(Neh. iii. 26.), near which the waters of Etam passed, after to the spot where the fountain of Siloam took its rise. We having been used in the temple service, in their way to the have no account of any gates being erected on the northern brook Kedron, into which they discharged themselves.-2. side.' The Horse Gate (Neh. iii. 28. Jer. xxxi. 40.), which is supposed to have been so called, because horses went through it in order to be watered.-3. The Prison Gate (xii. 39.), probably so called from its vicinity to the prison.-4. The Gate Miphkad. (Neh. iii. 31.)

The gates on the western side were, 1. The Valley Gate (Neh. iii. 13.), also termed the Gate of Ephraim, above which stood the Tower of Furnaces (Neh. iii. 11. xii. 38.); and near it was the Dragon Well (Neh. ii. 13.), which may have derived its name from the representation of a dragon, out of whose mouth the stream flowed that issued from the well.-2. The Dung Gate (Neh. iii. 13.), which is supposed to have received its name from the filth of the beasts that were sacrificed, being carried from the temple through this gate.-3. The Gate of the Fountain (Neh. iii. 15.), had its name either from its proximity to the fountain of Gihon, or

4. Previously to the fatal war of the Jews with the Romans, we learn from Josephus, that the city of Jerusalem was erected on two hills, opposite to one another, with a valley between them, which he subsequently calls the Valley of the Cheesemongers. The loftiest of these hills contained the Upper City (av); and the other called Acra, contained the Lower City ( xar rós), which seems to have been the most considerable part of the whole city. Over against this was a third hill, lower than Acra, and formerly divided from the other by a broad valley ;3 which was filled up with earth during the reign of the Asmonæans or Maccabean princes, in order to join the city to the temple. As population increased, and the city crept beyond its old limits, Agrippa joined to it a fourth hill (which was situated to the north of the temple), called Bezetha, and thus still further enlarged Jerusalem.

At this time the city was surrounded by three walls on | it, from apprehension of incurring the displeasure of the en such parts as were not encompassed with impassable valleys, where there was only one wall. The first wall began on the north side, at the tower called Hippicus, whence it extended to the place called the Xistus, and to the councilhouse, and it terminated at the western cloister of the temple. But, proceeding westward, in a contrary direction, the historian says, that it began at the same place, and extended through a place called Bethso, to the gate of the Essenes, then taking a turn towards the south, it reached to the place called Ophlas, where it was joined to the eastern cloister of the temple. The, second wall commenced at the gate Gennath, and encompassed only the northern quarter of the city, as far as the tower Antonia. The third wall began at the tower Hippicus, whence it reached as far as the north quarter of the city, passed by the tower Psephinus, till it came to the monument of Helena, queen of Adiabene. Thence it passed by the sepulchres of the kings; and, taking a direction round the south-west corner, passed the Fuller's Monument, and joined the old wall at the valley of Kedron. This third wall was commenced by Agrippa, to defend the newly erected part of the city called Bezetha; but he did not finish

1 Observationes Philologicæ ac Geographicæ. Amsteladami, 1747. 8vo. pp. 21-29. 2 De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. c. 6.

peror Claudius. His intention was to have erected it with stones, twenty cubits in length by ten cubits in breadth; so that no iron tools or engines could make any impression on them. What Agrippa could not accomplish, the Jews subsequently attempted: and, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans, this wall was twenty cubits high, above which were battlements of two cubits, and turrets of three cubits, making in all an altitude of twenty-five cubits. Numerous towers, constructed of solid masonry, were erected at certain distances: in the third wall, there were ninety; in the middle wall, there were forty; and in the old wall, sixty. The towers of Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne, erected by Herod the Great, and dedicated to the memories of his friend, his brother, and his wife, were pre-eminent for their height, their massive architecture, their beauty, and the conveniences with which they were furnished. According to Josephus the circumference of Jerusalem, previously to its siege and de struction by the Romans, was thirty-three furlongs, or nearly four miles and a half: and the wall of circumvallation, con structed by order of Titus, he states to have been thirty-nine furlongs, or four miles eight hundred and seventy-five paces.4

M. D'Anville has elaborately investigated the extent of Jerusalem, as described by Josephus, in his learned "Dissertation sur l'Etendue de l'an • Ilker Capago Soepgoμevos äran porspov, are the words of Jose-cienne Jerusalemn et de son Temple," the accuracy of whose details Vis phus; which Pritius renders alia lata valle ante divisus (Introd. ad Nov. count Chateaubriand has attested in his Itinerary to and from Jerusalem. Test. p. 522.), "formeriy divided by another broad valley." The rendering This very rare dissertation of D'Anville is reprinted in the Bible de Vence bove given is that of Mr. Whiston. tom. vi. pp. 43-84. 5th edition

At present, a late traveller states that the circumference of | by God to persons labouring under the most desperate disJerusalem cannot exceed three miles.1

5. During the time of Jesus Christ, Jerusalem was adorned with numerous edifices, both sacred and civil, some of which are mentioned or alluded to in the New Testament. But its chief glory was the temple, described in a subsequent part of this volume; which magnificent structure occupied the northern and lower top of Sion, as we learn from the Psalm1st (xlviii. 2.); Beautiful for situation, the joy (or delight) of the whole earth, is Mount Sion. On her north side is the city of the great king. Next to the temple in point of splendour, was the very superb palace of Herod, which is largely described by Josephus; it afterwards became the residence of the Roman procurators, who for this purpose generally claimed the royal palaces in those provinces which were subject to kings. These dwellings of the Roman procurators in the provinces were called Prætoria: Herod's palace therefore was Pilate's prætorium (Matt. xxvii. 27. John Aviii. 28.): and in some part of this edifice was the armoury or barracks of the Roman soldiers that garrisoned Jerusalem, whither Jesus was conducted and mocked by them. (Matt. xxvii. 27. Mark xv. 16.) In the front of this palace was the tribunal, where Pilate sat in a judicial capacity to hear and determine weighty causes; being a raised pavement of mosaic work (sprov), the evangelist informs us that in the Hebrew language it was on this account termed Gabbatha (John xix. 13.), i. e. an elevated place. In this tribunal the procurator Florus sat, A. D. 66; and, in order to punish the Jews for their seditious behaviour, issued orders for his soldiers to plunder the upper market-place in Jerusalem, and to put to death such Jews as they met with; which commands were executed with savage barbarity. 6

5

On a steep rock adjoining the north-west corner of the temple stood the Tower of Antonia, on the site of a citadel that had been erected by Antiochus Epiphanes in order to annoy the Jews; and which, after being destroyed by them, was rebuilt by the Maccabean prince John Hyrcanus, B. c. 135.9 Herod the Great repaired it with great splendour, uniting in its interior all the conveniences of a magnificent palace, with ample accommodations for soldiers. This citadel (in which a Roman legion was always quartered) overlooked the two outer courts of the temple, and communicated with its cloisters by means of secret passages, through which the military could descend and quell any tumult that might arise during the great festivals. This was the guard to which Pilate alluded, as already noticed. (Matt. xxvii. 65.) The tower of Antonia was thus named by Herod, in honour of his friend Mark Antony: and this citadel is "the castle" into which St. Paul was conducted (Acts xxi. 34, 35.), and of which mention is made in Acts xxii. 24. As the temple was a fortress that guarded the whole city of Jerusalem, so the tower of Antonia was a fortress that entirely commanded the temple.10

Besides the preceding edifices, Josephus mentions a house or palace at the extremity of the upper city, which had been erected by the princes of the Asmonean family, from whom it was subsequently called the Asmonæan Palace. It appears to have been the residence of the princes of the Herodian family (after the Romans had reduced Judæa into a province of the empire), whenever they went up to Jerusalem. In this palace, Josephus mentions Berenice and Agrippa as residing, and it is not improbable that it was the residence of Herod the tetrarch of Galilee when he went to keep the solemn festivals at that city; and that it was here that our Saviour was exposed to the wanton mockery of the soldiers, who had accompanied Herod thither, either as a guard to his person, or from ostentation. (Luke xxiii. 7-11.)12

There were several pools at Jerusalem (cup), two of which are mentioned in the New Testament, viz.

(1.) The Pool of Bethesda, which was situated near the sheep-gate or sheep-market (John v. 2.), not far from the temple. It had five porticoes, for the reception of the sick; and it was most probably called Bethesda, or the house of mercy, from the miraculous cures there mercifully vouchsafed

Jolliffe's Letters from Palestine, p. 103.

* Antiq. Jud. lib. xv. c. 9. § 3. De Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 21. § 1. et lib. v. c.
1. § 3.
Cicero contra Verrem, action. ii. lib. v. c. 12. (op. tom. iv. p. 96. ed.
Bipont.)

Ibid. lib. v. c. 35. et 41. (tom. iv. pp. 125. 142.)
Compare Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. 15. § 5. c. 17. § 8.
Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 14. §8.
Ibid. Ant. Jud. lib. xii. c. 5. §4.

Ibid. lib. xv. c. 11. § 4.

Ibid. lib. xiii. c. 6. § 6.

10 De Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. 5. § 8.

De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 15. § 1. and c. 16. § 3.
Schulzii Archeologia Biblica, pp. 27-30.

eases.13

(2.) The Pool of Siloam (John ix. 7.) was two-fold, viz. Upper and Lower. The Upper Reservoir or Pool (Isa. vii. 3.), called the King's Pool in Neh. ii. 14., probably watered the king's gardens (Neh. iii. 15.), while the Lower Pool seems to have been designed for the use of the inhabitants. Both these reservoirs were supplied from the fountain of St loam: but which of them is to be understood in John ix. 7. it is now impossible to determine.¡1

6. During the reigns of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was the metropolis of the land of Israel; but after the defection of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, it was the capital of the kings of Judah, during whose government it underwent various revolutions. It was captured four times without being demolished, viz. by Shishak, sovereign of Egypt, (2 Chron. xii.), from whose ravages it never recovered its former splendour; by Antiochus Epiphanes, who treated the Jews with singular barbarity; by Pompey the Great, who rendered the Jews tributary to Rome; and by Herod, with the assist ance of a Roman force under Sosius. It was first entirely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and again by the Emperor Titus, the repeated insurrections of the turbulent Jews having filled up the measure of their iniquities, and drawn dowi upon them the implacable vengeance of the Romans. Titus ineffectually endeavoured to save the temple: it was involved in the same ruin with the rest of the city, and, after it had been reduced to ashes, the foundations of that sacred edifice were ploughed up by the Roman soldiers. Thus literally was fulfilled the prediction of our Lord, that not one stone should be left upon another that should not be thrown down. (Matt. xxiv. 2.) On his return to Rome, Titus was honoured with a triumph, and to commemorate his conquest of Judæa, a triumphal arch was erected, which is still in existence. Numerous medals of Judæa vanquished were struck in honour of the same event. The Emperor Adrain erected a city on part of the former site of Jerusalem, which he called lia Capitolina: it was afterwards greatly enlarged and beautified by Constantine the Great, who restored its ancient name. During that emperor's reign the Jews made various efforts to rebuild their temple; which, however, were always frustrated: nor did better success attend the attempt made, A. D. 363, by the apostate emperor Julian. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, compelled the workmen to abandon their design.

From the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to the present time, that city has remained, for the most part, in a state of ruin and desolation; " and has never been under the government of the Jews themselves, but oppressed and broken down by a succession of foreign masters-the Romans, the Saracens, the Franks, the Mamelukes, and last by the Turks, to whom it is still subject. It is not, therefore, only in the history of Josephus, and in other ancient writers, that we are to look for the accomplishment of our Lord's predictions: we see them verified at this moment before our eyes, in the desolate state of the once celebrated city and temple of Jerusalem, and in the present condition of the Jewish people, not collected together into any one country, into one political society, and under one form of government, but dispersed over every region of the globe, and every where treated with contumely and scorn.'

9916

7. The modern city of Jerusalem contains within its walls several of the hills, on which the ancient city is supposed to have stood; but these are only perceptible by the ascent and descent of the streets. When seen from the Mount of Olives, on the other side of the valley of Jehoshaphat, it presents an inclined plane, descending from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round, excluding, however, part of Mount Sion, which it formerly enclosed. Notwithstanding its seemingly strong position, it is incapable of sustaining a severe assault, because, on account of the topography of the land. it has no means of preventing the approaches of an enemy and, on the other hand, it is commanded, at the distance of a gunshot, by the Djebel Tor, or the Mount of Olives, from which

18 Parkhurst's Lexicon voce. Bp. Pearce (and after him, Dr. Boothroyd), Jahn, Rosenmüller, Kuinöel, and other modern commentators, have supposed the pool of Bethesda to have been a medicinal bath. The reader will find a brief statement, and satisfactory refutation of this notion in Dr Bloomfield's Annotations on the New Testament, vol. iii. pp. 148–156. 14 Robinson's Gr. Lexicon to the New Test. voce Ziwa.

1 For a full view of the predictions of Jesus Christ concerning the de struction of Jerusalem and their literal fulfilment, see voi. i. Appendix, No. VI. chap. ii. sect. iii.

18 Bp. Porteus's Lectures on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, vol. ii. p. 215

it is seen to the best advantage. Imposing, however, as the | from 12 to 14,000. This is, indeed, a very slender aggregate appearance of Jerusalem is, when viewed from that moun- compared with the flourishing population which the city once tain, and exhibiting a compactness of structure like that supported; but the numerous sieges it has undergone, and alluded to by the Psalmist (cxxii. 3.) the illusion vanishes their consequent spoliations, have left no vestige of its origi on entering the town. No "streets of palaces and walks of nal power. "Jerusalem, under the government of a Turkish state"-no high-raised arches of triumph-no fountains to aga, is still more unlike Jerusalem, as it existed in the reign cool the air, or porticoes-not a single vestige meets the of Solomon, than Athens during the administration of Peri traveller, to announce its former military greatness or com- cles, and Athens under the dominion of the chief of the black mercial opulence: but in the place of these, he finds himself eunuchs. We have it upon judgment's record, that before a encompassed by walls of rude masonry, the dull uniformity marching army, a land has been as the garden of Eden, behina of which is only broken by the occasional protrusion of a it a desolate wilderness. (Joel ii. 3.) The present appearance small grated window. All the streets are wretchedness, and of Judæa has embodied the awful warnings of the prophet in the houses of the Jews, more especially, are as dunghills. all their terrible reality." From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. (Lam. 1. 6.) The finest section of the city is that inhabited by the Armenians; in the other quarters, the streets are much narrower, being scarcely wide enough to admit three camels to stand abreast. In the western quarter and in the centre of Jerusalem, towards Calvary, the low and ill-built houses (which have flat terraces or domes on the top, but no chimneys or windows) stand very close together; but in the eastern part, along the brook Kedron, the eye perceives vacant spaces, and amongst the rest that which surrounds the mosque erected by the Khalif Omar, A. D. 637, on the site of the temple, and the nearly deserted spot where once stood the tower of Antonia and the second palace of Herod.

IX. LATER DIVISIONS OF PALESTINE.

1. UNDER THE ROMANS, Palestine was dependent on the government of Syria; and about the commencement of the fifth century, was divided into three parts; viz.

(1.) Palæstina Prima comprised the ancient regions of Judæa and Samaria. It contained thirty-five episcopal cities, and its metropolis was Cæsarea-Palæstina. In this division were Jerusalem and Sychar or Neapolis.

(2.) Palæstina Secunda included the ancient districts of Galilee and Trachonitis. Scythopolis or Bethshan was its capital; and it contained twenty-one episcopal cities. (3.) Palæstina Tertia, or Salutaris, comprised the ancient Peræa and Idumæa, strictly so called: its metropolis was Petra, and it contained eighteen episcopal cities. Most of these bishoprics were destroyed in the seventh century, when the Saracens or Arabs conquered Palestine or Syria.

2. IN THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES, after the Latins had conquered Jerusalem from the Saracens, they established a patriarch of their own communion in that city, and gave him three suffragan bishops, whose sees were at Bethlehem, Hebron, and Lydda. They also re-established the ancient capitals, viz. Cæsarea, with a suffragan bishop at Sebaste or Samaria; Scythopolis, and afterwards Nazareth, with a suffragan bishop at Tiberias; Petra, with a suffragan bishop at Mount Sinai; and for Bostra, the suffragan-episcopal sees were established at Ptolemais or Acre, Seyde or Sidon, and Beyroot or Berytus in the northern part of Phoenicia. 3. MODERN DIVISIONS of Palestine under the Turkish government.

The modern population of Jerusalem is variously estimated by different travellers. The late Professor Carlyle, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, computed it at about 15,000; and Capt. Light, who visited Jerusalem in 1814, estimated it at twelve thousand. Mr. Buckingham, who was there in 1816, from the best information he could procure, states, that the fixed residents (more than one half of whom are Mohammedans) are about eight thousand: but the continual arrival and departure of strangers make the total number of persons present in the city from ten to fifteen thousand generally, according to the season of the year. The proportions which the numbers of persons of different sects bear to each other in this estimate, he found it difficult to ascertain. The Mohammedans are unquestionably the most numerous. Next, in point of numbers, are the Greek Christians, who are chiefly composed of the clergy, and of devotees. The Armenians follow next in order as to numbers, but their body is thought to exceed that of the Greeks in influence and in wealth. Of Europeans there are only the few monks of the Convento della Terra Santa, and the Latin pilgrims who occasionally visit them. The Copts, Abyssinians, Nestorians, &c. are scarcely perceptible in the crowd; and even the Jews are more remarkable from the striking peculiarity of their features and dress, than from their numbers as contrasted with other bodies. Mr. Jolliffe, who visited Jerusalem in 1817, states that the highest estimate makes the total number amount to twenty-five thousand. Dr. Richardson, who was at Jerusalem in 1818, computed the population at 20,000 persons; Dr. Scholz, in 1821, at 18,000; and the Rev. Mr. Fisk, an Anglo-American Missionary in Palestine, in 1823, at 20,000. The Rev. William Jowett, who was at Jerusalem in December, 1823, is of opinion that 15,000 are the utmost which the city would contain in ordinary circumstances, that is, exclusive of the pilgrims, who are crowded into the convents, and fill up many spaces in the convents which are vacant nine months in the year, thus augmenting the population by some few thousands; and he is disposed to estimate observations of Professor Carlyle (Walpole's Memoirs, p. 187.); of M. Cha the resident population at 12,000.

3

the

Upon the whole, it does not appear that the number of ordinary inhabitants of Jerusalem can be rated higher than

1 Travels of Ali Bey, in Morocco, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, &c. between 1803 and 1907, vol. ii. p. 215.

In the travels of Ali Bey (vol. ii. pp. 214-227.) there is a minute description, illustrated with three large plates, of this mosque, or rather group of mosques, erected at different periods of Islamism, and exhibiting the prevailing taste of the various ages when they were severally constructed. This traveller states that they form a very harmonious whole: the edifice is collectively termed, in Arabic, Al Haram, or the Temple. Missionary Register for 1924, p. 503.

At present, Palestine does not form a distinct country. The Turks include it in Sham or Syria, and have divided it into pachaliks or governments. That of Acre or Akka extends from Djebail nearly to Jaffa; that of Gaza compre hends Jaffa and the adjacent plains; and, these two being now united, all the coast is under the jurisdiction of the pacha of Acre. Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablous, Tiberias, and, in fact, the greater part of Palestine, are included in the pachalik of Damascus, now held in conjunction with that of Aleppo, which renders the present pacha, in effect, the vice roy of Syria. Though both pachas continue to be dutiful subjects of the grand seignior in appearance, they are to be considered as tributaries rather than as subjects of the Porte; and it is supposed to be the religious supremacy of the sul tan, as caliph and vicar of Mohammed, more than any appre hension of his power, which prevents them from declaring themselves independent.'

דיי.

Jolliffe's Letters from Palestine, written in 1817, Lond. 1820, 8vo. p. 102. The sketch of the modern state of Jerusalem, above given, has been drawn

up, from a careful comparison of this intelligent writer's remarks, with the

teaubriand, made in 1806 (Travels, vol. ii. pp. 53. 83, 84. 179, 180.), of Al Bey, made in 1803-1807 (Travels, vol. ii. pp. 240-245.), of Capt. Light, made in 1814 (Travels in Egypt, &c. pp. 178-187.); and of Mr. Bucking ham, made in 1816. (Travels in Palestine, pp. 260-262.) See also Dr. Richt ardson's Travels along the Mediterranean, &c. vol. ii. pp. 238-362.; Jowett's Christian Researches in Syria, pp. 238. 290., and Mr. Carne's Letters from the East, p. 62.

Relandi Palæstina, tom. i. pp. 204-214.

• Abrégé de la Geographie Sacrée, p. 41. (Paris, 1827. 12mo.) Modern Traveller:-Palestine, p. 6. In the Abrégé de la Geographia Sacrée (pp. 42-44.) there is an account of the Turkish Divisions of Pales tine, professing to be drawn from a Turkish treatise printed at Constanti nople, and somewhat different from the divisions above noticed; which have been preferably adopted, because they exhibit the actual government of Palestine, as described by the most recent travellers.

CHAPTER II.

SECTION I.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.

1. Cùmute II. Seasons.-1. Seed-time.-2. Winter.-3. The Cold Season, or Winter Solstice.-4. Hurvest.-5. Summer 6. The Hot Season.-Heavy Dews.-III. Rivers, Lakes, Wells, and Fountains.-Cisterns, and Pools of Solomon.-IV Mountains.-V. Valleys.-VI. Caves.-VII. Plaine.-VIII. Deserts.-Horrors and Dangers of travelling in the Great Desert of Arabia.

natural phenomena occurring in these several seasons, wil enable us to form a tolerably correct idea of the climate and weather of the Holy Land."

I. THE surface of the Holy Land be.ng diversified with mountains and plains, its CLIMATE varies in different places; though in general it is more settled than in our westerly countries. From Tripoli to Sidon, the country is much colder 1. SEED-TIME, by the rabbins termed yt (zero), comprised than the rest of the coast further to the north and to the the latter half of the Jewish month Tisri, the whole of Marsouth, and its seasons are less regular. The same remark chesvan, and the former half of Kisleu or Chisleu, that is, applies to the mountainous parts of Judæa, where the vege- from the beginning of October to the beginning of December. table productions are much later than on the sea-coast, or in During this season the weather is various, very often misty, the vicinity of Gaza. From its lofty situation, the air of cloudy, with mizzling or pouring rain. Towards the close Saphet in Galilee is so fresh and cool, that the heats are of October or early in November, the former or early auscarcely felt there during the summer; though in the neigh-tumnal rains begin to fall; when they usually ploughed their bouring country, particularly at the foot of Mount Tabor and land, and sowed their wheat and barley, and gathered the in the plain of Jericho, the heat is intense. Generally speak- latter grapes. The rains last for three or four days; they do ing, however, the atmosphere is mild; the summers are not fall without intermission, but in frequent showers. The commonly dry, and extremely hot: intensely hot days, air at this season is frequently warm, sometimes even hot; however, are frequently succeeded by intensely cold nights; but is much refreshed by cold in the night, which is so inand these sudden vicissitudes, which an Arab constitution tense as to freeze the very heavy dews that fall. Towards alone can endure, together with their consequent effects on the close it becomes cooler, and at the end of it snow begins the human frame, verify the words of the patriarch Jacob to to fall upon the mountains. The channels of the rivulets are his father-in-law, that in the day the drought consumed him, sometimes dry, and even the large rivers do not contain much and the frost by night. (Gen. xxxi. 40.)* water. In the latter part of November the leaves lose their foliage. Towards the end of that month the more delicate light their fires (Jer. xxxvi. 22.), which they continue, almost to the month of April; while others pass the whole winter without fire.

II. Six several SEASONS of the natural year are indicated in Gen. viii. 22. viz. seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter; and as agriculture constituted the principal, employment of the Jews, we are informed by the rabbinical writers, that they adopted the same division of seasons, with reference to their rural work. These divisions also exist among the Arabs to this day. A brief statement of the

Besides the researches of modern travellers and the other authorities, cited for particular facts, the following treatises have been consulted for the present section, viz. Relandi Palæstina, tom. i. pp. 234-379.; Jahn, et Ackerman, Archæologia Biblica, $$ 14-21.; Schulzii Archæologia Hebraica, pp. 4-9.; Pareau, Antiquitas Hebraica, pp. 57-64.; and Alber, Hermeneutica Sacra, tom. i. pp. 64-72.

Harmer's Observations, vol. i. pp. 2-4. London, 1808. Of the intensity of the heat in Palestine, during the summer, some idea may be formed, when it is known that the inercury of Dr. E. D. Clarke's thermometer, in a subterraneous recess perfectly shaded (the scale being placed so as not to touch the rock), remained at one hundred degrees of Fahrenheit. Travels, vol. iv. p. 190. 8vo. edit. The same vicissitudes of temperature exist to this day at Smyrna (Emer son's Letters from the Egean, vol. i. p. 94.), also in the Desert of Arabia (Capt. Keppel's Narrative of a Journey from India to England, vol. i. p. 140. London, 1927. 8vo.), in the Desert between Damascus and the ruins of Palmyra (Carne's Letters from the East, p. 585.), in Persia (Morier's Second Journey, p. 97. London, 1818. 4to.), and in Egypt. (Capt. Light's Travels, p. 20. Dr. Richardson's Travels along the Mediterranean, &c. vol. i. pp. 181, 182. London, 1822. 8vo.) Harmer has collected several testimonies to the same effect, from the earlier travellers in the East. Observations on Scripture, vol. i. pp. 61-65. London, 1808.

Bava Metsia, fol. 106. cited by Dr. Lightfoot, in his Hebrew and Talmu dical Exercitations on John iv. 35. (Works. vol. ii. p. 543.) • See Golius's Lexicon Arabicum col. 334.

2. WINTER, by the rabbins termed (CHOREP), included the latter half of Chisleu, the whole of Tebeth, and the former part of Sebat, that is from the beginning of December to the beginning of February. In the commencement of this season, snows rarely fall, except on the mountains, but they seldom continue a whole day; the ice is thin, and melts as soon as the sun ascends above the horizon. As the season advances, the north wind and the cold, especially on the lofty mountains, which are now covered with snow, is intensely severe, and sometimes even fatal: the cold is frequently so piercing, that persons born in our climate can scarcely endure it. The roads become slippery, and travelling becomes both laborious and dangerous, especially in the steep mountainpaths (Jer. xiii. 16. xxiii. 12.); and on this account our Lord, when predicting the calamities that were to attend the siege at Jerusalem, told his disciples to pray that their flight might not be in the winter. (Matt. xxiv. 20.) The cold however varies in severity according to the local situation of the country. On high mountains (as we have just remarked) it is extreme; but in the plain of Jericho it is scarcely felt, Jerusalem, the vicissitudes of a winter in Palestine were the winter there resembling spring; yet, in the vicinity of experienced by the crusaders at the close of the twelfth con

23

"On the 8th of February commenced the most violent thunder and hailstorm ever remembered, and which continued two days and nights intermittingly. The hail, or rather the ice-stones, were as big as large walnuts. The camps were deluged with a torrent of them two feet deep, which, pouring from the mountains, swept every thing before it. The scene of confusion on shore, by the horses breaking loose, and the men being unable to face the storm, or remain still in the freezing deluge, surpasses description. It is not in the power of language to convey an adequate idea of such a tempest." Sir Robert Wilson's History of the British Expedition Lo Egypt, vol. i. p. 8. 8vo. edit. Hail-storms are so violent in some parts of Persia, as frequently to destroy the cattle in the fields. Kinneir's Geo-up vapours from all opposite quarters. These clouds, having attained nearly graphical Memoir, p. 158.