Note 271 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 2)

The Arab writers tell enormous fables of this serpent or dragon. For they say that he was hairy and of so prodigious a size that when he opened his mouth his jaws were fourscore cubits asunder and when he laid his lower jaw on the ground his upper reached to the top of the palace [or rather, I believe, the throne of Pharaoh]: that Pharaoh, seeing this monster make towards him, fled from it; and that the whole assembly also betaking themselves to their heels, no less than twenty-five thousand of them lost their lives in the press. They add that Pharaoh, upon this abjured Moses by God who had sent him to take away the serpent, and promised he would believe on Him and let the Israelites go; but when Moses had done what he requested, he relapsed and grew as hardened as before.—S. (B.)