ture of tobacco. This is a very considerable, and indeed the only profitable article of trade, which has in a few years so greatly enriched this city and the country round about it. For there is shipped off every year, from hence to Dami-ata and Alexandria, more than twenty thousand bales, to the no small diminution of that branch of trade at Salonica.” Page 138. "Oats are not cultivated at all by the Arabs, the horses of this country feeding altogether upon barley and straw, the latter of which, as their grass is never made into hay, is the usual fodder in the Holy Land. This we learn from 1 Kings iv. 24. where it is said, They brought barley and straw for the horses and dromedarics. Like an ox that eateth hay, Psalm cyi. should be, Like a beeve that eateth grass. "These nations continue to tread out their corn after the primitive custom of the east. Instead of beeves, they frequently make use of mules and horses, by tying in like manner by the neck, three or four of them together, and whipping them afterwards round about the nedders, (so they call the treading-floors, the Libyca area, Hor.) where the sheaves lie open and expanded, in the same manner as they are placed and prepared with us for threshing. This indeed is a much quicker way than ours, though less cleanly. For as it is performed in the open air, Hos. xii. 3. upon any round level plat of ground, daubed over with cow's dung, to prevent as much as possible the earth, sand or gravel from rising, a great quantity of them all, notwithstanding this precaution, must unavoidably be taken up with the grain; at the same time the straw, which has been taken notice of as their chief and only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces; a circumstance very pertinently alluded to, 2 Kings xiii. 7. where the king of Syria is said to have made the Israelites like dust by threshing. "After the grain is trodden out, they winnow it, by throwing it up against the wind with a shovel. The Tolvov, Matt. iii. 12. Luke iii. 17. there rendered a fan, too cumbersome a machine to be thought of; whereas, the text should rather run, Whose shovel or fork, (the ogyavov odovτixov, as my learned friend Mr Merrick rather takes it to be, which is a portable instrument), is in his hand; agreeable to the practice that is recorded, Isa. xxx. 24. where both the shovel and the fan are mentioned; as the chaff that is thereby arried away before the wind, is oftener alluded to, Job xxi. 18. Psalm i. 4. Isaiah xxix. 5. xxxv. 5. Hosea xiii. 3. The broken pieces of Nebuchadnezzar's image particularly, are very beautifully compared, Dan. ii. 25. to the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, carried away by the wind. "After the grain is winnowed, they lodge it in mattamores of subterraneous magazines, as the custom was formerly of other nations; nations; two or three hundred of which are sometimes together, the smallest holding four hundred bushels." Page 140.Beans, lentils, kidney-beans, and garvanços (the cicer or chich-pea) are the chiefest of their pulse kind. Pease, which till of late were known in the gardens only of the several Christian merchants, are sown with the first rains, and blossom in the latter end of February, or in the beginning of March. Beans are usually full podded at that time, and continue during the whole spring; which, after they are boiled and stewed with oil and garlic, are the principal food of persons of all distinctions. After them, lentils, kidney-beans and garvanços, begin to be gathered; the first of which are dressed in the same manner with beans, dissolving easily into a mass, and making a pottage of a chocolate colour. This we find was the red pottage which Esau, from thence called Edom, exchanged for his birth-right. But garvanços are prepared in a different manner; neither do they grow soft like other pulse by boiling, and therefore never constitute a dish by themselves, but are strewed singly as a garnish over cuscasowe, pillowe, and other dishes. They are, besides, in the greatest repute, after they are parched in pans and ovens ; then assuming the name of leb-lebby. This seems to be of the greatest antiquity; for Plautus speaks of it as a thing very common in his time. In Bach. IV. v. ver, 7. Tam frictum ego illum reddam quam frictum est cicer. The like observation we meet with in Aristophanes; neither is there, as far as I have been informed, any other pulse prepared in this manner. The leb-lebby therefore of these times, may probably be the (p kali) parched pulse of the holy scripture; as Cassianus supposes them to be the reaλia of the Greek authors. They have likewise been taken (by Bochart. Hieroz. par. post. 1. i. c. 7) for the pigeon's dung, mentioned at the siege of Samaria. And indeed as the cicer is pointed at one end, and acquires an ash colour in parching, the first of which circumstances answers to the figure, the other to the usual colour of pigeon's dung, the supposition is by no means to be disregarded." Page 141. "Of the palm tree, there are several large plantations, in the maritime as well as in the inland parts of this country, (Barbary) though such only as grow in the Sahara, viz. in Getulia and the Jereeda, bring their fruit to perfection. They are propagated chiefly from young roots, taken from the roots of full grown trees; which if well transplanted, and taken care of, will yield their fruit in their sixth or seventh year; whereas, these that are immediately raised from the kernels will not bear till about their sixteenth. This method of raising the Qa, or palm, and what may be farther observed, that when the old trunk dies, there is never wanting one or other of these offsprings to succeed succeed it, may have given occasion to the fable, of the bird of that name dying, and another arising from it." Page 142. "I was informed that the palm tree arrives to its greatest vigour about thirty years after transplantation, and continues so seventy years afterwards; bearing yearly fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, each of them weighing fifteen or twenty pounds. After this period it begins gradually to decline, and usually falls about the latter end of its second century. Cui placet curas agere sæculorum, says Palladius, Oct. 12. de palmis cogitet conserendis. "This prλudger Qurov requires no other culture nor attendance, than to be well watered once in four or five days, and to have a few of the lower boughs lopt off, whenever they begin to droop or wither. Those (whose stumps or pollices in being thus gradually left upon the trunk, serve like so many rounds of a ladder to climb up the tree) are quickly supplied with others, which gradually hang down from the top or crown, contributing not only to the regular and uniform growth of this tall, knotless, beautiful tree, but likewise to its perpetual and most delightful verdure, To be exalted, Eccl. xxiv. 14. or to flourish like the palm-tree, are as just and proper expressions, suitable to the nature of this plant, as to spread abroad like a cedar, Psal. xcii. 11." Pag. 343. "Several parts of the Holy Land, no less than of Idumea that lay contiguous to it, are described by the ancients to abound with date-trees. Judea particularly is typified in several coins of Vespasian, by a disconsolate woman sitting under a palmtree. It may be presumed, therefore, that the palm-tree was very much cultivated in the Holy Land. There are indeed several of them at Jericho, where there is the convenience they require, of being often watered; where likewise the climate is warm, and the soil sandy, or such as they thrive and delight in." See 107. first note. § "But at Jerusalem, Sichem, and other places to the northward, I rarely saw above two or three of them together. And even these, as their fruit rarely or ever comes to maturity, are of no farther service, than like the palm-tree of Deborah to shade the retreats or sanctuaries of their Shekks, as they might formerly have been sufficient to supply the solemn processions (such as are recorded John xii. 13.) with branches. From the present condition and quality therefore of the palmtrees, it is very probable (provided the climate and the sea-air should, contrary to experience, be favourable to their increase) that they could never be either numerous or fruitful." See however the note on John x. 40. § 84. "The opinion then that Phoenice is the same with a country of date-trees, does not appear probable; for provided such an useful and beneficial plant had ever been cultivated here to advantage, it would have still still continued to be kept up and prapagated, as in Egypt and Barbary." Pag. 143. After the palm we are to describe the Lotus, whose fruit is frequently mentioned in history. The Lotophagi, a considerable people of these and the adjacent countries, received their name from the eating of it. Herodotus informs us that the fruit was sweet like the date; Pliny, that it was of the bigness of a bean; and Theophrastus, that it grew (thick) like the fruit of the myrtle-tree. From which circumstances, the Lotus Arbor of the ancients appears to be the same plant with the Seedra of the Arabs. This shrub, which is very common in the Jereede and other parts of Barbary, has the leaves, prickles, flowers and fruit of the Ziziphus or Jujeb; only with this difference, that the fruit is here round, smaller, and more luscious, at the same time the branches like those of the Paliurus are neither so much jointed nor crooked. This fruit is still in great repute, tastes something like ginger-bread, and is sold in the markets all over the southern districts of these kingdoms. The Arabs call it, Aneb enta el Seedra, or the Jujeb of the Seedra, which Olavus Celsius had so great an opinion of, that he has described it as the Dudaim (Mandrakes) of the sacred Scriptures." Pag. 144. The black and white Boccore, or early fig, (the same as we have in England, and which in Spain is called Breba, quasi breve, as continuing only a short time) is produced in June, though the Kermez or Karmouse, the fig properly so called, which they preserve and make up into cakes, is rarely ripe before August. I have also seen a long dark-coloured kermouse, that sometimes hangs upon the trees all the winter. For the kermouse in general continue a long time upon the tree before they fall off; whereas the boccores drop as soon as they are ripe, and according to the beautiful allusion of the prophet Nahum, iii. 12. fall into the mouth of the eater upon being shaken. We may observe farther, that these trees do not properly blossom or send out flowers, as we render 797, Hab. iii. 17. They may rather be said to shoot out their fruit, which they do like so many little buttons, with their flowers, small and imperfect as they are, inclosed within them." Pag. 342. "The Boccore was far from being in a state of maturity (in Palestine) in the latter end of March; for in the Scripture expression, the time of figs was not yet, Mark xi. 13. or not till the middle or latter end of June. The xaigos, or time here mentioned, is supposed by some authors, quoted by F. Clusius in his Hierobotanicon, to be the third year; in which the fruit of a particular kind of fig-tree comes to perfection. But this species, if there is any such, wants to be farther known and described. Dionysius Syrus, as he is translated by Dr Loftus, is more to the purpose. It was not the time of figs, because, says he, it was the month Nisan, when trees yielded blossoms, and not fruit, However, it frequently falls out in Barbary, and we need not doubt of the like in this hotter climate, that according to the quality of the preceding season, some of the more forward and vigorous trees will now and then yield a few ripe figs, six weeks or more before the full season. Something like this may be alluded to by the prophet Hosea, when he says, ix. 10. He saw their fathers, as (boccores) the first ripe in the fig-tree, at her first time. "When the Boccore draws nearer to perfection, then the Karmouse, summer-fig or Carica (the same that are preserved) begin to be formed, though they rarely ripen before August, at which time there appears a third crop, or the winter-fig, as we may call it. This is usually of a much longer shape and darker complexion than the karmouse, hanging and ripening upon the tree, even after the leaves are shed; and provided the winter proves mild and temperate, is gathered as a delicious morsel in the spring. We learn from Pliny, lib. xvi. c. 26. that the figtree was bifera, or bore two crops of figs, viz. the boccore, as we may imagine, and the karmouse; though what he relates afterward should insinuate, that there was also a winter crop. Seri fructus per himem in arbore manent, et æstate inter novas frondes et folia maturescunt.-Ficus alteram edit fructum, (says Columella de Arb. 21.) et in hiemem seram differet maturitatem. It is well known, that the fruit of these prolific trees always precedes the leaves; and, consequently, when our Saviour saw one of them in full vigour, having leaves, Mark xi. 13. he might, according to the common course of nature, very justly look for fruit, and haply find some boccores, if not some winter-figs likewise upon it." See on Mark xi. 13. § 112. Pag. 340. "I travelled in Syria and Phoenice in December and January. However the whole country looked verdant and cheerful, and the woods particularly, which are chiefly planted with the gall-bearing oak, (Gallæ Syriacæ are taken notice of by Vegetius, de Re Rustica, ii. 62.) were strewed all over with a va riety of anemonies, ranunculus's, colchicas and mandrakes. In the beginning of March the plains, particularly between Jaffa and Ramah, were every where planted with a beautiful variety of fritillaries and tulips, and other plants of that, and of different classes." Pag. 41. The whole scene of vegetables, with the soil that supports them, has not those particular differences and varieties that might be expected in two such distant climates (Britain and Judea); neither do I remember to have seen or heard of any plants but such as were natives of other places. For the balsamtree no longer subsists; and the Musa, which some authors have supposed to be the Dudaim or Mandrakes, as we interpret it, is equally |