On the Soil, Productions, Sfc. of Palestine. 209 



rility, it is difficult to believe that a region once so famed for its 

 exuberant fruitfulness should have fallen into a degree of barrenness 

 which returning civilization and industry might not easily remedy. 

 The other class of writers appear chiefly concerned to remove or pal- 

 liate this difficulty ; and while they depict the existing evidences of 

 the natural fertility of the soil in terms that often awaken some suspi- 

 cion of exagsjeration, they are ever making large allowance for the ob- 

 servable and wide-spread effects of the prophetic malediction. Per- 

 haps I describe the mistaken views of ill-informed readers rather 

 than the sentiments of any considerable number of respectable 

 travellers and writers who have treated of this country. I have at 

 least expressed the impressions derived from my reading upon the 

 subject, and which I carried with me to the Holy Land. 



It is quite certain, I think, that some portions of Palestine, once 

 fertile, are now irreclaimable. The entire destruction of the wood 

 that formerly covered the mountains, and the utter neglect of the 

 terraces, which supported the soil upon steep declivities, have given 

 full scope to the rains, which have left many tracts of bare rock, 

 where formerly were vineyards and corn-fields. It is likely, too, 

 that the disappearance of trees from the higher grounds, where they 

 invited and arrested the passing clouds, may have diminished the 

 quantity of rain, and so have exposed the whole country, in a greater 

 degree, to the evils of drought, and doomed some particular tracts 

 to absolute sterility. Besides these, I do not recognise any perma- 

 nent and invincible causes of barrenness, or any physical obstacles 

 in the way of restoring this fine country to its pristine fertility. 

 These causes are not peculiar to Palestine. They exist, perhaps to 

 a still greater extent, in Greece and the islands of the Archipelago, 

 and in the mountainous regions of Asia Minor. The soil of the 

 whole country has certainly deteriorated, under bad husbandry and 

 the entire neglect of the means of improvement. But a small degree 

 of skill and industry would generally be sufficient to reclaim it, as 

 must be evident to every traveller who has observed the vineyards 

 near Hebron and Bethlehem, and the gardens of Nablous. The 

 region about Jerusalem, and east towards the Dead Sea and the 

 Jordan, is the worst by far which I saw in Palestine. The moun- 

 tain tract traversed by the road to Jericho, and adjacent to that route 

 on the north, is steril, and, at least to a great extent, was always 

 so. Still, the rocky soil of the *' hill country," which extends from 

 beyond Hebron on the south to some distance north of Jerusalem, 

 and formerly included in the inheritances of Judah and Benjamin, is 

 very susceptible of being restored to profitable cultivation. The in- 

 numerable remains of terraces and cisterns, and the ruins of large 

 towns and villages thickly scattered over this romantic region, would 

 clearly demonstrate, even if both sacred and profane history were 

 silent upon the subject, that it has been densely peopled and highly 

 cultivated. By far the largest portion of this mountain tract is sus- 



