Of the Jews in the khanate of Bokbara the greater number live in Bokhara, others at Katta kurghan, Sarnarcand, and Karshi. In all these plates separate quarters of the town are assigned to them, outside the precincts of which they are forbidden to settle, and therefore cannot intermix with the Muhammadans. They dare not wear a turband, but must cover their heads with small caps of a dark - coloured cloth, edged with a narrow strip of sheepskin not more than two fingers in breadth. Neither are they allowed to wear any other apparel than khalats of aledja, nor to gird their loins with a broad sash, still less with a shawl, but must twist a common rope round their waist. To prevent their hiding this distinctive mark, they are strictly forbidden to wear any flowing garment over the girded khalat.
Jews have existed in large colonies in Arabia ever since the captivity. In no country have they preserved their nationality more completely, though surrounded for centuries by hostile Muhammadan tribes. Their own tradition asserts that during the invasion of Palestine by Nebu chadnezzar they fled to Egypt, and subsequently wandered farther south till they came to the mountains of Arabia, where they permanently established their homes. The fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, and its picturesque scenery, rapidly caused the little colony to increase by attracting fresh emigrants, who sought that peace which their own distracted country no longer afforded. Inured to hardships and nursed in war, these foreign colonists soon gained an ascendency over the wild Arab tribes by whom they were surrounded, and in a little time the exiles of Judea reigned where they had before only been tolerated. Two strong tribes of them settled at Medina ; they had a fortified capital in Khaibar, and in the 3d century of the Christian era they succeeded in converting one of the tobbas or kings of Yemen to the Jewish faith. A sub sequent tobba, Dhou Noyes, became so ferocious a bigot in the cause of the Jewish religion, that ho declared a holy war for the propagation of his creed, and took and destroyed the Christian city of Najran. On the complaint of the victims, and at the suggestion of Justin 1., the nedjachi or king of Abyssinia undertook to avenge the cause of his co-religionists, and conquered Yemen, which thus became an Abyssinian dependency, until it was reconquered for the Yemenites by the Kesra or Chosroes of Persia, and governed by a Persian viceroy. During the reign of the Abyssinian kings, however, one of them, Abraha el-Achram, built a magnificent church at Sanaa, and endeavoured to divert the reverence of the Arabs from the Kaba to worship and pilgrimage to his new cathedral. The Arabs flew to arms in honour of their national shrine, and in the course of hostilities Abraha laid siege to Mecca, but retired in great discomfiture, and died shortly afterwards. His assault of Mecca formed not only a crisis in the history of the Arab races, but the year, A.D. 570, of his expedition has become ever memorable as the year of Mahomed's birth, who was thus said to be born in the year of the Elephant, from the animal on which the king rode in his expedition.
The introduction of Muhammadanism materi ally altered their position, and severe enactments converted their once prosperous towns and villages into charnel-houses. Notwithstanding this persecution, however, every valley and mountain range still contains numbers of this race, who number in Arabia not less than 200,000 souls. At Aden the Jews are filthy in the extreme in their persons and habitations, and even the more wealthy of the community are nearly as uncleanly and parsimonious as their poorer brethren. The principal trades which they pursue in Aden are those of masons, builders of reed and mat houses, and workers in silver and ostrich feathers. In other parts of Arabia they
are the most active, industrious, and hard working people in the country. Rabbi Alkaree informed Dr. Wolff that the Jews of Yemen never returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonish captivity ; and that when Ezra wrote a letter to the princes of the captivity at Tanaan, a day's journey from Sanaa, inviting them to return, they replied, Daniel predicts the murder of the Messiah and another destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.' Sanaa now contains 15,000 Jews. In Yemen they amount to 20,000. Wolff baptized there 16 Jews, and left them all New Testaments.
Jews are particular as to food. Animals are killed with a ceremony similar to that of tho Muhammadan Halal, and a mark, ivz (Kosher), meaning in Hebrew Lawful, is put on the carcase. The general prohibitions are based on the law laid down in the 11th chapter of Leviticus. No animals may be eaten except such as both part the hoof and chew the cud, as oxen, sheep, and goats. No rabbits, hares, or swine are touched. As to fish, none may come to table that are devoid of scales and fins ; and birds of prey and reptiles aro absolutely forbidden as food. One restriction forbids the Jews to eat of the sinew of the thigh, a custom introduced in memory of Jacob's wrestling with the angel at Peale', when his thigh was put out so that the sinew shrank (Genesis xxxii. 25, 32). In many places in Italy and in Germany, formerly (and perhaps now), they did not eat the hind quarters at all because this sinew is in them, and few were able to cut it out with the exactness required. This, indeed, is believed to have been the first distinguishing characteristics of the Jews as a people. In the 17th chapter of Leviticus the eating of any manner of blood is forbidden, necessitating the employment of a separate class of butchers for the slaughtering of animals, who must be specially instructed, have to be provided with a licence from their priest, and have to use a sharp knife, for torn flesh is also forbidden as food, and the blood must fall upon tho ground. After the meat has left the shop of the butcher, the custom is to lay it in salt an hour before dressing, and afterwards to wash it, so as quite to cleanse it from blood. A cow and her calf must not be killed on the same day, and the same rule is observed as to sheep and goats. More than ordinary care is taken that the animal presented for food has neither died a natural death nor been afflicted with disease. It involves the necessity of having special examiners, as well as special slaughterers, of animals for Jewish consumption ; and the authorities of the synagogue appoint proper persons to the office.
The Jews of China call themselves Tiau-kin Kian, or the sect which plucks out the sinew. They are said to number one million of souls. They have synagogues, and keep themselves perfectly distinct from the other inhabitants of the villages. The earliest record of the Chinese Jews which can be relied upon is that of an Arabian merchant, who, in 877, mentions tho Jews that traded with him in China. In the 12th century the Rabbi Benjamin of Toleda visited the east to discover some of the scattered children of Israel, and he states that he found Jews in China, Tibet, and Persia. The Jesuit Ricci, whilst resident at Pekin in 1610, states that there were ten families of Jews residing in Kiang-fu, and they had in their possession a copy of the Pentateuch, which had been handed down from generation to generation for six centuries. Therefore from the whole of these statements it may fairly be concluded that for many ages Jews have been inhabitants of China.