the Medes of that time), give a dark, and at the same time majestic shade to the eyes.' SONNINI, in his travels in upper and lower Egypt, v. i. p. 263, observes, "The most remarkable trait of beauty in the east is large black eyes, and it is well known that nature has made this a characteristic of the women of those countries. But, not content with these gifts of nature, those of Egypt employ every effort of art to make their eyes appear larger and blacker. For this purpose, females of every description, Mahometan, Jew, Christian, rich and poor, all tinge the eyebrows and eyelashes with black lead [Galena tessalata], known in the commerce of the Levant by the name of alquifoux or arquifoux. They reduce it to a subtil powder, to which they give consistency by mixing it with the fuliginous vapour of a lamp. The more opulent employ the fumes of amber, or some other fat and odoriferous substance, and have the drug always prepared at hand in small phials. With this composition they themselves paint the eyebrows and eyelids, and with a small piece of wood or reed, or a feather, they likewise blacken the lashes with it by passing it with a light hand between the two eyelids; an operation which the Roman ladies practised of old, and which Juvenal has described with so much exactitude. They besides mark with it the angles of the eye, which makes the fissure appear greater." Jackson, in his History of Morocco, p. 28, also observes, "The eye and figure of the gazel, so well known to all Arabian poets, are emblematical of beauty; and the greatest compliment that can be paid to a beautiful woman is to compare her eyes to those of the gazel. Much art is employed by the Arabian females to make their eyes appear like those of this delicate animal. Eyes originally black and lively are made to appear larger and more languishing by tinging the outer corner with Elkahol filelly, a preparation of the lead ore procured from Tafilelt, which gives an apparent elongation to the eye. The eyelashes and eyebrows being also blackened with this composition, appear peculiarly soft and languishing. It is said also to improve and strengthen the sight. Every one who has accurately observed the eye of the African gazel will acquiesce in the aptness of the simile before alluded to 12 " ANUBIS. A symbolical Egyptian deity, represented by a human figure, with the head of a dog. The word NOBEH to bark, as a dog, occurs Isai. Ivi. 10. Hence, perhaps, the HANUBEH, the barker, had his name. Virgil, Æn. viii. v. 689, and Ovid, Metam. 1. ix. fab. xii. v. 689, call him, "latrator anubis." A Babylonish idol, mentioned Isai. xlvi. 1, is called ' NEBO, and the god of the Hivites, mentioned 2 Kings, xvii. 31, named NIBHAZ, is supposed to be the same with Anubis. 1 Perhaps our English word COAL is derived from 55, this black substance. Mr. Bruce, Trav. vol. ii. p. 337. 2d. ed. maintains that Anubis is the same as Osiris; and that Osiris is sirius, the dog-star, derived from seir, which, in the language of the first inhabitants of the Thebaid, as well as in that of the low country of Meroe, signifies a dog. It farther appears that seir or siris was the original name of the Egyptian god; for Diodorus Siculus informs us that the Greeks, by putting O before the word, had rendered it unintelligible to the Egyptians. Sirius then was the dog-star, designed under the figure of a dog; because the warning he gave to Atbara, when the first observations were made there, at his heliacal rising or his disengaging himself from the rays of the sun, so as to be visible to the naked eye. He was the latrator anubis, and his first appearance was figuratively compared to the barking of a dog, by the warning which it gave to prepare for the approaching inundation. The theory of Jablonski is a little different from this, but is not inconsistent with it; and they both tend to prove that the mythology of the Egyptians had its origin chiefly in astronomy. St. Clement of Alexandria, who was well informed in the mystic theology of the Egyptians, explains the emblematical deity by a reference to astronomy. It would seem, that at first it was only a symbolical image invented by astronomers to give a sensible expression of their discoveries; that afterwards, the people, accustomed to see it in their temples, which were the depositories of science, adored it as a deity; and that the priests favoured their ignorance by connecting it with their religion. The worship of Anubis introduced that of the dog as his emblem. CAT. EAOTPOZ. Baruch, vi. 22. The sixth chapter of Baruch professes to be "the epistle which Jeremiah sent to them which were to be led captive into Babylon." It contains spirited and judicious strictures against idolatry, of which the vanity is forcibly exposed. In the twentysecond verse he represents odious animals as resting upon the bodies of the idols; and among these cats. From this reference I imagine that this animal was held in contempt by the Jews, and was probably domesticated by the Babylonians, and suffered to frequent their temples in search of prey. By the Egyptians the cat was held in high veneration. Herodotus informs us, that when a cat died in a house, the owner of the habitation shaved his eyebrows; that they carried the cats when dead into consecrated houses to be embalmed, and interred them at Bubastis, a considerable city of Lower Egypt; and that if any killed a cat designedly, it was a capital offence, and must be punished by a fine determined by the priests. These enactions were politically useful. It was necessary to put under the immediate guardianship of the laws, a species of animals whose protection was indispensable against the prodigious multitudes of rats and mice FF with which Egypt was infested, and the most effectual means of securing them from injury was to render them objects of religious veneration. Cats, no longer regarded as sacred in Egypt, are, nevertheless, to this day, treated with the utmost care in that country, and are to be found in all the houses. II. By the word y TSIJIM, in Isai. xiii. 21; xxxiv. 14; and Jer. 1. 39, rendered "wild beasts of the desert;" and Psalm Ixxiv. 14, "people inhabiting the wilderness," Bochart thinks that wild cats are meant. He strengthens his opinion by finding in the Arabic dsaivvan, as the name of a cat, and dsajain a kitten; names somewhat resembling the Hebrew. Bishop Lowth translates the Hebrew word in one place, " mountain cats ;" and Dr. Blaney renders it, in the passage in Jeremiah, “ wild cats.” Aurivilius in his "Dissertatio de nominibus animalium quæ leguntur Es. xiii. 21," contends, in answer to Bochart, that the animal referred to is the vespertilio vampyrus, Liunai. Michaelis, in Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr. p. 2086, intimates that serpents are intended. But Rosenmuller, in his note on Bochart, thinks their arguments invalid. It is impossible to determine what particular kind of animals are meant. J. E. Faber, in "Dissert. de animalibus quorum mentio fit Zeph. ii. 1413," asserts that the wild cat is intended by the Hebrew word ', rendered in our version, "beasts of the Gentiles." Cats are found in a state of wildness in the deserts of Asia and Africa. They are distinguished from the varieties of those that are domesticated, by the superiority of their size, and by being of greater strength and more formidable spirit. COTTON. Gossypium arboreum. Linnæi. A woolly or rather downy substance, enveloping the seeds of the Gossypium; which is a small shrub. The plant puts forth many yellow flowers, the ground of which is purple, and striped within. These are succeeded by a pod as large as a pigeon's egg, which, when ripe, turns black, and divides at top into three parts, disclosing the soft lanuginous contents, called "cotton." Referring to the articles FLAX and LINEN, in the preceding pages of this volume, I would here add, that Prosper Alpinus, de Plantis Egypti, p. 69, gives an engraving of the cotton plant. He observes, that the product is called by the inhabitants “Bessa." This bears some resemblance to the P BUTZ of the Hebrews; whence the Burros of the Greeks, and the byssus of the Latins. We do not find this name for apparel among the Jews till the times of their royalty, when by commerce they obtained articles of dress from other nations. See 1 Chron. iv. 21; xv. 27; 2 Chron. ii. 13; iii. 14; v. 12; Esth. i. 6; viii. 15; and 13 Adnexa est C. F. Crameri libro, cui inscriptum Scythisce Denkmaler in Pa læstina. Ezek. xxvii. 16. It was probably, therefore, a word of foreign extraction. says, That the article translated "fine linen," in our version, was the cotton, is shown in an elaborate treatise "de bysso antiquorum," by Dr. J. S. Forster. The probability of this is strengthened by the description given of the byssus by Pollux, Onomasticon, lib. vii. c. 17, which cannot be applied to any thing but cotton. He that this material came from a nut which grew in Egypt and also in India: they opened the nut, extracted this substance, spun it, and wove it for garments. Philostratus describes it much in the same manner. Besides, it seems evident, from the analogy of languages, that the word used by Moses, Gen. xli, 42, in describing the garments with which Joseph was arrayed by Pharaoh in Egypt, must mean cotton. This is the opinion of some of the most learned interpreters and commentators. We learn farther, from profane authors, that robes of cotton were very ancient in Egypt, and that they were worn only by persons of the greatest distinction. By Pliny, they are called "vestes Sacerdotibus gratissimæ ;" and wrappers of it, according to Plutarch de Iside, and Herodotus, 1. ii. c. 86, were the sacred winding-sheets and fillets of the mummies. Pausanius, Eliac, 1. i. says, Η δε βυσσος η εν τη Ηλει, λεπιοτίηλος μεν ενεκα, ουκ αποδει της Εβραίων, εςι δε ουχ ομοίως ξανθη. The fine byssus in Elea is not inferior in tenuity to that of the Hebrews, but it is less yellow.' On which Forster remarks, p. 43, " Hanc Hebræorum Byssum suspicor non ex gossypio factum, verum ex bombacis lanugine, quæ coloris est fusci et flavescentis." The bombar, or silk cotton-tree, is a native of the Indies, where it grows large. The fruit is as big as a swan's egg, having a thick ligneous cover, which, when ripe, opens in five parts, and is full of a silky down, or cotton. This is spun and wrought into clothes. This must be distinguished from the bombyx, the name of the silkworm; whence we have the word bombasine for a slight silken stuff. LIPSIUS, ad Taciti. Annal. xi, gives this caution: "Nolim erres; distincta genera vestium olim Byssina, et Bombycina. Byssina e lino, Bombycina e verme.' But whether the Jews were acquainted with a cloth of this fabric seems very doubtful. Some writers, indeed, suppose that the byssus of the ancients was the product of a shell-fish; and we know, that from remote periods, the silky threads by which the pinna marina fix their shells to the rocks or stones at the bottom of the sea, have been spun and woven into different articles of dress. Aristotle, Hist. I. v. c. 25, says, Αι δε πινναι ορθαιφυονίαι εκ του βυσσου εν τοις αμμωδεσι και βορβορώδεσι The pinnæ are found on the beach or sands of the sea-coast, and from these the byssus is obtained 14.' In "Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences," 1712, p. 207, 1 14 See also Basil, in hexam, orat. p. 7. Procopius de Justin. fabriciis, l. iii. p. 30. M. Godefroi has given an account of the pinna, and of the knowledge which the ancients had of it as furnishing materials for apparel. To obtain the article, the shells are dragged up by a kind of iron rake with many teeth, each about seven inches long, and three inches asunder; and attached to a handle proportionate to the depth of the water in which the shells are found. When the byssus is separated, it is well washed to cleanse it from impurities. It is then dried in the shade, straightened with a large comb; the hard part from which it springs is cut off, and the remainder is properly carded. By these different processes, it is said that a pound of byssus, as taken from the sea, is reduced to about three ounces. This substance, in its natural colour, which is a brilliant golden brown, is manufactured (with the aid of a little silk to strengthen it), into small articles of dress, of extremely fine texture. It is not at all likely, that this difficult and curious fabric is ever mentioned in Scripture; though from the following passage of Maimonides it appears to have been known to the Jews: "Est in urbibus maritimis quædam lana, quæ nascitur in lapidibus, in mari salso, aurei coloris et tenerrima, nomine CALACH: illum cum lino misceri vetitum est, propter externam speciem, quia similis est lanæ agnorum. Sic etiam sericus et calach non licet misceri propter externam speciem." DROUGHT. .TSIMMAON צמאון Occ. Deut. viii. 15. This word is by some thought to be the serpent dipsas, whose bite causes an intolerable thirst. The poet Lucan, in the ninth book of his Pharsalia, has given a particular description of the terrible effects of the bite of the dipsas, which is thus translated by Rowe: "Aulus, a noble youth of Tyrrhene blood, Backward the wrathful serpent bent her head, No kindly floods of moisture bathe his tongue, But cleaving to the parched roof it hung; No trickling drops distil, no dewy sweat, To ease his weary limbs and cool the raging heat." Gregory Nazianzen, Iambic 22, describes the dipsas as infest ing the deserts of Egypt. |