160 



LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



boldly written, without points, on five sheets of asses' skin, beauti- 

 fully prepared, so as to present a white enamelled surface. Its length 

 is 9^ feet, and its breadth 1\^ inches. Its matter is arranged, not 

 exactly in columns, but, in eighteen large pages or "doors" as they 

 were called from their shape. One end of the MS. is lined with 

 green silk and provided with ribbons of the same colour, but the 

 central wooden cylinder, with the projecting umbilicus or boss at 

 either end, is wanting. It is a document of some antiquity, and has 

 doubtless been unrolled by the hands of eminent rabbis, and often 

 read by them in synagogues on the Continent of Europe, in the ears 

 of attentive assemblages of old and young. It may be added that 

 the Book of Esther is sometimes called the Megillah or Roll par 

 excellence. It was sometimes prepared in this separate form, for 

 special use at the Feast of Purim, when it is annually read through. 



