of diet, outside the pages of Scripture: all we really know, is, that in the infantile period of Europe, when the Indo-Germanic tribes entered it from Asia, though they were unacquainted with the sea, they were familiar with salt, as is proved by the recurrence of its name; yet whether they used it with their food we are by no means so sure of. The Kitchen-Middeners, who had their miserable dwellings on the wild shores of Jutland and similar inhospitable localities, might have been acquainted with it; but when we call to mind the nature of the food2 on which they lived, we may, I think, fairly conclude that they were ignorant of the use to which salt is now put; here again, however, we have only vague conjecture to fall back upon. The founder of Buddhism, Arddha Chiddi, a native of Capila near Nepaul, who subsequently changed his name to Gotama, and afterwards to Chakia Mouni, in his “Verbal Instructions,” when dealing with his inquiry into the nature of man, asks us to consider what becomes of a grain of salt when cast into the ocean. Of the epoch of Gotama, or Chakia Mouni, there is great diversity of opinion; the Chinese, Mongols, and Japanese fix it at B.C. 1000; the Cashmerians at B.C. 1332; and the Avars, Siamese, and Cingalese fix it at B.C. 600.

The reference which Gotama thus makes to salt shows us that he was familiarly acquainted with it, otherwise he would not have figuratively mentioned it.

We are completely in the dark regarding salt as a condiment till Moses, in the Book of Job, asks the pertinent question, “Can anything which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?” As this book was penned B.C. 1520, we may conclude with a tolerable degree of certainty that it was so used in the time of the great Jewish Law-giver, and as he was brought up in the court of Pharaoh, and was skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, it would point to the probability that salt was in common use in that ancient country.

The first mention we possess of salt is when Moses refers to the Vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. This vast reservoir was known as the Dead Sea,3 and is so to this day: so the Jews, who were commanded to use salt in their sacrifices, had a large natural depôt which afforded them a limitless supply of the necessary material for carrying on their worship, and likewise for individual consumption: they also mixed a certain amount of salt with their incense. The second reference is in relation to one of those extraordinary incidents with which the first five books of the Old Testament teem, and that is during the destruction of the “Cities of the Plain,” when Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for disobedience.

We also read of salt in the Iliad of Homer, and as he did not flourish till about B.C. 850,4 we must give the honour of marking it indelibly on the pages of history to Moses the Jew, who lived, if the above date is correct, 670 years anterior to the illustrious Father of epic poetry, and, if the Cashmerians are correct in their calculation, 188 years before Gotama gave to the world his eight hundred volumes, pointing out the path towards individual extinction or “Nirwana.”

We may likewise conclude that as it was known to the sagacious Hebrew, the æsthetic Greek, and the imaginative Asiatic, it was no doubt equally well known to the Egyptians, and probably amongst the neighbouring African tribes, long before the arrival of Joseph in the land of the Pharaohs, and centuries before the Oracle of Delphi was instituted.5

From the following lines we may justly conclude that the Greeks looked upon salt as sacred, and used it as a thank-offering, and that it even was an absolute necessity to go through the ceremony of washing their hands before touching it; such extreme care and scrupulous observance indicates that it was a substance held in the highest reverence:

Pope’s Homer’s Iliad, book i.

Ibid., book ii.

Ibid., book ix.

At the time of the Exodus, Egypt was the great disseminator of knowledge, the centre of civilisation, and the emporium of trade, being then at its zenith of prosperity and power;6 and the countries which were conterminous no doubt regarded it with feelings of admiration and emulation, and were only too desirous to adopt its customs, as well as to avail themselves of the learning and culture which were only to be found in the land of obelisks and pyramids. Even the Greek philosophers were fain to acknowledge that Egypt7 was their storehouse of wisdom and æsthetic art; neither Athenian, Spartan, or Corinthian, ever disavowed his presumed Egyptian descent: and if history is to be relied on, the first King of Attica was a citizen of Sais; though this is a disputed point, for not only is the country of