They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;
They did work wilily - They acted with dexterous policy, seeking the means of self-preservation, not by force, which, they were convinced, would be unavailing, but by artful diplomacy.
Took old sacks upon their asses. Travellers in the East transport their luggage on beasts of burden. The poorer sort stow all their necessaries, food, clothes, utensils, together, in a woollen or haircloth sack, laid across the shoulders of the beast they ride upon.
Wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up - goat-skins, which are better adapted for carrying liquor of any kind, fresh and good, than either earthenware, which is porous, or metallic vessels, which are soon heated by the sun. These skin bottles are liable to be rent when old and much used; and there are various ways of mending them, by inserting a new piece of leather, of by gathering together the edges of the rent and sewing them in the form of a purse, or by putting in a round flat splinter of wood into the hole.