2U2 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 
native soil and climate is south Africa, in the countries bordering upon 
the Cape of Good Hope. * 
The wildness and love of liberty which characterise this animal are 
beautifully described by the prophet Jeremiah: A wild ass used to the 
wildernessi that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure, ch. ii. v. 24. And 
again, when their image is allied to all the horrors of a parched desert: 
And the wild asses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the wind 
like dragons: their eyes did fail because there was no grass, ch. xiv. v. 6. 
On the day before we reached Casvin, whilst we were encamped 
at the village of Hassanabad, a violent wind arose from the eastward, 
called the Baad Raz. It prevailed from the morning to about two 
o’clock P. M. when it changed about to the westward, and was then 
called the Baad Shehriar. At the time of the change, whirlwinds were 
to be seen in different parts of the plain, sweeping along the country 
in different directions, in a manner that was quite frightful to behold. 
They carried away in their vortex sand, branches, and the stubble of 
the fields, and really appeared to make a communication between the 
earth and the clouds. The correctness of the imagery used by the 
prophet Isaiah, when he alludes to this phenomenon, is very striking to 
the eastern traveller: The whirlwind shall take them away as stubble, 
ch. lx. V. 24. Chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and 
like a rolling thing before the whirlwind, ch. xvii. v. 13. 
In the Psalms, Ixxxiii. v. 13., we read, Make them like a wheel, as the 
stubble before the wind ; which is happily illustrated by the rotary 
action of the whirlwind, which frequently impels a bit of stubble over 
a waste, just like a wheel set into rapid motion, p 
The Embassy reached Casvin on the 1st of June, and before we had 
entered it, we were met by the Mirakhor, Master of the Horse, of Ali 
* See Buffon, Hist. Nat. du Zebre, vol. x. p. 175. 
f In this instance, the original word is the same as in the other, from Isaiah {galzal ); no 
doubt the word is sometimes used for the wheel of a carriage; but the attendant imagery 
in both instances here adduced compels us to accept the meaning as given in Isaiah, xvii.; 
or as the Lexicons sometimes express it, pulvis rotatiis. 
