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JOURNAL R. A. S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. III. 



calling at that Island. We are all familiar with the Willow 

 pattern dishes, the design of which was got from China ; now 

 the Willow there represented, as well as in many of the Chi- 

 nese paintings of landscapes, is this very species, for it is 

 indigenous to, and very common in, China. In thus glancing 

 at the familiar facts connected with the Willow, how strange 

 are the associations produced in our minds. We first think 

 of the captive Israelites, who because they cannot sing in a 

 strange land, hang their harps upon the Willows ; then we are 

 carried by thought to the tomb in the far off Ocean Isle, 

 where lately lay the remains of one of the greatest wholesale 

 murderers that ever cursed this earth ; and lastly we are 

 borne along to a people (the Chinese) who seem generally 

 to be much in the same state as they were 2000 or 3000 

 years ago, but who are fast being brought face to face with 

 the civilization of modern Europe, — the civilization of tribes 

 unheard of in ancient Babylon, and still styled " barbarians " 

 by those who arrogate to themselves the title of " Celestials." 



Hyssop. 



" He (Solomon) spoke of trees, from the cedar tree that is 

 in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the 

 wall." (I Kings iv. 33.) 



" Also, when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and 

 fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, 

 and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall 

 fail : because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners 

 go about the streets." (Eccles. xii. 5.) 



A great deal of learned discussion has taken place in refer- 

 ence to the Esopli of the old, and the Hyssopus of the New 

 Testament, translated in all cases "Hyssop"; and instead, of its 

 being the plant well known to most of us as the common 

 Hyssop, it is now generally believed that species of Caper 

 {Capparis spinosa or C. Egyptiaca) was the plant meant, and 

 indeed is the best suited for the several requirements of the 



