drink shall be little to them that drink it; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.'* And such, to an exact likeness, and in every respect, are those still who dwell in Judea, while the Lord has forsaken his heritage and left it in the hands of its enemies; and while his ancients are scattered abroad. And while many other witnesses are not wanting, Volney alone gives the most copious and distinct evidence of each of the facts. And if ever there was a perfectly unexceptionable and unsuspected witness, he, in this case, is the man. He is careful in stating the revenue of the different pachalics of Syria. In Aleppo..800 purses Tripoli ....750 6 2345 purses. (£122,135 sterling.) The revenue of Palestine (including Philistia and part of Judea) was gifted to two individuals. And together with that of Damascus, the least, by far, of all the rest, it formed almost the whole revenue of the Holy Land. They shall be ashamed of your revenues.' The government of the Turks in Syria is entirely a military despotism; that is, the bulk of the inhabitants are subject to the caprices of a faction of armed men, who dispose of every thing according to their interest and fancy. In each government the pasha is an absolute despot. In the villages the inhabitants, *Isa. xxiv. 7-11. limited to the mere necessaries of life, have no arts but those without which they cannot subsist. There is no safety without the towns, nor security within their precincts. The barbarism of Syria is complete. They live in a state of perpetual alarm. Every peasant is afraid of exciting the envy of his equals, and the avarice of the aga and his soldiers. In such a country, where the subject is perpetually watched by a despoiling government, he must assume a serious countenance for the same reason that he wears ragged clothes, or, in other words, because of the violence of them that dwell therein.' Such is the testimony of Volney. They that dwell therein are desolate. They eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment. They put themselves to pain, but it does not profit them; no flesh has peace. The land is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. Few men left. So feeble a population in so excellent a country, may well excite our astonishment; but this will be increased if we compare the present number of inhabitants with that of ancient times. We are informed by the philosophical geographer, Strabo, that the territories of Yamnia and Yoppa, in Palestine alone, were formerly so populous as to bring forty thousand armed men into the field. At present they could scarcely furnish three thousand.' • The stranger that shall come from a fer land shall be astouished at it.' In the preceding words Volney expresses his astonishinent. They have no music but vocal, for they neither know nor esteem instrumental; and they are in the right, for such instruments as they have, not excepting their flutes, are detestable.' The mirth of the harp ceaseth, the joy of the tabret ceaseth.' Their singing is accompanied with sighs and gestures. They may be said to excel most in the melancholy strain. To behold an Arab with his head inclined, his hand applied to his ear, his eye-brows knit, his eyes languishing; to hear his plaintive tones, his sighs, and sobs, it' is almost impossible to refrain from tears.' Their very mirth is melancholy; their very sports tend to sadness; all the merry-hearted do sigh, their shouting is no shouting.' 'Their behaviour is serious, austere, and melancholy. They rarely laugh. And the gaiety of the French appears to them a fit of delirium. They have a serious, nay even sad and melancholy countenance.' All joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone.' Volney instances the Jews, to show that the character of the people is entirely changed from what it was in ancient times. One of the chief sources,' continues he,' of gaiety with us, is the social intercourse of the table, and the use of wine. The orientals (Syrians) are strangers to this double enjoyment. Good cheer would infallibly expose them to extortion, and wine to a corporal punishment, from the zeal of the police in enforcing the precepts of the Koran. It is with great reluctance the Mahometans tolerate the christians the use of a liquor they envy them.' The wines of Jerusalem (though Judea was a land of vines,') are described by another traveller as pro 'most execrable;' and by a third as bably the very worst to be met with in any country,' The new wine mourneth; the vine languisheth. They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.' The exception to this general desolation is not the least remarkable and distinguishable feature of Judea, nor the least wonderful of the prophecies concerning it. And, like the last touch of the painter, it renders the picture complete. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done. The glory of Jacob shall wax thin: and it shall be as when the harvest-man gathereth the corn and reapeth the ears with his arm; yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof."* These words imply, as is otherwise expressed without a metaphor, that a small remnant would be left; that though Judea should become poor, like a field that has been reaped, or like a vine stripped of its fruits, its desolation would not be so complete but that some vestige of its former abundance, the gleanings of its ancient glory, would be still visible. It is even so. Whenever any spot is fixed on as the residence, or seized as the property of a Turkish aga, or of an Arab sheikh, little culture is needful, and protection only is required, that the exuberance and beauty of the land of Canaan * Isa. xxiv. 13; xvii. 4-6. may speedily reappear. And the garden of Geddin, abounding with olives, almonds, peaches, apricots, and figs; Napolose, the ancient Sychem, luxuriantly embosomed in the most delightful and fragrant bowers, half concealed by rich gardens and by stately trees,' the vale of Zabulon; rich forests on the mountains of Gilead, though the plains beneath be covered only with thistles; the valley of St. John, close by Jerusalem, crowned with olives and vines, and bearing the milder fig and almond below, appear in the midst of surrounding wastes as Edens in a desert; and are just like gleanings after the full crop has been reaped, or the few berries that remain after the olive has been shaken. But who could have thought that the same cause was to produce so opposite effects; or that a few berries on the outmost branches would be saved by the same hand that was to shake the olive. : Of Samaria, the capital of the ten tribes of Israel, it was foretold, I will make Samaria a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard; and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley and I will discover the foundations thereof.'* Herod the Great enlarged and adorned Samaria. It was the see of a bishop during several centuries of the christian era; and there are still many of its ancient medals and coins. These are the memorials of a city, which has long ceased to exist. Its stones have been poured down into the valley. One of the earliest of modern travellers described it as wholly covered Micah i. 6. |