Sinai, famous for the manna of the Israelites. At Merdin it attaches itself like a meal or powder, on the leaves of certain trees which they call ballot and afs [at Aleppo called as ;] and which I believe to be oaks. Some affirmed, they had found manna between Merdin and Diarbekr on the trees named elmäs and elmaheb. Others, from whom I inquired whether this was certain, had never seen any on trees of those kinds; nor did they recollect at Aleppo to have found it on the shrub el hâdsje. All agreed in affirming that between Merdîn and Diarbekr it was principally gathered from those trees which produce the gall nut, i.e. oaks. The gathering time of this manna at Merdin is in July or August; and they say it is most plentiful after a certain very thick fog, or during moist weather, rather than during the clear days. No care is taken of these trees near Merdîn; but when the manna falls, any body who chooses gathers it in the woods, without asking or purchasing permission from the government. It is gathered in three different manners, and it differs in quality accordingly. Some go to the woods before sunrise to gather it in a linen cloth, by shaking the leaves: it is now quite white; and this is the finest. When it is not gathered in the morning, and the day becomes hot, the manna melts in the sunbeams. Nevertheless, it is not lost, but it augments and thickens from day to day on the leaves. To obtain this, as many leaves as may be, are carried home, where they are thrown into water, some say, boiling, and the manna floats at the top, like an oil. Some persons do not take this trouble, but pound the leaves and manna together. This is the worst kind, and apparently is the same as J. B. Capello calls, in his Lessico Farmaceutico, "leaf manna," or manna forsatella. It is also called, "heavenly manna." Nevertheless, notwithstanding that name, the Orientals do not believe that it falls from heaven; for, if so, then no doubt it would be found on many other kinds of trees. It is gathered also in Persia, and especially in abundance in Kurdestan.

"I was assured at Basra, that the manna named Tarandsjubin, or Taransjubil, was gathered in great quantities near Ispahan, from a little thorny bush. I inquired for this kind of manna at Basra, and I found that it consisted of small grains, round and yellow, by consequence of the same figure as the manna of the Israelites is described to be, Exod. xvi. 14, 31; Numb. xi. 7. Perhaps, it was this kind which served as food to the Jews during their journey, for there are many thorny bushes in the desert around mount Sinai; and that district is in nearly the same latitude as Ispahan; but if the children of Israel enjoyed their manna during the whole year, that was by miracle; for the manna Tarandsjubîn is found only during certain months. I do not know whether sugar is cultivated in other countries of Arabia besides Yemen. But if the Jews had found in the desert of

Sinai only the natural Tarandsjubin, it would have been a very pleasant thing to them. In the Kurdestan, at Mosul, Merdin, Diarbekr, Ispahan, and probably in other cities, they use manna only, instead of sugar, for their pastry and other dishes. Much of it may be eaten without its proving purgative. Nevertheless, a person, with whom I conversed at Basra, thought, that both kinds were of that quality. Perhaps this is sensible only after it has lost its freshness. The tree which produces wild honey was not known at Basra; but an inhabitant of Ispahan affirmed, that this tree grew commonly in Persia, and became very large."

The comparison of the manna to sugar by this intelligent traveller, the observation that it is used in pastry, and its figure, as grains, will not fail to strike the reader. I have already doubted whether the Israelites lived wholly on manna, which, though we cannot properly call it a vegetable gum, yet is clearly a vegetable emission, or inspissiation; and, at least partially, a juice from the tree or shrub. By way of shewing the nutritive effect of such food, I shall offer Hasselquist's account of a caravan supported by gum-arabic, which we know is a vegetable juice also. "The Abyssinians come yearly to Cairo, to sell slaves, gold, elephants, drugs, monkies, and parrots. They cross the most frightful deserts; and, as their journey depends on the season, they know as little as sailors do, how long they may be in their passage; by which they are often exposed to a scarcity of provisions. Such a circumstance happened in 1750 to the caravan from Abyssinia: it stopped two months in its course, and provisions failed. In this extremity, they had recourse to the gum-arabic, of which they had a great quantity with them; and it served to support more than a thousand men during two months. The caravan arrived safe and sound at Cairo, without having lost any considerable number of persons." In this instance, the caravan lived wholly on this vegetable substance, so that in this respect it was analogous to the camp of Israel: but the camp of Israel lived many years on the manna, whereas this caravan lived only two months on the gum-arabic.

In the sequel of this history we find, that the insects bred in the manna are called by two names: 1st, no rimmach, verse 24. which signifies to breed worms; 2dly, but verse 20. yn tulo, probably derived from a root which signifies to devour, to swallow. Vide Job xxv. 6; Isai. xiv. 11. Perhaps our mites in cheese may give us an idea of these insects.

What shall we say to the imaginations of the Rabbins, Solomon, in Meschilta, and others, that the melted manna formed whole streams and rivers of very sweet water, where goats and deer resorted to drink; and where even fishes were taken which had the taste of manna? From such wild interpreters, and their extravagant interpretations, good Lord deliver us!

day here, and like the journey of a day there, round the camp, and like two cubits over, upon, the face of the ground. And the people rose up all that day, and they collected, or gathered, the whole dense cloud; taking the word shelav in this sense, i.e. of shelavim, von ns at he-shelav. The least share was ten homers, &c. To this we must add the narration, for such it is, of the Psalmist, lxxviii.

He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven;
And by his power he brought in the south wind.
He rained flesh also upon them as dust,

And feathered fowls like the sands of the sea;
And let fall in the midst of their camp,
And round about their habitations.

These accounts illustrate each other; and to understand the history, we must combine them.

Observe, 1st, two winds were employed; 1st, the east wind; 2d, the south wind. Now certainly these winds did not blow at the same time; but the east wind blew first; this drove the shelavim toward the sea, when, quite unexpectedly, the Lord sent a south wind, which wafting these creatures in a different direction, cut them off from the sea, and brought them over the camp of Israel; where failing them, it let them fall, they being now within reach of the people. Observe, 2dly, there are two places where these creatures fell; 1st, the midst of the camp, the interior of the camp; 2d, the spaces around their habitations. The midst of the camp is a fixed station, surrounded by the tents, &c. but the spaces round about the camp extended to like a day's journey, in sundry directions, equal to the diameter of the whole cloud: and the Israelites going out to gather what fell, went from place to place till they had strayed a great distance from the camp, even a day's straggle. 1st, They went forward one day, gathering as they went; 2d, they gathered also the next night; and, 3d, then thought of returning to the camp: but employed the next day also in gathering as they returned. This diminishes the extent of the day's journey very much; since, to say nothing of the safety of people wandering to any considerable distance, the time consumed in gathering, and the nature of the action, looking here, picking up there, &c. would leave so little time for making progress in a direct line, that, as it were a day's journey, seems to be inserted in a loose manner, not precisely conveying any correct idea of the space occupied by the shelavim.

Observe, 3dly, here are also, as I conceive, two kinds of creatures mentioned: 1st, what is called flesh; 2d, what is translated feathered fowls; and, for aught I know to the contrary, these might fall in two distinct places; one kind falling, 1st, in the midst, interior, of the camp; the other kind, 2d, falling in the open space around it: 1st, one kind being rained on them as dust; 2d, the other like the sand of the 7

sea.

VOL. IV.

Let us examine each of these; the first is called flesh, meaning, I presume, delicacies; it is also said to be rained. Now the idea of raining is not that of very large lumps, or great masses, but of small, little drops; and this the rather, if the word here used, mether, signify a shower; whereas a heavy, a pelting rain, is expressed by gemesh. "He showered down flesh, what was esteemed a delicacy, upon them." Here some may think we find the locusts of Ludolf; for this word shower aptly explains the falling of creatures no larger than locusts, and it perfectly agrees with the history in Numbers, that the people gathered the whole cloud, dense body, of them. That locusts are esteemed a delicacy, as we esteem shrimps and cray fish, is confirmed by every traveller into the East. To this agrees also, 1st, the extent around the camp to which they fell; 2d, the spreading of them abroad by the people, which is constantly practised to locusts; 3d, the measuring them by bushels, whereas birds would have been counted by dozens ; and, 4th, their immense multitude; on which I shall only hint at the calculation of Scheuzer, who takes the day's journey at a sabbath day's journey only, and excludes the whole area of the camp: yet he says the quantity amounts to 854,507,000 cubic feet of creatures, and that the 120,000,000,000 of quails of which Cornelius à Lapide speaks, is not nearly enough for the true number. On the other hand, locusts fly in immense quantities: St. Augustin mentions "a prodigious multitude of locusts, an innumerable cloud," de Civ. Dei, lib. iii. cap. 31. Alvarez says, he saw an army of locusts, which occupied the space of eight leagues; Portuguese, dous covados d'allura, two cubits high. Aldrovandus reports, on the testimony of Surius, that in 1541, in the provinces near Poland, was seen a body of locusts, one cubit high, and many miles in length and breadth. Add, therefore, to what has been said, that they lay in heaps of various depths.

We read, the quantity gathered was "ten homers,” now of the manna the Israelites gathered only one omer, which is the tenth part of an homer; so that they gathered an hundred times as much of this supply as of the manna: the quantity is excessive, if of quails, though the similarity of the words omer and homer disguises it in our translation.

If by flesh the Psalmist means locusts, what does he mean by "feathered fowls?" literally, "winged flyers" i.e. of any sort. And here we are happily assisted by the accounts of modern travellers, who mention a bird that devours the locusts, and follows them in their migrations. This, perhaps, is the "winged flyers" of the Psalmist, and it may possibly be the selav of Moses, if we take that word to denote a bird, or covey of birds. If this bird was now known in the East by the name, selav selava, it would render such a notion very plausible; but this does not appear to be fact. And indeed, as Michaelis observes,

it is probable the Arabs might derive this name from the Jews, and the Jews from the Bible, so that still our evidence would be incomplete. We shall offer a few testimonies on the subject of this bird, which might accompany the locusts in the camp of Israel; but certainly in no such numbers as the shelavim themselves, by way of conjecture merely.

"I had once an opportunity to see large swarms of locusts, in the island of Cyprus; and till that time had no adequate idea of their numerous hosts, and rapacious depredations. In going in a chaise from Larnica, to a garden at the distance of four or five miles, the locusts lay swarming, ABOVE A FOOT DEEP, in several parts of the high road, and thousands were destroyed by the wheels of the carriage crashing over them. The locust bird, which providentially appears at the same time, is of infinite service on these occasions; and on that account is much respected by the Turks. Other birds also devour the locust, as starlings, sparrows, and swallows; and great numbers, while yet young, are destroyed by another species of insect; but the locust bird is the most formidable enemy of all," Dr. Russell's Aleppo, p. 229.

"TURDUS Roseus, Linn. S.N. p. 294. smurmur, locust bird. This bird is about the size of a starling; the bill and legs are black; the plumage on the body is of a flesh colour; that of the head, neck, wings, and tail, black. The locust bird appears at Aleppo in June, about the time the white mulberries are ripe; and it feeds on that fruit, at a time when no locusts are to be found," Dr. Russell's Aleppo, p. 205.

Tavernier tells us, p. 147. "On the frontiers of Media and Armenia are to be seen a great number of birds, much like to our ouzils, much about the same time the corn begins to appear; but then the ground is covered with such infinite swarms of locusts, that the Armenians are forced to betake themselves to their processions, and to water the ground with a water which they fetch a great way off, whereinto the bodies of several martyred Christians were thrown. Three days these processions and waterings of the ground continue; and after that, whether it be that the forementioned birds do eat the locusts, or only drive them away, in two or three days the country is clear of them."

Niebuhr relates a story of fetching to Mosul water from a great distance, and in a particular manner, in order to attract this locust bird, p. 153. Fr. edit. adding, "But the truth is, that if the locusts are the best food of the samarmog, or locust bird, and that this bird has a natural inclination to destroy them, even those which it does not eat, he would readily come and seek them of his own accord, without the chiefs of Mosul giving themselves the trouble to cause this water to be fetched from so far, and at such an expense." Niebuhr proceeds to mention the name of the bird salva, as known to the Arabs; but his information is not complete, as neither himself nor Mr.

Forskal could procure a sight of the bird; his intelligence from Constantinople, not from Arabia, led him to the quail, under this name.

We gather from Dr. Russell, that locusts may lie two cubits high upon the ground, which certainly is the literal rendering of the Scripture, since the Dr. found them above a foot deep, and for several miles together. And if there were two kinds of creatures, then the locust eater may be that feathered fowl to which the Psalmist alludes, and which Moses calls shelav. What other reason can be given why Moses says, in verse 31. the wind cut off shelavim, plural, from the sea; and, in verse 32. the people collected the whole shelav, singular, compared with the shelav of Exod. xvi. 13. we cannot determine. If shelav refer to the locusts, it may mean the cloud formed by their multitude: if to the feathered fowl, the Psalmist might know that these locusts were followed by a bird; and might understand the locust eater of course. If Moses does not mention Two different creatures, neither does he mention two different winds: the Psalmist may have supplied both omissions.

In favour of quails as being the shelavim of Moses, the strongest modern testimony is that of Hasselquist, who, mentioning the quail of the larger kind, says, "It is of the size of a turtle dove; I have met with it in the wilderness of Palestine, near the shores of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, between Jordan and Jericho, and in the deserts of Arabia Petrea. IF the food of the Israelites was a bird, this is certainly it; being so common in the places through which they passed." I am not sure whether this if, and this commonness, are not great deductions from this testimony; which certainly does not meet the objections stated against quails: nevertheless, as quails are undoubtedly birds of passage, these selavim might be quails; but where could they be going to? If from Egypt or Africa to Europe, as is their regular course, an east wind must have blown them further off from the camp of Israel in Arabia Petrea; and a south wind might have crossed them in their flight, but to no advantage to the Israelites. It would have required a west wind to drive them from Egypt to the present station of the Hebrew people, whether these quails had been going from Europe to Egypt, or from Egypt to Europe. I believe they never cross in flights to any part of Arabia.

As to the anger of God, which followed the eating of this supply, probably its fatal effects might arise from repletion, from that gluttony which accompanied the devouring of them, as one cause; or, if the shelavim were locusts, excess of the same vice in eating them, of which a superabundance might be very prejudicial to health; not omitting the stench arising from so many thousand heaps of locusts spread about for the purposes of being dried, &c. As we read of plagues originating from the multitudes of dead locusts cast on the sea shores, it is no wonder that the

same effect should follow when they were spread abroad by the Israelites; and this would be greatly increased if the weather were intensely hot; and if the fire of the Lord, mentioned in verses 1, 2, 3. was lightning. This is supposing that it pleased God to use secondary natural causes for the punishment of this people, which, that he might do, none can deny.

CHAPTER XIX. VERSE.

THE EAGLE.

The Hebrew word nescher has always been taken for the eagle the expression, how I have carried you on eagle's wings, is softened in the LXX, who say, As on the wings of eagles; and this, perhaps, ought to be adopted; yet the passage, Deut. xxxii. 11. as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings," should seem to support the present reading and translation. I have not met with any modern naturalist who gives a satisfactory account of this action of the eagle; perhaps, because this bird, living in crags, &c. is not sufficiently watched at the proper time. The eagle is a bird too generally known among us to need enlargement in this place.

CHAPTER XXIII. VERSE 28.

I will send HORNETS before thee, to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan. Vide Deut. vii. 20; Josh. xxiv. 13. In Wisd. xii. 8. we read wasps instead of hornets. I would refer, in the first place, to the zimb of Ethiopia, as not impossible to have been commissioned in some of its families to effect this purpose; but as we are not certain that the simb naturally breeds in Canaan, we shall restrain our notice to wasps or hornets; either of which insects may answer to the sacred texts. As to similar subjects, Theodoret reports that Saporus was obliged to raise the siege of Nisibis, being unable to resist the gnats, which pestered him. Jamblichus, in Babylonicis, reports, that the Babylonian troops, being unable to endure the stings of bees, were obliged to take to flight. Elian says, in Antenoris Creticis, lib. xvii. that certain bees, named chalcoides, came in swarms into the city of the Rhacians, as if by divine commission, and extremely incommoded all they met, by deeply stinging them; insomuch that the inhabitants, unable to resist them, were obliged to quit their residence. In the same author, lib. xi. cap. 28. is a history of the Phasaelites driven from their country by wasps. On which we may remark, that these Phasaelites inhabited the mountains of Solymæ, and were originally of Phenicia, that is to say, descendants of the Canaanites; and very probably were some of those very people who were expelled their country by those wasps or hornets, which were, in a man

ner, like detachments of light troops, sent to precede the army of Israel.

CHAPTER XXV. VERSES 1-7.

SHITTIM WOOD.

What particular species of wood this is, interpreters are not agreed. The LXx render doтα (uλα, άσηπτα ξυλα, incorruptible wood. The most probable conjecture is, that this is the acanthus, or the acacia vera; which is about the size of a mulberry-tree. It produces yellow flowers, and pods like lupines: this tree yields the gum-arabic. Prosper Alpinus, and Belon, assure us that it grows abundantly in Egypt, in places far from the sea, in the mountains of Sinai, near the Red Sea, around Suez, and in the deserts. Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. 96. says the Egyptians built ships with it. Of shittim wood were made the ark of the covenant, and various articles of the sacred utensils. The bark of this tree is of a grayish black; its wood is of a pale yellow colour; its leaves resemble those of the lentil; many hang together on the same side of a branch. The branches are full of thorns, which are often in pairs; the branches also spread wide asunder. Mr. Parkhurst thinks its name is derived from its thorns, from their making animals decline, or turn aside, now. I rather conjecture it may be from the spreading of its branches, which, themselves, appear to me to decline or turn aside.

Dr. Shaw says, Travels p. 444. "The acaciatree being by much the largest, and the most common tree in the deserts of Arabia Petrea, we have some reason to conjecture that the shittim wood was the wood of the acacia. This tree abounds with flowers of a globular figure, and of an excellent smell, which may further induce us to take it for the same with the shittah-tree, which, in Isai. xli. 19. is joined with the myrtle, and other sweet smelling plants." I must rather hesitate in admitting the doctor's conjecture, that the shittah-tree is the same with the shittim. 1st, As one word seems to be feminine, the other masculine; but there may be trees of each sex, as is implied in Mr. Bruce's remark below. 2dly, As the "planting the shittah in the wilderness," if it was the acacia, could have nothing extraordinary in it, which idea is implied in the passage; because the wilderness, and even the desert, is the natural residence of the acacia.

Mr. Bruce says, Travels, vol. i. p. 93. "We passed Moote, a small village with a great number of acacia-trees intermixed with the plantations of palms. These occasion a pleasing variety, not only from the difference of the shape of the tree, but also from the colour and diversity of the green.

"As the sycamore in lower Egypt, so this tree seems to be the only indigenous one in the Thebaid. It is the acacia vera, or spina Egyptiaca, with a