In old age they shall still put forth buds,
They shall be full of sap and vigorous.*

"The palm is crowned at its top with a large tuft of spiring leaves, about four feet long, which never fall off, but always continue in the same flourishing verdure. The tree, as Dr. Shaw was informed, is in its greatest vigour about thirty years after it is planted; and continues in full vigour seventy years longer, bearing all this while, every year, about three or four hundred pounds' weight of dates. "The trunk of the tree is remarkably strait and lofty. Jeremiah, ch. x. 5, speaking of the idols that were carried in procession, says they were upright as the palm-tree, And for erect stature and slenderness of form, the spouse, in Cantic. vii. 7, is compared to this tree.

How framed, O my love, for delights!
Lo, thy stature is like a palm-tree,
And thy bosom like clusters of dates.

"On this passage Mr. Good observes, that the very word Tamar, here used for the palm-tree, and whose radical meaning is strait or upright (whence it was afterwards applied to pillars or columns, as well as to the palm), was also a general name among the ladies of Palestine, and unquestionably adopted in honour of the stature they had already acquired, or gave a fair promise of attaining.'

"A branch of palm was a signal of victory, and was carried before conquerors in the triumphs: to this allusion is made Rev. vii, 9, and for this purpose were they borne before Christ in his way to Jerusalem, John xii. 13.

"From the inspissated sap of the tree a kind of honey, or dispse, as it is called, is produced, little inferior to that of bees. The same juice, after fermentation, makes a sort of wine, much used in the East. It is once mentioned as wine, Numb. xxviii. 7, (comp. Exod. xxix. 40); and by it is intended strong drink, Isaiah v. 11, xxiv. 9. Theodo ret and Chrysostom, on these places, both Syrians and unexceptionable witnesses in what belongs to their own country, confirm this declaration. This liquor (says Dr. Shaw), which has a more luscious sweetness than honey, is of the consistence of a thin sirup, but quickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving

"In Mr. Merrick's Annotations, p. 194, is a very ingenious illustration of this passage."

by distillation an agreeable spirit, or aráky, according to the general name of these people for all hot liquors, extracted by the alembic.'. Its Hebrew name is SIKER, the EIKERA of the Greeks; and from its sweetness, probably, the SACCHARUM of the Romans. Jerom informs us, that in Hebrew, any inebriating liquor is called Sicera, whether made of grain, the juice of apples, honey, dates, or any other fruit.'

Herodotus, Hist. Clio, § 193, in his account of Assyria, says, 'The Palm is very common in this country, and generally fruitful. This they cultivate like fig-trees, and it produces them bread, wine and honey. The process observed is this: they fasten the fruit of that which the Greeks term the male tree to the one which produces the date; by this means the worm which is contained in the former, entering the fruit, ripens and prevents it from dropping immaturely. The male palms bear insects in their fruit in the same manner as the wild fig-trees.'

"Upon this subject the learned and industrious Larcher, in his notes upon Herodotus, has exhausted no less than ten pages. The ancients whom he cites are Aristotle, Theophrastus and Pliny; the moderns are Pontedera and Tournefort, which last he quotes at considerable length. The Amoenitates Exoticæ of Kæmpfer will fully satisfy whoever wishes to be more minutely informed on one of the most curious and interesting subjects which the science of natural history involves.

:

"This tree was formerly of great value and esteem among the Israelites, and so very much cultivated in Judea that, in after times, it became the emblem of that country, as may be seen in a medal of the Emperor Vespasian upon the conquest of Judea it represents a captive woman sitting under a palm tree, with this inscription, JUDEA CAPTA. And upon a Greek coin, likewise, of his son Titus, struck upon the like occasion, we see a shield suspended upon a palm tree with a victory writing upon it. Pliny also calls Judea palmis inclyta,' renowned for palms.

Jericho in particular was called the city of palms,' Deut. xxxiv. 3, and 2 Chron. xxviii. 15, because, as Josephus, Strabo and Pliny have remarked, it anciently abounded in palm-trees. And so Dr.. Shaw, Trav. p. 343, remarks, that though these trees are not now either plentiful or fruitful in other parts of the Holy Land, yet there

)

are several of them at Jericho, where there is the convenience they require of being often watered; where likewise the climate is warm and the soil sandy, or such as they thrive and delight in.

"Tamar, a city built in the desert by Solomon (1 Kings ix. 18; comp. Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28), was probably so named from the palm-trees growing about it, as it was afterwards by the Romans called 'Palmyra,' or rather ‘Palmira,' on the same account, from Palma, a palm-tree. It is otherwise named TADMOR, which seems a corruption of the former appellation. 2 Chron. viii. 4. Josephus, Antiq. 1. viii. c. 6. § 1, tells us, that after Solomon had built seve ral other cities, he entered the desert which is above Syria, and, taking possession of it, erected there a very large city, distant two days' journey from Upper Syria, one from the Euphrates, and six from Babylon; and that the reason of his building at such a distance from the inhabited parts of Syria was, that no water was to be met with nearer, but that at this place were found both springs and wells.' And this account agrees with that of the late learned traveller Mr. Wood, who describes Palmyra as watered with two streams, and says the Arabs even mention third now lost among the rubbish. Josephus adds, that 'Solomon having built this city, and surrounded it with very strong walls, named it Thadamora, and that it was still so called by the Syrians in his time, but by the Greeks Palmira.'' Mr. Parkhurst, after quoting this passage, makes these remarks: With all due deference to such learned men as may dissent from me, I apprehend that Palmira was a name first imposed, not by the Greeks, but by the Romans. There is no Greek word from whence this appellation can probably be derived; but Palmira from Palma, is the very oriental name translated into Latin; and as the warm climate of this city, and its enjoying the benefit of water in the desert, make it highly probable that its Hebrew and Latin names refer to the palm-trees with which it once abounded, so Abul Feda,* a learned oriental geographer, who flourished in the fourteenth century, expressly mentions the palm-tree as common at Palmyra even in his time. I cannot find that this

"For an account of whom see the Arabic authors mentioned at the end of Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 153, and Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. in Aboulfeda."

city is ever mentioned by any of the old Greek writers, not even by that accurate geographer Strabo; nor indeed in the Roman history is any notice taken of it, till Appian, in the fifth book of his civil wars, speaks of Mark Antony as attempting to plunder it. But for a farther account of the ancient history and present state of this once noble and powerful city, I with great pleasure refer the reader to Mr. Wood's curious, learned and magnificent work, entitled 'A Journey to Palmyra,' and shall only add, that the Arabs of the country, like the Syrians in Josephus's time, still call it by its old name Tadmor; and that Mr. Bryant tells us he was assured by Mr. Wood, that 'if you were to mention Palmyra to an Arab upon the spot, he would not know to what you alluded, nor would you find him at all better acquainted with the history of Odonatus and Zenobia. Instead of Palmyra, he would talk of Tedmor; and in lieu of Zenobia, he would tell you that it was built by Salmah Ebn-Doud, that is by Solomon the son of David.'

"As the Greek name for this tree signifies also the fabulous bird called the phoenix, some of the fathers have absurdly imagined that the Psalmist, xcii. 12, alludes to the latter; and on his authority have made the phoenix an. argument of a resurrection. Tertullian calls it a full and striking emblem of this hope.

"Celsius, in the second volume of his Hierobotanicon, has devoted one hundred and thirty-five pages, replete with learning, to a description of the palm-tree, and an elucidation of the passages of scripture where it is mentioned ; and Hiller, in his Hierophyticon, has thirty-eight pages." The Stork is a fertile scriptural text.

"STORK. Hebrew, CHASIDAH. Occurs Levit. xi. 19; Deut. xiv. 8; Job xxxix. 13; Psalm civ. 17; Jer. viii. 7 ; Zech. v. 9.

“A bird similar to the crane in size, has the same formation as to the bill, neck, legs, and body, but is rather more corpulent. The colour of the crane is ash and black; that of the stork is white and brown. The nails of its toes are also very peculiar; not being clawed like those of other birds, but flat like the nails of a man. It has a very long beak and long red legs. It feeds upon serpents, frogs and insects, and on this account might be reckoned by Moses among unclean birds: as it seeks for these in watery places, nature has provided it with long legs; and as it flies away, as well as the crane and heron, to its nest with

its plunder, therefore its bill is strong and jagged, the sharp hooks of which enable it to retain its slippery prey. "It has long been remarkable for its love to its parents, whom it never forsakes, but tenderly feeds and cherishes when they have become old and unable to provide for themselves. The very learned and judicious Bochart has collected a variety of passages from the ancients, wherein they testify this curious particular, that the stork is eminent for its performance of what St. Paul enjoins, children's requiting their parents. Its very name in the Hebrew language, chasida, signifies mercy or piety: and its English name is taken, if not directly, yet secondarily, through the Saxon, from the Greek word storgé, which is often used in our language for natural affection.

"The Stork's an emblem of true piety;

Because, when ́age has seized and made his dam
Unfit for flight, the grateful young one takes
His mother on his back, provides her food,
Repaying thus her tender care of him,
Ere he was fit to fly.

BEAUMONT.'

"The reader may find a number of testimonies to the same purport in Scheuchzer's Physica Sacra: to which i may not be amiss to add what follows from the Inspector,' No. 171, a periodical paper, ascribed to that eminent naturalist, Sir John Hill. The author, after having remarked the high antiquity and continued tradition of the opinion, that young storks requite their parents by tending and supporting them when grown old, proceeds thus: Among those who have given their relation without the ornaments or the exaggeration of poetry or fable, is Burcherodde, a Dane: his account is the most full and particular of all, and he appears a person of gravity and fidelity. He tells us he relates what he has seen. Storks build (says he) in the prefecture of Eyderstede, in the southern part of Jutland; and men may be taught by looking upon them. They are large birds, like herons, of a white colour, with black wings and red feet. In a retired part of Eyderstede, some leagues from Toningen, towards the German sea, there are clusters of trees. Among these they build; and if any creature comes near them in the nesting season, which lasts near three months, they go out in a body to attack it. The peasants never hurt them, and they are in no fear of them.