But the account he gives of his fituation at Tyre, is much stronger ftill. On the 16th of May they found the heat near Tyre fo great, that, though it seems they took their repaft on the grafs, under a large tree, by the fide of a fmall river', yet he complains of their being burnt up alive, and they were obliged to continue in that fituation 'till 6 or 7 in the afternoon, when they returned to their bark; but the wind failing, and the feamen not to be perfuaded to row, they could get no farther than the rocks and ruins of Tyre, when night overtook them 2. Near thofe ruins they were obliged to pass a confiderable part of the night, not without juffering greatly from the cold, which was as violent and sharp as the beat of the day had been burning. He goes on, "I am fure I fhook as in the depth "of winter, more than two or three full "hours" to which he adds, their being quite wetted with a rime extremely thick and cold, which fell upon them all night. To this he fubjoins, that the worst was, that they were in the hands of 4 or 5 fishermen, who did nothing but throw their nets into the fea, often with no fuccefs, in the mean while roafting us in the day-time in the fun, and almoft making us to perish with cold in the night, without at all getting forward.

This was at Tyre, which, if not to be reckoned in the limits of the Holy-Land, is but just out of them; and was in the night between the 16th and 17th of May. A fire in the night then, in the middle of May, might be very requifite, and highly acceptable. The complaint made by Jacob, relating to Mefopotamia, being equally applicable to the Holy-Land: "In the day the drought confumed me, and the froft by night "."

66

The very different managements, occafioned by the great difference in the temperature of the air in the day and in the night feafon, may occafion fome perplexity in the minds of common readers undoubtedly, fince it has done fo in the thoughts of fome of the learned, and is therefore a circumstance that ought to be well fixed in the memory.

Thus Mr. Biddulph, chaplain to the Englifh factory at Aleppo, expreffes his furprize at finding the weather fo warm at Jerufalem, at that fame time of the year that he was there, when thofe that had been out in the night to feize our Lord wanted a fire. "We being there, at the fame season "of the year, found it exceeding hot, and "botter than it is ufually at Midfummer "in England. It seemed ftrange to me, "how it fhould then be fo cold, that Peter "should creep to the fire, and now (at the * Gen. 31. 40.

• See Josh. 19. 29.

"fame

But

"fame feafon) fo hot that we could not "endure the heat of the fun... "after we had been there a few days, the very place refolved the doubt '.

The extinction then of fires in the month Schabat, mentioned in the preceding article, is to be understood only to relate to the day-time, not to thofe that fit up all night, or far into the night; they may in that country itself want a fire in the middle of May, while, in common, fires be left off by the end of February, it growing warm in the day-time by the end of that month, generally speaking, but the nights being very cold, at leaft in fome places in or near the Holy-Land, months after.

may

OBSERVATION X.

It appears alfo, from a circumstance mentioned by Sandys, that fevere as the winters about Jerufalem fometimes are, an observation in a preceding volume is certainly true, namely, that they are forwarder there than we are in England, about two months in the Spring. For Sandys, it feems, found rofes growing wild, and in plenty, in the clofe

8 For he found it cold, by experience, when he flept in the fields all night. Collect. of Voy. and Trav. from the Library of the Earl of Oxford, p. 821, vol. I. Chap. 1. obf. 21. See alfo the outlines of a New Commentary on Sol. Song, p. 147, &c.

2

of March, O. S', as he was travelling in that part of Judæa, where it is fuppofed John the Baptift lived, not far from JeruJalem; whereas June is the common time with us for the bloffoming of the rofe, and particularly of those that grow wild in our hedges, which come into flower about the fame time that thofe fpecies do that are cultivated in our gardens.

What is nearly a confirmation of this, may be found in Doubdan's Journey to the Holy-Land; for, fpeaking of his coming out of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem, on the 21st of April, N. S, (or 10th, O. S,) he fays, Many Turks and Moors were in the court-yard, of whom fome prefented them with nofegays of fmall flowers, others with rofes fresh gathered, others, who had bottles of rofe-water, Sprinkled their faces and clothes with it all to get fome maidins from them. These rofes continued to blow in such plenty in April, that he tells us, that on the 28th of that month, when the Eastern Chriftians made one of their proceffions in that church,. which lafted at least two hours, many men attended it with facks full of leaves of rofes, which they threw by great handfuls on the people, and indeed in fuch prodigious quantities, as that many were quite covered with

Two or three days, it fhould feem, before the month ended, and confequently about the 8th of April, N. S, he mentions his paffing "thorow valleys, of their roses "voluntarily plentiful." 2 P. 264.

them,

them, and the pavement all firewed over. There were also others with bottles of rofe-water, which they threw every where upon people's faces and clothes, with inexpreffible rejoicings'.

It may be remarked, that as rofes were fo extremely plentiful, they could not be the earliest of that country, but had been some time in bloffom. Accordingly he obferves, that on the 15th of April he found, in an old nunnery at Jerufalem, now converted into a mofque, a number of fmall odoriferous fhrubs, fuch as rosemary, rofe-bushes, laurels, jeffamines, and other flowers extremely agreeable. This implies that the rose-bushes were in flower, and alfo the jeffamine, which, though it's flowers are contemporary with roses, yet doth not, I think, begin to bloffom quite fo foon as the rofe-bufh.

So then both the rose-bush and the jeffamine furnish additional proofs, that at Jerufalem they are fix weeks or two months earlier, as to the spring, than we are.

May we fuppofe, that as rofe-leaves now are the things that are made use of, to ftrew the pavement about the fepulchre of our Lord, they were used in that proceffion that almost immediately preceded his death, of which the Evangelifts have given an account, particularly St. Mark and St. Matthew? 66 Many fpread their garments in "the way and others cut down branches off

2 P. 225.

"the

3 P. 351.

D 3