among thofe that now dwell in tents. There is the like agreeable fimplicity in explaining the vessels of wood of their wooden bowls, instead of reckoning up all the particular things that were afterwards made of wood in the most remote fenfe of the word, as Maimonides has done, who introduces the mention of veffels of bulrushes, of reed, of the shells of nuts, and the bark of trees. Things that were not in ufe, there is reafon to think, in thefe migratory families, and confequently not immediately referred to by Mofes; and if fo, not coming under the observation of a commentator, however they may with propriety enough engage the attention of a Jewish cafuift.

[But though the bowls and dishes of the vulgar Arabs are of wood, those of their Emirs are, not unfrequently, of copper tinned very neatly: la Roque takes notice of this circumftance in more places than one*. I have met with a like account, I think, in other travellers. May we not believe that the veffel which Jael made ufe of, to present butter-milk to Sifera, and which Deborah in her hymn calls a lordly difh', or a dish of nobles, was of this fort? Her husband certainly was an Arab Emir; the working of 'metals much more ancient than her time, Gen. iv. 22; and the mere fize of the veffel hardly could be the thing intended. La

* Voy. dans la Pal. p. 178, and p. 24. Judges 5. 25. Roque

VOL. I.

K

XV.

Roque indeed tells us, that the fruits that were brought in at the collation, that the grand Emir of the Arabs whom he vifited treated him with, were placed in a large painted bafon of wood: it's being painted was, without doubt, a mark of honour fet on this veffel of the grand Emir, which distinguished it from the wooden bowls of the commonalty; but a painted wooden veffel would have been not fo proper for butter-milk, as one of copper tinned, which therefore most probably was the fort Jael made use of.]

OBSERVATION XXII.

The preceding lift of Arab utenfils is not complete however, as I infinuated under the laft Obfervation, leather-bottles not being mentioned by la Roque, in thofe places where he profeffes to give us an account of the furniture of an Arab tent, which yet they certainly have, and out of which he himself elsewhere tells us they drink, when a pitcher is not at hand.

These are very uncouth drinking-vessels in comparison of cups of filver or gold, fuch as were anciently used in the courts of princes, agreeable to what we read in the 1 Kings x. 21, where we are told the magnificence of Solomon fuffered no drinking veffels, in his palace, that were not of gold, none of filver, it being nothing accounted of in his days; whereas

• P. II, 12.

1

· P. 205.

whereas it should feem in the preceding reigns cups of filver, as well as of gold, were used in the royal houses. And to the difference betwixt thefe veffels of filver or of gold, and these goat-skin bottles, the Pfalmift feems to refer when he faith, "I am become "like a bottle in the fmoke," Pf. cxix. 83My appearance in my present ftate is as different from what it was when I dwelt at court, as the furniture of a palace differs from that of a poor Arab's tent, among whom I now dwell. Just thus the Prophet laments that the precious fons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, or veffels of fine gold, funk in their eftimation, and were confidered as no better than earthern pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter, Lam. iv. 2.

2

Our tranflators, by the place they have marked in the margin of fome of our Bibles, as parallel to this, feem to have fuppofed that the Pfalmift refers to the blackness his face contracted by forrow; but this can hardly be fuppofed to be the whole of his thought in fuch a cafe would he not rather have spoken of the blackness of a pot, as it is fuppofed the Prophet Joel doth, ch. ii. 6, rather than that of a leather-bottle?

[These bottles are fuppofed by a facred historian, not only to be frequently rent, when grown old and much ufed, but also to be capable of being repaired, Jofh. ix. 4, wine-bottles old, and rent, and bound up.

Sir J. Chardin in a note informs us, this is perfectly according to the cuftom of the East. And he defcribes the manner in which they are mended: they do it, he says, fometimes by Jetting in a piece; fometimes by gathering up the wounded place, in manner of a purfe; fometimes they put in a round flat piece of wood, and by that means ftop the hole.

In the fixth volume of his MS. he has given us, at large, an amufing account of thefe bottles, which therefore I would here fet down. After observing that the bottle given to Hagar was a leather one, he goes on thus: The Arabs, and all thofe that lead a wandering kind of life, keep their water, milk, and other liquors, in thefe bottles. They keep in them more fresh than otherwife they would do. Thefe leather-bottles are made of goat-fkins. When the animal is killed, they cut off its feet and its head, and they draw it in this manner out of the fkin, without opening its belly. They afterwards few up the places where the legs were cut off, and the tail, and when it is filled, they tie it about the neck. Thefe nations, and the country people of Perfia, never go a journey without a finall leather bottle of water hanging by their fide like a fcrip. The great leather-bottles are made of the fkin of an he-goat, and the small ones, that ferve inftead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid's fkin. Monf. Dandilly for want of obferving this, in his beautiful tranflation of Jofephus, has put goat-fkin in the chapter of Hagar and Ifhmael, instead of a kid-skin bot

tle,

tle, which, for the reafons affigned above, muft have been meant.

3

He reaffumes the fubject in another part of the fame volume ', in which he tells us, that they put into thefe goat-skin and kid-skin veffels every thing which they want to carry to a diftance in the Eaft, whether dry or liquid, and very rarely make use of boxes and pots, unless it be to preferve fuch things as are liable to be broken. The reafon is, their making use of beafts of carriage for conveying these things, who often fall down under their loading, or throw it down, and alfo because it is in pretty thin woollen facks that they inclofe what they carry. There is another advantage too in putting the neceffaries of life into thefe fkin veffels, they are preferved freshers the ants and other infects cannot make their way to them; nor the duft get in, of which there are fuch quantities in the hot countries of Afia, and fo fine, that there is no fuch thing as a coffer impenetrable to it: therefore it is that butter, honey, cheese, and other like aliments are inclofed in veffels made of the skins of this fpecies of animals.

According to this, the things that were carried to Jofeph, for a prefent, were probably inclosed in little veffels made of kid-fkins, not only the balm and the honey, which were fomewhat liquid; but the nuts and the almonds too, that they might be preserved fresh, and the whole put into flight woollen facks.]