against Celfus remarked, that the cave in which our Lord was born was fhown in his time. This he mentions, that it might not be thought to be an invention of after

times.

Maundrell certainly made fuch a remark, upon occafion of his vifiting Mount Tabor. This perpetual pointing out grottos, he thought, in fome cafes, very improbable, the condition and the circumftances of the actions themselves feeming to require places of another nature. Among thefe he mentions the places of the Baptift's and our Lord's nativity, and where St. Anne was delivered of the Bleffed Virgin; but whether all these were among the things that, according to his views, could not probably have happened in fubterraneous places, is not certain; and if he thought, as to two of them, it was improbable, it doth not follow he thought fo as to the place of our Lord's birth. The truth feems to be, that he was ftruck with the improbability of some of these traditions, and then mentioning particulars, as to things faid to happen in caves of the earth, he did not stop nicely to weigh the probability or improbability of every thing he mentioned.

As to the place in which cur Lord was born, it was fuppofed to have been in a cave in the time of Origen, long before the hermits obtained fuch veneration; to which I would add, that his being born in a stable, makes the fuppofition very natural.

For

For natural or artificial grottos are very common in the Eastern countries, particularly in Judæa, and are often used for their cattle. So Dr. Pococke obferves, that "there "were three uses for grottos; for they served "either for fepulchres, cifterns, or as retreats " for herdfien and their cattle in bad wea

ther, and especially in the winter-nights: "this may account for the great number of "grottos all over the Holy-Land, in which, "at this time, many families live in winter, "and drive their cattle into them by night, as a fence both against the weather and "wild beafts '."

OBSERVATION XXXVI.

Plantations of trees about houses are found very useful in bot countries, to give them an agreeable coolness. The ancient Ifraelites feem to have made ufe of the fame means, and probably planted fruit-trees, rather than other kinds, to produce that effect.

86 to

"It is their manner in many places," fays Sir Thomas Row's chaplain, speaking of the country of the Great Mogul, plant about, and amongst their buildings, trees which grow high and broad, the shadow whereof keeps their houses by far more cool: this I observed in a special manner, when we

Trav. into the Eaft, vol. 2. p. 48.

2 P. 399

" were

were ready to enter Amadavar; for it appeared to us, as if we had been entering a "wood rather than a city."

The expreffion, in the Old Testament, of people's dwelling under their vines and their fig-trees, feems ftrongly to intimate, that this method anciently obtained much in Judæa '; and that vines and fig-trees were what were commonly used in that country.

Nor was this management at all to be wondered at: as the ancient patriarchs found it very agreeable to pitch their tents under the fhade of fome thick tree, their children might naturally be difpofed to plant them about their houses.

And as it was requifite for them to raise as many eatables as they could, in fo very populous a country as that was, it is no wonder they planted fig-trees, whose shade was thickened by vines, about their houses, under which they might fit in the open air, and yet in the cool.

This writer mentions another circumstance, in which there is an evident fimilarity between the ancient Jews and thefe more Eaftern people: "But for their houfes in their al"deas, or villages, which ftand very thick in "that country, they are generally very poor and "bafe. All thofe country-dwellings are fet

up close together; for I never obferved any "houfe there to stand fingle, and alone"."

• 1 Kings 4. 25. 2 Gen. 18. 1, 4, 8.

& P. 400.

The

The account the Baron de Tott gives of the Ægyptian villages, fhows they are fhaded in much the fame manner, part 4. p. 63. "Wherever the inundation can reach, there "habitations are erected, on little hills, raised "for that purpose, which serve for the common foundation of all the houses which "stand together, and which are contrived to "take up as little room as poffible, that they may fave all the ground they can for cul"tivation. This precaution is necessary to prevent the water's washing away the walls, "which are only of mud.

"

"The villages are always furrounded by an "infinite number of pointed turrets, meant "to invite thither the pigeons, in order to "collect the dung. Every village has, like"wife, a small wood of palm-trees near it, "the property of which is common: these

supply the inhabitants with dates for their "confumption, and leaves for fabrication of "baskets, mats, and other things of that "kind. Little caufeways, raised, in like

66

manner, above the inundation, preferve a "communication during the time it lafts."

Palm-trees, according to this, are planted univerfally about the Egyptian villages; had they been as generally about the Jewish towns, Jericho would hardly have been called the city of palm-trees, by way of diftinction from

the reft. It appears to have been, in Judæa, rather a peculiarity.

But the Jewish towns and houses might be wont to be furrounded by other trees, proper for their use, which probably were vines and fig-trees, which furnished two great articles of food for their confumption, and the cuttings of their vines must have been useful to them for fuel'. That plantations of fome fort of trees were common about the Jewish towns, may be deduced even from the term used in their language for a village, which is derived from a root that fignifies to cover or bide.

OBSERVATION XXXVII.

In my preface to the preceding volumes of Obfervations on the Scriptures I obferved, that tranfactions and customs in countries very remote from Judæa, may throw fome light over particular paffages of Scripture, in the fame way as Buchanan's relations, of the manners of the ancient Scots, are found to illustrate some circumftances recorded by Homer, which immediately relate to Greek and Afiatic heroes; the very ingenious Mr. King feems to have fallen into the fame way of thinking, in a very long, but curious paper

Ezek. 15. 6. I have indeed experimentally found the larger cuttings of the vine make excellent fuel, of the flighter fort, and they wanted little other in Judæa.

of