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upon the loins by a girdle, which goes three or four times round them. "This dress is fastened higher up two ways: the one, which is not much used, is to draw up the vest above the girdle, just as the monks do when they travel on foot; the other, which is the common way, is to tuck up the fore-parts of the vest into the girdle, and so fasten them.. All persons in the East that journey on foot always gather up their vest, by which they walk more commodiously, having the leg and knee unburthened and unembarrassed by the vest, which they are not when that hangs over them." And after this manner he supposes the Israelites were prepared for their going out of Egypt, when they eat the first passover, Exod. xii. 11.

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He takes notice, in the same passage, of the singularity of their having shoes on their feet at that repast. They in common, he observes, put off their shoes when they eat, for which he assigns two reasons: the one, that, as they do not use tables and chairs in the East, as in Europe, but cover their floors with carpets, they might not soil those beautiful pieces of furniture; the other, because it would be troublesome to keep their shoes upon their feet, they sitting cross-legged on the floor, and having no hinder quarters to their shoes, which are made like slippers.

He takes no notice in this note, of their having to eat this passover with a staff in their hand; but he elsewhere observes, that the

Eastern people very universally make use of a staff when they journey on foot; and this passage plainly supposes it.

OBSERVATION XV.

Of their Roads, Inclosures, &c.

THERE are roads in these countries, but it is very easy to turn out of them, and go to a place by winding about over the lands, when that is thought safer.

Dr. Shaw takes notice of this circumstance in Barbary, where, he says, they found no hedges, or mounds, or inclosures, to retard or molest them. To this Deborah doubtless refers, though the Doctor does not apply this eircumstance to that passage, when she says, In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways, or crooked ways according to the margin, Judges v. 6.

The account Bishop Pococke gives of the manner in which that Arab, under whose care he had put himself, conducted him to Jerusalem, illustrates this with great liveliness, which his Lordship tells us was by night, and not by the high-road, but through the fields; "and I observed," says he, "that he avoided as much as he could going near any village or

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encampment, and sometimes stood still, as I thought, to hearken." And just in that manner people were obliged to travel in Judea, in the days of Shamgar and Jael.

We are not however to imagine there are no inclosures at all; they have mounds of earthwalls, or living fences, about their gardens. So Rauwolff tells us, about Tripoly there are abundance of vineyards, and gardens, inclosed for the most part with hedges, between which gardens run several roads, and pleasant shady walks these hedges, he says, chiefly consist of the rhamnus, paliurus, oxyacantha, phillyrea, lycium, balaustium, rubus, and dwarf palm-trees. The gardens about Jerusalem he describes as surrounded by mud-walls, not above four feet high, easily climbed over, and washed down by rain in a very little time. So, agreeably to the first, we read of persons being sharper than a thorn-hedge, Mich. vii. 4; and answerable to the second, of breaking a hedge, or wall of earth rather, it being a different word from the other, and being bitten by a serpent, Eccl. x. 8.

Rauwolff's enumeration of the shrubs that are used in the East for fencing, shows that not only are vegetables armed with spines employed there for that use, but others also. This is confirmed by Hasselquist, who tells us, that he saw the plantain-tree, vine, the peach, and the mulberry-tree, all four made use of in Egypt to hedge about a garden, in (P. 21, 22. P. 236.

P. 111.

which sugar-canes and different sorts of cucumbers were planted: now these are all unarmed plants. This consideration throws a great energy into the words of Solomon, Prov. xv. 19, The way of a slothful man is a hedge of thorns, it appears as difficult to him, not only as breaking through a hedge, but even through a thorn-fence; and into that threatening of GOD to Israel, Behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, Hos. ii. 6.

As however their plantations of various esculent vegetables are not, unfrequently, now uninclosed in those countries, so Sir John Chardin seems to suppose, in his MS. it was so there anciently, and that on this account it was those lodges and booths were made, which Isaiah refers to in the eighth verse of his first chapter. The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. He describes these lodges as places defended from the sun by sods, straw, and leaves, made for the watching the.fruits of those places, such as cucumbers, melons, grapes, &c. when they begin to ripen; under which they also sell the produce of such gardens. After which he remarks, that the Armenian version translates those words of the 80th Psalm, They have made Jerusalem desolate, by this expression, they have made it like the lodges of those that watch fruit.*

iLocus cespitibus, stramentis, et frondibus, a radiis solis munitus, pro custodiendis fructibus. Comme concombres, melons, raisins, et autres ne sont en jardins, ni en lieux enfermés, &c. desquels commencent a meurir,

As it was so easy to get over some of their fences, such watch-houses might be very requisite in such gardens as had hedges, but they must have been more necessary still in those that were perfectly open. Several travellers

have taken notice of such improved spots of ground, which they have met with from time to time; and cucumbers have been expressly mentioned, as one thing they have cultivated in such places, as the Prophet here particularizes that species of vegetables, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.

As grapes also, according to Sir John Chardin are found among other things in such cultivated spots, and must be doubly delightful to those that travel in a desolate kind of country, there is reason to believe there is a reference to such plantations in Hos. ix. 10, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness: not I found Israel when they were in the wilderness, pleasant to me as grapes; but as grapes found in some cultivated place in a wilderness are pleasant to a traveller through such deserts, so has Israel been to me.

Sir John Chardin mentions these open plantations of esculent vegetables in another note, on Jer. iv. 17, which place is highly illustrated

on y batit des telles logettes, pour les garder, et aussi pour vendre les fruits et les legumes dessous. Figure tres naïve. In Psalm 1xxx. feceruntuque Jerusalem desolatam, Armeniaca Biblia habent, tuguria custodientium fructus.

Dr. Russell observes, that these lodges are found even where the garden is surrounded with a wall. EDIT.

Thevenot, part 2d. p. 41. Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. iii. p. 489.

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