But however rich the pastures of Mayn may be, it does by no means follow that Job resided there, any more than that Abraham, who was very rich in cattle, as well as in silver and gold, Gen. xiii. 2, resided in the the plain of Jordan. There were and are many places fit for feeding cattle: it is surprising then, that a man of Chardin's penetration should so far countenance this Persian notion. The land of Uz lay certainly far from Persia, in or near Edom.

OBSERVATION IV.

Of Hedges in the East.

Our living fences of white-thorn have been much admired, and I think there have been endeavours to introduce such into some of the northern parts of Europe, particularly Sweden; some of those in the Holy Land, in later times, have been equally beautiful, or more so, and perfectly answer those passages of the old Jewish prophets, that speak of hedges made of thorny plants, and the sharpness of the thorns of those that were then in use.

So Doubdan tells us, that a very fruitful vineyard, full of olive and fig-trees, as well as vines, which he found about eight miles Southwest from Bethlehem, was inclosed with a hedge, and that he found that part of it adjoining to the road strongly formed of thorns

and rose-bushes, intermingled with pomegranate-trees, the most pleasant in the world.*

A hedge, in which were many rose-bushes and pomegranate-shrubs, of the wild kind, then in full flower, mingled with other thorny plants, must have made a strong fence, and extremely beautiful. The wild pomegranate-tree, of which kind those used in fencing must, I presume, have been, is much more prickly, we are told, than the other species.' And when mingled with other thorny bushes, of which they have several kinds in the Holy Land, some whose prickles are very long, strong, and sharp, must have made a hedge very difficult to break through, as the Prophets suppose:

I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths, Hos. ii. 6. The way of a slothful man is as a hedge of thorns, Prov. xv. 19. The most upright is sharper than a thorn-hedge, Mich. vii. 4.

This account, by Doubdan, of a modern thorn-hedge, in the Holy Land, may give us some idea of one there in ancient days; at least it may be considered as amusing.

The same writer, I have observed, makes mention of other inclosed lands being surrounded with walls of loose stones. Such, among others, is the place near Bethlehem, where it it supposed the angels appeared to the * Voy. de la Terre-Sainte, p. 154, 155.

1 Voy. Dict. des Drogues, par Lemery, art. Punica. Pierres seches.

shepherds at the time of the birth of our LORD," but which is now arable land, and which he tells is inclosed with a little wall of loose stones, very low, and at present almost demolished. He mentions a like wall of loose stones, without cement, in another place." Is it any wonder that a building of this kind, so full of chinks, should be represented by Solomon as frequently a receptacle of venomous animals? He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh a hedge, (it should have been a wall) à serpent shall bite him, Eccl. x. 8. Our translators themselves, in another place of the writings of Solomon, connect this term with the word stone, which indeed the original words forced them to do; but that very necessity should have made them elsewhere translate the word by the term wall, not hedge: I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone-wall thereof was broken down, Prov. xxiv. 30, 31.

It seems it was anciently, as it is now, in general, an uninclosed country; but however there were several spots fenced in, sometimes by a hedge, often composed of thorny plants; sometimes by stone-walls, built without any cement to strengthen them.

But the most extraordinary fence, to an Euro

• Luke ii. 8.

• P. 146.

? P. 108.

pean eye, must be such as those de Tott mentions, observed by him in the low-lands of Judea, for he went no farther but from Juff (or Joppa) to Rames (commonly called Rama.) Of this part of that country, he gives the following account. "The space between the sea and the mountain is a flat country, about six leagues in breadth, extremely fertile. The fig-tree of India' supplies it with hedges, and furnishes impenetrable barriers, which secure the fields of the different proprietors. Cotton is here the principal branch of commerce, and the industry of the inhabitants employs itself in spinning. This part of the Holy Land is very remarkable for the remains of the Crusades, with which it is covered."

Memoirs, part 4, p. 93.

"This plant," he tells us in a note, "is also called Racket; by which the French mean the opuntia, called by Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, p. 145, the prickly pear, upon which the Doctor tells us several families live, during the months of August and September: but he says nothing of its being used for hedges. He remarks, that "it is never known to tinge the urine of a bloody colour, as it does in America, from whence this fruit originally came." On this I would observe, that if the first knowledge of the plant was derived from America, no passage of the Scripture account of hedges can be illustrated by what we now know of this plant. It can have been but lately introduced into Judea.

OBSERVATION V.

Of the Roses and Balsam of Jericho.

THE roses of Jericho are a curiosity frequently brought from the Holy Land; and I saw one in the hands of the gentleman that visited that country in 1774, and who shewed me the effect the putting the lower part of it into water produced; but they that gave this name to that plant, certainly could not design the illustration of that passage of Ecclesiasticus, in which he speaks of Wisdom's being exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and as a roseplant in Jericho,' since it is a very low plant, and of no remarkable beauty, colour, or sweet scent, and the production oftentimes of a desert.

A medical writer has described them as a very small shrub, about four fingers high, woody, full of branches, appearing like a small globe, of an ash colour, its leaves and its flowers small, &c. How such a plant came to be called a rose, is not easy to guess; nor do I remember to have found in any writer when it was first so denominated. Probably it was in times of superstition it was so distinguished, and owed its name to that cause. What I have

Ch. xxiv. 14.

Lemery, Dict. des Drogues, art. Rosa Hiericontca