Page images
PDF
EPUB

name to the captain of the vessel in which we were to return into Christendom, which was then at that port. This animal was of that kind which the Holy Scripture, in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, calls cherogryllus, which somewhat resembles the porcupine and the hedgehog: for it has a slender pointed head, streaked with white and black, the ears small; the legs before low and short, those behind much higher; the claws long and sharp; the hair grey, like bristles, harsh and very long ; as to the rest extremely savage, and which gave me a great deal of trouble, and a thousand scratches in the journey.'

It is an inhabitant of the Holy Land, according to both writers; but not very common, being understood by both to be a curiosity. They also agree in their account of the remarkable difference, in point of length, between the hind and the fore feet; as also in the pointedness of the head, which, instead of comparing it to a rabbit, led Doubdan to liken it to a porcupine and the hedgehog, as well as on account of the roughness of the coating.

Both these animals, it seems, are very common in those countries, and the flesh of the porcupine, when fat and young, is very well tasted, and in great esteem, according to Dr. Shaw;' and a paper in the Philosophical Transactions,' written by Mr. Jezreel Jones, assures

He means the vulgar Latin, which so translates the word shaphan there.

Voyage de la Terre-Sainte, p. 505.

· P. 176.

Phil. Trans. abridg. vol. iii, part 2, ch. 3, art. 35.

[ocr errors]

us, that among the Moors of West Barbary the hedgehog is a princely dish They are both wont now to be eaten in the Levant, and might be made use of for food before the time of Moses, and might be reckoned among the several species of the shaphan, and so expressly be forbidden to be eaten. But whether it be admitted or not, that the word shaphan includes all those smaller four-footed animals with a slender head that were used for food, and the word aronebeth those smaller quadrupeds used for food, which had large heads, I can never persuade myself, that those two Hebrew words in Leviticus mean two species of animals so nearly resembling each other, as the hare and the rabbit, that even modern naturalists put them under the single name lepus, which in common Latin means a hare exclusively; and if the word aronebeth is to be taken in a like extensive sense, the word shaphan may naturally include more species than the daman Israel, if not all the several sorts of sharp-nosed quadrupeds that were commonly eaten, particularly the jerboa, which is so common in the deserts, where the book of Leviticus was written, as the leporine kind, (including both hares and rabbits,) is also known to reside there in great numbers."

Our translation is evidently rather suited to our circumstances in England, where hardly

* See Dr. Berkenhout's Outlines of the Nat. Hist. of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1.

y So Doubdan found hares and rabbits both, in great numbers, in the plain of Jericho, which is now a desert, p. 287, 288.

any other wild quadrupeds of the smaller sort are eaten, but hares and rabbits, than to Asiatic customs, and the beasts that reside in Arabian deserts.

OBSERVATION XXXI.

Judea at present swarms with dangerous wild Beasts..

It is supposed in the Old Testament, that if Judea should be thinly peopled, the wild beasts would so multiply there as to render it dangerous to the inhabitants. Every body knows that country is not now very populous, and accordingly wild beasts are at present so numerous there, as to be terrifying to strangers.

The LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee, are the words of Moses, Deut. vii. 22, and are founded on the supposition I have been mentioning. The Prophet Ezekiel supposes the same, in a passage in which he describes the mercy granted to the land of Israel after its being repeopled, when the LORD should turn again the captivity of Sion, Ezek. xxxiv. 25, I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.

That wild beasts are at present in that country in considerable numbers, and terrify stran

gers, appears in that passage of Haynes, where, describing his arrival at Cana of Galilee, he says, "The approaching Cana, at the close of the day, as we did, is at once terrifying and dangerous.

"The surrounding country swarms with wild beasts, such as tygers, leopards, jackals, &c. whose cries and howling, I doubt not, as it did me, would strike the boldest traveller, who had not been frequently in a like situation, with the deepest sense of horror, p. 118.”*

To which may be added the account he gives of his visiting Mount Tabor, on the top of which he found many ruins. "I amused myself," says this traveller, " a considerable time in walking about the area, and creeping into several holes and subterraneous caverns among the ruins. My guide perceiving me thus employed, told me I must be more cautious how I ventured into those places, for that he could assure me those holes and caverns were frequently resorted to by tygers in the day time, to shelter them from the sun and therefore I might pay dear for gratifying my curiosity." P. 152, 153.

In the two next pages he mentions a terrible fright, into which the monks of Nazareth were put, some time before this, by the appearance of a tyger coming out of these ruins on the top of Mount Tabor, which place the monks annually visit.

I have illustrated the other parts of this pas

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

sage of Ezekiel, relating to the sleeping in the woods under another Observation,

OBSERVATION XXXII.

Great Usefulness of Storks in the Holy Land.

Among the birds that appear and disappear in this country, storks are mentioned in our translation, and accordingly Doubdan found them, in the month of May in great numbers residing in Galilee.

Returning from Cana to Nazareth on the 8th of May, in which journey he complains the heat was so great that they could scarcely breathe, he adds, "I would not forget to observe, that all these fields were so filled with flocks of storks, that they appeared quite white with them, there being above a thousand in each flock, and when they rose and hovered in the air, they seemed like clouds. The evening they rest on trees. There were thousands of them, in the meadow, which lies at the foot of Nazareth, which was quite covered with them. The inhabitants do them no hurt, on account of their devouring all kinds of venomous animals, serpents, adders, toads, and clearing the country of them.

[ocr errors]

Shaw saw them in the air, returning from the South, as he lay at anchor near Mount Carmel; Doubdan found them settled in Galilee, and positively affirms that they roosted on trees.. Whether they build their nests there too, in

a P. 513.

« PreviousContinue »