THE FLOWERS AND FRUITS OF PALESTINE.

The flowers and fruits of any distant land always present an interesting subject for the consideration of the botanist, the florist, and of all others who, either for scientific purposes or from a natural taste for such objects, take pleasure in gathering information concerning them. But if this is the case with regard to the flowers of the world in general, how much deeper interest must attach to those of that land in which our Lord and Saviour was born, in which he passed his childhood and youth, and at last ended this earthly life on the cross! How must His eye, both as child and man, have been charmed with the beautiful flowers which bedecked the hedges and meadows amidst which he walked! How often must he have refreshed himself with the rich fruits, the grapes, and melons, and pomegranates, which God had so freely poured forth on that land of promise! Even now, though in fulfilment of His threatened wrath God has laid bare and desolated that country, Palestine shows to those who traverse her hills and valleys that the land is capable of producing the finest flowers and fruits, if duly brought under culture. Fine old sycamore trees, "luxuriant plantations of orange and lemon trees as large as English apple trees, their golden fruit gleaming amidst the glossy foliage, groves of olive trees, shrubby thickets of oak, terebinth (the tribe to which the walnut, pistachio nut, and hickory belong), pine trees, cypress, and palms, and a variety of other beautiful trees adorn the hills and fields.

Mrs. Finn, in her pleasant book, "Home in the Holy Land," from which I have taken many extracts, and to which I am indebted for much information, describes their Christmas decoration to consist of olive branches, mistletoe (which grows abundantly on the old olive trees, and bears dark red berries), crimson-tinted terebinth, and feathery pine, evergreen oak with glossy leaves like holly, and arbutus in the full glory of its scarlet berries. There were also orange and palm branches.

We read in the Bible of the "cedars of Lebanon," the "oaks of Bashan," and the willows; of the fig-tree, and the vine, and the almond-tree. Mr. Porter, in his account of the "Giant Cities of Bashan," says: "The highest peaks of the mountains of Bashan were before us, wooded to their summits. On each side were terraced slopes, broken here and there by a dark cliff or rugged brake, and sprinkled with oaks; in the bottom of the dell below, a tiny stream. The fruit we had seen in Bashan leaped joyously from rock to rock, while luxuriant evergreens embraced each other over its murmuring waters. From the top of every rising ground we looked out over jungle and grove to grey ruins, which here and there

reared themselves proudly over dense masses of foliage. Diving into a dell by a path that would try the nerves of a mountain-goat, we crossed the streamlet, and wound up a rocky bank, among giant oaks and thick underwood, to an old building which crowns a cliff impending over the glen.” Everywhere in Bashan he speaks of "giant oaks ;" and also on the coast of Galilee he describes the scenery as "clothed with the evergreen foliage of the oak and terebinth, while thickets of aromatic shrubs and velvety lawns of verdant turf sprinkled with flowers fill up the forest glade." And again, he tells us of streams playing with the oleander flowers away down in deep shady beds, "the mountain sides all furrowed with their glens, so retired, so musical, so fragrant, so wildly picturesque."

In addition to these trees we find mention made of pomegranates, with lovely scarlet blossoms and glossy green foliage. This, then, as a standard, and in its natural state, bears considerable resemblance to our English hawthorn. It grows from twenty to thirty feet in height, forming a branchy twiggy tree, seldom found with a clean stem unless it has been pruned into form. The flowers grow at the end of the branches, and the globose fruit contains a rich red pulp, with many red grains within. "It opens lengthways and shows these grains, full of juice like wine, with little kernels." It will not be forgotten that the garment of the High Priest was, by God's command, decorated with alternate pomegranates and golden bells. The spies sent by Moses to view the Promised Land brought of the pomegranates, as well as of the grapes and figs of the land, as samples of its fruitfulness (Numbers xiii. 23); and Joel, describing the desolations of the country, says: "The vine is dried up; the figtree lauguisheth; the pomegranate - tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy continues away from the sons of men."

But, leaving the trees, let us see what Mrs. Finn and others say about the flowers: "When the wind was too keen on the mountain tops we descended into the valleys in search of flowers; sometimes to the Vale of Hinnom, for early cyclamen, whose broad variegated leaves and delicate pink and white blossom grew in the clefts of the rock, and were often high up out of our reach, but not too high to be worth coming to look at. Sometimes we went further down into the valley of the Kedron, where the almond-trees were in blossom, and the latest crocuses mingled with the yellow stars-ofBethlehem (dwarf iris), blue eyebright, and marigolds; sometimes north of Jerusalem, to the upper part of the valley of Jehoshaphat,

where the finest anemones grew. I gathered
one about four inches in diameter. But by the
end of January every hill and sunny slope was
scarlet with millions of those beautiful flowers.
In the sides of the rocky tombs we often found
ferns, chiefly maiden-hair. Some of the loveliest
flowers were most difficult to preserve; the iris,
for example, and most of the white flowers.
One day we came upon a plant with long
broad leaves growing close to the ground-
something like the dock. Its flowers, of a rich
velvety purple, grew in a bunch in the centre,
and had a strong perfume-pungent as of wine.
This was the mandrake, and I was told that it
bears a fruit which the Arabs like to eat. How
everything that is now seen by travellers in
this land of solemn interests illustrates the
Bible! We read, in Canticles vii. 13., "The
mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all
manner of pleasant fruits." This plant is pro-
bably the one that Reuben found, and gave to
his mother. There are various traditions about
the uses of the root in medicine, and there is an
old belief that when being drawn out of the
ground it uttered a groan, as of a human being
in anguish, and that he who had the presump-
tion to dig it up, became mad and died when
he heard this groan.
To this Shakespeare
alludes:

"And shricks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad."

scented stock," which emits a sweet heliotropelike odour only after night-fall, and marigolds, and our own borage, with its exquisite blue, are also to be found all growing together with "melons and vetches, scarlet, yellow, and purple; ragged-robin, fumitory, and campion; wild mignonette and trailing briony; half-a-dozen kinds of clover, yellow ranunculus and yellow stock, and several varieties of cranesbill. One of the latter was very beautiful, large, and of an exquisite blue; but so fragile that we could only secure it early in the morning. It dropped off when the sun was high. Towards the end of the month scarlet poppies begin to come out here and there; early buds of the rich crimson everlasting, salvias, yellow flax, corn-flowers, gladioles, and hollyhocks come in April." This "everlasting" is in another part described as of a rich crimson, with white downy leaves, and a salvia with spikes of rich violet flowers; also one with white and another with crimson flowers, but smaller; and after the brilliant scarlet anemones had passed away, their place was supplied by the equally brilliant scarlet ranunculus in rich abundance.

Amongst the tombs of the judges grows a beautiful bell-shaped clematis (Clematis orientalis), white, tinged with the faintest green, festooning the rocks with its delicate flowers and dark glossy leaves-the flowers later in the year, superseded by bunches of feathery seed lying amidst the rocks like snow-flakes, much as those of our own Clematis vitalba, the oldTo obviate this danger, and yet obtain posses-man's-beard, or traveller's-joy do about Torquay sion of the magical root, it is said that the men of old used to tie a dog to the root, and make him pull up the root, thus transferring the penalty to him. The juice is supposed to supply a narcotic:

Nor poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep."

and other places in England.

The Valley of Roses, lying S.W. from the Bethlehem-road, and at the opening of an old Roman road leading to Gaza, must be a lovely scene. Very many of the fields in the valley are planted with roses, and they also flourish amongst the rocks. "Most of the flowers are pink; but some were white and some black. The rose-bushes were covered with half-opened buds, but there were very few blown roses, for The fruit of the mandrake is like a bitter green the women gather them every morning and apple about the size of a walnut. "Iris of vel-carry them to the market in Jerusalem, where vety purple, and yellow star-of-Bethlehem, set off each other's beauty; and here and there among the scarlet anemones was one SO dazzlingly bright that the eye could not rest upon it."

The "eyebright" here spoken of is Euphrasia latifolia; the iris a lovely little flower, Iris florentina (?); the star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum the white and O. stachyódes[?] the yellow), is a sort of squill, which is occasionally found in our own woods. There is a blue pimpernel not unlike our red one, "the shepherd's weather-glass" as it is called in country districts. The grape hyacinth (Muscari moschatum), a flower with a deep blue tint and over-powerful scent-one of the same tribe to which our starch hyacinths so common in old-fashioned gardens belongs-is another of the common flowers of the field, in Palestine, and the pheasant's eye (Adonis autumnális) another. The little dark brownish "night

they are sold in large quantities to the convents, for distillation of rose-water for the churches." In May we find "There had been roses in the market for some days; but here (in the road of the Convent of the Cross) were scores of women carrying millions of roses.' This was about nine in the morning, and their baskets and sacks on their heads were filled with roses, shedding the most delicious fragrance around. "Presently another troop came up - stout young women barefooted; several of them carried a child, slung in a hammock, at their back. * * * Going forward, we came on a much prettier scene than one before described. There is a little aqueduct which conveys the water from the upper pool into the city. Where it crosses the road we found our friends the rose-women of the villages congregated, and washing their fragrant burdens. How pretty they looked in their dark blue dresses, and bending over the stream, now filled with hundreds and thousands

of many-tinted roses-white, delicate pink, blush, | Tristram mentions that in passing through and full red! Each woman appeared to have thorny thickets near Jericho, the clothes of his taken a bit of the stream for herself, tucked up whole party were torn to rags; and in addition her dress, stepped into the water, and emptied to the immense variety of natural thorns, for her sack and her baskets into it; the ruddy hue which there are at least twenty different names of her flowers, being reflected, cast a glow in the Bible, several prickly plants have been on the olive-coloured faces, and the pretty introduced from other countries: as, for instance, amuleted arms were plunged again and again the Opuntia, or Indian fig-a species of cactus among the roses till they were all well washed, that came originally from America, and is now or rather wetted. *** Presently came up a widely diffused over the whole East. man, driving a flock of kids, long-eared, black, silky-haired, and very young. They forthwith jumped down into the water amid the roses. Great was the confusion, charming the spectacle. The shepherd leans on his staff, enjoys the mischief, and the nymphs pelted the kids with roses, and were at length fain to take them up in their arms and fling them out upon the land. How it ended we did not see, for the kids sprang back again with irrepressible agility, and we walked on.”

As a reverse side to this bright scene I will quote a passage from a paper in the "Sunday Magazine" for June, 1867: "It is a remarkable circumstance that whenever man cultivates nature, and then abandons her to her own lawless energies, the result is far worse than if he had never attempted to improve her at all. There are no such thorns found in a state of nature as those produced by the ground which man has once tilled, but has now deserted. In the waste clearings amidst the fern brakes of New Zealand, and in the primeval forests of Canada, thorns may now be seen which were unknown there before. . . . No country in the world, now that it has so long been out of cultivation, has such a large variety, and such an immense abundance of thorny plants, as the once-favoured heritage of God's people-the land flowing with milk and honey.'

Travellers call the Holy Land "a land of thorns." Giant thistles, growing to the height of a man on horseback, frequently spread over regions once rich and fruitful, as they do on the pampus of South America: and many of the most interesting of the historic spots and ruins are rendered almost inaccessible by formidable thickets of fiercely-armed buckthorns. Entire fields are covered with the troublesome creeping stems of the spinous Ononis, or "Rest-harrow;" while the bare hill-sides are studded with the dangerous capsules of the Paliurus, or Tribulus. Rows of the most prickly kinds abound on the lower slopes of Hermon, while the sub-tropical valleys of Judea are choked up in many places by the thorny Lyceum (Box-thorn), whose lilac flowers and scarlet fruit cannot be plucked, owing to erect branches crowned at all points with spines. The feathery trees of the Zizypus spina Christi, or "Christ's-thorn," that fringe the banks of the Jordan, and flourish on the marshy borders of the Lake of Gennesaret, are beautiful to look at, but terrible to handle, concealing as they do, under each of the small delicately-formed leaves of a brilliant green, a thorn curved like a fish-hook, which grasps and tears everything that touches it. Mr.

:

Amongst these introduced spiny plants is the prickly pear (Cactus Tuna). Everything has two sides though the rose has its thorns, it has also its delicious perfume and delicate form and colour; and though the prickly pear, like its congener, the Indian fig above described, is by no means a pleasant thing to handle, yet it produces a refreshing and delightful fruit, as well as serving as a defence to keep marauders from an easy entrance into the fields and gardens where other dainties are growing. Mrs. Finn says, "I stood watching the groom, who had brought in a basket of prickly pears. How they were to be got out of their thorny shell I could not imagine; but he was very clever, and first rolled them in sand, which broke most of the prickles, and then, with one stroke of the knife, slit open the shell without touching it; and there within lay the golden fruit, about the size of an egg. The prickly pear is one of the most wholesome and refreshing fruits of Palestine. Cold as ice when gathered in the early morning, it serves as a tonic for the stomach; but woe betide anyone who may ignorantly touch one before it is shelled. The thorns are very numerous, and grow in little bunches all over it. They are very fine, hard, and brittle, colourless, and perfectly straight-that is, of the same fineness at both ends-so that while they go deep into the skin, it is difficult to see, or draw them out."

If the fruits in general of the Holy Land are even now rich and abundant, what must they have been, when the whole land lay smiling, under the blessing of God, on a large and industrious population! We read of "mountains of water-melons and grapes" in the Mulets; of green and purple figs; of pomegranates, and oranges, and almonds, and of various other fruits. The water-melons vary in size from 8 to 30 or 40lbs. in weight. Mrs. Finn writes: "My Siloam milk-woman had brought me, on her head, a large basket of apricots from her sister's orchard at Bethany. What a picture they were! Not amber-coloured all over, like the early apricots of a few weeks before, which came from Gaza, but with blushing rosy cheeks, like nectarines." Their Christmas pudding, though scarcely in all its parts coming under our exact subject, must not pass without notice.

"There were raisins from the other side Jordan; flour from Samarian wheat; the spicebazaar produced very good and fragrant nutmegs, and cinnamon, and cloves, and all-spice, and others whose English names I do not know, brought by the Mecca pilgrims from Arabia; citron, and lemon, and orange from Jaffa pre

A FEW WORDS ABOUT FRENCH CATHEDRALS.

After the death of Pope Eugene III. in 1153, there had been two Popes in five years, viz., Anastasius IV. and Adrian IV. election which took place on the death of the latter caused a great schism in the church. The two that had been chosen were Roland, Cardinal of St. Mark, who was called Alexander III. and Octavian, Cardinal of St. Cecilia, who took the name of Victor IV. The French and English Kings (Louis le Jeune and Henry II.) had to decide which of the two had been duly elected, and to which they owed submission as the true Pope. Decision was given in favour of Alexander III.

In the windows of the little Church of Gayton, Northamptonshire, there are four pieces of stained glass, which once ornamented Beauvais Cathedral.

OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT.