Mr Calman," that the minarets on the Mount of Olives were shaken down by the earthquake. The Jews of Saphet and Tiberias intend to lay the foundation of a new city near Joppa. Thither many have already repaired, and they say they are possessed of a prophecy that Upper Galilee must be desolated before the appearance of the Messiah, and to remain in that state until he come."

Syria may now be said to belong to Mehemet Ali. Under the Turks it was a military despotism, the great proportion

of the inhabitants being subject to a faction of armed petty tyrants, who disposed of every thing according to their interest or caprice. A modern traveller calculated that the revenue of Syria, as sent to the Sultan's treasury, amounted to L.312,500, and the value of the entire produce of the country about L.1,281,250. The commerce was formerly in the hands of the Jews, but it is now engrossed by the Franks, Greeks, and Armenians. See CANAAN, PHILISTINES, and PHŒNICIA.

TAANACH, who humbles thee, or answers thee, or afflicts thee, a town under the government of Baana, one of Solomon's twelve officers "over all Israel, who provided victuals for the king and his household," 1 Kings iv. 7, 12. These officers had no reference to the number of the Tribes, but simply to the months of the year, as we are told that during the year they supplied in rotation the royal household with provisions, and it appears that it was their duty to receive those taxes which were paid in kind from the produce of the soil. In the First Book of Samuel (viii. 15) it is expressly mentioned that a tenth of the produce of the fields and vineyards would be payable to the future king. As there might be considerable difficulty in the collection of this revenue and its transmission to Jerusalem, Solomon seems to have divided his dominions into twelve districts or governments, and to have appointed a presiding officer to collect the produce a situation, from the rank of the persons nominated to it, which was probably very lucrative. Bishop Patrick supposes that these officers were merely commissioned to buy up provisions in their several districts.

TABBATH, good, or goodness, the name of a place of which nothing is known, Judges vii. 22.

TABERAH, or TABEERAH, burning, an encampment of the Israelites in the Wilderness, Numb. xi. 3. The origin of the name to this locality is given by the inspired historian:-" And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. And the people cried unto Moses, and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched; and he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burnt among them."

TABOR, MOUNT, the supposed scene of our blessed Saviour's transfiguration, and the alleged "holy mount" of St Peter, though some learned writers contend that the transfiguration happened on Mount Panium near Cæsarea Philippi. It rises in the east of the great Plain of Esdraelon, about six miles south-east from Nazareth, and nearly the same distance from the Jordan. It is a calcareous mountain, resembling a cone with the upper part struck off, and is completely isolated from the neighbouring mountains, some of which equal it in elevation. Its height has been variously stated. Some of the more ancient writers have not scrupled to give it an elevation of four miles, but it has since been reduced

to three miles, two miles, and one mile, and to one thousand feet. The lowest of these statements is given by Mr Buckingham, and is probably the most correct on the average of any; but in justice to the authors of the other calculations we must admit that their exaggerations, and discrepancies probably did not refer to the perpendicular altitude, but to the length of the winding ascent of the mountain. Josephus calculates the elevation of Tabor at thirty furlongs, and the circumference at the base twenty-six. Mr Buckingham's estimate is rendered probable from what Burckhardt states, that thick clouds rest upon its summit in the summer mornings, and also from the time occupied in the ascent, which is seldom much less than an hour, though Mr Buckingham by forced exertion reached. the summit in half an hour. The top is described as an oval plain, nearly a fourth of a mile in its greatest extent, covered with a bed of fertile soil on the west, and having at its eastern end a mass of ruins, which are evidently the remains of churches, grottos, walls, and fortifications, all of some antiquity, and a few apparently of a very remote age. Three of these grottos are sturdily believed by the local guides to be the remains of the three tabernacles proposed by St Peter to be erected for our Saviour, Moses, and Elias. There is no particular history assigned to any of the other ruins, which probably have been religious buildings. Josephus says that he caused the summit of the mountain to be enclosed by a wall, which was completed in forty days, and perhaps the ruins now existing of walls are parts of this circular fortification. A city called TABOR is also mentioned, 1 Chron. vi. 77, but it is not well known how it was situated in relation to the mountain. A large portion of the wall is still entire on the southern side, having its foundation in the solid rock, and this appears to be the more ancient part. The mountain seems to have been occupied from the earliest times as a military post, for which its insulated situation is well adapted. This is indicated in the Book of

VOL. II.

Judges (iv. 6, 12; viii. 18). Mount Tabor was doubtless the "hill of a globular form" on which Polybius places the town of Atabyrium. It was at one time so well fortified, that Antiochus took it only by a stratagem similar to that which Joshua employed when he captured Ai; and he secured it by leaving a garrison on it before he marched against the cities east of the Jordan. The Romans got possession of this stronghold by enticing the occupants down into the plain, under the most solemn promises of security and friendship, which were shamefully violated. Mount Tabor subsequently seems to have become the seat of some religious establishments, the ruins of which are now mixed with the military fortifications.

The mountain, viewed from a distance, has a very beautiful appearance. Pococke describes it as one of the finest hills he ever beheld, being covered with a rich soil which produces excellent herbage, and adorned with groves and clumps of trees. The verdure is said to be less abundant on the south than on the other. sides of Mount Tabor. Burckhardt informs us that there are ounces and wild boars in the wooded parts, and another traveller saw the rock-goat and fallowdeer; red partridges are in abundance. Mount Tabor is thus mentioned by various travellers." We arrived at its base," says Mr Jolliffe, "in five hours after quitting the Jordan, and were another hour in gaining the summit. The acclivity is extremely steep and rugged, and our horses, although they had previously made their way through passes which seemed impervious to any animal more bulky than an antelope, were in many parts much puzzled to maintain a footing. Dr Clarke's attendants represented Mount Tabor as having on its top 'a plain of great extent, finely cultivated, and inhabited by numerous Arab tribes.' This statement is wonderfully inaccurate. The summit is very otherwise than an immense plain, being only a very few acres, nearly covered with the ruins of a fortress, without one solitary tenant.

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hills are rugged and precipitous." "Different opinions," says Mr Rae Wilson, "have been entertained by writers with regard to the extent of ground on the summit, and the cultivation of it. I am inclined to think that, taking the whole of it into calculation, it may be nearly two miles in diameter; a great part of it, at the time I was there, had been brought into a state of cultivation." Mr Carne informs us that about a fourth part of the ascent towards the summit is covered with a luxuriance of wood. The Empress Helena founded two monasteries, one to the memory of Elias, and the other to Moses, on Mount Tabor, and it is said to have been the seat of a bishop, dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem. In one of the three grottos connected by very questionable tradition with the transfiguration of our Saviour, a rude altar is erected, at which service is performed on the anniversary of the Transfiguration by the neighbouring monks. At the foot of Mount Tabor is shown the birth-place of the Prophetess Deborah amid a few trees. "At an hour and a half," says the Rev. Vere Monro, "we passed a rapid brook which runs down to Esdraelon, and one hour beyond descended to the edge of the plain, near the small village of Deborah, where she who judged Israel is reported to have dispensed her decrees. It is situated at the foot of Mount Tabor, and the little stream above mentioned is called the Lesser Kishon, and is in fact the northern branch of that river near to which Deborah and Barak defeated Sisera. The village consists of a few huts of mud. Here the ascent of Mount Tabor commences. This mountain, called by the Seventy Itabyrium, and by Polybius Mastois, is circular, conical, and nearly detached from those about it. Its form is singularly regular, and the sides covered with long grass, cistus corruba, and other shrubs, give it a rich green appearance; nevertheless, this character belongs equally to the other mountains to the north of it. Those fairy-land figures in which it has been described by Polybius and others are no longer applicable.

Adrichomius calls the mountain most fair, round, and finished from top to bottom with perfect regularity, thickly clad with vines, olives, and a variety of shrubs and fruit trees. Invigorated by perpetual dews, mantled by the verdure of its trees and plants of varied dyes, it is said to be redolent of sweetest flowers. Here,' says he, is the favourite haunt of every animal that befits the chase; here, too, the resort of every vocal bird whose song charms the hearer with unceasing melody." After a description of the mountain, with the details of which the reader is already familiar, Mr Monro adds the following interesting illustration:-" The abode of Deborah at the foot of the mountain was the place whither the people came up for judgment; and it is worthy of remark, that at the present day the Arabs assemble at the foot of the same mountain every Monday to hold a bazaar, the governor of Tabaria (Tiberias), in whose jurisdiction the place is, either attending himself or sending a deputy for the dispensation of justice. There is no village at the place, but the meeting is held in the open plain, as it might be under the palm-tree of Deborah, and close to the spot are some ruins, at which all those who are debtors for tributes or duties are accustomed to pay them. Although it is merely related in the Book of Judges that the people came up for judgment, to stated places at different periods, it is nevertheless by no means improbable that they, at the same time, transacted other business, and that the meeting was also taken advantage of for the sale of merchandise, out of which ancient practice the present one seems to have grown. The people assemble here from every part of the central country, the Houran, Acre, and from all the coast as far as Jaffa."

From the summit of Mount Tabor there is one of the most extensive and interesting prospects which the country affords. To the south the spectator discovers a series of valleys and mountains extending as far as Jerusalem, fifty miles distant; to the east the valley of the

Jordan, with the Sea of Galilee, the lake seeming as if enclosed in the crater of a volcano; to the north are the plains of Galilee backed by mountains beyond which is visible, to the north-east, a part of Antilibanus covered with snow; to the west, the horizon line of the Mediterranean is visible over the range of land near the coast, and portions of its blue surface are occasionally seen through the openings left by the downward bends of the western hills. "The view from Mount Tabor," says Major Skinner, "has often been vaunted of by travellers. It is indeed magnificent, and comprises places of the greatest interest." The hills of Gilboa and Samaria, Mount Carmel, Mount Hermon, at the base of which Nain is situated, where Christ miraculously restored the widow's son, are distinctly seen, and not far from this is Endor, the residence of the soothsayer applied to by Saul. Near Tiberias the mountain is pointed out, down the steep sides of which the swine ran and perished in the waters. A little distance to the north appears what the local guides designate the Mount of the Beatitudes, where the celebrated sermon was delivered by our Saviour. "From Mount Tabor you have likewise," says Maundrell, "the sight of a place which they tell you was Dothaim, where Joseph was sold by his brethren, and of the field where our Saviour fed the multitude with a few loaves and fewer fishes." The Jordan is seen traversing its way to the Dead Sea through the valley which bears its name, and the Kishon wanders in beautiful serpentine turnings, not unlike those of the river Forth between the Scottish towns of Stirling and Alloa, to the Mediterranean, which receives its waters in the bay of Acre, near the base of Mount Carmel.

The transfiguration of our Saviour, it has been repeatedly mentioned, is traditionally supposed to have taken place on Mount Tabor, and certainly the situation is admirably adapted for the splendid spectacle which is supposed to have been there exhibited. On this subject Mr

Jolliffe makes the following remarks:"I beg to be understood as expressing myself with extreme diffidence on all points which affect the locality of the transactions recorded in the sacred writings, but where the description is given in merely general terms, without any minute detail of those circumstances which leave no room for conjecture, there surely may be allowed some diversity of sentiment. The history of the transfiguration, as related by St Matthew, fixes the scene on a solitary mountain-eis ögos ὑψηλὸν κατ' ἰδιἄν, which our translation interprets into a high mountain apart. St Mark's account justifies a different construction of the words xar' idian, which seem to refer rather to the person spoken of than to the position of the mountain. His expressions are, ἀναφέρει αὐτοὺς εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν κατ' ἰδιἄν μόνους. The authorized English version renders the passage thus: "Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves." Literally speaking, Mount Tabor is not a high mountain by itself; a hill of considerable altitude rises very near its western base, and though not of the same degree of elevation, is sufficiently lofty to prevent its having the appearance of standing in a plain remote from any other eminence. We are assured in the same chapter that after Jesus had restored the young person who had suffered from his infancy under the influence of a deaf and dumb spirit, he departed thence with his disciples and passed through Galilee, and came afterwards to Capernaum, but as Capernaum is in Galilee, had the Mount of Transfiguration been situated in the same province, the Evangelist would hardly have described Christ's journey in these terms."

TABOR, a plain so called, 1 Sam. x. 3, not near the mountain of that name, but a place called Elon-Tabor south-east of Ramah.

TADMOR, the palm, or palm-tree, THEUDEMOR, otherwise PALMYRA, a celebrated city in the Syrian Desert now in ruins, originally built by Solomon,

famous for the splendour and magnificence of its porticoes, temples, and palaces, which have been repeatedly examined by the curious and the learned. Josephus assures us that this is the same which was afterwards called Palmyra by the Greeks and Romans, and we are informed that it is still designated Tadmor by the Arabs. The name Tadmor, as well as that of Palmyra, had a reference to the multitude of palm-trees by which this city was surrounded, the city having been built in a fertile oasis about ten miles in extent, in the midst of a desert, and hence it is called "Tadmor in the Wilderness," 1 Kings ix. 18; 2 Chron. viii. 4. It was like an island in the midst of the ocean, a verdant track surrounded on all sides by barrenness and desolation.

Major Rennell, in his work on the Comparative Geography of Western Asia," places Tadmor or Palmyra in north lat. 34° 24', and east long. 38° 20′, ninety geographical miles from the nearest point to the north of the Euphrates, upwards of one hundred miles from the nearest eastern point of the same river, one hundred and nine miles from Baalbec, two hundred east of the Mediterranean, and one hundred and fifty southeast of Aleppo. Although Tadmor is said to have been originally built or repaired by Solomon, the style of the present edifices and many other circumstances render it highly probable that the ruins are not those of the city built by that monarch, and of its origin indeed we have no certain information. The existence of such a city as Palmyra, isolated in an extensive and inhospitable waste, is one of those wonderful circumstances which require many explanations. The site of it enjoys the advantage of a good supply of excellent water, and in such a region as the Syrian Desert this circumstance would be the first element of that importance which it afterwards attained. Some who contend that Solomon was not its founder, allege that the Hebrew monarch was too wise and prudent to build a city of such extent in a distant and

uninhabited corner of his dominions; but Josephus assigns a very satisfactory reason, which is obvious to every one acquainted with the peculiar features of that region. "The reason," he says, "why Solomon built this city, so remote from the parts of Syria that are inhabited, is this, that below there is no water to be had, and that it is in this place only where there are springs and pits of water." Through the Desert in which it lies, the caravans which conveyed by land the produce of Eastern Asia from the Persian Gulf and the banks of the Euphrates to Phoenicia, Syria, Asia Minor, and the various mercantile cities on the Mediterranean, must of necessity pass, and there can be no doubt that the advantages of water which the oasis on which Palmyra is built, in the earliest times afforded, would render it a restingplace to the Eastern caravans in their route westward through the Desert. The pearls, cinnamon, gold, and other valuable articles of traffic mentioned in the Scriptures, afford ample proof that a commercial relation existed from a very early period between the above mentioned countries, because these articles could chiefly be obtained in the provinces bordering on the Persian Gulf; and Palmyra, situated between that Gulf and the Syrian and Phoenician cities, would early become the centre of the trade of the Eastern world. This brings us, therefore, to the probable reason assigned by Josephus for Solomon building “ Tadmor in the Wilderness." It is well known that he engrossed the maritime commerce which existed between the East and West by the channel of the Red Sea, and we may infer that, as his sovereignty extended to the Euphrates, and as the caravans must of necessity have passed through his territories, he would not neglect the opportunity of obtaining benefit from the land trade between Eastern and Western Asia; and the fact of his having built this city in such a place is a proof that his views were really directed towards this branch of trade and commerce. When Tadmor, instead of being a mere resting-place for