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substance of it is, that one of them, whose name was Achmed, finding himself at first too weak to venture a battle, threw himself with a few soldiers, into a little fortress built on a mountain, where he had deposited his treasures. Bel Arrab, (his rival) at the head of four or five thousand men invested the place, and would have forced the new Imam to surrender, had he not quitted the fortress, with two of his domestics, all three disguised like poor Arabs, who were looking out for grass for their camels. Achmed withdrew to a town. a good day's journey from the besieged fortress, where he was much beloved; he found no no difficulty in gathering together some hundreds of men, with whom he marched against his enemy. Bel Arab had placed his camp between some high mountains near to the above mentioned fortress. Achmed ordered a coloured string to be tied round the heads of his soldiers, that they might be distinguished from their enemies. He then sent several small detachments to seize the passes of those mountains. He gave each detachment an Arab trumpet to sound an alarm on all sides, as soon as the principal party should give the signal. Measures being thus laid, the Imam's son gave the signal at day-break, and the trumpets sounded on every side. The whole army of Bel Arrab being thrown into a panic at finding all the passes guarded, and judging the number of the enemy to be proportionate to the noise

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that was made, was routed. Bel Arrab himself marched with a party to the place where the son of the new Imam was keeping guard; he knew Bel Arrab, fell upon him, killed him, and, according to the custom of the Arabs, cut off his head, which he carried in triumph to his father."

The very learned Michaelis, in an extract he made from this description, which he published in his Bibliotheque Orientale, and which extract is placed at the end of that edition of this work of Niebuhr, which is in my possession, takes notice of this story in the following way: "P. 304, mention is made of a stratagem, entirely like Gideon's, Judges vii. and which appeared incredible to those who are accustomed to our method of making war, because not practicable in our times.”

There is a likeness undoubtedly, and such as very much illustrates the affair of Gideon, but the stories are not perfectly similar, nor should they be so represented, as the one is supposed to bear the marks of a dependence on an immediate divine interposition, the other only considered as a stratagem that might probably be succesful, and turned out so.

The taking notice of each with some distinctness, may not be improper.

The army of Midian, as well as that of Bel Arrab, seems to have been encamped in some valley, or open place, surrounded with mountains dangerous to pass; while Gideon and his

y See 1 Sam. xvii. 57.

z P. 36.

people were placed in an adjoining mountain difficult of access, for the sake of security. The sacred text expressly tells us, that the host of Midian was beneath Gideon in the valley, Judges vii. 8. The 12th verse also mentions their lying in vast multitudes in a valley. This Arab story leads us to apprehend it was a place encompassed with lofty hills, difficult to get over, and the passages into the plains in both cases, few and narrow. Nothing can be more probable than this supposition. The term valley supposes hills on each side, by which circumstance it is distinguished from that part of a flat open country which lies at the foot of a range of mountains. The descriptions of Judea answer this account-a great part of it very mountainous, with large vallies among them with narrow passes. The placing Gideon's people round about the camp, ver. 21, means placing them in all the passes.

The seizing the passes, and making use of an artifice to make the enemy believe they were 、 more numerous than in truth they were, were like circumstances in both cases: as was the making an extraordinary noise with trumpets. Gideon's trumpets, and those used by this Arab, might very possibly be exactly the same; but the number of those of the Jewish judge was by far the greatest.

But there was an essential difference between the two stories with regard to the being armed. The Imam's people kept the passes, and being armed, were enabled to kill those that at

tempted to escape, till the leader of their enemies was killed, or his forces reduced to such a number as not to be formidable; but Gideon's people were unarmed at the time of the alarm, or at least incapable of using any arms, one hand being employed in holding a trumpet, the other a torch. There must then have been, in that case, an entire dependence on their destroying one another, in the confusion and terror of this sudden nocturnal alarm. They were not disappointed a divine agency made the scheme effectual. But had the kings of Midian, like Bel Arrab, made up to one of the parties that keep guard at the passes, nothing there could effectually have prevented their escape, and the cutting off those that stood with their trumpets and lights in those narrow defiles.

One party's taking another party belonging to the same army for enemies, and by that means occasioning a fatal overthrow, has happened too often to render the account at all incredible, upon the foot of a mere natural event. The supposing an extraordinary divine agency cannot make it less so.

How many were destroyed when thus fatally inclosed does not appear. About 15,000, out of 120,000, were collected together on the other side Jordan, Judges viii. 10, 11; but many of those that were slain were killed in their flight, and at the ford over Jordan, before they could reach that place of supposed security. What way they escaped, whether by clambering over the rugged hills, by a way they would not have ven

tured upon had they not been so terrified, but which they knew pointed towards Jordan, or how else, we are not told, but there is nothing in that circumstance neither that is beyond belief.

There is then a great resemblance between the Arab and the sacred story; but the learned and ingenious Gottingen professor has been rather too hasty, when he asserts that they are wholly alike.b

OBSERVATION LXVI.

Curious Illustration of 2 Kings vii. 12.

THE suspicion the sacred historian ascribes to Joram, 2 Kings vii. 12, that the Syrians had left their camp, when they besieged Samaria, well stored with provisions, in order to entice the famished Israelites to quit that strong hold, that the Syrians might by this stratagem get them into their power, appears natural enough in itself; but its probability is pleasingly illustrated by what lately happened in that very country, and not far from Samaria. The reciting it indeed explains no difficulty, but as I imagine it may give many readers a very sensible pleasure, I will, without making any scruple about it, set down the relation that the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey gives of the transaction.

a Michaelis.

Totalement is the word that is used in this extract.

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