CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FERTILITY OF PALESTINE.
THERE is, apparently, a general impression that the Holy Land is, at the present day, a barren and desolate country, and that a great change, due not only to decay of cultivation and to disappearance of former forests, but also to a material decrease in the rainfall, has come over the land. These last pages are, therefore, devoted to a brief résumé of the facts collected during the prosecution of the Survey, which bear on the question.
Palestine is described in the Pentateuch as “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths, which spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil-olive, and honey” (Deut. viii. 7, 8); and these verses epitomise the natural features, and the cultivation of modern, quite as well as of ancient Palestine. Two points, then, should be considered: first, is there any change in the water-supply or climate? secondly, is there any decrease in the amount of woodland and forest?
The question of water-supply lies, indeed, at the bottom of the whole inquiry. We have, unfortunately, no ancient observations which can be compared with those now taken, from which comparison positive information as to the amount of the rainfall, and the volume of the rivers, might be deduced; but we have very important indications that the character of the water-supply is unchanged.
In the first place, we have geological indications. Throughout the country two formations alternate; namely, a hard crystalline limestone of the Neocomian period, and a soft, porous chalk, or marl, of the Cretaceous epoch. Where the hard limestone prevails springs occur, especially at the juncture with the over-lying, porous, and unconformable chalk, but where there is a great thickness of this latter, the water-supply is either from deep wells or from artificial tanks and cisterns. We have no reason for supposing the geological formation to have undergone any change since the days of Moses; and indeed we have every reason for judging that the distribution of the springs was then the same as now; for those parts which are now dry and desert—the Negeb, or “dry land,” the Jeshimon, or “solitude,” the wildernesses of Ziph, Maon, and Bethaven—receive titles in the Bible which are derived from the dry and barren appearance that these districts also presented in earlier times.
Secondly, we find that the Hebrew terms, used for various kinds of natural or artificial sources of water, are still in use, and of these terms no less than eight refer to tanks, pools, or cisterns: the Hebrew words ’Ain (a spring), Nahr (a perennial stream), Bir (a well), Jubb (a ditch), Hufr (a pit), Birkeh (a tank), Bassah (a marsh), are still ordinary words in the language. The springs mentioned individually in Scripture—the fountains of Samaria and of Jezreel, of Engedi and Jericho, for instance, are found to be still plentiful and perennial; and it must not be forgotten that there are twelve considerable streams in the country, which contain water even to the end of the dry season, without counting the Jordan.
Thirdly, the great numbers of ancient tanks and cisterns, occurring in the districts where there are no springs, and in connection with Jewish ruins and Jewish tombs, show the necessity which existed, even at an early period, of storing rain-water for the supply of the towns.
Yet further, we can prove that the character of the seasons is unchanged. In the Mishna, there are minute directions regarding the prayers to be put up for rain. The supplications commenced in October, and continued until the Passover was finished. Three days of fast occurred in the end of October, if no rain had fallen, and three more about the middle of November. “But if these days of fasting be not heard, then shall they leave off selling and buying, the building of houses and the planting of trees, marrying and giving in marriage, and they shall leave off greeting one another ... until the end of the month Nizan (the middle of April). For if no rain be given until then, it is a manifest sign of the curse, since it is said, ‘Is it not wheat harvest to-day?’ ” (Mishna, Taanith I.).