ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BIBLE FROM THE MONUMENTS OF ANTIQUITY. No. XI. The waters of Menzaleh are very productive: the Arabs assert that it contains as many kinds of fish as there are they multiply with amazing rapidity. The fisheries of Mendays in the year. Whatever may be the number of species, zaleh have been always farmed out by the government of Egypt: they formed an important item in the revenues of the Circassian sultans and the Mamelukes, and at present they yield eight hundred purses annually to Mohammed Ali, which is rather more than 8000l. The lake contains several clusters of islets, but those called the Matharian are We are informed that the ancient Egyptians had a religious scruple against using any of the produce of the sea; hence the fisheries of the Nile were peculiarly valuable. The Egyptians indeed were the first people who practised the art of curing and preserving fish they both dried them in the sun and salted them. For the latter purpose fossil salt was largely imported from the African deserts. It must also be observed that the destruction of the fish was a punish-alone inhabited. Their population, however, is so numement operating directly on Pharaoh himself, for the principal fisheries belonged to the crown; and we are informed by Diodorus Siculus that a portion of the revenue derived from them was assigned to the queens as pin-money. There were several varieties of fish, so as to gratify every palate; and hence, when the Israelites began to murmur against Moses in the wilderness, one of their chief complaints was, "We remember the fish that we did eat in Egypt freely." rous that there is scarce room on the ground to plant a shrub, and huts are mixed confusedly with tombs. The en tire population is engaged in catching or curing fish: the best fishing grounds are portioned into divisions by reeds and rushes, forming as it were the farms of the fishermen, and these private properties are far more respected than the tharian islets have all the jealousies of insular people: woe fields of the unhappy fellahs. The inhabitants of the Mabetide the strange fisherman who would venture his boat into their petty archipelago or who would be caught let ting down his nets near their islands. We went into the village of Kafi-al-Nossarah, situated at the western extremity of the lake near the village is a kind of harbour for the fishing boats: some of these have sails, others are impelled by oars or a long pole. The village is built of mud and reeds; the inhabitants are huddled together in wretched huts; the children are naked. The men wear coarse caps, fitting tight to the head, and either loose drawers or a cincture like the Scottish kilt. Their physiognomy has something of a sorrowful and savage cast. There are about seventeen villages round the lake Menzaleh, the sole employment of whose inhabitants is fishing: it is also their only resource. With the salt fish which they send to Cairo, Syria, and the interior of Africa, they purchase dates, rice, coarse cloth, wood to build their boats, hemp for their lines and nets, and fire-arms for fowling or defence. Not less barbarous than the Bedouin Arabs, they have only a vague notion of the Koran; they scarcely can count the days of the year, and the only means they have of determining the hour of the day is by the projection of their shadows. From the prophet Isaiah we learn that the Egyptian fisheries were in his day reckoned among the most valuable possessions of the nation, and that they knew the art of catching fish, not only with the line but the net. This is fully confirmed by the monuments, on which we find both modes of fishing delineated. Isaiah's severe denunciation of divine wrath includes little more than a portion of the first plague, actually inflicted by Moses.-"And they shall turn the rivers far away, and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up the reeds and flags shall wither. The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. . . . . And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish." (Isaiah xix. 6-10.) The circumstances we have mentioned are fully sufficient to show how severe was this first plague, and they also prove that the Scripture narrative is supported by all that we know of the natural condition of Egypt, and all that we can learn from its historic records. Among the tricks mentioned by the Emperor Jehangueir in his account of the performances of the Indian jugglers, to which we have already referred, there are several performed with vessels of water: one of them deserves to be quoted. They filled a large vessel with water perfectly transparent, and placed it on the floor before me. One of them had in his hand a red rose, which he said, by giving it a dip into the water, he could bring it out of any colour I chose to mention. Accordingly he gave the rose a plunge, and out it came of a bright yellow; and thus at every dip he brought it out of a different kind and colour. They then plunged a skein of white thread into the vessel, and brought it out first of a red then of a yellow colour, and so of a different colour a hundred times repeated, if they were required so to do. The distinction between the miracle and its spurious imitation is sufficiently explained in the Scripture narrative: Moses smote the river; the magicians practised their art only on some limited quantity of water, and in such a case deception was not only practicable but easy. The second plague of frogs is remarkable, because the beloved river the Nile is again made the instrument of punishment, and because it was imitated by the magicians. The third plague of lice, (or, as the word kinnim may perhaps be translated, musquitoes,) was beyond the power of the jugglers, for they at once acknowledged the supernatural character of the miracles wrought by Moses and Aaron, exclaiming, "This is the finger of God!" Such an exclamation fully proves that their former attempts to rival Moses and Aaron were juggling delusions. The Jewish and Arabian traditions concur in asserting that some of the magicians were on this occasion converted to the worship of the true God, and were in consequence persecuted by the Egyptian tyrant. After the fourth plague of flies an important incident is recorded, which throws considerable light on the preceding part of the narrative. "And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? It is said further by the sacred historians, "the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments :" to this two objections have been made; first, that there The proposal of Pharaoh is one which could never are no means by which jugglers could imitate such a have been made by a native Egyptian, for it is clear miracle, and secondly, that all the waters were already from what follows that the Hebrews were notoriously changed. Now it seems pretty clear that in the se- about to sacrifice some of the animals deemed sacred cond objection we can find an answer to the first. by the Egyptians. The cow, reverenced as the emThe magicians could easily procure fresh water by dig-blem of Isis, and the ram, which typified Ammon, ging, and an illusion similar to the change effected by the miracle is possible with small quantities of water. were held objects of religious worship among the Egyptians, and we find their votaries on the monu mentioned by the sacred historian is minutely con- ON THE USES OF KNOWLEDGE. THE first end to which all wisdom or knowledge ought to be employed, is to illustrate the wisdom or goodness of the Father of Nature. Every science that is cultivated by men leads naturally to religious thought, from the study of the plant that grows beneath our feet, to that of the host of heaven above us, who perform their stated revolutions in majestic silence, amid the expanse of infinity. When in the youth of Moses, "the Lord appeared to him in Horeb," a voice was heard, saying, "draw nigh hither, and put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place where thou standest is holy ground." It is with such a reverential awe that every great or elevated mind will approach to the study of nature, and with such feelings of adoration and gratitude, that he will receive the illumination that gradually opens upon his soul. ments actually engaged in this degrading_adoration. | down to the departure of Moses, every particular A foreign conqueror like Pharaoh might despise, or at least be reckless of, the national superstition; but a native prince would have never sanctioned so gross a violation of his country's most inveterate usages. The accuracy of the sacred historian in this important passage will be still more apparent, if we enter upon a brief examination of the Zoolatry, or animal worship, of Egypt. Some were divinely honoured because they were feared, others on account of their utility. Those most reverenced were the single bull Apis, the cow, the sheep, the cat, the dog, the wolf, the crocodile, the ibis, the ichneumon, and the hawk. Lands were set apart for the support of those sacred animals whilst they were living; men and women were employed in feeding and maintaining them, and children succeeded their parents in the office, which was so far from being declined, or thought despicable by the Egyptians, that they considered it the most honourable of all employments, and wore certain cognizances as signs of their office, which were always saluted with great respect by their countrymen. If a person killed any of these sacred animals designedly, he was punished with death; if involutarily, his punishment was referred to the priests; but if a man killed either a cat, a hawk, or an ibis, whether by design or not, he was to die without mercy, and the enraged multitude seldom waited even for the formalities of trial. While Diodorus Siculus, the celebrated historian, was in Egypt, he witnessed an example of this sanguinary bigotry. A Roman, in the train of an embassy sent to conclude a peace with the king, happened accidentally to kill a cat; a mob instantly gathered round the house, and neither the remonstrances of the royal officers, nor fear of the Roman power, could mitigate their ferocity, or save the unfortunate man's life. On this account, if any one by chance found one of these sacred animals dead, he stood at a convenient distance from it, and with great lamentations protested that he was innocent of the death. And what may seem still more incredible, it is reported that, in time of famine, which drove the inhabitants to the cruel necessity of devouring one another, there was no person accused of having tasted of any of these sacred animals. When any one of these animals died, they lamented them as if they had been their dearest children, and frequently expended vast sums on their funeral. We are told that, in the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, the bull Apis, dying of old age at Memphis, his keeper expended more than fifty talents of silver, or 13,000l. on his costly interment. On the history of the remaining p.agues it is unnecessary to dwell, for they are evidently of such a nature as to be scarcely susceptible of illustration from monuments. The murrain of the beasts, and the plague of boils and blains, were followed by two particularly alarming to the Egyptians; the storm of thunder, lightning, and hail must have been exceedingly formidable in a land where these atmospheric phenomena are scarcely known; the plague of locusts is to this day dreaded as one of the most grievous visitations to which eastern nations are exposed, and the plague of "darkness which could be felt," was well calculated to strike terror into a nation, which made the sun-god the chief object of its idolatry, and in whose country a fog, or even a dense mist, is never produced by nature. The smiting of the first-born, was the fearful consummation of these Divine judgments; Pharaoh and his subjects hasted to send the Israelites away, and they quitted the land of Egypt. We have seen that, from the first visit of Abraham It is not the lifeless mass of matter he will then feel that he is examining,-it is the mighty machine of eternal wisdom; the workmanship of Him, "in whom every thing lives, and moves, and has its being." Under an aspect of this kind, it is impossible to pursue knowledge without mingling with it the most elevated sentiments of devotion ;-it is impossible to perceive the laws of nature without perceiving, at the same time, the presence and the providence of the Lawgiver :-and thus it is that, in every age, the evidences of religion have advanced with the progress of true philosophy; and that science, in erecting a monument to herself, has, at the same time, erected an altar to the Deity. The knowledge of nature is not exhausted. There are many great discoveries yet awaiting the labours of science, and with them there are also awaiting to humanity, many additional proofs of the wisdom and benevolence" of Him that made us." To the hope of these great discoveries few indeed can pretend; yet let it ever be remembered, that he who can trace any one new fact, or can exemplify any one new instance of divine wisdom or benevolence in the system of nature, has not lived in vain; that he has added to the sum of human knowledge, and, what is far more, that he has added to the evidence of those greater truths upon which the happiness of time and eternity depends. The second great end to which all knowledge ought to be employed, is to the welfare of humanity. Every science is the foundation of some art beneficial to men; and while the study of it leads us to see the beneficence of the laws of nature, it calls upon us also to follow the great end of the Father of Nature in their employment and application. I need not say what a field is thus opened to the benevolence of knowledge; -I need not tell you that, in every department of learning, there is good to be done to mankind;-I need not remind you, that the age in which we live has given us the noblest examples of this kind, and that science now finds its highest glory in improving the condition, or in allaying the miseries of humanity. But there is one thing, of which it is ever proper to remind you, because the modesty of knowledge often leads us to forget it, and that is, that the power of scientific benevolence is far greater than that of all others, to the welfare of society. The benevolence of the great or the opulent, however eminent it may be, perishes with themselves; but the benevolence of knowledge is of a kind as extensive as the race of man, and as permanent as the existence of society. He, in whatever situation he may be, who, in the study of science, has discovered a new means of alleviating pain, or of remedying disease; who has described a wiser method of preventing poverty, or of shielding misfortune; who has suggested additional means of increasing or improving the beneficent productions of nature, has left a memorial of himself which can never be forgotten, which will communicate happiness to ages yet unborn, and which, in the emphatic language of scripture, renders him a "fellow-worker" with God himself, in the improvement of his creation. The third great end of all knowledge is the improvement and exaltation of our own minds. It was the voice of the Apostle, "What manner of men ought ye to be, to whom the truths of the Gospel have come?" It is the voice of nature also, "What manner of men ought ye to be, to whom the treasures of wisdom are opened?" Of all the spectacles, inOf all the spectacles, indeed, which life can offer us, there is none more painful or unnatural, than that of the union of vice with knowledge. It counteracts the great designs of God in the distribution of wisdom, and it assimilates men not to the usual characters of human frailty, but to those dark and malignant spirits who fell from heaven, and who excel in knowledge only that they may employ it in malevolence. To the wise and virtuous man, on the contrary, -to him whose moral attainments have kept pace with his intellectual, and who has employed the great talent with which he is intrusted to the glory of God, and to the good of humanity, are presented the sublimest prospects that mortality can know. my Father's house," says our Saviour, 66 are many mansions;" mansions, we may dare to interpret, fitted to the different powers that life has acquired, and to the uses to which they have been applied. "In Of that great scene, indeed, which awaits all, whether ignorant or wise, it becomes us to think with reverential awe. Yet we know," that it will then be well with the good, though it will not be well with the wicked;" and we are led by an instinctive anticipation, to suppose that they who here have excelled in wisdom and benevolence, will be rewarded with higher objects, upon which they may be employed, and admitted into nearer prospects of the government of eternal wisdom. "In his light they shall see light." "They shall see him, not as through a glass darkly; but as he is. They shall know, even as they themselves are known."-ALISON. CRICKETS. (Gryllus campestris,) or FIELD-CRICKET. THERE is a steep abrupt pasture-field, interspersed with furze, close to the back of this village (Selborne), well known by the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the Gryllus campestris, or Field-Cricket, which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many other counties. As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the economy of these Grylli, and study their mode of life; but they are so shy and cautious, that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them, for hearing a person's footsteps as he advances, they stop short in the midst of their song, and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over. At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but without any great success; for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a great stone, or else in breaking up the ground we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough skin. By this accident we learnt to distinguish the male from the female; the former of which is shining black, with a golden stripe across its shoulders; the latter is more dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles. When violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will often succeed, and so it proved in the present case; for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant, and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is remarkable that, though these insects are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers, yet when driven from their holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken; and, again, though provided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrilling noise, which is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary beings, living singly, male or female, each as it may happen. When the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I found by some which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I should have been glad to have made them settle. For though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks, would seize on any that obtruded upon them with a vast row of serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lobster's claws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells, having no foreclaws to dig, like the Mole-Cricket. When taken in hand, I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately, and on a little platform, which they make just by, they drop their dung, and never in the day-time seem to stir more than two or three inches from home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns, they chirp all night as well as day, from the middle of the month of May to the middle of July, and in the hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo, and in the still hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inwards, but become louder as the Summer advances, and so die away again by degrees. Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and melody, nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which they promote, than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the Field-Cricket, though sharp and stri dulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, filling | set in their haunts; for, being always eager to drink, their minds with a train of Summer ideas of every- they will crowd in till the bottles are full. thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. About the 10th of March the Crickets appear at the mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect state, from whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always survive the Winter. They cast these skins in April, which are then seen lying at the mouths of their holes. In August their holes begin to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till Spring. (Gryllus domesticus,) or HOUSE- CRICKET. WHILE many other insects must be sought after in the fields, and woods, and waters, the Gryllus domesticus, or House-Cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings, intruding itself upon our notice whether we will or no. This species delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moisture of the walls; and, besides, the softness of the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications from one room to another. They are particularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their constant warmth. Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of one Summer, or else doze away the cold uncomfortable months in profound slumbers; but these, residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and merry: a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one might suppose, from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever is moist they affect; and therefore often gnaw holes in wet wollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire: they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck. These Crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread; and any kitchen offals or sweepings. In the Summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses were they were not known before. It is remarkable that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air they move volatu-undoso, in waves or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or sinking. When they increase to a great degree, they become noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people's faces: but they may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies. Their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch hearthcrickets; and, playing with them as they do with mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials half filled with beer, or any liquid, (Gryllus gryllo talpa,) or, MOLE-CRICKET. How diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous but even of congenerous animals; and yet their specific distinctions are not more various than their propensities. Thus, while the Field-Cricket delights in sunny dry banks, and the House-Cricket. rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Gryllus gryllo talpa, (the MoleCricket,) haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks. As Mole-Crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters, they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day; but at night they come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goatsucker, but more inward. About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once an eye-witness; for a gardener, at a house where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the sixth of that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy. There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a modern snuff-box. Within this secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh moved mould, like that which is raised by ants. When Mole-Crickets fly, they move cursu undoso, rising and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of this kingdom people call them fen-crickets, churr-worms, and evechurrs, all very apposite names. Anatomists who have examined the intestines of these insects, say, that from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be a good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds. [WHITE'S Natural History of Selborne.] Ir is a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and appearances of nature. CHALMERS. LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARIS, PRICE SIXPENCE. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. |