w 
ON THE HITTITES. 79 
mitting, given in the same topographical order in which the names occur in 
the book of Joshua. With the exception of a few strongholds, and some 
remote and inaccessible districts, the Israelites occupied the walled towns 
and the villages built by the Canaanites, and completed the subduing or 
terracing of the hill-sides, which their predecessors had begun. It was this 
terracing which, in its ultimate results, has reduced the country to the state 
in which we now see it. From the density of the population, every foot of 
ground was valuable. The hill-sides were girdled with terraces, like flights 
of steps, from the base to the crest of each rounded knoll, on the top of 
which was perched the little town. The primeval forest everywhere dis- 
appeared, and its place was taken by the precious olive tree, the evergreen 
foliage of which attracted the spring showers. Along the edges of the 
terraces ran the little cemented channels, which conducted the rainfall to the 
cisterns with which the whole country is honeycombed. On each step of 
the terraces, corn in spring, and a second crop of vegetables in summer, were 
raised ; while fig-trees occupied every corner, and the vine was trailed over 
every stone-heap. The land was utilised as it is in Malta to-day. 
But, in after ages, war and neglect have done their work. We have no 
reason to believe that the material prosperity of the country ever suffered 
more than temporary checks from the wars and captivities till the final 
destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Even after this, though the Jew was 
driven out, a considerable population remained, till the ruthless devastation 
and massacres by Chosroes, the Persian invader, a. D. 594, swept the land 
with the besom of destruction. The olive-trees—at least, those which had 
been spared by Titus—were cut down. With them disappeared the fertility 
of the land. There was no man left to repair the terraces or keep open the 
water-channels. Over the treeless hills the clouds in spring passed without 
shedding their showers, while the winter rains, descending in impetuous 
torrents, soon washed down the terrace embankments, and carried the earth 
into the valleys, leaving the rocky sides barren and bare, while the hollows 
were choked to a depth of many feet with rich alluvial soil. Thus by the 
reckless wickedness of man has God’s curse been accomplished. 
Yet, as after some great flood, we find in nooks and corners some waifs and 
strays of what existed before, stranded in the eddies of the backwater ; and 
as the waves of successive invasions of India have stranded on the hills and 
in the secluded valleys the remains of the Dravidians and other earlier races, 
soit has been inCanaan. The Israelite indeed has utterly disappeared ; for 
the few Jews to be found in colonies in Jerusalem and some of the towns are 
all immigrants who have returned since the time of the Crusades from Spain 
or Germany or Poland, But while the nomad population of the plains is of 
Arab descent from the followers of the Khalif Omar, and the fellaheen, or 
agricultural population of the villages is of Syrian origin, the descendants 
of the Christian settlers after Constantine, we find traces of the old 
Canaanite or Hittite in the retired mountain villages east of the central 
ridge, to be recognised by their somewhat Ethiopian physiognomy, and by 
some old heathen local customs, such as sacrificing under a sacred tree or 
