BLESSINGS. 325 



if he is profuse in the use of the name of God. Ignorance of 

 this Eastern habit has led to some very edifying, but most 

 mistaken, comments upon sucli passages as that in the Book 

 of Euth, where Boaz says to his reapers, " The Lord be with 

 you ; and they answered him, The Lord bless thee " (ii. 4). 

 And it has been sometimes inferred from these phrases that 

 there was a delightful and earnest religiousness of character 

 in those using such beautiful language. But the fact is, that 

 these were, and are still, the ordinary Oriental salutations, 

 common to all religions ; and a reference to other passages 

 shows that people of very questionable character were 

 equally profuse in similar pious language ; see what was said 

 by the murderers of Ishbosheth (2 Sam. iv. 8), by Saul after 

 disobedience to a plain command (i Sam. xv. 14), by Laban, 

 and by many others. And just in the same way, the Tahin' 

 Andriamdnitra hianao (" May you be blessed of God ") of 

 the Malagasy is the most common expression of thanks and 

 of farewell, and is used in the vast majority of cases without 

 any more religious feeling than we are conscious of when we 

 say " Good bye " (God be with you) or " Adieu." 



The Malagasy are a very polite people, and look with 

 contempt upon those who neglect the ordinary usages and 

 salutations. In speaking with a friend of his house, or land, 

 or other property, it is common for him to caU it antsika, 

 i.e., " ours," an inclusive form of possessive pronoun signifying 

 a thing to be common both to the speaker and the spoken to. 

 But going beyond this, they will sometimes tell you that all 

 they have is yours ; it is, however, only a complimentary 

 figure of speech, no more meant to be taken literally than 

 were Ephron's polite offers of his land to Abraham, when 

 he told the patriarch, " The field give I thee, and the cave 

 that is therein, I give thee ; in the presence of the sons of my 

 people give I it thee ; " proceeding immediately to charge an 

 uncommonly good price for the land. All this was thoroughly 

 Malagasy, as was also his apparently generous indifference to 

 money, " What is that betwixt me and thee ? " and not less 

 so was the request of Abraham that others would act as 

 mediators between himself and Ephron, who was there 

 present, for in almost every business of importance a third 



