36 HOKiiirZD KASSAMj ESQ., ON BIBLICAL LANDS, THEIR 



l^ecause they were brought out of the countrv called Ciithah,, 

 which is a country of Persia, and there is a river of the same 

 name in it), each of them according to their nations, which 

 were in number five, brought their own gods into Samaria, 

 and by worshipping them, as was the custom of their own 

 countries, they provoked Ahuiglity God to be angry and 

 displeased at them, for a plague seized upon them by which 

 they were destroyed; and when they found no care for their 

 miseries, they learned by the oracle that they ought to 

 worship Almighty God, as the method for their deliverance. 

 So they sent ambassadors to the King of Assyria, and desired 

 him to send them some of those priests of the Israelites 

 whom he had taken captive. And when he thereupon sent 

 them, and the people were by them taught the laws, and the 

 holy worship of God, they worshipped him in a respectful 

 manner, and the plague ceased immediately ; and indeed 

 they continue to make use of the very same customs to this 

 very time, and are called in the Hebrew tongue Cutheans; 

 but in the Greek Samaritans. And when they see the Jews 

 in prosperity, they pretend tliat they are changed, and allied 

 to them, and call them kinsmen, as though they were 

 derived from Joseph, and had by that means an original 

 alliance Avith them, but when they see them falling into a 

 low condition, they say they are no way related to them, 

 and that the Jews have no right to expect any kindness or 

 marks of kindred from them, but they declare that they are 

 sojourners, that come from other countries." 



Even after the destruction of the temple the Samaritans 

 still continued to worsliip on Mount Gerizim and to main- 

 tain that no other place was equally sacred as having 

 been the spot on which altars were reared and sacrifices 

 oiiered by Abraham and Jacob. A small remnant of those 

 interesting people still exist in Shechem, the present Nablous, 

 and its surroundings. Their mode of worship resembles 

 that of the Jews, and they observe the law of Moses and 

 celebrate the Passover by killing the Pascal lamb. 



All the ancient nationalities of the Holy Land and its 

 surroundings, also of the Syrian lowland and highland, 

 together with those who inhabit the Arabian desert, have 

 been merged under one nomenclature, which is the " Arab." 

 There are now no distinct peoples existing such as 

 the Hittites, Edomites, Moabites, Ishmaelites, PhiKstines, 

 and others, because since Christianity was established and 

 Islamism followed it, all the Gentile nations embraced the 



