the sun shines, and there is no wind; in the open air, it is warm, and sometimes almost hot. At such times the poorer classes are accustomed to enjoy the conversation of their friends, sauntering about, or sitting under the walls of their dwellings; while the houses of the more opulent having porches or gateways, with benches on each side, the master of the mansion receives visitors there, dispatches business, and holds intercourse with his friends.* This usage will serve to illustrate a somewhat obscure passage in the book of Ezekiel (xxxiii. 30:) "Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people are still talking concerning thee, (so it should be rendered,) BY THE WALLS AND IN THE DOORS of the HOUSES, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord." It appears, from ver. 21, that these things were transacted in the tenth month, corresponding to the close of our December and the early part of January. The WINTER SEASON seems to designate the commencement or setting-in of the cold weather. The next period was distinguished as

3. THE COLD SEASON, or WINTER SOLSTICE. This comprises the latter half of Sebat, the whole of Adar, and the former half of Nisan; that is, from the beginning of February to the beginning of April. It is not, however, to be inferred that the whole of this period is characterized by intense cold. Before the close of it, the frosts disappear, the weather becomes warm, and the gardens are clothed in the beauties of spring. The narcissus blows most part of the winter; and hyacinths and violets become plentiful in the month of January. "The spring," observes Dr. Russell, "may

The same usage still obtains at Smyrna. Emerson's Letters from the Ægean, vol, i. pp. 96, 97.

be said to commence early in February. The fields which were partly green before, by the springing up of the later grain, now become covered with an agreeable verdure. The almond-tree puts forth its blossom about the middle of the month, being soon followed by the apricot, the peach, and the plum; and, though other trees remain in their leafless state till the second week of March, those which are in blossom, together with the lively vegetation of the plants beneath, give a pleasing vernal appearance to the gardens. The same winds, which are peculiarly cold in the winter, though at this time they often blow more strongly, are much less bleak; and though the sky is often loaded with black hovering clouds, accompanied with a good deal of rain, the heavy showers are of short duration; and in the variable weather, there is a large proportion of sunshine." At this season of the year, thunder, lightning, and hail are of frequent occurrence; early in April the vernal rains begin to fall, swelling the rising crops with which the valleys are covered.

4. THE HARVEST-includes the latter half of Nisan, the whole of Ijar or Zif, and the former half of Sivan; that is, from the beginning of April to the beginning of June. In the first fortnight of this season, the latter rains are frequent, but cease towards the end of April, when the sky is generally fair and serene. In the plain of Jericho, the heat of the sun is excessive; but in other parts of Palestine, the weather is most delightful. In April the spring hastens rapidly forward; the sky is more constantly clear; and the sun shining out with increasing power, the intervening showers prove not less grateful to the senses than refreshing to vegetation. The fields are in full beauty towards the end of this month, the verdure being everywhere finely variegated by an exuberance of plants, left to expand

their flowers amidst the corn. Early in May the corn begins to be yellow; from which period, the gay livery that clad the fields in the two preceding months, fades rapidly. A few weeks more bring on the harvest; and the grain near Aleppo being usually plucked up by the roots, the whole country assumes so bare and parched an aspect, that one would be apt to think it incapable of producing anything besides the few robust plants scattered here and there, which have not been torn up by the reapers, and have vigour to resist the scorching heat.*

The barley harvest commences early in May, ten days or a fortnight before that of wheat; and early in June, most of the corn of every kind is off the ground. Wheat, as well as barley, does not grow half so high as in Britain; and is, therefore, like other grain, not reaped with the sickle, but plucked up by the hand.

5. THE SUMMER-comprehends the latter half of Sivan, the whole of Thammuz, and the former half of Ab; that is, from the beginning of June to the beginning of August. During this period, the heat of the weather increases, and the nights are so warm that the inhabitants sleep on their housetops in the open air. In the East, the Harvest precedes the Summer; this explains the language of the prophet, (Jer. viii. 20,) and adds weight to his reproof: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved;" intimating that two distinct and successive periods, and those too the most favourable and fruitful, had been allowed to pass away unimproved.

6. THE HOT SEASON-called by the rabbins the Great Heat, includes the latter half of Ab, the whole of Elul, and the former half of Tisri; that is, from the begin

* Dr. Russell's Nat. Hist. of Aleppo, p. 96.

ning of August to the beginning of October. During the chief part of this season, the heat is intense; there is no cold, not even in the night, so that travellers pass whole nights in the open air without inconvenience. Lebanon is for the most part free from snow, except on its loftiest summits, and in the caverns and defiles where the sun cannot penetrate. From the middle of April to the middle of September, it seldom rains or thunders. (Prov. xxvi. 1. 1 Sam. xii. 17.) As the season advances, the face of the country becomes entirely changed; the fields, so lately clothed with the richest verdure and adorned with the loveliest flowers, are transformed into a brown and arid wilderness; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; the fountains and rivulets are dried up; and the soil becomes so hard as to exhibit large fissures or clefts. If, at this season, a single spark fall upon the grass, a conflagration immediately ensues, especially if there should be any briars or thorns, low shrubs or woods adjacent. (See allusions to this circumstance in Psalm lxxxiii. 14. Isa. ix. 18; and x. 17, 18. Jer. xxi. 14. Joel i. 19, 20.) "The very affecting images of Scripture, which compare the short-living existence of man to the decay of the vegetable creation, are scarcely understood in this country. The verdure is perpetual in England. It is difficult to discover a time when it can be said, 'The grass withereth.' But, let the traveller visit the beautiful plain of Smyrna, or any other part of the East, in the month of May, and revisit it towards the end of June, and he will perceive the force and beauty of these allusions. In May, an appearance of fresh verdure and of rich luxuriance everywhere meets the eye; the face of nature is adorned with a carpet of flowers and herbage of the most elegant kind. But, a month or six weeks subsequently, how changed is the entire scene! The beauty is gone; the grass is withered; the flower is faded; a brown and dusty desert has taken place of a deli

cious garden. It is, doubtless, to this rapid transformation of nature that the Scriptures compare the fate of man."*

LOCAL CALAMITIES.

1. THE PLAGUE. Palestine is now, as it was formerly, peculiarly liable to the visitations of the plague, which usually enters the country from Egypt, or the surrounding region. Here, emphatically, "the pestilence walketh in darkness, and the destruction wasteth at noon-day;" invading indiscriminately the palace and the cottage-scattering its venomed arrows on the wings of the wind-depopulating whole towns and villages, and converting the wide field of its desolations into one vast and sad mausoleum. Mr. Stephens relates that in the small town of Assouan, situated on the Nile, 20,000 persons were swept away by the plague in one year; and that in consequence of the terrible ravages of this scourge, the town was abandoned by the inhabitants, and a new one built at a short distance from it.t

2. EARTHQUAKES. The country being mountainous and volcanic, and near the sea, is sometimes shaken by tremendous earthquakes. We read of one that happened in the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah, king of Judah, in the year of the world 3221; and Josephus says that its violence divided a large mountain, and drove one part of it to the distance of four furlongs. Another fearful earthquake occurred at the crucifixion, when "the rocks and mountains were cleft in sunder, and the veil of the temple was

Hartley's Researches in Greece, p. 237. See also Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. 29, 30. Ransom's Bib. Topography, p. 203.

† Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and the Holy Land, p. 113.