not to be made, but heaps of hewn stones lie ready for the builder, the attempt to raise up fallen Askelon may serve to show how practicable it is to renew the cities that need only to be repaired, or to raise up from their ruins the cities with which Syria was overspread.

But not resting on conjecture, or regarding mere political expediency, we chiefly look on Askelon, desolate and uninhabited, as showing how it has reached the full measure of the divine judgments pronounced against it; and we look on the attempt to raise it up, however premature or untimely it yet may have been, as a prognostic of a happier destiny that yet awaits it, as assuredly as it has thus been brought low. For who can tell that the necessarily preparatory work, which it lay to the pacha's hand to do, for the final rebuilding of that city as it shall be rebuilt, may not have thus been accomplished? The “field of ruins" may now be the more easily cultivated, and flourish "a fine city" again. Whatever may be problematical, this is not; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,—In the houses of Askelon shall they (the Jews) lie down in the evening: for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.'

That which is thus said of it is said also of all the cities of the land. How numerous they were in ancient times we have already seen; and still more ample testimony the land itself does at last disclose. That they have in general reached, like Askelon, the last degree of predicted desolation, and that like it they supply ample materials for rising again, phoenix-like, from their ruins, even a cursory view may render luminously clear. In their multitude and in their magnitude, fallen and shrunk as many of them are, a palpable demonstration is supplied of the goodliness of the land which sustained and enriched them all. And while scriptural history is Zeph. ii. 7.

1

thus corroborated, and Scriptural prophecy thus ocularly set forth as perfect verity, the reader is entreated to bear next with the dry continuous detail of ruin after ruin, in the faith and assured hope, even as the covenant of God is true, that as the light of Scripture prophecy rests refulgent on them all, it shall yet be reflected in brighter glory than ever from the cities of Israel again, when Jacob shall have become the restorer of cities to dwell in, and when the face of the whole land shall be filled with cities.

Notwithstanding the interesting remains recently disclosed to view, so soon as the attempt was made to raise Askelon from its grave, it is not from its ruins as they lie, that its ancient beauty and strength are to be seen, any more than its once beauteous and fruitful environs can be recognized in the desolation around it. The circuit of ruined walls, if alone regarded, would in this, as in other instances, be a faithful index to the population of the walled towns of Syria, if at all compared with the extent of modern cities of western Europe, with their courts and squares spread over plains. They have rather their existing pattern in the city of Genoa, with streets narrow as the lanes of other towns. The streets of Damascus, the first city in Syria, are only wide enough for the passage of a loaded camel. And the walls of Aleppo, long, as now, the second of its cities, are only three miles or three miles and a half in circuit, though its population (including the suburbs) in the beginning of last century was "generally computed at 300,000,"1 now reduced, in common token of progressive desolation, to a fifth part of the number.

1 Van Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. ii. p. 338.

CHAPTER VII.

RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON.

In commencing a survey of the ruins that now overspread the land which was given by covenant to the seed of Abraham for an everlasting possession, it may not be amiss to follow, as previously, the route of the Israelites when they originally entered their inheritance. So soon as they reached it, they saw how goodly was their heritage; and the cavils of those who have traduced it, and denied its populousness in ancient times, may be confronted at once with the ruins of hundreds of cities or towns, as no equivocal proofs that they actually existed.

The seed of Jacob shall finally possess Mount Seir and the remnant of Edom, which at first refused to give Israel a passage through their border. But when the whole earth rejoiceth, Edom shall be desolate. It is written that, unlike the rest, its cities shall not return.1 The scene of momentous judgments yet to come, to witness which all nations are invoked, and the subject of a peculiar doom, Mount Seir could not but questionably come within our province, while looking to the future as well as to the past, and noting the ruins of cities that shall be built again.

But in the latter days, the captivity of Moab and of Ammon shall be brought back. These regions manifestly lie within the borders of the promised heritage of

1 Ezek. xxxv. 9, 14.

2 Jer. xlviii. 47; xlix. 6.

Jacob; and a brief inspection of their ruined cities, which have all, as such, testified to the express reality of the "burden" which they were doomed by the Lord to bear because of their transgressions, may prepare the way of entering on the more extensive survey of those ruined and deserted cities, built by aliens, that occupy the length and the breadth of the covenanted inheritance of Jacob.

From the borders of Edom to the river Zerka, anciently the Jabbok, including Ammon and Moab, and a small part of the original inheritance of Israel that pertained not to either, an ample field of ruins, on which we would first enter, is presented to our view, where the word of God, in respect to the desolation of the cities, has done its perfect work.

In passing through the land of Moab, towards its southern extremity, and to the south of Kerek or Carac-Moab, after recording the names of various ruined sites which they saw from different points,-five from one, and six from another, Captains Irby and Mangles give their testimony, from ocular observation, that "the whole of the fine plains in this quarter are covered with the sites of towns on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one; and as the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be little doubt that the country, now so deserted, presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility." In like manner, in journeying to the north of Kerek, before reaching the ancient capital of Moab, they remark,-" The several cities which we passed, proved that the population of this country was formerly proportioned to its natural fertility."

But instead of startling the reader, if a stranger to

1 Travels, pp. 370, 371.

2 Ibid. p. 456.

the ruins of Syria, by a general and seemingly transient remark, he may be introduced to a knowledge of them by following Burckhardt from the banks of the Zerka to the borders of Edom, marking the slow mode of eastern travelling, where three miles form the measure of "an hour," the usual and sole mode of computation now, where Roman milestones once stood.' In the ground on which he thus treads, looking at ruins alone, he will not fail to recognise the names of some of those cities of Ammon and Moab on which the word of the Lord lighted, and on which it has fallen no less heavily than on Askelon. Places of no note they too may now be accounted; but therefore is the word of the Lord verified, that judgment has come upon all the cities of Ammon and Moab far and near.

The Zerka now divides the district of Moerad from the country called El-Belka. On the summit of a mountain, at the northern foot of which it flows, large heaps of hewn stones, and several ruined walls, bear the name of El-Meysera. In one hour fifteen minutes is the ruined place called El-Herath, about one hour to the south-east of which are the ruined places Allan and Syphan. At two hours is reached the foot of the mountain called Djebel Djelaad and Djelaoud, (Gilead), upon which are the ruined towns of the same names.3 The lofty mountain Osha lies between Djelaad and Szalt, which is distant four hours thirty minutes from Meysera. Szalt is (was) the only inhabited place in the province of Belka. In descending the valley to the south of Szalt, the ruins of a considerable town are met with, consisting of foundations of buildings and heaps of stones, the remains seemingly of the town (As Szalt), described by Abulfeda, through which the water flowed 'Mr Buckingham computes an hour as four miles. "Burckhardt's Travels, p. 347.

3 Ibid. p. 348.