Page 196.—Sitting cross-legged, or on the hams or heels, on mats or carpets, is now the general practice at meals in the east. Harmer (ii. 66. iii. 338.) gives some reasons for supposing that it was not universal in ancient times, among the Orientals. In the older books of Scripture, as in Homer, guests are described as _sitting_ at table; Amos ii. 8. is the first passage in which mention is made of reclining. Brüning’s Antiq. p. 299. In our Saviour’s time the recumbent posture was very common, a couch or divan being used for this purpose, or cushions laid upon the floor. Page 190.—Sandys (p. 117) thus describes this country. “We passed this day through the most fragrant and pleasant valley that ever I beheld. On the right, a ridge of high mountains, whereon stands Hebron; on the left the Mediterranean sea, bordered with continued hills, beset with variety of fruits. The champaign between them (the plain of Sephela) full of flowery hills ascending leisurely and not much surmounting their vallies, with groves of olives and other fruits dispersedly adorned.” Page 198.—_Hebron._] See in Josephus, Ant. xii. 12. 1 Macc. vi. 65. 2 Macc. x. the account of the capture of Hebron by the Maccabees. Eusebius makes its distance from Jerusalem twenty-two miles; an Itinerary, quoted by Reland, thirty-one. Christian travellers have scarcely ever proceeded to the south of Bethlehem; and Captains Irby and Mangles and Mr. Bankes, appear to have been the first Englishmen who had visited Hebron for a long series of years. Travels, 342. It is held in high veneration by the Mahometans, as the burying-place of Abraham, and called El Khalil, _the holy_. Page 199.—_Terebinth of Mamre._] Reland, p. 711, seq. has made an ample collection of passages from Josephus (Jos. B. J. iv. 9.) and other authors relative to this celebrated tree. It was alleged by some to have stood there since the creation, by others to have shot up from the staff of one of the angels entertained by Abraham. So great was the veneration paid to it that an altar stood beneath its shade, on which sacrifices used to be offered, till Constantine ordered an oratory to be erected instead of the altar. There can be no doubt that it was a tree of most venerable antiquity, the terebinth being from its longevity as much an object of reverence where it prevails, as the oak formerly in Gaul and Britain. See Harris’s Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 309.