50 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTO&Y. 



Reviewing his own passing days, and properly estimating the 

 shortness of human life, Job exclaims 



O ! swifter than a courier are my days i 

 They flee away they see no good. 

 As SWELLING SHIPS they sweep on ; 

 As an eagle swooping on its prey. 



This passage has sadly perplexed commentators. The original 

 of the third line, literally rendered, is 'ships of Abeh ;' or, if jQbeh 

 be taken for swiftness, 'ships of swiftness.' 



For the purpose of ascertaining what might probably be the 

 intention of the sacred writer, Mr. Taylor thus analyses the import 

 of the words ; My days pass faster than a running messenger, who 

 exerts his speed when sent on important business ; they even fly, 

 like a fugitive who escapes for his life from an enemy ; they do not 

 look around them to see for anything good ; they are passed as ships of 

 swiftness ; as a vulture flying hastily to the newly fallen prey. By 

 marking the climax, we find the messenger swift, the fugitive more 

 swift, the ships swifter than the fugitive, and the vulture swiftest 

 of all. 



In support of this ingenious conjecture, Mr. Taylor cites the fol- 

 lowing passage from ' honest Sandys.' 



* The whole caravan being now assembled, consisted of a thou- 

 sand horses, mules, and asses ; and of five hundred CAMELS. 

 THESE ARE THE SHIPS OF ARABIA ; THEIR SEAS ARE THE DES- 

 ERTS, a creature created for burthen,' &c. It does not clearly 

 appear in this extract, however, though it might be gathered from 

 it, that the^ camel has the name of the ' Ship of Arabia ;' But Mr. 

 Bruce comes in to our assistance, by saying, ' What enables the shep- 

 herd to perform the long and toilsome journies across Africa, is 

 the CAMEL, EMPHATICALLY CALLED, BY THE ARABS, THE SHIP 

 OF THE DESERT ! he seems to have been created for this very 

 trade,' &c. The idea thus thrown out, and in a great measure 

 confirmed by Sandys and Bruce, is further supported by an account 

 of the swiftness of these metaphorical 'ships,' furnished in Mor- 

 gan's ' History of Algiers.' This writer states, that the dromedary, 

 in Barbary called Aashare, will, in one night, and through a level 

 country, traverse as much ground as any single horse can perform 

 in ten. The Arabs affirm, that it makes nothing of holding its 

 rapid pace, which is a most violent hard trot, for four-and-twcnty 

 Iwurs on a stretch, without showing the least sijins of weariness, or 

 inclination to bait ; and that, having swallowed a ball or two of a sort 

 of paste, made up of barley-meal and a little powder of dry dates, 

 with a bowl of water, or camel's milk, the indefatigable animal will 

 seern as fresh as atjirst setting out, and ready to continue running at the 

 same scarcely credible rate, for as many hours longer, and so on from 

 one extremity of the African desert to the other, provided its rider 

 could hold out without sleep, and other refreshments. During his 

 stay in Algiers, Mr. Morgan was once'a party in a diversion in which 



