Fifth Plague—the Destruction of the Animals in Egypt.

In reference to the fifth plague, the destruction of the cattle, there is not much to be said, since travellers have bestowed little attention upon the diseases of animals in Egypt. Only single scattered passages are found in the Description, and these indeed very general, so that it cannot be determined whether diseases make their appearance in Egypt, by which all kinds of the larger domestic animals are seized in like manner. It is said that murrain breaks out from time to time in Egypt with so much severity that they are compelled to send to Syria or the islands of the Archipelago, for a new supply of oxen. It is also said,† since about the year 1786 a disease very much diminished the number of oxen, they began to make use of the buffalo in their place for watering the fields, and the practice is continued in later times.

That in the enumeration of the animals on which the plague shall seize, chap. ix, horses are assigned the first place, and that too without further remark, is again one of the little things, which in such an inquiry as the one before us, is of so great importance, so soon as the scattered items are collected, and thereby rescued from the contingency to which each is subject.

The sixth Plague-the Boils.

That the sixth plague, the boils, was miraculous only in extent, is shown by a comparison of Deut. 28: 27, where the Moses implies, is also proved from other sources. Herodotus says, in B. 2. c. 65: " If any person kills one of these animals intentionally, he expiates his crime by death; if unintentionally, he must pay the fine which the priest imposes. But whoever kills an ibis or a hawk, whether intentionally or not, must die."

* Descr. t. 17. p. 126.

↑ Descr. p. 62.

same disease under the name of boils of Egypt is represented as of common occurrence there. But a more exact defining of the nature of this sickness is difficult. Rosenmueller*

considers it the elephantiasis which, according to Lucretiust aud Pliny,‡ was peculiar to Egypt. But the appellation boils does not seem to be proper for this disease, still less the expression, "breaking out in blains" in Ex. 9: 9. Besides, the elephantiasis does not attack cattle. Eichhorn appeals to a remark in Granger (Tourtechot): "In autumn sores come upon the thighs and knees, which remove the patient in two or three days." These notices seem however to have reference to the plague, but it is uncertain whether this malady existed so anciently, and indeed it does not answer the circumstances, for the reference is evidently to a very painful, but not absolutely, dangerous sickness. Only a disease attended by feverish cutaneous eruptions can be meant, one which amid the variety of diseases does not easily admit of definition. But the destruction which small-pox and plague makes in Egypt, shows how very much the climate there disposes to such diseases. We are almost disposed to think of a disease which Theve not describes: "There is besides," he says, "a sickness, or rather inconvenience, for it is more inconvenient than dangerous, which makes its appearance when the waters of the Nile begin to rise. Then hot pustules which are very troublesome, and sting terribly, appear upon the whole body, and when the patient thinks to comfort and refresh himself with drink, he feels while drinking, and afterwards, stings as painful as if he were pierced with two hundred needles all at once." But this disease which

*

Upon Deut. 28: 27.

t B. 6. 112-13.

He calls it in book 26, c. 5: Aegypti peculiare malum.

§ from, in the dialects, incaluit, inflammatus est. Voyage de l'Egypte, p. 21.

¶ Voyage du Levant, L. II. c. 80, p. 831.

Thevenot, perhaps, described with some exaggeration,* cannot be meant, since pustules are not referred to, but a sore; and this disease is not the object of the curse as our sickness appears to be in Deut. chap. xxviii. Besides the language in Deut. 28: 35, "With sore botch which cannot be healed," is not appropriate to the disease, as well as what is related in the passage before us, that the magicians are not able to stand, and the cattle no less than men were attacked with it. See upon diseases which are common to men and animals, Ma y ner's Anthropology.†

The seventh Plague-the Tempest.

The seventh plague was a severe tempest attended with hail and rain. In the narrative itself, Ch. 9: 18, 24, it is said that the phenomenon was unexampled only in degree, and it is implied that it is not uncommon in Egypt in a milder form. Other accounts agree with ours in showing that tempests in Egypt are not unfrequent, and that they in general differ from the one under consideration, only in severity. These notices are explanatory of our account in so much as they represent that tempests are most abundant just at the time in which, according to verse 31, the tempest here described occurred. The accounts of ancient travellers concerning tempests in Egypt, in January and March, are found carefully collected in Nordmeyert and especially in Hartmann: "Mansleben and Mancony s heard it thunder during their stay at Alexandria, the former on the 1st of January and the latter on the 17th and 18th of the same month; on the same days it also hailed there. Perry also remarks that it hails, though seldom, in January and February at Cairo. An account in the No

* See other authors upon this same blotch in Hartmann, S. 59. + Th. 2. S. 279.

‡ Calendarium Aeg. Oecon. p. 11, 12, 20, 27.

Il p. 255.

§ S. 41

11

tices* bears witness to the occurrence of the same thing in February. Pococke even saw hail mingled with rain fall at Fium in February; compare Exodus 9: 34. Korte also saw hail fall. Brucet heard in Cossir during the roaring of the winds through the whole of February, also afterwards on the Arabian Gulf, the crash of thunder. In March tempests are not uncommon at Cairo." During Thevenot's residence in Egypt a tempest discharged itself, killing a man.‡ The residence of the scholars of the French expedition in Egypt, was not continued long enough to make complete observations of this kind. Du Bois Aymés affirms that during the two years which he spent in Egypt, he did not hear a clap of thunder but once, and that was so faint that several persons with him did not notice it. Coutelle|| says: "Natural phenomena succeed each other in this land with a constant uniformity. The same winds return regularly at the same time, and continue equally long. In the Delta it does not rain at all in summer and scarcely at all in winter. We have very seldom seen it rain in Cairo. Rain in Upper Egypt is a wonder. A higher temperature than that designated below, a harder frost, and more copious rains are extraordinary occurrences." Jomar d¶ upon the climate of Cairo says: "Rain falls by no means so seldom in Egypt as is commonly asserted. First of all, Lower Egypt must evidently be excepted, as it covers a much more extended surface than the rest of the country, and lies where its greater or less proximity to the sea produces a more variable climate than that of Saïd. All phenomena with the exception of hail and snow follow there as in other countries, which are washed by the Mediterranean Sea. I have several times seen even hail at Alexandria. At Cairo the state of the atmosphere begins

* I. 260.

§ 1. c. p. 135.

|| In Obss. Meteorologiques in the Descr. t. 19. p. 457.

¶ In Descr. 18. 2. p. 510 seq.

to be more settled, and in Upper Egypt, it is almost invariable."

According to this

stall but in the field,

verse, the

when the

The account of this plague comprises also other separate but very striking references to Egypt. One is found, first, in chap 9: 19, where Moses says to Pharaoh : "Send therefore now and gather thy cattle and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down, and they shall die." cattle were not found in the tempest commenced; verse 31 confirms this fact. With this agrees accurately our other accounts, an agreement so much the more sigificant, since the time that the cattle were turned out was so short. Niebuhr says: "In the months January, February, March and April the cattle graze, whereas during the remaining months they must be supplied with dry fodder." The author of the Egyptian calendart shows the same thing. Also according to the Description,‡ the cattle get green food only four months of the year, the rest of the time, dried fodder.

Not less important is the parenthetical remark of the author in chap. 9: 31, 32: “And the flax and the barley were smitten; for the barley was in the ear and the flax was bolled. But the wheat and the spelt were not smitten, for these come to maturity later." In surveying what was destroyed and what was to be destroyed in case of persevering obstinacy, there is here named: First, the products on which the weal and woe of ancient Egypt depended. Compare respecting spelt as one of the most important products of ancient Egypt, the corn from which they prepared their bread, Herodotus, with the remarks of Bähr. There are representations of the

Reisebeschr. I. S. 142.

In the Notices et Extraits, t. 1. p. 252. See also Nordmeyer, p. 17; Hartmann, S. 232; Le Bruyn, I. 570.

Tom. 17. p. 126.

§ B. 2. c. 36, and also c. 77.