[292] The story here alluded to, though it occurs among passages respecting Moses and his people, is said to relate to a different age and to be as follows:—In the days of David, some Israelites dwelt at Eyleh, or Elath, on the Red Sea, where, on the night of the Sabbath, the fish used to come in great numbers to the shore, and stay there all the Sabbath, to tempt them; but the night following they returned into the sea again. At length, some of the inhabitants, neglecting God’s commandment, catched fish on the Sabbath, and dressed and ate them; and afterwards cut canals from the sea, for the fish to enter, with sluices, which they shut on the Sabbath, to prevent their return to the sea. The other part of the inhabitants, who strictly observed the Sabbath, used both persuasion and force to stop this impiety, but to no purpose, the offenders growing only more and more obstinate; whereupon David cursed the Sabbath-breakers, and God transformed them into apes. It is said, that one going to see a friend of his that was among them found him in the shape of an ape moving his eyes about wildly; and asking him whether he was not such a one, the ape made a sign with his head that it was he; whereupon the friend said to him, Did not I advise you to desist? at which the ape wept. They add, that these unhappy people remained three days in this condition, and were afterwards destroyed by a wind which swept them all into the sea.—S. (A. F.) [293] His breath before [he used the tooth-stick] had the odour of musk.—S. (B.) [294] It is said that not only the ten commandments, but the whole law was written thereon.—S. [295] That is, as some understand it, consisting of flesh and blood; or, as others, being a mere body or mass of metal, without a soul.—S. (B.) [296] The person who cast this calf, the Moḥammadans say, was not Aaron but Es-Sámiree, one of the principal men among the children of Israel, some of whose descendants, it is pretended, still inhabit an island of that name in the Arabian Gulf. It was made of the rings and bracelets of gold, silver, and other materials, which the Israelites had borrowed of the Egyptians; for Aaron, who commanded in his brother’s absence, having ordered Es-Sámiree 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, Es-Sámiree, understanding the founder’s art, put them altogether into a furnace, to melt them down into one mass, which came out in the form of a calf. One writer says, that all the Israelites adored this calf, except only twelve thousand.—S. (A. F.) [297] After he had completed his forty days’ stay in the mount, and had received the Law.—S. (B.)