of hundreds of camels may be seen in the summer, bringing to Nazareth from the Hauran and the Belka (the ancient Bashan, and Moab, and Ammon), the stores of wheat from which the wealth of the east of Jordan is derived. At Nazareth the purchases are usually made by the merchants of the coast.

WHEAT OF MINNITH.

Light is cast on the expression in Ezekiel (xxvii. 17) of the wheat of Minnith' in which the Israelitish merchants traded, by this modern commerce. Minnith, we know from Judges xi. 33, was a place in the far east of Reuben, among the children of Ammon, and later authorities place it between Heshbon and Rabbah. The ruins, called Menjah, have with great reason been iden

tified with Minnith. They were pointed out to us in the Belka, the modern name of that country; and at the time of our visit, the end of April, the whole country round Menjah was one sea of wheat just ready for the sickle. Later in the year we saw caravans of camels conveying the wheat of the Belka to the coast. Much of the wheat of this district is of a very prolific, bearded variety, called Heshbon Wheat, with several ears on one stalk, and is doubtless the wheat of Minnith' of old.

Besides this large-eared variety, which is rare, we noticed three other varieties grown in Palestine-1st, a white wheat with a very short beard, grown occasionally on the coast; 2nd, the coarse wheat or spelt [see RYE, and that which is the most generally grown, with a coarse husk and very long beard, as long as that of our barley, with a short thick-set ear, and short straw. Another variety, longer and coarser in the straw, has a black beard, and a black or brown husk. The species are, I believe, Triticum compositum, Tr. spelta, and Tr. hybernum. The expression "principal wheat" (Isa. xxviii. 25), probably alludes not to any particular sort, but to its place as the principal crop : Fat of kidneys of wheat (Deut. xxxii. 14) merely denotes the finest sort or the richest harvest of wheat.

From the allowance of an equal quantity of wheat and of barley provided by Solomon for the maintenance of the artificers employed on the Temple (2 Chron. ii. 10), we may presume that the inferior grain was then, as now, mixed with the better, for bread, by the poorer classes. The same habit appears to be alluded to in Prov. xxvii. 22: Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him," meaning Let a fool be ever so much in the company of wiser men, he will still remain a fool.'

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Parched corn' is repeatedly mentioned in Scripture, and was always wheat scorched, generally while fresh, and eaten without further preparation. We once witnessed a party of reapers making their evening meal of parched corn. A few sheaves of wheat were brought down and tossed on the fire of brushwood. As soon as the straw was consumed the charred heads were dexterously swept from the embers on a cloak spread on the ground. The women then beat the ears and tossed them

into the air until they were thoroughly winnowed, when the wheat was eaten at once while hot. The dish was by no means unpalatable. The green ears had become half charred by the roasting, and there was a pleasant mingling of milky wheat, and a fresh crust flavour, as we chewed the parched corn. An ear of corn was called Shibboleth, the word which the Ephraimites lisped, and so betrayed themselves to Jephthah (Judg. xii. 6).

WORMWOOD. Heb. la'anah, Gr. "Ayubos. Of this well known genus of the composite plants (Artemisia) several species grow in Palestine. Kitto gives Artemisia judaica, A. fruticosa, A. cinerea, and A. nilotica. We collected Artemisia deliliana on the coast. The Common Wormwood is Artemisia absinthium. La'anah is always translated wormwood,' excepting in Amos vi. 12, where it is rendered hemlock': "Ye have turned. . . . the fruit of righteousness into hemlock" (la'anah).

"Her

The word frequently occurs, but always metaphorically, or as a comparison for that which is bitter or cruel. Thus, "Lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood" (Deut. xxix. 18). end is bitter as wormwood" (Prov. v. 4). "Ye who turn judgment to wormwood" (Amos v. 7). "I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood" (Jer. ix. 15; xxiii. 15). He hath made me drunken with wormwood" (Lam. iii. 15). Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall" (id. iii. 19). In the Apocalypse the name of the star which fell upon the rivers "is called wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter (Rev. viii. 11).

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The bitter taste of all the species of Absinthe, or Artemisia, is well known. The Arabic name is almost the same as the Hebrew, from a root signifying to curse.'

APPENDIX.

NOTE A, PAGE 16.

CRITICISM may enable us to illustrate yet more clearly the marvellous scientific accuracy of the Hebrew expressions employed in this passage-Prov. viii. 22-31. The true meaning of the word hhootzoth, translated in ver. 26 fields,' appears rather to be 'surroundings,' i.e. the successive formations which constitute the earth's crust, each of which was in its turn the outer or upper surface when elevated above the water. The verse may be thus translated: "At the time when He had not made the earth (i.e. the globe in its earliest condition) and the (successive) outer surfaces, and the highest (i.e. the latest) of the soils of the habitable world." The drift of the whole passage is evidently to show the past eternity of the Son of God by a reference to His successive creative acts through the lapse of incalculable time, by The next which our globe was brought into its present state. "When He decreed verse, too, has marvellous scientific accuracy: (established as a natural law) the circular (orbicular) form of the surface of the deep"-involving, of course, the law of gravitation.

The word hhootzoth occurs also in Job v. 10, xviii. 17, and is there rendered 'fields' and 'streets.' But the meaning of hhootz, as is evident from its use in many passages, is any thing or place surrounding or enclosing another; and this is supported by all the best Lexicographers. Fields' is far too limited an idea in Job v. 10; and in Job xviii. 17, it should be rendered "on the face of the globe," which would make the latter clause or parallel "His remembrance of the verse correspond better with the former. shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name on the face of the globe." Several expositors, though without any geological Thus we knowledge, have seized the true meaning of the word. see that the facts of sound philosophy are present everywhere, though of course we cannot expect to find the technical language

of science.

NOTE B, PAGE 112.

The prophet Habakkuk refers undoubtedly not to the panther, or leopard, as we usually term it, but to the Chetah, or hunting leopard (Felis jubata), the rush of which upon its prey is well known to Indian sportsmen as perhaps the most rapid motion of which any mammal is capable. The Chetah is the original leopardus, and to this day is believed in Barbary to be the offspring of a leopardess by a lion.