102

Ancient Garden Shoape.

[Book 1.

water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, (Numb.xxiv, 7,) an intimation that the Israelites should possess a country, wherethis great desideratum should be in comparative abundance, a land “ wa-tered as a garden of herbs.” The figure may serve also to illustrate the‘ gutters and watering troughs’ in which Jacob watered the flocks of La-ban, his father in law. Gen. xxx, 38.

No. 43. Egyptian Shadoof employed in watering a garden. 1550, B. C.

The luxuriance of Vegetation in an eastern garden, (when properly water-ed,) the richness of its sce'nery, the beauty of its foliage and flowers, formone of the most enchanting prospects in nature ; henee it became the mostfavorite, as it was the most natural, metaphor of human felicity. Whenthe prophets promised prosperity, it was in such language as the following:“ Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whosewaters fail not,” and “ their soul shall be as a watered garden.” On thecontrary, when the wicked were denounced, “ ye shall be as an oakwhose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.” The same me-taphor is a frequent one in ancient poets, and in most instances the use ofthe swape is implied. Thus Homer :

As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky.

And instant blows the watered gardens dry.

And Ovid :

As in a watered garden’s blooming walk. Met. x, 277.

Pliny mentions it expressly for the same purpose, and to it Juvenal seems to allude in his third Satire:

There from the shallow well your hand shall pour

The stream it loves on every opening flower.

This use of the swape is not now confined to the gardens of fallen Asia ,Egypt and Greece , but it is employed by the most enlightened nations ;and in London and in Paris , as in Athens and Alexandria, Memphis andThebes , this primitive implement has not been superseded. Tn Breton’sChina , Lon. 1834, the Chinese swape is described; and the author ob-serves, “ it is similar to those which are seen in the market gardens roundLondon and in a more recent work, ‘ Scripture illustrated from Egypt 'ian Antiquities,’ the author speaking of the Egyptian swape, says, it is thesame as used in the gardens of Brentford.

Of the swape, it may be remarked, that the most ancient portraitureextant, of any hydraulic machine, is a sculptured representation of it. be-tween three and four thousand yearsold, and even at that remote period