GUM-ARABIC. 421 



ance. We are expressly told that it was rained from 

 heaven ; that it lay on the ground when the dew was ex- 

 haled, round and small as the hoar-frost, like coriander- 

 seed, and its colour like a pearl ; that it fell but six days 

 in the week ; that it became offensive and bred worms if 

 kept above one day ; that the double quantity provided for 

 the Sabbath kept sweet for two days ; that it continued 

 falling for forty years, but ceased on the arrival of the 

 Israelites at the borders of Canaan. These and other facts 

 all indicate the extraordinary nature of the production ; 

 and in no one respect do they correspond with the distil- 

 lations of the tarfa, the gharrab, or the talh-tree. These 

 gums are collected only for about a month in the year ; 

 they do not admit of being ground in a hand-mill, nor bak- 

 ed ; they are not subject to putrefaction if kept, nor are 

 they peculiar to the Petrsean wilderness ; besides, the con- 

 stant and daily supply in a desert often barren of all ve- 

 getation must have been impossible, except on the suppo- 

 sition that the trees accompanied them on their march. 

 Whatever the manna was, it was obviously a substitute 

 for food ; and the peculiarities connected with its regular 

 continuance, its corruption, and periodical suspension, are 

 facts not less extraordinary than the mysterious nature of 

 the substance itself. It is in vain to attempt any expla- 

 nation of these phenomena by natural causes. A sceptical 

 philosophy may succeed in reconciling preternatural ap- 

 pearances with its own notions of probability ; but this 

 gives not a particle of additional evidence to the credibi- 

 lity of the sacred narrative. The whole miracle, as re- 

 lated by Moses, admits but of one solution the interpo- 

 sition of a Divine power. As for local traditions or modern 

 practices, these, we have already shown, are unsafe guides 

 in matters of history ; much less can they be admitted as 

 authorities in support of revealed truth. 



Gum-Arabic. According to Burckhardt this substance 

 is the produce of the talh, which he calls the gum-arabic- 

 tree. In describing Wady Lahyane, between Akaba and 

 Gaza, he says that the Bedouins feed their camels upon 

 the thorny branches of this shrub, of which they are ex- 

 tremely fond. In summer they collect the gum, which 

 they sell at Cairo for about 12s. or 15s. per cwt. The 

 taste he represents as insipid, but he was assured it was 

 very nutritive. Of this latter fact Hasselquist mentions 

 a striking confirmation, in the case of an Abyssinian 



