EZRA, the prophet scribe, called by the Maho medans Ozair. According to Mahornedan tradi tion, Ezra, was of the race of Jacob, of the tribe of Levi, and fourteenth in descent from Aaron. They say that the Holy S criptures, and all the scribes and doctors who could read and interpret them, ex cepting a few who were taken captive to Babylon, were involved in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Ezra, who was then very young, was among the captives and continued to read and teach the law of 'God to his countrymen during their captivity. At the end of the captivity, Ezra returned to Jerusalem, and some say there, some near Babylon, while he was occupied in weeping over the ruined city and temple of God, he said to himself, How can fallen Jerusalem ever rise again !' No sooner had he conceived this thought thau God struck him dead, and he re mained so for one hundred years, when be was raised again, and employed the rest of his days on earth in explaining the word of God to the Jews. The Christians of the East say that Ezra drank three times of a well in which the holy fire had been hid, and that thus he received the gift of the Holy Ghost, which rendered him e,apable of re-establishing the Holy Scriptures among his countrymen. About 100 miles above Kurna, on
the right bank of the Tigris, is his tomb. It is a pretty mosque of tessellated brickwork, sur mounted by a green cupola, and the corners and tops of the tomb are ornamented iVith large balls of copper gilt. —Rich's Kurdistan, ii. p. .390 ; Mignan, Travels, p. 9 ; Townsend's Outrani and Havelock, p. 308.
F. This English letter has a petfect repre sentative in the Fay of the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, but has no representative in Sanskrit, ilindi, Mahrati, Gujerati, Bengali, Uriya, Telugu, Karnata, Tamil, and Malayalam. The Mahratta people, however, pronounce it distinctly, the sound of f being given by them to that of the English and Hindi ph. The Mohawks of N. Atnerica, as also the Hurons and the tribes called the Six Nations, never articulate with their lips. They have no p, 1, f, v, or w,--no labials of any kind. In the Society Islands the gutturals are wholly absent ; and in China neither the d nor. r is used ; and g, h, ph, and f in the non Aryan tongues are often interehanged. F is not in the Singhalese, and the letter p is used instead.