CHAP. 21. GENESIS. with sulphur, "inasmuch as both of them are found pro- But his conjec Ver. 24. Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and ture is not founded on observation. The statement he With regard to the agents employed in this catastrophe, there might seem reason to suppose that volcanic phenomena had some share in producing it; but Chateau'I cannot," he briand's remark is deserving of attention. says, "coincide in opinion with those who suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have seen Vesuvius, Solfatara, Monte Nuovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the Azores, the Mamalif opposite tc Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of Auvergne; and remarked in all of them the same characters; that is to say, mountains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which exhibited incontestible proofs of the agency of fire.' After noticing the very different shape and position of the Bitumen, warm springs, and phosDead Sea, he adds: " phoric stones, are found, it is true, in the mountains of Arabia; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur, and asphaltos, is not sufficient to attest the anterior existence of a volcano." The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt the idea of Professors Michaelis and Büsching, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built upon a mine of bitumen; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the cities sank in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brun ingeniously suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in We learn from the Mosaic flames by the fire of heaven. men. account, that the Vale of Siddim, which is now occupied by the Dead Sea, was full of "slime-pits," or pits of bituPococke says: "It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the water, and comes ashore after windy weather; the Arabs gather it up, and it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines, and is thought to have been a very great ingredient in the bitumen used in embalming the bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths, and has an ill smell when burnt. It is probable that there are subterraneous fires that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the sea, where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the motion of the water occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable, that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns only to a white stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch; so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and that this bitumen boils up out of it." To give force to this last conjecture, however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whether bitumen is capable of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of fire. The stone in question is the black fetid limestone, used at Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is owing to a strong impregnation of sulphureted hydrogen. If the buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with quarries of which the neighbouring mountains abound, they would be easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The scriptural account, however, is explicit, that "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven;" which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which seems referible to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very materials, as it were, of this awful visitation still at hand in the neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of a thunder-storm, without excluding a supernatural cause from the explanation of the phenomena. Captains Irby and Mangles collected on the southern coast lumps of nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small hen's egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought down by the rain: their great deposite must be sought for," they say," in the cliff." Dr. Shaw supposes that the bitumen, as it rises, is accompanied "I was informed," he says, "that the bitumen, for which this lake hath been always remarkable, is raised, at certain times, from the bottom, in large hemispheres; which, as soon as they touch the surface, and so are acted upon by the external air, burst at once with great smoke and noise, like the pulvis fulminans of the chymists, and disperse themselves round about in a thousand pieces. But this happens only near the shore; for, in greater depths, the eruptions are supposed to discover themselves only in such columns of smoke as are now and then observed to arise from the lake." Chateaubriand speaks of the puffs of smoke" which announce or follow the emersion of asphaltos, and of fogs that are really unwholesome like all other vapours said to arise from the bosom of the lake. But it fogs." These he considers as the supposed pestilential admits of question, in the deficiency of more specific information, whether what has been taken for columns of smoke, may not be the effect of evaporation.-MODERN TRAVELLER. Ver. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. "From behind him." This seems to imply that she was following her husband, as is the custom at this day. When men, or women, leave their house, they never look back, as Should a husband have "it would be very unfortunate." left any thing which his wife knows he will require, she will not call on him to turn or look back; but will either Should a take the article herself, or send it by another. man have to look back on some great emergency, he will not then proceed on the business he was about to transact. When a person goes along the road, (especially in the evening,) he will take great care not to look back, "because the evil spirits would assuredly seize him." When they go on a journey, they will not look behind, though the palankeen, or bandy, should be close upon them; they step a little on one side, and then look at you. Should a person have to leave the house of a friend after sunset, he will be advised in going home not to look back: "as much as posHas a person sible keep your eyes closed; fear not." made an offering to the evil spirits, he must take particular care when he leaves the place not to look back. A female known to me is believed to have got her crooked neck by looking back. Such observations as the following may be often heard in private conversation. "Have you heard that Comaran is very ill ?"-"No, what is the matter with him?"" Matter! why he has looked back, and the evil spirit has caught him."-ROEERTS. CHAP. 21. ver. 6. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. A woman advanced in years, under the same circumstances, would make a similar observation: "I am made to laugh." But this figure of speech is also used on any wonderful occasion. Has a man gained any thing he did not expect, he will ask, "What is this? I am made to Has a person lost any thing which the moment laugh. before he had in his hand, he says, "I am made to laugh." Has he obtained health, or honour, or wealth, or a wife, or Ah, his a child, it is said, "He is made to laugh." mouth is now full of laughter; his mouth cannot contain ail that laughter." (Ps. cxxvi. 2.)-ROBERTS. Ver. 8. And the child grew, and was weaned. and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. When the time has come to wean a child, a fortunai day is looked for, and the event is accompanied with feast ing and religious ceremonies. Rice is given to the child in a formal way, and the relations are invited to join in the festivities. For almost every event of life the Hindoos have a fixed rule from which they seldom deviate. They because, if they did wean a female child within the year, not, it would become steril;" but boys are often allowed the breast till they are three years of age.-ROBERTS 66 Ver. 9. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the It is not uncommon for a man of property to keep a concubine in the same house with his wife; and, strange as it may appear, it is sometimes at the wife's request. Perhaps she has not had any children, or they may have died, and they both wish to have one, to perform their funeral ceremonies. By the laws of Menu, should a wife, during the first eight years of her marriage, prove unfruitful; or should the children she has borne be all dead in the tenth year after marriage; or should she have a daughter only in the eleventh year; he may, without her consent, put her away, and take a concubine into the house. He must, however, continue to support her.-ROBERTS. Ver. 14. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, (putting it on her shoulder,) and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. Chardin has given us, at large, an amusing account of these bottles, which, therefore, I would here set down. After observing that the bottle given to Hagar was a leather one, he goes on thus: "The Arabs, and all those that lead a wandering kind of life, keep their water, milk, and other kind of liquors in these bottles. They keep in them more fresh than otherwise they would do. These leather bottles are made of goat skins. When the animal is killed, they cut off its feet and its head, and they draw it in this manner out of the skin, without opening its belly. They afterward sew up the places where the legs were cut off, and the tail, and when it is filled, they tie it about the neck. These nations, and the country people of Persia, never go a journey without a small leather bottle of water hanging by their side like a scrip. The great leather bottles are made of the skin of a he-goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid's skin. Mons. Dandilly, for want of observing this, in his beautiful translation of Josephus, has put goat skin in the chapter of Hagar and Ishmael, instead of a kid's skin bottle, which, for the reasons assigned above, must have been meant." He reassumes the subject in another part of the same volume, in which he tells us, "that they put into these goat-skin and kid-skin vessels every thing which they want to carry to a distance in the East, whether dry or liquid, and very rarely make use of boxes and pots, unless it be to preserve such things as are liable to be broken. The reason is, their making use of beasts of carriage for conveying these things, who often fall down under their loading, or throw it down, and also because it is in pretty thin woollen sacks that they enclose what they carry. There is another advantage, too, in putting the necessaries of life in these skin vessels, they are preserved fresher; the ants and other insects cannot make their way to them; nor can the dust get in, of which there are such quantities in the hot countries of Asia, and so fine, that there is no such thing as a coffer impenetrable to it; therefore it is that butter, honey, cheese, and other like ,aliments, are enclosed in vessels made of the skins of this species of animals." According to this, the things that were carried to Joseph for a present, were probably enclosed in little vessels made of kid skins; not only the balm and the honey, which were somewhat liquid; but the nuts and the almonds too, that they might be preserved fresh, and the whole put into slight woollen sacks.-HARMER. That Ishmael should, when just ready to faint, and unabie to proceed onward in his journey, desire to lie down I knew a couple with whom this occurred, and the wife delights in uursing and bringing up the offspring of her husband's concubine. under some tree, where he might be in the shade, was quite natural: in such a situation Thevenot (Travels, p. 164) fell in with a poor Arab in this wilderness, just ready to expire. "Passing by the side of a bush," says this writer, "we heard a voice that called to us, and being come to the place, we found a poor languishing Arab, who told us that he had not eaten a bit for five days; we gave him some victuals and drink, with a provision of bread for two days more, and so went on our way." Ishmael was, without debate, fourteen years old when Isaac was born, (compare Gen. xvi. 16, with chap. xxi. 5,) and probably seventeen when Isaac was weaned, for it was anciently the custom in these countries to suckle children till they were three years old, and it still continues so; the translation then of the Septuagint is very amazing, for instead of representing Abraham as giving Hagar bread, and a skin bottle of water, and putting them upon Hagar's shoulder, that version represents Abraham as putting his son Ishmael on the shoulders of his mother. How droll the representation! Young children indeed are wont to be carried so; but how ridiculous to describe a youth of seventeen, or even fourteen, as riding upon his mother's shoulders, when sent upon a journey into the wilderness, and she loaded at the same time with the provisions. Yet unnatural and odd as this representation is, our version approaches too near to it, when it describes Hagar as casting the youth under one of the shrubs: which term agrees well enough with the getting rid of a half grown man from her shoulders, but by no means with the maternal affectionate letting go her hold of him, when she found he could go no farther, and desired to lie down and die under that bush: for that undoubtedly was the idea of the sacred writer; she left off supporting him, and let him gently drop on the ground, where he desired to lie. In a succeeding verse, the angel of the LORD bade her lift up Ishmael, and hold him in her hand, support him under his extreme weakness; she had doubtless done this before, and her quitting her hold, upon his lying down, is the meaning of the word (75) shalak, translated casting, that word sometimes, indeed, signifying a sudden and rather violent quitting hold of a thing, but at other times a parting with it in a gentle manner. It may also be wondered at, how Hagar came to give way to despair at that time, as she certainly did; for since there were several shrubs in that place, we may suppose it was a sure indication of water, and that therefore maternal anxiety would rather have engaged her to endeavour to find out the spring which gave this spot its verdure. But it is to be remembered, that though Irwin found many shrubs in that part of the wilderness through which he travelled, yet the fountains or wells there were by no means equal in number to the spots of ground covered with shrubs, a latent moisture in the earth favouring their growth, where therefore, having found her preceding searches vain, very there were no streams of water above ground: she might, naturally be supposed to have given up all hope of relief, when the angel made her observe where there was water to be found, upon drinking which Ishmael revived.HARMER. Ver. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him, a good way off, as it were a bowshot. This is a common figure of speech in their ancient -So far as the arrow writings, "The distance of an arrow.— flies." The common way of measuring a short distance is to say, "It is a call off," i. e. so far as a man's voice can reach. "How far is he off?" "O, not more than three calls," i. e. were three men stationed within the reach of each other's voices, the voice of the one farthest off would reach to that distance.-ROBERTS. Ver. 19. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. Few European readers are, probably, able to form an adequate idea of the horrors of such a situation as is here described. The following description may serve to paint to us the terrors of the desert, and the danger of perishing in it with thirst. "The desert of Mesopotamia now presents to our eyes its melancholy uniformity. It is a con. CHAP. 21-23. water. GENESIS. inuation, and, as it were, a branch of the Great Arabian desert on the other side of the Euphrates. Saline plants cover, at large intervals, the burning sand or the dry gypsum. Wormwood spreads here, as the furze in Europe, over immense tracts, from which it excludes every other plant. Agile herds of gazelles traverse those plains, where many wild asses formerly roved. The lion concealed in the rushes along the rivers lies in wait for these bu: when he is unable to seize them, to appease animals; his hunger, he sallies forth with fury, and his terrible roaring rolls like thunder from desert to desert. The water of the desert is, for the most part, bitter and brackish. The atmosphere, as is usual in Arabia, is pure and dry; frequently it is burning in the naked and sandy plains: the corrupt vapours of stagnant waters are diffused there; the exhalations of the sulphureous and salt lakes increase the pestilential matter. Whenever any interruption of equilibrium sets a column of such infected air into rapid motion, that poisonous wind arises, which is called Samum or Samyel, which is dreaded less in the interior of Arabia than on the frontiers, and especially in Syria and Mesopotamia. As soon as this dangerous wind arises, the air immediately loses its purity, the sun is covered with a bloody veil, all animals fall alarmed to the earth, to avoid this burning blast, which stifles every living being that is bold enough to expose itself to it. The caravans which convey goods backward and forward from Aleppo to Bagdad, and have to traverse these deserts, pay a tribute to the Arabs, who consider themselves as masters of these solitudes. They have also to dread the suffocating wind, the swarms of locusts, and the want of water, as soon as they leave the Euphrates." A French traveller affirms, that he was witness to a scene occasioned by the want of water, the most terrible that can be imagined for a man of feeling. It was between Anah and Dryjeh. The locusts, after they had devoured every thing, at last perished. The immense numbers of dead locusts corrupted the pools, from which, for want of springs, they were obliged to draw The traveller observed a Turk, who, with despair in his countenance, ran down a hill, and came towards him. "I am," cried he, "the most unfortunate man in the world! I have purchased, at a prodigious expense, two hundred girls, the most beautiful of Greece and Georgia. I have educated them with care; and now that they are marriageable, I am taking them to Bagdad to sell them to advantage. Ah! they perish in this desert for thirst, but I feel greater tortures than they." The traveller immediately ascended the hill; a dreadful spectacle here presented itself to him. In the midst of twelve eunuchs and about a hundred camels he saw these beautiful girls, of the age of twelve to fifteen, stretched upon the ground, exposed to the torments of a burning thirst and inevitable death. Some were already buried in a pit which had just been made; a great number had dropped down dead by the side of their leaders, who had no more strength to bury them. On all sides were heard the sighs of the dying; and the cries of those who, having still some breath remaining, demanded The French traveller hastened in vain a drop of water. to open his leathern bottle, in which there was a little water. He was already going to present it to one of these "Madman!" cried his Arabian guide, unhappy victims. "wouldst thou also have us die from thirst?" He immediately killed the girl with an arrow, seized the bottle, and threatened to kill any one who should venture to touch it. He advised the slave-merchant to go to Dryjeh, where he at Dryjeh would find water. "No," replied the Turk, the robbers would take away all my slaves." The Arab dragged the traveller away. The moment they were retiring, these unhappy victims, seeing the last ray of hope vanish, raised a dreadful cry. The Arab was moved with compassion; he took one of them, poured a drop of water or her burning lips, and set her upon his camel, with the intention of making his wife a present of her. The poor girl fainted several times, when she passed the bodi's of her companions, who had fallen down dead in the way. Our traveller's small stock of water was nearly exhausted, when they found a fine well of fresh and pure water; but the rope was so short, that the pail would not reach the surface of the water. They cut their cloaks in strips, tied them together, and drew up but little water at a time, because they trembled at the idea of breaking their weak rope, and leaving their pail in the well. After such dan gers, they at last arrived at the first station in Syria.- Ver. 21. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Pa- When a father dies, the mother begins to look out for a Ver. 28. And Abraham set seven ewe-lambs of the flocks by themselves. 29. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by themselves? 30. And he said, For these seven ewe-lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. 31. Wherefore he called that place Beer-sheba; because there they sware both of them. Mr. BRUCE, (Travels, vol. i. p. 199,) relating the manner in which a compact was made between his party and some shepherds in Abyssinia, says, "Medicines and advice being given on my part, faith and protection pledged on theirs, two bushels of wheat and seven sheep were carried down to the boat."-Burder. CHAP. 22. ver. 3. And Abraham rose up early in rose There is no ground for supposing that the ancient eastern CHAP. 23. ver. 2. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; The ancient Greeks were accustomed to lay out the body after it was shrouded in its grave-clothes; sometimes upon a bier, which they bedecked with various sorts of flowers. The place where the bodies were laid out, was near the door of the house: there the friends of the deceased attended them with loud lamentations; a custom which still continues to be observed among that people. Dr. Chandler, with the door of her cottage open, lamenting her dead huswhen travelling in Greece, saw a woman at Megara, sitting door open, bewailing her little son, whose body lay by her band aloud; and at Zante, a woman in a house with the dressed, the hair powdered, the face painted and bedecked This custom of mourning for the dead, with gold leaf. near the door of the house, was probably borrowed from the Syrians; and if so, it will serve to illustrate an obscure expression of Moses, relative to Abraham: "And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." He came out of his own separate tent, and seating himself on the ground near the door of her tent, where her corpse was placed, that he were required, as well by decency as affection, lamented might perform those public solemn rites of mourning, that with many tears the loss he had sustained.-PAXTON. Ver. 7. And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. The politeness of Abraham may be seen exemplified among the highest and the lowest of the people of the East: in this respect, nature seems to have done for them, what art has done for others. With what grace do all classes bow on receiving a favour, or in paying their respects to a superior! Sometimes they bow down to the ground; at other times they put their hands on their bosoms, and gently incline the head; they also put the right hand on the face in a longitudinal position; and sometimes give a long and graceful sweep with the right hand, from the forehead to the ground.-ROBERTS. Ver. 9. That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field: for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a buryingplace among you. This is the most ancient example of a family vault or an hereditary sepulchre in a cave. In the southern mountainous part of Palestine, there are many natural caves in the rocks, which may easily be formed into spacious buryingplaces. There are still found in Syria, Palestine, and Egvpt, many such sepulchral caves, which have been frequently described by travellers who have visited those countries. These sepulchres are differently contrived. Sometimes they descend; only those which are made in the declivities of the mountains, often go horizontally into the rock. In Egypt, also, there are many open sepulchres, which run horizontally into the rock, but most of the mummy-pits are open perpendicularly, and you must let yourself down through this opening. In Palestine and Syria, on the contrary, the sepulchres which descend, are provided with steps, which are now for the most part covered with heaps of rubbish. Many of them consist in the inside of many chambers which are united by passages; in some of them the back chambers are deeper than the front ones, and you are obliged to descend some more steps to come to them. These chambers, as they are still found, are pretty spacious; in most of them recesses, six or seven feet long, are made in he walls all round, to receive the dead bodies; in others store slabs of the same length are fixed against the walls; sometimes several, one above another, on which the dead bodies were laid; in some few there are stonecoffins, which are provided with a lid. It is nearly in this manner that he arrangement of graves is prescribed in the Talmud; on'v there is always to be an antechamber and recesses made in the walls of the square sepulchres, the number of which may be different.-BURDER. Ver. 15. My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. Respectable people are always saluted with the dignified title, "My lord," hence English gentlemen on their arrival, are apt to suppose they are taken for those of very high rank. The man of whom Abraham offered to purchase Machpelah, affected to give the land. "Nay, my lord, hear me, the field I give thee." And this fully agrees with the conduct of those, who are requested to dispose of a thing to a person of superior rank. Let the latter go and ask the price, and the owner will say, "My lord, it will be a great favour if you will take it." "Ah, let me have that pleasure, my lord." Should the possessor believe he will one day need a favour from the great man, nothing will induce him to sell the article, and he will take good care (through the servants or a friend) it shall soon be in his house. Should he, however, have no expectation of a favour in future, he will say as Ephron, "The thing is worth so much; your pleasure, my lord."--ROBERTS. CHAP. 24. ver. 2. And Abraham said unto his cldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: 3. And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. The present mode of swearing among the Mohammedan Arabs, that live in tents as the patriarchs did, according to de la Roque, is by laying their hands on the Koran. They cause those who swear to wash their hands before they give them the book; they put their left hand underneath, and the right over it. Whether, among the patriarchs, one hand was under, and the other upon the thigh, is not certain; possibly Abraham's servant might swear with one hand under his master's thigh, and the other stretched out to Heaven. As the posterity of the patriarchs are described as coming out of the thigh, it has been supposed, this ceremony had some relation to their believing the promise of God, to bless all the nations of the earth, by means of one that was to descend from Abraham.-HARMER. Ver. 11. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. It is the work of females in the East to draw water both morning and evening; and they may be seen going in groups to the wells, with their vessels on the hip or the shoulder. In the morning they talk about the events of the past night, and in the evening about those of the day: many a time would the story of Abraham's servant and Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, be repeated by the women of Mesopotamia in their visits to the well.-ROBERTS. The women among the orientals, are reduced to a state of great subjection. In Barbary they regard the civility and respect which the politer nations of Europe pay to the weaker sex, as extravagance, and so many infringements of that law of nature, which assigns to man the pre-eminence. The matrons of that country, though they are considered indeed as servants of better station, yet have the greatest share of toil and business upon their hands. While the lazy husband reposes under some neighbouring shade, and the young people of both sexes tend the flocks, the wives are occupied all the day long, either in toiling on their looms, or in grinding at the mill, or in preparing bread or other kind of farinaceous food. Nor is this all; for to finish the day, " at the time of evening," to use the words of the sacred historian, "even at the time that women go out to draw water," they must equip themselves with a pitcher or goat's skin, and tying their sucking children behind them, trudge out in this manner, two or three miles, to fetch water.-PAXTON. Ver. 16. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin; neither had any man known her and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher and came up. The vessel that the Eastern women frequently make use of, for the purpose of carrying water, is described as like our jars, and is, it seems, of earth. Bishop Pococke, in his journey from Acre to Nazareth, observed a well, where oxen were drawing up water, from whence women carried water up a hill, in earthen jars, to water some plantations of tobacco. In the next page he mentions the same thing in general, and speaks of their carrying the jars on their heads. There is no reason to suppose this kind of vessel was appropriated to the carrying water for the they carried it for domestic uses. Such seems to have purposes of agriculture, it might do equally well when been the sort of vessels in which the women of ancient times fetched water, for it is called a kad in the history of Rebecca, Gen. xxiv. 14, &c. and I have elsewhere shown, that the word signifies a jar of considerable size, in which they keep their corn, and in which, at least sometimes, they fetched their water. Since the above was written, I have observed a passage CHAP. 24. GENESIS. in Dr. Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, that confirms "The women," and illustrates the preceding account: says the Doctor, "resort to the fountains by their houses, each with a large two-handled earthen jar, on the back, or thrown over the shoulder, for water." This account of the jars made use of by the Greek women of the island of Tenedos may, very naturally, be understood to be a modern, but accurate comment on what is said concerning Rebecca's fetching water. The Eastern women, according to Dr. Pococke, sometimes carry their jars upon their heads; but Rebecca's was carried on her shoulder. In such a case, the jar is not to be supposed to have been placed upright on the shoulder, but held by one of the handles, with the hand over the shoulder, and suspended in this manner on the back. Held, I should imagine, by the right hand over the left shoulder. Consequently, when it was to be presented to Abraham's servant, that he might drink out of it, it was to be gently moved over the left arm, and being suspended by one hand, while the other, probably, was placed under the bottom of the jar, it was in that position presented to Abraham's servant, and his attendants, to drink out of. She said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. Ver. 18.-HARMER. Ver. 18. And she said, Drink, my lord and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. As We met on this road (from Orfa to Bir) with several Ver. 22. And it came to pass, as the camels had The weight of the ornaments that the servant of Abraham put upon Rebecca appears to us rather extraordinary. Sir J. Chardin assures us as heavy, and even heavier, were worn by the women of the East when he was there. The ear-ring, or jewel for the face, weighed half a shekel, and the bracelets for her hands ten shekels, Gen. xxiv. 22, which, as he justly observes, is about five ounces. Upon which he tells us, "the women wear rings and bracelets of as great weight as this, through all Asia, and even much heavier. They are rather manacles than bracelets. There are some as large as the finger. The women wear several of them, one above the other, in such a manner as sometimes to have the arm covered with them from the wrist to the elbow. Poor people wear as many of glass or horn. They hardly ever take them off: they are their riches."-HARMER. Ver. 43. Behold, I stand by the well of water; It is still the proper business of the females to supply the Ver. 47. And I put the ear-ring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hand. Nothing is more common than for heathen females to have a ring in the nose; and this has led some to suppose, that the jewel here alluded to was put into that member, and not on the face. "I put a jewel on thy forehead;' Ez. xv. 11. The margin has, for forehead, "nose." It does not appear to be generally known, that there is an ornament which is worn by females in the East on the forehead. It is made of thin gold, and is studded with precious stones, and called Pattam, which signifies dignity. Thus, to tie on the Pattam, is to "invest with high dignity." Patta-Istere, "is the name of the first lawful wife of the king." In the Sathur-Agaraathe, this ornament is called "the ornament of the forehead." Tyerman and Bennet say of a bride they saw in China, "Her headdress sparkled with jewels, and was most elegantly beaded with rows of pearls encircling it like a coronet; from which a brilliant angular ornament hung over her forehead, and between her eyebrows."--ROBERTS. Ver. 57. And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. Do people wish to know the truth of any thing which has been reported of another, they say, "Let us go and inquire of his mouth."-" Let us hear the birth of his mouth." Do servants ask a favour of their mistress, she will say, "I know not what will be the birth of the master's mouth; I will inquire at his mouth." So the mother and brother of Rebecca inquired at the mouth of the damsel, "And she whether she felt willing to go with the man. said, I will go."--ROBERTS. Ver. 59. And they sent away Rebecca their sis ter, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. How often have scenes like this led my mind to the to leave the paternal roof: the servants are all in confupatriarchal age! The daughter is about for the first time sion; each refers to things long gone by, each wishes to do One says, "Ah! do not forget him who nursed you wher something to attract the attention of his young mistress. an infant:" another, "How often did I bring you the beautiful lotus from the distant tank! Did I not always conceal your faults?" The mother comes to take leave. She weeps, and tenderly embraces her, saying, "My daughter, brother infolds his sister in his arms, and promises soon I shall see you no more;-Forget not your mother." The to come and see her. The father is absorbed in though', |