This singular construction enables him to travel several days in the sandy deserts without drinking; and to take at once a prodigious quantity of water, which is held in reservation. Though of a heavy and apparently unwieldy form, this animal moves with considerable speed. With a bale of goods on his back he will travel at the rate of thirty miles a day. The camel ruminates, but whether it fully parts the hoof is a question so undecided, says Michaelis, Laws of Moses, article 204, that we do not, even in the "Memoirs of the Academy at Paris," find a satisfactory answer to it on all points. The foot of the camel is actually divided into two toes, and the division below is complete, so that the animal might be accounted clean; but then it does not extend the whole length of the foot, but only to the fore part; for behind it is not parted, and we find, besides, under it and connected with it, a ball on which the camel goes. Now, in this dubious state of circumstances, Moses authoritatively declares, Levit. xi. 4, that the camel has not the hoof fully divided. It would appear as if he had meant that this animal, heretofore accounted clean by the Ishmaelites, Midianites, and all the rest of Abraham's Arabian descendants, should not be eaten by the Israelites; probably with a view to keep them, by this means, the more separate from these nations, with whom their connexion and their coincidence in manners was otherwise so close; and, perhaps too, to prevent them from conceiving any desire to continue in Arabia, or to devote themselves again to their favourite occupation of wandering herdsmen; for in Arabia, a people will always be in an uncomfortable situation if they dare not eat the flesh and drink the milk of the camel. To this opinion of Michaelis, an objection is made by Rosenmuller in his note upon Bochart, Hieroz. v. 1. p. 12; and he is rather inclined. to think that the prohibition was predicated upon the unwholesomeness of the flesh itself, and the general opinion as stated by Pocock, in Not. ad Specim. Hist. Arab. Ex. Abulpharagio, p. 87, that eating the flesh of the camel generated ill humours in the mind as well as the body70. Though this might not in fact be the effect, yet, if it was a prevailing opinion in the time of Moses, it was sufficient to justify the interdiction. It being so evident that the camel was declared unclean in the Levitical law, it is something strange that Heliogabalus should order the flesh of camels and ostriches to be served up at his table, saying, “præceptum Judæis ut ederent," there was a precept of the Jews, that they might be eaten (as Lampridius, cap. 28, reports his words). Salmasius, however, saith that a manuscript in the Palatine library, reads "struthiocamelos exhibuit in cænis," he had the camel-bird [ostriches] served up at supper. 70❝ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent, odii tenaces sunt. Unde insitum Arabibus, deserti cultoribus, hoc vitium, ideo quod camelorum carnibus vescantur.' H "No creature,” says Volney, "seems so peculiarly fitted to the climate in which he exists as the camel. Designing this animal to dwell in a country where he can find little nourish ment, nature has been sparing of her materials in the whole of his formation. She has not bestowed upon him the fleshiness of the ox, horse, or elephant; but limiting herself to what is strictly necessary, has given him a long head, without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh; has taken from his legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and, in short, bestowed upon his withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together. She has furnished him with a strong jaw, that he may grind the hardest aliments; but, lest he should consume too much, has straitened his stomach, and obliged him to chew the cud; has lined his foot with a lump of flesh, which sliding in the mud, and being no way adapted to climbing, fits him only for a dry, level, and sandy soil, like that of Arabia. So great, in short, is the importance of the camel to the desert, that, were it deprived of that useful animal, it must infallibly lose every inhabitant." The Arabians, of course, hold the camel in the highest estimation; and Bochart has preserved an ancient Arabic eulogy upon this animal, which is a great curiosity". See DROMEDARY. Camels were in ancient times very numerous in Judea, and over all the East. The patriarch Job had at first three thousand, and after the days of his adversity had passed away, six thousand camels. The Midianites and Amalekites had camels without number, as the sand upon the sea shore. Judg. vii. 12. So great was the importance attached to the propagation and management of camels, that a particular officer was appointed, in the reign of David, to superintend their keepers. Nor is it without design that the sacred writer mentions the descent of the person appointed; he was an Ishmaelite, and therefore supposed to be thoroughly skilled in the treatment of that useful quadruped. The chief use of the camel has always been as a beast of burden, and for performing journeys across the deserts. They have sometimes been used in war, to carry the baggage of an oriental army, and mingle in the tumult of the battle. Many of the Amalekite warriors, who burnt Ziklag in the time of David, were mounted on camels; for the sacred historian remarks, that of the whole army not a man escaped the furious onset of that heroic and exasperated leader, "save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled." 1 Sam. xxx. 17. A passage of Scripture has been the occasion of much criticism, in which our Lord says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matth. xix. 24. Some assert that 71 Hieroz. V. 1. p. 13, edit. Rosenmuller. near Jerusalem was a low gate called "the needle's eye," through which a camel could not pass unless his load were taken off. Others conjecture that as the ancient 6 and μ are much alike in manuscripts, nauiλos here, and in Aristophanes, vesp. schol. 1030, should be read abiños, a cable. But it is to be recollected, that the ancient manuscripts were in capital letters; and there are no ancient MSS. to support the reading. But in the Jewish Talmud there is a similar proverb about an elephant. "Rabbi Shesheth answered Rabbi Amram, who had advanced an absurdity, perhaps thou art one of the Pambidithians, who can make an elephant pass through the eye of a needle;" that is, says the Aruch, "who speak things impossible." There is also an expression similar to this in the Koran; "the impious, who in his arrogancy shall accuse our doctrine of falsity, shall find the gates of heaven shut; nor shall he enter there, till a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle. It is thus that we shall recompense the wicked." Surat. vii. v. 37. Indeed, Grotius, Lightfoot, Wetstein, and Michaelis join in opinion, that the comparison is so much in the figurative style of the oriental nations and of the Rabbins, that the text is sufficiently authentic. In Matthew, xxiii. 24, is another proverbial expression. "Ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." Dr. Adam Clarke has proved that here is an error of the press in printing the English translation, in which at has been substituted for out, which first occurred in the edition of 1611, and has been regularly continued since. It may be remarked, too, that the Greek word diudicovtes, here translated "strain," does not denote, as many have understood it, to make an effort to swallow, but to filter, or percolate; and alludes to a custom which the Jews had of filtering their wine, for fear of swallowing any insect forbidden by the law as unclean. Maimonides, in his treatise of forbidden meats, c. 1, art. 20, affords a remarkable illustration of our Saviour's proverbial expression. "He who strains wine, or vinegar, or strong drink, (says he), and eats the gnats, or flies, or worms, which he has strained off, is whipped." That the Jews used to strain their wine, appears also from the LXX version of Amos, vi. 6, where we read of divovov ovov, strained, or filtered wine. This expression is applied to those who are superstitiously anxious in avoiding small faults, yet did not scruple to commit the greatest sins; and it plainly refers to the Jewish law, in which both gnats and camels were considered as unclean. See GNAT. On the subject of cloth made from camel's hair, I extract the following remarks from "Fragments Supplementary to Calmet's Dictionary, No. cccxx." "John the Baptist, we are told, was habited in a raiment of camels' hair; and Chardin assures us, that the modern dervises wear such garments; as they do also great leathern girdles 72. 72 Harmer, Obs. V. 2. p. 487. Camels' hair is also made into those most beautiful stuffs, called shawls; but certainly the coarser manufacture of this material was adopted by John, and we may receive a good idea of its texture, from what Braithwaite says of the Arabian tents 73; they are made of camels' hair, somewhat like our coarse hair cloths to lay over goods.' By this coarse vesture the Baptist was not merely distinguished, but contrasted with those in royal palaces, who wore soft raiment, such as shawls, or other superfine manufactures, whether of the same material or not. "We may, I think, conclude that Elijah the Tishbite wore a dress of the same stuff, and of the like coarseness. 2 Kings, i. 8. A man dressed in hair (hair-cloth, no doubt), and girt with a girdle of leather.' Our translation reads a hairy man;' which might, by an unwary reader, be referred to his person, as in the case of Esau; but it should undoubtedly be referred to his dress. Observe, too, that in Zechariah, xiii. 4, a rough garment, that is of a hairy manufacture, is noticed as a characteristic of a prophet. "This may lead us to inquire, what might be the nature of the sackcloth so often mentioned in Scripture; and I the rather attempt this, because Mr. Harmer tells us that it was a coarse kind of woollen cloth, such as they made sacks of, and neither haircloth, nor made of hemp; nor was there that humiliation in wearing it, which we suppose 74. This is incorrect, because the Scripture expressly mentions, Rev. vi. 12, the sun became black as sackcloth of hair;' and Isai. 1. 8, 'I clothe the heavens with blackness, I make sackcloth their covering.' Sackcloth then was made of hair, and it was black. The prophets wore it at particular times75, and agreeably to that custom, the two witnesses, Rev. xi. 3, are represented as clothed in sackcloth; implying the revival and resumption of the ancient prophetical habiliment. It was used in these cases to express mourning. It appears, also, to have been employed to enwrap the dead, when about to be buried; so that its being worn by survivors was a kind of assimilation to the departed; and its being worn by penitents was an implied confession that their guilt exposed them to death. This may be gathered from an expression of Chardin, who says, Kel Anayet, the Shah's buffoon, made a shop in the seraglio, which he filled with pieces of that kind of stuff of which winding sheets for the dead are made:' and again—' the sufferers die by hundreds, wrapping-cloth is doubled in price.' However, in later ages, some nations might bury in linen, yet others still retained the use of sackcloth for that purpose." CAMPHIRE. COPHER. Turc. kafur [Meninski, Lexic. 3849.] Gr. Uços. Lat. Cyprus. κύπρος. Occ. Cantic. i. 14, iv. 13. 73 Journey to Morocco, p. 138. 75 Isai. xx. 3; Joel, i. 13. 74 Harmer's Obs. V. 1. p. 430. κυπρος Sir T. Browne supposes that the plant mentioned in the Canticles, rendered иurgos in the Septuagint, and Cyprus in the Vulgate, to be that described by Dioscorides and Pliny, growing in Egypt, and near to Ascalon, producing an odorate bush of flowers, and yielding the celebrated oleum cyprinum76. to M. Mariti says, "that the shrub known in the Hebrew language by the name of copher, is common in the island of Cyprus, and thence had its Latin name";" and also remarks that "the botrus cypri has been supposed to be a kind of rare and exquisite grapes, transplanted from Cyprus to Engaddi; but the botrus is known to the natives of Cyprus as an odoriferous shrub, called henna, or alkanna 78," I This shrub had at first been considered as a species of privet, to which it has, indeed, many relations; but difference in the parts of fructification have determined botanists to make a distinct genus of it, to which Linnæus has given the name of lawsonia, and to that we are describing lawsonia inermis. Its Arabic name is henné, and with the article, al-henna. In Turkey it is called kanna and al-kanna. This is one of the plants which is most grateful to the eye and the smell. The gently deep colour of its bark; the light green of its foliage; the softened mixture of white and yellow with which the flowers, collected into long clusters like the lilac, are coloured; the red tint of the ramifications which support them, form a combination of the most agreeable effect. These flowers whose shades are so delicate, diffuse around the sweetest odours, and embalm the gardens and apartments which they embellish. The women take pleasure in decking themselves with these charming clusters of fragrance, adorn their chambers with them, carry them to the bath, hold them in their hand, in a word adorn their bosom with them. With the powder of the dried leaves, they give an orange tincture to their nails, to the inside of their hands, and to the soles of their feet. The expression my NN NNWY rendered "pare her nails," Deut. xxi. 12, may perhaps rather mean, “adorn her nails ;" and imply the antiquity of this practice. This is a universal custom in Egypt, and not to conform to it would be considered indecent. It seems to have been practised by the ancient Egyptians, for the nails of the mummies are most commonly of a reddish hue 79. עשתה את צפרנוה 76"Cyprus est arbuscula in Syria, frequentissima, coma odoratissima, ex qua fit unguentum Cyprinum." Plin. N. H. lib. xii. 24. 77 Travels, Vol. ii. p. 34. 78 Ib. Vol. i. p. 333. R. Ben Melek, in his note on Cantic. expressly says, "Botrus copher id ipsum est quod Arabes vocant Al-hinna" See also Prosp. Alpinus de Plantis Egypti, c. 13, and Abu'l Fadli as quoted by Celsius, Hierobot. Vol. 1. p. 223. 79 See a Memoir on Embalmment, by M. Caylus, in the Memoirs of the Acad. of Inser. and Belles Lettres, tom. xxiii. p. 133. |