parts of female dress, we may conclude the subject by remarking, that we have an instance of a full dressed woman, in Judith, when she went to attract the notice of Holofernes."

b

It will be in the recollection of all, that the fashion of the dresses of both sexes among the Jews was very stationary, and, therefore, that wardrobes were accounted family riches, and descended from generation to generation. This accounts for the ease with which Jehu's mandate was obeyed, when he ordered 400 vestments for the priests of Baal, that none might escape. And the classic scholar will instantly recollect the 5000 chlamydes or cloaks, which Lucullus could furnish to those who asked him."

Every age also hath had its favourite colour, some being accounted more distinctive of rank than others. Thus blue or purple, as having a shade of blue,' was anciently accounted honourable; whereas blue is now the common colour, of the lower ranks in the East." The reason is, that the ancient purple was obtained from the murex, a species of shell-fish, particularly described by Pliny," very rare, and only to be found in the neighbourhood of Tyre; hence the Tyrian purple, which could only be purchased by emperors, and was worth its weight in gold; whereas the present blue colour is procured from indigo. The scarlet and

a Judith x. S, 4; xii. 15. For farther information, consult Bishop Lowth's new translation of Isaiah, ch. iii. 18-24; Fleury's Manners of the ancient Israelites, part ii. ch. 6; and Schroederi Commentarius philologico-criticus de Vestitu Mulierum Hebræarum.

b Matth. vi. 19-21. d Hor. Epist. lib. i. ep. 6. Hasselquist, p. 244, 245.

c 2 Kings x. 22.

e Ezek. xxiii. 6. f Acts xvi. 14. h Hist. Nat. lib. ix. cap. 36.

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crimson of the ancients were different from the purple; for these were produced from a worm or insect, which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. There is a shrub of this kind, says Lowth, on Is. i. 18, that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, from kermez, the Arabic word for this colour; whence our word crimson is derived.—Mr. Bruce, when at Tyre, on his way to the source of the Nile, tried to obtain some of these fishes, from which the ancient purple was said to have been made, but could find none, after diligent fishing; and is inclined to think that the whole is fabulous, and that it was intended to conceal their knowledge of cochineal.

Before finishing the article, I shall add a few short notices. Woollen garments were not much esteemed by the ancient Jews. John the Baptist's garment was a coarse cloth of camel's hair, not unlike that of the two dervishes which Captain Light saw in Egypt; who had a cloak of that material, thrown over their shoulders, and tied in front to their breast, with a girdle of skin round their loins. Bishop Pococke, when describing the dresses of Egypt, says, that when riding they drop their upper garment around them on the saddle; and La Roque tells us, that the riding dress of the Arabs is a piece of cloth doubled for a cloak, and sewed at the edges like a sack, leaving a hole at the corners for the arms, and the fore part is cut open, and a place cut out for the neck. Small boots of

a Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xvi. cap. 8. b See Ulloa's Voyage, b. v. ch. 2. c Ezek. xliv. 17, 18. d Travels, p. 135. e Vol. i. p. 190.

yellow morocco, without stockings, cover the legs. These may, perhaps, give us an idea of the Israelitish horsemen. And as Daniel and the Jews lived long in Babylon, Herodotus's account of the Babylonian dress may serve to explain a passage of Scripture. Thus he tells us," that in his time, which was about a hundred years after the events recorded in Dan. chap. iii. the dress of the Babylonians consisted of a tunic of linen, reaching down to the feet, over this another tunic of woollen, and over all a white short cloak or mantle, and that on their heads they wore turbans. This Parkhurst applies, Lex., to the explanation of Dan. iii. 21. "Then these three men were bound in their cloaks, their turbans, and their upper woollen tu nics, and their under linen tunics." And as, ac2 cording to this interpretation, outer garments are particularly described, we see the propriety with which it is observed in verse 27, that these were not changed by the fire.

SECT. V.

Entertainments of the Jews.

Furniture of an eastern kitchen. Fire-places; fuel, either wood, grass, or dried cow-dung. Bread, how baked, leavened, toasted, Testimony of travellers. Public ovens, their way of sending bread to them. Eastern bread not good above a day. Their better kind of cakes; their cracknels. Bread their principal food, eaten with oil, &c.; wheat, parched corn, barley, beans, summer fruits, roots; milk. Butter, how made by them; butter-milk a luxury; leban, how prepared; cheeses of the East, how made; not good. The ge neral diet at Aleppo, and of the Arabs. An eastern breakfast, dinner, and supper. They use no spoons; are careful how they drink

water; have wine at table; their wine often muddy; the cupbearer's office; banqueting cups. Manner of sitting at meat. Public feasts: portions sent to those who could not attend; men and women sat often at different tables: the fragments given to the poor. People in the East visit after supper, as well as through the day. The earliest accounts of a grace at meat. Modern Jews very particular as to their food; have butchers with certificates that they kill according to law; two kinds of dishes; their way of eating; their bread, and manner of baking.

THE furniture of a Jewish kitchen cannot now be easily ascertained; but that of the common people was perhaps not unlike the furniture of the present Arabs, which consists of the following articles. 1st, Hair sacks, trunks, and baskets, all covered with skin, in which they keep their kettles and pots, great wooden bowls, hand-mills, and pitchers.a 2d, Skins for keeping water, which are made by cutting off the head and feet of a he-goat or kid, drawing out the carcass without opening the belly, sewing up the holes, and tying them round the neck when full. Thus do they resemble the goatskin bottles of Homer," and the dubbars of India; and as they are often blackened by the smoke of their tents, the Psalmist alludes to them when he says, that he was "become as a bottle in the smoke." 3d, Vessels made of clay, and even of dried cow-dung; but those of the emirs or chiefs. are of wood, beautifully painted; or of copper, neatly tinned. 4th, Earthen jars or pitchers, both for carrying water, and preserving corn from worms and insects; which might readily have supplied

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e

a La Roque, p. 176, 178. Shaw, p. 231. c Ps. cxix. 83.

b Il. xii. 246.

d Mishna, Tractat. de Tentoriis, cap. v. sect. 5; vi. sect. 1. De Lotione Manuum, cap. i. sect. 2.

e La Roque, p. 11, 12.

Gideon with the number mentioned in Judges vii. 16, 19, 20. Every thing almost is kept by the Arabs in skins to keep it cool, preserve it from insects, and defend it from dust, which is there so fine, and in such quantities, that no chest can exclude it."

The fire-places, in the eastern houses, are either on the hearth, or formed of two or three stones set over an ash-pit, on which are placed their pots and kettles. But we ought particularly to remark their scarcity of fuel. There is no mention made of mineral coal in Judea; and wood, in a closely peopled and minutely divided country, could not be abundant. At the present day there are few plantations, from a different cause, the insecurity of property and of life. It is true, indeed, that the warmth of the climate required little fuel, for great part of the year; yet the preparing of victuals, and the warming of apartments in the winter season, necessarily required a considerable quantity. Hence the methods which were often resorted to for supplying it, by collecting the prunings of vines, brushwood, stubble, grass, stalks of flowers, bones of animals, and cow-dung. Indeed, that is the practice of these countries at the present day. For Dr. Russell tells us, that, owing to the scarcity of wood, they use wood and charcoal in their rooms; but heat their public baths with cow-dung and the parings of fruit. And Pitts tells us, that, at Grand Cairo, they commonly warm their ovens with dried horse and cow-dung, or mire from the streets; what wood they have, be

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a Harmer, Ob. vol. i. p. 133. b Ezek. xv. 4. c Matth. vi. 30. e Vol. i. p. 38. ..

d Ezek. xxiv. 5, 10.