Quæque Sareptano palmite missa bibas.—Sidonius, xvii. 15.
Herodotus (ii. 77.) says that Egypt produced no wine, and his testimony is confirmed by Plutarch, who says (De Iside et Osir. 6.) that before the time of Psammetichus no wine was drunk in Egypt nor offered to the gods. The mention of vines in Egypt in the book of Genesis (xl. 10.) shows that the assertion of Herodotus is to be taken with some limitation, but there can be no doubt that it was generally true. The level plains of Egypt are not suited to the cultivation of the vine—apertos Bacchus amat colles—and are besides overflowed precisely at that time when the vintage should ripen and be gathered. What wine therefore is grown in Egypt is beyond the inundations, in Fayoum, or on the border of the lake Mareotis; and perhaps Herodotus only meant to apply his remark to what he calls ἡ σπειρομένη Ἄιγυπτος, i. e. the country which was annually overflowed.
[Page 46].—Marshes around Pelusium.] This was the last town of Egypt on the side of Asia, and from its strength (for which reason it is called by Ezekiel, xxx. 15. Sin, the strength of Egypt) was the key of the whole country. The Greek name, Πηλούσιον, (Strabo, xvii. 802.) the Hebrew סין (Boch. Geogr. Sac. iv. 27.) the Arabic Thineh, and the Coptic Feromi, (Champollion, ii. 86.) all denote the marshy soil in which it stood.
[Page 47].—Order of the caravan.] The principal circumstances mentioned in the text are derived from Pitt’s account of the Mecca Caravan. See Harmer, i. 465.
[Page 49].—Gerrha.] According to the Tabula Peutingerana, distant eight miles from Pelusium. Cellarius Geogr. ii. Africa, p. 26. Josephus who (Bell. Jud. iv. 11.) describes the route of Titus from Pelusium to Gaza, makes his first day’s march to have been as far as the temple of the Casian Jupiter. But the speed of a Roman army and a caravan are very different. Philo, Vit. Mos. p. 627, represents Canaan as two days’ journey from Egypt.
[Page 50].—A round piece of leather.] This is still the common substitute for a table in travelling in these countries. Volney, Voyage en Syrie, ii. 244.
[Page 51].—The laws respecting clean and unclean animals are found in Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv. Michaelis, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, § 200 et seq. has shown that the foundation of the distinction was the practice already established by the usage of centuries among the Israelites, and in most points also among the kindred nations in their neighbourhood, of using certain animals for food to the exclusion of others. It has been doubted whether the hare ruminates or not; it was the opinion of ancient naturalists that it did not; Arist. Hist. Anim. iii. 16. ed. Schneid. Blumenbach, Comp. of Nat. Hist. Lepus, inclines to the opinion that both the hare and the rabbit ruminate. The poet Cowper, who had the best opportunities of observing, also pronounces the hare to ruminate; and Dr. Shaw confirms it from dissection of the animal. See Wellbeloved’s Notes on Lev. xi. 6.
[Page 53].—Moriah.] Josephus (Ant. vii. 10.) observes, that the threshing-floor of Araunah, where David determined to build his temple, was the place where Abraham was about to offer Isaac, 2 Chron. iii. 1.
[Page 60].—Use made by the philosophers of the Mosaic history.] See Huet. Dem. Evang. Prop. iv. Many of the statements on which he relies are very questionable; but they show what was the opinion of the Jews, from whom the Christian fathers also derived it.
[Page 67].—The Magi of Persia.] Kleuker, in his edition of the Zend-Avesta, Append. vol. ii. P. i. p. 39, observes, that the name of Abraham is well known to the Ghebers, from their intercourse with the Mahometans, but is unknown to the Parsees, the fire-worshippers of Guzerat. This correction must be applied to the accounts given by Prideaux, Conn. P. i. Book iv. An. 486, and others, (see Calmet’s Dict. Abraham) of the veneration in which Abraham is held by the followers of Zoroaster. There can be no doubt however, that the tradition of his power, wisdom, and virtue, has been handed down from the earliest times, among those nations which Scripture represents to have sprung from him. See D'Herbelot Bibl. Orient. i. 65.