An elegant writer has justly observed that “Syria unites different climates under the same sky, and collects within a small compass pleasures and productions which nature has elsewhere dispersed at great distances of time and place.To the advantage which perpetuates enjoyments it adds another, that of multiplying them by the variety of its productions.”[23]
Though lying within the same parallels of latitude with Washington and New Orleans, yet, owing to its peculiar geological structure and configuration, the climate is essentially different. On the higher slopes of Lebanon the summer months are cool and pleasant as on our native Catskills, but in the deep valley of the Jordan, and on the shores of the Dead Sea, the heat is as intense and debilitating as on the plains ofSouthern India. Along the sea-board the same variety prevails. Where the high mountains crowd down upon the coast, reflecting the light and heat of a Syrian sun, the region is sultry and unhealthy, but where the mountains retire and the soil is dry the air is pure and delightful.
Properly speaking, there are but two seasons in Palestine, appropriately described in that sublime repetition—“winter and summer, cold and heat, seed-time and harvest;” but on the mountain range the four seasons are distinctly perceptible. Though the loftier summits of Lebanon are covered with snow the year round, yet frost and ice are only occasionally seen in the vicinity of Jerusalem. While in summer a gentle breeze from the Mediterranean plays over the central ridge from morning till night, at other seasons of the year the winds blow a tornado. Sand-storms arise, blinding to the eyes, and rendering near objects indistinct; hail-storms are frequent and violent, and, as of old, the “south wind” blows, lasting for many days at a time, and frequently assuming all the dreadful characteristics of the sirocco.
Commencing with the beginning of November, the winter rains continue with short intervals until March, when spring wears her floral mantle, and, casting its ample folds over the Land of Promise, hides its otherwise rougher features; then follows the long rainless summer, with transparent atmosphere and hazy skies alternating, and with intense heat, parched soil, and streams few and scanty, which is succeeded by autumn, with its red and golden vintage, and atmosphere of unsurpassed balminess.
But spring is the most delightful season of the year in the Holy Land, whether to enjoy the pleasures of the climate or behold the magnificence of the scenery. Then the skies are bright, the air balmy, and the vernal sun lights up the landscape with a thousand forms of beauty. Then sparkling fountains are unsealed, silver brooks go murmuring by, and wild cascades, leaping from their rocky heights, come dashing down the mountain side, scattering in their descent wreaths of rainbow spray. Then the valleys and the hills are clothed with verdure, the fields are green with grains and grasses, the fig and palm-tree are in blossom, the almond, apricot, olive, and pomegranate are ripening, and the cypress, tamarisk, oak, walnut, sycamore, and poplar are decked with the clean fresh foliageof a new year. Then herds of camels and buffaloes are browsing on the meadows, and flocks of sheep and goats go gamboling up the mountain sides. Then, in all the glens, on all the vast prairie plains, and over all the highest mountains are flowers blooming—anemones, oleanders, amaranths, arbutuses, poppies, hollyhocks, daisies, hyacinths, tulips, pinks, lilies, and roses, growing in unbounded profusion, delighting the senses, and transforming the land into a garden of flowers.
But whatever is beautiful in the scenery of Palestine is peculiar to the north. In the south there is a sameness of outline and of color that wearies the eye and makes one sigh for variety; but north of the mountains of Ephraim the beholder is charmed with green plains and fertile valleys, with wooded dells and graceful hills, with rippling brooks and sylvan lakes, with leaping cascades and rushing rivers, with sublime chasms and profound ravines; and with lofty mountains, broken into beetling cliffs and craggy peaks, whose higher summits are capped with perpetual snow, and down whose furrowed sides rush a thousand torrents. There the most fastidious taste would be delighted with the wild mountain gorge encircling Tirzah, and the wilder chasm of el-Hamâm—with the beautiful glen of el-Haramîyeh, and the more lovely Vale of Abilîn—with the woodland parks of Carmel and Tabor—with the crystal lakes of Merom and Gennesaret—with the foaming, rapid waters of the Jordan, the Leontes, and the Adonis—with Mount Hermon, with summer at his feet, spring in his lap, and winter on his head—and with the magnificent scenery of Kadîsha, where the Syrian Alps lift their awful forms 13,000 feet high, covered with snow 100 feet deep—where the melting snows feed cascades, which in their descent are beaten into spray by the rocks, and which, reflecting the sunlight, seem like the infinite fragments of some gorgeous rainbow—and where rills from the hills and torrents from the mountains unite to swell the river below, which, after winding through the noblest and wildest of nature’s chasms, whose sides are lined with shrubbery, adorned with hamlets, and dotted with convents high up in the everlasting rocks, and whose solemn bells awaken the echoes of Lebanon, pours its accumulated waters into the Western Sea.
If the standard of landscape beauty be the regular alternation of plain and mountain, as in Greece and Italy; the cleanmeadows, the well-made farms and green hills, as in France and England; or the continent-like prairies, the miniature seas, and multiform mountains of America, then the Land of Promise must yield the palm to those more highly-favored countries. But if the combination of all these characteristics on a smaller scale constitute the beautiful and grand in natural scenery, Palestine is not unworthily praised by the sacred writers for the variety and magnificence of its landscape.
Viewed from such a stand-point, the Holy Land is a world in miniature, possessing the three great terrene features of the globe—sea-board, plain, and mountain. Yielding the fruits of every climate, and containing a population corresponding in their physique to that of the inhabitants of every zone, there is displayed in this variety of scenery and climate the wisdom of God. Selected by Providence to be the medium of divine truth to men of all lands, it was necessary that the national home of the Bible writers should open to their imaginations the most wonderful and varied of the works of the Creator. Naturally inclined to express our adoration of the Deity in allusions to his wisdom and goodness displayed in nature, we experience a unison of devotion with those who were the oracles of inspired truth to us in their sublime illustrations, drawn from the sea and land, the valleys and hills, the climate and fruits, and the beasts and birds of the country that gave them birth. Had they dwelt at the poles, or on the equator, or in the heart of Arabia, or on the banks of the Nile, they could not have given the same universality of expression to the message they were sent to announce. It is evidence of the presence of that All-wise Spirit that the prophets and psalmists, the Savior and the apostles, drew their simplest, noblest figures from nature, such as can not fail to arrest the attention of the untutored mind in every land, and inspire intellects of the highest culture with admiration.
Who of all the great maritime nations of earth can fail to appreciate the Psalmist’s description of his native sea, as from its shore, or from some mountain-top, he beheld its wonders:“O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches; so is this great sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.”[24] And who that has ever crossed the ocean, orwitnessed a storm at sea, does not realize the perfection of his description:“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep; for he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof: they mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.”[25] The mountaineer feels that the Psalmist sings of
“What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed,”