that every Church has had its relics, so universal is a passion for the marvellous. Some authors ascribe the origin of Jaffa to Japhet, son of Noah, and thence derive its name. However fabulous such accounts may be now deemed, they afford proofs of the great antiquity of the place having been recorded by historians, for so many ages, as the only traditions extant concerning its origin. Jaffa is also celebrated as the port whence the prophet Jonas embarked for Tarshish, when commanded to preach repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh. Here also St.

Peter restored Tabitha to life 5. In the time of St. Jerom it was called Japho". DOUBDAN gives a long account of its history in later times. It was fortified in the beginning of the thirteenth century, by Louis king of France. An Arab fisherman at Jaffa, as we were standing upon the beach, came running to us with a fish he had just taken out of the water; and, from his eagerness to shew what he had caught,

CHAP.

IX.

(4) "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish." Jonah i. 3.

(5) Acts ix. 40.

(6) Adrichom. Theat. Terr. Sanct. p. 23.

(7) Voyage de la Terre Saincte, p. 496.

Colon. 1628.
Paris, 1657.

(8) A.D. 1250. Vid. Adrichom. Theat. T. S. ubi supra.

CHAP.
IX.

It

we supposed it could not be very common.
was like a small tench, but of a bright emerald
green colour, such as we had never seen before,
nor since; neither is it described by any author
that we are acquainted with.
We had no
means of preserving it, and therefore would
not deprive the poor man of an acquisition with
which he seemed so delighted, but gave him a
trifle for the gratification its very extraordinary
appearance afforded to us, and left it in his
hands. Notwithstanding the desolate appear-
ance of the town, its market surprised us, by
the beauty and variety of the vegetables it
exhibited. Melons of every sort and quality
were sold in such number, that boats from all
the coast of Syria came to be freighted with
them. Among these, the water-melons were in
such perfection, that, after tasting them at Jaffa,
those of any other country do not seem like the
same fruit'. Finding that the vessel sent by

(1) We found near Jaffa four undescribed plants, with several others that were rare, particularly the Anabatis spinosissima of Willdenow. Ed. Lin. Spec. Plantarum. The new species were as follow.

I. A non-descript species of PLANTAGO, with flat linear curved leaves, about two, or two and a half, inches long, bristly on both sides, and at the edges; the flower-stalks hoary, with flat pressed hairs, and rising above the leaves; the spikes cylindrical, a little curved, from one to two inches and a half long; the stamens longer than the blossoms, but much shorter than the woolly style.

IX.

Djezzar Pasha to convey us to Acre had not CHAP. arrived, and that boats laden with fruit were daily sailing thither, Captain Culverhouse, fearful of detaining his frigate a moment after the supplies for the fleet had been completed, judged it prudent to engage a passage for us in one of these boats. We therefore took leave of our aged and respectable host, the English Consul; and upon the evening of July the fifteenth, after sun-set, we embarked for Acre, to avail ourselves of the land-wind, which blows during the night, at this season of the year. By day-break the next morning we were off the Voyage coast of CESAREA, and so near to the land, Coast. that we could very distinctly perceive the

along the

This species seems to come nearest to the Plantago cylindrica of
Forskahl, which is unknown to us. We have called it PLANTAGO
SETOSA. Plantago foliis linearibus planis utrinque marginibusque
setoso-asperis; scapis pilis adpressis canescentibus foliis longiori-
bus; calycibus nudis margine laceris; corollæ laciniis ovato-trian-
gularibus; stylo pubescente longissimo.

The

II. A very small non-descript prostrate species of St. John's Wort,
HYPERICUM Linn. with inversely ovate leaves and terminal
flowers, and the teeth of the calyx entire at the margin.
stems are from one to four or five inches long, the leaves hardly
the fourth of an inch; the blossoms yellow, rather more than
half an inch across. We have called it HYPERICUM TENELLUM.
Hypericum prostratum, glabrum; floribus terminalibus trigynis
subcorymbosis; calycis dentibus integerrimis margine glandulosis ;
caulibus filiformibus brevibus; foliis cuneato-obovatis, punctatis
glabris.

III. A

446

CHAP.
IX.

Cæsarea.

appearance of its numerous and extensive ruins. The remains of this city, although still considerable, have long been resorted to as a quarry, whenever building materials were required at ACRE. Djezzar Pasha, as it has been already mentioned, brought from hence the columns of rare and beautiful marble, as well as the other ornaments, of his palace, bath, fountain, and mosque, at Acre. The place at present is inhabited only by jackals and beasts of prey. As we were becalmed during the night, we heard the cries of these animals until day

III. A minute, nearly stemless, umbelliferous plant, seldom rising to an inch in height, with simple linear leaves a little hispid at the edges; the fruit hispid, as in Caucalis, but the flowers and the whole habit of the plant as in Bupleurum; to which genus we have added it, by the name of BUPLEURUM MINIMUM; and the more willingly, as two other species, the Bupleurum semicompositum of Linnæus, and the Bupleurum procumbens of Desfontaines, have also seeds more or less hispid Bupleurum subacaule,

ramis quadrangulis brevissimis; foliis sublinearibus margine asperis; involucello pentaphyllo umbellulâ vix breviore; fructu hispidissimɔ. IV. A small downy annual species of Scabious; SCABIOSA, Linn. about

five inches in height; the leaves pinnatifid, with their lobes distant from each other; the heads of flowers upon long peduncles, with a five-leaved common calyx; the flowers purple, unequally five-cleft, not radiating; the seeds with a downy plume of about fifteen rays. Not only the leaves, peduncles, and common calyx, but even the outside of the flowers, are downy. We have called it SCABIOSA DIVARICATA. Scabiosa pubescens, annua; corollulis quinquefidis laciniis inæqualibus; calycis lacyniis septenis, inæqualibus, lanceolatis; coronâ obsoletâ, pappo plumoso; foliis pinnati

break. Pococke mentions the curious fact of
the former existence of crocodiles in the river of
Cæsarea'. Perhaps there has not been, in the
history of the world, an example of any city.
that in so short a space of time rose to such
an extraordinary height of splendor, as did this
of Cæsarea; or that exhibits a more awful
contrast to its former magnificence, by the
present desolate appearance of its ruins. Not
a single inhabitant remains. Its theatres, once
resounding with the shouts of multitudes, echo
no other sound than the nightly cries of animals
roaming for their prey.
Of its gorgeous
palaces and temples, enriched with the choicest
works of art, and decorated with the most
precious marbles, scarcely a trace can be dis-
cerned3. Within the space of ten years after
laying the foundation, from an obscure fortress
it became the most celebrated and flourishing
city of all Syria. It was named Cæsarea by
Herod, in honour of Augustus, and dedicated
by him to that Emperor, in the twenty-eighth

CHAP.

IX.

(1) Pococke's Observations on the East, vol. II. p. 58. Lond. 1745. (2) See the account of it in Josephus. De Antiq. Jud. lib. xv. c. 13. (the buildings were all of marble), lib. xvi. c. 9. Colon. 1691.

(3) Herod caused the Tower of Strato to be completely covered with white marble, against the arrival of Augustus.