peting ricinus, or castor-oil plant, is useless for that purpose, owing to its straggling open growth. (p. 39.)

He considers that the oleander is the "willow by the water courses" of Holy Scripture, Isaiah xliv. 4, the tree always meant where the willow is mentioned. (p. 44.) At the same time he found "a species of willow new to us," near the Dead Sea; and the willow intermixed with other trees in the valley of the Jordan. (pp. 292 and 519.) These, however, appear to have been of rare occurrence, whereas the oleander was the familiar tree in every warm and watery valley.

At El Bussah (p. 72), and other places, Mr. Tristram thought that he was enabled to understand the local peculiarities connected with the birth of Christ our Saviour. The old sheik of the village invited him under his roof. His house

was

“A large lofty barn, the lower part of which was half granary, half stable, the granary open to the top, and a few steps leading up to the dwelling portion; these steps forming in part the manger and hay rack of the camel and two cows which were feeding there.'

On this, Mr. Tristram observes,

"It has sometimes occurred to me, that a house of this form and arrangement illustrates, more forcibly than any other, the circumstances and the humiliation of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem. Shut out from the already crowded khan, his earthly parents were compelled to take refuge in some poor cottage close by, (for it is only in houses of the poorer sort that this community of shelter for men and beasts exists). There, either from their poverty or humble appearance, they were not received on the upper platform, where every guest, bidden or unbidden, ought to be constrained to rest; but were left below, in the portion usually allotted to the cattle, where the infant, when born, was naturally laid at once in the long earthen trough, which serves for [a] manger, and into which the fodder is pushed from the floor. No other place of safety could have been found, supposing the family to have been refused the ordinary courtesy of accommodation above." (p. 72.)

Again, at p. 85, he speaks of this manger as made of dried mud.

Honey might be purchased everywhere in Syria, and was of a delicate aromatic flavour. (p. 87,) Jer. xli. 8; Matt. iii. 4, &c.

The mandrake is one of the most striking plants of the country, with its flat disk of very broad primrose-like leaves, and its central branch of dark blue bell-shaped blossoms. It is to be found all over Palestine, but chiefly in marshy plains. Mr. Tristram believes this to be the plant mentioned, Gen. xxx. 14, Cant. vii. 13. (p. 102.)

Report said that the crocodile is still to be found in Palestine, in the wady Zerka, a little south of mount Carmel. "This,"

says Mr. Tristram, speaking of the Zerka, "is undoubtedly the Crocodile River of the ancients," in which the historians of the Crusades mention that it existed in their day. Our author, taking into consideration the local circumstances, judges that there is scarcely more reason for doubting the past existence of the crocodile on the banks of the Jordan, and other parts of the Holy Land, than for questioning its present existence in the swamps of the Nile. Then comes his strongly expressed opinion that the animal denoted by the word liv'yathan, in the book of Job, xli. 1, is the crocodile. He failed to procure a specimen, but he had heard that a carcass had recently been brought into Caiffa, and the consul had undertaken to endeavour to procure one for his collection.

The contributions of Mr. Tristram to the natural history of Palestine must be of great value. His own observant eye, and the zeal of his friends and of the native attendants of his expedition, enabled him to record the discovery of many varieties in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, not previously known to have their habitation in Palestine. We notice none but those which are mentioned in Holy Scripture, and from amongst these we only make a selection. We next come upon

the beautiful little partridge, with bright orange legs and beak, and its flanks striped with black, white, and chestnut, which, he says, is "the very bird that David must have had before his eye when he compared himself (1 Sam. xxvi. 20) to a partridge hunted in the mountains." (p. 198.)

And now for the coney. The first specimen was found on a cliff in the region of the Dead Sea. It was about the size of a well-grown rabbit, had short ears, round head, long plantigrade foot, no tail, weak teeth, no incisors, and nails instead of claws. Few animals seem so entirely without the means of self-defence-a feeble folk, Prov. xxx. 26. But the rocks are their refuge, Ps. civ. 18; and they are so wary that it is difficult to take, or even to see, them.

"I had the good fortune," says Mr. Tristram, "to see one feeding in the gorge of the Kedron, and then to watch it as it sat at the mouth of its hole, ruminating, metaphorically if not literally, while waiting for sunset. A childish difficulty has been lately raised on account of the classification in Deuteronomy of the coney among unclean animals, although it is said to chew the cud, while it is well known that it has not a ruminant's stomach. It is quite sufficient to watch the creature working and moving its jaws, as it sits in a chink of the rocks, to understand how any one writing as an ordinary observer, and not as a comparative anatomist, would naturally thus speak of it; and this apart from the question whether the Hebrew word signifies anything more than re-chew." (p. 250.)

The fig-tree is still in the land (pp. 410, 549), and is the commonest of all its fruit trees (p. 605); and the almond tree blossoms

(pp. 410, 418). There is also the wild olive and the green bay. These, with a "wonderful profusion of flowing shrubs," still constitute the "excellency of Carmel," Isa. xxxv. 2. (p. 492.)

On Easter day thousands of storks were seen for the first time passing northward over the lake of Gennesaret. The next day the whole plain was covered with them. In two days more, all of them had departed for their nesting-places. "The stork knoweth her appointed times, Jer. viii. 7." (p. 497.)

Later on in the season, and by the Dead Sea, the common turtle dove had just returned, stocked every tree and thicket, and overspread the whole face of the land. "So universal, so

simultaneous, so conspicuous their migration, that the prophet might well place the turtle at the head of those birds which observe the time of their coming, Jer. viii. 7." (p. 509.)

The cucumber is still cultivated in Palestine. (pp. 526, 552.) At Yahmûr, a village north of the Sea of Galilee, they came upon a bitumen pit, worked by a windlass, and by a shaft sunk through the rock. The bitumen is of the consistency of stiff coal-tar. It is also found in other places. "It is doubtless the pitch of Scripture, and seems to be a sort of congealed petroleum." (p. 600.)

The dew of Hermon is still remarkable for its abundance. Mr. Tristram says:—

"We could not but recall the Psalmist's expression, 'As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion' (Ps. cxxxiii. 3), (in which passage Zion is evidently a synonym for Hermon, as in Deut. iv. 48, where we read that the limits of the land were even unto mount Zion, which is Hermon), for more copious dew we never experienced. Everything was drenched with it, and the tents were small protection. The under sides of our Macintosh sheets were in water, our guns were rusted, dewdrops were hanging everywhere." (p. 604.)

What is the apple of Scripture? Mr. Tristram concludes, after much thought, that it is the apricot. He scarcely ever saw the apple-tree in Palestine. He found the pear and the quince in only a few places. The orange he regards as of later introduction than the date of the Canticles. He thinks more may be said in favour of the citron. But without hesitation he prefers the claims of the apricot, a native of Armenia, from which it was likely to be introduced as early as the vine.

"Everywhere the apricot is common; perhaps it is, with the single exception of the fig, the most abundant fruit of the country. In highlands and lowlands alike, by the shores of the Mediterranean and on the banks of the Jordan, in the nooks of Judæa, under the heights of Lebanon, in the recesses of Galilee, and in the glades of Gilead, the apricot flourishes, and yields a crop of prodigious abundance. Its characteristics meet every condition of the tappûach of Scripture [rendered by apple in the authorised version]. I sat down under his

6

shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste,' Cant. ii. 3. Near Damascus, and on the banks of the Barada, we have pitched our tents under its shade, and spread our carpets secure from the rays of the sun. The smell of thy nose (shall be) like tappûach,' Cant. vii. 8. There can scarcely be a more deliciously perfumed fruit than the apricot; and what fruit can better fit the epithet of Solomon-apples of gold in pictures of silver,' Prov. xxv. 11than this golden fruit, as its branches bend under their weight in their setting of bright yet pale foliage ?" (p. 605.)

When he was approaching Damascus, "the great apricot trees were laden, and bent down under strings of ripe golden fruit. The lanes were strewn with apricots. Asses, mules, and camels, in long strings, carried heaped panniers of these golden apples." (p. 611.)

We close our gleanings on the natural history of the land with some notice of that tree of Scriptural renown, the cedar. Mr. Tristram observes, that we cannot study all the passages. in the Old Testament which refer to the cedar, without feeling certain that in those days it was a far more conspicuous feature in the landscape of the Lebanon range than it is at present. He also found traces of their ancient prevalence, one of these being a grove of considerable extent, besides the group which is usually visited by travellers. He heard from the inhabitants that there were other parts of the mountains where the tree still holds its place; and he attributes the reduction of the forest into patches and clumps here and there, and at some hours' distance from each other, to the population being so great, on a poor soil, dependent on the mulberry for their wealth, and therefore having motives for making a clearance for it, while they used the other trees of the forests for their fuel. "It is only when above the line of elevation up to which the soil can be profitably cultivated, or when in ravines too steep and poor to tempt agriculture, that the cedar has been able to hand down the living proofs of its ancient empire." (pp. 625—632.)

Mr. Tristram takes pleasure in discerning how facts which came under his observation throw light upon passages in Holy Scripture. Continually recurring ruins of smaller places near the site of a larger one, are to him an illustration of the phrase her towns (see Jer. xix. 15), when it follows the mention of the principal city of even a small district. (p. 73.)

Noticing the marked change observable in passing from the "South country" to the "Hill country" of Judah, when he was brought into rocky paths between bare and rugged precipices, he is reminded of the question of Amos, an inhabitant of the south country, Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plough there with oxen? (Amos vi. 12); and he says, "There is a wonderful reality in many of these apparently trifling expressions of Holy Scripture, which day by day our journey brings home to the

mind, the wilderness,-the south country,-the hill country,all in Judah, yet each so distinct, so characteristic in every feature." (p.383.) Around the dragoman at Nablous (Shechem), but at a respectful distance, were upwards of thirty lepers, seeking alms; and we are told that the lepers are, in many of the towns of Palestine, a sort of corporation; and here, and at Jerusalem, hold, in that capacity, property, the bequest of the charitable, under regularly appointed trustees. Some are reputed to be rich, but all live in the same abject way, in kennels outside the walls, intermarrying, and handing down their curse, like Gehazi, from generation to generation." (p. 413.)

He was in a squall on the Lake of Gennesaret, near the centre of the lake, and overtaken by the night. The efforts of the boatmen were to little purpose; "vividly now came home to my mind," he says, "as I squatted down under the shelter of the little poop, with the waves beating over our bows, the story of the disciples, all night toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary," Mark vi. 48. (p. 430.)

At Kedesh Naphtali (now Kedes) he was in a rich and wellcultivated plain; and as he looked upon about 200 acres of cucumbers, where hedges and walls were unknown, he noticed that the allotments were marked by stones set up, every villager thus knowing his own freehold. "How needful," he observes, "with this simple system, that there should have been a curse on the man that removed his neighbour's landmark !" (p. 578.) On the slopes of Lebanon he visited the rude sleeping places of the shepherds, who by day wandered miles away in pursuit of pasture for their flocks, and returned to these shelters for the night. "This," he says, "is their ordinary summer habit, just as the shepherds of Bethlehem kept watch over their flocks by night, away from the town, Luke ii. 8." (p. 633.) We have already stated that it is a great pleasure to travel in thought through Palestine in company with Mr. Tristram. Anywhere we should be content to pause with him, and listen to his story. The places he mentions (and their very names would fill one of our well-packed pages) are nearly all of them connected more or less with sacred history. Obliged to make a selection, we shall next introduce a few scenes, with which he acquaints us by means of a graphic description of the locality, and then peoples by aid of the narratives of the Old or New Testament. We must also linger with him awhile by the shores of the Dead Sea. Of his journey on the other side of the Jordan, through a country comparatively little known, and therefore erroneously mapped, we may say little more than that the days so spent enabled him to secure for us a great amount of valuable information, to be found no where else than in his pages, while they also gave him reason to suggest that much more remains to be examined by future enter