Palestine or the Holy Land | Page 9

respect nations and armies; for
pride and fear have, in their turn, contributed not a little to exaggerate,
in rival countries, the amount of the persons capable of taking a share
in the field of battle. Proceeding on the usual grounds of calculation,
we must infer, from the number of warriors whom Moses conducted
through the desert, that the Hebrew people, when they crossed the
Jordan, did not fall short of two millions; while, from facts recorded in
the book of Samuel, we may conclude with greater confidence that the
enrolment made under the direction of Joab must have returned a gross
population of five millions and a half.
The present aspect of Palestine, under an administration where every
thing decays and nothing is renewed, can afford no just criterion of the
accuracy of such statements. Hasty observers have indeed pronounced

that a hilly country destitute of great rivers, could not, even under the
most skilful management, supply food for so many mouths. But this
precipitate conclusion has been vigorously combated by the most
competent judges, who have taken pains to estimate the produce of a
soil under the fertilizing influence of a sun which may be regarded as
almost tropical, and of a well-regulated irrigation which the Syrians
knew how to practise with the greatest success. Canaan, it must be
admitted, could not be compared to Egypt in respect to corn. There is
no Nile to scatter the riches of an inexhaustible fecundity over its
valleys and plains. Still it was not without reason that Moses described
it as "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; a land of oil-olive and honey; a
land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not
lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills
thou mayst dig brass."[5]
The reports of the latest travellers confirm the accuracy of the picture
drawn by this divine legislator. Near Jericho the wild olives continue to
bear berries of a large size, which give the finest oil. In places subjected
to irrigation, the same field, after a crop of wheat in May, produces
pulse in autumn. Several of the trees are continually bearing flowers
and fruit at the same time, in all their stages. The mulberry, planted in
straight rows in the open field, is festooned by the tendrils of the vine.
If this vegetation seems to languish or become extinct during the
extreme heats,--if in the mountains it is at all seasons detached and
interrupted,--such exceptions to the general luxuriance are not to be
ascribed simply to the general character of all hot climates, but also to
the state of barbarism in which the great mass of the present population
is immersed.
Even in our day, some remains are to be found of the walls which the
ancient cultivators built to support the soil on the declivities of the
mountains; the form of the cisterns in which they collected the
rain-water; and traces of the canals by which this water was distributed
over the fields. These labours necessarily created a prodigious fertility
under an ardent sun, where a little moisture was the only requisite to

revive the vegetable world. The accounts given by native writers
respecting the productive qualities of Judea are not in any degree
opposed even by the present aspect of the country. The case is exactly
the same with some islands in the Archipelago; a tract, from which a
hundred individuals can hardly draw a scanty subsistence, formerly
maintained thousands in affluence. Moses might justly say that Canaan
abounded in milk and honey. The flocks of the Arabs still find in it a
luxuriant pasture, while the bees deposite in the holes of the rocks their
delicious stores, which are sometimes seen flowing down the surface.
The opinions just stated in regard to the fertility of ancient Palestine
receive an ample confirmation from the Roman historians, to whom, as
a part of their extensive empire, it was intimately known. Tacitus,
especially, in language which he appears to have formed for his own
use, describes its natural qualities with the utmost precision, and, as is
his manner, suggests rather than specifies a catalogue of productions,
the accuracy of which is verified by the latest observations. The soil is
rich, and the atmosphere dry; the country yields all the fruits which are
known in Italy, besides balm and dates.[6]
But it has never been denied that there is a remarkable difference
between the two sides of the ridge which forms the central chain of
Judea. On the western acclivity, the soil rises from the sea towards the
elevated ground in four distinct