There is evidence that in very early times the sanctuary was a cave (p. 183). The obvious successors of a natural cave are, (1) an artificial cave made in the earth like the natural one, and (2) a model or representation of a cave built of stone, with a small entrance which would be barred, and covered over with earth, thus protecting the priests from wild animals and the weather. The dolmens and cromlechs which are found in the Semitic area where there are stones doubtless had this origin. The use of a cave was probably borrowed both by the Egyptians and Greeks (there is a cave, for instance, at Eleusis) from the Semites. In later times, when caves or their equivalents were no longer in vogue and temples were erected, they enclosed a Bit-ili or Beth-el, an upright stone, consecrated by oil.[95] We next learn (pp. 170 and 183) that no Canaanite high place was complete without its sacred tree standing beside the altar. In tree-worship pure and simple as in Arabia, the tree is adored at an annual feast (? May), when it is hung with clothes and women’s ornaments (p. 169). The tree at Mecca to which offerings are made is spoken of as a “tree to hang things on.” The references to “groves” given in the Bible as associated with temple worship are misleading, “groves” being a wrong translation of the word Asherah, which was a pole made of wood which the Jews adopted from the Canaanites. It was ornamented and perhaps draped, and was most probably originally a tree. It may have been used in the “high places” because single trees would not grow there in the East any more than on the moors in Devon and Cornwall. The antiquity of this emblem is proved by Smith’s statement (p. 171) that in an Assyrian monument from Khorsābād an ornamental pole is shown beside a portable altar. “Priests stand before it engaged in an act of worship and touch the pole with their hands or perhaps anoint it with some liquid substance.” The draping of the tree seems to be proved by the passage which suggested the mistranslation to me before I wrote to some Hebrew scholars among my friends who allowed me to consult them. The passage is as follows (II. Kings, xxiii., 6, 7):-- “And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. “And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.” To show how little variation there was in the Semitic practices to those recorded in British folklore I may state that one of my friends--one of the revision committee--informed me that his impression was that the Asherah was furnished with pegs or hooks, so that the garments, &c., might be easily hung on it. * * * * *