129 



maining together; and, after passing several years in the 

 Eagtern regions, they removed, in a body, to the Western. 

 They lived in tents, and led a pastoral life; as appears by 

 the ninth chapter of Genesis: if they had cultivated any 

 tracts, they, most probably, Avould have been attached to 

 them. The example of Noah, who was an agriculturist, 

 does not seem to have been followed by his posterity. The 

 culture of vines (from the misfortune which their product 

 had occasioned, and the curse, entailed on some of them, 

 originating from it, and, possibly, the recollection, that 

 Cain, the agriculturist, must have been drunk, when he 

 killed his brother,) appears to have been neglected, for se- 

 veral ages; for its discovery, in after times, was highly ce- 

 lebrated : and, to this day, the use of any intoxicating li^ 

 quor is interdicted to the four casts of the Hindoos;* nor 

 do I find it mentioned in any account of China. 



Charmed with the fertility of the Babylonian plains, 

 they seemed to have designed to proceed, no farther, but 

 resolved to erect a tower, as high as possible, as a signal, 

 by which their situation, in distant rambles, might, at all 

 times, be determined. It was, however, evident, that, ex- 

 tensive as these plains were, their products would, at last, 

 be insufficient for the maintenance of such multitudes, as 

 they must, in process of time, amount to; whence num- 

 berless disorders would have arisen. The gentlest method 

 of forcing them to separate Avas employed. Their different 

 VOL. X. II " tribes, 



* Indi-an Hctrcations, Vol. II. p. 28.4. 



i 



