IRRIGATION IN PALESTINE. AB51 
suffer from drought, reservoirs to retain the waters of winter 
were hewn in the rock near the tops of the hills, and the decli- 
vities were terraced. So long as the cisterns were in good order, 
and the terraces kept up, the fertility of Palestine was unsur- 
passed, but when misgovernment and foreign and intestine war 
occasioned the neglect or destruction of these works—traces of 
which still meet the traveller’s eye at every step,—when the 
reservoirs were broken and the terrace walls had fallen down, 
there was no longer water for irrigation in summer, the rains 
of winter soon washed away most of the thin layer of earth 
upon the rocks, and Palestine was reduced almost to the con- 
dition of a desert. 
The course of events has been the same in Idumea. The 
observing traveller discovers everywhere about Petra, particu- 
larly if he enters the city by the route of Wadi Ksheibeh, very 
extensive traces of ancient cultivation, and upon the neighboring 
ridges are the ruins of numerous cisterns evidently constructed 
to furnish a supply of water for irrigation.* In primitive ages, 
the precipitation of winter in these hilly countries was, in great 
part, retained for a time in the superficial soil, first by the vege- 
table mould of the forests, and then by the artificial arrange- 
ments I have described. The water imbibed by the earth was 
partly taken up by direct evaporation, partly absorbed by vege- 
tation, and partly carried down by infiltration to subjacent strata 
not one of the above words occurs in that volume. In like manner, while the 
box, the cedar, the fir, the oak, the pine, ‘‘ beams,” and ‘‘ timber,” are very 
frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, not one of these words is found 
in the New, except the case of the ‘‘ beam in the eye,” in the parable in Mat- 
thew and Luke. 
This interesting fact, were other evidence wanting, would go far to prove 
that a great change had taken place in this respect between the periods when 
the Old Testament and the New were respectively composed ; for the scrip- 
tural writers, and the speakers introduced into their narratives, are remark- 
able for their frequent allusions to the natural objects and the social and in- 
dustrial habits which characterized their ages and their country. 
* One of these on Mount Hor, two stories deep, is in such good preservation, 
although probably not repaired for many centuries, that Ifound ten feet of 
water in it in June, 1851. 
