reckoned as either indigenous or as cultivated at any rate from a remote
antiquity--the vine, the olive, the date-palm, the walnut, and the fig.
The vine is most widely spread. Vineyards cover large tracts in the
vicinity of all the towns; they climb up the sides of Carmel, Lebanon,
and Bargylus,[242] hang upon the edge of precipices, and greet the
traveller at every turn in almost every region. The size of individual
vines is extraordinary. "Stephen Schultz states that in a village
near Ptolemaïs (Acre) he supped under a large vine, the stem of which
measured a foot and a half in diameter, its height being thirty feet;
and that the whole plant, supported on trellis, covered an area of fifty
feet either way. The bunches of grapes weighed from ten to twelve pounds
and the berries were like small plums."[243] The olive in Phoenicia
is at least as old as the Exodus, for it was said of Asher, who was
assigned the more southern part of that country--"Let him be acceptable
to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil."[244] Olives at the
present day clothe the slopes of Lebanon and Bargylus above the vine
region,[245] and are carried upward almost to the very edge of the bare
rock. They yield largely, and produce an oil of an excellent
character. Fine olive-groves are also to be seen on Carmel,[246] in the
neighbourhood of Esfia. The date-palm has already been spoken of as
a tree, ornamenting the landscape and furnishing timber of tolerable
quality. As a fruit-tree it is not greatly to be prized, since it is
only about Haifa and Jaffa that it produces dates,[247] and those of no
high repute. The walnut has all the appearance of being indigenous in
Lebanon, where it grows to a great size,[248] and bears abundance
of fruit. The fig is also, almost certainly, a native; it grows
plentifully, not only in the orchards about towns, but on the flanks of
Lebanon, on Bargylus, and in the northern Phoenician plain.[249]

The other fruit-trees of the present day are the mulberry, the