character by which they differ, consists in the Camel's | mount these difficulties, and even to appropriate to bearing two bunches or protuberances, and the Dromedary only one. The latter is also much less, and not so strong as the Camel; but both of them herd and procreate together; and the production from this cross breed is more vigorous, and of greater value than the

others.

"This mongrel issue from the Dromedary and the Camel forms a secondary breed, which also mix and multiply with the first; so that in this species, as well as in that of other domestic animals, there are to be found a great variety, according to the difference of the climates they are produced in. Aristotle has judiciously marked the two principal breeds; the first (which has two bunches) under the name of the Bactrian Camel; and the second, under that of the Arabian Camel; the first are called Turkman, and the other Arabian Camels. This division still subsists, with this difference only, that it appears, since the discovery of those parts of Africa and Asia which were unknown to the ancients, that the Dromedary is, without comparison, more numerous and more universal than the Camel; the last being seldom to be found in any other place than in Turkey, and in some other parts of the Levant; while the Dromedary, more common than any other beast of his size, is to be found in all the northern parts of Africa, in Egypt, in Persia, in South Tartary, and in all the northern parts of India.

"The Dromedary, therefore, occupies an immense tract of land, while the Camel is confined to a small spot of ground; the first inhabits hot and parched regions; the second a more moist and temperate soil. The Camel appears to be a native of Arabia; for it is not only the country where there are the greatest number, but is also best accommodated to their nature. Arabia is the driest country in the world; and the Camel is the least thirsty of all animals, and can pass seven days without any drink. The land is almost in every part dry and sandy: the feet of the Camel are formed to travel in sand; while on the contrary, he cannot support himself in moist and slippery ground. Herbage and pasture are wanting to this country, as is the ox, whose place is supplied by the Camel.

"The Arabs regard the Camel as a present from heaven, a sacred animal, without whose aid they could neither subsist, trade, nor travel. It has been emphatically called the ship of the desert. Its milk is their common nourishment; they likewise eat its flesh, especially that of the young ones, which they reckon very good. The hair of these animals, which is fine and very soft, is renewed every year, and serves them to make stuffs for their clothing and their furniture. Blessed with their Camels, they not only want for nothing, but they even fear nothing. With them they can, in a single day, place a tract of desert of fifty miles between them and their enemies, and all the armies in the world would perish in the pursuit of a troop of Arabs. Let any one figure to himself a country without verdure and without water, a burning sun, a sky always clear, plains covered with sand, and mountains still more parched, over which the eye extends, and the sight is lost, without being stopped by a single living object; a dead earth, flayed (if I may be allowed the expression) by the winds, which presents nothing but bones of dead bodies, flints scattered here and there, rocks standing upright or overthrown; a desert entirely naked, where the traveller never drew his breath under the friendly shade; where he has nothing to accompany him, and where nothing reminds him of living nature; an absolute void a thousand times more frightful than that of the forest, whose verdure, in some measure, diminishes the horrors of solitude; an immensity which he in vain attempts to overrun; for hunger, thirst, and burning heat, press on him every weary moment that remains between despair and death.

himself these gaps of Nature; they serve him for an asylum; they secure his repose, and maintain him inhis independence. But why does not man know how to make use of them without abuse? This same Arab, free, independent, tranquil, and even rich, instead of respecting those deserts as the ramparts of his liberty, soils them with guilt: he traverses over them to the neighbouring nations, and robs them of their slaves and gold: he makes use of them to exercise his robberies, which unfortunately he enjoys more than his liberty; for his enterprises are almost all successful: notwithstanding the caution of his neighbours, and the superiority of their forces, he escapes their pursuit, and, unpunished, bears away all that he has plundered them of.

"An Arab who destines himself to this business of land piracy, early hardens himself to the fatigue of travelling he accustoms himself to pass many days without sleep; to suffer hunger, thirst, and heat; at the same time he instructs his Camels, he brings them up, and exercises them in the same method. A few days after they are born, he bends their legs under their bellies, and constrains them to remain on the earth, and loads them, in this situation, with a weight as heavy as they usually carry, which he only relieves them from to give them a heavier. Instead of suffering them to feed every hour, and drink even when they are thirsty, he regulates their repasts, and, by degrees, increases them to greater distances between each meal, diminishing also, at the same time, the quantity of their food. When they are a little stronger, he exercises them to the course; he excites them by the example of horses, and endeavours to render them also as swift, and more robust; at length, when he is assured of the strength and swiftness of his Camels, and that they can endure hunger and thirst, he then loads them with whatever is necessary for his and their subsistence. He departs with them, arrives unexpectedly at the borders of the desert, stops the first passenger he sees, pillages the straggling habitations, and loads his Camels with his booty. If he is pursued, he is obliged to expedite his retreat; and then he displays all his own and his animals' talents. Mounted on one of his swiftest Camels, he conducts the troop, makes them travel day and night, almost without stopping either to eat or drink. In this manner he easily passes over three hundred miles in eight days; and, during all that time of fatigue and travel, he never unloads his Camels, and only allows them an hour of repose, and a ball of paste each day. They often run in this manner for eight or nine days without meeting with any water, during which time they never drink; and when by chance they find a pool at some distance from their route, they smell the water at more than half a mile before they come to it. Thirst now makes them redouble their pace; and then they drink enough for all the time past, and for as long to come; for often they are many weeks in travelling; and their time of abstinence endures as long as they are upon their journey.

"In Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, Barbary, &c. they use no other carriage for their merchandise than Camels, which is, of all their conveyances, the most ready and the cheapest. Merchants and other travellers assemble themselves in caravans, to avoid the insults and piracies of the Arabs. These caravans are often very numerous, and often composed of more Camels than men. Every one of these Camels is loaded according to his strength; and he is so sensible of it himself, that when a heavier load than usual is put upon him, he refuses it, by constantly remaining in his resting posture, till he is lightened of some of his burthen.

"Large and strong Camels generally carry a thousand, and even twelve hundred weight; the smaller 'Nevertheless, the Arab has found means to sur-only six or seven hundred. In these commercial jour

neys, they do not travel quick; and, as the route is
often seven or eight hundred miles, they regulate their
stages; they only walk, and go every day ten or twelve
miles; they are disburthened every evening, and are
suffered to feed at liberty. If they are in a part of the
country where there is pasture, they eat enough in one
hour to serve them twenty-four, and to ruminate on
during the whole night; but they seldom meet with
pastures, and this delicate food is not necessary for
them they even seem to prefer wormwood, thistles,
nettles, furze, and other thorny vegetables, to the
milder herbs; and so long as they can find plants to
brouse on, they very easily live without any drink.
"This facility with which they abstain so long from
drinking, is not pure habit, but rather an effect of their
formation. Independent of the four stomachs that are
commonly found in ruminating animals, the Camel is
possessed of a fifth bag, which serves him as a reser-
voir to retain the water. This fifth stomach is pecu-
liar to the Camel. It is of so vast a capacity as to
contain a great quantity of liquor, where it remains
without corruption, or without the other aliments being
able to mix with it. When the animal is pressed with
thirst, or has occasion to dilute the dry food, and to
macerate it for rumination, he causes a part of this
water to reascend into the stomach, and even to the
throat, by a simple contraction of the muscles.

days, and which happens every spring of the year. The female goes with young exactly a year, and, like all other large animals, produces but one at a birth. They have great plenty of milk, which is thick, and nourishing even for the human species, if it is mixed with more than an equal quantity of water. The fe males seldom do any labour while they are with young, but are suffered to bring forth at liberty. The profit which arises from their produce, and from their milk, perhaps surpasses that which is got from their labour; nevertheless, in some places, a great part of the females undergo castration, as well as the males, in order to render them more fit for labour. In general, the fatter the Camels are, the more capable they are of enduring great fatigues. Their hunches appear to be formed only by the superabundance of nourishment: for, in long journeys, where they are obliged to stint them in their food, and where they suffer both hunger and thirst, these hunches gradually diminish, and are reduced almost even; and the eminences are only discovered by the height of the hair, which is always much longer upon these parts than upon any other part of the back.

"The young Camel sucks his mother a year; and when they want to bring him up so as to make him strong and robust, they leave him at liberty to suck or graze for a longer time, nor begin to load him, or put "This animal bears about him all the marks of sla- him to labour, till he has attained the age of four very and pain; below the breast, upon the sternum, is years. The Camel commonly lives forty or fifty years. a thick and large callosity, as tough as horn; the like "The Camel is not only of greater value than the substance appears upon the joints of the legs; and elephant, but perhaps not of less than the horse, the although these callosities are to be met with in every ass, and the ox, all united together. He alone carries animal, yet they plainly prove that they are not natu- as much as two mules; he not only also eats less, but ral, but produced by an excessive constraint and pain, likewise feeds on herbs as coarse as the ass. The feas appears from their being often found filled with pus. male furnishes milk a longer time than the cow; the It is therefore evident, that this deformity proceeds flesh of young Camels is good and wholesome, like from the custom to which these animals are constrain- veal; their hair is finer, and more sought after than ed, of forcing them, when quite young, to lie upon their the finest wool; there is not a part of them, even to stomach with their legs bent under them, and in that their excrements, from which some pofit is not drawn ; cramped posture to bear not only the weight of their for sal ammoniac is made from their urine; their dung, body, but also the burthens with which they are laden. when dried and powdered, serves them for litter, as it These poor animals must suffer a great deal, as they does for horses, with whom they often travel into make lamentable cries, especially when they are over- countries where neither straw nor hay is known. In loaded; and, notwithstanding they are continually fine, a kind of turf is also made of this dung, which abused, they have as much spirit as docility. At the burns freely, and gives a flame as clear, and almost as first sign they bend their legs under their bodies, and lively, as that of dry wood; even this is another great kneeling upon the ground, they are unloaded, without use, especially in deserts, where not a tree is to be the trouble of lifting up the load to a great height, seen, and where, from the deficiency of combustible which must happen, were they to stand upright. As matters, fire is almost as scarce as water.' soon as they are loaded, they raise themselves up again without any assistance or support; and the conductor, mounted on one of them, precedes the whole troop, who follow him in the same pace as he leads. They have neither need of whip or spur to excite them; but, when they begin to be fatigued, their conductors support their spirits, or rather charm their weariness, by a song, or the sound of some instrument. When they want to prolong the route, or double the day's journey, they give them an hour's rest; after which, renewing their song, they again proceed on their way for many hours more; and the singing continues until the time that they stop. Then the camels again kneel down on the earth, to be relieved from the burthen, by the cords being untied, and the bales rolled down on each side. They remain in this cramped posture, with their belly couched upon the earth, and sleep in the midst of their baggage, which is tied on again the next morning with as much readiness and facility as it was untied before they went to rest. These are, however, not their only inconveniences: they are prepared for all these evils by one still greater; by mutilating them by castration while young. They leave but one male for eight or ten females; and all the labouring Camels are commonly gelt; they are weaker, without doubt, than those which are not castrated; but they are more tractable than the others, who are not only indocile, but almost furious, in the rutting time, which remains forty

VAGARIES OF IMAGINATION.

It is well known how a man was cured who fancied that he was dead, and refused all sustenance. His friends deposited him with all due formalities in a dark cellar. One of them caused himself soon afterwards to be carried into the same place in a coffin, containing a plentiful supply of provisions, and assured him that it was customary to eat and drink in that world, as well as in the one which they had just left. He suffered himself to be persuaded, and recovered.-Another, who imagined that he had no head, (a notion that is not so common as the reverse,) was speedily convinced of the real existence of his head, by a heavy hat of lead which, by its pressure, made him feel for the first time, during a long period, that he actually possessed this necessary appendage. But the most dangerous state of all is, when the imagination fixes upon things the lively representation of which may finally induce their realiza tion. Of this sort was a case which fell under my own professional experience, and which affords one of the most striking proofs of the power of an overstrained imagination.

A youth of sixteen, of a weekly constitution and delicate nerves, but in other respects quite healthy, quitted his room in the dusk of the evening, but suddenly returned, with a face pale as death, and looks betraying

the greatest terror, and in a tremulous voice told a fellow-student who lived in the same room with him, that he should die at nine o'clock in the morning of the day after the next. His companion naturally considered this sudden transformation of a cheerful youth into a candidate for the grave as very extraordinary: he inquired the cause of this notion, and, as the other declined to satisfy his curiosity, he strove at least to laugh him out of it. His efforts however were unavailing. All the answer he could obtain from his comrade was, that his death was certain and inevitable. A number of well-meaning friends assembled about him, and endeavoured to wean him from his idea by lively conversation, jokes, and even satirical remarks. He sat among them with a gloomy, thoughtful look, took no share in their discourse, sighed, and at length grew angry when they began to rally him. It was hoped at sleep would dispel this melancholy mood; but he never closed his eyes, and his thoughts were engaged all night with his approaching decease. Early next morning I was sent for. I found, in fact, the most sinlar sight in the world-a person in good health, making all the arrangements for his funeral, taking an affecting leave of his friends, and writing a letter to his father, to acquaint him with his approaching dissolution, and to bid him farewell. I examined the state of his body, and found nothing unusual but the paleness of his face, eyes dull and rather inflamed with weeping, coldness of the extremities, and a low contracted pulse-indications of a general cramp of the nerves, which was sufficiently manifested in the state of his mind. I endeavoured, therefore, to convince him, by the most powerful arguments, of the futility of his notion, and to prove that a person whose bodily health was so good, had no reason whatever to apprehend speedy death: in short, I exerted all my eloquence and my professional knowledge, but without making the slightest impression. He willingly admitted that I, as a physician, could not discover any cause of death in him, but this, he contended, was the peculiar circumstance of his case, that without any natural cause, merely from an unalterable decree of fate, his death must ensue; and though he could not expect us to share this conviction, still it was equally certain that it would be verified by the event of the following day. All that I could do, therefore, was to tell him, that under these circumstances I must treat him as a person labouring under a disease, and prescribe medicines accordingly. Very well," replied he, "but you will see not only that your medicines will not do me any good, but that they will not operate at all."

same moment a voice pronounced the words "The day after to-morrow, at nine in the morning, thou shalt die!" and the fate thus predicted nothing could enable him to escape. He now proceeded to set his house in order, made his will, and gave particular directions for his funeral, specifying who were to carry, and who to follow him to the grave. He had insisted on receiving the sacrament-a wish, however, which those about him evaded complying with. Night came on, and he began to count the hours he had yet to live, till the fatal nine the next morning, and every time the clock struck, his anxiety evidently increased. I began to be apprehensive for the result; for I recollected instances in which the mere imagination of death had really produced a fatal result. I recollected also the feigned execution, when the criminal, after a solemn trial, was sentenced to be beheaded, and when, in expectation of the fatal blow, his neck was touched with a switch, on which he fell lifeless to the ground, as though his head had been really cut off: and this circumstance gave me reason to fear that a similar result might attend this case, and that the striking of the hour of nine might prove as fatal to my patient as the blow of the switch on the above-mentioned occasion. At any rate, the shock communicated by the striking of the clock, accompanied by the extraordinary excitement of the imagination and the general cramp which had determined all the blood to the head and the internal parts, might produce a most dangerous revolution, spasms, fainting-fits, or hæmorrhages; or even totally overthrow reason, which had already sustained so severe an attack.

What was then to be done? In my judgment, every thing depended on carrying him, without his being aware of it, beyond the fatal moment; and it was to be hoped that as his whole delusion hinged upon this point, he would then feel ashamed of himself and be cured of it. I therefore placed my reliance on opium, which, moreover, was quite appropriate to the state of his nerves, and prescribed twenty drops of laudanum, with two grains of hen-bane, to be taken about midnight. I directed that if, as I hoped, he overslept the fatal hour, his friends should assemble round his bed, and on his awaking, laugh heartily at his silly notion, that, instead of being allowed to dwell upon the gloomy idea, he might be rendered thoroughly sensible of its absurdity. My instructions were punctually obeyed: soon after he had taken the opiate, he fell into a profound sleep, from which he did not awake till about eleven o'clock the next day. "What hour is it?" was the first question on opening his eyes; and when he There was no time to be lost, for I had only twenty- heard how long he had overslept his death, and was at four hours left to effect a cure. I therefore judged it the same time greeted with loud laughter for his folly, best to employ powerful remedies in order to release he crept ashamed under the bed clothes, and at length him from this bondage of his imagination. With this joined in the laugh, declaring that the whole affair apview a very strong emetic and cathartic were adminis- peared to him like a dream, and that he could not contered, and blisters applied to both thighs. He submit-ceive how he could be such a simpleton. Since that ted to every thing, but with the assurance that his body time he has enjoyed the best health, and has never had was already half dead, and the remedies would be of any similar attack.-London Mirror. no use. Accordingly, to my utter astonishment, I learned, when I called in the evening, that the emetic had taken but little or no effect, and that the blisters had not even turned the skin red. He now triumphed over our incredulity, and deduced from this inefficacy of the remedies the strongest conviction that he was already little better than a corpse. To me the case began to assume a very serious aspect. I saw how powerfully the state of the mind had affected the body, and what a degree of insensibility it had produced; and I had just reason to apprehend that an imagination which had reduced the body to such extremity, was capable of carrying matters to still greater lengths.

LAND REMAINS.

A term applied to remains of animals and vegetables, found in many places, on digging in the earth, mostly interchanged with strata of marine remains. They consist of bones of animals, or vegetables, whose species chiefly are extinct, or whose genera now flourish in warmer climates, the bones being often of animals of enormous size, either because such were common, or because they have endured longer. Vegetables, in particular, are often found imbedded in coals, and coalseams are in general considered as consolidations of ancient forests. In Iceland, a forest was lately found All our inquiries as to the cause of his belief had with the trees erect, 50 or 60 feet below the surface of hitherto proved abortive. He now disclosed to one of the earth, and prostrate forests have been found in Lanhis friends, but in the strictest confidence, that the pre-cashire and Lincolnshire, in England. All the appearceding evening, on quitting his room, he had seen a ances are perfectly consistent with the mosaic record. figure in white, which beckoned to him, and at the

SECTION VIII.

1

HISTORY.

CANAAN.

This country, so celebrated in sacred story, was settled by the posterity of Canaan, the son of Ham. The sons of Canaan mentioned in scripture were these: Sidon his first born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite. All these were born before the Dispersion. "Afterwards," says scripture," were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha."

The Canaanites were divided into tribes, seven in number according to some, but nine according to others. These were the people on whom rested the Divine malediction uttered by Noah against Canaan; which malediction they were made to realize when the Israelites took possession of their land, as will be seen in its place.

Palestina was most charmingly situated. On the coast it was level; but as it receded thence, it rose gradually into fertile hills and mountains, from whose summits spread out to the eye landscapes of exquisite beauty. From these mountains descended numerous rivulets, which watered the plains below. The climate was mild and temperate. In short, nothing seemed wanting to render it one of the most delightful countries on the earth. It derived the name of Palestine from its inhabitants, the Philistines; which name has been finally applied to the whole country occupied by the Jews as well as by them.

SYRIA.

Syria is a country containing lofty mountains, ferthe summits of its mountains are stiffened with frost or tile plains, noble rivers, and dreary deserts. While crowned with snow, other portions of the country languish with sultry heat. But this diversity, these extremes of heat and cold, produce in the intermediate parts an agreeable temperature. Refreshing breezes play among the hills situated at the bases of those

lightful region.

The primitive Syrians were the descendants of Aram, the youngest son of Shem; although in time they were intermingled with several families of the Canaanites, who sought among them an asylum from

The Canaanites appear to have been shepherds, hus-mountains, and following the courses of the rivers, invigorate and exhilarate the inhabitants of that debandmen, soldiers, artisans, merchants, or sailors, according to the nature and condition of the portion of the country which they chanced to inhabit. Each tribe was governed by a king; although the tribes collectively appear to have formed a general confederacy. The kings were rather of the patriarchal, than of the despotic kind. Public affairs were regulated in public assemblies of the people themselves. As to their religion, the knowledge of the true God was preserved amongst them for no inconsiderable period; for even in the time of Abraham, Melchizedec, the king of Salem, was a priest of the Most High God.

But little, however, can be expected in the historical line, relative to the infant period of this or any other of those early nations. They were too inconsiderable in population, and in every other respect, to make any great figure on the stage of the world. The most that can be done is, not to lose sight of them, but to trace them from their origin down to a period when they acted a more conspicuous part. We will therefore leave the Canaanites for the present, with this very brief notice, and turn our attention for a few mo

ments to

PALESTINA.

The Philistines were descendants of Ham. Philistim, from whom they derived their name, was a son of Casluhim, one of the sons of Mizraim, the son of Ham. There is some reason for supposing that the Philistines were a colony from Egypt.

The chiefs of this people had at first but very limited power, their government being a kind of aristocracy, and not a monarchy. Their chiefs were elective. The invention of the bow and arrow is attributed to them. Among them were giants, or men of extraordinary stature. Like other nations at their outset, they had some knowledge of the true religion, which they received from their fathers, who had opportunities of conversing with Noah and his sons. This knowledge they retained for some time, as appears from the fact that in the time of Isaac, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, so feared God as to be deterred from taking Rebecca, Isaac's wife, from him. VOL. II.-8

the sword of the Israelites.

And indeed, this appears to have been the case with Syria was at first divided into petty kingdoms. almost all the countries inhabited in those early times. A kingdom in those days would hardly constitute a province of the smallest kind in our own. In fact, it would seem that a city, or more properly, a town or village, was sometimes denominated a kingdom. feminacy and imbecility, resembling more the female The Syrians from the very first were noted for ef than the male sex, both in deportment and practice. This feature in their character is partly attributable to their climate, and partly to their system of religion, which was one of the most profligate and debauching ever known. But more on this point in its proper place. We will next consider

PHOENICIA.

This famous country of olden times was a fertile tract of country, stretching along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and enjoying every possible advantage for commerce. Its harbours were numerous, spacious, and secure. Lebanon supplied timber in abundance for the building of ships. And its position in relation to the various commercial countries of the Mediterranean was all that could be desired to facilitate commercial intercourse. No wonder, then, that in process of time, Phoenicia should become the commercial bond of connexion between the three quarters of the world.

Sidon, one of the chief cities of Phoenicia, was built by Sidon, a son of Canaan. He was its first sovereign. But it was not till a period later than we are now considering, that this city or any part of Phonicia attained to notoriety worthy of the historic page. We therefore merely introduce it here, and leave it for

future notice