! OBSERVATIONS ON DIVERS Passages of Scripture. Placing many of them in a Light altogether new; Afcertaining the Meaning of several not determinable by the Methods commonly made use of by the Learned; Propofing to Confideration probable Conjectures on others, different from what have been hitherto recommended to the Attention of the Curious; And more amply illuftrating the Rest than has been yet done, by Means of Circumstances incidentally mentioned IN BOOKS OF VOYAGESANDTRAVELS INTO THE EAST: IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II, RELATING TO VI. The Eastern Methods of doing Persons Honour. VII. Their Books. VIII. The Natural, Civil, and Military State of JUDÆA. IX. ÆGYPT. X. Mifcellaneous Matters. THE SECOND EDITION, Corrected with Care, and enlarged with many new Observations: Numbers of them taken from some MS. Papers of the celebrated SIR JOHN CHARDIN. Impellimur autem Naturâ, ut prodeffe velimus quamplurimis imprimisque docendo, ..... Itaque non facile est invenire, qui quod sciat ipse, non tradat alteri. Cic. de fin, lib. iii. LONDON: Printed for J. JOHNSON, No. 72, St. Paul's Church-yard. M DCC LXXVI. Of the Eastern Methods of doing Perfons Ho 0 nour. OBSERVATION I. F these the presenting gifts is one of the most universal; and the use of them was, as well as is, much more extenfive in the East than with us. Such as are prejudiced against the Sacred Hiftory, and unacquainted with Eastern cuftoms, may be ready, from the donations to the Prophets, to imagine they were a mercenary set of people, and rudely to rank them with cunning-men and fortune-tellers, who will not from principles of benevolence reveal those secrets, or foretell those future events, of the perfect knowledge of which they are supposed to be poffefsed, but demand of the anxious enquirer a large reward. This, however, will make impreffions on none but those who know not the oriental usages, which Maundrell long fince applied, with fuch clearness and force, to one of the most exceptionable passages of the Old Testament, that he has fufficiently fatisfied the mind VOL. II. upon B |