152 AN EPITOME OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Dr. Guyon refers to a flight which passed over the plain 

 of Sebdon, occupying three hours in its passage. The 

 locusts, finding nothing to devour in the desert, speedily 

 returned, and made a descent upon the plain of Sebdon, 

 which may roughly be computed as eight to ten miles in 

 breadth. In four hours all the crops were destroyed, all 

 the vegetation had disappeared. The locusts left behind 

 them an infectious odour of putrescent herbs, produced by 

 their excretions. 



It has been remarked, says Mr. Tristram, that Palestine, 

 in its physical character, presents, on a small scale, an 

 epitome of the natural features of all regions, — mountain- 

 ous and desert, northern and tropical, maritime and in- 

 land, pastoral, arable, and volcanic. This fact, which has 

 rendered the Biblical allusions so rich and various as to 

 afford familiar illustrations to the people of every climate, 

 has had its natural influence on the zoology of the country. 

 In no other district — not even on the southern slopes of 

 the Himalaya — are the tropical fauna of so many distinct 

 zones and regions brought together in such close juxta- 

 position. The bear of the snow-clad summits of Lebanon 

 and the gazelle of the desert may be hunted within two 

 days' journey of each other ; sometimes even the ostrich 

 approaches the southern threshold of the Sacred Land; 

 the same echoes respond to the howl of the northern 

 wolf and the cry of the tropical leopard ; and while we 

 are reminded of our English woodlands by the song of the 

 linnet and the bunting, we are transported to the Bird 



