into Helim, a most ancient city, where the Israelites found twelve wells and seventy palmtrees, the inhabitants of the place were so terrified by the coming of Baldwin, that they immediately betook themselves to the vessels they had in the adjoining sea. The king having made his observations, returned the way he came thither, going to Mount Royal, which he had built a little before, and from thence to Jerusalem.* Though no mention is made of views to commerce in the making these settlements in the third Arabia, and though those princes were much more of a martial turn, than attentive to trade, yet they highly valued the productions of India and of Arabia Felix, when they happened on them among the spoils of the Egyptian camps, with which people we find they often fought, and therefore could not but be well pleased, with the facilitating the conveyance of those commodities into their kingdom, from the Elanitic gulf of the Red sea, whose navigation was much easier than on the Western, up to Suez; and saved the crossing the desert from the port of Aideb to the Nile, and from Alexandria cross the desert between Egypt and Gaza, if they disembarked those precious commodities on the coast of Upper Egypt, and sent them from Alexandria by land. Accordingly the author of the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey has taken notice of the much greater facility of conveying things by the • P. 815. Eastern gulf than by Suez, recommending to our East-India Company to send their dispatches by way of Cyprus to Gaza, from whence they might be sent in eight days by a camel, and in four by a dromedary, to Raithu, which lies on that Eastern gulf, according to his map, from whence their letters could be forwarded to Mocha much sooner than they can from Suez." OBSERVATION LIX. Towers used for People to fly to, in Times of Insurrection or Danger, BUT besides fortified towns and cities, we find that in the time of the Croisades they were wont to have towers, for the people of open towns to fly to in time of danger. Thus in the reign of Baldwin II when the strength of the kingdom was collected together to the siege of Tyre, the people of Ascalon suddenly invaded the country about Jerusalem, William of Tyre tells us, and put to the sword the greatest part of the inhabitants of a town called Mahomeria, five or six miles from Jerusalem; but the old men, the women, and the children, by betaking themselves to a tower, escaped. Towers of this sort seem to have been used very anciently. Judges ix. 51, gives us a story Rev. of Ali Bey, p. 203, 204. P 1 Gesta Dei, &c. p. 840. exactly like the Archbishop's; and the mention of them in the Old Testament history, shews the dangerousness of those times." There were anciently towers also in their vineyards; Isai. v. 2, and Matt. xxi. 33, are proofs of it and it should seem in their gardens, Cant. vii. 4. They have also retained these towers in the East. So Marcus Sanutus tells us, that the inhabitants of Ptolemais beat down the towers of their gardens to the ground, and removed the stones of them, together with those of their burying-place, upon the approach of the Tartars in one thousand two hundred and sixty. Sandys also speaks of numbers of them in the country between Jerusalem and Bethlehem; and Maundrell mentions the same sort of edifices, in his more modern account of the gardens of Damascus," which confirms Sir John Chardin, in his MS. cannot admit that it was only a piece of a mill-stone that was thrown on the head of Abimelech, and occasioned his death: he supposes it was one of the two mill-stones which were thrown down whole and entire by the woman. This arose doubtless from his observing the smallness of the stones used in their hand. mills; and that it was not so natural to suppose the pieces of a broken mill-stone should be at hand on this occasion as a whole one. The error of our translation, if it be one, is not so evident to me as to this writer. I cannot, how. ever, but observe here, that Sir John's way of rendering the words seems to be very much favoured by Job xli. 24, His heart is as firm as a stone, yea as hard as a piece of the nether mill-stone. They might very well think it right to place the hardest mill-stone below; but is a piece harder than a stone that is whole? A mill is composed of two pieces of stone; and I should think it is sufficiently plain that the words there are to be understood of the lower piece, not of a fragment of that lower piece. - Gesta Dei, per Francos, tome 2. p. 221. P. 122. P. 127. the account William of Tyre gives us of the gardens of the Levant in the twelfth century." To a tower of this last kind, it is to be imagined, our LORD refers in Luke xiv. 28: for I can hardly think, with some commentators, that he is speaking of the slight and unexpensive buildings in a vineyard, which indeed are sometimes so slight as to consist only of four poles with a floor on the top of them, to which they ascend by a ladder; but rather of those elegant turrets erected in gardens, where the Eastern people of fortune spend some considerable part of their time. sure. These towers are not designed for strength, but pomp, and perhaps convenience and pleaNor do those other towers, designed for safety in times of danger, seem to have been very strong, but rather intended for a short defence in those unquiet times, when enemics were wont to make sudden irruptions into that country, and as suddenly retreat for when Saladine could not force the city of Berytus, but thought fit to draw off, he nevertheless could, and did, demolish all the towers of the adjacent villages." So Baldwin II. of Jerusalem," returning victorious from fighting with the king of Damascus, forced a tower in his way home, in which were ninety-six of his enemies; V Erant præterea intra ipsa pomeriorum septa, domus eminentes & excelsæ, quas viris pugnaturis communierant, &c. Gesta Dei, &c. p. 911. * See Pococke, vol. 2, p. 137. 2 P. 844. and undermined another, in which were twenty, who were obliged to give it up without any farther difficulty, upon which he entirely demolished it. Gideon in like manner seems without much difficulty to have demolished the tower of Penuel, Judges viii. 9, 17. OBSERVATION LX, Farther Information concerning the Use of these Towers, WILLIAM of Tyre describes a country not far from the Euphrates, as inhabited by Syrian and Armenian Christians, who fed great flocks and herds there, but were in subjection to the Turks, who, though few in number, yet living in strong places among them, kept them under, and received tribute from these poor peasants who inhabited the villages, and employed themselves in country business." I do not know whether this may not give us a truer view, of the design of those towers that Uzziah built in the wilderness, mentioned 2 Chron. xxvi. 10, than commentators have done, who have supposed they were conveni • William of Tyre mentions another tower in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, built of unburnt brick, but fled to for refuge, which being undermined, fell upon the prince that was endeavouring to take it, and well-nigh crushed him to death. Gesta Dei, p. 853. b P. 950. • See Patrick upon the place, |