26 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

tives, the Persian Gulf, in some of whose islands Ophir has
been placed, and India, which has a large majority of ad-
vocates, as affording all the commodities sought for, and,
by its greater distance, accounting for the three years said
to have been spent on the voyage. Ceylon has the greatest
number of votes amongst those who think it necessary to fix
on one particular spot in the Indian territories.

The dispute with regard to Tarshish is equally intricate,
most writers considering Tartessus in Spain (a most im-
portant settlement of the Phoenicians, at the mouth of the
Guadalquiver, and not far from Cadiz) to be the place indi-
cated. Its situation in the west is inferred from Genesis
x. 4, where the name is mentioned with Elishab, Chittim,
and Dodaim, as being one of the descendants of Japheth, to
whom were given the countries of the west. In Psalm lxxu.
10, it is connected with “the islands,” which expression,
amongst the Jews, signified any country beyond the Medi-
terranean. Passages in Ezekiel show it to have been
place of great trade; and in Isaiah it is mentioned as an
important Phenician colony. But supposing this to be
really the situation of Tarshish, it involves another difficulty,
in connection with that of Ophir, as it necessitates a voyage
round the Cape of Good Hope to include both places in one