be done in Canaan; but the Moabites were punished after this manner, according to 2 Kings iii. 19, 25.

The Arabs of the Holy Land, we are told, still make war after this manner on each other, burning the corn, cutting down the olive-trees, carrying off the sheep, and doing one another all possible damage; excepting that these Arabian villagers never touch one another's lives.

The

Turks in like manner are wont to cut down the mulberry-trees of the Maronites, which are of great importance to them for feeding their silkworms (silk being one of the greatest articles their country affords,) when they would distress those poor Christians: so Dr. Pococke tells us, he himself, when he visited Mount Lebanon, saw a great number of their young mulberry-trees, which had been cut down by a Pasha, who had some demands upon them which they could not answer.

OBSERVATION LVI.

Strong Watch-Towers, built in the Vicinity of Cities, to keep their Inhabitants in check.

IT has been a frequent complaint among learned men, that it is commonly difficult, and oftentimes impossible, to illustrate many pas

See Egmont and Heyman, vol. 1. p. 330, and p. 329. Hasselquist, p. 143, 144.

Vol. 2, p. 97.

sages of the Jewish history, referred to in the annals of their princes, and in the predictions of their Prophets, for want of profane historians of the neighbouring nations of any great antiquity; upon which I have been ready to think, that it might not be altogether vain, to compare with those more ancient transactions, events of a later date that have happened in those countries, in nearly similar circumstances, since human nature is much the same in all ages, allowing for the eccentricity that sometimes arises, from some distinguishing prejudices of that particular time.

The situation of the Christian kings of Jerusalem, in particular, in the twelfth century. bears in many respects a strong resemblance to that of the kings of Judah; and the history of the Croisades may serve to throw some light on the transactions of the Jewish princes. At least the comparing them together may be amusing.

It is said of king Uzziah, 1 Chron. xxvi. 6, that he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about Ashdod and among the Philistines. Thus we find, in the time of the Croisades, when that ancient city of the Philistines, called Ascalon, had frequently made inroads into the territories of the kingdom of Jerusalem; the Christians built two strong castles not far from Ascalon; and finding the usefulness of these structures, king Fulk, in

the spring of the year of our LORD 1138, attended by the patriarch of Jerusalem and his other prelates, proceeded to build another castle, called Blanche Guarda," which he garrisoned with such soldiers as he could depend upon, furnishing them with arms and provisions. These watching the people of Ascalon, often defeated their attempts, and sometimes they did not content themselves with being on the defensive, but attacked them, and did them great mischief, gaining the advantage of them. This occasioned those who claimed a right to the adjoining country, encouraged by the neighbourhood of such a strong place, to build many villages, in which many families dwelt, concerned in tilling the ground, and raising provisions for other parts of their territories. Upon this the people of Ascalon, finding themselves encompassed round by a number of inexpugnable fortresses, began to grow very uneasy at their situation, and to apply to Egypt for help by repeated messages.*

Exactly in the same manner, we may believe, Uzziah built cities about Ashdod that were fortified, to repress the excursions of its inhabitants, and to secure to his people the fertile pastures which lay thereabout; and which pastures, I presume, the Philistines claimed, and indeed all the low land from the foot of the mountains to the sea, but to which Israel Or the White Watch-Tower.

* Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 886, 887.

claimed a right, and of a part of which this powerful Jewish prince actually took possession, and made settlements for his people there, which he thus guarded from the Ashdodites: "He built cities about Ashdod, even among the Philistines," for so I would render the words, as the historian appears to be speaking of the same cities in both clauses.

Uzziah did more than king Fulk could do, for he beat down the walls not only of Gath and Jabneh, two neighbouring cities, but of Ashdod itself, which must have cut off all thoughts of their disturbing the Jewish settlers, protected by strong fortresses, when they themselves lay open to those garrisons. Askelon, on the contrary, remained strongly fortified, by fortresses built by the Christians.

OBSERVATION LVII.

Curious Particulars relative to Askelon.

In the time of the Croisades, Askelon appears to have been by far the most powerful of the five great cities of the ancient Philistines; and it seems to have been so in the time of the Prophet Amos, from his manner of describing it-I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Askelon .Ch. i. 8.

As the sceptre among the Jews belonged to the tribe of Judah; so among the Philistines,

1

in the days of Amos, it belonged to Askelon, which appears, in great part, to have been owing to its situation on the sea-shore."

This may be thought somewhat strange, by those who read the account the Archbishop of Tyre gives of the nature of the coast there. He says, that city was of a semicircular form, the shore forming the chord, or semidiameter; the circular being to the Eastward (or towards the land.) Though seated on the shore, yet it had no port, nor a safe station for ships in the sea opposite to it; but a sandy coast, and dangerous when the wind was considerable, and very much to be suspected, unless the sea was very calm.

Notwithstanding all this, it appears in that history to have been looked upon as a most important town, by both the Egyptians and Christians of the Holy Land, the first at great expence endeavouring to retain it, the others to get it into their hands, which at length they effected; but it was the last of the maritime towns of Syria that they got into their possession, and a long time before they could accomplish it, being frequently succoured from Egypt by sea. In p. 829, the Archbishop tells us, all the maritime towns were then reduced under the Christian power, excepting Tyre and Askelon; in p. 841, he informs us, Tyre was taken by them in 1124; and in pp. 929, 930, we have an account of the surrender of Askelon, but not until the year 1154.

See Jer. xlvii. 7. Zeph. ii. 6,7. ▸ Gesta Dei, per Francos, p. 924.