in the ground, in the areas before the houses The crops had failed five years successively, when we arrived. The cause assigned was, a northerly wind, called Greco-Tramontane, which destroyed the flower. The fruit is set in about a fortnight, when the apprehension from this unpropitious quarter ceases. The bloom in the following year was unhurt, and we had the pleasure of leaving the Athenians happy in the prospect of a plentiful harvest." Here, we are told, it if a northerly wind that is supposed to cause the olive-blossom to fail. Elsewhere the Cæcias, or the north-east wind, according to the disposition of the tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes at Athens, which is "an octagon, decorated with sculpture, representing the winds, eight in number. . . "A Α young Turk," says Chandler," explained to me two of the emblems; that of the figure of Cæcias, as signifying he made the olives fall; of Sciron, that he dried up the rivers."* If then the olive-trees are injured by a N. E. wind, and the vines by S. W.; they are not hurt by the same kind of wind: they are opposite winds that are supposed to produce these different effects.b z P. 126. • P. 103. b Accordingly, Dr. Chandler, who expresses such an obliging concern for the Athenians, on account of the failure of their olive-crops five years together, says not one word of any loss they sustained of their grapes; and no wonder, if they are contrary winds that produce these destructive effects on those two important trees of the East. If they are opposite winds that produce these destructive effects on the vine and the olive, they are not both to be attributed to the Sumyel, or deadly east wind. It should even seem neither of these two sorts of ruinous winds are to be supposed to have the qualities of the Sumyel, as the very ingenious author, on whom I am now animadverting, supposes. The Sumyel is not known, I think, in Greece. What effect is produced by the Sumyel on half-grown grapes and olive-blossoms, in the countries where it blows, if distinctly noticed there, has not, so far as I know, been transmitted to us in Europe: but it is evident, from these citations from Dr. Chandler, that winds that are not deadly, as the Sumyel is, may be very ruinous to vines and olivetrees; and that these effects should not be attributed to this kind of south-east wind exclusively, if at all. It would be a valuable acquisition to the learned world, if observations made in Judea itself, or rather in this case, in the land of Uz, were communicated to it, relating to the natural causes which occasion, from time to time, a disappointment of their hopes from their vineyards and olive-plantations; and the effects of a violently sultry south-east wind on their most useful, or remarkable vegetables. After all, I very much question, whether the words of Eliphaz, in this passage of the book of Job (xv. 33) refer to any blasting of the vine by natural causes; they seem rather to express the violently taking away the unripe grapes by the wild Arabs, of which I have given an account in the preceding volume. It is certain the word biser, translated here unripe grape, is used to express those grapes that were so far advanced in growth as to be eaten, though not properly ripened, as appears from Jeremiah xxxi. 29, and Ezek. xviii. 2; and the verb yachmas, translated here shake off, signifies removing by violence, consequently cannot be meant of any thing done in the natural course of things, but by a human hand; and if so, may as well be applied to the depredations of the Arabs, as the impetuosity or deleterious quality of any wind, the energy of poetry making use of a verb active instead of its passive. It may not be amiss, before I close, just to take notice, that the vulgar Latin translation was so little apprehensive that grapes, when grown to any considerable size, were wont to drop, that its authors, or correctors, have "Lærendered the words after this manner, detur quasi vinea in primo flore botrus ejus," that is, "His cluster shall be injured as a vine when it first comes into flower;" intimating, that if any damage is done to the vine at all by an intemperate season, they supposed it would be upon its first flowering. Isaiah xviii. 5, is to be understood after the same manner, which the Bishop of London has thus translated, after a much more advantageous manner than our common version, "Surely before the vintage, when the bud is perfect, "He shall cut off the shoots with pruning hooks, "And the branches he shall take away, he shall cut down." How arduous is the business of translating a foreign poem into English verse! A multitude of circumstances must be attended to by such a translator, when he finds himself obliged, as he often does, to vary the expressions a little, on account of his verse; and, for want of full information as to particular points, he must frequently fail. Mistakes of this kind demand great candour. OBSERVATION XVIII. Wine Presses sometimes in the Vineyards, but mostly in the Towns.-Curious Customs of the Ancient and Modern Greeks. THOUGH the conveniencies they have in the wine countries for pressing their grapes, were frequently in peaceful times in their vineyards; yet in times of apprehension, these conveniencies were often in the cities themselves. Greece to the present day is, we are informed, frequently alarmed, and always under apprehension from corsairs: accordingly we find, that though the plantations of olive-trees be longing to Athens are large, and at some distance from thence, yet the mills for grinding and pressing the olives are in that town and this, though, according to his description the great olive-grove, or wood of these trees, as Dr. Richard Chandler calls it, watered by the Is. v. 2, Matt. xxi. 33. Cephissus, is about three miles from the city, and has been computed as at least six miles long. The same reason that can induce men to fetch their olives from a distance into their towns, must operate more or less forcibly with regard to their grapes. This was in particular, I apprehend, the state of things at the time Nehemiah visited the children of the captivity. They had many enemies about them, and those very spiteful; and they themselves were very weak. For this reason, I imagine, many of them. trod their grapes in Jerusalem itself. In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; and also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath-day. Neh. xiii. 15. Had these wine-presses been at a distance from Jerusalem, he that so strictly observed the precept of resting that day would not have seen that violation of it. They appear by that circumstance, as well as by the other particulars mentioned there, to have been within the walls of Jerusalem. Our translators seem to have been guilty of an oversight in rendering this verse, where they plainly suppose, that sheaves of corn were brought into Jerusalem, at that very time that men were treading the wine-presses. This is a strange anachronism, since the harvest there was finished in or before the third month, • Trav. in Greece, p. 126. |