LAND OF GILEAD.

GILEAD has not derived its chief distinction from the number of its walled cities, or from the wealth and refinement of its people, but from its natural productions, which raised it to fame in far remote times. It was the land of balm, of spicery, and myrrh, articles which the first caravan across the Arabian desert upon record, was bearing to the Egyptian markets. The name first occurs in the narrative of the return of Jacob from his long sojourn in the "land of the people of the East." After having crossed the Euphrates westward, he "set his face toward the mount of Gilead."-Laban " overtook him in the mount Gilead"—and "Jacob pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban, with his brethren, pitched in the mount Gilead."-The particular mountain, where the fugitive was overtaken by his angry relative, is named in these passages by anticipation, for the transaction which closed their interview evidently originated the appellation. A covenant of peace being made between them, stones were gathered into a round heap in commemoration of it, and Laban called the monument "Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed." Both names signify the same thing, the heap or round heap of witness, the former being Aramæan, the latter pure Hebrew. Each spoke according to the idiom of his own tongue, as Jerome remarks, in an

explanatory note, which has crept into the text of the Vulgate.

The naming of this mountain was connected with several interesting circumstances. To vindicate his flight from the country of Laban, Jacob notices the rigorous treatment to which he had been subject, during the period of their association; "in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night." This is exactly the language which a western Asiatic would now employ, whose occupation compelled him to be much in the open air. There is a much greater difference between the temperature of the day and night in that climate, than is common in our own. Through several months of the year, a night of our winter temperature often follows a day warmer than any that our summers afford. This great and rapid alteration is intensely distressing to those who are exposed to its full influence, as Jacob appears to have been, in consequence of the severe disposition of his father-in-law requiring him to watch his flocks by night. The Greek dramatist makes the alternation of heat and frost part of the heaviest punishment of Prometheus. It is impossible to read the account of Jacob's flight, his encampment upon Gilead, and the pursuit of his relative, without being struck with the little alteration which has taken place in Oriental usages, in the lapse of four thousand years. "Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels; and he carried away all his cattle and all his goods." The writer might be narrating the migration of some Arabian or Tartar nomade tribe in the present day, for the various removals of the patriarchal households are analogous, in almost all their

circumstances, to those of the Sheikhs of the desert. The tribes now assume a more warlike character in their journeys, owing to an increased population, and to the more extensive operation of the aggressive principle. The staff has been exchanged for the sword and matchlock. The spear of the Arab as he sits upon his camel is seen glittering in the sunbeams. But this is almost the entire amount of change that has occurred. The furniture of the children of the desert is still as simple as it was. They have few articles beyond those which their moderate wants render indispensable; and hence an entire Arab encampment is struck, and the whole horde in motion, in a very short space of time.

Gilead, with its immediate neighbourhood, was the scene of several Divine visitations in Jacob's days. Visions of angels, beautiful and bright, appeared in its vicinity. The night after the tents of the pursuing band were spread out upon its heights, the Aramæan chieftain had a dream, and received a Divine caution against speaking harshly to the deserter who had just grounds of complaint against him. Soon after leaving its slopes, Jacob was met by angels, to assure him probably of continued protection: and the place of the interview with the celestial host he called Mahanaim, the two hosts, or camps. Here, also, within a short distance of Gilead, we must look for Peniel - which means the face or vision of God-the place where he wrestled with the Angel until the day-break. But where are the sites of these interesting transactions? the mountain Galeed, where the round heap of witness was piled — Mahanaim, where the angel messengers

were encountered — and Peniel, where the wanderer wrestled for a blessing, and exclaimed, "I have seen the Elohim face to face"? The original mountain cannot now be identified. No remains of the witnessing heap point out the spot once occupied by the tents, the camels, and the households of Jacob and Laban, though the evidence is clear, that it was one of the eminences of the rich and beautiful country, to the east of the Jordan and on the north of the Jabbok, one of its tributaries.

No further mention is made of Gilead in the Scriptures, as the name of a particular mountain. It is applied to an extensive hilly district, stretching north and south, forming the eastern boundary of Palestine toward Arabia Petræa. In this district the fruitful territory of Bashan was included, celebrated for its cattle, woods, and vigorous population-its hills covered with waving forests, and its valleys enriched with the most fertile soil. Its natural productions were articles of importance in ancient times, and a caravan bearing them to Egypt is the earliest recorded instance of a foreign commercial transaction. The brethren of Joseph saw "a company of Ishmeelites" coming "from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh.” The date of this transaction, says Dr. Vincent, is more than seventeen centuries before the Christian era, and, notwithstanding its antiquity, it has all the genuine features of a caravan crossing the desert at the present hour.

The fidelity of the sacred narrative appears in the account given of this ancient transaction. It presents to view a company of foreigners proceeding to Egypt,

their camels laden with articles of luxury for the markets of that country. In the earliest notices of Egypt that occur in profane history, we find it become the centre of an extensive land commerce. The merchants of Ethiopia brought gold, and ivory, and slaves-the Phoenicians, wine and timber-the Arabians, incense and spice-the Egyptians giving in exchange their corn, fine linens, robes, and carpets. But we nowhere read of the Egyptians doing this themselves. History records no instance of a trading voyage, or a land commercial expedition, undertaken by this singular people, until a comparatively recent date. The restrictive policy of their sovereigns, and their own peculiar customs, religious and domestic, combined to keep them to their own soil, which they seldom or never quitted, except in time of war. They had a political aversion to strangers, Their religion taught them to look with horror upon the sea, which was in their view an emblem of the evil being, (Typhon,) the implacable enemy of their god Osiris. They had no wood, in their own land, fitted for the construction of ships, one of the causes of the long and bloody wars, in after times, between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, contending for the Phoenician forests, These circumstances operated to make them exclusive -led them to tolerate, not to court, intercourse with other people, until it became a prevailing maxim-upon which they acted down to the termination of their national independence-not to leave their own country. The Egyptians have been aptly called the Chinese of antiquity. Other nations brought them the articles they stood in need of. In exact accordance with this view of their character, and of their early trading ope