THE HOG, 83

cians all agreed in disliking the animal, and forbidding its
use as food. Herodotus mentions that, if an Egyptian
even touched a hog, he immediately plunged into water, so
polluted did he consider himself; and yet on certain ocea-
sions they not only sacrificed the animal to Bacchus and
Luna, but afterwards feasted on the flesh. By his interdic-
tion Moses therefore prevented the Hebrews from joining
in these acts of idolatry, though the principal reason was
no doubt the unwholesome qualities of the flesh, to a people
who were peculiarly liable to leprosy and other cutaneous
disorders. Michaelis says that leprosy was very general in
Egypt, and that the Israelites probably left the country so
far infected with this disease, that their lawgiver made many
regulations on the subject, in order that the contagion
might be weakened.

The next interesting mention of this animal is in Psalm
Ixxx., where, in speaking of a vine, the Psalmist says, “The
boar out of the wood doth waste it.” In the Rev. J. Hart-
ley’s ‘Researches in Greece and the Levant’ is the following
interesting explanation of this passage :—‘ The force and
beauty of this figure, derived from a practice connected
with the wild boar, has probably been seldom observed.
My friend the Rev. Mr. Leeves was proceeding, in the dusk