milk and honey," and it still answers to this description; for it contains extensive pasture lands of the richest quality, and the rocky country is covered with aromatic plants, yielding to the wild bees, which hive in the hollow of the rocks, such abundance of honey, as to supply the poorer classes with an article of food. Wild honey and locusts were the usual food of the forerunner of our Lord, during his seclusion in the desert country of Judea; from which we may conclude, that it was the ordinary fare of the common people. The latter are expressly mentioned by Moses, as lawful and wholesome food (Lev. xi. 22); and Pliny states, that they made a considerable part of the food of the Parthians and Ethiopians. They are still eaten in many parts of the east: when sprinkled with salt and fried, they are said to taste much like the river cray fish. * Honey from the rocks is repeatedly referred to in Scripture, as a delicious food and an emblem of plenty, 1 Sam. xiv. 25; Ps. lxxxi. 16. Dates are another important article of consumption, and the neighbourhood of Judea was famous for its numerous palm-trees +, which are found springing up from chance-sown kernels in the most arid districts.When to these wild productions we add the oil extracted from the olive, so essential an article to an Oriental, we shall be at no loss to account for the ancient fertility of the most barren districts of Judea, or for the adequacy of the soil to the support of so numerous a population, notwithstanding the comparatively small proportion of arable land. There is no reason, however, to doubt that corn and rice would be imported by the Tyrian merchants, which the Israelites would have no difficulty in exchanging for the produce of the olive ground and the vineyard, or for their flocks and herds. Delicious wine is still produced in some districts, and the valleys bear plentiful crops of tobacco, wheat, barley, and millet. Tacitus compares both the climate and the soil, indeed, to those of Italy; and he particularly specifies the palm-tree and balsamtree, as productions which gave the country an advantage over his own. Among other indigenous productions may enumerated the cedar, and other varieties of the pine, the cypress, the oak, the sycamore, the mulberry-tree, the fig tree, the willow, the turpentine-tree, the acacia, the aspen, the arbutus, the myrtle, the almond-tree, the tamarisk, the oleander, the peach-tree, the chaste-tree, the carob or locust * Dr. E. D. Clarke. be + Strabo, lib. xvi.; Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. xiii. ch. 6; Joseph. Wars, book i ch. 6, and iv. ch. 8. Hist. lib. v. ch. 6. The palm-tree was the symbol of Palestine. See the plates, "Medals of Judea," in Calmet's Bib. Ency. vol. 5. tree, the oskar, the doom, the mustard plant, the aloe, the citron, the apple, the pomegranate, and many flowering shrubs.* The country about Jericho was celebrated for its balsam, as well as for its palm-trees; and two plantations of it existed during the last war between the Jews and the Romans, for which both parties fought desperately. But Gilead appears to have been the country in which it chiefly abounded: hence the name "balm of Gilead." Since the country has fallen under the Turkish dominion, it has ceased to be cultivated in Palestine, but is still found in Arabia. Other indigenous productions have either disappeared, or are now confined to circumscribed districts. Iron is found in the mountain range of Libanus, and silk is produced in abundance in the plains of Samaria. who We have but imperfect notices of the zoology and ornithology of Palestine. The Scriptures contain familiar references to the lion, the wolf, the fox, the leopard, the hart, the jackall, and the wild boar, which lead one to suppose, that they were native animals. The wilder animals, however, have mostly disappeared. Hasselquist, a disciple of Linnæus, visited the Holy Land in 1750, mentions, as the only animals he saw, the porcupine, the jackall, the fox, the rock-goat,. and the fallow-deer. Captain Mangles describes an animal of the goat species as large as the ass, with long, knotty, upright horns; some bearded, and their colour resembling that of the gazelle: the Arabs call them meddu or beddu. Burckhardt mentions wild boars and ounces, as inhabiting the woody parts of mount Tabor. The horse does not appear to have been generally adopted, till after the return of the Jews from Babylon. Solomon was the first monarch who collected a numerous stud of the finest horses that Egypt or Arabia could furnish. In the earlier times, the wild ass was deemed worthy of being employed for purposes of royal state, as well as convenience, Judg. v. 10; x. 3, 4; xii. 13, 14; 1 Ki. iv. 24. The breed of cattle reared in Bashan and Gilead, were remarkable for their size, strength, and fatness. In ornithology, the eagle, the vulture, the cormorant, the bittern, the stork, the owl, the pigeon, the swallow, and the dove, were familiar to the Jews. Hasselquist enumerates the following from his own observation: the vulture, two species, one seen near Jerusalem, the other near Cana in Galilee; the *The reader will find an ample account of the productions of the Holy Land, in the Nat. Hist. in vol. ii. of the Fragments, supplementary to Calmet; or in Harris's Natural History of the Bible, 8vo. Lond. 1824. It is to be regretted that the latter work is destitute of plates. † See Michaelis on the Laws of Moses, vol. ii. pp. 431-514. Ꮓ falcon, near Nazareth; the jackdaw, in numbers in the oakwoods near Galilee; the green wood-spite at the same place; the bee-catcher in the groves and plains between Acra and Nazareth; the nightingale among the willows at Jordan and olive-trees of Judea; the field-lark every where;' the goldfinch in the gardens near Nazareth; the red partridge, and two other species, the quail, and the quail of the Israelites; the turtle-dove, and the ring-dove. Game is abundant; partridges, in particular, being found in large coveys, so fat and heavy, that they may easily be knocked down with a stick*; wild ducks, geese, widgeons, snipes, and water fowl of every description, abound in some situations. The Holy Land is at present infested with a frightful number of lizards, different kinds of serpents, vipers, scorpions, and various insects.† Flies of every species are also extremely annoying. Ants are so numerous in some parts, that Ali Bey describes the road to Jaffa, from El Arisch, as, for three days' journey, a continued ant hill. ‡ SECTION V. PLACES BEYOND THE LIMITS OF JUDEA, WHICH ARE MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. I. ASIA:- · Arabia— Armenia-Assyria-Asia Minor-Chaldea— Media-Mesopotamia-Parthia-Persia-Phoenicia-Syria. II. EUROPE: Greece-Illyricum-Italy-Macedonia-Spain. -Islands.-Crete-Clauda-Melita-Samothrace-Sicily.- The principal countries which are spoken of in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and which lie beyond the boundaries of Palestine, may properly be noticed as they * Ali Bey, vol. ii. p. 210. Dr. Clarke, however, states that the maritime districts of Syria and Palestine are free from noxious reptiles and venomous insects, which he adduces in proof of the salubrity of the climate, Trav. p. ii. sect. x. ch. 3. Modern Travel. Palest. p. 11, &c. For a more detailed account of the productions of Palestine, the reader is referred to the following works, in addition to those already mentioned. Hasselquist's Travels, pp. 116–168, 276—292; Shaw's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 138–153; Vosney's Travels, vol. i. pp. 290–297; and the Investigator, Nos. i. ii. iv. In Dr. Clarke's Travels will be found some important contributions to the botany of Palestine, and in the Travels of Burckhardt, and of Captains Irby and Mangles, there are many scattered notices peculiarly interesting to the naturalist. |