plants of the same species in the greenhouses of England; and fallen as Syria is, these hedges are covered with fruit. The soil of the gardens of Gaza "is exceeding rich and productive. The apricots are delicious and abundant. The fertile soil produces in abundance grains and fruits of every kind, and of the finest quality." Figs, pomegranates, watermelons, renowned for their excellence, grow luxuriantly and abundantly in the gardens of Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, which opens out into the plain of Sharon, apparently "extremely fertile, but only partially cultivated, and still less inhabited."t "All this country," says Pococke, "is a very rich soil, and throws up a great quantity of herbage, very rank thistles, rue, and fennel, and a great variety of anemones, and many beautiful tulips." The plain of Sharon, extending to the hills of Judea on the east, and Carmel on the north, has lost all richness and beauty but what the earth itself retains, and the wildness of nature supplies. But while the vast herbage enriches the soil, the traveller, whose face is not lighted up by the hope of better days to come, is "oppressed with a species of melancholy which he is at a loss to account for, seeing no cause for the existence of such a state of things but the curse which has come upon the land." Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits, and Sharon is like a wilderness.§ But, as the same prophet looking to Israel's return, has said, The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; the glory of Lebanon shall return unto it; the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Sharon shall be a fold for flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down, for the people that have sought me.T ** The large and fertile plain of Acre, as seen and described by Pococke, was exceedingly rich, and, towards the east, well cultivated with cotton and corn. Its soil resembles the dark loam of Egypt, and is now chiefly covered with large thistles. "The fine plain of Zabulon, extending to the plain of Esdraelon, was, a century ago, a fruitful spot, all covered with corn." A few years later, Hasselquist, the pupil of Linnæus, and to whom his letters were addressed, journeying from Acre to Nazareth, first passed Robinson and Smith's Trav., vol. ii., p. 376, 377. † Mr. Robinson's Travels, vol. i., p. 25. Pococke's Travels, p. 5. T Ibid., lxv., 10. tt Ibid., p. 61. |