"comes, is received with a great deal of joy, "because he is going about fo religious a "work; and it is, who can have the favour, " and honour of kiffing his hand, or but his garment! He goes attended in much pomp, "with flags, kettle-drums, &c, and loud "acclamations do, as it were, rend the fkies;

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nay, the very women get upon the tops of "the houfes to view the parade, or fine show, "where they keep friking their four fingers on "their lips foftly, as fast as they can, making

a joyful noife all the while, which founds fomewhat like yow, yow, yow, hundreds of "times'. Others have given us nearly the fame account.

This feems to me to be referred to in fome paffages of Scripture; and that the facred writers fuppofe two different methods of expreffing joy by a quick motion of the hand, which is loft in our translation: for I suppose the clapping of the hands in the plural, is a very distinct thing from the clapping the hand in the fingular, though our tranflators have confounded them together.

The ftriking one hand against the other with fome smartnefs, which we mean by the term clapping of the hands, might, and I believe did, obtain anciently, as an expreffion of joy; not unfrequently, if not always, of the malignant kind: fo the prophet Jeremiah

'Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mahometans, 4th ed. p. 85.

faith of Jerufalem, when it was destroyed, "All that pafs by, clap their hands at thee;

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they hifs and wag their head at the daugh"ter of Jerufalem, faying, Is this the city "that men call the perfection of beauty, the "joy of the whole earth?" Lam. ii. 15. In like manner Job, after defcribing the fudden deftruction of the wicked, fays, "Men fhall clap their hands at him, and fhall hifs him out of his place," Job xxvii. 23.

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But other words, which our verfion tranflates clapping the hands, fignify the applying only one hand fomewhere with foftness, as a teftimony, in common, of a joy of a more agreeable kind. They that confult the original will find the fingular, not the plural, is made ufe of Pf. xlvii. I, "O clap your "hands (your hand) all ye people, fhout unto God with the voice of triumph;' and in like manner, 2 Kings xi. 12, "He

brought forth the king's fon, and put the "crown upon him, and gave him the teftimony; and they made him king, and an"ointed him; and clapt their hands, (but in "the original they clapt the hand,) and said, "God fave the king.'

We use the term clap, but fometimes, where the word hand is ufed in the fingular number, it is joined with a verb that frongly expreffes an applying the hand with foftness, wherever it is that we fuppofe the hand, in such cases, is applied, and confequently the term clap fhould not be the word made ufe of, it may

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be, in tranflating thefe paffages, at least without a foftening epithet. So If. lv. 12, "The "mountains and the hills fhall break forth "into finging, and all the trees of the field fhall clap (or gently apply) the hand," not their hands. For the word is ufed for blotting out what is written in a book, by applying water to it, Numb. v. 23, which is wont to be done with a fponge, or fome other foft fubftance; and for compaffionately wiping away tears from the face, If. xxv. 8: and confequently muft fignify, one would imagine, a gentle application of the hand fomewhere, and therefore probably to the mouth, according to the prefent Eastern mode, among the women, of testifying joy.

OBSERVATION LXXV.

An umbrella is a very ancient, as well as honourable defence against the pernicious effects of the fcorching beams of the fun, in thofe fultry countries: may we not then fuppofe, this is that kind of fhade the Pfalmist refers to in the 121ft Pfalm?" The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy fhade on thy right hand. The fun fhall not fmite thee by day; nor the moon by night."

The fame word is ufed Pf. 98. 8, and hand in the fingular number; and both thefe obfervations are, in like manner, applicable to Ezek. 25. 6, where indeed the joy was not of that placid kind, which the expreffion commonly imports. 2 Vcr. 5.

Niebuhr,

Niebuhr, who visited the fouthern part of Arabia, gives us the following account of a folemn proceffion of the Imam that resides at Sanà, who is a great prince in that part of Arabia, and confidered as an holy perfonage, being defcended from Mohammed their great

prophet. "It is well known, that the Sul"tan at Conftantinople goes every Friday' "to the mofque, if his health will at all "admit of it. The Imam of Sanà obferves "alfo this religious practice, with vast pomp. "We only faw him in his return, because "this was reprefented to us as the most cu"rious part of the folemnity, on account of

the long circuit he then takes, and the "great number of his attendants, after their having performed their devotions in other mofques. The Imam was preceded by fome hundreds of foldiers. He, and "each of the princes of his numerous family, "caufed a mdalla, or large umbrella, to be "carried by his fide, and it is a privilege which, in this country, is appropriated to

princes of the blood", juft as the Sultan at Conftantinople permits none but his vizir "to have his kaïk, or gondola, covered behind, to keep him from the heat of the

The facred day of all Mohammedans.

So at p. 305, he tells us, he faw a young prince at Sana, who had been difpoffeffed of fome territories enjoyed by his father and grandfather, who had his umbrella carried at his fide, as he went on horfeback to the mofque, one Friday.

" fun.

"fun. They fay that in the other pro"vinces of Yemen, the independent lords, "fuch for example as the Sheiks of Jafâ, and "thofe of Hafchid u Bekil; the Scherif of "Abu Arisch, and many others, cause these "mdallas in like manner to be carried for "their use, as a mark of their independence. "Befides the princes, the Imam had in his "train at least 600 lords of the most dis

tinguished rank, as well ecclefiaftics as "feculars, and thofe of the military line,

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many of them mounted on fuperb horfes, "and a great multitude of people attended "him on foot. On each fide of the Imam "was carried a flag, different from our's, in "that each of them was furmounted with a little filver veffel like a cenfer'. It is "faid that within fome charms were put, to "which they attributed a power of making "the Imam invincible. Many other ftand"ards were unfurled with the fame cenfer"like veffels, but without any regularity. In "one word, the whole train was numerous, "and in fome measure magnificent, but no * order feemingly was obferved."

It appears by the carvings at Perfepolis, umbrellas were very anciently used by the Eastern princes; charms, we have reafon to believe, were at leaft as ancient may we not, with fome degree of probability, fuppofe then

Une petite caffolette d'argent. P. 337.

2

Voy, tome 1,