Volume 4 — Notes.

WADY MOKATTEB IDENTIFIED WITH KIBROTH HATTAVAH.

The difficulty of deciding the antiquity of the famous inscriptions in the deserts of Arabia, would be considerably diminished if we could ascertain the earliest mention of the valley now known as Wady Mokatteb. What I am about to submit to the readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES", is not a presumptuous or rash suggestion, but an idea diffidently entertained, and cautiously and maturely considered.

It is not at all improbable that that valley, with its surrounding rocky chronicles, was first mentioned by Moses, the first delineator of the "great wilderness." The mention I allude to is to be found in Numbers, xi. 26. The passage, as it occurs in the English version, runs thus:

"But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other was Medad; and the Spirit rested upon them, and they were of them that were written."

The original words of the last clause are but the two following:—

וְהֵמָה בַּכְּתוּבִים

which literally signify, "and they were amongst the inscriptions."

A personal and literary examination of the locality of the Sinaitic inscriptions convinces me that Eldad and Medad were then in that famous region. By a reference to the chapter alluded to, it will be found that the children of Israel were then at that awfully memorable place called Kibroth Hattavah (ver. 34.), and no one, who has but a slight knowledge of scripture topography, will be at a loss to observe that it is the very spot where the mysterious inscriptions are found.

Dr. Robinson, in his Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 138., thus notices the subject in question:

"The Sinaite inscriptions are found on all the routes which lead from the West towards Sinai, above the convent El-Arbain, but are found neither on Gebel Mûsa, nor on the present Horeb, nor on St. Catherine, nor in the valley of the convent; while on Serbal they are seen on its very summit."

Lord Lindsay, in his first letter from Edom and the Holy Land, introduces the same district in the following words:

"We now entered Wady Mokatteb, a spacious valley, bounded on the east by a most picturesque range of black mountains, but chiefly famous for the inscriptions on the rocks that line it, and from which it derives its name. There are thousands of them, inscriptions too, and here is the mystery, in a character which no one has yet deciphered."

Now, let the ancient and modern maps be compared, and it will be discovered that the same place which is called, in Num. xi. 26., כְּתוּבִים, probably on account of its inscriptions, is also called by the Arabians وادى المكتّب Wady el Mokatteb.

Should the identity between Wady Mokatteb and Kibroth Hattavah be considered conclusive, then the antiquity of the Sinaitic inscriptions is far more remote than the date fixed by certain archæologists and palæographists; the records may prove to be, in truth and in deed, the handy-work of the Israelites during their encampment there.

The readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" need scarcely be told that the inscriptions were first noticed in the sixth century by Cosmas, a Græco-Indian merchant, who was hence surnamed Indicopleustes. But it is necessary to impress the fact that Cosmas, though a man of intelligence and of letters, considered that the alphabet in which the inscriptions were made, was unknown; but having visited the Wady in company with certain well-informed Jews, his Hebrew companions read and deciphered several of the records, and decided that the Israelites of the Egyptian Exodus were the performers of the inscriptions. All this Cosmas stated in his Christian Topography (a work published for the first time in 1707 by the learned Montfauçon), and concurs in the opinion that the ancient Hebrews were the scribes. This circumstance borne in mind, will be proof against the theory conceived by Professor Beer, brought forth by Dr. Lepsius, adopted and fostered by Dr. Wilson, viz. that an Utopian Nabathæan Christian tribe executed those inscriptions during their pilgrimages to the sacred localities on Mount Sinai. Is it not strange that Cosmas should not have heard that there was such a tribe of scribes in the valley? Is it not unaccountable that the knowledge of the alphabet should so soon have been forgotten? Cosmas flourished comparatively but a short time after the supposed Nabathæans.

But the advocates of the Nabathæan theory argue that the Sinaitic inscriptions must be of a comparatively modern date, since there are found amongst them some Greek and Latin ones; and, moreover, the cross does sometimes occur in various shapes. I venture to submit that the inscriptions bear self-evidence that they have been executed at various dates. It is true that by far the greatest number of them display indubitable marks of remote antiquity; but there are some which must be pronounced juvenile when compared with the great majority. The latter bear marks of an execution resembling the inscriptions on the ancient Egyptian obelisks, whilst the former are rude and superficially cut, and already almost effaced. I take, therefore, the Greek and Latin, and indeed some of the yet unknown inscriptions, to have been cut at a comparatively modern date. Who knows whether Cosmas and his companions did not try their hands at a few?

Why should it be thought improbable that the different monks on Mount Sinai, who occupied the convent there at various ages, should have done their quota to puzzle the modern palæographist and traveller? Is it absolutely impossible that the prefect of the Franciscan missionaries of Egypt, who visited the Wady in 1722, and his companions, who were well instructed in the Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian languages, should have chiselled a few in the characters they were most expert? In the same manner might the occurrence of the cross be accounted for, if it were necessary, without precipitating oneself to the conclusion that "the occurrence, in connection with the inscriptions of the cross in various forms, indicates that their origin should be attributed to the early Christians." But is it possible that such antiquaries as Drs. Beer, Lepsius, and Wilson, should be ignorant, or affect to be ignorant, that the cross was an ancient hieroglyphic, of a date long before the Christian era, well known by the name of Crux Ansata, and of the Divina Taw, and signified among the Egyptians "Life to come"? That the form of the cross was used among the Hebrews is conclusive from the fact that it was the ancient Hebrew mint letter for the ת. What, then, is the value of the arguments in behalf of the Nabathæan theory? All the specimens that have been given hitherto of the inscriptions, are no more in comparison with the vast numbers which literally cover the highest mountains, than a drop out of a bucket, including even those given in the Philosophical Transactions of 1766, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of 1832, and by the Rev. Charles Forster of this year [1], and even adding the 1200 taken by M. Lottin de Laval. (See "NOTES AND QUERIES", Vol. iv., p. 332.)

MOSES MARGOLIOUTH.

ON A PASSAGE IN GOLDSMITH.

Goldsmith, in The Deserted Village, has the lines:

In this passage the fourth line, which I have given in italics, is traced by D'Israeli, in Curiosities of Literature, under the head of "Imitations and Similarities," to the French poet, De Caux, who, comparing the world to his hour-glass, says—

The turn given to the thought in the French has suggested to D'Israeli an emendation of the passage in Goldsmith. He proposes that the word "unmakes" should be substituted for "can make." The line would then read—

This emendation seems to me to be alike ingenious and well-founded. The line itself is but the corollary of the one that precedes it; and in order to make the sense complete, it should contain antithetical expressions to correspond with "flourish" and "fade." Now, between "can make" and "made" there is nothing antithetical; but between "made" and "unmakes" there is.

In support of this view, I may quote one or two parallel passages, in which the antithesis is preserved. The first is a quatrain commemorating the devastating effects of an earthquake in the valley of Lucerne in 1808:

The second is a line which occurs in Curiosities of Literature, and which I am compelled to quote from memory, having no access to that work. It is as follows:

That Goldsmith wrote the line in question with the word "unmakes," there seems little reason to doubt. To say of princes and lords that "a breath can make them, as a breath has made," far from conveying any idea of their "fading," would be, on the contrary, to indicate the facile process by which they may be perpetuated. It would show how they may "flourish," but not how they may "fade."

Although this emendation in Goldsmith was pointed out many years ago, and recommends itself by its appositeness, and its obvious adaptation to the context, yet I believe it has never been introduced into any edition of that poet. I have before me two copies of The Deserted Village, and both contain the words "can make." As, however, among the many useful hints thrown out by "NOTES AND QUERIES", that of suggesting the emendation of obscure or difficult passages in our poets, appears to have met with the approbation of your readers, I trust some future editor of Goldsmith may be induced to notice this passage, and restore the text to its original accuracy.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

Minor Notes.

Biographical Dictionary.

—May I beg for the assistance of "NOTES AND QUERIES" to enforce a want which I am sure is daily felt by thousands of educated Englishmen? The want I speak of is that of a good Biographical Dictionary, coming down to the middle of the century; a dictionary as good as the Biog. Universelle for foreign lives, and a hundred times better for English lives. Every one knows how meagre and unsatisfactory is that otherwise magnificent work in its English part. Why should we not have an abridged translation, with the home portion re-written?

Z. Z. Z.

The Word Premises.

—The use of the word premises for houses, lands, and hereditaments, is surely incorrect. I have never found the word præmissa used in any Latin writer in a sense that can sanction the modern application of its derivative. Johnson's authority supports the view that the word is perverted in being made to stand for houses and lands, as he says it is "in low language" that the noun substantive "premises" is used in that sense, as, "I was upon the premises," &c. The office of "the premises" in a deed, say the Law Dictionaries, is to express the names of the grantor and grantee, and to specify the thing granted. "The premises is the former part of a deed, being all that which precedeth the habendum or limitation of the estate." I believe the term "parcels" is applied, technically, to the specification of the property which forms the subject of a deed. In an instrument, it may not be wholly incorrect to refer by the term "premises" to the particulars premised, and, if an etymological inaccuracy, it may be excused for the sake of avoiding repetitions; but surely we ought not to speak of houses, lands, &c. by this term. I see I am not the first to call an editor's attention to this point, for, in the Gentleman's Magazine of Jan., 1795, a correspondent complains of this improper application of the word, and attributes the perversion to the lawyers, "who," he says, "for the sake of brevity (to which, by-the-bye, they are not much attached), have accustomed themselves to the phrase, 'the aforesaid premises,' whence the word has come to be universally taken as a collective noun, signifying manors, tenements, and so on." The absurdity of such a use of the word is illustrated by putting it for animals, household goods, and personal estate, for which it may as well stand as for lands and houses.

W. S. G.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Play of George Barnwell:—

"Last Friday a messenger came from Hampton Court to the Play House by the Queen's command, for the manuscript of George Barnwell, for Her Majesty's perusal, which Mr. Wilks carried to Hampton Court early on Saturday morning; and we hear it is to be performed shortly at the Theatre in Hampton Court, for the entertainment of the Royal Family," &c.—Daily Post, Monday, July 5. 1731.

H. E.

Traditions from Remote Periods through few Links (Vol. iii., pp. 206. 237.):—

"My greatest boast in this line is, that I have conversed with Sir Isaac Herd, the celebrated herald, and he had conversed with a person who was present at the execution of Charles I."—Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. p. 304. note.

E. H. A.