2660.

The Targuzinian Tartars ride on their oxen. The Nogayan Tartars, of Koundour, do the same. Mandelsloe rode on an ox part of the way from Agra to Delhi, that carried him seven leagues in four hours. In Kachemire they saddle, bridle, shoe, and ride them as fast as horses: they also use them to draw their coaches. At Surat, in riding them, they take care their horns are not more than a foot long, to avoid being struck when flies bite : they never shoe them but in rough places in the caravan from that city, they carry three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds: - a camel carries nine hundred to one thousand pounds but in a late account, of great authenticity, five hundred and six hundred pounds are mentioned as the common load of a camel in crossing the Arabian deserts. The hackrees, a sort of coach, is drawn in Hindostan by oxen; which, when well trained and managed, will maintain their rate against horses at full trot. (Those of Guzerat and Cambray are as large as Lincoln beasts, and white.). The oxen that are rode in Formosa, go as well and as expeditiously as the best horses, by being trained young. The Hottentots train oxen to gallop, and even run down an elk.

2661.

PINKERTON'S Coll. part xvi. p. 539.

At Zuric in Switzerland, the oxen, harnessed like horses, perform their labor with much more ease, and with greater effect, than those yoked by the

neck.

2664. [Deut. xviii. 10.] These seven nations of Canaan, we find, had seven abominations or idolatrous methods of worshipping, or consulting in a religious way, the creature rather than the Creator: These specific idolatries constituted the following distinct castes. 1. Diviners by augury. 2. Observers of times, astrologers. 3. Enchanters, using serpents deprived of their poison-bag, in the cure of leprosy, ulcers, &c. 4. Witches and lizards, who, with medicated hands, apparently cured diseases by the touch or by friction. 5. Charmers, profanely using words or spells, as apparently effecting what was actually done by natural means. 6. Consulters with familiar spirits, Pythonesses influenced by demons, or by wicked spirits deceased. Acts xvi. 16 7. Necromancers, who by a confederate produced through a kind of magic lantern, such apparent figures of the dead as they, by ventriloquism, could apparently make to speak. 1 Sam. xxviii. 15 — 19.

2665.

- 18.

Observers of times] We are informed by Simplicius, that at the siege of Babylon, Aristotle appointed Calisthenes to preserve with all possible care the terescis (Grk.), or Astronomical Calculations of the Chaldeans. Of these observations, known to be very numerous, only three eclipses have come down to us through the hands of Ptolemy; to which he also added three more of his own observation : these however have contributed exceedingly to the developement of Historical Truth.

See Dr. GREGORY, de Eris et
Epochis, p. 132.

2674. [- 10-12.] It was a part of the political system of the antient Indian kings (as we are told by STRABO, and by ARRIAN in his History of Alexander's Expedition to India), that they never entered the territories of their neighbours in a hostile manner but on the most urgent occasions. If they could not possibly avoid it, they at least suffered the people employed in agriculture to remain at peace, and molested neither their temples nor their priests.

The chief magistrate shall first attempt with his enemy accommodations of peace, and shall not at once prepare for war. If the enemy do not make a composition, then, by disbursing some money, he shall shew the way to a reconciliation. If the enemy be discontented with this also, he shall send to the adverse party a man of intelligence, well skilled in the arts of political negotiation. If by all these means the affair should fail of being compromised, he may then prepare for battle. HALHED'S Preface to Gentoo Laws, p. 114.

2676.

-

Captain WILSON.

When the American Indians would make peace, their chiefs of the most extensive abilities and of the greatest integrity, bear before them the Pipe of Peace, which is of the same nature as a Flag of Truce among the Europeans, and is treated with the greatest respect und veneration. It is termed by the French the Calumet, and is about four feet long. The bowl of it is made of red marble, and the stem of it of a light wood, curiously painted with hieroglyphics in various colors, and adorned with feathers of the most beautiful birds. It is however, differently ornamented by the different nations; and is the introduction to all treaties, great ceremony attending the use of it on such

2677. [Deut. xx. 19. Thou shalt not destroy the trees] In the 19th Part of the Universal History, p. 264, we find a similar command respecting fruit-trees given by the Caliph Abubcker to his general, Let no palm-trees be cut

down.

2673.

MICHAELIS.

It was a merciful provision (in the Divine Law) to spare all fruit-bearing trees, because they yielded the fruit which supported man's life. And it was sound policy also, for even the conquerors must perish if the means of life were cut off. It is a diabolic cruelty to add to the miseries of war, the horrors of famine; and this is done where the trees of the field are cut down, the dykes broken to drown the land, the villages burut, and the crops wilfully spoiled. O, execrable war! Subversive of all the charities of life. Dr. A. CLARKE.

2679. [ 19, 20.] As it appears by the evidence of all travellers, that the very roads and hedges of France are covered with productive fruit trees; might not our hedges, in the like manner, consist of gooseberry and currant trees in their most luxuriaut varieties, intermingled with raspberries, nuts, filberts, bullaces, &c.? And in our forests and parks, why should not pear and walnut-trees supply the place of oaks, elms, and ash; the apple, plum, cherry, damson, and mulberry, that of the birch, yew, and all pollards? When wood indeed constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-trees was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants, but that is no longer our condition. The primary object of our public economy should now be, an abundant supply of wholesome provisions in their cheapest form. The example has been set us by an illustrious, though oft despised, neighbour; and whatever might be objected against this beneficent plan, on the score of general depredation, has of course received in that country its practical refutation. Besides, were paradise to a degree, in this respect restored amongst us; feeling less solicitude in regard to the gross wants of animal subsistence, we should be enabled to employ our faculties more generally in improving our moral, religious, and social condition. See this practice rationally and forcibly recommended in the Month. Mag. for May, 1815,

p. 316.

2680.

It is the opinion of the Americans, that the best wood for fuel is the hiccory, a species of walnut: it heats well; but is not good for enclosures, as it cannot well withstand putrefaction, when exposed to the open air. KALM'S Trav. See No. 828. Pinkerton's Coll. part liii. p. 407.

2681. [Deut. xxi. 49.] In the days of Ina, king of the West Saxons, who, according to Sir H. SPELMAN, began to reign Anno 712, and died 727, Councils in England were generally held in open Fields, on the bank of some river, for the conveniency of water. This custom, we find from Matt. Westm. (ad An. 1215) continued even to the time of king John, in whose 17th year a famous parliament was held in a meadow between Staines and Windsor, called Runemed, the Mead of Counsel, or of the Council; from the Saxon word redan, to consult. See HODY's English Councils, p. 34.

2682.

Strike off the heifer's neck] "Cut the sinews (the neck-bandages, the thongs) of the heifer"-skin. JOSEPH. Antiq. b. iv. ch. viii. § 16. The neck of a fruit-branch is the bandaged part where the sap is stopped to perfect, ripen, and preserve the fruit. When branches are bound very tight with a strong ligament, the parts above the bandage swell till they are ready to burst; because the lacteous juice, which rises from the root through the trunk into the branches, is prevented by such ligature from descending in its regular course along the bark even to the root: just as the blood of an animal returns from the internal arteries, by the external veins to the heart, unless it be obstructed by some bandage, where it gathers into a mass, and distends the vessels.

Nature Delineated, vol. i. p. 260.

tween the continent of Africa and Madagascar, persons of distinction are known by the immoderate length of the nails on their fingers and toes. These they tinge of a yellowish red with the alhenna, a shrub growing in the marshy spots of the island. (MAVOR.) The Bedouin Arab, in describing the beauties of his mistress, omits not to mention her eyelashes blackened with kohl, her lips painted blue, and her nails tinged with the golden-coloured henna.

SMITH.

2686. [Deut. xxi. 12.] Among the Pagans of Hindostan, there are still certain Dervises who, retiring to the tops of hills shaded with trees, undergo very rigid penances. Letting their hair and nails grow to their full length, they will perish, sooner than go out of their cells, depending for relief on the charity of others, who send them clothing and victuals; which, however, they will not accept unless they be of the coarsest kind, and the latter only for their immediate sustenance.

See Modern Univer. Hist. vol. vi. p. 250.

2687. [- 21.] At Canton in China, if children grow incorrigible, and despise the threats or admonitions of their parents, according to law, the parents are to complain of them to the magistrate, and on full conviction the magistrate will severely correct them. For if a son break the established laws, the parent suffers punishment as well as the criminal son, if he had not before made the magistrate acquainted with his son's vices.

Captain HAMILTON.- Pinkerton's Coll. part xxxiii. p. 506.

2688. [- 22.] At Dhuboy, in the inner court of the durbar, immediately fronting the open side of the hall of justice, was a sacred pepal-tree, and in an adjoining square a noble banian-tree. In whatever light the reputed sanctity of these trees may be viewed in Europe, to me, says judge FORBES, they were of great advantage. Under their sacred shade the ordeal trials were performed; the Hindoo witnesses examined; and the criminals were allowed a solemn pause, while waiting for their trial.

Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 360, 362.

2689. [Deut. xxii. 5.] The Egyptian Isis, the Astarte or great goddess of Syria, and the Atergatis of Sidon, being indifferently gods or goddesses among certain nations who had.

2694.

Dr. SHAW.

The flat roofs of the houses in the Eastern countries, on which the people sit, walk, and, in summer, sometimes sleep, and sometimes, where the houses are of equal height, go from roof to roof over the whole city, require this precaution; and to this day it is common to have on the side towards the inner court a parapet, somewhat lower than the one on the other side towards the street, which is generally a wall breast high.

Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 372.

2695. [Deut. xxii. 8.] It has ever been a custom with the Eastern people, equally connected with health and pleasure, to pass the nights in summer on the house-tops, which for this very purpose are made flat, and divided from each other by walls. We found this way of sleeping extremely agreeable; as we thereby enjoyed the cool air, above the reach of gnats and vapors, without any other covering than the canopy of the heavens, which unavoidably presents itself in different pleasing forms, on every interruption of rest, when silence and solitude strongly dispose the mind to contemplation.

Woon's Balbec, Introduction.

2696. [——— 9.] Kerem, which we here translate vineyard, has other significations: an olive-ground is so denominated, and perhaps any garden whatever. It properly means the nobler sort of land, in contradistinction to the common land of the fields; and is, by the Syriac version, rendered field, and even plough-field; and that too, with a word (kereb) differing from the Hebrew term only in one letter b, which in the Oriental languages, says MICHAELIS, we often find exchanged for m. We may therefore, he adds, really ask, Whether the Syrian translator had had a different reading before him?

Lev. xix. 19.

2697.

See Smith's Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 358.

In grafting, it is necessary that the stock and the scion should be both of the same family, or lineage, according to the sexual system of botany, in order to form a substantial and lasting union. See No. 2352.

SPEECHLY, on the Vine, p. 226.

2698. [10.] At this day œconomists areof opinion, that it would be greatly to the improvement of our agricultural system were we to plough only with beeves, which, while they (as clean animals) afford us milk, are neither so expensive in price nor maintenance as horses (or even those excellent asses of Palestine, whose milk, as proceeding from unclean beasts, could not be eaten according to the law in Lev. xi. 3).

See Smith's MICHAE LIS, vol. ii. art. 166.

2700. [Deut. xxii. 15.] We read of the elders of the Gate (ch. xxv. 7), and (Isai. xxix. 21, Amos v. 10) of him that reproveth and rebuketh in the Gate, and (Dan. ii. 49) that he sat in the Gate of the king. The Ottoman court likewise seems to have been called the port, from the distribution of justice and the despatch of public business that is carried on in the gates of it. See No. 1756.

2701.

SHAW'S Trav. in Barbary. — Pinkerton's Coll. part lxv. p. 677. note.

"The virgin-zone, or girdle, was first worn by maids who had attained a marriageable age; and, when once assumed, was constantly preserved till the day of marriage, or, at least, till the conclusion of a marriagecontract. It was then loosed or laid aside, sometimes with peculiar ceremonies. In Apollonius, Medea asserts her chastity by an allusion to this custom: My virgin-zone yet remains untouched, and unpolluted, as when I lived beneath the roof of my father.'" (Athenæum. vol. ii. p. 42.) – These "tokens of virginity" appear to have been such close linen garments, such zones or sashes, as were never put off virgius, after a certain age, till they were married, but before witnesses, and which, while they were entire, were certain evidences of such virginity.

2702. [17.] In Hindostan, on the day appointed by the Brahmins for a marriage, the bridegroom, distinguished by a crown on his head, richly decked with jewels, and attended by the sons of all the persons of the same trade in the town, some on horseback, others in palankins and coaches, dressed in a shewy manner, proceed through the chief streets, accompanied with music and gilded pageants. Next day the bride takes her turn, attended by all the maidens of the same family, in the same pompous way; and towards evening, returns home to be joined in wedlock, that being the time of performing the ceremony among the Hindoos. It begins by kindling a fire, and placing it between the parties to be married, to intimate the ardency which ought to be in their affections then both are enclosed with a silken string, to denote the insoluble bond of matrimony. After this, a cloth is put between them, to signify, that before marriage there ought to be no intimacy between them. This done, the Brahmins pronounce a certain form of words, enjoining the man to allow the woman all things convenient for her, and charging the woman to be faithful to her husband: then a blessing being pronounced upon them, that they may be fruitful, the cloth is taken away, and the silken string unloosed; which puts an end to the ceremony.

Ibid. p. 367.

2703. never appear

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. vi. p. 277.

The Brahmins at the Hindoo temples without the zennar, or sacred string, passing