MOSKS AT YEBNA.-POPULATION.-HARBOR.

147

the minaret indicates that it was built in the seven hundred and eighty-eighth year of the Moslem era, or about the close of the fourteenth century. But though so recently erected, the materials probably belonged to more ancient structures. Lieutenant Conder says that the interior length is forty-nine feet, and the width thirtytwo feet. It has the ordinary kibleh, or Moslem prayer-niche, on the south side; but the tradition that it was originally a church. can scarcely be true, if its erection was so recent as the end of the fourteenth century, for there is no evidence that Yebna had at that time a Christian population sufficiently numerous to call for such an edifice. Lieutenant Conder discovered two inscriptions on the walls of a mosk, called Abu Harîreh, situated on the west of the village, one of which has the name of Bibars, the celebrated Sultan of Egypt, with 673 A.H. as the date; and the other date, 693, has the name of Melek el Mansûr Kalâwûn. Neither of these mosks claim any pretensions to architectural beauty, and both are evidently of Saracenic origin.

The ancient inhabitants must have had temples and idols in abundance; for when Judas Maccabeus had overthrown Gorgias, he found, under the coats of every one that was slain, things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites. Then every man saw that this was the cause for which they were slain.' Strabo says that Jamnia and its vicinity were so densely inhabited that it sent forth forty thousand armed men. Pliny speaks of two Jamnias-the one before us, and another on the seaboard. This last is mentioned in 2 Maccabees xii. 9; and Judas is said to have set fire to the haven and the navy, so that the light of the fire was seen at Jerusalem!

The sea is about three miles distant, but the harbor has entirely disappeared. On the shore near Tell Rubîn are some traces of ancient fortifications, erected to defend the harbor, which appears to have been a place of importance in the days of Jamnia's prosperity. All the Philistine cities along the coast-Ashdod, Askelon, Gaza-appear to have had similar havens, called Majuma; but they have been swept away, and from Jaffa to the confines of Egypt there is not now a single harbor where even a native boat can find shelter. From Yebna to Jaffa is three hours and a half. Coming this

way, the road leads through fruit- orchards for more than half an hour, and then keeps along the border of vast downs of white sand for nearly two hours to Wady Haneîn, in which are traces of ancient buildings at different places. The remains of Sŭrafend are up that valley to the north-east; and the wady descends to the sea on the north side of Tell Rubîn, where is also a wely of the same

name.

A considerable ridge extends back eastwards, spreading out in different directions; and between it and Yebna is a deep valley, through the centre of which descends the brook of Wady Sărâr, which turns to the north-west below Yebna, and then unites with Wady Haneîn near Tell Rubîn.

Yebna is situated on and about a hill, which declines west

SUMMER THRESHING-FLOORS.

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wards towards the sea; and it may contain three thousand inhabitants, all Moslems, and all given to agriculture. Their territory is large and of surpassing fertility. Steam-ploughs would work wonders in the plain of Philistia; and the time must come when they, or something else better adapted to the character of this country, will take the place of the rude native ploughs which have been in use from patriarchal times down to the present day. But, even with this imperfect mode of cultivation, the harvests of Yebna are very abundant. When I passed this way early in June, many years ago, there were hundreds of men, women, and children reaping, gleaning, and carrying the grain to their great threshingfloors. Long lines of camels, bearing on their backs burdens of unthreshed wheat larger than themselves, were slowly converging to the village from every part of the plain; and the grain lay on the threshing-floor in heaps mountain-high.

Some very interesting incidents in Biblical history are associated with threshing-floors. It was at the threshing-floor of Atad that the sons of Jacob made that "sore lamentation" for their father; "wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim," because it was "a grievous mourning to the Egyptians." Gideon was "threshing wheat by the wine-press, to hide it from the Midianites," when "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?""" "And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite. And Gad came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite." And thus it came to pass that upon this threshing-floor was erected, in process of time, that temple to which the people of Israel went up to worship God for more than a thousand years.

The common mode of threshing is with the ordinary mowrej, which is drawn over the floor by a yoke of oxen, until not only the grain is shelled out, but the straw itself is ground into chaff. To

1 Gen. 1. 10, II.

2 Judg. vi. 11-14.

8 2 Sam. xxiv. 16-18.

facilitate this operation bits of rough lava are fastened into the bottom of the mowrej, and the driver sits or stands upon it. It

is rare sport for children, and even our own delight, to get out to the baidar, as the floor is called, and ride round upon the mowrej.

Do you suppose that these floors which we see at Yebna and elsewhere resemble those so celebrated in ancient times?

They have, perhaps, changed less than almost anything else in the country. Every agricultural village and town in the land has them, and many of them are more ancient than the places whose inhabitants now use them. They have been just where they are,

THRESHING-FLOORS.-EGYPTIAN MOWREJ.

151 and exactly as they were, from a period "to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." In very many cases the topographical conditions of the sites necessarily decided the place of the threshing-floors. It must be an unoccupied spot near the outside of the village, in a place exposed to the prevailing wind, and sufficiently large for one or more of these floors. Generally there are several in the same vicinity.

The construction of the floors is very simple. A circular space, from thirty to fifty feet in diameter, is made level, if not naturally so, and the ground is smoothed off and beaten solid, that the earth may not mingle with the grain in threshing. In time the floors, especially on the mountains, are covered with a tough, hard sward, the prettiest, and often the only, green plots about the village, and there the traveller delights to pitch his tent. Daniel calls them summer threshing-floors; and this is the most appropriate name for them, since they are only used in that season of the year.

The

entire harvest is brought to them, and there threshed and winnowed, and the different products are then transferred to their re. spective places. In large villages this work is prolonged for several