Such was to be its metallic wealth, that it was to be “a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig copper.”[9] Unlike Egypt, which is dependent upon the Nile for a supply of water, it was to be a country superior in its mountain springs and in its “early and latter rains.”[10] Repeating the eulogistic utterances of Moses, and realizing the promises he had made, five centuries later David sings, “The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys are covered with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing. The Lord causeth the grass to grow for cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine.”[11] But, whatever may have been the appearance of Southern Palestine in those distant ages, it appears at present, especially its mountain regions, to be little better than a vast limestone quarry, covered with small gray stones, offensive to the eye, painful to the foot of man and beast, and seemingly incapable of a harvest. An aspect so sterile and forbidding induced the author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” to institute the comparison that “Palestine is a territory scarcely superior to Wales either in fertility or extent.”[12] Conceding this apparent barrenness, the causes of the change which has taken place in the lapse of so many centuries are at once natural and miraculous. The frequent changes of government, the rapacity of officials, the insecurity of property, the religious animosity of rival sects, the barbarian ignorance of the peasantry as to the enlightened principles of agriculture, together with a moral degradation universally prevalent, are adequate causes, when operating during a long series of years, to change the face of any country, and doom it to almost irreclaimable barrenness. It is also true that the destruction of the woods of any section on the earth’s surface, and particularly the trees on the mountain-tops, which invite and arrest the passing clouds, tends to the diminution of rain and to the consequent evils of the drought. The condition of Germany since the disappearance of its great forests, and of Greece since the fall of the large plane-trees which once shaded the bare landscape of Attica,[13] illustrates the fact that where the land is denuded of its herbage and foliage, which casts a cooling shade upon the ground, the scorching rays of the sun penetrate more certainly and intensely, promoting evaporation, causing the springs and fountains to fail, and at the same time increasing the absorbent capacity of the soil;[14] but where the valleys are clothed with verdure, and the mountains with forests, a larger quantity of moisture is retained in the ground, a lower temperature exists in the atmosphere, and the clouds are drawn to the spot in obedience to meteorological laws.[15] To Titus belongs the shame of having stripped