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of heat and cold; but if credit be due to the representations of Chardin, it is quite otherwise in oriental climates. In the Lower Asia, particularly, the day is always hot, and as soon as the sun is fifteen degrees above the hori zon, no cold is felt in the depth of winter itself: on the contrary, the nights are as cold as at Paris in the month of March. It is for this reason, that in Turkey and Persia, they always used furred habits in the country, such only being sufficient to resist the cold of the night. Char din travelled in Arabia and Mesopotamia, the scene of Jacob's adventures, both in winter and in summer, and attested on his return, the truth of what the patriarch asserted, that he was scorched with heat in the day, and stiffened with cold in the night. This difference in the state of the air in twenty-four hours, is in some places extremely great, and according to that respectable traveller, not conceivable by those who have not seen it; one would imagine, they had passed in a moment from the violent heats of summer to the depth of winter. Thus it has pleased a beneficent deity, to temper the heat of the day by the coolness of the night, without which, the greatest part of the east would be a parched and sterile desert, equally destitute of vegetable and animal life. This account is confirmed by a modern traveller. When Campbell was passing through Mesopotamia, he sometimes lay at night out in the open air, rather than enter a town; on which occasions, he says, "I found the weather as piercing cold, as it was distressfully hot in the day time."" The same difference between the days and nights, has been observed on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates; the morn ings are cold, and the days intensely hot. This difference is distinctly marked in these words of the prophet :

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d Harm. vol. i, p. 114.

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"Therefore, thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah; he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." So just and accurate are the numerous allusions of Scripture to the natural state of the oriental regions; and so necessary it is to study with care, the natural history of those celebrated and interesting countries, to enable us to ascertain with clearness and precision, the meaning, or to discern the beauty and force of numerous passages of the sacred volume.

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Soil, light and loamy-Extremely fertile.—Vegetable productions, of the best quality.-Culture of the vine and the olive.-Honey-Cattle.Tillage. The hills crowded with inhabitants.—Terrace plantations.— Industry of the people.-Deserts.Wildernesses.

THE soil, both of the maritime and inland parts of Syria and Phenicia, is of a light loamy nature, and easily cultivated. Syria may be considered as a country consisting of three long strips of land, exhibiting different qualities: one extending along the Mediterranean, forming a warm humid valley, the salubrity of which is doubtful, but which is extremely fertile; the other, which forms its frontier, is a hilly rugged soil, but more salubrious: the third, lying beyond the eastern hills, combines the drought of the latter with the heat of the former. We have seen by what a happy combination of climate and soil this proJer. xxxvi, 30.

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vince unites in a small compass the advantages and productions of different zones, insomuch, that the God of nature seems to have designed it for one of the most agreeable habitations of this continent. The soil is a fine mould, without stones, and almost without even the smallest pebble. Volney himself, who furnishes the particulars of this statement, is compelled to admit, that what is said of its actual fertility, exactly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew scriptures. Wherever wheat is sown, if the rains do not fail, it repays the cultivator with profusion, and grows to the height of a man. The mount of Olives near Jerusalem, and several other districts in Judea and Galilee, are covered with olive plantations, whose fruit is equal to any produced in the Levant. The fig trees in the neighbourhood of Joppa, are equally beautiful and productive as the olive. Were the Holy Land as well inhabited and cultivated as formerly, Dr. Shaw declares, it would still be more fruitful than the very best part of Syria or Phenicia; for the soil itself is generally much richer, and all things considered, yields a preferable crop. Thus, the cotton, which is gathered in the plains of Rama, Esdraelon, and Zabulon, is in greater esteem, according to that excellent writer, than what is cultivated near Sidon and Tripoli; neither is it possible, for pulse, wheat, or grain of any kind, to be richer or better tasted, than what is commonly sold at Jerusalem. The barrenness, or scarcity rather, of which some authors may either ignorantly or maliciously complain, does not proceed, in the opinion of Dr. Shaw, from the incapacity or natural unfruitfulness of the country,

a Volney's Trav. vol. i, p. 215, and vol. ii, p. 190, 213, et seq.
b Hasselquist's Trav. p. 117-119.

Shaw's Trav. vol. ii, p. 139, et seq.

but from the want of inhabitants, and from the great aversion to labour and industry in those few by whom it is possessed. The perpetual discords and depredations among the petty princes who share this fine country, greatly obstruct the operations of the husbandman, who must have small encouragement to sow, when it is quite uncertain who shall gather in the harvest. It is in other respects a fertile country, and still capable of affording to its neighbours, the like ample supplies of corn and oil, which it is known to have done in the time of Solomon, who gave yearly to Hiram, twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil,a

The parts about Jerusalem particularly, being rocky and mountainous, have been therefore supposed to be barren and unfruitful: yet, granting this conclusion, which is however far from being just, a country is not to be characterized from one single district of it, but from the whole. And besides, the blessing which was given to Judah, was not of the same kind with the blessing of Asher or of Issachar, that "his bread should be fat or his land pleasant," but that his eyes should be red with wine, and his teeth should be white with milk." In the estimation of the Jewish lawgiver, milk and honey, (the chief dainties and subsistence of the earlier ages, as they still continue to be of the Bedouin Arabs), are the glory of all lands; these productions are either actually enjoyed in the lot of Judah, or at least, might be obtained by proper care and application. The abundance of wine alone, is wanting at present; yet the acknowledged goodness of that little, which is still made at Jerusalem and Hebron,

d See also Dr. Clarke's Trav. vol. iii, part 2, chap. 16.

e Gen. xlix, 12.

clearly proves, that these barren rocks as they are called, would yield a much greater quantity, if the abstemious Turk and Arab would permit the vine to be further propagated and improved.

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Wild honey, which formed a part of the food of John the Baptist in the wilderness, may indicate to us the great plenty of it in those deserts; and, that consequently taking the hint from nature, and enticing the bees into hives and larger colonies, it might be produced in much greater quantity. Josephus, accordingly calls Jericho pesλow torgopov xwgav, the honey-bearing country. The great abundance of wild honey is often mentioned in Scripture; a memorable instance of which, occurs in the first book of Samuel: "And all they of the land came to a wood, and there was honey upon the ground; and when the people were come to the wood, behold the honey dropped." This circumstance perfectly accords with the view which Moses gave of the promised land, in the which he closed his long and eventful career : He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." That good land preserved its character in the time of David, who thus celebrates the distinguishing bounty of God to his chosen people: "He would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock would I have satisfied thee." In these holy strains, the sacred poet availed himself of the most valuable products of Canaan, to lead the faith and hope of his nation to bounties of a higher order, of greater price, and more urgent necessity, than any which the soil even of that favoured region, stimulated and sustained as it certainly was by the special blessing of heaven, produced, the bounties of sovereign and redeeming mercy,

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h Psal. lxxxi, 16.

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