IX. lip, or speech, Ezek. iii. 5, 6, meaning peo ple that used the language of fome remote country. OBSERVATION XI. As the Arabs can, in this manner, withdraw out of the reach of very potent enemies, fo can they if provoked occafion them very great bitterneffes, it not being poffible to be always guarded against them. It is but little while ago, that the public papers gave an account of their destroying many thou fands of the Mecca pilgrims, upon fome difguft the Turkish government had given them, and filling the whole country with lamentation'. Nor doth the victorioufnefs of the moft fuccefsful princes intimidate them, in many cafes. Thus Curtius tells us they fet upon the troops of Alexander himself, the mighty conqueror of Afia, when they found them unguarded in Lebanon, and flew fome, and took others. It is to thefe infults of theirs, I fuppofe, that Jeremiah refers, when, after foretelling the fuccefs of Nebuchadnezzar in Ægypt, he fays that he should go forth thence in peace, Jer. xliii. 12. The deferts that lie betweeen Egypt and Syria are at this day terribly infefted by the wild Arabs. "In travelling along the fea"coaft of Syria, and from Suez to Mount "Sinai," fays Dr. Shaw, we were in lit 66 About the year 1758. Voy. Niebuhṛ, p. 331. 4. C. 2. 2 Lib. "tle tle or no danger of being robbed or infulted-In the Holy-Land, and upon the "Ifthmus betwixt Egypt and the Red-fea, our conductors cannot be too numerous. He then goes on to inform his readers, that when he went from Ramah to Jerufalem, though the pilgrims themfelves were more than fix thoufand, and were escorted by four bands of Turkifh infantry, exclufive of three or four hundred Spahees [Cavalry], yet were they moft barbaroufly infulted and beaten by the Arabs, This fame defert, between Gaza and Egypt, appears to have been a fcene of injuries alfo in the time of St. Jerome *; and to have been under the power of the Arabs much more anciently ftill, for la Roque, in a note on that paffage of d'Arvieux which I cited under the laft article, obferves that Cambyfes, a little after Nebuchadnezzar's time, was enabled to pass through these deferts by means of thofe fupplies of water an Arab prince conveyed to him. A conquering prince's paffing out of a country, which he had perfectly fubdued, in peace, would not in common have been the subject of a prediction; but in this cafe, as it was the paffing through deferts where the Arabs at that time were, as they ftill are, so much mafters, who were not afraid upon occafion to infult the moft victorious princes, the mentioning this circumftance was not unworthy the fpirit of prophecy. 4 Vide Hier, in Vita Hilar. v. I. p. 242. : This may lead us too, perhaps, to the true fense of the preceding words, "And he "" fhall array himself with the land of Egypt, 66 66 as a fhepherd putteth on his garment," a fenfe which is not to be met with, I think, in the voluminous collections of Pool, nor, fo far as I know, any where elfe; for I fhould fuppofe it fignifies, that juft as a perfon appearing to be a fhepherd, paffed unmolested in common by the wild Arabs, fo Nebuchadnezzar, by his fubduing Egypt, fhall induce the Arab tribes to fuffer him to go out of that country unmolefied, the poffeffion of Egypt being to him what a fhepherd's garment was to a fingle perfon: for though, upon occafion, the Arabs are not afraid to affront the moft powerful princes, it is not to be imagined that conqueft and power have no effect upon them. "They that dwell in the wilderness," fays the Pfalmift, referring to these Arabs, fhall bow before him," whom he had defcribed immediately before, as having dominion from fea to fea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, and which he queftionless fuppofes was the great inducement to that fubmiffion. Thus the Arab that was charged with the care of conducting Dr. Pococke to Jerufalem, after fecreting him for fome time in his tent, when he took him out into the fields, to walk there, put on him his ftriped garment; apparently for his fecurity, and that he might 5 V. 2. F, 6. pafs pass for an Arab. So d'Arvieux, when he was fent by the Conful of Sidon to the camp of the Grand Emir, equipped himself for the greater fecurity exactly like an Arab, and accordingly paffed unmolested, unqueftioned. The employment of the Arabs is to feed cattle, and confequently a shephera's garment may mean the fame thing with the Arab drefs. Or if it fignifies fomething different, as there are Rufhwans and Turkmen about Aleppo, who live in tents and feed cattle, much as the Arabs do, according to Dr. Ruffell; and as a paffage in Ifaiah (Ch. xiii. 20) feems to infinuate there was a like diftinction in his times, "Neither fhall the Arabian pitch “tent there, neither fhall the shepherds make "their fold there;" that different drefs of a shepherd, whatever it was, muft equally protect a perfon in thofe deferts, for there would be no fuch thing as feeding of cattle in them, if such sort of perfons were molested by the Arabs as paffengers are. OBSERVATION XII. Shepherds however might, in fome cases, be ill-treated by the Arabs without doubt, for we find that one Arab will fometimes treat another very badly. Thus the author of the account of the ruins of Balbec, defcribing his journey from Palmyra thither, tells us that about four hours before their I Xp arrival at Carietein, they discovered a party of Arabian horfe-men at a diftance; to which, had they been fuperior in number, they must have fallen an eafy prey in the languid ftate to which both their men and horfes were reduced, by a march of above twenty hours over the burning fands: but upon their nearer approach they began to retire precipitately, and abandoned fome cattle, which their friends feized, as a matter of courfe, " laughing," fays he, "at our "remonftrances against their injustice." Their friends, their Arabian escort, that is, which guarded them to and from Palmyra. In like manner Egmont and Heyman complain, that they could not get their Arab guides to carry them to Tor, in their return from Mount Sinai to Cairo; who gave this reafon for their refufal, that they might happen to fall in with fome of the Arabians their enemies, and thus lofe both their camels and goods. The Arabs then treat other Arabs with whom they have mifunderstandings in a harsh manner, and perhaps thofe that only belong to diftant tribes, with whom they have no particular connexions of friendship: but this is not all, they often treat their confederates, of a more peaceful turn of mind than themfelves, in a very oppreffive way, of which the Religious of a convent near Mount Sinai can furnith us with a ftriking inftance, who having by the labour of fome days cleanfed a ? V. 2. p. 181. capacious |