and modern customs are due, as we have already hinted, to the influence of the Mohammedan religion. To this we may attribute the alteration for the worse in the social position of females, the seclusion to which they are doomed, the concealment of their features by the veil, the arrangements of the harem, and the prohibition of wine and strong drink. DWELLERS IN TENTS AND DWELLERS IN HOUSES.-THE PATRIARCHS IN TENTS. THE ISRAELITES DURING THEIR WANDERINGS, AND AFTER THEIR SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN.-TENT CLOTH.- PEGS, CORDS, ETC.-SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES TO "NAIL."-MODERN DESCRIPTIONS.-SHAPE AND SIZE OF TENT.-ARRANGEMENT OF A COLLECTION OF TENTS. FORMING AN ENCAMPMENT. -BREAKING UP AN ENCAMPMENT.-SCENES OF TENT LIFE. -TENT FURNITURE. - BOTTLES. CRUSE. HAND-MILL. KNEADING-TROUGH.-COOKING UTENSILS, OVEN, ETC.-BOOTHS OCCASIONALLY USED.-INSTANCES IN BIBLE.-BOOTHS IN VINE YARDS. THE inhabitants of Palestine and the adjacent countries have from the earliest ages been divided into two great 4 DWELLERS IN TENTS. classes-dwellers in tents, and dwellers in towns. This division has its origin in differences of occupation and means of subsistence: the agriculturist and others whose business left them stationary, erected houses as the most durable and convenient abodes; the shepherd, on the other hand, who was obliged to shift his quarters frequently in order to find pasture for his flocks and herds, was compelled to use the tent as the only movable habitation. We find traces of this distinction in the earliest pages of the Bible: we read of Cain, the agriculturist, that "he builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch," (Gen. iv. 17); while Jabal, the herdsman, was "the father of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattle" (Gen. iv. 20). In the present day the Arabs are similarly divided into the Bedouins, who lead a purely nomad life, and the Anezes, who are settled among the permanent inhabitants. 66 The two abodes then-the tent and the house-are indications of two different kinds of life, and two different states of society. The patriarch Abraham led a pastoral life he wandered into Canaan from the north of Mesopotamia, accompanied by his sheep and cattle, and wherever he met with suitable pasture, there he pitched his tent" for a while until the supply was exhausted, when "he removed and pitched his tent' elsewhere (Gen. xii. 8, xiii. 3, 18). Lot, who accompanied him, had "flocks and herds, and " (as a necessary consequence) "tents" (Gen. xiii. 5). And so we read of the other patriarchs: "Isaac pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there" (Gen. xxvi. 17); "Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents," i. e. leading a quiet pastoral life, in contrast to his brother Esau, who was devoted to the sports of the field (Gen. XXV. 27). St. Paul particularly notices this as a proof of their faith; dwelling in tabernacles" in the land that had been promised them, they showed that they felt themselves " 'strangers and pilgrims," and that 66 |