Fig. 119—Egyptian drawings of cats
It might be assumed that the cat was an useful, if not a necessary, domestic animal to the Hebrew people in Palestine, where corn was grown for exportation, as well as for consumption of the resident population, twenty or thirty-fold more than at present, and where, moreover, the conditions of the climate required the precaution of a plentiful store being kept in reserve to meet the chances of scarcity. The animal could not be unknown to the people, for their ancestors had witnessed the Egyptians treating it as a divinity. Yet we find the cat nowhere mentioned in the canonical books as a domestic animal. And in Baruch it is noticed only as a tenant of Pagan temples, where no doubt the fragments of sacrificed animals and vegetables attracted vermin, and rendered the presence of cats necessary. This singular circumstance, perhaps, resulted from the animal being deemed unclean, and being thereby excluded domestic familiarity, though the Hebrews may still have encouraged it, in common with other vermin-hunters, about the outhouses and farms, and corn-stores, at the risk of some loss among the broods of pigeons which, in Palestine, were a substitute for poultry.
With regard to the neighboring nations just named, they all had domestic cats, it is presumed, derived from a wild species found in Nubia, and first described by Ruppel under the name of Felis Maniculata. The typical animal is smaller, more slender, and more delicately limbed than the European. The fur is pale yellowish grey, with some dark streaks across the paws, and at the tip of the tail. In the domesticated state it varies in colors and markings, for the ancient monuments of Egypt contain many painted figures, which show them cross-barred like our wild species in Europe. Two specimens are here given from these paintings; one clearly a cat; the other, which is not apparently a cat but a species of gennet or paradoxurus, is, in the original, figured as catching birds, acting like a retriever for his master, who is fowling in a boat.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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