Being much gratified with my visit to the Jews of Malabar, and desirous to maintain some communication with them, I have engaged a very respectable member of their community to accompany me with his servant to Bengal, and to remain with me in the capacity of Hebrew Moonshee, or teacher, until my return to England. Observing that in the houses of the White Jews there are many volumes of printed Hebrew, mostly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which are rarely met with in England, I have employed Misrahi, that is the name of my Moonshee, to collect some of the most valuable.'

At the beginning of the following year (1808) the Author visited Cochin a second time, and proceeded afterwards to Bombay, where he had an opportunity of meeting with some very intelligent men of the Jewish nation. They had heard of his conferences with the Cochin Jews, and were desirous to discuss certain topics, particularly the prophecies of Isaiah; and they engaged in them with far more spirit and frankness, he thought, than their brethren at Cochin, had done. They told him, that if he would take a walk to the Bazar in the suburb, without the walls of Bombay town, he would find a Synagogue without a Sepher Tora, or book of the Law. He did so, and found it to be the case. The minister and a few of the Jews assembled, and shewed him their Synagogue, in which there

were some loose leaves of prayers in manuscript, but no book of the Law. The Author did not understand that they disapproved of the Law; but they had no copy of it. They seemed to have little knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures or history. This only proved what he had been often told, that small portions of the Jewish nation melt away from time to time, and are absorbed in the mass of the heathen world. Nor is this any argument against the truth of the prophecy, which declares that they should remain a separate and distinct people; for these are mere exceptions. Conversions to Christianity in the early ages would equally militate against the prediction, taken in an absolute sense.

THE TEN TRIBES.

THE Tribes of Israel are no longer to be inquired after by name. The purpose, for which they were once divided into tribes, was accomplished when the genealogy of the Messiah was traced to the stem of David, Neither do the Isra elites themselves know certainly from what families they are descended. And this is a chief argu

ment against the Jews, to which the Author never heard that a Jew could make a sensible reply. The tribe of Judah was selected as that from which the Messiah should come; and behold, the Jews do not know which of them are of the tribe of Judah.

While the Author was amongst the Jews of Malabar, he made frequent inquiries concerning the Ten Tribes. When he mentioned that it was the opinion of some, that they had migrated from the Chaldean provinces, he was asked to what country we supposed they had gone, and whether we had ever heard of their moving in a great army on such an expedition.

It will be easy perhaps to shew, that the great body of the Ten Tribes remain to this day in the countries to which they were first carried captive. If we can discover where they were in the first century of the Christian Era, which was seven hundred years after the carrying away to Babylon, and again where they were in the fifth century, we certainly may be able to trace them up to this time.

Josephus, who wrote in the reign of Vespasian, recites a speech made by King Agrippa to the Jews, wherein he exhorts them to submit to the Romans, and expostulates with them in these words:" What, do you stretch your

hopes beyond the river Euphrates? Do any "of you think that your fellow-tribes will "come to your aid out of Adiabene? Besides, "if they would come, the Parthian will not permit it." (Jos. de Bell. Lib. ii. c. 28.) We learn from this oration, delivered to the Jews themselves, and by a King of the Jews, that the Ten Tribes were then captive in Media, under the Persian Princes.

In the fifth century, Jerome, author of the Vulgate, treating of the dispersed Jews, in his Notes upon Hosea, has these words: "Unto this

day, the Ten Tribes are subject to the Kings "of the Persians, nor has their captivity ever "been loosed." (Tom. vi. p. 7.); and again he says, "The Ten Tribes inhabit at this day "the cities and mountains of the Medes." Tom. vi. p. 80.

There is no room left for doubt on this subject. Have we heard of any expedition of the Jews" going forth from that country, "since that period, like the Goths and Huns, "to conquer nations?" Have we ever heard of their rising in insurrection to burst the bands of their captivity? To this day, both Jews and Christians are generally in a state of captivity in these despotic countries. No family dares

to leave the kingdom without permission of the King.*

Mahomedanism reduced the number of the Jews exceedingly: It was presented to them at the point of the sword. We know that multitudes of Christians received it; for example, "the seven Churches of Asia ;" and we may believe, that an equal proportion of Jews were proselyted by the same means. In the provinces of Cashmire and Affghanistan, some of the Jews submitted to great sacrifices, and they remain Jews to this day; but the greater number yielded, in the course of ages, to the power of the reigning religion. Their countenance, their language, their names, their rites and observances, and their history, all conspire to establish the fact. We may judge, in some degree, of the number of those who would yield to the sword of Mahomed, and conform, in appearance at least, to what was called a

* Joseph Emin, a Christian well known in Calcutta, wished to bring his family from Ispahan; but he could not effect it, though our Government interested itself in his behalf.

+ Mr. Forster was so much struck with the general appearance, garb, and manners of the Cashmirians, as to think, without any previous knowledge of the fact, that he had been suddenly transported among a nation of JEWS. See Forster's Travels.