its local traditions connected with sacred history. On the mountain Orontes or Elwund, the body of a son of King Solomon is pretended to be buried, but what son is not mentioned. It is a large square platform a little raised, formed by manual labour out of the native rock, which is ascended by a few rugged steps, and is assuredly no covering of the dead. It is a very ancient piece of workmanship, but how it came to be connected with a son of the Judean monarch cannot be ascertained. The Jewish natives of Hamadan are credulous as to the reputed story, and it is not unlikely that it was originally a mountain altar to the sun, illustrating what we often read in Scripture respecting the idolatrous sacrificial worship in "high places." The natives believe that certain ravines of the mountain produce a plant which can transform all kinds of metal into gold, and also cure every possible disease. They admit that no one has ever found it, but their belief in its existence is nevertheless unshaken. They also have a fabulous legend respecting a stone on the side of this mountain, which reminds the English reader of the celebrated story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves in the "Thousand and One Nights." This stone contains an inscription in cabalistic characters, unintelligible to every one who has hitherto looked on it; but if any person could read the characters aloud, an effect would be produced which will shake the mountain to its centre, it being the protecting spell of an immense bidden treasure, and, these charac• ters once pronounced, would procure instant ingress from the genii of this subterranean cavern, and the wealth laid at the feet of the fortunate invoker of this golden sesame!

The most interesting local tradition at Hamadan is that which alleges it to be the burying-place of Esther and Mordecai, the tomb of whom is still shown-a circumstance of itself sufficient to attest the antiquity of the place. Its dome roof rises over the habitations of the poor remnant of Israel who still linger in the land of their captivity, living memorials

of the truth of the inspired record. This tomb is regarded by all the Jews of Persia as a place of peculiar sanctity, and pilgrimages are still made to it at certain seasons of the year, in the same spirit of devout penitence with which in former times they turned their eyes towards Jerusalem. "The sepulchre," says Sir John Malcolm, "is not splendid, but we must recollect it was not likely that either Ahasuerus or his successors would build a mausoleum, as such mode of interment was contrary to the religion they professed, but their permitting the Jews to build a tomb in the most public place of Ecbatana implies an extraordinary respect for those to perpetuate whose memory such an edifice was erected." The original structure was destroyed, it is said, at the sacking of Ecbatana by Timour, and after that disastrous event the present unobtrusive building was erected on the ancient spot, at the expense of several devout Jews; and about the end of the seventeenth century it was fully repaired by a rabbi of the name of Ismael. It is a small square building of brick, having the appearance of a mosque, and a dome rather elongated on the top. It is described as being again in a frail state, and requiring another repair. The door of the tomb is very small, and consists of a single stone of great thickness, turning on its own pivot from one side. On passing through the little portal, the visiter is introduced into a small arched chamber, in which are seen the graves of several rabbis, some of which may contain the bodies of the first rebuilders of the tomb after the destruction of the original one by Timour. A second door, of very confined dimensions, is at the end of this vestibule, by which the entrance is made into a large apartment on hands and knees, and under the concave stand two sarcophagi, made of very dark wood, curiously and richly carved, with a line of Hebrew inscription running round the upper ledge of each. Other inscriptions in the same language are cut on the walls, while one of the oldest antiquity, engraved on a white marble slab, is let into

the wall itself This slab is traditionally alleged to have been preserved from the ruins of the edifice destroyed by Timour, with the sarcophagi in the same consecrated spot.

Sir R.K. Porter was fortunate to procure translations of these venerable and ancient inscriptions. The first of these is a Hebrew one, on the marble slab in the Sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai, which is as follows:-" Mordecai, beloved and honoured by a king, was great and good. His garments were as those of a sovereign. Ahasuerus covered him with this rich dress, and also placed a golden chain around his neck. The city of Susa (or Shushan) rejoiced at his honours, and his high fortune became the glory of the Jews."

The

This entirely agrees with the early custom, common with the Persian monarchs, of investing their ministers and favourites with splendid robes, golden chains, and other ornaments a custom which is still observed in Persia when marks of favour or distinction are conferred; and as Xenophon informs us that death would be the punishment of any noble, however illustrious, who dared to assume to himself the royal mixture of purple and white, we may easily infer the peculiar honour bestowed on Mordecai. inscription on the marble slab is corroborated by the account in the Book of Esther. "And Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple, and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad," Esther viii. 15. Again, it is said, "Mordecai the Jew was next unto King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed" (x. 3).

The inscription which encompasses the sarcophagus of Mordecai is to the following effect:

"It is said by David, Preserve me, O God! I am now in thy presence. I have cried at the gate of Heaven that thou art

my God, and what goodness I have received from thee, O Lord!

"Those whose bodies are now beneath in this earth, when animated by thy mercy, were great; and whatever happiness was bestowed upon them in this world came from thee, O God!

"Their griefs and sufferings were many at the first, but they became happy; became happy, because they always called upon thy name in their miseries. Thou liftedst me up, and I became powerful. Thine enemies sought to destroy me in the early times of my life; but the shadow of thy hand was upon me, and covered me as a tent from their wicked purposes !-MORDECAI."

The following is the inscription carved round the sarcophagus of Esther the queen, one of Israel's fairest daughters, whose perfect beauty was even excelled by her virtue, modesty, and humility:

"I praise thee, O God, that thou hast created me! I know that my sins merit punishment, yet I hope for mercy at thy hands; for whenever I call upon thee, thou art with me; thy holy presence secures me from all evil.

My heart is at ease, and my fear of thee increases. My life became, through thy goodness, at the last full of peace.

"O God! do not shut my soul out from thy Divine Presence! Those whom thou lovest never feel the torments of hell. Lead me, O merciful Father, to the life of life, that I may be filled with the heavenly fruits of Paradise!ESTHer.”

In the fifteenth chapter of the Apocryphal Book of Esther there is an interesting confirmation of these pious sentiments. The key of the tomb is always in the possession of the head of the Jews resident at Hamadan, "and doubtless," says Sir R. K. Porter, "has been so preserved from the time of the holy pair's interment, when the grateful sons of the Captivity, whose lives they had rescued from a universal massacre, first erected a monument over the remains of their benefactors, and obeyed the ordinance of gratitude in making the anniversary of

their preservation a lasting memorial of Heaven's mercy, and the just faith of Esther and Mordecai."

In the same Apocryphal Book of Esther (x 12, 13), we read concerning the conspiracy of Haman, and the preservation of the Jews, "So God remembered his people, and justified his inheritance. Therefore those days shall be unto them in the month Adar, the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the same month, with an assembly, and joy, and with gladness before God, according to the generation for ever among his people." It is remarkable that this annual assembling or pilgrimage to the ancient city of Esther and Mordecai is still kept up: it has existed from the time of the memorable event; and it has been well observed, that such a memorial becomes an evidence to the fact, more convincing perhaps than even written testimony-it is a kind of eyewitness.

During eight months of the year the climate of Ecbatana is delightful, the air being rendered agreeable by a light breeze blowing continually during the hot months from the north-west. In winter, however, the cold is excessive, and fuel is procured with difficulty. The plain is intersected by innumerable little streams, covered with gardens and villages, and the vegetation is most luxuriant. Ecbatana is in lat. 34° 53', and long. 40°

east.

ED, witness, the name of an altar so called by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, after the contention which arose between those tribes (including the half-tribe of Manasseh) and the other tribes of the Israelites had been arranged, Josh. xxii. 34.

abode of the first human pair. The term Paradise is of Persian origin, and was adopted by the Greeks, literally denoting an inclosure or park for animals and fruittrees; and it was applied to the terrestrial paradise, the emblem of the church on earth, and of the celestial or future state of the church triumphant in heaven. This Paradise or Garden has been sought for in many parts of the world. Some place it in Judea, in the district where is now the Lake of Gennesareth or Sea of Galilee; others in Syria, towards the springs of the Orontes and Chrysorrhoas, or Barrady; others allege that its site was that of the city of Damascus ; and others, in Armenia, near Ararat, where Noah's Ark was left, and where they discover thesources of the four rivers which watered the Garden of Eden, namely, Euphrates, Hiddekel, now the Tigris, Gihon, now Araxes, and Pison, now Phazzo;" but Chardin positively asserts that the Phazzo rises in the mountains of Caucasus, far from Mount Ararat; and we have no signs of the countries of Havilah and Ethiopia in Armenia, which those rivers are said to have washed after they had flowed from Eden. An Indian tradition places Paradise in the island of Ceylon, the Traprobana of the ancient geographers. Some writers allege that it was under the North Pole, arguing upon an ancient idea of the Babylonians and Egyptians, that the ecliptic or solar way was at first at right angles to the equator, and so passed directly over to the North Pole. Others are against limiting it to any particular place, and contend that it included the whole surface of the earth, which was then one continued scene of pleasure, delight, and fertility, until

EDEN, GARDEN OF, pleasure or delight, or PARADISE, as it is termed in the Septuagint, the name of a particular garden in the country of Eden, so called from its fertility and beauty, eastward of Judea and the Desert of the Amorites, which Jehovah himself is said to have "planted," and set apart as the original

subject, in short, has caused such a variety of opinions as the site of the precise locality in which the progenitors of mankind were placed. The Mahometans believe that Paradise was in one of the seven heavens, from which Adam was cast down upon the earth after the Fall. The Arabians boasted of a town in the centre of Arabia Felix, which received

the name of Aden on account of the beauty of its situation, and hence they believed that Paradise was placed in that part of Arabia. "Some," says Dr Clarke, "place it in the third heaven, others in the fourth; some within the orbit of the moon, others in the moon itself; some in the middle regions of the air, or beyond the earth's attraction; some on the earth, others under the earth, and others within the earth." Every section of the globe has also in its turn had its claim to this distinction advocated. The Garden of Eden, of which numerous traditions existed, doubtless originated those curious and magnificent gardens made by the princes of the East, such as that Golden Garden, valued at five hundred talents, which Aristobulus, king of the Jews, presented to Pompey, and which the latter afterwards carried in triumph, and consecrated to Jupiter in the Capitol. Hence, also, the origin of those gardens consecrated to Adonis, which the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks, planted in earthen vessels and silver baskets, for the purpose of adorning their houses, and which they carried about in public processions; and hence the fabled Gardens of the Hesperides, of Jupiter, of Alcinous, of the Fortunate Islands, the Meadows of Pluto, and the Elysian Fields, in which, according to the mythology of the ancients, the souls of the virtuous were placed after death, and where happiness was complete, and pleasures were innocent and unrefined; bowers ever green, delightful meadows with pleasant streams, were the most striking objects; the air pleasant, serene, and temperate, the birds continually warbling in the groves, and the inhabitants blessed with another sun and other

stars.

The account of Eden given by the Jewish historian is to this effect:-" The Garden was watered by one river, which ran round about the whole earth, and was divided into four parts:-Pison, which denotes a multitude, running into Judea, makes its exit into the sea, and is by the Greeks called Ganges. Euphrates, also,

as well as Tigris, goes down into the Red Sea. Now, the name Euphrates or Phrath denotes either a dispersion or a flower; by Tigris or Diglathis is signified what is swift with narrowness; and Geon runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises from the east, which the Greeks call Nile." It is to be observed, that when Josephus talks of the Euphrates and Tigris "going down into the Red Sea," he does not mean the Arabian Gulf, which is now exclusively known by that name, but all the South Sea, which inIcluded the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf as far as the East Indies, and was known by the general name of the Red Sea among the old geographers. Respecting the preceding extraordinary specimen of the Jewish historian's geographical knowledge, Mr Whiston, his translator, thus remarks: "Whence this strange notion came, which yet is not peculiar to Josephus, but is derived from older authors, as if four of the greatest rivers in the world, two of them running at vast distances from the other two, by some means watered Paradise, is hard to say. Only, since Josephus has already appeared to allegorize this history, and takes notice that the four names had a particular signification, we perhaps mistake him when we suppose he literally means those four rivers, especially as to Geon or Nile, which arises from the east, while he very well knew the literal Nile arises from the south, though what farther allegorical sense he had in view is now, I fear, almost impossible to determine."

In the seventh volume of the "Gentleman's Magazine" there is a curious though fanciful engraving of the Garden of Eden, representing it as planted on a peninsula, lying on the east bank of the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris, and formed by those united rivers before they again divided, and ran down both sides of the Persian Gulf. According to this hypothesis, the Hiddekel, or the Tigris, united with the Euphrates, which is called in this plate the Perath, at the entrance on the north-east side of the

Garden, and, sweeping round the peninsula, leaving only a narrow neck of land by which it was connected with the country towards the east, again divided into two branches at the opposite or south side of the entrance to the Garden; the one called Pison by Moses, running southeast, and the other called Gihon, running nearly direct south. The interior of the Garden is further represented as thickly planted with trees and groves, having a canal intersecting it, north and south from the united streams, and in the exact centre of it was planted the "tree of knowledge of good and evil," surrounded by a small basin called the "fountain of life," from which a canal intersected the Garden direct west, communicating with the united streams of the Tigris. On the narrow neck of land to the east are stationed the cherubim, which, Moses informs us, were after the expulsion of our progenitors "placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, to keep the way of the tree of life." In the back ground is placed an altar, and a number of persons offering sacrifice without the Garden, the family and posterity of Adam. It is farther said, that notwithstanding the expulsion of our first parents, the Garden of Eden was a place sacred to God until the Flood, when it was destroyed; and that it was also the type of the Jewish Tabernacle and Temple dedicated to the worship and service of God, and made according to the pattern shown to Moses on Mount Sinai, Exod. xxv. 9, and to David by the Spirit, 1 Chron. xxviii. 12; first, because there was the same entrance into both, from the east, the way of the tree of life being on the east side of Eden, Gen. iii. 24, and the great door of the Tabernacle and Temple fronted the east, Exod. xxvi.; 1 Kings vi.; Ezek. viii. Secondly, there was the same cherubim in both, Gen. iii. 24; Exod. xxv. 18, 19, 20, &c. Thirdly, the same most holy place was towards the west, in the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and in the Temple of Jerusalem, and consequently those two latter were made in imitation of the former; and as they were places expressly set

apart for divine worship, the other must have been so before them. And, fourthly, there was the same manner of adoration performed in them all; for as Adam after the Fall was obliged to worship without the most holy place before the cherubim who protected the entrance into the Garden, and consequently towards the west, so did the Israelites in the great courts of the Tabernacle and the Temple, by which the Church was taught that there was no other way to regain eternal happiness but by a return to that God whose commands the first man had disobeyed. In a word, this manner of worship (without, towards the west) was in use in the Church from the Fall of man until the death of Christ, when Paradise was regained, Death overcome, the Deceiver vanquished, the kingdom of God begun, and life and immortality brought to light by the gospel.

It is extremely probable, in confirmation of these speculations, that the pious men of the family of Seth of the Antediluvian times dwelt in the immediate vicinity of Eden, which would be preserved until the era of the Flood, for we do not read that God destroyed the Garden after the Fall. He merely placed at the east end of the Garden a "flaming sword, which turned every way," to deter men from thinking of regaining their lost happiness by virtue of the first covenant which Adam had broken. This cir cumstance may afford us a glimpse of the religious worship of the Antediluvians after the expulsion from Eden. It is cer tain that the posterity of Seth, called pre-eminently the "sons of God," preserved their allegiance to Him, while the descendants of Cain, called the "sons of men," became idolaters; and it was the intermarrying of the "sons of God" with the daughters of the "sons of men," which produced the almost universal wickedness of the old world, so signally punished by the Flood. It is probable that when the burnt-offerings of the Antediluvians were brought before the cherubim at the entrance of the Garden, if they were con sumed by the burning sword, it was a