people, and said, We also fear and serve the LORD with our whole hearts, and we trust in his goodness and justice, that he will make us free from your opi pression, and give us our due portion of cattle, and sheep, and horses, and camels, and gold, and all the good things upon the face of the earth. Ye say that the LORD hath appointed you to lead and guide us, and to rule and reign over us. Will he give us a sign from heaven that these things are indeed so? Command ye now the Sun to withhold its light, and the day to become dark as night. Speak ye to the Lord that he utter his voice in thunder, and that the clouds of the sky become bright with the fire of heaven. Say to the stars, Come down upon the wings of the winds, and burn up the trees of the forests, and the flowers of the fields. Command rivers to flow down from the tops of the mountains, and seas to ascend from the depths beneath, and water the dry and sandy plains of the wilderness. Say to the pillars of the firmament, be ye shaken and broken in pieces, because of the fierce wrath of the elders and captains of Zahab. If ye can do these great things, then will we believe that the LORD hath sent you, and that ye speak in his name. O ye elders and chiefs of the land, why are ye silent and afraid? Will ye give us no sign that we are bound to regard you as the messengers of God? Will not the LORD, who made all things, darken the day, or

shake the pillars of heaven, to give a token that ye are just men and perfect, and that we are evil men and corrupt? Ye say that we have formed a wicked covenant with the Giants and the Sons of the Serpent. Ye we know, but the Am-Olam we do not know. We believe that they are not evil men, as ye are, and that they will do justice to us all when they come into our land. We will give them our gold, and they will give us again the flocks and the herds which you have taken from us and given to your sons and your servants. And the elders answered the people not a word, and returned to their places. And the people went to their tents, and uttered a great shout, as when the cedar trees of the forest of Hashek are shaken by a mighty wind from the mountain of Ozam.

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And when the elders and captains of the people of Zahab left the assembly of the people, they held a council among themselves, at the great stone of Aben-oz, in the vale of Omek. And Kosh opened his

mouth, and moved his lips, and spake unto the council, and said unto them, Ye see that an evil spirit has gone forth from the place of darkness, and has taken possession of the hearts of the people, and causes them to wander without a guide in the crooked and stony paths of destruction. We see the perverseness of the people, and we know our own duty, They have sent Meliz to the Am-Olam to make a league of corruption with the enemies of God and man. The Sons of the Serpent will enter into the league, and will subdue our country, and make us and all our people servants, as they have done unto the people of Seleg, and unto those who dwell in the pleasant region of Habezel. It has pleased the LORD God of our fathers to visit us with the wind of his vengeance, and with the whirlwind of his fury, because we have departed from the way of truth, and have walked in the by-way of evil. Men and brethren, what will ye do? Will ye remain quiet and secure in the land, until the winds arise, and the thunder is heard, and the fire of heaven is seen? Will ye send messengers to the Am-Olam, and give unto them your wives, and your little ones, your cattle, and your sheep, your camels, and your horses, your pastures and your fields, your gold, and your servants, and become yourselves the servants of servants, and the most vile men who live in the light of the Sun? Will ye make your peace with your own people,

who have revolted and rebelled against you, and become the servants of those whom the LORD has made servants unto you? Or will ye send messengers unto the men of power and might that live in the land of Zaphun, and upon the high hills and under the green trees of Ozeb, and call them to your aid? Speak ye, for the time is short, and the days of the years of our pilgrimage will be few and evil, if we fold our arms in silence, and say unto our enemies, Come ye, and be our masters, and we will be the servants of servants. It is my voice that we enter into leagues with the men of power in the north, and the men of strength in the south; that we offer them a portion of the flocks of our hills, and of the herds of our valleys, and of the gold of our mountain; and that we make the blood of our rebellious ones to flow as the torrent of Galgal in the time of the year when the trees of the wood are stripped of their leaves, and shaken to and fro by the tempest.

And when Kosh had made an end of speaking, the elders and the chief men cried out with one voice, and shouted, and said, Good, and wise, and just, is the counsel of the great and the eloquent Kosh, and we will follow it; and the Lord will bless it, and prosper it, and will put down all our enemies, and: their blood shall be as the pools in the valleys, and our adversaries shall not raise up the horn of triumph, and shall not possess the land, and the cattle, and

the gold, and all the substance of Zahab. And it was decreed in the council that Nebuzebah, should be sent as an ambassador to the king and the people of Zaphun, and Nashar to Iphonah, the queen that reigned over the country of Ozeb. And Nebuzebah went unto the land of Zaphun, and it was noised through all the countries of the north that the elders and great men of Zahab, the land of the bright and beautiful yellow stones, had sent an ambassador to Kahak, the king of Zaphun; and the inhabitants of all the villages on the way came out to do honour to the ambassador, and to give him gifts, and to ask him to tell them the wonders of his own country. And Nebuzebah was gracious unto all the people, and spake kindly unto them, and magnified the land of Zahab in their eyes. And the people were very glad, and they brought him on his way, and they sounded the trumpet before him, and they cried out, Behold Nebuzebah, the great messenger from the land of Zahab, a land out of whose hills they dig iron and brass, and whose mountains are pure gold, a gift which the Lord has not given to any other people upon whom he has caused the light of his glory to shine. And they brought him unto the king with the sound of trumpets and many instruments of musick, and the king sat upon his throne at the great pillar of stone at Mizbah in the plain-of Telphiuth