No. 65.-DEUTERONOMY i. 28.

The cities are great, and walled up to heaven.

THE great monastery at Mount Sinai, Thevenot says, (part i. p. 169.) " is well built of good free stone, with very high smooth walls; on the east side there is a window, by which those that were within drew up the pilgrims into the monastery, with a basket which they let down by a rope that runs in a pulley." These walls, he observes in the next chapter, are so high that they cannot be scaled, and without cannon that place cannot be taken. Thus it was anciently, and by this representation did the spies discourage the hearts of the people.

No. 66.—iv. 20. Iron furnace.] It has been observed by chemical writers, not only that iron melts slowly even in the most violent fire, but also that it ignites, or becomes red-hot, long before it fuses; and any one may observe the excessive brightness of iron when red or rather white-hot. Since therefore it requires the strongest fire of all metals to fuse it, there is a peculiar propriety in the expression, a furnace for iron, or an iron furnace, for violent and sharp afflictions.

No. 67. xi. 10. And wateredst it with thy foot.] The custom of watering with the foot, Dr. SHAW, (Travels, p. 408.) thus explains from the present practice of the Egyptians. "When their various sorts of pulse, safranon, musca, melons, sugar-canes, &c. (all which are commonly planted in rills) require to be refreshed, they strike out the plugs that are fixed in the bottoms of the cisterns, [wherein they preserve the water of the Nile] and then the water gushing out is conducted from one rill to another by the gardener, who is

always ready, as occasion requires, to stop and divert the torrent, by turning the earth against it with his foot, and opening, at the same time, with his mattock, a new trench to receive it. This method of conveying moisture and nourishment to a land rarely or never refreshed with rain, is often alluded to in the holy scriptures; where also it is made the distinguishing quality betwixt Egypt and the land of Canaan. Deut. xi. 10, 11." Mr. PARKHURST (Heb. Lex. p. 756, 3d edit.) is inclined to adopt another interpretation of the expression, watering with the foot. He says, " it seems more probable that Moses alluded to drawing up water with a machine which was worked by the foot. Such an one, Grotius long ago observed, that Philo, who lived in Egypt, has described as used by the peasants of that country in his time; and the ingenious and accurate Niebuhr, in his Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 121, has lately given us a representation of a machine which the Egyptians make use of for watering the lands, and probably the same, says he, that Moses speaks of. They call it sakki tdir beridsjel, or an hydraulic machine worked by the feet.”

No. 68.-xxi. 19. Gate.] The gates of cities, in these days, and for many ages after, were the places of judicature and common resort. Here the governors and elders of the city went to hear complaints, administer justice, make conveyances of titles and estates, and, in short, to transact all the public affairs of the place. And from hence is that passage in the Psalmist, They shall not be ashamed when they speak to their enemies in the gate. (Ps. cxxvii. 5.) It is probable that the room, or hall, where the magistrates sat, was over the gate, because Boaz is said to go up to the gate; and the reason of having it built there, seems to have been for the conveniency of the inhabitants, who, being all husbandmen, and forced to pass and repass every morn

ing and evening as they went and came from their labour, might be more easily called, as they went by, whenever they were wanted to appear in any business. Universal Hist. 1. i. c. 7.

No. 69.-xxviii. 5. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.] Hasselquist informs us, that baskets made of the leaves of the palm-tree are used by the people of the East on journies, and in their houses. (p. 261.) Mr. Harmer, (vol. i. p. 418, note) conjectures that such baskets are referred to in these words, and that the store signifies their leathern bags, in both which they used to carry things in travelling.

No. 70.-xxviii. 24. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust.] An extract from Sir T. Roe's Embassy, p. 373, will greatly illustrate this. Sometimes there (in India) the wind blows very high in hot and dry seasons, raising up into the air a very great height, thick clouds of dust and sand. These dry showers most grievously annoy all those among whom they fall; enough to smite them all with a present blindness; filling their eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths too, if they be not well guarded; searching every place, as well within as without, so that there is not a little keyhole of any trunk or cabinet, if it be not covered, but receives some of the dust into it." If this was the judgment threatened, it must have been a calamity much to be deprecated.

No. 71. xxix. 23. The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt and burning.] The effect of salt, where it abounds, on vegetation, is described by burning. Thus Volney, speaking of the borders of the Asphaltic Lake, or Dead Sea, says, "the true cause of the absence of vegetables and animals, is the acrid saltness of its waters,

which is infinitely greater than that of the sea. The land surrounding the lake being equally impregnated with that saltness, refuses to produce plants; the air itself, which is by evaporation loaded with it, and which moreover receives vapours of sulphur and bitumen, cannot suit vegetation; whence the dead appearance which reigns around the lake." (Voyage en Syrie, tom. i. p. 282.) Thus also Virgil, Georg. ii. lib. 238. Hence the ancient custom of sowing an enemy's city, when taken, with salt, in token of perpetual desolation. Judges, ix. 45. And thus in aftertimes, (An. 1162.) the city of Milan was burnt, razed, sown with salt, and ploughed by the exasperated emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Complete Syst. of Geog. vol. i. p. 822.

No. 72.-xxxii. 13. And oil out of the flinty rock.] This must mean the procuring of it from the olivetrees growing there. MAUNDRELL, (Journey at March. 25.) speaking of the ancient fertility and cultivation of Judea, says, "the most rocky parts of all, which could not well be adjusted for the production of corn, might yet serve for the plantation of vines and olive-trees, which delight to extract, the one its fatness, the other its sprightly juice, chiefly out of such dry and flinty. places." Comp. Virgil Georg. ii. lib. 179.

No. 73.-JOSHUA v. 15.

Loose thy shoe from off thy foot.

THE Custom which is here referred to, not only constantly prevailed all over the East, from the earliest ages, but continues to this day. To pull off the sandals, or slippers, is used as a mark of respect, on entering a mosque or a temple, or the room of any person of distinction; in which case they were either laid aside, or given to a servant to bear. Ives (Travels, p. 75.) says, that "at the doors of an Indian Pagoda, are seen as many slippers and sandals as there are hats hanging up in our churches." The same custom prevails amongst the Turks. Maundrell, p. 29, describes exactly the ceremonials of a Turkish visit, on which (though an European and a stranger,) he was obliged to comply with this custom.

74.-ix. 4. Wine bottles.] CHARDIN informs us that the Arabs, and all those that lead a wandering life, keep their water, milk, and other liquors, in leathern bottles. They keep in them more fresh than otherwise they would do. These leathern 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 afterwards 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 leathern bottle of water hanging by their side like a scrip. The great leathern bottles are made of the skin of an he goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid's skin." These bottles are