THE TAMARISK, .271 



all. It never acquires that degree of hardness which, will 

 allow of its being pounded, as the Israelites are said to 

 have done with the manna with which they were mira- 

 culously supplied ; nor does it possess the same nutritive 

 properties. Some travellers suppose this substance to be 

 the produce of an insect which infests the Tamarisk. 

 The quantity collected is 'very trifling, perhaps not amount- 

 ing to five or six hundred pounds, even in seasons when 

 the most copious rains fall. It is entirely consumed 

 among the Bedouins, who consider it the greatest dainty 

 which their country affords. The harvest usually begins 

 in June, and lasts six weeks." 



We may infer from this account that, although the 

 " bread from heaven " supplied to the Israelites and the 

 manna of the Tamarisk are as distinct from each other 

 as any substances can be, there was just enough outward 

 resemblance between them to account for the name of 

 manna being given to their new food, supposing that the 

 mann of the Tamarisk was then known by the same 

 name that it now is. On the other hand, it is highly 

 probable that the Arabs called the substance which they 

 collected from the Tamarisk mann, from its bearing a 

 resemblance in some respects to the manna of the 

 Israelites. It is hard to say which of these opinions 

 carries the greater weight : the supposition is quite 

 natural that the Israelites, amazed and perplexed at the 

 suddenness of the miracle wrought on their behalf, called 

 their new food by the name of the substance which it most 

 resembled ; and it is as natural that the Arabs should 

 afterwards give the name of " manna" to a white sweet 

 substance which they found on the ground before sunrise, 

 although produced for a few weeks only in every year, 

 and unaccompanied by the signs of miraculous origin 

 which characterised the food with which the Israelites 

 were fed for forty years in the wilderness. But if, as 

 Josephus tells us, the word manna means " What is this ? " 

 and indicates ignorance of its nature and origin, there can 



