60 AGRICULTURE. 



Europe passed to the Indies do not escape his observation ; 

 and he settles the track of Solomon's voyage from Eloth 

 to Ophir. For this varied information he cites, among his 

 authorities, the sacred books of Exodus, Kings, and 

 Chronicles, and appeals to the secular testimony of Hero- 

 dotus, Theocritus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, 

 and Eusebius. Having thus happily dispatched Egypt, 

 our author proceeds to Babylon. We learn, on the au- 

 thority of Herodotus, Pliny, and Strabo, that the drainages 

 of Belus and Gobaris were effected by improved outfalls, 

 whereas their female successors in the art, Semiramis and 

 Nitocris, worked by embankments. Nor are we left igno- 

 rant that it was Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion that the 

 reason why " there is so little written of Belus, who 

 succeeded Nimrod as the first Assyrian monarch, is that he 

 spent much of his time in disburdening the low lands of 

 Babylon, and drying and making firm grounds of all those 

 great fens arid overflown marshes which adjoined to it." 

 Passing into Greece, our author, who never rashly rejects 

 the miracles of a heathen god or of a popish saint, holds 

 an even hand between Thessalian tradition, which imputes 

 the draining of the lake Ba3beis to Neptune, and the 

 opinion of Herodotus, which inclines to an earthquake ; 

 " but," says he, " no man can deny it to be a very remark- 

 able work of draining, or that it is now a place of extra- 

 ordinary pleasantness." Unless our schoolboy recollections 

 deceive us, either some " Musa Etonensis" or old Latin 

 poet says, 



" Ut ferus Alcides Acheloia cornua rupit, 

 Dum petit amplexus, Deianeira, tuos." 



We now learn, with reference we suppose to this story, 

 that Achelois roared as a river, and not as a bull, and that 

 the mythical horn broken off by Hercules was one of the 

 river's devious courses ; for " they which collect truth out 

 of fables say that Hercules, who was generally beneficial, 

 for (Eneus his father-in-law's sake restrained the exorbi- 



