OR AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES, BY AN EXPLANATORY APPLICATION OF THE CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THE EASTERN NATIONS, AND ESPECIALLY THE JEWS, THEREIN ALLUDED TO. COLLECTED FROM THE MOST CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS AND THE MOST EMINENT CRITICS. BY THE REV. SAMUEL BURDER, A. M. LATE OF CLARE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE; LECTURER of the uniTED PARISHES of christ- AND CHAPLAIN TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF KENT. An obsolete custom, or some forgotten circumstance opportunely adverted to, BISHOP LOWTH. THE FIFTH EDITION, CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1816. ORIENTAL CUSTOMS: ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. No. 659.-ISAIAH, i. 8. As a cottage in a vineyard. IS was a little temporary hut, covered with boughs, THIS straw, turf, or the like materials, for a shelter from the heat by day, and the cold and dews by night, for the watchman that kept the garden, or vineyard, during the short season while the fruit was ripening, (Job, xxvii. 18.) and presently removed when it had served that purpose. The eastern people were probably obliged to have such a constant watch to defend the fruit from the jackals. "The jackal," says HASSELQUIST, (Travels, p. 277.) “ is a species of mustela, which is very common in Palestine, especially during the vintage, and often destroys whole vineyards, and gardens of cucumbers." Bp. LoWTH, in loc. In many parts of Hindostan, the peasants, at the commencement of the rainy season, plant abundance of melons, cucumbers, and gourds, which are then the principal food of the inhabitants. They are not sown in garden beds as in Europe, but in open fields and |