differences anciently, and tells us that it was warm near Jericho, when it fnowed in other places of Judæa'; an account which will not appear hard to be believed to those who have read in Egmont and Heyman, that they found the air about Jericho extremely troublesome on account of its great heat, which fome years is quite infupportable, and actually proved fatal to feveral the year before they were there, though Eafter, at which time these pilgrimages are made, then happened in the month of March. They then who would make their fervices of this kind quite fatisfactory, fhould furnish the learned world with obfervations on the weather, as it is at Jerufalem; at Jericho; at Gaza, or

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' De Bell, Jud. 1. 4. cap. viii. Ed. Haverc. V. 1. p. 333. [The heat alfo proved deadly to feveral people in the army of K. Baldwin IV. upon fighting a battle, not far from Tiberias in Galilee, and confequently in a fituation. confiderably more to the North than Jericho. But this appears, by what the Archbishop of Tyre fays, to have been in the middle of fummer, perhaps the end of June or beginning of July; for he doth not mention the time exactly. It ought not to be paffed over in filence," fays this writer, Gefta Dei &c. p. 1028, "that the Heat at that "time was fo unusually great, that as many died, in both "armies, by the Heat as by the Sword." He adds, that after the battle, in their return to their former encampment, a certain Ecclefiaftic, of fome diftinction in the Church and in the army, not being able to bear the vehemence of "the Heat, was carried in a Litter, yet expired under "Mount Tabor, near the River Kifhon." Reland, in his Palcftina, p. 992, fhews Shunem was in the neighbourhood' of Mount Tabor, and at Shunem, it fhould feem, the Heat proved deadly to a child in the days of the prophet Elifha, in the time of Harveft, 2 Kings iv 8, 19, 20.1

fome

fome neighbouring place on that shore; in different places of Galilee; and, perhaps, I might add, at Canobin. What I have been able to do, will appear in the following particulars.

OBSERVATION I.

In England, and its neighbouring countries, it is common for rain to fall in all months of the year; but it is not fo in the Levant. Every one knows Ægypt has scarce any rain at all; and Dr. Shaw affirms that it is as uncommon in moft parts of what they call at Algiers the Defert, which is the moft Southern part of that country. But these are particular cafes. Rain indifcriminately in the winter-months, and none at all in the fummer, is what is moft common in the Eaft: fo it is at Aleppo; and about Algiers; and fo Jacobus de Vitriaco affures us3 it is in Judæa, for he observes that lightning and thunder are wont, in the Weftern countries, to be in the fummer, but happen in the Holy-Land in winter. That in the fummer it feldom or never rains there; but in winter, though the returns of rain are not fo frequent, after they begin to fall they pour down, for three or four days and nights together, as vehemently as if they would drown the country.

This is one of the most diftinct accounts I have any where met with of the weather of 3 Vide Gefta Dei per

2 Shaw.

* See Ruffell. Francos, v. 1. p. 1097, 1098. I.

Judæa, and it is the more valuable, as he was not a mere titular Bishop of St. John d'Acre, but spent fome time in that country, and wrote his hiftory of Jerufalem in the Eaft, after being engaged in many tranfactions there, as appears by his book. I fhall have occasion hereafter to take notice of all thefe particulars, relating to the weather, at present I only observe, that, conformably to what happens in other countries thereabouts, the fummers of Judæa are ufually perfectly dry, Jofephus confirms this as to Galilee, de Bell. Jud, lib. iii. c. 7.

Bp. Patrick therefore, when he paraphrases those words of the Pfalmift, my moifture is turned into the drought of Jummer,

My body was confumed and parched like "the grafs of the earth, in the midft of the 66 drieft fummer," feems rather to write like a mere Englishman, than to defign to express the exact thought of David. All their fummers are dry, and the withered appearance of an Eastern fummer, in common, is doubtlefs what the Pfalmift refers to, without thinking of any particular year of drought, Dr. Ruffell's account of a Syrian fummer, which the reader will meet with by and by, is the most beautiful comment that can be met with on this paffage.

It was owing, probably, to a like cause, that Tacitus, the Roman hiftorian, fpeaks

5

of Judæa as a country that had not many fhowers; whereas a contemporary historian who perfectly knew its nature, affirms that a great deal of rain fell there. Tacitus lived here in the Weft, and comparing, it may be imagined, a fummer in Judæa with what happens in Germany and France, he calls it a country of little rain.

This reprefentation of a Jewish summer forbids our admitting the interpretation the learned and ingenious Dr. Delany has given us of this verfe, in his hiftory of the life of David. He fuppofes the words, my moisture is turned into the drought of fummer, fignify that the change was, as if he had been removed at once from the depth of winter, into Midfummer; as if all the ftorms, and rain, and clouds, of that gloomy feafon (the finest emblem of grief,) were changed, at once, into ferenity and funfline: the heavens clear, unclouded, and fmiling upon him. But the moisture David fpeaks of has not been usually understood to refer to winter, and to mean tears of grief; it may also undoubtedly, full as well at least, be confidered as an image derived from the fpring, which is agreeably moist in those countries. And on the other hand, midfummer there, though clear and unclouded, is no juft reprefentation of a state of pleasantness: for this we have not only the decifive authority of natural historians, but even grammarians derive the

word which fignifies fummer, from a root which points out the troublesomeness of its heats'.

But though commonly there is no rain at Aleppo through the whole fummer, yet fometimes there is fuch a thing as a fmart thunder-fhower.

So Dr. Ruffell tells us, that in the night betwixt the first and fecond of July, 1743, fome fevere thunder-fhowers fell, but adds that it was a thing very extraordinary at that feafon. Poffibly it may be more uncommon ftill at Jerufalem, for St. Jerome, who lived long in the Holy-Land, denies, in his commentary on Amos, his having ever feen rain in thofe provinces, and efpecially in Judæa, in the end of fune, or in the month of July; but if it fhould be found to be otherwife, and that, though St. Jerome had never feen it, fuch a thing may now and then happen there, as it did at Aleppo while Dr. Ruffell refided in that city, the fact recorded 1 Sam. xii. 16, 17, 18, might nevertheless be an authentic proof of what Samuel affirmed: fince a very rare and unusual event, immediately happening, happening, without any preceding appearance of fuch a thing, upon the predic

? Kutz, tædio affici, fortè quod tum homines nonnihil moleftiâ afficiantur ob Calorem Solis, fays Bythner in his Lyra, p. 175 P. 161.

tion