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early figs were past at Beyrout when they were first gathered with us."

To this advantage, which perpetuates enjoyments by their succession, Syria adds a second, that of multiplying them by the variety of its productions. Were nature aided by art, those of the most distant countries might be produced within twenty leagues. At present, notwithstanding the barbarism of a government which is inimical to all industry and improvement, we are astonished at the variety. Besides wheat, barley, rye, beans, and the cotton plant, which is (was) everywhere cultivated, we find many useful and agreeable productions, appropriated to different situations. In Palestine, sesamum abounds, from which they procure oil, and dourra (a kind of pulse) as good as that of Egypt. Maize thrives in the light soil of Baalbec; and even rice is cultivated with success on the borders of the marshy countries of Havula. They have lately begun to cultivate sugar-canes in the gardens of Saide and of Beyrout, equal to those of the Delta. Indigo grows without cultivation on the banks of the Jordan, in the country of Bisan, and needs but care to improve the quality. Tobacco is now cultivated throughout all the mountains. As for trees, the olive of Provence grows at Antioch, and at Ramla, to the height of the beech. In the white mulberry-tree consists the wealth of the whole country of the Druses, by the beautiful silk which it produces; while the vine, supported by poles, or winding about the oaks, supplies grapes, which afford red and white wines equal to those of Bourdeaux. The water-melons of Jaffa are preferred before the very fine water-melons of Broulas. Gaza produces dates like Mecca, and pomegranates like Algiers. Tripoli affords oranges like Malta. Beyrout, figs like Marseilles, and bananas like St Domingo. Aleppo has the (not) exclusive advantage

of producing pistachios. And Damascus justly boasts of possessing all the fruits known in the provinces: its stony soil suits equally the apples of Normandy, the plums of Touraine, and the peaches of Paris. Twenty sorts of apricots are enumerated there, the stone of one of which contains a kernel highly valued throughout Turkey. The cochineal plant, which grows on all that coast, contains, perhaps, that precious insect in as high perfection as it is found in Mexico and St Domingo; and if we consider that the mountains of Yemen, which produce such excellent coffee, are only a continuation of those of Syria, and that their soil and climate are almost the same, we shall be induced to believe that in Judea particularly, might be easily cultivated this valuable production of Arabia.

"With these advantages of climate and soil, it is not surprising that Syria should always have been reckoned a most delicious country, and that the Greeks and Romans esteemed it among the most beautiful of their provinces, and equal even to Egypt."

Such is the description of the climate and soil of Syria by the man who sought to adduce a conclusive proof against revelation, from the desolation of the land, and the ruins of its cities, which prophets had foretold; and such, as an eye-witness, is the refutation which he gives to the blasphemies against the land of Israel, uttered by those who, in other things, were his fellow-scoffers. Elsewhere, he writes as if in purpose to prove the inspiration which he denied; and infidel as he was, he here refutes the calumnies of others, as if his design had been to bear testimony to the Scriptural record descriptive of the fertility and excellence of the land, were nature again seconded by art, as it was in ancient times.

1 Volney's Trav. vol. i. pp. 316–321. English translation.

Where is there another country in which such varied excellencies are naturally combined, or of which such a description would be a picture, especially even in a land so desolate as Syria was when seen by Volney? And how appositely does his delineation of its capabilities combine with the Scriptural narrative of what the promised heritage was when first peopled by those to whom the Lord gave it, and as it shall become when given to them again, not in temporary but everlasting possession— a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees, and pomegranates and olives; a land wherein they would eat bread without scarceness, and lack not any thing in it; a land of bread and vineyards; a land of oil-olive and of honey; a land which the Lord espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands. Yet the past is but an earnest of the future. Behold the days come that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit thereof. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of the land which I have given them, saith the Lord God. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, the little hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters. And Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed; for the Lord dwelleth in

Deut. viii. 7-9; xi. 11, 12; Ezek. xx. 6.

2 Amos ix. 13-15.

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