February, March, and April, that cattle are fed in the field in Egypt, as during all the rest of the year they are fed within doors. So that the incidents mentioned in the Scripture took place just about the season when the pasture was beginning to fail, and when we might expect to find the very state of things described, the cattle on some farms already housed, while on others, perhaps, better irrigated, sufficient sustenance was still found in the field. A month later, and this would have been impossible.

A large portion of the fodder for cattle consisted of the succulent aquatic plants so abundant in Egypt, the different species of byblus and lotus. There is an allusion to this, in Pharaoh's dream, which is lost in our English version. "Behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fat-fleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow."* The word (achoo) rendered "meadow," is, as Hengstenberg observes, an Egyptian word for an Egyptian thing; it signifies the aquatic herbage of the Nile, the lotus-flags. The word occurs only once more in the Scriptures, viz., in the book of Job, where it is more correctly rendered. "Can the flag grow without water?"+ The scenery and circumstances of the dream were then in perfect harmony with an Egyptian's habitual ideas, but would have been out of keeping, if not unintelligible, in any other country. Representations of cattle feeding on the flags in the marshes occur on the monuments, as well as those which depict the harvesting of these plants for stall-feeding. pulp of the byblus or papyrus, is sweet and nutritive,

* Gen. xli. 2, 18.

+ Job viii. 11.

The

and is described as similar to that of the sugar-cane. Herodotus says that its root was cooked and eaten as a delicacy.

To the third class seem also to have been assigned the hunters, fowlers, and fishers, whose occupations are so very frequently depicted on the monuments, as to shew in what importance these persons were esteemed. In primitive times the chase of the more ferocious animals was necessary for protection; a shepherd or a herdsman would be frequently called on to defend his flocks from these prowling enemies, and hence these employments would afford a good school for the exercise of strength and prowess. In the Sacred Scriptures we find frequent allusion to hunting as the training of a warrior. The stripling of Bethlehem had proved his youthful heroism against bestial foes before he encountered the Philistine giant.

And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him : thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him : for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. Sam. xvii. 32-37.

Nimrod," the mighty hunter before the LORD;"* Ishmael, who" dwelt in the wilderness, and became

* Gen. x. 9.

an archer,"* and Esau, the "cunning hunter," the "man of the field,"+ were by these invigorating pursuits trained to the

command of men; to war and

conquest.

We find various

modes of taking wild animals depicted in the Egyptian paintings. The most obvious is that represented in the adjoining engraving, the simplicity of which exactly answers to the account of Esau's expedition at the dying request of Isaac. "Now therefore, take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take some venison.

me

The huntsman in this picture is pursuing the wild oxen of the desert, the flesh of which was highly

* Gen. xxi. 20.

+ Gen. xxv. 27.

Gen. xxvii. 3,5.

esteemed; the presence of his dog indicates, in common with many other representations, that the services of this faithful animal were appreciated in those early times, though it does not appear that hounds were used in the chase by the Israelites. The hare which starts at the feet of the chasseur, is allowed to escape unregarded, his eye being upon more important game. The arrows which he discharges are blunted or knobbed, and are calculated rather to stun than to kill the quarry; and this effect seems intended to be expressed in the wild cow, which being struck on the head is arrested in her course.

The dogs also were

HUNTSMAN CARRYING HOME HIS GAME.

trained to hold the prey without worrying or mangling it, until the hunter could come up and secure it; when it was carried home either on the shoulders,

or in boxes or baskets suspended from the common yoke, to be slaughtered as needed.

"Sometimes a space of ground, of considerable extent, was enclosed with nets, into which the animals were driven by beaters; and as this is frequently shewn by the sculptures to have been in a hilly country, it is evident that the scenes of those amusements were in the desert, where they probably extended nets across the narrow valleys, or torrentbeds, which lie between the rocky hills, difficult of ascent to animals closely pressed by dogs. The spots thus enclosed were usually in the vicinity of the waterbrooks, to which they [the animals] were in the habit of repairing in the morning and evening: and having awaited the time when they went to drink, and ascertained it by their recent tracks on the accustomed path, the hunters disposed the nets, occupied proper positions for observing them unseen,

HYENA CAUGHT IN A GIN.

and gradually closed in upon them."*

At other

times wild beasts were taken in traps or gins, which

* Wilkinson, iii. 4.