The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-06-19
The Scenery Of Palestine.


The Scenery Of Palestine.
"What the Nile is to Egypt, this singu-
lar river is to the land of Judea-a spark
ling serpent writhing in a barren desert,
with only here and there an oasis of deepest
green Unlike the Nile, however, it
draws it's tribute from countless rills during
its course, and yet never yields up its bur-
den to the sea. There is no more curious
phenomenon in physical geography than
that chronic balance between the acquisi-
tions of the Jordan and the evaporation
from its surface which keeps the Dead Sea
at SO unvarying level. Such variations
as are traceable belong at least to distant
and prehistoric times. 1t is, however, the
amazing variety which exists in the super
fetal character of the narrow region of
Palestine that stamps the country as unique
in the whole compass of geography, and
tends to explain the hold it has succeeded
in maintaining over the minds and feelings
of the most widely -contrasted races of men.
AS Dean Stanley has effectually pointed
out, it presents on its very face kind of
epitome of the natural features of we'll
nigh every country. 1t thus seems made to
furnish the natural theatre of history
and literature which were destined to
spread among nations familiar to the most
varied climates and imagery Within a
space no wider than Wales, nature has
here presented the aspects of tropical, an
Eastern, and almost Northern climate-of
waving corn and desert sand and rock, of
pasture and forest; the life of a rowing
Bedouin tribe contrasted with that of an
agricultu raj people and of seafaring cities.
On the sea-coast we find maritime plains of
surprising richness, where frost is I'M
known, and where the abundant drainage
from the hills, with the copious rains and
dews from heaven, preludes all risk of
draught. In the hill country, instead of
the corn-farms of the plain, the terraced
slopes had, in their golden age, their sta
pie growth in the vine, the fig-tree, and the
olive.
"Here it was that the great masses of
the population gradually formed their home.
In the earliest historical period, the days of
the patriarchs, these terraces were not yet
formed, but the primeval forest still covered
the hills, affording covert to the wild beasts,
and modifying the temperature Of the air.
During the Israelitish period these forests
gave way by degrees to the artificial culture
of the terraces. The olive formed the
chief delight and wealth of these teeming
gardens, but it has since all but disappeared
under the desolating breath of war and
anarchy that has swept the land since the
Roman period. Under the pressure of
maintaining dense population, the coun-
try has also become bare of wood. Where
now are the forest of Klamath and the wood
of Ziph? tie lair of the lion and the covert
of the bea", even on the naked hills of Ben
jamin? Mhere is Kirjath-Jearim, the
city of fore, is? AS late as the Crusades,
we hear G: l pine-wood on the hills between
Jerusalem AID Bethlehem. Now it would
be no dif1ic; 1t task to count the trees in
Western P,lvstine.' On Carmel the few
patriarchal tcdars that survive seem DOOM
ed to fall 5. cedily under the axe of the
Turk. Even the ancient glories of Lebanon
are only l.. It up by scanty groups. In the
Lebanon v..lleys the mulberry and the silk
worm have in modern times replaced the
ancient culture of the land of Israel. On
the higher grounds, as upon Hermon, the
fruits, flowers, and plants are of an Alpine
character; and the bear still fingers among
the rocks. In the plain of Gennesaret and
in the seething marshes of the Huleh
Merom,) early in the course of the Jordan,
We find acres of papyrus, which is now
wholly extinct in Egypt. The palm still
waves richly along the rivers course as in
the days of Josephus, and the thorny
'nubk' Or jujube (ZizypAus spina eAristi,)
tropical tree, the oleander, and the lamar
isk, fringe the streamlets and the river
banks.
AS we reach the tropical basin of the
Dead Sea, these products seemed gathered
into five separate oases-the plains of Shit
tim and of Jericho, the little bay of
Engedi, the Wady- Zuweirah and the Choir
es-Safieh, the ancient waters of Nimrim.-
Here i'll mid-winter the temperature ranges
from sixty to eighty degrees the corn is ripe
in March, melons ripen in winter, and indi-
go is largely cultivated. The birds in these
favored regions are largely tropical, being
Indian or Equatorial African type. The
Indian collared turtle (1urtar risorius)
mixes with the common turtle-dove through
out the year. Many birds altogether I'M
known elsewhere also haunt the Dead Sea;
among them the nightjar, peculiar spar
row, and grakle, while a beautiful little
sun-bird, or Nectarsnia, often mistaken for
a humming-bird, fits among the shrubs
The butterflies, too, resemble those of
Nubia and Abyssinia rather than those of
the upper country. Such are the vast diff
fercnces wrought in this narrow strip of
country by easily traceable causes. There
is the ever-encircling desert on the one
side, and on the other the eternal fresh
ness of the sea; the hot winds of sirocco,
the east wind of Scripture and the cold
breezes from the SUBMITS where the High
est gave snow like WOOL and scattereth
the hoar frost like ashes, and 'casteth forth
his ice like morsels' Above all is the enor-
nous difference in level of the land, from
the Jordan Valley (sunk thirteen hundred
feet below the sea-line) to the maritime
plain, and thence to the highland centre
fifteen hundred feet above the sea, up to
the northern peaks twelve thousand feet
high, covered with perpetual snow"
"A curtain lecture is worth all the SER