]
[Footnote 26: The person who cast this calf, the Mohammedans say, was
(not Aaron but) al Sameri, 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 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.
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