pears, when one thinks of the nature and habits of these animals. Ewes go with young twenty-one weeks; they are only in season once in the year; they give milk about three months, under the present management of stock in Britain, but would give it much longer if allowed; they could not, therefore, have lambs twice, far less thrice, in the year. The difficulty then resolves itself, into two. or three at a birth; the first of which is common among full-fed sheep in Britain, and the last may be as common in warmer latitudes. b Sheepshearing seems to have been a season of rejoicing, as we learn from the histories of Laban, Judah, and Nabal; and if it was performed at the same season as travellers tell us it is now, it, must have been near the beginning of March, old style. But the seasons and climates regulate this, for sheep are never shorn in any country, till the old fleece is so raised from the skin, as that the shears can clip in the new growth. Accordingly, sheepshearing is two months later in Britain than in Judea; which Harmer has shown to be the average time, between the ripening of the productions in the two countries. The following picture of a goat-herd tending his charge, as given us by Hasselquist, p. 166, may perhaps be descriptive of the Jewish shepherds : "On the road from Acra to Seide, (or Sidon,) we saw a herdsman, who rested with his herd of goats, which was one of the largest I saw in this country. He was eating his dinner, consisting of half ripe ears of wheat, which he roasted and ate, with as good an appetite as a a Gen. xxxi. 19; xxxviii. 12. 1 Sam. xxv. 4.. Clarke's edit. d a Turk does his pillaws: he treated his guests with the same dish, and afterwards gave us milk, warm from the goats, to drink. Roasted ears of wheat are a very ancient dish in the East, of which mention is made in the book of Ruth." Lightfoot tells us that the Jewish shepherds drove their flocks either to the wilderness or the plains devoted to pasturage, where they fed through the summer; and that they were watched night and day till Marchesvan, or the middle of October, when the autumnal rains began to fall, and they returned home: which account agrees with the information given to us by modern travellers. For we are told that the shepherds, when they have no, other shelter, lodge in caves, of which there are. many vestiges still about Askelon, or in black. coloured tents of goats' hair: that, before June, "the eastern hills are oftentimes stocked with shrubs, and a delicate short grass, which the cattle are more fond of, than of such as is common to fallow ground and meadows. Neither is the grazing and feeding of cattle peculiar to Judea, for it is still practised all over Mount Libanus, the Castravan mountains, and Barbary, where the higher a He refers to Ruth. ii. 14. b Heb. and Talm. Exer. on Luke ii. 8. e" By desert, or wilderness," says Dr. Shaw," the reader is not always to understand a country altogether barren and unfruitful, but such only as is rarely or never sown or cultivated; which, though it yields no crops of corn or fruit, yet affords herbage more or less for the grazing of cattle, with fountains or rills of water, though more sparingly interspersed than in other places." (Travels, p. 9, note.) d The Rev. Henry Martyn on 5th July, 1811," met some shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night," not far from Tebriz, where Sir Gore Ousely, the British ambassador, then was. (Memoir, p. 462.) e Zeph. ii. 6. grounds are appropriated to this use, as the plains and valleys are reserved for tillage; for, besides the good management and economy, there is this farther advantage in it, that the milk of cattle, fed in this manner, is far more rich and delicious, at the same time that their flesh is more sweet and nourishing." Such is the way in which they shift about, during the spring months. In the summer season, or from June till the autumnal equinox, Dr. Russell tells us, that " they take their flocks to feed beside streams, where alone verdure is to be found."b And in the autumn the a goats, sheep, and cattle, are much relieved by being turned into the vineyards, and picking up the vine leaves. C I shall only add, that as, in all pastoral districts, the flocks when left to themselves, daily descend from the higher grounds in the morning, feed and rest in some low, agreeable place at noon, and ascend to the heights again in the evening; so this practice is alluded to in Scripture, when the spouse, addressing her beloved, under the character of a shepherd, says, "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon:" evidently indicating that they had a certain daily range, and that some shady place was selected, to shelter them from the midday sun. Virgil, when treating of sheep in his 3d Georgic, line 327, speaks of their beginning to rest at the fourth hour, or ten o'clock, when the heat began to be oppressive and in Plato's Phædon, we read of προβατα μεσεμβριάζοντα, or sheep reclining at noon under a shade, by a still fountain. a Shaw, p. 338. d Cant. i. 7. b Page 10. c Harmer, vol. i. Pref. lxxviii. e Page 1230. SECT. VII. State of Gardening among the Jews. Kitchen garden; plants of; manner of rearing them. Vineyards, very numerous; frequent allusions to them in Scripture; supposed proportions of profit to the owner and occupier. Flower-gardens mentioned in Scripture; sometimes abused to idolatrous and obscene purposes: the Floralia of the Romans: orchards and shady walks of the Jews: trees and shrubs planted in them. Fences of loose stones; hedges; mud walls; stone regularly built. Gardens supplied with water: frequent allusions to this in Scripture. Maundrell's account of it. Fruits watched while ripening in temporary huts; elegant towers; chiosks; an account of one.-Their manner of making trees fruitful; rule for preserving or destroying them. A calendar of the time when fruits come in season at Sheeraz, in Persia, as an approximation to those in Judea. The daily wages of hired labourers. BESIDES the lands which were devoted to agriculture and pasturage, it was usual for the Jews to inclose a certain portion for gardens, either for utility or pleasure. Hence the kitchen garden, the vineyard, the flower-garden, and the orchard. We know but little of the plants which a kitchen garden contained; but, in general, we may remark, that the great wish of the eastern nations hath always been to procure an abundance of such fruits as, on the one hand, by their cooling nature, allay the heat of the summer months; and, on the other, those herbs of a hot quality, which give a tone to their digestive powers, when debilitated by heat. Hence, while their general food was wheat, barley, rye, fitches, millet, lentils, beans, &c. their great care, during the summer months, was to have a plentiful and continued supply of cucumbers, melons, and gourds, to serve, in place of water, to allay the thirst; and of onions, leeks, garlic, anise, cummin, cassia, cinnamon, coriander, mustard, juniper, &c. to mix with their dishes, in order to give them a high season, and assist digestion. It appears, indeed, strange to an European, when he hears of the very hot, and highly-seasoned dishes of the East, where the climate itself is of so high a temperature. But God has wisely placed the articles for highest seasoning, in the warmest latitudes, that the same cause which debilitates, by excessive and continued heat, the powers of digestion, might produce in abundance those articles which could correct that debility, and assist the languid powers of nature. In the production of these vegetables little care was necessary. Hasselquist, in his Travels, p. 160, observes, that the inhabitants of Nazareth, in Galilee, "had no spades, but a kind of hoe, or ground axe." And Niebuhr says, "instead of a spade the Arabs of Yemen make use of an iron mattock, (an instrument mentioned in Is. vii. 25,) to cultivate their gardens, and the lands in the mountains, which are too narrow to admit the plough." The turning up of the earth, therefore, with these simple instruments, a plentiful manure, the extirpation of weeds, and a regular application of water, were all that were requisite to produce an abundant crop of vegetables for the kitchen, where the climate in other respects was so favourable. Vineyards were in great abundance in Judea, sometimes in elevated situations, and sometimes in Description de l'Arabic, p. 137. a |