206 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



them to this cause. All the inhabitants of the'sea-coast of Melinda, 

 down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast to the Red 

 Sea, are obliged to put tfiemselves in motion, and remove to the 

 next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their 

 stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is not a partial emigra- 

 tion ; the inhabitants of all the countries, from the mountains of 

 Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile, and Astaboras, 

 are once a year obliged to change their abode, and seek protection 

 on the sands of Beja; nor is there any alternative, or means of avoid- 

 ing this, though a hostile band were in their way, capable of spoil- 

 ing them of half their substance. 



* Of all those that have written upon these countries, the prophet 

 Isaiah alone has given an account of this animal, and the manner 

 of its operation, Jsaiah vii. 18, 19 : ' And it shall come to pass, in 

 that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost 

 part of* the rivers of Egypt ; and they shall come, and shall rest all 

 of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and 

 upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.' That is, they shall cut off 

 from the cattle their usual retreat to the desert, by taking posses- 

 sion of those places, and meeting them there, where ordinarily they 

 never come, and which, therefore, were the refuge of the cattle. 



' We cannot read the history of the plagues which God brought 

 upon Pharaoh by the hands of Moses, without stopping a moment 

 to consider a singularity, a very principal one, which attended this 

 plague of the fly, Exodus viii. 20, &c. It was not till this time, 

 by means of this insect, that God said, he would separate his peo- 

 ple from the Egyptians. And it would seem, that a law was given 

 to them, that fixed the limits of their habitation. It is well known, 

 as I have repeatedly said, that the land of Goshen or Geshen, the 

 possession of the Israelites, was a land of pasture, which was not 

 tilled or sown, because it was not overflowed by the Nile. But 

 the land overflowed by the Nile, was the black earth of the valley 

 of Egypt, and it was here that God confined the flies ; for, he says, 

 it shall be a sign of this separation of the people, which he had 

 , then made, that not one fly should be seen in the sand, or pasture- 

 ground, the land of Goshen ; and this kind of soil has ever since 

 been the refuge of all cattle, emigrating from the black earth, to 

 the lower part of Atbara, Isaiah, indeed, says, that the fly diall be 

 in all the desert places, and, consequently, the sands ; yet this was 

 a particular dispensation of Providence, to a special end, the desola- 

 tion of Egypt, and was not a repeal of the general law, but a con- 

 firmation of it ; it was an exception for a particular purpose, and a 

 limited time. 



' I have already said so much on this subject, that it would be 

 tiring my reader's patience, to repeat any t.hkig concerning him ; I 

 shall, therefore, content myself by giving .a very accurate design of 

 him, only observing that, ibr distinctness sake, I have magnified 

 him sometbuig above twice the natural size. He has no sting, 

 though he seems to me to be rather of the bee kind ; but his mo- 



