PASTORALIST SYSTEMS 11 



then gone south to Egypt, under stress of famine, 

 he finally settled in Palestine, first in the valley of the 

 Jordan, on the plains of Mamre, and near Hebron. A 

 warrior, too, he was, and he routed the hostile force 

 that had carried off his relative. Lot. He maintained 

 the purity of his race, and wives were sought for his son, 

 Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob, among his distant 

 kindred in the land of his birth. Though not himself 

 apparently pol3'gamous, he had children by a concubine, 

 one of his slaves ; and Isaac and Jacob w ere both 

 polygamous. The right or custom of primogeniture 

 was already in force, and, notwithstanding the con- 

 tentions of the brothers McLennan, who maintained 

 that the Hebrew patriarchs never possessed the Roman 

 patria potestas, or absolute paternal authority,* Abra- 

 ham's intended sacrifice of Isaac is a proof of the ex- 

 istence of very large paternal powers. A defined system 

 of succession, depending on relationship, was in use, 

 which would have opened up the headship after Abra- 

 ham to a relative in distant Damascus. The religion 

 of the patriarch, like that of all pastoralists, was simple 

 and, apparently, anthropomorphic ; he carried with 

 him his images of the Deity ; and goats, rams, 

 doves, and pigeons were sacrificed on altars reared on 

 the mountain-tops. Save in this, the Hebrew patri- 

 archs, in fact, so closely resembled the Arabs of the 

 present day, who have remained virtually unchanged 

 for thousands of years, that scholars adduce their 

 habits and customs generally to illustrate the manners 

 of the Hebrew patriarchal times.! Far away seem 

 these ancient worthies, and yet very near they are, as 

 we contemplate them from an Australian head-station. 

 " Men travelled with their flocks and herds," writes 

 Mrs. Campbell Praed, " and, Hke Abraham and Lot, 

 fought the tribes for land and ^ater." Their life and 



* The Patriarchal Theory. By John and Donald McLennan. 

 London. 



■f Milman, History of the Jews, bk. i., and Scheppig, Descrip- 

 tive Sociology, pt. vii. 



