The further question still remains, is the Havilah (LXX. Valli) of Gen. ii. the same country as the Havilah we have already identified ? All we are told of it is that Pison, one of the rivers of Eden, compassed' it, and that it produced fine gold, bdellium (b'dolach), and onyx (shoham). It is natural to assume that in the same book the same name would not be used for two entirely different countries, and the region mentioned meets the new conditions required, especially if we under stand b'dolach' to mean pearls' or gum,' and shoham' to mean 'crystar orsome transparent stone. Havilah is mentioned in connection with Ophir and Sheba, both of which countries were formerly celebrated for their gold. In this case we must, however, understand the Pison (Gen. ii. 1) to mean either an arm of the sea, or all the rivers that fall into the Persian gulf' ; or, allowing for the notorious ciyeaypaOla of the ancients we must suppose that the course of the Indus was most erroneously imagined to make an enormous bend towards the west. The latter is the more
natural, and for other reasons the more probable supposition.
Without entangling ourselves in any discussion of the geography of Eden, we may mention that on grounds of very slight and untenable conjecture, the Havilah of Gen. ii. has been identified with Col chis, with the 'TXata of Herodotus iv. 9, with the Chvalisci on the Caspian Sea, with Kampila in the north-west of India, with Ava, and numerous other countries. These conjectures have persuaded very few except those who originated them. Discus. sions about the site of Havilah will be found in all the chief Biblical commentators ancient and modern, as well as in Hottinger (Enneas Dissult.); Huet (De Lit. Paraa'.); Bochart (Phaieg. ii. 28); Michaelis (Spicit. 202 ; 685); Schultness (Parad. p. 105); Niebuhr (1. c.), and many other writers. The clearest and best account may be de rived from Kalisch (Genesis, pP. 93, 249, 287, etc.), who also gives a long list of those who have exa. mined the subject (pp. to9-102).—F. W. F.