er, and other materials, which the Israelites had
borrowed of the Egyptians; for Aaron, who commanded in his brother's
absence, having ordered al Sameri to collect those ornaments from the
people, who carried on a wicked commerce with them, and to keep them
together till the return of Moses; al Sameri, understanding the
founder's art, put them into a furnace to melt them down into one mass,
which came out in the form of a calf.]

[Footnote 27: The eastern writers say these quails were of a peculiar
kind, to be found nowhere but in Yaman, from whence they were brought by
a south wind in great numbers to the Israelites' camp in the desert. The
Arabs call these birds Salwae, which is plainly the same with the Hebrew
Salwim, and say they have no bones, but are eaten whole.]

[Footnote 28: The occasion of this sacrifice is thus related: A certain
man at his death left his son, then a child, a cow-calf, which wandered
in the desert till he came to age; at which time his mother told him the
heifer was his, and bid him fetch her, and sell her for three pieces of
gold. When the young man came to the market with his heifer, an angel in
the shape of a man accosted him, and bid him six pieces of gold for her;
but he would not take the money till he had asked his mother's consent;
which when he had obtained, he returned to the market-place, and met the
angel, who now offered him twice as much for the heifer, provided he
would say nothing of it to his mother; but the young man refusing, went
and acquainted her with the additional offer. The woman perceiving it
was an angel, bid her son go back and ask him what must be done with the
heifer; whereupon the angel told the young man that in a little time the
children of Israel would buy that heifer of him at any price. And soon
after it happened that an Israelite, named Hammiel, was killed by a
relation of his, who, to prevent discovery, conveyed the body to a place
considerably distant from that where the act was committed. The friends
of the slain man accused some other persons of the murder before Moses;
but they denying the fact, and there being no evidence to convict them,
God commanded a cow, of such and such particular marks, to be killed;
but there being no other which answered the description except the
orphan's heifer, they were obliged to buy her for as much gold as her
hide would hold; according to some, for her full weight in gold, and as
others say, for ten times as much. Th