that Z is descended from some eminent ancestor, say S, and that it is equally notorious and unquestionable that the remote ancestor of this S was M, and that M was descended from G, and G from A,-they may omit the intermediate ancestors, through whom Z descended from S, and S from M, and M from G, and G from A, and state the matter thus:-" Z, the son of S, the son of M, the son of G, the son of A; and thus it may occur that not only the names but even the numbers of the generations between A and Z may, in the course of time, become involved in great uncertainty through their not being given in detail in the genealo. gies, while the truth yet remains certain and unquestionable, that Z is descended from A through G, M, and S. Hence it is not questioned that Adnan is descended from Ishmael, and a certain number, eight or ten, of illustrious names are mentioned to mark out the line of descent, while the names of the mass of intermediate ancestors is lost, and even the numbers of their generations may be a subject of fair dispute without the main question being touched. It is, therefore, surprising to see some able writers so much in the dark as to imagine that, because the Arabian writers give us only some eight or ten names to mark the line of descent, they were absurd enough to suppose that that eight or ten generations sufficed to cover the long interval between Ishmael and Adnan. We have dwelt on this subject the rather because this Arabian manner of proceeding suffices to clear up some difficulties which the Hebrew genealogies offer.

It must not be inferred that the Arabs undervalue the descent from Ishmael in comparison with that from Kahtan, on account of their applying to it a less honourable designation. This is by no means the case; for, on the contrary, they set a high value, like the Jews, on the privilege of being descended from Abraham; and this distinction is, in the eyes of the modern Arabs, greatly enhanced by the circumstance that Mohammed belonged to this race, and gloried in being descended from Ishmael and Abraham.

Of the personal history of Ishmael the Arabians give a highly embellished account, which it is not necessary in this place to repeat. In those circumstances which seem most entitled to consideration, as not incompatible with his Scriptural history, we are somewhat inclined to suspect that they apply to him actions and events which really belong, if they are at all real, to some of his descendants. For instance, that Ishmael ever was in Hejaz, or formed any important connections there, seems to us very doubtful; but there is nothing in this that might not be very probably

true of one of his descendants, after the tribe had increased, and had formed alliances among the Arabs of the Kahtan races. We, therefore, attach little weight to the statement of his marriage to the daughter of the king of the Jorhamites, though we should not be prepared to doubt it merely on the ground that the Scripture tells us that he married an Egyptian woman, since his Arabian wife might have been the second. In fact, much that the Arabians tell us about Ishmael proceeds on the grievous misconception that Abraham himself lived in Hejaz, and that there all the events of his later history took place.

The account of the descent of numerous Arabian tribes from Ishmael is not open to the same doubts or difficulty, and is, indeed, so clear in itself, and so universally acknowledged, that the object of the present note has not been to prove this, but to indicate the historical certainty that all the Arabians could not, and did not, claim to be descended from him.

(2) GREEDINESS OF UNCIVILIZED MEN, p. 70.-There is nothing better calculated to impress the mind with a due sense of the true dignity which civilization confers upon the human character, than a little practical acquaintance with uncivilized or savage races. The beast of prey sees no other object in existence than to seek food, to gorge himself with it, if he finds enough for the purpose, and to sleep till that which he has eaten is digested. Thus, also, it is with such people; and it is offensive to the civilized man to have these mere animal aims and ends of existence pressed constantly upon his notice. We hear of the abstemiousness of the Bedouin, for instance; and he may be abstemious from necessity, but he cannot be temperate. While there is anything for him to eat, he will eat for ever; and when all is gone, he can remain longer in a starving condition-in this also like a beast of prey-than can the civilized man, who is accustomed to a regularly recurring and temperate meal, and who thinks little or nothing of his food except when he actually takes it. But among the people of whom we speak, every one seems to be at all times in a condition to eat voraciously of whatever he can obtain; the safest way to his heart is through his stomach; there is nothing he will not do for those who fill him with good cheer, nothing he will not undertake for the prospect of an indulgence to his appetite before him; and we are well persuaded that there are few who would resist the temptation of sacrificing almost any amount of reversionary benefit for the present enjoyment of a mess of pottage.

We find a passage in Mr. Stephens' "Incidents of Travel" strikingly confirmatory of these observations, and with reference to the same people (the Bedouins), whom we have had more particularly in view, he says, "Their temperance and frugality are from necessity, not from choice; for in their nature they are gluttonous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep like brutes. I have sometimes amused myself with trying the variety of their appetites, and I never knew them refuse anything that could be eaten. Their stomach was literally their god, and the only chance of doing anything with them was by first making it a grateful offering. Instead of scorning luxuries, they would eat sugar as boys do sugar-candy; and I am very sure that if they could have got pound-cake, they would never have eaten their own coarse bread."

These things are, however, not peculiar to the Bedouins, but belong to all people till they become civilized Such people live only for the present. Enlarged forethought is exclusively the virtue of civilization, and we are thoroughly persuaded that among the uncivilized people of different countries there would be thousands of voluntary candidates for sacrifice upon the altars, if it were well understood that, as among the ancient Gauls, the victim would, for a whole year previously, be fed on the choicest dainties of the land.

By the way, it seems to us that not only do these observations bear on and illustrate the conduct of Esau, but that of Isaac himself. He loved Esau because he did eat of his venison;" and the whole account of the blessing is rendered painful to us by its being so much mixed up with the history of "the savoury meat which he loved," and through which his whole plan for blessing Esau was marred. But all this would appear wonderfully natural to a Bedouin; and, indeed, the introduction into the sacred narrative of characteristics not in themselves amiable, but so true to nature and circumstances, must bring strong evidence of its verity to every unprejudiced mind.

(10) ISAAC'S BLESSING, p. 70.-That the blessing which Rebekah and Jacob were so anxious to obtain, and to obtain which was the object of their strange plots and devices, was rather the heirship of the promises than of the temporal preferences which were held to be the due of the firstborn, is confirmed in our minds by the following considerations, which we copy from Dr. Hales.

"That their principal object was the spiritual blessing, and not the temporal, was shown by

VOL. I.

the event. For Jacob afterwards reverenced Esau, as his elder brother, and insisted upon Esau's accepting a present from his hand, in token of submission; Esau also appears to have possessed himself of his father's property during Jacob's long exile; 1. from his coming to meet him, on his return homeward, with so large a retinue as 400 men; 2. from his saying 'he had enough,' when he wished to decline Jacob's present; 3. from Jacob's making no claim upon him for the division of the patrimony, saying that he also had enough; and, 4. from Esau's removal to Mount Seir with all his substance, which he had gotten in the land of Canaan; thus relinquishing to his brother's family all future title to the possession of that land by establishing himself elsewhere. Gen. xxxiii. 3-14, xxxvi. 6, 7.*

(") CULTIVATION BY NOMADES, p.71.-Whenever we seek a comparison for the situation which the pastoral patriarchs occupied in Palestine, we find nothing that seems to us so strictly analogous as the position of the Tartar tribes in Persia. Cultivation is never practised by the purely desert nomades; but when pastoral tribes wander in the plains and free pastures of a settled country, there are many circumstances which may lead them, in a thinlypeopled district, to turn their attention to agriculture, with the view of raising such produce as they require for their own subsistence; and this is particularly the case when their range is limited to a district in which the winters are attended with any considerable degree of cold. Under such circumstances the Eelauts in Persia build villages of mud-well known as "Tartar villages," and cultivate the surrounding soil. They retire to these villages on the approach of winter, and when summer draws near, they betake themselves to the plains, which form the summer pasturegrounds of their flocks, and live there in tents, but leave behind them at the village a sufficient number of hands to attend to their fields, and gather in the produce in its season. They have evidently taken a first step towards exchanging the condition of the shepherd for that of the cultivator.

We do not offer this as a precise resemblance of the usage into which the Hebrew patriarchs fell; but it offers some illustration of this mixed condition, and suggests the nearest analogy which can, perhaps, be found. The patriarchs certainly did not live in villages or houses; but even this appears to have been the case with the family stock which remained in Mesopotamia, to whose condition * Analysis of Chronology,' ii. 133.

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the analogy may, perhaps, be still more close than to that of the patriarchs in Canaan.

(18) BEERSHEBA, p. 72.-In the last number (for April, 1839) of the American Biblical Repository,' we have just had the great satisfaction of perusing a very valuable and interesting Report of Travels in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions, in 1838; undertaken for the Illustration of Biblical Geography by the Rev. Prof. E. Robinson and Rev. E. Smith;' in which we find a notice of the discovery of the site of Beersheba, about thirty miles to the south of Hebron. Our readers will not fail to be gratified at being enabled to obtain the view, conveyed in the following description, of a place of such great interest in the history of the patriarchs:

"After crossing another elevated plateau, the character of the surface was again changed. We came upon an open rolling country; all around were swelling hills, covered in ordinary seasons with grass and rich pasturage, though now arid and parched with drought. We now came to Wady Lebu; and on the north side of

its water-course we had the satisfaction of discovering the site of ancient Beersheba, the celebrated border city of Palestine, still bearing in Arabic the name of Bir Seba. Near the water-course are two circular wells of excellent water, nearly forty feet deep. They are both surrounded with drinking troughs of stone, for the use of camels and flocks; such as doubtless were used of old for the flocks that then fed on the adjacent hills. Ascending the low hills north of the wells, we found them strewed with the ruins of former habitations, -the foundations of which are distinctly to be traced. These ruins extend over a space of half a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad. Here, then, is the place where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob often lived! Here Samuel made his sons judges; and from here Elijah wandered out into the southern desert, and sat down under the rethem, or shrub of broom, just as our Arabs sat down under it every day and every night. Over these swelling hills the flocks of the patriarchs roved by thousands: we now only found a few camels, asses, and goats."