Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/100

 of the dew—bedded as they are in spontaneous profusion upon soft cushions of heather, and divans of sweet thyme—invite millions of bees, and of the most showy of the insect orders:—flowers, perfumes, butterflies, birds of song, all things humble and beautiful, here flourish, and are safe—for man seldom intrudes upon the smiling wilderness!

Nevertheless, skirting the flowery plains of Palestine, in a few spots, there are yet to be found secluded glades, in which the cypress and the acacia maintain the rights of their order to live; and where, as of old, "the birds sing among the branches." And so live still, on spots, the fruit-bearing trees—the apricot, the peach, the pear, the plum, the fig, the orange, the citron, the date, the melon, the tamarisk, and—noblest of all fruits—the grape, "that maketh glad man's heart:" all still exist, as if in demonstration of what God has heretofore done for this sample land of all lands, and may do again.

A sample land, in every sense, was the ancient Palestine to be, and therefore it was so in its climate. The round of the seasons here exhibits a greater compass of meteorologic changes—there are greater intensities of cold and of heat—there is more of vehemence in wind, rain, hail, thunder, lightning, not to say earthquake, than elsewhere in any country between the same parallels of latitude, and within limits so narrow. Altogether unlike to this condition of aerial unquietness are the neighbouring coun-