84 ■

Hindoo Water Carrier.

[Book I.

Thebes, with leather Straps and bronze buckles, and is now preserved inEngland. The yoke is about three feet seveninches long, and the Straps,which are double, about sixteen inches. Some yokes had from four toeight Straps, according to the purposes for which they were intended.Wilk. An. Egypt , vol. ii, 138.

As watering the land has always been the staple employment in Egypt ,there can be little doubt, that the Israelites were employed in this Service.We are informed, “ their lives were made bitter unto them by hard bon-dage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of Service in the fieldPA.nd in Deuteronomy , xi, 10, irrigating the land, is expressly mentionedas one of their labors. In Leviticus, they are reminded that it was God who brought them out of Egypt , and delivered them from slavery, whobroke the bands of their yoke and made them go upright; alluding tothe stooping posture consequent on the long continued use of the yoke;and in case of disobedience, they were threatened with subsequent thral-dom, to “ serve their enemies in hunger and nakedness, and with a yokeon their necksa literal description of them when thus employed inwatering the lands of their oppressors. A passage in the 81st Psalm, ap -pears to refer expressly to their deliverance from this, and another labo-rious method of watering the soil. “I removed his shoulder from thebürden, his hands were delivered from the pots.” The severity of thislabor, may be inferred from that of Chinese peasants, who carrying bur-dens like the Egyptians, have deep impressions worn on their shouldersby the yoke. Osbeck’s Voy. i, 252.

It was a common custom of old to employ slaves and prisoners of war,in watering and working the land. Herodotus , i, 66, observes of theLacedemonians, that after the death of Lycurgus , they invaded the Te-geans, and carried with them a quantity of fetters to bind their enemies;but they were themselves defeated, and loaded with their own fetters,were employed in the fields of the Tegeans: and Joshua, in accordaneewith this custom, made the captive Gibeonites ‘ hewers of wood anddrawers of water.’ Isaiah alludes to the same, lx, 5 : strangers shallstand and feed your floclcs, and the sons of the allen shall be your plough-men and your vine dressers.

This figure represents a modern la-borer of Hindostan, and it will servealso to represent those of China andother Asiatics, who carry water to theirgardens and fields in precisely the sameway. It will be perceived that theform of the vessels is similar to thatof the old Egyptian Pots in the pre-ceding figure, and that both of themserve to corroborate our views respect-ing the origin of the forms of these,and other domestic vessels of capacity.There is another mode of carryingNo. 23. Hindoo Water Carrier. water, which was anciently practised,

but of which we do not remember tohave seen any particular notice. It is represented in Plates 50, and 75.Pitt. Storia Dell’Arte . A conical vessel bent like the horn of an ox, isborne on the shoulder, the large and open end projecting in front, so thatthe bearer could discharge any part of its contents, by inclining it, which,in one figure is effected by means of a cord going round it, and one endheld in the hand. These vessels are figured as large as the bodies of