vineyards.  Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil.  Galilee, says Malte Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government.  No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself every thing that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people.  The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly.  Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May.  The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews.  In September, the vintage was gathered.  Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one.  Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranates, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance.  Great quantity of honey was collected.  The balm tree, which produced the opobalsamum, a great object of trade, was probably introduced from Arabia in the time of Solomon.  It nourished about Jericho and in Gilead.”

This is but a portion of the sketch.  The wealth and commerce of the country is thus told: 

“The only public revenue of the Hebrew commonwealth was that of the sacred treasury, the only public expenditure that of the religious worship.  This was supported by a portion of the spoils taken in war; the first fruits, which in their institution were no more than could be carried in a basket, at a later period were rated to be one part in sixty; the redemption of the first born, and of whatever was vowed to the Lord.  Almost every thing of the last class might be commuted for money according to a fixed scale.  The different annual festivals were well calculated to promote internal commerce:  maritime or foreign trade, is scarcely mentioned in the law, excepting in two obscure prophetic intimations of advantages, which the tribes of Dan and Zebulun were to derive from their maritime situation.  On this subject the lawgiver could have learned nothing in Egypt.  The commerce of that country was confined to the inland caravan trade.  The Egyptians hated or dreaded the sea, which they considered either the dwelling of the evil principle, or the evil principle itself.  At all events, the Hebrews at this period were either blind to the maritime advantages of their situation, or unable to profit by them.  The ports were the last places they conquered.  Sidon, if indeed within their boundary, never lost its independence; Tyre, if it existed, was a town too obscure to be named; Ecdippa and Acco remained in the power of the Canaanites; Joppa is not mentioned as a port till