FROM ACRE TO NAZARETH. 133 
continue the journey. The Cactus Ficus-Indiais, chap. 
or Prickly Pear, which grows to a prodigious ', .^m / 
size in the Holy Land, as in Egypt, where it is 
used as a fence for the hedges of inclosures, 
sprouted luxuriantly among the rocks, displaying 
its gaudy yellow blossoms, amidst thorns, 
defying all human approach'. We afterwards 
saw this plant with a stem, or trunk, as large 
as the main-mast of a frigate. It produces a 
delicious cooling fruit, which becomes ripe 
towards the end of July, and is then sold in all 
the markets of the country. 
Sapphura, or Sepphoris, now Sephoury, was Sapphhra, 
once the chief city and bulwark of Galilee-. st^Joris. 
The remains of its fortifications exhibited to us 
an existing work of Herod, who, after its de- 
struction by Varus, not only rebuilt and fortified 
(l) It is applied to the same use in the fiTest Indies. Baron De Tott 
notices its importance, as a fence, in the Holy Land. " The Indian 
Fig-tree, of which the hedges are formed, serves as an insurmountable 
barrier for the security of the fields." (AJemoirs, vol. II. p. 312. Lmid. 
1785.) It might, in certain latitudes, answer temporary purposes, as 
an outwork of fortification. Artillery has no effect upon it; fire will 
not act upon it ; pioneers cannot approach it ; and neither cavalry nor 
infantrj' can traverse it. 
ftvif/tiym ^uo'iof, xa) f^av^av cKeu rov 'iHvevi tffafii*r,f. " Sepphoris, qnte GaUltBtr 
.■maxima, et in tutissimo loco condita, i,itiusqtie geni/s fiUura preesidio."" 
Joseph, lib. iii. Bell. Jud. cap. 1. p. 8.'>2. 
