of ships, and a variety of other curiosities found in the catacombs (of Egypt) are all of them made out of this wood. And farther, as the grain and texture of it is remarkably coarse and spongy, it could not, therefore, stand in the least competition with the cedar for beauty and ornament. The sycamore buds very late in the spring; and from having a larger and more extensive root than most other trees, it is alluded to as the most difficult to be plucked up."-SHAW's Barbary, vol. ii. p. 315. "The sycamore-tree here is a different tree from that which (erroneously) bears the name with us. The wood is valuable, being hard, and very durable. It is a low tree, with a thick body, and many branches, shaped a little like the apple-tree, the leaf large. It bears a fruit which is to some extent valuable... It would seem that much of it was used, and the gathering of it a business."-PAXTON's Letters, p. 8. The sycamore, called also Pharaoh's fig, sometimes grows to an immense size. The leaves are of a glossy green. The fruit is very abundant, and, though not so well flavoured as the garden-fig, it is much liked by the poor Egyptians, who feed much upon it. It is rubbed or scraped with iron combs, or rakes, which wound the skin of the figs, and admit into them a small black fly, which, it is said, hastens the ripening of the fruit. TARE. MATT. xiii. 25. "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." "The following incident tends, I think, to explain a parable of our Lord in Matt. xiii: "The wife of religious ministers is styled in Greece Mrs. Priestess. On one occasion I observed Mrs. Priestess and her children, during my stay in their house, appear very much indisposed, and inquired the reason. ́Sir,' said she, 'we have eaten some zizania.' This is the word translated tares in the Gospel of St. Matthew. They had unwittingly eaten this deleterious grain as genuine corn, and I observed that headache and sickness were the result." This zizania is considered to be the plant called darnel, well known to the people of Aleppo. It grows among corn: the reapers do not separate the plant, but, after threshing, they reject the seeds by means of a fan or sieve. So in the parable the plant is described as growing among corn: the reapers do not separate it,-both grow together until the harvest. According to Johnson, darnel is the first of hurtful weeds. Its leaves resemble those of wheat or barley, but spring up rougher. The grains having scarcely any husk, are easily scattered among the corn where it grows. REV. S. S. WILSON'S Travels. TEREBINTH, OR TURPENTINE TREE. This tree is not expressly mentioned in our version of the Scriptures: but it is supposed that in several places where the oak is there named, the terebinth is the tree intended, as in GENESIS Xviii. 4, Josн. xxiv. 26, JUDGES vi. 11, &c. Robinson mentions a fine specimen of this tree:— "The largest we saw anywhere in Palestine, spreading its boughs far and wide like a noble oak. This species is, without doubt, the terebinth of the Old Testament; and under the shade of such a tree Abraham might well have pitched his tent at Mamre. It is not an evergreen, as is often represented; but its small, feathered, lancetshaped leaves fall in the autumn, and are renewed in the spring. The flowers are small, and followed by small oval berries, hanging in clusters from two to five inches long, resembling much the clusters of the vine when the grapes are just set. From incisions in the trunk there is said to flow a sort of transparent balsam, constituting a very pure and fine species of turpentine, with an agree able odour and a mild taste, and hardening gradually into a transparent gum. This is usually adulterated, and is now seldom found in the shops. In Palestine nothing seems to be known of this product of the turpentine-tree."-Researches, vol. iii. p. 15. THORNS, THISTLES, BRIERS, &c. GENESIS iii. 18. "Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." JUDGES Viii. 7. "I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness, and with briers." PROV. XV. 19. "The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain” (raised as a causeway). [MIC. vii. 4.] ECCLES. vii. 6. "As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool." [Ps. lviii. 9; Isai. xxxiii. 12.] ISAI. lv. 13. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree." EZEK. xxviii. 24. "And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them, and they shall know that am the Lord." HOSEA X. 8. "The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars." [ISAI. Xxxiv. 13.] MATT. xiii. 7. "And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up, and choked them." xxvii. 29. "And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head." 2 COR. xii. 7. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh." HEBREWS vi. 8. "That which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned.” [2 KINGS XIV. 9.] There is a thorny plant growing plentifully in the East, which is very probably that from which the crown of thorns, worn by our blessed Saviour, was procured. Hasselquist says, "This plant is very fit for the purpose, for it has many small and sharp spines, which are well adapted to give pain: the crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches; and, what in my opinion seems to be the greater proof is, that the leaves very much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep glossy green." Perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were crowned," in cruel mockery of the King of the Jews' when for our sakes he poured out his soul unto death. One kind of this tree, an evergreen, called by the Arabs Nubk, or Nebek (lotustree), forms a strong, thorny hedge all around the modern Jericho, and is an almost impenetrable barrier." It bears a small acid fruit, something like a crab-apple, highly prized by the Egyptians in particular, and a great favourite with the Bedouins, who grind the dried fruit together with the stone, and preserve the meal in leathern skins. It is an excellent provision for journeying in the desert, for it requires only the addition of butter-milk to make a most nourishing, agreeable, and refreshing diet.-ROBINSON, BURCKHARDT. * "We gathered several specimens of the Spina Christi (thorn of Christ). This plant, called Nabka by the * See Reeds, &c. p. 253. |