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Lea diagrammas suivants lllustrent la mAthode. errata to pelura. bnA n 3tX 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^..-.-v^-^ ,.;3S«Srt-- ;^.^^ ■ .,-:::fe^ ^>^;^ '^'^-r: . ^SS«^^- i '4 / Hi .^••'■jt'ii;'' •^v.;i '^a^ v^ i\ ■-^^ ^ \ i-^^^ 1^^ t- ■ ^ »* ■t^r ^ >■■ ■ ^ ■ ■■■• •■.. ^. i t 'V^,^. >i-^ "^4 a' 1*^ 3^ i j >^'- ^ » ^- t' ^ V - -■ - V .'' .•,.>'^"'"- ^^^ fnie Citadel of Jerusalem. (Seen from the Valley of Himum). (See page asft.) ^-\ » i iNfY IM'\) \m TIfE BIBLE. ■■'H)K UJM' \ . O^.S' G^XTHiaUv}) ' iKlK, D.D. ,x- TTx-^-, Vol; MKK vv UN T> :'<> iJEN, IMIBLISII *<^ ^ '.*.!, -rj.*': t •t;*?^:;|(?h.%l«Jtii-J|g^^^V*"f^ ,f^?l ". >. 'M ■I'! ■"'*i'>.l ',•■/■■ 1 f -w-V i';;i; :t: :M >■■ ' :'<.:■ ■Ji^^-I' V m. W'-pi^.'i'^'^'' ' m. ^i: 'i'li i^' ■'■.4 ■ i 'y-M::Jf- ■{■ .''■' \ y'k^ ' it!k.t.- • " ■■- .• : '■'■■■■;' vi* fi.."'" ■■l*'"-^^^^- .<,;S^ ' ■ v.;;"; 'H; f HO LjLyy,^^ LA,y-^ » /^tMCH A^ lUli HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. A BOOK OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS GATHERED IN PALESTINE. BY CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., Vicar of St. ^fartin's at Palnce, NoruHch. ^'\'.«' WITH A MAP OF PALESTINE, AND 213 ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM THE CELEBRATED GERMAN WORK OF DR. OEORO EBERS. ,.w- m TWO VOLUMES. VOL. L ^ NEW YORK: JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. 1888. fl H*jl By / n PREFACE. I MUST urge it in explanation of my adding to the already copious literature treating, from one aspect or another, of the Holy Land, that the aim I have had in view in writing this book has been different from that of nearly every other work on Palestine, and that, if I have been able to carry it out suc- cessfully, the result should unquestionably prove veiy useful. I visited Palestine with the intention of gathering illustra- tions of the sacred writings from its hills and valleys, its rivers and lakes, its plains and uplands, its plants and animals, its skies, its soil, and, above all, from the pictures of ancient times still presented on every side in the daily life of its people. Nothing is more instructive or can be more charming, when reading Scripture, than the illumination of its texts from such sources, throwing light upon its constantly recurring Oriental iiliagery and local allusions, and revealing the exact meaning of words and phrases which otherwise could not be adequately understood. Its simple narratives, its divine poetry, its pi'o- phetic visions, its varied teachings, alike catch additional vivid- ness and force when read with the aid of such knowledge. The Land is, in fact, a natural commentary on the sacred writ- ings which it has given to us, and we study them as jt were amidst the life, the scenery, and the local peculiarities which surrounded those to whom the Scriptures were first addressed. While describing the various districts of the Holy Land and while noting their ancient sites, their past history, and tliew* IV PREFACK. IM'esent state, I have MHiglit to gather at every step contiibu- tions towards the illustration of the insnired text from every local source. A glance at the Table of Contents will show tiiat all the country is brought before the reader in successive portions, from the extreme south to its northern limits: that is from Beereheba to Damascus, Baalbek, and Beirout — an area including the whole Palestine of the Old and New Testaments. The numerous Scripture passages quoted have been taken, as seemed most advantageous for the reader, from the Authorized or the Revised Versions^ or from the Greek or Hebrew texts ; and variations from the ordinary I'enderings have V)een made where, in order to express the full meaning of the original, such a course seened necessary. C. G. AMERICAN PUBLISHER'S NOTICE. The English edition of this work is not illustrated. To the present edition about 200 illustrations have been added, taken, principally, fi*om the celebrated German work on Pales- tine by Dr. Georg Ebers. -♦t 1 CONTENTS VOLUMi: I. H» 1 I. Joppa and its Neighhorliood, - - - 7 II. Lyddah— Ramleli, - ... . - 22 III. The Plain of Sharon, W IV. X'ajsarea— Athlit, ...... 42 V. Tlio Pliilistino Plain and Samson's Country, - - 56 VI. Localities Famous in David's Life, - • - 70 VII. Ashdod— Mejdel, 83 VIII. Gaza, --.-... 100 IX. Ascalon, - . - . - . 120 X. On the way to Gerar, - - - - - 133 XL Gerar, 141) XII. IJeersljeba, - - - - - - 159 XIII. Gaza to Falujeh, - - - - - 168 XIV. Falujeh to Beit Jibrin.— The Road Thence to Hebron, - 183 XV. Hebron, 197 XVI. The Country South of Hebron, - " - - - 216 XVII. The Country North of Hebron, - - - 230 XVIII. Urtas, - - 241 XIX. Bethlehem, - 252 XX. Bethlehem to Jerusalem, - - • - 271 XXI. Jerusalem, 284 XXII. Jerusalem {continued)^ .... - 302 XXIII. Jerusalem {continued)^ - - - - 318 XXIV, Round Jerusalem, - - ,. - . 335 i 4. LIST OF ILLUSTRAT10N& u 1 Tlio Citadel of Jornsalein, • - - Frontispiece. 2 View of tiie Harbor of Joppa, • - - • 8 3 Water wheel ill a Garden near Joppa, - • • 12 4 A Jkzar in Joppa, ...-.- 10 5 Tiio Honso of 8inion the Tanner, ... - 20 6 At the Moscjuo in Jappa, - • - - -24 7 Fountain Abu Nabat near Joppa, • - • • * 28 8 Church of St. George in Lvdda, - - - - 32 9 View from a Window of the Tower of Ramleh towards the East e East, - - - . - - 5rt 16 Nebi Jamin, Moslem Tomb near Kefr Saba, - - - 58 17 Fragment of the City Wall of Ctesarea from the Middle Ages, 00 18 On tiie Beach at Ctesarea, ..... 62 19 The Mediterranean seen through the Ruins of a pointed Gothic Arch at Athlit, - . - - . 64 20 Ruins of Athlit (West Side), - - - - - 66 21 Bedouin from Hauran, ..... 68 22 Yabneli, the ancient Jabneel, - - - - - 70 23 Wady-es-Surar, ...... 72 24 Surah, Ancient Zorah, Birth-place of Samson, - • - 74 25 Tibneh, Ancient Timnath, Home of Samson's Bride, - - 76 26 Wady-es-Sunt, the Ancient Valley of Elah, the Scene of David's Encounter with Goliath, - - - - 78 27 Valley and Ruins of Charetun, seen from the Cave oi Adullam, 80 28 Gallery witii Guest Chamber in the Monastery of St. Catherine, - 82 29 Fellah Ploughing in the Neighborhood of Tell-es-Safieh, - 84 30 Alluvial Deposits in Wady Firan, - - - - - 86 31 Esdnd, Ancient Ashdod, " - - - . . 88 32 El-Medjel on the Road from Ashkelon to Jerusalem, - - 92 33 Threshi'ng-Sledge on a Threshing Floor in the Nile Delta, • 96 34 A Threshing Floor, ...... loo 35 Kassa, Ancient Gaza, - - - - - - 104 36 Potters in Raschejet el Fochar, - - - - 110 37 Ruins of Ascalon from the North, - • - - ' 116 38 Bnttermaking in Syria, - - - - - 126 99 Site of the Ancient Beersheba, • • • • - 189 'v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 40 Bedouins of Towara, . . . . - 41 Ruins of St. John's Church near Beit Jibrin, 42 Interior of a Great Cavern Beit Jibrin, 43 View from Beit Jibrin toward the Mediterranean, 44 View of Hebron from " Abraham's Oak," - 45 Pools of Hebron, - - - ' - 46 Ruins of a Weli, South of Hebron, 47 After the Meal, ...... 48 Solomon's Pools, .--... 49 Herodium or Frank Mountains seen from Bethlehem, - 50 The Dead Sea seen from the Frank Mountains, 51 Wilderness of Judca near Engedi, - -, - . 52 Pethlehem seen from the Southwest, 53 Mother-of-Pearl Workers in Betlilehem, 54 Chapel of the Nativity under the Church of Mary, at Bethlehem, 55 David's Well at Bethlehem, - - ... 56 Pasture near Bethlehem ; Mountains of Moab, 57 Pasture near Bethlehem, ..... 58 Tomb of Rachel, ... 59 A Jewish Cotton Cleaner, - • 60 Tower of David, Jerusalem, - - - ' - 61 Hezekiah's Pool, ...... 62 Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulclier, 63 Chapel of the Holy Sepulclier, .... 64 Street Cafe in Jerusalem, - - - 65 Stairway leading to Church of St. John, Patriarch of Alexandria, 66 Grocer's Stall in Jerusalem, - . . - . 67 Shoemaker's Shop in Jerusalem, .... 68 Pool of Bethesda, ...... 69 South Wall of the Harem Esh-Sherif, 70 ^Northwest Corner of the Harem Esh-Sherif, 71 Interior of the Mosque of Omar, .... 72 Cave under the Great Rock on Mount Moriah, - 73 Old Cypress Trees in the Garden of Harem Es-Sherif, 74 The Wailing Place of the Jews, .... 75 Tomb of David, 76 The Joppa Gate at Jerusalem, - . . - . 77 Valley of Hinnom from the Northwest Corner of the C;!ity, 78 Lower Part of the Valley of Hinnom, 79 Valley of Hinnom, - - 80 Aceldama, ....... 81 Upper Pool of Siloam, ..... 82 Job's Well, 83 Olive Grove below Job's Well, .... 84 Ruins of Siloam seen from Jacob's Tomb, 14«I ■r , 156 ■1 1 166 1 \ 1V6 ■ 1 186 1 196 Si ^1 206 Jb « 216 ^B m 226 ^^Hi 'B 236 ^^Hi 246 H: : 250 ^E 254 ^H 258 B '^ 260 B > 264 ^^^H' 268 H ' 270 ^^Bt 272 ^^^St* 276 wf' 280 Mm* 292 ft 294 '■^■i? 300 Hfei 302 304 ^H ili 306 Km 308 m|: , 310 iK' 312 ^ 314 ■j 316 W' ' 318 Ki 320 B^ 324 j|fe, 326 xl 330 ti| 334 |i> 336 338 H r.' 340 i ' 342 i 344 1 346 J[\ 348 Wf k li 1 \ 'U f 1 a M ; ■i ^ I t fe-^; l-M miii":y- 'B U, ' '' y-'^ ( tM i mtJ y;jij « U M»' a;i i'n;' - ii "jy ' . ' 4^ Ljy-. ' W' » y'-.|^ ' ' m.j' l^ '-sy- ^^ODI^tfV 'm V /■ M "TTT ,5- M ■ ^ I ■i mm Accompanying Dr. Geikie's "The H< ^E [ 1 ' A 30' B I 30' J ■< nKetak f ^ V^'-4"'>~ s T^tti >3ni(n(Ulii».) f, ~' '"■«*.<,.*.« I JCillnlel-m iKtu-Stt ." Jibii> I'. I !■' I I ^r "iliiii iriii ant I Uamira Knnttl 'Simil S>'i>»nll 24 25 26 ^" 28 29 30 m^ B«>Fa ■ KHrfHll BrR-JIbrlao^ S)wiUi««*ll«) LMukam *" »o Bmrmi BAtI H niliail ► #'mMim * Urn J I ..Anr ' s JM^" !Xlian Yiinat lea .^8.,J3 A B $!»■ Xhvi,, S«bala_ ^Zlklag) I » R«qd,McNally * Cu.,En('r>,Chlcii(o (Zlfih) -^Kuiherahba Khautirth ( Hazor IlkiiSir, Sialif i>rsialiiir Milr. F E T E iE A J»I(k1IimU Ea«t m>ttt \Va. trousers; brown Levantines in European dress; Syrians or Egyptians, in turbans and flowing robes of all shades, press towards the stairs, many of them throwing their softer packages over the ship's side into the boat they have chosen, to facilitate their departure. Bare legs and feet are mingled with French boots and red or yellow slippers ; smooth faces, with formidable black beards, or venerable white ones. But the storm is too violent to last. Each minute sees it by degrees subside, as boat after boat shoots off under the oar-strokes of strong-armed rowers, no less strange in their dress than any of their passengers. The boats for Europeans and those who shrink from the native crowd, have not long to wait, and at last we too are sweeping towards the town. But it needs skill as well as strength to make the voyage safely. The nearly flat-bottomed cobles have to steer througn an opening in the reefs only about a hundred feet wide, and the swell which rises with the daily forenoon land breeze may carr^ them too much to one side or the other. If the sea be rough there is real dan- ger, for boats are occasionally lost, and as sharks are not unknown, they and the water offer two ways out of the world. The rocks stretch north and south before the town, in a semicircle, some of them rising high out of the water; others only indicated by the surf breaking over them; the perilous entrance being known only to the local boatmen. Once through it, however, danger is past, and we find ourselves in a broad but shallow harbor. There is a wider opening to the north, seldom used on account of it3 distance from the port; and there was once, apparently, a third place of possible landing, at the Moon-pool, to the south, but this has long been closed by silt and sand. Landing is itself a new sensation for Europeans. Some twenty or thirty yards from the shore you are seized and carried off in the bare arms or on the back of a boatman; the water being too shallow to permit a nearer approach to the old tumble-down quay, juilt of stones from the ruins of Caesarea ; the base or capital of a pillar sticking out here and there, mixed with great bevelled blocks of conjectural anti- quity. Strong arms lift and push you up a rough step or two, and you are fairly ashore, to find yourself amidst the houses, streets, and people of a new world. There has always been the same difficulty in landing, for the rocks have been as formidable from the beginning of time, the water over them as treacherous, and the inside bay as shallow offshore, so that you have fared no worse than bead-eyed Greeks or hook-nosed Eomans did thousands of years ago. While Palestine was held by the Chris- tian nations, Venice organized a spring ^nd autumn packet-service to Joppa, and built a mole, of which the remains were still visible last century, to protect the shipping. It appears, liowever, to have been of little use, and since then, under the Arab and Turk, everything has t 4 4^ y VIEW OF THE HARBOR OF JOFPA. i I i M JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 4 I i rela[)8od into a state of nature. On a coast so exposed t!ie beach must always have been strewn with wrecks after great storms, before steam enabled vessels to bear out to sea and e.soape. About thirty years ago the remains of a galley of great antiquity were dug up, in some exca- vations on the shore ; and Josephus tells us of a terrible loss of life in a gale oft* the port in the reign of Vespasian.^ Phoenician, Egyptian, Syrian, Roman, Crusading, and modern fleets have all alike paid their tribute to the angry waters. But I must mount my donkey and get to the hotel, at the north end of the town. No trouble has been given at the Custom House; in- deed, I had nothing to do witii it, a dragoman, or guide, who speaks English, managing all, for me and the rest of tlie European passengers. The road leads along a miserable apology for a street. Once paved, the stones liave long ago risen or sunk into the ideal of roughness. No thought of drainage crosses the mind of an Oriental ; the space before his door serving for a sewer. Dust-bins are equally a Western inno- vation, of which the East has not heard, so that every kind of foulness and abomination bestrews the way, or rises in pestilent heaps at its side. The buildings are of stone, with little or no wood in any part, timber being so scarce in Palestine that stone is used instead. The arch is, hence, universal, alike in places of business, houses, piazzas, or offices. As you jog on, you see that no light enters the shops except from the front — that they are, in fact, like miniatures of the gloomy holes made out of railway-arches among us. Still on, till we pass under an arch over which is built the chief mosque of the town, with a six-sided minaret on the right side of it surmounted by a narrow projecting bal- cony for the mueziiu, when he calls the faithful to prayers; a veran- dah-like roof sheltering him on all sides, with a short, round, dome- topped tower, of smaller diameter than the rest of the minaret, rising as its crown above. Stalls of all kinds abound. Tables of cakes or sweetmeats line the narrow street, which is more or less shaded by rude awnings of mats— often sorely dilapidated — or breadths of tent- cloth, or loose boards, resting on a rickety substructure of poles stuck where the owner pleases. The emptyings of carts of stone would make as good a pavement, and the same rich aroma of sewage from the houses as we have already inhaled follows us all the way. A turbaned water-carrier with a huge skin bottle on his back — a defunct calf, in fact, filled with water instead of veal, and minus head, legs, and. tail — forces us to turn to one side, to pass him. A bare-armed and bare- legged apparition in a ragged skull-cap, cotton jacket, and cotton knickerbockers of very simple pattern, is chaflfering with a road-side huckster for some delicacy costing a farthing or two, from some of the mat baskets on a table ; the bearded vendor, bare-armed and with bare 1 Jos. BOL Jud., iil. 9, 3. Even Josepbus describes Joppa as not naturally a harbor. 10 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. tour. legs, sitting, as lio tries to sell, his head swollen out with a white-and- red turban, and his body in striped pink-and-white cotton. Of course there is a lounger at his side looking on. An Arab in his "kefiyeh," or head-shawl, with a band of camels'-hair rope, very soft, round his head, to keep the flowing gear in its place, and a brown-and-white striped "abba" for his outer dress, is trying to cheapen a bridle at a saddler's, who sits cross-legged on a counter running along the street, under a shaky projection of wood and reeds, which gives him much- needed shade. At last we emerge into freer air. There is no longer the pretence of stone under-foot, but, rather, mud beaten hard oy traffic, so long as rr.in does not soften it into a quagmire. Had we fone up the face of the hill, many of the streets would have required js to mount by long flights of steps, while the road along the top of the hill to the south is simply a bed of deep, dry sand. Outside the town on the north, however, after passing through the open space where markets are held on fixed days, a pleasant lane, reminding one of Devonshire by its hedge of brambles, with nettles and grass below, leads to the modest quarters where I was to stay. Intervals of prickly pear, a huge ungainly cactus, bristling with sharp spines, constantly Drought one back from the West to the East, and the landscape from my window did so no less. From the sea, Joppa appears to be hemmed in with barren sand-hills, but, on nearer approach, a fringe of green borders it both north and south. These are the famous orange- groves, from which literally millions of the golden fruit are gathered in a good year. They stretch inland about a mile and a half, and ex- tend north and south over a length of two miles. My room looked out on a sea of orangeries, glowing with countless golden globes, which formed a charming contrast to the rich green leaves. Other orchards of pomegranates, lemons, almonds, peaches, apricots, bananas, and citrons, are numerous; for beneath the sand blown in from the sea the soil is rich and fertile. It is no wonder that Joppa has always been a famous summer retreat from Jerusalem. The shady paradise of its groves, and the cool sea-breeze, are a great attraction. Sea-bathing would be another charm for Europeans, but Orientals have curious notions about cleanliness. Hence no use is made of the shore for bathing. As.se8 and camels, laden with boxes of oranges, pass continually to the port. Great heaps of the fruit lie ready for packing. Each tree has a num- ber of stems, and every twig i& heavily laden. Whi te blossoms alternate with yellow fruit on the same branch. Here in Joppa the orange is grafted on the stock of a lemon, the produce being oval instead of round, and incapable of propagation from seeds. The harvest is everywhere immense, the abundance of water being the secret of this fertility. Wherever a well is sunk in the orchards, it is sure to tap a spiing at a very moderate depth. It seems, in fact, t t L) JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 11 '? t at) if a great subterranean stream runs oontinuallv from the hills towards the sea, under the whole of the lowlands, from above Joppa to Beersheba in the far south ; for water can be had everywhere ira well bo dug. The rains which fall on the porous strata ot the moun- tains, or on the soft bosom of the plains, filter downwards till stopped, not far below the surface, by a bed of hard limestone, which turns them off in a vast perennial stream, down its slope, towards the west. Every orchard has thus ample means of irrigation, eft'ected by count- less clumsy water-wheels, the creaking of which never ceases. These ingenious contrivances, though rudely enough put together, are at once simple and efficient. An ox, a mule, or an ass, yoked to a long pole, projecting from the side of a thick upright post and driven slowly round, turns this beam, which carries on its top a large horizontal wheel, with numerous wooden teeth, working into another wheel set up and down, and joined by a long wooden axle to a third, revolving, mill fashion, into and out of the well. This lets down and draws up in turn, as it goes round, a series of pottery jars, or wooden buckets, fastened to it at short intervals by two thick, endless ropes of palm- fibre or myrtle-twigs, the roughness of which keeps them from slip- ping. As the jars or buckets pass over the top of the wheel, full of water, they empty themselves into a large trough, from which the life- giving stream runs into a little canal leading it through the orchard. Tliis is tapped every here and there on its way, and thus furnishes numberless brooklets to moisten the roots of each tree ; so that all, in effect, are planted "by the streams of waters."^ Modifications of the water-wheel are naturally met with in diflPerent parts of Palestine and Syria. Thus, on the Orontes, huge wheels, varying in diameter from fifteen to ninety feet, are set up between strong walls at the edge of the river, so that in revolving, by the force of the current, the rim, armed with a series of wooden buckets, dips into the water and fills each in succession, carrying the whole round with it till, as they begin to descend, after passing the top of the circle, the contents are discharged into a trough leading to a raised tank, from which little canals run off through the neighboring gardens. This, it is said, was the machine by which water was raised from ter-' race to terrace of the " hanging gardens " of Babylon, to a height, in all, of four hundred feet, though the contriver of these wonderful imitations of a wooded mountain was wise enough to conceal, behind great walls, the means by which he kept it green.^ In many places, however, very simple wheels are sufficient, when the water is near the surface. Thus, at the Virgin's Tree, near Cairo, and in many parts of the sea- plain of Palestine, a horizontal cog-wheel, fixed on an upright shaft, from which a long pole projects at one side, works diieotly into an lFB.L8(BeTi8edyeraioD). 2 Dlod. Sic, U. U. 18 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [CHAP. upright wheel, hung with wooden hucicetH or earthenware jnr8, which, in turn, dip under the water, and duly empty their conteutH, as the wheel revolves, into a trough. A blindibldcd ox at tho outer end of the polo keeps the whole in motion us it paces round and round. Flower-beds and gardens of herbs are always made iit a little lower level than ihe surrounding ground, and arc divided into small scjuares; a slight edging of earth banking the whole round on each side. Water is then let in, and floods the entire surface till the soil is thoroughly saturated ; after which tho moisture is turned olV to unotiier bed, by simply closing the opening in the one under water, by a turn of tho bare foot of the gardener, and nuUving another in the same way with the foot, in the next bed, and thus the whole garden is in djo cour.se watered, though the poor gardener has a miserable task, paddlin^^' bare legged in the mud hour after hour. It is to such a custom, doubtless, that Moses refers when ho speaks of Egypt as " a land where thou sowedst thv seed, and watcredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs,"^ and it is also alluded to in Proverbs, where we read that " the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the water-courses; lie turneth it whithersoever Ho will.''^ Only, in this case, the hand is supposed to make the gap in the clay bank of the streamlet, to divert the current. There used to bo a wheel in Egypt worked by a man's feet treading on steps in its circumfei'encc, and thus forcing it round ; a horizontal support over his head, held by the hands, keeping him up while doing so. But such a literal treadmill is not so likely to be the watering with the foot to which Moses referred, though small wheels of this kind are still to be seen in Palestine.^ In front of my window, and on the right, the sand blown from the shore stretched along the coast, as it does everywhere in Palestine. The gardens of Joppa have been won from it by industry and irrigation, which needs only to be extended to in(Mouse at pleasure the area of supreme fertility. A palm-tree rose in the yard below, and a few more showed themselves here and there, clumps of other trees, also, brightening the view at dift'erent points. To the left, a burial- ground lay among scattered houses, and then came the town, standing out from the shore almost the whole breadth of its hill, up the steep slope of which rose its flat-roofed houses, white, grey, and red, shutting out all beyond. A tank for watering the orangery near the "hotel" filled a yard close at hand, while a set of sheds, built alongside it, 1 Deut. xl. 10. 2 Prov. xxi. 1, 2. 3 Robinson, Bib. Researches, i. 542, thinks that the point in the reference of Moses is not to t)ie distribution of the water, but ratlier to tlie supply. He wouid therefore regard the wheel turned by tlie foot as the mode of watering referred to by Moses. Niebuhr gives a sketcii of such a wlieel which lie saw in Egypt. The laborer sits on a level with presses the lower part from him witii h'is fee where David killed Goliath. the axis pf the wlieel, and turns it by pulling the upper part to him witii his hands, while he ' I, " ' ' 3oliath. It was sixty fe UK over the wheel ; a mai ll. U< leading to the lUils of Judab (Ui. 21). Hxed to a rope passing over the wheel ; a man and feet (11. Robinson saw such a well in the Wady es Sunt, deep, and the water was drawn up by buckets pulling and pushing the wheel round with hands It was sixty feet deep, and the water was drawn up by buckets he wheel ; a man pulling and pushing the wheel round witi He saw also another wheel like tLls in the same dlstrlo^-the sloping uplands r LI JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 18 V r I 't^ showed the special characteristic of Palestine architecture in a series of massive stone arches, strong enough for a castle. All the houses, or most of them, are equally solid. Stone, as I have said, costs little, and wood is expensive, so that to enable the builder to dispense with timber, everything is arched. Sheds, verandahs, rooms, upstairs or on the ground floor, are all alike a conglomeration of arches, strong enough to bear stone floors, or floors of cement. If no earthquake pay a flying visit to Joppa, its houses, one might think, will stand for ever. In front of all tins prodigality of stone and lime, stretched. out the blue sea, with some steamers at anchor in the roadstead ; the sky above, as I looked, almost equally divided between the deepest blue, and fleecy snow-white clouds. Joppa is a very busy place, and offers in its one or two streets of shops — for there are very few in the hiPy part of the town — a con- stantly changing picture of Eastern life. These shops, as 1 have said, are simply arches, open by day, but closed at night, and standing in the sweetest independence of all ideas of regularity of position. At some parts the sides of the street are comparatively near each other, but at one place they bend so far back as to leave a wide space for an open-air market. Everywhere, however, it is the same under-foot. By night you need a lantern, or at least a pilot ben ring one before you, to guide you clear of the holes, pools, rivulets of sewage, mounds ol" rubbish, blocks of stone, and varying uncleanness. Like all other Eastern towns, it is hardly lighted at all: the very few oil lamps hung up at distant intervals by private individuals before their houses serv- ing ro really useful purpose. The windows of an Eastern house, as a rule, look into the court at the back, so that none are seen from the street, except when there is a second story. But even in this case little light is gained, as such windows are small, and darkened by lat- tices. This open woodwork is, indeed, a feature in all Oriental towns. It was through such a lattice that the anxious mother of Sisera looked when her fondly-expected son had been defeated by Deborah and mur- dered by Jael,^ and through just such a casement did the thoughtful watcher look out in Solomon's time, to note the doings in the street below.2 Little use, however, is made after dark of such latticed chambers, except f r sleeping, and thus the streets are not brightened by any light from them, while to add to the terrors of the outer darkness, the town dogs, which own no master, prowl round, noisy and fierce : a hateful yellow race, with long heads, almost like those of hounds. Through the day, in the words of the prophet which vividly describe them, " they are all dumb, they do not bark ; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber ; "^ but after sunset they are astir, swarming through 1 Judg. T. 28. 2. Prov. vil. 6. 8 Isa.lvi. 10. 14 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. th'j streets and disturbing the night by their howling and uproar, as they roam about to eat up the foul offal and waste of the households, which in all Eastern towns is tlirown into the public roadway ; these Cdnine scavengers thus saving the community from untold horrors of disease. It was in reference to this t'.iat our Lord spoke when He said, 'Give not that which is holy " ("clean," in the Jewish sense) " to the dogs."i One needs a good stick to defend himself if he be abroad after (lark. "Dogs have compassed me," says the Psalmist : "deliver my darling from the power of the dog! "'2 " At evening," says an- other psalm, "let them return, let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. They shall wander up and down formeat."^ Sometimes, indeed, the dogs raise a dreadful barking if a stranger in unusual dress approach the village or appear in the streets, so that it was a pleasant assurance which Moses gave the Israelites, that when they set out from Egypt " not a dog should move his tongue against man or beast ; " * and Judith calmed the fears of Holofernes by telling him she would lead him so safely that he would run no risk of discov- ery through these pests.^ But dogs are not the only dangers of the streets. Any person found in them after nine o'clock without a light is in danger of being arrested by a town watchman, on whom one comes with a sudden start, the sound of feet making him stir in the darkness, where, perhaps, he has been asleep on the ground. This law was doubtless in force at the time when poor Sulamith, the bride in the Canticles, hastening after her beloved in the night, was sei.^ed by the watchmen, rudely beaten, and robbed of her mantle.® The bazaar street of Joppa is, as I have said, comparatively broad even in the narrowest parts, but it is very different in the "clefts"' that do duty for streets in some other parts of the town. In these, the small windows above almost touch each other, and it is a difficult mat- ter to pass any laden ass or camel plodding on below. But let us wander on through the ^hief business street. At the mouth of one small arched shop a number of gold-finches in cages are hung up for sale, as others, no doubt, have been, over the land, for thous- ands of years back, for the maidens in Job's time toyed with birds kept in captivity.* The next arch is a carpenter's shop; the next a smithy. A string of camels, with firewood, passes: mangy-looking brutes, never cleaned, and suffering badly from itch in consequence. The hair is off them in great patches, poor creatures I Arabs, with striped "abbas," or cloaks, and "kefiyehs," or shawls, over their heads and shoulders, two rounds of i camels'-hair rope keeping them in their 1 Matt. vlf. 6. "Throw" would be better than "Give." 2 Ps. xxll. 16-20. 3 P«. Hx. 14, 18. This text may allude to the jackals which prowl round cities and villages In openparts. 4 Ex. xl. 7. 5 Juditn xi 19. 6 Cant. v. 7. 7 This Is the meuilng of «Auit, the word m Hebrew for a narrow street (Frov. T4i. 8{ £ccles. xU. 4, 6). 8 Job xU. & / •V i' lil JOPPA ANr ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 16 '(^ t i ^w place, sit in the shade, smoking nargilehs, or water-pipes, in sublime indifference to everything but the gossip of the moment. Dreamy idleness is dear to tlie Oriental. He will sit in the same way in the shade of the oningeries, with fellow-idlers, through whole afternoons, and think it Paradise. Indeed, this idling seems the greatest enjoy- ment of the Joppa burghers. Heaps of common painted ])ottery in the street invited purchasers a few steps farther on, and near them heaps of grain, in arched stores. A man sat on the ground hard at work grinding lentils into flour; turning the upper stone of the little mill wearily with one hand, as he held the under one with the other. I was glad to see, for once, a man rather than a woman at such work. Large numbers of cocks, hens, and chickens, tied by tlie legs, lay in the street awaiting purchasers. Egys were for sale in great abundance. Men in turbans, tarbooshes, " Iceliyehs," and striped " abbas," brown-and-white,sat on all sides, cross- legged, on the ground, in tl^e open air, beside goods they offered for sale. Ai^ unveiled woman, of course a Christian, passed ; a silver ring on one of her fingers, a wristlet of the same metal on her arm, and tattooed marks on her face. The practice of printing indelible marks on the face and body has been common in the East from the earliest ages. "Ye shall not print any marks on you," says Leviticus;^ tliough there seems to be a limit of this prohibition in Exodus, where wo apparently read of the deliverance from Egypt being kept in memory by signs upon the hand, and a memorial between the eyes; that is, on the forehead. ^ In Isaiah we also read of men subscribing with their hand, or as many translate it, '' writing upon their hand," some proof of their loyalty to Jehovah. It would seem, therefore, as if the heathen pigns tattooed by many ancient nations, as by some modern ones, on their faces or persons, were con- demned, wliile others vvliich recognized the God of Israel were permit- ted. Moreover, we read of the seal of the Living God being set on the foreheads of the redeemed,^ hereafter: a metaphorical expression, indeed, yet one that could hardly have been used by St. John if all i-eligious marks o.. the person had, in the opinion of his day, been wrong. But whatever may have been the custom among the ancient Jews, the practice of tattooing the hands, feet, face, and bosom is very couiinon now, both in Egypt and Palestine. It is, indeed, universal among the Arabs, and Christian pilgrims r^ubmit to it at Jerusalem, as a memorial of having visited the Holy places. In Egypt the practice is very general among women of the lower classes, and even among men. The operation is perlormed with several needles, generally seven, tied together. With these the skin is pricked in the desired pattern; 1 Lev. xlx. 28. 2 Exod. xlil. 9. The word " sign" is that used for the "mark" on Cain, and for the blood on the houses of the Hebrews before the death of the firsM>orn of the Egyptians. IKev. vil.6. 16 THE HOLY LAKD AND THE BIBLE. (OBAP. smoke-black, of wood or oil, mixed with human milk, is then rubbed in; a paste of pounded fresh leaves of white beet or clover being applied to the punctures, about a week after, before they are healed, to give a blue or greenish colour to the marks. It is generally performed by gipsy women, when a child is five or six years old.* Gunpowder is very often used in Palestine, the place tattooed being tightly bound up for some time after. Maundrell^ describes the mode in which Christian pilgrims in his day — A. D. 1697 — had their "arms marked with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem," powdered charcoal, gunpowder, and ox-gall being the ingredients of the ink used to rub into the punctures. Tattooing has, in truth, been employed in all ages, in well- nigh every country. To-day, the Hindoo has the mark of his God on his forehead, and the English sailor a whole picture gallery on his arms or breast. In Isaiahl, there is a wonderftil passage, of which such customs are an illustration. "Forget thee, O Jerusalem!" says God, in effect ; "how can I? for I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, so that, as often as I look down at them, thy walls are con- tinually before me."* The mother may forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb, but God, thus always reminded of His people, must have them ever in His thoughts. I a*n wandering, however, from my ramble through the bazaar. The ordinary dress of the women, of whom few were to be seen, was a long sack of blue cotton-stuff', without any fulness, but reaching from the head to the bare feet, leaving the natural shape unspoiled by arti- ficial outlines. Any quantity of sweets, or garlic, or oranges, can be had from stalls at the doors of the shops, or in the streets ; the oranges at two or three for a half-penny. Horse-trappings of all kinds had many sellers. Gi-oceis, proud of their trade, sat amidst their stock spread out in boxes at the mouth of their little arch, or arrayed inside. Here is a humble cafe : only a dark oj)en arch of no great size, with no fur- niture, and indeed quite empty, excepting that it has a clay oven, flat- topped, on which an atom of fire is kindled with a few bits of charcoal, to boil coffee when wanted. The turbaned proprietor is intently super- intending the operation of getting the fire to light. A man with white turban and bare legs and arms sits pounding coffee-berries in a mortar, which he holds steady with his two feet, a long stick serving for pestle. A Bedouin sits in the middle, smoking a long wooden-stemmed pipe; an elderly apparition occupies a low rush stool and ))ulls at a nargileh in one corner, and at the other a man is asleep, with his back against the rough stone wall. At another cafe, farther on, a crowd of men are sitting on the same kind of low rush stools, in the open air, smoking nargilehs, but apparently buying nothing more than the use of the pipe. 1 Lane, Mod. Egyptians, i. 46. 2 Journey, p. KJO. 3 Isa. xlix. 15, 16. 4 In Ps. x. 14,6od appears to be pictured as in tne same way markLip; the sins of men on His liand, to bring tliem to Judg- ment iu due season, Instead'of " requite it," we may read, " to put " or " set it upon Thy hand?' i " A BAZAR IN JOPPA. II M 1.1 ' JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 17 At one side, a seller of sweetmeats and fruits presides over his boxes and baskets, sitting cross-legged on the i)rojecting front ledge of the cafe arch in all the glory of turban, flowing robes, and bare legs. Mysterious sausage-meat on tables in the streets, or in cook-shops, awaits customers, for whom a portion of it is squeezed ro"^cI a skewer as it is wanted, and then laid over a lighted charcoal brazier on the table, till readv for eating. Milk, bread, and vegetables had their own purveyors — turbaned figures of imposing dignity, who seemed to think their dens the most important spots in the world. Leeks, carrots, radishes like Bologna sausages for length and thickness, had numerous buyers. Fish shops were frequent. Cobblers drove a brisk trade in the open air, condescending to mend slippers and sandals which would have been thrown into the dust-bin with us. Tei led women passed frequently. The street was crowded with strange figures, which from time to time had to press closely together to let a drove of mules or asses pass, laden with mysterious cases ready for export, or with huge rough stones, or boxes of oranges ; or to make way for a string of silentt, all, splay-footed camels, similarly freighted, each tied to the one before it; the driver riding ahead on an ass, which they implicitly followed. Poiters with weights which no Englishman would think of carrying trod on through a way readily openerl for them, from selfish motives. How is it that men who live so poorly as these Eastern " atals" or " hammals" can manage such loads r You stand aside to let one " atal " pass with three or four heavy portmanteaus on his back; another follows, with a box much bigger than himself; and a third, with two huge empty barrels, or a load of wheat, or of furniture; the road they have to travel, broken, rough, slippery, and often steep, making the burden additionally hard to support. I once saw half-a-dozen or perhaps eight men carrying a hogshead of sugar on a thick pole, the ends of which rested on their shoulders. It was in Constantinople, but Eastern porters are the same everywhere. They find constant employment, as there are no carts or wheeled conveyances. Generally wearing only an almost indestructi- ble coat of camels'-hair cloth over their skirt, their whole stock-in- trade consists of a rope about five feet long. Piling their intended load together, they arrange their rope so as to keep it all in its place; then, crouching down with their back against it, rise with a sudden spring to their feet, assisted perhaps, for the moment, by some one near. A loud grunt, to empty their lungs, uniformly marks the terrible strain, but it perhaps saves the'", from a ruptured blood-vessel. They remind one of the heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, to which our Lord compares the spiritual slavery under which the Pharisees laid the common people. Perhaps the " atals" of Christ's day supplied the illustration; but His burden, let us rejoice to think is light. 18 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BlULE. [CHAP. One of the chief sources of profit to the townsfolk is the crowd of pilgrims who land at Joppa every spring, on the way to Jerusalem, each of whom must spend some money in tlie town. A Greek monas- tery on the quay, and the Franciscan hospice at the top of the hill, offer shelter to a number, but very many seek lodgings among the townspeople. On the south side of the town, at the edge of the sea, close to the lighthouse, one is reminded of the visit of St. Peter to Joppa by the claim of a paltry mosque to occupy the site of the house of Simon the tanner. The present building is comparatively modern, and cannot be the actual structure in which the apostle lodged. It is, however, regarded by the Mahommedans as sacred, one of the rooms being used as a place of prayer, in commemoration, we are to V of " the Lord Jesus having once asked God, while here, for a rroal; on which a table forthwith came down from heaven." Strange variation of the story of St. Peter's vision 1 The waves beat against the low wall of the court-yard, so Hat, like the actual house of Simon, it is close " on the sea-shore." Tanning, moreover, in accordance with ths unchang- ing character of the East, is still extensively carried on in this part of the town. In the court there is a large fig-tree, which redeems the bareness of the spot; and a fine well close to the house, from which the water is 'bawn up by a rope turning on an axle worked by short fixed spokes, one end of it being in the wall, the other in an upright post. The roof is flat, with a parapet round it, but there is a broad arch underneath, the front of which is filled up with square stones, much weatherworn; the doorway, a mere opening in the stonework, without any door or woodwork, at the left corner of the arch; a win- dow-space, half the size of this door, up towards the point of the arch; the stones once over it, to the point of the arch, no longer there,; a second smaller doorway on the right side, half-way up the arch, at the turn of the rude stair by which the housetop is reached. In the arch on the right-hand side of the court is the mosque, in which a light is kept perpetually burning. Let us go up the rough outside staircase, and, like Peter, withdraw for a time to the roof. Part of the building is inhabited, so that we cannot see the interior; but the view from the roof, and the roof Hself, well repay a visit. As in Peter's day, it is flat, with the domes of two arches on each side of the court bulging through the level. The para- pet is partly built of hollow earthenware pipes, about five inches in diameter and eight or ten inches long, arranged in pyramids close to each other, letting in the cool wind, and enabling any one to look oat without being seen. From the top hang numbers of household details, some boxes for pigeons' nests among them At one angle of the house there is a small square window-hole on the second story, closed at I] JOPPA AND ITS NEIQHBORHOOt). 19 para- es in se to oQt tails, ouse d at night by a wooden shutter, now turned to the wall; a larger one, with its shutters open, is on anotlier face, and others also, letting the light into the rooms; but the shutters of all are very rough and old. A pigeon-house is built in one corner against the parapet, the roof offer- ing a promenade for its population. A rain-spout juts out from below the parapet, and there is a small chimney two or three feet high — a mere toy in size — but sufficient for a kitchen in which only a handful of charcoal is burned at a time. Similar flat roofs, with parapets, line the three sides of the hollow square of the court. From such a terrace St. Peter's eyes rested on the wide heaven above, and these shining water.s — the highway to the lands of the Gentile. Fishermen were then, perhaps, wading between the rocks of the harbor, or moving over them, as now: a sight recalling long-past days to the old fisher- man of Gennesaret. On tlie roof of a one-storied house below, a man is sleeping in the shade, while another near him is having his head shaved. A high-prowed, large boat lies near, with one mast crossed by a great bending spar fixed atop, raking far above our roof; the cargo of earthenware jars rising high over the gunwales. The parapets round the roofs, by the way, must be a very ancient feature in Eastern houses, for the ancient Jews were told, "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine home, if any man fall from thence."^ Tlie site of the house of Dorcas or Tabitha, "the Gazelle," three- quarters of a mile east of the town, is another of the sights of Joppa, but though the tradition respecting it is ancient, no reliance can be placed on it. Assuredly, however, if the state of the poorer classes in the town 2,000 years ago were as bad as it is now, she must have had room enough for her charity. Extreme poverty is a characteristic of large numbers in all Eastern cities, and if we may judge by the appear- ance of the lower class in Joppa they are no exception to the rule. Joppa used to be surrounded by a wall, which, however, only dated fiom the close of last century, at which period the town was rebuilt, after having been almost entirely destroyed in the fifteenth century. The wall was commenced by the English and finished by the Turks; but it has now been levelled and its place occupied by buildings; the ditch being filled up. The originf.i land-gate was a comparatively large structure, and had an open space before it, in which the. Governor or Cadi with his suite still occasionally tries cases, with swift Oriental decision, as was the custom with the ancient Jews. Thus, tliev wi iv not to "oppress the aflBicted in the gate"2by false witness beluic il' judge, or other means. Job asseverates tliat he had never lilted n[) iiis hand against the fatherless because lie saw bis help in the gate,^ as if 1 Deut. xxli. 8. 2 Prov. xxii. 22. 3 Job xxxi. 21. 20 I'rtE HOLY LAND ANI) THE BIBLE. {Obap. he deprecated the idea of over having overawed the judge by the number of his nitaiuers. On the south of the town lay formerly "the Moon Pool," where the rafts of oedar and other timber for the Torn})le at Jernsalem were brought by the Phoeniciiins^ in Solomon's (hiy ; and afterwards, for the second Temple, in the (hiys of K/ra.- Jerusalem is twelve hours' journey froni Jopi)a, at tiie pace of a horse's walk over rongh ground, and it must have been a terrible matter to drug up huge beams over such a track. The enforced labor of thousands, so tyraiiically used by the Jewish king, must have been required to get tliem pulled, step by step, to their destination; tiie remembrance of tl e hideous sufter- ings of such a task probably helping to bring about the revolt of the n\ Ten Tribes under his successor.'' The Moon Pool at Joppa has, how- ever, long been silted up by the current, which sweeps along the coast of Palestine from the south, carrying with it sand and Nile mud. Pelusium, Joppa, Ascalon, Sidon, and Tyre havi? all been destroyed as f)orts, in the course of ages, from this cause, and Alexandria would lave shared the same fate had not the genius of its founder guarded against the danger by choosing a site to the west of the mouths of the great Egyptian river. It was from Joppa that the prophet Jonah sought to flee from his duty by taking passage in a gre.at Phoenician ship bound for Tarshish: apparently the district round Cadiz, in Sj)ain. Strangely, there is a record in Pliny's " Natural History "* of bones of a sea-monster sent from Joppa to Rome by Marcus Scaurus, the younger, who was employed in Judsea by Pompey. They measured forty i'eet in length, and were greater in the span of the ribs than that of the Indian ele- phant, while the backbone was a foot and a half in diameter. Natur- ally, in simple eyes, these remains were supposed to be those of the very "fish mentioned in the story of the prophet, but they at least show that sea-beasts of huge size have not been unknown in the Medi- terranean in any age.^ The history of Joppa has been stirring enough in past ages. When Joshua had mapped out the land to Israel it was assigned to the tribe of Dan,^ but they could not wrest it from its Phoenician inhabitants. It first became Jewish under the Maccabees, in the second century before Christ. A number of Hebrews had settled in it, and from some cause had incurred wide-spread popular hatred, which took a terrible way of asserting itself. " The men of Joppa prayed the Jews that dwelt among them to go, with their wives and children, into the boats which they had prepared, as though they had meant them no hurt; but when they were gone forth into the deep, they drowned no less than two hundred 1 2 Chron. li. 16. 2 Ezra ili. 7. 3 2Chion. x. 4; 1 Kings v. 13. 4 Plin. Nat. Hist.,\x. 5. 5 Sepp. Jenualem, wnd das Heilige Land, vol. 1. 4, gives a number of instances. Many also are quoted by Dr. I'usey in bis Minor Prophels. 6 Josh. xix. 46. [Otur. by the licre the ni were , lor tlie 3 1 1 ours' groin ul, ins over lly used led, step s snfter- It of the as, how- he coast le mud. royed as i would guarded IS of the Prom his arshish: re is a Iter sent ho was length, lan ele- Natur- of the at least Medi- When tribe of its. It before cause way of among ey liad n tliey undred 5 Sepp. uoted by :rfr4l' M JOri'A AND ITS NKTOIinoHirooD. 21 of tlioin."* Such an atrocity drew down the sneodv vengeance of Judas MaccabflBUs. " Galling on the righteous Judge, he oaine against those murderers of his brethren, and burnt the haven bv night, and set the boats on fire, and those that flew thither he slew/^ It was Jon- athan, the youngest of the Maccabajan brethren, however, who with the help of his brother Simon, first actually gained the town for the Jews* — B. 0. 147. Pompey, eighty-four years later, added Joppa to the Roman province of Syria, but Augustus gave it back, after the fall of Antony and Cleopatra — B. c. 80 — to Herod the Great, so that it • became once more Jewish, and it was held by his son Arohelaus till he was deposed and banished, A. D. 6 — t.hat is, when our Lord was about ten years of age. Under Vespasian it suft'ered terribly ; its population naving largely turned pirates. It was, in fact, virtually destroyed. Since then its fortunes have been various : now Roman, next Saracen, next under the Crusaders, then under the Mamelukes, and next under the Turks, to whom it still, to its misfortune, belongs. The population at this time is given by some authorities at 16,000,* by others at only 8,000,*^ of whom 300 are Europeans and 8,000 Jews. On the south-east of the town a settlement of the Universal Israel- itish Alliance has hvm able to obtain a tract of 780 acres, one-third of which, before unreclaimed, they have turned into fruitful fields and ' gardens. Their vineyards and those of others skirt the orchards on the south ; the vines trailing low over the sand, but yielding large and delicious grapes. On the north there are large gardens owned by the Franciscans, and bordering these, also, are vineyards owned by a Ger- man colony. A settlement of Egyptians, brought there fifty years ago • by Ibrahim Pasha, live in great wretchedness in low mud cabins along the shore to the north : a herd of poor creatures stranded here, when > the tide of war that had swept them from their native land finally ebbed. But war has a still more vivid memento to show, close to the town, for a spot is still pointed out on the sand-hills to the south- east where Napoleon I. caused between two and three thousand Turk- ish soldiers to be shot down in cold blood, to save him the trouble of taking them with him to Egypt. 1 2 Maco. xii. 3, 4. 2 2 Mace. xil. 6. 8 1 Mace. x. 76. ifUehm, Handteorterbuehand Oadwer BiM' Lex. 6 Pakftine Fund Memoirt, il. 256; PicL PaUtHne, il. 138. 22 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. CHAPTER II. LYDDAH — K A MLEH. I If you like an "omnibus," with its load of passengers, you can drive each day from Joppa to Jerusalem, but I prefer going on horse- back. One can stop when he likes, and can escape the din of a light- hearted set of tourists "doing" the country in a very mechanical way. Tiie road to Lydda, now called Ludd, leaves Joppa at the north-east corner of the town and runs south-east, along a broad, sandy road, through gardens fenced with prickly pear, which extend nearly two miles back from the sea. On tlie left, half a mile out, in one of the gardens, is a good-sized pool, a pleasant sight in this thirsty land, and a little further on, at a fork of the road, stands a noble fountain, called after a governor of Joppa who died about the beginning of this century, and left this fine memorial of his kindly nature. It is built of white stone, with an arched recess in the middle, before which, on a line with the walls, is a wide trough, at which some poor donkeys, heavily laden as usual, were slaking their thirst. A wall a little broader tbai the recess extends on each side of this, with a rounded shaft at each comer, surmounted by a sugar-loafed dome, the sides run- ning back so-as to form a parallelogram. In each end is a blank arch, for ornament ; and in the I'ront, on each side of the archway, about eight feet up, two long, narrow, arched window-spaces. A number of sugar- loaf domes above complete the ornaments of the structure, which is the finest of its kind in Palestine. Tlie walls are about twenty feet high ; the centre cupola perhaps twelve feet higher. Inside lies the generous founder ; for the building is at once a fountain and a tomb. No pub- lic gift is more appreciated in the East than a fountain, erected in the belief that kindness shown by us in this world will not be forgotten in the next, and hence there is not a to\vft of any size which does not boast of at least one. One at Joppa, which I had forgotten to men- tion, stands near the old site of the city gate: eight pointed arches, resting on columns rising on a paved square, amidst a thoroughly Oriental surrounding of squalid stalls and dark cells, miscalled shops ; some plane-trees growing beside it. At the roadside, in different paiis, one often comes on a low plnstered cube with an opening in front, and water within, placed there, each day, by women returning from the well, ih at passers by may be refreshed by it. The water supply of Palestine, except in favored districts, has in all ages been limited, and of course there luus never been any such provision as there is with us for bringing it io each house. Hence, as in Jerusalem at this time, at least one cistern is formed under each dwelling, to collect the [Chap. lops; )ai*ts, and the ^lyof lited, ?re is this It the ^■«^ ni LYDDAH — RAMLEH. 28 rain-water from the roof. A well in the inner court of a house was in ancient times, as it is still, a mark of wealth,^ though it might be only a gathering of rain-water — not a spring. Mesa, of Moab, in the famous stone on which lit; caused his memorial of victory to be engraved, tells us that he had ordered every householder in Korcha Dibon to make a cistern of his own dwelling ; and this custom, thus followed in all ages with private houses, has also been that of the wiiole open country. The ground everywhere is, as it were, honey- combed with ancient cisterns, many, no doubt, dating from the time of the old Canaaniteg, before Moses, for their wells, or cisterns,^ are spoken of by him, and in a later day by the Lovites, at Ezra's great fast.^ These reservoirs must sometimes have been of great size, for in the well or cistern made by King Asa at Mizpeh there was room for seventy corpses,* Even in the very region through which we are pass- ing — the fringe of low hills and the rolling plain of Sharon, stretching from Joppa, north — King Uzziah had to expend much labor in secur- ing sufficient water for his numerous flocks. We read that " he built towers in the pasture country [for his shepherds and flocks] and hewed out many cisterns ; for he had much cattle, both in the Shep- helah [the low iiills sloping to the plains] and in the Mi sh or" [the smooth grassy pasture-land, free from rocks and stones].^ Their shape is often that of huge bottles, narrowed at the neck to keep the water cool. Stones were generally laid round the mouth, which i .self was covered with a great stone, requiring no little strength to push or roll aside. Thus several men wcre required to move the one which covered the cistern belonging to Laban.^ In some places, as we shall see, these cisterns are carefully hewn out of the rock, but they are sometimes walled with blocks of stones, and in all cases they are coated with water- proof cement. Springs rise to the surface only in a few localities in Palestine ; indeed, in the south there may be said to be none. In Jerusale-n there is but one, although there are at least four wells of living watar, more or less sewage-poisoned. Bethlehem, even in Jerome's day, was mainly dependent on cisterns,'^ and <;he two fortresses, Jotapata and Masada, had only rain-cisterns.® The fountain of Abu Nabat, which has led to this digression, is known by the name of the Tomb of Tabitha or Dorcas, but there is no weight in the tradition which tlius distinguishes it. Close to it, among the orchards stretcliing to the north, M. Clermont Ganneau was fortu- nate enough to discover, in 1874, tlie ancient cemetery of Joppa, con- taining many rock-hewn tombs, all long since empty. Lamps and vases of terra-cotta, and stones with inscriptions, are constantly found in its limits by the peasantry, to whom the larger blocks are quite a treasure for building purposes. 1 2 Sam. xvll. 18; Jer. xxxvlll. 6; Isa. xxxvt. 16; ?ro¥. v. 16. 2 Deiit. vl. 11. 3 Neh. Ix. 25. 4 Jer., xli. 9. 6 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. 6 Geu. xxix. 3. 7 Hleron, on Amos, iv. 7. 8 Joa. Ant., xiv. 14, 6, 24 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [GBAF. Branching off to the south-east, through the grouftds of the Jewish Agricultural Colony, the road passes the first of a series of four guard- houses on the nine miles between Joppa and Kainleh — a «ad evidence of the insecurity of tlie land under Turkish rule. On tlie left hand is Yazur, a small mud village standing amidst gardens, and said to have once had a church. The telegraph wire to Jerusalen runs alongside the road, on the right. Behind Yazur, about a mile north-east, lies a similar village, called Ibn Ibrak, thought to be Bene Berak, of the tribe of Dan.i Neur this, during winter, rain-w^ater stands in pools at different points. Slanting to the left, beyond Yazur, the road leads on towards Ludd, the Lydda of the New Testament, passing on the way, amidst olive-trees round and near it, the village of Beit Dejan, the Beth Dagon of the tribe of Judah,^ famous, as the name iraphes, in the days of the Philistines for the local worship of their great fish-god Dagon. That people would seam, therefore, at some time, to have occupied the lowlands as fur north as this. A mile and a half farther off' to the '•ortii, still on the plain, is Kefr Ana, that is, the village of Ana, "x name thought, by Robinson,^ to show that the tri. ngle of plain between Joppa, Lydda, and a clump of low hills rising to the east of Joppa, like an island in the level round them, was the part known in Scripture as the Plain of Ono,* but also, apparently, as "the Crafts- men's Plain.'I^ Ono itself was a Benjamite town, somewhere near Lydda, and always mentioned in connection with i^ so that Ana would suit in this particular, though there is the difficulty that the Talmud says Ono was three miles from Lydda, whereas this place is five. But the site of the present village may have changed to this extent in the troubled history of the country. Two shallow basins, holloved out in the rock, not built, receive the winter ruins, and there are several wells, from which a few gardens on one side of the village are irrigated. You go nowhere in Palestine without meeting ruins and here, beside the wells, ancient shafts of pillars speak of glory passed away. A mile beyond Ono, or Ana, still to the north-east, is another collection of F'ud huts — the village of El-Yehudiyeh, thought by Robinson to be Jehud of Dan.^ It is twice the size of Ana, having a population of from 800 to 1,000, and it boasts of some gardens on its north side. Midway between it and Ana, moreover, there is a tract of gardens, about half a mile broad, and extending more than a mile, to the foot of the isolated low hills on the north. A rain-pond, surrounded by palms, lies a little south of the village, within mud-banks renewed each winter. The patriarch Judah is said by the Samaritans to have been buried here. Two miles still further, in the same line as El Yehudiyeh, the village of Rantieh, a very small place, wat visible: a spot noticeable from its having been thought by Dr. Robinson to be 1 JoHh. xix. 46. 2 Josh. xv. 41. 3 Bib. Ees. App., pp. 120, 121. 4 1 Cbron. vili. 12; Nell. vl. 2. 6 Neb, xl.35; ICIuoii. iv. 14. 6 Josh. xix. 45. / jdby 5 Neb. AT THE MOeQUE IN JOFPA. m LYDDAH — ftAMLEtt. 25 tlie site of Arimathaea, famous in Gospel history. But the identifica- tion is very doubtful, for " Arimathsea" is only a variation of IJa Ratna, "the Height,"^ famous as the birth-place, home, and burial- place of the ])rophet Samuel,^ and it is thitlter, rather than to Rantieh, we must looic for the home of the illustrious disciple who craved and obtained the body of our Lord from Pilate. About a mile beyond Rantieh the slopes of the hills begin; their base covered with exten- sive olive-orchards. As we rode on towards Lydda, the landscape, dotted with these vil- lages, presented in a gradually receding sweep the great physical divi- sions of tlie country in this part. First came the broad plain, undulat- ing in low waves towards the hills on the east. These rise in fertile slopes to a height of about 500 feet above the sea, and constitute the second district, known in the Bible as the Shephelah,^ or " Low Land " : a region of soft white lime-stone hills, with broad ribbons of brovvn quartz running through them here and there. The wide straths lead- inu; up to the mountains, wlrich form the third district, are especially fertile ; the valleys waving with corn and the hill-sides covered with oh've-trees, which flourish better in this district than in any other. Vi Mages also are most frequent in this middle region, where there was some security on account of it.3 elevation above the plain; and springs are found here and there, with wells of all dates. In former times the Shephelah must have been densely populated, for the Palestine Fund Surveyors sometimes discovered in it as many as three ancient sites within two square miles. But we must hurry on towards Lydda, for its wide gardens now lie belbre us as we cross the low spur on which stand the mud hovels of another village, with a nice sprinkling of olive trees above it, on ihe slope to the south. For more than a mile before we reach the town, the road is skirted with orchards and gardens surrounding it on all sides except the east, which is close to the hills. Most of these gardens have wells of their own, which accounts for their vigor and fruitful- ness. Lydda is famous as the reputed place of the birth and burial of the patron saint of England, St. George. He is said to have suffered mar- tyrdom in Nicomedia, the capital of ancient Bithynia, from which his remains were, it is averred, carried to his native town, where his head is still thought to lie below the altar of the church consecrated to him. That he was a real personage there can be no doubt, and that he did noble service in his day can hardly be questioned, from the earliness of 1 In the Septuagint it is Araniatliaim, from Ramathaim, "tlie Two Heights." In 1 Sam. i. 1, the Septuagint reads "ot Ramathaim, a Zuphite." 2 1 Sam. i. 19; vii. 17; xxv. 1. 3 The follow- ing are the texts in which it occurs, and its readings in the A. V.:— Vale, Vallet, or Valleys: Deut. i. 7 : Josh. i*. 1 ; x. 4U ; xi. 2, 16 ; xli. 8 ; xv. 33 ; .Tudg. i. 9 ; 1 Kings x. 27 ; 2 Ghron. i. 15. Low Plains: IChron. xxvii. 28; 2Ghron. ix. 27. LowCoumtry: 2Chron.xxvi.lO; xxviil. 18. Plain: )er. xvii. 26; Obad. xix. ; Zech. vii. 7. 26 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Ohap. his fame, and the honor in which he has always been held by both the Eastern and the Western Church. But it is a lesson on the vanity of human greatness to find that, like so many heroes famous in their day, he is now no more than a name to the world at large. A fine church, which dates from about A. i). 1150, still exists in Lydda, with a crypt containing what is called St. George's Tomb. One arch is still com- plete, and the side of a larger one, but tlic outer, smoothed stones have either fallen, or been carried off* from the wall connecting these shat- tered remains of what must once have been a splendid building. The nave and north aisles have, however, been partly rebuilt, and are used as a Greek church ; two lines of columns having been restored. The rest of the site is used as the court of a mosque 1 When perfect, the total length of the church was 150 feet, and it was 79 feet broad. A chapel of St. James, standing to the south of the church, is now the mosque, the court of which covers, moreover, two-thirds of the whole site. But, compared with the splendid building of the Crusaders, the Mahommedan sanctuary is rude and squalid in the extreme : a fit con- trast between the creeds tliey respectively represent. How much may lie buried under the ruins ! Twenty years ago thirty coffins and a fine sarcophagus were discovered by some chance digging, but all the bod- ies were headless!^ The church is at the south-west of the town, and is built of pale yellow stone, from quarries on the way to Jeru- salem. The population of Lydda in 1851, the date of the last report, wns 1,345, but with the villages of the district round, united with it inoffi- cial arrangements, was 4,400. Its present squalor and decay are a sad contrast to its former prosperity, of which one is often reminded by the remains of fine buildings still seen among its miserable mud hovels. There used to be large soap foctories, but they are no longer in exist- ence. It was perhaps by the Roman road to Lydda that St. Paul was brought OL his way to Caesarea, A. D. 58 ;* but there had been a Chris- tian community there long before he passed through as a prisoner, for St. Peter "came down to the saints that we;e at Lydda," and healed the paralytic ^neas,^ and he went from it to Joppa, at the invitation of the Christians in that town, when the generous- hearted Dorcas fell sick and died, * soon after the conversion of St. Paul, about the year A. D. 35, nearly six years after the crucifixion of our Lord.*^ The ride from Lydda to Ramleh is through orchards of olives, pome- granates, apricots, almonds, and other fruit-trees, with mulberries and sycamores varying the picture. The two places are a little more than two miles apart, Ramleh lying to the soutn-west ; but the two oases of i Paul. Memoirs, !i. 2r)8. 2 lilehin: art. PaulUB. 8 Acts ix. 32. 4 Acts ix. 88. 5 It is to be rMiu umbered that Christ was born (our years before our Anno Domini 1. Ill LYDDAH — RAMLEH. 27 verdure round tbein, so striking in the great treeless plain, almost meet. In the spring every open space glows with scarlet anemones, inter- mixed with clouds of ranunculus, saffron, and other wild flowers, tall reeds of long grass fringing every moist hollow. Its name, Ramleh — " the Sandy " — indicates the character of the soil on which it stands ; but though sandy, it is fertile. To the south indeed, towards Ekron, the sand is deep, and makes the cultivation difficult, but even there olive-yards and gardens flourish, tlianks to irrigation from the numerous wells. Both Ramleh and Lydda are embayed among the low hills of the Shephelah on all sides but the north; Ramleh standing on the east side of a broad, low swell. Thougli the larger place of the two, it has no such charm of antiquity as its neighbor, since it was Ibuuded only iu the eighth century, when Lydda had been temporarily destroyed. Many large vaulted cisterns and other remains, on all sides except the south, where the hills are close, show that it must once have been much larger than it is; but it could never have supported very large community, the only water 8U))ply being derived from wells and tanks ibr rain. Some ot these, of great size, but now useless, still show their age by inscriptions on them in Cufic, or eiuly Arabic. Two ruins in the town are its chief attraction : an ancient Ciusading church, long ago turned into a Moslem sanctuary, and a lofty towei* known as the White Mosque, to the west of the houses. The former, still in comparatively good repair, with what was i.pparently its origi- nal roof, is no less than 150 feet long and 75 feet broad, almost the same size as the Church of St. George at Lydda; but the whole inte- rior has been whitewashed, so tliat the fine carving of the pillars is in great part concealed. Tliat two churches of such size and splendor should have been built by the Crusaders so near each other is a tri- umph of Western energy at once emphatic ard elo<;^uent. What men they must have been who raised them in sucl:. a land, and such an age, far from the aids of civilization! The one at Ramleh is perhaps the finest and best- preserved memorial of Crusading architecture in Pal- estine. In a large enclosure, about 300 feet one way and 280 the other, stands the White Tower, twenty-six feet square at its base, and 120 feet high, a marvel of beautiful masonry. It is said to be the minaret of a great mosque, now destroyed ; but it looks much more like the gigantic square tower of a ruined church. Yet we have the weighty opinion of the officers of the Palestine Sarvey that the details show the whole edifice to have been built by Arab workmen, from the designs of a European architect. It seems to date from about the year A. D. 1300. In the enclosure, south of the tower, are four huge vaults, lighted from above, all dry and perfect, the two largest eighty feet from north to south and a little less from east to west ; the other two not fid THfi HOLY LAND ANt) THE filHLE. [Chap. I I much smaller. One oftlie lour is full oi' stones, llie memorials of pil- grims who each add one to tlie huge mass. ^I'lie vaults are all about tvventy-flvo feet dee]); their roofs being suj)})orte(l by rows of atone columns. Along tlie east and soufli of tlie enclosure are remains of an arcade or colonnade ; and traces cf chambers, tor the officials t-f the mosque, arc visible on the west side. The })a8t history of the spot is, however, unknown. Tall slender buttr«.sses rise at the four corners to more than half the height of the tower, which narrows in size above them in its two succeeding stories; a staircase of 126 steps winding- inside the otherwise solid masonry to the gallery at the top. The huge mass has doubtless often been loughly shaken by earthquakes, but it stands unrent as yet. A succession of windows of various shai)es but all with jminted ari hes, relieves the four sides, and opens magnificent views in cv(^ry tlirection as you ascend. At one time a re iud tower and balcony for a nniezzin disfigured the summit, but they have ^ow disapj)cared. .Standing on groimd 352 feet above the sea, and rising 120 foot highei, the gallery enables one to look out from a height of nearly 500 feet on the ])anf ama around. Turning to the north, the eye wandcn? over the cemetery of Ramleh, with its plaster headstones aiid Icwly riounds, scattered without order, and too often in decay — the orchards and cactus-hedges beyond, and then the town of Lydda, with its flat roofs in varied outline, and the high ccmpanile-like minaret, with the ruined aisle of St. George's Church, close by a broad pool. On the further side, edged to the north with reeds and trees, there stretches out the whole length of the plain oi Sharon, as far as Carmel, and, from west to east, its whole breadth, from the sea-shore sand-hills to the mountains of Judaia and Samaria. The landscape thu.s displayed includes by far the largest sweep of open country in Palestine, reaching from the cliffs of Carmel to the wells of Beersheba. Eolling u])lands diversify the surface throughout: great breadths of waving i)asture or arable land stretch- ing between the low heights which break and beautify the whole. Perennial streams cleave their way to the sea; villages, always pictu- resque, however wretched, rise on the slopes; in some places there is still a sprinkling of oak ; everyvdiere there are ruins. The red or black tilth, the green or yellow grain, the liglit--brown uplaids, tlu; tawny fringe of sand along the riiore, the blue sea, the purple moun- tains to the east, all seen through the transparent air, make up a scene never to be forgotten. Such a view as this explains why the Jews could not pernnanently gain possession of these rich lowlands, but had to content themselves with the comparatiA ely barren hills. The nations of ancient Palestine were strong in iron chariots ; the Jews were infantry soldiers, without horses till the days of Solomon. Jabin, ths Canaanite potentate in the il ) a gceiie FOUNTAIN ABU NABP.UT NEAR JOPPA. ni LTDDAH — BAMLBH. 29 north of the land, boasted of 900 chariots^ in the early days of the .Judges, and centuries later the King of Dnmascus explained a defeat by saying that the Hebrew godu "are gods of the mountains, and tiierefore they are stronger than we; but let us figlit a;j}iiimt them in the plains, and surely we shall be stronger than they."'-^ Roads fit for ivheels are even yet unknown in the old flewish territory. You can only travel at the rate of your horse's walk over the stony tracks through the hills, everywhere in a state of nature. It was on a Roman highway that the Ethiopian eunuch travelled to Gaza, and though there were chariots of the sun in Jerusalem in the times of the Hebrew kings, they were only used for local religious pageants close to the city. Solomon, indeed, had 1,400 chariots, but they were, doubtless, more for show than use, except on the short stretches of road he is said to have made to some distance from the capital. There was, in fact, no plain on which they could bo freely used, either for war or for travelling, except Esdiaelon, where we find Jehu and Ahab driving in theirs.^ An Egyptian papyrus, dating from the fourteenth century before Christ, that is, from about the time of Joshua, gives an account of the journey of an officer of the Pharoah — a "Mohar" — sent in his chariot through Palestine upon official business. As long as he kept to the plains, he tells us, he could move freely, but when lie ascended to the nills, the tracks were rocky and overgrown with prickly pear, trees, and bushcjs; and disaster followed disaster. His "limbs were knocked up, his bones broken, his strength gone, so that for very weariness he fell asleep." He had to cross streams by difficult fords; to descend ravines "two thousand cubits deep," full of rocks and roll- ing stones, with no apparent passage ; on one side a precipice, on the other the mountain. His chariot-pole was broken, his chariot injured; his horses refused to go, and at last his chariot was broken to j)ieees, and could only be re})aired by getting the services of different " work- men in wood, and metals, and leather."* Such as the roads were then they still continue, and they must have been the same, in the hills, dur- ing Bible times, for the fact of Solomon having made travelling easy, by better roads, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, would not have been mentioned had intercommunication generally been even passably good.^ To face the iron chariots of the plains was impossible for the Ilebrew militia. "The Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabi- tants of the mountains; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley [or plain] because they had chariots of iron,"^ In his mountain campaign at Ai and Gibeon, Joshua had only footmen to resist. On the plains of Merom, in the north, horses and chariots, "very many," appeared for the first time on the scene. A sudden IJudK. Iv. 3. 2 1 Kings XX. 25. 3 1 Kings xviii. 44;2 Kings Ix, 16. i Records qf the Past, lU V»9- 116. 5 Jos. Ant., vill. 7, 4. The roaus of .losephus seem to have been made of basalt, tte contrast of which with the white hills would be striking. 6 Judg. i. 19; Josh. xvli. 16. 80 THE HOLV LAND AND THE BIBLE. (CHAV. surprise, like that of Deborfth when slie fell upon Sisera, neutralized tiiid advantage of the enemy, but it wan ordered tiiat the horses should be houghed and the chariotH burned, to prevent, in future, the peril of such a force m iiad thus been so wonderfully overcome. Nor was there any desire for such innovations, for horses and chariots were as useless in the simple life of the mountains as they would be to-day; no wheeled vehicle ever being met with in the hills, and horses only as tliey pass with stray t'Tivellers from town to town, or, in numbers, from the Damascus liorse-market to that of Kgypt, the caruvan road between which two points, by the way, passes through Rumleh. CHAPTER III. THE PLAIN OF SHARON. J ^ A MODERN paved road, in very bad repair, leads through Bamleh, from Joppa to Jerusalem, but the ancient road between these cities runs through Lydda; only a broad track, however, without traces of anti- quities, being visible as you cross the plain. From Lydda, north, runs an old Roman road through the heart of the country ; a side track branching off to Ceesarea. Along this, as has already been said,^ St. Paul probably travelled, when led to the presence of Felix, the pro- curator, or governor, of Judsea. Following this course, a short ride brought me through Lydda, which you leave by a Saracenic bridge over a wady, or water-course, dry except after heavy rains. The ground was firm, not like the deep sand through which one has to pass outside Joppa. Sharon spread in soft undulations far and near, with the low hills of the Shephelah on the left, at a short distance; fertile stretches of barley and wheat now, in spring, casting a shimmer of green over the landscape, and alternating with breadths of what, in England, would be called pasturage. Red and yellow flowers — ane- mones, tulips, and the narcissus, among otlier blossoms — abounded. The joyful peasant maiden could say to-day, as of old, "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." 2 What flowers were meant in this verse it is not easy to tell. The Rose of Sharon is thought by Sir George Grove, I know not why, to have been the " tall and graceful squill,"^ while others have advocated the claims of the cistus, or rock rose, but this is found rather in the hills than on the plains. The rose, indeed, is not mentioned till the date of the Apocryphal books, having 1 See mUe, p. 32. 2 Cant. ii. 1. 3 Diet, qf Bible: art. "Sbaroa." nil THE PLAIN OF SHARON. 81 been brought from Persia late in JowiHh liistory.* Tristram and Houghton'^ think it was the narcissus, a bulb of which Orientals are passionately fond. ' While it is in flower it is sold everywhere in tiie streets, and may be seen in the hands of very many, both men and women, who carry it about to enjoy its perfume. Dr. Thomson thinks a beautiful variety of the marsh mallow, which grows into a stout bush and bears thousands of beautiful flowers, is the " lily " of Scripture. It certainly is found often among thorns, and abounds on Sharon, so tliat it would, at least in this, suit the comparison tliat follows the mention of the Rose of Sharon — " As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.''* But it hardly meets the conditions implied in other texts, for it is cotnj)ared with the lips of the Beloved, ana therefore, it is to bo jiresumed, was red."^ It grew quickly, and from the locality in which our Lord contrasted its "glory" with that of Solomon, it sliould be found abundantly in Galilee. The species mentioned by Dr. Thomson, however, tiiough very beautiful, is dark purple and white in its flower, nor, indeed, is it a lily at all, but an iris. There are, in fact, few true lilies in Palestine, nor is it necessary to suppose that a true lily was intended, for the name Shusan — translated " lily " in Scripture — is n.sed to this day of any bright-colored flower at all like the lily : such, for e.\nmi)le, as the tulip, anemone, or ranun- culus. Dr. Tristram, therefore, fixes on the scarlet anemone, which colors the ground all over ]*ale»tine in spring, as the flower intended, especially as the name Shusan is applied to it among others.* Captain Conder thinks the blue iris is meant, while the large yellow water-lily of the Iluleh is mentioned by Dean Stanley, only to be set asid^.^ But whatever the case with the lily, there seems no likelihood of agree- ment as to the " Rose of Sharon." The Hebrew word translated " rose" comes from two roots, meaning "sour" and "bulb," and is used also, in the ancient Syriac version, for an autumnal flower springing from a poisonous bulb, and of a white and violet color; perhaps the meadow saffron.* On the other hand, the old Jewish commentai \^,. translate the word by "the narcissus," which is not only of the lily tribe, but very common, as we have seen, in spring, on the plain of Sharon. Roses are not found in Palestine, though they flourish on the cool heights of Hermon, 6,000 feet above the sea. It is not without weight, moreover, that the word used for "rose" in Scripture is still used by the peasan- try, with slight variation, for the narcissus.^ As we rode on, many peasants were ploughing, with the plough in one hand, and in the other a long wooden goad, the sharp iron point of which was used to urge forward the lean, small oxen. It was no I licclus.xxlv. 14; xxxlx.l8;l, 8. 2 Did. qf Bible: art. "Hose." 9 Nat. Hist, of Bible, p. m. 4 Cant. il. 2. 5 Cant. v. 13; Hos. xlv. 5. 6 Tristram, Nat. Hist. o/Bilde, p. 464; So, Van Lennep, Bible Lands, p. 166. 7 Sinai and Palestine p. 422. 8 Gesenius, Zu Jes, xxxv. 1. The roots given In the text appear in the last edition of Gesenius's Lexicon. Capt. Conder gives another, out it Is the root of only half of the word. 9 See Capt. Conder Pal. Fund S^., 1878, p. 40. 82 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. use for tliem to kick against it •} their only safety was to hurry on. 'rhe plough used was so light that it could be carried on the shoulder ; indeed, asses passed carrying two ploughs and much besides. A rough upright of wood, with a second piece fixed horizontally at the bottom, to hold the flat spear-head-like coulter, formed the wiiole implement, which could only make furrows a few inches deej). Ravens and wild doves flew hither and thither. Herds of slieep were feeding on the thin pasture, but cattle were rare. The sheep had great broad tails, and thus seemed to be the same breed as that reared by the ancient Jews, for we read that the tail of tiieir variety was burned by the priests on the altar, in thank-offerings. '' The whole rump [or tail] shall be taken oflf, hard by the backbone, and the priests shall burn it upon the altar."^ On the roofs of many of the mud houses grass had sprung up plentifully, thanks to the winter rain, but in the increasing heat it was doomed to " whither before it grew up."^ On every side the landscape was delightful. "The winter was past, the rainoverand gone ; the flowers were appearing on the earth ; the time of the sing- ing of birds had come, and the voice of the turtle was heard in the land; the fig-tree was putting forth her green figs, and the vines, now in bloom, gave a good smell."^ Not that song-birds were to be heard, except the lark; there was not enough woodland for them; nor that the turtle was to be heard on tlie plain, or the fragrance of vineyards inhaled. These were the attractions of rare and isolated spots, beside the villages, on the hill-slopes. The plain itself is silent, and shows very little life of any kind. Tibneh, perhaps the burial-place of Joshua, lies among the moun- tains north-east of Lydda, and as I could never be nearer to it, the heads of our horses had been turned in its direction. At three miles from Lydda we reached the hills, the village of Beit Nebala, probably the Neballat of Nehemiah,^ l.ving at the foot of slopes surrounded by wide stretches of olive-trees. The sea, thirteen miles due east, was only 250 feet below us, so slowly does the land rise thus far. Small valleys, each a water-cour.se after rains, converged in all directions on Beit Nebala, and a mile from it we passed an underground cistern. Two miles farther, still ascending between hill-sides beautiful with olives, we passed Kibbieh, a very small liamlet, 840 feet above the sea, perhaps the si^e of Gibbethon of Dan. Still rising, the roads turns to the south-east, at the small village of Shukba, but, after about a mile, mounts again, up Wady Ortabbah, amidst thousands of olive and other fruit-trees on every slope, but. especially on those towards the south- east. About five miles nearly south of Shukba, across hills rich in olives, 1 Acts xxvl. li. 2 Lev. lii. 9, 11. 3 Fs. cxxix 6 ; 2 Kings xix. 26 ; I«a. xzxvii. 27. 4 Cant. li. 11-13. ( Neh. xi. 31. fCHAP. moun- it, the ) miles "obfibly ded by ist, was Small Church of ijt Qeorge in Lydda. (See page ii6.) olives, U. U-13, Ill] THE PLAIN OF SHARON. 33 we pass the village of Midieh, famous in its da}', for it seems beyond question to stand on the site of tlie ancient Modin,^ the birtli-place of the illustrious brotherhood of Maccabees, and the place where they were buried. Soba, a village lying on a lofty conical hill, west of Jerusalem, twenty -five miles from the sea, and more than fifteen from Lydda, was at one time supposed to be entitled to this double honor; but it meets none of the requirements of the known position of Modin, whicli may be said also of Latrun, on the road from Kamleii to Jeru- salem, a village thought at a later time to have been the Maccabaean cradle.2 So long ago as the fifteenth century, indeed, it was accepted as the "Town of the Maccabees" by the Christian pilgrims to Jerusa- lem, and a " Church of the Maccabsean Brothers " was built near it even earlier. In the year 1866, however, a German traveller proposed the small mountain village of Midieh as the true site, and its claims have been very generally recognized from that time. It lies six miles east of Lydda, on the top of a hill, separated from the hills around, on three sides, by valleys. Some mud and stone houses, with a population of about 150 persons in all; their water supplied by rain cisterns ; a small olive-grove below the village, on the north ; a high conical knoll swelling up from the top of the hill, with traces of ruins, and a small Mahommedan shrine, with a few trees round it; the sides of the knoll sloping as if artificially cut, and showing some rock-hewn tombs ; a rain-tank farther down the slope, with cisterns above it, make up the pk iC. On a height over against it lie three mounds of ruins and a number of tombs, but these do not correspond to the requirements of the Maccaba3an sepulchre. Guerin, however, found ruins which appear to be those of the famous burial-place, on the top of a hill close to the village, on the north side. Kising more than 700 feet above the plain below, the hill comm nds a view of the sea, which is one condition required of the true site. ^ The foundation walls of a great rectangular building were, moreover, discovered by digging, with cells for burial inside, hewn in the native rock ; some bones being found in them ! A German architect, Mauss, has even made out the burial-spaces in these tombs as exactl}* seven, the number in the Maccabaean sepulchre. Sockets hewn in the rock show, still further, the spots on which pyra- mids connected with the original structure, mentioned in the First Book of the Maccabees, rested, and there are even fragments of them lying round. This, then, apparently beyond question, is the spot on which Simon, the last survivor of tlie glorious brotherhood, raised a grand tomb over the bodies of his father, mother, and four brothel^, reserving a space in it for himself — the seventh. A pyramid richly carved was 1 Schenkel, Bib. Lex., Iv. 233 ; Blelini, p. 1019 ; 1 Mace. ii. 1. 2 Or. Porter in Kitto's Oydop. Bib. Lit. : art. " Modin." Land and Book, p. 635. Rol)ioSoni JW,, iU> 80, tbinHs tbat lAtruQ may poesl- bly l>e Modm. 8 1 Maco, lUii, 29. t I 84 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. raised for each of them, on an under-structure of squared polished stone; other great obelisks, covered with carved emblems of the naval and military triumplis of the family, adorning the whole above.^ Never heroes deserved more truly a grand memorial. Their story still thrills the heart, for valor and genius mu«t ever command the homage of mankind. The olive-groves on the way to Tibneh must be favorite haunts of the turtle-dove, which comes with the spring,^ but had not reached Palestine when I was in this neigliborhood. Later on, they are found everywhere, and pour out their plaintive cooings in every garden, grove, and wooded hill, from sunrise to sunset; the time of their arri- val being so regular that the prophet could speak of iv m^ known to everyone.^ The turtle-dove is more numerous in the Holy Lrnd than anywhere else, and thus, as well as the " dove," naturally became a source of Scripture metaphor. It is mentioned more than fifty times in the Bible. Alone among birds it could be offered on tlie altar.* Two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, were enjoined as the offering at the purification of the leper, and they were accepted by the law, from the poor, as a burnt- offering, or sin-offering, in other cases. The Nazarite who had accidentally defiled himself was to be thus purified, and so also were women after the birth of a child^ if they could not give anything more costly. The offering of the Virgin in the Temple, after the birth of our Lord, was on this ground mentioned by the Evangelist, as a sign of her poverty.^ A turtle-dove and a young pigeon were among the offerings in the sacrifices of Abraham f so early had these birds been accepted as a symbol of purity. " Turtle- dove " was, indeed, a term of endearment, as when David cries to God, "O deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked."* Many of the passages, however, usually supposed to refer to the turtle-dove, are rather to be applied to doves or pigeons at large. I have quoted all the texts specially naming it- elsewhere "doves" includes the many varieties of pigeon found in Palestine, especially the comrjon pigeons of the towns or villages, which, like all their kind, except the turtle-dove, never migrate. Every house, except perhaps the very poorest, has its pigeons. A detached dovecot of mud or brick, roofed over, with wide-mouthed earthen pots inside, as nesting- boxes, is a special mark of wealth ; but even the humble peasant has one on a small scale, in his little yard, or even in his house, against the inner wall ; the birds flying out and in through the house-door. 1 1 Mace. xlll. 27—30. Gu6rln, Descr. de la PcJestine: Samarie, 11. 55—64, 404—426. The Identlfica- tlun Is questioned by the Palestine Surveyors, who think the monument is Christian, dating from the fourth or fifth century. 2 Cant. 11. 11, 12. 3 Jer. vlll. 7. 4 Lev. 1. 14; xv. 14, 29: xlv. 22: Num. vi. 10. 5 Lev. v. 7; xli. 8. 6 Luke ii. 24. 7 Gen. xv. 9. There are two words in the Old Testament for these birds : one " tor," for the turtle-dove ; the other, " lonab," for all Uie VWlO* ties of pigeon wblcb are spoken of as suob, ox as " doves." 8 Fs. luiv. i9> ■fM CChap. nij THE PLAIN OF SHARON. 86 rn '^ so entiflca- ing from xlv. 22: tbeOld It was natural, therefore, for our Lord, amidst such familiarity with birds so guileless, to warn His apostles to be "harmless as dovea."^ Such an allusion vividly reminds us of one great characteristic of the Bible. It is not the production of cloistered ascetics, but breathes in every page a joyous or meditative intercourse with nature and man- kind. The fields, the hills, the highway, the valleys, the varying details of country scenes and occupations, are interspersed among pic- tures of life from the crowded haunts of men. The sowei' and the seed; the birds of ti)e air; the foxes; the hen and its brood; the lilies and roses; the voice of the turtle; the fragrance of the orchard ; the blossom of the almond or vine; the swift deer; the strong eagle; the twittering sparrow ; the lonely pelican ; the stork returning with spring; planting, pruning, dierging, and harvesting; the hiring of laborers ; the toil of the fishenijan ; the playing of children ; the sound of the mill; the lord and his servants ; the merchantman; the courtier in silken robes ; and a thousand other notices of life and nature, util- ized to teach the highest lessons, give the sacred writings a perennial freshness and uuiversal interest. The ruins of Tibneh cover the slopes and crest of a hill surrounded on the north and east by a deep ravine. On the south the hill sinks, in terraces, to a valley formerly covered in part with houses, and marked by a magnificent evergreen oak, one of the finest in Palestine. Following this valley, the last slopes of a hill facing Tibneh are before us ; their rocky sides revealing several tombs, the remains of an ancient necropolis. On the top of the height is a small Mussulman village, with several ancient cisterns, and a number of finely-cut stones of ancient masonry, built into the modern houses. The tombs have been hewn out, at different levels, on the north slopes of the hill, eight being more noticeable than the rest. One, however, is much the most remarkable. Its oblong vestibule, cut in the rock, is supported by four pillars : two, at the side, half separated from the hill; the ethers, in the centre, entirely so. They have no capitals, and are ornamented at their tops only by a few simple mouldings. Imme- diately behind them, the face of the rock, forming the front wall of the tomb, is pierced by no fewer than 288 small openings, in eight rows ; some square, others triangular, but most half-circles, made in former days as recesses in which to place a burning lamp, in honor of the illustrious dead. At the right of this frontage of rock is the low and narrow entrance to the tomb, leading into a chamber, in the walls of which are fourteen excavatiors for as many occupants. On the south, facing the door, a broader entrance, cut t'lrough the rock, leads to the innermost chamber — the place of honor — and in this there is only a hollow for one corpse. It must have, been the last resting- 1 Matt. X. 16. " Guileless," as opposed to the serpent, is rather the meaDing. 36 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [CHAP. ' place of the chief of the pale assembler here gathered in their last home ; the outer graves being t'^ose of his family. Such a tomb .must evidently have been designed for a very illustri- ous personage:" the niches for lamps outside show, moreover, that it was recognized as such by long-past generations. " No one," writes Gudrin, " who was not an object of public veneration can be fancied as held in so much honor, and who could this be but Joshua, at what is, seem'ngly, beyond doubt, Timnath-Serah ?"i The tomb shows marks of the highest antiquity, for it is similar to those made by the Canaanites before the arrival of the Hebrews in their countr3^ Still more, the Abbe Richard states that in 1870 he found in the soil of its different sepulchral chambers numbers of flint knives, in agreement with the record that those used at the first cir- cumcision at Gilgal were buried with Joshua.^ The identification of this spot with the tomb of Joshua is however disputed by Captain Conder, of the Palestine Survey,* who regards the village of Kefr Hurls, nine miles from Nablus, as the true site. We shall visit it at a later period, and leave its description till then. But it is at least striking to find that, besides the similarity of " Tibneh " and " Timnath," there is a village, about three miles to the east, called Kefr Ishua — Joshua's village — while a great oak-tree, near the tomb, is called Sheikh et Teim — "the Chief [who was] the Serv- ant of God." That a solitary tree, of a height so moderate to Western notions as forty feet, should be thus famous is due, apart from local traditions, to the entire absence of lofty trees in Western Palestine. The country may once have been wooded, as the region beyond the Jordan now is, but, if so, its glory has long departed. The present comparatively waterless condition of the land marked it ages ago, for even before the invasion of the Hebrews wells and underground cisterns are both mentioned. The latter, indeed, are spoken of more than sixty times in the Old Testament, and we meet with the word for a " well " twenty- five times in the Pentateuch. Of the two words, on the other hand, used for " woods," the one much the more frequently found means, rather, the low thorny brushwood or scrub which covers many rooky and barren spots in tte uplands of Palestine, known in Bible times as the "yaar." Such places are still called " waar " by the peasantry ; the old name thus remaining almost unchanged. A traveller wishing to take a course which would lead him into ground so difficult, is warned from attempting it by the assurance that" waar" is before him, 1 Josh, xxxiv.26. M. Uu6rin goes into details of the id<>ntiflcation. 2 Sept. Josh. xxi. 42; xxiv a). Gu6i In, Deser. de la Palestine : Samarie, 11. 100—102. Riehm, Bib. Lex. : art. " Tibneh." A high authority who disputes Gu6rln's conclusions, writes:— "The oldest Jewish tombs have no perches like that of Tibneh. It probably dates about the second century b. c. Of Ganaanite tombs nothing is known. There is reason to suppose Canaanites did not bury, but burned their dead." 3 I>(ii.Fund£eportt,im,p.Zi. view finnn a vrlnudw^ of the tower of Ramleh towards the East (See page S8.) nij THE PLAIN OP SHARON". 87 and happy is he if he accept the warning and avoid the tangle o*' gnarled uc'ergrowth, often armed with spines or prickles, and mad- more foimidable by the chaos of loose rocks and stones amidst whivh it giows. It was in •. " vaar" that Jonathan found the wild honey ' jozin;^ from some rocky cleft v;here the bees had stored it,* for the dry receases of the lime-stone rocks of Palestine everywhere oft'er fitting places for laying up tlie comb. The battle in which Absalom was < verl jrown took place in the "yaar" of Ephraim,'* and it is not diffi- cult to imagine how, in such a stony, thorny labyrinth as a "yaar "pre- sents, "the wood devoured more people that day than the sword."' True, there was at least one tree high enough to catch the hair of the false-hearted prince as he rode under it on his mule, but it is spoken of, each time it is mentioned, as " the " oak, ''^it alone rose above the stunted jungle around. God threatens to Ti.ik he vineyards and fig orchards of apostate Israel irto a "yaar' ' an^ ^icah fortells that "Jerusalem shall become heaps, and tne nsou .^ain of the house [of God] as the hilly yaar"** — a tangle of wilUoii^p brakes. Still, roots of trees which must have been of u, goodly size are found, here and there, even in such stony, stuntr br^sh- forests, useful now only for charcoal-burning. But I questic^x .f ever there was much forest, in our sense, west of the Jordan since the historical period. The other word translated "wood" in Scripture^ does not help us, for it comes from a root which may refer either to cutting down, or to being entangled or interwoven, which suits a thicket rather than an open forest. It is noteworthy that no trees are spoken of as obtained by Solomon from Palestine, but that cedar and cypress from Lebanon, and sandal-wood from the East, weYe imported from Phoenicia, or by its help.'^ In any case, the crowded population of Israel, hemmed up in the narrow limits of the hills, soon cleared away whatever wood there was, leaving the slopes free for the terrace cultivation necessary under their circumstances. A Roman road by which possibly St. Paul was taken to Antipatris, on his way to Caesarea, runs through Tibneh, and offers the easiest route to Sharon, though it is rough enough in its present condition. Olives :ind fir-trees dot the slopes on the way to Abud, a village 1,240 feet above the sea ; but the route grows more wild and desolate as you advance. In six miles the descent is above 700 feet, through a region now very lonely, but marked from point to point with the ruins of ancient towns or villages. It was wcill to have even the rough track of the old road, for the wady north of as has only a footpath by which to descend a depth of 1,000 feet. As we emerged on the plain, the mud village of El-Yehudiyeh — perhaps Jehud of Dan* — with a rain- 1 1 Sam. xlv. 26—27. 2 Deut. xxxll. 13; Ps. Ixxxl. 16. 3 2 Sam. xvili. 6, 8. (East of Jordan.) 4 Hosea ii. 12. 5 Micah ill. 12; Jer. zxvl. 18. 6 " HOiesh." 7 1 Kings v. 16; 2 Ohron. 11. 8-18. 8 Josh. xix. 4& 88 THE HOLY LAND AND THE HIBLE. [Chap. pond and a few ptvlm-trees, lay to tlie soutli. Wore liouses built of as perishable materials, and as meanly, in ancient times in Palestine? The Jews had learned sun-briek-making in Egypt, and would naturally follow in their new country the modes familiar to them on the Nile. Damascus is, even now, mainly built of sun-dried brick, made with chopped straw, which reminds one of the brickfields of Egypt. Wood is used along with this humble material, but stone very rarely. Per- haps ancient Jewish towns and villages, in the same way, may have had more wood used in their construction than would be possible at present, when building-timber is practically unknown in the country; but neither wood nor mud bricks have elements of permanence. The "tells," or mounds, which mark the site of old Jewish communities, have, moreover, })recisely the aj)pearance of similar mounds now form- ing around, or, one might say, beneath, existing mud-brick villages in India and Egypt. The constant decay of the frail cubes and the pul- verizing of those spoilt in the making, gradually, in the lapse of gener- ati( MS raise the whole site of the place so much that, if abandoned, it would very soon be the counterpart of the "tells" of the Palestine lowlands. It is striking to notice that such mementos of long-vanished hamlets, villages, or towns, occur invariably near some spring or run- ning water, or where wells are easily sunk, and also on [)lains where clay ' "jund, or alluvial earth. In digging into them, moreover, they arc found to consist of sun-dried bi-icks. It is })rol)abje, therefore, that the Hebrews, on taking possession of the country, were glad to build towns and villages of the material at once cheapest and most easily obtained, in the place of some of the towns and hamlets of the Canaanites which had been utterly destroyed; but it is quite as likely that the Canaanites themselves, as a rule, lived in houses of sun-dried bricks, since we find "tells" spoken of in Joshua, if Captain Condor's transla- tion be correct.^ Sun-dried bricks are made in the spring, by mixing cho{)ped straw v.'ith wet mud or clay. This com})ound is tlien put into rude frames, about ten inches broad and three inches across, which, when filled, are left in the sun to dry. Houses of such materials need to be often repaired. The walls crumble, and the roofs, which are only layers of mud over a framework of brush, thorns, or reeds, supported by a crooked beam or two, leak badly. A stone roller is, therefore, con- stantly brought into requisition to close any crack or fill up any hole. If neglected for a single winter the roof would be full ()f holes before spring, and then the unprotected walls, soaked with the rain, would bulge out and fall into ruin. As in the days of Ecclesiastes, "By slothrnlnoss the roof sinketh in; and through idleness of the hands 1 The word is "Uelilotli." n (xunirs in .losliua xiii. 2; xxii. 10, 11. But I cannot trace the grounds ou wliich the tianslatio^i "tells" is based. nil THE PLAIN OF SIIAUON. 89 the liouse leaketh." ^ There is no mortar of any kind to give strength, so that the only safety is in keeping the building water-tight by con- tinual oversight. Ezekiel must often have seen similar houses sunk into shapeless lieaps for want of this precaution, for a single heavy rain-storm nuiy beat them down, and nonce he cries out, " Say unto tliem who 'daub it with untempered mortar, that it sliall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower, and ye, O great hail-stones, shall come down, and a stormy wind sliall rend it."^ A rain-soaked roof is only too well known in Palestine, and has given rise to more tha:* one })rovcrb of great antiquity. "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman," the Book ol Proverbs tells ur, "are alike." ^ In my own case, at Tiberias, the rain fell through the tent on me in great dr()])8; there was no protec- tion from it. Best was impossible; the annoyance made the whole night miserable. Could there be a better comparison for a brawling woman than this per[)etuai splash, splash, when one wished above all things to be quiet? " He Cat would hold her in," continues the text, "tries to hold in the wind," an impossible task in the draughty houses of the East, whatever one may do to shut it out. Or we may render the words, "which it is idle to hope one can close up in his hand," for she is like "one whose right hand seizes soft fat, which slips through his fingers."* The language of Proverbs, and the mention of "houses of clay" by .Job, show how old mud-brick dwellings are in Palestine. Other Scriptural allusions refer to a further evil too often connected with them. Ezekiel dug a hole through the soft wall of his house as a sign to the people, and carried out through it the bundle he was to take with him in his symbolic pilgrimage,^ and this easy excavation through the side of a dwelling-place is often taken advantage of by thieves, who "in the dark, dig through houses, and steal."® The site of AntipatMs, after long misconception, has, within the last few years, been defin'lely fixed at Kas-el-Ain, on the great Roman rJkd which once stretched from Csesarea to Jerusalem. It was for- merly identified with the village of Kefr Saba, some miles farther north, on the plain, but a careful measurement of the known distance of Antipatris from various points has shown that a mistake had been made in the identification, and that the exact fulfilment by Ras-el-Ain of all the requirements leaves no question as to its superior and, indeed, incontestable claims. "We know, for example, that Antipatris, apart from the question of its distance from various places, was on the Roman road, was surrounded by a river, and lay close to a hilly ridge; but this is not the case with Kefr Saba. No Roman roads lead to it 1 Eccies. X. 18 (R. V.) 2 Ezek. xill. 11. 3 Prov. xxvll. 15. 4 Frov. xxvii. 15 (Hltzlg ami Nowack). 5 £z6k. xii. 5. 6 Job xxiv. 16; Matt. vi. 19 (Greek). 40 TIIK HOLY LAND AND THK BIBLE. fCBAr. from the hills; it Ims no river, but only a couple of wells and the rain, water which collects in two hollows during the winter; and no trees or ruiii8 of a town exist. Ras-el-Ain, on the contrary, besides being on the precise spot whicii known data require, stands beside the noble springs of the river Aujeh, which is a perennial stream. The Roman road from Tibneh, down the steep liills, runs direct to it. There is a large mound covered with lieaps of stone, old foundations, broken col- umns, and chiselled blocks, half buried amidst the weeds and flowers which always grow up among ruins. The spring whicli bursts out from under this mound is one of the largest in all Palestine, and forms, at once, quite a river flowing off towards the sea: no doubt that which Joscphus mentions as surrounding the town.^ The hills which, he says, are near, rise at little more than a mile to the east, and .though there are now no trees to meet another detail of his notice of the place, it would be impossible to imagine a spot on the plain more likely to have been covered with them in former times.* Plerod the Great had, in I'aot, built Antipatris, named after his father, Antipater, close to the finest springs in the district, as he had rebuilt Jericho, beside the great fountain of the circle of the Jordan. Joseph us, indeed, says that it stood at " Capharsaba," but this, it appears, was the name of the dis- trict in which Ras-el-Ain is found. A medieval castle, the Mirabel of the Crusaders, stands on a great mound at Ras-el-Ain, which measures 1,C00 feet east and west, and 950 from north to south. Only the shell of the fortress, however, remains, though the outer walls are very perfect. Beneath, the springs, welling up at different points, but chiefly on the north, form dark blue pools, frmged by willows, rushes, and canes ; a fine stream flowing from them with a somewhat rapid current, while the moisture covers the plain with grass, especially to the south, for several hundred yards. About a mile south is the Wady Lejja, which, although only showing pools here and there in summer, bears a strong tributary to the Aujeh in the rainy months ; the two uniting about three miles beyond Ras-el> Ain. Rest after toil is sweet. The descent from Tibneh had been most fatiguing. A Roman road may have been very nice in its day, but after 1,600 or 1,700 years' use, without repair, its condition is distress* ing enough. Had we been grandees it might have been made some- what better for us, for it is still the custom, as it was in antiquity, to "prepare the way," to "cast up a highway and clear away the stones," * in anticipation of the passage of any great jjersonacMl. When one of the Russian Grand Dukes wm travelling in the Holy Land lately, the so called road between Jerusalem and Nablus, a distance of 1 Jos. Ant., xvi. 6, 2 ; Bell. Jud., i. 21, 9. 2 See PcU. Fund BepU., 1874, pp. IBS, IM; Ari MenuHrt VL 260-2. 3 Isa. xl. 3, 4 ; xlix. 11 ; Ivii. 14 ; Ixil. 10 ; Mai. ill. 1. B and the raiii' ; and no trees , besides being Bside the noble The Roman it. There is a ns, broken col- 3d8 and flowers hich bursts out tine, and forms, ubt that which hills which, he ist, and 'though ice of the place, more likely to the Great had, ter, close to the laeside the great ed, says that it lame of the dis- , 198; PolJftmoir, IL Thy t^ri-iblenesa hath deceiveil tliee, and tlie pride of thine h^art, O thou that dwellest in the clefta of the roclr, that hohlest the height of the hill : tliouRh thou shouMeKt make tliy nest as high as the f;iijle, I will bring tliee down from thence, saith the U>rd.—Jer. xlix. 16. A city tliat is set on an hill cannct he hid.— Matt. , . 14. RUINS OF AMWA8 AND LATRUN. (See page 33.) ^'n^ivtiMxii&tiii^. ^ikK i^. III.] THE PLAIN OF SHARON. 41 forty miles, usually rough beyond description, was repaired through- out. The stones were gatliered out, the sides built up where they had given way, and earth strewn on the bare sheets of rock, over which, till then, the traveller had the greatest difficulty in passing safely. When Consul Eich was travelling through Koordistan, ten or fifteen peasants accompanied him, to act as [)ioneers in repairing bridges, and smoothing rough places. We can understand from such customs the language of the prophet respecting the triumphal return of tlie exiles from Babylon, under the guidance of God Ilimrelf as their Leader — " Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, mnke straight ; the desert a high- way for our God. Every valley sliall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked sliall be made straight, and the rough places plain." Kefr Saba — ^that is, the village Saba — lies nearly six miles north of Ras-el-Ain, about half a mile to the west of the Roman road, from wiiich it looks very picturesque; palm-trees rising here and there, and olive-grounds and orchards stretciiing north and west of it. It stands on a swell of the plain, but, tliough nine miles from the sea, is only 168 feet above it. Its houses are of mud and small stones, with square rain-pools of mud bricks. Its wells lie to the east. There are said to be 800 inhabitants. On one of the spurs to the east of the road, and about as far from it as Kefr Saba, but 170 feet higher above the sea, hes Kalkilieh, the ancient Galgula or Gilgal, a long straggling village, with cisterns to the north, and a rain-pool south-west of it. The road runs nearly straight north, at the foot of the hills, which are frequently dotted with villages, almost undistinguishable from the soil around, because of the leaden color of the mud huts. Olive-groves clothe many of the slopes, but there are more ruins than villages, and, for one olive grown, there is room for a hundred. Dry channels, worn by the winter torrents from the hills, were numerous, some deep, others com- paratively shallow. About a ni'.le off' on the left hand, hills, about 800 feet high, rose for a ]iart of the way; then, about six miles north of Kefr 'Saba, the plain broadened out to a wide sweep. A large part of it lay uncultivated ; the only ground under the plough belonging to tlie people in the villages on tlie hills to the right, where they are safer than they would be on the low lands. The labor of going to these distant patches of barley or wheat is nothing compared to the danger of plundering Arabs, which is escaped by living in the uplands. Thus the peasant has still to " go forth " to sow, often to a great distance from his home.^ The breadth of soil tilled depends, each year, on the tranquility of the country. Zeita, a considerable village, lying 370 feet above the sea, on the edge of the hills, marks a change in the character of the plain. Groups 1 Mfttt, xili, 5. 42 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Ghaf. of fine springs burst from the ground about four miles to the west, and form wide marshy titreams, dear to the buffalo ; long grass fring- ing them, and the soft i-iud offering the coolness in which that creature delights. Two perennial streams, the Iskanderuneh and the MeQir, are fed from these springs. The hills are of soft white lime, like chalk; but a harder rock, stoppirg the percolation of surface water, lies below. Caves, tombs, and cisterns, in the rock, are frequent. As the track approached the line of Caesarea it descended once more to the plains, |)assing between the hills and a region of oak forest. Here the slopes and plain are alike covered with fine trees, growing ratlier thinly; but it is not a comfortable region for travellers, as it is the haunt of a tribe of Arabs, known as the " Club-bearers," very poor and equally unscrup- ulous. The white narcissus was to be seen everywhere, but it was too early for the blue iris, which by some authorities has been identified, }is we have seen, with the lily of the valley. To the south the trees were thicker than farther north ; the scenery everywhere, however, being very charming. CHAPTER IV. C^SAREA — ATHLIT. The sand, which elsewhere is generally confined to the coast and a narrow strip inland, has overwhelmed the country for four miles east of Caesarea, to the edge of che oak forest, which, by the way, is the last remnant of the great forests of which Strabo speaks. The ruins of the once famous city lie now, amidst broad dunes of drifted sand, so that they cannoL be seen more than a mile off' on the land side. Caesarea must always have a profound interest from its connection with the early history of the Church. The devout centurion Cornelius, whose "prayers and alms had gone up for a memorial before God," was stationed here with his regiment, the Italian cohort, when the vision was granted in which an angel directed him to send to Joppa for Peter, To induce the apostle to set out, however, a vision to him also was needed, enforcing the lesson that "God is no respector of persons: but that in evry nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted .vith Him."^ That vision was the procla- mation, in unmistakable symbolism, that the Gentile should be fellow- heir with the Jew of the "misearchabl^ riches of Christ;." As the first 1 Acts X. 34, 3$, iv.i C^SAREA — ATHLIT. 48 convert from a non-Israelitish race, Cornelius is the representative of all who in every nation have since believed in the Crucified Ono. In his case the Holy Ghost was first poured out on the heathen, and his baptism was the first outside the chosen people. Henceforth, no man could any longer be called "common or unclean,"^ and it was made clear that "to the Gentiles also hath God granted reptentance unto life."^ To all the nations beyond the sea which laved the shores of Palestine, Britain among them, the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven were then proclaimed to be standing open. It was at Caesarea also that the evangelist Phihp, with his four daughters, made his home.^ St. Paul passed through it on his way to Tarsus, and he landed at it from Ephesus and from Ptolemais.* In its prison, moreo\v^r, two years of his life were spent, before he finally left the East for Eome and Spain.** The track by which he had been brought from Anti- patris to Caesarea, under cover of night, had been for the most part ours. In the theatre, built by Herod the Great, his grandfather — Herod Agrippa — in the fourth year of his reign was struck with mortal disease.® He had ordered public shows in honor of Caesar to be exhibited in the theatre facing the sea, on the south of tlie city, and on the second day of these festivities, the day which had been fixed for his public appearance,' presented himself in robes of silver tissue, in the early morning. The sun shone full on the amphitheatre, built as it was for open-air exhibitions, his beams striking back from Agrippa's glittering robes with a splendor that made him seem more than mortal. Nor were flntterers long in using the opportunity to hail him as a god, a form of blasphemous adulation long common towards kings in the East, and latterly introduced towards the Caesars. Proud to be exalted like them, the king accepted the monstrous homage, but only to his ruin, for there and then a violent pain smoto him in his body, 80 that he had to be carried to his palace, where, after five days, he died, worn out with pain.^ The Acts of the A.postles adds, " eaten by worms." So, the Jews held, Antiochus Epiphanes, the great perse- cutor of their religion, had died.® Caesu'"ea was one of the cities built by Herod the Great, a man of vast energy and ability. The site chosen was that of an old town known as Strato's Tower, the name being changed in honor of the Emperor Augustus: a form of flattery common in that age, when so many cities were rebuilt or founded to undo the havoc of the great civil wars, which had laid so many places in ruins. Samaria, Ascalon, Antipatris, and many other towns, owed much to the magnificent con- ceptions of Herod. But in Caesarea his genius displayed itself in results surpassing the architectural triumphs of any of the old Hebrew 1 Acts X. 28. 2 Acts xl. 18. 3 Acts xxi. 8. 4 Acts xvlii. 2? xxi.8. 5 Acts xxiv. 27. 6ActsxU, ;&; Jos. Ant., xix. 8, 2. 7 Acts x^.v. ^. 8 Jos. Ant, xix. 28. 2 Mace. Ix. 5-9, 4*^ THE HOLY LANJ) AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. kings, excepting perhaps Solomon, whose great walls at Jerusalem, to prepare a site for his Tem})le, must have been truly wonderful creations. Till Herod's dav the plain of Sharon had been simply a broad tract of pasture, forest, and tillage, with no history, but he raised it to the fore- most place in the land. The want of a port to receive the commerce of the West, had always been felt, and the closer relations of all countries, under liome, had deepened the feeling. The shore offered no natural harbor, but there was a rocky ledge at Stiato's Tower, as at Ascalon on the south, and Dor on the north, and this Herod chose as the seat of a projected port. In twelve years a splendid city rose on the ledge and its iieigliborliood, with broad quays, magnificent bazaars, sj)acious public buildings and courts, arched sailors' homes, and long avenues of corninodioiis streets. A double harbor had been constructed, of about 200 yards each way, and also a i-'^'t. over 130 yards in length, built of stones fifty feet long, eighteen broad, and nine thick. This great structure wjis raised out of water twenty fathoms deep, and was 200 feet \vi(lt\ a wall standing on it, and several towers, the largest of which was callea.'t on arclu^s, l;;t in part thrr)ugli a tunneV first north, ti)«;i. east, for over eigiit miles, to the great springs issuing all over this dmtrict from the i tMU^ st.t rcist^s leading tlo^* .. tp Uiis aj-e cut in tjie rycJSj erusalein, to ul creations, oad tract of t to tlie Ibre- le coinmerce tions of all shore offered )'s Tower, as Herod chose did city rose magnificent ilors' homes, ,)or had been i'T. over 130 oad, and nine Bnty fathoms veral towers, of Augustus, nd a terraced e a temple of Augustus, as Rome, deified 3 of the hills, atre, 560 lef us shall withhold from thee his -■ mlchre, but that thou mayeatbury ' iead. — Oen.xxui. 6. Whom ha^ thou here, that thou hast hewed thee c it a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that p-j'vrth an habitation for himself in a rock ? — Isa. xxii. 16. ANCIENT ROCK TOMBS AT TIBNEH. (See page 35.) hr IV.l CJESAREA — ATHLIT. 46 Carmel hills, which slant down beyond CaBsarea, on the other side of the plain. The second aqueduct, on the level of the ground, ran three miles north, to the perennial stream of the river Zerka. The ruins now left have seen a strange history. It was in Csesarea that the conflict arose between Jews and Greeks which led to the last Jewish war, and it was in the circus, which has long since perished, that Titus, after the fall of Jerusalem, celebrated splendid games in which over 2,000 Jewish prisoners were killed, as gladiators, in the arena. Two centuries later Caesarea was the seat of a Christian bishop. Here the illustrious Father, Origen, found an asylum ; and here the Church historian, Eusebius, a native of Palestine, wore the mitre.* With the Crusades a new Caesarea rose amidst the wreck of that of Herod, but it has long since shared the fate of its predecessor. The shattered skeleton of the mediaeval castle rises high above the ancient mole on the south side of the harbor ; the ends of rows of marble pil- lars, from the city of Herod protruding from the walls in which they have been imbedded to give additional strength. Others lie on the strand, the wall into which they were built having perished. Still others, sixty or seventy in number, and from five to nearly twenty feet long, lie side by side, on a reef or ancient mo^" once the north side of the harbor, and form a kind of jetty about 2C * tt^i long. Huge masses of granite lying about, tell the same tale oT ruin. Of Herod's temple only the foundations remain, the buildings which they adorned having long since disappeared ; but the whiteness of these foundations, con- trasting strongly with the brown sandstone of later builders, shows that, as Josephus tells us, they were brought from a distance at great expense. The defences of the old Roman city have long since per- ished, but the sandstone walls of the Caesarea of the Middle Ages still show massive fragments, some of them from twenty to thirty feet high; their buttresses and moats here and there still perfect. Over the whole site, amidst a wilderness of thistles, wild flowers, and thorny growths, lie scattered fallen pillars and heaps of masonry ; the wreck of palaces, temples, churches, mosques, and public buildings. On the top of the hill, in the south part of the Crusading city, are the founda- tions of the cathedral, and on the north are the ruins of a second cnurch, of much smaller dimensions. Once gay, Caesarea, which even in the Middle Ages was famous for the running streams in its streets, its date-palms, and oranges, sweet and bitter, has for many generations been at best only a place where the passing shepherd folds his flocks— for the walls and buildings were destroyed by the Sultan Bibars in 1265. But the prosperity of the city has. always depended on artificial sources. Since it was without a natural harbor, the destruction of the mole cut off trade by aea, and the breaking of tlie aqueducts stopped the supply i, Consecrated k. s. S1& iT 46 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. ^I li ff I, 1^ !^ of water, for there is only one brackish well within the walls. Man witiidrawn, the restless sand was free to spread ii5 shroud over all his works, and create the desolation tiiat now reigns far and near. North of Osesarea, the Cannel hills approach within a little more than a mile of the shore, close to which there is a lower range, leaving only a narrow strip of plain between t!.art; the interval being, as a rule, covered with a tangle of thorns or undergrowth. Scrub is much more prevalent, as I have already said, west of the Jordan, than trees of any tieight, though there are a good numy fairly well-grown oaks and other trees beyond Naza- reth and round Oa^sarea Philippi, but tifey always stand like trees in a park rather than in a wood. Tabor is one mass of scrub and stunted growths, and Carmel is much the same ; while the hills of Ephraim and Benjamin have scarcely any wood on them at all. Indeed, the whole rei'ion east of the watershed at Nablus is very bare, from Gilboa to the wiiJv rness in the south. West and north-west of Hebron, on the other hand, he hills are rough, once more, with scrub. The numerous herds of goats are in great part the cause of this dwarf timbering, but the charcoal burner.s, who dig out tlie very i-oots of the bushes for charcoal, are even more guilty of creating the treeless desolation. It may be that the Bible word " yaar " once meant woods in our sense, and that the Arab " waar," now used for stunted, scraggy thickets, has come to be so used from the disa})pearance of trees worthy of the name. It is at least certain tiiat we read of Kirjath Jearm, "the Town in the Woods," or " yaars," and that there was even in the now barren valleys east of Betliel a "yaar" in wliich bears found shelter.^ Jeremiah and other ])ro[)heta ^ s|^->eak of lions, boars, and othor wild beasts haunting the "yaar" i)i their day; and the murmur of the leaves in a great wood when stirred by the wind ;^ the stripping of the trees by the violence oi a storm;'* the hewiiig down v\ith the -ixe, which is used as a ilgure of the havoc with which an iir'adi:;r iiews down a widespread population," and the grand spectacle of woods on fire, are frequently introduced in prophetic imagery.^ If not abound- 1 2 Kings ii. 24. 2 Ps. 1. 10; Isa. hi **; Jer. v. 6; xii. 8; Ainos ili. 4; MiC, V. 8, 3 ls». vjl, 2, J J^, XXix. 9. Isft, X. 34. 6 Ps. Ixxxiii. 14. Isa,. ix. 18; Jer. xxi. li [CHAP. Man all liis e more leaving »\vever, nles, to md, the ogs aiul 3 wliole )ly Imve cross it. lich are openly. 11 at they a tangle s I have ,gh there \d Naza- trees iii a A stunted Ephraim deed, tlie m Gilboa )n, on tlie numerous mbering, lUshes for ion, \]8 m our thickets, hhy of the nn, "the IV.l CJiSAHEA— ATHLlt. 4f ing with lofty, nmbrageous woods like our own, the landsoapes of Pal- estine must have been richer long ago than they are now with some forn\ of scrub, or trees of moderate growth, such ay are still seen in some places. The Zorka in part drains the wide, marshy ground along the foot of the hills, but a dam built about a mile from the sea, to give a full rush of water for mills, has by neglect overflowed a large district north and south till it is a mere swamp, in which, strange to say, it is affirmed that crocodiles are still found, tliough very rarely. One was, indeed, killed in it some years since and sent to the English missionary at Nazareth, where Furrer saw the preserved skin ;^ but in any case they are exoeedingly rare. A huge lizard, measuring from three to five feet, found at times in Palestine, and common in Egypt and the Sinai peninsula, may have passed muster as a THE UIBLE. [GnAP. the Romans, I suppose, with an air-sliaft half-way; the object being to drain a great marsli beiiind. Now, however, it only shows the difference between the past and the present in Sharon, for it has ages ago become useless, the sand having choked it up for centuries. Between this point and the river Aujoli, live or six miles north of Joppa, there was only one small village, a j)oor place, with a well and a ram-tank, near which stood two or three trees ; a carob or locust-tree among.them. It was from the pods of this tlmt the Prodigal sought a poor sustenance when feeding his master's swine :* the lowest possible occupation for a Jew, since the employer must have been a heathen, and the swine were, in themselves, an abomination to an Israelite. The thick foliage of the tree, of a deep green, with very dark, glossy, evergreen leaves, rising to a height of about twenty or thirty feet, like a large apple-tree, makes it a striking object in the bare landscape of Palestine. In February it is covered with innumerable purple-red pendent blossoms, which ripen in April and May into huge crops of pods from six to ten inches long, flat, brown, narrow, and bent like a horn,i with a sweetish taste when still unripe. Enormous quanti- ties of these are gathered for sale in the various towns, and for expor- tation ; England, among other places, taking large consignments ; their name in this country being locust beans. I have often seen them on stalls in Eastern cities, where they are used as food by the very i)oor- est, but chiefly to fatten pigs if there be Christians in the neighbor- hood, or for horses and cattle. That they were eaten as human food, though only by the poorest of the poor, in the time of our Lord, is incidentally proved by their being mentioned by both Horace and JuvenaP as thus used. The Prodigal very likely drove his herd below the trees, as is still frequently the custom, to let them eat the ])ods, which fall off" as soon as they are dry. It is curious to remember that the bean found in the pod gave its name to the smallest Hebrew weight — the geiah, twenty of which made a shekel.* Tlie monks in the Middle Ages, unwilling to believe that John the Baptist fed upon locusts, came to the conclusion that this pod^ was meant, and gave the tree the name of St. John's Bread. There can, however, be no doubt that the well-known insect was really intended, since it is still eaten extensively by the Arabs and others. " The Bedouins eat locusts," snys Burckhardt, the greatest of travellers, "which are collected in great quantities in the beginning of April, when the sexes cohabit, and they are easily caught. After having been roasted a little on the iron plate on which bread is baked, they are dried in the sun, and then put into large sacks with the mixture of 1 Luke XT. 16. 2 Hence the Greek name of the tree, Ktpina, from Ktpinov "n, little horn." 8 Horace (born B. o. 65, died b. g. 8), JEpist., Bk. II., 1. 123 ; Juvenal (born about a. d. 40, died aboat A. s. 120), Sat., xi. 58. Bochart in his Hierozoicon, t. 708, has a very learned article on the carob. 4Bx. zxx.lS;Ley. xzvU.25: Ezek. xlv. 12. 6 Maundrell : 8th ecution, Lond. 1810, p. laL n the ^ was And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the Rround, even to the dust.— Isa, XXV. 13. Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof ; and it shall be an habitation of drag- ons, and a court for owls. — ha. xxxiv. 13. Thou hast broken down all his hedges ; thou hast brought his strong holds toruin.— Psa. Ixxxix. 40. RUINS OF A FORTRESS AT RAS-EL-AIN. (See page 40.) I horn." . 40, died lie on the io,p.iai. iv.i OjISAREA athlit. 06 a little salt. They are never served up us a dish, but every one takes a handful of them when hungry. Tlie peasants of Syria do not eat locusts, nor have I myself had an opportunity of tasting them ; there are a few poor fellahs m the Haurfin, however, who sometimes, pressed by liunger. make a meal of them ; but they break off the head and take out the entrails before they dry them in the sun. The Bedouins swallow them entire."* Writing elsewhere of the Arabs of other mgioiis, he says, "All the Bedouins of Arabia, and the inhabitants of towns in Nejd and Hodjaz, are accustomed to eat locusts, I have Hecn, at Medina and Tuyf, locust shops, where theue animals were sold by meRMuru. In Egypt and Nubia they are only eaten by the poorest beggars. The Araos, in preparing them for food, throw them alive into boiling water, with which a good deal of salt has been mixed. Afler a few minutes they are taken out and dried in tiie sun ; the head, teet, and wings are then torn off; the bodies are cleansed from the salt and perfectly dried, after which process whole sacks are filled with them by the Bedouin. They are sometimes eaten boiled in butter, and they often contribute materials for a breakfast, when spread over unleavened bread, mixed with butter." Dr. Kitto, who tried locusts, says they taste very much like shrimps. St. John may well have eaten them, since his life in the wildeniess left him no source of richer food. Wild honey he could obtain in abundance from trees and clefts in the rooks. The river Aujeh is the largest stream in the plain of Sharon, wind- ing across it from beneath the mound of Ras-el-Ain — the ancient Antipatris, close to the hills, which are about ten miles off, in a straight line. It is strong enough to have made a permanent opening through the sand-hills, and is never dammed up oy them like some weaker streams on the plain, which become marshes in the dry season, though in winter, when swollen by the rains, they gain force enough to break through again to the sea. A dam over the river turns aside a powerful current, which drives twelve pairs of stones, most of them busy when I passed, grinding flour for customers. The splash of the water as it fell in white waves from the restless wheels and rushed to join the main stream was delightful in such a climate. The river is perhaps twenty yards broad, and of a good depth. A short distance outside Joppa lies the German village of Sarona, called after the plain in which it stands. On the way we passed two long strings of camels, one laden with oil in black skin bottles from Nablus; the other with bags of rice from the same town. It was doubtless in similar skin jars, if I may use the word, that King Men- ahem of Samaria, while professing to be loyal to Assyria, sent gifts of oil to Pharaoh, in Egypt, the hereditary foe of the Assyrian,^ to secure 1 Burokhardt, iS^ria, 4to, p. 239. 2H08. xii. 1. Oelkie, irour«wiM(A«.Bafe, Iv. ii6Bii tW-.W-aB'A.lNlii 66 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. his support. They are made of the entire skin of a he-goat, the places where the legs and tail have been, being carefully sewn up, and an opening left at the neck, large enough to form a mouth, for filling and emptying. To enable them to resist the heat of the sun, and to keep them soft, they are smeared with oil. The German colony is now firmly established and prosperous, but as many as fifty poor Teutons died before they could be acclimatized. A "town-house" of wood, a wind-mill used for pumping, a town clock, wheeled vehicles, a forge, European ploughs guided by native peasants but drawn by horses, a factory for all kinds of wooden machinery and implements, from wagons to plough-handles, a manufactory of tiles and of artificial stone, and other forms of Western energy and skill, showed the difference between Europeans and Asiatics. I rested at the house of one of the chief settlers, a large commodious stone building, with a deep well under a shed close by, supplying abundant water, which was raised by oxen in an endless chain of buckets, set in motion by a horizontal wheel; it is used for household purposes, and for irrigatmg the garden and contiguous ground. Vines from American plants are extensively grown in the settlement, those of the country being liable to disease. A welcome, simple and hearty, was accorded me,, and I left for Joppa not a little refreshed by the home-made bread and butter, both excellent, with milk. My friend had some of the local wine, and pronounced it excellent. The sandy road, nowhere "made," was at times pretty rough, in the hollows washed out by winter storms. Red anemones, bunches of lupins from last year's sowing, and tufts of squills brightened the open ground as we drove on; but Sharon, at its best, is very far from coming up to English ideas of fertility and beauty. CHAPTER V. THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON'S COUNTRY. Leaving Joppa, with its strange crowds, my last reminiscences of it are made up of a confused dream of masons sitting cross-legged, chip- ping stones from Caesarea, for the new Christian hospital; stone- breakers squatted in the same way across half the market-place, frac- turing obdurate metal in stone mortars, to spread on the road ; strings of donkeys and camels moving hither or thither, and a general hub- bub of buyer and seller filling the air. A four-wheeled vehicle had ^ a of it , chip- stone- }, frac- trings Ihub. le had a SI] th coil th( V4 THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON's COUNLRT. 61 been hired for my journey: a rough open aflfair, screened at the roof and sides with canvas to keep off the sun. The driver wore a felt skull-cap, dignified into a makeshift turban by f >ocket-handkerchief twisted round it. His coat, worn over a blue blouse, was of woolen stuff, fancifully ornamented down the back with crimson, while the arms were of c ue pattern to the elbow, and another below it. Lebanon had the credit or its manufacture, though it would have been very hard to say through how many hands it nray have passed before it reached those of our Jehu. Three horses, veritable screws, but wiry withal, drew us; two of them boasting headstalls and collars, made useful if not ornamental by a free application of pieces of rope; the third arrayed in nothing at all but some ropes. Of course each animal had its galls and raw places; no horse used in harness in Palestine is without them, for there is no law against cruelty to animals, and no pity in the native heart towards dumb creatures to supply its place. South of Joppa, the coast-plain was the country of the Philistines, whose name, the "immigrants," has, curiously, given us that of "Pal- estine." It was the part of Judaea earliest and best known to the Greeks, who entered the land mainly, at first, fi'om Egypt. Hence, as the Romans gave the name of Asia and Africa, respectively, to the two provinces they first gained on these two continents, and, as the English gave the name of Dutch, though it belongs to the whole German race, to the people of Holland, who lay next their own shores, "Philistia" became the Gentile name of the entire Holy Land, in the form of "Palestine."! The Philistines, as the translation of their name in the Greek Bible^ shows, were of a different race from the peoples who were in Canaan before their appearance among them. Their territory reached from a little below Joppa, which remained in the hands of the Phoenicians, to a little below Gaza, along the coast, and back to the hills of Judaea: a district hardly fifty miles in its full length, or half that in its extreme breadth. Palestine, as a whole, it must be remembered, is a very small country. The prophet Amos* tells us the Philistines came from Caphtor, ;-at is, the island of Crete, and we read elsewhere, respecting "the Avim which dwelt in Hazerim [or villages], even unto Gaza" — that ''the Caphtorim, which came out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead."* The Avim were one of the original peoples of Palestine, who had been driven to the extreme south of the country by the Canaanites. In part enslaving these, in part driving them out, the Philistines took possession of their district. They had not, however, come direct from Crete, but had previously been settled at Cassiotis — the territory of the Casluchim,^ on the Egyptian coast, whence salt 1 mnaiandP(aeaine,p.W&. 2. AUophyloWmenofanothertilbe." & Aino6ix.7. 4. Dent. ii.23. 6 Gen. 18, 14. 5d tHE HOLT LAND AKD THE BlBLfi. tO&AP. was exported for the dry-fish trade from the ports of the Nile Delta.* Thence the^ wandered north to the more fruitful sea-coast plains of Canaan, which, from their position, had great attractions for a keenly commercial people, as it tapped at once the caravan trade with the east and south, and the sea trade with the west. Hence, already in the time of Abraham, their king Abimelech had his seat at Gerar, in the fartherest south of the land, and boasted a chief of his fighting men, and a council bearing strange titles.'* In a subsequent generation, about the year b. c. 1920,3 the Hebrews went down into Egypt, from which they only returned after a residence of 430 years. By this time the Philistines had grown so strong that God would not allow His people to go up to Canaan by the direct and easy caravan route, still in use, because it would have brought them into confiict with so war- like a race; but led them by the circuitous route of the desert.* After the Hebrew conquest of Central Palestine, three of the Philis- tine cities — Ekron, Ascalon, and Gaza — were taken in the first enthusiasm of the invaders, and held for a time by Judah, to whom the sea-coast plain had been assigned by Joshua.^ They were, however, lost before that leader's death,* and henceforth, for 200 years, even the name of the race is seldom mentioned in the Sacred Books.' That there was a hereditary enmity between them and the Hebrews, appears however in the incidental iiotice of one of the Judges — Sham- gar — having slain 600 Philistines with the massive ox-goad, shod with iron, still common in those parts.^ But towards the end of the period of the Judges,^ the history of Samson brings the nation into promi- nence as the most dangerous and dreaded enemies of Israel, which they continued to be till the reign of David, who broke their power so completely that he was able to form an old and young body-guard — known as the Crethi and Plethi — from among them.^® From this time they were only at intervals independent of the Hebrews, and they finally vanished as a people, under the iron sway of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Syrians, in succession. The few remains of their language and religion show that this remarkable people were of Semitic race, though colored to a large extent by Grecian influences, from their temporary residence in Crete. Fierce and fond of war, they had the genius of military organization peculiar to the West; always ready with disciplined battalions for any quarrel. Nor were they less keen as traders; their favorable position on the coast enabling them to become, in some measure, rivals of the Phoenicians. Of their politcal constitution we know only that their territory was divided into five small districts, respectively under the chiefs of five cities — Ekron, Gath, Ashdod, Ascalon, and* Gaza. Of 1 Ebers, Egypten und die Buclwr Mom, p. 121. 2.Gen. xx. 2; xxi. 32; xxvl. 1, 2d. » Riehm, d. 1196. 4 Ext^. xiii. 17 5 Josh. xv. 45. 6 Josh. xlii. 2. 7 Josh. xili. 2; XT. 46; Judg. L 18; iil.S. 8 Judg. Hi. 81. 9 About B. c. 1250. 10 1 Sam. xxx. 14 ; Ezek. xxv. 16; Zeph. 11. 6. J? 4^ tOBAP. elta.^ lins of ceenly th the ady in irar, in ghting sration, t, from is time )W His ite, still so war- Philis- he first bom the lowever, 3ven the lebrews, p-Sham- lod with \Q period o promi- b1, which iir power dy-gnard i'rom this and they Assyrians, that this to a large 5 in Crete, ^anization ns for any le position ^rals of the that their under the Gaza. Of » Riehm, 5. idg-i-lSsllt-* v.] THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMS0N*S COUNTRY. 5d their religion all that has come down to us is that the god Beelzebub was worshipped at Ekron, Dagon at Gaza and Ashdod,^ and, at a later period, the goddess Derketo in Ascalon.^ The present population of Palestine is, doubtless, lai'gely represen- tative, in the various districts, of the ancient races of the land, so that Philistine blood in the people of the old Philistine country may per- haps, in part, account for their being much more Egyptian, in their ways and dress, than those around them; the Philistines, as we have seen, having originally come from Crete, through Egypt. There were, however, many other ^^tionalities in the land in Joshua's day. The Hittites — possibly a small' branch of the mighty Cheta of the Egyptian monuments, whose power, at its highest, reached from the Grecian Archipelago to Carchemish, on the Euphrates — lived in and round Hebron, in i\)e time of Abraham,* and, in that of Moses, among the mountains of Judah and Ephraim,* and were still in existence in the days of Ezra.^ The Girgashi, or "dwellers on the clay-land," -were a tribe otherwise unknown.® The Amorites, or "dwellers on the hills," were, perhaps, the greatest of the Canaanite races, one part of tliem living on the mountains of Judah,' which they divided into five petty kingdoms;® another branch, on the east of Jordan, in the northern part of Moab, divided by them into the two "kingdoms" of Heshbon and Bashan.® It was of their towns, on the top of the hills, in what was afterwards Judaea, that the Hebrew spies spoke as being " walled up to heaven."^® Then there were the Canaanites, or "dwellers in the lowlands," that is, the coast, and in the depression of the Jordan. The name was used also, in a wider sense, of the Phoenicians, and from that race being the great business people of the Old World, came after- wards to mean " traders." ^^ Besides these, we read of the Perizzites, or "peasants," in contrast to dwellers in towns; the Hivites, or "dwellers in villages;" and the Jebusites, or "threshing-floor people," in allusion, apparently, to the early use of the top of Moint Mori all |^ Jerusalem as a threshing-floor ; ^^ this being the one spot on which irl find them. These are spoken of, perhaps in the aggregate, as.nations "greater and mightier" than the Hebrews at the time of their invasion of Palestine.^* But since those early days many additional races have occupied portions of the land, and intermarriages in the course of many ages must have united the blood of a great many nationalities in the veins of the present population. Asses, laden with cabbages for market, passed us as we drove on from Joppa over a track in the hard sand; some veiled women, also, with baskets of lemons on their heads. They carry everything thus, 1 2Klnesi.2;Judg. xvi 29: ISam. v.l. 2 2 Mace. xli. 96/ 3 Gen. xxiil. 4 Num. xili. 29 ; Josh. Xl. 3. SEzralx. 1. 6 DtJO. vil. 1. 7 Gen. xlv. 7, 13 ; Num. xlll. 29. 8 Josh. X. 5. 9Num. xxi.13; Deut. Iv. 47; Josh it. 10; xxiv. 12. 10 Deut. 1. S8. 11 Job xli. 6. The word "merchants" is "Canaanites" in the Heb., so In Prov. xxxi. 24. 12 2 Sam. xxlv. lS-28. 18 Deut. yU. 60 THE ttoLY Land and the bible. ttVkP. and owe to their doing so an erectness of carriage which their sisters in the West might well envy. More asses, laden with sand, followed; women with black veils, girls with milk, which they carry in jars on their shoulder, as they do water. Married women carry their little children thus, in many cases. Sometimes, indeed, you meet little children, perhaps still unweaned, carried by their mother on her hips, just as Isaiah says, "Thy daughters shall be nuised at thy side."^ A Bedouin in a striped "abba" and bright "kefiyeh," or head-shawl, kept in its place by the usual circlet of soft oamel's-ljair rope going twice round the head: his seat, the hump of a oanel; with other camels carrying back to their villages loads of empiy sacks, in which they iiad taken grain to Joppa or elsewhere, made us next turn aside. The men of to-day thus still carry their riches on the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, as in the days of Isaiah; 2 so little have the customs of the East changed, after so many centuries. Immense mounds of finely broken-up straw for fodder are to be seen everywhere in Egypt, and this fodder is common, also, in Palestine. Strings of camels passed towards Joppa as we went on, with huge bags of it balanced on each side of their humps. It is the only dry food for horses or cattle in Western Asia, and is largely used, also, in the valley of the Nile. The name given to it is "teben" — the same, to-day, as in the days of the patriarchs. When the grain is trampled out on the open-air threshing-floors, by the feet of cattle or by the sharp stone or iron teeth underneath the threshing-sledge,' the straw is nt :«ssarily broken or cut into very small pieces. These are the "teben" of which we often read in the Bible. Rebekah told Eliezer, Abraham's servant, that her brother had both "teben and provender"* for his camels. The children of Israel in Egypt were refused " teben " to mix with the clay of the bricks they had to make.^ The Levite saw abundance of "teben and provender for his asses" in Gibeah, tboQgh so inhospitably received.^ Barley and "teben" had to be provided by the rural community for the common horses, and also for those of a swifter and finer breed, belonging to Solomon."^ The wicked, says Job, are " as teben before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away."* Leviathan is said to esteem "iron as teben, and brass as rotten wood."® In the days of the Messiah "the lion shall eat teben like the ox."i® The Word of God by His true prophets, we read in Jeremiah, was as different from the utterances of the false prophets as "teben is fi'om wheat." ^^ Thus the camel- loads that made me swerve aside throw light on a good many verses of Scripture. The drifting sand from the shore is playing sad havoc with the 1. Slsa. Ix. 4. 2Isa. XXX.6. 8 Deut. xxv. 4 ; Isa. xll. 15. 4 Oen. xxiv. 25. 5Ex. v. 7. 6 Judjr. xix. 19. 7 1 Kings iv. 28. For "dromedaries," read as in the text. 8 Job zxi. 18. 9 Job xli. 27. 10 Isa. X]. 7 ; Ixv. 25. 11 Jer. xxiU.28. lezer, ."4 Fragment of the City Wall of Ceeaarea froiu t)i« Ntdaitt Afm ^Sw page 45,) th the / v.] THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON's COUNTRY. 61 Philistine plain. Immediately Bouth of Joppa it reaches a distance of four miles inland. Towards the sea, these dunes or sand-hills present a very gentle slope, but on the land side they are much steeper, so that as the sea- wind blows the loose grains over the crest, they roll, by imperceptible degrees, farther and farther afield, gradually overwhelm- ing gardens, orcnards, and ploughed land, and, of course, under the Turk, nothing is done to stay their progress. The road led straight south, along these yellow desolations ; the telegraph wires to Kgypt running at its side. Six or seven miles from Joppa I crossed the Kubin, which, when I passed, had a very small stream ip its bed, linking together some almost stagnant pools, fed by springs in the wady, near the hills. On the shore, on a line with Ramleh, but out of sight from the road, lay Minet Rubin, the ancient port for Jamnia, with some vines and a few mulberries growing wild m the sand, which here probably is not deep. But there is no longer any harbor at this place, thougn ancient tombs in the rocks speak of a large resident population in past ages. Yabneh, the ancient Jamnia, lies on the west side of the Rubin, the course of which I crossed by a low bridge of two arches. Springs in the river-bed cause it to be always in full flow at its mouth; the Pal- estine Surveyors speaking of it as six or eight yards across near the sea, but foraable in May, 1875. At Jamnia, however, the channel is nearly dry, except after rains, though it has cut quite a ravine across the whole plain, in some parts marshy, with reeds and rushes it the sides. The village has a population of about 2,000, and lies in a con- spicuous position on the top of a low green hill, four miles from the shore. Standing apart from the hills around, and bordered by a fringe of gardens, olive-yards, and fields of vetches, it looks from a distance very picturesque. Some w^ells and a rain-pond within mud banks, duly repaired each year, supply water. It has a small mosque, which was once a Christian church. Yabneh, like all places in Palestine, is very old. In Joshua's day it was known as Jabneel,^ and along with Ekron, which was near it, was assigned to the Hebrew tribe of Dan* The Philistines, however, kept possession of it till King Uzziah took it and broke down its walls.^ At a later date it was again taken, by Simon Maccabajus,* and remained in the hands of the Jews till Pompey gave it back to its earlier population.^ A few years later, a large colony was transferred to it by order of the Roman Governor of Syria, and it was finally handed over by Augustus, thirty years before Christ, to Herod the Great, from whom it passed, by his will, to his sister Salome; she, in turn, leaving it to Livia, the wife of Augustus. So lightly were com- munities handed over by one royal personage to another in those good I J^ab. XT. 11. 2 Joeb. xlx, 48 ; Jos. AnL, t. 1, 22. 3 2 CbroD. x^^yi. 9. 4 b. q. 142. 6 9. C 6(. 62 THE IIULV LAND AND TIIK HIHLK. tOiUP. old days! It Imd now grown so Inrge that it io said, no doubt with muoh exatfgcrntion, to have been able to put 40,000 men in tiio field; but liatreu of the Jews, wiio lornied a hir^'o part of tlic community, caused muoh friction between them and their Iieatiien tenow-citi/.en8. At the breaicing-out of the last JewiHii war, Jamnia received per- mission from Titus to give a home to the memlHsrs of the Uabbinioal College of Jerusalem, and it tlms became a famous seat of Jewisli learn- ing ; but it gradually sank in after-times, till it has become tlio insig- nificant place it now is. It was with a strange feeling that one looked on the miserable col- lection of mud houses of which it at present consists, and thought that here the great insurrection of Ihircoclibu — *' the Son of a Star" — was planned by the Rabbis, in their despair at tlie cdi(;t by which Hadrian decreed tlie 8upj)ressiou of Judaism and Unyk their power from the hands of its teachers. Evervwhcre tliroughout the Em{)ire tlie Jews had been restlessly plotting and rising against the Romans for two gen- erations, till even Iladrian, wlio iuul shown tlicm favor at the opening of his reign, grew fierce aguinst them ; ordered the site of Jerusalem to receive a iieathen name — JFAia. Capitolina — and drove the plough- share over the ruins of the Temple, as a sign that it should never bj rebuilt; even forbidding any Jew so much as to approacli the circtiit of the Holy City. But the hope of a Messiah, wlio should give the victory to tiio ancient people of God over all tlieir enemies, still burned in the breast of every Israelite, and the hour brought with it the man to kindle these hopes to a flame. Aj)pealing to the prophecy of Balaam, Barcochba, api)arently hitherto unknown, gave himself out as the star that was to come from Jacob, " to smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth," ^ and acquired formidable ])ovver. Rabbi Akiba, a great name among the Jews, accepted him as the Mes- siah, and became his armor-bearer. The time predicted by Haggai was supposed to have come, when Jehovah would "shake the heavens and the earth, and overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen." ^ Barcochba was to be the Redeemer of Israel, who should free its sons from the bondage of Rome. Insurrection broke out at once. The new Messiah must have been a fierce fanatic, for he demanded that everyone who wished to follow him should submit to have one of his fingers chopped oft' as a test of his resolution; that circumcision should be repeated on all who had imperfectly obeyed the rite, and that the Jewish towns should be fortified — the one reasonable measure of the three! According to the Rabbis, 200,000 men, each with a finger hewn off', followed him, and as many more, unwilling to endure this teat, agreed that they would drag- up by the roots a cedar of Lebanon as a pledge of their spirit. Fifty I Num. xxiv. 17. 2 Hagg. ii. 21. QntboBeaohatCwsarea. (8eepa^46.) v.] THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON'S COUNTRY. 68 strong places, and nearly 1,000 villages, were taken from the Romans, and it took three years and a half for Hadrian to queil the terrible ris- ing. Bether, the chief fortress of the revolted Hebrews, held out for a whole year. The number who perished was reckoned at half a mill- ion, and the exasperation at the failure of the movement was so great that Barcochba's name — "the Son of a Star" — was changed by the survivors to Bar Cosiba — " the Son of a Lie." ^ This terrible narrative shows very forciblv the ideas of the Messiah prevalent in the days of Christ. It was to make Him such a king as Barcochba that the multitude wished to lay hold on the Saviour and put Him at their head,^ after the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes at the head of the Lake of Galilee, and it was because He would not lead a great rising against Rome that His countrymen finally rejected Him. Jamnia is only four miles and a half from a famous site — Ekron, one of the chief towns of the Philistines, now called Akir. Near it, among the hills overhanging the plain, is the reigon of Samson's exploits and of some notable incidents in the life of David, which could not be more conveniently visited than from this point, though horses, not wheels, are required in the uplands. Ekron is now only a mud hamlet on low rising ground, with gardens hedged with prickly pear, and a well on the north. Cisterns, empty or tenanted by birds, the stones of hand-mills, two marble columns, and a stone press, are the only ancient remains to be seen, for the Ekron of the Bible was probably built, like the present village, of unburnt bricks, which a fe\v years reduce to dust. One of the two marble pil- lars still visible forms the top of the gateway leading into a very hum- ble village mosque. Many of the inhabitants keep bees ; great jars closed up at the mouth with clay, except a little entrance, serving for hives, as, indeed, is the custom generally in Palestine. Sheepskin cloaks, the fleece inside, are worn by a number of the villagers, to pro- tect them from chill in the early morning or through the night, the contrast between the heat of the day and the cold of these hours being very great, as of old with Jacob in Mesopotamia.' Ekron means "barren," perhaps because, although the rich cornlands of the plain lie just below, the place itself stands on one of a long series of sandy, uncultivated swells, which, in this part, reach from the hills to the sea- coast. This, the most northern of the five Philistine cities, was assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Judah,* but afterwards to that of Dan,^ though, in the end, Judah took it and for a time held it.^ At the close of the period of the Judges, however, it was again a Philistine town, and is famous because the Ark, when taken from the Hebrews, rested in it 1 A vei7 full account of Barcochba's revolt is given from a Jewish point of view In Hamburg- er's Real Encycl., 11. 86 ff. 2 John vi. 15. 3 See ante, p. 72. 4 Josh. xlii. 8 : XV. IL 40. 6 Josh. xil. ifi. 6 Judg. i. 18; 1 Sam.TU.;4, ' ' ., I ! 64 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. for a tirae.^ In coniiectior with this incident it is striking to find that the two plagues inflicted on the Philistines for detaining th . sacred chest are still among the number of local visitation ; the habits of the ople leading very often to the internal tumors called emerodsin the cripture narrative, and armies of field-mice not unfrequently ravaging le crops. The destructiveness of these pests in the East is, indeed, i: the . often very great. A friend of Dr. van Lennep^ informed him that, one year, in Asia Minor, he " saw the depredations committed by an immense army of field-mice, which passed over the ground like an army of young locusts. Fields of standing corn and barley disappcaied in an incredibly short time, and as for vines and mulberry-trees, they were gnawed at the roots and speedily prostrated. The annual pro- duce of a farm of 150 acres, which promised to be unusually large, was thus utterly consumed, and the neighboring farms suffered equally." It was in all probability a visitation of these mice by wiiich the Phil- istines were harassed, though, indeed, there is a choice of creatures of this class in Palestine, which boasts no fewer than twenty-three varie- ties of the genus.^ It is now over 2,700 years since a solemn deputation arrived in Ekron from King Ahaziah of Samaria,* son of Ahab, to consult the local god, who bore the ominous name of Beelzebul-. or, to write it more correctly, Baal-zebub — the " Lord of Flies " — a title of the sun-god, as con- troller of the swarming insect world. Flies are at all times a severe trial in the hot months in the East, but occasionally they become almost unen- durable. That they were equally troublesome in antiquity is shown by Judith being said to have pulled aside the mosquito curtains on the bed of Holofernes, when she was about to kill him.^ In the Jordan valley the flocks and cattle are in gieat dread of a species of blood- sucking horse-flies, to escape from which the shepherds and herdsmen drive i -^m to higher and colder levels, where these plagues are not found. Even the wild animals are equally tormented by these insects, and flee to elevations where they are safe from them. Cases are also known, for example in the region of Nazareth, where immense swarms of small black flies darken the air, and cannot be kept out of the mouth and nostrils; their numbers at times breaking up an Arab encamp- ment, since even smoke and flame are hardly able to drive them away.^ In the Bible the word "Zebub" is used twice: in the passage, "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor,"''' and when Isaiah says that " the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of tlie rivers of Egypt,"^ that is. He shall make a sound like that which men use to attract and lead to the hive a swarm of bees ; thus bringing from all the canals and waters of Egypt 1 1 Sam. V "Mousf." 4 mosquito curtains," 10. 2 Van Lennep. BiMf Ixinds. p. 285, M). Bibff Ixinas. p B. c. 897—895. 6 Judith xiii.9. Greek, Kuiminlov 6 Jllehm, p. 445. 7 Eccles. x. I. " ' 3 Tliristram, Nat. HUt. qfthe BH>le: art. rci0v In Liddell and Scott, "a De4 yftth 8 Isa. Yil, 18. ree vane- The Mediterranean seen through the ruins of a pointed Gothic arch at Atblit. (See page 48.) v.i THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON's COUNTRY. 65 the fly which in summer is found near them in such clouds. Both on the Nile and in Palestine the common fly is met with in myriads, and, by carrying infectious matter on its feet, induces, when it lights, as it constantly does, on the corners of the eyes, purulent ophthalmia, the curse of both countries. They also draw blood by their bites, and produce festering sores, and tney swarm to such an extent that any article of food not carefully covered is made useless by them in a few minutes. Some authorities even think that the words of Isaiah respect- ing the country on the Upper Nile, the "land of the shadowing wings," * refer to the vast swarms of flies in those parts. But poor Ahaziah had more serious matters to trouble him than Eastern fly-swarms, when his embassy appeared in the narrow streets of Bkron, so long ago. He had fallen through an upper lattice'of his house and feared he was dying. The god Beelzebub had a great name for revealing the future. Would the sufferer live or die ? The fame of the local oracle must have been very high, not only then, but in later times, since Beelzebub had, by Christ's day, come to be recog- nized as the chief of the heathen gods of Palestine, or, as the Jews put it, the " the prince of the devils : "^ a use of the name which has, among Christians, made it equivalent to that of the arch-enemy him- self. East of Ekron, which itself is 200 feet above the sea, the land rises in successive ridges to that of Tell Jezer, which stands up in prominent isolation 750 feet above the Mediterranean, at a distance of about four- teen miles from it and six from Ekron. Part of these uplands bears corn, round the small villages of Naaneh and El-Mansurah, the former —once Naamah, near Makkedah — where Joshua put to death the five kings after the rout of Bethhoron.^ The rest is a barren reach of half- consolidated sand, without water. Below the swelling ground of the low hills the soil is rich, but only partially cultivated, and the rising slopes themselves are the haunts of small encampments of wandering Bedouins. The ancient fertility of the hills has in fact been greatly diminished by the want of population, the terraces on which vineyards and orchards were planted being left to fall into ruin, so that the rich soil has to a large extent been washed away, leaving only the bare rock. In 1874 the long-lost royal Canaanite city of Gezer was strangely re-discovered by M. Clermont-Ganneau in this hitherto unsuspected region. Finding it stated in an old Arab chronicle, in an account of a petty battle fought in this neighborhood, that the shouts of the com- batants were heard both at the village of Khulda and Tell-el-Jezer — " the HiU of Gezer" — he came to this spot, to see if he could justify his idea that the latter was really the site of the long-forgotten city. ll8a.xyUi.i. 2]Iatt.lx.M|xU.2i;MarklU.22. 8 Josh. z. lOi xv. 41. I h' llf 1 66 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. Learning from some peasants that a rude inscription was to be seen at one point, cut deeply into tlie natural rock, he sought it out, and to his delight found that it was in Hebrew, and read " Boundary of Gezer." The letters are supposed to be as old as the Maccabsean age — the sec- ond century before Christ — and seem to leave no doubt that Gezer has actually come once more to light. As in many other cases, a Mahom- medan tomb crowns the hill, marking it out for a long distance in every direction. The Tell, that is, mound, or hill, is long and irregu- lar in shape, with terraces at the sides, supported by a great wall of large unhewn blocks of stone. Near the eastern end is a raised square platform of earth, about 200 feet each way, containing similar blocks. This is all that is now left of the once populous city. A fine spring on the east must have supplied it abundantly with water, while the plain below stretches out in rich corn-fields to the sand-hills near the sea. If it was hard for the citizens to climb to their lofty home, the view from it well repaid them when it was reached, for the plain of Sharon to the north, with Lydda, and doubtless, in those days, many other towns or villages, and the great Philistine plain to the south, with its varying surface and its busy life, lay at their feet ; the purple mountains of Judaea rising behind them to the east, while the view to the west was only closed by the blue horizon of the great sea.^ Deso- late now for many centuries, human life was once varied enough on this airy height; for Gezer, besides being a Levitical city, and, as such, thronged with priests, was so important as to form part of the dowry of Pharaoh's daughter when she became one of Solomon's many queens. Wady es Surar, which opens on the plain about four miles south- east of Ekron, leads directly into the country of Samson, and also to the scene of David's encounter with Goliath. It stretches up, to the south-east, into the mountains of Judtea, and is water'^d in its centre by the Kubin ; other wadys or valleys running into it on both sides throughout its ascending length, till it loses itself in the numberless branches which pierce the hill-country in all directions. Slowly mounting it from the plain by a rough track which skirts its lower side, a long slow climb at last brings us in sight of Surah, the ancient Zorah, the birth-place of Sampson, on the top of a hill 1,171 feet high, about twelve miles sorth-east of Ekron. L^nng aloft, over the valley, this spot was evidently occupied by the Hebrews as an outpost, from which to watch their enemies, the Philistines ; the eye ranging from it over the whole broad glen beneath, as well as the hills on its south side, which in Samson's day were hostile country. The present village is a moderate-sized collection of mud huts^ on the top of a bare white 1 Gezer Is mentioned in Josh. x. 33; xll. 12; xvi. 3, 10; Judg. i. 29; 2tiam. V. 25; 1 Kings ix. 16, 16, 17 ; 1 Ghron. vi. 67 ; vli. 28 ; xiv. 16 ; xx. 4. 2 Josh. xv. 33. And they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses : and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. . . How art thou destroyed, that was inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea.-fese.xxvi. 12,17. RUINS OF ATHLIT. (WEST SIDE.) (See page 48.) I V.) TBfi PHILIBTIKB PLAIK AND 8AM80N*8 OOUNTRT. 67 hill, with some olives lower down the slopes to the north and east, and a well in a little vdley below ; but the villM(«ni do not nee this, pre- ferrinff to get their water from a spring halfa mile off, at the foot of the hill. A mukam, or shrinet of a Mussulman saint stands on the south side of the village ; a low square building of stone, with a hum- ble dome and a small oourt, within an old stone wall, at tlie side. You enter the yard through a small door in this wall, up two or three stops, but beyond the bare walls, and a solitary palm-tree, twice the height of the wall, there is nothing to see. Sheikh Samat, whoever he was, lies solitary enough and well forgotten in his airy sepulchre, but the whitewash covering his resting-place marks a custom which is univer- sal with Mussulman tombs of this kind. In almost every landscape the eye is caught by some whited sepulchre, just as the eye must have been in the Bible times by those to one of which our liord may have pointed when He denounced the Scribes and Pharisees as having; like such places, outward purity, but the very opposite within.* The Jews whitewashed their tombs, however, to warn passers- by of the defiling presence of death, lest too near an approach might make them unclean, and thus unfit them for any religious act, or for partaking of the Pass* over or entering the Temple. On the airy hill of Surah or Zorah, the border villa^, a spot now so bleak and uninviting, young Samson grew np, amidst plentiful dis- course about border forays, and constant sight and sound of danger firom the hated foe: a fit school for such a lad. Many a time must he have gone, as a little child, with his mother to the spring, and walked back up the steep half-mile beside her, as she carried her water-jar on her heac to supply the household; for mothers in Pales- tine, as elsewhere, like to have their growing boys at their side when they go abroad. It speaks of troublous times that a village should have been perchod so high, instead of nestling in the broad, flat valley below; but the landscape may have been cheerier in those days than it is now, for the ruins of ancient towns or villages crown nearly every hill-top round ; over thirty being found within a oirele of three miles from Zorah. So populous was the country once ; so desolate is it to-day. Three miles off to the south-west, on the south side of the great val- ley, 800 feet above the sea, and thus nearly 400 feet below Zorah, young Samson had before him the village of Tibnah — then Timnath^ — which was for a time all the world to him, for the maiden who had won his heart lived there. Ruined walls, oaves, wine-presses, and rock-cut cisterns are all that remains of it, unless we count the spring, north of the site, to and from which Samson's betrothed must often have borne her water-jar in those old days. The local and Oriental % Matt, xxlii. 27. 2 Josh. xv. 10 ; Judg. xiv. S. r I ■tn ^ THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. tOlAV. coloring of the Scripture story of the marriage* and its incidents is perfect. Samson, we read, "went down" to Timnath — for it lay lower than Zorali, as we have seen. It was then a Philistine village, and the Philistines had dominion over Israel at that time. As now, the lover couhl not himsolf manage the courtship; his father and mother must bi'eak the ice, by getting his sweetheart for him; must learn the dowry to be given for her, and consent to pay it. The betrothal arranged, parents and son wei'e free to go together to Timnath, and, for tlie iirst time, Samson got leave to talk with his future wife. The incident of the swarm of bees in the dried-up skeleton of the lion is also true to local experience. A dead camel is often found so dried up by the summer heat, before putrefaction has begun, that the mummy remains permanently unaltered, without any corrupt smell.^ Such a withered and dry shell of a dead beast would offer to wild bees a very fit place for storing their honey, accustomed as they are to use hollow trees, or cleats in the rocks, for hives. Even in England wrens and sparrows ha^^e been known to make their nest in the dried body of a crow or hiT,wic nailed up on a barn-door,' and instances are recorded of hornets using the skull of a dead camel for their hive.* As to the lion: a few years ago the carcass of one was brought into Damascus, and lion-bones have been found in the gravel of the Jordan,* while in the Bible there are five different words for the animal at different stages of growth, and of these, three — Laish, Lebaoth, and Arieh* — are used as names of places, apparently from lions haunting the neigh- borhood. Marriage feasts still continue for seven days,' as Samson's did, amidst songs, dances, and rough jollity, in which putting and answer- ing riddles forms a prominent part. It would seem, further, firom Sam- son's being allowed to see his betrothed before marriage, that the marriage feast was something like that now found among tne peasants of the Hauran: its scene, the open-air threshing-floor; the company, made up of "friends of the bridegroom," of whom the parents of Sam- son's wife provided the feast with as many as thirty ; * the bride and bridegroom sitting, rudely crowned, as king and queen of the sports, on the threshing-sledge, as a mock throne, till at the close of the week husband and wife find themselves once more poor hard-working peas- ants.^ That the whole party at Samson's wedding were little better than peasants is clear from their distress at the thought of losing a shirt and an outer tunic apiece. " Have you invited us," was their taunt to the bride, " only to take from us our property ? " ^^ Marriage feasts often end now, as they did in this case, in quarrels and even bloodshed. 1 Judg. xlv. Iff. 2 Rosenm Her, A. v. N. Morgenland, iil. 46. 3 Tristram, JVd^ Hist. Sible, p. 324. 4 Land and Book, p. 566. 5 Tristram, Nat. Hist. Bible, p. 117. 6 Judge, xviti. 4: Josh. xv. 32; xlx. 6; 2 Kings XV. 25. 7 Rielim,p.338. 8 Judge. xiv. 11. 9 Dr. J.O.WetsteininDelitzsoh'sJroAeiUedi p. 162 fl. 10 Judges. :iv. 15. Bedouin from Hauran. (See page 64.) BibU,p.92L _ XV. 32; xlx. ▼J THE PHUJOTINB PLilN AKD SAMSON'B OOUNTRY. Sampson's revenge for his wife beins stolen firom him and married to another man took, as we may remomoer, a form strange to Western ideas, and yet this too, on the spot, must have seemed quite in keepins with local ways and oiroumstanoes. The great valley of Sorek, with its broad swells of rioh hiid stretching away, wave on wave, and the slopes of the distant hills at its sides, must have been covered for many miles in every direction with a sea of com, which in the hot summer, as harvest approached, would be like so much tinder. Any one who has travelea in Palestine at this season must have noticed the rigorous precautions taken against a conflagration, so certain to be widely disatitrous where no walls or hedges separate the fields ; there being great danger, in fact, of the flames spreading over the whole landscape. It would be easy for Samson to get any number of jackals, by the abundant help he could command as a local hero, if not already "judge." The howls of these animals by night, in every part of Pales* tine, show how common they are even now, and in Samson's time they must have been much more so, as difierent places bore different names given fVom the numbers of these pests in their neighbohood. We have "the Land of Shual"^ — that is, "the Jackal Country" — apparently near to Bethel; Hazar-shual, or "Jackal Town,"* and Shaalabbin — " the City of Jackals " — a town of Dan, Samson's own tribe.' For Maralah,* in Zebulon, on the north, the Syriac, moreover, reads, "the Hill of Jackals." Indeed, the constant mention of snares, nets, pits, &c., in tlie Bible, shows that wild creatures of all kinds must have been much more numerous than they now are, though some kinds, jackals among them, still abound. Looking down to the south from Zorah, the site of Bethshemesh, to which the lowing kine dragged the cart on which had been put the sacred ark of the Hebrews, is in full view. It is two miles from Zorah, and lies about 250 feet lower. Heaps of stones, and ruined walls that seem modem, speak of a former village, while foundations and walls of good masonry, apparently more ancient, mark a low swell to the west. Add to these some rock-cut tombs, half buried ; a few olives to the east ; a tomb of some unknown Mussulman saint — and you have all that remains of Bethshemesh, unless you include a set of dry stone huts, with roofs of boughs, for shelter to harvestmen in the reaping season. The old name, which means " the House of the Sun," is now changed to " Ain Shems," "the Fountain of the Sun" — living water being found in the valley below. Both point to the Philistine «un-worship, and both names are fitting, for every sun ** house " or temple needed, like all other ancient sanctuaries, a fountain near it, to supply water for ablutions &pd libations. The village looks down the 1 1 Sam. xiii. 17. 2 Josb. XT. 28;xlz.S:lChron. lr.28; Neh.xi.a7. 8 Josh. xlx. 42. 4 Josh. slx.ll. See the whole subject treated with wonderlul learning in Boohart's menmicm, p. 864 ff. w 70 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [CHAP. wide valley of Sorek, which trends to the north-east, so that the men of Bertlishemesh, then busy reaping their wheat, could see from afar the kine dragging the cart with the ark^ towards them, up the rough track from Ekron. Their little hill-town, like Zorah, was a frontier settlement of the Hebrews in those days, and right glad must all hearts have been to welcome the national palladium once more among its own people. - CHAPTER VI. LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID'S LIFE. Abojt four miles to the south, over the hills, we pass from Samson's country to a district famous in the history of David. An old Roman road leads part of the way; for indeed such roads run in all directions through these hills, as the English roads run through the Scotch High- lands; the first object of the conquerors having been to secure order and quiet in the land. When this faint trace of a road fails, a track leads to the Wady es Sunt, which is no other than the valley of Elah,^ the scene of David's memorable conflict with the gigantic Goliath.^ Saul had marched down with his militia from Benjamin, by one of the lines of valleys, afterwards utilized for various Roman roads from the mountains to the sea-plain, and had encamped on the low hills border- ing the Wady es Sunt — or "the Valley of the Acacia." Meanwhile the Philistines vere marshalled at Ephes-Dammin, on the other side of the valley, down the centre of which ran a deep ravine cut by win- ter torrents, forming a small wady within the greater. The rival armies covered the opposing slopes; the natural trench in the middle forming a barritr between them. For forty days the Philistine cham- pion had advanced from the west side, his huge lance in his hand, his brazen helmet and armour glittering in the sun, and had shouted his challenge to the Hebrews, without anyone venturing to accept it. On the fortieth day, however, a mere stripling, low of stature, but of fine features, and with only the common coat or blouse of a shepherd-boy, made his way towards him from across the valley, with nothing in his hands but a shepherd's staff and a goat's-hair sling. The indigna- tion of the haughty warrior at the approach of such an adversary was unbounded. Was he a dog that a boy should come to him with a stick? Stormy curses on so poor a foe, showered forth in the name of llSam.TL12fl. 218am.xvU.2. 8iSaiu.xvU.i. [Chap. that the see from ., up the ti, was a ^ht glad am once Samson's d Roman lirections ch High- ure order 3, a track of Elah,2 Groliath.^ >ne of the from the s border- eanwhile ther side by win- rhe rival le middle ne cham- hand, his 3uted his it. On it of fine lerd-boy, 3thing in indigua- sary was In with a name of V1.1 LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID'S LIFE. 71 all his gods, relieved his fury. But David knew his own purpose, which was no less than an inspiration of genius. Accustomed, as a shepherd-lad, to the sling, so that he could hit any object with it, never missing, he would stun the Philistine with a pebble hurled full fbrce at his forehead, and then kill him before he recovered conscious- ness. Slings are still in use among shepherds iji Palestine, not only to drive off wild animals but to guide their flocks. A stone oast on this side or that, before or behind, drives the sheep or goats as the shepherd wishes. It was the familiar weapon of hunters,^ and also of light- armed fighting men,2 especially among the Benjamites, whose skill wat> famous.* A good stinger could hit at 600 paces,* and hence at a short distance the force of the blow given must have been very great. The terrible whiz of a sling-stone, and the distance it flew, have, indeed, made it a symbol of final and wrathful rejection by God. " The souls of thy enemies," said the politic Abigail to David himself, at a later period, " shall Jehovah sling out, as out of the middle or a sling." ^ Trusting in his God, the brave boy picked up five pebbles from the bed of the water- course, when he had made his way down its steep side, and, having crossed the rough stony channel, he clambered up tiie other bank ; then, putting a pebble in liis sling, he stood before the Philistine. Furious words, followed by strides towards the lad, seemed ominous of his fate, but a moment more sent the stone into Goliath's forehead, and he sank insensible. The sequal we all know. Seeing their champion fall without any apparent aause, for the design of David could not have been suspected, a panic seized the Philistines, and they fled in wild disorder to the mouth of the valley, where, if Captain Conder be right, Gath stood towering en its white chalk clift', the frontier fortress of Philistia, commanding the high road to the corn-lands of Judah and the vineyards of Hebron. All the localities mentioned in this exciting narrative lie very close together. " Socoh, which belonged to Judah," is Shuweikeh, a heap of ruins, about 1,150 feet above the sea, on the south slopes of Wady es Sunt; and Ephes-Dammin, "the Bloody Boundary" — so called, doubtless, from soine fierce combat there — may be some ruins a little higher up the wady, now called Beit Fased. About two mil&i to the south of the scene of David's triumph the Palestine Surveyors appear to have discovered the Cave of Adullam, so famous in the after-life of the Hebrew king. It lies in a round hill al:)out 500 feet high, pierced with a number of caverns, th*) hill itself being isolated by several valleys and marked by ancient ruins, tombs, and quarrjdngs. At its foot are two old wells of special antiquity, one measuring eight to ten feet in diameter, not unlike the wells at Beer- 1 Jobxli.28. 2 2 Cbron. xxTi. 14. ** Judg. xx. 16; 1 CbroQ. xii. 2. 4 Aiebm, p. 1410. 6 ISanu XXY. 29. /. V" ...^utidiia.^' 72 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. rcsAp. I slieba, and surrounded, as those are, by numerous stone water-troughs. Near these wells, under the shadow of the hill which towers aloft, a veritable natural stronghold, are other ruins, to whicii the peasants give the name of Aid-el-Ma, which is identical with the Hebrew Adullam.^ Such a verification seems to mark the s])ot as, beyond question, that in whjch the famous cave should be found, for it was near the royal city of Adullam, and the ruins on the hill-top may well be those of that place.^ Here then, apparently, it was that there gathered round David "everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented:"^ a motley crew out of which to create a reliable force. The road from Hebron to the plains passes the hill, winding along the valley of Elah, here called Wady es Sir, from the side of which the hill of Adullam rises, the road continuing down the valley, which is called Wady es Sunt from Socoh to the plains. Other roads trend oflf in different directions, marking Aid-el-Ma as an important centre of communication in former ages. A cave which completes the identification exists in tlie hill, which in fact is pierced by many natural caverns. It is not necessary to suppose that the one used by David was of great size, for such spacious recesses are avoided by the peasantry even now, from their dampness and tendency to cause fever. Their darkness, moreover, needs many lights, and they are disliked from the numbers of scorpions and bats frequenting them. The caves used as human habitations, at least in summer, are generally about twenty or thirty paces across, lighted by the sun, and cQmparatively dry. I have often seen such places wit\i their roofs blackened by smoke : families lotiging in one, goats, cattle, and sheep stabled in another, and grain or straw stored in a third. At Adullam there are two such caves on the northern slope of the hill, and another farther south, while the opposite sides of the tribu- tary valley are lined with rows of caves, all smoke-blackened, and mostly inhabited, or used as pens for flocks and herds. The cave on the south of the hill itself was tenanted by a single family when the surveyors visited it, just as it might have been by David and his immediate friends, while his followers housed themselves in those near at hand.* The whole neighborhood, indeed, is intensely interesting. About three miles south-east of Adullam, among liills 1,600 feet high, is Keilah, a town of Judah, which David rescued from an attack of the Philistines, who had fallen upon it at the beginning of the harvest and carried off its cattle, and the corn from the threshing- flooi's.* They had come up the valley of Elah, from the plain, to those highland 1 Tsnt Work in Palettine, p. 277. 2 Jos. ^n^., vi. 12, 3. 8 1 Sam. XXll. 2. 4 PaL Mtportt, U7S, p. 148 S 5 1 Sam . xxiii. 1. ; Jos. Ard., vi. 18, 1. r-troughs. rs aloft, a 3 peasants i Hebrew s, beyond for it was may well hat there everyone a motley ing along of which jy, which ads trend mt centre ill, which sessary to I spacious lampness ids many and bats t least in ghted by leeS witli s, cattle, a third. )e of the le tribu- ned, and cave on ;rhen the and his ose near About high, is k of the ieat and They ighland 1876, p. 148 '^sa(4f-Si**iv M VI.] LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID's LIFE. 73 corn-fields, which lay at their mercy year by year. The broad valley is, for the greater part of its course, over a mile across, and the rich arable ground, watered by brooks and springs, offers in spring-time a wide landscape of green corn-fields and brown furrows, and in harvest a great undulating sea of yellow grain. Of old, as now, the villager lived in the hills for safety ; the peasantry coming down to t^^e valley to till their fields. As long as the Philistines held Gain, if Tell es Safieh be that city, they could ascend the great valley to the richest corn-land of Judah ; or if they chose to keep on to the east, the road lay open to them to Jerusalem itself, while by turning south just beyond Bethshemesh, up a broad valley running into the valley of Elah, they could reach ICeilah. The Wady es Sunt, or " the Valley of the Acacia," runs east and west from the valley of Elah, Socoh lying at its e^^tern end; and thus looking, north and south, into Elah, and west, up the Valley of'the Acacia. Goliath must have come with the Philistines up the valley running south from Bethshemesh; while the main line of communica- tion between the territory of Benjamin and the Acacia Valley led Saul straight towards them. The terebinths, from which the valley of Elah takes its name, still cling to their ancient soil. On the west side of the valley, near Socoh, there is a very large and ancient tree of this kind, known as "the Terebinth of Wady Sur," fifty-five feet in height, its trunk seventeen feet in circumference ; and the breadth of its shade no less than seventy- five feet. It marks the upper end of the Elah valley, and forms a noted object, being one of the largest terebinths in Palestine, and standing so as to be conspicuous from a long distance. Two or thiee more still dot the course of the valley, but only at wide intervals. The glory of Elah in this respect is gone. After the massacre of the priests at Nob, Keilah became the refuge of Abiathar, who brought with him the Sacred Ephod, the oracle con- stantly consulted by the Hebrew kings. When he retired from Galh, after his first residence there, David had taken his position at Adul lam, which was the strongest post in the region specially exposed to Philistine inroads. After a time he fled to Hareth, which seems to have been high up on some lofty hills south from Adullam, and a little over a mile from the lower-lying Keilah. From this point he wentdown to that village — then a place defended with walls, bars, and gates,^ and offering the attraction of Abiathar's presence. He soon learned, how- ever, that the bands of Saul were near at hand, and that the towns- people intended to betray bim to them. How he escaped From this supreme danger seems to be hinted in the Eighteenth Psalm, in which he thanks God that, by Ws help, he had run through a troop, and had 1 1 Sain, xxiii. 7. 74 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [CUAP. I . 1 ) i leaped over a wall.^ But »ucli feats would be comparatively easy to one who could speak, as David does, of his being like a hind for swift- ness, and able to break a steel bow with his hands.'^ Yet the sortie from Keilah must have been a wild aft'air. The steep- sides of the hill on wliicli it stood were in tliuse days terraced and covered with corn; immense labor having been expended to make the huge, step-like walls behind which it grew. There are now no trees; but perhaps, as at Bethlehem, they then rose here and there on the terraces. To break out with such of his troop of 600 men as were quartered in the town, letting themselves down from tlie wall, and tlien mustering for a rush through the force hemming them in, must have made strange excitement in the dark night in which, one would sup- pose, it was carried out. Tlien came the svvift flig^'t in as good order as possible, past the well at the foot of the hiP past another well fartlier down the narrow valley, and on till the strath broadens into green fields, edged with low scrub-covered hills. They must have fled towards the V-tlley of the Terebinths — the valley of P^lah — thankful to escape, and at last hiding, it may bo, in some of the deep gorges into which one looks down from the hill-sides. The "yaar," or wood, of Hareth, overhanging Keilah, would be too close at hand tt) oft'er safe shelter. A fine view of the whole district is to be had from Tell Zakariyah, a round hill about 800 feet high, on the north side of Wady es Sunt, Orchards of olives, figs, and otiier trees, clothe tiie slopes, which rise on each side of a network of valleys in every direction. The great *wady stretches out at one's feet like a majestic stream, so sharply are its sides bounded by the enclosing hills and mountains, and so propor- tionately broad throughout is the valley itself. The course of the valley, from the east to the north-west, is visible for a long distance. It is easy to see how readily the Philistines, mounting i'rom the plains, could penetrate where they chose among the upper glens, and why on tliis account the Hebrews had so often met them in fierce strife in this neighborhood. The ruins of Socoh, with its huge terebinth, lie about five miles to the east; and the slopes a'ld bare hills on both sides of the wady, on which the opposing forces had stood arrayed, are spread out like a picture, with the deep ravine of the winter torrents between them, in the middle of the valley. The hills west of ^J ell Zakariyah, and on both sides of tiie Acacia Valley — Es Sunt — are very, desolate ; but they seem, from the ruins on them, to nave once been inhabited. Ancien; caves and broken cisterns are frequent in the lower levels. Wild sage, in its usual abundance, covers large tracts ; but a few flocks of goats and a few camels, seeking doubtful pasture on the slopes, are, with their guardians, the only living creatures to be seen. 1 Ps. xviil. 29. 2 Ps. xvlil. 33, 34. ' ; .;m: -^ Surah. Ancient Zorah, blrth-plftw of 8«u»»«>u. kSoo imgi' «W.) VI.l LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID'S LIPB. 76 From Tell Zakariyah the route lay down the broad Wady Akrabeh, into wliicli we turned from the Wady es Sunt. For more than half an hour the path lay over freshly ploughed land, very wearisome to cross, but at last we reached the track leading from Ajjur, west, to Tell es Safleh, the goal of our journey for the time. Men on camels and horses passed at times; and a peasant who was ploughing — of course a Mahommedan — hurled curses at us as infidels, but we took no notice. Fell es Safleh rises proudly to a height of 695 feet above the r , on its eastern edge: a lofty watch-tower of the land, and r^ ^josition of fatal importance against the Hebrews when it was held by the Philis- tines, since it commands the entrance to the great valley of Elah, a broad high-road into the heart of the mountains. It sinks steeply on nearly every side. On the east and north, narrower or wider glens isolate it from the hilly landscape, in which it forms a ridge of some length, with the highest point to the south. On a plateau 300 feet high, the sides nearly precipitous except at one point, and known from their white limestone as the "Shining Cliff'," is tne village of El Safleh, to which the ascent is made by a slanting spur on the north-east. As usual, we sought out the dwelling of the sheikh, which was humble enough, though he is thought rich and powerful ; but it offered us a very grateful shelter. Towards evening the men at the village assembled at the sheikh's to see the strangers, and, if invited, to join in supper, which followed soon after sunset. We sat down to the meal on the floor, in two long rows ; the natives cross-legged, we with our legs out before ns. Two dishes were brought in, the one a strongly-spiced preparation of wheat- nleal; the other odorous of cut leeks and onions. For spoons we had to use pieces of freshly- baked thin scones, eating the spoon as well as its contents after each mouthful. Four of us dipped into the same dish, reminded me of the words of our Lord, "He thatdippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me." * After eating, most of the men went out to pray before the door, with their faces to Mecca; this ovdr, they came in again, and we all drew round a fire of thorns and brusn in the middle of the floor: pleasant and needful in the cool night. How abundant thorns or prickly shrubs and trees are in Pales- tine, may be judged from the fact that there are a do2sen words in the Bible for sucn growths. All hot countries, indeed, abound in thorny vegetation, which is the result of the leaves being left undeveloped through want of water, in such a high temperature ; for thorns are only abortive leaves. When dry they are necessarily very inflammable, as in fact everything is in the hot summer or autumn, as the Hebrews knew to their cost from the earliest times.^ Allusions to their being lMatt.XXTi.28. 2£x.xxU.«. 76 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. (Cha». used as fuel are frequent in Scripture. "Before your pots can feel the thorns," says the Psuhnist, '*lle shall take them [or whirl them] away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in His wrath,"' a verse whicli apparently means that the whirlwind of God's wrath will carry oft" the wicked as a storm-wind carries away botli the burning and the yet unkindled thorns, before the pots have felt their heat, which, with such swiftly-kindling fuel, they would do almost at once. The fire of thorns, bright for a moment, but speedily sinking and quenched if fresh fuel be not added, is used as a comparison for the fate of the nations who, in one of the Psalms, are saia to compass the sacred writer about.'-* The laughter of the fool, says Ecclesiastes, is like the crackling of thorns under a pot.^ In an Arab tent you are prettj' sure to see a i)ile of thorns in one corner to keep alight the tent-fire. In a country like Palestine, moreover, it is a yearly custom to set fire to the thorns on the plains and hill-sides after the harvest has been secured, just as tlie fur/e IS burned on our own hill-sides, to clear the ground and enrich the soil with the wood-ashes. A time is chosen when the wind ia high and blows from a direction which will not spre id the flames dangerously, and then a match kindles a conflagration wl ich soon extends lor miles, lighting up the night with a wild brighti ess. Wherever a tent is pitched in the open wilderness, fires of thorr. \ are speedily ablaze alter sunset, at once to give heat, to shed light, C[' whicn Easterns are pas- sionately fond, and to scare away thieves and wild animals. It is a terrible picture of swift and helpless destruction when Nahum says ot the Assyrians, " While they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall oe devoured as stubble fully dry."^ In many parts thorns are so matted and tangled together as to be impenetrable. The Assyrians might boast of being unap- proachable, like theue; they might boast in their cups that no power could harm them, yet they would be no more before the flames of the wrath of Jehovah than stubble or thorns withered to tinder by the sun.^ The enactment of Moses alluded to on the preceding page, that "if fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution,"* refers to other uses of these plants. In ancient times thorns were often made into hedges round gardens near towns, as they still are,' and they grow wild, not only round all patches of grain in the open country, but largely, too, among them. Watchmen are kept, as harvest approaches, with the duty of guarding against fire as one of their chief^ cares. With the thorns, dry, tall weeds and grass are intermingled, and a spark falling on these sweeps 1 Ps. Iviil. 9. S rs. cxviii. 12. 3 Eccles. vii. 6. 4 Mab. 1. 10. 5 Geikie, Hours with the Bibte, v. p. U8. 6 Ex. xxH. 6. 7 Ecclus. xxviil. 24. "^ i- And he came up nnd told his fiither and his mother, mid HaiPliiliB- tln»'H ; now therefore get her for nie to wife. Tlien went HaniHon down, and hiH father and his mother, to Timnath : and behold a yoiiiiK lion roared against him. And the Hpirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, nnd he rent him as he would have rent a kitl. and he had nothing in hia hand: but he told nut hiH father or his mother what he had i\onv.— Judy. xiv. 8, 5, «. TJBNIflH, AN^UBNT TIMNATH, BPMB OF SAMSON'S PRIDE. (See pa^e 9f,) ie Bible, v. p. VIJ LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID's IJFE. 77 the whole into a flame to which the ripe grain can offer no resistance, being itself inflammable as tinder. Moses required only restitution of the value destroyed, but the Arabs of the present day are not so lenient. "In returning to Tiberias," says Burcichardt, "I was several times reprimanded by my gi lUe for not taking care of the lighted tobacco that fell from my pipe. The whole of the mountain is thickly covered with dry grass, which readily takes fire, and the slightest breath of air instantly spreads the conflagration far over the country, to the great risk of the peasant's harvest. The Arabs who inhabit the valley of the Jordan invariably put to death the person who is known to have been even thi innocent cause of firing the grass, and they have made a public law among themselves that even in the height of intes- tine warfare no one shall attempt to set an enemy's country on fire. One evening while at Tiberias I saw a large fire on the opposite side of the lake, which spread vsrith great velocity for two days, till its pro- gress was cliecked by the Wady Feik." * The evening passed very pleasantly in conversation, smoking, and drinking coffee^ Everyone was friendly, and I felt myself as safe as if I had been in ray own house. One could fancy that our Divine Master must often have passed the evening in just such a house : the mud divan or bench along the wall. His seat, as it was ours, and the wood fire crackling as brightly in the centre of the chamber. The goats in the little courtyard had early Ficended to the roof, their sleeping-place, by the rude steps outside the house, and the human guests left, one vy one, about nine — even the sheikh retiring ; so that we remained alone, except for some tired peasants, who stretched themselves out on the mats, and covered themselves with their outer garment. There could be no better comment on the Mosaic law: "If thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment [upper garment] to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down: for that is his only covering, it is his outer garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleepf " * The law is conceived in the same nerciFul spirit that prohibited an upper mill- stone from being taken in pledge.' After a time the fire died out, but a feeble oil-lamp still gave somo light. This went out about midnight, but it was our fault. Nohousb, however pot>r, is left without a light burning in it all night ; the house- wife rising betimes to secure its continuance by replenishing the lamp with oil. If a lamp go out, li is a fatal omen. " The light of the wicked," says Bildad, "shall be put out the light shall be dark in his tent, and his lamp, above him, shall be put out."* "The light of the righteous rejoices," says the Book of rroverbs, " but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out." * " How often is the candle 1 Burckhardt, pp. 331, 2. 9. Ex. xxli. 26, 27; Deut. xxiv. 13; Job x^ii. 6; Job Kxiy. 10. 3 Pettt JJ^)V,6, 4 Job xvin. 6, 6 (». v.). ft F|roy, x}U, 9, , ^ , -hmt 78 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [CHAi*. K [lamp] of the wicked put out! " cries Job.^ Jeremiah, painting the ruin impending over his country, can find no more touching metaphor than that God wouJd "take from it the light of tlie candl'^ " [lamp] ;2 and St. John repeats, as part of the doom of the mystical Babylon, that " the light of a candle [lamp] shall shine no more at all in it."^ The promise to David, implying the permanence of his I'ne, was that Jeho- vah would give him a lamp for his sons always.* Morning is always interesting in the East. As we walked through the very narrow lanes among the houses, the peo])le were driving their camels, sheep, and goats afield. Here and there a man was on his way to his daily work, with his plough on his shoulder. A strong castle once stood on the highest point of the hill, the Blanche Garde — "the White Guard" — of the Crusaders, built by tliem in A. d. 1144 as a defence against the inhabitants of Ascalon. Only a few stones of its walls now remain; the rest have been carried oft' to various towns as building material. The view from the hill-top was magnificent. The mountai :s of Judah rose grandly, step above step, from north-east to south-west. Nearly straight north, beyond a magnificent expanse of fertile plain, the lofty tower of Ramleh was distinctly visible, and the same vast expanse of plain stretched to the south : while on the west, the deep blue of the Mediterranean reached away to join the rich sapphire of the skies. Over twenty smaller or larger villages and hamlets were within view, but there were no hnbitations between them ; want of security compelling ^very one to live in some community. Hence, after all, the population was very limited. As we descended to tlie plain by the western side, which is partly terraced, ii^any doves flew round us. These rock pigeors are found in considerable numbers in the clefts of the hill-sides of Palestine, and are often alluded to in the Bible. "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks," says the Beloved.^ "O ye that Owell iii Moab," cries Jeremiah, "leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dovf that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth." ^ There are many large caves on the north side of the hill, and some excavations which are used for storing grain. Water is procured chiefly from a well in a valley to the north. There are no masonry remains on the village table-land. Tell es Safieh is thought by Capt. Condor and Prof. Porter to be the site of the Philistine city of Gath, and as I looked back at it, with its lofty plateau, now ocGU))ied by the village we had left, such a natural fortress seemed wonderfully suited for a strong city. Defended by walls and gates, it must have been almost impregnable in ancient times. It is not, indeed, certain that the identification is correct, for the old l.Iobxxl. 17. 2 .Icr. XXV. 10. 3 Hev, xvJil. 23. 4 2Klngs vlii. 19; 1 Kings xv. 4; xl. 86. 6' Cant. U. 14. 6 .ler. xlviii. 28. I [CHAi\ ting the etaphor imp] ; 2 on, that » The at Jeho- th rough ng their his way ig castle e— " the 144 as a es of its towns as It. The li-east to pause of , and tlie on the I the rich ages and in them ; munity. is partly oiind in and are clefts of D," cries he dove here are avations y from a s on the o be the with its natural rided by nt times. the old S6. 6' Cant. VIJ LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID'S LIFE. 79 name has not been found associated with the spot ; but, apart from this, probabilities are very much in its favor. If it be the old Gath, what memories cluster round the spot I Here, and at Gaza and Ash- dod, gathered the remnant of the huge race known in the early history of Palestine as the giants. Goliath, a towering man-mountain, nine feet high,^ once walked through its lanes, then perhaps not unlike those we had left, and so too, it may be, did Ishbibenob— ■" mv seat is at Nob" 2 — the head of whose spear ^ weighed 300 shekels or brass — about eight pounds — only half as heavy, however, as Goliath's — and the other three sons "born to the giant in Gath."* These colossal warriors seem to have been the last of their race, which we do not need to conceive of as all gigantic, but only as noted for boasting some extra tall men among a people famous for their statute. The Goths in old times were spoken of in the same way by their contemporaries as a race of giants, but though they were huge compared with the popula- tions they invaded, giants were a very rare exception among them, as among other nations. It was to Gath that David lied, after Saul had massacred the priests at Nob for giving him food. It lay nearest the mountains of Judah, and was easily reached, down the great Wady Sorek, or Elah, the mouth of which it commanded, if Tell es Safieh be Gath. But his reception, at least by the retamers of Achish, the king of 1;his part of the Philist ne territory, was far from encouraging, as indeed was not wonderful, remembering his fame among their enemies the Hebrews, and his triumph over their great champion Goliath. The Fifty-sixth Psalm, ascribed to this period, describes his position as almost desper- ate. His "enemies were daily like to swallow him up; they wrested his words; they marked his steps; they lay in wait to take his life." ^ Under these circumstances he very naturally had recourse to any strat- agem that promised him safety, and hence, knowing the popular rev- erence for those mentally affected, pretended he was insane. Supersti- tious awe for such as are so is still common in the East. I myself saw a lunatic, full-fed and bulky, with nothing on but a piece of rough mat- ting round his waist, walking over the bridge of boats at Constantino- ple, followed by a crowd who treated him with the utmost reverence. Insane persons dangerous to society are kept in confinement in Egypt, but those who are harmless wander about and are regarded as saints.* Most of the reputed holy men on the Nile are, indeed, either lunatics, idiots, or impostors. Some of them may be seen eating straw, not unfrequently mixed with broken glass, seeking to attract observation by this and other strange acts, and earning &om the ignorant com- munity by these extravagances the title of a "welee," or favorite of 1 Thenius. 2 Theniua suggests an emend&tion which would make the name mean— "he who dwells on the height." 8 VulgM " IfPP o( tl|e spear." 4 2 Sam. uL ^ 6 Ps '«{. 2, 6t Lame, Modtm E(n/pUaru,l.2H, " * . t 80 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chip. Heaven. 1 David, therefore, had method in the madness, which he feigned when driven to extremities in Gath. But after such an experi- ence, and especially after the fatal march to Jezreel, which ended in the death of Saul and Jonathan, it is not wonderful that he set himself determinedly to break down the Phihstine power, so as to free Israel from constant peril. While he was carrying out tins vital object Gath fell into his hands, ^ and continued to be a Hebrew fortress for some generations* Under Hazael of Damascus, liowever, we find it added to the Syrian dominions,* but Uzziah retook and destroyed it, so that from that time, 2,700 years ago, it vanishes from history, a short allu- sion to it by the Prophet Micah excepted.^ On his second flight to Gath, some years later, David seems to have fared better. Achish a[)pears to have persuaded his people that it was a highly politic step to welcome, as an ally, one so famous in the past as an enemy. In keeping with this, and to remove him from possible collision with the fighing men of Gath, a village was given him — Ziklag — deep in the south country of Judah, where he would at once be useful, as was no doubt thought, in defending the Philistine terri- tory from attacks in that direction, and safely remote from the centre of the little kingdom. Once in his distant exile, he must have found himself committed to a war of defence against the lawless Amalekites — restless, tent-dwelling Bedouins, who lived by plunder, and had always been the enemies of the Hebrews.** He may have found these fierce marauders raiding against the south country of Judah and the local Arab tribes related to Israel by blood, and thus it may have been true enough when he told Achish that he had been fighting in those parts; the Philistine at once concluding that he had been attacking the Hebrews. The plains round Blanche Garde are famous for some of the most romantic deeds of Richard the Lion-hearted, bui they are silent enough now. The landscape rises and falls in low swells; fallows alternating with sown fields; the soil nearly black, and evidently very fruitful. These great plains of Philistia and Sharon rony yet have a future, if the curse of God, in the form of Turkish ru^o, be removed. The gar- dens at Joppa show what glorious vegetation water and industry can create, e\'en where the invading sand has to be fought, and we may imagine Avhat results similar irrigation and industry would create over the wide (jxpanse. The scarcity of wood is the one feature that lessens the general charm, for excepting the orchards and olive-groves, often very small, round isolated villages, there are no trees. So much is this the case indeed that here, as in Egypt, the only fuel in many parts for cooking or heating, if there be no thorns, is dried camel or cow 1 Ibid., 1. 291, 292. 2 1 Chron. xylii. 1. ? 2 Chion, xl. 8. 4 2 Kings xll. 17. 6 MIc. i. 10, 9 1 Sftm, XXVll. 8, IBwm, Valky and ruins of Oharetun seen from the care of Adullam. (SeepageTl.) VI.1 LOCALITIES FAMOUS IN DAVID'S LIFE. 81 dung made into cakes. Children, espeoinlly girls, may bo seen eagerly §athering the materials for it, wnei*ever (bund, or kneading them into isks, which are then stuck against a wall, or laid out on the earth to dry.^ In use, however, this iUel is not at uU objectionable, for it emits no disagreeable smell, and oommunicatos no bad taste to food prepared with it In its burning it is very like pimt, as it may well be, since both are really only so much woody fibre. The little village of Tell et Turmua lies about six miles nearly west from Tell es Safieh, on a low rise of ground. Near at hand is a deep, well-built cistern, covered by a low dome; a channel connecting it with a tank close by, about three feet deep, wliich ia filled, to save labor and time in watering the flocks and herds, not very numerous in such a community. The houses wero no longer "built, as in the hills, of limestone, but of unburnt bricks, made of olaok earth mixed with stubble. A few men sat about, as usual, idly gossiping, though it was morning — the best time to work. The road to Ashdod from Tell et Turmus is uiong the bottom of :>, series of swelling waves of land, which tirend to the north-west, three small villages forming the only population. TI»o plain is seamed with dry watercourses or wadys, worn deep by winter torrents. This is the characteristic of nearly all streams in Palestine. During the winter months, when useless for irrigation, they are often foaming rivers; but in the hot summer, when they would bo of priceless value, their dry bed is generally the road from one point to another. The bare sides of the hillfi, iii many cases long ago denuded of all soil, retain very little of the tremenaous rain-storms that break at times over them, in winter or even spring. The water rushes over the sheets of rock as it would from the roof of a house, and converging, as it descends, into minor streams in the higher wadys, theso sweep on to a common channel in some central valley, and, tlius united, swell in an incredibly short time into a deep, troubled, roaring flood, which fllls the whole bottom of the wady with an irresistible torrent. Some friends, caught in a storm in Samaria, told me they had to flee from their tents to hi^er ground, while still half^dressed, to escape the sweep of the stream which they knew would presently overwhelm the spot on which their tents had been pitohea. The same thing, on a greater scale, is seen in the Sinai mountains. **I was encamped," says the Rev. F. W. Holland,^ "in Wady Feiran, near the base of Jebel Serbal, when a tremendous thunderstorm burst upon us. After little more than an hour's rain the water rose so rapidly in the previously dry wady that I had to run for my lifb, and with great difficulty suc- ceeded in saving my tent and goods; my boots, which I had not time to pick up, being washed away. In less than two houis a dry. desert 1 Ezek.ly. 15. 2 BeeoveryqfJentxdemtjf.ba, d2 THE HOLT XAND AND THE BIBLE. [ObaP. wady, upwards of 800 yards broad, was turned into a foaming torrent from eight to ten feet deep, roaring and tearing down, and bearing everything before it — tangled masses of tatnarislcs, hundreds of beauti- ful palm-trees, scores of sheep and goats, camels and donkeys, and even men, women, ar"" children; for a whole encamjmient of Arabs was washed away a few miles above me. The storm commenced at five o'clock in the evening; at half-past nine the waters were rapidly subsiding, and it was evident that the flood had s])ent its 'brce. In the morning a gently-flowing stream, but a few yards broad, and a few inches deep, was all tliat remained of it. But the whole bed of the valley was changed. Here, great heaps of boulders were })iled up where hollows had been the day before; there, holes had taken the place of banks covered with trees. Two miles of tamarisk-wood which was situated above the palm-groves had been completely swept down to the sea." Our Lord must have had such unforseen and irresistible rain-floods in His mind whep. He spoke of the foolish man who "built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell;"^ or as it is repeated in St. Luke, "who, without a foundatioii, built an house upon the earth; against which tlie stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell."'^ Job, also, must have liave had such passing floods in his thoughts wlien he spoke of his three friends ns iiaving "dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the chnnnel of brooks that ])n8s away; which are black by reason of tl»c ice, and ivherein the snow hideth itself: what time they wax warm [or shrink], they vanisli: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place." ^ Tiie streams from Leb- anon, and also from the high mountains which the patriarch could see in the north from the Haurdn, where he lived, sencT down great floods of dark and troubled waters in spring, when the ice and snow or' their summits are melting; but they drv up under the heat of summer, and the track of the torrent, with its cfiaos of boulders, stones, and gravel, seems as if it had not known a stream for ages. So Job's friends had in former times seemed as if they would be true to him for ever, but their friendship had vanished like the rush of tlie torrent that had {)assed away. The beautifhl figure of the Psalmist, to express hi^ onging after God, is familiar to us all: he panted for Him "as the hart panteth after the water-brooks."^ Hunted on the mountains, and far from any cooling stream, finding, moreover, when it came to a torrent-bed, that the channel offered nothing but heated stones and rocks, how it would pant for some shady hollow, in which, perchance, water might still be found ! The Psalm was evidently written in a hilly region, where the sound of water, dashing down the narrow gorge, could be heard from above. As the wearied and thirsty gazelle 1 Matt. vii. 26. 2 Luke vi. 49. 3 Job vl. 16-17. hi 9 Oallc-ry with (fiiest chamber In the MoiiaRtf>rr of St. Catherine. (See page 77.) VII.J ABHDOD — MEJDEL. 88 panted to reach it from the soorohing heights, so yearned the soul of the troubled one for its Ood I By tlie way, what does David mean by " deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts: all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me?'^* Dr. Tristram thinks lie alludes to the sound oi ashing waters, in such a region as Ilermon, where, in times of flood, torrents leap down the hills and resound from the depths.* " In win- tor," writes another, who fancifully imagines the Psalmist a prisoner in the Castle of Banias, " and when the snow is melting in the spring, ondle.s.s masses of water roar down the gorge of Kashabeh, over which the cnstlo rises about 700 feet. Perhaps it was when the sacred poet, coiilhied within its walls, looking into the awful depth below, listened to the raging and foaming waters, that he uttered these words, at the thought of his distant homo." Discarding the imaginary imprison- ment, the explanation seems correct. David writes in a land of moun- tain streams, and feels as if all their thundering waves had broken over him.'* Waterspouts in our sense are not alluded to here, though they arc common on tho sea-coast ; nor are they mentioned in the Bible. Tho word om[)loyed in tho Psalm is found in only one passage besides, where David ])romiscs the command-in-chief to anyone wlio will clamber up tho water-shaft which opened on the plateau of Jeru- salem, then called Jebus : a feat performed by Joab.* CHAPTER VII. ASHDOD — MEJDEB. AaHDOT), now Esdud, one of the five cities of the Philistines, is only a village, with a very few stone houses (the rest being oP mud), one story high, enclosed in small courts with mud walls. Doors are as a rule a superfluity in Palestine; or at best are represented by ghosts of what may, perhaps, have once been doors. The "town" rises on the slope;s of a low swell, itself commanded by one somewhat higher, for- merly the site of th j castle, but now covered with gardens hedged with tall prickly pear; impenetrable, but hideous, and taking up a great deal of room. This hedge grows over a thick wall of stone, regularly cut and well dressed, beneath which, the peasants aver, they have seen several courses of an ancient wall, of great cut stones. There are, 1 Ph. - lit. 1. 2 Ps. xlii. 7. 3 Tristram, larad, p. 298. 4 This is tlie explanation of Tholuok, Hitzig Biebm, and Delitzsch. 5 2 Sam. v. 8. ' 84. THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. II indeed, below and round Aslidod, a number of walls, some of them relics of its old glory, Tlie soil is a lialf-oonsolidated sand, light, of course, but fertile; but how long it will remjiin even as good as at present is a question, since tiie moving sand-dunes from the sea-coast, two miles and a half oft', have come almost to the village, and advance year by year. It is already, indeed, a pitiful sight to notice olives and fig-trees half buried ; their owners striving hard, season after sea- son, to shovel away the sand fi-om their trunks, till they stand, in some cases, almost in pits, which W(»Lild close over them if the efforts to save them were intermitted even for a short time. In the court before the village mosque lies one last trace of the long past — an ancient sarco[)hagus, seven feet long, antl broad in proportion; its side adorned with sculptured garlands, from which hang bunches of grapes, the emblems of the Promised Land. Long ago some rich Hebrew, doubtless, lay in it; his friends thinking he was safely house.i till the last morning. But here stands the coffin — empt^' for ages ! South of the mosque are the ruins of a great mediaeval khan, seventy- three steps long on the side, but not so broad ; the wall seven feet tliick, but not very high. Inside there is an open court, in Arab style, with long galleries, arcades, chambers, and magazines, for a traffic not now existing. Some broken granite pillars lie on the ground, and a marble column serves as threshold at the doorway. The discovery of the passage to India round the Cape of Good Hope destroyed the old overland trade from the East, and the Palestine towns on the caravan route fell with it. Beyond this comparatively modern ruin is a large marsh, from the overflovv^ing of the wadys during the winter; so much water being left b3hind as still to show itself even as late as April. The water supply of the village is obtained from rain-ponds with mud banks, and a w^ell to the east, from which a camel was drawing up water by the help of a water-wheel. Near it there are a few date- palms and some small figs, and beyond them a small grove of remarka- bly fine olives. The villagers resemble the Egyptian peasantry, both in dress and appearance, much more than they do their Palestine fel- low-countrymen ; why, who can accurately tell ? Aslidod was one of the towns inhabited by the remnant of the gigan- tic Anakim, in the days of Joshua,^ nnd gloried in a great temple of Dagon, whose worship had here its head-quarters. This god, half man and half fish,2 was the national god of the Philistines ; Derketo, a coun- terpart of Astarte,^ or Ashtaroth, being his female complement, with Ascalon for her chief seat. Dagon, however, was a purely Assyrio- Babylonian deity ; the Nineveh marbles showing both the name and the fish-man, as describe \ in the Book of Samuel. This union of the human figure and that of a fish apparently arose from the natuxal asso- 1 Josh. xi. 22. 2 1 Sam. v. 4; see margin. 3 1 Sam. xxxi. 10. [Chap. le of them id, light, of good as at e sea-coast, lid advance :)tice olives n after sca- ld, i n some arts to save of the long proportion; ng bunches ) some rich I'ely house.! for ages : '3' 111, seventy - I seven feet Arab style, I traffic not >und, and a I i SCO very of yed the old ;he caravan ii is a large so much c as April. with mud Irawing up a few date- f remarka- antry, both destine fel- the gigan- t temple of i, half man )to, a coun- ment, with y Assyrio- ! name and lion of the tuxul asso- I went by the field of the sloth- ful, and hy the vineyard of the jfnian void of understanding ; And, lo, it was all grown over wit h thorns, and nettles had [covered the face thereof, and the jstone Wall thereof was broken [down.— fVot'. xxiv 30, 31. ■.^•v- <>■:;■ »» r--' ■~:^i::^"-'::..-'M:^.H^,-, :.aa .-:;;.,v>;:.fe-yvfejg;,.i:>;i::S^-^ )mmL Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein. — sa. xcvi. 12. He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of kead. —Prov. xxviii. 19. He that plougheth should plough in hope. — iCor. ix. 10. V r FELLAH PLOUGHINO IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TELL-ES-SAFJEH . (See page 78.) Ji vn.] ASHDOD — MEJDEL. 85 ciation, in a maritime population, of the idea of fecundity with the finny tribes; Dagon being a symbol of the reproductive power of nature, and having been originally worshipped on the shores of tlie Persian Gulf, from which, through Chaldsea, the Philistines received the cultus, apparently from the Phoenicians, who came from the Per- sian Gulf by way of Babylonia. Ashdod was assigned to the tribe of Judah,i but it never came into their possession, and even so late as the time of Nehemiah it was ranked among the cities hostile to Israel.^ Ikying on the great mili- tary road between Syria and Egypt, it was an important strategical post from the earliest times, tlzziah took and kept it for a short time,3 breaking down its walls to prevent its revolt. In the year B. c. 711, about fifty years after Uzziah's death,* Sargon of Assyria sent his "tartan," or field -marshal, against the city, which was speedily taken, with the miserable fate of having its population led off' t© Assyria, some victims of war from the East being settled in their room ; the town was rebuilt to receive them, and incorporated into the Assyrian Empire under an imperial governor. The king, Jaman, had fled, with his wife, his sons, and his daughters, to the Ethiopian King^ in Upper Egypt, but that dignitary handed him back to tiie x^ssyriaiis; the words of Isaiah being terribly fulfilled, "They shall be dismayed and ashatned because of Ethiopia, their expectation, and of Egypt, their glory," ^ or boast. Poor Jaman's treasures were carried off"; his palace burp'^;d down ; he himself bound hand and foot with iron chains and sent to Assyria.'' The Assyrians having strongly fortified Ashdod, its capture was a more difficult task for the next invader, Psammetichus,* who besieged it, as Herodotus* informs us, for no less than twenty-nine years, and finally, on taking it, left only " a remnant " of its population in the town.i® Destroyed once more by the Maccabees, in the second century before Christ, it lay in ruins till restored by the Romans, two or three generations later,^^ and was finally given to Herod's sister, Salome, at her brother's death.^^ j^; ^^^s at Ashdod, then called by the Greek name Azotus, that Philip was found, after baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch — the only mention of it in the New Testament. I must not, however, forget the striking episode of the triumphal entrance of the saorcd ark of the Hebrews to the old Philistine city, after the battle of Ebenezer. To capture the gods of any people was supposed, in anti- quity, to deprive their worshippers of the divine protection hitherto vouchsafed them, for local gods were powerless outside their own land. 1 Josh. XV. 46. 2 Amos i. 8; Neb. iv. 7. 3 2 Chron. xxvi. 6. 4 B. o. 75S. 6 Oppert says "Lybia." Lenormant fancies it was to a petty prince in tlie Delta tliat the poor king fled. (Gelkie, Hours viOh the Bible, Iv. 396.) 6 Isa. xx. 5 (R. V.). 7 Sataon' AtmtUa, paiwtm. 8 B. 0. m-eu (BruRsclo. 9 Herod. 11. 157. V) Jer. xxv. 20. U B. C 55. 12 Jos. Ant., xlv. 5, 3 : xvil. 8, 1 : Bell. /tt4.|1.7,7. HI If! 86 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. (Chaf. But as the Hebrews had no idols, the sacred ark, which the^ evidently regarded as securing the presence of their God, appeared a lull equiva- lent. With this in their hands, the Philistines thought they need fear Israel no longer ; they had cut off the tource of Divine aid ; the Hebrews lay at their mercy, helpless without a God. Priests in their vestments, choirs in their singing robes, players on instruments, in high festival adornment ; maidens with their timbrels and graceful dance ; the king and his court in their bravest array, went out, we may be sure, through the city gates to meet the fighting men returning with spoil so glorious. The hill, now so quiet under its mantling olives, must have echoed with the shouts of the populace as the ark was borne up to the great temple of Dagon, who nad shov - himself so much greater than Jehovah by the victory his people had gained, through his help, over the worshippers of the Hebrew God. But we know the sequel ; the fallen dishonor of the god of Ashdod on the morrow, prostrate on the earth before the ark, as if to do it homage; the still deeper shame of the following day; the human head and hands of the upper half of the idol cut off and laid on the threshold, as if to profane it, and for ever bar entrance; only the ignominious "fishy- part " left! ^ The cry arose to take the ark to Gatli at the foot of the mountains, on the other side of the plain ; so oft' it went, on a rude cart which dragged it thither, across wadys, and round the low hills, and through wide corn-lands. But Gath soon found cause to dread the ominous trophy. The citizens demanded that it should be sent to Ekron, eleven miles to the north, to let that city try what it could do with it. There, also, it was soon a terror. For seven months it wrought woe in the land. Once more the cry arose to send it oft', but this time cows, instead of oxen, were yoked to the cart which bore it, and their calves kept at home, that the will of the Philistine gods respecting it might be judged from the action of the dumb creatures that were to bear it away. If the milky mothers turned back to their calves, it would be a sign that the ark was yet * stay in the Philis- tine r)lain ; if they kept on their w&j up into the hills to the land of the Hebrews, it would be a proof that the gods wished it to be restored to its own people. But the kine went straight south from Ekron, low- ing for their calves as they went, yet never turning from their steady advance along the road to the great Wady Surar — the valley of Elan, the steep pass to thd Hebrew country in the mountains — ^never stop- Eing till tney had dragged their awful burden far up to the rounded ill 900 feet above the sea, on which stands Bethshemesh, distant at least fifteen miles from Ekron. The images of the mice and emerods by which the Philistines had been plagueid, sent with the ark by the sufferers as votiye offerings, to 1 1 ttnt. ▼. 4 (raarglii)* He cuttetii out rivers aDiong the rocks.— Jbft. xxviii. 10. He turneth rivers into a wilder- ness, and the wattr-springs into dry ground.— Psa. cvi,. 33. Thou didst clejik'e the earth with rivers. — Hah. iii. U. ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS IN WADY FEIRAN. (See page 81.) / II VIM ASHDOD — MAJDEL: 87 propitiate the Hebrew God whom they had offenJed, are the first of the kind recorded. Other ancient nations, however, were in the liabit of hanging up in the temples of tiieir gods small '• images" of diseased parts of the body which had been healed, in answer to prayer as they believed, and also small models of whatever had caused them danger or suffering, now averted by the same heavenly aid : a practice still observed in Greek and Koman Catholic churches where silver models of eyes, arms, or legs indicate cures supposed to have been effected by the intercession of particular saints, and smiiU models of ships show deliverance from peril at sea.^ That the Hebrews hung up the votive offerings of the Philistines in the new Tabernacle raised at Gibeon, oi' Nob, after the destruction of the original " Tent of Meeting " at Shiloh by the Philistines, we have, however, no proof, though gifts offered to the Temple seem in later days to have been displayed on its walls. Passing a little beyond the town to the shade of a large sycamore, close to the ruins of the old khan, we were glad to halt for mid-day refreshment. There was nice grass round the trunk, open tilled ground on one side, and the road, w'th hedges of prickly pear ten feet high, on the other. A number of the villagers Sv.on gathered round us, entering into the friendliest conver^jation with my companion, to vv^^om Arabic was familiar. One of them, taking off his wide camels'- hair "abba," spread it, like a broad sheet, on the ground, as a Beat; but we fortunately had shawls and coats of our own, and thus, while acknowledging very sincerely the politeness, were able to escape a possible danger not very pleasant to think of. A little girl was sent for water by our friends, and brought it in one of the small brown unglazed pitchers of the country. Courtesy satisfied, all withdrew a short distance and sat down on the ground, the usual resting place of an Oriental, to look on without rudeness, and, no doubt, to talk about us. Meanwhile we were left in peace to enjoy our lunch — bread, oranges, hard-boiled eggs, and the remains of a chicken — the usual fare in Palestine. The sycamore under which we sat in delightful shade was a good specimen of a tree very common in Pabstine, but only on the lowlands of the coast, the Jordan valley, and lower Galilee. The old name of Haifa, indeed, was Sykaminon, in allusion to the abundance of syca- mores in its neighborhood. The tree grows also in the neighborhood 1 In Herod. 1. 105 there is a story about a disease inflicted on tlie women of Scytliia for robbing the temple of Derlceto at Ascalon, wonderfully lilie the plague of emerods on the Philistines ; doubtless a distorted tradition of it. Diod. Sic. bers of Osiris were liung up and worshipped Morgerdand, iii. 77) lias a very interesting article on tills subject. wreck was hung in the temples of Isis and Neptune by those saved from the sea. Sic. (i. 221 tells us tliat models of the missing mem- (1 in the Egyptian temples. BosenmAller {A. und N. rticle on this subject. A tablet representing a sliip- 'i^: eased limbs, <&c., are hung vp in the temples of India by pilgrims who have journeyed to these sanctuaries to pray for tlie oure of ailments aftecting the parts thus represented. This has been the custom from the immemorial past. Eyes, feet, and hands, in metal, once hung up in Grecian temples, have been found. Juvenal wt >eh twentv paces across, makes it an admirable shad -t.oe; many wnsors being able to enjoy, at the same time, the delicious c >oi v .; its branches. For this reason it was planted, in Christ's day, alug m" '-frequented roads i^ a public con- venience to which Zaccheus was iuueLted for the opportunity of which he availed himself. The fruit of the sycamore grows in clusters on the trunk and the wood of the great branches; not on twigs like the ordinary fig. Striped with clouded white and green, and shaped like the fig, it is more woody, less sweet, and otherwise less pleasant to the taste, nor has it the small seeds in its flesh which we see in the fig. To make tlie fruit agreeable it needs to be cut open, some days before it is ripe, that part of the bitter juice may run out, and tlie rest undergo a saccharine fermentation, to sweeten the whole. Only the poorest make this cutting an employment, so that when Amos speaks of it as being his calling, he wishes to indicate the lowliness of his social posi- tion.^ The first harvest is gathered about the beginning of June, and from that time till the beginning of winter the tree continues to show both blossoms and fruit, ripe and unripe, so that it is gathered repeat- edly in the same season. The light, but tough and almost imperishable wood of the sycamore caused it to be largely used as building material by the Hebrews, though it was far less prized than the wood of the cedar. That it must have been very plentiful in ancient times is shown by the fact that, to prove the splendor of Solomon's times, he is recorded to have made cedars as the sycamore-trees of the lowlands for abundance.* In the same way, the haughty people of Samaria boasted that though the enemy had cut down the sycamores, they would build with cedars.* Still, in the general poverty of native timber, the sycamore was of great value to the Hebrews, so that it is natural to read of David's appointing an overseer to take charge of his olive and sycamore woods in the maritime plain.* The track south of Ashdod skirts the edge of the sand-hills, but on 8 Amos tU. 14 4 1 Kings x. 27; 2 Chron. 1. 16; Ix. 2/, 1 IKim X. 27. 2Lukexvii. 6;xix. 4. 6 1 Cbron. xzvil. 28. VIM ASHDOD — MfiJDEL. the inland side the mountains of Judah rise, ten or twelve miles off, beyond a rolling country, half arable and lialf [>asture. Asses laden with bags of wool passed us on the way from Gaza to Joppa; one or two, also, with great loads of a broom-like plant, used to make ropes for water-wheels or wells. The plough was busy in all directions; and where the light soil invited flocks and herds, the slopes of the low hills were often enlivened by them. But they belonged to wandering tent Arabs, not to the peasantry round; for, just as in Abraham's day, these sons of the desert roan) through the land ,8 they please, feeding their flocks on the open hill-sides. Our parting at Ashdod had been quite a scene. Venjrable greybeards and younger men, all with fine figures and picturesque dresa, came to the road and waited till the horses were yoked ; bidding us, at last, a friendly farewell, with Western shaking of hands. As we advanced, the patches of cultivated land increased till as many as twenty ploughs could be seen going at the same time, each drawn by a camel or by small, lean oxen. It reminded one of Elisha, '•'who was plouobing, w^'*h twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth,"^ which menus that there were twelve ploughs at work, the twelfth being guided by the pro|)liet himself. Green hills rose in succession, with herds of hundreds of cattle on them — all, still, the property of Arabs, whose black tents were often to be seen in the distance. These nomadic Ishmaelites are in fact immensely rich, according to Eastern ideas; their Avealth, like that of the patriarchs, whom they much resemble in their mode of life, consisting of flocks and herds. The plain was seamed, from time to time, with the dry stony beds of winter torrents, in which no water ever flows except after rains. The town of Ilaniaweh, surrounded by a wide border of gar- dens, soon canie in sight; the white blossom of almond-trees rising like a snowy cloud above the cactus hedges, which stretched onwards till they joined those of the larger town, El-Mejdel. The latter place is the capital of the district in which it stands, and boasts a population of 1,500 inhabitants. A small mosque with a tall minaret is its only prominent public building, and the houses are nearly all built of mad, like those of the other towns of the plain; a very few of stone being the exception. Deep wells, some of them witli the water 120 feet below the surface, provide the means of irri- gating the gardens. Camels or oxen raise the fertilizing stream by " Persian wheels," or sakiyehs, like those in other places; the various heads of families providing the animals in turn, as the wells are public property. A large rain-pond lies to the east of the village, and a far- stretching cemetery on the west; for death is as busy in one place as in another. There is a great market held m Mejdel every Friday — 1 1 Kings xlx. 19. 90 THE HOT1ish park. If llosea had in his thoughts such a scene as this swutli ol' Mejdel he might well say of Israel, when restored to Divine favor, that its "beauty would be as the olive-tree,"^ jast as Jeremiah, at a later date, was to compare its early glory with that of a green olive-tree, fair and of goodly fruit.^ Nor could David more vividly picture his future prosperity when delivered from his enemies, accord- ing to Hebrew ideas, than by the thought that ho would be like one of the green olive-trees which grew in the open court before the House of God — the Tabernacle he had raised in Jerusalem.^ The olive was cultivated in Palestine long before the Hebrew inva- sion, for "olive-trees which thou plantedst not"* are enumerated among the good things on which they entered, and it must have been widely cultivated throughout Bible times, from the frequent illusions to it. It is, in fact, and must always have been, in Palestine, as char- acteristic a feature of the landscape as the date-palm is in Egypt. On the long stretches of bare, stony hill-sides the olive is often the only tree that enlivens the monotony of desolation. Moses and Job hardly used a figure when they spoke of "oil out of the lUnty rock," ** for olives flouri.sh best on sandy or stony soil, and it is because the Philis- tine plain consists so largely of consolidated sand that they grow on it so luxuriantly. In ancient times the country must have been dotted everywhere with olive-groves. "Thou shalt have olive-trees," says Moses, "throughout all thy coasts."^ Asher, on its hills, behind- Tyre, and soutl.wards to Kartha, on the coast, below Acre, was to "dip his foot in oil," as it overflowed from the presses.'^ Joel prom- ised that, if the people turned to their God, " the fats should overflow with oil."® The olive harvest was, ?n fact, as important to the Hebrew peasant as that of the vine or of com; the three being often IHos. xlv.6. 2Jer. xl. 16. 3 Ps. Hi. 8. 4Deut.Ti.ll. 5 I>eut.xxxii. 18; JobxxUle. 6 Deut. XXVlil. 40. 7 Deut. xxili. 24. 8 Joel 11. 24. tCBA». il purU Ijook- ^rk, 8o ly witli pointed breuth iwing i« Mejdel 1 plains, lit-trees, ry fruit- eea, and )ft greon and rich \e n8 tins o Divine ereniiah, ' a green B vividly }, accord- ke one of [le House rew inva- umeratcd lave been allusions , as char- y])t. On 1 the only ob hardly ck," ^ for le Philis- Tow on it len dotted jes," says , behind re, was to oel prom- overflow nt to the eing often \x,6. 6 Deut. rii.i ASHDOI) — MEJDKL. 91 mentioned together as the staples of the national prosperity.^ It was even so important an element in tlie royal revenue that David had officers over his stores of oil and his olive-woods. More indeed was raised than could be used for home consumption, whetlier for cooking, light, worship, or for anointing the person, and hence it was largely exported to Egypt and Phcenioia.^ " Judali and the land of Israel," says K/ekicl, " traded in thy markets " — those of Tyre — wheat from the Hauriin, spices or millet,^ and honey, and oil, and the resin of the pistachio-tree.^ The olive is propagated from shoots or cuttings, which, aftei they have taken root, are grafted, since otiicrwise they would grow up " wild olives," and bear inferior fruit. Sometimes, however, a ** good olive from some cause ceases to bear, and in this case a shoot of wild olive — that is, one of the shoots from those which spring up round the trunk — is grafted into the barren tree, with the result tiiat the sap of the good olive turns this wild shoot into a good branch, bearing truit suyl as the parent stem should have borne. It is to this practice that St. Paul alludes when he says of the Gentiles, " If some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root and of the fat- ness of the olive-tree; "* and, furth^, "If thou wast cut out of the olive-tree that is wild by nature, and wast grafted, contrary to nature, into a good olive-tree." He refers to the barrenness of the Jewish Church as the olive of Ciod's own choice, and the grafting on it of the Oentiles, hitherto a wild olive, but, now, through this grafting made to yield fruit, though only from the root and sap of the old noble stem. By the "olive-tree wild by nature " can only be meant the shoots that spring up wild and worthless from the root. There is no wild olive apart from these. The tree has a long life. For ten years it bears no fruit, and it is not till its fortieth year that it renohes its highest productiveness. In spring the blossoms shoot out it. clusters among the leaves, but the harvest does not come till October, when the dark-green, oval berries, somewhat larger than a cherry, are ready for gathering. This is done by women and boys, who clinib into the trees and shake them, or stand beneath and beat the branches with a long pole, but there are al./ays a few le'' in the topmost branches, and these are the perquisite of gleaners. It seems as if we still lived, in this respect, in the days of Moses and tlie prophets. "When thou beatest thine olive-tree," says Moses,* "thou shaft not go over the boughs again ; it shall be for the 1 Deut. xxylll. 40; yll. 13; xl. 14: xil. 17; Joel 1. 10; II. 19, 24; 1 Chron. xxvll. ^; > OHroi« xxxM. M. 2 Ho.4. XM 1 ; 1 Kings v. 12: Ezra 111. 7; Ezek. xxvll. 17. '• Minnlth " wus In the HaurAn. 3 •'PaiinaR" Is thus varloufi.j understood. 4 Rlehm. This resin was used largely as a salve f»»i woundit, while oil f-,.jD t>e leaves, bark, and black berries of the tree, wan i no*.ed inedlciiie 'i>i both external and Ir ;*rnal use. 6 Rom. xl. 17 (R. V.). Art. "Oelbaum," H -i voa, 2te Auf., x. 7;?5 mt>taa, Btt>a Lex. « Deut. xxlv. 20. Ml 92 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE. [Chap. hiranger, the fatherless, and the widow." " Gleaning grapes shall be in it," says Isaiah,^ "as the shaking of an olive-tree: two or tiiree berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outer — most fruitful — branches thereof." The poor olive-gleaner may still be seen every year gathering what he can after the trees have been strip- ped by their owners. This harvest-time is one of general gladness, as may well be sup- posed. Some berries fall, by the wind or from other causes, before tlie •icneial crop is ripe, but they must lie there, guarded by watchmen, till a proclamation is made by the governor that all the trees are to be picked. This is to allow the tax-gatherer to be on the spot to demand his toll ; for the Turk foolishly taxes each tree, thus discouraging as much as possible the increase of plantations. The gleanings left, after all efforts, are a boon to the very poor, who manage to gather enough to keep tlieir lamp alight through the winter and to cook their simple fare. The shoots springing up from the root of each tree long ago fur- nished a pleasant simile to the Psalmist. " Thy children," says he, "shall be like olive plants round thy table; "^ that is, they will clus- ter round it as these suckers oiing round the root from which they spring. It is a striking illustration of the smallness of the population in Pal( stine that thousands of olive-trees are left uncared for, to be swal- lowed up by an undergrowth of thorns and weeds. The tax on each tree is, no doubt, in part the cause of this state of things. Fear of its being increased paralyses industry. In ancient times the gathered olives were either pressed, or trodden by the feet, in an olive-vat.* The finest oil, however, was that which flowed from the berries when they were merely beaten, not from those that were pressed, and hence it was expressly required for religious services.* It is also the "fresh oil" of which David speaks,^ An oil-vat at the foot of the Mount of Olives gave its name to the garden of Gethsemane. Remains of such vats, hewn in the rocks, are found in places where there is now no longer any trace of the olive — as, for instance, ii the country south of Hebron; so that the tree formerly grew over a wider region than at present. Along with the vats in which the berries were trodden, presses and even mills were used after a time, the oil being so imperfectly separated by the feet that that custom is now quite discontinued. Without cultivation the olive soon ceases to yield. Hence the soil underneath it is ploughed each spring, or oftener, so as i>o admit the air to the roots, and no crop is sown, as under other fruit-trees. The earth, moreover, is drawn round the tree to keep it moist; but neither 1 Isa. XTll. A ; xxiT. 13. 2 Ps. cxxviii. 3. 6 Ps. xqU. 10. 8 Mic. Ti. 15. 4 Kx. xzvii. 20; xxlz. 40; Lev. xxiv. 2. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation : they shall drive out Ashdod at the noonday, and Ekron shall be rooted up. . . . , O Canaan, the land of the Philis- tines, I. will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judab ; they shall feed there- upon : in the house f Ashkelon shall they lie down in the eveuing : for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity. — Zeph. ii. 4-7. BL-MEJDBL, ON THE ROAD FROM ASHKELON TO JERUSALBIL 09ee page> 80.) r VII.1 ASHDOD — MEJDEL. 9S manuring nor pruning is practised A full crop is gathered only each second year, from what cause I do not know. One strange fact in connection with this was told me. We are accustomed to regard locusts as only a curse, but it is said that they often prove the reverse, since their greedy jaws virtually prune the trees, and thus double.the harvest of the next year. The mills used in obtaining the oil are of two kinds; tl)e one, worked by hand, consisting simply of a heavy stone wheel, which is rolled over the berries thrown into a stone basin. When crushed, they are taken out as pulp, and put into straw baskets, which are then placed in a screw-press and squeezed. The oil thus obtained is of excellent quality, though inferior to the "beaten;" but a third quality is obtained by subjecting the already pressed pulp to a second squeez- ing. The other mill is a hollow cylinder, with iron rods projv^cting at its lower end. It stands upright, and turns on a round framework of stone, the iron rods beating the olives to pulp as they are thrown in. After this maceration they are put under a beam heavily weighted at the end, and thus, one would think, the last possible yield of oil is obtained. But there is still a little left, and a second pressing, after the already sorely squeezed pulp has been heated, secures this final portion. Beyond Mejdel the country was beautiful. Olive-groves and soltly- ureen fields of barley varied the light-brown of the ploughed land, or the roughness of tracts which there was no one to till. Over these tracts, tufts of large lily-like plants grew in great abundance; great numbers of the bulbs, mostly squills, lying at the roadside, wliere the light ploughs had torn them out of the ))atche.» of soil taken for culti- vation. Bands of white limestone cropped up here and there, as the road climbed the low swells; larks sang iu the air, or perched on Fome clod, or ran ahead of us on the track, be(ore taking wing — I'or there are fifteen species of lark in Palestine; a string of camels kept us in mind of the East, as they stalked on, ladened with huge boxes of "hundel," a kind of root used for mysterious combinations by the drug merchants. A low cemented whitewashed structure, like a min- iature saint's tomb, with an opening breast-high on one side, stood by the road — a drinking fountain, filled daily by the kindness of women passing with their water-jars, to supply the way-larer with a cup of cold water, than which no gift is more precious in this dry juid thirsty land. Kindness of heart, thank God, is limited to no race or ctmntrv. 'i'he experience of Canon Tristram, in one instance, is that of every traveller in any hot climate. Thirsting exceedingly, he asked a drink from a young Arab girl who had her tall water-jar on her shoulder, having just filled it. In a moment it was set down for the freest use. A small present for her courtesy seemed natural, but she would not 94 THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLii. [GH4P. take it. Tears filled her eyes; she would have no bakshish; she gave tlie water freely, for the sake of her mother, lately dead, and for charity and the love of God 1 So saying, she kissed the hands of tlie party, and tliey passed on — anyone can imagine with what thoughts. So, doubtless, it sometimes happened with our blessed Lord ind His band of disciples, as they journeyed over the hot, white hills of Galilee or Judsea; the giver who put her water-jar at their service lor the Ipve of the Master, in nowise losing her reward.^ Everywhere, the country outside the town gardens lay unfenced ; here, in wild scanty pasture; at another part, broken up into patches of ploughed land, or green with spring crops. What seemed mole-hills were to be seen every- where, but it appears that they were the mounds of a kind of mole-rat, not of the true mole, which is not found in Palestine; the mole-rat taking its place,^ This is the creature called a weasel in the English Bible.^ Unlike our mole, it delights in the r '"'^ scattered so widely over the Jand; the cavities in them, doubtless, supplying ready-made spots for its nest. It is twice the size of our mole, with no external eyes, and with only faint traces, within, of the rudimentary organ ; no apparsnt ears, but, like the mole, with great internal organs of hearing; a strong bare snout, and large gnawing teeth; its color, a pule slate; its feet, short, aiul provi«;ied with strong nails; its tail, only rudimentary. Isaiah, in his prophecy of the idols being thrown to the moles and to the bats,* uses a different word, but its meaning, "thrower up of the soil," fixes iver a breadth of tree miles. On the east of the village, green barley-fields stretched away as far as the eye could reach, hemming round a sea of gardens hedged with the prickly pear, and bea-itiful with the grf^y and /reen of oMve-trees, figs, i 'yiau X. 4.;. Mark ix. 41. 2 riistram, Landqf ItrmU, o. 186^. 3 Uev. xl.», 4 Isa. ii.20, 6 Lev, 4i. 80. 6 Va'V. x-:. 18; rnut, xiv ^6, Vll.] AHHDOl) — MEjUEL. 95 ])()rne;iraimtes, nnd alinoiids; the last in all the glory of their white blossom. Vineyards, also lenced, varied the bounteous prospect, and olive-trees, in open groves, clothed the slopes, almost in thousands. Verv different would be the laiidncape a few months later. The olive- proves would then be dull with dust, the mulberry-leaves gone — as food for sheep, no silkworms being cultivated in this part — the soil parched and dry, il «• very stubble withered to tinder; the sky brass, the earth iron; trees and villages seeming to quiver in the hot air. Harvest is over on the plains before it begins in the mountains, so that the peasants of Philistia go oft" to gather the crops of the high- lands after their own are secured. The sickle is still in use for reap- ing, as it was in Bible times; the reaper gathering the grain into his left arm as he outs it.^ Following him conies the binder, who makes up into large bundles — not as with us into sheaves — the little heaps of the reaper.2 During his toil, the peasant refi-eslies himself with a poor meal of roasted wheat, and pieces of bread dipped in vinegar and water,3 jyg^ ^s they did of old. IM. j bundles of cut grain are carried on asses or sometimes on camels'* to the open-air threshing-floor, near the village ; one of the huge bundles, njarly as large as the camel itself, being hung on each side of the patient beast, in a rough netting of rope, as he kneels to receive them. Rising and bearing them oft', he once more kneels at the threshing-floor, to have them removed, returning forthwith to tlie reapers to repeax tlie same round. The har- vest in Palestine la'-if lor weeks; one kind of g-^ain ripening before another, and different evels having a different time for reaping. In the plain of Philistia > begins in April and ends in June, but on the deep-sunk and hot plrins of the Jordan the bailey harvest begins at the end of March, and .hat of wheat two or three weeks later. In the mountains it is later, as I have said, than on the sea-coast. Garden fruits and grapes ripen oefore the autumn, but maiz(\ melons, olives, and dates not till autumn has commenced. It wa;- he same in ancient times. The harvest began legally on the secoin^ ly of the Passover week, the 16th of Nisan, the month when the ini came to the ear, which corresponded to our April. Fiom that ' le harvest continued for seven weeks, till the feast of Pentecost.^ Barley came first, then wheat,® which is all reaped in the Jordan valle m ordinary years, by the middle of May. The threshing-floor is always chosen on a> x posed and high a spot as can be had, to catch the wind for winnowing; flat spaces on hill-tops being selected in some cases, as in that of Araunah thei Jebusite.' The ground is prepared by being beaten and trampled smooth and hard. 1 Ps. cxxix. 7; Isa. xvll. 6. 2 Jer. Ix. 22; Ps. cxxlx. 7; Gen. xxxvil. 7. 3 1 Sam. xvll 17; Kuth 11.14. 4 Carts were also used anciently. (Amos II. 13.) 5Ex.xxiii.l(;:Lev. xxiii. 10;Deut.xvi.9; Jos. Ata^ Hi. 10, 6., 6 Ruth I. 22; ii. 23; 2 Sam. xxl. 9: Gen. xxx. U; Judg. xv. 1; 1 Sapi. vi. 13; xii, 17. 7 i $ain. xxi\. 18, p » 96 THK IlOliV I-ANl» AND I'llK HllJLK. [CHAP. Heaps of oruiii laid in circles, with tlie lieads inwards, are piled on tlie tliresliing-tloor, which is guarded during the night by a watchman in a slight watch-hut on the floor, if, .is in the instance of Boaz, tlie owner himself does not sleep on the sheaves.^ Like Ruth, the poor gleaner is content to beat out her few armfuls with a stick.^ But though need of secrecy forced Gideon to use the flail in the hollow of the wine- press,'^ it is no longer in general use in Palestine; only legumes like fitches, or herbs like cummin, being now beaten, as indeed was the gen- eral case in the days of Isaiah* Where there are no threshing-sledges, oxen are still employed to tread out the grain, over which they walk, round and round, as it lies in huge mounds on the floor, just as 1 have seen horses driven round on it in Southern Russia. The kindly requirement of the old Mosaic law, "Tliou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn,''^ has hai)pily outlived the changes of race in the land, and is still nearly always observed, though here and there a })easant is found who ties n\) the mouth of the poor creatures that tread out his grain. Usually, however, threshing-sledges are em])l()yed to separate the corn from the straw. The commonest of these is a solid wooden sledge, consisting only of a set of thick boards, bolted together by cross-bands, and bent u}) at the front, to let it pass easily over the straw. In the bottom of the planks are fixed numerous rows of sharp stones, to facilitate the threshing, and also to cut up the straw into the "teben" used for fod- der. Oxen yoked to this are driven round over the heaps of grain and straw; a man, with a large wooden fork, turning over the heap as the sledge passes, till the grain is entirely separated and the straw su(R- ciently broken into small pieces. The "teben," with wl:ich a great deal of grain is necessarily mixed, is then thiown into the cemre of t'. ■ floor, where it graduall}^ rises to a huge mound. The ehatf anil the grain are next swept into a sejiarate heap, to be winnowed when ail the harvest is threshed. To make the sledge heavier, the driver usually stands on it, or, as the time is one of general enjoyment, one may see it covered with laughing children, enjoying the slow ride round and round. It was such "threshing instruments" that Araunah presented to David, along wi^^h the oxen and the implements of the threshing-floor, that lie might Inive at once a sacrifice and the wood to consume it.^ The word in Hebrew is "morag," and it is still retained in the form of "mowrej," or, in some ])arts of the country, "norag," so that there is no doubt as to the "instrument" Araunah was using. When Isaiah paints Israel cm its return from captivity as "a new sharp morag having teeth," he reCers to the same thresiiing-sledge as is used to-day, ajid it is to this that Job compares Leviathan when he says that "his underj)iirts are like sharp potsherds; hespreadeth, as it were, 1 Ituth Hi. 7. 2 Ruth ii. 17. 3 Judg. vi. Ix. 4 L**a. xxviil. 27. 5 Deut. xxv. 4. 6 2 Sara. xxlv. 22. ^ Threshing Sledge on a Threshing Floor In the Nile Delta, (See page 96.) N VII.J ASH1X)1>— MKJDKL. 97 !\ threshing- wain ui)oii the n\ire."* A nu>iv oon\pl: >nted form of lliroshing-niaohine, known as a ihiushiug-Wrtgon^isuset. in some places, consisting of a frame like tluit of a l\anx>\v, witli thn^e i-evolving axles st^t in it like so many wheels, proviilod with prt\jeoting iron teeth ; a chair being fixed over them for the driver, who is pixjteeteil by their being covered with a wooden case on the side next him. Snch a wheeled tlmxshing-sledge was already in nse in the days of Isaiah, and even drawn by horses, for the prophet tells us that "fltehes are not threshed with a sharp morag; neither is the wheel of u tit\* of Kabbah,'^ and, indeed, seems to have been usual in war in those ages, for the Syrians boasted that they had destroyed Israel till they wetv like the dust caused by threshing — into pieces so small had they out the prisoners who suft'ered their fury. Syria indeed a})}>ear8 to have lx»on specially given to this dreadful savagery, for Amos tells us that Damascus — that is, the King of Syria — would suffer the fierce vtmge«ne»> of Jehovah for having '•threshed the people of Gilead with the sharp iron teeth of threshing- wagons."* Thank God, infamous though war is still, it does not stoop to this! To winnow the grain is severe work, and as such, is left to the men. It is mostly done, just as in the days of Huth, in the evening and dur- ing the night, when the night-wind was \>lowing.'^ The cool breeze which in the summer months comes from the vseu in a gentle air in the morning, grows stronger towards s^^iset, and blows till about ten o'clock, causing the "cool of the day,' or, as it is in the Hebrew, "the wind of thCj day," in which Jehovah walked in Kden;® the time till which the Beloved was to feed his Hooks aujoug the lilies, when the darkness would leave him free to seek ho* whom his soul loved, in the ple..sant hours when the air was coohnl \)y the night wind.'^ Too strong a wind, however, is avoided, as Jetvn^iah shows was the cus- tom in his day — "A dry [hot] wind [will blow] \nm\ the bare places of the wilderness . . . not to fan nor to t^leause, but a stronger wmd."^ 1 .Tob xll. 30 (R. v.). The three texis quoted ai-o \\w only o««>» In which " inoraK " occurs in < he Old Testament. 2 Isa. xxvlll. 27. 3 2 Sant. xll. ai. » Auuw 1. 3. ft Ruth ill. 2. 6 Gen. ill. 8. 7 Cant. il. 17. This Is the true retuling of tbe yrorUa, " Till Ui« dtiy Uawu." 9 ^er, ty. Xl, 98 TIIK HOLY LAND AND THE B1HI,K. [CHAP. "Winnnow not with cvory wind," liad, indeed, become n proverb a« long Jigo us the days of the son of Siraeh.^ The ehalV, grain, and "teben," wliich have gradimlly been gathered into a great central mound, are thrown np against tlie wind with a wooden i'ork, sdinctimes of two prongs, but more commonl^^ witli five or six; tlic l^oken straw being carefully preserved to throw into the centre, wliil(! llie chaft" is allowed to blow away. A sieve is also used now, generally by women: a light, half-oval wooden frame, about a yard across, with a coarse hair or palm-fibre bottom ; the winnower holding it by the ronnd side and tossing np the grain from it against the wind.'^ Two winnowings are necessary: the first to separate the "teben" and the chaiV; the second to sift out the unthreshed ears and pieces of earth mixed with the grain. The forlc, or shovel — for sometimes a wooden shovel ' used, like half of a small barrel-lid, the ronnd side towards the handle — finally separates the g. ain completely, so that it is ready to be put into the garner. Images taken i'rom the threshing-fioor :ire frccpient in Scripture. "The wicked," says Job, "are as teben before the wind, and as chafl:' that the storm carrieth away,"^^ and this terrible tignre is often repeated. As in our Lord's day, the chalV and brokni .^t raw- unavoidably left on the ground, after every care in winnowing and gathering, are burnt, at once to get rid of them and to fertilize the soil by the ashes, a practice that throws a terrible light on the Ba])iist's words:^ " VVho.se fan is in His hand, and lie will thoroughly cleansi- His threshing-floor, and He will gather the wheat into tlie garner, but the chaft* He will burn with an unquenchable fire." Sonietinies, indeed, the stubble in the fields is burnt, for the same reasons, ns Isaiah must have seen before he wrote the verse, "As the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sitdceth down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust."^ Another passage in the same prophet, alluding in part to the threshing-floor, has often been misunderstood, and, indeed, is mistrans- lated in tlie lievised Version" — " Moab shall betrodden down under Him [Jehovah], even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill." The Revised Version reads: "even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill" — that is, in the pool of liquid manure connected with a dunghill in our ideas. But there is no such a thing in Palestine as a dunghill, and there is no reason to think there ever was. Gardens are manured chiefly with goats' dung; and in some parts the dung of pig- eons, obtained from dove-cots and jngeon-towers in the neighborhood, is used for cucumbers and melons. No manure requiring to be carried is ever used in the grain-fields or pastures. Even the abundant manure accumulated in the cattle-sheds during winter is left undisturbed till the rains wash it away, unless there be gardens at hand. ^J^he Hebrew lEcclus. V. 9. 2 Amos ix. 9. 3 Job xxi. 18; Isa. xli. 15, 16; Fs. 1. 4; xxxv. 6. 4 MalK iit. 12 (B. V.) ; Luke HI. 17. 5 Isa. v. 24 (R. V.). 6 Isa. xxv. 10. ni.i ASUDOD — MEJDE. word "Mftdmenah," triinsUited "dungliill," is the imme of a town in Moiib, famous no doubt, for its tlircHliing-floors, but ulso for the huge mound of all unclcanness — the town dust-hcap' — found in every Eastern town; "Miulnunudi" being the word for this Oriental characteristic. Jeremiah uses it in its short form, "Madmen," for the Moabitish town, but there was also a Benjamito place of the same name'-* a little way north of Jerusalein. Isaiah's meaning, therefore, is that Moab will be trodden down by Jehovah as the "tebcn " is trodden to fragments ou the threshing-floors of Madmeuah.^ The words that follow: "And He [Jehovah] shall spread forth ITis hands in the midst thereof, as he that swimmeth spreadcth forth his hands to swim," need, for their ri