hian. There was at this latter place once a religious house of some
kind, and a burying ground, now hardly visible.

What is the meaning of the word _Pallet_?

J. S. Q.

_Tobacco in the East._--Can any of your readers inform me whether
tobacco is indigenous to any part of Asia? Also, whether the habit of
smoking (opium or tobacco), now universal _over the East_, dates there
from before the discovery of America? And if not, from what period?

Z. A. Z.

_Stephanus Brulifer._--Can any of your correspondents kindly refer me to
a library containing a copy of Stephanus Brulifer, in lib. iv. _Sentent.
Seraphici Doctoris Bonaventurae_, 8vo. Basil. 1507?

J. SANSOM.

* * * * *

Replies.

ASINORUM SEPULTURA.

To discover the origin of this phrase, your correspondent (Vol. ii., p.
8-9.) need not go further than to his Bible.

"Sepultura asini sepelietur, putrefactus et projectus extra
portas Jerusalem."--_Jerem._ xxii. 19.: cf. xxxvi. 30.

With regard to the extract given by Ducange, at the word "Imblocatus,"
from a "vetus formula Excommunicationis praeclara," it is evident that
the expressions,--

"Sint cadavera eorum in escam volatilibus coeli, et bestiis
terrae, et non sint qui sepeliant eos,"

have been derived from S. Jerome's Latin version from the Hebrew of
Psal. lxxix. 2, 3.:

"Dederunt cadavera servorum tuorum escam volatilibus coeli;
carnes sanctorum tuorum bestiis terrae. Effuderunt sanguinem
eorum quasi aquam in circuitu Hierusalem, et non erat qui
sepeliret."--Vide Jacobi Fabri Stapulensis _Quincuplex
Psalterium_, fol. 116. b., Paris, 1513; Sabatier, tom. ii. p.
162. Ib. 1751.

R. G.

The use of this term in the denunciation against Jehoiakim, more than
six centuries B.C., and the previous enumeration of crimes in the 22nd
chapter of Jeremiah, would seem sufficiently to account for its origin
and use in regard to the disposal of the dead bodies of excommunicated
or notorious malefactors, by the earliest Christian writers or judges.
The Hebrew name of the ass, says Parkhurst, is "derived from its
turbulence when excited by lust or rage;" and the animal was also made
the symbol of slothful or inglorious ease, in the case of Issachar, B.C.
1609: Genesis, xlix. 14. It is thus probable some reference to such
characteristics of the brute and the criminal, rather than any mere
general allusion to throwing th