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OBSERVATION XXIX.

The manner of building walls, partly of ftones, and in part of other materials, continues in the Eaft to this day.

So de la Roque affures us, from the Memoirs from which he drew the account which he has published of Arabia the Happy, with which he was furnished by the French capсар tain that went thither in 1708, that the city of Moka is furrounded with walls built after the ancient manner, partly of stone, the rest of earth mixed with ftraw, and rammed hard down, if I understand his words aright'.

This might do very well in a country where it feldom rains, which it seems is the cafe at Moka, it not having rained when he arrived there of two years before; yet in Judæa, and fome of the neighbouring countries, where there are frequent rains in winter, and fometimes the fhowers very heavy, it feems they had another mode of building their walls instead of stones and unburnt bricks, or fomething very much like them, they were wont to make their walls partly of stone, and partly of wood. So the wall of the court of the temple of Solomon was originally built, and fuch was the structure of it when it was rebuilt, on the return of

'Moitié de pierres, moitié de terre battue avec de la paille, p. 91. 2 P. 100. 31 Kings, 7. 12.

the

the Jewish people from their captivity in Babylon', by the direction of the king of

Perfia.

Their great cities, it should feem, were walled about in much the fame manner : I do not know elfe how to account for what is faid of the burning the wall of Gaza with fire, which is fpoken of by the prophet Amos, ch. i. 6. The walls of Tyre and Rabbah appear to have been of a like ftructure, v. 10, 14. Such walls were capable of being fet on fire. The walls of the old Ruffian cities, it is very well known, were oftentimes wholly formed of huge beams of timber laid one upon another, and firmly faftened together.

OBSERVATION XXX.

Many people have been much surprized at the largeness of the ftones that are found in the ruins of fome ancient buildings, efpecially of fome that were raised on the tops of bigh bills.

The remains of fome ftructures on the top of Mount Tabor have, in particular, been much wondered at on this account. "This "mountain," according to le Bruyn, " is

66

very high and very steep, nearly of the "form of a fugar-loaf. And as it was not

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"to be afcended on horfe-back, we alighted "at the foot of the mountain. We were "half an hour in climbing it, and arrived "at the top very much fatigued." In the next page he fays, "I found here the remains "of many buildings, the ftones of which being extraordinary large and heavy, could "not have been brought thither but with "incredible labour; for it cannot be faid "that they were taken from the mountain

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itself, which is not of a rocky nature,

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nor ftony; on the contrary it is, from the "bottom to the top, quite covered with trees " and underwood."

It seems to have been from the confideration of the extreme labour and difficulty attending the erection of fuch maffive buildings, in fuch elevated fituations, that the prophet Zechariah fays, "Who art thou, "O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou fhalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth "the head-ftone thereof with fhouting, cry

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ing, Grace, Grace, unto it. Ch. 4. 7. Nothing could excite a more lively apprehenfion of the difficulty of re-edifying the temple at Jerufalem, than an image of this kind, and at the fame time of the comparative eafe with which it was to be accomplished. It appeared beforehand like the erecting of a Structure compofed of enormous stones on the top of an high hill, but would in fact

Tome 2. p. 328.

be found as eafy as erecting a great building on a plain.

OBSERVATION XXXI.

The ancient Jewish windows seem not to have been of one kind: two different words are used in the Hebrew to express these conveniences, and other circumstances lead us to apprehend they were of two forts: the one very small, and used only for looking abroad in a concealed manner; the other large and airy.

Irwin, in his Voyage up the Red-Sea, has unintentionally given us a defcription of the first of these, expreffed in the Hebrew by the term Arubbah, which is alfo, it fhould feem, used to exprefs thofe openings through which pigeons paffed into the cavities of the rocks, or into those buildings which were defigned for the reception of their nests, in Ifaiah lx. 8.

Speaking of their abode, and indeed of a fort of confinement which they fuffered, at Ghinnah, in the Upper Ægypt, Irwin fays', that one of the windows of the houfe in which they lodged, and through which they looked into the street, more refembled a pigeon-hole, than any thing elfe. And in a fucceeding page', defcribes the windows as very small

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and very high. The word is indeed derived from a root which expreffes the laying in wait for a perfon, fuch people looking through fmall holes, waiting for the approach of their prey.

In that early state of things, and in a country where fires were but little used, it is no wonder that one and the fame word is used for one of these peeping-holes, and for an outlet to smoke'. In our own country, a few centuries ago, chimneys were little in ufe, and an hole, in or near the top of the room, was thought fufficient for the fmoke's discharge.

The other kind of windows, expreffed by a very different word, were large enough to throw a person of mature age out of them, as happened in the cafe of Jezebel. Lattices were in ufe, we know, before that time, but they appear not to have been univerfally used, even in thofe large windows; or, if they

*For in that fenfe it is ufed, Hof. 13. 3.

2 2 Kings 9. 30, 32, 33.

3 From Judges 5. 28. The window of Rahab, through which the let down the two Ifraelitifh fpies, was of the fame large fort, as the circumftances fhow; and the binding the cord in a net-work form in the window, might appear natural enough, as anfwering the purpose of a lattice, and fo occafion no fufpicion. Perhaps it was previously to this made ufe of for that purpofe, and might be of fearlet, as women of her profeffion in the Eaft, at this day, affect magnificence extremely, and might do fo then. It is otherwife difficult to account for it's colour. Certainly the Eastern lattices now are made of very different materials, wood, metal, marble, &c.

VOL. III.

H

were,

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