194 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
The arid mountainous regions in the south of the Holy Land, 
blistered by unmitigated light and heat, are destitute of that 
beautiful coloration which Mosses and Lichens give to our alpine 
rocks ; the trunks of the trees are bare of all such adornment ; 
while the vague ruins scattered over the face of the country 
have no drapery of beauty to soften their harsh aspect, and 
harmonize them with the bosom of nature to which they are slowly 
returning—no venerable appearance to impress the mind with 
a sense of their vast antiquity. There are no shady woods or 
forests anywhere, and very few trees of sufficient age or size to 
afford a secure and quiet resting-place for the slow growth of these 
patient plants. Such full-grown trees have been cut down during 
the devastating wars that have swept over the country age 
after age; and the peasantry have wantonly destroyed them for 
fuel. Even fruit-trees are not nearly so numerous as we 
should be led to expect in a land so well adapted for their 
cultivation. The marvel, indeed, is, that there should be any 
at all; considering that fruit-trees are annually taxed, to the 
amount of several piastres from the very year that tlley are 
planted, by the oppressive government. or these reasons, the 
scenery of Palestine lacks that look of completeness which the 
upholstery of Grass, and Fern, and Lichen, and Moss gives to 
our own country. It seems to be more a sketch or outline than 
a finished picture. And even when we admire the glowing hues 
which the ardent sun gives to its naked rocks—for the less ver- 
dure the more light and colour—we long for the soft greenness - 
which the tiny forms of the vegetable world give to our own 
woodland nooks ; for the mossy carpets that steal all noises from 
the foot in our forests, and for the silvery lichens that give to our 
pines the appearance of mystic Druids in solemn conclave, in those 
haunts that are dear to the heart of the botanist under the 
shadow of the Grampians. 
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