48 BARLEY. 



just in leaf when in another perhaps in Egypt it was ripe; 

 and not only so, but within sight of the same hill some crops 

 are ripe while others are quite green and unfit to cut. Gene 

 rally the crops near Jerusalem are ready for the harvest about 

 the latter part of March, and farther north, toward Tyre, not 

 till April; whereas about Beirut and Damascus the farmer must 

 wait till the middle and close of April. The Arabs, however, 

 plant barley at various times out of the barley-season; and 

 therefore it has been seen ripe as late as July : in such cases 

 it has to be watered by hand. It is now cultivated for horses 

 and for making bread, but for the latter purpose it was more 

 generally used in ancient times than at present. 



The Israelites doubtless first learned the use of barley in 

 Egypt, where it was so long known as to be considered origin 

 ally the gift of Osiris, their god, to whom its discovery was 

 attributed. Herodotus says* that the Egyptians drank a &quot;liquor 

 fermented from barley,&quot; which seems to have been a kind of 

 wine rather than beer; and even in modern times a traveller 

 (Pococke) speaks of a beer made of this grain which was 

 drunk among the poorer Arabs whom he visited, but its intoxi 

 cating qualities were due to something with which it was 

 mixed. Among the Caffres barley furnishes an intoxicating 

 drink from simple fermentation, though unmixed. As the 

 Israelites must have been acquainted with this drink, which 

 appears to have been much stronger than the wines of the 

 East, it probably formed the &quot; strong drink&quot; referred to in the 



* Euterpe, 77. 



