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unfociable, when they take their repose under the trees and the rocks, but very willingly admit or join the company of other travellers. So Dr. Chandler tells us, in his Travels in Afia Minor, that fome families that were fitting beneath Jome trees, by a rill of water, invited them to alight, and partake of their refreshments, faluting them when they met '. In another place he speaks of fome Turks coming to them, and joining their company, one of whom defired fome wine: when he took his turban from his head, kiffed it, and laid it afide; and, after drinking, replaced it with the fame ceremony 1.

Such intercourfes were wont then to be friendly, and might not unfrequently be beneficial by the intelligence they might communicate to one another; by an exchange of provifions, to the advantage of both; or by making fome other agreements which might be useful to both parties. But Hector obferves, that he could not expect to meet with Achilles in the like friendly manner, and to fettle any fuch beneficial arrangements with him, as people often did that met under a rock, or some shady tree, to refresh themselves when heated with journeying,

The particle ano, which is translated in this note from and about: from an oak and from a rock; or about an oak and about a rock; fignifies, I fhould apprehend, on ac

• P. 250.

? P. 201.

Count

count of, or fomething of that kind: "There "is no room to expect to talk with Achilles, "in the like friendly manner as when peo"ple meet each other on account of fome "rock, or fome tree, which they happen upon in travelling, whofe fhade invites "them to repose themselves fome time under them '.

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The fame reasons that induce travellers to take their refreshment, and to converse together under trees and rocks, must have induced the Græcian lovers to do the like, when they were allowed the liberty of freely converfing together, as it feems they were in the time of Homer, though fuch freedoms are not now allowed in Greece, any more than in the rest of the Eaft. Accordingly Dr. Shaw informs us, where the Eastern youths can take the liberty with the other fex, as they can with their concubines, they are wont to attend them with wine and mufic into the fields, where we are fure they fit not exposed to the fun, but in fome place of fhade; just as he fays, in the next paragraph, that the Arab in thofe countries doth nothing all the day long, but loiter at home, fmoke his pipe, and repose himself under some neighbouring shade".

2

N° IV.

The præpofition aro is used in this fenfe in the New Teft. Matt. 13. 44, ch. 18. 7, John 21. 6, and elsewhere. 2 P. 234. "There are feveral Turkish and Moorish "youths, and no fmall part likewife of the unmarried "foldiers, who attend their concubines, with wine and

mufic, into the fields; or elfe make themselves merry

at

N° IV.

Though a school-boy might think there was no difficulty in tranflating the words of Sceparnio, in the beginning of the Rudens of Plautus, after having been told that the wind he refers to was a very violent one:

Omnis de tecto deturbavit tegulas: "Illuftrioris fecit, feneftrafque indidit '.'

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So violent indeed the youth would say, "that it forced off all the tiles from the "roof: made the windows more lightsome, " and even formed new ones :" yet one more knowing, and habituated to compare one thing with another, might have heard that the roofs of the Eastern houses are wont now to be flat, and used for walking upon, &c, were fo in the days of Plautus, and long before his time'; and for that purpose are made of ftrong mortar, fo prepared as quickly to affume the hardness of stone, or other very firm and folid materials; I fay, fuch an one might be surprised that Plautus fhould represent the covering of an Eaftern house as blown off by

" at the tavern; a practice, indeed, expressly prohibited "by their religion, but what the neceffity of the times, " and the uncontroulable paffions of the trangreffors, "oblige these governments to dispense with."

1

Act. i, 1. v. 5, 6.

16, &c.

2

2 Sam. 11. 2, Neh. 8. 3 Shaw's Travels, p. 206.

the

the wind, and fhould even fuppofe it was formed of reeds:

"Quin tu in paludem is, exficafque arundines,
"Qui pertegamus villam, dum fudum 'st "."

There is however a paffage in Irwin's Travels
up the Red-Sea, that perfectly removes the
difficulty. It is that in which he defcribes
the house in which he and his companions
were lodged at Cofire. "One of the prefent

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fubjects of our apprehenfion is, that the "houfe we live in will not laft our time, "fhould the caravan meet with further de

lays. The rafters are of the date-tree, "and inftead of plank or tiles, the floor is

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compofed of rushes laid close together. On "this loofe fand is placed, and over all the "coarse mats of the country. Materials of "this fort must have a wonderful elasticity "in them; and every step we take is at"tended by an univerfal tremor of the houfe.

Neither would a stranger imagine that we "were better provided in regard to the roof. "This is formed of nothing stronger than rushes, on which tones are beaped, to prevent their

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being fcattered by the winds. But in this "fettled climate the native requires no defence, "but against the rays of the fun; thunder "and lightning being almost unknown to "him; and even rain a very uncommon vi

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"fitor.

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By the accounts of the inhabitants, "no rain has fallen at Cofire for these three years paft; nor does it ever exceed a shower "or two, when it comes. Of this the struc"ture of their remaining houfes is an unqueftionable proof; for being rebuilt with "mud, and half thatched with rushes, one day "of rain would mix them with their mother "earth'."

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Cofire was a fea-port town in Upper Egypt, on the coast of the Red-Sea; Plautus lays his fcene on the fea-coaft of a country adjoining to Egypt, where it rains but feldom, though perhaps fomewhat oftener than at Cofire. We may then reasonably believe that the house of Sceparnio's mafter, fuppofed to be a perfon indeed of fome figure, but in a state of exile, and confequently affliction, was not much better, if at all more fecurely built, than that at Cofire in which they were lodged, which we are told was the best in the town, though little better than an English barn 2.

If built after the manner of this house at Cofire, it is not surprising that the rushes, or reeds and stones which covered it 3, fhould be blown off and scattered, and that it fhould become neceffary to procure more. Being built too of mud, or clay, as Sceparnio de

2 P.

122.

· P. 144. 3 Tegula here not fignifying tiles exclufively; but the things, whatever they were, that covered the house, which here were reeds, with fomething heavy to keep them down.

fcribes

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