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  LANDS OF THE BIBLE
  by J.W. McGarvey
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McGarvey's account of his 1879 personal visit to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and
other biblical lands, describing the geography, archaeology, and cultural
landscape of the regions where the events of Scripture took place.

  Chapters: 44

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. Lands of the Bible
    2. Introduction
    3. ***PART ONE: The Geography of Palestine***
    4. Chapter One--General Description of the Country
    5. Chapter Two--The Climate, Soil and Productions
    6. Chapter Three--The People of Palestine
    7. Chapter Four--Modes of Agriculture
    8. Chapter Five--Modes of Architecture
    9. Chapter Six--Social and Domestic Habits of the People
   10. Chapter Seven--State of Education and Religion
   11. ***PART TWO: Topography of Palestine***
   12. Chapter One--Jerusalem
   13. Chapter Two--Places With Jerusalem as a Center
   14. Chapter Three--Places With Hebren as a Center
   15. Chapter Four--Places In The Maritime Plain
   16. Chapter Five--Places With Shechem as a Center
   17. Chapter Six--Places About the Plain of Esdra'Elon
   18. Chapter Seven--Places In Galilee
   19. Chapter Eight--Places Along the Jordan and Beyond
   20. Chapter Nine: The Land and the Book
   21. ***PART THREE: Letters of Travel***
   22. Letter One: Leaving Home and Crossing the Atlantic
   23. Letter Two: England and France into Italy
   24. Letter Three: Rome, Naples, Vesuvius and Pompeii
   25. Letter Four: Egypt and the Pyramids
   26. Letter Five: Egypt--The Sphinx, the Tombs and the Red Sea
   27. Letter Six: The Peninsula of Mount Sinai
   28. Letter Seven: From Suez to Jerusalem
   29. Letter Eight: Beyond the Jordan
   30. Letter Nine: Hot Springs, Plain of Shittim and Return to Jerusalem
   31. Letter Ten: Bethlehem, Solomon's Pools, Hebron and En-Gedi
   32. Letter Eleven: Beer-Sheba, Edom and Philistia
   33. Letter Twelve: Jerusalem to She-chem
   34. Letter Thirteen: From Jerusalem to the Lake of Galilee
   35. Letter Fourteen: From Tiberias to Tyre
   36. Letter Fifteen: From Tyre to Sidon
   37. Letter Sixteen: From Sidon to Mount Hermon
   38. Letter Seventeen: Damascus
   39. Letter Eighteen: From Damascus to Beirut
   40. Letter Nineteen: From Beirut to the Seven Churches of Asia
   41. Letter Twenty: Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamos and Smyrna
   42. Letter Twenty-One: Constantinople and Athens
   43. Letter Twenty-Two: Homeward Bound
   44. ***APPENDIX: Dr. Vartan's Observations***

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  CHAPTER 1: LANDS OF THE BIBLE
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Lands of the Bible A Geographical And Topographical Description of Palestine
With Letters of Travel in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor and Greece. by

J.W. McGarvey Professor of Sacred History in the College of the Bible,
Lexington, Ky.

© Copyright 1880, by J.W. McGarvey,

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives This e-Sword Module Edited by
djmarko53@biblesupport.com


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  CHAPTER 2: INTRODUCTION
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Introduction The following work is the result of much careful study continued
through many years, and of a personal visit to the lands of which it treats. The
author has been a teacher of Sacred History in the College of the Bible for
fifteen years, and his course of instruction includes all of the historical
matter in the entire Bible. The necessity for a knowledge of sacred geography,
in order to the elucidation of sacred history, led him to a careful study of the
former subject. But no man can so vividly depict to others the local features of
a country as one who has seen them with his own eyes. In order, therefore, to
qualify himself more thoroughly for his chosen and favorite line of instruction,
the author made a visit, in the year 1879, to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia
Minor, and Greece.

Until near the middle of the present century almost nothing was known by
Europeans and Americans concerning the topography of Palestine. To our own
country, in the person of Dr. Edward Robinson, belongs the credit of the first
scientific exploration of that land. "Let it be distinctly remembered," says the
learned Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund of Great Britain, "that Dr.
Robinson is the first of scientific travelers, and that his books are still,
after thirty years, the most valuable works which we possess on the geography of
Palestine." This was written in 1872, and Dr. Robinson's first journey through
Palestine was made in 1838. But even after the publication of Robinson's
invaluable work, entitled "Biblical Researches in Palestine," the two most
remarkable physical features of the country—the Dead Sea and the deep-lying
river which supplies its waters—were shrouded in mystery, and had for ages been
the subject of many superstitious legends. To W. F. Lynch a lieutenant in the
American navy, is due the credit of the first exploration of these waters. He
was sent, at the expense of our government, in the year 1848, to make a
scientific exploration of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. With ten American seamen
and two subordinate naval officers, he launched two boats, one of iron and one
of copper, on the Lake of Galilee, April 10, 1848. He passed down the Jordan,
and after a voyage of eight days, sailed into the Dead Sea on the 18th of the
same month. He spent twenty-one days exploring the shores and sounding the
depths of this mysterious lake, and then ran a line of levels to the
Mediterranean Sea, to determine the exact difference of level between the two
bodies of water. "The official report of this journey," says the same learned
committee just quoted, "has become the standard authority on this most curious
and remarkable feature of Palestine."

Another American, Dr. J. T. Barclay, who resided as a missionary in Jerusalem
from 1851 to 1855, gave the Western World the first elaborate and strictly
reliable description of modern Jerusalem, in his work called "The City of the
Great King." This, too, has been quoted as a standard ever since its publication
in 1857. The three preceding works having treated mainly the physical features
of the country, it was reserved for Dr. William Thomson, who has lived as a
missionary in Sidon and Beirût' since 1840, to treat successfully the manners
and customs and products of the country which best illustrate many passages of
Scripture. This was done in a work appropriately entitled "The Land and the
Book," published in the year 1858. The same author has recently followed this
work with another on Southern Palestine and Jerusalem, covering partly the same
ground, but devoted chiefly to localities and subject-matter only slightly
treated in the former work. It was issued by the Harpers in a magnificent volume
in June, 1880, and came into the author's hand after his manuscript had been
nearly completed.

Though a multitude of books on Palestine have been published since the dates of
the four just mentioned, not only in the English language, but in the French and
the German, no material additions were made to the knowledge of the subject
until the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund of Great Britain was
inaugurated. Under the leadership of Mr. George Grove, the principal writer on
Palestine in "Smith's Bible Dictionary," the work of collecting this fund was
commenced in the year 1865; and in the course of ten years, by a very large
outlay of money, not less than $150,000, the managers of the fund succeeded in
obtaining a complete survey of all Palestine west of the Jordan, together with
an accurate account of the archæology, manners and customs, topography, geology,
and natural history of the country. They employed in this survey men of
experience and learning belonging to the corps of Royal Engineers of the British
army, such as Captains Anderson, Wilson, and Warren, and Lieutenant Conder, with
competent assistants. The results of the labors of these men have been published
from time to time, in quarterly statements, in a small volume called "Our Work
in Palestine," and, in two octavo volumes, by Lieutenant Conder, called
"Tent-Work in Palestine;" and, finally, a complete memoir of the survey, with
drawings and cuts, in seven large volumes, accompanied by a large map in
twenty-six sheets, has been published, to supply a limited number of subscribers
at $60.00 each.

While the work of this British Fund was being prosecuted west of the Jordan, an
American Palestine Exploration Society was formed for the purpose of a similar
survey and exploration of the country east of the river. The society was
organized in 1870, and in the course of seven years, with Professor R. D.
Hitchcock as its president and Howard Crosby as its secretary, it has sent out
several expeditions and accomplished some important results; but for want of
sufficient funds its work has not yet been completed. The results attained have
been published in several "Statements" in pamphlet form.

It may be safely said that Palestine was not known, nor was even Jerusalem
properly understood, until the work of these two associations was undertaken;
and that all of the older books on the subject must be superseded by those which
shall have these explorations as their basis. No correct map of the country was
ever given to the world, or could be, until these surveys were made. Not yet has
the great map of the British Fund been published on a small scale; and as it is
the author's fixed purpose to allow nothing a place in this volume known to be
inaccurate, he prefers that it shall contain no map at all rather than an
inaccurate one, such as abound in books on Palestine, and even in our Bibles.
Our readers will soon be supplied, in common with the entire public, with
reduced copies of the great map, which will be entirely accurate, and will be
far more serviceable than diminutive copies which could be folded in a volume
like this. To the works above mentioned, and to Baedeker's "Handbook for
Travellers in Palestine and Syria," the author is chiefly indebted for the
information contained in the following pages, so far as it is not the result of
his own observations. As Baedeker's Handbook has been but recently translated
into English, and is therefore little known in America, I must do it the justice
to say that it proved to the author the most valuable of all the works which
fell into his hands for minute and accurate details in regard to every part of
the country; and that to the tourist who wishes to explore the country
intelligently and independently it is indispensable as a guide-book. The living
guides obtainable in Palestine are not half so reliable. The work was prepared
by a number of learned German professors sent into the country for the purpose
by the publisher, and it is one of a series of guide-books on different
countries frequented by tourists which has made the name of Baedeker and his
publishing-house at Leipsic familiar to travelers of all nationalities. Other
works consulted by the author receive due credit foot-notes at the proper
places. The author had for many years entertained a longing desire to visit
Palestine, but his limited income and the care of an increasing family seemed
insuperable barriers. Finally a number of his former pupils in sacred history,
under the leadership chiefly of C. C. Cline, now of Louisville, Kentucky,
realizing the advantages to myself personally, to the classes which I instruct,
and to the church for which I minister of such a tour, proposed to raise by
subscription the amount necessary for the expense of the tour and for the
support of my family during my absence; and to depend for reimbursement of
themselves on the sale of such a book as I should write after my return. I
accepted this generous offer, and it is to these friends and others whom they
succeeded in interesting in the enterprise that I am indebted for the privilege
of publishing this work, and for, the inestimable privilege of seeing with my
own eyes the land of all lands. My outward journey, as will be seen by
consulting the letters of travel in Part Third, led through England, France, and
Italy to Egypt, and it included a visit of nearly two weeks to the principal
objects of interest in Lower Egypt. I spent nearly three months in Palestine and
Syria, visiting every part of Palestine, and seeing nearly every square mile of
its territory. On my homeward voyage I visited the sites of the "Seven Churches
of Asia," except that of Laodicea, saw Constantinople, and spent a few days in
Athens. Previous to undertaking the journey I prepared notes on all the places
which I expected to visit, indicating the points to be verified and the links of
missing information to be supplied. This rendered my task comparatively easy,
and enabled me to pass quite rapidly from place to place without slighting the
work. Without such previous preparation more than double the time would have
been necessary to attain the same results. I may add that the same preparation
has rendered comparatively light the task of writing the present volume.

Nearly all of the books on Palestine hitherto published contain merely
narratives of the tours made by their authors. In that line of writing the
present author, although his tour of Palestine was more extensive than that of
any other writer whom he has consulted, could not hope to excel some of his
predecessors; but, while giving in Part Third of this work a personal narrative
of this kind, chiefly to gratify many friends who have read with pleasure, and
desire to read again, the letters of which it is composed, he has devoted by far
the larger portion of his space to a systematically arranged account of the
geography and the topography of the entire country in two separate parts. This
is the distinctive characteristic of the present work, so far as its plan is
concerned, and upon this the author chiefly relies for its acceptability and
usefulness. In order to render this feature of the work practically available to
all students of the Bible and of sacred geography, he has appended to the
volume, in addition to the table of contents, a copious topographical index, by
means of which the reader can readily find all the pages on which any given
place or subject is mentioned in the book.

Owing to the fact that Scripture proper names, as well as the modern names of
Scripture localities, belong to foreign languages, the masses of
English-speaking people are woefully deficient in their pronunciation. In order
to help my readers in this particular, I have aimed to attach to all foreign
words in this book which are at all likely to be mispronounced the proper marks
of accent and quantity. It is hoped that due attention will be paid to these,
and that thus another distinctive feature of the work will be productive of
good.

Many of the engravings which have been printed in books illustrative of biblical
scenes are unfaithful to their originals. In a matter of this kind the artist
should take no more liberties with his subject than are allowed to the
historian. Both should be faultlessly true in their representations. Under this
conviction, the author has selected from the mass of cuts within his command
only such as can be relied on for fidelity. By a much larger outlay the number
of these could have been greatly multiplied, for almost every object of any
interest in Palestine has been photographed by skillful operators; but it was
thought best to limit the expenditure in this direction, lest the increased
price of the book should place it beyond the reach of many who desire to own it.
This introduction would not be complete without a brief sketch of the history of
Palestine; for whilst the general reader of history is sufficiently familiar
with this subject to read the following pages intelligibly, there are many
earnest students of the Bible who have not enjoyed this advantage. We will speak
only of its history since the close of the New Testament period. In A. D. 65 the
Jews revolted against the Romans, under whose dominion they had lived for one
hundred and twenty-two years; and after a war of five years they were subdued
and Jerusalem destroyed in the year 70. For a knowledge of the history of this
war we are dependent on Josephus, who was an active participant in it, and who
was present as a prisoner in the army of Titus during the siege of Jerusalem. He
represents that 1,100,000 Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem, a vast
multitude in attendance at the Passover having been shut up within the city by
the beginning of the siege; that 256,450 were slain in other parts of Judea and
Galilee; and that 101,700 were taken prisoners and sold into bondage. With this
catastrophe Palestine ceased to be a Jewish country, and under an order of the
Emperor Vespasian the entire landed property of the country was offered for sale
to foreigners. Only that portion east of Jordan escaped utter ruin. The Emperor
Hadrian, who ascended the throne A. D. 117, issued an edict prohibiting
circumcision among the Jews, the reading of the Law, and the observance of the
Sabbath. He also declared his intention to make Jerusalem a Roman colony, and to
build a temple to Jupiter on the site of the temple of God. These measures drove
to desperation the Jews who had crept back into the country, and there appeared
among them one Bar-Co'chebas (Son of the Star), who claimed to be their
long-expected Messiah. He raised the standard of revolt in the year 132. Jews
from every quarter rallied to his support. He took Jerusalem, proclaiming
himself its king; and he maintained war against the Romans for two years, when
the remnant of his forces perished with great slaughter at a place called
Be'ther. This was the last and only struggle made by the Jews to recover their
country and their nationality. Hadrian carried out his infamous purposes. A
temple of Jupiter was built on Mount Moriah; the statue of the emperor was
erected where the Holy of Holies had been; a heathen colony was planted in the
city; and its name was changed to Ælia Capitoli'na. Jews were forbidden to enter
the city under penalty of death, and this prohibition continued in force about
two hundred years. The progress of Christianity in Palestine was necessarily
interrupted by the outbreak of the war against the Romans, and after the
destruction of the Jewish nationality a heathen population overran the country.
But the all-conquering religion of Christ quickly subdued the new inhabitants,
and Palestine became a Christian land. Its history as a Christian country may be
properly dated from about the beginning of the third century, and it continued
until the Mohammedan conquest in the year 637, a period of about four hundred
and thirty-seven years. During this period the Christianity of the country was
undergoing that gradual decay that characterized the Church at large, and it
finally lost almost every element of the religion originally established in the
same land by the apostles. At the date last mentioned, only fifteen years after
the rise of the Mohammedan power in Arabia, Palestine was invaded by the armies
of the Calif, Jerusalem surrendered to Omar in person, and the long night of
Mohammedan dominion began. It was stipulated among the conditions of surrender
that the Christian population of Jerusalem should still be permitted to worship
in their existing churches, but that no more churches should be built. Similar
immunities were granted to some other Christian communities in Palestine, but
nearly all the churches in the country were either demolished or converted into
Mohammedan mosques. From the remnant of Christians allowed to remain in the
country have descended the Christian portion of its native population at the
present time. The next important period in the history of the country is that of
the Crusades. These ill-advised and fanatical attempts to recover the Holy
Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels were so far successful that Jerusalem
was taken in the year 1099, and made the seat of a Christian kingdom. But the
triumph was of brief continuance, for in July, 1187, at the battle of Hattin,
near Tiberias, the Christian power was finally crushed by the celebrated
Saladin; and although within the next fifty years the country twice more fell
into the hands of the Christians, it was lost almost as soon as it was gained,
and finally, in 1244, the efforts of the Crusaders were totally abandoned, and
the current of Mohammedan dominion resumed its course. Palestine was now a
dependency of the Califate of Egypt.

During the brief period in which the kings, princes, and knights from the
western world who commanded the hosts of the Crusaders had sway in Palestine,
many of the churches and fortifications whose ruins are an interesting feature
of the country at the present day were erected. A vast amount of money and labor
was expended in improving the country and strengthening its defenses. In the
year 1517 Palestine passed from under the dominion of Egypt to that of the
Ottoman Empire, then ruled by Sultan Selim I. With the exception of eight years,
from 1832 to 1840, during which it was once more held by Egypt, under Mohammed
Ali, it has remained under the dominion of the Sultans of Turkey until the
present time, a period of three hundred and sixty-three years.


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  CHAPTER 3: ***PART ONE: THE GEOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE***
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  CHAPTER 4: CHAPTER ONE--GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY
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Chapter I. General Description of the Country I. The Land Promised to Abraham
The country promised to Abraham as the inheritance of his offspring is not
co-extensive with that which was actually inhabited by the twelve tribes of
Israel. The former included the latter, but it extended beyond it both to the
north and the south. The promised land was bounded on the west by the
Mediterranean Sea, and on the east by the uninhabitable desert of Northern
Arabia. A sea of sand on the one side and of water on the other cut it off from
approach in either direction.

About midway the southeastern curve of the Mediterranean Sea, a dry stream-bed,
now called Wâdy el Arîsh', but known in the Bible as "the river of Egypt" (Gen
15:18), reaches the sea-shore by a gradual descent across the desert from the
southeast. The mouth of this wâd'y marks the southern limit of the coast-line of
the land in question, while a line drawn from this point in a southeasterly
direction to the head of the Gulf of Ak'abah, and thence eastward to the desert,
would mark its southern boundary. The northern boundary would be marked by a
line drawn from the river Euphra'tes, at the ancient city of Car'chemish, which
stood a few miles above the modern Ba'lis, almost due west to the mouth of the
river Oron'tes, near Antioch. The country thus included extends over six and a
half degrees of latitude, from 29° 30' to 36° north, and is about 417 miles long
in an air-line. Its average width is about 75 miles. This narrow strip of
territory was closely connected at its northern extremity with the seats of
ancient empire in Western Asia, while at its southern extremity it was separated
only by a narrow strip of desert from Egypt, the dominant power in Africa. Its
situation rendered it, throughout all the ages which preceded the invention of
great fleets, the highway of commercial intercourse and of military expeditions
between the great powers which ruled respectively in Asia and Africa. The name
Syria, which now extends over all this territory, was anciently limited to its
most northern portion, with Damascus in the earlier period, and Antioch in the
later, as its chief city. The most southern portion, that south of the Dead Sea,
was called Edom, or Idume'a; while the district between these two is the one now
best known to the world under the name Palestine, the land actually inhabited by
the Twelve Tribes. Of the two former we will speak in Part Third; the last
commands our attention at present.

While the land given in promise to Abraham was not all occupied by his
descendants, it was all at one time in their possession. David extended his
conquests over the whole of it, so that both he and Solomon reigned from the
Euphrates to the river of Egypt. But all beyond the limits of Palestine was held
as conquered territory, and it was all lost upon the division of the kingdom
after the death of Solomon.

II. The Land Inhabited By Israel The boundaries of the land west of the Jordan
actually given to the Twelve Tribes are laid down in Num 34:1-29; but some parts
of the description, especially that of the northern and southern lines, are now
obscured by our ignorance of many of the places named in it. It is well
ascertained, however, that the actual settlements of Israel did not extend so
far, either to the north or the south, as the limits there assigned. We would
come near a description of the southern boundary if we should draw a line from
the southern extremity of the Dead Sea in a direction a little south of west to
Be-er'-sheba, and thence northwest to the Mediterranean shore at Gaza. The
western boundary was the sea-shore, and its northern terminus was the White
Promontory,—the cliffs of white limestone which terminate the Plain of Acre on
the north. Here the territory of Tyre and Sidon, called by the Greeks Phoenicia,
sets in, and this district formed the northern boundary of Israel as far east as
Mount Hermon. The town of Dan was usually spoken of as the most northern city of
Israel, from the fact that it was so on the route most usually traveled in going
north; but the district immediately west of Dan extended a few miles farther
north, and was separated from the southern end of Phoenicia by the river
Litâ'ny. This river, after rising at Bââal'bec and running southward through the
southern part of the plain between the Lebanon and Hermon ranges of mountains,
here curves abruptly to the west, cuts through the former range in a chasm from
2000 to 3000 feet deep, and makes its way to the sea. It is a natural and an
almost impassable boundary between the two countries. Its Arab name, Kâsîmî'yeh
(boundary stream), is probably derived from its ancient use in this particular.
The eastern boundary of the tribes dwelling west of the Jordan was the Dead Sea,
the River Jordan, the Lake of Galilee, and the eastern side of the plain through
which the upper Jordan flows. The entire length of the country, "from Dan to
Be-er'-sheba," is 139 miles in an air-line, the latter place being in latitude
31° 16', and the former in 33° 16'. Its width at the northern extremity is about
30 miles, and at the southern about 50 miles. The whole area west of the Jordan
is about 6000 square miles. The territory of the tribes which dwelt east of the
Jordan was not so long nor so wide. It extended from the river Arnon on the
south, a stream which flows westward from the desert and enters the Dead Sea
about midway its length, to a line drawn eastward from the northern end of the
Lake of Galilee, a distance of about 100 miles; and its average width is not
more than 25 miles. The entire country inhabited by Israel is distributed by its
natural features into seven distinct parts,—the Maritime Plain, the Hill Country
of Judea, the Plain of Esdra'elon and Adjoining Plains, the Hill Country of
Galilee, the Valley of the Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the Country Beyond the
Jordan. Of these we will speak separately in the seven following sections of
this chapter.

III. The Maritime Plain A broad plain extends along the entire sea-coast of
Palestine, except where Mount Carmel thrusts its narrow front forward to the
water's edge and divides the plain into two unequal parts. That part which lies
north of this promontory will receive attention hereafter, the term Maritime
Plain being usually limited to the larger portion which lies south of it. It is
divided into two parts, the Plain of Sha'ron and the Philis'tine Plain. These
are distinguished, not by any natural boundary, nor by any distinct natural
features, but merely by the names which they anciently bore. They really
constitute but a single plain, unique in all essential features. The Philis'tine
Plain is the more southern portion, and is so called because it was anciently
inhabited by the Philis'tines. It extends along the sea-shore about 30 miles,
from Gaza to within a few miles of Joppa, and on whatever part of it you stand
gaze eastward you see rising before you in the horizon the mountain-wall of the
Hill Country of Judea. From the sea-coast back to the feet of these mountains at
the northern extremity is about nine miles, and at the southern about 16 miles.
It is an undulating plain, and some of its elevations rise as high as 300 feet
above the level of the sea. It is crossed from east to west by many streams of
water, some of them perennial, but most of them only wet-weather streams. Much
of the water which descends from the hills in the winter makes its way toward
the sea on the surface of the underlying rock, and rises to the surface in
lagoons within a mile or two of the shore. In most parts of the plain
inexhaustible supplies of fresh water are found by digging wells of moderate
depth. The soil is finely adapted to the growth of small grain, a large quantity
of which is produced; yet only a small part of the surface is now cultivated at
all, the sparse population seeming to aim at little more than the supply of
their own bread. The southeastern part is occupied by Bed'awin Arabs with their
flocks and herds, but the remainder is thickly dotted with small brown villages,
around each of which there is a small tract of well-cultivated land. The Plain
of Sha'ron extends from a short distance south of Joppa northward to Mount
Carmel, and is about 50 miles long. It maintains an average width of about nine
miles until it reaches the foot of the hills projecting from the southwestern
side of Mount Carmel, when it suddenly contracts to about four miles. Near the
promontory which this mountain forms at the sea-shore it is contracted into an
acute angle between the mountain and the sea. The plain is traversed by a stream
of considerable size, which descends from the hills at the southeastern
extremity of Mount Carmel, flows westward along the base of that mountain until
it crosses half the width of the plain, then turns a little southward, and
empties into the sea two miles north of the ruins of Cæsarea. It is called by
the natives the Zerka, or Blue River. It is the largest stream in Palestine,
west of the Jordan. Several mills are located on its banks, fish abound in its
waters, and it is said that small crocodiles have been seen in it. From this
last circumstance it is called by Europeans Crocodile River. Other smaller
streams traverse the plain in various directions, but in the latter part of the
summer they are usually absorbed by the thirsty soil. As in the Philis'tine
Plain, lagoons are formed in many places near the sea-shore by the rise of
water, which flows underground from the drainage of the hills; and water is
easily found almost everywhere by digging. Good wells exist wherever the people
have the energy to dig them, or have had the care to preserve those dug by the
ancient inhabitants. Especially is this the case about Joppa, where extensive
gardens and orchards are irrigated by water drawn from wells of moderate depth.

What we have said about the fertility of the Philis'tine Plain may be repeated
with emphasis concerning the Plain of Sha'ron. One acquainted with the rolling
prairies of the Western States of America would imagine himself in the midst of
one of these if suddenly put down in the midst of this plain. The only trees
visible are the olive-groves immediately about the villages. The underlying rock
along the sea-coast of both sections of the plain is a coarse and soft
sandstone. This is disintegrated by the perpetual wash of the waves; they
crumble it into sand, and then push the sand out on the shore, where the sun
dries it and the wind drives it inland. So long has this process continued that
an almost unbroken ridge of yellow sand stretches along the coast, obstructing
the outflow of streams, and in some places rising to a height of from 50 to 60
feet above the level of the plain. Much valuable land is thus covered up, and
the sea-shore is made to present a desolate appearance. It is estimated that
this encroachment of sand upon the soil is advancing inland at the rate of three
feet per annum.

IV. The Hill Country Of Judea

While the mountains which bound the Maritime Plain on the east seem at a
distance to rise in a smooth, continuous wall, on near approach they are found,
especially along the Philis'tine Plain, to begin with a series of lower ridges.
These ridges run north and south, and they rise in some places as high as 1200
feet above the sea-level. Between them and the mountains farther east there is a
depression about 500 feet deep, constituting a series of elevated valleys, which
separate the range of hills from the range of mountains, and drain the adjacent
sides of both. They descend toward the north, the greatest elevation of the
country being toward the south, near Hebron, and they finally break through into
the plain at a point nearly due west of Jerusalem. These hills are called the
Shephe'lah. They do not extend along the Plain of Sha'ron.

East of the Plain of Sha'ron, and of the elevated valleys just mentioned, rises
the central mountain ridge of the country, and it extends in width to the Dead
Sea and the valley of the Jordan. That part of it which lies south of Jerusalem
is called in Scripture the Hill Country of Judah, because it was occupied by the
tribe of Judah; and that north of the city Mount Ephraim, because the powerful
tribe of Ephraim occupied the chief part of it. Its water-shed lies nearer the
eastern than the western side, and runs in a crooked line from Hebron northward
by Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Bethel, and She'chem to the vicinity of Mount Gil'boa,
a distance of 65 miles. Its average elevation is about 1500 feet, but its
highest point, which is 3 miles north of Hebron, is 3300 feet high, while that
of Bethlehem is 2900 feet, that of Jerusalem is 2600, and that of Mount Ebal,
overlooking She'chem, is 3076. From both sides of this central ridge are
projected long and crooked outstretching spurs, which sometimes make a gradual
descent toward the lowlands, and sometimes rise in tall peaks or ridges which
break down suddenly into the plains. Between these spurs are deep, narrow
gorges, called wad'ies, which drain the mountains, and along whose rocky beds
there are many copious springs. These wadies, beginning at the water-shed as
slight depressions on the right and left of the highway, rapidly grow deeper and
narrower, until they often attain a depth of from 1000 to 1500 feet before they
reach the level of the plains to which they descend. Those on the eastern side
are more abrupt and rugged than those on the west, both because they make their
descent within a shorter distance, and because their descent is greater,—the
valley of the Jordan, to which they descend, lying at a much lower level than
that of the Maritime Plain. They are washed by mountain torrents during the
heavy rains of winter, and by babbling brooks in the spring; but most of them
become entirely dry as the summer advances. The roads running east and west
across the country follow their stony beds or pass along narrow benches cut in
their steep sides, while the principal route of travel north and south follows
the line of the water-shed. That part of the eastern slope which lies west of
the Dead Sea is the most rugged and barren portion of the whole country. The
barren region begins a few miles east of the water-shed, and extends along the
entire length of the Dead Sea. It is about 45 miles long, and from 8 to 10 miles
wide. It is very correctly and graphically described by Lieutenant Conder in the
following words:

"The character of the rock is different from the stratified limestone of the
mountains above. It is a white, soft chalk, which is worn by the winter rains
into long, knife-edged ridges, separated by narrow ravines with stony beds. The
sea-breeze never visits this ghastly desert, which is fitly called in Scripture
Jesh'imon, or Solitude. Thus, though in spring the naked slopes are thinly
covered with grass and flowers, it presents throughout nearly the whole year a
long succession of glaring ridges, with fantastic knobs and peaks, and sharp,
rugged spurs, absolutely treeless and waterless."

Nearly all travelers who visit this desolate region suffer much from the intense
heat, the glare from the white hill-sides being as fierce as that from the
burning sun itself. The writer just quoted says, "There are probably few places
in Asia where the sun beats down with as fierce and irresistible a power as in
the Desert of Judah." The author's experience in traversing it was exceptional.
We occupied three days—May 13-15—in an excursion from Hebron to the Dead Sea,
and we enjoyed a cool north wind from noon on the 13th to sunset on the 15th.
The 15th was indeed a chilly day. We rode all day in our overcoats, and the
temperature the following night at Hebron was as low as 55° Fahrenheit.

Next in ruggedness to the chalk hills west of the Dead Sea is the section
immediately north of it, lying east of a line between Jerusalem and Bethel.
Along the road between these two towns, which are 12 miles apart, the surface
consists very largely of naked rocks, and the hills to the eastward are very
rugged, growing more so as we approach their termination in the volcanic and
barren mountains which overhang the Jordan Valley near Jericho. This region was
occupied by the tribe of Benjamin.

North of Bethel, on both sides of the water-shed, the hills are more rounded,
the valleys wider, and the general aspect of the country is more pleasing. The
same is true of the western slope, opposite the two sections first described
above. The Hill Country terminates at the north, with Mount Gil'boa on the east,
and Mount Carmel on the west. The former is a lofty ridge, extending from the
line of the water-shed in a southeasterly direction to the Jordan Valley; and
the latter, commencing a few miles west of the same line, extends 12 miles in a
northwesterly direction to the Mediterranean Sea.

V. The Plain Of Esdra'Elon And Adjoining Plains The Hill Country, at its
northern extremity, breaks down into three connected plains, the central and
largest of which is the Plain of Esdra'elon. It is triangular in form, its
longest side being towards the southwest, and extending from Jenîn', in the
southeast angle, in a direction a little north of west to Mount Carmel, and
along its northern base about one mile. This side is 25 miles long. The eastern
side starts also from Jenîn', and runs north past the western foot of Mount
Gil'boa to Mount Tabor. It is 14 miles long. The northern side, starting from
Mount Tabor and running a little south of west, skirts the hills of Galilee and
terminates at Mount Carmel, where it forms an angle with the southwestern side.
It is about 16 miles long. No one of these sides is entirely straight, for the
plain, on every side, forms numerous bays running into the mountains. Its
elevation is from 200 to 250 feet above the level of the sea, and its slope is
toward the Mediterranean. It is drained by the river Ki'shon, which flows
through the middle of it, collecting the waters of many springs which break
forth near the hills on every side. This river passes out through a gap about
half a mile wide between Mount Carmel and the Galilean hills at the northwest
angle of the plain. Thence it runs nearly parallel with the northern base of
Mount Carmel until it empties into the Bay of A'cre. That part of it which is
below the gap is perennial, with a sluggish current and a bed of mud. The part
above the gap frequently goes dry in summer. It was entirely dry when seen by
the author, in June, 1879, after a very dry winter. In this plain occurred two
very important events in the history of ancient Israel. It was here, on the
banks of the Ki'shon, that Deb'orah and Ba'rak defeated the army of Ja'bin under
Sis'era, and the retreat of the routed army was along the course of the river,
though their commander fled in another direction. It was here also, near
Megiddo, on the southern edge of the plain, that Josiah, king of Judah,
encountered the army of Pharaoh Ne'cho, king of Egypt, who was on a march to the
Euphrates, and was defeated and slain,—the first and only king of Judah who fell
in battle. In the Old Testament this plain is called the Valley of Jez'reel,
from the city of Jez'reel which stood at its eastern side, on a spur of Mount
Gil'boa, and Esdra'elon is but a Greek corruption of that name. It is called by
the present inhabitants, who seem to be totally ignorant of its ancient history,
Merj Ib'n Amîr', the Meadow of the Son of Ameer'.

There are no large towns in the plain except Jenîn', and no villages except a
few very small ones on its eastern side. If any towns were ever built in the
interior of the plain, they were constructed of perishable material, and all
traces of them have disappeared. The soil is of volcanic origin, and exceedingly
rich; but on account of annual incursions of Bed'awin from beyond the Jordan,
who resorted to it for grazing purposes, and often robbed the surrounding
villagers, it was not much cultivated until a few years ago. Now it annually
produces large quantities of grain, and Conder states that in 1872 nine-tenths
of it was in cultivation. From the eastern side of the Plain of Esdra'elon there
opens a gap about four miles wide between Mount Gil'boa and a mountain north of
it, called Jebel Dû'hy. This gap opens into a plain, which widens as it extends
eastward until it reaches Beisan', where it breaks down by a precipitous descent
of about 400 feet into the valley of the Jordan. To this plain the name Valley
of Jez'reel is now confined. It is about 12 miles long, and it occupies the
space between the two mountains just named, which recede from each other as they
extend eastward, Jebel Dû'hy inclining northward, and Mount Gil'boa southward.
The plain is not less than 10 miles wide where it breaks down into the Jordan
Valley. A number of fine springs issuing from the northern base of Mount Gil'boa
and spreading over this plain, render the eastern portion of it green and marshy
in summer when all around it is parched and dry. The largest of these, situated
a mile and a half east of Jez'reel, is called Ain Jalûd', and it is the source
of a stream which, when swelled by the streams from other springs, becomes the
river Jalûd', the largest of the western tributaries of the Jordan. Many mills
along the plain are propelled by the water of these different streams. The dryer
parts of the plain are well cultivated, and the marshy portions afford summer
pasturage. It is claimed by Bed'awin from beyond the Jordan, who resort to its
green pastures and luxurious canebrakes when the advancing summer has dried up
the vegetation of the plains in their own country. No villages now exist on the
plain, except the miserable and insignificant hamlets of Jez'reel and Shu'nem at
its western end, and the equally wretched village of Beisan' at the eastern end.

It was in the upper end of this valley that the host of the Midianites, the
Am'alekites, and the Children of the East were spread abroad when Gideon came
down upon them from his camp on Mount Gil'boa and defeated them with his three
hundred men. It was at Shu'nem, near the head of the valley, that the
Philis'tine army was encamped before the fatal battle in which King Saul was
defeated and slain. Saul's army was encamped at Jez'reel, and his retreat was
over the slopes of Mount Gil'boa. Somewhere on that mountain the dead bodies of
the king and his sons were found by the Philis'tines, who gibbeted them on the
walls of Beth-she'an (Beisan'), at the eastern end of the same valley. The
Galilean hills, which bound the northern side of the Plain of Esdra'elon, make a
gradual curve on the western side of the plain and approach Mount Carmel at a
right angle. But they are separated from it by the narrow pass already
mentioned, through which the Ki'shon flows. This pass connects the plain with
the Plain of A'cre, which lies at a lower level, and stretches away to the
Mediterranean. This latter plain is therefore a part of the same series of
plains to which those of Esdra'elon and Jez'reel belong, and which extends from
the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean Sea. Its width, from the mountains to the
sea, is from 8 to 10 miles, and its length from north to south is about 16
miles. Mount Carmel forms its southern boundary, and its northern is the
mountain-wall of Phoenicia, which terminates at the sea-coast in a lofty bluff
of white limestone, called the White Promontory. This plain lies but a few feet
above the level of the sea. In many places it is marshy, and the marshes are
crossed from east to west by paved roads, the flat stones of which are laid on
an elevated bed. It possesses a rich soil, and its surface is dotted with a
multitude of villages, whose inhabitants cultivate a large area in grain. It is
indented on the southwest by the Bay of A'cre, whose shore has the curve of a
bent bow. The southern side of its mouth is near the foot of Mount Carmel, and
the town of Haifa stands there, on a narrow slope between the mountain and the
bay. On the opposite side of the mouth, and in the angle between the sea and the
northern side of the bay, stands the town of A'cre, from which the bay and the
plain both derive their names. It was known in the New Testament period as
Ptolemais (Acts 21:7), and the plain is called by Josephus "the territory
belonging to Ptolemais." It has had an eventful history, and it is now the only
well-fortified place in Palestine; but Haifa, being the landing-place of the
steamships, is fast gaining on it in population, and already excels it in
commercial importance.

VI. The Hills Of Galilee The section of plains last described, with the
exception of the Plain of A'cre, belonged to Galilee, and were the southern
portion of that district. According to the description given by Josephus, the
authority on this question, Galilee was bounded on the south by Samaria, and the
latter district began with "Gin'ea," which is the modern Jenîn', on the southern
extremity of the Plain of Esdra'elon. That portion of Galilee which lies north
of these plains is a hill country. The ascent from the Plain of Esdra'elon to
the general level of the southern end of the hill country is about 1000 feet.
The ascent continues toward the north, approaching in elevation, as in distance,
the southern end of the Lebanon range of mountains, until it reaches, in the
highest points near the Litâ'ny River, an elevation of more than 4000 feet. The
deep gorge of the river just mentioned constitutes its northern boundary, while
on the west it is bounded chiefly by the Plain of Acre, and on the east by the
Lake of Galilee and the upper and lower Jordan Valley. The account of Galilee
given by Josephus represents it as it was when frequented by Jesus and made the
chief field of his earthly labors. He says that its soil was "uniformly rich and
fruitful;" that it was "full of plantations of trees of all sorts;" that it was
all cultivated, no part lying idle; and that it contained two hundred and forty
cities and villages. The same may be said of its soil at the present time, and
its hills are even yet more wooded than those of the southern hill country. They
are not so steep nor so bare of soil, and the valleys between them are broader.
Many villages, and some towns of considerable size, still exist there. Of the
latter, Nazareth is the largest, Tiberias the next, and Safed the third in size.
But great changes in the relative importance of places have taken place. For
example, Seph'oris, now called Sefurï'eh, about three miles north of Nazareth,
was then, according to Josephus, "the greatest city of all Galilee," while
Nazareth was so insignificant that it is not once mentioned except in connection
with Jesus. Now Sefurï'eh is an insignificant village and Nazareth is a large
town. Only a small portion of the country is now in cultivation, but the soil
yields a good return for the labor bestowed on it.

VII. The Valley Of The Jordan That portion of Palestine thus far described is
bounded on the east, along its entire length, by the valley of the Jordan. If
you stand on the slightly elevated site of the ancient city of Dan and look to
the south, you see before you the most northern section of this valley. It
stretches before you, apparently a dead level, about 20 miles, and it is about
five miles wide. A mountain wall rises from it on either side to a height of
from 1500 to 2000 feet, while the horizon at the farther end of it is bounded by
low hills jutting out from the mountains on either side. It is called the Plain
of Hûleh. The site of Dan, on which you are standing, is at the northern
extremity of the plain, and if you turn and look northward, you see that from
the north end of the plain arise the spurs of Mount Hermon, terminating, to the
northeast, in the snow-covered summit of that lofty mountain. The site of Dan is
a mound about 30 feet high, and under the western side of it there issues from
the ground one of the largest springs in the world. It sends forth a stream
about 20 feet wide, and from 20 to 30 inches deep, which flows southward along
the middle of the plain, and is hidden in the distance by a jungle of weeds,
cane, poplars, and other vegetation, which grow with a tropical luxuriance. This
spring is the central and principal source of the river Jordan, and the stream
which flows from it is called the Leddân'.

Two and a half miles east of Dan are the ruins of Ban'ias (Cæsarea Philippi),
under whose northern wall issues another spring about half as copious as the one
at Dan. The stream which flows from it, starting from an elevation nearly 1000
feet above the lowest part of the plain, rushes rapidly away toward the
southwest, and enters the Leddân' about six miles from the source of the latter.
This spring is the eastern source of the Jordan.

About one mile and a half west of Dan, the road running in that direction
crosses a bridge built of black rock, which spans a rapid mountain stream lying
deep within its bed of the same rock. This stream is the Hasbâ'ny. It is about
equal in size to the stream which flows from Cæsarea Philippi, and it issues
from a third spring near the town of Hasbeiah, under the western side of Mount
Hermon. This spring is the western and most distant source of the Jordan, and
the stream empties into the Leddân' a short distance below the mouth of the one
from Cæsarea Philippi. All three of these noted springs maintain a copious flow
throughout the dry season, being led by the melting of the snows on Mount
Hermon. The snow-water finds its way between the rocks down into the foundations
of the mountain, whence it is forced up, icy cold, into these and many smaller
springs.

After the junction of these three streams, the Jordan flows southward a few
miles farther, and then expands into Lake Hûleh, called in the Bible the Waters
of Merom. This lake is triangular in shape, being about 3 miles wide at its
northern end, and coming to a point at its southern end,—length, 4 miles. Its
northern end is 12 miles from the central source at Dan. Its average depth is
only about 11 feet (Baedeker), and it lies on a level with the Mediterranean Sea
(Conder, ii. 35). The plain, in the immediate vicinity of the lake, is too wet
for cultivation, so wet that the lake-shore can be reached only from the east
and the southwest; but the chief part of it is tillable, and all is exceedingly
rich. It contains no villages, but is cultivated by a tribe of Bed'awin Arabs,
who pitch their tents near their grain-fields, and pasture their stock on the
luxuriant natural vegetation. From the southern end of the lake the Jordan
starts again on its course. At first it glides tranquilly between sloping banks,
but after passing under an ancient stone bridge one mile and a half from the
lake it begins to descend very rapidly. It cuts through the hills which bound
the southern end of the plain, in a narrow gorge between perpendicular walls of
black rock, and rushes down a continuous succession of rapids and cascades until
it nears the Lake of Galilee, when it reaches a level and runs slowly into the
lake. The entire distance from Lake Hûleh to the Lake of Galilee is 10 1/2
miles, and the difference in elevation between the two is 682 feet. The Jordan
makes nearly all of this descent in 8 miles, a fall of 85 feet to the mile. The
Lake of Galilee, like Lake Hûleh, is but an expansion of the river Jordan. It is
6 miles wide at the widest part, and 12 1/2 miles long. The curve of the
northern shore continues to widen toward the south, until it reaches a distance
of 4 miles, when the shores begin to contract toward a narrow point at the
southern end. The southern point lies eastward of a line drawn along the middle.
The form of the lake is not unlike that of a longitudinal section of a pear,
with the stem-end toward the south, and turned a little to one side. It is
bounded on the east and west by a continuation of the same mountains which bound
the plain of Hûleh above, and they maintain about the same relative height; but
the level of the lake, according to Conder, who carried the levels from the Bay
of Acre, is 682 feet below that of the Mediterranean (ii. 177). Its water is
clear, and deepens gradually from the shore on every side. Its greatest depth is
165 feet (Lynch, p. 165). It abounds in fish, as it did of old, but the fleet of
boats which once dotted its surface with their white sails is now reduced to
three, and even these find only partial employment in supplying the market of
Tiberias, the only town now left on shores which once were packed with a dense
and busy population. The lake is often visited, as it has ever been, by sudden
storms, which literally come down upon it from the surrounding mountain-tops
(Luk 8:23), and in a few moments lash its waters into fury. This lake, during
the long period of its history, has passed under a variety of names. When first
mentioned in the Bible it is called the Sea if Chinnereth, probably from a city
of that name which stood on its shore. In the New Testament it is sometimes
called the Lake of Gennesaret, from the small plain on its western shore called
the Land of Gennesaret; sometimes the Sea of Galilee, from the country west of
it; and twice the Sea of Tiberias, from the town of Tiberias on its western
shore. This last title, found only in the latest of the New Testament
narratives, still clings to it in the Arabic form of Bahr Tabari'yeh. Of the
plain and hills, the springs and streams, the towns and villages, which are or
have been about its shores, we will speak under the proper headings in the
topographical part of this work, adding here only the remark, that its shores
possess nothing to especially interest the traveler apart from their historic
associations. It could not have been his taste for either the grand or the
beautiful which led Jesus to make it a place of so frequent resort. From a
pointed bay in the southeastern extremity of the Lake of Galilee the Jordan
makes its exit, running first a little north of west for about a mile (compare
Lynch, 172), when it makes a short curve to the south, and fairly starts on its
serpentine course toward the Dead Sea. The whole distance from the lake to the
sea is only 65 miles, but so crooked is the channel of the river that in
traversing this distance it runs 200 miles (Lynch, 265). It runs, in its
countless meanderings, to every point of the compass, but it makes no long
bends; and it falls during this part of its course 610 feet, the difference
between 682 feet, the depression of the Lake of Galilee below the Mediterranean,
and 1292 feet, that of the Dead Sea. The rate of its descent is by no means
uniform. According to Conder, this part of the river may be divided in this
respect into three sections. From the lake to the Dam'ieh ford, 42 miles, it
falls 460 feet,—an average of nearly 11 feet to the mile; but in a part of this
section it falls forty feet to the mile. The second section is one of 13 miles,
with an average fall of only 4 1/2 feet to the mile; and the third is one of 10
miles, with a fall of 9 feet to the mile. With such a fall the river would be a
torrent but for its many short bends, and for the many places in which the
descent is by a succession of rapids, alternating with pools and level stretches
in which the current is slow. From about 8 miles south of the lake the Jordan
runs in a valley within a valley, the inner valley varying from a quarter of a
mile to a mile in width, and lying from 100 to 200 feet below the level of the
upper and wider valley. Along this narrow depression the river winds about from
side to side like a coiling serpent, and its immediate banks are everywhere
thickly set with small trees and undergrowth. From the Lake of Galilee to the
beginning of this depression the bed and banks of the river are composed chiefly
of basalt, but throughout the remainder of its course it flows over a bed of
sandy clay, except at a few points where the naked rock or beds of gravel are
exposed. At these places are fixed the fords and ferries. Of the latter there
are at present only two at which ferry-boats are kept,—the Dam'ieh ferry, above
mentioned, and one opposite Jericho. Fords are much more numerous. Conder
obtained the names of more than forty, and among them was one called Abâr'ah,
which he identifies with the Beth-ab'arah of John 1:28. Of these we will speak
more particularly in Part Second. The Jordan has only four perennial
tributaries. Of these, two enter it from the west and two from the east. Of the
former two, the more northern is the Jalûd', which has its source in the valley
of Jez'reel, and flows thence through the ruins of Beisan' (Bethshean), and
thence to the Jordan. The more southern is the Far'rah, whose source is on the
northern slope of Mount Ebal, whose current supplies the "much water" of "Enon
near to Salim," and which enters the Jordan a short distance south of the
Dam'ieh ferry. The latter is the smaller of the two. Of the other two, the more
northern, and by far the largest of the four, is the Yar'mûk, whose mouth is
about six miles south of the Lake of Galilee. It is nearly as large as the
Jordan where they unite. The other is Wady Zerka (the river Jabbok), which
empties into the Jordan a half-mile above the Dam'ieh ferry. Besides these
perennial streams, there are several winter streams on the west, and a still
larger number on the east, which contribute to the swelling of the river during
the winter and spring, but whose diminished waters in the dry season are
absorbed in the thirsty plain. The volume of water which flows in the Jordan may
be estimated by its size at the Dam'ieh ferry, below which it is not materially
increased by tributaries. Here the author found it by accurate measurement, in
April, 1879, 130 feet wide from water's edge to water's edge, 8 feet deep in the
channel near the eastern bank, with a gradual slope to that point from the
western, and flowing in the channel at the rate of about 5 miles to the hour. On
the 27th of February, 1871, Captain Warren found it at the same place "quite
sixty yards in width, and running like a mill-race," while many branches from
the overflow of the river were meandering through the inner valley. When seen by
President Bartlett, in March, 1874, not far above its mouth, that writer
describes it as follows:

"The river was very high. We were fortunate enough to see it in the state in
which it is described in Joshua, 'overflowing all its banks'—that is, the whole
line of its banks. The turbid stream rushed along like a mill-race; and though
it had fallen from its greatest height, the proper banks of the stream were
invisible, and indicated only by lines of oleanders and other shrubs and trees."

Doctor Robinson, though he made no measurements himself, quotes the statements
of several other writers as follows:

"At the ford, near Beisan', on the 12th of March, Irby and Mangles found the
breadth to be one hundred and forty feet by measure; the stream was swift, and
reached above the bellies of the horses. When Burckhardt passed there in July,
it was about three feet deep. On the return of the former travelers twelve days
later (March 25), they found the river at a lower ford extremely rapid, and were
obliged to swim their horses. On the 29th of January in the same year, as Mr.
Bankes crossed at or near the same lower ford, the stream is described as
flowing rapidly over a bed of pebbles, but as easily fordable for the horses."
The upper valley of the Jordan varies greatly in width, and is divisible, with
reference to width, into six sections. The first, extending below the lake 13
miles, is about 4 1/2 miles wide; the second, extending 12 miles farther, is 8
miles wide; the third contracts to 2 or 3 miles on the east, with a high
table-land, not a valley, on the west,—it extends 12 miles; the fourth, 10 miles
long, is 8 miles wide,—three on the west of the river, and five on the east; the
fifth, about the same length, is more than 10 miles wide; while the sixth and
last, extending from a short distance above Jericho to the Dead Sea, is 8 miles
long and 14 wide, the Jordan running through the middle. If we add to these the
basin filled by the Lake of Galilee, 12 1/2 miles long, and the plain of Hûleh,
26 1/2 miles long, we have, in eight sections, the entire valley of the Jordan,
and find it 104 miles in length, with an average width of about 7 miles. But the
singular depression of which this valley forms a part extends much farther
toward the south. It includes the basin of the Dead Sea, 45 miles long, and also
the sandy valley running south from this to the head of the Gulf of Ak'abah, 100
miles farther. Throughout this entire distance of 250 miles, from Dan to the
Gulf of Ak'abah, there is a great rent in the earth's crust, the walls standing
from 4 to 14 miles apart, and the sunken space between occupied by the Jordan
Valley, the Dead Sea, and the valley south of the Dead Sea, called the Ar'abah.
That portion of it which extends from the Lake of Galilee to the Dead Sea is
called by the Arabs El-Ghor, the Depression, showing that its low level has not
escaped the notice of these uneducated people. In the Bible it is called "the
plain," or "the plain of the wilderness." Of the ruins to be found in the
valley, its streams of water, and its historical localities, we will speak under
the proper special headings.

VIII. The Dead Sea

Although the basin occupied by the Dead Sea is but a continuation of the Jordan
Valley, being but a deeper depression of that valley filled with water, it is
proper on account of its peculiarities that it be considered in a separate
section. As we have stated above, its entire length is 45 miles, and its average
width 10. Its eastern and western shores throughout the chief part of its length
are nearly parallel, so that its width is quite uniform. Its surface, according
to Lieutenant Lynch's estimate, based upon a series of levels carried from its
western shore to the Mediterranean at Joppa, is 1312 feet below the level of the
sea; but, according to Lieutenant Conder, it is 1292 feet. Its greatest depth,
according to Lynch, is 1308 feet, and its bottom inclines downward from the
western toward the eastern shore. It is the lowest lying body of water in the
world.

Toward its southern end a low peninsula, called the Lisân' (the tongue), juts
out from the eastern shore, and extends to within two miles of the western. The
length of this peninsula, from its northern to its southern cape, is about 10
miles. These capes were named by Lynch,—the former Cape Costigan and the latter
Cape Molineux, in honor of previous explorers. The water in the strait between
it and the western shore, though 642 feet deep at the northern extremity, is
only 18 feet deep at the southern. The surface of the peninsula at its northern
cape is 260 feet above the level of the water, but at its neck it is nearly on a
level with the water. The neck of the peninsula is not more than half as far
across, north and south, as its extreme western shore. It has a good soil, and
it would be very productive if supplied with water. That portion of the sea
which lies south of this peninsula is almost circular in shape, and is a mere
lagoon, varying in depth from 3 to 12 feet. It was conjectured by Dr. Robinson,
in 1838, that this lagoon was once the Plain of Sodom, and that when that city
and the plain on which it stood, together with four neighboring towns, were
burned, the bitumen with which the soil was impregnated was consumed to such a
depth as to leave a depression of the surface, into which the sea flowed and
formed the lagoon. He also conjectured that by means of simultaneous volcanic
action the bed of the sea may have been slightly upheaved, thus promoting the
flow of its water over the depressed surface. But this theory, though accepted
by some other writers and travelers, is now very generally rejected; and it is
held that an actual elevation of the bottom of this lagoon has taken place,
caused by the deposit of earthy matter washed down from the surrounding
mountains. The great weight of the water of the Dead Sea, and its extreme
saltness, have been observed by all travelers who have visited it, from Josephus
down. The historian of the first century says of the water, "It bears up the
heaviest things that are thrown into it; nor is it easy for any one to make
things sink therein to the bottom if he had a mind to do so. Accordingly, when
Vespasian went to see it he commanded that some who could not swim should have
their hands tied behind them and be thrown into the deep; when it so happened
that they all swam, as if a wind had forced them upward." Dr. Robinson says,
"Two of us bathed in the sea; and although I could never swim before, either in
fresh or salt water, yet here I could sit, stand, lie, or swim in the water
without difficulty." Stephens swam a horse into it, and says that as soon as his
body touched the water he was afloat. He struggled with all his force to
preserve his equilibrium, but the moment he stopped moving he turned over on his
side again, and almost on his back, kicking his feet out of water and snorting
with terror. The author's experience was much the same. When he floated upright
in the water its surface was even with his armpits. He could lie on his back and
float with his head and heels both above the water. In attempting to swim in the
usual way, he found his feet constantly tending to fly out of the water, and he
could make but slow progress. Such are the saponaceous properties of the water
that, after being in it a short time, one feels as if smeared with grease or
soap, and it is usual to take a bath soon after in the Jordan in order to get
rid of this sensation. But notwithstanding the density of the water it is as
clear as as any other sea-water, and although it is exceedingly nauseating to
the taste it has no offensive odor. Its waves do not rise as high, under a wind,
as in other seas, but they beat with greater proportionate force. Lynch compares
their beat upon the sides of his boats to the strokes of a hammer. The water of
the Dead Sea has been subjected to chemical analysis by various persons, but the
analysis made for the American expedition under Lieutenant Lynch is considered
the most reliable, because the water employed was taken from a considerable
depth in the middle of the sea, and was not affected by the surface-flow of
fresh water from the Jordan or other streams. The analysis is as follows:

Specific gravity at 60°

1.22742

Chloride of magnesium

145.8971

"sodium

78.5537

" calcium

31.0746

" potassium

6.5860

Bromide of potassium

1.3741

Sulphate of lime

0.7012

264.1867

Water

735.8133

1000.0000

Mr. Grove, in Smith's Dictionary, furnishes a more appreciable statement of
these results, in substance as follows: Every gallon of the water weighs 12 1/4;
pounds, and contains nearly 3 1/3 pounds, or more than one-fourth of its entire
weight, of solid matter in solution. In other words, the Dead Sea water weighs 2
1/2 pounds to the gallon more than common sea-water, and it contains nearly 3
pounds more of matter in solution. Of the 3 1/2 pounds held in solution, nearly
2 pounds are chloride of magnesium; nearly 1 pound is chloride of sodium, or
common salt; and more than 1/3 of a pound is chloride of calcium. The other
ingredients amount to but little. Thus it appears that while the amount of salt
in this water is nearly double that of all the solid matter found in ordinary
sea-water, there is only about half as much salt as chloride of magnesium. It is
this latter element which gives to the water its bitter and nauseous flavor. The
water is nearly saturated with salt, for Lynch found that it would dissolve only
one-eleventh of its weight of salt, whereas common sea-water will dissolve
one-sixth. When it becomes entirely saturated it will begin to deposit all
additional accumulations on its bed, and thus gradually fill up the basin which
it occupies. This presence of so large a quantity of foreign matters in this
water is is easily accounted for. It has no outlet; consequently the water which
flows into it through the Jordan and the smaller streams found along its shores
can pass away only by evaporation. During the rainy season, when the influx of
water is at its maximum and the evaporation at its minimum, the former gains
upon the latter, and the surface of the sea rises; but during the summer, when
the relation between the influx and the evaporation is reversed, the surface is
again depressed, and thus an annual equilibrium is maintained. From this it
appears that all the surplus water which has poured into this deep basin, from
the period of its first formation till the present hour, has evaporated, leaving
in the sea all the solids which it held in solution. This accounts for the
unusual quantity of such matter which it now contains. The average quantity of
water thus evaporated is estimated at 24,000,000 of cubic feet per diem. It
would seem to require no unusual amount of solid matter in such a quantity of
water daily evaporating for thousands of years to cause the result in question;
yet we must add the consideration that a large number of mineral springs flow
into the Jordan, and some into the Dead Sea itself; and that on the southwestern
shore of the sea is a mountain of rock-salt seven miles long, from which the
winter rains constantly wash a considerable portion of salt into the sea. This
immensity of the evaporation necessary to the result in question is due to the
intensity of the direct heat of the sun, during the long summer, which lasts in
this deep chasm, from March to November, and to the reflected heat from the bare
and lofty masses of rock which constitute the mountain-walls on either side. So
thickly is the atmosphere above the sea filled with this vapor that the eye can
seldom penetrate it in the summer-time more than a few miles, and the entire
surface of the water can seldom be seen. Lynch (April 18 to May 9) found it very
hot. The thermometer was seldom below 70° in the morning and 85° at noon.
Frequently it was over 90° at the latter hour. April 26, at noon, it was 95°; at
three P. M., 102°; at eight P. M., 106°; at midnight, 98°; and at four A. M.,
82°. On May 8, at noon, it was 110°. On account of the large amount of noxious
matter with which the water is impregnated, none but a few of the lowest orders
of animal life are found in it, and the ordinary observer sees in it none at
all. Fish, which are washed in from the Jordan, soon perish, and their dead
bodies are found by nearly all travelers washed ashore near the mouth of the
river. It was once believed by travelers and by the natives that no bird could
survive a flight over the water, and that to breathe the air upon its surface
would be destructive to human life; but the observations of all recent travelers
have disproved the former of these opinions, and the latter was effectually
refuted by the fact that Lieutenant Lynch and his party of ten sailors spent
twenty-two days on its waters and its shores in April, 1848, with no other
injury than that resulting from privation and from exposure to the intense heat.

Mouth of the Arnon The mountains on the west vary in height from 2000 to 3000
feet above the water, and they rise less precipitously than those on the east.
The latter are from 500 to 1000 feet higher. On both sides there is a narrow
beach in most places, but on neither is it sufficient to allow a continuous
passage between the hills and the water. No traveler has succeeded in passing
entirely along the eastern coast, and along the western a part of the passage
lies high up the bluff on an elevated shelf. The scenery along both shores is
imposing on account of the solemn grandeur of the mountains and their sombre
hues. In a few places, as at Ain Jid'y (En'gedi) on the west, and at the mouth
of Wady Mo'jib (the river Arnon), on the east, the perpendicular walls of rock
are full of grandeur. The latter spot is thus described by Lynch: "The stream,
now 82 feet wide and 4 feet deep, runs through a chasm 97 feet wide, formed by
high, perpendicular cliffs of red, brown, and yellow sandstone on the southern
side, and on the north a soft, rich red, all worn by the winter rains into the
most fantastic forms, not unlike Egyptian architecture. It was difficult to
realize that some were not the work of art. The chasm runs up in a direct line
for 150 yards, and then turns with a slow and graceful curve to the southeast."
On all sides, wherever there is fresh water there is luxuriant vegetation; but
this occurs only where streams make their way into the sea. On the southeastern
shore there is sufficient moisture to produce a very rank growth over a
considerable space; elsewhere the strips of verdure are narrow and
insignificant. There are two oases on the western shore, one called Ain Feskah,
but a few miles from the northern end, and the other called Ain Jid'y, the
ancient En'gedi, or spring of the kid. The latter is one of the most interesting
spots about the Dead Sea. It is imperfectly represented, together with the
southern portion of the sea, in the above cut.

Southern End of the Dead Sea from En'Gedi The name "Dead Sea" is post-biblical,
and the earliest writer known to have used it is Pausan'ias, who wrote in the
latter half of the second century of our era. It doubtless originated partly
from the exaggerated stories in regard to the sluggishness of its waters and the
deadly nature of its atmosphere, and partly from its supposed intimate
connection with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The tradition of its connection
with this great catastrophe is traceable also in the name Bahr Lût (Sea of Lot),
by which it is known among the Arabs. The earliest suggestion of such a
connection that has come down to us, and the only one within the period of Bible
history, is found in the apocryphal book of Esdras, where it is called the
"Sodomitish sea." It is also called the "Sea of Sodom" in the Talmud. But its
usual name in the Bible is "the salt sea," though it is sometimes called "the
sea of the plain." The name "salt sea" was derived undoubtedly from its extreme
saltness, and the name "sea of the plain" from its position at the southern
extremity of the broad plain of the Jordan. The name "Dead Sea" has completely
superseded all others in the language of modern literature, and will probably
continue to hold its pre-eminence, notwithstanding the superstition in which it
partly originated.

IX. Beyond The Jordan The country lying east of the Jordan is the last district
to be included in our general description of Palestine. So much of it as belongs
to the Jordan Valley has already been described in Section VII., and we now
speak only of that which lies east of that valley. It is everywhere an elevated
region, and its mountains are much more uniform in elevation than the hills west
of the Jordan. The mountain-wall by which it breaks down into the Jordan Valley
has a descent into that valley of from 3000 to 4000 feet, and an elevation above
the sea-level of from 2000 to 3000 feet. The top of this wall, except where it
rises into ridges or rounded knobs above its usual height, marks the general
elevation of the country lying east of it; but after extending eastward about
twenty miles, this elevated district is terminated by the still more elevated
plateau of the great Arabian desert. Its southern boundary is the river Arnon,
which flows from the vicinity of the desert westward into the Dead Sea, through
a chasm which it has cut for itself, and which is in some places 2000 feet deep.
Its northern boundary is marked by the hills of the southern foot of Mount
Hermon. This district is naturally divided into two by the river Yar'mûk, which
runs chiefly on the parallel of the southern end of the Lake of Galilee. All
south of this river is an undulating table-land, except where it is broken by a
few rocky knolls and ravines. The name Gilead (hard, rocky region), by which it
was known in the Old Testament period, suggests its general character. Its
southern and northern extremities are now destitute of trees; but they have a
rich soil, and they furnish fine grazing, besides abounding in fields of grain.
It is only of late years that the Bed'awin inhabitants have become habituated to
the cultivation of the soil; but they now cultivate many fields of grain which
compare favorably with those found in the plains west of the Jordan. The central
portion, especially that part immediately north of the river Jabbok, and in the
vicinity of the western boundary, contains many groves of low-growing timber.
The slopes and tops of the mountains are in many places covered with a thick
growth of oaks and other forest-trees, among which the honeysuckle and other
flowering vines are seen, while the open glades are decked with flowers in great
abundance and variety. The river Jabbok (Wady Zerka) rises on the eastern side
of this district, a half-mile above the ruins of Ammân' (the ancient Rabbath
Ammon), and after flowing northward for some miles, turns to the west and cuts
its way through to the Jordan Valley. It divides the district into two unequal
parts, the greater part toward the south, and it is the only river of any
importance in this region, except the two already mentioned. It is a perennial
stream of considerable size, and abounds in fish even as high up as the ruins of
Ammân'. This district is thickly dotted with the ruins of ancient towns and
cities, many of which are extensive and magnificent, showing that it was once
inhabited by a numerous population possessed of wealth and intelligence. At
present it contains no town of importance, except Es Salt (the ancient
Ramoth-gilead), which is said to have a population of 12,000. The remainder of
the population, except that of a few small villages in the hills north of the
Jabbok, consists of Bed'awin Ar'abs of the Ad'wân tribe. Their present chiefs,
Goblân' and Fellâh', have acquired a world-wide notoriety by escorting nearly
all the travelers and explorers who have visited their territory within the last
thirty years. A Turkish garrison is kept at Es Salt for the purpose of holding
in subjection the Bed'awin tribes, which were formerly very lawless. The
district is called by the Ar'abs the Belkâ', and they boast greatly of its
fertility. The district north of the Yar'mûk was anciently called Ba'shan (soft
and level soil), and is, as this name indicates, a comparatively flat and very
fertile region. It extends from the northern limit of Gilead to Mount Hermon.
When this district was first conquered by Moses, it included within its limits
Argob, the kingdom of Og, who is called "King of Ba'shan." It is probable that
Argob was the territory of his tribe, and that he held the remainder of Ba'shan
as conquered territory. It then contained sixty cities, "fenced with high walls,
gates, and bars, besides unwalled towns a great many." In the days of Solomon it
is again spoken of as containing the same number of cities, defended in the same
way. It was celebrated for its fine groves of oak, and the oaks of Ba'shan are
placed beside the cedars of Lebanon in the majestic imagery of the prophets.
David gives prominence also, to the bulls of Ba'shan, saying,—

"Many bulls have compassed me; Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round." In
the New Testament period, as we see by the writings of Josephus, Ba'shan was
divided into four districts. The most western, that bordering on the Lake of
Galilee and the upper Jordan Valley, was called Gauloni'tis, and it is yet known
under the same name in the corrupted Arabic form of Jaulân'. It lies nearly 3000
feet above the surface of the Lake of Galilee, and although it is now but little
cultivated, it has exuberant soil. It is said that no less than 127 ruined
villages are scattered over its surface.

Immediately east of the northern portion of Gauloni'tis was the district called
Trachoni'tis, now called the Lejâh'. It is about 22 miles long from north to
south, of a regular, almost oval shape, and 14 miles wide in the widest part.
Its surface is covered with basaltic rock, black and hard, which appears,
according to Mr. Porter, the best authority on this region, "to have issued from
the innumerable pores in the earth in a liquid state, and to have flowed out on
every side." He thinks that before cooling "its surface was violently agitated,
and that it was afterwards shattered and rent by internal convulsions."
Notwithstanding this, the region, he says, is thickly studded with deserted
cities and villages, in all of which the houses are solidly built and of remote
antiquity. This is the region called Argob in the Old Testament,—the term
meaning the stony,—and Trachoni'tis is its Greek equivalent. It was inhabited
during the period of the Roman dominion in Palestine by a people who lived
chiefly by pillaging the surrounding districts, and who were full of rebellion
towards the government. Such has been its history ever since.

South of Trachoni'tis and east of the southern portion of Gauloni'tis is the
district called Au'ranitis by the Greeks and Haurân', a corruption of the Greek
name, by the Arabs. The term Haurân' is also used by Ezekiel in a geographical
passage which leaves us in doubt whether he applies it to this district or some
other. Its surface is flat and its soil very rich. It contains more than one
hundred towns and villages, most of which are deserted but not in ruins. Many of
the buildings are remarkably strong, the walls being of great thickness and the
roofs and doors being of stone.

Batane'a is a small, mountainous region east of the Lejah' and the Haurân', and
its name is derived from the name Ba'shan. It abounds with forests of oak,
possesses a rich soil, and is studded with towns of great antiquity, deserted,
but in a remarkable state of preservation. See, on these districts, Smith's
Dictionary, articles Ba'shan, Argob, Trachoni'tis, Haurân'; and Porter's
"Damascus."

Stone House in the Lejah


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  CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER TWO--THE CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS
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Chapter II.

The Climate, Soil, and Productions

I. Climate The climate of Palestine is dependent in part, of course, on its
latitude, but chiefly on its local surroundings. It lies between the parallels
31° 16' and 33° 16', which is the latitude of the Barbary States of Northern
Africa, and of the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, in the
United States. The line of latitude running through Jerusalem passes close to
Savannah, Georgia, and a little south of Montgomery, Alabama, and of Jackson,
Mississippi. Its temperature does not vary much from that of these localities,
but its peculiar situation causes its climate in other respects to be quite
different. Bounded on the south and the east by a vast desert, whose thirsty
atmosphere absorbs all the moisture coming from distant seas, it can receive no
rain from those directions. The same atmosphere spreads over Palestine itself,
absorbing in summer all the vapor from the Mediterranean, so that the country
receives no rain at all during the warmer season of the year. Only in the
winter-time, when the temperature of the air is reduced and its capacity for
absorption lessened, is the moisture from the Mediterranean condensed into rain.
During seven months of the year there is rarely a drop of rain, and never enough
to lay the dust. All vegetation, except trees and the vine, becomes dry and
dead. This long and dry summer, during which the sun seldom fails to shine from
its rising to its setting, necessarily imparts to the atmosphere a high
temperature; and when the east or the south wind blows from over the deserts the
heat is intense and oppressive. These winds are very debilitating, and they have
a parching effect on the skin of the face and the hands. Fortunately they blow
but seldom. The prevalent wind in the summer-time is from the Mediterranean. It
rises almost invariably between eight and nine A. M., and continues without
intermission until about four P. M. The traveler, riding under the shelter of
his umbrella, which protects his head and chest from the direct rays of the sun,
is fanned by this breeze and suffers no serious discomfort even in the midst of
summer. He usually suffers most during the hour just previous to the rise of the
wind in the morning, for then the atmosphere is sultry, and the direct rays of
the sun are almost as hot as at noon. The nights are usually quite pleasant,
growing cool toward morning. The remainder of the year, from November 1 to April
1, is the winter, or, more properly speaking, the rainy season; for the year is
divided into but two seasons, a dry summer of seven months and a wet winter of
five months. It is seldom cold enough to form ice on the uplands, and never on
the lowlands. Snow is not often seen, and when it falls it usually melts rapidly
away. At intervals of many years it falls on the highlands to the depth of a
foot or more, and in the winter of 1854-55 it remained on the ground about two
weeks. A remarkable fall of snow is referred to in 2Sa 23:20, which shows that
in this respect the climate has undergone no remarkable change during the lapse
of ages. The cold is seldom severe enough to injure vegetation. No
long-continued thermometrical observations in Palestine have been reported to
the public, except those of Dr. J. T. Barclay, while a resident missionary in
Jerusalem, from January 1, 1851, to January 31, 1855. The mean temperature of
the different months of the year during that period is presented in the
following table:

January, 49.4°.

April, 61.4°.

July, 79.1°.

October, 74.2°.

February, 54.4°.

May, 73.8°.

August, 79.3°.

November, 63.8°.

March, 55.7°.

June, 75.2°.

September, 77°.

December, 54.5°.

From these figures it appears that January is the coldest month and August the
hottest; but the difference between December, January, February, and March is
very slight; and between June, July, August, September, and October it is
equally slight. The greatest changes between consecutive months are those
between March and April, when the rain is passing away, and between October and
November, when the rain is returning. The lowest temperature recorded by Dr.
Barclay was 28°, and the greatest heat 92°. As these observations were confined
to Jerusalem, they cannot, of course, be taken as correct for any other than the
highlands of Judah.

Dr. Vartan, Superintendent of the Medical Mission at Nazareth, has very kindly
furnished the author with the results of his observations in that city during
the last eight years. As they have never been published, and as they constitute
a very valuable contribution to the meteorology of the country, we insert them
in full in the appendix. In the Maritime Plain and the Jordan Valley the
temperature in both summer and winter is higher; but we have no continuous
observations taken in either of these localities. The author took observations
of the temperature morning, noon, and night during his eighty-six days of travel
in the country, from April 13 to July 7, 1879; and although they were taken at
different places, and consequently cannot represent the temperature at any one
locality, they represent it as it is likely to be experienced by the traveler at
that season of the year. The highest temperature that he experienced, in the
morning about six o'clock, was 83°. Only eight times did he find it above
80°,—four times in June and four times in the first seven days of July. The
average temperature at this time of day during the three months was 67°, and the
lowest 42°. This last figure was reached on the morning of May 16, at Hebron,
after a cold northwest wind had blown with considerable force all the previous
day. The average temperature at noon was 85°. It was as low as 68° only once
(May 17), and it was above 90° only twelve times. The highest, without a hot
wind, was 97°. which was experienced in two places,—in the deep gorge of the hot
springs of Callirrhóe, and in the plain of Jez'reel, a few miles west of
Beisan'. The hottest wind which we experienced was on the 5th of June, at the
southern extremity of the Lake of Galilee, where the thermometer rose to 100°,
and remained so for about one hour. This was about three P. M. The average
temperature at this hour, distributed according to the months, was as follows:
In April, 82°; in May, 81°; and in June, 87°. May was unusually cool, having a
lower range than the latter half of April. The highest temperature at sunset was
89°, the lowest 54°, and the average 75°. The greatest range of the temperature
in any one day was on the 30th of April, when the mercury ascended from 56° in
the morning to 91° at noon, a difference of 35°. On several other days the range
within the same number of hours was about 30°, usually the result of a hot wind.

Although the rainfall of the year is almost entirely confined to the five months
from November 1 to April 1, the amount of rain which falls is equal to that of
some countries in which it is more evenly distributed. Thus the average during
the years of Dr. Barclay's observations at Jerusalem was 56.5 inches, while the
average in London is 25 inches, and in the United States 45 inches. The greatest
seen by Dr. Barclay was 82 inches, and the least 44 inches. According to the
observations of Dr. Vartan (see Appendix), there were three seasons, occurring
at somewhat regular intervals, in which the rainfall averaged at Nazareth only
15 inches, while in the other five years it averaged 28 inches. The average of
the eight years was 23.63 inches. Lieutenant Conder estimates the average for
all Palestine at from 20 to 30 inches. It is obvious from these figures that
longer-continued, if not more accurate observations must be made in several
different districts of the country before we can feel sure that we have the true
estimates. In the mean time results already obtained show that the amount of
rain which falls in the country is amply sufficient, if properly husbanded, to
answer all the necessities of the population. In all those portions of the hill
country which are not supplied with springs there are numerous ancient cisterns
cut in the natural rock for the purpose of collecting the surface drainage; and
where the springs are feeble it is quite common to find large tanks or pools,
well walled and plastered, for the purpose of securing during the winter an
accumulation of the surplus water for use in the dry season. The most of these
cisterns and pools are now unused; many of them are partially filled with earth,
and some of the larger pools are sowed in grain, which grows luxuriantly from
the deposit of rich loam with which they are filled. It is well remarked by
Conder that, "were the old cisterns cleaned and mended, and the beautiful tanks
and aqueducts repaired, the ordinary fall of rain would be quite sufficient for
the wants of the inhabitants and for irrigation."

II. Soil Of The Various Sections

We may say in general concerning the soil of the plains and valleys of
Palestine, including the Maritime Plain, the Plain of Esdra'elon, the Valley of
the Jordan, the elevated plateau beyond the Jordan, and the small valleys
everywhere found between the hills and along the water-courses of the highlands,
that it is exceedingly productive and admirably adapted to all the products
which are suited to the climate. It needs nothing but skillfully applied labor
and the proper drainage of some marshy places to bring it into full and
successful cultivation. We have already spoken sufficiently of the fertility of
most of the above-named places in the descriptions of them contained in First
Chapter, and we need not here repeat what is there said. The hill country
described in First Chapter, Section IV., is, with the exception of its small,
rich valleys, a comparatively unproductive region, and the district along the
western shore of the Dead Sea, as we have formerly stated, is utterly desolate.
But, with the exception of this last-mentioned district, wherever the hills
contain even a handful of soil it breaks forth with a rank vegetation in the
spring. The soil is formed of disintegrated limestone intermingled with
vegetable mould. Where the hill-sides are steepest the soil has all been washed
away, leaving nothing but masses of naked rock; and in places not so steep, as
among the hills about Bethel, rough masses of naked rock sometimes occupy the
chief part of the surface, with only small patches of soil between them. But in
general the hill-sides are covered by a thin soil which, if properly protected
by terrace-walls, would yield abundantly. That such terrace-walls once existed,
making fertile the now barren sides of multitudes of hills, is everywhere
attested by the traces of them which are still visible; and that these
mountain-sides were remarkably productive when thus cultivated is attested by
the fact that around some of the villages on the western slope of Mount Hermon,
and some in the Lebanon Mountains, hill-sides thus terraced are now productive
to their very summits. Walls from three to six feet high, according to the slope
of the hill-side, are built up of stones gathered on the spot, with a strip of
soil above them from six to ten feet wide. Vines are set along the edge of the
terrace and trained along the top of the wall, while their young shoots, laden
with fruit, hang down the outer face of the wall. Fig-trees, garden vegetables,
and sometimes grain occupy the remainder of the terrace; and thus a hill whose
natural rock would soon be swept clean of soil if left to the action of nature,
is turned into a smiling and fruitful field, more beautiful by far than those of
the level plain.

During the rainy season the soil everywhere puts forth a luxuriant vegetation,
the rankest of weeds and grasses growing where there is no cultivation; and
during the summer this growth is intensified by the tropical heat of the sun
where there is sufficient moisture. Where irrigation is practicable and
skillfully applied the extreme richness of the soil is everywhere attested by
the abundant results. It is safe to say, in conclusion, that few countries in
the world of the same extent have uniformly a soil so replete with the elements
of productiveness, or so certain to adequately remunerate the toil and expense
of the skillful husbandman.

III. Products Of The Soil In considering the products of the soil we will
consider first those that are natural, and second, those that are artificial.
Among the former are first to be mentioned the native forests. By far the most
common forest-tree in Palestine is the oak. In most instances it is now found in
the form of a sturdy bush of comparatively recent growth, from eight to twelve
feet high, with thickly set branches starting from a low, knotty trunk. Groves
of this scrubby growth are found on the slopes of many hills to the south of
Mount Carmel, and that mountain itself is almost covered with them from end to
end. They are also found in many places in Galilee, and they cover an extensive
area of the mountains east of the Jordan, from the Lake of Galilee to the mouth
of the Jabbok. Some are found also between Bethlehem and Hebron, and the fuel
which they furnish is there used for burning lime, which is taken into Bethlehem
and Jerusalem as an article of trade. There are also a few groves of oaks of a
larger growth, the most extensive of which lies at the northern foot of Mount
Tabor, while the entire northern slope of the mountain is covered with the
smaller growth. Several square miles at the base of this mountain are covered
with a grove of trees whose trunks are from eighteen inches to three feet in
diameter, and whose branches spread over an area from twenty to forty feet in
diameter. The branches are very thick, casting a dense shade; but their trunks
are too short to afford timber of much value except for firewood. Isolated oaks
of a similar size and form are found scattered throughout the entire country,
except in the Jordan Valley and the wilderness of Judah. Some of these are
magnificent trees; and the tombs of Mohammedan sheikhs and prophets are often
found nestled beneath their branches.

Syrian Oak

Abraham's Oak, so called, near Hebron, is one of the most venerable and one of
the largest in the country. Its trunk is about thirty-two feet in diameter, and
at a height of nine feet it divides into four huge branches, which reach out
almost horizontally to an immense distance. Two of these great branches, the two
at the right, are now so nearly ready to fall that they are supported by props.
The trunk has also begun to decay about the roots, and for the purpose of
prolonging its life a bank of fresh earth four or five feet deep has recently
been thrown up about it, and supported by a well-built stone wall. It is now
owned, together with some acres of ground around it, by the Russian government;
hence these efforts to preserve it. It has been venerated as the oak under which
Abraham entertained the angels, since the sixteenth century, but of course it is
not old enough for this. The author saw another oak of magnificent proportions
on Jebel Osha, beyond the Jordan, by the tomb of the prophet Hosea. Its branches
spread out evenly on every side, casting a dense shade, and covering an area
sixty-six feet in diameter. Its trunk is thirteen feet ten inches in
circumference. It would attract attention as a shade-tree in the finest
oak-groves of the United States. These fine trees are but feeble relics of the
primitive forests of the country, which at a very early period were cut away in
order to bring all the soil into cultivation.

Abraham's Oak

Next to the oak, the traveler in Palestine meets most frequently with the
carob-tree. It is not found in clumps or groves, but appears as an isolated
shade-tree, and as such it is the best in the country. Its foliage has a bright
hue pleasing to the eye, and it is very dense. It bears a green, fleshy pod, in
shape like that of the pole-bean, from four to six inches long and one inch
broad. It was on these pods—incorrectly rendered "husks" —that the prodigal son
is represented as feeding the swine. It was his business to climb the tree and
shake them down. The following cut very correctly represents both the tree and
its pods.

Carob-Tree and Pods The tree sometimes called "Sycamine" in the Scriptures, and
sometimes "Sycamore," is next in frequency of appearance. It is really a species
of wild fig, and quite peculiar as a fruit-tree, in that its fruit grows not at
the ends of twigs, but on short stems which put out from the bark of the larger
branches. Each stem bears several figs, and they put out in bunches, sometimes
encircling the limbs. The figs are small and not very palatable. The trees bear
several crops in the year, sometimes, it is said, as many as seven. It is to
this tree that the prophet Amos refers when he says, "I was no prophet, neither
was I a prophet's son; but I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit; and
the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go prophesy
unto my people Israel."

Along the perennial water-courses in the northern part of the country, the aspen
and the white poplar, the latter growing tall and straight like the Lombardy
poplar, constitute a striking feature in the landscape. Requiring for their
support a constant supply of moisture they are found only on the immediate banks
of the streams, and they mark the courses of the streams on which they grow by a
tall, narrow strip of verdure waving in the wind. The trunks of these trees, cut
while they are yet small, are used as rafters for the roofs of houses, and the
small limbs which are cut from them are used for fuel. They have a very rapid
growth and they are of great value.

Sycamore-Tree and its Fruit

Some walnut-trees are found, especially in the northern part of Galilee and in
Ba'shan, of the variety known in America as the English walnut. They are
beautiful in form and color, and their fruit in the green state is not unlike
that of the black walnut. The scattering trees of this variety in Palestine seem
to be but the outskirts of the extensive groves of them in the Lebanon
Mountains, and along the water-courses of the Hermon range.

One of the most common bushes met by the traveler in the rich soil of the
plains, such as the Valley of the Jordan, the land of Gennesaret, and similar
localities, is a thorn bush, called by the Arabs the Nûbk, also called the
Dom-tree. Sometimes it grows to the proportions of a tree, with a trunk from one
to two feet in diameter. It is chiefly distinguished by the multiplicity and the
excessive sharpness of its thorns. They are set thick along all the limbs and
twigs, being on the latter only about an inch long. It is difficult to touch a
limb of the bush without being wounded, and horses are so much afraid of it that
it is almost impossible to make them walk up close to it. It bears a round
yellow fruit about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, with a large woody
stone. The fruit ripens in April and May, has a pleasant subacid taste, and is
very refreshing to the thirsty traveler. It is gathered by the natives and sold
in the markets of the principal towns. From the twigs of the bush are woven
crowns like that which was placed on the Saviour's brow, and they are sold to
travelers in Jerusalem. The only flowering bush worthy of special notice is the
pink oleander. This is so beautiful and so conspicuous that the traveler who
passes through the country when it is in bloom cannot fail to notice it. It is
found only along the banks of perennial streams, but on nearly all of these it
grows in a thick jungle. It attains a height of from ten to twenty feet, but it
differs not in other respects from the oleanders grown in tubs in the United
States. Sometimes an unbroken jungle of them is seen for several miles together
along the course of a small stream, and when they are in full bloom, during May
and June, they present a most pleasing appearance.

Many other native trees and shrubs grow wild in the country, but those above
mentioned are the most conspicuous. Of the others we will not speak in
particular. Of fruit-bearing trees, by far the most important and the most
extensively cultivated is the olive. Olive-groves are seen in the vicinity of
nearly all towns and villages, and sometimes they extend over many square miles.
They are particularly abundant and well cared for about Hebron and in the Plain
of Sha'ron. They grow well in all localities, from the low plain to the summits
of the highest hills. They are by no means a handsome tree. The leaf is small
and of an ashy green, its limbs are scattering, and its dark trunk is almost
universally knotty and gnarled, and full of cavities. It grows about the size of
an apple-tree, as to its head, but its trunk is often from three to four feet
thick, and some very old trees attain a thickness of seven feet. They live to a
great age and continue to bear; but the number of limbs and the amount of
foliage diminish as extreme age comes on, and so does the gnarled and decayed
condition of the trunk. The wood is of a beautiful dark color, and admits of a
polish equal to that of rosewood. It is used for the manufacture of many small
articles, such as canes, paper-weights, rulers, paper-folders, toilet-boxes,
etc., but it furnishes no sound plank or pieces of timber of any considerable
size, and it is quite brittle. The value of the tree lies in its fruit. This is
an oblong berry, having while growing much the appearance of a young peach. When
it ripens in the fall it is shaken from the trees, ground in a species of mill,
and then pressed in order to force from it its oil.

Olive-Branch and Berry

Large trees in a good season yield from ten to fifteen gallons of oil; and an
acre of them at this rate will yield an annual crop which, according to Mr.
Thomson's estimate, is worth a hundred dollars. The oil is an indispensable
article of household comfort in Palestine, being used in lamps, in the
manufacture of soap, and in cooking. There is scarcely a limit to the quantity
of it that might be produced in Palestine, seeing that the olive flourishes in
every part of the country, and grows through the long dry summers without
interruption. Even in the present disordered state of the country the
exportation from all Syria in 1871 was estimated at 1800 tons, which was only
one-fourth of the entire production of the season, one other fourth being used
for domestic purposes and one-half being made into soap. The oil is expressed by
the rudest of machinery. The mill in which the berries are mashed consists of a
circular stone with a flat surface, some seven or eight feet in diameter, with a
depression two or three inches deep, and from eighteen inches to two feet wide,
running around it near its circumference. In this depression the berries are
placed. Another circular rock, smaller than this, and in shape like a millstone,
is rolled around on the berries by means of a beam, which passes through a hole
in its centre, with one end working on a pivot set in the centre of the large
rock, while to the other and outer end of the beam is hitched a mule or a
donkey. This grinding is now done in dark rooms, on the ground floor of houses,
or in a kind of half-cellar, to keep the oil from the heat of the sun; but in
former times it was done in the open air, as appears from the many old mills
which are seen unused in the open country. The pulpy mass into which the berries
are thus mashed is taken to a rudely-constructed lever-press, and under strong
pressure the oil is forced from it. Better machinery would doubtless extract the
oil more thoroughly and far more expeditiously.

Old Olive in Garden of Gethsemane The olive is a tree of slow growth. It
ordinarily bears no berries until it is seven years old, nor does it bear
heavily until it is ten, and sometimes fifteen; yet it lives to an extreme old
age, probably 500 years, and as long as it has any foliage it bears some fruit.
The same tree bears only every other year. The olive-branch has been the symbol
of peace from time immemorial, perhaps from the very time of that circumstance
which seems to have given it this significance,—the return of Noah's dove to the
ark with an olive-leaf in her mouth. The allusions in the Scriptures to the
olive-tree are quite numerous, from the time of the flood to that of the
apostles; and it is worthy of note that the mention of it in connection with the
dove's return to the ark is the first mention of any kind of tree by name in the
Word of God. Its relative value in Palestine is indicated in Jotham's fable, in
which it is represented as the first choice for king of the trees.

Next in importance to the olive among the fruit-bearing trees of Palestine is
the fig. Like its constant companion, the olive, it needs no more moisture
through the summer season than the dry climate of the country affords; and hence
it is at home in that climate. True, it grows with great luxuriance where its
roots are constantly supplied with water, but its fruit in such localities,
though very abundant, is not sweet. The fruit usually begins to ripen in June, a
second crop is gathered in August, and a third when the leaves fall early in
autumn. The ground of the fig orchards is usually kept pulverized and free from
weeds and stones through the summer by frequent ploughing. Some of the neatest
work of the Ar'ab farmers is seen in the well-kept soil of the fig orchards. Its
leaves being large and of a bright yellowish-green, and its top symmetrically
formed, it is a handsome tree, and furnishes, when of good size, a luxuriant
shade. It is this which gave rise to the expression concerning the peaceful and
prosperous reign of Solomon: that every man sat under "his own vine and
fig-tree." In many of the villages dried figs are sold, but they are so poorly
handled and have such a flavor from the smoke of the houses that they are not
very palatable. The figs now grown in Palestine, unlike those in some other
climes, are formed after the leaves come out; but Thomson remarks that "The fig
often comes with or even before the leaves, especially on the early kinds." It
was on this account that Jesus, when he saw a fig-tree at the foot of the Mount
of Olives full of leaves, went to it expecting to find fruit on it, though it
was not yet fig-time. Thomson says that he has gathered figs of an early variety
in the mountains of Lebanon, 150 miles north of Jerusalem, in May; from which he
argues that they might possibly have ripened at the foot of the Mount of Olives
by the time of the Passover. It is one of the signs of increasing enterprise in
Palestine at the present time that the area planted in figs is increasing. The
author observed many young orchards that had just been set, and others not quite
old enough to commence bearing. The vine was successfully cultivated in
Palestine by the original inhabitants before Israel came out of Egypt. This we
learn from the account of the cluster of grapes brought away by the twelve spies
of Moses, and borne on a staff between two. It continued to be carefully
cultivated throughout the entire period of Jewish occupation, and at the present
day it is cultivated in many parts of the country. The vines are trained in
various ways,—sometimes supported by stakes, as about Hebron and Bethlehem;
sometimes planted at the edge of terrace-walls and trained along their tops, as
on the slopes of Mount Hermon; and sometimes allowed to spread out flat on the
ground, as is most usual east of the Jordan, especially about Es Salt, where
there are very extensive vineyards. In the last instance the vine-dressers go
among the vines when the grapes are about half-grown, and prop up the branches
with sticks just high enough to keep the fruit from touching the ground. The
finest and most extensive vineyards in Palestine are still found, as they were
in the days of the spies, in the vicinity of Hebron, especially to the north and
northwest of that town. There the author saw clusters of grapes, when the fruit
was just forming, that were a foot in length. They would probably be twenty
inches or more in length when the fruit matured. Such bunches could not well be
carried to any considerable distance without bruising the fruit, unless carried,
as by the spies, "on a staff between two." But the cluster carried by the spies
was probably much larger than any found there now. Mr. Houghton, in Smith's
Bible Dictionary, quotes an authentic account of a cluster of grapes that
weighed nineteen pounds (article Vine); and Adam Clarke, in his commentary on
Num 13:23, says that he himself once cut a cluster that weighed nearly twenty
pounds. All travelers who have seen the finest grapes of Palestine represent
some of the clusters as surprisingly large, but we have no exact figures in
regard to their weight. The nearest approach to exactness is the statement of
the German traveler, Schulz, who is quoted as saying that he saw clusters on a
vine near Ac'cho (A'cre) that weighed ten or twelve pounds. The chief part of
the vintage was anciently manufactured into wine, and the ancient wine-presses
are still seen in all of the rocky portions of the country. They consist of two
vats dug in the surface of the natural rock, one large and shallow, in which the
grapes were trodden by the naked feet of men, and the other deeper, narrower,
and lower down the slope, into which the juice was drawn from the crushed
berries above. The upper and larger vat is usually from six to eight feet
square, and from fifteen to eighteen inches deep; while the lower is about half
as large but twice as deep. These presses are often seen in regions such as the
Belka' beyond the Jordan, where no grapes are now grown, showing that grape
culture in the earlier period was more nearly universal than it is now. Their
peculiar structure illustrates the Scripture expression about digging a
wine-press. Another expression in the same passage finds a striking illustration
in the vineyards about Bethlehem and Hebron. It is the statement that after the
householder had planted his vineyard and dug his wine-press he built a tower.
The tower was a small circular structure of stone for the accommodation of the
watchmen, who guarded the vineyard against thieves and the depredations of live
stock when the grapes were ripening. Many of these are now seen in the vineyards
above mentioned, and they have an ancient appearance. They are eight or ten feet
in diameter, and ten or twelve feet in height. As it is contrary to the religion
of the Mohammedans to use wine or to manufacture it, there has been little wine
produced in Palestine since the Mohammedan invasion in the latter part of the
seventh century. This is one cause of the diminished culture of the grape and of
the entire neglect of the ancient wine-presses. All of the present product of
the vineyards is either eaten by the inhabitants in the form of grapes, or dried
into raisins, or boiled down into a kind of syrup called dibs. The people begin
to eat the growing grapes while they are yet quite green and sour, and continue
to feed upon them till they are all gone. The raisins made at Hebron are very
good, and some of them are of fine size. Young vineyards, like young fig
orchards, are now being planted in many parts of the country, and under a
peaceful government there is no doubt that the production of grapes would
rapidly increase.

While the olive, the fig, and the grape are by far the most common and abundant
fruits of Palestine, many others grow there, and they could be produced in great
abundance with proper cultivation. Among these are the quince, which is grown
most abundantly in the borders of the vineyards about Hebron; the apple, which
is now seen only in the northern portion of the Hill Country; the apricot, also
abundant in the northern districts; the mulberry, both black and white, most
abundant about Nab'lus (She'chem); the peach, much more rare than the apricot;
and the pear, which does well here when irrigated. Indeed, nearly all the fruits
of the temperate zone can be grown here by irrigation.

Besides these fruits of the temperate zone, some tropical fruits are cultivated
with success. The orange and the lemon grow vigorously, and bear abundantly
wherever they are cultivated, but they require regular irrigation. Hundreds of
acres are set in these fruits in the immediate vicinity of Joppa, and the orange
crop is a source of great profit. The oranges are a very large and seedless
variety, with a tender pulp and a fine flavor. They are esteemed by many as the
finest oranges in the world. Many thousands of bushels of them are shipped to
the ports of the Mediterranean every year, and great quantities are transported
on camels to the towns and villages of the interior. Joppa is the only place in
which this fruit is cultivated in any considerable quantity, the shallow and
inexhaustible wells which are dug there furnishing an abundant supply of water
for irrigation. The water is drawn by means of a wheel, over which is suspended
an endless chain thickly set with earthen jars. The jars empty their water into
a trough as they reach the top of the wheel, and the wheel is revolved by a mule
or donkey turning a sweep which works into it with a set of cogs. The water
flows from the trough into trenches which extend in every direction through the
orchard. This culture might be indefinitely extended in the Plain of Sharon, and
it could also be introduced in some other portions of the country.

Date-Palm The date-palm grows luxuriantly at A'cre and Sidon, and it would do
equally well almost everywhere in the Plain of Sha'ron and the Philis'tine
Plain. In the Jordan Valley it was once so abundant that Jericho was called "the
City of Palm-Trees," though only a single palm-tree is standing there now. Even
on the shores of the Lake of Galilee it will grow, for the author saw two near
the brink of the water at Capernaum. The great value of this tree and of its
fruit is so well known that I need only allude to them here. The accompanying
cut gives a correct representation of both.

Bananas are also seen in gardens at Sidon, and in the hotter portions of the
country they could be grown with success. The pomegranate, a beautiful tree of
moderate size, with a large, crimson blossom and richly-colored fruit, is seen
in many gardens where irrigation is practicable; and it would add greatly both
to the beauty of the scenery and to the fruitfulness of the land, if it were
cultivated more extensively. In the department of cereals and other farm
products, wheat is by far the most important product of the soil, and the most
extensively cultivated. It is the staple for bread, while barley is the staple
for the food of domestic animals. The variety of wheat universally cultivated at
present is the flat-headed and long-bearded kind which is grown in Egypt. The
sowing of grain commences in the fall, as soon as the rains make the soil
sufficiently soft for ploughing, and it is continued, on account of the scarcity
of stock and the lack of enterprise among the people, as late as February. The
grain which is sown late never yields well. It is chiefly on account of this
delay in sowing that the traveler sees by the side of some pieces of ground on
which the heads of grain hang thick and heavy, others in which the stalks are so
scattering and of so low a growth that they are not worth harvesting.

Next to wheat the most extensively cultivated grain at the present time is
dûr'rah. The plant of this grain while young very closely resembles that of
Indian corn, and persons not familiar with the latter could not distinguish the
two. Its blade is narrower, however, and its stalk is smaller. The grain also is
like Indian corn, but it is smaller and more rounded. The chief difference in
appearance is that the dûr'rah puts out a head like that of broom-corn or
sorghum, and forms its grain in this head, as do those plants. It is planted in
rows about eighteen inches apart, and cultivated only with the hoe. It is
planted about the time that the rain ceases in the spring, and consequently it
grows and comes to maturity without rain, though it is sometimes irrigated. When
the wheat and barley are ripening the dûr'rah is high enough to cover the ground
with its rich green; and as the three kinds of grain are often sowed in
alternate strips, the alternate green and yellow impart a very pleasing aspect
to the fields.

Watermelons are cultivated very extensively in the Plain of Sharon and in some
of the valleys among the hills. They, like the dûr'rah, grow and mature without
a drop of rain. The variety mostly cultivated is small and round, with a thin
rind, red meat, light-colored seed, and a delicious flavor. The melons are
shipped in great quantities from Joppa to other ports of the Mediterranean. They
constitute during their season an important and most refreshing article of diet.
The author saw boats loaded with them in the harbor of Lar'nika in Cyprus, and
great piles of them on the streets of that city, on the 8th day of July, 1879.

Next to watermelons in quantity, and above them in the number of places where
they are found, are cucumbers. These are cultivated in the vicinity of nearly
every village. When well irrigated they mature early and produce abundantly.
They are eaten by the natives without preparation or seasoning of any kind, as
apples are eaten in America. An entirely modern garden product, introduced
within a few years past, is the tomato. It is now extensively cultivated, and
sold in the markets of all the cities and larger towns. Its well-known
healthfulness and its refreshing effect when eaten in hot weather make it a most
valuable addition to the fruits of that hot and dry climate. In addition to
melons, cucumbers, and tomatoes, the gardens of Palestine produce all of the
vegetables not peculiar to the coldest climates, and the inhabitant who will
provide sufficient means of irrigation can supply himself with all in this line
that is necessary to luxurious living. The natives, both Christian and
Mohammedan, have long been accustomed to the use of tobacco. They never chew it,
but they are universal and inveterate smokers. Their chief supply of this
noxious weed is from Persia; but they now grow small crops of it in every part
of their own country. Sometimes it is seen on the tops of hills in the
Philis'tine plain; it is often seen amid the courts and rooms of old ruins,
where a rich mould has accumulated, and often in other spots where the soil has
unusual strength. Its growth is low and its leaf is small. The government tax on
tobacco is heavy, and its use is an expensive luxury.

IV. Domestic Animals The domestic animals of Palestine at the present time are
the same, both in kind and in relative number, as in ancient times. Goats and
sheep are most numerous, and next to these, among animals of value, are cattle,
asses, camels, mules, and horses, in order of number. Dogs in countless numbers
throng the towns and villages and the camps of the Bed'awin, barking fiercely at
every stranger who passes by. Cats are seldom seen. Chickens are abundant, and
their flesh and eggs are an important article of food.

Syrian Sheep The sheep of the country are all of the large-tailed Syrian
variety. They are of ordinary size, and have wool of ordinary quality, their
chief distinction being their long and heavy tails of pure fat. These are from
ten to fifteen inches in length, and from three to five inches in diameter. The
fat is fried from them and used for culinary purposes. In the absence of hogs
lard, which is not used by the Mohammedans, it serves an important purpose, and
is cheaper than olive oil, which is the only other substitute. This mass of fat
is doubtless the "rump" which the Levitical law required to be burned on the
altar, and which was taken off hard by the backbone. Mutton is the chief article
of flesh used by the people, and the wool of the sheep is partly used for their
own heavy clothing, but it is chiefly an article of commerce. The sheepskin
tanned with the wool on is often used as a coat or mantle, and is sometimes seen
on men's backs in hot weather. The goats of Palestine are uniformly black,
though many of them have some white spots or rings. They are doubtless of the
same variety that was kept by Jacob and Laban when it was agreed that the
ring-streaked and spotted should be Jacob's. They are more valuable to the
present inhabitants of the country than the sheep, and they appeared to the
author to be more numerous about the villages. Their superior value depends on
the uses to which their skins are put and on the quantity of milk that they
yield. The skins of both the kids and the full-grown animals are still used for
bottles to hold water, milk, and other liquids. When intended for this purpose
they are stripped from the carcass of the animal as near whole as possible; they
are tanned with the hair on; all the openings but one are closed up watertight;
and that one (usually at the extremity of a leg) is used as a spout into which
the liquid is poured, and through which it is drawn out. The full skin, with all
its openings closed by strings tied tightly around them, is swung across a man's
shoulders, or two of them are strapped opposite each other on the sides of an
ass, and thus the water is carried over considerable distances. The water is
forced out by untying one of the legs and pressing your foot on the side of the
skin. This is the only way in which water is carried by men. If in jars, it is
always carried by women, and usually on their heads. These skins are used not
only as milk-vessels, but as churns. It is easy to agitate the milk in them,
either by working your foot up and down on the skin as it lies on the ground, or
by tying it to the limb of a tree and swinging it up and down until the butter
is made. They are easily turned inside out for cleansing and drying. Such skins
as are not used for these purposes are manufactured into leather, or shipped to
other countries for the manufacture of kid for fine shoes and gloves.

The Buffalo

Cattle are so scarce and costly, and the cows of the country are so indifferent
as milch-kine, that the goat is almost the entire dependence for milk and
butter. Having no means of keeping milk sweet and cool, the natives churn it
soon after milking, and drink the buttermilk, which they call leb'en. In this
state it is more refreshing, on account of its acidity, and there is a
conviction among the people that the use of sweet milk generates fever. On
account of the superior value of the goat, derived from these considerations, it
is seldom killed for food, and there is a constant tendency to increase the
number of the goats, and to reduce that of the sheep. A kid will sell in the
market for nearly double the price of a lamb of the same weight. The hair of the
goat is also of some value, and it is used by the people almost as much as the
wool of the sheep. It is twisted into ropes for tethering their stock, and it is
woven into a very coarse and heavy cloth for tents, and for sacks in which grain
and many other articles are transported. Two immense sacks are swung on the
opposite sides of a camel and filled with all manner of produce and merchandise,
which the patient but growling animal transports to any required distance. The
cattle of the country are a small black variety, well formed and active, but not
suited to heavy drafts, and inferior, as we have just stated, in their milking
qualities. They are most abundant where the surface of the ground is moist in
summer so that pasturage for them is found throughout the dry season. Many of
the villages in the dryer parts of the Hill Country have none at all, but herds
of considerable size are found in the northern part of the Plain of Sha'ron and
on the grazing-lands beyond the Jordan. In the former of these two regions the
traveler also sees a few small herds of cattle shaped like the buffalo, and
known by that name. They are fond of standing and swimming in deep water, and
are most abundant about the lagoons and along the sea-coast. There they feed on
the cane and other coarse vegetation which grows luxuriantly under the hot sun
and in the marshy soil.

Egyptian Donkey The asses of Palestine are smaller and of better shape than
those used for breeding purposes in America. They are usually about 3 1/2 feet
high, lightly built, with ears not larger than those of the handsomest mules,
and legs as neat and trim as those of a deer. They are quick and easy in their
movements, and are capable of carrying immense burdens. Many of them have the
gait called the "pace," and are pleasant under the saddle. They are exceedingly
tractable, and are usually handled by women and small boys. They live on the
coarsest food, and require but little to keep them in serviceable condition.
They can travel in a pack-train as far and as fast as mules and horses, with a
proportional burden. They are cheap enough to be owned in small numbers by
villagers who can afford no other beasts of burden, and they may be styled,
above all the other animals of the country, the poor man's friend. The preceding
cut represents one of them accoutred for riding. The author, in his travels, saw
none of the ill treatment of donkeys, of which he has read much in books of
travel, except in the way of overloading them and of sometimes using them when
their backs are sore from the saddle, or their hips from the strap used to keep
the saddle from slipping forward. The boy or woman who drives there walks behind
with a stick, by which they are both urged forward and guided; but a mere motion
of the stick, accompanied by the proper exclamation, is far more frequent than a
blow. The owner usually gives the donkey a stall or resting-place about the
humble dwelling almost as comfortable as his own, and sometimes a corner of his
own room.

Ships of the Desert

Camels are bred in large numbers by the Bed'awin Ar'abs who inhabit the regions
beyond the Jordan, and by those who dwell in the southern part of the
Philis'tine Plain. They have not only enough for their own use, but an annual
surplus for sale; and a large part of their wealth is derived from this source.
Having an abundance of camels, they use few asses, the latter animals belonging
chiefly to the villagers. The Bed'awin move their camps, including tents,
bedding, farming implements, and all their goods and chattels, on the backs of
camels, and their wives and children are often seen perched on top of the packs
of these articles. They also use them for moving their newly-cut grain to the
threshing-floors and for the transportation of all articles of traffic. A camel
of good size and condition will carry a burden of 800 pounds. It is always
divided into two parts, one on each side, and the two are fastened together
across his back by ropes. To prevent these ropes from abrading the skin, a
wooden frame with soft padding under it fitted over his hump receives them and
supports the weight of the two packages. These packages are usually made tall
enough, as the camel kneels between them, to be strapped on him without being
lifted. If the articles are small they are put into large goats'-hair sacks; if
liable to break, into tall baskets, like panniers. If grain in the sheaf is the
load, a kind of ladder with a hook at the lower end is fastened on each side,
and the load is built upon this to such a size that the camel walking along with
it looks like a moving wheat-stack. When the burden is adjusted, at the command
of his driver he rises and goes on his way at the rate of about three miles an
hour. At the end of his day's journey he kneels down again, his packs are
unfastened as they rest on the ground, and he is made to move away from between
them, leaving them in position for him to kneel and receive them again the next
morning. During the process of kneeling to receive his burden, and all the time
it is being fastened upon him, he keeps up a continual growling, as of a surly
bull-dog. And sometimes he bites, crushing the hand or arm of his driver between
his teeth. He is the most woe-begone and querulous animal of all that man is
accustomed to employ in his service; and yet, when on his way, he moves with a
head so meekly adjusted, and a step so steady and quiet, that he appears the
very embodiment of patience. The surprising capacity of the camel for traveling
a long time without water—often six or seven days—is well known. His ability to
live on the most innutritious food is equally surprising. He will not reject a
feed of barley or of any delicacy that would be prized by a pampered horse, yet
he will cheerfully feed on the leaves of the dryest weeds; and the thistles,
which his master carefully avoids touching lest their needles pierce through
clothing and shoes, he will wipe greedily into his mouth with his long
under-lip, and roll as a sweet morsel under his tongue. He is rightly called the
ship of the desert, not only because of his ability to transport merchandise
across those waterless wastes, but because any but the most barren desert will
afford him a sufficiency of food. The camel-driver usually walks in front of his
train of loaded animals, leading the foremost of the line by a halter, while the
halters of the others are hitched each to the saddle of the one before him. When
ridden the rider holds the halter in his hand, and guides the camel by a stick,
with which also he beats him to make him quicken his pace. He is capable of
moving rapidly, but it is seldom that he is driven out of a slow and deliberate
walk. He is by far the most valuable animal used by the natives, serving among
the villagers the purpose of heavy wagons with us, while the donkey answers to
the cart and the spring-wagon of our farmers.

Very few horses are used by the villagers of Palestine. Some are kept in all of
the larger towns; they are ridden by Turkish officers and resident foreigners;
and they are reared in considerable numbers by the Bed'awin Arabs. The
celebrated Ar'ab steeds, highly prized in the Western World before the turfmen
of England and America had produced a breed superior to them, are not found
among the tribes of Palestine, but a few of them are yet bred by some tribes
above Damascus. The horses furnished the traveler in Palestine are usually
reared in the Lebanon Mountains, though some are bought from the Bed'awin. They
are commonly fourteen hands high and lightly built. They are all mares or
stallions. They have no saddle-gaits, but they are surefooted, especially on
mountain-paths, and they can endure a great deal of service on light feeding and
an irregular supply of water. When on a journey they are never stripped of their
saddles night or day except to be curried; and it is a rare thing to find a
Syrian horse without a sore back. The blankets used under the saddles are of
enormous thickness, and they often cover the entire back, reaching to the
crupper. The Ar'abs think that this covering, which would be too warm for an
American horse even in cold weather, is necessary to protect the back of the
horse from the direct rays of the sun in the daytime, and that if it were
removed during his rest at night he would certainly take cold, be stiffened in
his limbs, and eventually die from the exposure. They treat their pack-animals
in the same way. The Ar'ab saddle is nearly the same in shape as the Mexican
saddle so commonly used in our Western States, but the stirrup is peculiar. Its
bottom plate is so broad in the direction of the length of the foot that both
the toe and the heel of the rider rest upon it. It is a thin plate, with sharp
corners which are used instead of spurs, the rider being able to thrust them
into the sides of the horse with severe effect. The native riders use very short
stirrup-leathers, and ride with their knees drawn up almost to a right angle,—a
most painful position for one accustomed to the American mode of riding. The
bridle is usually made of woolen stuff, and is adorned with tassels and other
ornaments in fantastic colors. The bit is stiff, with a severe curb made of an
iron ring which encloses the under-jaw, and is attached to a flat piece of iron
projecting from the middle of the bit about two inches up into the mouth. When
the rein is tightly drawn this piece of iron is forced against the roof of the
mouth, and the iron ring presses severely against the under jaw. It is this
cruel bit which enables the Ar'ab rider to stop his horse suddenly when he is at
full speed, and even to throw him back upon his haunches. It is an instrument of
torture to the poor horse, and blood is often seen flowing from his lacerated
mouth.

Mules are employed for pack-animals in all the trains prepared for European and
American travelers; yet they are so seldom used for other purposes that they
need scarcely be mentioned among the domestic animals of the country; and even
those used for this purpose are owned chiefly in the Lebanon region, and are
brought down into Palestine by their owners for the purpose of finding
employment during the traveling season. The muleteers of the pack-train are
usually the owners of the animals. The dogs of Palestine, as of all Mohammedan
countries, are a privileged class. There prevails a superstitious regard for
them, so that, as the author was told in Damascus, it is thought a greater sin
to kill a dog than a Christian. The most of the dogs in cities and villages have
no owners. They live in the streets, and find their only food in the garbage
that is thrown from the houses. They are the only street scavengers, and but for
them pestilence would break out more frequently than it does. The dogs are
usually small, and they have a hungry, woe-begone appearance. In the villages
and about the Bed'awin camps they are always on the alert to bark fiercely and
with every variety of intonation at the passer-by, but in the cities they lie
asleep in the streets, and none but the most violent kick will move them out of
your way. The Mohammedans carefully walk around them or step over them, and
leave them to quietly enjoy their slumber. They are usually peaceful, except
among themselves; and even among themselves there is but little dissension,
except when a dog wanders out of his own street or part of a street into one
appropriated by another set; then there is a fight, and he is hastily driven
back to his own quarters. The only fowls reared by the natives are chickens.
Nearly every village has a few of these, and the traveler through the country
can always procure a supply both of them and their eggs at a cheap rate; but
they are so poorly housed and fed that their produce is insignificant. They are
very much like the common barnyard fowls of our own country. The land of Israel
once flowed with honey as well as milk. Now the milk, especially goats' milk, is
much more abundant than the honey. The decrease is owing much more to the
neglect of bee culture and to the inferior hives employed than to the want of
food suitable for the bee. The bloom of countless flowers which decks the
uncultivated surface everywhere in spring, and that of the olive, the fig, and
the vine in the summer-time, give assurance that the country is well adapted to
bee culture. In a few of the more enterprising villages we see some hives of
bees, but the hives are nothing more than long earthen cylinders laid in a pile
beside the wall of the house, with their ends closed up with mud, except a small
opening for the passage of the swarm. These hives are hot, and are exposed to
the inroads of all the insects which are hostile to bees. The honey produced is
usually dark and of inferior flavor.

V. Wild Beasts, Birds, Reptiles, Insects, And Fishes

The Jackal The most common wild animal in Palestine is the jackal. He is near
the size of the American red fox, but is a little taller. He is of a
yellowish-gray color, darkest on the back, and shading lighter beneath. His tail
is bushy and nearly black at the tip. He is seldom seen in daylight, but he
comes forth from his burrow at twilight and seeks his food during the night. He
feeds chiefly on carcasses, and eagerly devours human flesh when he can find it,
though he flees before the face of a living person. He arrests the attention of
travelers chiefly by his dismal howling at night. The following, from Thomson's
"Land and Book," is a very good description of this howling when a large number
of them are collected together: "At one o'clock I was startled out of profound
sleep by the most frightful noise I ever heard. It seemed to come from this
graveyard on the east of the house, and to be very near... It began in a sort of
solo,—a low, long-drawn wail, rising and swelling higher and higher, until it
quite overtopped the wind,—and just as it was about to choke off in utter
despair it was reinforced by many other voices, yelling, screaming, barking,
wailing, as if a whole legion of demons were fighting among the tombs over some
son of perdition that had fallen into their clutches." This is the animal called
fox in the Bible, and it was three hundred of these that Samson turned loose in
the grain-fields of the Philistines with firebrands attached to their tails. The
next most common wild animal is the gazelle. It is seen in all parts of the
country in which the population is not dense, sometimes in groups of half a
dozen or more. They are exceedingly timid and watchful, so that the hunter can
seldom come within gunshot of them unperceived; and they are so swift of foot
that it is vain to chase them on horseback. They are smaller than the American
deer, but much the same in appearance. When the author and his party were
crossing the Philis'tine Plain from Mejdel to Bêt Jibrîn' we saw a group of
three or four gazelles, and were much amused to observe how the sight of them
excited the young sheikh, Ab'as, who was our escort. He thrust the sharp corners
of his Ar'ab stirrups into the sides of his white mare, and dashed away, like an
arrow, in pursuit, trying to get within shot-gun range of the nimble animals;
but they left him far in the lurch, and, on reaching the top of a ridge, turned
a moment to look back at him, then darted out of sight. The lion was once known
in the country, but has long since disappeared. A few bears yet remain, and the
author saw a large one on the top of Mount Hermon. Hyenas are not unknown. The
wild goat is sometimes seen, as also the wild boar. Porcupines and hares are not
uncommon, and mice are abundant.

The Stork on a Ruin The birds most frequently seen in all parts of the country
are doves. They are especially abundant where the grain-fields are interspersed
with clumps of bushes and small trees on which they can alight when not feeding.
The small double-barreled shot-gun which, together with one revolver on the
person of our dragoman and a broadsword in the hands of our cook, constituted
the only armament of the author's party, was in requisition nearly every day for
the purpose of shooting doves; and sometimes they supplied us a sufficiency of
meat for several meals in succession. Next to these in abundance are quails. In
all fields remote from the villages they occasionally start up from before the
traveler's horse; but we found them most abundant in the Jordan Valley. There a
good sportsman could find constant employment for his dog and gun. The quail is
smaller and of a lighter color than those of America, but its appearance, in
other respects, and its habits are the same. Pheasants, differing from the
American variety in the same particulars with the quails, are also seen in
considerable numbers among the rocks and low-growing brush on many hill-sides.
They go in flocks, fly but a short distance at a time, run very rapidly, and
hide themselves very skillfully. Their meat is good, but not so delicate and
juicy as that of the well-fed pheasants of our American forests. Other birds are
comparatively scarce, the absence of forests and the scarcity of food suitable
for many varieties tending to drive them away. A few storks are seen in the
valley of the Jordan and on some other plains, and the eagle and raven sometimes
float about in the lazy atmosphere. Birds of song are heard wherever there are
shady groves and fresh water, but there are very few birds whose plumage is
remarkable. The most striking bird to an American eye is the stork. He is about
the size of the crane, with a somewhat heavier body. His wings are black, but
his body is white. His most striking peculiarity is the funereal solemnity of
his appearance as he stands with his neck curled and his bill pointing downward,
as if mourning the loss of his dearest friend.

Many parts of Palestine, especially the vicinity of Jerusalem, are alive with
lizards. They are of every size and variety, from the smallest gray lizard to
great dark fellows a foot long and four inches high as they run. As one rides or
walks where they abound, he sees and hears them rushing away from him on every
side; he beholds them perched on the tops of rocks, large and small, or on the
highest points of stone fences and ruined walls, gazing at him and bobbing their
heads as if to make a bow. This motion of their heads is very much like that of
a Mohammedan at his prayers, when, prostrate on hands and knees, he touches the
ground three times in quick succession with his forehead. There is a notion
among the Ar'abs that the lizard mimics them in their prayers, and they
frequently stone them on that account. But, independent of this, they present a
most tempting mark as they sit and gaze at you from their perch on the top of a
rock, especially to boys who are fond of throwing stones. Snakes are rarely
seen; but the scorpion is quite common, and the centipede still more so. The
stings of both the latter are quite poisonous, though never fatal. Frogs abound
in all shallow water, and the Greek tortoise, called the terrapin in America, is
sometimes seen. Of the insect tribes, the common house-fly is the most abundant;
and, next, a brown, long-winged horse-fly. The long and dry summers are most
favorable to both these torments, and it is hard to tell whether man is
tormented by the former more or less than the lower animals by the latter. The
eyes and mouths of little children about the villages are often almost covered
with flies, and the dogs in the streets attract them in swarms. In camp-life one
finds the greatest exemption from them; but the table spread in a tent must
often be guarded by a servant with fly-fan in hand. The horse-flies hang about
the head, neck, and flanks of the horses in great swarms. The variety above
mentioned causes the horse so little pain that he makes very little exertion to
get rid of them; but there are other varieties whose sting is so severe as to
render horses and mules almost frantic. Often, in kicking at them, your horse
will strike the stirrup with his hind feet, and in biting at them endanger your
leg; while his constant struggle, first in one way and then in another, to get
rid of them, renders your seat uncomfortable and the ride fatiguing. Great as is
this torment, however, I think I have seen it surpassed, both in the number of
flies and the severity of their sting, on some of the low-lying prairies of the
State of Illinois. In every damp and shady place mosquitoes abound; and they are
intensely annoying on the banks of the lower Jordan. Their sting often produces
sores which do not heal for many months. The author brought home one on his
cheek which did not disappear till after six months. But a greater pest to the
traveler than either the fly or the mosquito is the flea. Fleas abound in nearly
all dwellings, and in all caves and sepulchres frequented by goats. The only
exemption from them is in the open country; and the only sleeping-place not
abounding in them is the moving tent which remains but a night in a place. How
the natives of the country can sleep at all, with these and other still more
pestiferous bedfellows which are equally abundant, is a marvel to European and
American travelers. Spiders are also quite abundant, though more dreaded than
dangerous; and ants are so numerous that in many parts of the plains it is
difficult to pitch a tent without covering one or more of their hills, or
crossing one of the long lines of march on which they go out in search of food
and return to their holes laden with supplies.

Locusts are still found in the country as in ancient times. There is probably no
season in which they do not appear in considerable swarms, though not in
sufficient quantities to do much damage. In the latter part of spring and in
summer one frequently sees a swarm of them so thick as to completely cover the
ground for a few square rods, and to fill the air when they are forced to fly.
On the Lake of Galilee, when the wind blows hard off shore, many of them are
driven out over the lake, and on dropping into the water they are instantly
swallowed by fish that are waiting and watching for them. They are mostly of the
large, golden variety, with black heads, wings, and legs; though some are very
much like the grasshopper. The writer saw many of them in the Valley of the
Jordan, where John first baptized, and was reminded of their use by him for
food.

Many other insects, nameless except to an adept in zoology; but altogether
harmless, abound in the earth and the dry atmosphere.

All of the perennial streams of Palestine abound in fishes, and the Lake of
Galilee has been famous for them in all its history. Those most abundant are
small, only five or six inches in length, and are eaten with the bones. But some
of fine size are caught in all the larger streams; and in the market of
Tiberias, the only market at the present day for the fish of the Lake of
Galilee, many are seen from twelve to eighteen inches in length. Along the
Mediterranean coast the sails of fishing-boats lying out from one to four miles
from shore, are constantly in sight, showing that a considerable traffic is
carried on in salt-water fish. In all countries where fish can be easily
obtained they are a cheap and wholesome article of food, and they are fully
appreciated in Palestine.


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  CHAPTER 6: CHAPTER THREE--THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE
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Chapter III.

The People of Palestine

I. The Turks The population of Palestine consists mainly of Turks, Jews, and
Ar'abs. Besides these there are a few Europeans, chiefly Germans, Russians,
French, and English. The Turks are the ruling class, all the offices of the
Turkish government being in their hands, and all the soldiers of the various
garrisons being Turks. There are garrisons at Jerusalem, Gaza, A'cre, Nab'lus,
and Jenîn', on the west of the Jordan; and at Es Salt, beyond the Jordan; but
the chief military centres are Jerusalem, A'cre, and Nab'lus. The characteristic
dress of the Turks is the fez, a rimless red cap, made of felt in the shape of a
low, truncated cone, with a black-silk tassel dangling from the top of it. It
affords no protection at all to either face or eyes from the intense glare of
the sun; and it is singular that it should have become the universal head-dress
of a people in so hot a climate. But it is worn by all Turks, from the Sultan
and his great Pashas down to the servants and beggars in the streets. No other
ornament than the black tassel is ever attached to it, and this is never
omitted. Neither is the color of the fez ever varied. The military officers of
high rank, with epaulets and gold lace, gilded sword-belts and glittering
scabbards, appear singularly defective in ornament about the head, with nothing
on it but this unsightly cap. It is worn everywhere, indoors and out, at the
table, in the social circle, in the mosque. If a Turk ever removes his fez it is
when he goes to bed at night. In other respects their dress does not vary
materially from that of Europeans. Their women are seldom seen in public, and
when they appear they are still not seen very distinctly, for they are so
covered with long robes (usually of white), enveloping head, face, and form in
one shapeless mass, that there is no temptation to gaze upon them. In some parts
of the empire, however, as in Constantinople, there is more freedom; the style
of dress is nearer the Parisian, and the faces of the women are sometimes only
partially veiled.

Sultan Abdul Aziz The Turks are an irreligious people, for though they are
nominally Mohammedans, and it is considered among them a crime worthy of death
to abandon the faith, yet they are quite indifferent about the ceremonial
observances of their religion; and they are not characterized by any of the
virtues which once made their religion respectable in the eyes of the world.
They are in the main a godless and sensuous people, avaricious in the extreme,
and when in office full of bribery and corruption. It is the common conviction
of the people in Palestine and throughout Syria that no action can be obtained
in a Turkish court except by bribery, and that by the payment of a sufficient
sum of money any decree at all, however unjust and oppressive, may be obtained.
There is similar corruption in the collection of tithes and other taxes, and in
the payment of official salaries. One-tenth of all the produce of the country is
claimed as tribute by the Sultan. It is collected in a most irregular and
oppressive way, so that often it amounts to fifteen, and even twenty per cent.,
instead of ten. It is said that only a small portion of it finally reaches the
imperial treasury, and that the money which is ordered from the treasury to pay
the subordinate officers in the provinces suffers so much loss in passing
through intermediate hands that only a portion of it reaches its destination.
This failure to receive the salaries due from the government is made an excuse
for extortion and bribery. The Turkish soldiers stationed in Palestine are
poorly drilled and poorly clothed; but they are well armed with the most
approved of modern weapons. The barracks in which they are quartered are usually
substantial stone houses, but they are supplied with very few comforts, and the
pay of the common soldier is meagre. Travelers passing through the country are
entitled to a military escort of one or more soldiers if they claim it, and the
poorly-paid soldiers are always glad to go on such service, for the sake of the
better food and more liberal compensation which the traveler is sure to furnish.
There is really, however, no need of such an escort at the present time.

II. The Jews In the absence of all census-taking, and the custom of the people
of towns and villages to underestimate their population for the purpose of
diminishing taxation, it is impossible to state with accuracy the population of
any town or city, and still more so to state the exact ratio of one portion of
the population to another. But the Jews in Palestine are far more numerous than
the Turks. They are found chiefly in Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Sâ'fed, though a
few are settled in some of the other towns of the larger class. Their entire
number in all Syria is estimated at about 40,000, and it is probable that about
one-half of these dwell in Palestine, and more than one-fourth of them in
Jerusalem. In appearance, as well as in dress, the Jews of Palestine are quite
different from those commonly seen in America, and especially is this true of
those in Jerusalem. Most of them are pale and thin, with bent forms and
unhealthy complexion. They cut their hair short behind, but allow a long lock,
often curled, to hang down in front of each ear. Many of them have light hair
and blue eyes. They wear very generally a bear-skin cap, rimless and lying flat
on the head. Their dress is the usual gown, with narrow skirt, fitting over a
long cotton shirt bound around the waist with a girdle. Over all is a loose
coat, with sleeves, which hangs nearly to the ground. In summer the entire outer
dress is of colored cotton, the colors usually bright. The Jewish women appear
on the streets with unveiled faces, their head-covering being usually a piece of
white linen hung loosely on the hair, open in front, and of such a size as to
hang down over the entire person. They wear dresses made somewhat after the
European fashion, though they make no effort to keep up with the Parisian
styles. The Jews work at various mechanical trades, keep little stands for
money-changing, and deal in the usual articles of traffic in the bazaars. Many
of them are exceedingly poor, and are fed by contributions from their more
prosperous brethren in Europe and America. For a year or two previous to the
recent war between Turkey and Russia there was a considerable influx of Jewish
population into Palestine, and especially to Jerusalem, causing the erection of
a large number of tenements for their accommodation outside the city; but the
uncertainty of the results of that war, and especially of its effect on the
Jewish population of the two countries, put a check to this immigration, and it
has not since been renewed.

Many of the resident Jews retain their citizenship in the countries of Europe
from which they emigrated, and are therefore under the protection of their
respective consuls. This protection saves them from many annoyances and procures
for them an administration of justice which they would not otherwise enjoy.
There is every reason to believe that as prosperity revisits the land and it is
revived from the ruin which has so long brooded over it, its former inhabitants
and owners will be among the first to repeople it. Natural causes, directed by
the hand of Providence, may yet bring about that regeneration of the country and
that return of its Jewish population which seems to be demanded by many
predictions in the Word of God.

III. The Bed'Awin Arabs The Ar'abs of the country are divided into two very
distinct classes: the Fel'lahîn, who dwell in cities and villages, and the
Bed'awin, who dwell in tents and are properly the Ar'abs of the desert. Until
recently the latter devoted themselves exclusively to grazing, and despised
agriculture. They exchanged the increase of their flocks and herds for grain and
other necessaries, and often made incursions among the villages and robbed the
threshing-floors. The frequency of these incursions disheartened the villagers
and greatly restricted the cultivation of the soil. But of late years the
Turkish government has quartered soldiers in the border districts to keep back
the bands of robbers, and both classes have been benefitted. The Fel'lahîn have
since then greatly extended their area of cultivation, and the Bed'awin
themselves have become growers of grain. As yet they make no attempt at garden
vegetables or fruits, and they live entirely without these, except when they
visit the towns and purchase them; but they cultivate some small patches of
tobacco, and those of them who occupy the better class of lands may yet become
agriculturists. Their entire wealth consists in their flocks of sheep and goats,
and their herds of camels, cattle, and asses. The tents of the Bed'awin are very
rudely constructed. They consist of long strips of black hair-cloth suspended on
rude stakes from five to six feet high, with one side-curtain to keep out cold
winds or the afternoon sun. The tent-cloth is a very coarse texture, woven by
hand from the hair of the black goats, and it has a very gloomy appearance; but
it is impervious to rain and it makes a fine shade. In cold weather a fire is
built before the open front of the tent, the fuel being brush, roots, weeds, or
the dried ordure of the cattle. When the last material is burned an offensive
odor is diffused through the atmosphere for a great distance around. Within
these tents are spread the hair-mats and heavy strips of carpet on which the
family sit during the day and sleep during the night. In the corners are stacked
the other household effects. In one end are frequently huddled some calves or
some motherless kids and lambs; while the dogs and chickens occupy whatever
vacant spaces they can find. The tents vary in length from 15 to 40 feet, and
are usually no wider than 8 or 10 feet. Many are not tall enough for a person to
stand erect in them, except in the immediate vicinity of the taller stakes. They
are usually pitched in groups of half a dozen or more, but sometimes an
encampment is seen containing 30 or 40 tents.

Bed'awin Camp The outer dress of the Bed'awin women consists of a skirt, rather
scantily cut, from the belt of which, behind, there rises a kind of large hood
of the same goods, covering the head and the arms. The arms are wrapped in this,
and it is drawn over the face as a veil when occasion requires. It is not their
custom, however, to veil their faces. They wear no other covering for the head
than this hood. The material now universally used for this dress is blue cotton.
The white cotton is imported from England and dyed by the natives, dye-shops for
this purpose being seen on the streets of all the towns of any considerable
size. The feet of the women are either bare or covered with slippers without
upper leather around the heel; no stockings. The dress of the men consists of a
long shirt, reaching nearly to the heels, over which is worn a colored calico
gown of the same length, open in front, but secured around the waist by a
girdle, in which is worn the invariable dirk or long knife, sheathed in a
leather scabbard. Sometimes the shirt, with a belt at the waist, is the only
garment. For cold weather there is added a kind of overcoat, which may be
described as a loose-fitting sack, long enough to nearly touch the ground, and
made of coarse woolen goods, with broad stripes of white and black up and down.
It is used for a coverlet at night, and it is called the ab'a. Slippers of the
same kind as those worn by the women, and sometimes sandals of the most
primitive kind, are worn by the poorest of the men; shoes by those in better
circumstances; and short-topped boots by the aristocratic; all made of red
leather. But the distinguishing dress of the Bed'awin is the kufeiyeh
(pronounced kuf-feé-yah), which is his substitute for a hat. It is a square
shawl of cotton, woolen, or silk, folded diagonally, laid on the head with the
fold in front, two of the corners hanging on the shoulders, the third on the
back. It is secured in its place by a large cord passed twice around the head
across the temples. The cord is about half an inch in diameter, and is commonly
a rope of goats' hair, though sometimes it is made of thread, and sometimes
covered with silk and adorned with tassels. The front fold can be drawn over the
forehead to shade the eyes, the side corners can be tucked up under the cord to
let the air into the face, or they can each be passed under the chin and tucked
under the cord at the other side, to cover the face and protect it from the cold
winds or from the hot evening sun. It is a cheap, convenient, and not unsightly
head-dress; and nothing better adapted to the Bed'awin mode of life could be
invented. It is said also by the Europeans who have tried it to be the very best
protection of the head against the hot sun of that climate.

Sheikh Fellah' The Bed'awin are always armed but their arms are of the rudest
and most obsolete kind. No one is without a dirk or crooked knife, worn in a
leather scabbard and suspended at the girdle. Sometimes a pair of old
horse-pistols, of the kind used in America a hundred years ago, is also stuck in
the girdle, both pistols on the left side. The gun is still more common than the
pistol. It is long in the barrel and short in the breech. The stock reaches the
entire length of the barrel, and is fastened to it by a succession of brass
bands. The lock is invariably the old-fashioned flint-lock. Coarse and dirty
powder is carried in a rude powder-horn suspended at the right side; and a
leather pouch, suspended by the same strap, holds the shot, slugs, or bullets.
The locks seldom fail to strike fire, but the range of the musket is short and
the aim very inaccurate. In addition to this armory the sheikhs and other men of
importance wear an old broad-sword, whose scabbard, old and worn, is wrapped
here and there with leathern strings. But instead of the musket these more
aristocratic warriors usually carry a spear about 14 feet long, whose head,
shaped like the blade of a two-edged bowie-knife, is 14 inches long and an inch
and a half wide. The spear-staff is light and elastic, often a bamboo rod. It
has an iron spike in the butt end, which is stuck in the ground to hold the
spear erect when not in use. When the Ar'ab horseman dismounts at camp, he sets
up his spear, by striking this spike into the ground, hobbles his horse with the
saddle on, takes a seat at the tent door, lights his pipe, meditates, or
converses solemnly and slowly with his neighbors. He neither smiles nor weeps.
If the stoic philosophy had been preached among the Bed'awin they would all have
embraced it as a natural result of their temperament. The Bed'awin men are of
medium height, thin and sinewy. They have a light and elastic step, are straight
as an Indian, and have the Indian's coarse, black hair, piercing eyes, and high
cheek-bones. Their complexion is a dark brown. They wear their beards in full
and their hair trimmed to moderate length. Their women are short and squarely
built, with coarse features but kindly disposition. The men do but little manual
labor apart from ploughing. All the drudgery of camp-life and of the care of
young stock is imposed on the women and the boys. The most important tribes of
Bed'awin in Palestine are the Adwân, who claim the territory east of the Jordan
from Jerash to the Zerka Mâ'in; the Beni Sâkhr, who claim the ancient land of
Moab; and the Tiyâhah, who occupy the plains between Hebron and Gaza. The
Taâ'mirah and the Jahalïn' are very poor tribes, who dwell in the wilderness
west of the Dead Sea, occupying such spots as afford a little water and small
patches of tillable soil; and the Ghuwar'îneh, a still smaller tribe, occupy
some parts of the Jordan Valley. None of these tribes will willingly allow
Europeans to pass through their territory without the payment of tribute in the
form of fees for an escort from their own tribe. The usual custom of the
traveler is to have his consul at Jerusalem send for the sheikh of the tribe
through whose territory he wishes to pass, and request him to come immediately
to Jerusalem. This can be done almost any day by means of individuals of the
tribes visiting the city for trading purposes. A bargain is then made,
stipulating the time to be spent in the territory, the number of men to
constitute the escort, and the amount to be paid. All is reduced to writing and
signed in the presence of the consul by both parties, the sheikh, who is never
able to write, using a small seal, which he always carries with him to
authenticate written documents. Under this contract and escort a man is
perfectly safe in any part of their territory. The government of these tribes is
almost purely patriarchal. Each father of a family is supreme ruler of his own
offspring so long as he lives, his sons taking separate lordship of their own
offspring when the father is dead. A chief called sheikh (shake), whose office
is hereditary, presides over the entire tribe, not as an absolute ruler, but as
a head man, whose voice is obeyed rather from custom than from law, and who is
the leader in time of war. Sometimes two brothers exercise a kind of joint
headship, but in such cases the elder brother has superior authority. The
primitive law of blood revenge prevails among these people, requiring the
nearest kin of a murdered man to put to death the murderer. His friends in turn
avenge his blood, and so the feud goes on until sometimes entire tribes become
involved in war, and the strong hand of the Turkish government must interpose to
make peace. The modification of this law under the Jewish economy, by means of
the cities of refuge, prevented these excesses of retaliation. The hospitality
of the Bed'awin is well known, having been noticed in the writings of nearly all
travelers among them. While under the roof of one of them a stranger is safe,
and the murder of one who has eaten salt with them is unknown. They will not
even rob a man who has been their guest until at least three days afterwards,
and if he is under the protection of the tribe they will defend him with their
lives.

These sons of the desert claim descent from Ishmael; and although the claim to
be exclusively of his posterity cannot be established, the rite of circumcision,
which is still retained among them, together with their habits of life and modes
of dress, nearly all of which have come down from the earliest times, make it
almost certain that they are descended, with but little admixture of foreign
blood, from the various sons of Abraham by his concubines. They probably
represent this branch of the Abrahamic family as truly as the Jews do the branch
through Isaac and Jacob.

IV. The Fel'Lahin

Those Arabs who dwell in villages and till the soil are called Fel'lahîn, a word
which means tillers. These people in many respects resemble the Bed'awin; but
they are of lighter complexion and speak a different dialect of the Arabic
tongue. Lieutenant Conder, in a somewhat elaborate treatise on their
peculiarities, endeavors to trace their origin to the remnants of the aboriginal
inhabitants of Canaan, who were allowed by the Jews to dwell in the land in the
midst of themselves. But when we remember how few of these people could possibly
have been left after the destruction of the Jewish nationality, and how great a
variety of nationalities were represented by the peoples who have at various
times overrun the country and mingled their blood with that of the inhabitants,
we must receive such a theory with much doubt. Certain it is that the Arabians
who took possession of the country after the Mohammedan invasion of the seventh
century have held it ever since, except during their partial and temporary
dispossession during the Crusades; and they are, if not the original, at least
the principal ancestors of the present settled population. They are doubtless a
race of mixed origin; but they have been so long isolated that they have become
entirely homogeneous; and until more certain evidences to the contrary are
adduced, it will be better still to call them Ar'abs. They are distinguished
from the Bed'awins not only by occupation and complexion, but by their modes of
life and their head-dress. They shave their heads, leaving only a tuft at the
crown, by which the angel Gabriel is to lift them into heaven. They cover the
naked scalp with a close-fitting cotton cap, and wear outside of this the
turban. This historical head-dress, once universal among both Turks and Arabs,
is now retained only by the Fel'lahîn. It consists of a roll of white cotton or
linen long enough to pass twice around the head, with both ends tucked under its
own folds. It is far better adapted to the climate than the fez, for which it
has been discarded by the Turks; for its many folds, lightly pressed together,
afford complete protection to the head against the direct rays of the sun, and
it also slightly shades the eyes and the upper part of the face; but it is more
inconvenient than either the fez or the kufei'yah, and it requires more frequent
washing than the latter. Only when it is entirely clean does it present a decent
appearance; and those who wear it are more particular in regard to its
cleanliness than to that of any other garment.

Dress of the Working Classes The dress of the Fel'lahîn is in other respects the
same as that of the Bed'awin; and there is no difference in point of dress
between the women of the two classes. The Fel'lahîn women of the large towns and
cities are careful to veil their faces in the presence of strangers; and some of
them, in addition to the hoods described above (p. 80), wear a small colored
veil, which is attached to the head above the forehead and hangs down over the
face. But in the smaller towns and villages most of the women make no attempt to
use the veil, but meet strangers and foreigners with a free and open face. They
do not, however, salute a stranger unless he first salutes them. They expect no
notice, and when spoken to by travelers they are surprised; but they respond in
a prompt and pleasant manner. It gives no offense now to either sex, as it once
did, for a traveler to speak pleasantly to any unveiled woman whom he chances to
meet. The modes of life among the Fel'lahîn differ from those of the Bed'awin in
that they dwell in houses grouped into villages in the midst of the lands which
they cultivate; they engage in various mechanical trades and mercantile
pursuits; they cultivate fruits and vegetables as articles of diet and traffic;
and they pay some little attention to the education of their children. The
Fel'lahîn and Bed'awin are alike free from the sin of intoxication, their
religion forbidding them the use of intoxicating drinks. They regard the use of
these drinks as a peculiarly Christian accomplishment; and a story is told of a
sheikh who was importuned by an English traveler to take some wine, but he
answered, "I am not a Christian; I cannot take it." They are also entirely
honest among themselves, theft being practiced on none but strangers, and seldom
on these. Property of all kinds is left exposed, and locks are not appended to
the doors of the village houses. There is no high sense of virtue among the
females; but the early marriage of both girls and boys, the former usually at
about thirteen and the latter at about fifteen, combined with the jealous
watchfulness of husbands, prevents any large amount of sexual impurity; and
harlotry is not practiced at all. A limited polygamy prevails, the Koran
allowing a man in ordinary circumstances to have four wives. Only few of the
villagers have sufficient income to justify an indulgence in this privilege. It
must be said, also, in behalf of both classes of Ar'abs, that they are
good-natured, that their minds are quick and active, and that in their
deportment there is a remarkable degree of grace and dignity. But here the list
of their virtues terminates and that of their vices begins. It would not be too
much to say of both Fel'lahin and Bed'awin, as Paul said of the Cretans, that
"They are always liars;" and if we extend the remark to the native inhabitants
of all Syria we shall not be found guilty of slander. There seems to be no
conscience on the subject of veracity in the entire population, for when one is
detected in a falsehood it causes him not the least embarrassment or confusion.
Even an oath is regarded as a light matter, unless it is made in the presence of
a religious teacher of the same faith with the party sworn; hence it is the
custom of our consul in Jerusalem, as he informed the author, in all cases which
come under his jurisdiction, to have witnesses and litigants thus sworn before
he will receive their testimony. It is singular that this sin, the most
universal in those countries at the present day, is the one most lightly thought
of among the patriarchs of old, and among the Israelites throughout all their
ages. It led David to say, in his haste, "All men are liars." It appears to be a
traditional sin, handed down from father to son, and from people to people, as
they alternately possess the country. The habit will prove a very great barrier
to the speedy Christianization of these people. The vice which appears most
prominent and most offensive to an American traveler is the gross oppression to
which women and children are subjected. All the drudgery of which they are
capable is heaped upon them, while the men live comparatively at their ease. If
the men take part in the harvest, their wives, and all of their children capable
of rendering any assistance, are at work under their oversight all the day. At
evening when the day's work is done, and at morning before it begins, the women
have the additional task of bringing all the water for domestic purposes and
preparing all the food for the household, while the boys and girls attend to the
stock and milk the goats. The spring, which generally affords the only supply of
water, is nearly always at some distance from the village, often a quarter of a
mile, and all the water is carried on the heads of the women in stone jars that
will hold about five gallons. It is considered disgraceful to a man to be seen
carrying a jar of water, so much so that even the servants of our camp, who were
hired as muleteers, disdained to do it; and wherever our camp was pitched some
woman was employed, if one could be found, to bring us the necessary supply of
water. Only when we were remote from any village would the servants condescend
to wait on themselves in this particular. But this oppression appears in its
most offensive form when you see a turbaned Fellah riding on his donkey into the
city, with two or three women, his wives, or wives and daughters, walking before
him barefooted, with heavy packs on their heads containing articles which he is
going to sell in the markets. This is not an unusual sight on any of the roads
leading into Jerusalem. The boys and girls have as hard a lot as their mothers.
The girls assist their mothers until they are about thirteen years of age, when
they are given away by their fathers in matrimony, which means that they become
the slaves of other men. They are allowed no voice in the selection of the new
master. He may be a young man of suitable age and unmarried, or he may be an old
man with other wives and full-grown children. The small boy's are the shepherds.
The small bunches of calves, sheep, and goats belonging to most of the villagers
can be managed each by a single boy; and if they are large, a man, with the
assistance of one or more boys, is put in charge of them. These shepherd boys,
often not more than eight or ten years of age, go out with their flocks early in
the morning, and remain in the field or on the mountain-sides with them until
after sunset. They spend the day in solitude, except when two or three are near
enough to each other to converse while they watch their flocks, and their only
food is a little tough bread and a small kid-skin bottle of buttermilk. They
have usually no means of amusement, but the traveler will now and then see one
supplied with a wooden whistle, which sounds about half the notes of the scale
and makes a shrill kind of music. These they prize very highly, and they cannot
easily be induced to sell them. The children that are too small to do any work
are allowed to run about the village uncombed and unwashed, and to roll in the
dirt like little pigs. Even the infants are scarcely acquainted with the use of
soap and water, and as a consequence half the little children have sore eyes,
and many of both the children and the adults are blind in one eye or both.
Conder attributes this neglect of cleanliness to a superstition among them in
regard to the "evil eye," and says that the children are purposely left dirty
and besmirched to avoid the consequences of an envious look. This may serve some
of them as an excuse, but were we to judge by the uncleanliness of the mothers
themselves, we would suppose that the neglect is chiefly due to indifference.

Avarice, the common sin of humanity, and supposed to be most prevalent among
commercial nations, is not more so among any people than among the Fel'lahîn of
Palestine. From the oldest to the youngest they are beggars, and they beg, not
because they are in want, but because their thirst for money is insatiable. They
hope for a gift, which they call buckshîsh', and plead for it without the
slightest ground on which to base a claim for it; and when they have received
compensation for a service to the full amount agreed on, they still entreat for
additional pay in the way of a present. When a gift is bestowed they are never
content with the amount of it, but they indicate by the most pitiable tones and
looks that they are disappointed. Their avarice is also shown in their methods
of making bargains. They cannot buy the smallest amount of any article without
long hesitation and debate, and often two men are seen in a loud and apparently
angry quarrel, accompanied with violent gesticulation, over a difference of a
few cents. If this love of money were rightly directed by a wise government, and
by the introduction of capital from more prosperous countries, it might result
in making the people enterprising and thrifty.

Another trait of character which always arrests the attention of the Western
traveler, is the disposition to engage in angry and boisterous quarrels without
coming to blows. It is seen among the employés in the traveler's own camp,
causing him great annoyance; and it appears among all who have dealings likely
to involve conflicting interests. Thomson tells a story of a man against whom a
neighbor raised a quarrel when he was about to pray. With violent gesticulations
he broke forth in the words: "May God curse your grandfather and the father of
your great-grandfather! Can't you give a man time to pray? I want to pray."

All persons from the West who enjoy personal familiarity with the Ar'abs, or
with Syrians of any class, notice their inability to appreciate a jest. They
take everything you say in sober earnest, and your best efforts at humor in
conversation are lost on them. They indulge in no jesting among themselves, and
they know not how to appreciate it in others. As Lieutenant Conder remarks, "The
Eastern people are by nature grave and dignified, and they have but little sense
of the ludicrous. Their only attempts at witticism are feeble puns." The
inhabitants of the various villages, like the tribes among the Bed'awin, have a
local government of their own entirely distinct from that of the Turks. Every
village has its sheikh, who is implicitly obeyed by the citizens; and he, in
conjunction with the elders or heads of families, constitutes a kind of informal
court for the administration of justice. They have no prisons, but they inflict
such penalties as they think proper. They also make provision for such of their
number as cannot cultivate the soil for themselves; for example, they cultivate
a piece of ground for the religious teacher of the village and one for the
village carpenter, who are thus compensated for their labors.

V. The Native Christians In some towns and villages of Palestine the people are
chiefly Christians, those in Nazareth and Bethlehem being almost exclusively so.
Nearly all such belong to the Greek Church, though some are Romanists. These
appear to be of the same race as the Fel'lahîn, with perhaps the difference of a
greater admixture of European blood. Their belief in Christ is inherited from
the remnant of the Christian population which survived the Mohammedan invasion
of the seventh century. The Christian portion of the population show a marked
superiority in some respects over the Mohammedans. They are not so chaste nor so
temperate, and they are equally superstitious; but they are more enterprising in
business and better educated. Their women are freer, and both sexes have more
cheerfulness and domestic happiness among them. In the dress of both sexes they
are easily distinguished from all classes of Mohammedans. The men wear on their
heads a red cap like the fez, except that it is hemispherical and has a larger
tassel. Their coat is a close-fitting jacket, open in front, and usually
ornamented with embroidery. In front, between the lappels of the jacket, is seen
an embroidered vest, buttoning up to the chin. Their nether limbs are encased in
a pair of trowsers of very voluminous folds, gathered close at each ankle and
around the waist by stout draw-strings. It is really a large bag with two holes
at the lower corners for the feet to pass through, and a draw-string in the
mouth to draw it tight around the waist. It is made of the same material with
the jacket,—cloth, silk, or linen,—and is often of fine goods and of the richest
colors. At the waist, and covering the connecting point between the vest and the
trowsers, is a voluminous sash of various colors, wound several times around the
waist, with both ends hanging down by the right thigh. Stockings of cotton or
silk and shoes of European patterns cover the ankles and feet. This is by far
the most picturesque and pleasing costume seen in Palestine or any part of
Western Asia, and when worn by a tall man of graceful action it is unexcelled in
appearance by any costume in the world. It is ill suited, however, to horseback
riding on account of the narrow stride of the trowsers. Short stirrups are a
necessity. Yet even on horseback it must be admitted that a Syrian gentleman
presents a much more pleasing appearance than an American. For an overcoat he
uses the identical âb'a of the Bed'awin, except that it is made of finer goods
and in more pleasing colors. When riding in the sun he very frequently ties the
Bed'awin kufeïyeh about his cap, or folds it around the cap in the style of a
turban. This is to protect his head and face from the intense heat of the sun.
Sometimes a Turk does the same. The Christian women dress very much after the
European style, except that they wear nothing corresponding to a bonnet or a
hat. Their most usual head-covering is a white veil, varying in texture
according to the circumstances of the family, folded diagonally, like the
kufeïyeh, and laid lightly over the head, leaving the face entirely bare. The
pin by which it is fastened to the hair is hidden, so that the veil appears to
hang in its place without fastening. Whatever might be thought by American or
European ladies, it is the general verdict of male travelers that this is a far
more pleasing head-dress than nine-tenths of the bonnets worn in the West.

VI. Europeans The Russian government, the natural guardian of the Greek Church,
because it is the only strong nation professing that faith, encourages
pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and makes provision out of the national treasury
for the protection and the comfort of the pilgrims. Consequently she has planted
a kind of colony of priests and their assistants at Jerusalem, at Bethlehem, at
Nazareth, and in some less important places. These constitute an influential
element of the population. Attached to the consulates of Germany, France, Great
Britain, and the United States, in Jerusalem, and to the consular agencies of
the same in Joppa and Haifa, are a few persons of those nationalities, besides
missionaries from Great Britain and America, who are located at various places.
These persons are to the traveler a very interesting part of the population; but
their number is small, and they can scarcely be regarded as a part of the
settled population of the country. There is, however, at Joppa, and also at
Haifa, a colony of Germans who have taken up their abode in the country with a
view to permanency. Each colony numbers about 300 souls. The Haifa colony was
founded in the fall of 1868, and that at Joppa in 1869, the former under the
presidency of G. D. Hardegg, and the latter under that of Christopher Hoffman.
They were both planted by a German sect called The Temple. Their religious
tenets are not fully stated in any work that has come under the eye of the
author. Conder, who attempts to set them forth in part, confesses that they are
not easily understood, and intimates the opinion that the colonists do not
clearly understand themselves. It is sufficient for our purpose to remark that
they interpret the predictions concerning the restoration of Israel to their own
land as referring to its occupation by the spiritual rather than by the literal
Israel, and that they are aiming at the fulfillment of those predictions. They
contemplate, also, the elevation and conversion of the native inhabitants of the
country; but, as explained to the author by one of the number at Haifa, they
seek to accomplish this not by sending missionaries to preach to them, but by
living among them and setting an example for them to imitate. They hope that the
natives will eventually see the superiority of European methods and of a pure
religion, and be led to adopt these without other persuasion. At first the
colonists had schools in which their own children and those of the natives were
taught together; but they found that their own children deteriorated more
rapidly than the others improved, and therefore they excluded the native
children from their schools.


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  CHAPTER 7: CHAPTER FOUR--MODES OF AGRICULTURE
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Chapter IV. Modes of Agriculture I. Ploughing And Sowing When the rains commence
in November, softening the ground which during the summer has become hardened in
the sun and often cracked open to a considerable depth, ploughing for the next
season's crop begins. But some of the farmers have adopted the custom of
ploughing in the spring, during the leisure just before harvest. This early
ploughing prevents the surface from being hardened by the sun, and as no weeds
nor grass will grow during the summer, it exposes the soil more to the
fertilizing effects of the dry atmosphere. It also gives rest to the land, for
on this method the same piece of ground is sown in grain not oftener than every
alternate year. The plough now used is quite an improvement on that described by
early travelers in Palestine, showing that the natives are capable of
improvement even in agricultural implements. It is made like a very heavy "bull
tongue," with two bars reaching back from the sides of it. These bars serve to
widen the furrow and to increase the pulverization of the soil. The upper end of
the plough is hollow, and receives the single handle, which rises with but
little backward slope, and has at its top a cross-piece by which it is held. The
beam is attached to this upright, and is strengthened by a wooden brace above
the point of connection. It reaches forward to the yoke, and has a sufficient
upward inclination to touch the yoke, to the middle of which it is tied with a
rope or a piece of raw-hide. It is a tongue, rather than a beam. The yoke is a
straight pole about six feet long and three inches in diameter, which lies on
top of the necks of the oxen, and is fastened to the neck not by a bow, but by a
rope. All of the timber used is light but tough, and it answers its purpose
better than one would suppose, for the plough is not run more than three inches
deep; its draft is light and there is very little danger of breaking, except
when it strikes a heavy stone or the solid rock, then some part of the plough or
of the gearing is almost certain to break, and much time is lost in making
repairs. The oxen are still driven by a goad, a long stick with a sharp spike in
the end, as in the ancient times.

Ploughing This simple instrument pulverizes the ground very well, and where the
soil is light it stirs it to a sufficient depth. It is doubtful whether an
American steel plough, running eight or ten inches deep and bringing the subsoil
to the surface, would produce any better results in that soil and climate. At
any rate, if our method were introduced there, not only the ploughs but the
yokes would have to be imported, for the timber out of which to make our heavy
yokes and plough-beams can be found there only in a very few places. It would be
necessary, also, either to import a larger breed of cattle, or to plough with
two or three yokes of those now in use. The poverty of the people is such that
they have an indifferent supply of cattle for ploughing, and a scarcity of even
the cheap and rude ploughs which they manufacture. While one man is using the
team and the plough, several are waiting to use it in their turns. As a
consequence, the ploughing and sowing continue all the winter, exposing the
farmer and his stock to much hardship and to many causes of ill health, besides
necessitating a very light yield from the grain that is sown late in the season.
The traveler often sees this lately-sown grain so thin as not to be worth
harvesting, side by side with heavy crops that are sown early. With more capital
and a better supply of work-stock, the ploughing could be rushed through in the
early part of the rainy season, and better results would follow. Even in
November, however, cold winds and rain are encountered, and he who would push
his business vigorously must disregard both. It is to this that Solomon alludes
when he says, "The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; therefore
shall he beg in harvest and have nothing." The sower goes immediately before the
ploughman, sowing the grain that it may be ploughed under. In order to keep up
with the sower it is necessary to follow him with several ploughs. The harrow is
not used at all. Were the ground ploughed before sowing and then the grain
harrowed in, or even covered by dragging a heavy brush over the ground, the
yield would probably be greater.

II. Harvesting, Threshing, And Grinding The Syrian farmer is in no hurry about
the commencement of his harvest. He can begin, if he chooses, as soon as the
grain is sufficiently matured; but he usually waits till it is "dead-ripe" and
the stalk is yellow to the roots. Neither is he in any hurry, like the American
farmer, to get through. The American begins before the grain is dry enough to
shatter out, because with his machinery he handles it so roughly as would
otherwise cause waste; and when he begins he must hurry through lest the rain
hinder him and ruin his grain. But the Syrian farmer knows that he will not have
a shower during harvest-time, let the latter be ever so long, and his mode of
handling his grain is such as not to shatter it, though ever so ripe. He cuts it
with a sickle, as did his fathers back to the days of Abraham, and as our
fathers did less than a hundred years ago. Some writers represent the harvesters
as sitting on their haunches while using the sickle; but the author saw
harvesting in process from end to end and from side to side of the entire
country, and he saw no one in this lazy posture. The grain is tied in little
bundles, which are loaded on the backs of camels or donkeys and transferred to
the heap at the threshing-floor. They are not tossed with a pitchfork, but moved
gently by hand. The grain must be removed from the field because the soft,
tillable ground is unsuited for a threshing-floor, and because the
threshing-floor must be near the village for the sake of convenience. The Jews
in ancient times used carts for this purpose, instead of donkeys and camels.
When all the grain is harvested and laid up in heaps, not stacks, about the
threshing-floors, the threshing begins, unless the necessity of getting out some
grain for immediate use has led to some threshing before. Often this is the
case, and it is not a rare thing to see persons employed in threshing a few
sheaves with a rude flail when the harvest has scarcely begun. This is done when
the old crop of wheat is already exhausted, or when some of the fresh grain is
wanted for parching. The "parched corn" so often mentioned in the Bible is still
in common use. The threshing-floor is a hard piece of ground, made harder by
tramping and beating, or, when it can be found of sufficient size, the flat
surface of a rock. The grain is laid upon this in a circle from forty to eighty
feet in diameter, and then oxen, horses, and mules are driven around upon it
until the most of it is shattered out and the straw broken to pieces. Then
follows the process of grinding the straw into chaff and disengaging all the
grain that may yet be encased in the ears. This is effected by dragging over it
a rough slide, usually about three feet wide and five feet long. It consists of
three planks of hard timber about two inches thick, laid edge to edge, with two
battens nailed across them to hold them firmly together, and one end slightly
turned up so that the instrument will slide over the straw. The bottom is bored
full of inch auger-holes not deep enough to go through, and rough stones of the
right size to make a tight fit are driven into these holes deep enough to leave
nearly half their size above the surface of the plank. These stones constitute a
kind of teeth, and as the slide is dragged round and round the threshing-floor
by a horse or a mule, with a man or boy sitting on it, they grind the straw into
fine chaff and shatter out the very last grain of wheat. This instrument was
used in early times by the Jews, and was probably included in the instruments
offered by Araunah to David. It is called the mow'rej. This mass of grain and
chaff is then heaped into a conical pile in the centre of the floor, or at a
short distance outside the circle, and another bed of the unthreshed grain is
laid down to go through the same process. I have seen the driver of a mow'rej
lying down on it fast asleep while the horse continued his rounds.

The Mow'rej When a favorable wind blows, and this occurs nearly every day from
nine A. M. till four P. M., the heap of threshed grain is tossed into the air,
first with a three-pronged wooden fork, until the coarser straws are separated,
and then with a wooden shovel called "a fan" in the English Bible. The wind
blows the straw and chaff to one side, while the grain falls back into the heap.
Sometimes when the grain is nearly clean it is poured from a shallow basket held
on top of a man's head, that the wind may blow away the remainder of the trash.
When the entire process is completed, there is still some fine chaff left among
the wheat, and nearly always some dust and grit from the threshing-floor. The
people have no means of removing this except by washing the grain. It is in most
instances not removed at all, but ground with the wheat. But the author has seen
women engaged in washing their wheat by dropping it into a little stream dammed
up for the purpose, stirring it around a few minutes, and then laying it out to
dry. In the hot sun and dry atmosphere the moisture is absorbed too quickly to
injure the grain. The ancient Jews completed the process of cleaning their grain
by the use of a sieve, and it was customary among them for the owner and the
workmen to sleep at the threshing-floor while the winnowing was going on. This
last was for the double purpose of hastening the work and guarding against
thieves. It is still customary to guard the heaps both of the threshed and the
unthreshed grain day and night. When the wheat is sufficiently winnowed it is
put away in granaries, of which there are two kinds, one kind above the ground
and the other beneath it. Those below ground are jug-shaped excavations from
four to six feet deep, plastered, and drawn to a narrow mouth at the top.
Sometimes a great many of these are dug in a group very close to each other. The
author saw, on a piece of sloping ground not far from Jericho, about an acre of
space that was honey-combed with them, but they had been abandoned and their
tops had fallen in. Of course these granaries are made only in very dry spots or
spots in which the drainage is so good that water will not accumulate. Where
such ground cannot be obtained a structure of about the same shape and capacity
is built above ground out of sun-dried brick, plastered outside, and terminating
at the top with a conical point. The grain is put in and taken out through an
opening in the side. The chaff is put away with the wheat. It helps to keep it
dry, and it is used for feeding stock. Anciently the grain was stored in similar
structures, but more secure and more durable, and they are called both garners
and barns in the English Bible. For the purpose of grinding wheat and barley
none but hand-mills were anciently employed, and there are many allusions to
their use in the Bible. But water-mills and horse-mills have now been in use a
long time, and wind-mills have been erected recently at Jerusalem and at Haifa.
At Jerusalem there are three wind-mills and at Haifa one. The hand-mill consists
of a nether and an upper millstone, the top of the former a little convex, so as
to promote the movement of the flour toward the circumference, and the lower
surface of the latter correspondingly concave. An iron pivot rises from the
centre of the lower stone, on which the upper stone is supported and around
which it revolves. A hole six inches in diameter through the centre of the upper
stone allows the grain to be thrown in, and an iron bar extending across this
opening rests on the pivot, supports the stone, and allows it a rotary motion.
The stones are not over two feet in diameter. A wooden pin an inch or more in
diameter is let into the top of the stone near its circumference, and rises high
enough to serve as a handle with which to turn it. The mill is usually operated
by two women, who sit flat on the floor at opposite sides. Each one turns it
half-way, and one puts in the grain with the disengaged hand. The flour comes
out on the floor all around the nether stone, and is gathered up as it
accumulates. Sometimes, when a small quantity of grain is to be ground, and
there is no haste, the mill is operated by a single woman. The author has seen
several instances of this. Hand-mills are used at present only as a dernier
resort, when it is quite inconvenient to procure grinding at mills of some other
kind.

Horse-mills are numerous in Jerusalem, and the traveler as he walks the streets
frequently hears the sound of grinding. They are also found in all the large
towns. The stones for these are constructed in the same manner as for the
hand-mills, but they are usually about three feet in diameter. The horse moves
around in a circle, drawing the end of a lever, the other end of which is
morticed into a perpendicular shaft with which the gearing of the machinery is
connected. There is no bolting-chest in the mill, neither is there a wooden case
around the stones to collect the flour and make it come out at a single spout.
It comes out, as in the case of the hand-mill, all around the stones, and is
much exposed to the dust and trash of the dingy building. There is, however, at
Nazareth a horse-mill, recently erected by a German, which has a simple
bolting-machine, and makes very fair flour. This mill is operated by a
tread-wheel, and it is alone of its kind.

Water-mills are built wherever practicable. The number of ruins of such mills
that are seen in some parts of the country shows plainly that they were once
more numerous than at present. The millstones are of the same form and size as
those used in the horse-mills. The paddles of the water-wheel are immediately
under the floor of the mill and under the stones, being attached to the shaft
which passes through the lower and turns the upper stone. As a consequence the
stone turns uniformly with the wheel. The water issues from an orifice just
opposite the wheel and spends its force on the paddles as they rapidly revolve.
There is no casing about the circle of paddles to confine the water and
concentrate its force, and consequently a large part of its power is lost. In
order to give force to the water as it issues from the orifice, it is collected
into an upright cylinder built of stone and cemented inside. This is 12 or 14
feet high, and its interior diameter is from 15 to 20 inches. A stream of water
from the mill-race pours into the top of this cylinder and keeps it full, so
that the entire perpendicular pressure of the column imparts its force to that
which rushes through the orifice below and impels the wheel. Such mills are
constructed on the hill-side adjoining the stream where a race, tapping the
stream some distance above, and led along the hill-side with a gradual fall, is
sufficiently high above the parent stream to allow its water to flow into the
mill. In some instances, where the descent of the parent stream is very rapid,
there is room between it and the race for two mills, the water passing through
both in succession before it reaches its natural bed. There are several such
pairs of mills on Wady Bedân', the chief tributary of Wady Far'rah, and the
people of Nab'lus resort thither for their grinding. Sometimes the principal
stream is itself dammed, and the mill constructed just below the dam. There is
such a mill in the Plain of Jez'reel, and eight or ten on Crocodile River, in
the Plain of Sha'ron. With a little more art in their construction, and with the
addition of a bolting-apparatus, these mills would make very good flour at a
very cheap rate.

Wind-mills have been introduced only within the last ten or twelve years, and
those thus far constructed are of European manufacture. They do very good work,
and can be operated from six to ten hours a day nearly every day in the year. It
is probable that as capital increases, and with it a demand for better articles
of diet, they will become universal in those parts of the country that are
destitute of mill-streams. Steam-mills are not to be thought of, nor
steam-machinery of any kind, on account of the scarcity of fuel.

Under the head of Products of the Soil, Chapter II., § III., we have already
given as full an account as our space will allow of other grains, fruits, and
vegetables belonging to the department of agriculture.

III. Tenure Of Lands

Under the law of Moses lands were inherited perpetually by the descendants of
those to whom they were first distributed after the conquest under Joshua. A man
could sell his lands only temporarily, for they were restored to the heirs of
the original owners in the year of jubilee, which was every fiftieth year; and
they could be redeemed at any time by paying a fair equivalent for their use
until the jubilee. The operation of this law was suspended by the Assyrian and
Babylonian captivities, and there is no evidence of its restoration afterward.
If it were even partially restored after the return of the captives it was
finally discontinued by the dispersion of the Jewish nation A. D. 70.

Under the present Turkish rule the lands of Palestine are held in three ways.
Some are held as the property of the Sultan, some as individual possessions, and
some as the property of mosques and other institutions of a religious character.
In English phraseology these are called, respectively, crown-lands, freehold,
and glebe-lands. Purchases of government lands must be confirmed by a firman
from the Sultan before the title is good; and in securing this there is often
great delay and expense. In some instances, however, purchases of extensive
tracts have been made at a ridiculously low price. An instance is related in the
following terms by Conder: "A Greek banker named Sursuk, to whom the government
was under obligations, was allowed to buy the northern half of the Great Plain
(Plain of Esdra'elon) and some of the Nazareth villages for the ridiculously
small sum of £20,000 ($100,000) for an extent of seventy square miles. The taxes
of the twenty villages amounted to £4000 ($20,000); so that the average income
could not be stated at less than £12,000 ($60,000), taking good and bad years
together. The cultivation was materially improved under his care, and the
property must be immensely valuable, or would be if the title could be
considered secure; but it is highly probable that the government will again
seize the land when it becomes worth while to do so."

Whoever may be the owner of lands, the inhabitants of every village are the
cultivators of the soil immediately around them. The limits of the territory
thus claimed by each village are marked by valleys, by ridges, or by large
stones, and so are the subdivisions among the villagers themselves. The extent
of territory varies somewhat with the population of the village, and the
nearness or remoteness of other villages. In more exact terms, it varies from
three or four hundred to four or five thousand acres. The tax on land belonging
to the government is one-tenth of its entire annual product, and this is
assessed before the harvest begins. Of course there is usually an overestimate
of the yield. No man is allowed to thrust in his sickle until this assessment is
made. The assessor often delays until, for fear of serious loss to the crop, the
cultivator gives him a heavy bribe to proceed. The temptation to gross
injustice, already pressing hard on the officer, who wishes both to fill his own
coffers and to gain favor with his superiors by bringing a large income to the
government, is greatly increased by the fact that the taxes are farmed out by
districts to the highest bidder. A man having bidden high, and feeling a
necessity for not only collecting the amount of his bid but an additional sum to
enrich himself, studies out all manner of devices to oppress the poor
husbandman. These farmers of the revenue and their subordinates are the same
class of officials as those called publicans in the New Testament, and they as
well deserve the title "miserable sinners" as did their predecessors of the New
Testament period. The tax on the glebe-lands, or those belonging to religious
institutions, is a fixed amount of produce per annum, without regard to the
yield of the lands. This, in unfavorable years, is often ruinous. Conder, in his
remarks on this point, says, "At Kurâ'wa, in 1873, the people told me with tears
in their eyes that the olive crop had been so poor that the value was not as
much as the amount of the tax to be collected." And the author was informed,
when in the vicinity of Michmash, in the spring of 1879, that between three and
four hundred men from the villages in that part of the country had fled across
the Jordan with their families to avoid trouble about taxes which they could not
pay.

According to Conder the taxes are brought into the towns where the local
governors reside by Bashi-Bazouks, or the irregular soldiery. But sometimes the
governor himself makes a tour of the villages to collect them, when he and his
numerous attendants must be fed and lodged at the expense of the villagers. This
adds very greatly to the weight of the grinding taxation under which the people
groan. Conder pertinently remarks that under such a government it can scarcely
be a matter of surprise that the Fel'lahîn are lazy, thriftless, and sullen.
"What is the use of trying to get money," they demand, "when the soldiers and
the Kai'makâm (governor) would eat it all?"

Another evil which makes a heavy drain on the productive labor of the country is
the conscription for the Turkish army. Conder says, "There is no sadder sight
than that of the recruits leaving a village of Palestine. They are marched off
in irons to headquarters, leaving their weeping families behind them, and
hurried away to Europe or Armenia, where they lead a miserable life, receive but
little pay, and are bullied by ignorant officers." The author witnessed at
Hebron a more pleasing sight,—the return of a few conscripts who had been taken
from the town for the Russian war. Their male friends went out to meet them with
the firing of guns and shouts of welcome, and received them with kissing and
warm embraces. Meantime, a group of women in a double line, at a little
distance, sang a monotonous song and marched about in irregular curves, keeping
time to their own music. After the entire party had disappeared within the town
we could hear at our camp loud wailing from those women who were disappointed
about the return of their husbands, sons, or brothers, and who learned from
those who did return the sad fate of their loved ones lost in battle. Sheikh
Ab'bas, of Hebron, told us that he himself was in the Russian war; that he
served his own government twenty-two months without receiving a cent of wages;
and that in the mean time he suffered for want of both food and clothing. At the
end of that time he was taken prisoner by the Russians, who fed him well, made
him comfortable with warm clothing, and released him when the war was over. Good
Mussulman as he was, he evidently felt more kindly to the Russians than to the
Turks, and would prefer, in another war, to fight on the side of the former. The
facts presented in this section enable the reader to see one of the chief causes
of the present miserable condition of Palestine, and how the country might be
rejuvenated under a just and well-administered government. That its condition is
actually improving even under these circumstances, and has been for the last
twenty years, is a proof of the irrepressible tendency to material prosperity
which characterizes the present age. The ability of the people to prosper at all
under such a condition of things is due to the extreme cheapness of the
necessaries of life and to the small amount of these necessaries on which they
have learned to live. Conder says he has heard of a family of five who lived on
only £25 ($100) a year.


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  CHAPTER 8: CHAPTER FIVE--MODES OF ARCHITECTURE
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Chapter V. Modes of Architecture I. Building Materials The American traveler in
Palestine sees nothing which contrasts more strongly with the aspect of his own
country than the appearance of the houses, both inside and out. He sees no
wooden houses nor shingled roofs. There is at present only one framed house in
all Palestine, and that is a small school-house in Joppa occupied by an American
lady. It was made in America and transported in pieces to Joppa. Neither does he
see a single house built of bricks. Burnt bricks are unknown in the country,
from the fact that fuel is too scarce and costly to justify the burning. It is a
sufficient draft on it to burn a small amount of pottery and the smallest
quantity of lime that can be made to answer the necessities of builders.
Chimneys are likewise unseen, and both fireplaces and stoves are unknown. If you
were to speak to a Syrian of the "family fireside" you would speak in an unknown
tongue. All the houses of the country are built either of stone or of sun-dried
bricks. Among the rocky hills where stone is abundant it is employed almost
exclusively, and everywhere it is the material of the better class of houses.
Not only the walls of the houses, but the stair-steps and the roofs are built of
stone. The floors themselves are stone or cement, or tiles laid upon cement.
Wood is used only where it is indispensable. In the stone houses the doors and
windows are often the only parts made of wood, though sometimes wooden joists
are employed to support the second floor. The walls of the better class of stone
houses are built of hewed stone, but those of the inferior class are built of
rough stones picked up from the surface of the earth and laid in a large amount
of mortar. The mortar used is often little more adhesive than mud, it being a
capital point with builders to use as little lime as possible. But the lime
itself is beautifully white, and the plastering is very durable. The cement
which is to be exposed to the weather or to the tramping of feet is also very
hard, and impervious to water. The sun-dried bricks are nothing more than masses
of mud, thickly intermixed with the short straw from the threshing-floors,
pressed by hand into a wooden mould, and then laid in the sun to dry. The author
saw a brick-yard, if it might be dignified with the name, in operation on the
Plain of Sha'ron. Two or three women were working up the dark surface-soil at
the edge of a puddle of water into a stiff mud, and stirring into it the short
straw of the threshing-floor. They operated with their naked feet and some rude
hoes. Another carried the mud in her hands, when properly prepared, to the
moulder. The mould had spaces for only two bricks at a time, each about twelve
inches long, eight wide, and six deep. When the mould was filled it was lifted
up, leaving the bricks on the ground, and placed at a distance in front, ready
for another supply of mud. The bricks are turned over occasionally while drying.
The straw helps to keep them in shape while drying, and tends to prevent them
from wasting in the rain and from crumbling in the dry weather. Such were the
bricks made by Israel for Pharaoh in the time of the Egyptian bondage.

Tiles, which were used to some extent for roofing houses in the New Testament
period, are not now seen in Palestine. Doubtless the increasing scarcity of fuel
for baking them, and of timber for supporting them on the roof, has led to their
disuse.

II. Architecture Of The Cities

All the houses in the cities of the hill country are built of stone; and most of
those in the cities of the plains, such as Joppa, Haifa, and A'cre, are of the
same material. Gaza, however, is an exception, being situated where stone is not
easily procured.

All the better class of city buildings are two stories high. They are built
compactly against each other, no open spaces being left except the streets; and,
in case of the largest houses, an open court in the centre. Such a thing as a
yard about a house is unknown. The lower stories are usually occupied for
business purposes of some kind, and the upper stories by the families. The
windows are chiefly in the upper stories. They are usually very small, and are
often covered with an unpainted wooden lattice, or a network of iron bars.
Windows of the lower stories are invariably protected in the latter way for the
purpose of guarding against burglars. The doors are heavy and strong, and by no
means ornamental. They are seldom painted. The ceilings are seldom supported by
wooden joists; they are usually vaulted with stone, the vaults being plastered
on the under side and levelled on top for the second floor. The vault of the
uppermost story is levelled on top for a flat roof, though sometimes the highest
part of the vault is left to project in the centre of the roof, and is finished
as a plastered dome. Such domes are especially common in Jerusalem. The
thickness of the walls, ceilings, and roofs renders the houses comparatively
cool in summer. The space left for streets is very narrow, often not more than
six feet, and seldom more than twelve. Sometimes there is a narrow sidewalk, a
little elevated above the street, but usually there is none. The streets are
usually paved with stones whose tops have worn smooth and round so that they are
very slippery. Both man and beast must tread carefully on them to avoid a fall,
and the care taken renders walking on them quite fatiguing. In a few instances
the streets are paved for short distances with smooth flag-stones, and streets
not much used are sometimes not paved at all. The narrowness of the streets was
intended for the double purpose of keeping out the hot rays of the sun and of
economizing space within the walls of the city. The former purpose is still
further secured by covering the streets in many places with matting stretched
across on poles from the roofs of the houses on either side, and sometimes by
turning arches of stone across the streets from the walls of the houses.
Sometimes these arches serve the additional purpose of supporting rooms above
them which are connected with the houses. In all such places the streets are
considerably darkened; but the exchange of some light for a cooler temperature
is a good bargain in that hot country.

These street coverings are nearly always found along those portions of the
streets occupied by the bazaars, or the rows of small shops for the transaction
of business. Each of these shops is a small room in the front of the house, from
six to ten feet square, the side next to the street entirely open during
business hours, but entirely closed with wooden shutters at other hours. The
other three sides, without doors or windows, are entirely occupied with shelves
and goods. The floor is elevated about two feet above the street, and the dealer
sits on a mat in the middle of it ready to wait on his customers. He smokes his
pipe if not busy, and sometimes, in dull days, he falls asleep. He can reach the
articles most frequently called for without rising, and he never rises if he can
avoid it. All the shops on the same street for the sale of the same article are
grouped together, and often all in the entire city. There is the silk bazaar,
the cotton bazaar, the shoe bazaar, the grocers' bazaar, etc. But sometimes, as
in Jerusalem, there are many persons of different nationalities or religions
doing business in the same city, and then the bazaars take the names of these,
as the Turkish, the Jewish, the Christian bazaar, etc. The blacksmiths,
coppersmiths, carpenters, and other craftsmen, have also their bazaars, and
their shops differ in size but little from those of the merchants. The walls of
the walled cities are built in the manner prevalent four hundred years ago,
before the general use of heavy artillery, and from that period back to remote
antiquity. They are now utterly useless, except to regulate the ingress and
egress of citizens and soldiers; and they obstruct these while they regulate
them. No guards are stationed on them, no special care is taken to preserve
them, and persons are allowed to walk about on them at will. Jerusalem, indeed,
is the only city in Palestine whose wall is yet preserved entire, those of the
other cities having either totally disappeared, or been preserved, as in Nab'lus
and Haifa, only on one or two sides of the city. That of A'cre has been
displaced on the land side by a strictly modern fortification, intended to
resist an attack from artillery. A city gate is not a mere opening in the wall,
with a heavy shutter to close it; but it is a square tower, usually twenty or
thirty feet square, and projecting beyond the wall both without and within. The
outer entrance is through one side of this tower, and the inner through the side
at right angles to it; so that after entering the tower you turn either to the
right or the left—usually to the left—to enter the city. This made it more
difficult for an enemy to force his way into the city, and it prevents one who
is outside from seeing in or shooting in when the gate is open. A'cre is the
only city whose gates are now closed at night. Wherever there are gates there is
an armed guard both day and night, but there is no hindrance to the passage of
the people. The open spaces about the gates and that within the tower are the
resort, as they have ever been, of idlers, beggars, and news-gatherers, and they
naturally serve the purpose of meeting-places for friends. Here men exchange
greetings, engage in conversation, or transact business, as the occasion may
suggest.

III. Architecture Of The Villages As we have remarked in the foregoing section,
the better houses of the villages are built of stone, like those in the cities,
and in those villages that are situated in rocky districts all the houses are of
the same material. But the inferior houses are built of stones picked up from
the surface, of every shape and almost every size. They are rudely built into
the walls, and the walls themselves are usually not more than from eight to ten
feet high. The house contains but a single room, and the flat roof is made of
poles plastered together with a cement made of clay mixed with straw. This
cement is put on in layers, and beaten and rolled with a stone roller until it
is hard enough to walk upon and impervious to water. The eaves extend about two
feet beyond the walls on every side, in order to throw the water away from the
walls in winter. On account of the great weight of this roof, if the room is of
any considerable size, one or more rude props are placed under it at its weakest
points, making a cumbrous obstruction within the room. These houses are usually
the merest huts, with none of the comforts or conveniences of civilized life.
They afford a dry and warm shelter from the cold rains of winter, and they
afford a hiding-place for household goods; but they have no attractions, and
their owners prefer to spend all of their time out of doors, except when the
weather or the necessities of life compel them to remain within. As habitations
they are superior only to the huts of sun-dried brick which are occupied by the
poorest villagers in the plains.

These huts are commonly called by writers on the country "mud houses," an
expression which is somewhat misleading. The walls are never run up more than
six or eight feet high, and the roofs are made of sticks and long coarse weeds,
matted together with a cement made of the same material as the brick, and
usually laid on about a foot thick. The roofs have a self-supporting strength
far above what one would imagine, and persons are often seen walking about on
them. They are favorite resorts for the barking dogs, when a company of
strangers are riding by. There they can bark in safety, out of reach of the
traveler's dog, and in no danger of being run over by the traveler's horse.
Moreover, they can see the whole troupe of the invaders at a glance, and dogs
love to see as well as to bark.

Sometimes the walls of these huts, for their better protection against the
weather, are plastered outside with a brown mortar, and in rare instances this
mortar is ornamented with a white or colored wash. They are also sometimes
plastered inside. The floor within is of clay, and is seldom elevated above the
surface of the street. Indeed, the narrow street is so constantly receiving
accretions of filth and trash that its surface is often elevated above the
floors of the huts. If the stone huts are uncomfortable and unattractive, still
more so are those made of mud. They have no windows at all, the only light and
ventilation being received through the door. The people have invented two
devices to escape the intolerable heat and bad air within them at night,—one is
to construct, adjoining the outer wall and close to the door, a kind of
plastered platform on which to spread their mattresses. Only those who have a
little door-yard inclosed with a mud-wall can sleep in this way without too much
exposure. Such yards are not uncommon in the larger villages. The other device
is to build little booths out of reeds or the branches of trees, on top of the
houses, and sleep there during the hottest weather. Even people who live in
stone houses and in the cities very often resort to the housetop for a cool
place to sleep; and houses of the better class are usually supplied with
battlements around the eaves, which hide the sleepers from the eyes of their
neighbors. The streets in the villages are scarcely worthy of the name. It seems
as if every man has built his house where he chose, without regard to others,
except that he left a space wide enough to reach his own door. Consequently the
streets have no regularity in regard either to width or direction. They are
often not more than four feet wide, and seldom wider than six feet; but open
spaces of all shapes are found here and there. The streets run in all
directions, and they often terminate abruptly at the door of a habitation. A
stranger is easily lost in trying to ride through them.

Nearly all the villages of the country are built on elevated spots. Some of them
are perched on the tops of high hills, and such situations were anciently
selected more frequently than at present, as is proved by the frequency with
which deserted ruins are found on these lofty sites. But the modern village is
usually built on a bench of the mountain, or on the rounded summit of a more
moderate elevation. Even those in the Plains of Sha'ron and Philis'tia are
nearly all situated on elevations either natural or artificial.

IV. Sacred Buildings

Every American who visits Palestine is interested in visiting mosques and
churches, and he finds both quite different from what he would suppose if he
were to judge from the sacred buildings of his own country.

These buildings, like all others in Palestine of any considerable size, are of
stone. The Roman Catholic churches (called Latin in that country) are usually
small rectangular chapels, not materially different from the small houses of the
same sect in this country. Only in Nazareth and Jerusalem have they churches of
any pretensions as regards style and extent. They have some chapels or places of
saying mass in grottos, and one at the place now called Aceldama, near
Jerusalem, in an ancient sepulchre. All of their places of worship are supplied
more or less with pictures of the saints and of Jesus, but none are supplied
with seats for the congregation. The people who come in at the hours of mass are
expected merely to pray and then retire. While praying they are on their knees,
and if they remain to witness the procession of the priests they stand or sit on
the floor. This church has several monastery buildings of some magnitude, but
they are all plain stone buildings without external ornamentation. The Greek
chapels are not unlike the Latin in external appearance. Inside they are usually
supplied with a single row of rudely-constructed seats around the wall, intended
for the comfort of old persons. The altar is at the end opposite the door, and
is shut off by a partition extending entirely across the room. This partition is
usually hung with tawdry pictures, possessing no merit at all as works of art,
and it is gilded and painted in a fantastic style. A door in front of the altar
is thrown open for the ingress and egress of the priests, and through it the
people have glimpses of the ceremonies performed within. One of the finest
sacred buildings in Palestine is a church of this order erected at the expense
of the Russian government within the Russian possessions near Jerusalem. The
Greek Church has monasteries also at various sacred places, many of which have
been recently built, but, like the Latin structures of the kind, they are very
plain buildings outside and very bare inside. The Mohammedan mosques are still
plainer structures than the churches, either Latin or Greek. They are usually
square buildings, with little or no ornamentation either outside or inside. No
pictures nor statues are ever seen about them, the use of both, either in sacred
edifices or private houses, being forbidden by the Koran on account of their
connection with idolatry and saint-worship. Sometimes a rude fresco is seen on
the inner walls, and the roof is often supported by handsome columns. An arcade
forming a kind of portico sometimes extends across the front of the building,
and there is often a paved space in front or entirely around the building. Every
mosque is provided with a tank of pure water, in which the feet, hands and faces
of the worshipers are washed before they pray. The floors within are usually
covered with matting, on which the worshipers kneel to say their prayers or sit
to hear the sermon, which is preached on Friday. There are no seats of any kind.
The most distinguishing feature of the mosque is its minaret. This is a tall
shaft built of stone, rising from one corner of the mosque, with a balcony near
the top, around which the Muezzin walks as he utters his call to prayer. The
shaft is usually circular, but sometimes octagonal. It is sometimes built of
hewed stones and sometimes of rough stones plastered outside. A winding stone
stairway ascends inside, by which the Muezzin climbs to the balcony. These
minarets rising above a town or city give a pleasing relief to the monotony of
the unornamented stone buildings and flat roofs. They are more picturesque than
the church spires and steeples of the Western world.

Another class of sacred structures peculiar to Mohammedan countries are the
tombs of the Mohammedan saints. These are nearly all built after one model,
being cubical stone buildings from ten to twenty feet in length, width and
height, surmounted by domes of the same material, plastered and whitewashed.
Sometimes there is attached to one side a room whose front is an open archway,
and which serves as a sheltered place of prayer for those who visit the saint.
They are usually built in conspicuous places, and they are often seen on the
tops of the highest mountains. Being whitewashed, they are seen at a great
distance, and the traveler is nearly always in sight of one or more of them.
They are variously called Kub'beh (dome), Mazâr' (shrine), and Mukâm' (a
station). The last is the Hebrew name for the "high places" of the Canaanites
which Israel was required to destroy. They are also called Wel'y, "beloved of
God;" but this is the title of the person rather than of the tomb. Sometimes
they are called Neb'y (prophet) so-and-so, the person again being put for the
place.


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  CHAPTER 9: CHAPTER SIX--SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE PEOPLE
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Chapter VI. Social and Domestic Habits of The People I. Marriage And Divorce As
we have stated in a former chapter, the patriarchal form of government prevails
in all Ar'ab families; and it has almost the same prevalence in the Christian
families of the Greek Church. Fathers give away their daughters in marriage, as
they have done in that country from the earliest ages; and it is not unusual for
the father to make the proposals on this subject. Conder relates that he
received on one occasion, in a very confidential way, a proposal from an Ar'ab
to take his daughter in marriage, and that it taxed his ingenuity to find how he
could decline without giving offense. But though the father gives away the
bride, he always expects a present from the bridegroom, and this is another
custom as old as the days of Abraham. Conder escaped by informing the sheikh
that in his country it was the custom for the father-in-law to give a dowry to
the son-in-law. When the sheikh heard this he had nothing more to say. When the
day for the marriage arrives, the bridegroom with some of his friends goes to
the house of the father-in-law, and receives the bride. She is brought with much
parade to the bridegroom's home, where a feast is prepared, of which the guests
partake with a great deal of boisterous merriment. The author saw a bridal party
at Nazareth bringing home a bride from A'cre. She was mounted on a camel whose
head and neck were ornamented with ribbons. Several other camels were in the
company, ridden by female friends. The male attendants, including the
bridegroom, as the party approached the town from the high hill to the
northeast, dashed furiously forward and back on their horses, swinging their
swords and spears in the air, and appearing like madmen in their glee. The bride
was dismounted at the house of a friend to rest, and to remain there until the
time appointed for the feast. While we were camped at Hebron we heard the shouts
of laughter at a wedding-feast within the town, and the same occurred at
Tiberias. This method of celebrating marriages is not unlike that indicated in
the parable of the ten virgins. It is probable that fathers in many instances
pay some respect to the wishes of their daughters, and consult their real
interests in contracting marriages for them; but usually this is not the case.
Thomson speaks of a man of his acquaintance, sixty years old, who obtained for a
wife a girl only thirteen. The husband exercises the privilege of divorcing his
wives at his own pleasure, the Mohammedan law in this respect being the same as
the Mosaic. But as the wife is not chosen for a companion so much as for a
servant and a drudge, he is not likely to exercise this privilege except in case
of the most ungovernable and unprofitable women. In case of marital infidelity
the wife is liable to death after a trial and condemnation before the elders of
the village or of the tribe. In the towns where the Turkish authority is
practically in force such cases are brought before the judges. The care of young
children in this country devolves on the mother even more exclusively than in
more enlightened countries. But the care bestowed very often approaches that
bestowed by our domestic brutes on their young. The infants are in their
mothers' arms when necessary for their nourishment, and on their backs,
suspended in a kind of bag which is supported by a strap passing around the
mother's forehead, when it is necessary to carry them; but at other times they
are rolling in dust and dirt about the hut, or under the shade of a bush in the
field where the mother is at work. When they are of a little larger growth, so
as to sit alone in safety, they are carried astride the shoulder of father or
mother, steadying themselves by holding to the paternal head. But as soon as
they can carry their own weight they are turned loose to care for themselves
until they are large enough to do some work, when the utmost that they can do is
required of them. The fondling of children by their parents or by their older
brothers and sisters, which is so great a source of domestic enjoyment in
enlightened society, is rarely seen among the Ar'abs; nor is it at all common to
spend any money or labor in providing for them toys or other articles of
amusement. Toys for children constitute one of the clearest proofs of advanced
civilization; they are never known among savages or half-civilized communities.

Children are usually dressed in the scantiest clothing that will keep them from
suffering in winter and hide their nakedness in summer. Indeed, the latter point
is not always gained; for both in the villages and in the Bed'awin encampments
it is not unusual to see little boys running about in a state of perfect nudity.
The small children of a village, like other gregarious things, are fond of going
in groups; and they often gather in large numbers on a low house-top, or on the
village manure-pile, which has been accumulating at one side for ages, and is
sometimes higher than any of the houses. Here they stand to gaze at passers-by;
but they are seldom seen engaged in those plays and pranks which are universal
among groups of children in enlightened countries. Indeed, the children are
little "old people," with scarcely any of the gayety belonging to young life.
Conder says, "They receive, as a rule, no education, and are neither disciplined
nor cared for, the affection of the parents being in most cases small. They
learn to curse almost as soon as to speak; and I have seen a boy of six or seven
throwing stones at his father with the most vile language. They have none of the
gayety of children, but are as solemn as their elders. To animals they are
cruel, and to one another mischievous and tyrannical... I have only once seen
children in Palestine playing at any game: this was near Samaria, and the sport
appeared to be a sort of hockey; but as a rule they seem to do nothing but
mischief." The author saw Mohammedan boys at play only once, and the play was a
game of ball in one of the most sacred places to that people in the world. It
was in the Har'âm, or temple inclosure in Jerusalem, and in the portico of the
mosque El Aksa. Frequently, however, when we have camped at night near a village
or a Bed'awin encampment, I have heard the laughter and merry calls of children
enlivening the air until a late bedtime.

What is said above has reference only to the children of Mohammedan parents.
There is no contrast more striking between Mohammedans and the native Greek and
Latin Christians than in their care of children, and in the consequent
appearance of the children themselves. Cheerfulness, comparative cleanliness,
good food, and comfortable clothing are characteristics of these, and it is a
rule among Christian parents to seek for their children at least a small amount
of education. In regard to the state of education among both classes, see
Chapter Seven.

III. Preparation Of Food The appliances for preparing food and making it
palatable which are common in Europe and America are mostly unknown among the
Ar'abs of Palestine. An American cook-stove, indeed, with its various
attachments and conveniences, would be a novelty in any nation of Europe. But
few of them have ever been used even in England. An Ar'ab housewife would stare
at one in amazement. Copper frying-pans and skillets are used among them to some
extent, as are kettles of copper and iron, while little copper coffee-pots that
hold about a quart are among the indispensables; but of other cooking-vessels
they know nothing. Their fuel consists of broken pieces of brush, of coarse
weeds, or of dried manure; and more frequently of the last than of either of the
others: only the most wealthy can afford charcoal. The manure from cows,
donkeys, and horses is all carefully gathered up by the village women, patted
out into round cakes about six inches in diameter and one inch thick, and then
either laid out on top of the house or stuck against the wall of the house to
dry. These cakes when dried are used as chips for boiling the kettle, frying the
meat, or heating the bake-oven. The ovens are little conical structures, made of
mud and smoothly plastered both inside and out. An opening in one side enables
the woman to put in the fuel and build the fire, and also to rake out the fire
when the oven is hot, and to put in the bread. The odor of these ovens is what
might be expected. The loaves of bread, made up of unbolted flour, in shape and
size about like the "chips" with which the oven is heated, dark, soft, and
tough, are palatable when you are hungry and have nothing else to eat. As
Artemus Ward said in regard to eating hash for breakfast at a Western tavern,
when you eat these loaves "you know what you are eating."

Village Bake-Oven

Another method of making bread is to roll the tough brown dough into large, thin
cakes, less than an eighth of an inch thick, and fry them on a griddle with the
mutton-tallow made from the sheep's tail. These cakes are almost as limber and
as tough as sheets of India-rubber, but the native will roll one of them up into
a long cylindrical roll, stick it into his pocket or his bosom, and eat it as he
walks or rides along the way, with or without accompanying food. The shepherd
boy, when he starts out for the day with his flock, is content with one of these
rolls and a little sour goat's milk in a skin-bottle for his noonday meal. And
the laborers in the fields have usually the same food at noon. They never return
to the village to prepare warm food until the day's work is done. The reader can
readily see from the above that if the traveler in Palestine were dependent for
bread upon the native Ar'ab bakers he would suffer in the flesh; but,
fortunately, in nearly all of the larger towns there are Jewish bakers or
persons of some other nationality who have learned the art of baking in Europe.
They procure flour of better quality, and make bread that is palatable; still,
the art of bread-making, at best, is one of the undeveloped arts in Palestine.
We may here remark that an American, traveling anywhere in the world away from
his own country, will turn back to his native shore with longing for bread if
for nothing else, for in no other country is bread used in such variety of
wholesome and palatable forms. In cooking meats the people succeed much better,
frying and stewing being very simple operations. Boiled rice, with a little
gravy from the frying-pan poured over it, is a favorite dish among those who can
afford it. Only a little meat is eaten, chiefly lambs and chickens. Coffee is
universally used except among the extremely poor, who cannot afford it. It is
prepared by putting a large quantity of the ground coffee into a pot of cold
water (usually a copper pot holding from a pint to a quart), and setting it on
the coals till it boils. It is then served in little cups which hold less than a
gill, and is sweetened excessively before it is served. The coffee is very
strong, and the cup is generally nearly half full of dregs. It is not palatable,
but it is always served to guests, even by the Bed'awin at his tent, and it is a
breach of etiquette not to drink it. Coffee is never used, as in America, while
eating other food, but is drunk as a beverage. The people of the Eastern
European nations use it much in the same way. For the method of preparing fruits
and garden-vegetables for use, the reader is referred to remarks on these
articles in Chapter II., III. Milk and butter are used extensively, but both in
a very unsatisfactory condition, there being no cool place in which either can
be kept sweet in the hot season. In the cities the cooking of meals as well as
bread is done in better style than among the villagers. Meat-shops are seen
among the bazaars, where meats are both offered for sale and cooked to order. On
a kind of counter in the open front of the shop is a row of little bowl-shaped
depressions, in which a fire is built with a handful of charcoal, and the meat
is broiled on griddles. The mutton is often chopped into a kind of sausage,
which is cooked and eaten at the shop, and seems to be a favorite dish.

Travelers who live in tents are usually provided with professional cooks, who
are skilled in all parts of their trade except bread-making. The kitchen tent is
furnished with a light portable range for cooking with charcoal, and with a full
supply of pots, pans, and kettles. Chickens, lambs, eggs and vegetables are
bought from the villagers, and charcoal is obtained in the larger towns. A heavy
pack-train is necessary to transport supplies and baggage.

IV. Household Furniture No furniture such as Western nations use is found in the
native houses. No chairs, tables, bedsteads, or bureaus. If a carpet is on the
floor it is of heavy material, laid down loose, and it seldom covers the entire
floor. An elevated platform or divan about a yard wide runs round the wall of
the room, or across one side, on which are spread rugs and cushions. This
answers the place of chairs during the day and of bedsteads at night. The
members of the family, both male and female, sit on the divan during the day,
with their feet drawn up under them, and their shoes on the floor before them
ready for use when they are needed. At night thin mattresses, which are rolled
up and put away in closets during the day, are spread on these divans, or on the
floor, for beds.

Bed'awin Eating

Food for the family is usually served in large trays placed on low stands in the
midst of the floor. Those who partake sit on the floor around it and help
themselves. The fingers are used instead of knives and forks. Spoons, both of
metal and wood, are used as occasion requires. The shoes worn in the house by
women are either wooden clogs attached to the foot by a broad strap across the
toes, or slippers without heels. These are used because of the ease with which
they are slipped on and off, the mode of sitting requiring that they be removed
whenever the wearer takes a seat. In the meaner hovels of the poor mirrors are
unknown, but they are used by the better classes. Clocks are also found in some
houses, and the better class of mosques are supplied with them; but their dials
are marked with the figure 12 where ours has 6, and so all round, according to
the ancient method of beginning the day at six o'clock. The bareness of
furniture does not mean, as one might at first suppose, want of comfort, or even
of luxury; for, while in the huts of the poor there is no comfort, either in
that country or this, the houses of the rich are often very luxurious. Floors
covered with the richest of Turkish or Persian carpets, far more costly than any
used in this country; divans covered with the richest silks, and supplied with
the softest cushions; bedding of the same rich and costly materials; interior
walls decorated with gilding, or colored porcelain of the richest hues;
court-yards fragrant with flowers and green with the foliage of beautiful trees;
sparkling fountains playing in the sun and cooling the air; costly raiment and
gorgeous jewelry; servants in waiting to relieve their owners of every care and
labor,—these all attest the ease and luxury in which the rich indulge, and they
can be secured and enjoyed on a smaller income than will procure corresponding
luxuries in our own country. Only in Damascus, however, of all the cities of
Western Asia, are these luxuries enjoyed to the fullest extent, and there only
by a few. In the palmier days of Mohammedan rule such living was not uncommon.

V. Personal Habits

While the better class of citizens in the large towns and cities are cleanly
both as to their persons and their clothing, the masses of the people are
repulsively filthy. The undergarments of the peasantry, made originally of white
cotton, seldom appear as if they had ever been washed, and although the ancient
custom of removing shoes from the feet on sitting down is still practiced, the
twin custom of washing the feet has disappeared. The custom of sitting down on
the highway, under a shade-tree, or about the streets, with the skirts of the
garments spread out on the ground, greatly contributes to this uncleanliness.
You seldom see a village woman in a gown that appears clean, unless it be a new
one. Their mode of washing is rude and ineffectual. They have no wash-tubs or
wash-boards, and they use no hot water nor soap. Beside the spring or pool where
the washing is done they are provided with smooth, flat stones, on which they
lay the garment, after dipping it in the water, and pound it with a smaller
stone or with a heavy wooden paddle, dipping and pounding alternately, until the
process is completed. This, with a little rubbing in the hands, is the entire
process of washing. To supply them with tubs, wash-boards, and wringers, and to
teach them how to use these, even with cold water, would greatly improve their
condition. Until a better supply of fuel is obtained, the use of hot water must
continue to be limited, and also the eating of warm food.

We have already spoken, in II. of this chapter, concerning the filthy habits in
which children are reared, and in this respect the child is father of the man.
The universal custom among the Ar'ab women of tattooing is observed and
mentioned by all travelers. Features which would otherwise not be unpleasing to
an American eye are sometimes rendered almost hideous by this barbarous custom.
The tattoo-marks are on the lips, the chin, the cheeks, and the forehead; and
they are also seen on the backs of the hands and on the wrists. Frequently the
finger-nails and the palms of the hands are dyed with henna, which imparts to
them an orange tinge, and the eyelids are painted almost black. Doubtless this
disfigurement adds to the beauty of women according to Ar'ab taste, otherwise it
would be discontinued. Tattooing is done by men whose profession it is, and they
frequently visited our camp to offer us their services. The personal ornaments
of the women, in addition to the tattooing of their faces and hands, consist of
bracelets of brass or glass on their wrists, brass rings on their fingers, and
head-bands set thick with silver coins hanging just back of the forehead and
passing down under the chin. Sometimes the coins extend all the way around the
head-band; sometimes only as far down as the ears. These ornaments are worn even
while the owners are engaged in the most common out-door labor, perhaps from the
fact that they have no good place in the house to secrete them. It may be,
however, that love of superior display prompts the habit, for it is only a
favored few among the village women who can spare enough silver to make up such
a head-dress. Infants are sometimes adorned with little metal anklets hung round
with tiny bells. These make a slight tinkling as the child walks, or as it lies
on its back and tosses its little feet in the air.

Those polite attentions between the sexes which make social life so agreeable
among enlightened people are unknown among the Ar'abs, and very little known
even among the native Christians. A man is never seen walking by the side of a
woman; but she always follows after or goes before. Neither is a man ever seen
sitting with his wife or daughters in pleasant conversation. Men converse with
men, and women with women. When a man meets his friend from whom he has been
long separated he kisses him on the right cheek, and receives a like salutation
in return; but he never salutes his wife in any such way. Indeed, kissing, so
far as it is seen by strangers, is confined to the men, and is not practiced by
the women at all. Hand-shaking has been introduced to some extent, in imitation
of Western customs, and because all Western travelers shake hands with the
natives when they meet them; but the usual form of salutation between those who
are not intimate friends, and those who have not been long separated, is to
touch the breast, lips, and forehead with the right hand. This action means, "I
am ready to serve you with heart, lips, and mind." If unusual politeness is
intended, this action is accompanied with a low bow; if less than usual, the
hand touches only the forehead. These forms of salutation are quite similar to
those employed by the ancient Jews, and they are often alluded to in the
Scriptures.

Some part of the time of women is of course occupied in sewing, and some in
spinning and weaving. The sewing is of the coarsest kind, and the idea of a fit
in garments is scarcely entertained. They weave only the coarsest fabrics, such
as the hair-cloth for tents and the heavy woolen goods for the ab'as of the men.
The spinning is done by means of a heavy stick, shaped somewhat like an inverted
top. The thread being spun is wrapped round the middle of the stick and passes
through a little hook at the tip end of it, and thence up to the thumb and
forefinger of the left hand, between which the wool is drawn as it is twisted.
With the right hand a twirl is given to the stick; and while it continues the
same hand draws some of the wool through the other hand, then gives the stick
another twirl, and so on continuously. The weaving is sometimes done in the most
primitive manner. The warp is stretched on pins driven into the ground, and the
filling is done slowly by hand. But while this mode of weaving is followed to
some extent by the village women, in the larger towns there are weavers who use
a loom not unlike the hand-looms used in our own country; and they weave both
cotton and woolen stuffs of good quality and neat patterns. Hand-looms are also
used in Damascus for weaving silk, and there are no patterns of silk in the
world more beautiful than some of these.

VI. Amusements In regard to the amusements of children, we have spoken under the
head of Care of Children, Section II. of this chapter. The amusements of adults
are more meagre than those of children. The Ar'abs are naturally a grave people,
and they have probably become more so under the system of oppression and the
state of poverty which they have long endured. Conder remarks: "The adults
appear to have no amusements. They say themselves with terrible truth that they
have 'no leisure in their hearts for mirth,' being hopeless and spiritless under
their hard bondage of oppression, usury, and violence." They cannot be said to
cultivate music, either vocal or instrumental. True, the rude shepherd's pipe
mentioned on page 88 is heard at rare intervals, and the dancing performances,
if dancing it may be called, of the Bed'awin gypsies, is accompanied with
guttural sounds uttered in regular time; but to call either of these music would
be a free use of the term. In riding through all parts of the country for three
months the author never heard an Ar'ab attempt to sing. Other travelers have
been more fortunate, but all speak of the few attempts which they have heard as
resulting in harsh and discordant sounds. Our Syrian muleteers from the Lebanon
Mountains sometimes attempted a song, but it was nothing but a monotonous whine.
The people appear as incapable of appreciating music as of making it; for
sometimes in our camp worship we had singing, which for melody and harmony would
be not unpleasing to American ears, but it attracted no attention from the
natives, either Christian or Mohammedan. The latter people have no music at all
in their worship, and the Greek Church has usually none deserving the name,
although the priests, instead of reading the Scriptures, try to sing them to a
kind of chant. Perhaps the absence of music from their worship accounts largely
for its absence from the social circle; for among the Western nations it is
usually sacred music which first catches the ears of children, and the universal
use of music in public worship tends more than all influences combined to make
it universal among the people. In the train of a true religion, if it could once
be introduced among the Eastern nations, there would doubtless follow the
general cultivation of music. In the large towns some of the people are
entertained in companies by the public reading of romances, and many of them
indulge excessively in gambling by means of chess and draughts. They also
assemble about the cafés, places where pipes are kept for public use, and
indulge for hours in smoking and quiet conversation. The favorite pipe used at
these places is the narghî'leh. It consists of a glass bottle, supported by a
brass foot, and about half filled with water. A brass pipe-bowl filled with
tobacco sits on top of the bottles neck, with a brass tube extending from its
bottom down into the water. To another tube, entering the side of the bottle
above the water, is attached a guttapercha tube, extending to the mouth of the
smoker. As he draws through this tube the air from the portion of the bottle
above the water, the outer air forces itself down through the burning tobacco
and the tube beneath it, and from the bottom of that tube up through the water
to the other, which leads to the mouth, carrying the smoke all the way with it.
The advantage of this pipe is that the passage of the smoke through the water
cools it, and takes away some of its strength. Only the strongest Persian
tobacco is used in the narghî'leh, and before it is put in the pipe it is
moistened to make it burn slowly. This method of smoking can be indulged only
when the victim of it is sitting still and is at leisure, for the narghî'leh
cannot well be carried about in the hand. At other times the inveterate smoker
generally uses a common clay pipe, though the cigarette, made of fine-cut
tobacco rolled in paper, is now rapidly taking its place. In the villages which
cannot afford a café neither smoking nor gambling abound to any great extent,
and the only amusement of the people seems to consist in the quiet one of
sitting on the ground in a shady place and talking in a very subdued manner on
the slender topics that come up in village life. The women in such groups
usually have some kind of knitting, sewing, or spinning in hand, while the men
fold their hands in idleness.

Among the Bed'awin the men sometimes amuse themselves by manoeuvres on
horseback, in imitation of battles. Their women, especially those of the Jordan
Valley, sometimes engage in a wild, shuffling kind of dance, keeping time to
grunting sounds made by themselves. The men also have a performance somewhat
similar, in which a number of them, with arms locked, go through a great variety
of swaying and bowing motions in unison, while one in front of the line directs
the movements and accompanies the motions of his body with fierce and rapid
swinging of a sword.

VII. Funerals And Burial-Places

Among the Ar'abs, both villagers and Bed'awin, funerals are conducted in a wild,
disorderly manner. If the corpse is that of a child, it is borne to the grave
coffinless in the arms of a man, accompanied by a group of men who walk along
without any order. The women who attend reach the graveyard in advance, and take
seats on the ground a few steps distant from the grave. The men, when they
arrive, stand around the grave, and the one bearing the corpse takes it in among
the women, that all may have a final glance at its features, presenting it to
the mother last of all. During this ceremony there is a loud wailing and tossing
of arms among the women, but the men look on with solemn calmness. The corpse is
then taken to the grave, which is seldom a fresh one, but usually one already
containing a number of corpses, and very shallow at that. The flat stone which
covers it has been removed, and a shallow excavation made. The body is
deposited, mud mixed with lime is hastily worked into a kind of mortar, some
fresh earth is thrown in, the flat slab is replaced, the mortar is pressed
around the edges of the slab, and the attendants return to their homes,
departing in small groups. Such was a funeral witnessed by the author at Hebron,
in May, 1879. When the deceased is an adult the demonstrations of grief are more
violent. Thomson describes one that he witnessed at Sidon about as follows: the
procession, "a confused medley of men and boys in all sorts of costume, rolling
on somehow or other toward the cemetery; the only thing solemn about it the low,
sad monotone in which they chant that eternal truth, a illah illa Allah (no God
but God)! accompanied by that necessary lie, as Gibbon calls it, W' Muhammedhû
russù'l Allâh (and Mohammed is the prophet of God.) This and nothing else is
their funeral dirge, and they repeat it over and over until they reach the
grave." At the grave, whither the women have preceded them, a ring is formed by
the men, with two or three of their number in the centre. These last are the
choristers. They shake their heads, twist and jerk their bodies, and begin very
slowly to repeat Ya-Allah! Ya-Allah! "As they grow warm their motions become
wild and frantic; the chant runs into a horrid, deep growl, like wild beasts, in
which it is impossible to distinguish any words." This is continued until from
sheer exhaustion they break down. The performance is called the Zikr, and
Thomson says "there is nothing in all the customs of the East so outrageously
repulsive and disgusting." The funeral processions of the Greek Church are
conducted in a more orderly manner, and with much more real solemnity. The
corpse, in grave-clothes, but without a coffin, is borne to the grave on an open
bier carried by four men, the arms of the bier resting on their shoulders. Two
or more priests, bearing censers of burning incense, which they swing backward
and forward as they go, march with measured step before the bier. Women, weeping
wildly, tossing their arms and swinging their handkerchiefs high above their
heads, follow the bier, while male attendants walk at the side or in the rear,
without any prescribed order. The author saw several processions of this kind at
Jerusalem, and he met one in a Lebanon village, in which a young girl thirteen
or fourteen years of age was lying on the bier, with her face entirely
uncovered. The features of the corpse were regularly formed, and they bore the
expression of peaceful sleep.

Funerals are said to be exceedingly expensive to the living relatives, not, as
in this country, on account of the costly burial-case, the number of carriages
engaged, the price of mourning raiment, and that of a cemetery lot and a
monument, for none of these expenses are known in Palestine; but, as stated by
Thomson (i. 849), "Crowds of relatives, friends, and acquaintances assemble at
the funerals. For all these refreshments must be provided, and not a few of them
from a distance tarry all night, and must be entertained. Then these gatherings
and feasts for the dead are repeated at stated times for forty days. The priests
and religious functionaries must also be rewarded for their attendance, and for
subsequent prayers and good offices in behalf of the dead. Many families are
reduced to poverty by funerals." Thomson thinks that this expensiveness
characterized to some extent the funerals of the ancient Jews, and that allusion
is made to it in the solemn statement required of men when they brought the
tithes to the Lord, saying, among other things, "I have not eaten thereof in my
mourning, nor given aught thereof for the dead."

During the interval between the death of a person and the removal of the corpse,
a system of mourning prevails quite similar to that among the ancient Jews. In
every community there are women who are skilled in the art of mourning, and who
are sent for on such occasions. They recite in piteous tones such incidents in
the history of the dead as to keep up a wailing among the kindred; and as one
sympathizing friend after another comes in to visit the family they strike up
impromptu lamentations concerning the deceased relatives of each, for they know
the history of the entire village, and thus they keep all the house in an
uproar. The author heard this kind of wailing in a house in Cairo occupied by
Copts, for it prevails in Egypt as well as in Syria. The practice is of very
ancient origin, and is alluded to by Jeremiah, when lamenting over the downfall
of Judah. He says, "Consider ye and call for the mourning-women, that they may
come, and send for the cunning women that they may come, and let then make haste
and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our
eyelids gush out with waters." The "minstrels" who were found in the house of
Jairus when Jesus went there to heal his daughter, and the people who made "a
tumult and wept and wailed greatly," were these professional mourners and the
friends of the family whose emotions were excited by them. These women are
usually spoken of as mere pretenders; but it is more likely that they are in the
main women of tender sympathies, who can readily enter into the sorrows of their
neighbors, and whose emotions are genuine. Such women are found in every
community, even in our own land, and they contribute no little to the
consolation of stricken families. Weeping is but an outflow of sorrow, and
whatever contributes to it is a means of relief.

Mourning does not terminate with the funeral ceremonies, but the custom of
visiting the graves of the dead, which is so natural as to be common in all
countries, is observed in a peculiar manner. Every city and large town has, of
course, its cemetery, and almost every morning of the year one or more groups of
women arrayed in white can be seen as soon as daylight is abroad making their
way toward it. They sit down in silence about the freshly-made grave or the old
grave, as the case may be, which has received another occupant. In a few moments
remarks are made concerning the dead, and weeping begins. Some of these women
are mere friendly attendants of the mourners, and consequently they manifest but
little emotion; but the sorrow of the real mourners is perhaps as genuine as
that of more highly civilized persons. They sorrow, too, as those who have
little hope, because the thoughts of ignorant Mohammedans concerning the future
of the dead are little more consoling than those of the heathen. This visitation
is kept up at least nine days, and longer if the parties are so inclined. It is
observed with but little regard to wind or weather, so that it often results in
the winter season in serious illness to the mourners, such as rheumatism,
catarrh, and fever.

Scene in a Burial-Ground The modern burial-places of the country are similar to
the unfenced and neglected graveyards in some of the older parts of our own
country. There is not one in all Palestine that has a fence or a wall around it.
A large portion of the area immediately adjoining Jerusalem on the east; and a
considerable portion of that on the west, is covered thick with gravestones.
Those of the Jewish grounds are plain slabs of limestone, barely large enough to
cover the mouth of the grave, and laid flat upon it after it is filled up. Above
the Mohammedan graves there is usually a structure of rough stones about as high
as the mound of a newly-made grave in our country graveyards, and in about the
same shape. This is covered with plaster and whitewashed. Those of the better
class are built up of hewed stones, and are not plastered. In the village
graveyards there is often nothing to mark the grave except a rude stone at the
head and foot, as in the meanest graveyards of America. The graveyards in all
Mohammedan countries might be described in the same terms, except that those in
Asia Minor and those about Constantinople are usually surrounded by a fence and
planted thick with cypress-trees. In those regions, also, the headstone is often
a round pillar of stone carved on top in imitation of a fez, as though the head
of the man were there with his fez still upon it. The ancient rock-hewn
sepulchres of which we read in the Bible have long since gone into disuse. They
abound in all the rocky regions of Palestine and of all Syria, but so far as
they have been discovered they have long since been robbed of their dead. The
author visited one at Nabatî'yeh, a village of Southern Phoenicia, which had but
recently been opened, but its fifteen places for burial purposes for bodies had
all been dug open in search of relics, and the bones were still lying scattered
about the floor. This universal robbing of sepulchres has taken place since the
Mohammedan possession of the country, and it was effected in the search for
relics and articles of value. It was the custom of the ancient Jews, Syrians,
and Phoenicians to bury articles of value, such as jewelry, weapons, and lamps,
with the dead; and when the land fell into the hands of a strange people, void
of respect for the dead of a hated race, the robbery began. But it is not the
ignorant Ar'ab treasure-hunter alone who has thus invaded these houses of the
dead; he has been seconded by the relic-hunter from the most enlightened nations
of Europe. Wherever a sarcophagus has been found in a tomb, if it possessed any
merit as a work of art, or any inscriptions that could be deciphered, it has
been snatched greedily from its resting-place and transported to some of the
museums of Italy, France, or England. The visitor to the Phoenician department
of the museum in the Louvre at Paris sees a sarcophagus of black basalt, which
was found in the tombs of the ancient kings of Sidon in 1856, and which declares
by an inscription on its lid, in the ancient Phoenician characters, that it is
the sarcophagus of Ashmunaz'er, king of the Sidonians. It was taken out of its
resting place and removed to Paris under an order from Louis Napoleon,
notwithstanding the following malediction which constitutes a part of its
inscription:

"My prohibition to every royal person, and to every man, not to open my
sepulchre and not to seek with me treasures, for there are no treasures with me;
not to take away the sarcophagus of my funeral couch, nor to transfer me with my
funeral couch upon the couch of another; and if men command to do so, listen not
to their opinion, because every royal person and every man who shall open this
funeral couch, or shall take away the sarcophagus of this funeral couch, or
shall transfer me with the funeral couch, he shall have no funeral with the
dead, nor be buried in a sepulchre, nor leave behind them son or posterity; and
the holy gods, with the king that shall rule over them, shalt cut off that royal
person and that man who has opened my couch, or who has abstracted this
sarcophagus, and so also the posterity of that royal person or of that man
whoever he be; nor shall his root be planted downward nor his fruit spring
upward; and he shall he accursed among those living under the sun, because I am
to be pitied—snatched away before my time, like a flowing river." This
malediction, so little regarded by the late emperor and his officers, yet so
nearly fulfilled in the subsequent history of himself and his son, shows with
what tenacity men of that age clung to the desire for a permanent resting-place
in death; and it shows as clearly that the practice of robbing tombs for the
sake of the treasures to be found in them was already known at that early
period. The sarcophagus, even in its cheapest form, was too costly a coffin for
any but the very rich. Those of basalt and of granite were the most expensive,
on account of the exceeding hardness of these rocks, and the consequent
difficulty of shaping and polishing them. Marble was employed for the purpose in
the countries convenient to the Greek Archipelago, where this material is so
abundant, and many sarcophagi used by the ancient Greeks contain on their sides
and lids some of the most beautiful specimens of sculpture that have been
preserved from antiquity. But in Palestine none have been found, I believe, of
any other material than limestone. Many of these are seen in various parts of
the country; but nearly all lying on the surface, or half buried in the ground,
and in a mutilated condition. They indicate that the ancient Jews, like their
Phoenician neighbors, sometimes employed these in their burials. But in the
sepulchres of the Jews bodies were usually buried as they now are in that
country, without a coffin of any kind. The mode of excavating their sepulchres
and burying in them was as follows: A mass of rock was found, of sufficient
extent for the purpose, without seams through which water could find its way,
and with an exposed side already perpendicular, or easily made so. Into the face
of this perpendicular side of the rock a doorway was cut, usually about two feet
wide and three feet high, intended to admit one person at a time in a stooping
posture. After chiseling this opening twelve or eighteen inches into the rock, a
square chamber was chiseled out, never less than eight feet square and sometimes
twenty feet square and eight feet high. This chamber was not the burial-place,
but a room around which the actual graves were dug. These last were niches like
pigeon-holes cut into the sides of the chamber, of the right size to receive a
man feet foremost, and long enough to receive his entire body. They are usually
about twenty inches wide and twenty-five or twenty-six high. There are usually
three of these on a side, and they are cut with their floors nearly on a level
with the floor of the chamber.

An Ordinary Jewish Sepulchre

Sometimes a second tier of niches was made above the first, with about a foot of
rock between. When a body was placed in one of these niches, a stone slab cut
the right size and shape was fitted to the mouth of it with cement around its
edges, so that the odors of decomposition would be confined and not allowed to
infect the central chamber. A similar stone was fitted to the outer door of the
chamber, or else the door was closed by a large round stone like a millstone,
which could be rolled to the right or left when admittance was sought, without
throwing it on its side. The purpose of this outer stone was to guard the
sepulchre, not against men, whose horror for the uncleanness of the dead would
keep them out of it, and who could easily remove the stone, but against small
animals, like dogs, cats, and jackals, which might otherwise feed upon the dead
bodies.

Sepulchre Open and Closed and Sealed The following cut represents the front of
two sepulchres, one open and the other closed. The one closed is also sealed, a
cord being stretched across the stone and its ends fastened with wax to the rock
on either side. When the body of Jesus was laid away by Joseph in his new tomb
hewn out in the rock, it was not placed in one of the niches, as is evident from
the fact that one of the angels seen there by Mary sat at the head and the other
at the foot of the place where he had lain. This was either because the
sepulchre being new was not yet completed by cutting the niches, or because
Joseph had not yet completed his preparation of the body for its final
resting-place. It is certain that the women had yet something to do in preparing
the body, and it is probable that Joseph either intended to complete the task
himself, not knowing of their purpose, or had left the matter in their hands.
The statement that "he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre"
implies that it was not the stone made for the purpose but one that he
extemporized for the occasion. Probably the stone intended for the door had not
yet been completed. The stooping mentioned in John 20:5; John 20:11, in order to
look into the sepulchre, was necessary, because the door was a low one, as
usual. A sepulchre once dug by a man continued for an indefinite time to be used
by his descendants; hence the oft-recurring expression of the Scriptures about
being buried in the sepulchre of one's fathers. But in order that it might
answer this purpose it was enlarged as necessity required. It is to some such
enlargement as this in the cave of Machpelah, that Jacob referred when he said
to Joseph, "In my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan there
shalt thou bury me;" for Abraham had originally prepared the sepulchre, and
Jacob can only have enlarged it.

Entrance to Tombs of the Kings When all the niches that could be made in the
first chamber were occupied another door was cut, usually much higher than the
outer door, and deep enough to pass the niches on the same side, if any were
there, and another chamber opened; and so on as far as the mass of solid rock
would allow or the needs of the family require. The niches are usually
designated by the Latin term loculi (little places). In the sepulchre miscalled
the Tomb of the Kings, which is about a mile north of Jerusalem, there are four
of these chambers and about forty of the loculi. A tomb on the western side of
the Mount of Olives, miscalled the Tomb of the Prophets, is peculiar in form.
Its principal apartment is a narrow, semi-circular passage, fifty yards in
circuit, on the outer side of which is dug a row of loculi about thirty in
number. These two sepulchres and another about two miles northwest of the city,
called the Tomb of the Judges, have received their names in modern times through
the mere fancy that their superior extent and costliness justified a name of
superior importance. It is certain that the tomb of the kings of Judah was
inside the city; and there is no probability that any two of the Judges or of
the Prophets were ever buried in the same sepulchre.

Many slight variations were made from this general plan of the sepulchre, the
result of the taste or the means of the owner, or of the peculiarities of the
rock in which the excavations were made. In a few instances the loculus for the
body was made parallel to the side of the principal chamber, with the entire
side of it open, so that the whole body was in sight after being laid in it. In
some others they were dug in the floors of the chambers, only deep enough to
receive a body, and covered with close-fitting slabs. The author and his party
explored a sepulchre of this latter class near Nabatî'yeh, in Southern
Phoenicia, which had not previously been entered by a European, having been
discovered by the villagers only two years before our visit. It contained eight
chambers, seven of which had each two graves side by side, while the eighth had
only one, and it was dug in the middle of the chamber with the evident purpose
of being left alone to be occupied, perhaps, by the head of the family. Its plan
is seen in the preceding cut.

A Family Sepulchre in Phoenicia

Thomson describes some sepulchres of this character near Sidon, the floors of
whose chambers were paved with closely-fitting slabs of dressed rock, intended
to conceal the existence of the graves beneath, but he says that they have long
since been opened and robbed of their contents. The modern Ar'abs have little of
the reverence for burial-places which characterized the Jews of old. The empty
sepulchres of the ancients are everywhere used for the folds of sheep and goats
when practicable, and some of them, with their doors enlarged and an additional
structure in front, are used as dwellings. Even the modern cemetery in which
their own dead are buried is but little reverenced. The author saw at Gaza a
crowd of women enjoying a kind of picnic under the shade-trees of a graveyard,
while a small group of their company were dancing for the amusement of the
others in a narrow space closely surrounded by gravestones.


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  CHAPTER 10: CHAPTER SEVEN--STATE OF EDUCATION AND RELIGION
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Chapter VII. State of Education and Religion I. Education Among The Moslem

Among the Moslem inhabitants of Palestine a system of education can scarcely be
said to exist. The Bed'awin have no school-teachers at all of their own nation,
and their children are never taught to read, except a few of them that receive
instruction from missionaries. Some of the stationed missionaries occasionally
visit their camps and spend a short time in teaching their children. The author
met an Italian priest at Es Salt who claimed to be devoting his entire time in
this way among the Beni Sukr tribe, who dwell in the land of Moab. Such teachers
must live as the Bed'awin do, and move about with them as their camps are moved
from place to place. Their labors must be entirely gratuitous, for the Bed'awin
are so far from paying for such services that they barely tolerate them, and few
will allow their children to be educated at all. They think that learning makes
boys effeminate. The Fel'lahîn, as a general rule, are equally void of
education, but missionary schools are taught in many of the larger towns, and
the town people make no opposition to the education of their children. Some,
indeed, are willing to pay a small fee to the teachers, but the mass are
indifferent on the subject, and some inducements of a pecuniary kind are often
given by teachers to secure a regular attendance of their pupils. At the best,
however, the boys are put to work at so early an age, and the girls are married
so young, that the education which they receive extends very little beyond
reading and writing in the Ar'abic tongue. In the smaller villages there is
seldom more than one man who can write, and he is the marvel of the community.
He does all the village writing, and his word settles all learned controversies.
Letter-writing is practiced but little, and newspapers are unknown. There is not
a printing-press in Palestine, and there are only three cities that can boast of
a post-office, namely, Jerusalem, Joppa, and Haifa. There would be none at even
these places but for the European residents and the European steamers that carry
the mails. It appears singular to an American to visit cities of from 5000 to
15,000 inhabitants in which he cannot mail a letter. In the cities, such as
Jerusalem, Hebron, and others, a few native Moslem teachers are found. They sit
on the floor, with their pupils in a like position around them. Their
compensation is very meagre, but fully equal to their deserts, for their pupils
seldom learn to do more than read in an imperfect way certain favorite chapters
in the Koran. Still there are some intended for the sacerdotal order whose
education is more extended. The foundation of all missionary work among the
people is usually laid in the education of the children, and until this can be
accomplished more successfully the Christian faith can make but little headway.
The Moslem who allow their children to attend the missionary schools make no
objection to their reading the gospels, and consequently the gospel narratives
are used as a text-book in all of them. The result will be that a generation
will eventually be brought into existence many of whom—and the most intelligent
of them—will be better acquainted with the New Testament than with the Koran,
and that the leaven will work from them through the entire mass. This is the
hope of the few patient toilers who are cultivating this unpromising portion of
the Lord's vineyard.

II. Education Among The Greeks And Latins In every community that contains any
considerable amount of Christian population, whether Latin or Greek, there is
some attempt at education. Teachers are found in many of the villages. They are
chiefly of the Greek Church, because nearly all the Christians in the country
are of this faith. The Greeks, however, pay less attention to education than do
the Latins. Connected with nearly all the churches and convents of the latter
are schools for the native children, in which all the education is imparted that
the children can be induced to receive. In Jerusalem the Franciscan friars have
recently erected a large two-story building of hewed stone, with ample grounds
about it, which they call a college. It is supplied with a well-qualified corps
of teachers, and it is largely patronized. There were probably one hundred boys
and young men in attendance in the spring of 1879, principally of Ar'ab
parentage, though among them were a few of the sons of European residents. The
Protestant missionary schools depend chiefly on the native Christian population
for their pupils, though they also gather in some of the Ar'ab children. The
Church of England has cultivated this field more than any other Protestant
community. Bishop Gobât, who was for many years English bishop of Jerusalem,
having oversight of all the English missions in Palestine, established a school
on Mount Zion, which has been more successful than any other in the country. It
has a boarding department for the accommodation of about forty boys, and it
generally succeeds in keeping together about this number, chiefly orphans. It
receives considerable patronage also from the city, and many of the young men of
the country are indebted to it for a moderate education, including a slight
knowledge of English. The bishop died at a very advanced age, in May, 1879,
having lived in Jerusalem for many years. He was a native of Prussia. The school
is supported by contributions raised in England. Its pupils are instructed in
the creed of the Church of England, and the boarders are required to attend the
English church in the city, and to take part in the recitation of the liturgy.
There is an English church with schools attached, at Nazareth, and also a
boarding-school for girls with accommodations for two hundred pupils; and at Es
Salt, the most important town east of the Jordan, there is another school.
Joppa, Gaza, and some other towns are seats of similar institutions. There is a
Baptist mission at Nab'lus, supported by Baptists in Great Britain, with a
school for boys and a separate one for girls. The chief obstacle in the way of
education where missionary schools exist is the almost total indifference of
parents on the subject, and, next to this, the fear that their children may be
led to adopt the religious faith of their teachers. Mohammedans and native
Christians are alike in respect to the latter point, and are not far apart in
regard to the former. Time and patience, however, will eventually overcome these
obstacles, especially if peace and consequent security of life and property
shall be maintained in the country.

III. Condition Of Mohammedanism The traveler who visits Palestine, or any other
portion of the Turkish empire, with the expectation of seeing the Mohammedan
religion as he has read of it in its earlier history, will be greatly
disappointed. Instead of seeing men stop everywhere on the street, or in the
highway, to go through the manual of prayer at the prescribed hours, he will see
but few engaged in prayer at all; and when he sees one he will see many others
round about him as indifferent as if they were adherents of a different
religion. Wherever there is a mosque the muezzins call from the minaret is still
heard at the five regular hours of prayer, provided the noise of the street does
not drown it; but you look around in vain to see any giving heed to it. When you
visit the mosques you find some old men now and then going through their
genuflexions and mutterings, but the number is exceedingly small; and of young
men there are none. Even on Friday, their Sabbath-day, though their houses of
business are usually closed, but few of them go to the mosque to pray. They
prefer to spend the day loitering about the streets, or seeking recreation in
the groves of olive-trees outside the city. As for the Fel'lahîn, in whose
villages there are no mosques, their religion brings them no rest. They are
equally idle or equally busy on Friday as on other days of the week. The mosques
are not only to a large extent destitute of worshipers, but they are neglected
by their custodians. Dust and decay are seen both within and without the sacred
buildings, and the breaches made by time in the walls and minarets are but
seldom repaired. Even the platform of the Har'âm es Sherîff (the noble
sanctuary), in Jerusalem, the holiest place in Moslem estimation in the world
next to the temple at Mecca, is allowed to grow up in weeds, except where
pavement-slabs and the tramping of feet keep them down, and an air of neglect
broods over the entire place. There is scarcely a Moslem sanctuary of any kind
in all Palestine which shows marks of careful preservation, much less of recent
decoration or improvement. This is partly due, no doubt, to the extreme poverty
of the people, which has gone on increasing for generations back, and partly to
the impoverishment of the Turkish government. But it is chiefly due to the decay
of the religion itself. None of those peculiarities of Mohammedanism which
imparted some admirable virtues to the Ar'ab character a thousand years ago are
now discovered in the practical workings of the system, and the ideal Mussulman
is a thing of the past, never to be known again in real life.

Entering a Mosque The decline in the reverence for mosques is seen not only in
the prevalent neglect of these buildings, but in the greater freedom with which
Christians (infidels, as they call us) are admitted within them. Twenty years
ago no Christian was allowed to enter the Har'âm at Jerusalem, except under
extraordinary circumstances, but now all are freely admitted on the payment of a
fee of five francs; yet it is customary to go under the escort of the cavasse of
your consul (his body-guard), and of a couple of soldiers from the garrison. The
attendance of these officers is necessary only to protect a stranger from attack
by fanatical Moslem who might be enraged by seeing him there. In order to enter
the sacred buildings one must pull off his boots or shoes; but he is allowed to
walk in slippers. In former years it was only with bare feet that one could
enter any mosque; but now you can enter in your own slippers, and in
Constantinople the author was allowed to enter with his boots on; but they were
slipped into a very large pair of heelless slippers. The Moslem themselves go in
barefooted, but they saunter about these sacred buildings with an air of total
indifference, and sometimes men are seen in them sound asleep on the floor,
while the venders of cakes and lemonade and trinkets of various kinds are
sometimes allowed to traffic with the visitor as he passes through.

A Mussulman at Prayer The ancient forms of prayer are still preserved by those
who pray at all; but it is easy to see, in many instances, that the heart is not
engaged. The wandering eye and the listless expression of the countenance are
not easily misinterpreted by the looker-on. The forms of prayer are themselves,
from the very fullness of outward demonstration, calculated to divert the
attention of the really devout, and to prevent the cultivation of piety among
the careless and hypocritical. The figures in the cut represent the six
attitudes assumed in the progress of every prayer. In the posture of figure No.
1 the prayer is begun, with the expression "Allah hû akbar" (God is great) and a
few mental petitions. Then the hands are brought down, as in figure No. 2, when
he recites the first chapter of the Koran and some other brief passages. Next he
assumes the attitude of No. 3, and repeats some formulas of praise. Then
standing erect with hands down, as in No. 4, he exclaims, as in the beginning,
"God is great!" Then he drops upon his knees, plants his open palms upon the
ground before him, and touches the ground between them three times with his
forehead, as in No. 5, repeating short petitions and praises. Last he throws
himself back on his knees, with his body resting on his heels and his hands on
his thighs, as in No. 6. In this attitude he completes the round of his prayers
and exclamations. This round is called a rekâh', and he generally goes through
with it three times, unless he is in a hurry, when once will suffice. Before he
begins he washes his hands and feet, and spreads a mat or rug, or, in the
absence of these, his outer garment, on the ground, to stand and kneel upon. The
floors of the mosques are usually spread with mats for this purpose.

There is no clearer evidence of the decay of Mohammedanism than the substitution
of a degrading superstition, which abounds in Palestine, for the ancient simple
worship of the one only God. Lieutenant Conder seems to have obtained more
intimate knowledge of this superstition than any other explorer, and he
furnishes the fullest account of it. After remarking that though the professed
religion of the country is Islam, you may live for months in the out-of-the-way
parts of Palestine without seeing a mosque or hearing the call of the "muedhen"
to prayer, he says that the people are not without a religion which shapes every
action of their daily life. The mûkâm' represents this religion. We have already
given a description of these buildings and of the sites chosen for them in the
last section of Chapter V. of this work. It is the central point from which the
influence of the saint in whose memory it is erected is supposed to radiate. If
propitious, the saint or sheikh, as he is called, bestows good luck, health, and
other blessings upon his worshipers; and if not, he inflicts blows, distraction
of mind, and even death. If a man is at all queer in his manner, his
fellow-villagers will say, "Oh, the sheikh has struck him." The greatest respect
is paid to the place. The peasant removes his shoes upon entering, and takes
care not to tread on the threshold. He says as he enters, "Your leave, O blessed
one." Ploughs or other objects of value are left in the building with perfect
safety, no thief being daring enough to remove them. When sickness prevails in a
village, votive offerings are brought to the mûkâm', consisting of earthenware
lamps and similar articles, which are left at the tomb. The author saw a number
of these in the tomb of Joseph, near She'chem. Sometimes sheep are killed near
the mûkâm' and eaten in honor of the sheikh. The lower limbs of trees standing
near are often almost covered with bits of rags which have been tied around them
as tokens of gratitude or as means of propitiation. Some of these mûkâms' are
dedicated to Scriptural characters, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Seth,
Shem, Noah, and Jonah. The last two are thus honored more frequently than any of
the others. Some are dedicated to Christian saints and some to famous robbers,
but most of them to men noted for their devotion to the people or their
religion.

Sometimes pilgrimages are made to these shrines, and Conder saw hundreds of
persons gathered around them on special occasions. In many places throughout the
rocky portions of the country piles of small stones are seen, sometimes
consisting of three laid together with a fourth on top of them, and sometimes of
a pile of small, flat stones a foot or more in height, which mark the spots
where these pilgrims first come in sight of a holy place. These piles are built
on the large rocks, and in some places they are scattered over an acre or more
of space. The villagers believe in charms, divination, and incantations, and
they believe profoundly in the existence and power of evil spirits.

Conder points out the connection of this superstitious veneration for dead
saints and sheikhs with the ancient superstition of the Canaanites, which was so
often imbibed by the Israelites. But it has a still closer connection with the
saint worship which prevailed in the country just previous to the Mohammedan
invasion, and which was temporarily restored during the Crusading period. The
apostate Mussulman is in this instance an imitator of the apostate Christian.

IV. The Labors Of Missionaries As a missionary field Palestine has been but very
slightly cultivated. The Greek Church has existed so long in the Turkish empire,
side by side with Mohammedanism, and has sunk so low in point of piety and
missionary zeal, that she has accepted the situation and makes no effort
anywhere to proselyte from the adherents of that faith. These causes of
inactivity are promoted in Palestine by the fact that this Church feels secure
in her own existence there only because she is under the powerful protection of
Russia, without which she might at any moment be expelled from the country.
Furthermore, she suffers so much from proselytism at the hands of other more
zealous Churches, that she has acquired an abhorrence for the very thought of
proselyting from one religion to another. Through the grasping power and wealth
of Russia this Church has acquired very valuable possessions at Jerusalem, and
has erected convents, chapels, and hospices for her pilgrims at many other
sacred localities; but all of this is rather for the purpose of holding her own
adherents and securing their safety while visiting the country than for the
purpose of making converts to her faith. She does not preach to the native
Mohammedans, nor even establish schools for the education of their children. Her
convents are abodes of idleness and ignorance. That of Mar Sab'a, which has
existed from the fifth century in the midst of all the vicissitudes through
which the country has passed, has never, perhaps, been the means of converting
one Mohammedan sinner from the error of his way. The Latins, or Roman Catholics,
are far more aggressive. They have schools at various places in connection with
their churches and monasteries, and they make vigorous efforts to convert the
children of both Greeks and Mohammedans to their faith. They have convents at
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Joppa, Ramleh, Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, Nazareth, and Es
Salt; and they have chapels at Tiberias, Kefr Kenna, Haifa, and many other towns
and cities. What progress they have made in the way of conversions from the
native population we are not able to state with any approach to accuracy. As we
intimated in Section II. of this chapter, the Church of England has almost
monopolized this country, so far as Protestant missions are concerned. Jerusalem
is the seat of a bishopric of that Church. The bishop's residence and the church
adjoining it, both handsome buildings, occupy an eligible site on Mount Zion,
fronting westward towards the Tower of David, and only a short distance from the
Joppa gate. The church is capable of seating about three hundred persons, and
services in English are held there every Lord's day. It is frequented by nearly
all the European residents of the city, and all English-speaking visitors. The
same church owns a still handsomer chapel, with parsonage attached, in the midst
of the new settlement north of the city, where services are conducted in Arabic
for the especial benefit of the natives. This property was erected at a cost of
about $30,000. We have already mentioned the large boarding-school for boys,
under the control of this church, outside the wall and on the southwestern part
of Mount Zion. See page 134. It was intended as an auxiliary to the church, but
the number of converts from among its pupils is small. This school was first
established in 1843, the mission itself having been established in 1838. Bishop
Gobât entered upon his official duties there in 1846, and continued at his post
until his death in 1879, a period of nearly thirty-three years. The annual
expenditure for this mission in 1854 was £5328, or nearly $26,640.

Next to Jerusalem Nazareth is the chief seat of the missionary operations of the
Church of England. There she has a chapel equal in style and finish to that in
Jerusalem, and it is frequented chiefly by a congregation of natives. Here also
is the large school for girls mentioned above (page 134), which adds greatly to
the influence and prestige of this church in the community. The mission was
established in 1857. Other missions of less importance exist at Gaza, Joppa,
She'chem, and Es Salt.

There is a German medical mission at Jerusalem, and one supported by the Scotch
Presbyterian Church in Nazareth. In both of these efforts are made to
indoctrinate the people religiously while they are receiving medical treatment.
Medicine is gratuitously supplied to those unable to pay for it, and at Nazareth
there is a hospital in connection with the dispensary. This is a very benevolent
work in itself, and it is wisely adapted to its purpose. A Baptist mission
exists at She'chem, under a native preacher, El Kârey by name, who was educated
in England. He conducts two schools already mentioned (page 134), and also holds
religious meetings for the instruction of adults in his own dwelling. The
success of these missions, so far as the Ar'ab population is concerned, has been
meagre; but it is greater than outward manifestations would indicate, for it is
hazardous to the lives of Mohammedans to change their religion, and many are
fully convinced of the truth of the Christian religion who dare not say so. Many
also are largely indoctrinated with Christian ideas, who are not fully committed
to Christ even in their convictions. The seeds of truth are being sown in
unpromising soil, but some will yet come to a harvest. In the present state of
profound ignorance and of undeveloped moral sensibilities which prevails among
the adult population, there can be little doubt that the most effective way to
Christianize the country is to work upon the children by improving their minds
and imparting to them a Christian education. If the author of this volume were
allowed to direct missionary labors there, he would settle in every important
village a Christian family, composed of plain American farming people, with
moderate education, and practical experience in all the details of good farming
and good housekeeping. They should reside in one of the better class of village
houses, but should make it a model of neatness, and supply it with an outfit of
the simplest and cheapest articles of household comfort, such as the natives
would soon learn to admire and be able to procure. The housewife should be
supplied with a few extra wash-tubs, wash-boards, tables, chairs, table ware,
brooms, toilet articles, etc., and it should be her part of the mission work to
teach the women of the village how to use these, and how to keep their persons,
their children, and their houses clean. The man should be supplied with a few
hoes, rakes, wheat-cradles, wheat-fans, ploughs, and harrows, and it should be
his first work to teach the use of these, and thereby enable the people to make
more money and buy these things for themselves. He should also act as an agent
to import for the villagers at cost all articles of improved agriculture and
housekeeping. While prosecuting this work the family should be learning the
language of the people, and as fast as possible imparting to them Christian
truth. One other adult in the family should be the school-teacher for the
village, and should commence teaching as soon as a sufficient knowledge of the
language could be acquired, previous to which he should assist in the work above
mentioned. Within a few years it might be practicable to have meetings of the
people for public preaching, and within the lifetime of a single missionary the
entire village of a thousand souls might be on the highway to financial
prosperity and Christian enlightenment. Every such village would be from the
beginning of its improvement a radiating centre for the diffusion of the light
which it was receiving. In this way a few humble families, whose influence in
the church at home is scarcely felt, might be instrumental in evangelizing a
nation.


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  CHAPTER 11: ***PART TWO: TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE***
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  CHAPTER 12: CHAPTER ONE--JERUSALEM
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Chapter I. Jerusalem I. The Original City The city of Jerusalem is supposed to
be first mentioned in the Bible under the name Salem. If this supposition is
correct, it was the residence of Melchizedec. From the time of Abraham's
interview with this mysterious personage it is not mentioned again until after
the invasion of the country by the Children of Israel under Joshua, a period of
about four hundred and sixty years, when it is found in the possession of a
Canaanitish tribe called Jebusites. At this period, and for a considerable time
after, it was known under the name of Jebusi or Jebus. There can be no doubt
that this name was derived from that of Jebus, the ancestor of the Jebusites,
who then inhabited the city. The origin of the name Jerusalem has been the
subject of several different theories, the most plausible of which is that it is
a combination of the preceding names Jebus and Salem, the b in Jebus being
changed for euphony to r, thus forming the compound word Jerusalem. The author
of the book of Joshua states that the children of Judah could not drive out the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, "but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at
Jerusalem unto this day." Yet the author of Judges, in recapitulating the
conquests under Joshua, says that "the children of Judah had fought against
Jerusalem, and had taken it and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set
the city on fire." We gather as the result of these two statements that the city
was at one time captured, but that the Jebusites retook it and then held it
permanently, living in it at peace with the adjacent tribe of Judah. It should
also be observed that the city lay within the territory assigned to Benjamin,
the line passing through the Valley of Hinnom immediately south of it. It is
probable that Judah's first attack on it was made previous to the assignment of
Benjamin's lot, and while it was yet considered within the territory of Judah.

Rock Soundings of Jerusalem

Jerusalem remained in possession of the Jebusites during the entire period of
the Judges, through the reign of Saul, and until the eighth year of the reign of
David, when it was captured and made the capital of David's kingdom. The fact
that it had been successfully held by a handful of Jebusites in the very heart
of the land of Israel for more than five hundred years was manifest proof of its
superior military strength, and justified its choice as a capital. An occasional
reference to the opposite cut from a draft by Conder, representing the actual
lay of the rock of the entire city, will help the reader to understand the
description which follows. At this time, as is evident from the statements of
the sacred text, the city was confined to the summit of Mount Zion, and the
stronghold of its defenses was a fortification called Millo. The theory of some
modern scholars, headed by Mr. Ferguson, that Mount Zion, the city of David, was
on the southern end of Moriah, has been disproved by Warren and Conder. This
mountain was completely isolated by surrounding ravines, except at its northwest
corner, where a narrow saddle of rock connected it with higher ground lying off
in that direction. On the top of that saddle the modern Joppa gate now stands.
Outside of this gate to the southwest, and within fifty yards of it, the Valley
of Gihon, which heads about half a mile due west of this point, makes an abrupt
turn to the south and passes—deepening rapidly as it goes—along the western side
of Mount Zion. Thence, by an abrupt turn to the east, it passes along the
southern side of the mount as far as its southeastern extremity. Its present
surface is some 40 or 50 feet below the city wall opposite the Joppa gate, about
120 feet below the top of the mountain at the southwestern curve, and about 154
feet at the southeastern curve. Originally it was still deeper, for it has been
filled up to a considerable depth, stone walls having been built across it at
short intervals to cause an accumulation of soil. All of that portion of it
south of Mount Zion is called the Valley of Hinnom. The present Joppa gate is on
the western slope of the connecting saddle mentioned above, the exact water-shed
of the rock of this saddle, according to Conder's excavations, being about 70
yards east of this gate. From this water-shed a valley runs due east along the
northern base of Mount Zion, growing deeper and narrower as it advances. It
curves abruptly to the south around the northeastern corner of the mount, and
thence runs almost due south until it joins the Valley of Hinnom. This valley is
called the Tyropeon. The separating saddle, from which it takes its descent, is
40 feet below the top of Mount Zion, and the valley, as it passes along the
northern side of this mount, has a depth to the rock of more than 100 feet; but
now it is filled up in places with rubbish to a depth of 40 feet. At the
northeastern curve it is 150 feet below the top of Zion, and midway the eastern
side of Zion it attains a depth of 290 feet. These figures are based upon the
rock-levels ascertained by the excavations of Captain Warren, and they show that
from the very nature of the ground on which the original Jerusalem stood it
could be approached only by a steep ascent on every side, except along the top
of the narrow ridge at the northwest, and that the top of this ridge was 40 feet
below the highest ground within the city. The chief fortification, called Millo,
must have been located here, and here at the present day stands its successor,
the fortification called the Tower of David. Properly defended at this point,
the city was impregnable against any ordinary attacking force; and it is not
surprising that when David came near to assault it the Jebusites taunted him
with the remark, "Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not
come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither."

Josephus, in his account of David's capture of Jerusalem, speaks of a lower city
which he took before he assaulted the citadel. Dr. Barclay supposes this to be
Salem. But there is no Scripture authority for this, and it is unreasonable in
itself: for why should the city be built on low ground in front of the citadel,
fully exposed to attack, when there was unassailable ground behind the citadel,
with the latter for a protection at its only weak point? It was a military
necessity to build the city on the top of Zion. As the city was when David took
it, such it continued to be throughout his reign, with the exception of internal
improvements and the strengthening of its fortifications. This, therefore, is
the city which we must have in mind when we are considering its history during
the reign of David, and the allusions to it made in the Psalms of David,—for
example, the exulting strains of the forty-eighth psalm:

"Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised In the city of our God, in the
mountain of His holiness. Is Mount Zion on the sides of the North, The city of
the great King.

Walk about Zion, and go round about her:

Tell the towers thereof.

Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; That ye may tell it to the
generation following."

II. The City Under Solomon The site selected for the Temple of Solomon, we are
told, was "in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to David, his father, in the
place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan (or Araunah) the
Jebusite."

Mount Moriah was a long, straight ridge, running north and south, a short
distance northeast of Mount Zion. From one extremity to the other it was more
than a mile in length, while its width was less than a quarter of a mile at the
widest part. It terminated towards the south in a long slope, narrowing as it
descended, and reaching a level near the point of junction between the Valley of
Hinnom and the Tyropeon Valley. The latter valley separated this southern slope
from Mount Zion, and the northern end of Zion was due west from the highest part
of Mount Moriah. Much the greater part of Mount Moriah lay farther north than
this. As we stated in the last section, the descent from the summit of Mount
Zion to its northeastern foot in the Tyropeon Valley was 150 feet, but the
ascent thence to the top of Moriah was only 50 feet, the latter mountain being
100 feet lower than the former. The elevation of the two above the sea is
respectively 2540 feet and 2440 feet. But the Tyropeon Valley deepens very
rapidly as it passes southward, and at the southern extremity of the temple
inclosure it has a depth of 150 feet below the summit of Moriah, measuring down
to the rock.

It thus appears that when Solomon prepared to build his temple Mount Moriah was
entirely outside of Jerusalem; that it was separated from it by a deep, narrow
ravine; and that its summit, where the temple was to stand, was due east of the
northern part of the city. It had been the wheat-field of Araunah, the Jebusite.
David had allowed him to retain it after he had taken the city, but had
purchased it from him at the time of the plague.The eastern side of Mount Moriah
was a steep slope descending into another deep and narrow ravine, called
sometimes the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and sometimes the Valley of the Kedron. The
bed of this valley descends but little more rapidly than the slope of the
mountain, and its average depth may be stated at 240 feet below the top of the
ridge of Mount Moriah. On the very summit of Mount Moriah Solomon built his
temple, laying the foundations, of course, on the solid rock, and including in
them the threshing-floor on which David had made his offering. Around it he made
an inner court, inclosed by a wall, and outside of this a greater court. But the
summit of the mountain, being a sharp ridge, did not furnish a level space of
sufficient extent for these courts, and hence the necessity of the work which
constituted the chief part of his undertaking, demanding the labor of the vast
army of workmen for a period of seven years. Of this work Josephus gives a brief
and characteristic description. After speaking of the temple proper and the
inclosure of the inner or Jewish court, he says: "But he made that temple which
was beyond this,—a wonderful one indeed, and such as exceeds all description in
words; nay, if I may so say, is hardly believed upon sight; for when he had
filled up great valleys with earth which, on account of their great depth, could
not be looked on when you bended down to see them without pain, and had elevated
the ground four hundred cubits, he made it to be on a level with the top of the
mountain on which the temple was built, and by this means the outmost temple,
which was exposed to the air, was even with the temple itself." This rude and
inaccurate description is readily understood, and its inaccuracies corrected, in
the light of recent excavations. No doubt Josephus formed his conception of the
work from the appearance of the temple mount in his own day; and many modern
observers have drawn conclusions from its appearance not less inaccurate than
his. Nothing but actual excavations to the natural rock of the mountain and its
adjacent valleys could determine what Solomon's work really was; and previous to
these excavations many conclusions of the utmost importance could be reached
only by conjecture. But during the year 1867 excavations were made by Captain
Warren, under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund of Great Britain,
to the foundations of the present wall around the site of the temple, and to the
solid rock in many other places about this mountain. It was ascertained that
most of the present outer wall of the temple inclosure was founded by Solomon,
the lowest layers of the rock being now precisely where he laid them. We are
able, therefore, to state in most particulars proximately, and in some
precisely, what work of Solomon Josephus describes so obscurely in the above
extract. It was as follows:

Wishing to make a broad level area on top of the mountain and nearly on a level
with its sharp summit, he laid the foundations of the eastern and western walls
on the solid rock near the foot of the mountain on each side, and built them up
perpendicular until their tops were on a level with the top of the mountain.
This required the western wall to be 150 feet high at its southern end, and 80
feet high just opposite the temple. The eastern wall was 170 feet high at its
southern extremity, and 70 feet opposite the temple; but on account of descent
of the rock from this point northward it was 160 feet high near its northern
end, where it crosses a depression in the rock. It is 1536 feet long, while the
western wall is 1608. To connect the southern ends of these two walls, which
were 927 feet apart, a cut was made across that part of the mountain which lay
between them, and the solid rock laid bare to receive the foundations of the
southern wall. The rock here rises about 100 feet as we pass from the east side
westward, and then descends about 80 feet ere we reach the southwestern corner.
This wall, then, in order to reach the level of the mountain's top, was built up
like the southern end of the eastern wall, with which it made an angle, 170 feet
high; at the highest part of the rock towards the west it was 70 feet high, and
at the southwestern angle 150 feet. Everywhere, as Captain Warren discovered,
the foundation stones were laid not only on the natural rock, but within a bed
24 inches deep cut for them into this rock, so that nothing could move them from
their places. The foundation stones in many places bear to this day the marks of
Phoenician letters painted on them by Hiram's workman, to show the order in
which they were to be laid down. Many of these stones are of enormous size.
Captain Warren reports one in the southeast angle whose estimated weight is 100
tons, and one at the southwest angle which, though not so heavy, is 38 feet 9
inches long. Several are seen above ground which approach this magnitude.

Substructions at the Southeast Corner of the Har'am. The two side walls are not
parallel, but they diverge toward the north, so that, although only 927 feet
apart at the southern end, they are 1044 feet apart at the northern end. At the
northwestern angle the natural rock came to the surface, and rose 20 feet above
the level that was desired: so here the rock was cut away in leveling, and a
perpendicular wall of it 20 feet high was left at the corner, and for some
distance east of it. The western wall terminated against this natural rock, and
the northern wall, starting from it eastward, closed up the remainder of the
northern end. This rock formed a narrow neck connecting this part of Mount
Moriah with that part which extended farther north, and on this, in Herod's
time, stood the fortification called the Tower of Antonia. When Solomon had
erected these walls, his next task was to level the inclosed space, amounting to
thirty-five acres, so as to bring the low slopes next to the walls up to the
height of the space about the temple, or nearly so. He left the court
immediately about the temple higher than the surrounding area, but doubtless
only a few feet higher. The filling in necessary for the purpose of this
leveling, is estimated by Captain Warren at not less than 70,000,000 of cubic
feet. To save the necessity of filling this space solidly, a large number of
stone piers were built at the southeastern angle, where was the greatest open
space, nearly to the desired height. Vaults of masonry were turned on top of
these, and earth laid on top of the vaults. These, when first discovered in
modern times, were called Solomon's Stables, in ignorance of their true design.
They are seen in the preceding cut. When the space within the walls was thus
leveled, or reduced sufficiently near to a level to suit Solomon's purposes, the
walls were doubtless carried up still higher all around, and a parapet
constructed on top of them; so that they served the additional purpose of a
military defense to the temple. As such they presented, on the eastern side, a
perpendicular front, averaging more than 150 feet, with a steep approach to the
foot of the wall from the narrow floor of the Kedron Valley. Opposite the
southeast angle this valley was 100 feet lower than the foundation of the wall
and very close to it. The entire height of the wall at this angle above the
valley below must have been not less than 280 feet. The earth outside the wall
at this point, as Captain Warren discovered by his excavations, was only 8 feet
deep; for in digging here he passed through débris until within 8 feet of the
rock, when he struck the original natural soil. The exposed part of the wall
then, outside, was about 172 feet high, supposing it to have been built 10 feet
higher than the summit of the mountain, while the exposed part inside was only
10 feet. Thus was the mountain cased in with a stone wall, and changed from a
sharp ridge to a vast mound, with a level summit of thirty-five acres containing
the temple and its courts. Only at the northwestern corner of the inclosed space
was it approachable on level ground, and in this respect it was precisely like
Mount Zion. What extra defense was built here the Scriptures do not inform us;
probably nothing more than a suitable strengthening of the wall by towers and
buttresses. This temple-crowned and stone-encased mountain was next connected
with the previously existing city on Mount Zion by running two walls across the
intervening valley, one from the northern curve of Mount Zion, and the other
from such a point along the eastern side of the same as to connect it most
conveniently with the southern end of the temple inclosure. No trace has been
found of the foundations of these walls, but the remains of two bridges that
once spanned the valley and furnished passages from one mountain to the other
have been discovered. The more southern of these, 39 feet from the angle, is
called Robinson's arch, from the name of its modern discoverer, Dr. Edward
Robinson; and the more northern Wilson's arch, from the name of its discoverer,
Captain Wilson, of the Palestine Exploration Fund. It is believed that both of
these arches were built by Herod; but beneath them are the remains of older
ones, which are supposed to have been the work of Solomon.

Many modern reconstructors of ancient Jerusalem have located Solomon's palace at
the southern end of the temple inclosure, and most of these have supposed that
it occupied the southeast angle; but they seem to have strangely overlooked the
fact that, if thus situated, it must have been built on the tall columns erected
there for the purpose of leveling up the surface, and the erection of a large
and massive palace on such supports is unheard of in the history of
architecture. The author cannot resist the conclusion advocated by Captain
Warren, against the almost unanimous voice of recent explorers, that this palace
stood on the loftier hill of Zion. As Warren is the most thorough and exhaustive
explorer who has ever worked on the topography of Jerusalem, his opinion is
entitled to the highest degree of respect.

III. Jerusalem: Additions By The Successors Of Solomon When Solomon's work on
Jerusalem was completed, the city walls included, as we have seen in the
previous section, Mount Zion, a small portion of Mount Moriah, and so much of
the Tyropeon Valley as lay between these two. The southern continuation of Mount
Moriah, often mentioned under the name Ophel, a long tongue-like slope
terminating at the junction of the Tyropeon and Kedron Valleys, was left outside
the walls. All of the same mount which lay north of the northern wall of the
temple court was also left outside, but a broad ditch in the solid rock, which
is still visible, was cut across it to prevent an easy approach from that
direction. At that time the northern wall of Mount Zion overlooked the upper
part of the Tyropeon Valley, while another valley nearly at a right angle to
this extended northward along the entire western base of Mount Moriah. In the
angle between these two valleys arose a knoll whose rock-summit is 2490 feet
above the sea level, just 50 feet lower than the summit of Mount Zion. See the
cut of the rock-soundings, page 144. All of this was then outside of the city.
But a second wall, beginning at the northwest corner of Zion, and heading the
Tyropeon Valley, inclosed this knoll, and passing thence across the other valley
terminated at the northwestern corner of the temple wall. Josephus calls the
part thus inclosed the lower city, from the fact that it was all lower than
Mount Zion; and he says that "it is of the shape of the moon when she is
horned," by which he evidently means that its outward limit was an arc of a
circle. It is possible that this wall was built by Solomon, and that it is
included in the Scripture statement that he built "the wall of Jerusalem round
about;"but we have no specific ground on which to ascribe the work to him, and
we have as little for ascribing it to any one of his successors. The next
statement which we find in the Scriptures concerning the building of walls is in
2Ch 26:9, where it is said that "Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem, at the corner
gate, and at the valley gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified
them." This appears to be a strengthening of existing walls by additional means
of defense, but not the erection of new walls. In the reign of Jotham, the
successor of Uzziah, there seems to have been a wall upon Ophel, the southern
extremity of Mount Moriah; for it is said of Jotham that "He built the high gate
of the house of the Lord, and upon the wall of Ophel he built much." Of the
extent of this wall we know nothing.

Hezekiah found it necessary to again repair the walls of the city, and he built
a new wall of whose position and extent we know nothing. We have only the brief
statement that "he built up the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the
towers, and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David." To
Manasseh, the son and successor of Hezekiah, is ascribed the complete inclosure
of Ophel: "He built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon
in the valley, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height."
The clauses, "without the city of David" and "on the west side of Gihon in the
valley," locate that part of this wall which reached from the wall of the city
of David, or Mount Zion, across to Ophel. Gihon is the name by which the
Tyropeon Valley was then known. This wall was "in the valley" because it
extended across the valley, and it was "on the west of Gihon" in the sense that
most of it was on the west side, the deepest part of the valley here lying close
under the precipice of Ophel. Many modern writers on Jerusalem have doubted the
existence of a wall around Ophel, and they gave this passage a different
interpretation, until Captain Warren actually found a large portion of it during
his excavations, and traced its course from the southeastern angle of the
temple-wall about 700 feet south, where it terminated within a few feet of the
surface. It is 14 feet thick, and, though entirely under ground, it is from 40
to 60 feet high.

We have no account of other additions to the city previous to the Babylonian
captivity. We suppose that no others were made, and that consequently the city
of Jerusalem, during the period of the kings of Judah, attained to no greater
dimensions than those which we have given above. In other words, the city, in
its greatest extent during this period, included no more than Mount Zion, Mount
Moriah as far north as the temple-court extended, the valley between these two,
and the comparatively low ground lying in the angle north of the former and west
of the latter. When Nehemiah re-erected the walls, after the return of the Jews
from Babylon, he built on the old foundations, and the former dimensions of the
city seem to have been restored. From that time till the time of Christ only two
alterations are known to have been made in its topography. Josephus represents
the Asmonean princes as having cut down the top of the knoll in the lower city
called Akra, and filled up the Tyropeon Valley. This was a change in the level
of the northern part of the city. The other change was made by Herod. He
reconstructed the temple and its surrounding walls, and built a fortification at
the northwest corner of its outer court, which he named Antonia in honor of Mark
Antony. He also built a number of towers in the walls of Zion and Akra. These
changes left the general outline of the city about as it was before the
captivity, and consequently the Jerusalem of the gospel narratives was nearly
identical in extent with the Jerusalem of the later kings and prophets.

The Tower of David,—Northern Side The most important addition made to the city
after the time of Solomon, and the one which brought it to the greatest extent
it ever attained, was begun by Agrippa (the Herod of Acts 12.) and afterwards
completed by the Jews. It is commonly called the third wall, the second being
the semicircular one inclosing Akra, and the first the original wall around
Mount Zion. The only account of this wall which has come down to us is given by
Josephus. He represents it as starting from the Tower of Hippicus, supposed to
be identical with the present Tower of David (see the cut on the opposite page),
adjoining the Joppa gate; thence it ran north as far as the most northern part
of the city; thence it passed somewhat east of north until it came "over against
the monuments of Helena" (a locality not certainly identified); thence it
extended to "the Tower of the Corner," which must be the northeastern angle of
the wall; and thence it ran southward along the eastern declivity of Mount
Moriah, overlooking the Kedron Valley, until it united with the northeastern
wall of the temple inclosure, which had previously been the northeastern corner
of the city. This wall inclosed additional space along the western and northern
sides of Akra, which had been called the lower city. The northwestern part of
the ground thus inclosed was higher than the summit of Mount Zion. It has an
elevation of 2570 feet, according to Conder, while that of Mount Zion is 2540
feet. It also inclosed the northern extension of Mount Moriah, which Josephus
says was then called Beze'tha, the New City. This historian states the occasion
of constructing this wall in these words: "As the city grew more populous it
gradually crept beyond its old limits, and those parts of it which stood north
of the temple and joined that hill to the city made it considerably larger, and
occasioned that hill, which is in number the fourth, to be inhabited also." His
account of the cessation of Agrippa's work on the wall, and of its subsequent
completion, is as follows: "He left off building it after he had only laid the
foundations, out of the fear he was in of Claudius Cæsar, lest he should suspect
that so strong a wall was built in order to make some innovation in public
affairs; for the city could in no way have been taken if that wall had been
finished in the manner it was begun. As its parts were connected together by
stones twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad, which could never have been
either easily undermined by any iron tools or shaken by any engines... After
this it was erected with great diligence by the Jews as high as twenty cubits,
above which it had battlements of two cubits and turrets of three cubits
altitude, insomuch that the altitude extended as far as twenty-five cubits." The
death of Agrippa occurred in the year 44 of our era, just ten years after the
death of Jesus, and twenty-six years before the destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus; consequently, this enlargement of the city to the greatest dimensions
which it ever attained occurred subsequent to the solemn announcement of its
doom which had been made by Jesus. Though that doom was to befall it, according
to the prediction, before the generation then living should pass away, when ten
years had passed the city had started on a new career of growth and apparent
prosperity, yet the words of Jesus were not falsified by the result.

IV. Jerusalem: Its Destruction By Titus And Its Later History

Jerusalem was taken by Titus in the year 70 of our era after a desperate war and
a bloody siege. It is asserted by Josephus that during this war 97,000 Jews were
carried into captivity, and that the number of those who perished in the city
was 1,100,000. He does not claim that the population of the city was equal to
this last sum, but that so many were assembled there at the Passover feast when
the siege was begun, and were shut up within the city by the approach of the
Roman army. His account of the destruction of the city at the close of the siege
is given in the following words:

"Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there
remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared
any had there remained any other such work to be done), Cæsar gave orders that
they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of
the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency, that is, Phasaelus, and
Hippicus, and Mariamne, and so much of the wall as inclosed the city on the west
side. This wall was spared in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in
garrison, as were the towers also spared in order to demonstrate to posterity
what kind of a city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had
subdued; but for all the rest of the wall it was so thoroughly laid even with
the ground, by those who dug it up to the foundation, that there was left
nothing to make those that came hither believe it ever had been inhabited."

Such was the close of Jerusalem's history as a Jewish city. It fell with the
downfall and dispersion of the nation. A very brief synopsis of its subsequent
history is given in Smith's Bible Dictionary (Art. Jerusalem), from which we
glean the following facts. For more than fifty years after its destruction by
Titus Jerusalem disappears from history. Of its annals during this period we
know nothing. But in A. D. 132, under the Emperor Hadrian, the Jews then in
Palestine concocted a secret revolt, made one Bar Co'chebas their leader,
crowned him as a king, took possession of the ruins of Jerusalem, and undertook
to rebuild the temple. They maintained themselves against the Roman army, which
was sent to subdue them, for two years, when the city was taken, and Bar
Co'chebas was killed. Other fighting of a most desperate character followed, in
which there was frightful slaughter on both sides; but the Jews who escaped the
slaughter were totally dispersed. Under Hadrian's orders the ruins of the city
which Titus had left standing were razed, the site of the temple was ploughed
over, a temple to Jupiter was built on a portion of it, and a statue of the
emperor was erected where the Holy of Holies had been. A Roman colony was
planted in the city, and its name was changed to Aelia Capitolina, a name which
it continued to bear for several centuries, and Jupiter was proclaimed its
guardian deity. Jews were forbidden to enter the city under pain of death, and
this prohibition continued in force for about 200 years; but about the middle of
the fourth century they were allowed to enter it once a year, and weep over it
on the anniversary of its capture. Jerome represents them in his day as being
accustomed thus to weep by the west wall of the temple, and says: "On the ninth
of the month Ab might be seen the aged and the decrepit of both sexes, with
tattered garments and disheveled hair, who met to weep over the downfall of
Jerusalem, and purchased permission of the soldiery to prolong their
lamentations."

After the changes effected by Hadrian, but little is known of the city until the
fourth century, except that it became to some extent a Christian city, and that
a list of twenty-three bishops who resided there is preserved. In A. D. 326, the
Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, visited Jerusalem and built a church on
the Mount of Olives to commemorate the ascension of Christ, and one in Bethlehem
over the supposed site of the Saviour's birth. Her son, the emperor, followed
her example by building a chapel over the supposed site of the Holy Sepulchre.
In the year 362, the Emperor Julian, commonly called the apostate, was moved by
his hatred of Christianity to attempt the reconstruction of the Jewish temple
and the restoration of its ancient worship. Materials were furnished at his
expense, and many of the Jews entered upon the work with great enthusiasm; but
while they were clearing away the rubbish and preparing for the foundations of
the new temple balls of fire issued from under the ruins and frightened the
workmen away. Many exaggerated accounts of this incident were given by Christian
writers of the period, but the principal fact is asserted in the writings of
Ammianus Marcellinus, a friend and companion in arms of the emperor, and it must
be credited. The occurrence was universally ascribed at the time to supernatural
agency, but it may have been the result of the explosion of gases which had
accumulated in openings amid the ruins, and which exploded as the air was let in
by the tools of the workmen. In the year 529 the Greek emperor Justinian built
in Jerusalem a church in honor of the Virgin Mary, and also established a number
of monasteries in the neighborhood of Jerusalem and Jericho. The country had
then been for two hundred years the resort of many pilgrims, and monks and
hermits had been for a long time swarming to its sacred localities in great
numbers. This state of affairs was interrupted early in the next century by the
results of a war between the Emperor Heraclius and the Persians under Chosro'es
II. The Persian army invaded Palestine in 614, and, assisted by many Jews, took
Jerusalem by assault, slew many of the monks and clergy, demolished all the
churches, and burned much of the city. The war lasted for fourteen years, and
finally resulted in a victory over the Persians and the restoration of
Jerusalem; but the triumph was of short duration, for in 637, only nine years
later, the city was surrendered to the Calif Omar and entered upon its history
as a Mohammedan city. It was stipulated as one condition of the surrender that
the Christian population should be still permitted to worship in their existing
churches, but that no more churches should be built. This liberty has been
continued with but little interruption until the present day. Omar removed the
dirt and filth which had accumulated on the site of the temple, assisting in the
work with his own hands, and built thereon a wooden place of prayer. In the year
688, only fifty-one years after the surrender to Omar, the Calif Abd-el-Melek
replaced this wooden structure by the splendid building which now occupies the
spot, improperly called the Mosque of Omar. This last fact is attested by an
inscription in the building itself. The next important epoch in the history of
the city is its capture by the Crusaders in the year 1099. It was then made the
seat of a Christian kingdom, and continued so until after the fatal battle of
Hattîn, near Tiberias, in July, 1187, in which the celebrated Saladin broke the
power of the Christian kingdom and again restored Jerusalem to Mohammedan
dominion. Within the next fifty years it fell twice more into the hands of
Christians, only to be speedily lost, and finally, in 1244, the efforts of the
Crusaders were abandoned, and Palestine remained a dependency of the caliphate
of Egypt. In the year 1517, Selim I., sultan of the Ottoman empire, took
possession of the country, and his successor, Suleiman, built the present walls
of Jerusalem, A. D. 1542. With the exception of eight years, from 1832 to 1840,
during which it was once more held by Egypt, under Mohammed Al'i, it has
remained under the dominion of the Turkish sultan until the present time, a
period of three hundred and sixty-three years.

V. Jerusalem: Its Present Walls, Hills, And Valleys In studying the remainder of
our description of Jerusalem, it would be well for the reader to make frequent
references to the plan of the city on the opposite page.

Plan of Jerusalem. 1. Armenian Quarter. 2. Christian Quarter. 3. Mohemmedan
Quarter. 4. Jewish Quarter. 5. Upper Quarter. 6. Lower Quarter. 7. Pool of
Hezekiah. 8. Lion Gate. 9. Bethesda. 10. Dome of the Rock. 11. Golden Gate. 12
Tower of Antonia. 13. Church of the Pater Noster. 14. Absalom's Tomb. 15.
Aceldama. The only gate now on the western side of Jerusalem is the one called
by the Arabs Bab-el-Kulîl (the Gate of the Friend). An inscription cut in Arabic
characters into a marble slab over the entrance sufficiently points out the
"friend" referred to in the name. It is this: "There is no god but God, and
Abraham is the friend of God." This gate is chiefly known to Europeans as the
Joppa gate, because through it the road to Joppa enters the city. But it is
sometimes called the "Bethlehem Gate," because the road to Bethlehem, which
approaches it from the southwest, also enters through it. Much more than half
the travel and traffic of the entire city at the present time passes through
this gate; consequently, it is the best point from which to start in attempting
to give the reader a general conception of the city. From the Joppa gate the
wall runs almost due northwest about 1300 feet, where it reaches the northwest
corner of the city. Here stood an old castle called Kalât el Jalûd (the Castle
of Goliath); but in the year 1878 its ruins were entirely demolished, and the
ground is now occupied by a large and handsome two-story school-building
belonging to the Franciscan monks, and by the garden and playground attached to
this building. The natural rock on which the wall stands rises at this corner
several feet above the outside surface, and the inner surface here is the
highest part of the city.

The Damascus Gate From the northwest corner of the city the distance along the
northern wall to the Damascus gate is nearly 600 yards, in a waving line. The
direction is about east northeast, and there is a descent of about 50 feet, so
that when you stand on top of the wall over that gate, which is 50 feet high,
you are about on a level with the foundation of the wall back at the northwest
corner. This is the most elaborately constructed of all the present gates, and
it is defended by two towers, which are seen in the preceding cut. Passing along
the top of the wall from this gate in the same general direction, but a little
nearer east, at a distance of 375 yards farther we come to a gate now closed up,
called Herod's gate. In passing this distance we have crossed over another rise
in the ground, which is nearly as high as the northwest corner; and here the
natural rock shows itself at least 25 feet above the outside surface, forming a
perpendicular ledge, on the top of which the wall is built. Standing here and
looking back, we can very plainly see that we have crossed a valley, and that
the Damascus gate is in the lowest part of it. Then turning and looking toward
the northeast corner, we see that there is a rapid descent to the Herod gate,
and thence, a level to the corner. From the Herod gate to the northeast corner,
bearing very little north of east, is about 330 yards. Adding together the
figures now given along the northern wall, we find the distance about 1300
yards, nearly three-quarters of a mile. This is the longest side of the city.
The eastern wall is 921 yards or a little more than half a mile in length, and
its course is nearly due north and south. From the northeast corner south to St.
Stephen's gate, the only gate now in use on this side, is about 341 yards, and
the descent is probably 40 feet. Thence to the corner of the har'am or temple
inclosure, is about 67 yards, and the entire length of the eastern wall of the
har'am is 512 yards. This wall overlooks the Valley of the Kedron all the way,
and it maintains a gradual descent through its entire length, though the
steepest descent is from the northern end of it down to St. Stephen's gate. The
wall on the south side of the city is very crooked. Starting from the southeast
corner of the har'am, the wall of this inclosure is the outer wall of the city
for about 238 yards westward, where the city wall starts out at a right angle,
and runs by a rapid descent down the slope of Ophel southward for 98 yards.
Thence making another right angle, it runs west 171 yards, where it reaches a
small gate commonly called the Dung gate, but called in Arabic Mugrabin or
Stranger's gate. This last piece of wall crosses the Tyropeon Valley, and makes
an ascent of about 50 feet up the side of Mount Zion, and the gate is on a
shoulder of this mount. The wall where it crosses the valley is not over five
feet above the level of the ground on the inside which is here cultivated as a
garden, though it is more than 30 feet above the ground on the outside. From the
Dung gate the wall continues to ascend toward the southwest, making four angles
of 45° alternately southward and westward, and reaches Zion gate (sometimes
called David's gate) at a distance of about 320 yards. This gate is on the
highest part of Mount Zion crossed by the wall, and it is nearly 300 yards from
the southwest corner of the city. The entire southern wall, from the southeast
corner of the har'am to the southwest corner of the city, is 1127 yards long, or
about two-thirds of a mile. The western wall runs almost due north from its
southern extremity until it reaches the ditch surrounding the citadel near the
Joppa gate, a distance of nearly 300 yards. This fortification extends thence
153 yards to the Joppa gate. Consequently this gate is about 453 yards north of
the southwest angle of the wall, and, as we saw in the beginning of this
description, about 433 yards from the northwest angle. The entire western wall,
then, is 886 yards, or about a half-mile in length, with the Joppa gate a little
nearer its northern than its southern extremity. This is the shortest side of
the city. The measurements above given were taken by the author himself, and
chiefly by measuring along the top of the wall. It was his aim to get the
distances along the general direction of each wall, and consequently he left out
the length of some portions of each which run at right angles to the general
course. The whole distance around the wall, according to these figures, is about
4264 yards, or a little less than 2 1/2 miles. The circuit of the city is
represented by Conder at about 23/4 miles, and it would very nearly reach this
distance if the measurement were made on the ground outside, and included all
the sinuosities of the walls. The wall varies in height from forty to fifty feet
above the outside surface, but at the southeast angle of the har'am it is eighty
feet. It is nine feet thick at the base; the parapet is three feet thick; and
there are two places for the lines of soldiers to stand upon, each three feet
wide, and one about four feet below the other. The hills of the ancient city
have undergone so little change as to be identified without the least
uncertainty. About one-half of Mount Zion now lies outside of the southern wall,
and the most of it is cultivated in grain, thus fulfilling to the letter the
prediction of Micah when he said to Judah, "Therefore shall Zion, for your sake,
be ploughed like a field."

Ak'ra, the hill north of Zion, still rises forty feet higher than the highest
part of Zion, but it still slopes downward as it approaches the angle between
Zion and Moriah. It also slopes downward toward the Joppa gate, and more rapidly
still toward the Damascus gate. The ridge north of the temple inclosure, once an
unbroken continuance of Mount Moriah, has undergone the greatest change. Where
the wall crosses it between the Damascus gate and the Herod gate a cut has been
made through its solid rock, so as to leave a wide space between the wall which
rests on one side of the cut and the other perpendicular side, thus preventing
the possibility of an approach to the wall along the crest of the ridge. This
cut is about two hundred feet wide. So much of the original ridge as lies
between this wall and the north wall of the har'am is now called Beze'tha, which
means, as explained by Josephus, the new city. That part of the original Mount
Moriah which is inclosed by the har'am wall remains as it was in the days of
Herod, with the exception of the changes effected by the frequent destruction
and re-erection of its walls and the entire change of the buildings within. The
greatest change in the surface-level of the city has taken place, as would
naturally be supposed, in its valleys. All of these have been to a great extent
filled up. Conder estimates the present surface of David Street, along the
northern foot of Mount Zion, as forty feet higher than its ancient level, and
thinks that the city in general has an average elevation of thirty feet, the
result of so frequently tearing down houses and building others on their ruins.
But the greatest filling up of the Tyropeon Valley is along that part which lies
between Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. Near the southwest corner of the har'am,
Captain Warren found the rock sixty feet below the present surface, and a short
distance from that corner, along the southern wall, where the surface maintains
the same level, he found it ninety feet below. His shafts were sunk through
rubbish, which was so loose and so much disposed to "run," that he was compelled
to case them strongly with wood as he descended. The cut on the following page
represents the shaft which he sank at the southeast angle of the har'am, and it
illustrates his mode of working at other points. He was compelled to sink his
shafts at a distance from the wall, and then tunnel under to examine the
foundations, because there were graves near the wall which he was not allowed to
disturb.

One of Captain Warren's Shafts The same indefatigable explorer found that the
Valley of the Kedron is also largely filled up. At the southeast corner of the
har'am the rock was found eighty-seven feet below the present surface, and the
whole of this is made earth and rubbish except eight feet of "fat-mold" next to
the rock. Here there is an accumulation of about nearly eighty feet of débris
from the crumbled materials of former walls. He also found the ancient bed of
the Kedron, which was identified by its layer of water-worn pebbles, forty feet
beneath its present surface. Moreover, the deepest part of this valley has been
pushed eastward by the accumulation of rubbish from the wall until it is now
ninety feet east of the original bed of the Kedron. The fact that this stream
has long since ceased to flow except in the wettest of seasons is accounted for
by the fact that this vast accumulation of loose rubbish absorbs the water as it
flows from the hill-sides. This valley begins about a mile north of the city as
a mere depression in the surface; and when it first turns southward, northeast
of the city, it is a smooth, broad valley covered with grain-fields and
olive-orchards. When it reaches a point opposite the northeastern angle of the
city wall it has become quite narrow, its sides are steep, and its depth beneath
the wall is nearly as great as it attains at any point below, for though its bed
continues to descend, the surface along the foot of the wall descends almost as
rapidly. Opposite St. Stephen's gate the side of the valley is so steep that the
road descending into it is cut with a zigzag, and when it reaches nearly to the
bottom of the valley a further descent is saved by a stone bridge on arches
thrown across to the foot of the Mount of Olives. From this bridge southward,
almost to the southeast angle of the city wall, the valley has a level bed fifty
yards or more in width, set with olive-trees and cultivated in grain. Walls have
been built across it at intervals to check the wash and to secure an
accumulation of soil. Below the southeast angle of the wall, however, the valley
becomes a narrow ditch and shows marks of the rapid rush of torrents of water
after heavy winter rains. Here it deepens rapidly, and near the extreme southern
foot of Ophel it widens out again and makes room for luxuriant vegetable-gardens
irrigated by water from the Pool of Siloam.

the Valley of Gihon The Valley of Hinnom, as we have stated, has also undergone
a considerable elevation. No excavations have been made in it, so as to
ascertain the exact depth of the rock beneath the present surface, but a great
part of its space is occupied by large and flourishing olive-trees, showing that
the depth of the soil must be considerable. It is no longer the narrow, deep,
and gloomy gorge that it once was. When the brow of Mount Zion was crowned with
lofty walls, and its rocky side was bare of soil, while the bed of the valley
was the naked rock now many feet beneath the surface, it was a gloomy place, and
well adapted to the horrid orgies practiced there in a spot called Tophet by two
of the apostate kings of Judah. But now nearly all that part of it which lies
south of Mount Zion is from fifty to seventy-five yards wide, and has a smooth
floor and a rich soil. It is preserved from being washed into gullies during the
winter rains by stone walls built across it at short intervals, and it receives
an annual accretion of rich soil by the wash from the heights on either side.
The olive-trees spread over it a pleasant shade, but not thick enough in the
spring to prevent the maturing of the grain that is grown on the well-ploughed
ground. On the western side of Mount Zion, and about midway between its northern
and southern extremities, this valley is occupied by Bîrket es Sûltan (the Pool
of the Sultan), known to English readers as the lower pool of Gihon. From the
lower end of this pool to its head, a half-mile west of Joppa gate, the valley
is known as the Valley of Gihon. The chief portion of the upper part is
cultivated in much the same manner as the lower part. In the above cut we look
up the Valley of Gihon to the western wall of the city.

VI. Jerusalem: Its Streets, Public Buildings, Etc

There are only four streets in the city of Jerusalem which are dignified by
names, and all these seem to have been named by Europeans. The first of these
with which the traveler becomes acquainted is David Street. It commences at the
Joppa gate and runs almost due east through the city to the principal gate into
the har'am. It is nearly a straight line; but just before crossing the Tyropeon
Valley it makes a right angle to the right, and, after running south a few
steps, another right angle to the left, resuming its original course. From the
last angle to the har'am it has the name of Temple Street. David Street is about
twelve feet wide between the houses, with sidewalks about two feet wide and
slightly elevated. The Joppa gate, which admits us into this street, is a strong
tower thirty-six feet square, with its sides toward the cardinal points of the
compass. The gateway is not on its western side, as one would naturally expect,
but on that portion of its northern side which projects in front of the wall.
You approach it by a road parallel with the wall which runs off to the
northwest. Entering here, by a door twelve feet wide and sixteen feet high, you
turn square to the left, and enter the city through a similar opening on its
eastern side. This arrangement was intended for the better defense of the
gateway against an enemy trying to force his way through. The shutter is a
folding door made of timber five or six inches thick, covered with sheet-iron,
and thickly set with the heads of iron bolts. This gate, like all the others of
the city, now stands open night and day; so that visitors are no longer under
the necessity, as they were a few years ago, of getting inside of the city
before sunset to prevent being excluded for the night. A military guard is kept
at each gate, but chiefly to regulate the ingress and egress of the soldiers of
the Turkish garrison. Perhaps their presence also tends to preserve the quiet
and good order which always prevail among the comers and goers. Through this
gate pass more than half the people who go in and out of Jerusalem; and the
level space in front of it is always crowded with motley groups of men, women,
and children; beggars, camels, and donkeys. All styles of dress are seen, and
many different languages are spoken.

After passing through this gate you see before you an open space of irregular
shape, bordered on the right by a low wall guarding the moat of the citadel, and
on the left by a garden-wall and some small houses. The space varies from six to
ten yards in width, and stretches about seventy yards before you on a level,
when it begins to descend, and soon enters the narrow mouth of David Street.
Along this descent on the left are two stores, kept on the European plan and
supplied with European articles; and next to them is the Mediterranean Hotel, a
two-story building of stone, with comfortable rooms and good accommodations. It
is kept, and has been for many years, by a German named Hornstein. He was one of
Dr. Barclay's converts while a missionary in Jerusalem. Passing the hotel and
entering David Street, you continue to descend until you reach the angle in the
street above mentioned. In this descent you cannot keep the sidewalk, on account
of meeting persons whom you cannot pass without stepping into the street, and on
account of persons, baskets, boxes, etc., occupying it in front of the open
shops. The stones of the street are so slick, of so many different sizes, and so
rounded on the top, that it requires constant care to maintain a perpendicular,
and walking on them is laborious. The street is nearly always crowded, and while
no vehicles of any kind are ever seen in the city, you meet many loaded camels
and asses, which occupy nearly the entire street, and they turn neither to the
right hand nor to the left to avoid a collision with you. The bazaars here are
devoted chiefly to the sale of groceries and other provisions, including
vegetables and fruits, and the traffic is chiefly in the hands of Turks and
Ar'abs. About the angles of the street towards the har'am are the shops which
deal in dry goods, and here, besides the Ar'ab dealers, are many Jews. Here the
street is covered overhead, partly by arches and partly by matting stretched on
poles. It reaches the har'am on a level with its surface, showing that here the
Tyropeon Valley has been filled up to a level with the top of Mount Moriah. On
the right, as you pass down David Street, are a number of narrow alleys leading
up the slope of Mount Zion, some of them so steep that they are ascended by
steps. On the left you occasionally pass a mill, and occasionally a house
devoted to the buying and selling of grain. Indeed, the amount of traffic on
this street, and the stir and business activity, are quite a surprise to any one
who enters Jerusalem with the idea that it is a dead city. On your left, as you
enter this street from the Joppa gate, the ground rises by a gradual slope
northward. But below the Mediterranean Hotel the ground to the left runs off for
some distance on a level, and farther down the street there is a descent to the
left which increases as you advance. This arises from the fact that David Street
occupies a bench cut along the northern side of Mount Zion. It slopes downward
only fast enough to strike the level of Mount Moriah at its farther end.

If you enter the city from the east you pass through St. Stephen's gate. The
principal street from this gate runs westward entirely across the city nearly
parallel with David Street, the space between the two being about two hundred
yards wide. This is the Via Dolorosa.

St. Stephen's gate is a square tower like the Joppa gate, but does not, like it,
project beyond the wall. Its door is immediately in front; but after you enter
the tower you turn square to the left and enter the city through its southern
side. As you do so you see before you a narrow street, 200 feet long, leading
along the city wall to the north end of the har'am, and entering that inclosure
through a narrow gateway in its wall. On the right of this street, all the way,
is the so-called Pool of Bethesda, of which we will give a description in
another section. Turning westward at the gate you see the Via Dolorosa
stretching before you, with a gradual rise as it advances. On your left for a
considerable distance, filling all the space between the street and the har'am
wall, is the Pool of Bethesda. A wall six feet high guards against falling into
it. On your right, opposite the pool, is the church and convent of St. Anne,
belonging to the Latin Church, and dedicated to Anne, the supposed mother of the
Virgin Mary. After passing the pool the remainder of the space between the
street and the northern end of the har'am is occupied by the barracks for the
Turkish garrison. This pile of buildings is supposed (for reasons which have
satisfied nearly all the explorers of Jerusalem) to occupy the identical sites
of the house of Pontius Pilate, and the castle of Antonia in which Paul was
confined by the chief captain. Two narrow passages run through under this mass
of buildings from the Via Dolorosa into the har'am, making, with the one above
mentioned, three entrances into the northern end of that inclosure.

Via Dolorose,—Pilate's Arch

Opposite the northwest corner of the barracks stands a Latin convent, and from
its wall springs an arch which spans the narrow street and supports a small room
with a window looking eastward. (See the cut on the opposite page.) This is
called Pilate's arch, or the arch of Ecce Homo, because of a tradition, dating
from the fifteenth century, that here Pilate caused Jesus to be led forth, and
exclaimed, "Ecce Homo!"—"Behold the Man!" At this point the Via Dolorosa, having
maintained a slight ascent from the lower corner of the barracks, begins a rapid
descent toward the west. This descent leads into the bottom of the valley which
separates the hill Beze'tha, the southern end of which we have just crossed,
from Ak'ra. The Via Dolorosa here turns to the left and follows this valley
southward for a short distance, when it makes another angle to the west, and
continues with a constant ascent up the slope of Ak'ra to the western side of
the city. About one hundred yards from the last-mentioned angle it passes the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition locates the crucifixion and burial
of Jesus; and along the course of the street from the arch at the convent to
this church are pointed out by the superstitious priests of the city the spots
at which all the incidents of the march of Jesus from Pilate's house to Golgotha
that are mentioned in the Scriptures, and several which the Scriptures do not
mention, took place. The principal cross-street running north and south and
connecting the two streets which we have now described is Christian Street. On
leaving the Mediterranean Hotel and descending David Street, at a distance of
seventy or eighty yards you come to the southern end of Christian Street, and
turning into it by a right angle you follow it to the Via Dolorosa. It runs
almost on a level, and it is the seat of the Christian Bazaar, or the shops kept
by Christians of the Greek and Latin Churches, together with a few kept by
Protestants and Jews. Many of these shops are kept very much after the European
style, and among them are a bookstore, an antiquarian establishment, and a
regular European dry-goods store.

If you return to David Street and pass farther eastward, before reaching the
corner of Mount Zion you cross Damascus Street, along which, as far as the eye
can reach to the left, you see the Turkish Bazaar. This street, starting
southward from Damascus gate and crossing the Via Dolorosa at a right angle,
here crosses David Street at a similar angle, and continues its course southward
until it reaches Zion gate, in the southern wall of the city. It is the longest
street in the city, and that part south of David Street is called Zion Street. A
group of short covered streets near the intersection of David and Damascus
Streets accommodate the principal bazaars for the sale of dry goods, boots and
shoes, saddlery, and all the articles of like character manufactured or sold by
Turks, Ar'abs, and Jews. The city is divided into four distinct quarters, named
according to the predominant population in each. All that portion which lies
south of David Street is divided into the Armenian quarter toward the west, and
the Jewish quarter toward the east. Zion Street is the dividing line. The
portion north of David Street is divided into the Christian quarter, which
includes all the northwestern part of the city, and the Turkish, which includes
all the northeastern part. Damascus Street is usually put down as the
dividing-line between these two quarters. None of these quarters must be
understood as being strictly exclusive, for while there are certainly very few
besides Jews in the Jewish quarter, and few besides Christians in the Christian
quarter, both Jews and Christians are found in all the quarters, and the
Protestant Christians are located chiefly in the Armenian quarter.

A View in Jerusalem The first public building that strikes the eye of a visitor
is the citadel, or "Tower of David," which stands immediately south of the Joppa
gate, and is partly hid from view by the tower of that gate as you approach it
on the Joppa Road. This is an irregular group of five square towers, all
constituting one fortification, and surrounded by a moat. The moat is about
thirty feet wide at the top, and where it has not been filled up to some extent
it is about twenty feet deep. It is walled on the outer side, and, this wall
rises about three feet above the surface to prevent persons and beasts from
falling into the moat. The moat is 460 feet long on the western side, which is
outside the city, and it is nearly as long on the eastern side. On the other two
sides it is about half as long. From the bottom of the moat on its inner side
the foundation-wall of the towers rises at an angle of about 60°, until it
reaches the level of the exterior surface, but the upper wall resting on this is
perpendicular. This foundation-wall is built of very large stones, many of them
eight or ten feet long and three feet thick, and they bear the ancient "Jewish
bevel," which indicates that they are of early Jewish origin. The upper part of
the structure is evidently modern, and probably dates from the last
reconstruction of the walls, in 1542. Its entire height is about eighty feet. A
few small pieces of cannon are mounted on the towers, and the citadel is
occupied by a garrison of Turkish soldiers.

Immediately left of the citadel, across an open space resembling a wide street,
is the American Consulate; and standing back from this street is the English
church, with the residence of the English Bishop of Jerusalem adjoining it. Both
the latter are handsome buildings of stone. Services in English are held in the
church every Lord's day; and nearly all the Protestant residents of the city, as
well as travelers who speak English, attend these services. The open space just
mentioned between the citadel and the English church runs on southward,
narrowing into a street, and passes the barracks on the right and the extensive
inclosure of the Armenian church and convent on the left. A large gateway on the
left admits you into a court, whence you have access to the Armenian Church of
St. James, a large and massive building with tawdry decorations. The residence
of the Patriarch is farther south; and also an extensive and irregular group of
buildings occupied by the priests and monks of the Armenian faith. The cut on
the opposite page gives a correct view of this part of the city. In the portico
of the Church of St. James the visitor is struck with two interesting objects:
one an immense plank of hard wood suspended on chains, which is struck with
wooden mallets to call the priests and monks to prayer (answering to the bell in
Latin convents), and a cistern supplied with a little metallic bucket, from
which you are at liberty to draw and drink the coolest and purest water to be
found in Jerusalem. In the Jewish quarter there are four or five synagogues, but
only two of them are at all conspicuous. Both of these are square structures of
considerable height, with large plastered domes of masonry rising above them.
The newer and larger of the two is situated on the highest part of Mount Zion
towards its northeastern curve, and is one of the most conspicuous buildings in
the city. Its large dome, painted a lively green, attracts especial attention.
It was completed only a few years ago.

Returning now to the Joppa gate, and going northward along a narrow street
between that gate and the Mediterranean Hotel, you find the northwestern part of
the city occupied by extensive buildings belonging to the Latin Church, the most
conspicuous of which are the Bishop's residence, with a beautiful little
flower-garden along its western side, and a large new college, erected in 1878
by the Franciscan monks. The residence of the Greek Patriarch is also in this
part of the city, and a large Greek monastery lies between it and Christian
Street, with an entrance on the latter street. Very great improvement has been
made in this part of the city recently.

Front of Church of the Holy Sepulchre The most famous building in the city, and
by far the most interesting to those who believe the current traditions in
regard to it, is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is situated not far from
the angle between Christian Street and the Via Dolorosa, but it is separated
from both of these streets by smaller houses which are built against its walls
and extend out to the street, completely hiding the church. Its walls are nearly
everywhere hidden by adjoining houses; but a small open square on the south side
gives access to its principal entrance, and a section of the front of the
building, about fifty feet, is visible. This view of it is given in the cut on
the opposite page. The church is surmounted by two domes, one a very large one,
which towers above all surrounding buildings and is a conspicuous object in the
view of the city from a distance. The dome seen in our cut is the smaller one.

It would require many pages in this book to give a description of this church,
and it would be impossible to convey to persons not familiar with similar
structures an adequate conception of it. We will, therefore, mention only its
principal features and then pass on. It is a very irregular mass of buildings,
extending about 230 feet east and west, and about 200 north and south. In the
centre of the rotunda under the great dome (which is to the left of the one seen
in our cut) is a little building of white marble, 26 feet long by 17 wide and
about 15 high, wherein is the Holy Sepulchre proper. Its outer wall is
elaborately carved, and burning lamps of silver and gold hang thick about it,
while enormous candles in tall candlesticks of marble and silver stand in front
of it. It is divided into two rooms, and the entrance is through a door in the
eastern end, visible in the cut. The first room is called the Chapel of the
Angels, because it covers the spot where the angel rolled the stone away from
the sepulchre and sat down on it. This room is 16 feet long and 10 wide inside,
and is lighted by silver lamps. The inner room is called the Chapel of the
Sepulchre, and on your right hand, as you enter it, is seen a portion of the
natural limestone of the hill, said to be a part of the wall of the sepulchre
remaining in its original position. Silver lamps burn dimly here, and every
pilgrim who enters the place brings a wax taper to be lighted and left there,
and also leaves a contribution with the priest, receiving at his hands a slight
sprinkling of holy water; The chamber is only about six feet square, and the
ceiling is very low.

The Holy Sepulchre In different parts of the great edifice are large chapels,
belonging separately to the Greeks, the Latins, the Armenians, and the Copts. Of
these the Greek chapel is by far the most elaborately ornamented. It glitters
with ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones. Besides these there is a
multitude of small rooms and recesses, each the chapel of some particular saint.
The tradition-mongers have collected within this building all the spots made
sacred by incidents connected with the crucifixion. They show you the spot where
Jesus was nailed to the cross; a hole in the marble floor of the church, faced
with silver, in which the lower end of the cross was placed; and just five feet
distant on each side the sites of the crosses of the two thieves. A cleft in the
rock, about 4 1/2 feet from the foot of the cross and about six inches deep, is
one of the clefts made by the earthquake when Jesus died, and it is said by some
to reach to the centre of the earth! Between the cross and the sepulchre is
shown the very spot where the body of Jesus lay as Joseph and Nicodemus were
anointing it, and a little to one side is the chapel of Adam, marking the spot
where this venerable patriarch was buried. It is said that the blood of Jesus
flowed through the cleft in the rock above mentioned until it touched Adam's
skull, when he was restored to life. In another place a hole in the wall is
shown where his skull is yet preserved. You can put your hand into the hole, and
you are expected to believe. They show you a prison in which Christ was kept
while his cross was being prepared, and another little room in which the
soldiers parted his raiment. They show you the tombs of Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathea; a piece of the column to which Jesus was tied while they scourged
him, and another piece of a column which stands in the exact centre of the
world. Other things equally impossible or incredible, and almost without number,
make up the wonders of this building,—the centre of an astonishing superstition,
and the annual resort of tens of thousands of pilgrims. In this church is
annually enacted, during the festival of Easter, one of the most disgraceful and
shameless frauds ever invented in the name of religion. Through a hole in the
wall of the Chapel of Angels above described the Greek Patriarch, concealed
within, passes out a torch lighted with fire which has just descended from
heaven. A crowd of pilgrims filling every part of the church, and packed
together in a solid mass until not another human being can find admittance, are
waiting in darkness, with bunches of wax tapers in their hands which they are to
light from the heaven-descended fire. The latter is passed rapidly about over
the heads of the seething mass until all the tapers are lighted. In the mean
time the superstitious devotees bathe their hands in the flame, and scorch their
clothing with it, under the belief that it will bring many blessings to them.
The tapers, after burning a little while, are carried to the distant homes of
the pilgrims, and are there objects of devout reverence, as are the pilgrims
themselves. Not only the Greeks, but the Armenians, the Copts, and all other
Eastern sects, take part in this farce, and its origin dates back beyond the
ninth century. Until the sixteenth century the Latins participated in it; but
since then they have been indifferent to it. Lieutenant Conder, who twice
witnessed the scene, and gives a very full description of it, closes his account
with these words: "Every educated Greek knows it to be a shameful imposition;
but the ignorant Syrians and the fanatical Russian peasants still believe the
fire to descend from heaven. The clergy dare not enlighten them; and that crafty
diplomacy which encourages pilgrimages to Jerusalem by government aid fosters
the superstition, which is the main inducement for the Russian pilgrims to visit
the Holy City." The number of pilgrims who visit the city on these occasions is
sometimes estimated as high as 20,000. A very large number of them are from
Russia. Most of them are very poor people, who spend all of their earnings in
the pilgrimage. Many are very old, and all are stolidly ignorant and
superstitious. The question whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre occupies
the true site of Golgotha and of the sepulchre of Jesus, has elicited a vast
amount of discussion. Dr. Robinson was the first intelligent explorer of modern
times to vigorously argue the negative. The decision depends chiefly on the
question whether this site, which is now in the midst of the city, was within or
without the walls in the time of Christ. The Scriptures make it entirely certain
that the crucifixion occurred outside the city (John 19:20; Heb 13:12), and the
excavations made by Lieutenant Conder show that the "second wall," as the
northwestern wall of the city at that period is called, must have been outside
the site of this church. If it had not been, it would have stood on a hill-side
with the highest part of the hill rising above it on the outside,—a position
never chosen for the wall of a city where it can possibly be avoided. At present
the church is about two hundred yards within the wall at the nearest point. For
an elaborate argument on the subject, see Robinson, i. 407-418. The actual site
of Golgotha and the sepulchre cannot be determined with certainty; and no
wonder, when we consider the number of sieges which the city has undergone,
during which the entire surface outside was greatly changed, and the walls
repeatedly thrown down. Dr. Barclay conjectures that it was on the shoulder of
the hill just north of St. Stephen's gate, a very suitable locality, and nearer
than any other to the supposed site of Pilate's house whence Jesus was led
forth. Conder locates it on a knoll a short distance without the Damascus
gate,—a much more probable location than that covered by the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. Many other conjectures have been advanced; but it seems to the author
that the choice of an unprejudiced visitor to the city must lie between the two
just mentioned, with a slight preponderance in favor of the former.

VII. The Har'am In the second section of this chapter we have given an account
of the work done on Mount Moriah by Solomon, and in the section four a brief
account of important changes made since the close of New Testament history. In
those sections we anticipated to some extent the description of its present
condition.

North Wall of Haram,—Turkish Barracks The entire inclosure of about 35 acres,
having an average length from north to south of 1572 feet, and an average width
of 985 feet, is now called by the Arabs the Har'am es Sherîff', the Noble
Sanctuary, and it is regarded by the Moslem as the most sacred place in the
world next to the temple at Mecca. The name by which it is most usually
designated is simply "The Har'am." It is wider at the northern end than at the
southern, and longer at the western than at the eastern side. The two principal
buildings within this inclosure are the Dome of the Rock, already mentioned (p.
158), and the Mosque el Aksa. The latter occupies the southwestern corner of the
area, facing north, and the former stands a little nearer the northern than the
southern end, and a little nearer the western than the eastern side. The dome
stands on the highest natural level in the entire har'am, and it is surrounded
by a paved platform which is elevated above the surrounding area. This platform,
like the har'am area itself, is nearly, but not quite a rectangle. Its eastern
side is 528 feet long, while the western is 544 feet. Its southern side is 425
feet, and its northern 506. The northwestern and southwestern angles are nearly
right angles, while the northeastern is an acute angle, and the southeastern
slightly obtuse. It has an average length north and south of 536 feet, and an
average width of 465 feet. Its outer edge is about 10 feet in most places above
the surrounding area, and is supported by a perpendicular wall. The ascent is
made by two broad flights of steps on each side. On the top step of each of
these flights stand five marble columns supporting an arcade of four Saracenic
arches, under which you step upon the platform. The pavement of the platform is
not marble, as many have represented it, but a smooth white limestone. The
remainder of the har'am area is unpaved, and its surface is irregular. The most
frequented entrance to the har'am is that from David Street, through the Cotton
Bazaar. Here is the largest and finest of the gates now in use. On entering
through it you see the platform immediately before you, and on it the dome a
little to your left. One flight of steps leading up to the platform is near you
to the left. As you turn round to examine the wall through which you have just
passed, you see that it is used as the rear wall of houses almost continuously
built against it, with their upper stories resting on top of it, and their upper
windows looking into the har'am. You also see as you glance along this wall four
other gates, which, like the one by which you have entered, are approached from
the city by streets which pass under archways through the thickly-crowded
houses.

Moving northward between the west wall and the platform, which are here about
fifty yards apart, until you pass the latter, you have before you, in full view,
the entire northern wall of the area. The western end of it is really the wall
of the soldiers' barracks; but immediately at the corner, and for a hundred or
more yards eastward, the natural rock shows a perpendicular face from thirty
down to ten feet above the surface, and supports the wall of the barracks, which
rises fifteen or twenty feet higher. The barracks extend about one-third of the
way across the northern end of the area, and the remainder of the distance is
occupied by a wall about twenty feet high. The ground has a slight downward
slope towards the east all along this wall. As we have said before, there are
three small gateways through this wall, making, with the five on the western
side, eight gates through which ingress is obtained at the present time. All the
surface in the northwestern corner from the wall to the platform, a distance of
about one hundred yards, is the natural rock, which has been cut down from a
sharp ridge to its present level, leaving the perpendicular rock just mentioned
to mark its original elevation.

Standing on the natural rock-surface just mentioned, and looking southward, you
obtain the best view of the Dome building, and you see immediately before its
eastern front a small structure of similar shape, which appears at first glance
like a miniature copy of the great building, or a small model after which the
latter was constructed. It is called the Dome of the Chain, and sometimes the
Praying-Place of David. You also see scattered about the platform a large number
of diminutive cupolas, each resting on four columns, which are praying-places
for the Mohammedan worshipers. They are more numerous on this side than on any
other, for the reason that here the worshipers can face Mecca, which is
indispensable in their prayers, and at the same time face the sacred dome.

We now pass farther to the east, with a view of examining that part of the
har'am which lies east and south of the platform. When you reach the point at
which the northeastern corner of the platform is on your right, the Golden Gate,
which once admitted persons into the area from the east, is before you. The
outer entrance to this gate is walled up, and the time is not certainly known
when it was otherwise; but the entrance to its tower from the inside is still
open. Its floor, however, is at least twenty feet below the level of the area on
which you stand, and in order to enter it you must descend a steep path between
two sloping banks of earth. This gate, when in use, was more magnificently
adorned with columns and carved slabs than any of the present gates of the city,
and it was also more commodious. Its tower, measured on the inside, is 68 feet
east and west, and 34 feet north and south. It is divided longitudinally by a
row of columns into two passages, at each end of which were the corresponding
openings of the double gateway. It was intended for ingress by one passage and
egress by the other, and contemplated a great concourse of people. On the
outside it must have been reached by paths running beside the wall on the top of
the steep side of the Kedron Valley, or by steps ascending from a bridge across
that valley. Dr. Barclay supposes that a magnificent bridge, constructed of
arches upon arches, spanned the valley on a level with this gate. After entering
and passing through this gate, the level of the temple area within must have
been reached by another flight of steps twenty feet high. These have entirely
disappeared.

All about the uneven ground near this gate there is a growth of rank weeds and
cactus, imparting to the place a neglected appearance; and as we go farther
south the same air of neglect prevails. The southern half of the area is dotted
with a few ill-shaped olive-trees; and a half-dozen cypresses, of a feeble
growth, stand in the space immediately south of the platform. The wall along the
eastern side of the har'am, from the vicinity of the Golden Gate to its southern
end, is about ten feet high on the inside. If you ascend the wall here by a
flight of steps which is at hand, and look over, you see evidence of the
leveling which we have described in the section two of this chapter. While the
ground is only ten feet below you on the inside, it is between sixty and seventy
along the outside, except near the southeastern angle of the wall, where it is
eighty feet. Close to the steps by which you have ascended there is a granite
column built horizontally into the wall, and projecting about four feet beyond
it on the outside. On this, according to Mohammedan belief, the prophet will sit
in the day of judgment, while all the world will be assembled in the valley
below. A fine wire will be stretched from this column across the valley to the
Mount of Olives, and only such souls as can walk across on it will enter
Paradise. The "faithful" will be steadied by the hands of angels, but all Jews
and Christians will fall into the abyss below.

Near the southeast corner of the inclosure is a stairway by which we descend
into the so-called Solomon's Stables, the substructions which support the
surface of this part of the area. The original construction and design of these
we have stated in section two of this chapter, and we have given a cut of them
on page 149. The open space occupied by the piers which here support the surface
of the har'am, is irregular in shape. Its greatest extent east and west is 319
feet, and from south to north 247 feet. The pillars are about 3 1/2 feet square
and 30 feet high, and the stones of which they are built are about 5 feet high.
The style in which they are built is exhibited in the cut on page 149. The
thickness of the vaults and earth resting upon these is about 5 feet, so that a
person walking about on the southeastern part of the har'am area stands upon a
thin crust of earth and stone 5 feet thick, supported by an open colonnade 30
feet deep. Captain Warren thinks that this entire work is a comparatively modern
reconstruction out of the ancient and original material; and Dr. Barclay concurs
with him in regard to the vaults, but not in regard to the pillars which support
them.

Mosque El Aksa

Returning from these vaults to the surface, we pass westward along the southern
wall to the Mosque el Aksa, which occupies the southwestern corner of the
har'am. The name means "the mosque far away," that is, far away from Mecca. It
was originally a church, built by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, in
honor of the Virgin, and called the Church of St. Mary. The central portion of
the present building, about 280 feet deep from north to south, and 190 feet
wide, retains the original form. It was changed into a mosque by the Mohammedans
in the seventh century, restored by the Crusaders to a church in the eleventh
century, and again turned to a mosque in the twelfth century. A long, narrow
wing, supposed to have been built by the Crusaders, extends westward from the
right-hand side, near the rear of the building. It is about 220 feet long and 60
feet wide, with a low ceiling supported by columns. It is supposed that the
Crusaders used this for an armory. A much smaller wing opposite this extends
eastward about 90 feet, with a width of 21 feet. At the northeast corner is
another wing extending about 100 feet eastward, which is used as a military
magazine. Across the front of the central part of the structure extends a porch
180 feet wide and 20 deep, which is entered under an arcade of seven handsome
pointed arches, supported on massive piers. Opposite these are seven
corresponding doors opening into the interior. A flight of steps on the right
hand, in front of the mosque, leads to extensive vaults beneath its floor, and
at the most southern extremity of these is an ancient closed-up gateway, called
the Double Gate. When that gate was in use it led through this vaulted passage,
and up the steps just mentioned, into the temple area. Two other gates through
the southern wall, the triple gate, a short distance east of the mosque, and the
single gate, still farther east, also led into underground passages, and through
them, by flights of steps, up to the surface of the temple area. Their low
position was made necessary by the low level of the surface of Ophel outside the
wall, which varies from 30 to 60 feet below the inside surface of the har'am.

Leaving the mosque, with your face northward, you turn a little to the right in
advancing directly to the steps of the platform, and on your way you pass a
large fountain which would add much to the appearance of the grounds if it were
full of water and its jet playing; but it is dry and out of use. Ascending the
principal flight of steps, you stand on the sacred platform frequently mentioned
before, and looking about to see the condition of its pavement, you observe that
although the stones are all sound and in place, grass and weeds are allowed to
grow here and there between them. In former years, Christians were required to
bare their feet before walking on this pavement, but now this is required only
on entering the Mosque el Aksa and the Dome of the Rock; and even in these you
are allowed to walk in slippers, leaving your boots outside. On your left, as
you stand at the head of the steps just ascended, is a marble pulpit about 12
feet high, ascended by marble steps and surmounted by a small dome supported by
four columns. During the fast of the month Ramadân' a preacher delivers a
discourse from this pulpit to an audience seated on the pavement about it, every
Friday. You now fix your attention on the noble building before you, called
Kubbet es Sakhra, the Dome of the Rock. It has long been called by Christians
the Mosque of Omar, through the double mistake of supposing that it is a mosque
and that it was built by the Calif Omar. That which attracts your chief
attention, and with which the eye is never wearied, is the magnificent dome
which springs from the flat roof of the building. This dome is 65 feet in
diameter at its base, and 97 feet high from base to apex. The apex is 170 feet
high from the ground. It is covered with lead, almost black from exposure, and
is surmounted with a large gilt crescent. The peculiar grace of the curve with
which it springs from the drum on which it rests, and that with which it reaches
its crescent-crowned apex, distinguish it for beauty of outline above all other
domes, perhaps, in the world. From whatever point it is viewed, whether from the
har'am area, the city wall, the Mount of Olives, or any other height about the
city, it is the most prominent and pleasing object in Jerusalem. The building on
which it rests is an octagon, each of whose sides is 67 feet long and 46 high.
On the four sides which look toward the four cardinal points of the compass are
doors covered by porticos. Windows of richly-stained glass and pointed arches
stand close together all round the building. The walls are covered with panels
of variegated marble as high as the window-sills, about one-third the height of
the building, and thence to the top with porcelain tiles of blue, black, green,
yellow, and white. If the height of this part of the building were greater, the
appearance of the entire structure would be more pleasing.

Dome of the Rock From the central part of the flat roof of this octagonal
structure rises the drum of the dome, 27 feet in height. It is pierced by
sixteen windows filled with stained glass of dark colors, and its outer surface
is ornamented by colored porcelain in beautiful patterns. The cut on the
opposite page is as good a picture of the entire structure as can be made
without colors.

Entering the building by its eastern door, and proceeding at once to its central
part, we discover, immediately under the great dome, the object which gives name
and character to the entire building. It is a mass of the natural limestone rock
of the mountains top, of irregular surface and outline, about 6 1/2 feet high
near its western side, and sloping down nearly to the level of the floor along
its eastern side. On the western and northern sides it shows marks of cutting,
where blocks have been quarried from it, but elsewhere it is in its natural
state. Its width is 28 feet across the northern end, and 38 1/2 feet near the
southern end. Its greatest length, measured along its eastern side, is 52 feet.
It is surrounded by a wooden partition 5 feet high, over which visitors are not
allowed to pass, and which prevents such access to it as is necessary for exact
measurement. A rich canopy of crimson silk, mentioned by all of the earlier
visitors, and by Lieutenant Conder as late as 1875, was formerly suspended over
the rock, but it had been removed when the author was there, in 1879, and there
was nothing above the rock except the inner surface of the lofty dome, richly
ornamented with panels of blue, red, and gold, and a candelabra suspended over
the centre of the rock by a brass rod whose upper end reached the apex of the
dome. The stained-glass windows in the drum of the dome shed a dim and sombre
light over all. At the southeast corner of the rock is a pulpit 5 or 6 feet
high, from which is obtained a good view of the entire surface of the rock.
Adjoining this pulpit is a reading-desk, on which are kept some ancient and very
large manuscript copies of the Koran, the pages of which are 30 inches square.
Immediately to the east of this pulpit a flight of steps 6 or 8 feet wide
descends into an artificial cavern cut under a portion of the sacred rock. It is
a room about 24 feet square, with a ceiling of uneven height, but averaging 7
feet. Its walls are plastered and whitewashed, but its ceiling is the natural
rock, and its floor is paved with marble. Near the centre is a circular marble
slab 3 feet 5 inches in diameter, which covers the mouth of a well, as is
obvious from the hollow sound which it emits when struck. In the ceiling, at a
point nearly above this slab, there is a circular hole 2 feet 9 inches in
diameter, extending entirely through the rock. The eastern rim of this orifice
is directly above the western rim of the one below. In the corners of this room
are pointed out by the superstitious guide the praying-places once used by
David, Solomon, Abraham, and Elijah. There is a spot in the ceiling where
Mohammed bumped his head and made a depression in the rock. The Moslem tell many
marvelous stories concerning this rock. When Mohammed made his celebrated flight
to heaven and back he started from its surface, and it began to follow him, but
the angel Gabriel laid his hands on it and stopped it after it had risen to its
present height above the surface. Two rough depressions near the southwest
corner of the rock were made by the angels hands. Since then the rock has hung
suspended in the air without support, the hollow place under the cave within it
being proof that it rests on nothing. The slab concealing this hollow place is
the mouth of the well of departed spirits; and here the spirits of pious Moslem
assemble twice a week to pray. It is claimed that the rock itself came from
Paradise. Mohammed said that one prayer offered here was worth a thousand
offered elsewhere; and he himself prayed a short distance southwest of the rock,
and left his footprints here on the face of the stone. They are seen to this
day. According to some, when he started to heaven he was in the cave, and the
upward darting of his body punched the hole above mentioned in the ceiling. The
rock is revered by Jews no less than by Moslem. It is with them the most
hallowed spot on earth. It is the rock which Jacob used for a pillow when he saw
the vision of the ladder, and which he called Bethel, the House of God. On it
Abraham had previously built his altar to sacrifice Isaac. It was included in
the threshing-floor of Araunah; it is the spot on which David offered sacrifice
to stay the plague; and it was covered by the Most Holy place of Solomon's
temple. Here Jeremiah concealed the ark of the covenant when Jerusalem fell into
the hands of the Babylonians, and it lies buried beneath this rock to the
present day. When we brush away the dust of these superstitious traditions, and
look at the matter with a dispassionate eye, the indisputable fact remains that
here stands a portion of the rock summit of this mountain, which, for some
reason, was left a rugged and shapeless protuberance when all around it was
leveled. Since the seventh century of the Christian era, when Jerusalem fell
into the hands of its Ar'ab conquerors, it has been revered and carefully
guarded as a sacred rock, and all the modern traditions concerning it are but
the results of vain attempts to account for its original sanctity. Furthermore,
it is itself the very summit of Mount Moriah, the spot which Abraham would
naturally choose for the offering of Isaac; and around it, if it stood there in
Araunah's day, this tiller of the soil would naturally have made the circuit of
his threshing-floor. And when Solomon built his temple on the same mount, it is
hard to believe that he did not choose the summit for the site of the sacred
edifice; and if so, it is impossible that this rock, if not covered by it, could
have been far from it. If it ever served a practical purpose, it did so previous
to the Mohammedan possession; for since it fell into the hands of its present
custodians, it has been preserved as a mere relic. Mr. Ferguson, in his work on
Jerusalem, and in Smith's Dictionary, advanced the opinion that the cavern under
it was the sepulchre of Christ; but no one now accepts his theory. Others have
suggested that it was originally a cistern, and the hole in its top the
cistern's mouth. Others again have conjectured that Solomon's great brazen
altar, which was thirty feet square and fifteen feet high, covered a part of it,
the orifice through the top into the cave being left at one side of the altar
for the blood of the victims to flow through, first into the cave and thence by
the opening, now closed up, into an underground passage through which it was
washed away into the Kedron Valley. None of these hypotheses have met with more
than partial reception, and the reader will see, by a little reflection, that
they are all liable to serious objections. Perhaps the mystery will be solved
when the superstition of the Mohammedans in regard to it, already greatly
relaxed, shall be so completely dispelled as to allow an examination of the well
beneath the rock, and of the natural surface now covered by the floor round
about it.

Immediately around the sacred rock are the supports of the dome and its drum.
These consist of a circle of four piers and twelve columns, three columns in
each of the four spaces between the piers. The piers and columns are of marble,
and the latter are surmounted with Corinthian capitals, richly gilded. Above
these, graceful arches, composed of alternate blocks of black and white marble,
springing from the tops of the piers and columns support the drum of the dome.
An iron railing twelve feet high extends from pier to column all round the
circle, and a gate through this railing on the eastern side admits the visitor
to the irregular space about the rock. At the south and southeast parts there is
no such space, the rock itself reaching out to the railing.

Between this circle of piers and columns and the outer wall of the building
there is a space all round of about forty-three feet. Within this space,
thirteen feet from the wall and thirty feet from the inner circle of columns, is
an octagon, composed of eight piers and sixteen columns, a pier alternating with
every two columns. These, with the arches above them, furnish a middle support
to the flat roof of the structure which surrounds the inner circle of columns;
and according to Conder's conjecture they constituted the external limit of the
original building, while the additional thirteen feet and the present outer
walls are a later addition. If this conjecture is true, and it seems to be
sustained by the reasonings in its favor, the building once possessed more
pleasing proportions than at present; for no one can fail to observe that the
present walls appear too low for their extent.

Immediately in front of the eastern door of the Dome building is the beautiful
structure already mentioned, called "the Dome of the Chain." It is seen in the
cut opposite page 182. It is said to be the model from which the Dome of the
Rock was constructed; and if the outer parts of the latter building were
removed, the two would be almost identical in form. The dome of this structure
is supported by a circle of columns, and the flat roof surrounding the drum of
the dome by eleven columns, making the outer circuit of the structure an
endecagon. It is the only building and the only figure of any kind ever seen by
the author, outside of a book on geometry, with eleven sides. Its entire
diameter is 42 feet. Its pillars are 11 feet high, all of marble, and 13 feet
apart from centre to centre. Its floor is laid with marble blocks of various
colors, and the interior of the dome is tastefully ornamented with porcelain in
small figures of blue and white. The space between the two most southern
columns, a little east of south from the centre, and therefore in the direction
of Mecca, is closed by a niche as if for a statue, but really it is a Mohammedan
place of prayer. The surface of the platform and of the entire area is almost
honeycombed with cisterns and reservoirs for the storing of water. Captain
Warren found, and partially examined, thirty-three of these, and the most
unobservant visitor cannot fail to notice the curb-stones of many of them, and
to see men drawing water to drink from one or more on the western side of the
platform. One of those explored by Captain Warren is 42 feet deep, 63 feet long,
and 57 feet wide. Its walls are chiefly of masonry covered with cement, and it
had about three feet of water in it when explored. The author dropped his
tape-line into it, and found the same depth of water.

The Royal Cistern of the Temple

Another reservoir, still larger than this, and first explored by Dr. Barclay,
lies north of the eastern extension of the mosque El Ak'sa.

You obtain access to it by a well-like opening near the wall of the mosque,
which leads to a flight of stone steps cut in the natural rock and descending
into the southern side of the reservoir. It is an artificial cavern of very
irregular shape, 42 feet deep and 736 feet in circuit. Rude pillars of the
natural rock are left here and there to support the ceiling. When Barclay
explored it the water was about knee-deep. When seen by the author it was about
four feet deep over the principal part of the bottom. The rain-water from the
roof of the mosque runs into it, and no other source of supply has been
discovered. It is sometimes called the Royal Cistern. So jealous are the
custodians of the har'am in regard to explorations in its sacred inclosure, and
so utterly opposed to excavations there, that but little is known in regard to
the connection of the cisterns and reservoirs with one another, and their
sources of supply. There are many orifices in the pavement of the platform,
evidently intended to convey the rain-water which falls upon it into cisterns
beneath, but none of these have been examined. There is also a well's mouth in
the gateway by which the har'am is entered from David Street, under which the
water can be heard running along the aqueduct from Solomon's pools into the
interior of the hill, but what becomes of it after it passes that point is not
certainly known. On account of these and other reservoirs for storing water,
Jerusalem never suffered for water even in the longest sieges. On the contrary,
it was the besiegers who suffered for water, as is evident from the precaution
taken by Hezekiah when a siege was threatened by the Assyrians: "He stopped all
the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why
should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?" The western wall of the
har'am is nearly all hidden on the exterior by houses built against it, but
there is a clear space extending a hundred yards or more northward from its
southern extremity, and in this space is found Robinson's arch, which we have
mentioned above (Section II., page 149). Next to this open space there is a
group of dilapidated houses, and then comes another open space, called the
Wailing-Place of the Jews. The walls of adjacent gardens and houses here stand
14 feet away from the har'am wall for a distance along the wall of 96 feet. A
narrow, crooked, and dirty lane from David Street enters it at its northern end,
and furnishes the only access to it. Here the Jews of the city assemble every
Friday afternoon to bewail the misfortunes of their people. Men, women and
children, sitting, standing, or leaning against the massive stones of the
ancient wall, crowd the place to its utmost capacity, and all, with old books in
hand, read aloud the lamentations long since composed by their poets for this
purpose. The following extracts made by Baedeker are fair specimens of these
lamentations: For the palace that lies desolate, We sit in solitude and mourn;
For the palace that is destroyed, We sit in solitude and mourn; For the walls
that are overthrown, We sit in solitude and mourn; For our majesty that is
departed, We sit in solitude and mourn; For our great men that lie dead, For the
precious stones that are burned, We sit in solitude and mourn; For the priests
who have stumbled, We sit in solitude and mourn. Our cut correctly represents
the place when only a few persons are present. The immense size of the stones in
the wall can be realized by comparing them with the height of the persons in the
cut.

The Jews' Wailing Place No doubt many of these unhappy people mourn as much over
their individual sorrows as over the national calamities of which they read; but
that there is much genuine lamentation among them is attested by all travelers
who have witnessed the scene. When the author was there, out of the two or three
hundred persons present, much the greater part appeared to be deeply absorbed in
the services which had brought them together, and many of both sexes were
weeping freely, with streams of tears flowing down their cheeks. They still look
forward to the coming of the Messiah and the restoration of the kingdom of
David, and they continue to offer prayers that cannot be heard because they are
not offered in the only name by which man can now draw near to God. They pray,
too, for that which has already been given them and rejected, under the mistaken
belief that it is yet to come. It is hard to conceive of earnest souls in a more
pitiable condition.

VIII. The Pools Of Jerusalem

Although the private cisterns and public reservoirs and wells of Jerusalem
afford a sufficient supply of water for all necessary purposes, its supply in
ancient times was far greater than at present; for several of its capacious
pools once in use are now entirely dry, and others are supplied with much less
water than formerly. We will speak first of those which have a perennial supply
of water. The only known perennial fountain within the hills on which the city
stands is the so-called Virgin's Pool, in the eastern side of Ophel. You reach
it by following the Kedron Valley southward till you are about 300 yards below
the southeast corner of the har'am. The entrance to it is only 5 feet above the
bed of the valley, which is here a narrow ravine. The pool lies deep within the
hill and under it. In approaching it you first go down a flight of steps 8 feet
wide, which are exposed to the sky, and whose perpendicular descent is 16 feet 8
inches. At the foot of this flight of steps you enter a vaulted chamber 8 1/2
feet wide by about 20 feet long, and after advancing 13 feet you reach another
flight of steps cut in the natural rock, 4 1/2 feet wide, whose perpendicular
descent is 13 feet 3 inches. The last step of this flight is nearly on a level
with the water. Thus the entire descent to the surface of the water is about 30
feet, and the distance westward into the hill is more than 40 feet. The pool
itself is shaped very much like the longitudinal section of a jug. The neck,
which is next to you, is from 3 to 4 feet wide; the widest part of the pool is
about 9 feet; and the entire length of it 21 feet 9 inches. The water stands in
it about 3 feet deep, and the rock ceiling is only 4 or 5 feet above the water.
It is supplied by an intermitting stream which enters it under the northern end
of the bottom step, and which descends from an unknown source in the more
northern part of the mountain. It flows sometimes two or three times a day, and
sometimes only once in two or three days; and the flow continues from fifteen to
thirty minutes. A conduit, 2 feet wide and from 3 to 15 feet high, excavated
through the bowels of the hill for a distance of 1750 feet south to the Pool of
Siloam, conveys the surplus of its water to that pool. This passage was first
explored by Dr. Robinson, and afterwards by Captain Warren. Its windings are
such that it runs 1750 feet in reaching a distance in a straight line of 1200
feet.

Entrance to the Virgin Pool The intermitting flow, which is a great mystery to
the Arabs, is undoubtedly caused by a syphon in the direction of the source; but
the source has not yet been discovered. Dr. Robinson conjectures that this is
the pool called Bethesda in the New Testament, and that its intermitting flow
was mistaken by the superstitious people for the action of an angel descending
into the water at intervals and agitating it. Conder thinks, with far less show
of reason, that it is the Upper Gihon of the Old Testament; and he supposes that
the conduit is the one made by Hezekiah and mentioned in 2Ki 20:20. He says, as
do other travelers, that the people of the vicinity still credit the water with
healing virtue, and that many go there every day to bathe. The author saw both
men and boys bathing in it, while others were filling skins with the water to be
taken away, and some were drinking it. The steps were wet and slippery, and much
personal filth was seen on the steps and on the floor of the vaulted chamber. It
is said that the water has a sweetish taste, but we did not choose to put this
statement to the test. The name is derived from a tradition dating from the
tenth century, that the Virgin Mary was accustomed to wash her clothing here.

The Pool of Siloam and Garden below The Pool of Siloam is situated near the foot
of Ophel, on its western slope, and consequently near the mouth of the Tyropeon
Valley. That it is the same pool known under this name in the New Testament, is
evident from the fact that Josephus locates the Siloam of that period in the
identical place occupied by the present pool. It is 50 feet long, 14 1/2 wide at
its southern end, and 17 at its northern. Its wall is built up 18 1/2 feet from
the bottom, and at present the accumulation of rubbish about it is such that a
steep mound ascends from its wall on all sides, rendering it somewhat difficult
of access. A flight of stone steps, four feet wide, descends into it at the
southwest corner, a broken column, five or six feet high, stands in the middle
of it, and six columns are half buried in its western wall. These are remains of
a church which was built over the pool in the year 600, and of a monastery which
took its place in the twelfth century. The water enters its upper end through
the aqueduct from the Virgin's Pool mentioned above, and it has two outlets at
the lower end by orifices through the wall,—one on a level with the bottom and
one three or four feet above the bottom. When the former is open the water
passes through the pool in a small stream; when it is closed it accumulates to a
depth of from three to four feet, and in either case the surplus is led by a
channel, at first underground and after a few rods on the surface, to some
vegetable-gardens in the Valley of the Kedron, which are irrigated by it. The
soil of these gardens is very rich, and their vegetation luxuriant. This is the
pool to which the blind man was sent by Jesus to wash his eyes that he might
see. Before the present accumulation of rubbish about it, it was an admirable
place for baptizing, and Mr. El Kary, a Baptist missionary in Shechem, informed
the author that he was baptized in it twenty-five years ago. A short distance
below the Pool of Siloam, the road descending the Valley of Jehoshaphat unites
with that descending the Valley of Hinnom, and a short distance below this point
you reach the only unfailing well about Jerusalem. It was known in the Old
Testament, and in the writings of the earliest Christian travelers, as En-Rogel;
but since the Mohammedan invasion it has been called by the Arabs the Well of
Job, and by some the Well of Joab. Since the sixteenth century the Greek and
Latin priests in Jerusalem have called it the Well of Nehemiah, from a tradition
mentioned in 2Ma 1:19-22, that in a chamber connected with it the holy fire of
the altar was concealed during the Babylonian captivity, and found there by
Nehemiah. The surface of the ground at this well is 345 feet lower than that of
the har'am area, and the well, according to Barclay's measurement, is 124 feet
deep. It is a very large well, though its mouth is narrow, and a stone cast in
produces a reverberation when it strikes the water as if thrown into a large
cavern. A small and rude stone building stands over it, in the rear of which you
gain access to its mouth. It has not been explored by the modern traveler, and
little is known of its internal structure. In the winter it frequently
overflows, and sends a lively stream down the valley. In summer its water
becomes low sometimes, but it never fails. Dr. Barclay relates that in
September, 1853, when the cisterns and tanks within the city were generally
exhausted, about 2000 donkey-loads of water, amounting to 25,000 gallons, were
daily carried in skins into the city from this well, yet this heavy draught,
though continued more than a month, reduced the water only to 6 1/2 feet, and it
promptly came back to 21 feet when the first rains of November put a little
water into the exhausted cisterns in the city. The antiquity of this invaluable
well is attested by the fact that it was one of the landmarks on the line
between Judah and Benjamin in the days of Joshua, and it possesses historical
interest from its connection with David's unhappy flight from Absalom, and with
Adonijah's rebellion. The visitor to this well at the present day is sure to
meet a dozen or more of the wretched lepers of Jerusalem, for whom a house has
been constructed by the contributions of the charitable about a hundred yards
below the well, in which they are now compelled to reside. Formerly they were
confined within a certain quarter of Jerusalem. Their importunities for charity
are so piteous as to be irresistible.

We now pass to the consideration of those pools which are supplied by the
surface-drain. Returning from En-Rogel back to the junction of the two valleys,
and taking the road turning to the left, which leads up the Valley of Hinnom, we
pass up that valley, hugging its northern side along the foot of Mount Zion,
until we reach the southwestern curve of that hill, and thence northward,
hugging its western side, till we reach a massive wall built across the valley,
which is the southern end of the pool called Lower Gihon. You are now nearly in
line with the southern wall of the city on Mount Zion, and about midway the
length of that mount from north to south. The locality is indicated in the cut
on page 165, in which you are looking up the Valley of Gihon along the western
side of Mount Zion. The small building in the centre of the cut stands on the
southern wall of the pool. The southern wall of the pool is 275 feet long, and
is built on the solid rock of the valley, which slopes down gradually from each
side. From the top of the wall in the middle to the rock in the bottom of the
valley is 50 feet. Within 8 feet of the bottom on the upper side is a
strengthening wall, 7 1/2 feet thick, which forms a broad step, and from this
rises another 6 feet high and 2 feet thick. The thickness of the wall at the top
is 25 feet, but on the lower side it is strengthened in the middle by a buttress
25 feet long and 23 feet wide. In this part, where the pressure of the enormous
mass of water was greatest, the entire thickness of the wall at the top is 48
feet. Add to this 9 1/2 feet of the two buttresses on the upper side near the
bottom, and we have an aggregate thickness at bottom of 57 1/2 feet. On the
upper side of the wall was a coat of cement 3 1/2 inches thick, some of which is
still to be seen near the base, though it is all gone from the upper part. When
the cement was entire no water could pass through the wall, and if any which
lodged against it escaped it was by falling over the top of the dam. If the
cement were now in good condition the pool would be filled with water in the
rainy season. The upper end of the pool is formed by another wall across the
valley, of moderate thickness, 35 feet high in the middle and 245 feet in
length. The distance between the two, measured along the middle of the valley,
and marking the average length of the pool, is 592 feet. The sides of the pool
are marked by walls connecting the ends of these two end-walls. These are built
on ledges so high up the sides of the valley that, although they are on a level
with the two end-walls, they are only from four to six feet high. The bed of the
pool consists of the shelving rock of the two sides and bottom of the valley,
which, as in most valleys of the kind, lies in layers from two to three feet
thick, forming steps of irregular width, in many places eight or ten feet wide.
The pool, as the figures given above show, is 30 feet wider at the lower end
than at the upper, its average width being 260 feet. The valley above the upper
wall is filled with earth to a level with the top of this wall, so that the
surface water in a heavy rain runs over that wall as over a mill-dam into the
pool. The entire area of this pool is about 3 1/2 acres, with an average depth,
when clear of deposit, of 42 1/2 feet in the middle from end to end. It would
seem almost sufficient in itself to supply all the wants of the city, for which
its waters would be suited, and it was so close under the original wall of Mount
Zion that it could be protected from an enemy outside. If this pool is mentioned
in the Scriptures at all, it is the one called "the lower pool" in Isa 22:9 :
"Ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool." This appellation suits its
relative location better than any other known pool. Lieutenant Conder advances
the opinion that it was constructed by the Germans in the twelfth century, but
there is no foundation for this opinion except the fact that among the Crusaders
it was called Germanus. But Baedeker accounts for this name in a different way.
In speaking of it he says: "In the time of the Franks it was called Germanus, in
memory of the Crusader who discovered Job's well. It was remodeled at that
period, and in the second half of the sixteenth century it was restored by
Sultan Soliman, whence its present name." Its present name among the Ar'abs is
Pool of the Sultan. It has been called by Christians Lower Gihon ever since the
fourteenth century. The author can see no ground for doubting that this pool
belongs to the ancient Jewish period. The construction of such pools was
characteristic of the ancient Jews, the entire hill country abounding in them,
and there is no evidence that any at all were constructed by the Crusaders. The
neglect of these admirable reservoirs and their gradual ruin has been the rule
since the Jews were expelled, and not the construction of new ones. The history
of such pools as this has an important bearing on the question of the ancient
population of Jerusalem. The fact that they have been allowed to go into decay
shows that during the period of their decay the water supply of Jerusalem has
been sufficient for its population without them; if it had not, this
circumstance would have necessitated their preservation. But the present water
supply was not sufficient for ancient Jerusalem, or these additional reservoirs
would not have been constructed. Economical and far-seeing men like the ancient
Jews do not expend vast sums of money, or undergo herculean labor, for works
like this when they are not needed. It follows, then, as an unavoidable
conclusion, that the population of Jerusalem in ancient times was greater than
it has been in modern times. Nor does the argument stop here; for the addition
made to the water supply of this and other great reservoirs was immense, far
transcending the supply from all other sources. This argues the existence, at
the time these works were made, of not only a greater, but an immensely greater
population than is found in the modern city. Thus, everything pertaining to the
antiquities of this wonderful city tends to confirm the Biblical account of its
importance and extent during the period of Israel's prosperity, and to
strikingly illustrate those passages in the prophetic books that foretold the
ruin which God would bring upon it.

Upper Pool of Gihon The pool called Upper Gihon by Christians, and Bîrket el
Mamilla by the Ar'abs, is situated 735 yards due west of the Joppa gate. It
receives the surface-drain from the west and north, over a space varying in
width from a quarter to a half mile. It is 316 feet long, measured on the
northern wall, and 218 wide, measured on the eastern wall; and its depth,
measured at three different places, is 19, 20, and 22 feet, the average being
about 20. Its bottom is the natural rock, but hidden with mud and small stones,
and its walls are of well-built masonry, lined with cement. The walls are now
crumbling in places, and the cement remains only in patches There is a flight of
stone steps at the southwest corner 5 1/2 feet wide, and one at the southeast
corner 7 feet wide. The steps are much broken and worn, yet it is easy to
descend them to the bottom of the pool. Traces of similar flights at the other
two corners are distinctly visible. At the east end of the pool, and at the
present bottom, there is a square opening through the masonry 20 inches each
way, which leads into an aqueduct running thence underground towards the city,
and on the surface about 30 feet east of the pool there is an opening into a
vaulted passage, with a narrow flight of steps descending to this point. The
aqueduct, when open, would keep the pool drained to its own level, and this
narrow flight of steps was evidently used to obtain access to the mouth of the
aqueduct, and close it when it was desirable to let the pool fill up, or open it
when it was desirable to drain it. This aqueduct, as it approaches the city,
comes to the surface, and passes along the side of the road leading to the Joppa
gate, with only a covering of stone slabs, but when it reaches the higher ground
near that gate it disappears under ground, passing under the wall north of the
gate, and thence into the Pool of Hezekiah. By means of it the Pool of Gihon may
be entirely drained into that of Hezekiah, and this is done whenever the supply
of water is not sufficient for both. Such was the case in the spring of 1879;
but the Upper Gihon is usually full of water after winters in which there is the
usual rainfall, and it does not become dry until late in the summer. It is
supposed to be the upper pool mentioned in the history of Hezekiah's reign, and
the conduit just mentioned to be the "conduit of the upper pool." It is used as
a swim-pool by the men and boys of the city. The entire open space round about
it is covered with the rude slabs of a Mohammedan burying-ground, each slab
covering the top of a grave; and thither almost every morning of the year, about
sunrise, groups of women, wrapped in white sheets, resort to visit their dead.
The road from the pool to the Joppa gate passes along a shelf, with the Joppa
road to the left about 40 feet higher but gradually descending until they meet
at the gate. The Valley of Gihon lies to the right, heading near the pool, and
gradually deepening as it approaches the city. It makes an abrupt turn to the
south near the gate, where it is about 40 feet below the road. The roadside
along the verge of the valley is protected most of the way by a retaining wall.

Pool of Hezekiah from the Hotel Roof In the northwest angle between David Street
and Christian Street, lies the Pool of Hezekiah, the southern end of it being
separated from David Street by the block of houses just below the Mediterranean
Hotel, and the eastern side separated from Christian Street by the small houses
on the left, as you pass up that street. It is entirely surrounded by houses.
The best view of it, and the one most accessible to travelers, is from a flat
roof over a portion of the hotel, whose wall is part of the wall of the pool. It
is 240 feet long from south to north, and 144 feet wide. Its bottom is about 10
feet below the level of Christian Street, but as the walls of the surrounding
houses are but a continuation of its wall, it might be filled with water to a
greater depth than this. It is deeper at the southern than at the northern end.
The Coptic Convent, whose almost solid wall is seen in the cut, extends entirely
across its northern end, and through a door from this building, opening upon a
flight of steps four feet wide, is the only access to the pool. Water is drawn
from it in buckets let down by ropes through openings in the walls of the
houses. The water is chiefly used for bathing purposes, and a public
bathing-place on Christian Street, called the Patriarch's bath, is supplied with
water from it. It usually holds water all through the summer, but it sometimes
goes dry. Mr. Hornstein, proprietor of the hotel, who has resided in the city
for more than twenty years, told the author that this occurs but very rarely,
though it occurred in the summer of 1876. As we have stated above, its supply of
water is derived from the Upper Gihon by an aqueduct proceeding from the present
bottom of that pool. Mr. Hornstein informed the author that when excavations
were being made for the erection of his hotel, he saw this aqueduct near its
entrance into the pool, and heard the water flowing through it. It is called the
Pool of Hezekiah, from the supposition that it is the one constructed by this
king. It corresponds to the account in the sacred text, which says, "The rest of
the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit,
and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the
chronicles of the kings of Judah?" and it appears to the author that no
sufficient ground for doubting that it is the same has been advanced. It is
mentioned by Josephus under the name Amygdalon (tower-pool), which shows that,
although in his day it had not received the name of Hezekiah, it was already in
existence. It also corresponds to the statement in 2Ch 32:30, which states that
Hezekiah "stopped the upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it straight down
to the west side of the city of David." If we are right in locating the city of
David (see page 144), these words can apply to no other than the upper Pool of
Gihon, and the conduit which to the present day brings its waters "straight down
to the west side of the city of David." That he stopped the previous
water-course in order to effect this change shows that the surplus water from
the pool had escaped in some other direction. The criticism by Conder, based on
the meaning of the term Gihon, "springhead," is not sufficient to set aside the
force of this evidence; for there may have been originally a spring where the
pool now is, or the pool, being a source of supply to its conduit, might have
been called Gihon by an accommodation of the term. The pool which for some
generations has been called Bethesda by the monks of Jerusalem, but Bîrket
Israil (Pool of Israel) by the Ar'abs, is situated immediately north of the
har'am, the northern wall of the latter resting on the southern wall of the
pool. The eastern end of the pool extends so near the east wall of the city
running south from Stephen's gate as to leave only a narrow street between.
Thence it extends westward 360 feet, filling the space between the Via Dolorosa
and the har'am wall, and throughout this length it maintains a width of 126
feet. Its northern wall rises 6 feet above the surface of the Via Dolorosa, thus
guarding the southern side of that street. At the southwest corner of the pool
it is extended 124 feet farther westward in two vaulted passages whose aggregate
width is 42 feet. They pass under the buildings connected with the Turkish
barracks. We may say, then, that the main body of this pool is 360 by 130 feet,
and that it has a neck 124 by 42 feet. Its entire area is 5853 yards, nearly 5
acres. Its depth, as ascertained by Captain Warren, is 80 feet, and he found at
the eastern end, 25 feet from the bottom, a circular opening through the wall,
which he supposes to be an overflow duct, intended, when open, to prevent the
water from accumulating to a depth of over 25 feet. He found also a staircase
descending into it from the har'am area through a rock-cut passage, which he
thinks was intended for the use of soldiers in a time of siege, giving them
access to the water without exposing them to the view of the enemy outside. The
bottom was found by Warren in a complete state of preservation, but he
represents it as covered with rubbish 35 feet deep. It is the common reservoir
for all kinds of trash and filth removed from the houses and streets of that
part of the city, and when the writer saw it in 1879 the mound of this stuff was
level with the wall near the northeastern corner. All of the water which pours
into it during the winter is absorbed by this filth, and it becomes a reeking
mass of corruption, which doubtless breeds much disease. To the shame of the
Turkish authorities, it is said that Mr. Maudsley, an English gentleman of
fortune, proposed a few years ago to clean out and restore the pool at his own
expense, but they refused permission. He hoped not only to make it useful, but
to discover its original source of water supply. It evidently served the double
purpose of a reservoir for water and of an impassable moat to protect the
northern wall of the temple. Captain Warren discovered by his excavations that
it occupies a deep and narrow depression in the natural rock between Beze'tha
and the temple area, which begins at the western end of the barracks, and
extends eastward into the Valley of the Kedron. How this pool was originally
supplied with water is one of the unanswered questions connected with this
curious city. It will probably be found that its supply came from the aqueduct
which brought water from the fountain at Solomon's pools, and reached it by some
connection hidden beneath the surface of the har'am. Dr. Robinson was the first
explorer to call in question the tradition that this is the Pool of Bethesda
mentioned in John 5:2, and to suggest that the true Bethesda is the pool now
called the Virgin's (see page 189). Since then the majority of careful explorers
have agreed with him in denying the name to this large pool, though they advance
conflicting theories as to the true Bethesda. It appears altogether unlikely
that a pool as deep as this, with no appearance of steps leading into it, can
have been the one into which the cripple wished to plunge, and in which some
diseased person plunged at every disturbance of the water. And inasmuch as the
statement that an angel went into the water and troubled it, after which the
first person entering was healed, is now known to be an interpolation in the
text of John, we must look for some natural cause of disturbance which the
superstitious crowd mistook for this; and such a cause is the intermittent flow
of the Virgin's Pool. The pool Bîrket Israil is not mentioned in the Scriptures,
and consequently it has no Scriptural name.

Outside the wall of Beze'tha, and 250 feet north of Stephen's gate, is a pool,
called by the natives Bîrket Sitti Mariam, Pool of Lady Mary, i. e., the Virgin
Mary. It has no Biblical history. It is 100 feet long from north to south, 85
feet wide, and 27 1/2 deep. There were 2 1/2 feet of water in it when seen by
the author. It has a flight of steps at the southeast corner, and at the
southwest corner there is a place for drawing water by machinery, and a channel
to lead it through the wall into the city. It appears to have been supplied with
water by the drainage of the broad fosse which extends along the base of the
wall as far as the northeast corner of the city, a distance of 764 feet, and
which has a gradual descent toward the pool.

Close to the northern wall of the city, between Herod's gate and the northeast
angle of the wall, is a pool about forty feet square and ten feet deep, more
than half of which is arched over and covered with earth above the arch. In one
corner of the part that is exposed to the sun is a passage-way by which animals
can descend to drink of the water, and the water was about three feet deep when
seen by the author. It has been sometimes called Jeremiah's Pool, from the
conceit that it is the dungeon in which Jeremiah was imprisoned, but the conceit
is too absurd to be considered seriously by any one acquainted with Jeremiah's
history. It is known as Bîrket el Hijjeh.

There are other small pools and tanks about the city which should be mentioned
in a minute account of its means of preserving water, but those mentioned above
are sufficient for the purpose of this work.

Besides these reservoirs for storing the water derived from the surface drain
and from fountains, under almost every building of any importance in the city
there are one or more cisterns which receive the water from the roof and court
of the same; and many of these are of large dimensions. Dr. Barclay states that
the water in these is cool and pleasant, and that it usually exists in
sufficient quantity to supply all the wants of the family; and Dr. Robinson
states that under a house in which he found lodging while in the city there were
four cisterns, one of which was thirty feet square and twenty feet deep. He
remarks that this is a fair specimen of the way in which houses of the better
class are supplied. The author can testify to the fine quality of at least some
of the cistern water of the city, for he drank from a cistern in the portico of
the Armenian Church of St. James a draught of as pure and refreshing water as he
ever tasted. There is no doubt, however, that many of the ancient cisterns, for
want of proper attention, have received such an accumulation of filth as to
render their water impure and unhealthy.

IX. The Environs Of Jerusalem The Western Suburbs.—If you leave the Joppa gate
and follow the Joppa road, which is the only macadamized road in Palestine, you
pass on your right a row of one-story shops, cafés, and dwellings, which extends
as far as the northwest angle of the city wall, your road thus far being nearly
parallel with the wall. On reaching this point you see a road turning to the
right, with a row of buildings on its right-hand side, and the wall surrounding
the Russian property on its left. Avoiding this road and passing on you have the
southern wall of the Russian property, a well-built wall of white limestone
about twelve feet high, on your right, and an almost continuous succession of
dwelling-houses on your left. Neat and new residences, many of them with yards
in front, after the European style, and all separated by stone fences, continue
to line both sides of the road for nearly a mile, and to stretch away for nearly
a half-mile to the right and the left.

If on leaving the Joppa gate you take the Bethlehem road, you go due south for
about 200 yards, descending the side of the Valley of Gihon, and then turning
west you cross this valley on a bridge supported by small arches. The valley is
filled up at this point so much that the piers of these arches are hidden, and
only the arches themselves are visible above the ground. As you ride across you
observe a wall about three feet high, like a parapet-wall, along the upper edge
of the bridge. Along its top runs the earthenware aqueduct from Solomon's Pools.

After crossing the bridge just described you turn southward again and pass along
the front of a row of beautiful stone cottages, built in European style, with a
continuous iron veranda in front, a continuous succession of small yards, and a
good stone fence next to the road. The row is really one continuous building
divided into twenty-eight tenements. Back of this row, and higher up the hill,
is another of the same style, containing six tenements. Back of these, again,
and on the summit of the ridge, is a windmill belonging to the same property.
Some ten or fifteen acres of ground about these buildings are inclosed with a
new and well-built stone fence, and vines and trees are beginning to show
themselves in the unoccupied spaces. It is all the property of Sir Moses
Montefiore, a rich Jew of London, now of extreme old age, who furnishes the
tenements free of charge to poor Jews of the city. Two other windmills belonging
to other parties crown the same ridge, and all of the slope between this
property and the Joppa road, except the graveyard about the Pool of Gihon, is
thickly dotted with new dwellings. The Russian property, of which we spoke
above, consists of some twenty-five or thirty acres of ground surrounded with a
strong wall twelve feet high, entered by massive gates, and containing a large
number of new and well-constructed buildings for the accommodation of priests,
pilgrims, and the officials of the Russian government. There is a hospital for
men, and one for women; a hospice, or lodging-place for pilgrims, capable of
lodging one thousand persons; a consul's palace; a fine church; and a residence
for the priests. These immense possessions held by the Czar are looked upon with
jealousy by other European powers, especially by Great Britain. The northern
suburbs contain almost as many buildings as the western, and among them are some
of the most attractive structures about the city. Among these are a beautiful
chapel and parsonage belonging to the English Church, and a row of nearly one
hundred tenements recently built by European Jews, and not yet finished. All of
these buildings, both on the northern and the western sides of the city, are a
growth of the last ten years. Previous to that time it was considered unsafe to
dwell outside the walls of the city; but the increased security of the country,
brought about largely through the influence of the European consuls, together
with a large influx of Jewish population, and an increase of the missionary zeal
of European Christians, has caused to spring up this new Jerusalem outside the
walls of the old. The result has demonstrated the inutility of the ancient
walls; and if this prosperity shall continue without a serious check, it is
probable that ere long the useless walls will be turned into a supply of
building-stones for the growing city, and be made to yield a little revenue to
the impoverished treasury of Turkey. The health and comfort of the city would be
promoted by the change, though much of the novelty of a visit to it would be
taken away. As you pass out of the Damascus gate, going north, you have two
mounds on your right and left, each about 30 feet high, built of ashes and
rubbish of every kind brought out of the city and heaped up until the process
was discontinued to save the road from being obstructed. They are partly seen in
the cut on page 159. The road ascends gradually from the gate, and just beyond
the mounds it passes on the left some shops for the manufacture of articles in
olive-wood. On the right, opposite the shops, is a ridge of rock 30 or 40 feet
high, partly covered with Mohammedan graves. It has a perpendicular face toward
the south, which is pierced by the mouth of a cavern called Jeremiah's Grotto.
Beyond this, on the right of the road, you pass newly-built houses and inclosed
grounds, and on your left a large grove of olive-trees, covering some forty or
more acres, and reminding you of a large orchard of old and half-decayed
apple-trees. This is the only grove in the vicinity of the city. It is unfenced,
and it is the resort, on pleasant mornings, holidays, and Sabbaths, of large
numbers of men, women, and children from the city, who come here to enjoy the
fresh air, and to eat and drink in a social way. On Friday, the Mohammedan
Sabbath, it is frequented chiefly by Turks and Arabs; on Saturday, the Jewish
Sabbath, by Jews; and on Sunday, by the Greek and Latin Christians. The shade of
the olive-tree is thin, but better than none.

About a mile north of the Damascus gate, and on the right-hand side of the road,
are the so-called Tombs of the Kings, described above in Chapter VI., Section
VII. Until recently they were in the open country and unprotected, but now a
good stone wall incloses about an acre of ground about them, a strong gate
guards the entrance, and an attendant occupying a small house inside takes care
of the premises. The expense of this improvement was met by a French Jewess, and
an annuity contributed by her meets the current expense. All visitors are
admitted without a fee.

Somewhat more than a mile northwest of these tombs are the so-called Tombs of
the Judges, also described in the chapter and section just referred to. The rock
about their entrance has crumbled much, and much earth has washed into them.
They are in the midst of a multitude of inferior tombs; and, indeed, all of the
rock on this side of the city at all suitable for the purpose is perforated with
ancient sepulchres.

After passing out through the Damascus gate you can follow a road which turns
square to the left, and pass along the wall to the northwest corner of the city,
and thence to the Joppa gate,—a better route than to ride through the city; or
you can turn abruptly to the right and follow a well-beaten road to the
northeast corner of the city. In doing so you ride through a cut in the Beze'tha
hill, with the perpendicular rock on your left containing Jeremiah's Grotto, and
the corresponding rock on the right supporting the city wall. An opening in the
latter rock, just above the surface of the ground, is the entrance to Barclay's
Quarry, commonly called the Cotton Grotto. The entrance is now closed by a
wooden door. It is an immense cavern, running under the Beze'tha hill and
undermining the houses of the Turkish quarter. It was first discovered in modern
times by Dr. Barclay. As he was passing along the road one day his dog,
attracted by the scent of some animal which had burrowed in the mouth of the
cave, commenced scratching at the spot, when he suddenly dropped in and
disappeared. He soon came back, but his master, suspecting that some interesting
discovery might be made here, but anticipating interference if he attempted an
excavation in the daytime, went out of the city one afternoon with two of his
sons, allowed himself to be shut out by the closing of the gates, and then, with
lights and spades, effected an entrance and explored the cavern. He reported it
as more than 3000 feet in circumference and 750 long. The author measured from
its most remote corner by the most direct route to the door, and found the
distance 812 feet, but not by an entirely straight line. It runs in a
southeastern direction toward the temple mount, but it extends very irregularly
in various directions. Its floor, also, is very uneven, and the height of the
ceiling varies from 10 to 30 feet. In many places there are mounds of chippings
made in quarrying blocks of stone. Piers are left at irregular intervals to
support the ceiling. In one place a very large mass of rock has fallen from the
ceiling, while other masses seem ready to fall, and our guide cautioned us
against passing under them. On the perpendicular sides are seen in places large
stones but partly cut away, and the marks of the chisels are as plainly seen as
if the cutting was made but yesterday. In a kind of pit, about 15 feet deep and
nearly 100 feet across, with a perpendicular side, Dr. Barclay found the
skeleton of a man, who may have fallen there and broken his neck. A feeble
spring of impure water, which trickles from above, is found near the remotest
part. The rock is a soft, white limestone, such as is found in the walls of many
houses in the city, and in some parts of the city wall. I think the conjecture
that here the large stones of the temple and its substructions were quarried is
erroneous, for the rock is not sufficiently hard and durable for this purpose,
and the really ancient stones now visible in the temple wall are of a harder
variety of limestone. Mr. Robert Morris, an American Freemason, who visited
Palestine in the year 1874, reports that he gathered together the adherents of
his order whom he found in Jerusalem, and went through the process of organizing
a Freemason's lodge in this quarry.

Resuming our ride toward the northeast corner of the city, we next pass on our
left a garden wall inclosing several acres of ground about a substantial private
residence, and on reaching the brow of the hill descending into the Kedron
Valley our road forks, one fork turning south and running parallel with the
eastern wall of the city toward St. Stephen's gate, and the other turning to the
northeast and descending into the upper part of the Kedron Valley. The valley,
where this road enters it, spreads out into a beautiful little plain, with
gardens, patches of grain, and olive-trees covering its surface. From its
northern side rises the hill called Sco'pus, a rocky ridge, higher than the
highest part of the city, lying about a mile from it, and extending for several
miles east and west. It also curves round toward the south with the northeastern
curve of the Kedron Valley, and after extending southward a short distance it
breaks down to a low saddle connecting it with the northern end of the Mount of
Olives. The road just mentioned by which we descend into the valley ascends to
the top of this saddle, and thence ascends the northern end of the Mount of
Olives.

If you pass out the city through St. Stephen's gate you may ride along the wall
either north or south, but the most frequented route is straight before you into
the Kedron Valley, which is here much narrower than above and immediately below.
The slope down into it is too steep for the road to descend directly, so it
makes an angle to the left and then to the right to secure an easier grade.
Neither does the road descend to the bottom of the valley; it crosses on a stone
bridge whose arch, about 10 feet high, spans the torrent-bed at the bottom. Just
before crossing the bridge you pass the traditional spot of the stoning of
Stephen, which is about as likely to have been the real spot as a hundred others
near by, and no more so. Soon after crossing the bridge you see on your left the
entrance to the "Tomb of the Virgin Mary." This is a chapel deep down below the
surface of the rock. On leaving the road you descend several flights of steps to
an open space in front of the chapel, where you are 15 or 20 feet below the
road. Then you enter the door and descend a very broad flight of steps, which
bring you 35 feet below the surface. In descending you pass the tomb of Joseph
on your left, and that of Anna and Joachim, the reputed mother and father of
Mary, on your right. The chapel is a long and narrow vault, about 30 yards long
by 6 wide, and is hung with silver lamps, which light up a Greek altar, where
services are held daily by Greek priests. A sarcophagus is shown which contains
the bones of Mary, and a well in one corner furnishes you a drink of cool water.
After carelessly looking around upon the objects pointed out, you return to
daylight with a feeling of pity mingled with disgust at the easy credulity and
superstition which thus lavish money and time upon the purely imaginary
burial-place of a woman, concerning whose death and burial the most that any man
can now know is, that she must have died and that she probably received a decent
burial. The little building covering the entrance to this tomb is the first on
the left of the road in our cut of the Mount of Olives, opposite page 208.

After returning to the road and resuming your progress eastward, a few more
steps bring you to the wall of the traditional Garden of Gethsemane. (See it in
the cut.) At the corner of this inclosure the road forks, the principal track
passing to the right and running for some distance almost due south along the
base of the Mount of Olives, while the other turns to the left and begins to
ascend the slope of the mount along the northern end of the garden. The garden
wall is a well-built and fresh-looking wall of limestone, about 10 feet high,
plastered and whitewashed. When you reach the northeast corner of the inclosure,
where a small one-story building occupies the angle of the wall, you turn to the
right and pass to the far end of the eastern wall to gain admittance. Here a
grated iron door is opened at your call, and you are admitted to a free
examination of all within. The inclosure is nearly square, and it includes about
half an acre of ground. It is divided by light picket-fences into six squares,
all of which are prettily laid off and cultivated in flowers of many varieties.
A well near the centre affords water for irrigation, which is conveyed in pipes
to every part of the garden. Around the inner face of the wall, on the northern,
western, and southern sides, are fourteen rude paintings, representing the
fourteen stations, as they are called, of Jesus on his way from Pilate's hall to
the cross and the sepulchre. They are the same that are pointed out by the monks
along the Via Dolorosa and in the Holy Sepulchre Church. A gravel walk, about
five feet wide, passes around between the wall and the garden fence to enable
visitors to examine these pictures. The only objects within the garden which now
remind you of Gethsemane are eight very venerable olive-trees, whose immense
trunks, gnarled and twisted and full of cavities, and whose scanty foliage at
once proclaim them very old trees. One of them is correctly represented by the
cut opposite page 56. The largest is 24 feet in circumference, and the next in
size 21 feet, measured above the swell of the roots. It is scarcely possible
that these trees date back to the time of Jesus; but the word Gethsemane means
oil press, and the garden of the oil press must have had olive-trees within it
or near it. Under trees quite similar to these, in fact the predecessors of
these, the Saviour's great agony occurred. The modern improvements, though very
pleasing to the eye, detract very much from the impression which the spot would
otherwise make upon the mind and heart.

There is, of course, no certainty that this garden occupies the identical spot
of the real Gethsemane, but it cannot be very far from the real spot; and its
venerable olives, the like of which are not elsewhere seen in the vicinity of
Jerusalem, render it more suggestive of the ancient associations than any other
adjacent spot. The ground belongs to the Latin Church, and is in the care of the
Franciscan monks, by whom it is cultivated, and who built the present wall
around it in the year 1847. It has been regarded as the site of Gethsemane ever
since the fourth century. The Greek Church, through sectarian rivalry, has
recently fixed upon another spot, a hundred yards or more to the northeast of
this, as Gethsemane, and has there built a wall around a smaller inclosure. It
is seen in the opposite cut of the Mount of Olives.

Mount of Olives No locality about Jerusalem is more familiar to the
Bible-reader, by name at least, than the Mount of Olives. It is a high ridge
running parallel with Mount Moriah, and separated from it only by the narrow
valley of the Kedron. Its length from south to north is about the same as that
from the southern end of Ophel to the northern end of the Beze'tha hill, and it
presents, as viewed from the city, a smooth side with a steep slope. Its summit
is 207 feet higher than the temple area, and the distance between the two
points, measured in a straight line down one hill and up the other, is about
half a mile. At its northern extremity it breaks down nearly a hundred feet to a
saddle connecting it with the hill called Sco'pus, which sweeps around to the
north of the city, and at its southern end it falls a little lower still to a
saddle connecting it with the eminence called the Hill of Evil Counsel. The
ascent of the mount is made from the Garden of Gethsemane by three paths which
part just above the garden, one ascending almost directly to the summit, one
inclining to the right, and the other to the left. Each of the latter two, by
its inclination, secures an easier ascent, but all three routes are practicable
on horseback. (They are seen in the cut.) On the central part of the summit are
the remains of the so-called Church of the Ascension, the original of which was
erected by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. It is now almost in
ruins, and back of it is a village composed of a few miserable huts occupied by
a loathsome set of Ar'abs. In the middle of the court, around which the old
structure is built, is a small octagonal chapel, about 20 feet in diameter, with
a dome over it, on whose stone floor there is a depression in the rock said to
have been made by the feet of Jesus as he took his last step before ascending up
to heaven. It is surrounded by a wooden frame and covered with glass, and it is
a very sacred spot with the superstitious pilgrims. This old church, like nearly
all others in Palestine, was turned by the Moslem into a mosque, and on its
western front still stands an old minaret, which travelers are permitted, for a
small fee, to ascend. From its balcony is obtained the very best view of
Jerusalem, the one presented in the frontispiece to this book. The city spreads
out like a map before you, all being from 100 to 200 feet below you, and sloping
toward you. Every conspicuous building in the whole city and its suburbs is
distinctly seen, and you can trace all the elevations and depressions of the
surface both within and without. It was not far from this spot that Jesus stood
when he looked upon the city and bewailed its impending doom; and he must have
been seated somewhere near it when he so fully described to four of his
disciples the same sad event with its preceding signs. Beyond the city, a few
miles to the northwest, rises Neby Samwil (Mizpeh), lifting the minaret of its
ruined mosque high above every other point in the horizon, while to the
southwest the horizon is bounded by long, swelling ridges, higher than the mount
on which you stand. To the south the ridges about Bethlehem are seen, though the
city is not, while the most conspicuous object in that direction is the conical
"Frank Mountain," whose truncated top was the burial-place of Herod the Great.
To the southeast the horizon is bounded by the dark-purple wall of the Moab
Mountains, at the base of which is seen a section of the northern extremity of
the Dead Sea and a portion of the southern end of the Jordan Plain. Along the
latter is a winding line of dark verdure, marking the course of the Jordan, but
its waters are not visible. You can see at a glance that these objects are deep
down below where you stand, and that even the summit of the Moab Ridge is below
you. Although the farther shore of the Dead Sea is fully twenty-five miles
distant in an air-line, so clear is the atmosphere and so deceptive are the
distances that you would suppose it to be not more than six or eight miles away.
Toward the northeast and the north high adjacent hills shut out the view of all
objects of especial interest. A better view of the Jordan Valley is obtained
from the top of a new building recently erected by the Russians, about 300 yards
east of the minaret and on the eastern brow of the mount. This building marks
the spot where a Mosaic floor has been uncovered which once adorned some ancient
building, and where some very interesting sepulchres are also seen. A short
distance to the south of the minaret, and on slightly lower ground, is an
interesting structure erected in the year 1868 by the Countess de Bouillon, a
wealthy female relative of Napoleon III., to perpetuate the unfounded tradition
that here the Lord's Prayer was taught the disciples. A one-story building
surrounds an open court, with a portico running all around its inner wall, open
to the court. On the walls within this portico are hung thirty-one slabs of
marble, about three feet wide and six feet long, on which are inscribed in large
letters the Lord's Prayer in as many different languages. About midway the wall
on the southern side is a small room with a latticed door of iron, within which
is a beautiful white marble sarcophagus, whose lid is partly composed of a
life-size statue of the countess lying in the repose of death. When she dies her
remains are to be placed in this sarcophagus.

About half a mile southeast of the principal summit of the mount is a rounded
knoll nearly of the same height, connected to the mount by a narrow, depressed
ridge, with a steep descent on either side of it. This must have been the true
site of the ascension, for it is expressly stated by Luke, in his account of
this event, that Jesus led his disciples "out as far as to Bethany." Bethany
lies immediately under this knoll, on its eastern slope, and on top of the knoll
the disciples would be "as far as to Bethany" without being in it. Though
elevated, it is retired, and it is in every way suited to the occurrence.

We now return to the western slope of the Mount of Olives. The more northern
portion of this slope is covered with small grain-fields and scattered
olive-trees; the more southern part is almost completely covered, from near the
summit to the very base of the mountain, with a Jewish graveyard, in which there
seems to be no room for new graves. At the northern edge of this cemetery, and
but a short distance below the mountain's brow, is the labyrinthine excavation
called the Tomb of the Prophets, which we have mentioned on page 130. It
certainly belongs to the ancient Jewish period, and it is a fair specimen of the
more extensive but rudely-cut excavations for tombs. Some other rock-cut
sepulchres have been found in its vicinity, but none of special importance.

Tombs of James and Zachariah At the foot of the mountain, beneath the Jewish
cemetery, and on the left of a road coming down the valley from the Garden of
Gethsemane, are some ancient tombs of more importance. Among these are the
so-called Tomb of Absalom, of James the Less, of Jehoshaphat, and of Zachariah.
The second and last appear in the cut on this page. In all probability these are
all misnamed, for none of the names can be traced back beyond the fourth
century. Nearly in front of these tombs the Valley of Jehoshaphat is crossed by
another low bridge, and a steep path leads thence up the hill to the southeast
angle of the har'am wall. At the corner of this bridge is the mouth of a well,
or cistern, out of which much water is drawn and carried away in skins.

South of the Mount of Olives, and beyond the depression across which the road to
Jericho passes, rises a hill somewhat lower than the Mount of Olives, called the
Hill of Offense. It is so called from the belief that its summit was the site of
the idolatrous worship established by Solomon "on the hill that is before
Jerusalem." On the western slope of the Hill of Offense is a small village of
miserable huts, called Silwân' (Siloam). Its huts are built in a row along the
side of a narrow pathway on the hillside, and they consist partly of old
sepulchres with walls built up in front of them. It is inhabited by Ar'abs, who
cultivate small fields in the vicinity. Our circuit of the city will be
completed by considering so much of Mount Zion as lies south of the southern
wall, and the valley and hill south of it. About one-half of the summit of Mount
Zion, the southern half, as we have stated before, now lies outside the city,
and is cultivated in grain.

Starting due south from Zion gate, you pass on your right the Armenian Monastery
of Mount Zion, which, they say, is the house of Caiaphas, and within which the
traveler is amused at being shown the stone which closed the sepulchre of Jesus,
the prison in which Jesus was confined during his trial (?), the spot where
Peter's denial occurred, and the place where the cock crew. Passing on and
descending a little, you come to a separate building due south of the convent,
called by the Moslem the Tomb of David, and by Christians the Cænaculum, or
Place of the Last Supper. In this you listlessly look around while you are
pointed to the room, and this not an "upper room," where Jesus and the twelve
ate the last supper. Eastward of this room, and on a little higher level,
reached by a flight of steps, is a large room, through the latticed door of
which you are allowed to look and behold a cenotaph called the Tomb of David. It
is about 12 feet long and 5 high, coffin-shaped on top, and covered with a
dusty, faded cloth of cotton or wool, with broad horizontal stripes of green,
yellow, and red. The room is bare, and its walls are whitewashed. It is claimed
that this is a mere copy of the real tomb, and that the latter lies in a cavern
beneath the floor. Dr. Barclay's daughter, by disguising herself in Turkish
costume, and securing the attendance of a female member of the family of the
custodian, gained admittance to the real tomb, and made a draft of it, which is
represented in her father's book by a richly colored engraving. She is the only
Christian in modern times who has enjoyed this privilege. But whether the tomb
is the real tomb of David or that of some unknown Mohammedan celebrity, cannot
be determined until the superstition of its present custodians shall give place
to free and enlightened investigation. The entire building, according to Warren,
belongs to the crusading period. The southern side of Mount Zion descends by a
very steep slope into the Valley of Hinnom, which has been described already on
page 164. Along the southern side of this valley rises an almost perpendicular
precipice of rock to a height nearly equal to that of Mount Zion, while a hill
sloping back from this reaches a height greater than that of Zion. Near the
mouth of the Valley of Hinnom, where this precipice makes an angle with the
western side of the Valley of the Kedron, a steep path, partly cut in the rock,
and consisting partly of a flight of steps, leads to the summit. Here you are in
the midst of what is now called Acel'dama, the field of blood; but it appears
like anything else than a "potter's field," seeing that it is all naked rock.
The whole face of the rock is honey-combed with ancient Jewish sepulchres, and
the large chamber of one of them is fitted up as a chapel in which to celebrate
mass. It is doubtless on account of the multitude of these burial-places that
the spot has been fixed upon by the monks as the field in which strangers were
buried; but a charity graveyard was never, in any age of the world, filled with
costly rock-hewn sepulchres like these. The intelligent traveler knows by a
glance that this cannot be the Acel'dama of Scripture, but he knows also that it
must be a set of tombs of the really ancient Jewish period, seeing that none
such have ever been dug or even used by subsequent inhabitants of the country.
This entire hill south of the Valley of Hinnom has been called the Hill of Evil
Counsel, from the tradition, equally unfounded with that concerning Acel'dama,
that on it, in a country residence of Caiaphas, was held the council of the
chief priests in which they resolved to take Jesus by subtlety and put him to
death.


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  CHAPTER 13: CHAPTER TWO--PLACES WITH JERUSALEM AS A CENTER
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Chapter II. Places With Jerusalem as a Centre I. On The Road To Bethlehem The
road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, distant six miles, follows the central ridge
or water-shed of the hill country, and is the line of communication between
Jerusalem and all of the southern part of the land of Israel. Starting from the
Joppa gate, it descends southward into and across the Valley of Gihon, crossing
on the bridge whose piers and arches support the aqueduct from Solomon's Pools,
and then gradually ascending until it reaches the top of the ridge which extends
westward from the southern side of the Valley of Hinnom. After reaching this
height it descends by a gradual slope into a plain whose limit on the west is
the broken country descending toward the Philis'tine Plain, and on the east a
ridge which runs southward from the Valley of Hinnom, with a gradually
diminishing height. The plain has a gentle slope toward the west, and it is
called the Plain of Rephaim, or Valley of the Giants. It is here that David
twice defeated the Philistines soon after he had taken possession of Jerusalem.
They invaded his territory at the crisis in which he had just succeeded in
suppressing the rebellion of Ishbosheth, and was in the act of fortifying his
new capital, but were signally defeated in two battles fought in quick
succession. The plain is also mentioned in Jos 15:8, where it is said that the
boundary-line between Judah and Benjamin passed along the ridge which
constitutes its northern border. As you descend from the ridge into this plain
you see to your right, about half a mile distant, a row of neat new
dwelling-houses of white limestone, occupied by Europeans. They are about a mile
from the city.

About midway the plain, which is more than two miles long, you pass a well on
the side of the road, which is called the Well of the Magi, from the tradition
that the magi, or wise men, of Mat 2:1-12, drank of it as they passed by.
However idle this tradition may be, it reminds the traveler that he is on the
very road which those mysterious strangers traveled as they were led by the star
to Bethlehem. Two well-built villages, not named in the Scriptures, are seen
some two or three miles to the right of the road, and two or three ruins of
ancient towers dot the plain, but otherwise it is uninhabited, being an open,
treeless field for the cultivation of grain. Traces of an ancient pavement are
seen on the road at intervals, showing that it was once a paved highway, though
now it consists merely of two or three smoothly-beaten bridle-paths running
parallel to one another. It is the most frequented road coming into Jerusalem,
with the exception of that from Joppa. Camels and asses loaded with fuel, lime,
and other articles of traffic, men and women on foot, on asses, and on camels
meet you at short intervals, and pass you with a glance of indifference. As you
reach the farther end of the plain, which narrows to a point and ascends a ridge
of moderate height, you pass on your right the country residence of the Greek
Patriarch, a substantial building surrounded by grounds pleasingly set in trees
and inclosed by a stone fence. In front of it, on the opposite side of the road,
is another well, affording excellent water, and supplied with stone
watering-troughs for the accommodation of passing animals. The well is on the
premises of a Greek convent, which stands a little farther up the road on the
left, called Mar Elyas (Saint Elias). The original building of this convent was
erected at an early but unknown date, and it is now occupied by a few Greek
monks. The only hogs which the author saw in all his travels in Western Asia
were three or four of a long-nosed breed in the yard of this convent. In passing
the convent you leave the Plain of Rephaim behind you, and the high ridge on its
eastern border is also left behind, for here a deep valley from the direction of
the Dead Sea heads close to the left-hand side of the road. You also, at this
point, obtain your first view of Bethlehem,—a disappointing view, because of the
dull, leaden color of its ancient stone houses. You are now half way between
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. After riding half a mile or more farther you see at a
distance on your right the large and well-built village of Bêt Jâ'la, containing
about 3000 inhabitants. Its people are mostly Greek Christians, but it contains
a Latin seminary, and also a Protestant missionary school. It is supposed to be
the ancient Giloh, the home of Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's great counselor.
It is mentioned in Jos 15:51, among the towns in the territory of Judah. Here a
road turns off to the right, passing Bêt Jâ'la, and running direct to Solomon's
Pools and Hebron without passing through Bethlehem.

Rachel's Tomb In the forks of the road stands a Mohammedan wely, marking the
spot which has been regarded from the fourth century as the site of Rachel's
Tomb. The present structure is modern, and is a small stone building surmounted
by a plastered and whitewashed dome, with a room on the eastern side open to the
north, designed for a sheltered place of prayer. Travelers have usually spoken
of this as certainly the spot where Rachel was buried; but while its proximity
to Bethlehem is well suited to the statement that when Rachel died "there was
but a little way to come to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem," the supposition that
this is the true site is in palpable conflict with a statement found in 1Sa
10:2, where Samuel says to Saul, "When thou art departed from me today, then
thou shalt find two men by Rachel's tomb in the border of Benjamin." This shows
that Rachel's tomb, as known, and doubtless correctly known, in Samuel's time
was in the border of Benjamin, and this, as we have just seen above, passed
along the northern border of the Plain of Rephaim, about three miles farther
north, and a little more than five miles from Bethlehem. This distance could be
properly called "a little way to come to Bethlehem" inasmuch as the comparison
was with the distance to Bethel whence Jacob started, which is 18 miles from
Bethlehem. The original tomb had stood about seven hundred years when Samuel
mentioned it, and it was probably destroyed after this, and the new structure
erected in the wrong place. In the seventh century a pyramid stood in place of
the present wely.

II. Bethlehem And Its Vicinity

Bethlehem from the Northeast

After passing Rachel's Tomb we soon enter the northern suburb of Bethlehem. Just
as the road is about to become a street by passing between rows of houses you
turn to the left a short distance, on a short ridge jutting out to the east, to
examine the so-called David's Well,—the well from which a drink of water was
brought to David by three of his heroes, who fought their way through the
Philis'tine lines and back in order to bring it. The well is a very large
rock-hewn cistern, 40 or 50 feet square, with six openings into it from the
surface. The foundations of a ruined building which once covered all but one of
the openings are distinctly traceable. At present it contains but little water,
and the amount of surface which could have drained into it must always have been
small, as it occupies the top of the ridge, with very little level surface about
it. From this point there is a very good view of Bethlehem,—the view given in
the cut on the opposite page. The old city lies on a ridge over against the one
on which you stand, and parallel to it, the town stretching along its summit
from east to west, while a deep valley, whose bottom and terraced sides are well
cultivated, lies between. The eastern extremity of the town and of the ridge is
occupied by the buildings of the Convent and Church of the Nativity, only a
small part of which is seen in the cut, while the western end, which is higher,
is occupied by some new schools and convents. With the exception of the new
buildings just mentioned, the town has a dull leaden appearance, the result of
the long exposure of its stone walls to the action of the atmosphere. But there
is a new Bethlehem, as there is a new Jerusalem. When you return from David's
Well to the road you enter a street which passes for two or three hundred yards
between rows of newly-constructed houses, and some yet in course of
construction, whose walls of yellowish-white limestone present a most pleasing
contrast to the leaden hue of the older town. This and the old town lie at a
right angle to each other. On entering the old town you turn square to the left,
ride through the principal bazaar, which has a somewhat lively business aspect,
and pass on to the Church of the Nativity, at the eastern end of the town, its
principal relic of antiquity. This is an irregular, antique, and extensive mass
of buildings, with much the appearance of a fortification. It is said to include
and cover the very spot in which Jesus was born and cradled in a manger; and if
the evidence of the fact were conclusive, it would certainly be, as it is held
to be by Latins, Greeks, and Armenians, the most interesting of sacred
localities next to the holy sepulchre itself. The author was never able to
obtain from the descriptions of travelers an intelligent conception of these
buildings, and he will not attempt to convey one to others. Suffice it to say,
that here are an Armenian, a Greek, and a Latin monastery and two churches all
massed together in one confused pile. The cut on the opposite page very
correctly represents its front as you approach it from the town. The principal
entrance is in the angle of the building. The oldest part of the structure, the
so-called Church of St. Mary, is said to have been erected by Constantine in the
year 330, over the Cave or Grotto of the Nativity. Under the floor of the
eastern end of this church is a flight of stone steps by which we descend into
this artificial cavern. It is 13 1/2 yards long by 4 in width, with a ceiling 10
feet high. It is kept continually lighted by a large number of silver lamps,
belonging, some to the Greeks, some to the Latins, and some to the Armenians,
all of whom have a claim on the place. In a semicircular recess at one side,
where a silver star is let into the pavement, is shown the very spot where Jesus
was born, and on the opposite side is the manger in which he was cradled. This
manger is made of marble. Near by is pointed out the spot where the wise men
kneeled to worship the child, and here hangs a picture of the scene. The cave
winds about in a labyrinthine manner, and at other points in it are shown a hole
in the rock from which water miraculously sprang up to supply the holy family,
the spot at which Joseph was told to flee into Egypt, another at which some of
the infants of Bethlehem were slain, the chapel and the tomb of Jerome, and the
tomb of his friend and pupil, Eusebius.

Convent and Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem The only historical ground for
these traditions is the statement of Justin Martyr, in the second century, that
Jesus was said to have been born in a cavern near Bethlehem. But the Scriptures
represent him as being born in Bethlehem, not near it. Luke says that Mary
"brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes and laid
him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." From this it
appears that Joseph sought accommodation in the inn, and could not obtain it
because the house was crowded, doubtless by persons who had come up, like
himself, to the enrollment. If the construction of the inn was similar to that
of the khân, which is its modern representative in Asiatic cities, the first
floor of the building was occupied by the animals of the inmates and visitors,
the lodging-rooms of the latter being in the second story. The almost certain
inference is that Joseph took temporary shelter in one of the stalls until room
could be found for him above. That the stall should have been a cave dug down
under the solid rock is in the highest degree improbable. Some caverns, both
natural and artificial, whose openings are in the sides of hills, are now used
for sheltering stock, and perhaps they were anciently, but none in which the
descent is by a steep flight of steps down from the surface, like those entering
a deep cellar. This Cavern of the Nativity and its connecting apartments appear
really to have once been a cistern of irregular shape, like the so-called Well
of David, for the reception of rain-water. The following judicious remarks by
Dr. Robinson show still further the improbability that it is the place of the
Saviour's birth: "The circumstance of the Saviour's being born in a cave would
certainly have not been less remarkable than his having been laid in a manger,
and it is natural to suppose that the sacred writer would not have passed it
over in silence. The grotto, moreover, was and is at some distance from the
town, and although there may be still occasional instances in Judea where a
cavern is occupied as a stable, yet that is not now and never was the usual
practice, especially in towns and their environs." Robinson also quotes from
Maundrell the following passage, furnishing a general statement in regard to the
custom of locating the sites of sacred events in caverns: "I cannot forbear to
mention in this place an observation which is very obvious to all who visit the
Holy Land, viz., that almost all passages and histories related in the Gospels
are represented by them who undertake to show where everything was done as
having been done most of them in grottos, and that even in such cases where the
conditions and the circumstances of the actions themselves seem to require
places of another nature. Thus, if you would see the place where Saint Anne was
delivered of the Virgin, you are carried to a grotto; if the place of the
Annunciation, it is also a grotto; if the place where the blessed Virgin saluted
Elizabeth; if that of the Baptists or our Saviour's nativity; if that of the
agony, or that of Saint Peter's repentance, or that where the Apostles made the
creed, or that of the Transfiguration, all these places are grottos. And, in a
word, wherever you go you find almost everything is represented as done under
ground. Certainly grottos were anciently held under great esteem, or else they
could never have been assigned, in spite of all probability, for the places in
which were done so many ancient actions. Perhaps it was the hermit way of living
in grottos, from the fifth or sixth century downward, that has brought them ever
since to be in so great reputation." In the last sentence of this extract is
stated the true explanation of the phenomenon in question, and it coincides with
history; for scarcely any of these underground localities were located by
tradition, until after monks and hermits had begun to swarm into the Holy Land
and burrow in the earth to make their miserable habitations. The tradition that
Joseph and Mary continued to reside in the cavern until their flight into Egypt
is still more improbable than that they were there when Jesus was born; for
during the forty days between the birth of the child and his presentation in the
temple, or during the period which elapsed between the latter event and the
arrival of the Magi, Joseph certainly had time and opportunity to procure better
lodgings. We dismiss the tradition connected with this mass of buildings as
entirely void of rational foundation; and although, unlike Robinson, we went in
and saw what was to be seen, we did so merely to witness the methods by which
the tradition is kept alive, and by which it makes its impression on the minds
of the superstitious. In the reception-room of the Latin Convent are magnificent
portraits of the present Emperor and Empress of Austria,—a present to the monks
from the emperor. The tradition-mongers show other spots about Bethlehem whose
identity is about on a par with some of those in the Grotto of the Nativity. For
example, a short distance southeast of the convent they show the Milk Grotto,
another cavern which the holy family occupied, and on the floor of which Mary
spilled some breast-milk. The limestone dust of the floor, or a piece of the
soft rock crumbled into powder, is a sovereign remedy for all nursing women who
furnish an insufficient quantity of milk. On the eastern slope of the ridge is
the Field of the Shepherds, which they were watching their flocks when the angel
appeared to announce the birth of Jesus. Strangely enough, this announcement
also occurred in a grotto, now surrounded by olive-trees, and called the Grotto
of the Shepherds. The population of Bethlehem, which was estimated at the time
of Robinson's visit, in 1838, at 3000, is now estimated at 5000. It has grown in
size and business importance, as well as in population. The inhabitants are
nearly all Christians of the Greek and Latin Churches, but there are a few
Mohammedans. The chief business of the place, apart from the usual traffic in
food and raiment, is the manufacture of toys, beads, crucifixes, and personal
ornaments from mother-of-pearl and from olive-wood. The mother-of-pearl is taken
from shells which are found in the Red Sea.

Between two and three miles southeast of Bethlehem are some ruins on a hill,
called by the natives Khirbet Tekû'a, the Ruins of Tekoah. It was the home of
the prophet Amos; it was in the wilderness, as it still is, in the days of
Jehoshaphat; it was the home of the wise woman whom Joab employed to induce
David to recall Absalom out of banishment; and it was one of the fifteen cities
of Judah that were fortified by Rehoboam.

Farther on in the same direction, about five miles southeast of Bethlehem, is
the so-called Frank Mountain, more properly Herodium. It is a hill in the form
of a truncated cone, 400 feet high above the surrounding level, and crowned with
the ruins of a palace built by Herod the Great. It is so steep that one has to
dismount in order to reach the summit. The top, which is about 330 yards in
circumference, is like the crater of a volcano in form, the walls around the rim
having maintained their original elevation, while those of the interior have
sunk, perhaps to fill up vaults and passages beneath them. Josephus says that
the hill was built artificially, and perhaps this is true of a portion of the
top. He also says that it was ascended by a flight of 200 steps of polished
stones, and that it was supplied with water from a great distance. We can
distinctly trace the remains of an aqueduct coming from the west, which seems to
have tapped the aqueduct which runs from Solomon's Pools to Bethlehem and
Jerusalem. The valley beneath the mountain, on the northwest side, is crossed by
a massive wall, above which is a pool about 65 yards square, with an island of
stone in its centre. Near the pool is a large cistern containing water, which is
used by the natives in the vicinity, and on the western slope of the hill are
several other cisterns, now dry. Some of the fortification wall which surrounded
the base of the hill is still standing on the northern side, and at the
northwest corner are the ruins of the gateway which opened through this wall.
The name Herodium was given to the place not only because Herod had a palace
there, but because he was buried there, in compliance with his own directions
given before his death. He died at Jericho, but was carried to Herodium on a
golden bier adorned with precious stones and hangings of purple, accompanied by
his entire army in military array. The view from the top of the hill is
widespread and interesting. To the east and south it extends over the desolate
hills and gorges of the wilderness bordering on the Dead Sea, with a portion of
the sea in view, and the mountain wall of Moab bounding the eastern horizon. To
the west and north it takes in much of the hill country of Judah, including many
villages and the tops of historical mountains. The hill is known to the Ar'abs
as Jebel Furei'dis, or Mountain of Paradise.

Just south of the Frank Mountain runs the valley called Wady Urtâs, which
descends from the Pools of Solomon, and on the southern side of this valley is
an immense natural cavern, which was long believed to be the Cave of Adullam, in
which David and his men found refuge in the early part of his banishment from
the court of Saul. But it has been settled by the researches of Robinson and
others that this is a mistaken identification, and they find Adullam in the
hills bordering on the land of the Philis'tines.

III. Solomon's Pools And Aqueduct

Among the most remarkable remains of antiquity in all Palestine are the three
large reservoirs called Solomon's Pools. They are remarkable both for the labor
and expense employed in their construction and for their durability. They are
situated about two miles southwest of Bethlehem, at the head of a narrow valley
called Wady Ur'tâs, which descends eastward past the Frank Mountain, and thence
to the Dead Sea. The uppermost of the three is at the extreme head of the
valley, the Hebron road from Jerusalem passing along its western side within a
few feet of its wall. It is 380 feet long from west to east, 229 feet wide at
the western end, and 236 at the eastern end. It is dug down into the solid rock,
walled with substantial masonry, and cemented. It is 25 feet deep, and was about
half full of water in May, 1879. It has a flight of well-preserved steps six
feet wide, descending to the bottom at the southeast corner, and along that
side, as well as the western, the earth outside is almost on a level with the
wall. Openings through the wall at the level of the outside surface admit the
surface-drain in winter, but the surface which slopes toward the pool is of
small extent. The wall is in a good state of preservation, except at the middle
of the western end, where a section of it about 20 feet wide and 12 feet deep
has fallen in and made quite a mound of earth and stones inside. The cement of
this pool is much broken, and the deposit which has settled on the bottom
supports a rank growth of moss. The second pool is about 50 yards farther down
the valley. It is much longer than the uppermost, and on account of the more
rapid descent and widening of the valley it is much wider at the lower than at
the upper end. Its length is 423 feet, its width at the upper end 160 feet, and
at the lower end 250 feet. It is 39 feet deep at the lower end. Its bottom is
not level like that of the one above, but slopes from the sides toward the
middle with the natural slope of the sides of the valley. The entire bottom and
sides are cemented, and the cement is in a perfect state of preservation,—not
blackened with age, but fresh and clean. It has two flights of steps, both
entering from the corners on the northern side. In the deepest part of the
valley just above it there is a small circular reservoir apparently intended as
a settling-basin for surface-water and for any which might overflow from the
pool above. An opening through the wall of the pool near its top receives the
overflow from the settling-basin. Thomson saw both this and the upper pool full
of water and overflowing into the third. The lowest pool, which is much the
largest of all, is about 50 yards below the second, and the perpendicular height
of each of the upper two above its lower neighbor is about 20 feet. The lowest
is 582 feet long, 148 feet wide at the upper end, and 207 feet at the lower end.
It is narrower than either of the others, but much longer. It is also much
deeper, being 50 feet deep at the lower end. Its bottom is composed of several
layers of the natural rock dropping off like terraces toward the middle, and all
well cemented. The cement on this, as on the middle pool, is well preserved and
fresh in appearance. It also has a settling-basin at its upper end, and a broad
flight of steps at its southeast corner. It contained less water than either of
the others in 1879, but a water-line distinctly traceable on the cement at the
level of an overflow-channel near the top of the lower wall shows that it is
often full. The other pools have no overflow-channel, showing that this one was
expected to overflow more copiously or more frequently than the others. The
lower end-wall of this pool, unlike the others, is almost entirely without
support from earth outside of it, the more rapid descent of the valley at this
point leaving it entirely above the surface. Consequently it is built with
immense thickness, and is supported by an immense buttress in the middle. Under
this buttress there is an arched passage passing through it, through the wall,
and for a considerable distance under the bottom of the pool. A stream of water
flows along the floor of the passage, coming from a spring under the bottom of
the pool. The workmen who constructed the pool evidently found this spring in
the bottom of the valley, and knowing that if they attempted to stop its flow it
might eventually force its way through and cause a leak, they arched it over and
gave its water a free passage under the pool into the valley below.

Solomon's Pools The aggregate surface of these three pools is about 6 1/4;
acres, and their immense capacity is realized when we observe that if they were
thrown into one they would make a sheet of water 6 1/4; acres in extent, with a
depth (taking the average of their greatest depths) of 38 feet. From this
observation we also more fully realize the immensity of labor involved in their
construction, as well as the skill which has caused them to stand so complete
and entire to the present day. Immediately north of the uppermost pool, and but
a few yards from it, stands an old fortified khân, intended as a stopping-place
for caravans and as a station for soldiers to guard the road and the pools. The
cut on the preceding page presents an imperfect view of the pools, with the khân
on the left.

Supply-Fountain of Solomon's Pools The sources of supply for these reservoirs
are almost as interesting as the pools themselves. That for the upper two is a
fountain 220 yards northwest of the uppermost pool, and about 50 feet
perpendicular up the slope of the ridge which rises in that direction. This
fountain is in an underground chamber cut down into the solid rock, then arched
over with masonry and covered with earth, so that but for the place of entrance
it could not be distinguished from the surrounding surface. When first
discovered in modern times its entrance was through an opening like a cistern's
mouth, which would be passed unobserved by one walking over the cultivated field
in which it lies. It was entered by sliding and climbing down in a very
disagreeable manner. When Robinson visited the spot the opening was covered by a
stone so heavy that he and his companion were not able to remove it. Recently
the earth has been dug away from the front of it and a wall built up, through
which a wooden door gives admittance to the flight of stairs that descend to the
floor of the chamber. The stairs enter on a level with the arch of the ceiling,
and descend 12 1/2 feet to the floor. The above cut represents it as it was
before this improvement was made, the opening in the distance towards which the
man is climbing being the former entrance. The chamber is 41 feet long from east
to west and 11 1/2 feet wide. Its floor and walls are the natural rock, and the
arch above rests on the natural surface of this rock. In the middle of the floor
is a basin cut down into the rock, 7 feet long, nearly 3 feet wide, and 3 feet 4
inches deep, into which the water is collected from two spring heads. One of
these is in the northwestern corner of the chamber, and its water, instead of
flowing to the basin over the floor, flows into it through a circular orifice
cut under the floor. The other stream comes in from the north through a similar
orifice under the floor, and its spring head is in a smaller chamber at a right
angle to the principal one, and 12 1/2 feet long by 10 wide. The ceiling of this
smaller chamber is also arched, and there is an opening to the air through its
top like the mouth of a cistern. The door leading into it is seen in the
left-hand side of the cut.

About 12 inches from the bottom of the collecting-basin there is an outflow
orifice towards the south, through which the water passes as it accumulates,
leaving about a foot of water constantly in the basin. This outflow orifice
leads into an arched passage, along the floor of which the water flows due south
about 30 feet, where the passage turns into the direction of the uppermost pool.
This passage, the mouth of which is seen in the right-hand side of our cut, is
for a short distance three feet wide and eight or nine feet high; but thence it
is narrower and lower. It is a trench cut into the natural rock, and covered
with slabs of stone laid across the top, with the earth replaced above them. The
water is the coolest that we found in all Palestine, except near the foot of
Mount Hermon where the springs are supplied from the melting snow. It was
probably collected thus deep under ground in order to protect it from the hot
sun, and to keep it pure. The water, thus springing from a fountain once
concealed, and running down the slope through a hidden channel, makes its
appearance near the northwest corner of the upper pool in a well. On a platform
of rock, elevated a few feet above the surrounding surface, is a well's mouth,
the stone curb of which is worn into scallops four inches deep by the abrasion
of ropes used in drawing water. This opening passes through the vaulted ceiling
of a chamber below, in the bottom of which the water from the fountain above
described is collected in a round well, and stands three feet deep. From the top
of the well-curb to the bottom of this shallow well is 27 feet. The chamber is
reached by a narrow flight of stairs descending from the platform. On the south
side of the platform is a long stone watering-trough for the use of passers-by.
The water from the fountain-head before descending into this well first enters a
small distributing basin only six feet beneath the surface. It is a circular
stone basin about three feet in diameter, with an orifice at one side, through
which a part of the water flows to the uppermost pool, and another by which the
remainder of the water flows into the chamber and well just described. Thence a
still deeper underground channel conducts it along the northern side of the
uppermost pool to another distributing basin, about six feet under ground, close
to the corner of the middle pool. Here the stream is again divided into two, one
of which continues down the valley, and the other runs into the adjacent pool.
Thus it appears that these two pools are supplied by a constant flow of part of
the water from the fountain. At each of the distributing basins it would be the
work of but a moment to stop up the channel leading into the pool and turn all
the water into the aqueduct, or that leading into the aqueduct and turn it all
into either pool. In both pools, at the corners nearest the distributing basins,
the water can be seen flowing in. The third pool receives no water at all from
the aqueduct. Its supply is from another aqueduct coming from the south, which
starts from Wâdy el Beer (valley of wells), about 3 1/2 miles distant. A hill
about 100 feet high rises from the southern side of the lowest pool, and the
aqueduct, after winding around the southern slope of this hill, to a point
nearly half way up the hill and opposite the middle of the pool, empties into an
open stone channel which runs straight down the hillside and empties into the
pool over the top of its wall. No water was flowing through this aqueduct in
May, 1879. Its fountain had run dry, or the aqueduct had been broken. In
consequence of this failure of its usual source of supply, there was less water
in this pool than in either of the others. The aqueduct already described as
supplying the two upper pools is the beginning of Solomon's aqueduct. It conveys
water to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and its construction has been ascribed, like
that of the pools, to Solomon. It is a very common mistake of writers and
travelers to represent these pools as supplying the aqueduct, and also to
represent each upper pool as supplying the one below it. The pools have no
connection with one another; the lowest has no connection at all with the
aqueduct, and the upper two, instead of supplying the aqueduct, receive their
supply from it. The pools were evidently intended for the storage of a vast
quantity of water, which might be used to irrigate the fields in the valley
below, and, in case of necessity, to temporarily supply the aqueduct. There is
no indication, however, that a connection for the latter purpose was ever
established. The aqueduct, after supplying the second pool, continues down the
slope of the valley past the third pool, and a short distance below the
northeast corner of this latter pool it receives an addition to its current by
the entrance of another aqueduct from the south, which crosses the valley on a
low wall. The author traced this latter aqueduct to a small opening in the
ground about 200 yards distant, through which he clambered, and found a small
rock-cut chamber, with an arched roof, into which the stream finds its way, and
whence it flows into the aqueduct. This chamber is 21 feet long, 11 1/2 feet
wide, and 9 feet high. The opening by which I gained admittance was made by the
falling of a stone from the arch of the ceiling near its northern end. The
stream flowing hence is weak, but ere it reaches the principal aqueduct it
receives the one which flows from under the third pool, and the two together
make a considerable addition to that in the aqueduct, compensating it for the
loss of the water which supplies the two upper pools. The basins in which these
streams unite with one another are open to the air, and are examined without
difficulty. From the point of their intersection the principal aqueduct may be
said to fairly start on its way to Jerusalem. Thus far it has descended by a
steep slope nearly 100 feet below its fountain-head, but in the remainder of its
course its fall is barely sufficient to give its water a steady flow.

It winds around the sides of the hills on a bench cut for it, and this bench is
a good roadway as far as Bethlehem. The mode of construction was first, after
cutting this bench, to lay down a course of stone slabs for a foundation. On
these were laid the earthen pipes to convey the water, their ends fitting into
one another and being made water-tight by cement. Then, for the protection of
the pipe, it was covered with stones of irregular shape laid in a mass of
cement. The pipe is about eight inches in interior diameter. At intervals along
the way to Bethlehem there are square openings in the top that serve as
drinking-places for passing men and animals, and they can be utilized for the
purpose of irrigation. A board slipped down on the lower side of the opening, so
as to obstruct the flow, or a bunch of straw stuffed into the orifice below the
opening, would cause the water to overflow and spread itself over the hillside
and valley below, or to run into irrigating channels in any direction. On
reaching the southeastern suburb of Bethlehem the aqueduct passes through a kind
of cistern, which it keeps supplied with water for public use. On the northern
side of the hill on which David's Well is situated, a woman brought the author a
drink of water from one of its openings. The aqueduct lies by the side of the
road leading from Jerusalem to Bethlehem at many places; it crosses the Valley
of Gihon, as formerly remarked (page 202), on arches built for its support, and
for that of the Bethlehem road which crosses by the side of it; thence it winds
around the southern and eastern sides of Mount Zion to the point at which David
Street crosses the Tyropeon Valley to the temple mount; crosses the same valley
under that street, and enters the temple mount. Its connections within that
mount must remain unknown until the Turkish authorities shall allow the
excavations to be made which are necessary to the unveiling of its mysteries. At
the crossing place of the Valley of Gihon the author found a small opening
broken into the top of the aqueduct, into which he inserted his hand and found
the pipe nearly full of water. The generally received opinion that the pools and
aqueduct just described were constructed by Solomon, has been called in question
by some recent explorers, among whom is Lieutenant Conder, who expresses the
opinion that both were constructed by Pontius Pilate. The same opinion is
expressed in Baedeker's Handbook (254), and it is based on statements made by
Josephus. This author says in his work on the Jewish War, that Pilate raised a
disturbance among the Jews "by expending that sacred treasure called corban upon
aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs."
But in describing the same incident in his Antiquities he uses the following
language: "But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and
did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the
distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews were not pleased with what
had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got
together and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off
that design." Here the distance is stated at half what it is in the other book.
Perhaps in the former statement he meant the distance measured along the
aqueduct, and in the latter the distance in an air-line. But 400 furlongs, 50
miles, is four times the length of the aqueduct in question, and 200 furlongs,
25 miles, is three times the distance to the head of this aqueduct. Twenty-five
miles would reach far beyond the range of hills high enough to send a current of
water to Jerusalem. It must, then, be an exaggeration; and it would be so
enormous if the reference were to this aqueduct, that we must suppose he
referred to some other. Again, the fact that the existing work conveys water to
the sacred precincts of the temple, points not so much to a heathen procurator
for its origin, as to a religious king like Solomon. Furthermore, the extensive
system of cisterns and reservoirs within the temple inclosure, evidently
demanding and contemplating some such source of supply, points to the builder of
the temple as the constructor of the aqueduct, seeing that without it the temple
would have no water except from the rainfall on its own premises. Again, that
Solomon did construct pools of water worthy of being mentioned among the great
achievements of his reign, he himself asserts in the well-known passage, "I made
me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." The
pools at the head of this aqueduct answer well to these words, and there are no
others in all the land so worthy of being thus mentioned. They must have been
intended primarily for the purpose of irrigation, and only secondarily, if at
all, for the supply of the aqueduct. There is no little confirmation of this
view in the statement made by Josephus, that "There was a place about fifty
furlongs (six miles) distant from Jerusalem, which is called Etham; very
pleasant it is in fine gardens and abounding in rivulets of water; thither did
he (Solomon) use to go out in the morning sitting on high in his chariot." This
place was in the vicinity of Bethlehem and Tekoa, as appears from 2Ch 11:6,
where it is said to have been fortified by Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. The
ruins of such a town are now seen a short distance below the pools. In the light
of these considerations it seems best to retain the former opinion that the
pools are almost certainly the work of Solomon, and that, while it is possible
that some one else may have constructed the aqueduct, it is more likely that
this also is the work of him who built the temple, and who could not have left
it unsupplied with water. The preceding conclusion is strengthened by the fact
that another aqueduct, called the Stone Aqueduct, has been discovered and
traced, which answers much better to the description of Pilate's work given by
Josephus. A short piece of it has long been observed by travelers a few hundred
yards east of Rachel's tomb, and Dr. Barclay discovered other pieces near the
convent of Mar Elyas (see page 215) and on the Plain of Rephaim. He ascertained
that it is on a level sufficiently nigh to reach the upper pool of Gihon, and to
run water into the moat of the citadel; and he concludes that its water is
referred to by Josephus when he speaks of water that was brought into the tower
of Hippicus. It was made of cubical stones perforated with a bore six to eight
inches in diameter, with a conical point on one fitted into a conical opening in
the next, and made water-tight by cement. Lieutenant Conder, in his careful
survey of the country, traced out much more of its course and found its
fountain-head. While camped three miles north of Hebron, 3300 feet above the
level of the sea, he found on another hill north of his camp the head of this
aqueduct. It is "thirteen miles from Jerusalem as the crow flies, and forty-one
and a half by the aqueduct, the fall being 365 feet." This is doubtless the
fountain referred to by Josephus in the quotations above made from him (page
229), and it appears that while his 200 furlongs, 25 miles, is about double the
distance in an air-line, his 400 furlongs, 50 miles, for the length of the
aqueduct itself, is only 8 1/2 miles out of the way.

IV. Toward The Dead Sea And The Jordan The valley of the Kedron, after running
nearly due south for about a mile below the city, turns abruptly to the
southeast, and thence passes on to the Dead Sea, growing deeper, narrower, and
more desolate as it advances. On its southern side, about nine miles from
Jerusalem, is the ancient Greek convent of Mar Saba, Saint Sabas. About the
middle of the fifth century this saint took up his residence here in a cave
which had been occupied by a lion. One day the saint came in and found the lion
at home. He said his prayers, so the story goes, then laid himself down and went
to sleep. The lion twice dragged him out, but he persisted in returning, so the
lion submitted to the intrusion and both lived together in peace until the lion
died. The monastery was built over the cave, though it had to be fastened to the
side of an almost perpendicular bluff 590 feet from the bottom of the gorge. It
has been frequently pillaged and partially ruined in the course of ages, but it
was thoroughly repaired by the Russians in 1840. It is regarded with the
greatest veneration by the Greek Church. It is now occupied by about 40 monks,
who live entirely upon vegetable diet, and have no communication with the
outside world, except when travelers call to visit their strange abode. No woman
is admitted within the walls on any pretext whatever. The monks have preserved
the skulls of their deceased brethren, and the chamber in which they are kept is
said to contain 14,000 of them. It would be impossible to convey to the reader a
clear conception of the building itself by a mere description. It is made up of
an "odd mixture of natural rock and masonry," and Dr. Bartlett aptly compares
it, when seen at a distance, to "a nest of swallows in the side of a huge
sand-bank or a wasp's nest glued to a rock." From the convent it is but a short
ride to the northern end of the Dead Sea, and many travelers take this route to
the sea, returning to Jerusalem by way of Jericho.

If, on leaving Jerusalem by St. Stephen's gate, and crossing to the Garden of
Gethsemane, we pass along the right-hand side of that inclosure, we are on the
road to Jericho. It passes along the front of the Mount of Olives, gradually
ascending, winds around its southern slope about 100 feet below its summit, and
crosses a depression which connects that mount with the Mount of Offense. The
road then descends about 100 feet, curves to the left to pass the head of a
gorge, ascends again along the southern slope of the southeastern spur of the
Mount of Olives, winds around to the eastern side of this spur, and passes by
Bethany, which it leaves on the left. This village is called by the Ar'abs el
Azarîyeh, a name derived from Lazarus. The village consists of 30 or 40
miserable hovels, inhabited only by Ar'abs. Its most conspicuous object is part
of an ancient tower built of drafted stones, the origin of which is not known.
Churches and monasteries were erected here at an early period, but they have all
perished. The traveler is led down a flight of 26 stone steps, all leading
underground through the solid rock, to behold the tomb whence Lazarus was called
from the dead. There is nothing visible which resembles a Jewish sepulchre, and
if the cavern in which Lazarus was buried is still in existence at all it is far
more likely that it is one of many caverns outside the village to the south and
southeast than in the very heart of the village itself. A foot-path runs from
Bethany in almost a direct line to the top of the Mount of Olives. It is much
shorter than the road described above, and it would be chosen by footmen and by
persons with unloaded animals going into the city, but on account of the steep
ascent of the Mount of Olives it would be avoided in coming out of the city. It
was doubtless followed by Jesus in his triumphal entry and in his usual walks
into the city from Bethany, but he returned by the other road. This accounts for
the fact that when he cursed the fig-tree on his way into the city, the
disciples did not discover that it had withered until they were going in again
the next morning; they missed seeing it in the afternoon because they took the
other road. On the right hand of this path, as it nears the top of the Mount of
Olives, the foundations of a house have recently been uncovered, which many
suppose to mark the site of Bethphage. If this identification should prove to be
correct it will make certain the supposition that Jesus followed this route in
his triumphal entry. The road after leaving Bethany soon ascends a hill on which
Martha is supposed to have met Jesus, and then about a mile farther it descends
into a narrow valley called Wady el Hôd (valley of the watering-place), in which
about a mile farther we find a fountain. This is probably the "waters of
En-shemesh," mentioned in the southern line of the tribe of Benjamin, and near
here must have been Bahurim, for as we approach the fountain the road passes
along the back of a descending ridge with one much higher to the left separated
by a narrow valley. As David passed along the former Shimei could have passed
along the latter, throwing stones and hurling curses, while Abishai was chafing
to go over and take off his head. The fountain sends forth a stream from an
orifice three feet from the ground. The temperature of the water in April, 1879,
was 75°. A winter torrent flows along the bed of the valley, and the road
crosses it a short distance below the fountain. This is the brook of water
referred to by the woman of Bahurim when, having hid Hushai's messengers to
David in her well, she told the pursuers that they had gone over "the brook of
water." From this point the road continues to descend, with now and then a short
level stretch, and it is very rough. In places the lower side of the road as it
passes deep ravines is supported by a wall, and in others the torrent bed
crosses it. There are evidences everywhere of a great rush of water along the
torrent beds during the winter rains.

About half way to Jericho the road crosses the saddle of a high ridge in passing
from one wady to another, and here is the traditional site of the parable of the
Good Samaritan. On the right-hand side of the road there is a perpendicular
overhanging rock, with a shallow cavern excavated in its side, which affords the
only shade in the vicinity, and furnishes a favorite lunching-place for
travelers. Across the road, on the north, are the ruins of an old khân, 150 feet
square, with two immense cisterns near the centre. One of these is caved in, but
the other still holds water, and from it the animals of passing caravans are
watered. On a high hill, a short distance to the northeast of this khân, are the
ruins of an old fortification, strongly built, with a deep ditch around it cut
in the natural rock. It was built to make secure for travelers a road which has
been more noted for the depredations of robbers than any other road leading out
from Jerusalem. It was on this account that the scene of the parable of the Good
Samaritan was located on this road.

After crossing the ridge just mentioned the road descends more rapidly, but the
hills descend more rapidly still. All is wild and desolate. The road bed has
been often shifted by the violence of the winter torrents, and, though often
repaired, it is still in some places scarcely passable for loaded animals.
Several Europeans of wealth have in the last few years, after passing over it,
appropriated considerable sums of money for its partial improvement. It is
utterly impassable for wheeled vehicles. When within about three miles of the
Jordan Valley you see Wâdy Kelt, a deep, wild gorge, a short distance to the
left; and when within about a quarter of a mile of the valley you pass along the
edge of the precipice which forms the southern side of this chasm. It is the
darkest and most desolate looking gorge in all Palestine. On either side is a
perpendicular wall of dark-brown rock, having a rotten and crumbling appearance,
and the narrow bottom of the chasm lies more than 2000 feet below the road. A
noisy stream dashes along its rocky bed, distinctly heard on the road above, and
a narrow line of verdure marks its course. On one occasion the author entered
this gorge at its mouth, where it breaks out into the plain, and ascended it
about a mile, partly on horseback and partly on foot. It is scarcely possible to
conceive the wild and desolate grandeur of the place. Its brown walls are only
about 20 yards apart, and they rise so high and steep as to shut out all the
sky, except a narrow strip overhead. There is no reason to doubt that it is the
"brook Cherith," in which Elijah was hidden and fed by ravens until the brook
ran dry. It is the only brook "before Jordan" suitable for such concealment. The
stream flowing through is sometimes a violent torrent, as appears from the large
rocks in its bed, broken and rounded by the rush of the water. Conder saw it
swelled by rain in a quarter of an hour till it was in places 8 or 10 feet deep.
The wâdy heads near the road from Jerusalem to Bethel. Nearly four miles above
its mouth are the remains of a magnificent aqueduct, which once conveyed a
portion of its water along a higher level for the purpose of irrigation. That
portion of the wâdy which flows through the Jordan Plain will be described in
connection with the localities in that plain, Chapter VIII., Section 1.

V. In The Hills Of Benjamin

There are three frequented routes from Jerusalem leading northward across the
highlands of the land of Benjamin,—the central ridge road leading directly to
Bethel, Nablus, and Galilee; a road starting from the northeast corner of
Jerusalem and passing in a northeasterly direction to Michmash; and another
turning to the left from the first mentioned road about a mile north of the
city, and running northwest to Mizpeh and Gibeon. In starting for the latter
points, however, one may go out the Joppa gate and pass between the city and the
Russian property. We will follow these three routes separately in mentioning the
localities reached by them, beginning with the northeastern, which is nearest to
the line last pursued. The road from the northeast corner of Jerusalem descends
into the upper and broader parts of the Valley of the Kedron, and thence,
running northeast, climbs the ridge of Scopus. Here a path turns to the right,
and leads to a small village called El Isâwîyeh, supposed to be the site of the
ancient Nob. Avoiding this path and crossing a wâdy (Wâdy Sulêm') to the next
ridge, we come to Anâ'ta, the ancient Anathoth, which is about three miles
northeast of Jerusalem. It is a village of mean houses nestled among the ruins
of better buildings. Tombs, broken columns, and ruined walls are seen on every
hand, and well-shaped building stones are seen here and there in the rude stone
fences. The village is occupied by about 20 families, and they are planting
young orchards of figs and olives.

Beyond Anathoth the road crosses another narrow valley with steep sides, and
then descends into Wâdy Fâra, a rich and well-cultivated valley, containing some
excellent springs. This wâdy descends into Wâdy Kelt (the Cherith), and its
springs are tributary to the stream which flows along the bed of the latter. Dr.
Barclay thought that he discovered in this wâdy the fountains of Enon where John
baptized, some half-dozen springs along its course supplying a stream in which
he found many natural pools from two to six feet deep; but Enon has since been
identified on Wâdy Far'rah, a stream running from Mount Ebal to the Jordan. See
Chapter V., Section 2. Beyond this valley, and on an eminence reached by a long
slope covered with well-cultivated fields, is Jebâ', the ancient Geba. It is
about such a village as Anâ'ta, except that it is more populous. It is about six
miles from Jerusalem.

Looking north, and a little east from Jebâ', we see Michmash, a similar village,
about two miles distant, with a deep valley called Wady Suwei'nît lying between.
The side of this wâdy next to Jebâ' can barely be descended on horseback, and
about a mile eastward of the line between the two villages it becomes so narrow
and deep that the opposite heights are not a mile apart in an air-line, though
the gorge between them is nearly 1000 feet deep. At this point must have been
stationed the armies of Saul and the Philis'tines previous to the famous feat of
Jonathan and his armor-bearer, which resulted in a disastrous rout of the
Philis'tines. Saul, with his 600 men, was on the south side of the valley, with
Geba on his left, while the Philis'tines were on the north side, with Michmash
on their right. The author descended the valley in front of Geba, and then rode
along its crooked torrent-bed, covered with large rounded boulders, until he
came between the positions of the two armies, and found that the locality
corresponds precisely to the description given in the text of Scripture. It is
said that "between the passages by which Jonathan sought to go over to the
Philis'tine garrison there was a sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on
the other side; and the name of the one was Bo'zez, and the name of the other
Se'neh." There they were,—a precipice corresponding to Se'neh, about 100 feet
perpendicular, surmounted by the slope of 800 or 900 feet more, rising up to
Saul's position, and one corresponding to Bo'zez, on the opposite side, about 50
feet high. A little west of the southern precipice, about where the left flank
of Saul's little army would be posted, is a descent sufficiently gradual for a
man to come down, and it might possibly be descended on horseback. There
Jonathan must have come down into the deep, narrow bed of the gorge, where he
would be invisible to both armies. Then, moving 100 or more yards down the
gorge, there is a break in the precipitous face of Bo'zez, up which he could
climb on his hands and feet, as he did, to the line of the Philis'tine
sentinels. There are many excavations, either natural or artificial, in the face
of the cliffs, and probably these suggested to the Philis'tines, when they saw
the two men climbing up, the remark, "Behold, the Hebrews come forth out of the
holes where they had hid themselves." When the retreat of the Philis'tines began
they must have fled westward past Michmash, while Saul's army, in pursuit,
rushed westward past Ge'ba, headed the valley, and fell into the rear of the
retreating Philis'tines. From the eminence on which Jebâ' is situated the eye
surveys an extensive range of hills crowned with many villages in every
direction except the east. In that direction it stretches over the barren ridges
descending toward the Jordan, and the view is bounded by the mountain-wall east
of the Jordan. Many of the villages in view, and some of the largest, are not
mentioned at all in the Scriptures, and will therefore be omitted from these
pages.

If we take the central road from the Damascus gate to the north, after crossing
the ridge of Scopus we find ourselves in the midst of localities belonging to
ancient Benjamin, which lie thick on every hand. About a mile beyond Scopus, and
a short distance to the left of the road, is the well-built village of Shafât'.
It is constructed of ancient material, and doubtless occupies an ancient site;
but it is not identified with any ancient town. It contains the ruins of a
church, and a small reservoir hewn in the rock. To the right of the road nearly
opposite Shafât' is a conical hill which has been regarded by many as the site
of Nob. There is no ground for this opinion, other than the fact that this
village of priests must have stood somewhere in the vicinity of Gibeah, which is
near by. For another tradition in reference to its site, see page 235.

Just north of the last mentioned hill, and not a mile distant, is another
conical hill called Tuliel' el Fûl, which has been identified ever since the
researches of Robinson as Gibeah of Benjamin, and also Gibeah of Saul, if these
two places are to be regarded as identical,—a question not fully settled. Its
area on top is much more extensive than that of the last mentioned hill, its
sides are marked by broad terraces, and some ruins are seen on its top. When
well fortified it was a strong place, and well adapted to the defense made by
Benjamin, as described in the twentieth chapter of Judges. It was also well
situated for the capital of Saul's kingdom, with the exception that it can never
have been well supplied with water. This may account for the fact that in all of
Saul's wars, though sometimes compelled to retreat from the Philis'tines, he
never allowed himself to be besieged within his own capital, as did the kings
who reigned in Jerusalem and in Samaria. It is about three miles from Jerusalem.

After leaving Gibeah the western view from the road is more extended, and the
three villages of Bêt Iksa, Bêt Hanî'na, and Bir Nebâ'la are visible. Indeed,
the entire hill country of Benjamin through which we are passing, though an
exceedingly dry, rocky, and hilly district, is thickly set with villages, as
much so as any part of the country. The soil on the hillsides and in the valleys
is exceedingly rich, and the villagers find a ready market for their products in
Jerusalem. About three miles north of Gibeah, and six from Jerusalem, a high
hill rises from the tight side of the road, crowned with the village of Er Râm,
identified by its name and its site with Ramah, once a frontier town near the
border between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. It is a small village built
among ancient ruins, many of the tenements being rooms in ruined buildings,
while some are huts built of ancient material, and some are caves in the
hillsides, once used apparently as sepulchres. Like all the other eminences in
this region it commands an extensive and interesting view of surrounding hills,
valleys, villages, and mountains. At the foot of the hill where the road passes
are the ruins of an ancient khân.

Nearly two miles beyond Ramah is a ruined village called Kîr'bet el Atâr'a,
ruins of Atâr'a, the ancient Ataroth, a town on the border between Benjamin and
Ephraim. There are here two pools for the preservation of water through the
summer drouth. About a mile farther we come to El Bîr'eh, the biblical Bé'eroth,
one of the cities of the Gibeonites in the days of Joshua, whose inhabitants
deceived Israel into the belief that they lived a great way off, and thus
induced the officers to make a treaty with them. It derives its name (cistern)
from its good supply of water. A very copious spring at the southwestern corner
of the village, where the road going north first strikes it, furnishes an
abundance of water for all purposes. The water is made to rush out through a
pipe from the side of a low stone building which covers the spring. It falls
into a stone trough, at which animals are allowed to drink, and the women, who
resort hither in large numbers for water, fill their water-skins and jars by
holding them under the spout. A short distance below the spring is a large
reservoir of fine masonry, now disused and nearly filled up with mud. The valley
immediately south of the village is well cultivated, and young vineyards and
fig-orchards have recently been planted there. There is also a recent increase
of the area cultivated in grain. The village contains about 800 inhabitants,
being the largest thus far met with on the road from Jerusalem. Its stone houses
are mostly built of material from ancient ruins, declaring that it stands on the
site of a well-built ancient city. The same is true of nearly all the other
villages. The next place of importance, going north, is Bethel, now called
Beitîn'. It is 12 miles north of Jerusalem, and from the hill on which it stands
Jerusalem is distinctly seen. It occupies the southern slope of a very rocky
hill, and the region immediately about it is the most rocky spot thus far seen
on the road from Jerusalem; but the soil is rich where any can be found, and
grain grows luxuriously where the surface of the ground is almost hidden with
stones. Young orchards of figs abound and freshly-planted vineyards, while stone
walls recently thrown up on the borders of the little fields show that vigorous
efforts are being made to extend the tillable area. The inhabitants are
estimated at 400, and they dwell in houses, like those of El Bîr'eh, chiefly
built of material from the ruins of better buildings. It contains the ruins of
an ancient tower and an ancient church. At the foot of the hill just south of
the village is a spring which rises within a pool about to feet wide by 12 long,
and six feet deep. The pool stands full of water, and a feeble stream flows from
it into a valley to the southeast. Just below the pool is a large reservoir,
partly cut in the rock, with a solid rock bottom exposed in one part. The
southern and eastern walls are still standing, showing that the reservoir was
originally about 10 feet deep, and its dimensions are 317 by 214 feet. A rich
piece of ground southwest of the pool containing four or five acres was being
set with tomato-plants when the author was there in May, 1879, and many women
and boys were carrying water from the pool with which to water the plants as
they were set.

Immediately east of Bethel is a higher ridge, separated from the one on which
Bethel stands by a narrow valley which descends towards the south, deepening
rapidly as it goes. This is the "Mountain east of Bethel" on which Abraham
pitched his tent. The spot on which the tent is likely to have stood is marked
by a ruined tower, which, as appears from broken capitals built into its walls,
must be a reconstruction from some still more ancient building. A small space
around it is inclosed by a stone wall, and within this, to the west of the
tower, is a fine rock-hewn cistern. A short distance to the southeast is a
sepulchral cavern. Beyond this mountain to the southeast, and separated from it
by a shallow depression, is another, with a rounded top covered with ruins. This
appears to be the site of Ai. It corresponds to the description in Gen 12:8,
which states that Abraham removed to a "mountain on the east of Bethel and
pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he
builded an altar to the Lord." With his tent on the spot above mentioned Bethel
was almost due west from him, and Ai southeast. This site also corresponds to
the account of the capture of Ai given in Jos 8:9-19. Just north of it,
separated from it by a valley with a gentle slope on each side, is a ridge on
which Joshua's army may have been drawn up, while west of it, sufficiently near
the direction of Bethel to be described as "between Bethel and Ai," is a deep
valley in which the 5000 men in ambush could lie hid from both cities. Joshua
may have stood on a hill nearly due east of Ai, in full view of the city and of
his own army, yet also visible to the right flank of the detachment in ambush,
and have given the signal to the latter by lifting up his spear. No other spot
in the vicinity answers so completely the demands of the Scripture narrative, so
here we must suppose that Ai stood. With Ai and Bethel in full view, while
Bêeroth is only two miles away, and Gibeon only three or four miles farther, we
are in the midst of stirring scenes connected with the careers of men as far
apart in history as Abraham, Jacob, Joshua, David, Jeroboam, and Josiah. It was
in this vicinity that Abraham and Lot separated after Lot had "lifted up his
eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered
everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah;" but if the historian
is not here speaking of what Lot saw in his mind's eye, remembering what he had
seen before, he must have traveled a number of miles to the east in order to
obtain the view, for from no hill-tops in the vicinity of Bethel and Ai can any
part of the plain of the Jordan be seen. He may have taken several days to look
around, after the generous proposal of his kinsman, before he made his choice. A
few miles northeast of the site of Ai is a village called Rammûn', supposed to
occupy the site of Rimmon, the place to which the 600 Benjamites fled after the
disastrous battle described in the twentieth chapter of Judges. It is loftily
situated on a rocky eminence with steep slopes on every side. Farther to the
north is an important and flourishing Christian village called Tai'yibeh, which
is without a Scripture history. The author visited it, and found ruins of
several churches within and near it. It is surrounded by olive and fig orchards,
and the soil is well cultivated by the villagers. Our dragoman purchased from
them a supply of dried figs for our table. Still nearer to the supposed site of
Ai is the village of Dêr Diwân', also without mention in the Scriptures. That
portion of the land of Benjamin which lies west of the route last pursued can be
described to the best advantage by making Neby Sam'wîl our point of observation.
This is a conical hill about five miles northwest of Jerusalem, the loftiest and
most conspicuous point in this part of Palestine. It is one of the first objects
which become familiar to the eye of the traveler. It is 3006 feet above the
level of the sea, being about 400 feet above the highest part of Jerusalem. It
is almost universally regarded by recent explorers as the ancient Mizpeh
(watchtower), and there is no spot in the land of Benjamin to which the name is
so appropriate. Since the time of the Crusades it has been supposed, without
reason, to be the burial-place of Samuel, hence the Arabic name Neby Sam'wil,
the prophet Samuel,—for the Ar'abs have accepted this tradition, as they have
many others, from the Christians. The summit is crowned by a dilapidated mosque,
once a Christian church, within which is shown a comparatively modern Moslem
tomb as the tomb of Samuel. From the top of the minaret, which is reached from
the roof of the mosque, is obtained one of the most extensive and interesting
views in all Palestine. Jerusalem is in full view, together with all the more
prominent objects about it, and multitudes of hills and villages full of
historical interest are seen in the wide sweep from the southeast to the north;
while to the westward the eye ranges over the descending slopes of the western
hills, beyond which are the broad stretches of the Plain of Sharon; and the
horizon is limited in this direction by the mist which hangs like a gray cloud
on the surface of the Mediterranean and hides its water from the view. The
village occupies the narrow top of the hill, and consists of a few small stone
buildings whose walls are partly composed of masses of natural rock left
projecting above the surface, the remains of the ancient fortification. On the
eastern slope below the village are two reservoirs hewn in the rock, which were
supplied partly by rain and partly by a spring a little farther around the hill
to the north. On the southeast the mountain descends into a beautiful valley
called Wâdy Hanî'na, from a village of this name at its head about two miles to
the east. It here curves to the south, grows rapidly deeper and narrower as it
advances, and finally turns westward and merges into the Valley of Sorek, which
debouches into the Philistine Plain after passing Beth'shemesh. It was along the
bed of this valley that Samuel and the Children of Israel chased the
Philis'tines during the battle of Ebenezer.

Immediately to the north of Neby Sam'wîl, with a smooth and beautiful valley
lying like a basin between, rises the hill of El Jib, the ancient Gibeon. The
hill is not so high as that of Neby Sam'wîl, yet it is a lofty eminence, with a
steep but smooth slope in every direction. The stone village is built of ruins,
and in the midst of it are the remains of what appears to have been an ancient
castle. On the northeastern slope of the hill is a copious fountain of fine
water in a shallow cavern, which is reached by descending a few stone steps.
Below the fountain are two reservoirs, a larger and a smaller. Not feeling
satisfied that either of these appeared sufficiently ancient to be the pool of
Gibeon mentioned in the account of the battle between Abner and Joab, the author
made search for another; and by the guidance of an old man of the village, after
riding through vineyards and over stone fences, and at last dismounting, we
reached a more ancient pool on the southeast slope of the hill, which is now
nearly filled up and cultivated in vegetables. A feeble spring above it once
supplied it with water, and is now used to irrigate the garden of vegetables.
The smoother and broader plain below it makes this a more suitable place for the
battle. To the northwest of Gibeon, and about a mile distant, is the head of the
pass, descending by the two Bethho'rons into the Plain of Sha'ron, on the
ancient road to Joppa and Cæsarea. In the midst of this pass, and on a rocky
point which divides it, stands the village called Bêt Ur el Fo'ka, the ancient
Upper Bethho'ron. Below, at the bottom of the pass, is Bêt Ur el Tâh'ta, the
Lower Bethho'ron, about three miles distant. It was in the vicinity of the
former of these places that Joshua stood, when, in his pursuit of the army of
the Canaanites, he exclaimed, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou,
Moon, in the Valley of Ajalon." At eight or nine o'clock in the morning the sun
would from this point seem to hang over Gibeon; and if the moon was just
entering its last quarter it would hang over the Valley of Ajalon, which
stretches away to the southwest, passing the village of Latrûn'. The ancient
road through this pass continued to be the frequented route between Jerusalem
and Joppa until, in the year 1872, the present turnpike was constructed from
Joppa to Jerusalem by a more direct and shorter route.

VI. In The Western Hills The reader can best obtain a conception of the
localities in the hills westward of Jerusalem by following the roads which lead
in that direction. These are the Joppa road, which runs to the north of west;
that to Ain Ka'rim, which runs nearly due west; and the ancient Gaza road, which
runs southwest.

About four miles from Jerusalem, on the Joppa road, is a broad valley, which is
reached by a descent of about 800 feet from either side. It is called Wâdy
Kulônî'yeh; but it is a continuation of Wâdy Hanî'na, which heads to the east of
Neby Sam'wîl, and it is the upper part of the Valley of Sorek. The road descends
into it from either side by a series of zigzags. The torrent bed is crossed by a
bridge, and near the bridge is an Ar'ab café, where it is customary for
travelers to stop and lunch, eating their own provisions. The village is just
north of the café and was once supposed to be the site of Emmaus, but it is much
nearer Jerusalem than Emmaus was. The road between Jerusalem and this place
passes through the roughest and dreariest portion of its entire route to Joppa.
It passes by only one spot mentioned in the Scriptures, a village called Lifta,
supposed to be the ancient Neph'toah, two and a half miles northwest of
Jerusalem.

Passing on westward from the Valley of Sorek, when we reach the summit of the
hill on its western side, and turn our eyes to the southeast, we have a fine
view of the convent and village of Ain Kar'im, to be described below. This is
one of the most pleasing views on the entire road from Jerusalem to Joppa. About
a mile and a half farther west the road passes along the southern slope of a
rounded hill with some ruins on its top, supposed to be the site of the house of
Obed-edom, where David left the ark for three months after the death of Uzzah.
As it is on the road from Kirjath-Jearim to Jerusalem, along which the ark was
being moved, the identification is not improbable.

About a mile and a half still farther west, which is about seven miles by the
road from Jerusalem, is the village called Abu-Gôsh, which is identified with
Kirjath-Jearim, the place where the ark rested from the time of its return out
of the land of the Philis'tines until its removal to Jerusalem by David. Its
present name (Father Gôsh) is of recent origin, being derived from that of a
village shêikh who, with a band of followers, led the life of a marauder for
many years, and was the terror of the surrounding country. During the early part
of Dr. Barclay's residence in Jerusalem, he witnessed an assemblage of the
forces of this chieftain at the fountain of Neph'toah, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem were closely confined within the walls for some months on account of
the warfare going on between him and his enemies. The most notable object about
the village at the present time is the well-preserved ruin of a church standing
between it and the road. It is one of the very few churches of the old Christian
period which have not been converted into mosques. A fine spring to the
southeast of the church supplies the village with water. The last point of
special interest on this road before descending into the Plain of Sha'ron is
Latrûn, situated on a hill to the south of the road, about half way between
Jerusalem and Joppa. It is a very small village composed of miserable hovels
among the ruins of massive buildings which once covered the top of the hill.
Many arches, vaults, and foundation-walls of the ancient city are yet seen, and
the view from the summit is commanding. On a bench of the hill, near its
northern foot, and but a short distance from the road, is a comfortable building
two stories high, erected in 1878 as a wayside hotel for the accommodation of
tourists. It is clean and comfortable, and was built of stones taken from the
ruins of Latrûn. A short distance west of the hotel is a good spring with a
small reservoir adjoining it. Latrûn derived its name from a tradition that it
was the home of the penitent robber (latronis in Latin) who was crucified with
Jesus. There is also a tradition that Judas Maccabeus and several members of his
family were buried here, and a sepulchral cavern near the hotel is pointed out
as the place of their burial.

Other localities on the road to Joppa and to the right and left of it will be
described among the places on the Plain of Sha'ron.

About a mile and a half a little south of west from Jerusalem is a Greek
monastery called the Monastery of the Cross, founded in the fourth or fifth
century, and now containing a seminary for the education of priests, with six
professors and about sixty pupils. It has a large library containing some
ancient manuscripts. The grounds are well cultivated, and the buildings,
recently repaired, present a pleasing appearance.

About four miles due west of the city is the convent of St. John the Baptist, a
Latin convent, so called because it is supposed by its owners to occupy the site
of the house of Zachariah, the birthplace of John the Baptist. The buildings are
handsome, the surrounding wall incloses a garden in which grow some tall
cypress-trees, and the village of Ain Kar'îm, standing just below, is a
well-built stone village containing about 600 inhabitants. The village derives
its name from a spring which furnishes it with water. It occupies the western
slope of a mountain which descends into the Valley of Sorek. The country round
about it is exceedingly rough and mountainous, but the soil in the valleys and
on the slopes is productive. The Monastery of the Cross, just mentioned above,
fronts to the south, and the slope in its front is the northern side of the Wâdy
el Werd, the Valley of Roses, which drains the Plain of Rephaim. It is so called
because several acres of ground here are cultivated in roses, and have been for
many years back, for the purpose of making rose water. On the farther slope of
this valley, and about four miles southwest of Jerusalem, is the village and
fountain of Ain Yâlo. A pool 20 feet square, and entered by a flight of steps at
one corner, receives the surplus water from the spring. A little more than a
mile farther down the same valley, and consequently about five miles from
Jerusalem, is another spring called Ain Hanî'yeh, Philip's Fountain. The
fountain-head is about 15 feet above the level of the passing road. A
perpendicular wall of masonry is built up from the roadside to the height of the
stream. It is built in the form of a recess with Corinthian columns on each
side. The water rushes through an opening above, falls into a circular basin,
and overflows at one side into a watering-trough, and on the other side into a
conduit which leads into a pool about 20 steps below. This pool is 25 by 41 feet
and 8 feet deep. It is dug chiefly in the solid rock, walled, and plastered. It
has, like nearly all pools of the kind, a flight of steps in one corner. Through
an outlet provided for the purpose the water is allowed to flow when it is
needed to irrigate a rich and beautiful garden, which stretches along the side
of the valley for several hundred feet below. This garden is cultivated in
pears, peaches, and other fruits which require irrigation, and also in garden
vegetables. In the latter part of the fifteenth century this pool was fixed upon
by the Latins as the site of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and it would
certainly be an admirable place for the purpose; but it is not on the road
leading from Jerusalem to Gaza, the road which the eunuch was traveling, and
this is fatal to its claims. The valley below Philip's Fountain is narrow, very
rocky, and very precipitous on both sides. One of the slowest and hottest rides
which the author and his company experienced in our whole journey was along its
narrow torrent bed, with an afternoon sun beaming upon us, and its reflected
heat assailing us on both sides, while not a breath of wind could reach us. It
is not likely that it was ever traversed by wheeled vehicles such as the
eunuch's chariot. The "way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza" is not, as
was supposed by Dr. Barclay, the road which runs due south to Hebron, and thence
nearly due west to Gaza; for the former part of this route would be called the
road from Jerusalem to Hebron, and the latter part the road from Hebron to Gaza.
It must be the direct road, traces of which are still seen, with no town of such
importance as to give names to parts of the road between the two cities. It
branches from the road to Philip's Fountain, just mentioned, in the edge of the
Plain of Rephaim, crosses the head of Wâdy el Werd (p. 245), and runs along the
bed of the next valley south of this, called Wâd'y el Mesârr', which descends in
a southwesterly direction until it enters into the broad Valley of Elah. Along
the bed of this wâdy are still seen occasional traces of the ancient pavement of
the road, showing that once there was a chariot road here, though now it is
impassable for any kind of a wheeled vehicle. When Philip was told to "arise and
go toward the south, into the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza," he
must have understood the angel to mean this road; and along this road must be
our search for the probable place at which he intercepted the eunuch's chariot,
and for the "certain water" in which the latter was baptized. On the
dividing-ridge between the wâdy just described and Wâdy el Werd are a number of
villages, gardens, and fountains, and many ruins which have no name in the
Scriptures. It is a very rough, mountainous region, but very productive, and
shows evidences of a dense population in former times. The most conspicuous spot
among them is Bêt Atâb', supposed to be identical with the rock Etam, where
Samson took refuge after his destruction of the Philis'tine grainfields. It is
on a high, isolated peak of naked rock, and is visible for many miles from all
directions. Lieutenant Conder first proposed this identification, and he says:
"The substitution of B for M is so common (as in Tibneh for Timnah) that the
name Arab may very properly represent the Hebrew Etam (eagle's nest); and there
are other indications of the identity of the site. It is pre-eminently a
'rock,'—a knoll of hard limestone, without a handful of arable soil,—standing,
above deep ravines, by three small springs." He also thinks that a large cavern
whose mouth is on the northeastern brow of the hill, and whose southwestern
extremity is under the village, was the real hiding-place of Samson. This place
is about twelve miles from Jerusalem, and the village is solidly built of stone,
with several square houses two stories high. Some ruins are seen in the midst of
the houses.

About halfway between Bêt Atâb and Jerusalem, six miles from the latter, is the
village of Bîttir', which Conder identifies with Bêthur, the place at which the
Jews, under Bar Co'chebas, were routed and a vast number of them slaughtered,
thus bringing to a disastrous end the last struggle of the Jews against the
Romans after the destruction of Jerusalem. We have given a brief account of the
struggle in our Introduction.


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  CHAPTER 14: CHAPTER THREE--PLACES WITH HEBREN AS A CENTER
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Chapter III. Places With Hebron as a Centre I. Hebron And Its Suburbs

Hebron is twenty miles south of Jerusalem, and it is one of the oldest cities in
Western Asia. The author of Genesis conveyed an idea of its antiquity to his own
generation by telling them that it was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.
Between the time of Abraham and that of the Judges its name was changed to
Kirjath-ar'ba, but the old name was restored by Caleb, and it has been
perpetuated till the present day, the Ar'abs calling it El Kahlîl (the friend),
which is but their version of Hebron (friendship). It has an important history
running through the chief part of the Old Testament, but it is not once
mentioned in the New Testament. Its present population is between 8000 and
10,000, of whom 500 are Jews. It is stretched along the southwestern slope of a
ridge, to whose base it reaches, but whose summit rises about 200 feet above the
upper edge of the city. It is nearly half a mile long and a quarter of a mile
wide. It carries on a lively trade with the surrounding villagers and the
Bed'awin of the adjacent deserts, and the intercourse between it and Jerusalem
is considerable. It does a large business in wool and camel's hair and in the
manufacture of leather buckets. It has also a small glass-factory devoted
chiefly to the making of colored rings of common glass, which are used by the
women of the country as bracelets.

The Har'am at Hebron The centre of attraction at Hebron is the har'am, or sacred
inclosure, which is supposed to include the Cave of Macpe'lah. It is at the
upper edge of the town, and near its southern end. Its wall is built of beveled
stones, like those in the oldest part of the temple-wall in Jerusalem, and this
has led many to suppose that it was built by Solomon. It is generally agreed
that it is not of later date than the reign of Herod the Great. Josephus speaks
of it (War, 4, 9, 7), and, as he does not attribute it to Herod, it must run
farther back, and most likely to Solomon. The old wall is from 50 to 60 feet
high, according to the slope of the ground, and it is strengthened by square
pilasters at regular intervals. A new wall, running up some 10 or 15 feet
higher, has been built by the Moslem on top of the old one. The space inclosed
by this wall is a quadrangle 112 feet wide and 198 feet long, the long way being
from northwest to southeast. A broad bench was cut on the hillside to give it
room. Houses are built against the side toward the town, a flight of broad steps
ascends on the southeast side to the level of a portico which runs across the
northeastern side, and in this side, which is toward the hill, is the entrance.
Under the escort of the shêikh of the town a Christian is allowed to ascend the
steps, but he must go no farther; and when he is approaching even this near, the
women and boys of the town are heaping bitter curses on his head. The Prince of
Wales was the first person of Christian faith permitted to enter this inclosure
since the Moslem have had possession of it. This occurred in 1862, and Dean
Stanley, who accompanied him as one of his suite, gives an interesting account
of the visit at the end of the first volume of his lectures on the Jewish
Church. The same privilege was accorded the Marquis of Bute in 1866, and the
Crown-Prince of Prussia in 1869. About one-third of the interior space is
occupied by a mosque, once a Christian church. Cenotaphs of Abraham and Sarah,
Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, occupy spots, some within the mosque and some
outside of it, and one also represents Joseph, who, according to a Moslem
tradition, was disinterred after being buried at She'chem, and removed to this
place. The distinguished visitors just named were allowed to examine these
objects, but were not permitted to descend into the cavern beneath the floor,
which is the real resting-place of the dead; nor, indeed, were they allowed to
see the door by which admission is gained. They saw only a circular hole into
the rock, eight inches in diameter, which is supposed to pass through the roof
of the cave. The Moslem guardians of the mosque say that even they dare not
enter the cavern lest they incur the displeasure of the holy dead and be smitten
with a curse. They relate that about 2500 years ago a servant of a great king
entered there; that he went in sound in mind and corpulent in person, but that
he came out blind, deaf, withered, and crippled. A similar feeling of
superstitious dread attaches to all such shrines in the minds of the Moslem, and
doubtless this is one cause of their persistent opposition against the entrance
of Christians into their holy places. This sanctuary, however, is the only one
in Palestine yet inaccessible to Christians, and there can be no doubt that
advancing light and the free use of money will yet open even it to the
inspection of enlightened travelers. It is quite possible that the body of Jacob
is yet there in a good state of preservation, seeing that it was embalmed in the
best style of Egyptian art; but it is scarcely possible that the bones of any of
the other occupants of the cave are yet preserved.

Next to the har'âm in interest and antiquity are the two pools of Hebron. The
larger of these is in the lower part of the town, and a person entering the town
from the west passes it on his right as he goes directly toward the har'âm. Its
wall is of very ancient masonry, and is built up about three feet above the
street. It is 142 feet square and about 20 feet deep, with a flight of stone
steps descending in one corner. When seen by the author, boys and men were
swimming in it, entering from the steps, while men and women at the corner
diagonally opposite were drawing water to fill their skin-bottles and to water
their stock. This, in all probability, is the pool near which David hung up the
feet and hands of the men who assassinated Ishbosheth. The other pool is toward
the northwestern end of the town, and is much smaller, though it is constructed
in the same manner and bears the same marks of antiquity. It is 74 feet long, 54
feet wide, and 21 feet deep. Both of the pools appear to be supplied by
rainwater, though the bed of the valley, along which a stream of water flows in
winter, passes by the western side of each.

Hebron

It is supposed by some writers that Hebron does not now occupy its original
site. This opinion is based upon the fact that the Cave of Macpe'lah, which is
now in the upper edge of the city, was originally "in the end of the field" of
Ephron the Hittite, and it is described as being "before Mamre," another name
for Hebron. That the cave was outside of the city shows that the city certainly
did not extend as far in the direction of the cave as it now does, and that it
was "before" the city implies that it stood in front of it or opposite to it. If
the city then stood on the hill which is opposite to it on the west, the site
would correspond to these words of the text; and it is a fact tending to confirm
this supposition that the hill west, or rather a little northwest, is now
covered with ruins and graves, and among these are many cisterns. The walls of
the ruins now standing are reconstructions built of older material, as is clear
from the fact that broken columns are built transversely into them,—a
circumstance which argues the very high antiquity of the original buildings.

Between the city and the hill last mentioned is a valley about a quarter of a
mile wide, sloping toward the torrent-bed which runs along the foot of the city.
This is occupied chiefly by an Ar'ab cemetery, but it also contains a large
threshing-floor, and the upper part of it is the usual camping-place for
travelers. The traveler when camped here can sit at his tent door and survey at
his leisure the entire city, including the har'am with its two minarets and the
upper part of the mosque inside, together with all the roads leading into the
city, frequented by a motley crowd of corners and goers. A short distance south
of the camp, where the road from the direction of Beer'sheba and Gaza comes in,
is a stone building used for a quarantine, in which are confined for a time all
persons who come from places infected by any kind of plague. The quarantine is
the dread of travelers who come hither from Egypt through the desert. The
valleys and hillsides around Hebron are better cultivated in vines, and are set
with finer orchards of olives, than any other section of Palestine. Grapes are
produced in greater quantities than can be consumed while they are fresh, and,
as the Mohammedans make no wine, the surplus is made into raisins. A seedless
variety of grapes grown here is highly esteemed as a raisin grape, and, although
they are not handled at all skillfully by the natives, the raisins are very
palatable, and they sell remarkably cheap. The vineyards are well fenced with
stone walls, the vines are supported on stakes, and fig and quince trees are
frequently planted along the inner side of the vineyard walls. The author saw
bunches of grapes a foot long in May, when the grapes were just forming. The one
object outside of Hebron visited by all travelers is the so-called Abraham's
Oak. It is reached by passing up the wâdy which runs along the front of the
city, and is about 1 1/2 miles distant to the northwest. It stands on the
eastern edge of this valley, and in the edge of a fine vineyard, which covers
the bed of the valley. Twenty or thirty acres of ground around it now belong to
the Russian government, by whom a large two-story stone building has been
erected on the hill which rises to the northeast of the oak, intended as a free
lodging-place for pilgrims of the Greek Church who visit Hebron. We have given a
description and a cut of the oak on page 52. It is certainly a very old tree,
but it is not possible that its age reaches back to that of Abraham, who lived
nearly four thousand years ago. Still, it is a tree of the same kind as that
under which the patriarch sat; it stands near the same spot, perhaps on
precisely the same little plain, and it helps the imagination to reconstruct and
to enjoy with thrilling interest the scene which it commemorates.

About three miles to the north of Hebron, near the Jerusalem road, is the
highest ground in all Palestine, being 3300 feet above the sea level. Thence
there is a gradual descent northward to the foot of Hermon, and a more rapid one
southward to the Negeb. Where the Jerusalem road crosses this high ground is
situated, just at the edge of the road, the fountain called Ain ed Dhir'weh,
with two small pools near it, once supposed to be the place of the eunuch's
baptism, but no intelligent traveler now credits this supposition.

II. From Hebron To The Dead Sea

Hebron is the most favorable point from which to visit the western shore of the
Dead Sea. There are three points on that shore of special interest, En'-gedi,
Mas'ada, and Jeb'el Us'dûm,—all of which may be seen in one excursion. The
shêikh of Hebron claims the privilege of escorting travelers through this
region, and it is necessary to engage his services in order to be safe from
molestation. His compensation is two dollars a day for a small party. The most
direct route to En'-gedi, which is almost due east from Hebron, leads over the
hill east of the southern end of the town, and thence to a loftily-perched
village called Beni Nâ'im, about five miles from Hebron and a little south of
east. This village is built of ruins, and it contains an old castle, or
fortified khân with a tower at each corner, which is now called the Tomb of
Noah. Noah is buried at several places in Syria. The surface of the rock about
the village is full of cisterns, and at the western side of the village is one
of the largest rock-cut wine-presses in all Palestine, showing that
grape-culture was once extensive here, though it has long since disappeared.
This village lies on the dividing-line between the tillable lands around Hebron
and the barren chalk hills of the desert reaching thence to the Dead Sea. The
cliffs about the sea are distinctly visible from the village, and are about 15
miles distant in an air-line. Thence to En'-gedi the pathway leads partly over
rocky hills, partly along the steep sides of mountains, where the goats have
made a track about a foot wide, while a yawning chasm lies hundreds of feet
below, and partly along the smooth beds of wâdies which are washed by torrents
in wet winters. No vegetation is seen on the hills except a few gray
desert-bushes from one to two feet high, whose leaves are eaten by nothing but
camels. Cisterns, which are filled by the surface-drain, and which are used by
the Bed'awin shepherds, are occasionally seen, and from these the travelers'
animals are supplied with water. The road reaches the heights above the Dead Sea
shore, on a small plateau about 2600 feet above the level of the water, with a
deep, yawning chasm on the right and another on the left. By a descent of 2000
feet on the almost perpendicular face of a cliff—effected by short zigzags cut
in the rock, along which the path is obstructed by bowlders and by perpendicular
steps often two feet high—we reach a bench where the spring of En'-gedi (the
fountain of the kid) breaks forth from under the cliff. The Arabic form of the
name is Ain Jid'dy. It sends forth a bold stream, whose banks are lined with the
rankest vegetation amid surrounding desolation. A ruined mill 40 or 50 yards
below was once operated by the water of the stream. After rushing down a steep
descent of 600 feet farther, and covering this also with verdure, the stream
starts across the sandy beach about half a mile wide, but is lost in the sand in
the summer time ere it reaches the water's edge. Another stream, still larger
than this, flows out of the deep chasm about 200 yards to the north, leaping
down a perpendicular ledge of rock 25 feet high in the mouth of the chasm, and
forming a beautiful cascade. It also, during the dry season, is lost in the sand
ere it reaches the sea.

Nothing can surpass the gloomy grandeur of the mountain-walls in this vicinity,
made brown, and in places almost black, by long exposure to the elements, and
rendered still more gloomy by contrast with the rich green and the sparkling
water of this oasis in the wilderness. En'-gedi is frequently mentioned in the
Old Testament, but nothing is said to give any very definite conception of it as
it then was. From the top of the mountain above it there is a grand view of the
entire eastern shore of the sea, with its towering mountains, the dark gorges of
its principal wâdies, and its occasional patches of verdure where perennial
streams make their way to the beach. The view also includes nearly the entire
surface of the sea, and the range of hills on the western shore all the way to
its southern extremity. A projecting mountain near by, toward the north, hides
from view the northern portion of the western shore. A part of the view toward
the south is given in our cut on page 41.

About 12 miles south of En'-gedi, reached by a path along the sea-shore, the
hill of Mas'ada rises from near the edge of the water, nearly 1200 feet high,
and almost perpendicular on every side. It can be ascended only from the west,
and from this point only by hard climbing on foot. The space on its summit is
about 600 yards long and from 200 to 250 yards wide. It was strongly fortified
by the Mac'cabees, and Herod the Great strengthened the former works so as to
make it, as he thought, utterly impregnable. Its fame depends chiefly on an
awful incident that transpired after the downfall of Jerusalem. One Eleazar,
leader of a band of Jews engaged in the last war against the Romans, obtained
possession of this stronghold, and was besieged in it by a Roman army under
Flavius Sylva. With prodigious labor the Romans built an embankment against the
western side of the hill, by means of which they finally succeeded in forcing
their way within the works; but when Eleazar saw that his long-continued and
brave defense was about to end in defeat, he prevailed on all the men of his
garrison to kill their wives and children and then to kill one another; so that
when Sylva's victorious troops climbed over the ramparts they were horrified to
find the place filled with dead bodies. The only living persons within were two
women and five boys, who had succeeded in hiding themselves when the massacre
began. The place and the event are fully described by Josephus, and the
narrative is one of the most pathetic of all the sad stories which he relates
concerning the calamities attending the downfall of the Jewish nation.

Along the western shore, near the southern end of the Dead Sea, lies the ridge
called by the Arabs Jebel Us'dûm, the Hill of Sodom. It is briefly and
graphically described in Baedeker as follows: "It is an isolated hill about
seven miles in length, the highest point of which is 385 feet above the level of
the Dead Sea. The sides are so steep and crevassed that it is difficult to
ascend it. It consists almost entirely of crystallized salt, which takes the
form of pinnacles and minarets, and has been partly washed out by the rains.
These formations probably gave rise to the tradition mentioned by Josephus, as
well as later writers, that the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was
converted was to be seen here. In many places the hill is covered with strata of
chalky limestone or clay." Pieces of this rock-salt are carried to all parts of
the country, and they are offered for sale in the bazaars of Hebron. They are
good for salting stock, but for culinary purposes the people prefer salt made by
evaporating the Dead Sea water. Of the site of Sodom, and the force of the
tradition which connects its name with this mountain, we will speak in another
place.

Sometimes the journey from Hebron to the Dead Sea is performed by going directly
to its southern end. In that case several interesting Scripture localities are
passed on the way. The road leads for one or two miles over a rocky region
abounding in fine cisterns, and then enters upon an undulating and
well-cultivated plain, which, though appearing low beside the hills and
mountains visible in all directions, is from 2200 to 2400 feet above the level
of the Mediterranean, and slopes toward the Dead Sea. After entering this plain
we see on our right, some two or three miles distant, the village of Juttah,
supposed to have been the birthplace of John the Baptist and the home of
Zacharias, his father. The grounds of this supposition are the two facts that it
was a Levitical city (Jos 21:16),—in one of which Zacharias, being a priest,
would naturally dwell,—and that it is in the "hill country of Judah," where the
home of Zacharias was, according to Luk 1:39-40. It is about four miles due
south of Hebron. When about 5 1/2 miles southeast of Hebron we come to the hill
called Tel Zif, the site of the city of the Ziphites, who revealed to Saul the
hiding-places of David. It is a conical hill about 300 feet high above the rich
and beautiful valleys which surround it on every side. It is terraced from its
base to its summit, and its light, rich soil is well cultivated in grain. Its
level, circular summit, about 100 yards in diameter, is also well cultivated.
There is nothing left of the town, except a few of its cisterns and sepulchres
and the broken pieces of pottery that are thickly intermixed with the soil. The
view to the south and the southeast is widespread, and stretches over a rich and
beautiful country, with the barren hills of the desert in the horizon. Ziph is
one of the fifteen places in Judah that were fortified by Rehoboam after the
rebellion of the ten tribes. The ruins of Carmel are in full view from the top
of the hill of Ziph, being about four miles distant in a southeasterly
direction, and nine or ten miles from Hebron. It is on the northern slope of a
beautiful ridge, and is in the midst of just such a grazing-country as would
delight the heart of a man like Nabal. It was here that Saul "set up a place" on
his return from the slaughter of the Amalekites. The ruins of towers and
churches are scattered about its site, and the valley below contains a large
ancient reservoir for rain-water. A short distance beyond it, still going
southeast, is Ma'on, where was the dwelling of Nabal, and whence Ab'igail came
forth to meet David, who was on his way to Carmel to slay her foolish husband.
David was probably coming from the east, out of the hills in the direction of
the Dead Sea.

III. From Hebron To Beer'Sheba The route from Hebron to Beer'sheba leads
directly west from the former city over a rocky hill, and then follows a
southwesterly course all the way to the latter place. A ride of an hour and a
half brings us to a copious spring of good water, with a reservoir below it
about 30 feet square. The water in the reservoir stands four or five feet deep,
with a thick deposit of mud at the bottom. About three miles farther is another
spring, which is a great place of resort for flocks and herds from the
neighboring pasture-lands. At a distance of 10 miles from Hebron the road passes
out from among the rugged hills between which it lies thus far, and enters upon
a broad plain, cultivated in very extensive fields of grain, with rocky hills or
ridges rising here and there at rare intervals. At 12 miles we reach the large
and well-built village of Dâhirî'yeh which stands on the very border of
permanent habitations at the present day. All south and west of it is the
wandering-place of Bed'awin Ar'abs, who cultivate fields at intervals, and graze
their large flocks and herds everywhere at will. Dâhirî'yeh and its vicinity are
supplied with water only by cisterns and wells, and violent contentions over
these are common now, as they were in the days of Isaac and Abimelech. The
village shows signs of improvement in the erection of new and substantial
houses, and it contains many evidences that a much more important town once
occupied its high and rocky site. At the time of the authors visit, in 1879,
there had just been a fight about a well between the people of this village and
those of one a few miles away, in which three men were killed: and Shêikh Abbas,
our escort, made peace between several men who were about to come to blows near
our camp for a similar cause. We paid for the water used in our camp at this
place. The remainder of the distance to Beer'sheba, which is about 30 miles
southwest of Hebron, is occupied chiefly by an alluvial plain about 10 miles
wide from north to south, and stretching to the east as far as the eye can
reach, with a gradual descent toward the west. It is bounded on the north by the
hills of Judah, and on the south by the desert of the wanderings. It is a part
of the Negeb, or south country. This is the plain on which Abraham and Isaac
sojourned, on which the latter sowed and reaped the same year a hundredfold, and
on which he was so frequently robbed of wells which he had dug by the
Philis'tines. It is now chiefly devoted to grazing, though it is extensively
cultivated in wheat by the Bed'awin Ar'abs. Like the man of the parable, they
cast their seed into the ground, and go away and sleep and rise night and day,
while the seed springs and grows up they know not how. But when the fruit is
brought forth they return with their black tents and herds of cattle and camels,
and thrust in the sickle and gather the harvest. The soil is rich and deep,
slightly reddish, and in some places it is washed into gulleys eight or ten feet
deep. The wells of Beer'sheba are at the western extremity of this plain, and
the hills, a short distance south of them, close in upon it and leave for it
only a narrow outlet on its way to the Mediterranean. The wells are three in
number, and are dug near the northern edge of the torrent-bed which drains the
valley. This torrent-bed is about 50 yards wide opposite the wells, and its
smooth white stones, thrown into ridges by the violence of the water, show that
a deep and rapid stream rushes along here in the winter, though the bed is
perfectly dry in the summer. The most eastern of the three wells is 9 feet in
diameter and 23 feet deep. It is dry,—at least in summer. It is surrounded by
the foundation-walls of small houses, showing that a village once stood here.
The next well, about 300 yards to the west, is 12 1/2 feet in diameter and 43
feet deep. The masonry runs down 28 feet, and the remainder of the wall is the
natural rock. Six stone watering-troughs, made by digging into the surface of a
stone about three feet across each way, lie about the well a few steps distant.
The third well, about 200 yards west of the second, is 5 1/2 feet in diameter
and 45 feet deep, with seven watering-troughs around it. The wells are all
walled with excellent masonry of large hewed stones. The stones are curved on
their inner face to an arc of the circle of the well, and they are exactly alike
in workmanship, indicating a common origin. The topmost course of stones is on a
level with the surrounding surface, there being no parapet to prevent man or
beast from falling in; and this course of stones is scalloped all round with
grooves five or six inches deep, worn by the friction of the countless ropes
which have been used in drawing the water. Nothing could declare in plainer
terms the great antiquity of the wells, and there is no ground for doubt that
they are the very wells first dug by Abraham, and afterward opened again by
Isaac. Lieutenant Conder thinks that the most eastern well is comparatively
modern, but, so far as I could perceive, its appearance is the same as that of
the other two, with the exception that its upper course of stones is not so
deeply scalloped by the friction of ropes; and this is fully accounted for by
the fact of its having less water and being less used. The grove which Abraham
planted by these wells has long since disappeared, and there is now not a single
tree in sight in any direction. The city which once stood here has also
disappeared, but its ruins are still visible on the slightly elevated ground a
short distance north of the wells, and the ruins of many cities and villages
crown the elevated points along the northern side of the valley. While cities
have risen and fallen and nations and religions have come and gone since Abraham
dwelt here, these silent wells have remained, through all the fluctuations of
human society, the same as when they were first dug, and they are today at once
the most ancient and the best-preserved relics of antiquity to be found in all
Palestine. It awakens emotions to be experienced but once in a lifetime to draw
and drink water from a well which Abraham dug, and from which he and his family
drank, nearly four thousand years ago.

IV. From Hebron To Beth'-Shemesh

Although Beth'-shemesh lies but little south of west from Jerusalem, and is
nearer to that city than to Hebron, the reader will obtain a better conception
of the places of interest lying along this border-land between Judah and the
Philis'tine country by taking them in a line from Hebron to Beth'-shemesh. The
first place of decided interest in this direction is Bêt Jibrîn', about 14 miles
northwest of Hebron, on a road very often followed in going from Hebron to Gaza,
though not the most direct road. This place is not mentioned in the Scriptures,
but it had an important history in the Christian period of Palestine, after the
banishment of the Jews, under the name Eleutheropolis (free city). It was first
identified by Robinson, and it has since been visited by many travelers. It is
chiefly interesting on account of the ruins of ancient fortifications and
churches within and about it, and for the extensive artificial caverns cut in
the soft limestone rock of the adjacent hills. Many of these caverns appear to
have been dug for human habitations, and they open one into another, somewhat as
the rooms of a house, while in the vaulted ceiling of each is an opening to let
in the light, and perhaps in winter to let out the smoke. But it would be
foreign to the purpose of this work to enter into a minute description of these
interesting ruins, seeing that they have no special connection with sacred
history. The village has now about 900 inhabitants, all Moslem, and a Turkish
garrison. Lieutenant Conder's survey of the vicinity was very thorough, and he
states that "on an average three or four ruined sites were found to every two
square miles, and the number of names was very large." The Valley of Elah, now
called Wâdy es Sûnt, heads a few miles northwest of Hebron, on the way to Bêt
Jibrîn', and runs in a northerly direction between the mountains of Judah and
the lower hills of the Shephe'lah which border the Philis'tine Plain. Along its
course are a number of interesting Scripture localities. First in order is the
place identified as Adullam. About six miles from the head of the valley, and on
its western side, is a hill about 500 feet high, crowned with a ruined fortress
and a small dome-covered building sacred to the memory of some Mohammedan
shêikh. Near its brow is an inhabited cavern answering well to the cave of
Adullam, in which David and his men took refuge, while various other inhabited
caves are in the vicinity, and at the northern foot of the hill are two ancient
wells similar to those at Beer'sheba. By all these circumstances, by its present
name (Aid el Ma), and by its relative position toward the other places mentioned
with it in Joshua's list of the cities of Judah, it is identified as the site of
Adullam.

About three miles farther down the valley from Adullam, bearing a little west of
north, is the ancient Sho'choh, now called Suweikeh, a very small village,
between which and Aze'kah, still farther down, was the camp of the Philis'tines
when David killed Goliath. The positions of the two armies are described as
follows: "The Philis'tines gathered together their armies, and were gathered
together at Sho'choh, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Sho'choh and
Aze'kah." (This was on their own side of the valley,—the western side.) "And
Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and pitched by the valley of
Elah and set the battle in array against the Philis'tines. And the Philis'tines
stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other
side; and there was a valley between them." To meet this description, a place in
the Valley of Elah must be found, below Sho'choh, which has on each side a
mountain slope suitable for the camp of an army. Again, it must be where the
valley is wide enough to admit of Goliath's daily advance into it with his
challenge. And finally, it must be where a brook flows along the valley,—a brook
with smooth, round stones in its bed, and nearer Saul's side of the valley, so
that David would cross it in starting to meet the giant. Now, precisely such a
place is found a short distance north of Sho'choh, and nowhere else in this
valley. Above and below, the valley is too narrow and the hills too steep, while
the brook, which flows all along the valley, is either in the middle or too near
the western side. But at the point referred to the western hills have a moderate
slope; they recede in a kind of amphitheatre; a sloping ridge stands on the
opposite side, with a valley on each side of it; and here were stationed the two
armies, with something more than a quarter of a mile of space between them. The
brook, which is a torrent in winter, but dry in summer, flows within about 60 or
70 yards of Saul's side of the valley, and David, in advancing, was compelled to
cross it. Its bed is full of smooth, round stones, from one inch to six inches
in diameter, and with scarcely a moment's hesitation David could have picked up
the five to suit his purpose. The author and his companions picked up five
apiece which would be the very thing with which to knock down a giant. No
identification in all Palestine is more satisfactory, for all the features of
the topography on which it depends are the unchangeable works of nature, and not
the destructible and changeable works of man. Even without the name of Sho'choh
as a guide, the identification would be complete. At the right flank of Saul's
position, as described above, is the foot of a lofty hill which rises to the
northeast. It is isolated, and very steep on every side except the northern, and
on its summit is the village of Bêt Netîf'. This is a favorite camping-place for
travelers. It is about 18 miles from Jerusalem, and near the road from that city
to Gaza. It is a village of considerable size, said to contain a population of
about 900, and within it are some remains of ancient buildings. Near the village
is one of the finest threshing-floors in the country, composed entirely of the
smooth face of a rock, and so elevated that it must seldom fail to have a breeze
suitable for winnowing. Fine fig-trees grow on the summit of the hill, and the
view, in every direction, is magnificent. It is thought to be the Neto'phah
mentioned in Ezr 2:22. The mouth of Wâdy Musârr', down which the road from
Jerusalem to Gaza descends (see page 246), is immediately east of Bêt Nettîf',
and the road, after coming out of that wâdy, crosses a narrow valley which
passes along the east foot of the hill of Bêt Nettîf', and then turning
southward enters into the Valley of Elah. It ascends this valley about three
miles, and then leaves it for Bêt Jibrîn', to the southwest. From the latter
place it runs in a very direct course across the Philis'tine Plain to Gaza. It
is a question of some interest, where, on this road, the Ethiopian eunuch was
baptized. We have already spoken of two places on other roads to which this
event has been credited, but have shown that, apart from all other
considerations, they must be set aside because they are not on "the road that
goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (See 251.) Dr. Robinson was the first to
institute any intelligent inquiries on this subject. He recognizes this as the
true road on which to search, and he concludes that Wâdy el Hâsy, a stream which
the road crosses in the Philis'tine Plain, is the "certain water" of the sacred
text. He says:

"When we were at Tell el Hâsy, and saw the water standing along the bottom of
the adjacent wâdy (Wâdy el Hâsy), we could not but remark the coincidence of
several circumstances with the eunuch's baptism. This water is on the most
direct route from Bêt Jibrîn' to Gaza, on the most southern road from Jerusalem,
and in the midst of the country now 'desert,'—i. e., without villages or fixed
habitations. The thought struck us that this might not improbably be the place
of water described. There is at present no similar water on this road, and
various circumstances—the way to Gaza, the chariot, and the subsequent finding
of Philip at Azotus—all go to show that the transaction took place in or near
the plain."

These remarks are well worthy of consideration, but in order to form an
intelligent judgment on the subject we must take heed to certain facts clearly
settled by the Scripture narrative. These are as follows: First, the angel said
to Philip, "Arise, and go toward the south, to the road which goeth down from
Jerusalem to Gaza;" and under this command Philip could go to no other road than
the one most direct and most usually traveled. This identifies it with the road
above described. Second, he was to reach that road by going southward from
Samaria, and we are told (verses 27, 28) that when he got into the road he saw
the chariot before him. This implies that he did not go through Jerusalem and
follow the chariot from the beginning of that road until he overtook it, but
that he followed a route westward of Jerusalem, by which he came into the road
immediately behind the chariot. He ran to overtake the chariot (verse 30). At
what point his route would intersect the road depends on the point whence he
started. If he was so far westward that going south would bring him into the
plain, then his route would intersect the road between Bêt Jibrîn' and Wâdy el
Hâsy, and Robinson's conjecture, quoted above, would be correct. But from any
point in Samaria, a southern route passing westward of Jerusalem would intersect
the Gaza road before its descent into the Valley of Elah. In this case the first
natural body of water in the way would be the brook which flows through the
Valley of Elah, and out of which David took the stones with which to kill
Goliath. This is a winter torrent, which flows copiously through the wet season
and is full of alternate pools and shoals, but goes dry in the summer. In either
case the third and last requirement of the Scriptures would be met: the place in
which he entered the road would be a desert,—that is, a region devoted chiefly
to pasturage and not occupied by fields and villages; for the country from Bêt
Jibrîn' to Gaza, though an exceedingly fertile district, is occupied by
Bed'awin, who build no villages and cultivate but little land, while the region
along Wâdy Musârr' is so rocky as to be fit for nothing but the grazing of
goats. So far as natural bodies of water are concerned, the choice lies between
the two above mentioned; but the great abundance of artificial pools in all the
dryer parts of the country, many of which have long ago been filled up and lost,
leaves it an open question whether the "certain water" of the text was an
artificial or a natural body. On the whole, we conclude that it is impossible
now to decide in what exact water the eunuch was baptized, but that the present
topography of the country shows that there are at least two streams in which it
might have been done consistently with all that is said in the Scriptures. The
Valley of Elah, after passing the place of David's combat with Goliath and
running a few miles northwest, turns directly to the west, widens to about a
mile, and passes out into the Plain of Philistia. If, instead of following its
course where it curves to the west, we cross the ridge to the north, we enter
another valley, which descends from the eastern side of Bêt Nettîf' and opens
into the broader Valley of Sorek, with Beth'-shemesh on the right, standing on
the hill in the angle made by the two valleys as they come together. It is a
small and insignificant village built among ruins, and is called Ain Shems, a
corruption of its ancient name. Standing on its site and looking to the east,
you see far up the deep Valley of Sorek (Wâdy es Surâr), toward the town of
Koloni'ah where it is crossed by the Joppa road. Down this valley the fleeing
Philis'tines rushed when pursued by Samuel, and along its border is the unknown
spot on which he set up the stone of victory and called it Ebenezer. Looking due
northeast across the valley, which is here nearly a mile wide, you see, perched
high on the slope of the opposite ridge, the small villages Sur'a and Esh'û'a,
the ancient Zo'rah and Esh'taol, the former the birthplace and home of Samson,
while the space between the two is where he first began to show his amazing
strength. Above the villages, on the summit of the mountain ridge, is a
conspicuous white wely, called Neb'y Sâmit (the Prophet Samson). If you turn to
the west, the long, straight, and smooth bed of the valley, with a meandering
brook making a crooked line in the middle, stretches away beyond the hills which
border it for several miles on either side, until it is lost in the distant
plain. Somewhere within the view was the village of Deli'lah, the betrayer of
Samson, who dwelt in "the Valley of So'rek." Along this smooth and beautiful
stretch of the valley, toward the west, must have come the lowing heifers who
brought home on a new cart the ark of God after its stay among the Philis'tines;
for this valley leads down to Ek'ron, from whose vicinity the ark was started on
its curious homeward journey. As you stand and gaze upon the scene, the valley
below you filled with waving grain and the reapers just beginning to thrust in
the sickle, you have before you as in a painting the entire scene of the ark's
return precisely as it is described in the Bible: "The kine took the straight
way to the way of Beth'-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they
went, and turned not aside to the right or to the left; and the lords of the
Philis'tines went after them to the border of Beth'-shemesh. And they of
Beth'-shemesh were reaping their wheat-harvest in the valley, and they lifted up
their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it."

Among the hills southwest of Beth'-shemesh, rising from the southern side of the
Valley of So'rek, is the village of Tibneh, which is identified, both by its
name and its locality, with Timnath, the Philistine village in which dwelt
Samson's first love. It is about 740 feet above the sea and 350 above the Valley
of So'rek. Samson, in going to it, went down 700 feet to get into the valley,
and then went up 350 feet to Timnath. A rocky hill covered thick with large
bowlders, and possessing so little soil that it is now given up to the growth of
brushwood, though it would produce vines as well, lies between the valley and
Timnath, and it was probably while crossing this on his way that Samson met and
slew the lion.


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  CHAPTER 15: CHAPTER FOUR--PLACES IN THE MARITIME PLAIN
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Chapter IV. Places in the Maritime Plain I. In The Land Of The Philis'Tines The
places mentioned in the last section of Chapter III. are along the border-land
between the ancient kingdom of Judah and the land of the Philis'tines. We have
seen that the western view from Beth'-shemesh lies along the broad and beautiful
floor of the Valley of Sorek, which runs out into the Philis'tine Plain (pages
262, 263). The western course of the Valley of Elah, after its curve a mile or
two north of Bêt Nettîf', runs parallel with the Valley of Sorek, and lies about
three miles south of it, with high and rocky hills between. On the southern side
of the former, just before it spreads out into the plain, rises the rounded and
isolated hill called Tell Sâ'fieh, which Lieutenant Conder has identified with
Gath. Its summit, which is about 500 feet above the bed of the valley, is
crowned with a small village built among ruins, while a Mohammedan wely occupies
the very highest point and is a conspicuous object in the landscape for many
miles around. There is now but little, if any, doubt of the correctness of this
identification. The site, rendering a walled city built on it almost
impregnable, is in every way well suited to the history and character of this
stronghold of the Philistines. It was the border city toward Israel, and it very
naturally bore the brunt of the wars between the two nations. From its summit
almost the entire Philis'tine Plain is in view, and much of the Plain of
Sha'ron. The plain stretches away to the west about 15 miles, where the horizon
is bounded by the vapor, which, like a gray cloud, ever hangs over the
Mediterranean when seen at a distance. Almost in the horizon, a little west of
north, is the present miserable village of 'Akir', the ancient Ekron.

Turning the eye farther south, we see a large number of villages and towns, some
perched on high conical hills rising out of the plain, and some on smooth ridges
which impart a waving appearance to the surface. Most of them are surrounded by
groves of olive-trees. Fields of grain everywhere checker the plain with yellow
or green according to the season, while the dark shade of the freshly-plowed
fields adds variety to the coloring. The sites of Ashdod, Askelon, and Gaza are
in view, or so nearly so that one standing on high ground in the immediate
vicinity of each could see a signal-fire on the hill of Gath. The king of Gath
could summon the entire nation to arms by such a signal at night with rapidity
equal to that of the electric telegraph. All of the villages and towns in view
are the modern representatives of the villages and unwalled towns which were
once the dependencies of the five great cities of the Philis'tines. The modern
Gaza (el Ghuzzeh), the most southern of the five ancient cities, is about 35
miles by the nearest route west of Hebron, and about 50 southwest of Jerusalem.
It has now a population variously estimated at from 15,000 to 18,000. When Dr.
Robinson saw it in 1838, he put the population at from 15,000 to 16,000, showing
that there has been no material change in the last forty years. With the
exception of 300 or 400 Christians of the Greek Church, the people are all
Mohammedans. It has a mission school of the Church of England. Most of its
houses are built of sun-dried bricks, with roofs of earth, and they present an
unattractive appearance. The principal mosque, an old church, is well built of
stone, with a handsome front and a minaret of considerable height. There are a
few other houses of stone, but all have a dilapidated appearance. The bazaars
are mean and dirty, and the narrow, unpaved streets are deep in dust and sand.
But while the city itself is unattractive, the broad valley in the midst of
which it stands is quite the reverse. This valley runs north and south, and for
about five miles north of the city and a mile or more south it is thickly set
with olive-trees and other vegetation. Shallow wells afford an abundance of
water for all purposes. The valley is separated from the plain to the east of it
by a sand-ridge, and a similar ridge of perfectly bare sand extends from its
western side to the seashore, a distance of about two miles. Between the city
and the seashore are evident remains of an ancient city, especially on the slope
toward the shore. The sand which the waves are perpetually forming as they beat
upon the soft sandstone of the shore, and which the wind is driving inland, has
deeply covered the entire surface; but here and there a part of a ruin has kept
itself in view by causing an eddy in the wind which whirls the sand away from
it. Captain Warren says, "Wherever the ground has been turned over, hewn stones,
fragments of wall, and innumerable pieces of pottery, the surest signs of an
ancient city, have been found." This fact leaves little room for doubt that
ancient Gaza stood nearer the sea and that it was a far more substantial city
than the present Gaza is or ever has been. It was a walled city, and it existed
in the days of Abraham. About a mile southeast of the city is a hill 200 or 300
feet high, called Mûntâr', which is covered with old tombs, and from whose top
is obtained a magnificent view of the adjacent country. To the east the eye
ranges over broad and fertile plains, terminated by the purple hills of Judah.
Toward the south, beyond the cultivated district of a few miles, is seen the
smooth surface of the desert, while toward the west, beyond a yellow strip of
sand, roll the blue waves of the Mediterranean. A telegraph line now reaches
Gaza, connecting it with Jerusalem, Joppa, Damascus, and Beirût. It belongs to
the Turkish government; and is used chiefly for military purposes. That portion
of the Philis'tine Plain lying between Gaza and the mountains of the east of it,
together with all the grain and grazing-lands between that line and the desert
to the south, is occupied by Bed'awin Ar'abs, who cultivate extensive fields of
grain and pasture large herds of camels, cattle, and sheep and goats, and a
considerable number of horses. Among their horses are occasionally seen some
handsome and well-kept animals. Their encampment are scattered chiefly along the
winding course of Wâdy Sharîa, a perennial stream which rises to the northeast
and enters the sea south of Gaza. It is crossed in coming to Gaza from
Beer'sheba, and by the most direct route from Hebron. The road from Bêt Jibrîn'
to Gaza passes near the dividing-line between villages which abound in the
north, and the houseless plain of the Bed'awin on the south. When within about
15 miles of Gaza, the road passes an elevation on its right called Tell Aj'lan,
supposed to be the site of the ancient Eglon, an important city in the days of
Joshua. Heaps of stones where buildings once stood are scattered over a
considerable area, but they are chiefly small stones of irregular shape, which
were laid, like similar stones in modern buildings, in a large quantity of
mortar. About three miles farther toward Gaza, on another eminence to the right
of the road, is Um Lâ'kis, the ancient Lachish, of which nothing is left but
stone-heaps and rock-cut cisterns. There is no doubt that the ancient cities on
this rich plain were built, like the modern villages, chiefly of sun-dried
bricks, and this in part accounts for the meagreness of the ruins which they
have left. About two miles southwest of Lachish the road crosses Wâdy el Hâsi, a
perennial stream, which Robinson supposes to have been the "certain water" in
which the eunuch was baptized by Philip.

About twelve miles north of Gaza, and immediately on the seacoast, is Askalân',
the ancient Askelon, reached from Gaza by a ride along the beach or a few miles
inland. About half-way between the two places the road crosses Wâdy Esnêd, a
beautiful stream of water, whose valley, as far as the eye can follow it, is
covered with verdure. At Askelon are seen the best-preserved and most
interesting ruins in all the Philis'tine country. The walls of the city on the
land side were built on a semicircular ridge curving inland, with the shore as
the diameter of the circle. The surface slopes from the ridge toward the shore,
and the sea-wall was built on a cliff of sandstone 30 or 40 feet high. The
semicircle is about 13/4 miles around. The wall next to the sea is still
standing in broken masses, while immense blocks of it, weighing hundreds of tons
each, have fallen upon the rocks and into the edge of the water below. This fall
has been caused, in part at least, by the wash of the waves undermining the
sandstone foundation. All round the wall, but especially on the sea side, long
granite columns were built crosswise into the walls to strengthen them. In many
places on the seaward side a portion of the thickness of the wall has fallen
away, leaving these columns, like large pieces of artillery, projecting five or
six feet from the front of the remaining wall, and pointing toward the sea. The
material of the wall is chiefly a dark-brown sandstone, in small pieces. The
cement in which they were laid is harder than the rock itself, and still holds
together the great fallen masses of stones. Nearly all of the semicircular part
of the wall is still standing in a broken condition, but it is nearly covered by
the sand-ridge which is gradually forming on both its inner and outer sides. In
some places, however, the wall still stands from 20 to 30 feet high above the
sand. In the interior of the semicircle, as in the bottom of a very deep saucer
with one side broken away, are some very rich and beautiful gardens set with
vines, figs, pomegranates, palms, and garden vegetables, and supplied with
numerous wells of excellent water and plastered tanks to hold water for
irrigation. But there is not a human habitation within the walls, these gardens
being owned and cultivated by the inhabitants of Jô'ra, a village a mile distant
to the northeast. The Bible history of Askelon is unimportant. Hither Samson
came from Timnath, 24 miles, to get the 30 shirts. But it figured more
conspicuously than any other Philistine city during the wars of the crusaders,
and the present ruined walls are doubtless those built by Richard Cœur de Lion.
The granite columns, however, which he used so freely to strengthen his
sandstone walls, were the remains of the then ancient city, and had probably
adorned some of the heathen temples of the Philis'tines. They speak of a
splendor far exceeding that of the crusading period. The city has been in ruins
ever since the year 1270, when its fortifications were dismantled by order of
the Egyptian Sultan Bibars. The utter desolation of this city and of the
original Gaza presents a striking fulfillment of prophecy, for the prophet
Zephaniah said of them, 600 years before Christ, "Gaza shall be forsaken, and
Askelon shall be a desolation."

About two miles east of Askelon, and a little north, is the large and
flourishing village of Mejdel, probably the Migdol-gad of Jos 15:37, one of the
cities given to Judah, but never captured by that tribe. It is chiefly built of
sun-dried brick, but partly of soft sandstone. The present inhabitants are
better dressed, appear more intelligent, and make greater efforts to ornament
the fronts of their houses by the use of a wash of various colors, than any
other community in this plain. Splendid fields of grain surround the town in
every direction, and olive-groves extend for miles to the north and south. Many
acres are cultivated in cucumbers and tomatoes, and there are a few
orange-orchards. The moisture of the subsoil is sufficient for all these, except
the oranges, and shallow wells, which abound everywhere, furnish abundance of
water for the irrigation of these. The population numbers about 1500, nearly all
Mohammedans.

About eight miles north of Migdol, and about nine northeast of Askelon, is
Esdûd, the Philis'tine Ashdod, called in the New Testament Azotus. It was here
that the ark of the covenant was placed in the temple of Dagon when captured by
the Philis'tines, and it was here that Philip was first found at work for Christ
after the baptism of the eunuch. It lies about three miles from the seacoast,
and it once possessed a seaport, which has now disappeared. It is a very small
village, but, like all the modern villages on ancient sites, it contains
fragments of ancient masonry and broken columns in its walls. It is surrounded
with olive-trees.

Going north from Ashdod, in about nine miles we come to Jabneh or Jabneel, now
called Yebna. It was on the northern line of the territory originally given to
Judah, but it was not taken until David's conquest of the Philis'tines, and even
after this it became once more independent, and its walls were finally broken
down by Uzziah. It was an important town after the destruction of Jerusalem, and
during the wars of the crusades. Some four or five miles east of it is Akîr',
the ancient Ekron. This is a miserable village of huts made of sun-dried bricks,
with scarcely a vestige of antiquity visible about it. It is about 14 miles from
Joppa, a little east of south.

We have now named all the principal cities along the Philis'tine coast, and have
seen that from Gaza to Askelon is 12 miles, thence to Ashdod 9 miles, thence to
Jabneh (on the parallel of Ekron) 9 miles, and thence to Joppa 14 miles. The
entire coast, therefore, from Gaza to Joppa, measured by the line of
land-travel, is 44 miles. Four of the capital cities of ancient Philistia lie
along the coast, Askelon immediately on it, Gaza and Ashdod each about three
miles from it, and Ekron about five miles from it; while the distance from Gaza
to Ekron is about 30 miles. Gath, as we have seen, was on the opposite side of
the plain, adjoining the border of the hills of Judah, and about 12 miles a
little east of south from Ekron.

II. In The Plain Of Sharon The most important and the most ancient city in the
Plain of Sha'ron is Joppa, now called Yâfa by its native inhabitants. It is
known chiefly to the Bible-reader as the place at which Hiram landed the cedar
beams for Solomon's temple, at which Jonah embarked when fleeing to Tarshish,
and at which Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, and afterward, on the roof of
the house of Simon the tanner, saw the vision of the great sheet let down from
heaven. It seems not to have been a place of much importance during the Biblical
period, and during the crusades it was almost depopulated; but in the year 1799,
when Palestine was invaded by the French army under Napoleon, it was a walled
town. Its population and its commercial importance have greatly increased within
the last 25 years, so that it has outgrown its walls and torn them down. The
present population of the city and its suburbs is estimated at from 15,000 to
20,000, mostly Mohammedans, but including from 2000 to 3000 Jews, from 400 to
500 Europeans, and a small number of Syrian Christians. A German colony which
settled there in 1868 numbers about 300 souls, and they cultivate about 1000
acres of land northeast of the town where their village is situated. Their
houses, built and furnished in European style, present a pleasing contrast to
those of the natives. They keep a good school for the education of their
children in various languages. They belong to a sect called the Temple Church,
one of whose tenets is that it is the duty of Christians to settle in Palestine
and restore it to prosperity. There are four convents in the city, Greek, Latin,
Armenian, and Coptic; and besides the German school, there are two Protestant
missionary schools, one of them kept by an American lady (Miss Hay) in the only
"frame" house in Palestine, or perhaps in Western Asia. In addition to the
German settlement, there has been recently established a Jewish settlement
southeast of the town, with a large tenement-house and 300 acres in cultivation.
The city contains two hotels, one kept by a native Christian and the other by a
German,—the latter by far the better of the two. The house of Tabitha and that
of Simon the tanner are both shown to the traveler, but he knows, of course,
that they are not the originals. The city is situated on a rock which rises
about 100 feet above the level of the sea. The surface both to the north and the
south lies at a lower level, and the seashore recedes a little on both sides,
leaving the city on a promontory projecting slightly into the sea. The streets
which ascend the hill are so steep that in many places they have steps cut in
the rock; but the principal street runs along the foot of the hill, near the
water's edge, from the front around the northern side. The finest view of the
city is from the sea. There is no harbor, and ships anchor about a mile out at
sea. From this position the houses seem to rise from the water's edge, one above
another, to the summit of the rounded hill, and to lie massed together in utter
confusion. The dull gray color of the rock of which they are built, unrelieved
by either white or colored paint or by any ornamental style of architecture,
causes the town to present an unattractive appearance. The above cut gives the
view from the southwest.

Joppa To the south of the city are seen a few detached buildings and gardens,
then a naked sand-ridge, and beyond all, in the distance, the dark ridge of the
Judean hills. To the north, beyond a low shore of yellow sand, are green fields
and orchards. In passing from the ship to the shore, the rude boats of the
natives are compelled to go through a narrow gap between brown rocks which rise
a little above the surface of the water and make the landing very dangerous in
rough weather. Boats are sometimes capsized here, and occasionally passengers
are drowned. In stormy weather ships do not cast anchor at all, but take their
passengers on to Beirût'. The lands immediately around Joppa are now the most
carefully and profitably cultivated of all in Palestine. There are 400
orange-gardens of from 2 1/2 to 6 acres each, amounting to probably 1300 or 1400
acres of this delightful fruit, and the oranges are in some respects the finest
in the world. They are entirely seedless; they have no tough membrane between
their compartments; they have a thick juice with a delicious flavor; and they
are of immense size, many measuring about 12 inches in circumference. Between
200,000 and 300,000 bushels of them are annually shipped to the ports of the
Mediterranean and to the towns and villages of the interior. Besides oranges,
lemons, apricots, citrons, grapes, and pomegranates are also cultivated in
considerable quantities. All these fruit-gardens are irrigated by water drawn
from wells which are only from 20 to 30 feet deep. The water is raised by a
horse-power which turns a wheel, around whose rim is an endless belt strung with
earthen jars. As the jars, after passing under the water and being filled, reach
the top of the wheel, they empty their water into a trough at one side, whence
it is conveyed through a spout into the irrigating channel. The supply of water
is practically inexhaustible. It is the surplus of the winter rainfall on the
mountains and plains of the interior slowly percolating along the surface of the
underlying rock toward the sea. The present route of travel from Joppa to
Jerusalem is by a turnpike-road running almost due southeast across the Plain of
Sha'ron, and then more nearly east up the beds of wâdies and across high ridges
and deep valleys to Jerusalem. The distance is 38 miles. The road was built in
the year 1872 by the Turkish authorities, and is a very good one until it
reaches the hills; but in many places beyond this it is much broken by winter
torrents. At a distance of about 12 miles from Joppa on this road is the town of
Ramleh. It is not named in the Scriptures, but has obtained its importance since
the Mohammedan invasion. It is a well-built town of stone houses, containing a
population of about 3000 souls, about one-third of whom are Greek Christians. It
contains a Greek and also a Latin monastery, both of which furnish lodgings to
travelers. It has also a small hotel, kept by a German who belongs to the colony
at Joppa. Travelers frequently go to this place on their way from Joppa to
Jerusalem in an afternoon, in order that their journey the next day may be a
moderate days ride. It is better, however, to go to Howard's hotel at Latrûn',
which divides the distance nearly equally.

Tower of the Forty The most notable object at Ramleh is the ruin of an old
mosque at the western end of the town. Its outer walls are still traceable,
standing in some places 10 or 15 feet high, and they are about 600 yards in
circuit. At the northern side is a square tower, called the "Tower of the
Forty." The name is explained by the Christians as referring to 40 martyrs who
are buried under the ruins; by the Mohammedans as referring to 40 companions of
the Prophet who met with the same fate. The tower is really the minaret of the
old mosque, though of unusual shape for a minaret, being square. It is ascended
by 120 stone steps in the interior, and is about 80 feet high. From its balcony
is obtained a beautiful view of the rich plain and its many villages. The space
once occupied by the mosque is undermined with deep vaults, many of them caved
in. On the opposite side of the town there is a pool about 100 feet square and
20 feet deep, with the usual flight of steps descending into it at one corner.
It is supplied by rain-water. The town is supplied with water by wells and
cisterns. Ramleh is surrounded by groves of fine olive-trees, interspersed with
a few trees of other varieties. The grove extends south of the town about a
mile, and north as far as to Lydda and beyond it. The gardens about the town are
inclosed by cactus hedges, many of which are 12 feet high and 10 feet thick.

After passing about three miles beyond Ramleh the road crosses the first hill on
its way, and nearly due south of this hill is a detached eminence called Tell el
Jezer, identified as Gezer, a city in the land allotted to Ephraim in the days
of Joshua. It was taken from the Canaanites long afterwards by Pharaoh and given
to Solomon, who fortified it. It commanded one of the roads leading from the
plain up to Jerusalem, and it was therefore one of the defenses of Solomon's
capital. Some interesting ruins are found on the site, some rock-cut tombs are
on the slopes of the hill, and a fine spring breaks out at its eastern foot.

After crossing a few low hills the road enters the mountains near Latrûn', to
which point we have traced it from Jerusalem in a former chapter. (See page
244.) A short distance north of Latrûn' is the village of Amwâs' (Emmaus), but
not the Emmaus mentioned in the Luke 24. True, it has been so regarded in
tradition, and even Lieutenant Conder so regards it, notwithstanding the
objection that it is 160 furlongs from Jerusalem, while the true Emmaus was only
60 furlongs distant. He meets this objection by supposing that the reading of
the Sinaitic manuscript is correct, which has 160 furlongs; but this reading
must be erroneous, from the fact that the two men of the narrative could not
have walked such a distance (20 miles) back to Jerusalem between the late
afternoon hour at which Jesus left them and the early hour of the night at which
they reported to the eleven. Another site, northeast of this, on the road from
Jerusalem to Lydda, called El Kubei'beh, which a very old tradition identifies
with Emmaus, seems better entitled to the distinction. It is due west from Neby
Sam'wil, and according to the measurement of Mr. Schick, a German architect
resident in Jerusalem, it is just 62 1/2 furlongs from the city. The village
contains many ruins, and its situation is beautiful.

About 2 1/2 miles north of Ramleh, and 11 miles southeast of Joppa, is Lud, the
Lydda of the New Testament, where Peter raised E'neas from a bed of sickness,
and whence he was called to Joppa after the death of Tab'itha. It is a
well-built town, and stands in the midst of a grove of olives extending about a
mile northward, and reaching southward to Ramleh and beyond. This is probably
the largest olive-grove in the Plain of Sha'ron. It is about five miles long
from north to south, and from one to two miles wide. Intermingled with the
olives are a few fig- and mulberry-trees. The chief object of antiquity in the
place is the ruined church of St. George, a portion of which has recently been
repaired. It belongs to the Greeks, and it is said to be built over the tomb of
St. George, the patron saint of England, who was born, died, and was buried
here.

There is a road leading from Joppa up the seacoast, though generally a mile or
more away from the water's edge, along the entire length of the Plain of
Sha'ron. About 3 1/2 miles from Joppa this road crosses Nahr el Aujeh, the river
Aujeh, near its mouth. It is the largest stream, next to Crocodile River, on
this plain. It rises some 9 or 10 miles eastward, at the base of the hill on
which stood the town of Antip'atris, mentioned in the account of Paul's journey
as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Cæsarea. The place is now called Ràs el Ain (the
Promontory of the Spring), from the immense volume of water which rises out of
the ground under its northern and western sides and forms the river Aujeh. The
top of the hill is crowned with the massive ruins of a large castle built by the
crusaders, and is known to represent Antip'atris, because the latter is said by
Josephus to be in the plain, close to the hills, with a river encompassing it,
and this is the only ruin answering to the description. It is 11 1/2 miles from
Lydda on the way to Cæsarea, and 30 1/2 from the latter place. From this place,
says Conder, "the stream flows rapidly away westward, burrowing between deep
banks, and rolling to the sea, a yellow, turbid, sandy volume of water,
unfordable in winter, and never dry, even in summer." Not far from Antip'atris,
in the border of the hill country, is Tibneh, which is with some probability
identified with Timnath-Serah, the inheritance and burial place of Joshua. The
distance from Joppa to Cæsarea is about 30 miles by the road leading near the
coast, but the principal route of travel in ancient times from Cæsarea southward
was farther inland, and led to Lydda, leaving Joppa to the right. In this
distance, besides the river Aujeh, the road crosses three other streams, the
Fâl'ik, the Iskandaria, and the Mefjir. These are smaller streams than the
Aujeh, and are not at all seasons able to push their way through the ridge of
sand which is constantly increasing along the shore. Their obstructed waters
form deep pools and marshes on the edge of the plain, as is the case also along
the Philis'tine coast between Joppa and Gaza. A little artificial help would
secure their passage to the sea and rescue many acres of fine land from
inundation, and at the same time it would render the plain far less malarious
than it must be in its present condition.

Cæsarea, which still retains its original name in the corrupted form of
Kaysarî'yeh, was not one of the original Hebrew cities, but was built by Herod
the Great, and its completion was celebrated in the year 13 B. C., twelve years
after its foundations were laid. Josephus gives a detailed account of the
construction of the city, and especially of the harbor, which was altogether
artificial. From the beginning of its history it was the principal seaport of
Palestine, and it was made by the Roman governors of Judea the political capital
of the nation. It will ever be a place of interest in the minds of Christians on
account of the baptism there of the first Gentile converts, the incidents
connected with Paul's last journey to Jerusalem, and the two years' imprisonment
of Paul under Felix and Festus. It is also noted as the home of Eusebius, the
earliest of ecclesiastical historians. It figured conspicuously in the wars of
the crusades, being frequently taken and lost by the contending parties. The
last attempt to restore its fortifications was made by Louis IX. of France in
1251, and it was destroyed in 1265. Since then its harbor, the breakwater of
which, according to Josephus, was made by sinking rocks 50 feet long and 18 wide
into water 20 fathoms deep, has been filled up till it is too shallow for the
smallest ships, and the sandstone walls and towers in reach of the waves have to
a great extent been crumbled into sand and blown inland by the winds. The wall
of the city still stands, from 20 to 30 feet above the ground in a few places,
while the walls of the moat which surrounds it on every side, except that toward
the sea, are in a perfect state of preservation. The moat is 30 or 40 feet
across at the top and about 20 feet deep. The space inclosed by the walls is a
rectangle, 540 yards long from north to south and 350 wide from east to west.
The walls are about six feet thick, and are strengthened by many buttresses and
square towers. The gate in the south end is preserved, and through it all
visitors enter. Near by it on the inside is a well of never-failing water, and
hither flocks and herds are daily led from the immediate vicinity to be watered.
There is also near this gate, and fronting the sea, the ruins of a large and
magnificent church, the entire outline of which is distinctly traceable, and
much of its wall is still standing from 15 to 20 feet high. The remainder of the
surface within the walls is a confused mass of rubbish from the crumbled
limestone of ancient buildings. Josephus told the truth when he said that Herod
built the city of "white stone," "of materials brought from other places, and at
very great expense;" for the stone chiefly used is limestone, and there is none
to be found nearer than the mountains, 9 or 10 miles distant across the Plain of
Sha'ron. On the mole built for the harbor, which extends out into the sea from
the southern end of the city, stand the ruins of an immense castle very
massively built, and even now rising 40 or 50 feet into the air. The author
counted 75 granite columns which were built crosswise into the walls of this
castle, all of which are now exposed. Among them are several of red granite, and
of immense size. Over against this mole to the north stood another structure of
a similar character, which has crumbled away. Its columns have fallen into the
shallow water, where they lie, about 70 or 80 in number, like a sunken raft of
saw-logs. Nothing can exceed the desolation that broods over this spot, once so
full of life and animation, and so prolific of historical events. The continual
roar of the waves, which even in the mildest breeze are ever breaking against
Herod's sunken masses of rock, tends to heighten the impression, and when one
passes out of the city on any side, it is intensified by observing that along
the surface of the ground, north, south, and east, are uninterrupted traces of
ancient dwellings, long since gone to destruction. Leaving the city by the road
running northward, the last monument of its glory and of its ruin that comes
into view is the wall which once supported, on a long series of arches, an
aqueduct that brought a stream of water into the city from Crocodile River,
three or four miles distant. The city once extended far beyond its present
walls.

About 2 1/2 miles north of Cæsarea the coast-road crosses the mouth of Nahr
Zerka(Blue River), called Crocodile River by ancient writers, because crocodiles
were then, as now, found in its waters. That they are still found is attested by
various writers. The sand near the sea-coast so obstructs the passage of this
river into the sea that its depth and width at the ford near its mouth are much
less than farther out from the shore. When crossed by the writer in May, 1879,
it was about sixty feet wide and three feet deep. The horse of our dragoman got
mired in the sand, broke his girt, and threw saddle and rider into the water.
About a mile above the mouth of the river, where it once broke through a low
rocky ridge, the opening through the ridge has been dammed by a wall 20 feet
thick, and the water above it is elevated 25 feet. The wall is 230 yards long,
and the road passes over it as on a bridge. When the place was visited by
Thomson there were eight or ten mills in motion just below this dam, propelled
by the water falling directly upon their wheels, and he says there was room for
twenty. The dam causes a great marsh in the plain above, rendering thousands of
acres of rich land untillable.

About four miles north of the Zerka or Crocodile River the road crosses another
perennial stream called the Nahr Kerâ'jeh, which waters and makes verdant a
considerable belt across the plain, and about a mile north of it is the village
of Tantu'ra, immediately on the sea-shore. It occupies a low promontory which
juts out into the sea far enough to form, south of it, a harbor for the small
sail-boats which trade along the coast. Back of the village, toward the hills
and among them, some timber is found, which is cut and brought to this place to
be shipped to Beirût' for manufacturing purposes. North of the town is a little
bay, and north of it another promontory crowned with the ruin of a very massive
castle. A part of the wall of this castle is still standing, about 50 feet high,
and it is a very conspicuous landmark, seen for many miles up and down the
coast. Above the castle, and reaching out from the shore, are the ruins of an
ancient city almost as extensive as those at Cæsarea, and scattered among them
are many granite columns. These are the ruins of the ancient city of Dor, which
was occupied by Canaanites in the days of Joshua, and which held out against the
attack of the tribe of Manasseh, to whom it was allotted. There are several
small islands of naked sandstone a short distance from the shore, and these may
be the remains of a natural breakwater which once formed a harbor for vessels of
moderate size.

Scarcely more than six miles north of Dor, and 15 from Cæsarea, are the ruins of
Athlît. Here a cape projects nearly a mile into the sea, terminating in a rocky
promontory. On this promontory is a large castle with massive walls built of
very large stones, and evidently once an almost impregnable fortress. A portion
still stands, about 80 feet high, in an almost perfect state of preservation. A
deep moat, still distinctly traceable, cuts it off from the main part of the
cape. The remainder of the cape was occupied by the city, and the city wall
crossed the neck of the cape. The latter is still traceable, and its moat still
contains water for a considerable distance. From this point to the northern
terminus of the Plain of Sha'ron is some 8 or 9 miles, along a
constantly-narrowing plain between the sea and the gradually approaching side of
Mount Carmel. The plain is most of the way divided into two narrow strips by a
narrow ridge of rock running along the middle of it parallel with the shore. The
road, on leaving the vicinity of Athlît, passes through this ridge by a narrow
artificial cut, and continues on the eastern side until it reaches the narrow
bench around the sea end of Mount Carmel, where it curves to the northern side
of that mountain and reaches Hai'fa.


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  CHAPTER 16: CHAPTER FIVE--PLACES WITH SHECHEM AS A CENTER
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Chapter V. Places with She'Chem as a Centre I. Between Bethel And She'Chem In
the section on places in the hills of Benjamin we discussed the topography north
of Jerusalem as far as Bethel. Now we continue it from the vicinity of Bethel
northward as far as She'chem. The highway between these two places is in the
main nothing but a stony bridle-path. In some places it is a narrow and stony
lane between walls which fence in the fig-orchards and vineyards. About two
miles north of Bethel a village called Ain Yebrûd' is on the left, and we are
evidently entering a richer and better-cultivated district, a portion of the
favored territory of Ephraim. Well-cultivated vineyards and fig-orchards, with
rough stone walls around them, occupy the chief part of the surface. A short
distance farther the villages of Jif'na and Ain Sinî'a lie a mile or two to the
west, the latter less than a mile north of the former. Neither has a Bible
history, but Jif'na is an unusually well-built village, situated on a conical
and isolated hill, and it must always have been an important town in the
district. The hills in every direction around are well terraced and covered with
fig- and olive-trees. These trees are so abundant for miles around as to
resemble an extensive forest. As we advance toward the north, and descend toward
the Valley of the Robbers' Fountain, fig-trees give place entirely to olives.
These are the most extensive and most carefully cultivated orchards of these two
fruits anywhere to be seen in Palestine. In years gone by the natives of the
villages acquired an unenviable reputation for ferocity, and the guides and
muleteers who accompany the traveler through the district have many tales of
horror to relate which show that they even yet pass that way with some timidity.

After passing through these groves, the road, which has been continually
descending for about a mile, enters into the bed of a valley called Wâdy el
Harami'yeh, which derives its name from Ain el Harami'yeh, the Robbers'
Fountain. The valley here runs north and south, but just in our rear, where we
enter it, it turns to the west and passes off deep down between the mountains
toward the Maritime Plain and the sea. It is by far the deepest valley seen near
the road since leaving Jerusalem. When we have gone about a quarter of a mile up
the valley we see on the left a perpendicular ledge of rock about 20 feet high,
and above this the mountain slope to a height of 600 or 700 feet. From the base
of this perpendicular ledge there issue several small but perennial springs of
good water, and a smooth plot of ground between the cliff and the torrent-bed
which drains the valley is the much frequented camping-ground of the Robbers'
Fountain. Just south of the camping-ground, the space between the torrent-bed
and the cliff is occupied by a very large cistern and a pool. The cistern, which
was dug down into solid rock and arched over, is 50 feet long by 30 in width,
and of an unknown depth, being now nearly filled with earth and rubbish. Its
arch has mostly fallen in. The pool, whose northwestern corner touches the
cistern, is 84 by 120 feet, and strongly built of stones laid in cement. It is
now nearly full of earth, and when seen by the author it was growing a crop of
wheat. The mountain just opposite, on the eastern side of the valley, forms a
magnificent natural amphitheatre. It is about 1000 feet high, and is almost a
perfect arc of a circle. Its steep slope is covered from base to summit with
terraces, natural and artificial, the benches of which are cultivated in grain
and thinly set in olive-trees. This place is about six miles north of Bethel and
about eighteen north of Jerusalem. It is the halfway station between Jerusalem
and She'chem. It evidently derived its name—Robbers' Fountain—from some
tradition connecting it with the depredations of robbers, but the details of the
tradition have been lost. A ride of about four miles northward, over a path
which steadily ascends out of the deep depression just left, brings the traveler
to the general level again, after which, in about another mile of descent, he
reaches the spring and the village of Lubbâan', the ancient Lebo'nah. A
beautiful, well-watered, and well-cultivated valley descends toward this village
from a southeasterly direction, and passes on toward the west. It is Wâdy el
Lubbâan, and it heads in the vicinity of Seilûn.

It is said of Shiloh, the place where the tabernacle stood from the days of
Joshua until after the death of Eli, that it was "in a place which is on the
north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel
to She'chem, and on the south of Lebo'nah." This is rather a vague description,
but it answers in every particular to the site of the ancient ruin now called
Seilûn, an evident corruption of Shiloh. It is about a mile east of the highway,
and is reached in going north by turning to the right on the first plain making
in from the east after leaving the Robbers' Fountain. It is the plain of Tûr'nûs
Ay'a, with a village of the same name about a mile to the east, and it is
everywhere well cultivated and productive. Another plain from the north opens
into this, and on the northern edge of the latter plain are the ruins of Shiloh.
They cover the summit of a smooth, rounded eminence, with a much higher ridge
north of it, from which it is cut off by a deep, narrow ravine with almost
perpendicular sides. The ruins consist mainly of piles of weather-worn
building-stones, the remains of small but well-built stone houses. Immediately
in front of them, a little lower down the hill, is a small flat-topped building,
with a flight of outside steps ascending to the roof, which has been used as a
mosque and previously as a chapel, and also according to Conder as a synagogue,
though it is quite small for any one of the three, being only 37 feet square. A
magnificent oak overtops it. The view to the south, the east, and the west is
very fine, including level and beautiful valleys, surrounded by smoothly-rounded
hills not more than 200 or 300 feet in height. In the valley to the southeast
there is a well in the open field, and beyond it, on the opposite slope, are the
ruins of a church, the foundations and part of the walls of which are well
preserved. But that which gives the chief interest to the locality is a space
artificially leveled on the northern brow of the eminence, just back of the
ruins of the village, in which the tabernacle stood during its long continuance
in Shiloh. It is 400 feet long from east to west, extending as far in this
direction as the width of the hill would allow, and 77 feet wide. It was made by
cutting down the rock along the swell of the hill to a level with the two ends
of the area, and in doing so the natural rock is left from two to six feet high
on each side for a considerable distance, but more on the upper side than on the
lower. It is entirely certain that this escarpment was made in order to obtain a
level space for some purpose, and the dimensions of the space, just two feet
wider than the tabernacle court, and long enough to leave a level space in front
for the assembling of worshipers and victims, indicate unmistakably that it was
intended to accommodate the tabernacle. There is no other spot on which the
tabernacle ever stood that can be thus identified, and it is certainly
remarkable that this can be, after a lapse of more than 3000 years. This is due
to the fact that it was cut in the solid rock of the hill-top, where no earth
could collect upon it to conceal it, and where no buildings were afterward
erected to cover it with their ruins.

It is remarkable that while the book of Joshua, in describing the lands allotted
to Judah and Benjamin and some of the other tribes, mentions a large number of
the cities included in them, it mentions very few of those allotted to Ephraim
and Manasseh, and these few are chiefly in the Maritime Plain. Nor is the book
of Joshua alone in this singular omission, for all the books of the Old
Testament are surprisingly silent in regard to the topography of the hill
country occupied by these two powerful and wealthy tribes. Consequently, though
many well-situated and interesting villages are scattered over the hills all the
way from Bethel to She'chem, only a few of them are even mentioned in the Bible,
and most of them are therefore devoid of historical interest. It may be that
these tribes, being almost exclusively agricultural in their habits, lived
almost entirely in small and perishable villages, and built but few towns of any
importance. At any rate, we meet with no places bearing a Scriptural name, or
having a Scriptural history, after leaving Shiloh, until we enter the rich and
beautiful Plain of Moreh, now called Wâdy el Mûkh'nah. We enter it near its
southern extremity, about five miles from She'chem, and follow it, in a
direction a little east of north, until we reach the Valley of She'chem, opening
to the west, and still we have not reached its northern extremity. It extends
two miles farther, being seven miles long and from one and a half to two miles
wide. This is probably the richest and certainly one of the most beautiful
valleys in Palestine. When seen by the author it was covered chiefly with yellow
grain, fully ripe and waiting for the harvest, but not a sickle had yet been
thrust in. Intermingled with the broad expanses of golden grain were belts of
green dur'ah, which was just high enough to almost hide the ground with its rich
mantle of green. Undulating hills of moderate height and irregular swell form
its eastern border, while the lofty ridge of Mount Ger'izim rises abruptly from
its western side, and, towering higher and higher as it extends northward,
reaches its highest elevation where it suddenly breaks down by an almost
perpendicular precipice into the Valley of She'chem, between it and Mount Ebal.
The latter mountain rises as abruptly, and forms the remainder of the western
boundary of the plain. A little more than a mile from the southern end, and on
its eastern side, is the village of Awer'ta, where two tombs are shown, which
are called the tombs of Eleazer and Phinehas. This plain is first mentioned as a
camping-place of Abraham when he first came into the land of Canaan, and in it
Jacob, when he had returned from Padan-aram, bought a piece of land from the
prince of She'chem. Here he resided until after the exciting scenes connected
with the misfortunes of his daughter Dinah. There is nothing said in the Old
Testament of his having dug a well there, but in the New Testament a deep well
in the plain, at the foot of Mount Gerizim, was known as "Jacob's Well," and it
was believed that Jacob dug it, and "drank thereof, himself and his children and
his cattle." The well is still there. It is on the principal highway through
Samaria, as the text of John requires, being only a few steps to the right of
the road; and, what makes its existence remarkable, it is in the midst of a
district well watered by springs and running streams, showing that some
extraordinary contingency must have caused it to be dug. One of these streams,
having its origin in a copious spring about a quarter of a mile distant, passes
within 200 yards of the well. The very existence of the well under such
circumstances is a puzzle, until we remember that Jacob, having purchased a
piece of land in order to be independent of his neighbors, had equal need to
become independent of them in regard to water, and therefore, to avoid depending
on their springs, he must needs dig a well on his own premises. There is no
ground, then, for a rational doubt that the tradition, which in the time of
Christ ascribed it to Jacob, is correct. A church was built over the well in the
fourth century, and its water was drawn up through the floor of the church, near
its eastern end. Nothing now remains of the church but its foundation-walls and
the arches or vaults which supported its stone floor. The top of the vault which
stood over the well has partly fallen in, and in order to reach its mouth one
must climb down through the opening in this vault. The stones of the vault lie
in a confused heap about the well's mouth, no person having had the care to move
them out of the way. The top of the well is arched over like a cistern, and a
round opening is left about 20 inches in diameter. Another opening of irregular
shape has been broken through it. By the light admitted through these openings
one can see the wall distinctly. It is built of stones of good size, smoothly
dressed, and nicely fitted together. The workmanship is like that of the wells
at Beer'sheba. It is a perfect cylinder, and 7 1/2 feet in diameter. Robinson
quotes Maundrell as stating that the well, when visited by him, was 105 feet
deep, and contained 15 feet of water; and another writer, who visited it in 1839
and found it 75 feet deep, with 10 or 12 feet of water. Captain Anderson is the
only modern explorer who has actually descended it. He was let down by a rope,
the untwisting of which under the tension of his weight caused him to revolve so
rapidly that he fainted in the descent, and upon returning to consciousness he
found himself on his back in the dry bottom of the well, looking up to the
opening in the top, which appeared like a star. He found an unbroken pitcher in
the bottom, which must have fallen when there was water in the well, or it would
have broken. He also found the depth 75 feet, and states that it had been filled
up 10 feet in the previous 10 years; but this last statement must be erroneous
if the last writer quoted by Robinson made no mistake. This measurement was made
in 1866. When visited by the author, in 1879, his tape-line touched bottom at 66
feet, showing that the process of filling up, which is the result of the custom
followed by all visitors, both native and foreign, of throwing in stones to hear
them strike the bottom, has been steadily going on. It is to be sincerely
regretted that this practice is not checked by putting the well under proper
guardianship, restoring it to its original condition, and protecting it by a
suitable superstructure. It belongs to the Greek Church, and it is feared that
if they improve the site, as is expected, they will not restore its original
condition, but build over it another church. It is the opinion of both Anderson
and Conder that it is dug through alluvial soil, and that it receives its water
by infiltration; but if this is true as regards its present depth, it can
scarcely be so in regard to its original depth. If restored to its original
depth, it would probably hold a large quantity of water the year round; whereas
now it is dry except in unusually wet winters.

About 400 yards north of the church, in the direction of Mount Ebal, is a
structure known as Joseph's Tomb. It is a building of two apartments, the more
northern being a round vestibule, and the more southern a roofless inclosure
about 25 feet square, surrounded by a wall 10 feet high. The tomb is in the
latter. It is constructed in the usual style of Mohammedan tombs, about seven
feet long, four feet wide at the base, and raised in the shape of a grave about
three feet high in the middle. At each end is a stone pillar with an urn on its
top filled with black ashes, from rags and such things that have been burned
there by Jews. Small earthen lamps with oil in them are also deposited by
devotees in an opening in one end of the tomb. The wall around it is a
reconstruction made in 1868 by a Mr. Rogers, British consul at Damascus, and the
fact is stated on a marble slab let into the wall. The probability that this is
the real resting-place of the bones of Joseph is very great. His mummy, when
brought up out of Egypt by Joshua, was buried in the "parcel of ground which
Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred pieces
of silver," and this is that parcel of ground. True, the tomb is of Mohammedan
structure and modern, but the long period of time which has elapsed has made
many reconstructions of the original tomb necessary, and this may be but the
last of a series; and the fact that it is not made to point toward Mecca is
opposed to the supposition that it is an invention of the Moslem. But for the
superstition of the Moslem, who would resent with the utmost violence any
attempt at excavations into the tomb, the question whether Joseph's mummy, or
any part of it, is to be found there could be settled in a few hours; and
doubtless the day is coming when this will be done. It is not impossible that
visitors to the Holy Land may yet gaze upon the actual body of Joseph here, and
at Hebron look his father Jacob in the face. The sight would add greatly to the
attractions which draw pilgrims to Palestine, and it would be a singular
prolongation of that future into which Joseph looked by faith when he "made
mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment
concerning his bones." Were a wall built from Jacob's Well to Joseph's Tomb, it
would almost close up the mouth of the Valley of She'chem, which comes into the
Plain of Moreh here from the west, occupying the space, about half a mile wide,
between Mount Ger'izim and Mount Ebal, the latter on the north, the former on
the south. There would be left, between the south end of the supposed wall and
Mount Ger'izim, a space 100 or 200 yards wide, and one of about the same width
between its northern end and Mount Ebal. If another wall, about 100 yards
farther west, were built entirely across the mouth of the valley, the southern
end of it would stand in the village of Belâ'ta, a collection of hovels built of
stone, and the northern end would rest on 'As'kar, a mud village at the base of
Mount Ebal. It is now well settled that this latter village is the successor of
the city of Sychar, mentioned in connection with the Saviour's visit to Jacob's
Well, and that Sychar is not, as has long been supposed, another form of the
name She'chem. It seems from Stephen's speech, in Acts, that She'chem was known
to the apostles under its own proper name and is not to be confounded with
Sychar. Moreover, this place is much better suited to the narrative than
She'chem, for it is scarcely half a mile from Jacob's Well, whereas She'chem is
a mile and a half distant. The statement that the city was "near to the parcel
of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph" is strictly true of 'As'kar; and
this agrees well with the circumstance that the woman ran without her waterpot
into the city, and soon returned, followed by the people. There is a splendid
spring of water in 'As'kar, and this might suggest the question why the woman
should have gone half a mile to the deep well to draw; but the obvious answer is
that she was probably at work in the plain, with the well between her and the
town. This supposition must be adopted, whether we suppose her to have belonged
to 'As'kar or She'chem; for had she come from the latter place she would not
only have left an abundance of excellent springs behind her, but she would have
passed one on her way about a quarter of a mile before she reached the well.
'As'kar may at that time have extended across the principal part of the valley,
and have reached much nearer to the well than at present; for, besides the
inherent probability of this, the valley contains many ruins imperfectly buried
beneath its rich soil.

We now enter the Valley of She'chem. It is a remarkable formation, being a
narrow gap separating two mountain ridges just at the point where each has
reached its highest elevation. Mount Ger'izim, commencing some 8 or 10 miles to
the south, and gradually ascending as it extends northward, here reaches its
highest elevation, and breaks down, as we have said before, by an almost
perpendicular descent of 1000 feet into this valley. Mount Ebal does about the
same on the opposite side, but its descent is more than 1200 feet. The gap is a
complete one, for it passes through the entire range. The eastern end of the
valley drains into the plain of Mûkh'nah, but the greater part of it drains
westward into a depression which passes on to the Plain of Sha'ron. After
entering the valley from the Plain of Mûkh'nah, and riding about a quarter of a
mile, we pass a large stone building on the left, used as a barracks for a
regiment of Turkish soldiers. It was built in 1874. Near the corner of this
building is a copious spring of cool water, which sends forth the stream
mentioned above as flowing near Jacob's Well. It passes through the village of
Belâta, and is then led into irrigating channels to water gardens in the
vicinity of Joseph's Tomb.

Just beyond the barracks there is a sudden widening of the valley, made by a
recess in the side of Mount Ger'izim, which forms a vast natural amphitheatre,
and by a similar recess of almost the same dimensions exactly opposite in the
side of Mount Ebal. The valley is here more than half a mile wide, and the chord
of each of the amphitheatres is more than a quarter of a mile long, while the
slope of each mountain from base to summit is nearly half a mile. This is
unquestionably the spot in which Joshua assembled the twelve tribes and read to
them the law, as directed in the 27th chapter of Deuteronomy, and as described
in Jos 8:30-35. If it were possible, under any circumstances, for one man to
read so as to be heard by such a multitude, this is the very place in which to
do it. A number of travelers have tried the experiment of speaking to one
another from mountain to mountain, and have succeeded with ease. The author
tried the experiment of standing in the middle of the valley, with one of his
companions half way up Mount Ger'izim, and the other halfway up Mount Ebal, and
reading to them the curses in Deuteronomy 27. He was heard distinctly by the one
on Mount Ger'izim and indistinctly by the one on Mount Ebal, the thick grove of
olive-trees to the eastward obstructing the passage of the sound in that
direction. If, therefore, the people could have stood in this vast double
amphitheatre, which seems altogether probable, Joshua could have read to them
without aid so that all could hear. But as he was instructed to employ the aid
of Levites, it is probable that he had these distributed through the multitude,
to take up the reading and repeat it after him sentence by sentence. However
this may be, the discovery of such an auditorium in the very spot where an event
of nearly 4000 years ago suggests that it might be found, while the record of
the event says nothing about it, is a striking coincidence confirmatory of the
Biblical narrative. From the amphitheatre to the city, a distance of about half
a mile, the valley is nearly filled with olive-trees in full bearing, and the
ground beneath them is cultivated in grain. The road is enlivened by the
constant passage to and fro of men, women, children, and beasts of burden, while
passing Turkish soldiers and officers of the garrison, some on horseback and
some on foot, display their military airs and uniform. All indicate our near
approach to a city of no mean pretensions.

II. She'Chem And Its Environs

She'chem from the West The town called She'chem in the Bible obtained under the
Roman dominion the name Neapolis (New City), from the circumstance of having
been rebuilt or restored. This name, in the abbreviated Arabic form of Nab'lus,
it has retained to the present time,—one of the few instances in Palestine in
which the Roman name of a place has permanently superseded the original name. It
is 35 miles north of Jerusalem, and is situated in the valley between Mount
Ger'izim and Mount Ebal, about a mile and a half west of its mouth at the Plain
of Moreh. It is situated on the southern side of the valley, extending from the
precipitous face of Mount Ger'izim down to the bottom of the valley and for a
short distance beyond it. Westward of the town Mount Ger'izim gradually
descends, the chief part of its lofty front being eastward of the town. The town
is 1870 feet above the sea-level, with Ger'izim towering 1000 feet above it. It
is on the watershed, springs east of the town flowing to the Jordan, those in
town to the Mediterranean. Its present population is estimated by Europeans at
13,000, but by intelligent natives at 20,000. It is solidly and compactly built
of stone; it is full of business activity, and it bears evident marks of recent
improvement. The principal part of its ancient wall is still standing, though
the town has outgrown it. The people are all Moslem except about 600 Christians,
chiefly Greek, and 130 Samaritans. We have already mentioned, in Chapter VII.
Section IV. of Part First, the mission-work of the Baptists in this place. There
is also here a German Protestant mission. In addition to the ordinary traffic of
a large town of Palestine, the people are largely engaged in the manufacture of
soap made from olive oil. The town is said to contain 22 soap-factories. It has
a large trade with the villagers around and with the Bed'awin east of the
Jordan, and it is the seat of the Turkish government for that side of the river.
The Samaritans, only 130 of whom are left from all those who once inhabited
Samaria, have a synagogue in the southwest part of the city, in which are
deposited several ancient Samaritan manuscripts, among them the celebrated
Samaritan Pentateuch, supposed to be one of the oldest manuscripts in existence.
It is difficult to obtain a sight of the latter, as the priests are in the habit
of deceiving visitors by showing them one of later date. The town is well
watered by a number of springs, and fountains of fresh water are abundant on the
streets. It is said that there are 75 never-failing springs within the town and
its immediate vicinity. That portion of the valley immediately north of the town
is occupied by an extensive burying-ground, which reaches all the way to the
foot of Mount Ebal. Below this, toward the west, the valley descends rapidly,
grows narrower, is abundantly watered, and is verdant with trees and shrubs and
gardens. Besides the usual fruit-trees of the country, there are here many white
mulberries, whose fruit is large and sweet.

She'chem is a very ancient town, and its advantageous situation must always have
made it a place of importance. It was probably not yet built when Abraham first
came into Canaan. This seems to be implied in the statement that "Abram passed
through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the Plain of Moreh," though the
term "place" may refer to the territory belonging to Sichem rather than the
place where Sichem afterwards stood. At any rate, when Jacob returned from
Padan-aram it was a walled town, though its population was small. The ruins
mentioned in the preceding section, which abound along the bed of the valley
eastward of the town, show that it once stood farther east than it does now, or
else that it once occupied a much larger space than at present. Its importance
must always have been of a commercial rather than a military character, for it
is so completely overtopped by Mount Ger'izim as to be comparatively
indefensible. It was doubtless for this reason that Jeroboam, who made it the
first seat of his government, soon abandoned it and chose the loftily perched
Tir'zeh in preference.

Next to Jacob's Well and Joseph's Tomb, the object of greatest historical
interest about She'chem is the summit of Mount Ger'izim. It is ascended on
horseback by a very steep and toilsome ride, starting from the camping-place
just west of the city. (The first part of the slope up which we ride is seen in
the foreground in the preceding engraving.) As we climb the steep, with our
faces nearly nearly eastward, we see just over the town, on the brow of the
mountain, a projecting ledge called Jotham's Rock. We at once accept it, from
its perfect fitness, as the spot on which Jotham stood when, by his forcible and
original fable, he rebuked the She'chemites in the valley below for their
cruelty and ingratitude toward his father Gideon. He must have stood on a spot
whence he could be heard and seen from the valley below, and yet be out of the
reach of an arrow-shot; and at the same time, he must have had a safe way of
retreat when his speech was ended. The rock in question meets all of these
conditions; for it stood high above the people, yet near to them, and the steep
face of the mountain prevented a rapid pursuit of Jotham, while his retreat was
unobstructed.

Sacred Rock of the Samaritans When we stand on the summit of the mountain the
Plain of Moreh lies beneath our feet on the east, and the mouth of the Valley of
She'chem on the north. The elevation, according to Conder, is 2849 feet above
the sea-level. An extensive plateau is here covered with the ruins of ancient
buildings, among which can be traced those of the church built here by
Justinian, A. D. 533; of a castle with a well-preserved pool for rain-water by
its side; and, as the Samaritans believe, of their temple, which once stood
here, but was destroyed 130 years before Christ. They have their sacred rock,
over which their temple stood, as have the Jews and the Moslem on Mount Moriah.
It is seen, together with surrounding stones from ancient buildings, in the
above cut. Cisterns and pavements are abundant; a Mohammedan wely stands on the
eastern brow of the mountain, and the mountain's eastern slope shows the remains
of ancient terraces. To the Samaritans, Mount Ger'izim continues to be, as it
was in the time of Christ, the most sacred spot on earth. They believe that it
is the exact centre of the earth, and they are persistent in believing that it
is the highest mountain in the world. When Conder pointed out to their
high-priest the fact that Mount Ebal, just across the valley, is obviously
higher (227 feet higher), the old man replied that it appeared to be so, but it
could not be so in reality, for "Mount Ger'izim is the highest mountain in the
world!" They believe that this is the mountain on which Abraham offered Isaac,
and that it is the Bethel near which Jacob saw the vision of the ladder. Here
they commenced the worship of God, according to the Jewish account, by aid of a
Jewish priest, who was driven from Jerusalem because he had married a daughter
of Sanballat, about the close of the Old Testament history, and here they
continue to observe the annual festivals appointed by the law of Moses. Although
the Passover has never been observed according to the law by the Jews since the
destruction of their temple A. D. 70, it has continued through all the Christian
centuries to be observed by the Samaritans on Mount Ger'izim, and it is observed
by the remnant of them to the present day. At the time of its annual recurrence
the entire Samaritan population of Nab'lus go to the mountain-top and live in
tents for seven days. They slay seven lambs precisely at sunset on the evening
of the appointed day (the first full moon after the vernal equinox), roast their
bodies whole, eat them with unleavened bread about midnight, and spend the last
four hours of the night in prayer. Dean Stanley was so fortunate as to be
present at this celebration during his second visit to Palestine, in 1862, and
he gives a very interesting account of it in an appendix to the first volume of
his "Lectures on the Jewish Church." The editor of Baedeker's Guide-Book also
witnessed it in 1869, and gives substantially the same account of the
proceedings. When the author was there, May 29, 1879, he saw the recently
charred bones of the roasted lambs scattered about the place of sacrifice, but
he was more than a month too late to witness the festival. The cut on the
following page represents these people as they watch the setting sun in the
evening of the Passover. The view from the summit of Mount Ger'izim is
widespread and magnificent, though not so much so as that from the higher summit
of Mount Ebal. The southern face of the latter mountain, that seen from Mount
Ger'izim and the Valley of She'chem, is covered with a thick growth of cactus,
except in a few spots where the slope is gradual and occupied by terraces
cultivated in grain. The summit of this mountain, according to Conder, is 3076
feet above the sea. It is the highest point in Palestine north of the mountains
near Hebron and south of northern Galilee.

Samaritians at Worship on Mount Ger'izim On a lower mountain, a short distance
to the north of Mount Ebal, is Tolûsa, the Tirzah of Scripture, which was the
second place chosen by Jeroboam as the seat of his kingdom, and which continued
to be the capital of the northern kingdom until Omri bought the Hill of Samaria
and transferred the seat of power to that spot.

She'chem is the most convenient place from which to make an excursion to "Ænon
near to Salim," where John baptized when he left the Jordan. Starting east from
the city, and on reaching the Plain of Moreh leaving Joseph's Tomb on the right,
and, passing through the village of As'kar (Sychar), we follow the Damascus
road, which runs north along the eastern foot of Mount Ebal, with the Plain of
Moreh on the right. About two miles north of As'kar the Plain of Moreh
terminates, and a very lofty mountain crowned with a white wely rises abruptly
from its northern extremity. Just before reaching the northwestern corner of the
plain we have opposite to us, on a slope at the northeastern curve of the plain,
the village of Salim (Salem), near to which was the baptizing-place of Ænon. The
most direct and easiest route to the latter place crosses the plain and passes
through Salem; but the author, preferring to trace the waters from their
fountain-head, continued along the Damascus road, following the course of Wâd'y
Bedân', about three miles north of the end of the Plain of Moreh. These three
miles pass over a very rugged road. The road runs into and crosses Wâd'y Bedân'
in the midst of a group of four water-mills, which do the chief part of the
grinding for She'chem and the surrounding country. By continuing on the Damascus
road until another mountain-spur immediately north is crossed, we may enter into
the head of Wâd'y Far'ah; but as that wâd'y unites with Wâd'y Bedân' about two
miles below the mills just mentioned, it is better to turn down the latter wâd'y
and follow its course. It runs almost directly to the east. In the course of
these two miles we pass eight more water-mills, the last at the junction of the
two wad'ies, and supplied by a race from Wâd'y Far'ah. The stream in the latter
wad'y is the larger of the two, and from the point of junction the united waters
bear the name of Wâd'y Far'ah. About four miles below this the bed of the wâd'y,
which has been very narrow thus far, and is in no place wide enough to
accommodate a large multitude, such as assembled to hear the preaching of John,
suddenly expands on the northern side of the stream to about a mile in width,
with a gradual upward slope toward the north, and extends eastward with the
stream along its southern side for about two miles. No prettier mountain valley
is seen in Palestine, and none more suitable for John's purpose. The stream for
about five miles of its course, as traced by the author, is continuously fringed
with oleanders, which were then in bloom. Our path crossed the stream
repeatedly, and we found it abounding in pools from two to three feet deep,
though at an unusually low stage of water on account of the exceptionally dry
winter which had preceded. The stream is perennial, and flows thence to the
Jordan, increasing in volume as it descends through its mountain pass. It enters
the Jordan a short distance south of the Dam'ieh ford. To Lieutenant Conder, the
first European who carefully examined the eastern hills of Samaria, belongs the
credit of identifying this locality, and it is due him that we here introduce
his own description of it:

"The head-springs are found in an open valley surrounded by desolate and
shapeless hills. The water gushes out over a stony bed, and flows rapidly down
in a fine stream surrounded by bushes of oleander. The supply is perennial, and
a continuous succession of little springs occurs along the bed of the valley, so
that the current becomes the principal western affluent of Jordan south of the
Vale of Jezreel. The valley is open in most parts of its course, and we find the
two requisites for the scene of the baptism of a huge multitude,—an open space
and abundance of water. Not only does the name Salem occur in the village three
miles south of the valley, but the name Æ'non, signifying 'springs,' is
recognizable at the village of Ainun', four miles north of the stream. There is
only one other place of the latter name in Palestine, Beit Ainun', near Hebron;
but this is a place that has no very fine supply of water and no Salem near it.
On the other hand, there are many other Salems all over Palestine, but none of
them has an Ænon near it. The site of Wâd'y Far'ah is the only one where all the
requisites are met,—the two names, the fine water supply, the proximity of the
desert, and the open character of the ground." As Conder suggests, this Wâd'y
Far'ah was the route of Jacob and his caravan in their journey from the Jordan
through the mountains up to She'chem; and it was also that of the Syrian army on
their retreat from Samaria under a false alarm.

III. Places West And North Of She'Chem

Herod's Colonnade at Samaria That part of the Valley of She'chem which extends
west of the city descends rapidly at first, then more gradually, and makes its
way nearly northwest through the mountains to the Plain of Sha'ron. It was the
highway from She'chem to Samaria, Cæsarea, Lydda, and Joppa. But the present
road to Samaria leaves the valley after following it for three or four miles,
crosses a ridge to the north, and descends into the Valley of Samaria on its
eastern side. Samaria is eight miles from She'chem by the road (six in an
air-line) and due northwest. Its situation attests the military skill of Omri,
the King of Israel, who bought the hill and built the city for the capital of
his kingdom. It also accounts for the fact that though the city was three times
besieged within the Bible period by an overpowering army, it was never taken but
once, and then after a siege of three years. It is to the confidence which its
inhabitants reposed in its strength that Amos alluded when he said, "Woe to them
who are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria." It was built on
an isolated hill about 400 feet high, completely surrounded by an almost
circular valley, and this again by a circle of mountains nearly all higher than
Samaria. Its site might be compared to that of a conical swell in the centre of
a deep saucer. The hill is ascended from the northeast by a steep slope, and the
modern village, with a large and well-preserved church of the crusading period,
is on the northeastern brow of the hill. The summit is now set in olive-trees
and cultivated in grain. Terraces run around the hill from top to bottom, and on
the second terrace from the top stand the remaining pillars of a colonnade built
by Herod the Great, which once extended around the hill for a distance of 1000
yards. The terrace is about 50 feet wide, and the columns, of which about 80 are
still standing, and many others are lying prostrate and broken, are 16 feet
high. They are made of hard limestone. There are many other relics of ancient
structures on the slopes of the hill, and among them one on the northern side,
consisting of about a dozen columns, forming a quadrangle, the probable remains
of a temple erected by Herod in honor of Augustus Cæsar. He rebuilt the city,
adorned it with magnificent works, and called it Sebaste, the Greek word for
Augustus, and it has retained that name in a corrupted form to the present day,
the Ar'abs calling it Sebûs'-ti-yeh. Its summit is 1542 feet above the sea, and
the highest point is near the southern brow. Standing there, the entire wall of
surrounding mountains and the basin of the surrounding valley can be distinctly
seen, and over the lower hill to the southwest the view extends to the Plain of
Sha'ron and the sea. The valley is widest toward the south and west, where it is
about two miles wide. At the southeast curve of this valley the Valley of
She'chem enters it, and at the southwest curve there is a broad opening through
the hills, by which that valley passes on westward toward the sea. The author's
party traveled down that valley on their way to Cæsarea, and they saw along its
floor some of the best-preserved pieces of ancient paved road in all Palestine.
It was doubtless in the valley immediately south of Samaria that the Syrians
were encamped when they thought they heard the Egyptians and the Hittites coming
upon them, and it was up that gap opening toward the sea that the enemy appeared
to come. The Syrian retreat was toward the Jordan, and it probably led them up
the Valley of She'chem, east of their camp and past the city of She'chem.

Many villages, the sites of ancient towns, are perched on the hills round about
Samaria, as they are in every part of the hill country, but, for a cause
mentioned above, few in this portion of the country have any Bible history.

About twelve miles by the road a little east of north from Samaria, and about
four miles farther from She'chem, is Dothan, the place near which Joseph was
sold by his brethren, and in which was the prophet Elisha when it was surrounded
by Syrian soldiers for the purpose of capturing him. In riding to it from either
place many villages are passed, and some beautiful valleys. It is still known
under the name Tell Dothan' (the heap of Dothan). The site of the town is a hill
about 200 feet high, isolated on every side except the north, where a narrow
saddle about 100 feet high connects it with a still higher hill in that
direction. On the summit is a plateau of about 40 acres, which has been
artificially leveled. Toward the eastern side are some ruins of buildings that
were constructed of good limestone, while the remainder of the surface is dotted
with heaps of small stones from cheaper houses. All the exposed soil is
cultivated in grain. The slope of the hill on every side except the north is too
steep for ascent on horseback. To the south about a mile and to the west about
five miles there stretches a rich and beautiful valley, from one to one and a
half miles wide, all cultivated in grain, and bordered by hills of moderate
height. The word Dothan means two wells, and there they are in the valley south
of the village, one a little to the right and the other to the left. When seen
by the author flocks of goats and sheep were being watered at the more eastern,
and at the other, about 100 yards to the west, a horsepower water-wheel was in
motion, throwing water into a plastered reservoir about 30 feet square and 3 1/2
feet deep, in which men were washing a flock of sheep preparatory to shearing
them. From the reservoir water also ran in an irrigating channel to support a
fine garden of cucumbers, onions, and other vegetables below. The principal
thoroughfare from the north in the direction of the Plain of Sha'ron, the very
road which the Ishmaelite caravan to which Joseph was sold was traveling, passes
along the western foot of the hill, and Captain Wilson found in the plain a
number of jug-shaped cisterns answering to the pit in which Joseph was placed.
Everything corresponds precisely to the scene of Joseph's sale, and not less so
to that of the attempted arrest of Elisha. The mountain that was full of horses
and chariots of fire to the opened eyes of Elisha's servant stands around on
every side, and is not far away except to the west.


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  CHAPTER 17: CHAPTER SIX--PLACES ABOUT THE PLAIN OF ESDRA'ELON
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Chapter VI. Places about the Plain of Esdra'Elon I. On The Eastern Border

We have given a geographical description of the Plain of Esdra'elon and the
adjoining plains in Chapter I., Section V., Part First. We are now to speak of
the villages, mountains, and other interesting localities in the same district.
The only town of any importance at the present day on the Plain of Esdra'elon is
Jenîn', the ancient En-Gannim (garden-spring), a city of Issachar, which was
given to the Levites. It is situated at the southeast angle of the plain, at the
foot of the hills which rise to the east and southeast of it, and at the mouth
of a pass between the mountains southward, through which must always have led
the principal thoroughfare from the plain and all Galilee. Jesus must often have
passed by it, though it is never mentioned in connection with his journeyings.
Though it scarcely has a Bible history, it is mentioned in the writings of all
modern travelers, because, as above stated, it is the only town of importance in
a large district, the ancient cities which once overshadowed it having gone to
ruin. It contains about 3000 inhabitants, and is the seat of a subordinate
Turkish governorship and a garrison of soldiers. It is well built of stone
houses, and is surrounded on the south and west by luxuriant gardens of
vegetables and fruits, with an occasional palm-tree. A copious and perennial
stream, whose source is in the hill to the southeast, is brought by an
underground stone conduit to an artificial basin in the lower or western edge of
the town, where it stands in a crystal pool about 6 feet long, 3 wide, and 18
inches deep. Here the women of the town are constantly coming, lingering a while
to chat, and going, while well-dressed and clean-looking men sit or loiter about
in the shade. Below the pool the surplus water passes in a stream 2 feet wide
and 18 inches deep into a stone watering-trough about 30 feet long, where
animals of the town and of all passers-by are freely watered. Hence it is led
into irrigating channels for the gardens below, and can be all turned at
pleasure into an elevated stone channel to a mill in the edge of the gardens. A
mosque kept in unusually good repair stands in the western edge of the town. On
its southern side is a garden of figs and pomegranates, and along the northern a
long portico with arched praying-places, while two pools of limpid water stand
ready for the sacred washing of hands, feet, and face which must precede every
prayer. The white minaret of the mosque is a conspicuous object from every
direction to those traversing the plain.

About seven miles a little east of north from Jenîn' is the village of Zerîn',
the ancient Jez'reel, which gave its name to this entire plain. The road thither
is along the foot of the mountain which rises to the east, and on ground
slightly elevated above the plain to the west. In places we see remains of the
ancient pavement. There is a gradual ascent all the way from Jenîn'. Five or six
villages are seen on the right, and two or three on the left. Jez'reel was most
delightfully situated. While the ground slopes away gently toward the south, it
slopes more abruptly toward the east until it reaches the level of the plain,
and the view from the south toward the west and around to the north takes in the
entire Plain of Esdra'elon, with the mountain-rim which bounds two sides of its
triangle. Almost due west, and 16 miles distant, is distinctly seen the place of
Elijah's sacrifice on Mount Carmel, and when Ahab was returning to Jez'reel from
that stirring scene, followed by the black clouds of the coming rain, and
preceded by the rugged form of Elijah, his chariot could be seen from the walls
of Jez'reel every foot of the way. To the northwest the almost perpendicular
mountain wall which shuts off Nazareth from the view is only seven or eight
miles distant, and a white house recently built on a hill overlooking Nazareth
is distinctly seen. To the north, about four miles distant, is Jebel Dû'hy
(Little Hermon), which rises so high as to hide from view Mount Tabor, which
stands behind it. To the east is the long Plain of Jez'reel, continually
widening as it recedes; and to the southeast is Mount Gil'boa, on the long
northwestern spur of which Jez'reel stands. The present village is a collection
of miserable huts, but into the walls of these are built many pieces of ancient
masonry. The most conspicuous object is the ruin of an old church, a part of
whose wall stands 20 or 30 feet high. The surface about the village is covered
with ancient building-stones, and rock-cut cisterns are very numerous. The
author counted five of these within an acre of ground. A large limestone
sarcophagus lies half buried a little south of the village.

Ahab showed taste and judgment in selecting this as the site of his summer
palace, to avoid the heat and the contracted view of his capital at Samaria. And
Saul's army, when posted here before his last and fatal battle, had an admirable
defensive position against the Philis'tine host drawn up at Shunem, on the
opposite slope of Jebel Dûhy. Immediately in front of Jez'reel to the north
there is an almost perpendicular descent of 400 feet into the Valley of
Jez'reel, up which the Philis'tine army would have to clamber in making an
attack on Saul. Shunem is on the opposite edge of this valley, but almost as
high as Jez'reel, the valley sloping rapidly down from it to the foot of the
Hill of Jez'reel. From Jez'reel there is a very good view of Mount Gil'boa. The
western and northern sides of this mountain come together here at an acute
angle. The western side stretches off in a direction nearly due south to the
vicinity of Jenîn, while its northern side runs in almost a straight line south
by southeast until it suddenly breaks down into the Jordan Valley, about 12
miles distant. This northern—or, more strictly speaking, northeastern—side is
almost perpendicular, while the western has a gradual slope. Its highest
elevation, which it attains in a point but a short distance southeast of
Jez'reel, is 1717 feet. Saul and his men were doubtless retreating over the
slopes of this mountain when he and his sons were slain. The author and his
party rode from Jez'reel eastward down into the valley, and along the northern
base of Mount Gil'boa, on their way to Beisan'. About two miles from Jez'reel we
crossed the stream of Ain Jalûd', supposed to be the Fountain of Harod mentioned
in connection with Gideon's attack upon the Midianites, but incorrectly called a
well in the English version. It is a bold stream of water, 20 or 30 feet wide
and a foot or more deep, issuing from a cave-like recess in the rock of the
mountains base. The water is cool and clear. It is so dammed up a short distance
below as to make it spread out into a wide pool, and farther on it is led into
irrigating channels and makes verdant a large portion of the valley. About three
miles farther east another spring issues from under a ledge of rock 100 or 200
feet from the base of the mountain, and a dam thrown across the depression below
it swells its water into a beautiful pool about 100 yards long and from 20 to 30
wide, with a depth of from 8 to 10 feet. So perfectly transparent is this water
that the smallest object can be seen distinctly at the bottom of it, which is
covered with white pebbles. When the author first drew near it he mistook the
white bottom for a white scum on the surface, and was equally surprised and
delighted, on reaching the edge of the basin, to see it eight feet below the
surface. His company enjoyed in this limpid pool the most delightful of many
delightful baths which they took in the waters of Palestine. The temperature of
the air was 97° in the shade of our umbrellas, and that of the water precisely
the degree to be most refreshing. The water of this spring turns a mill which
stands below the dam just mentioned, and then runs away, like that of the one
above, to irrigate the fields and pastures of the plain.

About 12 miles east of Jez'reel is the modern village of Beisan', answering to
the ancient Bethshe'an, the ruins of which are very extensive, full of interest,
and many of them well preserved. The site of the original city, and of what we
might call the acropolis at a later period, is the summit of an isolated hill
which once formed a continuous part of the cliff overlooking the Jordan Valley,
but is now cut away on both sides by two deep chasms, through which, on each
side, flows a stream of water. These are the streams which flow from the two
springs mentioned above in the plain of Jez'reel. The heads of the two ravines
are about a quarter of a mile west of the hill in question, and between them for
that distance is a valley but a few feet above their level. After passing by the
hill they come together east of it, and thence flow as one stream to the Jordan.
The hill thus cut off is about 100 feet higher than the level of the plain, and
its summit is crowned with an ancient wall six or eight feet thick, which passes
entirely around its brow. On its northern slope is a plateau about twice as
large and about 100 feet lower, which is also surrounded with a wall, and has a
gateway at the northwest corner. A large and deep cistern, whose arch is partly
broken, is seen a short distance from the gate, and a zig-zag roadway, now
impassable, led from the gate to the valley on the west. The sides of this hill
are everywhere so steep as to be ascended only on foot, and by a path winding
half-way around it. From the western brow of this acropolis one looks down in
the valley below upon a confused mass of stone walls; standing and prostrate
columns; an ancient Roman theatre, well preserved; long stretches of street
pavement laid with heavy blocks of basalt; bridges of the same rock spanning the
two streams; and two modern water-mills, propelled by the streams where they
break down from the higher level of the plain. These are the ruins of ancient
Bethshe'an. Other ruins are scattered about over a large area on the high plain
immediately south of this valley. Lifting the eye from these ruins, and taking
in the more distant view, the long plain of Jez'reel lies before us, coming
almost to a point in the distance where the sides of Mount Gil'boa and Jebel
Dû'hy approach each other, but having a narrow gap at the farthest extremity,
between Jez'reel and Shu'nem. Through this gap can be distinctly seen, though 28
miles away, the eastern end of Mount Carmel, where Elijah called down fire from
heaven. If we turn around and look to the eastward, the Jordan Valley, 500 feet
below, stretches away to the north and south for many miles, while the lofty
mountain range beyond the Jordan bounds the entire horizon in that direction. It
was probably on the wall of this acropolis that the bodies of Saul and his sons
were gibbeted by the victorious Philis'tines, who had found them the day after
the battle, just yonder on the slopes of Mount Gil'boa. And hither came the men
of Jabesh-Gilead, from the mountains yonder beyond the Jordan, took down the
bodies, bore them in triumph to their own city, and burned them to prevent their
recapture and further mistreatment. Thus they expressed their gratitude to Saul
for that wonderful deliverance which he wrought for them in the beginning of his
reign. The main road from She'chem and all southern Judea to Damascus passes
through Beisan', and, descending here into the Jordan Valley, crosses the Jordan
at the Mejami'a bridge, about 12 miles to the northeast.

Returning now to the head of the valley, we visit Shunem, now called Sulêm',
already mentioned as being about four miles due north of Jez'reel, and situated
on the southern slope of Jebel Dû'hy, near its western end. It is noted partly
for its connection with the battle of Mount Gil'boa, in which King Saul lost his
life, but chiefly as the home of the good Shunammite woman who befriended the
prophet Elisha and was so amply rewarded. It was also the native place of
Ab'ishag the Shunammite. It was never a place of great importance. It is now a
small village of huts. The view from it to the west embraces the entire Plain of
Esdra'elon, and the eye can trace the line of the Shunammites ride of about 16
miles when she went after the prophet on the death of her son. The sloping
valley immediately south of the village is probably the field in which her
husband was harvesting when the child was smitten with sunstroke and sent to its
mother. The mountain called Jebel Dû'hy is 1815 feet high, about 100 feet higher
than Mount Gil'boa, and on its highest summit is a Mohammedan wel'y, whose
whitewashed surface is a conspicuous and striking object from every direction in
which the mountain is seen. It is the tomb of the prophet whose name the
mountain bears, but who he is explorers have not ascertained. There is a small
village near the wel'y. This mountain was supposed at one time by the Crusaders
to be Mount Hermon, and for a time it was so called. When the mistake was
discovered they called it Little Hermon, and so it has often been called since.
Although it is more conspicuous than Gil'boa, and almost as much so as Tabor,
and has on its base in different places three well-known villages, yet it is not
once mentioned by name in the Bible. The other two villages just referred to are
Nain and Endor, both on the northern slope of the mountain, the former about two
miles from the western end, and the latter about two miles farther east. Nain is
perched on a bench, with a steep slope of about 60 feet descending to the plain
just north of it. The road from the north approaches it by a narrow valley at
its western end, and beyond this are some rock-cut sepulchres with loculi in
them of both kinds. As Jesus approached the gate of the town, coming from the
direction of Capernaum, where he was the previous day, the procession bearing
the son of the widow was going out toward this burying-place, and thus they
happened to meet. It was probably late in the afternoon, as the distance from
Capernaum is more than 20 miles by the nearest route. The village is a very
small one, containing only a dozen or so small huts, but around it are scattered
the ruins of better buildings, and on the brow of the westward steep are the
remains of what may have been the town wall. The expression "gate of the city,"
used by Luke, implies that it was walled when visited by Jesus. Among the ruins
are those of a small church. The Latins have obtained control of this, and when
the author was there workmen were about to commence the reconstruction of it,
under the direction of a priest who had pitched a tent near the spot.

Between Nain and Endor, two miles farther east, there is a gap in the mountain
which passes entirely through it, although it rises to a considerable height
midway. By this King Saul came over from his camp near Jez'reel the night before
the battle to visit the Witch of Endor. As the Philis'tine army was immediately
north of him, he had to pass by its left flank in order to make the perilous
excursion,—a venture which he would scarcely have made had he not felt himself
in a very great strait. The village still wears its original name, pronounced by
the Ar'abs Endûr', and it is perched on a steep rocky slope pierced by many
caverns, at least one of which is inhabited. The population numbers about 150
persons, and the supply of water is from a feeble spring in a cave above the
village. It was nearly dry when the author saw it, and it was kept in so filthy
a condition that, although thirsty, we did not try the quality of its water.

Mount Tabor from the Southwest

Directly north of Jebel Dû'hy, and distant about five miles, across a lovely
plain which declines toward the Jordan, rises the majestic form of Mount Tabor,
2000 feet high, and almost in the shape of a cone. Our engraving of it shows it
from the southwest, and is not the most pleasing view, the connecting ridge
toward the west giving it a somewhat tilted appearance, which it does not
present when seen from almost any other direction. From that ridge, which is
about 200 feet high above the plain and connects the mountain with the hills
toward Nazareth, the ascent is made to the summit up a very steep, winding, and
rocky path. The highest point of the summit is near the eastern part of the
mountain, and there a considerable area is inclosed by the remains of an ancient
wall with a moat outside. Robinson quotes Polybius as saying that Anti'ochus the
Great, 218 B. C. took a city which then stood here and fortified it. Josephus,
the historian, also fortified the place at the beginning of the Roman war, and
we enter the area inclosed by the walls through the ancient gateway on the
western side. From the top of the wall at the southern side is obtained a
magnificent view of the plains and mountains to the south. Within the walls,
near the same spot, a broad space of naked rock is drained during the winter
rains into a cistern in its centre, which affords a drink of cool and pure
water. Farther to the east are two monasteries, the Latin on the south and the
Greek on the north, about 200 yards apart, with a new stone wall separating
their premises. These have both been erected since Robinson's visit in 1838 (see
II. 352, 353), and they are intended to commemorate the transfiguration, which,
from the time of Jerome in the fourth century until within the last few years,
was supposed to have occurred on this mountain. It is said that three churches
were built here during the Christian period of Palestine to commemorate the
three tabernacles proposed by Peter. Mark and Luke say that Peter knew not what
to say, because he was frightened, when he proposed these tabernacles, and it is
quite evident that those who built the three churches knew not what to do; their
folly far exceeded that of Peter, and they had not half so good an excuse for
it. Many other structures were alternately built and thrown down during the
conflicts between the Christians and Saracens.

While the southern side of Mount Tabor is entirely bare of trees and shrubbery,
the northern side is covered with a dense growth of brushwood, mostly oak, and
the long slope near its base is thickly set with the finest grove of oak-trees
in Palestine. Many of them are from two to three feet in diameter, but their
trunks are too short to be very valuable except for firewood and such mechanical
purposes as require only short pieces of timber. The limbs are large, and many
of them sufficiently straight to furnish wood for similar purposes. There is not
a "rail cut" in all the forest. From Mount Tabor to Nazareth is about six miles,
a little north of west, by a very direct road; and to Tiberias, the nearest
point on the Lake of Galilee, is about 10 miles. The only village close about
the mountain is on the southern slope of the connecting ridge or saddle on the
west. It is called Debûrî'eh, and is identified with the Dabe'rath which was on
the line between Zebulon and Issachar; was given to the latter tribe, and
afterward to the Levites. It has the remains of a church and some other ruins.
It is seen in our cut.

Some two or three miles west of this village, at the foot of the precipitous
bluff up which the road from She'chem to Nazareth climbs, is the small village
of Iksâl', the Chesulloth mentioned in Joshua (19:18) as on the line between
Issachar and Zebulon. The only place of interest remaining yet to be mentioned
on the eastern border of the great plain is Fû'leh, noted as one of the
battle-fields of Napoleon Bonaparte during his Syrian campaign of 1799. Marshal
Kleber, with 1500 men, was here attacked by 25,000 Syrians early in the morning
of April 16th, and after a desperate fight of six hours was relieved by Napoleon
himself, who, anticipating the attack, rushed out from A'cre, which he was
besieging, with only 600 men, reinforced his marshal about noon, and put the
Syrian army to flight. He supped that night in Nazareth. This town is in the
plain, nearly west of Shunem, and on the road from She'chem to Nazareth. The
battle is called the "Battle of Mount Tabor." The northern and southern borders
of the Plain of Esdra'elon are singularly void of interesting localities,
especially of such as have a name in the Bible; while the plain itself is too
wet in winter and too dry in summer for the erection of towns. The tillers of
the northern portion live in villages, for the most part hid in the Galilean
hills, and those of the southern portion are equally hid among the hills of
Samaria, where they enjoy a purer air, better water, and greater security from
the Bed'awin, whose frequent incursions into the plain in former years rendered
life and property unsafe. Not a single town of importance is identified along
its northern border, either on the plain or in the adjacent hills, with the
exception of Iksâl' and Debûrî'eh, already mentioned.

II. On The Southern Border In order to obtain a conception of localities in the
southern border of the plain, it is best to return to Jenîn', at the southeast
angle, and follow the road which leads thence along this border to Mount Carmel,
Haifa, and A'cre. After traveling about seven miles from Jenîn', we pass a
ruin-covered mount called Tell-Ta'anuk, which answers to Ta'anach, a city which
was first allotted to the tribe of Issachar, but was afterward given to
Manasseh, and finally occupied by Levites. The battle in which Ba'rak defeated
the army of Sisera extended into its territory.

About four miles northwest of Ta'anach, and eight miles southeast of Mount
Carmel, is the ruin called El Lejjûn', a corruption of the Roman name Legio,
which, in its turn, was a corruption of Megiddo. This, throughout the chief part
of the Old Testament period, was the most important city on the borders of the
great plain, Jez'reel alone having eclipsed it in importance, and only for a
short time. It was one of the cities which Solomon selected for his system of
national fortifications, doubtless because it commanded the chief line of march
between the Plain of Sha'ron and the Plain of Esdra'elon. Armies passing through
the country from north to south, or from south to north, always sought the
advantage of these two plains. When Pharaoh Ne'cho was making this passage on
his way from Egypt to the Euphrates, Josiah attacked him here, and was defeated
and slain. It is situated in a small circular valley almost surrounded by
hills,—a kind of bay to the great plain. A stream of water, a tributary to the
Ki'shon, runs across the northern edge of the valley, and is crossed on an
ancient stone bridge built for the thoroughfare mentioned above. Three mills are
propelled by the stream ere it reaches the level of the Plain of Esdra'elon. The
principal ruins are those of a very large and strongly-fortified khân, a short
distance south of the bridge, whence the place takes its modern name Khân el
Lejjûn'. A similar but smaller and more ancient ruin covers a hill just north of
the bridge. These ruins are all of more recent date than Solomon's
fortifications, but they may be composed partly of stones used by him, and
excavations might reveal some of the foundation walls which he laid.

North of Lejjûn', projecting out into the edge of the Plain of Esdra'elon, is a
very remarkable hill, which is the most conspicuous object on this border of the
plain except Mount Carmel. It is about 200 feet high, its sides are artificially
worked into two high terraces, and its top, which is about half a mile wide and
a mile long, appears to have been artificially leveled. Its commanding position,
the vast amount of labor which has given it its artificial form, and its
propinquity to the reputed site of the town of Megiddo, all combined to suggest
to the author the question whether it is not the real site of Solomon's
fortification. It would certainly be far better suited to the purpose than the
comparatively indefensible site of Lejjûn'. In our progress northwestward we
next come to Mount Carmel, whose southeastern extremity is near the terminus of
the Plain of Esdra'elon. A short distance from it westward, the hills of
Galilee, which make a long curve to the southward around the western end of the
plain, terminate in a bluff about a mile from the side of Mount Carmel, leaving
a pass which has a downward slope into the Plain of A'cre. Through this the
Ki'shon flows into the latter plain.

Mount Carmel is a ridge 14 miles long, extending from near the northwestern
angle of the Plain of Esdra'elon, northwest to the sea-shore, where it drops
down suddenly, leaving a narrow beach at its foot. It is 556 feet high near this
extremity; 12 miles farther inland it attains a height of 1810 feet; and toward
the other extremity it makes a slight descent, being there only 1687 feet high.
Its northern side runs in nearly a straight line, and rises like a wall from the
edge of the adjoining plain. On the other side it runs out into spurs descending
into the Plain of Sha'ron. These are long at the southeastern end, but they grow
shorter as the sea is approached, thus imparting to the entire block of the
mountain the shape of a triangle, with its apex at the sea-shore. The mountain
is nearly everywhere covered with a thick growth of brushwood, and was once
extensively cultivated and studded with many villages; but Ibrahim Pasha, in
1837, destroyed all but two of the villages, and the cultivation ceased. The
brushwood has grown up since that time. At the eastern extremity of the mountain
there is a place on its summit called El Mah'rakah (the Place of Burning), from
the supposition that here Elijah called the fire from heaven to consume his
sacrifice. Many ancient ruins are scattered about, some of them overgrown with
young oaks, and in the midst of them is a rock-cut pool for rainwater about 35
by 20 feet and from 6 to 8 feet deep. Near the eastern brow of the eminence
stands a low stone building of comparatively modern date, in which the Latins
sometimes celebrate mass. The view toward the east includes the entire Plain of
Esdra'elon. Mount Gil'boa, with Jez'reel at its foot, is in full view, as is
also Jebel Dû'hy, with Shunem at its foot; while the conical top of Mount Tabor
is seen peering over the hills to the south of Nazareth. The view to the west is
shut off by the higher part of the mountain in that direction, but by going less
than 100 yards back from the brow of the mountain we can see over the southern
slopes of its spurs down to the sea-shore, and the Mediterranean is distinctly
visible for many miles above Cæsarea. This is the view obtained by Elijah's
servant when the little cloud was seen hanging over the sea, and the summit
occupied by the ruins above mentioned is the prophet's place of prayer, and not
his place of sacrifice. From the latter place Elijah "went up to the top of
Carmel" when he went to pray, and from the praying-place he sent his servant
seven times to look toward the sea for signs of rain. We are to look elsewhere,
then, for the place of sacrifice, and it must be a place of greater area than
this narrow summit, in order to have accommodated the vast multitude who were
present. But here it is, immediately in front of us to the east, and 300 feet
below us. It is a plateau sufficiently broad for the assembly, and reached by
roads which ascend the slopes of the mountain from various directions. By
dismounting and leading our horses we managed to descend to it, having reached
the summit by a different route. The plateau answers in every particular the
demands of the narrative, even to the possibility of Ahab's chariot ascending to
it, and there is no other on the mountain that does. Even the matter of
procuring the water which was poured on the sacrifice (verses 33-35) is provided
for. It could not have been obtained from the Ki'shon, which is 1400 feet below,
and half a mile from the foot of the mountain, and was also dry after the three
years of drouth, but from a spring in a well some 10 or 15 minutes' walk down
the slope toward the north. This well, mentioned by all visitors to the spot,
had an abundance of good water when visited by the author, although the Ki'shon,
just opposite, was entirely dry, thus proving that the well is more unfailing
than the river. Though the river must have been dry at the time of Elijah's
great victory here, a heavy flood of rain was about to fall, and the bodies of
the 400 prophets of Baal, which he caused to be cast into the bed of the stream,
were soon washed away by the rising current. On the opposite extremity of Mount
Carmel, overlooking the sea, is a large and well-built monastery belonging to
the Carmelite monks of the Latin Church. It has rooms for 30 monks, though it
usually contains only about half that number, and it has accommodations for
about 30 guests. The present building was founded in 1828, its predecessor
having been burned by the Pasha of A'cre in 1821. This was but a repetition of
similar disasters which have marked the history of this convent. The hermits for
whom the first building was here erected were organized into a company, in the
year 412, by the Bishop of Jerusalem. Four times since the beginning of the
twelfth century have the buildings been destroyed and the monks all massacred.
During the siege of A'cre, in 1799, Napoleon used the monastery for a hospital.
After his retreat the sick and wounded soldiers who were left in the monastery
were all butchered by the Moslem. Their bodies were buried in front of the
building, and a rude stone pyramid, erected by the French government and bearing
a suitable inscription, now marks the spot.

III. On The Plain Of A'cre At the foot of Mount Carmel, on the north, lies the
Bay of A'cre, a semicircular sheet of water whose radius is about three miles,
and which is protected from southwest winds by the mountain. To the east and
north of the bay, the Plain of A'cre stretches away some nine or ten miles,
bounded on the east by the hills of Galilee, and on the north by the mountains
of Phoenicia. The view over this bay and plain, from the convent on top of the
mountain, is exceedingly beautiful. Immediately at the foot of the mountain lies
a level and fertile plain, about a mile and a half wide, occupying the space
between the mountain and the bay. It reaches from the Mediterranean on the west
to the city of Hai'fa on the east, a distance of about three miles. Across the
bay, in the angle which it makes with the sea, stands A'cre, white and pretty in
the bright sunshine, while the entire plain, with its margin of mountains, forms
the background of the picture. We descend from the convent to the Plain of
Hai'fa, about 600 feet below, by means of a new road, which has been cut by the
monks along the northern slope of the mountain. The road is straight, and
descends toward the east with an easy grade. On reaching the plain we are in the
edge of the German settlement, which is a well-built European village of 300
inhabitants, lying at the western side of the old Arabic town of Hai'fa. The
houses are of stone, but they have sloping roofs covered with tiles, and every
house is surrounded by a yard and has a garden in its rear. The village boasts a
good hotel, a church, and a school-house. The inhabitants are of the same faith
with the Germans at Joppa; they have all the mechanic arts among them, a
wind-mill, a tannery, an olive-press, and, what is most remarkable, an American
steam threshing-machine, the only one in all Asia. They have two-horse wagons,
and, although the horses pull by rope traces, the entire outfit has a homelike
appearance to the traveler from America. They cultivate nearly 1000 acres of
land lying in the narrow plain west of their village, 100 acres of which are in
gardens and vineyards. Their vineyards are chiefly along the slope of Mount
Carmel; they are well walled, the ground is terraced, nice walks lead through
them, and they everywhere bear marks of thrifty culture and good taste. The wine
manufactured from them is of good quality, but it has not proved as great a
source of profit as the settlers once hoped it would. The old town of Hai'fa
shows marks of improvement, the result of contact with the superior civilization
of the German village. It is well built of white limestone, with some new houses
in course of erection, and it has an appearance of neatness quite unusual in the
towns of Palestine. Its population numbers about 4000, of whom one-fourth are
said to be Jews, and one-fourth Christians. A portion of its ancient wall still
stands at the eastern end of the town, and an old dismantled castle stands on a
bench of the mountain south of the town and overlooking it. It is one of the two
places in Palestine where steamers land (the only other is Joppa), and it is one
of the three which have a post-office, Joppa and Jerusalem being the other two.
Its commercial importance, due to its partly-sheltered harbor, has not only led
to these advantages, but has caused it to become the seat of several European
sub-consulates, and their flags wave gracefully over the town. Among the others,
it is pleasing to American eyes to behold the Stars and Stripes floating from a
mast in front of a house where dwells the representative of the American
government. The regular steamers of the Austrian and the French mail-lines stop
here on both their upward and downward trips along the coast, and they furnish
between them two mails per week. Persons in the interior who write letters send
them hither, or to Joppa, by private hands to be mailed. The steamers, however,
are compelled, on account of shallow water, to cast anchor a considerable
distance from the shore. The town of Hai'fa, important as it now is, is not once
mentioned in the Bible. The road from Hai'fa to A'cre (12 miles) passes around
the curve of the bay, following the beach, which is smooth and level. The German
wagons of Hai'fa make regular trips between the two towns, bearing passengers
and parcels. At a distance of about two miles we cross the mouth of the river
Ki'shon. Its current, after it enters the Plain of A'cre, is sluggish, though
its volume is much increased by springs from the base of Carmel, and it finds
its way with difficulty into the shallow bay. The westerly winds blow the sand
into its channel and push back its waters, so that only when the current is
strengthened by rain, and favored by an easterly wind, can it cut a clear
channel into the bay. Just at the mouth it is narrower and more shallow than
farther back in the plain, where its usual width is about 30 yards, and its
depth often too great for fording. All about it is the most luxuriant
vegetation, with palm-trees rising majestically above all the other growth.

About seven miles farther, or nine miles from Hai'fa and four from A'cre, is the
mouth of the river Be'lus (Nahr Namein), a stream which flows across the plain
from the hills and is nearly as large as the Ki'shon. It is not mentioned in the
Scriptures.

After crossing the Be'lus, the road soon turns with the beach toward the west,
and enters A'cre through a gate near its southeastern corner and close to the
shore of the bay. This is the only gate of the city. From the gate northward to
the northeast angle of the town, and thence westward to the shore of the
Mediterranean, is a new wall, not high, but built on the most approved modern
plan, with earth-works to protect its artillery, and mounted with new and heavy
guns. A deep and broad moat outside this wall seems intended to be filled with
water in case of a siege, thus rendering the town almost unassailable from the
land side, while the shallow water all around the two sea sides prevents the
near approach of large vessels. The defenses seaward are in a state of
dilapidation. A strong garrison occupies the citadel, and visitors are not
allowed to examine the defenses from the interior.

A'cre is the Accho of Jdg 1:31, out of which Asher, to whom it was given, could
not drive the Canaanites. It has no other history in the Old Testament, but it
is the Ptolemais of the New Testament, at which Paul stayed one day on his last
journey to Jerusalem. This latter name, derived from Ptolemy, speaks of the
control of the Greek kings of Egypt. But though possessed of so meagre a history
in the Scriptures, in all subsequent history it has held a conspicuous place. It
was often the scene of severe conflicts between Christians and Saracens, it was
pronounced by Napoleon the military key to Syria, and as late as the year 1840
the English fleet bombarded it while defending the Turkish government against an
Egyptian insurrection. The gradual filling up of its harbor, and the selection
of Hai'fa as the landing-place of steamers, have wrought a change in its
relative importance by transferring much of its former trade to the latter town.
It is probably destined to final decay, and it already shows signs of it in its
many unoccupied bazaars. At the time of the author's visit the finest bazaar in
the city had been recently turned into temporary lodgings for a few hundred
Circassians, whom the Turks had recently removed from the provinces that fell to
Russia at the close of the recent war. They are finely-formed and active men,
but noted for their fierceness and Moslem fanaticism; hence their deportation at
the demand of Russia. The population of A'cre is about 8000, of which much the
greater part are Moslem, whose religious bigotry is intense. They pride
themselves on a fine mosque built by Jezzar Pasha, a noted cut-throat who ruled
there as a semi-independent sovereign during the latter part of the 18th
century. The material of the mosque was brought chiefly from the ruins of
Cæsarea. It is the finest and best-preserved building of the kind in Palestine.
The mosque and the entire town are well supplied with water by an aqueduct which
enters under the northern wall and conveys a stream of water from the hills of
Galilee. From A'cre there is a coast-road leading north to Tyre, and it is much
frequented. There is also a direct road across the plain northeastward to Sâ'fed
and one due southeast to Nazareth. The latter road crosses a broad marsh about
midway the plain, with a sluggish stream in the middle of it, and the crossing
is effected in the wet season on a paved road made, after the ancient Roman
manner, of heavy blocks of stone. The plain is quite productive, especially that
portion next to the hills. Along its eastern border are many villages, both in
the plain itself and on the slopes of the hills.


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  CHAPTER 18: CHAPTER SEVEN--PLACES IN GALILEE
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Chapter VII. Places in Galilee I. Nazareth And Its Vicinity

Although Nazareth was once an insignificant village, out of which no good thing
could be expected to come, and although it has continued until a comparatively
recent date in much the same condition, it is now the largest, the handsomest,
and by far the most important town in all Galilee. It is nearly midway between
the Bay of A'cre and the southern end of the Lake of Galilee, but not on a
thoroughfare. It lies two or three miles south of the principal route of travel
across the mountains of Galilee from sea to lake, and it is about two miles
north of the Plain of Esdra'elon, from which it is reached by ascending a cliff
1000 feet high, so steep that horses can climb it only by severe toil. It is so
nestled among surrounding mountains that it is approached by all of its
principal roads down steep hills. It lies on the northwestern side of a wâd'y,
and extends from the bed of the wâd'y about half-way up the slope. The top of
the ridge is about 300 feet perpendicular above it. Its length up and down the
wâd'y from northeast to southwest is about half a mile, and its width a quarter
of a mile. It is well built of stone, and its houses have usually a fresh
appearance; many of them, indeed, are new, and the white limestone of which they
are built is unstained by the weather. Near the northeastern end of the town,
under the floor of the Greek church, is the spring on which the inhabitants are
chiefly dependent for water. By an opening through the stone floor, under an
altar, water is drawn in a little silver bucket. Here, according to the Greeks,
while the Virgin Mary was at the spring to get water, the angel Gabriel appeared
to her and announced the birth of her Son. It is called the Virgin's Fountain,
and the church built over it is called the "Church of the Annunciation." A
picture of Mary and the angel hangs over the altar. An underground conduit leads
the water of the spring about 100 yards south from the church, where it gushes
out in two streams through the southern wall of a little stone building in which
the conduit terminates. The streams issue from two stone spouts, about eight
feet apart and about three feet from the ground. The roof of the little building
and its side-walls project three or four feet on this side, so as to afford a
shelter against rain and sun to the women as they fill their water-jars at the
spouts. Here a crowd of women may be seen all day long, laughing, chatting,
quarreling, pushing for a place at the spouts, and coming and going. This
affords the best opportunity to see the women of the laboring class, and it has
been truly remarked by nearly all travelers, that the women of Nazareth are
handsomer and more tastefully dressed than the laboring women of any of the more
southern towns of Palestine. They show, however, a different conception of
modesty in regard to the exposure of their breasts than is common in America. In
this they are not peculiar among the women of Palestine, but their more pleasing
appearance in other particulars causes this fault to be more marked. At the
opposite or southwestern end of the town there is a large and well-built Latin
church and convent. Within the former a flight of stone steps leads into an
artificial cavern under the large altar, which is called Mary's Kitchen; and
here, according to the Latin monks, is the real place at which Gabriel appeared
to Mary. The man who can believe either the Greeks or the Latins in regard to
this matter is blessed with an easy credulity. But even the credulity of such a
person must be taxed when he is led by a Greek priest to an old room in a
dwelling-house in another part of the town, and told that this is Joseph's
carpenter-shop; and when still another priest leads him into an old building and
shows him a rock in its natural position, about 3 feet high and 10 by 5 feet on
top, saying that this is the dining-table used by Jesus and the twelve!

It is pleasant to turn away from these blind attempts to identify the locality
of incidents in regard to which we have no clue in the Scriptures, and to find
the unmistakable spot where occurred the most startling incident recorded in the
history of Nazareth,—the attempt of its people to cast Jesus down the brow of
the hill on which their town was situated. In the upper edge of the town, near
its northeastern end, there is a perpendicular precipice about 60 feet high,
made by the falling in of the roof of a large cavern, which once ran along the
face of the ridge for a considerable distance, and much of which still remains.
Had this precipice been already formed in the time of Jesus, it might be taken
as the place of precipitation, but the rock appears to have been exposed but a
comparatively short time. Near the other extremity of the town, however, and at
about the same level on the hillside, is a natural precipice about 40 feet high,
and evidently of ancient origin. A few houses now stand above it, and on the
level platform of rock at its base stands a Maronite chapel. Here, in the
imperishable rock, unchanged by human hands, is the spot where this tragic event
occurred, answering in every particular to the words, "They thrust him out of
the city, and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that
they might cast him down headlong." True, the spot is now within the limits of
the city, but it is obvious at a glance that all the houses near the precipice
are of modern construction. Conder thinks that the ancient town stood higher up
the hill than the modern city, but this is immaterial, and is doubted by some
competent judges. The present town of Nazareth is largely of recent growth.
Conder remarks: "Twenty years ago Nazareth was a poor village; now it is a
flourishing town." It has probably doubled its size and population within that
period, and many new houses were in course of erection when the author was there
in 1879. This prosperity is due to the use of European capital and influence.
The present Greek church, as well as that of the Latins, and a very handsome
chapel of the English church, are among the recently-erected public buildings,
while the most imposing structure about the entire city, a large and
handsomely-built orphanage, perched on a bench of the hill high above the entire
city, was founded in 1872, and is large enough to accommodate 200 girls with
lodging and school-rooms. Orphan girls of native families are received into it,
provided for, and educated. It belongs to the English "Society for Female
Education in the East." About 40 girls were enjoying its privileges in 1879, and
the children of European residents in the city also attended the school as day
pupils. Its work must prove of incalculable value to the people of that country.
Another conspicuous and most important structure is the hospital and dispensary,
established by a society in Edinburgh as a medical mission, and now under the
control of Dr. Vartan (see page 47). In no respect are the natives of the
country more destitute than in medical treatment, and it is undoubtedly wise to
make the medical treatment of the body, which they universally accept with joy,
the avenue of approach to the spiritual healing of the soul. Our picture of
Nazareth was taken at too early a period to show the more recent of these
improvements; it is therefore quite an imperfect representation of the town at
the present time, and, like nearly all engravings made from photographs, it
fails to adequately represent the height of the hills. An account of Nazareth is
incomplete without a description of the view which is obtained from the summit
of the ridge, on whose southeastern slope it is situated. There can be no doubt
that Jesus often stood on this lofty eminence, now crowned by a very old
Mohammedan wel'y, and enjoyed the far-reaching prospect.

Standing here, the city lies at your feet, and you realize the barrenness of the
hills immediately about it. A spot with soil so poor and thin is seen nowhere
else in Galilee, nor in any part of the country north of the Desert of Judah,
near the Dead Sea. This alone must have made Nazareth an insignificant place
before European capital improved it. It shows that in selecting a home for Jesus
on earth his Father chose not only a place apart from trade and travel, a place
whose inhabitants were of bad repute, but one whose poverty of soil naturally
led to poverty of morals and intelligence.

Nazareth But when the eye is lifted from the basin of surrounding hills in which
Nazareth is hid, it stretches in every direction over a magnificent prospect.
Back in the direction whence we have traveled, much of the Plain of Esdra'elon
is in full view, with Mount Gil'boa and Jebel Dû'hy on the left, and both Nain
and Endor visible on the northern slope of the latter. To the right the long
ridge of Mount Carmel is distinctly seen from end to end, and farther to the
right are the Plain and the Bay of A'cre. Turning toward the north, all Galilee
stretches before us, the lower hills dotted with many villages in the
foreground, and the loftier mountains rising toward the Lebanon range in the
distance. To the northeast are the hills which hang over the western shore of
the Lake of Galilee, and towering above all in the dim distance is the
snow-capped and rounded summit of Mount Hermon. Immediately to the east the
circle is completed by the conical top of Mount Tabor. When Jesus departed from
Nazareth to dwell in Capernaum, his path led from the northern end of the town
to the white limestone cliff which terminates the valley in that direction, and
then, making a right angle to the left, ascended a bench cut along the face of
the cliff to the top of the ridge. After crossing the crest of the ridge it
descends toward the northeast. As he ascended the cliff, with his left side
toward the town, he obtained the last view of his childhood home, from which he
was being driven in fierce hatred by men who had been his neighbors and friends
from his boyhood,—men to whom he had often read the Scriptures in the synagogue
while he was an unpretending carpenter. If he wept over Jerusalem when
approaching it for the last time, what must have been his emotion when, under
circumstances so painful, he looked for the last time upon the humble village
where for thirty years he had spent a quiet and peaceful life! But his singular
biographers have left a veil hanging over this parting scene, and we may not
lift it except in imagination. We leave Nazareth as the traveler usually leaves
it, by climbing the same rocky path, and giving it the same farewell glance over
the left shoulder as we cross the crest of the ridge.

Although Galilee was anciently full of large towns, as it now is of villages,
scarcely any of them has a name in the Bible, except those immediately about the
Lake of Galilee and the headwaters of the Jordan. The only one in the vicinity
of Nazareth that has been saved from this obscurity lies on the road toward the
lake, about three miles from the city. It is now called Kefr Ken'na (the village
of Cana), and is usually regarded as "Cana of Galilee." It is situated on the
westward slope of a hill, with a copious and unfailing spring adjoining it on
the southwest. An old one-story house near the lower edge of the village is
regarded by the Greeks as the one in which the wedding-feast was held when the
water was turned into wine. The room is a rude chapel, and at one side stand two
old stone mortars, one holding about eight gallons and the other about ten, now
used for immersing infants, but said by the attending priest to be two of the
identical water-pots of stone that held the water out of which the wine was
made. Just above this building, and separated from it by a narrow street, is a
new chapel belonging to the Latins, surrounded by a stone wall seven or eight
feet high. It is built on the ruins of an ancient church, part of the wall of
which is left standing in the rear of the chapel, while some of its granite
columns and drafted stones lie scattered about the yard in front of the chapel.

Kenna is 22 miles, according to Conder, from Bethab'ara, where Jesus left John
the Baptist the third day before the marriage at Cana; it is about twelve miles
from Tiberias; and from Capernaum, where the second miracle which he wrought in
Cana took effect on the son of a nobleman, it is distant 18 or 20 miles. This,
one of the earliest of the miracles, was wrought at a greater distance from its
subject than any other on record.

There is another village 12 miles north of Nazareth called Ka'na el Jilil, Cana
of Galilee, which some have supposed to be the Cana of John's Gospel, but,
though it has the advantage in name, it does not correspond so well in distance
from Bethab'ara and Nazareth, and the preference appears to be correctly given
to Kefr Ken'na. On the way from Kefr Ken'na to Tiberias, and about five miles
from the former and four from the latter, is an isolated hill whose top divides
into two peaks, called by the Ar'abs Karn Hattin'. It has been held by a
tradition which dates from the crusading period as the spot on which the Sermon
on the Mount was delivered, and for this reason it is called the Mount of
Beatitudes. Its two peaks are commonly spoken of by writers of travel as the
Horns of Hattin'. But the sides of the hill are too steep for the assembling of
such a multitude as heard the Sermon on the Mount, and its summits are not
sufficiently capacious. There is no reason at all for giving credence to the
tradition. At the foot of this hill, to the southeast, is an uneven plain,
somewhat more than a mile in extent each way, which is a noted battle-field.
Here, on the 5th of July, 1187, the Saracen leader, Saladin, gained a decisive
victory over the Crusaders, which gave the death-blow to their power in
Palestine. Many prisoners were taken, of whom a large number were sold as
slaves, and others butchered in a spirit of revenge.

II. About The Lake Of Galilee

Passing on eastward four miles from this fatal field, we reach the brow of the
hill overlooking Tiberias, on the southwestern shore of the Lake of Galilee. A
gradual descent over a rocky path brings us first to the cemetery which lies
west of the town, and then continuing due east we pass through the western gate
of the dilapidated wall, and find ourselves near the ruins of a castle on the
left which defended the northwestern angle of the city. The modern city is on
lower ground to our right. We are in the midst of an open space of two or three
acres between the castle and the compact mass of houses which make up the town,
and we are at such an elevation as to overlook the tops of the houses, being 50
feet above the surface on which they stand. The town is about half a mile in
length along the lake-shore, and a quarter of a mile in width. Just opposite
where we stand is a small gateway through the eastern wall, opening into the
shallow water of the lake; for all of the wall on the east is washed by the
waves of the lake on the outside. To the left of our position, about midway the
northern wall, much of which is thrown down, is the northern gate. The southern
gate is about midway the southern wall, and is reached from our position by
passing through the town along a crooked and narrow street which is the
principal thoroughfare. Thus the town is surrounded by a wall with four gates on
the four sides of the quadrangle, and it is strengthened by strongly-built round
towers, one of which stands at every corner, and one midway the wall on every
side. The wall is greatly shattered in many places, and prostrate in some, while
the large and massive castle above mentioned is in ruins. This wreck was
effected by a fearful earthquake which visited this region on January 1, 1837.
It not only ruined the walls, but it threw down most of the dwellings in the
city and killed about one-half of the population. The walls, where they are
entire, are about 20 feet high and 6 or 8 feet thick. They are built, as is the
chief part of the town, of basalt, and consequently, except where plaster and
whitewash hide the blackness of this rock, the town has a very sombre and
altogether unattractive appearance. The present population of Tiberias is
estimated at 3000 (Baedeker), whom more than half are Jews, and the majority of
the others Greek and Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics have a chapel and
monastery in the town, while the Jews have a number of small synagogues. There
is also a dilapidated mosque for the Mohammedan population, and, though the
building is almost a ruin, its minaret is the most beautiful and graceful in
Palestine: it is hexagonal, and built of yellowish limestone, with bands of
black basalt at short intervals. Of all the towns and villages which stood on
the shores of the Lake of Galilee in the time of Jesus, Tiberias alone remains.
Jesus appears never to have entered this town. It was the only one which was not
exalted to heaven by his presence and his teaching, and it is the only one which
has not been brought down to hades for refusing to repent at his bidding. It was
founded by Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, by whom John the Baptist was
beheaded and Jesus mocked, and it was named in honor of the Emperor Tiberius. It
is now called by the more euphonious name of Taberî'yeh. It was doubtless on
account of its being the residence of Herod that Jesus never visited it. Herod
was the one man on earth to whom Jesus would not speak.

After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, Tiberias became the residence of
the few Jews who were allowed to remain in Palestine. In the second century it
became a noted seat of Hebrew learning, and continued to be so for nearly 200
years. Here the traditions of the elders, which had been transmitted before for
many generations orally, were committed to writing in the form now known as the
Mishnah by Judah Hak-Kadôsh. The date of this work is variously stated from A.
D. 190 to A. D. 220. Here, also, about the middle of the second century, the
Jerusalem Talmud was compiled, and here the work of the Masoretic critics was
commenced. The celebrated Jewish writer of the twelfth century, Maimon'ides,
also lived and died here, and his tomb is still pointed out in the old unfenced
graveyard west of the town. The town figured prominently in the wars of the
Crusades, and has often been taken and retaken by contending armies. Its present
wall was built about the middle of the eighteenth century.

South of Tiberias the rocky shore of the lake is covered with continuous ruins
over a space a mile in length, and varying from 200 to 300 yards in width. It is
evident that the city once extended over this space, and that it was then a much
larger city than at present. The character of the ruins indicates also a city of
more important buildings than any within the walls of the present town. At the
southern limit of these ruins, about a mile from Tiberias, are the celebrated
mineral hot springs. They break out from the base of the mountain, which here
approaches within about 100 yards of the water's edge, and are led into several
bathing-houses, where circular stone tanks are kept constantly full of the hot
water, and invalids afflicted with various diseases are constantly bathing and
almost cooking themselves. The temperature of the water is 137°, and it has to
be reduced a little before the bathers can venture into it at all. The water
contains some salt and small quantities of sulphur and iron, but the author has
seen no reliable analysis of it. People from all parts of Palestine resort to
the baths, and some of them live in tents pitched near the lake-shore while
daily using them. At the extreme southern end of the lake are the ruins of the
ancient town of Tarichea, mentioned in Josephus, but not mentioned in the Bible.
It covers the crest of a ridge about 50 feet high, which rises from the edge of
the water about midway the southern shore of the lake and slopes downward toward
its eastern and its western end. The Jordan, which leaves the southeastern point
of the lake at almost a right angle and runs a little north of west about a
mile, passes along the southern base of this ridge, and thus it is almost
surrounded by water. A short distance to the southeast, across the Jordan, is
the village of Semakh'. The places on the western shore of the lake above
Tiberias are those which most interest the reader of the New Testament. The lake
itself and its general surroundings we have briefly described in Part First,
Chapter I., Section. VII. A ride of a little more than two miles, northwest,
along a narrow beach between the mountains and the water's edge, brings us to
the land of Gennesaret, so often mentioned in the Gospels. It is a recess in the
hills, which suddenly retire from the lake-shore, leaving a smooth and level
plain three miles long at the shore, and two miles wide at the widest place. The
village of Mejdel, which is nothing more than a collection of half a dozen rude
huts, stands close to the lake at the southeastern corner of this plain. It
represents in name and locality the ancient Magdala, the home of that Mary who,
from this name, was called Mary Magdale'-ne. The mountains, which bound the
plain on the south, run west from Magdala about a mile, and they stand in an
almost perpendicular wall. At the southwest curve of the plain there comes down
into it from the highlands a deep, narrow gorge called Wâd'y Hamâm', with a
small stream of water flowing along its narrow bed of rock. On the east side of
this wâd'y and the south side of the plain rises a perpendicular precipice 1150
feet high, on whose side, nearly 1000 feet from the ground, are a large number
of artificial caverns, utterly inaccessible without the use of ladders and
ropes. These caves, which have interior connections with one another, and space
for about 600 men, were occupied in the time of Herod the Great by robbers, who
dwelt here with their wives and children and committed fearful depredations on
the surrounding country. Herod, after defeating them in a battle in the open
field, followed the remnant to their hiding-place and undertook to capture them.
Finding it impossible to attack them by the narrow paths and movable ladders by
which they reached their caves, he adopted the hazardous expedient of letting
down some of his most valiant soldiers from the top of the cliff to the mouths
of the caves in boxes suspended by chains. Thus he succeeded in slaying all the
robbers. The same caverns were afterward occupied by monks and hermits, and they
are interesting relics of ancient barbarism and superstition. The lake-shore,
along the whole length of the plain, is a smooth, sandy beach, and the water is
shallow for a considerable distance out. The level of the plain, along which the
road runs, is about 10 feet above the level of the lake. The surrounding hills
make a kind of amphitheatre, and the plain, which has a luxuriant soil, well
watered by several small streams from springs in the hills to the west, is
covered with a dense growth of weeds and brushwood, except a few acres which are
cultivated in grain. The northern end of the Plain of Gennesaret is bounded by a
perpendicular cliff of rock, which projects from the hills into the water of the
lake and drops down with a perpendicular descent of 150 feet into the water.
This is the only point in the entire circuit of the lake at which there is no
passway between the hills and the water. Under the southern base of this cliff
there bursts forth a large stream of water, which runs along the base of the
cliff about 100 yards and empties into the lake. It is from 30 to 40 feet in
width and from 2 to 3 feet deep, with a slow current. The water is pure and
refreshing, but not cold. To the left of the fountain, and on higher ground,
there is a ruined khân, not very ancient, and other ruins of greater antiquity
lie scattered about over a considerable area. The entire place bears the name
Khân Min'yeh, and it was taken by some of the earlier explorers, led by
Robinson, for Capernaum, but for conclusive reasons that identification is now
abandoned. The road, in crossing the promontory of Khân Min'yeh, first ascends
the elevation on which the ruined khân stands, then turns toward the lake and
climbs the side of the cliff, and after reaching an elevation of 70 or 80 feet
it passes along a kind of trough four feet wide cut in a narrow shelf of the
rock, with the perpendicular cliff on the left and a parapet left in the natural
rock on the right. This last acts as a balustrade to guard man and horse from
falling over the precipice into the lake.

After crossing this promontory we descend into another plain about a mile in
extent along the lake-shore, and the same in width back to the gradually-sloping
hills which bound it on the west. At the northern limit of this plain, where the
hills come out close to the shore, but not so close as to prevent easy passage,
is another copious fountain, one of the most copious in Palestine. It bursts
forth from under the hill a short distance left of the road, and first fills a
reservoir constructed of heavy masonry. Thence it flows forth in several
streams, one of which runs toward the lake and propels a mill just at the
lake-shore which has two water-wheels and two pairs of millstones. One of the
other streams is led off in an irrigating channel into the plain, and the others
run to waste, making their way into the lake south of the mills. The ruins of
two mills now disused stand near by. This spring is called by the Ar'abs Ain et
Tabig'ha, but it is not mentioned in the Scriptures.

After passing the narrow headland which closes up the last-mentioned plain,
another opens to the left and extends, with varying width, from this point
entirely around the northern end of the lake. About a mile and a half from the
point at which we enter this plain we reach the ruins called Tell Hûm, which
alone answer in every particular to Capernaum. They cover a space about half a
mile in length along the shore, and a quarter of a mile in width. The ruins
consist chiefly of confused heaps of basalt building-stones lying where the
walls of the houses stood. They are weather-worn on their exposed parts to an
extent which indicates a long period of exposure. Near the shore are several
structures whose walls are still standing from 6 to 10 feet above ground, and in
the midst of the thickest portion of the ruins, about 100 yards from the shore,
are the well-preserved foundation-walls of a building, 57 by 75 feet, which has
been pronounced by competent judges of ancient architecture the ruin of a
synagogue. It fronts to the south, and it had three doors in that end,
corresponding to the three divisions of the interior made by two rows of columns
which supported the roof. The pedestals of some of these columns are still seen,
and broken pieces of the columns lie scattered about. One of the pedestals
presents on its top the shape of a heart, and the column which stood upon it
must have had the same shape. Slabs covered with rich carving, once the
ornamental lintels over doors and windows, lie scattered about the ruin. It was
an elaborate and costly structure, and the material of which it was built is a
fine-grained limestone almost as smooth as marble. It must have been quarried at
a considerable distance from Capernaum and brought thither at heavy expense, for
the rock of the vicinity is all basalt. This ruin was first discovered by
Robinson, who pronounced it the remains of a Jewish synagogue, and so it has
been regarded by more recent explorers. We know that the centurion whose servant
was restored to health by Jesus in Capernaum loved the Jewish people and built
for them a synagogue, and it is a pleasant thought, not devoid of probability,
that here are its ruins. Such an object transports the traveler into the very
midst of the scenes of the Saviour's life and labors. The following cut
represents a portion of the ruin.

Ruins of a Synagogue: Capernaum

Capernaum enjoyed a far more eligible situation than any other town which ever
stood on the shore of this lake. The site projects a short distance into the
lake, with the shores receding so as to form a shallow bay on either side. A
smooth and gradual slope stretches back to hills of moderate elevation, which
are covered with a rich soil and are tillable to their summits. The front is
toward the southeast, and almost the entire lake, with its surrounding hills, is
in view, while every breeze that blows from land or water sweeps freely over it,
and the waves are forever breaking on the blocks of basalt that line the shore.
But Capernaum can never have presented an attractive appearance, on account of
the black rock of which all its houses except the white synagogue were built.
Jesus chose it as a home not for its beauty, but for the sake of its
simple-hearted people.

Site of Capernaum

Two miles and a half north of Tell Hûm, on the east side of a wâd'y which comes
down from higher hills beyond, are the ruins of Keraz'eh, the Chorazin of the
Gospels. They consist of confused heaps of stone, as represented in our cut on
the next page, beneath which are traceable the foundations of dwelling-houses,
and in the midst of these the remains of one synagogue. All were built of
basalt. Captain Wilson here traced the foundations of dwellings, and found them
usually square and of different sizes, the largest measuring about 30 feet. The
wall was about two feet thick. There was a low door in the middle of one of the
walls, and the windows were small openings about a foot high and six inches
wide. One or more columns of stone in the interior supported the flat roof. The
houses of the largest size were divided into four rooms. Such were doubtless the
dwellings of the people of Galilee in the time of our Saviour, and in such
dwellings he habitually found lodging.

Ruins of Chorazin A curve of the shore inland northeast of Capernaum forms a
shallow bay, whose shore-line is about a mile in circuit. On a projecting point,
which might be called a cape, separating this bay from another farther north,
are the basaltic ruins of an ancient village whose site answers well to that of
Bethsaida. Some explorers have located this town at Khân Min'yeh (Baedeker,
373), and others on the western bank of the Jordan near its mouth (Thomson, ii.
9), but the Scripture allusions show clearly that it was close in the vicinity
of Capernaum, and both of these sites are too far away. In the bay just above
this ruin the boat in which the author's party were sailing when a severe storm
broke upon them found shelter about sunset, and lay at anchor safe from the
western wind. This shows that it is a favorable place for the landing of
fishing-boats such as were used by Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee.
From the spot which we identify as Bethsaida, around the head of the lake to the
mouth of the upper Jordan, is about two miles, the path leading along a plain
between the hills and the water, which varies in width from 50 to 200 yards and
is adorned with many clumps of oleanders. These bushes, indeed, abound on every
side of the lake. The river, where it enters the lake, is obstructed by its own
deposit, which extends out into the lake a considerable distance, making shallow
water and a muddy bottom. But the fresh food for fish constantly washed in by
the Jordan causes the fish of the lake to congregate here, and consequently in
this vicinity nearly all of the fishing is now done. So must it ever have been,
for the same reason. Under the shade of a solitary tree on the beach, at the
nearest landing-place west of the Jordan's mouth, the author and his party took
their noonday lunch, and they believed that they were eating near to the spot
where Jesus fed the seven on a memorable occasion. It is highly probable that
this is also the spot at which Jesus called the four fishermen, Simon, Andrew,
James, and John, for it is not far from their home at Bethsaida, and it is the
very part of the lake in which they would be likely to spend the night in
fishing.

East of the Jordan, at its entrance into the lake, there is a plain called
Butî'ha, whose shore-line curves around the northeastern part of the lake about
four miles, while its width, from the shore back to the hills, is somewhat more
than a mile. The plain is larger than that of Gennesaret, but much like it in
shape and surface. It is traversed by three streams from the hills, and much of
it is too wet for cultivation; but it produces grain, cucumbers, and melons, and
is cultivated by the same tribe of tent-living Arabs who occupy all the Jordan
Valley,—the Ghuwâr'ineh. On the east bank of the Jordan, and at the foot of the
hills which bound the plain in that direction, are the ruins of Bethsaida
Julias, the Bethsaida near which Jesus healed the blind man, as recorded in Mark
7:13-27. It was enlarged by Philip the tetrarch, and called by him Julias, in
honor of Cæsar's daughter. Here Philip died and was buried in a tomb previously
built by himself. The present ruins are of unhewn basaltic stones, covering an
area which indicates a town of some importance. At the southeastern end of this
plain, the hills which bound it approach within less than half a mile of the
lake-shore, where they form an angle with those which extend due south along the
eastern side of the lake. At the foot of the high hill at this angle is located
the feeding of the five thousand, for here alone all the characteristics of the
spot indicated in the sacred text are found. Here is the smooth, grassy plain on
which the vast multitude could sit by fifties and hundreds while the disciples
served them with the bread and fish. Here is the lake-shore, close at hand,
whence Jesus and the twelve had gone forth when the multitude met him, and where
the boat lay into which the twelve entered when the feeding was concluded. Here,
also, rising abruptly from the spot, is the mountain into which Jesus went up
after he had dismissed the multitude. A spot farther east or north would not
meet these requirements, while one farther south would fail to meet some others.
It would not be a "desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida;" nor
could the people whom Jesus had left on the western shore have gone to it around
the head of the lake while he and the twelve were crossing in their boat.
Finally, if the place had been farther north, the disciples, in starting for
Bethsaida or Capernaum, could not have been said to have gone "to the other
side," seeing that they would have been going only from the head of the lake to
one side of it, and not from one side to the other.

Farther south along the sea-shore is the mouth of a deep gorge through the
mountains called Wâd'y Semakh', and on the southern side of this, not far from
the shore, are the ruins of a town called Khersa, the Gergesa of the New
Testament, where the demons were cast out and entered into the swine. The ruins
are inclosed by a wall three feet thick, and among them is a large rectangular
building lying east and west. Immediately south of it rises a rocky mountain
penetrated by tombs, which extends more than a mile along the lake-shore, at
first leaving a plain more than a quarter of a mile wide between its base and
the water's edge, but finally projecting one of its spurs out close to the
shore. Here, as Captain Wilson has clearly shown, must be the place where the
hogs into which the demons entered "ran violently down a steep place into the
sea." He says: "About a mile south of this (of Khersa) the hills, which
everywhere else on the eastern side are recessed from a half to three-quarters
of a mile from the water's edge, approach within 40 feet of it; they do not
terminate abruptly, but there is a steep, even slope, which we would identify
with the 'steep place' down which the herd of swine ran violently into the sea,
and so were choked. That the meeting of our Lord with the two demoniacs took
place on the eastern shore of the lake is plain from Mat 9:1, and it is equally
evident, on an examination of the ground, that there is only one place on that
side where the herd of swine could have run down a steep place into the lake,
the place mentioned above."

Immediately south of the "steep place" is a small hot spring, and a little
farther the mountains recede again from the shore by a gradual curve, and about
a mile farther south a deep gap in their high walls is the mouth of Wâdy Fîk,
the second of the two great breaks in the eastern range which are plainly seen
from the western shore of the lake. The ruins of Gamala, a town which figured in
the Roman war against the Jews, and which afterward contained a Christian church
whose foundations are still traceable, are on a high hill a short distance up
this wâdy.

About two miles east of Gamala, on the summit of the mountain-range, is the
modern village called Fîk, a corruption of A'phek, a town which figured
prominently in the wars of the kings of Israel. It was thither that the Syrian
army under Benhadad fled after being defeated in the open field by Ahab, and it
was here that Jehoram, the son of Ahab, had assurance that he should smite the
Syrians under Hazael. From the mouth of Wâd'y Fîk around to the exit of the
Jordan there is a continuous valley, which widens at the lower end of the lake
into the Jordan Valley called the Ghôr. Here our circuit of the Lake of Galilee
is completed, and we turn our faces once more toward the north.

III. North Of The Lake Of Galilee The most loftily-situated town in Galilee is
Sâ'fed, about 10 miles northwest of Capernaum. It stands on an eminence 2773
feet above the level of the sea, and 3455 feet above the Lake of Galilee. It is
reached from Capernaum by a route which passes the ruins of Chorazin and climbs
the mountains by a gradual ascent. Near it is the loftiest mountain in Galilee,
Jebel Jermak', 3834 feet above the sea-level. On account of the lofty situation
of Sâ'fed some writers have suggested that it may have been in the mind and
before the eye of Jesus when he compared the Church to "a city set on a hill
which cannot be hid." It is not once named in the Bible. It has been twice
desolated by earthquakes, once in 1759, and once January 1, 1837. When the
latter catastrophe occurred, Dr. Thomson, author of "The Land and the Book," was
in Beirut', engaged in missionary labors, and he gives an authentic account of
it. This catastrophe affected so large a portion of Syria, and it illustrates so
strikingly the force which desolated many ancient cities, both in Galilee and
beyond the Jordan, and which must at a very early period have contributed to the
present geological condition of this entire region, that I venture to make an
extended quotation from Thomson's thrilling account of it:

"It was just before sunset, on a quiet Sunday evening, January 1st, 1837, when
the shock occurred. Our native church at Beirût' were gathered around the
communion table, when suddenly the house began to shake fearfully, and the stone
floor to heave and roll like a ship in a storm. Hezzy! Hezzy! (Earthquake
Earthquake!) burst from every trembling lip as all rushed out into the yard. The
house was cracked from top to bottom, but no further injury was sustained. The
shock was comparatively slight in Beirût', but still many houses were seriously
shattered, and some on the river entirely thrown down. During the week
succeeding there came flying reports from various quarters of towns and villages
destroyed and lives lost; but so slowly does information travel in this country,
especially in winter, that it was not till eight days had elapsed that any
reliable accounts were received. Then letters arrived from Sâfed with the
startling intelligence that the whole town had been utterly overthrown, and that
Tiberias and many other places in this region had shared the same fate. As soon
as these awful facts had been ascertained, collections were made at Beirût' to
relieve the sufferers, and Mr. C——and myself were selected to visit this region
and distribute to the needy and the wounded. Passing by Sidon, we associated
with ourselves Mr. A——and two of his sons to act as physicians. In Sidon the
work of destruction was very noticeable, and in Tyre more so. We rode into the
latter at midnight over her prostrate walls, and found some of the streets so
choked up with fallen houses that we could not pass through them. On the 17th we
reached Ruma'ish, where we met the first real confirmation of the letters from
Sâ'fed. This village seemed quite destroyed. Thirty persons had been crushed to
death under their falling houses, and many more would have shared the same fate
if they had not been at evening prayers in the church. This building was low and
compact, so that it was not seriously injured. After distributing medicine to
the wounded and charity to the destitute, we went on to Jish. Of this village
not one house remained; all had been thrown down, and the church also, burying
the entire congregation of 130 persons under the ruins. Not one escaped except
the priest, who was saved by an arch projecting over the altar. Fourteen dead
bodies lay there still unburied.

"On the morning of the 18th we reached Sâ'fed, and I then understood for the
first time what desolations God can work when be ariseth to shake terribly the
earth. Just before we began to ascend the hill we met our consular agent of
Sidon returning with his widowed, childless sister. Her husband, a merchant of
Sâ'fed, had been buried up to the neck by the ruins of his house, and in that
state remained several days, calling in vain for help, and at last perished
before be could be reached and set free. As we ascended the hill we saw large
rents and cracks in the earth and rocks. But all anticipation, every
imagination, was utterly confounded when the reality burst upon our sight. I had
all the while refused to give full credit to the reports, but one frightful
glance convinced me that it was not in the power of language to overdraw or
exaggerate such a ruin. We came first to the Jewish half of the town, which
contained about 4000 inhabitants two years before, when I was there; now not a
house remained standing. The town was built, as its successor is, on the side of
the mountain, which is so steep that the roofs of the houses below form the
street for those above; when, therefore, the shock dashed all to the ground, the
highest fell on the next below, that upon the third, and so on to the bottom,
burying each successive row of houses deeper and deeper under the accumulated
masses of rubbish. From this cause it happened that many who were not
instantaneously killed perished before they could be rescued, and others were
rescued five, six, and even seven days after the earthquake, still alive. A
friend of mine told me that he found his wife dead, with one child under her arm
and the babe at her breast. The latter had died of hunger trying to draw life
from its dead mother. Parents heard their little ones crying 'papa!' 'mamma!'
fainter and fainter until hushed in death, while they were struggling to free
themselves or laboring with desperate energy to throw off the fallen rocks and
timber from their dying children. O God of mercy! my heart sickens even now at
the thought of that long black winter's night which closed around the wretched
remnants of Sâ'fed in half an hour after the overthrow, without a light or the
possibility of getting one, four-fifths of the population dead or dying under
the ruins, frightful groans, shrieks of agony and despair, and all the while the
earth trembling as if affrighted at the terrible desolation which she had
wrought!"

It is estimated that nearly 5000 persons perished in this disaster out of a
population of about 9000. About 600 perished in Tiberias, and hundreds of others
in other villages of Galilee. It is highly probable that in a similar way
Chorazin, Capernaum, Cæsarea-Philippi, Jerash, Ammân, and many other ancient
cities, now in utter ruin, perished at periods in which no history of the events
was written.

Sâ'fed is another of the many towns of Palestine which have had an important
history, though not mentioned in the Bible. During the Crusades a strong castle
was erected here, which was taken and retaken many times by the contending
parties, and its crumbling walls were finally prostrated by the earthquake
described above. In the sixteenth century the town became a seat of Jewish
learning, with many synagogues, schools of great repute, and a number of
printing-presses. It has continued to be a kind of sacred place with the Jews to
the present time, and the town has so far recovered from its overthrow that it
has a fresh appearance, a lively trade, and a Jewish population almost as great
as before the earthquake. Here, on the 10th of July, 1875, Lieutenant Conder's
surveying party were drawn into a fight with a large body of the fanatical
Moslem, in which every one of his party received some wounds, and he himself was
so badly bruised about the head and neck by a club that he was thrown into a
violent fever soon after, his party was broken up for a time, and he was
compelled to depart for England to recover his health. Fortunately all the
leaders of the assailing party were finally adequately punished, and the fines
imposed on them repaired to some extent the pecuniary loss to the Palestine
Exploration Fund. To the west and northwest of Sâ'fed, scattered among the hills
and valleys of northern Galilee, are many villages and some interesting ruins.
At Meirôn, four miles to the northwest, are the well-preserved remains of an
ancient synagogue, and the tombs of Jewish rabbis of great note who lived as far
back as the second century of our era. At Kefr Bir'im, five miles farther, in
about the same direction, are interesting ruins, and the reported tombs of
Ba'rak and the prophet Obadiah. El Jish, about six miles from Sâ'fed, is the
Giscala which is frequently mentioned by Josephus in his history of the Jewish
war against the Romans. It was utterly destroyed by the earthquake (see page
330), but was soon restored. Beyond these places, more to the north, is the
castle of Tib'nîn, sometimes called Terôn', one of the most conspicuous objects
in northern Galilee. It is a massive and well-preserved castle of the crusading
period, on the summit of a high isolated peak which rises from the midst of an
undulating and well-cultivated plateau of great natural beauty. It is but a
short distance south of the Litâ'ny River, which is the natural boundary between
northern Galilee and Phoenicia.

Bridge of Jacob's Daughters The most usual route of travel from Tiberias to the
region immediately north of the Lake of Galilee is by way of Sâ'fed, though
there is a road turning to the right before Sâ'fed is reached, and saving the
necessity of climbing to that high point. It is the direct road from A'cre to
Damascus, and it enters the Plain of Hûleh south of Lake Hûleh, and crosses the
Jordan on the ancient bridge which we have mentioned in a former section (page
31). It is built of basalt, and is in a good state of repair. Its origin is
unknown, as is also the cause of the name that it bears, the Bridge of Jacob's
Daughters. There are three sites of Biblical interest on the western side of the
Plain of Hûleh, of which the first that is reached going north is Hazor, the
capital of the Jabin, who fought against Joshua. The ruins, which are
insignificant on account of the long period which has intervened since the
destruction of the place, are on an elevation immediately west of the northern
end of Lake Hûleh. Hazor was destroyed by Joshua, but was rebuilt by another
Jabin in the time of the Judges. It was allotted to the tribe of Naphtali; it
was fortified by Solomon; and it was finally captured and probably destroyed by
the Assyrian king Tig'lath-pile'ser. It is now called Tell Khurei'beh.

Three miles north of Hazor, on the summit of a ridge which projects from the
western hills out into the Plain of Hûleh, are the village and ruins of Ked'es,
the ancient Kedesh of Naphtali. It was originally the seat of a Canaanite king;
it was allotted to Naphtali; it was made a Levitical city and a city of refuge;
and it shared the same fate with Hazor in the invasion of Tig'lath-pile'ser. The
ruins are more numerous than those at Hazor, but they appear to be of the later
Jewish period, for, unlike Hazor, Kedesh was rebuilt after the captivity. This
was the native place of Barak (Jdg 4:6), and his tomb, together with that of
Deb'orah, was once pointed out here. The third site referred to above is Abîl,
the Abel or Abel-beth-maachah of the Scriptures. It is situated at the
northwestern curve of the Plain of Hûleh, on an isolated hill whose summit has
been artificially leveled for a much larger town than the present village. This
is the place to which Joab chased She'ba, the son of Bichri, who rebelled
against David. The previous reputation of the place for wisdom was extolled by
the woman who spoke from the wall to Joab, and said: "They were wont to speak in
old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel, and so they ended the
matter." It was one of the cities smitten by Ben-hadad, king of Syria, in the
reign of Baasha, and one of those whose inhabitants were led captive by
Tig'lath-pile'ser in the reign of Pekah.

About three miles almost due east from Abel is Dan, the mound of whose ruins is
now called Tell el Kadi (mound of the judge), from the Hebrew word dan, which
means a judge. It stands at the head of the Plain of Hûleh, and a little nearer
the eastern than the western side of it. The mound is about 30 feet high above
the surrounding plain, and it is 330 yards long by 270 wide. The interior is
depressed like a basin, leaving an elevation on every side made by the crumbling
of the wall. A few broken columns and other remains of antiquity are seen amid
the rank vegetation which covers the area. Near the southwest corner a large
spring issues from the ground and rushes babbling down to the plain. It is
shaded by one of the finest oaks in all Palestine, under whose wide-spreading
limbs is a Moslem tomb. It is under the western side of this mound that the
middle and principal source of the Jordan leaps out of the earth, a river of icy
coldness.

Southern Gate of Cæsarea-Philip'pi

About two and a half miles almost due east of Dan, at the northeastern corner of
the Plain of Hûleh, is Ban'ias, called in the New Testament Cæsarea-Philippi.
Though mentioned in the Bible only in connection with the profoundly interesting
conversation in which Jesus first drew from the twelve a full confession of
their faith, it has an interesting history. The earliest mention of it is under
the name Pan'ium, in the statement of Josephus that Herod the Great built a
temple there in honor of Augustus Cæsar. We next find Philip the tetrarch
rebuilding "Pan'eas, a city at the fountains of the Jordan," and calling it
Cæsarea. The suffix Philippi was added to this latter name to distinguish the
town from the older Cæsarea, on the sea-coast of Judah. After the destruction of
Jerusalem, Titus celebrated his victory at this place by games, in the course of
which many Jewish prisoners were thrown to wild beasts, and many were compelled
to fight as gladiators and kill one another. It played an important part in the
wars of the Crusades. Its ancient Greek name, Pan'eas, was restored after the
end of the Roman dominion, and has been perpetuated in the Arabic form Ban'ias.
The fortified town was small, and in shape it was nearly a square. It stands
1150 feet above the level of the sea. On the eastern side the surface slopes
upward from the wall toward the mountain on whose foot it sits, but a deep fosse
cuts off exterior approach on that side, except where it is filled up to make a
passway. A portion of the wall and one massive square tower are still standing
on that side. On the south side a deep narrow chasm with perpendicular sides of
naked rock serves the purpose of a natural moat, and a portion of the wall is
preserved on this side. The gate, about midway this wall, stands entire, and is
still in use. It leads out upon a massive stone bridge, which spans the chasm
just outside of it. This gate and bridge are seen in our cut on page 335. The
western and northern walls are prostrate almost to their foundations. Just
outside the northeastern angle of the city wall lies the famous spring of
Ban'ias, which is one of the three principal sources of the Jordan. The stream
flows thence along the base of the northern wall, and at the northwest angle it
empties into a much deeper ravine coming from the north, and flows in a deep
chasm along the western wall. Thus the city was defended on three sides by
natural moats outside the walls, and these were approached on ground lower than
that within the city. The area within these ruined walls is occupied by a small
village built on the ruins of ancient buildings, and chiefly from the broken
material of the same. Masses of building-stones lie in great heaps on every
side, and at one place a long row of massive arches just visible above the
surface supports a garden-wall of rough stone recently built upon it. Many
pieces of broken columns are seen in the walls of houses and lying among the
ruins. A branch from the stream is led across the western end of the town, and
falls in a cascade into the chasm outside the southern wall. It supplies the
town and irrigates its little gardens. Immediately north of the town, across the
stream, is the only camping-place of travelers. It is a level bench densely
shaded by large terebinths, among the finest in all the land. Along the course
of the stream, from its source all the way to its junction with the other two to
form the Jordan, there is a belt of perennial verdure. Immediately west of the
town, across the chasm on that side, scattered columns and other remains of
ancient buildings show that the city once extended in that direction. This was
perhaps an unwalled suburb of temples and similar structures. The ancient name
Pan'eas points to the god Pan as its origin, and the erection of a temple here
by Herod in honor of Augustus may have been suggested by a worship of Pan
already established. Niches and recesses cut in the face of the perpendicular
cliff above the great spring still remain in an almost perfect state of
preservation, and one of them has the inscription in Greek letters, Priest of
the God Pan. In our advance toward the north we have now reached the line
usually recognized in the Scriptures as the northern limit of the land of
Israel. This is seen in the oft-recurring expression "from Dan to Beersheba,"
used to indicate the entire length of the country. We have come to the base of
Mount Hermon, and Robinson, with a good degree of plausibility, conjectures that
Ban'ias may be the "Baal-gad under Mount Hermon," which is named in the
Scriptures as the northern boundary-line. An account of the topography of
Palestine not including Mount Hermon and the mountains of Lebanon would appear
incomplete, on account of the frequency with which they are mentioned in the
Scriptures; but both belong to Syria, not to Palestine, and will be described in
Part Third. Our present account, however, would not be complete without a brief
description of two other interesting localities, one to the east and the other
to the west of Cæsarea-Philippi. To the east, crowning the extreme summit of the
mountain on whose foot Ban'ias stands, is the celebrated Castle of Ban'ias, one
of the most interesting and best-preserved fortresses in Palestine. It covers
the entire summit of the mountain, and is 2300 feet above the sea-level. It is
1150 feet higher than Ban'ias, though not much over a mile distant in an
air-line. It can be approached only on the south side, and on this side only by
very steep climbing. On the other sides the cliffs are perpendicular, or nearly
so. The only gateway is on the southern side near the western end, and is
approached by a road cut along the side of the cliff from near the northern end
and gradually ascending toward the gate. The gateway itself is well preserved,
and shows, by the shape of its massive jambs, each a monolith, that its shutter,
instead of swinging on hinges, worked up and down in a groove on either side.
The foundations of the wall are well preserved all round the hill-top, but the
superstructure is much broken, and the buildings which stood inside are nearly
all prostrate. The space inclosed is about 300 yards long from east to west, and
about 100 yards wide at each end, but scarcely half that width in the middle.
The eastern end is higher than the western, and was separated from it by a wall
and a moat, which enabled the garrison to retire thither if the western end were
taken by an enemy. Many cisterns dug in the rock, and some very large
receptacles under the vast buildings which occupied a portion of the interior,
show the great care exercised to provide the garrison with water. The northern
wall stands over a precipice more than 600 feet deep, the southern side of a
deep and narrow gorge that cuts off this mountain from the spurs of Mount Hermon
which rise still higher on the other side of it. This gorge passes westward
until it reaches a point just north of Ban'ias, when it turns to the south,
passes by the camping-ground mentioned above, and thence passes along the
western wall of the city. The view from the castle walls is magnificent. It
includes wild mountain scenery to the north and east, a landscape of plain and
hills to the southwest, and to the west the distant mountains of Northern
Galilee and Southern Phoenicia, some of them crowned with similar castles. The
locality yet remaining to be described in this section is a beautiful, elevated
plain north of Abel and 300 feet above the level of the Plain of Hûleh. It is a
smooth basin, five miles long and two wide, surrounded on every side by ridges
of gentle slope and slight elevation. Through the middle of it a stream of water
meanders, and as it approaches the southern ridge it deepens its bed, and
finally cuts its way through the ridge by a remarkably deep and narrow chasm,
and flows into the Plain of Hûleh. The stream bears the name Derdar'ah, and the
plain that of Merj Iyûn' (the Meadow of I'jon). I'jon was the most northern town
of Naphtali, and consequently of all Israel, although Dan, being more frequented
and better known, was habitually spoken of as such. This little valley is one of
the most beautiful and fertile of all in Palestine, but the city or town has
entirely disappeared. It projects from the northern shoulder of Naphtali,
between the spurs of Mount Hermon and the sloping plains which extend from its
western side down into the deep gorge of the Litâ'ny. This river here runs
parallel to it, but soon turns westward on its way to the sea.


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  CHAPTER 19: CHAPTER EIGHT--PLACES ALONG THE JORDAN AND BEYOND
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Chapter VIII. Places Along The Jordan And Beyond I. In The Plain of Jericho and
the Plain of Moab

Having given a general description of the Jordan Valley in Part First, Chapter
I., § 7, we now discuss its topography; and we begin with the broad plain lying
at the head of the Dead Sea. This plain, as before stated, is about 14 miles
wide from east to west, with the Jordan flowing through the middle of it, and it
extends up the river, before the valley contracts into a narrow plain, about 10
miles. That part of it lying west of the river is called the Plain of Jericho,
and that east of the river the Plain of Moab. In Chapter II., § 4, of this part,
we have followed the road from Jerusalem to Jericho as far as its entrance into
the plain, and we stated that, just before it descends from the mountains into
the plain, it skirts the deep gorge of Wâd'y Kelt (the Brook Kerith). When it
enters the valley the bed of that wâd'y lies but a short distance to the left,
and it runs with an acute angle to the road until, about a mile from the hills,
the road crosses the wâd'y. About a quarter of a mile to the right of this
crossing-place is the first object of special interest that catches the eye,—the
remains of a large ancient reservoir. It is 188 yards long by 157 wide, and it
is called by the natives Birket Musa (the Pool of Moses). Its eastern wall is
still almost perfect, and stands about eight feet above the accumulated earth
inside; but the other walls are much broken, and the pool is nearly filled up.
It once held an immense quantity of water, which could be used for irrigating
the surrounding lands.

After crossing the Kelt the road leads almost due east, to the miserable village
Erîha, whose name is an Arabic corruption of the name Jericho. It is a small
collection of huts of the meanest kind, built partly of sun-dried bricks and
partly of small rough stones, and inhabited by Ghuwar'ineh Ar'abs. It has one
house of a better class in which travelers who are without tents can obtain
uncomfortable lodging. The Greeks have recently erected here a small convent. It
is well built of limestone, is about 80 by 40 feet in extent, one story high,
and is occupied by four or five monks. At the eastern edge of the village stands
the ruin of an old stone tower, about 15 or 20 feet high, which some one has
attempted to dignify by calling it the house of Zacche'us.

West of the village the Kelt is crossed by two aqueducts on arches of stone. One
of them, supported by 11 arches, still conveys an irrigating stream to the
fields south of the Kelt, but the other is in ruins. Another irrigating stream,
drawn from the Kelt higher tip, runs parallel with its parent stream near the
southern bank of the latter. These are the feeble remains of a system of
irrigation which once made the plain south of the Kelt a paradise. A little more
than a mile east of Erî'ha are the ruins of an ancient city which has been
identified as Gilgal. The identification is established by the locality, which
agrees with the account given in Joshua, and by the preservation of the name in
the Ar'abic Jiljû'lieh. The ruins are meagre,—so much so that one might pass
near them without observing them,—but they are the evident remains of a very
ancient city. The village of Erî'ha, though it perpetuates the name of Jericho,
is not on the site of the original city. The latter is at the foot of the hills,
two miles to the northwest, and one mile and a half north of the Jerusalem road
where it enters the plain. It is reached from the latter road by crossing the
Kelt near the hills and riding nearly due north along the western edge of the
plain. It is identified by the copious fountain called by the Ar'abs Ain es
Sûl'tan, and by Europeans, Elisha's Fountain. This can be no other than the
fountain healed by Elisha, for it is the only fountain in this plain; and the
second Jericho, built by Hiel in the reign of Ahab on the site of the original
city, stood near this fountain. It is probable that the disaster which befell
Hiel in compliance with Joshua's curse prevented the city from being peopled,
and hence it became the abode of the poor prophets, for whose benefit Joshua
healed the waters. The Jericho in which Herod the Great had a palace, and which
was visited by Jesus, occupied a still different site,—at the foot of the
mountains between the fountain and Wâd'y Kelt.

All travelers pitch their tents on a little plateau just north of Elisha's
Fountain. The camping-ground is sufficiently elevated to afford a good view of
the plain, with the Dead Sea in sight toward the south, and the mountains of
Moab bounding the horizon on the east. Among these mountains Mount Nebo is
distinctly visible toward the southeast, and it appears to the unpracticed eye
only five or six miles distant.

Several square miles of the plain, extending from Elisha's Fountain to the east
and the south, are irrigated by the waters of the fountain, which are led over
it by a network of artificial channels, and this area is clothed in verdure
while all around is parched and dry. Once these waters were conveyed much
farther, for out on the verdureless plain are still seen long lines of low stone
walls, built to support plastered channels for irrigating streams. A short
distance to the southwest of the fountain are the ruins of some ancient mills,
called the Sugar-Mills from the fact that sugar was once manufactured here from
cane which grew in the plain. These mills were propelled by water conveyed on
stone aqueducts from springs higher up in the mountains, and the remains of
these aqueducts are still seen. The water, after propelling the mills, was
conveyed, like that from Elisha's Fountain, out into the plain, and used for
irrigation. It was this abundance of water, as we have intimated above, which
once made the Jericho Plain a garden of delight. From the camping-place above
Elisha's Fountain, the traveler who has come thither direct from Jerusalem
usually makes his first visit to the shore of the Dead Sea. It is a ride of
about eight miles, and it is usually taken very early in the morning to avoid
the intense heat in the after-part of the day. After crossing Wâd'y Kelt below
Erîha, the trackless route leads over a very desolate region, growing more and
more so as the sea is approached. Here and there are low spots in which water
settles in spring and keeps them moist after the higher surface is dry, and in
these a coarse vegetation continues to grow when the chief part of the plain is
bare. Swarms of yellow locusts, such as John the Baptist fed upon, are seen
here, and flocks of storks which manifest but little fear for man, walk solemnly
about and feed upon the locusts. The sand over which we ride in approaching the
sea forms a smooth beach near the water's edge, and also extends into the water,
making a smooth bottom with a gradual descent. All visitors, whether they can
swim or not, may go in with impunity, and few deny themselves the pleasure of
doing so.

After bathing in the sea it is usual for the traveler to ride to the Pilgrims'
Bathing-Place on the Jordan, about four miles from its mouth. Usually this ride
is over a dry plain and a firm path, but in the rainy season it is sometimes
almost impracticable on account of the mud. So President Bartlett found it as
late as the middle of March, in the year 1874. He says: "The region immediately
before us was marshy, and the late rains had made a part of this plain as watery
and muddy as a 'slough-hole' in a Western prairie... The horses sank to their
girths, and once or twice still deeper, until sheikh, dragoman, and three of our
company were rolled successively from their seats, to pick their way by leaping
from clump to clump as best they could." The Pilgrims' Bathing-Place is so
called because thousands of pilgrims of the Greek Church, who visit Jerusalem
every spring during "holy week," come down to this place on Monday after Easter
to bathe in the Jordan. Lynch's party reached the spot in their descent of the
Jordan on the night of Easter Sunday, and on the next morning at daybreak they
witnessed the arrival of the pilgrims. Lynch describes the scene as follows: "In
the wild haste of a disorderly rout, Copts and Russians, Poles, Armenians,
Greeks, and Syrians, from all parts of Asia, from Europe, from Africa, and from
far-distant America, on they come; men, women, and children of every age and
hue, and in every variety of costume; talking, screaming, shouting, in almost
every known language under the sun. Mounted as variously as those that had
preceded them, many of the women and children were suspended in baskets or
confined in cages (they were on camels), and, with their eyes strained toward
the river, heedless of all intervening obstacles, they hurried eagerly forward,
dismounted in haste, and, disrobing with precipitation, rushed down to the bank
and threw themselves into the stream. Each one plunged himself, or was dipped by
another, three times below the surface in honor of the Trinity, and then filled
a bottle or some other utensil from the river. The bathing-dress of many of the
pilgrims was a white gown with a black cross upon it. Most of then, as soon as
they dressed, cut branches either of the agnus castus or the willow, and,
dipping them in the consecrated stream, bore them away as memorials of their
visit. In an hour they began to disappear, and in less than three hours the
trodden surface of the lately crowded bank bore no human shadow." Thomson also
witnessed this scene, having gone with the pilgrims from Jerusalem for the
purpose. He states that many of them swam across the river, but that three who
were not expert swimmers attempted it and were swept away by the current and
drowned. Such was the fanaticism of the crowd, however, that the disaster caused
but little sensation among them. This spot was selected by the Greek Church as a
bathing-place because it was believed that here Jesus was baptized. There is a
high degree of probability that this belief is correct, for John certainly
commenced baptizing in this part of the river, and it is almost certain that he
selected as the exact place of baptizing a ford or ferry toward which routes of
travel concentrated, and where the banks were suitably graded. But this is the
first place of the kind above the mouth of the river, and the next is nearly
four miles above. The water is here too deep for fording, except in the dry
season, being usually about 10 feet deep in the spring, but there are two
points, about 200 yards apart, at which there is a pebbly bottom and a gradual
descent into the water to any desired depth. At the more southern of these two
points the deep water lies next to the eastern bank, and only the western side
is suitable for baptizing, but at the other there is shallow water on both
sides. In both places the current is swift in the channel,—from four to five
miles an hour,—but it is sufficiently slow in the shallower water for convenient
baptizing. At neither place, however, could the ordinance be conveniently
administered when the river is out of its banks, and consequently, at such
times, John resorted to localities higher up the stream, or to such a place as
Ænon.

While the water at this place during the dry season was all that John could
wish, in other respects it was a place during the same season which no preacher
who studied his own comfort, or that of his auditors, would select for such a
ministry as John's. The Scriptures locate it in the "wilderness of Judea,"
referring to the desolate plain west of it, whose desolation extends over the
mountains that bound it on the west. The immediate banks of the river are
equally a wilderness, for the lower bottom-land is uninhabited, on account of
the annual overflow, and it is covered with a jungle of low-growing trees and
shrubs. It is so deeply depressed that scarcely a breath of wind can reach it in
the hot season, and the air is thick with mosquitoes and flies. It would be
difficult to find a more disagreeable place for the assembling of multitudes,
and the circumstance throws a new light on the ministry of John. It shows that
in the place which he was moved to select for the first part of his labors, as
well as in his food and raiment, he practiced the self-denial which he
inculcated. It also illustrates his marvelous power over the people whom he
succeeded in drawing to such a place and retaining as hearers until he brought
them to repentance. A short distance above the bathing-place, Wâd'y Kelt empties
into the Jordan, having wound its way across the plain in a southeasterly
direction. In its bed, about midway the plain, Conder finds the "Valley of
Achor," in which Achan, at the command of Joshua, was stoned to death by the
children of Israel. It is identified by the fact that here the wâdy-bed is wide
and shallow, and is filled with water-worn stones of a suitable size for the
stoning, and there is no other valley near Joshua's camp at Gilgal of which the
same is true.

We now return to the camp-ground above Elisha's Fountain, with the purpose of
completing our description of the Plain of Jericho. Immediately west of the
camp-ground there rises an isolated ridge 50 feet high and extending about a
quarter of a mile from north to south, which is proved by excavations made in it
by Captain Warren's party to be a mass of broken stones, cement, sun-dried
bricks, and fragments of pottery. This is what is left of the original Jericho.
Mounds of similar material stand at intervals along the plain to the southward
as far as Wâd'y Kelt.

West of the ridge just mentioned rises another of natural rock about 150 feet
high, and west of this an elevated valley about half a mile wide, separating the
ridge from a mountain beyond. This valley is rich, green, and well cultivated,
and the mountain beyond it is the one selected by the Crusaders, in the year
1112, as the mount of the Saviour's temptation. They called it Quarantan'ia,
from the 40 days of the Saviour's fast, and the Ar'abs attempt to call it by the
same name, but pronounce it Kûrûntûl'. Its front is almost conical; its sides
are honeycombed with the cells of monks and hermits, and its summit is crowned
with the ruins of a castle built by the Crusaders. It is a mountain of crumbling
limestone, brown from the exposure of thousands of years, and projecting like a
promontory from the higher mountains behind it. The selection of this as the
Mount of Temptation, as Conder remarks, is a striking illustration of the
"simplicity of men's minds in the Middle Ages," for, while the Scripture
represents Jesus as being placed on an "exceeding high mountain," this
mountain's top is actually lower than the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, and
it is surrounded on every side by mountains, not many miles away, more than
double its height. As Jesus was to be shown "all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them," a point of much higher relative elevation must have been
selected, and there is no special reason for supposing that it was in the
vicinity of Jericho. The road from Jericho to Bethel and Ai leads to the
northwest from Elisha's Fountain, and passes up a wâdy north of Mount
Quarantan'ia. At a distance of about three miles it passes a group of three
springs on the left, so close together that they have the single name Ain ed
Dûk. They are situated on the northern slope of a hill. The highest and largest
bursts out from under the roots of a large dom-tree, and runs away in a stream
six feet wide and six inches deep. It is led along an artificial channel cut on
the hillsides around Mount Quarantan'ia, and its waters once propelled the mills
above mentioned (page 341), near Jericho. Now they run waste over the little
valley in front of that mountain, making it green and beautiful, and they are
also used to irrigate the slopes below the channel on their way thither. The
next lower spring, also shaded by a dom-tree, is not quite so copious. It is
first led along the brow of the wâdy beneath it for a hundred yards or more, and
then crosses this wâdy in a plastered channel four feet wide and two feet deep,
which is supported by a series of arches built up from the bottom of the wâdy.
In the bottom of the wâdy is one large arch, with 26 feet span and piers 12 feet
square, above which rise six smaller arches, reaching out to the sides of the
wâdy, and above these six more, making three series of arches rising one above
another, with an aggregate height of about 50 feet. The work is evidently
ancient, though it shows signs of recent repairs. The water, after crossing, is
led away in an irrigating channel to the fields farther eastward, where it is
all absorbed by the thirsty soil. The third and smallest spring, after
irrigating a luxuriant cucumber-garden, falls into the wâdy, runs along its
rocky bed, and passes under the arches above described. This is the most copious
flow of water from one spot to be seen anywhere about the lower portion of the
Jordan Valley. It combined with Elisha's Fountain to make the region about
Jericho the paradise which it once was.

Having now described the broad Plain of Jericho, which is about 7 miles wide
from the mountains to the river, and about 10 in length from the Dead Sea to the
headland which runs out from the mountains at its northern extremity and marks
it as a separate district, we next go across the river to the plain of almost
exactly the same dimensions on the eastern side. We cross by a ford almost due
east from Elisha's Fountain called Ghâranîzeh, and sometimes the Jericho ford.
It is about four miles in an air-line north of the bathing-place. A ferry-boat
is kept in readiness, and must be used during a large part of the year, but just
below the ferry-crossing the water breaks over a shoal, and at the head of this
it can be forded when it is very deep above. The author's party forded here on
the 5th of May, 1879, the water coming about half-way up our saddle-skirts. On
the eastern bank at this point is an admirable place for baptizing, and a more
airy and comfortable place for the assemblage of a large multitude of people
than at the bathing-place below. This is the ford which is exhibited in our cut
on the opposite page. It is the crossing-place for travel between Jerusalem and
Es Salt.

The Jordan,–A Ford at the Head of a Shoal The plain upon which we have now
entered has a much finer soil and is much more abundantly watered than the Plain
of Jericho. It is the plain on which Israel camped before the death of Moses,
and whence they marched across the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua. It is
traversed by four streams of water, whose sources are perennial springs in the
mountains, though their waters are absorbed in the driest part of the summer ere
they reach the river. These are the Suwei'meh on the south, next north of it the
Hasbân', then the Kefrein', and last the Nimrîn'. The Kefrein' has the
shallowest bed, and it is consequently used most for irrigating purposes by the
few Ghuwar'ineh who cultivate small patches in the plain. Near the foot of the
mountain-range on the eastern side of the plain there are six tells (mounds),
the evident remains of ancient towns. Beginning at the south, within two or
three miles of the Dead Sea, and going north, they are found in the following
order: Suwei'meh, Ek'tanu, Er Râ'ma, Hammâm', Kefrein', and Nimrîn'. At the foot
of Tell Hammâm there is a hot spring which gives name to the tell. The
temperature of its water is 102°. Three of these are identified with places
named in the Bible, viz., Tell Nimrîm' with Beth-Nim'rah, Tell Kefrein with
Abel-Shittim, and Suwemeh with Beth-Jeshimoth. The camp of Israel extended from
the last to Abel-Shittim, a distance of not less than six miles, and the tents
were pitched, no doubt, over the entire space, but especially along the banks of
the streams. If we were entirely certain of these identifications, we could form
a close estimate of the space covered by the camp. On the supposition that they
are correct, the camp may be estimated as at least six miles square, or as
covering—whether in a square or not 36 square miles. When the vast multitude
broke up their camp and marched to the bank of the overflowing Jordan, their
front was probably eight miles long, and the river was cut off from their
extreme right down to the Dead Sea. The city of Adam, the point to which the
intercepted waters were heaped up by the onflow of the stream from above, has
not been certainly identified, but it is probably Dam'ieh, about 24 miles above
the mouth of the river. Even after the waters were thus cut off it was no easy
task for the host to move across. The shortness of time did not admit of their
forming into narrow columns and crossing at fords or other places of easy
approach, which would have required several days, but they were compelled to
move forward in a mass, descend the bluff, push their way through the brushwood
of the muddy bottom-land, climb down into the wet bed of the river, and clamber
over similar obstacles on the other side as best they could. It must have
required a long and toilsome day's march for all the people to pass "clean over
Jordan." Was this exhausting toil a type of the hard struggle by which the
Christian wades into the bed of the dark river, even after its waters have been
cleft asunder by his Joshua?

One of the most interesting questions connected with the topography of the lower
Jordan plain is that concerning the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other
three cities confederated with them. The chief point at issue is whether they
were near the upper end or the lower end of the Dead Sea. If at the upper end,
they probably stood on the Plain of Jericho, south of Wâd'y Kelt; if at the
lower end, the plain in which they stood must be now occupied by the lagoon.
Explorers are divided over the question, the earlier class favoring the southern
locality, and the more recent class the northern.

All of the local traditions preserved among the natives of the country are in
favor of the southern locality. The ridge of rock-salt extending along the
southwestern shore of the sea is called Jebel Us'dûm (Mount Sodom), from the
belief that Sodom stood near it. The sea itself is called Bahr Lût (Sea of Lot),
from the belief that it is connected with Lot's history; and the two traditions
taken in connection evidently point to the southern end of the sea as the site
of Sodom. Furthermore, the name of Zoar, the city to which Lot fled when he left
Sodom, is still attached to the ruins of an ancient town near the neck of the
peninsula, in the Ar'abic form of Zoghal. As we have said in our description of
the Dead Sea, the supposition of the southern locality requires the additional
supposition that the present lagoon was then a plain, and that its surface was
sunk either by the convulsions attending the destruction of the cities, or by
fire consuming the "slime-pits," which abounded in the plain, so that the water
of the sea flowed in upon it and covered it a few feet deep, as at present. This
supposition finds some support in the Scriptures. That some serious change in
the condition of the surface itself occurred seems to be affirmed in the
statements that God "overthrew those cities, and all the plain," and that
Abraham, when he viewed the scene the next morning, "looked toward Sodom and
Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and behold, and lo, the smoke of
the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." On the other hand, against the
southern locality and in favor of the northern, are urged the following
considerations:

1. Chedorla'omer, having subdued certain tribes south of the Dead Sea, next
smote "the Amorites, who dwelt in Haze'zon-Ta'mar," before he approached Sodom.
But Haze'zon-Ta'mar is En'gedi, which lies half-way up the western shore of the
sea, and the supposition of a southern site for Sodom would require the army to
have passed Sodom and gone twenty miles up the coast to attack En'gedi, and then
to have returned to attack Sodom. This is by no means probable.

2. When Abraham and Lot were about to separate at Bethel, it is said that Lot
"lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan; that it was well
watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah." It is urged
that Lot could not have seen this plain if it had been at the southern end of
the Dead Sea. But this objection has less force than has been ascribed to it,
for Lot could not literally have seen "all the plain of the Jordan," as this
expression is now understood, unless he had gone about ten miles east of Bethel
and stood upon some of the mountains overlooking it. Still, it is true that by
doing this he could have seen all the plain, and to have seen all the plain
south of the Dead Sea he would have been compelled to travel more than double
the distance. It may be, after all, that the historian, in using this language
about Lot, refers to his mental survey of a plain which he must have seen very
often before, rather than to a literal survey of it with his eyes.

3. After Lot had made his survey, it is said that he "chose him all the plain of
the Jordan," and that he "dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his
tent toward Sodom." It is affirmed that these "cities of the plain" are the same
"cities of the plain" which were destroyed with Sodom, and that the plain is by
clear implication "the plain of the Jordan." But the plain south of the Dead
Sea, 45 miles below the mouth of the Jordan, could not, with any propriety of
speech, be called the "plain of the Jordan."

4. In the view which Moses enjoyed from the top of Pisgah, it is said that he
saw "the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar."
This language implies some connection, not very remote, between Zoar and the
Plain of Jericho, and the language could scarcely be used if the two were
separated by the entire length of the Dead Sea. But Zoar was one of the five
cities of the plain, spared from the fate of the others for Lot's sake, and its
locality determines, proximately, the locality of the others. Professor Merrill,
of the Palestine Exploration Society, claims to have found Zoar, both in name
and location, in Tell Ektanu, one of the six mounds mentioned in a former part
of this section, on the eastern border of the Plain of Moab. An account of the
discovery, together with an elaborate argument in favor of locating the
destroyed cities in the Plain of Moab, is given in the Fourth Annual Statement
of the Palestine Exploration Society, 1877. A candid consideration of the
evidences above adduced seems to require us to abandon the old theory as to the
location of these cities, and to suppose that the local traditions, which
furnish almost its only support, originated from an unsuccessful attempt at an
early period since the Christian era to settle the question which still remains
unsettled among scholars and explorers. Of one fact the investigations thus far
instituted clearly convince us,—that the besom of God's destruction swept clean
when it swept these cities away, leaving not a vestige behind. This is certainly
the case if they were at the southern end of the sea; and Conder's explorations
make it equally certain if they were on the Plain of Jericho. He says: "Over
almost every acre of ground between Jericho and the Dead Sea I rode day by day.
The whole is a white desert, except near the hills, where rich herbage grows
after the rains. The time of year was most favorable for such explorations,
because no long grass existed to hide any ruins. In all that plain I found no
ruin, except the old monastery of St. John and a little hermit's cave; and it
seems to me that no other ruin will ever there be found." Professor Merrill has
directed attention in an entirely new direction,—to the plain at the head of the
Dead Sea on the eastern side of the Jordan; and if he is correct in locating
Zoar, the other cities must certainly have been in the same plain, seeing that
Lot could not have crossed the river and traversed the width of the plain
besides, between daylight and sunrise, the time of his flight from Sodom to
Zoar. But this plain has also been examined almost as carefully as the one on
the opposite side of the river without satisfactory results. Excavations may
possibly yet bring something to light which surface examinations have failed to
reveal, but this is the only source of hope now left for the discovery of a
single stone that once lay in the walls of Sodom.

II. In The Upper Sections Of The Jordan Valley The western side of the Jordan
Valley, all the way from the Plain of Jericho to the Lake of Galilee, is
singularly destitute of places of interest. The most striking feature in its
landscape is Kûrn Sût'tûbeh, about 24 miles from the Dead Sea. It is a sharp
conical peak resting on the eastern extremity of a rugged ridge, which here juts
out from the mountains almost entirely across the valley. It rises to the height
of 2000 feet above the plain, and it is visible from almost every part of the
Jordan Valley, both above and below. On its summit are some singular ruins, of
whose history nothing is known. In riding to it from Jericho we cross four
streams of water, but we pass no human habitations, and we see but little
tillage.

Immediately east of Kûrn Sût'tûbeh, and about two miles distant, is the Dam'ieh
ford (more properly ferry) across the Jordan, and Wâd'y Far'rah, the stream on
whose banks Ænon was situated, flows between the mountain and the river on its
way to enter the latter a few miles below. The descent from the upper into the
lower valley, as we approach this ferry, is very steep. The cliff is of whitish
clay, and is 100 feet high. The lower valley, for a short distance up and down
the stream, is nearly two miles wide and full of verdure. It presents a pleasing
contrast in summer with the barrenness of the upper valley. The river lies
nearer the eastern than the western side. The author found at the ferry a rude
but strong ferry-boat, drawn across by two strong ropes fastened to trees on
either bank. As the author's party crossed they made the measurements which are
given on 101.Page34" "101.Page34" >page 34 by stretching a tape-line along one
of the ropes. This was on the 23d of April. Our party also bathed in the river,
as we had done at the two ferries below, so as to test by actual experiment the
character of its bottom and the strength of its current.

Due east of the ferry, and about 300 yards distant, is an elevated platform of
earth and stone, 145 yards wide, 200 long, and 50 feet high, called Tell
Dam'ieh. On its top, and near the eastern end, are the ruins of a building. This
is evidently an artificial mound, and it is supposed to be the site of the city
of Adam, to which the waters of the Jordan were heaped up when it was cut off
for the passage of the children of Israel."

About a quarter of a mile above the ferry are the remains of an ancient bridge.
The span which crossed the river has entirely disappeared, but on the low ground
east of the river two large arches are still standing entire, and also the piers
of three others. The span of the arches is 20 feet, and the bridge was 12 feet
wide. It may be that the river once flowed under these arches and has cut for
itself a new channel farther west, but it is more probable that they were
constructed merely for the span of the bridge across the low ground on that
side. The western bank of the river is above high water. So dense a growth of
cane and brushwood now covers the ground between the ferry and the bridge that
the author's party had to secure the service of two men with axes to chop a way
through the most tangled parts of the thicket before they could ride to the
bridge. The valley of the river Jabbok (Wâd'y Zerka) opens into the Jordan
Valley from the east, immediately opposite the Dam'ieh ferry, but the stream
itself, contrary to the representations on the old maps, turns to the northwest
as it approaches the Jordan, and enters the latter above the bridge just
described. The eastern side of the Jordan Valley, from the Jabbok south to the
vicinity of Wâd'y Nimrîm', nearly opposite Jericho, is a waterless plain, and is
the only part of the valley east of the river that is so. Dr. Merrill, who
explored it carefully in 1876, marks it on his map "Waterless Region," while of
that portion from the Jabbok north to the Lake of Galilee he says: "The
Manadî'ra (the Yar'mûk) on the north is a river as large as the Jordan at its
exit from the lake. It is full of fish, and before it joins the Jordan it is
crossed by a substantial bridge. The Jabbok on the south is also a river, but
much smaller than the Manadîra. Between these two no less than eleven living
streams, more than half of which can be called large ones, flow down the hills
to water the plain. Canals carry the water from these streams in all directions,
and irrigate the vast wheat-fields already mentioned, which are the pride of the
valley." The same writer says that, while there are no ruins in this valley,
there is a ruin in every instance at the point where these streams leave the
foot-hills. Thirteen of these are marked on his map, and seven of them appear to
have been places of wealth and importance.

Immediately north of the Jabbok is the broad expanse of the Jordan Valley called
the Plain of Succoth. It is 7 or 8 miles wide and 9 or 10 long, and it is the
most beautiful portion of the entire Jordan Valley, not excepting the Plain of
Shittim. Its surface is almost a dead level, broken here and there by artificial
mounds, the sites of ancient towns, and it is intersected in every direction
with little canals for irrigation. The writer, in riding across the plain away
from the road, crossed many of these canals, some of them with water flowing in
them at the time. Those in the more southern part of the plain are supplied by
the Jabbok, which is tapped for the purpose where it leaves the bluffs, and
loses so much of its water that it is much smaller below than above. The entire
plain is covered with verdure, and if cultivated with any skill and taste it
would be an agricultural paradise. Three of the mounds just mentioned have ruins
on them, and the others are thickly strewn with broken pottery, sure sign of
past habitations. One of these, called Tell Hammâm(Mound of the Warm Spring), on
account of a warm spring near it, is near the northern bank of the Jabbok, and
close to the bluffs. The author had some difficulty in finding the warm spring
itself, but was finally led to it by an Ar'ab who left his harvest for the
purpose. It is a feeble spring, a quarter of a mile east of the tell, and its
temperature is 96°. It is immediately on the bank of the Jabbok, and sends three
very feeble streams into the river. The author's party, after spending some
hours exploring the southern portion of this plain, rested and lunched under the
shadow of an immense rock near the bluff, which had fallen from the cliff above.
The site was sufficiently elevated to afford a view of the entire plain, with
the mountains of Samaria bounding the horizon to the west, and the top of Mount
Tabor visible in the northwest. The plain before us brought vividly to view the
immense flocks and herds of Jacob which once grazed here after coming from
Padan-aram, and the booths which he built to protect them from the hot sun of
their first summer in this more southern climate. When he had spent the summer
here, he crossed, the river at the Dam'ieh crossing when it was low in the fall,
and, leaving Kûrn Sût'tûbeh, which rises beyond the river almost like a church
steeple, to his left, he moved slowly up Wâd'y Far'rah, northwestward, past Ænon
to Shechem, where he bought a piece of land and made a temporary home. The
glance which we have now given at the eastern Jordan Valley enables us to trace
the route of the Jews of Galilee in their journeys to Jerusalem and back. In
order to avoid passing through the territory of the unfriendly Samaritans they
came down east of the Jordan, and Jesus sometimes followed the same route. They
crossed the Jordan on a bridge just below its outlet from the lake, came down
the eastern plain past richly cultivated fields and many villages and towns,
crossed again at the Dam'ieh ferry to avoid the waterless stretch of 12 miles
below on the eastern side, thence came down the western plain to Jericho,
entered it by its northern gate, passed out by the southern, and thence passed
up into the hills on the present road from Jericho to Jerusalem. The next point
of interest in the Jordan Valley, going northward, is the ford called Abâr'ah,
which Conder identifies with the Bethab'ara of John 1:28 It is just above the
mouth of the river Jalûd', which originates in the Valley of Jez'reel, runs
through Beisan', and thence crosses the western Jordan Valley in a southeasterly
direction. Abâr'ah means a place of passage, and Bethab'ara means house of the
passage. In defending the identification Conder says: "It may be said that the
name Abâr'ah is merely descriptive, and perhaps applies to several fords. That
it is descriptive may be granted: so is the name Bethab'ara, or Bethel, or
Gibeah, or Ramah. That it is a common name may be safely denied. We have
collected the names of over 40 fords, and no other is called Abâr'ah; nor does
the word occur again in all the 9000 names collected by the survey party." The
same writer corrects the commonly-received mistake that Jesus was baptized at
Bethab'ara, and shows that it is mentioned only in connection with events which
occurred on consecutive days after the temptation. More than forty days had
elapsed since the baptism of Jesus, and in this interval John had passed from
the lower Jordan 50 miles higher up the river. A very important consequence
results from this identification, and helps to confirm it. When Bethab'ara was
supposed to be at the bathing-place below Jericho, it was almost impossible to
account for the presence of Jesus and his disciples at the wedding in Cana on
the second day after leaving Bethab'ara, the distance being 75 miles by the
nearest route of travel. But of the real Bethab'ara Conder says: "The ford
Abâr'ah is about 22 miles in a line from Kefr Kenna, and no place can be found
on the Jordan much nearer or more accessible to the neighborhood of Cana." The
mother of Jesus had only two and a half miles to come from Nazareth.

About seven miles south of the Lake of Galilee is the only bridge across Jordan
which is now in use. It is called Jier Mejamî'a (Mejamî'a bridge), and is the
crossing-place for caravans from Beisan', Nab'lus, and all the region south of
those places, to Damascus. After crossing here, the road follows the Jordan
Valley for a few miles, and then turns up into the hills. This bridge is built
entirely of blocks of basalt, and consists of one long arch spanning the river
and three smaller ones on the eastern side, to allow the passage of the overflow
when the river is out of its ordinary banks. The floor of the bridge is not
level, as if intended for vehicles, but it climbs the arch, and has steps going
up one side and down the other, each step about eight inches high.

It was evidently not built for vehicles, though strong ones could be drawn over
it with proper care. A short distance from it on the western bank is a
dilapidated khân, which once answered the double purpose of a halting-place for
caravans and a military post for the protection of travelers. Just below the
bridge there is an almost perpendicular descent of the river, with a fall of 10
or 12 feet. The current is fearfully rapid, and is lashed into foam by
projecting rocks. Above, there is deep, still water and a broad channel. A mile
and a half above this bridge is the mouth of the River Yar'mûk, across which, a
few miles above its mouth, but after it has entered the Jordan Plain, is a
bridge for the passage of the Damascus road, mentioned above. On the northern
bank of this river, three miles above its entrance into the Jordan Valley, are
the celebrated hot springs called by the natives El Ham'mâ. They are in a valley
three-quarters of a mile wide, and are four in number. The largest occupies a
basin 180 feet long by 90 in width, in which the water stands 6 feet deep, with
a temperature of 103°. The overflow from it makes a pond, in a low place, 100
yards long, 10 or 15 wide, and 10 feet deep. The combined streams flowing from
all these springs are estimated by Dr. Merrill as equal to a stream 21 feet wide
and 20 inches deep, with a swift current. The waters are impregnated with
sulphur and other minerals, and have healthy properties. Imposing ruins are
scattered about them,—the remains of bath-houses and dwellings,—all of basalt.
"If El Ham'mâ could be rebuilt," says Dr. Merrill, "it would be one of the most
attractive resorts in Syria, and perhaps in the world." The Jordan Valley above
the mouth of the Yar'mûk to the southern end of the lake has a rich, reddish
soil, is well cultivated, and very productive. That on the western side of the
river, from the Mejamî'a Bridge upward, is narrow and broken, but it has many
small fields of rich soil, and several villages perched on the tops of hills.
The ruins of five bridges are seen in this section of the river, although the
river is fordable at many places the greater part of the year.

We have now completed our view of the topography of the Jordan Valley, and the
reader can readily see that the eastern half of it, though almost entirely
unknown until within the last ten years, is by far the more interesting, both
for its natural resources and its remains of antiquity.

III. In The Uplands Beyond The Jordan The number of localities beyond the Jordan
which are mentioned in the Scriptures is surprisingly small, and of the few
which are mentioned the accounts given are very meagre. Yet the number of cities
and towns of which well-preserved and imposing ruins are left is greater in
proportion to the territory than in the better-known country west of the river.
There is also this remarkable difference, that the sites of the ancient cities
west of the Jordan are still inhabited, and their ruins have been utilized in
the construction of the present habitations, while those beyond the river are
nearly all totally deserted, and remain as they were left by their ancient
inhabitants. As our purpose in this work is to limit our attention almost
exclusively to places which have a Bible history, we can only glance at many
places which would otherwise demand careful description. We begin with the more
northern portion, called the Haurân' by the Ar'abs, but known in the Old
Testament period as Ba'shan.

Ruins of Gad'ara

We have stated in § II. that the Mejamî'a Bridge, seven miles south of the Lake
of Galilee, is the crossing-place for the road from Southern Palestine to
Damascus. It was doubtless at this bridge that Naaman the Syrian crossed on his
way from Damascus to Samaria to see the prophet and it was most likely in the
river at this point that he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan in order to
be healed of the leprosy. It was here, too, that Paul crossed on his way to
Damascus as a persecutor, and it will be convenient for us to follow his route
for a short distance in reaching the places to be described in this section.

Following the road from the bridge just mentioned up the Jordan Valley to the
Yar'mûk, crossing the river on the stone bridge which spans it, and then
ascending the bank of the river to the hot springs, we reach the limit in this
direction of the topography given in § II. About three miles farther up the
Yar'mûk, and on its southern bank, are the ruins of Gad'ara, now called Mkês. It
is situated on the western extremity of a mountain crest which stands between
the Yar'mûk on the north and a deep wâdy on the south. Many heaps of hewn stones
and fragments of broken columns whose capitals were of the Corinthian order are
scattered about over a large space. The street pavement of basalt is preserved
in many places, and is marked by the ruts of the chariot-wheels. Two theatres
are found among the ruins, one of them in a good state of preservation. The
principal street had a row of columns on either side, all of which are now
broken. The cut on the opposite page gives a view of a part of this street, and
of one of the theatres.

East of the city is the ancient cemetery, where there are many rock-cut tombs,
and where as many as 200 stone sarcophagi have been counted. The city was built
of basalt, which is the prevailing rock in all this region. The ruins are
principally of the Roman period, very little that is Jewish being now
discernible. Gad'ara was the chief city of the district called Decapolis, which
lay to the southwest of the Lake of Galilee, and the land of the Gergesenes, on
the eastern shore of that lake, was included in the territory belonging to the
Gadarenes.

About eight miles in an air-line due north of Gad'ara, and on the summit of the
hills east of the Lake of Galilee, is the ancient city of A'phek, now called
Fîk. It was here that Ahab, king of Israel, gained a signal victory over
Benhadad, king of Syria, and where 27,000 of the men of the latter perished as
the result of the falling of the city-wall. It is now a well-watered
caravan-station on a more westward branch of the Damascus road, and is reached
by following that road direct from the Mejamî'a bridge, but it has no important
remains of antiquity. The road by which we reach Gad'ara from the Jordan Valley
continues up the valley of the river Yar'mûk in a course a little north of east
until it intersects at Mzerîb the great pilgrim route from Damascus to Mecca. It
requires nearly ten hours to make the journey over the rough and crooked road,
but in an air-line it is less than twenty miles between the two places. Mzerîb
is one of the principal halting-places of the vast caravans of Mohammedan
pilgrims who assemble every spring at Damascus and make the pilgrimage thence to
Mecca, a journey of 27 days. The place is well watered by a large spring, and it
is supplied with a very large castle for the protection of the caravans in times
of lawlessness. From Mzerîb to Damascus along the pilgrim road is about 45
miles. This route is not often followed by travelers, on account of the
danger—real or imaginary—of being robbed on the way, but it is the route
followed by Paul on his journey to Damascus, and the one on which an attempt has
been made to fix the spot at which he was confronted by that vision from heaven
which turned the tide of his life. But the account in the Scriptures is too
indefinite to enable one to fix the spot with any near approach to accuracy.

Instead of following the pilgrim road, or "Haj route," as it is usually called
(from haj, a pilgrim), we take a southeasterly direction and visit Ed'rei, now
called Derât' and also Ad'raha, about five miles distant. Ed'rei was the capital
of Og, the king of Ba'shan, and it was here that Moses met him and "smote him
until none was left him remaining." It possesses some interesting ruins above
ground, besides extensive and labyrinthine dwellings under ground, chiseled in
the rock, with an entrance on the side of a wâdy. It is the terminus of a stone
aqueduct said to be 60 miles long, which crosses all the valleys in its course
on arches, and conveys water to many places. At Ed'rei the remainder of its
water empties into a large reservoir cut in the rock, 160 yards long, 65 yards
wide, and 19 feet deep.

A View in Bozrah The next place of great interest in the direction which we are
following is Bozrah, which lies about 30 miles a little south of east from
Ed'rei. This is not the Bozrah frequently mentioned in the Bible, for that city
was in the land of Edom, but the first appearance of its name in history was in
A. D. 105, when it was made the capital of the province of Arabia under the
Romans, and the seat of a Roman colony. It afterward became a Christian city,
and was the seat of a bishopric. It was visited by Mohammed with the trading
caravan to which he was attached before he became a prophet, and during the
Mohammedan dominion it became a very famous city. Its decay dates from the year
1151, when it was almost destroyed by earthquakes. It is now occupied by only 30
or 40 families, who live among the ruins of its eastern side. Its eastern and
southern walls are still standing, in the main, and the foundations of the
northern and eastern walls are traceable. Its principal street runs through in a
straight course from the western gate to the eastern, and it is intersected by a
similar street running north and south. The former passes under a Roman
triumphal arch, with a central arch 41 feet high and two side arches of smaller
dimensions. This street was originally lined with columns on either side, and it
is flanked with impressive ruins. On the left, where it is intersected by the
other principal street, are four columns 47 feet high, with finely-executed
Corinthian capitals, which belonged to some building now entirely gone. Opposite
them, across the intersecting street, are the remains of a beautiful temple.
These are seen in the foreground of the above cut, while in the distance to the
left stand other columns in immense ruins, and in the centre a ruined mosque
with a well-preserved minaret towering above it.

Here, as at almost all the cities of this region, is ample provision for the
storage of water. There are two large reservoirs,—one east of the city, and one
near the southeast corner. The latter is 530 feet long and 420 wide. It is
supplied by an aqueduct from distant mountain-springs, and has a stairway
descending into it at one corner. South of the city is an immense castle,
supplied with underground rooms, extensive stables cut in the rock, a theatre
with stone seats, and room for the accommodation of a large garrison. Complete
desolation now broods over this vast city, once the abode of wealth,
intelligence, and power. In the striking language of Dr. De Hass, "Here are
Christian churches, some of them probably planted by Paul when he first preached
in Arabia, once crowded with worshipers, but now empty and quiet as the grave;
grand temples dedicated to different pagan divinities entirely deserted, without
priest or devotee; triumphal arches erected in honor of men not known in
history, tottering with age and ready to fall; beautiful tombs reared to the
memory of persons long since forgotten; palaces, theatres, and other public
edifices, unoccupied for centuries, and yet in their decay beautiful to behold."

Among the sixty walled cities taken by Moses from Og, king of Ba'shan, only
three are mentioned by name, and one of these is Salcah. As you stand on the
castle or on the minaret at Bozrah and look due east, you see Salcah, about 12
miles distant, crowning a conical eminence 500 feet high. Between the two there
is a Roman road as straight as an arrow over the level plain, with some of its
pavement in a good state of preservation. The name of this very ancient city is
preserved with only the slight change to Salchâd'. The approach to the walls on
the summit of the hill is guarded by two deep moats, one higher up than the
other, and in the days of its glory the city must have been well-nigh
impregnable. The ruins are massive, and from their highest walls a magnificent
view of the surrounding country is obtained. Eastward is the boundless desert,
reaching off to the Euphra'tes; toward the southwest are the high mountains
which overhang the lower Jordan; to the northwest is Mount Hermon; to the north
are the lofts and rugged mountains of the Haurân'; while all around at short
distances are a multitude of ruined cities which speak mournfully of departed
glory. Armies and earthquakes, guided by an avenging Providence, have wrought
this ruin.

A Palace in Kûnawât

If we leave Bozrah by the road leading to the north, we pass some town or city
with interesting ruins every four or five miles, and at a distance of about 20
miles we reach Kûnawât', a ruined city on the western slope of the Haurân'
mountains. It is built on both sides of a stream which descends from the
mountain, and it extends along the stream about a mile and a half. It is
supposed to be the Ke'nath mentioned in NNNumbers 32:42 g been occupied by a
portion of the tribe of Manasseh, and, although that tribe could scarcely have
extended their settlements so far north, the name tends to confirm the
identification. Kûnawât' is equally remarkable with Bozrah for the extent and
magnificence of its ruins, and what we have said of the former might almost be
repeated of the latter. The cut on the opposite page presents a view of only one
among its many ruined edifices, and only one of several views of the same
building that are equally imposing. In this city are found many well-preserved
houses built entirely of stone, even to the door-shutters. The walls were built
without cement, the stones in some instances being "dove-tailed," and in some
instances cut with projections on top to fit into corresponding depressions in
the bottom of those next above, so as to prevent them from slipping. The floors
are made of slabs or of the natural rock artificially leveled, and the ceilings
and roofs of thick slabs of stone long enough to reach from wall to wall, with
their joints closed by cement. The door is a smoothly-dressed slab of sufficient
width and height, and its hinges are projecting points at the top and bottom on
one side, which fit in sockets made for them in the sill and lintel. They vary
in thickness from 8 to 12 inches, and sometimes there are two slabs to an
entrance, making a folding-door. It was no easy task to open such doors; but we
are not to think of the children running in and out and slamming the doors
behind them every minute in the day. They probably stood open day and night,
except when danger from burglars required them to be closed, and in that case it
is clear that burglars' tools were not of much service. Such doors are found in
all the rocky regions of the Haurân' and the Lejâh'.

We have now mentioned all the localities in the region anciently called Ba'shan
that our space and the plan of our work will allow. For further information on
this most interesting region the reader is referred to Porter's "Giant Cities of
Ba'shan." Before dismissing the subject, we remark that in all probability the
residence of Job was somewhere in this region of country, and that local
traditions have connected his name with at least two places. Dr. De Hass
mentions a tradition which absurdly represents the palace in Kûnawât' seen in
our cut on the opposite page as Job's palace; and in the northern portion of the
Jaulân', near the foot of Mount Hermon, there is a place called Dêr Eyyub (the
Monastery of Job). Early Arabian writers pointed out his birthplace near Nawâ',
some miles farther south, and the mediæval Christians had a tradition to the
same effect.

We now turn our attention to Gilead, the district lying south of the river
Yar'mûk, and extending as far south as the head of the Dead Sea. In this entire
district there is only one inhabited city, and there are but very few villages.
Its most extensive ruins are those of Jerash', a city which stood in the
northeastern part of the district, at the head of a northern branch of the river
Jabbok, and about 25 miles east of the Jordan. The walls of this ruined city are
almost entire in places, and are traceable on all sides. They included a space
of irregular shape, a little more than half a mile long from north to south and
about the same in width at the widest part, which is near the southern end. A
stream of water fed by springs runs through it from north to south, dividing it
into two unequal parts, the larger part toward the west. The spring which is the
chief supply of the stream, bursts forth from under a perpendicular ledge of
rock inside the northern wall, and a level bench near it on the bank of the
stream is the uniform camping-place for travelers. The stream is hidden along
its entire course by a thick jungle of oleanders nearly 20 feet high, but the
sound of its waters, as they dash over rocks obstructing the channel, is
distinctly heard.

Southern Gate, or Triumphal Arch of Jerash The city is intersected from north to
south by a street 17 1/2 feet wide, running nearly parallel with the stream. It
runs along a bench on the slope west of the stream, and it maintains a level all
the way. Its ancient pavement of flagstones is entire in many places, and along
each side of it there was a continuous row of Ionic columns with richly-carved
entablatures resting on their capitals. About 100 of these are still standing;
the pedestals of nearly all are in place; and you make your way with some
difficulty along the street among the scattered blocks of those that have
fallen. About half-way the length of this street it is intersected at a right
angle by another from an eastern gate, which crossed the stream on a massive
stone bridge, now in ruins. Farther toward the south it is intersected by
another street from a western gate, and at the point of intersection there is a
double archway supported by four piers, allowing each street to pass through an
arch at a right angle to the other. This colonnade street terminates, at its
southern end, in a grand forum in the shape of an ellipse. It was surrounded by
a row of columns like those which line the street, and 55 of these are still
standing. Farther up the slope, along the western side of the colonnade street,
are the ruins of several magnificent heathen temples, many of whose columns and
walls are still standing. There are also two amphitheatres, whose stone seats
are so well preserved that almost a full audience could now be seated upon them.
The larger of these was capable of seating 5000 spectators. The western side of
the city, at the time of its destruction, seems to have been chiefly heathen,
and the eastern chiefly if not entirely Christian; for all the heathen temples
are on the western side, and on the eastern the author counted the ruins of five
churches inside the walls and one outside, to the south. Three stone bridges
across the chasm of the little stream connected the two sides, and one of these,
though in a dilapidated condition, can still be crossed by animals.

Almost the entire space within the walls of the city is covered with heaps of
building-stones and prostrate columns, and all around the walls outside are
broken sarcophagi and rock-hewn sepulchres, the burial-places of Jews, heathen,
and Christians. The principal cemetery was south of the city, and the remains of
dwellings as well as tombs here cover quite an extensive area. About a quarter
of a mile south of the original city-gate stands a structure which may have been
a triumphal arch, or may have been the gateway of a southern addition to the
city,—more likely the former. Its south front is presented in the cut on the
opposite page. Its entire width is 82 feet, and the height of the central arch
is 29 feet. If it was a gateway, the two side arches were intended for the
passage of persons on foot. On the western side of the road leading north from
this structure lies a large basin 230 yards in length and 75 yards wide, walled
with excellent masonry. A surface-channel drawn like a mill-race from the stream
near the upper end of the city supplied it with water. It is supposed by some
that it was intended as a Naumachia, a place for mimic naval battles, and
remains of tiers of stone seats at the upper end confirm this view. Such
exhibitions must have possessed peculiar attractions to a people remote from the
sea-board.

It would require many pages of this book to give a full description of the ruins
of this city, and even then but a faint conception of its ancient grandeur would
be conveyed. It was anciently known as Ger ʿasa,and Jerash' is but an Ar'abic
corruption of this name. It belonged, like Gad'ara, to Decap'olis, and some
suppose, from its situation and importance, that it is the Mahanaim of the Old
Testament. Its most prosperous period was after the Christian era, and in the
fourth century it was regarded as one of the largest and strongest cities of
Arabia. It is spoken of as a deserted city as early as the thirteenth century,
and consequently the ruins which we now behold there, though they are neither
weather-stained nor covered with earth, have remained in their present condition
for more than 600 years. It is probable that an earthquake first destroyed the
city, and that its reconstruction was prevented by the fact that tent-dwelling
Ar'abs afterwards held possession of the country, as they do to the present day.

About 25 miles southwest of Jerash is Es Salt, the only inhabited city in
Gilead. About half-way between the two cities the road crosses the river Jabbok
at a ford. In the vicinity of the ford are the remains of ancient water-mills,
which have gone to ruin through the neglect of the Bed'awin inhabitants. The
mountains south of the ford, and extending as far as Es Salt, are called by the
Ar'abs Jebel Jilâd (the Mountains of Gilead), and those to the north, Jebel
Ajlûn. The highest point in these mountains lies a mile and a half to the west
of the road as we approach Es Salt, and it is called Jebel Ow'sha (the Mountain
of Hose'a). Its name is derived from the tradition that the prophet Hose'a was
buried on its summit, and the traditional place of his burial is marked by a
Mohammedan tomb. A trough built of stone, 31 feet long and 3 feet wide and deep,
is called the Prophet's Coffin. It is overhung by a pall of dirty woolen goods
in broad stripes of blue and red, and it lies in a long, low, and narrow room,
with very small openings in the wall to admit a dim light. A little square
structure with a plastered dome over it (the usual Mohammedan wel'y) stands at
the western end of the tomb, and by the side of this is a good rock-hewn cistern
containing water. The tomb had no guardian when visited by the author, though
there is a room attached intended for the accommodation of one. A Mohammedan
graveyard surrounds it, and near its eastern end stands a magnificent oak, whose
foliage extends evenly around on every side and covers an area 62 feet in
diameter. It reminds one of the words in which the prophet whose remains are
said to lie near it once rebuked the idolatries of Israel, saying: "They
sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under
oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good." The summit of
this mountain is 3470 feet above the level of the sea, the highest point on the
east of the Jordan. It rises precipitously from the Jordan Valley, which lies in
full view for many miles up and down the river, while the mountain-slopes west
of the river can be distinctly traced from the Dead Sea to the Lake of Galilee.
Beyond the lake to the north rises the snow-covered summit of Mount Hermon,
appearing, on account of the distance, not much above the level on which you
stand. This is the most wide-spread and magnificent view of the country
obtainable from any point east of the Jordan, not excepting that enjoyed by
Moses from the top of Pisgah, and on this account some earlier travelers took
this to be the latter mountain.

Between Jebel Owsha and the river Yar'mûk stretches the long range of Jebel
Ajlûn', which is crossed by many interesting wâdies and contains many ruins of
minor importance. Only one Scripture locality has been identified here, and the
identification of it needs confirmation. It is Jabesh-Gilead, which Dr. Merrill
identifies with Miryamin. It is a ruined city overlooking Wâd'y Yâ'bis, which is
about half-way between the Jabbok and the Yar'mûk. The name Jabesh is probably
preserved in that of the wâdy, Yâ'bis, but not in that of the town.

Es Salt is supposed to be the Ramoth-Gilead of the Scriptures, the city near
which Ahab was slain in battle, and Jehoram, his son, wounded in a subsequent
battle. There, too, Jehu was anointed, and thence he rushed forth on his famous
drive to Jez'reel, where he slew the king of Israel and the king of Judah. Its
modern name is derived from the Latin saltus, a wood-covered mountain, the Es
being the Ar'abic article. Its identification with Ramoth-Gilead is not
established beyond a doubt. The natives claim for it a population of 12,000, but
it is usually set down by European visitors at 3000,—a very low estimate. The
people are chiefly Mohammedans, but a portion are Greek and Roman Catholics. The
latter Church has a convent with schools attached, and the Church of England has
a mission-station and school under the control of the Bishop of Jerusalem. The
town is picturesquely situated on the eastern side of a very steep hill, and the
houses rise one above another like steps. More than half the town is built of
sun-dried brick; the walls of the houses are plastered with a brown mortar, and
the roofs are of the same material. These houses were compared by one of the
author's party to large "dirt-daubers'" nests stuck on the hillside. The newer
part of the town is built of a yellowish limestone, and some of its houses
present a rather pleasing appearance. A very copious spring issues from the
rock, near the foot of the hill, runs in several babbling streams along the
streets below it, and thence passes into channels to irrigate gardens in the
valley below. This valley, starting from the city in a southern direction and
afterward turning westward, passes out into the Jordan Valley at the upper end
of the Plain of Moab, and there it has the name Wâd'y Nimrîm'. The summit of the
mountain on which Es Salt is built is crowned with a massive castle, once the
"stronghold" of the city, but now in ruins. It is 2740 feet above the level of
the sea. The tillable land in the vicinity of the town for several miles around
is well cultivated, and the vineyards are quite extensive. This is the only
section of Gilead in which the vine is now cultivated at all. The vines are
allowed to run flat on the ground. The next point usually visited by the
traveler after leaving Es Salt is Ammân', the ancient Rabbath-Ammon. It was
called Philadelphia during the period of Roman dominion. The distance to it from
Es Salt by the road is about 20 miles, and the direction is nearly southeast.
The country between the two places is a high, undulating table-land, very rich,
and containing many extensive grain-fields cultivated by the Bed'awin. The ruins
of towns and cities are seen on every hand. The ruins of Ammân' are scarcely
less massive and extensive than those of Jerash'. They are situated chiefly on
the western bank of the river Jabbok, which here runs due north. There was an
upper and a lower city, the latter lying on the low ground adjacent to the
river-bank, and the former on the summit of an isolated hill 300 feet high, with
sides almost perpendicular. A strong wall around the brow of the hill made it
almost impregnable. The greater part of the wall is still standing, and the
space within is covered thick with a confused mass of ruined buildings and the
stones of prostrate walls. Immense rock-cut cisterns and one circular reservoir
58 feet in diameter and of unknown depth show the care that was exercised to
supply the place with water. The almost perpendicular sides of the mountain
toward the lower city are full of sepulchres. In the lower city the principal
street ran parallel with the river, between it and the foot of the hill, and it
was lined on both sides by blocks of small houses for shops, alternating with
public buildings of various kinds. The various phases of the city's history are
suggested by the ruins of a heathen temple, a Christian church, and a Mohammedan
mosque, all massive and grand, standing on this street but a few steps apart.

While the lower city was chiefly built on the western bank of the stream, there
were some public buildings of importance on the eastern bank. Among these was an
amphitheatre, whose space was cut into the side of the hill which rises to the
east, and whose stone seats could accommodate 6000 spectators. Most of these
seats are yet there and ready for use. Near by is a smaller theatre, more
properly an ode'on, a place for musical entertainments, which is in a still
better state of preservation, and between the two structures are many columns
whose significance is not easily perceived. The river is spanned by several
arches, and its banks are lined for a considerable distance with solid walls of
masonry. It is a small stream, but it has cut out many basins in the rock from
two to four feet deep, and these are alive with beautiful fish, many of them
from eight to ten inches in length. The source of the stream is about a mile and
a half southwest of the ruins, where it rises out of the earth through a large
bed of pebbles and coarse gravel. So buoyant is the water as it pushes its way
up through the pebbles that a horse's feet sink among the pebbles almost as in a
mass of mud. The stream is almost as large in the summer immediately below the
source as it is in the Jordan Valley just above its mouth, for, although it
receives many small tributaries in its course, it also gives out many small
streams to the irrigating channels by which it is tapped. The two cities into
which Ammân', or Rabbah, as it is most frequently called in the Scriptures, is
divided, accounts for the very singular message sent to David by Joab when he
was besieging the city. He said: "I have fought against Rabbah, and have taken
the city of waters. Now, therefore, gather the rest of the people together and
encamp against the city and take it, lest I take the city, and it be called by
my name." He had taken the lower city, through which the river flowed, and which
was for this reason called "the city of waters," and the fall of the upper city,
now cut off from these waters, was only a question of time. The siege by Joab
was in progress at the time of David's great sin against Uriah the Hittite, and
it was here that Hanun, the young king of the Ammonites, had committed the
outrage on David's ambassadors which led to this war.

Ammân' is situated on the extreme verge of the tillable lands of Gilead, and
beyond it to the east lies the desert. High hills and long ridges are seen in
the distance eastward, but all appear barren and desolate. The copious
fountain-head of the Jabbok, and the stream which flows from it, render the
vicinity of the city a kind of oasis in the long dry summer, and the Bed'awin
congregate here in large numbers with their flocks and herds. The largest
encampments of these people that the author saw in any part of the country were
here, and in a single days ride he saw four or five hundred camels and four or
five thousand sheep and goats, besides a goodly number of black cattle. From
Ammân' the traveler usually rides in a direction a little west of southwest to
Arak-el-Emîr', or to Heshbon, which lies a little south of southwest. If both
places are visited, the former is taken first. The distance to either is about
20 miles, and they are about 10 miles apart. Arak-el-Emîr' is the Ar'ab name of
a castle, with some adjacent buildings and tombs, which was built here by
Hyrcanus, the son of Joseph, in the year 180 before Christ. Josephus gives an
elaborate account of its construction, and its ruins correspond to the
description. Professor Merrill says of them: "These ruins are among the most
interesting in Syria. Here are some of the largest stones I have ever seen in
Syria outside of Baalbec; here also was one of the largest reservoirs in the
country; it was almost a lake; when it was full of water ships could easily
float there. Nowhere have I seen a wall of such strength as the one to the south
and east of this reservoir." The walls of the castle were built without mortar,
the stones being fitted closely together and held in their places by depressions
on the surface of one, into which fitted corresponding projections on the bottom
of the one above. The cut on the opposite page represents the entrance to the
castle as it now stands. In approaching Heshbon, now called by the natives
Hasbân', from the direction of Ammân', we descend from the elevated plateau,
over which the road runs most of the way, into the dry and rocky bed of Wâd'y
Hasbân'. This leads to a splendid spring called Ain Hasbân', which rushes from
under the rock on the side of that wâdy, and descends into and across the Jordan
Valley. Below the spring the wâdy widens out into a beautiful little valley,
which is a favorite camping-place for tourists and also for the Ar'abs. At the
time of the author's visit the family of our escort, Sheikh Fellâh', and a large
number of his tribe were encamped there. Our tents were pitched in the midst of
theirs. Within a half-mile below our camp we saw the ruins of three mills once
propelled by the water from the spring, and the mill-races, now used exclusively
for irrigating purposes, are still preserved. The Bed'awin have allowed all the
mills in the district which they occupy to go to ruin.

Entrance to the Castle of Hyrcanus To reach the site of Heshbon from the spring,
we pass along the wâdy-bed southward about a mile, when it turns abruptly to the
west, and we climb its precipitous southern side to the level of the highlands
of Moab. The ruins of the ancient city are situated on the summits of two high
hills standing east and west from each other, and on the saddle connecting the
two. The eastern hill is the highest for many miles around, and it is crowned
with the ruins of a very ancient castle. The view from this point is wide-spread
and full of interest. To the north Es Salt is distinctly seen, though more than
20 miles distant in an air-line. To the west the eye ranges over the entire
length of the mountains of Israel; to the east a broad level plain is bounded in
the horizon by the higher surface of the desert; while to the south a plain of
surpassing beauty and fertility lies spread at your feet and stretches away to a
distance of 20 miles or more. This plain reaches out eastward to the desert, and
westward to the rugged peaks and ridges which overhang the Dead Sea; and
everywhere it is dotted with rounded hills, many of which are crowned with
ruins. Here old King Sihon, standing on his lofty battlements, could see the
hosts of Israel for 20 miles away as they approached from the south, led by the
pillar of cloud, and as he looked around upon the entire area of his own fair
domain, it is not surprising that he refused to allow the invading millions a
passage through his land. Between the point on which he stood and the hills
overhanging the Dead Sea, only six miles to the west, that host must pass in
order to reach the Jordan Valley, and there they did pass, but not until the
army of Sihon, which met them on the plain, had been annihilated. Among the
ruins of Heshbon, as in all places thus situated, there are many rock-hewn
cisterns, and in the plain near the foot of the hill to the southeast is a very
large reservoir, well walled, but now nearly filled with earth.

There are very few places south of Heshbon that have a Scripture history, though
there are many ruins and some places of interest which have a history outside
the Bible. One of the most interesting of these is the group of hot springs in
Wâd'y Zerka Mâ'in, a deep, narrow gorge, which descends from the highlands into
the Dead Sea, about eight miles below its northern end. The banks of this wâdy,
for seven miles above its mouth, are walls of rock, in many places
perpendicular, and about 1000 feet high. It is impossible to ride down to the
bottom of it, except in a very few places. One of these is on the northern bank,
in the very midst of the springs. The rock of the southern wall of the chasm is
basalt, as black as iron. On the northern side it is red sandstone to a height
of 100 feet or more, with limestone above. The hot springs, 10 in number, issue
from between the ledges of sandstone and limestone, and dash down the precipice
in numerous cascades and rapids. The two principal springs are about half a mile
apart, and each sends forth a volume of water sufficient to run a mill. The
springs vary in temperature from 130° to 143°, the most western of all having
the latter temperature. The cool stream of water which flows along the bed of
the chasm is about doubled in volume by the accession of these hot streams, and
its temperature is raised to about 90° but ere it reaches its mouth it is
reduced to 70°.

These springs were resorted to by Herod the Great during his last sickness, in
the hope of benefit from their medicinal properties, and it has been supposed
that baths after the Roman fashion were constructed here. If they were they have
long since disappeared, and they may be covered by the mounds of sulphurous
deposit from the water. These have accumulated to nearly 100 feet in depth in
some places, and they have caused a considerable contraction of the width of the
valley. In the mountains above the springs to the south are the ruins of the
castle of Machærus, in which John the Baptist was beheaded. It was a very strong
fortress, on an almost inaccessible mountain-top, built originally by Hyrcanus,
and afterward greatly strengthened and enlarged by Herod. Canon Tristram found
among the ruins two dungeons cut in the rock, one of which he thinks was
certainly the prison of John the Baptist. The strength of the castle and its
siege by the Roman general Bassus are fully described by Josephus. It is now
called Mkaur, and it is 3800 feet above the Dead Sea. The only other place north
of the Arnon which demands mention here is Dibân' (the Dib'on of Scripture), and
it is worthy of mention, not so much from its intrinsic importance as because
here was found the celebrated "Moabite Stone." This is a block of basalt three
feet long and two feet wide, with one side covered by a Moabite inscription. It
was discovered among the ruins of Dib'on in 1868 by F. A. Klein, a missionary of
the English Church, but through some delay and mismanagement the Ar'abs in the
vicinity became aware of its value before it was removed, and, angry at the
probable loss of it, built a fire under it, threw cold water on it when it was
red-hot, and broke it to pieces. The fragments were finally recovered and
brought to the Museum of the Louvre in Paris. It is a record made by Me'sha, the
king of Moab, a part of whose history is given in the third chapter of Second
Kings. It gives an account of wars previously waged by Me'sha against Omri, king
of Israel, and his son Ahab, and also of certain cities in his own territory
which he built, and of some which he improved. It is the oldest Semitic writing
known to be in existence, having been written 3000 years ago, buried out of
sight, and now speaking as with a voice from the grave concerning men and cities
and events mentioned in some of the older books of the Old Testament. It is a
specimen of what the Moabites were thinking and saying on their side of the
question, while the Israelites were thinking and saying on their side as
represented in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Dib'on, the ruin in which it
was found, is on the eastern border of Moab, and but a short distance north of
the river Arnon. A few miles south of the Arnon, and in the midst of the
mountains overlooking the Dead Sea, is the famous city and fortress of Kerak'.
It is a level rock-summit surrounded on all sides but the eastern by chasms from
800 to 1000 feet deep, with perpendicular sides. A well-built wall surrounds the
brow of the precipice on every side, and the only two places of entrance are
through arches tunneled in the solid rock from the side of the precipice to the
level within. These entrances are approached by paths cut in the rock, which are
barely wide enough for an approach of men or beasts in single file. It is the
headquarters of the tribe of Ar'abs called Beni Sukrh, one of the most lawless
and independent of all the Bed'awin tribes in Syria. It is the Kir-hareseth of
Scripture, into which Me'sha, the king of Moab, took refuge after his army had
been cut to pieces by the combined forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom; and the
strength of its fortifications, even at that early period, is indicated by the
fact that with but a handful of men the Moabite king succeeded in defending
himself against an overwhelming force. The present population of the city is
stated at 8000, of whom 1600 are Christians of the Greek Church. The best
description of the place is given by Canon Tristram. He and his party were
detained there as prisoners four days, with the hope of extorting from them a
large sum of money. They were not able to give the amount demanded, and they
refused to give any at all. They were finally released through fear of the
Turkish authorities.

We now return to the vicinity of Heshbon, and will conclude this section with an
account of Mount Nebo and "the top of Pisgah." As one stands upon the heights of
Heshbon and looks around for Mount Nebo, he instinctively fixes his eye upon
some of the lofty peaks far away to the south; for we always magnify in our
imagination famous objects which we have never seen. It is with a feeling of
disappointment, then, that when we call for Mount Nebo (Jebel Nebâ' is its Ar'ab
name) our Ar'ab guide points to a round mountain-top about six miles to the
west, whose height is less than that of the eminence on which we stand, and much
less than that of mountains a few miles distant both to the south and the north.
Having ridden to the summit pointed out, we find it so smooth as to be tillable,
with gradual slopes on every side but the north; but, on comparing the view with
that ascribed to Moses in the thirty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, we find that
it fails in two points. "The south," the low country lying south of the
mountains of Judah, is not visible, because a high mountain a few miles south of
us, which juts out nearer to the Dead Sea, shuts it off. Neither is "the plain
of the valley of Jericho" in full view, for only a small portion of its
southwestern part is seen, while the site of Jericho itself is shut off by a
lower spur of Mount Nebo. These points of failure led Professor Payne, of the
American Palestine Exploration Society, to look farther for the actual spot on
which Moses stood. In addition to its main crest, Mount Nebo has two lower
spurs, or knobs, one due west and the other a little south of west from the main
crest, connected to the latter and to each other by low intervening saddles.
From the former of these called Jebel Siâghah, on whose summit are the ruins of
a heathen temple, the entire Valley of Jericho is in full view, and also the
entire Plain of Moab; but "the south," which was seen by Moses, is still shut
off by the intervening mountain above mentioned. The other knob, which is due
southwest of this and of equal height, is the next resort, and here all the
requirements of the Scripture text are met. The plain of the Jordan on both
sides of the river is seen as distinctly as from the second point, and on
looking south we find that we are now far enough westward to see around the
point of the intercepting mountain south of us, and there, in the horizon, is
the long curve by which the high mountains about Hebron descend into the lower
"south country," and a portion of the latter comes into view. This knob, then,
is the Pisgah on the top of which Moses stood to obtain his last view of the
Promised Land. It is said that he went up from the plains of Moab into the
mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jericho, and here is
Nebo with a Pisgah (height) as its most western summit, the only summit from
which all can be seen which Moses saw. The disappointment which one experiences
on observing that this famous mountain is lower than some others near it is
removed when we descend to the plain below, and look back at it from the point
at which Moses stood when he was commanded to ascend it. Here, on account of its
greater proximity to us, it appears fully as high as any adjacent mountain-top,
and to the eyes of Israel, who were camped here, Moses appeared to ascend one of
the highest mountains in the Moab range. They could all see him from their
tent-doors up to the moment that he ceased gazing upon the Promised Land and
laid himself down to die. The reader should here be cautioned against a
misunderstanding of one statement concerning the view enjoyed by Moses. It is
said that the Lord showed him "all the land of Judah to the utmost sea." This
clause has been construed as if it stated that he saw the sea itself; but it
does not so state, neither is this possible, for the intervening mountains are
too high and the distance is too great for the actual surface of the sea to be
visible. The range of vision, however, reaches as far as the sea without
bringing the sea into view, and this is all that the text asserts. When the
author and his party had satisfied themselves with the view from the top of
Pisgah, and had indulged in such reflections as were naturally inspired by
standing where Moses stood and viewing the same landscape o'er, we directed
Sheikh Fellah' to lead us to our tents, which had been pitched at the Springs of
Moses, on the northern side of Mount Nebo, 1100 feet below its summit. We
expected, from the apparent steepness of the descent, a very steep and fatiguing
ride; but to our surprise and gratification he led us by a path that was smooth
and easy almost the entire way. It is probably the same path mentioned by
Professor Payne in the essay already referred to. The Springs of Moses are a
group of springs which issue from the rocky side of Mount Nebo, rush down into
the narrow bottom of the valley called Wâd'y Mûsa (the Valley of Moses), making
several beautiful cascades on their way, and thence flow westward into the
Jordan. Nothing was known by Europeans of this wâdy or these springs until a few
years ago; but the name has lingered among the native inhabitants through all
the dark ages of the past, and now it comes to light to confirm, by the evidence
of local tradition, the Bible record, which fixes here the closing event in the
life of Moses. The most practicable route from his tent in the plain to the top
of Pisgah was by way of these springs, and it was here, most probably, that he
quenched his thirst for the last time ere he closed his eyes in a mysterious
death.


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  CHAPTER 20: CHAPTER NINE: THE LAND AND THE BOOK
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Chapter IX.

An Argument from the Agreement of the Land and the Book

There is no line of argument in which the infidel writers of the past century
have more thoroughly united their strength than in an effort to prove that most
of the books of the New Testament were written in the second century of our era.
They assign to these writings a date so early as this because the evidence of
their existence thus early is too conclusive to admit of a doubt. And they
assign to them so late a date because, if it should be admitted that they were
written in the first century, it would be almost impossible to throw serious
doubt on their reputed authorship or on their entire credibility. That these
writers have chosen the line of argument best adapted to the support of their
own cause is demonstrated by nothing more clearly than by the signal failure of
Ernest Renan, the most admired and most brilliant of them all. His admission
that these books were written in the second half of the first century, and by
the authors to whom they are accredited, is so fatal to the course of argument
which he pursues that his "Life of Jesus," though the most brilliant and
entertaining of all the books that have been written in support of the cause of
infidelity, is logically the weakest. When the advocate of Christianity obtains
this concession from his adversary, an easy victory is before him; and when an
enemy of Christianity is constrained to make this concession, his mind, like
that of M. Renan, must be more poetical than logical if he remains an infidel.

Prominent among the many evidences that the historical writers of the New
Testament were eye-witnesses of the events which they record, or obtained their
information from eye-witnesses, is that derived from their unvarying fidelity to
the circumstances of time and place. A fictitious narrative, located in a
country with which the writer is not personally familiar, must either avoid
local allusions or be found frequently in conflict with the peculiarities of
place and of manners and customs. By this conflict the fictitious character of
the narrative is exposed. Should such a conflict be found in the Gospels, or in
any portion of the Bible, it would be impossible to defend them as genuine
documents. The grosser blunders of the kind in question may in the main be
avoided by a careful study of the geography, the topography, and the manners and
customs of the country in which the narrative is located; but, after the most
careful study of this kind, blunders must still occur which will betray the
writer. Such, for instance, are the geographical blunders often seen in
references to our own country published in Europe. An American reader of a
London newspaper is scarcely surprised to find his native city located in the
wrong State, and his native State in the wrong section of the Union; and, as for
the manners and customs of his community, he never expects to see them correctly
represented in a European newspaper or book. Only from the pens of Europeans who
have traveled in this country, and who carefully confine themselves to what they
have seen and heard, do we expect a near approach to fidelity, and we are
surprised when in the writings of these we do not detect some offensive or
amusing mistakes.

Even when a writer is an eye-witness of all that he records, if his narrative
requires him to enter largely into local details, it is almost impossible for
him to avoid some errors, and the more numerous and minute the details the
greater the liability to error. This fact is so fully recognized that a few
errors of this kind, in matters not essential to the principal features of a
narration, are not regarded as detracting from its credibility. But to find, in
an extended narration requiring constant dealing with a multitude of local
details of the most minute character, a never-failing accuracy, would be so
conclusive a proof of the author's entire reliability that a candid mind could
scarcely doubt the truth of the narration, however marvelous it might be. This
liability to error in regard to local details is well known in our courts of
justice. There is nearly always some conflict about such details between
witnesses of known integrity, and it is no uncommon thing to take the jury to
the place where the transaction in dispute occurred, in order that they may
settle by their own observation all questions of the kind, and that, in doing
so, they may determine what witnesses are most worthy of belief. While a failure
in some of these details is expected, even of honest witnesses, the reliability
of the witness in regard to the principal transaction is to some extent tested
by the number and character of these failures, and the witness who is found to
be freest from them is the most implicitly credited by the jury. In applying the
same test to the witnesses concerning the life and sayings of Jesus, and
concerning all the events recorded in the Bible, we are but acting the part of
ordinary prudence, and we should accept the result with the utmost candor. That
there is a general agreement between the Bible and the geography of Palestine is
a well-known fact. Its plains, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, cities, and
deserts are in all parts of the Bible correctly named and correctly located. The
political divisions known to exist are invariably recognized, as are also all
the changes of government through which the country passed in the course of its
long and varied history. In not a single known instance, from the beginning to
the end of the book, is there a failure in any one of these particulars. This
would be beyond precedent, even if the entire Bible had been written at one time
by a single author; but when we remember that its various books were composed by
more than thirty different authors, who lived in different ages, extending over
a period of 1500 years, we can but be astonished at the result. But the ground
for astonishment is not fully realized until we remember that all other
historical writings that have come down to us from antiquity are notoriously
erroneous. As modern research into ancient history has been prosecuted, errors
in all the particulars mentioned above have been detected in ancient writers,
and even among modern writers themselves the chief task of those of later date
is to correct the errors of their predecessors. To such an extent is this true
that intelligent readers of history can read only the later works; and the man
who would now put into the hands of a youth such a work as Rollins "Ancient
History," written only 150 years ago, and a standard work during an entire
century, would be regarded as unfit to teach the young, unless he accompanied
the work with some other of more recent date to correct its errors. But no one
has ever yet found cause to publish a corrected edition of Bible history, nor
have the researches of modern antiquaries had any other effect than to confirm
and illustrate its local allusions and its historical statements. On this fact
alone we might base our argument for the entire credibility of the Bible
writers; but this is only the beginning of the story. The accuracy of a
historian is more thoroughly tested by the minuter matters of geography, such as
the relative levels of different portions of the country, the trees which it
grows, and the peculiar features of its climate. In these the Bible writers are
as unfailingly accurate as in the more general features mentioned above. In all
the books, from Genesis to Acts, the invariable expressions for a journey
between Egypt and Canaan are "down into Egypt" and "up out of Egypt;" the angel
of the Lord who talked with Abraham went "down" from Hebron to Sodom; Jacob was
commanded to "go up" from the plain near Shechem to Bethel; Joshua and his army
"went up" against Ai; Samson always went "down" when he went among the
Philis'tines; the men of Kirjath-jearim were requested to "come down" to
Beth'shemesh and take the ark "up" to their city; Adonijah, with his
conspirators, went "down" to En-rogel; Ahab and his army "went up to
Ramoth-gilead;" the man who fell among thieves "went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho;" Peter "came down" to the saints who dwelt at Lydda; the brethren
brought Paul "down to Cæsarea;" and everywhere, in both the Old Testament and
the New, the people went "up" to Jerusalem, every road leading thither running
upward except the one from Bethlehem. In all these and a multitude of other
instances, the relative elevation of places is correctly recognized, and in not
a single instance of this kind has any of the Bible writers been found at fault.
But what writers could be unfailingly accurate in such matters unless they were
so thoroughly familiar by personal observation with the localities referred to
that they could not make a mistake? Let it be noted, too, that in all these
instances the writers speak in the most incidental way, and are not aiming to
formally state the relative elevation of places. Who that was not perfectly and
habitually familiar with the localities could speak thus incidentally without
frequent mistakes? and who would venture to make allusions of this kind at all
if he were feigning a knowledge of the country which he did not possess? In
regard to the trees of a country a writer may so inform himself as to speak with
accuracy when formally naming the trees which grow there; but if he locates a
narrative in a country with which he is not personally familiar, in his
incidental or unstudied allusions to trees he is very likely to betray himself
by unconsciously substituting the trees of his own country. Yet nothing of this
kind is found among all the Bible writers. Does one of them give a fable of the
trees going forth to choose for themselves a king, he represents them as
offering the crown first of all to the olive, next to the fig, and next to the
vine. But in what other country do these three rank thus with one another, and
with all the trees? And how many persons are there in other lands, even in our
own enlightened age, who know that this is the rank of these three in Palestine?
Jacob is represented as burying his mother's nurse under an oak near Bethel,
though the oak is rarely found in that section of the country; and Absalom is
represented as being caught by the head in the "thick boughs of a great oak,"
though in almost every other country the boughs of a great oak are either too
high or not thick enough for a man's head to be caught in them. When Zaccheus is
represented as climbing a tree, its name is given, "a sycamore-tree;" and the
prophet Amos is made to say, "I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore
fruit," though the sycamore of other countries bears no fruit at all. Who could
venture upon these and multitudes of similar allusions to trees by name, and to
the strange peculiarities of Palestine trees, if he were writing a fictitious
narrative; or who, should he venture upon so hazardous an experiment, would fail
to expose himself by some allusion not true to the reality? The climate of every
country has some features peculiar to itself, especially the character of its
winds. In all north of the equator the south wind is warm and the north wind is
cold; but in some countries the heavy rains are brought by the south wind, in
some by the east wind, and in others by the west wind. The east wind is in some
countries, as in our own, a damp and chilling wind; in others it is very dry.
Now a writer who would always speak correctly and in definite terms of the winds
of a country, must not only live in it, but he must be a close observer. Such
were the writers of the Bible. With them the east wind is the one that withers
vegetation and threatens man with suffocation. The blasted ears of corn in
Pharaoh's dream appear as if "blasted by the east wind;" it was a vehement east
wind in Nineveh that withered Jonah's gourd, and was so hot that he fainted; and
Israel is threatened with an east wind by the prophets. The west wind, on the
contrary, is represented as the rain-wind. "When you see a cloud arise out of
the west, straightway you say, There cometh a shower, and so it is." These
results are owing to the situation of Palestine, which, as regards the east
wind, is common with that of Egypt and Assyria. There lies to the east of all
these countries a desert from which no rain can come, but which sends a dry and
parching wind, that is the terror of the people. And Palestine has to the west
of it the Mediterranean Sea, the only body of water which can supply her thirsty
air with clouds heavy enough for rain. In regard to the manners, customs, and
arts prevalent in the country the Bible writers are equally exact. Fortunately
for our argument the present inhabitants of the country have inherited, to a
very considerable extent, the manners, customs, and arts of its ancient Jewish
occupants, and the traveler sees them enacted before him. Jesus says, "He that
dippeth his hand with me in the dish is he that shall betray me," and now, in
the continued absence of knives and forks and plates, every man at the table
dips his hand into the dish. Jesus also says, "Give, and it shall be given you:
good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and running over, shall men give
into your bosom." How "into your bosom?" The question is unanswered until you
observe the dress of the working-classes in Palestine, which is often only a
coarse shirt reaching down to the heels, with a girdle around the waist. Into
the bosom of this shirt grain may be poured in considerable quantities, the
girdle preventing it from slipping below; and there is no easier way of carrying
a bushel of wheat or barley. The shepherd also stows away weak lambs which
cannot follow the flock in the same capacious pocket, verifying another passage
which says, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs
with his arm, and carry them in his bosom." The Bible, in both the Old Testament
and the New, alludes to the presence of minstrels in the house where a dead body
lies, and their attendance on funeral processions; and, strange as such a custom
appears to a person of another country, there it is before the eye of the
traveler to the present day. He sees, also, the village women gathering up weeds
and coarse grass with which to heat their bake-ovens, and he remembers the
remark of Jesus, "If God so clothe the grass (herbage) of the field, which today
is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye
of little faith!" He reads not in the Bible of houses of wood, nor does he find
such allusions to pieces of timber about the houses as would indicate its free
use in building. True, David speaks of dwelling in a house of cedar. but it is
mentioned as an exceptional thing, and the cedar had been obtained from the
distant Mountains of Lebanon through the kindness of the king of Tyre. It is
true, also, that Darius in his decree concerning the re-erection of the temple
says, "Whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his
house, and being set up, let him be hanged thereon;" but this language is in the
mouth of a king in whose dominion there were many wooded districts. No such
language is ever used by a Bible writer concerning the houses of Palestine, for
there the houses were built exclusively of sun-dried bricks or of stone, and
scarcely any wood at all was used. Instead of joists and rafters for ceilings
and roofs, vaults of stone were built, and even the door-shutters in some parts
of the country were large slabs of stone. We read constantly in the Scriptures
of rock-hewn sepulchres for the burial of the dead; yet for nearly 2000 years no
such sepulchres have been used in that or any other country. The traveler,
however, as he rides through Palestine, finds the solid masses of exposed rock
almost honey-combed with such sepulchres. The skin bottles which, when old, were
not safe for new wine, he still finds in constant use for carrying water to
considerable distances, and for churning milk. The wine he finds no longer a
common drink of the people, for in this particular the modern inhabitants have
changed the ancient custom by making it unlawful to drink wine; yet he finds
that in regard to the culture of grapes and the manufacture of wine, the Bible
writers are true to the country. What reader of the Bible in other lands has not
been puzzled by the statement in the parable of the vine-dressers, that a man
"planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press in it,
and built a tower and let it out to husbandmen? But when the traveler sees in
all the rocky portions of the country, and in some where no vines at all are now
grown, rock-hewn wine-presses of the kind which we have described in a former
chapter of this work, and when he sees about Bethlehem still standing some of
the small stone towers for the use of watchmen who guarded the vineyards while
the grapes were ripening, all is explained, and the Scriptures are found
surprisingly true to the peculiarities of the country. This proof is the more
striking, too, from the fact that these presses were used only by the ancient
Jewish inhabitants of the country; that they have been unused now for 2000
years, and that the modern traveler would not know for what purpose these
singular excavations were made had he not the explanations found in the Bible.
But the best test of a writer's personal familiarity with the events of which he
writes is found in his allusions to the minute features of the localities in
which the events are said to have transpired. The Bible is truly marvelous in
this respect, so that the careful explorer of Palestine finds it his best local
guide-book, and he is frequently uncertain whether he has reached a given
locality until he compares its features with what is said of it in the
Scriptures. As for known localities, he finds them always answering to the book,
except where they have been altered by the hand of man. Should he visit the
locality of Beer'sheba, where Abraham and Isaac are said to have dug wells, and
find no wells nor traces of wells there, he might suppose that they had been
filled up; but should he find in that vicinity, where Isaac is said to have
sowed wheat and reaped the same year a hundred-fold, a soil not at all adapted
to the growth of wheat, he might suspect that the writer had here fallen into a
blunder or a falsehood. But when we visit the country, and find the broad plain
extending eastward for many miles from Beer'sheba yellow with an abundant
harvest, and at the site of Beer'sheba three ancient wells, two of them in
constant use by passers-by, we see again the agreement of the land and the book.
We hear, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, that the man who fell among
thieves was going from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and on examining the
frequented roads which lead away from Jerusalem, we find that all of them except
that to Jericho pass among villages and thickly populated districts, while the
latter passes through rugged hills and ravines that are now and ever have been
uninhabited,—the very road for robbers. We find, too, about half-way, a ruined
khân, corresponding to the inn of the parable, built as a place of refuge from
this very danger. In a description of a storm on the Lake of Galilee an
unprecedented expression is found in the statement that "there came down a storm
of wind on the lake." In universal speech storms are represented as arising,
instead of coming down, and Matthew and Mark, in speaking of this storm, both
say that it arose. But when we sail on the Lake of Galilee, and look for the
source of a storm, we look up to the high mountain-tops which overshadow the
lake, and it is quite natural to one in that position to say the storm comes
down. Here is the evident language of an eye-witness, proving the sincerity of
Luke, who uses the language, when he says that he obtained his information from
"eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." On the eastern shore of that same
lake the hogs into which the legion of demons entered are represented as running
down a steep place into the lake and being drowned. But while there are steep
places all along the eastern shore of the lake, they stand back half a mile or
more from the water's edge everywhere except at one point. This point had not
been observed at all by explorers until a few years ago, because from no part of
the lake-shore usually visited by travelers can it be distinguished. Here the
high hills come close to the shore and descend by "a steep place" to within 40
feet of the water's edge. No stranger nor foreigner could have written such
narrations as these. The account of David's combat with Goliath furnishes
another example equally remarkable. The account represents the army of Saul as
being encamped by the Valley of Elah, and the Philis'tine army confronting it on
the opposite side of the valley, with one of its wings resting on Sho'choh. A
brook ran along the valley which David crossed, and from this "he chose him five
smooth stones" as he approached the giant. Now, the Valley of Elah is
identified, and so is the village of Sho'choh. Should the visitor to the spot
find no mountains on the sides of the valley in the vicinity of Sho'choh on
which the confronting armies could camp, or find no trace of a brook in the
valley, or find that the brook was on the Philis'tine side of the valley, where
David could not reach it without passing the giant, or find that the valley is
too narrow for the recorded movements of the parties, he would be constrained to
admit that at least one Bible writer is at fault in a matter of topography. But
on descending to the spot from his camp at Bêt Nettîff (thus the author
approached it) he sees before him on the opposite side of the valley a sloping
mountain-side, recessed almost in the shape of an amphitheatre, with the village
of Suwei'keh (Sho'choh) on the left. Here must have been the Philis'tine
position, for above Sho'choh the mountain is too precipitous for it. On the
other side there are two gradual slopes, separated by a narrow valley, either or
both of which might have been covered by the camp of Saul. Starting from the
foot of the hill on which Israel was camped, you ride into the valley not more
than 50 yards till you descend into a brook and see, as far as the eye can
follow it up and down, a continuous bed of smooth water-worn stones, from one
inch to six inches in diameter. At a glance, with scarcely an effort at search,
you can pick up a handful of stones of the size and shape which David must have
chosen. Before you lies much the wider part of the valley, allowing an abundance
of room for the combatants to draw near to each other after David had crossed
the brook. When you see all this you know that the author of the narrative must
have been personally acquainted with the locality, and you feel that he must
have been describing a real transaction.

We might make many additional specifications of the agreement in question, but
those now given we deem altogether sufficient for our argument. The thoughtful
reader of the previous chapters of this book, if he be well acquainted with the
Scriptures, will have observed many others. The force of the argument depends on
several considerations; first, on the number of the points of agreement; second,
on their minuteness; third, on the unstudied manner in which they are
introduced; and, finally, on the entire absence of disagreements between the
land and the book. If there were only an occasional coincidence of a remarkable
character, it might be accounted for as an accident; if there were none except
among the general features of the country, these might be accounted for by
supposing that the writers had obtained their information by reading; if they
were all paraded in some formal way, as if the writers were aiming to secure
special attention to them, they might possibly be considered the result of some
special local information; or, if the points of agreement were intermixed with
an equal number, or even a large number, of disagreements, the argument would be
without force. But the reverse of all this is true, and the argument is
unassailable at every point.

Strong as our argument may now appear, its force is intensified when we compare
Bible writers with others who have written on the same country. The historian
Josephus was a contemporary of the apostles, and he published his work on the
"Antiquities of the Jews" in the year 100, the very year in which the Apostle
John died. He was a native of Palestine, and spent there his youth and the prime
of his manhood, enjoying a personal familiarity with nearly all the places of
which he writes. And yet, though equally veracious with other ancient secular
historians, it is notorious that his writings abound in gross exaggerations of
heights and distances, in superstitious legends, and in multitudes of errors
attributable to inaccuracy of memory or of judgment. These are the very errors
into which the Bible writers would have fallen, though actual inhabitants of the
country and witnesses of the events described, had they enjoyed no other than
human guidance. How then, unless thus aided, have they all escaped every one of
these errors? But it is still more to the point to observe, that in the writings
of modern scholars who have visited Palestine with the Bible in hand, for the
very purpose of identifying its localities and reporting them to the world,
there are many errors, the result of inadvertence or of a treacherous memory. It
might appear invidious to make specifications here in the books in which they
most abound; I will, therefore, mention only a few in books of the greatest
accuracy and reliability. Canon Tristram, author of "The Land of Moab," is
deservedly ranked among the safest and most accurate guides to the places of
which he writes; yet Professor Payne has proved conclusively that some of the
objects which he claims to have seen from the top of Mount Nebo are entirely
invisible there. There was no attempt here to deceive, but the learned author
was either misled by his imagination and mistook objects which he saw for others
that were out of sight, or, as Professor Payne with more probability suggests,
"the description must have been written up by the doctor after he had reached
his north-country home," and when his memory had become treacherous. As we have
stated in the Introduction to this work, the most carefully-prepared and
accurate guide-book to Palestine that has fallen into the hands of the author is
that of Baedeker, the Austrian publisher. He employed a number of learned
professors from German universities to visit the country; to traverse it
carefully in every direction; to note down all the objects of interest seen on
every road, with the time necessary to ride from one to another; to describe
every object of unusual interest and give its history; and to make many drawings
and maps to illustrate the verbal descriptions. The work is deserving of the
highest praise, and it often enabled the present writer to correct the errors of
time and distance made by his dragoman, who had passed over the ground with
traveling parties many times. Yet in this book the author found a number of
errors of the kind which we have discussed above, a few of which are still
remembered. In naming the villages between Bethel and Shechem, the order in
which we come to two or three of them is reversed; in the description of David's
praying-place the outer row of columns is called a pentagon and the inner an
endecagon, the reverse of the truth; in a few instances the west is put for the
east, or vice versa, and in regard to Hasbân' the author was constrained to
enter this note in his memorandum: "Baedeker is all at fault in his description
of this place." He has the two hills running north and south instead of east and
west; and the wâdys east and west of the site instead of north and south; while
the large pool he locates on the east instead of the south. Now it is very easy
to account for all these errors without throwing any doubt at all upon the claim
of these editors to have been eye-witnesses of what they describe; and the
errors themselves are so few and insignificant as to scarcely detract from the
high reputation of their authors for accuracy. But if such writers, visiting the
country for the purpose of seeing it leisurely and describing it accurately,
fall into errors of detail in spite of the utmost care to be accurate, what
shall be thought of the three dozen writers whose compositions make up the
Bible, who have not been detected in a single error of the kind, although the
great mass of their allusions to distances, directions, manners and customs, and
local details, are of a purely incidental character? The fact goes far beyond
what we claimed for it in the outset; for it proves that these men not only
lived and wrote in the midst of the scenes which they describe, but that they
were guided by a wisdom which lifted them above the errors inevitable in the
works of mere men of learning. How could they have done what learned and careful
men of their own age and of subsequent ages have failed to do, unless they were
guided, as they claim to have been, by wisdom from on high?

Here we rest our argument, in the confident belief that the candid and
thoughtful reader of this book will acknowledge its conclusiveness and realize
an increase of his faith in the absolute truthfulness of all Bible history. The
impression which an actual observance of part of the facts on which the argument
is based made on Ernest Renan is acknowledged by him in the following eloquent
passage: "The scientific commission for the exploration of ancient Phoenicia, of
which I was the director in 1860 and 1861, led me to reside on the frontiers of
Galilee, and to traverse it frequently. I have traveled through the evangelical
province in every direction; I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria;
scarcely any locality important in the history of Jesus has escaped me. All this
history which, at a distance, seems floating in the clouds of an unreal world,
thus assumed a body, a solidity, which astonished me. The striking accord of the
texts and the places, the wonderful harmony of the evangelical ideal with the
landscape which served as its setting, were to me as a revelation. I had before
my eyes a fifth gospel, torn but legible, and thenceforth through the narratives
of Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract being which one should say had never
existed, I saw a wonderful human form live and move." In these beautiful
sentences is revealed the secret of the admission which they contain in favor of
Jesus and the Gospels; and if such was the effect on the learned French infidel,
shall I not humbly indulge the hope that some who read this book will be led to
see my Saviour and the records concerning him in their true light? If so, I
shall have accomplished the chief purpose for which I have written, and for
which I made the toilsome journey that has enabled me to write.

Respectfully yours, J.W. McGarvey


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  CHAPTER 21: ***PART THREE: LETTERS OF TRAVEL***
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  CHAPTER 22: LETTER ONE: LEAVING HOME AND CROSSING THE ATLANTIC
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Part Third.

Letters Of Travel.

Letter I. Leaving Home and Crossing the Atlantic On Saturday last, March 1st, I
completed the fiftieth year of my age. On Sunday I delivered a parting discourse
before a large concourse of my neighbors and brethren, and on Monday, at 3 P.
M., I started on my long voyage. To bid my friends a suitable farewell was
beyond my power. I did what I could. The tears of many, the good wishes of all,
and the fervent prayers that were pledged for me and mine, made me feel ashamed
that I am not more worthy of such love. But the fiery trial came on Monday when
the carriage drove to the door, and the moment came for bidding farewell to my
own home and household. I had already been up-stairs in my library to take a
last look there, and as I gazed upon the rows of familiar books I said within
myself, "Good-by, my dear old friends; and if I never see you again, God bless
you for the good you have done me and the happy hours we have spent together." I
next went to the kitchen to bid farewell to the servants. Faithful Jim had that
morning expressed an earnest desire to go with me, and when I told him that a
whale might swallow him as one swallowed Jonah, he said, "If he do I can't help
it. I want to go, anyhow. I ain't never seen nothin', and I want to see
somethin' before Idie." He promised me that he will do all that he can for my
wife while I am gone, and I know that he will. When I bade farewell to him and
Fannie, the cook, I had to stop in the porch and lean against the post awhile
before I approached my weeping family. If it had been the hearse at the door,
waiting to take me to the cemetery, there could scarcely have been more grief.
But I must draw a veil over that scene. When I reached the dépôt, bade farewell
to some friends who had gathered there, among them a large number of students,
and took my seat in the coach, I was oppressed with such sadness as I had never
felt before on leaving home. I gazed with dim vision on the good town as it
receded from my view, and the last objects that caught my eyes were the green
pines and the white monuments of the cemetery, with the Clay monument rising
high above the lofty trees. It struck me at once to ask myself, "Is this an evil
omen? Already our first-born lies sleeping there, and shall another of my little
flock or some of my dear friends be laid there ere I return?" And while I
thought on these things I began almost to envy the traveler who has no friends,
no wife, no children. My companions are my cousin, Frank Thomson, a young farmer
from near Lexington, and W. B. Taylor, of Elizabethtown, Ky., a former student
of the Bible College, of Bethany College, and of Virginia University. Our good
ship, the "Pennsylvania," left her dock at Philadelphia at precisely eight
o'clock Thursday morning, the 6th, and as she turned her bow down the Delaware
River passengers on the ship waved their handkerchiefs to friends more numerous
on the shore, while the ship herself saluted the city with a shot from her brass
cannon. Two friends in the city had come with us to the vessel and given us
their benediction; so, having no other friends in sight to salute, I lifted my
handkerchief high, and, giving it a wide sweep, I said to Frank, "Here's to
Lexington!" After standing on deck until the city had faded away in the
distance, until sloops and brigs and steam-tugs and ship-yards had been passed,
and the eye had grown weary with gazing upon unaccustomed objects, we retired to
our rooms to arrange them as our temporary homes. We were fortunate enough, on
account of the small number of passengers aboard, to have an entire room apiece.
We had thought it preferable to be all in one room until we saw how small the
rooms are, and then we were glad of the separation. We had wisely limited our
amount of baggage to a single hand-valise and a heavy shawl for each. At Cape
Henlopen we saw about a dozen sailing-ships lying at anchor within the
breakwater which the United States government has erected there for want of a
good harbor. They were freighting vessels awaiting orders, and ready to sail
whenever trade could be found. The cape is a low ridge of bare sand making out
into the mouth of the bay, with a light-house on its point and some other
buildings scattered about. Cape May, the celebrated bathing-place, is just 12
1/2 miles distant to the northeast, and the space intervening is the mouth of
Delaware Bay. Two pilot-boats were riding off the light-house at Cape Henlopen,
and into one of these the pilot who had thus far directed our ship's course was
transferred by means of a yawl. Here we witnessed for the first time the
perilous descent by a ladder let down the side of our ship into the yawl, which
tossed and danced on the waves 15 feet below. The pilot, after descending the
ladder, watched his opportunity and leaped—at the apparent risk of bruises or
broken bones—into the yawl, seized its rudder-oar, and was rowed swiftly away to
the little pilot-boat awaiting him. Our parting from the pilot was our entrance
into the Atlantic Ocean. It occurred at 4 P. M. Before night closed in the water
had become our horizon on every side, the ship seeming to lie in the hollow of a
vast basin. The sky, which was bright in the morning, had become overcast with
gray clouds, and we retired to our berths not knowing what to expect, but
knowing that in this blustering month of March foul weather was more to be
looked for than fair. On Friday morning I arose early, and ascending to the
deck, found all of our sails set, a high breeze blowing from the northwest, and
our bow set to the east. While standing near the aft pilot-house (our ship has
two pilot-houses, one forward and one aft) I received my first taste of salt
water. The sea was already boiling, and a wave of the larger size, breaking flat
against the windward side of the vessel, sent a shower of spray across the deck,
sprinkling some of it in my face. The ship had begun to roll a little, so that I
had to be careful of my steps, but I remained on deck till eight o'clock, our
breakfast hour, feasting my eyes and my soul on the new and wonderful scenery.
The waves were not rolling but boiling, and every one, after swelling up to a
high point like the peak of an isolated hill, crowned itself with a cap of white
foam and then subsided. I had expected to see some of the "rolling billows" of
which I have read so often, but I have seen not one. The waves were not rising
in long ridges and rolling along at regular intervals, but they rose and fell as
if they were upheaved by a force beneath them, and it was only their general
inclination in one direction which seemed to the eye as if caused by the wind.
They rose, too, in endless variety of size and shape. As you look over them from
your high perch on the deck they appear like a continued succession of hills and
knobs and peaks in a range of mountains, without a single ridge of long and
smooth outline in view. As I sat and gazed on these waves I discovered new
beauties continually. The sea-water at the vessel's side appeared as black as
ink, but as each wave swelled up toward a point, and the light passed through it
just beneath its white cap, its hue was changed to the most beautiful
emerald-green. When the sun shone out these gleams of emerald appeared on the
top of every wave just before its subsidence, and along the wake of the vessel,
where her propeller had broken the watery hills into little hillocks, there was
a long succession of green and black and purple spots, alternating and deepening
in color with the distance. I wondered what there could be in a scene of such
beauty, and in the life-like motions of the noble ship, to make anybody sick. I
felt as if I never could be sick with such objects in view. But when the gong
sounded and I went down to breakfast, I observed that most of the seats at the
table were vacant. I sat down amid the congratulations of the captain and a
passenger opposite me on my freedom from sickness thus far, but I had taken only
a sip or two of my coffee, when my seat was also made vacant, and I retired with
as much dignity as I could to the deck. During the remainder of Friday and all
of Saturday I was sick, sick, sick. I didn't say "Oh my!" nor did I hear anybody
else say it. This expression seems to have passed out of date since Mark Twain
went abroad. Our company said nothing at all. No language was adequate to the
occasion. A sudden paleness, a firm compression of the lips, and a hasty retreat
toward the rail, were the only signs of woe by which we could distinguish each
others symptoms. By Sunday morning I was relieved of my sea-sickness, but I was
completely worn out. The breeze of Friday had steadily increased until it had
become a heavy gale. The ship had reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and all
the passengers had been tossed about without mercy. In the worst period of my
sickness I had been thrown against a table-leg, barking one of my shins, and
then tossed back against the edge of a bench, nearly crushing in two of my ribs.
But I was now able to eat a little breakfast, and my symptoms steadily improved.
All day Sunday we were in a storm. The wind blew furiously; rain and hail and
snow fell alternately; the tops of high waves broke over the vessel and deluged
some part of its deck every few minutes; one of our life-boats, perched four
feet above the deck on strong iron supports called davits, had been dashed to
pieces by one of them; and I saw another burst in the door and window of the
rear pilot-house and flood it with water. As a number of us sat in the
companion-way gazing with awe upon this terrific scene, I took from the lap of
one of the ladies her Episcopal Prayer-Book, and, turning to Psalms 107, read
aloud to the company the following passage:

"They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters, These
see the works of the Lord And his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and
raiseth up the stormy wind, Which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heavens, They go down again to the depths. Their soul is
melted because of trouble, They reel to and fro, And stagger like a drunken man,
And are at their wits' end.

Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, And he bringeth them out of their
distresses."

It struck us all as an exact description of the scene before our eyes, and it
illustrates the wonderful fidelity to nature which is everywhere found in the
Bible.

I asked the captain, the next morning, how high he supposed the highest waves
were on Sunday, and was surprised at his statement that they were at least 40
feet high, and that he had never seen waves rise higher. He had been compelled
to turn out of his course a little and run somewhat before the gale, in order to
prevent the waves from dashing too squarely against the side of the vessel; and
he remarked that very few ships have strength enough to hold as near to the wind
in such a storm as ours did. It was not until I heard these and similar remarks
that I realized how severe the storm had been. I had watched the scene with the
deepest interest, and even with delight. I had found a strange, wild pleasure in
seeing the waves dash over the vessel, and seeing the vessel herself at one
moment lift her leeward bulwarks 30 feet above the water, and at another lean
over until she dipped them beneath the foaming wave. The only hindrance to my
enjoyment was the difficulty of either walking, standing, sitting, or lying
down. In my berth, whether by day or by night, I was rolled about and bumped
against the back, and bumped against the front, with arms tired from holding on,
and knees sore from bracing them against the sideboard to keep me from rolling
on the floor. Sitting was worse than trying to prop yourself on a one-legged
stool, and as for standing, if you wish to realize it on land, try to stand on a
see-saw, close to the fence, when two lively boys are riding on the ends. It was
not till Tuesday morning, the sixth day out, that I got my "sea-legs" on,
completely rigged. When I went on deck that morning the breeze was still a stiff
one, and the waves were pitching high in the air, but the wind was more astern
and the ship was rocking instead of rolling. I found that I could walk like a
sailor, and I felt not a little proud of it until I found that all the other
passengers could do the same. For the first time since the rough weather had set
in I walked forward to the forecastle. The water was now a deep indigo-blue,
with the same intermingling of green and purple which I had seen before. I
leaned against the bulwarks and gazed upon the waves as they parted before the
sharp prow of the ship, and as the vessel rose and fell, bringing me now within
10 feet of the water and in another instant lifting me 30 feet above it, I was
again reminded of the see-saw, but now I was out on the end of the plank, and I
felt like a boy again, saying, "Now we go up, up, up, Now we go down, down,
down." And when I did go up, if my eye was on the water beneath, I felt as if I
were bidding the waves farewell, and were about to mount away to the clouds; or
if my eyes were on the horizon, it would expand as I arose, bringing wave beyond
wave into view, until it would seem as if I were about to see to the ends of the
earth.

During all the raging of the storm I had a complete sense of safety, and such
was the prevailing feeling among the passengers. Though the vessel rolled and
tossed, and mountainous waves were continually breaking against her iron sides
and often flooding her decks, and even dashing their spray high up against her
sails, she neither groaned nor sighed nor quivered. There was none of that
creaking and moaning of the ship's timbers about which the voyagers in wooden
vessels have so much to say. There was no disturbing sound, except when the
stern of the vessel would rise high as a wave sank low, and the propeller,
momentarily left out of the water, would whirl with prodigious velocity, sending
a tremor through the ship and startling us with its fearful rattle. All else was
solid, and all the officers and men were so quiet, orderly, and respectful, both
to us and to one another, that it appeared almost impossible for us to be harmed
by wind and water. Commend me forever to Captain Harris and his crew and the
good ship "Pennsylvania." The most surprising thing about the mechanism of these
iron steamships is the steadiness with which their vast machinery is kept in
position. The boilers of the "Pennsylvania" are 17 feet long and 12 feet in
diameter; and there are three of them. It has two engines, one of them 5 feet in
diameter and the other 7 1/2 feet, while each has a piston-stroke of 4 feet. The
propeller-shaft, running back from these to the stern of the vessel,—about 100
feet,—is of solid iron, about 20 inches in diameter. The weight of all this
machinery is enormous, and the massive engines stand upright above the
water-line; yet, amid the rolling and tossing of the vessel in the roughest
weather, there is no more disturbance of the position or working of any of the
parts than in a good flouring-mill on the solid ground.

We were saddened on Monday morning to learn that during the previous night a
steerage passenger had jumped overboard and been lost. He was an Irishman, and
professed to have been a school-teacher in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He was
intoxicated when he came on board, and continued so. He attracted my attention
the second day out by approaching me on the deck and begging me to drink with
him. I told him that we had both drunk enough for one day, and that he had
better not drink any more, or the captain would lock him up in a dark place.
After he was lost the ship's doctor told me that he had locked him up twice to
keep him from harm. He arose about one o'clock at night, went on deck, and
leaped over the windward side of the vessel when she was rolling in a heavy
gale. He was seen by the watch, and the ship was stopped; but the sea was too
rough to launch a boat in search of him, so we passed on, carrying with us
another warning for those who tamper with wine.

Since the storm subsided we have had delightful March weather. The ship's piano,
the captain's flute, and several indifferent voices have been taxed to entertain
us; pleasant conversation usually kept us at the table till after the waiters
had removed the cloth; lively walks on the deck in the cool, bracing air gave us
exercise; and, taking it all in all, we were beginning to feel very much at home
when the nearer approach of land excited a new impatience. Our voyage was a
lonely one. We saw very few sails, and we met only three steamers. We saw no
living thing in the water, and the only living thing in the air was the flock of
sea-gulls by which we were followed on tireless wings from shore to shore. They
are about the size of a crow, with wings shaped like those of a hawk. They are a
pure white, except the upper side of the wings, which is gray, and the tips of
the wings, which are black. Their wings are almost as thin as those of a bat,
and they poise themselves as lightly in a heavy gale as a hawk can in the still
air of summer. They follow the ship for scraps of food which they find in her
wake. I one day asked an Irish sailor, "Where do the gulls rest when they are
tired of flying?" He waved his hand toward the sea and answered, "Out there on
the sailor's grave." I paused a moment, struck with the poetry in his answer,
and then asked, "Why do you call it the sailor's grave? There are not many
buried there." "Ouch," said he, "I wish I had a dollar for ivory one." The
boatswain, who overheard us, added, "And I wish I had a cent for every one."
"But," said I, "In these days of steamers they don't drop you in the sea; they
take you to shore and bury you." "No, indade," said the Irishman, "the sailor
don't want to be buried in the ground; it is too cold."

I cannot resist the temptation to describe a peculiar kind of dress-parade which
I witnessed on March 14th. I remark, by way of introduction, that our ship has
ten lifeboats, five on each side of the deck. They are about 18 feet long, 5
feet wide, and 3 feet deep. Each is kept constantly supplied with a keg of fresh
water securely lashed in its place; with a water-tight compartment always full
of fresh sea-crackers; and with a full supply of oars ready for use. They each
rest on an iron framework above the balustrade at the edge of the deck, and can
be readily thrown outward and downward until they hang just outside the
balustrade and even with its top rail, ready for passengers and crew to step
into them and be lowered in an instant into the water. Underneath each of these
boats lies a separate apparatus called the life-raft. It consists of two large
logs, if you name them by their appearance, about 12 feet long and 2 feet in
diameter, lying four feet apart, with an open framework of plank filling the
space between and holding them together. The logs are not wood, but solid masses
of cork. In the midst of the connecting framework are two water-tight
compartments, one filled with bread and the other with drinking-water. Captain
Harris had some of them opened for us, and gave us some of the bread to try,
which we found good and sound. On these rafts, when in use, the passenger is
expected to sit or lie as best he can, and it seems quite certain that as long
as he does either he cannot sink, in any storm. They are lashed to the deck, to
be cut loose when the ship is about to sink, or to be thrown overboard, as the
occasion may require.

Now for the fire-drill. At half-past four in the afternoon the bell rang out a
fearful fire-alarm. The passengers were in the secret and on deck to witness the
scene. The instant the bell sounded there began to pour forth from the officers'
and seamen's gangways four streams of men running with all their might. As they
rushed forth each man took his station, which he knew from previous drills and
personal instruction. Within less than a minute 90 men, four times as many as we
had seen before, were on deck and distributed, a group at each boat, a group at
each of the four fire-hoses, a group with axes on their shoulders ready to cut
anything at word of command, the captain on his bridge amidships, and an officer
with a speaking-trumpet at each end of the ship facing the captain. Before we
had time to comprehend all these movements,—sooner than a common steam
fire-engine could get out of its engine-house,—four large streams of water were
playing, each from a hose long enough to reach to any part of the ship. In
another moment or two the boats began to drop to the gunwale, and we were almost
tempted to complete the performance by jumping into them. In the mean time the
stewardess was at her post at the head of the saloon, ready to stop and calm any
frightened ladies, while the stewards and cabin-boys were at the foot of the
gangways to prevent any passengers from passing out until the word should be
given. When the imaginary fire was extinguished, at the word of command all
things were promptly restored to position again, and the little army of men and
officers disappeared from the deck, except those on watch, almost as suddenly as
they had appeared. I concluded that this ship, which I already regarded as
almost proof against water, was certainly proof against fire. I was not
surprised to learn that the owners of it take out no fire-insurance policy. A
drill such as I have described occurs on every trip, so as to keep the men in
perfect training, and an officer passes through the ship every half-hour, both
day and night, to see whether all is well.

It is gratifying to my pride of country to find such perfection of mechanism and
discipline and safety in ships which are built and owned in our own country, and
which sail under the American flag. I am humiliated, however, to know that of
the 20 or more lines of weekly steamships now plying between our Atlantic ports
and the ports of Europe, only the ships of the American Steamship Company of
Philadelphia were built in American waters and sail under the American flag. And
I am annoyed by the information that the chief cause of this banishment of our
flag from the steam marine of the world is unfavorable legislation on the
subject by our own Congress. When will our public men abandon the study of party
politics and begin the study of the country's true honor and glory? On Sunday
morning, the 16th, at about ten o'clock, we came in sight of land. The first
point in view was a high mountain-peak, said to be a naked rock projecting into
the sea with deep water at its base. After this a long ridge of mountain-coast
gradually came into view, and we found ourselves running parallel to the
southern coast of Ireland, but seeing it at a very dim distance. This was our
last day in the Atlantic. Captain Harris invited the passengers to seats in the
saloon, and, after distributing prayer-books among us, he proceeded in a very
earnest and impressive manner to read the Episcopal service for the day. This
service is often read at sea by officers who are profane and intemperate. Under
such circumstances I would not think it proper to even be present; but the
constant demeanor of Captain Harris was in harmony with the service of the hour,
and I really enjoyed it. It is remarkable how the entire tone of a ship's crew
is regulated by that of her commander. I did not hear on the "Pennsylvania" a
single oath or angry word, from officer or man, from shore to shore.

We came off Holyhead, the first land sighted in Wales, on Monday morning, the
17th, at half-past eight. It is a bold, rocky promontory jutting out a few miles
into the water, and marking the entrance into the Irish Channel. It is marked at
night by two light-houses. These guides to the mariner who approaches the rocky
shores by night are strewn so thickly along the coast that you are never out of
sight of them. Every one has some peculiarity, too, by which it is distinguished
from every other. Some shine with a steady light so many seconds, and then go
out so many; some with a flash-light, flashing at certain intervals; some with a
light steadily increasing and then diminishing; and some with an unvarying beam.
All these are described in books which are carried by every ship, so that a
commander, on his first visit to any shore, may know every light that comes into
view. Sometimes there is a dangerous rock far out in the water, whose position
cannot be marked by a light on shore. If such a rock rises above the water, a
light-house is perched upon it; if not, a small ship is anchored near it and a
suitable light is suspended from her masthead night after night, the keeper
making his home in the ship through winter and summer, sunshine and storm.
Indeed, man is fast making the ocean a pliant servant; and, though he may never
be able to say to it, "Peace, be still," it seems that he will be able to say:
Go on your way, wild wind and waves, and, in spite of your fury, I will go on
mine. From Holyhead to the mouth of the river Mersey, on the bank of which
Liverpool is situated, we sailed against a head-wind and a rain. It was the most
disagreeable day to be on deck that we had in our entire voyage. A bar at the
mouth of the Mersey compelled us to "lay to" about two hours, waiting for the
tide to rise. What a pity that the entrance into one of the most important ports
in the world is thus obstructed! We entered the Mersey about four P. M. and
steamed thence to Liverpool, about 15 miles, through a dense English fog. The
tide was still too low for our ship to enter the docks, so a tender (a small
side-wheel steamboat) came to us in the middle of the river to receive the
passengers and their baggage. On this tender were three brethren, who introduced
themselves to me, and presented to me a number of letters written by various
friends in England. They took us through the hands of the custom-house officers
quite speedily, and then conveyed us in a cab to the house of the venerable G.
Y. Tyckle, well known to the Disciples in America, where we were entertained as
cordially as if we had been princes of the blood.

It was quite a relief to know that one long reach of our journey was in the
past; that the Atlantic Ocean was behind us and its dangers stored away among
the things of memory.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 23: LETTER TWO: ENGLAND AND FRANCE INTO ITALY
========================================================================

Letter II.

Through England and France into Italy

We left Liverpool the next morning after our arrival, called to see friends at
Chester and Birmingham, came on to London the following evening, and found
ourselves at rest in the Charing Cross Hotel about eleven o'clock at night. Our
ride through England was very interesting. We saw many things that were new and
strange, among them some that we had anticipated, and many that we had not. We
readily recognized, from previous description, the peculiar construction of
their railway-coaches. They are shorter, lighter, and less expensively
constructed than ours, and are entered by four doors on each side. Each door
leads into a compartment that reminds one of the inside of a short omnibus fixed
to run sideways. It has a front and a rear seat, each long enough for about five
passengers and running the entire length of the compartment, which corresponds
with the width of the car. There is no stove in the coach, but the feet of
passengers are warmed by cylinders of hot water laid on the floor. Neither is
there any water; this is obtained, if at all, at the stations. The official whom
we call the conductor is here called the guard, and he guards you very carefully
against all danger. Our attention was attracted by peculiar modes of farming. We
saw two-horse and three-horse teams, in which the horses were hitched one before
another. Seldom were two horses hitched abreast. The haystacks are all covered
with thatched roofs of straw, as carefully as the houses of some of the
laborers. The lands are cut up into little patches of from one to three or four
acres, separated by hedges or very frail fences. But these little fields are
cultivated with the same precision and care as the market-gardens near our large
cities. They all look as if they had been graded, and those which were recently
sown looked as if they had been raked with a garden-rake. In almost every
instance both the meadows and the ploughed lands were worked into slightly
elevated beds, about eight feet wide, to facilitate drainage; and the furrows
which marked the lines between these elevations were as straight as a
gun-barrel. So, indeed, were the furrows of the freshly-turned soil. The
ploughing is all done with a precision which I have never seen equaled in
America, though I have seen some good ploughing, and have done a little myself.
The hedges are beautiful, even without their foliage; but they are lower and
less compact than I expected to see them. Frank, on whom I depend for sharp
observations on stock and farming operations, remarked that he was not surprised
that the fox-hunters could make their horses leap the hedges and fences, for he
could leap them himself. He said they would not do for mules or hogs. But we saw
not a single hog, or pig, or mule, in our entire ride through the kingdom; and,
what surprised us more, we saw only one ass, and he was turning the wheel of a
brick-yard.

We found the Charing Cross Hotel the most convenient one in London for our
purpose. It is in the very heart of the city, not far from any of the great
centres of business, and from its court you enter the cars for France. On the
streets we found ourselves among familiar names. Our walks were chiefly on the
Strand and Fleet Street, both of which names were as familiar as household
words, while nearly all the streets running into them were as familiar by name
as those of Lexington. I felt strange to be actually looking into streets which
history and poetry and romance had made thus familiar from my childhood. I was
in Paternoster Row, and in No. 15, the celebrated book-store of the Bagsters.
Had I not been prepared for it by previous description, I would have been
surprised out of measure to find the sale-room of this greatest of all
publishers of Bibles and kindred works a little affair about 15 feet wide and 20
or 30 feet deep. They sell, however, only their own publications, and they keep
only a few copies of each at their sale-room. Paternoster Row itself also
surprised me. It is a dingy street of old houses, and is only 17 feet wide from
house to house. The sidewalks are each five feet wide, leaving only seven feet
for the street between the curbstones. Many of the streets of London are of
similar width, and few would compare in width with the ordinary streets of our
newer American cities. In walking the streets we saw countless throngs of
people, and a proportionate number of vehicles of every description except such
as we were accustomed to see at home. The most stately dames we saw in England,
and the most lordly gentlemen, were the chambermaids and the dining-room
servants at our hotel. The former moved about the house in their white caps with
so much sobriety and spoke with so much gravity that you were tempted to ask
them who was dead in the house, while the latter, in their narrow-tailed black
coats, white vests, and white cravats, looked and walked as if they were the
proprietors of the house, and we felt that it was almost an impertinence to ask
them to wait on us. They seemed to feel the same way, too, for of all the
dining-room servants I ever saw they were the slowest and most forgetful. I was
about to omit the cab-drivers. Next to the waiters, they appeared to be the most
important men in London. On the eve of our departure from England our party was
increased by the addition of Henry S. Earl, formerly of America, now of
Southampton, England. One of the letters which were delivered to me on the
arrival of our ship at Liverpool was from him, and it informed me that he had
made all the arrangements necessary for joining our party. I communicated with
him by telegraph, and he joined us in London. I have known him intimately for
many years. He is an experienced traveler, and we are delighted to have his
company.

There are three routes from London to Paris between which the preferences of
travelers are divided. The most northern, with the shortest sea-passage, is via
Dover and Calais; the most southern, with the longest sea-passage, is via New
Haven and Dieppe; between these is that via Folkestone and Boulogne. We chose
the last, and we had a smooth passage of two hours across the Channel. Our first
experience of hotel-life in France was at Boulogne, and we were there both
surprised and delighted at the contrast between French and English waiters,
illustrative of the difference between the two nations. Instead of moving with
slow and stately step, the French waiters fairly flew around the room, and we
were greatly amused in looking at them. We were equally amused, though not a
little perplexed, at their ludicrous efforts to make us understand them, and our
still more ludicrous efforts to make them understand us. They took it all with
perfect complacency, seeming neither amused nor vexed by our stupidity. So it
was all through France and Italy, except that some of the Italians appeared as
much amused at us as we at them.

We reached Paris at half past four o'clock on a pleasant afternoon, and drove at
once to the residence of our friend and brother, Jules Delaunay, whom we had
requested by telegraph to procure rooms for us near his own. The drive led us
through the heart of the city, at once introducing us to its most noted
localities. We found the people in their gayest mood and in holiday dress. The
streets were swarming with men, women, and children; vehicles filled with
well-dressed people were moving leisurely about in every direction; everybody
wore a smile, and nobody seemed in a hurry. We began to think that it must be a
fête-day, and we soon saw figures in masks and grotesque regalia walking and
riding about for the amusement of the crowd. It was a kind of carnival which the
Parisians celebrate in the middle of Lent.

We next day saw all the principal streets and squares and many of the public
buildings of Paris, and, although I had read of this city much, and conversed
much with those who had seen it, I was forced to realize, like the queen of
Sheba, that the half had not been told me. Indeed, it is impossible for any
verbal description or any painting to give an adequate conception of the
splendor of this the most splendid city in the world. Its wide streets—called
boulevards—are from 100 to 200 feet in breadth, and are lined with rows of fine
young trees on each side. In some instances there are two rows of trees on each
side, with grass-plats between them 12 or 15 feet in width, and a sidewalk 20 or
30 feet wide between the buildings and the nearest row of trees. Both streets
and sidewalks are of smooth stone or asphaltum, and are kept scrupulously clean,
neither dust nor mud being allowed to accumulate. On the right and left of these
splendid streets rise high palatial buildings of a beautiful light-colored
stone, and appearing as fresh and clean as if built but yesterday; and at
frequent intervals we pass through magnificent open squares, into which many
streets converge as centres, and which are adorned with fountains and statues
and monuments full of history. The most splendid of these monuments is the Arc
de Triomphe (Triumphal Arch), in the northwestern part of the city, and the
magnificence of the city is best appreciated when viewed from the top of this
monument. The arch was erected to commemorate the victories of the Republic and
the Empire from 1792 to 1815. It was begun by the first Napoleon in the year
1806, and completed under the reign of Louis Philippe in 1836. It is a structure
of stone, 147 feet long, 73 feet wide, and 162 feet high. An archway 45 feet
wide and 90 feet high passes through it from side to side, while another of
equal height but narrower passes through it from end to end. Its exterior is
covered with sculptured figures in high relief, representing the most famous
incidents in the personal career of the great emperor, together with striking
scenes in his most famous battles. The walls within the arches are inscribed
with the names of 384 generals and 96 victories. It was built in imitation of
the triumphal arches of the ancient Roman generals and emperors, but it so far
exceeds them that a half-dozen such arches as those of Titus, Constantine, and
Septimius Severus, still standing in Rome, might be hid within its vast
dimensions, and still there would be room for more. When you stand upon the flat
stone roof of this grand monument, and look down upon the surface immediately
about it, you see that it stands in the centre of an open circle, about a
quarter of a mile in diameter, whose clean pavement of asphaltum slopes
gradually away from the arch in every direction. In this circle 12 grand avenues
and boulevards find a common centre, and they radiate from it as the spokes from
the hub of a wheel. They vary in width from 100 to 300 feet, the narrowest of
them having a row of beautiful trees next to the sidewalk on either side, and
the widest having two rows of trees on each side with a smooth grass-plat
between them. Some of them have sidewalks of brick or stone 25 feet wide, next
to these on each side a row of trees, then a smooth green lawn 25 feet wide,
then another row of trees, and then a street for vehicles 100 feet wide, and all
kept almost as clean as the floor of a private dwelling. Standing on the Arch of
Triumph, your vision stretches along these grand avenues until objects moving on
them are dim in the distance; and as you turn from one to another around the
circle, and all the majestic churches, palaces, and domes of the city pass
before you, you begin to realize, as you cannot from any other point of view,
the magnificence of a city which has never had an equal on the face of the
globe. If your mind turns upon the cost in money of all this magnificence, one
or two facts are enough to discourage all further calculations; for the cost of
the Arch of Triumph alone was more than $2,000,000, and all of these wide
avenues were cut through blocks of buildings of every description in utter
disregard of the previous narrow and crooked streets. You will see at the
present day, in some parts of the city, houses three and four stories high, with
one-fourth or one-third of their fronts or rears cut away by a new avenue that
is being opened, and the remainder not yet repaired. This work was inaugurated
by the second Napoleon, and it is still in progress under the Republic. The
grandest of all these grand avenues is the Champs Élysées (the Elysian Fields),
which extends from the garden of the Tuileries, the palace of Napoleon, to the
Arch of Triumph, a distance of a mile and a quarter. The most attractive shops
and the most seductive resorts of pleasure that wealth and genius can contrive
are collected along its course, and it is the most frequented street in all the
city for the sake of evening drives in every variety of splendid equipage. The
cut on the opposite page gives a feeble representation of it looking toward the
Arch.

The Champs Élysées But I find myself running into a description of that which
cannot be adequately described. If you were to set your imagination to work to
picture to yourself the most magnificent city which the genius of man and the
wealth of a great nation could build, you would find it excelled by the reality
should you see Paris on a fine day. We entered a few of the finer churches, and
were both pleased and pained by the sight,—pleased to look upon their splendor
and their enormous proportions, but pained to think how the simple religion of
Jesus Christ is corrupted and degraded in these temples built for the glory of
man. It is said that Notre Dame can seat 20,000 persons, and I would suppose it
to be true; but sure I am that not half the 20,000 could get a view of the
preacher in his pulpit, so numerous are the columns to obstruct the view, and
the deep recesses into which the people would be crowded. In former times these
temples were not supplied with seats of any kind, the people being required to
stand or to kneel on the marble floors during the service, and even now very few
fixed seats are found in them; but the church of Notre Dame is supplied with
several thousand small rush-bottomed chairs, rougher and more unsightly than we
usually have in our kitchens at home. I was astonished that chairs so rude would
be allowed an admittance into buildings where all else is so splendid.

We regretted to leave Paris as soon as we did, but the necessity of completing
our work in Palestine before the hottest weather sets in forbade a longer stay,
and we promised ourselves a more satisfactory visit on our return. We left there
on Friday, March 21st, at 8.40 P. M., and traveled all that night, Saturday, and
Saturday night, reaching Pisa, our next stopping-place, before daylight Sunday
morning. Our route lay through Macon', Modane', the Mont Cenis Tunnel, Turin,
and Gen'oa.

We entered the Alps, and commenced ascending them on Saturday at 8 A. M. In
about an hour we began to see snow on the higher mountain-ridges, and in two
hours more we had reached the snow-line and saw snow on the side of our track.
We had also entered the region of the clouds, which we had previously seen
hanging around the sides of the highest mountains. As we ascended, the mountains
ascended still faster, stretching themselves higher and higher above us, until
at last, about eleven o'clock, there burst upon our view, to the right of our
track, a mountain which overwhelmed us by the grandeur of its proportions. Soon
after we first entered the mountains I threw my shawl on the floor and sat down
on it in the middle of the car, so that I could see alternately out of both
windows, and I regretted that I could not see both ways at once. After gazing
for a time with delight upon the grand peaks and ridges, advancing and
retreating as the train moved on, I exclaimed to my companions, This is finer
than Paris! But when we came in sight of the mountain just mentioned I said,
This is grander than the ocean in a storm; and so it was. Light, fleecy clouds
hung round it, but it lifted its craggy ridge high above them, while fields of
snow about its summit whiter than the clouds gleamed through them, and their
white surface was broken and varied here and there by dark masses of naked rock.
A deep, narrow valley between us and the mountain enabled us to realize the
vastness of its height, and it was near enough to us to make us feel its awful
presence. I kneeled at the window, so as to get an unobstructed view, and as I
gazed upon it, with an admiration I had never felt before in the presence of any
created thing, I could not hold back the tears from my eyes. I had seen God's
ocean in its fury, and gazed upon it with a feeling akin to exultation; but when
I saw God's mountains in their glory, my heart sank and melted within me. I know
not the name of that mountain, but when I remember it I seem to be thinking of a
wild, mysterious dream, and not of a reality. Brother Taylor said that it was
worth our trip thus far to see this mountain and some others almost its equals
in grandeur; and we all assented to the remark. The tunnel through Mont Cenis
(pronounced Ce-nee'), seven miles in length, is one of the marvels of modern
engineering. It took our train twenty-six minutes to pass through it. We
ascended a steep grade, running slowly, about half the distance, and descended
quite rapidly the remainder. We had passed through at least a dozen smaller
tunnels in climbing up to the elevation of the great one, and after leaving it
we passed through about twenty in descending to the elevated plain called
Piedmont'. We reached Turin', the principal city of Piedmont', a little after
dark, and on our journey thence to Pisa, which was in the night, we saw nothing
of the splendid scenery through which we passed.

Pisa

We spent Sunday morning at Pisa, and saw its four monuments, as they are
called,—the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery, and the Campo Santo.
The Cathedral, enriched with marble and statuary from ancient Rome and from
Egypt, surpasses in the magnificence of its interior any church that we saw in
Paris. The priests and acolytes were chanting and marching and parading, and
people were coming and praying and looking around at the dumb show, while an
English-speaking attendant took possession of us and led us about everywhere,
talking aloud and describing to us every object of interest. I felt ashamed at
first to follow him and listen to him, and I rather pulled back; but when I saw
that the people and the priests all seemed to think that it was the right way to
do, I followed and listened. Among other things too numerous to mention, he
showed us a beautiful marble coffin which contained, according to the Latin
inscription on it, the bones of Gamaliel and Nicodemus, both honored with the
title of saint, We smiled at the representation, and the guide smiled. We soon
discovered that he believed as few of the lies he repeated to us about the
relics of the saints as we did, and that his opinion of the priests was as
unfavorable as our own. The Campo Santo is at one side of the paved square in
which the Cathedral stands, and is only a few steps distant from the latter. It
is the burial-place of the distinguished men of Pisa, none being buried there
except by order of the State. It is an oblong enclosure about 150 by 50 feet,
surrounded by a wall 25 or 30 feet high, with no opening in it except one door.
Next to this wall, on the inner side, is a stone pavement about 20 feet wide,
extending all around, with a roof above it supported by the outer wall and by a
row of stone pillars at the inner edge of the pavement. The remainder of the
space is open to the air and is set in grass and flowers. The bodies are buried
under this pavement, and inscriptions cut in the stone mark the spots and give
brief statements concerning the persons. The soil beneath was brought from
Jerusalem in the year 1200, loading 53 ships, and hence the name Campo Santo,
holy ground. A large number of statues grace the enclosing corridor, among which
was one which fascinated us all. It was the statue of a woman whose face was so
carved as to present three different expressions, one in front and one at each
side. Standing in front, the expression was that of inconsolable distress;
standing at her left, it was that of extreme severity; and at her right it was
that of a sweet and placid contentment. We gazed upon it a long time, amazed at
the genius which carved from the cold marble in a single face so many
expressions of human feeling. The inner face of the surrounding wall is almost
covered with paintings in fresco. We were struck with three of these,—one
representing the triumph of death, one the judgment, and one purgatory and hell.
They are each about 20 feet square, and the figures on them are nearly as large
as life. In depicting the awful scenes of the judgment day the artist has played
a joke on the priests. While the righteous are rejoicing on the right hand of
the judge, and the wicked wailing at his left, just between the two is a fat,
naked priest, stretched out horizontally at full length, with the devil pulling
at his ankles to drag him to the left, and an angel tugging at his wrists to
pull him to the right. It is left in doubt which way he will go. A similar joke
is found in the next picture, where the wicked are in hell and the righteous in
heaven. An angel has seized a monk by the hair to drag him out of heaven, while
three other angels have dashed across the impassable gulf to seize a lawyer, a
sculptor, and a poet, who had been sent as if by mistake to the bad place, and
bring them back among the good.

The Baptistery in Pisa The Baptistery is a circular building, about 100 feet in
diameter, and is surmounted by a dome whose top is 190 feet high. It is built
entirely of marble, and is richly ornamented on the outside by sculptured
figures in high relief. It must have been a gem of architectural beauty when the
marble, which is now weather-stained, was white and fresh. It takes its name
from a baptizing-pool within, for the protection and use of which it was
constructed. It stands in the rear of the Cathedral, and about 50 yards distant.
When you enter the massive bronze door you see before you, against the opposite
wall, an elaborately-carved marble pulpit, and in front of this, reaching nearly
to the centre of the building, the baptistery proper. It stands on the marble
floor of the building, its height above the floor, and its interior depth, being
3 1/2 feet, just the depth of most of our modern baptisteries. Its external
shape is a square, with the corners rounded like the rounded corners of a piano.
Its interior would also be a square but for the fact that each of the four
corners is occupied by a small circular pool, 30 inches in exterior diameter and
18 inches interior, for the immersion of infants. The depth of these is the same
as that of the main pool. The remainder of the space, constituting the pool for
adults, is almost in the shape of a cross, and is precisely nine feet each way.
The pool was entered by movable wooden steps, which are not now preserved. This
structure was erected, of course, during the period in which immersion was the
universal practice of the Roman Catholic Church, except in cases of sick adults
and extremely feeble infants; and now, since that church has abandoned the
primitive practice of immersion, this building, erected at a cost of hundreds of
thousands of dollars, stands as a marble monument of this apostasy. No use at
all is made of it now; it is preserved merely as a relic of antiquity and an
object of curiosity to strangers. Its construction was commenced in the year
1153, about a century and a half before a decree of council placed sprinkling on
a level with immersion in the Roman Catholic Church. A few years later it would
not have been built at all. Was this not providential? Of the Leaning Tower I
need say but little, its form being made familiar to school children by the
pictures in their geographies. It is 180 feet high, by about 30 in diameter, and
it leans 13 feet out of the perpendicular. It is built with an outer wall of
marble about 3 feet thick, and an inner one of freestone about 30 inches thick.
Between these is a space 3 feet wide, occupied by a winding stairway of stone
steps by which the top is reached. These steps are deeply worn by the feet of
the millions who have climbed them, and it is curious to note how the worn track
passes to the outer end of the steps on the lower side of the tower, and to the
inner end on the upper side, caused by the efforts of the climber to maintain
his perpendicular. A chime of five bells hangs in the top of the tower,
declaring plainly that the structure was intended as the bell-tower of the
Cathedral, near which it stands. The most frightful place that I have been in
during my entire tour thus far is the top of this tower when I walked around on
the lower side. The people on the square below looked like pigmies, and the
horses like goats; and I could not shake off the feeling when I glanced at the
receding wall under me that the thing was about to fall. I stepped lightly lest
I should topple it over, and I stepped back very soon to the upper side.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 24: LETTER THREE: ROME, NAPLES, VESUVIUS AND POMPEII
========================================================================

Letter III.

Rome, Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless in her
voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was
scattered long ago."

Those lines of Byron, which have clung to my memory from boyhood, were more
strikingly appropriate when they were written, sixty years ago, than they are
today. Rome was then bound hand and foot by the papal dominion, and shrouded in
the darkness of monkish superstition. Priests, monks, nuns, and beggars were the
principal elements of her population, and her visitors were superstitious
devotees from every land, who came to kiss the toe of Peter's image and to bow
down before the Pope. Now, thanks to the vigorous policy of Victor Emanuel, all
the monasteries but one and all the nunneries but one have been suppressed, and
their idle inmates scattered to the four winds; the Pope confines himself within
his palace; we saw not a single nun on the streets during our three days
rambling; we saw but few priests except some that were visitors from other
countries; we saw fewer beggars than in any other city of Italy; and we seemed
to be in the midst of a of a people young and free.

Whether the poet's words are appropriate at all to the present Rome depends upon
the point from which you view the city. If you stand in the square or in the
rear of St. Peter's; in the library or the gardens of the Vatican; if you drive
over the Pinci'an Hill, whose leveled summit—100 feet above the streets below—is
crowned with a beautiful park of trees and flowers, fountains and statues, and
winding ways, where thousands of Romans resort on foot and in carriages every
evening; or if you take your stand on the Corso, the most fashionable street in
the city, at five in the afternoon, and see for an hour a continuous line of
carriages driving each way filled with richly dressed persons of either sex and
driven by liveried drivers, while the street for nearly a mile is lined on both
sides with a dense throng who laugh and talk and gaze upon the passers-by, you
would say that Rome is anything else than "childless and crownless in her
voiceless woe," and that to represent her as holding "an empty urn within her
withered hands" is the breadth of the heavens from the truth. But when you
remember that the imposing obelisk, 134 feet high, which graces the centre of
the square of St. Peter's, was stolen from the dead empire of Egypt; that the
marble slabs which cover the greatest of all church buildings within and
without; the marble and granite and porphyry columns which support her
entablatures and her domes; the armies of marble statues which adorn her
chapels, which occupy acres of ground in the Vatican, which adorn every church,
every palace, every public square, and almost every street in the city, were
nearly all stolen from the buried palaces and temples and amphitheatres of
ancient Rome; that the gay Corso itself is but the gilded lid of a deep coffin
in which lies the ancient Flaminian Way many feet below; that many of these
elevated buildings are perched on the ruins of noble palaces, and that many of
these blooming gardens are trenched underneath by half-filled chambers and
corridors where walked the emperors and orators and poets and warriors of
ancient Rome, you begin to enter into sympathy with the poet. And when you leave
the Tiber, whose banks, raised to a higher level, are occupied by modern Rome,
and move to the eastward among the seven hills of the ancient city, where
massive ruins, robbed of their original ornaments, are crumbling on every hand,
and masses of marble in columns and triumphal arches which could not be moved
are blackened by the touch of time, you realize the full force of those eloquent
stanzas in the fourth canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage from which I have
quoted four lines.

Rome

We spent in Rome Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the 24th, 25th, and 26th days
of March, making our headquarters at the Anglo-American Hotel, where English is
spoken and the accommodations are satisfactory. We employed a guide, and a
two-horse carriage with a movable top, our landlord procuring them for us and
guaranteeing the reliability of the guide. We started out every morning at nine,
and returned at from five to six in the afternoon. Our guide was one of long
experience, who has the entire history of Rome, from the days of Romulus down,
at his tongue's end, and a cut-and-dried speech which he delivers with the tone
of an orator on every object of interest. His English is tolerably good, but
when he struck an attitude, lifted up his hand, and began, "Now, my dear
zhentlemen, you see dat building behind over dar," we had to look at each other
and smile. His name is Philippi Novello. We recommend him to any of our friends
who may visit Rome. By his aid we accomplished more in three days than we could
have done unaided in a month. Our first excursion led us by the fountain of
Trevi (pronounced Tra'vy), where very copious streams of pure water for the use
of the people burst forth amid colossal statues, and rocks in a natural
position. These waters and those of many other fountains are brought by an
aqueduct from the Sabian Hills, 16 miles from the city.

We next passed by the Forum of Trajan, which was brought to light by digging 20
feet below the present surface of the streets, and in which stands Trajan's
Column. This column is of marble, 128 feet high and about 8 feet in diameter. It
is sculptured from bottom to top with representations of incidents in the wars
of this emperor. His statue once stood on the top of it, and underneath the
statue was the urn containing his ashes, but the priests have long since put a
statue of Peter in its place.

We next came to the Colosse'um, the grandest amphitheatre ever constructed. The
exterior is a vast pile of arches upon arches built of brick, 165 feet high,
intended for the support of the tiers of seats within, and accommodating the
stairways by which spectators gained admittance to the various compartments of
the seats. Over each arch of the lower story are Roman numerals cut in the
keystone, and corresponding to the numbers of the compartments within. The
structure is in the form of an ellipse, and its exterior circumference is 1828
feet, more than 600 yards. Within it was capable of seating 87,000 spectators,
and the area in which the games and combats were performed is 288 feet by 183,
or 96 yards by 61. All this space was sometimes flooded with water and naval
battles were fought to amuse the people; but usually it was the scene of combats
between gladiators or between criminals and wild beasts. The original floor of
the arena is more than 20 feet beneath the present surface, but a part of it has
been uncovered, and laborers were at work uncovering more while we were there.
They had brought to light the dens in which the wild beasts were kept, and the
cells of the prisoners and gladiators, and they had but recently uncovered the
grated opening in the floor through which the bodies of the slain were dropped
into a stream below that washed them into the Tiber. This spot possesses
peculiar interest from the fact that many of the early Christians here suffered
martyrdom by being cast to the wild beasts, and it is to such a fate that Paul
alludes when he says of his first hearing before Nero, "The Lord stood by me and
delivered me from the mouth of the lion." Our next ride was to the museum on the
Capitoline Hill, where are gathered together a vast number of statues and
inscribed slabs and sarcophagi, which have been dug from the ruins of ancient
Rome. Many of these filled us with admiration, as they have thousands of
visitors before. I cannot take space even to name them, but I must mention at
least three objects seen here which took us by surprise, and which were out of
the usual course of things in the collection. One is a plate of bronze, about
four feet long, three wide, and an inch thick, inscribed with the actual text of
the decree of the senate which conferred imperial power on Vespasian. It was
Vespasian's commission as emperor, issued in the year 68, I think, of the
Christian era. Another is an actual map of Rome, carved in ancient time on large
slabs of stone. It is a help to the antiquary in identifying the ruins as they
are uncovered. The third is a colossal statue of Apollo, in fragments. I was so
struck with the vastness of this statue that I drew my tape-line and took some
of its measurements. The length of the foot is 6 feet 9 inches. That of the big
toe is 21 inches. The circumference of this toe is 36 inches. The circumference
of the arm above the elbow is 10 feet 5 inches, and the entire height of the
statue was 40 feet. In the afternoon we wandered through the golden palace of
Nero, 50 of the apartments of which have been opened, while 200 are yet filled
with débris and unexplored. Titus, through hatred of Nero, leveled over and
filled up this splendid palace, and built magnificent baths on top of it. Now,
after a lapse of 1800 years, only a small remnant of these baths is left, while
the hated palace, from the very fact that it was covered up to be forgotten, is
preserved almost entire, and its 50 excavated rooms have yielded to modern Rome
her finest statuary and many of her most beautiful specimens of art in marble
and porphyry. It brought a strange feeling over me to realize that I was walking
in the very dwelling of the Cæsar before whom Paul was twice arraigned; the
monster who in the year 64 danced and fiddled while one-third of Rome was
burning down; who cast to wild beasts and burned alive many hundreds of
Christians under the false accusation that they had caused the fire; and who
built this very palace on the burnt district. I knew he was a lover of music,
but I was surprised to learn that he was one of Rome's greatest patrons of
sculpture.

The Pantheon

We spent the remainder of our first day studying a marvelous statue of Moses, by
Michael Angelo, and the Pantheon, the best preserved of all the heathen temples
of ancient Rome. It is a vast circular building whose walls are 20 feet thick
and surmounted by a dome built of concrete marble. It has only two openings into
it, a vast door, 14 feet wide and 32 feet high, closed by shutters of bronze 12
inches thick, and a circular opening in the top of the dome 37 feet in diameter.
The latter opening alone lets in the light, and also lets in the rain. Just
before we entered it had been raining, and a large area of the marble floor was
wet, but the water escapes through holes made in the floor for the purpose. It
was founded 27 years before Christ, and was dedicated to all the gods of Rome.
Since then the popes have robbed it of its images, and consecrated it to the
Virgin Mary and all the saints. Raphael's bones rest beneath its floor, and
Victor Emanuel is buried in a niche cut in its wall, a golden crown and various
other symbols of royalty marking the spot. On our second days excursion we
visited, first, the celebrated Tarpeian Rock, down which criminals were cast in
the early history of Rome. It is now about 40 feet above the surface, and a
grotto near by, entered by a door under a house, shows 30 feet more of its
original face under ground. We next saw the theatre of Marcellus; then the
temples of Fortune and Vesta, both well preserved and curious; then the baths of
Caracalla, the most extensive ruins yet brought to light in Rome; then the Scala
Santa, or holy stairway. This is a stairway of 28 marble steps, the very steps
up which Jesus climbed when last brought before Pilate (?), and three of them
retain spots of his blood to the present day! The Catholic who climbs these on
his knees and kisses the three spots of blood as he goes receives I cannot tell
how many blessings. We saw six men and five women climbing up when we were
there. So deeply have the steps been worn by the climbers that they are now
covered over with plank to protect them from further abrasion.

The Arch of Titus

We next saw the Arch of Titus, the first object which brought us into direct
contact with sacred history. Here stands an arch of marble spanning the street,
erected by Titus to commemorate his conquest of Jerusalem, in the year 70. Our
carriage stopped under it, and to our left, a little above our heads, was a
group of sculptured figures representing Jews carrying the golden candlestick
and the golden table of show-bread, on bars of wood covered with gold. No words
could be written or printed to correspond more exactly with the description of
these vessels found in the book of Exodus. Here, then, is a heathen monument,
erected by the very man who destroyed the temple of God, and standing entire
after the lapse of more than 1800 years, to attest the accuracy of sacred
history.

Passing by many other interesting objects visited that afternoon, I must mention
the curious bone-depository of the Capuchin Monks, so humorously described by
Mark Twain in "Innocents Abroad." Five rooms in the well-lighted basement story
of their monastery are fantastically fitted up with the dry bones of 6000 monks.
The walls on three sides are piled with the larger bones up to the ceiling, the
bones being built together like cord-wood; and the ceilings are completely
frescoed with the smaller bones wrought into as many figures as you ever saw in
a frescoed ceiling. The middle-aged monk who showed them to us seemed to take
pride in the exhibition. On the last day we saw four objects of especial
interest,—St. Peter's Church, which I cannot begin to describe, the Vatican
Library, contained in a gorgeous apartment more than 700 yards in length by
about 20 feet in breadth, the Catacombs, and the prison of Paul's last
confinement. In the library we saw the Vatican MS. of the Old and New
Testaments, written in the fourth century. It is one of the three most valued
MSS. in existence, and we gazed upon it with great interest. It is in book form,
with two columns to the page, and the pages about the size of those in
Worcester's large dictionary. The Greek letters are as uniformly made as if they
had been printed, and the parchment is but little defaced by age. The prison
pointed out as that of Paul in his last confinement is at the foot of the
Capitoline Hill, and is certainly one of ancient Roman origin. It is a small
chamber cut down into the solid rock, and it had no opening originally, except a
circular hole like a cistern's mouth in the top. Paul's prison, if not this, was
like it. It was in such a place as this that the Second Epistle to Timothy was
written; and when we stood in it we were not surprised that he asked Timothy to
come before winter and to bring him his cloak that he had left with Carpus. It
was here that Onesiph'orus, when he was in Rome, found Paul, after searching for
him diligently, and here he oft refreshed him. How heartily my soul responds to
the prayer of Paul, "The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiph'orus"! It was
here that this great hero wrote the words, "I am not ashamed, for I know whom I
have trusted, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
committed to him until that day." And here he also wrote, "I have fought the
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

It was a holy privilege to stand in that dim prison, and to realize that not far
from it must have stood that hired house of the first imprisonment whence were
written Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, Philippians, and Hebrews, and where, in
all probability, the book of Acts was composed by Luke. I realized that now at
last I had touched the verge of the Bible lands which I had come to explore, and
that through the remainder of my journey I would be crossing and recrossing the
track of the great apostle to the Gentiles. The chief purpose of our call at
Naples was to see Mount Vesuvius and the excavated ruins of Pompeii. To save
time and money we took the night train from Rome, feed the conductor to let us
have a compartment in the car to ourselves, so disposed ourselves on the long
and broad seats as to sleep well, and made the trip between eleven o'clock at
night and six the next morning. We stopped in Naples at the Metropolitan Hotel,
where we were annoyed by more little extra charges than we had known before. Our
first day in Naples was devoted to the museum, in which we spent about five
hours on our feet, and which we left with aching limbs. We saw acres of fine
paintings and forests of statuary. I have but little appreciation of paintings,
but fine statues fill my eyes and move my heart; so I gave chief attention to
the latter, and especially to those which had been dug from the ruins of
Pompeii. These constitute the greater portion of the collection and include the
finest pieces. We also examined with surprise and delight innumerable articles
of domestic use and personal ornament and many frescoes and mosaics taken from
the houses of the Pompeiians. We were surprised to find their cooking utensils,
plates, pans, dishes, jars, jugs, bowls, etc., etc., almost exactly like our own
in shape, and especially to see plates and pans made of a tough kind of glass,
thin and transparent. Their jewelry also surprised us. Many of their necklaces,
bracelets, finger-rings, and ear-drops are suitable for use at the present day.
One set of fine jewelry was shown us which was taken entire from a coffin in
which it had evidently been buried on the person of its fair owner. The
frescoes, taken from the walls of rooms by carefully cutting away the plastering
on which they were painted, represent all the varied scenes of life, including
even the sports of children and the worst vices of the abandoned classes; so
that the student who examines the entire collection carefully finds himself
transported to the midst of the actual life of this ancient city, and realizes
what that life was as he cannot realize it from the pages of history. The study
of these objects was preparatory to our walk through the city of Pompeii itself,
which we took the next day.

It will be remembered by our readers that the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum
were buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 of our era. They
were covered, not with lava, which would have burned every combustible thing to
ashes, but with dust and ashes mingled with stones thrown out by the eruption.
The inhabitants were not burned, but smothered; and the houses, though partly
burned, were in the main merely covered up. Pompeii was not very deeply
overlaid, the average depth of the deposit being about 30 feet. From a large
part of the city the ashes and the débris of crumbled roofs have been removed,
so that many streets and hundreds of houses can now be explored.

Near the entrance, which is through one of the ancient gates of the city, we
found another collection of relics taken from the ruins, and among them nine
petrified human bodies. One of these was a woman on her face, trying to avoid
suffocation by holding her mouth close to the ground. Another was a man in the
same position, supporting himself on both of his hands. The body and limbs of
another were twisted about by the writhings of intense torture. A man and a
woman, both on their faces, but with their heads in opposite directions, had
fallen so together that their limbs had petrified in one mass. They were
doubtless husband and wife, who fell from each other's embrace when no longer
able to stand, and remained where they fell. Besides these there were skulls and
other bones in a perfect state; a petrified dog with his collar on; charred
loaves of bread, fruit, eggs, and pieces of clothing; also skeletons of horses,
cats, and chickens. Indeed, the entire life of the city, as the eruption found
it at midnight on the 23rd of August, 79, is exhibited in this collection and in
that in the museum of Naples. After examining the collection we walked through
the streets and deserted houses of the city; we studied and measured some of its
heathen temples; we stood in its tragic theatre, the plan of which is clearly
seen; we walked through its magnificent amphitheatre, which approaches the
Colosse'um at Rome in extent; we noticed the wine-jars still in position within
the wine-shops; we noticed the deep grooves worn in the stone-paved streets by
the chariot-wheels; we crossed these streets on the large stepping-stones, a
foot in height and two by three feet on top, which are found at nearly every
corner; we walked over fields of wheat and other grain under which lies still
buried a large part of the city; and we saw two gangs of laborers engaged in
extending the excavations. We saw the evidences of idolatry and of all sin, even
to the stone-carved signs in front of houses of shame, and we were reminded of
the sins and the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. We were especially reminded of the
fact mentioned by Josephus, that on the night of Pompeii's overthrow Drusilla,
who sat beside Felix when he trembled at Paul's preaching, was here, and that
she perished here, together with her only son by Felix.

We walked through Pompeii in the afternoon, having ascended Mount Vesuvius in
the forenoon of the same day. Our landlord had tried to convince us that we
could not visit both in one day, and he laid before us a plan by which he would
have realized a much larger profit from us than he did; but by dint of inquiry
and the aid of our guide-book, we arranged the excursion for ourselves.

Taking the train at 6.15 A. M. we reached the station at the gate of Pompeii in
about an hour, distance about 14 miles. We had passed Vesuvius on the way, our
track lying along the Bay of Naples, at the foot of the mountain. At the station
we were supplied with a pony apiece and a guide. A rapid ride on the ponies to
the beginning of the ascent, about four miles, and then a slow ride as far as
the ponies could climb with us, which is about half-way up the mountain,
occupied an hour and a half. During this ride our party was increased by five
Italians of the lazzaroni type, every one of whom took the liberty of helping
himself along by holding to the tail of one of the ponies. The first one that
joined us caught Frank's pony by the tail. We regarded him as an interloper. The
ground was as yet nearly level, so, to get rid of him, Frank laid whip to his
pony and put him to his speed. We followed after as hard as we could tear,
almost splitting our sides with laughter at the enormous strides of the Italian
and the tight grip with which he held the pony's tail; but, after a run of
nearly a mile, we gave it up and let him hang on in peace. He was covered with
sweat and dust when we stopped, and he panted like a hound after a chase. The
other fellows took tail when we were on steep ground, where we could not give
them a run. When we reached the point where we left the ponies, we found out
what these fellows were after. One of them was to get a fee for holding the
ponies, though he really tied them to some lumps of lava and left them there;
and the other four were after fees for helping us up the cone of the mountain.
They had a rude chair at the hitching-place, with poles attached to it, on which
they proposed to carry us up at 25 francs ($5) each. We had come here to climb
this mountain, so we disdainfully declined the offer. Then they proposed to help
us up with a rope tied around the waist, by which they would draw us along. This
we also refused; but as we climbed they followed us, hoping that as we grew
fatigued we would yield to their importunities. I was soon left behind by my
companions, who are all much younger than myself. At every step in the
dark-brown ashes I would slip back nearly half a step, and sink in four or five
inches; so I stopped very frequently to rest, and to gaze at the magnificent
scenery spreading out far and wide beneath me. Every time I stopped the
lazzaroni gathered about me with their chatter, trying to take forcible
possession of me, paying no attention to my constant refusal to accept their
services, and robbing me of the quiet necessary to the enjoyment of the scenery.
Finally my patience was exhausted, and I made signs to the most persistent one
that I would seize him by the shoulders and dash him down the mountain if he did
not leave me. He scowled at me angrily, and they all went away. There ought to
be some way of protecting travelers from this nuisance. When I reached the top
of the cone I was completely exhausted. The guide, who was waiting for me about
100 yards away, called to me to hurry on, that I was in danger where I was; but
I was too much worn out to hurry or to be frightened. Just then the mountain
gave an enormous belch, sounding much like the escape of steam from an engine of
tremendous size, and instantly I was enveloped in a thick sulphurous vapor,
which, for a moment, hid every object from my view except the rocks about my
feet. The fine breeze which had fanned us all the way up the mountain soon blew
this away, and before another belch occurred I was around to the windward far
enough to escape the vapor. These belches occur about every five or six minutes.

Crater of Vesuvius The guide led us from the southwest side of the crater, where
we first reached it, around to the north side, our path running along the
crater's verge, but gradually descending. When we reached this point we found
that the north wind, which was blowing, forced the vapor southward, so that we
could see down into the crater, and that by a steep path over hot, reddish-brown
ashes we could descend into it about 100 feet. We did so, and found ourselves on
a mass of black lava, cooled sufficiently to be solid, but still hot enough to
be uncomfortable to our hands. We walked over this a hundred yards or more
toward a central cone, which rises like a great chimney in the centre of the
crater and emits the vapor which we had encountered at first. The vapor is
constantly ascending from the mountain's top, both day and night, and it appears
from below like a white cloud. At night a bright glare of red light is seen in
this vapor as we gaze upon the mountain from the city or the plain below. Just
at the base of the central cone there are several orifices through it, like the
"eyes" of a brick-kiln, out of which flow in a northeastern direction several
streams of lava. We could see them flowing with a white heat near the cone and a
red heat farther away. The solid mass on which we stood approaches so near the
red molten stream that you can walk up, if you choose, and touch it with your
finger. I had picked up a stick of alder as I ascended, just ten inches long. I
went close enough to hold the end of this in the melted mass until it burned
black, and I am bringing it home with me as a memento. Our attendant, with a
common cane, worked out some lumps of the melted stuff, and as they were
hardening buried a copper coin in the side of each, deep enough to be held fast.
We bring these also as mementoes. We had directed our guide to bring along a few
eggs, and these we cooked in little openings at the rim of the crater, where
steam was escaping through the ashes. Such jets of steam force their way out at
many points hundreds of feet below the mountains top, and we tried their
temperature several times during the ascent.

Mark Twain's humorous account of the ascent and descent of this mountain is not
an exaggeration. He exaggerates neither the toilsomeness of the ascent nor the
rapidity of the descent. Neither does he exaggerate the magnificence of the
scenery; but this we did not enjoy to its fullest extent, because in nearing the
top, which is 4000 feet above the sea, we passed through some clouds, and these
afterward lay below us and spread out over the country, hiding constantly a part
of the landscape from our view. When we were below the clouds the view was
magnificent, but not so widespread as from the top.

After mounting our ponies on the return, we rode rapidly back to the station,
the little fellows running down hill with as much ease as on a level. In one of
our runs Frank's pony fell with him at the edge of a puddle of water which he
was trying to escape, and both pony and rider were spread out on the road for a
moment; but no breaks or bruises resulted, and a hearty laugh was the only
expression of our sympathy. We took dinner in the Hotel Pompeii, at the gate of
the buried city, explored the city in the afternoon, took the return train at 5
P. M., and landed safe at our hotel, tired and hungry, in time for what the
Italians call dinner.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 25: LETTER FOUR: EGYPT AND THE PYRAMIDS
========================================================================

Letter IV. Egypt.—The Pyramids At Naples we made the first change in the
original plan of our tour. Finding that we could there take the French steamer
which runs weekly from Marseilles to Alexandria, and reach Alexandria one day
sooner than to go by rail to Brin'disi, and thence by steamer, we made this
change, and thereby secured a pleasanter and cheaper, as well as a swifter,
passage. There was not an officer on board who could speak English, and only two
passengers, but through the politeness of the French and the free use of signs
we got along very well.

We left Naples on Saturday, March 29th, and in sailing away we had a fine view
of its beautiful bay, but we concluded that its beauty has been exaggerated. At
the northwestern part of it once stood Pute'oli, where Paul landed on his voyage
to Rome as a prisoner, and the thought that he once crossed this sheet of water,
gazed on that same Mount Vesuvius to the southeast, and saw Pompeii, then
reposing in security at its feet, while Naples was but an insignificant town,
gave the bay and our passage across it their chief interest in my mind. I had
crossed the land-track of Paul in coming from Rome to Naples, and now I was
sailing along the same path through the water by which he came in one day from
Rhegium to Pute'oli, a good south wind filling his sails. Night closed in
shortly after we passed out of the bay. We expected to be awake next morning in
time to see our ship pass between the celebrated Scylla and Charybdis, and also
to see Rhegium, now Reggio. But our ship, being lightly laden, made rapid time,
and passed both places too soon for this. On Sunday morning, however, we saw a
grand and lofty mountain in the distance to our right on the island of Sicily,
covered with snow from its summit one-third of the way down to its base, and
rising just this distance above the neighboring mountains. We at once recognized
it as Mount Etna, the celebrated volcano of Sicily, whose fires have long been
extinguished. I was not prepared to see it so lofty, nor to see it so
extensively covered with snow at the end of March. It is 11,000 feet high.

After losing sight of Mount Etna, and of the southern coast of Sicily which
disappeared almost as soon, we saw nothing more of terra firma until Wednesday
morning. I arose early that morning and took a seat at a table in the saloon,
expecting to spend at least all the forenoon in writing, but on rising to close
a window, through which the air came in too cool, I looked toward the horizon
and saw land. It was a low-lying shore, only a few feet above the level of the
sea. I knew at once that we were nearing Alexandria, so I put away my portfolio,
packed my valise, and stood on deck till the ship came to anchor in the harbor.
We had no sooner reached the anchorage than we were surrounded by about twenty
Ar'ab boats, each containing four or five boatmen of various colors and
costumes, all crying at the top of their voices to engage passengers for the
shore. Such a pandemonium I had never witnessed before, but I was prepared for
it by the statements of travelers, and I quietly waited to hear some boatman
call to me in English. Finally I heard good English from a dark-skinned Ar'ab,
calling the name of Abbott's Hotel, the one we had chosen, and in two or three
minutes more he and his assistants had hurried us and our baggage into his boat,
and we were off through the yelling and struggling crowd toward the
custom-house. So few articles are subject to duty in European and African ports
that the examination of baggage is a mere form, and is very carelessly executed.
At this custom-house we were for the first time asked for passports, and we had
none. I gave the official a letter of introduction which I bore from Governor
McCreary, with his official seal on it, and with this he allowed Brother Taylor,
Frank, and myself to pass. Brother Earl had an English passport, and was all
right.

Pompey's Pillar

We spent the afternoon riding about Alexandria, guided by the dragoman who had
met us at the ship. We saw Pompey's Pillar standing in a dusty lot near an
Egyptian cemetery, and seeming altogether neglected. It was made familiar to me
in my childhood by a story in one of my school-books about a company of American
sailors who once threw a rope over it by means of a kite, climbed to its summit,
and drank a bowl of punch there, while a gaping crowd looked on from below. It
is correctly represented in our engraving. We saw near the old and now abandoned
harbor the last of the ancient obelisks left standing near Alexandria. Others
have been taken to London, Paris, and Rome, where we saw them, and we regretted
that they had not all been left where they were originally erected, that they
might be seen in their natural associations. We saw the Turkish quarter, the
Jewish quarter, and other strange quarters of the city, and we encountered more
strange people, strange costumes, strange customs, strange tongues, and strange
houses than we had ever met with before. As we rode along, gazing with both eyes
open at every curious object, the natives all recognized us as Americans, and
many of the young idlers would call out such American by-words as they had
picked up. Some looked at us quizzically and said, "All right."

A View in Alexandria The population of Alexandria is estimated at 200,000, of
whom 50,000 are Europeans. A new European town has been built in the midst of
the old Oriental city, and the important business of the city is chiefly in
European hands. On Thursday, April 3rd, at 8 1/2 A. M. we took the train for
Cairo, and arrived there about noon. Our route lay through the Delta, crossing
both branches of the Nile, and bringing into view the richest agricultural
district of Egypt. Our first day in Cairo was spent in visiting Heliopolis, the
dance of the Dervishes, the Nilometer, the Coptic convent, and the oldest mosque
in the city. Heliopolis, the ancient city of the Sun, called On in Genesis, was
the place of residence of Joseph's father-in-law, Potipherah. It is five miles
northeast of Cairo. Nothing is left there but mounds of rubbish, the débris of
ancient buildings, and an obelisk which is probably the oldest one in the world.
It is 66 feet high and 6 feet square at its base, and it now stands in a little
wheat-field, with no wall or fence about it to protect it. It is covered with
hieroglyphics on every side from bottom to top, but many of them are hidden by
the dark cells of a swarm of little bees which have taken possession of it. The
dance, or rather the whirl, of the Dervishes is the strangest and wildest
exhibition of religious fanaticism I have ever seen. They are a kind of
Mohammedan monks, and they live at Cairo in a dingy, tumble-down old convent. At
a certain point in their Sabbath worship (Friday is their Sabbath), they walk
out upon a circular space in the middle of the large room surrounded by a
railing, and commence whirling like children turning round on their tip-toes;
and they whirl so fast that their long skirts, shaped like a woman's dress,
stand out nearly straight. They kept this up, accompanied by screeching music
from a choir in the gallery, for just 25 minutes, with only two intervals of
rest of about one minute each; yet none of them seemed to be dizzy, but all
walked without staggering when they were through.

Dancing Dervishes In the Copt quarter we were led down into a cellar under a
cellar, where was a dirty and rudely constructed place for saying mass, and were
shown two recesses in a wall, which looked very much like old bake-ovens with
the fronts knocked out, and were told that Joseph sat in one of these, and Mary
in the other, when they were in Egypt with the infant Jesus. I asked the
ignoramus who conducted us what Joseph it was, and what Mary; and he puzzled his
brain not a little in trying to make me understand who they were. In approaching
this place we very unexpectedly encountered an illustration of a familiar Bible
scene. We heard a loud wailing from women in a house, and asked our guide what
it meant. He said it was the wailing for the dead; that for 40 days after the
death of a person the neighbor-women come to mourn with the family, and there is
a loud wailing every time one of them comes in. On the same day, while walking
through some private grounds to see the Nilometer, I heard a grinding noise,
and, looking into a dark passage in the house, I saw a woman seated on the
ground beside two small mill-stones, turning the upper one by a wooden pin let
into the top of it. Again was a familiar Scripture scene brought unexpectedly
before me in the land of Israel's bondage. The Nilometer is nothing more than a
square stone pillar marked with figures to show the rise and fall of the water.
It stands in an excavation near the river, walled with stone, and connected with
the river by an underground passage. As we stood between this and the river,
next to a perpendicular wall which at this point constitutes the river's bank,
our guide pointed us to the place on the opposite bank where Moses was picked up
out of the bulrushes. We saw no rushes there or anywhere else on the Nile,
though we saw many on the Suez Canal; but we were satisfied that if the spot
pointed out is not the one, it is not many miles from it. The great city of
Memphis, in which the Pharaohs then resided, was situated a short distance
above, and it is highly improbable that the place where Pharaoh's daughter went
to wash at the river's brink was far from the city. Of course this requires us
to suppose that the parents of Moses then lived near here, and not in the land
of Goshen; but in this there is no improbability. Our second day in Cairo was
devoted entirely to the Pyramids of Gizeh (pronounced Ge'zer), so called because
the district in which they are situated has this name. In going thither we
crossed the Nile on a magnificent bridge, as massive and handsome as the London
Bridge across the Thames, and much longer; then we rode up the river about two
miles; then in a straight line nearly due west for six miles, the pyramids being
eight miles from Cairo. The entire ride is over an elevated road about 40 feet
wide, smoothly macadamized, and completely shaded in most parts by rows of trees
standing on both sides and meeting overhead in the middle. We rode out in an
open carriage, with the thermometer about 70°, and all agreed that it was the
most pleasant ride we had enjoyed since we left home. The traveling public must
thank the present Khedive of Egypt for this road and these trees, and also for a
very comfortable stone house at the foot of the great pyramid in which to rest
and take lunch. These trees were planted and are kept alive at great expense. As
it never rains in Egypt, and the shade-trees will not grow without water, they
are irrigated regularly by the use of a vast quantity of water.

Within a few minutes after alighting from our carriage, I was clambering up the
great pyramid, with two Ar'abs climbing before me and pulling my hands, while a
third pushed me behind, and a fourth carried my field-glass and umbrella.
Notwithstanding all this help, I stopped two or three times to rest and to look
about me. With a tape-line I measured many of the courses of stone, and found
that they vary much in thickness. Some are but two feet thick, and some more
than three feet. I measured individual stones that were four feet thick, and one
that was six feet. The stones of the latter two sizes, however, usually run
through two courses perpendicular, like a brick of double thickness with two of
ordinary thickness by its side. When we reached the top we took seats on the
stones, and remained more than an hour, surveying the widespread landscape and
conversing, as well as a dozen babbling Ar'abs would let us, on the various
topics which it suggested. To the west of us, and stretching as far as the eye
could reach, was the great Libyan Desert, with its ocean of yellow sand, as bare
of vegetation as the palm of your hand. To the east, beginning within a few
steps of the pyramid's base, was the green valley of the Nile, growing narrow as
it stretched away to the south, and spreading out like a fan as it stretched
along the Delta to the north. Farther east, this green and beautiful belt is
limited by the rocky cliff east of the Nile, which rises up to the naked desert
stretching away to the Red Sea. Many towns, villages, palaces, palm-groves, and
yellow fields of ripening grain diversified the view along the plain. The valley
west of the river is from seven to eight miles wide, and is terminated westward
by a limestone cliff about 100 feet high, which rises to the level of the
desert. The great Pyramid of Cheops stands on the edge of this bluff, due west
of Cairo, and for a distance of 12 or 15 miles to the south of it other
pyramids, at irregular intervals, mark the line of the same bluff, while the
solid rock of its eastern face is honeycombed with rock-hewn sepulchres for
stowing away the mummies of human beings, cats, and sacred bulls. All of this
space was necessary to bury the dead of the ancient city of Memphis, the city of
the Pharaohs, of Joseph, and of Moses. In the valley between the bluff and the
river lie the crumbled ruins of that great city, with here and there a broken
statue or column half buried in the earth to tell the mournful story of its
desolation. The Bed'awin Ar'abs who dwell near the pyramid are allowed the
privilege of assisting travelers to ascend it, and of guiding them about its
vicinity. They are full of curiosity, and very quick-witted. When I laid my
pocket-compass down to get the bearings of the pyramid, they watched the needle
how it would point one way and dance back to it when disturbed, and they cried
out, "Good, very good!" When they heard me call out to my companions the number
of feet, as I measured the top of the pyramid, they were puzzled to know what I
meant by feet, and they held out their own feet in all manner of positions to
get an explanation. I tried to explain, but made a failure. When at last I wound
the tape rapidly into its case and put it in my pocket, they laughed with
delight, and said, "Very good, Merican man! Yankee Doodle! hurrah!" They had all
heard of Mark Twain. When his name was mentioned, one of them said, "Mark Twain
like de debbil!" I asked, "What do you mean by that?" But I could get no
explanation from him. One of them proposed, as usual, to run down the great
pyramid, on which we stood, across the intervening space of about 200 yards, and
up to the top of the second pyramid, in 10 minutes, for a franc. We gave him the
money, and he performed the feat, bringing back to me a piece of the cement
which originally encased that pyramid, and much of which still clings to its
sides. When thus encased its exterior was as smooth as a plastered wall. The
great pyramid was encased with polished granite.

Pyramid of Cheops

1. 30 feet perpendicular gone from the top

2.Lowest chamber 100 feet below natural rock surface. Unfinished room.

3. Entrance passage.

4. Grand gallery

5. King's chamber.

6. Queen's Chamber

7. Each side of the base (original size), 761 feet 6 inches

8. Rough dark line at right, passage blasted by Calif, Al Mamoun, before true
passage discovered.

After satisfying ourselves with the outside of the pyramid we descended, took
our lunch, walked about the Sphinx and the surrounding tombs for a couple of
hours, and then spent two hours and a half exploring and measuring the interior
of the pyramid. Our work within the passages and chambers was very fatiguing.
The entrance passage is just 3 feet 9 inches wide and 2 feet 11 inches high,
measuring at a right angle to the floor. Of course we had to enter in a stooping
posture, and the angle of descent is 26° 41'. Moreover, the floor is of white
marble smoothly polished, and our only mode of descent would be to slide down
and butt our brains out at the bottom, or to have a rope tied at the outside, to
which we could hold as we descended, but for the fact that notches have been
chiseled in the floor at irregular intervals to furnish a foot-rest. These are
so rudely cut, though, that our boots were constantly slipping on them, and but
for the help of the Ar'abs, whose bare feet seemed to stick to the stone as if
they were glued to it, we would at last have dropped into the sliding method
above mentioned. With two Ar'abs to help each of us, and one apiece to hold a
candle before us, we managed to get along without breaks or bruises; but to take
accurate measurements under these circumstances required some patience and much
straining of our muscles. The mouth of this entrance passage is on the northern
side of the pyramid, about midway between its eastern and western corners, and
48 feet perpendicular above its base. Measuring from the beginning of the marble
floor, we descended 88 feet 4 inches to a pile of sand which has accumulated at
the point where this passage meets with the first upward passage, and which
prevented us from completing the measurement with accuracy. Below this pile of
sand, which has been blown in by the winter winds, the passage continues in the
same direction as before, until it reaches a chamber 101 feet below the natural
surface of the rock on which the pyramid stands. This lower part of the shaft is
stopped up and covered with the pile of sand just mentioned, so we could not
explore it. The pile of sand not only prevented us from completing the
measurement of the entrance passage with accuracy, but also came so near choking
up the passage that we had to stoop our lowest, and snuff up a considerable
quantity of dust that smelt like anything else than cologne, in order to pass
over it. We measured, however, the horizontal surface of the sand, and,
according to the best estimate we could make, the length of the floor of the
descending passage to the point where the floor of the ascending passage begins
is 96 feet. It was originally more than this, for several feet, and perhaps
yards, of the exterior face of the pyramid have been removed. Here I note the
first serious inaccuracy of the measurements given in the little book of Mr.
Seiss called "Miracle in Stone." He gives the length of this chamber (page 84)
as 1000 inches, which equals 83 feet 4 inches. I am certain that it is several
yards longer than this.

We had now descended within a few feet of the natural rock. From this point we
began to climb upward at about the same angle by which we had descended, still
going toward the centre of the pyramid; but the first 15 feet of the original
passage upward is blocked up by masses of granite, and a rough passage has been
cut around these to the right through the soft limestone of which the pyramid is
mainly built. These granite blocks were probably placed here by the original
builders to keep out intruders. The passage forced open around them is very
difficult to ascend, and still more so to descend. We had to have help both
ways, and in coming down an Ar'ab stood below me, took me on his shoulder, and
swung me down and around the most dangerous point. This made me nervous; for if
his feet had slipped, broken bones would have been the certain result. From this
granite obstruction the passage upward, now only 3 feet 5 inches wide, extends
110 feet to what is called the grand gallery. If our estimate of 15 feet for the
obstructed part is correct (we could not measure it accurately), the entire
length of this part of the passage is 125 feet. The figures quoted by Mr. Seiss
(page 84) make it 1542 inches, or 128 feet 6 inches, and are probably more
nearly correct than ours. When we reach what is called the grand gallery, the
ceiling of the passage suddenly rises to 28 feet in height, and, while the width
of the floor remains the same as below, at an elevation of 20 inches above the
floor, the passages widen 20 inches on each side, making the entire width of
this part 6 feet 9 inches. The entire length of the floor of this gallery is 151
feet 4 inches according to our measurement, 155 feet according to Baedeker's
Guide-Book, and 156 feet 10 inches according to Mr. Seiss. We measured with
care, but we may possibly have made a slight mistake.

Just at the lower end of this gallery or hall, and at the right hand as we
ascend, is a rough opening in its side where we see the mouth of what is called
the well. This is a circular passage about 30 inches in diameter descending in a
crooked line to the vicinity of the underground chamber mentioned above. Several
of the Ar'abs proposed to go down this for us, candle in hand, for a fee of a
franc, and they had a loud quarrel as to which one should go. One of them had
already crawled into it far enough to keep the others back; so I decided in his
favor, and he went down about 40 feet to a sharp angle, beyond which he would be
invisible to us. There I told him he might stop, though he proposed to go
farther. I was afraid the fellow would fall and break his bones, for he
descended by straddling his feet across the passage and resting them on little
protuberances from which anybody's feet but an Ar'abs would have slipped. The
purpose of this well is not known. Some suppose that it was dug upward from the
passage below by persons who were seeking for treasures in the pyramid and had
found their way into the lower passage, but not into the upper. The floor is
here level, and we entered the passage leading to what is called the Queen's
Chamber. The width of this passage is 3 feet 5 inches all the way, and its
height, for 106 feet 7 inches, is 3 feet 10 1/2 inches; but at the end of this
distance the floor drops 21 inches, making the height from floor to ceiling the
remainder of the way 5 feet 7 1/2 inches. Here we could stand nearly erect, and
the length of this higher part is 18 feet 1 inch. Thus the entire length of the
horizontal passage leading to the Queen's Chamber is 124 feet 8 inches. This
chamber is 18 feet 10 inches long and 17 feet 1 inch wide. Its ceiling is formed
of slabs of stone with their lower ends resting on the walls and their upper
ends propped against each other, like the two parts of a roof, thus forming a
kind of pointed arch. From the floor to the point of this arch is said to be 20
feet 4 inches. We had no means of measuring it. This chamber is entirely empty,
but, strange to say, its walls are incrusted in places with a thin deposit of
salt, some of which we collected to bring home with us.

Returning from the Queen's Chamber to the grand gallery, we continued our ascent
until we reached a horizontal passage leading into the King's Chamber, the
central and most important opening in the whole pyramid. We had now reached a
perpendicular height of 139 1/2 feet. The horizontal passage through which we
reached the chamber is 24 feet 10 inches long, measuring along its level floor;
3 feet 5 inches wide, and 3 1/2 feet high. When we entered the King's Chamber,
our Ar'abs, whose noise had already been very annoying, set up such a babel of
loud talking to us and loud quarreling with one another that we could have no
conversation. Every one wanted to magnify his own importance by telling us what
we already knew, and he was equally anxious to push his neighbor into the
background so as to get all the buckshîsh' to himself. I finally succeeded, by
yelling louder than all of them together, in bringing them to silence and in
posting four of the candle-bearers near the four corners, while the fifth candle
was held near us to throw light on our measurements. We first measured the
coffer or stone coffin, which stands near the western end of the room and is the
only movable object in the chamber. We found its inside measurement exactly 6
feet 6 inches in length, 2 feet 2 1/2 inches in width, and 2 feet 8 inches in
depth. These figures show that its interior cubical capacity is exactly 66.144
inches; whereas Mr. Seiss, in making it appear that its capacity is the same as
that of the ark of the covenant made by Moses, represents it as 71.250 inches.
This is one of the emphatic points which he makes in his argument, and I am sure
that in it he is mistaken. He also affirms that this coffer could not possibly
have been brought into the pyramid after the latter was built, and from this
draws the inference that it was not intended for a coffin. The inference would
be by no means logical if its premises were granted; for it is obvious that if
the pyramid was intended as a monumental tomb of the king who built it, his
coffin might have been put in position while the work was going on. But it is
not at all certain that the coffer was not brought in through the present
entrance passages. Its external width is exactly 3 feet 3 inches, and the
narrowest part of the passage is 3 feet 5 inches. Its height is exactly 3 feet 4
inches, and the lowest part of the entrance passage is 3 feet 6 1/2 inches.
Consequently it could have been slid along the smooth straight floor and between
the straight sides of the passages all the way from the outside to its present
position. The King's Chamber is 34 feet 5 1/2 inches long from east to west, and
17 feet 3 inches wide, the length being almost exactly double the width. Its
ceiling is flat, and is covered by 10 slabs of stone, which reach entirely
across the width of the chamber. If we allow about 18 inches at each end of
these stones for them to lap on the wall, they are 20 feet long, and their width
is just 46 inches each. These stones, however thick they may be, could scarcely
support the mass of rock piled above them, consequently several openings called
construction-chambers are found above them, with the masonry so arranged as to
furnish the proper support. It is difficult and dangerous, without a supply of
ropes and ladders, to climb up into these, and, as there is no particular
interest connected with them, we did not attempt it.

I was disappointed in regard to the external condition and appearance of this
pyramid. I had been led to think that it was built of the hardest and most
durable limestone, but in fact the stone is of the most perishable kind, some of
the blocks almost as soft as soapstone, and many of them very porous. Evidently
the builder depended on the outside casing of granite, which once covered it,
for its preservation, and since that was taken away a very rapid disintegration
has been going on. The extent of this is best appreciated by standing at the
points of the original corner-stones, which were discovered and uncovered some
years ago by Professor Piazzi Smith, of Edinburgh, and observing that at least
15 feet in depth of the original surface has been taken away on every side. A
large portion of this has been removed in order to build the city of Cairo, but
an immense portion of it now lies at the base of the pyramid in the form of
heaps of broken and crumbled stone, rising 40 or 50 feet high along the
pyramid's side. The khedive has macadamized the turnpike to Cairo from these
heaps, yet we can scarcely miss what he has taken away. There is enough left, I
suppose, to make 100 miles or more of double-track turnpike.

I found it difficult to realize the vastness of the pyramid. It was not until I
stood close to its base and looked up, that it appeared what it really is,—the
loftiest structure on earth built by human hands. The highest cathedral-tower in
the world is that at Strasbourg, which is 473 feet, while the pyramid was
originally 483 feet. And it was not until I had walked along the whole length of
its western side under a scorching afternoon sun, the thermometer in the shade
standing at 93°, that I realized the almost incredible fact that this huge mass
of masonry covers 13 acres of ground. Like all well-proportioned structures of
great size, it appears to the eye smaller than it is. The theory—first advanced
by Professor Piazzi Smith, of Edinburgh, who spent one entire winter at the
pyramid, and made known in the United States through the small volume by Mr.
Seiss, of Philadelphia, which I have mentioned above—that this vast pile of
masonry was constructed by the guide of inspiration, that the measurements about
it and within it show a miraculous knowledge of astronomy and an insight into
the future, and that all the other pyramids, which are confessedly tombs of
kings, were built in a mistaken imitation of this, is rejected by the
antiquarians of Europe as altogether visionary. The reader of "Miracle in Stone"
will himself see the visionary character of the theory if he will observe how
frequently the figures in the mathematical calculations work out the desired
results only by "splitting the difference" where discrepancies occur, and how
frequently coincidences readily accounted for on other suppositions are taken as
positive proofs of a given design. The pyramid shows no more skill in
architecture and no more knowledge of science than is known to have been
possessed by the ancient Egyptians.

We speak of the pyramid because, in comparison with the one which we have
described (called the Pyramid of Cheops), the others, of which there are about
twenty, are scarcely worthy of mention, though they would still be entitled to a
place among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world if their great companion were
taken away. The second pyramid of the group of three at Gizeh is but little
inferior in size to the first, but all the others are greatly inferior to it.

It is expected of every traveler who visits the pyramids that he will give a fee
of two or three francs to the sheikh of the Bed'awin village near by, and this
is professedly all that is demanded for the services of his men. But your
individual attendants use honeyed words to you and press officious attentions
upon you from the moment they get possession of you, in the hope of a special
fee to each. As I climbed the pyramid one of them, whom they called "the
doctor," seized the calves of my legs whenever I sat down, and rubbed them to
keep them from aching the next day. I had to fairly kick the doctor away from me
before I could rid myself of the annoyance. When I was coming out of the
interior passages they began to importune me for buckshish, insisting that I
should give it then and there, so that the sheikh would not know it,—"For," said
they, "if he knows it he will take it from us." I told them they must wait till
I was through with them, and that I would not give them anything at all unless
they quit begging for it. Finally, when we started for our carriage we were
surrounded with a perfect bedlam. We had given them all extra fees, but they
clamored loudly for more, pulled at our arms and skirts, stood in our way, and
seemed determined not to let us move until we emptied our purses. It was not
until I clubbed my umbrella and began to swing it violently around me that they
dodged back and gave me room to breathe and move. And when we were seated at
last in our carriage they still crowded around, holding the wheels with one hand
and stretching out the other for buckshîsh, until our driver laid whip to his
horses and dashed away. Such is the common experience of visitors to the
pyramids, and such it will continue to be until the Turkish authorities learn
something about police regulations such as are established in the
better-governed nations of Europe.


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  CHAPTER 26: LETTER FIVE: EGYPT--THE SPHINX, THE TOMBS AND THE RED SEA
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Letter V.

Egypt: The Sphinx, the Tombs, and the Red Sea

During our visit to the pyramids we saw some of the wonders of ancient Egypt
which I omitted from my last letter. Foremost among these is the celebrated
Sphinx. As our readers are aware, this enormous piece of sculpture has the body
of a lion, reclining, and the head of a man. Its height, from the pavement on
which the forelegs of the lion are stretched out to the crown of the head, is 66
feet. The breadth of the face is 13 feet 8 inches, and the width of the mouth is
7 feet 7 inches,—a tolerably large mouth. The neck is disproportionately large,
being 67 feet in circuit. The width across the front of the breast is 37 feet,
measured along the surface of the sand which always covers the outstretched legs
except when it is freshly dug away. Sand is constantly drifting in from the
desert, covering all the face of the cliff and encroaching on the valley of the
Nile. The length of the lion's back, measured from the back of the neck to the
haunches, is 123 feet, while its width in the middle is 27 feet, and across the
haunches 51 feet. This enormous figure is a part of the cliff on which it
stands, and it was formed by cutting away the rock from around it and leaving it
as it is, and where it will remain, unless destroyed by the hand of man, until
the pyramid shall have crumbled into dust and the earth itself shall pass away.
Its original design and the date of its formation are alike unknown, though they
are the subject of many conjectures. Its face is toward the east, and it gazes
with a steady eye from age to age toward the rising sun. Its features are
greatly mutilated, but they still retain an expression of amiability, and the
peculiar curve of the lips is suggestive of a smile. The cut which we give below
is correct, except that it fails to give the true expression.

The Sphinx

Near the Sphinx, a short distance to the southeast, the sand has been dug away
from a curious and massive structure whose original design is as great a puzzle
as that of the Sphinx itself. It appears, as we approach it, somewhat like a
deep and very large cellar from which the house above has been removed. Square
columns of finely-polished red granite, 4 feet square and 12 high, arranged in
rows which correspond to the walls of large rooms, with passages between,
support blocks of the same material almost as large and long enough to reach
from column to column. Whether a superstructure ever stood above this, and if so
what kind of building it was, is unknown, and not a vestige of such a structure
is visible. It is called the Granite Temple. The space all about the pyramids,
including many acres, is excavated into sepulchres and catacombs, some of the
latter two and three stories deep, and many of these retain on their walls
sculptured figures of beasts and birds, and of men engaged in all manner of
agricultural and seafaring pursuits. Broken pieces of mummy-skulls and other
bones, together with the cloth wrappings which have been torn from them, lie
scattered around where they have been thrown by the searchers after relics. How
little the ancient Egyptians imagined, when they were devoting uncounted wealth
and enormous labor to the embalming of their dead and the construction of these
burial-chambers in the solid rock, that the sleeping bodies would thus be
dragged out of their tombs, dismembered, carried to distant lands as
curiosities, or scattered about the ground like common dust! But such is the
vanity of human hopes and the emptiness of man's grandest achievements when
misdirected. Our day at the pyramids was Saturday, and consequently the next day
was a day of rest. We needed it, for our limbs were stiff and sore from
Saturday's excursion. We attended public worship at the American Mission, the
only Protestant preaching-station in the city, and heard an edifying sermon in
English by Dr. Lansing, the chief missionary. The audience was small, only about
two dozen persons being present; but the audience at the Arabic service, which
was concluded just as we reached the place, numbered probably 200 persons. The
mission belongs to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. It owns a large building in
the most elegant part of the city, containing a chapel, school-rooms for a large
school, and apartments for a family. There is also, in another part of the city,
an English mission-school, in which 300 boys and 200 girls of the native
population receive instruction in Arabic, French, and English, and use the New
Testament as a text-book for reading. A large portion of the Mohammedan
population of the city is being leavened by the influence of these missionary
labors, and the results will be widespreading in the future.

We spent the remainder of the Lord's day in our hotel, the "Grand New Hotel,"
and I must say to its credit that it furnished us the most pleasant apartments,
the most attentive service, and the best-supplied table that we had enjoyed in
all of our travels thus far. It is new, as its name imports, and it is really
"grand." It is built of beautifully-colored limestone, three stories high, with
an arcade veranda of stone across the entire front of every story. The rooms are
airy and well furnished, and a broad yard in front is filled with beautiful
trees and shrubbery, among them a number of splendid bananas. Across the street,
which is wide and clean, is a beautiful park of about 20 acres, with clean walks
winding among shade-trees and rustic buildings, and there a brass band furnishes
excellent music every evening. The park is brilliantly lighted with gas, and
crowds of well-dressed and orderly people resort to it every evening to
promenade, drink wine, and sit in the cool air. Lest any should think strange of
such scenes in an Oriental city, I must remark that while old Cairo is as
Oriental as Damascus itself, there is a new European Cairo which has sprung up
since the Crimean war in the midst of the old city. The influence which France
and England acquired over Turkey during that war has been pushed to the utmost,
and now the most lucrative lines of trade and finance in all the great cities of
the empire are in the hands of capitalists and adventurers from those two
countries, and from Italy, Germany, and Austria. The population of Cairo is
estimated at 400,000 souls, of whom 20,000 are Europeans. There are also 7000
Jewish inhabitants, and some negroes, Bed'awins, Syrians, Persians, and Indians.
One who travels for mere pleasure and curiosity might spend an entire month
there without being wearied with seeing objects of interest belonging to almost
every period of the world's history. I cannot take time to even mention a tithe
of them. On Monday we made an excursion to the necropolis of Sakkar'a, the
southern extremity of the line of sepulchres and pyramids back of ancient
Memphis, and about 12 miles south of the Pyramids of Gizeh. We crossed the Nile
again on the new bridge and drove to the station of the Upper Egypt Railroad,
which runs up the western bank of the Nile, taking with us a guide, a lot of
candles, and a lunch. We went about eight miles by rail to a station called
Bedrashen', whence we rode on donkeys about five miles. This was my first
experience in donkey-riding. My donkey was named Abdallah, and the donkey-boy
was Mohammed. From this boy I received my first lesson in Arabic. When I mounted
the donkey started, and I drew up the reins and said "Wo!" The boy looked at me,
shook his head and said, "English wo! Ar'ab she-e-e." So after that, when I
wished the donkey to stop, I said she-e-e, and he obeyed me. Our ride took us
over a part of the site of ancient Memphis and through a grove of date-palms,
which extends five or six miles along the railway track and is two or three
miles wide. It was the first native grove of this tree through which I had
passed.

Among other relics of the old city of the Pharaohs we saw a mutilated colossal
statue of Rameses II., called by the Greeks Sesostris. When erect it was 42 feet
in height, but it is now prostrate on its face in an excavation five or six feet
deep, which was made in uncovering it, and which was partly filled with stagnant
water when we saw it. It was discovered in 1820 and presented to the British
Museum, but, owing to the difficulty of transporting it, it has never been
removed. The features, like those of the Sphinx, have a very mild and amiable
expression. But what interested us the most on this day's excursion was the
Serape'um, or the sepulchre of the sacred bulls. It will be remembered that the
ancient Egyptians worshiped their god Apis under the image of a white bull, and
that one was kept continually in the temple of that god. When he died he was
embalmed and buried like a king. Their sepulchres consist of a series of
chambers with a passage between them, all excavated in the solid rock of the
cliff many feet below the surface. The entrance to them was completely hidden by
sand which had drifted over it, until it was excavated a few years ago by M.
Mariette, a French archæologist, who built a house in the vicinity and spent
several winters there, with his family, engaged in researches into the
antiquities of that part of Egypt. It is now entered through a perpendicular
doorway closed by a wooden shutter. Candles in hand, we passed through this
door, and found ourselves in a long passage, about 12 feet wide and the same in
height, with solid rock for its floor, sides, and ceiling. As we advanced we saw
chambers on the right and the left, each about 12 feet wide and 15 feet deep,
the side next to the passage being entirely open and rock partitions about 3
feet thick left between them. These are occupied by the sarcophagi of the bulls,
of which 23 still remain in their places. The sarcophagi vary a little in size,
but they are all of smoothly-polished granite, and some of them are carved on
the end with elaborate inscriptions. We measured one of the handsomest, and
found its dimensions as follows: Exterior length, 12 feet 5 inches; exterior
width, 7 feet 6 1/2 inches; exterior height, 7 feet 9 inches; thickness of lid,
3 feet 2 inches; entire height, with lid on, 10 feet 11 inches. The lids of all
of them but one were slid to one side, and the contents all gone, when first
discovered. That one still contained the mummy of a bull. The interior
dimensions of the one I measured—showing the space chiseled out for the mummy of
the bull—was 10 feet 2 inches long, 4 feet 10 inches wide, and 5 feet 6 inches
deep.

About midway the length of the passage we found a sarcophagus which was being
moved to its chamber, but for some reason was left there, almost blocking up the
pass-way. At the end of this passage there is another, which runs at a right
angle to it a few yards and leads into another passage exactly like the first,
and parallel to it. This latter passage has also its chambers like the first, 11
of which are occupied, and it brings us back even with the place of entrance, so
that a narrow cross-passage from it leads us again to the front-door.

After examining these curious relics of ancient heathenism, and seeing some
other remarkable tombs and many pyramids, we returned by a lively ride on our
donkeys to the railway station. The donkey-boys followed us, and did their
driving very well, except that whenever we rode slow they would gather in a
bunch to talk and get so far behind that we had to call them when we wanted to
ride faster. Our gaits were only two, a walk and a canter. When I dismounted at
the station I had the curiosity to measure my donkey, and I found him just three
feet four inches high. On another occasion I tried the weight of one. By putting
one hand under his neck and the other under his girth, I lifted his fore-feet
from the ground without difficulty. A stout man could shoulder one of them, and
I have often seen a man riding one when I thought it would be a fairer thing for
the man to carry the donkey.

While we were waiting at the railway station I took time to notice particularly
the kind of cross-ties which they use in Egyptian railways. They are not of
wood, for there is no timber in Egypt suitable for the purpose. They are merely
iron bars with their ends resting on inverted "wash-bowls," as Brother Taylor
called them. These are bowl-shaped castings about two feet in diameter, which,
laid down bottom upward on the sand, will not sink under the weight of the
train. The iron cross-ties are fastened on these by projecting tips made in the
castings for the purpose, and the track thus constructed seems to answer every
purpose. If wooden cross-ties were a necessity in Egypt, the cost of her
railroads would be enormous; as it is, they are built at very little expense.
The grading on that level and sandy surface costs but little.

We left Cairo on Tuesday, April 8th, by rail for Suez. The route is along the
road to Alexandria for some distance; then it turns to the northeast and goes
direct to Ismailî'a, midway the Suez Canal; thence down the western bank of that
canal, a little east of south, to Suez. The first part of the route is through
the richest portion of Egypt, where grain and cotton are produced in great
quantities, and by methods of cultivation similar to those in Palestine, except
that everything is here produced by irrigation. Where irrigation is employed,
Egypt is green and beautiful the year round; but where it stops, on the very
next foot of earth the bare desert of yellow sand begins. The Nile is the single
source of water for irrigation, and, consequently, but for that river, and
especially for its annual overflow, the whole country would be a desert like the
Sahara. The overflow fills canals and reservoirs, and also saturates the earth
with water, so that shallow wells may be dug in many places in the midst of the
fields which are irrigated from them. Men may be seen everywhere dipping water
by rudely-constructed "sweeps," and sending it through little mud channels to
the spots which need it. Water-wheels worked by cattle and donkeys are also
common throughout the country. The distance from Cairo to Ismailî'a by rail is
99 1/2 miles, and thence to Suez 53 miles. A canal runs parallel, or nearly so,
with the railroad all the way, intended to supply the engines with water, to
irrigate fields by the way, and to furnish fresh water to the towns of Ismailî'a
and Suez. It was dug while the Suez Canal was in course of construction, and
previous to its opening 1600 camels were constantly employed carrying water for
the 20,000 laborers who were employed on that stupendous work. The canal is 153
miles long, and it conveys a stream of water 26 feet wide and 7 feet deep. We
ran over the distance in seven hours, reaching Suez at 6 P. M. This town now
claims a population of 14,000, though before the opening of the canal it had
scarcely 1500. As a town it possesses no attractions. Our object in visiting
Suez was to study the question of the crossing-place of the children of Israel;
and for this purpose we gave ourselves two days there. Three theories have been
advanced on this subject by explorers, the careful study of which had left my
mind in uncertainty and confusion. Our consul at Cairo, Mr. Forman, of New York,
who has been at Suez, told me that I would probably be worse confused after
visiting the place than I was already; but I was resolved to fully test the
matter, let the result be what it might.

One of these theories is, that the Red Sea, in the time of Moses, extended so
far north as to connect with the Bitter Lakes,—a series of shallow lakes
northwest of the present head of the sea, distant about 50 miles,—and that the
crossing occurred at the head of these lakes. Those who adopt this theory
suppose that a heavy wind blowing off shore at low tide carried the water out,
leaving a dry beach on which Israel crossed over, and that, as Pharaoh and his
host followed, the wind changed, the tide came in, and they were drowned. The
second theory adopts the same supposition in regard to the northward extension
of the sea, and assumes that the crossing occurred a short distance above the
present head of the sea, where there is a depression a mile or so wide, in which
the miracle and the disaster might have taken place. Dr. Robinson, whose
judgment I have learned to regard with the highest respect, adopted this view
when he visited the place in 1838. The third theory, and the one which was
universal until the former two almost entirely supplanted it among Europeans and
Americans, is that the crossing occurred several miles south of the present head
of the sea, where the water is deep, and its width is from 8 to 10 miles.

I was determined that on this question, as on all others pertaining to sacred
geography, the Bible should be my guide-book, and that I would accept no place
as the one at which Moses crossed which fails to meet the requirements of the
Scriptures. These requirements are as follows:

1. The place was so situated as to require Israel to turn from the direct route
toward Canaan in order to reach it (Exo 14:2).

2. It was such that when Israel reached it they were "entangled in the land," so
that Pharaoh was encouraged to pursue them (Exo 14:3).

3. It was such that when Pharaoh overtook them there was no escape for them
except by going through the sea (Exo 14:10; Exo 14:13; Exo 14:16).

4. It was such that in opening a passage the waters were divided, not driven
away to one side, and that they were "a wall on the right hand and on the left"
(Exo 14:16; Exo 14:21-22; Exo 14:29).

5. The distance across was sufficient to allow all the 600 chariots and the
horsemen of Pharaoh to be within it at one time, and the water was deep enough
to prevent the escape of a single person when the two walls of water rushed
together (Exo 14:7; Exo 14:9; Exo 14:28).

6. The place was near enough to Ma'rah, now Huwar'ah, 33 miles below Suez, to
allow Israel to march thither in three days (Exo 15:22-23).

7. It was where Israel, after crossing, could find an immediate supply of
drinking-water, so that they did not suffer for water till they came to Ma'rah
(Exo 15:22-23). With these requirements before us, we may dismiss the first
theory mentioned above at once; for, although in a slight degree it meets the
first three requirements, it is utterly inconsistent with the other four.
Indeed, it denies entirely the miraculous character of the crossing; and, if
this event was not miraculous, it was nothing.

It required only my observations from the train in approaching Suez, and a few
minutes spent on the flat roof of the hotel next morning, to satisfy me that the
second theory is also untenable. I stood on the rear platform of the car (it was
one built on the American model) for many miles as we approached the head of the
sea, watching for the indications on this subject, and I searched for them
carefully at Suez; but, although the supposition of a passage at or above Suez
would meet in a good degree all the requirements of the text had there been
enough water there, the absence of water is fatal to it. If Moses had been led
by this route, he would have reached the head of the sea, and he could have
passed around it to the left by making a détour of more than a mile to pass
around it. Only on the supposition that the main body of this arm of the sea
extended many miles above its present head can this theory be accepted; and this
supposition is utterly void of historic evidence. Indeed, the historic evidence
is in opposition to it. In order to be safe in our conclusions, we must take the
sea as it is, without stretching it, and the Bible as it is, without mutilating
it. Our next task at Suez was to test the third and last theory, and to this we
devoted our two days there. The first day we went down to Ay'un Musa (the
Fountains of Moses), about eight miles below the head of the sea on the east
side. We took one of the rude Ar'ab sailboats which abound in the harbor of
Suez, for about half the distance, carrying in it, besides the four boatmen and
ourselves, our guide, five donkeys, and two donkey-drivers. After landing we
rode one hour and a half on the donkeys, the drivers running behind to make them
go and to guide them: the rider can do neither very easily. Mine was well
gaited, and we had no little fun on the ride. The fountains lie about a mile
from the seashore, and are seven in number. We dismounted at the largest one,
took its dimensions, and ate our lunch in a rude building by its side intended
for this use. The fountain rises in the centre of an oblong inclosure, which has
been made around it by building a stone wall some three or four feet high to
keep out the sand. This wall is even with the ground outside, and the basin
inclosed is 46 feet long, 36 feet wide at one end, and 27 feet at the other. The
water forces itself up through soft mud in the centre, and with it rises a
constant succession of gas-bubbles, which explode as they reach the surface.
Through an opening in the wall at the north side the water flows away in a
lively stream two feet wide and four inches deep. This stream is led through a
garden of three or four acres and irrigates it. The garden is filled with a
luxuriant growth of date-palms, acacia- and pomegranate-trees, and under these
beds of garden vegetables and patches of wheat. Another fountain, which sends
off no stream, helps to supply the water for irrigation. There are three such
gardens standing in a line parallel to the seashore, and separated from each
other only by pass-ways like roads. They are watered by five fountains, and
constitute a most beautiful oasis in the midst of a perfectly barren desert. In
the hands of a European of taste and means they could be made a little paradise
for resort from the dirt and the heat of Suez.

All these fountains rise on top of a sandstone ridge, 15 or 20 feet above the
beach which spreads between them and the sea, and nearly that high above the
sand immediately east of them; yet they are 30 feet below the general level of
the desert which stretches away to the southeast, and along which the Israelites
continued their journey after crossing the sea.

One of the Springs of Moses

We could see at a glance that this spot answers all the demands of the
Scriptures as a landing-place for Israel after crossing. A gently ascending
beach one mile wide, and stretching about five miles up and down the seashore,
an abundant supply of water for their immediate use, and an easy march of three
days to Ma'rah, only 25 miles distant, are the features it presents; whereas,
but a short distance above, there is no sea to cross, and immediately below
there is a perpendicular shore at least 50 feet high. Looking directly across
the sea, we saw plainly the gap in the mountains on that side suitable for
Israel's approach to the shore, and we determined to explore it the next day. A
range of mountains called Jebel Atâ'kah presents an almost perpendicular wall on
the west side of the sea, beginning at its head, and stretching along the shore
about eight or nine miles. Farther down the shore there rises the high and dark
wall of another range, called Jebel Abu Durâj. Between these there is a gap, and
for this gap we started in our Arabian boat the next morning. A pleasant breeze
was blowing, making the temperature delightful, but it was a contrary wind,
compelling us to sail in a zig-zag, and making our progress very slow. As we
approached the southeastern extremity of the Atâ'kah bluffs, we discovered that
a low sand-beach, stretching out like a cape two or three miles into the sea,
lay in our way. Our boatmen said that they were afraid to pass around it, on
account of the heavy waves then rolling in the open sea beyond, and that it was
only half a mile across it, so we landed and struck out afoot. Instead of half a
mile, we found it two miles across the beach. We also found that, though we had
now come abreast of the hill which had appeared to be the last of the Atâ'kah
range, another had come into view beyond it and apparently about a mile away.
After taking lunch we struck out for it, but found it three miles away instead
of one, and we found on reaching it that instead of being a hill about 50 feet
high, as it at first appeared, it was at least 300 feet high, and its front was
almost perpendicular. We had not yet learned to estimate distances and heights
in this clear atmosphere by the eye.

Though somewhat fatigued we clambered to the top of this cliff, and found that,
though we had not even yet reached the terminus of this mountain range, the
hills beyond grew rapidly lower and lower, and there was unmistakable evidence
of a valley several miles wide between it and the mountains beyond. Here, then,
was the valley by which Israel is supposed to have descended between the two
mountain ranges to the seashore, and the entire scene of the crossing—meeting in
the minutest particular all the requirements of the Scriptures—lay in full view
at our feet. About three miles to the south of us, and a little west, was the
mouth of the valley, probably three miles wide. On reaching the sea through that
pass, Israel could not turn to the right because of the Abu Durâj' Mountains in
that direction, but to the left a smooth beach, almost as smooth as a floor and
gently sloping to the sea, opened a line of march two miles wide and diverging
about 30 degrees from their former course. When their marching column had
stretched out nine miles along this beach, its front rank found its progress
checked by the body of water, four miles across, over which we had sailed in the
morning. Here, then, they camped beside the sea, as the Lord had commanded, with
the sea on their right and a mountain-wall on their left, the sea also passing
around their front and meeting the mountain-wall in front of their left flank.
While thus encamped, Pharaoh's host came down the mountain-pass behind them; the
cloudy pillar stretched itself across the mouth of the pass, hiding Israel from
the Egyptians, while it spread itself over Israel and the sea, a canopy of
light. The sea was opened from the Abu Durâj' Mountains on the southwest to the
projecting beach on the northeast, a width of about five miles, and the entire
column of the host of Israel marched by a flank movement directly across the
dried bed of the sea. The Fountains of Moses, distinctly in view from our
hill-top, are nearly directly opposite the centre of this line of march, and the
depth of the water before us, according to the British and French soundings
quoted by Baedeker in his guide-book, varies from 9 to 16 fathoms in the midst
of the sea. On both sides the approach to this depth is gradual—as we can
testify from having taken a delightful bath in the water on both sides during
the two hot days of our excursion—and the distance across was about 8 miles for
the head of the column, and 10 or 12 for the rear.

I came down from our hill-top with my mind at rest on the subject of the
crossing-place, and I felt well repaid already for the time and money invested
in my journey. We walked to the seashore at a right angle to the line of our
former walk, and then started for our boat. I had directed our boatmen to come
around the beach as far as they could, to meet us, but they had not moved the
boat from where we left it. I got back to it leg-weary, foot-sore, and almost
ready to drop on the sand. Estimating the distance by my pace and the time
occupied, as I had learned to do with great accuracy by my walk of a mile and a
half to college every morning, we had walked since noon twelve miles, and it was
now growing dark. I reached the shore near the boat last of all our company, and
found that the ebbing of the tide had compelled the boatmen to withdraw their
vessel a hundred yards from the shore. I thought I would have to wade through
the shallow water to it, but, the first thing I knew, one of the Ar'abs went
behind me, stuck his head between my legs, and, lifting me up astride of the
back of his neck, walked to the boat with me, turned around, and seated me on
it. The wind had fallen to a gentle breeze; we had drunk up, several hours
previously, all the water which we had brought with us from the hotel; we had a
burning thirst, and at least two hours of slow sailing were before us. My feet
were almost blistered and very painful. I pulled off my boots, and, sitting on
the side of the boat, hung my feet in the cool salt water as we sailed along.
The effect was almost magical. I felt refreshed all over; the soreness soon
passed away; my thirst was partially quenched; and after enjoying this bath
about half an hour I stretched myself on my back, looked up at the stars,
thought of home, listened to the sigh of the wind around the edge of the sail
and the ripple of the water as it broke past the rudder, and fell into a sweet
sleep. I was awakened by the mutterings of one of the Mussulmans going through
his evening prayer, and found that we were passing the ships in the harbor, and
were nearly home. Thus ended the most toilsome, but the most satisfactory day of
our wanderings thus far.


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  CHAPTER 27: LETTER SIX: THE PENINSULA OF MOUNT SINAI
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Letter VI.

The Peninsula of Mount Sinai

Su'ez is the point from which travelers now set out on the journey to Mount
Si'nai and the desert of the wanderings of Israel. We did not take this journey,
for the reason that it would have required nearly forty days of laborious and
expensive travel to see only a few places of interest, and these have been so
thoroughly explored and described that we thought it of comparatively little
importance to visit them. But our present task would not be complete without an
account of this region. In the fall of 1868 a corps of British engineers, under
the joint command of Captains Wilson and Palmer, was sent to Mount Si'nai for
the purpose of surveying scientifically its vicinity, and of examining carefully
all of the routes by which it is possible for the children of Israel to have
reached it. The Arabic scholar and interpreter for the party was E. H. Palmer,
professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, and from his pen, after the
work had been executed, appeared a book entitled "The Desert of the Exodus,"
which is the most reliable and authoritative account of the country that has
ever been published. It was published at Cambridge in 1871, and republished in
New York by Harper & Brothers in 1872. From it I have chiefly compiled the
matter of this letter, though I have not slighted several other excellent works
on the subject. In our general description of the land promised to Abraham, we
have stated that its boundary in the direction of Egypt was a line drawn from
the mouth of Wâdy el Arîsh, at the southeastern curve of the Mediterranean Sea,
straight across to the head of the Gulf of Ak'abah. The region lying south and
west of this line now demands our attention. It is divided into two distinct
districts,—the desert at the north, called by the Ar'abs et Tîh (the wandering),
and the peninsula of Mount Si'nai, to the south. The former is an elevated
desert with a gravelly surface, interspersed here and there with sharp ridges of
rock, and sloping gradually northward toward the Mediterranean Sea. It is about
150 miles wide at its southern end, and it measures 140 miles north and south.
The latter district is the peninsula lying between the two "horns" of the Red
Sea, the Gulf of Ak'abah on the east and the Gulf of Suez on the west. The
length of the former is 130 miles, and that of the latter is 190 miles. The
peninsula, then, is a triangle whose base from the head of one gulf to that of
the other is 150 miles, whose eastern side is 130 miles, and whose western side
is 190 miles in length. Within this triangle occurred most of the events
recorded in the history of the forty years' wanderings, although here Israel
spent but little more than one year. It is now an almost uninhabitable desert,
occupied only by a few Bed'awin Ar'abs, a few Greek monks in a convent at Mount
Si'nai, and a few Egyptian soldiers in a fortress at the head of the Gulf of
Ak'abah. Its surface consists of mountains of naked rock, chiefly granite, some
of them more than 8000 feet high, narrow valleys between the mountains, a narrow
coast plain along the Gulf of Suez, and some elevated plains of gravel near the
base-line of the triangle. It is so nearly destitute of water that travelers
passing through are compelled to carry water with them over long distances, and
the Nile water, carried in skins on the backs of camels, is often the best water
found on the route as far as Mount Si'nai. Vegetation is found only in the
vicinity of springs and in the wâdy beds, where water flows in the winter and
percolates underground in the summer. The climate is tropical in the valleys,
but in winter the mountain-tops are often covered with snow, and the great
difference of elevation renders the temperature quite variable to the traveler
as he passes alternately over high mountains and deep valleys. The route from
Suez to Mount Si'nai follows the gravelly plain along the coast of the Gulf of
Suez the chief part of the way. This plain is about 12 miles wide, and lies
about 100 feet above the level of the gulf. It is bounded on the east by the
mountain-wall which rises to the general level of the interior. The children of
Israel, after crossing the Red Sea, commenced their journey from the Springs of
Moses, described in our last letter, and this mountain-wall on their left gave
the Scripture name Shur (the wali) to the first desert track through which they
journeyed. The first stage of Israel's journey in this plain is thus described
in Exodus: "So Moses brought forth the children of Israel from the Red Sea; and
they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the
wilderness and found no water." The first stage of the journey made by the
British exploring party is described by Palmer in these words: "From the Wells
of Moses we traversed an unvaried desert plain for three days: there is nothing
to attract attention but the bleached camel-bones that mark the track, and
nothing to afford reflection but the thought that, like the children of Israel,
you have gone three days in the desert and have found no water." On the third
day Palmer reached 'Ain Hawwar'ah, as travelers generally do, and found it, as
all others have, "a solitary spring of bitter water." The bitterness of the
water varies at different seasons, and some travelers have found it palatable.
This is unquestionably the bitter water of Ma'rah, which was sweetened by Moses.
The Arabic name signifies a small pool whose water is unfit to drink. The next
watering-place of Israel was at Elim, where were "12 wells of water and
threescore and ten palm-trees." The time required to reach it is not stated. It
took Robinson two hours and a half, the distance being about seven miles. It is
now called Wâ'dy Ghâr'andel. Robinson found it dry, but he says that water is
found by digging a little below the surface. He saw a few small palm-trees
scattered through the valley. Dr.Ridgaway saw two or three streams of water
running along the valley, and counted 46 palm-trees within a short distance
below his camp. Palmer, in approaching it, says, "A little farther on the eye is
again refreshed by the sight of green tamarisks and feathery palms, and just off
the customary track is a pleasant stream of running water." When the place was
reached by Israel the stream had probably sunk, as when seen by Robinson, and
the 12 shallow wells had been dug to reach the water.

After leaving Wâd'y Ghâr'andel (Elim) the road is shut off from the seashore by
a coast-range of mountains, which rise from the water's edge, and you ascend
over a rocky elevation between this range and the higher mountains of the
interior. This coast-range is called Jebel Hamman' Far'un (the mountain of
Pharaoh's hot spring) from an Ar'ab tradition which accounts for a hot spring at
its base by the supposition that the spirit of old Pharaoh is confined there.
The road next descends into Wâd'y Taiyebeh, which runs out to the seashore at
the southern end of this mountain. This corresponds with the statement in Num
33:10 that "they removed from Elim and encamped by the Red Sea." This is the
only practicable route by which they could reach the seashore, and it is only
one days journey from Elim. But on reaching the shore they entered once more
upon the coast plain, which had been interrupted by the mountain they had
compassed, and the long, narrow strip of smooth plain before them must be, as
the name indicates, the wilderness of Sin; and this agrees with the statement in
Exodus, parallel to that just quoted in Numbers, that "they took their journey
from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the
wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Si'nai." It was while they were
traversing this plain that the first flight of quails was sent to them, and that
the manna commenced falling. From this plain it was necessary for Israel to
ascend through the rugged granite mountains to the elevated plain in front of
Mount Si'nai, and there is only one pass through and up by which it is
practicable for such a caravan to make the ascent. This is Wâd'y Feirân', whose
mouth is nearly 40 miles by the route of travel southeast of that of Wâdy
Taiyebeh. This wâdy is wide and smooth, washed in winter by a stream of water,
and possessing several beautiful oases very pleasing to a traveler who is
wearied with the almost uninterrupted barrenness of the desert. It leads to a
narrow and short pass, by which is reached the plain immediately in front of
Mount Si'nai, called by the Ar'abs Er Râ'hah. Instead of reaching this plain by
this pass, the Israelites might have gone a little farther east and compassed
the mountain on the left of the pass, but this is the only divergence that they
can have made from the route which we have followed. Such was the unanimous
conclusion of the British engineers and explorers, the only men of modern times
who have visited the region with the leisure, the facilities, and the other
qualifications necessary to a final settlement of such questions. The route of
travel is now as accurately determined as any of which we have any account in
ancient history. The plain Er Râ'hah, just mentioned, is about two miles long
and half a mile wide. Its two extremities point to the northwest and the
southeast. At its southeastern extremity it terminates against the front of
Mount Si'nai, which rises from it abruptly, a naked and almost perpendicular
mass of granite, 1800 feet high above the plain and 7359 feet above the sea. The
mountain is described as "a huge block about two miles in length and one in
breadth, with a narrow valley on either side, a somewhat lower one at the
southern extremity, and a spacious plain (Er Râ'hah) at the northwestern end."
Our cut represents this plain with the mountains front rising from its farther
extremity.

Mount Sinai The surrounding valleys of this isolated block are themselves
surrounded by mountains, one of which, Mount St. Catharine, to the southwest, is
more than 1000 feet higher than Mount Si'nai, being 8526 above the sea level.
This is the highest point in the peninsula. The latter was selected rather than
the former for the majestic scene of the giving of the law, because about its
front was an open space for the people to occupy not found near the loftier
mountain. Captain Palmer and his assistants made an exact calculation of the
space in this plain, and found that it contains two millions of square yards,
and that it was capable, therefore, of accommodating two millions of spectators,
with one square yard to every one. But besides this level space, the people may
have occupied the mountain-slopes on every side, and doubtless many of them
preferred such a position on account of the more commanding view which it
afforded, both of the mountain on which God had descended in fire and smoke and
of the vast multitude of the people. Here, at least, may have stood all who
could not find room on the plain, even if the number had been double that which
the plain could accommodate. At the time of the majestic scene in question, the
camp of Israel was not on the plain in front of the mountain, but farther away
to the north, for we are told that "Moses brought forth the people out of the
camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mountain." No
grander sight ever greeted human eyes, or overwhelmed the human heart, than was
witnessed by Israel that day. The granite mountain was first covered with a
thick cloud, from whose bosom the lightnings flashed and the thunders pealed,
while above this fearful din there arose "the voice of a trumpet exceeding
loud." Then, after the people had all assembled, "Mount Si'nai was altogether on
a smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire, and the smoke thereof
ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly."
Meanwhile, "the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder."
Such was the view on the mountain-top, while scarcely less sublime was the view
of the countless throng of human beings, arrayed in garments clean and white,
and standing in solemn awe on all the plains and mountain-sides as far as the
eye could reach. Only Xerxes ever gazed in full view on a mass of human beings
comparable in number, and he, heathen tyrant as he was, burst into tears at the
sight. In all probability no other such assemblage will be seen again until that
day when not one nation, but all, shall stand before God in judgment. The
configuration of Mount Si'nai not only agrees with the Scripture narrative, but
it furnishes some of those very striking coincidences in minute matters which
show the pen of an eye-witness in the narrative. The singular warning is said to
have been given to Israel, "Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to
death: there shall not a hand touch it but he shall surely be stoned, or shot
through; whether it be man or beast, it shall not live." Such a warning, in the
case of the most of mountains, would be an utterly impractical one, because it
would be impossible to tell, on account of the gradual subsidence of the
mountain into the plain, just where the one begins and the other terminates.
But, as we have said before, Mount Si'nai rises abruptly from the edge of the
plain,—"so abruptly," says Professor Palmer, "that you may literally stand under
it and touch its base." Who but an eye-witness of the scene could have assumed
this fact in his narrative?

Again, it is usually the case that a man descending from a mountain-top toward a
plain at its base can look out over the plain and see all that is occurring on
its surface. But when Moses and Joshua were coming down together from Mount
Si'nai, they heard "the noise of the people as they shouted," Joshua thinking it
was "the noise of war, and Moses insisting that it was "the noise of them that
sing," but neither of them was able to see what it was until they came "nigh
unto the camp." If this narrative is true, it must be owing to some peculiar
configuration of the mountain by which the path of descent was hidden from the
plain, although it was within hearing distance. Now, Professor Palmer describes
a path up the. mountain along a ravine, "the most convenient and quickest road"
from his camp in the plain, and he says of it: "Often in descending this, while
the precipitous sides of the ravine hid the tents from my gaze, have I heard the
sound of voices from below, and thought how Joshua said to Moses as he came down
from the mount, 'There is a noise of war in the camp.'" The high elevation of
this region, together with the differences of temperature between the
mountain-tops and the deep valleys between, causes the frequent occurrence of
sudden and violent storms. The experience of the British exploring party in this
particular is humorously described by Professor Palmer in the following passage:

"Camp life in these latitudes is the most healthful and enjoyable thing
possible, but it has its vicissitudes too. One must expect now and then to find
one's self buried beneath the débris of an uprooted tent, to behold one's dinner
hopelessly mixed up with sand which a sudden storm brings on, or to be obliged
to turn out barefoot in the cold and rain to slacken the tent ropes. A whirlwind
is the most curious of all the visitations to which one is exposed; it is as
violent as the most awful storm, tearing up everything in its path, but it is so
partial that you may stand a yard or so off and watch its progress undisturbed.
When, as once happened to me, it is your neighbor's tent which is blown about
his ears, while your own canvas is motionless, there is a great satisfaction to
be derived from witnessing this strange atmospheric phenomenon. Such little
casualties, however productive of indigestion and rheumatism they might be in
our northern climes, are rather amusing than otherwise in desert life; but, like
most luxuries, they must be enjoyed in moderation, or they are apt to pall upon
the taste."

Such incidents, resulting from unchanged physical causes, must have occurred in
the experience of Israel, and an earlier knowledge of them would have prevented
scholars from forming the old and now obsolete conception of the tabernacle as a
structure covered with curtains loosely thrown over its top and hanging like a
pall around its sides. The cut on the opposite page, representing its
construction as now understood, agrees much better both with the nature of the
climate in which it was pitched and with the Scripture text in which it is
described.

Mount Si'nai, on account of the awful scenes connected with the giving of the
law, has been regarded ever since that event as one of the most sacred places on
the earth. Consequently, when monasticism first sprang into existence in Europe,
a swarm of monks and hermits gathered about this mountain, as about many others
in Bible lands, and made here their humble dwellings in natural and artificial
grottos on the mountain-sides. To accommodate and protect these fanatics the
Emperor Justinian in the early part of the sixth century, erected for them a
convent on the eastern side of Mount Si'nai, near its base. There it has stood
to the present day, a curious relic of a superstitious age. It is called the
Convent of St. Catharine, from the circumstance that on the beheading of a saint
by this name in Alexandria her body was borne away by angels to the top of the
adjacent mountain,—thence called Mount St. Catharine,—and that from the top of
this mountain it was brought down by the monks and buried in the convent. The
cut on the following page represents this convent, with Mount Si'nai rising
above it to the left and the plain Er Râ'hah in the distance.

The Tabernacle

Here successive generations of monks of the Greek Church have lived for fourteen
centuries, supported by an income from lands which have been given to them in
different parts of Europe, and spending their time in nothing but a routine of
prayers with empty idleness between. During all that time they have been
surrounded by simple-hearted children of the desert who regard them with
reverence, but who have received no religious instruction at their hands. Most
justly does Palmer exclaim, "A Christian community,—Heaven save the mark!—they
have resided here for centuries without learning one jot of the language or life
of their neighbors, without teaching them one word of religion or truth!" True,
a kind of charity is served to the poor Ar'abs of the vicinity, the very
existence of which, in the entire absence of religious instruction, shows a
perverted idea of Christianity, while the character of it shows how little real
charity is in it. Every morning the monks dispense loaves of bread to such
Ar'abs as apply for them, but Palmer has this to say of the quality of the
bread: "One of these loaves I brought back with me. An eminent geologist to whom
I submitted it pronounced it 'a piece of metamorphic rock containing fragments
of quartz imbedded in an amorphous paste.' No decently-brought-up ostrich could
swallow one without endangering his digestion for the term of his natural life."

Convent of St. Catharine

Only one benefit to the cause of religion has been known to result from the
entire history of this convent, and that is the unstudied preservation in their
old library, which has been accumulating ever since the convent was founded, of
a manuscript copy of the Greek New Testament which has proved to be the oldest
and the most accurate manuscript now in existence. It was accidentally
discovered there by Tischendorf in 1859, the monks knowing nothing of its value.
After much foolish delay caused by the ignorance and avarice of the monks, and
much expense incurred by the Czar of Russia, it was removed thence to the
imperial library of St. Petersburg, where it is now open to the inspection of
the learned. It is known as the Sinaitic Manuscript. Three hundred facsimile
copies of it have been made by a photographic process and distributed among the
libraries of Europe. The journey of the children of Israel from Mount Si'nai
northward has not been so thoroughly explored as that from Egypt to Si'nai, nor
have its localities been so definitely fixed. It is well ascertained, however,
that their route led from Mount Si'nai directly to the head of the Gulf of
Ak'abah, and the British engineers succeeded in satisfactorily identifying two
of the localities on this part of the journey,—the only two that are mentioned
in the detailed account in the book of Numbers. These are Kibroth-hatta'aveh and
Haze'roth. The former was identified by the remains of an extensive encampment
surrounded by many grave-stones. Smoke-stained stones dug up from the ground,
with heaps of ashes about them, are the chief marks of the encampment, and the
numerous graves correspond to the Scripture statement about the burial of the
many who "lusted" and were slain, and to the Scripture-name of the place, which
means the graves of those who lusted. It is three days' journey, as the sacred
narrative requires, from Mount Sinai.

Haze'roth is identified both by its name—Ain Hudhe'rah, an Ar'ab corruption of
the original name—and by its distance of one day's journey from
Kibroth-hatta'aveh. It is also to this day a camping-place so admirable that a
large multitude passing through the wilderness anywhere near it would be certain
to take it in their route. It is thus described by Palmer from the point of view
at which he first beheld it: "Through a steep and rugged gorge, with almost
perpendicular sides, we looked down upon a wâdy-bed that winds along between
fantastic sandstone rocks, now rising in the semblance of mighty walls or
terraced palaces, now jutting out in pointed ridges,—rocky promontories in a
sandy sea. Beyond this lies a perfect forest of mountain-peaks and chains, and
on their left a broad white wâdy leads up toward the distant mountains of the
Tîh. But the great charm of the landscape lies in its rich and varied coloring;
the sandstone, except where some great block has fallen away and displayed the
dazzling whiteness of the stone beneath, is weathered to a dull red and violet
hue, through which run streaks of the brightest yellow and scarlet, mingled with
rich dark-purple tints. Here and there a hill or dike of greenstone, or a rock
of rosy granite, contrasts or blends harmoniously with the rest; and in the
midst, beneath a lofty cliff, nestles the dark-green palm-grove of Haze'roth.
This picture, framed in the jagged cleft and lit up by the evening sun with the
varied tints and shades upon its mountain background, and the awful stillness
that might be seen, as Egypt's darkness could be felt, was such a landscape as
none but the Great Artist's hand could have designed. Before leaving we made
complete examination of the place. The fountain itself rises in the rock behind
the palm-grove, and is conducted by an aqueduct cut in the solid granite into a
reservoir or pool, from which it is let out by a rude sluice to irrigate the
gardens which the Ar'abs still cultivate here." This delightful picture leads us
to remark that the extended explorations of the British party revealed the fact
that there are many more fertile spots in this peninsula and a much larger
amount of vegetation than has been thought by tourists who have merely passed
through on the beaten track. Their observations also reveal very clearly the
causes which have reduced this region from the comparatively good condition in
which the Israelites found it to its present desolation. The committee of the
Palestine Exploration Fund, in a brief report of these observations as furnished
to them by Mr. F. W. Holland, the guide to the exploring party, make the
following statements: "The barrenness of the peninsula is due to neglect. In
former times it was more richly wooded; the wâdies were protected by walls
stretching across, which served as dams to resist the force of the rushing
waters; the mountains were terraced and clothed with gardens and groves. This
fertility lasted till modern times... Then came the bad times of Mohammedan
rule, which let in the Bedawins to waste and destroy. Then the protecting walls
across the wâdies were broken down; the green terraces along their sides were
destroyed; the trees were cut down or carried away by the winter torrent. The
whole history of Si'nai desolation seems embodied in one scene witnessed by Mr.
Holland in 1867 in Wâdy Feirân'. The wâdy had been dry. After two hours' storm,
the water rose so rapidly that this dry course was turned into a raging torrent,
300 yards broad and 8 to 10 feet deep, tearing down with it tamarisks,
palm-trees, sheep, goats, camels, donkeys, and even men, women, and children.
When the storm subsided, where had been trees and gardens, tamarisk-wood and
groves of palm-trees, were nothing but heaps of bowlders piled one upon
another."

Mr. Holland made three separate visits to the peninsula in 1861, 1865, and 1867,
before he was engaged, in the fall of 1868, as guide to the exploring party;
consequently his opportunities for observations there were superior to those of
any other modern explorer. Professor Palmer, the next year after the party had
completed its work, returned to the country, accompanied by Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake,
and made a thorough exploration of the Wilderness of the Wanderings, which lies
north of the peninsula. An account of this exploration is given in his work so
often quoted in this letter—"The Desert of the Exodus." The journeys of the
children of Israel led them out of the peninsula at Ezion-geber, at the head of
the Gulf of Ak'abah. We will follow them no farther at present, but we will have
occasion in another letter to speak of other interesting points included in
their wanderings.


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  CHAPTER 28: LETTER SEVEN: FROM SUEZ TO JERUSALEM
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Letter VII. From Suez To Jerusalem The next day after we closed our labors at
Suez we went from that city by rail to Ismailî'a, 50 miles distant, and half-way
the length of the Suez Canal, reaching there at half-past eleven o'clock.
Ismailî'a is a new town built during the construction of the Suez Canal, and
dependent on the business of the canal and railroad for its support. We found in
it a comfortable little French hotel with a good bill of fare. At 4 P. M. we
went down to the Egyptian mail-steamer, which was to convey us from Ismailî'a
through the canal to Port Sâ'id. The said steamer we found to be only 40 feet
long and 9 feet wide, yet we were asked whether we were first-class or
second-class passengers. After a glance at the dingy little craft, we almost
wished that we were no class at all, and felt in doubt whether we ought to laugh
or cry at the thought of being compelled to travel on her; but we were
encouraged at the thought that, being first class, we would have the best if
there was any best, so we deposited our luggage on deck, had a big quarrel with
the Ar'abs who had brought it from the hotel about the amount we should pay
them, hunted for the cabin, which we found to be about the size and near the
shape of a big omnibus, waited nearly two hours after the advertised time for
the little thing to start, and were delighted by the swiftness with which she
cut the water when she did start. The swift motion added force to a gentle north
wind in the face of which we sailed, and we were much refreshed, as we sat on
the little deck, after the weariness of a hot day. Ships are limited to six
miles an hour in passing through the canal, lest the waves they stir up should
wash in the banks too rapidly. The width of the water is 85 feet and its depth
25 feet. At intervals there are wider places intented for large ships to pass
each other. But our little craft scarcely made a ripple, and was allowed to run
as fast as she chose. We overtook a large ship, and swiftly passed under her
side. A hundred or two passengers and sailors gathered at the rail to look down
on us, and appeared amused to see so tiny a boat run by them so swiftly. I waved
my hat when we were nearly past them, and cried out, "Good-by; we'll tell them
you are coming."

The Suez Canal

We landed at Port Sâ'id at eleven o'clock at night, and were met by an
English-speaking hotel-runner, who put us and our baggage into a row-boat and
rowed us to the Netherland Hotel, situated on the pier of the harbor, and put us
into most delightful quarters. From the veranda into which our windows opened we
could see next morning all the shipping in the harbor and much of the town. The
cost of the Suez canal was more than ninety-two millions of dollars; but it now
pays five per cent. dividends on the stock. Its income in the year 1877, the
eighth year after its completion, was about $6,000,000, and the expense of
keeping it in repair only $1,000,000. All this income is derived from the toll
paid by steamships which pass through it, the number of which, therefore, is
immense. At Port Sâ'id and at Suez they are constantly going and coming, and you
can seldom look along the line of the canal from either place without seeing
tall masts rising above the desert sands. There were 15 steamers in the harbor
of Port Sâ'id at the time we left there, two of which had just come in from the
canal. These vessels are here merely to pass into and out of the canal, and not
to do business with the city; yet the city owes its origin and its continued
existence to the canal and its traffic. Its present population is about 9000,
mostly Europeans, and the French element predominates. It has no attractions
apart from its commercial relations.

We left Port Sâ'id on the Austrian steamer "Espero" at six P. M. Saturday, April
12th. She is one of a line of Austrian steamers which run biweekly from Trieste,
viâ Brindisi, Alexandria, Port Sâ'id, and Joppa, to Beirut. We cast anchor off
Joppa the next morning at ten. There is no harbor at Joppa, and consequently
passengers cannot be landed at all in rough weather; but the sea was calm for
us, and our dragoman, with whom we had contracted at Cairo, came out to the ship
with a boat, took us ashore, and led us to Howard's Hotel. Our walk through the
crooked street was among as motley a crowd, and through as much filth, as we
wish to see again; but we had no sooner entered our rooms in the hotel than we
were regaled with so sweet a fragrance as led us to look out at the window to
see whence it came, and there, spread thickly over several acres attached to the
hotel, was an orchard of lemon-trees in full bloom. The golden fruit and the
pure white blossoms were hanging side by side, and beyond and about the
lemon-orchard were gardens of oranges, showing no blossoms, but an abundance of
ripe fruit. When we went down to lunch a large fruit-stand full of oranges
graced the table, and we were so astonished at their enormous size that I went
back up-stairs, got my tape-line, and measured three or four of them. I found
that they averaged 11 1/2 inches in circumference. On eating them we found them
as superior in flavor as in size. They are entirely seedless, and, though less
juicy than some varieties, their juice is thick and sweet, and their meat is so
compact and tender that we can eat them as we would an apple. The market of
Jerusalem and those of all the large towns of the interior are abundantly
supplied with them, and they are almost as cheap as Irish potatoes are in
America. It is a sight worth seeing to ride among the orchards about Joppa, and
see the stout little trees almost covered with the golden fruit, the limbs
bending low and carefully propped, but never breaking.

We visited, of course, the house of Simon the tanner, saw the room where Peter
lodged, and climbed by an outside flight of stone steps upon the flat roof where
he prayed and saw the vision of the sheet. The representation, however, was so
obviously false, as appeared from the modern date of the building and its
unsuitable surroundings, that we did not care to see the equally veritable house
of Tab'itha, which is shown in another part of the town. But not far from these
spots unquestionably stood the houses in which the memorable events connected
with Peter's call to Cæsarea took place, and we could but realize that we were
now in the midst of New Testament scenes. No one showed us the ship in which
Jonah set sail, or the "floats" on which King Hiram sent the cedar beams to
Joppa for Solomon's temple; but our own ship at anchor reminded us of both, and
carried us back in thought 1000 years beyond the New Testament period.

We had worship in our own room at the hotel at the usual hour of Lord's day
worship at home. We afterward learned that there was an afternoon Episcopal
service at the English school of Mrs. Hay, conducted by a visiting clergyman
from England; but the information came too late for us to attend it. Mrs. Hay's
school, by the by, is kept in a framed and weather-boarded house,—the only one
in Palestine. It was the only house we saw which reminded us of home. At Joppa I
began my Palestine work. I had prepared for it by spending all the time that my
other engagements would allow, last fall and winter, in rereading the best books
on the subject, and making notes on the places which I expected to visit. These
notes were written in a strongly-bound blank-book, and blank spaces were left
for filling up the descriptions as the places were visited. As I came to each
object of interest I first read what I had already written concerning it, making
corrections if any were needed, and then I wrote in the blanks any additional
details which I thought worth preserving. I was provided with a pocket-compass
with which to take bearings, a tape-line two chains in length with which to test
former measurements and take new ones, a good field-glass with which to examine
remote or inaccessible objects, and a thermometer with which to observe the
temperature of both air and water. With this preparation and these facilities I
find that I can make quite rapid progress in my work, and I am correcting some
errors committed by my predecessors. The work is often quite laborious, but my
companions lightened it by cheerfully rendering all needed assistance. From
Joppa to Jerusalem, distance 38 miles, there is a turnpike road, constructed
seven years ago by the present pasha, the only one in Syria except one built by
a French company from Beirût to Damascus. All other roads are mere bridle-paths,
impassable for wheeled vehicles. Along the plain this pike is good and smooth,
but in the mountains it is so washed and broken in places by winter torrents
that vehicles can pass only with the utmost difficulty. We started out on this
road the next morning after our arrival in Joppa, mounted on the horses which
had been engaged for our whole tour. Our horses are scrub stock, all stallions,
and in thin order. They walk tolerably well, canter pleasantly, and climb the
hills, both up hill and down, like goats. Mine frequently trips on level ground,
but he never misses his step or his foothold on the craggy sides of the
mountains. We had our choice between Ar'ab and English saddles, but, though
European travelers nearly always choose the latter, our Western horseback
experience taught us at a glance that the former were preferable for a long
journey. They are very much like the Mexican saddles, but, instead of the large
wooden stirrup of the latter, they have an iron stirrup the bottom plate of
which is wide enough to receive the entire foot from toe to heel. Our bridles
are very fantastic, being made of woolen stuff of several bright colors, adorned
with small white shells, and hung thick along the headstall with red and white
tassels. Saddles and bridles are both of the regular Bed'awin style.

About four or five miles out from Joppa we turned out of the main road to the
left, in order to pass through Lydda, whence Peter was called to Joppa, and
where he raised Æ'neas from his long confinement with the paralysis. It is now a
well-built Ar'ab village, surrounded by extensive groves of olive-trees. Its
only public building is the Greek Church of St. George, the patron saint of
England. It was here that the said George was born, here he was buried, and the
representation of his celebrated feat of killing the dragon is sculptured on a
marble slab over the door of the church. There is a St. George's Church in St.
Louis, Missouri, and I once asked a lady who belonged to it what George it was
who owned that church, but she could not tell me. From Lydda we turned south,
and came into the pike again at Ramleh, a place of much note among the
Crusaders, but not mentioned in the Scriptures. There we lunched in the Latin
monastery, and in the afternoon we rode to Latrûn', a village on a hill-top
overlooking the Valley of Aijalon, over which Joshua made the moon stand still.
Mr. Howard, of Joppa, has here a comfortable new hotel, just opened to the
public last November, and furnishing a most convenient lodging-place for
travelers. The village of Latrûn' is nestled among the ruins of some massive
ancient buildings, and below it, near our hotel, are some ancient Jewish
sepulchres cut in the solid rock. Tradition has it that this was the home of the
penitent thief, and also the burial-place of Judas Maccabeus. An artificial pool
below the hotel, walled with stone, and supplied with water from a well near by,
is as well suited for a baptismal pool as if it had been made for the purpose.

We had now crossed the Plain of Sha'ron at its southern extremity, the land of
the Philis'tines next south of it having been in sight all day. In regard to
this plain, I must use language which I would have thought extravagant before I
saw it. It is truly a rich and lovely country, and even in the hands of its
present inefficient cultivators it sends a large quantity of produce to market.
It produces, without irrigation, better crops of wheat than are now produced in
Egypt, and if I were suddenly put down there, I would think myself on one of the
rich and rolling prairies of Illinois or Missouri. There is scarcely a limit to
the grain and fruit which it would bring forth in the hands of skillful farmers.
It has always been noted, and justly so, for the beauty and variety of its wild
flowers. The red poppy blooms everywhere, except on the plowed ground, and in
many places the entire surface is reddened with it. Many other flowers, smaller
in size, delicate of texture, and of every hue, but nameless in my scant floral
vocabulary, abound on every side. We were elated beyond expression as we rode
over its smooth surface, gazing upon its broad fields of grain, its pasture
lands, its brown villages, and the long mountain-wall which bounds it on the
east. All was new, and yet old, and it gave promise of what we were yet to see
in the Promised Land. We were also interested by meeting, every few moments,
groups of strange-looking people coming down from Jerusalem to Joppa. The most
of these were pilgrims of the Greek Church, chiefly Russians, who had been up to
Jerusalem to spend the Holy Week, and to see the holy fire, which comes down
every year from heaven. They were a dirty, miserable, stupid-looking set, and
among them were old gray-haired men and women not far from the verge of the
grave. Many were walking and many were riding in all sorts of ways, on camels,
asses, and mules, with bed-clothing, cooking-vessels, etc., hanging about them.
The clothing of both sexes was of the heaviest winter goods, and I wondered that
they were not overcome with the heat. Many of them carried long tin cylinders,
from three to eight feet long and from four to six inches thick, which contained
holy candles that had been lighted by the miraculous fire. Our ride on Tuesday,
from Latrûn' to Jerusalem, was up one mountain-side and down another nearly all
the way. We lunched in the Valley of Sorek, 1000 feet below, the heights on
either side. This valley heads near Mizpeh, and opens out below in the country
of the Philis'tines. Samuel chased the Philis'tines along the whole length of
its deep chasm on that memorable day when, at the close of the chase, he set up
a stone, called it Ebenezer, and said, "Hitherto the Lord hath been our helper."

We passed the reputed site of Kirjath-je'arim, where the ark rested so long
after its return from the land of the Philis'tines, and that of the house of
Obed-edom, where Uzzah fell when David was taking the ark from Kirjath-je'arim
to Jerusalem, and where, in terror at this event, David left the ark three
months ere he ventured to take it farther.

I knew very well when we were nearing the spot where the Holy City would first
come into view, and I had read so much about the deep emotion with which the
sight is first beheld that I resolved to preserve my equanimity and approach it
calmly. But, in spite of my effort, I began to be nervous. I remembered the
longings of almost a lifetime to be here. I thought of Jesus and the cross, and
I covered my face with my umbrella to hide the tears which I could not keep
down. And now, as I write, the same emotion and the same tears return again. The
first object which I recognized was an unexpected one,—the dark-blue wall of the
mountains of Moab beyond the Dead Sea and the Jordan. The next was the
unmistakable Mount of Olives, "that dear, honored spot, The fame of whose
wonders shall ne'er he forgot." The next was the dark-gray wall of the city
south of the Joppa gate. I would have seen, a moment sooner, the more northern
part of the western wall but for new, unexpected, and unwelcome objects that
intervened. These were the houses and high garden-walls of an actually new town,
which has sprung up on both sides of the Joppa road within the last ten years,
extending nearly a mile from the Joppa gate. It is part of a new European city,
springing up on the west and north of the old Jerusalem, and destined, before
many years, to be the principal city of the two. On entering the city we
directed our dragoman to lead us first to the office of the American consul,
Colonel Wilson, of Iowa, where we found awaiting us our first letters from home.
Though mine was written only one week after my departure from home, I felt as if
its news and its messages were all fresh, and I tried to think it had been on
the way but a little time. I had been from home six weeks, and had not heard a
word from America, except some unimportant political items which I had seen in
copies of the London Times. From the consulate we repaired to the Mediterranean
Hotel. When I entered the room that was assigned me, I parted the window-curtain
to let in more light and air, when my eyes fell upon the Pool of Hezekiah, lying
beneath me like a mountain lake, in the rear of blocks of houses which inclose
it on every side. Looking above and across it, there stood the magnificent Dome
of the Rock, miscalled the Mosque of Omar, with the entire slope of the Mount of
Olives beyond it. To the right lay the mosque El Aksa, on the southern part of
the temple mount. Looking around to the left, the dome over the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre was also in view, and I immediately named all these objects to my
companions. I was in Jerusalem at last; and there was not a window in the city
that I would have preferred to the one that became, as if by chance, my own for
a time. An afternoon walk down David Street to the gate where once stood the
beautiful gate of the temple, thence to Stephen's Gate, on the eastern side of
the city, thence along the entire length of the Via Dolorosa, and thence along
Christian Street and through the Christian bazaar to the hotel, completed the
labors of the day. As we passed along I readily recognized every prominent
object, for I had studied Jerusalem until it was very familiar before I saw it,
and I pointed out these objects to my companions. Our local guide Elias (the
prophet Elijah we called him) began to think that I was taking his business out
of his hands, so he looked up and said, "Professor, when were you in Jerusalem
before?" He was greatly astonished when I told him that I had obtained my
knowledge from books; and when he learned that I intended to write a book, he
begged me to send him a copy of it. At the hotel we met with a number of
European visitors, one of them a superstitious Englishman who believes every
word of the priestly traditions in regard to sacred spots in and about the city.
We found it the boarding-place of our consul and of the English clergyman. The
table was well provided and kept on the plan usual among hotels about the
Mediterranean coast.

According to contract with our dragoman, we were to have commenced living in
tents as soon as we arrived at Joppa. We met him and made our contract with him
at Cairo; and now, lest some of my readers may not know what a dragoman is, I
must tell them that he is a native who has learned some English, French or
German, or all three, and sometimes knows a little Italian, and whose business
it is to act as guide, interpreter, and contractor for companies of tourists in
Egypt and Palestine. As a class they have a bad reputation for honesty and
truthfulness, and among them there is every variety of qualifications for their
business, from the best to almost none. In the traveling-season they generally
resort to Cairo, that they may meet persons on their way to Palestine and secure
contracts in advance. We at first did not intend to employ one until we reached
Jerusalem, and consequently we declined the offers of several; but when we met
with Assad Smart, we were so well pleased with him and with his facilities for
serving us that we agreed to employ him. A contract was formally drawn up by our
consul's clerk, who knew what items to insert better than we did, a small sum
was paid in advance, and Assad went on before us to Joppa to put everything in
readiness. He was a native of Beirût, raised in the Greek Church, and educated
at the American College in that city. The way in which he obtained the name
"Smart" is characteristic of the East. His only original name was Assad, but, in
the beginning of his career as dragoman, he escorted some ladies through
Palestine who frequently complimented him by saying that he was "smart"; so,
taking the word as a compliment without fully understanding it, he attached it
to his name, and thenceforth signed himself Assad Smart. When we reached Joppa
we found that the tents which we were to use were in the hands of another party
at Jerusalem, whose contract for them was to expire in a day or two, so we went
to the hotel there, as we did also for a day or two in Jerusalem. It was our
privilege, according to contract, to occupy a hotel at Jerusalem instead of the
tents, but the next day after our arrival the tents were ready for us. We went
out to see them, and we found them so comfortable that we determined to go into
them at once and become somewhat habituated to them ere we started on an
excursion away from the city. We found them pitched on a clean lot surrounded by
a stone fence, about 200 yards in front of the Joppa gate, the most usual
camping-place for tourists.

"Our Camp" And now, that our readers may understand the facilities for travel in
Palestine which have been provided within the last few years, I must give them a
description of our camp. We had four circular tents, each 12 feet in diameter.
Two of these were our sleeping-tents, accommodating two persons each; one was
the dining-tent, and the other the kitchen. They were made of the heaviest
cotton-cloth, clean and white, and the sleeping-tents had each an extra roof a
few inches above the principal roof, so as to allow a current of air to pass
between the two, and thus prevent the heat of the sun from penetrating, as it
otherwise would. On the interior they were lined with blue worsted goods, on
which were sewed figures cut out of red, white, and yellow, somewhat after the
style of an old-fashioned quilt. So our walls and ceilings were frescoed in
bright colors, and they had a very gay appearance. The perpendicular part of the
tent, about five feet high, was attached to the roof and to stakes by loops in
such a manner that we could open it at pleasure in the direction of the wind and
thus secure a pleasant current of air in hot days or nights. On the right and
left, as we entered the door, stood our iron bedsteads with mattresses and
covering of the best quality; on the floor between was a broad strip of thick
carpet; at the farther end stood a folding-table, to serve both as a
writing-desk and a wash-stand; before the table stood two camp-stools; and
around the tent-pole in the centre was a row of hooks for hanging up clothing
and other articles. On the opposite page I present a picture of our camp taken
at a later period amid the ruins of Baalbec. When we first entered our tents and
found them thus provided, we felt somewhat like a young couple when they first
go to housekeeping in a new house. Everything was lovely. Our thoughts next
turned to the dining-tent and the comforts which pertained to it. When we were
called to dinner, we found in the centre of the tent a table large enough for
four plates, covered with a clean white cloth, and furnished with a set of
French china, silver-plated knives and forks, spoons, coffee-pot, etc., and
cut-glass tumblers. Our dinner consisted of soup, roasted lamb or chicken, a
moderate variety of vegetables, a pudding, and a dessert of Joppa oranges, figs,
or dates and nuts. This continued to be our bill of fare for dinner, with but
little variation, throughout our tour. For breakfast we had broiled mutton-chops
or chicken, with bread, coffee, and potatoes. A few times, but not often, we had
English-made butter. The goat butter of the villagers we respectfully declined.
Its color is a pure white, like lard, and its taste is,—well, the nearest I can
come to it is to say it is goaty. We had two servants to wait on us at the
table, and our cook, a Greek by the name of George, was adept in his art. He
boasted of having cooked for the Grand Duke of Russia and several other titled
and royal persons from Europe who had visited Palestine before us. In order to
transport us through the country, with our baggage, tents, furniture, food, and
fuel, our dragoman had provided six horses, ten mules, two donkeys, and seven
men besides himself. Four of the horses were for us to ride, and the other two
were for himself and a servant named Solomon, who always attended us in our
rides, carrying on a pack-horse our noonday-lunch and four flat jugs of
drinking-water. These jugs are sufficiently porous to allow some water to slowly
ooze through and evaporate on the surface, thus keeping the interior cool. They
are used throughout Syria and Egypt, and some, made of a neater pattern, are
used to hold water on the tables of hotels and steamships. They are the best and
only substitute for ice, and they keep water just cool enough not to be
lukewarm. In our daily rides the pack-train always took the most direct route to
our next camping-place, and they usually reached it in time to have the tents
pitched and dinner prepared by the time of our arrival. Meantime, we struck out,
with only Assad and Solomon in our company, to examine all objects of interest
on the road and both to the right and left of it, devoting to each as much time
as we thought proper. We usually rested one or two hours at noon, taking a nap
under a shade-tree if one could be found, and arrived at camp in time for
dinner, at from five to six o'clock. Such is about the usual routine of
tent-life in Palestine. The entire expense to us of living and traveling with
this outfit was $24 a day, or six dollars apiece for the four; and out of this
Assad expected to clear five dollars a day for himself. Our first little
excursion after repairing to our tents was a ride around the city. We rode along
the northern wall, pausing at the Damascus gate, crossed the Kedron Valley from
the eastern gate, passed by the Garden of Gethsemane, descended the Valley of
the Kedron to the Pool of Siloam, rode up the Valley of Hinnom to the lower Pool
of Gihon, and thence up the Valley of Gihon to the Joppa gate and our camp. This
ride placed before our eyes and engraved on our memories the whole exterior of
Jerusalem, with its surrounding valleys and mountains. We frequently repeated
the different parts of it on subsequent occasions. Our first night in tents was
a new and strange experience, but I slept well, and was up next morning before
the sun and out to see what was going on around us. The first thing that
arrested my attention was a group of women, wrapped up head and all in white
sheets, walking slowly toward an old unfenced graveyard beyond our camp. I
followed them, and found about forty women in the same costume sitting in a
group among the gravestones. As I stood within a dozen steps of them studying
their appearance, a young woman in the crowd picked up a stone and threw it
toward me; but she did it with a half smile on her countenance, and I stood my
ground. Presently a boy, who sat a few steps from the women, picked up a stone
and threw it very near me. As he picked up another, I also picked up one and
stood ready to throw as soon as he did. When he saw this he dropped his and I
dropped mine. By this time a crowd of men had begun to collect, and after they
were all seated among the graves one of them began to read or recite something
aloud in Arabic, and some of the women began to wail. They were paying their
respects to a friend not long ago buried, and the excitement did not run so high
as at a funeral. After looking on until our breakfast-hour was at hand I left
them, but they did not break up their strange meeting until after it had lasted
more than an hour. Every morning while we were camped about Jerusalem we
witnessed similar scenes.

During the remainder of the week we visited every interesting locality within
and immediately without the city, except the Har'am, walked nearly all the way
around it on top of the wall, loitered much on the streets and among the
bazaars, and made arrangements for an excursion beyond the Jordan. The chief
preparation for this excursion, so far as we were concerned, was to secure the
services of a Bed'awin escort. This we did through our consul. He sent a
messenger for Sheikh Fellâh' of the Adwân' tribe on Thursday, and on Sunday
morning, just before breakfast, he and four of his men rode into our camp
heavily armed, dismounted, stuck their long spears upright in the ground, and
took seats on a piece of carpet spread for them in the open space before the
tents. They were dressed in regular Bed'awin style, and it was amusing to see
them slip off their low-topped red boots as they were about to sit down. The
boots were so loose and heavy that the bare feet came out of them without the
use of a boot-jack or even of the hand. They stood quietly before their owners
until the latter arose to depart, and then in the same quiet way the feet were
again slipped into them. With this sheikh we entered into a written contract,
drawn up by the consul's clerk and signed in the presence of the consul, we
signing our names and he attaching his seal, which he drew from his bosom for
the purpose. The contract bound him to escort us to every part of the country of
his tribe which we might choose to visit, and to protect us against all enemies;
and it bound us to pay him a certain amount as tribute to his tribe, a certain
amount as buckshîsh to him and his attendants, and all the food which they would
require, our whole bill amounting to about $117. Of this we paid about
one-fourth in hand; and the remainder was to be due when we returned in safety
to Jerusalem. On our first Sunday in Jerusalem we attended the services of the
English Episcopal Church. We went in company with the consul, whose armed and
uniformed cavasse (body-guard) preceded us to the door, stood by till we
entered, and waited outside to escort us back to the consulate when the services
were concluded. Being a Mohammedan and a Turkish soldier, he would not go into
the church. There were 25 or 30 adults present at church, all Europeans, and we
were pleased with the earnestness and promptness with which they performed their
liturgy. There were also about 40 native boys present, belonging to the English
school, who took part in the responses, but the most of them did so as if they
were doing penance. They were evidently glad to hear the final Amen.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 29: LETTER EIGHT: BEYOND THE JORDAN
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Letter VIII. Beyond the Jordan On Monday, April 21st, we left Jerusalem for
Jericho, on an excursion intended to include the Jordan Valley as far as the
Dam'ieh Ferry, all the principal places beyond the Jordan from Jerash on the
north to Callirrhoe Springs on the south, the Plain of Shittim, and the road
back to Jerusalem by way of Ai and Bethel. The road to Jericho has been improved
a little in the last few years by the liberality of wealthy Europeans who have
traveled over it. I was told that a German count, who fell from his horse and
broke his leg, appropriated $500 to the improvement of the part near which he
fell. A few more such broken legs would result in making the road very passable
on horseback. The descent is very rapid, Jericho being nearly 4000 feet below
the level of the Mount of Olives; yet there are some steep ascents along the
way, and these but add to the steepness and length of the descending stretches.
The distance as the road runs is 18 or 19 miles; it has never been measured. All
distances here are estimated in hours; and an hour, on the average, is three
miles. When about half-way, we ascended a steep, naked hill, and dismounted by
the side of a high rock, whose shade was large enough to protect us from the sun
while we ate our lunch. This is the reputed place where, as our dragoman
expressed it, "the good Samaritan fell among thieves." It is a very suitable
place for the sudden attack and escape of robbers, but we saw several others
that would have suited as well. It more certainly fulfilled another passage of
Scripture, for the spot where we rested was literally what Isaiah calls "the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." After lunch we spent an hour or two
climbing over the adjacent hills and examining a ruined khân across the road,
and a ruined castle a little farther off. Both declare plainly that this was
once a dangerous road, but that the danger has passed away and the defenses have
consequently gone to ruin. As we neared the Jordan Valley our path lay along the
precipitous side of Wâd'y Kelt, the brook Cherith of Scripture, where Elijah was
concealed when fed by ravens. Brother Earl and Brother Taylor were considerably
in advance when they reached this spot, and the latter, hearing the rush of
fresh water in the gorge below, and thinking it but a short distance down,
started down to get a drink. When we came up he was out of sight and hearing,
the steep brown rocks hiding him from view, and the roar of the stream dashing
over its rough bed drowning our voices when we called to him. We rode on,
leaving Brother Earl to wait for him. When he overtook us we asked him how the
water of Elijah's brook tasted; but he said that after clambering down several
hundred feet he came to a perpendicular cliff with the water still far below
him, and then climbed back again without a drink. When he returned he was
thirsty enough to drink some of the warm water in the jug hanging at the side of
Solomon's horse. After reaching the Jordan plain we crossed this brook on our
way to Jericho, and it was my purpose to explore it for a mile or two up its
narrow and deep fissure, but our dragoman assured me that I could not make my
way on horseback, and that it would be exceedingly toilsome on foot; so I
contented myself for the time being with what I had already seen of it,
realizing its perfect fitness as the hiding-place of the prophet. Our tents were
pitched beside the fountain which Elisha healed, and which is therefore called
by Christians "Elisha's Fountain," while the Ar'abs call it the "Sultan's
Fountain," using the word sultan to indicate its pre-eminence among the
fountains of the vicinity. It is a splendid spring, sending forth enough water
to run a mill, and giving verdure to eight or ten square miles of the plain that
would otherwise be barren. It marks the site of the original Jericho, not a
vestige of which remains except a mound consisting of plaster, building-stones,
sun-dried bricks, and broken pottery. When we entered the plain, Frank and I
were a quarter of a mile or more ahead of the sheikh and the remainder of our
party, so we followed the road leading straight forward, instead of turning
square to the left as we were expected to do. I saw before me the aqueducts
which cross the Kelt on stone arches just west of modern Jericho, and off to my
right the ruins of the great pool; and I was intent on examining these. When we
were nearly to the pool we saw the sheikh galloping after us alone and heard him
calling while he waved his long spear; but we disregarded his motions until we
were through with our examinations, and then we allowed him to guide us to the
tents. He wished to make us think we were in danger in wandering off thus from
our company, so he put spurs to his white mare and led us over the plain in a
rapid gallop. On the next day after reaching Elisha's Fountain we took a ride to
the Dead Sea, distant ten miles. We left our tents pitched and our pack-animals
at rest. We also left Frank in his tent taking medicine to keep off a chill. He
had suffered from one the second day before, and was afraid of its return. We
started before daybreak to avoid the heat, and got there at seven o'clock. Of
course we plunged in for a swim, and such a swim we never had before. In trying
to swim in the usual way our heels were constantly kicking out, and we could
make but little progress. I soon found that the best way was to lie on my back
with head and heels both out of the water, and paddle along feet foremost. When
I stood erect in the water beyond my depth, with my hands down my side, the
surface was on a level with my armpits, showing, as is commonly stated by
writers on the Dead Sea, that the human body floats in it with one-third of its
weight out of the water. We all got a taste of the nauseous stuff and felt the
smart of it in our eyes, but beyond this we suffered no discomfort. From the
seashore we went to the Jordan, at what is called the Pilgrim's Ford, the
reputed site of the Saviour's baptism, four or five miles from the sea. It is
certainly a good place for baptizing; for, although at this season of the year
the water is 8 or 10 feet deep in the channel, there is a gradual descent on
each side with a gravel bottom, and the only drawback to perfect comfort is the
swiftness of the current. I have myself, however, baptized in the Missouri River
where the current was swifter. We waded about and swam in the water till we
thoroughly tested its depth, its current, and the character of its bottom. We
were amused, as we were about to enter the stream, at the solicitude of our
sheikh and our dragoman. The latter had untied a long rope from the trappings of
the pack-horse, and they both insisted that we should take hold of it as we went
in, and let them tie the other end to a tree, so as to keep us from being washed
away and drowned. When we laughed at them and plunged in, they fluttered about
like an old hen with a brood of young ducks when she sees them rush into the
water. On our way back to camp we visited the site of Gilgal, rode beside the
long lines of low walls on which irrigating channels once flowed through the dry
plain, and passed through the miserable village Erî'ha, the Ar'ab representative
of Jericho. A single palm-tree reminded us that the original Jericho was once
called "the city of palm-trees." On Wednesday, the 23rd, we moved up the Jordan
Valley to the Dam'ieh Ferry, so called from Tell Dam'ieh, the ruin of an ancient
city on the plain east of the river. This name is supposed to be the Arabic
corruption of Adam, the name of the city to which the backed water of the Jordan
was heaped up when the river parted before Israel. (Joshua 3:16.) Here again we
tested the water by wading and swimming, and measuring its width along the rope
by which the boat is pulled over.

Some two or three hundred yards above this ferry, hidden in a thicket of
tamarisk and bulrushes, we found the ruins of the ancient stone bridge by which
the river was crossed in the better days of this country. Our dragoman knew
nothing of it, but when I inquired through him of the old sheikh who was now our
protector, he immediately pronounced the words Jisr Dam'ieh (Damieh bridge) and
pointed toward it. By the aid of an axman to chop a way for us through the
brush, and with the guidance of the sheikh, we soon found it, and rode under
three of the arches by which it approached the stream on the eastern side. The
ruins of other arches and the abutments of those at the water's edge are
visible, and at comparatively little expense the structure might be restored.
The Damieh Ferry is situated immediately west of the point at which the lower
valley of the river Jabbok cuts into that of the Jordan; but the stream from the
former bends to the northward just here, and enters the Jordan above the old
bridge. We passed up the Jabbok, now called Wâdy Zerka, about eight miles, to
where it passes from the Gilead mountains into the Jordan plain. Here, near its
northern bank, is a tell, as the Arabs call it, or the ruin of an ancient city
in the shape of a mound. It is called Hammâm (hot water), and it takes its name
from a spring of hot water a little farther up the stream. Here again I had to
resort to the sheikh for information as to the locality, and he called an Ar'ab
from harvesting his little wheat-patch to find the spring for us. When we came
to the spot the spring was dry, and the Ar'ab said that the only way to find the
water was to dig for it. I began to feel disappointed, when it occurred to me
that, as the spot pointed out was about 20 feet above the level of the Jabbok,
the spring might have found an underground channel into the river; so I
clambered down the rocky and almost perpendicular bank, and there I found three
little streams of hot water trickling along from under the ledge. Their
temperature was 96°. I am indebted to Dr. Merrill, of the American Palestine
Exploration Society, for my information about this spring, and I think he is its
discoverer. At noon that day, Thursday, the 24th, we again took lunch under "the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land," and we remembered its cool shade with a
sigh on several occasions afterward when we ate this meal in the broiling sun.
This rock was 25 feet high and 36 feet thick, and it had fallen from the cliff
two or three hundred feet to the edge of the plain. From our rock we overlooked
the region of Succoth, where Jacob spent the first summer after his return from
Padan-aram, and where he built booths for his cattle, to protect them from the
great heat to which they were not accustomed. Our route during the morning had
skirted the southern edge of this plain, and I had ridden several miles out of
the way to examine the mounds of three ancient cities. I crossed irrigating
channels in every direction, nearly all of them dry, but a few containing
running streams, drawn from the Jabbok where it leaves the mountains. If all of
these channels were in good repair, and enterprising farmers were scattered over
this plain, there is scarcely an acre that would not yield most abundantly all
through the summer. As it is, there are several square miles of promising wheat,
and almost the entire plain is covered with verdure. Its former wealth and
importance are attested by the ruins of not less than six towns of considerable
size, which lie within a few miles of each other, the mass of crumbled
building-material in some of them being 40 or 50 feet above the level of the
plain.

We were on our way to Jerash, the ancient Ger'asa, and from our lunching-place
on the edge of the Plain of Succoth we were led by our sheikh across mountain
spurs fit only for goats and Bed'awin footmen to climb into Wâd'y Râ'jib, where
our tents were pitched on a bench high up the mountain-side, near a village
which gives name to the wâdy. Of Wâd'y Râ'jib I had obtained no previous
information at all, except that I had seen it on the map of Dr. Merrill's
report. I was not, therefore, at all prepared to see, as I did, one of the most
picturesque and romantic mountain glens that I have ever beheld. Wooded mountain
tops, with a naked crag here and there, rose a thousand feet above our camp in
every direction except to the west. In that direction the sloping sides of the
deep wâdy, covered with small bushes and patches of growing grain, descended
2000 feet to the Jordan Plain; while through the opening could be seen a narrow
strip of that plain covered with alternate sections of green and yellow grain,
and beyond this the mountains west of Jordan, piled one above another in the
distance, and made to stand out with great distinctness by the soft light of the
setting sun. I climbed to a rocky eminence above our tents to enjoy the scene.
It was enlivened by the merry voices of many children in the adjacent village;
by the rush of water in the stream near by dashing over the rocks; by the
barking of dogs, and neighing of horses; and, as the twilight drew on, by the
bleating of goats, the tinkling of small bells, the lowing of cattle, and the
calls of shepherd-boys bringing in their flocks and herds along the mountain
paths. A little later the camp-fires of wandering Bed'awin sprang up in various
directions on the mountain-sides, and the moon, with the evening star close by
her side, began to glow in the western sky. I sat on a projecting rock almost
entranced, and said to myself, Could I only have home and the Bible College
where those tents are, how I would love to live and die in this place! I
lingered till the increasing darkness made my steps uncertain in descending the
rocky steep, then came to the tent and sat in front of its door till the hour of
worship and of slumber. Such places are rare in this country now, but they were
abundant in its better days. From Wâd'y Râ'jib we traveled in one day to Jerash.
For several hours we ascended the wâdy in which we had camped, passing through
some dense forests abounding in oak-trees of several varieties, a few pines,
wild olives, and other less familiar trees, and crossing many small fields of
wheat and of freshly-ploughed ground. We saw some fresh clearings of the wooded
slopes, and other evidences of increasing attention to agriculture. Flowers of
many varieties bloomed on every side. They were not more numerous or more varied
than I have seen on the prairies in the West, but they were generally of a more
delicate texture. Among them we recognized four old Kentucky acquantainces, —the
yellow honeysuckle, the red poppy, the hollyhock, and——the dog fennel. The poppy
we have seen everywhere, from Joppa to the Jordan and beyond; and in many places
it grows so thick as to cover half an acre or more with red. The honeysuckle was
a surprise to us, and especially when we saw it in the wild woods clambering
over the tops of the scrubby oaks. While speaking of forest trees I may as well
say here that only on a few mountain ridges and in the vicinity of streams are
any to be seen in this country, and the most of those you do see are of a
scrubby growth; yet I measured a wild olive in Wâd'y Râ'jib that was 16 feet 7
inches in circumference; I lunched one day under an English walnut, the spread
of whose branches was nearly 40 feet; and I measured an oak on Jebel Owsha the
diameter of whose foliage was 62 feet in two directions at right angles to each
other. I never saw, in any country, a handsomer shade-tree than the last, or one
which cast a denser shade. These specimens serve to show what the primitive
forests of this country were when idolatrous Israel offered sacrifice and burnt
incense "under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof was good."

I had read something of the ruins at Jerash, and felt a deep interest in seeing
them, but I was by no means prepared to see them so grand, so extensive, and so
well preserved. As we have given a description of them in the topographical part
of this work, we will not attempt one here. Our camp was close to the spring
which sends forth nearly all the water of the stream that flows through the
midst of the city. Thence we took walks and rides among the ruins until we had
carefully examined them all. As we walked along the well-preserved pavements of
the ancient streets, between rows of columns yet standing on either side, or
stood on the walls of ruined churches and heathen temples, or sat on the
well-preserved seats of the vast amphitheatre, we experienced much the same
emotion as we did amid the ruins of Pompeii. The two cities were much alike, but
Jerash was by far the more magnificent of the two.

We left Jerash on Saturday, April 26th, at 10 A. M., for Es Salt. Our route was
a little west of south. At noon we rested and lunched under a solitary tree on a
high knoll overlooking the valley of the Jabbok, which lay to the south of us.
On hanging my thermometer to a limb of the tree, I soon discovered that the
temperature was 95° in the shade, and as this was the first extremely hot day
which we had experienced, I suggested to my companions the propriety of a long
rest and a short ride in the afternoon. We had not realized how hot it was; for
though the south wind which was blowing had a parching effect on our hands,
lips, and faces, it evaporated so rapidly the perspiration from our bodies as to
keep them comparatively cool. Where we crossed the Jabbok that afternoon, we
found it a larger stream than it was where we had crossed it near its mouth.
This difference is accounted for by the fact that much of its water below is
drawn off into irrigating channels. Such is the case with many streams in
Palestine. Often, indeed, small streams are turned entirely away from their
natural channels for a few days at a time, when a large area is to receive a
full supply of water.

After fording the Jabbok and climbing the mountains south of it till we had gone
six or seven miles farther, we found our tents pitched on a bench of a mountain,
with a lively brook flowing in a narrow valley 150 feet below. Our sheikh called
the place "The Valley of Pomegranates." We saw no sign of pomegranates, or of
any other fruits in the vicinity, but we accepted the name. These Ar'abs have a
name for every high hill and valley and plain in all the land, and a map of the
country would have to be of immense size to allow all the names to be printed on
it. The ancient Jews had the same custom; for often "the land of this" and "the
land of that" in the Bible include only a few acres of ground.

We had no sooner dismounted at the camp than we went down to the brook to see if
we could find a bathing-place in which to refresh ourselves after the intense
heat of the day. We found one to suit us admirably. In a narrow fissure of the
rock the brook leaped over a precipice nearly 20 feet high, striking various
projecting points as it descended, and scattering itself almost into a heavy
rain. Here we enjoyed a most delightful shower-bath. When we returned to camp we
found Assad quite unwell, and we insisted that a bath such as we had taken would
do him good. He would not believe us at first, but said that to get under that
waterfall would kill him. Finally, however, he yielded to our arguments and
went. He returned evidently feeling much better, but he remarked in a grave
manner, "I said my prayers before I got under the water."

After spending Lord's day at the Valley of Pomegranates, we continued our ride
to Es Salt on Monday morning. On the way we crossed a beautiful valley which
formed a deep circular basin in the mountains four or five miles in diameter,
with the ruins of a town on a knoll near the centre. I was charmed with its
beauty as I rode over it, and when, after climbing a steep hill about 1000 feet
high at its southwestern side, I was about to lose sight of it, I dismounted and
stood a long time alone gazing back upon it. Wide fields of growing grain; broad
expanses of ploughed ground in which the ploughmen were still at work;
occasional slopes of naked rock; dark spots covered by the black tents of
Bed'awin encampments; gentle slopes all around toward the mountains; and a
mountain wall on every side made smooth by the distance, constituted a picture
never to be forgotten. As I mounted to ride on, I said, "Farewell, lovely
valley! I shall never see you again." In approaching Es Salt we diverged from
our course a couple of miles to the right, in order that we might visit the
so-called tomb of the prophet Hose'a and enjoy the view from the lofty mountain
on which it stands and to which it gives name. The mountain is 3470 feet high
above the sea-level,—the highest mountain east of the Jordan,—and it rises
almost precipitously from the Jordan Valley. We saw from this lofty perch almost
the entire valley of the Jordan from about Jericho far up toward the Lake of
Galilee. We looked beyond it over a very large portion of Western Palestine. To
the northwest we could see the tops of Gerizim, Ebal, and Tabor, and directly to
the north the horizon was bounded by Mount Hermon. This was our first view of
Mount Hermon, and we gazed upon it with deep interest. We expected to see its
top all white with snow, but, instead of this, we saw the snow in white streaks
up and down its sides. Its rounded top, rising above all other objects and
streaked with white, reminded us of the head of an enormous giant with his white
locks hanging about his brow. A short ride, much of which was through the midst
of vineyards with the vines trained flat on the ground, brought us to Es Salt,
where we found our tents pitched on a mountain-bench opposite the town, within
ten steps of a perpendicular precipice 60 feet down, and another rising still
higher immediately behind them. It would have been a dangerous place for small
children to play, but it gave us a full view of the city, which covered the
mountain-side opposite to us. The houses are so steep above one another that the
roofs of the lower serve in many places for the streets of those above. It was
one of the most curious scenes we had yet witnessed. High above the city, on the
summit of the mountain, were the frowning battlements of an old castle now
disused. As night drew on flocks of goats, from every direction and in great
numbers, were led in by the shepherds and disappeared among the houses, while
their constant bleating, the ringing of the little bells on their necks, the
barking of dogs, the voices of children, and the calls of older persons, mingled
together in pleasing confusion, softened by the distance.

We had letters written which we hoped to mail at Es Salt, but, to our surprise,
we found that it has no post-office, nor any other arrangement for mailing a
letter. It was strange to be in a town claiming 12,000 inhabitants, with a Latin
convent and school, an English mission-school, a garrison of Turkish soldiers,
and a governor, but no way to mail a letter without sending it by a special
messenger 40 miles to Jerusalem. But here we met with an illustration of Turkish
management equally singular, though of a different kind. Our dragoman was out of
bread, and there was only one baker in the town who could bake such bread as we
would eat. Assad applied to him for a supply in the afternoon, but he had none
baked, and said he would not bake any until the next day. Moreover, seeing our
necessity, he put up the price. If this had been in America, we could have done
nothing but pay the price and submit to the delay. But Assad, unwilling to be
cheated or to delay us, hunted up the Turkish governor and laid the case before
him. The governor sent a couple of soldiers for the baker, and ordered him to go
to work immediately, sit up all night if need be, get that bread ready by
daylight, and sell it at the usual price. The bread was delivered at our camp,
warm from the oven, the next morning before breakfast. We concluded that
arbitrary government, after all, works well sometimes.

Es Salt is supposed to be the Ramoth-Gilead of the Old Testament. The
supposition is based, not upon any very definite evidence, but rather upon the
fact that Ramoth-Gilead must have stood somewhere in this region of the country,
and there is no other town of antiquity and importance yet found here. There is
not enough said in the Scriptures about the local topography of Ramoth-Gilead to
serve as a clue to the identification.

We left Es Salt on the morning of April 29th on our way to Ammân'. As we rode
over the hills to the southeast we met more armed Bed'awin moving about the
country and going toward the city than we had seen before. At noon we rested
amid the ruins of an ancient city which our guide called Jubêhât'. The houses
were nearly all prostrate, but some walls and arches were still standing a few
feet high, rock-cut sepulchres and cisterns were abundant, and sarcophagi were
scattered about. We had to eat our lunch without shade, and to take our rest in
the hot sun protected only by our umbrellas; but Frank found a sarcophagus which
was tilted so as to have a shade inside, and lying down in this he took a nap.
Little did the dead man for whom the coffin was made anticipate that a living
man would sleep in it after he should have left it. Our afternoon ride was
through a splendid country. Ruins of ancient cities were thick on every hand;
large areas were covered with wheat growing rank with heavy heads; very large
flocks of goats and sheep were grazing on the pastures; the Bed'awin encampments
were large and numerous; and as we neared Ammân' we saw herds of camels
amounting to two or three hundred. On the beaten edge of the road we saw in many
places a well-sodded grass which we could not distinguish from Kentucky
blue-grass.

We reached Ammân' early in the afternoon, and were surprised to find its ruins
almost equal in magnificence to those of Jerash. But our surprise at the ruins,
which we have sufficiently described in Part Second, was scarcely greater than
at the large quantity of fine fish which we saw in the Jabbok. We were not
prepared to find any fish at all so far from the Jordan and so near the source
of the Jabbok; for we were now within a mile and a half of the point at which it
first springs out of the ground. The fish were in a series of pools from two to
four feet deep, which the stream had scooped out in the rock of its bed, and
multitudes of them were from six to eight inches long. After taking a swim in
one of the largest pools, we extemporized a seine out of some large pieces of
matting used on the pack-mules, and went a-fishing. We thought it would be
pleasant and romantic to have a mess of fish caught in the river Jabbok, and we
were so confident of success that we took Solomon with us to bring back the
first mess to be cooked for supper, intending the others for subsequent meals.
But our seine was not open enough, to drag freely through the water, and the
fish, though so thick as almost to touch one another, all swam around it. After
toiling in the hot sun till we were nearly worn out, we returned to camp without
a single fish, and tried to convince ourselves that mutton and chicken were good
enough. On the last day of April we left Ammân' and struck across the country in
a southwesterly direction toward Mount Nebo. It was another khamsín' day, as the
natives call,—that is, a hot-wind day. A strong breeze from the south, almost as
hot as our breath, and as dry as if it had come from an oven, blew in our faces,
and it was often so strong that we had to close our umbrellas and receive in
addition the direct heat of the sun. We passed, as in going to Ammân', many
ruined towns, some of large size, many Bed'awin encampments, and very large
herds of goats, sheep, black cattle, and camels. We once more lunched and rested
at noon in the open sun, not having seen a single shade-tree during our forenoon
ride. While resting I took a kind of meridian observation to ascertain the true
time. For fear of being robbed while out among the Bed'awin, we had left our
gold watches, as well as our other gold, with the consul in Jerusalem, and we
had in our entire company only two indifferent silver watches. These had got so
far apart that we had no accurate idea of the time of day, and we knew not which
watch was the nearer right. I laid my pocket-compass on the ground, and stuck a
cedar pencil (the longest straight stick to be found) opposite the south end of
the needle, and when its shadow pointed to the north we pronounced it noon, and
set both watches accordingly.

We had seen a troop of about 200 Turkish soldiers, indifferently mounted on
mules and horses, scouring the plains as we came along, and we observed that
their presence caused some commotion among the camps of Bed'awin. While we were
resting at noon we saw a half-dozen of the latter gentry leave their camp about
a mile south of us, and come dashing up toward us at full speed with their tall
lances on their shoulders. Sheikh Fellâh' met them a short distance from us, and
learned that they had mistaken us for a squad of the Turkish cavalry, and had
come to see whether we meant war or peace. They said if the Turks wanted to
fight they were ready for them, but I observed that as soon as they got back to
camp they struck their tents, packed everything on camels, including their women
and children, and departed in a great hurry.

About 4 P. M. that day, after riding three or four miles down a ravine
descending from the plateau which we had previously traversed between the rugged
mountains approaching the Jordan Valley, we reached Ain Hasbân',—the spring of
Heshbon. It is a bold stream gushing out from under a ledge of rock in the
hillside, and running for a mile or more southward through a smooth and
gently-sloping valley about a quarter of a mile wide. This valley was dotted all
over with Bed'awin tents, and among them were the tents of old Fellâh', our
escort. His white mare had moved at a livelier pace for the last few miles, and
the old man's face had brightened up as he drew nearer to his home; but when he
met his friends, though he had a kiss for the men of his kin, he scarcely
noticed his wife and his daughters. Men kiss men in this country, but we never
see them kiss the women, nor do the women ever kiss one another. This is one of
the particulars in which they have turned matters completely wrong end foremost.
We camped that night in the midst of a Bed'awin encampment, and we had a better
opportunity than ever before to see these people at their ease in their own
homes. We were pleased to see the freedom with which the women moved about; we
were vexed by the ear-splitting bark of a dozen dogs every time we passed near
one of their tents; and we were kept awake till a late bed-time by the loud
voices of the children, who seemed to take the early part of the night as their
play-time. It appeared to us that all the adults went to sleep at dark, and that
all the children woke up at the same time and went to playing.

Late in the afternoon we had a visit from Sheikh Goblân', a brother of Fellâh',
who came with three of his chief men to meet his brother after his absence with
us. Most of the travelers who have gone beyond the Jordan have had Goblân' for
an escort, but I had read so much of his treachery and his savage temper that we
told our consul not to send for him, but for his milder-tempered brother. The
consul, moreover, told us a tale about him which I did not fully credit, until I
saw in Tristram's "Land of Moab" that Goblân himself had told Tristram the same
story. I copy it as follows: "I once had from him the story of his first crime.
When a very young man, riding over the plain, he noticed a horseman before him
on a splendid iron-gray mare; the demon seized him; he resolved he would have
the mare, and watching his opportunity he speared the man and carried off the
animal. Years have passed and Goblân knows not the name or the family of his
victim, but he feels sure that some one has vowed vengeance and that he shall
yet suffer retribution. 'I cannot sleep,' said he, 'without seeing the gray mare
and her rider before me. But she was a splendid mare. Who would not have killed
a stranger for her?'" When I was introduced to the old savage I could not greet
him very cordially. He is very tall, has a very dark complexion, almost black,
has a fearful scar from a sabre-cut on one of his cheeks, and a crippled arm. He
has gone through many a bloody fight with the Turks and with unfriendly tribes
of his own people, and these wounds are some of the results. Our dragoman set
out a large bowl of boiled rice for him and his men, and we were amused to see
how they ate it. Drawing their feet out of their boots, and sitting down around
the bowl, Goblân rolled the sleeve of his right arm about halfway to the elbow,
put his hand into the dish, squeezed up a mass of the rice into a roll about the
size and shape of a hen's egg, with a skillful use of his forefinger tossed it
into his wide mouth, then prepared another as his comrades did the same, and
that bowl of rice disappeared with marvelous rapidity. This illustrates the
universal method of eating among the Ar'abs. On the next morning, May 1st, we
rode southward along Wâd'y Hasbân' a mile and a half, passing some ruined mills
and the ruins of a strong castle, and then, after climbing a very rough and
steep mountain-side still farther south, and thus rising again to the level of
the plateau, we reached Tell Hasbân (the ruins of Heshbon), about three miles
distant from the spring. Although the ruins here are so old that the outlines of
only a few houses are distinguishable, yet the antiquity of the place, its
association with the march of Moses and the children of Israel toward Canaan,
and the magnificent view which we enjoyed from its high summit caused us to
linger on the spot an hour or two. We had seen no richer country in all
Palestine, nor one more beautiful, than the rolling plain which stretched away
for 20 miles to the south and the southeast of us. At the same time we could see
out into the desert to the east, we could overlook nearly all the country in
which we had been traveling the last few days, and nearly all the hill country
of Palestine west of the Jordan. I was here led to think more intently than
before on the singular circumstance that in all this region west of the Jordan,
though the surface is covered more thickly than any other in the world with
ruined towns and cities, not a human habitation has been erected out of these
ruins, nor is there a single permanent habitation to be found except in Es Salt
and a few villages to the northwest of it. To the question, Who wrought all this
ruin? the answer is found in these black tents which dot all these plains, and
these brown savages who dwell in them. This leads me almost to adopt the
sentiments of Prof. Palmer in regard to these people. He says, "The Bed'awi has
a constitutional dislike to work, and is entirely unscrupulous as to the means
he employs to live without it; these qualities (which adorn also the thief and
the burglar of civilization) he mistakes for evidences of thorough breeding, and
prides himself accordingly upon being one of Nature's gentlemen... To call him a
'son of the desert' is a misnomer; half the desert owes its existence to him,
and many a fertile plain from which he has driven its useful and industrious
inhabitants becomes in his hands, like the south country, a parched and barren
wilderness." He might have added that, but for the robbing expeditions of the
Bed'awin, the portion of Palestine inhabited by the Fellahin would now be in a
far more prosperous condition, and a much greater area of the country would be
in cultivation. From the heights of Heshbon, Mount Nebo, called by the Ar'abs
Jebel Nebâ, was in full view about four miles to the west. We could see that it
is a lower mountain than the one on which we stood, and the surface between is
but little depressed. When we were satisfied with the view from Heshbon I turned
to Fellâh', and pronounced the words Jebel Nebâ. He answered, "Jebel Nebâ,"
pointed toward it, and led the way. It was our privilege now to "climb where
Moses stood and view the landscape o'er." The way in which we ascertained the
point on which Moses stood, and found the landscape which he viewed, is fully
described in our account of Mount Nebo. While we were visiting Heshbon and Mount
Nebo our camp had moved from the spring of Heshbon to Ayûn Mûsa, the Springs of
Moses. These springs, of which we have also given a description elsewhere, are
on the northern side of Mount Nebo and about 1100 feet below its summit. Our
tents were pitched on a narrow bench of the ravine just below the springs, and
thus by day and by night we were in the midst of scenes made sacred by the
presence of Moses, of the tribes of Israel, and of the pillar of cloud. The
day's excursion had been one of the most interesting in our entire tour, and our
resting-place at night was one of the most impressive.


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  CHAPTER 30: LETTER NINE: HOT SPRINGS, PLAIN OF SHITTIM AND RETURN TO JERUSALEM
========================================================================

Letter IX. The Hot Springs, the Plain of Shittim, and Return to Jerusalem From
our camp at the Springs of Moses we made an excursion, May 2nd, to the hot
springs of Callirrho'e, near which are the ruins of the castle of Machæ'rus. The
castle was a favorite winter residence of Herod Antipas; and it was here,
according to Josephus, that he confined John the Baptist after his arrest, and
finally beheaded him. Our dragoman and the sheikh both said that we could make
the excursion in seven hours, but both tried to dissuade us from going thither,
declaring that there was danger of our being attacked and robbed by the wild
Bed'awin of the Beni Sukrh tribe. But we made light of the danger and insisted
on going, whereupon the sheikh sent one of the two men who were with him to
summon three footmen armed with guns to attend us as an additional guard. These
fellows joined us when we were about halfway, and took the lead of the party.
They led up one declivity and down another, in the most desolate region we had
ever seen, and over the steepest mountain-paths. A ride which was to have
occupied three and a half hours stretched into seven, and the thermometer went
up into the nineties. Our new guards were armed with flint-lock muskets, and
their entire dress consisted of a dirty handkerchief round the head, a brown
cotton shirt, once white, nearly worn out, and reaching only to the knees, and a
pair of old slippers with no upper leather around the heels. They seemed to feel
their importance as the protectors of four innocent "babes in the wood" from the
other side of the ocean, while the whole affair appeared to us extremely
ridiculous. Frank said, "There is no use to have those ragamuffins to protect us
out here, for nobody but us are fools enough to come to such a place."

We finally reached the springs. They are in a deep, narrow gorge, into which we
had to descend by climbing down an almost perpendicular cliff. It was too steep
to ride down, and almost too steep for our horses to get down at all. When we
reached the bottom, and had tried the temperature of some of the springs, we
took our lunch under the thin shade of a tamarisk, with the thermometer at 97°.
We took a bath in the creek just below its reception of the first hot stream,
and found the water as hot as we could bear. But the rocks on which we stood
were hotter, and they made us dance when we stood upon them with our naked feet.
After the bath, the perspiration, which had flowed freely enough before, fairly
streamed over us, yet we walked up and down the hot gulch for an hour or two,
examining the springs and the rank tropical vegetation along the bank of the
stream. On returning to camp we found that we had been absent fifteen and a half
hours,—from 5 A. M. to 8 1/2 P. M.,—and that we had been in the saddle fourteen
hours, on some of the roughest and steepest paths that a horse ever traveled
over. Many times we had to dismount, and even on foot some places were difficult
and dangerous. A bright moon enabled us to descend the rocky side of Mount Nebo
to the tents, or I think we would have been compelled to seek shelter in the
tents of the Bed'awin. We were completely worn out, and we felt like bitterly
reproaching Assad for deceiving us about the length of the ride. I am now
satisfied, however, that old Fellâh' was actually afraid of an attack, and that
he led us far out of the way in order to avoid it. We had not been so fatigued
since our long walk on the western shore of the Red Sea; but a good night's rest
revived us, and the next day we were again ready for active service. From the
Springs of Moses we descended into "the plains of Moab over against Jericho,"
sometimes called in the Bible "the plains of Shittim." It is a plain extending
seven miles from the mountains to the Jordan, and eight from the Dead Sea north
to a westward projection of the mountains where they reach out to within three
or four miles of the Jordan. It is traversed by five streams of water, which, if
properly applied, would irrigate the whole of it and make it a garden. Indeed,
it once was a garden, and it supported five cities, the ruins of which now
constitute five immense mounds, near the base of the hills. Near one of these is
another hot spring, with a temperature of 102°. We camped here on Saturday, May
3rd, and remained till Monday the 5th, with our tents pitched by the bank of
Wâd'y Kefrein'. Mount Nebo hung above us to the southeast, and it now appeared
the highest mountain in that direction. The Dead Sea was in full view to the
southwest, and high up the mountains west of the Jordan we could see Bethlehem
and the Mount of Olives. We were now on our return to Jerusalem. We crossed the
Jordan at the ferry opposite Jericho; but, instead of using the boat, we forded
the river at the head of a shoal just below. The water came well up on our
saddle-skirts and one of my knees got wet, but all of our eighteen animals
crossed in safety. While the pack-train was crossing, our party took a fine swim
in the river, and once more tested it as a place for baptizing. It is rare that
a better place for the purpose can be found in a running stream in any
country,—pebbly shore, gradual descent into the water, pebbly bottom, and the
current on the opposite bank. We also spent some time searching among the bushes
on the shore for suitable sticks of which to make canes. We had already cut
several on our first visit to the Jordan, and sent them up to Jerusalem by an
Ar'ab, but we wanted as many as we could well carry, knowing that our friends at
home would be glad to have them. We succeeded, however, in finding but few limbs
that were straight enough to answer the purpose.

After crossing the river we returned to our old camp at the Fountain of Elisha,
and there took our noonday rest. As we were now once more very near the deep
gorge of the brook Cherith, and as I had learned to distrust Assad's statements
about places out of the beaten track, I determined to see for myself whether it
was practicable to ride some distance into that gorge. Brother Taylor agreed to
go with me; so, taking a muleteer to hold our horses when we wished to dismount,
we rode to the mouth of the chasm, and found no serious difficulty in riding
half a mile or more along the bed of the stream. Then we dismounted and went
farther, clambering over the bowlders which almost block up the way, and
struggling through the patches of cane which grow thick and rank wherever there
is any soil, until we reached a spot which appeared in every way suitable for
the hiding-place of the prophet Elijah. Perpendicular cliffs of brown,
rotten-looking stone arose on each side not more than 20 steps apart, and
filling the chasm with gloom by their dark shadows. No human being could climb
up or down those cliffs, and no one could have any ordinary purpose for
ascending the gorge from its mouth or descending it from its head, away up
toward Michmash. A more secluded place could not be found, and it was well
chosen for the prophet's confinement while Ahab was searching for him throughout
his own and all adjoining kingdoms. When we had satisfied ourselves with the
view we cut a walking-cane apiece from the stout stalks of a cane-brake and
returned to our horses. As we were passing out of the chasm we saw, soaring high
up in the air, a raven of the same variety which carried the bread and flesh
every morning and evening to the prophet. From Elisha's Fountain we rode in the
afternoon to Ain ed Dûk, where we camped for the night. We took much interest in
examining the copious springs, and in tracing the artificial channels by which
their water is conducted around the mountain-sides in one direction to the
vicinity of old Jericho, and across the valley on arches in another direction to
the fields which they irrigate. On the next morning, May 6th, we climbed the
mountains from Ain ed Dûk to the village of Tai'yebeh, on the highlands
northeast of Bethel. We had directed Assad to lead us by the most direct route
to Bethel, intending to follow the line of Joshua's march when he went up to
attack Ai, but he deliberately deceived us, as we afterward learned, and led us
by a more circuitous route farther north. The village of Tai'yebeh is not known
to the Scriptures, and is seldom mentioned in the writings of travelers, but it
is a town of some importance, and the unusually good state of cultivation around
it shows the influence of Christianity on its inhabitants. Its population is
chiefly Mohammedan, but it contains a Latin and a Greek convent, a mission
school of the English Church, some imposing ruins, and many marks of having once
been a flourishing city. From the walls of a ruined church a short distance east
of the town we had a fine view of the country lying southward, and a splendid
view of the Dead Sea, all of its eastern shore as far as the peninsula being in
full view. At Tai'yebeh our dragoman bought for our table some dried figs,
prepared by the natives. They were small, and quite inferior in every respect to
the Smyrna figs which he had previously furnished us. Moreover, they had a smoky
taste and appearance, from being kept in the smoky houses of the villagers.
Thenceforward figs were not eaten in our camp so voraciously for lunch and
dinner as they had been before, and I think Assad had some of that purchase left
when we bade him a final farewell. The inferiority of the figs was due entirely
to the unskillful and slovenly way in which they had been cured and kept. In the
afternoon we rode to Bethel, and our tents were pitched in the midst of the
large but unused reservoir just below the village spring. Our location enabled
us to see all the villagers as they came and went, the men idling about, and the
women carrying water. Many of the men, as is usual when we camp near a village,
seated themselves in groups near our tents to talk with the muleteers and get a
pipeful of tobacco from our dragoman. To smoke together and tell the news is the
universal custom when companies of strangers meet.

We had time before night to ride out east of Bethel and try to find the site of
Ai, and of Abraham's camp between Bethel and Ai. We found both as we thought
without difficulty, and we found the ruins of a tower on the top of the hill
where Abraham pitched his tent and built his altar. Two young fellows of the
village, who could not speak a word of English, had walked before us all the
way, annoying us with their efforts to tell us something and to show us what we
were already looking at. We knew that they were manufacturing an excuse to ask
us for buckshîsh' when we started back, and we thought we would outwit them; so
we turned suddenly and rode back to camp in a sweeping gallop. One of our
tormentors, however, ran after us as fast as he could, and we had scarcely
dismounted when he assailed us with his cry of "Buckshîsh'." We had to give him
something to get rid of him. On the next morning we rode through the hills of
Benjamin from Bethel to Jerusalem. The road follows the watershed, crossing now
the head of a ravine which runs toward the Jordan, and now another that runs
toward the Mediterranean. It climbs no high hills, and descends into no deep
valleys, but it is rough and stony, and now and then it has sections of the old
pavement laid by the ancient Jews. All the way it passes in view of historical
towns, such as Be'eroth, Ramah, Gibeah, and Mizpeh, and there is no highway in
the country more frequently the scene of biblical events.

We reached Jerusalem about 10 A. M., on the 7th of May, having been absent since
the 21st of April, nearly seventeen days. We felt very much like one returning
home. We repaired at once to the consulate to receive the letters from home
which had accumulated in our absence, and then sat down in our tents at the old
camping-place to read and answer them.

One of our first duties on our return was to settle with Fellâh', the old sheikh
who had been our guide and protector during our journey. He had faithfully
complied with his contract. On his little white mare, with his long spear across
his shoulder, he had ridden before us all the time by day; he had eaten
uncomplainingly of the scant fare doled out to him by our dragoman; he had
smoked his pipe on the ground outside our tents, and slept there wrapped only in
his ab'a every night; he had answered all questions promptly, and complied with
every request in a good humor, and we had become really attached to him. When we
handed him the gold which was due, he received it with a bow, and asked for no
more. We all wanted his photograph, and when we asked him to sit for it, he
answered that it was contrary to his religion to make pictures, but he would not
disappoint us; so he went with us to the gallery of an Armenian photographer,
and we obtained the likeness of which the engraving in this book is a faithful
copy. If the Christian faith could be planted in the hearts of such men of the
desert as he, it would find congenial soil and bring forth much fruit. The Lord
hasten the day! From Wednesday, the 7th, to Saturday, the 10th of May, we
remained in camp at Jerusalem, and spent the time revisiting localities already
seen and seeing new ones. Thursday we devoted to the Har'am, and on account of
the expense of admission we visited it only once. It is unlawful for a Christian
to enter this sacred inclosure without the permission of the Ar'ab sheikh who is
intrusted with its guardianship, and it is thought to be dangerous to do so
without his personal presence with you, and the protection of a couple of
Turkish soldiers and of the cavasse or Turkish body-guard of your consul. The
danger is not from the authorities, but from the fanatical Moslem, who might
gather a mob and stone you. In order that proper preparation may be made you
must give the consul notice of your intended visit a day in advance, then he
attends to everything else. We repaired with our interpreter to the consulate at
the appointed hour, the cavasse led us to the barrack and obtained the two
soldiers, and then, escorted by all three of these, we entered the inclosure
from David Street, and were met by the sheikh of the Har'am. From the time we
entered the place until we got through our examination of all its curious
objects, our attendants were constantly trying to hurry us, evidently wishing to
get their fees for the least amount of time and trouble. But we had come to see,
and to see once for all; and we would not be hurried. We examined carefully all
objects of interest both above ground and under ground, both within and without
the sacred buildings, in about the same order in which we have described them in
another part of this book. Only once was there the slightest attempt to restrain
the freedom of our curiosity, and that was when I laid my profane hands on the
immense manuscript copy of the Koran, which lay on the pulpit in the Dome of the
Rock. It was so large (about 30 inches square) that I had a curiosity to see
inside of it, and I threw it open. Immediately our guide cried out with alarm,
and the sheikh made a threatening motion with a scowl on his face, but as my
hands were no longer touching the book, I pretended not to understand what was
said, and looked at the written page until I was satisfied. In former years a
system of extortion was practiced on travelers in regard to visiting the Har'am,
and instead of a fixed price of admission the sheikh demanded all that every
individual visitor could be induced to pay, first putting his figures enormously
high, and then gradually coming down until he reached the visitors highest bid.
But the European and American consuls have of late combined their influence to
prevent extortion, and now a fixed fee of five francs for every visitor is all
that is paid, and this is paid, not to the sheikh, but to the consul, who
delivers it to him. Besides this, you give a voluntary fee of from two to five
francs for the company to each of the soldiers and the cavasse.


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  CHAPTER 31: LETTER TEN: BETHLEHEM, SOLOMON'S POOLS, HEBRON AND EN-GEDI
========================================================================

Letter X. Bethlehem, Solomon's Pools, Hebron, and En-Gedi On Saturday, May 10th,
we started on a tour intended to include all of Palestine south of the parallel
of Jerusalem. Leaving our camp, we rode up close to the Joppa gate, then
descended the eastern side of the Valley of Hinnom a short distance, and crossed
it on the bridge which supports the aqueduct from Solomon's Pools. We were on
the road to Bethlehem. As I crossed I rode up to the aqueduct wall and looked
into a hole which I had found in the top of the aqueduct a few days before, and
saw that the water was still flowing. At intervals all the way to Bethlehem we
saw the aqueduct winding round the hillsides, and a woman gave me a drink of
water from it just at the edge of that town. On the south side of the town it
flows through a cistern, keeps it full, and affords a perpetual supply of water
to the Bethlehemites, to be used when their rain water cisterns are exhausted.
The road to Bethlehem was once covered with a pavement of flat stones, and
remnants of it are still seen. The road-bed was 16 or 18 feet wide. The present
road is nothing but three or four bridle-paths made by the constant tramp of
camels and donkeys and their human companions. The amount of travel over it is
second to that over no road leading out of Jerusalem, except the one to Joppa.
We met many camels loaded with lime, each carrying about a cart-load in immense
sacks which were swung across his back like saddle-pockets, other camels and
many donkeys loaded with brush and roots for fuel, and some loaded with
charcoal. We also met some two-legged donkeys, walking along with their turbaned
heads uplifted, while their wives, trudging behind them, bowed their heads under
heavy burdens which they were taking to market. I even saw two or three riding
on little donkeys which they could carry on their shoulders, while their wives
went before on foot with heavy packs on their heads. I never let one of these
fellows pass without giving him a tongue-lashing which would make him warm if he
could only understand English. When within about two miles of Bethlehem we
passed the tomb of Rachel, so called; but it is evidently a Mohammedan
structure, and it stands, as we have shown before, some miles away from the spot
where Jacob set up a pillar over the grave of Rachel. I pay but little attention
to traditionary sites which, like this, are contrary to the Scriptures.

He who approaches Bethlehem with the expectation of seeing a handsome place will
be disappointed. It is built of limestone, which has grown dingy from exposure,
and the houses have neither visible roofs, nor cornices, nor shutters, nor
wood-work of any kind on the outside, except the doors. Many of them have no
windows other than little square holes in the wall. The old church of the
Nativity, at the east end of the town, is no exception to the general rule. It
is unsightly outside, and going to wreck inside. It deserves to go to wreck for
keeping up the false pretense of showing, down in a cave, or a cistern, the
manger in which Jesus was laid. But at the west end of the town there are some
new and modern buildings, and along the Jerusalem road, running north from this
point, many new buildings are now in course of erection. It is claimed by the
inhabitants that Bethlehem now numbers 10,000 inhabitants, though it is usually
put down at 5000, and they are nearly all nominal Christians; but I could see no
difference between their outward appearance and that of the Mohammedans, except
that the women have a different style of head-dress. On leaving Bethlehem,
instead of going directly to Solomon's Pools, on the road to Hebron, we struck
off to the southeast, and visited what is called "The Frank Mountain," about
four miles toward the Dead Sea. Its principal interest is derived from the fact
that here, on a conical hill 400 feet above its base on every side, and so steep
that even a Syrian horse can climb only halfway, Herod the Great had a palace
whose ruins are still there, and that here he was buried, his body being brought
hither from Jericho, where he died. From this mountain we struck for the pools,
and our track for the last two miles of the way was along the bench made for the
aqueduct. On reaching the pools we found our tents pitched by the side of the
upper pool, and there we remained in camp from Saturday afternoon till Monday
morning.

There are few objects in Palestine which I have felt more anxious to see than
these pools and the aqueduct connected with them, and few that are so
insufficiently described in the books which I have read. I examined them with
the greatest care, and they filled me with more admiration than ever before.
Previous to their construction Jerusalem had within it no running water, but was
dependent on rain-water caught in cisterns or in wells outside the walls. Such a
dependence was too precarious for the capital of a kingdom, and Solomon was too
wise a king to be contented with it; so he determined to bring in a
constantly-flowing stream by means of an aqueduct. But in order to do this, a
sufficiently copious spring must be found at an elevation above Jerusalem; and
as Jerusalem is from 2400 to 2500 feet above the sea level, and as springs
generally burst out, not at the tops of hills, but far down their slopes, it is
clear that such a spring was not to be found at random. The nearest, and the
only one within a reasonable distance, was found two miles southwest of
Bethlehem, and about eight miles by the nearest road from Jerusalem. I have
described the aqueduct and the pools near its fountain-head on pages 222-229,
and will not here repeat the description.

We left Solomon's Pools on Monday morning, May 12th, for Hebron. The distance is
about 12 miles, and, though the road passes up hill and down almost continually,
there is a general ascent; so that the highest elevation in all Southern
Palestine is reached about three miles north of Hebron. It is 3300 feet above
the sea. When we were within a mile of Hebron we turned to the right and crossed
over to the Plain of Mamre, in order to visit Abraham's Oak. Of this we have
given a description and a picture on pages 51, 52. The vines which now cover
this plain are an innovation as respects Abraham's time, for the plain was then
a pasture; but vines had already taken possession of the soil when the twelve
spies were sent into Canaan 300 years later. It was probably in this very plain,
then called the Valley of Eshcol, that the spies cut the bunch of grapes which
was borne on a staff between two. Such bunches grow there still. I saw many
bunches with the grapes just forming, that were 10 or 12 inches long, and were
destined to be nearly two feet long when the grapes are ripe. Hebron is
represented as the best district for grapes in all Western Asia, with the single
exception of Damascus, and its vineyards are far superior to any others that I
have seen. The grapes are not utilized to the extent that they would be by an
enterprising people, but many of them are made into raisins. I wanted some of
the raisins to take home as a specimen, so I told our dragoman to buy me a
franc's worth, and I was surprised to receive about four pounds. Our tents at
Hebron were pitched on the slope of a hill west of the town, and as the town
lies on the opposite slope it was in full view from our tent door. It claims
about 8000 inhabitants and is a stirring place, though intensely Mohammedan. We
could see from our camp the ancient stone wall, supposed to have been built by
Solomon, which surrounds and conceals the Cave of Machpelah, wherein lie buried
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. We could see the roof and
part of the wall of the church built within the inclosure during the Christian
period of Palestine, and afterward turned into a mosque by the Mohammedans. We
were also permitted, under the escort of the sheikh of the city, to walk round
the inclosure itself and examine its exterior, while the women and boys were
cursing us in Arabic and wishing that they dared to stone us. From Hebron we
made an excursion to En-gedi, an oasis on the desolate western shore of the Dead
Sea. Our object was not only to visit the place, conspicuous in Old Testament
history, but to see the barren hills which form the western shore of the Dead
Sea and the country westward about ten miles. The path which we followed was
very direct, and the greater part of it was a much better road than I expected
to see; but at two places we had a trial of mountain riding more severe than any
in our previous experience. Our road, for a mile or two, was a mere goat-path on
the side of a mountain whose slope was so steep that if man or beast should
fall, there would be no stopping short of the rocky bed of the ravine, and that
was at least 1000 feet by the slope below us. The path in many places was not
more than 12 inches wide, and it had a little slant in the wrong direction. I
could not look down without being nervous; but, though I tried to keep my eye
fixed on the path before me, I could not resist the inclination to look downward
occasionally. To add to my nervousness, my horse persisted in walking on the
outer edge of the path, while I leaned and drew the rein in the opposite
direction. He reminded me of many young Christians who are constantly treading
on the very verge of propriety, as if to show how near they can approach
destruction and yet escape it. I spoke of dismounting, but the dragoman insisted
that it was safer for both the horse and myself that I remain in the saddle, and
he closed by saying, "The horse is very wise:" so I trusted to horse wisdom, and
passed through in safety. The other place was the cliff which rises above
En-gedi. When we reached the mountain-top overlooking the Dead Sea, we found
that we were on an almost perpendicular cliff of brown and rugged rock, 2000
feet above the spring, and it appeared impossible for a horse to descend it. But
we dismounted, the Ar'ab attendants led our horses, and we followed. By a series
of very short zigzags, over rough stones, over smooth slanting rock, and down
steps from one to two feet perpendicular, we slowly and carefully picked our
way, while the grandeur of the scenery continually increased as the dark,
frowning precipice rose higher and higher above us. In half an hour the 2000
feet of descent were passed, and we stood on a bench of the mountain, 600 feet
yet above the sea, by the side of a rushing stream of pure and sparkling water.
It gushes forth from under mountains which look as if they had never received a
drop of rain; it makes verdant a few acres of ground; it rushes down the
remainder of the precipice, turning a mill when the mill is in repair, and,
although it has only a half-mile of beach to cross after completing the descent,
so thirsty are the sands of that beach that the stream is lost before it reaches
the sea.

After a brief rest Frank and I walked down to the sea to take a bath. There was
a stiff breeze from the north, and the waves were rolling two or three feet
high. This delighted us, for we expected to have a wave-bath after the fashion
at Cape May; but when we tried it we found that our feet would go up and our
heads down. The first we knew, our eyes were full of the water and smarting so
that we could not open them until the tears washed out the brine. Meantime, we
were learning how to keep our feet under, and were getting farther and farther
from shore. When we learned to keep our equilibrium, and could open our eyes,
the ride over the waves as they came in was delightful.

After enjoying this to our satisfaction we turned toward the shore, and
experienced the old difficulty in a new form. There was an undercurrent drawing
us out to sea, and as we tried to swim against it every wave that overtook us
threw our feet out of water, so we were compelled to swim with our hands alone.
The exertion was so great that by the time I reached water in which I could
touch bottom the strength of my arms was almost exhausted. No one who is not a
good swimmer should venture into the Dead Sea beyond his depth when the waves
are rolling. After our bath we started for the mouth of an enormous fissure in
the mountains, a short distance to the right, whose grandeur had excited our
admiration. As we approached it we came to a feeble stream of water just sinking
in the sand. The farther we went the broader and stronger this stream became,
and when we entered the mouth of the gorge we saw before us a fine cascade
leaping over a perpendicular ledge of rock 25 feet high. It had scooped out,
where it fell, a round basin in the solid rock 6 feet deep and about 30 feet in
diameter, which was full to the brim with sparkling water. We were soon plunging
about in this to wash away the gummy coating which the Dead Sea water had left
on our bodies. This coating made one feel, to use Brother Taylor's expression,
as if he had been "smeared all over with molasses." The hills composing the
wilderness along the western shore of this sea consist chiefly of a soft
limestone, which varies in color from a tawny to a dark brown when long exposed,
but is almost as white as snow when freshly uncovered. Nothing grows there
except two little bushy shrubs, one of which is called by the Ar'abs the
blacksmith-bush and the other the bachelor-bush. The last is well named, for you
never see two of them growing together. A ride through this region is usually
attended with great discomfort and some danger to health, on account of the
glare of the white hillsides in the hot sun, but we were favored with a cloudy
day and a north wind, for which we were truly thankful. On our return from
En-gedi to Hebron we made a detour to the southward in order to see Ziph, near
which David and his men were lurking when the Ziphites betrayed them to Saul,
and Carmel, where were the possessions of the churlish Nabal. The town of Ziph
stood on the summit of a rounded hill, five miles southeast of Hebron, with
broad, rich valleys at its base and a beautiful country spreading far away to
the south and southwest, a part of the Negeb. There is nothing left of the town
except its cisterns and sepulchres and the broken pottery that is intermixed
with the soil. The terraced sides of the hill and its leveled summit are
cultivated in grain. As I stood there and looked around where the dust of
David's betrayers had enriched the soil, I felt like saying, "You Ziphites, you
were a mean set, and you deserved the fate which has befallen you; for you
betrayed the innocent to make favor with the powerful. May such be the fate of
all who follow your detestable example!" In coming from Ziph to Hebron we saw,
perched on a high hill to the west of us, the ancient town of Juttah, supposed
to have been the birthplace and early home of John the Baptist. No other city of
Judah answers the natural requirements of the case so well. The Roman Catholics,
however, with their usual disregard of evidence, long ago fixed on a village
about four miles west of Jerusalem as the place of John's residence, and there
they have erected extensive convent buildings, with beautiful gardens and
orchards around them. In returning to Hebron we rode against a strong north wind
which was so cold that we took our shawls from our saddles and wrapped them
around us. In the camp that evening we took seats by George's charcoal-fire at
the kitchen-tent, and the next morning the thermometer was down to 42°. This was
the coldest weather we felt in Palestine.


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  CHAPTER 32: LETTER ELEVEN: BEER-SHEBA, EDOM AND PHILISTIA
========================================================================

Letter XI. Beer'-Sheba, Edom, and Philistia From Hebron to Beer'-sheba is about
30 miles in a southwesterly direction. At about 12 miles we reached the village
of Dahirî'yeh, which lies among the last of the hills, the remainder of the
distance being through the plain where Abraham and Isaac fed their flocks and
dug their wells while sojourning in the country of Abimelech. Here a striking
historical coincidence had just occurred. In conversation with the sheikh of the
village, who called at our camp, I learned that his people and those of another
village farther south had recently had a fight, in which five men were killed,
and that the quarrel was about the ownership of a well which lies between the
two villages. At once I was reminded of the quarrel which arose between Isaac
and the herdsmen of Abimelech in this very vicinity, nearly 4000 years ago, for
the very same cause.

It was with deep and solemn satisfaction that, after visiting the favorite
residence of these venerable patriarchs, and their appropriate burial-place, I
was now permitted to rest where the grove which Abraham here planted once cast a
shade, and to refresh myself with the same water from which he drank. Along the
plain above, and close about the wells, cities have risen and fallen since that
day, and we rode among their ruins; but now, in these ends of the ages, these
silent wells remain as they were when Isaac left them, without a perfect
habitation within many miles of them, the property of all who go to them for
refreshment, the exclusive inheritance of none.

Beer'-sheba is the last point in the desert on the route from Egypt to Palestine
by way of Mount Sinai, and this is the proper place in which to say something of
the region lying between the head of the gulf of Ak'abah and Beer'-sheba. This
region is divided into three districts,—the Wilderness of the Wandering,
including the desert between the base of the Sinaitic peninsula and the first
habitable district south of Palestine; the South Country, including all between
the desert and the thickly-settled territory of Judah; and Edom, including the
mountainous region extending from the southern end of the Dead Sea to the
northern end of the Gulf of Ak'abah. Of the first we need only say that it is
still, as it was anciently, "a waste, howling wilderness," almost totally
uninhabited, and seldom traversed even by the Bed'awin Ar'abs. The second, the
South Country, was once well settled and well cultivated, as is clear from the
ruins of many cities and towns now scattered over its surface. Even now its
pasturage is excellent in the early spring, and in many parts of it wheat is
grown successfully. But the ruins now found there belong principally to the
Christian period of its history, between the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Mohammedan invasion. In the period of Jewish history it was occupied, as it is
now, by nomadic tribes such as the Am'alekites.

Between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the northern end of the Gulf of
Ak'abah, there is a continuation of that long depression which constitutes the
Jordan Valley. It is a narrow, sandy plain, with a perpendicular cliff rising
from its western side up to the level of the desert, and the mountains of Edom
rising abruptly from it on the east. It is called the Ar'abah, and the march of
the children of Israel, when they turned south from Kadesh-Barnea to compass the
land of Edom, was along its sandy bed. It was on this march that they came to
Mount Hor, where Aaron was required, after climbing to the top of the mountain,
to give up his life. This mountain stands near the Ar'abah, and about halfway
between its northern and southern extremities. It is more than 4000 feet high
above the sea-level, and it requires a very fatiguing climb on foot to reach its
summit. On its highest peak stands a Mohammedan wely called Aaron's Tomb, which
is greatly revered by the Bed'awin of the surrounding country. They call the
mountain Jebel Ha'rûn,—the mountain of Aaron. The structure is 32 by 35 feet in
exterior dimensions, and it is well represented in the cut on the following
page. Its interior is thus described by Dr. Ridgaway, who visited it in 1874:
"Pushing aside an old rickety door which scarcely hangs upon its hinges, we
entered the open chamber where is the tomb proper. It is like an ordinary Moslem
grave, with Arabic characters inscribed upon it, with bits of cloth hanging
about it, and ostrich eggs and other simple emblems hanging above it. The room
is plain, with arched ceiling, the sides pierced with small windows, and some
fragments of tesselated pavement on the floor. The real tomb is below the floor,
in the crypt, into which the superstitious Mohammedans are loath to allow
infidels to enter. But we went down, pushed through an old iron door, and by aid
of a candle and magnesium light saw—nothing." As the structure is of Mohammedan
origin, it must have been erected, of course, since the Mohammedan invasion; but
it may have taken the place of some pre-existing tomb, or it may have been
erected without a predecessor, in honor of "the prophet Aaron," for whom the
mountain was named.

Between Mount Hor and the Red Sea (the Gulf of Ak'abah), as Israel was marching
along the southern slope of the Ar'abah, occurred the well-known visitation of
fiery serpents, whose bite was healed by a look at the brazen serpent suspended
on a pole in the camp.

Mount Sinai A few miles from Mount Hor, in the midst of the mountains eastward
of it, is the celebrated city called Petra,—the rock. It is one of the most
curious cities in the world, yet of its early history very little is known, and
its very existence was lost sight of for many centuries until its ruins were
discovered by Burckhardt in 1812. It was built in a deep basin in the mountains,
surrounded on every side by precipitous cliffs, and approached by only one
narrow pass between perpendicular ledges of rock. This pass, for nearly a mile
as it descends toward the city, is in many places not more than 12 feet wide,
and a small stream flows along its bed. It finally opens out into a wider valley
called Wâd'y Musa, and this into the area which was occupied by the city. Over
this area are scattered the fragments of ancient dwellings, palaces, and
temples, while the perpendicular walls of variegated sandstone all around are
excavated for tombs and small temples. But the most remarkable structure is a
temple of large dimensions and elaborate workmanship carved entirely out of
natural rock in the face of a perpendicular cliff. It is called by the Ar'abs El
Kûs'neh, and it is represented in the cut on the opposite page.

El Kûs'neh Its height is about 150 feet, and, as can be seen in the cut, its
columns are of the Corinthian order. "The perfection of its preservation," says
Dr. Ridgaway, "is marvelous, the finest carving looking as though but a day from
the touch of the chisel, and only here and there a column or a figure has
perished." It has a single interior chamber, which is without ornamentation, and
the design of the entire work is an enigma. It was certainly not carved out by
the ancient sons of Esau, who held this country during the period of Bible
history, yet the existence of such a work and of such a city as that of which it
is a representative shows that the land of Edom was once capable of supporting a
rich and powerful people. Its valleys and elevated plains are still exceedingly
productive, and should the tide of intelligent emigration once set in upon it,
it may yet be made to bloom again as a garden. On Saturday afternoon we left
Beer'-sheba on our way to Gaza, and our camp for Sunday, May 18th, was on Wâd'y
Sharî'a, a perennial stream which flows from the hills west of Hebron across the
southern end of the Philis'tine Plain and enters the Mediterranean south of
Gaza. We were in the midst of a large tribe of Bed'awin, whose encampments
dotted the plains in every direction, while their herds of camels were grazing
in groups, or marching in solemn procession to and from the water, and their
harvesters, both men and women, were everywhere at work in the unfenced fields
of grain. I thought of Samson and his foxes, and could see that a fire once set
out in these fields of dead-ripe grain would spread without hindrance over the
whole country. The modes of handling grain are the same that they were in the
days of Isaac, and we have fully described them elsewhere. While some of the
men, women, and boys are engaged in harvesting, a detachment of women and boys
are at work bringing water to the laborers and to the camps. It is brought
partly in goat-skins, the bottles of Scripture, and partly in small-mouthed
jars, or large-mouthed jugs, I scarcely know which to call them, holding about
five gallons each. These are swung in pairs across the backs of small donkeys,
or the jars, if the distance is moderate, are poised singly on the heads of the
women. The women have learned to balance them so skillfully that they seldom
steady them with their hands. To add to this interesting picture of nomad life,
the sheikh of the tribe visited our camp in company with several of his men, and
they brought with them a beautiful yearling lamb, led by a cord, as a present to
our dragoman. They received presents in return, and remained all night with us.
We gave them a hospitable (?) sleeping-place on the bare ground outside of our
tents, but the loamy plain did not furnish a single stone for a pillow; for be
it known that stones are still used as pillows by the sleepers in the desert,
and I know by experience that they are a real comfort. I throw my blanket-shawl
on the ground at noon, with one end folded on a stone, and under the shade of a
fig or olive or carob-tree it is a bed that any weary man would enjoy. So the
Bedawi uses his woolen outer garment, which protects him from the sun during the
day and serves as his bed and cover by night. This sheikh appealed to me very
earnestly in behalf of a cousin of his, who had been held by the Turks as a
prisoner in Jerusalem for twenty-two months on account of a fight between his
tribe and another. He claimed that his cousin had been guilty of no personal
crime, and said that there was no way of getting a case through the Turkish
courts except by bribery. He wanted me to induce the American consul to use his
influence to effect his cousin's release, and when I promised to do what I could
he expressed his gratitude by touching my heart and kissing my hand. I was
faithful to my promise, and Colonel Wilson, our consul, assured me that he would
use his utmost influence in the case if he could manage to do so without
appearing to intermeddle. On Monday, the 19th of May, we continued our journey
to Gaza, reaching there about noon. It is distant from Beer'-sheba about 30
miles, the latter place being southeast of it. The modern Gaza contains about
15,000 inhabitants, and is a place of considerable business. Its houses are
nearly all miserable huts built of sun-dried brick, but it has some respectable
buildings, the most respectable of which is an old Christian church turned into
a mosque. The ancient Gaza stood between the present town and the sea. Its site
is traceable only by the mounds of rubbish formed by the crumbling of its larger
buildings, while the sites of all its smaller structures are hidden under heaps
of sand. But little is left to interest the Bible student.

We rode up the coast 12 miles to Askelon, our path lying along the beach, where
the waves of the sea frequently washed our horses' feet, and the horses trod
continually upon small sea-shells of brilliant colors. We gathered as many of
the more beautiful shells as we could well carry, but we rode over thousands of
wagon-loads of them that would be acceptable presents at home. The ruins at
Askelon are very extensive and interesting, but they are chiefly those of the
walls and buildings erected by Richard Coeur de Leon while here as a Crusader in
the year 1192. From Askelon we struck across the Philis'tine Plain again, in a
line nearly parallel with that by which we had approached Gaza. We found the
plain here, as below, a vast grain-field; but, unlike that below, it was dotted
by numerous villages instead of the black tents of the Bed'awin. The people
here, as everywhere else in Palestine, except among the Bed'awin, live in
villages and cultivate the surrounding fields. Near the villages are the
vineyards, gardens, and fruit-orchards, all of which, in the plain, are
protected by cactus-hedges; while farther out are the fields of grain entirely
unfenced. All cattle and sheep are kept constantly in charge of shepherds.

We spent the night at Mejdel, some three or four miles from Askelon. It is a
thriving town, in the midst of the best-cultivated district in all Palestine,
except that immediately about Joppa. Here our cook was taken sick, and sent for
me to give him medicine. I found him suffering severe pain, and suspected that
imprudent eating was the cause; but he insisted that he had eaten nothing
unusual. I finally asked the dragoman what he had been eating, and he said he
knew of nothing except some cucumbers which the men had bought by the way. The
cucumbers were 8 or 10 inches long, and very large. I said, "George, how many of
those big cucumbers did you eat?" He innocently answered, "Only nine!" And when
I scolded him for eating so many, he said he had eaten nine many a time. I gave
him a severe dose of medicine, and he was well enough to cook breakfast the next
morning.

We struck the hills near Bêt Jibrîn' (pronounced Bate Jibreen') which was called
in the crusading times Eleutheropolis. It is now a city of ruins, and it is most
remarkable for the vast artificial caverns which abound in its vicinity, and
which show plainly, by their interior arrangement, that they were made for human
habitations. They are cut in a soft white limestone, they have lofty arched
ceilings with an opening in the apex to let in light, and they have passages
opening from one to the other like the doors from one room to another in a
dwelling. It was doubtless in some such cave-dwelling that David and his men
made their home near Adullam. Our next movement was northward along the
dividing-line between Judah and the Philis'tines, as far as Gath. It was
Lieutenant Conder who first identified the site of this city, and it is one well
worthy of the city's fame. It is the leveled summit of a hill at least 500 feet
above the surrounding valleys, and the ascent to it is so steep on every side
that it requires a Syrian horse to climb it. From the southern extremity of the
summit the view stretches out over the whole country of the Philis'tines, and
the signal-fire lighted here could be instantly seen from all the confederated
cities. Along its northern base passes the Valley of Elah, here a beautiful
plain a mile wide, and rich in waving grain. It was down this valley that the
Philis'tines fled after the death of Goliath, and this noted event occurred but
a few miles above. Before visiting the spot of this last event, we rode across
the mountains northeastward, to visit Timnath, the Valley of Sorek, Zorah, and
Beth'-shemesh. After passing Timnath, which is now a village built of ancient
ruins, we climbed over the top of a rugged hill, too rough with massive rocks
for cultivation, and thickly set between the rocks with scrubby brush. Over this
hill Samson had to pass in going from Zorah to see his beloved Timnath, and here
he must have met and slain the lion. When we reached the northern brow of the
same hill, the Valley of Sorek spread before us, and we involuntarily reined in
our horses to gaze upon its beauty. From Beth'-shemesh, whose identity is
unmistakable, about three miles to our right, the smooth trough of the valley
passed by beneath our feet, and stretched away to the west, widening as it went,
and variegated everywhere with alternate strips of yellow and green grain and
freshly-ploughed ground. For a few miles the hills, with decreasing height,
bounded it on either side, and beyond its border was the slightly higher level
of the Philis'tine Plain. Far off in the dim distance the eye could barely
detect the small village where Ekron once stood, and along the smooth floor of
the valley it could trace the entire course of the milch-kine as they brought
back the ark of God, followed by the wondering lords of the Philis'tines. The
Beth-shemites were then engaged in gathering their harvest, and the harvest was
ripe for the sickle as we gazed upon it. Our appreciation of the scene was fully
expressed by Frank, who broke the silence by saying, "It looks like one of the
valleys that we see in pictures." From the Valley of Sorek we made a circuit
around to the spot, some four miles south of Beth'-shemesh, where David slew
Goliath. The place, and almost the exact spot, where this combat occurred, are
easily identified, there being only one in the Valley of Elah suited in every
particular to the Scripture narrative. This we have fully described on pages
259, 260. From the Valley of Elah we returned to Jerusalem. Our path for the
first few miles was along the ancient road from Jerusalem to Gaza; but we turned
to the left and climbed the precipitous, rocky hill of Bêt Atâb', which has been
identified as the Rock E'tam where Samson took refuge after burning the
grain-fields of the Philis'tines. We inquired for the large cavern which Conder
supposes Samson to have occupied, and a villager led us to a cave very suitable
for the purpose, but not answering to Conder's description. I think the fellow
misled us, thinking that we would give him more buckshîsh' to lead us to the
other cave; but our dragoman was not with us today, having gone directly to
Jerusalem with one of the men, who was very sick, and we could not communicate
freely with the people of the village.

We next crossed over the hills still farther northward, in order to visit the
so-called Philip's Fountain. We were much interested in observing the water
spouting through a wall 15 feet above the roadside, the massive stone trough
into which it fell, the conduit which led it to the large pool below, and the
luxuriant garden into which the water was led from the pool. This garden showed
what could be accomplished in this warm climate and prolific soil by irrigation.
I never saw, in any country, a garden of fruits and vegetables that excelled it.

We reached Jerusalem on the afternoon of May 22nd, having accomplished our
southern tour in 12 days. From Hebron to En-gedi, and thence throughout the
remainder of our tour, we had been escorted by the young Sheikh Ab'bas, of
Hebron, son of old Hamzeh, the principal sheikh of that city, who guided Dr.
Robinson 42 years ago, but is now too feeble for such work. We found Ab'bas a
lively, cheerful young fellow, but he has a cough which I took to be incipient
consumption, and I think he is destined to an early death. On this tour we
discovered in Assad, our dragoman, a deliberate purpose to protract our stay in
the country as much as possible by overstating the length of each coming day's
journey. Frequently, when he declared most positively that it would require
seven hours' hard riding to reach a certain place, and induced us to select it
for the next camp, we would reach it in four hours; and when I would reproach
him for deceiving us, he showed no sense of shame and made no apology. I finally
took the matter into my own hands, and determined every night, as best I could,
where our camp should be the next night, and gave him orders accordingly.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 33: LETTER TWELVE: JERUSALEM TO SHE-CHEM
========================================================================

Letter XII. From Jerusalem to She'chem On our return to Jerusalem from our
southern excursion, we had very little more to do in the way of sight-seeing
about the city. We first devoted ourselves to gathering, boxing, and shipping
various souvenirs of our journey and presents for friends at home. We found in
the shops devoted to the manufacture of articles in olive-wood a great variety
of canes, boxes, paper-weights, paper-folders, book-racks, napkin-rings, etc.,
of which we bought freely at low prices. We also found in the bookstore cards of
pressed flowers arranged with most exquisite taste, and as fresh in color as if
they had been plucked from their stems that very hour. Photographs taken by the
best French artists, and representing every interesting locality in the country,
were obtained in abundance, and at reasonable prices. We also purchased crowns
of thorns made of the same thorny twigs and in the same form with the crown
which was placed on the head of Jesus. We packed in our box specimens of
rock-salt from the Dead Sea, and a metallic bottle full of Dead-Sea water. All
these articles, and many others, after being securely packed in a strong box,
were placed in charge of Mr. Bergheim, the banker, who is agent for a
cosmopolitan shipping company, and by him shipped for Philadelphia. On Sunday we
once more attended the services of the English church. We found the house draped
in mourning on account of the death of Bishop Gobat, who had been Bishop of
Jerusalem for thirty-three years. He was very sick when we left the city for our
southern tour, and he had died during our absence.

I brought with me to Jerusalem a letter of introduction to the Armenian
Patriarch of Jerusalem, written in his own language. I received it from an
Armenian, G. N. Shishmanian, who was born on the head-waters of the river
Euphrates, but had drifted away to America, had become a Protestant, and was a
student under my instruction in the College of the Bible at Lexington. When I
was ready to call at the palace of the Patriarch and present my letter, I
learned that he knew nothing of English, neither could his interpreter speak any
language known to my interpreter or to me. The prospect for a pleasant interview
was rather gloomy. In my strait I appealed to our consul, and he found for me a
young German, secretary of the German consulate, who kindly consented to serve
me. He could speak English very well, and also Italian, the only foreign tongue
known to the Patriarch's dragoman. Brother Earl accompanied me, and we were
received in quite a stately manner. I found the Patriarch a man of about my own
age, with pleasant expression of countenance and simplicity of manners. Our
conversation was four-handed. I would speak to the German, he would translate to
the dragoman in Italian, and he to the Patriarch in Armenian. The answer came
back to me along the same route. It was the slowest way to talk that I ever
tried,—slower than the deaf and dumb alphabet. It was death to all attempts at
humor; for when I would say anything funny, I had to wait so long before the
laughing-point would get around to the Patriarch that my laugh was over before
his began, and sometimes the fun would all be lost in the translations, so that
the long-looked-for smile would not come at all. The effort to converse was
relieved now and then by the arrival of a servant bringing cigarettes,
sweetmeats, etc. Our refusal of the cigarettes caused much surprise to the
party, and when some jelly was handed they all had a hearty laugh at my expense.
The jelly was in a little bowl on a silver waiter, and by the bowl were two
saucers, one empty and one full of little silver spoons. I took the empty
saucer, dipped some of the jelly into it, and commenced eating. They all
laughed. I couldn't see the point until my friend the German told me that I
should have taken a spoonful out of the bowl, and, after eating that, laid the
spoon in the empty saucer and taken a clean spoon for another dip into the bowl,
and so on till I had used my share of the spoons. This I thought quite a
refinement on the Ar'ab method of every man dipping his hand into the dish. On
Monday morning, May 26th, after waiting till ten o'clock for the distribution of
the mail which came in that morning from Joppa, we bade a final farewell to the
Holy City. We did so without regret, for we had accomplished the object for
which we had come to it; and, apart from its sacred associations, Jerusalem has
no attractions at all to a stranger. There are few cities in the civilized world
in which I would not rather live, either for enjoying life or for doing good.

Previous to our final departure from Jerusalem we had explored all of Palestine
which lies south of its parallel, and now our faces were turned northward. We
had already been to Bethel, 12 miles due north, and we had seen, on the east of
the road from that place to Jerusalem, Michmash, Gibeah, Ramah, and Anathoth.
But to the westward of this road there were several places of interest which we
had not yet visited, and these now claimed our attention. On leaving Jerusalem
we rode directly to Neby Samwil, ascended the mountain by a steep path, and
climbed to the top of the minaret. The view, which we have described elsewhere,
well repaid us for our labor. After satisfying ourselves with it, and eating our
lunch under the shade of the mosque with a gaping crowd of dirty villagers
around us, we rode to Gibeon and searched for its ancient pool, by which the
armies of Joab and Abner were encamped before the battle which proved so fatal
to the latter. With some difficulty, and after much inquiry of the villagers, we
found it, but it is no longer a pool. Its ancient wall is scarcely traceable, it
is nearly filled with earth, and it was growing a patch of cucumbers when we saw
it. The feeble spring which once supplied it with water is now used for
irrigating the adjacent gardens.

Gibeon, the reader will recollect, is the city whose inhabitants so craftily
surrendered to Joshua, and the place in which Solomon made his famous choice of
wisdom. It was after Joshua had driven the confederated kings of Canaan away
from Gibeon, and while he was pursuing them westward, that he commanded the sun
and moon to stand still. As he stood near upper Beth-horon, Gibeon was one of
the points in his eastern horizon, and at nine o'clock in the morning the sun
would seem to hang over it. The Valley of Ajalon was in a southwesterly
direction from him, and the moon, if just entering its last quarter, would seem
to hang over it. I saw the sun and moon in the same relative positions when I
was crossing the Valley of Ajalon, on the 14th of April.

Having made a détour of three or four miles to the west of the main road leading
north from Jerusalem, on leaving Gibeon we followed a path which brought us back
into that road before we reached Bethel. Thence we rode to a spring called
Robber's Fountain, about 18 miles north of Jerusalem, where we found our tents
pitched for the night. The road lies nearly on the watershed between the slopes
which descend to the Jordan and those which descend to the Mediterranean, but
there is no continuous dividing-ridge for it to follow, and it constantly
crosses the heads of the wadies, which descend first one way and then the other.
It is, therefore, quite an uneven road and very rough. Traces of an ancient
paved road are occasionally seen. On the next day we rode to Nab'lus, the
ancient She'chem, but on the way we made a détour to the right in order to visit
the site of Shiloh. The place is easily identified, both by its Ar'ab name,
Seilûn', which is a corruption of Shiloh, and by its correspondence to what is
said of Shiloh in the Scriptures. The town, which was never a large one, was
built on a hill of moderate height. In front of it, to the south, lies a
beautiful plain, surrounded by lofty hills. On the east and west are narrow
valleys, which are continuations of this plain, while on the north is a much
higher hill, separated from Shiloh by a ravine. There is nothing of Shiloh left
except a confused mass of weather-worn building-stones covering the rounded top
of the hill. But immediately north of the town there is a space on the slope of
the hill, which has been artificially leveled, and, as we have shown on page
281, there is no doubt that here is the site of the tabernacle, which stood at
Shiloh during the long period from Joshua to Eli. A discovery like this—first
made, I think, by Captain Wilson—is one of those striking evidences of the truth
of the Old Testament history with which the Holy Land abounds, and which are the
more convincing because they are unexpected. This identification was gratifying
to me for another reason. In the account of Eli's death he is represented as
sitting by the wayside and by the gate watching for news from the battle, yet
the messenger is represented as coming into the city and telling the news to the
people, while Eli learns nothing of it till he hears the outcry of the people
and inquires what this means. Then it is said that the man "came in" hastily and
told Eli. This has been somewhat of a puzzle to me, but now it is clearly
explained. Eli was sitting, not at the gate of the city, but at that of the
tabernacle, and by the wayside which led to it. The messenger, coming from the
south,—the direction in which the battle was fought,—came into the city first,
and when Eli, hearing the tumult, demanded the meaning of it, the man came in
where the tabernacle stood and told the fatal news.

Riding on from Shiloh we passed no object of special interest until we came to
Jacob's Well. We approached it through the Plain of Moreh, now called Mûkhnah,
the same plain over which Jesus walked on the day in which, "being wearied with
his journey," he sat on the well and conversed with the Samaritan woman. This
plain is seven miles long and about two miles wide. It lies nearly north and
south. Its western side is bounded by Mount Geri'zim and Mount Ebal. Between
these two mountains lies a valley about half a mile in width, at a right angle
to the plain, and Jacob's Well is at the angle made by the southern side of this
valley and the western side of the plain.

It robs one of much enjoyment on visiting such a spot to find it so different
from what it was. The folly of building a church over this well, instead of
leaving it and keeping it as it was when Jesus sat upon it, is amazing. But such
is the hereditary folly of the priests. I was told in She'chem that the Greeks
are about to rebuild the church over the well, and I devoutly wish that before
they begin some sensible man will buy the property and restore the well's mouth
to its original form and appearance, the model for which can be found in the
wells of Abraham at Beer'-sheba.

After examining the well we rode across to Joseph's Tomb, about 300 yards
farther to the north, and gazed for a short time upon it. How we longed for the
privilege of digging down into that tomb and seeing whether the embalmed body of
Joseph is actually there! I suppose every visitor has this feeling, and I was
not surprised to hear Brother El Kârey, the Baptist missionary in She'chem, say
that he had often been tempted to go there in the night and dig into the tomb,
though he felt sure that the Moslem would kill him if he were found guilty of
the act.

After examining these two interesting objects at the mouth of the valley of
Nab'lus or She'chem, we rode along the valley, with Mount Geri'zim on our left
and Mount Ebal on our right, until we passed the town and found our tents
pitched at the farther end of it. We were now beside one of the most ancient
cities in all the land. It was called Sychem in the days of Abraham, and
She'chem in the later Old Testament history. During the Roman dominion it
acquired the name of Neapolis, and the modern name, Nab'lus, is an Arabic
corruption of this. On reaching She'chem we called on Brother El Kârey, the only
Baptist missionary in Palestine. I had a letter of introduction to him, given me
by a Baptist preacher from London whom I met at Naples. He received us very
cordially, explained to us his missionary labors, and, being a native of the
place, though educated in England, he was full of the local information for
which we were in search. We especially wanted to learn the best way to reach
Ænon, the locality of which was definitely fixed by Lieutenant Conder, but which
our dragoman had never visited. He gave us the desired information, and the next
morning, leaving our tents pitched at She'chem, we made an excursion to that
interesting spot. Our route took us back through the valley, and we resolved
that while passing between the two mountains of Ebal and Geri'zim, in the still
morning air, we would try the experiment of reading the blessings and curses. It
will be remembered by the reader that, in compliance with directions given
before the death of Moses, Joshua assembled all the people on these two
mountains, stationing six tribes on one, and six opposite to them on the other,
and he stood between and read to them all the blessings and curses of the law.
It has been urged by some skeptics that it was impossible for Joshua to read so
as to be heard by six hundred thousand persons. It is a sufficient answer to
this to show that while Joshua read, the Levites were directed to repeat the
words "with a loud voice," and that it was an easy matter to station them at
such points that their repetitions, like those of officers along the line of a
marching army, could carry the words to the utmost limits of the multitude. But
it is interesting to know that the spot chosen by God for this reading is a vast
natural amphitheatre, in which the human voice can be heard to a surprising
distance. About halfway between She'chem and the mouth of the valley in which it
stands there is a deep, semicircular recess in the face of Mount Ebal, and a
corresponding one precisely opposite to it in Mount Geri'zim. No man with his
eyes open can ride along the valley without being struck with this singular
formation. As soon as I saw it I recognized it as the place of Joshua's reading.
It has been asserted repeatedly by travelers that, although two men stationed on
the opposite slopes of these two mountains are a mile apart, they can read so as
to be heard by each other. We preferred to try the experiment in stricter
accordance with Joshua's example; so I took a position, Bible in hand, in the
middle of the valley, while Brother Taylor and Frank, to represent six tribes,
climbed halfway up the slope of Mount Geri'zim; and Brother Earl, to represent
the other six tribes, took a similar position on Mount Ebal. I read, and they
were to pronounce the amen after each curse or blessing. Brother Taylor heard me
distinctly, and I could hear his response. But Brother Earl, though he could
hear my voice, could not distinguish the words. This was owing to the fact that
some terrace-walls on the side of the mountain prevented him from ascending high
enough, and the trees between me and him interrupted the passage of the sound.
The experiment makes it perfectly obvious that if Joshua had a strong
voice,—which I have not,—he could have been heard by his audience without the
assistance of the Levites. As to the space included in the two amphitheatres, I
think it ample to accommodate the six hundred thousand men, though of this I
cannot be certain. If more space was required, the aid of the Levites was
indispensable.

After making this experiment, which occupied an hour or more, we proceeded on
our way towards Ænon, having with us, as escort and guide, a Turkish soldier
belonging to the garrison at Nab'lus.

Salem, near to which Ænon was located, is a village on the slope of the hills
east of the Plain of Moreh, and opposite its northern end. Our nearest route
would have been to pass by it, but we preferred tracing the waters from near
their fountain-head; so we went northward a few miles along the Damascus road.
This brought us to the head-waters of Wâd'y Bedân', a tributary of the wâdy on
which Ænon is located, called Wâd'y Far'ah. On Wâd'y Bedân' we found 12
water-mills in the course of two miles. These are all overshot mills, and are
propelled by water drawn into races. The rapid descent of the principal stream
makes it practicable to draw off these side-channels at short intervals, and to
build the mills close together. In some instances the mill-race is so high above
the principal stream that it runs through and propels two mills in making its
way down. From the junction of the two streams we continued down Wâd'y Far'ah in
search of a place answering to Ænon. The "much water" we found all the way, and,
although the season was exceptionally dry, pools well suited for baptizing were
abundant. We rode into a number of these to try their depth. But we wanted to
find, in addition to the much water, an open space on the bank of the stream
suitable for the assembling of the great multitudes who flocked to John's
baptism, and for several miles we found no such place. We pursued our pathless
way along the slopes of a narrow ravine, with high and precipitous hills on
either side. We had to ford the stream frequently, and its banks were everywhere
so thickly crowded with a jungle of oleanders in full bloom that we could not
always cross where we would. Never, in a single day, have I seen so many
oleanders. For as many as five miles their line of mingled pink and green was as
continuous as the current of the stream which nourished them. Finally, after a
fatiguing ride, during which both our dragoman and our escort became discouraged
and fell behind, there suddenly opened before us a beautiful valley among the
mountains, about one mile wide and three miles long. Bed'awin tents were pitched
in groups here and there; herds of camels, to the number of 300 or 400, were
grazing, or drinking, or moving about; and swarms of brown-skinned boys, both
large and small, were bathing at different places in the stream. Here, then, was
the open space required, and a more suitable place for the gathering of a
multitude could not be found on the banks of any stream in Palestine. It is
identified as Ænon by the only man who has ever made a thorough and scientific
exploration of the country, and it is now accepted as such without dispute from
any quarter. We cut an oleander cane apiece from the bank of the stream, and we
took a bath in one of its pools. Our excursion to Ænon occupied the whole day.
The next morning we ascended Mount Geri'zim, to see the site of the ancient
Samaritan temple, the ruins of a citadel and church built by the Crusaders, and
the rock on which Jotham stood when he recited to the She'chemites his
celebrated fable of the trees. That a man could stand within speaking-distance
of an assembly of his enemies who had slain all his brothers, and were at the
time engaged in crowning as king the instigator of the slaughter, make them an
audible speech, and yet be out of reach of their weapons and safe from pursuit,
is scarcely credible. Yet the locality shows that it was altogether practicable.
A projecting rock on the face of Mount Geri'zim overlooks the city of She'chem.
From its top a man's voice can be distinctly heard in the plain below; it is too
high to be reached by arrows shot from the plain, and pursuers would be
compelled to climb the mountain or pass a long distance around it, while the
flight of the speaker was unobstructed. (See the narrative in Jdg 9:1-21).

We were accompanied in our ascent of the mountain by Brother El Kârey, whose
pleasant conversation enlivened the way, and whose familiarity with every object
in view made him an excellent guide. We saw all the wonders of the summit, and
thought much on the strange superstition which has made this a sacred mountain
in the estimation of the Samaritans ever since the days of Nehemiah.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 34: LETTER THIRTEEN: FROM JERUSALEM TO THE LAKE OF GALILEE
========================================================================

Letter XIII. From She'chem To The Lake Of Galilee Our route from She'chem to the
Lake of Galilee was the very crooked one through Samaria, Cæsarea, Haifa,
Jenîn', Beisan', and thence up the bank of the Jordan.

After a morning ride to the top of Mount Geri'zim, we left She'chem, May 29th,
and rode in two hours to Samaria, the ancient capital of the Ten Tribes. The
well-posted student of sacred history will remember that this city was never
taken except by starving its inhabitants into a surrender. Situated on an
isolated hill, 400 feet high, with a valley all round it, it was impregnable
when defended by a competent force. In the reign of Herod the Great the city had
fallen into decay, and he undertook to rebuild it. Among other magnificent
structures which he erected was a colonnade of granite columns, 16 feet high,
all around the brow of the hill, and about 50 feet perpendicular below its
summit. They stood on a terrace leveled for the purpose of a chariot drive, and
the circuit around which they extended is supposed to have been about 1000
yards. Many of these columns are still standing, and in their loneliness they
speak mournfully of the departed glory of him who erected them. The entire hill
is now terraced and cultivated in grain, except a small space on the northern
slope, occupied by a little village of low huts, and by an old church of the
crusading period, in which it is foolishly claimed that John the Baptist was
buried. We took our lunch on the top of the hill under the shade of an
olive-tree, in the midst of a ploughed field, and I meditated much on the utter
desolation of a city so conspicuous in sacred history. From Samaria we continued
our course to the northwest until we came to the ruins of Cæsarea, which we
reached at noon on the 30th of May. Not a human being inhabits this city, once
the political capital of Judea and the chief commercial point on the Syrian
coast. Built by Herod the Great, 13 years before the birth of Jesus, it was
finally destroyed in the year 1265. Its walls are still traceable, and in some
places they stand 20 or 30 feet high. They inclose about 400 acres of ground.
The ruins of an old church, with parts of its wall retaining almost their
original height, are seen in the southwestern part of the city, and on a ledge
of rock extending into the sea are the ruins of an old citadel, once an
apparently impregnable stronghold. But all of these walls and buildings belong
to the period of the Crusaders, during which the city was several times
destroyed and rebuilt; and there is nothing left of the city known to Peter,
Philip, Paul, Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, except the granite columns which were
taken from amid the ruins of the earlier city, and built crosswise into the more
recent walls. Many of these were seen in the city wall. I counted 75 in the
walls of the old citadel, and a still greater number of them lie, like rafts of
saw-logs, in the shallow water north of the citadel, where some similar
structure stood, but has crumbled away and dropped these imperishable columns.
The disintegration of the soft sandstone of the shore and of the walls of these
citadels has gradually filled up the harbor, which was made at great expense by
Herod, and now no ship touches where once the commerce of this entire coast was
centered. We rode into the city through its gateway, and finding a shaded recess
in the wall, not far from the gate, we spread there our noonday meal and took
our usual rest. A mournful stillness pervaded the place, interrupted only by the
arrival of some shepherds with a herd of small black cattle, who came through
the same gate and watered their stock at an ancient well of good water. From
Cæsarea we continued our ride in the afternoon up the sea-coast to Tantûra. We
had been in the saddle nine hours, and had spent several hours walking among the
ruins of Cæsarea, so we were much fatigued; but a delightful sea-bath
reinvigorated us and prepared us for a hearty dinner. On the next day we
continued up the coast to Mount Carmel, thus completing our view of the Maritime
Plain. We had now crossed this plain four times, had ridden along its coast for
many miles, and had surveyed its broad expanse from many mountain-tops. We had
seen almost every square mile of its surface.

Mount Carmel rises from the sea as a promontory about 500 feet high, with a
narrow beach at its foot. Thence it stretches away to the southeast about twelve
miles. It rises to a height of 1800 feet about eight miles from the shore, and
then descends to 1600 feet at its farther extremity. On its top near the sea is
a Roman Catholic monastery, from which is obtained a magnificent view of the
surrounding country. The Bay of A'cre lies under the northern slope of this part
of the mountain, with the town of Haifa on its southern shore, and that of
A'cre, or Akka as it is now called, on the opposite side. After spending a
Lord's day at Haifa, and attending the meeting of the German colony located
there, we went to the spot at the southeast end of Mount Carmel where Elijah
called down fire from heaven and gave the death-blow to Baal-worship in Israel.
It took us an hour and ten minutes to reach the spot from the plain below, and
an hour to descend. A part of the way was so steep that it tried the strength of
our horses. The place is identified beyond reasonable doubt by its complete
correspondence with the details of the Scripture narrative. We sat upon a bare
rock on the top of the mountain, under the shade of an oak-tree, and studied the
scenery before us. Mount Gil'boa, with the town of Jezreel at its foot, was in
full view to the east, with a plain sixteen miles wide between us and it. Across
this plain we could trace every step of the course along which Elijah ran before
the chariot of Ahab, when the heavens were growing black with clouds, and the
rain for which he had prayed was about to fall.

We could also see Shunem and Nain; and the summit of Mount Tabor towered
conspicuously above the Nazareth hills, which hid its base from our view. The
plain before us was the celebrated Plain of Jezreel, as it is called in the
Scriptures, and of Esdra'elon, as it is now called. It has witnessed many
battles of both ancient and modern times. The river Ki'shon winds its crooked
way through it, and we could trace its course by the line of verdure along its
banks, made more conspicuous by contrast with the yellow surface of the fields
of grain just yielding to the sickle. From Mount Carmel we went to Migdol, where
king Josiah was slain in battle. Here we camped for the night of June 2nd, and
were much interested in examining the scanty ruins to see if we could find any
remnant of Solomon's fortification here. We saw none that we could identify. The
next day, June 3rd, we rode to Jenîn by noon, where our tents were pitched for
the night, and in the afternoon we made an excursion to Do'than, where Joseph
was sold by his brethren. Few places that we visited interested us more than
this. From the rounded hill-top where Do'than stood, we looked out to the south
and the southwest over a valley of the very kind to attract a company of
shepherds like Joseph's brethren. The biblical scene was brought still more
vividly to view by the two wells in the valley which gave the name Do'than to
the place, and by a company of shepherds engaged in washing their sheep at one
of the wells preparatory to shearing them. At Do'than our circuitous route had
brought us back again within 10 miles of Samaria, which we had left five days
before. It was over this 10 miles, running nearly due south from Do'than, that
Elisha led the mentally blinded squadron of Syrian horsemen who had surrounded
Do'than in the night to arrest him. From Do'than we returned to our camp at
Jenîn', six miles distant, and found that a company of Jews, male and female, on
their way from Sa'fed to Jerusalem, were camped near by us. Our dragoman, for
fear of thieves in the night, had taken the precaution to secure a guard of two
or three Turkish soldiers from the garrison of Jenîn'. After dinner I felt
disinclined to my usual task of writing till bedtime, so I strolled away to the
edge of the olive grove in which our tents were pitched, and sat down on the
roots of an old tree to meditate. The light of the full moon, scattered by the
straggling tree-tops, fell upon the white tents on my right hand, while to the
left the plastered tombs of a Mohammedan graveyard were gleaming in the unbroken
light. The hum of voices in the Jewish camp, the hooting of owls, the chirping
of crickets, the tinkling of small bells on our pack-mules, and the cry of
jackals not far away, mingled together in pleasing confusion, and threw a spell
over me which was at last interrupted by the sight of a jackal slyly creeping
along within a few steps of me. A hurried call for the shot-gun from the camp,
and a vain effort to get a shot at the cunning animal broke up my revery. From
Jenîn' we rode to Jezreel, made famous by its association with the history of
Ahab and Jezebel. Only a few miserable huts built from the ruins of ancient
structures now constitute the village, but well-built walls just showing
themselves above the ground, many rock-cut cisterns now unused, and half-buried
sarcophagi on the slope near by, declare plainly that it was once an important
city. From its site we obtained our nearest view of Shunem, four miles due north
across an interesting valley. It is a larger village than Jezreel, but it is
only a small collection of brown huts with no shade about them. Our route led us
from Jezreel down the Valley of Jezreel, nearly due east, along the base of
Mount Gil'boa to Beisan'. We were astonished at the copiousness of the springs
in this valley and the luxuriance of the vegetation, and we found the ruins of
Beisan', the ancient Beth-she'an, much more extensive and interesting than we
had been led to suppose. We spent several hours of a very hot afternoon, June
4th, wandering among these ruins, and last of all we climbed the top of the
conical hill on which the original city, or perhaps only its acropolis, was
built. As we stood on the ruined wall near the gateway and looked westward, I
observed that the sun was sinking behind Mount Carmel, and I watched it until it
was gone. The scene before me riveted my attention. Just to the left of the
setting sun stood out distinctly the place of Elijah's prayer on Mount Carmel,
where we had rested at noon two days before, now 28 miles away. A little farther
to the left, and about 12 miles distant, the ruins of Jezreel stood above the
horizon, with Shunem over against it to the right. Between them was fought
Saul's last battle, and somewhere on the long slope of Mount Gil'boa, which
bounded the horizon southwest of us, were found the dead bodies of himself and
his three sons, including the beloved Jonathan. On the same part of the wall on
which I stood the four bodies were gibbeted until the brave and grateful
Gileadites rushed in by night, took them down, and bore them away. As darkness
drew on we descended the precipitous hill and climbed another to our camp. The
full moon was now rising above the mountains of Gilead. I sat down on a stone
between my tent and an irrigating stream which murmured along its pebbly bed
close by, and indulged for a long time the trains of thought which had been
started by the scenes of the day. Finally, the gentle murmuring of the brook at
my feet, the singing of numberless frogs who found a paradise in its waters, and
the soft light of the moon, together with the fatigue of a hot and toilsome day,
invited to repose, and I joined my sleeping companions in the tents.

We expected a hot ride along the Jordan Valley from Beisan' to the Lake of
Galilee, so we arose at three o'clock in the morning, and were in the saddle a
few minutes after four. Day was just beginning to dawn over the mountains of
Gilead, and the light of the descending moon in the west had not yet faded out,
when we rode through the village of Beisan' amid the barking of innumerable
dogs, who saluted us from the house-tops as well as from the streets. Dogs
(barking, not biting dogs) are a specialty with the Ar'abs. Our route lay along
the direct road from Jerusalem to Damascus until we reached the river at what is
called the Mejamî'a bridge. This is a massive stone bridge which spans the
Jordan by one large arch over the principal bed of the stream, and two of less
size over side channels, which are filled at high water. The bridge is rudely
but strongly built, and for many centuries it has been the only bridge over the
river in actual use. It is built of black basalt, and was once guarded by a
large fortified caravanserai of the same material, the ruins of which lie a
short distance from it on the western side. The stream is contracted here by the
masses of rock which form the shores, and just below the bridge there is a
rapid, in which the river dashes and roars over a descent of 8 or 10 feet. Here
the Damascus road crosses. Here Paul and Naaman crossed, and it is quite likely
that the latter here dipped himself as directed by the prophet, and was healed.
Here also, I think, must have been one of John's principal places of baptizing,
for, being a principal crossing-place, routes of travel concentrated here, and
it was one of the most convenient places on the river for the gathering together
of the people. I need scarce add that there is water here, at any possible stage
of the river, admirably suited for immersing. Indeed, I may say, once for all,
that at the time of this writing I have now seen the Jordan from its mouth to
its source; I have ridden many miles along its banks; I have crossed it on
horseback, on a bridge, and in a boat; I have swum in it repeatedly, and have
often ridden in it to try its depth; and I affirm, with the assurance of
positive knowledge, that there is no section of it in which a man seeking a
place for baptism would encounter much inconvenience in finding one; and that
there are few places at which its water can be approached without finding such a
place immediately at hand. Although in many places, as in all rivers, the banks
are too precipitous or too muddy for the purpose, and in many the current is too
deep or too swift at the bank, yet not far from all such places other spots are
found in which none of these obstacles are encountered, and the farther you
ascend from the mouth of the stream the fewer obstacles of the kind do you
encounter. The field of John's preaching and baptism included the whole length
of the river below the Lake of Galilee.

Leaving the Mejamîa bridge, we ascended the valley, with the river almost
continually in view, until we reached the southern end of the Lake of Galilee.
The river all along this part of its course has rocky banks and bed, and its
water is clear. It leaves the lake from the point of a narrow bay at the
southern end of the lake, and at first it runs westward nearly a mile, after
which it turns abruptly to the south. Between this westward course of the river
and the main shore-line of the lake, which is parallel to it, there is a ridge
about 50 feet high, the entire surface of which is covered with ruins. These are
the ruins of Tarichea, a town which anciently stood here. From this ridge we
obtained our first full view of the famous lake, and we gazed upon it with deep
interest for a long time. The view was in two respects disappointing; the lake
appeared smaller than it really is, and the mountains all around seemed to rise
abruptly from the water's edge without the sloping beaches and narrow valleys
which we knew were there in many places. But the deep blue sheet of water
itself, widening as it stretches away toward the north, and the tawny hills,
1500 feet high on the west and 1800 on the east, were there as I expected to see
them. After satisfying ourselves with the view from the southern shore we went
on our way toward Tiberias, whither our pack-train had preceded us. The
thermometer stood at about 90°, but a refreshing breeze swept over the lake from
the north, and we scarcely felt the heat. Just as we rounded the corner of the
lake, however, there came down suddenly upon us from the western hills the
hottest wind that I have ever felt. Its first effect on the body was cooling, as
it rapidly evaporated the perspiration which had been flowing; but it was
burning to our faces, and we involuntarily closed our mouths against it. The
mercury went up in a few minutes to 100°. When we had ridden in it a short
distance I remarked that it would be dangerous to endure it long without relief,
so we rode into the lake and wet our heads, and the rapid evaporation of the
water from our faces and hair kept our heads cool until the temperature of the
wind was reduced. It was really a sea-breeze which had set in. It first blew
down upon us the hot air from the hillsides, and afterwards brought to us the
cooler air of the Mediterranean. The thermometer came down to about 80° before
sunset.

Tiberias, now known by the more euphonious name of Tabirî'yeh, is about four
miles from the southwestern curve of the lake. About a mile below it are the
celebrated hot springs. The temperature of the water is 137° and it is supposed
to have medicinal properties. Several rude stone buildings are constructed about
the springs for bathing purposes, and it is a place of much resort. From the hot
springs begin the ruins of ancient Tiberias, which extend up the lake shore to
the present town, and include it. The present town is surrounded by walls, with
large round towers at intervals, and a gate on every side. The eastern wall
stands in the water, and the gate on that side is the landing-place for boats.
Walls, towers, and dwellings are all built of basalt, and the place has a most
gloomy appearance. An old crumbling mosque, with a beautiful minaret built of
yellowish limestone with an occasional band of black basalt, tells of the former
glory and present decay of Mohammedanism, while a clean and neatly built
convent, with a pretty chapel adjoining it, speaks of the efforts which the
Romanists are here making to gain control of both Jews and Ar'abs. The
population of the town is about 3000, principally Jews. Here lived and died and
was buried the famous Jewish rabbi Maimon'ides, and here, for several centuries
after the fall of Jerusalem, was the greatest seat of Hebrew learning. The
Sabbath is kept here strictly; the Lord's day is but little observed. The town
suffered severely from an earthquake in 1837. On the evening of our arrival at
Tiberias, we chartered, for our use the following day, one of the three
fishing-boats which now supply the town with fish. We were to pay eight dollars
for the boat with six boatmen, and were to have the privilege of directing its
course. The next morning at eight o'clock we set sail from the water-gate of the
town, and directed our course toward the mouth of the Jordan, at the northern
end of the lake. The boat was about seven feet wide in the middle and about
twenty-four feet long. At each end was a little deck about six feet long, and
soft rugs were spread on these for our use. I took my position at the bow, and
spreading my shawl, thickly folded, along the rug, with one end covering the
coiled-up chain of the anchor, I used the latter for a pillow, and rested very
comfortably in a reclining posture as the boat glided slowly along. There was
wind to fan our faces and keep us cool under our umbrellas, but not enough to
fill our sail, though it was spread and ready for the breeze. The boatmen
steadily plied the two large oars, relieving one another in pairs, and we moved
along at the rate of two and a half miles to the hour. The surface of the lake
was rising and falling with a very gentle swell, but its glassy surface was not
broken by a single ripple. For an hour or two scarcely a word was spoken, the
silence being broken only by the regular splash of the oars and an occasional
humming of an Ar'ab song by some of the boatmen. Everything invited to repose,
and but for the tender memories which were softening my heart and occasionally
filling my eyes with tears, I certainly should have fallen asleep. I was
floating on the water where Jesus so often floated with his disciples. Our six
boatmen, our own number, four, our dragoman, and a little boy, made twelve in
the boat, only one less than were here when Jesus was asleep on the deck of a
similar boat, and I felt that the absent one could not be far away. We had gone
but a short distance when there came into view, to the westward, the
unmistakable "Land of Gennesaret," where Jesus wrought so many cures, and where
the people flocked so confidingly around him. The huts of the little village of
Mejdel, at the southern extremity of this plain, pointed out the locality of
Magdala, and brought to mind all the tender love and gratitude lavished on Jesus
by Mary of Magdala, than whom there was none more devoted among his earthly
friends.

Farther on we came in sight of the rude huts which the Ar'abs have built from
the ruins of Capernaum. For half a mile along the lake shore, and nearly as far
back, these ruins are scattered about, and the Ar'ab huts built among them are
now deserted. How strikingly have been fulfilled the words of Jesus: "Thou
Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to hades"! And
there, too, lies what is left of Bethsaida,—a few heaps of black
building-stones, scattered about over a little cape a half-mile northeast of
Capernaum. Chorazin is equally desolate, but it lies two and a half miles
inland, and is hid from the view by an intervening ridge. All of these places
have been clearly identified by Captain Wilson, acting under the auspices of the
Palestine Exploration Fund of Great Britain. Our boat landed at noon on the
northern shore of the lake, about half a mile west of the mouth of the Jordan.
There, under the shade of a dom-tree, we took our noonday meal. In this part of
the lake, as the boatman assured me, at least three-fourths of the fishing is
done, the fish being attracted thither by the fresh food which the Jordan
constantly supplies. Here, then, most probably, is the place where the four
disciples were fishing when Jesus called them, and the place where the seven
returned to fishing after the resurrection. That the place is not far from
Bethsaida, serves to confirm this supposition. We ate our lunch, I think, not
far from the place where the seven ate the broiled fish prepared by Jesus. From
the place at which we had landed we skirted the remainder of the northern end of
the lake, eastward, and one-half of the eastern shore. The Jordan enters the
northern end of the lake nearer the western than the eastern side. For about one
mile back it flows through a valley, having broken down to it through high hills
by a very rapid descent. This valley extends around the northeastern curve of
the lake, and is probably five miles long, and two wide at the widest place. At
its farthest extremity along the eastern shore must have occurred, I think, the
feeding of the five thousand. There is the smooth, grassy plain for the people
to sit down upon; the lake shore on which the boat was tied up is close at hand;
and there rises the mountain-slope up which Jesus ascended when the disciples
had entered the boat and he had dismissed the multitude.

Captain Wilson is the first explorer, I think, who claims to have identified the
place where the herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea and
were drowned. He asserts that there is only one place on the eastern shore where
the steep sides of the hills come down close to the water, and that elsewhere
there is a valley between the hills and water never less than a quarter of a
mile wide.

I was anxious to verify this identification. I had carefully scanned that shore
from the southern end of the lake where I first came to it, and as far as I
could see distinctly the valley of which Wilson speaks was there. I had now
sailed down several miles from the northern end, and had found the valley thus
far not less than half a mile wide in the narrowest place. We sailed slowly on,
and just at five o'clock in the afternoon, when we had reached the cape formed
by what is called Wâd'y Semak', I saw the steep place about a mile away. It was
so distinct as not to be mistaken. I was now satisfied with the day's excursion.
We were nearly opposite Tiberias, a south wind had arisen of sufficient force to
help us on our way if our bow were turned westward, and I told the boatmen that
they might cross to Tiberias. I had scarcely uttered the word when they all
began to gaze at the western sky and chatter with one another in Arabic in a
most excited manner. In their excitement they dropped their oars, and the boat
began to drift before the wind. I inquired of the dragoman the cause of the
excitement, and he said they saw signs of a coming storm from the west which
alarmed them, and they thought it necessary to pull as fast as possible for the
northeastern shore. We felt annoyed at the thought of thus turning at a right
angle to our intended course when the sun was getting low, and it appeared to us
that their fears were ill grounded. One of our party began to remonstrate, but I
remembered how treacherous the winds had been to others on this lake, and I
insisted that the judgment of the boatmen should prevail. It was well that we so
decided, for before we had gone one-third of the way across we were in the midst
of a storm fully as severe as our boat could safely ride. By a skillful
management of the boat we succeeded in reaching, about sunset, the little bay
above the ruins of Bethsaida, as far from our camp as we were at noon. There we
anchored for a short time, and the boatmen stopped a leak which had started in
the side of the boat. By hugging the lee shore we next managed to work our way
to a point just below Capernaum, but farther than this it was decided not to go
until the wind abated. It was now after dark. The anchor was cast, and all
hands, weary and hungry, went to sleep. I happened to be lying with my face to
the east; and when the moon, just past the full, arose over the hills of Bashan,
her bright light fell full upon my face and awoke me. I looked around and saw
that the wind had somewhat fallen, and that the lake was less agitated. I called
the dragoman, and he the boatmen, and soon we were again in motion. It was a
hard pull against wind and wave, reminding us of the night when the apostles
were "toiling in rowing, because the wind was contrary to them;" but we reached
the gate of Tiberias at two o'clock A. M., and by three o'clock we had eaten the
dinner which should have been eaten at six the previous evening. We were afloat
on the lake 18 consecutive hours, and it was a wearisome day; but we were well
recompensed by the information gained, and by having entered somewhat into the
experience of Jesus and the twelve. The next day we made a horseback excursion
up and down the western shore of the lake; but of this I cannot now speak in
detail. It was full of interest. The following day (Lord's day, June 8th) we
spent in our camp, there being no place of public worship for us to attend in
Tiberias. We bade farewell to this town gladly, because it was the hottest place
we had seen. During our stay of three days the average temperature was 82° at
sunrise, 93° at noon, and 85° at dark. The coolest place we could find was the
western gate, either on the shady side of the wall, or under the arch of the
gateway itself. While sitting there and watching the almost constant stream of
comers and goers, I thought of Lot sitting in the evening at the gate of Sodom.


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  CHAPTER 35: LETTER FOURTEEN: FROM TIBERIAS TO TYRE
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Letter XIV. From Tiberias to Tyre On Monday, June 9th, we broke up our camp at
Tiberias and started in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea. Our first
objective point was Mount Tabor, which is about 12 miles, on an air-line,
southwest from Tiberias. When we had gone about five miles we turned a little to
the right in order to ascend the hill called the Mount of Beatitudes, or the
scene of the Sermon on the Mount. It rises about 200 feet above a plain which
lies to the south and southeast of it, and it is quite a conspicuous object in
the vicinity; but it is too steep and rugged to have answered well for the scene
with which it is associated, while there are hundreds of others that would have
answered better. It was selected without reason in the period of the crusades.

We approached Mount Tabor on its northeastern side, and in passing around to its
northwestern side, where the ascent takes place, we rode through the finest
grove of oak-trees in all Palestine. It covers an area of several square miles
at the base of the mountain, and an inferior growth of the same wood covers the
mountain on that side to its summit, while its other sides are bare, or nearly
so. The trees have too low a growth to be valuable for timber, but they would
furnish an immense amount of valuable firewood. The grove belongs to a rich
merchant in Beirût', who has had the good sense to preserve it from destruction.

We climbed to the top of Mount Tabor by a zigzag pathway so steep in many places
as to try the strength and agility of our horses. From the plains below, and
from surrounding heights, the mountain's sides and top have a rounded
appearance; but when you reach the top you find an almost level area about half
a mile in extent in every direction. Tradition, at an early period, fixed on
this as the Mount of the Transfiguration, and consequently the Greeks and the
Latins have each a monastery here, and each building covers the exact spot where
the transfiguration took place! The conclusion reached by all scholars of the
present day, that this grand event occurred, not on Mount Tabor, but on Mount
Hermon, disturbs not in the least the tranquillity of these stupid monks, nor
the faith of the superstitious pilgrims who go to these convents to pray. The
view from the summit of Mount Tabor, 2018 feet above the sea level, is one of
the finest that we enjoyed in Palestine. It includes many of the places made
familiar by the gospel narratives, and as we gazed upon them from our perch on a
ruined tower of the ancient wall which once inclosed the mountains top, memory
was busy with the scenes of the Saviour's toilsome life. It added something to
the impressiveness of the scene to remember that the wall on which we stood was
erected by the historian Josephus, in preparation for that final struggle
against the Romans which led, as Jesus had predicted, to the downfall of the
Jewish nation. The names Jesus and Josephus must ever be intimately connected in
the Christian mind, from the fact that the latter, though an unbeliever,
recorded with fidelity so many events which were plainly predicted by the
former.

South of Mount Tabor, across a beautiful valley about four miles wide, rises a
mountain called by the Ar'abs Jebel Dûhy and by Christians Little Hermon.
Looking toward it from Mount Tabor you see at its foot on your left the village
of Endor, where lived the witch consulted by Saul, and on your right the village
of Nain, in which Jesus raised from the dead the widow's son. How different in
character these two events to have occurred in two adjacent villages! Thus the
good and the evil are crowded together the world over. We visited those two
villages in order to look around and meditate upon the events they commemorate.
Endor never was, perhaps, much more than it is now, a village of huts inhabited
by the poorest of people; but Nain, in the time of Jesus, was a walled town, and
there are ruins in it, as well as some interesting rock-hewn sepulchres just
west of it, which prove it to have been a place of some importance. It was
probably toward the sepulchres just mentioned that the widow's son was being
borne when Jesus, coming into the town by the western gate, met the procession
and gave life to the widow's heart by giving life to her only son. From Nain we
rode directly to Nazareth, distant about seven miles in a northwesterly
direction. The first five miles led across a more western part of the same plain
we had crossed in coming from Mount Tabor to Endor, a section of the Plain of
Esdra'elon. From the edge of this plain our path led up a hill 1000 feet high,
and so steep that it took us twenty-five minutes to climb it. In a half-hour
more we reached the city wherein Jesus spent much the greater part of his short
life.

Nazareth is built along the southeastern slope of a ridge which is not less than
300 feet high. It is a long and narrow town, stretching from northeast to
southwest along the foot of the ridge, and rising about halfway to its summit.
Its population numbers about six thousand, nearly all Christians; that is, they
are Greek and Latin Catholics, with a very few Protestants. At the northeastern
end of the town the Greeks have a convent in which they show the very place
where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus. She had
gone to the spring to get some water, and the spring is under the stone floor of
the convent. They prove this to you by letting down a little silver bucket
through a round opening, and drawing for you a drink of cool water. At the
opposite end of the town the Latins have their convent, and in it they too show
the very spot where Gabriel appeared to Mary. It was in the kitchen where she
did her cooking. You can see the place where she built the fire, and the place
where the smoke escaped through the ceiling; and of course you ought to believe
what is told you. They also show you Joseph's carpenter-shop; and if you will
give enough bûckshish I think they will show you any place you can call for
connected with the life of Jesus.

There is only one object at Nazareth which I was especially anxious to see, and
this is the precipice down which the Nazarenes attempted to cast Jesus. The
tradition-mongers, with their usual disregard of Scripture statements, have
located this incident near the steep hill mentioned above, which we climbed in
coming to Nazareth; but this is more than two miles from the town, while the
Scripture states that "they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city
was built, that they might cast him down headlong." "The hill on which the city
is built," then, is the one on which we must look for the place in question; and
if it cannot be found there, honesty must compel us to admit that it cannot be
found at all. Some writers have come so near making this admission that I felt
quite solicitous on the subject, and I searched that hill from top to bottom,
from side to side, and from end to end. I did so, not because all this was
necessary to find a place suited to the event, but because I desired to know all
the places where it could have occurred, and to speak on the subject with full
assurance. I found only two such places. One is near the northeastern end of the
town, and about one-third the way up the hill. It is a perpendicular precipice
sixty feet high, made by the falling in of the roof of a deep cavern which once
extended along the face of the hill at this point, and part of which still
exists close by the precipice. I think, however, from the appearance of the
rock, that this precipice has been formed in comparatively recent times; and for
this reason I do not suppose that the attempt at precipitation occurred here.
But near the opposite end of the town, and at about the same elevation up the
hill, the same ledge of rock forms a natural precipice, which has every
appearance of having existed from time immemorial. Its perpendicular height is
now about forty feet, abundantly sufficient to kill a man if dashed headlong
from its top. It is high enough up the hill to justify the Scripture statement
that it was on "the brow of the hill;" and it was probably outside the ancient
city. Lieutenant Conder thinks, from the appearance of ruins higher up, that the
ancient city was situated, like most of the towns of Palestine, near the top of
the hill. If this supposition is correct, then the Nazarenes, in taking Jesus
out of the town, took him down hill to the precipice below the town, and this
precipice constituted the brow of the hill as seen from the valley below. I am
entirely satisfied that here is where the awful attempt was made; but I know not
how to realize the feelings of Jesus, when his own neighbors, former friends and
lifelong companions, thus attempted to take his life.

There are two missionary enterprises located at Nazareth with which I was very
favorably impressed. One is a medical mission, supported by a society in
Edinburgh. It is furnished with a dispensary, where medicine is given without
charge to those who are unable to pay for it, and with an infirmary, capable of
accommodating a limited number of sick persons who are without homes or away
from home. Dr. Vartan, the superintendent, is both a preacher and a physician,
and while ministering to the bodies of his patients, he invariably imparts to
them religious instruction. I think this the most direct method of access to the
adult minds of this benighted population, and the supply of medical treatment
for them is a most benevolent thing in itself. They sicken, and suffer, anddie,
from all the maladies that flesh is heir to, without the use of any remedies
whatever, unless it be some that are worse than the disease. My heart bled for
them on more than one occasion. Once there was brought to me a woman who was
afflicted with a deep cough, and who was evidently a victim of consumption. They
said that the doctor of the village had cauterized her, but that she had grown
worse instead of better. On inquiry I learned that the cauterizing consisted in
applying a red-hot iron to her back, and the terrible wound which it caused was
not yet healed up. She will carry it to her grave, and the time will not be
long. The other enterprise at Nazareth is a female orphan school. On a bench of
the hill, perched high above the city, is a large and handsome stone building,
two stories high, the most conspicuous and the finest house in the place. It
accommodates about 40 girls as boarders, who receive an elementary education,
and are taught all the domestic arts of civilized life, such as cooking,
washing, sewing, etc. It is impossible to imagine a people more in need of all
this instruction than the native women of this country. Their usual mode of
washing is to sit down by a smooth stone near a pool of water, dip the garment
to be washed in the water, lay it on the stone, and then beat it with another
stone, or with a heavy wooden paddle. As a consequence of the method, their
clothes are never clean except when they are new. Of the art of cooking they
know nothing except to boil mutton and rice together, and to bake a kind of
bread which a white man cannot eat. They can seldom afford to eat mutton or
rice, and their standing diet is cold bread and sour goat's milk. To these they
add cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons in their season, eating the two former, as
the last, without salt or vinegar, or any mode of preparation.

It seems to me impossible to make good Christians out of a people thus benighted
until you teach them something in the line of domestic economy.

While our camp was in Nazareth we rode over to Kefr Kenna (village of Kenna),
the Cana of the New Testament. It is a little over three miles northeast of
Nazareth, a convenient distance for Mary and her family to attend the wedding.
Here the Greeks have a very old building consisting of a single room, in which
they say the water was turned into wine. They have turned the room into a
chapel, and in one side of it stand two large stone mortars, about two and a
half feet high and twenty inches across, now used for immersing infants. Our
local guide, in explaining their use to us, said, "De Greeks put de babies
under; not sprinkle 'em, like de Latins and de Protestants." The priest told us
that these two mortars were two of the six stone water-pots which held the water
that was turned into wine. The simple-minded old man was not aware that the six
water-pots held each two or three firkins apiece,—about 20 gallons,—whereas his
mortars hold only about six gallons. If he had known this he might have chiseled
his mortars out a little deeper. When we came out of the room, I saw near by a
20-gallon oil-jar, and I said to the priest, "You ought to take that and paint
it to imitate stone, and then put it in the place of your two jars; it would
look more like the thing." His only answer was, "That is made to hold oil." I
don't think he saw the point. I never met with a Syrian who could appreciate a
joke.

I had read a great deal in books of travel about the beauty of the women of
Nazareth, and I was glad, when we reached our camp there, to find our tents
pitched close by the celebrated spring of the city, where I could see nearly all
the women as they came to the spring for water. There was almost a continuous
stream of them coming and going, from Tuesday at noon, the time of our arrival,
until Thursday morning, when we departed. I several times stood near the spring
for half an hour or so to watch their movements. They certainly have smoother
features, a richer complexion, and a more engaging expression of countenance
than the women of any other town which we had visited, but it is only in
comparison with the extreme ugliness elsewhere prevalent that they can be called
handsome. Being of the Christian faith they avoid the hideous practice of
tattooing their faces, which is universal with the Ar'ab village women, and this
is greatly in their favor as to comeliness. But those of them who come under the
traveler's eye are coarse and illiterate creatures, with very rude manners, and
they wear their dresses lower and more open about the bosom than would be
tolerated in America even in a ball-room. Many of them, if well dressed,
educated, and trained to good manners, would present a very pleasing appearance,
but as they are at present, I would not exchange, for beauty, one average
Kentucky woman for all the women in Syria.

Nazareth is somewhat of a manufacturing place. The clay pipes which are used all
through the country by all classes of men are made here in large quantities, and
the stems are made of straight twigs from one to two feet in length, with a hole
bored through them lengthwise. A very rude kind of pocket-knife is also made,
and many smiths are employed exclusively in this business. The knife has a
single blade and a rude goat's-horn handle. The blade is hammered out on a small
anvil, the smith sitting on the floor by the side of his anvil as he continues
his work; and when reduced to the proper shape it is finished with a file. The
knives sell at from 20 to 50 cents, and they are very serviceable. The Fellahin
and Bedawin all through the country use them, and carry them suspended to their
girdles by a string through a ring near the rivet end of the blade. There are
also some European mechanics in the city pursuing their avocations in a small
way. From Nazareth we went across Southern Galilee to A'cre, distant about 24
miles. The direction is almost due northwest. The first half of the ride was
over the hills through a country almost as poor as the hills around Nazareth,
and containing very few villages. As we passed over hill-tops and ridges,
however, we could see to our right for many miles a rich country thickly set
with villages, yellow with fields of grain, and dotted with small groves of
trees. About halfway to A'cre we passed the town of Shefá Amr, a flourishing
place, with massive ruins in the midst of it. It stands on the verge of the hill
country and overlooks the Plain of A'cre. The town derives its support from very
rich lands in the edge of the plain, and its chief supply of water is from a
shallow, exhaustless well at the western foot of the hill, half a mile or more
from the town. When we reached this well our animals were very thirsty, and our
pack-train was in company with us. The women who were drawing water at the well
seemed unwilling to let us use the water, and utterly refused, at first, to let
the muleteers use their buckets and ropes. A loud and fearful quarrel ensued,
during which I expected every moment to see a general fight between our
muleteers and the men and women who gathered around. But finally, by dint of
perseverance, and by quarreling louder than the villagers, the muleteers
succeeded in getting the use of one bucket, and our animals were watered. The
woman who had led the quarrel on the other side, walked away in a towering
passion.

Near this well was the only apple-orchard which I saw in all Syria. There were
40 or 50 trees, apparently about 10 years old, and they bore a moderate crop of
fruit. An Ar'ab gave us a few of the apples, refusing to take money for them,
and we found them very sound and handsome fruit, but small and not quite ripe.
They had the appearance of the yellow June apple grown in the United States. In
our ride across the Plain of A'cre we encountered some of the marshes made by
the overflow of the river Belus in the rainy season. In most places the surface
was now dry, hard, and cracked open, but there were still some muddy spots, and
at one place we rode for a considerable distance on a stone causeway made for
crossing during the wet season. There are but few villages on this plain, except
along its eastern border near the hills, where they are abundant. Our camp at
A'cre was immediately east of the city, close to the highway leading into the
only gate. It was a hot and dusty place, with only the wide sandy road between
us and the bay. We had to walk a long distance on the level beach to find a
place sufficiently retired to take a sea-bath, as was our daily custom when
opportunity offered, and we found the water near the shore so shallow that we
had to wade out a long distance for pleasant swimming. In going and coming we
met many parties of both men and women from the city strolling along the smooth
beach to enjoy the evening air, and I noticed one little child, about two years
old, neatly dressed, wearing silver anklets hung with tiny bells. It was
accompanied by its father, and it took great delight in running into the edge of
the water and allowing the little ripples which were flowing in to break upon
its bare feet. It was the most pleasing sight that I had seen among the infants
of Palestine.

Another sight that was pleasing to our American eyes was that of two or three
spring-wagons, with white covers over them, used for carrying passengers between
this city and Haifa. They were owned and driven by Germans of the latter city,
and I observed that the natives, though none of them ever aspires to the
ownership of a wagon, were all very willing to ride in one. By a passenger in
one of these we sent to the post-office in Haifa the letters which we had
written since we passed through that place.

We spent several hours wandering about the crooked streets of A'cre, and found
it the most cleanly city that we had seen in Palestine. We visited its famous
mosque, by far the most costly and best preserved mosque in Palestine, and we
were received by the attendants and bystanders with marked expressions of
good-will.

We loitered in the city to so late an hour that when we reached the gate it was
closed for the night, and we had to pass out through the kind of opening which
has served the old commentators a convenient purpose in explaining the Saviour's
remark about a camel passing through a needle's eye. It is a small door, just
large enough for a man to pass through by stooping, opening through the middle
of one of the shutters which close up the gateway. No camel could pass through
it at all, even after his burden has been removed from his back. When we arose
on the morning of June 13th we found the air obscured by a heavy fog, and our
tents dripping almost as if it had rained. The muleteers had to let the tents
remain standing until the sun dried them, so as to avoid folding them wet and
exposing them to mildew. A similar fog, or a dew almost as heavy, had occurred
some four or five times during our tent-life, but with these exceptions the
ground and the tent-roofs were as dry when the sun arose in the morning as when
it set in the evening. There have been very exaggerated stories told about the
heavy summer dews of Palestine.

We left A'cre on the morning of the 13th of June, intending to see Tyre and
Sidon and then cross Phoenicia to the northern extremity of Palestine. Our road
lay near the coast all the way to Sidon. A few miles out from A'cre we passed
under the arches of the aqueduct which supplies the city with water, and we
passed by some very handsome villas, about which the irrigated soil produces a
luxuriant growth of trees for fruits and shade.

Twelve miles north of A'cre we reached the northern terminus of the plain, where
the mountains, which stand back some eight or nine miles from the sea below,
come out to the waters edge and form a perpendicular promontory, called Râs en
Nakû'rah, the Promontory of Nakû'rah. The name is derived from the village of
Nakû'rah, perched on a high hill to the right of the road. We ascended this
promontory on a well-graded road, and when we reached the top we looked back
over the entire Plain of A'cre, with the long ridge of Mount Carmel bounding the
southern horizon. We looked far out at sea also, but there was nothing visible
on the waste of waters except a solitary fishing-boat here and there.

After climbing for six miles over rocky hills, many of which are so white and
bare that the heat from them is scorching to the face and the glare painful to
the eyes, we reached what is called the White Promontory, a perpendicular wall
of snow-white rock rising out of deep water to a height of four or five hundred
feet. The road is cut in the solid rock along the face of this cliff with a
precipice of 200 feet at its side, at the foot of which the deep blue water is
in almost perpetual motion. The road is broad enough and smooth enough for the
passage of wagons, and ruts made by wheels in former times are occasionally seen
on the surface of the rock. You ride along the pass in perfect safety, yet you
are kept constantly mindful of the appalling danger just at hand. It would
require a stout heart and steady nerve to venture along that road in a dark
night.

After descending from the cliff we were within about seven miles of Tyre, and
the remainder of the road followed a smooth coast plain about a mile wide with
the mountains rising several hundred feet high on the right. When within about
three miles of the city we passed Râs el Ain, the Promontory of the Spring. It
is a slightly elevated ridge projected from the mountains nearly to the
sea-shore, and conveying a copious stream of water in an artificial channel. At
the terminus of the channel part of the water passes through a mill and propels
it, while the remainder falls in a cascade over the dam and runs away to the
sea, in a stream almost large enough to be called a river. This artificial
channel once extended to the city, and it supplied ancient Tyre with an
abundance of cool and sparkling water. Indeed, it is now believed that the
continental part of the city once extended along the coast to this point, while
only the island city stood on the cape which is now partly covered by modern
Tyre. Of the original Tyre known to Solomon and the prophets of Israel, not a
vestige remains except in its rock-cut sepulchres on the mountain sides, and in
foundation walls which are occasionally reached by digging. Even the island,
which Alexander the Great, in his siege of the city, converted into a cape by
filling up the water between it and the mainland, contains no distinguishable
relics of an earlier period than that of the Crusades. The modern town, all of
which is comparatively new, occupies the northern half of what was once the
island, while nearly all the remainder of the surface is covered with
undistinguishable ruins, and the line of the coast is marked by the remains of
the crumbled city wall. The buried foundations of walls in this part of the
island constitute a rock quarry, and we saw men engaged in procuring building
stones from excavations 15 or 20 feet deep. The only building whose construction
dates as far back as the Crusades, any considerable portion of which is still
erect, is an immense church one end of which stands almost entire, while the
other walls are a few feet above the ground. Within its area is a confused mass
of prostrate columns which once supported its roof, some of them of immense
size, and some of red granite which must have been imported from Egypt. It was
one of the most splendid edifices ever constructed on this coast. In the total
disappearance of ancient Tyre the predictions contained in the 26th and 27th
chapters of Ezekiel meet with as nearly a literal fulfilment as is possible with
language so highly figurative. The modern city contains about 5000 inhabitants,
and is favorably represented in the following cut, which is copied from a
photograph taken from a house-top.

Modern Tyre

There is one monument of ancient Tyre which possesses the deepest interest, yet
the uncertainty that hangs about its design detracts much from the pleasure of
beholding it. It is the so-called Tomb of Hiram. It stands on a hill about six
miles southeast of Tyre, among the mountains, and it is certainly an ancient
Phoenician structure. It is also surrounded by ancient tombs, yet it is unlike
any other in the entire country, indicating something peculiar in its design, or
in the taste of the person who constructed it. It is built of unpolished
limestone slabs. The pedestal, as seen in the cut on the opposite page, consists
of two courses of stone two feet thick, and a third projecting beyond them all
around. On this lies a much thicker slab, supposed to be the sarcophagus, and
above this another, which serves as a lid. The monument is 20 feet high, 13 feet
long, and 9 feet wide.

Hiram's Tomb

Hiram, who was "ever a lover of David," and who befriended Solomon for his
father's sake, is one of the most interesting characters in Bible history, among
those who were neither Jews nor Christians. If it could be certainly known that
this is his tomb there are few monuments of antiquity that would possess more
interest; but, unfortunately, there is no evidence on this question except a
native tradition of doubtful antiquity.


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  CHAPTER 36: LETTER FIFTEEN: FROM TYRE TO SIDON
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Letter XV.

From Tyre to Sidon

We left Tyre on the morning of the 14th of June and rode to Sidon, the city so
intimately associated with it in sacred history, the same day. The distance
between the two cities is 24 miles, and the road over the greater part runs
along the narrow plain, only a mile or two in width, which constituted the only
level portion of ancient Phoenicia. This narrow strip along the coast, together
with the mountains immediately east of it, reaching back not more than 20 miles,
constituted all the territory of the Phoenicians. They were a commercial and not
an agricultural people, as appears from both their history and the nature of
their country. For this reason Solomon paid Hiram for the cedar timber used in
the temple in food, and in the New Testament period the country of Tyre and
Sidon was still nourished by the country of Herod. The territory was too limited
for the support of the two large cities, and the nourishment of the sailors who
came to these ports in ships, and the merchants who came with caravans.

About six miles north of Tyre we crossed on a stone bridge the river Kasimî'yeh,
called formerly the Litâ'ny and Leontes. It is emphatically a mountain river,
descending rapidly through its narrow pass and flowing with a swift current. Its
channel is deep and narrow, and there are few places at which it can be forded
even in the summer. It is the largest stream, next to the Jordan, in all Syria.

About halfway between Tyre and Sidon we passed the ruins of Sarepta, called
Zarapheth in the Old Testament, and now called Sarfend. It was the home of the
widow in whose house Elijah found a refuge after his brook in Wad'y Kelt had run
dry. The unfaltering faith of this woman, who, though in a heathen land, cooked
the last morsel of meal she had, when on the point of starvation, and gave it to
the prophet of God, is one of the finest exhibitions of character in Bible
history. Her act alone has given immortality to the name of the city in which
she lived, and yet her own name has not been preserved. The nameless heroes and
heroines of the past are doubtless far more numerous than those whose names have
become illustrious. There is a day coming when the ladder of fame will be
reversed, and many of those at the bottom now will stand on the topmost round.
Although nothing is left of Sarepta except heaps of stones where its buildings
once stood, and though no ships now visit its harbor, we felt the deepest
interest in pausing to gaze upon the scene and to think of its distant past. Our
road passed between the shallow harbor and the ruins of the city, giving us a
fair view of both.

About a mile north of Sarepta we stopped for lunch at a café, or Ar'ab house of
entertainment. A few steps from the house was an artificial pool of water 10
feet long, 8 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. Its interior was plastered, and a
stream of pure water was led into it by a stone aqueduct from a spring in the
distance. Its wall was three feet thick all round, and it was covered on top
with cement. Over all were spread the limbs of two tamarisk-trees, and their
shade was supplemented by an arbor of boughs. In this luxuriant shade, seated on
the broad wall around the pool, and cheered by the lively babble of the water as
it flowed into the pool on one side and out of the other, we ate our bread in
peace and laid ourselves quietly down to sleep. On our morning ride we had been
accompanied for several miles by a feeble-looking old Ar'ab who was traveling
through the country on horseback, attended by a single servant. Assad, after
conversing with him a while, represented him to us as a man of prodigious
learning. In the course of conversation the question arose, why the Mohammedans
keep Friday as a Sabbath. The old man said it was because Adam was created on
Friday, and on Friday he sinned and was cast out of the garden of Eden. We
thought it about as good a reason as Mohammed himself could have given. The old
man was not only learned, but pious. When we sat down around the pool to eat our
lunch, he also took a seat and spread out his own frugal meal; but ere he
partook of it he drew off his shoes, washed hands and feet in the pool, and went
through the entire formula of a Mohammedan prayer. There was a great contrast
between this pompous ceremonial and the simple giving of thanks with which we
prepared to take our food. In the afternoon, as we drew near to Sidon and were
about to close a long and hot days ride, we dismounted on the beach, about two
miles south of the city, to refresh ourselves with a sea bath. The waves were
rolling in with a majestic swell, and as we met them and bounded o'er them we
were filled with boyish glee. In a short time we began to meet them swimming,
and, finding this more exhilarating, we continued it until our limbs grew weary.
Touching then for the bottom, we found that we had unconsciously swum, or had
been drifted, beyond our depth. Almost simultaneously we turned and swam for the
shallow water. After making a few strokes in that direction, I saw that we
drifted backward almost as fast as we swam forward, and that if we had far to go
we were in imminent peril. Fearing that Frank, who is a daring swimmer, did not
realize the danger, I called out to him, "We shall hardly get out of this." I
then exerted my utmost strength for a few moments, when, being much fatigued and
turning on my back to rest, I saw that I was twenty or thirty yards in advance
of Frank and Brother Earl, who were now close together. I also discovered that I
was drifting away from them to the northward, in a line parallel with the shore.
I turned on my face again and renewed the struggle, feeling for the bottom
frequently, and hoping to touch it every moment. My strength was fast failing,
and I knew that it could not last long. Escape appeared almost impossible, and
the conviction seized me with paralyzing effect that Frank and Brother Earl, who
were so far behind me, must certainly perish. By this time Brother Taylor, who
had turned back sooner than we, was walking through the shallow water near the
shore, entirely unconscious of our danger. I called to him for help, though I
knew not what help he could give. I also called earnestly on God to deliver me.
I was continuing the struggle, almost in despair, when suddenly Brother Taylor
swam close before me, gave me his left hand, spoke some word of encouragement,
and tried to help me along. But having between us only two hands with which to
swim, I soon saw that we made no progress. I knew that if he remained with me he
would soon be in the same danger with myself, so I said to him, "Leave me, and
save yourself; you cannot save me." With that I let go his hand, and he swam
away. At this moment the thrilling question arose in my mind, Shall my life, my
labors, and my present expedition end here, and in this manner? The thought was
awfully repugnant to me, and it gave me a fresh impulse. But it was in vain. My
muscles were aching, my joints were growing stiff, my strength was exhausted. I
again turned on my back, giving up all thought of getting nearer to the shore,
but determined to float as long as possible. I was able for a few moments longer
to keep my mouth above water, but soon I swam so low that the crest of every
wave broke over my face, filling eyes, nostrils, and mouth with the salt water,
and threatening to strangle me. At last my hands and my feet both refused to
make another stroke. I folded my aching arms across my breast, offered the
prayer, "O God, bless my family; sustain them under this blow, and take me to
heaven," and then sank beneath the waves. As I went down I was conscious of
being turned upon my face. My mouth was involuntarily opened, and I felt the
salt water filling it and forcing its way into my stomach. My chest and my head
felt as if they were being crushed under a great weight, and my limbs were
aching as if they were cramped. I thought of what I had often read concerning
the ease of a death by drowning, and the contrast was awful. But I knew that my
torture could not last long, and I watched and waited for the experience of
leaving the body. The next sensation that I remember was that of the hot sun
shining in my face. I opened my eyes, and saw that I was again at the surface
and floating on my back. I felt a momentary relief, and I asked myself, "Is this
a reality, or is it only a horrible dream?" I then sank into total
unconsciousness. How long I remained in this condition I cannot tell; but I was
partially aroused from it by feeling myself astride the naked back of a horse,
and by hearing Brother Earl's familiar voice at my side. I next realized that I
was being borne by the horse toward the shore, that I was reeling in my seat,
and that I was kept from falling by a strong hand with a tight grasp on my left
arm. I knew when they took me down from the horse and held me upright, with my
head on the ground, and pressed my sides to force out the water which I had
swallowed; and I felt the water flowing from my mouth. They laid me down, and I
soon threw up the remaining contents of my stomach. I then opened my eyes, and
saw the face of a strange Ar'ab, who was holding two umbrellas to shield me from
the sun. I saw that I was lying on a thick rug, which our servant carried as a
cloth for our lunch, and that my head was resting on some kind of a pillow; then
my eyes involuntarily closed again. Brother Earl asked me if I was conscious,
and I said, "Yes." I heard him say, "Be quiet, Frank; he will soon be all right
now." And I asked, "Where is Frank?" He answered, "Here he is, all right." I
said, "Then we are out of that water." The manner of my marvelous rescue,
related to me afterward, was as follows: When Brother Taylor left me he swam to
the shore, mounted his horse, and endeavored to ride to me; but his horse was
afraid of the water, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could force
him slowly along. In the mean time, Brother Earl and Frank had effected their
escape. Frank began to call for help about the same time that I did, and Brother
Earl, who was close to him, gave him an occasional push to help him along. While
thus helping Frank, he saw Brother Taylor go to me and leave me; then his heart
sank at the thought that I must be lost, and he felt his strength giving way. No
longer able to help Frank, he made a desperate effort to save himself, and a few
strokes brought him to where he could touch bottom. The shallow water extended
farther out where he was than in the place to which I had drifted. He now made a
reach for Frank, who was by this time swimming very low, and drew him to the
same spot. Then they hurried ashore; but Frank was so exhausted that he fell in
the edge of the water. Brother Earl dragged him out on the sand and left him,
ran to his horse, threw off the saddle, mounted him, and rode in after me. His
horse went in willingly, so he passed Brother Taylor and reached me first. When
he was almost in reach of me a large wave broke over him and washed him off of
his horse; but he swung around before the horse's head, and obtained a firm
footing on the bottom. The same wave washed me within his reach. He found me
floating on my back, with my arms still folded across my breast, and Brother
Taylor says that I exclaimed, "Will nobody save me?" I suppose that I had sunk
and risen the second time. Brother Earl seized me by the arm, and by some
means—he says he knows not how—he got me on the horse. I suppose the swell of
the next wave assisted him. He told me to hold fast to the horse's mane, which
he says I did with both hands; but I did it unconsciously. He held me on,
Brother Taylor led the horse, and thus was I taken ashore. It seems that I had
drifted first into deeper and then into shallower water, and I was in the latter
when they reached me, otherwise they could not have reached me at all. When we
first dismounted, for the purpose of bathing, Assad, our dragoman, rode forward
to the camp, which was already pitched near the gate of Sidon, leaving the
Syrian servant, Solomon, to hold our horses. Solomon always attended us in our
rides, mounted on a pack-horse and carrying our lunch and drinking-water. He
understands but a few words of English, and consequently he did not at first
comprehend our danger. But when he saw Brother Earl come out with Frank, and saw
him and Brother Taylor rushing in on horseback after me, he took in the entire
situation, and at once became frantic. He jerked off his kufeiyeh and tossed it
into the air, and ran up and down the beach screaming and tossing his arms. His
outcries brought to the spot three Ar'abs—two men and a woman—who were working
in a garden near by.

One of the men, at his bidding, mounted my horse and went at full speed to the
camp to tell Assad what had happened. On arriving, he cried out to Assad, "One
of your gentlemen has sunk." Assad immediately remounted his horse, commanded
two of the muleteers to follow him on their pack-mules, and came with all
possible speed to the spot. Meantime, the other Ar'ab had assisted Brothers Earl
and Taylor in caring for me; and when they laid me down the woman had run and
brought me a pillow. They say that I repeatedly cried out, "Oh, my head, my
head!" and that once I exclaimed, "Set the lamp a little lower." Fearing, from
the pain of which I complained, and the evident wandering of my mind, that
congestion of the brain might ensue, Brother Earl called for cold water, and the
woman ran to her tent and brought it. This they poured slowly on my head until I
ceased to complain. But of all this I knew nothing. They say, also that when I
was first rescued my face was livid almost to blackness, and my eyes were
glazed, and that when they first laid me on the beach my pulse was scarcely
perceptible. When Assad and the muleteers arrived, it was thought best to take
me to the camp. I was scarcely willing to be moved so soon, for I could not yet
hold up my head; but they insisted, and I yielded. They put on me a part of my
clothing, and lifted me on the broad pad which covered the back of one of the
mules. Assad sat behind me to hold me on, and thus I was borne slowly to my
tent. I suffered still with severe pains in my limbs, my head was much
oppressed, and my stomach was tortured with both heat and thirst. I called for
ice, if any could be found in Sidon, and fortunately some was brought to me. It
was the first city we had visited in Syria where ice is kept, and no ice ever
tasted so delicious to me as that. Dr. Abela, the American consul and a
physician, was sent for, and between him and Brother Earl, who is himself a good
practitioner of the homœopathic school, I was treated with such restoratives as
my case required. The next morning I was free from pain, and in the course of
the day I was able to take a little liquid food. Mr. Eddy, an American
Presbyterian missionary in Sidon, who had called to see me the evening before,
kindly invited me to occupy one of the airy and comfortable rooms of his
dwelling; but I was at ease in my tent and unwilling to give trouble, so I
declined his invitation. Before the sun set I dressed myself and took a short
walk about the camp, and on Monday morning, by the amazing mercy of God, I was
able to mount my horse and resume my journey. This was only about forty hours
after my disaster, yet I rode six hours that day without unusual fatigue. Our
route, before turning into the hills, led us back for a short distance along the
same path by which we had come to Sidon, Saturday afternoon. We passed once more
the garden of cucumbers kept by the three Ar'abs who had befriended me, and they
came out to meet me. Brother Earl had given each of them a present, but I gave
them more, saying to them, "I give you this for your kindness to me; and I hope
you will show the same kindness to any other stranger when you can." They
received the money with warm expressions of thankfulness, and one of the men
kissed my hand and with a loud voice praised Allah for my deliverance.

I have now repeated the story of what I may call my death and restoration; and
the reader can see, as plainly as I, that to Brothers Earl and Taylor, but
especially to the former, I owe the prolongation of my life. True, the latter
did what he could, and he did it most bravely. When he swam out into the deep
water and took me by the hand, he knowingly put his life in my power; for had I
been frantic, as most persons are in drowning, I would have dragged him under me
and we both would have gone down together. And had his horse come freely into
the water, he would probably have rescued me while Brother Earl was helping
Frank. But as it is, I owe chiefly to Brother Earl the preservation of my life,
and probably of that of my cousin Frank. But for him Frank's mother might have
been a childless widow, and my wife the widowed mother of a dependent family. I
told him, as I lay helpless in my tent before the gate of Sidon, that I could
never recompense him for his kindness. He commanded me to keep silent on the
subject, but perish the hand that writes these lines if I ever forget the debt
of gratitude which I owe him! And if I am thus indebted to my faithful brethren
and fellow-travelers, what shall I say of the debt I owe to Him without whose
help they could have done nothing? It was He who rescued first of all two lives
of which I had despaired, and then made one of these the instrument of saving
mine. I had passed through all the conscious experience of dying, and God drew
me back out of the very jaws of death. I feel that the remnant of my days,
whatever it shall be, is a special gift of His providence,—as special as that
granted to King Hezekiah when his hour todie had come, and God, hearing his
prayer for longer time, added fifteen years to his life. And if the gift is
special, I think it must have a special purpose. I fain would know what that
purpose is. Is it that I may bear, before I go hence, a heavier burden of
earthly woe than has hitherto fallen to my easy lot? Is it that some dire
temptation shall grapple with my soul and strain my faith to its utmost tension?
Is it that I shall follow to the grave with a breaking heart my wife and
children, who came so near being left behind? Or is it that I shall continue for
some years, and with more abounding fruit, the labor of teaching and preaching
God's blessed word? Oh, how often, since that dreadful 14th of June, have I
asked myself these questions! On the snowy top of Hermon; amid the cedars of
Lebanon; musing by moonlight among the ruins of Baalbec; pacing the deck of many
a ship; standing on Mars' Hill by the imaginary side of Him who spent "a day and
a night in the deep;" on the lone mountain and in the crowded city, these
questions have pressed themselves upon me, and have occupied many a tearful
hour. I desire that my children shall watch the course of my life, and that when
I am gone they shall write at the foot of this page the answer which time shall
then have revealed. At present, one answer, and only one, I have been able to
find: it is that in the days which God has added to me I shall love Him with all
my heart, and work for Him with all my strength. This, with His heavenly help, I
am pledged to do.

"Here at thy feet I leave my vow, And thy rich grace record:

Witness, you saints who hear me now.

If I forsake the Lord."

Before I left home, many of my brethren and sisters, men and women who are in
favor with God, gave me assurance that they would continually pray for my safe
return. I know they have done so; and I have the strongest conviction that their
prayers have been effective. I would now address to all of them the words
addressed by Paul to the saints in Corinth on a somewhat similar occasion: "We
would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia,
that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired
even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not
trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead. Who delivered us from so
great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us:
you also helping by prayer for us, that for the gifts bestowed upon us by the
means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf." (2Co 1:8-11.)

After my disaster I read again with new interest Lieutenant Conder's account of
a similar escape made by him in the same sea near Askelon. His account is very
brief, but in the light of my own experience I can now read it with many of its
details mentally supplied. Speaking of the pleasures of his camping-ground near
that place, he says, "We were also able to enjoy a daily bath in the sea, which,
however, nearly cost me my life on the 5th of April; for the surf was breaking,
and a strong suck-back of the waves carried me out into the broken water, whence
I was rescued by Lieutenant Kitchener."

Sidon, like all the ancient Asiatic cities, has passed through an eventful
history. In the days of Paul it contained a Christian church, as did Tyre, thus
verifying the words of Jesus, "If the mighty works which have been done in thee
had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth
and ashes." It was nominally a Christian city for several centuries previous to
the Mohammedan conquest. In the Crusading period it passed through terrible
vicissitudes, being several times razed and partially rebuilt, and for several
centuries afterward it almost ceased to exist. It was only about two centuries
ago that it began finally to revive, and even in very recent times it has
suffered at the hands of military powers; for in 1840 its harbor fortifications
were destroyed by the allied fleets of England and France. In the attempted
massacre of the Christians throughout Syria in 1860, it is said that 1800 were
slain in Sidon.

Having a better harbor than Tyre, Sidon was the principal seaport on the Syrian
coast, and the landing-place for Damascus, until some twenty or more years ago,
when its trade began to be diverted to Beirût. It was selected forty years ago
as the headquarters of Presbyterian missionary operations in Syria, and although
these headquarters have recently been transferred to Beirût the mission still
owns a valuable property at Sidon, and has the oversight of many mission
stations in the villages of the interior. The present population of the city is
estimated at 12,000, of whom 8000 are Moslem, and the remainder Christians of
various kinds and Jews. Vegetation grows luxuriantly in the plain about it, and
its oranges are famous for their delicious flavor; some persons prefer them to
the oranges of Joppa. The only remains of antiquity about Sidon are its
rock-hewn sepulchres; for the Phoenicians buried their dead very much as did the
Jews, and like the Egyptians they sometimes embalmed them. A class of sepulchres
found there is peculiar. They were excavated by first digging a perpendicular
shaft down into the solid rock, and then excavating burial-chambers to the right
and left from it. The shafts are from 10 to 13 feet deep and from 3 to 7 feet
wide. They are descended by steps cut in their sides. The French exploring-party
of 1860, under Ernest Renan, made extensive excavations here as well as at Tyre
and in other parts of Phoenicia. They made many valuable discoveries connected
with the history and topography of the country, and disinterred many interesting
relics with which to adorn the national museum in Paris.


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  CHAPTER 37: LETTER SIXTEEN: FROM SIDON TO MOUNT HERMON
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Letter XVI. From Sidon to Mount Hermon From Sidon our course ran nearly due
southeast to Cæsarea-Philippi, which we reached by two short days' travel. We
camped the first night at Nabatí'yeh, a mountain village in the southern
extremity of Phoenicia, occupied by Greek Christians. Our tents were pitched in
an orchard of large fig-trees, which was also a stubble-field, the wheat having
been but recently harvested. Here an old man came to us with "antiques" to sell,
consisting of ancient gold and copper coins, earrings, and earthenware lamps. We
asked him where he found them, and he said he dug them out of graves in a
sepulchre near by. We asked him to show us the sepulchre, and he led us to a
place in the corner of a field, where, by crawling feet foremost, we entered a
rock-hewn chamber about 20 feet square, from which eight other smaller chambers
opened, two on each side and four in the rear. In the floor of each of these
chambers but one there were two graves side by side, and in the one there was a
single grave. Here a family of 15 persons had been carefully buried at great
expense, both the chambers and the individual graves being dug in the solid
rock, and here the dead had rested quietly for more, perhaps, than 2000 years,
when these Ar'abs, having accidentally discovered the sepulchre while ploughing
in their field, had opened the graves and scattered the bones in search of the
jewelry and coins which were buried with them. Pieces of human bones from every
part of the body lay scattered about the rifled graves, and I remarked to my
companions that I felt almost like a grave-robber myself, in that I was
encouraging the old man by buying some of his relics. I made a pencil draft of
the sepulchre, and from this was copied the cut. Here was a tomb but recently
robbed, illustrative of a work which has been going on in these old countries
for thousands of years. It has resulted from the unwise practice, prevalent
among the ancients, of burying dead persons personal ornaments, weapons, and
other valuables with the dead body. As it was only the rich who were buried in
rock-cut sepulchres, while the poor were put away in the ground as they now are,
sepulchres offered prizes which have led to the rifling of all that have been
found. By-the-bye, the Saviour's body would not have been laid in a sepulchre
had it not been a rich man who undertook his burial.

About four miles on our way from Nabatî'yeh, we came to the renowned castle of
Belleforte, one of the most loftily perched and strongly built of all the
castles which witnessed the conflicts between Ar'abs and Christians, Saracens
and Crusaders. It covers the summit of a conical hill, 500 feet above the plain
which surrounds it on every side except the east. On that side there is a
perpendicular precipice descending about 2000 feet to the bed of the river
Litâ'ny. From its lofty battlements the Litâ'ny can be traced for many miles,
and it looks like a small creek not over three feet wide, and of a pea-green
color, though it is a deep river from 40 to 60 feet across. A few miles south of
the castle this remarkable stream turns due west and cuts its way through the
mountains, very much as New River in West Virginia cuts its way through the
Alleghanies. It forms part of the dividing-line between Phoenicia and the Land
of Israel, and reaches the sea six miles above Tyre.

After descending from Belleforte and crossing the Litâ'ny on an ancient bridge,
we came into a series of elevated plains which anciently belonged to the kingdom
of Tyre: after crossing these there opened before us one of the most beautiful
little valleys that we saw in all our travels. It is called Iyun', and it is the
Ijon of the Scriptures, the most northern possession of the tribe of Naphtali.
It is about five miles long from north to south, and about two miles wide.

It was covered, when we saw it, with alternate sections of yellow grain and
green dûr'rah, and it is surrounded in every direction except the south with a
rim of smooth mountain ridges. It seemed at first sight to have no outlet; but
when we reached its southern end, we found that a little stream which drains it
cuts through the low ridge at this end, and descends through a narrow gorge
which it has made, into the valley of the upper Jordan. From the top of this
ridge we saw the valley of the upper Jordan for the first time. We could see
Lake Hûleh,—anciently called The Waters of Merom,—occupying the centre of the
plain, and far beyond it the chasm in the hills through which the Jordan
descends into the Lake of Galilee. At our right, on a hill overlooking the lake,
is the site of Hazor, the city of Jabin, king of Canaan, who was conquered by
Joshua. Nearer to us, and beautifully situated on a rounded hill-top, we saw the
village of Abîl, the ancient Abel-beth-Maachah, where Sheba took refuge when
pursued by David's army under Joab, and over whose walls his head was thrown to
Joab by the advice of a wise woman in the city. The valley before us is about 20
miles long, running nearly due north and south, and about 5 miles wide. It is
completely surrounded by hills, most of which are 1000 feet high. Only a small
portion of the plain is in cultivation, the remainder being wet and unhealthy,
but furnishing fine grazing through the dry season. Our route led us eastward
along the northern end of this valley across the river Hasbâ'ny, which enters it
through a narrow and deep chasm, thence to the ancient city of Dan, and thence
to Cæsarea-Philippi. The slight elevation on which Dan stood is now called Tell
el Kâdi, Hill of the Judge, which is the same as the Hill of Dan; for dan in
Hebrew and kâdi in Arabic are the same as judge in English. The rim left by its
crumbled walls marks the limits of the ancient town, inclosing a space about 330
yards long and 270 wide. Near the south-west corner of this space bursts forth
from the ground one of the largest and finest springs in the world. Its water is
icy cold, making your teeth ache as you drink it, and it flows away a full-grown
river, furnishing nearly half the water of the Jordan. The surrounding soil is
exceeding rich, and, being well watered, it puts forth a vegetation so rank that
it is impossible to break through the briers, bushes, and low growing fig-trees
which surround the fountain-head. This rank growth is not confined to the
fountain-head, but extends along the course of the stream until it is lost in
Lake Hûleh. There are no ruins left in Dan except the rim made by the crumbled
walls, and a few building stones lying about in confusion. It was the most
northern city of ancient Israel, and when we reached it, though we had not gone
"from Dan to Beersheba," we had explored the country all the way from Beersheba
to Dan.

About three miles due east of Dan, and situated on a little higher elevation, we
found the ruins of Cæsarea-Philippi. It was originally a heathen town called
Pan'eas. It had gone to ruin in the days of the Herods, probably on account of
its unhealthy locality, and Herod Philip rebuilt it, giving it the name
Cæsarea-Philippi, in joint honor of himself and Tiberius Cæsar. After the Roman
dominion passed away, it resumed, in the language of the people, its original
name, and it has come down to the present day under the name Ban'ias, an Arabic
corruption of Pan'eas. Our camp was pitched under some magnificent shade-trees
north of the town, and there flowed between us and it a rushing, roaring stream
of water, spanned by a rudely-built stone bridge. As soon as we were settled in
our tents I walked out and followed this stream to its fountain-head, not more
than 200 yards eastward of our camp, and there I found another magnificent
spring, second only, among all that I had yet seen, to the one at Dan. It rises
from under a ledge of solid rock, but makes its way to the surface through a
mass of loose stones, large and small, which have fallen into it. A narrow shelf
of rock about 50 feet high lies back of the spring, and from this there springs
a perpendicular precipice not less than 100 feet high. In the face of this
precipice is a yawning cavern, whose dark recesses are suggestive of fear and
superstition, while to the right of the cavern several niches for statues, and
one little chapel with an altar in it, are cut in the face of the cliff. These
have every appearance of being relics of the heathen worship once conducted here
in honor of the imaginary gods who sent forth this copious stream to bless the
land. The water of this spring, like that of the spring of Dan, is remarkably
cold. They are both supplied by the melting snows of Mount Hermon, at whose base
they lie. The fountain of Ban'ias constitutes the most eastern source of the
Jordan; that at Dan the central and principal source; and the river Hasbâ'ny,
which also rises in a large spring about 20 miles northwest of the other two,
the western source. Nearly all of the water which the Jordan carries into the
Lake of Galilee, and much the greater part of all that it carries into the Dead
Sea, is drawn from these three sources. It is astonishing to behold such volumes
of water coming forth from the earth, when the surface is everywhere as dry as a
powder-house, and when you know that not a drop of rain has fallen for three
months. The stream which issues from the great spring of Cæsarea-Philippi sweeps
along the entire base of its northern wall, and then, making an abrupt turn,
washes in the same manner the base of the western wall. At the southwest corner
of the city it is met at right angles by a deep, narrow fissure in the natural
rock, by the precipitous side of which the southern wall was built, so that on
every side except the east the city is surrounded by a natural moat. On the east
side the ground rises gradually toward a spur of Mount Hermon, on the foot of
which spur the city was built. Some parts of the ancient wall still exist on
every side, but chiefly on the south, where we rode out, through a
well-preserved gateway, upon a stone bridge spanning the rocky chasm on that
side. A picture of this bridge and gateway is given on page 335.

Within the circuit of the walls is a small village, the one-story houses of
which are constructed of ancient material, and some of them are perched on the
massive foundations of ancient buildings. Scattered about in every direction are
seen broken columns, capitals, pedestals, and large blocks of hewn stone, which
would declare to the most careless observer that here once stood a city of no
mean pretensions.

About one mile east of the town the mountain spur culminates in a precipitous
rock at least 1000 feet above the town. Its top is completely covered by an old
castle about one-fourth of a mile long, 250 yards wide at its west end, and 150
at its east end. Its outer walls are still preserved almost entire, and after a
laborious climb of three-fourths of an hour up the most accessible side of the
hill, we rode in through its southern and only gate. It is an astonishingly
strong, massive, and elaborate fortification, and, previous to the invention of
gunpowder, it must have been impregnable. Lieutenant Conder is doubtless right
in pronouncing it "one of the most magnificent ruins in Syria."

I think that if the Saviour's figure of a rock, in the statement to Peter, "On
this rock I will build my church," was suggested by anything about
Cæsarea-Philippi, near which the remark was made, it was suggested by the
situation of this castle rather than by that of the city. True, the city was
situated on a rock, but the rock is not so conspicuous as to arrest especial
attention. The castle, however, is loftily and strongly built on a naked and
imperishable mass of rock, and frowns so defiantly upon all who would attempt to
assail it that it might well suggest the majestic imagery of the ever memorable
and precious words, "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades
shall not prevail against it." The locality was full of interest to us on
account of its association with the sixteenth chapter of Matthew; but when our
eyes were lifted up to the still loftier spurs of majestic Hermon, which rose
before us to the north, we were reminded of that grandest of all the scenes in
the life of Jesus, his transfiguration, which occurred on some of those heights.
If the apostle Peter, looking back many years after that glorious vision, could
style its locality "the holy mount," the modern pilgrim to the Holy Land may be
excused for regarding it with veneration. Filled with this emotion, I was
determined to accomplish what few excursionists attempt,—the ascent of Mount
Hermon to its topmost summit. For this purpose, instead of taking the most
direct route from Cæsarea-Philippi to Damascus, which would have led us along
the southern side of Mount Hermon, we took the more circuitous route around its
northern slopes. In regard to the most available point from which to make the
ascent, there was a palpable conflict between the wish of our dragoman, backed
by that of the muleteers, and the advice contained in our most reliable
guide-book. We found that by following the guide-book (Baedeker's) we would
accomplish our purpose, and reach Damascus one day sooner than by following our
living guide; so, at the risk of a threatened rebellion among the muleteers, who
were incapable of thinking that anything should be done differently from what it
had been done, we gave positive orders that the ascent should begin from the
village of Hasbe'ya. We also ordered that while we, with the dragoman and our
attendant servant, were making the excursion, the camp should move forward to
the village of Rashe'ya, about 15 miles farther on, at which point we were to
complete the descent of the mountain. With this plan in view we rode, on the
18th of June, from Cæsarea-Philippi to Hasbe'ya, a distance of about 18 miles.
At Hasbe'ya we were introduced to a new phase of social life. The population is
chiefly Christian, of the Greek Church, and the village was the scene of one of
the most fiendish outrages which occurred during the attempt at a universal
massacre of the Syrian Christians in the year 1860. About 1000 of these
unfortunate people took refuge from their persecutors in a castle occupied by
the Turkish governor, where they had promise of protection. But the garrison of
Turkish soldiers, under whose protection they had placed themselves, fell upon
them and murdered them in cold blood. Men, women, and children were
indiscriminately butchered, and their bleeding bodies, covered with gaping
wounds, were heaped together in great masses where they fell. When we rode into
the open court of about an acre in extent, which lies in front of this castle,
our dragoman, who remembered well the time of the slaughter, and was himself
under arms at Beirût with his fellow-Christians, called a halt, and, solemnly
pointing to the building, said, "In there the blood was not less than three feet
deep, and all over this court it was not less than four inches." Of course this
was an exaggeration, but he told the story as it had been told to him, and the
fact that it is believed shows how deep an impression on the public mind was
made by the fearful tragedy. I was the more impressed with the scene of this
awful massacre from having met, at Tyre, a lady whose parents and immediate
relatives were all among the victims. She was left a helpless orphan, only 10
years of age, but Mrs. Mott, an English lady in Beirût, who had, and still has,
a school for girls, received her into it, supported her, educated her, taught
her the Protestant faith, and sent her forth to be a missionary teacher. She was
teaching a school in Tyre, and such was her interest in Christian people that
when we were there she made a visit to our camp and related to us the story of
her life and labors. Long may she continue to show her gratitude for the
blessings bestowed on her by spreading the light among the children of her
benighted people. I thought, while conversing with her, of our own orphan school
at Midway, Kentucky, and I would commend her example to the dear girls of that
institution.

I said that we were introduced at Hasbe'ya to a new phase of social life. It was
new in contrast to that of the Ar'ab population amid which we had hitherto
traveled. Here the houses, though cheap and plain, had about them an air of
cleanliness and home-comfort. Women, in clean garments, were sitting on the
door-steps or on the cheap verandas, engaged in sewing or knitting, and a number
of plainly but decently dressed women, with white veils thrown gracefully over
their heads, but not drawn down over their faces, freely came about our camp to
sell little articles of their handiwork. The ease, comfort, and freedom
everywhere apparent presented a pleasing contrast with the bondage, filth, and
shrinking reserve which we had everywhere seen in Mohammedan communities.

Having a long and laborious ride before us for the 19th, we were up before
daylight. We ate breakfast by the light of candles, and ere the sun had gilded
the hill-tops we were in the saddle. From six o'clock till noon we were
continually ascending the steep slopes which led toward the summit of Mount
Hermon. Our starting-point, the village of Hasbe'ya, is 2200 feet above the
level of the sea, and our ascent included nearly 7000 feet more. We encountered
nothing of special interest in the way, except one most remarkable sarcophagus.
It was situated some 5000 or 6000 feet above the sea, remote from any town or
permanent habitation, and consisted of a mass of natural rock about 8 feet wide
by 10 in length, and rising about 7 feet above the ground. In the flat top of
this rock were two graves, side by side, with a thin rock partition left
between, and in the bottom of each a narrow vault like those in modern graves,
for the immediate resting-place of the body. They were the graves, in all
probability, of a man and his wife, dug here under the impulse of some strange
caprice, and supposed to be a secure resting-place for their dust until the
resurrection morning. But the stone slabs which covered them are gone, the
graves have been rifled of all their contents, and there is nothing to tell the
story of the dead man's hopes except the empty and silent rock.

Mount Hermon is not a rocky mountain, although some very bold and majestic
masses of naked rock are seen at intervals; but its surface is composed chiefly
of smooth slopes covered with soil, and in the spring it is clothed with
verdure. Even as late as June 19th, the date of our ascent, the melting masses
of snow supply sufficient moisture to keep alive a considerable amount of
vegetation, and the shepherds, in search of green pasture, lead their flocks of
goats to its very summit. Here they watch over the flocks by night as well as by
day, and their food is brought to them from the distant villages below. Nor is
their business unattended with danger; for in these uninhabited mountain regions
ravenous beasts that would devour the flocks are still found. Of this we had
ocular demonstration; for while we were standing on the summit of the mountain a
large brown bear started up not far from us, galloped leisurely off, and just
before he disappeared turned around, sat down, and gazed at us for a few moments
as if in doubt as to our identity, or of our right to invade his dominions. I
know not how he gets his food unless he lives upon kids which he steals from the
shepherds. The top of the mountain contains evidence that it was not always the
uninhabited region that it now is; for on it are the ruins of an ancient heathen
temple, and a dwelling-place chiseled in the solid rock. The latter is a
circular room about 24 feet in diameter, and its ceiling, which is about 8 feet
high, is supported by a pillar of the natural rock left standing not far from
the centre. Before its doorway, which is now nearly blocked up with earth, are
two broken granite columns about 15 inches in diameter, one prostrate, but the
other still erect. Who inhabited this singular dwelling, whether the heathen
priests of the temple near by, some hermit of the Dark Ages, or the shepherds of
some former period, cannot now be determined. But it was certainly a very
suitable dwelling for a mountain-top which is covered with snow during the
principal part of the year. The fall of snow and rain in this entire country was
much lighter than usual last winter, and consequently we found on the mountain
only a few small fields of snow, and these will disappear before the summer is
over; but usually the snow remains in large fields throughout the summer.

Notwithstanding the masses of unmelted snow that were about us, and our
elevation of more than 9000 feet above the sea level, the thermometer stood at
71°, and we were constrained to shelter ourselves from the sun with our
umbrellas. The view from the top of Hermon was of course the most extensive that
we enjoyed in all of our tour. Our eyes were very naturally turned first toward
Damascus. It was too far away for the houses to be distinguished, even with a
glass. It appeared like a small yellow field of irregular outline in the midst
of a vast field of green. The oasis in which it lies, and which is made such by
the waters of the famous rivers Abana and Pharpar, was all in view, and the
surrounding desert of yellow sand was seen to stretch away in every direction
until it was lost in the dim distance. Our eyes were next turned southward, over
the region which we had recently traversed. Far down in a deep depression lay
the Lake of Galilee, almost hid by the mist which the heated atmosphere is
constantly lifting from its surface. Beyond the lake the farthest point that we
could distinguish was Mount Tabor; and farther to the west the horizon was
bounded by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Westward, and to the northwest, the
mountains of Lebanon hid all more distant objects from the view, and between
them and the Hermon range lay spread the long, narrow valley called by the
Romans Cœle-Syria. The atmosphere was exceptionally clear and throughout the
wide circuit of our horizon the various objects were unusually distinct. In
regard to the atmosphere of Palestine I was seriously disappointed. All the
tourists whose writings I had read united in one unbroken chorus to extol the
marvelous clearness of the Syrian atmosphere, and the brilliancy of a Syrian sky
by night. My expectation was therefore keyed up very high, and I anticipated
rare enjoyment from this source. In one respect I was not disappointed. During
the 86 days of our sojourn in Palestine and Southern Syria, there were not more
than eight or ten, I think, in which the sun did not shine all the day, and the
stars all the night. And when looking at distant objects, we almost invariably
underestimated their distance from us. But I accounted for this latter
circumstance by our want of experience in estimating long distances, rather than
by an unusual transparency of the atmosphere, because in almost every instance
we found distant objects covered with a haze which prevented us from seeing them
distinctly, and almost every time that we climbed a height for the purpose of
obtaining a far-reaching view the haziness of the atmosphere was a tantalizing
hindrance. I was led to make frequent comparisons with the atmosphere of our own
country; and although in America we have many rainy, cloudy, and misty days, I
am sure that I have seen distant objects there with as much distinctness as I
have in Palestine; and although our nights are often dark, I have looked up from
my own door-steps in the summer-time, with my wife and children about me, to as
clear a sky and to stars as bright as I have seen in Palestine, Egypt, Greece,
or Italy. And then, on a frosty night in winter, if the stars and moon ever
shone more brightly in the wide world than they shine on the free-born people of
America, I have yet to see it, or to read of it in authentic records. I think it
must be English writers, in whose sea-girt home a clear day and a bright night
are seldom seen, who have given to Palestine its reputation for transparency of
atmosphere. Our descent of Mount Hermon was far more rapid, and along far
steeper slopes, than our ascent. It had barely begun when we passed a flock of
goats grazing beside a bank of snow. A shepherd-boy filled a bowl with fresh
goats milk, thickened it with snow, and offered it to us to drink. We stirred in
some sugar, and made a very refreshing kind of ice-cream, the nearest to the
genuine article which we had tasted for many a day. We then moved on toward the
plains below, walking down the steepest slopes, and riding down others where the
danger of slipping, saddle and all, over our horses heads seemed imminent, and
completed an excursion of 12 hours by reaching our tents at Rashe'ya about
sunset. Men and horses were all prepared for a good night's rest, and this they
all enjoyed.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 38: LETTER SEVENTEEN: DAMASCUS
========================================================================

Letter XVII. Damascus On leaving Mount Hermon, our next objective point was
Damascus. Starting from Rashe'ya on the morning of June 20th, we rode in one way
to Mejelûn, a station on the turnpike from Beirut to Damascus, distant from the
latter city about 12 miles. Here we struck the first good artificial road which
we had seen in Syria; and, indeed, it is the only one in Western Asia. I will
give some account of it hereafter. Our camp was pitched by the side of a fine
spring which bursts from under the embankment of the turnpike; and near by,
along the bank of the stream which ran from the spring, there was a little grove
of poplar-trees under whose shade we enjoyed a refreshing rest. It was
refreshing, too, to see wagons and carriages passing along the turnpike, and
especially so to hear the horn of the stage-driver as he approached the station,
and to see the large diligence drawn by six horses dash up to the stable, change
horses, and dash away again. It reminded me of scenes often witnessed in the
West, and it made us feel as if we were once more within the region of
civilization. Our route the next day lay along this turnpike, and we were
annoyed no little by the foolishness of our horses. I suppose they had seldom or
never seen a wagon or carriage before, and they were positively afraid of them.
My horse, in spite of my utmost efforts to control him, would shy off to the
edge of the road every time we met a vehicle. The sight of these conveniences of
civilized life was as strange to him as it was familiar to me.

Damascus

We were traversing the elevated valley which lies between the Lebanon and
Anti-Lebanon Mountains. The former range lies along the entire seacoast from
Sidon northward, while the latter, with a valley from 8 to 10 miles wide between
the two, lies along the border of the great Arabian Desert. The southern
extremity of the latter range, and its highest elevation, is Mount Hermon. This
mountain extends about 20 miles northward; and beyond it the range gradually
descends until it approaches the Euphrates, where it reaches the level of the
desert. Across this mountain range we had to make our way in approaching
Damascus, and as we rode for miles with its unbroken wall before us, we felt
interested to see how a passage would be effected. At last we entered upon a
straight stretch of the turnpike road which seemed to terminate against the base
of the mountain; but on nearing the mountain, a narrow, winding gap opened
before us, whose bed was filled with the verdure of silver poplars and sparkling
with the bright waters of a little stream. No one who has not ridden for many
days under a scorching sun, with the glare of bare rocks or of a desert plain in
his face, can realize how refreshing it was to ride under the shade of those
overhanging trees and listen to the constant murmuring of that little stream.

We had not ridden far before the rippling rivulet crossed our road and emptied
its waters into a swift-rolling river, and we found ourselves on the right bank
of the famous Ab'-a-na of Scripture, called the Bar'-a-da by the Ar'abs. The
valley through which it flows is as narrow as the one by which we had approached
it, being often not more than 100 yards wide, while a naked mountain wall,
several hundred feet high, rises above it on either hand. By this pass the
Ab'-a-na makes its way through the mountain. Its descent is very rapid and its
current remarkably swift, but so few are the obstructions in its bed that it
rolls on in silence, and one might ride along its bank in the night and hear
scarcely a sound to indicate its presence. It passes from side to side of its
narrow valley, and we crossed it frequently on well-constructed stone bridges.
We noticed, too, that in many places the side of the road was guarded against it
by walls of wood or stone, lest, in high water, it should wash the road away.
The growth along its banks is almost exclusively the silver poplar, which is
planted in clumps and made to grow tall and slim in order to furnish long poles
rather than heavy timber. Occasionally, however, we saw groves of apricots and
other fruit-trees.

Before we passed through the mountains we noticed that the river was much
reduced in size, and that fully half of its water was drawn into an artificial
channel which is carried along the side of the mountain on our left. Having a
more gradual descent than the bed of the river, this artificial channel finally
gained an ascent of 30 or 40 feet above our road, and occasionally a little
stream was allowed to escape from its side to water a narrow garden along the
hill-side, or to ripple through the beautiful grounds of dwellings which began
to appear as we advanced.

Finally the mountain gap through which we had ridden for about six miles opened
upon a boundless plain, and half a dozen tall minarets stood before us, rising
high above the intervening fruit-gardens, and declaring that Damascus was at
hand. As we approached the city we passed, on our left, well-constructed
buildings surrounded by ample grounds and shade-trees, the barracks and
hospitals of the Turkish garrison. Richly-dressed officers on handsome horses
were going and coming. On our right, and across the river from us, lay a smooth
lawn on which the dyers of the city had spread carpets and other goods, and were
sprinkling them with water from the river. This lawn extends to the wall of the
city, and the first building within the wall at that point is a vast mosque
covering 8 or 10 acres of ground. It belongs to the Howling Dervishes, a
fanatical order of Mohammedans, corresponding to the monks of the Roman Catholic
Church. It was once a magnificent suite of buildings, as its many domes and
minarets still declare, but like the order to which it belongs it is now in a
state of ruin.

Passing into the city along the bank of the river, and then turning a little to
the left, we halted before a door in a high wall, which rose abruptly from the
side of the street, and were told that this was our hotel. We had decided to
occupy the hotel instead of our tents during our stay in Damascus. The door was
a large and heavy one, about 8 feet wide, 12 feet high, and 3 inches thick. We
expected to see it thrown open to admit us, and thought it likely that we would
ride through it into an inner court. But we were requested to dismount; a little
door about four feet high and two feet wide, cut through the large door, was
thrown open, and we entered one at a time. We had to stoop to get in. The little
door reminded me of cat-holes that I had seen through the bottom of cabin doors,
by which the cat could go in and out when the door was shut. I afterward saw
many of them in Damascus, and some in other cities of the East. After passing
through the cat-hole we found ourselves in a small court, about 20 feet square,
its floor paved with marble, a circular fountain in the centre, a tall
lemon-tree, covered with yellow fruit, growing near the fountain, two or three
doors of apartments occupied by servants opening into the court, and before us
an arched opening through a wall leading into an inner and larger court. We
passed into the latter, and found it about 60 feet square. A marble tank 30 feet
long, 10 feet wide, 3 feet deep, and rising about 20 inches above the pavement,
occupied a position near the centre of the court. It was kept full of water by a
stream constantly pouring into it from a metallic pipe, while the water ran off
through another pipe underground. Lemon- and orange-trees were scattered about
the court, and the doors of the surrounding apartments of the hotel opened into
it. The following cut represents one side of a similar court. There are many
such in the large houses of Damascus. On entering the apartments we found the
floors all laid with stone, tiles, or cement, and covered with pieces of thick
Turkish carpet laid loose upon them. The furniture was European, because it was
provided for European guests. Such is the style of all the large houses in
Damascus, varying only in the costliness of the material and the gorgeousness of
the ornamentation. A few houses belonging to Jews of enormous wealth are so
splendidly furnished and so gorgeously ornamented as to remind one of the
splendor characteristic of Arabian and Moorish palaces when Mohammedanism was in
the height of its glory. We found the hotel a comfortable and pleasant abode
during the four days of our stay in the city. It is called the Dimî'tri Hotel,
from the name of its first proprietor, and it is now kept by his widow. It is
the only hotel in a city of 110,000 inhabitants, and it owes its existence to
the visits of Europeans.

Court of a Horse in Damascus The objects in Damascus which most interest the
tourist are the bazaars, the ancient mosque, and the street called Straight. The
bazaars are only a repetition, on a larger scale, of those which we had seen in
every city of Palestine. They are little rooms, 8 or 10 feet square, with the
whole front open to the street. A large wooden door, made of several separate
shutters, closes it at night, and is put out of sight during the day. The goods
are packed on shelves around the other three sides of the little room, and the
dealer sits on a rug in the middle of the floor. If business is dull he goes to
sleep, or visits some of the adjoining shops to chat with his neighbors. He
always asks you about three prices for his goods, and expects you to quarrel
with him loud and long in making a bargain. After offering him the most that you
are willing to give, which he most positively refuses to take, you walk away;
but before you get out of sight he calls to you, or runs after you, to say that
he will take it. If he takes your offer without this ado, you may be sure that
you have paid him too much. The shops of the blacksmiths, coppersmiths,
carpenters, etc., are constructed after the same model as those of the
merchants, and the workmen always remain seated, except when the kind of work
they are doing compels them to stand. I have seen blacksmiths seated on the
ground and hammering away at their anvils. The old mosque, once a heathen
temple, then reconstructed into an immense Christian church, and afterward
remodeled into a Mohammedan mosque, is in a good state of preservation, but
there is less sanctity attached to it than in former years. We had to leave our
boots at the door, but were allowed to walk through it in slippers. We saw men
asleep on the floor, and others were laughing and talking, while some were
peddling little things to eat. Few, if any, were going through the long and
ostentatious formula of Mohammedan prayers. We ascended one of the three
minarets which rise from three corners of the mosque, and obtained from its
lofty balcony a complete view of the city. The walls, of dingy limestone,
unrelieved by wood-work of any kind, and the flat, cemented roofs of the houses,
presented that same dull appearance with which we had been familiar in looking
at Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. The only relief to the eye was in the
minarets and domes rising from many mosques, in the green trees filling the
interior courts of the larger houses, and the rich verdure of the poplar-trees
and fruit-orchards which surround the city on every side. Beyond these the brown
mountains on the north and west, and the yellow desert on the south, add a
sombre variety to the landscape.

Within the mosque is a very costly marble tomb, ornamented with silver, in which
the head of John the Baptist is said to be buried. Most likely the tomb was
erected and this tradition invented while the building was yet a church, and the
Mohammedans, having received the tradition with the building, have only
perpetuated it. The tomb is regarded by the Moslem with the greatest veneration,
and our cut represents a company of them worshiping before it.

Tomb of the Head of John the Baptist

We found, in the structure of the houses of the city, an explanation of the
careful rearing of tall poplars which we had observed, and of the absence from
the poplar-groves of any trees large enough for the saw-mill. The roofs and
floors of the houses are supported, not by joists of sawed timber, but by naked
poplar poles laid close together. This leads to the cutting of the young trees
as soon as they are large enough and tall enough for this purpose. There are no
saw-mills in this country, and the only plank used is brought, at great expense,
from the ports of Russia on the Black Sea.

The "Street Called Straight" The street called Straight, in which Saul of Tarsus
spent three days in fasting and prayer, and where he was found by Ananias, runs
entirely through the city from east to west, and is about a mile long. It has
five slight crooks in it, and would not be called a straight street in
Philadelphia; but in Damascus it is remarkably straight, for it is the only one
in which you can see 100 yards before you. A fire has recently swept along one
side of it for a considerable distance, destroying the silk bazaar, and
compelling the dealers in silk to find temporary quarters elsewhere. The
hand-made silk of Damascus, much of it interwoven with threads of gold and
silver, is very rich, serviceable, and cheap. The eastern end of Straight street
passes through the Christian quarter, and there you are shown the house of
Ananias (?), the man who baptized Saul of Tarsus. This quarter of the city was
burned to the ground in 1860, during the massacre of Christians in Syria, and
6000 of the inhabitants butchered in cold blood. Our local guide, who showed us
about the city, was then a boy, and he barely escaped with his life, nearly all
of his relatives being involved in the slaughter. The French army of 10,000 men,
which marched to Damascus and hung and beheaded many of the leaders of the
persecution, taught the fanatical Mohammedans a lesson which they have not
forgotten, but Damascus still contains an intensely bigoted Mohammedan
population. As we were stepping over the countless dogs that lay asleep in the
streets, and occasionally kicking one to make him get out of the way, with no
other result than to have him look up at us, merely to see who was disturbing
him, I asked Michael, our guide, why the authorities did not have these dogs
thinned out by killing some of them. He answered "That would be a great sin. It
is all right to kill a Christian, but a great sin to kill a dog." I asked him
what would be done if I should kill one of them, and he said I would be arrested
and brought before the city courts. The lives of both dogs and cats are held
sacred by the Moslem.

Another proof of the bigotry prevalent here was given me by Mr. Phillips, an
Irish Presbyterian missionary in the city. He said that if a Mohammedan deserts
his religion and becomes a Christian, it is held to be the duty of other
Mohammedans to kill him. A few years ago one of them became a convert to the
Protestant faith, and after fleeing from the city twice to escape plots that
were laid to assassinate him, and making preparations to flee a third time, he
was found, one morning, hung in the mosque, near the tomb of John the Baptist's
head. When the guardians of the mosque were called upon to give an account of
the hanging, they answered that the man was hung by John the Baptist, and this
answer was so satisfactory to the city authorities that no further effort was
made to detect the murderers. From this the reader can form some idea of the
obstacles in the way of missionary work in Mohammedan countries.

I met with another incident in Damascus illustrative of the sacrifices made by
the families of missionaries who labor in this half-heathen country. On Lord's
day we attended the services of the English Church. They were held in a large
room of a dwelling-house occupied by the family of the missionary. Before the
services began we met the missionary and were introduced to him. He was an old
man, of modest and humble demeanor, and he received us with cordial expressions
of good will. There was nothing striking about his reading of the Liturgy or
about his sermon, but he read a hymn which I could but construe as expressive of
the hard struggle of his own soul, and that of other members of his family, to
be resigned to their lonely life of unpromising labor in the midst of an
unsympathizing community. It was the excellent hymn beginning,—

"My God, my Father, while I stray Far from my home in life's rough way.

Oh, teach me from my heart to say Thy will be done."

He read it with feeling, and the singing was led by his eldest daughter, a young
lady not yet twenty years of age, and appearing—from her dress, which was
tasteful in the extreme—as if she were just from her home in England. I supposed
that she had been educated at home, and had now come to Damascus to assist her
aged father in his mission. As she sang the touching verses with a clear, sweet
voice and correct expression, I saw the color coming and going in her face, and
occasionally I detected a slight tremor in her voice. When the song was
concluded and she had taken her seat, she buried her face in her hands and wept
convulsively. I knew that the song had stirred up all the deep fountains of her
heart, and it stirred mine almost as deeply; I wept with her. I did not look
around to see whether any one else was weeping, but there was a deathlike
stillness in the little audience, as if every soul was drawn very near to God. I
blessed in my heart all the brave women in foreign lands who are denying
themselves the pleasures of society and home in order that they may lend a
helping hand to husbands and fathers as they preach Jesus to those who sit in
darkness and the shadow of death. That song and that sweet voice have rung in my
ears for many a day and night since then, and have brought many a tear to my
eyes. It has made the missionary spirit stronger and deeper within me than ever
before. The old walls of Damascus are now the limit of the city only on its
eastern and southern sides. On the west the city has grown far beyond the wall,
and a portion of it stands entire in the midst of the houses. On the eastern
side there is a single gate, and this a small one, while near it is one much
more massive, which is now walled up. The latter is seen in the left of the
following cut, and the former in the right.

The Eastern Gate of Damascus

Just within the gate is a fountain of pure water, at which both man and beast
are supplied. Similar fountains, with a stream issuing from a stone trough or a
metallic pipe and falling into a watering-trough, are met with in all parts of
the city. The river Ab'-a-na, ere it reaches the city, is diverted into six
artificial channels, leaving but a small portion of the stream in the original
bed. The last flows entirely through the city under arches, and forms a natural
sewer of the best kind; while the other streams are led, some of them through
pipes laid in every part of the city, and some through irrigating channels,
which supply water to the surrounding oasis and keep it verdant in the midst of
a desert.

Near the southeastern corner of the city, and on the southern side, is another
old gate, now walled up, over which tradition says Paul made his escape when he
fled from Damascus. A certain George, so the story goes, was keeper of this
gate, and a friend of Paul. When the governor was watching the city with a
garrison to apprehend Paul, George let him out over this gate after it had been
shut at night; and now the tomb of the said George, who is known, of course, as
"St. George," is shown to travelers in a very old graveyard not far from this
gate. I preferred to believe the Scriptures rather than this tradition. Knowing
that Paul "through a window in a basket was let down by the wall," I looked for
a window suited to this mode of exit, and I saw many of them. All along the
eastern wall there are houses inside, whose upper stories overlap the wall, and
out of the windows of these it would be easy to let a man down outside in a
basket. Of course this wall and these houses were not standing in Paul's day,
but their predecessors were, and they were built, most probably, in the same
way, and it is not unlikely that they were built on the same foundations.

Damascus is now noted for its growth and exportation of fruits, and especially
of apricots. The groves in the oasis around bear these in immense quantities.
They are dried or cured in sugar, or prepared in what we in America would call
"apricot leather," because it is precisely like "peach leather." The annual
export of this fruit is estimated at from 3000 to 4000 tons. The city also
exports from 2000 to 2500 tons of raisins. On account of the method by which the
city is supplied with water, and the constant irrigation of the entire surface
for several miles around, it is a very unhealthy place in the summer. It is
necessary for travelers to guard themselves with great care against indulging
too freely in its rich fruits, or exposing themselves to night air, or becoming
excessively heated during the hot days; otherwise they are almost certain to be
prostrated with fever. The families of missionaries are compelled, during the
hot months of the year, to save their lives by removing to the mountains. The
stories told about the beauty of Damascus are not exaggerated when they refer to
its appearance from the adjacent mountains, where it is seen in contrast with a
parched and naked desert all around it; but the thought of beauty is dissipated
the moment one enters the streets, for dirt and dust abound there on every side,
and none of the houses, even the finest, has any external ornamentation. "Fair
without, but foul within," might be appropriately written under the name
Damascus.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 39: LETTER EIGHTEEN: FROM DAMASCUS TO BEIRUT
========================================================================

Letter XVIII. From Damascus to Beirut When we mounted our horses in Damascus and
started westward, I realized for the first time that we were on our way
homeward. We were then farther away from home than at any time before; but from
that day we could sing, literally,—

"We nightly pitch out moving tent A days march nearer home;"

and we did sing it very often.

Instead of following the turnpike to Beirut, we turned from it to the right in
order to visit the ruins of Baalbec and the cedars of Lebanon, and on our way to
the former place we called at the wonderful fountain which forms the principal
source of the river Ab'-a-na. It is found on the northern edge of the same
narrow gorge in the mountain through which we followed the bank of the river in
approaching Damascus, but it is some miles higher up than the point at which we
struck the river-bank. We reached it about noon, and spent an hour or two in the
dense and delightful shade which surrounds it. It is really a river bursting up
in a perpendicular line from the deep bowels of the earth, and flowing off with
a volume of water which would entitle it to the name of a river even in America.
The current rushes up with such force and from such a depth that the fountain
cannot be fathomed. I tried to sink, heavy stones in it; but when I cast in one
as large as my head, dashing it down with all my strength, it sank only a few
feet ere it was drifted aside and lodged on the verge of the well-like opening.
Whether the volume of water is greater or less than that of the spring at Dan we
could not determine with accuracy; but the latter is the only other fountain
seen in our travels at all comparable to it. The water is very cold, and is as
clear as crystal. The fountain was formerly covered by a small building
constructed of massive stones, but the arched roof, and many stones from the
walls, have now fallen into the river.

Near by it stands a small heathen temple in which worship was once paid to the
gods who were supposed to preside over the fountain, and certainly the people of
Damascus, and of the entire oasis in which it stands, owe a vast debt of
gratitude on this account; for, were it not for this fountain, that garden of
delights would soon be as bare and yellow as the desert sands which now spread
around it. The fountain is about 10 miles from Damascus, and is called by the
natives el-Fî'jeh.

Although the spring el-Fî'jeh is the chief source of the Ab'-a-na, supplying
two-thirds of its water, it is not the head of the stream. On our way to Baalbec
we followed the bed of its upper waters for a few miles, and camped that night
at a place called Sûk Wâd'y Bar'ada, where our tents were pitched on a narrow
ledge with a precipitous mountain wall behind them, and in front a deep narrow
gorge with almost perpendicular sides, through which the stream flows. Among the
high rocky hills beyond this gorge, whose perpendicular walls are almost
honey-combed with sepulchres, is shown an old tomb called the Tomb of Abel. As
he was the second son of Adam and the victim of the first murder, we would have
paid him our respects by visiting his tomb, but I was quite unwell that evening,
and my companions were a little incredulous as to the fact that Abel's bones
were really interred there. I had been slightly ill all the previous day at
Damascus, and was now barely able to remain on horseback through a moderate
day's ride. I was taking medicine to procure relief. On the next day, as we
descended the western slope of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, we passed the village
of Neby Shêt, or the prophet Seth, so called because it is said to contain the
tomb of Seth, the third son of Adam mentioned in the Scriptures. Though we had
slighted Abel, we took time to call on Seth. We found him in a stone house, one
story high, long, low, and narrow, with a rude plastered dome at one end.
Through a door near this dome we were admitted by the keeper, after we had
pulled off our boots. We found the tomb more than a hundred feet long, about six
feet wide, and four feet high above the stone floor of the coffin-like room. Its
top was sloped like the roof of a house, and it was covered by a hanging of
dirty and faded calico with broad stripes of yellow, red, and green. I suppose
that those who built the tomb and named it after Seth imagined that he was one
of the giants that were in the earth in those days, and gave his tomb a
corresponding length.

Stone in the Quarry at Baalbec

After reaching the foot-hills we turned more to the right, and our journey was
void of incidents worthy of mention until we reached the vicinity of Baalbec. In
approaching this town we passed the quarry whence the great stones found in its
temples were taken, and we stopped to examine the one yet lying in the quarry,
which so astonishes all travelers. I was curious to see this famous stone, not
only because it is the largest one ever quarried, but because the measurements
of its dimensions made by different travelers were quite contradictory. There
was no difficulty in recognizing it as soon as we saw it. We rode up to it,
dismounted, walked about it, climbed over it, and measured it. Its length is 68
feet 5 inches, and its thickness 14 feet 3 inches. Its width, measured on top,
is 13 feet 3 inches at one end, and 17 feet 8 inches at the other. It is this
varying width which has led to the contradictory figures above referred to.
Travelers have measured, some toward one end and some toward the other, and each
has taken but one measurement, not observing, or suspecting, that the rock is
wider at one end than at the other. This immense mass has been detached by
cutting away the rock from all around it, and then cutting under it. The
under-cut is not completed; it extends only about one-third of the way from end
to end. The workmen sat under the rock while making this cut, and they would
doubtless have placed props behind them if they had advanced far enough to need
them. The reader can form a conception of the immensity of its size as a
building stone by comparing it with the men who are represented in the cut as
standing on it.

Large Stones in Temple-Wall at Baalbec

Many have been puzzled to know how the ancients succeeded in moving such stones.
It is explained by the carved slabs found in the temples of Nineveh on which are
sculptured representations of the entire process. The great rock was placed on a
truck by means of levers, a large number of strong ropes were tied to the truck,
a smooth track of heavy timbers was laid, and men in sufficient number to move
the mass were hitched to the ropes. Every man would represent about 200 pounds
of pulling strength, and the weight which could thus be moved was limited only
by the number of men and ropes that could be employed. Three stones quarried in
the same place with this large one, and but little inferior to it in size, were
actually moved to the great temple of Jupiter, in Baalbec, and built into its
walls about 20 feet above the ground. They are each about 10 feet thick, and
they measure respectively, 63 feet, 63 feet 8 inches, and 64 feet in length.
They are the largest stones ever laid in a wall. Many others in the same wall
approach that size, and some of them are fitted so nicely that one can scarcely
see the joints between them. In one part of the wall I saw a stone which
appeared to me to be longer than the longest of those above mentioned, and I was
about to dismount in order to measure it, when our guide insisted that it was
two stones instead of one. I insisted that it was only one, until he showed me
the seam by throwing a stone against it. In the cut on the opposite page the
seams are not discernible, though it was taken from a photograph. There are four
stones, including the largest three, where there appear to be but two. The most
marvelous part of the workmanship is the exactness with which these great masses
are fitted. No mortar was used in any part of this wall.

I will not attempt to fully describe the ruined temples of Baalbec. When I say
that the greater of the two temples was 1000 feet long and 400 feet wide, and
that although I had read a number of very elaborate descriptions of it I had
formed nothing like an adequate conception of its form and appearance, the
reader will readily excuse me from the attempt. Indeed, after I had gone through
the ruins, reading Baedeker's description and studying his plan as I went, I
still failed to understand it in some of its details. A man must visit the spot,
ride around the exterior, walk among the ruins, sit down here and there to gaze
upon its more impressive features, see the whole by sunlight, by twilight, and
by moonlight, and allow his mind leisurely to rebuild it and re-people it, ere
he can comprehend it. Our camp was pitched inside the ruins, and as there
happened to be a photographer in the town, sent up from Beirût to take some
views, we obtained a photograph of our camp, with a portion of the larger
temple, and one entire side of the smaller, in the background. From this
photograph was made the cut on page 464. The chief part of the wall of the
larger temple is still standing, from 15 to 20 feet high, and its inner face is
ornamented most of the way by recesses with elaborate carvings, one of which is
represented in the following cut.

Recess in the Temple-Wall

Work so elaborate, executed in hard limestone, and extending over a building of
proportions so immense, is not found in any other ancient temple. Architects
pronounce the work too elaborate for good taste, but this detracts nothing from
our conception of the immensity of the labor and expense which it involved.

Portal of the Temple of the Sun, Baalbec The Temple of the Sun, which stands
immediately south of the western end of the great temple, and but a few steps
from it, it is a much smaller structure, and it is in a far better state of
preservation. The body of the building is 87 feet long and 73 feet wide, and it
is surrounded by a peristyle of 15 columns on each side and 8 at each end. The
columns are 46 1/2 feet high, and they stand 10 feet from the wall. They support
a very richly carved ceiling, the slabs of which rest on an entablature above
the columns and reach across to the wall of the temple. Nearly all the columns
on the southern side and western end have fallen, but those on the north are
nearly all standing. There is a double row across the front. The front of this
temple is the most beautiful part of it, especially its elaborately carved
portal or doorway. The door-posts and the architrave are composed of stones of
immense size, and are carved in a most beautiful style. The architrave consists
of three separate stones, which were originally so nicely joined as to appear
only one, but the middle stone, shaken by the earthquake which demolished the
large temple and greatly injured this, has dropped down several feet, and was
threatening to drop out entirely, when the British consul at Damascus, Mr.
Burton, built a wall under it from the ground to hold it in position. The
portal, with this supporting wall, is seen in the cut on the opposite page.

There are other interesting ruins about Baalbec, which we will not pause to
describe. The village near the great temple contains a population of several
hundred souls, and a very copious spring near by affords an abundance of water
for irrigation. Poplar-trees, apricot and other fruit-trees, and garden
vegetables of various kinds, grow about the village and the temples with rank
luxuriance. The apricots which we ate here were more deliciously flavored than
those of Damascus. The town stands in the edge of the plain called the Bekâ'a,
which lies between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon or Hermon range of
mountains, and though it is in a valley it is 2839 feet above the level of the
sea. Immediately across the valley to the west rises the lofty, snow-clad ridge
of the Lebanon mountains, while the valley stretches away in beautiful
undulations as far as the eye can reach to the north and the south. The spring
which flows through the village is the source of the Litâ'ny River, which drains
all of the valley south of Baalbec. A mile or more to the north is the watershed
of the valley, beyond which it slopes to the north and is drained by the river
Orontes, now called the Nahr el As'i. It has two sources, one near the watershed
just mentioned, at the foot of the Hermon range, and another nearly opposite, on
the other side of the plain. From these points the river flows northward,
inclining with the valley a little to the east. About forty miles northeast of
Baalbec, in the midst of the valley and on the bank of the river, stands the
village of Riblah, a city of military importance in the later period of Old
Testament history. Here Pharaoh-Nechoh had his headquarters when he was waging
war against the Assyrians, and here he put Jehoahaz, the young king of Judah,
into chains, preparatory to taking him as a prisoner to Egypt. Here also
Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters when he was conducting the war against Judah
which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity of
the Jews.

The Cedars of Lebanon

We left Baalbec on the morning of June 28th, and started for the Cedars of
Lebanon. Our route led us to the northwest across the Bekâ'a, which is here
about 10 miles wide. Far out in this plain, about halfway across it, I saw a
solitary stone column standing about a mile to the left of our route, and it was
an object of such curiosity out there, miles away from any human habitation or
any other structure built by human hands, that I turned aside, with one of my
companions, to visit it. It is 65 feet high, and its shaft is about 4 feet
thick. It stands on a pyramidal pedestal, and it is finished at top with a
Corinthian capital. A square space on its northern side, marked by raised lines,
once contained an inscription, but the tooth of time has eaten it all away, and
now no man knows by whom it was erected or for what purpose. Doubtless it was
intended to perpetuate the memory of some great event, perhaps some great battle
fought in the plain around it, but all is lost in oblivion, and time has
triumphed over the pride of man. Through utter want of any knowledge of its
history, it is now called the "Column of Yâ'ât," from a very small village of
that name, which is the nearest to it, though several miles distant.

After crossing the plain we ascended some of the lower spurs of the Lebanon
Mountains, and before night pitched our tents on a bench of the principal ridge,
with the small village of Ainâ'ta just below us to the east. It was Saturday
afternoon, and as we were to remain in camp here until Tuesday morning, making
an excursion to the cedars and back on Monday, we were glad to find that the
place selected for the camp was one of the most delightful that we had found in
all our journey. The tents were shaded by the widespreading branches of several
magnificent walnut-trees, an irrigating channel of pure and cold water murmured
along its pebbly bed close by them, the view from our tent-doors toward the east
included the Lebanon spurs at our feet, the Valley of Bekâ'a beyond, and, still
farther, the Hermon Mountains, terminating at the right hand with the
snow-streaked summit of Mount Hermon itself. We passed no Sunday in all our tour
more delightfully. On Monday morning, leaving our tents at Ainâ'ta, we ascended
by laborious climbing to the top of Lebanon, passing masses of snow as hard as
ice on the way, and after crossing the crest of the ridge, which is 7703 feet
high, we descended into a grand mountain amphitheatre, on the farther side of
which, two or three miles distant, we saw the grove of cedars.

Mount Sinai This is one of the few remnants yet existing of the famous groves
from which Solomon obtained the timber for his temple, and from which Sargon and
other kings of Assyria transported the long beams for the palaces of Nineveh.
The cedars are grouped close together, and are about 300 in number. When you
first come in sight of them, at a distance of two or three miles, they appear
not much larger than ordinary evergreens in a gentleman's yard. But as you
approach them they grow upon you, and by the time you have fairly entered the
grove you begin to realize their magnitude. None of them is less, I suppose,
than 100 years old, and many of them are of an age that cannot be estimated with
any approach to exactness. Most of them are from one to three feet in thickness,
but there are nine which are so much larger and so nearly of one size that they
evidently belong to a very distinct period. We measured seven of these, and
found the smallest 20 feet 6 inches in circumference, while the largest was 38
feet 2 inches. These older trees have branches near the ground, and their tops
have a low spreading growth, while the trunks of those much younger grow
straight and tall. A stone chapel of the Greek Church stands in the midst of the
grove, and in a little depression near by is a hut, in which lives a native
whose business it is to guard the trees against injury at the hands of
travelers. On leaving the cedars we avoided the toilsome journey across the
mountains to Beirût, which is followed by most of the few travelers who visit
this region, and returned to the valley of the Bekâ'a. Following this valley to
near its southern extremity, we struck the turnpike again, about halfway between
Damascus and Beirût, and followed it to the latter city. We found the turnpike
one of the smoothest and best-constructed roads that we have ever seen. It was
built some 12 or 14 years ago by a French company, which still owns and operates
it. Its length is 75 miles. A stage drawn by six horses, three abreast, passes
over it both ways every day, and a smaller stage does the same every night. It
is also traversed by 10 or 12 freight-trains, each composed of 12 wagons drawn
by three mules each. The three mules are driven tandem, the one at the wheel
being in shafts. By these trains the imported merchandise of Damascus is brought
from Beirût', and her exports are sent to the seashore, while innumerable trains
of donkeys, mules, and camels do the carrying-trade for the villages of the
adjacent country. We reached Beirût' on the morning of July 3d, and immediately
called at the consulate to get letters from home. We found some awaiting us, and
we found the consul, Mr. Edgar, a genial, whole-hearted gentleman, of Kentucky
birth and education, who takes delight in making all Americans feel at home in
his office. He bestowed on us a number of favors during our stay in Beirût'.

Beirût' is a city of modern growth. It has a population of about 80,000, made up
of Syrians, Turks, Ar'abs, and Europeans. It is the chief centre of commerce and
enlightenment on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, occupying the position
first held by Tyre, then by Antioch, then by Cæsarea, and, in modern times, by
Sidon. Much of the business of the place, including all the banking and
shipping, is done by Europeans, but Americans have the lead in educational and
missionary enterprises. The American Syrian College, under the presidency of Dr.
Bliss, has buildings and grounds that have cost more than $200,000. It has about
140 students in its classical department and a good attendance in its medical
department. All these students are natives, and nearly all belong to the Greek
Church. They are all required to study the Scriptures in Arabic, and many of
them learn the English language. It was in this college that Assad, our
dragoman, received his knowledge of English and his respectable attainments in
the elementary branches of education. Great good must inevitably result from its
work. Dr. Bliss kindly showed me through the buildings, and gave me full
information in regard to the history, condition, and prospects of the college,
all of which are encouraging. In addition to this college, there are several
missionary schools for girls, in which the daughters of Mohammedans, as well as
native Christians, are received and educated. The light is pushing its way into
the deep darkness. On arriving at Beirût', we bade farewell to tents, horses,
and muleteers. The muleteers, five in number, were a quarrelsome set, often
raising an uproar in the camp by their loud contentions, but they performed
their part in other respects with a reasonable degree of fidelity. They had a
strange notion that our horses would catch cold at night if stripped of the
saddles; and consequently, our saddles were never taken off, day or night,
except when the horses were to be curried or their sore backs to be bathed. We
did our best to convince them that the saddles ought to be taken off us soon as
we dismounted; but all of our arguments amounted to nothing. Our way might do
for American horses, but these were Syrian horses; and this was the end of the
argument. Our dragoman's home was in Beirût'. He visited us frequently at our
hotel, and when we were about to sail he went with us to our ship. We parted
from him with regret. For 82 days he had been our companion, our guide, our
interpreter, and the ruler of our camp, and in every capacity he had shown a
good degree of competency and fidelity. If he was not always truthful, he was
always scrupulously honest in business transactions. I think that any future
travelers in Palestine will be fortunate who obtain the services of Assad Smart.
He escorts companies up the Nile in the winter, and through Palestine in the
spring and fall. His post-office is Beirût' in the summer, and Cairo in the
winter.

Cave and Falls of Adonis In choosing our route from the cedars to Beirût', we
missed some splendid mountain scenery and several interesting localities which
lay along the route across the mountains. Among these are the celebrated Cave
and Falls of Adonis, which figure in Greek mythology as the scene of the amours
of Venus and Adonis. "This is a spot," says Dr. Ridgaway, "of strange wildness
and rare beauty. The fountain bursts forth from a dark cave, about 1000 feet
below the summit of Mount Sûnnîn. It comes out in a great volume, makes two
leaps, rushes several hundred yards through a deep ravine, shaded by walnut and
mulberry trees, runs under a stone bridge, falls again, then, passing on, makes
within a short distance one or two more falls before it reaches its main bed, as
it flows toward the Mediterranean... The roar of waters, the dash of spray, the
rush of life, the forms of beauty, almost bewitch the senses as with a delicious
intoxication." The beauty of the place is but feebly represented in the
preceding beautiful cut.

Another very interesting natural curiosity on this route is seen on the upper
waters of Dog River, a mountain stream which empties into the northern end of
the bay north of Beirût' called St. George's Bay, about six miles from the city.
It is a natural bridge across one of the tributaries of this river, high up in
the mountains. The bridge has a span of 160 feet, and its height from the
surface of the bridge to the water below is 80 feet. The thickness of the mass
of rock which forms the arch is about 30 feet, and the floor of the bridge is
about 120 feet wide in the narrowest place. It is one of the grandest natural
bridges in the world, and it is inadequately represented in the following cut.

A Natural Bridge The July days that we spent in Beirût' were very sultry, and,
although our hotel was a very airy building, we suffered from heat at night. The
city is built on a long, sandy cape reaching out from the foot of the mountain
range, and lying at its highest point not more than 50 or 75 feet above the
level of the sea. Its climate is so debilitating in summer that all European
residents who can retire to the mountains during the hottest months. We were
glad to leave the sweltering place and launch out once more into the cooler air
of the deep sea.


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  CHAPTER 40: LETTER NINETEEN: FROM BEIRUT TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA
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Letter XIX.

From Beirut to the Seven Churches of Asia

Late in the afternoon of July 7th we stepped from the pavement in front of our
hotel in Beirût' into an Ar'ab row-boat, and were soon on board the Austrian
steamer "Ettare" ("Hector"), which rode at anchor about a mile from the shore.
At about eight o'clock we set sail, full of hope as we looked forward to our
distant homes, and moved with inexpressible thankfulness as we looked back over
our travels in Palestine. We had seen the land of all lands, and from its hills
and plains there had been reflected a new light upon the Book of all books. We
had ridden on horseback for 82 days under a sun which seldom failed to shine all
day, and had slept in tents beneath stars which seldom failed to shine all
night; we had ridden over mountains 9000 feet above the sea, and through valleys
1000 feet below the sea; we had endured much fatigue and exposure in many ways;
and although sickness had several times invaded the camp, and death had once
stood at the door of my tent, not a day of the 82 had been lost from travel
because of sickness or accident. We had nightly worshiped together, with
reading, singing, and prayer, and we had rested from travel every Lord's day.
Whenever we could, on the Lord's day, we had attended public worship in the
missionary chapels, and when we could not we had made a chapel of one of our
tents. The Lord had heard our prayers, and had blessed us above what we had
dared to hope, and we relied with implicit confidence on the continuance of His
protecting care as we turned our faces toward our distant homes. As we sailed
away from the Syrian coast I left behind, far away to the north, one place
unvisited which I had long desired to see. It was Antioch, for so long a time
the seat of the Greek kings of Syria, who cruelly oppressed the Jews,—the city
in which the disciples were first called Christians, and the headquarters of
Paul during his missionary tours among the heathen. Its modern representative is
a poor and squalid town of 6000 inhabitants, situated in the northwest part of
the ancient city, on the south bank of the Orontes, and within the extensive
ancient wall which further dwarfs its appearance. The cut on the following page
is supposed to fairly represent it.

Antioch Our ship touched at Larnica, on the island of Cyprus, now the only
important city on that famous island. Salamis and Paphos, the two ports visited
by Paul, have long since been deserted by commerce and gone to ruin. Cyprus
appears to be a white elephant in the hands of the British government, drawing
much from the treasury, and putting nothing into it; but in a generation or two,
if British rule shall continue, a great change for the better must certainly
take place. We saw in the harbor boat-loads of watermelons just received from
Joppa, and great piles of them lay on the streets. They are grown in great
abundance on the Plain of Sha'ron. The next point at which we touched was the
celebrated city and island of Rhodes. We went on shore to see something of the
ancient city, and found it replete with the remains of dwellings, palaces, and
churches, once the property of the Knights of St. John. The little harbor,
across whose mouth the famous Colossus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient
world, once stood astride, is now filled up, and the modern harbor is too
shallow for any but the smallest vessels. Here we found the first ripe grapes of
the season, and a few ripe figs. From Rhodes we sailed along the eastern shore
of the Ægean Sea, with islands famous in Greek history, and often seen by the
Apostle Paul, continually in view. Among others, we had a distant view of
Patmos, where the visions of the Revelation appeared to the Apostle John. We
sailed over a smooth sea, under a warm sun by day and a bright moon by night. On
Friday, July 11th, at about noon, we steamed into the harbor of Smyrna, having
been about three days and a half on the voyage from Beirût'. Here I had
determined to stop, in order to visit the sites of the seven churches of Asia,
while my companions, preferring to spend the time in certain parts of Europe
which I did not intend to visit, determined to leave me. But they could not sail
till the afternoon of the next day, so they had time to go with me to Ephesus.
The ship which was to take them to Athens was already in port, so instead of
going to a hotel they merely transferred their baggage to the other vessel, and
went on shore with me to see Smyrna and to make preparation for a visit to
Ephesus. When I stepped from the boat upon the quay, a man demanded of me my
passport. I looked him in the face and said, "I have no passport; I am an
American, and I go where I please." I then pushed by him. He looked at me with a
puzzled expression, and let me pass without another word. As I made my way
through the crowd of idlers on the quay, another man met me, and, claiming to be
a custom-house officer, proposed to let my valise pass unexamined if I would
give him a franc. I said, "I will give you no bribe; examine the valise if you
choose." I then ordered the man who was carrying it to set it down. Pulling out
my key, I stood ready to open it, but the fellow hesitated, and I ordered the
servant to take the valise and move on. I now think that this chap and the
passport man were both pretenders, trying to extort money from me, and that the
English-speaking servant who carried my valise was conniving at their rascality.
I was led to the Egyptian Hotel, and found it an elegant new building with
first-rate accommodations. It was the first hotel I had visited since I left
Jerusalem in which ladies sat at the table. Several Greek ladies were here on a
visit.

We spent the afternoon in making arrangements for a railway excursion to the
ruins of Ephesus the next day. As the regular train would not suit our purpose,
we engaged an extra train to take us out early in the morning and bring us back
by one o'clock. The cost to each was $10. For a larger party it would have been
less in proportion. The railway was built and is operated by an English company,
and it is called the Smyrna and Aidîn' Railway. It is 105 miles long. It runs
nearly due south 50 miles to Avasalouk', a small village near the ruins of
Ephesus, and thence it runs a little south of east to Aidîn'. The latter place
is situated in the midst of the valley of the river Cayster, a broad and fertile
valley reaching 150 miles farther into the interior, and drained by the Cayster,
which empties into the Mediterranean at Ephesus. This valley is the greatest
fig-producing portion of Asia Minor; and besides furnishing Smyrna with the
supply of this fruit, which has made it the greatest fig-market in the world, it
sends forth a sufficient amount of other products to make the railway profitable
to its owners.

Having reached Avasalouk', and employed a guide resident there who had been
recommended to us, we walked about a mile in order to reach the ruins. The ruins
of the Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, lie but a
short distance from the village. For ages past they have been completely buried
beneath the ground, but they were disinterred a few years ago by Mr. T. J. Wood,
an employee of the British Museum. The excavation made for the purpose is about
20 feet deep. Down in this pit lie the broken columns of white marble and the
foundation walls of the grandest temple ever erected on earth. All else has been
transported to other cities and used to adorn inferior buildings. From the
temple to the more southern of the two eastern gates of the city are traces of a
paved street nearly a mile in length, along one side of which was a continuous
colonnade, with the marble coffins of the city's illustrious dead occupying the
spaces between the columns. The processions of worshipers, as they marched out
of the city to the temple, passed by this row of coffins, the inscriptions on
which were constantly proclaiming the noble deeds of the mighty dead.

After passing the ruins of the gateway just mentioned we soon came to the ruins
of a marble church, which is supposed, from some inscriptions found near it, to
have been dedicated to the Apostle John; and near by is an ancient tomb supposed
to be that of Luke. North of these ruins, in the face of a small mountain which
was inclosed within the ancient city, are the well-preserved remains of a small
theatre intended for musical entertainments. As we go westward from these points
we pass among a continuous succession of ruins, the most of which are in such a
state of confusion that we are at a loss to determine what class of structures
they represent. But after reaching the western end of the small mountain just
mentioned, we found at its western base the most interesting of all its remains.
It is the theatre into which Paul's companions were dragged by the mob of the
silversmiths; into which he was about to enter at imminent peril of his life
when he was prevented from doing so by certain rulers who were his friends; and
in which the town clerk, by a speech of wonderful ingenuity, restored the
frenzied mob to order and quiet. The theatre was constructed, like most of the
ancient theatres in hilly places, by excavating a suitable space in the hill, so
that the tiers of marble seats might have the natural rock of the hill for a
support. Many of the seats are yet in a good state of preservation, and the
entire outline of the structure is easily traced.

Ancient Theatre at Ephesus

I was deeply impressed by this ruin, and as we stood on one of its high seats,
gazing down upon it, I repeated to my companions the speech of the town clerk. I
also pointed out the spot on which I think he stood while the surging mass of
idolaters, occupying all the other space, were yelling at the top of their
voices, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" The harbor of Ephesus, once the seat
of an immense commerce, is now completely filled up, and the sea, which once
washed its walls, is pushed back about two miles farther west. The same
accumulation of earth from the wash of adjacent mountains and the deposit in
winter of the overflowing Cayster, which have produced this result, also covered
up the ruins of the great temple and hid the prostrate columns which lined the
way from it to the city. So completely were the ancient landmarks of the city
hidden that its ruins were a puzzle to modern visitors until the excavations
made by Mr. Wood brought all into daylight once more, and revealed to the eye
some of the splendors of the city concerning which ancient historians are
silent. On our return from Ephesus my companions went aboard their ship, which
was to sail for Athens in a few minutes, and I was left alone, to find my way as
best I could in a country of which I knew but little, and of which I found that
the English and American residents of the city knew almost as little as I did. I
felt somewhat depressed in spirit, but the anticipation of visiting spots of the
deepest interest was cheering, and I felt somewhat animated by the very thought
of the difficulties which beset my way.

I spent the afternoon in searching for a suitable person to act as my guide and
interpreter. By the aid of our consul, Mr. Smithers, and that of the
superintendent of the railway, I succeeded in procuring as a dragoman a Greek
named George Fed'ros, who, though but little acquainted with the places which I
proposed to visit, was a bold, enterprising fellow, with a fair knowledge of
English, and able to converse with Turks as well as Greeks. He boasted of having
acted as guide for the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria, about
the environs of Smyrna, and he had marvelous tales to tell of incidents
connected with the duke's visit.

After spending Sunday in a quiet way, and attending the Episcopal services at
the residence of the English consul, on Monday morning I deposited all my
valuables with our consul, laid in a supply of crackers, sardines, sugar, and
coffee for the journey, and took the train for Philadelphia. Now, Philadelphia
lies a little north of east from Smyrna, and 108 miles distant by rail. This
railway, like the other, is the property of an English company, and it is called
the "Smyrna and Cas'saba Railway," because its original terminus was Cas'saba,
but it has recently been extended to Philadelphia. Like the Smyrna and Aidîn'
road, it has an elegant stone building of ample size for its freight and
passenger depot. Its coaches and engines are of the best English make, and the
track is well laid.

About 20 miles out from Smyrna we passed a thriving town called Men'amen, near
which is a large cotton-factory owned by an English company, and employed in the
manufacture of cotton, which is grown along the line of the railway. The country
is tolerably well adapted to the growth of cotton, and may yet be made to
produce a large quantity of this valuable staple.

Post-offices are almost as rare in Asia Minor as they are in Palestine, but the
building of railroads necessarily brings with it many of the other arts and
customs of civilization, and our train was blessed with a regular Turkish
mail-agent. He sat in the same compartment with Fedros and myself, with a
leather mail-bag by his side. He sat à la Turc, with his slippered feet doubled
under him, and at noon he went through his prayers with all the genuflexions
which the motions of the train and his seat on the narrow cushion would allow. I
was amused at the way in which he managed his business. As he approached a
station he would fumble through the letters in his bag, pick out those intended
for that station, and make a little bundle of them. On arriving he would hand
this little bundle to a man who answered the purpose of a postmaster, and
receive one in return for other stations. When persons would come to him to mail
letters, as they did at almost every station, he would receive from them the
money for the postage, and then put stamps on the letters after the train
started. I suppose that he must have been an honest man, otherwise he could have
thrown many of the letters away, pocketed the money, and saved the stamps.

We reached Philadelphia on time at 2.35 P. M., having run at the average rate of
16 miles to the hour. There was no such thing as a hotel in the city, and we
were somewhat puzzled to know where we would find lodging, until the conductor
of our train proposed to take us to his boarding-house, where he said everything
was clean and neat. We found it a large and indescribable old tenement, but it
had a very broad open porch along one side, and we were led into a very airy
room in the second story opening into this porch. By having some of our own
coffee prepared and a chicken stewed we secured a good supper, and all went well
with us till bedtime. We ordered mattresses to be spread in the porch, where it
was pleasantly cool, and where we expected to escape the bugs which might be in
the rooms. But our expectations were vain,—at least mine were, for I had
scarcely begun to sink into unconsciousness when the tormentors began their
work. I lit the candle two or three times, and made vigorous assaults upon my
enemies, but they finally drove me from the bed. I retired to the most distant
corner of the porch, wrapped myself in my shawl, and tried the hard floor. There
the fleas attacked me, and between them and the hardness of my bed I was
prevented from sleeping soundly. I was the earliest riser in the house the next
morning, and I wondered at Fed'ros and the conductor, who slept like logs all
night, and scarcely knew that there was a bug or a flea in the house. I thought
there was nothing like being used to a thing. The railway, in starting from
Smyrna, first winds around the western terminus of a mountain range a few miles
northwest of Smyrna, and then runs almost due east, following the southern edge
of the valley of the river Hermus. This valley is subject to overflow in very
wet winters, for the river lies in a shallow bed, with a sluggish current, and
it is very easily swelled to overflow by the rush of water from the mountains
which bound its valley on both the north and the south. The railway lies near
the foot of the southern range of mountains, and all the towns along the plain
are built on the mountain slopes. Philadelphia, like the other towns, is
situated on the slope at the southern side of the valley, and the valley is here
about nine miles wide. Immediately south of it rises a ridge about 270 feet high
above the plain, and extending about a mile north and south. The ancient wall,
now much broken, runs along the summit of this ridge, and there is a large
castle of irregular shape at its western extremity. This castle was at the
southwestern corner of the city. From this corner the western wall descends the
hill toward the north, and reaches out nearly a mile into the plain. The
northern wall runs at a right angle to the western, and is more than a mile in
length. The eastern wall first runs south, then east, leaving out of the city at
the northeast a piece of low, wet ground, and then runs south again till it
joins the southern wall. The ancient city, if the present wall marks its limits,
was nearly a mile and a half long from east to west, and a mile wide from north
to south. On the hill, in the southern edge of the town, is a space artificially
shaped, which has every appearance of a Greek stadium, or race-course, for
foot-races and chariot-races. There is also a recess in the hill, evidently made
for an amphitheatre. Both of these were admirably located, for they were 200
feet above the plain, and the spectators, whose faces, when witnessing the
games, were toward the north, at moments when their attention was not occupied
by the performance in the arena, could look out over the city, across the plain,
and along the face of the mountain-range beyond, enjoying a view with which the
eye would never grow weary. The present city occupies but a small part of the
space within the walls. It is built chiefly of small stones of irregular shape
laid in a large quantity of cement; but the meaner houses, of which there are
many, are of sun-dried bricks. Nearly all the houses are covered with tiles,
very heavy and very rudely made. The streets are from six to eight feet wide and
very crooked. In the middle of each there is usually a gutter two feet wide and
four inches deep, intended for the feet of passing animals, and also to convey a
little stream of water formed by the waste from many public fountains. These
fountains, like those in Damascus, are supplied by pipes which lead the water
from a spring on the mountain-side. The water issues from a pipe projecting from
the wall of the building, falls into a stone trough which it keeps full, and
then overflows into the street. Many of these troughs are sarcophagi dug from
the ancient burial-grounds, and they were once filled with dead men's bones. The
population of the place is not exactly known, and it is estimated by houses. A
Greek priest, who showed us much kindness by acting as our local guide, stated
that the Turkish houses are commonly estimated at 2000, and those of the Greeks
at 400. Allowing 5 persons to a house, which is the usual estimate, this would
give a population of 12,000. Five minarets rise above the city, representing as
many mosques, and there are two Greek churches.

Columns, broken pieces of statuary, and large building stones are seen in every
part of the city and about the open spaces within the walls; but there is only
one ancient structure whose outline can be traced. This is an old church called
The Church of the Apocalypse. Three of the four stone piers that once supported
its massive roof are still standing, the fourth having been torn down by the
English railroad-builders, and its stones used for making culverts. These piers
are 20 feet square and 40 feet high; and they are crowned with the remains of
brick arches of immense thickness, which constituted, when entire, the vaulted
ceiling and roof of the immense building. The piers were once covered with
paintings in fresco, which the Mohammedans covered over with plaster when they
took possession of the country; but now the plastering is broken in places, and
the colors can be distinctly seen. The Greeks believe that this church was built
in the days of the Apostle John, but this cannot be true, for all churches of
such magnificence belong to the period following Constantine's conversion, when
the public treasury was taxed for their erection. When we were about to enter
the inclosure surrounding the old church, a Turkish servant stood in the door
and forbade us to enter because we were Christians. After much altercation, and
some pushing, we got him out of the way, but he followed us and looked daggers
at us all the time we were there. When we were leaving I offered him some
buckshish, but he refused it with a disdainful upturning of his nose. I remarked
that the best thing for him would be a man's fist planted on his mouth.

Southeast of the city, about half a mile, there is a copious spring of mineral
water, much used by the people as a promoter of digestion. It has a very strong
taste of mineral matter, and it makes a slight deposit of iron. I filled a glass
bottle with the water to bring home for analysis. About half a mile farther to
the southeast, in a ravine descending from a mountain of basalt, there is a warm
spring whose temperature is 90° with a cold one on each side of it. Two bathing
pools have been excavated in the rock, one for warm water and the other for
cold, and they are frequented by a large number of persons from the city. In
passing along the streets of Philadelphia I frequently heard the cooing of
doves, and on looking up I saw ring-doves walking about on the roofs of houses,
on the banisters of porticos, and on all places about the houses which afforded
them a perch. On inquiry, I learned that this dove is a kind of sacred bird with
the Philadelphians, and that it is allowed to roost and build where it chooses
without molestation. I had observed, as I came from Smyrna, a great many storks
standing on house-tops and walking about the fields, and I observed at
Philadelphia that many of them were constantly standing on the remnants of the
old wall where they had built their nests. They are held as a sacred bird in all
this part of Asia Minor, and it is as great a sin here to kill a stork as to
kill a dog in Damascus. The solemn bird is allowed to build his nest wherever he
chooses, and I have often seen half a dozen of the huge nests, four or five feet
in diameter, and built chiefly of large sticks, on the roof of a single house.
Sometimes I have seen a dozen storks standing with solemn mien on the top of a
house, maintaining all the gravity of a tall undertaker at a funeral, and
appearing as if everybody in the house was dead and they had come to the burial.

Letter XX. Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamos, And Smyrna From Philadelphia I returned
by rail to Sardis, having passed by it on my way out. It is about 24 miles west
of Philadelphia, and 84 miles by rail from Smyrna. Sardis, unlike Philadelphia,
has ceased to be a city. It is utterly desolate. My only opportunity to find
lodging while visiting it was at the small depot building, and the
superintendent of the road at Smyrna, Mr. Purser, had kindly given me a note to
the young man who has charge of the station requesting him to give me a bed. The
young man was absent at another station during the night, and I occupied his
bed. A native family near by cooked a chicken for us and made our coffee. With
these and the crackers which we had brought from Smyrna we made our supper and
breakfast.

Sardis, like Philadelphia, is situated at the southern edge of the plain of the
Hermus, which is here 10 or 12 miles wide; it is at the foot of a mountain
ridge, which constituted its acropolis; its southern wall passed along the
backbone of this ridge, and in the front of this acropolis were the stadium and
the theatre. But here its likeness to Philadelphia terminates. The acropolis of
Sardis is about 1000 feet high,—nearly four times as high as that of
Philadelphia. In front it is so steep as to be climbed on foot only in one
place, and on its southern side is a precipice 500 or 600 feet deep, reaching to
an elevated valley between it and other mountains farther south. The acropolis
is itself a magnificent ruin. It is not a mountain of solid rock, but one of
pebbles and rounded stones intermixed with sand. It would be a mass of concrete
but it has no cohesion, and it has been washed into all the jagged forms of
sharp peak, knife-like ridge, and deep ravine that such a mountain could be made
to assume. The view along its sides as we climbed it was full of sublimity, and
this was heightened by the peculiar combination of art and nature on its summit.
The sky-piercing peaks are crowned with ragged sections of an ancient wall, the
bases of which often project beyond the surface which supports them, so that
they appear ready to topple from their lofty perches. At the southeastern corner
a section of the wall, about a quarter of a mile long, is so nearly undermined
by the crumbling of the bill beneath it that it made me nervous to walk upon its
top and cast my eye below.

Arundel says that the ascent of this mountain is not worth the trouble; but I
have seen nothing in my travel much more magnificent than the view which it
affords. To the south, across a rough intervening valley, rise the mountains of
Tmolus, about 2000 feet high, and here thickly wooded. To the west, across a
narrow valley, is a ridge like the one on which we stand, jagged and peaked in
the wildest manner. The ruins of the Temple of Cyb'ele lie in this valley, its
two columns that are, still erect standing in loneliness amid a mass of marble
blocks lying in confusion about them. To the north the eye takes in the Valley
of the Hermus, which stretches to the right and left until it is lost in the dim
distance, and it traces the serpentine course of the river itself for many miles
along this valley. We see, just before us on the bank of this stream, the place
where Alexander the Great was encamped when Sardis opened her gates to him
without resistance, and we gaze on the same landscape which he beheld when,
standing on this very acropolis, he resolved to erect here a temple to Jupiter.
Still nearer in the plain is the battle-field in which the army of the rich
Crœsus, of whose kingdom Sardis was the capital, was defeated by Cyrus, after
which event the city fell into the hands of this Persian conqueror. Across the
plain, on a long, low ridge with a smooth surface, we see a large number of
mounds, or tumuli, in which the rock-built tombs of ancient kings and men of
wealth are covered thick with earth,—the largest of them the tumulus of
Halyattes, the father of Crœsus. Beyond this ridge lies a beautiful sheet of
water, the Gygean Lake, and beyond it rises the mountain-range which bounds the
Valley of the Hermus on the north. To the east, in a valley at the foot of the
mountain on which we stand, is the river Pactolus, whose sand was said of old to
be mingled with gold; and we trace the silvery thread of its water across the
plain until it unites with the Hermus. The sections of the city wall which I
have mentioned, together with some on the plain below, are reconstructions, as
appears from the pieces of columns, sculptured slabs, and other remains of more
ancient structures, which are worked in with coarser material. All of the wall
of the acropolis except these fragmentary remains has disappeared, having fallen
with the ground on which it stood, rolled down the precipice, and been covered
beneath the mass of sand and pebbles which followed. The summit of the mountain
must have been far more extensive formerly than at present, but earthquakes and
winter rains have carried it down upon the city below, which lies buried many
feet beneath the present surface. That once broad summit is now so narrow in one
place that the path by which the visitor goes from one part to another is
scarcely 10 inches wide, with a deep precipice below. When we came to this,
Fed'ros halted and would go no farther. He said it made his head swim to go
across such places, and I must excuse him. But the native guide whom we had
employed to show us the way walked boldly across, and I followed. Beyond this
pass I obtained the view which I have described above, and I felt compensated
for the little risk which I had run. As we were descending the mountain the
guide told me that a few weeks previous he was guiding a German traveler across
that place, when the gentleman's foot slipped, and he would have fallen had not
he (the guide) reached back to him a staff which he carried and helped him to
recover his footing. The chief part of the city stood at the northern foot of
the mountain. Here the remains of only a few buildings now project above the
surface. The most conspicuous of these is the first that is reached in
approaching the city from the railway-station. Its walls, which are built of
alternate layers of broad, thin bricks, and small stones embedded in cement,
still stand from 30 to 40 feet above the surface, and they inclose two immense
halls standing end to end with a square passage between them. The northern hall
is 150 feet long and 40 wide, while the southern is of the same width and 175
feet long. The roof was an arch of brick. Wings extended to the east and west
from the southern hall, but their ruins are in such confusion, and so nearly
covered with earth, that I could not determine their exact dimensions. At one
side of the southern hall an excavation to its foundation shows that earth has
accumulated around the building to a depth of at least 20 feet. It is called the
House of Croesus; but while it was large enough, and probably fine enough, for
that richest of all kings to dwell in, it can scarcely be old enough.

Leaving this house to the left, and crossing the western foot of the acropolis,
I found on a low piece of ground the celebrated Temple of Cyb'ele, the mother of
Jupiter. Two marble columns about 35 feet above the surface, and reaching, as
excavations recently made show, about 20 feet under the present surface, are all
that can be seen at a distance, unless it be from the summit of the adjacent
mountain. The columns are 7 feet in diameter, and their capitals are beautiful
specimens of the Ionic order. The blocks of other columns like them lie in a
confused mass upon the broken walls of the temple and about the space which it
inclosed. It is impossible, without removing the accumulated earth, to determine
the exact form and dimensions of the temple, but the English engineers who built
the railway have made a stone-quarry of this as well as of other ruins along the
line of their road, and from the excavations which they have made it is safe to
conclude that the foundations of the temple are yet entire. The marble of which
the whole building was constructed has a coarse grain, but it is white and
glistening, and I was told by the natives that it was quarried in the mountains
a few miles distant, where masses of the same marble still exist. In the
northeastern part of the city are the ruins of two ancient churches, one very
large and built of original material. It has a striking resemblance to the
Church of the Apocalypse at Philadelphia. The other was evidently built of
material from some heathen temple, including capitals, friezes, broken columns,
and sculptured slabs worked into the walls without regard to their original
design. At various places within the area of the city excavations have been made
in search of building stones, and they were found in every instance. There are
many mounds and irregular protuberances on the surface which indicate the sites
of buried buildings. I have no doubt that a thorough system of excavations here
would reveal many relics of antiquity, and they might throw much light on the
history of this famous city. The only inhabitants about the place are a few
families at the northeastern corner, who have a mill operated by water drawn
from the Pactolus, and a few at the southwestern corner, who occupy in winter
some rude stone huts without windows, and in summer a few permanent tents
covered partly with goats' hair cloth and partly with leafy branches from the
trees. We stopped at one of these tents, and while sipping the inevitable coffee
which the old Turcoman ordered for us I asked the old man why his people made no
windows to their houses. The answer was, "We live in them only in the winter,
and then we need no windows."

After completing my exploration of Sardis, I next directed my course toward
Thyatira. I found that the most practicable method of reaching this place was to
return to Magnesî'a, about thirty-six miles back toward Smyrna on the railway,
and there procure horses for the trip. I found Magnesî'a a very stirring city,
claiming 25,000 inhabitants. I counted twenty-six minarets, indicating more than
half that number of mosques, and I saw there a convent of the Dancing Dervishes.
I also found, to my great gratification, a neat little hotel with clean beds,
airy rooms, and a good table. The fare was only five francs a day. I learned
from my Greek landlord that there was an American missionary in the city, and
under his guidance I visited the mission premises. I found them consisting of a
large dwelling and a small chapel, both the property of the mission, which is
under the control of the central station at Constantinople. I had a pleasant but
brief interview with the missionary and his wife, and found that their work was
not encouraged by any decided success. The fast of Ramadân', during which
Mohammedans are required to fast all day, though they may feast all night, was
in progress, and at night the twenty-six minarets were all illuminated by three
rows of lamps hung around every one. It was a very pretty sight.

We found in the city a large khân, kept by a Turk, and supplied with both horses
and carriages for hire. When we called, he constrained us to take seats and
drink some coffee while we bargained for horses and waited for them to be led
out for inspection. I hired three horses and a Turkish servant, at one dollar a
day each, for my journey to Thyatira and Pergamos. After trying them by a short
ride, I selected the best one for myself, a strongly-built iron-gray with a good
walk, and let Fed'ros have second choice. He and the Turk divided between them
our baggage, consisting of two pairs of well-loaded Turkish saddle-pockets, and
thus equipped we set out on the morning of July 17th for Thyatira. The country
through which we were to pass was new to Fed'ros, and he was afraid to traverse
it without a military escort. We called on the Turkish governor, who had a
regiment of soldiers at his command, and made known to him our intended journey.
He said that he thought the road was free from robbers, but he would not assume
any responsibility for our safety. This made Fed'ros the more anxious for an
escort, but the missionary told me that he was accustomed to go anywhere he
wished alone, and I thought if he could go alone I could certainly go with two
attendants, so I positively refused to ask for a guard. We set out unarmed into
a region known only by the stable-servant, but he had traversed it many times in
his present capacity, and I knew the general direction and distance.

Thyatira is about 35 miles from Magnesî'a, a little east of north. After riding
about two miles we crossed the Hermus, which is here a shallow stream not over
two and a half feet deep and about forty yards wide. In crossing its valley we
frequently came upon long stretches of a paved road, but it was so rough, and
the stones were worn so slick on top, that we avoided it except where muddy
places compelled us to take it. During the ride we saw some ill-constructed
wagons, with large beds made of wicker-work, and with wheels so void of grease
that they screeched hideously at every turn. We saw very large wheat-farms,
covering in some instances more than a square mile of territory, each with a
large building in it intended for the lodging of laborers during seed-time and
harvest, and for the storing of grain and straw. The laborers dwell in villages
often remote from these farms.

After crossing the plain of the Hermus our road followed another plain, which
enters into this at a right angle, and is drained by a stream almost as large as
the Hermus above their junction. This stream heads near Thyatira, and the plain
is terminated there by a mountain-range that rises back of the city. All the way
the plain is bounded by low mountains on the east and west. The Turkish name of
Thyatira is Akhissar, the white tower. Seen at a distance from the south it is
almost hidden by groves of tall cypress-trees, but white minarets gleaming
through these, and occasional groups of houses coming into view, combine with
the dark foliage and tapering forms of the trees and the purple mountain-wall in
the distance to present an Oriental landscape of the most pleasing character.
The cypress groves occupy the old graveyards of the city, the trees having been
planted by the graves as signs of mourning, and it was sad to observe the fact
that these cities of the dead occupy far more space than the city of the living.
The same is true of many other cities and villages which I saw in Asia Minor,
and yet these large cemeteries have been filled up during the comparatively
short period of Turkish dominion, all the graves, tombs, and sepulchres of the
early Christian period and of the still earlier heathen period having been long
ago swept away or hidden beneath the surface. As we approached the city by a
road winding among these groves I saw many relics of antiquity, such as broken
columns from ancient temples used as head-stones for some of the graves,
sculptured slabs of marble or granite used as side-stones for other graves, and
blocks of rich material built in among the unhewed stones of the rude walls by
which the cemeteries are inclosed. The city, like all the other interior Asiatic
towns, is composed chiefly of one-story houses built of small stones laid in a
thick mass of poorly-tempered mortar. The walls are frequently strengthened by
pieces of timber built in horizontally at intervals of two or three feet, and in
some instances they are plastered on the outside. The roofs are of rude tiles,
supported by rafters made of round poplar poles, and they project about two feet
beyond the walls so as to protect the latter from the drip in the rainy season.
In these walls, as in those of the villages of Palestine, I frequently saw
well-shaped stones from ancient buildings. On the streets I saw sarcophagi used
for watering-troughs, and Corinthian capitals used for door-steps or perforated
for the mouths of wells and cisterns.

Within a few years past the city has been visited three times by destructive
fires. The last of these, which occurred in October, 1878, destroyed about
one-third of the houses. We rode through the burnt district as we entered the
city, and found large numbers of men engaged in rebuilding the houses. They were
under the general superintendence of a Greek engineer from Smyrna, named
Vitallis. He was laying off new and straight streets 16 and 22 feet wide, and
forbidding under an edict of the government the erection of any but stone
houses. Some of the burnt houses were of sun-dried bricks, and all these were
now but masses of earth. These improvements excited the disgust of some of the
Turks, and one old fellow was so rebellious that he had been thrown into prison.
The only place of lodging for travelers to be found in the city was a filthy
khân, full of dirt and night-prowling insects. I told Fed'ros that if we could
not find a better house I would spread my shawl under a shade-tree at the edge
of the town and sleep there. After much inquiry he finally appealed to the
engineer, Vitallis, who said that he had a room in the house of a widow, and
that we might possibly find lodging with her. He sent a servant to show us the
way, and the widow promptly agreed to let us have a room, though she had nothing
for us to eat. Fed'ros contracted with a man, who kept a small cook-shop where
men called and ordered what they wished to eat, to prepare and send us our
supper and breakfast. The engineer, when he came in from his work, took supper
with us, and so did a Greek doctor who called to make the engineer a visit. The
doctor was a native of Thessalonica, and the engineer had lived as an officer of
the sultan in Constantinople; so they were full of information most interesting
to me, and they remained with us to a late hour. The only drawback to the
conversation was the impertinence of Fed'ros, who, while acting as my
interpreter, persisted in putting in at least two words for himself to one for
me. The next morning Vitallis led us to a colossal statue recently disinterred
in the western part of the town; pointed out to us a portion of the ancient wall
exposed in one of the streets, and showed us in a private yard a large
sarcophagus whose sides were covered with wreaths and crowns. He was a young man
of handsome person and fine address, and he treated us with much kindness. The
present population of Thyatira is about 9000. The plain around it is flat, and
much of it is wet. I could not resist the conviction that it is an unhealthy
city, though all with whom I conversed contended that it is not. It is well
supplied with water, which is distributed through the city in pipes, while the
waste from fountains and watering-troughs is frequently seen flowing along the
narrow streets. The people are nearly all Turks. At 8 A. M. on the 18th of July
I left Thyatira for Pergamos, which I found to be about 48 miles distant. For
about 12 miles the direction was northwest, across the head of the plain in
which Thyatira stands. I then reached, by a slight ascent, the Plain of
Kirgagatch, a beautiful circular basin about six miles in diameter, surrounded
by smooth mountains. It is noted for the production of superior watermelons,
cotton, and fruits. Watermelons were not quite ripe. The city of Kirgagatch,
containing a population of 12,000 or 14,000, and several cotton-mills, is
beautifully situated at the southern side of the plain, with precipitous
mountains towering grandly above it. This plain is drained by the river Caicus,
and from it we passed westward into the Caicus Plain. This plain, after
extending about 28 miles almost due west, and maintaining an average width of
about six miles, is then contracted to about one-third of its previous width,
the mountains on the north closing upon it by a curve to the south. There it
turns toward the southwest, widens again after a few miles, and stretches away
20 miles farther to the sea. The entire plain is rich and well watered.

Pergamos is situated at this southward curve of the mountains, the modern city
at the foot of the range, and the ancient city on the summit of a mountain 2000
feet high. We entered the former through the doorway of an immense building
called the Church of St. John. So vast were its proportions, and so fort-like
its appearance, that I at first took it to be an old castle built to defend the
gate. We rode to the principal khân and put up our horses and our servant, and
then struck out to find lodgings for ourselves in some private house. A young
Greek from the bazaar volunteered to go with us where he thought we could find
lodging, and while we were making inquiries along the street a Turkish
policeman, heavily armed, stopped our Greek friend and began to denounce him for
helping the strangers to find lodging among the families. Turks have a great
horror of allowing men such privileges. Fed'ros was equal to the occasion. He
walked up to the policeman with an air of importance and said, "Get away from
here, you impudent dog! Say another word, and I will have you strapped up and
taken to Smyrna and punished for your interference with a gentleman!" The Turk,
taking him to be some high official, and thinking me perhaps to be some lord
from a distant realm, immediately apologized and got out of the way. We finally
succeeded in finding a room in which we would be allowed to sleep, and Fed'ros
boldly asked the owner if there were any "bugs" in it. He said there was none.
Fed'ros demanded, "Are you certain there are none?" The man answered, "Yes; I
will eat every one you can find there." With this assurance we took the room and
ordered our supper and breakfast, as at Thyatira, from a bake-shop in the
bazaar.

Modern Pergamos is almost a facsimile of Philadelphia and Thyatira, with a
population of about 10,000. The ascent from it to the ancient city is by a steep
and winding road which reaches the old wall on the eastern brow of the mountain,
and enters through a ruined portal. After entering the inclosure, which covers
the entire top of the mountain, we followed the ancient pavement, which
continues to wind about and ascend toward the highest part of the summit. It was
the pavement of a street, yet it follows such curves as secure it the most
gradual ascent to the acropolis, which occupied the most northern part of the
mountain-top, and was separated from the lower part of the city by another wall.
Immediately in front of this separating wall we found about 50 workmen engaged
in uncovering the ruins of a large temple, and in boxing the pieces of statuary
which they found, preparatory to shipping them. They were in the employ of a Mr.
Humans, agent of the German Empire, who had been engaged for about eight months
in making excavations here, and had already taken out 160 pieces of statuary,
most of which he had forwarded to Berlin. Many pieces were still on the ground,
and new discoveries were being made every day. I saw none which could compare
with the exquisite masterpieces of Greece which are in the museums of Rome and
Naples, but I saw some that were very well worth the expense of disinterment and
removal. The interior of the acropolis and of the whole city is covered with
ruins; and cisterns for rain-water, which was a necessity to the inhabitants,
are very numerous. The city walls are everywhere in a state of ruin except on
the extreme northern end of the acropolis, where a piece of the original wall
still stands in an almost perfect condition. It is a splendid piece of masonry.
The view from the summit of the acropolis is not excelled by any that I saw in
my whole journey. In every direction mountains are seen, near by or far away,
and they present every variety of form and every shade of color known to
mountain scenery. The broad plain of the Caicus stretches away to the east,
terminated by a mountain barrier dim in the distance, and the same plain
continues its course to the southwest until its varied hues of yellow and green
are exchanged for the deep blue of the sea, and this is limited by the dim
mountains of the island of Mityle'ne, the ancient Lesbos. The Caicus is seen at
intervals winding its way along this plain, and in the mountain passes in other
directions many smaller streams are traced as they thread their way through
crooked valleys. All the elements of a magnificent landscape, mountains, plains,
rivers, and the sea, combine to make this one of the most magnificent ever
enjoyed by the people of an entire city looking abroad from their own
house-tops. Its commanding site made the city itself also a magnificent object
when seen from the plain below, and especially from the plain toward the
southwest, whence it stands out distinctly against the sky and seems to exalt
itself above all the hills. In the plain just south of the city there are three
tumuli, similar to those in the plain of the Hermus over against Sardis; but of
the origin and history of these nothing is known. They are about 200 feet in
diameter at the base, and fifty feet in perpendicular height. Excavations will
some day bring to light the story which they are able to tell. At night we made
a short call at the residence of Mr. Humans, and found him pleasantly situated,
with his wife and two or three children, in a suite of rooms where they kept
house. They could speak some English, and I spent an hour or two with them very
pleasantly.

I left Pergamos on Sunday morning, July 20th, and rode that day more than forty
miles, to Menimen, a station of the railroad about twenty miles from Smyrna. My
general course was nearly due south, but it veered somewhat to the right, and I
passed several times near the seashore. It was the first Sunday that I had given
to land travel since I left home, and I would have devoted it to rest but for
the fact that the ship in which I was to sail for Constantinople was to leave
Smyrna the next day, and the whole plan of my journey homeward would have been
deranged had I missed it. Having a long day's journey before me, I gave orders
the night before for an early start; but Fed'ros, who was far more dilatory than
any Ar'ab or Syrian whom I had employed, detained me at least half an hour in
getting ready, and when we reached the khân we found our Turk just out of bed
and quietly smoking his pipe though he had not yet fed our horses. Here was
another half-hour's delay. The consequence of this was that when we reached
Menimen, a train on which I could have proceeded to Smyrna that night had been
gone about twenty minutes, and I had to hunt up private quarters again for a
night's lodging. Fortunately, Fed'ros was acquainted with a Greek family here
who had a comfortable house, and they agreed to lodge and feed us on the
condition that I would advance enough money to enable them to buy meat for our
supper and breakfast. It is astonishing how little meat is eaten in these
Eastern countries, and how few persons can afford to buy it. I found, however,
that in all the families where I bought meat for them to cook they were as
hungry for it as I was, and they always took a seat with me and helped me to eat
it.

I found Menimen a place of about 8000 inhabitants, consisting of Turks, Greeks,
Armenians, and Jews in the order of numbers. It is a place of considerable
business, which has chiefly grown up since the construction of the railroad. The
effect of the railroad thus far has not been so much to increase the products of
the country as to facilitate the transportation of its surplus. An increase of
capital must necessarily result, and that will be followed by an increase of
products. On Monday morning, July 21st, I took the train for Smyrna about 10
o'clock, and reached my hotel in that city about noon. As my vessel was to set
sail at 5 P. M., I had little more than time to call on the consul for my
valuables and the letters which had come for me in my absence, and prepare for
another voyage by sea.

I had now traversed all of Asia Minor that my limited time and resources would
allow, and I had seen the sites of all of the Seven Churches of Asia, except
that of Laodicea. This was so remote from the others that it would have required
nearly a week of extra time and of very expensive travel to see it. The Smyrna
and Aidîn' Railway terminates at Aidîn', within 16 miles of it, and this would
have been the nearest route by which to reach it. It is east of Aidîn', and
about 110 miles a little south of east from Ephesus. I learned from the old book
of Mr. Arundel, and from conversation with persons who had visited it, that the
ancient city is now totally uninhabited. Its ruins cover six or seven hills.
Innumerable sarcophagi, sure sign of former wealth, are scattered about its
area; it contains the ruins of three theatres, and many sculptured figures have
been disinterred by laborers in excavating for building stones to be used in
neighboring villages. The river Lycus, a branch of the Meander, flows past it
about a mile distant on the north.

I was struck, wherever I went in Asia Minor, with the striking likeness between
its natural features and those of Palestine. Its seasons are the same,—a short
wet season and a long dry one; its temperature is only a little lower; its
vegetation, both natural and cultivated, is almost identical; it is equally
stripped of its original forests; and it has in summer the same bare and
desolate appearance. It gives constant evidence, too, of having once been, like
Palestine, a very rich and splendid country. One would not have to read Greek
history, after seeing this country, to know something of what it has been, as he
would not have to read the Bible after seeing Palestine to know that it is but
the shadow of its former self.

Smyrna is by far the most important city not only on this coast, but in all Asia
Minor. It has a population variously estimated from 150,000 to 200,000, of which
nearly half are Greeks and Europeans. By far the greater portion of its business
is in the hands of these nationalities, though the Turkish bazaar is far
superior to that of Damascus, and inferior to none, perhaps, in the Turkish
empire, except that at Constantinople. The city is situated on a flat plain
between the harbor and a mountain, which rises in its rear more than 300 feet
high. It fills all the space back to the foot of the mountain. Its harbor is
completely land-locked. It is a beautiful sheet of water nearly two miles wide,
and extending due west for six or eight miles, with a mountain ridge rising from
its shores on either side. An island with a mountainous elevation, stretches
across the mouth of the harbor to the west, leaving ample space for the passage
of ships, but completely shutting off the westerly winds. The deep water extends
up to the quay, and all vessels, except the largest iron steamers, can tie up to
the quay for loading and unloading. Many vessels, both large and small, are
constantly anchored in the harbor, some are constantly arriving and departing,
and the surface of the harbor is always alive with row-boats, lightly built and
painted in gay colors. The most pleasing sight that I witnessed in Smyrna was
the gathering of the people on the quay after sunset. The quay is the water
street of the city, and it extends along the harbor for fully a mile, with the
water only three feet below its outer edge, and an almost continuous row of
handsome buildings on the opposite side. It is about 60 feet wide, and it is
smoothly paved with flag-stones. As soon as the sun is down every summer evening
the people begin to pour out of the sweltering city upon this quay, men, women,
and children, from the oldest matron to the youngest child that can walk, all
neatly dressed for the occasion, and here they promenade, filling the street
from end to end, until nine o'clock. At intervals along the inner side of the
street there are open squares in front of cafés, that are filled with small
tables and chairs, where the promenaders may take seats if they choose and call
for ices, lemonade, candies, cakes, or wine, eat and drink at their leisure, and
then join again the moving throng. Several bands of music are stationed at
intervals along the way, and policemen are on duty in sufficient numbers to
quell the slightest disorder should any occur. I walked out and mingled with
that crowd on three different evenings, and I saw not the slightest departure
from good manners. There was no hurry or bustle, no loud talking or loud
laughing, and not the slightest appearance of intoxication. I could but wonder
at the fact that the population of a commercial city like this could thus turn
out en masse on a pleasure excursion, and preserve decorum so perfect. I doubt
whether the same could be done in any city of 100,000 people in the United
States. The student of the Bible will recognize some correspondence between the
condition of these seven cities and what was predicted concerning the seven
churches which were first planted in them. The fate of a church is not to be
confounded with that of the city in which it is located, yet it often occurs, as
in some of these instances, that the one shares the fate of the other. The
candlestick of Ephesus has been entirely removed out of its place. Smyrna, which
was poor in purse but rich in faith, has become rich in purse but poor in faith;
the sharp two-edged sword with which Pergamos was threatened has done its work,
leaving nothing but the silent stones to tell the story; the Lord came to Sardis
as a thief, shattering it into ruins with an earthquake; Philadelphia has been
kept, if not "from the hour of temptation," at least from the hour of
destruction; and Laodicea, whose ruins attest the riches of which she once
boasted, has long since been spewed out of the mouth of the Lord.


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  CHAPTER 41: LETTER TWENTY: SARDIS, THYATIRA, PERGAMOS AND SMYRNA
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Letter XX. Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamos, And Smyrna From Philadelphia I returned
by rail to Sardis, having passed by it on my way out. It is about 24 miles west
of Philadelphia, and 84 miles by rail from Smyrna. Sardis, unlike Philadelphia,
has ceased to be a city. It is utterly desolate. My only opportunity to find
lodging while visiting it was at the small depot building, and the
superintendent of the road at Smyrna, Mr. Purser, had kindly given me a note to
the young man who has charge of the station requesting him to give me a bed. The
young man was absent at another station during the night, and I occupied his
bed. A native family near by cooked a chicken for us and made our coffee. With
these and the crackers which we had brought from Smyrna we made our supper and
breakfast.

Sardis, like Philadelphia, is situated at the southern edge of the plain of the
Hermus, which is here 10 or 12 miles wide; it is at the foot of a mountain
ridge, which constituted its acropolis; its southern wall passed along the
backbone of this ridge, and in the front of this acropolis were the stadium and
the theatre. But here its likeness to Philadelphia terminates. The acropolis of
Sardis is about 1000 feet high,—nearly four times as high as that of
Philadelphia. In front it is so steep as to be climbed on foot only in one
place, and on its southern side is a precipice 500 or 600 feet deep, reaching to
an elevated valley between it and other mountains farther south. The acropolis
is itself a magnificent ruin. It is not a mountain of solid rock, but one of
pebbles and rounded stones intermixed with sand. It would be a mass of concrete
but it has no cohesion, and it has been washed into all the jagged forms of
sharp peak, knife-like ridge, and deep ravine that such a mountain could be made
to assume. The view along its sides as we climbed it was full of sublimity, and
this was heightened by the peculiar combination of art and nature on its summit.
The sky-piercing peaks are crowned with ragged sections of an ancient wall, the
bases of which often project beyond the surface which supports them, so that
they appear ready to topple from their lofty perches. At the southeastern corner
a section of the wall, about a quarter of a mile long, is so nearly undermined
by the crumbling of the bill beneath it that it made me nervous to walk upon its
top and cast my eye below.

Arundel says that the ascent of this mountain is not worth the trouble; but I
have seen nothing in my travel much more magnificent than the view which it
affords. To the south, across a rough intervening valley, rise the mountains of
Tmolus, about 2000 feet high, and here thickly wooded. To the west, across a
narrow valley, is a ridge like the one on which we stand, jagged and peaked in
the wildest manner. The ruins of the Temple of Cyb'ele lie in this valley, its
two columns that are, still erect standing in loneliness amid a mass of marble
blocks lying in confusion about them. To the north the eye takes in the Valley
of the Hermus, which stretches to the right and left until it is lost in the dim
distance, and it traces the serpentine course of the river itself for many miles
along this valley. We see, just before us on the bank of this stream, the place
where Alexander the Great was encamped when Sardis opened her gates to him
without resistance, and we gaze on the same landscape which he beheld when,
standing on this very acropolis, he resolved to erect here a temple to Jupiter.
Still nearer in the plain is the battle-field in which the army of the rich
Crœsus, of whose kingdom Sardis was the capital, was defeated by Cyrus, after
which event the city fell into the hands of this Persian conqueror. Across the
plain, on a long, low ridge with a smooth surface, we see a large number of
mounds, or tumuli, in which the rock-built tombs of ancient kings and men of
wealth are covered thick with earth,—the largest of them the tumulus of
Halyattes, the father of Crœsus. Beyond this ridge lies a beautiful sheet of
water, the Gygean Lake, and beyond it rises the mountain-range which bounds the
Valley of the Hermus on the north. To the east, in a valley at the foot of the
mountain on which we stand, is the river Pactolus, whose sand was said of old to
be mingled with gold; and we trace the silvery thread of its water across the
plain until it unites with the Hermus. The sections of the city wall which I
have mentioned, together with some on the plain below, are reconstructions, as
appears from the pieces of columns, sculptured slabs, and other remains of more
ancient structures, which are worked in with coarser material. All of the wall
of the acropolis except these fragmentary remains has disappeared, having fallen
with the ground on which it stood, rolled down the precipice, and been covered
beneath the mass of sand and pebbles which followed. The summit of the mountain
must have been far more extensive formerly than at present, but earthquakes and
winter rains have carried it down upon the city below, which lies buried many
feet beneath the present surface. That once broad summit is now so narrow in one
place that the path by which the visitor goes from one part to another is
scarcely 10 inches wide, with a deep precipice below. When we came to this,
Fed'ros halted and would go no farther. He said it made his head swim to go
across such places, and I must excuse him. But the native guide whom we had
employed to show us the way walked boldly across, and I followed. Beyond this
pass I obtained the view which I have described above, and I felt compensated
for the little risk which I had run. As we were descending the mountain the
guide told me that a few weeks previous he was guiding a German traveler across
that place, when the gentleman's foot slipped, and he would have fallen had not
he (the guide) reached back to him a staff which he carried and helped him to
recover his footing. The chief part of the city stood at the northern foot of
the mountain. Here the remains of only a few buildings now project above the
surface. The most conspicuous of these is the first that is reached in
approaching the city from the railway-station. Its walls, which are built of
alternate layers of broad, thin bricks, and small stones embedded in cement,
still stand from 30 to 40 feet above the surface, and they inclose two immense
halls standing end to end with a square passage between them. The northern hall
is 150 feet long and 40 wide, while the southern is of the same width and 175
feet long. The roof was an arch of brick. Wings extended to the east and west
from the southern hall, but their ruins are in such confusion, and so nearly
covered with earth, that I could not determine their exact dimensions. At one
side of the southern hall an excavation to its foundation shows that earth has
accumulated around the building to a depth of at least 20 feet. It is called the
House of Croesus; but while it was large enough, and probably fine enough, for
that richest of all kings to dwell in, it can scarcely be old enough.

Leaving this house to the left, and crossing the western foot of the acropolis,
I found on a low piece of ground the celebrated Temple of Cyb'ele, the mother of
Jupiter. Two marble columns about 35 feet above the surface, and reaching, as
excavations recently made show, about 20 feet under the present surface, are all
that can be seen at a distance, unless it be from the summit of the adjacent
mountain. The columns are 7 feet in diameter, and their capitals are beautiful
specimens of the Ionic order. The blocks of other columns like them lie in a
confused mass upon the broken walls of the temple and about the space which it
inclosed. It is impossible, without removing the accumulated earth, to determine
the exact form and dimensions of the temple, but the English engineers who built
the railway have made a stone-quarry of this as well as of other ruins along the
line of their road, and from the excavations which they have made it is safe to
conclude that the foundations of the temple are yet entire. The marble of which
the whole building was constructed has a coarse grain, but it is white and
glistening, and I was told by the natives that it was quarried in the mountains
a few miles distant, where masses of the same marble still exist. In the
northeastern part of the city are the ruins of two ancient churches, one very
large and built of original material. It has a striking resemblance to the
Church of the Apocalypse at Philadelphia. The other was evidently built of
material from some heathen temple, including capitals, friezes, broken columns,
and sculptured slabs worked into the walls without regard to their original
design. At various places within the area of the city excavations have been made
in search of building stones, and they were found in every instance. There are
many mounds and irregular protuberances on the surface which indicate the sites
of buried buildings. I have no doubt that a thorough system of excavations here
would reveal many relics of antiquity, and they might throw much light on the
history of this famous city. The only inhabitants about the place are a few
families at the northeastern corner, who have a mill operated by water drawn
from the Pactolus, and a few at the southwestern corner, who occupy in winter
some rude stone huts without windows, and in summer a few permanent tents
covered partly with goats' hair cloth and partly with leafy branches from the
trees. We stopped at one of these tents, and while sipping the inevitable coffee
which the old Turcoman ordered for us I asked the old man why his people made no
windows to their houses. The answer was, "We live in them only in the winter,
and then we need no windows."

After completing my exploration of Sardis, I next directed my course toward
Thyatira. I found that the most practicable method of reaching this place was to
return to Magnesî'a, about thirty-six miles back toward Smyrna on the railway,
and there procure horses for the trip. I found Magnesî'a a very stirring city,
claiming 25,000 inhabitants. I counted twenty-six minarets, indicating more than
half that number of mosques, and I saw there a convent of the Dancing Dervishes.
I also found, to my great gratification, a neat little hotel with clean beds,
airy rooms, and a good table. The fare was only five francs a day. I learned
from my Greek landlord that there was an American missionary in the city, and
under his guidance I visited the mission premises. I found them consisting of a
large dwelling and a small chapel, both the property of the mission, which is
under the control of the central station at Constantinople. I had a pleasant but
brief interview with the missionary and his wife, and found that their work was
not encouraged by any decided success. The fast of Ramadân', during which
Mohammedans are required to fast all day, though they may feast all night, was
in progress, and at night the twenty-six minarets were all illuminated by three
rows of lamps hung around every one. It was a very pretty sight.

We found in the city a large khân, kept by a Turk, and supplied with both horses
and carriages for hire. When we called, he constrained us to take seats and
drink some coffee while we bargained for horses and waited for them to be led
out for inspection. I hired three horses and a Turkish servant, at one dollar a
day each, for my journey to Thyatira and Pergamos. After trying them by a short
ride, I selected the best one for myself, a strongly-built iron-gray with a good
walk, and let Fed'ros have second choice. He and the Turk divided between them
our baggage, consisting of two pairs of well-loaded Turkish saddle-pockets, and
thus equipped we set out on the morning of July 17th for Thyatira. The country
through which we were to pass was new to Fed'ros, and he was afraid to traverse
it without a military escort. We called on the Turkish governor, who had a
regiment of soldiers at his command, and made known to him our intended journey.
He said that he thought the road was free from robbers, but he would not assume
any responsibility for our safety. This made Fed'ros the more anxious for an
escort, but the missionary told me that he was accustomed to go anywhere he
wished alone, and I thought if he could go alone I could certainly go with two
attendants, so I positively refused to ask for a guard. We set out unarmed into
a region known only by the stable-servant, but he had traversed it many times in
his present capacity, and I knew the general direction and distance.

Thyatira is about 35 miles from Magnesî'a, a little east of north. After riding
about two miles we crossed the Hermus, which is here a shallow stream not over
two and a half feet deep and about forty yards wide. In crossing its valley we
frequently came upon long stretches of a paved road, but it was so rough, and
the stones were worn so slick on top, that we avoided it except where muddy
places compelled us to take it. During the ride we saw some ill-constructed
wagons, with large beds made of wicker-work, and with wheels so void of grease
that they screeched hideously at every turn. We saw very large wheat-farms,
covering in some instances more than a square mile of territory, each with a
large building in it intended for the lodging of laborers during seed-time and
harvest, and for the storing of grain and straw. The laborers dwell in villages
often remote from these farms.

After crossing the plain of the Hermus our road followed another plain, which
enters into this at a right angle, and is drained by a stream almost as large as
the Hermus above their junction. This stream heads near Thyatira, and the plain
is terminated there by a mountain-range that rises back of the city. All the way
the plain is bounded by low mountains on the east and west. The Turkish name of
Thyatira is Akhissar, the white tower. Seen at a distance from the south it is
almost hidden by groves of tall cypress-trees, but white minarets gleaming
through these, and occasional groups of houses coming into view, combine with
the dark foliage and tapering forms of the trees and the purple mountain-wall in
the distance to present an Oriental landscape of the most pleasing character.
The cypress groves occupy the old graveyards of the city, the trees having been
planted by the graves as signs of mourning, and it was sad to observe the fact
that these cities of the dead occupy far more space than the city of the living.
The same is true of many other cities and villages which I saw in Asia Minor,
and yet these large cemeteries have been filled up during the comparatively
short period of Turkish dominion, all the graves, tombs, and sepulchres of the
early Christian period and of the still earlier heathen period having been long
ago swept away or hidden beneath the surface. As we approached the city by a
road winding among these groves I saw many relics of antiquity, such as broken
columns from ancient temples used as head-stones for some of the graves,
sculptured slabs of marble or granite used as side-stones for other graves, and
blocks of rich material built in among the unhewed stones of the rude walls by
which the cemeteries are inclosed. The city, like all the other interior Asiatic
towns, is composed chiefly of one-story houses built of small stones laid in a
thick mass of poorly-tempered mortar. The walls are frequently strengthened by
pieces of timber built in horizontally at intervals of two or three feet, and in
some instances they are plastered on the outside. The roofs are of rude tiles,
supported by rafters made of round poplar poles, and they project about two feet
beyond the walls so as to protect the latter from the drip in the rainy season.
In these walls, as in those of the villages of Palestine, I frequently saw
well-shaped stones from ancient buildings. On the streets I saw sarcophagi used
for watering-troughs, and Corinthian capitals used for door-steps or perforated
for the mouths of wells and cisterns.

Within a few years past the city has been visited three times by destructive
fires. The last of these, which occurred in October, 1878, destroyed about
one-third of the houses. We rode through the burnt district as we entered the
city, and found large numbers of men engaged in rebuilding the houses. They were
under the general superintendence of a Greek engineer from Smyrna, named
Vitallis. He was laying off new and straight streets 16 and 22 feet wide, and
forbidding under an edict of the government the erection of any but stone
houses. Some of the burnt houses were of sun-dried bricks, and all these were
now but masses of earth. These improvements excited the disgust of some of the
Turks, and one old fellow was so rebellious that he had been thrown into prison.
The only place of lodging for travelers to be found in the city was a filthy
khân, full of dirt and night-prowling insects. I told Fed'ros that if we could
not find a better house I would spread my shawl under a shade-tree at the edge
of the town and sleep there. After much inquiry he finally appealed to the
engineer, Vitallis, who said that he had a room in the house of a widow, and
that we might possibly find lodging with her. He sent a servant to show us the
way, and the widow promptly agreed to let us have a room, though she had nothing
for us to eat. Fed'ros contracted with a man, who kept a small cook-shop where
men called and ordered what they wished to eat, to prepare and send us our
supper and breakfast. The engineer, when he came in from his work, took supper
with us, and so did a Greek doctor who called to make the engineer a visit. The
doctor was a native of Thessalonica, and the engineer had lived as an officer of
the sultan in Constantinople; so they were full of information most interesting
to me, and they remained with us to a late hour. The only drawback to the
conversation was the impertinence of Fed'ros, who, while acting as my
interpreter, persisted in putting in at least two words for himself to one for
me. The next morning Vitallis led us to a colossal statue recently disinterred
in the western part of the town; pointed out to us a portion of the ancient wall
exposed in one of the streets, and showed us in a private yard a large
sarcophagus whose sides were covered with wreaths and crowns. He was a young man
of handsome person and fine address, and he treated us with much kindness. The
present population of Thyatira is about 9000. The plain around it is flat, and
much of it is wet. I could not resist the conviction that it is an unhealthy
city, though all with whom I conversed contended that it is not. It is well
supplied with water, which is distributed through the city in pipes, while the
waste from fountains and watering-troughs is frequently seen flowing along the
narrow streets. The people are nearly all Turks. At 8 A. M. on the 18th of July
I left Thyatira for Pergamos, which I found to be about 48 miles distant. For
about 12 miles the direction was northwest, across the head of the plain in
which Thyatira stands. I then reached, by a slight ascent, the Plain of
Kirgagatch, a beautiful circular basin about six miles in diameter, surrounded
by smooth mountains. It is noted for the production of superior watermelons,
cotton, and fruits. Watermelons were not quite ripe. The city of Kirgagatch,
containing a population of 12,000 or 14,000, and several cotton-mills, is
beautifully situated at the southern side of the plain, with precipitous
mountains towering grandly above it. This plain is drained by the river Caicus,
and from it we passed westward into the Caicus Plain. This plain, after
extending about 28 miles almost due west, and maintaining an average width of
about six miles, is then contracted to about one-third of its previous width,
the mountains on the north closing upon it by a curve to the south. There it
turns toward the southwest, widens again after a few miles, and stretches away
20 miles farther to the sea. The entire plain is rich and well watered.

Pergamos is situated at this southward curve of the mountains, the modern city
at the foot of the range, and the ancient city on the summit of a mountain 2000
feet high. We entered the former through the doorway of an immense building
called the Church of St. John. So vast were its proportions, and so fort-like
its appearance, that I at first took it to be an old castle built to defend the
gate. We rode to the principal khân and put up our horses and our servant, and
then struck out to find lodgings for ourselves in some private house. A young
Greek from the bazaar volunteered to go with us where he thought we could find
lodging, and while we were making inquiries along the street a Turkish
policeman, heavily armed, stopped our Greek friend and began to denounce him for
helping the strangers to find lodging among the families. Turks have a great
horror of allowing men such privileges. Fed'ros was equal to the occasion. He
walked up to the policeman with an air of importance and said, "Get away from
here, you impudent dog! Say another word, and I will have you strapped up and
taken to Smyrna and punished for your interference with a gentleman!" The Turk,
taking him to be some high official, and thinking me perhaps to be some lord
from a distant realm, immediately apologized and got out of the way. We finally
succeeded in finding a room in which we would be allowed to sleep, and Fed'ros
boldly asked the owner if there were any "bugs" in it. He said there was none.
Fed'ros demanded, "Are you certain there are none?" The man answered, "Yes; I
will eat every one you can find there." With this assurance we took the room and
ordered our supper and breakfast, as at Thyatira, from a bake-shop in the
bazaar.

Modern Pergamos is almost a facsimile of Philadelphia and Thyatira, with a
population of about 10,000. The ascent from it to the ancient city is by a steep
and winding road which reaches the old wall on the eastern brow of the mountain,
and enters through a ruined portal. After entering the inclosure, which covers
the entire top of the mountain, we followed the ancient pavement, which
continues to wind about and ascend toward the highest part of the summit. It was
the pavement of a street, yet it follows such curves as secure it the most
gradual ascent to the acropolis, which occupied the most northern part of the
mountain-top, and was separated from the lower part of the city by another wall.
Immediately in front of this separating wall we found about 50 workmen engaged
in uncovering the ruins of a large temple, and in boxing the pieces of statuary
which they found, preparatory to shipping them. They were in the employ of a Mr.
Humans, agent of the German Empire, who had been engaged for about eight months
in making excavations here, and had already taken out 160 pieces of statuary,
most of which he had forwarded to Berlin. Many pieces were still on the ground,
and new discoveries were being made every day. I saw none which could compare
with the exquisite masterpieces of Greece which are in the museums of Rome and
Naples, but I saw some that were very well worth the expense of disinterment and
removal. The interior of the acropolis and of the whole city is covered with
ruins; and cisterns for rain-water, which was a necessity to the inhabitants,
are very numerous. The city walls are everywhere in a state of ruin except on
the extreme northern end of the acropolis, where a piece of the original wall
still stands in an almost perfect condition. It is a splendid piece of masonry.
The view from the summit of the acropolis is not excelled by any that I saw in
my whole journey. In every direction mountains are seen, near by or far away,
and they present every variety of form and every shade of color known to
mountain scenery. The broad plain of the Caicus stretches away to the east,
terminated by a mountain barrier dim in the distance, and the same plain
continues its course to the southwest until its varied hues of yellow and green
are exchanged for the deep blue of the sea, and this is limited by the dim
mountains of the island of Mityle'ne, the ancient Lesbos. The Caicus is seen at
intervals winding its way along this plain, and in the mountain passes in other
directions many smaller streams are traced as they thread their way through
crooked valleys. All the elements of a magnificent landscape, mountains, plains,
rivers, and the sea, combine to make this one of the most magnificent ever
enjoyed by the people of an entire city looking abroad from their own
house-tops. Its commanding site made the city itself also a magnificent object
when seen from the plain below, and especially from the plain toward the
southwest, whence it stands out distinctly against the sky and seems to exalt
itself above all the hills. In the plain just south of the city there are three
tumuli, similar to those in the plain of the Hermus over against Sardis; but of
the origin and history of these nothing is known. They are about 200 feet in
diameter at the base, and fifty feet in perpendicular height. Excavations will
some day bring to light the story which they are able to tell. At night we made
a short call at the residence of Mr. Humans, and found him pleasantly situated,
with his wife and two or three children, in a suite of rooms where they kept
house. They could speak some English, and I spent an hour or two with them very
pleasantly.

I left Pergamos on Sunday morning, July 20th, and rode that day more than forty
miles, to Menimen, a station of the railroad about twenty miles from Smyrna. My
general course was nearly due south, but it veered somewhat to the right, and I
passed several times near the seashore. It was the first Sunday that I had given
to land travel since I left home, and I would have devoted it to rest but for
the fact that the ship in which I was to sail for Constantinople was to leave
Smyrna the next day, and the whole plan of my journey homeward would have been
deranged had I missed it. Having a long day's journey before me, I gave orders
the night before for an early start; but Fed'ros, who was far more dilatory than
any Ar'ab or Syrian whom I had employed, detained me at least half an hour in
getting ready, and when we reached the khân we found our Turk just out of bed
and quietly smoking his pipe though he had not yet fed our horses. Here was
another half-hour's delay. The consequence of this was that when we reached
Menimen, a train on which I could have proceeded to Smyrna that night had been
gone about twenty minutes, and I had to hunt up private quarters again for a
night's lodging. Fortunately, Fed'ros was acquainted with a Greek family here
who had a comfortable house, and they agreed to lodge and feed us on the
condition that I would advance enough money to enable them to buy meat for our
supper and breakfast. It is astonishing how little meat is eaten in these
Eastern countries, and how few persons can afford to buy it. I found, however,
that in all the families where I bought meat for them to cook they were as
hungry for it as I was, and they always took a seat with me and helped me to eat
it.

I found Menimen a place of about 8000 inhabitants, consisting of Turks, Greeks,
Armenians, and Jews in the order of numbers. It is a place of considerable
business, which has chiefly grown up since the construction of the railroad. The
effect of the railroad thus far has not been so much to increase the products of
the country as to facilitate the transportation of its surplus. An increase of
capital must necessarily result, and that will be followed by an increase of
products. On Monday morning, July 21st, I took the train for Smyrna about 10
o'clock, and reached my hotel in that city about noon. As my vessel was to set
sail at 5 P. M., I had little more than time to call on the consul for my
valuables and the letters which had come for me in my absence, and prepare for
another voyage by sea.

I had now traversed all of Asia Minor that my limited time and resources would
allow, and I had seen the sites of all of the Seven Churches of Asia, except
that of Laodicea. This was so remote from the others that it would have required
nearly a week of extra time and of very expensive travel to see it. The Smyrna
and Aidîn' Railway terminates at Aidîn', within 16 miles of it, and this would
have been the nearest route by which to reach it. It is east of Aidîn', and
about 110 miles a little south of east from Ephesus. I learned from the old book
of Mr. Arundel, and from conversation with persons who had visited it, that the
ancient city is now totally uninhabited. Its ruins cover six or seven hills.
Innumerable sarcophagi, sure sign of former wealth, are scattered about its
area; it contains the ruins of three theatres, and many sculptured figures have
been disinterred by laborers in excavating for building stones to be used in
neighboring villages. The river Lycus, a branch of the Meander, flows past it
about a mile distant on the north.

I was struck, wherever I went in Asia Minor, with the striking likeness between
its natural features and those of Palestine. Its seasons are the same,—a short
wet season and a long dry one; its temperature is only a little lower; its
vegetation, both natural and cultivated, is almost identical; it is equally
stripped of its original forests; and it has in summer the same bare and
desolate appearance. It gives constant evidence, too, of having once been, like
Palestine, a very rich and splendid country. One would not have to read Greek
history, after seeing this country, to know something of what it has been, as he
would not have to read the Bible after seeing Palestine to know that it is but
the shadow of its former self.

Smyrna is by far the most important city not only on this coast, but in all Asia
Minor. It has a population variously estimated from 150,000 to 200,000, of which
nearly half are Greeks and Europeans. By far the greater portion of its business
is in the hands of these nationalities, though the Turkish bazaar is far
superior to that of Damascus, and inferior to none, perhaps, in the Turkish
empire, except that at Constantinople. The city is situated on a flat plain
between the harbor and a mountain, which rises in its rear more than 300 feet
high. It fills all the space back to the foot of the mountain. Its harbor is
completely land-locked. It is a beautiful sheet of water nearly two miles wide,
and extending due west for six or eight miles, with a mountain ridge rising from
its shores on either side. An island with a mountainous elevation, stretches
across the mouth of the harbor to the west, leaving ample space for the passage
of ships, but completely shutting off the westerly winds. The deep water extends
up to the quay, and all vessels, except the largest iron steamers, can tie up to
the quay for loading and unloading. Many vessels, both large and small, are
constantly anchored in the harbor, some are constantly arriving and departing,
and the surface of the harbor is always alive with row-boats, lightly built and
painted in gay colors. The most pleasing sight that I witnessed in Smyrna was
the gathering of the people on the quay after sunset. The quay is the water
street of the city, and it extends along the harbor for fully a mile, with the
water only three feet below its outer edge, and an almost continuous row of
handsome buildings on the opposite side. It is about 60 feet wide, and it is
smoothly paved with flag-stones. As soon as the sun is down every summer evening
the people begin to pour out of the sweltering city upon this quay, men, women,
and children, from the oldest matron to the youngest child that can walk, all
neatly dressed for the occasion, and here they promenade, filling the street
from end to end, until nine o'clock. At intervals along the inner side of the
street there are open squares in front of cafés, that are filled with small
tables and chairs, where the promenaders may take seats if they choose and call
for ices, lemonade, candies, cakes, or wine, eat and drink at their leisure, and
then join again the moving throng. Several bands of music are stationed at
intervals along the way, and policemen are on duty in sufficient numbers to
quell the slightest disorder should any occur. I walked out and mingled with
that crowd on three different evenings, and I saw not the slightest departure
from good manners. There was no hurry or bustle, no loud talking or loud
laughing, and not the slightest appearance of intoxication. I could but wonder
at the fact that the population of a commercial city like this could thus turn
out en masse on a pleasure excursion, and preserve decorum so perfect. I doubt
whether the same could be done in any city of 100,000 people in the United
States. The student of the Bible will recognize some correspondence between the
condition of these seven cities and what was predicted concerning the seven
churches which were first planted in them. The fate of a church is not to be
confounded with that of the city in which it is located, yet it often occurs, as
in some of these instances, that the one shares the fate of the other. The
candlestick of Ephesus has been entirely removed out of its place. Smyrna, which
was poor in purse but rich in faith, has become rich in purse but poor in faith;
the sharp two-edged sword with which Pergamos was threatened has done its work,
leaving nothing but the silent stones to tell the story; the Lord came to Sardis
as a thief, shattering it into ruins with an earthquake; Philadelphia has been
kept, if not "from the hour of temptation," at least from the hour of
destruction; and Laodicea, whose ruins attest the riches of which she once
boasted, has long since been spewed out of the mouth of the Lord.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 42: LETTER TWENTY-ONE: CONSTANTINOPLE AND ATHENS
========================================================================

Letter XXI. Constantinople and Athens On Monday afternoon, July 21st, I bade
farewell to Smyrna, and went on board an Egyptian steamer, bound for
Constantinople. The vessel had put out at Smyrna a vast quantity of rice which
she had brought from Egypt, and she took on board a cargo of grapes which were
now just ripening in Asia Minor and would be most welcome as early fruit in the
markets of Constantinople. Our ship and her crew presented a striking
illustration of the class which now reigns in Egypt. She was the property of the
Khedive, but she was built in Glasgow, Scotland. Her captain was an Austrian,
her chief engineer an Englishman, her doctor a Russian, her steward an Italian,
her crew Egyptian Ar'abs, and her passengers a mixed multitude of Turks, Jews,
negroes, Italians, Greeks, French, English, Germans, and one American. Noise and
confusion were the order of the day. The captain stormed at his officers and
crew, and the subordinate officers stormed at one another, and stormed back at
the captain. When a group of seamen were at work, moving freight or furling
sails, every man was giving orders, and the storming rose to its highest pitch.
I was constantly reminded by contrast of the perfect order and discipline which
prevailed on the "Pennsylvania." The chief part of the deck was covered with
deck passengers who had with them their own bedding and provisions, and who were
a miserably filthy, ragged, and sickly looking crowd. Among them were 180
Turkish soldiers returning from Abyssinia. Their term of service had expired and
they were to be discharged at Constantinople. Two officers who were in command
of these men had their harem on board, and it was one of the curiosities of the
voyage. The women might have been seen by other men than their husbands had they
occupied rooms below; so to prevent such a calamity their beds were spread on
deck, a piece of sail-cloth about eight feet high was hung around them, and the
two jealous husbands stood watching to prevent any man from getting a peep
behind the curtain. I felt that they might have spared their pains so far as I
was concerned, for unless the women had been fairer to look upon than any of
Turkish blood that I had yet seen, I would not have annoyed them much by gazing.
But when we cast anchor at Constantinople, and these women were compelled to
come out of their hiding-place to go ashore, I was surprised and almost
enchanted for a moment at the vision of beauty which one of them presented. She
was just tall enough to be graceful; her features were finely cut, her
complexion was clear and fair; her soft dark eyes looked steadily but sadly down
upon the crowd of noisy boatmen who had gathered with their boats under the side
of the ship; her neck was round, gracefully tapered, and as white as alabaster;
and the silk robe which enveloped her form was tastefully made and hung
gracefully about her person. She was evidently a Circassian of the purest type.
A servant, also neatly dressed, stood by her side holding a beautiful babe in
her arms. I was now not so much surprised at the jealous care of her stupid
husband.

We passed by Mitylene, where Paul's ship cast anchor for a night, and we spent a
few hours in its harbor. The city is a strange aggregation of ancient and modern
structures, some of its houses dating back to the days of Paul, and some, but
recently erected, presenting all the taste and beauty of a European city. We saw
the site of Troas on a slightly elevated shore, with hills of moderate height
rising above it to the right and left and in its rear. Only a very small village
occupies a part of the space which the city once covered. At 2 P. M., Tuesday,
we entered the mouth of the Dardanelles, passing between two large
fortifications which guard the entrance with heavy artillery ready for action. I
counted 30 ships under sail and 10 at anchor under bare poles about the mouth of
the strait, and before us were three steamers preceding us to Constantinople. At
the town of Dardanelles, which we reached in an hour and a half, the strait
narrows considerably, and here again are strong earth-works on either side
presenting a fearful array of enormous guns pointing toward us, all painted
white. As night closed in we were passing Galipoli', an old-looking town, and
when I arose in the morning we were "lying to" in a dense fog in the Sea of
Mar'mora. This detained us three or four hours, but at 11 A. M. we were so near
the city that a steam-tug met us and towed us into the Golden Horn.

Golden Horn The famous Golden Horn has the appearance of a river entering the
Bosphorus from the west near the mouth of the latter. Viewing it from its mouth,
it extends westward for two or three miles, with a slight curve northward, and
then narrowing curves more rapidly toward the north, presenting much the shape
of a cow's horn. It is fed at its farther extremity by a small stream, but its
water is chiefly backed water from the Bosphorus, and it is deep enough for
about half a mile from its mouth for the reception of the largest ships. South
of it lies the most ancient part of the city, now called Stamboul'; and the
eastern extremity of this, forming the apex of the angle between the Golden Horn
and the Bosphorus, is occupied by the old seraglio of the sultan, which is now
used as a national museum of antiquities. It is still the most beautiful part of
the city, and the most strictly Oriental in its appearance. The northern side of
it, viewed from across the Golden Horn, is seen in the cut on the opposite page.
When we anchored in the Golden Horn it was crowded with shipping; the great
bridge which spans it just above the anchorage was crowded from end to end with
an almost solid mass of human beings crossing from one part of the city to the
other; small steamboats, whose decks were covered with passengers from the
suburbs, were coming and going and sounding their whistles; the surface of the
harbor not occupied by large vessels was alive with row-boats transporting
passengers and baggage to and from the ships, and a babel of loud calls in
unknown tongues filled the air around me. It was enough to turn one's head, and
it required all the nerve I could command to enable me, alone in the hubbub, to
maintain my self-possession. I waited for an English-speaking boatman to address
me. Several had tried me in vain in other tongues, when a tall Greek in European
dress and wearing a straw hat drew near and spoke in good English. He was a
runner for a hotel, and upon his offering, for about two prices, to take me
ashore and guide me to an English hotel, I accepted his services and gladly bade
the Egyptian ship farewell.

We landed on the pier of Gal'ata (the lower part of the city north of the Golden
Horn, a part of which is seen in the preceding cut), and as we passed through
the custom-house an officer opened and shut my valise and asked me for
buckshîsh. I answered, "Not a copper." My dragoman begged me to give him
something, but I ordered him to move on, and told him I would not be a party to
bribery. I could not make him appreciate my reason. He led me up the steep
street which climbs the hill of Pe'ra (the upper part of the city), and secured
me a room in a very good hotel called the Hotel d' Angleterre, English Hotel. It
was kept by an old Englishman who has lived in the city a long time, and I met a
number of English people, both male and female, at the table. During the
afternoon I called on our consul, Mr. Heap, where I found several letters from
home, the first I had seen for several weeks; and I made a very pleasant visit
to Minister Maynard, whom I found an agreeable gentleman of very intellectual
appearance, and of unaffected elegance of manner.

During the 48 hours which I spent in Constantinople I was on a rush continually.
I saw the principal monuments of her antiquity and of her modern splendor. I
walked through the principal streets, and rode on horseback through most of
those more remote, and along the outer face of the old wall on the land side of
Stamboul'. It would require more space than I can here afford to speak of all
that I saw, and of the few interesting objects which I do mention I must speak
but briefly.

One of my first walks was to the large printing and publishing house of the
American mission in Stamboul', where Bibles, newspapers, and religious books of
various kinds are printed by thousands of copies in all the languages of the
Turkish empire. This is the headquarters of the Turkish missions of the
Congregational Church of the United States. A very large boarding-school for
girls, situated in Scû'tari, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus from
Stamboul', and a fine college building called Robert College, situated on the
European side of the Bosphorus 10 miles above the city, are also the property of
the American Congregationalists. All these establishments are in a flourishing
condition, and they are doing much to enlighten the people of the city. I
learned, however, upon inquiry, that the missionaries make but little headway in
the religious enlightenment of either the Mohammedans or the Greek Christians,
and that nearly all their converts are from among the Armenians. Of these people
there are a vast number—perhaps 200,000—in the city. The entire population of
the city and its various suburbs is estimated at about 1,500,000, composed of
the following nationalities in the order of their numbers,—Turks, Greeks,
Armenians, Jews, French and Italian Catholics, Germans, English.

I visited, of course, the Mosque of St. Sophia, a Christian cathedral erected in
the time of Constantine, and one of the grandest religious edifices ever
constructed. It is impressive, both within and without, by its vast extent and
massiveness, and the impression is deepened by the air of antiquity which
pervades every part of it. Among the forest of massive columns which support its
lofty ceiling and the domes of masonry which rise above it are many columns
which were brought from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. The walls and ceiling
are everywhere covered with glass mosaics, which originally presented a vast
array of life-like pictures; but the Mohammedans, when they turned the building
into a mosque, covered all these with gilt. The gilt has now become dim in
places and some of the mosaic pictures have begun to show through. On one of the
piers which support the principal dome there is the print of a bloody hand 20
feet from the floor, said to have been made by the hand of Sultan Mohammed II.
as he stood on the bodies of Christians slain in the church when he first
captured Constantinople. The following cut represents an exterior view of this
ancient and interesting building, with the Turkish additions grouped around it.

Mosque of St. Sophi'a The constant contact of Mohammedism in this city with the
enlightened Christianity of Europe has had a decided effect upon the pride and
bigotry of the Mohammedans. It is impossible for them to see from age to age the
superiority of Christian nations, and still retain toward them the feeling of
contempt which they exhibit in less favored communities. The change is manifest
in small things as well as great; for example, the grand marble mosque in which
several of the sultans are buried, including Abdul Aziz, the predecessor of the
present sultan, is the only one I visited which I was allowed to enter with my
boots on. True, even here it was not allowable that my Christian sole-leather
should touch the floor of the mosque, and to prevent this I was provided at the
door with a pair of slippers large enough to slip on over my boots. Once in a
while as I turned about I would lose one of them, for they had no upper leather
at the heel to keep them on, but the Ar'ab who attended me would quickly give me
a hunch with his elbow and motion to me to put it on again. The Mohammedans
themselves must always bare their feet on entering sacred inclosures. This is
quite a reversal of things from a Christian point of view, for while we bare our
heads on entering a holy place but keep our shoes on, they bare their feet and
keep their heads covered. In point of antiquity their custom has the advantage,
for it will be remembered that when Moses drew near to the burning bush he was
told, "Pull off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground."

Feet-Washing before Prayer The Mohammedans are also very scrupulous about
another practice in connection with their worship, which is peculiar to
themselves. They never enter the mosque to pray, nor do they pray anywhere else,
if water is at hand, without first washing their faces, hands, and feet. The
favorite method of washing the feet is to have a boy or a servant pour water on
them from a vessel. They are never dipped into, the water. The above cut is true
to life in every particular. The sultan goes to one of the mosques to pray every
Friday about noon, and this furnishes an opportunity for strangers to see him. I
took advantage of the opportunity, for I had never seen a crowned head, and the
sultan was the sovereign whom I least expected to see of all through whose
countries I passed. Three regiments of soldiers were drawn up, one on each side
of the street along which he was to pass, and one in a solid mass at the end of
the street just beyond the mosque. The sultan came out of his palace gate on a
splendid gray horse, surrounded by a dozen or more of his pashas and other chief
officers, among whom were Pashas Osman and Hobart, and followed by his
body-guard in Oriental uniform. He passed within a few steps of me, so that I
saw him very distinctly. He is a small and delicate man with a pale face. He was
dressed in a plain suit of black, with a light military cloak of the same color
hanging loosely on his shoulders, and he wore on his head the inevitable fez, as
did every other man, great and small, in the vast concourse of soldiers and
citizens. The sultan's fez was not distinguishable in shape, color, or
ornamentation from that of any other officer, soldier, or citizen on the ground.
He rode his spirited horse with ease, and when he reached the portico of the
mosque he dismounted with the grace of an experienced horseman. As he entered
the door of the mosque I heard a loud voice, pitched in a very high key, which
seemed to ring through the very sky above us. I asked my guide what it meant,
and he said it was the voice of an attendant at the mosque crying out, "Remember
that God is greater than thou; and remember that thou mustdie." It was
impressive and appropriate to the occasion. At sunset on Friday, the 26th, I set
sail on the Austrian Lloyd steamer "Hungaria" for Athens. Our ship was one of
the regular line making a bi-weekly circuit from Tri-este' by Brin'disi to
Alexandria, thence by Port Sâ'id, Joppa, and Beirût' to Constantinople, and
thence back by Brin'disi to Tri-este'. She was homeward bound, and was not to
touch at Athens, but to transfer passengers and freight bound for that city to a
much smaller vessel, which plies semi-weekly between Syra and Athens. Syra is a
city with an excellent harbor on the island of the same name in the Archipelago,
a little south of east from Athens. It has grown into considerable importance
since lines of steamers were established in the Mediterranean, in consequence of
having been selected by the different lines which cross the Archipelago as a
common place for meeting and transferring passengers and freight. Our ship
reached there early Sunday morning, and I immediately went on board the smaller
vessel bound for Athens, but she did not sail until 8.30 P. M. As there was not
a soul on board who could speak English, I spent the day in reading and writing,
except an hour or two on shore walking up and down the streets of the city. The
city is built on the side of a steep hill about 300 feet high. The houses, which
are built of yellowish limestone, rise almost like steps one above another, and
many of the streets ascend the hill by frequent flights of steps. It is a clean
and pretty place, but not intended for the use of vehicles. On Monday morning,
the 28th, we sailed into the famous harbor of Piræ'us at sunrise. I had already
seen and recognized the Acropolis of Athens as we passed the port of Phale'rum,
and the island and strait of Salamis were at my left hand as we sailed into the
harbor. The harbor, which is small but deep and landlocked, was crowded with
vessels, and the town of Piræ'us appeared full of business and activity. In
company with a Greek passenger who could speak broken English I took a carriage
for Athens, and was surprised to find that our ride of five miles was along a
smooth and beautiful turnpike, shaded by a row of trees on either side. A
railway, whose trains make the trip every half-hour, runs parallel with the
pike, but I preferred the carriage on account of the better view which it
afforded of the scenery along the way. As I rode into the city it was curious to
see all the signs over the business-houses written in Greek. I had seen many
such signs in Smyrna and some in Syra, but here it was universal. Hitherto my
conception of Greek had been that of a dead language to be found only in books,
and although I knew that the ancient alphabet was still used in Greece, I had
not thought of seeing it on the signs. The difference between the ancient and
the modern Greek is not so great as is supposed by many, but I soon learned, on
attempting to speak such Greek words as I could command, that I would have to go
to school again for the purpose of restudying the pronunciation and selection of
words before I could converse with a modern Greek.

I took a room in the Hotel Great Britain, where there was one clerk who could
speak English. The hotel fronts a beautiful little park of a few acres, and my
window, which was on the side of the building, opened on the grounds and palace
of the king of Greece. The hotel and a great many other new houses in the city
appeared to be built of a most beautiful marble, but as I could see no joints
between the blocks of marble I suspected that my eye deceived me, so I put my
hand on the wall and it felt like marble; but I was told that it is a cement
made of pulverized marble intermixed with some other substances and used as an
outside coating on a plastered wall. The wall is first built of common unhewed
stones, a heavy coating of common plaster is put on, and then it receives a
finish of this marble-cement, which is impervious to water and as smooth as a
polished marble slab. In a few years the newer portion of Athens will have the
appearance of a city built of marble, and then, with its wide streets, which are
already set with a row of shade-trees on either side, it will be a copy of Paris
on a small scale.

Mars Hill As soon as I had eaten my breakfast I started out alone, determined to
see how well I could make my way in Athens without a guide, and I directed my
courses at once toward Mars Hill, the most interesting object to me in all
Greece. The Acropolis, which rises in the southwestern part of the city high
above all the houses, being 300 feet high, was my guide, for I knew that Mars
Hill was near its western extremity. I found it without difficulty, and
approached it from its northern side.

Climbing the saddle of rock which connects it with the Acropolis, and passing
around to its southern side, I looked for the steps by which it has ever been
ascended, and there they were. The hill is a rough mass of naked rock, a coarse,
reddish marble, which rises abruptly from the sloping surface on its southern
side 30 feet high, and on its northern side about 40 feet. On the east it drops
down with a perpendicular face about 35 feet high, but toward the west it
descends by a gradual slope about 200 yards long into a narrow valley. On the
southern side, and about 40 feet from the eastern end, is the flight of steps
just mentioned, cut along the steep slope of the rock, and leading directly to
its summit. The stairway is 6 1/2 feet wide, and 16 of the original steps are
still traceable, some of them almost perfect. From the ground to the first of
these about 5 steps have been broken away, so that the entire number of steps
was originally not less than 21. The preceding cut is a very fair representation
of this dark and rough mass of rock, viewed from its southern side.

It had been my intention to climb this hill, stand in the very spot, as near as
I could determine it, where Paul stood, seat before me by imagination the
philosophers who constituted his audience, and repeat to them from Acts 17:22-31
that wonderful speech on the unknown God which I memorized many years ago. But
when I found myself actually climbing the very steps by which Paul ascended this
hill 1800 years ago, and when I stood on the summit within a few feet of the
spot on which he must have stood, my heart was too deeply stirred for utterance.
I stood awhile trembling with emotion, and then sat down and wept. I had visited
no spot in all my journey which impressed me more deeply. I sat there for hours
studying the surrounding scenery and meditating upon the events whose
remembrance crowded upon me. The top of the hill is about 90 feet across in the
widest part, and a considerable space near the top of the steps has been cut
away about 20 inches deep, leaving a kind of bench around it on three sides as
if it were intended for seats. But the bench appears to me too irregular in
height and shape to have been intended for this purpose, and I think that any
one who was not looking out for seats would suppose that it was formed
incidentally by quarrying blocks of building stones. I suppose that the original
seats occupied by the judges who held their court on this hill have long since
disappeared; and it is highly probable that in the course of ages a large
portion of the original top of the hill has been cut away. The modern city of
Athens lies entirely north and northeast of Mars Hill and the Acropolis; the
older part of the town, with its low houses and narrow streets, near by, and the
new city, with its broad avenues and handsome buildings, in the distance. The
ancient Athens was situated chiefly south of these hills, and the Agora, the
marketplace as it is called in Acts of Apostles, in which Paul disputed with the
Greeks before he was invited to the top of Mars Hill, lies immediately south of
the hill. As I sat on Mars Hill I could see distinctly, on lower ground, and
about 300 yards to the southwest, the celebrated Pnyx, a semicircular space in
the open air where the Athenians used to assemble to hear the speeches of their
great orators. The space was made level by cutting a broad bench on the
hill-side, and where the cutting in the rock was made, a platform of the natural
rock, 10 feet high and 9 feet by 11 on top, was left projecting into the
semicircular space like the platform of a modern pulpit. On this rock pulpit,
called the Beema by the Greeks, which had steps to ascend it on the right and
the left, Demosthenes and the other orators stood while they thundered their
eloquence in the ears of the people. When I stood there and looked out on the
semicircular area which accommodated an audience of 7000 people, a strong north
wind was blowing in my face, and I did not wonder that Demosthenes felt the need
of strengthening his voice by practicing on the seashore where the surf was
rolling in, so that he might be able to make himself heard in this auditorium.
It was interesting to stand on his pulpit and look up to Paul's, or on Paul's
and look down upon his, while I mentally traced the contrast between the
greatest of heathen and the greatest of Christian orators.

The Parthenon The very highest spot on the summit of the Acropolis was crowned
with the most famous of all temples of Greece, the Parthenon, so called because
it was dedicated to Minerva, the virgin goddess of Athens. It is the most
perfect model of the Doric style of architecture ever erected, and I never knew
how to appreciate the massive simplicity of that style until I walked around and
around this temple and gazed long upon it. I had seen many buildings before
which I thought grand, but since taking this temple into my mind I fail to find
enjoyment in seeing any of the great structures of Europe or America which
sacrifice simplicity and proportion to ornamentation. My taste in architecture
was revolutionized in the half-day that I spent on the Acropolis. Our cut
presents a correct outline of this temple, but it fails, as any picture but a
masterpiece of art must fail, to convey a conception of its grandeur. The
Parthenon is only 208 feet long by 101 in width, and 66 in height. Its columns
are fluted, and they are six and a half feet in diameter. The marble of the
entire structure, once a pure white, is now brown from age and exposure to
winter rains. The broken part toward the western end was prostrated by a shell
thrown into it in 1687, when Athens was besieged by the Venetians. The temple
was used as a Christian church from the sixth century to the time of the Turkish
conquest in the fifteenth century, when it was changed into a mosque; but since
its injury by the Venetian shell it has been kept, as it should have been from
the beginning, as a mere specimen of ancient art.

There are many other temples, great and small, at Athens, the greatest an
enormous temple of Jupiter, which stood on the plain east of the foot of the
Acropolis. The temple of Theseus, the best preserved of all the Greek temples,
stands about a quarter of a mile northwest of the Acropolis. But the most
pleasing and interesting of them all, and the one most revered among the ancient
Greeks, is the Erechtheum, or Temple of Erechtheus, which stands on the
Acropolis a few steps north of the Parthenon. In striking contrast with the
massive simplicity and grandeur of the Parthenon, this temple is small,
graceful, and a model specimen of the Ionic order of architecture. These two
older orders of Greek art were never presented in more appropriate forms than in
these two temples, and the contrast between them could not be seen to better
advantage than in two buildings so near each other. There is an airy grace and
beauty about the ornamentation of the Erechtheum that can be seen nowhere else;
but that which chiefly characterizes it is a porch on its southern side, called
the Porch of the Caryatides. It is a simple portico, whose floor is about eight
feet from the ground, and whose flat roof is supported by six columns in the
form of exquisitely carved female figures. Some of the figures have been
mutilated, and their broken parts have been restored. One is entirely new, but
it is carved after the original model. The chief part of the temple is in ruins,
but enough of it is left to show its original beauty.

The Erechtheum: Porch of the Caryatides

I will say nothing more of the antiquities of Athens, lest I occupy more space
with this city than I should; but I cannot pass without mention a most
gratifying evidence of its rejuvenation and of its promise of future greatness.
It has a university, established and supported by the state, embracing in its
courses of study the classics, the sciences, theology, and medicine, employing
24 professors, and annually attended by 1200 students. The students are gathered
from all the communities of the Turkish Empire in which the Greek language and
religion are known, and they are bearing the influences of modern enlightenment
wherever they go. Thus Athens is again becoming, to a large portion of the world
around her, what she once was, an educational centre. Nor does the new Athens
altogether neglect the art for which her ancient citizens were so famous. Close
by the side of the university buildings stands one of the most beautiful little
marble structures on the face of the earth, constructed after the model of the
Propyle'a of the Acropolis. Although not quite completed, it has already cost
$1,000,000, and it is to be an academy of fine arts. It is the munificent gift
to the state of a single Greek merchant who resides at Vienna, where he has made
his fortune, and who seeks to restore the ancient glory of his native city.

After spending two days in Athens, during which I saw nearly all of its objects
of interest, both ancient and modern, I was taken sick with what is called the
Greek fever, which is often fatal to strangers. I had fever continuously for two
days, but my physician, an intelligent and handsome young Greek who could speak
some English, pronounced it an ephemeral attack, and said I would soon be well
if I would immediately go to sea. I followed his advice by taking the first
steamer which sailed for Venice. I had intended to cross over to Corinth and see
much more of Greece, but I thought it better to forego that privilege than to
run the risk of fatal sickness. With a tottering step I made out to leave the
hotel on the morning of August 1st. I rode to Piræ'us on the train, and embarked
on an Italian ship bound for Venice.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 43: LETTER TWENTY-TWO: HOMEWARD BOUND
========================================================================

Letter XXII. Homeward Bound When I left Athens my journeying in Lands of the
Bible was at an end, for Mars Hill was the last spot on which I trod that was
made sacred by the feet of an Apostle. The other places of interest that I
visited, and of which I have yet to speak very briefly, were seen merely in
passing as I journeyed toward my Western home.

During the voyage of six days around to Venice, one of which was spent in the
harbor of Brindisi delivering and receiving freight, and one in that of Bari, an
ancient town higher up the Italian coast, I gradually recovered my strength. The
voyage was delightful. The Adriatic, over which we sailed, was most of the way
as smooth as a mirror; we felt no breeze except the gentle current produced by
the ship's motion; our meals were spread upon tables on the deck with an awning
above us to protect us from the heat of the sun; the air was delightfully cool
at night, and the round moon with its clear silvery light threw a peculiar charm
over mountains, islands, passing vessels, and gleaming waters. At first I knew
not that a soul on board could speak English, but as I stood at the rail after
nightfall watching the rising moon, and the long stream of glimmering light
which reflected from the broken water in the vessel's wake, I ventured a remark
on the beauty of the scene to a young girl who stood near me, and she answered
me in plain English. Her features, her dark eyes, and her black hair all
proclaimed her a Greek, and I was curious to know how she had learned English so
correctly. My inquiries led to an acquaintance with her father's family, all of
whom, to the number of eight, were on board. The old gentleman was a Greek
merchant, named Empedocles, who had lived in London, where he and all his family
had become acquainted with the English language and habits, and they were now on
a summer excursion to some of the mountain lakes of Northern Italy. They
contributed much by their pleasant conversation and gentle manners to my
enjoyment of the voyage, and when they landed at Ancona I was quite lost for
want of a single person on board with whom I could converse.

Venice, it will be remembered, is situated on a multitude of small islands in
the sea, the mainland being at least two miles distant at the nearest point. As
we approached the city, she seemed to be seated upon the water; for the walls of
the houses rise up out of the water, having their foundations beneath the
surface. Our huge iron steamer sailed into Main Street as it were, and tied to a
buoy with the Doges' palace on the right-hand side of the street and one of the
famous churches of Venice on the left. This main street is the Grand Canal,
which passes by a serpentine course entirely through the city. It has an average
width of about 200 feet, and it is two miles long. It swarms continually by day
and by night with gondolas, as the principal streets in other cities do with
omnibuses, street cars, and carriages. Other canals, usually not more than 10 or
12 feet wide, branch out from this in every direction, and wind through all
parts of the city, passing the front door of almost every dwelling. In leaving
home the people step from their door-sill into the gondola, and from the gondola
upon the door-sill of the house which they enter. When our ship had come to rest
I descended with a group of the passengers into a gondola, and called to the
gondolier the name of the hotel which I had chosen, the Hotel Victoria. Silently
we glided along between the high walls of buildings, meeting other gondolas,
turning sharp corners, passing men and boys swimming in the canals and teaching
little children to swim, until the gondolier called out "Hotel Victoria," and I
found myself at the hotel door, into which I entered at a single step. Here I
found elegant apartments, and every comfort that heart could wish. Quite a
number of English and American tourists were among the guests, though none with
whom I was inclined to seek an especial acquaintance. As in Athens, I felt like
enjoying the strange scenes about me alone, without the task of talking to new
acquaintances, or the nuisance of listening to the gabble of an officious guide.
There were few objects which I cared to see, and I knew where to find these.

Venice is the most silent city in the world. There is not a wheeled vehicle
within its limits, and one hears no sound but the hum of human voices, the tread
of human feet, and the ringing of church-bells. Not a horse, or a cow, or a
quadruped of any kind is to be found in the city, and many of the children grow
up without having seen a horse, while the more fortunate boys and girls take a
gondola ride on holidays to see some ponies which are kept as a show on one of
the suburban islands. While transportation and travel are chiefly by way of the
canals, all the islands are traversed by narrow alleys between the houses,
usually from four to eight feet wide, and the canals are crossed, where these
alleys strike them, on bridges consisting of a single stone arch with steps to
ascend it on either side.

Church of St. Mark, and Palace of the Doges The one object of supreme interest
in Venice, after beholding the strange peculiarity of the city itself, is the
vast pile of buildings one end of which is the Church of St. Mark, and the other
the Palace of the Doges. The former is one of the wonders of the religious
world. "In no other building in the world" (says the author of "Cook's Northern
Italy") "has there been lavished so costly material as in the composition of
this church; domes, columns (500 of marble on the outside), statues, mosaics,
wondrous arches, altogether make up a building that might be mistaken for an
architectural museum of all ages... It would be impossible to describe the
mosaics which fill the church; they are more brilliant and diversified and
extensive than can be seen elsewhere; nor can we refer particularly to the
wonderful marbles from all nations, executed in all ages, and representing every
style and period of art." Every country which the fleet of Venice visited when
she was mistress of the seas was laid under contribution, and made to furnish
its richest gems of art to embellish this building. As I walked slowly through
it, pausing at almost every step to gaze upon its opening grandeur, and trying
to form a distinct conception of it as a whole, I found myself awed into
weakness, and incapable of an attempt to describe it.

Tradition relates that the evangelist Mark died in Alexandria, and was buried
there in a church founded by himself, but that in the year 829 two merchants of
Venice got possession of his bones and brought them to their native city. From
that time Mark became the patron saint of Venice; this church was built in his
honor, and his bones are now said to lie under its altar. In front of the church
is the celebrated Piazza, an open space nearly 200 yards long, about 90 yards
wide at the end near the church, and about 60 wide at the farther end. This is
surrounded on three sides by a continuous palace, the lower story of which is
now devoted to shops in which the richest articles of traffic are exposed for
sale, and along whose front there is a continuous arcade with a wide pavement
between the piers of the arches and the doors of the shops. No handsomer shops
and none with a richer display of goods can be seen even in Paris.

Near the church end of the Piazza is the Campanile, or bell-tower of the church.
It is built of brick, and is nearly 40 feet square and more than 300 feet high.
It is ascended not by steps, but by a succession of inclined planes in its
interior; and from its summit one looks down upon the whole city with its canals
and islands and churches and palaces, and the circumambient sea, and the distant
mountains of Italy. Few more pleasing prospects are to be seen in the world. A
multitude of tame pigeons find homes in the numberless recesses about the walls
and roof of the church, and a decree of the Venetian Senate was long ago issued
that they should be daily fed at public expense. The cause of this singular
decree is now so little known that it is the subject of conflicting theories;
but the pigeons are still fed at two o'clock every day, and they fly down upon
the pavement of the Piazza punctually at the hour. The cut on the opposite page
presents a view of part of the Piazza, with the front of the church and of the
Doges' Palace on the left, the lower part of the Campanile on the right, and the
pigeons receiving their daily food. The four figures of horses which are seen in
the cut over the central portal are made entirely of copper, and were once
covered with gold. They are of colossal size, and they weigh about two tons
each. Their origin is in dispute, but they can be traced with certainty back to
Constantine, who sent them from Rome to Constantinople. When the Venetians
conquered the East they brought them to Venice. Napoleon seized them in 1797 and
sent them by overland conveyance to Paris; but after his final downfall, in
1815, they were restored again to Venice. Notwithstanding the fact that they are
made of metal, they have traveled more extensively than most other horses. The
Palace of the Doges, the ancient rulers of Venice, adjoins the church on its
southern side and extends thence to the Grand Canal. It is built around an open
quadrangle in the interior, with open galleries filled with statuary on all
sides of the quadrangle. The building is now a national museum of art, and it
contains one of the finest collections of paintings in Europe. At the eastern
end of the great Council Chamber, an immense hall whose walls are entirely
covered with fine paintings, is the largest picture ever painted on canvas. It
covers almost one entire end of the great hall, and is 84 feet long by 34 in
width. It is called The Glory of Paradise; and while nearly all the other
pictures in that gallery have faded from my memory, this one remains indelibly
impressed upon it. It represents Jesus seated high upon his throne near the
middle of the canvas, while around him and high above is a countless multitude
of angels extending so far away that those most remote seem lost in the dim
distance. To the right and left of these, covering all the remainder of the
immense canvas, are multitudes of human beings of all classes, conditions, and
nationalities, kings, princes, priests, gray-haired sires, venerable matrons,
young men and maidens, and many little children,—all with expressions of
unspeakable happiness stamped on every brow, and all resting in attitudes of
perfect repose. I gazed long and tearfully upon the blissful scene, until I
almost felt myself transported from earth to heaven. No other painting, among
the acres of them which I saw in various European galleries, made such an
impression on my mind.

The Bridge of Sighs

Immediately east of the palace, across a narrow canal which passes on that side,
is the prison in which criminals were formerly confined. They were brought into
the palace across a bridge which spans the canal on a level with the second
story of the palace, and which was closed in like a room, to prevent persons
below from seeing the prisoners as they passed. This is the structure which has
become immortalized under the name of "The Bridge of Sighs," simply through
Byron's mention of it in the opening stanza of his description of Venice:

"I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs— A palace and a prison on each hand.

I saw from out the waves her structures rise, As from the stroke of the
enchanter's wand."

The building on the left in the cut is the palace, that on the right the prison.
Two gondolas, correctly represented, lie in the canal, and the low bridge in the
distance is one of the foot-bridges which furnish crossings for the narrow
streets. This canal is a fair specimen of all. The entire number of canals in
the city is 146, and they are crossed by 400 bridges. The population of the city
is now about 130,000. On Thursday, August 7th, I left Venice on the one o'clock
train for Mil'an. The railway-track runs on piles from the city to the mainland,
and as there is but little tide in the Mediterranean these piles are driven down
till the track is but a few feet above the level of the water. It was curious to
look out at the windows on both sides of the car and see the water so close that
the train appeared to be running on its surface. I reached Mil'an at eleven P.
M., and was taken to one of the most elegant hotels I had seen in my travels. It
had a peculiarity which pleased me above all other European hotels. Notices were
posted in the rooms requesting the guests of the house to pay nothing to
servants, and to report to the clerk any servant who should ask for anything.
Nearly everywhere else the traveler has to run the gauntlet of all the servants
who have had a chance to serve him in any capacity. They frequently form a
double line at the hotel door as he is about to leave, and every one expects a
franc or more. Frequently these extortions are most excessive where the regular
bill is most extravagant. I commend to the traveling public the "Hotel Milan."

I stopped at Mil'an chiefly to see two objects of absorbing interest, her
cathedral and her wonderful picture of the Last Supper. I rode about the city
and found it a rich and beautiful place, but I spent most of my time with the
two objects just named.

The Cathedral of Milan The Cathedral of Mil'an is the largest and most
magnificent Gothic structure in the world. From its foundation to the top of its
spire, which is 355 feet high, it is built of marble. Its floor is a mosaic
pavement in red, blue, and white marble, and its roof is laid with enormous
slabs of marble three inches thick, the courses of which lap upon one another
like shingles. It bristles outside with a forest of spires, every one of which
is surmounted by a statue. There are statues on the exterior of the building,
including those of prophets, apostles, priests, nuns, and angels, to the
enormous number of three thousand, and there are unoccupied places provided in
the design for fifteen hundred more. The very excellent cut of the front of the
building, on the opposite page, will convey a better conception of its
appearance than any possible description. The entire length of the structure is
486 feet. The width of the main body of it is 252, while that of the transept at
the rear is 288 feet. Its interior height, from the floor to the crown of the
vaulting, is 153 feet. Within, one is lost in wonder and admiration as he gazes
upon the forest of pillars, looks up into the dim and lofty vaults which they
support, surveys the vast distances which spread out before him in the dim
light, and catches glimpses of the marble statues that stand in solemn silence
around the walls. Many objects of interest attract attention as we walk slowly
about the vast area, not the least surprising of which is the marble baptistery,
in which immersion is still performed as it ever has been by the bishop and
priests of this cathedral. The erection and ornamentation of such a building
would necessarily require a vast amount of time and money, but one is not
prepared on beholding it for the statement that its erection was commenced in
1386, and that it was not completed till within the present century. How many
churches built in America would stand five hundred years? How many there are
that crumble and must be rebuilt in less than fifty years! Yet here is one whose
foundations were laid five hundred years ago, and it has scarcely a sign of old
age about it. Unless it shall be demolished by gunpowder or by an earthquake, it
seems as if it would yet stand five times five hundred years.

Everybody in America has seen an engraving of the Last Supper of our Lord,
copied from a great painting of that subject by West. But West copied from an
old fresco in a very old and insignificant church in Mil'an. It is painted on an
old wall, the end wall of a room adjoining the church which was once used by the
priests as a dining-hall. The painting is 28 feet long, and the figures are
somewhat larger than life. The wall on which it was painted is much broken and
picked; but the figures, notwithstanding this injury, seem instinct with thought
and feeling, and appear almost like living forms standing in the rear of the
roughened surface. The moment represented by it is when Jesus had declared that
one should betray him, and John, at Peter's request, was about to ask Jesus who
it was. The distinctions of character displayed in the twelve faces, while all
were at the same moment moved by a common impulse, are truly marvelous. I sat a
long time, as others did who were present, studying in silence every face, and
realizing the scene itself as I had never realized it before. The incomparable
excellence of the work was the more deeply impressed on my mind by the
circumstance that there were six copies of it in the room, all evidently the
work of good artists, and all standing on their easels to be sold to visitors;
yet not one of them had the true expression of a single face in the original.
When I saw this my soul bowed in profound reverence before the genius of
Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the original more than four hundred years ago,
and I honored the Milanese for the statue of their great artist which they have
recently erected in one of their public squares. On the afternoon of Friday,
August 8th, I took the four o'clock train for Paris via Turin and the Mont Cenis
tunnel. The ride through Lombardy and into Piedmont was hot and dusty, but it
presented to view a rich, beautiful, and highly cultivated country. Among the
agricultural products on the wayside, I was surprised to see many fields of
Indian corn, some of which would not have done discredit to a blue-grass farm in
Kentucky.

During the whole afternoon I was sweltering in a linen suit; but when the train
had climbed for a few hours up the steep grades of the Alps, I became so chilled
that I was compelled to make a change of clothing. Fortunately there were no
ladies in our compartment, so after asking two Germans, my only companions, to
excuse me, I deliberately made the change. Later in the night, having made a
change of cars, I found myself by the side of a lady whom I took to be either a
French lady or an Italian. There were several other persons in the compartment,
who conversed in foreign tongues, while I sat as dumb as if I had no tongue at
all. At last, after about two hours, I ventured a remark to the lady, and she
answered promptly in plain English. I found that she was an American, and about
as anxious for some one to talk to as I was.

We ran through Southern France on the 9th of August, and I was surprised to find
the farmers in the midst of their harvest. I had seen the beginning of harvest
in the Valley of the Jordan as far back as the 20th of April; I had seen it in
progress on the Lebanon Mountains on the 2nd of July; and now I saw it again on
the 9th of August in sunny France,—three months and a half of harvest time.

I reached Paris on Saturday at five P. M., having run thither in 25 hours from
Mil'an, and I remained there until the afternoon of the following Wednesday,
when I left for London, and reached the latter city at midnight. I had
unexpectedly overtaken Frank in Paris; and Brother Taylor, who had made a short
visit to Scotland, rejoined me in London. Brother Earl had already reached his
home in Southampton.

After spending two days in London, during which I had visited the Tower, St.
Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum, I was again taken
sick and confined for the next four days. I had just finished examining the
Alexandrian Manuscript, a Greek copy of the Bible written in the fifth century,
the most interesting object to me among all the countless wonders of that vast
museum, when I felt the approach of an ague and returned to my hotel. A doctor
was called in, and quinine was of course the principal remedy; but in utter
contempt for my American gelatine-coated quinine pills, the cruel man insisted
on pouring down my throat the bitter stuff in solution, its very bitterest form,
and my stomach was tormented with the remedy as much as my head and back were
with the disease. The English are slow to accept any improvement which
originates in America. As the steamer "Indiana," on which I had engaged passage
for Philadelphia, was to sail on August 19th, I was constrained to leave London
as soon as I could leave my room. I was disappointed in not seeing more of its
wonders, and in not seeing some friends on whom I had promised to call in other
cities of England. Our homeward voyage across the Atlantic was void of incidents
worthy of particular mention. I reached Lexington in a cold rain on the evening
of September 2d, just six months after my departure. A missionary convention of
my brethren in the State of Kentucky was in session. I first repaired with my
wife and eldest son, who met me at the depot, to my own house, where greetings
were exchanged such as are known only to the sacred circle of home after a long
and perilous separation. Then for the first time I broke to my weeping wife and
children the news of my almost fatal disaster in the Mediterranean Sea. I am
sure that when we bowed around the family altar that night, our hearts drew a
little nearer to God and to one another than ever before. The next day, when I
appeared among the multitude of my fellow-laborers in the gospel, related to
them the hitherto untold perils of my journey, and received their tearful
congratulations, I was reminded again of the parting scene in that same house
six months before, and I could scarcely decide which was the more painful and
tearful, the parting or the meeting. Our holiest joys and our deepest sorrows,
while tabernacling in the flesh, are much alike in the strain which they make
upon our hearts. May I close this, my last letter, by expressing the wish that
every reader who has followed me in my journey to the earthly Canaan may also
journey with me and I with him to that upper and better Canaan of which this is
but a feeble type?


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  CHAPTER 44: ***APPENDIX: DR. VARTAN'S OBSERVATIONS***
========================================================================

Appendix.

Dr. Vartan's Observations At Nazareth

1869-1870 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

88.02°

68.76°

August

91.11

69.36

September

88.04

66.45

October

87.07

64.33

November

71.42

55.87

December

63.78

48.82

January

64.07

48.41

February

66.37

45.86

March

68.47

51.57

April

67.40

48.26

May

89.63

65.73

June

89.10

63.87

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

78.12°

57.94°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

104.40°, May

36.5°, February

Annual amount of rain, 16.23 inches. Rain from October till April.

1870-1871 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

90.28°

67.93°

August

88.48

67.96

September

85.50

65.52

October

68.37

60.73

November

76.04

59.73

December

65.19

51.87

January

62.58

48.10

February

59.29

43.40

March

62.67

48.11

April

75.09

53.37

May

83.57

58.30

June

62.29

55.08

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

75.17°

57.27°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

107.2°, May

33°, February

Annual amount of rain, 22.03 inches. Rain from October till May.

1871-1872 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

90.03°

65.19°

August

86.52

68.74

September

85.03

64.45

October

82.09

63.19

November

76.97

59.90

December

60.00

50.06

January

58.65

44.55

February

58.78

44.51

March

68.56

51.00

April

72.82

52.32

May

80.31

50.92

June

83.51

65.62

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

75.27°

56.70°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

100.7°, June

39°, February

Annual amount of rain, 26.87 inches. Rain from September till May.

1872-1873 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

87.51°

65.53°

August

88.72

67.53

September

89.17

67.30

October

83.29

63.63

November

74.35

58.12

December

63.98

50.19

January

65.28

45.70

February

65.62

47.40

March

69.30

51.00

April

81.37

56.75

May

88.11

63.59

June

84.12

62.73

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

78.65°

58.29°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

108.3°, May

34.9°, February

Annual amount of rain, 14.74 inches. Rain from October till May.

1873-1874 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

90.36°

60.00°

August

92.06

67.50

September

87.80

65.69

October

86.89

63.90

November

74.33

57.62

December

60.67

46.12

January

55.76

41.59

February

56.39

41.55

March

57.66

41.56

April

75.83

54.00

May

82.98

60.91

June

86.32

62.56

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

74.75°

55.75°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

105°, May

33°, February

Annual amount of rain, 33.425 inches. Rain from October till April.

1874-1875 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

89.66°

66.38°

August

89.88

68.04

September

87.99

65.59

October

84.62

61.81

November

77.00

58.84

December

67.08

50.16

January

55.48

41.05

February

61.28

45.48

March

62.07

45.55

April

67.19

49.83

May

77.41

54.93

June

86.27

64.20

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

75.49°

55.99°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

97.2°, May

26.8°, January

Annual amount of rain, 30.45 inches. Rain from October till May.

1875-1876 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

89.84°

66.68°

August

88.88

66.26

September

84.13

61.93

October

66.15

61.47

November

72.65

53.16

December

62.90

45.14

January

57.11

40.46

February

62.95

44.76

March

72.54

51.87

April

79.28

56.33

May

86.35

62.25

June

84.56

63.75

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

77.27°

56.17°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

106°, May

32.5°, January

Annual amount of rain, 15.98 inches. Rain from November till May.

1876-1877 Monthly Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

July

88.50°

65.33°

August

89.80

66.77

September

90.15

66.51

October

86.82

62.33

November

72.17

55.04

December

68.94

50.98

January

62.26

43.64

February

59.55

45.47

March

70.18

50.14

April

78.46

55.24

May

85.31

59.61

June

87.30

63.66

Annual Mean Temperature

Max.

Min.

76.78°

57.06°

Annual Range

Max.

Min.

103°, May

38°, February

Annual amount of rain, 29.305 inches. Rain from October till May.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/mcgarvey-jw-lands-of-the-bible/
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