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Show ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERCE again, but in a more unequivocal manner, as the common markets for llavcs. He takes occafion, in that hymn, to defcribe the pirates method of fcouring the coall, from the circumfiance of their having kidnapped Bacchus, as a noble youth, for whom they expected an immenfe ranfom. The captain of the veffel, having dragged him on board, is reprefented as addrefiing himfelf thus, to the fieerfman : '' Haul in the tackle, hoifi: aloft the fj.il, n Then take your helm, and watch the doubtful gale ! u To mind the captive prey, be our's the care, " While you to /Egypt or to Cyprus fl:eer ; (c There fhall he go, unlcfs his friends he'll tell, " Whofe ranfom-gifts will pay us full as well." It may not perhaps be confidered as a digreflion, to mention in few words, by itfelf, the wonderful concordance of the wnt111gs of Mofes and Homer with the cafe before us: not that the former, from their divine authority, want additional fupport, but becaufe it cannot be unpleafant to fee them confirmed by a perfon, who, being one of the earliefi writers, and living in a very remote age, was the firfi that could. afford us any additional proof of the Circum-fiance~ oF THE HuMAN SPECIEs. 35 fiances above-mentioned. ./Egypt is rep refcntcd, in the firfi book of the f.1ered writings, as a market for llavcs, and, in the ~' fecond, as famous for the feverity of its fervitude. :): The fame line, which we have already cited from Homer, conveys to us the C.unc ideas. It points it out as a market for the human fpecies, and by the epithet of " bitter !Egypt," ( i· which epithet is peculiarly annexed to it on this occafion) alludes in the firongefi manner to that feverity and rigour, of which the f.1cred hifiorian tranfmitted us the firfi account. But, to return. Though !Egypt was the firfi market recorded for this fpecies of traffick; and though A<:gypt, and Cyprus afterwards, were particularly dit1inguilhed for it, in the times of the Trojan war; yet they were not the only places, even at that period, where men were bought and fold. The Odylley of Homer ll1ews that it was then practifed in many of the illands of the • Exodus, Ch. '· Vide note t ll. page 3 3. t This Heikes us the more forcibly, as it is fiMcJ Ev~rf{1111' and <TJipH!.d.l\Ae~, u beautiful and wtll '«<at(rtd/J in all other pafiilges whc;rc it is ll\Cntioned, but this. C 2 A<:ga:an |