We now leave the sterile rocky heights of Benjamin and Judah, and shall soon enter upon the fertile plains and valleys of Samaria. The soil is richer and better cultivated. The hills are terraced up to their summits, and are covered with corn-fields and orchards. In the days of prosperity and plenty, when “every man sat under his own vine and fig-tree,” even the barren slopes of Southern Palestine were brought under cultivation. They drew “honey from the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.” Even yet we can trace the lines of these ancient terraces showing what the land once was, and what it may yet become again when “the time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, is come.” But now these long lines or scattered heaps of stones only add to the general sense of desolation. In the country north of Bethel, however, we come to many districts in which something of the former fertility and prosperity may yet be found. From our camp in Ain Haramiyeh, or Robbers’ Fountain, a few miles north of Bethel, we could see the hills clothed to their very summits with fig-gardens, now in their bright spring greenery. A Syrian gentleman, who was my frequent companion through this part of Palestine, plucked the young figs as he passed without stint or scruple. His reply to my question as to his right to do so was instructive as throwing light upon an incident in the life of our Lord as to which some difficulty has been felt. In the early spring, when the first leaves appear, an immense number of small figs are produced, which do not ripen but fall from the branches, crude and immature, to the ground. To these we find a reference in the Apocalypse “as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs.”[181] The true crop is not produced till later in the year. This first crude “untimely” growth, though of no commercial value, is yet plucked and eaten by the peasantry, sometimes with a pinch of salt, sometimes with bread. Like the wild fruit of our hedgerows it is free to all passers-by. It was just at this early season, before the feast of the passover, that our Lord and His disciples, having walked from Bethany, “hungered.” Seeing a fig-tree “afar off having leaves,” they sought fruit and “found nothing thereon but leaves only, for the time of figs was not yet.”[182] That is to say, seeing leaves they had a right to expect fruit. Finding fruit they would have had a right to pluck it, “for the time of figs was not yet,” the true and valuable crop was not yet produced. This incident He turned into a solemn lesson of warning to the Jews. It was at the close of His public ministry. “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit and finding none,”[183]—nothing but the leaves of mere profession and outward privilege. The time of forbearance and patient pitying delay had passed—that of rejection and destruction had come; “and He said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig-tree withered away.”