this 121ft Pfalm refers to these umbrellas, where the refponfe made, it fhould feem, by the minifters of the fanctuary, to the declaration of the king, in the two first verses, reminded him that Jehovah would be to him all that heathen princes hoped for, as to defence and honour, from their royal umbrellas and their facred charms, but hoped for in vain, as to them? The Lord fhall be thy fhade on thy right hand. The fun shall not fmite thee by day; nor the moon by night,

OBSERVATION LXXVI.

Though when I published the two volumes of Observations on divers Paffages of Scripture, I had not met with any account, in our modern travellers into the East, of bells made use of there to adorn or to animate their borfes, to which our version supposes the prophet Zechariah refers, ch. xiv. 20, but had found they were frequently worn by their camels'; yet I have fince met with a paffage, in a lately published volume of Travels into the Eaft, which fhows the fouthern Arabs make ufe of them as a matter of magnificence, on folemn occafions.

"The finest breed of Arabian borfes is in "this country, and has furnished us with "those we make ufe of for the turf; they

Vol, 1, ch. 5, obf. 22.

< are

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"are here chiefly articles of luxury, used only in war, or for parade: the governor "has a large ftud oppofite to the house where "I live, which affords me much pleasure, as 66 I pay them frequent vifits; they are finall, "but finely fhaped, and extremely active. "Of this I had an opportunity of judging σε yesterday, when the cavalry had a field-day "in the great fquare, which, from the mode "of exercise, called to my mind the idea of "our ancient tilts and tournaments. . . "The horses were fumptuously caparifoned, being adorned with gold and filver trappings, bells hung round their necks, and rich houfings; the riders were in handsome "Turkish dreffes, with white turbans, and "the whole formed to me a new and pleafing "fpectacle."

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OBSERVATION LXXVII.

The feathers of herons and oftriches are now used, in thefe countries of the Eaft, by way of ornament, and more especially in times of rejoicing; it is reasonable to believe the fame obtained anciently, and perhaps as far back as the time of Job.

The Turks, who, according to Baron de Tott, make pomp the characteristic of their

Major Rooke's Travels to the coaft of Arabia Felix, p. 82, 83. That 6th letter is dated from Mocha.

nation,

nation', make great use of these two forts of feathers in days of parade. Thus this writer, in defcribing what answers among them to the folemnity of a coronation, tells us, that one fet of officers, who appeared in that proceffion, wore an oftrich's feather on the fide of their turbans'; and that the led horfes of the Grand Seignior were covered with very rich trappings trailing on the ground, leaving nothing to be feen but the head of the animal, of which the front was ornamented by a large plume of heron-feathers. Attendants of another defcription are faid to have worn plumes of feathers shaped like a fan, above which towered those the Grand Seignior himself bore.

De Tott has not told us what kind of feathers these last were, but other authors have informed us, that they are those of herons that the Turkish emperor himself wears in his turban, at least upon other folemn occafions. So when Thevenot faw him riding in ftate, upon occafion of the coming of an ambaffador to him from the Great Mogul, he wore in his cap two black heron's tops, adorned with large ftones, above two fingers high; the one stood upright, and the other pointed downwards *.

4

Such great ufe is made of oftrich-feathers, that Maillet makes it an article of commerce, in the account he gives of what is imported into

Memoirs, part 1, p. 235. 3 P. 121, 122.

2 P. 119.

4 Travels, part 1, book 1, ch. 57. Ægypt

Ægypt by the caravan from Nubia', which brings with it the merchandise of Ethiopia. "One can hardly believe," he says, "the "riches it contains. From divers parts of "Africa it brings hither gold-duft, elephants "teeth, ebony, mufk, civet, ambergris, of trich-feathers, feveral kinds of

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gum, and an infinity of other valuable merchandize. "But it's moft confiderable commerce confifts "of two or three thousand blacks, which "the caravan brings to fell in Ægypt, each "of which, taking them one with another, " is not worth lefs to his mafter than 200 livres 2.

Herons feathers, however, are not a difcriminating mark of royalty, and confined to the heads of princes and of their horfes; Thevenot faw them on the head of the new Bafha of Egypt when he made his entry into Grand Cairo, "He wore a chiaoux cap, with two "black heron's tops ftanding upright upon "it"." But they are, I think, only worn in times of profperity. At least Thevenot remarks, that when his predeceffor quitted that government, and departed in a folemn proceffion," he wore on his head a chiaoux cap, but without an beron's top"."

4

As feathers are made ufe of among the

Let. 13, p. 197.

About eight guineas. There is a mistake here cer tainly perhaps there should have been another cypher. Part 1, bock 2, ch. 23. + Ch. 15.

Turks,

Turks, fo they are ufed we find among the modern Arabs too. When de la Roque put himself into the drefs of an Arab of figure, he had an oftrich-feather near the top of his lance'; and when the French gentlemen that waited on the king of Yemen, on account of the coffee trade, faw the proceflion that attended him to his public devotions, on the facred day of the Mohammedans, they obferved fifty borfes, richly caparifoned, were led in view of the way in which he was to pass, and as many camels perfectly well equipped, which had on their heads large tufts of black oftrich-feathers. This was all for parade, and to do honour to the facred day, for they were only led before him, and feveral times round the place where he performed his devotions, and put to no other ufe1.

If then the Arabs of our days make use of feathers in times of joyful and facred parade; it is by no means unnatural or difficult to fuppofe, that the Arabs of elder times might do the fame, and even the Arabs of the land of Uz in the age of Job: fince they are allowed to be a people that have as much, or more than any, retained their old cuftoms, on the one hand; and fince, on the other, the adorning themselves with the most beautiful feathers of the birds of their refpective countries, is the common practice of those nations