Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/102

 climate, it was the congener of all climates—as it was also in its adaptation to modes of life, and to the means of subsistence. Palestine was favourable to the habits of the hunter, the herdsman, the agriculturalist, the gardener, the vinedresser, and to them that cultivate the fig, and the olive, and the date-palm. Palestine, if man be there to do his part with his hoe, and his knife, and his plough, is at once an Asiatic country, and it is European. It has its counterpart in Greece, in Italy, in France, in England, as to what is the most peculiar to each; and so it is that the Scriptures of the Old Testament are intelligible (in those allusions to Nature with which they abound) to the greatest number of the dwellers on earth; and that the countries in which these allusions might not be understood are as few as they could be.

It is not possible to determine how far changes of climate throughout the surrounding countries have had influence in giving to the aerial aspect of Palestine that clear, sharp, and unpictorial visibility which is now its characteristic. This clearness does not fail to attract the eye of the traveller who visits the Holy Land, with the aerial phenomena of his own landscape scenery in his recollection: striking is the contrast that presents itself in this respect. The hill country of Judea—itself now bare, and almost treeless—is seen through a medium which throws upon its hills and rocky surfaces an aspect of hardness and poverty: so it is that the home of sacred mysteries