycomb in holes of the rock.
If is very possible, that in that hot country, these insects,
when not taken ilue care of, may get into hollow places
of the rocks, and form combs there, as they sometimes
construct them in ours in hollow trees, though I do not
remember to hn\e met with any traveller that has made
such an observation.
But would this have been mentioned with so much tri-
umph by Moses in this place? The quantities of honey
produced after this manner, could be but small, compared
with what would be collected in hi\ es properly managed ;
when found, it must often cost a great deal of pains to get
the honey out of these little cavities in the hard stone, and
much the greatest part must be absolutely lost to the in-
habitants. The interpretation is the more strange, be-
cause when it is said in the next clause " and oil out of
the flinty rock," it is evidently meant, that they should
have oil, produced in abundance by olive trees growing
on flinty rocks ; and consequently the sucking honey out
of the rock should only mean, their enjoying great quan-
tities of honey, produced by bees that collected it from
flowers growing among the rocks : the rocky mountains
of this country, it is well known, "^^ produce an abundance
of aromatic plants proper for the purpose. f
* Dr. Shaw, in the same place ; Fgmont and Heyman, vol. 2, p. 13,
mention their fiiiding o:!oriferous herbs in great numbers, along with olive
trees, on Mount Carmel.
f 1 have indeed read an account somewhere concerning the Cape of
Good Hope, that they have bees there, but do not trouble themselves to
hive thera, the Hottentots furnishing them at an easy rate with rock honey,
-which has a better flavour than that of the hive. If this account be exact,
it does not follow that this ever was the case in Palestine ; the present in-
habitants are too indolent to give themselves the trouble of making hives, if
they could be furnished with sufficient quantities out of the rocks, easy to
be come at, and at the same time better tasted than the honey of a hive ;
but we find by Hasselquist, that they actually make use of hives at this
day, though of a very different construction from those of this country.
194 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Nor does Asaph, in the close of the eightjfirst Psalm,
speak, I apprehend, of honey found in cavities of rocks :
nor yet is he there describing it as collected frocn the
odoriferous plants that grow in the rocky hills of those
countries, if the reading of our present Hebrew copies be
right : but the Prophet tells Israel, that had they been
obedient, God would have fed them with the fat of wheat,
and wilh the rock of honey would he have satisfied them :
that is, with the most delicious wheat, and wilh the rich-
est, most invigoral'ng honoy, in lirge qit.antitics, both for
eating, and making agreeable driuk. Its reviving, s/rf?ig*//i-
ewiwo- quality, appears in the story of Jonathan, Saul's
son, 1 Sam. xiv, 27 ; as the using the term rock to signify
strength^ &c. appears in a multiiuue of places. The
rock of a sword. Psalm Ixxxix. 43, for the edge of a
sword, in which its energy lies, is perhaps as strange an
expression to Western ears.
I shall have occasion to take notice of the excellency
of the gra^jes of Judea, in a succeeding chapter; and
I may be dispensed with as to the pursuing the fur-
ther examination of the productions of this country, upon
giving my reader a remark of Dr. Shaw's to this purpose,
that it is impossible for pulse, wheat, or grain of any kind,
to be richer or better tasted, than what is commonly
sold at Jerusalem.*
Only it may not be amiss to add, with respect to this
country's being well watered, that the depth Qinn /e/iom,
spoken of in this passage, seems to mean reservoirsf of
water, filled by the rains of winter, and of great use to
make their lands fertile ; as the second word n'n^;^n tea-
loteeah, seems to mean wells, or some such sort of con-
veniences, supplied by springs; and the first word n^ninj
naharoteeah, rivers, or running streams, whether carry-
* Page 336.
\T\\e word apparently means something: of this kind in Ezek. xxxi. 4 ;
and again, Job xxxviii. 30, for he could be supposed to know nothing of
the face of any other deep, than a large pool or reservoir of water.
MILITAKY STATE OF JUDEA. I95
ing a larger or a smaller body of water. What an im-
portant part of this pleasing ciescripfion, especially in the
ears of those that bad wandered near forty years in a .
most dry and parcheci wilderness! I will only add, with-
out entering into particulars, that the present face of the
country answers this description.
OBSERVATION VIII.
OF THE FISH FOUND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, THE SEA
OF GALILEE5 AND THE NILE.
The Scriptures, in their representations of the fruit-
fulness of the Land of Promise, do in no place, so far as I
remember, speak of the plenty of fish there, though Egypt
was famous for ils fish, ai-sd the children of Israel longed
with eager desire for fish when in the wilderness. To
whatever cause this was owing, it does not appear to be
the scarcity of this kind of food in that country.
Fish catched in the Mediterranean were brought to
Jerusalem, in the time of Nehemiah in considerable quan-
tities, by the Tyrians, Neh. xiii. >6. As the inhabitants
of Tyre were remarkable for skill in maritime affairs, it
is impossible to say how far their fisheries might extend ;
however, it cannot but be pleasing to find, by njodern
travellers, that they might have catched much fish in their
own neighbourhood. " While I was busy in considering
the city," says Le Bruyn, speaking of Tyre, " my com-
rade emploj'ed his time in fishing with a line, and his
manner of doing it was by putting the line about bis
finger, and when he found the fish had taken the bait, he
drew the string with both hands, one after the other; by
which means we had a very good dish of fish, and found
ihem excellently well tasted.^
* Tome i. p. 564-
196 ^F THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Travellers have found, that the sea of Tiberias in Gal-
ilee, abounds in fish,"^ some of (hem very large ;f so thej
were anciently, John xxi. 11. Has^elquist tells us, sev-
eral of the sorts of fish in this great hike are the same
wilh those found in the Nile, a circumstance which he
thinks remarkable ;J doubtless, because it is imagined by
the curious, that the fish of that river are peculiar to it.
It is certain that Maillet, in the ninth letter of the de-
scription of Egypt, tells us, that it is surprising, that, not-
withstanding the prodigious quantity of fij;h in the Nile,
there are hardly any, excepting the eel, that resemble
those that are taken in the rivers of Europe. This re-
mark, however curious, little concerns these papers 5 it
is more agreeable to my design, to take notice, that
among those mentioned by Hasselquist, as common to the
sea of Galilee and the Nile, are the charmud, or karmud,
as Egmont and Heyman call it, and which these gentle-
men tell us, is of the size of the bonni, another of those
fish which are common to the Nile and the sea of Galilee,
and which they say weighs commonly near thirty pounds-H
Well then might these authors say, some of the fish of
Galilee were very large. To which I would add, that
one hundred and fiftythree fishes of this size, or half this
size, might well be supposed by St. John lo endanger a
net, in the passage just now cited from him.
OBSERVATION IX.
OF THE MULBERRY TREES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE^
Hasselqufst says, that the n)ulberry tree scarcely
ever grows in Judea, very little in Galilee, but in abun-
dance in Syria and Mount Lebanon. § He therefore
* Pococke, vol. 2, p. 6, 70. f Egmont and Heyman, vol. 2, p. 33.
+ Page 158. I| Egmont and Heyman, vol. p. 2, 220. § Page 287.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDP^A. 19f
blames <he translation of Luther, which renders the word
we translate sycamore tree, Luke xix. 4, mulberrj tree,
and again, it seems, Luke xvii. 6.
Our translators do not so render these two passages;
but there are other places in which they mention mulberry
trees, in particular, 2 Sara. v. 23, 24, and 1 Chron. xiv,
14, 13, and in the margin of Psalm Ixxxiv. 6. I am afraid^
therefore, he would equally have condemned them, had
he been acquainted with our version.
If they are a species of trees not natural to those coun-
tries, we cannot imagine them to have been brought into
Judea before the reign of David, hundreds of years before
the production of silk was thought of there, which is the
cause, I presume, of their now growing in abundance in
Syria and mount Lebanon, the inhabitants of those places
applying themselves, in these later times, with great in-
dustry, to the raising silk and making it one great branch
of their commerce ;^ if, on the contrary, they had been
natives of Judea, they would still, without doubt, appear
there in numbers, as they did, as our translation supposes,
in the reign of king David : it is not likely then that our
translation should be right.
It is much more easy, however, to determine, that they
are wrong in their translation, than to find out what the
original word really means. The Chaldee paraphrase
contents itself with speaking of them as trees in general :
the Septuagint, in Samuel, supposes they were trees that
grew in a place called Weeping, and Josephus follows
them in this ; but this version in Chronicles supposes the
word signifies pear trees.
Were I to hazard a conjecture here, and were there a
greater sameness between the notions of the East and the
West, I should propose it, as no improbable supposi-
tion, that the Weeping willow is the tree meant here.
Russell found it a common tree in the gardens of Aleppo,f
* Voy. Je Syrie, &c* par de la Roque, torn. i. p. 1. t Vol. i. p. 47.
VOL. III. 26
198 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL. AND
which are known to have common trees of the field grow-
ing frequently in them, as well as other plants : Russell
himself mentions the poplar, the common white willow,
the horn beam, oaks, the ash, growing in their gardens,
with other trees we should more readilj expect to find
there, forming on the whole a wild and irregulnr, but
agreeable prospect. It is true, I do not remember to
have met with an account of this species of willow, in the
catalogue of the plants of the Holy Land which I have
seen: but every one knows the Flora and the Fauna
Pakzstincz are very imperfect. But it is so common a
tree at Aleppo, we may believe it is no stranger in Judea.
OBSERVATION X.
OF THE OLIVE TREE IN THE PROMISED LAND,
We have before taken notice that the olive tree is very
common in Judea: I would now remark, that the Scrip-
tures frequently refer to it, and that those very references
have given some pain to an ingenious traveller, on the ac-
count of trees of this species wanting a vivid verdure.
Mr. Sharp, in his fortycighth letter from Italy, ex-
presses his pain in these words, " The fields, and indeed
the whole face of Tuscany, are in a manner covered with
olive tree, but the olive tree does not answer the charac-
ter I had conceived of it : the Royal Psalmist and some
of the Sacred Writers speak with rapture of the green
olive trees, so that I expected a beautiful green ; and I
confess to you, I was wretchedly disappointed, to find
its hue resembling that of our hedges, when they are
covered with dust. The olive tree may, possibly, de-
light in the barren district of Judea, but, undoubtedly,
will disgust a man accustomed to English verdure."
The objection shows, that it is of some importance to
attend to minute, and even seemingly trifling circura-
MiLlTARY STATE OF JUDEA. I99
stances menfioned in Holy Writ, which is the great de-
sign of these papers. In considering it, I cannot allow
the propriety of this worthy writer's method of alleviat-
ing ihe difficully he had proposed : Jiidea is not now so
destitute ofverd'jre, as to make a tree that looks as if it
was all over covered with dust, an object sufficient to
char(n the eye by its colour; and such a supposition is
still less admissible, when it relates to former times, when
it was- much better cultivated. The true way of solving
the difficulty is, I imagine, to consider the word translated
green, not as descriptive of colour, in these passages, but
of some other property, youthfulness, vigour, prosper-
ity. Sec.
It cerlainl y must be so understood in some places where
it occurs. No mortal ever imagined that when Nebu-
chadnezzar said, / was at rest in mine house, and green
in my palace, Dan. iv. 4, that he meant either that the
colour of his face, or of his garments was green ; but that
he was, as our translators justly render it, flourishing in
his palace, that he was in such a state, with respect to his
royalty, as a tree is when it is green, considered as a veg-
etable. So in the fiftysecond Psalm, David describes a
wicked man, as soon to wither away and disappear ; while
he should be like a young vigorous olive tree, which had
long to live and to flourish. The beauty of the olive
tree, marked out in other passages of Scripture, consisted
in the spread of its branches, not in its colour, Hosea
xiv. 6.
The disappointment then of Mr. Sharp arose, not from
the misrepresentation of the sacred writers, but merely
frofn his misunderstanding them.
In like manner, when the Psalmist says, / shall he
anointed with green oil, Pa. xcii. 10, where there is the
same word in the original, we are not to suppose he
means oil of a green colour : would there have been any
great advantage in that ? Or can any passage be produced
to show it was an object of desire to the people of the
^'
200 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
East ? But we are, I believe, to understand the word as
signifying precious, fragrant oil, such as princes in times
of prosperity were anointed with: fragrant if you will, as
afield which the Lord has blessed, a flowery field, in all
its verdure, to the smell of which Isaae compared the scent
of the perfumed clothes Jacob had on when Isaac blessed
him, Gen. xxvii. 27.
It appears from many passages, that when princes were
victorious, rich presents were wont to be made them ;^
and from the history of Hezekiah,f that precious ointments,
or oils in which odoriferous plants or other substances
had been put, and kept there some time, were presented
to them, preserved long by them among their treasures in
part, and in part, we may believe, made use of on joyful
occasions: which kind of oil is, without doubt, what the
Psalmist calls green oil, and with which he was to be
anointed, when God should exalt his power, and make
his horn like that of an unicorn.
To think of greenness of colour in the oil, would be
childish ; to interpret the word of oil, expressed from
green, that is to say, from unripe olives, would not well
agree with the accounts of some modern writers on med-
ical preparations, who affirru that oil cannot be drawn from
unripe olives ;J to understand the word as signifying fresh
drawn oil, would be to give it much less energy than, I
apprehend, was intended by the Psalmist; to explain it
of oil made extremely odoriferous is, I cannot help think-
ing, placing it in the proper point of light.
It is natural to suppose most, if not all the oil that was
made use of for anointing themselves for pleasure, was
more or less fragrant ; it would else have hardly answered
the purpose, which was the stifling those disagreeable
• 2 Sam. viii. 10, 2 Chron xxxii. 23. f Is. xxxix. 2.
4 Voy. Diet des Drogues, par Lemery, Art. Oraphacium, "Ce que les
auteurs appellent Oleum (Jinphaciiium, seroit une huile tiree par expres-
sion, des olives vertes : mais on n'en peut point tirer, corame je l' ay re-
jcaarque dans rua pharmacopfee,"
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 201
scents Ihe heat of that climate often excited. On this
account it becaoae extremely necessary to the enjoyment
of life ; for which reason the Prophet Micah"^ threatened
Israel, That they should tread olives, but not anoint
themselves with oil. We are ready to imagine no other
important use of oil but for eating, but they found life
would be inelegant without anointing.
Some of their ointments were extremely precious : such
was the composition with which the head of our Lord
was anointed. f But a slight infusion of some of their own
country flowers was sufficient to give their hair a very
agreeable scent. So Hasselquist tells us, the Egyptians
put the flowers of the tuberose into sweet oil, and by this
means give the oil a most excellent smell, scarcely inferior
to oil of jessamine ;J and in another place, that he found
jessamine growing in the Holy Land,(| besides other fra-
grant plants.
OBSERVATION XI.
OF THE DRYNESS OF THE GROUND PREVIOUS TO THE
AUTUMNAL RAINS.
The description that Sir J. Chardin gives us in his
MSS. of the state of these countries, with respect to the
cracking of the earth, before the autumnal rains fell, is so
lively a comment on Jer. xiv. 4, Because the ground is
chaptjfor there ivas no rain in the earth, the ploughmen
were ashamed, that I beg leave to introduce it here as a
distinct observation.
The lands of the East, he says, in a note on Ps. cxliii.
6, which the great dryness there causes to crack, are the
ground of this figure, which is certainly extremely beauti-!'
* Ch. vi. 15. t Matt. xxvi. 7.
^ Page 267. H Page ISi,
202 <^I'' 'THE NATUIiAL, CIVIL, AND
fill; for these dry lands have chinks too deep for a person
to see to the bottom of: this may be observ ed in the Indiea
more than any where, a litlle before the rains full, and
Trherever the lands are rich and hard.
The Prophet's speaking of ploughmen, shows that ha
is speaking of the antumnal state of those countries ; and
if the cracks are so deep from the common dryness of
their summers, what must they be when the rains are
withheld beyond the usual time, which is the case Jere-
miah is referring to ?
OBSERVATION XII.
CURIOUS ACCOUNT OF CERTAIN KINDS OF SEEDS, MEN-
TIONED BY ISAIAH^ CHAP, xxviii. 25, 26.
The Septuagint not only supposes that four sorts of
grain, or seeds of the larger and harder kind, are men-
tioned in a passage of Isaiah :^ but St. Jerom, who tells
us this in his commentary on that Prophet, represents the
Hebrew as saying the same thing. Jerom frequently
represents the Septuagint translation as differing from the
original Hebrew ; but here he supposes there ia no dif-
ference between thera.f This leads us to various reflec-
tions : some perfectly coinciding with the design of these
papers ; others of a different nature. J
* Chap, xxviii. 25, 28.
t Even the vulgar Latin, which has undergone many supposed correc-
tions, in order to make it more perfectly correspond with the modern
Hebrew copies, yet retains the mention of four different kinds of grain
here, wheat, barley, millet, and retches.
+ There are six different kinds of grain mentioned here, not only by
the Septuagint and Vulgate., but probably also by the Hebreiv.
Vulg. — seret gith, cymioum, triticumj hordeum, milium, et viciam.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 203
In the first place it shows, that there has been a varia-
tion in the Hebrew copies since the days of Jerom. In
this case the variation is of no great moment; it is how-
ever a variation. This, before the publications of Dr.
Kennicolt, would, probablj, have been warmly contested^
but will be more easily admitted now.
Secondly, The corruption is not greater than has been
observed in some other cases. pD3 Nisman, the ap-
pointed^ is put, it seems, for |mi vedochan, which sig-
nifies, and millet. The letters suflSciently resemble
each other to admit of this change.
Thirdly, The adding the word pDJ nisman appoint-
ed, to the barley the husbandman sows, seems to be very
useless here ; but if we understand the word to have been
originally millet, it is a very good addition to the exam-
ples that Prophet gives, of the wisdom the God of nature
has been pleased to bestow on the husbandman in tilling
the ground, so that he properly casts in the principal
wheat, and the barley, and the millet, and the rye, or
whatever grain the fourth word means.
Wheat, barley, millet, and vetches, are supposed to be
the grains that the Prophet mentions: now' the time when
they are sown, and the soil which is chosen for each re-
pectively, differ; but God has given men the requisite
sagacity,
*• They begin to plough about the latter end of Sep-
tember, and sow their earliest wheat about the middle of
October. The frosts are never severe enough to prevent
their ploughing all winter, so that they continue to sow all
sorts of grain to the end of January, and barley some-
times after the middle of February. No harrow is used,
but the ground is ploughed a second time after it is sown,
in order to cover the grain ; in some places, where the
iieb. — y'2r\) nvp (D3 nian n^y\ff pDJ jidddi
vehepits ketsach cammon chittah soarah nisman vecussameth
Qnere — Is pDJ nisman a mistake for |DDD sesamoUf or sesctmum, so
well kuowQ ia the East? Edit.
204 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
soil is a little sandy, they plough but once, and that is
after sowing."^
Here we see the wheat requires to be sown nrrich earlier
than the barley ; God has given the ploughman the dis-
cretion that is requisite to distinguish between the proper
times of sowing them.
When we came further, says RauwolfF, describing his
voyage down the Euphrates, "we had generally even
ground at both sides, and not a few fields, the most part
whereof were sown with Indian millet, for they sow more
of this than of wheat or barley, for the sand is pretty
deep, wherein the corn would not grow so well. This
millet was just fit to be cut down, and in some places they
had it in already.f Hereof they bake very well
tasted bread and cakes, and some of them are rol!ed very
thin, and laid together like unto a letter, so that they are
about four inches broad, six long, and two thick; they
are of an ashen colour. The inhabitants call it still at
this day by its ancient Arabian name dora, whereof
Rhases makes mention.''J
Here we see a great difference between the culture of
the millet of those countries, and that of the wheat and
barley. It is sown in such a sandy soil, on the edge of
the great Arabian desert, that neither the wheat, nor the
barley, according to him, would grow there. These two
last, Russell tells us, are repeated by the end of May,
N. S. just after the drought of a Syrian summer comes
on ; while the millet is lefl abroad exposed to those vio-
lent heats, and not gathered in till the middle of Octo-
ber,|| which is after the time the autumnal rain often begins
to fall. What a loss was it to the beauty and energy of
the Prophet's representation, of God's instructing the
tiller of the ground how to proceed with the different
kinds of grain, and what to sow in the different kinds of
* Russell, vol. 1, p. 73. f The middle of Octobfcr.
* Ray's Trav. p. 151. || Rauwolff.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 205
soil, when (he word signifying millet was unfortunately
taken to be a word which is thought to signify appointed,
which has hardly any sense or meaning in this place !
I have elsewhere observed, that it is not improbable
that the last word means a sort of grain which they call
corn of Damascus, and the Italians surgo rosso, which it
seems grows in a very moist soil in Egypt, when that
country is overflowed ; and so it stands distinguished from
the millet which grows, according to RauwolfF, in the
burning sands of Arabia. It is God that gives the hus-
bandman discretion when and where to sow the different
kinds of grain ; the wheat early in the winter, the barley
in the latter end of it ; the millet in sandy places, the corn
of Damascus in those that are marshy or watery.
This circumstance is perhaps meant by the last word
in the 25th verse, which in our translation is rendered,
" in their place," but is translated by others, his border ;
the noDD cussumeth of his or its border, cussnmeth is the
Hebrew word to express this kind of grain. Now rivers,
whose borders are generally more or less marshy or fen-
ny, were commonly made use of to separate one country,
or one district from another,* as they are now, and conse-
quently the cusasmeth of his border may mean the nis-
sameth that is wont to be sown in moory, fenny, or watery
places. This places the thought of the Prophet in a
more clear and determinate point of view, than it is wont
to appear in the works of commentators.
Agreeable to this, RauwolfF saw Indian millet in the
fields near Rama, when he visited the Holy Land, in the
time of queen Elizabeth. It was known then, at the time
when our translation was made, that millet grew in Judea ;
how unhappy that it appears not in our version, among the
other things mentioned by Isaiah as cultivated there i
He was there the middle of September, O. S. 1575, and
observed that Rama was situated on an ascent, in plain
• See Jos. xxii. 25. Xumb. xxi. 13, 14, fi4. 1 Kings iv. 21. Gen. xv,
18, &c.
VOL. III. 27
2f^6 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
fields, which extended themselves two leagues, where tbe
hills begin that continue to Jernsalerr. *' Tj ^; fielfJs
are very fruitful, and very well til{t-<l, and Hown with cum,
cotton, and Indian millet. Hereabout do aNo grow Indian
inuskmelons in great quantity, by the Afabians- CHilcd
batiere., which aic very pleasant, and well tawted, chiefly
those that are red within ; so that in all my travels I
hardly met with the like."^
OBSERVATION XIIL
OP
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SEEDS, EATEN WITH THEIR
BREAD.
I HAVE, in a preceding volume, taken notice of the
present Eastern custom of sprinkling various sorts of seeds
on their bread, to make it more pleasing: Rauwolff men-
tions (he seeds of sesamum, Romish coriander, and wild
garden saffron, as used for that purpose.f Here I would
observe, that in another place Rauwolff tells us, that in
going from Aleppo to Bir, a town on the Euphrates, he
saw whole acres of Turkish corn called sesamo, and
others all sown with cotton. J
In like manner Dr. Russell informs us, th^t "Besides
Turkey wheat, barley, and cotton, thev sow in the fields,
cicers, lentils, beans, chickling, small vetch, sesamum,
bastard saffron, Turkey millet. "|1
For the same reason, the frequr nt use of these seeds
to give a more agreeable flavour to f heir bread, they might
anciently too sow some of their fields with these vegeta-
bles : and it is probable that to some of ♦hem the Prophet
refers when he says, Doth the plovorhman pfouQ^h all day
to sow ? doth he open and break the clods of his e;ro\md?
When he hath made plain the face thereof doth he cast
» Ray's Coll. of Travels, p. 229. t ^^j'^ Trav. p. 95.
I Page 125. l| Descrip. of Aleppo, vol. 1. p. 73, &c.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 20?
abroad thpfitckes, (or rather the sesaraum, or some other
seed .uade u e of to sprinsle on their bread,) and scatter
the cummin ... For his God doth instruct him to
discrefion, and doth teach him. For the fitches (the
sesamum, or soitie such seed) are not threshed with a
threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about
upon the cuiumia ; but the fitches (the sesamum, &c.)
are beaten wdh a staff, and the cummin with a rod.'^
Whether what we call cummin is the seed Isaiah pre-
cisely UiChfif, is nor absolutely certain: the Dutch of our
t'liue^ are said to put that kind of seed into their cheeses^
but i do not recollect that any of our travellers say that
it is used to gi»e a leli^h to bread. However, the ac-
counts that are given us, of the sowing these small and
tender i>eeds in their fields by the modern Oriental hus-
banri.iien, may illustrate the words of the Prophet here,
better than the translating this first word by the term gith,
as the vulgar Latin does, and also St. Jerom, with which
vegetable, and its uses, we are not well acquainted. The
Bishop of London, in his late curious translation of this
sacred book, renders it dill, which seed might certainly
be used for the same purpose as the sesamum, and grows
in the gardens of Aleppo, Russell tells us,t as the carra-
way and the coriander; but the dill neither appears in his
catalogue of the seeds sown in the fields of which the
Prophet is speaking, nor does Rauwolff give us any ac-
count of its being sprinkled upon their bread : but it is
possible both may be true.
St. Jerom remarks, that the Septuagint translates the
end of the 2rth verse, and beginning of the 28th, after
this manner : <' The gith is beaten out with a rod, and the
cummin is eaten with bread ;" and says, he could not im-
agine what they had in view in that translation : but, I
think, we may learn at least from it this, that in those
limes, in which they lived, such small seed as cummin,
&c. were wont to be sprinkled on their bread j they would
* Isaiah xxtiii. 25, &c. t Vol. 1, p. 7S, he.
208 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
hardlj otherwise have so translated the words. This
Jerom did not attend to, but observed that it was a devi-
ation from the Hebrew copy he made use of, and such an
one as he could not well account for."^
By another passage, in the same commentary, it ap-
pears that in Judea, in his time, the same difference con
tinued that the Prophet mentions, as to the mode of
threshing these things. The wheat, barley, and the fourth
kind of grain, passed under the old Eastern machine ;
the smaller seeds, first mentioned, threshed by a staff;
but as to the millet, he was unable to say how it was
treated.
It may not be improper to add, that, according to the
Baron de Tott, cummin is so much cultivated to this day
in Judea, that its seed constitutes one branch of its com-
merce with Egypt ; but he gives us no account of the
use that is made of it, whether as a relisher of their
bread, their cheese, or any other sort of their food,! or
whether it is imported for the use of their pigeons. I
will however set down the passage,
*' The commerce of Jaff, (he means Joppa,) only con-
sists of linen and rice, sent from Damietta for the con-
sumption of Napooloose, Rames, Jerusalem, and numer-
ous hordes of Arabs, who encamp in the plains of Gaza.
" Damietta receives in exchange, glass ware, fabricated
at Ebron, raw cottons, cummin, and especially soap of
Jaff. This article has enjoyed, from time immemorial,
the privilege of only paying, in Egypt, half the usual
dulies."J
• Nescio quid volentes lxx. transtulervmt : Cyminum autem cum
pane comeditur. Com. in loc.
t Pietro della Vall^, speaking of some of the Turlcish disties, gives an
account of sausages made of beef, seasoned with cummin seed, which was
by no means agreeable to his palate. Tome 1, p. 129, 130.
t Memoirs, pjrt 4, p. 94, 95.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 209
OBSERVATION XIV.
EASTERN GARDENS NOT REMARKABLY WELL STORED
WITH FRUIT TREES.
The representallon Dr. Chand'er gives of (he garden
of the governor of Eleii«, a Turkish town on (he western
border of the Hellespont, may be considered, I appre-
hend, as the description of most of the ancient gardens of
the Jewish people.
"When the heat was abated a little, we were informed
that the governor gave us permission to refresh in his
garden. We dismissed his messenger with a bacshish,
or a present of three piasters, and an excuse, that we
were just going away ; but this was not accepted; and
we paid another piaster for seeing a very small spot of
ground, walled in, and containing nothing, except two
vines, a fig, and a pomegranate tree, and a well of excel-
lent water."*
Other fruit trees were cerlainly known, even in the
patriarchal times, though we have reason to believe, that
there have been great additions made to the knowledge
of the people of the East, in this respect, since those
times ; but if a few vines, a fig, and a pomegranate, were
all the fruit trees now found in an Eastern garden, be-
longing to a person of some figure, we may believe the
number of the trees of an ancient Jewish garden, in com-
mon were not more numerous, or composed of a greater
variety.
Accordingly we find grapes, figs, and pomegranates,
mentioned, while other kinds of fruit are passed over in
silence, excepting the olive, Numb. xiii. 23, xx. 5, Deut,
viii. 8, and Hag. ii. 19.
When then the transactions of Nathaniel under a fig
tree are mentioned, John i. 48, we may believe they were
the devotional exercises of a retired gardfen, walled in
* Travels in Asia Minor, p. 16.
210 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
and concealed from the eyes of men ; and when king Saul
is said to have tarried under a pomegranate tree in Mi-
gron, 1 Sam. xiv. 2, it is probable he was taking the re-
freshment of the air in a garden. Certainly when Israel
are said to have dwelt, every man under his own vine and
his own figtree,"^^ those passages refer to the Eastern
people's spending a good part of their time in their gar-
dens.
It is to be remembered, the gardens spoken of in the
book of Canticles, filled with such a variety of produc-
tions, were royal gardens, and the gardens of a prince
remarkable both for curiosity, for knowledge of natural
history, and for magnificence.
These royal gardens seem to have been at a distance
from the palace; the miniature gardens of the ancient
Jews, in common life, adjoining to their houses.
OBSERVATION XV.
ANCIENT METHOD OF GATHERING THE OLIVES.
The sacred writings sometimes respresent olives as
beaten off the trees, and at other times as shaken : this
does not indicate, I should apprehend, an improvement
made in after times on the original mode of gathering them ;
or diflferent methods of procedure by different people, in
the same age and country, who possessed olive yards ;
but rather expresses, the difference between the gather-
ing the main crop by the owners, and the way in w^hich
the poor collected the few olive berries that were left and
which by the law of Moses, they were to be permitled
to take.
The beating of the olives is mentioned Deut. xxiv. 20:
When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shall not go over
the boughs again; it shall be for the stranger, for (he
* 1 Kings vi. 35, &c.
Military state of judea. 211
fatherless, and for the widow. The shaking the olive
tpees is menlioned, Is. xvii. 6, andxxiv. 13, as being then
the practice, or used at least on some occasions.
The x\bbot Fortis, in his account of Dalraalia,* praises
the care of the inhabitants of a certain island there, in the
management of their olives, in not suffering them to fer-
ment before thej express the oil; and complains of the
" stupid and absurd method of gathering in many other
places. In the kingdom of Naples and in several other
parts of Italy, they use to beat the branches with long
poles, in order to make the fruit fall. This foolish meth-
od, besides hurting the plant, and spoiling many branches
that would bear the year following, makes the ripe and
unripe fruit fall indiscriminately, and bruises a great deal
of both kinds, whereby they become rancid in the heaps,
and give an ill flavoured oil."
However hurtful beating down the olives with long poles
may be, philosophically considered, if it has continued,
down to our times, to be the custom in Naples and other
parts of Italy, it is no wonder, that in the more early and
unimproved state of things in the time of Moses, this
should have been the common way of gathering them by
the owners, who were willing to leave, we may believe, as
few as possible on their trees, and were forbidden by their
law to brush them over a second time.
But shaking them was sufficient when they bad hung so
much longer as to be fully ripe, and therefore, it was used
by the poor or by strangers, who might not have such long
poles in their possession as the owners kept ; not to say
that the owners might not be insensible that beating the
trees was injurious, and therefore might require the poor
not to make use of that mode of gathering them, though,
they might not suppose it was so hurtful as to counterbal-
ance the advantages derived from beating them, when ther
proposed to gather the main crop themselves.
• Page 413.
212 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Accordin2,Iy, if we examine the places that speak of the
shaking the olive trees, we shall find the main crop had
been gathered at that time, and consequently that it was
only made use of to come at the olive berries that were
ieft, the words of Isaiah,* As the shftking of nn olive tree,
two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bought ike.
being to be understood as signify ing, As in the lime when
men come to an olive tree to shake it, after the crop is
gathered, there appear only a few here and there ; not as
meaning, As after the shaking of the olive tree, &,c. And
thus, with great judgment, has the Bishop of London trans-
lated the passage,
*' A gleaning shall be left in it, as in the shaking of the olive tree."
Answerable to this, the olives of the Holy Land con-
tinue (o be beaten down to this time; at least they were
^o gathered in the year 1774,
OBSERVATION XVI.
OIL JARS FREQUENTLY BURIED IN THE GROUND, THE
BETTER TO PRESERVE THEIR CONTENTS.
When our translation represents Joash as over the
cellars of oil, in the time of King David, 1 Chron. xxvii.
28, they have certainly, without any necessity, and per-
haps improperly, substituted a particular term for a gen-
eral expression. Joash was at that time, according to the
sacred historian, over the treasures of oil; but whether it
was kept in cellars, or in some other way, does not at all
appear in the original history.
The modern Greeks, according to Dr. Richard Chand-
ler, do not keep their oil in cellars, but in large earfhen
jars, sunk in the ground, in areas before their houses.f
The custom might obtain amonj; the Jews : as then it was
* Chap. xvii. 6. t Trav. in Greece, p. 126.
Military state of judea. 213
rjeedless, it must be improper to use the particular term
cellars, when the original uses a word of the most general
signification.
It is certain they sometimes buried their oil in the
earth, in order to secrete it in times of danger, on which
occasion they must be supposed to choose the most un-
likely places, where such concealment would be least
suspected ; in their fields ; whether they were wont to
bury it, at other times, in their courtyards, cannot be so
easily ascertained.*
OBSERVATION XVII.
OF THE TIME WHEN THE VINE AND OLIVE BLOSSOM.
A VERY ingenious writer supposesf that the vine blos-
soms considerably earlier than the olive : that grapes,
when half srown, are wont to fall as well as the olive
blossoms ; that the disappointment of people's hopes
from either arises from the same cause; and that that
cause is the burning pestilential quality of the east wind :
but all these suppositions, I would remark, admit of doubt ;
nor do the words of Eliphaz, in the book of Job, ch. xv.
33, require us to admit of any of these points.
Some doubt may be made, whether the vine does blos-
som in the East considerably earlier than the olive, on
account of a passage of Dr. Richard Chandler's Travels
• Jer xli. 8. Ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael,
Siay us not ,• for we have treasures in thefeU, of wheat, and of barley,
andof oil f and oj honey.
t Scott, in his translation of the book of Job, thus translates the 33d
verse of the 15th verse.
•• As when the vine her half grown berries showers,
Or poison'd olive her unfolding flowers."
And his note there is, " The green grape show themselves early in the
spring, in those hot climates ; and the olive blossoms in June and July ; in
-which months a pestilential east wind blows there."
VOL. III. 28
214 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
in Greece. That curious and observing gentleman ifi'«'
forms us,* f bat he set out from Marathon the 5th of May ;
that the next day he was presented wiih a handful of
white roses fresh gathered. f In the same page, he (eils
us, that that day they procured a live fowl, which they
had boiled for breakfast, with some eggs (o be fried in oil,
he goes on, "We cat under an olive tree then laden with
pale yellow flowers. A strong breeze from the sea scat-
tered the bloom, and incommoded us, but the spot afford-
ed no shelter more eligible."J
According to this, the olive tree blossoms at the same
time with the ro'^e bush ; and I have elsewhere shown,
that the blossoming of the rose and of the vine are nearly
contemporary: with us in the latter end ot June, in some
of the warmer Eastern countries, about the end of April*
According to Dr. Chandler, in this passage, the olive, in
like manner, was in blossom the beginning of May in
Greece, at which time the white rose was just come into
bloom, and was presented as a pleasing gift to the Doc-
tor.|j and at that time the olive blossoms were blown off
in such quantities as to incommode them.
It is but justice, however, to add, that Dr. Chandler, in
another place of the same book, describes the olive as
being in blossom about the end of June. For leaving
Athens the 21st of that month, and having passed froai
place to place in the Saronic gulf, for four or five days^
he tells UP, P- 211, " We landed, and went to the monas-
tery, which is at some distance from the sea, the situation
high and romantic, near a deep torrent bed. It was sur-
• Page 159.
f Pasje 161. One would rather imagine, that these were, therefore,
considered as something curious, being but just come into blossom, not as
to be found on every rose bush they met with. It might, however, have
been otherwise ; and rose bushes and vines have come into flower some
time sooner.
^ OnUines of a new commentary on Solomon's Song, p« 147.
II There is very little difference, in poiut of timey between the blossonw"
ing of the white and red rose.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 215
rounded by green vineyards ; thickets of myrtle, orange
and lemon trees in blossom ; the arbutus with fruit large,
but unripe; the oleander or picrodaphne, and the olive
laden wliti flowers."
According to this last account, the grapes near Mara-
thon might be of a considerable size, when the olive trees
in the other place were but in blossom. But, if there is
no fiiistake in one of these accounts, as the olive does not
continue long in the blossom, as will appear presently, the
difference, in point of time, as to the blossoming of the
olive in these two places, must have proceeded from the
difference of soil, or exposition, or height, or some, or all,
of these causes conjoined ;* and probably, in conse-
quence, the vine in this lotty situation was proportionably
as backward.
It is certain that Miller, the great Chelsea gardener,
supposes that with us, oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, red,
white, and double oleanders, and olives, may be found in
flower in the month of July, in our green houses and
stoves, consequently are contemporaries; but the vine
blossoms with us before July in the open air.f
As to the other particulars : it is very much questioned,
whether grapes, when half grown, are wont to fall from
the vines, so as to defeat the hopes of a good vintage. I do
not remember to have beard of any such complaint. The
hurt done to the olive tree, is, according to a succeeding
citation from Dr. Chandler, when they are in blossom ;
and the Doctor tells us, J not indeed as from his own
observation, but Pausanias, the hurt was done in as
early a state to the vine, if not earlier, for that ancient au-
thor speaks of their being injured in the bud; and that
it was supposed to be a southwest wind that withered them
in that early period; whereas it was, according to
Chandler, a north or northeast wind, that was wont to
* Chandler himself observes the situation of the last place was high.
f See his Gardener's Kalendar. i Page 219.
216 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
defeat fheir hopes from the olive trees in Greece : to
which he adds, that the danger, with regard to the flow-
ers of those trees, is over in a fortnight.
The passage is too curious not to be cited at length
here. It is as follows: ** The olive groves are now, as
ancienflj, a principal source of the riches of Athens. . . .
The mills for pressing and grinding the olives are in the
town. The oil is deposited in large earthen jars, sunk
in the ground, in the areas before the houses. The crops
had failed five years successively, when we arrived. The
cause assigned was, a northerly wind, called Greco Tra-
montane, which destroyed the flower. The fruit is set
in about a fortnight, when the apprehension from this un-
propitious quarter ceases. The bloom in the following
year was unhurt, and we had the pleasure of leaving the
Ajhenians happy in the prospect of a penfiful harvest."^
Here, we are told, it is a northerly wind that is sup-
posed to cause the olive blossom to fail. Elsewhere the
Csecias, or the northeast wind, according to the disposi-
tion of the tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes at Athens,
"which is ** an octagon, decorated with sculpture, repre-
senting the winds, eight in number. . • "A. young Turk,"
says Chandler, *' explained to me two of the emblems ;
that of the figure of Csecias, as signifying he made the
olives fall ; of Sciron, that he dried up the rivers."f
If then the olive trees are injured by a N.E. wind, and
the vines by S.W. they are not hurt by the same kind of
wind : they are opposite winds that are supposed to pro-
duce these different effects. J
If they are opposite winds that produce these destruc-
tive effects on the vine and the olive, they are not both to
• Page 126. f Page 103.
^ Accordingly, Dr Cliandler, Avho expresses such an obliging concern
for the Athenians, on account of the failure of their olive crops five years
together, says not one word of any loss they sustained of their grapes ;
and no wonder, if they are contrary winds that produce these destructive
effects on those two important trees ot the East.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. gjy
be atfiibuled to the Surajel, or deadly east wind. It
should even seem neither of these two sorts of ruin-
ous winds are to be supposed to have the qualities of the
Sumyel, as the verj ingenious author, on whom I am
now aniuadverling, supposes. The Sumyel is not known,
I think, in Greece. What eifect is produced by the
Suiuyel on half grown grapes and olive blossoms, in the
countries where if blows, if distinctly noticed there, lias
not, so far as I know, been transn)itled lo us in Europe :
but it is exidenf, from these citations from Dr. Chandler,
that winds that are not deadly, as the Sumyel is, may
be very ruinous to vines and olive trees ; and that these
effects should not be attributed to this kind of southeast
wind exclusively, if at all.
It would be a v aluable acquisition to the learned world,
if observations made in Judea itself, or rather in this case,
in the land of Uz, were communicated to it, relating to
the natural causes which occasion, from time to time, a
disappointment of their hopes from their vineyards and
olive plantations ; and the effects of a violently sultry
southeast wind on their most useful, or remarkable vege-
tables.
After all, I very much question, whether the words o^
Eliphaz, in this passage of the book of Job, xv. 33, refer
to any blasting of the vine by natural causes ; they seem
rather to express the violently taking away the unripe
grapes by the w^ild Arabs, of which I have given an ac-
count in the preceding volume.* It is certain the word
1D3 biser, translated here unripe grape, is used to express
those grapes that were so far advanced in growth as to be
* Isaiah xviii. 5, is to be understood after the same raanner, which the
Bishop of London has thus translated, after a much more advantageous
maflner than our common version,
*• Surely before the vintage^ -when the bud is perfect.
And the blossom is become a swelling grape ;
He shall cut of tlie shoots -with pruning hooks.
And the branches he shall take away, he shall cut down."
218 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
eaten, tho'isjh not properly ripened, as appears from Jer-
euiiah xxxi. 29, and Ezek. xviii, '2; and the verb Dr:n'
yachmas, translated here shake off, signifies removing by
violence, consequently cannot be meant of any thing done
in the natural course of things, but by a human hand ; and
if so, may as well be applied to the depredaiions of the
Arabs, as the impetuosity or deleterious quality of any
wind, the energy of poetry making use of a verb active
instead of its passive*
It may not be amiss, before I close, just to take notice,
that the vulgar Latin translation was so little apprehen-
sive that grapes, when grown to any considerable size,
were wont to drop, that its authors, or correctors, have
rendered the words after this manner, *' Laedetur quasi
Tinea in primo flore botrus ejus,** Ihat is, *' his cluster
shall be injured as a vine when it first comes into flower ;"
intimating, that if any damage is done to the vine at all by
an intemperate season, they supposed it would be upon its
first flowering.
How arduous is the business of translating a foreign
poem into English verse ! A multitude of circumstances
must be attended to by such a translator, when he finds
himself obliged, as he often does, to vary the expressions
a little, on account of his verse; and, for want of full in-
formation as to particular points, he must frequently faih
Mistakes of this kind demand great candour.
OBSERVATION XVIII.
WINE PRESSES SOMETIMES IN THE VINEYARDS, BUT
MOSTLY IN THE TOWNS, CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE
ANCIENT AND MODERN GREEKS.
Though the conveniencies they have in the wine coun-
tries for pressing their grapes, were frequently in peacefu'
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 219
Irmes in their vineyards;* yet in times of apprehension,
these conveniencies were often in the cities theinselves.
Greece to the present day is, we are informed, fre-
quently alarmed, and always under apprehension from
corsairs: accordingly we find, that thonsch the pltjotations
of olive trees belonging to Athens are large, and at some
distance Trom thence, yet the mills for grinding and
pressing the olives are in that town : and this, though, ac-
cording to his description the great olive grove, or wood
of these trees, as Dr. Richard Chandler calls it, water*»d
by the Cephissus, is about three miles from the city, and
has been computed as at least six miles Ions f The
same reason that can induce men to fetch their olives
from a distance into their towns, must operate more or
less forcibly with regard to their grapes.
This was in particular, I apprehend, the state of things
at the time Nehemiah visited the children of the captiv-
ity. They had many enemies about them, and those
very spiteful ; and they themselves were very weak. For
this reason, I imagine, many of them trod their grapes in
Jerusalem itself. In those days saw I in Judah some
treading winepresses on the sabbath, and bringing in
sheaves, and lading asses ; and also wine, grapes, and
figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into
Jerusalem on the sabbath day, Neh. xiii. 15. Had
these winepresses been at a distance from Jerus^alem, he
that so strictly observed the precept of resting that daj
would not have seen that violation of it. They appear
by that circumstance, as well as by the other partirtilars
mentioned there, to have been within the walls of Jeru-
salem.
Our translators seem to have been guilty of an over-
sight in rendering this verse, where they plainly sup-
pose, that sheaves of corn were brought into Jerusalem,
at that very time that men were treading the winepresses.
* Is. V. 2, Matt. xxi. 33. t Travels ia Greece, p. 1£6.
220 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
This is a strange anachronism, since the harvest there was
finished in or before the third ajonth, and the vintage was
not till the seventh. It is described with great accuracy
by the sacred penman of the 2d book of Chronicles.
There, we are told, that when the Israelites brought in
the first fruits of their corn, wine, and oil, and honev,and
of all the increase of the field, and laid them bj heaps,
that in the third month they began to lay the foundation
of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month;
and that when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw
the heaps, they blessed the Lord and his peopIe.=^ The
corn was fit to present to the Lord about the end of May
or beginning of June; the wine and oil, or raisins and
ripe olives, not till the end of September, or perhaps the
beginning of October,]-
It appears the more awkward to talk of the bringing in
sheaves of corn at the same time the winepresses were at
work, because it is well known that the people of these
countries immediately tread out their corn, after they
have cut or plucked it up, and put it in proper reposito-
ries. There is no such thing among them as with us,
where sheaves of corn may be often seen many months
after they are reaped, and are sometimes removed from one
place to another. At the same time, they that know any
thing of the Hebrew, know that the wordniDi;^ aremoth,
which they have translated sheaves, is the very word that is
translated heaps in that passage of Chronicles, and which
signifies heaps of raisins, figs, pomegranates, as well as
of corn threshed out.
So when the words of Nehemiah are to be understood
as signifying, " In those days saw I in Judah some tread-
ing winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in parcels
* Ch. xxxi. 5.
f However, it is to be acknowledged, that they have now a sort of corn
in those countries, and in Jndea, which is not ripe till the end of the sum-
mer, which caused RanwolfFto say it was harvest time when he arrived at
Joppa, which was on the 13th of September. Ray's Trav. p. 226, 229<,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 2*21
of grapes for that purpose in baskets, which tbej had
laden on asses, and also jars of wine pressed elsewhere,
dried grapes and figs, and all manner of burthens of
victuals, which they sold on the Sabbath :" the squeezing
the grapes for wine, and drying them for raisins, being it
seemsj at least frequently, attended to at one and the same
time. So when Dr^ Chandler set out from Smyrna to
visit Greece, in the end of August, the vintage was just
begun, *' the black grapes being spread on the ground in
beds, exposed to the suti to dry for raisins ; while in
another part, the juice was expressed for wine, a man,
with feet and legs bare, treading the fruit in a kind of cis-
tern, with a hole or vent near the bottomj and a vessej
beneath it to receive the liquor."''^
If the same custom obtained in .Tudea then, which it
seems is practised in Greece now, and that the vintage
was just then finishing, Nehemiah must have been par-
ticularly galled, for it seems they finish their vintage with
dancing, and therefore I presume with songs, and proba-
bly music. For speaking of the Greek dances,f of which
some are supposed of very remote antiquity, and one in
particular, called the Crane, he says, "the peasants per-
form it yearly in the street of the French convent, J at
the conclusion of the vintage ; joining hands, and preced-
ing their mules and their asses, which are laden with
grapes in panniers, in a very curved and intricate figure ;
the leader waving a handkerchief, which has been imag-
ined to denote the clew given by Ariadne. "|1
Singing seems to have been practised by the Jews
in their vineyards, and shouting, when they trod the
grapes, from what we read. Is. xvi. 10: but whetfier
dancing too, and whether they carried their profanation
* Trav. in Greece, p. 2. t P^S^ ^S*-
+ Where he and his companions lodged at that time.
IJThe dance being supposed to have been invented by Thesseus, upou
his escape from the labyrinth,
VOL. III. 29
*jr22 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
of the Sabbath this length, in the time of Nehemiah, we
are not informed.
Some may have supposed, that the words of Jeremi-
ah, ch. xxxi. 4, 5, refer to the joy expressed b^ the Jews
in the time of vintage : A^ain, 1 will build thee^ and thou
^halt he built, O virgin of Israel ; thou shnlt a^aiii he
adorned with thy iabrets, and shall go forth in the dances
of them that make merry. Thou shall yet plant vines
upon the mountains of Samaria ; the planters shall
plant, and eat them as common things, Vinea and
dancing are here joined together.
But I must think it most probable, that the Prophet
refers here to such excursions of joy as these mentioned
by Dr. Shaw: "There are several Turkish or Moorish
youths, and no small part likewise of rhe unmarried soN
diers, who attend their concubines, with wine and music,
into the fields ; or else make themselves merry at the
tavern ; a practice, indeed, expressly prohibited by their
religion, but what the necessity of the times, and the un-
controlable passions of the transgressors, oblige these
governments to dispense with."*
The Jewish religion did not forbid wine : and the going
forth of them that make merry, seems more to resemble
these excursions in Barbary ; than the bringing home the
last gatherings of their vintage with musir and dancing.
Nor were vineyards and such excursions totally uncon-
nected together, since their shadiness made them ex-
tremely proper for the reception of these parties of
pleasure.
The dances of the daughters of Shiloh, mentioned
Judges xxi. though performed in the neighbourhood of
the Tineyards there,f seem however to have been of a
very different kind ;J a particular religious solemnity
observed by that town.
* Page 234. ' f Verse 21.
^ From both the sorts of festivity I have been discoursing about : the.
public rejoicings of the vintage, and the more private excursions of the
young into the country.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 223
For 1st, It appears (o have been celebrated by the
virgins of Shiloh exclusively, ihey alone dancing, and
being at ibe bdine lime unattended by the men ; not to
mention the supposed solitude of the vineyards at the
time of this festival, whereas at the time of vintage they
would tia^e been crowded with people,
2d. It was a religious sol- mnity, for it is expressly
called a Feast of the Lord, of Jehovah, verse 19.
3d. li stems to have been particular to the inhabit-
ants of that town, for there appears to be no reason as-
signable for the ujentioning Shiloh only, if it had been a
feast com mou to all Israel. The word jn chag indeed is
used to express tne three great annual feasts of the Jews,
but not them onl}, as appears from Exod. xxxii. 5, and 1
Kings xji. 32. The use of the verb in 1 Sam. xxx. 16,
shovi^s if expresses any kind of rejoicing.^
4ih. As there were some voluntary annual solemni-
ties observed by Israel, some of the mournful kind, as
that for the daughter of Jephthah, Judges xi. 40 ; others
of the joyous sort, as the days of Purim, Esther ix.
20 — 23; this dancing solemnity seems to have been one
of these voluntary joyous appointments, but peculiar to
Shiloh.
But it is doubtful whether it was a perfectly innocenjt
observation, founded in some remarkable mercy that had
been granted to Shiloh, such as might have been estab-
lished by the people of Jabesh Gilead, in commemora-
tion of the narrow escape they had from Nahash the
Ammonite, 1 Sam. xi. or a more faulty solemnity, which
arose from an old heathenish custom, that had long been
established in Shiloh, in honor of some of their idoU, or
in consequence of some vain opinion that bad prevailed
in that place.
So Dr. Chandler has given us, in the same volume,
many instances of the Greek Christians retaining many
• Behold they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drink-
ing, CJJni vechogegeeniy and dancing ; that is, as they were wont to do
on their great annual /<;»^zt;afe. Edit,
224 Of THE NATURAL, ClVlLj AND
of the o!d practices of their idolatrous ancestors, on!/
making some little changes, requisite for their more easy
naturalization in the Christian church. Thus, as "Athena
was anciently enlivened by the choruses singing and danc-
ing in the open air, in the front of the temples of the gods
and round their altars, at the festivals of Bacchus and
other holy days ;" so *' the Greeks are frequently seen
engaged in the same exercises, generally in pairs, es-
pecially on the anniversary of their saints, and ofien in
the areas before their churches.'** In page 220, speaking
of a temple of Minerva, in which the virgins of Troezen
consecrated their zones before marriage, he tells us, *♦ the
same offering is still seen in the churches at Athens, with
towels richly embroidered, and various other articles."
Upon speaking of Esculapius, a few pages after,f he in-
forms us, that since he has failed, saints have succeeded
to the business : "1 have seen," this writer adds, " pa-
tients lying in beds in their churches at Athens."
If Shiloh was, at this very time, the place of their re-
ligious solemnities, this, though a relic of heathen idol-
atry, or superstition, might be practised there. Jerusa-
lem afterward did not maintain the purity of Mosaic in-
stitutions at all times; if it was a memorial of some deliv-
erance, and perfectly innocent, it might, certainly, be as
well practised at Shiloh as in any other Jewish district.
I will only add, that it seems by their Ij ing hid in the
vineyards, that the vineyards were then in leaf, and that
this solemnity at Shiloh ivas between the time that leaves
first appeared on their vines, that is, in that country about
the beginning of March, and the time of vintage in Sep-
tember; for we find by Dr. Chandler,J that the cattle in
the Lesser Asia are turned into the vineyards immediately
after the vintage is over, and prematurely strip off the
leaves. More exactly the time of this event cannot, I
imagine, be determined by us in this remote age.
f Fage 113. t Page 226. t Travels in Asia, p. U2.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 225
OBSERVATION XIX.
CURIOUS EXPLANATION OF GENESIS xlis. 22, 23.
I HAVE shown, in my preceding Observations, that
vines in Judea sometintes grow against low stone walls ;
but I do not apprehend the ingenious Mr. Harrington can
be right, when he supposes, in a paper of his on the
patriarchal customs and manners, *= that Joseph is com-
pared to a vine growing against the wall, Gen. xlix. 22.
As vines are sometimes planted against a low wall, they
might possibly be planted against a low wall surrounding
a well : though it is difficult to guess, why a wall should be
built round a well, in a vineyard, of such a height as f o
be proper for the support of a vine ; and if it were, why
archers direct their arrows against it, when it would be
so easy to gather the fruit by hand, without injury.
But I suppose this is not an exact representation.
In the first place, a vine is not mentioned ; it is only a
fruitful tree, in general, to which Joseph is compared.
Secondly, The being situated near water is extremely
conducive, in that dry and hot country, to the flourishing
of vegetables in general ; and trees among the rest.
"We came," says Maundrell,f " to the fountain of Eli-
sha. Close by the fountain grows a large tree, spreading
into boughs over the water, and here in the shade we took
a collation," A tree, we find, planted near plenty of
water, grows there to a large size.
Thirdly, The wild Arabs of those countries are great
plunderers of fruit. Maillet assigns that as the reason
why the fruit of the land of Egypt, in these later times,
is not better, namely, that they are wont to gather it be_
fore it is properly ripened, on account of the Arabs, who
would otherwise rob them of it.
Fourthly, It is very well known, that walls easily stop
Arabs, v. ho are continually on horseback in their roving
* Archceologia, vol. 5, page 122. f Page 80, ed. 5.
226 ^^^ lilK NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
about, and do not care to quit them, nor are used lo clirnb
walls. They had no better way then to get the fruit of
those trees, whose luxuriant boughs ran over the walls of
their enclosures, than by throwing iheir bludgeons at
them, and gathering up the fruit that fell on the outside
of the wall. To these things should be added,
Fifthly, That the word translated arroivs, means not
only those things that we are wont to call arrows, but
such sticks as are thrown by the hand, as well as those
missile weapons that are darted by means of a bow ; for
we find the word is made use of to express the staff of a
spear, 1 Sam. xvii. 7, and consequently any piece of
wood long in proportion to its diameter, especially if used
as a missile instrument. The lords of arrows Diyn ''?>»3
baalee chitseem, for that is the Hebrew expression, con*
formable to an Eastern mode of speech, which we trans-
late archers, is a natural description of the wild Arabs,
those lords of bludgeons, in committing their depredations
on the Eastern gardens and vineyards.
But this manner of treating the vine would not be ad-
vantageous ; bunches of grapes are by no means thus to
be dislodged, and the fall would spoil the fruit. But
there are other trees whose fruit might thus be gathered ;
among the rest, I suppose the pomegranate, whose fruit
has so hard a shell, as neither to be injured by the fall,
or destroyed by au accidental blow of the sticks they
used for pelting the tree.
The destroying a man is sometimes compared to the
cutting down a tree: / knew notf said the Prophet Jere-
miah, that they had devised devices against me saying,
Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us
cut him off from the land of the living, that his name
may be no more remembered, Jer. xi. 19, But the envi-
ous brethren of Joseph did not imbrue their hands in his
blood, they did not destroy him as men detroy a tree
when they cut it down, but they terribly distressed him ;
they sold him for a slave into Egypt : he had flourished
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA, 227
i» the favour of his father and of his God, like a tree by
a reservoir of water; but they for a time dishonored him,
as a tree is disgraced by the breaking its boughs, aod
knocking off its leaves, by the wild Arabs, who want ta
derive some advantage from battering it after this manner,
when they cannot come at it to destroy it.
OBSERVATION XX.
OP THE TIME IN WHICH THE VINE LEAF FALLS OFF.
According to Dr. Richard Chandler's observations
in the Lesser Asia, it seems that their tame cattle are
very fond of vine leaves, and are permitted to eat them
in the autumn : this may serve to illustrate a passage id
the writings of Moses.
**The wine of Phygela," says the Doctor, " is com-
mended by Dioscorides : and its territory was now green
with vines. We had remarked, that about Smyrna the
leaves were decayed, or stripped by the camels and
herds of goats, which are admitted to browze after the
vintage.""^
He left Smyrna September 30,f and their vineyards
were by that time stripped, though they still continued
green at Phygela, the 5th or 6th of October.J
I believe we may be very sure, that the leaves of the
vineyards of Smyrna had not disappeared from natural
decay the 30th of September, since they continue
longer than that time in our climate ; it must have been
owing then to their camels and goats.
If those animals are so fond of vine leaves, it is no
wonder that Moses, by an express law,(l forbad a man's
causing^ another man's vineyard to be eaten, by putting m
his beast: since camels and goats are so fond of the leaves
* Tray, in Asia Minor, p. 142. t P^ge 110.
\ Page 141, II Exod. xxii, 5.
228 O^ ^'HK NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
of the vine, and consequently the turning any of them in be-
fore the fruit was gathered, must have occasioned much
mischief; and even after it must have been an injury, as
it would have been eating up another's food.
If however these leaves were generally eaten by cattle,
after the vintage was over, it seems to be rather difficult
how to explain th© Prophet's representing the dropping
down of the stars of heaven, in a general wreck of the
frame of nature, hy the falling of the leaf from the vine,
Is. xxxiv, 4. The leaves of many other trees fell in great
numbers, but we are supposing few or none of the leaves
of the vines in their vineyards dropped, the cattle being
turned into their vineyards before these leaves were wont
to drop, and being very fond of eating them.
I do not know how to account for this otherwise, than
by reminding my reader, that though the ancient Israel-
ites were in a manner universally concerned in agriculture,
yet they did not live in detached habitations in the fields
as many of our people of that class do, but in towns where
the houses stood thick together, but with some trees plant-
ed near to them, whose shade their camels and goats were
toot permitted to destroy. To which is to be added, from
St. Jerom, that the air is often so soft, even late in the
autumn, as to admit, and even invite their sitting abroad,
when the leaves were scattered on the ground, and con-
sequently scattering from these domestic trees. And if
not, they could not well avoid seeing them as they sat in
their houses close by.
OBSERVATION XXL
DIFFERENT KINDS OF WINES IN THE HOLY LAND.
The wines produced in the Holy Land are, it seems,
of different sorts, in consequence of the vines there being
of different kinds.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 229
This is common in other countries, and is expressly
taken notice of by travellers as to the wine made by the
monks of Canobine on Mount Lebanon, of which I have
taken notice in another article : one sort being red, the
best of the colour of gold.
There is, it is found, a like difference in the adjoining
country. So the gentleman that travelled in these coun-
tries in 1774 remarked, that the grapes of the Holj Land
that he saw were chiefly black, while those of Coelo Syria
are remarkable for their size, and mostly white. This im-
plies that those he saw were, at least, comparatively speak-
ing, smaller than the Syrian, as well as of a different
colour.
Accordingly the Scriptures speak of reel wine, Js, Ixiii.
2; as well as of the blood of the grape, Deut. xxxii. 14,
which term may, possibly, be designed to indicate its
colour J^
The wine made from these black grapes he found very
indifferent : whether from the real quality of the grape,
or bad method of making the wines, he could not say.
But though this gentleman seems to have seen no grapes
of a large size in Judea, as he had in Coelo-Syria, yet
there are some such growing there, though he happened
not to see them; or at least there were a thousand years
ago : for d'Herbelot tells us, in his Bibliotheque Oiintale,
from the Persian historian Khondemir, " that Jezid being
in Palestine, which he calls Beled Arden, or the country
of Jordan, and diverting himself in a garden with one of
his women, of whom he was passionajelj fond, they set
before him a collation of the most exr.ellent fruits of that
country : during this little repast, he threw a single grape
to the lady, which she took, and putting it to her mouth
to eat it, she let it slip down her throat, and being very
* The term hlood there seems to refer to the colour of the juice of the
grape, or of the wine produced by it, otherwise it is likely that a word sig-
nifying tears would have been used, answering to the marginal translation
of Exod. xxii. 29.
VOL. III. J30
230 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Iar2;e, such as that country prodiicetl, it stopped Irer
breath, and stifled her in an instant."^
This surprising accident, which it seems threw the
Khaliflfinto such a melancholy ashronj^ht that ^reat prince
to the grave, happened about the year of our Lord 1723;
but Palestine has undergone sreat alteration sin^e that time.
Doubdan, however, tells us, that travellins in the coun-
try about Bethlehem he found a most deliiihtful valley,
full not only of aromatic herbs and rose bushes, but plant-
ed with vines, which he supposed were of the choicest
kind, and that it was indeed the valley of Eshcol, from
whence the spies carried that prodijiious branch of grapes
to Moses, of which we read in the book of Numbers. f
"It is true," says this writer, *' I have seen no such
bunches of grapes, not having been here in the time of the
vintage; but the o)onks assured me that they still find
here socne that weigh ten or twelve pounds. As to the
wine, I have tasted of it many times, and have always
found it the most agreeable of that made in the Holy
Land. It is a white wine, which has however something
of a reddish cast, is somewhat of the muscadel kind, and
very delicious to drink, without producing any bad
effects."!
There are then different kinds of grapes, produced ia
this country, some red, some white 5 and though they la-
bour under great discouragements as to making of wine in
Mohammedan countries, and consequently much of it may
be poorly managed, one sort, at least, appeared very de-
licious to a person well acquainted with the wines of
France.
* Art. Jezid Ben Abdalmalek.
t Ch.xiii. 23, 24. ^ Voy. de la Terre Sainte, p. 154,
MILITARY STATE OP JUDEA. 231
I
OBSERVATION XXII.
SUPERIOR EXCELLENCE OF THE WINE OF LEBANON,
It is surprising to me, that St. Jerom should seem not
to have been acquainted with the excellency of the wine
of Lebanon, which gives it the superiority above all the
wines of that part of the world ; and i( seems to me almost
as astonishing; that commentators on the Prophet Hosea,
should content themselves with quotations from ancient
writers of the most vague kind, instead of positive eviden-
ces of its excellency.
That St. Jerora appears not to have been aware of the
exquisiteness of this kind of wine, though he lived long in
Judea, is sufficiently evident from what he says in his
Commentary, on Hosea xiv. 7: The scent thereof^ or,
according to the marginal translation, the mew?or/rt/ there-
of, shall be as the wine of Lebanon ; on which he tells
his readers,^ "We may call that the wine of Lebanoa
which is mixed and prepared with some fragrant substance,
that it may have the most delicious smell; or that may
be called the wine of Lebanon which is poured out before
the Lord in the temple, concerning which we read in
Zechariahy Open thy doors, O Lebanon,*^ Could a man
that wrote after this manner, know any thing at all of the
natural exquisiteness of the taste of one sort of wine pro-
duced in Lebanon, and peculiar to it, therefore distinguish-
ed by the name of the place of its production ?
The remarks that some later commentators have raade^
on the words of the Prophet, are almost as astonishing,
being loose and indistinct accounts of the excellency of
some of the wines produced in that part of the world, not
appropriate to Lebanon. David Kimchi, the celebrated
• Vinum autem LIbani possuraus appellare mixtum & conditum thyraia-
mate ; ut odorem suavissimum habeat ; vel vinum Libani quod Domino
libatur in templo ; de quo ia Zacharia sub Libani yocabulo legirous : Aperi
Libane portas tuar.
232 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Jewish Rabbi, is in particular quoted,"^ as citing a phy-
sician who affirmed that the wine of Lebanon, of HermoO;,
of Carmel, of the mountains of Israel, and of Jerusalem,
and of Caphtor, for smell, taste, and usefulness, for med-
ical purposes, excelled all others. Is this a proper proof
of the superior excellence of the wine of Lebanon above
others ? Is this any thing more than the putting it on a
level with the rest of the wines of Judea, and those of
Caphtor, which some of the learned have supposed to
mean Crete ?f
I should suppose the modern account of travellers, con-
cerning the wine of Lebanon, must be much more satis-
factory.
" The patriarch," says RauwolfF, speaking of his visit-
ing Mount Libanus, " was very merry with us, and pre-
sented us with some Venice bottles of his wine, whereof
we drank a good deal, for it was so pleasant that I must
confess that I never in all my life drank any like it.'* J He
afterward mentions his supping with the patriarch, and
some of his fraternity, at Canobin, adding, " they treated
us very well, and gave us some white wine to drink, which
was better than that we drank on the hill," meaning some
that was given him by the common Maronites in his as-
cent, " in Venice glasses, the like whereof is not to be
found, neither in Candia nor Cypras."||
Le Bruyn is the next I would cite. , His testimony is
as follows. " But if it were only for what I am going to
mention, Canobin§ would be preferable to all other places ;
that is, on account of their having there better and more
delicate wines than are to be found any where else in the
world. They are red, of a beautiful colour, and so oily
that they adhere to the glass. Accordingly the Prophet
Hosea derives a comparison from it, when he says, ch xiv.
* Vide Poll Syn. in loc. t Vitringa in Jsaiam, cap. 14.
* Bay's Coll. of Travels, y. f205. |) Page 207.
§ A celebrated monastery on Mount Lebanon.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 233
8, . . . . the smell of each of them shall be as the wine
of Lebanon .... The other wines are not near so good
there, but in much greater abundance. As the patriarch
appeared to have a great esteem for us, he always caused
the best to be given us. I found it so excellent, that I
did not think I ever tasted any kind of drink more de-
licious."^
I will only add one more, Monsieur de la Roque, who,
in an account of his travels in Syria, speaking of his visit-
ing Canobin in Mount Lebanon, tells us that, when he was
there, the greatest part of the monks were absent, engaged
in their vintage. That they were invited by those that
remained to dine there. That they accordingly ate with
a venerable old man, who acted as the then superior of the
house. That this good father entertained them very
agreeably during the repast, which consisted of eggs and
olives. To v/hich he adds, " but it would be difficult to
find elsewhere more excellent wines than what he gave us ;
which caused us to think the reputation of the wines of
Lebanon, of which the Prophet speaks, was well founded.
These wines are of two sorts, the most common is the red,
and the most exquisite is the colour of our muscadine
wine ; they call it golden wine, on account of its colour."f
After this no doubt can be made of the excellency of
the wine of Lebanon, and its superiority to those of the
neighbourhood, and to those indeed elsewhere that have
been most celebrated, the Cretan and that of Cyprus.
They are not indeed all the wines that grow on this
mountain that are so superior in quality ; that presented
by the peasants to RauwolfFwas far inferior to that pre-
pared for the patriarch. But when the wine of Lebanon
is spoken of, by way of eminence, the best is undoubtedly
meant ; Le Bruyn seems to have been mistaken, when he
supposed he was distinguished by the patriarch, who
treated him with red wine, that, though very excellent,
* Tom. 2, ch. 57. f Voy, de Syric ct du Mont Liban. torn. I, p. 54, 55.
234 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
not being the best, which is, it seems, of the colour of
gold, consequently a kind of white wine.
All that lis further requisite to be added seems to be
this, that it is tlie celebrity, or iijemoii;il,nj? siker, as it is
translated in the margin, that seems to be meant by the
Prophet, the scent of (his rich wine not being the most
remarkable of its qualiiies : to which is to be added, that
the smell of Lebanon had been before mentioned ; and
that the word more properly signifies its being celebrated,
or held in remembrance, than the exquisitenessof its smell.
How it came to pass, that Jerom was not sensible of
this superiority, of some of the wines of Lebanon to those
of other places, may be a subject of curious inquiry, but
not necessary to the illustration of the passage I am con-
sidering here. Whether locusts had injured their vines
in that age, and sunk the reputation of what they pro-
duced, which Dr. Shaw tells us was the cause of great
degenerating of the wines of Algiers in his time ; or wheth-
er it was owing to civil commotions in this mountain, in the
time of St. Jerom, and there being no person there of
such consequence as to engage them to take a due care in
making their wines, in his time, I shall leave to others to
inquire ; but it is suflficiently plain that he was not aware
of the superiority of this sort of wine»
OBSERVATION XXIIL^
CURIOUS EXPOSITION OF HOSEA xiv. 5, 7.
Perhaps all the three verses of this paragraph of
Hosea,f relating to the promise of God to Israel, to re-
cover that people from the low state into which their in-
* N.B. This article, as well as the preceding, was written before the
Bishop of Waterford paid roe the obliging compliment of sending me hh
Translation of, and Comment on, the Twelve Minor Prophets.
f Hosea xiv. 5, 6, 7.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 235
i<|uitie3 had brought them, may be best illustrated by di-
viding it in some such a way as this :
I will be as the dew to Israel :
He shall flourish as the lily, and cast forth his roots:
As Lebanon his branches shall shoot out;
And his beauty shall be as the olive tree ;
And fragrance shall be to him like that of Lebanon.
They that dwell under his shadow shall reco\ei*.
They shall revive as a garden, and they shall flourish as a vine :
His memorial* shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
St. Jerom has gone before me, in the manner in which
I have divided the things contained in the second and
third lines; and as a caph D is apparently wanting in the
7th verse, and is supposed to be so by our translators,
who have supplied the want of it by inserting the particle
as, which the caph signi6es, they shall revive as the corn,
I think it is no harsh conjecture to suppose that the da-
leth, 1 the first letter of the word pn dagan, translated
corn, was originally a caph ; and if it were, the two re-
maining letters \i gan, will signify a garden, which reading
ia extremely natural.
This reading, however, does not appear in the various
lections of Dr. Kennicott, and can only be considered as
a conjecture.
The image in general made use of here by Hosea, is
the change that takes place upon the descent of the dew
of autumn on the before parched earth, where every thing
appeared dead or dying, upon which they immediately
become lively and delightful. Israel by their sins re-
duced themselves into a wretched disgraceful state, like
that of the earth when no rain or dew has descended for
a long time : but God promised he would heal their back-
alidings, and would restore thera to a flourishing state.
The gentleman that visited the Holy Land in autumn
1774, found the dews very copious then, as well as the
rain, and particularly observed, in journeying from Jeru^
* Israel's.
236 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
salem, a very grateful scent arising from the aromatic
herbs growing there, such as roseaiarj, wild thyme, balmj
&c. I will fee, saith God, that to Israel^ that the dew is
to the parched earth when for a long time there has
been neither dew nor rain. So Moses supposes the great
advantage of dew to vegetation, in his blessing the pos-
terity of Joseph.*
If the fragrant herbs between Jerusalem and Joppa
afforded such a grateful smell, as to engage this ingenious
traveller to remark it in his Journal, the scent of Leba-
non must have been exquisite, for Mr. Matindrell found
the great rupture in that mountain, in which Canobia
is situated, had *^ both sides exceeding steep and high,
clothed with fragrant greens from top to bottom^ and
every where refreshed with fountains, falling down from
the rocks in pleasant cascades ; the ingenious work of na-
ture," No other illustration is wanted of that line,
*' Fragrance shall be to him like that of Lebanon."
it will in like manner be sufficient as to the second line^
to set down a passage from Dr. Russell's account of the
natural history of Aleppo : " after the first rains in the
autumn, the fields every where throw out the autumnal
lily daffijdil ; and the very few plants which had stood
the summer now grow with fresh vigour."f Only adding,
that Rauwolff found this kind of lily, which he calls he-
merocallis, in the Holy Land, J as well as about Tripoli. ||
The other trees of Lebanon, as well as the cedars, are
admired by travellers on account of their enormous size,
which is the circumstance alluded to in the third line.
So de la Roque, describing his ascending this mountain,
says, the further they advanced, the more hermitages
• Deut. xxxiii. IS. t Vol. I. c. 5,
) Page 47, where he describes them as a kind of wild white lilies, by the
Tjfttins and Greeks called hemerocallis.
n Page 2«6.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 237
i^ey met wifh, together with the little chapels belonging
tx) them ; and the loftier the trees, which for the most
part were plane trees, cypresses, and evergreen oaks ;^
and Rauwolff, after mentioning several kinds of trees and
herbs which he found there, goes on, but chiefly, and in
the greatest number, were the maple trees, which are
large, big, high, and expand themsel\es very much with
their branches. But, above all, the size of the cedars at-
tracts admiration: "I measured,'' says IMaundrell, "one
of the largest, and found it twelve yards, six inches in
girt, and yet sound ; and thirtyseven jards in the spread
oi its boughs. At about five or six yards from the ground,
it was divided into five limbs, each of which was equal to
a great tree."',- No other comment is wanting for the
line,
" As Lebanon his branches shall shoot out."
The beauty of the olive tree is frequently mentioned
in Scripture, and being considered elsewhere, I shall say
nothing about it here.
And not only was Israel to regain its former prosperity,
but those smaller tribes of people that were connected
with Israel, and shared in its depression, which are de-
scribed by the words dwelling vnder his shadow.
They were to revive as the corn, or rather as a garden.
Corn is not at all remarkable for revixing.J It can bear
* Page 142. f Tome 1, p. 48, 49.
t The contrary to this T know to be fact. Corn, in its first sprouting
out, makes a beautiful appearai ce ; but when the first rpires begin to fall
dowQ on the earth, to make way for the stalk, th whole appears withered
and comparatively dead. In a short time after this, the tender stem, with,
its concomitant branches, begins to shoot forth, and the whole field appears
revivified. Hence that rhyming couplet used in several countries;
*• Visit your corn in J\lay, and you'll come weeping away :
But visit your corn in June, and you'll come whistling home."
However ingenious the emendation proposed by Mr. Harmer above, may
appear, I mean the change of pT dag-an, c< rn, into p^ kegan, like a gar-
den, there is certainly no need of it here, as the wofds convey a very
natural and appropriate sense as they stand in the present Hebrew
text. Edit.
yoL. in. 31
238 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, A\6
considerable drought, and it was wont to be reaped irf
Jitdea, before the cessation of the rains, or irnmedialely
after. Bnf a garden must have often suffered for want of
proper supplies of water, and according:!} Isaiah threat-
ens. Ye shall be as an oak whose leaffadeihi and as a
garden that hath no water, ch. i. 30.
The last of these eight lines seems to refer to a vine
that had been stripped of its leaves, and afterward flour-
ishing again, recovering its lost verdure. Several trees
will do this, but a vine, being of such consequence to the
comfort of fheir li\es, would be very particularly re-
marked, and mi2,ht be oftener stripped of its leaves than
other trees. Locusts left many sorts of trees bare, when
they came as a scourge to a country, as well as the vine,
as we read Joel i. 12; but it may be that vines lost their
leaves, not unfrequently, from some cause peculiar to
them, as was the case uith respect to young figs, atcord-
irig to the representation of a Prophet, Is, xxxiv. 4. A
vine^s recovering its leaves, after having lost Ihem, from
whatever cause it might proceed, was certainly a lively
image of the recovering of the dependencies on the Jew-
ish kingdoms, from that state of atiliction which they had
shared in common with Israel : slowly, perhaps, in some
respects, as is the case with the vine, according to Dr.
Shaw, but however to a very desirable degree, " The
wine of Algiers, before the locusis destroyed the vine-
yards in the years 1722 and 1724, was not inferior to {he
best hermitage either in briskness of taste or flavouTo
But since that time it is much degenerated, having not
hitherto, 1732, recovered its usual qualifies; though, even
with this disadvantage, it may still dispute the preference
with the common wines of Spain or Portugal."^ As to
the wine of Lebanon, it has been consideied in another
article.
* Shaw's Trav. p. 146.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 239
OBSERVATION XXIV*
FIRES OFTEN MADE IN THE FIELDS, TO BURN UP THE
DRY HERBAGE, PREVIOUS TO THE AUTUMNAL RAINS.
It is a common custom in the East, to set the dry herb-
age on fire, before the descent of the autumnal rains,
which fires, for want cf care, often do great damage. It
is no wonder then that Mosea has taken notice of fires of
this kind,* and by an express law, made those liable to
make all damages good, who either maliciously, or by
great negligence, occasioned them, and may serve to il-
lustrate that passage.
Dr. Chandler, speaking of the neighbourhood of Smyr-
na, says, " In the jailer end of July, clouds began to ap-
pear fiom the south. The air was repeatedly cooled by
showers, which had fallen elsewhere, and it was easy to
foretel the approaching rain. This was the season for
consuming the dry herbage and undergrowth on the
mountains ; and we often saw the fiie blazing in the wind,
and spreading a thick smoke along their sides. f
The same ingenious traveller, in another place, J men-
tions the alarming effects of a fire kindled by accident.
Having been employed, the latter end of August, in
taking a plan, and two views of a principal ruin at Troas ;
he goes on, *' we dined under a spreading tree before the
arcade, and had just resumed our labour, when we were
almost reduced to fly with precipitation. One of the Turks,
coming to us, emptied the ashes from his pipe, and a spark of
fire fell unobserved in the grass, which was long, parched
by the sun, and inflammable like tinder. A brisk wind soon
kindled a blaze, which withered in an instant the leaves
of the bushes and trees in its way, seized the branches
and roots, and devoured all before it with prodigious
crackling and noise, and with a thick smoke ; leaving the
• Exod. xxii. 6. t Page 276. i Page 30, 31.
240 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, A::^1>
ground black, and the stones hot. We were mucb
alarmed, as a general conflagiation of the coiinlry seemed
likelj to ensue. The Turks with their sabres cut down
boughs, and we all began buffetting the flames, which
were at length subdued ; the ruins somewhat retarding
their progress, and enabling us to combi t them more ef-
fectually. The struggle lasted about an hour, and a con-
siderable tract of ground was laid waste. Close by was
an area, with diy matted grass, where no exertion could
have delayed it for a moment, but the 6re must have ac-
quired a tnastery, and have ravaged uncontrolled, until
repelled by the wind.*'
These fir^s are ujentioned in three or four other places
of this volume of Travels, but they were all in autumn,
However, as the summers of the East are perfectly dry,
and the drought begins some time before harvest, the law
of Moses very propeily mentions standing corn as liable
to be destroyed by fire. Two instances are accordingly
mentioned in Scriptuie, in which the standing corn was
set on fire and destroyed, Judges xv. 5, and 2 Sam. xiv.30«
Moses, in that passage of Exodus, mentions stacks of
corn along with the standing corn, and other damage that
might be done to a field : If fire break outf and catch in
thorns^ so that the stacks of corn% or the standing corn^
or the field be consumed therervith: he that kindleth the
fire shall surely make restitution. That part of the his-
tory of Sampson just now cited, explains what kind of
damage might be done to a field, besides the consuming
the corn there: And when he had set the brands on fire,
he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines,
and burnt tip both the shocks, and also the standing corn,
with the vineyards and olives*"^
* The Arabs now are wont, in making war, to cut down olive trees, but
this passage sliows the olive trees were sometimes burnt, which is supposed
also in Jer xi. 16. A green olive tree ; -with the noise of a great tumult he
hath kindled Jire upon it.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 241
So in one of Ihe conflagrations Dr. Chandler saw in the
Lesser Asia, he savs,"^' '» We had been exposed this day,
without any shelter, to the sun. An accidental fire had
scorched the bushes by the way, and destroyed their
leaves, and the ground was bare and parched," A few
pages afierf there is a stronger description of this fire :
" The slopes," spcdking of a mountain of marble over
which he passed, "were covered with large pines, many
scorched or fallen, and some then on fire. The confla-
gration, we ha\e before mentioned, had extended far into
the country, spreading wide, as driven on and directed by
the wind." How destructive is fire in those hot coun-
tries, in the summer heats, not only to the parched grass
and weeds, but to shrubs and lofty trees too !J
It was highly necessary then to guard against such de-
vastions, more especially , as nothing is more common there
than the shepherds continuing abroad all night with their
flocks, but not without fires: we have a multitude of in-
stances of that kind in this volume.
It will be sufficient to quote one in the beginninglj of
these travels ; " We could discern fires on Lesbos, as be-
fore on several islands and capes, made chiefly by fisher-
men and shepherds, who live much abroad in the air; or
to burn the strong stalks of (he Turkey wheat and the dry
herbage on the mountains. In the day time a column of
smoke often ascends, visible afar."
How requisite was great caution in a country where
fires in the open air were so common, on the one hand ;
and the herbage of the ground so parched and dry on the
other! and to make them cautious, how necessary was an
express law !
It is well known that heaps of corn are not long left in
their fields : they are soon trodden out. This writer
* Page 180. fPage 192.
+ Severe as such devastations may be, something more terrible seems
to be meant by Jeremiah, ch. li. 25, namely, a volcano. To which St.
John also seems to allude, liev. viii. 8. j] Page 10.
242 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
himself takes notice of if. The harvest, he and his com-
panions observed, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, was
in June, and (he heat then was excessive. He adds,
"The harvest was presently over. Trie sheaves were
collected in the field, and the grain trodden out by buf-
faloes." P. 276, Moses then, by particularly mentioning
the corn in its heaps, after being cut, intimates, that in that
law, he had a particular view to designed and malicious
conflagrations, since the corn lies in the heap but a very
little while, and yet it is expressly mentioned, as what
might probably be its state, when a fire was kindled. '
This circumstance discovers an impropriety in our
tran'slation of E\od. xxii. 6, where these heaps are called
stacks of corn. The stacking of corn, in our agricultural
language, means, the collecting corn in the straw into
heaps, larger or smaller as it happens, designed to con-
tinue for some considerable space of time ; whereas the
heaps of the East are only the disposing the corn into a
proper form, to be immediately trodden out. They are
not wont to stack corn, in our sense of (he word, in those
countries.
The term shock, by which the word lyni gadeesh is
translated in two other places, is less exceptionable, but
not perfectly expressive of the original idea. We put to-
gether, or heap up our corn, not fully ripe, in parcels
which are called shocks, that it may more perfectly ripen
after being cut, but the original word lif'i^ gadecsji, means
an heap of corn fully ripe, see Job v. 26, means, in a
word, the heaps of the Eastern threahing floors, ready to
be trodden out.
The substances on which fire is supposed first to fasten,
is expressed by a word which is translated in our version
IhornSy and is rendered so nine times out of the ten in
which it occurs, in the tenth it is thistles ; but as a kin-
dred word is translated summer, and summerfrults, may it
not be queried then, whether it does not properly signify,
the vegetables that are wont to wither and grow so sear
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 243
as easily to cafch fire? of which many may be of the
prickly kind, which quality is undoiibfedly pointed out, in
some of the places in which this Hebrew word is used,
though not all, and among the rest thistles,* which seared
vegetables Dr. Chandler calls the undergrowth, p. 27'6e
1 will only add further, (hat the setting the grass and
undergrowth on fire in the East, has been practised in
these countries to annoy their enemies, and has sometimes
occasioned great terror and distress. I remember to have
seen an account of the making use of this stratagem, in the
Gesta Dei per Francos, It appears also, I think, to have
been practised anciently, from those word*- in Isaiah:
JVIien thou passest through the rvaters, I will he with thee ;
and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee :
when thou walkest through the fire^ thou shall not be
burnt ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, cb.
xliii. 2.
So we find, in Dr. Hawksworth's account of the late
Toyages to the South Seas, the wild inhabitants of New
South Wales endeavoured to destroy some tents and
stores, belonging to Captain Cook's ship, when he was
endeavouring to repair its damages, by setting fire to the
long grass of that country, and it had like to have been at-
tended with terrible consequences. It appears then to
be a stratagem naturally made use of, by nations little ad-
vanced in the arts of human life, and consequently, it may
be supposed, by the people of antiquity.
OBSERVATION XXV.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS IN JUDEAo
We are so little acquainted with the various species of
destructive insects that ravage the Eastern countries, that
• Which are represented by Dr. Russell, in his account of the natural
history of Aleppo, as dry in the deserts, and eaten by the eamels in that
state, as they pass through those parched places.
244 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
it may be thought extremely difficult to determine what
kind was meant by Solomon, in bis prayer at the dedi-
cation of the Temple, 2 Chron. vi. 28, by the word Von
chaseelf which our version renders caterpillars, »r\(l which
is distinguished by him there from the locusts, which
genus is so remarkable for eating up almost eAery green
thing; but a passage of Sir John Chardin may, probably,
illustrate that part of Solomon's address to him whom he
considered as the God of universal nature.
The paragraph of Solomon's prayer is this: When
heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have
sinned against thee; if they pray towards this place, &c.
* . , , If there be in the land famine, if there he pesti-
lence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillars ;
if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities, Si,c,
• . Then hear thou in heaven thy drvelling place, and
forgive, and do, &c.
The causes of famine, reckoned up here, are want of
rain, blasting, mildew, locusts, and caterpillars, accoriiing
to our translation : with which may be compared the fol-
lowing passage of the above mentioned very observing
traveller, in the second tome of his Travels.*
"Persia is subject to have its harvest spoiled by hail,
by drought, or by insects, either locusts, or small insects,
which they call sim, which are small white lice,f which
fix themselves on the foot of the stalk of corn, gnaw it, and
make it die. It is rare for a year to be exempt from one
or the other of these scourges, which aflfect the ploughed
lands and the gardens," &c.
The enumeration by Solomon, and that of this modern
writer, though not exactly alike, yet so nearly resemble
* P^age 245.
■j* Pucerens is the French term, which is often translated vine fretters ;
but as I apprehend many of the small insects which live upon various kinds
of vegetables, as well as animals, are called lice, 1 thought these >mall insects
which destroy the stalks of corn, would be better expressed by the term
lice, than vine fretters, which, by their name, should be supposed rathei
to injure vineyards than corn fields.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 245
each other, that one would be inclined to believe, these
small insects are what Solomon meant, by the word trans-
lated caterpillars in our English version.
OBSERVATION XXVI.
CURIOUS ACCOUNT OF LOCUSTS.
It seems that the movements of locusts are not always
the same way : they have sometimes been observed to
come from the southward; but those the Prophet Joel
speaks of, were to come in an opposite direction,* and (hej
have soojetimes been accordingly known to come from the
north.
Some may have been ready to imagine, on this account,
that Joel was speaking; not of real locusts, but of the Chal-
deans.f or some other desolating army of men that should
come from the north. But the Baron de Tott assures us,
that he found them coming in great numbers from Tartary
toward Constantinople, which lies to the south of that
country.
*< I saw no appearance of culture on my route, because
the NoguaisJ avoid ihe cultivation of frequented pLces.
Their harvest by the sides of roads would serve only as
pasture to travellers' horses. But if this precaution pre-
serves them from such kind of depredation, nothing can
protect their fields from a much more fatal scourge. Clouds
of locusts frequently alight on their plains, and giving the
preference to their fields of millet, ravage them in an in-
stant. Their approach darkens the horizon, and so enor-
mous is their multitude, it hides the light of the sun.
* Ch. ii. 20 " But I will remove far from you the northern army, and
will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the
east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea ; and his stink shall
come up, and his ill savour shall come up."
t So St. Jerom in his Comment oa Joel. -^ The Tartars.
VOL. III. 32
'24b' OF THE NAT U UAL. CIVIL, AND
When ihe husbandmen happen to he sufficienll/ niimeF'
ous, tbej sometimes divert the storm, by iheir agitation
and their cries; but when they fail, the locusts alight on
their fields, and there form a bed of six or seven inches
thick. To the noise of their flight succeeds that of their
devouring activity ; it reseinbles the rattlinfi: of hail stones,
but its consequences are infinitely more destructive. Fire
itself eats not so fast, nor is there a ves'ii^e of vegetation
to be found, when they again take their flight, and go else-
where to produce like disasters.
" This plague, no doubt, would be more extensive in
countries better cultivated ; and Greece and xAsia Minor
would be more frequently exposed, did not the Black Sea
swallow up most of those swarms which attempt to pass
that barrier,
"I have often seen the shores of the Pontus Euxinus,
toward the Bosphorusof Thrace, covered with their dried
remains, in such multitudes, that one could not walk along
the strand without sinking half leg deep into a bed of these
skinny skeletons. Curious to know the true cause of their
destruction, T sought the moment of observation, and was
a witness of their ruin by a storm, which overtook them
so near the shore, that their bodies were cast upon the
land, while yet entire. This produced an infection so
great, that it was several days before they could be ap-
proached."*
They frequently then, according to this writer, in that
part of the world pass, or attempt to pass, from the north
to the south. In Judea they have been supposed to go
from the south eastward in a contrary direct ion. f
And if this is the common route they take there, it must
have struck the Jews very much when they found the
Prophet predicting the going of the locusts to the south-
* Memoirs, pai't 2, p. 58 — 60.
•j- See le Rruyn, tome 2. p. 152 ; Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 424 ; and, I
think, Hasselquist. St. Jerom in his Comment supposes the same, and
that their wsual progress is from the southward.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 247
ward ; and slilJ more so when they found it exactly ac-
complished, as it was a demonstration of the perfect
foreknovi ledge of Jehovah, perhaps of his guiding and
directing those vast bodies of insects. The locusts, it is
said, have no king^ yel go they forth hy bands, Prov.
XXX. 27. Bui il they have no king of their own species,
they are undoubiedly under the direction of the God that
made them : he is their king.
There is an account, in the lOlh vol. Philos. Trans,
abridged, ot locusts that penetrated into Transylvania from
Walachia and Moldavia, in which the writer tells us, that
in changing their place of residence, they seem to tend to
warmer climates. "^ It that should be found to be the fact
in (hose countries, their attempting to pass from Tartary
into Greece, or the Les>er Asia, had nothing wonderful
in it ; but as it is generally obserxed, they fly from the
south in Barbary and other hot couniries, there should
be an intermediate country, in which the change in the
temperature of the air may cause them in a warmer sum-
mer to fly northward, and in one that is cooler to go
southward. Whether the north part of Syria may be
of such kind of temperature I do not find any where men-
tioned.
The meetins; with this observation of the Baron de
Tott, gave, I have found, extreme pleasure to an ingen-
ious and very learned cleigyman, as a happy illustration
of this place in Joel. It would give me, I confess, a more
entire satisfaction, if I could find that in Syria they had
passed southward, and so through Judea into the nearer
part of Arabia, in some years ; as in others they have
come from Arabia, and gone to the northward.
After I had written the preceding paragraphs, I hap-
pened, in reviewing Niebuhr's description of Arabia on
another account, to meet with his remarks on locusts, ac-
cording to which they fly in diflferent, and sometimes
Page 840.
248 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
contrary (Jirections, very much as the wind blows. The
second time he saw them, thej came to Cairo, in Esjpt
hy a S. W. wind, consequently from the deserts of Lyb-
ia. In November 1/62, a great number of them passed
o9f Dsjidda, by a westerly wind, consequently over the
Red Sea, which is very broad there, and where many
of them perished. In May, when the dates began to
ripen, many of them arrived at Mokba: commonly they
return back again the next daj, or else continue their
flight to the mountains that lie eastward. On May 31,
1763, a great number of them passed over that city
from the south, northward; and the first of June they
went from the north to the south. Consequently they
fly in all directions, and INiebuhr found them sometimes
flying from the north to the south in Arabia.* He af-
terward informs us, that in the road from Mosul to Nis-
sebin, he found a large extent of ground, covered with
young locusts, not bigger than bees, which might be,
called therefore the place where they bad their nests.f
Now, according to this, if an east wind should have
blown for some days, after they became capable of flying,
they would have been brought into the north part of
Syria, and a north wind would have drove them in the
direction Joel mentions, or nearly so. From that place
in Mesopotamia to Jerusalem, as he was informed, was
only eight days' journey in a west direction, some-
what inclining to the south. This was the very direc-
tion that the Assyrian and Babylonian armies were wont
to take, when they came into Judea. A similar descrip-
tion woidd do for both, as to the point of the compass to
"which they directed their march. J
• Page 148, 149. f Page 149.
i NIebuhr, in the first of liis three volumes of travels, gives us an ac-
count, in like manner, of the locusts sometimes coming from the eastward
to the southwest, in Arabia " Never," says he, •« have I seen thera ia
such numbers as in the dry plain between Mount Samara and Jerim ; for
there are places where they might be swept up with the hands. "We saw
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 249
OBSERVATION XXVII.
SMALL FLIES VERY TROUBLESOME, AND OFTEN DE-
STRUCTIVE IN JUDEA.
We, perhaps, may be a good deal surprised to find,
tliat ihe driving away of flies, should be thought by the
inhabitants of the country about Ekron so important, that
they should give a name to the idol they worshipped, ex-
pressive of that property ;^ more especially when this
was not the only quality ascribed to him, but it was sup-
posed the power of predicting such mou'entous matters,
as the continuance of the life of great princes, or their
approaching death, did also belong to him:f but possi-
bly a passage in Vinisauf may lessen this astonishment.
Vinisauf, speaking of the army under our Richard the
first, a little before he left the Holy Land, and describing
them as marching on the plain not far from the seacoasty
toward a place called Ybelin, which belonged to the
knights hospitalers of St. John of Jeiusalem, pretty uear
Hebron, says, "The army stopping a while there, rejoic-
ing in the hope of speedily setting out for Jerusalem, were
assailed by a most minute kind of fly, flying about like
sparks, which they called cincimiellce. With these the
whole neighbouring region round about was filled. These
most wretchedly infested the pilgrims, piercing with
great smartness the hands, necks, throats, forehetds, and
faces, and every part that was uncovered, a most violent
an Arab who had gathered a sack full, in orr'er to dry thena, and keep for
his winter provision. \Vhen the rain ceases but a few hours, on the vest
side of the mountain, ttiere come such numerous legions from the side of
the east, that the peasants of JMensil were obliged to drive them away
from their fields, that they might not entirely destroy their fruits. . . This
precaution would have been useless in the country of Jerim, becjuse they
had established themselves there as in their proper abode, so long as that
country is without rain." P. 320.
* Baalzebub, lord of the fly. t See 2 King i. 2-
250 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
burning tumour following the punctures made by then);
so that all that they stung looked like lepers." He adds,
" that they could hardly guard themselves from this most
froiiblesome vexa(ion, by covering their beads and necks
with veils.''*
What these fire flies were, and whether they shone in
the dark, and for that reason are compared to sparks fly-
ing about, or whether they were compared to them on
the account of the burning heat they occasioned, as well
as a swelling in the flesh of all they wounded, I shall not
take upon me to determine, I would only observe, Rich-
ard and his people met with them in that part of the coun-
try, which seemed to be of the country which was not
very far from Ekron, and which seemed to be of much
the same general nature : a plain not far from the sea
coast.
Can we wonder, after this recital, that those poor
heathens that li^ed in and about Ekron, derived much
consolation from the supposed power of (he idol they
worshipped, to drive away the cincinellse of that country,
which were so extremely vexatious to these pilgrims of
the r2th century, and occasioned them so much pain.
Lord of the fly, lord of these cincinellae, must ha\e ap-
peared to them a very pleasing, a very important title.
I will only add, that Sandys, in his travels in the same
country, but more to the northward, speaks of the air's
appearing as if full of sparkles of fire ^ borne to and fro
with the wind, after much rain and a thunderstorm, which
appearance of sparkles of fire he attributes to infinite
swarms of flies that shone like glow worms ;f but he gives
not the least intimation of their being incommoded by
them.
What this diff*erence was owing to, it is quite beside
the design of these papers to inquire; whether its being
about two months earlier in the year, more to the north-
ward, or immediately after much rain and a thunderstorm,
* Hist. Angl. Scrip, quinque, vol 2, p. 396. f Page 1.58=
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 251
was the cause of (be innoxioiisness of these animals when
Sandys travelled, and even whether the appearance San-
dys speaks of, was really owing to insects, or any effect of
electricity, I leave to others to determine.
>
OBSERVATION XXVIII.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF GOATS IN JUDEA.
Dii. Russell observed (wo sorts of goals about Alep-
po: one that differed little from the common sort in
Britain; the other remarkable for the length of its ears.
The size of the animal, he tells us, is sornewhat larger
than ours, but their ears are oflen a foot long, and broad
in proportion. That they were kept chiefly for their
milk, of which they yielded no inconsiderable quantity."^
The present race of goats in the virinify of Jerusalem,
are of this broad eared species, as I have been assured
by a gen'leman that latelyf visited the Holy Land, who
was struck with the difference between the goats there,
and those that he saw in countries not far distant from
Jerusalem. "They are," he says, *' black and white,
and some gray, with remarkable long ears, rather larger
and longer legged than our Welch goats."' " This kind
of animal," he observed, ** in some neighbouring places,
differed greatly from the above description, those of Bal-
bec in particular, which were generally, if not always, so
far as he observed, of the other species.
These last I presume, are of the sort common in Great
Britain, as those about Jerusalem are mostly of the long
eared kind ; and it seems they were of the same long
eared kind that were kept anciently in Judea, from the
words of the Prophet, As the shepherd taketh out of the
mouth of the lion two leg^s, or a piece of an ear, so shall
the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Sama-
ria, . . , , and in Damascus,^
* Vol 2, p. 150. t In 1774. \ Amos iii. 12.
252 or THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
TLoii£;h it is indeeil ihe intention of the Prophet, to
express the smallness of that part of Israel that escaped
froiD destruction, and were sealed in foreign countries ;
jet it would have been hardlj natural, to have supposed
a shepherd would exert himself, to make a lion, quit a
piece onlj of an ear of a common goat : it must be sup-
posed to refer to ihe large eared kind.
If is rather amusing to the imagination, and a subject
of speculation, that the same species of goat should
chiefly prevail about Jerusalem, now chieflj kept in the
Holy Land, should have been the same species that were
reared there two thousand five hundred years ago. Is it
the nature of the country, or the quality of the food of it,
that is the occasion of the coniinuance of this breed,
without de\iafion, from very remote times?
RauwolfF observed goats about Jerusalem with hanging
ears, almost two ^eet Ions ;^ but he neither mentions their
being all, or mostly of that species, nor that it is another
species that is most commonly kept in some of the neigh-
bouring countries.
Whether the kids of the two species are equally deli-
cious, travellers have not informed us, but it appears from
Hariri, a celebrated writer of Mesopotamia, that some
kids at least are considered as a delicacy ; for describing
a person's breaking in upon a great pretender to mortifi-
cation, he found him with one of his disciples, entertain-
ing themselves, in much satisfaction, with bread made of
the finest flour, with a roasted kid, and a vessel of wine
before them.f This last is an indulgence forbidden the
Mohammedans, and with bread of the finest flour, proves
that a roasted kid is looked upon as a very great delicacy.
This shows in what light we are to consider the grati-
fication proposed to be senf to Tamar, Gen. xxxviii. 16,
ir ; the present made by Sampson to his intended bride,
* Page 234.
f Hariri, transtated by Chappelow, Arabic Prof, at Cambridge, 1st As-
sembly, p. 7.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 253
Judg. XV. 1 ; and what was the complaint, made bj the
elder brother of the prodigal son, that bis father had
never given him a kid to entertain his friends with : he
might have enabled hirn to give I hem some slight repast ;
but never qualified him to treat them with such a delicacy,
Luke XV, 29.
OESERV ATION XXIX.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHEEP AT ALEPPO.
In like manner Dr. Russell^ observes, there are two
kinds of sheep about Aleppo : the Bedouin sheep, which
differ in no respect from the larger kinds of sheep in
Britain, except that their tails are somewhat longer and
thicker; the other, a sort often mentioned by travellers
on account of their extraordinary tails, which are very
broad and large, terminating in a small appendix that turns
back upon it. These tails, Russell informs us, are of a
substance between fat and marrow, and are not eaten
separately, but mixed with the lean meat in many of their
dishes, and also often used instead of butter. That a
common sheep of this kind, without the head, feet, skin,
and entrails, weighs sixty or seventy English pounds,f of
which the tail usually weighs fifteen pounds, and upwards.
This species, he observes, is, by much, the most numerous.
It might then be thought very probable, that this spe-
cies too may be the most numerous about Jerusalem.
We are not however left to conjecture ; for the same in-
genious and obliging gentleman, that gave me the account
of the goats in the vicinity of Jerusalem, informed me, at
the same time, that the sheep of that country are, in gen-
• Vol. 2, p. 147.
f But such, he tells us, in the same paragraph, as are of the largest
breed, and have been fattened, will sometimes weigh above one hundred ;\nd
fifty pounds, and the tails of them fifty, a thing to some scarcely credible.
VOL. Ill, 33
254 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
eral, whife, with large tails, resembling those of Syria^
and the plain of Damascus.
After this account of the kind of sheep that are found
near Jerusalem, and Dr. Russell's account of the liifue-
ness and deliciousness of their tails, we shall noi wo!.<'»^r,
that since fat was reserved as sacred to G«>d, by the Mo-
saic law, Moses, among other things, should ordti, Hiat
when a sacrifice of the peace offerings should be made Uy
the fire of the Lord, that fat thereof, and particularly the
whole rump, or tail, taken off hard by the bark hone, &c.
should be burnt on the altar. ^ Though the oiderin^ in
particular, and by express words, that the tail of a British
sheep should be presented in sacrifii e to God might sur-
prise us, the wonder ceases when we are told of those
broad tailed Eastern sheep, and the extreme delicacy of
that part, and withal are informed that the sheep about
Jerusalem, are of that species.
OBSERVATION XXX.
Of some peculiar quaprupeds mentioned in
scripture.
As Moses mentions only two sorts of quadrupeds, in
our version, of those wont to be eaten, but forbidden the
Jews, besides the camel and swine, and there are four or
five sorts at least in those countries, of the smaller kind
of animals, which are eaten there, and which seem equillj
to come under his intention, and some of them a good
deal resembling each other, I shoidd suppose it injprobable,
that two animals, so much like to each other as the hare
and the rabbit, should be exclusively meant by the two
Hebrew words used in Lev. xi. ver. 5, 6, f and the other
* Lev. iii. 9.
j- *' And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the
hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the hare, because he cheweth the
cud, but divideth not the hoof j he is unclean unto you."
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 255
smaller beasts, very commonly eaten by other people, be
passed over in perfect silence by Moses.
The two words are |3ty shaphan n3Jix and aroncheth.
Dr. Shaw supposes* the shaphan means an animal of"
Mount liibanus, which he saw, and which he tells us is
co:nrrion in other places of Syria; but I would remark,
not so common, but that he describes it, in the preceding
paragraph, as a curious animal that he had the good for-
tune to see. He says, *♦ though this animal is known to
burrow somelimes in the ground; ye\^ as its usual resi-
dence and refuge is in \i\e holes and clefts of the rocks,
we have so far a more pres»umptive proof, that this crea-
ture may be the shaphan of the Scripture, than the Jer-
boa," which he tells us, in a preceding page,f *' has been
taken by some authors for the shaphan of the Scriptures,
though the places where I have seen them burrow have
never been among rocks ; but either in a stifFIoamy earth,
or else, where their haunts usually are, in the loose sands
of Sahara ; especially where it is supposed by the spread-
ing roots of spartum, spurge laurelj or other the like
plants,"
The same reason, which in a matter of this sort seems
to be sufficiently decisive, holds equally, I apprehend,
against the rabbit, which if the other word aronebeth sig-
nifies the hare, may come under that denomination, as a
different kind of aronebeth smaller than the other, but of
much the same appearance.
But though the circumstance of making the rocks its
refus^ej may determine the mind, as to that animal called
daman Israel, that it comes under that denomination ; it
does not therefore follow, that the jird and the jerboa
are excluded, they might be considered as different sorts
of the shaphan. They are both good to eat, Shaw tells-
us,f which is more than he says of the daman Israel, but
that circumstance, of its being frequently eaten in those
countries, is supposed the prohibition of Moses : it being
« Page 348. t Page 177. t Ps- cxlir. 18.
256 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
absolutely needless, (o forbid the making use of an animal
for food which no one ever used for that purpose.
Shaw describes the daman Israel ** as an harmless
creature, of the same size and quality with the rabbit ;
and with the like incurvating posture and disposition of
the fore teeth. But it is of a browner colour, with smaller
eyes, and a head more pointed, like the marmots. "=^
Now this difference of the make of the head might be
observed, and appears in fact actually to form a consid-
erable distinction of this species from the rabbit and the
Lare, which extremely resembles each other. Thus
Doubdan, in his account of an animal, taken at Mount Ta-
bor, which, I apprehend, was of that species that Dr.
Shaw calls the daman Israel, gives a description of if, in
which this pointedness of the head is particulaily marked
out. It may not be improper to set down a translation of
the passage.
Speaking of this mountain he says, "It is at present a
place to which wild beasts repair, among which there is a
certain kind of wild creature, one of which was taken there
the very day we were at it, by a Moor, who brought it to
the convent at Nazarslh, and the reverend Father Guar-
dian desired me to carry it to St. John d'Acre, and to
make a present of it in his name to the captain of the ves-
sel in which we were to return into Christendom, which
was then at that port. This animal was of that kind
which the Holy Scriptures, in the eleventh chapter of Le-
viticus, calls cherogryllns.-f which somewhat resembles
the porcupine and the hedgehog : for it has a slender
pointed head, streaked with white and black, the ears
small; the legs before low and short, those behind much
higher; the claws long and sharp; the hair gray, like
bristles, harsh and very long; as to the rest extremely
• Page 348.
t He means the vulgar Latin, whicti so translates the word shaphan
there.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 257
savage, and which gave me a great deal of trouble and a
thousand scratches in the journej,"*
It is an inhabitant of the Holy Land, according to both
writers ; but not very comraon, being understood by both
to be a curiosity. They also agree in their account of
the remarkable difference, in point of length, between
the hind and the fore (eei ; as also in the pointedness of
the head, which, instead of comparing it to a rabbit, led
Doubdan to liken it to a porcupine and the hedgehog, as
well as on account of the roughness of the coating.
Both those animals, it seems, are very comraon in
those countries, and the flesh of the porcupine, when fat
and young, is very well tasted, and in great esteem, ac-
cording to Dr. Shaw;f and a paper in the Philosophical
Transactions, J written by Mr. Jezreel Jones, assures us,
that among the Moors of West Barbary, the hedgehog is a
princely dish. They are both wont now to be eaten in
the Levant, and might be made use of for food before
the liuie of Mo^es, and might be reckoned among the
several species of the shapharij and so expressly be for-
bidden to be eaten. But whether it be admitted or not,
that the word shaphan includes all those smaller four
footed animals with a slender head that were used for
food, and the word aronebetli those smaller quadrupeds
used for food, which had large heads, I can never per-
suade myself, that those two Hebrew words in Leviticus
mean two species of animals so nearly resembling each
other, as the hare and the rabbit, that even modern natur-
alists put them under the single name leptis^W which in
common Latin means a hare exclusively; and if the word
aronebeth is to be taken in a like extensfve sense, the
word shaphan may naturally include more species than
* Voyage de la Terre-Sainte, p. 505. t Page 17S.
+ Phil. Trans, abridg. vol. iii. part 2, ch. 3, art. 35.
II See Dr. Berkenhout's OutUnts of the Nat. Hist, of Great Britaii;
.and Ireland, vol. 1.
'258 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
the daman Israel^ if not all the several sorts of sharp
nosed quadrupeds that were commonly eaten, particular-
ly the jerboa, which is so common in the deserts, where
the book of Leviticus was written, as the leporine kind,
including both hares and rabbits, is also known to reside
there in great numbers,*'*
Our translation is evidently rather suited to our circum-
stances in England, where hardly any other wild quad-
rupeds of the smaller sort are eaten, but hares and rab-
bits, than to Asiatic customs^ and the beasts that reside
in Arabian deserts.
OBSERVATION XXXI.
JUDEA AT PRESENT SWARMS WITH DANGEROUS WILD
BEASTS.
It is supposed in the Old Testament, that if Judea
should be thinly peopled, the wild beasts would so mul-
tiply there as to render it dangerous to the inhabitants?
Every body knows that country is not now ^ery popu-
lous, and accordingly wild beasts are at present so nume-
rous there, as to be terrifying to strangers.
The Lord thi/ God will put out those nations before
thee by little and little : thou mayest not consume them at
once^ lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee, are
the words of Moses, Deut. vii. 22, and are founded on
the supposition I have been mentioning. The Prophet
Ezekiel supposes the same, in a passage in which he de-
scribes the mercy granted to the land of Israel after its
being repeopled, when the Lord should turn again
the captivity of Sion, Ezek. xxxiv. 25, / will make
with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil
• So Doubdan found hares and rabbHs both, in great numbers, in the
plain of Jericho, which is now a desert, p. 28r, 288.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 259
beasts to cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely
in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.
That wild beasts are at present in that country in con-
siderable numbers, and terrify strangers, appears in that
passa2;e of Hajnes, where, desciibing his arrival at Cana
of Galilee, he says, "The approaching Cana at the close
of the day, as we did, is at once terrifying and dangerous.
" The surrounding country swarms with wild beasts,
such as tygers, leopards, jackals, &c. whose cries and
howling, I doubt not, as it did me, would strike the bold-
est traveller, who had not been frequently in a like situa-
tion, with the deepest sense of honor, p. 118."^
To which may be added the account he gives of his
visiting Mount Tabor, on the top of which he found many
ruins. " I amused myself," says this traveller, " a con-
siderable time in walking about the area, and creeping
into several holes and subterraneous caverns among the
ruins. My guide perceiving me thus employed, told me
I must be more cautious how I ventured into those places,
for that he could assure me those holes and caverns were
frequently resor ted to by tygers in the day time, to shel-
ter them from the sun : and therefore | might pay dear
for gratifying my curiosity." P, 152, 153.
In the two next pages he mentions a terrible fright, into
which the monks of Nazareth were put, some time before
this, by the appearance of a tyger coming out of these
ruins on the top of Mount Tabor, which place the monks
annually visit.
I have illustrated the other parts of this passage of
Ezekiel, relating to the sleeping in the woods^ under
another Observation.
* He vent from Acra to Cana.
260 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
OBSERVATION XXXII.
GREAT USEFULNESS OF STORKS IN THE HOLY LAND,
Among the birds that appear and disappear in this
country, storks are mentioned in our translation, and ac-
cordingly Doubdan found them, in the month of May, in
great numbers residing in Galilee.
Returning from Cana to Nazarelh on the 8th of May,
in which journey he complains the heat was so great that
they could scarcely breathe, he adds, ** I would not for-
get to observe, that all these fields were so filled with
flocks of storks, that they appeared quite while with
them, there being above a thousand in each flock, and
when they rose and holered in the air, they seemed like
clouds. The evening they rest on trees. There were
thousands of them, in the meadow, which lies at the foot
of Nazareth, which was quite covered with them. The
inhabitants do them no hurt, on account of their devour-
ing all kinds of venomous animals, serpents, adders^ toads,
and clearing the country of them."*
Shaw saw them in the air, returning from the south, as
he lay at anchor near Mount Carmel; Doubdan found
them settled in Galilee, and positively afiirms that thej
roosted on trees. Whether they build their nests there
too, in that country, he does not say : our version of Ps.
civ. 17, has been understood to suppose this, and that
therefore it is inaccurate, and that the heron must be
meant by the Psalmist, which is according to the vulgar
translation,! which Doubdan must be understood to have
considered as authentic ; but after all, if it be true, that
the storks of Palestine roost in trees, as Doubdan affirms,
our Eng;lish translation may be peifectly just, Where the
birds mnke their nest : as for the stork, the fir frees are
her house : where they rest, where they sleep, after the
• Page 513. f Herodii domus dux est eoi:uKi»
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 261
wanderings of (he day are over, there their house may be
said to be.
It would be. however both pleasing and useful, if some
future traveller would strictly exaniine this matter, and
communicate his observations to the learned world.
OBSERVATION XXXIIL
OF THE MIGRATION OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF BIRDS, AND
THE USE TO BE MADE OF IT IN AGRICULTURE.
The migration of birds has not only been attentively
observed of late in Europe, but it was remarked anciently
too, and in the Holy Land, as is visible from a passage of
the Prophet Jeremiah, =^ but it may be diflScult to ascertain,
■with precision the particular sorts he had in view ; this
indeed is by no means necessary* with respect to the
general moral or religious purposes, for which Jeremiah
mentions this phaenomenon ; but it considerably interests
our curiosity, and distinctness here may add not a little
to the energy of the expostulation.
The increasing the number of different sorts of birds
that keep, with great regularity, the times of their ap-
pearing, gives stren2:th to the expostulation : thus Isaiah
mentions not only that the ox knoweth his owner, but
adds too, that the ass knoweth his waster*s crib, Is. i. 3.
But if they appear and disappear at different seasons, and
yet keep their stated times very exactly, it is giving
still greater life to the thought. And as there are such
differences in fact, it is not improbable that the Prophet
had such differences of time in view.
Many birds migrate, whose coming, or retirement is
not attended to by common people; but there are others,
* Jer. vili. 7. **Yea, the stork in heaven knovreth her appointed times,
and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of theii^
flOQiing ; but my people know not the juogment of the Lokb."
TOL* III. 34
262 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
whose presence is so remarkable, or the observing the time
of their appearing or disappearing thought to be so useful,
for the purposes of husbandry, or the conducling other
economical matters, that the common people themselves,
in a manner universally take notice of them.
Thus the ingenious Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Miscellan-
eous Tracts, many of them translations of some cel-
ebrated Swedish papers, has this remark, that "the peas-
ants of Upland have this proverb : When you see the
white wagtail, you may turn your sheep into the fields,''
which it seems are housed all winter in Sweden, "and
when you see the wheatear you may sow your grain."
Here we see the usefulness of observing the time of the
appearance of the white wagtail in Sweden, for the better
management of business in that country, which causes the
coming of these birds to be remarked there; but these
birds are little, or rather not at all noticed in England, at
least in the northwest parts of the county of Suffolk. But
every peasant in that county knows that the swallow and
the cuckoo are not seen or heard among us in winter, but
appear in the spring when the weather grows warm : for
the swallow upon its first coming repairs to our houses,
and the noise the other makes at a distance from them, is
too particular not to engage the attention of every hearer.
There is reason, therefore, to believe, that the birds
Jeremiah referred to, were not only migratory, but such
as some way or other attracted, in a more particular man-
ner, the notice of the inhabitants of Judea: either from
the numerousness of those flocks in which they travelled;
the remarkable distinctive quality of their notes; their
coming more commonly under their eye ; or their being
supposed to mark out the proper season for the applying
themselves to this and that part of the business of civil
life. And by this clue we shall more probably arrive at
the meaning of the Prophet, than by philological disqui-
sitions concerning the Hebrew names. The utmost un-
certainty, about the precise meaning of those names, ap-
MILIf AIIY STATE OF JUDEA. 263
pears in the writings of the various ancient Greek transla-
tors of the passage. Sometimes thej do not attempt to
translate a name, but merely express the original word in
Greek letters ; and where they do translate, they widely
diifer about the meaning of the words; and if Jews in
Egypt, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphns, and others
in those early times, were so indeterminate, little depend-
ence can be admitted with regard to modern Jewish rab-
T3ie5, and other laborious philologers. It must be much
more satisfactory to attend to the facts travellers have
given an account of, in modern or elder times.
Dr. Shaw saw the stork, returning in such numbers near
to, or over the Holy Land, as could not but attract his
notice, when he was on the coasts of that country : "1
saw," says this in2;enious traveller, ** in the middle of
April 1722, our ship lying then at anchor under Mount
Carmel, three flights of them, some of which were more
open and scattered, with larger intervals between them;
others were closer and more compact, as in the flights of
crows and other birds, each of which took up more than
three hours in passing by us ; extending itself, at the same
time, more than half a mile in breadth. They were then
leaving Egypt, where the canals and the ponds, that are
annually left by the Nile, were become dry, and directed
themselves toward the N. E. . .Those that frequent the
marshes of Barbary, appear about three weeks sooner
than the flights above mentioned, though they likewise are
supposed to come from Egypt; whither also they return
a little after the autumnal equinox."^ Here their num-
bers attracted notice.
Sir John Chardin has given us a short specimen of the
Persian almanacks, in the 2d tome of his Travels in
French.f It contains only part of two months. But
there, in that column which gives an account of the re-
markable events that happen each month, the beginning
of the singing of the nightingale is set down as one of those
» Page 409, 410. t Page 132*
264 O^ 'i'HE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
remarkables, which is supposed to be about a week after
the openins; of the Sultaiiic year, which begins with the
entering of the sun into Aries, ^^ consequently, according
to this alfnanack, these birds begin to be heard, in that
country, the latter end of march, N. S. Sir John has not
set down the rest of the remarkable events that happen
each month, by copying the whole of their almanacks,
which it is to be wished he had done. He however in-
forms us in another page, after having told us there that
the beginning of the singing of the nightingale was a fes-
tival of the ancient Arabs, to solemnize the return of warm
weather ; and that they had another festival to express
their joy at the departure of winter, which was marked
out in this almanack as happening in the 12th month, and
was called the coming of the storks, because that this bird,
according to their observations, appeared not till the cold
was over. After which he observes, that the Arabians
did not count time at first, as has been done since, by the
passing of the sun through the signs of the zodiac, which
makes our months; or of the moon through them, which
makes theirs; but by the seasons. If so, it is no wonder
that the appearing or disappearing of certain birds waa
remarked with care; or the blossoming of certain plants,
which we find has been the practice of the wild people of
N. America.f
This circumstance of the migration of the storks being
mentioned after this manner by Chardin, in concurrence
with other considerations, strongly inclines us to believe
our translation of the first clause of this passage of Jer-
emiah may be right, The stork in ike heavens knoweth
her appointed times.
The passage also which I have cited from Dr. Shaw,
shows the propriety and the force of that circumstance,
* Page- 146.
f Colden's Hist, of the Five Indian Nations of Canada remarks, that they
fix the time of such and such transactions, by saying it was when straw-
berries blossomed, p 109 : or when the chesnuts were ripe i or when the
£3B began to run between tlie trees and the bark, ib. &c.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 265
their being described by Jeremiah as fljing in the air, in
their passage from one country to another, whereas many
migratory birds come and go in a more private and con-
cealed manner. The stork in the heaven, says the Proph-
et, which is a description unapplied by him to those other
birds which he mentions, and which therefore, probably,
does not belong to them. But if that be supposed, our
translation should not have introduced the crane, for they
are observed passij)g to and fro in the heaven equally
with the stork, and in such n^jmbers as to engage general
attention in the Eastern countries.
So Dr. Richard Chandler, in the account he has given
the world of his travels in Asia, tells us, that about the
2rth of August he saw cranes flying in vast caravans,
passing high in the air from Thrace for Egypt, as was sup-
posed.^ On the other hand he tells us, in another page
of that volume, that in the spring he saw cranes in the
Lesser Asia picking up reptiles,! or flying heavy with
long sticks to build their nests ;J this, it seems, was in
the end of March. And two pages before he mentions
some of them that had built their nests on an old fortress ;
and in another page,|| that the return of the crane, and the
beginning of the bees to work, are esteemed there a token
of the winter's being past.
On the contrary, Stillingfleet, in his Miscellaneous
Tracts, has remarked in his preface to one of them, from
Aristophanes, that that old Greek comedian tells us,
** That the crane points out the time for sowing, when she
* Page 22.
t Mr. Ray supposes that the crane is granivorous, in his Syn. Avium ;
but perhaps Dr. Chandler did not mean to determine, with precision, that
they feed on reptiles, but merely that he saw them picking someuhat from
the ground, which he took, upon a slight observation, to liavebeen insects.*
+ Page 98. il Page 81st.
* Cranes frequent rivers and lakes, and live upon fish. They are fond oi
eels and are dexterous at picking them out of the mud. 1 have seen cranes
pick up eels, and swallow and pass them through the body several times,
before they permitted them to rest in llieir stomach. I suppose they acted
thus, in order the more effectually to kill this long lived animal. Edit.
2o6 Oi' THE NATUHAL, CIVIL, AND -
flies with her warning notes to Egypt; she bids the sailor
hang lip his rudder and take his rest ; and every prudent
raan to provide himself with winter garments, "=^
The first clause then of that verse in Jeremiah equally
fits the crane and the stork ; and as those birds consider-
ably resemble each other in their form as well as habits
of life, being both conversant in watery places, long neck-
ed and legged, short bodies and tails, feet not webbed,
building their nests on houses and old ruinated places, I
should think it by no means improbable, that (he Hebrew
word m^Dn chasidah signifies neither the crane nor the
stork exclusively, but both species, and their several va-
rieties, and in one word, the whole class of birds that
come under the above mentioned description. f
The time of the return of these birds to the south, ac-
cording to these accounts, marked out the approach of
winter, and the time to give over sailing, J as their flying
northward proclaimed the approach of spring. Agreea-
bly to this, that Prophet mentions the timeSf in the plural,
appointed for the chasidah, which seems to express both
the time of their coming from the south, and the time of
returning thither again ; whereas the time of the coming
of the other birds only is mentioned, which alone was
remarkable.
There is no debate about the meaning of the second
word, it is allowed on all hands the turtle is meant ; and
as I have elsewhere shown, |1 that the voice of the turtle
and the singing of the nightingale are coincident things,
Jeremiah seems to design to mark out the coming of a
• Page 237.
f But whether this be admitted or not, it is certain that cranes are seen
in Judea as well as storks, for Hasselquist found them, in the beginning o^
April, in great numbers there, p. 120.
i St. Paul describes the time that sailing became dangerous, by the fast
being" pastf Acts xxvii. 9, which being the tenth of the seventh month^^
called Tizri, fell out about the beginning of October, not far distant froa^
the time that the crane and the stork retire into Egypt.
tl The outlines of a New Comra. on Sol. Song, p. 149,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA, 267
bird later in the spring than the chasidah ; for, according
to the Persian almanack of Sir John Chardin, the night-
ingale begins to be heard some days later than the appear-
ance of the stork, and marks out the beginning of spring,
as the stork does the departing of winter.
How well might it have been, had Sir John Chardin
given us that whole column, relating to the memorable
events which happened in each month through the year,
which he tells us formed, originally at least, a kind of rus-
tic calendar, which guided them with sufficient exactness
in the common concerns of life, and their ordinary occu-
pations.* If the modern Persian almanack makers have
not continued to set down all the ancient observations re-
lating to things of this sort ; the knowledge of the whole
of what they have retained would, probably, have been
of use, not only to those who study Arabian antiquities,
which Sir John speaks of, but to those also that might be
desirous to examine with care the sacred writings.
The Septuagint may I think be understood to have in-
troduced only three kinds of birds in their translations of
this passage of Jeremiah viii. f, whereas our's reckons
four.f For in the other place,J where the two last He-
brew words appear, there being but two places where
they occur, they translate thera as signifying one bird.
Whatever this was owing to, it could not be because
they knew but of three classes of migratory birds. |1 There
are not only several more in fact, but they must have
taken notice of some of them. Mr. Stillingfleet has justly
observed, that the coming of the cuckoo is so remarkat
* Page U7.
f Ken r) ct<n^<}i> — r^vcav Koit ^zhi^av o^y^ovj G'r^Q\j^iXi<pv\»^(X,v-
KXi^Ovg UiToi'm avrrn. The four birds mentioned in the Hebrew test
are '^'^^)^'^ D'DI niHI m^DH Chaseedah, re' Thor, ve' Sis, ve' Jlgoor,
which our translators render the stork, the turtle, the crane, and the swal-
low. The Septuagint reckon four kinds as well as the HebrcAv. Edit
% Is. xxxviii. U. I! The chasidah, the turtle, and the nightingale.
268 ^t* THE XATUKAL, CIVIL, AND
ble, and so applicable to the matters of husbandry, that
Aristophanes says, "when the cnckoo sung, the Phoeni-
cians reaped wheat and barley."* The cuckoo Ihen,
according to this ancient Greek writer, is beard in Phoe-
nicia, adjoining to, or rather a part of the Holy Land ; is
much taken notice of there, as indeed its note is very par-
ticular ; and ifs coming was connected with a very im-
portant part of business, harvest.
The coming of the stork, from the south, announces
the speedy withdrawing of the winter; the cooing of the
turtle, together with the singing of the nightingale, affirms
that the spring is come ; and the voice of the cuckoo,
that it is BO far advanced that it is then time to begin har-
vest. Where the Prophet mentions the stork in the
heavens, he may be considered as contrasting them with
the other birds, which returned more secretly, flying low
near the earth. The taking notice of this circumstance is
natural.
In the Swedish calendar, given in the Collections of Mr.
Stillingfleet, there are but three days between the coming
of the stork and swallow, which both arrived in one day,
and the hearing of the cuckoo, and the third day after
the cuckoo and the nightingale is said to have sung.f In
the Norfolk calendar, formed by Stillingfleet on his own
observations in that county, the swallow returned the 6th
of April \7f}5f the nightingale sung the 9rh, the cuckoo
not heard till the 17th. According to this, as3 in the re-
mote northern countries, vegetables hurry on, when sum-
mer comes thither, with much greater rapidity than with
us, as appears by a Siberian or Lapland general calendar
in the same writer ;J so it should seem the coming of the
various tribes of migratory birds follows each other in
greater hurry than with us, and ours, perhaps in quicker
succession than in Judea, and it may be not exactly in
the same order. But careful observations are wanting
' here.
* Misc. Tracts, p. 290, note. f Page 2«6, 267. ^ Page 317.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 269
I will only add further, that though classical readers,
tvho are acquainted with Ovid, and the supposed meta-
morphosis of Progne into a swallow, maj imagine the
noise that bird makes is very melancholy, and therefore
suppose the words of Hezekiah may very well be trans-
lated, " like a swallow so did I chatter;" yet I believe
the unprejudiced mind will be disposed to think, that the
note of the cuckoo much more naturally expresses the
softly complaining Ob ! of the afflicted, when doubled as
it often is Oh ! oh ! than the chattering of a swallow.
Not to dwell on an observation that may be made, that
the word J|V3V tsaph fsaph, translated chatter, appears
to signify the low, melancholy, interrupted voice of the
complaining sick, rather than a chattering noise, if we
consult the other jilaces in which it is used, which are
Isaiah viii. 19 ; x. 14 ; xxix. 4.^^ As for the chattering of
the crane, it seems quite inexplicable. Swallows, how-
ever, appear in the Holy Land; they were seen at Acre
in 17'r4, in October, and were then about disappearing.
OBSERVATION XXXIV.
OF THE VAST NUMBERS OF TAME TURTLE DOVES
FOUND IN EGYPT, &C.
A SACRED writer supposes that the turtle dove is a
migratory bird. Maillet does the same, as to many, not
all ; telling us, that when the cold sets in here in Europe,
many kinds of birds come to Egypt, some fixing them-
selves near the mouths of the Nile, some taking up their
abode near Cairo, and there are some that go as far as
• It is used also Ezek. xvii. 5, but there it is translated a tvillo-w tree in
our version. Parkhurst confouads this root HSV tsaphahy to overspread
or overfloiu ; but they certainly have no connection. It seems to be of the
same import with the Arabic '" "i" sajfa, which signifies to make
fiquaU arrange^ set in order. Edit.
VOL. III. 35
2f0 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Upper Egypt; and among the migratory birds found in
Egypt, upon the approach of winter, he mentions qiiails
and turtle doves of passage, which are, he says, very
good."^
Two things appear in this account of Maillet : 1st.
That many turtle doves do not migrate ; and 2d, That
they are eaten in Egypt as food, and found to be very
good.
The first point is confirmed, I think, by Dr. Chandler,
at the same time that he found the singing of the night-
ingale and the cooing of the turtle dove were coincident
things, according to Cant. ii. 12, of which I have else-
where given some account.f
"We set out,'* says the Doctor,J ** from Magnesia, on
the 23d at noon.|i .... On each side of us were orch-
ards of fig trees sown with corn ; and many nightingales
were singing in the bushes." Again, page 202, " Atten,§
our course was northward, on its bank," the river Har-
pasus, " in a valley. We were surrounded with a de-
lightful trilling of innumerable nightingales." On the
same day, they arrived at Guzel Hissar, at entering which
town, he tells us, they were surprised to see around them
innumerable tame turtle doves, silting on (he branches of
the trees, on the walls, and roofs of houses, cooing un-
ceasingly, page 205.
These, according to the Doctor, were tame turtle
doves. They were found in a town, not heard as ihey
travelled in the country ; and their number was very
large : sitting every where ; on trees, on walls, and on
the roofs.
* A peine le froi J commence k se faire sentir en Europe, qa' oa ne
manque ici ni de canards, ni de sarcelles, ni de becassines et de pluviers,
ni meme de cailles et de tourterelles passageres, qui sont fort bonnes.
Dcsc. de I'Egypte, Let. 9, p. 2L
t Chitlines Of a New Comment. &c. p. 149.
ir Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, p. 212.
11 He means the 23d of April, as appears, p. 199'. f April 21,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 271
There is a difficulty which may have presented itself
<o some mindii, and which this acconnt of the tame turtle
doves of Guzel Hissar may remove. They migrate on
the approach of winter. Now in that season, it appears
by a quolalion from a Jewish writer, mentioned in a pre-
ceding volume, pigeons are not wont to have young ones :
how then could that law of Moses be obeyed, which re-
lates to matters that happen at all times of the year,^ and
which enjoined them to bring for an offering to the Lord
two turtle doves, or two young pigeons? But now it may
be observed from hence, that if young pigeons could not
be procured, as being in the winter, tame turtle doves
might supply their place, there being doubtless gr^at
numbers of them then in Judea ; as there are now at Gu-
zel Hissar. A religious consideration must have engaged
the Jews to keep them ; which can have no influence on
the inhabitants of Asia Minor of our time.
As to the other point, their being eaten, that appears
evident from Maillet, who could not otherwise have pro-
nounced concerning their goodness 5 yet it seems from the
answers I received from some I consulted on this poinfj
who had been in the Holy Land, that they are not very
commonly used for food there at this time, since they did
not remember ever to have eaten of them in that country-
They may be kept, possibly, at this time in such nura*-
hers in the Lesser Asia, merely for pleasure; but it is
certain that St. Jerora, who lived long in the neighbour-
liood of Jerusalem, speaks of fat turtles as luxurious eat-
ing,! numbering them with pheasants, and another bird
which has been supposed to be the Asiatic partridge by
• Lev. xii. 8, ch. xiv. 22, kc,
f Procul sint a conviviis tuis phasides aves, crassi turtures, attagen lon-
icus, et omnes aves, quibus anipHssirua patrimonia avolant. Nee ideo te
cfirnibus vesci non putes, si Suum, Leporum, atq ; Cervorum, et quadru-
pedum animantium esculentias reprobes. Non enim h»c pedum numero,
sed suavitate g-ustus jniicuniuv. Ep. ad Salvinam de Viduitate servanda^
Hieron. Op. vol. iv. p. 667.
272 ^^^ im^^^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
some; but by others a different kind of bird, but what
they could not well determine,* attagen lonicus being
the Latin name.
It may not be amiss to add to the preceding account,
relating to the tameness of mnny turtle doves, what the
Baron de Tott says in the Prelim. Disc, to his Mem. p.
IT, and in p. 208, of the first part of them. In the first
place he remarks, that pigeons are more wild in Turkey
than with us, because they are more neglected. In the
other, that turtle doves, on the contrary, are extremely
familiar there. The government, he tells us, while their
subjects are treated with great rigour, is very compassion-
ate to these birds, allowing so much per cent, in favour
of them : *' A cloud of these birds constantly alight on
the vessels which cross the port of Constantinople, and
carry this commodity, uncovered, either to the maga-
zines or the mills. The boatmen never oppose their gree-
diness. This permission to feast on the grain brings
them in great numbers, and familiarizes them to such a
degree, that I have seen them standing on the shoulders
of the rowers, watching for a vacant place, where thej
may fill their crops in their turn."
*'* We cannot with certainty," says Francis, in a note on the second
Epode, •' determine what the rhombus, scarus, or attagen were." If there
are various birds not commonly known to us, even in our country, very
delicious eating, as those called by the Scotch caperkyly, those called black
game, and ptarmigans, see Appen. to Pennant's Tour, 1769, can it be any
wonder we have not a very determinate knowledge of what the ancient
Greeks and Romans meant, by some of the terms they made use of ? Nor-
den mentions a bird they shot in Egypt, coromane, " of the size of a
woodcock, of a delicious taste ; but still more esteemed on account of its
fine note. The Turks give for tkem eight or ten sequins, when they are
taken young and have been taught to sing. With regard to their beauty,
it consists only in their large eyes ; for their feathei's do not differ from
those of the wild duck." Vol. 2, p. 37. According to Pliny, lib. 9, cap.
48, the attagen when abroad sings, though silent when taken, which much
better agrees with the coromanes, than birds of the partridge kind. It is
true, Ionia and Egypt are two very different countries, but there, are
Dther birds that pass from the one to the other : whether this species doeSi
it is not said.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 273
It could not be difficult to detain in Judea, through the
winter, as many as they chose to do, by taking care to
feed them.
OBSERVATION XXXV.
OLIVE GROVES, PLACES OF GENERAL RESORT FOR BIRDS.
Dr. Chandler supposes that the olive groves are the
principal places for the shooting of birds i"^ and in his
other volume, containing an account of his travels in
Greece, he observes, that when the olive blackens, vast
flights of doves, pigeons, thrushes, and other birds, repair
to the olive groves for food :f the connection then between
Noah's dove and an olive leaf, Gen. viii. 11, is not at all
unnatural.
The tops of olive trees might alone, possibly, be in yiew
of the place where the ark was then floating, though it is
a tree of only a middling height; but if the dove saw a
great number of other trees appear above the water, it
was natural for it to repair to olive trees, where it had
been wont to shelter itself, preferably to others, accord-
ing to this account. As to branches of olives being used
afterward as symbols of peace, that could be nothing to
Noah, as, most probably, the associating the idea of re-
conciliation and peace with an olive branch was the work
of aftertimes.
• Trav. in Asia Minor, p. 84.
f Page 127. So Hasselquist heard the nightingale among the willows by
the river Jordan, and among the olive trees of Judea, p. 212.
"274 ^^ 1'^^^'^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
OBSERVATION XXXVI.
THE MEDITERRANEAN WELL STORED WITH FISH OF
DIFFERENT KINDS.
EzEKiEL supposes^^ (he Great Sea, by which he means
the Mediterranean Sea, was very full offish : I would ob-
serve, that it was not necessary, as to the Jews, to derive
this apprehension from the fish brought by the men of
Tyre to Jerusalem ;f their own people might draw this
knowledge, from the fish they found near what were in-
disputably their own shores,
Doubdan, speaking of his going by sea from Sidon to
Joppa, or Jaffa, as he calls it, in his way to Jerusalem,
says, that on his entering into that port, they found it so
abounding in fish, ** that a great fish pursuing one some-
what less, both of them sprung at the same time about
three feet out of the water ; the first dropped into the
middle of the bark, and the other fell so near that they
had well nigh taken it with their hands : this happened
very luckily, as it afforded our sailors a treat. "J
It would have been well, had he told us of what kind
the two fishes were, for want of it I am not able even to
begin a list of the species offish which haunt, or which
visit the Jewish shores. This is a desideratum in the
natural history of that country. There is a vast variety
in that sea, but they have particular places, in which many
of the different sorts appear, and which are not to be
found in other parts of the Mediterranean.
Though the coast of that part of Syria which denomi-
nated Palestine, is not remarkable for the number of its
ports, yet besides Joppa, St. John d'Acre, Caipha under
Mount Carmel, and a few others that might be named,
• Ch. xlvii. 10. " Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish
•f the Great Sea, exceeding many."
t NeheiB.xiii. IC. | Voy. de la Terre Sainte, p. 40,
MILITARY St ATE OF JUDEA. ^75
there are some creeks, and small convenient places,
where little vessels, and such are those that are used for
fishing, maj shelter themselves, and land what they take,
though there are very few rivers on all that coast. ^ To
these places Deborah seems to refer, when she says,
Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his
breaches, or creeks, as if is translated in the margin.f
So we are told that Ali Bey, marching from Caipha, to
Joppa by land, set out on the 12th of August, and cross-
ing Mount Carmel, came on the 16th near Joppa, and
pitched his camp by a brook northeastward of the town,
at a little distance from it ; but the ships anchored in a
creek, about six miles to the northward of Joppa. J
So RauwolfFinforms us, that when his vessel got clear
of the frigates that came out from all sides near Caipha
to seize upon it, and got about Mount Carmel, two ships
pursued them, but were forced to leave them :|| this
shows there are several places where small ships may put
in and anchor, and where the children of Asher might
continue in their ships, pursuing their marine employ-
ments ; while others of the neighbouring tribes were haz-
arding their lives in fighting for their country by land.
What Doubdan says of the fish that jumped out of the
sea near Joppa, in pursuit of another large fish, by which
means one of them was taken, and feasted on by the sea-
men, and the other narrowly escaped, may put us in mind
of the adventure of Tobit, on the bank of the Tigris : a
fish leaping out of the water, and darting at bim, as an
object of prey.§ If one fish threw itself out of the sea in
pursuit of another, a voracious fish may possibly have
thrown itself out of the water, darting at a naked man
* The History of Ali Bey's Revolt says, that from Caesarea to Joppa are
15 or 16 miles, and that about a mile and a half before you come to Jop-
pa, you cross a small ri?ulet, \rhich is the only running >rater in all that
fertile country, p. 1 85.
t Judges V. 17. i Page 126, 127.
II Ray's Travels, p. 224, 225. § Ch* vi. 2.
cim
fg OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
that stood on the margin of the river. Fish certainly fre-
quently devour men that they find in the water, not
only when they find them dead, but when they hap-
pen on them alive. But as the book of Tobit lays the
scene of this very unusual event on the shore of the Ti-
gris, it may not be improper to subjoin a quotation from
Thevenot.^
It relates to his voyage down the Tigris, the river that
is mentioned in Tobit. " This evening, about nine o'clock,
one of the men in our keleck,f with a hook took a great
fish ; it was about five feet long, and though it was as big
as a man, yet he told me it was a young one, and that
commonly they are much bigger. The head of it was
above a foot long ; the eyes four inches above the
jaws, round, and as big as a brass farthing; the mouth of
it was round, and being opened, as wide as the mouth of a
cannon, so that my head could easily have gone into it;
about the mouth, on the outside, it had four white long
beards of flesh, as big as one's little finger : it was all over
covered with scales like to those of a carp ; it lived long
out of the water, died when they opened the belly to
skin it, and was a female : the flesh of it was white, tasted
much like a tunny, and was as soft and loose as flax."
There are then very large fish in the Tigris. But if
any of my readers, after all, should be disposed to con-
sider this adventure of Tobit as apochryphal, he will not,
I imagine, be guilty of a mortal sin in so doing.
Our translation, however, it is but justice to remark,
has improperly given the English reader to understand,
that Tobit and his companion, without the help of any
others to assist them, eat up this whole great fish, ver. 5 :
And when they had roasted the fishy they did eat it. The
Greek original only says. And having roasted the fish
they eat : eat what they thought fit of it.
• It is in part 2, book 1, ch. 13, p. 59.
t A particular sort of vessel used on that river.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 27 f
OBSERVATION XXXVII.
THE LUXURY OF THE HARAMS, VERT OPPRESSIVE TO
THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST,
People of power in the East are wont to be mostly
verj oppressive, and the expensi\eness of their harams,
or, in other words, of their wives, appears to be one of the
causes of their great oppressions ; which seems to be ex-
actly what the Prophet Amos had in view, in the begin-
ning of his fourth chapter, where he compares the ladies
of Israel to fatted kine.
As commentators of former times seem, to me, to have
most unhappily jumbhd and confounded things together,
in their explanation of this prophetic passage* at least
those that I have consulted, it may not be improper to
collect together some observations upon it.
It is not at all uncommon for the Prophets, to compare
the great men of their own nation to males of this kind of
animal, Ps. xxii. 12, Deut. xxxiii. 17, as well as those of
other nations, Ps. Ixviii. 30, Is. xxxiv. 7. Here Amos
uses a word that denotes the females of that species,
■which, in course, should signify the women of distinction
in Israel.
Their masters that were required to bring fattening
food and drink, points out, under the image of what was
done to kine that were fatting, those supplies, with re-
spect to food, which the luxurious ladies of that country
would, if was to be expected, require of their lords. Nor
is it to be imagined, that they would not equally demand
splendid clothing, and expensive ornaments.
That, in consequence, occasioned the oppressingthepoor
and crushing the needy. So le Bruyn describes the women
of the Levant, *♦ as havingsucha passion for dress, that they
never think themselves richly enough attired, without any
attention to their rank, or any consideration whether their
yoL. III. 36
fij-g OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
circumstances will admit of it."* Chardin's account of tbe
Persian ladies is just the same. " The great luxury of the
Persians is in their seraglios, the expense of which is im-
mense, owing to the numberof women thej keep there, and
the profusion their love to them causes. Rich new habits
are continually procured for them, perfumes are consumed
there in abundance, and the women, being brought up and
supported in the most refined voluptuousness, use every
artifice to procure for themselves whatever pleases them,
without concerning themselves about what they cost."f
Such expensiveness occasions great oppression now, and,
it seems, did so among the Israelites in the days of Amos.
Out of these fatting stalls they were to be driven by
the hand of an enemy, for breaches are supposed to be
made in the buildings in which they were kept, through
which they were to be driven, every one out of her stall
through such a breach, prophetically marking out, by a
continuation of the same image, the making breaches in
the cities of their habitation, and forcing them out of those
places of their luxury.
The 2d verse need not be so understood as to vary the
image, and from comparing them to fatted kine in one
verse, in the next to represent them as fishes taken away
by hooks. The word mJV tsinnoth, in the original, signi-
fies thorns, consequently any straight sharp pointed thing,
as well as one bent, or a hook. And when it is remem-
bered that animals of this kind, as well as asses, are driven
along by a sharp pointed stick, or some such kind of in-
Btrument, this 2d verse is decyphered, and brought to be
of an homogenious nature with the preceding and follow-
ing verse.
That this is the custom in those countries, we learn from
Maundrell. "Franks are obliged either to walk on foot,
or else to ride upon asses. . . . When you are mounted,
the master of the ass follows his beast to the place whither
• Tome 1, p. 450. This follows the account of the extreme avidity of
the mep, so as to stick at nothing to procure money.
t Tome 2, p. 55.
Military state of judea. 279
fbu are disposed to go; goading him up behind with a
sharp pointed stick, which makes him despatch his stage
with great expedition."^ Oxen are driven there, accord-
ing to him, after the same manner. " The country peo-
ple were now every where at plough in the fields, in order
to sow cotton. It was observable, that in ploughing, they
used goads of an extraordinary size. Upon measuring of
several, I found them about eight foot long, and at the
bigger end six inches in circumference. They were armed
at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen,
and at the other end with a small spade, or paddle of iron,
strong and massy, for cleansing the plough from the clay
that encumbers it in working."! If oxen then, and fe-
males of that species, are wont to be driven along by
goads, it cannot be wondered at that the Prophet should
represent the carrying away into captivity of the Israel-
itish ladies, considered under the image of kine, by the
driving them along by goads : He shall take you away
with sharp pointed instruments, for that seems to be the
precise meaning of the word ; not hooks, nor even tfaornsy
in an exclusive sense, but in general^ things that are sharp
pointed. J
I can assign no reason why thorns, or sharp pointed
things, such as were used for taking fish, are mentioned in
the last clause, unless it should be understood to mean
the great severity with which the women of Israel should
be driven <»way, in the last captivity of those of the ten
tribes under Hoshea. Instruments not very unlike the
Eastern goads have been used, I think, for catching fish,
and were meant by our translators when they used the
term fish spears, Job xli. 7 ; but then they must have
been much sharper than goads, in order to secure the fish.lj
• Page 130, edit. 5. f P^S^ *10, 111.
i Even shields, which anciently oftentimes had a sharp spike fixed in the
middle of the outside surface. 1 Kings x. 16.
II So Camden, in his account of our native island, tells us, that those that
live by the sides of Solway Frith, hunt salmons, whereof there is great
plenty there, with spears oa horseback. Under his account of Nidisdale
280 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
But a goad sharpened to a point like a fi-h spear, must
have been a dreadful instrument to drive rattle with,
wounding them so as to occasion great anguish in their
travelling along, and therefore not an improper represent-
ation, of the sjreat severity used in driving the latter cap-
tives under Hoshea into Assyria.
My reader will observe here, that 1 suppose the word
n'lnx achareethf translated posterity in the 2d \erse, means
rather the remainder, those that came after ti<em that were
first carried away of the ten tribes : so the word is t ice
used, Ezek. xxiii. 25, once translated remnant, and the
other time residtie. And, agreeably to this, we find the
people of the kingdom of the ten tribes were carried away
at twice, the more northern and eastern parts by Tiglath
Pileser,^ the rest several years after, by Shalfnaneser,f
and it is natural to suppose the treatment these last met
with, was more severe than what the first felt.
The last clause probably was designed to express
whether they were to be driven, as some of the old trans-
lations understood it to mean, but it is not the design of
these papers to examine matters of that kind. It is suf-
ficient to observe, that the two words of the 2d verse,
nrv tsinneefh r\2M niTD seeroth dugafit the one rendered
hooks in our version, the other fish hooks, mean sharp
pointed instruments used for the driving away of cattle;
but the last supposed to be more pointed than the first,
and sharpened to such a degree, as even to be fit for the
striking offish. Ye shall be driven awny, ye fatted kine
of Israel, as with goads ; and the last parcel of you with
instruments sharp as fish spears>
• 2 Kings XV. 20. f Ch. xvii. 3, 6.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA, 281
OBSERVATION XXXVIII.
PUBLIC JUSTICE BADLY ADMINISTERED IN THE EAST.
Among several of the smaller tribes of the Eastern peo-
ple, who are a good deal independent, persons take upon
them to do themselves justice, if they think they are in-
jured, without much notice of it being taken by their su-
periors. A state of things so nearly resembling anarchy
as appears very surprising to Europeans. It seems to have
been the same anciently.
Niebuhr says, thit if two Shekhs of the Druses* quar-
rel, *' they send their peasants into the village of their
enemy, cause the inhabitants to be massacred, cut down
the mulberry and olive trees, and the Emirf oftentimes
does not punish these excesses," J In other cases he
mentions the burning of houses.
I should suppose we are to understand the Philistine
burning the spouse of Samson and her father, not as the
consequence of the regular decision of the nation ; but the
tumultuary exercise of justice like that of the modern
Druses. Samson a principal Israelite, burnt, they were
informed, some of their corn fields, their vineyards and
olive yards, in consequence of an injury he had received ;
and those that had suffered that loss revenged it, by set-
ting fire to the house of him that provoked them to this
vengeance, in which he and his daughter miserably per-
ished. Judges XV. 6.
• The chiefs of their villages : each village having its Shekh. The
Druses being one of the sorts of people that inhabit Libanus.
t The head of that nation.
1: Voy. en Arabic 8c en d'autres Pays, tome 2, p. 550.
282 ^^' 'iHE NATURAL, CIVIL, ANO
OBSERVATION XXXIX.
FEASANTS, IN PERSIA, PERMITTED TO APPROACH THE
THRONE, WITH COMPLAINTS OF OPPRESSION AGAINST
THEIR RULERS.
A GREAT likeness appears, between the managements
of the Jews, when the chief captain of the Roman garrison
of Jerusalem presented himself in the temple,^ and the
behaviour of the Persian peasants, when they go to court
to complain of the governors under whom thej live, upon
their oppressions becoming intolerable, which resemblance
may place that passage of the Acts of the Apostles in the
particular point of light, in which in truth it ought to be
reviewed.
Sir John Chardin has given us an account of the behav-
iour of the Persian peasants on such occasions, in the 2d
tome of his printed Travels,f where he tells us, " the peo-
ple carry their complaints against their governors by com-
panies, consisting of several hundreds, and sometimes a
thousand ; they repair to that gate of the palace near to
which their prince is most likely to be, where they set
themselves to make the most horrid cries, tearing their
garments, and throwing dust into the air, at the same time
demanding justice The king, upon hearing these
cries, sends to know the occasion of them. The people
deliver their complaint in writing, upon which he lets them
know, that he will commit the cognisance of the alSair to
such, or such an one. In consequence of which it seems
justice is wont to be done them."
Thus when the Jews found Si. Paul in the Temple,
prejudiced as they were again<<t him in general, and then
irritated by a mistaken notion, that he had polluted the
holy place by the introduction of Greeks into it, they rais-
* Acts xxii. 23. t Page 222.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 283
ed a tumult, and appeared to be on the point of tearing the
apostle in pieces ; but no account of throwing dust into
the air, or any mention of their garments, or long continued
cries; there was only an exclamation of the Asiatic Jews
stirring up the people of Jerusalem against the apostle, a
running of the people together upon that, a dragging him
out of that court in which the Jews worshipped, into the
court of the Gentiles, and then falling upon him, and beat-
ing him with such violence as would have ended in the
loss of his life ; when the chief captain of the Roman sol-
diers, who resided in a castle adjoining to the Temple,
hearing the tumult, immediately hastened thither, upon
which they left beating the apostle, and applied them-
selves to him as the principal person in the government
then there, with confused cries that he knew not what to
make of; but upon his giving leave to Paul to explain the
affair in their hearing, they grew into more violent rage than
ever, but not daring to attempt doing themselves justice
as before, they demanded justice much in the same man-
ner as the Persian peasants now do, by loud cries ; throw-
ing down with apparent anguish their clothes on the
ground, after tearing them in pulling them off with violent
emotions, and throwing up dust.
I have, in another volume, touched upon this circum-
stance of the history of St. Luke, and recited the senti-
ments of two different gentlemen on this throwing up the
dust ; but as both of them may appear rather too refined
and far fetched, I thought it proper to set down Sir John
Chardin's account of the way of applying for justice in
Persia, which very exactly tallies with the account here
given of the Jews, and leads us to consider their conduct,
merely as a demand of justice from the Roman command-
ant in Jerusalem, according to the usual Asiatic form,
svhich continues to this day.
284 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
OBSERVATION XL.
OF THE BASTINADO IN THE EAST.
The feet as well as the hands of criminals are wont to
be secured, some how or other, by the people of the East,
when they are brought out to be punished, to which there
seems to be a plain allusion in the Old Testament.
Thus when Irwin was among the Arabs of Upper
Egypt, where he was very ill used, but his wrongs after-
ward redressed by the great Sheikh there, who had been
absent, and who, it seems, was a man of exemplary probity
and virtue ; he tells us, that upon that Sheikh's holding
a great court of justice, about Irwin's affairs and those of
his companions, the bastinado was given to one of those
who had injured them, which he thus describes in a note,
p. 271 : " The prisoner is placed upright on the ground,
with his hands and feet bojjnd tooefher, while the execu-
tioner stands before hiin, and, with a short stick, strikes
him with a smart motion on the outside of his knees. The
pain which arises from these strokes is exquisitely severe,
and which no constitution can support for anj con-
tinuance,"
As the Arabs are extremely remarkable for their re-
taining old customs, we have just grounds of believing,
that when malefactors in the East were punished, by-
beating, and perhaps with death by the sword, their hands
were bound together, and also their feet*
How impertinent, according to this, is the interpreta-
tion that VictorinuB Strigelius gives of 2 Sam. iii. 34 ! as
he is cited by Bishop Patrick in his Commentary on those
words : The king lamented over Abner, and said, Died
Abner as a fool dieth ? Thy hands were not bo\md, nor
thy feet 'put into fetters ; as a man falleth before wicked
men, sofellest thou. And all the people wept again over
him.
MILITARY STAtE OF JUDEA. 285
"Strigelius," says the Bi&liop, "thinks that David in
{hese words, distinguishes him from those criminals,
^hose hands being tied behind them, are carried to execu-
tion ; and from those idle soldiers, who being taken cap-
tive iri war, have fetters clapt upon their legs, to kepp them
from running away. He was none of these ; neither a
notorious offender, nor a coward." Patrick adds, "The
plain meaning seems to be ; that if his enemy had set
upon him openly, he had been able to make his part goo J
with him.'*
How impertinent the latter part of what Strigelius says !
how foreign from the thought of David, not to say incon-
sistent with itself, the explanation of the English prelate!
What is meant appears to be simply this : Died Abner as
a fool, that is, as a bad man, as that word frequently sig-
nifies in the Scriptures? Died he as one found on judg-
ment to be criminal, dieth? No! Thy hands, O Abner!
were not bound as being found such, nor thy feet confined ;
on the contrary, thou wert treated with honor by him
whose business it was to judge thee, and thy attachment to
the house of Saul esteemed rather generous than culpable :
as the best of men may fall, so feilest thou by the sword
of treachery, not of justice !
OBSERVATION XLL
iPROMPT AND ARBITRARY EXECUTIONS FREQUENT IN
THE EAST.
Britons, who are used to slowness and solemnity of
procedure, with regard to supposed criminals ; who always
expect that a number of independent persons should be
concerned in determining their fate, and those their equals
in rank,* who find a considerable length of time is wont to
intervene between condemnation and execution; and
* A jury of their peers.
VOL. Ill, 37
•^86 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
this execution openly performed, in the presence of alif
who choose to attend; are wont to be surprised, as well
as pained, on reading accounts of the Oriental privacy,
rapidity, and silent submission of their great men, when
they are put to death, which appear both in the Turkish
and Persian histories.
What Thevenot* says, concerning the manner of put-
ting great men among the Turks to death, is confirmed
by a great multitude of other writers. When, it seems,
the enemies of a great man have gained influence enough
over the prince, to procure a warrant for his death, a ca-
pidgi, the name of the oflScer who executes these orders,
is sent to him, who "shows him the order he has to
carry back his head ; the other takes the Grand Sif^n-
ior's order, kisses it, puts it on his head in sign of
respect, and then having performed his ablution, and
said his prayers, freely gives up his head : the capidgi
ibaving strangled him, or caused servants whom he
fcrougbt purposely with him to do it, cuts oflf his head,
and brings it to Constantinople, Thus they blindly obey
the (jrrand Signior's order, the servants never offer to
hinder the executioner, though these capidges come very
often with few or no attendants at all."
Sir John Chardin gives a similar account of the silent,
hasty, and unobstructed manner of putting the great men
of Persia to death. Much the same method, it seems,
was used by the ancient Jewish princes. Benaiah was
the capidgi, to use the modern Turkish term, who was
sent by Solomon to put Adonijah, a prince of the blood,
to death ;t and Joab, the commander of the army in
chief.J A capidgi, in like manner, beheaded John the
Baptist in prison, and carried his head away with him to
the court of Herod the Tetrarch.|| So a capidgi was
sent to take off the head of the Prophet Elisha, by king
Jehorara ; but the execution was prevented, by the king's
* 1 Part 1, ch.46. f 1 Kings ii. 25. + Ver. 29, 30^ 34.
II Matt. xiv. 10, 11.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. ggf
Smmediatelj following, and receiving a prophetic assur-
ance, that the famine which then most terribly distressed
the city, should terminate in four and twenty hours. ^
Great energy will be given to the term messengers of
death, mentioned by Solomon, Prov. xvi. 14, if we un-
derstand those woids of the capidges of the ancient Jew-
ish princes : The wrath of a king is as messengers of
death, but a wise man will pacify it. His wrath puts a
man in danger of immediaie death, and may chill the
blood like the appearance of a capidgi; but by wisdom a
man may sometimes escape the danger.
The behaviour of Elisha may be supposed to be a
proof, that the ancient Jews were not so submissive to
the orders brought by the messengers of death, of that
country, as the Turks and Persians of later times, Je-
horam's sending however, only a single person, to take
oflf the head of the Prophet, seems to show that they
were, or nearly so. It is to be remembered, that the
capidges of later ages, have been persuaded sometimes to
delay ao execution, or attempts at least have been made
use of to persuade them to do it, \n hope of a counter
order ; and at other times the condemned person may
have delayed a while the making his appearance, imagin.
ing there might be a relenting in the prince. Chardin has*
given us an example of the first, in the case of a black
servant, who went along with his master to take off the
head of a Persian general, and who joined with the sup-
posed criminal in begging for a little delay, but who could
not prevail ; when scarcely was the messenger of death
remounted on his horse, when a counter order was brought,
and the general's death very much regretted by the
prince who commanded it.f
Elisha, it should seem, begged the elders of Israel that
were with him, to detain the messenger of death a few
minutes at the door, until the king should arrive, who was
closely following him, probably as repenting of what he
» 2 Kings ▼!. 32, $3. \ Voy. toroe 3, p. 148.
288 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
had commanded. He could not, however, forbear ex-
claiming, when he saw the Prophet, who, 1 should appre-
hend, had given him hopes of deliverance out of Ihe hands
of the king of Syria, who had been promising him favour
if he jielded, and at the same time threatening him if he
persisted in holding out the city against him, exclaiming,
I saj, This calamity is of God! it cannot be avoided!
why should 1 wait in a vain expectation of escaping from
him, by depending, O Elisha, on thy flattering assurances
of not falling into his hands, through which assurances
my people are exj)iring with hunger, and even mothers
constrained to eat their own children ? Then the Prophet
persuaded him to wait twentyfour hours longer, declaring^
with great positiveness and precision, upon pain of being
put immediately to death, that within that time, plenty
should be restored to Samaria. After some such a man-
ner as this, I should think, this passage is to be understood.
OBSERVATION XLH.
OF THE EXTERMINATIOxN OF ANCIENT ROYAL FAMIL^l^^i
IN THE EAST,
None of the commentators whom I have seen, seem to
rae to have given the true explanation of that expressioh
of sacred history, relating to the extermination of ancient
royal families in the East, which describes every male as
cut off, ** There was no one remaining, either shut up or
left in Israel :" the expression being to be understood, I
apprehend, as signifying, that no one should remain, in a
situation from whence it might be expected he would as-
sert and endeavour to make good, his claim to the crown ;
nor any one left of those from whom nothing was appre-
hended, cither on account of mental or bodily imperfec-
tion, or the unsuspicious temper of the conqueror.
MILITAIIY STATE OF JUDEA. 009
The expression is made use of in relation lo the families
of Jeroboam,"^ and Ahab,f kings of Israel ; and occurs
also in some other places of holy writjj which may be il-
lustrated by explaining the phrase, as used in relation to
those two ancient royal families of the Jewish nation.
The explanations of commentators are very various, but
none of them satisfactory. That which I haTe to pro-
pose, and would sjibmit to the reader, is founded on
Eastern historical events.
Some times, when a successfjil prince has endeavoured
to extirpate the preceding royal family, some of them
have escaped the slaughter, and have secured themselveB
in some impregnable fortress, or place of great secresy ;
while others have sought an asylum in some foreign coun-
try, from whence they have occasioned, from time to time,
great anxiety and great difficulties to the usurper of their
crown.
The word shut up, strictly speaking, refers to the two
first of these cases. When Athaliah endeavoured to
destroy all the seed royal of Judah,|| that she might
herself reign, one child alone was preserved, Joash by
name, who was kept with great secresy for some years,
shut up in a private apartment of the Temple, from whence
he was brought forth in due time, and actually recovered
the crown.
Other princes have shut up themselves in impregnable
fortresses, and from thence have given great alarm to their
rivals, and, it may be, at length re-established themselves
in the government of their hereditary countries, or of
part of them.
Those of royal blood in either of these situations come,
strictly speaking, under this description, of persons shut
• 1 Kings xiv. 10. Therefore, beholdy 1 -wilt bring evil upon the house
of Jeroboam, and -will cut off from Jeroboam, him that pisaeth against the.
■wall, and him that is shut tip and left in Israel, and -will take a-way the
remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh a-way dung, until it
be all gone. | I Kings xxi. 21; 2 Kings ix. 8.
t Deut. xxxii. 36 ; 2 Kings xiv. 26^ ll 2 Kiugs xi. t.
290 OF THE NAIURAL, CIVIL, AND
up. But the term may be used in a more extensive sense,
for those princes who, by retiring into deserts, or into
foreign countries, preserve themselves from being slain
bjr those who have usurped the dominions of their ances-
tors. Thus the term is applied to David, when he lived
in Ziklag, in the time of King Saul, 1 Chron. xii. 1 : Now
ihese are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he
yet kept himself close, or more exactly according to the
Hebrew, as the margin observes, being yet shut up, be-
cause of Saul the son of Kish ; and they rvere among
the mighty men, helpers of the war, David did not shut
himself up, strictly speaking, in Ziklag. It is described
as a town in the country, in contradistinction from the
royal city of the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxvii. 5, perhaps
then an unwalled town : but however that was, it is cer-
tain he did not confine himself in Ziklag ; he was on the
contrary, continually making excursions from thence, as
"we are informed, verse 8, &c. But being there in a state
of safety, from whence he might in some favourable mq*
ment seize the kingdom, the term shut up is applied to
him in a less exact sense.
In this sense in like manner, Hadad of the king's seed
in Edom, might be described as one shut up, in the time
of King David, and his son Solomon : for, retiring into
Egypt, he continued there waiting for some opportunity
of repossessing himself of that country. And the Lord
stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the
Edomite ; he was of the king^s seed in Edom, For it
came to pass when David was in Edom, and Joab the
captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after
he had smitten every male in Edom .... That Hadad
fled, he and certain Edomites of his father^ s servants
with him, to go into Egypt ; Hadad being yet a little
child. And they arose out of Midian, and came to Pa-
ran ;' and they took men with them out of Paran, and
they came to Egypt unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, which
gave him a house, and appointed him victuals, and gave
him land. 1 Kings xi. 14, 15, 17, 18,
BIILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 29^
But as to the families of Jeroboam and Ahab, God
threatened, not only that they should be despoiled of the
kingdom, but that the destruction should be without any
hope of recovery : none being preserved, either in some
secret place of concealment among their friends ; or by
flying to some strong city, from whence they might CX'
cite great alarm, if not much trouble : or by escaping into
some foreign country, from whence their antagonist might
dread their return ; none by whose means it might be
supposed those families might recover themselves, and
regain the possession of the throne of the ten tribes.
And not only so, but that no branch of those families
whatsoever should remain, none left of those from whom no
danger was apprehended. In later times in the East, some-
times persons of royal descent havebeen left alive, when the
rest of a family have been cutoff; because it was thought
there were no grounds of suspicion of any danger result-^
ing from them, either on account of defects in their un-
derstandings ;* blindness, or some other great bodily dis-
qualification ;f or exquisite dissembling :J but none of
• Supposed intellectual weakness probably saved the life of David, "whea
among the Philistines of Gath, 1 Sam. xxi. 12 — 15.
f Blindness saved the life of Mohammed Khodabendeh, a Persian prince
of the sixteenth century, when his brother Ismael put all the rest of his
brethren to death, being spared on the account that he had lost his eye-
sight. D'Herbelot, p. 613.
i And one of the ancestors of this blind prince, of the same name of Is-
mael, escaped by his having so much art, as to make a prince who had
him and another son of that ambitious family, which was almost extirpated
on the account of its high pretences and great restlessness, believe that
he intended to retire from the world, and devote himself to religious re-
tirement. D'Herbelot p. 804. •* Ismael, and Ali Mirza his brother, hav-
ing been made prisoners by Jacoub Begh, the son of Usuncassan," says this
writer, from the Oriental Histories, "whohad killed their father Haidar in
battle, were some time after set at liberty by Rostam Begh, who had suc-
ceeded Jacoub his uncle* It was not long before Rostam Begh repented of
his having unchained these two young lions, who immediately set out for
Ardebil their native country, and the burial place of their ancestors, under
the pretence of spending the rest of their days, in the hubit of dervishes,
in lamenting the death of their father, but in fact to give new vigour to
the Haidarian faction, which was very powerful there, whpn Roatam sent
292 ^^' 'i'tl^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
(he families of Jeroboam or Ahab were (o be permitted to
live on these accounts ; none should escape, none should
in pity, and from unsuspiciousness, be left alive. The
destruction was to be universal. Such, I should think,
is what is to be understood by the terms shut up and left.
This prophetic declaration is the more remarkable, aa
the entire extinction of a numerous royal family, such as
those of the East are wont to be, is not easily accomplish-
ed. Great havoc was made from time to time, among the
descendants of Ali, the son m law of their prophet Moham-
med, whose family claimed the khalifate, or supreme power
among the Mohammedans, by a supposed divine right ;
but it could never be effected, and its descendants are
very numerous at this very day, and reign in several of
those countries.
The Ommiades, or family which, in the opinion of
many, usurped what of right belonged to the family of
Ali, which family of Ommiah was the first that possessed
the khalifate in an hereditary way, were dispossessed of
this high dignity by another family, called Abassides, or
the children of Abbas, but could not be extirpated,
though the Abassides took great pains to do it, and were
guilty of great barbarity in the attempt, without being
able to accomplish it.
For we are told, that an uncle of the first of the kha-
liffs of this new family, after the defeat of the before
reigning prince, assembled about fourscore of the house
of Ommiah, to whom he had given quarter, and caused
them to be all knocked on the head, by people intermixed
among them with wooden clubs; after which, covering
their bodies with a carpet, he gave a great entertainment
upon that carpet to the officers of his army, in such a
manner as to spend that time of joy amidst the last groans
people after them, -who killed Ali, but never could come up -with IsmaeU
•who took refuge in Ghilan, where one of tlie friends of the late Sheik
Haidar, his father, governe«l.
MILITARY STATE OP JUDEA. 293
of these miserable wretches, who were still breathing.*
But though the Abassides destroyed all those of the house
of Oraniiah, on whom thej could lay their hands, as we
are informed in a preceding part of the same, and in the
following page, and endeavoured to extirpate it, some
escaped, and appeared with great lustre elsewhere, reign-
ing bolh in Spain and Arabia.
It was otherwise with the houses of Jeroboam, Baasha,
and Abab.
If this explanation be admitted, it will enable us more
clearly to understand two or three other passages of
Scripture. For when it is said, 2 King^s xiv. 26, that
the ho RD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very
bitter : for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor
any helper for Israel, the words seem to mean, that be-
fore the time of Ihe prince there spoken of, Jeroboam
the second, (here was no one of their more eminent people,
from whom they might have great expectations ; nor any
of those in a more obscure station, from which class of
people sreat deliverers ha\e sometimes been raised up to
save their native country ; nor any helper for Israel
among foreign princes, or generals ; but they seemed quite
lost, and devoted to ruin by the hand of the Syrian
princes.
In like manner, when Moses says in his last song:. The
Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his
servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and
there is none shitt up^ or left ; None able to make head
against their enemies, by means of strong holds, or left
among the people at large, from whom any support could
be expected; the Lord will then, says Moses, repent
concerning his servants, that is, change the tenor of his
conduct toward them.
* D'Herbelot, p. 692,
VOL. III. 38
294 OF THE NATURALj CIVIL, AND
OBSERVATION XLllI.
OF THE POWER AND INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT PALMYRA
AND BALBEC.
To those that feel something of an incredulous anxiety,
about the accounts which the sacred writers have given
us, of the extent of the kingdom and of the fame of Israel
in the dajs of David and Solomon y^ whereas we find few
or no traces of this mighty power in profane history, and
We know that the Arabs have been always looked upon
as untameable people, I would recommend the account
which the curious editor of the Ruins of Palmyra has
given of that state.
Let them consider that it was a small territory in the
midst of a desert, and yet extended its conquests over
many rich countries and considerable states; that the
great kingdoms of the Seleucidae and of the Ptolemies be-
came part of the dominions of a single city, whose name
we in vain look for in history ;f and this, though it flour-
ished in modern times, in comparison of the age of David,
none of the dates found there being earlier than Christ,
and in times concerning which we have large accounts.
That Palmyra and Balbec, which are perhaps the two
most surprising remains of ancient magnificence now left,
should be so neglected in history, as in a great measure
to be left to tell their own story, appears to this ingenious
writer a very remarkable fact, carrying instruction with
it.J Instruction of more sorts than one, let it be permit-
ted me to say ! for besides those moral lessons which the
editor of these ruins refers to, it lemoves at once all diffi-
culties derived from the silence of profane history con-
cerning the kings and affairs of Jerusalem, a city which
stood in the neighbourhood of Palmyra and Balbec,
• 1 Kings xvi. S. f Ruins of Palmyra, p. 11. + Page 1
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 295
which are passed over in as great or grea(er silence : to
which is to be added the consideration, that Jerusale,m.,
was much more ancient than they.
OBSERVATION XLIV.
CERTAIN PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO PALMYRA.
Palmfra, though situated between the two great em-
pires of Rome and Parthia, was an independent state in
the dajs of Plinj ; and by its advantageous situation, in
the midst of a great desert, not only preserved its inde-
pendence, but it was, according to Mr. Wood,^ the first
care of those two mighty empires, when at war, to en-
gage it in their interest.
As it did not however always preserve its independ-
ence, being conquered by Aurelian, and subjected to the
Romans, the ruins of some of their works still continuing
there, so it might not be always a separate state in the
ages that preceded that of Pliny. It however must, not-
withstanding, have been an object of great attention at
all times : and even before any city was built there, on
account of its waters,f which indeed are supposed to have
been the occasion of erecting it. So William the Arch-
bishop of TyreJ mentions it as a great defect in the
Christians, that they did not seize upon a place called
Gerba, where there ^as abundance of water, and which
lay in the way of Saladine, in his march out of Egypt to
Damascus^ which had they done, he supposes Saladine
must have returned into Egypt, and have lost his whole
army by thirst. Their taking possession afterward of
the waters called Rasel Rasit, which they proposed to
do, but did not, he supposed too would have obliged him
to go on further about in the wilderness, and would have
been attended with great loss to him.
• Ruins of Palmyra, p. 5. f Page 18. t Gesta Dei, &c. p. 1027.
296 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, ANU
Was then Palmyra the place that Pharaoh Necho want-
ed to secure,'^ or Hadadezer king of Zobah ?f One might
be tempted to fancy so from its importance, and its near-
ness to the Euphrates. It could liardly houe\er be an
object of Necho's attention, becanse the pla< e he went
against is expressly called by the Jewish historian Car-
chemishj whereas Palmyra was known to the Jews by the
name of Tadmor in ihe wilderness, and is so called by
this very historian, 2 Chron. viii. 4. Agreeably to this,
long after the days of Necho, Saladine, who reigned over
the sam*^ couptry of Egypt, is spoken of as bavins; more
towns than one on the Etjphrates.J This however shows
how fond the Egyptian princes ha\e always been of hav-
ing some towns in the neighbourhood of Ihal river.
It is n)uch more probable, that this might be the border
that Hadadezer sought to recover out of the hands of
David ; «!ince it is in a manner universally allowed, that
Solomon his son built a city here, which place, as he was
a pacific prince, il is most natural to think had been pre-
Tionsly secured by Da\id; audit is reasonable to believe
that he seized upon this important place, which though of
such consequence to his caravans, had been nei^lected by
Hadadezer, in order to become master of that advantag-
eous commerce carried on through it fiora the Euphrates,
which the ingenious editor of the Ruins of Palmyra || if I
understand him right, supposes was as ancient as these
times. Such a supposition explains, I think, in the
easiest manner, the contest between the king of Zobah and
David about this place, which until then had lain unoccu-
pied, and had been only used for a watering place.
But whether we are to understand it of the springs of
Palmyra, or rf any other place nearer the Euphrates, in
the time of Divil at furthest, Providence fulfilled the
prediction to Abraham, that to his seed should be given
the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.
• 2 Chron xxw. 20. f 2 Sam viii. 3.
♦ Gesta dei per Francos, p. 1029. || Page 18.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 29?
OBSERVATION XLV.
SOME CURIOUS REMARKS ON THE EUPHRATES.
Dr. Pococke has made a remark upon this river, the
Euphrates, which may possibly serve to explain a dif-
ficulty relating to another of which we read much more
frequently in the Scriptures, I mean the Jordan.
The bed of the Euphrates, this writer tells us, was
measured by some English gentlemen at Beer, and found
to be six hundred and thirty yards broad,* but the river
only two hundred and fourteen yards over; that they
thought it to be nine or ten feet deep in the middle ; and
were informed, that it sometimes rises twelve feet per-
pendicularly. He observed that it had an inner and outer
bank ; but says, it rarely overflows the inner bank; that
when it does, they sow water melons, and other fruits of
that kind, as soon as the water retires, and have a great
produce. f
Might not the overflowings of Jordan be like those of
the Euphrates, not annual, but much more rare ? Maun-
drell observed an inner and outer bank belonging to Jor-
dan, but says, that river was so far from overflowing when
he was there, that it ran at least two yards below the
brink of its channel. The circumstance of his having
been there the thirtieth of March, the proper time for its
inundation, 1 Chron. xii. 15, appears a little to have dis-
* This, I suppose, was the breadth from one of the inner banks to the
other ; for Mr. Drummond tells us, that the Euphrates at Beer has "tiffO
sets of banks, one for summer, and the other for winter, these last being
full half a mile wider than the other." p. 205. If the width of one of the
outer banks from the other is half a mile, or eight hundred and eighty
vards more than tlie common bed of the Euphrates, it must be the distance
from one of the inner banks to the other that these gentlemen measured,
which they found to be six hundred and thirty yarls only.
t Vol. 2, p. 164.
298 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
concerted him ; however, he supposes it might anciently^
have overflowed the level strand up to the first bank,
though at present it seems to have forgot its ancient great-
ness, either by having worn its channel deeper than it was
formerly, or because its waters are diverted some other
way. But possibly the whole of it lies in this, that it does
not, like the Nile, overflow annually, as authors by mis-
take had supposed, but, like the Euphrates, only in some
particular years; but when it does, that it is in the time
of harvest. It is rather unfortunate that no virtuoso has
ascertained the fact: may the writer of these papers ven-
ture to recommend the examination of it to the curious?
If it did not in ancient times annually overflow its banks,
the majesty of God's dividing its waters, in the days of
Joshua, was certainly the more striking to the Canaanites,
who, when they looked upon themselves as extraordi-
narily defended by the overflowing of the river, which
happened not every year, its breadth and rapidity being
both so extremely increased, yet found the river in these
circumstances open itself, and make a way on the dry
land for the people of Jehovah.
OBSERVATION XLVI.
OF THE WOODS AND THICKETS IN JUDEA.
Though wood is very scarce in Palestine, in some well
watered places they have considerable thickets of trees,
and of reeds.
* It appears from a passage of Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. 2, cap. 7, that
the Jordan was sometimes swelled, in the spring, so as to be impassable in
places where people were wont to go over, in his time ; for speaking of a
transaction on the fourth of the month Dystrus, which answers our March,
or, as some reckon, February, he gives an account of great numbers of
peoplfe who perished in this river, into which they were driven by their
enemies, which, by the circumstances, appears to have happened in a few
days after what was done on the fourth of Dystrus.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 29§
50 Dr. Pococke represents Jordan as almost hid by
shady trees, between the lake Samochonites, and the sea
of Tiberias ; which trees, he says, are chiefly of the pla-
tanus kind, and grow on each side of it.^ To which he
adds, that the lake itself, when the waters are fallen, is
only a marsh.f And, in another place, J he describes the
sea of Tiberias as having reeds growing by it in great
numbers. Sandys had long before given a similar account
of these places: observing that Jordan was shaded with
poplars, alders, tamarisks, and reeds of sundry kinds ; and
that the lake Samochonites, then called Houle, was in the
summer for the most part dry, and overgrown with shrubs
and reeds. II
In these places live many wild boars, according to both
authors. Dr. Pococke in particular observed very large
herds of them on the other side Jordan, where it flows out
of the sea of Tiberias ; and several of them on the same
side, on which he was, lying among the reeds by the sea.$
The wild boars of other countries delight in the like moist
habitations.^
These shady marshes are called in the Scripture woodSf
for it calls these animals the wild boars of the wood, Ps.
Ixxx. 13.
Might not the wood of Ephraim, in which the battle was
fought between the army of Absalom and the servants of
David, be a wood of the same kind ? If it was, a diflSculty
that seems to have perplexed commentators may be re-
moved : for it is certain that a boggy place may be very
fatal to an army, partly by suffocating those that in the
hurry of flight inadvertently venture over places incapa-
ble of supporting them ; and partly by retarding them, so
as to give their pursuers an opportunity of coming up with
* Vol. 2, p. 72. t Page 73. i Page 70. || Page 110.
§ Vol. 2, p. 70.
51 See Keysler concerning the wild boars of Germany, vol. 1, p. 134.
and Le Bruyn concerning those of Persia, vol. 4, p. 451.
300 OF I'HK NATURAL, ClVItv, AND
tbem, and cutting them off. A greater number of people
than of I hose that fall in the height of battle may thus be
destroyed.
So the Archbishop of Tyre tells us, that some of the
troops of one of the Christian kings of Jerusalem, were
lost in the marshy places of a valley of this country, out
of which that prince was driving a great number of cattle,
owing to their not being acquainted with the passages
through them; and this, though he was successful in his
expedition, and had no enemy to molest him in his return.*
They were indeed, according to the Archbishop, but
few ; but in what numbers would they have perished, must
•we think, had they been forced to fly, like the men of
Absalom, before a victorious army. So Josephus as-
cribes the dealh of Demetrius, one of the kings of Syria,
to his horse's plunging into a muddy place, which could
not easily be passed through, where being entangled, he
was slain by those very enemies he had been pursuing, who
seeing the accident, turned back, and killed him with their
darts ,f On sjich accounts as these, the ancient warriors
thought such retreats as marshes proper places for them
to encamp in, especially when their enemies sui passed
them in numbers : so Josephus represents Jonathan the
Maccabee, as encampins: in the fens of Jordan, and after
being forced from thence by B-icchides, as returning thith-
er again. J The secure retreat two young Babylonian
Jews and iheir comrades found, seems to have been of the
same kind, a reedy wood, surrounded by the Euphrates. ||
No commentator however, that I know of, has proposed
this explanation of this piece of David's history, his caus-
ing the battle to be in the wood, and of the wood's de-
stroying more than the fight. Instead of it, some of them
have supposed the meaning of the last particular was, that
Absalom's soldiers were destroyed by the wild beasts of
* Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1003. f Antiq 1, 13, cap 2.
4 Ibid. cap. 1. § 3 and 5. || Ibid. lib. 18, c. 9.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. ^Qi
<his wood. A most improbAble thought : as we can-
not believe that in such a time as that of king David,
when Israel was so niirneroas, wild beasts should be
80 numerous in one of the woods of that country, as
to occasion such a destruction ; and if their numbers
were ever so large, they would doubtless have re-
tired upon the approach of the two armies, under the
apprehension of danger to themselves,^ rather than have
stayed to devour those that fled. The expeditions of
the Turks against Faccardinc, the famous Emir that made
such a noise in the beginning of the last century, were
chiefly in the woods of Mount Lebanon, according to
jMons. de la Roqne, where, that author elsewhere tells us,
there are many wild beasts, f yei not one word of either
Maronites or Turks being injured by them occurs in this
ac( ount.J Yet unnatural as this thought is, it is, we are
told, II ihe comment of some Jewish writers, of the Chal-
dee Paraphrast, and of the authors of the Syriac and
Arabic versions of the Old Testament.
Others have given different conjectures, which, if not
so improbable as that 1 have been considering, are, how-
ever, 1 think, less natural than that I have proposed.
If we turn our thoughts to ofher countries, Lewis the
Second of Hungary lost his life in a bog, fighting in his
own kingdom, in the sixteenth centiiry ; and Decius, the
Roman Emperor, long before him., perished with his army
in a fen, according to Zosimus.
OBSERYATION XLVII.
OF THE WILD BEASTS IN THE HOLY LAND.
Wild beasts, however, were sometimes found in these
countries, and ancient warriors thought it no small part of
their glory to destroy them.
* See Shaw, p. 235. f Voy. de Syr. tome 1, p. 70.
+ Tome 2, p. 206. || Vide Poll Syn. in 2 Sam. xviii. 8.
FOL. III. 39
302 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
The exploits? of Richard ihe First, and his warriors, ifi
the Holy Land, are amon^ the most celebrated of those
limes ; yet Bishop Gibson gives us to understand, that
Hugh Nevill considered his destroying a lion there by an
arrow shot, and by running him through wi'h his sv\ord,
as the noblest of his exploits: for lie tells u^, that hia
seal expressed «his achievement, and the manner of it ;*
a monk also of that time thought it a fit subject for him,
it seems, to celebrate, the Bishop having gi^ en us an old
verse made on the same occasion in his account. Alber*
tus Aquensis in like manner celebrates a German, named
Wickerus, for an action of the same sort near Joppa ;f a
fact mentioned by another writer in that collection. J
The same simplicity, and a taste a good deal like that
of Nevill and the people of his time, without doubt, led
the Prophet to select Benaiah's slaying a lion, in the midst
of a pit in a time of snow, from many other exploits of the
Jewish worthy which he could have mentioned, 2 Sam.
xxiii. 20.11
OBSERVATION XLVHI.
HURTFUL ANIMALS COMMON IN THE HOLY. LAND.
MiCR, small as those animals are, have been some-
times extremely troublesome, and indeed destructive, to
Palestine.
• See his additions to Camden's Account of Essex, in his Britanuia,
p. 358.
t Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 314. + Pa§:e 75.
II David liad to defend his flock from bears as well as lions, 1 Sam. xvii,
34 t and, as Dr Shaw gives ns to understand, these rup;ged animals are
not peculiar to the bleak countries of the North, being found in B;irbary ;
so Thevenot informs us, that they inhabit thd wihierness adjoining to the
Holy Land, and that he himself saw one near the northern extremities of
the lied Sea, part 1, p. 163, 16+. How much nearer the inhabited parts
of Palestine they have been observed by modern travellers, 1 cannot say.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 303
'Commentators, upon orcasion of what is said, 1 Sam.
vi. 4, 5,* ba\e cifed abundance of passages, relating to
the havoc made by creatures of this genus, in other coun-
tries; but they are silent astoJudea's suffering by thetn,
at other times besides that mentioned in the prophetic
history, which would however, have been much more sat-
isfacti ly, or at least pleasing.
This is not owing to its being a kind of scourge never
knowr) there, excepting in that particular case mentioned
in the book of Samuel ; but to a want of extending their
inquiries far enough : for we find an account of this
country's suffering by this kind of animal, in the history
of William the Archbishop of Tyre, a little before his
time, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The Arch-
bishop's account in short is,f that a kind of penitential
council was held at Naplouse, in the } ear one thousand
one hundred and twenty, where five and twenty canons
were framed, for the correction of the manners of the in-
habitants of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, who they
apprehended had provoked God to bring upon them the
calamities of earthquakes, war, and fandne. This last the
Archbishop ascribes to locusts and devouring mice, which
had for four years together go destroyed the fruits of the
earth, as seemed to cause a total failure of that branch of
their food.
The ravages of locusts in Palestine have been fre-
quently taken notice of by authors ; but here mice
were joined with them, as making havoc of the countrv.
What species of this genus of animals is meant by the
Archbishop, may be the subject of verj^ curious inquiry.
The creature meant, was, it seems, very destructive; but
* Bishop Patrick in particular.
f Gesta Dei, p. 823, 824. Regnum Hierosolymorura multis vexationi-
bus fatigaretur, & prseter eat ijuie ab tiostibus inferebantur molestias, /o-
custarum intemperie & edacibas muribus, jam quasi quadriennio continue
fruges ita penitus deperissent, ut omne fiimamentum panis det'ecisse sU
deretur*
304 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
the jird 9 the jerboa^ ov yerhoa, and ihe daman Israely
are ail supposed hy Dr. Shaw^ lo be harmless animals.
Fulcherius Cariiotensis gives us to uiidersf and, that the
usual time when the mice injure the corn is at its first
sprouting, as that of the locusts is after it is in the ear.f
OBSERVATION XLIX,
OF CHARMING NOXIOUS ANIMALS.
Some of the venomous animals of tliis countrj'', it was
suppo!?ed, miiiht be charmed, and their noxious effects, hy
that means, prevented.
Br. Shaw has taken notice of this opinion's remaining
in the Levant ; I shoidd not therefore have mentioned it
in these papers, had not Sir John Chardin given an ac-
count in his MS, of another circumstance, which Shaw
has omitted, and which he supposes is alluded to in Fsalm
Iviii. 6.
Break their teelh, O God, m their nioiifh: break out
ihe great tielh of the young llouSp O Lord, are the words
of the Psalmist. Jt would have been natural to suppose
the image changed at the beginning of this verse, and rhat
the whole verse spoke of lions, had we not been told by
Chardluf that those who know how to tame serpents hy
their charms, are wont commonly to break out their teeth.
It appears hy Pool, that liaoimond had the same sen-
timent ; this recount may serve to strengthen this opinion.
There is a marginal addition in the MS. relating to ihe
power of music over serpents, and some other ciicum-
slances, so extraordinary , that as that MS. is not likely
ever to be published, I would set it down here, and leave
it to my readers to make what reflections upon it they
please, "It appears, says the margin, that all the teeth
of a serpent are not venomous, because those that cbjirm
• Page 176, 177, 348. f Gesta Dti, p. 427.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 1,0b
fhcTfj will cause their serperifs to bite them till thej draw
blood, and yet the wound will not swell. Adders will
swell at the sound of a flute, raising themselves up on one
half of their body, turnins: the olher part about, and beating
proper time; being wonderfully delighted wilh music,
and following the instrument. Its head, before round
and long, like an eel, it spreads out broad and fiat, like a
fan. Adders and serpents twist Ihemsehes round the neck
and naked body of 3'oung children, belonging to those
that charm them. At Surat, an Armenian seeing one of
them make an adder bite his flesh, without recei^ ing any in
jury, said, I can do that ; and causing himself to be wound-
ed in the hand, he died in less than two hours.'*
A serpent's possessing a musical ear, its keeping time
in its motions wilh the harmony, its altering the shape of
its head, are circumstances which, if tiue, are very won-
derful."^
OBSERVATION L.
HOLLOW ROCKS AND CAVES, PLACES CF DEFENCE.
When the Grand Seignior ordered the Bashaw of Da-
mascus to make the Ennr Faccardine a prisoner ; Fac-
cardine shut himself up in the hollow of a great rock, with
a small nuniber of his officers, w here the Bashaw besieged
him some months, who was on the point of blowing up
the rock, when the Emir surrendered on some conditions,
Nov. 12, 1634. A lively comment, I have always thought
this, on Sampson's retiring, after various exploits against
the Philistines, to the top of the rock Efam ; and on his
surrendering himseif afterward into the hands of the men of
Jnd.\h, sent by the Philistines to take him.
Nor is this to be supposed a kind of defence which
Sampson and Faccardine made use of, merely from their
* See however Shaw's Travels, p. 4n.
306 O^ 'i'^IE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
being unable, on the account of a surprise, to recover
some place of great safetj ; thej were considered as very
strong places, and made use of frequently in that country
in the time of the Croisades, by those Christians who
went from the west, and were perfectly well acquainted
with the manner of fortifying places in Europe in that
age."^ One of those places, which the history of the
Croisades mentions, was in the territory of Sidon : but
in the days of the Prophets, Edom seems to have been
distinguished from the other Eastern nations by this sort
of fastnesses, Obad. v. 3, 4 ; Jer. xlix. 16.
The caves, the rocks, the high places, and the dens,
which we read of 1 Samuel xiii. 6, and Judges vi. 2, seem
to have been, at least some of them, places of much less
strength, answerable to those places to which people re-
tired in the time of the Croisades for a little shelter, but
out of which they were soon forced :f safety in them
being rather to be hoped for from their secresy than their
strength.
One of the writers in the Gesta Dei per Francos speaks
of the inhabitants of the region called Trachonitis, as usu-
ally living in caves ;J but I do not remember that the
Scriptures any where directly refer to such habitations,
at least 1 presume that is not the meaning of the Edom-
ites making their nests on high, which the Prophets Oba-
diah and Jeremiah speak of.
Remarks of this kind, in general, have been frequently
made, I am very sensible ; all that I pretend to in this
article, is the illustrating some passages a little more par-
ticularly than has been done before me.
• Vide Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 944, 946, 962, 1026.
t Page 405, 734, 781. - ^ Page 895.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 307
OBSERVATION LI.
TENTS USUALLY PITCHED NEAR FOUNTAINS.
The Archbishop of Tyre fells us, that the Christian
kings of Jerusalem used to assemble their forces at a
fountain between Nazareth and Sepphoris, which was
greatly celebrated on that account. This being looked
upon to be nearly the centre of their kingdom, they could
from thence, consequently, march most commodiously to
any place where their presence was wanted.^ He men-
tions also another fountain near a town called little Geri-
num, which, he says, was the ancient Jezreel; near this
Saladine pitched his camp, for the benefit of ils waters, f
while Baldwin king of Jerusalem had, as usual, assembled
his army at the first mentioned place.
This solicitude in the princes of these sultry climates
to pitch near fountains; this mention that is made of one
by Jezreel; this custom of assembling their armies in the
centre of their kingdom ; all serve to illustrate the 1
Sam. xxix. 1, which speaks of the encampment of Israel
at a fountain considerably distant from the proper country
of the Philistines, just before the fatal battle which con-
cluded the reign of Saul. If the Philistines had extended
their territories at this time to Mount Carmel ;J if they
were wont to make their irruptions into the land of Israel
that way, in that age ; or if Saul had received intelligence
of such a design at this time; these circumstances, or
any of them, would further explain the propriety of this
pitching by the fountain of Jezreel : but what William of
Tyre says about the managements of the Christian kings
of Jerusalem of his days, and of their predecessors, is
alone a more clear illustration of this passage than com-
mentators haTe furnished us with.
* GesU Dei, &c. p. 991, 1027, 1036, 1037. f Page 1037,
\ Vide Relandi Pal. p. 77,
808 OF THE NATUUAL, CIVIL, AND
And perhaps this may serve to explain Psalm Ixviii,
26, Bless ye God in the congregations^ even the Lord,
from the fountain of Israel^ from the vein of Israel,
•txt^' "iipnrs mimmekor yisrael. The exact word of the
original, which is translated congregations ni^npD make-
haloth, occnrs no where else, I Ihink, in the Scripture ;*
but a word derived from the same root, and consequently
near akin to it, means the assembly of Israel gathered to-
gether for war, Judg. xx. 2 ; Ch. xxi. 8 ; 1 Sara. xvii. 47 ;
Gen. xlix. 6. AVater must have been as necessary for those
ancient arojies of Israel, as for the less numerous ones of
the Christian kings of Jerusalem ; it is natural therefore
to suppose they used to assemble near some plenliful
fountain, and as natural to suppose they generally made
use of one and the same fountain, as that the princes of
the cross should ; whether that between Sepphoris and
Nazareth, or that by Jezreel, or any other, it nothing con-
cerns us here to determine. That place must have been
well known in those days, and might, in the language of
poetry, be as well called the fountain of Israel, as to be
marked out by its particular name. Bless God in your
warlike assemblies, even the Lord from the fountain of
Israel, the staled place of your rendezvous; for the
Lord shall bless yon in your consultations there, and you
may march from thence with songs of praise, and confi-
dent hopes of success.f
There are other places in the Gesfa Dei per Francos, J
and other places in the Scripture, [j which speak of the
pitching near fountains ; might not an exact account of the
fountains of this country serve to settle many points of
geography, relating to the places where the aimiesof the
Old Testament times encamped ?
* Tliough the feminine plural form of the noun 'Hp kahal occurs
no where else in the Bible, ret the noun and all forms of the verb occur
in many scores of places, and is the usual word by which assemblies^ re-
ligious and civil are designated in the Bible. Edit.
t See 2 Chron. xx. '21. + Page 982, 993, 1027.
II So the army of Ishbosheth sat down by the pool of Gibeon, 2 Sam,,
ii. 12, 13.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. ^Og
OBSERVATION LII.
THE GREAT NECESSITY OF FOUNTAINS, AND RESER-
VOIRS OF WATER IN THE EAST.
As a plentiful founlain was very necessary, in that
country, in those places in which they were wont to ren-
dezvous; so the want of water must have been very ter-
rible in any after encampments, in their pursuing a war,
and especially when they had to stay any time in such
a place.
The thought then of Ilezekiah, who proposed to his
princes the stopping of all fountains, and the brook that
ran through the midst of the land, when Sennacherib was
making his approaches to Jerusalem, was on this account
very natural ; but it may be thought to be a proof of the
great simplicity of antiquity, to entertain such a thought,
and more so, if he was able to eflfect his scheme. How
could fountains and a brook be so stopped as totally to be
concealed ? How easy was it for such a w'lghty army as
the Assyrian to sink a multitude of wells ?
But odd as this contrivance may seem, it was actually
made use of at the same place, many centuries after Hez-
ekiah's time, and greatly perplexed an European army,
and that too assembled from various warlike countries.
For William of Tjre, describing the besieging of Jerusa-
lem by the Croises in 1099, tells us, that its inhabitants
having had advice of their coming, stopped up the mouths
of their fountains and cisterns for five or six miles round
the city, that being overwhelmed with thirst, they might
be obliged to desist from their design of besieging it. THis
management of theirs occasioned, he informs us, infinite
trouble afterward to the Christian army: the inhabitants
in the mean time not only having plenty of rain water,
but enjoying the benefit of the springs too, without the
town, their waters being conveyed by aqueducts into two
VOL. III. 40
310 OF THE Nx\TURAL, CIVIL, AND
verj large basins within il."^ These precautions indeed
did not hinder the Croises from persevering in the siege
from June T, to July 15, and succeeding at last ; but he
says, the army was distressed with thirst in the most ter-
rible manner, notwithstanding it had the assistance of
some of the Christian inhabitants of Bethlehem and Te-
koa, who being in the army, in considerable numbers,
conducted the people to fountains at four or five miles
distance. For as for the nearer neighbourhood of Jeru-
salem, it was very dry and unwatered soil, having scarce
any brooks, or fountains, or pits of fresh water, and all
those they filled up with dust, and by other means, as
much as they could ; and either broke down the cisterns
of rain water, or maliciously hid them, that they might
be of no advantage to the pilgrims. And as for those
distant fountains to which they were conducted, there
was such pressing, and hindering one another from draw-
ing, that it was with difficulty, and after long delays, that
they got a little muddy water in their leather bottles, of
which a draught could not be purchased but at an extrav-
agant rate. As for the fountain of Siloam, which was
near, sometimes it had no water, and sometimes when it
had, it was not agreeable to drink, so that it did not afford
a sufficient supply to the army by any means. The men
however made a shift, one way or another, to save them-
selves from perishing by thirst; but the horses, mules?
asses, flocks, and herds, died in great numbers, and oc-
casioned a dangerous pestilential corruption of the air.
The besieged in the mean while, by their frequent sallies?
cut off great numbers of those that were dispersed about
^n search of provisions and forage. f
What the Archbishop of Tyre has said concerning the
nature of the country about Jerusalem, shows the imprac-
ticability of an array's supplying itself with water by
sinking of wells ; springs in the earth being rare there?
* Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 749. t Gesta Dei, &c. p. 751, 752.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 31 j
and the soil on (he contrary extremely dry. It shows
also how easily such wells as have a supply of water may
he concealed which is what the terra'^ rwT]} ayanoih,
translated fountains in the 2 Chron. xxxii. 8, 4, fre-
quently means,f and what Hezekiah must mean, since
there was no fountain to form any brook in the near
neighbourhood of Jerusalem, excepting that of Siloam,
as St. Jerom expressly affirms, in his commentary on
Jeremiah xiv.t which the accounts of travellers of later
ages have confirmed.
That stream which flowed from Siloam is, I presume,
the brook that Hezekiah speaks of, which in the time of
the Croisades was not attempted to be stopped up. What
the cause of that was we are not told, but it seems the
waters of some springs without the ci(y were conveyed
into Jerusalem at the time ; and that Solomon in his reign
had attempted to do the like, and effected it :|| as to part
of the water of the springs of Bethlehem, it was no won-
der then that Hezekiah should think of introducing the
waters of Siloam in like manner into the city, in order at
once to deprive the besiegers of its waters, and benefit
the inhabitants of Jerusalem by them. Probably it was
done in the same manner that Solomon brought the waters
of Bethlehem thither, that is, by collecting the water of
the spring or springs into a subterraneous reservoir, and
from thence, by a concealed aqueduct, convening them
into Jerusalem, with this difference, that Solomon took
only part of the Bethlehem water, leaving the rest to flow
into those celebrated pools which remain to this day ;
whereas Hezekiah turned all the water of Siloam into the
city, absolutely stopping up the outlet into the pool, and
* The term means no such thing : for ^V ayin signifies simply either
Vi fountain or an eye ; not covered or concealed, but open and exposed to
view. Edit. t See Gen. xxiv. 13.
i Uno quippe fonte Siloe, et hoc non perpetuo utitur civitas, et usque
in prsesentem diem sterilitas pluviarum, non solum frugum, sed et bibendi
inopiam faeit. f) Maundrell, p. 89, 90.
312 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, A^&
filling if up wilh earth, that no trace of it might be aeea
by (he Assyrian. Which seems indeed to be the ac^
count o[ the sacred writer, 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, The same
Hesckiali also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon,
(wnich is another name for Siloam,) and brought it
straight down to the west side of the city of David,
Thus our translators express it : but the original may as
well be rendered, *' Hezekiah stopped the upper going
out >^^in motsa, of the waters of Gihon, and directed
them underneath ntODb lemattah, to the west of the city
of David ;" and so Pagninus and x4rias Montanus under-
stand the passage ; he slopped up, that is, the outlet of
the waters of Gihon into the open air, by which they were
wont to pass into the pool of Siloam^ and became a brook ^
and by some subterraneous contrivance directed the wa-
ters to the west side of Jerusalem.
But besides these methods of stopping up wells, and
breaking down cisterns, the same writer^^ informs us of
another way the Eastern people have sometimes prac-
tised, to deprive their enemies of the use of their waters;
that is, the throwing info them such filth as rendered them
not drinkable. This was done in particular by the people
at a place called Bosseret. Accident also has sometimes,
after much the same manner, made them unfit for drink-
ing ; so, in describing the expedition of Baldwin III.
against the same town, he says, that his army underwent
very great thirst at that time ; for passing through the
country of Trachonitis, which has no fountains, only cis-
terns of rain water, it happened that at the time he passed
through it, these cisterns were rendered useless by means
of the locusts, which had a little before swarmed to an
uncommon degree, and dying, had occasioned such putre-
faction in their waters, as to render the drinking of them
insupportable.f It is not impossible that the corrupt
spring to which Solomon alludes, Prov. xxv. 26, and to
which he compares a righteous man slain by a wicked one^
* Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 10«1. i Gesta D«i per Francos, p. 895.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 313
whose promised usefulness was by that means cut oflT,
plight intend a receptacle of water made useless after this
manner; though it roust be alowed that the corrupting a
rill of water, by making it muddy, is as natural an inters
pretation.
OBSERVATION LIIL
FOUNTAINS, THE LURKING PLACES OF ROBBERS AND
ASSASSINS.
Dr. Shaw mentions a beautiful rill in Barbary, which is
received into a large basin, called shrub we krub, drink
and away, there being great danger of meeting there with
rogues and assassins.^ If such places are proper for the
lurking of murderers in times of peace, they must be pro-
per for the lying in ambush in times of war: a circum-
stance that Deborah takes notice of in her song, Judges
V. 11.
But the writer who is placed first in that collection
which is intituled Gesta Dei per Francos, gives a more
perfect comment still on that passage : for, speaking of
the want of water, which the Croisade array so severely
felt, at the siege of Jerusalem, he complains, that besides
their being forced to use water that stunk, and barley
bread, their people were in continual danger from the Sar-
acens, who lying hid near all the fountains, and places of
water, every where destroyed numbers of them, and car-
ried off their cattle.f
To which may be added a story from William of Tyre,
relating to Godfrey duke of Lorraip, afterward king of
Jerusalem, who stopping short of Anlioch five or six
miles, to which place he was returning, in order to take
some refreshment in a pleasant grassy place near a foun-
* Page 20. I Page 27.
:514 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
tain, was suddenly set upon by a number of horsemen of
the enemy, who rushed out of a reedy fenny place near
them, and attacked the duke and his people."^
OBSERVATION LIY.
OF THE WATER ENGINES WROUGHT BY THE FEET.
But though Hezekiah stopped up the wells of water,
&c. Sennacherib however boasted that he was not afraid
of wanting water, or of being reduced to get it with haz-
ard or diflSculty from small fountains, at a distance ; which
boast was perhaps occasioned by an account he had heard,
of the precautions taken by Hezekiah : / have digged
and drank strange waters, and with the sole of my feet
have I dried up all the rivers of besieged, or fenced
places, or of Egypt, as others understand it. 2 Kings
xix. 24.
The curious Vitringa admiresf the explanation which
Grotius has given, of that watering with the foot by which
Egypt was distinguished from Judea,J derived from an
observation made on Philo, who lived in Egypt, Philo
having described a machine used by the peasants of that
country for watering as wrought by the feet; which sort
of watering Dr. Shaw has since understood of the garden-
er's putting a stop to the further flowing of the water in
the rill, in which those things were planted that wanted
watering, by turning the earth against it with his foot.([
Great respect is due to so candid and ingenious a traveller
as Dr. Shaw ; I must however own, that I apprehend the
meaning of Moses is more truly represented by Gro-
tius than the Doctor. For Moses seems to intend to rep-
resent the great labour of this way of watering by the foot,
which the working that instrument really was, on which
* Page 734, 735. f In ^ora. in Jesaiam. t Deut. xi. 10. \\ Page 40S»
.MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA, 315
account it seems (o be laid aside in Egypt since the time
of Philo, and easier methods of raising the water made use
of; whereas the turning the earth with the foot which Dr.
Shaw speaks of, is the least part of the labour of watering.
If it should be remarked; that this machine was not old-
er than Archimides, which has been supposed, I would
by way of reply observe, that the more ancient I^gyptian
machines might be equally wrought with the foot, and
were undoubtedly m^ore laborious still, as otherwise the
invention of Archimides would not have brought them
into disuse.
But though I think the interpretation of Deut. xi. lO,
by Grotius is preferable to that of Dr. Shaw, I readily
admit that the Doctor's thought may be very naturally
applied to these words of Sennacherib, to which however
the Doctor has not applied it ; for he seems to boast, that
he could as easily turn the water of great rivers, and cause
their old channels to become dry, as a gardener stops the
water from flowing any longer in a rill by the sole of
his foot.
And as the gardener stops up one rill and opens another
with his mattock,* to let in the water; so, says Sennach-
erib, I have digged and drank strange waters, that is, which
did not heretofore flow in the places I have made them
flow in. This is the easiest interpretation that can, I be-
lieve, be given to the word strange, made use of by this
Assyrian prince, and makes the whole verse a reference to
the Eastern way of watering : I have digged channels, and
drank, and caused my army to drink out of new made
rivers, into which 1 have conducted the waters that used
to flow elsewhere, and have laid those old channels dry
with the sole of my foot, with as much ease as a gardener
digs channels in his garden, and directing the waters of a
cistern into a new rill, with his foot stops up that in which
it before ran.
* See Shaw in the last cited place.
316 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, ANI)
In confirmation of all which, let it be remembered, that
this waj of watering by rills is in use in those countries
from whence Sennacherib came ;^ continued down from
ancient times there, without doubt, as it is in Eg_> pt.
The understanding those words of the Psalmist, Ps.
Ixv. 9, Thou visitest the earth and waterest it, thou greatly
enrichest it with the river of God, of the watering il as
by a rill of water, makes an easy and beautiful sense ; the
rain being to the earth in general, the same thing from
God, that a watering rill, or little river, is to a garden
from man.
OBSERVATION LV.
CUTTING DOWN VALUABLE PLANTATIONS, ONE OF THE
METHODS USED TO DISTRESS AN ENEMY.
As the people of these countries endeavoured to distress
those that came to besiege them, by concealing their wa-
ters ; so those on the other hand frequently cut down the
most valuable trees of their enemies. This Moses forbad
to be done in Canaan; but the Moabites were punished
after this manner, according to 2 Kings iii. 19, 25.
The Arabs of the Holy Land, we are told, still make war
after this manner on each other, burning the corn, cutting
down the olive trees, carrying off the sheep, and doing
one another all possible damage ; excepting that these
Arabian villagers never touch one another's lives.f
The Turks in like manner are wont to cut down the mul-
berry trees of the Maronites, which are of great impor*
tance to them for feeding their silk worms, silk being one
of the greatest articles their country affords, when they
* Thevenot, part 2, p. 50, 51.
t See Egmont and Heyman, vol. I, p. 330, and p. 329. Hasselquist, p.
143, 144.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 217
Would distress those poor Christians : so Dr. Pococke
tells us, he himself, when he visited Mount Lebanon, saw
a great number of their young mulberry trees, which had
been cut down by a Pasha, who had some demands upon
them which they could not answer.^
OBSERVATION LVI.
STRONG WATCH TOWERS, BUILT IN' THE VICINITY OP
CITIES, TO KEEP THEIR INHABITANTS IN CHECK.
It has been a frequent complaint among learned men, that
it is commonly difficult, and oftentimes impossible, to illus-
trate many passages of the Jewish history, referred to in
the annals of their princes, and in the predictions of their
Prophets, for want of profane historians of the neighbour-
ing nations of any great antiquity; upon which I have
been ready to think, that it might not be altogether
vain, to compare with those more ancient transactions,
events of a later date that have happened in those coun-
tries, in nearly similar circumstances, since human nature
is much the same in all ages, allowing for the eccentricity
that sometimes arises from some distinguishing prejudices
of that particular time.
The situation of the Christian kings of Jerusalem, in
particular, in the twelfth century, bears in many respects
a strong resemblance to that of the kings of Judah ; and
the history of the Croisades may serve to throw some
light on the transactions of the Jewish princes. At least
the comparing them together may be amusing.
It is said of king Uzziah, 1 Chron. xxvi. 6, that he went
forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake
down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jahneh, and the
wall of Ashdody and built cities about Ashdod and
* Vol. 2, p. 97.
roL. nr. 41
318 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
among the Philistines. Thus we find, in the time of
the Croisades, when that ancient city of the Philistines,
called Ascalon, had frequently made inroads into the ter-
ritories of the kingdona of Jerusalem ; the Christians built
two strong castles not far from Ascalon; and finding the
usefulness of these structures, king Fulk, in the spring of
the year of our Lord 1138, attended by the patriarch of
Jerusalem and his other prelates, proceeded to build
another castle, called Blanche Guarda,^ which he garri-
soned with such soldiers as he could depend upon, fur-
nishing them with arms and provisions. These watching
the people of Ascalon, often defeated their attempts, and
sometimes they did not content themselves with being on
the defensive, but attacked them and did them great mis-
chief, gaining the advantage of them. This occasioned
those who claimed a right to the adjoining country, en-
couraged by the neighbourhood of such a strong place,
to build many villages, in which many families dwelt,
concerned in tilling the ground, and raising provisions for
other parts of their territories. Upon this the people of
Ascalon, finding themselves encompassed round by a
number of inexpugnable fortresses, began to grow very
uneasy at their situation, and to apply to Egypt for help
by repeated messages. f
Exactly in the same manner, we may believe Uzziah ■
built cities about Ashdod that were fortified, to repress
the excursions of its inhabitants, and to secure to his
people the fertile pastures which lay thereabout; and
which pastures, I presume, the Philistines claimed, and
indeed all the low land from the foot of the mountains to
the sea, but to which Israel claimed a right, and of a part
of which this powerful Jewish prince actually took posses-
sion, and made settlements for his people there, which he
thus guarded from the Ashdodites ; "He built cities
about Ashdod, even among the Philistines," for so I
* Or the White Watch Towef. t Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 886, 887.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA.
319
would render the words, as the historian appears to be
speaking of the same cities in both clauses.
Uzziahdid more than king Fulk could do, for he beat
down the walls not only of Gath and Jabneh, two neigh-
bouring cities, but of Ashdod itself, which must have cut
off all thoughts of their disturbing the Jewish settlers,
protected by strong fortresses, when thev themselves
lay open to those garrisons, Askelon, on the contrary,
remained strongly fortified, by fortresses built by the
Christians,
OBSERVATION LVII,
CURIOUS PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A6KELON.
In the time of the Croisades, Askelon appears to
Lave been by far the most powerful of the five great
cities of the ancient Philistines ; and it seems to have
been so in the time of the Prophet Amos, from his man-
ner of describing it ; I will cut off the inhabitant from
Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Askelon,
ch. i. 8.
As the sceptre among the Jews belonged to the tribe
of Judah;=^ so among the Philistines, in the days of
Amos, it belonged to Askelon, which appears, in great
part, to have been owing to its situation on the seashore. f
This may be thought somewhat strange, by those who
read the account the Archbishop of Tyre gives of the
nature of the coast there. He says, that city was of a
semicircular form, the shore forming the chord, or semi-
diameter ; the circular being to the eastward, or toward
the land. Though seated on the shore, yei it had no
port, nor a safe station for ships in the sea opposite
to it ; but a sandy coast, and dangerous when the wind
* Gen. xliK. 10. f See Jer. xlvii, 7, Zeph. ii. 6, 7.
320 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
was considerable, and very much to be suspected, unless
the sea was very calm.^
Notwithstanding all this, it appears in that history to
have been looked upon as a most important town, by
both the Egyptians and Christians of the Holy Land,
the first at great expense endeavouring to retain it, the
others to get it into their hands, which at length they ef-
fected ; but it was the last of the maritime towns of
Syria that they got into their possession, and a long time
before they could accomplish it, being frequently suc-
coured from Egypt by sea. In p. 829, the Archbishop
tells us, all the maritime towns were then reduced under
the Christian power, excepting Tyre and Askelon ; in p.
841, he informs us, Tyre was taken by them in 1124; and
in pp. 929, 930, we have an account of the surrender of
Askelon, but not until the year 1154,
At the beginning of these Croisade wars, it seems in-
deed that hardly any but Askelon remained of the five
great cities of the Philistines: Ashdod is spoken of, p.
810, as a place whose station was known, but the town
gone; p. 886, mention is made of a hill on which, accord-
ing to tradition, Gath stood, where they erected a castle
which they called Hibelin; p. 917 speaks of the rebuild-
ing Gaza, in the time of king Baldwin III. which town
then lay in ruins, and qtiite uninhabited.
The traces of great previous changes, in the country
of the Philistines, may be remarked in the Holy Scrip-
tures, and should be observed with care by commentators.
OBSERVATION LVIII.
OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SETTLEMENTS NEAR THE RED
SEA.
The possessing some place on, or near the Red Sea,
was not only thought an object of importance in elder
• Gesta Dei, per Francos, p. 924.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 30]
times to Judea and Damascus, but has been so esteemed
in later ages.
That it was so reckoned anciently appears from what
the prophetic historian saith, 2 Kings xvi. 6. *' At this
time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath"^ to Syria, and
drave the Jews from Elath : and the Syrians came to
Elath, and dwelt there to this day. It was restored to
Judah not long before by king Amaziah, great grandfather
to Ahaz, from whom Rezin recovered it ; and appears
to have been in a ruinated state when Amaziah regained
the possession of it ; for he is said to have built Elath, as
well as restored it to Judah, 2 Kings xiv. 22. When it
was lost by Judah we are not, that I recollect, any where
distincfly told ; but we find it in the hands of Solomon,
2 Chron. viii. 17, lU, who appears to have made that a
station for his shipping on the Red Sea, as well as Ezion-
geber, another place on that sea : Then went Solomoii to
Esion-geber, and to Elotli, or Elath, at the seaside in
the land of Edom. And Hnram sent him by the hands
of his servants, ships, and servants that had knowledge
of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon
to Ophir*
The two kingdoms of Jerusalem and Damascus appear
to be equally concerned, in later ages, to gain a footing in
the country bordering on the Red Sea.
So Baldwin, the first Christian king of Jerusalem of that
name, was desirous, according to the Archbishop of Tyre,
to enlarge the bounds of his kingdom, by making a set-
tlement in that part of Arabia that was called by the name
of Syria Sobal, and which lay on or near the Red Sea.
Petra, the capital of the second of the Arabias, accord-
ing to the reckoning of the Croisaders, known in those
times by the name of Crak, according to St. Jerom, was
* On the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, which is distinguished from the
western by the name of the Elanitic, so denominated, it is believed from
this town of Elath.
322 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
but ten miles from Elath."^ This was an exceeding
strong place, wliich fiaAingbeen ruinated, was rebuilt
by one of the nobles of Fulk, the fourth Christian king of
Jerusalem,-)- those princes being desirous, we find, to es-
tablish themselves in the country beyond Jordan toward
the south, which brought theai near the Red Sea. Nor-
adi.je, the king of Damascus at that time, had similar
views, and went and besieged Pe(ra in the time of king
Amah'ic, the sixth of those princes, but was obliged to
raise the siege by the constable of the kingdom, in the
absence of the king.J Some years after Saladine, who
united Damascus and Egypt together under his govern-
ment, marched through Bashanand Gilead, then through
the countries of Ammon and Moab to Crak, in order to
besiege that city, which however he thought fit to abandon,
upon the approach of the Christian army, after doing
great damage to the town, and killing many of the inhabit-
ants, but without being able to take the citadel. |j
Though the gaining the possession of a strong place
on, or near the Red Sea, might be of little consequence
to his Egyptian subjects, who bad some ports at that
time on that sea, and carried on a great traffic for rich
Eastern commodities in that age, by means of the port of
Aideb in Upper Egypt, from whence they were convey-
ed across the desert to the Nile, and from thence down
that river to Alexandria ;§ yet it must be of great con-
sequence to the people of Damascus : it is therefore no
wonder that Noradine first, and Saladine afterward, at the
head of his Syrian troops, strove so hard to get possession
of Crak ; or that the Christian princes should take such
pains to exteisd their dominions on that side, and after
having gained that town, that they should be so solicitous to
preserve it: Damascus being a distinct and quite separate
state from Egypt, when Saladine first set up for himself,
* Vide Relaadi Pal. illust. p. 932. f Gesta Dei, per Fraucos, p. 1039.
I Page 992, 993. H Page 1039, &c. § Page 972.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 303
and becoming again quite distinct from it upon bis death,
one of his family succeeding him in Damascus, and another
branch of it in Egypt, and a desert of several days' jour-
ney over intervening, and another state too, while that
part of Arabia was held by the princes of the Croisades.
But these princes did not limit themselves to that part
of this country which they called the second Arabia, and
of which Crak, anciently called Petra, was the capital;
they went on still more to the southward, passing through
the second into the third Arabia,'^ where they built a
very strong fortress in a very healthful, pleasant, and
fertile place, producing plenty of corn, wine, and oil, by
means of which fortress they expected to hold the ad-
joining country in subjection. f They erected also another
castle in that country, to which castle they gave the name
of the valley of Moses. J
Unfortunately Bongarsius, the editor of William of Tyre,
and the other historians of those times, has not given
us a good map of those countries ; nor are the accounts of
the Archbishop of Tyre so clear as could be wished, but
it seems that this third Arabia lay near, or perhaps about,
the eastern gulf of the Bed Sea, in which case it must have
included Aiia or Elath, for that town, called the valley of
Moses, the Archbishop tells us, was supposed to be near
the Waters of Strife, which Moses brought forth out of
the rock, and the congregation drank, and their beasts
also.W This circumstance h mentioned Numb. xx. 1 — 13,
and was when they were in Kadesh, in the border of Edom,
and but a little before their entering into Canaan,
This third Arabia, or Syria Sobal, certainly lay con-
siderably to the east of the western gulf of the Red
Sea, and the country between them was a wild uninhabited
desert, for we are told that after king Baldwin bad built
his chief fortress in this third Arabia, which was called
* Called also ia those times Syria Sobal. f Gesta Dei, p. 812.
+ Gcata Dei, p. 893. |1 Ibid.
824 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Mount Rojal, he being desirous to acquire a more perfect
knowledge of those provinces, took proper guides, and a
suitable train of attendants, and passing over Jordan and
through Sjria Sobal, he went through that vast desert to
the Red Sea, the historian evidently means the western
gulf of that sea, and entering into Helim, a most ancient
city, where the Israelites found twelve wells and seventy
palm trees, the inhabitants of the place were so terrified
by the coming of Baldwin, that they immediately betook
themselves to the vessels they had in the adjoining sea.
The king having made his observations, returned the
way he came thither, going to Mount Royal, which
he had built a liitle before, and from thence to Jeru-
salem.^-
Though no mention is made of views to commerce in
the making these settlements in the third x4rabia, and
though those princes were much more of a martial turn,
than attentive to trade, yet they highly valued the pro-
ductions of India and of Arabia Felix, when they happen-
ed on them among the spoils of the Egyptian camps, with
which people we find they often fought, and therefore
could not but be well pleased, with the facilitating
the conveyance of those commodities info their kingdom,
from the Elanitic gr.lf of the Red Sea, whose navigation
was much easier than on the Western, up to Suez ; and
saved the crossing the desert from the port of Aideb to
the Nile, and from Alexandria across the desert between
Egypt and Gaza, if they disembarked those precious com-
modities on the coast of Upper Egypt, and sent them
from Alexandria by land.
Accordingly the author of the History of the Revolt
of AH Bey, has taken notice of the much greater facility
of conveying things by the eastern gulf than by Suez,
recommending to our East India Company to send their
despatches by way of Cyprus to Gaza, from whence they
might be sent in eight days by a camel, and in four by a
• Page 815.
IvIILlTARY STATE OF JUDEA. 325
dromedarj, to Raithii, which lies on that eastern gulf,
according to his map, from whence their letters could be
forwarded to Mocha much sooner than they can from
Suez.*
OBSERVATION LIX.
TOWERS USED FOR PEOPLE TO FLY TO, IN TIMES OF
INSURRECTION OR DANGER,
But besides fortified towns and cities, we find that in
the time of the Croisades they were wont to have towers,
for (he people of open towns to fly to in time of danger.
Thus in the reign of Baldwin II. when the strength of
the kingdom was collected together to the siege of Tyre,
the people of Ascalon suddenly invaded the country
about Jerusalem, William of Tyre tells us, and put to
the sword the greatest part of the inhabitants of a town
called Mahomeria, five or six miles from Jerusalem : but
the old men, the women, and the children, by betaking
themselves to a tower, escaped. f
Towers of this sort seem to have been used very an-
ciently. Judges ix. 51, gives us a story exactly like the
Archbishop's; and the mention of them in the Old Tes»
tament history, shows the dangerousness of those times, J
• Rev. of Ali Bey, p. 203, 204. f Gesta Dei, &c. p. 840.
+ Sir John Chardin, in his MS. cannot admit that it Avas only a piece
of a millstone that was thrown on the head of Abimelech, and occasioned
his death : he supposes it was one of the two millstones which were thrown
down whole and entire by the woman. This arose doubtless from his ob-
serving the smallness of the stones used in their handmills ; and that it -viras
not so natural to suppose the pieces of a broken millstone should be at
hand on this occasion as a whole one. The error of our translation, if it
be one, is not s© evident to me as to this writer. I cannot, however, but
observe here, that Sir John's way of rendering the words seems to be
very much favoured by Job xli. 24, IJis heart is as firm as a stone, yea, as
hard as a piece of the nether millstone. They might very well think it
right to place the hardest millstone below ; but is a piece harder than a
VOL. III. 42
326 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
There were anciently towers also in their vineyards |
Isaiah r, 2, and Matt. xxi. 33, are proofs of it : and it
should seera in their gardens. Cant. vii. 4. They have
also retained these towers in the East. So Marcus Sa-
nutua tells us, that the inhabitants of Ptolemais beat down
the towers of their gardens to the ground, and removed
the stones of them, together with those of their burying
place, upon the approach of the Tartars in one thousand
two hundred and sixty. ^ Sandys also speaks of numbers
of them in the country between Jerusalem and Bethle-
hem ;f and Maundrell mentions the same sort of edifices,
in his more modern account of the gardens of Damascus,J
which confirms the account William of Tyre gives us of
the gardens of the Levant in the twelfth century ||
To a tower of this last kind, it is to be imagined our
Lord refers in Luke xiv. 28 : for I can hardly think, with
some commentators, that he is speaking of the slight and
unexpensive buildings in a vineyard, which indeed are
sometimes so slight as to consist only of four poles with a
floor on the top of them, to which they ascend by a lad-
der ;5 but rather of those elegant turrets erected in gar-
dens, where the Eastern people of fortune spend some
considerable part of their time.
These towers are not designed for strength, but pomp,
and perhaps convenience and pleasure. Nor do those
other towers, designed for safety in times of danger, seem
to have been very strong, but rather intended for a short
defence in those unquiet times, when enemies were wont
to make sudden irruptions into that country, and as sud-
denly retreat : for when Saladine could not force the city
stone that is whole ? A mill is composed of two pieces of stone ; and I
should think it is sufficiently plain that the words there are to be under-
stood of the lower piece, not of a fragment of that lower piece.
• Gesta Dei, per Francos, tome 2, p. 221. f P^ge 137. ^ Page 122.
II Erant prjeterea intra ipsa pomeriorum septa, domus eminentes &
excelsiC, quas viris pugnaturis communierant, &c. Gestu Dei, &c. p. 9ll»
§ See Pococke, vol, 2, p. 137.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 327
of Berytiis, but thought fit to draw off, he nevertheless
could, and did, demolish all the towers of the adjacent
villages.^ So Baldwin II. of Jerusalem,! returning vic-
torious from fighting with the king of Damascus, forced a
tower in his way home, in which were ninelysix of his
enemies; and undermined another, in which were twenty,
who were obliged to give it up without any further diffi-
culty, upon which he entirely demolished it. J Gideon
in like manner seems without much difficulty to have de-
molished the tower of Penuel, Judges viii. 9, 17,
OBSERVATION LX.
FURTHER INFORMATION CONCERNING THE USE OF
THESE TOWERS.
William of Tyre describes a country not far from the
Euphrates, as inhabited by Syrian and Armenian Chris-
tians, who fed great flocks and herds there, but were in
subjection to the Turks, who, though few in number, yet
living in strong places among them, kept them under,
and received tribute from these poor peasants who inhab-
ited the villages, and employed themselves in country
business.ll
I do not know whether this may not give us a truer
view, of the design of those towers that Uzziah built in
the wilderness, mentioned 2 Chron. xxvi, 10, than com-
mentators have done,§ who have supposed they were
conveniencies made for sheltering the shepherds from bad
"weather, or to defend them from the incursions of enemies ;
for they might rather be designed to keep the nations that
• Gesta Dei, &c. p. 130. f Page 844.
\ William of Tyre mentions another tower in the neighbourliood of
Aleppo, built of unburnt brick, but fled lo for refuge, which being under-
mined, fell upon the prince that was endeavouring to take it, and well
nigh crushed him to death. Gesta Dei, p. 853.
{I Page 950. § See Patrick upon the place.
328 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
pastured there in awe ; to prevent their disputing with his
servants about wells,* and also to induce them quietly to
pay that tribute to which the seventh and eighth verses
seem to refer.
OBSERVATION LXI.
MOUNTAINS ALSO RESORTED TO, AS PLACES OF REFUGE.
People too retired to the inoimtains anciently when
defeated in war : they do so still.
Dr. Shaw indeed seems to suppose, that there was no
greater safety in the hills than in the plains of this country :
that there were few or no places of difficult access; and
that both of them lay equally exposed to the insults and
outrages of an enemy, page 340. But in this point this
ingenious writer seems to be mistaken : since, as we find
that those that remained of the armies of the kings of
Sodom and Gomorrah fled to the mountains, in the days
of Abraham, Gen. xiv. 10 ; so d'Arvieux tells us, that
the rebel peasants of the Holy Land, who were defeated
while he was in that country by the Arabs, in the plain of
Gonin, fled toward the mountains, whither the Arabs
could not pursue them at that time.f
So in like manner, the Archbishop of Tyre tells us,
that Baldwin IV. of the Croisade kings of Jerusalem,
ravaging a place called the valley of Bacar, a country re-
markably fruitful, the inhabitants fled to the mountains,
whither our troops could not easily follow them.J
This flying to hills and mountains for safety, is fre-
quently alluded to in Scripture.
* See Gen. xxi. 25 ; xxvi. 20, 21. f Voy. dans la Pal. p. 78, 79.
t Ad quos non erat facile iter nostris perviam. Gesta Dei, p. 1003.
MILITyVRY STATE OF JUDEA. 329
OBSERVATION LXII.
JfATURE OF THE ENCAMPMENTS USED IN THE EAST.
In the Croisade wars, their encampments seem often to
have been much less strong than in modern times, and we
maj believe that of Saul, when he pursued after David,
was still less guarded.
One can hardly imagine then, that the Hebrew word
'?Ji>'r3 mdgal signifies a ditch and bank thrown up, 1 Sam.
xxvi. 5, as one would suppose our translators apprehend-
ed, from their using the word trench ; for it appears from
the story, that they took no precautions against David.
Nor does it seem to mean a ring of carriages, as it is
supposed in the margin, and as Buxtorf interprets the
word,"^ for most probably the passing of carriages was
impracticable in that mountainous country. It seems
simply then to mean the round these troops formed, in
the midst of which, as in the place of honor, Saul slept.
The view d'Arvieux gives us of a modern Arab camp,
agrees perfectly well with this account of Saul, only sup-
posing, that for the sake of expedition they carried no
tents with them ; for he tells us, an Arab camp is always
round when the disposition of the ground will permit,
the prince being in the middle, and the Arabs about him,
but so as to leave a respectful distance between them.f
Add io this, that their lances are fixed near them in the
ground all the day long, ready for action. J
When David is represented as sometimes secreting him-
self in the night, when he was with his armies, instead of
lodging with the people, 2 Sam. xvii. 8, 9, it is to be sup-
posed to refer to his not lodging in the middle of the
camp, which was the proper place for a king, the better
to avoid any surprise from enemies.
• Vide Buxtorfii Eplt. Rad. Heb. t Voy. dans la Pal. p. 173, 174.
% rage 169.
330 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
OBSERVATION LXIII.
CURIOUS REMARKS OX HABAKKUK 1. 8.
Tflfc Bishop of AVaterford has observed, in his notes
on Hab* i. 8, that an ingenious author, whom he cites,*
supposes that the clause, " their horsemen shall spread
themselves," is a faulty addition to the words of the
Prophet, as the Syriac translation omits the words spread
themselves ; and the Septuagint, he says, knew itot what
to make of it. But nothing is more easy to be conceived,
if we consider the Chaldean army as rather engaged in
pillaging and destroying the country, after the manner of
the modern Tartars, than deciding their dispute with
Judea, by set and regular battles.
Habakkuk says, Their horses also are swifter than the
leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves :
and their horsemen shall spread themselvesy and their
horsemen shall come from far ; they shall fly as the
eagle that hasteth to eat.
With this account, particularly the spreading them-
selves, I would compare the Baron de Tott's description
of the manner in which an army of modern Tartars, in
which he was present, conducted themselves ; which may
be seen in the following extracts :
** These particulars informed the chamf and the gen-
erals what their real position was : and it was decided^
that a third of the army, composed of volunteers, com-
manded by a sultan and several niirzas, should pass the
river, at midnight, divide into several columns, subdivide
successively, and thus overspread New Servia, burn the
villages, corn and fodder, and carry off the inhabitants
and cattle, &c.J
The rest of " the army, in order to follow the plan con-
certed, marched uutil it came to the beaien track, in the
snow, made by the detachment. This we followed until we
• Mr. Green. -j- The prince to whom the Tartars in.
Crimea are subje«t. ^ Memoirs of Uc Tott, part 2, p. 171, 179j
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 33 1
arrived at the place where it divided into seven branches,
to the left of which we constantly kept, observing never to
mingle, or confuse ourselves, with any of the subdivisions,
which we successively found, and some of which were
only small paths, traced by one or two horsemen, &c.^
" Flocks were found, frozen to death, on the plain ; and
twenty columns of smoke, already rising in the horizon,
completed the horrors of the scene, and announced the
fires which laid waste New Servia, &c.f
"The care, the patience, the extreme activity with
which the Tartars preserve their booty, are scarcely
credible. Five or six slaves of all ages, sixty sheep, and
twenty oxen, seem not to embarrass the man by whom
they have been captured. The children, with their heads
out of a bag, at the pommel of the saddle, a young girl
sitting before him sustained by his left arm, the mother
behind, the father on a led horse, the son on another, the
sheep and oxen before, all are watched, all managed, noth-
ing escapes the vigilant eye of the conductor. He as-
sembles, directs, provides subsistence, walks himself to
give ease to his slaves ; nothing seems painful to him, and
the picture would be truly interesting, if avarice and the
most cruel injustice did not furnish the subject, Scc.J
" All researches after the inhabitants of Adjemka were
useless, until the second day, when, at the moment of
departure, the ricks of corn and forage, which concealed
the poor people, were set on fiie. Then it was that they
came and cast themselves into the arms of their enemies
to escape the flames, which devoured their harvests and
their homes. The order to burn Adjemka was executed
so suddenly, and the blaze caught the thatched houses
with so much violence and rapidity, that we ourselves, at
leaving it, were obliged lo pass through the flames. The
atmosphere was loaded with ashes, and the vapour of
melted snow which, after having darkened the sun for a
time, united and formed a gray snow, that crackled be-
tween our teeth.
• Page 174. t Page 175, 176. t Page 183, 184.
332 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
"A hundred and fifty villages, which by being in like
manner, burnt, produced the like etfect, sent forth their
clouds of ashes, twenty leagues into Poland, where our
arrival only could explain the phenomenon.""^
I do not know that the Septuagint interpreters found
any difficulty, in understanding the meaning of the He-
brew word which signifies spreading themselves, though
they have not used a word in their version of a very de-
terminate sense ; but Mr. Green certainly was embar-
rassed ; which I believe, few of my readers will be, after
having read the extracts given above from the memoir of
the Baron de Tott. They will also serve to illustrate
other parts of the description the Prophet gives of the
Chaldean army, and the just cause the Prophet had for
lamentation and apprehension, the incursions of the Chal-
deans and of the Tartars manifestly bearing a great re-
semblance to each other. / will raise up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty, or swift nation, which shall march
through the breadth of the land, ch. i. 6. They are ter-
rible and dreadful, ver. 7, Their faces shall sup up, or
consume, as the east wind, and they shall gather the
captivity, or captives, as the sand, ver, 9, When I heard,
of their coming, my belly trembled ; my lips quivered at
the voice, Sec, Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
jieither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the
olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the
flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no
herd in the stalls, expressing a devastation like what might
be expected from an incursion of Tartars: yet will I rC'
joice in the Lord, ch. iii. 16, 17, 18.
OBSERVATION LXIV.
OF THE ANCIENT DIVISION OF COMPANIES INTO TEN
MEN EACH.
If we are to explain the sacred Jewish history by mod-
ern Eastern managements, and by those of other nations
• Page 183, 184.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 333
in ancient times, we may suppose the appointment of every
tenth man in the congregation of Israel, when gathered
together to punish the tribe of Benjamin, mentioned
Judges XX. 10, was not so much to collect food for the
use of their companions in that expedition ; as to dress it,
to serve it up, and to wait upon them in eating it.
In the present Barbary camps, which march about their
terrilories every year, we find by Pitts,^ twenty men are
appointed to each tent: two of them officers of different
ranks, sixteen common soldiers, one a cook, and another a
steward, who looks after the provisions. Here every
tenth man is concerned in the management of their pro-
visions: half as store keepers ; the other Jialf as cooks.
Among the Greeks, according to Homer,f they seem
to have divided their troops into companies of ten each,
one of whom waited upon the rest when they took their
repast, under the name of the oivo^og, which I think is
usually translated cup bearer; but perhaps the person
that was so characterised, not only gave them their wine,
when they took their repasts, but had the care of their
provisions, set out their tables, and perhaps had the prin-
cipal share in cooking their food.
For it will be difficult to assign a reason, why Agamem-
non should think of dividing the Greeks into companies of
tens, if they had not been wont to divide them ten to a
tent and mess, of which one ministered to the rest, when,
comparing the numbers of the inhabitants of Troy and
the Greeks together, he observed, that the Trojans were
not sufficiently numerous to furnish cup bearers to the
Greek companies, of ten each.
It was, probably, for the same reason, that Israel are
supposed to be divided into companies, and that one of
each company was to take care to provide victuals for the
rest, not, it may be, as our translators seem to have im-
agined, by fetching provisions from their distant towns;
but dressing that part of their food that wanted dressing,
• Page 28, 29. t ]1. 2, ?. 126, &c.
TOL. III. 43
^31 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
setting out their repasts in due order, giving them drink
when requisite, and performing all the offices of the Gre-
cian oiv^ooif or cup bearers.
Among the people of Barbarj, the care of their pro-
visions is divided between stewards and cooks ; among
the old Jews and Greeks, it should seem, one set of peo-
ple discharged the functions of both offices.
So the word nnp*? lakachath, translated in our versioQ
to fetch, to fetch victuals for the people, is used for pre-
paring food, 2 Sam. xiii. 8 ; and for taking provisions
when dressed, in order to set out a repast in a proper
manner. Gen. xviii. 8 ; and doubtless in other places
Such an explanation agrees best with their expectation
of speedily accomplishing their undertaking against Ben-
jamin ; whereas the sending home, by each company, foi'
provisions, would have been a work of some time. Nor
were the Israelites wont to assemble together, on public
occasions, without taking provisions, since they were wont
to do so when two or three only travelled together, as ap-
appears by the account of the licvite's journey,^ which
unhappily proved the occasion of this dreadful slaughter
of the Benjamites.
How odd, after this, the expression of Bishop Patrick
must appear, who supposes the tenth part of the army was
to forage for the rest, as if they had been in an enemy's
country !f
OBSERVATION LXV.
A REMARKABLE ILLUSTRATION OF GIDEON*S DEFEAT
OF THE MIDIANITES.
A modern piece of Arab history very much illustrates
the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon, and at the same
* Judges xix. 19.
t Bishop Partick's thought is, I am satisfied, in the mean, perfectly cor-
rect, and is sufficiently supported by the original words, for CDJ^7 mjf
nnp^ ZaA^ac/ia^/j tsedah laam^ signifies literally, to take prey for the people.
But it probably means here such prey as was taken not ia tiforagin^j- party,
hwi 10. hunting. Edit.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 335
(ime points out wherein the extraordinary interposition of
£joD appeared.
The Arab story is to be met with in Xiebuhr's history
of Arabia, and relates to a contest between two chiefs for
the rraaraship, or soverignty, of Oman, a considerable
province of the southern part of that country. The sub-
stance of it is, "^ that one of them, whose name was Ach-
med, finding himself at first too weak to venture a battle,
threw himself with a few soldiers, into a little fortress built
on a mountain, where he had deposited his treasures. Bel
Arrab, his rival, at the head of four or five thousand men
invested the place, and would have forced the new Imam
to surrender, had he not quitted the fortress, with two of
his dometics, all three disguised like poor Arabs, who
were looking out for grass for their camels. Achmed
withdrew to a town a good day's journey from the be-
sieged fortress, where he was much beloved ; he found no
difficulty in gathering together some hundreds of men,
with whom he marched against his enemy. Bel Arrab had
placed his camp between some high mountains near to the
above mentioned fortress. Achmed ordered a coloured
string to be tied round the heads of his soldiers, that they
might be distinguished from their enemies. He then sent
several small detachments to seize the passes of those
mountains. He gave each detachment an Arab trumpet
to sound an alarm on all sides, as soon as the principal
party should give the signal. Measures being thus laid,
the Imam's son gave the signal at day break, and the trum-
pets sounded on every side. The whole army of Bel
Arrab being thrown into a panic at finding all the passes
guarded, and judging the number of the enemy to be pro-
portionate to the noise that was made, was routed. Bel
Arrab himself marched with a party to the place where
the son of the new luiara was keeping guard ; he knew
Bel Arrab, fell upon him, killed him, and, according to the
• Pasre 263.
336 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
custom of the Arabs, cut off his head, which he carried
in Iriumph to his father.^
The very learned Micheelig, in an extract he made from
this description, which he published in his Bibliothecpie
Orientale, and which extract is placed at the end of that
edition of this work of Niebuhr, which is in my posses-
sion, takes notice of this story in the following way. " P.
304, mention is made of a stratagem, entirely like Gideon's,
Judges vii. and which appeared incredible to those who
are accustomed to our method of making war, because not
practicable in our times.'*f
There is a likeness undoubtedly, and such as very much
illustrates the affair of Gideon, but the stories are not per-
fectly similar, nor should they be so represented, as the
one is supposed to bear the marks of a dependence on an
immediate divine interposition, the other only considered
as a stratagem that might probably be successful, and
turned out so.
The taking notice of each with some distinctness, may
not be improper.
The army of Midian, as well as that of Bel Arrab,
seems to have been encamped in some valley, or open
place, surrounded with mountains dangerous to pass ;
while Gideon and his people were placed in an adjoining
mountain difficult of access, for the sake of security. The
sacred text expressly tells us, that the host of Midian
was beneath Gideon in the valley, Judges vii. 8. The
12th verse also mentions their lying in vast multitudes
in a valley. This Arab story leads us to apprehend it
was a place encompassed with lofty hills, difficult to get
over, and the passages into the plains in both cases, few
and narrow. Nothing can be more probable than this
supposition. The term valley supposes hills on each
side, by which circumstance it is distinguished from that
part of a flat open country which lies at the foot of a
range of mountains. The descriptions of Judea answer
• See 1 Sam. xvii. 57. Page 36.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 337
(bis accounts a great part of it very mountainoiis, with
large vallies among tLeoi with narrow passes. The placing
Gideon's people round about the caujp, verse 21, means
placing them in all the passes.
The seizing the passes, and making use of an artifice to
make the enemj believe thej were more numerous than
in truth they were, were like circumstances in both cases :
as was the making an extraordinary noise with trumpets.
Gideon's trumpets, and those used by this Arab, might
very possibly be exactly the same; but the number of
those of the Jewish judge was by far the greatest.
But there was an essential difference between the two
stories with regard to the being armed. The Imam's
people kept the passes, and being armed, were enabled to
kill those that attempted to escape, till the leader of their
enemies was killed, or his forces reduced to such a num-
ber as not to be formidable ; but Gideon's people were
unarmed at the time of the alarm, or at least incapable
of using any arms, one hand being employed in holding a
trumpet, the other a torch. There must then have been,
in that case, an entire dependence on their destroying one
another, in the confusion and terror of this sudden noc-
turnal alarm. They were not disappointed : a divine
agency made the scheme effectual. But had the kings of
Midian, like Bel Arrab, made up to one of the parties
that keep guard at the passes, nothing there could effectu-
ally have prevented their escape, and the cutting off those
that stood with their trumpets and lights in those narrow
defiles.
One party's taking another party belonging to the same
army for enemies, and by that means occasioning a fatal
overthrow, has happened too often to render the account
at all incredible, upon the foot of a mere natural event.
The supposing an extraordinary divine agency cannot
make it less so.
, How many were destroyed when thus fatally enclosed
does not appear. AboiU firteen thousand, out of one
338 01 I'iii^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
hundred and twenty thousand, were collected together oh
the other side Jordan, Judges viii. 10, 11 ; but many of
those that were slain were killed in their flight, and at
the ford over Jordan, before they could reach that place
of supposed security. What way they escaped, whether
by clambering over the rugged hills, by a waj they would
not have ventured upon had they not been so terrified,
but which they knew pointed toward Jordan, or how
else, we are not told, but there is nothing in that circum-
stance neither that is beyond belief.
There is then a great resemblance between the Arab
and the sacred story ; but the learned and ingenious Got-
tingen professor* has been rather too hasty, when he
asserts that they are wholly alike. f
OBSERVATION LXVI.
CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF 2 KINGS vii. 12,
The suspicion the sacred historian ascribes to Joram,
2 Kings vii. 12, that the Syrians had left their camp,
when they besieged Samaria, well stored with provisions,
in order to entice the famished Israelites to quit that
strong hold, that the Syrians might by this stratagem get
them into their power, appears natural enough in itself;
but its probability is pleasingly illustrated by what lately
happened in that very country, and not far from Samaria.
The reciting it indeed explains no difficulty, but as I im-
agine it may give many readers a very sensible pleasure,
1 will, without making any scruple about it, set down the
relation that the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey gives
of the transaction.
Having given some account of Ali's connections with
an eminent Arab sheikh named Daher, who resided in
St. John d'Acre, and governed the adjoining country, and
* MicUaelis. f Totalement is the word that is used in this extract.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 339
appears to have been united with AH Bey, in the design
of setting their respective countries free from the Otto-
man joke, against which Arab prince, therefore, the pasha
of Damascus marched, in order to defeat the design, this
author tells the following story :
" The pasha of Sham^ found himself much harassed in
his march by Sheikh Ali, the second son of Daher; and
when he got near the sea of Tiberias, he found Sheikh
Daher encamped there. When the sheikh beheld the
enemy near enough, he deferred an engagement till the
next morning ; and during the night, divided his army
into three bodies, one of three thousand to the east, upon
the hills of Gadara, under the command of Sheikh Sleby ;
a second, of three thousand men also, on the west towards
Mount Libanus, commanded by Sheikh Crime, his son-
in-law. The third, or main body, under himself, crossed
the sea of Tiberias to the south, towards Galilee, leaving
the camp with great fires, all sorts of provision, and a large
quantity of spirituous liquors, giving strict orders not to
hinder the enemy from taking possession of the camp, but
to come down and attack them just before dawn of day.
*' In the middle of the night the pasha of Sham thought
to surprise Sheikh Daher, and marched in silence to the
camp, which to his great astonishment, he found entirely
abandoned, and thought the sheikh had fled with so much
precipitation, that he could not carry off the baggage and
stores. The pasha thought proper to stop in the camp
to refresh his soldiers. They soon fell to plunder, and
drank so freely of the liquors, that overcome with the
fatigue of the day's march, and the fumes of the spirits,
they were not long ere they were in a sound sleep. At
that time Sheikh Sleby and Sheikh Crime, who were
watching the enemy, came silently to the camp; and
Sheikh Daher, having repassed the sea of Tiberias, meet-
ing them, they all rushed into the camp, and fell on the
* He nteaas, Damascus, or Syria.
340 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
confused and sleeping enemy, eight thousand of whom
thej slew on ihe spot ; and the pasha, with the remainder
of his troops, fled, with much difficulty, to Sham, leaving
all their baggage behind/'* To this should be added,
that the pasha had Iwentjfive thousand men, and that
Daher's scarcely exceeded nine thousand.
The camp of the ancient Syrians was left in much the
same situation with Daher's, and Joram was afraid of the
same fatal design ; only we read of fires in the one case,
and in the other of their beasts of burden being left tied
behind them. The small quantity of Arab luggage, com-
monly made use by that alert nation, might well occasion
no suspicion in the Turkish Pasha, as to the want of the
last of these two circumstances ; the difference as to the
fires might arise from the different season of the year.
No doubt, but that Daher gave all the probability he could
to the artifice he made use of, and which succeeded so
well.
OBSERVATION LXVil.
CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF JOEL iii, 3.
Morgan, in his History of Algiers, gives us such an
account of the unfortunate expedition of the emperor
Charles the fifth against that city, so far resembling a pas-
sage of the Prophet Joel, as to induce me to transcribe
it into these papers.
That author tells us, that besides vast multitudes that
were butchered by the Moors and the Arabs, a great
number were made captives, mostly by the Turks and
citizens of Algiers ; and some of them, in order to turn
this misfortune into a most bitter taunting and contemptu-
ous jest, parted with their new made slaves for an onion
apiece. *« Often have I heard," says he, *< Turks and
* Pago 99, 100, 101.
IMILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. (j41
Africans upbraiding Europeans with Ibis disaster, saying,
scornfiillj, to such as have seemed to hold their heads
somewhat loftiij, " What! have jou forgot the time, when
a Christian, at Algiers, was scarce worth an onion?"*
The treatment of the Jewish people by the heathen
nations, which the Prophet Joel has described, Avas, in
like manner, contemptuous and bitterly sarcastic, They
have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for
an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might
drink, Joel iii. o.
They that know the large sums that are wont to be
paid, in the East, for young slaves of either sex, must be
sensible, that the Prophet designs, in these words, to
point out the extreme contempt in which these heathen
nations held the Jewish people-
OBSERVATION LXVIII.
STOPPING UP THE WELLS, AN ACT OF HOSTILITY IN
THE EAST.
There is no difficulty in comprehending the account
that is given, in the book of Genesis, of the filling up the
wells Abraham had dug, and which Isaac was obliged to
open again ;f but it may seem extraordinary to us, that
luen should be disposed to do mischief of this kind; it
may therefore be amusing just to observe, that the same
mode of taking vengeance on those that were disagreeable
to them, or whom they would prevent from coming among
them, has been put in practice many ages since.
Niebuhr, in his account of Arabia, tells us, in one place, J
(hat the Turkish emperors pretend to a right to that part
of Arabia, that lies between Mecca and the countries of
Syria and Egypt, but that their power amounts to very
little. That they have however garrisons in divers little
citadels, built in that desert, near the wells that are made
• Page 305. f Gen. xxvi. 15, 18. + Page 302.
VOL. III. 44
342 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
on Ibe rond from Egypt antl Syria to Mecca, which are
inlended for the greater safety of their caravans. But in
a following page^ he gives us to understand, that these
princes have made it a custom, to give annually to all the
Arab tribes which are near that road, a certain sum cf
money, and a certain number of vestments, to keep them
from destroying the wells that lie in that route, and to
escort the pilgrims across their country.
They are apprehensive then, that if the Arabs should
be affronted, and be disposed to do mischief, they might
fill up those wells, which have been made for the benefit
of their numerous caravans of pilgrims, and are of such
consequence to their getting through that mighty desert.
It is true indeed that they have not always taken this
step. The commander of the caravan of the Syrian pil-
8;rims, not long ago, Niebuhr thinks in the year 1756, in-
stead of paying the sheikhs of the tribe of Harb, one of
the principal of their tribes on this road, who had come to
receive the accustomed presents, cut off their heads,
which he sent to Constantinople, as trophies of his vic-
tory. This year then the caravans went in triumph to
Mecca, and returned without being disturbed by the
Arabs. They did the same the next year. But the year
after, upon the return of the pilgrims, fatigued with their
journey, and many of them having sold their arms on
account of their expenses, the Arabs assembled, to the
number it is said of eighty thousand, and pillaged the
whole caravan. From that lime the Turks have submit-
ted to pay the Arabs of that country the ordinary tribute,
and perhaps more than that,|
Here is no account of preventing the pilgrimage, by
filling up the wells. As the Arabs themselves believe it
to be a duty of religion, it would have been impious in
them to have done if. J They therefore contented them-
* Page 3S0. t Page 330, 331.
^ Kor would it have been poliiic, since they did not want to prevent
their making use of that road, but to make the Turks pay them well for
that liberty.
MILITAUY STATE OF JUDLLA. 343
selves with punishing the Turks, who Ihey thought had
defrauded (hem, and making themselves ample amends,
for the loss of two jears' tribuie.
But we have accounts of the wells being actually filled
up in some olher cases. So we find in d'Heibelo!, ihat
Gianabi, a famous kharegile or rebel in the 10th ccntiiry,
gathering a number of people together, seized on Bassora
and Coufa, (wo considerable cilies; afterward insulted the
then reigning khaiif, by presenting himself boldly before
Bagdat, Lis capital ; after which he retired by little and
litde, filling up all the pits with sand which had been
dug In (h6 road to Mecca, for the benefit of (he pilgrims.*
We may be perhaps surprised, that the Philistines
should treat such friendly and upright people as Abraham
and Isaac after this sort : but they w ere afraid of tlieir
power, and wished to have them removed to a distance, f
and the filling up the wells they dug for their cattle, how-
ever useful they might be to themselves, they thought the
best expedient to keep them at a distance.
OBSERVATION LXIX.
CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF 1 SaM. V. 1 10.
The account that Pietro della Valle gives, J of the
manner of carrying two of the bells of the church of Ormuz
into Persia in triumph, affords us a pleasing illustration, of
what is said of the carrying about the captive ark, by the
Philistines, in the lime of the Judges. ||
Every body knows, that bells are considered as sacred
things among the Roman Catholics, and as much disliked
among the iMohammedans, who will not allow them to be
used by Christians that live among them, except in a
very few extraordinary cases. The Portuguese had pos-
* Page 396. f Gen. xxvi. 16.
I Let. 16, tome 6, p. 40. |j 1 Sam. v. 1, 8, 9, 10.
344 Ot i'HE NATURAL, CIVIL, AXD
sessed themselves of a small island called Ormuz, in (he
Persian gnlf? belonging properly to an Arab prince, from
whence they were so tronblesome (o the Persians, that
the celebrated Persian king Abbas was determined to
dislodge them thence, which at last he effected by the
help of some English ships ; and when della Valle was in
the sonthern part of Persia, he saw the spoils of Ormua
carried with great triumph to be presented to Abbas :
there was a good deal of solemnity made use of, as they
were carried from town to town in their way to the capital.
Della Valle tells us, that when he was at Lar, the 28th
of May, 16*22, he saw arrive there two bells of the churcli
of Ormuz, which were carrying in triumph to the king of
Persia, with the rest of the booty of that place, where
they were received with great solemnity ; the calcnter,^
with his attendants, going to meet them, and receiving
them with the music of fifes and drum=, amidst a great
concourse of people. They were placedupon two small
waggons made for that purpose, with very low wheels ;
most probably the ark was in a like triumphant manner
carried from Ebenezer to Ashdod, and from thence to
Gath. Whether they continued their triumph, when they
removed it to Ekron, may be more doubtful : but we can
hardly suppose but that, upon its first being carried into
the land of the Philistines, it was in a triumphant manner ;
and the word that is made use of to express its removal to
Gath, seems to intimate its being surrounded by great
crowds of people, as the bells of Ormuz were by crowds
of Persians.
The Hebrew word 3D' yisoby is translated in our ver-
sion carried ahonty but elsewhere is used to express the
surrounding a thing ;f and it is used, 1 Chron. xiii. o,
to express the bringing the ark of God from Kirjath-jea-
* A great officer in the Feisian cities.
\ So it is used four times just together in the 118th Psalm, to express
the compassing the Psahnist about like bees, ver. 10, 11, 12.
:military state of jl'dea. 31j
rim to the city of David, atlentled by all Israel, with
music and with songs; and after the like manner, I
should think, the ark was carried to Gath from x\shdod,
as to external appearances, but with this diflerence, that
the compassing it about with music and wilh songs, by
David, expressed the reverence of religion ; by the Phi-
listines, as among the Persians, the triumph of victory.
The construction of the Hebrew words will accordins^ly
be more regular, if understood after this manner: Let
Gath compass about the of ark God, and they compassed
about the ark o/God. And it came to pass, after they
had compassed it about, the hand of the Lord was also
upon the city, &c. The men of Ashdod were so intimi-
dated, that they did not care to carry away the ark of
God in triumph to another city, they left it to the lords
of the Philistines to appoint some other of their towns to
receive it, who directed that the people of Gath should
do it, who accordingly went and fetched it away, to their
sorrow, or at least met it as a captive in solemn pomp.
Its being carried to Ekron from Gath, is expressed in very
different terms : They sent inViy"! {va yishalachoo) the
ark of God to Ekron, and when the Ekronites saw it,
they cried out with fear.
OBSERVATION LXX.
MANNER OF INTRODUCING A CAPTIVK PRINCK INTO THE
TOWNS OF A VICTORIOUS KINGDOM.
The same celebrated traveller gives such an account,
of the manner of introducing a captive prince into the
towns of the victorious kingdom, as may serve to illus-
trate another passage of Scripture.
When della Valle was at Lar, in Persia, he not only
saw two of the bells of a Christian church at Ormuz
brought thither in triumph, but the Arab king of Ormuz
1*4.6 ^'^' '^'iit: XATUiiAL, CIVIL, AND
Limself conducled thither, a few days before, in the same
tiiumphant manner. *' This poor unforliinate king," he
tells us, " entered Lar, with his people, in the morning,
music plaj ing, and giilsand ivomen of pleasure singing and
dancing before him, according to the custom of Persia, and
the people flocking together v\ ith a prodigious concourse,
and conducting him in a pompous and magnificent manner,
particularly with colours displayed, like what the Messe-
nians formerly did to Philopcemen, the general of the A-
chseans, their prisoner of war, according to the report of
Justin. The king of Ormuz appeared at this time with
a very melancholy countenance, dressed in a rich Persian
habit of gold and silk, with an upper garment on his back,
of much the same form with the old fashioned Italian
cloaks worn in bad weather, which are very little in use
among the Persians, with silk stockings according to our
European mode. He went singly on horseback, according
to the custom of the great, followed by the principal peo-
ple of his household, without any mark of his being a pris-
oner, excepting that he had, on each side, a file of Persian
rausqueteers to guard hira.""^
There is certainly a good deal of resemblance, between
the manner in which the Messenians treated Philopcemen,
and that in which the Persians treated the king of Ormuz
above eight score years ago ; but I would rather apply
jhe account to the elucidation of a passage of the Proph-
et Jeremiah, in which he describes the treatment in part,
which Zedekiah, the king of Judah, was to experience
upon his being made a captive by the Babylonians, which
he thus prophetically sets forth, according to our version :
]f thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the Lord
hath shewed me. And behold, all the women that are left
in the king of Judah'* s house, shall be brought forth to
the king of Babylon* s princes ; and those women shall
say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed
* Lett. 16, tome 6, p. 32, 33.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 247
ns^ainst thee : thy feet are sunk in the iuire, and they are
turned away hack, Jeremiah xxxviii. 21, 22.
Now these bitter speeches much better suit the lips of
women belonging to the conquering nation, singing before
a captive prince, than of his own wives or concubines.
If we are to understand them in the sense in which they
are commonly understood, those ladies must have had no
feeling thus to insult their king, their husband, in the depth
of distress : and who had bhown such a dread of being in-
sulted by those vulgar Jews, who had fallen away to the
Chaldeans, ver. 19, / am afraid of the Jews that aij^e fal-
len away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their
hand, and they mock me.
It may be imagined, that it was a just rebuke upon him,
that had been so afraid of the reproaches of some of the
rabble of his own nation, as on that account to refuse obe-
dience to the direction of a Prophet of God, that he should
be insulted by the women of his own haram ; but it is not
natural to suppose they should have an opportunity of
this kind, after the king had left them in the palace, and
they came into the power of the princes of the king of Bab-
ylon, their prey, and to do honour to their hararas ; and
if they had such an opportunity, it is not very likely they
should be so unfeeling. But it is perfectly natural to sup-
pose, that the women that sung before Zedekiah, when
carrying from town to town, till he was brought to Rib-
lah, where the king of Babylon then resided, might make
nse of such taunts. That they are women, that sing and
dance before captive princes, appears from this account
of the Arab king of Ormuz ; and the Hebrew word here
made use of, shows that those that used these insulting
words were females ; but it is not certain that the word
nan hennah, translated those, so signifies, (those women
shall say,) unless we depend on the certainty of the He-
brew points, since the same letters nan hinneh, with dif-
ferent points signify behold, Behold, I say,^ the women
* See 2 ChroD. xx. 2, and Noldius oa this compound word.
tj-ii
OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
of the king of Jud ah' s house shall be brought forth td
the king of Babylon^s jjrinces ; and behold womeUi such
as are wont lo sing on public occasions, s/m// sa^, in those
processional songs, the men of thy peace have set thee
out &c. Nay the same points raay be retained under the
letters, and the word then may be understood not a? a
pronoun, but an adverb, and be rendered here :^ " Be-
hold, I say, thy women shall be given up to the posses-
sion and the arms of thine enemies 5 and here the women
that are wont to sing on public occasions, and to celebrate
their praises, shall sing before thee such words as shall
pierce thy heart. So in the following verse Zedekiah
and his women are supposed to be separated from each
other, as in fact they were, the king flying from the city,
as far as the plains of Jericho, before he was overtaken,
while his women fell immediately into the hands of the
princes of Babylon.
OBSERVATION LXXI.
DUST VERY INJURIOUS IN THE EAST, OF THE BITTER
WATERS, &C.
Some part at least of the sea coast, between St. John
d'Acre and Joppa, is liable to be very much incommoded
by clouds of dust, which arise from time to time ; I would
recommend it then to the curious to consider, whether
some city, or perhaps some district there, may not be
what the Prophet Micah calls the house of dust, ch. i. 10.
In the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust ; for we
find in the margin, that the house of Aphrah maybe trans-
lated the house of dust,
I would verify the fact, that that coast, or part of that
coast, is wont to be incommoded with dust, by two quota-
* So the word is used in this sense, Gen. xxi. 23, and is so translaled in
our version ; and is used again in the sense of /lei^e, in the 29lh verse, ac-
cording to Noldius.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 349
tions from Vinisauf, who hais given us an account of the
expedition of our Richard the First, into the Holy Land.
In p. 349 he sajs, " the armj passed along near the sea,
which was on the right hand, and the Turks observed all
our motions from the mountains on the Jeft. Suddenly
the air was disturbed bj the coming on of a dangerous
cloud ;'* when it seems, the enemy took that advantage,
and fell upon the Croisade army. This happened, he
tells us, when they came to a strait place.*
He does not tell us, whether this was a cloud of dust,
or a thick mist ; but it should seem most probably to have
been dust : especially when we remark what is said in a
succeeding page, " Journeying, they were thrown into
great perturbation, by the air's being thickened with
dust : as well as by the heat of theseason."f This was
on the 7th of September.
Can it be any wonder that Micah has described some
great town on this coast, or perhaps an extensive district,
as the house of dust, and called its inhabitants to roll
themselves in the dust in token of anguish of heart ?
It is well known that some large towns, in which there
were many houses, have been called by a name which ex-
presses one single house, with an epithet adjoined, which
marks out some distinguishing property of that town.
Thus the native town of David was called Bethlehem,
the house of bread, on account of the fertility of the corn
lands about it ; another town was called Bethel, the house
o/GoD, because of a divine appearance there to Jacob,
Gen. xxviii. 19. For a similar reason, a town built in
that strait, where the dust so terribly incommoded the
Croisaders, of the time of Richard the First, might have
• **Exevcitus itinerabat juxta mare, quod eis erat k dextris, et gens
Turcorum k sinistris omnes gestus nostros k montanis prospiciebant. In-
gruente subito nebula periculosa turbabatur aer." Hist. Anglicana Scrip,
quinque, vol. 2, p. 349.
I Obducto nubile pulveris acre sestuabant itinerantes, et insuper fervore
temporis," p. 360, or rather 356.
VOL. III. 45
3j0 or THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
been called llie house of dust ,•• or a town built iu the place
where that army was afterward, on Sept. 7\h,
And if a town containing many distinct houses, might -
be called the house of bread, in the singular number, and
another the house of God, I do not see why a whole dis-
trict might not be called the hoitse of dust, as being re-
markable for the clouds of dust arising there from time to
time, and especially in the language of prophetic story.
Beet «^^. in Arabic means the same thing with Beth n""^
in Hebrew, and we find in Niebuhr's account of Arabia,
cities, villages, caravanserais, and even districts, distin-
guished from others by compound names, of which the
first part is beit. So he describes Beit ion Scha7nsdny as
two portions of land^ belonging to the family of this name,
of which the most considerable person is the Nakib Khas-
sen, p. 229.
So in Reland's Palestina,f according to Epiphanius, the
Prophet Obadiah was born in Scychem, in the district of
Bethachamar, which perhaps signifies the house of bitu-
medy from its being produced in that country.
The house of dust in Micah then means, I apprehend,
either some principal city on the seacoast between Acco
and Joppa, or that part of the seacoast which was re- ,
markable for the cloudsof dust, with which it was at times
troubled, from which name of description, which the
Prophet gave it, founded on a circumstance of its natural
history, he takes occasion to call the people there to roll
themselves in the dust, which was wont to be done by
people in that country when in bitter distress ;J just as
he had immediately before called the people of Acco not
to weep, the vulgar and proper name of that town being
near akin in sound, to the Hebrew word nD3 bacah, which
signifies he weeps, and the people of Gath not to declare
or show forth in songs, the Hebrew word n'Jn tageedoo,
* Deux lerres appartenantes k la faraille de ce nom, &c. f Page 627.
i Lam. iii. 16 — 29 ; -where we shall find the marginal translation of the
16th verse is, he hath rolled me in the ashes.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 351
for that action being in like manner in sound somewhat
resembling Gath,^
For though our translation supposes one town only is
mentioned, in the first part of the 10(h verse, namely,
Gatb, I cannot but accede to the opinion of those that
suppose two are intended, Gatb and Acco,f or St. John
d'Acre, as it has been called in later times. Hadrian Re-
land appears to be of that opinioUjJ and it seems much the
most natural and forcible construction to put on this very
imbroiled passage which St. Jerom seems to have des-
paired of thoroughly explaining. 1 will not by any means
suppose myself capable of doing it, but some illustration
may possibly arise from the remarks I would propose un-
der this Observation.
The word we render declarCj " declare ye not at Gatb,"
for the word it is not in the original, seems to answer that
celebrating, with singing, the martial prowess, and con-
sequent victories of their people ; and sometimes those
consolatory songs, that were made use of in times of dis-
appointment, unwilling to forget the courage of some of
their heroes, who perished in combating, cheering their
hearts with the remembrance of the success of former
times, and deriving hope from thence of a revolution in
their favour.
Thus Niebuhr tells us, in his account of Arabia,|| that
the Arabs yet sing sometimes the warlike deeds of their
shekhs. So, after a victory that the tribe of Chasael had
gained some time before over All, the pasha of Bagdad,
they presently made a song, in which "they celebrated
the exploits of each chief. Fortune having forsaken them
the year after, and the Turks having defeated them, there
was not ivanting a poet of Bagdad to give an opposite des-
cription of the Arab shekhs, in exhalting the heroic vir-
• A farfetched analogy indeed ! Edit.
f Or Ptolemais, as it is called in the New Testament.
^ Palastina, p. 534. U Page 93.
352 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, ANT)
tues of the pasha, and of his officers. His poem, how-
ever, was only a parody of the first. They sung, even
in my tirae, that of the Arabs, not only in the territory
of the tribe of Chasael, but at Bagdad.''
Here we see the genius of the Eastern people leads
them to compose verses on public occasions; and when
fortune changes, they are not always forgotten, but still
continue to be sung; and even soFnelimes in the territo-
ries of their enemies.
In the second volume of his travels, Niebuhr in like
manner describes the Arabs of Mesopotamia, as singing
the valour of one of their shekhs who was taken by the
Turks, and his head cut off, after vaunting of the nobility
of his extraction to the Turkish officer, and sent to Con-
stantinople. This prince was, we are told, the brother of
the then reigning shekh."^
In another place of the same volume he tells us, that an
Arab tribe so thoroughly defeated a pasha of Bagdad ;
that the Arab poets made a song upon this victory, which
became so common as to be heard in Bagdad itself.f He
speaks of it also in a preceding page. J
Now that the word, n'Jn taggeedoo* translated here
declarCf is used for setting things forth in solemn commem-
orative speeches, and in songs, appears from several pas-
sages of Scripture. Exod xiii. 8, and Deut. xxvi. 3,
may be brought as proofs of the first assertion ; and Ps.
li. 14, 15, of the second : Deliver me from blood guilt-
iness, O God, thou God of my salvation ; and my
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord,
open thou my lips, and my mouth TT yageed shall show
forlh thy praise. So Is. xlviii. 20.
But above all other places, the 2 Sam, i. 20, ought to
be introduced here. Tell it not n^jn bx al taggeedoo, in
* Voy. torn. 2, p. 199, 200. f Page 260.
i Page 257. There he tells us, that the Arabs made funeral songs on
the death of Soleiman Pasha, which were still, at the time he Avaa there,
often heard in the coffee houses and streets of Bagdad.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 353
Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest the
daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of
the uncircumcised triumph. The word it here too is not
ill the original, but added by our translators ; however, it
evidently appears, that the Hebrew poet is speaking of
songs that he supposed the Philistines would be ready \o
compose, on occasion of the death of Saul, which was such
a matter of triumph to them, and to sing in the public
places of Gath, and in the streets of Ashkelon.
The turn of this passage in 2 Samuel, may have un-
fortunately led many people, to misunderstand the spirit
and intention of this clause in Micah. Because triumph
is evidently supposed in Samuel, and the words just the
same, they have been ready to suppose the declaratory
songs at Gath, to which Micah refers, must be of the same
kind, and that therefore, the Prophet is to be considered
as dehorting them from triumphing over Israel and Judah,
since affliction was not far oflf themselves. But the words
may be understood, 1 think, and more naturally, in a
somewhat different view, not as triumphing over Israel
and Judah, then not their enemies ; but the want of ap-
prehension from the Assyrians as to themselves, and de-
noting a careless state, agreeable to the description given
of the people of Laish, who dwelt careless, after the man'
ner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure,^ and united per-
haps in the case of Gath, with a vain recollection oi their
former successes, celebrating their dead heroes, and in-
termingling perhaps the praises of some of their country-
men that were alive, who had done great exploits, accord-
ing to the practice of modern Arabs. Instead of this, the
Prophet says to Gath, Lay aside your songs of pleasing
commemoration of past times, and those that are expres-
sive of present consolation, derived from the great qual-
ties of some of your fellow citizens: the silence of appre-
hension better becomes you.
• Judsres xviii. 7.
JJ54 ^^^ THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
From Gath lie (urns to Acco, and alluding (o its name,
he bids that city not to weep, the Hebrew word nD3
bacahj signifying hewecpSj resembling in sound Acco: a
figure of speech furmerlj much in use, and greatly ad-
mired.
This, however, most certainly is to be explained in a
manner consistent with what is said to (he other cities and
districts of that country ; for I can by no means suppose,
that Acco was to be exempted from having a share in the
«fflictions that were coming on the other cities of the sea
coast, and the adjoining country. Now if that be sup-
posed to be determined, its not weeping must be under-
stood in a sense consistent with their feeling bitter sorrow.
Accordingly we may observe, that when Ziklag was
taken by the Amalekites, David and the people that were
ivith him lift up their voice, and wept until they had no
more power to weep. And David was greatly distress-
ed: for the people spake of stoning him, because the
soul of all the people was grieved, or bitter, every man for
his sons, and for his daughters, 1 Sam. xxx. 4, 6. Here
was great anguish of soul without weeping; nay, it was
its extreme bitterness that stopped their tears. In like
manner, when Ezekiel was a sign to Israel, and was to
represent to them, by what he did, the extreme distress
they should feel from the Chaldeans, (he word of the
Lord came unto him, saying, Son of man, behold, I take
away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke :
yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy
tears run down ; for says he, the desire of your eyes, and
that which your soul pitieth, and your sons and your
daughters whom ye have left, shall fall by the sword.
And ye shall do as I have done : . , , , ye shall not
mourn nor weep, but ye shall pine away for your iniqui-
ties, and mourn one toward another, or secretly. Ezek-
iel xxiv. 16, 21, 22, 23. In some such sense, I appre-
hend, we are to understand the clause concerning Acco.
O Galh, lay aside singing the praises of thy heroes ! Acco,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 355
let excess of grief and terror put a stop to tears! Thou
country between Gath and Acco, thou house of dus(, roll
thyself in the dust through bitterness of heart !
We may go on, I think, and, conformably to the ex-
planation I have been giving of the house of dust, under-
stand the inhabitant, or, according to the margin, the in-
habltress of Saphirfysw nnty^ yoshebct shufheer, of the
people of the country lying on the more southern part of
XhQ sea coast, as those of the house of dust mean those to
the north of it. For that country is represented by mod-
ern travellers as extremely pleasant, and the margin of
our translation tells us, the inhabitress of Saphir means,
thou that dii'tUcsl fairly, ov hast a good heritagei accord-
ing to our version of the 16th Psalm, ver. 6, The lines
are fallen unto me in yleasant places ; yea, I have a
goodly heritage.
Where the house of dust ends, and the more delightful
country may be supposed to begin, I shall not attempt to
determine ^vith precision; but would transcribe a passage
from Signior Lusignan's account of Palestine, at the close
of his History of the Revolt of Ali Bey. " About a mile
and an half before you come to Joppa,^ you cross a small
rivulet, which is the onlyf running water in all this fer-
tile country; you then descend a hill, and get into a road,
which is covered on each side with orange and lemon
trees. "J He describes the road froai Joppa to Rama,
whose present state, he tells us, is very deplorable, but
its situation however very pleasant ;|| I say, he describes
that road as "very smooth and pleasant; the fields on
each side abound with several sorts of flow ers, and are
planted with olive groves, and in some parts with cassia
and senna trees, and other aromatic plants. § The road
from Joppa or Rama to Azotus,^ which is called by the
• He means from the noithward.
f No wonder the country before they came to this water, might be de-
nominated the house of dust.
\ Page 185. II Page 190. § Page 189. f| Or Ashdnd.
356 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AXD
Arabs Hasaneyun^ " is pretty much of the same kind as
that from Joppa to Rama and Lidda, except in some part
of the country, where there are no large trees. ""^ As to
Azotus, he says, " the town is but thinly inhabited, though
the situation is very pleasant. "f From Azotus to Gaza
are twelve miles more : "the fields on each side of the
road, as in the others, are planted with olive, and some
palm trees. "J The Baron de Tott travelled very little
in the Holy Land, only from Joppa or JafF, as he calls if,
to Rames, by which we are to understand Rama ; never-
theless the description he gives of this part of the country
shows its pleasantness. " The space between the sea and
the mountains is a flat country, about six leagues in
breadth, extremely fertile. The fig tree of India sup-
plies it with hedges, and furnishes impenetrable barriers,
which secure the fields of the different proprietors. Cot-
ton is here the principal branch of commerce, and the in-
dustry of the inhabitants employs itself in spinning. This
part of the Holy Land is very remarkable for the remains
of the Crusades, with which it is covered. "i|
To this delightful situation the Prophet Micah opposes
the wretchedness of the state of this people, when carried
away into captivity : Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of a
very pleasant country, not naked, but clothed with trees,
and highly ornamented with flowers ; being almost quite
uncovered to thy dishonor, yea, having your shame nak'
ed, and exposed to the mocking eyes of your enemies.^
If the inhabitant of Saphir, or the goodly country,
means the people that dwelt near Joppa, and onwards to
the southward on that coast; and \:i<:i isaanan is truly
translated in the margin of our version the country of
* Page 197. f Page 199- + Page 200.
II Memoirs, tome 4, p. 93. Lady M. W. Montague confirms this, telling
us, *• this plant grows a great height, very thick, and the spikes or thorns
are as long and sharp as bodkins." Vol. 3, p. 73.
§ Of this very indecent treatment of captives anciently, we read in sev..
eralpUces of Scripture. Is. .xlvii. 3, ch. xx. 4, &c.
MILITARY St ATE OF JUDEA. / 257
flocks, {he accounis of modern travellers will lead us to
'suppose Gaza and its environs is the country that is meant.
For Thevenot, in going from Egypt to Jerusalem, tells
us, that having spent some days in the desert, on the 5th
of April they came to a place, where, says he, " we be-
gan to see a very pleasant country, and some corn land :
some time after we found a sibil of bitter water, which is
close by Cauniones, where we arrived about three in the
afternoon: they have so many marble pillars there also,
that their coffee houses stand all upon such. There we
began to see abundance of trees, and a great deal of good
meadow ground ; and, indeed, both the cattle and inhab-
itants of that place, from the biggest to the least, are ex-
tremely fat. There is a very fair castle there, with a
large open place in if. The Turks lodge in the castle,
where there is a saka of very good water, and the Moors
and Felas live in the houses without. Cauniones is in
Egypt, which here ends."
"We parted from Cauniones on Saturday the 6th of
April, before five in the morning, guarded by seven or
eight Turks of the place, who went with us to Gaza, for
fear of the Arabs. About six o'clock we found a sibil of
bitter water, and about seven another better; a little
after, we discovered the town of Gaza: half an hour after
eight we found a bridge, under which runs the water of
the meadows, which are very spacious, and at the end of
that bridge there is a well of good water; the country
abounds in fair cattle, and all sorts of fruit trees: about
an hour after we found two sibils not far distant from one
another; and about half an hour after ten, we arrived at
Gaza, where we encamped near the castle, in a little bu-
rying place walled about."*
It is not a little remarkable, that this celebrated trav-
eller should be so struck with the meadows, the extent
of them, and the goodness of the cattle in the neighbour-
* Trav. part 1; 2, ch. 35.
VOL. III. 46
(>j3 of the NATL'IiAL, CiVIL, AND
hood o[ Gaza, expresslj reraarking, (hal some part of (hi?
country, so suited to the feeding of cattle, belonged to
Egypt. Isaiah, who lived and prophesied in the same
time with Micah, speaks of the king of Assyria's sending
Tartan against Ashdod, who fought against it and took it;
and in the same chapter he speaks of the king of Assyria's
leading away Egyptians and Ethiopians, or ^Arabians cap-
tives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their
buttocks uncovered, to the shaoie of Egypt.^
Thevenot is not the only writer that describes the coun-
try about Gaza as proper for feeding of cattle; de Tott
plainly intimates the same, when, describing the present
commerce of JafF, or Joppa, he says, it only consists of
linen and rice, sent from Damietta l"or the consumption of
Napooloose, Rames, Jerusalem, and numerous hordes of
Arabs, who encamp in the plains of Gaza. Damietta re-
ceives in exchange, glass ware fabricated at Ebron, raw
cottons, cummin, and especially, soapof Jafr."f
The plains of Gaza must be proper for the feeding of
cattle, since numerous hordes of Arabs are described as
dwelling there, whose great, and almost sole employment,
is breeding and tending cattle.
It should seem, from the 20th of Isaiah, that those
Egyptians that the Assyrians carried away captive, came
not to the assistance of Ashdod, and suffered for their
neglect some little time aflero Is not this the sense, in
general, of those words of Micah, The inhabitant of the
country of flocks came not forth in the mourning of Beth-
czel, the place near, says the margin of our Bibles, or, we
may say, of the neighbouring district, a just description
of Ashdod and its dependencies, he shall receive of yoid
his standing J* though it is not easy perfectly to make
out the explanation ; and perhaps in the word ajr: mik-
kern, translated of yon, there is a corruption. J
• Chap. XX. \ Mem. tome 4, p. 94.
4: For it does not appear of any consequence here, for the Prophet to
point out the persons from whom thev were to receive the reward of theii
MILITARY STATE OF JUIJEA. 359
Marab, every body knows, wbo bas read (be 15(b of
Exodus, was a name given to a place in Ibe desert of
Arabia, on (be account of the bitlerness of the water
there. And when they came to Marahy they could not
drink of the waters of Mar ah, for they were bitter;
Uw-^refore the name of it was called Marah ; that is, saj s
the margin, bitlerness^ v. 23. As IMarab signifies bitter-
ness, Marotb, which is itspUira], must signifv the country
neglect; and If tt were of consequence, the pronoun here made use of,
seems to be hardly admissible, since Mlcah appears to be speaking, not
of petty wars, and the taking revenge upon one another, common enough,
among the Arab clans and little Eastern principalities, but of the ravages
of some mighty conqueror enveloping them all in one general calamity.
The Bishop of Waterford, in his translation, introduces the word reward
here as necessary to make the same complete : "He shall receive of you
the re-ward of his station against you." If instead of CD^^ (mikkem)
from you, we read ^I^D (jnecher) which is only the change of one letter in
the Hebrew, then the translation will be, '* He shall receive i\\e price (the
reward) of his station." The unnecessary pronoun will disappear, and the
word reward will be found, not as a supplemental word, but in the orrglna!
text. Further, it does not appear to me, that the supplemental Avords
against you, which are not in our version, should have been introduced
by this very respectable prelate; for I should think it is rather to be un-
derstood of neglect, tending his flocks when he should have been helping
them, than of encamping as an open enemy against the house of his neigh-
hour. In short, I apprehend, the word here used represents him as act-
ing just as Reuben did in the time of Deborah and Barak, when Zebulun
and Naphtali, two other tribes, were jeopardying "their lives in the high
places of the field " There was a neglect, not engaging in war against
them. The verb T^J-* amad, from which the word IHl^;^ amadato, trans_
lated station is derived, is not unfrequently applied to the business of
shepherds: so Isaiah Ixi. 5, "Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen, and your vinedressers ;"
so in Micah himself, ch. v. 4, " And he shall stand and feed in the strength
of the Lord." The standing then of Tsaanan is not to be understood in
a warlike sense, but a pastoral one: which perfectly suits the description
of this part of the country lying about Gaza, but inhabited by Egyptians.
As more anciently, Dan, was complained of for remaining in his ships, and
Asher for continuing on the sea shore, Judges v. 17, they being maritime
tribes, and Reuben, a tribe of shepherds, for abiding among the sheepfolds.
to hear the bleatings of the flocks, verse IG, and not coming to help the
other tribes of Israel; so Tsaanan is complained of for abiding in their sAr/j-
herd's sfa^ions, instead of helping their neighbours in their afilictions. This
appears to me a probable explanation : it lays claim to nothing further.
SCO OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
that had raanj places of blltcr water, which is a just and
lirely description of that part of Arabia,
The pits of Moses, we are told by Niebi:?ir, in his
description of Arabia, are two German leagues to the
southward of Suez, which is at the end of the Red Sea,
bearing somewhat to the east. Thej find water there in
many places upon digging a foot in depth ; but the Arabs
say, that of the five pits that are found there, one pit
only affords water that is drinkable. He adds, "it may
be, the Marah mentioned in the 15(h of Exodus is to be
sought for here," page 848. Whether it be, or be not
the exact place, it nnght certainly have been called Ma-
rah on the account of the bitter v/ater there, and even
IMarolh, in the plural, as there are no fewer than four of
these pits of bad water.
But these are not the only places of bitter water in
this country : for Egmont and Ilcyman say, speaking of
a place called Pharaoh's baths, which, according to Nie-
buhr's map of the country between Suez and Mount Si-
nai, is considerably further to the south, *Mhe water
seems to boil as it issues from the ground, and afterward
forms little rivulets, in which, where the heat is not too
violent, many bathe themselves : no crystal is clearer
than this water; but it is so saturated with saline and
sulphureous particles, that the taste is extremely disa-
greeable."*' This place, which Wortley Montague sup-
posed was ihe Marah of the Scriptures, but which is ten
German leagues further to the south, or about forty Eng-
glish miles, according to Psiebubr's map, from the place
Niebuhr supposed to be IMarah, is thus described by Mr.
Montague :f " These waters at the spring are somewhat
bitter and brackish ; but as every foot they run over the
sand is covered with bituminous salts, grown up by the
excessive heat of the sun, they acquire much saltness
and bitterness, and \cry soon become not potable. "J
* Vol.2, p. IS.i. . f Pliilosnphlcal Transactions, vol. CO, p. 5S,
i Trav. part 1, book C, ch. 26.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 36 1
Egniont and Hejman speak of these waters only as saline
and sulphureous, but Mr. Montague expressly describes
them as bitter.
About sixteen German leagues further, according \o
that map, is Tor, a well known port in the Red Sea.
Not fiir from it, according to Thevenot, are ninny welJs
of bitter water. It seems odd, that he should suppose
this place to be the Elira of the Scripture, but the fact I
suppose we may depend upon, that there are several wells
of bitter water in that place. He says, they are ail hot,
and are returned again to their bitterness, for he tasted of
one of them, where people bathe themselves, which, by
the Arabs, is called Ilamam Mousa, that is to say, the
bath of Moses.
If we should suppose this last place rather too far off,
1 would remark, that Dr. Shaw tells us, that at Adje„
route, which is nearer the land of the Philistines than any
of the places I have been mentioning, and is one of the
first stations of the Mohammedan pilgrims from Egypt,
the water is bitter.*
Such being the nature of this part of the country; re-
markable for many places of bitter water, it may well be
understood to have been called by the Prophet Maroth.
And as the Midianitish wife of Moses, is called an Ethi-
opian woman, who came from the neighbourhood, we may
easily perceive who were the Ethiopians, that, according
to the 20th of Isaiah, were to be led away captive with
the Egyptians, by {he Assyrians, about the time that
Ashdod was taken by them.
Nor is there any difficulty here of making out the con-
nection, between the occasional name of description the
Prophet gives this country, and what is said to have hap-
pened to it: The inhabitants of Maroth, the country of
bitter waters, waited carefully for good, but, (the bitter-
ness of) evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of
Jerusalem, and threatened their speedy ruin.
* Pa.5C iTT,
362 0^ THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
I will onlj add one remark more, if it should be ob-
jected, Ibat this ckplanation supposei^, that some towns
or countries are called by their common names, and that
others have invented names of description given them,
which seems very strange, I would beg leave to refer
such readers to the xsvth of Jeremiah, where, after many
princes are named by their proper titles, at least, the king
of Babylon appears to be spoken of, under the cabalistical
denomination of the king of Sheshach. This is general-
ly, I think, understood to be the meaning of the Prophet,
and the 12th verse of that chapter seems to prove it. In
like manner we find a country pointed out by a poetic
description, and another in the same verse mentioned by
its direct and common name, in the 18th of Isaiah : Woe
to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the
rivers of Ethiopia,^
The last is incontestible : why then may we not sup-
pose Micah mingled things together in the same manner,
in the paragraph I have been considering ?
OBSERVATION LXXII.
OF THE TIME OF THE YEAR, IN WHICH THEY USUAL-
LY BEGAN THEIR CAMPAIGNS IN THE EAST.
The sacred text in 2 Sam. xi. 1, seems to suppose,
there was one particular time of the year to which the
operations of war were limited. This however was not
observed in that country in the time of the Croisades, as
we may assuredly collect from the writers of those times,
and as may be learnt from the following table : for there
being no index to the Gesta Dei per Francos, I have taken
the pains to mark down the times when such and such
military exploits were performed, that William of Tyre
and the other Croisade writers have particularly mention-
* Verse 1.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 263
ed, SO far as I have observed Ihem ; bj which It appears,
that the princes of the East and the West in those wars
confined themselves to no particular lime.
We meet however with traces of these limitations else-
where: so Sir John Chardin, speaking of the Pasha of
Basra, who endeavoured in his time to erect himself into
an independent sovereign, tells us,* that *' perceiving in
the rnring, that the Turkish armies were prepared to
thunder upon him the next September or October, for the
heat of those climates will not permit them to take the
field sooner, he sent beforehand to oQcr his territory to
the king of Persia. "f The contrary however obtained
in the Croisade wars, of which the proofs follow.
THE TABLE.
JANUARY. All the forces of the kingdom of Jerusa-
lem assembled together in this month, and a long and se-
vere fight ensued between Baldwin II. and the king of
Damascus, near the last mentioned city, on the 28th day
of it. Gesta Dei, p. 843, 844.
Assembled again, and began the siege of Ascalon, p.9'23.
All the forces of this kingdom of Jerusalem, as well
horse as foot, assembled again in the time of king Amalric,
and set out on the 30th for Egypt, p. SG3.
FEBRUARY. Baldwin I. having assembled all his troops,
began the siege of Berytus in this month, and continued
it to the 2rth of April, when he took it, p. 803, 804.
Siege of Tyre began by the Patriarch of Jerusalem,
February the fifteenth, p. 830, which held till July, when
Tyre was surrendered, p. 439.
* In his MS. wliich I have frequently cited, he supposes April was tlie
time kings were wont to go out to war- His words, in a note on 2 Sam,
si. 1, are *'Rnys et arrnees ne sortent que quand il y a de I'herbe a !;i
campagne pour les bestes, et qu'on peut camper, c'eM :i dire en Avrii.''
That is, kings and armies do not march but when there is grass, and when
they can encamp, which tirae is April. Different countries may find difTer.
ent seasons most convenient for marching; but it seems religious animosity
made them do v, hat national complaints would not.
t Chron. of Solyman III. p. l-iG.
364 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AXD
MARCH. Turks set out for the country about Jordan
in March, which they harrassed for three months, p. 37*2.
Rapfanea besieged eighteen days together, by the
Count of Tripoli and Baldwin II. of Jerusalem, and taken
the last day of this month, p. 845.
APRIL. The united forces of the kingdoms of Jerusa-
lem and Damascus came before Paneas the first of May,
having been assembled to oppose the Turkish prince of
Aleppo, who entering the kingdom of Damascus, came as
far as a place called Rasaline, and continued some time
wi(h his army there, till, finding the forces of these two
kingdoms were united together against him, he drew off;
after w hich, they sat down before Paneas : the movements
consequenlly that preceded the siege of Paneas must have
been in April, p. 876, 877.
MAY. Fight between Baldwin I. and a great Egyp-
tian army, not far from Ascalon, in the middle of May, p.
418. Another fight between an Egyptian army and the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, near Ascalon, in this month, p. 432.
In consequence of a general meeting at Acco, all the
troops of the kingdom of Jerusalem were assembled at
Tiberias the twentyfith of May, from whence they march-
ed against Damascus, and after some time returned un-
successful, p. 910 — 914.
JUNE. Baldwin I. set out for the relief of Edessa, be-
sieged by the Turks, p. 362; and again for the relief of
a place near Mount Tabor, in the end of June, p. 372.
Baldwin III. after having raised the siege of Paneas,
fell into an ambush, and had his army routed with great
slaughter, the 19th of June, p. 941.
JULY. A successful expedition of Godfrey king of
Jerusalem, against some Arabs in this month, p. 775,
Baldwin II. crossed Jordan with his army against the
king of Damascus, and some Arabs allied with him, p. 430.
A battle between Baldwin III. and Noradine, on the
fifteenth day of it, p. 946.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 365
And in the reign of Amalric, Saladine came against him
with a great army out of Egypt in July, whither he re-
turned the end of the following September, p. 993.
AUGUST. Baldwin II. gained a great victory over a
powerful Turk, the king of Damascus and the prince of
the Arabs, on the fourteenth of August, p. 123.
Noradine gained a great victory over the Christian
prince of Antioch, &c. on the tenth of this month, p. 060^
961,
Baldwin IV". assembled his troops on the first of this
month, and marched into the territories of the kingdom of
Damascus, p. 1003,
The beginning of this month Saladine besieged Bery tus,
and his Egyptian troops besieged a place in the southern
border of the kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 1029.
SEPTEMBER. Great fight between Baldwin I. and the
Egyptians on the 8th of September, p. 313.
Amalric assembled a great army against Egypt, and on
the first of September went down thither, p. 958,
OCTOBER. The same prince, having assembled his
forces, set out again for Egypt about the middle of Oc-
tober, and besieging Pelusium, took it the third of No-
vember, p. 978.
NOVEMBER. Baldwin I. set out from Jerusalem to
besiege Tyre, on the eve of St. Andrew, November 29,
p. 370.
Baldwin IV. gave Saladine a great overthrow on the
twentyfifih of this month, not far from Ascalon, p. 1010.
DECEMBER. Baruth besiesjed bv Baldwin I, in De-
cember, p. 362.
Baldwin II. marched with a view to take Damascus,
but soon after his arrival in its neighbourhood, be was
obliged to return home by the violence of the rains, which
fell about the sixth of December, p. 849.
Saladine having assembled his Egyptian forces, and
those of the kingdom of Damascus, attacked a place be-
Jonging to the king of Jerusalem in this month, against
VOL. III. 47
366 Ot- THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
whom Amalric marched from Ascalon on the eighfeenlb
of December, p. 986.
An expedition undertaken in December, 1182, under
the conduct of the Count of Tripoli, for which they pre-
pared provisions and forage for fifteen days; and on the
fifteenth of this month the king of Jerusalem himself set
out against Damascus, and ravaged the country about it,
p. 1033.
We meet then, in these historians, with expeditions or
battles in every month of the year. There is^ however,
one story which the Archbishop of Tyre tells us> that
seems to confirm Sir John Chardin's account, and to
show, that though the active and superstitious zeal of
those times might not regard it, the summer was no prop-
er time for war in those countries ; and that is where he
tells us, that in a battle fought between Baldwin IV. and
Saladine in Galilee, as many perished in both armies by
the violence of the heat, as by the sword. "^ But I must
add, that it is observed by the historian, that the violence
of the heat, which proved so deadly to the soldiers of
Baldwin and Saladine, was much greater than usual.
OBSERVATION LXXIII.
FURTHER PARTICULARS ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
The account of that expedition of Baldwin II. in De-
cember, mentioned under that month in the preceding
article, when given more at large, is this. That Baldwin,
with other princes, marching to Damascus, fully resolved
to take it by surrender or storm, met with a check in for-
aging, which enraged the army so much, that they im-
mediately flew to their arms, to chastise the affront with-
oul more delay : " when suddenly God, against whose will
• Gesta Dei, p. 1028.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 36f
men can do nothing, sent such Tiolent showers, such
darkness in the skj, such difficulty in the roads, by means
of the vast quantities of water in them, that scarce any
one could hope for life. Which the darkness of the air,
and thickness of the clouds, the irregular blowing of the
winds, also the thunders and continual lightnings, signified
before hand. But as the human mind is ignorant of futu-
rity, they did not attend to the Divine patience calling to
desist, but, on the contrary, strove to proceed in an im-
possible attempt.** The intemperateness of the weather
however obliged them, this author observes, to desist ;
and made them, who bad been at first such a terror to
their enemies that they had no hopes of escaping, look
upon it as a particular providence to be able to get back
again.*
I cite this long account from William of Tyre, because
it may be considered as a comment on 1 Sam. vii. 10, 11,
The Philistines drew near to the battle against Israel :
hut the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that
day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them, and they
were smitten before Israel; and the men of Israel went
out of Mispeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote
fhem until, &c. In this however they differed, that the
people of Damascus did not improve the advantage with
the vigour that Israel did.
OBSERVATION LXXIV.
HAIL AND RAIN DREADFUL IN THE EAST.
Had hail been mingled with the rain, Baldwin's army
would have been in a still more dangerous situation : such
hail as that Albertus Aquensis describes, which fell when
Baldwin I. was with Lis army in the mountains of Arabia,
beyond the Dead Sea ; at the top of which, he tells us,
* Gesta Dei, &c. p. 849.
358 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
thej had to encounter with the greatest dangers, from a
horrible hail, terrible ice, unheard of rain and snow, which
were such, (hat thirty of the foot died with cold,*
Something of this kind, I presume, the Canaanifes suf-
fered in Iheir flight from Joshua, in a mountainous part of
Judea, Joshua x. 11. But it must have been much more
destructive to people that were fleeing before their
enemies, than to those Albertus mentions; as they doubt-
less had thrown away their clothes in part for the sake of
expedition,! dared not to stop for shelter, and were run»
ning along in a mountainous place, among precipices. J
OBSERVATION LXXV-
CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF 2 KINGS vii. 15,
Saladine's army, which was defeated by Baldwin IV.
near Gaza, sufifered in like manner in their flight by rain
and cold ; but I mention it not to illustrate either Joshua x.
11, or 1 Sam. vii. 10, 11, but on the account of itsbeinga
picture in other respects of the flight of the Syrians, men-
tioned 2 Kings vii. 15. And they went after them unto
Jordany and to, all the way was full of garments and
vesselsy which the Syrians had cast away in their haste.
Saladine's army, in like manner, being vigorously pur-
sued till night came on, and as far as a certain standing
water, surrounded with reeds, twelve miles olT, were con-
tinually cut off in great numbers. To fly therefore with
great expedition, they threw away their arms and clothes,
• Gesta Dei, he. p. 307. f See 2 Kings vii. 15.
♦ The danger of -which is sufficiently seen, in the account William of
Tyre has given of the flight of some Turks that came to take Jerusalem,
but were received by the inhabitants with such gallantry, that fleeing from
them, along the mountainous road that leads from that city to Jordan,
many of them fell headlong down the precipices, and miserably perished.
Gesta Dei, ?<rc. p. 922, 923.
MIUTARY STATE OF JUDEA. 369
and abandoned tbeir baggage, and by this means some of
those that were strongest and had swift horses,^ escaped ;
the rest were killed or taken. Those that escaped as far
as the abovementioned fennj place, if they had anything
of weight still remaining, such as coats of mail, or greaves
of iron, threw them among the reeds, or still further into
the water itself, that they might move quicker, and that
the armour, being concealed in the water, might neither
be of any afterservice to the Christians, nor be kept by
them as trophies of their victory. But in vain : for those
that closely pursued them, diligently searched that place,
that night and the following day, and with proper instru-
ments quickly found what they had concealed in it ; " and
we have been informed," says the historian, '* by people
of credit, who were eye witnesses, that an hundred coals
of mail were drawn out of that place in one day, besides
iron boots, and things which, though of less weight, were
both useful and valuable." He then mentions how miser-
ably these naked fugitives were harrassed with incessant
rains, and unusual cold weather, which began the next
day, and continued ten days together. f
The Syrians, struck with a panic, left many of their
garments in like manner in the road to Jordan, and of
their vessels, or arms, as I suppose the word O'bj keleem
means, as Saladine's army did, for the original word in
* D' Arvieux tells us, " the Arabs generally ride mares, as more
proper for their purpose ; experience having taught them, that they can
better endure fatigue, hunger, and thirst, than male animals of that species ;
they are also more gentle, less vicious, and produce annually a foal." He
adds, ** that their mares never neigh, and are therefore more proper for
their lying in ambush." Voy. dans la Palestine, chap. 11. The transla-
tors of the Septuagint seem to have had the same notion, translating that
■word which our version renders stalls, by a term which signifies females.
1 Kings iv. 26, 2 Chron ix. 25. It does not appear that their translation is
just; but it plainly marks out, that they supposed Solomon's cavalry was
like the modern Arab cavalry, of the female gender. An observation which
may not, perhaps, be displeasing to some of my readers, as the Septua-
gint translation migrit otherwise appear a very strange one.
t Gesta Dei, p. 1010.
370 ^t' TH^ NATURAL, CIVIL, AXD
the book of Kings is known to signify arms as well as ves-
sels, and (he rest perhaps were thrown into the river.
The horses and asses that were left in the camp, ac-
cording to the seventh verse, were doubtless the beasts
of burden, used by them for the carriage of their tents
and provisions, which their terror made them leave be-
hind ; and as the troops of the Syrians seem to have
been horse, see 2 Kings vi. 15, it is no wonder they made
no use of their heavier moving animals in their flight, but
left them.
OBSERVATION LXXVI.
A SWORD HANGING AT THE NECK, A TOKEN OF HUMILIA-
TION AND SUBJECTION.
This flight of the Syrians puts us in mind of another
flight of theirs, related in the 1 Kings, in the account of
which a circumstance is mentioned that engages atten-
tion : And his sei'vants said unto him, (Benhadad) Be-
hold now we have heard that the kings of the house of Is-
rael are merciful kings : let us, I yray thee, put sack-
cloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go
out to the king of Israel ; peradventure he will save thy
life. So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put
ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel. ^
The approaching persons with a sword hanging to
the neck is, in the East, thought to be a very humble and
submissive coming before them. So William of Tyre,
describing the great solemnity and humiliation with which
the governor of Egypt, under the khaliph of that country,
appeared before his master, tells hs, he prostrated him-
self on the ground thrice, with his sword hanging to his
Heck, which at the third prostration he took off and laid
down.f
* 1 Kings XX. 31, S2. f Gesta Dei, p. 965,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 271
And, what is more to the purpose. Thevenot has
mentioned this circumstance, in the account he has given
of the taising of Bagdat by the Turks, in one thousand
six hundred and thirty eight, drawn from a letter, written
by a person of distinction in the Turkish army to one of
the Sangiacks of Egypt ; for, upon the begging for quar-
ter by the besieged, he that was the lieutenant and the
principal officer of the governor of Bagdat, we are told,
went to the Grand Visierwilh a scarf about his neck, and
his sword wreathed in it ; which is, he says, an ignomin-
ious mark of submission, and begged, both in his own and
master's name, Amaiif that is to say, pardon and mercy;
and having obtained it, the governor came, and was in-
troduced to the Grand Seignior, and obtained not only a
confirmation of the promise of life that had been made him,
but divers presents too of value.*
Thevenot supposed the hanging the sword about the
neck was an ignominious mark of submission ; but ita
being used by the governor of Egypt, when he appeared
before his master shows, that though it was an expression
of humiliation and perfect submission, it was not an igno-
minious one; but a token it undoubtedly was of such re-
spect, as was thought proper for the conquered to pay
the victor when they begged their lives ; and as such
was used, I suppose, by Benhadad ; for those ropes
about the necks of his servants were, I should imagine,
what they suspended their swords with, if the customs of
later times may be thought to be explanatory of those of
elder days, as in the East they often are.
* Part I, p. 289.
372 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND ^
OBSERVATION LXXVII.
CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF 1 KiNGS XX. 34,
Benhadad was received to mercj, and treated with
respect ; and upon this occasion promised to restore to the
kingdom of Israel, the cilies his father had taken from it,
And thou shall make, ssiid he to Ahdih, streets for thee
ill Damascus, as my father made in Samaria, 1 Kings
XX. 34.
This was a proposal better relished by Ahab, than un-
derstood by commentators. Bishop Patrick tells us, some
suppose the word mvn c/ii(/so//t, signifies market places,
where things were sold, the toll of which should belong to
Ahab ; others think, he meant courts of judicature, where
he should exercise a jurisdiction over the Syrians ; others
what we now call a piazza, "* of which he should receive
the rents ; but commonly, he says, interpreters understand
by the word fortifications, or citadels, as we now speak ;
none of which suppositions however, pleased Gotf. Val-
landus, who attempts to prove that palaces are meant, the
building of which by Ahab being a token of subjection in
Benhadad.
Perhaps the privileges which we know were actually
granted to the Venetians for their aid, by the states of the
kingdom of Jerusalem in the time of the captivity of Bald-
win II. may more satisfactorily explain these words of
Benhadad. William of Tyre, the greatest historian of
the Croisades, has preserved that ancient instrument,!
which the curious reader may consult, and in which he
* Or ratlier what is called by Rauwolfl' a foncUque camp, carvatschara,
or caravanserie, p. 24, 30, and by others a kune ; that is a great house,
built like a cloister round a great courtyard, and full of warehouses and
apartments, in which foreign merchants are wont to live, or travellers to
repair, as to an inn.
t Gesta Dei, p. 830, 831.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDE.\. 3^3
ivill find ample room for the exercise of the talents of aa
antiquary. It will be sufficient here to observe, that it
appears from that conventionjSS well as from the accounts
that he has elsewhere given of the privileges granted to
other nations for their assistance, that they were wont to
assign churches, and to give streets, in their towns and
cities, to those foreign nations, together with great liberties
and jurisdiction in these streets. Thus that historian tells
us, that the Genoese had a street in Accon, or St. John
d'Acre, together with full jurisdiction in it, and a churchy
as a reward for taking that city,* together with a third
part of the dues of the port. So the above mentioned
ancient instrument very clearly shows that the Venetians
had a street also in Accon ; and explains what this full
jurisdiction in a street means, by giving them liberty to
have in their street there an oven, mill, bagnio,t weights
and measures for wine, oil, and honey, if they thought fit,
and also to judge causes among themselves, together with
as great a jurisdiction over all those that dwelt in their
street and houses, of whatever nation they might be, as
the king of Jerusalem had over others.
May we not believe, that the same, or nearly the same
franchises and regalities that were granted the Venetians
and Genoese, to obtain aid from them, the father of Ahab
had granted to Benhadad's father to obtain peace, and
which Benhadad, upon this fatal turn of his affairs, pro-
posed to grant to Ahab in Damascus ; a quarter for his
subjects to live in, and which he should possess^ and en-
joy the same jurisdiction over, as he did the rest of his
kingdom. Such a power in Samaria, and such a making
over a part of it to him, in annexing it to the kingdom of
* Page 791.
f The privilege of having a bagnio of their own, is explained by some-
thing mentioned p. $78 ; as is that of having weights and measures, by a
paragraph in p. 124; it appearing that the bagnios paid certain duties to
the Eastern princes of those times, who also received some of their dues
from weights and measures.
VOL. III. 48
§74 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
Syria, with a right of building such idol temples as h«
thought fit, was a sufficient disgrace to the father of Ahab ;
and the proposing to give Ahab now a like honor in Da-
mascus, an expression of a very abject adulation in Ben-
hadad. As the things that commentators have mention-
ed, are either not of importance enough to answer the
general representations of matters in the history ; or ab-
solutely destructive ; a medium is to be sought for.
OBSERVATION LXXVIII.
4
BARBAROUS CUSTOMS USED BY VICTORS AGAINST THE
DEAD BODIES OF THEIR ENEMIES.
As the Indians of North America are not content with
killing their enemies, but produce their scalps as proofs
of the number they have destroyed ; it will not be thought
strang-e, I presume, that something of the like kind ob-
tained anciently in Asia too, but it is surprising to find
some traces of it still there.
These ocular proofs of their success in war are agree-
able enough to unpolished times : such was the age of
Saul, when he required some unequivocal marks of David's
having destroyed an hundred Philistines, or at least hea-
thens, and that they should be brought before him, 1
Sam. xviii. 25, 27. But it is somewhat astonishing to
find something of the like sort lately practised in so po-
lite a country as Persia; yet the MS. C. assures us, that
in the war of the Persians against the Yuzbecs, the Per-
sians took the beards of their enemies, and carried them
to the king. Strange custom to be retained I
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 376
OBSERVATION LXXIX.
PARTICULAR PLACES USED FOR PKAYEU PREVIOUS TO
BATTLE,
Apprehensive of these fatal turns in war, they were
wont anciently to perform very solemn devotions before
they went out to battle, and at particular places. So it is
said that the Israelites, in the time of Judas the Macca-
bee, assembled themselves to Maspha, over against Jeru-
salem ; for that in Maspha was the place where they
prayed aforetime in Israel, 1 Mace. iii. 46.
The desolation of the Temple, and the Gentiles being
in possession of a strong place adjoining to it, might in-
duce Judas to assemble the people at some other place :
the fortyfifth verse seems to assign these reasons for it:
but that Maspha should be chosen as a place where they
before prayed in Israel on such public occasions, is
strange, as it does not appear that either the Tabernacle
or the Ark was ever placed there, in the times preceding
the building of the Temple at Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, the Apocryphal writer seems tobe justified
in what he says, by Judges xx. 1, and 1 Sam. vii. 5 — 7,
supposing Maspha means the same place with Mizpeh,of
which no one doubts. For the first passage teaches us
that Israel assembled before the Lord at Mizpeb, at a
time when the Ark was at Bethel, according to the twenty-
seventh verse of that chapter ; and by the second it ap-
pears that Samuel convened the people at Mizpeh, in or-
der to prepare them by solemn devotions for war with the
Philistines, and the Philistines understood a meeting of
Israel to be introductory to war, and by the first verse of
that chapter it appears, that the Ark was at that time at
Kirjath-Jearim. As for the Tabernacle, it is not suppos-
ed to have ever been at Mizpeb.
/
liX6 ^^ THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
I confess this has often perplexed me. A passage %
met with in the first volume of Pococke's Travels into
the East,* recalled this difficulty to my mind, with the
pleasing thought, that possibly it might serve to explain
it. What the learned may think of it, I do not know ;
but I would offer it to their consideration, whether the
custom he mentions may not be a remain of ancient East-
ern usages.
Pococke's account is this : *' Near Cairo, beyond the
mosque of Sheikh Duise, and the neighbourhood of a
burial place of the sons of some Pashas, on a hill, is a solid
building of stone, about three feet wide, built with ten
steps, being at the top about three feet square, on which
the Sheikh mounts to pray on any extraordinary occasion,
when all the people go out, as at the beginning of a war :
and here in Egypt, when the Nile does not rise as they
expect it should ; and such a place they have without all
the towns throughout Turkey."
There are several remarkable mosques, according to
Pococke's account, in and about Cairo, one of them of
surprising magnificence, another of great antiquity, yet
none of these are made use of it seems on these occasions ;
but this little place near the mosque of Sheikh Duise is
appropriated to this service.
Every town in Turkey, according to this author, has
such a place. If this is exact, it does not appear how-
ever that they were anciently so common in Judea.
Mizpeh, if not the only place where prayers of this sort
"were wont to be made, which indeed we can hardly sup-
pose, was at least celebrated on this account, and was
perhaps near some plentiful fountain of water, or other-
^\'ise proper for the assembling Israel together for ware
* Page 36.
MiLITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 37r
OBSERVATION LXXX.
JPEOPLE IN THE EAST OFTEN CARRY THEIR WHOLE
FAMILIES ^flTH THEM WHEN THEY GO TO WAR.
It is not a very unusual thing, in the East, for persons
to carry their whole family with them when (hey go to
war.
The mention of little ones as being with Ittai the Git-
tite, when he attended king David flying before his son
Absalom, 2 Samuel xv. 22, appears very strange to us;
and for this reason it is that Sir J. Chardin tells us, in a
note on that place, in his MS. that it is usual with the
greatest part of the Eastern people to do thus, and es-
pecially the Arabs.
OBSERVATION LXXXI.
:JHE GRANTING OF A BANNER, A SIGN OF PROTECTION*
The satisfaction Benhadad received, touching the
safety of his life, appears to have been by words ; but it
seems that the modern Eastern people, have looked upon
the giving them a banner as a more sure pledge of pro-
tection.
So Albertus Aquensis tells us, that when Jerusalem
was taken in 1099, about three hundred Saracens got
upon the roof of a very lofty building, and earnestly beg-
ged for quarter, but could not be induced by any prom-
ises of safety to come down, until they had received the
banner of Tancred, one of the chiefs of the Croisade army,
as a pledge of life. It did not indeed avail them, as that
historian observes ; for their behaviour occasioned such
icdignation, that they were destroyed to a man.* The
* GestaDei, 8cc. p. 282.
378 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
event showed the fiiithlessness of these zealots, whom no
solemnities could bind; but the Saracens surrendering
themselves upon the delivery of a standard to them,
proves in what a strong light they looked upon the giving
them a banner, since it induced them to Irust it, when
they would not trust any promises.
Perhaps the delivery of a banner was anciently esteem-
ed, in like manner, an obligation to protect, and that the
Psalmist might consider it in this light, "^ when, upon a
victory gained over the Syrians and Edomites, after the
public affairs of Israel had been in a bad state, he says,
Thou hast shewed thy people hard thingSy &c. Thoxi
hast given a banner to themthatfear thee. Though thou
didst for a time give up thine Israel into the hands of their
enemies, thou hast now given them an assurance of thy
having received them under thy protection.
When the Psalmist is represented as saying, Thouhast
given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be diS'
played, it may be questioned whether it is rightly trans-
lated, since it is most probable they used anciently only a
spear, properly ornamented, to distinguish it from a com-
mon one, as this same Albertus tells us, that a very long
spear, covered all over with silver,f to which another
writer J of those Croisade wars adds a ball of gold on the
top, was the standard of the Egyptian princes at that
time, and carried before their armies. Thon hast given
a banner, D3 nes, an ensign, or a standard, to them that
fear thee, that it may be lifted tip, may perhaps be a bet-
ter version ; or rather, that they may lift it up to them-
selves,\\ or encourage themselves with the confident per-
suasion that they are under the protection of God, be-
cause of the truth, thy word of promise,^ which is an as-
♦ Ps. Ix. 3, 4. t Gesta Dei, &c. p. 288.
^ Robertas Monachus, Gesta Dei, &c. p. 80.
II For tlie MOrd DDl^finv le futhnoses is of the conjugatioa called Hilh-
pahel.
§ 1 Chron. xvii. 9, 10.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 3f9
surance of protection, like the giving me and my people a
banner, the surest of pledges.
OBSERVATION LXXXII.
THE HEADS OF ENEMIES CUT OTF TO SERVE FOR A
TRIUMPH.
Bishop Patrick is silent about the design of the peo-
ple concerned in the cutting off the head of king Saul,
after his death, and the intention of David in taking away
with him the head of Goliath, after he had certainly killed
hitn by separating it from his body ; but Sanctius very
justly supposes, both were done in a way of triumph.*^
The instances Sanctius has produced, in confirmation
of his supposition, are taken from the Roman and Grecian
histories; it will perhaps, be a considerable addition to
our satisfaction, to have some adduced from the manage-
ments of people, whose customs more nearly resemble
those of the Old Testament. I will therefore set down
such here.
Barbarossa, Morgan tells us, in his history of Algiers^
having conquered the king of Cucco, and his army of
African Highlanders, which prince lost his life in the con-
test, Barbarossa returned in triumph, with the slain king's
head carried before him on a lance.f This is, I presume,
exactly what was done with the head of Saul : it was car-
ried in triumph on a lance before the victorious general of
the Philistine army, upon its return to their own country.
David's taking away the head of Goliath, from the place
where the dead body lay, is, I imagine, to be placed in a
somewhat different light, and paralleled with another trans-
action in the same writer. The people of Tremizan, it
seems, struck off the head of an usurping king, against
whom they had complained to Barbarossa, after his flight
* Vide Poll. Syn. in loc. f Page 232.
380 OP THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
from the field of battle, in which Barbarossa had worsted
him, and sent it to Barbarossa on a lance's point.* IVIiert
then David returned from th^ slaughter of the Philistine,
and that Abner took and brought him before Saul, with
the head of the Philistine in his hand, 1 Sam. xvii. 57,
we are to understand the passage, as signifying, that David
having taken away the head, with a view to the solemn
presenting it to Saul,f he was introduced into the rojal
presence, holding a spear in his hand, with Goliath's head
on the point of it, which he presented with Eastern cer-
emony to his prince. J
The unmartial engraver of the curious maps that so
agreeably adorn Reland's Palaestinahas been very unhap-
py here : he represents David? in the ornamental part of
the map of the country of the Philistines, as a youth with
a great sword in one hand, and holding up the head of
Goliath in the other, like one of our executioners holding
up the head of a traitor : his appearing before Saul with
the head of the Philistine in his hand ; was, undoubtedly,
in a very different attitude. But the ideas of multitudes
that read the passage, we may justly believe, are much
more conformable to those of this Hollander, than to those
excited in the miiid upon reading the story in Morgan.
I would add, that as the arrangement of circumstances
in the history of Sisera will not allow us to imagine that
Jael presented his head with solemnity to Barak; or that
she cut it off, in order to its being carried in triumph be-
fore that general ; there is reason to believe that our ver-
sion, in Judges v. 26, is not exact: with a hammer she
* Page 249.
t Niebuhr, I have lately observed, gives a similar accouat of the Southern
Arabs, p. 263.
tThe head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, was, probably presented to
David by Baanah and Rechab, with the same kind of pai-ade, 2 Sam. iv. 8.
Sometimes heads are carried in basins in triumph. Dr. Perry gives two
instances, p. 168 and 185, He also mentions eleven heads carried in a
sheet to a Bashaw, and afterward ranged on a bench in a public place, p.
189. Compare 2 Kings x. 7, 8,
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. og|
smole Sisera, she smote off his head when she had pierced
and stricken through the temples.
Different as this management is from our rules of war,
some of the next Observations will give us an account of
usages still more strange in our apprehensions, and es-
peciallj that which describes the sealing up of eyes.
OBSERVATION LXXXIII.
HEADS, HANDS AND FEET, OF STATE CRIMINALS CUT OFF.
They frequenllj cut off the hands and the (eet of peo-
ple in times of tumult and disorder, and afterward ex-
pose them, as well as the head ; the same thing was done
sometimes anciently.
Lady Wortley Montague, speaking of the Turkish
minister of state, tells us, " that if a minister displeases
the people, in three hours time he is dragged even from his
master's arms; they cut off his hands, head and feet, and
throw them before the palace gate, with all the respect in
the world; while the Sultan, to whom they ail profess an
unlimited adoration, sits trembling in his apartment," &c.
Lett.v. 2, p. 19.
This cutting off the hands and feet, of those that have
behaved ill in matters of state, strange as it may seem to
us, is only an old Eastern custom, not yet worn out ; for
we find the hands and feet of the sons of Rimmon, who
slew Ishbosheth, were cut off, and hanged up over the
pool Hebron, 2 Sam. iv. 12.
It seems then to be a false refinement in those com-
mentators who suppose the hands of Baanah and Rechab
were cut off, because they were employed in murdering
Ishbosheth; and their feet, because they made use of
them to go to the place of assassination, or in carrying off
that prince's head: whatever may be thought of cutting
off the assassinating hands, it cannot be pretended, with
VOL. III. 49
'*\\o OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
any show of reason, that the feet were more guilly than
any other limb. The truth seems to be, these were the
parts wont to be cut off from state criminals, as well as
their heads, whether they had or had not been particular-
ly accessary to their guilt.
The hanging thera up at the pool in Hebron seems to
have been merely on account of its being a place of great
resort.
1 leave it to thecurious to consider whether Providence
designed any reference to this ancient punishment, in
secretly directing the second fall of Dagon so, as that its
head, and palms of its hands, were cut off, 1. Sam. v. 4.
OBSERVATION LXXXIV.
CURIOUS ACCOUNTS OF EASTERN PRISONS.
The treatment of those that are shut up in the Eastern^
prisons differs from our usages, but serves to illustrate
several passages of Scripture.
The MS. C.'^ relates several circumstances concerning
their prisons, which are curious, and should not be
omitted.
In the first place, he tells us that the Eastern prisons
are not public buildings erected for that purpose ; but a
part of the house in which their criminal judges dwell.
As the governor and provost of a town, or the captain of
the wa(ch, imprisoned such as are accused in their own
houses, they set apart a canton of it for that purpose,
when Ihey are put inio these offices, and choose for the
jailor the most proper person they can find of their do-
mestics.
Sir John supposes the prison in which Joseph, together
with the chief butler and chief baker of Pharaoh, was put
in Potiphar'is own house. But I would apply this account
• Vol. 6.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 383
to (he illustra'ion of anotber passage of Scripture : IVhere-
fore, it is said, Jer. xxxvii. 15, the princes were rvrolh
wilh Jeremiah, and srnole him, and jnit him in prison
in the house of Jonathan the scribe ; fo"^' they had made
that the prison. Here we see a dwelling house was made
a prison ; and the house of an eminent person, for it was
the house of a scribe, which title, marks out a person of
quality litis certain it does so in some places of J ererjiiah,
particularly ch. xxxvi. 12, Then he went down into the
king^s house into the scribe^ s chamber, and lo, all the
princes sat there, even Elishama the scribe, and Be-
laiah, &,c. The making thehouse of Jonathan the prison,
would not now in the East be doing him any dishonor,
or occasion the looking upon him in a mean light ; it
would rather mark out the placing him in an office of im-
portance. It is probable it was so anciently, F.nd that his
house became a prison, when Jonathan was made the royal
scribe, and became, like the chamber of Elishama, one
of the prisons of the people.
A second thing relating to the Eastern prisons, taken
notice of in this MS. is, that a discretionary power is
given to the keeper to treat his prisoners just as he
pleases; all that is required of him being only to produce
them when called for; whereas in Europe their treatment
is regulated by humanity and equity. After having re-
marked, that several things he mentions relating to the
imprisonment of Joseph, must appear very unaccountable
to an European, he goes on to this purpose : *' Those that
have observed the manners of the modern Eastern people,
will find that the like things are practised among them:
they have not dilTerent prisons for the different classes of
criminals; the judges do not trouble themselves about
where the prisoners are confined, or how they are treated,
they considering it merely as a place of safety, and all
that they require of the jailor is, that the prisoner be
forth coming when called for. As to the rest, he is mas-
ter to do as he pleases, to treat him well or ill; to put
384 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
him in irons or not; to shut him up close, or hold him in
easier restraint ; to admit people to him, or to suffer no-
body to see him. If the jailor and his servants have large
fees, let a person be the greatest rascal in the world, he
shall be lodged in the jailor's own apartment, and the best
part of it ; and on the contrary, if those that have im-
prisoned a man give the jailor greater presents, or that
he has a greater regard for them, he will treat the prison-
er with the greatest inhumanity." To illustrate this, he
gives us a story of the treatment a very great Armenian
merchant met with : " treated with the greatest caresses
upon the jailor's receiving a considerable present from
bim at first, and fleecing him after from time to time;
theii, upon the party's presenting something considerable,
first to the judge, and afterward to the jailor, who sued
the Armenian, the prisoner first fe\t his privileges re-
trenched, was then closely confined, was then treated
with such inhumanity as not to be permitted to drink
above once in twentyfour hours, and this in the hottest
time of summer, nor anybody suffered to come near him,
but the servants of the prison, and at length thrown into
a dungeon, where he was in a quarter of an hour, brought
to the point to which all this severe usage was intended
to force him."
What energy does this account of an Eastern prison
give those passages of Scripture, that speak of the sighing
of the prisoners,* audits coming before God! of Jeremi-
ah's being kept in a dungeon many days, and his suppli-
cating that he might not be remanded thither, lest he
should die there. f
• Ps. Ixxxix. 11. t Jer. xxxvii. 16—20.
/
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 385
OBSERVATION LXXXV.
OF THEIR WRITINGS RELATIVE TO THE CONVEYANCE
OF PROPERTY.
The double evidences of Jeremiah's purchase, which
are mentioned ch. xxxii. 11, seems a strange management
in their civil concerns ; yet something of the like kind
obtains still among them.
Both the writings were in the hands of Jeremiah, and
at his disposal, verse 14 ; for what purpose then were du-
plicates made ? To those that are unacquainted with the
Eastern usages, it must appear a question of some diffi-
culty.
*' The open or unsealed writing," says an eminent com-
mentator, ** was either a copy of the sealed deed, or else
a certificate of the witnesses, in whose presence the deed
of purchase was signed and sealed. ""^ But it still re-
curs, of what use was a copy that was to be buried in the
same earthen vessel, and run exactly the same risks with
the original? If by a certificate is meant a deed of the
witnesses, by which they attested the contract of Jere-
miah and Hananeel, and the original deed of purchase had
no witnesses at all, then it is natural to ask, why were
they made separate writings ? and much more, why was
one sealed, and not the other ?
Sir J. Chardin's account of modern managements,
which he thinks illustrates this ancient story, is, ** that
after a contract is made, it is kept by the party himself,
not the notary ; and they cause a copy to be made, sign-
ed by the notary alone, which is shown upon proper oc-
casions, and never exhibit the other.''
According to this account, the two books were the
same, the one sealed up with solemnity, and not to be
used on common occasions; that which was open, the same
• Lowth Com. on Jer, xxxii. 11,
586 O? I'^I^' NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
writing, to be perused at pleasure, and made use of upon
all occasions. The sealed one answered a record wilh us ;
ihe other, a writing for common use.
OBSERVATION LXXXVJ.
SEALING DP THE EYES, USED IN THE EAST.
The very mention of ihe sealing up of eyes appears to
us very odd, yet this is an Eastern management, and used
on different occasions.
It is one of the solemnities at a Jewish wedding, at
Aleppo, according to Dr. Russell, who mentions it as the
most remarkable thing in their ceremonies at that time.^'
It is done by fastening the eye lids together with gum,
and ihe bridegroom is the person, he says, if he remem-
bered right, that opens his bride's eyes at the appointed
time.
It is used also as a punishment in those countries. So
Sir Thomas Roe's chaplain, in his account of his voyages
to East India, tells us of a son of the Great Mogul, whom
he had seen, and with whom Sir Thomas had conversed,
that had before that time been cast into prison by his
father, ** where his eyes were sealed up," by something
put before them, which might not be taken off, " for the
space of three years ; after which time, that seal was taken
away, that he might with freedom enjoy the light, though
not his liberty."! The same writer informs u , that he
was afterward taken out of prison, but still kept under a
guard, in which situation he saw him, though it was be-
lieved to be the intent of his father, to make this prince,
who was his first born, his successor, though out of seme
jealousy, he being much beloved by the people, he de-
nied him his liberty.
Other princes have been treated after a different man-
ner: when it has been thought fit to keep them under,
• First Edit. p. 152. f Page 471, 472.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. S87
they have had drugs ordered them, fo render Ihem stupid
and inattentive to things. Thus Olearius tells us,* that
Shah Abas, the celebrated Persian monarch who died in
16*29, ordered a certain quantity of opium should every
day be given to his grandson, who was to be his succes-
sor, in order to render him stupid, that he might not have
any reason to apprehend danger from hipj.
J do not know that there is any reason to suspect a ref-
erence to this Jewish sealing up of eyes, in their mar-
riage solemnities, in the Scripture 5 but I would ask,
whether there may not be some ground to believe, the
Prophet Isaiah alludes to these two different methods of
treating other people, in chap. xliv. 18 ? Jliey have not
known, nor understood : for he hath shut their eyes,
daubed their eyes is the marginal translation, which is
known to be the exact import of the original words,
Dn'J>' niNnrD HD o ki tach meraoth eineyhem, that they
cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understands
Is the supposition void of all probability, and altogether
absurd?
If there is any thing at all in if, there is equally an al-
lusion to this method of applying stupifying drugs, in
Isaiah vi. 10, I should suppose, where the Prophet says.
Make the heart of this 2)eoplc fat, and make their ears
heavy, and shut their eyes ; test they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,
and convert and be healed, I do not imagine there is an ,
allusion to three different operations here: because it is
not only difficult to conceive, what other operation the
making the ears heavy should allude to ; but because one
single thing, the stupifying the senses, would be abun-
dantly sufficient to answer this whole description ; for in
such a situation, with ears open, they would not be able
to hear to any purpose ; and with eyes unsealed, they
would not be able to see with any advantage to themselves.
Two things possibly might be intended; and shutting the
* Pasre 915.
3S8 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
eyes mean scaling them ; but we cannot suppose three;
perhaps one only is meant ; the slupifying them.
How beautiful in this view do these words appear,
which have been painful and difficult to many ! the quality
of the persons treated after this manner ; the tenderness
expressed in these sorts of punishment; the temporary
nature of them ; and the affer design of making them par-
takers of the highest honors; which appear in the rela-
tions of Olearius and of Sir Thomas's chaplain, all serve
to throw a softness over this dispensation of Providence,
toward those that deserved great severity, which will
appear, I dare say, perfectly new to many of my readers.
The Jews, to whom the words of the sixth chapter re-
late, will not be displeased with such an illustration; but
it ought to be observed also, that they were the Gentiles,
who were abandoned of God to stupid idolatries, that
chap. xliv. 18, refers to ; the dereliction of both by God,
at different periods being dreadfully deserved by both ;
and being appointed with designs of mercy as to both ;
which general thought is certainly true, being the doc-
trine of St. Paul in the xith to the Romans, whatever
may be thought of this illustration of these passages, de-
duced from modern Oriental customs.
OBSERVATION LXXXVII.
TREASURES HIDDEN UNDER GROUND, SUrPOSED IN THE
EAST TO BE DISCOVERABLE BY SORCERY.
As treasures are frequently hidden under ground in the
East, by those that are apprehensive of revolutions; so
the finding them is one great object, in their apprehen-
sions, of sorcery.
We are told by travellers into the East, that they have
met with great difficulties very often, from a notion uni-
versally disseminated among them, that all Europeans
are magicians, and that their visits to those Eastern coun-
"* MILITARY STATE OP JUDEA. 389
tries are not to satisfy curiosity, but to find ou(, and get
possession of those vast treasures they believe to be
buried there in great quantilies.
These representations are very common ; but Sir J,
Chardin's MS. in a note on a passage of the Apocrypha,^
gives us a more particular and amusing account of affairs
of this kind. *'It is common in the Indies, for those sor-
cerers that accompany conquerors, every where to point
out the place where treasures are hid. Thus at Surat,
when Siragi came thither, there were people who, with a
stick striking on the ground, or against walls, found out
those that had be^n hollowed or dug up, and ordered
such places to be opened." He then intimates, that
something of this nature had happened to him in Miu-
grelia.
Among the various contradictions that agitate the hu-
man breast, this appears to be a remarkable one : they
firmly believe the power of magicians to discover hidden
treasures, and yet they continue to hide them.
Dr. Perry has given us an account of some mighty
treasures hidden in the ground by some of the principal
people of the Turkish empire, which upon a revolution
were discovered by domestics, privy to the secret.f
D'Herbelot has given us accounts of treasures concealed
in the same manner, some of them of great princes, dis-
covered by accidents extremely remarkable ;t but this
account of Chardin's, of conquerors pretending to find
out hidden treasures by means of sorcerers, is very ex-
traordinary.
As however people of this cast have made great pre-
tences to mighty things in all ages, and were not unfre-
quently confided in by princes, there is reason to believe
they pretended sometimes, by their art, to discover treas-
ures anciently to princes, of which they had gained in-
* 1 Mace. i. 23. t P^S^ ''^•
+ Voy. I'Art. Amadeddulat, p. 107; et I'Art. Ismail Saniani, p. 502, 503.
VOL. III. 50
\
390 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
felllgence by other methods : and as God opposed his
Prophets, at various times, ^ to pretended sorcerers, it is
not unlikely that the Prophet Isaiah points at some such
prophetic discoveries in those remarkable words Is. xlv.
3. A7id I will g;ive thee the treasures of darkness, and
hidden riches of sacred places, that thou rnayest know,
that I the Lord which call thee by thy name, am the God
of Israel: I will give them, by enabling some Prophet
of mine to tell thee where they are concealed.
Such a supposition throws a great energy into those
words.
Great also was the extent of the prohibition to the Jew-
ish people, not to consult sorcerers : they were neither to
do it as Saul did, to know the event of a war; nor after
they had conquered, to find out the treasures of the van-
quished.
OBSERVATION LXXXVIII.
TAXES PAID IN KIND, 1. 6. BY A PART OF THE PRODUCE
OF THE FIELD.
The Eastern people to this day, it seems, support I he
expenses of government, in common, by paying such a
proportion of the produce of their lands to their princes.
These are their taxes. No wonder it was so in remo-
ter ages.
The MS. C. gives us this account : *< The revenues of
princes in the East are paid in the fruits and productions
of the earth. There are no other taxes upon the peas-
ants."t
The twelve officers of Solomon then, mentioned 1 Kings
iv. ir — 19, are to be considered as his general receivers.
They furnished food for all that belonged to the king; and
* Exod. vii. II, ch. viii. 19, and Is. xliv. 25.
•|- This is mentioned in a note on 1 Esdras iv. 6, and another on 1 Mac
X. 29.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 39 1
tlie having provisions for themselves and attendants, seems
to have been, in those times of simplicity, all the ordinary
gratification his ministers of state, as well as his meaner
servants, received. Silver, gold, horses, armour, precious
vestments, and other things of value, came to him from
other quarters : partly a kind of tribute from the surround-
ing princes, 1 Kings x. 15, 25 ; partly from the merchants,
whom he suffered to pass through his country to and
from Egypt, or elsewhere, ver. 15 ; partly from his own
commerce bv the Red Sea, ver. 22.
The horses and armour he seems to have distributed
among the most populous towns, who were to find horse-
men and people to drive chariots to such a number when
called for; and out of the silver, and other precious
things that came to him, he made presents upon extraor-
dinary occasions to those that distinguished themselves
in his service, 1 Kings x. 26, 27.
And according to this plan of conducting the expenses
of civil government, the history of Solomon is to be ex-
plained. Commentators have not always had this present
to their minds when illustrating this part of Scripture.
Sir J. Chardin even supposes the telling the flocks, Jer.
xxxiii. 13, was for the purpose of pa^'ing tribute, it being
the custom in the East to count the f]ocks, in order to
take the third of the increase and j- oung ones for the king.*
OBSERVATION LXXXIX.
MONEY COUNTED AND SEALED UP IN BAGS^ OR PURSES
OF VARIOUS AMOUNT.
The money that is collected together in the treasuries
of Eastern princes is told up in certain equal sums, put
into bags, and sealed ; it appears to have been so anciently.
• It was not so large a proportion in the time of Samuel, 1 Sam. viii. 17,
but must have been thought a heavy burden, when this eagerness after
their nation's having regul glory among them like others, was a little
abated.
392 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
The r»I3. C. in a note on Tobit'iK. 5, tells us, "it is Ihe
custom of Persia always to seal up bags of money, and Ibe
money of the king's treasure is not tolit, but is received
by bags sealed up.
These are what are called, in some other parts of the
Levant, purses, I presume; where tliey reckon great ex-
penses by so many purses. Each of these, Maillet in-
forms us, ill a note,"^ contains money to the value of fifteen
hundred llvres, or five hundred crowns.f
The money collected in the Temple in the time of king
Joash, for its reparation, seems, in like manner, to have
been told up in bags of equal value to each other, and we
may believe delivered to those that paid the workmen
sealed, "2 Kings xii. 10. One can hardly imagine the
putting it in bags would otherwise have been mentioned.
What the value of a Jewish purse was, no virtuoso, I
doubt, will be able precisely to inform us. J
Job seems to allude to this custom, ch. xiv. 1 7 : and if
so, he considered his ofTences as reckoned by God to be
very numerous ; as well as not suffered by him to be lost
in inattention ; for they are only considerable sums that
are thus kept. If commentators have understood this im-
age to point out the first of these two things, I have over-
looked those passages; they seem to me to have confined
themselves to the last, which is undoubtedly contained in
the metaphor, but appears not to be the whole of it.
r,
OBSEllVATfON XC.
OF THE HYPERBOLICAL COMPLIMENTS USED IN THE EAST.
When we read over some of the compliments paid to
Eastern princes, particularly those of the wise woman of
* Lett. X. p, TO.
7 Consequently a purse is equal to about sixtyfive pounds of our money.
i: Each bag, mentioned 2 Kings v 23, seems to have been of tlie value
of a tilent ; but this might be something extraordinary: probably they
were greatly superior to modern Eastern purses in value.
MILlTxVRY STATE OF JUDEA. 393
Tekoah to king T^^vldf Js an angel of God, so is my
Lord the Idng, to discern good and bad ; and again, My
Lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of
God, to know all things that are in the earth, 2 Sann. xiv.
17,20; we are ready lo call to mind the hyperbolical
genius of those countries: but perhaps there was more of
real persuasion here than we are ready to apprehend.
Sir J. Chardin, in the sixth volume of his MS. in a note
on Gen. -sliv. 1 8, gives us a remarkable story of what once
happened to Jiim in Persia. " I happened one day, says
he, when I was in the king's wardrobe, whither I had been
sent for by the grand master, to fix the price of a pretty
rich trinket, which his majesty had a mind to have at a
less price than I could afford. I happened, I say, to an-
swer him, Tipon his telling me that the king had valued it
at so much only, that he knew very well it was worth
more, many of the principal courtiers being present ; the
grand master made me a severe reply, and told me, I was
not a little bold to find fault with the king's valuation, and
that if a Persian had dared to have done this, it would
Iiave been as much as his life was worth, &c. I answer-
ed him, * My lord, shall this be reckoned a crime, the
saying that a great king perpetually covered with the
most beautiful precious stones in the world, has put but
little value on a trinket, which, compared with them, is,
in truth, a trifle ? The grand master replied, with the same
air, * Know that the kings of Persia have a general and
full knowledge of matters, as sure as it is extensive; and
that equally in the greatest and the smallest things, there
is nothing more just and sure than what they pronounce,"
I had a mind to mention this incident, as it so well shows
the prepossession of the Asiatics in favour of their kings,
or rather of their own slavery. The knowledge of this
prince, according to this great officer of his, was like that
of an angel of God.
How far he believed this, cannot be known. Prejudice
is a powerful thing; and as the Asiatics are bred up in
394 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
the profonndest reverence for their princes, so the Per-
sians imagine, I think, there is something sacred in this
race of their kings. If the ancient Egyptians supposed
their princes possessed the like sagacity, 'vhich is not im-
probable, the compliDient of Judah to Joseph was a very
high one, llwii art even as Pharaohy^ knowing and
equitable as he.
Some of the kings of Judah really possessed exquisite
sagacity : David and Solomon in particular.f The spirit
of extraordinary illumination has sometime? rested upon
other princes, when God would bless the nations they
governed. In such cases, without doubt, there is great
truth in that saying, A sentence of divination is in the
lips of the king : his mouth transgresseth not in judg-
ment. Prov. xvi. 10. But this wisdom is not always ap-
pendant to majesty, though some Western flatterers, as
well as some of the East, have described them to be like
angels of God in point of knowledge ; they have also con-
tended for their possessing the power of healing a vir-
ulent disorder by their royal touch : in both assertions
they have been equally in the right.
OBSERVATION XCI.
MODE OF DRAWING UP DECREES IN THE EAST.
The manner of making Eastern decrees differs from
ours : they are first written, and then the magistrate au-
thenticates them or annuls them.
This, I remember, is the Arab manner according to
d'Arvieux. When an Arab wanted a favour of the Emir,
the way was to apply to the secretary, who drew up a de-
cree according to the request of the party; if the Emir
* Gen. xllv. IS. | l Sam. xvi. 13. 1 Kings iii. 12, 28.
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. 395
granted the favour, he printed his seal upon it , if cot, he
returned it torn to the petitioner. ^^
Sir J. Chardin confirms this account, and applies it, with
great propriety, to the illustration of a passage which I
never thought of when I read over d'Arvieux. After
citing Is. X. 1, Woe unto them that decree unrighteous
decrees, and to the writers that write grievoiisness, for so
our translators have rendered the latter part of the verse
in the margin, much more agreeably than in the body of
the version, Sir John goes on, *Mhe manner of making the
royal acts and ordinances hath a relation to this : they are
always drawn up according to the request ; the first min-
ister, or he whose office it is, writes on the side of it, * ac-
cording to the king's will,' and from thence it is sent to
the secretary of state, who draws up the order in form."f
They that consult Vitringa upon the passage, will find
that commentators have been perplexed about the latter
part of this woe : every one sees the propriety of denounc-
ing evil on those that decree unrighteous judgments ; but
it is not very clear why they are threatened that write
them, it certainly would be wrong to punish the clerks of
our courts, that have no other concern in unjust decrees,
than in barely writing them down, according to the duty
of their place, are mere amanuenses.
But according to the Eastern mode, we find he that
writes or draws up the order at first is deeply concerned
in the injustice, since he expresses matters as he pleases,
and is the source of the mischief; the superior only
passes or rejects it. He indeed is guilty if he passes an
unjust order, because he ought to have rejected it ; but a
great deal of the guilt unquestionably comes upon him
that first draws the order, and who makes it more or less
oppressive to others, just as he pleases, or rather, accord-
ing to the present that is made him by the party that so-
licits the order.
* Voy. dans la Pal. p. 61, 154, and l'5j. f Page 63.
396 OF THE NATURAL, CIVIL, AND
For it appears from d'Arvieux, that the secretary of
the Emir drew up no order without a present, which were
wont to be proportionate to the favour asked; and that
he was very oppressive in his demands.
In this view of things the words of the Prophet are very
clear, and easy to be understood ; and Sir J. Chardin,by
his acquaintance with the East, proves a much better in-
terpreter than the most learned Western commentators,
even celebrated rabbies themselves: for, according to
Vitringa, rabbi David Kimchi supposes the judges them-
selves were the writers the Prophet meant, and so called,
because they caused others to write unjust determina-
tions : though Vitringa admits, that such an interpreta-
tion does not well agree with the conjugation of the He-
brew word.
OBSERVATION XCIT.
MANNER OF THE EXPEDITIONS OF PETTY PRINCES IN
THE EAST.
The expedition of Chederlaomer and his associates,
mentioned Gen. xiv. to an European reader seems very
strange, almost incredible ; but expeditions of a like kind
still continue among the Arabs.
What appears strange in the Mosaic account is, the
smallness of the number of their troops, with which the
petty kings of five single cities dared to contend, ver. 9,
against those who had made so many conquests, ver. 5>
6, 7; and the distance from whence these came, one of
(hem at least from the land of Shinar, ver. 1.
Mekkrami, an Arab Sheekb, Niebuhr tells us, by
liis politics and valour became terrible to his neighbours,
and even to distant states: he then mentions several of
his expeditions ; and after adds, "having thus caused his
army to pass, in a little time, through the whole breadth
MILITARY STATE OF JUDEA. ^97
of Arabia, from the Arabian gulf to the Persian, even
Ihrough strange countries, which would be impossible to
be done in our method of making war in Europe, But the
Arabian armies lake neither cannon with them, nor many
tents; the small quantity of provisions and ammunition
which they have with them is carried on camels, and their
soldiers, who are nearly naked, or at least very thinly
clad, are not oppressed with arms." P. 23T.
It appears from the account that Niebuhr gives of his
expeditions, that he passed over a very considerable des-
ert ; that he attacked very different clans of Arabs ; that he
fell upon very distant parts of the country from that which
he governed; and that his army was but small : circum-
stances very muclj resembling those of the ancient princes
mentioned by Moses, who seem to have been Arabs, one
of them reigning over a portion of the land of Shinar,
whose extent in these times we may not be able precisely
to determine ; the other three neighbours.
Niebuhr also mentions a stratagem of an Arab prince,
very much resembling that of Gideon, whose three hun-
dred men blew with trumpets in different avenues to the
Midianitish camp : which modern stratagem, like the an-
cient one, was successful, and ended in the ruin of the in-
vaders, p. 488. But I shall take no further notice of
this ; for though it is incidentally and undesignedly men-
tioned by Niebuhr, the learned Michaelis has taken no-
tice of the conformity between the two stories, in the ex-
tract which he published of Niebuhr's Description of
Arabia, p. 36 ; only adding this remark, that probably
the Midianitish army was encamped in a place pretty
much surrounded by high hills, like the modern Arab
camp, and that the three companies of Gideon's people
showed themselves in three different entrances into the
plain in which the Midianites lay. These must have
appeared extremely numerous, as there were so many
trumpets, if few trumpets were anciently used, though the
VOL. in. 51
398
STATE OF JUDEA.
number of troops was considerable : Moses, we know, or-
dered only two trumpets to be made for directing the
journeying of all the Israelitish camps in the wilderness,
Num. X. 2: and one trumpet only, it seems, was used in
each detachment of the modern victorious Arab army.
according to Niebuhr.^
* See this account at large in p. 334. Edit.
CHAP. X.
CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING WILDERNESS, AND
THE RED SEA.
OBSERVATION I.
OF THE BOUNDARIES OF EGYPT.
One would have been ready to suppose, the Egypt-
ians should not have been desirous of exlending their ter-
ritories beyond the natural limits of that country ; but we
find them not only represented as doing so in the Scrip-
tures^ but the same humour has continued through suc-
ceeding ages, down to our own times.
" The limits of Persia, according to Sir John Char-
din, differ from those small states, which are separated
from their neighbours by, it may be, a rivulet or a stone
pillar. Persia has almost on every side of it a space of
three or four days' journey uninhabited, though the soil
be, in many places, the best in the world, particularly on
the side of the East and West. The Persians look upon
it as a mark of true grandeur, to leave thus abandoned,
the countries that lie between great empires, which pre-
vents, they say, contests about their limits, these desert
countries serving as walls of separation between king-
doms."^
Egypt has naturally such grand bounderies : great
deserts, which admit not of cultivation, divide it from
other countries on the east and on the west ; which cir-
* Voy. tome 2, p. 4.
400 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
curasfance, united with the consideration of the natural
fertility of its own soil, and of its convenient situation for
commerce by means of the Mediterranean, and of the
Red Sea, might have made its princes, one would have
thought, content with their own country. But the fact
has been quite otherwise.
Pharaoh, whose daughler Solomon married, took Gezer
and burnt it with fire, and slew the Canaanites that dwelt
in it, and then made a present of it unto his daughter, Sol-
omon's wife.^' But this might, possibly, have been his
original design, and not have been intended as any enlarge-
ment of his own kingdom. Another Pharaoh, after that,
smote Gaza,f which will not admit of such an interpreta-
tion. But what is more decisive, is the account that is
given us of Pharaoh Necho, who seems to have been
willing to make the Euphrates the boundary of his king-
dom.J
Answerable to this we find, in the book of Maccabees,
the Greek kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, striving to join
the kingdom of Syria to Egypt, getting possession of all
the cities on the sea coast as far as Seleucia, and setting
two crowns on their heads, that of Asia and of Egypt, [j
&c. In like manner, we find at the time of the beginning
of the Croisades all the sea coast of Syria, from Laodicea,
was under the dominion of Egypt. § Saladine afterward,
though possessed of Egypt, struggled hard for the cities
of Syria. ^ After that Sultan Bibars,"^^ of the Mameluke
princes of Egypt continued the same contests, and carried
his views as far as Bira in Mesopotamia, otherwise called
Beer, I presume, on the Euphrates, and twice obliged the
Tartars to raise the siege of that place. And in our own
lime, Ali Bey, who had possessed himself of Egypt, and
whose great aim, as to Syria, seems to have been, to erect
* 1 Kings xi. IG. •{• Jer. xlvii. 1.
\ 2 Kings xxiv. 7, and 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. |) 1 Mac, xi. 1, 3, 8, 13.
§ Gesta Dei, p. 835. ^ D'llerbelot, art. Salaheddin. ** Art. Bibars.
1
WILDERNESS. AND THE RED SEA. 401
some states there independent of the Ottoman empire, as
a barrier between hira and the Turks, yet is said to have
designed to have kept Gaza himself, while he thought of
establishing Sheekh Taher over Syria, Damascus, and all
that country as far as Gaza. Such is the account of the
Baron de Tott.*
Notwithstanding then the coramodiousness of having a
desert country, of the breadth of several days' journey,
between Egypt and Asia, as a boundary to their kingdom,
the princes of Egypt of various ages, and indeed in a long
succession, have struggled hard for some parts of Syria,
and even as far as the Euphrates. An examination then
of the grounds on which they proceeded, and the nature
of their politics, may illustrate, in the best manner now
in our power, those passages of Scripture that relate to
similar managements of the more ancient Egyptian princes.
OBSERVATION II.
REMARKS ON THE TITLE GIVEN TO ALI BEY BY THE
SHERIFF OF MECCA.
A TITLE that was given to Ali Bey, by the sheriff of
Mecca, a Mohammedan kind of sacred prince, deserves
attention, as it illustrates a passage in the apochryphal
book of Judith.
The title given to Ali by the sheriff, in gratitude for his
being raised by Ali to that honor, was " Sultan of Egypt
and the Two Seas."f The Mediterranean and the Red
Sea, near the last of which the territory of Mecca lay, while
• Mem. tome 4, p. 81. I might have mentioned too, Ahmed Ben
Thouloun, a century or two before the Croisades began, who not content
Tvith acqaii'ing Egypt, by dispossessing the khaliiF of it, was so ambitious
as to push on into Syria, -wliere he seized on its principal cities, Damas-
cus, Emessa, Kennasserin, Aleppo, extending his conquest even to Raccah,
in Mesopotamia. Voy. d'Herbelot, art. Kennasserin. Biblioth. Orientale.
t Revolt of Ali Bey, p. lOi.
402 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
the principal ports of Egypt were on the other, are, un-
doubtedly the two seas that were meant. The answera-
ble passage to this title in the book of Judith is in its
Ist chapter, ver. 12, Therefore Nabuchodonosor was
very angry with all this country, and sware by his throne
and kingdom . . . that he would slay with his sword
all the inhabitants of the land of Moab, and the chil-
dren of Amnion 9 and all Judea, and all that were in
Egypt f till you come to the borders of the two seas.
It appears then to have been an ancient practice, to de-
scribe Egypt as bordering on those two seas ; nor has
that way of pointing it out sunk into oblivion in these later
ages.
OBSERVATION III.
BATHING IJf THE NILE, ONE MODE OF EXPRESSING
GRATITUDE FOR THE BENEFITS RECEIVED FROM THE
OVERFLOWING OF THAT RIVER.
The people of Egypt, particularly the females of that
country, express their veneration for the benefits received
from the Nile, by plunging into it, at the time of its be-
ginning to overflow the country : is it not probable, that
the daughter of Pharaoh's going into that river,^ when
Moses was found in his bulrush ark, arose from something
of the same cause? a veneration, perhaps, carried further
than that of the present inhabitants of Egypt, and of an
idolatrous kind?
It has ever appeared somewhat strange to me, that a
princess of Egypt should bathe in the river itself, and in
the neighbourhood of a royal city, in waters so remarka-.
ble in all ages, for being covered with boats and crowds
of people ; and that in the East, where the women so
scrupulously concealed their faces, by large veils, from
the sight of men : a practice then in use, as well as now.
♦ Exod. ii. 5.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 4Q^
Much freer as the northern nations are in exposing
themselves, it would have been thought, I should imag-
ine, a most indecent thing in a princess of England to
have gone from Whitehall, with her attendants about her,
to bathe in the Thames, while those attendants amused
themselves by walking on the side of the river.
This has so struck commentators, that some of them
have seemed to suppose she did not bathe in the Nile,
but in some basin of water in the royal gardens, which
had a communication wilh the river, and might therefore
be considered as a part of it; but, in such a case, the
ark with the infant would not have been in view. Others
suppose some highly ornamented edifice of wood might
have been constructed in the river, something like our
modern bathing machines, into which the princess might
enter, and bathe there in perfect security from the pry-
ing eye; at the same time that through some small lat-
ticed window she might see the little vessel, in which the
babe lay: her attendants walking about on the banks, not
merely for their diversion, but that the princess might not
be disturbed in her privacy.
Vain accounts these ! as we find no mention made of
any such conveniencies ancienfly, nor even now, though
the present inhabitants of Egypt bathe as much, both for
their health, and from superstition, as they could do in the
time of Pharaoh ; and have a very distinguishing regard still
for the Nile. But instead of any structures of this sort,
the present race of Egyptians, notwithstanding the near-
ness of the Nile, have just such hummums, or structures
for bathing, in their cities, as are found in other Eastern
countries, to which those of the lower ranks resort, those
in higher life having such conveniencies at home, so fond
are the great of retirement in bathing, as well as those in
other countries.
Perhaps the following passages, from Irwin's Travels,
may lead to the true solution of what appears so extraor-
dinary, in this account of the Egyptian princess.
404 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
" Wednesday, 13lh August We were awak"
ened from our first sleep by the sounds of tinkling instru*
meats, accompanied by a chorus of female voices. I look-
ed out of the window, and saw a band, of thirty damsels
at least, come tripping toward us, with measured paces,
and animated gestures. The moon shone very bright, and
we had a full view of them, from their entering the gate of
our street, until they reached our house. Here they
stopped, and spreading themselves in a circle before the
door, renewed the dance and song with infinite spirit, and
recalled to our minds the picture which is so fully given
of these dancing females in Holy Writ. After they had
favoured us a few minutes with their lively performance,
they moved on to the Hakeem's-^ house, and serenading
him with an air or two, this joyous band quitted our quar-
ter, and went, as the dying sounds informed us, to awaken
the other slumberers of the town, to melody and joy ! &c,
"Thursday, 14th August. We were impatient to know
the cause of the agreeable disturbance we met with last
night, and learn from one of our guard, that the dancing
girls observe the ceremony we were witness to, on the
first visible rise of the Nile. It seems that they took our
house in their way to the river, where they went down to
bathe at that late hour, and to sing the praises of the be-
nevolent power, who yearly distributes his waters to sup-
ply the necessities of the natives," P. 229, 230.
" I learn," says this author, in a succeeding page, " that
the crocodile is a most formidable tenant of the Nile, and
held in great dread by the fishermen ; one of them told
us, that he was present at the death of a crocodile a short
time ago, in whose belly were found the gold rings and
ornaments of a dancing girl, who was devoured by the
monster, as she was bathing in the river," p. 259.
I would make a few remarks here upon these accounts.
In the first place, though hummums, erected for bath-
ing, with many conveniencies for that purpose, commonly
• A principal officer of the town of Ghinnah, ia Upper Egypt, where
they thea were.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 405
called bagnios, are verj coraraon in Egjpf, yet going
into (he Nile, at particular times, is still practised hy the
Egyptian females.
Secondly, That it should seem, at those times they do
not divest themselves of their clothing, though their going
into the Nile is at night, and when men are supposed to
be asleep in bed, or at least shut up in their respective
houses. The gold rings and ornaments of the girl, that
was devoured by a crocodile, were found in that destroy-
ing animal when killed soon after; whereas in the Eastern
bagnios, according to Lady M. W. Montague, the wo-
men are naked. ^ It seems then, on (he contrary, when
the women go into the Nile, they are not disrobed, but
enter it with their clothes, and even ornaments upon them.
Thirdly, Consequently this entering into the Nile, on
these occasions, is not so much with a naturally purifying
or refreshing view, but (o express their veneration for that
river, when they find it apparently risen, and about (o
distribute its important benefits (o Egypt. The Indian
women that go into the Ganges, to purify themselves, are
stripped, we are told, though it is done with such art and
quickness, as to be as little injurious to modesty as pos-
sible ; but these Egyptian Arabs do not strip, consequent-
ly they go not into the water for purifying. The heat of
(hose sultry countries make the bathing in cold water very
pleasing, but we do not find, I think, that they go into
cold water with their clothes on, in order to render the
coolness more lasting, and especially would they not do
so that go into the cold water in the evening. It was done
then, from devotion, or veneration. So, according to
Pitts, many of the devojit Mohammedans that visit Mecca,
have five or six buckets of the sacred water there poured
upon their heads, not properly for the purifying them-
selves, nor for refreshment from the heat, but from de-
votion, f
Fourthly, Though they are only dancing girls, or pub-
lic women now, so far as appears by this account, that go
• Letters, vol. 1, p. 162; and vol. 3, p. 30—52. I Page 135.
VOL, III. 52
406 CONCEllNLVG EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
into (he Nile upon the rising of its waters ; an Egyptian
princess, in ancient times, when the Nile was adored as
a deifj, might enter it, at that time of the year, with
music and singing. So king David did not disdain to
dance before the ark of God, though it was an action that
Michal, Saul's daughter, thought would better have been
left to the common people to practise.*
Fifthly, If this solution be admitted, and the ceremony
that Irwin saw, be a relic of ancient Egyptian devotion,
then as Moses was hid about three months before he was
committed to the Nile,f he must have been born about the
middle of May. The conduct of Providence also claims
our attention, which made the idolatrous devotion of
Thermuthis,J the daughter of Pharaoh, the means of res-
cuing from death a child, whom God intended to make a
great IconomachusH of the Old Testament times, and
whose religion was the great preparative to the gospel,
by which the worship of idols has been set aside among
so many of the heathen nations.
Lastly, Then also the walking of Pharaoh's daughter
to the Nile, and along its banks, was not for mere pleas-
ure, but it is to be understood to have been a sacred
procession, united with music and songs of praise.
The IGlh verse of the 23d of Isaiah may also perhaps
receive some illustration from these dancing females, when
we recollect their profession: Take a harp^ go about the
city, thou HARLOT that hast been forgotten, make sweet
melody^ sing rnany songs. These Egyptian harlots went
about Ghinnah, with instrumental music, and with songs.
OBSERVATION IV.
METHOD OF CATCHING THE CROCODILE IN EGYPT.
Crocodiles are very terrible to the inhabitants of
Egypt; when therefore they appear, they watch them
* 2 Sam. Ti. 16. f Exod. ii. 2. + So called by Joseplms.
II Image destroyer.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 407
with great attention, and take proper precautions to secure
them, so as that they should not be able to avoid the
deadly weapons the Egyptians afterward make use of to
kill them.
To these watchings, and those deadly after assaulls, I
apprehend Job refers, when he says. Am I a sea, or a
tannin^ that is a whale according to our translation, but a
crocodile is what, I make no doubt, is meant there, that
thou setlest a watch over me.'* Ch. vii. 12.
" The crocodile," says IVIaillet,=^ "is very common in
^bYV^'y but it is chiefly found in the Upper Egypt, and
very seldom in the Delta,f hardly even within a day's
journey above Cairo. It is extremely dangerous, and
makes a great ravage wherever it is met with, especially
above Girgey, which is the place where the ancient Sais
stood. They have been known to carry off men them-
selves, and other animals, when they met with them on
the borders of the Nile. Credible persons have assured
Die, that toward Essene there are some so prodigious, that
they sometimes stop small troops of travellers.
*' Diflferent methods are used to take them, and some
of them very singular. The most common is to dig deep
ditches along the Nile, which are covered with straw, and
into which the crocodile may probably tumble. Some-
times they take them with hooks, which are baited with a
quarter of a pig, or with bacon, of which they are very
fond. Some hide themselves in the places which they
know to be frequented by this creature, and lay snares for
bim. As soon as he is taken, the hunter runs with loud
cries, and says to the crocodile in a strong and threat-
ening tone, childraak-scynchey that is, lift up your fore-
leg ; this the animal does, upon which the hunter pierces
him, in the hollow part under the shoulder, with a beard-
ed dart, and kills him. Some are even so bold as \o go
to the crocodile, when he is asleep, and fix the dart in him
• Lett. 9, p. 32, 33.
f The triangular part of Egypt, whose base is the sea coast of that coun-
try, conseciuently stiled the. Lower Egypt.
408 CO^XEUNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
without his being taken in any toils. Others take him by
some dilTerent methods, with which I am unacquainted ;
but certainly not with nets, for they are not in use in this
country. ^^
*' One of the inhabitants of the Upper Ec;ypt took one
of them, the last year, in a manner which deserves to be
mentioned, both on account of its singularilj', and the dan-
ger to which the man exposed himself, lie placed a very
young boy, which he had, in the spot where the day be-
fore this animal had devoured a girl of fifteen, belonging
to the governor of this place, who had promised a reward
fo any one that should bring him the crocodile dead or
alive. The man at the same time concealed himself very
near the child, holding a large board in his hand, in read-
iness \o execute his design. As soon as he perceived the
crocodile was got near the child, he pushed his board into
the open mouth of the creature, upon which his sharp
teeth, which cross each other, entered into this board with
such violence that he could not disengage them, so that it
was impossible for him after that to open his mouth. The
man immediately further secured his mouth, and by this
means got the fifty crowns the governor promised to who-
soever could take this creature.
" Finally, this animal is without contradiction possessed
of most extraordinary strength. But a few days ago they
brought me one alive, only a foot and, half long. He was
secured by a cord. I caused his snout to be set free, and
he immediately turned to bite him that held him; but he
only seized on his own tail, into which his teeth entered
so far, that it was necessary to make use of an iron instru-
ment to open his mouth. This creature might be no more
than a fortnight old. What might a crocodile of 20 [eet,
or more, do I I last year saw one of 12 feet, which had eat
nothing for thirtyfive days, having his mouth muzzled all
that time. With one stroke of his tail he threw down
five or six rjien, and a bale of cofTee, with as much ease as
I could throw down half a dozen pawns on a chessboard."
* This I apprehend, is by no means true, but a proof of his inattention
to common things.
WILDERNESS, AXD THE RED SEA.. 409
Wilh what eagerness must the people of those coun-
tries watch these formidable animals, and with what re-
peated efforts endeavour to demolish them when ensnared
in their toils I
For though, according to Maillet, they are sometimes
killed by darts, they are at other times knocked on the
head with clubs, according to father Sicard, in his r?Ie-
nioirs of the Missionaries, cited by Egmont and Heyman,
vol. ii. p. 218,219.
In this view, how forcible is the complaint of Job, that
God had dealt with him as men do by crocodiles, who
watch them with great attention, and fall upon them with
repeated blows, and give not over until they have de-
stroyed them.^
It is more difficult to illustrate the other part of the
complaint, *< Am I a sea ?" Some have supposed the
word sea is to be understood of the Nile. Admitting this
* Those pictures of the fancy, which we are wont to call dragons, are
not very unlike creatures of the lizard kind, and in particular a crocodile,
excepting their having wings ; and when we consider the swiftness of their
motion straight forwards, it is no wonder the affrighted fancy of those that
but just escape them, clapped a couple of wings on those crocodiles, which
they found to be so extremely difficult to be avoided. Whether there was
as specious a foundation for those other embellishments, which are devia-
tions from the true figure of a crocodile, I leave to others to inquire.
As some species of the lizard kind inhabit the water ; while others are
found in old buildings, he. on the land ; as some are supposed to be of a
poisonous nature ; as the crocodile, the chief of the lizard kmd, is ex-
tremely voracious ; and as ancient, as well as modern poets, have supposed
they enticed unwary travellers by their dissembled lamentations, or at leftst
wept over those they devoured, the same apprehension, whether founded
in nature or mistake, might be as ancient as the days of the Prophet Mi-
cuh, ch. i. 8, or even the times of Job, ch. xxx. 28, 29 : if, I say, Ave recol-
lect these circumstances, we have all the properties ascribed in Scripture
to the tannifi, except the watching for them, mentioned in the passage 1
am now endeavouring to illustrate; and their suckling their young, which
Jeremiah speaks of, Lam. iv. 5, As to this last, if it be admitted that the
seal and the cttor, though not properly of the lizard kind, do yet so far
resemble them, as that it is by no means unnatural to suppose, that in those
days, of remote antiquity, they might be classed together under one genus,
this difficulty will be removed, and the ancients, we know, were by no
means very accurate in their arrangement of natural objects, for the seal
and the otter are reckoned, in these exact limes, among the mammalia, or
the animals that give their young suck.
410 CONCEUNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
large sense of (he word CD' yam, translated sea, it may be
said that the Nile indeed is watched with extraordinary
care ; but in the season of its increase, which was the time
they so attentively watched it, they beheld it rising with
pleasure, and looked to this river with grateful venera-
tion : the watching the Nile then by no means resembled
the watching the crocodile, which they considered as an
object of terror, and whose approach filled them with
dread. One can hardly therefore imagine they would be
joined together in one and the same complaint : the one
watched with anxiety and dread as a terrible destroyer ;
the other watched with hope and pleasure, as a great
benefactor of Egj'pt, and its approaching them, by its
rising nearer, celebrated with great joy.
But there might be cases in which the overflowing o
the Nile might be watched with dread. And Herodotus
has, it seems, expressly remarked this with respect to
Memphis, that celebrated Egyptian city, according to a
note in Norden's History of Egypt, p. 75, vol. i. in which
we are told, that Herodotus said, that at the time when
he wrote, the Persians, then the masters of Egypt, at-
tended with great observance, to a mound thrown up one
hundred stadia above Memphis, the mound being repaired
every year. For if the river should break down that
mound, there would be a great deal of danger that all
3Ieraphis would be drowned.'^
If so important a city, so often mentioned in the Old
Testament, was in such continual danger, and its defend-
ing mound watched with so much anxiety in the time of
Herodotus, something of the like sort might be in earlier
time, and the crocodile and its parent stream be men-
tioned together here on that account.
There might be like anxious watchings in Arabia, and
in that part of it called the Land of Uz ; but we are not
sufficiently acquainted with those countries positively to
determine this. Some learned men in Francef have ob-
* Sec also Shaw's Travels, p. 302, 303.
t The Royal Academy of Inscriptions and of the Belles Letters. See
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 411
served, that the Arabian history makes mention of the
destruction of a great city, and a most delightful territo-
ry, upon the breaking down a mighty mound by the
weight of the incumbent water. This mound was a pro-
digious bank, reaching from one mountain to another,
raised in order to keep in the water that poured down the
neighbouring hills, and to form a large lake. This event
made a celebrated era among the Arabs, and the Royal
Academy of Inscriptions desired the Danish Academi-
cians to inquire into it, when they went into the East.
But this was too late an event to be referred to in the
book of Job ; nor was that mound, so far as we are told,
watched with anxious uneasiness ; but broke down nn-
expectedly. It does not however follow from hence, but
that there might have been other reservoirs of water,
from which danger might be apprehended.
It is certain such destructive events were not unknown
to the ancient Jews. David plainly refers to such.* Job
might equally well be supposed to have heard of them :
but it is to be hoped, a more accurate acquaintance with
those countries may hereafter illustrate what is at present
almost lost in obscurity. |
OBSERVATION V.
CAUSE OF THE PESTILENCE IN EGYPT.
The Bishop of Waterford, in his illustration of the
writings of the IMinor Prophets, supposes, that *' the pes-
tilence after the manner of Egypt," mentioned Amos iv.
the 94th question proposed by Michaelis to the Danish Academicians, and
the Memoir of the Academy of Inscriptions, &c. in the close of that col-
lection. * 2 Sam. V3r. 20.
f After all these ingenious conjectures, it is probable the text of Job re-
lates simply to the barriers or mowids which they opposed in certain places
to the incursions of the crocodile, and the inundations of the Sea or J\rile,
vrhere its overflowings would have been ruinous, as in villages, cities. See.
And thus it is likely the word 'l^iS'^ mislnnary is to be understood, from
the root y^'^ shamar, to keep safe, to preserve, or defend, IJdit.
412 CO^XERXING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
10, meant " the unwlioicsome effluvia, on the subsiding
of the Nile, (which) caused some pecuiiailj malignant
diseases in this country," But, unhappily, he has pro-
duced no proof of this from those that have travelled into,
or resided in that country; there is however some foun-
dation for such a supposition, and I doubt not, but so
friendly and benevolent a prelate, will allow me to endeav-
our to supply the omission.
Maillet, or rather, perhaps, the Abbot Mascrier, the
enthusiastic encomiast of Egypt, in an extravagant para-
graph of praise, allows this : " It is of this country, which
seems to have been regarded by nature with a favourable
eye, that the gods have made a sort of terrestrial paradise.
The air there is more pure and excellent than in any
other part of the world. This goodness of the air com-
municates itself to all things living or inanimate, which
are placed in this fortunate region. The women, and the
females of other species, are more fruitful than any where
else ; the lands are more productive. The men there,
commonly enjoy perfect health, the trees and plants never
lose their verdure, and the fruits are always delicious, or
at least salutary. It is true, that this air, good as it is,
is nevertheless subject to be corrupted in some proportion
as other climates. I even acknowledge that it is bad in
those parts, where, when the inundations of the Nile fiavc
been very great, this river, in retiring to its channel,
leaves marshy places, which infect the country round
about. The dew is also very dangerous in Egypt."*
But though the air is, by the acknowledgment of this
partial writer, unwholesome in some places in November
and December, when the Nile returns into its channel,
on the account of some marshy places which infect the
air; yet these disorders, whatever they may be, surely
hardly deserve to be described by a word that signifies
the pestilence, or to be spoken of as something peculiar to
Egypt. It is, according to this author, and I imagine his
assertion will not be contested, about the time the Nile
* Lett. 1, p. 14, 15.
WILDERNESS, AND THE IlED SEA. 4I.3
ibeglns to rise, and when the south wind blows, that the
sickly season begins; then fevers rage, and it is Ihen
that pestilence makes its ravages in Egypt. "^ The
Egyptian autumnal complaints then are not to be com-
pared with those of the summer, and consequently it will
hardly be admitted that the Prophet refers to them, as his
lordship supposes.
Nor is there indeed any thing so particular in the pes-
tilence in Egypt, as to distinguish it from that disease in
other countries; since then the original phrase CD^nVD
T^13 bederek milsrayim, is ambiguous, and may as well
be translated in the way of Egypt, as after the manner
of Egypt,, 1 should apprehend that this lOth verse re-
fers to some severe chastisement Israel received, in the
way to Egypt, not the way from Judea by Gaza, or the
land of the Philistines, f but the way by the Eastern side
and southern end of the Dead Sea, in which march, in
that part of the desert, they were at once assailed bj
some mortal disease, which carried off great numbers;
by the sword, either of the wild Arabs, or some other en-
emy : their horses unexpectedly carried off in the night,
according to the Arab custom, in whose swiftness and use-
fulness in war Israel was wont to place no little confi-
dence ; and their camp rendered a scene of complete des-
olation and ruin.
The books of Kings and Chronicles make no distinct
mention of such an event ; but as they are very short ac-
counts of.lhe Jewish princes, so several things are referred
to in the Prophets which are not mentioned there. The
succeeding verse, of this 4th of Amos, is a proof of the
truth of such omissions.
It becomes the more necessary to adept such an inter-
pretation of Amos, as supposes he refers to the ravages
of the pestilence among \\\e Israelites, as they were march-
ing in the wilderness in the more southern road to Egypt,
on some warlike expedition, since the recent publication
of the Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, who assures us,
• Let. 2, p. 57. t See Exod. xili. ir, IS.
VOL. III. 53
414 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
that (he noxious exhalations from the stagnation of the
water left on the land, when the Nile retires into its
proper channel, and the ravages of the pestilence there,
are not so great, as in many other places. His words are
^ as follows :
" To this fertility and richness of the productions of
Egypt, must be added a most salubrious air. We shall
be more particularly struck with this advantage, when we
consider that Rosetta, Datuietta, and Mansoora, which
are encompassed with rice grounds, are much celebrated
for the healthiness of their neighbourhood ; and that
Es:ypt is, perhaps, the only country in fhe world where
this kind of culture, which requires stagnant waters, is not
unwholesome. Riches are not there destructive to the
lives of men.
" The researches I have carefully made, concerning
the plague which I once believed to originate in Egypt,
have convinced me, that it would not be so much as
known there, were not the seeds of it conveyed thither
by the commercial intercourse between Constantinople
and Alexandria. It is in this last city that it always be-
gins to appear ; it but rarely reaches Cairo, though no
precaution is taken to prevent it : and when it does, it
is presently extirpated by the heats, and prevented from
arriving as far as the Saide. It is likewise well known,
that the penetrating dews, which fall in Egypt about mid-
summer, destroy, even in x^lexandria, all remains of this
distemper."*
If this account be accurate, the Prophet Amos cannot
be supposed to refer to mortal disorders, arising from the
exhalations of marshy places in Egypt, nor yet to the
pestilence there, which certainly carry off many in that
country, for both the one and the other are found to be
gentler than in many other places.
But the breaking out of a pestilential disorder in an
army of Israel in the wilderness, in the southern road to
i * Part 4, p. 60, 70.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 4^5
Egypt, when harrassed by the Arabs of the desert, must
have been a severe scourge upon them.
That the kingdom of the ten tribes had some contest
with those that lived in that part of the country, appears
from what is said concerning Jeroboam, the second of ifs^
princes of that name, in 2 Kings xiv, 2^», 26 : He restored
the coast of Israel^ from the entering of Hamuth, unto
the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord
God of Israel, , , For the Lobd saw the affliction of
Israel that it was very bitter, Sec, He had, according to
this, some contest with those near the Dead Sea, in which
he was successful, but before that the aflSiction of Israel
had been very bitter, according to the historian: and
bitter it must have been indeed, if some pestilential dis-
ease raged in their camp, while their soldiers were killed
in considerable numbers, their horses, on which they had
great dependence, carried off, and they so circumstanced,
as for some time not to be able to quit the place where
they were encamped.
That large bodies of people are sometimes attacked in
this desert with mortal diseases, and which kill very sud-
denly, we learn from Maillet. " During the summer, a
fresh north wind blows in this climate all day long, which
very much assuages the heat. . . But if this north wind
happen to fail, and instead of that it blows to the south,
which however but rarely happens, then the whole cara-
van becomes so sickly and exhausted, that there die very
commonly three or four hundred persons in a day. They
have sometimes been known to amount to fifteen hundred,*
of whom the greatest part have been stifled at once by
this burning air, and the dust this dreadful wind brings
along with it in such quantities. "f
In a time of such mortality, when the dead and the sick
were so numerous, those that were well were held in
perpetual employment by continual alarms from the
• Out of about 50,000 persons, according to his estimation. Let. dern.
P' 228.
t Page 232.
410 COXC]::ilNlNG EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
Arabs, instead of applying themselves to the burying
their dead J when the sword might cut off as many as
this corrupting wind : the stench of the camp of Israel
must have been exceeding great.
The loss also of their horses of war in such a time of
calamily, by such an ever watchful and skulking enemvj
must be believed to be exceeding great.
OBSERVATION YI.
EXPLANATION OF THE THIRD PLAGUE OF EGYPT.
The learned have not been agreed in their opinion
concerning the third of the plagues of Egypt : Exod. viii.
16, &.C. Some of the ancients suppose that gnats, or
some animals resembling them, were meant ; whereas our
translators, and many of the moderns, understand the
original word cd'jd kinneem, as signifying lice.
Bishop Patrick, in his commentary, supposes that Bo-
chart has sufficiently proved, out of the iG-s^i itself, that
our version is right, since gnats are bred in fenny places,
he might have said with truth, and with much greater en-
ergy of argument, in water, whereas the animals 3Ioses
here speaks of, were brought out of the dust of the earth.
A passage I lately met with, in Vinisauf's account of
the expedition of our King Richard the First into the
Holy Land,^ ttifiy? perhaps, give a truer representation
of this Egyptian plague, than those that suppose they
were gnats, or those that suppose they were lice, that
God used on that occasion, as the instrument of that third
correction.
Speaking of the marching of that army of Croisaders,
from Cayphas to where the ancient Ctesarea stood, that
• Hist Ang. Script, quinque, vol. 2, p. 351. Instantibus singulis nocti-
bus imminebant qiiidam vermiculif vulgo dicti tavrentest solo repentes,
alrocissimis fcrventcs puncturis; de die non nocebant, superveuiente vero
nocte, ingruebant molcsiissimis armati aculeis, quibus quos pungerent sta-
(.im grassato veneno inflabantur pcrciissi, Sc vehcrnentissimis angusiiaban-
tur doloribus.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 417
writer informs us, that each night certain worms distressed
them, commonly called tarrenies, which crept upon the
ground, and occasioned a very burning heat by most
painful punctures. They hurt nobody in the day time,
but when night came on they extremely pestered them,
being armed with stings, conveying a poison which quickly
occasioned those that were wounded by them to swell,
and was attended with the most acute pains.
It is very much to be regretted that the natural history
of the Holy Land is so imperfect. What these tarrentes
were I do not pretend distinctly to know, but as they are
called worms, as they crawled on the ground, and occa-
sioned extreme pain, I should apprehend it is more prob-
able that they were insects of this, or some kindred spe-
cies, that Moses intends, rather than gnats bred in the
water, or lice, which have, in common, no connection with
the dust of the ground.
It is suflSciently evident, that for two thousand
years back, the insect meant by Moses under this third
plague was not determinately known. For the authors
of the Septuagint supposed gnats were meant, translating
the Hebrew word by the term 2;cvi(?s$"; whereas Jose-
phus* supposed, with the moderns, that lice were to be
understood to be the instruments God made use of at
this time, unluckily describing them as produced by
the bodies of the Egyptians, under the clothes with
which they were covered,! which indeed is a natural de-
scription of the usual circumstances that favour the prop-
agation of lice, but by no means agrees with the Mosaic
account, which represents these insects, whatever they
were, as appearing first on the earth, and from thence
making their way to man and beast. J
* With whom, it appears from Trommius, some of the other old trans-
lators of the Scriptures iuto Greek agree, though that circumstance is not
taken notice of by Lambert Bos in his edition.
xvoiS'i^ouiveiov,
i All the MSS. of the Septuagint agree in translating the original by
either (r»<j«?, cKfrtQ or jxva?5j- The Syriac version terms thera creeping-
418 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
I will only further add, the better to assist the natur-
alist, in determining what the insects were which in the
age of Vinisauf were commonly called tarrentes, that
these wounds were cured bj the application of theriacum,
and that they were creatures that disliked a noise, which
made the pilgrims make all the clattering noise they
could, with their helmets and shields, their basins, dishes,
kettles, and any thing that came to hand, that could con-
Teniently be applied to this purpose.
OBSERVATION VII.
OIL BURNT IN EGYPT IX HONOR OF THE DEAD, AND IN
HONOR OF IDOLS.
Oil is now presented in the East, to be burnt in honor
of the dead, whom they reverence with a religious kind
of homage ; and I should apprehend, it is most natural to
suppose the Prophet Hosea refers to a similar practice in
the times of antiquity, when he upbraids the Israelites
with carrying oil into Egypt.*
The carrying oil into Egypt must have been either for
an idolatrous purpose ; with a political view to gain the
friendship of Pharaoh, or merely with a commercial in-
tention.
Oil was an article of commerce among the ancient Jews,
as appears from Ezek. xxvii. IT. They carried it to
Tyre without reproof; they might with equal innocence
have carried it into Egypt, if it had been only with a com-
mercial view.
Commentators have been sensible of this, and have
therefore supposed that the oil was treacherously carried
into Egypt, as a present to king Pharaoh, to induce him
to take part with Israel against Assyria. There was un-
locuata. See Dr. Holmes' Edit, of the Pentateuch, where a rfew other
variations are noted, which are of no monoent in the above question.
Edit.
* Hosea xli. 1.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 419
doubtedly some treacherous management of this nature:
2 Kings xvii. 4, proves it beyond all dispute. But that
they endeavoured to gain the friendship of Pharaoh, by
sending him a large parcel of oil, does not seem so natural
a supposition, if we remark, that no present of this kind
appears to have been made by the Jewish princes, of that
time, to foreign kings, to gain their friendship : it was the
gold and silver of the Temple, and of the Royal palace,
that Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria, 2 Kings xvi. 8,
not oil ; nor did the king of Egypt, when he put down
Jehoahaz from the throne of Jndab, and mulcted the land,
appoint them to pay so much oil, but so much silver, and
so much gold, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3. Nor was oil any part
of the present that Jacob sent to Joseph, as viceroy of
Egypt, but balm, honey, spices, myrrh, nuts, pistachio
nuts, according to Dr. Shaw, and hlmonds."^
But if they burnt oil in Egypt, in those early times, in
honor of their idols, and the Jews sent oil into Egypt
with an intention of that sort, it is no wonder the Prophet
so severely reproaches them with sending oil thither.
It is certain the ancient people of the East were wont,
on various occasions, to send presents to the celebrated
temples of other nations. It is supposed the Gentile na-
tions would, and it is affirmed that they sometimes did,
send presents to the Temple at Jerusalem : Many
brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents
to Hesekiah king of Judah : so that he was magnified
in the sight of all nations from thenceforth. 2 Chron.
xxxii. 23. If other nations made presents to the Temple
at Jerusalem, it cannot but be thought, that the Jews,
when disposed to fall in with the idolatries of their neigh-
bours, would send gifts to their more celebrated temples,
in honor of the deities worshipped there ; and especially
when they courted superstitious princes, zealously at-
tached to the worship of their country gods.
Can we imagine that the messengers of king Ahaziah
went empty handed, when they were sent to consult Baal-
* Gen. xliii. 11.
420 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
zebub, the sod of Ekron, whether Ahaziah should recover
or not ? 2 Kings i. 2.
Oil is now very frequently presented to the objects of
Eastern religious reverence, and as it is apparently de-
rived from ancient usages, the sending oil by the Jews \6
Egypt, In the time of Hosea, might probably be for a like
purpose.
The Algerines, according to Pitts, =^ " when they are
in the Strait's mouth, they make a gathering of small
wax candles, which they usually carry with them, and
bind them in a bundle: and then, together with a pot of
oil, throw them overboard, as a present to the marabbot
or saint, which lies entombed there, on the Barbary shorej
near the sea, and has so done for many score of years,
as they are taught rO believe; not in the least doubting
but the present will come safe to the marabbot's hands.
When this is done, they all togetberf hold up their hands,
begging the marabbot's blessing, and a prosperous voyage.
And if they at any time happen to be in a very great
strait, or distress, as being chased, or in a storm, they
will gather money, and do likewise. Besides which, they
usually light up abundance of candles in remembrance of
some dead marabbot or other, calling upon him with
heavy sighs and groans. At such times they also collect
money, and wrap it in a piece of linen cloth, and make it
fast to the ancient staff of the ship, so dedicating it io
some marabbot ; and there it abides till the arrival of the
ship, when they bestow it in candles, or oil, to give light,
or in some ornament to beautify the marabbot's sepulchre."
I have, in a preceding volume, considered this pas-
sage of Hosea, but I then only considered that passage
as expressive of the largeness of the quantity of oil
produced in the Holy Land: but it now appears to me
capable of being viewed in a stronger point of light, and
to express something of idolatry: the two purposes of
courting the Egyptian monarch, and honoring the idols of
that country, might, very possibly, be united together.
* P. 17, 18. t Stretch out their hands, in the language of Scripture.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 421
There is a long account, in MaiIIet,=^ of the processlous
of the ancient Egyptians on the Nile, in the four months
of June, July, August, and September, the time of the
inundation of that river. If we may believe his accounts,
deduced from old Arab authors, the ancient princes of
Egypt, attended by their nobles, and infinite multitudes
of their common subjects, passed up and down the Nile,
in order to visit the temples of their idols, as well as for
pleasure. These large and pompous boats were illumi-
nated with vast multitudes of lamps, as were doubtless their
temples, though Maillet says nothing, I think, in partic-
ular about them.
But it is natural to suppose this, since he tells us, that
these solemn river processions are, in some measure, still
continued, only their devotions transferred from the old
idols of Egypt to later Mohammedan saints, and the an-
cient idolatrous Egyptian festivals succeeded by those of
Sidy Ibrahim, Sidy Hamet Bedouin, and other Turkish
saints, whose tombs are still annually visited, with the
same concourse of people, and nearly the same ceremo-
nies.f And we know, from the citations already produced
under this article, that the consecrated oil is now employ-
ed in illuminating these sacred sepulchres.
The sending then oil to Egypt might be, not only to
assist in making the idolatrous processions on the Nile
more brilliant, but also with the direct unequivocal design
of illuminating the idol temples of that country.
And if this be allowed, there will appear an emphasis
in this complaint of Hosea,J which must be very much
diminished, if we consider it only as an act of common
national perfidiousness. But I do not recollect that com-
mentators have understood the words in this more pro-
voking sense.
• Lett. 2d. t Page 82.
i Their conduct will be just the reverse of that of the heathens who
brought gifts to the temple of Jehovah, and presents to Hezekiah, accord-
ing to that place of 2 Chron. just now cited.
VOL. III. 54
422 COMCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
OBSERVATION VJII.
OF THE ILLUMINATIONS MADE ON THE NILE.
I iNDisTiNCTLT mentioned (he illuminations that are
wont to be made on the Nile, in the time when it overflows
Egypt, in the preceding article ; but here I would pro.
pose it to the learned to consider, whether thej are not
referred to by the son of Sirach, when he says, tiiat God
maketh the doctrine of knowledge appear as the light,
and as Geon in the time of vintage,^
lie had before compared God's filling all things with
his wisdom, to the Tygris as filled with water in the time
of the new fruits ; and had described his causing Jinder-
standing to abound, as Jordan abounds with water in (he
time of harvest ; and many have been ready to suppose
that Geon is mentioned in the same view, as a third river
that was wont to overflow, from the copiousness of the
descent of water down its channel in the time of vintage.
But it is to be observed, that from the swelling of socie
rivers he had been mentioning, the writer had passed on
to another thought, comparing it to light. He maketh the
doctrine of knowledge appear as the light, and as Geon
in the time of vintage ; which would rather lead us to ap-
prehend, that he compares it to the light of Geon, at that
time of the year when grapes are gathered for the making
of wine.
This thought is so natural, that it struck the celebrated
Grotius, who accordingly, in his comment on this place,
explains it of the clearness of this river at the time of
vintage, and that on the account of its being so limpid
then, he compares it to light. This is the time indeed
when the Euphrates is most clear, and consequently it
may be believed its various branches, the water having
settled after its periodical inundation, and the rains not
having fallen, in such quantities at least, as to make the
* Eceles. xxiv. 27.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 493
wafer foul and muddy j"^ but it must be a terrible sinking
f.om the iuiage used in the first part of the verse, where
he compares kD0\vledi2;e to the Ii2,ht of the morning, when
in (he secoml part of the verse he goes on to coir pare it
to the clearness of a river, not at all more remarkable
than other rivers for that quality; but if by Geon he
meant the Nile, as many have supposed he did, consider-
ing he resided in Egypt, where this book was written, or
at leas, received the finishing hand, and as well acquaint,
ed with the poujpous iiluniinations there, whose light was
so gloriously reflected by the water of that river, it is not
at all to be wondered at, that he compares knowledge to
the splendour of tho^e Egyptian illuminations.
If the iNiie was meant by him, the son of Sirach could
not intend to compare knowledge to the clearness of its
stream, in that time of the year, for the time of vintage
fell out within the time of the inundation of the Nile,
when its waters are mixed with large quantities of mud,
but must be understood of the illuminations upon it, which
were wont to be so brilliant at that season.
I am very sensible the Gihon of the 2d of Genesis
cannot well be understood of the Nile, since it is described
as a river of Paradise ; but is it necessary to suppose the
author of the book of Ecclesiasticus referred to the Gihon
of Paradise ? He was an Egyptian Jew, and he might
design to be understood of the Egyptian Geon, by which
name, or one very much like it, the Nile has been some-
times denoted. So Menochius aflSrms, that in his time
the Abyssinians called the Nile, Guyon ;f and in the year
1322, Symon Simeonis, a devout Irish visitor of Egypt
and the Holy Land, called it by a name not far distant in
sound from Gihon ;J and takes notice that Josephus sup-
posed the Gihon of Paradise was the Nile.
On consulting the great Jewish historian, I found that
be did suppose that the Gihon of Paradise was the river
* Phil. Trans, abr. vol. 3, part 2, ch. 2, art. xl. 2, relating to a second
voyage to Tadraor, under October 11.
t Poll Syn. in Gen. ii. 13. $ Wyon, p. 34.
<
424 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
called (he Nile bj the Greeks.^ Since this was the nO'
tion of Josephus, can it be unlikely that the son of Sirach
meant the Nile by the name r>;wv, or Geon ? This is pre-
cisely the way of writing the name Gihon by Josephus;
and if it be admitted that about his age the Nile was sup-
posed to have been the Gihon of ancient times, the un-
derstanding the light of Geon of (he illuminations upon the
Nile, and the light reflected from its water?, can be no
unnatural interpretation.
These illuminations are made at the time that the Khalis
is opened, which is along a canal that runs through Cairo,
the capital city of Egypt, and which terminates in a large
lake, several miles from Cairo toward the east. Upon
the opening of this canal? which is at the time that the
water of the Nile is risen to such a height as to secure
future plenty, great rejoicings are made, and that by night
as well as by day. ** The same day, in the evening,"
says Thevenot, " we took a cayque,^ and went to Old
Caire, and as soon as we came near it, we began to see,
on all hands, ashore and upon the water, a vast number
of large figures made of lamps placed in such and such
order, as of crosses, mosques, stars, crosses of Malta,
trees, and an infinite number of the like, from one end of
Old Caire to the other. There were two statues of fire,
representing a man and a woman, which, at the further
distance they were seen, the more lovely they appeared :
these figures were two square machines of wood, two
pikes length high, each in a boat These ma-
chines are filled with lamps from top to bottom, which are
lighted as soon as it is night. In each of these figures there
are above two thousand lamps, which are so placed, that
on all sides you see a man and a woman of fire. Besides
that, all the acabas, or barks, of the pasha, and beys, are
also full of lamps, and their music of trumpets, flutes,
and drums, which keep almost a continual noise, mingled
■with that of squibs, crackers, fire lances, great and small
ghot ; so that the vast number of lamps, with the cracking
* Antiq. Jud. lib. 1, cap. 1, sect. 3. \ K boat.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 405
of Ihe gunpowder, and noise of music, make a kind of
agreeable confusion, that, without doubt, cheers up the
most dejected and melancholic. This lasts till midnight,
and then all retire; the lamps burning all night, unless
they be put out by the wind and squibs. This solemnity
continues for three nights. The opening of the Khalis
hath, in all times, been very famous, even among the an-
cient Egyptians, "^ as being that which nourishes the
country. "f
These illuminations, which Thevenot saw, were very
magnificent ; butJVlalllet supposes these modern Egyptian
illuminations fall far short of ihose of antiquity. If so, no
wonder an Eg3 ptian Jew, of the time of the Ptolemies,
should be so struck with the light of Geon, or the Nile, in
the time of the vintage, or when the grapes became ripe,
which, according to Dr» Shaw, is in those countries by
August, J in which mouth the Khalis is generally open-
ed.lj
Maillet tells us, that illuminations are very common in
Egypt. " That there is no rejoicing, no festival of any
consideration at all, unaccompanied with illuminations.
That for this purpose they make use of earthen lamps,
which they put into \evy deep vessels of glass, in such a
manner as that the glass is two thirds, or at least one
half of its height higher than the lamp, in order to preserve
the light, and prevent its extinction by the wind. That
he believed the Egyptians had carried this art to the
highest perfection, there being nothing which ihey could
not represent with lamps; palaces, towers, even battles.
That nothing assuredly produced a more charming effect.
That the illuminations of all the mosques of Cairo, every
night during the Ramadan month, and those preceding the
principal ?«lohammedan festivals, viewed from the flat
roofs of the houses of that city, made one of the most
beautiful spectacles in the world, being in no respect in-
■ Not, it may be, rigidly speaking, the opening that particular canal,
hut the time the Nile is so much swelled as to insure plenty in the follow-
ing spring, t Fart 1, p. 234. i Page 146. \\ Shaw, p. 383.
426 COXCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
ferior to the illuminations of Constantinople, which soiije
travellers have so much extolled, and which are seen at
such great distances."*
But these were land illuminations ; those on the water
must be much more brilliant, on account of the waters
reflecting the splendour and greallj augmenting the light.
Maillet indeed supposes, that in their water processions,
which he describes with great pompousness, and which
continued through the months of June, Julj, August, and
September,f these illuminations were made use of. *' All
those boats being decorated with lamps, united with the
sound of an infinite number of musical in-truments, on all
sides afforded a magnificent spectacle. The name of the
owner of each boat was in the night season written
there with letters of fire, by means of these lamps ; as
they were known in the day time by the shape and the
colours of each njan's banner." He adds, that, accord-
ing to the Arabian writers, *< the (floating) palaces about
the kind's were all illuminated, for four or five leagues
round, more than twenty thousand boats being assembled,
particularly in the time that the Nile was upon the
increase." J
But as Thevenot speaks only of the three nights after
the opening of the Khalis, there is reason to believe, that
in the time in which the son of Sirach lived, that was then
the principal time for water illuminations, and that there-
fore that ancient Jewish writer speaks of the light of
Geon at that time only. The processions which are rep-
resented on the swathing of some of the mummies, which
Maillet mentions, page 75, may as well be understood of
those of the time when the Nile had attained its desired
height, as of the superstitious processions of other months.
• Let. 2, p. 80. t Page 76. t Page 80, 81.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 427
OBSERA^ATION IX.
OF THE EXCELLENCE OF THE WATERS OF THE NILE.
There are few wells in Egypt, but their waters are
not drank, beinj; unpleasant and unwholesome : the waler
of the Nile is what they universally make use of in this
country, which is looked upon to be extraordinarily
wholesome, and at the same time, extremely delicious.
The author of the notes on le Brnyn mentions this^
last circumstance, and takes notice of the Egyptians
being wont to excite thirst artificially, that they might
drink the more of it ; nor is there any reason to doubt of
the fact, since Maillet has afErmed the same thing ; the
only point in which they differ being, that Maillet says,
they do this by salt, the other by spices. The account
of Maillet, as it is given us by the publisher of his re-
marks, is indeed so very curious, that I shall set it down
here at length.
" The water of Egypt," says the Abbe Mascrier^f "is
so delicious, that one would not wish the heat should be
less, nor to be delivered from the sensation of thirst. The
Turks find it so exquisitely charming, that they excite
themselves to drink of it by eating salt. It is a common
saying among them, that if Mohammed had drank of it,
he would have begged of God not to have died, that he
might always have done it. They add, that whoever
has once drank of it, he ought to drink of if a second time.
This is what the people of the country told me, when
they saw me return from ten years' absence. When the
Egyptians undertake the pilgrimage of Mecca, or go out
of their country on any ether account, they speak of noth-
ing but the pleasure they shall find at their return in
drinking the Nile water. There is nothing to be com-
pared to this satisfaction ; it surpasses in their esteem that
* Tom. 2, p. 103. t Let. 1, p. 15, 16.
428 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
of seeing their relations again, and their families. Agree-
ably to this, all those that have tasted of this water allow
that thej never met with the like in anj other place. In
truth, when one drinks of it the first time, it seems to be
some water prepared by art. It has something in it in-
expressibly agreeable and pleasing to the taste ; and we
ought to give it perhaps the same rank among waters, which
champaigne has among wines. I must confess however it
has, to my taste, too much sweetness. But its most valuable
quality is, that it is infinitely salutary. Drink it in what
quantifies you will, it never in the least incommodes you.
This is so true, that it is no uncommon thing to see some
persons uiink three buckets of it in a day, without finding
the least inconvenience. . . When I give such encomi-
ums to the water of Egypt, it is right to observe, that I
speak only of that of the Nile, which indeed is the only
water there which is drinkable. Well water is detesta-
ble and unwholesome ; fountains are so rare, that they
are a kind of prodigy in that country ; and as for the rain
water, it would be in vain to attempt preserving that, since
scarce any falls in Egypt^"
The embellishments of a Frenchman may be seen here,
but the fact however in general is indubitable.
A person that never before heard of this delicacy of
the water of the Nile, and of the large quantities that on
that account, are drank of it, will, I am very sure, find an
energy in those words of Moses to Pharaoh, Exod. vii.
18, The Egyptians shall loalh to drink of the water of
the river, which he never observed before. They will
loath to drink of that water which they used to prefer to
all the waters of the universe, loath to drink of that which
they had been wont eagerly to long for; and will rather
choose to drink of well water, which is in their country
so detestable. And as none of our commentators, that I
know of, have observed this energy, my reader, I hope,
will not be displeased that I have remarked it here.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA.. 429
OBSERVATION X.
METHOD OF PURIFYING THE WATERS OF THE NILE, WHEN
MUDDY, THROUGH THE INUNDATION OF THAT RIVER.
From this circumstance it is nalnral (o pass on to
another, mentioned in the history of this plague, in which
probably there is more meaning than is commonly under-
stood. And the Lord spake unto Moses, say unto Aaron^
Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the wa-
ters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and
upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that
they may become blood; and that there may be blood
throughout all the land of Egypt, both in the vessels of
wood, and in vessels of stone, Exod. vii. 19. To what
purpose this minuteness, this corrupting the water that
had been taken up into vessels before the stretching out
of the fatal rod ? And if vessels are mentioned at all, why
are those of wood and stone distinguished from each
other?
But perhaps these words do not signify, that the water
that had been taken up into their vessels, was changed into
blood. The water of the Nile is known to be very thick
and muddy, and they purify it either by a paste made of
almonds, or by filtrating it through certain pots of white
earth, which is the preferable way, and therefore the pos-
session of one of these pots is thought a great happiness. *=
Now may not the meaning of this passage be, that the
water of the Nile should not only look red and nauseous,
like blood in the river, but in their vessels too, when
taken up in small quantities; and that no method whatever
of purifying it should take place, but whether drank out
of vessels of wood, or out of vessels of stone, by means of
which they were wont to purge the Nile water, it should
be the same, and should appear like blood ?
• Le Bru)n, torn. 2, p. 103. Thevenot, part 1, p. 245, and SCO.
VOL. III. 55
430 CONCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
Some method must have been used in very early days
to clarify the water of the Nile; the mere letting it
stand to settle, hardly seems sufficient, especially if we
consider the early elegance that obtained in Egypt. So
simple an invention then as filtrating vessels may easily
be supposed to be as ancient as the lime of Moses ; and
to them therefore it seems natural to suppose the threat-
eiunz refers.
OBSERVATION XL
THE WATERS OF THIS RIVER UNWHOLESOME AT THE
COMM-ENCEMENT OF THE INUNDATION.
It is common indeed for the Nile water to turn red, and
to become disagreeable, in one part of the year ; but this
was of a different nature.
Dr. Pococke"^ mentions this fermentation of the NilCy
and says, its water turns red, and sometimes green, as
soon as the river begins to rise, which, according to him,
it generally does about the eighteenth or nineteenth of
June ; and that this discolouring of the water continues
twenty, thirty, or forty days | during Avhich time it is
very unwholesome and purging; so that in Cairo they
drink at that time, of water preserved in cisterns, under
the houses and mosques. Maillet mentions the same fact,
but with this difference, that he supposes the river begins
to rise, in common, the latter end of April and beginning of
May ; and that he supposes there is a difference in differ-
ent years as to this corruption, saying, that there are
some years in which, from the very first increase of the
Nile, the water of this river corrupts. He adds, that
then it appears greenish, sometimes reddish, and if kept a
little while in a vessel, that it breeds worms. f
* Dcscr. of the East, vol. 1, p. 199. f Lett 2, p. 57.
WILDRRXESS, AND THE RED SEA. 431
Perhaps some may be disposed from bence lo imagine,
that the Nile's being turned into blood was only a natural
occurrence, and suchacorruplion of the water as these an-
thors speak of; but besides this corruption's taking place
before the usual time, immediately upon the smiting the
river by Moses and Aaron, and its being followed by
others wonders ; the universality of the corruption, and
the effects it produced, show the finger of God was there.
The universality of the corruption, in the first place.
To set forth which, a variety of words is made use of in
Exod. vii. 19, nor is that variety made use of without a
meaning : let us consider it with a little distinctness. The
Nile was the only river in Egypt, but it was divided into
branches, and entered by different mouths into the sea ;
there were numberless canals made by art, for the better
watering their lands ; several vast lakes are formed by
the inundations of the Nile, inhabited by fish and wild
fov^l; and many reservoirs are contrived for the retain-
ing the water, either by stopping up the mouths of the
smaller canals, which are derived from the greater, and
preventing the return of the water, or by digging pits or
cisterns for the preserving water, where there are no ca-
nals, and this for the watering their gardens and different
plantations, or for the having sweet water when the Nile
corrupts ; all which appear in the accounts that are give»
«s of this country by travellers,* and are, I think, dis-
tinctly pointed out in Exod. vii. 19. The words however
in our version are not so well chosen as could be wished,
nor so happily selected as those of the translation of Pag-
ninus and Arias Montanus. " Super flumina, rivos, palu-
des, omnem congregationem aquarum," that is, "Upon
their rivers, or branches of their river, their canal, their
lakes, or large standing water, and all reservoirs of water
of a smaller kind." Now if it had been a natural event,
the lakes and the reservoirs that had then no communi-
• See Dr. Pocockc in the last cited place, and Maillet, Lett. 2, p. 60,
61, Lett. 3, p. or, OS, and Lett. 9, p. 5.
432 COXCERNING EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
calion with the river, on the account of the lowness oi
the water at that time of the year, could not hav'e been
intecied ; which yet they were, according to the Mo-
saic [nsiory, and they were forced to dig wells, instead
of having recourse to their wonted reservoirs.
Tile etft^cts this corrnplion produced prove the same
thi>;g, in ihe second place. Had it been a sort of corrup-
tio.) iliai happened not unfrequenlly, would the Egyptians
have been surprised at it ? or would their magicians have
attempted to imitate it? Would they not rather have
shown ihat it was a natural event, and what often fell out?
Is the corruption such as kills the fish in the Nile? That
in the time of Moses did ; but nothing of alike sort ap-
pears iu modern travels.
What a number of circumstances concur to determine
it a miracle !
OBSERVATION XII.
FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF EXOD. \ ii. 19.
The representation of the waters of Egypt, which the
translation of Exod. vii. 19, by Pagninus gives us, is cer-
tainly just, for it is conformable to all the accounts of
travellers. Bishop Patrick however has unhappily de-
parted from it in his commentary.
He gives us the distinction with great precision and ex-
actness, as to three of the words : but as to the fourth,
he most unaccountably supposes it means places digged
for the holding rainwater when it fell, as it sometimes did ;
and wells perhaps dug near the river.* It is certain that
* ^nd the Lord spake unto JUases, sayi7i^. Take thy rod and stretch out
thy hand upon the -waters of Egypt, upon their streams On"^nJ 7^ ahiahc'
rotam, probably the seven branches into which the Nile was divided before it
fell into the sea. Upon their rivers ; OTT'lN' 7J^ al yoreehem, the sev-
eral cuts made by art out of every streani to draw the waler into their
grounds, ^nd upon their ponds CDrfOJN 7}?) rce al agmeehenu These
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 433
rain does soQielimes fail in Egiypt : Maillet, who lived
sixteen years in that country, admits it, as well as other
authors ; but he expressly aflSrms that it fell in too small
quantities to be kept for drinking.^ Nor have we any
reason to imagine wells are meant, as the Bishop sup-
poses; for thou2;h they have a few wells now, and but a
very few, for their water is detestable and unwholesome,
as Maillet aflSrms in the same paragraph, and consequent-
ly misht have some few anciently, yet it seems that
only their common drinking water was designed to be
affected after this manner, since, had their wells been
equally corrupted they would hardly have thought of
digging others. To which ought lo be added, that the
original word, cd'djx agmeem^ signi6es places in which
rushes are wont to grow, as they do in shallow lakes, but
not about wells or cisterns, since a kindred word means a
rush.
Nor is this the only passage in which there is a partic-
ular representation of the waters of Egypt. There is
another to which the distinction I have mentioned may be
applied, and by such an application we may be delivered
from those embarrassments which seem to have perplexed
interpreters. The river shall be wasted and dried vp.
And they shall turn the rivers far away, and the brooks
of defence shall be emptied and dried np, the reeds and
the flags shall wither. The paper reeds by the brooks,
by the month of the brooks^ and every thing sown by the
brooks shall wither, &.c. Is. xix. 5, 6, 7. This differs a
little from the preceding representation, but in corres-
pondence with it is thus, I presume, to be explained.
I
were digged to hold rain water -when it fell, as it did sometimes : and near
the river also, ihey digged wells it is likely, which may be here intended.
Patrick. This last interpretation is that to which Mr. llarmcr objects.
Edit.
• Je parle uniquement de I'eau dii Nil, puisque c'est la seule en efiet
qui soit potable. L'eau du puits y est detestable & tres m&lsaine. . . ic U
I'egard de l'eau de pluie, il seroit impossible d'y en coiiscrvcr, puisqu'il u'y
pleut presque jamais. Let. 1, p. 16.
434 COXCEUxVlNG EGYPT, THE ADJOINING
The river^ Ihe Nile that is, shall be wasted and dried up*
The rivers, the branches of it by which its waters pass
into the sea, the slreamSy as the word is translated in (hat
passage of Exodus, shall be of no use. The brooks of
defence, which word in Exodus is translated rivers, but
seems to signify canals, the canals which l]dve been
drawn by Egyptian princes from the river, and those lakes
in which reeds and Jlcigs grow, both which they have
formed for the defence of places, shall be emptied and
dried up. The cultivated places by these canals, yea by
the mouth of them, and all those things that are sown, and
depend upon them, shall rvither.
Dr. Shaw has taken some notice* of that passage in
Exodus which I have been illustrating, but not with all
the distinctness that was necessary ; and as to this of Isaiah,
he is, I think, quite silent, though it may be equally well
illustrated.
The additional circumstances are, the mention of the
Nile distinctly from its branches, the digging these ca-
nals and lakes for defence, and the advantage of being
near the mouth of one of these artificial rivers. The an-
cients tell us, that there were large lakes to the north and
west of Memphis, which made the strength of the place
surprising ;t and Dr. Pococke saw some near Metrahenny,
which he supposes were these very lakes. Nothing then
could be more natural than those words of Ezekiel,J I ain
against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon
that lieth in ihe midst of his rivers, which hath said. My
river is my own, and I have made it for myself, if the
Prophet was referring to him as residing in Memphis.
Whether he was, or not, is not ray business here to in-
quire : other cities might be guarded in the same manner.IJ
Egypt is a very level country, but not absolutely so,
which indeed is unimaginable : for though, according to
* Page 402, note. \ See the notes on Norden. i Ch- xxix. 5.
I) Thanis was for one in De A'itriaco's time. Vide Gesta Dei, &c. p. 1143.
WILDERNESS, AND THE RED SEA. 435
Dr. Shaw, the Egyptians make great rejoicings when the
Nile rises sixteen cubits, yet nineteen or twenty are re-
quired to prepare the whole land for cultivation ;* and
doubtless some of it would, or might be at least, overflow-
ed with less than sixteen cubits, though not enough to an-
swer the demands of the country. It appears also, from
another fact mentioned by the Doctor, that the land
originally lay with a considerable descent to the river:
for he says, the soil near the brinks is sometimes more
than thirty feet, whilst at the utmost extremity of the in-
undation it is not a quarter part, of so many inches;! con-
sequently if this adventitious soil, brought by the Nile,
were removed, the land would lay with a descent to the
river that would be considerable. In such a situation of
things, the things that were sown near the months of the
canals, must have been in the lowest places, and were
sufficiently watered, when the higher grounds produced
nothing, for want of moisture : to say then, the things that
were sown or cultivated near the mouths of the canals
should wither, is describing the utmost failure of water,
by a periphrasis sufficiently easy.
OBSERVATION XIII.
OF THE PLAGUE OF HAIL.
I DO not apprehend, that it is at all necessary to sup-
pose, that all the servants, and all the cattle of the Egyp-
tians, that were abroad at the time the hall fell, which
Moses threatened, and which was attended with thunder
and lightning, died ; it is sufficient to suppose they all
felt the hail stones, and that several of them were killed.
This was enough to justify the words of 3Ioses, that it
shoidd be a grievous haily such as had not fallen before
in Egypt from its foundation. For though it hails some-
* Pfl^e 384. t Page ^SG.
436 CONCERNING EGYPT, &e.
times in Egypt as well as rains, as Dr. Pococke found it
hailed at Fioume, when he was there in February:^ and
thunders too, as Thevenot says it did one night in De-
cember, when he was at Cairo ;f yet fatal effects are not
wont to follow in that country, as appears from what
Thevenot says of this thunder, which, he tells us, killed
a man in the castle there, though it had never been heard
before that thunder had killed any body at Cairo. For
divers people then to have been killed by the lightning
and the hail, besides cattle, was an event that Moses might
well say had never happened there before, from the time
it began to be inhabited.
I will only add, that Moses, by representing this as an
extraordinary hail, supposed that it did sometimes hail,
there, as it is found in fact to do, though not as in other
countries : J the not raining in Egypt, it is well known, is
to be understood in the same manner.
* Vol. 1, p . 59. t Part 1, p. 247.
+ So Dr. Parry tells us, tliat when he was at Cairo, there was one show-
er of hail, as well as several of rain, which first they were told had not
been observed before in any man's memory, p. 255. It appears by circum-
stances that it was early in the spring.
END OF VOLUME THIRD.
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