THE JUNIPER TREE 187 
of myths and legends. The Juniper was consecrated 
to the Furies, and the smoke of its green branches 
was the incense offered to the Infernal Gods, while 
its berries were burnt at funerals to keep off evil 
spirits. The renowned lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, 
hurls unsubstantiated charges of the most venomous 
nature at its devoted head. He writes that its shade 
was baleful, that its taste was bitter, that its shelter 
was a dangerous Zone to man and beast to be fled 
from precipitately by all cautiously inclined, and by 
those who walk the earth in fear of evil consequence 
from superstitious influences. As a tree we neither 
know nor can find any basis for these assumptions. 
In the face of all these disheartening qualities, many 
would-be gardeners and seekers of scenery revel to 
this day in its presence, and take delight in a sight 
of it upon many a bank and hill-side devoted to its 
production. 
In the Bible we hear much of the Juniper in the 
wilderness. As a phrase it “ falls pleasantly ” on our 
ears, for some reason as unexplained as the why and 
wherefore that the word Mesopotamia affected the 
old lady of fiction. It brought “ great support and 
comfort to her,” she confided to her pastor. 
In the incidents spoken of in Holy Writ the Juniper 
seems to have conferred the blessings of both shade 
and food to many a weary wanderer in the sun- 
scorched desert. Job pictures one, a melancholy 
derelict, who, having suffered from the derision of 
man, had sought the solitude of its sandy tracts, and 
was reduced to making a meal off the roots of a 
Juniper bush under which he rested. It reads un- 
appetising as a diet, but still, for aught we know, it 
may have given temporary satisfaction to a hungry 
outcast sunk low in his own estimation and far 
removed from any pleasures of the table ; but it is 
a recital of an experience that must not be reckoned 
