trodden by oxen or buffaloes. When the withered grass, however, was not burnt, it was often eagerly collected to "cast into the oven," or put under the plate where they baked their bread.

The wealth of the eastern pastoral tribes consists chiefly in sheep, goats, camels, oxen, and asses. Job, before his affliction, had 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 oxen, and 500 she-asses, and after his recovery he lived so long as to have double that number. And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep master, and paid the king of Israel as a tribute an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. Indeed, the numbers belonging to some of the Arab emirs are truly astonishing. Sir John Chardin saw one whose flocks extended ten leagues; and near Aleppo he saw a clan of Turcomans passing with 400,000 beasts of carriage, camels, horses, asses, oxen, and cows, and three millions of sheep and goats. This he had from many of the principal drivers, although there is great reason to believe them exaggerated. These animals, however, were not for show merely, for they commonly turned them to great account by selling them at every city as they passed for any articles of manufacture which were needed by their numerous establishment, or, as was most commonly the case, for large quantities of the precious metals. We are not to suppose, however, that the Jews could have such immense numbers as those mentioned above, since their country was limited in extent, and divided among a great number of proprietors; yet we have several particulars concerning them which ought to be noticed. Thus, to defend their flocks from the weather, and from wild beasts during the night, they

Exod. xxii. 6. d 2 Kings iii. 4.

e

had numerous folds or sheepcots." For improving the breed, they preferred the bulls of Bashan," and the rams of Bashan and of Nebaioth. But the proportions allotted to each of the kinds are very different from what is allowed in modern practice, being one he-goat or ram to ten she-goats or ewes, and one bull to four cows; at least, that was the proportion which Jacob fixed upon in his present to Esau. Modern farmers would think one to forty or even sixty of each kind not too much but perhaps Jacob gave that number to Esau as a change of breed to his flock. Their care was peculiarly excited in the yeaning season, when some were heavy with lamb, others were giving suck, and the lambs in general were easily hurt: hence Jacob makes it an excuse to Esau why he could not travel quickly, that the flocks and the herds were accompanied by their young, and that one day's overdriving would be fatal to many of them. And Sir John Chardin confirms the patriarch's observation from his own experience; for he tells us that when travelling in the East, he saw "their flocks eat down the places of their encampments so quick, by the great numbers they had, that they were obliged to remove them too often, which was very destructive to their flocks, on account of the young ones, who had not strength enough to follow." The commentators have been much puzzled sometimes to explain the "bis gravida pecudes," of Virgil, Georg. ii. and the triple offspring of the Libyan ewes, mentioned by Homer, Odyss. iv. 86; but the difficulty disappears when one thinks of the nature and habits of these animals. Ewes go with young twenty-one weeks; they are only in season once in the year; they give milk about three months under the present management of stock in

a Num. xxxii. 16. 24. 36. 1 Sam. xxiv. 3.

b Ps. xxii. 12.

e Gen. xxxii, 14, 15.

Harmer, Ob. i. p. 126.

Britain, but would give it much longer if allowed; they could not, therefore, have lambs twice, far less thrice, in the year. The difficulty then resolves itself into two or three at a birth; the first of which is common among full fed sheep in Britain, and the last may be as common in warmer latitudes.-Sheepshearing seems to have been a season of rejoicing, as we learn from the histories of Laban, Judah, and Nabal;a and if it was performed at the same season as travellers tell us it is now, it must have been near the beginning of March, old style." But the seasons and climates regulate this, for sheep are never shorn in any country till the old fleece is so raised from the skin, as that the shears can clip in the new growth. Accordingly, sheepshearing is two months later in Britain than in Judea; which Harmer has shown to be the average time between the ripening of the productions in the two countries. The following picture of a goatherd tending his charge, as given us by Hasselquist, p. 166, may perhaps be descriptive of the Jewish shepherds: "On the road from Acra to Seide, (or Sidon,) we saw a herdsman, who rested with his herd of goats, which was one of the largest I saw in this country. He was eating his dinner, consisting of half ripe ears of wheat, which he roasted, and ate with as good an appetite as a Turk does his pillaws: he treated his guests with the same dish, and afterwards gave us milk, warm from the goats, to drink. Roasted ears of wheat are a very ancient dish in the East, of which mention is made in the book of Ruth." Lightfoot tell us that the Jewish shepherds drove their flocks either to the wilderness or the plains devoted to pasturage, where they fed through the summer; and that they were

a Gen. xxxi. 19. xxxviii. 12. 1 Sam. xxv. 4. Harm. Ob. ch. i. ob. 33. Clarke's edit.

He refers to Ruth ii. 14.

watched night and day till Marchesvan, or the middle of October, when the autumnal rains began to fall, and they returned home: which account agrees with the information given to us by modern travellers. For we are told that the shepherds, when they have no other shelter, lodge in caves, of which there are many vestiges still about Askelon, or in black coloured tents of goats' hair: that, before June," the eastern hills are oftentimes stocked with shrubs, and a delicate short grass, which the cattle are more fond of than of such as is common to fallow ground and meadows. Neither is the the grazing and feeding of cattle peculiar to Judea, for it is still practised all over Mount Libanus, the Castravan mountains, and Barbary, where the higher grounds are appropriated to this use, as the plains and valleys are reserved for tillage; for, besides the good management and economy, there is this farther advantage in it, that the milk of cattle fed in this manner is far more rich and delicious, at the same time that their flesh is more sweet and nourishing." Such is the way in which they shift about during the spring months. In the summer season, or from June till the autumnal equinox, Dr. Russell tells us, that "they take their flocks to feed beside streams, where alone verdure is to be found." And in the autumn the goats, sheep, and cattle are much relieved by being turned into the vineyards, and picking up the vine leaves. I shall only add, that as, in all pastoral districts, the flocks when left to themselves daily descend from the higher grounds in the morning, feed and rest in some low, agreeable place at noon, and ascend to the heights again in the evening; so this practice is alluded to in Scripture, when the spouse, addressing her beloved under the character of a shepherd,

Zeph, ii. 6. ▷ Shaw, p. 338. • P. 10. d Harmer, vol. i. Pref. lxxviii,

says, "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon:" evidently indicating that they had a certain daily range, and that some shady place was selected to shelter them from the mid-day sun. Virgil, when treat ing of sheep, in his 3d Georgic, line 327, speaks of their beginning to rest at the fourth hour, or ten o'clock, when the heat began to be oppressive: and in Plato's Phadrus, we read of лроẞalα μεσεμẞpiaživla, or sheep reclining at noon under a shade, by a still fountain.

SECT. VII.

State of Gardening among the Jews.

Kitchen garden; plants of; manner of rearing them. Vineyards, very numerous; frequent allusions to them in Scripture; supposed proportions of profit to the owner and occupier. Flower-gardens mentioned in Scripture: sometimes abused to idolatrous and obscene purposes: the Floralia of the Romans orchards and shady walks of the Jews: trees and shrubs planted in them. Fences of loose stones; hedges; mud walls; stone regularly built. Gardens supplied with water: frequent allusions to this in Scripture. Maundrell's account of it. Fruits watched while ripening in temporary huts; elegant towers; chiosks; an account of one.-Their manner of making trees fruitful; rule for preserving or destroying them. A calendar of the time when fruits come in season at Sheeraz, in Persia, as an approximation to those in Judea. The daily wages of hired labourers.

BESIDES the lands that were devoted to agriculture and pasturage, it was usual with the Jews to inclose a certain portion for gardens, either for utility or pleasure. Hence the kitchen garden, the vineyard, the flower-garden, and the orchard.

We know but little of the plants which a kitchen garden contained; but, in general, we may remark, that the great wish of the eastern nations hath always been to procure an abundance of such fruits as, on the one