Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/90

 ing the climate and the productions of Greece, of Italy, of France, and of Spain.

As to Palestine, the ruins which now crown almost every one of its hill-tops, and the very significant fact of the remains of spacious theatres in districts where now human habitations are scarcely seen, afford incontestable evidence of the existence of a dense population in times that are not more remote than the Christian era. Galilee, at that time, and Decapolis, and the rich pasture-lands beyond Jordan, the Hauran, and Gerash, and Bosrah, as well as all the towns of the coast, teemed then with the millions of a population which mainly, if not entirely, was fed from the home soil. At the time of the return of the people from Babylon, and for the three centuries following, every acre supported its complement of souls; and the country, according to its quality, returned a full recompence to the husbandman, in every species proper to the latitude:—abundant it was in its dates, its olives, its vines, and its figs; in its cereals, its herds, with their milk and butter; and, not of least account, its honey. These are facts of which the evidence meets us on every page of ancient literature where this garden-land is named.

It is most of all in the hill-country of Judea, throughout which the bare limestone basement of the land now frowns upon the sky, that the negligence of the people and the misrule of their masters have wrought the greatest mischief. Throughout