1876. [

24.] Whoever having been given up as a pledge for money lent, performs service to the creditor, recovers his liberty whenever the debtor discharges the debt; if the debtor neglect to pay the creditor his money, and take no thought of the person whom he left as a pledge, that person becomes the purchased slave of the creditor. Gentoo Laws, p. 140.

1877. [27.] Those buildings under the different names of serais, caravansaries, or choultries, were erected at stated distances throughout the Mogul empire, especially on the royal roads. The serais were generally constructed in an oblong square, consisting of a high wall and towers, with a handsome entrance at each end; a few had a gate-way at the cardinal points. The gates were often of considerable strength, with guard-rooms on each side. Two ranges of apartments for the convenience of the merchants, containing sleeping-rooms and warehouses for their goods, formed a street from one gate to the other; with a colonnade, or veranda, in front of the buildings, opening to a spacious area between them. The serais with four gates contained a double range of these apartments, forming an avenue to each entrance. Under the inner wall of the ramparts were similar accommodations. In the most complete and splendid serais a due regard was observed for public worship, ablutions, and other ceremonies. See FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 123.

and chew it at all hours. The betel is also introduced at visits of ceremony, when the nut is cut into slices, mixed with cardamoms and shell lime, and folded up in a betel-leaf, fastened by a clove: these are presented on a salver to each guest at the conclusion of a visit, and is generally an indication to take leave. The betel-leaf, properly so called, is a plant entirely distinct and separate from the areca, or betelnut tree; and grows in neat, regular plantations, like hopgrounds, creeping up the small poles, prepared for their protection. Cant. vii. 7.

Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 29.

1880. [Gen. xliii. 11. A little honey.] Egypt, at present, does not produce vines enow to supply itself with grapes and Dibs (a syrup or "honey" made from grapes), but imports annually, according to Dr. SHAW, 300 camel-loads of Dibs from Hebron alone. The case was precisely the same in the days of Jacob. When this patriarch wished to send to the Grand Vizier of Egypt, whom he did not yet know to be his son, a present of the best productions of Palestine, dibs, or honey, was among the number; certainly, however, not bee-honey, which Egypt, from its advantageous situation, had in the greatest perfection and abundance, but raisinhoney.

1881. -

Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 119.

Honey was the sugar of the Antients. Honey, as collected by bees, is a perspiration of the sap in plants, in particles that evaporate through the pores and condense on the flowers. (See Ps. viii. 4.) — From careful observation it has been inferred, that the bees make no manner of alteration in their honey, but collect and discharge it into their magazine just as nature has produced it on the flowers. Nature Delineated, vol. i. pp. 101, 108, 109 & note.

1887. [32.] No Egyptian, man or woman, will kiss the mouth of a Greek or foreigner, nor use either his knife, spit or pot, nor eat even the meat that is cut with such a one's knife. HERODOTUS, lib. ii. p. 46. Steph. Edit.

Talk to an Egyptian till your heart ache, and your breath fail you, yet he will be so far from renouncing his religion, that he will persist in it, if it be possible, with greater obstinacy than before, and rather die than be guilty of so horrid a profanation, as he accounts it, as to eat and pollute the sacred flesh of animals.

ORIGEN, against Celsus, b. i. c. 42. N. B. Apply this to Pharaoh's case.

1888. The peasants of modern Egypt live principally on dourra, or Indian millet, of which they make a bread without leaven, which is tasteless when cold. This

bread is, with water and raw onions, their regular food throughout the year; and they esteem themselves happy if they can sometimes procure a little honey, cheese, sour milk, and dates. VOLNEY'S Trav. in Egypt and Syria, vol. i. p. 188.

1889. [Gen. xliii. 34.] XENOPHON remarks, that Lycurgus did not assign a double portion to the kings, because they were to eat twice as much as other persons, but that they might give it to whom they pleased.

Benjamin though not of age to act as priest, could officiate as a deacon in distributing the wine, or at least to the four sons of the handmaids or deaconesses.

says the Captain, we had the satisfaction of learning from him, that this singular honor had hitherto been conferred on a wooden bowl in which he washed his bands. Another extraordinary use to which the king meant to apply the plate, in room of his wooden bowl, was, it seems, to discover a thief. He said, that when any thing was stolen, and the thief could not be found out, the people were all assembled together before him, when he washed his hands in water in this vessel, after which it was cleaned, and then the whole multitude advanced, one after another, and touched it in the same manner that they touch his foot, when they pay him obeisance. If the guilty person touched it, he died immediately upon the spot; not by violence, but by the hand of Providence; and if any one refused to touch it, his refusal was a clear proof that he was the man.

MAVOR.

1891. [Gen. xliv. 1.] There are two sorts of sacks taken notice of in the history of Joseph, which ought not to be confounded; one for corn, the other for the baggage. There are scarcely any waggons throughout Asia; as far as to the Indies, every thing almost is carried on beasts of burden, in sacks of wool, covered in the middle with leather, the better to resist the ingress of water. In these they inclose their packages done up in large parcels. It is of these woollen sacks we are to understand what is said here and all through this history, and not of their sacks in which they carry their corn.

CHARDIN.

1892. [5] The king of Tongataboo (one of the Friendly Islands), on receiving from Captain Cook the present of a pewter plate which he had been observed particularly to notice, "said, that whenever he should have occasion to visit any of the other islands, he would leave this plate behind him at Tangataboo, as a sort of representative in his absence, that the people might pay it the same obeisance they do to himself in person. He was asked what had been usually employed for this purpose before he got this plate; and,"

1893. [Gen. xliv. 12.] The cup of Joseph was the cup of blessing' (1 Cor. x. 16); that in which he, as Magus, consecrated the drink-offering for his Egyptian brethren. — All that follows respecting this cup, is to shew how the priesthood belonging to Joseph by primogeniture, had been improperly conferred on his younger brother Benjamin in consequence of Joseph's being sold into Egypt.

1894. [Gen. xlv. 10.] Goshen lay between the Red Sea and the Nile, on the borders of Canaan, not far from On or Hierapolis. Gen. xlvii. 27.

1895. Gesem, rain.

Univer. Hist. vol. ii. p. 430.

Instead of Goshen, the Septuagint read Were it certain, as I think it highly probable, says Dr. GEDDES, that this part of Egypt were favoured with heavenly showers; I should have little hesitation in affirming that gesem (Hebr.) is the true reading. The land of Gesem would then be very properly denominated: namely a land of rain; in contradistinction to the rest of Egypt, which was watered by the Nile: and this land of rain was a proper habitation for the Israelites, who were shepherds, and not agriculturists. It is remarkable that Heliodorus calls at least a part of this tract Boukoleia (Grk.), or places fit for pasturage. See his Crit. Remarks, p. 137.

1896. [22.] HORACE Says, one Roman had in his possession five thousand robes or dresses, to give away.

Lib. i. Epis. vi. v. 43.

this people was that "king who knew not Joseph," under whom the Israelites suffered the utmost severities of the most abject slavery. They carried the idolatry of India into Philistia; opposed the Israelites in the recovery of their rightful patrimony in Canaan; and, on account of their horrid crimes (see Lev. xviii) were declared by Moses to be an abomination to the LORD, the God of Israel.

Of these invaders were the "Hyesos or shepherd-kings, who are said by Manetho to have held all Lower Egypt in subjection, for the space of 259 years, at the expiration of which they were obliged, by Amosis, king of Upper Egypt, to abandon their illegal possessions." (MAVOR.) Tartary is the real country for shepherds: They have always existed there, and may probably continue for ever.

De PAUW, vol. i. p. 17.

of cattle of all kinds, but especially camels. (See Lev. xi. 3. And STRABO, Geograph. lib. xvi.) These Arabs constituted the "mixed multitude", which went forth out of Egypt with Moses and the Israelites.

1903. [Gen. xlvi. 34.] On, Heliopolis, and Bubastus were provinces in Egypt that had been esteemed Arabian, since the Arabian shepherds had settled in those parts. This district was no other than the land of Goshen, called by the Septuagint Gessemtes Arabias, the Arabian Gessem; it lay at the extreme and highest part of Lower Egypt, called Cushan (or Gushan) from Cush the founder of the Arabian race. Here, establishing their court at Memphis, these invaders from Babylonia, the original seat of the genuine Arabians who were all shepherds, managed to support a kingly dominion by force during 511 years. At last the people of Upper Egypt rose, defeated and banished them. Here then was the land to which the children of Israel succeeded after it had been abandoned by those Arabian tyrants that caused every shepherd to be an abomination to the Egyptians; but at what interval, it is uncertain. It seems pretty plain however, from the circumstances attending their settlement in Goshen, that they came there into a vacant, unoccupied district; and as it was the best of the land, there is no accounting for its being unoccupied, but by the secession of those shepherds, whose property it had so lately been, that Joseph was extremely urgent with his family in hastening (Ch. xlv. 9) them to take possession before the natives had preoccupied it.

BRYANT. Bib. Research. vol. ii. p. 128.

1904. [Gen. xlvii. 8. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob: How old art thou?] This question would induce one to believe, that as the overflowing of the Nile renders Egypt a very unwholesome country, Pharaoh had not been accustomed to see persons so advanced in years as Jacob appeared to be. Sce No. 255, 257. See Sir JOHN SINCLAIR's Code of Health, vol. ii. p. 24.

1905.

At the little village of Lead-hills, in the parish of Crawford, oue John Taylor, miner, worked at his business till he was a hundred and twelve. He did not marry, till he was sixty; and had nine children. He saw to the last without spectacles; had excellent teeth till within six years before his death, having then left off tobacco, to which he attributed their preservation; at length, in 1770, yielded to fate, after having completed his hundred and thirty-second PINKERTON'S Coll. part x. p. 228. Sarah Anderson, a free black woman, a native of Guinea,

year.

of the Congo country, died on the 20th Sept. 1813, at Providence Grove, St. John's, Jamaica, at the extraordinary age of 140 years. She retained a good appetite, could hear, see, and converse with cheerfulness, to the last moment of her existence.

Public Prints.

1906. [Gen. xlvii. 9.] CENSORINUS, in his Treatise (de Die Natali, cap. 19), assures us that, antiently, the Egyptian year consisted of two months." It does actually comprise two summers. "The first, which is in March, April, and May, is rather sickly and unwholesome, on account of the parching winds, and excessive heats, which reign at that time: but in June, July, and August, which constitute the Second Egyptian summer, as also in autumn and winter, the air is more serene, the weather more settled, and the country altogether paradisaical." (MAVOR.) This arises from the proximity of Egypt to the tropic of Cancer. Situated between the 48 and 53 deg. of longitude, and the 24 and 33 deg. of north latitude, it is twice passed over by the sun during the summer months.

Will this suggest a reason, why the Patriarchs appear to have lived so much longer than we of modern times, and colder climates? Did they reckon two years for one, in our method of computing time? And was Jacob, for instance, at the time he spake to Pharaoh, only 65 of our years old?

. With propriety, then, might he say, "Few and evil have the days," or seasons, "of the years of my life been." As summer is the day, and winter the night of the year; so comfort is the day, and Affliction the night of life. In this sense many persons have had but few days in the years of their lives.

(The Latin scholar knows, that when a copyist had, through ignorance or mistake, substituted n for s in Censorinus's word for harvest, it would then signify month, according to the above quotation thereof in CALMET, who says, "the old Egyptians had two crops of corn yearly from the same ground; at present they get but

one."

It has been said, that the civil year of the Hebrews began at the autumnal equinox, and the sacred year at the vernal ; that is, the former in the Mouth Tizri, which comprises part of September and part of October; and the latter. in Nisan, which falls in March and April, according to the course of the moon. But what if these be two distinct years, first incorporated by Moses at the time of the exodus, or departure from Egypt? when the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "This Month (Nisan) shall be unto you the beginning of months : it shall be the first mouth of the year to you. Exod. xii. 2.

The only divisions of the year, which are made by the natives of Sierra Leone, are the rainy and dry seasons; or, as they are called by some of their tribes, the bad and good time.

See WINTERBOTTOM's Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone.

1907. [Gen. xlvii. 9.] The years of my wandering.- In the early ages of the world men travelled over the face of the Earth, attended by their flocks and herds, laying the whole vegetable kingdom under contribution. The Sun going before them in the Spring invited them to advance to the furthest extremities of the North, and to return with Autunn bringing up his train. While the Orb of day is advancing from the Tropic of Capricorn to that of Cancer, a traveller departing on foot from the Torrid Zone may arrive on the shores of the Frozen Ocean, and return thence into the Temperate Zone when the Sau traces backward his progress, at the rate of only four, or at most five leagues a day, without being incommoded, the whole journey through, with either the sultry heat of Summer, or the frost of Winter. It is by regulating themselves according to the annual course of the Sun, that certain Tartar-hordes still travel.

St. PIERRE'S Studies of Nature, vol. ii. p. 475.

1908. [- — 17.] Egypt appears to have been the country where horses were first naturalized and domesticated. See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii. p. 454.

1909.

Having witnessed, says FORSTER, the robust activity of the people in northern Persia, I am induced to think, that the human body may sustain the most laborious services, without the aid of animal food. - It is a wellkuown fact, that the Arabs of the shore of the Red Sea, who live with little exception on dates and lemons, carry burdens of such an extraordinary weight, that its specific mention, to an European ear, would seem romance.

See Pinkerton's Coll. vol. ix. p. 294.

1910: [ 19.] From the Gentoo laws it appears that such a purchase as this offered to Joseph was no unusual thing. In these institutes particular provision was made for the release of those that were thus brought into bondage. "Whosoever, having received his victuals from a person during the time of famine, has become his slave, on giving to his provider whatever he received from him during the time of the famine, and also two head of cattle, may become free from his servitude."

Bib. Research. vol. ii. p. 157.

1911. [——————— 24.] In Japan, the landlords claim six parts in ten of all the produce of their land, whether rice, corn, wheat, pease, pulse, or other; and the tenant for his trouble and maintenance, keeps the remaining four parts: while such as hold lands of the crown, give but four parts in ten to the Emperor's stewards reserving six parts for themselves.

KEMPFER. Pinkerton's Coll. vol. vii. p. 697.