This antient Oriental salutation is used to this day throughout all countries where the Arabic or Syriac languages are spoken. Salamu Alíkume are the terms used since the days of Abraham; in Syria, in Arabia, in Egypt, in many parts of our Indian empire, in several countries on the eastern coast of Africa, in Barca, Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Marocco, and Bled-el-jereede, and in many countries of Sudan this is the universal salutation. Is it not preferable to the modern expression of the West, How do you do?

Joshua xviii. 17. "The border went up to the stone of Bohan."

The custom of placing border stones at the corners of fields and plantations, to ascertain the property of each individual, is practised to this day among the domiciliated Arabs of Africa: these boundary stones are placed at each corner of a fedan,' or field; they are held, in a manner, sacred; insomuch, that he that should presume to move one of them, would be excommunicated as a disturber of order in the community. According to this mode for the separation of property, no ground whatever is lost, as is the case with hedges and ditches, and the boundary stones are discovered only when the corn is reaped; a line is then drawn from stone to stone, by which the respective property of each individual is ascertained.

Deut. xv. 8. The Jews in Africa have not the Bible translated into Arabic, (a language which is, in Africa, what the Latin is in Europe: it is also the vernacular language of many countries of that continent,) as the Jews of England, France, Holland, and other European countries, have it translated into the language of those countries respectively in consequence of this deprivation, the Jew of Barbary or Africa must either understand Hebrew, or remain ignorant of the contents of his Bible. This circumstance acts as a stimulus upon that curious and investigating people; and accordingly, the Hebrew tongue is there studied and understood much more generally than it is in Europe, and most of the Jewish Rabbis converse together in Hebrew, when they do not wish their persecutors, the

Those who have superintended the translation of the Arabic words and sentences in the lately published and interesting travels of Louis Burkhardt in Nubia, have translated this word Faden, acre; but they have been incorrect; the word fedan does not denote a definite extent of surface of ground; it is an indefinite term as to extent, and is aptly, as I conceive, translated by the word field, which may be great or small, and determined by boundary stones instead of hedge or ditch.

Muselmen, to know the subject of their discourse. A well-educated person, who had leisure and time to spare, might occasionally collect much valuable information among the most learned Rabbis of this people, respecting various passages in the Bible, which appear to have been either loosely or inaccurately translated by the Septuagint or the spurious copies of that translation. For the purpose of elucidation I will relate a case in point. The African Jews in discussing passages in the Bible, which they never object to do, speak of a man unloosing or opening his girdle or sash to give money to those who are in want of it. In describing this unloosing of the girdle, in which they carry their money as we do ours in our pockets or purses, they refer to Deut. xv. 8, wherein our authorised version does not mention the money as being in the girdle. But when we contemplate the costume of the Jews, which in that country is the same that it was in the days of Abraham and Moses, and that the girdle or sash has been during so many ages the place of deposit for their money for daily use, common sense will scarcely allow us to think that this circumstance (demonstrative of a Hebrew custom) has not been omitted in our authorised version, which runs thus: "But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth." Here is no mention of the purse or of the girdle, which latter to this day is used as the deposit of their money; and we know that travellers do not carry their money in their hands, as we might, from the above translation, be disposed to think they did in those remote times. This being premised, there is reason to suppose that the late translation of the Pentateuch, from the original Hebrew, by John Bellamy, is the true one as far as regards this passage, or at least a manifest improvement on this passage in the authorised version. It is as follows: "When ungirding, thou shalt open thine hand for kim, likewise," &c.

JAMES G. JACKSON.

251

MEMOIR

On the Antiquity of the Zodiacs of ESNEH and
DENDERA.

PART II.-[Continued from No. XLVII. p. 174.] THOSE who are of opinion that the zodiacs of Esneh and

Dendera have been constructed since the commencement of the Christian æra, either have, or may have, employed the following arguments:-First, it may be proved from the architecture of the temples, as well as from some inscriptions found by Mr. Bankes, that these buildings, with their planispheres and hieroglyphics, are not much, if at all, more ancient than the time of Antoninus Pius. Secondly, the temple of Esneh, which is generally supposed to be the most ancient, was dedicated to Ammon; and as Strabo says, that the inhabitants adored Minerva and the latus-fish, it may be suspected that the temple was not yet built in the time of that writer. Thirdly, if we suppose the zodiacs to have been formed for the purpose of representing the state of the heavens at any particular epoch, we may naturally conclude that they were constructed for the time when the temples were built. Fourthly, the date of the oblong zodiac of Dendera, may be decided by this circumstance that the sign of Cancer is there represented by two beetles of different sizes, one of which indicates the ascending, and the other the descending part of the sign. Fifthly, it is not possible, that the summer solstice could be intended to be represented in any of these zodiacs, as corresponding with any other sign than Cancer, because the Balance is found in its proper place.

1. It is not essential to my inquiry to ascertain the exact date, when the temples of Esneh and Dendera were built, since the zodiacs on the roofs might have been copied from more ancient monuments. The evidence of Mr. Bankes seems to prove that these temples were built in the time of Adrian and Antoninus Pius. In a letter addressed by this distinguished traveller to my learned friend Mr. David Baillie, he has made various observations, which denote at once his acuteness, and the accuracy with which he had examined the architecture, sculpture, and masonry, of these celebrated ruins; and as it appears to