Feb. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



155 



(Vol. ii., p. 420.), oflFered some remarks on the 

 Oriental fruits which have been introduced into 

 Europe, I read with much interest the Note of 

 your correspondent on Gibbon's erroneous ac- 

 count of the orange. 



The opinion of Targioni, which your corre- 

 spondent L. has cited, is probably the right one. 

 Had the orange been brought at once into 

 Europe from China, we should hardly have had 

 the names naranja, arrancia, and orange, modifi- 

 cations of which are found in all the languages of 

 Europe with which I have any acquaintance. 



The first of these names was introduced into 

 Spain by its Arabian invaders, from their own 

 ■word li'obj which they borrowed from the Per- 

 sian {JjC ilj- This word, I believe, was derived 

 from the Sanscrit, as I find in several books of 

 reference. 



It is curious that we should derive from the 

 Arabic, through the Spanish, the names of several 

 other fruits which were known in Eastern Europe 

 with Latin names, long before the intercourse of 

 the Arabs with Western Europe ; and it is not 

 easy to discover whether those Latin names, 

 which are not without meaning, were originally 

 corruptions from the Persian, or names invented 

 by the Romans, and afterwards, from commercial 

 intercourse, adopted in the East. 



About the orange, howevei*, there can be no 

 doubt. Gibbon possibly thought that the aurea 

 mala of Virgil's third Eclogue were oranges ; for 

 it was once a common opinion, and the modern 

 Latin of the botanists, Aurantium, seemed in 

 favour of that notion. Aurantium, however, can- 

 not be traced even to mediaeval Latin, and the 

 aurea mala were merely apples, such as those 

 with which Theocritus' lovers courted their mis- 

 tresses, and with which Virgil's Galatea pelted 

 Damoetas. The epithet resembles our own 

 '^^ golden pippins." E. C. H. 



« No doubt," says B. H. C, " the Vulgate is in 

 error in translating Chittim by Italy." The trans- 

 lation, nevertheless, is defensible. The text is 

 (Ezekiel xxvii. 6.), " Et prsetoriola de insulis 

 Italia;;" "And cabins with things brought from 

 the islands of Italy." The Chaldaic has : " From 

 the islands of Apulia," that is, from Cyprus, Crete, 

 Sicily, and other islands near to Apulia and Italy. 

 There is a passage (Numbers xxiv. 24.) where 

 the same word {Chittim) occurs, and the Vulgate 

 reads thus : " Venient in trieribus de Italia ; " 

 " They shall come in galleys from Italy." Chit- 

 tim or Citium was a city of Cyprus, from which 

 the whole island was called Cetitn or Chittim. 

 Now, the Hebrew is literally, " They shall come 

 from the side," or, as the English Protestant ver- 

 sion has it, from the coast (Sept. ac x^^P'^") o^ 

 Chittim, which sufficiently applies to Italy. More- 



over, the Chaldaic version has distinctly, " Ships 

 shall come from the Romans." The translation, 

 then, of Ezekiel is borne out from the parallel 

 passage in Numbers. It is probable that precious 

 woods were imported from Italy ; but whether 

 the orange-tree grew there so early is another 

 question, upon which I give no opinion, my only 

 object at present being to defend the translation 

 in the Vulgate. F. C. H. 



The/'Telliamed" (Vol. xi., p. 88.). — In my 

 collection of books at present for sale, I find I 

 have got a fine clean copy of the work asked for 

 by your correspondent at Leamington. It is en- 

 titled, — 



" Telliamed ; or Discourses between an Indian Philo- 

 sopher and a French Missionary on the Diminution of 

 the Sea, the Formation of the Earth, the Origin of Man 

 and Animals, and other curious subjects relating to 

 Natural History and Philosophy. Being a translation 

 from the French original of M. Maillet: London, T. Os- 

 borne, 1750." 



It may be had for 3*. T. G. S. 



Edinburgh. 



MasovUs Hymn (Vol. xi., p. 105.). — The line 

 quoted by H. is the one that opens Mason's 

 " Hymn before Evening Service : " 



" Soon will [not as"} the evening star with silver ray." 



J. H. M. 



" O Son of David" (Vol. xi., p. 106.). — The 

 suggestion of the late Bishop Lloyd regarding the 

 versicle " O Son of David," was mentioned to me 

 several years ago at Lambeth, by the late Canon 

 Vaux, one of the Archbishop's chaplains, as an, 

 interesting discovery of Bishop Lloyd's. 



J. H. M, 



NOTBS ON BOOKS, ETC. 



That a subject so provocative of a good-natured laugh 

 as photography, with its difficulties, and infinite failures 

 in the hands of beginners, should be seized upon as the 

 subject of his mirth by one who has so keen a sense of 

 the ridiculous as the author of Verda^it Green, was only 

 to be expected. It was therefore with no surprise that 

 we have received Photographic Pleasures popularly por- 

 trayed with Pen and Pencil by Cuthbert Bede, B.A. We 

 have been much amused by its perusal, even though we 

 are not without a feeling that we may have feathered the 

 arrow which has been aimed at our camera ; and few will 

 turn over the pages of it without sharing our enjoyment 

 of the flourishes of Cuthbert Bede's pen, and admiring the 

 point of his pencil. 



Waterlow & Sons, the patentees of the Autographic 

 Press, have just published a volume of instructions for 

 its use, which will no doubt contribute greatly to extend 

 the application of this invention. It is entitled, Every 

 Man his own Printer, or Lithography made Easy ; being an 



