lark, and a peculiar species of the crane. The fields are infested by myriads of crows, the flesh of which the Arabians eat, although it is forbidden both by the Jewish and the Mahometan Law. On the coasts of the Red Sea, the species of fowls that live on fish are numerous, where also are found the plover and the stork; in an island of the Red Sea are pelicans. But travellers have had few opportunities of examining the ornithology of Arabia. The ostrich, called by the Arabians the camel-bird, inhabits the Desert; and a beautiful lapwing is found on the shores of the Persian Gulf. The birds of prey are eagles, vultures, falcons, and sparrow-hawks. Of these, the vultures are of great service in cleansing the ground of dead carcases, and destroying the field-mice, which multiply prodigiously in some districts. There is a little bird, ranked among the thrush tribe, called by the Arabians samarman, to which they pay a respect almost approaching to adoration. It follows the locusts, which it destroys in incredible numbers. Cranes, herons, snipes, storks, and swans, are also found in the few marshy places of Arabia.

Reptiles are very numerous in Arabia. There are land-tortoises, eaten by the Eastern Christians during Lent, various species of the lizard tribe; and scorpions are numerous in the deserts, particularly on the borders of Palestine, which they have continued to infest since the Children of Israel" passed through that great and terrible wilderness." There are several sorts of serpents, whose bite is deadly, common in the Petræan Deserts. It was while traversing these wilds, "from Hor to the Red Sea, to compass the Land of Edom," that thousands of the Israelites were destroyed by venomous reptiles, called, sometimes inaccurately, fiery or flying serpents.

Arabia, like other hot countries, is scourged by insects, particularly the locusts. Every thing is destroyed by these unwelcome visitors, whose myriads darken the air, and appear at a distance like clouds of smoke. This peninsula is also

infested by small insects called ardae, each of which is about the size of a grain of barley. They travel only by night, and at the end of their journey destroy every thing-victuals, furniture, and clothes. They are destructive to trees, being fond of the leaves and fruit. There are other insects regarded with the greatest dread by the Arabians, particularly those which abound in the deserts.

Having dwelt so long on this singular peninsula, the scene of many events in Scripture History, and having glanced at its ancient inhabitants and its productions, this sketch ought to be closed by a view of the Arabians at the present time, as remarkably illustrating the truth of the inspired record; but their manners and customs having undergone scarcely any variation, except in the matter of religion, for more than four thousand years, little need be added to what has been already said respecting their ancient ancestors. The Arabs of antiquity, like the present, may be divided into two classes-those who resided in towns, and those who dwelt in tents. The former, as early as the days of the patriarch Jacob, carried on a considerable intercourse with other nations, while they also employed themselves in cultivating the land, and breeding cattle. The latter were the Scenite Arabians, or pastoral tribes, who dwelt in tents, of whom the modern Bedouins are the descendants, who live chiefly upon plunder, leading a wandering life, without any local habitation or settlement. The sacred writers distinctly inform us that the monarchical government prevailed among the ancient Arabians. We read of certain transactions which King Solomon, during his splendid reign, had with "merchantmen and kings of Arabia;" and in the Book of Jeremiah, the "kings of Arabia” are involved in a particular prophecy. The principal of these kings was called Tobba, a name which appears to have been as commonly applied to a peculiar race of princes, as Pharaoh was given to the ancient kings of Egypt, and Cæsar to the Roman Emperors. Each of the Arab

tribes or nations, however, had its own sovereign or chief, and a peculiar mode of succession or accession to the regal dignity. Among the Bedouins, the chiefs are termed sheiks, who are not the descendants of other sheiks, but who rise to this dignity by their superior abilities; and these sheiks elect and acknowledge a supreme sheik, who is termed Sheik of Sheiks, and must belong to a family in whom the honour is hereditary. Their government, their adjustment of differences among themselves, their modes of living, dress, and diet, their habits and customs, are all connected with pastoral life, and characteristic of a people whom no foreign nation has conquered, and whose opinions only have been subdued by religious superstition. The Arabs are not without their virtues, although these are far exceeded by the vices peculiar to barbarous and unsettled tribes; and they have always blended a very considerable degree of ferocity with their beneficence, hospitality, and politeness. Their princes or chiefs are kind to strangers, and, imitating the example of Abraham and Lot, will give them the best entertainment they can produce; at the same time they are rapacious, revengeful, and cruel, stealing from friend or foe, not only robbing and murdering those of other countries, but even their own associates and confederates. Some of the Arab tribes are as barbarous as American savages, or those of any other country; they frequently rob husbandmen of their seed-corn, and hence the sower, in their neighbourhood, must have some armed men to protect him while he is sowing his seed. They are dreadful scourges to the adjacent countries, robbing caravans, and always engaged in plundering expeditions. Among such a people it would be vain to expect the existence of literature and science, yet we find illustrious names in a wilderness of savage life almost as sterile as its burning deserts; and the Saracens are famed for their skill in various arts, particularly the mystic sciences of alchemy and astrology. Their present condition, however, may

VOL. I.

be summed up in a few words:-" The whole of their social and moral economy remarkably illustrates the truth of Holy Writ, that Ishmael shall be a wild man, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against him.' Enemies alike to industry and the arts, they dwell without bolts and bars,' the wandering denizens of the Wilderness. Religiously opposed to the luxuries and refinements of civilized life, these rude barbarians present the phenomenon of a people living in a state of nature unsubdued and unchanged, yet, in their acknowledgment of the true God, still preserving evidence of their lineage as the children of Abraham." See ASIA.

ARABAH, a city belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, Josh. xviii. 22.

ARABOTH, or ARUBOTH, a city or district belonging to the tribe of Judah, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the First Book of Kings, the situation of which is unknown.

ARAD, or AURED, wild ass; in Syriac, a dragon, the name of a place lying to the south of Judah and the Land of Canaan, in Arabia Petræa. The Israelites, in their march towards the Promised Land, were opposed by the king of Arad, who defeated them, and took

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some of them prisoners," Numb. xxi. 1; but they amply repaid this temporary defeat by subsequently destroying the country and all its towns, when they took possession of Palestine, Numb. xxxiii. Arad was afterwards rebuilt; according to Eusebius, it was twenty miles distant from Hebron. The Israelites, in their progress through the Arabian wilderness, having departed from Sepher, came to Arad, and thence to Makkelah. Arad, or Ared, still gives name to one of the districts in the Arabian province of Nedjed. There was another Arad, a town in an island of the same name on the coast of Phoenicia. The island Aradus, the Arpad of the Scriptures, and the seat of the Arvadites or Aradites, is at present called Rou-Wadde; and this island, and that of El-Hammal, the ancient Hamath, the seat of the

F

Hamathites, lying opposite to it (Ezek. xlvii. 29), ten leagues to the eastward, were the most northern settlements of the sons of Canaan. In the time of its pros. perity it was a place of great importance, but it is now deserted. See ARPAD.

ARAM, highness, magnificence; otherwise, one that deceives, or, their curse, a name used in various parts of Scripture to signify Syria. It was so called from Aram, the fifth son of Shem, by whose descendants, called Aramæans, Syria was peopled. ARAM was also the name of a town of Judea, belonging to the halftribe of Manasseh, on the other side of the Jordan.

ARAM-BETH-ROHOB, that part of Syria which lay north of Palestine, and was in the territory of the city of Rohob, belonging to the tribe of Asher.

ARAM-MAACHA, a district of Syria at the foot of Mount Hermon, on the borders of the half-tribe of Manasseh, and on the other side of the Jordan, called the coast of Maachathi.

ARARAT, said to mean the curse of trembling, but according to Dr Bryant in his "Ancient Mythology," a compound of AR-ARAT, the mountain of descent, and equivalent to the HAR-IRAD of the Hebrew, is the name of a celebrated mountain of Armenia in Asia, on which the Ark of Noah rested after the cessation of the waters of the Deluge. There has been considerable controversy as to the precise situation of the mountain called Ararat in the sacred record, and whether the mountain which is at present known by that name is the one actually mentioned by Moses as that on which the Ark rested. Some geographers have maintained that Ararat was one of the ridge of mountains which divides Armenia from Mesopotamia on the south, and that part of Assyria inhabited by the Curds, from whom the mountains took the name of Curdie or Curdu, so called by the Gordyæi. In order to support this theory, it is pretended by some ancient writers that the remains of the Ark built by Noah were to be seen there; and Epiphanus relates, that in his time

there were a few relics of that extraor dinary structure on Ararat. It has been also asserted that the Ark rested upon Mount Caucasus in Phrygia, but this and other opinions have been successfully refuted by Dr Wells. The Emperor Heraclius is said to have gone from the town of Thamamin, near the base of Mount Ararat, to see the spot where the Ark rested; and it is traditionally mentioned that near this town, which is supposed to have been built by Noah, there was a monastery, called the Monastery of the Ark, which was destroyed by lightning in the eighth century of the Christian era. St Jerome places Mount Ararat towards the middle of the Persian province of Armenia, near the river Araxes, or Aras, two hundred and eighty miles north-east of Al Judi, and twelve leagues south-east of Erivan. This geographi cal opinion is now generally admitted. Ararat is called Agri-Dagh by the Turks, the heavy or great mountain, and Mount Massis by the Armenians, from Amassa, one of the traditionary founders of their nation. It rises in the midst of an immense plain in the shape of a sugar-loaf, covered by eternal snows, with two distinct peaks, and is seen at the distance of one hundred and sixty or two hundred miles. Ararat is said to rise to the height of nine thousand five hundred feet above the level of the plain. A few travellers and some of the natives have attempted to scale this tremendous mountain; but the perpetual snow and the long continued cold has baffled every attempt. Yet two German travellers are alleged to have accomplished this great feat and reached the snowy summit, although there are great doubts as to the accuracy of the statement. The north-west side of Ararat is broken and abrupt, and opens halfway down into a fearful rocky chasm of great depth, peculiarly black and dismal; the whole of the mountain, in short, is described by travellers as having a most gloomy and appalling appearance. Mr Morier says, that the Persians told him "many stories of its wonders, such as, that no one who attempted to ascend it was

ever again seen; and that one hundred men who had been sent from Arzoum by the Pacha to effect the undertaking never returned. The Armenian priest assured me, with a very grave face, that the Ark is still there." It is also pretended that the Almighty will allow no one to ascend this mountain since Noah and his family descended from it, and that angels are stationed to resist the curiosity of those sinful mortals who may wish to visit a place so sacred as that on which the mighty Ark rested when the waters of the Deluge were abating, and Ararat first showed its lofty peak as a proof that the wrath of God had been expiated. These are some of the numerous traditions believed by the Armenian Christians, and the Persians, respecting this immense mountain, which rises cloudcapt, like a mighty giant beholding with indifference the other eminences in his sight.

The traveller Tournefort visited Ararat in the eighteenth century, and made a bold though unsuccessful attempt to scale its summits. "About two o'clock," he says, "we began to ascend Mount Ararat, but not without difficulty. We were forced to climb upon loose sand, where we saw nothing but some juniper and goats'thorn. The mountain, which lies south and south-east from Eimiadzim, or the Three Churches, is one of the most melancholy and disagreeable sights upon earth, for there are neither trees nor shrubs upon it, and no religious convents. The soil of the mountain is loose, and most of it covered with snow. From the top of the great abyss, as dreadful a hole as ever was seen, opposite to the village of Akuslu, whence we came, there continually fall down rocks of a blackish hard stone, which make a terrible resound. This, and the noise of the crows that are continually flying from one side to the other, has something in it very frightful; and to form any notion of the place, you must imagine one of the highest mountains in the world opening its bosom, only to show one of the most horrid spectacles that can be imagined.

No

living animals are to be seen but at the bottom and towards the middle of the mountain. The persons who occupy the lowest region are poor shepherds, and scabby flocks of sheep. The second region is possessed by crows and tigers. All the rest, that is, one half of it, has been covered with snow ever since the Ark rested upon it, and those snows are covered half the year with very thick clouds. We went to rest, and in the morning, after we had eaten and drank very plentifully, we began to travel towards the first ridge of rocks with a bottle of water, which we carried by turns. It is impossible to take one firm step upon the sand of Mount Ararat; in many places, instead of ascending, we were obliged to go back, and to wind sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left. To avoid these sands, we made our way to the great rocks which are heaped one upon another. We came into a very troublesome way, full of large stones, and were forced to leap from one stone to another, till we were heartily weary, and sat down and reposed. About noon we came to a place which afforded us more pleasure, but our joy did not last long. We ate some snow, and consented to advance no farther; and it cannot be imagined how much the eating of snow in such a region revived and invigorated us. We began, therefore, to descend the mountain with alacrity, and at six in the evening we were quite tired and spent. I leave it to be guessed what method Noah made use of to descend from this place, who might have rode upon so many sorts of animals; but as for us, we laid ourselves upon our backs, and slid down an hour together, and thus passed on more agreeably and safely than we could have gone upon our legs. By degrees we got down to the monastery, but so disordered and fatigued, that we were not able to move hand or foot."

Mr Morier, who made his "Second Journey" through Persia, Armenia, and Asia-Minor, between the years 1810 and 1816, thus describes this stupendous mountain, so celebrated in sacred history:-"As we crossed the plain from

Abasabad to Nakhjuwan, we had a most splendid view of Mount Ararat. Nothing can be more beautiful than its shape, more awful than its height. All the surrounding mountains sink into insignificance when compared to it. It is perfect in all its parts, no hard rugged features, no unnatural prominences; every thing is in harmony, and all combine to render it one of the sublimest objects in nature. Spreading from its immense base, the slope towards its summit appears easy and gradual, until it reaches the region of snows, when it becomes more abrupt. As a foil to this stupendous work, a smaller hill rises from the same base near the original mass, similar to it in shape and proportions, and, in any other situation, entitled of itself to rank amongst the highest mountains. No one since the Flood seems to have been on its summit, for the rapid ascent of its snowy top would appear to render such an attempt impossible. Of this we may be certain, that no man in modern times has ascended it; for, when such an adventurer and persevering traveller as Tournefort failed, it is not likely that any of the timid superstitious inhabitants of the country should have succeeded. We were informed that people have reached the small Ararat, or, as it is called here, Cuchuk Agridagh; but as all the accounts which they brought back were a mere tale (like that told of Savalan) about a frozen man and a cold fountain, we must be permitted to disbelieve every report on the subject which we have hitherto heard from the natives. During the long time that we were in the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat, although we made frequent plans for attempting to ascend it, we were always impeded by some cause or other. We were encamped before it at the best season for such an undertaking, namely, during the month of August, and saw it at the time it has the least snow upon it. The impossibility of reaching its extreme summit, even on the side where it is apparently most easy of access, was decided (so we were

very

assured) some years ago by the Pacha of Bayazid. He departed from that city with a large company of horsemen, at the most favourable season, and ascended the mountain on the Bayazid side as high as he could on horseback. He caused three stations to be marked on the ascent, where he built huts, and collected provisions. The third station was near the snow, He had no difficulty in crossing the snow, but when he came to the great cap of ice that covers the top of the cone, he could proceed no farther, and several of his men were there seized with violent oppressions of the chest from the great rarefaction of the air. He had previously offered large rewards to any one who should reach the top, but although many Curds, who live at its base, have attempted it, they have all been equally unsuccessful. Besides the great rarefaction of the air, his men had to contend with dangers of the falling ice, large pieces of which were constantly detaching themselves from the main body, and rolling down. During the summer the caps of ice on its summit are seen to shine with a glow quite distinct from snow; and, if the old inhabitants may be believed, this great congealed mass has visibly increased since they first knew it. One of the great features of this mountain is the immense chasm that extends nearly half-way down it, and is very visible from Erivan, and all its surrounding territory. A large mound of earth, apparently foreign to the original and natural conformation of the mountain, is to be seen in the vicinity of the chasm, in the deepest recess of which is a mass of ice, whose dimensions, according to the natives, may be compared to those of an immense house or tower. It has evidently fallen from a cliff discernible at a great distance, which impends very considerably over the chasm. The Armenians, who watch the progress of the accumulating ice on this cliff, expect that another mass of equal dimensions to the former will shortly separate itself from the mountain, and be precipitated into the abyss. Experience has taught