gardens which were defended by walls or hedges, some of which, indeed, it was not difficult to get over, they must have been still more necessary, in those which were perfectly open. Several travellers have mentioned such improved spots, which they met with in their progress, and have expressly specified the cucumber as one of the plants cultivated in such exposed places; which throws an additional light on the words of the prophet: the daughter of Zion is deserted as a mean and temporary booth, in a garden of cucumbers, which had neither wall nor hedge, but lay exposed on all sides to the depredations of evil doers. Besides a variety of esculent vegetables, the vine was frequently to be seen in these cultivated patches loaded with its richest produce; which must be doubly welcome to those who travel in a thinly peopled, or desolate country? To these inviting clusters, the prophet Hosea seems to refer, in the following declaration: "I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness." The meaning is not, I found Israel when they were in the wilderness pleasant to me as grapes; but, as grapes found in the wilderness, are exceedingly pleasing to the hungry or parched traveller, so has Israel been to me. In Arabia, and probably in other parts of the east, instead of a solitary watchman in the middle of the plantation, they place guards at certain distances round the whole field, increasing or diminishing their numbers according to the supposed danger. This custom furnishes a clear and easy explanation of a passage in the prophecies of Jeremiah, where he solemnly warns his people of their approaching calamities: "As keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she hath been rebellious against me, saith the Lord."..

9 Jer. iv, 17. See Chardin, and Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 217, 218,

219.

The oriental garden displays little method, beauty, or design; the whole being commonly no more than a confused medley of fruit trees, with beds of esculent plants, and even plots of wheat and barley sometimes interspersed. The garden belonging to the governor of Eleus, a Turkish town, on the western border of the Hellespont, which Dr. Chandler visited, consisted only of a very small spot of ground, walled in, and containing only two vines, a fig and a promegranate tree, and a well of excellent water. And it would seem, the garden of an ancient Israelite could not boast of greater variety; for the grape, the fig, and the pomegranate, are almost the only fruits which it produced. This fact may perhaps give us some insight into the reason of the sudden and irresistible conviction which flashed on the mind of Nathaniel, when the Saviour said to him," When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee." The good man seems to have been engaged in devotional exercises, in a small retired garden, walled in, and concealed from the scrutinizing eyes of men. The place was so small, that he was perfectly certain no man but himself was there; and so completely defended, that none could break through, or look over the fence; and by consequence, that no eye was upon him, but the all-seeing eye of God; and, therefore, since Christ saw him there, Nathaniel knew he could be no other than the Son of God, and the promised Messiah.

The gardens mentioned in the song of Solomon, were stored with a much greater variety of plants; but then it is to be remembered, these belonged to a prince remarkable for his curiosity, for his knowledge of natural history, and for his magnificence. These royal gardens appear to Trav. p. 16.

have been at a distance from the palace; while the miniature gardens of the ancient Jews, in common life, were adjoining to their houses.

Water, in the absence of which every plant is burnt up, during the raging heats of an oriental summer, is indispensable in their gardens. All those near Aleppo are on the banks of the river, which refreshes that city and the surrounding fields, or on the sides of the rill which supplies their aqueduct; the rest of the country is converted, by the scorching beams of the summer sun, into an arid waste; the gardens only retaining their verdure, on account of the moisture supplied from the river. A garden without a refreshing stream, is quickly deprived of its shade, stripped of its vegetation, and converted into a joyless desert. This will enable us to form a clear and vivid idea of the energy with which the following declaration of Isaiah would fall on the ear of a Jew: "For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water." So necessary is a sufficient supply of water for the cultivation, and even for the preservation and existence of a garden in those regions, that not one is to be found unprovided with a certain supply, either from some neighbouring river, or from a reservoir, collected from springs, or filled with rain water in the proper season, in sufficient quantity to afford an ample store for the rest of the year. The necessity of an abundant supply, is evident from the emphatical manner in which the sacred historian states, concerning the seat of primeval innocence, that "a river went out of Eden, to water the garden." The habitation of upright man was formed by the unsparing hand of Jehovah himself, and stored with every s Russel's Hist. vol. i, p. 51. + Isa. i, 30.

plant and tree that was pleasant to the sight, and good for food; but the circumstance of its being well supplied with water, seemed necessary to complete the picture of a garden, in the eye of an oriental. This idea is confirmed and illustrated by the management of the gardens which enclose the city of Damascus, described in the first part of this work." The finest object which met the eye of Maundrell, at the palace of the emir of Beroot, (ancient Berytus,) and the most deserving of remembrance, was the orange garden. It contains a large quadrangular plat of ground, divided into sixteen smaller squares, four in a row, with walks between them. The walks are shaded with orange trees, of a large spreading size. Every one of these sixteen smaller squares was bordered with stone; and in the stone work were troughs, contrived with great art, for conveying the water all over the garden; little outlets being cut at every tree, for the stream as it passed by, to flow out and water it. The royal gardens at Ispahan, according to Kempfer's description, are watered precisely in the same manner." The same method of irrigation has been followed in the east from time immemorial; for Homer leads the streams of a gelid fountain through the extensive gardens of Alcinous.*

These statements give us a clear idea of the (b) Palgay maim, mentioned in the first Psalm, and other places of Scripture, the divisions of waters; or, the waters distributed in artificial canals. The prophet Jeremiahr has imitated and elegantly amplified the figure used by

▾ See Maundrell's Journey, p. 39.

u Vol. i, p. 230. w Morier's Trav. vol. i, p. 163, and vol. ii, p. 162. In Hindostan, according to Forbes, they water their gardens in the same way. Orient. Mem. vol. i, p. 252. * Odyssey, lib. vii, 1. 130.

the Psalmist: "He shall be like a tree planted by the water side, and which sendeth forth her roots to the aqueduct; she shall not fear when the heat cometh; but her leaf shall be green; and in the year of drought she shall not be anxious, neither shall she cease from bearing fruit." It gives us also the true meaning of that beautiful proverb; "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, as the small streams, or canals of water: He turneth it whithersoever he will." The direction, even of the king's heart, is in the hand of Jehovah, as the distribution of water through the garden by different canals, is at the will of the gardener.a

b

Such distant imitations of the garden of Eden, were numbered among the pleasures in which Solomon indulged, and which he mentions as works on which he set a particular value: "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits; I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." The supposed remains of these magnificent undertakings, have been described by more travellers than one, who visited and examined them in the course of their wanderings. The reservoirs, which still bear the name of the powerful and splendid monarch by whom they were probably constructed, are three in number, lying in a row above each other, being so disposed, that the waters of the uppermost may descend into the second, and those of the second into the third. Their figure is quadrangular; the breadth is the same in all, amounting to about ninety paces: in their length there is

Jer. xvii, 8. - Prov. xxi, 1.

a Lowth on Isaiah, vol. ii, p. 22, 23, 24. b Eccl. ii, 4, 5, 6.