nicate frequently with each other; or the wish to appropriate the opposite land for pasturage or culture, or to hunt the wild animals by which it was frequented-must soon have suggested a method of passing to the other side, less inconvenient and dangerous than that of swimming. The buoyant property of wood must early have been observed, and was probably first essayed upon the drifted trunk of some uprooted tree. Many such trunks or beams of wood, drifted together and stopping each other, so as to form a tolerably compact mass, would suggest the idea that, by binding them firmly together, a platform might be constructed, on which a considerable number of persons or weight of property might be conveyed across a river or floated down its stream.

It is evident that a raft could only be thought of in a wooded district, or where large wood came floating down the rivers. In places where wood is scarce, there can be no rafts of timber; but where it is in sufficient quantity, the evidence in favour of the priority of rafts seems to us indisputable. Ancient writers attest the very extensive use of such a conveyance; and, what is of most importance, we find it in use on both the eastern and western frontiers of David's dominions; that is, on the Euphrates, on the one hand, and among his western friends the Phoenicians, on the other. Rafts were also in general use, for local purposes at least, throughout the eastern part of the Miditerranean, from Sicily to the coast of Asia. It is also interesting to observe, that when Ulysses devised means for leaving the island of Calypso, it was a raft that he constructed; and a very complete one it was, though finished in four days. The description is one of the most interesting things of the kind we have. It describes not only the materials, the form, and the several parts, but the tools with which it was formed, and even the process of construction. Calypso, having agreed to the departure of the chief from her island,

"She gave him, fitted to his grasp, an axe
Of iron, pond'rous, double edged, with haft
Of olive-wood, inserted firm, and wrought
With curious art. Then placing in his hand
A polish'd adze, she led, herself, the way
To her isle's utmost verge, where loftiest stood
The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir,
Though sapless, sound, and fittest for his use,
As buoyant most.....Then slept not he,
But, swinging with both hands the axe, his task
Soon finish'd; trees full twenty to the ground
He cast, which dext'rous with his adze he smooth'd,
The knotted surface chipping by a line.
Meantime the lovely goddess to his aid

Sharp augers brought, with which he bored the beams,
Then placed them side by side, adapting each

To other, and the seams with wadding closed.
Broad as an artist, skilled in naval works,
The bottom of a ship of burden spreads,
Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assign'd.
He deck'd her over with long planks, upborne
On massy beams; he made the mast,

To which he added suitable the yard;—he framed
Rudder and helm, to regulate her course;
With wicker-work he border'd all her length
For safety, and much ballast stowed within.
Meantime Calypso brought him for a sail
Fittest material, which he also shaped;
And to his sail due furniture annex'd,
Of cordage strong, foot ropes, and ropes aloft;
Then heaved her down with levers to the deep ;-
He finish'd all his work on the fourth day."
Odyss. v.-Cowper.

This raft would have been very convenient for crossing and descending rivers; and, in fact, we have seen "flying bridges" in England, much on the same general principle, for the hull, which this exhibits. The mast, the sail, the helm, the deck, and the wicker fence, were improvements on the original raft, which was merely a float. The various and progressive ancient forms of the raft or float are still seen in different countries, from the catamaran-without sail or rudder, carrying one man, who sits with his legs in the water-to that of a large raft of sixty or seventy tons burthen, fitted with a rudder, mast, and sail, like the famous vessel of Ulysses.

Whether boats, properly so called, were earlier or later than rafts, it is of no consequence to inquire. Rafts may have originated first, where only trees of moderate or small size were found drifting on the water; and canoes may have had the priority, where very large trunks were thus found. The first boat was evidently a canoe-the trunk of a large tree hollowed by fire-such as are still in use among the South-Sea islanders. Accident may have revealed this kind of boat; and, according to Sanchoniathon, that revelation was made on the Phoenician coast. With the claims of his curious fragment to attention, we have nothing to do; but the account which he gives of the origin of navigation is interesting, and, on account of the locality, illustrative. It says, that in the fifth generation from the first man and woman, an impetuous wind having kindled a forest hard by Tyre, Usous took a tree, cut off its branches, and having launched it into the sea, made use of it for a boat. This may either apply to a mere log, felled by a fire, or to a cance excavated by fire; but we think the latter, as there seems an evident allusion to the practice. We have ourselves seen large trees in the East, so burnt hollow on one side by lightning, or by accidental fires, that a little lopping, or further application of fire, would have made them very tolerable canoes. Other and more perfect modes of excavation were found when tools of sufficient hardness were invented ; and, ultimately, where timber was too scarce to render convenient the waste which this process involved-and still more where trees of suitable size could not readily be obtained— the happy plan was devised of obtaining a similar form by a construction of small parts, instead of by the wasteful excavation of a whole tree. Of this invention we find the earliest indications among the Egyptians. Their boats have generally that long, narrow form, which manifests the derivation from an excavated tree; and which, with some variation, we equally find still in the wherries of the Bosphorus and of the Thames. In looking at some of the Egyptian boats, we might suppose them to be single trees excavated, were they not mentioned by Herodotus as being formed of pieces of wood, two cubits long, joined together "in brick fashion," and afterwards planked over, the chinks being stopped with byblus (see 'Egyptian Antiquities,' vol. ii. p. 90-93). Such boats were for conveying merchandise upon

the river.

But how did they manage whose rivers and countries afforded no wood adapted either for rafts, canoes, or other vessels of wood? To determine this, we must see what they actually did, and still do, on the Tigris and Euphrates; where processes were employed which the Hebrew captives must often have noticed when they sat and wept "by the waters of Babylon," and hung their harps upon its willows, refusing to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land; and where vessels occur in which they must often have crossed over and passed along those renowned streams.

It would seem as if the floating of a bowl in the water, and the accidental fall of an inflated skin-bottle into the river, suggested the first idea of the water-conveyances there in use. With reference to the last idea, perhaps a man having fallen into the river with such a skin, saved himself from drowning by its aid; whence possibly originated the custom still in use among the Arabs who occupy the banks, to cross to the other side, supporting the weight of their body upon an inflated skin, and propelling themselves with their feet. But it is more important to observe how, in the absence of large timber, they made such skins serve as a raft. The present custom is to join together several of these air-inflated sheep-skins, over which is laid a platform of trunks of the wild poplar tied tight together. These form exceedingly buoyant rafts, on which people from the towns high on the rivers, transport goods to places lower down—

from Mosul to Bagdad, for instance, where the raft is taken to pieces, the wood sold, and the emptied skins returned by land on the backs of camels, horses, mules, or asses. This is almost exactly the process described by Herodotus as prevailing in his time. This fact does not, indeed, clearly appear in the common translations of this most ancient historian; but has been demonstrated to be the real meaning of his text by Colonel Taylor of Bagdad, in a note found in Mignan's Travels in Chaldæa,' p. 243. Herodotus also mentions the other vessel, the idea of which seems to have been suggested by a floating bowl or basket. The vessels here indicated are in fact round wicker-baskets (round as a shield," says Herodotus) rendered perfectly impervious to the water by an external coating of bitumen. Their ribs are composed of the midrib of the frond of the date-tree, or of thin willow rods, sometimes interwoven with reeds, rushes, or osiers, to form a basis to the bitumen. The only difference in the account of Herodotus is, that he describes the external covering as of skin; and the account which he gives of the Babylonian boats, which seemed to him among the greatest curiosities of Babylon, will be quite intelligible, when his account is understood to refer not to one of these conreyances, but to both. The round boats are used chiefly for local purposes, like wherries. Such baskets (not always round), covered with skin where bitumen could not be procured, were not confined to the rivers of Mesopotamia. As now existing, they answer to the ark of bulrushes, "daubed with slime and with pitch," in which the infant Moses was deposited by his mother; and, as covered with skin, their use was still more general. Thus Lucan:

"The bending willows into barks they twine,

Then line the work with skins of slaughter'd kine;
Such are the floats Venetian fishers know,
Where in dull marshes stands the settling Po:
On such to neighbouring Gaul, allur'd by gain,
The bolder Britons cross the swelling main.
Like these, when fruitful Egypt lies afloat,

The Memphian artist builds his reedy boat."-ROWE.

The explanation we have given will elucidate the various references to boats of skin and of reeds, which were so general in ancient times, that many think them the most ancient of all; and we doubt not that they were so in countries where suitable timber for rafts and canoes could not be obtained. We incline to think that where boats are mentioned as of skin only, it is to be understood that the skin covered a basket of reeds or rushes, unless when inflated skins were employed as we have described: and, on the other hand, that when a boat is described as being of reeds or rushes, or papyrus (as in Egypt), a covering of skin or bitumen is to be understood. We know, indeed, that Oriental basket-work is often impervious to water; but still probability and actual usage confirm the impression, of the use of some kind of outward covering. Compare Isa. xviii. 2, with Exod. ii. 3; in the former we have "a vessel of bulrushes," in the latter a vessel of bulrushes is coated with "slime and pitch."

We need not go far for illustration of the sort of boats of which we have been speaking. The British boat mentioned in the above quotation from Lucan, and also in Cæsar, continues to be used on the rivers of Wales, under the name of coracle" (corwg). It differs little from the Babylonian boat, except in being smaller and lighter, and oval instead of und. It is from five to six feet long, by four in breadth. The wood-cut exhibits its form. The frame is of split ods, plaited like basket-work, and covered on the outside with a raw hide, or with strong and coarse flannel, rendered Water-tight by a thick coating of pitch and tar. It is only adapted to carry one person, who sits on a narrow board VOL. II. 137

T

across the middle, whence he directs the course of his vessel at pleasure. By means of a leathern strap attached to the seat, and which he passes around his body, the man carries his boat to or from home on his back, when his appearance has been compared to that of a tortoise walking on its hind legs. This comparison reminds us of one of the ancient statements (by Pliny, Diodorus, and Strabo), that large tortoise-shells were in early times used as boats. The Welsh coracle does not weigh more than from forty to fifty pounds; but it was perhaps anciently larger and heavier, as a proverb still survives, which expresses that the coracle should form as heavy a load as could be carried by the man it was to bear on the water. One of our cuts, in page 135, represents a very remarkable boat, taken from the Persian sculptures at Takht-i-Bostan. The scene is a boar-hunt in watery ground, seemingly intersected by ponds, in which several of these boats are paddled about. They are probably of wicker-work, covered with skin or bitumen, being a sort of coracle, the height of which, as compared with its internal shallowness, implies that it had an elevated floor, or that the bottom was in some way filled up. We are not aware that any boats like this are now used in Western Asia. 24. "He had neither dressed his feet."-His feet, which were lame, and required attention; or perhaps it means that he had omitted that general attention to the feet which is required in the East.

"Nor trimmed his beard.”—After the explanation given in the note to chap. x. 4, concerning the estimation in which the beard is held in Western Asia, we scarcely need add that very considerable care is taken of it, the neglect of which is understood to express very forcibly the forgetfulness of grief. The manner in which it is attended to, however, differs in various nations. It is clipped by some to give it a favourite shape, and by others only trimmed slightly, to improve its appearance. The example of Mohammed, who is alleged to have diminished the length and thickness of his beard, has had more weight with some of his followers than with others.-Almost every Moslem carries a comb with him for the sole purpose of combing his beard. This is often done-particularly after prayers, at the conclusion of which the devotee usually remains sitting on his heels and combing his beard. The hairs which fall are carefully collected and preserved, to be buried with the person to whose beard they belonged; and sometimes, when he has collected a certain quantity, he deposits them himself in his destined sepulchre. It seems that in the time of Mohammed the Jews did not dye their beards; but the Arabs did: for the traditions mention it as a point of difference between Moslems and Jews. This however is not conclusive evidence that the latter never did so. The dyes usually employed for the beard are black or a fiery red. The latter is obtained by the application of a paste of henna leaves, and the black, by a further application of indigo. The process is painful and tiresome, and must be repeated every fortnight; but men cheerfully submit to it for the honour of their beards. The Persians dye their beards more generally than any other people, and prefer the black colour. The Turks almost never dye theirs, and the Arabs but seldom. When the last named people use a dye, they are commonly content with the red colour. In this they follow the instruction of their Prophet, who recommended dyeing the beard, but hated the black dye, preferring the red, and recommending in this the nearest approach to yellow that could be obtained. Beards are also anointed, perfumed, and incensed in the East by the upper classes. All this care of the beard will illustrate the entire abandonment to sorrow, which the neglect of that important appendage implies.

35. “Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women ?”-As Barzillai mentions this among the unaccustomed attractions which age rendered him incapable of enjoying, it would seem that David had made music to form one of the enjoyments of his royal state, and had probably trained or collected a body of vocal and instrumental performers, as part of his royal establishment. This we might expect from so accomplished a musician as David. The performances of his "singing men and singing women" would seem, from what Barzillai says, to have been so much admired, that the subject formed one of those prominent wonders of the court, of which people living in distant parts of the country were accustomed to speak. This is still a royal custom of the East.

CHAPTER XX.

1 By occasion of the quarrel, Sheba maketh a party

in Israel. 3 David's ten concubines are shut up in perpetual prison. 4 Amasa, made captain over Judah, is slain by Joab. 14 Joab pursueth Sheba unto Abel. 16 A wise woman saveth the city by Sheba's head. 23 David's officers.

AND there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he blew a trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel.

2 So every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah clave unto their king, from Jordan even to Jerusalem.

3 ¶ And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his 'concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in 'ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they

were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood.

4 Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present.

:

5 So Amasa went to assemble the men of Judah but he tarried longer than the set time which he had appointed him.

6 And David said to Abishai, Now shall Sheba the son of Bichri do us more harm than did Absalom: take thou thy lord's servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and 'escape us.

7 And there went out after him Joab's men, and the "Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and all the mighty men: and they went out of Jerusalem, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri.

8 When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa went before them. And Joab's garment that he had put on was girded unto him, and upon it a

3 Heb. bound.

6 Heb, deliver himself from our eyes.

7 And when he was come near unto her, ruler about David.

8 Heb. doubled not his stroke.
9 Or, it stood against the outmost wall.
10 Heb. marred to throw down.
11 Or, They plainly spake in the beginning, saying, Surely they will ask of Abel, and so make an end.
13 Heb. were scattered.
14 Chap. 8. 16. 15 Or, remembrancer,
16 Or, a prince.

12 Heb. by his name. erse 1. "We have no part in David.”—This revolt of the ten tribes (Josephus says eleven, including Benjamin) seems ave been the result of the quarrel between Israel and Judah, as to which had the greatest interest in David. The turn, from the contest about the greatest right to the determination to have no right, is natural enough. The ahites having denied the superior right of the Israelites, the latter make an unexpected application of the argu-assenting scornfully to the deficiency of their own claims, "We have no part in David," they take the opporty of inferring that, this being so, neither had he any claim to their allegiance. To your tents, O Israel!" seems ave been the watch-word of revolt among the Jews; and as such was adopted in our own country during the

"It fell out."-That is, it fell out of the sheath. Josephus says that he purposely let it fall out as he approached asa, that, taking it up again, he might salute him unsuspiciously, although he had the drawn sword in his hand. is probable. We see that further, to prevent his intention from being suspected, he held the weapon in his left

"Joab took Amasa by the beard.... to kiss him.”—As the Hebrew language has no neuter gender, it is not clear ther the him should not have been rendered it; that is, whether Joab took hold of Amasa's beard to kiss it or him. former seems most probable. In the East it is generally considered an insult to touch the beard, except to kiss it. ssing the cheek or forehead, it is not usual to touch the beard, but it may be done incidentally without offence.

Among the Arabs, kissing the beard is an act of respect; it is an exchange of respectful salutation between equals, and also an act of respect and deference to a superior. D'Arvieux correctly observes that, "The women kiss their husbands beards, and the children their fathers', when they go to salute them. The men kiss each other's beards reciprocally; and on both sides the beard, when they salute one another in the streets, or are returned from a journey. Such kisses are repeated from time to time among the compliments they make one another." The same traveller, describing an entertainment given by one Arab emir to several others, fails not to remark how, as they arrived, they kissed one another's beards and hands. Homer seems to describe the touching of the beard, or at least the chin, as an act of respectful supplication. Thus, when Thetis goes to Olympus to obtain Jupiter's favour for her son Achilles,—

"She sat before him, to his knees applied

Her left hand, placed her right beneath his chin,
And thus the king, Saturnian Jove, implored."

It is remarkable that both in this instance and that of Joab, the right hand is particularly mentioned.

10. "And he died."-Josephus has a just observation to the effect-that this atrocious murder had much less show of excuse than that of Abner, since the fact that the latter had slain Asahel afforded, under the principle of blood-revenge, a decent pretext for the assassination, which was wanting in the present instance.

15. "Abel of Beth-maachah :" or Abel-beth-maachah.-This is probably the place of the same name that is mentioned in 1 Kings xv. 20, and 2 Kings xv. 29, as being in the tribe of Naphtali; and, it would seem, not far from the sea of Tiberias. The first of these passages describes its being taken and sacked by Benhadad, king of Syria; and the last mentions it as sustaining the same calamity at the hands of Tiglath-Pileser, who carried the ten tribes into captivity. It appears from the present text to have been an ancient and considerable town. There were several places of the name of Abel, and there has been some diversity in determining which this was. One Abel was six miles from Philadelphia; another twelve miles from Gadara; a third between Paneas (Dan) and Damascus; and Jerome places another in Judah, on the road from Eleutheropolis to Jerusalem. What gave the town its peculiar reputation for wisdom is not clear; but in most countries we find one or more towns, the inhabitants of which, on some account or other, are reported to be wiser than their neighbours.

22. "They cut off the head of Sheba.... and cast it out to Joab."-It is a very common course in the East, when an obnoxious person, who has taken refuge in a town, palace, or fortress, is demanded by an army or by an enraged populace, for the inhabitants to consult their own safety, by sacrificing the offender. How many instances occur in Turkish history of the heads of high functionaries being reluctantly thrown out from the seraglio at Constantinople, to pacify the enraged Janissaries!

CHAPTER XXI.

1 The three years' famine for the Gibeonites ceaseth,
by hanging seven of Saul's sons. 10 Rizpah's
kindness unto the dead. 12 David burieth the
bones of Saul and Jonathan in his father's sepul-
chre. 15 Four battles against the Philistines,
wherein four valiants of David slay four giants.
THEN there was a famine in the days of Da-
vid three years, year after year; and David
'enquired of the LORD. And the LORD an-
swered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody
house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites: and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)

3 Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD?

4 And the Gibeonites said unto him, "We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you.

5 And they answered the king, The man

.

1 Heb. sought the face, &c.

that consumed us, and that 'devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel,

6 Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD unto the up did choose. And the king said, I will give them.

7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of 'Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:

9 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven,

2 Josh. 9. 3, 16, 17.

• Or, cut us off.

8 Heb. bare to Adriel.

9

Chap. 3. 7.

3 Or, It is not silver nor gold that we have to do with Saul or his house, neither pertains it to us to kill, &c. 5 Or, chosen of the LORD. 61 Sam. 18. 3, and 20. 8, 42. 7 Or. Michal's sister.

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