Though the slaves in the oriental regions were treated with more severity than hired servants, their condition was by no means reckoned so degrading as in modern times, among the civilized nations of the west. The slavemaster in the East, when he has no son to inherit his wealth, and even when the fortune he has to bequeath is very considerable, frequently gives his daughter to one of his slaves. The wealthy people of Barbary, when they have no children, purchase young slaves, educate them in their own faith, and sometimes adopt them for their own children. This custom, so strange and unnatural, according to our modes of thinking, may be traced to a very remote antiquity; it seems to have prevailed so early as the days of Abraham, who says of one of his slaves, "One born in mine house is mine heir:" although Lot, his brother's son, resided in his neighbourhood, and he had besides many relations in Mesopotamia. In the courts of eastern monarchs, it is well known, that slaves frequently rise to the highest honours of the state. The greatest men in the Turkish empire are originally slaves, reared and educated in the seraglio. When Maillet was in Egypt, there was a eunuch who had raised three of his slaves to the rank of princes; and he mentions a Bey who exalted five or six of his slaves to the same office with himself. With these facts before us, we have no reason to question the veracity of the inspired writers, who record the extraordinary advancement of Joseph in the house of Pharaoh, and of Daniel, under the monarch of Babylon. These sudden elevations, from the lowest stations in society, from the abject condition of a slave, or the horrors of a dungeon, to the highest and most honourable offices of state, are quite consistent with the established manners and customs of those countries.-PAXTON. 1 Ver. 17. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. Several eminent critics believe the lamp of fire was an emblem of the Divine presence, and that it ratified the covenant with Abram. It is an interesting fact that the burning lamp or fire is still used in the East in confirmation of a covenant. Should a person in the evening make a solemn promise to perform something for another, and should the latter doubt his word, the former will say, pointing to the flame of the lamp, "That is the witness." On occasions of greater importance, when two or more join in a covenant, should the fidelity of any be questioned, they will say, "We invoke the lamp of the Temple" (as a witness.) When an agreement of this kind has been broken, it will be said, "Who would have thought this? for the lamp of the Temple was invoked." That fire was a symbol of the Divine presence, no one acquainted with the sacred scriptures can deny; and in the literature and customs of the East, the same thing is still asserted. In the ancient writings, where the marriages of the gods and demigods are described, it is always said the ceremony was performed in the presence of the god of fire. He was the witness. But it is also a general practice, at the celebration of respectable marriages at this day, to have a fire as a witness of the transaction. It is made of the wood of the Mango-tree, or the Aal or Arasu, or Panne or Palasu. The fire being kindled in the centre of the room, the young couple sit on stools; but when the Brahmin begins to repeat the incantations, they arise, and the bridegroom puts the little finger of his left hand round the little finger of the right hand of the bride, and they walk round the fire three times from left to right. "Fire is the witness of their covenant; and if they break it, fire will be their destruction." In the Scanda Purana, the father of the virgin who was to be married to the son of the Rishi, said to him, "Call your son, that I may give him to my daughter in the presence of the god of fire, that he may be the witness;" that being done, " Usteyar gave his daughter Verunte in marriage, the fire being the witness."-ROBERTS. a child, she is said to be making her house new, or rather, she has caused the house to be newly built. When a man marries, “he is making a new house.”—ROBERTS. Ver. 12. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him: and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. The phrase, "a wild man," it is well known, is in the original text, a wild ass man," that is, a man like a wild ass in temper and manners. The comparison seems to refer, first to Ishmael himself, and to intimate certain leading traits in his character; and then to his offspring in every succeeding age. The troops of onagers, are conducted by a leading stallion, that prefers the most arid deserts of the mountains, keeps watch while his companions repose, and gives the signal at the appearance of an enemy. The Nomades of Asia report of these animals, that the first of a troop which sees a serpent or a beast of prey, makes a certain cry, which brings, in a moment, the whole herd around him, when each of them strives to destroy it instantly. Such were the character and manners of Ishmael. He was the first prince of his family, the founder of a powerful nation, of a rough, wild, and untractable disposition. Nor was this all: ambitious of supreme authority, he loved to place himself at the head of his rising community, to regulate its affairs, and direct its operations; and, like the high-spirited leader of the onagers, he could brook no rival. He discovered his ruling passion, when he was but a stripling in the house of his father. Determined to maintain his prerogatives as the elder son, and provoked to see a younger, and a child of a different mother, preferred before him, he gave vent to his indignation, by deriding his brother, and the feast which was made on his account. Expelled for his imprudence from his father's house, he made choice of the sandy desert for his permanent residence, and required the heads of all the families around him, either to acknowledge his supremacy, and treat him with the highest respect, or be driven from his station and neighbourhood. Wherever he pitched his tent, he expected, according to a custom of great antiquity, all the tents to be turned with their faces towards it, in token of submission; that the band might have their eye always upon their master's lodging, and be in readiness to assist him if he were attacked. In this manner did Ishmael dwell "in the presence,"-" before," (y) or, “over against the faces of all his brethren." But the prediction embraced also the character and circumstances of his descendants. The manners and customs of the Arabians, except in the article of religion, have suffered almost no alteration, during the long period of three thousand years. They have occupied the same country, and followed the same mode of life, from the days of their great ancestor, down to the present times, and range the wide extent of burning sands which separate them from all the surrounding nations, as rude, and savage, and untractable as the wild ass himself. Claiming the barren plains of Arabia, as the patrimonial domain assigned by God to the founder of their nation, they consider themselves entitled to seize, and appropriate to their own use, whatever they can find there. Impatient of restraint, and jealous of their liberty, they form no connexion with the neighbouring states; they admit of little or no friendly intercourse, but live in a state of continual hostility with the rest of the world. The tent is their dwelling, and the circular camp their city; the spontaneous produce of the soil, to which they sometimes add a little patch of corn, furnishes them with means of subsistence, amply sufficient for their moderate desires; and the liberty of ranging at pleasure their interminable wilds, fully compensates in their opinion for the want of all other accommodations. Mounted on their favourite horses, they passed only by the wild ass. They levy contributions on scour the waste in search of plunder, with a velocity surevery person that happens to fall in their way; and frequently rob their own countrymen, with as little ceremony as they do a stranger or an enemy; their hand is still against every man, and every man's hand against them. But they do not always confine their predatory excursions her. to the desert. When booty is scarce at home, they make The Hebrew has, "Be builded by her." When a wife incursions into the territories of their neighbours, and havhas been for some time considered steril, should she haveing robbed the solitary traveller, or plundered the caravan, CHAP. 16. ver 2. I pray thee, go in unto my immediately retire into the deserts far beyond the reach of their pursuers. Their character, drawn by the pen of inspiration, exactly corresponds with this view of their dispositions and conduct: "Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children." Savage and stubborn as the wild ass which inhabits the same wilderness, they go forth on the horse or the dromedary with inconceivable swiftness in quest of their prey. Initiated in the trade of a robber from their earliest years, they know no other employment; they choose it as the business of their life, and prosecute it with unwearied activity. They start before the dawn, to invade the village or the caravan; make their attack with desperate courage, and surprising rapidity; and, plunging instantly into the desert, escape from the vengeance of their enemies. Provoked by their continual insults, the nations of ancient and modern times have often invaded their country with powerful armies, determined to extirpate, or at least to subdue them to their yoke; but they always return baffled and disappointed. The savage freebooters, disdaining every idea of submission, with invincible patience and resolution, maintained their independence; and they have transmitted it unimpaired to the present times. In spite of all their enemies can do to restrain them, they continue to dwell in the presence of all their brethren, and to assert their right to insult and plunder every one they meet with on the borders, or within the limits of their domains.-PAXTON. Shinar or in the valleys of Spain, on the banks of the Tigris or the Tagus, in Araby the Blessed or Araby the Barren, the posterity of Ishmael have ever maintained their prophetic character: they have remained, under every change of condition, a wild people; their hand has still been against every man, and every man's hand against them. The natural reflection of a recent traveller, on examining the peculiarities of an Arab tribe, of which he was an eyewitness, may suffice, without any art of controversy, for the illustration of this prophecy :--" On the smallest computation, such must have been the manners of those people for more than three thousand years: thus in all things verifying the prediction given of Ishmael at his birth, that he, in his posterity, should be a wild man, and always continue to be so, though they shall dwell for ever in the presence of their brethren. And that an acute and active people, surrounded for ages by polished and luxuriant nations, should, from their earliest to their latest times, be still found a wild people, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren, (as we may call these nations,) unsubdued and unchangeable, is, indeed, a standing miracle-one of those mysterious facts which establish the truth of prophecy." (Sir Robert K. Porter.)-Keith. Ver. 14. Wherefore the well was called Beerlahai-roi behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. If in some places where there are wells, there are no conveniences to draw any water with, to refresh the fainting traveller, there are other places where the wells are furnished with troughs, and other contrivances, for the us there are wells in Persia and in Arabia, in the driest places, and above all in the Indies, with troughs and basins of stone by the side of them. He supposes the well called Beer-lahai-roi, mentioned Gen. xvi. 14, was thus furnished. I do not remember any circumstance mentioned in that part of the patriarchal history that proves this; but it is sufficiently apparent there, that the well where Rebecca went to draw water, near the city of Nahor, had some convenience of this kind; as also had the Arabian well to which the daughters of Jethro resorted. Other wells, without doubt, had the like conveniences, though not distinctly mentioned. -HARMER. CHAP. 18. ver. 1. And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. The fate of Ishmael is here identified with that of his descendants: and the same character is common to them both. The historical evidence of the fact, the universal tradition, and constant boast of the Arabs themselves, their language, and the preservation for many ages of an origin-watering cattle that want to drink. Sir John Chardin tells al rite, derived from him as their primogenitor,-confirm the truth of their descent from Ishmael. The fulfilment of the prediction is obvious. Even Gibbon, while he at tempts, from the exceptions which he specifies, to evade the force of the fact that the Arabs have maintained a perpetual independence, acknowledges that these exceptions are temporary and local; that the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies; and that" the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia." But even the exceptions which he specifies, though they were justly stated, and though not coupled with such admissions as invalidate them, would not detract from the truth of the prophecy. The independence of the Arabs was proverbial in ancient as well as in modern times; and the present existence, as a free and independent nation, of a people who derive their descent from so high antiquity, demonstrates that they had never been wholly subdued, as all the nations around them have unquestionably been; and that they have ever dwelt in the presence of their brethren. They not only subsist unconquered to this day, but the prophesied and primitive wildness of their race, and their hostility to all, remain unsubdued and unaltered. are a wild people; their hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against them." In the words of Gibbon, which strikingly assimilate with those of the prophecy, they are "armed against mankind." Plundering is their profession. Their alliance is never courted, and can never be obtained; and all that the Turks, or Persians, or any of their neighbours can stipulate for from them is a partial and purchased forbearance. Even the British, who have established a residence in almost every country, have entered the territories of the descendants of Ishmael to accomplish only the premeditated destruction of a fort, and to retire. It cannot be alleged, with truth, that their peculiar character and manner, and its uninterrupted permanency, is the necessary result of the nature of their country. They have continued wild or uncivilized, and have retained their habits of hostility towards all the rest of the human race, though they possessed for three hundred years countries the most opposite in their nature from the mountains of Arabia. The greatest part of the temperate zone was included within the limits of the Arabian conquests; and their empire extended from India to the Atlantic, and embraced a wider range of territory than ever was possessed by the Romans, those boasted masters of the world. The period of their conquest and dominion was sufficient, under such circumstances, to have changed the manners of any people; but whether in the land of "They In the time of Chandler it was still the custom of eastern shepherds to sit at the door of their tents in the heat of the day. That traveller, "at ten minutes after ten in the morning," was entertained with the view of a plain full of booths, with the Turcomans sitting by their doors, under sheds resembling porticoes, or by shady trees, surrounded with flocks of goats. In the same situation the three angels found Abraham, when they came to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, sitting under the portico, or skirts of his tent, near the door, to enjoy the refreshing breeze, and superintend his servants. It was not the hottest part of the day, when Chandler saw the Turcoman shepherds sitting at the doors of their booths; it was soon after ten in the morning; and when Abraham was sitting at his tent door, it might be nearly at the same hour. In the hottest part of the day, according to the practice of those countries, the patriarch had been retired to rest. The goats of the Turcomans were feeding around their huts; and if Abraham's cattle, which is extremely probable, were feeding around his tent in the same manner, it accounts for the expedition with which he ran and fetched a calf from the herd, in order to entertain his visitants.-PAXTON. Often has my mind reverted to the scene of the good old patriarch sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day. When the sun is at the meridian, the wind often becomes softer, and the heat more oppressive; and then may be seen the people seated in the doors of their huts, to inhale the breezes, and to let them blow on their almost naked bodies.-ROBERTS. Ver. 2. And he lifted up his eyes, and looked. to look directly at an object, and that earnestly. A man coming from the jungle might say, "As I came this morning, I lifted up my eyes, and behold, I saw three elephants." "Have you seen any thing to-day in your travels ?"—" I have not lifted up my eyes." "I do not see the thing you sent me for, sir."-"Just lift up your eyes, and you will soon find it."-ROBERTS. Ver. 4. Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, cepts of Moses evidently bear a particular relation to the and wash your feet. How often, in passing through a village, may we see this grateful office performed for the weary traveller! As the people neither wear shoes nor stockings, and as the sandal is principally for the defence of the sole of the foot, the upper part soon becomes dirty. Under these circumstances, to have the feet and ankles washed is very refreshing, and is considered a necessary part of Eastern hospitality. The service is always performed by servants. (John xiii. 14.)-— ROBERTS. Ver. 6. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto In the cities and villages of Barbary, where public ovens are established, the bread is usually leavened, but among the Bedoweens and Kabyles, as soon as the dough is kneaded, it is made into thin cakes, either to be baked immediately upon the coals, or else in a shallow earthen vessel like a frying pan, called Tajen. Such were the unleavened cakes, which we so frequently read of in Scripture, and those also which Sarah made quickly upon the hearth. These last are about an inch thick; and being commonly prepared in woody countries, are used all along the shores of the Black Sea, from the Palus-Mæotis to the Caspian, in Chaldea and in Mesopotamia, except in towns. A fire is made in the middle of the room; and when the bread is ready for baking, a corner of the hearth is swept, the bread is laid upon it, and covered with ashes and embers: in a quarter of an hour they turn it. Sometimes they use small convex plates of iron: which are most common in Persia, and among the nomadic tribes, as being the easiest way of baking, and done with the least expense; for the bread is extremely thin, and soon prepared. The oven is used in every part of Asia; it is made in the ground, four or five feet deep, and three in diameter, well plastered with mortar. When it is hot, they place the bread (which is commonly long, and not thicker than a finger) against the sides; it is baked in a moment. Ovens, Chardin apprehends, were not used in Canaan in the patriarchal age; all the bread of that time was baked upon a plate, or under the ashes; and he supposes, what is nearly self-evident, that the cakes which Sarah baked on the hearth, were of the last sort, and that the shew-bread was of the same kind. The Arabs about mount Carmel use a great stone pitcher, in which they kindle a fire; and when it is heated, they mix meal and water, which they apply with the hollow of their hands to the outside of the pitcher; and this extremely soft paste, spreading itself, is baked in an instant. The heat of the pitcher having dried up all the moisture, the bread comes off as thin as our wafers; and the operation is so speedily performed, that in a very little time a sufficient quantity is made. But their best sort of bread they bake, either by heating an oven, or a large pitcher half full of little smooth shining flints, upon which they lay the dough, spread out in the form of a thin broad cake. Sometimes they use a shallow earthen vessel, resembling a fryingpan, which seems to be the pan mentioned by Moses, in which the meat-offering was baked. This vessel, Dr. Shaw informs us, serves both for baking and frying; for the bagreah of the people of Barbary differs not much from our pancakes, only, instead of rubbing the pan in which they fry them with butter, they rub it with soap, to make them like a honeycomb. If these accounts of the Arab stone pitcher, the pan, and the iron hearth or copper plate, be attended to, it will not be difficult to understand the laws of Moses in the second chapter of Leviticus; they will be found to answer perfectly well to the description which he gives us of the different ways of preparing the meat-offerings. The premethods of preparing bread, used by those who live in tents, although they were sufficient for the direction of his people after their settlement in Canaan; and his mentioning cakes of bread baked in the oven, and wafers that were baked on the outside of these pitchers, in the fourth verse, with bread baked on a plate, and in a pan, in the fifth and seventh verses, inclines Mr. Harmer to think, the people of Israel prepared their meat-offerings in their tents, which they afterward presented at the national altar, rather than in the court of the tabernacle.-PAXTON. While we were talking of the Turcomans, who had alarmed us on our way, a meal was preparing within; and soon afterward, warm cakes baked on the hearth, cream, honey, dried raisins, butter, lebben, and wheat boiled in milk, were served to the company. Neither the Sheikh himself nor any of his family partook with us, but stood around, to wait upon their guests, though among those who sat down to eat, were two Indian fakirs, or beggars, a Christian pilgrim from Jerusalem, and the slaves and servants of Hadjee Abd-el-Rakhman, all dipping their fingers into the same dish. Coffee was served to us in gilded china cups, and silver stands or finjans, and the pipes of the Sheikh and his son were filled and offered to those who had none. If there could be traced a resemblance between the form of this tent, and that of the most ancient buildings of which we have any knowledge, our reception there no less exactly corresponded to the picture of the most ancient manners, of which we have any detail. When the three angels are said to have appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, he is represented as sitting in the tent-door in the heat of the day. "And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent-door, and bowed himself towards the ground." " And Abraham hastened into the tent, unto Sarah, and said, 'Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.' And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat." When inquiry was made after his wife, he replied, "Behold, she is in the tent." And when it was promised him, that Sarah should have a son, it is said, "And Sarah heard in the tent-door, which was behind him." The angels are represented, as merely passengers in their journey, like ourselves for the rites of hospitality were shown to them, before they had made their mission known. At first sight they were desired to halt and repose, to wash their feet, as they had apparently walked, and rest beneath the tree, while bread should be brought them to comfort their hearts. "And after that," said the good old patriarch, "shall ye pass on, for therefore are ye come unto your servant;" so that the duty of hospitality to strangers seems to have been as well and as mutually understood in the earliest days, as it is in the same country at present. The form of Abraham's tent, as thus described, seems to have been exactly like the one in which we sit; for in both, there was a shaded open front, in which he could sit in the heat of the day, and yet be seen from afar off; and the apartment of the females, where Sarah was, when he stated her to be within the tent, was immediately behind this, wherein she prepared the meal for the guests, and from whence she listened to their prophetic declaration.— BUCKINGHAM. CHAP. 19. ver. 19. Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight. Nothing can be more common than this form of speech. Has a man been pleading with another and succeeded in his request, he will say, "Ah! since I have found favour in your sight, let me mention another thing." "My lord, had I not found favour in your sight, who would have helped me ?" Happy is the man who finds grace in your sight!"-ROBERTS. Ver. 24. Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven. 25. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. With regard to the agents employed in this catastrophe, there might seem reason to suppose that volcanic phenomena had some share in producing it; but Chateaubriand's remark is deserving of attention. "I cannot," he says, "coincide in opinion with those who suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have seen Vesuvius, Solfatara, Monte Nuovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the Azores, the Mamalif opposite to Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of Auvergne; and remarked in all of them the same characters; that is to say, mountains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which exhibited incontestible proofs of the agency of fire." After noticing the very different shape and position of the Dead Sea, he adds: "Bitumen, warm springs, and phosphoric stones, are found, it is true, in the mountains of Arabia; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur, and asphaltos, is not sufficient to attest the anterior existence of a volcano." The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt the idea of Professors Michaelis and Büsching, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built upon a mine of bitumen; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the cities sank in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brun ingeniously suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in flames by the fire of heaven. We learn from the Mosaic account, that the Vale of Siddim, which is now occupied by the Dead Sea, was full of "slime-pits," or pits of bitumen. Pococke says: "It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the water, and comes ashore after windy weather; the Arabs gather it up, and it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines, and is thought to have been a very great ingredient in the bitumen used in embalming the bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths, and has an ill smell when burnt. It is probable that there are subterraneous fires that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the sea, where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the motion of the water occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable, that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns only to a white stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch; so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and that this bitumen boils up out of it." To give force to this last conjecture, however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whether bitumen is capable of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of fire. The stone in question is the black fetid limestone, used at Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is owing to a strong impregnation of sulphureted hydrogen. If the buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with quarries of which the neighbouring mountains abound, they would be easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The scriptural account, however, is explicit, that "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven;" which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which seems referible to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very materials, as it were, of this awful visitation still at hand in the neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of a thunder-storm, without excluding a supernatural cause from the explanation of the phenomena. Captains Irby and Mangles collected on the southern coast lumps of nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small hen's egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought down by the rain: their great deposite must be sought for," they say, "in the cliff." Dr. Shaw supposes that the bitumen, as it rises, is accompanied with sulphur, "inasmuch as both of them are found promiscuously upon the wash of the shore." But his conjec ture is not founded on observation. The statement he gives, is founded on hearsay evidence; we cannot, therefore, admit him as (in this case) an original authority. "I was informed," he says, "that the bitumen, for which this lake hath been always remarkable, is raised, at certain times, from the bottom, in large hemispheres; which, as soon as they touch the surface, and so are acted upon by the external air, burst at once with great smoke and noise, like the pulvis fulminans of the chymists, and disperse themselves round about in a thousand pieces. But this happens only near the shore; for, in greater depths, the eruptions are supposed to discover themselves only in such columns of smoke as are now and then observed to arise from the lake." Chateaubriand speaks of the puffs of smoke" which announce or follow the emersion of asphaltos, and of fogs that are really unwholesome like all other fogs." These he considers as the supposed pestilential vapours said to arise from the bosom of the lake. But it admits of question, in the deficiency of more specific information, whether what has been taken for columns of smoke, may not be the effect of evaporation.-MODERN TRAVELLER. Ver. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. "From behind him." This seems to imply that she was following her husband, as is the custom at this day. When men, or women, leave their house, they never look back, as "it would be very unfortunate." Should a husband have left any thing which his wife knows he will require, she will not call on him to turn or look back; but will either take the article herself, or send it by another. Should a man have to look back on some great emergency, he will not then proceed on the business he was about to transact. When a person goes along the road, (especially in the evening,) he will take great care not to look back, "because the evil spirits would assuredly seize him." When they go on a journey, they will not look behind, though the palankeen, or bandy, should be close upon them; they step a little on one side, and then look at you. Should a person have to leave the house of a friend after sunset, he will be advised in going home not to look back: “as much as possible keep your eyes closed; fear not." Has a person made an offering to the evil spirits, he must take particular care when he leaves the place not to look back. A female known to me is believed to have got her crooked neck by looking back. Such observations as the following may be often heard in private conversation. "Have you heard that Comaran is very ill ?"-"No, what is the matter with him?"-" Matter! why he has looked back, and the evil spirit has caught him."-ROBERTS. CHAP. 21. ver. 6. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. A woman advanced in years, under the same circumstances, would make a similar observation: "I am made to laugh." But this figure of speech is also used on any wonderful occasion. Has a man gained any thing he did not expect, he will ask, "What is this? I am made to laugh." Has a person lost any thing which the moment before he had in his hand, he says, "I am made to laugh." Has he obtained health, or honour, or wealth, or a wife, or a child, it is said, "He is made to laugh." Ah, his mouth is now full of laughter; his mouth cannot contain all that laughter." (Ps. cxxvi. 2.)—ROBERTS. Ver. 8. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. When the time has come to wean a child, a fortunate day is looked for, and the event is accompanied with feasting and religious ceremonies. Rice is given to the child in a formal way, and the relations are invited to join in the festivities. For almost every event of life the Hindoos have a fixed rule from which they seldom deviate. They wean a female child within the year, "because, if they did not, it would become steril;" but boys are often allowed the breast till they are three years of age. --ROBERTS. Ver. 9. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham. It is not uncommon for a man of property to keep a concubine in the same house with his wife; and, strange as it may appear, it is sometimes at the wife's request. Perhaps she has not had any children, or they may have died, and they both wish to have one, to perform their funeral ceremonies. By the laws of Menu, should a wife, during the first eight years of her marriage, prove unfruitful; or should the children she has borne be all dead in the tenth year after marriage; or should she have a daughter only in the eleventh year; he may, without her consent, put her away, and take a concubine into the house. He must, however, continue to support her.-ROBERTS. Ver. 14. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, (putting it on her shoulder,) and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. Chardin has given us, at large, an amusing account of these bottles, which, therefore, I would here set down. After observing that the bottle given to Hagar was a leather one, he goes on thus: "The Arabs, and all those that lead a wandering kind of life, keep their water, milk, and other kind of liquors in these bottles. They keep in them more fresh than otherwise they would do. These leather bottles are made of goat skins. When the animal is killed, they cut off its feet and its head, and they draw it in this manner out of the skin, without opening its belly. They afterward sew up the places where the legs were cut off, and the tail, and when it is filled, they tie it about the neck. These nations, and the country people of Persia, never go a journey without a small leather bottle of water hanging by their side like a scrip. The great leather bottles are made of the skin of a he-goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid's skin. Mons. Dandilly, for want of observing this, in his beautiful translation of Josephus, has put goat skin in the chapter of Hagar and Ishmael, instead of a kid's skin bottle, which, for the reasons assigned above, must have been meant." He reassumes the subject in another part of the same volume, in which he tells us, "that they put into these goat-skin and kid-skin vessels every thing which they want to carry to a distance in the East, whether dry or liquid, and very rarely make use of boxes and pots, unless it be to preserve such things as are liable to be broken. The reason is, their making use of beasts of carriage for conveying these things, who often fall down under their loading, or throw it down, and also because it is in pretty thin woollen sacks that they enclose what they carry. There is another advantage, too, in putting the necessaries of life in these skin vessels, they are preserved fresher; the ants and other insects cannot make their way to them; nor can the dust get in, of which there are such quantities in the hot countries of Asia, and so fine, that there is no such thing as a coffer impenetrable to it; therefore it is that butter, honey, cheese, and other like aliments, are enclosed in vessels made of the skins of this species of animals." According to this, the things that were carried to Joseph for a present, were probably enclosed in little vessels made of kid skins; not only the balm and the honey, which were somewhat liquid; but the nuts and the almonds too, that they might be preserved fresh, and the whole put into slight woollen sacks.-HARMER. That Ishmael should, when just ready to faint, and unable to proceed onward in his journey, desire to lie down I knew a couple with whom this occurred, and the wife delights in nursing and bringing up the offspring of her husband's concubine. under some tree, where he might be in the shade, was quite natural: in such a situation Thevenot (Travels, p. 164) fell in with a poor Arab in this wilderness, just ready to expire. "Passing by the side of a bush," says this writer, "we heard a voice that called to us, and being come to the place, we found a poor languishing Arab, who told us that he had not eaten a bit for five days; we gave him some victuals and drink, with a provision of bread for two days more, and so went on our way." Ishmael was, without debate, fourteen years old when Isaac was born, (com pare Gen. xvi. 16, with chap. xxi. 5,) and probably seventeen when Isaac was weaned, for it was anciently the custom in these countries to suckle children till they were three years old, and it still continues so; the translation then of the Septuagint is very amazing, for instead of representing Abraham as giving Hagar bread, and a skin bottle of water, and putting them upon Hagar's shoulder, that version represents Abraham as putting his son Ishmael on the shoulders of his mother. How droll the representation! Young children indeed are wont to be carried so; but how ridiculous to describe a youth of seventeen, or even fourteen, as riding upon his mother's shoulders, when sent upon a journey into the wilderness, and she loaded at the same time with the provisions. Yet unnatural and odd as this representation is, our version approaches too near to it, when it describes Hagar as casting the youth under one of the shrubs: which term agrees well enough with the getting rid of a half grown man from her shoulders, but by no means with the maternal affectionate letting go her hold of him, when she found he could go no farther, and desired to lie down and die under that bush: for that undoubtedly was the idea of the sacred writer; she left off supporting him, and let him gently drop on the ground, where he desired to lie. In a succeeding verse, the angel of the LORD bade her lift up Ishmael, and hold him in her hand, support him under his extreme weakness; she had doubtless done this before, and her quitting her hold, upon his lying down, is the meaning of the word (152) shalak, translated casting, that word sometimes, indeed, signifying a sudden and rather violent quitting hold of a thing, but at other times a parting with it in a gentle manner. It may also be wondered at, how Hagar came to give way to despair at that time, as she certainly did; for since there were several shrubs in that place, we may suppose it was a sure indication of water, and that therefore maternal anxiety would rather have engaged her to endeavour to find out the spring which gave this spot its verdure. But it is to be remembered, that though Irwin found many shrubs in that part of the wilderness through which he travelled, yet the fountains or wells there were by no means equal in number to the spots of ground covered with shrubs, a latent moisture in the earth favouring their growth, where there were no streams of water above ground: she might, therefore, having found her preceding searches vain, very naturally be supposed to have given up all hope of relief, when the angel made her observe where there was water to be found, upon drinking which Ishmael revived.HARMER. Ver. 16. And she went, and sat her down over against him, a good way off, as it were a bowshot. This is a common figure of speech in their ancient writings, "The distance of an arrow.-So far as the arrow flies." The common way of measuring a short distance is to say, "It is a call off," i. e. so far as a man's voice can reach. "How far is he off?" "O, not more than three calls," i. e. were three men stationed within the reach of each other's voices, the voice of the one farthest off would reach to that distance.-ROBERTS. Ver. 19. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. Few European readers are, probably, able to form an adéquate idea of the horrors of such a situation as is here described. The following description may serve to paint to us the terrors of the desert, and the danger of perishing in it with thirst. "The desert of Mesopotamia now presents to our eyes its melancholy uniformity. It is a con |