1650. [14.] The army this Turk (Ibrahim, one of the Kiajas or colonels of the Janisaries) had collected, was composed solely of volunteers: his domestics were of the number.

BARON DU TOTT. vol. ii. part iv. p. 152. In trained or military servants, the most powerful House is that of Ibrahim Bey, who has about six hundred Mamelukes. Next to him is Manrod, who has not above four hundred. The rest of the Beys, to the number of eighteen or twenty, have each of them from fifty to two hundred. See No. 541. VOLNEY'S Trav. vol. i. p. 116.

1652. [ 18.] When the (Arabian) shepherd kings went away from Egypt with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number, says MANETHO, than two hundred and forty thousand, they took their journey through the wilderness, for Syria; but as they were in fear of the Assyrians, who had then the dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country which is now called Judea, and that large enough to contain this great number of men, and called it Jerusalem. Here, remarks the judicious WHISTON, we have an account of the first building of the city Jerusalem, when the Phoenician shepherds were expelled out of Egypt, about thirtyseven years before Abraham came out of Haran.

See Joseph. against Apion, b. i. § 14.

1654. [Gen. xv. 1. The word of the LORD came unto Abram by a vision] It appears from v. 5, that during this vision Abraham was not in a state of sleep, but had an actual view of exterior objects. See No. 451, 448.

1655. [———— 9.] These were, probably, different fruits of the four seasons of the year; which seasons were denominated by their principal zodiacal animals.

1656. [10. Divided them in the midst] That is, he split in two each sacrificial branch, and placed the sides parallel to each other whilst they bled forth, respectively, their sacred juice. The fowls came to peck the fruit from these branches, v. 11. Oaths (or sacraments) relating to important matters, were made by the division of the victim. (EUSTATHIUS, on Iliad ii. l. 124.) Agamemnon, to confirm his faith sworn to Achilles, ordered victims to be brought. He then took one, and with his sword divided it in the midst, placed the pieces opposite each other, and passed between the separated pieces.

DICTYS Crelensis, lib. 2. & 5.

1657. At the Areopagus in Athens, the parties concerned in any legal covenant, were placed between the severed members of consecrated victims, where they bound themselves and families by a most solemn oath, to the sacred fulfilment of all the stipulated conditions of such covenant. See Antiquities of Athens.

1658. [ 2.] Abraham, though a stranger, reigned [in Damascus, whither he came with a great number of followers from a country beyond Babylon, called Chaldæa. But the people after some time conspired against him; in consequence he and his followers (amongst whom might be Eliezer) removed southward into Canaan, since called Judæa; where he fixed his abode, and became the father of a numerous offspring. (See NICHOLAS of Damascus, as quoted by Josephus, l. i. c. 8. And Euseb. præp. l. ix. c. 16. Or Univer. Hist. vol. ii. p. 356 ) — Meshek (Hebr.), included or adopted: that is, the adopted son of my house.

1659. [- --18.] Egypt was in Africa. But the Antients, assigning this country to Asia, made the Nile the Asiatic boundary on the West.

See PLINY, and the Antient Geographers.

Volusius Saturnius; and that among the common People, even the age of eighty-five afforded such prolific examples.

Pliny says also, that Masinissa had a son born to him after he was eighty-six years of age; and that Cato, the censor, had one at the age of eighty. Savonarola asserts, that Nicholas de Pellavicinis had a son in his hundredth year. Alexander Benedictus knew a German who had one in his ninetieth; and Semnius mentions another, who, at the age of a hundred, married a woman of thirty, and had a numerous offspring by her.

The celebrated Physician Felix Platerus, who died at Basle, in 1614, says, his father married when he was seventytwo years old, and had six sons; and at the age of eightytwo, his wife bore him a daughter. He mentions also that his grandfather had a son in the hundredth year of his Dr. MOSELEY's Treatise on Tropical Climates.

age,

zon.

See Abbe PLUCHE'S Hist. of the Heav. vol. i. p. 249.

1668. [Gen. xviii. 1, 2, &c.] And the LORD appeared to him (Abraham) at the oak Mamre. (See Gen. xiii. 18.)— On the 12th of January, 1800, about eight in the morning, several persons in Southern Prussia saw three suns appear on a sudden. They rose majestically from the hori At seven o'clock the sky was clear and serene; a few minutes afterwards it was covered with clouds, and at half past eight there were seen in the East three columns of fire, the middle one of which rose to the height of 45 degrees. The two others, formed by the two other suns, were only a third as big as the middle one: they seemed to burn like a blazing fire, and, as they rose, produced a majestic and awful effect.

1670. [Gen. xviii. 2-5.] Hospitality to travellers prevails throughout Guzerat: a person of any consideration passing through the province, is presented at the entrance of a village, with fruit, milk, butter, fire-wood, and earthen-pots for cookery; the women and children offer him wreaths of flowers. Small bowers are constructed on convenient spots, at a distance from a well or lake, where a person is maintained by he nearest villages, to take care of the water-jars, and supply all travellers gratis. There are particular villages, where the inhabitants compel all travellers to accept of one day's provisious; whether they be many or few, rich or poor, European or native, they must not refuse the offered bounty. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol, ii. p. 415.

So when angelic Forms to Syria sent
Sat in the cedar-shade, by Abraham's tent,
A spacious bowl th' admiring Patriarch fills
With dulcet water from the scanty rills;

Sweet fruits and kernels gathers from his hoard (v. 7.),
With milk and butter piles the plenteous board;
While on the heated hearth his Consort bakes
Fine flour well kneaded in unleavened cakes.
The Guests ethereal quaff the lucid flood,
Smile on their hosts, and taste terrestrial food;
And while from seraph-lips sweet converse springs,
They lave their feet, and close their silver wings.

DARWIN'S Temple of Nature,
canto 2. l. 447.

1671.

A morsel of bread] This morsel was a whole fatted calf, three measures or pecks of fine flour, besides cream and milk! - Rebekah also prepared for her husband, dim with age, two kids for one meal! - Those who conceive that such calf and kids were animals, must have a strange idea of patriarchal stomachs. HOMER in the same kind of language (Odyss. 14) tells us, that when Cumæus entertained Ulysses, he dressed a whole hog, five years old, for him and four more.

1672. [- — 6.] At present, among the Bedouins (wandering Arabians), as soon as the dough is kneaded, it is made into thin cakes, which are either immediately baked on coals, or else in a ta-jen, a shallow earthen vessel like a fryingpan.

Dr. SHAW, Trav. p. 296. See also 2 Sam. xiii. 8. 1 Chron. xxiii. 29:

1673. [8.] The Eastern butter is not solid like ours, but merely a kind of thick cream. See Isai. vii. 15. And Job xx. 17.

and breadth, it is an ordinary city; and if it be but four miles in length and breadth, it is called a small city. Esther ix. 19.

HALHED'S Gentoo Laws, p. 172.

man

1682. [Gen. xix. 26.] On Tuesday the 2d of July, 1737, we went, says OUTHIER, to the Copper Works near the town of Fahlun (Copperberg) in Sweden, to see a who they said was petrified; he had been crushed under a mass of rock. After forty or fifty ("forty-nine") years, in digging, his body was found; it was so little changed, that a woman recollected him; for sixteen years he had been kept as a curiosity in an iron chair. We saw nothing (now) but a body perfectly black, much disfigured, and which exhaled a cadaverous smell. See No. 490, 491.

1683.

Pinkerton's Coll. vol. i. p. 328.

Looked back] A Hebraism denoting she turned back; Luke xvii. 31, 32.

1692. [ 14. Abraham took bread, and a bottle of water, &c] The bread and water which a woman could carry in a hot country, seem but ill calculated to support life in a journey of this description. But the fact is, that in alk transactions of refusal or agreement, certain formulas were observed: when a man swore to perform a promise, he embraced the thigh (Gen. xxiv. 2); when a man refused to raise posterity to his brother, the woman, in the presence of the elders, was to loose his shoe and spit out in his presence (Deut. xxv. 9); or in conveying an estate, the party took off his shoe (Ruth iv. 7). So when a person agreeably to a contract was under the necessity of providing for another in a case of this description, he presented the party with bread and water. Thus we find a reference is made to this custom by the prophet Isaiah (xxxiii. 16), bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure. Nothing more nor less was understood by the bread and water being given to Hagar and Ishmael, than that it was a pledge, signifying that Abraham would provide for them; and this we find was done in the most ample manner; see Gen. xvii. 18, 20. xxv. 9, 12. See No. 467.

1696. [- 20. He became an archer] Opposite the great stair-case of the palace at Persepolis, there is a spacious tomb cut and hollowed into the rock 72 feet broad and 130 high; in which there appears an altar with fire burning on it, and a reverend person holding a bow in his hand, kneeling on a kind of ascent, over against it as if at his devotions in the air, as it were, there is a figure of the same person whom we see praying below, as if he were ascending into the heavens. In another tomb also, not far from this, there is an altar with fire, and a prince or highpriest praying before it.

See No. 450, 882, 539, 430.

-

See Sir JOHN CHARDIN, Voy. vol. ii. p. 171.

1697. [Gen. xxii. 2. Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there WITH a burnt-offering. (Rom. xv. 16. See Num. viii. 11, 13, 21.) — Is it possible to suppose, that the supreme Being, who knows what is in man, would require Abraham to give a proof of his faith and obedience, by murdering his only son, and this in direct opposition to his own commands? Religion, humanity, and common sense say, No.

Isaac was now at least twenty-five, some say thirty years old; and if his whole body was to be consumed, or burut to ashes, it would have required more wood than could have

1699. [ 6.] Abraham, on this occasion, carried his fire, probably, in the pith of a species of cane called by the Antients Ferula : the old name of which, says TOURNEFORT (in his voyage to the Levant) is preserved by the modern Greeks, who call it Nartheca from Narthex. This cane has a stalk five feet in height, and three inches thick. Every ten inches it has a knot, that is branchy, and covered with a hard bark. The hollow of the stalk is full of white marrow; which, when dry, takes fire like a match. This fire continues a long while, and consumes the marrow by slow degrees, without doing any damage to the bark; for which reason this plant is used for carrying fire from one place to another.-HESIOD, speaking of the fire which Prometheus stole from heaven, says, he brought it (nartheki) in the ferula. This fable, adds Tournefort, arises doubtless from the circumstance of Prometheus discovering the use of steel in striking fire from the fliut: And Prometheus most probably made use of the marrow of the ferula, and instructed men how to preserve fire in the stalk of this plant. (See COOKE's Hesiod, Works and Days, b. i. v. 76.) — Ignem e silice Pyrodes, eundem adservare in ferula Prometheus.