fish threw itself out of the sea in pursuit of another, a voracious fish may possibly have thrown itself out of the water, darting at a naked man that stood on the margin of the river. Fish certainly frequently devour men that they find in the water, not only when they find them dead, but when they happen on them alive. But as the book of Tobit lays the scene of this very unusual event on the shore of the Tigris, it may not be improper to subjoin a quotation from Thevenot.'

It relates to his voyage down the Tigris, the river that is mentioned in Tobit. 65 This evening, about nine o'clock, one of the men in our keleck, with a hook took a great fish; it was about five feet long, and though it was as big as a man, yet he told me it was a young one, and that commonly they are much bigger. The head of it was above a foot long; the eyes four inches above the jaws, round, and as big as a brass farthing; the mouth of it was round, and being opened, as wide as the mouth of a cannon, so that my head could easily have gone into it; about the mouth, on the outside, it had four white long beards of flesh, as big as one's little finger: it was all over covered scales like to those of a carp; it lived long out of the water, died when they opened the belly to skin it, and was a female: the flesh of it was white, tasted much like a tunny, and was as soft and loose as flax."

It is in part 2, book 1, ch. 13, p. 59.

A particular sort of vessel used on that river.

There are then very large fish in the Tigris. But if any of my readers, after all, should be disposed to consider this adventure of Tobit as apocryphal, he will not, I imagine, be guilty of a mortal sin in so doing.

Our translation, however, it is but justice to remark, has improperly given the English reader to understand, that Tobit and his companion, without the help of any others to assist them, eat up this whole great fish, ver. 5: And when they had roasted the fish, they did eat it. The Greek original only says, And having roasted the fish, they eat eat what they thought fit of it.

OBSERVATION XXXVII.

The Luxury of the Harams, very oppressive to the People of the East.

PEOPLE of power in the East are wont to be mostly very oppressive, and the expensiveness of their harams, or, in other words, of their wives, appears to be one of the causes of their great oppressions; which seems to be exactly what the Prophet Amos had in view, in the beginning of his fourth chapter, where he compares the ladies of Israel to fatted kine.

As commentators of former times seem, to me, to have most unhappily jumbled and confounded things together, in their explanation of this prophetic passage, (at least those that

I have consulted,) it may not be improper to collect together some observations upon it.

It is not at all uncommon for the Prophets, to compare the great men of their own nation to males of this kind of animal, Ps. xxii. 12, Deut. xxxiii. 17, as well as those of other nations, Ps. lxviii. 30, Is. xxxiv. 7. Here Amos uses a word that denotes the females of that species, which, in course, should signify the women of distinction in Israel.

Their masters that were required to bring fattening food and drink, points out, under the image of what was done to kine that were fatting, those supplies, with respect to food, which the luxurious ladies of that country would, it was to be expected, require of their lords. Nor is it to be imagined, that they would not equally demand splendid clothing, and expensive ornaments.

That, in consequence, occasioned the oppressing the poor and crushing the needy. So le Bruyn describes the women of the Levant,

66

as having such a passion for dress, that they never think themselves richly enough attired, without any attention to their rank, or any consideration whether their circumstances will admit of it.' Chardin's account of the Persian ladies is just the same. of the Persians is in their

pence of which is immense,

The great luxury seraglios, the exowing to the num

Tome 1, p. 450. This follows the account of the ex. treme avidity of the men, so as to stick at nothing to procure money.

ber of women they keep there, and the profusion their love to them causes. Rich new habits are continually procured for them, perfumes are consumed there in abundance, and the women, being brought up and supported in the most refined voluptuousness, use every artifice to procure for themselves whatever pleases them, without concerning themselves about what they cost." Such expensiveness occasions great oppression now, and, it seems, did so among the Isralites in the days of Amos.

Out of these fatting-stalls they were to be driven by the hand of an enemy, for breaches are supposed to be made in the buildings in which they were kept, through which they were to be driven, every one out of her stall through such a breach prophetically marking out, by a continuation of the same image, the making breaches in the cities of their habitation, and forcing them out of those places of their luxury.

The 2d verse need not be so understood as to vary the image, and from comparing them to fatted kine in one verse, in the next to represent them as fishes taken away by hooks. The word tsinnoth, in the original, signifies thorns, consequently any straight sharp-pointed thing, as well as one bent, or a hook. And when it is remembered that animals of this kind, as well as asses, are driven along by a sharp-pointed stick, or some such kind of instrument, this 2d verse is decyphered, and Tome 2, p. 55.

brought to be of an homogeneous nature with the preceding and following verse.

That this is the custom in those countries, we learn from Maundrell." Franks are obliged either to walk on foot, or else to ride upon asses. When you are mounted, the master of the ass follows his beast to the place whither you are disposed to go; goading him up behind with a sharp-pointed stick, which makes him dispatch his stage with great expedition." Oxen are driven there, according to him, after the same manner. "The countrypeople were now every where at plough in the fields, in order to sow cotton. It was observable, that in ploughing, they used goads of an extraordinary size. Upon measuring of se veral, I found them about eight foot long, and at the bigger end six inches in circumference. They were armed at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen, and at the other end with a small spade, or paddle of iron, strong and massy, for cleansing the plough from the clay that encumbers it in working.' If oxen then, and females of that species, are wont to be driven along by goads, it cannot be wondered at that the Prophet should represent the carrying away into captivity of the Israelitish ladies, (considered under the image of kine,) by the driving them along by goads: He shall take you away with sharp-pointed instruments, for that seems to be the precise meaning of the word; not hooks, nor even

P. 130, edit. 5.

2 P. 110, 111.