THRESHING IMPLEMENTS OP THE EAST. 119 



so formed as to admit of the driver sitting upon it. A 

 very similar mode of threshing is still adopted in Syria 

 and Asia Minor, and is described by an eye-witness* as 

 consisting of a thick plank of timber, flat on the ground, 

 with another smaller one inclining upwards, to which 

 the animal is attached. The flat portion of the imple- 

 ment is stuck full of flints, or hard cutting stones, 

 arranged in the form of the rough tongue of the cow. 

 This is dragged over the corn, which is spread out on 

 the hard rocky ground. The roller is the trunk of a 

 tree, often weighted by the driver riding on it. It is 

 dragged over the ground, but does not revolve. 



Another form of threshing is by the wain or sledge. 

 This is still employed in Egypt and in western Asia. 

 The sledge is fixed upon two or three wooden rollers 

 armed with iron rings, having sharpened and toothed 

 edges, so as to cut through the straw. The sledge is 

 drawn by oxen, mules, or asses, and driven by a man 

 seated in it. As it passes round in a circle over the 

 corn, the grain, by repeated operations, is separated, 

 while the straw is chopped by the jagged iron rings. 

 The chopped straw was the ordinary food of cattle. 

 There is a very interesting passage in the book of the 

 prophet Isaiah, where four methods of threshing, namely, 

 by the drag, by the wain, by the flail, and by the tread- 

 ing out of horses, are all mentioned within the space of 

 two verses. The whole passage stands thus : " For the 

 fitches [vetches] are not threshed with a threshing-in- 

 strument, neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the 

 cummin [dill] ; but the fitches are beaten out with a 

 staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread-corn is bruised ; 

 because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it 

 with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horse- 

 men," (Isa. xxviii. 27, 28.) These several arts of the 

 husbandman are ascribed to the agency of the Almighty, 

 who " doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach 

 him ;" for in the following verse it is said, " This also 

 * Fellowes. 



