version into a
blunder, by which the ivory, apes, and peacocks come out as '_hewn and
carven stones_.'" The circumstance adverted to had not escaped my
notice; but I forebore to avail myself of it; for, although the fact is
accurately stated by the reviewer, so far as regards the Vatican MS., in
which the translators have slurred over the passage and converted
"_ibha, kapi_, and _tukeyim_" into [Greek: "lithon toreuton kai
peleketon"] (literally, "stones hammered and carved in relief"); still,
in the other great MS. of the Septuagint, the _Codex Alexandrinus_,
which is of equal antiquity, the passage is correctly rendered by
"[Greek: odonton elephantinon kai pithekon kai taonon]." The editor of
the Aldine edition[4] compromised the matter by inserting "the ivory and
apes," and excluding the "peacocks," in order to introduce the Vatican
reading of "stones."[5] I have not compared the Complutensian and other
later versions.

[Footnote 1: Novemb. 19, 1859, p. 612.]

[Footnote 2: _See_ Vol. II. Pt. VII., c. i. p. 102.]

[Footnote 3: 1 _Kings_, x. 22.]

[Footnote 4: Venice, 1518.]

[Footnote 5: [Greek: Kai odonton elephantinon kai pithekon kai lithon].
[Greek: BASIA TRITE]. x. 22. It is to be observed, that Josephus appears
to have been equally embarrassed by the unfamiliar term _tukeyim_ for
peacocks. He alludes to the voyages of Solomon's merchantmen to
Tarshish, and says that they brought hack from thence gold and silver,
_much_ ivory, apes, _and AEthiopians_--thus substituting "slaves" for
pea-fowl--"[Greek: kai polus elephas, Aithiopes te kai pithekoi]."
Josephus also renders the word Tarshish by "[Greek: en te Tarsike
legomene thalatte]," an expression which shows that he thought not of
the Indian but the western Tarshish, situated in what Avienus calls the
_Fretum Tartessium_, whence African slaves might have been expected to
come.--_Antiquit. Judaicae_, l. viii. c. vii sec. 2.]

The Rev. Mr. CURETON, of the British Museum, who, at my request,
collated the passage in the Chaldee and Syriac versions, assures me that
in both, the terms in question bear the closest resemblance to the Tamil
words found in the Hebrew; and that in each and all of them these are of
foreign importation.

J. EMERSON TENNENT.

LONDON: November 28th, 1859.

NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The rapidity with which the first impression has been absorbed by the
public, has so shortened the interval between its appearance and tha