The sacred writers frequently extol the fertility of Palestine, “a country of wheat, of barley, of vines, of fig trees, and pomegranate trees, a country of olive trees, of oil, and of honey.” It is true that the soil about Jerusalem is barren and stony, a fact which caused Strabo to say that the people led by Moses had had no trouble in conquering a country that did not deserve to be defended; but the whole of Palestine is not like the environs of Jerusalem. Latin authors confirm the testimony of the Bible as to the fertility of Judea. “The soil,” says Tacitus, “yields in abundance the products of our country, and balm and the palm tree beside.” According to Justin, the balm of Judea, which was grown chiefly in the plain of Jericho, was the principal source of the wealth of the country. Ammianus Marcellinus speaks in the same way of the rich husbandry of Palestine. To this day, in spite of Turkish misgovernment and Arab raids, it retains--in the north more especially--many traces of its ancient fertility. The valley of Jordan is rich in pastures. The olives of Palestine are said to be preferable to those of Provence. Judea itself, though on the whole barren, has some districts which yield good harvests, and, above all, excellent wine. But the scourge of the country, according to the Turks and Arabs, is locusts. “The number of these insects,” says Volney, “is incredible to any one who has not seen it with his own eyes: the ground is covered with them for the space of several leagues. The noise they make, browsing on the trees and herbs, can be heard from afar, like an army pillaging by stealth. It is better to have to do with Tartars than with these destructive little creatures, it is as though fire followed in their wake. Wherever their legions repair, verdure disappears from the land like a curtain rolled up; trees and plants, stripped of their leaves and reduced to mere branches and stalks, make the hideous aspect of winter succeed, in the twinkling of an eye, to the bounteous scenes of spring. When these clouds of locusts rise on the wing, to surmount some obstacle or to cross some desert place more rapidly, it is literally true to say that they darken the sky.”[b] [Illustration: ANCIENT JOPPA] THE PEOPLE The inhabitants of the country just described have each and all (with exceptions so small as to count for nothing in the mass) belonged to a race which we are in the habit of calling “Semitic,” or the “nations of the Semitic tongue.” The term has been so much abused, in scientific works no less than in public life, that we must first determine its real significance. The name of “Semite” is derived from “Shem,” who appears in the tenth chapter of Genesis (in the language of the genealogising historiographer) as the ancestor of the Hebrews and a number of neighbouring tribes.