it blows not at all: in others it comes six or eight times; but seld continues more than a few minutes at a time; and passes with the quickness of fightning where it produces its effects. It flies in streams of no great breadth; so that some persons, at no great distance from each other, may escape; and others at a few miles' distance, be exposed to different samiels. (See IVES' Trav. pp. 76, 77, 273; and Heb. iv. 12.) It sometimes makes a hissing noise, and appears red and fiery.

CHARDIN, tom. ii. p. 9.

2475. [Num. xi. 5. We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt] They had dwelt along the eastern bank of the Nile, and in the marshes formed partly by the Nile, and partly by the Mediterranean sea. - In Ver. 21, 22. fish are certainly included under the term flesh, when Moses asks, if God meant to let all the fish in the sea be collected, to give flesh to the people. In the very same manner, the Hebrew word for flesh is used for the flesh of fish, in Lev. xi. II.; and so is the Arabic one, in the 16th Chapter of the Koran, ver. 14.

-

And

vegetables. The leaves of one of these, apparently a spe-
cies of that genus of sea-weed called by Linness Fucus
serratus, after being gathered, are steeped in fresh water
and hung up to dry. A small quantity of this weed, boiled
in water, gives to it the consistence of a jelly, and when
mixed with a little sugar, the juice of an orange, or other
fruit, and set by to cool, there is no jelly more agreeable or
refreshing. In the populous islands of Japan also, the
natives of the sea-coasts derive part of their sustenance from
various kinds of sea-weeds, and from none more than that
species of fucus which is called saccharinus another
essential ingredient, it seems, in the Chinese jelly.
from the shores of Robben island, at the Cape of Good Hope,
the slaves are accustomed to bring away baskets of a species
of fucus, whose leaves are sword-shaped, serrated, and
about six inches long. These leaves being first washed
clean, and sufficiently dried, to resist putrefaction, are then
steeped in fresh water, for five or six days, changing it every
morning; after which, if boiled for a few hours in a little
water, they become a clear transparent jelly, which, being
mixed with a little sugar and the juice of a lemon or orange,
is as pleasant and refreshing as any kind of jelly whatsoever.
Now as few countries perhaps can boast of a greater number
of species of the fuci and ulve than are found on the
coasts of the British islands, future generations may dis-
cover the highly nutritive qualities which many of them must
necessarily contain. At present, we use only as articles of
food, the esculentus or tangle; the saccharinus, better
known in Iceland than in Britain; the palmatus, or dulse,
which the Scotch say is not only rich and gelatinous, but
communicates to other vegetables with which it may be
mixed, the fragrant smell of violets; and that species of
ulvą well known on the coast of Wales by the name of
laver. All other marine plants seem to be utterly ueg-
lected.

See Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S Code of
Health, vol. i. p. 897.

2479. [Num. xi 5.] In Africa, the tree or shrub that bears the lotos-fruit, is disseminated over the edge of the Great Desert, from the coast of Cyrene, round by Tripoli and Africa proper, to the borders of the Atlantic, to Senegal, and the Niger. This shrub, found in Tunis and the negro kingdoms, furnishes the natives with a sweet food resembling bread, and also with a sweet liquor, which is much relished by them. This is what the Arabs of the present day call seedra, and is plentiful in Barbary, and the deserts of Barbary.

2480.

See Beloe's HERODOT. Melpomene, chap. clxxvii.

About the summer-solstice the river Melas in Grecce overflows like the Nile, and produces plants

2482. [8.] A quern, in the Highlands of Scotland, is a sort of portable mill, made of two stones about two feet broad, thin at the edges, and a little thicker in the middle. In the centre of the upper stone is a hole to pour in the corn, and a peg by way of handle. The whole is placed on a cloth; the grinder pours the corn into the hole with one hand, and with the other turns round the upper stone with a very rapid motion, while the meal runs out at the sides on the cloth. with what are common substitute of a mill.

Such are supposed to be the same among the Maurs, being the simple

This method of grinding is very tedious; it employs two pair of hands four hours to grind only a single bushel of corn. Instead of a hair-sieve to sift the meal, the inhabitants (near Staffa) have an ingenious substitute, a sheep's skin stretched round a hoop, and perforated with small holes made with a hot iron. They knead their bannock with water only, and bake or rather toast it, by laying it upright against a stone placed near the fire. PINKERTON'S Coll. part ix. p. 102. x. p. 314.

2483.

There are several methods of crushing rice, that is, of separating the farinaceous part from the husk the most common mode consists in pounding the grain in a sort of mortar, with a conically shaped stone attached to the extremity of a lever. The lever is set in motion by the alternate pressure of a man's feet.

BRETON's China, vol. iv. p. 27.

2484. [16.] The Mosaic scribes were also judges; and seem to have had a power similar to that of the present Mahometan cadis,

2486. [Num. xi. 20.] The Egyptians, says HERODOTUS, divide their year into twelve months, giving to each month thirty days by adding five degrees to every year, they have a uniform revolution of time (nearly).

Euterpe iv.

2487. [21.] Natural mauna would easily keep a month. This large quantity was sent at once, to convince the people that it was from the LORD, or sent miraculously.

See No. 105, 107.

2488. [

31.] The shrub, on which manna is found, is a species of thorn called by the Persians aru-shirim (Hebr.), or sweet thorn. It is also called alhag (Hebr.), is the ALHAGI foliis simplicibus, lanceolatis, obtusis, caule fruticoso spinoso, of Linueus. It grows in almost all the Eastern countries, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and in both Arabias; but especially in Arabia Petrea, between Sinai and Tor. The manna itself is an eliquation from this shrub, called by the Persic botanists terengabin; of which there are two sorts. The one is of a coarse composition, a mass of liquified juice mixed with the seeds, husks, leaves, and prickles of the shrub; sometimes bigger than one's fist, and of a bitter taste. The other, which appears to be the manna of the Israelites, consists of small, round, crystalline, pellucid grains, about the size of coriander, and in color and form not unlike to mastich, This is the pure manna, shaken from the shrub (as it might be at this time, by the wind from the LORD) in the morning, before the sun rises. It tastes like a compound of sugar and honey; and in Kurdistan and Ispahan, and other places, serves for the same uses. -It is very different from the manna of our shops, which comes principally from Calabria, and is the condensed juice of a species of ash.

See Hunter's edition of Evelin's Silva,
p. 151.
Also Dr. GEDDES' Critical
Remarks, p. 237.

2490. [Num. xi. 34. At this place, now called Gabelel-mokateh, NIEBUHR says that, he found sepulchral inscriptions, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, of exquisite beauty.

2494. [Num. xiii. 19.] It should seem, that in the countries of the East subterraneous caves were very frequent; and used by shepherds to sleep in, or as folds for their flocks in the evening. The mountains on the Syrian coast, in particular, are remarkable for the number of caves in them. See HARMER, vol. iii. p. 61.

2491. [Num. xii. 1, 10.] As Miriam was the representative head of the Israelitish women and Church; so was the Ethiopian woman taken to be the head of the adopted Cushites from Egypt. - Miriam's envy, on this account, shews itself in consequence of the late insurrection of the Cushites. Miriam's punishment exposed the absurdity of her opposition to the Cushites. She had supposed that none but the natural descendants of Abraham ought to be admitted to the privileges of the Jewish Covenant. To shew her the imparity of such natural descent, she herself, being of the line of Abraham, was smitten in the seminal fluid with leprosy.

2492. [ 14.] The Arabs shew great sensibility to every thing that can be construed into an injury. If oue man should happen to spit beside another, the latter will not fail to avenge himself of the imaginary insult. In a caravan, I once saw, says NIEBUHR, an Arab highly offended at a man who, in spitting, had accidentally besputtered his beard with some small part of the spittle. It was with difficulty that he could be appeased, even though the offender humbly asked him pardon, and kissed his beard in token of

2493.

CHARDIN.

Of him who gives natural birth, and him who gives knowledge of the whole veda, the giver of sacred knowledge is the more venerable father; since the second or divine birth insures life to the twice-born, both in this life and hereafter-eternally. Let a man consider as a mere human birth that, which his parents gave him for their mutual gratification, and which he receives after lying in the womb; but that birth, which his principal acharya, who knows the whole veda, procures for him by his divine mother, the from and gayatri, is a true birth: that birth is exempt age from death.

Institutes of Menu, cop. ii. p. 146.

2496. [20, 23.] At Rudesheim on the banks of the glassy Rhine, says RIESBECK, we were invited by an ecclesiastic of Mentz to a splendid festival. After dinner our host led us in procession to his great saloon; the doors of which opened on a sudden, and there came forth in festive order a band of musicians, followed by two well-dressed girls, who brought in a large bunch of grapes, on a table covered with a fine cloth. The sides of the table were ornamented with flowers. They put the bunch of grapes in the middle of the saloon, on a kind of throne which was raised on a table; and I now discovered that our host was celebrating the festival of the first-ripe bunch of grapes in his vineyard; a custom, it seems, most religiously observed by all the rich inhabitants of this country.

2497.

Pinkerton's Coll. part xxiv. p. 259.

The Syrian Vine is supposed to be the sort of grape here alluded to, as it produces bunches of eight or ten pounds weight and upwards. In the year 1781, a bunch was produced at Welbeck that weighed 19 pounds and a half. (Was this the bunch cut down by Dr. A. CLARKE;See his Note on this passage.) It was presented by his Grace the Duke of Portland to the late Marquis of Rockingham, and was conveyed to Wentworth-House (a distance of more than 20 miles) by four labourers, who carried it, suspended on a staff, in pairs, by turns. Its greatest diameter, when hanging in its natural position, was 19 inches and a half; and its length 21 inches three quarters. Strabo, who lived in the reign of Augustus, testifies, that the Vines in Margiana and other places in that quarter of the world were so big, that two men could scarcely compass them in their arms, and that they produced bunches of grapes two cubits or a yard long, which is more than a foot longer than that vast bunch produced by his Grace the Duke of

---

2499.

Marginia, a province of Persia, bounded on the east by Hyrcana, on the north by Tartary, on the south by Asia, and on the west by Bactria; is by many antient authors celebrated for its fertility in vines of so extraordinary a size, that two men can scarcely fathom the trunk of one of them, bearing clusters, some of which are two cubits long.

Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 416. From the most authentic accounts, the Egyptian grape is very small; and this being the only one with which the Israelites were acquainted, the great size of the grapes of Hebron would appear still more extraordinary.

Dr. A. CLARKE, in loco.

2500. [ 28.] It appears from HOMER'S Iliad, passim, that the word anax or anak, applied only to kings and heroes, was a term of great honor with the most antient Greeks. BOCHART considers it as a common name answering to the Latin torquatus; and shews that the great men in the East were in the earliest times so called, on account of the rich collar or chain which they usually wore about their necks. (See Univer. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 441, note (A).)

The fact is, their gilded statues, which were of enormous size, wore torques of gold, and were called by the Greeks Anakes, or Anakim, on account of their superior stature and majesty. (See CICERO de Nat. Deorum, lib. iii. Ibid.) - In these statues their great men were enshrined at death, and thus deified.

-

See Jer. xvi. 18. Ezek. xliii. 7, 9.

2501. [Num. xiv. 43.] The scarlet-flowering bean twists round its support against the sun (as is the common way of expression), or the same way a common corkscrew is made,

2503. [Num. xv. 5.]

Da mihi thura, puer, pingues facientia flammas,
Quodque pio fusum stridat in igne merum.
OVID L. v. de Tristibus, Eleg. 5.

2504. [38.] The Egyptian habit, which they call calasiris, is made of linen, and fringed at the bottom; over this they throw a kind of shawl made of white wool, but in these vests of wool they are forbidden by their religion either to be buried or to enter any sacred edifice. HERODOT. Euterpe lxxxi.

In Syria and Egypt, according to the accounts of modern travellers, garments lined and bordered with costly furs are the dresses of honor and of ceremony. See No. 869.

Ibid. Melpomene, note 119.

2505. [Num. xvi. 1.] And Korah, the son of Izhar, the sou of Kohath, the son of Levi, took Dathau &c. Univer. Hist. vol. iii. p. 12.

2506. [31-35.] Equally dreadful was the earthquake at Catania in Italy, in the year of Christ 1692. This was felt not only over all Sicily, but likewise in Naples and Malta; and the shock was so violent, that people could not stand upon their feet, and those who lay on the ground were tossed from side to side, as if upon a rolling billow. The earth opened in several places, throwing up large quantities of water; and great numbers perished in their houses by the fall of rocks that were loosened and rent from

the mountains. The sea was violently agitated, and roared dreadfully; mount Etna threw up vast spires of flame; and the shock was attended with the loudest claps of thunder. Fifty-four cities and towns, with an incredible number of villages, were either destroyed or greatly damaged; and it was computed that nearly sixty thousand persons perished in different parts of the island, of whom eighteen thousand were inhabitants of Catania, very few escaping the general and sudden destruction of that City.

See SMITH'S Wonders of Nature and Art, under "Italy."

On the morning of the 28th, October, 1810, the greater part of St. Jago de Cuba, which had escaped the fury of two preceding shocks of au earthquake, was instantly swallowed up; and a chasm, 80 feet broad, remained the only vestige of this frightful ruin.

Public Prints.

ages have their crosiers: all which are ensigns of dignity and office. BURDER's Oriental Customs, vol. ii. p. 68.

2511. [Num. xvii. 8.] In Homer (Il. i. 234), Achilles is introduced as swearing by a sceptre, which being cut from the trunk of an (almond) tree on the mountains, and stripped of its bark and leaves, should never sprout again, much less Such a produce leaves and branches. one the Grecian judges carried in their hands.

Ibid. p. 267. When a branch of the almond-tree is once lopped from its parent, it perishes for ever. Dr. A. CLARKE.

2507. [Num. xvi. 31-35.] On the 21st of October, 1766, the city of Cumana was entirely destroyed by an earthquake. The whole of the houses were overturned in the space of a few minutes, and the shocks were hourly repeated during fourteen months. In several parts of the province the -It is a earth opened, and threw out sulphureous waters. generally received opinion at Cumana, says HUMBOLDT, that the most destructive earthquakes are announced by very feeble oscillations, and by a hollow sound, which does not escape the observation of persons habituated to this kind of phenomenon; so that, before the above catastrophe took place, the greater part of the inhabitants could and did escape into the streets.

See his Trav. to S. America.

2508. [ 48.] A plate of iron only, but no other body interposed, can hinder the operation of the magnet, either as to the attractive or directive quality. SMITH'S Wonders of Nat. and Art, vol. iii. p. 34.

2512. [10.] In the East, any person preferred to honors bore a sceptre or staff of honor, and sometimes a plate of gold on the forehead (where the hair had been circumcised) called Cadosh or caduceus, signifying a sacred or separated person; to inform the people that he who bore this rod or mark was a public mau, who might “go in and out" or hither and thither freely, and whose person was inviolable. This distinction was so inseparable from the chief of each great family, that in the oriental idiom a tribe has no other name than that of the sceptre (or standard) to which it is subordinate. Thus the famous prophecy of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 9, 10) has been totally obscured, by mistaking the sceptre therein mentioned for a royal sceptre; whereas, if we judge of the sceptre by the person who is to wear it, that is, by the chief (Dux) of the tribe of Judah, who is immediately mentioned (as coming to Shiloh), we find no difficulty in the (immediate) application of the prophecy (to Joshua who set up the Tabernacle and stationed the ark at Shiloh, till it was carried away thence by the Philistines under Eli the high-priest. (Abbe PLUCHE'S Hist. of the Heav. vol. i. p. 187.)- The Shiloh, here alluded to, may denote the Angel of the Divine Presence sent to lead Israel in the pillar of the cloud. This Angel was well known to Jacob, and had revealed to him the going forth of his descendants to Canaan.

2509. Num. xvii. 2.] Esculapius' staff was composed of a palm-rod with a vine-branch twisted round it; to denote that be was a physician and a priest.

2510. [— 6.] The priests among the Greeks and Romans had their recurved rods; and bishops in later

2513. [Num. xviii. 12.] In the Hebrides, the Gruagich stones (consecrated by the Druids for emblems of the Sun), as far as tradition can inform us, were only honoured with libations of milk from the hands of the dairy-maid: This was one of the sober offerings that well became a poor or frugal people, who had neither wine nor oil to bestow. PENNANT. Pinkerton's Coll. part xii. p. 553.