XI.

OBSERVATION XVIII.

I have been fuppofing that the falling down at a perfon's feet fignifies kiffing his feet, which, according to Dr. Shaw, is a way of expreffing refpect among the prefent Arabs; but I am not fure that this is perfectly exact: there is an Eaftern way of complimenting, not precisely the fame though very near a kin to it, which very poffibly may be referred to in fome of thofe paffages I mentioned. But if it fhould, it makes no alteration of importance in Obfervation XIV; accuracy however requires me to take notice of it. What is more, it is necessary to the explaining fome other paffages.

Pabous, according to d'Herbelot', is a Perfian word which fignifies kiffing the feet, a ceremony very ancient in Perfia, for it was inftituted by its firft king, as a mark, not only of the reverence to be paid kings by their fubjects, but of the taking the oath of fidelity and homage by vaffal or feudatory princes to their fovereigns. This ceremony was afterwards changed as to fubjects of lower rank, into kiffing the ground in the prefence of their princes: this the Perfians in their language call, Rouizemin, which fignifies the face to the earth; and that of killing the feet was referved for ftrangers, and fubjects of the highest quality.

· P. 699.

It should feem however that this limited ufe of kiffing the ground, which d'Herbelot speaks of, did not always continue, fince he tells us, that Mohammed Kothbeddin the Khouarezmian, who fucceeded his father in the year of our Lord 1199, was installed in the throne of his ancestors by his great lords, who took the oath of fidelity to him, and paid him due homage. This ceremony was called in the Perfian language, which the Khouarezmians made ufe of, boffi zemin, & roui zemin, that is, kiffing the earth, and the face to the earth, because, according to the ancient Perfian cuftom, which continues to this day, homage was paid their fovereign by kifling the earth, or touching it with their foreheads in their prefence.

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I will not attempt to cite every paffage of d'Herbelot which makes mention of this ceremony; but I must by no means omit a very remarkable account relating to it, in which he defcribes the behaviour of an Eaftern prince towards his conqueror. This prince, he fays, threw himself one day on the ground, and kiffed the prints that his victorious enemy's horse had made there, reciting fome verfes in Perfian which he had compofed, to this effect,

"The mark that the foot of your horfe "has left upon the duft, ferves me

now for a crown.

"The ring which I wear as the badge of

my flavery, is become my richeft or

"nament.

"While I fhall have the happiness to

kifs the duft of your feet,. I fhall " think that fortune favours me with "its tenderest careffes, and its sweetest "kiffes."

This flattery, it feems, was fo well received by the conqueror, who was a very vainglorious prince, and fond of adulation, that from that time forward he would always have the unfortunate prince near him; and he fo well improved that favourable circumstance as at length to obtain his liberty, and a little after his entire re-establishment.

We may fee, I think, in these fragments of oriental history, that killing the feet, and laying proftrate in the dust before a person, are not merely expreffions of reverence, but alfo, which is not fo well known, of vassalage; and kiffing the earth of the most abject vaffalage, fometimes arifing from the low rank of thofe that paid the homage, and fometimes arising from dejectedness and adula

tion.

9,

When then the Pfalmift fays, Pf. lxxii. 8, "He fhall have dominion from fea to 66 fea, and from the river to the ends of the "earth;" he marks out extent of empire; when he adds, "they that dwell in the wil"derness fhall bow before him," it would be extremely wrong to fuppofe, he is only specify

fpecifying one particular part of that extenfive authority he had before expreffed in general terms, for he greatly enlarges the thought, it is equivalent to faying, the wild Arabs, that the greatest conquerors could never tame, fhall bow before him, or become his vaffals; nay his enemies, and confequently thefe Arabs, among the rest, "fhall lick the "duft," or court him with the most abject fubmiffions.

Conquered princes themselves, we fee in d'Herbelot, have actually proftrated themfelves in the duft before their victors: and therefore the expreffions of Isaiah, ch. xlix. 23, "Kings fhall be thy nurfing fathers, and "their Queens thy nurfing mothers: they

fball bow down to thee with their face to the "earth, and lick up the duft of thy feet," are not fuch an extravagance of Eastern rhetoric, as we may poffibly have been ready to fufpect; fuppofing that this licking the duft refers to kings and queens.

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That great commentator Grotius feems to fuppofe that this kiffing the earth by conquered kings is fcarcely imaginable. Vitringa reproaches him for it; but Vitringa' gives no inftance of this fort, which certainly it would have been right for him to have done, in animadverting on an author of fuch fame. The citations from d'Herbelot may supply that defect: to which may be added, that it

XII.

is common in the Eaft to treat conquered princes with an infolence we can scarce think credible; and their fubmiffions on the other hand are astonishing. So when Ægypt was fubdued by the Turks, fo lately as the year 1517, the fovereign of that country was hanged over one of the gates of Cairo; and that brutalities of much the fame kind obtained in the remotest times of antiquity, may be learnt from Judges i. 7.

Hence fome things required by the Prophets might be no more than just feverities, and agreeable to the rules of those times, which to us appear somewhat astonishing, fuch as the death of Agag and of Ben-hadad. The difference between their and our laws of war ought ever to be remembered, in explaining the Old Testament Scriptures.

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OBSERVATION XIX.

All the compliments that inferiors make to fuperiors in the Eaft are not, however, equally abject with those I have been mentioning. If," fays Pitts," an inferior "comes to pay his refpects to a fuperior, "he takes his fuperior's hand, and kiffes it, "afterwards putting it to his forehead.. "But if the fuperior be of a condefcending

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temper, he will fnatch away his hand as "foon as the other has touched it; then "the inferior puts his own fingers to his lips, and afterwards to his forehead; and

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"fome