Year: 1859

Above all other countries in the world Pal
eStine is the land of ruins: It is not that the
particular ruins are on a scale equal to those
Of Greece or Italy, still less to those of Egypt.
But there is no country where they are so ntI-
merous, none in which they bear so large ii
proportion to the villages and towns still in ex-
istence. In Judea it is hardly an exagger;t-
ton to say that while for miles and miles there
is no present life and habitation, except the
occasional goat-herd on the hillside, OF gather
ing of women at the wells, there is yet hardly
hill top of the many in sight, which is not
covered by the yestiges of some fortress or
city of former ages. Sometimes they are
fragments Of ancient wall, sometimes mere
foundations and piles of stone, but always
enough to indicate signs of human dwelling
and civilization.


These countless ruins, of whatever date they
may be, tell us at a glance what we must not
judge the resources of the ancient land by
its present depressed and desolate state. How
often is the question asked by eastern travel
ers, can these stony hills, these deserted valleys
be indeed the land of promise, the land flow
ing with milk and honey? Could they ever
have supported such teeming population as
the Israelites?


The country must have been very different
when every hill was crowned with "a fourishing
town OF village, from what it is, since it ceased
to be the seat not only of civilization, but in
many instances even of the people who fertil-
izcd it:


The entire destruction of the woods which
once covered the mountains, and the utter neg
lect of the terraces which supported the soil on
steep declivities, hare given full scope to the
ruins, which have left many tracts of bare
rock, where formerly were vineyards and corn
fields. The loss Of foliage has hindered rain,
and so has exposed the country in a greater
degree than formerly to the evils of drought.
The forests of Bethel, of Sharon, of Hereth,
the thicl1et wood of Ziph and the forests which
gave their name to Kirathjearim, the city of
forests, have long since disappeared. Palm
trees, which are now all but unknown on the
hills Of Palestine, formerly grew with myrtles
and pines on the almost barren slopes of Oil
vet, and groves Of oak though never frequent,
must have been far more common than now.
The very labor which was expended on these
barren fields in former times has increased their
present sterility. The natural vegetation has
been swept away and no human cultivation
now occupies the terrace which once took the
place Of forests and pastures.


1t should also be borne in mind that Pales-
tine, in contrast with the waterless deserts


which skirt it on the south and east, must have


appeared like an oasis of uncommon fertility


1t was emphatically good land, land ol


brooks of water, of fountains and depths that


spring out of plains and mountains, not as


the land of Egypt where thou sowest the seed


and waterest with thy foot garden o


herbs, but as land Of mountains and plains
which drinketh water of the the rain of heaven
This mountainous character, this abundance O
water both from natural springs and from the
clouds of heaven, this abundance Of milk from
| its cattle on a thousand hills, of honey, from
its forests and its thymy shrubs, was absolute
: ly peculiar to Palestine among the civilized
, nations of the East. Feeble as its brooks
might be, less filed than now, yet still it was thc
only country where an Oriental could have


been familiar with the image of the Psalnlist