Note 296 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 2)

The person who cast this calf, the Moḥammadans say, was not Aaron but Es-Sámiree, one of the principal men among the children of Israel, some of whose descendants, it is pretended, still inhabit an island of that name in the Arabian Gulf. It was made of the rings and bracelets of gold, silver, and other materials, which the Israelites had borrowed of the Egyptians; for Aaron, who commanded in his brother’s absence, having ordered Es-Sámiree to collect those ornaments from the people, who carried on a wicked commerce with them, and to keep them together till the return of Moses, Es-Sámiree, understanding the founder’s art, put them altogether into a furnace, to melt them down into one mass, which came out in the form of a calf. One writer says, that all the Israelites adored this calf, except only twelve thousand.—S. (A. F.)