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ORIENTAL SKETCHESPalestine.tiloftilNo. 4.One of tlie most remarkable plains in Palestine in very many respects is the plain of Jericho that borders on the mountains of Moab on the east.esfigand the famous Jebel Quarantania on the west. In a sunken channel theJordan divides this plain. This plain had the climate of Lower Egypt and the vegetation of tropical regions. When it snowed at Jerusalem the in-mfre\itarhiP(Thihabitants of this plain wore linen garments. The fertility of the soil was unexampled, and its luxuriant crops of wheat ripened a month earlier than in Galilee. Groves of palm and balsam trees made its groves pre-eminently famous. The balsam tree was cultivated for its precious aromatic distillations. The true balsam treeP3tlBtlbtrir,C)u•was a shrub that attained the height of only a few feet, spreading out into many small crooked branches, with diminutive bright green leaves, and smallJflt;white flowers growing on separate footstalks. The balsam-juiee was obtained by making an incision into the bark at the time of year when the sap was circulating most freely. The juice oozing through the wound was received into small earthen bottles, and from these transferred into thosenotlt:tfVttof a larger size, and carefully corked, as the smell fresh from the tree wasextremely fragrant, which quality it soon lost if exposed to the atmosphere. A tree yields only about GO drops in a day, so that the value of this most precious opobalsamum is sufficiently obvious. Over this plain Moses looked from the top of Pisgah, a mountain range on the other side of Joi*dan, and surveyed “the plain of the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees unto Zoar.” Deufc xxxiv. 3.ltiiThe rich palm groves of Jericho, so notable a feature in the time of Moses, distinguished this district in later times, as they were renowned in the time of the Gospel and Josephus. This historian speaks of these groves:—“This city has a very happy situation, and very fit for producing palm-trees and balsam.” Again speaking of Jericho he says:—“Now here is the most fruitful country of Judea, which bears a vast number of palm-trees, besides the balsam-tree, whose sprouts they cut with sharp stones, and at the incisions they gather the juice, which drops down like tears.” In still another place he says:—“This country bears that balsam, which is the most precious drug that is there, and grows there alone. The place bears also palm-trees, both many in number, and those excellent in their kind.”“The crops of dates were a proverb, and its fig-trees pre-eminently famous” expresses the exuberant fruitfulness of the renowned groves of this fertile plain. The rose plants and the manyaromatic flowers and plants which filled the air with fragrance made a landscape enchantingly beautiful. But all%is changed. A few years ago there was just one palm tree at Jericho, but this is now gone. A large part of the
Newspaper Details
Plymouth Restitution
Plymouth, Indiana, US
Wed, Apr 27, 1881
Page 2
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GB 15 Jun 2021
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