It is very remarkable that the only tree which is found growing among the ruins of Babylon is a tamarisk. Thus, on the north side of the Kasr, where Ker Porter thought he saw traces of the hanging gardens, there stands upon an artificial eminence a tree to which the Arabs give the name of athela. It is a species of tree altogether foreign to the country. Two of the attendants of Ker Porter, who were natives of Bender Bushire, assured him that there are trees of that kind in their coun try, which attain a very great age, and are called gaz. ' The one in question is in appearance like the weeping-willow, but the trunk is hollow through age, and partly shattered. The Arabs venerate it as sacred, in consequence of the Calif Ali having reposed under its shade after the battle of Hillah ' (Rosenmiiller, Eibl. Geog. ii. p. 2o, from Ker Por ter ; comp. Ainsworth's Researches, p. 125). It may be observed that the present writer has already quoted the two names here given as applied to the tamarisk, in a Persian work on Materia Medica, published in India.
From the characteristics of the tamarisk-tree of the East, it certainly appears as likely as any to have been planted in Beersheba by Abraham, be cause it is one of the few trees which will flourish and grow to a great size even in the arid desert. It has also a name in Arabic, asul, very similar to the Hebrew eshel. Besides the advantage of affording shade in a hot country, it is also esteemed on account of the excellence of its wood, which is converted into charcoal. It is no less valuable on
account of the galls with which its branches are often loaded, and which are nearly as astringent as oak-galls. It is also one of those trees which were esteemed by the ancients, being the /lupin? of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, etc. Hane enim vati cinaturi manu gestabant ut Apollo in Lesbo, inde Myriceus dictus, etc.' To this they were probably led, as in some other instances, by finding that it was esteemed in those eastern countries, from which much of their information and opinions were, in the first instance, derived. The only difficulty is to ascertain the exact species found in the several situations we have indicated—a difficulty which arises from their similarity to one another, render ing it almost impossible to distinguish them in the state of dried specimens. Ehrenberg, who has most recently investigated the species, gives a lama rix tetragyna as a species of Syria, and T. orien talis of Forskal as the species found in Arabia, Persia, and India, and T. arborea as a variety of T. gallia found near Cairo. But as they are all so similar, any of the arboreous species or varieties which flourish in the most barren situations, would have the name asul applied to it, and this name would appear to an Arab of those regions the most appropriate translation for eshel, in the passage where Abraham is described as planting a tree, and calling on the name of the Lord, the everlast ing God.—J. F. R.