IRRIGATION IN PALESTINE. 
369 
tine, for example, is composed, in a great measure, of rounded 
limestone hills, once, no doubt, covered with forests. These 
were partially removed before the Jewish conquest.* When 
the soil began to suffer from drought, reservoirs to retain the 
waters of winter were hewn in the rock near the tops of the 
hills, and the declivities were terraced. So long as the cisterns 
were in good order, and the terraces kept up, the fertility of 
Palestine was unsurpassed, but when misgovernment and for- 
all annual crops require irrigation during the whole period of their growth. 
As fast as the water retires by the subsidence of the annual inundation, the 
seed is sown upon the still moist uncovered soil, and irrigation begins at 
once. Upon the Nile, you hear the creaking of the Avater wheels, and 
sometimes the movement of steam pumps, through the whole night, while 
the poorer cultivators unceasingly ply the simple shadoof, or bucket-and- 
sweep, laboriously raising the water from trough to trough by as many as 
six or seven stages when the river is low. The bucket is of flexible leather, 
with a stiff rim, and is emptied into the trough, not by inverting it like a 
wooden bucket, but by putting the hand beneath and pushing the bottom 
up till the water all runs out over the brim, or, in other words, by turning 
the vessel inside out. 
The quantity of water thus withdrawn from the Nile is enormous. 
Most of this is evaporated directly from the surface or the superficial 
strata, but some moisture percolates down and oozes through the banks 
into the river again, while a larger quantity sinks till it joins the slow cur¬ 
rent of infiltration by which the Nile water pervades the earth of the 
valley to the distance, at some points, of not less than fifty miles. 
* “Forests,” “woods,” and “groves,” are very frequently mentioned 
in the Old Testament as existing at particular places, and they are often 
referred to by way of illustration, as familiar objects. “ Wood” is twice 
spoken of as a material in the New Testament, but otherwise—at least ac¬ 
cording to Cruden—not one of the above words occurs in that volume. 
This interesting fact, were other evidence wanting, would go far to 
prove that a great change had taken place in this respect between the 
periods when the Old Testament and the New were respectively com¬ 
posed ; for the scriptural writers, and the speakers introduced into their 
narratives, are remarkable for their frequent allusions to the natural 
objects and the social and industrial habits which characterized their ages 
and their country. 
Solomon anticipated Chevandier in the irrigation of forest trees: “1 
made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth 
trees.” —Ecclesiastes ii, 6. 
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