although the latter was fifteen miles square. She is called "the mother of nations," and the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." This celebrated region pressed on the eastern boundaries of Palestine, and led on as a highway for its commerce with Persia, India, and, as it is not without reason believed by some, to the very wall of China. Nor were the bounds of the Holy Land unimportant toward the North, where it approached the Hellespont, the Black Sea and Scythia. And lastly, on its Southern border lay the Red Sea, navigable to Abyssinia, and the whole length of the Arabian coast, and thence leading out into the ocean. and Cochin China. So abundant was the supply of gold obtained by this channel of traffic, as to enable him to make that profuse and gorgeous application of it to the decoration of both the exterior and interior of his celebrated temple, which called forth the wonder of the East. From the account of it given in scripture, the gold employed in the temple appears to have cost a sum equal to six hundred millions of pounds sterling. The whole interior of many parts of that building, including the entire sanctuary, both within and without the veil, was lined with solid plates of this precious metal; while its roofs were of fretted gold, enriched with gems. Nor was this mag You thus perceive that the position of nificence confined to the temple, or the Palestine was the most desirable that can vessels employed in the ceremonials of the well be conceived, as affording it every fa- temple ritual. We are informed that all cility for commerce with all the then known the drinking vessels of Solomon's court, earth; so that we may say with truth, it (vessels always very numerous in the East,) resembled a precious gem set in the centre of the civilized world, and having a framework formed of the most renowned kingdoms of antiquity. And that the people and rulers did avail themselvss of these advantages is certain. Solomon, the greatest and most enterprising of her monarchs, carried on commercial intercourse with both the West and the East; for while the fleets of the Tyrians came as far as Gades, and traded with the Cassiterides, and even with the Britons for tin, and the Phoenician name was every where known through the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea; the fleets of Solomon, in the other direction, passed down the Red Sea to Tarshish, to Ophir, and to the isles of Javan, by which there can be no doubt was meant the coasts of India. For this opinion there are weighty and convincing reasons. His fleets, which rendezvoused at Ezion Geber, were absent, we are told, for three years. A voyage of such a length, with all the necessary allowance for the slowness of navigation before the discovery of the magnetic needle, gives ample space for going to India and returning; nor could a shorter expedition well occupy so long a period. The commodities which these vessels brought back with them, afford proofs still more convincing that such was in fact their destination. We are informed by the sacred historian, that the fleets of Solomon brought him gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks. All these are the productions of the coast of Coromandel, Siam were made of pure gold. Nay, so abundant was it in Jerusalem during the splendid reign of this monarch, that it is said, "silver was nothing accounted of." That the magnificence of Solomon attracted the admiration of neighboring nations, we may learn from the visit of the Queen of Sheba, in Arabia; who, with raised expectations, coming to Jerusalem to view it, departed to her home, declaring that "the half had not been told her." The same thing is manifest from the letters addressed to Solomon by the King of Tyre. Nay, the Savior himself, in that most beautiful comparison by which he illustrates the care of heaven over even the lower creation, and sets the power of the Deity in contrast with the weakness and littleness of man, selects Solomon as his example. "Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.' Such a plenitude of wealth and glory could neither have been acquired or maintained by any other power than that of a commerce, which may be said to have stretched its arms to both extremities of the habitable globe. The frontiers of Palestine were themselves in a high degree picturesque, and still more so from their contrast with each other. Each portion of them may be said to be sui generis. First, we have the sea coast, extending from Pelusium to Tyre and Sidon on the borders of Syria; and I know no coast of the same extent, which exhibits a like variety of scenery. From Pelusium | between, in gentle flow, runs the silver as far as Joppa, the territory is level, rich Jordan. All breathes of peace and of reand fertile; abounding with wide pastures pose. The boundary of Palestine on the and great herds of cattle. These were north is different from either of the prece"the plains of the Philistines" mentioned ding. It is formed by the great mountain in Scripture, and here were their five prin- ranges of Libanus and Anti-libanus, stretchcipal cities. Then, again, from Joppa to ing diagonally to the coast, in a direction Ptolemais, or St. John d'Acre, we find a from north-east to south-west. This huge country undulating into hill and dale, and chain extends for eighty miles, and cuts off the coast presents a wavy, serpentizing line, Palestine from the adjacent regions of Syria. resembling the coast of Devonshire in The boundary here is in the highest deEngland, from Plymouth to what is called gree magnificent and sublime, a perfect the Bill of Portland, where you see a sur-contrast to the last. And what do we meet face, sloping down to the sea, and richly with at the opposite extremity of this singuclothed with herbage. Whoever remem- lar country? A frontier totally different bers that portion of the British coast, may from all the three; for from Pelusium eastform a faint idea of the undulating hills ward to the Dead Sea, there is nothing to which are met with from the vale of Joppa be seen but a wide and arid desert. This to Acre. Then from Ptolemais up to Tyre, is the old "land of Idumea;" and it is as a new variety of coast strikes the eye. flat and unvaried as the ocean itself. The Here we have no grassy plains, no gently whole region is perfectly sterile; exhibiting sloping hills, but a succession of sublime, per- no sign of life to break the dreary monotopendicular cliffs, of altitudes varying from ny of the prospect. We have thus, as I eight hundred to twelve hundred feet. Beet- said, in the boundaries of Palestine, not ling crags form the entire barrier toward the merely variety, but a positive contrast, ocean, and in some places overhanging their which, as we all know, is one chief source base, so that a plummet dropped from this of beauty, whether to the eye, the ear, or rocky brow, would wet itself in the sea. Yet any other of the senses. It is light and these are forgotten and lost as insignificant shadow, which give the highest charm to before the Alpine summits of Lebanon, landscape scenery. The sweetest sounds which rise behind them to the height of ten of harmony, if unbroken by rougher notes thousand feet above the level of the ocean. to charm us by contrast, soon cloy upon This noble range exhibits to the view, as Whoever has seen much of mounyou approach the coast, all the beauties of tain scenery, well knows that it never apthe Himalayas and of the Alps, brought to- pears more lovely or desirable than when gether in one assemblage. I know of no gradually approached over extensive plains. mountain scenery which surpasses it. This Then one pants and hungers to arrive at is the Western frontier. Then for the what we have been watching so long:-but Eastern, we have the green and pastoral when we have been for day after day invalley of the Jordan. The Jordan, you volved in the passes of some gigantic ridge, know, in the scriptural accounts of Judea, until we are weary of the constant succesholds the same place as does the Rhine in sion of alps on alps, and then at length descriptions of Germany, or the Tweed in catch a glimpse of a level country spreadthose of the north of England. We read ing far into the blue of the distant horizon, of such a region "on this side Jordan," we long as much to descend as we had forand of such another city or district "be- merly longed to climb. The secret in both yond Jordan." Here is a total absence of cases lies in the charms of contrast. Even all which had impressed us so deeply on the the pathless desert has interest, for a time, sea coast. The whole region is a gentle when we first change for it the richness of valley, presenting in every direction no- the most fertile and populous region. So it thing but Arcadian scenery, rural, quiet and is with the ocean. The man who comes shepherd-like. The air is balmy, perfumed from far in the interior, and beholds the sea with vegetable fragrance; an atmosphere for the first time, whether sleeping like a for birds and bees. There is nothing great-liquid plain under the silver rays of moonly to excite the mind or strike the eye. All light, or lashed into fury and gleaming with is mild and soft and bland. On either bank the reflection of the red lightning from its we behold pastures and their flocks, while surges, is wrapt in delight or in amazement the ear. You thus perceive the literal exactness of Moses, even in language which would at first seem a mere rhetorical hyperbole. The land did, and still does, "flow with milk and honey." So abundantly flows the milk in Galilee, that let any number of travelers be passing through that province, they are all supplied with it as they would elsewhere be with water, and no pay asked. There is more than enough for every body. And in like manner flows the honey from the rock-covered fields of Judea proper. and awe. But let him be a voyager on its be consumed; the surplus is lost, for want bosom for long and slowly-creeping months, of that security in enterprise, which a good and then, with what transport does he catch protective government would ensure. The the first distant glimpse of land, rising doubt-iron hand of despotism rests upon this, as on ful in the dimness of distance; and as it every other province of the Turkish empire, draws near, how does every nook appear a palsying all efforts at comfort or indepenlittle Eden to the sight! This charm is dence, and so disheartening every thing like possessed, in its perfection, by the frontiers enterprise in human pursuits, that the mass of the Holy Land; and it constitutes a of the population live merely from hand to feature almost as remarkable as the frame- mouth. Wealth, as you well know, does work of nations which lay beyond them. not arise so much from mere fertility of Palestine was divided into three great soil, as from a sense of security in its posprovinces or subdivisions: Galilee on the session. This is the secret spring of that north, Judea on the south, and Samaria lying ceaseless industry, which, as in Holland, has between them. Each of these is charac- turned the most unpropitious soil into one terised by peculiarity of surface and produc- wide-spread garden. The wild honey of tions. Galilee was remarkable for the ex- Judea, if availed of by the inhabitants as it tent of its plains; especially those of Es- might be, would furnish a profitable item draelon and Zebulon. About seven-tenths of export trade. As things are, much of it of this district are level, the residue greatly is wholly useless to man. undulating into hills and vales, fitted to the raising of grain and cattle. The province was famed for its harvests, its herds, and like all regions of that character, it was of course thickly peopled. Samaria has, like Galilee, some beautiful plains; but by much the greater portion of it is of an undulating surface. This occasions agriculture to be less pursued than in the latter province, and more attention to be paid to planting, especially of the olive and the vine. The olive is found on the fat valleys and more level grounds; while the vine clothes with its picturesque foliage and blushing fruit, the sides of the hills and mountains, where it is cultivated on terraces scarped out for the purpose. This process often causes the perpendicular sides of these notches or steps in the side of the mountain to be cut quite through the incumbent soil, so that the substratum of rock is exposed to view; and it is done that the grapes may be the earlier ripened, as wall fruit is in England, by enjoying the reflected as well as the direct rays of the sun. Judea is of a rocky surface; distinguished neither by plains nor hills, but chiefly by the lofty spiral rocks which are thickly strewn over the country. Seven-eighths of this province are barren, and even the rest partially so. Yet even here we find that food was furnished from nature's lap, less gorgeously clad though it be, than other parts of the land. In the clefts of the rocks the wild bees, in innumerable swarms, deposited their honey. This is still a peculiarity of the district. More honey is raised there, now, than can And now for the distinguishing features of the country, its mountains, rivers and lakes. And first in the picture stands Mount Lebanon, king among the mountains of the East, longer, broader and more colossal than any others in or near the Holy Land. It rises, as we have said, ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, and lies between the 32d and 33d degrees of northern latitude. Its lofty summits are covered with snow throughout the year; in summer they are capt, in winter sheeted with this white and glittering vestment. I passed the range early in September; and the weather being still quite hot upon the plains, I presumed that the mountain passes would certainly be free from snow, and sat out on horseback, expecting to pass through them without difficulty; but so entirely had I reckoned without my host, that I found the snow so deep that it cost us sixteen hours to advance four miles. We were compelled to cut out a path for our horses before they could go forward; for the snow being loose and powdery, they plunged and strain and you find yourself in the climate of England. You see oaks and sycamores over your head, at your feet yellow buttercups and ripe blackberries; while sparrows and other birds long familiar to your eyes in childhood, bring you back to the scenes of home and the days of boyish rambles. Ascending another thousand feet, you get to a region of Norway firs; farther still, to that of lichens and mosses only. Here vegetation has reached its utmost limits. Above, you come first to the belt of moveable snow, viz. that which disappears in the summer. Lastly, you arrive at the realms of perpetual snow. Here the desolation is complete and eternal, unsoftened by the breath of spring, and on which the summer suns dart their beams in vain. Towering pinnacles of thick ribbed ice alone receive and glint back his beams. Thus on Mount Lebanon the wise monarch had displayed to his view the book of nature in successive pages, and here he seems to have been a delighted student of the varied phases of her unrivalled beauty. Nor did he consider it a derogation from his regal dignity to teach others. On the contrary, he became the instructer as well as ruler of his people. We are told that "Solomon spake of all things, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hysop on the wall”—two wide extremes, between which lay vast fields of useful and delightsome knowledge. ed themselves in their efforts to get through of France, and a thousand more to that of it. Unwilling to undergo defeat, and sub- Normandy. Ascend another similar space, mit to go back, we continued to combat the difficulties of the way; but had the night overtaken us, situated as we were, we must all have inevitably perished; so difficult a task is it to pass over Mount Lebanon. The sublime and picturesque unite in high perfection in this noble mountain range. The glory of Lebanon," is a frequent phrase in the mouth of the prophets; and in the Canticles the enamoured Spouse, seeking comparisons to set forth the beauty of her beloved, and willing to crown the whole by an image of the loftiest dignity, adds, "His countenance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars." Whatever recondite and spiritual meaning there may be in that beautiful poem, its imagery is all taken from natural objects, and its excellence lay in the fidelity and appropriateness with which they were caught from the scenery around. It is certain that Lebanon was a frequent resort of Solomon, when seeking relaxation from the cares of state. Here he built the house of the Forest of Lebanon," a costly and magnificent structure, in which the cedar, which grew in such abundance on these mountains, and brought so high a price on account of its fragrance and durability, was profusely used. In his poetical writings, as well as in the inspired language of the prophets, we find frequent allusions to the height, the grandeur, the beauty, the fragrance, the cedars and the snows of Lebanon. Lebanon and Carmel are, as it were, consecrated by the muse of hallowed inspiration, and their names adorn some of the most beautiful passages of holy writ. Mount Hermon is another of the interesting objects which distinguish the land of promise. It is very different from Lebanon ; not being, like that, a mountain chain, but one single isolated elevation, rising like a These mountains still abound with the cone, and exceeding the height of Lebanon by greatest variety of vegetable products, clas- one thousand feet. There is another feature sified one above another in successive belts, which distinguishes it, and that is, the veraccording to the varying temperature of dif- dure of its sides, when the country all around ferent parts of the range. The lowest belt is parched by the long droughts of summer. is characterised by its heat and moisture. You are aware that in Palestine they had The thermometer there sometimes stands at two seasons of rain, often spoken of in Scrip100 degrees of Fahrenheit; and such heat ture, as "the former and the latter rain." raises much vapor from the adjacent ocean, It is so still. They occur in the winter and which, settling at the roots of the mountain, spring; while between lies a long and arid renders vegetation there peculiarly rank and period, in which the earth is burnt by the rapid. Higher up, we come to a second continued heat, and its whole surface has a belt, resembling the temperature of the tro- brown and decayed appearance. I was pical regions; and here there is, in corres-struck with the green and verdant appearpondence with it, a different family of ance of Mount Hermon during this part of plants. This portion of country resembles the year; and being of inquisitive mind, I that of Italy and Greece. Another thousand was desirous of discovering the cause of this feet takes you in temperature to the middle agreeable contrast. On reflection, I soon "The quality of mercy is not strained; attributed it to the vapors from the neigh- toil is amply rewarded by the rich feast which boring lake of Tiberias, which is but sixty the eye enjoys in every direction. You miles distant. During the long hot days of find the mountain crowned with the gigantic summer, there is a vast evaporation from remains of ancient fortifications, and these this sheet of water, there being in the day evidently of different ages. A part of the time but little wind; but towards sun-down ruins are of that description of architecture a gentle southern breeze usually prevails, which is denominated "Cyclopean," and which wafting this vapor northward, it comes resemble the druidical monuments remainin contact with the snowy head of Hermon, ing still in Britain. Of this species of buildand being immediately condensed, descends ing we know little or nothing, save what in heavy dews which bathe the whole moun- may be gathered from the ruins occasionally tain. The effect is certainly remarkable, discovered in the East. It is massive, and very and this being a sufficient, may be set down rude. The ruins on Mount Tabor are partly as the true cause of it. "The dews of Her- Cyclopean, partly Chaldean, others Greek mon," you recollect, is a figure frequent in and Roman, others Saracenic; and lastly, the Psalms, to express the descent of gra- Turkish; for a hill so remarkably situated cious influence from heaven, Dew and soft as this, has ever been deemed an important rain have been favorite emblems with poets point to be seized and fortified. Before the in all ages, more especially in the East; invention of gunpowder, high hills and strong nor can there be fitter emblems of mercy. places were synonymous; and a mountain Who can forget the celebrated passage of at once so high and so steep as Tabor, was Shakspeare, where Portia, seeking to soften then a sort of Gibraltar, scarcely assailable the adamantine Shylock, reminds him that with the least hope of success. The earliest notice of it in Scripture is connected with the celebrated battle in which Deborah and Barak triumphed over Sisera, and which was fought on the banks of "that ancient The fitness of the dew of Hermon, in es-river, the river Kishon." The battle was pecial, to be an emblem of mercy and divine won by the descent of what we should call grace, lay no doubt in its constancy and a "corps de reserve" from this mountain. great abundance and this is one instance" And she sent and called Barak, the son of to shew that in order to feel and relish all Abinoam, out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said the force and beauty of the Scriptural allu- unto him-Hath not the Lord God of Israel sions, one ought to be intimate and conver- commanded, saying, Go and draw toward sant with the natural history and geography Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thouof Judea, the country where they were sand of the children of Naphtali and of the written. To a native of the Holy Land, children of Zebulon?" And afterwards it there are a thousand beautiful touches which is said:"So Barak went down from are lost to us from our remote situation and Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after our want of familiarity with an eastern clime. him; and the Lord discomfited Sisera, and Mount Tabor stands still more insulated all his host, with the edge of the sword, than Mount Hermon. There is indeed before Barak." It was this descent which scarce a mountain in sight from its summit. turned the tide of battle, and proved the It rises abruptly in the midst of the plain ruin of that proud leader. From that day, of Esdraelon, and its sides are so steep even down to so late as the times of Bonathat a stranger, seeing it at a distance, might parte, Tabor has been known as a place of almost mistake it for some antique tower. strength in military operations. It was to On coming up to it, however, he perceives this place that the Turks retreated when the that it is volcanic in its origin, and seems French were in their country; and it was to have been thrown up by some convulsion from this high ground, that, like Barak, beneath. Its sides are covered thickly with they descended, and cutting their way trees, shrubbery, and grass; but owing to through the enemy's forces, made good its steepness, it is necessary, in order to their flight to the coast and thus were ascend it, to take a zig-zag path, winding in an oblique direction, which renders the I said that the eye was richly feasted by ascent somewhat tedious as well as very the prospect from this eminence. The fatiguing; but on reaching the summit, your views are as various as they are extensive, saved. |