The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 50 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 50 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.
Italian Jews are chiefly at Leghorn and Genoa; and there are four thousand of them at Rome.  In speaking of the religion of the Jews, it is not necessary to particularize those who assumed the mask of Christianity under terror of the Inquisition, although much has been said of their wealth and numbers, and of the high offices they have filled in Spain, and especially in Portugal.  But it is curious to see, in a very distant quarter, a like simulation produced amongst them by like causes.  There are at Salonica thirty synagogues, and about twenty-five thousand professed Jews; and a body of Israelites have been lately discovered there, who, really adhering to the faith of their fathers, have externally embraced Mahomedanism.

The Barbary Jews are a very fine people; but the handsomest Jews are said to be those of Mesopotamia.  That province may also boast of an Arab chief who bears the name of the Patriarch Job, is rich in sheep, and camels, and oxen, and asses, abounds in hospitality, and believes that he descends from him; he is also famed for his justice.  The Jews at Constantinople, forty thousand in number, and in the parts of European Turkey on and near the Mediterranean, speak Spanish, and appear to descend from Israelites driven from Spain by persecution.  The Bible Society are now printing at Corfu the New Testament, in Jewish-Spanish, for their benefit.

In truth, little appears to be known of the state of the Jews during some hundreds of years after the destruction of Jerusalem.  The first body of learned Jews which drew attention after that disastrous event was that settled in Spain; and from it all Jewish learning descends.  As in accomplishment of the prophecy, the Jew is found over the whole surface of the globe; he has been long established in China, which abhors the foreigner; and in Abyssinia, which it is almost as difficult to reach as to quit.  The early Judaism of that country, and in later days the history of the powerful colony of Jews established in its heart, which at one time actually reigned over the kingdom, are matters so curious, that we regret that we can do no more than advert to them; we must say the same as to the evidence existing of Jewish rites having extended themselves very far southward along the eastern coast of Africa; the numerous Jews of Barbary; and the black and white Jews, who have been established for ages, more or less remote, on the Malabar coast.  It may be here observed, that all the Israelites hitherto discovered appear to be descendants of those who held the kingdom of Judah.

The Jews in Great Britain and Ireland are not supposed to be more than from ten to twelve thousand, very many of whom are foreigners, and migratory.—­Quarterly Rev.

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EGYPTIAN RATIONS.

The rations of the Egyptian soldiers were, according to Herodotus, five pounds of baked bread, two pounds of beef, and half a pint of wine daily.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.