was used for the infirmiora semina, says Hieron. the grain that was too tender to be treated in the other methods. The drag consisted of a sort of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stones or iron; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn-sheaves spread on the floor, the driver sitting upon it. The wain was much like the former, but had wheels with iron teeth, or edges like a saw. The axle was armed with iron teeth, or serrated wheels throughout: it moves upon three rollers, armed with iron teeth or wheels, to cut the straw. In Syria they make use of the drag, constructed in the very same manner as above described. This not only forced out the grain, but cut the straw in pieces for fodder for the cattle, for in the eastern countries they have no hay. The last method is well known from the law of Moses, which forbids the ox to be muzzled when he treadeth out the corn. Deut. xxv. 4. (Bp. Lowтн's note on Isaiah xxviii. 27.)

"In threshing their corn, the Arabians lay the sheaves down in a certain order, and then lead over them two oxen, dragging a large stone. This mode of separating the ears from the straw is not unlike that of Egypt." (NIEBUHR's Travels, p. 299.)

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They use oxen, as the ancients did, to beat out their corn, by trampling upon the sheaves, and dragging after them a clumsy machine. This machine is not, as in Arabia, a stone cylinder, nor a plank with sharp stones, as in Syria, but a sort of sledge, consisting of three rollers, fitted with irons, which turn upon axles. A farmer chooses out a level spot in his fields, and has his corn carried thither in sheaves, upon asses, or dromedaries. Two oxen are then yoked in a sledge, a driver gets upon it, and drives them backwards and forwards (rather in a circle) upon the sheaves, and fresh oxen succeed in the yoke from time to time. By this operation the chaff is very much cut down: the whole is then

winnowed, and the pure grain thus separated. This mode of threshing out the corn is tedious and inconve nient; it destroys the chaff, and injures the quality of the grain." (NIEBUHR's Travels, vol. i. p. 89.)

In another place NIEBUHR tells us that "two parcels or layers of corn are threshed out in a day; and they move each of them as many as eight times, with a wooden fork of five prongs, which they call meddre. Afterwards they throw the straw into the middle of the ring, where it forms a heap, which grows bigger and bigger; when the first layer is threshed, they replace the straw in the ring, and thresh it as before. Thus the straw becomes every time smaller, till at last it resembles chopt straw. After this, with the fork just described, they cast the whole some yards from thence, and against the wind, which driving back the straw, the corn, and the ears not threshed out fall apart from it, and make another heap. A man collects the clods of dirt, and other impurities, to which any corn adheres, and throws them into a sieve. They afterwards place in a ring the heaps, in which a good many entire ears are still found, and drive over them for four or five hours together a dozen couple of oxen, joined two and two, till by absolute trampling they have separated the grains, which they throw into the air with a shovel to cleanse them."

"The Moors and Arabs continue to tread out their corn after the primitive custom of the East. Instead of beeves they frequently make use of mules and horses, by tying in the like manner by the neck three or four of them together, and whipping them afterwards round about the nedders (as they call the threshing floors, the Lybica area of Horace) where the sheaves lie open and expanded in the same manner as they are placed and prepared with us for threshing. This, indeed, is a much quicker way than ours, but less cleanly; for, as it is performed in the open air, (Hosea xiii. 3.) upon

any round level plat of ground, daubed over with cow's dung, to prevent, as much as possible, the earth, sand, or gravel from rising, a great quantity of them all, notwithstanding this precaution, must unavoidably be taken up with the grain; at the same time the straw, which is their only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces, a circumstance very pertinently alluded to 2 Kings xiii. 7. where the king of Syria is said to have made the Israelites like dust by threshing." (SHAW's Travels, p. 138, 139. 2d edit.)

HOMER has described the method of threshing corn by the feet of oxen, as practised in his time and country:

As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,

And thick bestrewn lies Ceres' sacred floor,

When round and round, with never-weary'd pain,
The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain.

Iliad xx. lin. 495. Pope,

No. 259. xlii. 11. Wilderness.] "By desert, or wil derness, the reader is not always to understand a country altogether barren and unfruitful, but such only as is rarely or never sown or cultivated; which, though it yields no crops of corn or fruit, yet affords herbage, more or less, for the grazing of cattle, with fountains or rills of water, though more sparingly interspersed than in other places." SHAW's Travels, p. 9. note. Agreeable to this account we find that Nabal, who was possessed of three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats, dwelt in the wilderness, 1 Sam. xxv. 2. This it would have been impossible for him to have done, had there not been sufficient pasturage for his flocks and herds.

No. 260.-xliii. 2. When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt.] The setting of the grass and undergrowth on fire in the East was practised to

annoy their enemies, and sometimes occasioned great terror and distress. So we find in Hawkesworth's account of the late voyages to the South Seas, the wild inhabitants of New South Wales endeavoured to destroy some tents and stores belonging to Captain Cook's ship, when he was repairing it, by setting fire to the long grass of that country. From the words of the prophet it appears to have been a very ancient stratagem.

HARMER, vol. iv. p. 151.

No. 261 -xliv. 5. Subscribe with his hand.] This is an allusion to the marks which were made by punc tures, rendered indelible by fire or by staining, upon the hand, or some other part of the body, signifying the state or character of the person, and to whom he belonged. The slave was marked with the name of his master; the soldier of his commander; the idolater with the name or ensign of his god; and the Christians seem to have imitated this practice by what Procopius says upon this place of Isaiah. "Many marked their wrists or their arms with the sign of the cross, or with the name of Christ." Bp. LowтH, in loc.

To this explanation I shall subjoin the following extract from Dr. Doddridge's Sermons to Young People, p. 79, both as it corroborates and still farther elucidates this transaction. "Some very celebrated translators and critics understand the words which we render, subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, in a sense a little different than that which our English version has given them. They would rather render them, another shall write upon his hand, I am the Lord's; and they suppose it refers to a custom which formerly prevailed in the East, of stamping the name of the general on the soldier, or that of the master on the slave. As this name was sometimes borne on the forehead, so at other times on the hand; and it is certain that several scriptures,

which may easily be recollected, are to be explained as alluding to this: Rev. xiii. 16, 17. Rev. vii. 2, 3. Rev. iii. 12. Now from hence it seems to have grown into a custom amongst some idolatrous nations, when solemnly devoting themselves to the service of any deity, to be initiated into it by receiving some marks in their flesh, which might never wear out. This interpretation the original will certainly bear; and it here makes a very. strong and beautiful sense, since every true christian has a sacred, and indelible character upon him, which shall never be erased. But if we retain our own version it will come to nearly the same, and evidently refers to a practice which was sometimes used among the Jews, (Nehem. ix. 38. x. 29.) and which is indeed exceeding natural, of obliging themselves to the service of God, by setting their hands to some written articles, emphatically expressing such a resolution."

No. 262.xliv. 18. Shut their eyes.] One of the solemnities at a Jewish wedding at Aleppo is, fastening the eye-lids together with gum. The bridegroom is the person who opens the bride's eyes at the appointed time. (RUSSELL'S Hist. of Aleppo, p. 132.) To this custom there does not appear to be any reference in the scriptures; but it was used also as a punishment in these countries. Sir T. Roe's chaplain, in his account of his voyage to the East Indies, mentions a son of the great mogul, whom he had seen, who had been cast into prison by his father, where "his eyes were sealed up (by something put before them which might not be taken off) for the space of three years, after which time that seal was taken away, that he might with freedom enjoy the light, though not his liberty." (p. 471.) Other princes have been treated after a different manner, when it has been thought fit to keep them under: they have had drugs administered to them to render them.