Journey through Arabia Petraea, to Mount Sinai, and the excavated city of Petra, the edom of the prophesis . isterns, which were constructedprincipally for the use of travellers. On the declivity of the mountain we perceivedother ruins of villages, which afford traces of havingbeen inhabited at no remote period. Our guidestold us that many such ruins were to be found inthat direction. An abundant spring, and a reser-voir near it, poured their waters over the plain, andserved to irrigate the spots cultivated by the Fel-lahs. The wonderful fertility of these rare patchesof earth, in the midst of
Journey through Arabia Petraea, to Mount Sinai, and the excavated city of Petra, the edom of the prophesis . isterns, which were constructedprincipally for the use of travellers. On the declivity of the mountain we perceivedother ruins of villages, which afford traces of havingbeen inhabited at no remote period. Our guidestold us that many such ruins were to be found inthat direction. An abundant spring, and a reser-voir near it, poured their waters over the plain, andserved to irrigate the spots cultivated by the Fel-lahs. The wonderful fertility of these rare patchesof earth, in the midst of a sterile country, seemedintended to remind us that one day that region hadbeen happy, when a powerful hand had not weighedupon it. There is to be found at Kerak a species ofbearded wheat, that justifies the text of the Bibleagainst the charges of exaggeration of which it hasbeen the object; and the vines, also, of this coun-try, of the fruit of which we saw some specimens,account for the enormous grapes which the spies 204 IDUMEAN GRAPES. sent out by Moses brought back from the placesthey had At the present day, in this land of malediction,nothing but the extreme misery of the inhabitantscould urge them to cultivate the earth with suchpersevering industry as they do, seeing the manyannoyances to which they are subject. First comethe Bedouins; a rapacious race, who are perpetu-ally claiming from the poor agriculturist a portionof his produce, under the pretext of a lawful im-post, in return for precarious protection: a mostunjust demand, but exacted with too much au-thority to be resisted. Next appears the locust;who, despising the idea of an impost, approacheswith his troops, and lays waste the whole country,spreading, as it were, the winding-sheet of deathover every tract on which he lights. LOCUST.
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Keywords: ., booka, bookcentury1800, bookidgri000033125009344702, bookyear1836
