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its moral cause, the delinquency of mankindits moral end, the warning of the preserved, and their successors, through all ages of time, against an irreligious career. In the same manner now, those natural convulsions which are occasionally fatal to life upon an extensive scale, have impressive moral associations. The "secret of the Lord" is not fully with us in relation to them; but, while abjuring that presumption of self-complacency, which would interpret them to the disadvantage of the sufferers in contrast with the spared, of this we may be assured, that they are acts of the universal government of God, the instruments of his righteousness, admonitory to mankind of their entire dependence and consequent obligations, intended to fix in the human breast the idea of responsibility, and confirm the sentiment of Scripture, that personal and public godliness are the only guarantees of individual happiness and social stability. The origin and intent of natural phenomena, with the duty of man in relation to them, are finely expressed in the words of Scripture :—

"He causeth them to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.

Hearken unto this, O Job, stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God."

CHAPTER VII.

CAVE-DWELLERS.

Mankind classified by habitations-Supposed cave stronghold of Cain-Primitive dwellings-Troglodyte-Arab phrase-Book of Job-Voyage of Hanno-African troglodytæ-Referred to by Herodotus-Aristotle's description-Fountain of the sunLucretius-Ovid-Wilkinson-Pliny-Strabo-Silver age of Ovid-Cimmerians-Homer-Valley of Ipsaca-Described by Denon-Asiatic troglodytæ-Bameean in Afghanistan-Greek mythology-Oracle of Trophonius-Cave-Rites from Pausanias-Sibyls-Cave of Cumaan sibyl-Its site-Heathen and Scripture oracles.

HOWEVER repugnant to our ideas of social comfort, to have a local habitation in the naked clefts of the rock, in hot climates, and among tribes unaccustomed to the conveniences of civilized life, such sites have often been selected as places both of temporary and permanent abode, affording a welcome retreat from the alternate plagues of the solar rays and the drenching rains. Mankind may be divided into four classes, according to four different kinds of habitations.-1. Cave-dwellers, occupying natural or artificial excavations in the rocks and mountains, or underground hollows.

earth,

-2. Tent-dwellers, readily pitching, taking down, and carrying their structures adapted to nomadic pastoral tribes.-3. Hut-dwellers, constructing their erections of the materials common to their respective localities; snow, branches of trees, stones, or some other substance, in its natural state or coarsely wrought. -4. House-dwellers, among whom the hut is brought to perfection in the palace, the colonnades of which are superb imitations of the cross-beams that support the cottager's thatched roof. But there is one section of the human race omitted in this enumeration—a very small one-the tree-dwellers. On the great plains of South America, along the course of the Orinoco, which are subject to the floods of the river, and converted into vast swamps, the traveller is often surprised by seeing the tops of the magnificent palm-trees lighted with fires. The Guanacas, a people who have remained for ages in these marshy districts, secure themselves from the waters by living in the palms, where, with mats, coated with clay, they construct hearths on which to kindle the fires essential to their comfort.

In our authorized version of the Scriptures, we read, that Cain "builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son,

Enoch,"* or Chanoch. But some distinguished Hebrew archeologists, deriving the word translated city, from a root signifying to be deep, to lie deep, imagine a cave to be intended, upon which the fugitive seized, and intrenched himself as in a stronghold. It is argued, that it is difficult to see how a city, in the ordinary sense of the term, or any semblance of it, could be erected previous to the discovery of metallurgy, and its kindred arts, which did not take place till the days of Tubal-Cain. It is, moreover, alleged, that the paternal brother of the latter, or Jabal, being "the father of such as dwell in tents," the supposition of a sojourn in tents following the existence of cities, involves a retrograde movement in civilisation and social refinement. Such reasons have led to the idea stated, that Cain's erection was only the strengthening of a rocky fastness, in which he planted himself and family, in order to be secure from the dreaded vengeance of his contemporaries. However this may be, it is certain that caves were among the primal abodes of the human race, and have continued to the modern era to be inhabited by tribes of men, such tribes being called, in the writings of the an

Genesis iv. 17.

cients, troglodyta, a Greek compound, derived from rpwydλn, a cave, and duμ, to enter. "Companions of the rock," is the Arab phrase for the occupiers of such sites, which recalls the phraseology of the sacred page: "Let the inhabitants of the rock sing." Job, yielding temporarily to exasperation, thus refers to the ancestry of his accusing friends :

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"Whose fathers I scorned to rank with the dogs of my flockWho were yesterday gnawers of the desert,

Of the waste and the wilderness;
Plucking nettles from the bushes,
Or furze-roots for their food.

They were cast out from the people,
They slunk away from them like a thief,
To dwell in the fearfulness of the steeps,
In dens of the earth, and in caverns."+

The latter clause is rendered in our version: "to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves (Heb. holes) of the earth, and in the rocks."

The first notice of troglodyte is in the Periplus (voyage) of Hanno, an account of the earliest voyage of discovery extant. Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, with a fleet of sixty large vessels, was despatched by the senate to the western coasts of Africa for the purpose of founding colonies. A narrative of this expedition, commencing from the time that the pillars of Hercules, or the straits of Gibraltar, were cleared, was hung up in the temple of Saturn

Isa. xlii. 11.

+ Job xxx. 1-7.

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