n magistrates, they were not allowed to enjoy them by
chief priests and popular leaders, whom Josephus cha-
izes as profligate wretches, who had purchased their
3 by bribes or by acts of iniquity, and maintained their
quired authority by the most flagitious and abominable
8. Nor were the religious creeds of these men more
having espoused the principles of various sects, they
ed themselves to be led away by all the prejudice and
sity of party (though, as in the case of our Saviour,
would sometimes abandon them to promote some fa-
e measure); and were commonly more intent on the
ication of private enmity, than studious of advancing the
of religion, or promoting the public welfare. The
dinate and inferior members were infected with the cor-
n of the head; the priests, and the other ministers of
on, were become dissolute and abandoned in the highest
e; while the common people, instigated by examples
praved, rushed headlong into every kind of iniquity,
y their incessant seditions, robberies, and extortions,
I against themselves both the justice of God and the
ance of men.
ing to these various causes, the great mass of the Jew-
ple were sunk into the most deplorable ignorance of
and of divine things. Hence proceeded that dissolute-
f manners and that profligate wickedness which pre-
I among the Jews during Christ's ministry upon earth;
usion to which the divine Saviour compares the people
multitude of lost sheep, straying without a shepherd
x. 6. xv. 24.), and their teachers, or doctors, to
guides, who professed to instruct others in a way with
they were totally unacquainted themselves. (Matt.
4. John ix. 39, 40.)

ii. 24.) And in his Epistle to Titus, he informs us that the Jews in speculation, indeed, acknowledged a God, but in practice they were atheists; for in their lives they were abominally immoral and abandoned, and the contemptuous despisers of every thing that was virtuous. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. (Titus i. 16.) This testimony to the religious and moral character of the Jewish people, by Jesus Christ and his apostles, is amply corroborated by Josephus, who has given us a true estimate of their principles and manners, and is also confirmed by other contemporary historians. The circumstance of their nation having been favoured with an explicit revelation from the Deity, instead of enlarging their minds, miserably contracted and soured them with all the bitterness and leaven of theological odium. They regarded uncircumcised heathens with sovereign contempt, and believed them to be hated by God, merely because they were born aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and lived strangers to their covenant of promise. They would not eat with them (Acts xi. 3.), do the least friendly office for them, or maintain any social correspondence and mutual intercourse with them. The apostle comprises their national character in a few words, and it is a just one: They were contrary to all men. (1 Thess. ii. 15.) The supercilious insolence, with which the mean and selfish notion of their being the only favourites of heaven and enlightened by God inflated them as a people, and the haughty and scornful disdain in which they held the heathens, are in a very striking manner characterized in the following spirited address of St. Paul to them :-Behold! thou art called a Jew, and restest in the low, and makest thy boast of God: and knowest his will, and approvest the things that ore more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the low. (Rom. ii. 17-20.) This passage exhibits to us a faithful picture of the national character of this people, and shows us how much they valued themselves upon their wisdom and superior knowledge of religion, arrogating to themselves the character of lights and guides, and instructors of the whole world, and contemptuously regarding all the heathen as blind, as babes, and as fools.

e particularly, in the New Testament, "the Jews are bed as a most superstitious and bigoted people, atd to the Mosaic ritual and to the whimsical traditions eir elders, with a zeal and fanaticism approaching to ess. They are represented as a nation of hypocrites, ing the most sanctimonious appearance before the , at the corners of crowded streets uttering loud and it strains of rapturous devotion, merely to attract the of a weak and credulous multitude, and to be noticed enerated by them as mirrors of mortification and hea-mindedness; devoured with ostentation and spiritual ; causing a trumpeter to walk before them in the "Another ever memorable instance of the national pride s, and make proclamation that such a rabbi was going and arrogance of this vain and ostentatious people is, that stribute his alms; publicly displaying all this showy when our Lord was discoursing to them concerning their e of piety and charity, yet privately guilty of the most pretensions to moral liberty, and representing the ignoble ing cruelty and oppression; devouring widows' houses, and despicable bondage in which sin detains its votaries, ing the helpless widow and friendless orphan of their they imagined this to be an indirect allusion to the present ty, and exposing them to all the rigours of hunger and condition of their country: their pride was instantly in dness; clamouring, The temple of the Lord! The temple flames; and they had the effrontery and impudence openly to e Lord! making conscience of paying tithe of mint, assert, that they had always been free, and were never in and cummin, to the support of its splendour and bondage to any man (John viii. 33.); though every child thood, but in practical life violating and trampling upon must know the history of their captivities, must know that rst duties of morality,—justice, fidelity, and mercy,-as Judæa was at that very time a conquered province, had been vulgar and heathenish attainments, and infinitely be- subdued by Pompey, and from that time had paid an annual he regard of exalted saints and spiritual perfectionists. tribute to Rome. Another characteristic which distinguishes great men were to an incredible degree depraved in and marks this people, was that kind of evidence which they morals, many of them Sadducees in principle, and in expected in order to their reception of truth. Except they ice the most profligate sensualists and debauchees ;| saw signs and wonders they would not believe! (John iv. 48.) atrocious and abandoned wickedness, as Josephus tes- If a doctrine proposed to their acceptance was not confirmed transcended all the enormities which the most corrupt by some visible displays of preternatural power, some strikf the world had ever beheld; they compassed sea and ing phenomena, the clear and indubitable evidences of an to make proselytes to Judaism from the Pagans, and, immediate divine interposition, they would reject it. In anthey had gained these converts, soon rendered them, eir immoral lives and scandalous examples, more ded and profligate than ever they were before their conn. The apostle tells them, that by reason of their ous vices their religion was become the object of cay and satire among the heathen nations. The name of Es blasphemed among the Gentiles through you! (Rom.

heim's Eccl. Hist. book i, part i, chap. ii., and also his Commentathe Affairs of Christians before the time of Constantine the Great, Introd. ch. ii. Pritii Introductio ad Lectionem Novi Testamenti, c. 35. mina Populi Judaici corruptione, tempore Christi, pp. 471-473. r the following picture of the melancholy corruption of the Jewish hand people, the author is indebted to Dr. Harwood's Introduction New Testament. (vol. ii. pp. 58, 61.)

phs, Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 1314. Hudson. Again, says this histoThey were universally corrupt, both publicly and privately. They ich should surpass each other in impiety against God and injustice is men" Ibid.

superstitious credulity of a Jew was proverbial among the heaCredat Judæus Apella. Horat. Epictetus mentions and exposes reater attachment to their ceremonies than to the duties of morality. Latones, lib. i. p. 115. edit. Upton. See also Josephus contra Apion. 'lavercamp.

"I cannot forbear," says Josephus, "declaring my opinion, though the declaration fills me with great emotion and regret, that if the Romans had delayed to come against these wretches, the city would either have been ingulfed by an earthquake, overwhelmed by a deluge, or destroyed by fire from heaven, as Sodom was: for that generation was far more enormously wicked than those who suffered these calamities." Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. 13. abandoned of men." Origen contra Celsum, p. 62. Cantab. 1677. "These things they suffered," says Origen, "as being the most

1256.

"The Jews are the only people who refuse all friendly intercourse with every other nation, and esteem all mankind as enemies." Diod. Siculus, tom. ii. p. 524. edit. Wesseling, Amstel. 1746. "Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a publican." (Matt. xviii. 17.) Of the extreme detestation and abhorrence which the Jews had for the Gentiles we have a very striking example in that speech which St. Paul addresses to them, telling them in the course of it, that God had cominissioned him to go to the Gentiles. The moment he had pronounced the word, the whole assembly was in confusion, tore off their clothes, rent the air with their cries, threw clouds of dust into it, and were transported into the last excesses of rage and inadness. "He said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles: they gave him audience," says the sacred historian, "until this word, and then lifted up their voice and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live." (Acts xxii. 21.) This character of the Jewish nation is confirmed by Tacitus, and expressed almost in the very words of the Apostle, "Adversus omnes alios hostile odium." Tacit. Hist. lib. v. § 5. vol. iii. p. 261. edit. Bipont.

PART IV.

DOMESTIC ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, AND OF OTHER NATIONS INCIDENTALLY MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE DWELLINGS OF THE JEWS.

I. Caves.-II. Tents.-III. Houses-Their Arrangement-Materials—and Conveniences-IV. Furniture.-V. Cities, Markets, and Gates.

I. As men, in the primitive condition of society, were unacquainted with the arts, they, of course, were not able to build themselves houses; they abode, therefore, necessarily under the shade of trees. It is probable that when mankind began to multiply on the earth, they dwelt in CAVES, many of which, in the Holy Land, are both capacious and dry, and still afford occasional shelter to the wandering shepherds and their flocks. Thus, Lot and his daughters abode in a cave, after the destruction of Sodom. (Gen. xix. 30.) Ancient historians contain many notices of troglodytes, or dwellers in caves, and modern travellers have met with them in Bar

be useful to them for fuel. The tents of the emirs | Indies, also, nothing is more common than for thieves to dig overeigns of the East are both large and magnificent, or break through these mud walls, while the unsuspecting mished with costly hangings. Those of the Turco- inhabitants are overcome by sleep, and to plunder them. To are said to be black; and those of the Turks green: similar depredations Jesus Christ appears to allude, when he ccording to D'Arvieux, Dr. Shaw, and M. Volney, the exhorts his disciples not to lay up their treasure where of the Bedouins, or Arabs of the Desert, are univer- thieves BREAK THROUGH and steal. (Matt. vi. 19, 20.) Job also black, or of a very dusky brown. To these the bride seems to refer to the same practice. (xxiv. 16.) In the holes Canticles compares herself (i. 5.)-I am black (or, and chinks of these walls serpents sometimes concealed 4) as the tents of Kedar, but comely, or beautiful as the themselves. (Amos v. 19.) In Egypt, it appears from Exod. ns of Solomon. In the East, those who lead a pastoral v. 7. that straw anciently entered into the composition of equently sit (as Abraham did) in the tent-door in the bricks; and some expositors have imagined that it was used of the day. (Gen. xviii. 1.) The Arabian tents are of (as with us) merely for burning them; but this notion is unlong figure, supported according to their size, some founded. The Egyptian bricks were a mixture of clay, mud one pillar, others with two or three, while a curtain or and straw, slightly blended and kneaded together, and after, occasionally let down from each of these divisions, wards baked in the sun. Philo, in his life of Moses, says, rts the whole into so many separate apartments. These that they used straw to bind their bricks.8 The straw still are kept firm and steady by bracing or stretching down preserves its original colour, and is a proof that these bricks eaves with cords, tied to hooked wooden pins, well were never burnt in stacks or kilns. Part of the bricks of d, which they drive into the ground with a mallet: the celebrated tower of Babel (or of Belus, as the Greeks f these pins answering to the nail, as the mallet does termed it) were made of clay mixed with chopped straw, or hammer, which Jael used in fastening the temples of broken reeds, to compact it, and then dried in the sun. Their to the ground. (Judg. iv. 21.) In these dwellings solidity is equal to that of the hardest stone. Among the rabian shepherds and their families repose upon the ruins discovered on the site of ancient Nineveh, are houses, ground, or with only a mat or carpet beneath them. built of sun-dried bricks, cemented with mud; and similarly who are married have each of them a portion of the constructed dwellings were observed by Mr. Buckingham in themselves separated by a curtain. The more opu- the village of Karagoosh, near Mousul in Mesopotamia." At rabs, however, always have two tents, one for them- this day the town of Busheher (or Bushire), like most of the , and another for their wives, besides others for their towns in Persia, is built with sun-dried bricks and mud,12 ts; in like manner, a particular tent was allotted to There is an allusion to this mode of building in Nahum . (Gen. xxiv. 67.) When travelling, they were care-iii. 14. pitch their tents near some river, fountain, or well. n. xxix. 1. xxx. 21.) In countries subject to violent sts as well as to intolerable heat, a portable tent is a sary part of a traveller's baggage, both for defence and 1. To this the prophet Isaiah appears to allude. In progress of time men erected HOUSES for their habis: those of the rich were formed of stone or bricks, but wellings of the poor were formed of wood, or more frely of mud, as they are to this day in the East Indies; material is but ill calculated to resist the effects of the dous torrents, that descended from the mountains of tine. Our Lord alludes to this circumstance at the of his sermon on the mount. (Matt. vii. 26, 27.) In the

erson's Letters from the Egean, vol. i. p. 192.

Hit, a town on the banks of the Euphrates, to Hilla, the site of Babylon, "the black tent of the Bedouin, formed of strong cloth of goat's hair and wool mixed, supported by low poles, is almost the nd of habitation met with." (Capt. Chesney's Reports on the Navi. of the Euphrates, p. 3. London, 1833. folio.) The Illyauts, a wan tribe of Arabs, have black tents. (Hon. Capt. Keppel's Narrative els from India to England, vol i. p. 100.)

The

At first, houses were small; afterwards they were larger, especially in extensive cities, the capitals of empires. art of multiplying stories in a building is very ancient, as we may conclude from the construction of Noah's ark and the tower of Babel. The houses in Babylon, according to Herodotus,13 were three and four stories high; and those in Thebes or Diospolis, in Egypt, were four or five stories. In Palestine they appear to have been low, during the time of Joshua; an upper story, though it may have existed, is not mentioned till a more recent age. The houses of the rich and powerful │in Palestine, in the time of Christ, were splendid, and were built according to the rules of Grecian architecture.15

Of all modern travellers, no one has so happily described the form and structure of the eastern buildings as Dr. Shaw, from whose account the following particulars are derived, which admirably elucidate several interesting passages of Holy Writ.

"The streets of the cities, the better to shade them from

Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 325.
Philonis Opera, tom. ii. p. 86. (edit. Mangey.)

9 Shaw's Travels, vol. i. p. 250. Mr. Belzoni, in his Researches in Egypt, w's Travels, vol. i. pp. 398, 399. The description given by the intelli- found similar bricks in an ancient arch which he discovered at Thebes, and aveller Mr. Buckingham of the tent of the Sheik Barak, who was at which he has engraved among the plates illustrative of his Researches in ad of a tribe of Turcomans, wandering in the vicinity of Aleppo, Egypt, Nubia, &c. Plate xliv. No. 2. In and near the ruins of the ancient le us to form some idea of the shape and arrangement of the tent Tentyra, Dr. Richardson also found huts built of sun-dried brick, made of patriarch, Abraham. "The tent occupied a space of about thirty straw and clay. (Travels, vol. i. pp. 185. 259) They are thus described by are, and was formed by one large awning, supported by twenty-four the Rev. Mr. Jowett, as they appeared in February, 1819-Speaking of the cles in four rows of six each, the ends of the awning being drawn remains of ancient buildings in that part of Egypt, he says,-"These magcords fastened to pegs in the ground. Each of these poles giving a nificent edifices, while they display the grandeur of former times, exhibit 1 form to the part of the awning, which it supported, the outside no less the meanness of the present. This temple, built of massive stone, ke a number of umbrella tops, or small Chinese spires. The with a portico of twenty-four pillars, adorned with innumerable hieroglyph this square was open in front and at the sides, having two rows of ics, and painted with beautiful colours, the brightness of which in many ear, and the third was closed by a reeded partition, behind which parts remains to this day, is choked up with dusty earth. Village after vil. apartment for females, surrounded entirely by the same kind of lage, built of unburnt brick, crumbling into ruins, and giving place to new 'When the three angels are said to have appeared in the habitations, have raised the earth, in some parts, nearly to the level of the of Mamre, he is represented as sitting in the tent-door in the heat summit of the temple; and fragments of the walls of these mud huts appear day" (Gen. xviii. 1-10.) "And when he saw them, he ran to even on the roof of the temple. In every part of Egypt, we find the towns hem from the tent-door, and bowed himself towards the ground.... built in this manner, upon the ruins, or rather the rubbish, of the former Grahamn hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready habitation. The expression in Jeremiah xxx. 18. literally applies to Egypt three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the in the very meanest sense-The city shall be builded upon her own heap; And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and the expression in Joh xv. 29. might be illustrated by many of these it before them, and he stood by them, under the tree, and they did deserted hovels-He dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no When inquiry was made after his wife, he replied, Behold, she is man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. Still more touching is tent And when it was promised him that Sarah should have a son, the allusion in Job iv. 19.; where the perishing generations of men are And Sarah heard in the tent-door which was behind him.'... fitly compared to habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of Abraham's tent, as thus described, seems to have been ex- of similar dwelling places, now reduced to rubbish-How much less in them ke the one in which we sit: for in both there was a shaded open that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!"-(Jowett's which he could sit in the heat of the day, and yet be seen from afar Researches in the Mediterranean, pp. 131, 132.)-In one place, says the the apartment of the feinales, where Sarah was, when he stated same intelligent traveller, "the people were making bricks, with straw cut within the tent, was immediately behind this, wherein she pre-into small pieces, and mingled with the clay to bind it. Hence it is, that, the meal for the guests, and from whence she listened to their pro- when villages built of these bricks fall into rubbish, which is often the Geclaration." Travels in Mesopotamnia, vol. i. pp. 30. 33, 34. case, the roads are full of sinall particles of straws extremely offensive to Lowth on Isaiah iv. 6. Pareau, Antiq. Hebr. pp. 353-356. Bru- the eyes in a high wind. They were, in short, engaged exactly as the IsraelHebr. p. 273. Jahn et Ackermann, Archæol. Biblica, §§ 26-31. ites used to be, making bricks with straw; and for a similar purpose-to Bengal and Ceylon, as well as in Egypt, houses are constructed with build extensive granaries for the bashaw; treasure-cities for Pharaoh." material. Dr. Davy's Account of the Interior of Ceylon, p. 256. Exod. i. 11. (Ibid. p. 167.) Harmer's Observations, vol. i. pp. 265. 295. The houses at Mousul mostly constructed of small unhewn stones, cemented by mortar, dered over with tnnd, though some are built of burnt and unburnt Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 28. instances of the frailly of these tenements in Dr. Shaw's Travels, 50 Belzoni's Researches in Egypt, p. 299., and Ward's View of ory, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 335.

10 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels in Georgia, Persia, Babylonia, &c. vol. ii. pp. 329, 330. 11 Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 71.

13 Price's Journal of the British Embassy to Persia, part i. p. 6. Lond. 1825. folio.

13 Herodot. lib. i. c. 180.

14 Diod. Sic. lib. i. c. 45.

15 Jahn et Ackermann, Archæol. Bibl. § 33.

B

C

A, A, the street.

B, the outer porch.

C, C, C, the gallery.

D, the porch at the entrance into the main building.

Α

the sun, are usually narrow, sometimes with a range of shops on each side. If from these we enter into any of the principal houses, we shall first pass through a porch or gateway, with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and despatches business; few persons, not even the nearest relations, having admission any farther, except upon extraordinary occasions. From hence we are received into the court, which lying open to the weather, is, according to the ability of the owner, paved with marble, or such proper materials as will carry off the water into the common sewers." This court corresponded to the cava adium or impluvium of the Romans; the use of which was to give light to the windows and carry off the rain. "When much people are to be admitted, as upon the celebration of a marriage, the circumcising of a child, or occasions of the like nature, the company is seldom or never admitted into one of the chambers. The court is the usual place of their reception, which is strewed accordingly with mats or carpets, for their more commodious entertainment. The stairs which lead to the roof are never placed on the outside of the house in the street, but usually at the gateway or passage room to the court; sometimes at the entrance within the court. This court is now called in Arabic el woost, or the middle of the house, literally answering to the use of St. Luke. (v. 19.) In this area our Saviour probably taught. In the summer season, and upon all occasions when a large company is to be received, the court is commonly sheltered from the heat and inclemencies of the weather by a vellum umbrella or veil, which, being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parallel wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems to allude either to the tents of the Bedouins, or to some covering of this kind, in that beautiful expression, of spreading out the heavens like a veil or curtain." (Psal. civ. 2. See also Isaiah xl. 22.) The arrangement of oriental houses satis-as the cava ædium of the Romans was with a peristylium or factorily explains the circumstances of the letting down of the paralytic into the presence of Jesus Christ, in order that he might heal him. (Mark ii. 4. Luke v. 19.) The paralytic was carried by some of his neighbours to the top of the house, either by forcing their way through the crowd by the gateway and passages up the staircase, or else by conveying him over some of the neighbouring terraces; and there, after they had drawn away the rey or awning, they let him down along the side of the roof through the opening or impluvium into the midst of the court before Jesus. Er, Dr. Shaw remarks, may with propriety denote no less than tot lo (the corresponding word in the Syriac version), any kind of covering; and, consequently, arora may signify, the removal of such a covering. Egy is in the Vulgate Latin version rendered pateficientes, as if further explanatory of The same in the Persian version is connected with parc, and there implies making holes in it for the cords to pass through. That neither a nor are imply any force or violence offered to the roof, appears from the parallel passage in St. Luke; where, though die für near and auror, per tegulas demiserunt illum, is rendered by our translators, they let him down through the tiling, as if that had been previously broken up, it should be rendered, they let him down over, along the side, or by the way of the roof, as in Acts ix. 25. and 2 Cor. xi. 33., where the like phraseology is observed as in St. Luke: d is rendered in both places by, that is, along the side, or by the way of the wall. Epes may express the plucking away or removing any obstacle, such as awning or part of a parapet, which might be in their way. Ku was first used for a roof of tiles, but afterwards came to signify any kind of roof.3

αποστέγασαν.

The following diagram will perhaps give the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the arrangement of an eastern house :

1 In Bengal, servants and others generally sleep in the verandah or porch, in front of their master's house. (Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 323.) The Arab servants in Egypt do the same. (Wilson's Tra vels in Egypt and the Holy Land, p. 55.) In this way Uriah slept at the door of the king's house, with all the servants of his lord. (2 Sam. xi. 9.) 2 Dr. Shaw's Travels, vol. i. pp 374-376.

Shaw's Travels in Barbary, &c. vol. i. pp. 382-334. 8vo. edition. Valpy's Gr. Test. on Mark ii. 4. "If the circumstances related by the evange list had happened in India, nothing could be easier than the mode of letting down the paralytic. A plank or two might be started from the top bal cony or viranda in the back court, where the congregation was probably assembled, and the man [be] let down in his hammock." Callaway's Oriental Observations, p. 71,

A Now, let it be supposed, that Jesus was sitting at D in the porch, at the entrance into the main building, and speaking to the people, when the four men carrying the paralytic came to the front gate or porch, B. Finding the porch so crowded that they could not carry him in and lay him before Jesus, they carried him up the stairs at the porch to the top of the gallery, C, C, C, and along the gallery round to the place where Jesus was sitting, and forcing a passage by removing the balustrade, they lowered down the paralytic, with the couch on which he lay, into the court before Jesus. Thus we are enabled to understand the manner in which the paralytic was brought in and laid before the compassionate Redeemer. "The court is for the most part surrounded with a cloister, colonnade, over which, when the house has one or more stories (and they sometimes have two or three), there is a gallery erected of the same dimensions with the cloister, having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or latticed work going round about it, to prevent people from falling from it into the court. From the cloisters and galleries we are conducted into large spacious chambers of the same length of the court, but seldom or never communicating with one another. One of them frequently serves a whole family, particularly when a father indulges his married children to live with him; or when several persons join in the rent of the same house. Hence it is that the cities of these countries, which are generally much inferior in size to those of Eu rope, are so exceedingly populous, that great numbers of the inhabitants are swept away by the plague, or any other contagious distemper. In houses of better fashion, these chambers, from the middle of the wall downwards, are covered and adorned with velvet or damask hangings, of white, blue, red, green, or other colours (Esth. i. 6.), suspended upon hooks, or taken down at pleasure. But the upper part is embellished with more permanent ornaments, being adorned with the most ingenious wreathings and devices in stucco and fret-work. The ceiling is generally of wainscot either very artfully painted, or else thrown into a variety of panels, with gilded mouldings and scrolls of their Korar intermixed. The prophet Jeremiah (xxii. 14.) exclaims

Mr. Hartley has dissented from the interpretation above given by Dr. frequently above my head, and contemplate the facility with which the Shaw. "When I lived in Egina" (he relates), "I used to look up not unwhole transaction might take place. The roof was constructed in this manner:-A layer of reeds, of a large species, was placed upon the rafters. On these a quantity of heather (heath) was strewed; upon the heather culty could there be in removing, first the earth, then the heather, next earth was deposited, and beat down into a compact mass. Now what diffi the reeds? Nor would the difficulty be increased, if the earth had a pareinent of tiling (par) laid upon it. No inconvenience could result to heather and reeds would intercept any thing which might otherwise fall the persons in the house from the removal of the tiles and earth; for the down, and would be removed last of all." (Hartley's Researches in Greece, p. 210.)

Similar costly hangings appear to have decorated the pavilion or state tent of Solomon, alluded to in Cant. i. 5.; the beauty and elegance of which would form a striking contrast to the black tents of the nomadic Arabs. The state tents of modern oriental sovereigns, it is well known, are very from the travels of Egmont and Hayman. The tent of the Grand Seignior superb: of this gorgeous splendour, Mr. Harner has given some instances covered on the outside with scarlet broad cloth, and lined within with violet was covered and lined with silk. Nadir Shah had a very superb one, coloured satin, ornamented with a great variety of animals, flowers, &c formed entirely of pearls and precious stones. (Harmer on Sol. Song p. 186.)

at the eastern houses that were ceiled with cedar, and illustrate the prophet Isaiah's comparison of the Assyrians d with vermilion. The floors are laid with painted to the grass upon the house-tops. (Isa. xxxvii. 27.) When or plaster of terrace. But as these people make little any of these cities are built upon level ground, one may pass use of chairs (either sitting cross-legged or lying at along the tops of houses from one end of them to the other, ), they always cover and spread them over with car- without coming down into the street."6 In the mountainous which, for the most part, are of the richest materials. parts of modern Palestine these terraces are composed of the sides of the wall or floor, a range of narrow beds earth, spread evenly on the roof of the house, and rolled hard attresses is often placed upon these carpets and for and flat. On the top of every house a large stone roller is farther ease and convenience, several velvet or damask kept, for the purpose of hardening and flattening this layer rs are placed upon these carpets or mattresses; indul- of rude soil, to prevent the rain from penetrating; but upon s which seem to be alluded to by their stretching them- this surface, as may be supposed, grass and weeds grow upon couches, and by the sewing of pillows to the arm- freely. Similar terraces appear to have been anciently conas we have it expressed in Amos vi. 4. and Ezek. xiii. structed in that country: it is to such grass that the Psalmist At one end of the chamber there is a little gallery, alludes as useless and bad-Let them be as the grass upon the three, four, or five feet above the floor, with a balus-house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up. (Psal. exxix. in the front of it, with a few steps likewise leading up 6.) These low and flat-roofed houses afford opportunities to Here they place their beds; a situation frequently speak to many on the house as well as to many in the courted to in the Holy Scriptures; which may likewise illus-yard below: this circumstance will illustrate the meaning the circumstance of Hezekiah's turning his face when he of our Lord's command to his apostles, What ye hear in the d towards the wall, i. e. from his attendants (2 Kings ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops. (Matt. x. 27.) On .), that the fervency of his devotion might be the less these terraces incense was anciently burnt (Jer. xix. 13. notice of and observed. The like is related of Ahab xxxii. 29.), and the host of heaven was worshipped. (Zeph. ings xxi. 4.), though probably not upon a religious ac- i. 5.) -, but in order to conceal from his attendants the anguish It for his late disappointments. The stairs are someplaced in the porch, sometimes at the entrance into the When there is one or more stories, they are afters continued through one corner or other of the gallery to op of the house, whither they conduct us through a door s constantly kept shut to prevent their domestic animals daubing the terrace, and thereby spoiling the water h falls from thence into the cisterns below the court. door, like most others we meet with in these countries, ng, not with hinges, but by having the jamb formed at end into an axle-tree or pivot, whereof the uppermost, h is the longest, is to be received into a correspondent et in the lintel, while the other falls into a cavity of the fashion in the threshold." Anciently, it was the custo secure the door of a house, by a cross-bar or bolt, h by night was fastened by a little button or pin: in the part of the door was left a round hole, through which person from without might thrust his arm, and remove ar, unless this additional security were superadded. To a mode of fastening the bride alludes in Cant. v. 4.2 The top of the house, which is always flat, is covered a strong plaster of terrace, whence in the Frank lane it has obtained the name of the terrace. This is lly surrounded by two walls, the outermost whereof is y built over the street, and partly makes the partition the contiguous houses, being frequently so low that one easily climb over it. The other, which may be called parapet wall, hangs immediately over the court, being vs breast high, and answers to the npy, or lorica, Deut. 8., which we render the battlements. Instead of this pet wall, some terraces are guarded, like the galleries, balustrades only, or latticed work; in which fashion, ably, as the name seems to import, was the 5, or net, ttice, as we render it, that Ahaziah (2 Kings i. 2.) might arelessly leaning over, when he fell down from thence the court. For upon those terraces several offices of the ly are performed, such as the drying of linen and flax hii. 6.), the preparing of figs or raisins, where likewise enjoy the cool refreshing breezes of the evening, cone with one another, and offer up their devotions."4 At rias, we are informed that the parapet is commonly made vicker-work and sometimes of green branches; which e of constructing booths seems to be as ancient as the 3 of Nehemiah, when the people went forth, at the feast of raacles, and brought branches and made themselves booths, one upon the top of his house. (Neh. viii. 16.)5 "As e terraces are thus frequently used and trampled upon, to mention the solidity of the materials with which they made, they will not easily permit any vegetable subces to take root or thrive upon them; which perhaps may

In Barbary, the hills and valleys in the vicinity of Algiers are beautified with numerous country seats and gardens, whither the opulent resort during the intense heats of summer. In all probability, the summer-houses of the Jews, mentioned by the prophet Amos (iii. 15.), were of this description; though these have been supposed to mean different apartments of the same house, the one exposed to a northern and the other to a southern aspect.

During the Rev. Mr. Jowett's residence at Haivali, in May, 1818, he relates that the house, in which he abode, gave him a correct idea of the scene of Eutychus's falling from the upper loft, while Paul was preaching at Troas. (Acts xx. 6-12.) "According to our idea of houses," he remarks, "the scene of Eutychus's falling from the upper loft is very far from intelligible; and, besides this, the circumstance of preaching generally leaves on the mind of cursory readers the notion of a church. To describe this house, which is not many miles distant from the Troad, and perhaps, from the unchanging character of oriental customs, nearly resembles the houses then built, will fully illustrate the narrative. "On entering my host's door, we find the ground floor entirely used as a store: it is filled with large barrels of oil, the produce of the rich country for many miles round: this space, so far from being habitable, is sometimes so dirty with the dripping of the oil, that it is difficult to pick out a clean footing from the door to the first step of the staircase. On ascending, we find the first floor, consisting of a humble suite of rooms, not very high; these are occupied by the family, for their daily use. It is on the next story that all their expense is lavished: here, my courteous host has appointed my lodging: beautiful curtains, and mats, and cushions to the divan, display the respect with which they mean to receive their guest: here, likewise, their splendour, being at the top of the house, is enjoyed, by the poor Greeks, with more retirement and less chance of molestation from the intrusion of Turks: here, when the Professors of the College waited upon me to pay their respects, they were received in ceremony and sat at the window. The room is both higher and also larger than those below: it has two projecting windows; and the whole floor is so much extended in front beyond the lower part of the building, that the projecting windows considerably overhang the street. In such an upper room-secluded, spacious, and commodious-Paul was invited to preach his parting discourse. The divan, or raised seat, with mats or cushions, encircles the interior of each projecting window: and I have remarked, that when company is numerous, they sometimes place large cushions behind the company seated on the divan; so that a second tier of company, with their feet upon the seat of the divan, are sitting behind, higher than the front row. Eutychus, thus sitting, would be on a level with the open window; and, being overcome with sleep, he would easily fall out from the third loft of the house into the street, and be almost certain, from such a height, to lose his life. Thither St. Paul went down; and comforted the alarmed company, by bringing up Eutychus alive. It is noted, that there were many lights in the upper chamber. The very great plenty of oil in this neighbourhood would enable them to afford many lamps: the heat of these

• This is particularly the case at Aleppo. Irby's and Mangle's Travels, p. 238. Shaw's Travels, vol. i. pp. 380, 391.

Jowett's Christian Researches in Syria, &c. pp. 89. 95.