Ceratonia Siliqua
The word which is thus rendered in the Auth. Vers. () is really the name of a tree called in English Carob-tree. It is extremely common in the south of Europe, in Syria, and in Egypt. Celsius states that no tree is more frequently mentioned in the Talmud, where its fruit is stated to be given as food to cattle and swine: it is now given to horses, asses, and mules. During the Peninsular war the horses of the British cavalry were often fed on the beans of the Carob-tree. Both Pliny and Columella mention that it was given as food to swine. By some it has been thought, but apparently without reason, that it was upon the husks of this tree that John the Baptist fed in the wilderness: from this idea, however, it is often called St. John's Bread and Locust-tree.
The Carob-tree grows in the south of Europe and north of Africa, usually to a moderate size, but it sometimes becomes very large, with a trunk of great thickness, and affords an agreeable shade. The quantity of pods borne by each tree is very considerable, being often as much as 800 or 900 pounds weight: they are flat, brownish-colored, from six to eight inches in length, of a sub-astringent taste when unripe, but when come to maturity they secrete, within the husks and round the seeds, a sweetish-tasted pulp. When on the tree, the pods have an unpleasant odor; but when dried upon hurdles they become eatable, and are valued by poor people, and during famine in the countries where the tree is grown, especially in Spain and Egypt, and by the Arabs. They are given as food to cattle in modern, as we read they were in ancient, times; but at the best can only be considered very poor fare.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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