214 On the Soil, Productions, &fc. of Palestine. 



a change in the road. Where the want of room to deviate from the 

 old path, or any other cause, has for a long time confined the travel 

 to a single track, a narrow channel is usually worn deep into the 

 earth, or even into the face of the rock, which is ordinarily paved, 

 or half filled up with rolling stones, thus forming the worst possible 

 foot hold, and the most uncomfortable accommodation to the feet of 

 the patient horse or donkey. 



The great road leading across the plain from the Damascus 

 gate, at Jerusalem, has been worn by travel and washed by rains 

 till it has the appearance of a deep artificial trench, into which an 

 infinite number of small rolling stones have been gathered from the ad- 

 jacent fields. It is hardly necessary to remark that, where there are no 

 roads there can be no wheel carriages. I did not see so much as a 

 cart or a wheelbarrow in the Holy Land. Solomon and some other kings 

 had carriages, and the invaders of the land often increased the terror 

 of their approach by war-chariots. It is evident, however, that the 

 royal equipages must have been confined to a few short routes, and 

 these ill- adapted instruments of war could never have left the plains ; 

 The hill country was as unfavourable as possible to their movements, 

 and it is sufficiently evident that convenient artificial roads never 

 existed here to any great extent, with the exception of the few 

 military routes constructed by the Komans during their sway over 

 these countries. 



Every reader will appreciate the influence of the circumstances 

 here enumerated upon the general appearance of Palestine, and per- 

 ceive that, altogether, they must modify the face of the entire re- 

 gion into a landscape, as unlike as possible to any thing we are ac- 

 customed to look upon in this western hemisphere. The contrast 

 will be still heightened, and rendered more perfect if he will be at 

 the pains of recollecting some of the no less striking peculiarities 

 that attach to the living features of the picture ; that the people wear 

 neither hats, bonnets, nor stockings ; that both sexes appear in loose, 

 flowing dresses, and red or yellow slippers ; the men wear red caps, 

 with or without turbans ; the women are concealed by white veils, 

 with the exception of the eyes. 



It has not fallen within my plan to allow much space to observa- 

 tions upon the character and condition of the present inhabitants of 

 Palestine ; I have, indeed, enjoyed fewer opportunities for becoming 

 acquainted with the rural population than I could have wished, and 

 than I expected. My chief attention was due to the natural features 

 of the country, and to the remains of antiquity still existing upon its 

 surface — objects which, from their manifold and profoundly interest- 

 ing relation to sacred history, must ever attract the principal re- 

 gard of intelligent and Christian travellers in the Holy Land. My 

 illness on the termination of my journey through the desert, brief as 

 it was, left me little time for less important pursuits and inquiries. 



The inhabitants of Palestine are Arabs ; that is, they speak the 



