EGLON (?;) ; Sept. 'E-yX6A), one of the fine Canaanitish towns which formed the confederacy against the Gibeonites, under the king of Jeru salem (Josh. x. 3). It lay in the Shephelah or plain of Philistia, near Lachish (xv. 33, 39). After the victory at Gibeon, and the death of the five kings at Makkedah, Joshua captured in succession Lachish, Eglon, and other cities, along the south ern border of Palestine (x. 34, sq.) In the Vatican text of the Septuagint the name Eglon is not found, '050XXakt being mostly substituted for it. The Alexandrine codex reads E-Aeokt in Josh. xii. 12, and xv. 39 ; and '060XXeca elsewhere. Eusebius and Jerome affirm that the two places were identi cal (Onomast. s. v. Eglon) ; but a comparison of Josh. xv. 35 and 39 proves that this is an error. The error probably originated in the careless man ner in which the translators or copyists of the Sep tuagint wrote the proper names.
On the road from Eleutheropolis to Gaza, nine miles from the former and twelve from the latter, are the ruins of Ajlan, which mark the site of the ancient Eglon. The site is now completely de solate. The ruins are mere shapeless heaps of rubbish, strewn over a low, white mound. The absence of more imposing remains is easily ac counted for. The private houses, like those of Damascus, were built of sun-dried bricks ; and the temples and fortifications of the soft calcareous stone of the district, which soon crumbles away. A large mound of rubbish, strewn with stones and pieces of pottery, is all we can now expect to mark the sites of an ancient city in this plain. (Robin son, B. R. ii. 49 ; Thomson, The Land and the Book, 563.)—J. L. P.
EGOZ (tin.z). This word occurs in the Song of Solomon, vi. I I, ' I went into the garden of nuts,' where probably walnuts' are intended. The brew name is evidently the same as the Persian which has been converted by the Arabs jazuz, by a process common in the case of many other words beginning with the interchange able letters gaf and jim. In both languages these words, when they stand alone, signify the walnut, gouz-bun being the walnut-tree: when used in com position they may signify the nut of any other tree; —thus jouz-i-boa is the nutmeg, jouz-i-hindi is the Indian or cocoa-nut, etc. So the Greeks em
ployed xdpuov, and the Romans nux, to denote the walnut ; which last remains in modern languages, as Ital. face, Fr. noix, Span. nuez, and Ger. 121ISZ. The walnut was, however, also called Kdpuov (Diosc. i. In), royal nut, and also IIeperuthp, or Persian, from having been so highly esteemed, and from having been introduced into Greece from Persia : the name juglans has been derived from Jovis, glans. That the walnut was highly esteemed in the East we learn from Abul pharagius, who states that Al Mahadi, the third caliph of the Abassides, sub juglande sub qua seders solebat, sepultus est.' That it is found in Syria has been recorded by several travellers. Thevenot found it in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai, and Belon says of a village not far from Lebanon, that it was 'bien ombrage d'ormeaux et de noyers.' That it was planted at an early period is well known, and might be easily proved from a variety of sources.
The walnut, or jitglaus regia of botanists, be longs to the natural family of of which the species are found in North America and in Northern Asia. The walnut itself extends from Greece and Asia Minor over Lebanon and Persia, probably all along the Hindoo Khoosh to the Hi malayas, and is abundant in Cashmere (Him. Bat. p. 342). The walnut-tree is well known as a lofty, wide-spreading tree, affording a grateful shade, and of which the leaves have an agreeable odour when bruised. It seems formerly to have been thought unwholesome to sit under its shade, but this ap pears to be incorrect. The flowers begin to open in April, and the fruit is ripe in September and October. The tree is much esteemed for the ex cellence of its wood ; and the kernel of the nut is valued not only as an article of diet, but for the oil which it yields. Being thus known to, and highly valued by, the Greeks in early times, it is more than probable that, if not indigenous in Syria, it was introduced there at a still earlier period, and that therefore it may be alluded to in the above passage, more especially as Solomon has said, ' I made me gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kind of fruits' (Eccles. ii. 5).— J. F. R.