it's inhabitants are fome of the poorest, and moft miferable people of the country. That they faw fome who looked like true favages, almost entirely naked, fun-burnt, black as a coal, and fhining with the greafe and oil with which they rub themfelves, horrid in their countenances, with a furly voice, with which they keep mumbling, and terrify thofe that are not accustomed to meet them. More efpecially when, upon their going to vifit a certain place to which their devotion led them; they faw four poor miferable Moors running to them cross the fields, huge, frightful creatures, all of them naked and funburnt, two armed with bows and arrows, the other two with cudgels, threatening to use them with feverity, if they did not give them money'.

The fame scenery is exhibited in other places, and reprefents, I imagine, excepting the violence, an accurate picture of those poor perfecuted Hebrews, who wandered about in fheep-fkins and goat-skins, deftitute of many of the common comforts of life, emaciated, tormented with the burning heat of the fun, and afflicted with many other bitterneffes in that wild and rough state.

OBSERVATION CCXXXII.

Learned men seem to have given themfelves uneafinefs, very unneceffarily, about the • P. 145, 146.

caravan

Caravan to which Joseph was fold, which company of people are fometimes called Ishmaelites, fometimes Midianites': had the account been given us by two different writers, and one had faid Jofeph was fold to fome Ishmaelites, and the other to fome Midianites, it might have been faid there was a contradiction between them; but as one and the fame writer, in the fame paragraph, and even in the fame verfe, makes use of these two different names, it is apparent that they were to him indifferent. I would add, that probably those that in the age in which this book was written travelled over the deferts, to or through Judæa, with camels, were called, in a loofe and general way, Ishmaelites, and that when they came up with the fons of Jacob, they were found of that particular tribe called Midianites.

I am very fenfible that, according to the book of Genefis, Midian was a fon of Abra ham by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2, confequently his defcendants were not Ifhmaelites; but as the several tribes of the Ishmaelites, and those defcended from Keturah, all dwelt in the Eaft country', that is, in Arabia, Petræa or Deferta, they might, by the time this book was written, come to be confidered as one body of people, under the common name of Ishmaelites, as the feveral tribes of Ifrael came after

Gen. 37.-Three times they are called Ishmaelites, ver. 25, 27, 28; and once Midianites, ver. 28.

• Ch. 25. 6.

wards

wards to be denominated Jews, though the tribe of Judah was but one out of twelve or thirteen different tribes that defcended from Jacob'.

It is certain that, according to d'Herbelot, the Arabs of later times have confidered themfelves as Ifmaelites, (Voy. art. Ifmaelioun,) and call Ishmael the father of their nation (art. Ifmael, fils d'Abraham), though there are many tribes of the Arabs who are not Ishmaelites properly speaking, being defcended from Joctan the fon of Heber, according to d'Herbelot. The Oriental writers, by a mistake indeed, fuppofe Midian was the grandfon of Abraham by his fon Ishmael, inftead of being his fon by Keturah, but a very eafy one, as all the Arab tribes acknowledge Ishmael as their father, though many of them are not defcended from him.

D'Herbelot farther informs us, that the muffulmen fuppofe that the Arabs that travel about with their merchandise took different roads, according to the different feafons: Gaza, in the confines between Syria and Ægypt, being their mart in fummer-time, on account of the freshnefs of the air to be enjoyed in Syria; whereas they went to the fouthern part of Arabia (or Jemen) in winter, (the heat being exceffive there,) in the oppo

So Holland, in our time, often means all the feven confederated provinces, though, ftrictly speaking, it is the name only of one of them.

• Bibliotheque Orient. art. Midian, p. 581.

fite part of the year. This, according to
them, was an old establishment among them,
Haschem, the grandfather of Mohammed, dy-
ing at Gaza, in one of these fummer commer-
cial journies 1.

If this account may be depended on, Jo-
feph was fold to the Midianites fome time in
the fummer'; and these Ishmaelites are not
to be understood to have perfonally conveyed
him into Ægypt, but stopping at Gaza, to
have difpofed of him there to Ægyptian
merchants. This. laft might not be exactly
the cafe; but would not, however, I appre-
hend, be inconfiftent with the facred hiftory,
understood in that lax and popular manner
in which we may believe it was defigned to
be confidered.

Art. Gazza.

Which appears to have been the fact from other con
fiderations-the feeding the flock at fuch a diftance from
home; and the drynefs of the pit into which they let him
down.