Note 153 — LETTER XXXIX.

It must be from some error that Burckhardt (Travels in Syria, p. 5) only allows the grave of Noah a length of ten feet, although the same number recurs in Schubert (Reise in das Morgenland, Bd. III., p. 340). It is well known how continually the number forty is used by the Hebrews as an indefinite number. The same seems to have been peculiar to all Semitic nations, at least, it may be pointed out frequently, and at all times with the Phænicians and Arabs; the numeral word for four and forty itself points, in these languages, to the general idea of multitude. Cf. my Treatise on Philological Comparison (“Sprachvergleichende Abhandlungen,”) Berlin, 1836, pp. 104, 139, and the “Chronology of the Egyptians,” vol. i. p. 15.