DEAR E

LETTER XVIII.

To SIR G. E――T, BART.

Jaffa.

IF Pliny's authority is of any value, and in this instance I humbly think it is not worth a great deal, Joppa is to be considered an ANTEDILUVIAN town. The naturalist's account, you will observe, is wonderfully brief: he alludes to the traditional date of its structure as an admitted chronological truth, and does not condescend to furnish a single argument in proof of so extravagant an assertion. The same writer appears to consider this coast as the scene of Andromeda's exposure to the sea monster; and a much graver

1 Joppe Phoenicum antiquior terrarum inundatione, ut ferunt. Insidet colli præjacente saxo, in quo vinculorum Andromeda vestigia ostendunt.

NAT. HIST. lib. v. cap. 13.

author (St. Jerome) has deliberately affirmed, that in his time the links of the chain were visible, with which the daughter of Cepheus was bound to the rock!

Allusions of this nature may serve to give a momentary interest to the classical tourist; but the traveller who takes the scriptures for his guide, will be much more affected by the recollection that it was from hence that the disobedient prophet embarked for Tarshish, when expressly commissioned by the

1 According to Josephus, Tarshish means Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia; but later writers have conjectured it to be the same with Tartessus, the most distant town in the extremities of Spain. The land of Israel being, in a certain sense, the immediate residence of God, the prophet who " rose up to flee from his presence," naturally sought a country remote from Judæa, and therefore bent his course towards the western borders of the Great Sea. That there are fishes sufficiently large to swallow a human creature, there can, I presume, be no question: the scripture calls that, which was made the instrument of Jonah's sufferings, a great fish: much, therefore, of the wit and pleasantry which have been exercised on this subject is disarmed of its point. Traditions respecting the place where the priest of Nineveh was discharged from his prison, are various amongst the different tribes of oriental nations; they prove at least, that a belief in his peculiar chastisement was general throughout those regions. It is related, says Josephus, that after remaining three days in the carcase of the animal, he was disgorged on the shores of the Euxine, without having suffered any per

LORD to preach repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh.

The Arabs pronounce the name of this town as if it were written Yâfa, though I believe without any reference to the etymology of the ancient term, which has been interpreted to signify beauty and grace. Jaffa was long the principal sea-port of Judæa, its distance affording an easy communication with the capital, and its geographical situation opening an extensive trade to all the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean; the harbour has of late years been inaccessible to vessels of large burthen, from an accumulation of sand, propelled in this direction by the

sonal injury: here he besought the Almighty to pardon his transgression, and having received an assurance of forgiveness, proceeded to the city of Nineveh, and executed the commission with which he had been charged.

"As to the assertion," observes Mr. Whiston, “that Jonah's fish was carried by the strength of the current, upon a storm, as far as the Euxine Sea, it is no way impossible; and since the storm might have driven the ship, while Jonah was in it, near to that Euxine Sea, and since in three days more, while he was in the fish's belly, that current might bring him to the Assyrian coast, and since withal that coast could bring him nearer to Nineveh than could any coast of the Mediterranean, it is by no means an improbable determination in Josephus."

prevalence of the north winds; but the mischief is not entirely irremovable, and under an efficient government Jaffa might become an emporium for the manufactures of Europe, as well as for the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of furthest India.

However deficient in other requisites, the city is abundantly provided with what must be considered of prime importance: there are two fountains within the walls, which afford an inexhaustible supply to the inhabitants, and in addition to these, there are several springs on that part of the coast which is directed towards Gaza. M. de Châteaubriand states that a slight excavation made with his hand, near the water's edge, became filled with a pure fluid. From the scrupulous accuracy of that writer, I have no doubt at all of the fact; and the circumstance may indeed be satisfactorily explained by the process of percolation. "Dig a pit," says Lord Bacon, " upon the sea-shore, somewhat above the high-water mark, and sink it as deep as the low-water mark; and as the tide cometh in, it will fill with water fresh and potable. This is commonly practised upon the coast of Barbary, where other fresh water is wanting; and Cæsar knew this well when he was besieged in Alexandria: for by

digging of pits in the sea shore, he did frustrate the laborious works of the enemies, which had turned the sea water upon the wells of Alexandria; and so saved his army being then in desperation. But Cæsar mistook the cause, for he thought that all sea sands had natural springs of fresh water: but it is plain that it is the sea water; because the pit filleth according to the measure of the tide; and the sea water passing, or straining through the sands, leaveth the saltness.”ı

1 "I remember to have read that trial hath been made of salt water passed through earth, through ten vessels, one within another, and yet it hath not lost its saltness as to become potable: but the same man saith, that, by the relation of another, salt water drained through twenty vessels hath become fresh. This experiment seemeth to cross that other of pits made by the sea side; and yet but in part, if it be true that twenty repetitions do the effect. But it is worth the note, how poor the imitations of nature are in common course of experiments, except they be led by great judgment, and some good light of axioms. For first, there is no small difference between a passage of water through twenty small vessels, and such a distance, as between the low-water and the highwater mark: secondly, there is a great difference between earth and sand; for all earth hath in it a kind of nitrous salt, from which sand is more free; and besides, earth doth not strain the water so finely, as sand doth. But there is a third point, that I suspect as much or more than the other two; and that is, that in the experiment of transmission of the sea water into pits, the water riseth; but in the experiment of