On the Soily Productions, &fc. of Palestine. 213 



lately mentioned between Safet and Tyre, I saw no native wood in 

 Palestine. As a general remark, the entire country is bare, and the 

 eye wanders to the boundaries of the visible horizon. The traveller 

 prosecutes his journey, day after day, without seeing a single forest 

 tree, with the exception, perhaps, of a stunted thorn, less than a dozen 

 of feet in height, or a few diminutive prickly oaks, not more than two 

 or three inches in diameter. 



Another remarkable feature, which is universal, and only less 

 striking than the former in its influence upon the landscape, is the 

 entire want of enclosures in the agricultural districts. There are 

 neither fences, walls, nor hedges, nor any substitute for them, the 

 whole country being one immense common. The only exception is 

 found in a few enclosed gardens and vineyards close to the walls of 

 some of the towns. Th© limits of a field are usually marked by a 

 narrow strip of unploughed ground — sometimes by a rough pillar or 

 heap of stones. The crops are secured against the cattle only by the 

 watchful care of the herdsman, who usually keeps them at a distance 

 upon the hills. The peasant is liable to perpetual injury from this 

 quarter. Our muleteers never hesitated to ride into a field of wheat, 

 and graze their animals upon the growing or ripening harvest ; and 

 so universal is this abuse, and so little respected are the rights of pro- 

 perty, that the peasants do not even remonstrate, but look in silence 

 upon the wasting of the fruit of their labours. 



I have lately had occasion to notice the rare instance of a solitary 

 rural cottage, which I passed near the fortress of Tibinin. I do 

 not remember another such instance in Palestine. The people con- 

 gregate in villages, seated, usually, upon some point of the mountain 

 or hill that overlooks the valley, where they perform their daily la- 

 bours. There are no barns or other buildings in the plains. The 

 harvest is thrashed upon the field by the treading of oxen or horses, 

 and the grain carried home to the village, or to the market. The ef- 

 fect of these gregarious habits to increase the general aspect of de- 

 solateness and waste may be readily imagined. 



Another peculiarity of great importance and effect in giving to 

 the landscape its dreary and special character, is the want of roads, 

 of which there are none in Palestine. Travel and transport being 

 all performed on the backs of beasts of burden, which usually move in 

 single file, the most important routes are only marked by narrow wind- 

 ing paths, that receive their direction from the ever varying features 

 of the region over which they pass. The soil is often so hard as to 

 take no impression from the feet of animals, and the eye of an un- 

 practised traveller there perceives, even upon a common thorough- 

 fare, no evidence that others have passed along the same way. No 

 repairs are ever made — no labour employed to remove an obstacle 

 or prevent a breach. If a rock rolls down from the mountain, or a 

 chasm is made by a sweeping torrent, the next passer goes around it 

 the best way he can, and henceforth there is, to the needful extent, 



VOL. XLII. NO. LXXXIV. — APRIL 1847. P 



