Of late years several adventurous travellers, at the | risk of being plundered and murdered by the Bedouins, have visited the desert and mount of Sinai. One of the first, and not the least intelligent, of them, the Rev. Dr. Shaw, gives us the following account of his journey:"We have a distinct view of Mount Sinai from Elim; the wilderness, as it is still called, of Sin, lying between us. We traversed these plains in nine hours, being diverted all the way with the sight of a variety of lizards and vipers that are here in great numbers. I had not the good fortune to see the famous inscription that is said to be engraven upon the rocks just as we turn into the valley that conducts us to Mount Sinai. Sin was the first place where God gave the Israelites manna, (Exod. 16. 14,) and therefore some authors have imagined that those characters were left as a standing monument of that blessing to future generations.

"We were near twelve hours in passing the many windings and difficult ways which lie betwixt the deserts of Sin and Sinai. The latter is a beautiful plain, more than a league in breadth and nearly three in length, lying open towards the N.E., where we entered it; but it is closed up to the southward by some of the lower eminences of Mount Sinai. In this direction, likewise, the higher parts of it make such encroachments upon the plain that they divide it into two, each of them capacious enough to receive the whole encampment of the Israelites. That which lieth to the eastward of the mount may be the desert of Sinai, properly so called, where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro. (Exod. 3. 2.) The Convent of St. Catharine is built over the place of this divine appearance. It is near three hundred feet square, and more than forty in height, being partly built with stone, partly with mud and mortar mixed together. The more immediate place of the Shekinah is honoured with a little chapel, which this fraternity of St. Basil hath in such esteem and veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they put off their shoes from off their feet when they pproach or enter it. This, with several other chapels dedicated to particular saints, is included within the Church, as they call it, of the Transfiguration, which is a large, beautiful structure, covered with lead, and sup

ported by two rows of marble columns. The floor is very elegantly laid out in a variety of devices, in mosaic work; of the same workmanship, likewise, are both the floor and the walls of the Presbyterium, upon the latter whereof is represented the figure of the emperor Justinian, together with the history of the Transfiguration. Upon the partition which separateth the presbyterium from the body of the church, there is placed a small marble shrine, wherein are preserved the skull and the hands of St. Catharine. The pilgrims are not admitted into this convent by the door (which is never open, unless when the archbishop, who usually resideth at Cairo, is to be installed), but we are drawn up by a windlass near thirty feet high, and then taken in at a window by some of the lay brothers, who attend there for that purpose. These, and the Papasses, or Presbyters, who are commonly called Kalories (good old men), make in all about a hundred and fifty in number, subsisting chiefly upon such provisions as are sent them monthly from Cairo. They live a very strict and austere life, abstaining not only from flesh, but also from milk, butter, and eggs; nothing of which we were permitted to bring into the convent, though we could have purchased them of the Arabs. Mount Sinai hangs over this convent, being called by the Arabs, Jibbel Mousa, the mountain of Moses, and sometimes, by way of eminence, El Tor, the mountain. St. Helena was at the expense of the stone-staircase that was formerly carried up entirely to the top of it; but at present, as most of these steps are either removed, washed out of their places, or defaced, the ascent is very fatiguing, and frequently imposed upon their votaries as a severe penance. However, at certain distances, the fathers have erected, as so many breathing-places, several little chapels, dedicated to one or the other of their saints, who are always invoked upon these occasions, and after some small oblation are engaged to lend their assistance. The summit of Mount Sinai is somewhat conical, and not very spacious, where the Mahommedans, as well as the Christians, have a small chapel for public worship. Here we were shown the place where Moses fasted forty days (Exod. 24. 18; 34. 28), where he received the law (Exod. 31. 18), where he hid himself from the face of God (Exod. 32. 22), where his hand was supported by Aaron and Hur, at

the battle with Amalek (Exod. 17. 9,12), besides many other stations and places that are taken notice of in the Scriptures. After we had descended, with no small difficulty, down the western side of this mountain, we came into another plain that is formed by it, that is, Rephidim. (Exod. 17. 1.)"-Geographical Observations in Arabia Petræa, &c. 1738.

Of the geological formation of Mount Sinai, Dr. Shaw gives the following account:-"That part of Mount Sinai which lieth to the westward of the plain of Rephidim, and is called the mountain of St. Catharine, consists of a hard reddish marble, like porphyry, but is distinguished from it by the representations which every part of it gives us of little trees and bushes. The naturalists call this sort of marble Embuscatum, or bushy marble; and for the same reason Buxtorf deriveth the word Sinai from the bush (or rubus) that was figured in the stones of it. It seems to have been hitherto left undecided to what species of plants this bush is to be referred; yet, if these impressed figures are to instruct us, we may very justly rank it among the tamarisks, the most common and flourishing trees of those deserts. I have seen some branches of this fossil tamarisk, as I shall call it, that were near half an inch in diameter. Yet the constituent matter, which was of a dark mineral appearance, like the powder of the lead ore, was of no solidity, crumbling away as the Armenian, or -any other bole would do by touching it."

The atmosphere of this part of Arabia is described as generally serene; but it is occasionally disturbed by tornadoes. Dr. Shaw says, "When I travelled in this country, during the months of September and October, the atmosphere was perfectly clear and serene all the way from Kairo to Corondel; but from thence to Mount Sinai, the tops of the mountains would be now and then capped with clouds, and sometimes continue so for a whole day. This disposition of the air was succeeded, soon after, by a violent tempest, when the whole heavens were loaded with clouds, which discharged themselves, during nearly the space of a whole night, in extraordinary thunderings, lightnings, and rain. But these phenomena are not frequent, rarely falling out, as the monks informed me, above once in two or three years." Of the waters of the wilderness, the same reverend author observes, "Fountains and wells of water are so rare in these parts, that we may well account for the strife and contention that there was formerly about them. In the midland road, between Kairo and Mount Sinai, I do not remember to have heard or tasted of more than five, and these were all of them, either brackish or sulphureous. Yet this disagreeableness in the taste is vastly made up by the wholesome quality of the waters; for they provoke an appetite, and are remarkably lenitive and diuretic: and it may be owing to these qualities, that few persons are seized with any illness during their travels through those lonesome, sultry deserts."

Niebuhr, Laborde, Carne, Professor Robinson, Lord Lindsay, and Mr. Stephens, corroborate in the main the foregoing statements; although there is some difference of opinion amongst them as to the precise peak on which the Law was given to Moses. "Sinai," observes Carne, has four summits; and that of Moses stands almost in the middle of the others, and is not visible from below, so that the spot where he received the Law must have been hid from the view of the multitudes around; and the smoke and flame, which Scripture says enveloped the entire Mount of Sinai, must have had the more awful appearance by reason of its many summits and great extent." Niebuhr, who appears to have only partially examined the localities, says that it is not easy.

to comprehend how such a multitude of people as the Jews, who accompanied Moses out of Egypt, could have encamped in the narrow gulleys adjoining Sinai, amid frightful and precipitous rocks. An extract from Professor Robinson's travels will supply an answer to this difficulty. "We approached the central granite mountains of Sinai, not by the more usual and easy route of Wady Shekh, which winds around and enters from the east; but following a succession of wadys, we crossed Wady Shekh, and entered the higher granite formation by a shorter route directly from the W.N.W., through a steep, rocky, and difficult pass, between rugged, blackened cliffs, eight hundred to one thousand feet high. Approaching in this direction, we were surprised and delighted to find ourselves, after two hours, crossing the whole length of a fine plain; from the southern end of which, that part of Sinai, now called Horeb, rises perpendicularly in dark and frowning majesty. The name of Sinai is at present applied generally to the lofty ridge running from N.N.W. to S.S.E., between two narrow valleys. The northern part, or lower summit, is the present Horeb, overlooking the plain. About two and a half or three miles south of this, the ridge rises, and ends in a higher point; this is the present summit of Sinai, the Jebel Mûsa of the Arabs; which, however, is not visible from any part of the plain. The plain is, in all probability, the spot where the congregation of Israel were assembled to receive the Law; and the present Horeb was the scene of the awful phenomena in which the Law was given. As to the present summit of Sinai, there is little reason to suppose that it had any connection with the giving of the Law, and less the higher peaks of St. Catherine." Lord Lindsay expresses the following opinions on the names now applied to the rival mountains: rival mountains: "With two exceptions, all the old travellers that I am acquainted with, from Fraymensperg, in 1346, to Belon, in 1548, call Jebel Mûsa, Horeb, and Jebel Katerin, SINAI. Since the middle of the sixteenth century, that hallowed name has reverted to Jebel Mûsa, reverted I say, because, from Justinian's time till the beginning of the fourteenth century, the tradition identifying it with Sinai appears to be uninterrupted. In very early times, Jebel Serbet seems to have been the chief place of pilgrimage, under the belief of its being the Mount of God. Such uncertainty hath tradition!" "We put off our shoes from off our feet," continues his Lordship, "before approaching the most sacred spot on Mount Sinai, or rather Horeb, (as they call this part of the mountain,) where Our Lord is said to have appeared unto Moses in the burning bush. The little chapel is gorgeously ornamented; a New Testament in modern Greek, with superbly embossed covers, lies on the altar; behind it they show, not exactly the burning bush, but a shrub which they say has flourished ever since, its lineal descendant. The kind hospitable monks are not to blame,-they believe as the tale has been handed down to them; but on what authority, we must again and again ask, are these spots pointed out as the scenes mentioned in the Bible?" Speaking of the vicinity of Mount Sinai, Lord Lindsay says: "Nothing can surpass the rude and gloomy grandeur of these valleys; utter silence reigned on all sides, though now and then, the report of a gun from the neigbour hood of Mount Sinai murmured around us like distant thunder. Odoriferous shrubs grow in great abundance among the loose stones, as high as the peak of St. Catherine's, which is easier to climb than to descend, the solid granite being split into thousands of diminutive particles and ledges, smooth and slippery, and in some places, so nearly perpendicular, that a false step be broken bones, if not worse."

would

SINAI

SINIM. The name of this people is mentioned only in Isaiah 49. 12. Some commentators of eminence have adopted the opinion of Manasseh Ben Israel, that the prophet alludes to the Chinese, who were undoubtedly the Sina of the classic writers, and from whom the Hebrews imported silk in the time of Solomon. (See SILK.) Others assert that the persons indicated are the inhabitants of the Nome of Syene, in the southern part of Egypt; but the majority, with more probability, believe that the tribes in the wilderness of Sin are the people intended. C.

SION. See ZION; JERUSALEM.

SIVAN. The ninth month of the Hebrew civil, and the third of the ecclesiastical year.

SLAVERY. See SERVITUDE.
SLIME. See BITUMEN.

SMYRNA. A city of Ionia, in Asia Minor; it was one of the most ancient and flourishing of the colonies which the Ionian Greeks founded on the Asiatic side of the Ægean sea, and the excellence of its situation, on one of the finest bays in the world, has saved it from being involved in the fate which has overwhelmed most of the ancient cities of Anatolia. It claimed to be the birth-place of Homer, and several modern critics are of opinion that the claim is better founded than that of any of the six other cities which contended for the honour. It is mentioned only once in Scripture, as one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches. (Rev. 2. 1.) The angel of the Church at Smyrna, when the Book of Revelations was written, is stated by ecclesiastical historians to have been the venerable Polycarp, a disciple of the evangelist St. John; the message to the Church at Smyrna is an affectionate forewarning of the persecution to which it was about to be exposed, and of which Polycarp was the earliest and most distinguished victim.

The modern town of Smyrna does not occupy the precise position of the ancient city; in consequence of the earthquakes to which the southern hills were exposed, the citizens gradually removed farther and farther to the north, until the original precincts were quite deserted. The present city is divided into two parts, the upper and

lower; the first being inhabited by Turks and Jews, the second by Armenians, Greeks, and Franks. All the fine and remarkable buildings are in the lower town; it contains the markets, bazaars, shops, and stores, and it exhibits all the activity and animation belonging to a great commercial mart and a crowded seaport. The upper town is bounded by extensive cemeteries, and appears almost as tranquil as those abodes of the dead; the houses are mean; the windows closely barred, like those of prisons; and the streets all but deserted.

The Italians call Smyrna "the Flower of the Levant," and some French travellers have named it "the Miniature Paris of the East;" but, though far superior to most Turkish cities, it is not quite deserving of these flattering appellations. Fifteen hundred years ago, Strabo com-. plained that the ancient city was deficient in its sewerage, and the modern city is equally in want of this necessary accommodation. Hence the centre of the narrow streets is usually a filthy channel, choked with all sorts of impurities, from whence pestilential exhalations arise, which render Smyrna the very metropolis of plague and fever. Within the last few years some good streets have been laid out in the lower town, and several excellent houses built by merchants in the suburbs; but still the old streets are so narrow that a loaded camel

fills them up from one side to the other, and the passenger who meets one of these animals often finds it difficult to get out of the way.

One of the circumstances which strikes a European most forcibly on visiting Smyrna is the great diversity of the nations which have contributed to supply it with inhabitants. The citizens are distinct from each other in religion, language, dress and manners; each race has its own ceremonies, its own feasts, and even its own calendar. It is not at all unusual for one race to celebrate a festival on a day devoted by another race to penance and fasting. The Turks close their shops on Friday, the Jews on Saturday, and the Armenians, Greeks, and Franks on Sunday. There are no intermarriages or social communication between these different races; they never meet each other except in the market-place, and they only converse together on the price of cotton and opium, or the rate of exchange between piastres and dollars. The distinction of race is more strongly marked amongst the women than amongst the men. The Greek and Frank ladies have their faces uncovered; the Armenian and Jewish allow about half of the countenance to be seen, while the Turkish women hide every feature but the eyes.

A stranger would be led to believe that more languages were spoken in Smyrna than in any city which has existed since Babel; on one side caravans and strings of camels pour in from every part of central Asia, Syria, and Arabia; on the other fleets crowd the harbour from all the maritime states of Europe and America. The general medium of communication is the Lingua Franca, a barbarous jargon, compounded of bad Italian and worse Arabic, together with a plentiful admixture of vulgarisms and nautical phrases from every language in Europe.

Religious toleration has always been more freely granted in Smyrna than in any other Turkish city, and when there has been any outbreak of Mussulman fanaticism it has been directed against the Jews and the Greeks, rarely against the Europeans.

The population of Smyrna is supposed to exceed one hundred thousand, and it is rapidly increasing, especially since the police of the place has been improved, and greater security afforded to life and property. In no place is the decline of Turkish fanaticism more apparent, for the European consuls are ever ready to resent the slightest insult offered to Christians, whatever may be their denomination. In consequence of this protection the processions of the Greek and Latin churches pass freely through the streets, and some of the latter are so gorgeously conducted that a spectator might suppose himself in a city of Italy rather than of Turkey. C.

SOAP, borith. It is not probable that the Jews were acquainted with the composition which we call "soap;" their borith appears to have been the herb sopewort, which is remarkable for its detersive qualities.

SODOM. The capital city of the Pentapolis, or "five cities of the plain," which were destroyed for their

unnatural vices. See GOMORRAH and Dead Sea.

SOLOMON, л Shelomeh; in the Septuagint, Zaλwμov; in Josephus and the New Testament, Zoλoμov; and in the Vulgate and English versions, Solomon, is the name and successor of David, who from love of Bathsheba, made her son his heir in preference to the children he had by his other wives. While Solomon was yet a youth God appeared to him in a dream, and offered him his choice between wisdom, wealth, and

| power; the judicious prince preferred wisdom, and the other boons were superadded by his almighty benefactor. The name Solomon, which, like the Saxon "Frederick," signifies "peaceful" or "peaceable," is truly descriptive of this monarch's reign; he exerted himself to introduce industrial and commercial pursuits among his subjects, and entered into trading treaties with the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and probably the Babylonians. In his reign the Hebrews, for the first time, began to pay some attention to naval affairs. For the purpose of trade in the Arabian and Indian seas, they occupied the port of Ezion-Geber on the gulf of Akaba, a station admirably selected both on account of its favourable position for commerce, and for defence against the plundering hordes of Arabs and Idumeans. The Mediterranean trade was principally conducted by Phoenician ships, in which the Hebrew monarch was permitted to send out his agents or supracargoes; the principal commerce was with the southern coast of Spain, from whence, in that age, silver was chiefly procured.

The overland trade with central Asia was managed by caravans, which had to traverse the deserts of Mesopotamia; in order to facilitate the communications, Solomon built the city of Tadmor, called afterwards Palmyra, on a fertile oasis, abounding in plantations of the datepalm, from which the city derived its name. The overland and maritime traffic proved so lucrative that Judea rapidly advanced in commercial wealth, while Solomon became the most wealthy monarch in Asia.

Soon after his establishment on the throne, Solomon was united in marriage to the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh. He celebrated the high birth and eminent beauty of this princess in several hymeneal odes or canticles; but being then under the influence of the Holy Spirit, he gave to these nuptial poems a more sublime and pious significance by making them mystically typi cal of the union between Christ and his Church. The alliance with Egypt and Tyre enabled Solomon to extend his sway over all the countries between the Nile and the Euphrates, and even to add to his dominions some districts beyond the latter river. Although he had a very numerous army, particularly strong in cavalry and warchariots, it does not appear that Solomon acquired these additions to his territories by military conquest; on the contrary, it would seem that his high reputation for wisdom and integrity induced the nations to tender him a voluntary allegiance. His fame was so widely diffused that the queen of Sheba came from the distant regions of the South to admire his riches, and profit by his learning.

The Oriental traditions respecting this celebrated interview are both interesting and curious. They say that Solomon was gifted with such supernatural intelligence as to be able to command the services and control the actions of angels, demons, and animals. When he marched at the head of his army the birds of the air formed part of his attendants, and spread their wings over him, making a canopy to shade him from the sun; it was from one of these birds, the lapwing, that he heard an account of the queen of Sheba, whom he summoned to his presence. The queen immediately obeyed; she made various experiments to discover whether Solomon was really a prophet, and being at length fully con vinced of the validity of his pretensions, she abandoned idolatry, and embraced the true religion, which was never afterwards wholly lost in her country.

Solomon was distinguished as an author by several treatises on natural history, which have long since been lost; he also wrote the Books of Canticles, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, which are included in the canon of the Old Testament. The Rabbins further assert that he

SOLOMON

wrote several treatises on magic, which were buried with him to prevent any one from being exposed to the dangers which Solomon had encountered by his intercourse with demons. Al Beidawi, borrowing from the Jewish traditions, relates the following extraordinary legend of the perils to which the king was exposed by his dealing with spiritual agencies. "Solomon having taken Sidon, and slain the king of that city, brought away his daughter Jerada, who became his favourite wife. The princess was continually lamenting the loss of her father, and, in order to console her, the king ordered the demons in his service to make a perfect image of the Sidonian monarch. This was done, and the likeness was so perfect that Jerada and her servants, according to the custom of their native land, offered idolatrous worship to the statue. For some time Solomon winked at this idolatry, but the remonstrances of his vizier awakened his conscience, he destroyed the image, punished the women, and went into the desert to atone for his offence by prayer and fasting. God, however, did not permit his crime to go wholly unpunished. It was Solomon's custom, whenever he went to bathe, to entrust the ring, or signet, on which his kingdom depended, to one of his concubines named Emina, and he placed it in her charge when he went into the wilderness. A demon, named Sakhar, assuming Solomon's shape, obtained the ring from Emina, and, by virtue of it, held the kingdom for forty days, during which period the king wandered unrecognised through his dominions, and was forced to beg alms for his subsistence. At the end of that time the demon was compelled to depart to his infernal habitation, and as he flew away, he threw the signet into the sea. It was swallowed by a fish, which restored it to Solomon. Having thus recovered his kingdom and his power, Solomon pursued Sakhar, overtook the demon, and having tied a great stone round his neck, threw him into the lake of Tiberias."

This and many similar legends of the Rabbins are based upon the fact that Solomon in the later part of his reign, actually lapsed into idolatry, being seduced by the multi tude of wives he had taken from the surrounding heathen nations. His crime was punished by insurrections in various parts of his dominions; the chief leaders of these revolts being Jeroboam, afterwards king of the ten tribes, and Hadad the Idumean. Most commentators assert that Solomon repented before his death, and wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes as a manifestation of his sorrow for his transgressions.

The most magnificent work of Solomon was the Temple which he erected to Jehovah, "the noblest pile that ever pressed the earth." From the circumstance, mentioned in the article SCULPTURE, that the stones were brought ready prepared for the edifice, the Rabbins have derived a multitude of fables respecting the assistance which the demons rendered in the building. They add that Solomon "perceiving his end draw nigh before the edifice was completed, and aware that his presence alone compelled the demons to continue at their work, besought God that his death might be concealed from them until they had finished their task. It was so ordered; Solomon died as he stood at his prayers, leaning on his staff, which supported his body in that position an entire year. The demons continued to work during all this period, and, at its expiration, the Temple was complete. A worm was then sent to gnaw through the staff, which giving way, the king's body fell to the ground, and the secret of his death was thus discovered." The wealth and power of the Hebrews was at their highest during the reign of Solomon; and the very extravagance of the legends we have quoted affords strong confirmation of the Scriptural accounts of the

great prosperity of his kingdom, the splendour of his court, and the vast extent of his intellectual acquirements. His subjects did not appreciate his plans; commerce, which flourished so much during his reign, was quite abandoned after his death; and the Jews retrograded to their old agricultural and pastoral habits.

Solomon reigned forty years; he died A.M. 3029, B.C. 975, at about fifty-eight years of age, and was buried in the city of David. His history was written by the prophets Nathan, Abijah, and Iddo, but the works of these writers have unfortunately perished. T.

SOLOMON'S SONG. This beautiful poem, in its literal sense, is an union of the pastoral with the hymeneal ode, and was written on the occasion of Solomon's marriage with the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh. The author, however, as is usual with Oriental writers, united to this primary sense an allegorical and emblematical description of the union between God and his Church, which was typified by a marriage, on account of the ideas of peculiar mystery the Jews attributed to that appointment, for they believed that every marriage union was the counterpart representation of some original pattern in heaven. It is not always possible to discover the immediate connection between the literal and the allegorical sense; but, viewing the work merely as a pastoral poem, it would be found to abound in beautiful descriptions, natural imagery, and vivid delineations of nature. In the following passage there is a rare union of force and splendour of description with the softness and tenderness of passion.

Get thee up, my companion,
My lovely one, come away,
For lo! the winter is past,
The rain is over, is gone,

The flowers are seen on the earth,
The season of the song is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig-tree puts forth its green figs,

And the vine's tender grapes yield a fragrance:
Arise, my fair one, and come away.-Cantic. 2. 10-13.
The following comparisons abound in sweetness and
delicacy.

How sweet is thy love, O my sister, my spouse;
How much better than wine is thy love,
And the odour of thy perfume than all spices!
Thy lips, O spouse, distill honey from the comb;
Honey and milk are under thy tongue,

And the scent of thy garments is like the fragrance of
Lebanon.-Cantic. 4. 10,11.

It would be easy to quote many passage of similar beauty, but these are sufficient specimens of its poetical excellence. C.

SON. The Hebrews used this word in a wider signification than is common in modern times. It was applied to any descendants, however remote; to sons by marriage or adoption; to disciples and favourite followers; to imitators of habit and conduct, as "sous of Belial," (Judges 19. 22,) for "wicked men;" "sons of the mighty," (Psalm 29. 1,) for "heroes;" to any production or issue which might allegorically be regarded as an offspring, as as an offspring, as "sons of the burning coal," (Job 5.7,) for "sparks;" "son of the bow," (Job 4. 19,) for "an arrow," "son of the floor," (Isai. 21. 10,) for "threshed corn;" "sons of oil," (Zech. 3. 14,) for "branches of the olive tree." We also meet such phrases as "the son of beating," "the son of death," "the son of perdition," meaning persons who deserved these punishments. The angels and saints are frequently called "sons of God," because they receive a portion of the divine nature by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. C.