THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
15 
of Israel, and one of whose kings, the giant Goliah, 
was killed by the smooth pebble from the brook 
slung by the youthful David. 
Then there were the Hitites, a most extensive 
nation, which exerted so much power, and played 
such an important part in the early history of 
Palestine and the surrounding countries, but of 
whose own history we are only just beginning to 
learn some piece-meal notion through the search- 
light of recent exploiations. 
Nor must we forget the ever wandering sons of 
the desert, the descendants of Abraham and 
Ismael, and whose distinctive mark has been that, 
“their hand has been against every man, and 
every man’s hand against them”— as, alas! it still 
too often continues to be. 
It was in tents, often pitched within sight of 
the azure expanse of the Great Sea, that the 
grand old patriarch Abraham, after leaving his 
native land, Ur of the Chaldeas, for precisely 100 
years ruled in primoeval simplicity, his command 
being a law to all, his numerous retainers and 
their offspring forming much of a family with 
their lord, and, when necessary, going to battle 
with him against hostile chiefs. 
It was the glorious region washed by the eastern 
skirts of the Great Sea which God swore to give 
to Abraham and his posterity as a reward for his 
obedience, promising to make his seed as the 
sand which was upon the sea-shore — where 
Abraham had doubtless often wandered— for num- 
ber; and when after 400 years of captivity and 
durance vile in Egypt, when his descendants re- 
turned to take possession of the promised land, we 
find Caleb and Joshua ladened with the phenomenal 
cluster of grapes which told so plainly of the 
soil and the magnificence of the sub-tropical 
climate'. But all of this is thrown into the shade 
by the grand scenes of the life, death, and resur- 
rection of Christ, which took place on the borders 
of the Mediterranean, from whose stormy crest 
the apostle sailed, whose earnest teaching was to 
overturn the colossal pagan empire of Coesar, and 
to declare the illegality of slavery. 
Was it not when the waters of the Mediterra- 
nean rose above the everlasting snowy peak of 
Mont Blanc, Kasbek, and Ararat, that that most 
magnificent specimen or marine architecture, the 
ark, safely bore the priceless freight which served to 
link the antidiluvial world with our own, while on 
the subsiding ilood shone forth in all of its pris- 
matic effulgence the first rainbow of promise? 
Strange must the anomaly appear to Britons that 
such a keenly commercial people as the Jews, 
Noah’s lineal heirs, should never have built a lar- 
ger craft to float on the waters than cockle-shell 
fishing boats such as those on the Lake of Galilee! 
Not so their immediate neighbours the Phoenicians. 
Tyre early became the emporium of the civilized 
world: to her million merchant princes the Medi- 
terranean was the highway by which material 
prosperity, wealth, luxury, poured all of their re- 
sources into the lap of her citizens. From this 
port caravans of camels started for Assyria, Persia, 
Arabia, distant India: never of old were such 
untold treasures concentrated as there, or did such 
motley representatives of oriental races jostle each 
other as in her dingy, narrow streets eager to dis- 
play her magnificence; nothing could become her 
pride but the purple-dyed silks and cloths which 
the Emperors of Rome long after adoptee! as the 
emblem of imperial majesty. Listen, to the un- 
matched description given in the prophet Ezekiel, 
chap. XXVII. 
“ Tyre situated at the entry of the sea; a mer- 
chant of the people for many isles which said. “/ 
am of perfect of beauty; whose borders were in the 
midst of the sea, whose builders perfected her beauty , 
who made all her shipboards of fir t rees of Senir , 
and. took cedars from Lebanon to make masts for 
her. Of the oaks of Bathan did they make her 
oars , the company of the Ashurites made her ben- 
ches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittion. 
Fine linen with braided work from Egypt was that 
which she spread forth to ' be her sail; blue and 
purple from the isles of Elishah teas that which 
covered her. The inhabitants of Zidon and, Arvad 
- were her mariners; her wise men that were in her 
were her pilots; the ancients of Gebal and the wise 
men thereof were her calkers, all of the ships of the 
sea with their mariners were in her to trad- in her 
merchandize. They of Persia, and of Lud, and of 
Phut were in her army, her men of war, they hanged 
the shield and helmet in her , they set forth an come- 
liness. The men of Arvad with her army were upon 
her walls round about, and the Gammadins were 
in her towers; they hanged the shields upon her 
walls round about , they made her bea uty perfect. 
