fhearing: but it might be wet, and disagreeable fitting on the ground, especially as they were not furnished with a fufficient number of carpets, pursuing after Jacob in a great hurry; and feveral countries furnishing ftones fo flat as to be capable of being formed into a pavement, or seat, not fo uneafy as we may have imagined. Mount Gilead might be fuch a country. It might also be thought to tend more ftrongly to imprefs the mind, when this feaft of reconciliation was eaten upon that very heap that was defigned to be the lafting memorial of this renewed friendship.

As for the making use of heaps of ftones for a memorial, many are found to this day in these countries, and not merely by land, for they have been used for fea-marks too: fo Niebuhr, in this fame volume, tells us of an heap of ftones placed upon a rock in the Red-Sea, which was defigned to warn them. that failed there of the dangerousness of the place, that they might be upon their guard 3. 2 V. 48-52.

• Gen. 31. 19.

P. 208.

CHAP.

TH

СНАР. V,

Their Manner of travelling.

OBSERVATION LXI.

HE hofpitality of the Eaft toward travellers has been greatly celebrated, and it has been reprefented as their favourite virtue; but it should feem to be fometimes, however, a mark of fubjection, and not vo¬ luntary, and in fuch cafes therefore not much a ground of praise.

Dr. Shaw takes notice of this circumftance, in the preface to his Travels in Barbary, but has not applied it to the elucidation of any paffage of the Scriptures, and therefore it may be introduced among these papers.

"In this country," (fays the Doctor, fpeaking of Barbary,) "the Arabs and other inba"bitants are obliged, either by long custom;

66

by the particular tenure of their lands; or "from fear and compulfion, to give the fpa"hees, and their company, the mounah, as they "call it; which is fuch a fufficient quantity "of provifions for ourfelves, together with "ftraw and barley for our mules and horfes. "Befides a bowl of milk, and a bafket of figs, raisins, or dates, which, upon our ar"rival, were prefented to us, to stay our ap

petites,

219

"petites, the master of the tent, where we

lodged, fetched us from his flock (ac"cording to the number of our company) "a kid or a goat, a lamb or a sheep; half of "which was immediately feethed by his wife, "and ferved up with cufcafooe; the reft was "made kab-ab, i. e. cut into pieces (μ5v0v "is the term, Hom. Il. A, ver. 465) and "roafted; which we referved for our break"faft or dinner the next day '."

In the next page of his preface, the Doctor fays, "When we were entertained in a cour"teous manner (for the Arabs will fometimes

66

fupply us with nothing 'till it is extorted

by force) the author used to give the master "of the tent a knife, a couple of flints, or "a small quantity of English gunpowder; "&c." And obferves afterwards, that to prevent fuch parties from living at free charges upon them, the Arabs take care to pitch in woods, valleys, or places the leaft confpicuous, and that in confequence they found it difficult oftentimes to find them.

The Arabs, who are ftrangers, permitted to feed their flocks and herds in that country, are not, it feems, the only people of those countries that are obliged to accommodate the Turks, who have conquered thofe diftricts, when they travel, and alio the company they bring with them; but it is unwillingly, no virtue, but the effect of fear, and exacted as

1

1 P. 12..

17.

a mark

a mark of fubmiffion, due from the conquered to thofe that have conquered them.

3

This management appears to be very ancient, and to be referred to in the Septuagint tranflation of Prov. xv. 17, and not improbably in the original Hebrew itself, and for that reason I have taken notice of it here though that paffage is, I think, understood commonly, if not always, by moderns, of entertainments made by one's own countrymen and apparent friends, but who are really enemies, to fome of their guests, or at least difpofed to quarrel'. But the Septuagint underftands it, and it fhould feem more truly, of the forced accommodating of travellers, which Arabs and conquered people were anciently obliged to fubmit to, as they ftill are.

The words of the Septuagint may be seen below, and they amount to this, Better is a repast given to us on the road as ftrangers, confifting merely of herbs, with friendliness and goodwill; rather than the fetting before us a delicacy, and particularly the flesh of a calf, with batred.

It was not unusual then, in the age and country of these ancient Greek tranflators, for travellers to eat at the expence of those that were not pleafed with entertaining them; and who fometimes would not do it, at least in the manner the travellers liked, without

2

See Bishop Patrick upon the place.

Κρεάτων ΞΕΝΙΣΜΟΣ μέλα λαχανων προς φίλιαν καὶ χαριν, η παραθεσις μόσχων μετα εχθρας.

brawlings,

brawlings, and a kind of force, which could not but produce hatred. So that, as it is now practised in Barbary by the Turks, it was formerly in like manner practised in Egypt, towards the Arabs that probably might then feed their flocks there, as they certainly do now; and towards the natural Ægyptians, over whom the Ptolemies, with their Greek companions, might tyrannife, as the Turks do at this time over the people of Barbary.

It is poffible this turn might then first be given to this proverb of Solomon; but it is most natural, I fhould apprehend, to fuppofe this was the original meaning of it: fince the Hebrew word fignifies provifion for a journey, as Jer. xl. 5, where perfons carried their food with them; and may as well fignify the food that was wont to be given them, by those to whom they applied in journeying, when they travelled in inhabited countries, where they thought they had reason to expect they fhould be fupplied, at free coft, with neceffaries in their journeying. It is indeed made use of even to exprefs a quantity of provifions fufficient for one day, like that given to travellers, though allowed from day to day to thofe that were not travelling; but ftatedly treated after this manner, for it is ufed to exprefs the daily allowance granted by Evilmerodach king of Babylon to Jehoiachin, the Jewish royal captive, both by the prophet Jeremiah,