hang them constantly upon their breasts, and do not lay them aside even in the midst of their most laborious employments. The doctor does not tell us of what metal they are composed; but Chardin says they are steel, and for the most part convex. Perhaps the generality of those used by the Jewish women were of this metal, although the first that we read of were of brass; for we find the sky in Job xxxvii. 18, compared to a molten looking glass, or to a speculum of polished steel. Having thus attended to the different parts of female dress, I may conclude the subject by remarking, that we have an instance of a full dressed woman in Judith, when she went to attract the notice of Holofernes.a b It will be in the recollection of all, that the fashion of the dresses of both sexes among the Jews was very stationary, and, therefore, that wardrobes were accounted family riches, and descended from generation to generation. This accounts for the ease with which Jehu's mandate was obeyed, when he ordered 400 vestments for the priests of Baal, that none might escape. And the classic scholar will instantly recollect the 5000 chlamydes or cloaks which Lucullus could furnish those who asked him." Every age also hath had its favourite colour, some being accounted more distinctive of rank than others. Thus blue or purple, as having a shade of blue,' was anciently accounted honourable; whereas blue is now the common colour of the lower ranks in the East. The reason is, that the ancient purple was obtained from the ■ Judith x. 3, 4. xii. 15. For farther information, consult Bishop Lowth's new translation of Isaiah, ch. iii, 18-24: Fleury's Manners of the ancient Israelites, part ii. ch. 6: and Schroederi Commentarius philologico-criticus de Vestita mulierum Hebræarum, Matt. vi. 19-21. c2 Kings x. 22. Ezek. xxiii, 6, f Acts xvi. 14. d Hor. Epist. Lib. i. Ep. 6. Hasselquist, p. 244, 245. b murex, a species of shell-fish, particularly described by Pliny, very rare, and only to be found in the neighbourhood of Tyre; hence the Tyrian purple, which could only be purchased by emperors, and was worth its weight in gold; whereas the present blue colour is procured from indigo. The scarlet and crimson of the ancients were different from the purple; for these were produced from a worm or insect, which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. There is a shrub of this kind, says Lowth, on Is. i. 18, that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour; whence our word crimson is derived.-Mr. Bruce, when at Tyre, on his way to the source of the Nile, tried to obtain some of these purple fishes, but could find none after diligent fishing; and is inclined to think that the whole is fabulous, and that it was intended to conceal their knowledge of cochineal. Before finishing the article, I shall add a few short notices. Woollen garments were not much esteemed by the ancient Jews, Ezek. xliv. 17, 18. John the Baptist's garment was a coarse cloth of camel's hair, not unlike that of the two dervishes which Captain Light saw in Egypt, who had a cloak of that material thrown over their shoulders, and tied in front to their breast, with a girdle of skin round their loins. Bishop Pococke, when describing the dresses of Egypt, says, that when riding they drop their upper garment around them on the saddle, and La Roque tells us, that the riding dress of the Arabs is a piece of cloth doubled for a cloak, and Hist. Nat. Lib. ix. cap. 36. b Plin. Hist. Nat. Lib. xvi. cap. 8. sewed at the edges like a sack, leaving a hole at the corners for the arms, and the fore part is cut open, and a place cut out for the neck. Small boots of yellow morocco, without stockings, cover the legs. These may, perhaps, give us an idea of the Israelitish horsemen; and as Daniel and the Jews lived long in Babylon, Herodotus's account of the Babylonian dress may serve to explain a passage of Scripture. Thus he tells us that in his time, which was about a hundred years after the events recorded in Dan. chap. iii. the dress of the Babylonians consisted of a tunic of linen, reaching down to the feet, over this another tunic of woollen, and over all, a white short cloak or mantle, and that on their heads they wore turbans. This Parkhurt applies, Lex., to the explanation of Dan. iii. 21. "Then these three men were bound in their cloaks, their turbans and their upper woollen tunics, and their under linen tunics ;" and as, according to this interpretation, outer garments are particularly described, we see the propriety with which it is observed in verse 27, that these were not changed by the fire. SECT. V. Entertainment of the Jews. Testimony of travellers. Furniture of an eastern kitchen. Fire-places; fuel, either wood, grass, or dried cow-dung. Bread, how baked, leavened, toasted. Public ovens, their way of sending bread to them. above a day. Their better kind of cakes; their cracknels. Bread their prin. cipal food, eaten with oil, &c.; wheat, parched corn, barley, beans, summer fruits, roots; milk. Butter, how made by them; butter-milk a luxury; laban, how prepared; cheeses of the East, how made, not good. The general diet at Aleppo, and of the Arabs. An eastern breakfast, dinner, and supper. They use no spoons; are careful how they drink water; have wine at table; their wine often muddy; the cup-bearer's office; banqueting cups. Manner of sitting at meat. Fublic feasts: portions sent to those who could not attend; men and women sat often at different tables: the fragments given to the poor. People in the East visit after supper, as well as through the day. The earliest accounts of a grace at meat. Modern Jews very particular as to their food; have butchers with certificates that they kill according to law; two kinds of dishes their way of eating; their bread, and manner of baking. THE furniture of a Jewish kitchen cannot now be easily ascertained; but that of the common people was perhaps not unlike that of the present Arabs, who have hair sacks, and trunks, and baskets, all covered with skin, in which they keep their kettles and pots, great wooden bowls, hand-mills, and pitchers; goat skins also for keeping water, which are made by cutting off the head and feet of a he-goat or kid, drawing out the carcass without opening the belly, sewing up the holes, and tying them round the neck when full. Thus do they resemble somewhat the dubbars of India; and as they are often blackened by the smoke of their tents, the Psalmist alludes to them when he says that he was "become as a bottle in the smoke." The poorer orders have also vessels made of clay, and even of dried cowdung; but those of the emirs or chiefs are of wood, beautifully painted, or of copper, neatly tinned. They have also earthen jars or pitchers, both for carrying water and preserving corn from worms and insects, which might readily have supplied Gideon with the number mentioned in Judges vii. 16. 19, 20. Every thing almost is kept by them in skins to keep it cool, preserve it from insects, and defend it from dust, which is there so fine, and in such quantities, that no chest can exclude it.d The fire places in the eastern houses are either on the hearth, or formed of two or three stones set over an ash La Roque, p. 176. 178. Shaw, p. 231. b Ps. cxix. 83. d Harmer, Ob. vol. i. p. 133. a Indeed, this is the pit, on which are placed their pots and kettles.-But we ought particularly to remark their scarcity of fuel. There is no mention made of mineral coal in Judea; and wood, in a closely peopled and minutely divided country, could not be abundant. At the present day there are few plantations, from a different cause, the insecurity of property and of life. It is true, indeed, that the warmth of the climate required little fuel for a great part of the year, yet the preparing of victuals, and warming of apartments in the winter season, naturally required a considerable quantity; hence the shifts they often resorted to for supplying it, by collecting the prunings of the vines, brushwood, stubble, grass, stalks of flowers, bones of animals, and cow-dung. practice of these countries at the present day: for Dr. Russell tells us that, owing to the scarcity of wood, they use wood and charcoal in their rooms, but heat their public baths with cow-dung and parings of fruit ; and Pitts tells us that, at Grand Cairo, they commonly warm their ovens with dried horse and cow-dung, or dirt of the streets; what wood they have being brought from parts adjoining to the Black Sea, and sold by weight at a high price. The Arabs use dried cow-dung in baking their bread, and d'Arvieux complains that their bread smelt of it. They carefully, therefore, collect in these countries both sheep, and cow, and camel-dung, and carrying them without their cities, as Dr. Russell informs us, lay them in large heaps to dry, where they become very offensive, and then build them into stacks, and thatch them. Sir John Chardin confirms these remarks, and tells us that the eastern people, in general, always use dried cow-dung for baking bread, boiling pots, and . Ezek. xv. 4. b Matt. vi. 30. c Ezek. xxiv. 5. 10. f Page 193, 194. |