lower millstone, the upper side of which was concave, and an upper millstone, whose lower surface was convex; so that the concave surface of the one was made to correspond with the convex surface of the other. The hole for receiving the corn was in the centre of the upper millstone, and in the operation of grinding, the lower was fixed, and the upper made to move round upon it with considerable velocity by means of a handle." Grinding corn among the Greeks and Romans was the work of slaves, and commonly of females. It was accounted a mean employment, and was therefore inflicted upon male slaves as a punishment.

Sir John Chardin has also remarked, "that female slaves are generally employed in the East at the handmills at the present day; that this work is extremely laborious; and that it is esteemed the lowest employment in the house." Hence Job xxxi. 10, says in his own vindication, "If I have acted dishonestly, let the wife of my bosom grind to another."

As the operation of grinding was commonly performed in the morning at daybreak, the sound of the females at the handmills was heard all over the city, and often awaked their more indolent masters. And the Scriptures mention the want of this noise as a mark of desolation in Jer. xxv. 10. Rev. xviii. 22. Even to this day the same practice is continued; for Dr. Shaw, when speaking of the Moors in Barbary, tells us, that they

In Niebuhr's Voy. en Arabie, tom. i. p. 122, pl. 17, fig. A, may be seen a representation of one of these handmills as still used in Egypt.

b Homer, Odyss. vii. 104. xx. 105-115. Exod. xi. 5. Matt, xxiv. 40. Lowth's note on Is. xlvii. 2.

• Molendum in pistrino; vapulandum; habendæ compedes.

"grind their wheat and barley at home, having two portable millstones for that purpose, the uppermost whereof is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron that is placed in the rim." When this stone is large, or expedition required, a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for the women alone to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other with the millstones between them, we may see not only the propriety of the expression, Exod. xi. 5, of sitting behind the mill, but the force of another, Matt. xxiv. 41, that "two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."

The above manner of preparing corn shows us also the humanity of that law in Deut. xxiv. 6, "No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone in pledge, for he taketh a man's life in pledge." He could not grind his daily bread without it. I have not met with any writer on Jewish antiquities who speaks of a mill driven by asses, and yet there is something in Matt. xviii. 6, which seems to favour it ; for our Saviour says, that "whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in him, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." The original words for millstone are uvλos ovixos, which must either mean a millstone turned by asses, or a millstone carried by them. The reader will judge which ought to be preferred. We read in Catullus, who died A.A.C. 40, of a one-ass mill (molæ asinariæ unæ ;) so that they might have been introduced into Judea before our Saviour's time. Mills driven by water were not invented till a little before the time of Augustus, and windmills long after that."

a Lowth's note on Is. xlvii. 2.

SECT. VI.

State of Pasturage in Judea.

Pasture unappropriated till after the division of Canaan ; exceedingly parched in summer; low grounds irrigated; abundance of grass in winter; scarcity of grass and water in summer: springs much valued; covered with stone to prevent evaporation and dust; reservoirs; horses and camels kept on hard food, except at the covering season. Pasture burnt to improve the grass, but forbidden at certain seasons. Wealth of the East consists much in cattle; instances of this; folding; care to improve the breed; their attention during the yeaning season: sheepshearing, when performed; a season of joy; flocks watched during the night; fed in upland districts in spring; beside streams in summer; browse in the vineyards in autumn; go at large in winter. Sheep when at liberty have a daily range.

It appears from Scripture that in the times of the patriarchs the lands devoted to pasturage were unappropriated, the owners of the sheep conveying them in succession from place to place as their necessities required, in the same manner as is mentioned by Horace," and as the Arabs do at the present day. But when Judea was divided among the tribes, it is probable that pasturage, like agriculture, would become private property. Hence Josephus tells us of some robbers on the borders of Judea who retained their pastures which they had hired, without paying their rent. It should ever be remembered, however, that during the Jewish summer the grass is uncommonly withered; those places only being verdant which are situated in the neighbourhood of springs or rivulets: hence Sir John Chardin tells us that "in every place where there is water there is always grass, for water makes every thing grow in the East." And the Psalmist, who, from his pastoral character, was well acquainted with the flocks of Judea, speaks of the pastures and the still waters, or waters of distributions,

a Carm. lib. iii. ode xxiv. 12. VOL. I.

green

b Antiq, xvi. 9. < Harm. Ob. vol. i. p. 54.

3 M

as the original hath it, by which they artificially exhausted rivulets, by placing banks across them, and directing their streams among the meadows on either side of the usual current. In the country of Judea, indeed, this could not be done very extensively; but farther to the east it is exceedingly common both for pasture and for their rice-fields. On the large map On the large map which accompanies Mr. Kinneir's Geographical Memoir of Persia, we see canals cut between the Euphrates and Tigris; and persons from India inform us that a similar irrigation is carried on in all the rice districts.

In every country it is a principal object of attention amongst storemasters to have abundance of food for their flocks and herds at all seasons of the year, and this likewise was the case in Judea; but their worst time was the very reverse of ours, for in winter and spring they had abundance, since that was their rainy season, whilst in summer they had want; a want of food, and a want of water hence the value of springs and reservoirs. As for springs, they were either open in the sides of the hills, or dug in the valleys. In general, these last were the most esteemed, because in parched districts, and difficult to obtain: hence they were commonly covered with a stone to prevent evaporation or being filled with sand, and were even secured by a seal to preserve private property. Chardin saw some that were sealed with this view. As for reservoirs or tanks, as they are called in India, these were large quantities of water, secured within strong mounds, and filled in the rainy season in order to afford a sufficiency during the dry."

a Cant. iv. 12.

There is a singular kind of springs known in Judea and the East, which it may not be improper also to notice-those, viz. which produce slime or naphtha. They abounded in the vale of Siddim ;* they furnished the cement

* Gen. xiv. 10.

But whilst the sheep, goats, and kine were allowed to roam at large through the whole year, it was not the case with the horses and camels. These were kept then probably as they are now, almost always on hard food, the horses upon barley, and the camels on chopped straw, barley, and beans; for they make no hay in the East, although our translation hath hay in two places ; and any grass that is eaten by horses is in the covering season, or March, when the grass is pretty well grown." Hence "the mown grass," mentioned in Ps. Ixxii. 6, should have been translated, "grass that had been eaten down;" and "the king's mowings," in Amos vii. 1, should have been rendered, "the king's feedings," when his stud of horses were sent to grass to be at full liberty to generate their kind.

I may mention one additional circumstance concerning the lands devoted to pasturage, which is often indeed practised in Britain at a different season of the year, and that is, the burning the undergrowth and old herbage before the descent of the autumnal rains. This made the new grass after them peculiarly verdant, but was expressly forbidden at the time when the corn was growing, or when the cut corn was lying in heaps in order to be

for the building of Babel; and with this substance the mother of Moses bedaubed the ark of bulrushes in which she laid her son. The most remarkable naphtha spring that I have read of is that mentioned by Mr. Macdonald Kinneir. "The quantity of naphtha," says he, "procured in the plain to the southeast of the city of Badku, the best sea-port town in the Caspian, is enormous. Like that in the vicinity of Kirkook and Mendali, it is drawn from wells, some of which have been found, by a computation of the inhabitants, to yield from a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds a day. These wells are, in a certain degree, inexhaustible, as they are no sooner emptied than they again begin to fill, and the naphtha continues gradually to increase until it has attained its former level."*

* Geograph. Memoir of Persia, p. 359.

Prov. xxvii. 25. Is. xv. 6.

b Harm. Ob. ch. xi. ob. 74. Clarke.