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lUli

HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

A BOOK OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS GATHERED

IN PALESTINE.

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.

H*jl

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

CONTENTS VOLUMi: I.

H»

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&

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 <?-(5

10 Ruins of Aniwas and Latrniu, .... 40

11 Ancient Rock Tombs at Tibneli, - - - - 44

12 The Sacred Tree (Scliesh et Teim) near Tibneh - - 48

13 Reservoir and Aqueduct near Ras-el-Ain, - - - 50

14 Ruins of a P^ortresH at Ras-el-Ain, .... 64

15 Kefr Saba from ti>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,

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THE

HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

CHAPTER I.

JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

A BREADTH of apparently level foreground, backed by a range o!

fmrple hills, so nearly of equal height that the}'^ seem to form a table-
and, is the first aspect of Palestine as the voyager coasts along it from
Egypt in one of the numerous steamers which now touch at the differ-
ent ports. Our destination is Joppa — " the Beautiful," or, perhaps,
" the High " — one of the oldest cities in the world,^ and the first pos-
sible landing-place as we sail northwards. There it is, at last, rising
before us on its sloping hill, a hundred and fifty-three feet high ; the
flat-roofed houses looking down, terrace after terrace, on the waters,
flalf a mile out, steam is let off and the anchors slipped, for it is unsafe
for large vessels to go any nearer the town. A strong west wind
might drive them on the rocks, as there is no breakwater or harbor
to offer shelter, and sudden steaming to sea must alwavs be easy.

There is no difficulty, however, in getting ashore, if one have faith
in the oarsmen who swarm round as soon as a vessel anchors. Compe-
tition reigns at Joppa as elsewhere. Many more boats than can find
passengers crowd towards the steps let down to the water from the
deck. A Babel of cries, unintelligible to Western ears, fills the air.
The motley throng of deck passengers of the most varied nationalities,
who have till now littered three-fourths of the deck with their bedding
and baggage, fare best in the noisy exodus, for they are virtually at
home, knowing the language of the boatmen, and able at once to strike
a bargain with them, without a contest about prices. For the last
half-hour they have been busy packing. Veiled women who sat apart
with their children, in a spot railed off for them, are now on the wing
with the rest. Figures in every variety of Eastern costume; Arabs
with shawls over their heads, and striped brown-and-white " abbas,"
or mantles; black Nubians with red fezzes blue cotton jackets and

1 Jaffa Is Jaapu In Assyrian.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLL.

tCaAt>.

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

VIEW OF THE HARBOR OF JOFPA.

JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

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.

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,

JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

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.

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

JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

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.

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

lil

JOPPA ANr ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

'(^

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.

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?'

A BAZAR IN JOPPA.

II M

1.1

JOPPA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

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.

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

JOPPA AND ITS NEIQHBORHOOt).

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.

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

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
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, lor tlie
3 1 1 ours'
groin ul,
ins over
lly used
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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.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

CHAPTER II.

LYDDAH — K A MLEH.

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

^■«^

LYDDAH — RAMLEH.

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,

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.

LYDDAH — ftAMLEtt.

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.

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.

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.

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

) a gceiie

FOUNTAIN ABU NABP.UT NEAR JOPPA.

LTDDAH — BAMLBH.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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&

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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 calle<l Di-iisus, after the .step-son of Augustus.
The pier was adorned, inoreovci-. witli s|)lendid pillars, and a terraced
walk extended round the harbor. On mm eminence, beside a temple of
polished stone, near the shore, ros*^ a colossal statue of Augustus, as
Ju])iter- Olympus, visible far out at sea, and another at Rome, deified
as Juno. A huge open-'ur thealri'; was built on the slopes of the hills,
some miles north of the city, as well as a great amphitheatre, 560 leet
in diameter, and cai)able of containing 20,000 speclntors. A hippo-
drome, or as we might call it, a circus, over l.oOO feet long, rose in the
east of the city; the remains of a goal-post of granite, still seen on its
site, showing the magnificence of the whole structure; for the three
blocks of which it consists originally fonned a conical pillar, seven feet
six inches high, standing on a mass of ^Tanite proportionately massive,
and all resting, apparontl\'^, on a base forfned of a single granite block,
thirty-fv jr feet long, brought from Egy))t. 1 he walls of the Ilerodian
city enclosed aa area of 400 acres, but gardens and villas, it may be
presumed, stretched far beyond them in the centuries of the Roman
peace. Besides the theatres, a grand j^alace, afterwards the residence
of the Roman governors, was enjcted for himself by Herod; and he
had the wisdom, .so unusual in the Kast, to provide for the city a com-
})lete system of un<lergroufid 8ewer;«</e, after t!ie Italian plan. To
supply the city witii water two aqueducts were built: one, with a
doi^blp conduit of great size, str<;tciiing away, for tiie most j>a.'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 le<rt
i. A hippo-
, rose in the
seen on its
for the three
r, seven feet
ely inassive,
aiiite block,
le llerodian
<, it may be
the Roman
le residence
rod ; and he
city a com-
1 pUn. To
one, with a
Host pa.'t on
tast, for over
Jot from the

In the choice of thy sepulchres hurv
thy dead ; noH' >f 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.)

IV.l

CJESAREA — ATHLIT.

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&

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

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!.<e two To the east, liowcver,
before this narrower strip begins, the hills retire three or four tniles, to
trend southwards at that distance. At the foot of tiiis bay of heights,
steadily rising till tlioy became the central mountains of the land, the
whole plain is more or leas marshy and unsafe. Treacherous bogs nnd
spongy turf, dotted with bushes and tall ivods, characterized the whole
region, which we carefnlly avoided, as owv horses would infallibly have
sunk every here and there to their girths, had we ventured to cross it.
All the hill-slopes are coveivd with a sprinkling of oaks, which are
like those to the south, on tl»e plain, but that they grow moi^ openly.
It is, indeed, a nearly universal feature of trees in Palestine that they
stand thus a]>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.

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 <!rocodile in some cases where
these hateful saurians have been supposed to have been seen elsewhere;
but in the Zerka at least the prophets could find materials for their
introduction of the crocodile as their symbol of Egypt, as so frequently
happens.2 The village of Kefr Saba^ seems to owe its name to the
commonness niear it, in old times, of a grass-green lizard, sometimes
eighteen inches long, still called "Sab" by the Arabs.

Ou the heights over the winding course of the Zerka, about three
miles from the sea, are copious fountains, now called Ma-mas, which
were utilized by Herod to supply the great aqueduct of Cajsarea.
Near them, on the slope of a hill, in a wilderness of lusty weeds and
grass, amidst what seem to be the ruins of a considerable town, are the
remains of an open-air theatre, in which the good folk of Christ's day,
no doubt, often gathered from the neighboring city, and from the
houses and villas then thickly covering many nearer spots. It is built
in the form of a half-circle, the front measuring 166 feet across. The
stone seats have long since been carried to Joppa, Jerusalem, or Beirut,
as building material, like the wreck of CVg^rea itself; but the vaults
beneath and the chambers, from whic^ the horses and other animals
introduced in the displays were brougl)^ into the arena, are still used
as stables and granaries by the peasant.'. The spectators must have
enjoyed varied delights in such a spot, fo»', apart from the excitement
of the games, the beauty of the view over the plain before them, and
the mountains and sea, on the one hand and the other, is bewitching
even now. From Csesarea the best road tothid outlying country resort
of its citizens is along the top of the double high-level aqueduct ; but
though not, perhaps, actually dangerous, the journey is such as to need
steady nerves.

The Zerka, which must have had crocodiles in its marshes informer

1 Schenkel, Bib. Lex., iii. 612. 2 Isa. xxvii. 1 ; li. 9; Ezek. xxix. 8: xxxil. 2. 8 Kefr or Capbar
means "YlUage."

THE HOLY I.ANn AND THE BIBLE.

(CBAP.

times, since its ancient name was the Crocodile lliver,^ is mainly fed
by the great springs of Ma-mas, and flows into the sea over a stony
bed, with a strong current, from five to ten yards across and about two
feet deep. Tlie damming back of its waters higher up forms a broad,
deep, blue pool, passing into wide marshes, quite impassable on both
banKs. In these the tamarisk grows luxuriantly, and along the stream
below the dam the Syrian papyrus is found ; tlie course, higher up,
being hidden in wide stretches of cane-brake and rushes. It can only
be crossed by a low foot-bridge at the mill, leading over the dam —
unless one be near the sea, where it is generally fordable. Ages long
dead arc brought back again for the moment by noticing that its mouth
is guarded by a narrow Crusading fort, near which are the remains of
a bridge of the same date.

From the Zerka, north, there is only a very narrow pli in, cultivated,
in part, with olive-groves, hanging on the hill-slopes to tlie east, while
a low range of rocks, about sixty feet high, runs parallel with the sea
on the west. It is a \vearisome ride of about nine hours from Caasarea
to the northern extremity of the plain, at Carmel, but there is at the
same time a special interest in the evidences one sees of a long-past
prosperity, strikingly in contrast with, the present condition of the dis-
trict. About nine miles from Carmel, to the south, lie the ruins of
Athlit, one of the chief landing-places of pilgrims during the thir-
teenth century. A rocky promontory shooting out a quarter of a mile
into the sea was made use of by the Templars in 1218 as the fitting
site for a great fortress, which they forthwith raised on the old founda-
tions of some town, of which nothing even then was known. An
outer wall, once strongly fortified, can still be traced for 800 yards
north and south, and for 300 yards thence to the sea on the west though
only a few fragments of the masonry, sufficient to show the huge size
of the stones used, have escaped being carried off to Acre as ready-
made building materials. Outside this great wall ran a deep ditch,
into which the sea flowed, completely surrounding the stronghold.

In the centre of the promontory rises the citadel, with walls of sandy,
porous limestone, fifteen feet thick and thirty feet high, now much
ruined ; the remains of a magnificent church in one corner of the
enclosure attesting the fervor of the old champions of the faith, as
the citadel itself shows their energetic valor. The eastern wall of one
of the old towers of the city still rises proudly to a height of eighty
feet, but it stands alone. Huge vaults honeycomb the interior of the
citadel ; one, which is cemented, being said to be an oil- vat, capable
of containing 260^00 gallons. Another has been explored to the dis-
tance of 264 feet i a third has a groined roof, with ribbed arches ;

lBeland,jni{^p.7B0i

The Sacred Tree (Schesh et Tein) near Tibneb. (See page 86.)

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WnSTIII,N.Y. 14510

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^^^
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1V.1

O-aSAREA— ATflLlT.

illustrations, all of them, of the spirit and the lavish expenditure of
means and skill which the Crusaders displayed in their structures.

Six or seven miles south of Athlit lie the ruins of Dor, now known
as Tanturah ; the ancient chariot-road running outside the low coast-
hills, near the sea, but separated from it by a strip of land and marsh.
A few goat-herds watering their flocks at a clay trough were the only
human beings seen most of the way, but along the edges of a tiny
stream, oleanders, lupins, grass, and tall bushes relieved the tameness
of the view. The tribe of Manasseh was to have had this part of the
land, but could not, for centuries, drive out the " Canaanite," though in
the end it compelled him to pay tribute.* Four miles south of Athlit,
near the small village of Sarafend, a pleasant relief from sand and
marshes was offered by fields of sesame, millet, and tobacco, as well as
by some palm-trees near the shore, and fig-orchards, for which the spot
is famous. Indian corn, vegetables, olives, figs, 'and other fruit are
grown here and there in these parts by the industry of the people of
one or two villages. Old quarnes, tombs, ruins, and bog are, however,
more frequent than cultivated fields or gardens, reaching up to the ruins
of Tanturah, which stand on a rough promontory, with a tower thirty
feet high, showing the site of an old Crusading fortress. The modem
village is a little farther south, on the site of the old Canaanite city of
Dor,2 afterwards the Dora of the Eomans, memorials of which, in the
shape of pillars and sculptured capitals, slabs of marble, and hewn
stones, strew the shore. A few mud huts, two or three better than the
rest make up the hamlet, which looks miserable enough in its environ-
ment of sand and marshy flat. One of the -principal houses consisted
of a single square room, of good size, plastered with mud, and roofed
with branches long since varnished black by the smoke. These hung
down roughly over one half of the room ; the other half was hidden
by a canvas ceiling. .The door had no hinges, but was lifted to its
place, or from it, and the windows were only square holes in the mud
walls. A clay bench, joined to the wall, ran along one side of the
room, serving for chairs by day and sleeping-places by night. A rough
cooking table of clay and stone, from the ruins, was at one corner,
with a little charcoal glowing on the top of it— chiefly, as it seemed,
to roast coffee-berries and boil water in which to infuse them, when
they had been duly pounded in a stone or wooden mortar.

It cannot be said that this neighborhood is a very inviting one to
the traveller, the natives being so savage and rude that their local
feuds often give great trouble. Eock-hewn tombs are common, but
the only use to which they are now put seems to be to hide away the
bodies of men who have been robbed and killed. In one case Cap-
tain Conder found in an old Jewish tomb six corpses, belonging appar-

1 Judg. 1. 27. 28. 2 Josh. xvil. 11.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE 9IBLB.

[CHAP.

eiitly to strangers recently murdered. The number of skulls and bones
in other tombs, he adds, astonished him, till he found that many of
them were fractured, and was told that they had belonged to persons
murdered by the villagers.

A little south of Tanturah is another perennial stream, like the rest
in the district in being only a few miles long, and fed by the marshes.
The road is unspeakably desolate: sand on one side, bog on the other;
while the element of danger adds to the eagerness with which it is lefb
behind. A guard is a wise precaution in this part, whether for
property or for person.

Eecrossing the Zerka, and keeping the coast-road by Csesarea, the
sand stretches inland for miles, a few stunted oaks being the only
prominent vegetation. Not a house or living being was to be seen.
Passing the harbor of Abu Zabura, at which fragments of broken pot-
tery tell of a village or town once in existence on the spot, the stream
Iskanderuneh empties itself into the sea. In a dry season it can be
forded at its moutn, but sometimes it needs much trouble to get across.
A little way back from the shore it is, indeed, impracticable to
approach it, &om the danger of quicksands and treacherous marsli.
The deep sand on the shore was very fatiguing as we toiled on under
the perpendicular cliffs, which shut out all view of the country for the
time. It was better, therefore, to take advantage of an opening in the
ridge on our left and turn inland to Mukhalid, the first village on our way,
lying on the track to the south, about a mile from the cliflfs. It is in the
heart of the chief melon -growing district of Palestine, and must pre-
sent a striking scene when the crop is being harvested. Hundreds of
camels then wait their turn to be loaded with the huge fruit, or stalk
away with a full burden of it. Peasants in their white turbans and
shirts, the latter duly girt round them by a leather strap, assiduously
gather the different kinds of melon, while the teijt of the tax-collectors,
pitched in the fields, shows that these oppressors are on the look-out
to lay a heavy hand on the produce, for tne Government. How is it
that great vegete'ole globes, like these melons, so full of water, thrive
thus wonderfully on so hot and sandy a soil ? The camel-loads of
them taken to the shore fill a thousand boats each summer. Indeed,
if it were not for fear of the Bedouins, there need be no limit to the
quantity grown.

The secret of this luxuriant fertility lies in the rich supply of moist-
ure afforded by the sea- winds which blow inland each night, and water
the face of the whole land. There is no dew, properly so-called, in
Palestine, for there is no moisture in the hot summer air to be chilled
into dewdrops by the coolness of the night, as in a climate like ours.
From May till October rain is unknown, the sun shining with
unclouded brightness day after day. The heat becomes intense, the

Reservnir and Aqueduct near Kaa-el-'Aiu. (See page 39.)

■■i

lOl

IV.1

OJBSAREA — ATHUT.

ground hard; and vegetation would perish but for the moist west
winds that come each night from the sea. The bright skies cause the
heat of the day to radiate very quickly into space, so that the nights
are as cold as the day is the reverse : a peculiarity of climate from
which poor Jacob suffered, thousands of years ago, for he too speaks
of " the drought consuming him by day, and the cold by night." ^ To
this coldness of the night-air the indispensable watering ofall plant
life is due. The winds, loaded with moisture, are robbed of it as thev
pass over the land, the cold air condensing it into drops of water, which
fall in a gracious rain of mist on every thirsty blade. In the morning
the fog thus created rests like a sea over the plains, and far up tlie sides
of the hills, which raise their heads above it like so many islands. At
sunrise, however, the scene speedily changes. By the kindling light
. the mist is transformed into vast snow-white clouds, which presently
break into separate masses and rise up the mountain-sides, to disappear
in the blue above, dissipated by the increasing heat. These are the
" morning clouds and the early dew that go away " of which Hosea
speaks so touchingly.^ Any one standing at sunrise on a vantage-
ground in Jerusalem, or on the Mount of Olives, and looking down
towards the Dead Sea, must have seen how the masses of Ijillowy
vapor, filling the valleys during the night, sway and break up when
the light streams on them from over the mountains of Moab ; their
shape and color changing each moment before the kindling warmth as
they rose from the hollows of the landscape, and then up the slopes of
the hills, till they passed in opal or snowy brightness into the upper
air, and at last faded into the unclouded sky.

The amount of moisture thus poured on the thirsty vegetation dur-
ing the night is very great. Tent coverings are often soaked with it
as if there had been a heavy rain, and a bright moon frequently creates
the striking spectacle of a lunar rainbow. "Dew " seemed to the Isra-
elites a mysterious gift of Heaven, as indeed it is. " Who has begotten
the drops of dew ? " is one of the questions put to Job by the Almighty
Himself.* That the skies should be stayed from yielding it was a
special sign of Divine wrath,* and there could be no more gracious
conception of a loving farewell address to his people than where Moses
tells them that his " speech " should " distil as the dew." Gideon's
fleece, out of which a bowlful of dew was wrung, was a symbol famil-
iar to the great citizen-soldier ; and no imprecation more terrible could
be uttered against Mount Gilboa, defiled by the death of Saul and Jona-
than, than that no "dew" should fall on it henceforth.'* Hushai, in
his subtle, misleading counsel to Absalom, could suggest no more strik-
ing image of the silent surprise of David by irresistible numbers than

1 Gen. xxxi. 40. 2 Hos. y1. 4. Batlter, tbe "dew wbiob early." 3 JoD muctUI. 28, 4 Bagg. 1,
10; 1 Kings xvU.1. 6 2Sani. i.2L

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

that the gathered multitude of Israel would fall upon him as the " dew "
t'Hlleili on the ground.^ Job pictures his hopes of abiding prosperity
by the prayer tliat " his root" would spread out beside the [irrigating]
waters, and that the " dew " would lie "all night on his branch."*
Tlie youths of Israel, as of all nations, were her "dew."* Tiie favor
of an Oriental monarch could not be more beneficially conceived than
by saying that, while " his wrath is like th ) roaring of a lion, his favor
is as dew upon the grass."* The "head" of the Beloved "is filled
with dew, and his locks with the drops of the night."* Isaiah, speak-
ing of the advance of the Assyrians against Jerusalem and Judah, shows
that he too had noticed the mists that rest on the wide plains and
sweeping valleys during the nights of the hot months, for he says, if
we may expand his words so as to give their force more clearly than
it appears in the Authorized Version : " I will keep my eyes on them
through the whole summer, while the unclouded sunshine ripens the
herbs, and the night mists temper the heat of harvest." * Any one
who has ever watched the white morning fog in harvest-time, in Pal-
estine, when at sunrise it was quite impossible to see any distance
round, and the villagers, driving their flocks afield, could only with
infinite trouble prevent their being lost in the mist; shouts and uproar
rising on all sides, as camels, horses, donkeys, cows, goats, and sneep,
were urged off through the hazy sea of vapor; must have felt that,
thougb painfully chilly by night, it tempered the air in the early day,
till the fierce sun hau drunk up the moisture. " Awake and sing,"
cries Isaiah, " ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and tbe earth shall cast out the dead ! " ' He thinks of the sad con-
dition of Palestine when the exiles return from Babylon, its slaught-
ered multitudes lying asleep in the dust around them; and in a burst
of patriotic fervor, clothed in poetical metaphor, cries out, " O that thy
dead bodies could arise I Awake and sing, ye dwellers in the dust of
the grave 1 For thy dew — the favor of Jehovah — gives life, as the dew
of herbs revives the glebe, and through its mighty power the earth
shall bring to life the dead 1 " How blessed the assurance, finally, in
the precious promise: " I will be as the dew unto Israel! "® i

The melon district reaches to the stream El-Falik, a short perennial
river, little more than a mile in length, issuing from great marshes
behind. Just above it a tongue of sand runs two miles inland, the low
hills farther east being thinly dotted with oak-trees of good size — the
remains of the old Crusading forest of Assup. North of Mukhalid the
country belongs to a tribe of Arabs, who, tliough few in number, claim
to have formerly held all the land between Tiberias and Caesarea, Car-
mel and Beisan. To the south of the village, however, the Nefeiah,

1 2 Sam. xvii. 12. 2 Job zxix. 19. S Ps. ex. 3. 4 Prov. xix. 12. 6 Cant. v. 2. 6 Isa. XTiii. 4.
Qeikle, Hours wUh the SfUe, vol. iv.. p. 445. 7. Isa. xxvi. 19. Gelkle, Bmr» v/Oh the Btbte, vol. v., p.
44. 8Aos.xiv.6. f . 11'

iv.j

CJJSAREA — ATHLIT.

or Club-bearing Arabs — a rough set — swarm in the marshes and wood*
lands. The landscape round is a great rolling plain, with low slopes
varying its monotony ; its height above the sea IVom 160 to 200 feet,
while hills of blown sand stretch all along the shore, to varying dis-
tances inland, except where streams force their way through tnem.
At some points, however, the shore rises in bluftk nearly to the level
of the plain behind, and these, where they oouur, are a great preserva-
tive of the soil, preventing the sand from blowing over it. Bound the
maishes the pasturage is excellent in spring, and hence Sharon was
famous in Jewish historj^ as the feeding-ground for the royal flocks
and herds. In David's time these were under a head shepherd, him-
self a Sharon man— one Shitrai.^ The pastures of Sharon were, indeed,
famous from the earliest times, and haa a king in Joshua's day,^ while
after the Hebrew invasion they seem for a time to have been in the
hands of the tribe of Gad,' but the desolation spread over them by the
"overflowing flood" of Sennacherib's invasion la bewailed by Isaiah,*
who, by the way, like all Old Testament writers, always speaks of
'• the Sharon," meaning the whole plain fVom Carmel to Joppa. Before
this ruin by the Assyrian it must have been specially prosperous, for
" the excellency of Carmel and Sharon " is the prophet's ideal of luxu-
riant fertility,^ and the full joy of the Messianic Kingdom is, iu part,
imaged by Sharon being so restored that it would become once more
" a fold of flocks."*

Bound the few villages in the plain there are generally patches of
com, vegetables, or olives ; but by far the greater part of the soil is
uncultivated. El-Fslik is approached through a wild tangle of haw-
thorn, dwarf oak, arbutus, and rue, and its short course is fringed by
the Syrian papyrus reed, which looks at a distance like a dwarfed
palm-tree, and by thickets of oleanders and other shrubs. The name
of the place means " the Cutting," and has been given it fVom its being
only an artificial drain, made to lower the water iu the marshes. An
uninhabited sandy ground with undulating surface succeeds, stretching
nearly five miles south in a treeless and liouseless desolation. Reeds
and rushes spring beside stagnant pools ; patches. of-thistles and coarse
grass are the main growths. Some pines, indeed, are to be seen on the
sandy slopes ; but they are rare and small. A few mud huts here and
there, offering shelter to shepherds from the heat by day and the cold
by night, when they chose to take advantage of them, are the only
apologies for human habitations.

Arsuf, the Apollonia of Josephus,' lies on the shore between five and
six miles south of El-Falik ; but there was nothing to detain us at its
ruins except a tr.nnel near it, cut for 535 feet through the rocks, by

1 1 Chiou. xxvii. 29. 2 Josh. xii. 18. 3 1 Chron. v. 16. For "suburbs '*r««d**pMtttrM." 4 Ian,
;aixill.9. 6Isa.xxzv.2. 6l8a.UT.10. 7 Jo8.iiiU.,xUi,l&,4,

THE HOLY LAND ANI> 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.

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

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

SI]

coil

th(

THE PHILISTINE PLAIN AND SAMSON's COUNLRT.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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(.

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.

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

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,

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.

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.

llf

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.)

V.)

TBfi PHILIBTIKB PLAIK AND 8AM80N*8 OOUNTRT.

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.

■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.

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.

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.^'

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

rcsAp.

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.

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.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CUAP.

. 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.

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.«.

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 Hai<l, I have heon a woman
inTimnuti) of llio tiauKl'teiH of tht>PliiliB-
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.

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

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAi*.

[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.

[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.

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

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

FELLAH PLOUGHINO IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TELL-ES-SAFJEH . (See page 78.)

vn.]

ASHDOD — MEJDEL.

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.

If!

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.)

VIM

ASHDOD — MAJDEL:

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 <Sat., x. 65) alludes to the custom as familiar in Rome. See
also Horat. Car,, i. 6, 13—16, where the clothes of the persons saved are hung up, as well as a pic-
ture of the ship.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIPLE.

[Ohaf.

of Jerusalem and Tekoa,^ and in Egypt it is very common: a circum-
stance which has led to the opinion that it must have been introduced
in ancient times from tlmt country to the Holy Land. It grows from
forty to fifty feet high, with a thick gnarled stem, and numerous
strong limbs, which, at a short distance from the ground, strike out
horizontally, instead of upwards, as with most other treec; fio that
Zaccheus, at Jericho, when he wished to see our Lord, could easily
climb into a vantage-place on a stout branch. Nothing, indeed, is
more common than to find the children of a village amusing them-
selves by getting up for sport i^to +he branches of any sycamore grow-
M»g near. Its broad >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.

THE HOT<Y LAND AND THE BtBLE.

tCHA».

the Mahomraedan Sunday — attracting buyers and sellers fVom all parts
of the plain.

The olive plantations on all sides of the town were very fine. Ijook-
ing old, however young, so broken and gnarled is their bark, so
twisted their short stems; often hollow; often as if covered only with
a lace-work of bark ; the ligiit greyish-green of their small pointed
leaves so faded, with tlieir white under-sides showing in every breath
of wind — they are like no other tree that I know. Olive-growing is
largely followed in the soutiiern parts of the plain. From Mejdel
onwards, the tree covers tiie slopes of the low liills and the rich plains,
making them one vast orciiard, for they are not higher than fruit-trees,
and are mostly narrower in tlieir round of foliage than ordinary fruit-
trees with us. Casting less shade than our apple or pear-trees, and
standing wider apart, the wide groves of them, with the soft green
underneath, made the whole landscape at times look as lovely and rich
as an Kn,<>1ish 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.

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.

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.)

VII.1

ASHDOD — MEJDEL.

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

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 i<u application. It is a curious illus-
tration of the poverty of the Hebrew language, and tlic consequent
difficulty of quite accurate translation, that a word rendered once in
our version, "the mole,''^ is reiidere<l "swan" in the two other cases
in which it is used,^ the context Ibrming the only clue to its meaning,
which, m these two cases, seems to point to its being some bird. Nor
do scholars help one very much, i\)f they render it, variously, pelican,
horned owl, water-hen, or sea-swallow.

Still ither villages! — Nalia and Burly^rah, embowered in orchards
and olive-grounds, which stretch unbroken for four miles south of
Mejdel; those of Nalia half-way across the sand-dunes, which must
have been kept l)ack from thern by infinite labor. West of the Nalia
orchards and groves these sand-dunes stretch little more than a mile
inland; immediately south o^' the town they run three miles into the
land; the gardens jutting out into them as a verdant peninsula. At
Burberah, a mile to the mmt'n, they c«>ver 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.

])()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 »

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.)

VII.J

ASH1X)1>— MKJDKL.

!\ 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\*<hing- wagon rolled
over the cummin. Bi\)ad-eorn is thivshed out, but yet one does not
keep on threshing it for ever, nor does he erush it [tlie kernel] small
with the wheel of his threshing- wagon or with liis horses" [which
drag the wagon].^ In Proverbs we aw t\irther told that "a wise king
winnoweth away the wicked, and bringeth the threshing-wheel over
him," an allusion to the dreadful custom of eoiidemning prisoners of
war, when especially hated, to be cut into small pieces by driving over
tliem a threshing- wagon, or threshing-sledge, with its rows of iron
spikes or sharp stones, till their flesh was torn oft' in niorsels. This
was apparently the hideous fate assigned by David to some of the
ATninonite prisoners taken after the eaptmx> 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,

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<j lit understanding, that one should
have seen Orientals swimming^ They never "spread forth" their
hands as with us, but strike tlio water with one hand after the other,
from above, boating it down, as it wei-c, and passing triumphantly
over it. So would Jehovah do with Moab — lie would "lay low his
l)ride."4

When the grain is finally winnowed, sifted, and thrown up into a
great heap, the owner often takes up his quarters on it for the night,
just as Boaz did Icig ago,^ to watch it till, on the morrow, he can get
it carried to his underground cistern or 8torehouse,in bags on his beasts,
for there are no wheeled vehicles now in Palestine, though there were
in antiquity." It is a curious sight to watch the poor donkeys, with
their loads of grain, marching along so meekly, or the gaunt camels
swaying forwards under their huge bags or baskets. The country is
full of underground cisterns, formerly used to store grain ; their mouths
being carefully hidden with a layer of soil to prevent discovery by a
robber or an enemy. It was of such granaries that the men of Shiloh
spoke in pleading for their lives with the murderous Ishmael: "Slay
us not, for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and
of oil, and of honey."' Such subterranean storehouses are still very
numerous in some parts, Tristram found nearly fifty of them, each
about six feet deep, in one village on the Dead Sea, from which a foray
of Arabs had plundered the millet, wheat, barley, and indigo })reviously
hidden away in tViem.*

The yield of grain in ancient times in Palestine must have been
large, since we find a surplus not needed by the home population
exported to Phoenicia ; Middle and North Palestine and the districts
east of the Jordan especially maintaining this outward trade.^ The
usual return seems to have been about thirty-fold, although sometimes

1 Jer. xlviit. 2. 2 Isa. x. 31. 3 A various rea«liiig of the Hebrew would make the sense of ti.4
passage " by the waters " of Madmenah. " Madmen '' occurs in Jer. xlvili. 2 ; " Madmenah," Isa.
X. 31; "Madmannah," Josh. XV. 31; lChron.ii.49. 4^Isa.xxv. 10. .S Ruth ili. 7. 618am.vl.7;
2 Sam. vi. 3; I Chron. xiii. 7; Amos. ii. 13. In the Pentateuch the same word is used nine times,
and is always translated " waggons " : referring to those brought from Egypt, or used there.
7 Jer. xli. 8. 8 Land qf Itrad, p. S?. 9 1 Kings v. 9, 11 ; Ezek. zxTn. 17 ; Ezra ui. 7 ; Acts xU. 30.

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100

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(Chap.

it reached a hundred.^ At the present day, however, wheat yields
only twelve to sixteen- fold, though barley often yields fifty, and
dhourra gives a return, not seldom, of from a huudred-and-fifby to two*
hundred-fold.

CHAPTER Vm.

OAZAo

! .

Outside Burberah is a large pond at the roadside, to collect the rain-
water for use in summer; the latter and early rains, in the close and
opening of the year, filling it. The water was the color of mud, but it
seemed to give delight alike to man and beast. "Women with their jars
on their shoulders were bringing a supply from it for household use, cattle
were drinking it, and dirty children were swimming in it, making the
water splash up before them as they beat it with each hand alter-
nately .^ Some of the women had children on their shoulder, and I
could not but notice how firmly the little creatures kept their seat.
As soon as they are out of their mummy -like swaddling-clothes,^ which
are strips of calico about six inches wide and three yards long, they
are taught to perch on their mother's shoulder, holding on to her head,
while she supports their back with one hand. Very soon, however,
this is unnecessary; the child learning to clasp its mother's shoulder
with its knees, so as to need no other help. Mother and child have
thus both hands free, while in the one case the mother is made to carry
herself erect, which of itself is a great benefit, and in the other the child
is trained to be a splendid rider; for the same grip with the knees
which keeps it safe on the shoulder makes it afterwards perfectly at
home in the saddle. An Oriental will carry a coin all day between
his knee and the saddle, while riding, often at full speed, over very
rough ground, and show it in the same place in the evening ; so per-
fect is his seat. Boys are more often honored by a place on tneir
mother's shoulder than girls, for there is pride in a man-child, but a
daughter counts for very little. It is therefore a mark of a better state
of things when Isaiah says of the long procession of the returning
exiles from Babylon: "Thy daughters shall be carried upon their
shoulders," * The mud huts and walls of the little courts were stuck
over witi cakes of cattle-dung, drying for fuel. ,,

1 Qen. X7 v\ 12; Matt. xtli. 8. 2 See ante, p. 152. 3 Luke ii. 7. 12; Ezek. xvi. 4; Job zxxvlti.9.
Babies are ruM>ed with salt before tbe^ are put In tbelr swaddling-clothes. 4 Isa. xllz. 22.

MoMaster tlmvew'

LIBRARV

[Chap.

yields
y, and

X)tWO-

the rain-
lose and
d, but it
lieir jars
ise, cattle
king the
iid alter-
er, and I
heir seat.
8," which
)ng, they
ler head,
however,
shoulder
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he knees
rtectly at
between
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; so pr-
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ire stuck

A Threshing Floor. (See page 96.)

bbxxxviii.9.
iix.22.

VIII.l

GAZA.

101

Outside the village groves there are no trees, and between the vil-
lages there is no population. The absence of travel on the road was
remarkable, but at last a camel from Gaza passed us, laden with crock-
ery in huge nets on each side of it. Another soon followed, with large
bales of something unknown. Then, at intervals, came two companies
of men driving horses from Damascus to Egypt for sale, or for the use
of pilgrims to Meccah ; thus reversing the order of trade in antiquity,
for of old Egypt supplied Syria with horses.^ The sand-hills on the
right now came almost up to the road, for a time, but they receded ere
long, giving way to arable ground, on which the wheat stood three or
four inches high. Flocks of sheep, some of them with black faces ;
mud cottages, with slightly-rounded mud roofs covered with grass,
soon to wither under the growing heat;^ herds of cattle, asses, and
camels, peaceably feeding on the hill-slopes, marked the neighborhood
of Deir Sineid, round which peasants in cotton tunics and turbans, with
the long sharp-pointed goad in their hand, slowly followed the yoked
oxen, small and thin, which dragged their light ploughs. One could
not help thinking of the words of the wise Son of Sirach as these poor
men stalked patiently along their furrows of a few inches deep — sunk
in poverty, and forced to toil from sunrise to sunset, mainly to pay
their taxes : " How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough and
that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their
labors, and whose talk is of bullocks ; he giveth his mind to make fur-
rows, and is diligent to give the kine fodder."*

Deir Sineid, like all the villages of the plain, consists of mere mud
hovels. At the entrance to it rose a great dust-heap, as in all Eastern
villages and towns ; the counterpart of that, doubtless, to which poor
Job betook himself in his affliction.* The " aShes " "among" which
he sat down were the " mezbele," or dust-mound, of a Palestine vil-
lage, which is very diflferent from the farm " dunghill " of our rural
neighborhoods. Manure in the East is not mixed with straw as with
us, no litter being used for cattle in so dry and warm a climate, and it
is almost atirely that of the ass, for few horses are kept, and cattle,
sheep, and goats are generally out of idoors, day and night. The ordure
is brought from time to time, dry, with every other form of refuse, in
baskets, to the assigned place lieside the village, and usually burnt
every month ; care being taken to select a day on which the smoke is
driven away from human dwellings. But as the ashes are left
untouched, the " mezbele " in an old village often rises high above the
houses ; the rains having consolidated it into a hill, which is exca-
vated into grain-pits, where corn can be stored through the year, safe
from fermentation or vermin. It also serves the villagers as a look-
out, and is the favorite lounging-place in the cool of the evening, to

1 lKlQgsx.28;2Cliron.i. 16; ix.28. 2Fs.ozzlz.6. 8 Ecolus. zzxtUI. 2&, 96. 4 Job 11.8.

102

THK HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

enjoy the air which blows at this comparative elevation. Through
the day it is the playground of the children ; the suft'erer from any
loathsome disease, such as the leprosy of Job, shut out from human
dwellings, makes his bed on it ; and the wandering beggar, after sit*
ting on it by day craving alms, burrows during the night in its ashes,
which the sun has heated. The village dogs sun themselves on it, or
gnaw at some carcass thrown out on this common receptacle of all vile-
ness, for no one thinks of burying a dead animal ; it is either left
where it falls or dragged to the " mezbele." Many places in the Hau-
TsLn take their names from the size and number of these hills, just as
Madmenah, as we have already seen, did in former ages, and many a
modern village is built on a " mezbele " from its healthiness, being ele-
vated as it is above the undrained ground below, and with the view of
getting the cool air on its summit.^

Passing through these villages in the evening, when the cattle are
returning from the field, it is striking to notice how often the poor
creatures go directly to their own feeding-place, generally in the yard
of their owner's house. They will make their way through the vil-
lagers sitting around, perhaps at their evening meal, and open the
doors into their own quarters with their horns, without anyone aiding
them. Isaiah must have noticed this when he wrote, " The ox know-
eth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider." ^

The last village before entering Gaza is called Beit Hanun — "the
House of Grace": a sad misnomer, since its population have the worst
name as rogues and thieves. It stands on a nill, with a fair proportion
of gardens and barley-patches round it, and, of course, a rain-pond,
with its crowd of urchins enjoying themselves in the water. Many
cattle and calves were feeding on the slopes. Country people, both
men and women, passed by us on their way to the village or to Gaza,
many of the women carrying on their heads baskets of eggs, cheese,
or, rather, the curd which passes for cheese in Palestine, and vegeta-
bles, or great jars of sour goats' milk. I noticed also a motl^er on an
ass, her child in her lap, her husband walking behind: a picture, per-
haps, of Mary and her infant Son, with Joseph, as they journeyed from
Bethlehem to Egypt, it may be by this very route. A soldier on a
swift horse galloped by, and many a thin, scorched peasant wended i
homewards on a lowly ass, his naked feet almost touching the ground |
at its sides.

Gaza is embowered in great olive-woods which stretch north-east-
wards the whole four miles to Beit Hanun. The sand-dunes directly!
north of the town, and to the west, are broken by ^ wide oasis oil
olive-groves and gardens, which girdle Gaza on nearly all sides, in aj
1 See Consnl-General, Dr. Wetotein, in Delttzsch's lob, p. 62, 2 Isa. 1. 8.

vmj

GAZA.

108

wide sweep. The town itself lies on a hill, 100 feet above the plain,
and 180 feet above the sea, with some palm-trees rising beneath,
amidst, and above it; five minarets breaking the outline of the flat
roofs and mud walls which cluster over each other up the slope. A
cemented, low-domed fountain of mud bricks stood on the road out-
side, then came the great rain-pond of the town, which had leaked
across the road, making it, for a space, into a quagmire. Six men sat
cross-legged on the ground at the roadside, doing nothing; and,
beyond them, mud walls, topped by the hideous prickly pear, stretched
up the hill, enclosing sadly wild-looking orchards of palms, figs, and
other fruit-trees.

No one who has not seen an Oriental town can imagine its filthiness.
The mud houses crumble into dust at a given rate daily, and all the
garbage, offal, and foulness of daily life are thrown into th^ narrow
lane, when the dust-hill is too far off. Bivulets of abomination soak
out from a hole made for their escape at the side of each door. Nor
is tins the only kind of filth. There are no scavengers, and there is
no decency.^

I went several times through the chief streets of the town, which
were wretched in the extreme, according to "Western notions, yet the
bazaar was well supplied with some kinds of goods, especially with the
different articles of food. Masses of dried figs, dates, heaps of beans,
lentils, dried corn and flour, piles of bread, cheese, and vegetables, and
much else, were exposed for sale. The market of Jerusalem and other
[Hebrew towns must have been much the same in the time of David."
An extensive trade is driven in supplying the caravans which "cross
the desert with provisions, and in providing for those returning from
[it the long-missed enjoyment of fresh food of every kind. The differ-
ient trades are found, as once was the case in England, in separate
streets, so that there is a district quarter for each. In one street
jailors sit in open booths on both sides of the way, plying their useful
irt; in another, cobblers make light slippers of red and yellow leather,

)r patch up old ones which in England would be thrown out as hope-
lessly beyond repair. The smiths, also, have their own street, where
pey carry on their rude industry with small goat-skin bellows and

liniature forges, sitting on the floor to beat the metal on small anvils.

LS I looked at them I could not help thinking of the day when work-
ing in iron was prohibited to the Hebrews, as it was in after-days for-
bidden to the Bomans by Porsena, and the peasants had to come down

Vom their hills to this very town and other Philistine cities of the

ja-coast plain for work of this kind, because "there was no smith

)und throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest

ll It Is to the odious ciiRtom of Orientals that Scripture often alludes when It spealts of "dung
h the face of the earth " ; e.g., Ps. Ixxxiii. 10; .Ter. viii. 2. To remove the evils resulting was (be
^lect of the Law of Moses, given in Deut. xxiii. 13. 2 1 Sam. zxx. 11 ff ; 2 Sam. xvii. 28.

lUB .BUaiUMiMiaaiialMMMI

104

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[OBAr.

- '

the Hebrews make them swords or spears; but all the Israelites went
down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his [plough-] share, and
his spade, and his hoe, and hm bill, when the plough -shares, spades,
hoes, forks, or bills, or ox-goads had worn blunt." ^ One could not
forget, moreover, that in anoient Jerusalem the different trades were
confined to separate streets; for wo read of the "Bakers' street," * the
"Goldsmitlis' street," and the "Oilsellera' street," besides which the
Talmud speaks of other quarters for difl'erent trades.

Everywhere cocks and hens wandered at their will; eggs being
now, as they have been for many ages, a principal article of diet, and
fowls the staple form of animal .food. Already, in Christ's day, these
birds were numerous in Jerusalem and Palestine generally,* but they
were then a comparatively recent innovation. Birds, indeed, were fat-
tened for the table among the ancient Hebrews,* for Nehemiah says:
"Fowls were prepared for me;" and "fatted fowl" were part of Solo-
mon's "provision," but there is no proof that they were ordinary
poultry, Solomon's fowl being apparently geese, ducks, or swans.
Doves are the only birds which we know, certainly, to have been bred
by the Hebrews for the table.*^ Neither the cock nor the hen is men-
tioned in the Old Testament, nor are eggs enumerated among the arti-
cles of Hebrew food ; passages in which they are alluded to, referri-ng
to those of wild birds.** Nor is it strange that this should be so,
for the ancient Egyptians, from whom the Hebrews came out, had no
barn-door fowls, the hen never appearing on their monuments, though
geese and ducks are constantly introduced. Indeed, the hen was
unknown even in Greece till the second half of the sixth century before
Christ; Homer and Hesiud never alluding to it. Originally an Indian
bird, it was early known to the Babylonians, for we find it on very
ancient gems and cylinders as a symbol of some deity. It appeared in
Palestine for the first time after the rise of the Persian Empire, as it
did also among the Greeks, who long knew it as the "Persian bird."
Hence we find it noticed in the New Testament. The Book of Esdras,
also, which was written in the reign of Domitian,"^ in its striking copy
of our Lord's beautiful figure, put in the mouth of the "Almighty
Lord," introduces it: "I gathered you together as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings."

On the hill, almost in the centre of Gaza, stands the chief mosque,
originally a Christian church of the twelfth century. No difficulty
was made as to my entering — though, in accordance with the primaeval
custom of the East, it was necessary to take oft' my boots and replace

1 1 Sam. xiii. 19— 21. emended translation, Thenlus, De Wette. 2 Jer. xxxvii. 21 ; Neh. iii.82;
Matt. XXV. 9. 3 2 EsdraHl. .30; Matt, xxtii. 37; xxvi. 34, &c. See Reference Bible. 4 Neh. v. 18;
1 Kings Iv. 23. 5 Gen. XV. 9; 2 Kings vl. 26. 6 Deut. xxll. 6; Isa. x. 14. 7 See reference above.
Also Keuss. Gench. desA. 7., S 697. DomUlan reigned a.d. 81—96. Bdttcher is clearly wrong

iAehrenlene, 1897) in ascribing tlie absence of hens among the Hebrews to their being hated as an
Egyptian bird. Tliey were not Egyptian.

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VIII.J

OAZA.

105

them with slippers before stepping upon holy ground. This rule has
even extended to private houses, the sitting-room of which, being at
times used for prayer, must not be trodden except with barQ or slip-
pered feet. So It was with Moses at the burning bush, ^ and with
Joshua before the captain of the Lord's host, ^ and with Isaiah when,
in his great vision, he saw the Lord high and lifted up.^ The dust of
common ground must not touch the holy spot.

The mosque has three aisles, which formed part of the ancient
church ; rows of pillars, with Corinthian capitals, dividing theni one
fVom the other. On the south side and east end additions have been
made bv the Arabs. Of the three, the middle aisle is the highest, the
roof being here supported by two rows of pillars, one above the other,
each pillar of the lower row having a cluster of small marble pillars
round it, for greater strength. The church is built in the old basilica
form, but the roof-arches of the side aisles are in the Arab style. A
small choir at the south end of the building rests on a number of small
pillars without capitals. The west doorway is a beautiful specimen of
the Italian Gothic of the twelfth-century churches in Palestine, with
delicate clustered shafts and pillars, deeply undercut lily-leaves adorn-
ing the capitals. The roof, of groined vaulting, is entire; and on one
of the pillars of the upper row is a touching design of the seven-
branched candlestick, inside a wreath. Pity that its light should be
extinguished by the superstition of Mahomet, but it has been so since
about A. D. 1350, as recorded in an inscription on one of the walls. It
had shone, however, for many generations since the £rst church of
which we know at Gaza was built, about A. d. 402.* In Christ's day
there were ten heathen temples in Gaza — to the Sun, Venus, Apollo,
Proserpina, Hecate, Fortune, "The Hiereion," and Mamas, ^ the ^eat-
est of trie gods of Gaza, whose sanctuary, which was round, was believed
by the townsmen to be more glorious than any other in the world.
All these shrines, however, were pulled down by a decree obtained by
the wife of the Emperor Arcadius from her husband, commanding
them to be removea, and a church — which was dedicated at Easter,
A. D. 406 — was built on the site of the temple of the god Mamas.
Very curiously, in 1880 a statue of this famous deity, fifteen feet high,
was discovered by some peasants in a large natural mound about six
miles south of Gaza. It is a human figure in a sitting position, with
an arrangement of the hair like that of the classic Jupiter. The peas-
ants had commenced to destroy it as soon as it was found, but it was
rescued from them by the English missionary at Gaza, though not
before the face had been much injured. Mamas was the great Jupi>
ter, the god of rain and firuitfidness, and was honored, besides, as "the

^ 1 Ex. iiL 6. 2 Josh. v. 15. 8 isa. xx. 2. 4 Pat. i\ind Memoirt, ill. 251. 5 Theie were six temple*
to heathen gods, and four to goddesses (Sohtrer, JT. T. Zettgeteh^ p. 879.)

106

THR HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(OSAV.

living, the etema\ the universal, nnd tlio everlasting." One arm and
both legs appear to have been sawn oft', as if some pious heathen had
out the idol in pieces to facilitate his saving it fVom the fury of the
Ciiristians. The statue is now at Constantinople. A register 1,000
years old is said to bo preserved in the present church, built in the
place of that which stood on the site of the temple of Manias.

Remains of antiquity are found here and there in the city. A shoe-
maker in one street, or rather, narrow alley — for there are no streets
in our sense — was beating leather on an upturned marble Corinthian
capital. The second mosque is built largely of ancient cut stones.
Marble pillars lie as doorsteps at the wretched Government olRces, and
sculptured capitals serve the same use before many private dwellings.
Towards the sea are some pieces of granite columns, one of the fVag-
mcnts being fourteen feet long. On the east and south, beyond the
houses, are mounds which probably show the position of the ancient,
or perhaps the Crusading walls.

The strength of the Philistine city must have lain rather in the arms
of its defenders than in its position, but such protection as walls and
gates afforded has long since gone. Yet the streets, being very narrow,
could be easily barred by chains, as, indeed, some of them, on occa-
sion, are. The heat is much greater than at Jerusalem, but, contrary
to the practice there, the streets are never arched over, the only pro-
tection being plaited mats, laid out roughly on poles, and extending
from the houses and shops. These shops are unspeakably poor; in
not a few cases mere holes, open in front, with more dirt tnan goods.
A traditional site of the " House " of Dagon, which Samson pulled
down,^ is, of course, shown. This famous building stood, apparently,
at the farther end of an open square, bordered inside by colonnades ;
the flat roof of the temple — for roofs are nearly all flat in the East —
projecting beyond the sanctuary itself, to give shade beneath, while
also affording a point of vantage from which to look down on the court
below. This great veranda roof rested in its centre, it would appear,
on no more than two great pillars, and was crowded by the great ones
of Gaza when Samson was brought out to make sport for them in the
wide quadrangle below. Some of the large mansions in Barbary,
indeed, seem to be built in much the same way; a central structure,
of great size, with colonnades and chambers on each side, enclosing an
open space, which forms a large hollow square. The palace of the
Dey of Algiers, in olden times, was of this kind, and its flat roof was
often crowded by favored spectators, assembled to divert themselves
by exhibitions in the vacant area. The great platform thus utilized
as a "stand" projected a long way in front of the building, and was
supported in the middle by two pillars standing near each other.

1 Jodg. ZYl. 27—801.

MkT,

and
had
fthe
.,000
1 tbe

shoe*
LreeU
itliian
tones.
18, and
Uings.
3 frag-
nd the
noient,

vm.]

OAZA.

107

These pulled down, the whole structure above would fall, and it. may
well bo that the " House" of Dagon was aornewhai; similar.*

The Turkish governor of the town happening to be holding his local
court while I was at Gaza, 1 visited it. Ten red-leather chairs stood
at one end of an otherwise unfurnished room, with a stone floor in very
bud condition; tlie walls were yellow- washed. There was a small
tiihlo lit one corner, and beside this, on a line with the chairs, sat the
^<>vernor, in a ohair with arms; his cigarette-box on the table, and a
niirgileii, or water-pipe, at his feet; his dress European, except his fez;
IiIh complexion a light brown; hie features regular, though the nose
htul decidedly the command-in-ohief, especially in comparison with his
somewhat small eyes. An officer in ^old epaulets and blue dress sat
nortv; two soldiers in very ancient uniform stood at the door. From
time to time local dignitaries entered and took possession of a chair,
on what we should call the bench; one, in a black abba of fine cloth,
with a striped silk di-ess below it, a red shawl round his waist, a showy
turban, and bright red slippers, being the most noteworthy. A dozen
Arabs, in turbans and sheepskin coats, the wool inside, were standing
before the kadi, each speaking at the top of his voice and all at once.
A few feet square of a public market, when rival salesmen are trying
their lungs against each other, might help one to reproduce the scene.
After a time the kadi interrupted the hubbub, which subsided into a
dead calm as he motioned to speak. His judgment was given in a few
words, and as there was no appeal, all went out as quietly as so many
children from the dreaded presence of a schoolmaster. Presently a
fine old man, the sheikh of the Terabin Arabs, stepped across to one of
the ahairs, and, sitting down, addressed the bench. A murder had been
committed, some time be+bre, in Gaza. Two Arabs, between whom
there was a blood-feud, had accidentally met in the house of the Eng-
lish missionary; the second comer of the two turning away instantly,
with a scowl, when he saw his intended victim. A few hours later,
this unfortunate, while sitting in the town market-place, was shot dead
by his enemy, in open day; the murderer fleeing to his tribe in the
desert. The slain man had belonged to the tribe of which the present
.jpeaker was sheikh, and the governor had ordered him to arrest the
man-slayer. But this was no easy matter. War had broken out
between the tribes immediately after the murder, and had only been
v^uelled by sending 400 soldiers from Jerusalem, but these were now
withdrawn, leaving the author of all the trouble at large. "If you
send troops, we shall try to arrest him," said the sheikh, "but if you do
not, we shall not obey. There has been fighting already, as you know,
and there would be more." Having spoken thus, he rose, and left the
court-house, without waiting for a reply,

1 Shaw, Baritary, 1.893.

108

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

Blood-revenge has been a passion among all Semitic people Arom the
earliest ages. It may have arisen, in some degree, as lynch law has
sprung up in the frontier states of America, from the imperfect develop-
ment of society, and the fancied necessity of taking private means to
secure justice; but whatever its source, it was early recognized as not
only a right but a duty. Among the Bedouins it has, for ages, been
made not only a personal matter, but the aflfair of the whole tribe of a
murdered man, on each member of which, lies the responsibility of
obtaining vengeance. It considers not only the murderer or his next
of blood, but every member of his family, or even of his tribe, as legi-
timate objects of revenge, and thus bloody and long-continued feuds on
a lar^e scale often arise. The murder of Abner by Joab, "for the
blood of Asahel, his brother," ^ which nearly led to a war, and the
fear of the woman of Tekoah that the avengers of blood woidd not be
content without life for life,^ shows how deeply and dangerously the
custom had rooted itself among the Hebrews. The law wa?, indeed,
written, "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death"; * but
the avenger of blood was left to be the executioner, due reprisals being
regarded as so completely a fulfilment of the Divine will that God
Himself is spoken of as the blood-avenger of His people.* No money
payment could be taken for murder, or even for homicide: to compound
such a felony made the land unclean before God.^ Innocent blood, in
the opinion of the Hebrews, as of the Arabs now, cries from the ground
to God for revenge.* Even the altar, inviolable for any other crime,
could give the murderer no protection.''

It was manifestly wrong, however, to put deliberate and accidental
homicide on the same footing, and hence means of escape were pro-
vided for those guilty of only the unintentional offence. Six free towns
wt .e provided to which the man-slayer might flee and find a sanctuary,
if he proved before the elders his innocence of guilty purpose; the
death of the high priest, finally, giving him leave to return home with-
out danger. But even in the case of designed murder, the Law of
Moses humanely limited revenge to the actual person of the murderer,®
forbidding the fierce abuses prevalent among races like the Arabs. It
was enacted, moreover, that the murderer should be publicly tried, and
that the testimony of at least two witnesses should be necessanr to his
condemnation ;® so that the blood-revenge sanctioned by the Bible only
amounted to an obligation on the family of the murdered person to
prosecute the murderer.

The public offices in Gaza are built of stone, but are old, and in verv

f)oor condition. A detached small stone building in the yard, with
ittle windows closely barred, and, of course, with no glass, and two

1 2 Sam. iii. 27. 2 2 Sam. xlr. 11. 3 Lev. xx}v. 17. 4Ps.lz.12. See Geo. Ix. 6t xlil. 22{ Bcek.
xxxlii. 6. 5 Num. xzxT. 88. 6 Oen. iv. 10 : Isa. xxvi. 21 ; Ezelc xxiv. 7: Job Xfl 18. 7 Bz. xxL 14:
iKing8U.2B. 8 Oeot. zxiv. ISt S Kings ^T. 0. 9Num.sxxT.U^80|DMit.stt;il.

SAP.

the
has
lop-
s to
not
been
of a
by of
next
legi-
clson
r the
dthe
lotbe
y the
ideed,
8 but
being
it God
money
pound
3od, in
ground
crime,

dental

re pro-
towns

etuary,

„, the ,

lewith-
iw of
lerei,*

lbs. It
led, and
to his
lie only
irsonto

in very

with

liud two

, 22t Ktek-

vnij

GAZA.

109

dark and terrible stone arches in the passage to the street, was the
goal — a fearful place in such a climate for prisoners heavily ironed. A
huge convent, formerly connected with tlie great church, which is now
used as a mosque, serves as a khan or caravanserai ; its open court,
oft'ering room for the beasts; the lower chambere, along the sides of the
open space, serving as store-rooms for the loads of the asses or camels ;
and its upper rooms, quite empty, supplying shelter for the traders,
tnerchants, or wayfarers who may need it. A man ii[i charge of the
whole receives a slight gratuity from everyone for his trouble, but there
is no provision for either man or beast beyond a well in the centre of
the court. It was to such an "inn" that the good Samaritan carried
tiie man who had fallen among thieves ; the tw^o pence he gave the
host to buy food for the unfortunate creature being the amount fixed
by the Emperor Augustus as the monthly allowance to be paid to each
poor citizen of Kome for flour. Such also was the "habitation" of
Ohimham,^ by Bethlehem, where Jeremiah rested before being taken
aw%y to Egypt. The word translated "inn" in St. Luke, as the place
in which the mother of our Lord could not find shelter, was not, how-
ever, as I have explained, elsewhere,* a khan, but a private dwelling,
so full of guests at the time that hospitality could not be shown to
Mary and her husband.

On the east of the town a marble pillar, lying half buried, across the
road, is shown as the traditional site of the city gate carried oflt'by
Samson, and near it is a small modern domed tomb, which is said to
be his last resting-place, but in both cases faith or disbelief must
remain free to everyone.

The luxuriance of the gardens and orchards of Gaza is due to the
abundance of water, drawn from a great many wells, some of them not
less than 150 feet deep. Good water is, indeed, plentiful at greater or
less depth over all the district, even on the sea-shore, though the fre-
quency of rubble cisterns to the south and east shows that in ancient
times the inhabitants depended largely on artificial supply. The chief
manufacture of Gaza is soap, which is carried over the desert to Cairo
on the south, and to Joppa on the north. Black pottery is also made,
and a good deal of courge material for abbas is woven. It is curious
to see the weavers in their small, win^dowless workshops — the only
light coming from the open front — plying the shuttle in a loom as
primitive as it could well liave been 3,000 years ago, when the
weaver's beam was made the comparison for the ponderous shaft of
Goliath's lance.^ It is interesting to try and realise, from the sights
of a town like Gaza, the everyday life of ancient Israel. The Hebrews
had trades of many kinds among them, perhaps rudely enough carried
out in many cases. In Jerusalem, and other towns of Bible times one

1 J9X, xli, 17. 2 Geikie, Lift and Wordiqf Chrut, i. 113. 3 1 Sam. xvli. 7.

110

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Ohaf.

might have seen men at work, just as now iy Gaza, or Joppa, or
Damascus — making or sharpening ploughshares and all agricultural
implements ; 'armourers fashioning swords and spear-heads ; ^ copper-
smiths beating out water-jugs, trays, and basins ;2 and brassfounders
skilful in all kinds of artistic work.* Goldsmiths and silversmiths
plied their delicate arts, doubtless in open booths, as in Damascus nt
present,* making, as ordered, either an idol, or teraphim, in dark times,
or a signet ring like that of Judah, which he gave in pledge to
Tamar,* or purifying metal from alloy.® You could have bought a
bright metal mirror, or a brass pot, or a censer,' or gold earrings or
bracelets,^ or a lordly dish of copper, like that of Jael.^ If you had
had precious stones, • or corals, or pearls, you could have got them
mounted in what settings and chasings you liked.^'^ The ruby, the
topaz, the sapphire, and other stones of price were to be had from the
merchant. Tliey could solder or polish, tinker, overlay with gold,
silver, or copper.^^ In the open booths where the craftsmen were at
work you could have seen the anvil, hammers, tongs, chisels, bellow€,
crucibles, and small fumaces.^^

Stone-cutting and masonry ma}'^ have been learned by the Hebrews
in Egypt; perhaps with additional hints from the Phoenicians after set-
tling in Canaan.^^ Workers in wood, ready to turn their hand to any
order, whether as carpenters, cabinet-makers, or wood-carvers, were
numerou8,^*and there where also wheelwrights and basket-makers.^® A
. spectator watching them would have seen that they plied the axe and
hatchet, the gouge, the compasses, the saw, the plumb-line, and the
level, and used red chalk for marking.^® The trades of masons and
plasterers were apparently united.*' Brickmakers, as we find in Egypt,
Babylonia, and Assyria, mixed their mortar with chopped straw — that
is, " teben " — whether for burned bricks or for those simply dried in
the sun.*® The Hebrew potter, sitting at his work, turned the clay,
which had first been kneeded with the feet, into all kinds of vessels
on his wheel, which was generally of wood.*'* He could also, prob-
ably, glaze his ware, since the Egyptians could do so, though the art
seems now to be lost in Palestine. Tanners are mentioned only in the
New Testament ;^ but as the Pentateuch speaks of red leather of
ram's skin, and of " tahash," or sealskin leather,^ the Hebrews must
have had tanners and curriers among them from the first. Shoemakers

1 1 Sam. xili. 19 ; 2 Kings xxlv. 14 ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 12. 2 2 Tim. iv. 14. 3 2 Kings xxv. 18 ; 1 Kings
vil. 14. 4 Judg. XTii. 4, 5; Isa. xl. 19; xli. 7; Jer. x. 14. 6 Gen. xxxviii. 18. 6 Mai. Hi. 2. 7 Lev.
Ti.28;Num.xvi.89. 8 Gen. xxiv. 30. 9 Judg. v. 25. 10 Ex.xxviU.11,17: Jobxxviii.16-19. 11 Isa.
xli. 7; 1 Kings vil. 45; Num. xvii. 4; Isa. xliv. 12; Jer. x. 4; Ex. xxv. ll, 13; 1 Kings vi. 20 ff.; 2
Clirou. iii. fi ; Isa. xl. 19. 12 Isa. xli. 7 ; xliv. 12 ; vl. 6 ; Ezek. xxii. 18 ; Ecclus. xxxviiL 28 : Ex. xxxii.
4: Jer. vi. 29; Prov. xvii. 3. 18 Ex. xxxviii. 11 fl. 14 2 Sam. v. 11; Isa. xliv. 18; Matt. xili. 65; Mark
vi. 8 : Ex. XXXV. 86 ; xxv. 10 fl. ; xxxvii. 1, 10, 15, 25. 15 Num. vl. 16 ff . ; Ueut. xxyi. 2, 4 ; Judg. vl. 19.
16 Isa. xliv. IS ; z. 15 ; xxviii. 17 ; 2 Kings xxi. 13. 17 1 Chron. xlv. 1 ; 2 Kings xil. 12 ; Ezek. xili. 11 ;
Isa. xxvill. 17; 1 Kings vil. 9. 18 Ex. v. 7; Gen. xl. 8: Nab. Hi. 14; 2 ^m. xil. 81 ; Jer. xlill. 9.
19 1 Chron. iv. 23: Isa. xxix. 16 ; xlv. 9 ; Ixiv. 8 ; Dan. 11, 41 : Ps. xclv. 9: Job. x. 9 ; Matt, xzxvll. 7
10; Isa.xU.25; Jer.zvU1.8;£oolus.zzxvUI.29. 20AotiU.48; x.6,a2. 21 Bx.xxT.6; xxxvLUi

le
lof
ist
irs

M.
[19.

Ill;

1.9.

ii.7

Il4

vin.i

OAZA.

Ill

and tailors are mentioned only in the Talmud, sinoe in Bible times
clothing of all kinds seems to have been made by women.^

Weaving and spinning, whether for household use or for sale, were
also left for the most part to the women,^ though we find that men as
well " wrought fine linen."* Flax was hackled with wooden combs ;
its ooarser fibres made into nets and snares ; its finer woven into yarn
on the spindle, and this, when wound on reels, was woven on the loom
with the shuttled A coarse stufi', known as " sak," was made of
camels' and goats' hair into mourning-robes, girdles, and tent-covers ;
the black hair of he-goats being mostly used, as is still the case with
•the Bedouins.*^ The making of cloth for tent-covers was, indeed, a
special trade followed by many, and, among others, by the Apostle
Paul.® But besides these rouglier manufactures, there were then, as
now, in these strange-looking towns of Palestine, many others of a
higher class. In the days of Amos rich men lay on couches of
damask;^ the clothing of the daughter of Tyre, married to the
Israelitish king, w^is inwrought with threads of gold ; * and curtains
and hangings of mingled blue and purple and crimson, with inwoven
figures or dioice designs, were to be had for mansions or palaces, as
well as for the Temple, while embroidered robes were common among
the rich few.® Fullers buisied themselves with dressing new webs, and
cleansing old garments,^® using natron, lye, wood-ashes, and fuller's
earth in their trade,^^ which was carried on outside towns, on
account of its malodorous characteristics.^^ Women, and also men,
prepared fragrant salves, by mixing olive oil with various perfumes.^*
Bakers are first mentioned by Hosea., the old practice of bread-baking
for each household by the women having, in a measure, fallen into
disuse, so that there came to be a street of bakers in Jerusalem. 100
years later, when Jeremiah was alive.^* Barbers make their first
appearance during the Captivity,!^ but became numerous after that
time, the rich having barbers in their households. Strange to say,
dyers are not mentioned in the Bible, nor are glaziers, though the
Jews were acquainted with glass through the Phoenicians, and perhaps
through the Ej^ptians.

As in the East now, to work at a trade was no dishonor, though
some crafts were in disfavor, and even disqualified men for certain
positions. The dignity of high priest, for example, according to the
Talmud, could not be granted to a weaver, a fuller, a slave-maker, a
tanner, or a barber.

1 1 Sam. li. 19; Prov. xxxi. 19 S.; Acts iz. 39. 2 Isa. xix. 9; Ezek. xxvli. 7 ; Prov. vii. 16; Ex.
zxxv. 25; ProT. xxxl. 18, 19, 24; 1 S»ni. li. 19; 2 Kiiiga xxiii. 7. 8 2 Chion. ii. 14 ; ill. 14. 4 Isa.
xix. 9; Judg. zv. 13; xvi. 14; Prov. xxxi. 19; Eccles. iv. 12; 1 Sam. xvii.7; 2 Sam. xxi. 19; Job
vii. 6. 5 2 Sam. ill. 81 ; Matt. ill. 4 ; Isa. ill. 24 ; Ex. xxvi. 7 : Cant. 1. 5. 6 Acts xviil. 8. 7 Amos ill.
~ "" " ~ d.l,31,r

2. 18* Bz. zzz. 25J 8S; Sam. Viii. iS; Eccles. z. 1 ; Neh. UL 8; Ecdus. zzxTiii. i, 8. 14 Hos. viL 4*;
Jer.zzzvU.21. 15BMk.T.l.

MMH

112

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

The grinding at the mill, assigned to Samson as his work in Gaza,
must have been galling in the extreme to such a Hercules, since it was
the work usually leff to women, though, as I have said, I saw one man
at Joppa sitting in. the street turning a handmill. The blinded hero,
however, may have been set to turn a millstone of the larger size, too
heavy for men, and commonly turned by an ass ; the strength once
used so nobly being thus contemptuously degraded.

The women sit or kneel in grinding, and their mills are still, doubt-
less, the same as those used in the Bible times. Two stones, about
eighteen inches or two feet across, rest one on the other, the under one
slightly higher towards the centre, and the upper one hollowed out to
fit this convexity ; a hole through it, in the middle, receiving the
grain. Sometimes the under stone is bedded in cement, raised into a
border round it, to catch and retain the flour or meal as it falls. A
stick fastened into the upper one served as a handle. Occasionally
two women sit at the same pair of stones,^ to lighten the task, one
hand only being needed where two work together, whereas a single
person needs to use both hands. It was, and continues to be, the same
in Egypt: "the maid-servant that is behind the mill "may yet be
seen in any village on the Nile, just as her predecessors were before
the Exodus.2 The revolution of the stones makes a rough grating
sound, but it is a sign of life and plenty, and as such is pleasant to
hear. It has, for this reason, been immemorially a famili.' „ symbol of
all that is most joyous in the remembrance of home; its absence mark-
ing desolation and sorrow. Hence Jeremiah, when painting the ruin
to be brought on the land by the Chaldseans, tells his people that Jeho-
vah will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of
the millstones, and the light of the lamp.* Hence also " The
Preacher " gives it as one mark of old age that the teeth fail, because
they are few — taking the figure from women at the mill, so that tie
passage would read literally, "The women who have ground the menl
slacken in their labor, because they are few," " and the sound of the
grinding is low." * The utter destruction of the mystic Babylon is
impressed on the mind by St. John in the statement that, "the sound
of a millstone shall be heard no more at all " in it.^ No creditor was
allowed to take a uiillstone in pledge, since doing so would mean the
wretchedness of a household: a lesson to our law-givers at this time.
Some millstones, of a much larger size than those turned by hand, are
driven by an ass, as already noticed, and it is to one of these that our
Lord refers when He says that it were better that a millstone were
hanged about the neck of him who offends one of His little ones, and
tli.it he were drowned in the depth of the sea.*

1 Matt. xxiv. 41 ; Luke xvii. 35. 2 Ex. xi. 5. 3 Jer. xxv. 10. 4 Eccles. xii. 8, 4. Dr. W. Nowack,
J)er Pndiger. 5 Rev. xviii. 21. 6 Matt, xviii. 6 ; Mark ix. 42 ; Luke xvU. 1,2.

[CHAP.

Gaza,
it was
enian
hero,
se, loo
1 onoe

doubt-
about

ler one

out to

[ig the
into a

[Is. A

ionally

sk, one

I single

le same
yet be

3 before

grating

isant to

mbol of
mark-

,he ruin
tt Jeho-

[ladness,

iound of
" The

[because
hat tie
le inoiil
of the
jylon is
e sound
[tor was
lean tlie
lis tinu'.
ind, are
that our
le were
les, and

Nowack,

vni.i

OAZA.

113

The cemetery of Gaza stretches over a wide space on the south of
the town ; the graves generally covered by a small erection of mud-
brick, plastered over and whitewashed. As, however, there is no
fence, and man and beast take any liberties they like with the open
space sown with the dead, its condition, like that of all Eastern ceme-
teries, is pitiable in the extreme. Yet, for a time, care of a grave is
not neglected by the relatives of the departed. Every Friday men,
women, and children come to the cemetery for their outing, which is
celebrated near the resting-place of those once dear to them, whom
they thus call to remembrance amidst what is, to them, holiday enjoy-
ment. It is very common, also, to see women veiled in white from
head to feet sitting on the ground beside a grave, having gone, like
Martha and Mary, " to the grave, to weep there." ^ Funerals are mel-
ancholy scenes in the East. I have watched them frequently. First
come the women of the family and female neighbors, draped entirely
in white, often tossing their arms, tlirowing about their handkerchiefs,
and screaming aloud in lament for the departed. In Egypt, and to
some extent also in Palestine, hired mourners, whose calling it is to
" make an ado and weep,"'^ for so much an hour, swell the noise, for it
is a great ambition with Orientals to have an imposing display at a
funeral; "a better funeral," as they say, "than their neighbors could
afford." Wailing women are an old institution in the Holy Land.
We find " the mourners going about the streets " when Ecclesiastes
was written.^ Public demonstrations of grief are natural to Orientals,
and have been so from the earliest ages. All Israel " mourned," that
is, smote their breasts and wailed aloud, for the death of the son of
Jeroboam ; * and, ages before, Abraham came to Hebron to " mourn
for Sarah, and to weep [or wail] for her."^ "Eend your clothes,
and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn [that is, lift tne loud wail]
before Abner," said David to Joab, he himself following the bier,
lamenting.^ After the death of Josiah, at Megiddo, the wailing was
so grievous through all Israel that the prophet in later days could find
no better .parallel for the future mourning in Jerusalem over Him
" whom they have pierced." ' Nor were even wailing and rending the
clothes, or wearing sackcloth, the only expressions of grief at the death
of loved ones. Notwithstanding the prohibition of the law,* men cut
themselves, in the time of Jeremiah, with knives, and shaved the front
of their heads, to honor the departed.® But this is not done now.
The violence of the wailing may be imagined from the words used in
Scripture : " The mourners [that is, the women] howled," says Jere-
miah.^® Their wailing was like "the shrieks and yells of jackals,"
says Mioah,^* " and they smote on their breasts with voices, sad as that

lJohnxi.81. 2 Mark V. 39. 3 Eccles, xii. 6. ^4 1 Kings xiv. 13.. 5 Oen. xxiil. 2. 6 2 Sam. Hi. 31.

7 Zech. xH. 10, 11. 8 Lev. xix. 28; Deut. xlv. 1
8

Jer. x^. 6. 10 Jer. iv. 8. 11 Mic. i. 8.

114

THE llOLV liANl) ANli THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

of tlie dove," * as our EnclisU people did at the news of the death of
the Blaok Prince, when they beat their heads against the pillars of
Canterbury Cathedral, and lifted up their voices in loud lamenting,
with all the outward manifestations of sorrow once familiar to the
Hebrews. The hired women of to-day, as they gather at the house of
the dead, shriek out every endearing expression to stimulate the sor-
row of those around, just as they did of old: " Ah, my brother 1 "
" Ah, sister 1 " " Ah, lord ! " or, " Ah, his glory 1 " «

Men and boys come after the women, often carrying flags, and
chanting, " No God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet," repeating
this over and over as they advance; the numbers following the open
bier being large in proportion to the respect felt for its pale occupant.
Just such a procession met our Lord as it passed through the gate of
Nain, the widowed mother going before, and " much people of the
city " following the remains of her only son.*

On arrival at the grave, a scene very strange to Western eyes takes
place, the celebration of a "zikr," or memorial service, which is
repeated, at stated intervals, at the graves of those long dead, if they
have left a reputation for holiness. I saw one held at the tomb of a
local saint at Gaza. A circle was formed round the grave by the men
present, without respect to their social position ; a poor beggar taking
part on the same footing as a rich trader. About forty men, who had
come to the spot with a flag and a drum, stood in the ring; Arabs,
j el, black Nubians, peasants ; most of them in turbans of gi'een, red,
white, or yellow, or striped; some with fezzes; one with the Arab
" kefiyeh," or head-shawl ; their clothing as vividly contrasted as their
head-dresses in shape, color, and material; one wearing the sheepskin
coat of a shepherd, with the wool inside. A leader broke the prelim-
inary silence by beginning to chant in a sing-song voice from the
Koran, after which the whole body of men broke out into a repetition
of the name of God, crying, " Allah, Allah, Allah," as quickly as it
could be uttered, for quite a long time; their bodies, meanwhile,
swaying up and down, in what was doubtless intended for bowing in
reverence ; each holding his neighbor's hand. Groans followed, volley
after volley, and then the swaying, mingled with loud grunts, began
once more. Presently all broke out into a chant praising God, and
celebrating the glory of the dead. Clapping of hands followed, and
more chanting of tne Koran, more violent bowing, groaning, and
grunting, till everyone must have been thoroughly tired. The whole
ceremony lasted about half an hour, and at its close the procession,
which consisted wholly of men, formed behind the flag and drum and
marched back to the town, to the beat of the monotonous music. The
name given to this act of Divine worship, for suoh it is, is, as I have
1 Nab. U. 7. 2 Jer. izU. 18; xzsiv. 6. 8 Luke vU. U.

CBAP.

VIII.]

OAZA.

116

thof

MS of

uting,
;o the
use of
e sor-
herl"

8, and
mating
e open
jupant.^
gate of
of the

)s takes
hich is
if tl»ey
mb of a
tbe men
r taking
yho had
Arabs,
jen, red,
[he Arab
as their
leepskin
prelim-
iTom the
jpetition
[kly as it
lanwhile,
owing in
|d, volley
IB, began
Bod, and
|wed, and
ling, and
le whole
•ooession,
Irum and
»c. The
I have

said, " zikr," a word closely connected with the Hebrew word for " a
memorial" or "remembrance;" indeed, one may say, identical with
it. The Psalmist uses it when he exhorts tite righteous to "give
tlianks at the remembrance of His holiness." ^

It is a pity to have to think of the wailing at death or at funerals
as insincere, but how can that of hired women be anything else? The
custom is falling into disfavor, partly on this account, and partly from
its expense, but also from the unnatural constraint imposed by the
rule that wailing shall be renewed at stated intervals in each week,
for forty days.* The trr mourners have as real sorrow as those of
any other land, and many of the white-sheeted forms that go to the
grave to weep, or do so in their homes, are those of broken-hearted
mothers, sisters, or wives. But to weep, shriek, beat the brenst, and
tear the hair at so much an hour, is sorrow as artificial as thnt of our
undertakers. Professional mourners are employed simply in obedience
to the tyranny of custonn, and to stimulate the real grief of others.
" Consider ye and call for the mourning women," says Jeremiah, "that
they may come; send for the cunning women [skilful in lamenting]
that they may come; and let them make haste and take up a wailing
for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush
oat with waters." 3 Even the funeral processions of Mahommedans
are far from being as decorous as those of Christians. The bier, on
which the body lies dressed in its best clothes, is followed rather by a
straggling and motley crowd than by mourners, for they talk and
laugh in the most indiflferent way as they go to the grave, where the
" zikr," as I have described it, takes place, the women lamenting, and
the men repeating with incredible volubility, " There is no God but
God," &o., till they often foam at the mouth with their exertions.
When they are tired, the body is laid in its shallow grave, which is
quickly filled in, a few stones being heaped over it to keep oft' jackals
and hyenas.

I made inquiries in a large fig-orchard at Gaza respecting the time
of the ripening of the fruit; hoping to understand better than hitherto
the curse of the fig-tree for its barrenness when "the time of figs was
not yet."* The gardener, a middle-aged man, very thin by labor in
the liiot sun all his life, was probably not unlike those of ancient times.
He wore an old fez, wound round with a colored handkerchief to make
it into a turban for protection from the sun. His arms and legs were
bare-; his dress a white shirt, with a blue cotton sack over it. A
steel, for striking fire, hung at his side from a steel chain attached to a
belt or girdle of leather round his waist. The earliest figs, it appears,
are called "dafour," Which means "ripe before the time," and are ready

1 Ps. xcvU. 12; seo mIso Pa. oxi. 4; exit. 6; cxxxv. 13; cxlv. 7; Prov. x. 7. 2 Gen. 1. 8. 3 Jer.
U.17,18. 4 Mark. xi. 13.

I <

116

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLK.

[Chap.

at Gaza about tlie end of Marcli, before tlie leaves are well out. Our
Lord had a right, then, to expect that a tree rich in leaves should have
had some tigs oa it by the middle of A})ril, when He whs j)assing, and
the I'act that there were none ottered ii striking text for a lesson on the
wortidessness of profession without performance. It sometimes hap-

f)ens that in autumn — that is about ()ctober — some figs put out fresh
eaves, and these are followed, it may be, by new Hgs. But the win-
ter checks the ripening of such untimely growths, where it does not
make them fall; the few still clinging to the branches till spring never
becoming fit to fat. To show what he meant, the gardener forthwith
pulled some of this kind, but they were withered and worthless.

It was on the 2nd of March, in the opening of spring, that 1 visited
the garden. Fig-leaves were coming out on some trees; not, as yet,
on others. Large beds of onions were standing a foot high, but they
were thin in the stalk. Lettuce was large, and in great abundance ;
it is often, with bread, the only food of laborers. Tomato-plants were
set out between the rows of lettuce; marrows were coming up, and
v' .88 were leafing, with rows of tomatoes between them also. The
pomegranate was bursting out; beans were about nine inches high;
garlic, somewhat shorter. A patch of tobacco, for the future personal
use of the gardener, had just shown itself above the ground; and there
was a small bed of parsley. The garden did not need watering, I was
told; the rainfall and the night mists were sufficient. Indeed, irriga-
tion is little practised in Palestine, except in gardens around towns.
On the plain of Sharon, for example, there is ncr.c for the fields, which
yet give excellent crops.

The "abbas" of the men amused me. They are nade of coarser or
finer camels'-hair cloth, and are as nearly square as the human figure
will allow; three holes being left for the head and arms, and short
sleeves being generally added. The garment is open in front, to wrap
tightly or wear loosely, as the owner thinks fit. In Gaza the women,
besides the blue or white covering over their heads, wear an Egyptian
veil: a thing made of cotton cloth, like a gigantic moustache, but
hung over the nose, and sweeping down on each side to the bottom of
the jaw3, with a row of coins at the lower side for ornament; the rest
of the face being left exposed. The " izar," or white cloak, worn by
not a few of the fair sex, covers the person from head to foot. It was
strange to hear that among the families in Gaza one was known as
" European." Its members were, in fact, descendants of some Crusader
who had remained in Palestine and married a native woman; his pos-
terity still bearing the name of Frangi, or Franks. There are many
such households in the Holy Land.

The heads of the children were a constant amusement, for in Gaza,
afi in Egypt and elsewhere, tbey are shaved in the most fanciful way.

[Chap.

Our

1 have
g, and
on the
!S hap-
t fresh
le win-
jes not
5 never
thvvitli

visited
as yet,
ut they
idance ;
ts were
up, and
). The
;8 high ;
aersonal
id there

I was
irriga-
towns.
which

•arser or
n figure
ad short
to wrap
women,
gyptian
che, but
)ttom of
the rest
worn by
It was
nown as
Zrusader
his pos-
re many

lin

Gaza,
il way.

VIU.]

GAZA.

117

One gloried in a tu(l on the very to)) of tlio hUuII ; another, in a stnall
ring of hair; still others had other designs. There is hIwavs, how-
ever, some tufl left for the benefit of the resurrection angel, to facilitate
extrication iVom the grave, or, as some say, to helu the spirits who, as
Moslems believe, raise every dead man to his knees, in his grave,
immediately after his burial, till he answers their questions and it is
thus determined where his soul is to be till the general judgment.
One thing is efteoted at aiiy rate by the general head-shaving; there is
no shelter for vermin. Boys wear no head -covering, running about
with their shaved skulls even in Egypt, but men protect themselves by
a turban, to take the place of their hair; for their liendH are shaved as
well as those of boys. Arabs never shave the head or the l)eard.

The mission house in which I lived while nt Gaza ottered, in many
'ways, a curious example of the condition of Palnstine. The stones of
which it was built were from the ruins of ancient buildings on the sea-
shore; some marble pillars over the door and elsewhere were spoil
from Ascalon. The rafters were from Cilicia, in Asia Minor; the
pine- wood, fVom Norway; the chairs were Austrian; the dresser was
made in Gaza; the looks, hinges, glass, and ))aint came from England;
the nails and tiles, from France; the lime, from the hills of Judaea.

More than a third of the children in Palestine, I was told, die in
infancy, which is no wonder;* so ignorant are the people, and so dirty
and insanitary are their houses. Ophthalmia is epidemic, with blind-
ness as its frequent result.

Mahommedanism allows a man to have four wives, which one would
think a liberal allowance, but as the Prophet was a polygamist on a
much larger scale, those of his followers who can afford a greater
number of wives feel quite at liberty to indulge in a harem. The cost,
however, limits this odious practice to a very few cases, the vast
majority of men being able to maintain only one partner. Divorce is
the general way for getting a change. Indeed, it has become the
established custom, since it not only saves expense but avoids the evils
of rivalry. To send a woman away is the easiest thing in the world;
any excuse suflSces. One man was mentioned to me, who had had
sixteen wives; and a Gaza woman is, at present, making her seven-
teenth husband happy. Nor can it be said that people wait till they
are old before visiting the marriage altar; boys of twelve are the hus-
bands of girls of eleven. This strange state of aff'airs does not, how-
ever, seem to do permanent injury to either sex in this climate, for old
men appear to be as numerous as elsewhere, while I was assured by
the missionary that the women, when at their best, are so vigorous
that he had known of cases where a matron, going to market with

1 A lady traveller In Egypt, moralizing on this subject, said to me, " How sad the mortality
MBong ohfldren is I I believe more die than are born " f

118

THE HOLY LAND AND THK BIBLE.

[CHAP.

1 i\

liei eggs or cheese, would step aside on the way to give birth to a
cliild ; go on and sell her produce, and return home with her new
baby.

1 had the honor of a return visit from the kadi to acknowledge my
attendance at his court. He came with his son, a boy of twelve,
dressed, excepting the inevitable red fez, like a European, and already
showing his budding virility, as he no doubt fancied, by puffing at a
cigarette. A very shabby servant followed, as the only escort of the
two. I found his excellency very gracious. The missionary had
beaten him in a lawsuit raised by t! e Turk to prevent the English
from having a mission house — for the authorities harass Protestants
in every way — but the defeat was ignored for the time, and the great-
est affability reigned. The kadi had kept me waiting a very long
time in his wretched court-house, to show me some pieces of a lead
coffin just dug up. "Had they any value as antiquities?" Unfortu-
nately there was no inscription on the fragments, but only oriiiiments,
including human heads: a proof that it must have been iis old as the
Crusading times, if not older, as Mahommedans never introduce like-
nesses of either man or creatures in their ornamentation, nor such
scrolls of leaves. " Why was there no cleansing of the streets in
Gaza? " "Ah, how would you get the money for it? Many towns-
men are very rich, but they refuse to pay taxes." " But could you, as
governor, make no improvements at all, to bring your city more to
the front? " " Ahl no one can do anything. 1 tried very hard to get
a harbour made for Gaza, through a company thai was willing to con-
struct it, but Turks are jealous of each other. If a clever man rises,
all conspire to pull him down. The great men seek only their own
interests, not those of the country. I could do nothing. Things must
just go on as they are, if I am not to ruin myself. To show any zeal
or enterprise would do so." Coffee, the nargileh, and cigarettes enliv-
ened the interview, though the boy felt it so dull that he stole away
downstairs to play with the children; the attendant following his
charge. A few salaams and gracious assurances of eternal friendship,
and the great man withdrew.

On the south-east of the town lies a hill — El-Muntar — to the top of
which, it is said, Samson carried the city gates. Riding through the
great cemetery, which in some parts was washed into gullies by the
rain, and in others dug into great holes for gravel, the brick and plas-
ter cubes or half-circles over older graves fallen, or falling, into decay;
no fence or railing anywhere; stones, thorns, weeds, rubbish, choosing
their own places without disturbance from any one — we reached the
hill by a sandy lane, fringed with gardens and cactus- hedges. The
ascent is rather steep from all sides; the slopes only thinly sprinkled
with vegetiition. A large tomb to some forgotten saint rises on the

VIII.l

GAZA.

119

top of
igh the

by the
kd plas-

decay ;

loosing

led the
The

[•inkled

on the

summit, where there is also a station, in sickly times, for a quarantine
watcher, who signals the approach of caravans from Egypt, the track
from which stretches away, alongside the telegraph, straight to the
south. The quarantine establishment lay about a mile to tiie east,
among gardens: a stone building in front, with a quadrangle inside,
but everywhere falling into decay. It has fine water, however; one
of the soldiers kindly brought us ajar of it for a draught. Standing
apart, the hill offered a wide landscape on all sides. On the south,
the eye ranged over the green uplands, closed in, at a distance, by the
low hills of the great desert, which in all ages has been so strong a
protection to Palestine against invasion from Africa. Yet the warlike
lords of Egypt and Assyria had braved it, as the trade caravans have
done during the immemorial past, slowly passing over its desolate
breadth on the "ship of the desert." Along this southern road Shishak
had emerged from the sandy wilderness, at the head of the columns
which humbled Rehoboam.^ The hosts of Sargon, Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon, Assurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzar, and Cambyses had suc-
cessively sounded their trumpet-blasts round the town, as they marched
towards the Nile. Alexander the Great had camped with his glitter-
ing staff and steel-clad warriors for five months on the plains beneath,
before he could force an entrance into Gaza "the Strong"; and the
wailing must have been loud and sore when, on his storming the city,
all the men were slain, and the women and children sold as slaves ; a
new population from a distance being brought to take their place.
Pharaoh-Necho bad smitten Gaza on his victorious march towards
Carchemish,2 and when afterwards overthrown by the Chaldaeans his
troops had retreated along this road to Egypt, devastating Philistia as
they passed. Men had wailed aloud, women and children had filled
the air with their cries "at the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of
the war-horses, at the bounding of the chariots, at the rumbling of
their wheels" — fathers, in their flight, not looking back to save their
children; and thus " baldnsss," the sign of mourning,^ "had come on
Gaza."* But Alexander's victory had been still more destructive.
Gaza had bought Jewish captives as slaves, and had sold them as such
to the hated Edomites, and now fire had been sent on its wall and had
devoured its palaces, as Amos had long before threatened.^ Destroyed
again and again, its situation had always secured its being rebuilt.
The Jews had triumphed over it under David, Hezekiah, and the
Maccabees, but they had afterwards seen their sons sold in multitudes
by Hadrian in its slave-marts. The Greeks and Romans had held it
in their time, and now, for 1,400 years, it had been in the hands of the
-^rabs and Turks. A strange history on which to look down from the

1 1 Kings xiv. 26. 2 Jer. xlvU. 1. 3 Micah i. 16. 4 Jer. xlvii. 2—6. 6 Amos i. 7. See also Zeph.
ll.4;ZecB.ix.6.

120

THE HOLY LAND ANlJ THK MIBLE.

[Ch>

hill-topl The haughty armies that had spread their banners beneath
— where were they? How was the tumult of ages stilled down I
Infinite pity for dying man filled one's heart!

On the south-east lay the track to Beersheba, over the open field ;
and on the east the mountains of Judaea bounded the view ; low tawny
hills, with cactus-hedges over their tops, lying close below El-Muntar,
and beyond them vast stretches of rolling pasture, ploughed land,
wheat, and barley, to the foot of the mountain-range. On the west
spread out a vast wood of olive and fig-trees, broken here and there
by greeen fields, and by low, rough hills, reaching to the sand-dunes
which were being slowly blown over the cultivated land. Beyond
these, the great sea spread out to the horizon, its deep blue contrast-
ing in rich effect with the yellow sand-hills at its edge. North-west
lay Gaza, on its long, low hill, embowered in a sea of green, two
minarets rising from the town itself, and three from its suburb, Sejiyeh,
the quarter of the weavers, a place bearing a very bad name. The
sand-hills rose close to the town on the west. Cactus-hedges streamed
in all directions, over height and hollow, and palms in numbers waved
high in the air among the gardens, but not in groves as in Egypt. On
the north-east a track over the wide common showed the way to
Hebron.

CHAPTER IX.

ASCALON.

AdCALON lies on the sea-shore, about twelve miles north of Gaza.
We had two horses already, and hiring two more, and a man as care-
taker, at the cost of eight shillings for the day's service of the three, the
commissariat for them included, we set off, after an early breakfast, a
cavalcade of four — the missionary, his wife, a Levantine who spoke
English, and myself — for the ruins of the great Crusading foitress.
You ride out of the town to the west, through orchards shut in by
hedges of prickly pear and mud walls, the reverse of picturesque.
These, however, soon end, in this direction, and are succeeded by sand-
hills, reaching to the sea three miles off', the journey across them being
wearisome in the extreme. One could imagine himself travelling over
a sand-ocean; long waves of yellow desolation rising in apparently
endless succession, though interrupted here and there by reaches of
hfird soil quite as barren, Some of these looked specially weird, from

IX.]

ASCALON.

121

the vast quantities of broken pottery — handles, mouths, spouts, and
nameless fragments of all sizes and shapes — strewn everywhere over
them, like the bones of an old cemetery. They, doubtless, mark the
sile of former towns or villages, yet not necesssrily very ancient ones,
since the really old surla'je of the land must, for the most part, be
buried under tne sand. How is it that such quantities of potsherds
cover the face of so many spots in Palestine ? Even at Gerar, on the
way to Beersheba, where there has been no settled community for
ages, it is the same. At Memphis, in Lower Egypt, the ground is
covered for miles with a rain of broken pottery, as if all the broken
ware of the region, from the days of Menes, had come to the surface.
Their crockery was no doubt as precious to the housewives of the Land
of Promise, or of the Nile valley, as to the matrons of other countries,
so that there can be only one explanation of the myriads of fragments
.so often met on ancient sites in the East: they must have accumulated
during thousands of years, and the pottery that yielded such a harvest
of sherds must have been wondrously brittle.

That it is so at present anyone who has tried to bring home samples
must have found by sad experience; and the native women and girls
have the same lament. "The pitcher broken at the fountain "i is a
constant sorrow to the poor mothers and maidens ; the least want of
care irj setting even a large jar down on the ground often sufficing to
shiver it into a heap of fragments. Job could have found no difficulty
in putting his hand on as many potsherds as he wished, when sitting
on the town dust-hill, seeking a rude scraper for his person, in his
misery .2

The stalks of grass which had bravely shown themselves for a time
gradually disappeared, and so did the small flowers which had bor-
dered the lanes at our starting, yet even among these desolate sand-
iiills there were oases more or less fertile, whether from the old surface
being protected by the conformation of the ground, or as a triumph of
industry over the restless sand, which stubbornly advances with every
breath of wind. Right and left of us, at a distance, were open planta-
tions of olives, and even some g.v.dens ; water, no doubt, being found
near them. Passing these, and crossing a sandy tract in which the
hoi'ses sank to the fetlocks, we reached the low bluft's, forty or fifty
feet high, near the shore, and, descending, were on the beach. A hill
near was pointed out to me by the missionary as that to which Gen-
eral Gordon used to retire three times a day to read his Bible and pray,
when he and my friend were living together in a tent on the strand.

As we walked the horses along, some Arab boys on their knees
were busy at one spot scooping out holes in the sand, near the water's
edge, for the purpose, it appeared, of getting fresh water for some poor

I ^9le9. xii. 6. 2 Job U. 8.

( \

122

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAIV

lean cattle, wliicli, at the moment, were scrambling down to it from
the bluff' as best tliey could. Such close neighborhood of the sea and
drinkable springs seems strange, but it is easily explained : tiie water,
filtering down from the higher ground behind, in seeking its level
comes near the surface just at tiie edge of the waves. It put me in
mind of a plan I once saw adopted by an Indian on Lake lluron for
filtering river-water which was black with pine-juice, and tiuis making
it drinkable. He simply scooped a hollow in the bank, so low that the
black water found its way into it through the sand, which kept back
all impurities. Necessity is ever the mother of invention. I tasted
the water in the hollows made by the Arab boys, and found it quite
sweet.

The low hills or cliff's, varying in height from thirty to sixty feet,
ran parallel with the shore as we travelled on ; here, only fifty or sixty
yards from the water; elsewhere, three or four times as far back ; the
sand hard and firm near the sea ; loose and dry nearer the bluff's. Beds
of sea-shells strewed the beach; chiefly those of limpets and clams.
Thousands of larger and smaller blue jelly-fish lay near the water, left
high and dry by the waves; sand-pipers ran in small flocks along the
edge of the shallows, and gulls, in numbers, sailed overhead. There
was no sign of vegetation at first, but after a time a sprinkling of wiry
grass showed itself, here and there, where the bluft's receded. Two
Arabs, leading, camels laden with squared stones from the ruins of
Ascalon, for use in some building at Gaza, were the only living crea-
tures to be seen, excej)t the birds, and the few starved cattle at the
beginning of the ride. Only one stream entered the sea ; a very small
one when I saw it, but formidable enough, I was assured, after rains.
It flowed through a break in the cliff's, after draining a wide stretch of
marshy land dotted with flags, beyond which a wady reaches across the
plain to the mountains of Judaea, which pour out their torrents, in
winter, through this channel.

Ascalon is approached, from the cliffs, over a long waving tract of
hard sandy ground, sprinkled with wiry grass. The sea-cliff's retire in
a semicircle as you reach the walls, which, indeed, were built on the
vantage-ground thus provided, the space within sinking to a rich hol-
low, famous in all ages for its abundant supply of water. The sand of
the beach is invaded, at each end of the arc, by an outcrop of low
sandy knolls, the edge of a plateau running back into the country ;
their undulating surface of bard gravelly sand strewn with potsherds,
and shimmering with faint green when one looks across it, though
nearly bare under-foot. The walls of the grand old fortress rise in a
half-circle from the top of the ridge, originally a cliff" sixty or seventy
feet high, but now a smooth but steep slope of drifted sand, both out-
side and within. On this stand the massive fragments of the walls,

DC.]

ASCALON.

123

which stretch round like a deeply-bent bow ; the sea being the bow-
string. Not a house is to be seen in the space they gird, once noisy
witl) the hum of men. Huge masses of thick wall lie, iiere and there,
on the inner slope, or on the beach, as if thrown down by earthquakes.
Looking from the top of the mouldering rampart, the whole amphi-
theatre once occupied by the town was before me, but it showed only
a few confused ruins; yonder, a long wall with a number of Gothic
windoW-spaces, marking where the cathedral had once stood ; at
another place, an arch, the remains of a Crusadir-g sanctuary. But
amidst this wreck, unconquerable forces of nature, left free to display
themselves, have vindicated their might; for the whole space within
the yellow fringe of sand that slcnes down only too far, looks like h
mighty emerald set in a broad circlet of gold. One would never sus-
pect, from appearances, that you need only dig a few feet below the
rich soil to lay bare the skeleton of the once mighty Ascalon. Gardens
anc| orchards, fenced with rude stone walls or prickly pear, and waving
with palms, fig-trees, sycamores, tamarisks, olives, tfohannisbrod trees,
the lemon and the almond, and with patches of barley, flourish over
th^ grave of long-buried generations. It is a sight almost unrivalled
in Palestine, and all the more charming from the desolation around.
The fig-trees were putting forth their leaves, so that some peasants at
work could seek the cool of their shade at noon. Here and there vines
— the best in Palestine — were budding, close up to the slope of sand.
Two or three peasants in turbans and loose cotton shirts and drawers,
bare-legged and with bare brown arms, were sowing or planting cucum-
bers, beans, and onions. Ascalon has always been famous for the last
vegetable ; the French word for one kind of them — kJj^aloteSj our "sha-
lots" — being only a corruption of Ascaloniee, their name in the Middle
Age Latin of the Crusades. Abundant water has made the little val-
ley P, paradise, for thirty-seven wells dug by the Crusaders, all sweet,
and always full, still rejoice the hearts of the fellahs.

Two Arabs — one without a grey hair, though over sixty, with fine
features ; a pruning-hook scimitar-shaped and toothed, and a wooden
pipe, in his hands, his head covered with a turban, a white "abba"
reaching to his knees ; the other still older, in a brown striped "abba"
and a turban — both bare-legged, and with bare arms ; one bare-footed,
the other with the roughest of leather slippers, came up the slope ol'
sand inside the walls, to where, thoroughly exhausted, we had thrown
ourselves down under the shade of a fragment of wall, to enjoy the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land.^ Full of humor, they chatted
and laughed with my friend, who spoke Arabic fluently. 'The coun-
try, they said, was waiting for some of the great nations to come and
take it ; it could never remain under its present government. The

1 Isa. zzxii. 2.

124

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

two waited about till we left, one of them kindly fetching water to us
from a cistern in the valley.

Having rested awhile, 1 mounted again to ride round the walls, but
it proved an impossible task, the way being barred by ruins after I
had gone two-thirds of the cii-cle. The fragments of walls that remain
are built of small-sized pieces of the sandstone of the ridge below, set in
a wondrous mortar, largely composed of sea-sliells, and harder than the
stones it holds together. Kemains of the proud towers that once rose
at intervals as flank defences are still to be seen — the Maiden, the
Shield, the Bloody Tower, the Admiral's, and the Bedouin's.* Look-
ing out from these, the warders of 700 years ago could watch all
that approached from the plains ; an outstanding fort, still seen in
ruins, helping them to have as wide a sweep as i>ossible, and guarding
the way to the great fortress from the military road in the interior.
The ever-encroaching sands, fine as dust, have blown in through tlie
rifts and fissures in the walls, and at some points have ovevwelmed
the rich garden-space. To the east, the whole neighborhood lies under
a winding-sheet of sand, through which in some places the tops of
fences, and olive and fig-trees, still struggle. The great gate stood on
this side, towards the land, opening into the town by a side passage
through a projecting mass of wall. A smaller gate can also be traced
on the south-west. The city inside the walls once stretched five-
eighths of a mile from north to south, and three-eighths from west to
east ; not a very large place, according to Western notions. The bot-
tom of one of the towers, twenty feet across and six feet high, lies over-
turned, on the east, while fragments still erect seem to defy time and
the elements. All along the walls great pillars of Egyptian granite,
one of them seventeen feet long and a yard across, are bu'H into the
masonry to bind it together, or have fallen to the ground. Herod the
Great had brought these from Assouan, at tremendous cost, to beautify
the city which boasted of being his birthplace, but the Crusaders,
troubled by no reverence for antiquity, utilized them to strengthen the
defences. Some indeed may have been much older than the time of
Herod, for an inscription on the walls of Karnak informs us that Asca-
lon was taken by King Eameses the Second, the Egyptian oppressor
of Israel. Marble bases and Corinthian capitals of pillars lay among
the gardens, and at some points, columns, discovered by digging a
slight depth, were waiting to be broken up and carried away as build-
ing-stone, or to be burned into lime. I counted twenty deep and beau,
tifully-built cisterns, of hewn stone — each with a well-plastered tank
at its side — still in daily use, 700 years after they had been made by
the Crusaders. But even these are not safe from mean cupidity ; for
their carefully -chiselled stones are worth money in Gaza and in the

1 Fai. Fund Memoirt, voL iii.

'CHAP.

IX.]

ASGALON.

125

to us

?, but
fterl
5main
set in
m the
e rose
n, tlie
Look-
oh all
Ben in
arding
terior.
nil the
-elmed
J under
tops of
ood on
)assage
traced
id five-
west to
he bot-

[pressor
among

build-
Id bean-
id tank
lade by
|ty; for

in the

villages of the Philistine plain, and are therefore carried off thither on
aases, or, as we saw by the way, on camels. Here and there were
heaps of small fragments of pillars and cut stones gathered from the
surface, even the paths between the gardens being filled deep with
them, so that it was not easy to ride through. Larger pieces of mar-
ble, often showing traces of fair sculpture, abounded, as did round
stones of pillars, apparently broken apart to obtain the lead clamps
that bound them together. The ropes at the wells v/ere let down over
marble columns laid prostrate, deep grooves in these showing how
manv centuries they had been in use.

The walls ran along the shore for some distance at each side of the
town, keeping to the stony ridge, which maintained an average height
of perhaps forty feet above the sea ; sinking to it abruptly on the west.
At both ends great masses of wall, like rocks, had fallen, and lay in
the sea or on the shore. To get to the sands it was necessary to fol-
low one of the paths through the gardens, the cliffs being dangerous
from their steepness. A sea-wall had originally run out into the
waves, to protect the town where it was most exposed, but it has long
since nearly disappeared. Six marble pillars were lying at one spot
under the restless play of the waves, and near them were some peas-
ants enjoying a bath in the clear, inviting water, quite indifferent to
the imposing view of the fortifications stretching aloft on all sides
behind.

Unfortunately for Ascalon, though the line of cliffs recedes in a half-
circle from the shore where the city stood, the line of the shore itself
had no indentation to form a harbor. The inducement to make it a
town therefore lay in the rich soil and the delicious climate of the lit-
tle bay of land. No keel or sail now parts or shadows the sea at the
spot once so famous, and even in past ages, with sea-walls and break-
waters to shelter them in some measure, ships must always have been
very insecure when lying in the so-called port. It could never indeed
have been a proper harbor, for there is no sign of a creek or inlet of
the sea to shelter vessels. It was in fact so difficult to approach the
city by water, in the times of the Crusaders, in spite of the moles and
piers which they had constructed, that one of them informs us no craft
Qould enter it for eight days after the army had landed, on January
4th, 1192. Provision boats at last got in,' but the storm returned, and
the troops began again to be in want before the boats could come back
to re-victual the place.

It was touching to stand amidst such ruins and recall the hoary
past. Before Israel left Egypt, Ascalon was one of the five cities
of the Philistines ; indeed, it had been taken, as we have seen, by
the great Bameses, the contemporary of Moses. In the time of the
Jddges, while the Hebrews were urged on by their first enthusiasm, it

126

THE HOLY LAND AND Till!: 131 BLE.

[CBAP.

fell for a short time into the hands of the tribe of Judah,^ but only to
be soon retaken by its old population, in wliose liands it permanently
remained. The temple of Derketo, ti>e Phoenician Venus, seems to
have stood beside the still flowing stream of tl»e Wady-el-Hesy, of
whicli I have spoken ; the waters offering the opportunity of preserv-
ing the flsli sacred to her, in pools made for their use.^ It seems
strange, with onr notions, that an imago which was half woman and
half fish should be worshipped, but antiquity was the childhood of the
world, and symbols were tiiereforo natural to it. Like Dagon, her
male complement, Derketo had come to Palestine through the Phoeni-
cians, or, perhaps, had been brought by the Philistines themselves,
when they migrated, in pro-historic nges, from the east to the west.
In any case, it was in keeping with the position of the people of Asca-
lon, on the shore of the groat sea, that in their worship of the repro-
ductive powers of nature they should select the fish as the emblem of
fecundity. For ages, men ana women thronged to her altars, the war-
like and yet keenly commercial Philistines retaining their existence as
a nation — at intervals, indeed, dependent — till Alexander the Great
finally crushed them. From that time Egypt and Syria raised their
standards, by turns, on the old walls of Ascalon till it fell into the
hands of the Jews under the Maccabees.^ David, in his touching
lament over the fall of Saul and* Jonathan on Mount Gilboa, had cried,
" Tell it not in Oath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon ; lest the
daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircuin-
cised triumph."* But the sun of the once mighty people had now
sunk for ever. Jeremiah had foretold that "he that holdeth the scep-
tre is cut off from Ascalon ; it is a desolation; it is no more inhabited;
it is a desolation,"*^ and the curse was beginning to be fulfilled. Its
full accomplishment, however, was for a time delayed.

Within the hollow cup now filled with gardens Herod the Great
first saw the light, in some long-vanished palace, built among the
closely-packed streets ; and here, in after-days, he built " baths and
costly fountains, and a cloistered court."® After his death, Salome,
his sister, received the city from CsBsar as part of her dowry; and in
her days, as in those of Herod, alongside the worship of Derketo flour-
ished that of a multitude of Greek and Eoman gods and goddessee,
which were not dethroned 'till the days of Arcadius, 400 years later.
In the last great Jewish warj Ascalon suffered terribly; the Hebrews
having turned against it, in fierce revenge for its population having
massacred 2,500 of their race in an outbreak of anti-Semitism of a
very malignant type. But before the Crusades it had risen, once more,

1 Judg. i. 18. 2 Diod. slo. (ti, 4) has a curious legend respecting it. The position of the lake is
only conjectural. S 1 Mace. x. w; xl. 6U. 4 2 Sam. i. 20. The Ascalon noticed in the history of
Samson may have been a town of that name near Ids own country in the hills. He could hardly
have ventured into a great place like the sea-side Ascalon, to slay thirty Pliillstines. 6 Jer. zzv.
20;xlvU.6-7. 6 Jos. feU. Jud., i. 21, U.

ft'' '-a

Illy to
lently
ms to
3sy, of
•eserv-
seerns
an and
of the
jn, her
fhoeni-
i selves,
e west,
f Asca-
5 repro-
blern of
he war-
tence as
e Great
ed their
into the
ouching
id cried,
lest the

Le Great
|iong the
iths and
Salome,
; and in
sto flour-
(ddesseC;
lars later,
ebrews
having
ism of a
[ice more,

p! the laKe is

he history of

lould hardly

6 Jer.zzv.

w
n

IX.]

▲80AL0N.

under the Arabs, to be a flourishing town, and it was only wrested
from them in a. d. 1158, after a seven months' siege, by Baldwin III.
Thirty -four years later it was retaken by Saladin, and dismantled, so
that the reign of the Crusaders was shoit. It iiad, in fact, fallen before
Riohard the Lion-hearted set foot in the Holy Land. To make its ruin
more complete, its miserable harbor was filled uj) with stones, so that
for 700 years no vessels could make it their haven. Fierce and bloody
battles between Saracen and Crusader stormed round and within the
half-circle of these vralls. Merchants of all lands brought their wares
to it while it was a Christian city, but from the time that Saladin
destroyed it, in 1187, it has been desolate. The Ascalon of the Cru-
saders now lies under many feet of soil, from which memorials of its
greatness in days far earlier than the Middle Ages continue, as we have
seen to be dug up. Beside the marble pillars thus recovered, and laid
at the edge of each well to ease the drawing of the water, is generally
to be found a richly-carved base or capital, of which the only use is
that the brown peasant girl may tie the well-ropes to it when she
wishes to do so.

A little to the east of the ancient walls, on the other side of a little
valley, lies the village of New Ascalon, or El-Jurah, embosomed in
rich green ; a second small oasis in the sand -wastes around. Beyond
it, to the south-east, is the village of Nalia, north and south of which
stretches quite a wood of olives, some of them growing in the very
midst of sandy desolation. Like the famous aveuue of tlie same tree
at Gaza, these are said to be very ancient, though it is hard to tell the
age of an olive, for its pierced and rugged stem looks old almost from
the first. At Gaza, however, there is no doubt as to the great ago of
the trees, which seem to justify the local belief that none have been
planted since the Moslem conquest, though the idea that those of the
great avenue north of the town date from the time of Alexander the
Great, gives them an antiquity too vast for ready belief. That they
may be many centuries old, however, is not improbable, for the tree sel-
dom dies, shooting out suckers from the root as the trunk fails, till a
group of these take its place — the "olive-plants" round the parent stem,
to which, as 1 have noticed,^ the Psalmist compares a family round the
household tablo.^ After a time one of these, duly grafted, fills the room
formerly occupied by its predecessor, and thus the grove is perpetuated
without much trouble to its owners. I like to linger on the story of
the olive; its shade is so cool and grateful; its uses so many and
benificent; its very leaves so abiding an emblem of peace and good-
will, from the days of the Flood to our own. The natives do not com-
monly seek the shade of the fig-tree, believing that it causes ophthalmia,
but they delight to sit under the olive.

1 See ante, p. 141. 2 Fs. cxxTlil. 8.

128

tut HOLY LAKD AKD THE BIBLS.

(OlAr.

The hope of the peasunt at Ascalon, that some of the Frank nations
would soon come and take Palestine, is conninon to the whole popula-
tion. Turkish govenunont consists simply in collecting the taxes and
quelling tumults, which often break out through oppression. The
crops are assessed before tiie harvest, and are frequently letl till over-
ripe, the owner having to bribe the official with a larger share of them,
to secure his coming in time to save wluit is left, Iniforo all the grain
falls out of the dry ears. The taxes moreover are fixed without any
regard to the amount of the crops, good years and bad luiving to pay
alike, thougii nothing be left to the j)0()r tiller of the ground. Bashf-
Bazouks are sent out to gather the grain or fruit claimed by Gov-
ernment, a fact that helps one to realize the extortion and villainy that
follow. Ti>e Turk is the king of the locusts, his officials their deso-
lating army. If the "kaimacan," or governor, goes out with the sol-
diers, he and his followers must be fed and housed in the best style at
the cost of the village. Tiio soldiers also live at free quarters, and
fleece the unhappy peasants at their will.

It has often oeen a question whether the word^ translated "apples"
and "apple-tree" in our Bible^ should bo so rendered. Tristram,
among others, thinks that this fruit "barely exists in the Holy Land,"
since, though a few trees are found in the gardens of Joppa, they do
not thrive, and have a wretched woody fruit. " He says, moreover,
that he scarcely ever saw the apple-iree till he reached Damascus,
except on a few very high situations in Lebanon.^ On the other hand,
Dr. Thomson maintains that "Ascalon is especially celebrated for its
apples, which are the largest and best I have seen in this country."*
and Sir Charles Warren specifics apples as a '^^Migst the fruits the
locality yields.^ Dr. Otto Delitzscli,® also, "las no hesitatation in
thinking tiie apple is meant, noting how widely it must have been
grown in former times from the fact that towns are called after it, as
Tappuah, "Apple-town;" Beth -Tappuah, the Home of the apple;"
and En-Tappuah, "the Apple Fountains; "'^ and adding that it is still
grown in various parts of Palestine. That it docs grow at Ascialon
and in the country round, is beyond dispute, as my friend at (ia/,n
was invited to rent an apple orchard, and tells me that the fruit is both
good and plentiful. It is possible, however, that the Hebrew word
may stand for tlie quince as well as the apple, as mehm, in Greek,
means the apple or the quince, the peach, the orange or citron, or the
apricot,* though in each case the name of the country from wiiich the
particular fruit first came is affixed, to secure exactness. Tristram
thinks Dr. Thomson may have mistaken the quince for the apple, and
has no hesitation in expressing his conviction that the apricot alone is

1 "Tappuah." 2 Cant. ii. 3, 6; vii. 8; vHI. 6; Prov. xxv. 11 ; Joel 1. 12. 3 Tristram, Nat. im.
Bible, p. 384 ; Land cf Jsrad, p. 604. 4 Land and Book, p. 545. 6 Pfctureague FuleiHne, ill. II
6 Riebm, p. 68. 7 Josh. zli. 17; xv. 34, 58; xvl. 8; zvii. 7. 8 Liddell and Soott7

OMaF.

IX.]

ASCATX)N.

129

itions
pula-
s and
The
over-
them,
gniiu
It &\\y
:o pav
BnHhi-
' Gov-
ly tlmt
r deso-
he sol-
tyle at
rs, and

ipples"
i strain,
Land,"
hey do
jreover,
mascus,
}T hand,
for its
ntry."*
ts the
ion in
been
cr it, as
pie ; "
is still
A8(;alon

it i\\\7A\
is both
vv wonl
Greek,
. or the
lich the
ristrani
)ple, and
alone is

mt. Hitt. of
ine, 111. 166.

iPl

the apple of Scripture. Yet Dr. Thomnflon savs that he saw quite a
caravan start from Ascalon for Jerusalcru laden with apples which
would not have disgraced even an American orchard, and I was
informed in Jerusalem that the fruit, native-grown, is common in the
market in autumn.

How striking is it, when one thinks of the flsh-god, Dagon, wor-
shipped in Gaza and elsewhere, and the fisli-goddes8,Derketo, honoured
in Ascalon, to road that the Hebrews were prohibited from making
'• the likeness of any fish," lest they might corrupt themselves by
using it for a graven image 1' How easily they might have fallen
into this idolatry, and how hard any form of worship is to extirpate when
once accepted, is seen in the curious fact that sacred fish are still
preserved in various pools or fountains in Syria.

In returning we did not reach the sand-hills leading to Gaza till dark :
an awkward matter, even with a plain and well-known road, but still
more so with the ghastly sand stretching out in the faint moonlight,
evervwhere alike white. Our guide, who had kept faithfully with us
for half the journey back, had been invisible for some time, having
very likely taken a short cut to Gaza over the dunes, before sunset.
What was to be done? Our lady comrade feared we should have to
make the sand our coverlet for the night. The Levantine and the
missionary, however, declared they knew the way ; only follow them
and all would be well. But it was soon clear that they had lost their
reckonings, if ever they had any. To make matters worse, the moon
hid itself behind clouds. "We wandered east, we wandered west;
we wandered many a mile," as the old ballad says, but at last a tree or
two could be made ont, and we knew that the gardens of Gaza were
near. Yet, at what part of them were w*?, for they stretch along for
miles ? Moreover, the paths, when we reached them, were far from
safe. At one spot I had noticed a deep excavation across almost the
whole road ; a pit, made, I was told, by the shopkeepers of the town,
to get sand to strew in their booths ; for, within wide limits, every
man, under the indolent rule of the Turk, does what is good in his
own eyes. It was now ten o'clock, and the narrow lanes between the
gardens seemed a repetition of Kosamond's bower. We might have
repeated, like Sterne's starling, " We can't get out." Hope seemed
laughing at us. At last the wretched dogs proved our unintentional
friends. We had reached their happy hunting-grounds, and they forth-
with gave voice from every garden, till in the end they roused a
watchman from his slumbers, and brought him to see what had hap-
pened. A boy whom he sent soon ended the comedy, and led us
safely home, somewhere about eleven o'clock, tired and hungry
enough.

1 Deut. iv. 18. Boch. HUroeoic i. 48.

130

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

In a town like Gaza the bark of dogs and the call of the muezzin to
prayer are almost the only sounds that disturb either day or night.
Five times a day a voice is heard from the minarets of the mosques,
summoning the faithful to their devotions — at sunset, when it has
grown quite dark, at daybreak, at noon, and midway in the afternoon.
At sunrise, noon, and sunset, the muezzin lets the exact moment pass
before raising his call, the Prophet having wished it to be so, since
iniidels prayed at these three times, and it would never do for the
prayers of his followers to enter heaven along with those of unbeliev-
ers. The cry rises solemnly four times, "God is most great." Then
follows, twice, " I testify that there is no God but God ; " then comes,
also twice, "^ testify that Mahomet is the apostle of God ; " then twice,
again, "Come to prayer;" once more, twice, "Come to security;"
then, twice, "God is most great," and "There is no God but God."
The whole is chanted to a special air, and sounds far better, in my
opinion, than the jangle of bells which takes its jilace with us.
Among the Hebrews, the blast of a ram's- horn trumpet from tiie
Temple served the same purpose, but the Jews seem to have had only
three fixed hours of prayer* — "evening," or the ninth hour, that is,
three o'clock in the afternoon, when the evening sacrifice was offered ;2
" the morning," or third hour, the time of the morning sacrifice, that
is, nine o'clock ; and the sixth our, or noon-day. Some, however, like
the author of the 119th Psalm, could not content themselves with this
rule, but paid their devotions "seven times a day ; " adding. their pri-
vate prayers to those fixed by general custom.

As the Mahommedans turn their faces in worship to their holiest
sanctuary at Mecca, so the jews turned towards the Temple at Jerusa-
lem in their devotions ; ^ and just as the former, even now, kneel down
wherever they haifpen to be when the projier hour arrives, so the
ancient Jews stood and prayed wherever they might be at the
appointed times; some of them, of no great worth, taking care that
the moment should overtake them when they were in the most public
places, such as the corners of the streets.* Their descendants still,
in their universal dispersion, follow the same practice, turning their
faces, wherever they may be, towards their beloved Jerusalem. To
finable them to do so in their synagogues, the door is placed, if pos-
sible, so that the worshiper as he enters shall face the far-distant
sacred spot, just as in mosques there is a niche to indicate the point to
which the supplications should be addressed. It has been the same in
many religions from the earliest times. The twenty-five apostate
elders seen by the prophet in his vision^ had their backs turned to the
Temple and their faces to the east, to worship the rising sun, and it

1 P8. Iv. 17 : Dan. vi. 10. 2 Acts 111. 1, 10 : Dan. Ix. 21. 8 1 Kings vlll. 44-48 ; Dan. vi. 10; Ps.
T. 1{ zxviii. i; cxxxviii. 2. 4 Matt. vi. 6. 6 Ezelc. viii. 16.

?
%

rx.]

ASCALON.

181

may have been with the intention of preventing this that the Temple
entrance was on the east, so that the worshipper looked westward in
directing his prayers to tlie Holy of Holies. Like the Sun- Worship-
pers, the Greeks and Eomans prayed towards the east, so building their
temples and placing the statues of the god worshipped in them that
everyone should approach in the proper direction.

I hardly know a more touching sight than the hour of prayer in the
East. Rich and poor forthwith set their faces to the holy place of
their faith, sometimes after spreading their prayer-carpet, often with no
such prej)aration, and begin their devotions in absolute indifference to
all around them ; now bowing the head, then kneeling and touching
the earth repeatedly with their brow; presently rising again, and
repeating their homage and prostrations to the Unseen with the utmost
fervour. Among the Hebrews, in the same way, the postures of devo-
tion included standing, kneeling, and bending to the earth, the hands
being lifted up or spread out before Jehovah ; ^ and it will be remem-
bered that in the only instance in which the posture of our Lord in
prayer is recorded, He first kneeled, and then fell prostrate on the
ground.2

At Ascalon and Gaza there are, perhaps, more palm-trees than in any
other part of the Holy Land, for Beirut, where they are very numer-
ous, is in Syria. Kising, with slender stem, forty or fifty, at times even
eighty feet aloft — its only branches the feathery, sword-like, pale-green
fronds, from six to twelve feet long, bending from its top — the palm
attracts the eye wherever it is seen. Inside the coronal that bends
round the summit, the marrowy spear which forms the growing head
of the tree is hidden — the promise of a new crown of fronds, which, in
its time, will replace the old. The fruit-buds spring from the point
where the pendent leaves hang from the trunk, shooting forth in April
with a grateful perfume, and gradually enlarging till they hang down
in long clusters of whitish yellow flowers, which shine from afar amidst
the surrounding green. Twelve thousand blossoms are sometimes
counted on a single pollen-bearing tree, those which beai fruit having
fewer. Only one of the two kinds yields dates, and that only when
the wind, or artificial aid, strews the dust of the other on its flowers.
Five months after this has been done great clusters of ripe red fruit
glitter below the leaves, supplying to her lover,^ ages ago, an image for
the swelling beauty of the bosom of Sulamith. By piercing the stem
immediately under the coronal a kind of drink is obtained, which is
known as palm-wine, strongly intoxicating, but soon turning to vine-
gar. The fibres of the leaf-stalk and fruit-stalk are separated for cords;

1 1 Kings vlil. M; 2 Chron. vl.l3; Ezra lx.5; Ps. xcv. 6; Dan. vi. 10: Josh. vil. 6; 1 Kings will
42; Neh. vlli. 6; Ps. xxvlll. 2; cxxxlv. 2; Ex. ix. 33, 2 Luke vxU, 41: Mark xiv, 35, 3 Cant. VU. 8,
Date-clnstei'8, not tbose Qt grapes, are meant.

IS'i

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chaf.

t.be leaves are woven into baskets, mats, and other conveniences, and
i)ie sterns serve as beams.

Egypt is especially the land of the date-palm, which shuns the zone
of rains, and yields its best only in sub-tropical or tropical rainless
oountries,^ and such a region the Nile valley supplies. There, groves
of palms are at once the beauty and the wealth of extensive districts;
great heaps of dates exposed lor sale in every street of each town or
village inviting tiie poor to buy what is their chief support, and offer-
ing the wanderer in the desert the food he can most conveniently carry.
Palms were once abundant in the Sinai peninsula also, for the Hebrews
camped there amidst a grove of dates ;2 but the terrible rain-storms of
these ports have uprooted all the trees that once clothed the now bare
hill-sides.^

In Palestine the palm does not ripen farther north than some miles
south of G.iza, though it is met with in nearly every part of the land,
especially along the sea-coast. Even at Jerusalem, though that city
lies 2,500 feet above the Mediterranean, palms grow in the open air,
but they yield no fruit. I.i the same way we find a whole grove of
them close to Nazareth, equally beautiful, but they yield only a grate-
ful shade, or branches for yearly festivals. Deborah, the judge, once
lived under a palm-tree on Mount Ephraim,* and, indeed, the toee was
anciently so common as to supply trio symbol adopted by Shechem
and Sepphoris on coins struck for these towns under the Eomans. It
appears, moreover, as air emblem of the whole land on the medals
which commemorate the victories of Vespasian and Titus. But the
Israelite could not enjoy the ripe fruit except in the hot depression of
Jericho, once known as "the City of Palms," ^ at Tamar in the far
south, and at Engedi, or Hazezon-Tamar — "the Place of Palm-cutting"
— from the villagers there cutting out the sweet central marrowy
crown from the head of the tree.^ Still, the Hebrew delighted in the
long, slender beauty of the stem and its hanging fronds, and mothers
fondly called their new-born girls by the name of the tree — Tamar —
as we see in the case of the daughter-in-law of Judah, and the sister
of ^.bsalom;'^ hoping, no doubt, that they might one day grow up to
be tall and graceful maidens. The sacred lyrist looked up with a poet's
eye to the long, shining, beautiful fronds of the palms growing in the
forecourt of the Temple, and sang in his joy that " the righteous would
flourish like the palm-tree." ^ The interior of Solomon's Temple was
richly adorned with gilded palm-trees, cut out in relief on the walls,
and the ideal sanctuary of Eaokiel also was beautified in the same way.*
Palm-branches have from the remotest ages been the symbol of trium-
phal rejoicing, ancient Palestine, like other lands, using them to express

1 Biti "r, Erdkunde, xvi. 3, 41 (Berlin, 1852.) 2 Sx. at. 27. 3 See ante, p. 128. 4 Judg. Iv. 6,

6Dent. Ltxlv.3; .Tudg. llt.l8;2Clm "* " -"---• " "^ *^

flMtLZULL 8 P8. xcfl. 12, 18.

Ltxlv. srJudgTilt. 18r2 fcliron!'xxvriT.'l5." e'Kno'ber." 2''Chron.laL. 2.'
■ - 9lKlng8vl.29;Tli.86;Bzek,xl.l9,

7 Gen. xxxviii. 6,- i

X.J

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

133

such public gladness. About 140 years before Christ, Simon Macca-
bteus, having won back Jerusalem for his people, entered it accom-
panied by a vast ' lultitude, "with thanksgiving, and branches of palm-
trees, and with harps and cymbals, and with viols and hymns and
songs, because there was destroyed a great enemy out of Israel."^
And who can forget how a Greater Deliverer passed down the slopes
of Olivet and wound up the height of Moriah, attended by a very
great multitude, some of them spreading their garments on the way,
that as a king He might ride over the tapestry thus made on the
moment; others cutting down branches from the trees and throwing
them at His feet, to strew His path with all they had for flowers, while
crowds took branches of palm and went forth to meet Him, crying,
"Ilosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of
the Lord !"2

The palm lent itself readily to sacred imagery. The Psalmist, who
daily saw it — " planted in the house of the Lord, and flourishing in the
courts of our God, bringing forth fruit in old age, and full of sap and
green," ^ employs it as an emblem of the righteous, than which nothing
could be more striking or appropriate. It is still borne by pilgrims
on Palm Sunday, in commemoration of Christ's entry into Jerusalem;
the bier of His followers is often covered with it, as a symbol of their
victory over death, and the great multitude of the redeemed in glory
are pictured as standing "before the throne and befcie the Lamb,
arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands."*

CHAPTER X.

lar —
sister
ip to
ket's

the
rould

was
rails,

fay*

ium-
)res8

Iv. 6'
liii. 6; i

or THE WAY TO GERAR.

Gerar, the centre of the district in which Isaac lived during nearly
the whole of his quiet, uneventful career, has been identified with
Umm-el-Jerrar, a few miles on the way to Beersheba, which is about
thirty miles south-east of Gaza. Hiring horses at the rate of about
seven shillings a da}'^ for three, including the wage of a gaily-dressed
guide, we zet off in the early morning. Our conductor's appearance
was certainly striking : a pink-striped under-tunic covered his cotton
leggings and shirt, a bluejacket, with black braid, surmounting it; a
red sash set off his waist, with two flint horse-pistols, silver-mounted,
but very old, stuck in his girdle ; a yellow silk striped " Icefiyeh" cov-
1 1 Mace. xii. 51 . 2 Matt. xxl. 8 ; Mark xl. 8 ; John zU. 13. 8 Fs. xolL 18. 4 Rev. vii. 8.

184

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

ered his head, its golden ends fluttering over his shoulders, with the
usual cincture of solt camels'-hair rope round his brow, keeping all in
place: a romantic costume with which the decidedly shabby pair of
elastic boots that held his lower extremities was hardly in keeping.
The horse he rode seemed as fiery as himself, but it had to lament the
indignity of a closely -docked tail, the only instance of this I met in the
East.

The road lay to the south, through sandy lanes, between orchards
concealed by huge cactus-hedges. Women passed, duly veiled, with
jars of water, or with bundles of firewood from pruned trees, on their
head or shoulder; asses, with stones in each coarse pannier, from some
surface quarry or old ruin. Larks sang in the air and on the ground.
An Arab stood beside two small cows which were feeding at the road-
side; his coat a sheep's skin, with the wool inside, over his "abba."
The cold of the mornings and nights, Avhich causes rheumatism to be
very general among the fellahin, makes such warm clothing a neces-
sity for those who are exposed. Still more asses, laden with stones,
went past; small boys, in blue shirts and old fezzes, driving them. A
light plough was being drawn by a camel at one place ; by undersized
oxen at another. The telegraph-poles of the line to Egypt ran along-
side the track. On the right were the sand-hills, blowing farther
inland each year. Donkeys with sour milk in skin bottles ;i two
women planting vegetable marrows, cucumbers, and th? like; five
dirty peasants on asses, riding into Gaza ; Arab shepherds in old brown
" abbas " tending their flocks on the slope to the left, after we had
reached the open country ; their tents, black and low, close at hand,
behind ; more ploughs, drawn by camels ; and an Arab on a camel,
riding into Gaza — gave life to the landscape as we rode on ; miles,
however, intervening between the first and the last of this motley suc-
cession.

The dress of Southern Palestine is very much alike for all classes.
A turban, fez, or " kefiyeh ; " a cotton shirt, with, at times, a colored
cotton tunic over it ; a cloth jacket in some cases, an " abba " in others,
a long blouse of blue cotton in most ; cotton drawers, with or without
the luxury of colored cotton trousers, short-legged, over them ; the
blouse hiding the body, even when it is the only garment — form the
limited wardrobe of the general population. The sole difference with
the richer people is a finer quality of the material. Women seem to
have merely one long blue cotton sack, neither tight nor very loose,
its sleeves at times tied over the head, its lower part reaching the feet.
A veil hangs from their eyes down their breast, though at times a
moustache- like nose-veil is thought enough, while at others even the

1 Homer speaks of skin bottles. The heralds bore the covenant sacrifices of the gods through
the city: two lambs, and, in goat-skin bottles, the wine of the field that cheers man [Iliad, rl.
247).

X.!

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

135

asses.
)lored
thers,
thout
the
m the

with
em to

loose,
e feet,
mes a

jn the

through

Kiod, ri.

brow is hidden as well as the cheeks. Arms and feet are bare in both
sexes, only a few persons using leather slippers, without backs or heels
— for the boots of our guide were a »)henomenon, secured, no doubt, as
a gift from some dignified friend, alter they had served him faithfully
till lie was tired of them.

The sour milk which we passed, carried in skin bottles, is dear to
the heart of all natives. They call it "leben" — the "halab" known
to the Hebrews from the earliest ages. Milk, indeed, in different forms
and preparations, was a main article of food among the ancient Jews.
Children were not weaned, at least in some cases, till they were three
years old, as is expressly stated by a mother in Maccabees;^ but
throughout the whole of life, milk of the herd or flock continued one
of the great staples of food ; as at this day it constitutes almost the
sole nourishment of the Bedouin. "Such of the Arabs of the central
])ortion of the great desert of El-Tih " (on the south of Palestine), says
Prof. E. H. Palmer, "as are not fortunate enough to participate in the
profits of conveying the pilgrim caravan across the desert to Akabah,
on its way from Egypt to Meccah, live almost entirely on the milk of
their sheep and camels. In many other parts of the desert milk forms
the sole article of diet obtainable by the Bedouin, and I have heard a
well-authenticated case of an Arab in the north of Syria, who for three
years had not tasted either water or solid food. So long as the flocks
and herds can find an abundance of succulent herbage, they can dis-
pense to a great extent with drink. An Arab, therefore, in selecting
a spot for his encampment, regards the existence of a good supply of
pasturage as of much greater importance than the proximity of water."^
" The Arabs inhabiting the mountains of Moab are essentially a pas-
toral people, though they do cultivate the soil to a slight extent.
Every other consideration is, therefore, sacrificed to the safety and
welfare of their flocks and herds, and the spots selected for their
encampments are nearly always the most elevated portions of the
plateau, the vicinity of which affords good and extensive pasturage.
These are necessarily remote from the streams and water-springs, the
small amount of water required for the use of the camp being brought
by the women, either upon donkeys' backs or their own. Sour or
fresh milk is always plentiful, and placed at the disposal of the visitor,
but often, on asking for a drink of water, I have found that such a
thing has not been seen for days in the encampment."^ It was thus
natural for Abraham to take the favorite "sour, curdled milk" — "leben"
— and sweet milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set them
before his guests.* It was, in fact, precisely the same welcome as a
Bedouin sheikh now gives to strangers he wishes to honor — a calf
being the rare sign of high distinction substituted for the more ordi-

1 2 Mace. vii. 27. 2 Palmer, Deaert qf the Exodni, i. 294. 3 Ibid., i. 488. 4 Gen. xvili. 8.

186

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Cbap.

nary male kid.^ That " the teeth " of Judah should be " white with
milk," was just such a blessing as the patriarch Jacob, a "plain man
dwelling in tents," ^ would think best worth giving. "Curdled milk
of kine, and milk of sheep," ^ were declared special glories of the Land
in the last song of Moses ; and it was exactly what an Arab woman
would have done to-day when Jael, on Sisera's asking for "a little
water, because lie was thirsty," opened a skin of"leben"and gave
him drink. Perhaps it was an undesigned aid to her contemplated
treachery that this favorite beverage, as I have already noticed, is
strongly sopori^xC. A clergyman who drank freely of it in a Bedouin
camp, when suf^iering much from sleeplessness and nervous excitement,
brought on by great fatigue, was so overcome by its drowsy effects
that, after resting for half an hour, it was only with the greatest diffi-
culty he roused himself to continue his journey.* Jael may, however,
have had no water to give her unfortunate guest, so that possibly we
may acquit her of astute contrivance in this particular. Ilor craft and
falseness are bad enougii without any ji,a"<>ravation; glorious, perhaps,
in the eyes of a contemporary like Deborah, with elementary ideas of
right and wrong, and lauded, by the black-eyed women of the tents,
who were oidy rough Arabs of more than 3,000 years ago, but very
far from the morality of the New Testament. " The principal things
for the whole use of man's life," says the Son of Sirach, '' are water,
fire, iron, and salt, flour of wheat, honej'-, milk, the blood of the grape,
and oil, and clothing;"*'' so that flour, honey, milk, and oil embraced
all the solid food of his Hebrew fellow-countrymen in this wonderfully
wise writer's day. Flesh is not even mentioned, nor are vegetables.
That the Land should be so often glorified as "flowing with milk and
honey" implies the same notions of living.^

As }t cannot be doubted that milk-farming is conducted still in the
same way as for thousands of years past, it is to be assumed that *he
Hebrews made not only different kinds of cheese, the skimmed and
the rich, but also butter, though I hope they took more care in freeing ,
it from hairs and other defilements than is usual with the peasants or
Arabs of to-day. No churns, however, are employed, as our version
would seem to imply,' where it speaks of the "churning of butter."
The milk is merely shaken backwards and forwards in a goat-skin
bottle hung between poles, or pressed to and fro, first in one direction
and then in another, till the globules of fat are separated. The
Bedouins make great use of the butter thus obtained, which is rather
fat or o'l in so warm a climate, pouring it over their bread, or dipping

1 Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, i. 489. 8 Gen. xlix. 12; xxv. 27. 2 Deut. xxxil. 14. 4 Neil,
P(Ueai7ie Explored, p. 12. 6 Ecclus. xxxix. 26, written about b. c. 199. Riehm, p. 726. 6 Ex. ili.
8, 17; xill. 5; xxxifl. 3; Cant. Iv. 11; v. 1; Joel ill. 18; Num. xiil. 27; xlv. 8; xvl. 13, 14; Deut.
vi. 3; xi. 9; zzvi. 15; xzvli. 3; xxxi. 20; Josh. v. 6; Jer. xi. 6; xxxii. 22 ; £zek. xx. 6, 15. 7 Prov.
XXX. 83.

V.ie

er."
kin
tion
The
her
iiig

iNell,
Ix. ill.
iDeut.
iProv.

Site of the Anc'^^nt Beeraheba. (See page 159.)

X.1

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

187

the bread in it.^ Cheese, also, is made by them in large quantities,
but it is very inferior; little more, in fact, than curdled milk. A
quantity of sour milk, or "leben," is put in a goat-skin bottle, and
snaken till the whey separates and can be poured out. Then more
sour milk is added, and the shaking and emptying of the whey con-
tinue till cheese enough is provided. This, when afterwards dried in
the sun, is much used to mix with water as a cooling and strengthen-
ing drink on journeys, or is put into flour to make cheesecakes, in
which shape it is a very concentrated form of food, easily carried
about.'^ Shaw tells us that in Barbary, "instead of rennet, especially
in the summer season, they turn the milk with the flowers of the
great-headed thistle, or wild artichoke, and putting the curds after-
wards into small baskets made with rushes, or with the dwarf palm, .
they bind them up close and press them. These cheeses are rui-ely
above two or three pounds in weight, and in shape and size like our
penny loaves."^ May the ten cheeses carried by David to his brothers
in Saul's camp have been of this kind?* In the unchanging East it
is very probable. The making of butter among the Berbers may also
help us to realise the mode used in Bible times, as it is identical^ with
the practice of the Arabs in Palestine at the present day.

At about five miles from Gaza we had to cross the torrent-bed
known as Wady Ghuzzeh; a veritable dry river-bed, with banks cut
deep through the sandy earth, and a broad level channel between.
Quite dry when I rode my horse across it, no better illustration of " a
deceitful brook " could be imagined, though Job's words more strictly
mean, "My brethren have deceived me like a torrent-bed " — Expect-
ing water I have found none; "as the rush of water in torrent- beds,
their friendship has passed away."*^ It helped one also to understand
the cry of the Psalmist : '' Turn again," or rather, " Cause to return
again our captivity, as streams of rushing water return to the dry beds
of the wadys in the Negeb,"'^ the very region in which I was travelling.
The country, without its people, was then like the wady as I saw it;
would that they might return to it in tumultuous, multitudinous force,
like the torrent that in winter would fill the wady in all its breadth !

We are apt to imagine that " wilderness " in the Bible is the same
as desert, but it really means, even etymologically, only a region given
up to wild creatures,* and although used by our translators as the
equivalent of five different Hebrew words, it often stands rather for a
pastoral region, such as the district from Gaza south, than for an arid
waste. The fact is, all the open country of the plains, the Sheplielah,
or the Negeb, is pasture and wilderness by turn; spring covering it

1 The two words In Hebrew for milk, "halab" and "heraah," often leave It doubtful whether
sour milk, "leben," or sweet, Is Intended. 2 Burckhardt, 2Vovcte, p. 697. NIebuhr, if«>c«, II. 873.
3 Shaw, Travels, 1. 308. The first edition was published in 1788, In folio. 4 l Sam. xvli. 18
5 Shaw, Travels, i. 308. 6 Job vi. 16. 7 Fa. cxxvi. 4. 8 From A.-S. ''wilder"— a wild animal.

188

THE HOLY LAND AND THli: BIBLE.

[CdAP.

with thin grass and a bright tapestry of flowers, but the hot suiDiner
burning up one part after another, so that shepherds have ever to lead
their nocKs to new distriets, the wonder being liow, in soino of tliese,
the creatures find enough to Iceei) them ahve.^ "Tlje pastures of the
wilderness,"^ tlierefore, includetl such tiacts as those througli which I
was passing; the very region in which Isaac spent his long Mhepherd
life ; flocks of sheep and goats and herds of cattle on every slope show-
ing how rich it is in spring, though in the hot months t!i'i Arab tents
would be moved to other parts of the country, where, from experience,
it was known that herbage would be longer green.

It was delightful to ride on through the fresh air, with the boundless
horizon all to one's self but for a stray human figure or a small Arab
encampment. I had admirable opportunities for studying the shepherd
of Isaac's district, and he certainly was not very poetical. One ragged
Arab in an "abba," tending some sheep and goats, told us how one of
the latter had been stolen from him by a man of another tribe ; how
he had traced it, and got back, not only the goat, but its worth in
money. But this did not content him, for revenge is sweet even in the
wilderness of Gerar. lie was on the look-out for a horse or camel of
the ofl'ending tribesman, or of one of his encampment, and when he
found one he would steal it! Another shepherd, armed with two
pistols and a lorg-barrelled gun, stood playing on a reed pipe to a large
flock of sheep and goats, which followed the music as he stalked slowly
on before. It may have been that the simple reed pipe — one or two
lengths of thick reed, pierced with holes, and closed at the top by a
piece of smaller diameter, one side of which was cut through to cause
vibration — was "the organ" invented by Jubal,^ but, if so, it had
remained exceedingly primitive. Its compass was only a few changes
in a higher or decjier drone, sim])ly distressing to unaccustomed ears.
It was clearly, however, a deliglit to the sons of the desert,* and
formed in ancient times, with the harp"* and timbrel,^ the music of
the dance before the tents, when the herds and flocks had come home,
or of shepherds amusing themselves on the pastures. Each sex, it
must be understood, still dances alone. To see the sheep following the
shepherd brought back to one's mind the words of our Lord, especially
when I found that the he-goat, or ram, which led the flock, and some
others that followed the shepherd closely, had a name to which they
answered when called by him: "The sheep hear his voice, and he
calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out."'^ As there
are no fences, and many flocks, it is necessary that each flock should
learn to folloAV its own shepherd ; nor must it wander off to the open
patches of wheat or barley, as it would if not thus trained. To go

1 "Mitlbiir," the usual word for wilderness available for pasture, comes from a root, "to drive"
—that is. to drive flocks or herds. 2 Ps. Ixv. 12 ; Joel ii. 22. 3 Gen. iv. 21. 4 Job xxi. li. 5 1 Sam.
xvi. 16. 6 Job xxi. 12. 7 John x. 3.

x.i

ON THE WAV TO OKUAH.

189

* and

111 they

md he

there

Ishould

|e open

To go

Ito drive"
15 1 Sam.

astray in tlio open plain brings danger, for a lost sheep is a ready prey
to some chance wild beast from the inountuins. But if it be lost in
the desolate hills its destruction is almost certain if it bo not found
again, for there wolves and jackals abound, while leopards still prowl
in the hills of Gilead, in those round the Dead Sea, and about Carmel
and the hills of Galilee. Anciently indeed these fierce creatures se
to have been numerous, for we read of a town called Beth Nim^a, " -ne
House of the Leopard,"^ and the stream that runs past it is to this day
called "Nahr Nimrin," "the River of the Leopards." There was
another, Nimrin, " the Leopards," in Moab,^ while Canticles speaks of
"the Mountains of the Leopard,"^ and we find a place called
"Nimeirah" at the south of the Dead Sea. If the shepherd sees a
sheep or goat wandering, he calls it back; but should it still keep on
its course, he hurls a stone from his sling, so as to fall just beyond it
and frightened it back to the flock.

The fidelity of Eastern shepherds to their flocks is proverbial. Not
a few manage to obtain an old long-barelled gun, or a pistol, especially
in districts exposed to the Bedouins, as for instance to the south of
Gaza; but most of them have, in addition, a strong oaken club- or
bludgeon, two feet or more in length, its round or oblong head stuck
full of heavy iron nails : a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong,
brave man. A loop at the handle serves to hang it to the "leathern
girdle "^ universally worn by peasants and the humbler classes, to
bind together the unbleached cotton shirt which is their whole dresa
by day. When it is passed over the wrist, this loop is also a security
that the weapon shall not be lost, even if knocked out of the hand in a
struggle. I was struck, when encamped on the Hill of Samaria, with
the dangerous look of this club. The people around bear an indiflfer*
ent name, so that watchmen had been appointed, without my knowl-
edge, to protect the tent. That two peasants should be prowling
around it in the darkness seemed awkward. Why were they doing
so? To settle the matter I rose and went out in the dark to the nearer
of the two. In a moment, pushing aside his " abba," his presence was
explained by the production of a bludgeon with a head as large as a
melon, and rough with iron — a common shepherd's club extemporized
into a policeman's baton! He pointed to it and to the houses near, and
I at once understood his office. On the lonely unfenced hills and stony
mountains, the danger that wild beasts will attack the flock is always
sufficient, to make a careful guard necessary. The yell of the hyena
and the shriek of the jackal may, even at this day, be heard close to
Jerusalem, and venomous snakes are common in the hot season. The
limestone rocks and chalky hills afford the serpent tribe the very haunts

1 Num. xxxU. 3, S6. The same as Bethabara. " the House of the Ford," where John baptized-
Nimrin also means "Clear Waters." 2 Isa. xv. 6; Jer. xlviii, 8i 3 Cant. Iv. 8. 4 Matt. ill. 4;
Mark 1. 6.

.x.^. I

140

illK llol.N LAND ANh TIIK HIHIiii:.

((;iui>.

I "

they love, iiiul in MUiiiiiicr tliey Itecoiiie very dan^erouH. Tl»e doudly
cobm — perliiipH the ''asji" ol' the liible ; the viper in two vurietieti,
and Hix other poisonous snakes, are more or leHseonimon; one of titoni,
the horned snaUe, only twelve or eighteen inehos h)ng, being so deadly
that a man bitten by it dies in iudt' an hour. Besides these, t)io shop-
herd has to guard against huge birds of prey, whieh swoop down on a
stray kid or lamb, and need all the vigor of the shepherd to beat them
oft". But none of these foes terrify tlie bravo protector of the floek,
who, if it be small, is generally its owner, or one of the family, — lor
though "hirelings" are necessary when Hocks are large, they cannot
always be trusted. " He that is an hireling, and not the shepherd,
whose own the sheep are not, sceth the wolf coming, and leaveth the
sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and soattei*eth tiie
sheep."^ " But the good shepherd knows his sheep, and is known by
them, and is willing to lay down his life for Ijm sheep."'' Tliore are
no lions in Palestine now, and bears are only st en in the upper gorges
of Lebanon, but the shepherds of to-day are ofte i as manly and faith fid
as David, long ago, when he went out, single-lui ided, at one time after
a lion, and at another after a bear, and delivereu the lambs out of their
mouths, catching tlio lion bv the heard when it turned on him, and
smiting and slaying it."* "The Arabs," says Thevenot, "fear a lion so
little that they often pursue him with only a olub in their hand, and
kill him."'*

But wild beasts are not the only danger to a flock. The hills abound
in caves and hiding-places which are often the resort of robbers, and
the wandering Bedouins, in their black tents, are always ready to steal
goats, sheep, or cattle when opportunity oflfers. In a country so thinly
populated, moreover, the shepherd often can only trust to his single-
Iianded bravery to defend his charge if the thief approach. Indeed, it
is necessary in some parts still to pay blackmail to the roving Arabs
to keep them from driving off herds and flocks alike. It is so round
Kerak, in Moab, the sheepmasters of which give so much a year to the
Bedouin sheikhs as a security that these hereditary thieves will not
harry the folds : a state of things exactly like that of which David
speaks when he reproaches Nabal at Carmel, in the Negeb, for refus-
ing his followers food and refreshment. " I have heard," says he,
"that thou hast shearera: now thy shepherds who were with us, we
hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them all the while
they were in Carmel."^ Not to have attacked the shepherds and car-
ried off their sheep was held to entitle the Adullam band that fol-
lowed David to a liberal recompense. There was, however, a better
ground for claiming bounty, for the sturdy claimants had, besides, been
" a wall to Nabal's men, both by night and day," protecting them from

1 John X. 12. 2 John x. 14. 15. 3 1 Sam. xvii. 35. 4 Rosenrnttller, A. u. N. MorgaOemd^ iU. 45,
wbere various oases of like bravery are given. 6 1 Sam. xxv. 7.

ON THK WAY To OKUAK.

141

attack by other bnndH.* Slioplierds, even now, tell siinilnr talcH of
their encomit'TH with beiistH or witli roblxirH, or <tt' their |ir.,terlion by
fVieiully eiiciiinpmeiita, as their predecesHors <li(l tliouHiiiids of years ago.
1 heard of a case which happened only a short time since, where a poor "
fellow defended his flock ho valiantly against stweral Hedouin rol)l)er8
that he died of his wounds in the midst of his sheep. The good shep-
herd still "giveth his life for the sheep."'-*

Shepherds often, like ilacob, or like the shepherds of Bethlehem,
abide in the field, or open country, keeping watch over their flock by
night;'' tlie parching drougiit consuming tiieni by day and the frost
bv night.* In the early spring, the best pasturage is on the sea-coust

f Mains; but as the heat increases, the Hooks, as 1 have said, are driven
liglier and higher, till the hot summer finds them on the tops of the
mountains. When no Hheej)fold is near, a ring of thorny bushes is
heaped up, but the wolf, after all, may leap into the guarded circle,
though the dogs of the flock be watching outside. On the lowland
plains the ruins of ancient towns and cities supply stones for permanent
folds, the walls of which are often protected by a ring of thorns laid
above them. A slight, shelter near at hand is frequently all the pro-
tection through the night for their guaitlians; indeed, in the highest
ridges of Lebanon, far above human habitations, they often have to
content themselves with the shelter of some slight bend in the ground,
setting stones around it, and strewing rushes within, for a bed. A fire
kindled in the centre, so that they can lie witlr their feet to it, is their
only comfort, and their furniture consists of nothing more than a few
pots and pans, some sheep-skins and old rugs, under charge of faithful
dogs during the day, when the shepherds are, perhaps, miles away.
In the south they often sleep in the open air throughout the year.

With the dawn of day the shepherds wake, and each of them "put-
teth forth " his own sheep, counting them as he lets them pass slowly
out under his rod, through the one doorway. To help him in doing so
"he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out,"* for flocks
of different shepherds may have rested through the night in the same
fold. Unlike the thief or robber, who stealthily climbs the wall, he
goes in through the door to bring out his flock ; the shepherd who for
the time is acting as gate-keeper gladly opening to him as he
approaches. Once outside, he begins his daily march at the head of
his goats and sheep, the old he-goats and rams, which, often decked
with bells, lead the rest, keeping close behind him, like so many dogs.
It is one of the amusements of his monotonous day to play with them
at times, for they are his only comp nions. Pretending to run away,
he will soon be overtaken and surrounded by the sheep; setting out to
climb the rocks, he is presently followed by the goats, and at last,

1 1 Sam. XXV. 15. 16. 2 John x. 11. S Luke.il. 8. 4 Qen. xxxl. 40. 6 John x. 8.

142

THE HOLY LAND AKD THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

when he rests, all the flock — goats and sheep alike — circle round him,
gambolling in delight. Such a picture enables us to read with fresh
^joy how Jehovah leads His people like a flock, for so He led them
once " by the hand of Moses and Aaron." ^ In the hill-country — and
most of Palestine is hillv — the natural caves of the rocks, once the
dwellings of the ancient Horites, are the common folds, as they were
in the old days when Saul, in pursuing David, " eame to the sheepcotes
by the way, where w^as a cave." ^ Across the Jordan, on the other
hand, where caves s:re not to be had, Heuben determined to " build
sheepfolds for their cattle." ^

In the mountains, cleft as they often are by narrow, impassable
ravines, a sheep may easily wander too near the edge, and be in danger
of falling into the gloomy depth below. Dr. Duff noticed an interest-
ing incident associated with such a scene. "When on a narrow
bridle-path," says he, " cut out on the face of a precipitous ridge, I
observed a native shepherd with his flock, which, as usual, followed
him. He froq aently stopped and looked back ; and if he saw a sheep
creeping up too far, or coming too near the edge, would go back, and,

Eutting the crook round one of its hind legs, would gently pull it to
im."* This is the shepherd's staff'; sometimes bent, thus, into a
crook, but more commonly a long, stoi^t, straight oak stick, often cased
at its lower end in iron, to beat off' the thief or wild beast. This staff'
to help and the club to protect are the staff* and the rod with which
God comforts His people.^

In lambing-time the greatest care of his flock is taken by the shep-
herd. The ewes are driven slowly, to prevent their being injured,*
and you will often see the shepherd carrying a lamb under his arm,
and others in the bosom of his cotton shirt, the girdle making a
'jiocket of it ; just as Highland shepherds carry helpless lambs in the
folds of their plaids. So the prophet pictures the Messiah : " He shall
feed His flock like a shepherd : He shall gather the lambs with His
arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that
are with young." ' As the shepherd does so, he often calls them, if
necessary; but, indeed, they know him so well that they commonly
follow close behind of their own accord. It would be idle, however,
for one unknown to them to take the shepherd's place : " A stranger
will they not follow, but will flee from him : for they know not the
voice of a stranger." ® Anyone who visits Palestine may readily find
with what truth this picture is painted.

It is common to see a shepherd followed bv separate flocks, one of
goats and the other of sheep, which he has divided one from another
to lead them to some part where each will find the pasture it prefers.

1 Fs. Ixxvil. 20: Ixxx. 1. 2 1 Sam. xxiv. 3. 3 Num. xxxii. 16. ^Lifeqf Dr. Duff, ii. 165. 5 Fs.
zzlU 4. 6 Gen. xxxiil. 13. 7 Isa. xl. 11. 8 Jobn z. 5.

X.]

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

143

shep-
ired,®
arm,
ing a
1 the
shall
iHis
1 that
em, if
monly
wever,
ranger
lot the
y find

The goat thrives best on rocky slopes, and is so fond of young leaves
that he seeks them above all things, sometime'^ even managing to get
up into a tree to obtain them, whereas sheep prefer the fresh grass of
the plains or mountains. Hence the west side of Palestine, from Heb-
ron to Hermon, with its bushy and grassless hills, is specially suited
lor the goat, while the eastern table-land, beyond the Jordan, destitute
of trees or underwood, but rich in short grass and herbs, is the para-
disoiof sheep; as tlie coast-plains of Sharon and Philistia, doited with
spots in which the grass is specially strong and full of sap, have, in
all" ages, been specially adapted for cattle.^ But there are many parts
where both slieep and goats can be pastured by the same shepherd, so
that it is not uncommon to see a flock of black goats feeding in the
open scMib, while a flock of white sheep nibble the grass a little way
off; the shepherd standing midway between the two to watch both. I
could never witness this without thinking how our Lord must have
taken i:ote of it in His journeys, as is shown in His awful words
respecting the goals beirg set on the left hand, and the sheep on the
right, at the Great Day.'

Goats feed all day long, seldom thinking of the heat or seekiiig
shade, and are led into the frld at night, to be brought out again in
the morning. It is only in the cool months, on the contrary, th a ;
sheep feed through the day. In the greater part of the year they are
led out to ])asture only towards sunst- 1, returning home in the morning,
or if they be led out in the morning they lie during the hot hours in
the shade of som.e tree or rock, or in the rude shelter of bushes pre-
pared for them.^ They are taken into the warmth of caves or under
other cover during the coldest part of winter; the lambs are born
between January and the beginning of March, and need to be kept
with the ewes in the field that the mothers may get nutriment enough
to support the poor weak creatures, which cannot be taken to and from
the ' pasturage, but must remain on it. That many of them die is
inevitable, in spite of the shepherd's utmost care, for snow and frost on
the uplands, and heavy ram on the plains, are very fatal to them. Nor
is their guardian less to be pitied. He cannot leave them, day or night,
and often has no shelter. At times, when on his weary watch, he may
be able to gather branches enough to make a comparatively dry spot
on which to stand in the wild weather, but this is not always the case.
I have heard of the skin peeling completely from a poor man's feet,
from continued exposure. By night, as we have seen, he has often, in
outlying places, to sleep on whatever brush he may gather ; his sheep-
skin coat, or an old rug or coverlet, his only protection. Perhaps it
fared thus with the shepherds of Bethlehem, eighteen hundred years
ago, when they were " abiding in the field, keeping watch over their
flock by night." *
;2KJngsHI,4?8qhroi».jc?v},;p. ? ^fj^^t, wv. 9?, 5?. ?CwH,|.7. i(m9W,^Vir

144

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

It is at this season, moreover, amidst the storms and rains of winter,
that the jackal and the wolf are specially alert, as in old times was
the lion, which came up from the thickets of Jordan. The shepherd
may have found shelter in some rude mud cabin; his Jjeep feeding
outside, the bells on tlie necks of tlieir leaders tinkling as they do so.
The dogs, drenched and sleepy, seek the shelter of any bush or tree.
Thick darkness rests around. Sleep above all things is needed by the
shepherd, but he dares not rest.^ From time to time he anxiously
shouts to the dogs, to keep them awake. A rush of sheep takes

f)lace; the dogs give angry voice; it may be the wolf. The shep-
lerd is at once out to call back his flock, and to drive off the wild
beast, if the alarm has been well founded. The good shepherd has no
thought for himself but only for his trust. In Bible ages towers were
often built i^ the centre of tlu; fold, when it was large, so that the
shepherds might offer a better defence, when their flocks were
around them, within the guardian wall,^ and in this case ol sourse they
were ])rotocted, more or less from the weather; but few could have
been thus fortunate.

Yet there is a bright as well as a dark side to the shepherd's life.
No occuj)ation could be more delightful to the simple mind to which
the flock is the chief concern in the universe, than when he leads forth
his sheep or goats to green pastures, and beside still waters as they
glide over the stones in some still-flowing brook.^ The patient sheep
follow meekly ; even among the lively goats some do so, and the rest
follow them. His charge once busy feeding, the shepherd can take his
pipe and play artless melodies, or cheer himself by his simple songs.
In the rare case of genius, the glory of the mornirg or evening may
wake liigher aspirations, as it once did in the soul of David, calling
forth some of his wondrous Psalms, first sung to h^a own accompani-
ment on the harp which he had himself invented.* In the burning heat of
noon, on the treeless plain or hill-s'de,^ the shepherd leads the sheep
to the shadow of some great rock in the weary land, as I have often
seen ; tl:e panting creatures pressing close to the cold stone, alike for
deeper shadow and to feel its natural coolness.® Often, indeed, in
these overpowering hours, I have noticed them crowding into the open
caves which abound everywhere in the chalky hills. When evening
falls they follow their guide to the nearest well, if there be no running
water — not unfrequently to find other flocks before them. In such a case
strife as to priority often arises, in a land where water is tio scarce; as
in the old days with the " herdmen of Abram's cattle" and those of
the cattle of Lot,'^ or with t: e Philistine herdsmen of Gerar and those

1 Nah. lii. IR 2 Isa. i. 8: "a besieged city" Is translated by HItzIg, " a shepherd's watch-
towiT." '!<ii. XXXV. '21; "the tower of Edar^' means "a shepherd's tower." See also 2 Kings
xvli. 9; xviii. S; 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. 3 Ps. xxiii. 2. 4 Ps. xxxlii. 2:1 Sam. xvi. 18; Amos vi. 5.
Oen. xxxl, 40. O Isa. xxxU. 2; xxv. i\ xllx. 2; Ps. xci. 1. 7 Q^n. jtUt. T-

6
trd

X.J

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

146

of Isaao.^ Sometimes the deep wells are covered by a great stone^ «c
heavy that it can only be moved by the joint strength of several men;
thus securing the water against the selfishness of any single shepherd,
and forcing him to wait till his brethren who have an equal right to it
have ari'ived.2 If it be the season for leading them to the fold by
night, the sheep are guided thither as evening falls, the shepherd stand-
ing at the rude gate with outstretched staff, counting them on entering,
as in the morning.^ Then comes the watch by night, till the next
morning brings back the same daily occupation.

An eastern shepherd is responsible for every mishap to his flock, but
this responsibility is lightene*! by the fact that his wages generally
depend on its prosperity, being paid by a share of the young lambs, or
of the wool, or of both. Apart from the natural sympathy with the
only living creatures linked to him by daily companionship, self-inter-
est thus prompts him to unwearying care and brave fidelity in his
calling. He will wander for hours after a sheep that has strayed
into some waterless hollow in the wilderness, or some gloomy and
desolate ravine in the mountains, and when he has found it, will bear
the exhausted creature home on his shoulders, rejoicing that it is
restored to the flock: a type, as our Saviour tells us, of heavenly love,
seeking and saving the human soul.* Pity, however, might well be
mingled with more common elements in the shepherd, for in old times,
as now, the judge might sentence him to make good to his master
that which was lost, though by the law of Moses he was not held
responsible for sheep destroyed by wild beasts, if he produced some
fragment to show that they really had been so destroyed;'' Yet Jacob
had to make good to his covetous uncle, Laban, "the white" Syrian,
even such of the flock as beasts of prey liad killed.^ It should be
added that along with conscientious shepherds, there have doubtless
been some, in all ages, as in the days of Ezekieland Zechariah, who
"ate the milk and butter, and clothed themselves with the wool; who
killed the fatted sheep, and did not feed the flock, or strengthen the
weak, ()r heal the sick, or bind up the injured, -or lead back the strayed,
or seek the lost."'

At the best, the calling of the shepherd is a poor one. It required a
service of twenty-one years, and all his special astuteness, to give
Jacob independence. In a time of famine the prodigal son could only
obtain for himself the dry pods of the carob, lying below the tree, the
food of the swine he was tending.* Amos added to his shepherding
the piercing of sycamore figs, to increase his wages, that he- might
live.^ The share in the fiock allowed as the reward of the herdsman
is small, though years may increase it to a flock of his own. Mean-

1 Gen. xxvi. 20. 2 Gen. xxix. 2, 3. 3 Lev. xxvil. 32. Knobel. 4 Luke xv. 4. 5. Ex. xxiJ. 9—13.
6 Gen. xxxl. 39. 7. Ezek. xxxiv. 3, 4; Zech. xi. 16. SeeOeikie's Hmira udth the Bible, vi. 218, for
translation of the passages. 8. Luke xv. 16. 9 Amos vii. 14.

146

THE HOLY LAN]) AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAi!

while he has milk from the goats for his maintenance, and a sheep-
skin or two from which to make a coat against the winter's cold, and
slowly toils through long poverty to what is to him independence.
Few, we may rest assured, have Jacob's wit or opportunity to gain
flocks and herds by increasing the number of the spotted and speck-
led.i Still, to tend sheep has always been honourable in a country
like Palestine, so that, to-day, we see the daughters of a sheikh, or of
the foremost men of a tribe, thinking the work worthy of them, as
Rachel did long ago in Ilaran, and Moses in Midian.^ There is indeed,
in the East, such a sense of the dignity of manhood in itself, apart
from all accidents of birth or position, that any calling not obviously
dig' onorable is dignified by becoming a human vocation. The poor-
est beggar has a quiet self-respect which commands respect from
others.

The sheep of Palestine are longer in the head than ours, and have
tails from five inches broad at the narrowest part, to fifteen inches at
the widest, tjie weight being in proportion, and ranging generally from
ten to fourteen pounds,^ but sometimes extending to thirty pounds.''
The tails are, in fact, huge masses of fat, for which, in some parts,
small carts are said to be used, tied behind the animal.^ Dr. van
Lennep, however, ridicules this, though he tells us that the tail,
"though usually not more than twenty pounds in weight, is not unfre-
quently three and even four times as heavy"!* This is on a par with
the statement of Herodotus, that the tail is three cubits — or four feet
and a half — long. Instead of this, it simply reaches to the knees or a
little below them, standing out as a great broad mass, its tip coming
to a point turned slightly out. This amazing appendage is used sis
grease, and also for lamps and cooking; the Arabs even eating it as a
delicacy, when fried in slices, though it tastes much like fried tallow.
With such a tail it is no wonder that the rest of the carcass weiglis
only from sixty to seventy pounds. The rams alone have horns; the
color of the breed is white, but some have brown faces.

The portion of the Holy Land once held by Israel is not rich in
pasture suited for cattle, so that it could never have supported great
herds. But its dry, chalky soil, growing sparse aromatic plants and
salt-containing herbs, its stunted brush, and stretches of light hill-
grasses, oftered abundant food for sheep and goats. The extent to
which these characteristics of their country were utilized by the
Hebrews, and the importance of the part which sheep and goats fill in
their history, may be judged from the fact that they are mentioned in
the Bible more than 500 times. Sheep always come first in the state-
ment of the wealth of the patriarchs,' as they do also in the case of

1 Gen. XXX. 32. 2 Gen. xxix. 9: Ex. ill. 1: ii. 16. S TrlstrAxn, Nat, Hut. qf Bible, p. lU. 4Biehni,
p. 1384. 5 Koseniiidller, Bio. XaiurgeschicMe, pt. ii. 76. See also Herod., iii. 113. 6 Bible Lande,
p. 196. 7 Gen. xxvl, 14; xxxiii. 13-

a
?

CHA?.

leep-
, and
ence.

gain
peck-
untry

or of
jm, as
ideed,

apart
iously

poor-
i; from

d have
ches at
y from
)Uiids*
B parts,
Dr. van
he tail,
t unfre-
ar with
our feet
ees or a
coming

used as
r it as a

tallow.

weighs
|ns; the

rich in

|ed great

iiits and

xht hill-

[xtent to

by the
Its fill in
[ioned in

le state-

|e case of

,. 4Blehm,
[Bible Land*,

X.]

ON THE WAY TO GERAR.

147

Job.^ Nabal's flocks in Carinel, south of Judeea, consisted of 3,00C
sheep and 1,000 goats.^ David's flocks were so large that it was
necessary for him to have a special overseer of his shepherds;^ and
Ilezekiah thought it worth while to provide "cotes" for his slieep and
goats on a royal scale.* Solomon oftered 120,000 sheep at tlie dedica-
tion of the Temple, and required 36,500 a year for his table ;^ and
many thousand sheep are recorded to have been oftered as sacrifices on
one occasion by various Jewish kings.*

But if the Jewish mountains and plains, and the uplands of the
Negeb, were thus dotted with flocks, the number of sheep and goats
reared in the districts east of the Jordan was much greater, from the
smallness of the population in proportion to the extent and riches of
the pasturage. Job, in tlie Hauran, had latterly 14,000 sheep; and
King Mesha, of Moab, was laid under a tribute to Ahab of 100,000
lambs a year, and the wool of 100,000 rams.'^ But the wandering
Arabs, in those days, were specially wealthy in flocks, rivaling the
great sheep-masters of Australia, where, thirty years ago, tiiere were
already 16,000,000 sheep.* The Israelites, under Moses, we are told,
carried off' from the Midianites 675,000 sheej),^ and the tribe of Reuben
swept away from the " Hagarites" 250,000.^^ The flocks of Kedar — a
wandering tribe of Arabs in Northern Arabia — and the rams of
Nebaioth, another great Arab tribe, are noted by Isaiah;" the former
specially supplying the vast demand of Tyre for "lambs, and rams and
goats,"i2 while Damascus was its great markei, for white wool.^^ That
these numbers and statements are by no means exaggerated is strangely
corroborated hy the Assyrian inscriptions, which often give quite as
great numbers of sheep as being carried off fror i conc^^uered i)eoples.
Indeed, they are sometimes greater, for Sennaclierib informs us, in a
cylinder discovered in Nineveh, that in the war with Merodach
Baladan he carried off, from Babylonian and Syrian, tribes, no fewer
than 800,600 sheep and goats.i*

It may be a wonder with some, as it used to be with myself, how
such enormous sacrifices of sheep as the Bible records could have been
burnt on any number of altars. If we turn, however, to the Law, we
shall find that only the internal and external fat, the rump or great
tail, the kidneys, and the "caul that is above the liver," were actually
consumed; the animal as a whole being reserved as food for the priests
and the officers,^^ as we see in the case of the Passover lambs.

Flocks of goats are very numerous in Palestine at this day, as they
were in former ages. We see them everywhere on the mountains, in
smaller or larger numbers ;^^ at times, also, along with sheep, as one

1 Job i. 3; xlll. 12. 2 1 Sam. xxv. 2. 3 1 Chion. xxvii. 31. 4 2 Chron. xxy'.l. 28. 5 1 Kings
Iv. 23; vill. 63; 2 Chron. vH. 5. 6 2 Chron. xv. 11 ; xxx. 24. 7 Job xUi. 12; 2 Kli.gs 111. 4. 8 Cham-
bers' Enrycl.: art. "Australia." 9 Num. xxxl.,32. 10 1 Chron. v. 21. 11 Isa. Ix. 7. 12 Ezek. xxvM.
21. 13 Ezek. xxvll. 18. 14 Schrader, ^. T. f'?«in«c/k»*lcn, p. 221. 15 Lev. vli. 3— 6. 16 1 Kings xx.
27; Cant, Iv.l; vi.$. *^

148

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

flock, in which case it is usually a he-goat that is the special leader of
the whole,^ walking before it as gravoly as a sexton before tlie white
flock of a church choir. It is from tliij custom that Isaiah speaks cf
kings as the "he-goats of the eartli;'"'^ a name applied to tliem by
Zechariah also,^ and to Alexander the Great by Daniel, who describes
him as a he-goat from the west, with a notable horn between his
eyes:* a fitting symbol of his irresistible power at the head of the
Macedonian army. Tho quarrelsomeness of the he-goats, often shown
in violence towards the patient sheep, supplied, further, an apt symbol
of a cruel and oppressive prince,* and as these characteri.stics made it
necessary for the shepherd to seppraie the goats from the sheep in the
fold, tliis may have been the immediate source of the awful picture in
our Lord's discourse, of the separation of the goats from the sheep at
the Judgment-day.® "^'ho usu il color of the goat in Palestine is black,
so tiiat the comparison in Camicles of the locks of the Beloved, hang-
ing in rich abur dance over her shoa) ers, to a flock of long-haired
goats, feeding on the slopes of the Gilead hills, one above the other,
was as natural to a poet of the count/y as it is beautiful. 'J^he Beloved
herself, exposed to tlio scorohing heat, in the vineyards of which her
brothers had made her keeper, says, as she thinks of her com[)lexion,
burnt black "because the sun hath looked upon her," that siie is like
the tents of Kedar, "beautiful" in their outline as an encam|)nient,
though the tent-coverings, woven of goats' hair, were black, like her
own sun-tanned features.' One specially useful purpose once served
by goats' hair is told us in David's nistory, when his wife Michal took
one of the household images, or teraphim, and having duly laid it on
a bed, under the bed-clothes, put on its head an extemporized wig of
goats' hair, no doubt like his own in color, so that the counterfeit
passed off as the young hero himself, and saved him from the emis-
saries of Saul, to bless the Church with his glorious Psalms.^ It
must, however, have been the hair of a reddish-brown goat, not of a
black one, that Michal used, as David had auburn hair.^ There is a
kind of goat with such brownish-red hair, and there are also goats pied
and speckled, like those which Jacob had for hi., share, thouglx ^he
black ones greatly predominate.

Goats were in much demand among the Hebrews as offerings; a kid
eight days old being fit for this use, tliough the Passover goat, when a
lamb was not used, was required to be a yearling.^*^ The thrice-
repeated command that a kid should not be "seethed [o" cooked] in
his mothers milk,"" niay have been gi*ven, in part, as a protest against
the seeming cruelty of using the milk that should have been the crea-

1 Jer. 1 8; Prov. XXX. 31. 2 Isa. xiv. 0, " chief ones "- he goats. 3Zech.x.3. < Dan. viii. 5.
B Ezek. xxxlv. 17. 6 Matt. XXV 32. 7 Cant. 1.5. 8 ISani. xlx. 18-16. 9 1 Sam. xvl. 12; xvli.42,
"ruddy "=red-halred. 10 Lev, xxil. 27; Judg. vl. 19: xlll. 15, 19; Ex. xU, f. U Ex, xxili, 19:
»XxJV.S6;Deut.xlv.?l.

[CHAP.

cler of

white

aks cf

3m by

jcribes

sen his

ot' the

shown

lymbol *

lade it
in the

iture in

iieep at

J black,

1, hang-

;-hairotl

e other,

Beloved

lieli her

plexion,

e is like

jnpuient.

lliUe her

served

lal took

,id it on

[l wig of

nterfeit

«e emis-

kis» It

I not of a

lere is a

Uts pied

|»us>:h Me

a kid

when a

thrice-

)ked] in

against

the crea-

.Jan. vlll. 5.
|l2; xvll.42,

XI.)

QEttAfi.

149

ture's nourishment, as the medium of its preparation for human food ;
but there were other and deeper grounds. Like all the Mosaic rules
about food, it doubtless had a religious basis ; perhaps to guard the
Hebrew against a practice associated with some heathen superstition
prevalent around them. Jewish tradition, reaching back to hoary
antiquity, seems to justify this belief, kids being said to have been
seethed by the heathen in their mothers' milk, at the fruit harvest, in
order to get a blessing on the crop or on the fields over which the milk
was sprinkled.^

CHAPTER XI.

GERAR.

The- country, as we w.ilked our horses towards Gerar, continued to
be a succession of rolling pasture-land, seamed with dry water-courses,
soine small, others showing that large streams rushed through them in
winter. At various points Bedouin tents of black goats'-hair cloth
came in view, with herds of fifty or sixty small cattle feeding on the
slopes; women, men, or boys tending them. The grass was very thin,
and greatly broken by tufts of lily -like plants, not yet come to flower;
scarlet anemones shining out between. At last we reached the district
in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had pitched their tents and dug
^vella for their flocks, nearly 4,000 yefc..'s ago. A well on a sandy slope,
close by the track, was the first of many which we soon passed, indi-
cating the once comparative populousness of the neighborhood. It
was circular, with a domed roof, partly broken in, and this well, like
most others, had long ago been filled up. Some of those nelar at hand
were, like this one, filled up nearly to the top ; a few, entirely ; but
others had been left twelve or twenty feet deep, with the rock exposed
below the masonry. This first well was built of small stones set in
mortar, which was bound with massesof small shells, like that of the walls
of Ascalon. Each layer of stones formed a level circle round the whole
wall, as seen on the outside ; for the inside was cemented, and the
stones hidden. T^»'o of the wells were quite close on the knoll behind ;
others, scattered over the gentle slope which ran back a long way to
the east, with low hills behind it. One, which was about twenty feet
across, buiit, like the others, of small stones in regular layers, cemented
over inside, with a broken dome above it, had water at a depth of about

1 Biehm, Speitegeaetze. p. 1516.

150

THK HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(Chap.

sixty feet, but how deep tlie water was I could not say. A heap of
stones lay at one side ; mostly shelly limestone and rough sandstone.
In all, 1 counted about t onty wells, of which eighteen were more or
less filled up, only tiie masonry of the otiier two being perfect. They
stand on the hill-slo})es tliat run down to the wady. The perfect domes
had a hole in the centre, to let the drawers get at the water. The rea-
son most of them liad been more or less tilled up when the population
diminished was, apparently, that they might serve as grain-pits for the
Bedouin, and it was possibly by them that they had been cemented,
since fragments of pottery in the concrete showed it to be compara-
tively modern. Were these the wells dug by the slaves of Abraham
and "stopped and filled with earth'' by the subjects of Abimelech, the
Philistine, and which Isaac cleared out again ?i Or were they some
of those which Isaac caused lo be dug on the slopes of the Wady
Ghuzzeh,2 piercing through the upper porous limestone to the imper-
vious strata below, over which streams of water flow, all the year, from
the mountains and uplands behind, giving a constant abundance of
"springing" or "living" water? On the great map issued by the
Palestine Survey, twenty-four wells are marked within a circle of two
miles, nearly all close to the great Wady Ghuzzeh, or to a subordinate
torrent-bed called P]s Sheriah, which runs into it. The Wady (jhnzzeh
drains the whole country in the rainy season for r lore than thirty miles
beyond Beersheba, its course running, below the uplands, in a curve
from east to west, towards that site, and great wadys opening into it
from the hills to the east. One of these, Wady es Sheriah, indeed,
runs back at least eighteen miles from its junction with the Wady
Ghuzzeh. The spot particularly known as "the Euins of Gerar" has
about a dozen cisterns on the top of a low swell ; their breadth from
four to five feet, and their depth, where not filled up, six or eight feet,
so that while some of the wells in the neighborhood are very large,
two-thirds of the whole number arc but small. Near one of the smaller
size are tlie remains of a drinking-trough, into which, it may be, Isaac
and Jacob often poured water for their sheep and goats.

That a considerable community existed here in antiquity is beyond
question, from the evidence of heaps of broken pottery, found in the
oides of the valley to the deptli of from six to ten feet, besides much
strewn about over the surface of the whole region. Unlike that which
is made now at Gaza, it is red, not black ; so that it may well be very
old. Such beds of potsherds can only be accounted for by the presence
of large numbers of households for long periods; nor would even this
be sufficient explanation unless we remembered what I have already
alluded to^the exceeding fragility of Eastern pottery. Only too often
for the poor maiden's peace of mind, the pitcher taken to the fountain

1 Gen. xxvi. 15, 18. Possibly tbey were even originally grai;i pits. 2 Gen. xxvi. 19.

Chap.

XI.J

GERAR.

161

ftp of

tone.

ire or

They

lomes

B rea-

lation

jr the

tinted,

ipara-

•aham

ill, the

r some

Wady

imper-

r, iVorn

ince of

by the

of two

rdinate

l\nzzeh

,y miles

a curve

into it

indeed,

, Wady
r" has
h from
ht feet,
large,
smaller
Isaac

I beyond
in the
^8 much
It which
[be very
presence
^en this
already
loo often
fountain

breaks into pieces ^ if sot down without special care, while on opening
my carefully-packed box after reaching Engla'nd, a tiiousand iVagmeiitH
were nearly all that retnained of tlic specimens 1 tried to bring home.
The cement witli which cisterns are coated in Palestino, U> make them
water-tight, utilizes part of this wreck of shivered earthenware, so
wonderfully comnum everywhere, but vast beds have been left untouch-
ed at Gerar, perhaps for future consumption. In the deej) valley of
Ilinnom, west and s(mth of Jerusalem, men may be .seen every autumn
preparing tliis material. Gathering a heap of potsherds of all sizes
and kinds, the cement or "homrah" maker tucks uj) his l)iue cotton
overshirt below his girdle, and wits down on the ground, with a heavy,
round stone, for crushing the broken ware, beside hitn. Spreading out
a small quantity, he rolls the stone over it till the whole is ground to
powder, or to very small pieces, and this, mixed "with lime, "makes the
cement. At Jerusalem, traces of an ancient gateway have been dis-
covered, apparently that known in Bible times as "the Gate of the
Potters: "^ the quarter where earthenware was ma"nufactured.^ Thither
Jeremiah was commanded to go and buy "a potter's earthen bottle,"
and shiver it to pieces before " the elders of tlie people and the elders
of the priests," aa a symbol of tlie utter destruction impending over the
city, for its wickedness. Just below the gate thus visited to reach the
potters' quarters, there are great heaps of rubbish, made uj) chiefly of
very ancient broken pottery, and it is here that tlie "homrah" makers
obtain most of their raw material. It is striking to think that imme-
diately opposite this former position of the "Potters' Gate" lies the
'• Potters' Field," still called Aceldama—" the Field of Blood "—one of
the rare spots in this locality where the soil is of clay deep enough for
graves, and for this reason used until very recently for the burial of
strangers, as it had been from the time of Judas Iscariot.*

Gerar was one of the oldest cities of the Philistines, for it is men-
tioned in the table of nations, in the tentii chapter of Genesis:^ the
border town, it would seem, of that people on tneir first coming into
Palestine from the south, but after a time left to sink into insignificance,
when Gaza and the other Philistine towns were built, farther north.
Abimelech, the name of its kings, both in Abraham's lifetime and in
Isaac's, seems to have been a title given to its rulers, as Pharaoh was
given to all Egyptian kings. We not (mly find it applied to the chiefs
of Gerar at an interval of perhaps eighty years, in the narratives of
Abraham and Isaac, but it is used also of King Achish of Gath.^ It
was to the treaty made by Abraham with the ruler thus distinguished,
in his day,' that the Israelites throughout their history owed the recog-
nition of their title to Beersheba, as being in their territory, of which,

1 Bccles. xil. 6. fi Not "potshords," as in the B. V. The A. V. has "east gate," by a mistrans-
lation. 3 Jer. xlx. 1 ; xTiii. 4. 4 Acts i. 18 : Matt, xxvii. 7. 6 Gen. x. 19, 26. 6 1 Sam. xxi. 10 (see
margin) ; title of Fs. xxzlv. (see margin). 7 Gen. xxl. 22-82.

162

THE HOLY LAND AND THK BIBLE.

[CUkf.

indeed, it formed the soutlicrii outpost, Tito Philistines nuist tliorefore
have been supreme tVoiu Gerur to tlio limits of tlie desert, so that their
territory extended in one direction, at least, over thirty miles, tliough
only, for the most part, over pasture-land. That so powerful a chief
should have treated Abraham as on an equal footing with himself,
speaks of the strength of the patriarch's tribe. IIu was, iu fact, a
great emir.

I rested for some time in Gerar, taking my seat on a pile of stones
beside a cistern, while we enjoyed some home-made brown bread, and
hard eggs, washed down with a bottle of water. The scene reminded
me of Sali.sbury Plain: Hocks here and there; the country undulating;
the chalky soil sprinkled, rather than covered, with grass. To the east
the limestone cropped out here and there, as the land rose in long,
round-topped waves towards the distant mountains. A good many
cattle were grazing at ditt'erent points, tended by Arab boys, with very
Jewish faces, and by brown-skinned women, in blue, olose-fitting cotton
sacks; their faces veiled; their heads covered with the sleeves of their
dress — apparently the only article they wore; not even their naked feet
visible. Part of the land was rudely ploughed a few inches deep, but
the rank thorns and weeds seemed calculated to choke the good seed.'^
Barley was growing in some places, and melons were being sown in
others. Close beside me grew the familiar groundsel, dear to birds
here, no doubt, as it is in beloved England I The sea, hidden from
sight, lay six miles to the west. Our guide stood by, radiant in his
many colors ; his pistols shining in his girdle. "Were they loaded?"
He flashed up at the question and fired one oft', on the moment. Pre-
sently a red-and-white snake, perhaps roused by the noise, glided out
from the stones on which we were sitting, and disappeared in the
thorns near at hand. The shot fired had been the only one our son of
Mars could boast. " Ahl had the other i)i8tol been loaded, he would
have killed the horrid creature!" I was only thankful it did not try
to kill any of us, if it were poisonous.

Serpents are very numerous in Palestine, many kinds remaining
undescribed, although over twenty species are already known. Indeed
the unknown probably outnumbered those with which European nat-
uralists are acquainted. Nine kinds are more or less venomous; some
of them, as I have said before, very deadly; yet few accidents seem to
happen from them. Wliat the reptile was that troubled us is a secret
it Kept to itself. Seven words are used fc>r different kinc^s of snakes or
serpents, but it is very hard to know what species is in each case
meant. The difficulty of the English reader is increased by the same
Hebrew word being differently translated in different passages: an
error slavishly followed by the Eevised Version.^

1 Matt. xUl. 7. 2 See ||^^ Pethen.

CHAP.

OEKAR.

168

J fore
their
ougU
3\nef
nself,
act, a

itoneB
I, and
lindod
ftting;
le east
I long,
many
h very-
cotton
»f their
:ed feet
ep, but
. 8eed.^
lown in
JO birds
III trom
[t in his
laded?"
Pre-
Lied out
in tlie
son of
would
not try

.laining

Indeed

ban nat-

i; some

Iseem to

la secret

Lakes or

Ich case

(le same

les'. an

The word for serpents generally occurs twenty-nine times in the
Old Testament,' but tlio distinct menibcrs of tlie ghastly brood are
contented with less publicity. Three appear only once; one, thrice;
one, four times; and one, six times. Sonic of these cannot be ident-
ified, others can; let us see what light science throws on any of those
which the Bible notices.

The word "cockatrice,"'^ used in the Authorized "Version as the
translation of two Hebrew words, is a mediieval name for a fabulous
serpent, supposed to be produced from a cock's egg, but originally it
was no more than a corruption of tlic word "crocodile;"^ its sound
leading to the wonderful invention. The serpent to which it refers is
not known, but may bo the great yellow viper, or "daboia,"* the
largest of its kind, and more than usually danj^erous, since it seeks its
prey by night. The Revised Version, most unfortunately, gives as an
alternative to "cockatrice," in the margin, the word "basilisk," which
was another fabulous serpent, thu.s illuminating the one unscientific
fable by a second quite as fanciful. The basilisk, or "king serpent,"
was described as only three spans long at the most, with a white spot
on its liead, frequently compared to a crown, whence its name. Fables
abound of its fatal hiss, terrifying all other serpents ; of its scorching
the grass and stalks of herbs as it glided through them; of its splitting
stones with its pestilent breath, and of its advancing upright: dreams
which show how much the natural science of past ages owed to the
imagination. The great yellow viper, which is, perhaps, the creature
really meant when either of tlie.se two fabulous creatures is mentioneu
in Scripture, is very poisonous. Canon Tristram saw one spring at a
quail which was feeding. The snake tailed to do more than puncture
it, in the slightest possible degree, in the flesh of one of its wings. But
even this was enough. Having fluttered on a few yards, the birds fell
to the ground in the agonies of death. It is to the bite of this crea-
ture that in Proverbs is compared the deadly effect of strong drink; it
is on its hole that the weaned child is to place its hand in the days of
the Messiah; it is to its eggs, then believed to be deadly poison, that
the wicked deeds of his contemporaries are compared by Isaiah; and
its untamable fierceness is noticed by Jeremiah as defymg the efforts
of the charmer.

Four Hebrew words are translated " adder" in the Authorized Ver-
sion, which is duly followed in its confusion by the Revisers: a course
pardonable two hundred and fifty years ago, but jireposterous now. Of
these four words, one, "pethen," is four times rendered "asp," and
twice " adder."^ From the allusions to it, it is shown to be poisonous,

1 Bl^p Nahush. 2 ;r|)y Tsephah ; 'Mj^M Tslphonl. The R. V. follows the A. V. in the one case
In W(hich the second of these words is translat'^d " adder ; " in the otlier cases It gives " basilisk,"
for cookatrloe. Z Skeat, English Dictionary. MuWer, Etynu^. SprachtoOrterbuch. 4 Prov. xxiii .32-
Isa. XI. 8 ; xiv. 29 ; lix. 5 ; Jer. viil. 17. 6 Deut. xxxil. 33 ; Job xx. 14-16 ; Isa. xl. 8 , Ps. Iviii. 4, 6 1

154

THE HOLY LA^U AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

to live in holes, and to defy tlie arts of the charmer to subdue it.
Perhaps, however, tins intractableness refers only to individual snakes,
if it be correct that the Egyptian cobra, which is also found in South-
ern Palestine, is the serpent intended, as is believed by such authorities
as Klein, Furrer, and Canon Tristram .^ I have often seen them in the
hands of serpent-chftrmers in Cairo, by whom they seem to be used,
for their strange art, more than ^nv other serpent. Taking them out
of a basket, and laying them on the pavement, they speedily irritate
them till they rise upright, supported by coils of their lower vertebrae,
and dilate their necks as if about to spring. Their tormentors
then, catching hold of them, throw them round their arms, necks,
or legs, and let them curl at their will ; taking them oft' when they
please.

References to serpent-charming are frequent in the Bible,^ so that it
must have been followed in Palestine, as it has been in Egypt, from
the remotest ages to the present. The cobra, which is the asp of the
Greeks and Romans, measures generally about a yard or four feet in
length, though sometimes more. It is often represented in its erect
posture on the Egyptian monuments, and a figure of it was worn on
the diadem of the Pharaohs as the symbol of their absolute power of
life and death. Serpent-charmers gain their livelihood in Egypt at
this time, as of old, by luring serpents of different kinds from their
holes in the mud \valls of houses and other buildings. Thv^y belong to
orders of dervishes, and thus link their art with religion, which may
explain the severity expressed towards their class in the Old Testa-
ment, if its members joined their art with heathen, as its present pro-
fessors do with Mahomiiiedan, superstition. Manasseh is denounced
for "using enchantments,"* which seem, from the Hebrew word, to have
been a kind of divination by sorcerers from the hissing of serpents,
and such enchantments are expressly prohibited in Leviticus and
Deuteronomy.* They were, nevertheless, practised to the latest ages of
the Jewish state, for Isaiah speaks of those skilled in enchanting by
serpents,^ and we find these reptiles spoken of in the New Testament
as " tamed" or charmed.* When the effort of the charmer was unsuc-
cessful, the serpent was said to be "deaf," and to "stop its ears,"' though,
of course, it was not really insensible to sound, in any case. The
charmers in Egypt now travel over every part of the land, and find
abundant employment, though their remuneration is very small.
They profess to be able to tell whether there are serpents in a house,
without seeing them, and to attract them to their persons as a fowler,

1 Hiehtn, p. 1404. Tristram, Nat. Hitt. of the Bible, p. 271. Schenkel, Bib. Lex., v. 223. 2 Ps. Ivlll.
5: Eccles. x. 11 ; Jer. viii. 17: Jas. ill. 7; Eccles. x. 8. 3 Kings xxi. 6; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. 4 Lev.
XIX. 26; Deut. xviii. 10. 6 isa. iii. 8. This Is the real inear.iiig of the words translated in the
A. v. "tlie eloquent orator;" <!i the R. V., "tlie skilful enchanter." The meaning is, literally,
'•the skilful hisser." 8 Junes Ui. 7. 7 Ps. Iviii. 4.

at it
from
f the
jet in
erect
rn on
rer of
ypt at
their
mg to
[i may
'esta-
Lt pro-
lunced
have
pents,
IS and
iges of
jng by
metit
nsuc-
-ough,
The
id find
ismall.
jhouse,
fowler,

Ips.lvUI.
J 4 Lev.
led in the
literally.

3n.]

GEBAR.

155

by the fascination of his voice, allures a bird into his net. Assuming
an air of mystory, they strike the walls with a short palm-stick, whistle,
mi.ke a clucking noise with their tongue, and spit on the ground, gen-
erally adding, " I adjure you by God, if ye be above, or if ye be below,
that ye come forth; I adjure you by the most great name, if ye be
obedient, that ye come forth ; and if ye be disobedient, die ! die! die!"
The serpent is generally dislodged by the stick, or drpps from the ceil-
ing of the room, and is secured by the charmer, who extracts the poi-
sonous teeth before venturing to toy with it.^ Sometimes a flute is
used to entice it from its hiding-place, and, when it is made harmless, to
cause it to move to the music. Not unfrequently, as I have said, the
performer lets the snakes twine round his "neck, arms, and broast, and
affects to be in a life-and-death struggle with them. In ancient times,
moreover, charmers, apparently by pressing a particular part of the
neck, were able to mesmerise, or temporarily paralyze them, so that
they stretched themselves out at full length, and became for the time
perfectly rigid ; their activity being restored at pleasure by seizing
them by the tail and rolling them briskly between the hands. Was
this the way in which the skill of the Egyptian magicians was shovm
before Pharaoh ?2 It was, and still is, a dangerous art to trifle with
creatures so deadly, for their poison-teeth grow again after being pulled
out and at times they strike before the teeth can be drawn, and the
poor charmer dies. "Who will pity a charmer that is bitten with a
serpent?" says the son of Sirach. I do, for one I I, myself, never saw
one of these poor creatures showing his art on any special scale, but a
missionary in India gi ves us the following vivid personal testimony.* A
serpent-charmer, having been sent into his garden, after the most minute
and careful precautions against artifice of any kind — "began playing
with his pipe, and after proceeding from one part of the garden to
another for some mimutes, stopped at a part of the wall much injured
by age, and intimated that a serpent was within. He then played
quicker, and louder, when, almost immediately, a large cobra put forth
its hooded head, and the man ran fearlessly to the spot, seized it by the
throat and drew it out. He then showed the poison-fangs, and beat
'hem out; afterwards taking it to the room where his baskets were
icft, and dep^aiting it among the rest." Does this beating out of the
poison-fangs explain the words in the verse following that in which
the Psalmist says of the wicked, "Their poison is like the poison of a
serpent: they are like the deaf adder tnat stoppeth her ear; which
will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth"*? As to "stopping their
ears," it is of course well known that the serpent has no external ears
or opening for sound, at all, so that the words are only a figure of

1 Lane, Mod. Egypt., 11. 108. P iJixod. vii. 9. 3 Miwimary Magazine, 1897. 4 Ps. Iviii. 6, 6.

166

THE ttOtV LAND ANt) THE filBLE.

tCHAt".

speech for refusing to listen to the voice or music of the cliarmer.
But this did not satisfy the theologians of former days; they actually
invented the fancy that serpents stopped their ears with their tail ;-
though, after all, they could only stop one at a tinie.

The extent to which these reptiles can be tamed is seen more fully
in India than elsewhere. Taking out eight or ten difl'erent kinds from
their baskets, the charmei's lay them on the ground, over which the
creatures presently begin to glide away in every direction. Their
master then puts the pipe to his lips, and plays some of his peculiar
notes, at which the serpents stop, as though enchanted, and turning to
the musician, approach within two feet of him, raise their heads from
the ground, and sway backwards and ibrwards, in time with tlie tune,
thoroughly under the spell of the sweet sounds. When he ceases
playing, they drop their heads and remain quiet on the ground, till
replaced in the charmer's baskets.

The Hebrews evidently were very familiar with the serpent.
Zophar, in the Book of Job, shared the idea, prevalent still among the
common people, tl at the forked, sharp tongue was that which bit and
poisoned a victim, and he knew of the habit the charmers had of suck-
ing out the poison when anyone was bitten ;2 but, generally, the infu-
sion of the venom is correctly attributed to the bite.^ The habit of
the serpent tribe of hiding in walls is noticed in Ecclesiastes: " Whoso
breaketh down a gadair, a serpent shall bite him;"^ the "gadair"
being the dry stone wall of a vineyard or orchard, still known in
Palestine as a "yedar." So, in Amos, of serpents hiding in the crevices
of the mud walls of houses: "As if a man went into the house, and
leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him."^ That serpents
are produced from eggs was known to Isaiah, who tells us, the wicked
"hatch serpents' eggs;"^ and their wonderful mode of progression on a
smooth rock was one of the four things too mysterious for Agar to
understand.'^

A third kind of serpent mentioned in Scripture has been identified
with the cerastes or horned snake, a small creature from twelve to
eighteen inches long, of a sandy color. Its name, "shephiphon," occurs
only once in the Bible, but the fact that the Arabs still call the cerastes
"shiphon" leaves no doubt as to fne reptile meant. "Dan shall be a
serpent by the way," says the dying Jacob, "an adder in the path, that
biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward."® It is
the habit of the horned snake to coil itself in the sand, where it basks
in the foot-print of a camel or other animal, darting out suddenly on
any passing beast. "So great is the terror which the sight of it
inspires in horses," says Canon Tristram, "that I have known mine,

1 Bythner, Lyre of David. Dee's Translation, n. 165. 2 Job xx. 16
9— ll;Frov. xxiii. 32. 4£ccles. x. 8. SAmosv. 19. eisa. lix.5, ~"

3 Num. xxi. 9; Eccles. x.
7 Frov. XXX. 19. 8 Gen. xlix. 17.

tified
ve to
»ccurs
rastes
be a
til at
It is
Ibasks
ly on
of it
mine,

bcles. X.
[xllx. 17.

For lie bringeth down them
that dwell on hi<j;h ; the lofty
city he layeth it low, even to the
piound ; he brinp^eth it even to
the dust. — Tsa. xxvi, 5.

In that day will I raise up the
tabernacle of David tliat is fall-
en, and close up the breaches
tliereof ; and I will raise up his
ruins, and I will build it as in
the days of old.— ^4mo». ix. 11.

»mN9 OF ST. v^OHN'9 QHVRCH NEAR BEIT JIBRIN. (See pa^ IW.)

XI.]

GERAE.

157

when I was riding in the Sahara, suddenly start and rear, trembling
and perspiring in every linr.b, and no persuasion would induce him to
proceed. I was quite unable to account for his terror till I noticed a
cerastes coiled up in a depression, two or three paces in front, with its
basilisk eyes steadily fixed on us, and no doubt preparing for a spring
as the horse passed."^ Like the wily snake, Dan was to owe his suc-
cesses more to stratagem than to. open bravery : a trait marked in the
history of the tribe.

The snake known in the Authorized Version as the viper seems to
have been identified by Canon Tristram with the sand-viper, a reptile
about a foot in length.^ We read also of "vipers" in the New Testa-
ment, but the word used is that common, in Greek, for any poisonous
snake. The viper that bit St. Paul may have been the ordinary
Mediterranean viper, though, owing to the clearing away of forests
from Malta, no snake is now found in the island. The Mediterranean
viper is fond. of lurking among wood, and it will be remembered that
the snake which fa.'.jened on St. Paul's hand came out of the fagots
for the fire.^

The "fiery serpents" which troubled Israel in the wilderness have
not been identified with any particular species, and seem to owe the
name rather to the effects of their bite than to any other peculiarity,
especially as we find the Greek Bible speaking of them only as the
"deadly serpen+s."*

We might, indeed, with strict exactness, translate the name as "the
serpent of the burning bite," though there are poisonous serpents in
Arabia with fiery-red spots and marks.* The burning heat produced
by their bite might well give them the name of "fiery," just as the
Greeks called a kind of serpent whofcie bite made the face fiery-red with
its poison, and the limbs swell, "prester," the "inflamer," and " kausos,"
the "burner," and another, whose bite caused mortal thirst, "dipsas,"
or the thirst-causing serpent. The "fiery flying serpent" of Isaiah^ evi-
dently does iiot refer to any serpent with wings, for there are no such
creatures, but rather to the swift spring of some especially deadly snake,
as we say of even a quadruped that "it flew along the road," when we
mean simply that it went so quickly that we could only compare its
speed with that ol' flying.

The dull eyes of the serpent are the very opposite of intelligent, yet
its "subtilty" has in all ages been a familiar expression in widely-sep-
arate nations. This must be in allusion to its craft in hiding till its
victim approaches, or its secrecy in gliding towards it; also, perhaps,
to its power, in some cases, of fascinating its prey, and its wariness in
avoiding danger. It is in this last sense that our Saviour counsels the

1 Tiistiam, Nat. Hist, qf the Bibk, p. 274. 2 Feb. "epheh" (Job xx. 16, Isa. xxx. 6-, lix. 5).
The Arabic name ol the sand-viper is "elephah " 3 Tristram, p. 277. 4 Num. xxi, 6—6; Deut,
yiii. 15. 5 Schti^ft Travelt, ii, 406, 6 Isa. xiv. 2^,

158

TIIK IIOLV LANI! AM' THE HlHIiK.

[Chap.

disciples to be "wise as ser[)ents:''' uvoidiiig iiniiecessary invitation of
persecution, and gratuitous incitement to ill-will. In the same tigura-
tive sense we must understand the words of Scripture respecting tiie
serpent eating dust,^ as only a vivid mode of expressing tiie deepest
humiliation, as vhen the heathen are described as "licking up the dust
of the feet" of Israel,^ or when tlw Psalmist speaks of "eating ashes
like bread." ^ At ilie same time, t\ui fact that the serpent generally
kills iw prey on the ground, of course implies that it must swallow
dust, but not more than other creatures who also eat their food from
the earth; less, in fact, I'or it does not rend its victim, but swallows it
whole. It is a striking and curious fact, in this connection, tliat we
often find on the monuments of Egypt a deity in human sliape piercing
the head of a serpent with a spear: a remarkable illustration of the
wide dissemination of the tradition of the Fall.

The journey from Gerar to Beersheba is over much the same kind
of country as that from Gaza to Gerar: low hills, dotted now, in the
spring-time, with herds: plains sprinkled with flocks of brown-faced,
broad-tailed sheep, and goats, generally in charge of women or child-
ren; a few black tents, here and there, with a miserable shepherd, in a
sheep-skin coat, with sleeves, the woolly side out; a dagger-handle
peering out of his leather belt or girdle, and a long stick in his hand ;
his club probably hidden under his coat. An Arab passed us on horse-
back, carrying a spear about twelve feet long, with a cruel -looking iron
head, ornamented with a tuft of wool, and, at the other end, a long iron
butt, sharp-pointed, to thrust into the ground before the tent, so thajt
the spear might be upright, ready to be snatched, its position also being
a token of the owner's autliority as sheikh. So, the spear of Saul was
"stuck at his bolster," ^ or, rather, "head." The Arab had, besides, a
sword and pistols, and a white head-cloth, or " kefiyeh," with the usual
r-ng of soft camels'-hair rope twice round, to keep it in its place, the
tails of the kerchief falling over his breast. His complexion was very
black, but his features handsome. A brown-striped "abba," over his
inner cotton dress, completed his costume. I asked to look at his
spear, and he at once handed it to me, saying that he "gave" it to me;
but this was only a formal act of courtesy, meaning nothing, like that
of Ephron the son of ITelh, four thousand years ago, when he affected
to give Abraham the Cave of Machpelah without payment; intending
all the while to let him have it only for its full value.'^ Returning him
his formidable weapon, therefore, with many thanks, we rode on the one
way; he, the other.

1 Matt. X. 16. 2 Gen. lii. 14; Isa. Ixv. 25; MlC vll. 17. 3 Isa. xllx. 23; Ps, Ixxll. 9. 4 Ps.
cii. 9. 5 1 Sam. xxvi. 7. 6 Gen. xxiii. 11.

so:

XII.]

BEERSHEBA.

169

CHAPTER XII.

BEERSHEBA.

him
one

4 rs.

The wells of Beerslieba are on the edge of the wady, or torrent-bed,
Es Seba, wliicli, as I have said, svveeps in a long curve towards the
north-west, till it reaches the sea a little south of Gaza. There are now
only tree wells: two, filled with water; the third, dry: but no traces
of the other four, thought once to have been here, are visible. The
existing wells are built of fine solid masonry, and are in good condi-
tion, according to the Oriental standard. There is no wall round them,
so that it would be really dangerous to approach them in the dark, or
carelessly, and the stones are worn, far down the sides, into deep fur-
rows by the ropes with which, for many centuries, the Arabs have
drawn water from them, for themselves aiici their flocks and herds. It
would be pleasant to think that they are the very wells used by Abra-
ham and the patriarchs, but, although the excavations may be the same,
the masonry certainly is not, since, fifteen courses down, on the south
side of the large well, Captain Conder discovered a stone with an
Arabic inscription, dated 505 A. H. — that is, after Mahomet's flight
from Mecca — in other words, in the twelfth century of our era. Rude
stone troughs stand round the two wells which have water : nine round
the larger one; five round the smaller.

The wady below is about 300 paces broad ; its bed filled with stones,
some of large size, rolled from the distant hills by the fury of the win
ter storms. On the low hills bordering the wady on its northern edge
can be traced the ruins of what was anciently the town of Beersheba,
for there was once a Roman garrison stationed here, and a considerable
populatien. The houses appear to have been scattered over several
small hills and the hollows between; traces of them being visible for
half a mile along the edge of the wady, and a quarter of a mile back.
On the south side of the ravine a wall of hewn stone extends for sev-
eral hundred feet under the bank, apparently to prevent it from being
washed away during the winter rains. The ground, like other ancient
sites, is largely covered with fragments of pottery; the direction of
the streets can be traced, and there are vestiges of some public build-
ings; but if it were .lOt for the wells there would be no inducement to
visit the spot.

Here, then, amidst dark-skinned Arabs, whose territory extended a
few miles northward from the wells, were the remains of Beersheba.
The poverty of the Ishmaelites, according to our notions, seemed
extreme, though some of them had iiocks and herds. The women, in
some cases at least, wore no veils, and certainly they could not be called

160

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

handsome, if one could jiulgo from a poor creature who came to ask
bakshish. Her dress luvd no alcoves, and showed her bust even a shade
more fully than our full-dress at evening parties; in fact, nearly to her
waist, round which was wound a cord, tlie first girdle I ever noticed on
one of her sex. llcr hair hung down the sides of her head, in confu-
sion; on her left arm, which was bnre, were four different metal and
glass ornaments, and lier left no°tril was sot off" with a ring which
passed through the ce. ilage ■'.^ t irrings do through the lobe of the
! T. 1^'rom l:ev ]\c\(\ r ; i). J ,«?u.k huny down iier back, part of it
filled with a heavy brown rJni'l whose head, which was all that was
visible, was carefull} do. v^ a a close-fitting cap. The ancient
Israelites, like this poor creivturc '^lighted in personal ornaments.
They had rings for the arms, lor the feet, for the neck, for the nose, and
for the ear. Some were only of horn or of ivory, but Rebekah was
won for Isaac by two bracelets of gold,^ and bracelets were among the
free-will ofi'erii gs of Moses, after the sin at Daal-peor.^ Even the men
wore rings on the arm, for the Amalokite brought to David the one he
had taken from the arm of Saul.^ The ladies of Jerusalem gloried in
rings on their ankles — Isaiah's "ornaments of the legs"* — joined by
a chain, which made them mince their steps, and clattered as their
wearers moved'* — "walking and mincing as they went, and making a
tinkling with their feet." Strangely enough, we are told that Judith
put on these mock fetters when arraying herself to go forth to kill
Ilolofernes.® Necklaces are still common among the native women
here, and among the Hebrews were worn not only by the fair sex, but
by men. The spouse in Canticles boasted of this adornment,'^ and
Ezekiel pictures Jerusalem as a maiden with "ear-rings in her ears, and
a chain on her neck."* But the other sex was as vain, for obedience
to a father and mother is r -npared, in Proverbs, to chains about a son's
neck — his special glory .^ Nose-rings, such as my Bedouin friend wore,
are common. At times you see the hole in the side of the nose marked
by a mere star of metal, to keep it open; at others, a ring, it may be,
an inch and a half wide, sticks out, forming what, to Western eyes, is
a hideous disfigurement of the face. Such a ring Rebekah, with
bounding heart, allowed Eliezer to put "upon her face," when he met
her at the well ;^'^ and "nose-jewels" were still fashionable in Isaiah's
time,^^nearly 1,400 years later. Jerusalem, under the figure of a maiden,
is adorned with a nose-ring \n the picture of her given by Ezekiel,^^
and in Proverbs "a fair woman without discretion" is compared to a
golden nose-ring in a swine's snout.^- Strange that such a custom, whicli
makes it necessary for a woman to hold up the ring with one hand

1 Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 47. 2 Num. xxxl. BO. 3 2 Sam. 1. 8, 10. 4 Isa. Hi. 20. 5 laa. ili. 16. 6 Judith
X.4. 7 Cant. iv. 9. 8 Ezek. xvl. U. 9 Prov.i.9: 111,3. )0 Ot^, x^lv. 47. U Isa, ill. 21. )2£zek,
XVl.12. 13 Prov. xl. 22, , f ♦ V

XII.]

BEERSHEBA.

161

)men
but
and
and

JS, IS

Iwitb

met

iah's

iden,

tiel,!'^

to a

[hicli

liand

ludith
[Ezek,

during meals, wt>ile she raises the food to her mouth with the other,
should still be followed, after thousands of years 1

Earrini^d one can easily T^uderstand, for the ears lend themselves to
vanii 7 in many ways. Wu see them in the ears of men on tiie Assy-
rian tablCi-.^, and Gideon's war-cloak could not gather up tiie mouud of
golden earrings taken from the Midianite warriors he had slain.^ Nor
could tlip iadies in Israel boast superiority to the other sex in this
respect, for even in the desert of Sinai enough golden earrings were
given by the matrons and their sons and daughters to make the golden
calf.'^

The worst feature of this vanity, however, was that too many of these
rings and jewels were regarded by the Hebrews not < \ 'y as ornaments,
but as charms and amulets. They wore "little nKH.ns. mah as even
today are a favorite female decoration in the 1 3t, ; new moon
being a symbol of good fortune, and small cresv/ lu copied from its
shape, being regarded also as a protection againii. ii*^ lack arts. The
earrings which Jacob took from his people and buneti ' were both orna-
ments and charms, which the }mtriarch did w 1 to put out of sight.
Nor did belief in these spells and talismans die j'.t in later ages, for
Tsaiah mentions amulets as a part of female dress in his day, just as
they are among Eastarn women now.* They were cither gems, or pre-
cious stones, or plates of gold and silver, lik^j our brooches, magical
spells being engraved on them, or hidden in them, to guard the wearer
from harm when she had hung one round her neck. It is quite pro-
bable, indeed, that the old Jews were as superstitious as the present
natives of Palestine, of all ranks; these would be very uncomfortable
without any amulets or magic charms, not only for their own protec-
tion, but for that of their children, houses, herds, flocks, and even fruit-
trees. Horses and cattle bear them round their necks; men, women,
and children either carry them as we do, in the form of a looket, or
hide them in their bosoms; and the very trees of the orchard are
guarded by mystic characters marked on them.

Th'ise cl arms are generally scraps from the religious books of the
wearer, wriit^n after certain rnlea, perhaps also with mysterious dia-
grams; the document being sewn up in a small bag, either three-
cornered or like a heart, worn next to the ekin from infancy to old age,
as a Eoman Catholic wears his scapulary. Some of these spells are
believed to have the most varied power aga-nst all enemies, ghostly or
bodily, turning aside bullets in war, guarding against robbers, and
warding off illness or accidents, the only wonder being that the wearers
ever know what trouble is. It is, moreover, very curious to notice
that all the sects of all the religions of the country have equal trust in
these worthless trifles.

1 Judg. vJil. 25. 2 Ex. xxxli. 8, 4. 3 Gen. xxxv. 4, 4 Isa. ill. 29, " lehashlm " ; in A- V. " eHirinjfs."

162

THE HOLY LAND AND TIIK lUHLK.

[Chap.

Beerslieba, as the Bible tells us, j^ot its name IVoin the treaty made
respecting it between Abraliam and the I'liilistinos; the two parties to
the agreement confirming it with a rnutinil oatii, accompanied by a
gift of sevtui slice}) from Abraham to Abimeiecii, iis the formal sign
which gnaranteed to the i)atriarch, tiiencclbrward, the possession of
the wells which he had clng. in alinsion to this, the word moans
either "the Well of the Oatli," or "the Well of the Seven." i
Herodotus tells us that much in tiie same way the Arabs marked
seven stones with their blood, and kept them for witness respecting
contracts made, having lirst laid them between the parties contracting.^
Always devout, Abraham, we are informed, planted a grove of
tamarisk-trees, or, as some translate it, a single tamarisk, under which
to build an altar to Jehovah, the stones lying so plentifully in the
torrent-be(l below supplying abundant material, liountl these wells
the Father of the Faithlul sojourned for many years, and here Isaac
also lingerr.l, the Philistines confirming the ])ossession of the wells to
him by a new treaty, sealed, as usual, with an oath.^ From this spot
Jacob set out on his weary Journey to Mesopotamia, and hither he
returned in his old ngc, on his way to Josej)!), in Egypt.

At the conquest of Canaan, Beerslieba was af-signe^l to Judali,"* but
it was a''' "'wards made over to Simeon,^ and bcciime the southern
limit of the possessions of Israel, "from Dan to Beerslieba" being
recognized as equivalc.it to the wiiole country of the Hebrews, i'rom
north to soutli.^ In later days, when the Tt'n Tribes acceded, the
kingdom of Judah extended from Beerslieba to the mountains of
Ephraim.'^ At Beerslieba, in Samiicrs day, a local court was held
for the south countiy. under Abiah, the son of the prophet,* so that
there must have been some community round the wells even in that
early ajie. Silent and desolate as they now are, they had once the
honor of sending a maiden who had giown up beside them, to be
Quecji of Judah — Zibiah, the wife of Ahaziah, and mother of King
Jehoash.^ A hundred years later, Beerslieba had become, with
Bethel and Gilgal, a centre of idolatrous worship, to which pilgrim-
ages from the northern kingdom were made by great numbers — a sin
denounced vehemently by the brave prophet Amos.^'' Deserted dur-
ing the Captivity, it became once more a Jewish settlement after the
return from Babylon.'^ It was at Beerslieba also that Elijah, fleeing
to Horeb to escape the vengeance of Jezebel, left his attendant, him-
self going a day's journey farther south, when "he lay and slept"
under a bush of the broom so common in this neighborhood ; for it
was not, as one version has it, under a " juniper."'^ Glad of any shade in
such a weary land, the prophet would be additionally cheered if he pas.sed

1 Gen. xxi. 28, 29; xxvl. 33. 2 Herod., iii. 8. 3 Gen. xxvl. 33. 4 .Josh. xv. 28. 5 Josh. xlx. 2. 6
Judg. XX. 1 ; 2 Chron. XXX. 5. 7 2 Chroii. xlx. 4. 8 1 Sam. viii. 2, 9 2Kingsxli. 1. lUAmo9V.4,
SjvlH.M, UJJeh.xl. 30. 12 1 Kings xix. 4, 5, " >? ■ ->

(CHAP.

made
ies to

hy a
I sign
on of
moans
en." 1
liirked
ecting
!ting.'^
)ve of
which

in the
a well a
B Isaac
veils to
lis spot
ther he

h,* but
mthcrn
[ being
s, i'rom

)cti4

&££tt8M£BA.

the
11 lis of
s Vel.l
so that
in that
nee tlie
to bo
f King
with
jilgrim-
I — a sin
led dur-
ftcr the
fleeing
It, him-
slept"
; for it
Ihade in
passed

I. xlx.2. 6
IIU09 V. 4,

on liis way in spring, by tlio white and pink blossom which covers
the broom, oven before its small loaves have appeared. It is the
largest and most notioeaMe plant in tlie desert, and it alVorded shelter
to Dean Stanley in the only storm of ruin ho uiicountored in these
parts.^

Unfortunately, the beauty of the shrub is no jyroteetion against the
eagerness of the pour Arabs to make any profit tliat is possible in
their wilderness liiuiits. 'i'he routs of the broom have long been
famous for yielding the finest charcoal, and this seals the fate of the
plant, wherever it is foniid in any (luantity. Digging up the whole
bush, the roots of which are muuh larger than the stem, the natives
char, as much of it as is fit for burning and carry it to Cairo, where it
fetches a high ))rico. The Hebrews, it would seem, did the same, for
we read of "coals of juniper" — that is, of broom ;^ and it would even
seem that in times of fan'iie, caused by the hideous cruelty of war,
fngitives dwelling in "the clefts of the valleys, in holes of the earth
and of the rocks," "in the gloom of wasteness and desolation," dug up
the roots of this shrub as a kind of food;' for, though very bitter,
the softer parts might keep them alive, the plant being leguminous,
and thus in some measure nourishing.

In the days of St. Jerome — that is, about 400 years after Christ —
Beensheba was still a considerable village, with a Roman garrison : a
sad enough post for the fashionable officers, and a dismal one for their
soldiers. In the early Middle Ages it was the seat of a bishop, but in
the fourteenth century* it had fallen into solitude.

The country round Beersheba is a rolling plain, broken by deeper
or shallower torrent-beds, and covered for miles, in spring, with grass,
flowers, and tufts of ])lants and shrubs. But it is very different in
summer. The herbage is then entirely burnt up, and only a bare and
desolate waste, as cheerless as the desert itself, is to be seen, unless
there have been showe's, which are very rare in the hot months. The
Bedouins now move off to more attractive spots, and the wells are
left solitary. Nowhere, far or near, is there any longer a relic of
civilization — all is abandoned to the wandering Arab. Yet it was
once very different. Many miles to the south, in the desert of El-Tih,
Professor E. 11. Palmer^ found ancient native houses in perfect preser-
vation. They were seven or eight feet in dinmeter, or even larger,
built of stone in a circular sha])e, with oval tops, and small doors about
two feet square, with lintels and door-posts; all the stones used having
been so carefully selected as to bear the appearance of having been
hewn. Yet they are certainly unhewn, though those set in the door-
way may have been rubbed smooth on other stones. In one dwelling

1 Sinai and Palestine, p. so. 2 Ps. cxx. 4. 3 Jobxxx. 4. 6 (R.V.). 4 Reland, /Vilosttna, p. 620.
6 See The Desert qf the Exodus, 2 vols, (passim), for this and the facts that come Immediately after.

164

TIIK ftOIT LAND AND THK HIDLK.

tOBAr.

a, flint ftrrow-hcntl and some small shells were found. Wore tlie.se the
houses of the old Amalokites? It is (luite possible that they were.
Close by thcin were some ptone circles. l)o these point to tiie ancient
religion of tlio long- vanished builders? Deep wells with troughs
round them, still in use for flocks and herds, speak of the presence of
Arabs in numbers, at some seasons of the year, in these thirsty regions.
Circular walls of stone, with a det'enoo of prickly bushes over them,
provide defence for man and beast.^ All this is in full sight of the
mountains of Sinai. The whole country was at one time inhabited.
Nearly every hill has ancient dwellings on its top, or stone circles.
Great cairns, also, are frequent; raised, apparently, over the more or
less illustrious dead. Whoever built them, whether Amalekites or a
later race, seem to have buried their dead in short stone cofiins, over
which they piled the cairns, surrounding these with a stone circle, and
offering sacrifices to the departed within the ring — for charcoal and
burnt earth are found inside it. Were these sacrifices the " offerings
to the dead," to eat which was so great a sin to the Israelites? The
custom still survives in the ottering of sacrifices at the tombs of
Mahommedan saints.

Spring is varied in these desert regions south of Boersheba by fierce
rains, dense sand-storms, and oppressive heat; but even amidst the
barest landscape Professor Palmer came upon a herd of 160 milch-
camels, which contrived to get food from the stray broom-plants and
thorny bushes growing here and there. At one place he found ruins
in which beams of acacia- wood were still to be seen, though no trees
of the kind now grow in the desert. Could the region have been
wooded at some former time? Seventy miles south of Beersheba,
remains of large numbers of the primitive stone houses are still num-
erous. Ravines covered with vegetation are found at intervals. Hills
rise on every side; in some cases to a height of 2,000 feet, but broad
stretches of plain lie between. In one barren, sunburnt valley are two
long low walls, to regulate irrigation during the rains : one 180, the
other 240 yards long, both verv carefully built ; two rows of stones
being beautifully set in a straight line, with smaller pebbles between.
Other steps or terraces, all faced in the same way with stone walls, had
once sent vivifying moisture over both sides of the ravine. The whole
country, indeed, though now, from want of care and failure of the
water supply, little more than a barren waste, shows signs of very
extensive cultivation, even at a comparatively modern period. The
actual desert, to the south, was also much mor.3 suited to maintain a
population in former times than it is now ; the remains of houses, the

Eresence of wells, and the traces of terraces showing this. Fertility
as, in the course of ages, receded to the north. One of the most strik-

1 S'^e remarks on sheepfolds, p. 221, ante.

[CBAP.

e.se tlie
^ were,
uueieiit
roughs
ence of
pegio\i8.
r them,
1 of the
labited.
circleH.
nore or
tes or a
lis, over
ole, and
ioal and
)ftering8
I? The
ombs of

3y fierce
idst the
p milch-
mts and
nd ruins
no trees
,ve been
ersheba,
ill num-
, Hills
it broad
are two
L80, the
If stones
itween.
[lis, had
whole
of the
)f very
The
Intain a
ses, the
(ertility
It strik*

XII.]

BEERRHfinA.

166

ing charactoristios of " the Houth " is that for miles tlio hill-sides jmd
valleys are covered with small stone-heaps, in regular swatlies, over
which grapes were trained, and which still retain the name of "grape-
ds." The valley of Escliol, from which the Jewish spies carried

mounu

off the great bunch of grapes, may not, therefore, have l)ceii near
Ilobron, as has been supposed, but far south of Beersheba, and ne vr the
Hebrew head-quarters at Kadesh.

The number of Christian churches in this far southern region in early
times, as shown by their ruins, is one of the strangest features of the
district. Fifty miles from Beersheba is a cave cut out in the rock,
once used for a church, as may be seen from the cro.sscs and Cliristian
signs on the walls. Near it, on the opposite side of the wa<ly, is a
much larger cave, also cut in the hill-side, with a staircase hewn out to
ler.d up to it : the hermitage, it would seem, of some early monks.
All the hills round are covered with ruins and stone-heaps, the remains
of some primitive people ; and the hill-sides are crossed and recrossed
by innumerable paths. Perhaps, one of the " cities of the south," or
of Negeb, was once here, but if so the country is sadly changed, for no
city or village could exist in it now. Nor are the caves confined to
one spot. Many hills are i)ierced with them. Professor Palmer thinks
that the " south country,'' or "Negeb," began about fifty miles below
Beersheba, but the signs of former habitation are widely scattered far
beyond this point. Thirty-five miles south of it a broad valley opens
out, covered with verdure ; grass, asphodel, and broom growing in
great profusion, flowers carpeting the soil, immense herds of cattle pass-
ing to the i)astures and to the wells, and great flocks of fat sheep and
goats feeding on the neighboring hills. Nine terebinth-trees, very old,
spread out their wide branches in the valley, and give it a pleasant
aspect. Terraces, to check the rush of winter floods, and distribute
them over the whole of the soil, succeed each other along its whole
length, just as I saw them afterwards in the great wady leading up
from Beit Jibrin to Hebron. A well-built stone aqueduct carries w^ier
from the wells to a large reservoir, also built of stone; and there are
ruins of si. ne, large buildings. All this, however, belongs to the dis-
tant past, ivther valleys, as we get north, show fequal signs of former
diligent cultivation. A fort and a church, of which the remains still
crown a hill-top near, overlook countless walls and terraces built across
the Wady Hanein, formerly a valley of gardens ; for though many of
thd large, flat, strongly-embanked terraces may once have been planted
with fruit-trees, and others laid out as kitchen gardens, jnany miles
were still left for the cultivation of grain. The black, flint-covered
hill-slopes round I'ne fort are covered with long rows cf stones, care-
fully swept together and piled into numberless black ]>eaps — the
mounds on which vines were trained. Yet all is now desert, and has

ttlE ttOLV LAND AND THE BlBLfi.

iCukP

I I

been so for many centuries. Buins of forts, churches, towns, terraces,
grape-mounds, and aqueduct*? are, in fact, numerous in all directions.
Tiie ruins of Sebaita, twenty-five miles south of Beersheba, cover a
space 500 yards long and from 200 to 300 yards wide, and show the
remains of three churches, a tower, and two reservoirs. The houses
are of stone, undressed near the ground, hewn farther from it ; and are
all built, in the lower stories, in arches, thick beams of stone being
placed across these to form the roof. Nearly every house has its well,
about two feet in diameter, and tiiere are many conveniently placed at
the street-corners; the streets themselves being distinctly traceable.
Many of the house- walls are still from twenty to twenty-five feet high.
But all is now stillness and utter desolation. Crosses on the houses
and in the churches show that the town was Christian, but how long
has it been abandoned ? Sebaita is, possibly, the successor of Zephath
of the Bible, which Judah and Simeon once took from the Canaanites,
so utterly destroying it that they called its name Hormah, or " the
Desolated Place." ^ All the way to Beersheba similar long-deserted
towns occur: a proof of the great change in the physical condition of
the country within the Christian era. Cisterns forty feet square, partly
hewn out of the rock, partly built ; broken Corinthian capitals; ruins
of churches and sites of towns, dot the country, though as we approach
Beersheba tlie stones have, in great measure, been carried away to Gaza
and elsewhere, for new buildings. This accounts for the absence of
similar remains in the plain of Philistia or elsewhere, within reach of
existing communities; but the region beyond them, dry and waste as
it now is, shows what the whole land must once have been.

Between Beersheba and Hebron the road, or rather track, lies through
the Wady-el Khalil — that is, the Hebron valley, which rises fully
2,000 feet in thirty miles; the whole way being thus a rough climb.
On this re.tired and little-travelled route evidences of dense population,
in former times, are no less striking than on the now desert, sand-blown
South. Ten miles north-east of the Beersheba wells are the ruins of a
town among the hills, so full of ancient wells and leseruoirs that Pal-
mer gave it the name of "the City of Cisterns," a whole system of
cisterns literally undermining the hills. The houses are still standing,
in ruirs, along the crest of a triple hill; their wall? built of huge blocks
of flint conglomerate, many of which measure six feet in length, four
in thickness, and two in breadth ; the houses formed ot them being
mostly of one room, about tlnrty feet by twenty. One large bi'.ilding
has the appearance of a temple ; and the hills around are still covered
with ruins. Another similar town, Sa'awi, lies about ten miles east of
Beersheba. Fifteen miles north-east of the latter place, and 1,400 feet
above it, are the ruins of Dhahariyeh, ^ at the entrance of Palestine

I Judg. 1. 17. The identification is very doubtful. 2 Beerslieba (level), 781 feet ; Dbaharly^h, 2,
IWfeet.

3haP

aces,
ions,
er a
i the
)uses
d are
oeing
well,
;ed at
3able.
high.
lOUses
f long
phath
anites,
r " the
iserted
don of
partly
; ruins
proach
io Gaza
jnce of
iach of
aste as

Interior of a great cavern near Bet Jibrlm. (See page 188.)

imi

BEERSHEBA.

167

proper, ainong hills covered with vegetation and dotted with the dwarf
oak, which fhak appears here.

The valley is Miaked up with strong walls and terraces of venerable
age, running along wh«re now there is no cultivation. Dhahariyeh
itselt is surrounded with fieikds, and there are two fine olive-trees at the
foot of the hill on which it stands. Its houses consist chiefly of caves
in the natural rock, some of them with rude arches carved over tlie
doorways, and all of the greatest antk^uity. Small terraces on the
hill-side have been chosen for the excavation of these caves, the level
obtained in front being fenced round with a aoud wall, as a courtyard
before the cave itself; dogs, goats, chickens, children, and other mem-
bers of the household using it to take the air. These strange dwellings
must be exactl}"^ like those of the old Horites, or " Cave-men," who, in
Abraham's day, lived in Mount Seir,^ where they were afterwards
attacked and virtually exterminated by the children of Esau — that is,
the Edomites — who seized their country ,2 with circumstances of horror
which are, perhaps, referred to by Job, in verses I have already quoted
in part. "Men in whom ripe age is, perished. They are gaunt with
want and famine : they flee into the wilderness, into the gloom of
wasteness and desolation. They pluck salt- wort by the bushes; and
the roots of the broom are their meat. They are driven forth from the
midst of men; they cry after them as after a thief. In the clefts of the
valleys must they dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks."^ The
cave dwellings of Dhahariyeh have been inhabited by generation after
generation since the days of this forgotten race. The village evidently
occupies an ancient site, the foundations of a building of massive
masonry, originally in three arched apartments, still remaining in the
centre of it, while old arches and other remains of antiquity appear at
every corner.* It brings us back, however, to a more prosaic picture
of Palestine as it now is, to find, on entering the three-arched ruin, that
you are immediately covered with flen-s, so countless that you have to
sweep and shake tliem off' by hundreds from your arms, legs, and
clothing. The women are all unveiled, and all apparently ugly, but
eager, poor creatures, to sell their eggs and chickens to strangers, rush-
ing out of their caves as one passes, to cry their wares in loud and
almost angry screams.

Tell Arad, once a royal city of the Canaanites,^ is now only a large
white mound, about twenty miles slightly north-east of Beersheba;
and six miles south-west of it is a ruined town, Keseifeli, with the same
wreck of houses as elsewhere, the remains of a small church, and traces
of tesselated pavement. Twelve or thirteen miles east of Beersheba,
and about six miles south-east of Keseifeh, e the ruins of the ancient

1 Gen. xlv. 6. 2 Deut. II. 12. 22. X 3'^h xxx. 2-6 (R. V.). See Ewald, Oegch.,i.m, 305. The
lineage of the Ilovites is given In Geu. xx.wi. 20—30; 1 Chron. i. 38—42. 4 Pal. Fund Eeportt, 1870,
p. 39. 5 Josli. xil. 14.

168

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

tCEAV.

Moladah,^ with two finely-built wells at the foot of the hill on v/hich
the town stood, one ot them dry, but the other containing good water,
with marble troughs round it, like those at Beersheba, Belonging
first to Judah, Moladah was afterwards handed over to S'meon with
whom it remained till the Captivity, after which it became again a
Jewish community .2 Five miles to the south of it are the rums of
Aroer;^ but the only relics of the ancient city are some wells, two or
three of them built up with rude masonry, and only a few containing
water. It has been usual to tiiink of the Simeonites as having merely
a half-ba»rren range of burnt upland pastures as their territory; but it
is clear from the ruins that so plentifully cover the whole country, that
while free to follow their pastoral prepossessions, they had «ilso, on
every side, all the advantages of a stirring, civilized population, anC a
region capable of yielding everything they could wish.

CHAPTKR Xlli.

GAZA TO FALUJi<^H.

I STARTED from Gaza to Hebron on the 2nd of March, witli three
horses, three donkeys, and four men, the donkeys carrvino two tents
and other requisites. Of the four men, the first was a yacjk from the
Soudan, but he could not tell his birtliplacK^. A red fez; a loose old
cloth jacket reaching to his thighs, the ei^^ws showing i^hemselves
prominently through the short sleeves; a strijjed black-and-white
petticoat of l xed cotton and wool, and cott^^i drawers, encased his
tall thin figure, which terminated in bare legs, and ancient leatiier
slippers with no backs. He had married in Gaza, was perhaps five-
and-twenty, and laughed pleasantly a'l the time. Hamet, the second
donkey-man, who was also young, wore a white cotton skull-cap, with
red worsted-work setting it oft' at the edgen; a wide blue cotton jacket
reaching to his thiglis, with a triangle of striped cotton, edged with
red, for an ornament, down the bsick; a Htrij)ed cotton petticoat, ove.* a
I'V.).^ one. coming down to his knees; his legs and feet rejoicing in
"—- ' TiiC +,liird, Kedwan, hardly a man, bnt very nninlv, liad a

free.

,(ii.

blue ccT'y )i gaberdine with ;'^leeves, Pud over it a sleeveless, clo"><;-1itting,
eld hv<,Vi> ,ind-\vhite woolle i "abba;" a woollen skull-cap, with a
har.uk'iriihj'or tied round '/■ to make it a turban: his Im/Wu legs and
fef . V AH " v'>"'' itie fourtn, Hajji fuwa — " Pilgrim Jesus I ' — a middle-

1 di-ah. V, ?6', xix. 2. 2 1 Chfon. r^ 28; N«b xi i6. 3 1 Sam. xxx, 28.

liree
ents
the
^. old
Ives
■hite
1 his
tlier
iive-

COTld

with
cket
witli
ve.* a
lig in
lad a
tting,
litU a
and
Iddle-

XIII.l

GAZA TO PALUJEH.

169

aged man, who had earned his title of " Hajji " by having been at
Mecca, wore a dirty white turban, a white thick cotton sack over his
shirt and down to his calves, and a leathern girdle or belt round his
waist to keep his clothes together; his legs and feet being bare.

A fifth person joii..:l our cavalcade, to take advantage of our com-
pany, a tall, thin man, on a donkey so small that his feet just escaped
the ground. . He was a colporteur, employed in selling Bibles and
Testaments over the country, and he proposed to go with us as far as
Beit Jibrin. Of light-brown complexion, with a long face and long
Syrian nose, but a pleasant-lookin;; man, with his great black eyes, he
was decked out in a fez; a striped blue-and-white cotton, sleeved, sack,
reaching to his calves; white cotton trousers ; stockings, and elastic-
side boots past their best. At the sides of his microscopic ass, under-
neath him, were too small saddle-bags of old carpet, so far gone that I
feared he might distribute part of his stock of the Scriptures on the
road instead of among the population. A thick stick in his hand, and
a red sash, with a revolver in it, round his waist, finished his outward
presentment. The missionary at Gaza, my worthy friend, Mr. Saphir,
accompanied me as guide and companion. The hire of a horse and
three asses, and of th/: rr.en who came with us, was £3 13s. 4d.^ for
eight days. We had t vo tents, one belonging to Mr. Saphir, the other
rented from its own^r it Gaza for sixpence a day 1 These wonderful
prices, of course, werp those of private owners, not of " Tourists'
Agencies." At Jersual -.n, or Joppa, to hire fn m an "Agency" a
traveller's tent, and a c amnion one for the men, with the attendants
and beasts, would have cost from four to five pounds a day.

Out, then, and away — past the Tomb of Samson, a place of pilgrim-
age for the Moslem ; then under the long avenues o^ nciem olive-trees,
the glory of Gaza, towards Beit Ilanun. On the dside sat a coun-
terpart of blind BartimaBUS, turbaned, cross-legged, . a blue gaberdine
with short sleeves, a stick by his side, his h; d out for charity.
Blindness is a terribly prevalent curse in the Ewst — the desert alone
excepted, for a blind Bedouin is rare. In Egypt has been said, one
person in twenty is affected in his eyes, and tho west estimate gives
one bhnd in the hundred, while in England ant N)rway the proportion
is only one in a thousand. It is impossible, inueed, to come upon any
number of men, either in Palestine or on the Kile, without finding
some of them sightless. The causes of this are n< >t the heat, nor even
tlie dust, so much as the rapid changes of tenijorature between day
and night, which are greatest on the sea-coast, the special seat of this
melancholy evil. The inflammation thus occasioned would not, how-
ever, lead to a great deal of blindness else when ; the neglect of any
attempt to check the trouble is the real explanalion ; and this arises

1 Twenty-onfl Medjidieh.

170

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP,

partly from laziness and stupidity, but much more from superstitious
prejudices against medical treatment. It is most pitiful to see numbers
of children with ulcere on the cornea eating away the sight, without
any attempt being made to cure the evil. Wherever you imlt, the
blind come round you with the other cliildren ; and it is no wonder
that when the fame of our Lord as the " opener of the eyes " spread
abroad, numbers of all ages who were thus afflicted assejnbled to ask
His gracious assistance.^ It would seem, indeed, from the more fre-
quent mention of blindness in the New Testament than in tlie Old, as
tnough blindness had increased in the course of ages, though the law
of Moses curses "him tliat maketh the blind'to wander out of the way,"
or "puts a stumbling-block before him."2 But I had almost forgotten
one great local cause of blindness, which everyone visiting the East
must have noticed: the spread of eye disease through the medium of
flies. These pests car»y infection, on their feet and proboscis, from one
child to another, numbers of them lighting on the corner of the eye,
and never apparently being driven off". Mothers, in fact, allow them to
cling in half-dozens round the eyes of their babies, to ward oft" tlie
"evil eye " ; and it is sud to see the young creatures so habituated to
what would torture Western children as never to resent it, even by a
twitch of the cheek.

We passed Beit Ilanun, with its dirty mud hovels and its rain-pond,
round which a crowd of ragged children were playing, some naked
boys swimming and paddling in it, and the village matrons filling their
jars from it for household uses. A little farther on we met some
people going to Gaza — one, a soldier, returning from the army, a dag-
ger anr' pistols in his belt. As he went by the ruffian broke out in
curses ai us as Christians; but he reckoned without his host, for in a
moment my fiery little missionary friend, who knows Arabic as lie
does English, rode up to him, his riding-stick uplifted, and asked him
how he dared to insult strangers, ending by telling him that he was
only fit to fight women, not men! I did not know all this till after-
wards; but the fellow was cowed, and went off as meekly as a lamb.

The broad plain, or rather rolling land, through which we passed,
was here and there green with lentils or barley, elsewhere ploughed
for summer crops, but in large parts wild and untilled; offering pas-
ture for flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of cattle. The little vil-
lage of Nejid, at the foot of a little side-bay in the low hills of the
Shephelah, on our right, was the first we passed after leaving Beit
Hanun. Numbers of camels, cattle, and calves fed on the green recess
before the houses, which were built only of unburnt bricks of black
earth. A number of peasants who had put out their right eye or
mutilated their thumb, in order to escape the hated conscription for

I Lake vli. 21 ; John v. 3. 2 Lev. xix. 14 ; Deut. xxvii. 18.

XIII.l

GAZA TO FALUJEH.

171

tlie Turkish army, were met on one occasion by a traveller at this
place. Some of the people were now enjoying a meal, in the open air,
sitting on mats woven of straw or palm-leaves; and it was noticeable
that all had taken oft' their shoes, as was evidently the custom among
the Hebrews in Bible times, since they were told to keep on their san-
dals at the Passover supper as a thing unusual.^ One or two of the
houses were larger than the rest; the best one being built in a succes-
sion of rooms round a large square court, of course unpaved; each
separate room with a door for itself. The flat roof rested on rough
poles, covered with corn-stalks and branches, over which layers of
earth had been trodden and rolled, till the whole was solid. Great
corn -bins, made, like the house itself, of mud, leaned against the walls
of the rooms, so that the whole was, no doubt, very like the simple
chambers in which the peasant-king, Ishbosheth, was taking his mid-
day sleep when he was murdered.^ Two Mahommedans near found it
was one of their hours of prayer, and liaving spread their "abbas" on
the ground, they turned their faces to Mecca and began their fervent
devotions. In these, the words "Allah is great" were repeated eight
times, and then they kneeled down and tc-hed the ground with their
foreheads. It must have been much the iii'iie with th« ancient Israel-
ites, for the word " Selah," which so often stands at the end of a verse,
means simply "Bow;" tlius giving directions to the supplicant in this
particular.^

The people are very friendly, and, as a rule, very honest, for I was
told of a case where a traveller having paid for some bread which was
not yet baked, and having left before he got it, the son of the house
rode after him for five or six miles, to give him the piastre's^ worth
he should have had before. A mile north of Nejid we passed through
Simsim, which lies pleasantly on a low hill, amidst trees. Large herds
of cattle and flocks of sheep grazed here and there in the little valleys
among the hills, or on the sloj;>es. Was it in this rich district that
" King Uzziah hewed out many cisterns in the wilderness, for he had
much cattle; both on the Shephelah or low hill-land, and in the
Mishor," or smooth plains, free from rocks, from which the Shephelah
rises ?^ The sun shone very hot from a cloudless sky, though it was
only the beginning of March, and the peasants were eagerly awaiting
the latter rains, which in the East are necessary, before the long heat
of summer, to fill out the ears of the corn, and swell the fruit, and thus
have always been held so specially precious that in Proverbs we read
of the favor of a king being "as a cloud of the latter rain."^ Thus,
also. Job describes the fervor with which his words had been listened
to in the dayy of his prosperity by saying that his hearers opened their

lEx.xll.ll. 2 2 9ain.lv. 5, 6. 3 Hitzig, Ps. iil, 2. 4 2}<a. 6 UChron. xjcvj. 10 (Heb). PiOY,
xvl. 18.

172

THK HOLY LAXn AN!> THE BTBLE.

[Chap.

mouths wide for thcni, ns for tlio latter rain.* It this supremo blessing ■
fail, the earth becomes like copper for hardness, under a sun which
shines down as a sphere of molten iron;-* and the result is that there
is little or no harvest. Most Justly, th'; Hebrews regarded such a
calamity as a punishment for their sins, aiul raised their cries to Him
"who waters tlie liirrows and moistens the rid<^es of the tield, making
it soft with showers, and blessing its fruit." -^ One could realize on
broad, treeless uplands, witiiout brool.s or s])rini;a, ll»o yearning ear-
nestness of the Psalmist after (uxl when lie says, " \ly soul thirsteth for
thee, my flesh longeth i'or thee, in a dry and thirsty land where no
water is."*

There are three words in Hebrew tor the rains of different seasons,
and these, very strikingly, are all Umnd in one verse of Hosea,*'' "He
will come unto us as the luvuv winter rain,'' as the latter rain'^ and
the former rain * upon the earth ^' — tonu*. that is, in fullness of blessing,
like the triple rainfall that covers the earth with corn. In Joel, also,
the three occur together. " Ho will cause to come d'nvn for you the
heavy winter rain,* the early rain,*^ and the latter rain,'' as in former
times, and the floors shall be full of wheat."" The translation of the
befiitiful description of sjiring in Canticles *^ is not true to nature, in
either the lievised Version or the Authorized, for the flowers appear
on the earth, and the time of the singing of the birds comes, at least
six weeks before the rain is over and gone. It is when the heavy
winter rain® ce;\ses, and the warnj spring weather begins, that tie flow-
ers appear, tlu lirds sing, and the voice of the turtle is heard, but it is
precisely during this time that, at intervals, the latter rain'^ I'alls. It
IS of the heavy winter rain*' that Genesis speaks in the story of the
Flood, as continuing lor forty days and forty nights, though rains alone
would not hiive caused that awful catastrophe. In the same heavy
winter storms'"' the )>eople assembled by Ezra to take action respecting
the mixed marriages whicli had prevailed, " sat in the street of the
house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain,"
so that, at last, they represented to the authorities that it was " a time
of much ra'M, and we are not able to stand without," and on this
ground, among oihore, were allowed \o go hojne.^^

The first, or early rain moistens the land, fitting it for the reception
of seed, and is thas the signal for the commencement of ploughing. It
generally bogins in October or November, falling at intervals till
December. The plentiful winter rains which soak the earth, fill the
cisterns and pools, and replenish the springs, come, also at intervals,
from the middle of December to MhtcIi. The latter, or spring rain,
which fills out the ears of corn, and enables it to withstand the drought

1 Job Kxix. 28. 2 Lev. xxvl. 19. S ?*. Ixv. 9. 4 Ps. Ixill. L 5 Hos. vl. 3. 6 "<3e8hein,"
7 " SlalliosU." 8 " Yoreb " or " njoreh." y vNwl H. 23. lO Cant. U. U. 11 Ezra. x. 9, 18-

XIII.]

OAZA TO FALUJKH.

173

Iption

till

the

rvals,

rain,

)ught

iem,"

before harvest, lasts, with bright days between, from the middle of
March till tlie rains fniallv cease in April or May. From th-^t time
till the first rain of the late autumn, the sky is usually cloudless, and
vegetation depends on the fertilizing night-mist, the " dew " of our
Bible, borne over the land from the Mediterranean during the night.

At Bureir, 280 feet above the sea, and about twelve miles in a
straight line ft'oni Gaza, we halted, at one o'clock, for refreshments.
The mud houses were built in clumps, if I may so speak, with a large
open space l>etweeu them, in which there was an old square wall round
a large and deep well, with marble pillars from some ancient building,
now wholly vanished, laid alongside, as a step up to the water, or a
rest lor water-pitchers, one of the pillars being hohowed out to form a
trough. Mounds of grain, thickly covered with kneaded mud bricks,
to keep out the rain and the vermin, rose here and there, and small
herds of cattle dotted the pasture outside the village. A large mud-
banked water-pond, with very muddy-looking contents, supplied the
wants of the households, at least to some extent. Close to the houses
was an underground cistern inside a wall of round stones, but it was
now broken and disused. This abandonment of such water-pits is
inevitable, if the cement with which they are lined give way. They
are, then, " broken cisterns, that can hold no water." ^ It is v/onderful
what a number of these subterranean reservoirs" there are in the Holy
Land. In Upper Galilee they honevcomb the ground in some places,
and we have seen how they abound even so far south as below Beer-
sheba. They are either hewn in the native rock or dug in the earth,
and then built up with masonry ; but the rock is often porous, so that
the water passes through it and leaves them dry and useless for their
original purpose. N'lrrowed at the top, so as to resemble a huge bot-
tle, they are terrible prisons, if one fall into them, as sometimes hap-
pens, for it is impossible to get out unaideci. It was in such a dungeon
that Joseph was put, at Dothan, where '•-.'sterns are sti'i'i to be seen — his
prison, perhaps, among them ; and it wa.- in another that Jeremiah sat,
amid the mire, in Jerusalem. Some are so large, as at Ramleh, that
the roof is supported by pillars. The mouth is now, as of old, covered
by one or more stone slabs, with a hole left in the middle for a rope,
though when not wanted this hole also is closed with a heavy stone.
Anciently, also, as now, full cisterns were often concealed by a cover-
ing of earth over the mouth, so that no one but their owner could find
them. So, the Spouse, in Canticles, was " a fountain sealed " to all but
him whom her soul loved : she was his alone.'^

A second well, with a water-wheel, shows Bureir to be exceptionally
favored, one result being that there is a garden south of the village,
while some palms and tamarisks shoot up among the houses. The
lJer.ii.l3. 2 Cant It. 12.

174

THK HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[GUAP.

slopn near showed, in one direction, rich brown ploughed land, as far
as the eye could reach, cumeli aiid oxen being still busy adding to the
tillage. A great flock of white sheep, belonging to tent Arabs,
passed on its way to pasture ; and in the circle of the landscape, beaidea
the ploughed land and that which lay wild, thousands of acres were
beautiful with the first green of barley and wheat. Spreading a mat
below a rough cactus-hedge which gave some shadow, we sat down on
the grassy edge of the road opposite the rain-tank, and comforted our-
selves with some bread and hard eggs, washed down by a draught of
delicious " leben," or sour n^oats' milk, brought by the Hajji from one
of the houses. Some of the villagers were enjoying their midday rest in
the shadow of a mud wall on the other side of the open vilUage " green,"
which, however, was only dx^sty earth, their heads resting peacefully
on stones for pillows, the thick windings of their turbans saving them
from feeling the hardness. Just so, doubtless, was it that Jacob slept
at Bethel.^ His turban would helj) him to forget the stone, and, like
the poor fellows before me, it would be nothing new for him to sleep
in his clothes, for it is an Oriental custom to do so. All through Pal-
estine the men in attendance on our tents lay down at night in the
clothes they always wore, and I have no doubt they looked on me as
supremely foolish for undressing. Among the ancient Hebrews a
neighbor's raiment was not to be taken in pledge, or, at least, was to
be given back by sunset, as that in which he slept.'^ A palm-leaf mat
spread on the floor serves for a bed among the poor, or they lie on the
bare earth ; but, in the better houses, beds are made up on the divan,
or seat, which runs along the wall in the best room : a framework of
laths of palm, or a solid bank of clay, covered with cushions. Some
rich houses have bedsteads, but they are not common. At Beit Jibrin
I got thick quilted coverlets, of silk on the one side, in the sheikh's
house ; but whether they were to cover me, or for me to lie upon, 1 do
not know. I used them for both purposes, as I had to stretch myself
on the hard plaster floor.

The broad open plain, insensibly rising to the hills, opened to a great
width as we approached Falujeh, in the afternoon. Unenclosed, it
offered tempting pasture-ground to the gazelles which abounded in the
uplands and kindly allowed me a sight of a small flock of them as I
rode on. Graceful and fleet, they lent themselves readily to metaphor
among the old Israelites, ever so attentive to the natural objects
around them. The Arab word " gazelle " is not met with in our Bible,
but there is no doubt that when "roebuck" occurs, the name of this
graceful antelope should have been used. It was no use to chase
them ; the swiftest horse was left hopelessly behind. The Hebrews
knew the creature well, and Solomon had it as one of the viands on

1 Gen. zxviil. 11. 3 Ezod. xxii. 27; Deut. xxiv. 13.

XIII.]

GAZA TO FALUJEH.

176

this
lase

his luxurious tables.^ Asahel's fleetness is compnred to that for which
it is famous: "He was as light of foot as a gazelle in the open." ^
The men of Gad who swam the Jordan when it was in flood, to join
David, are said to have had faces like lions, and to have been as swift
as the gazelles on the mountains.^ Babylon is called by Isaiah " the
gazelle of kingdoms"* for its beauty; and, indeed, this comparison
was a common one in the mouths of the prophets * " My beloved,''
says Sulamith, in the Canticles, "is like a gazelle, leaping upon the
mountains, skipping upon the hills."® Five times does she introduce
this graceful creature in her song of love.' It is tlie commonest of all
the large pame in Palestine, and, in the south, is sometimes met with
in herds of nearly a hundred. Nor is it found only in the lonelier
parts. Dr. Tristram saw a little troop feeding on the Mount of Olives,
close to Jerusalem.*

The village boys were at play in the open centre of Fnlujch — busy
making dirt pies, and striving at a game of ball, just as Jerusalem, in
old times, was full of boys and girls playing in the streets.® It is a
moderate-sized place, with, a rain-pond and two fine wells, at which
one always sees women busy drawing water ; and there was the usual
sprinkling of idlers lying in the sun. It stands on flat ground, and
there is a patch of garden on one side ; but the people, as everywhere
else, seem generally very poor. The flocks and herds, as I have said,
belong, as a rule, to the Arabs, and the Government grinds the face of
the peasantry with arbitrary taxation till they have barely a subsis-
tence left. I am afraid, however, that it was ver^'^ little better in Bible
times, for there are no fewer than ten words for the poor in the Old
Testament, and these occur, in all, about 260 times, while five words,
besides, refer to poverty in some way.^'' In Deuteronomy we are told
that " the poor shall never cease out of the land;"^^ and now the trav-
eller finds it difficult to believe that there are any who are not poor
beyond what Western people can imagine. The depopulation of the
land, also, strikes the traveller very much as he passes through it. He
frequently comes across an extensive landscape, in which he can only
discern, here and there, a small village consisting of a few wretched
mud huts.

Close to the village were some Arab tents, to which we turned, my
friend proposing that we should visit them. They were of black cam-
els'-hair cloth, which is quite soft, like coarse wool. A rude frame of
short poles had been raised, in a very rickety way, and over this had
been stretched the tent-cover, hanging down to the ground at the back
and ends, and leaving the front open ; the cloth which, at the will of
the occupants, closed this part also, in storms or at other times, being

1 lKlngsiv.23. 22Sam.ii.l8. 3 1 Chron.x 1.8. 4 Isa. xlii. 19. 6 Ezek.xx.6,15; xxv.9; Dan.
vlll.9; xi:i6.41(Heb.). 6 Cant. II. 8, 9. 7 Cant. 11.7,9. 17: HI. 5; vill. 14. S Tr\atmm, Nat. Hint, qf
the Bible, p. 180. 9 Zech. viii. 6. 10 See Engliehman't Heb. Ooncordancei " poor." 11 Deut. xv. 11.

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176

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

thrown back on the roof. In shape, this strange dwelling was exactly
like an open shed. The earth was its only floor. A small fire of
wood smouldered in the centre, the smoke finding its own way out.
In one corner — the right — was a pile of dried stalks, &c., for fuel; in
the other were some arms — guns, pistols, and swords — hung from the
poles, which, by the way, were not all of the same height or length, so
that the back of the tent seemed broken. A carpet was brought from
the v'omen's apartment, which was simply a third of the tent, divided
from the rest by a hanging cloth, and concealed in part by the curtain
being let down in front. Just such must have been his mother Sarah's
tent, into which Isaac brought Eebekah.i There were in all ten men
in or about the tent: one was lying all his length on his back, on the
ground, fast asleep in his clothes — a saddle his pillow ; a black slave,
with a gaudy " kefiyeh," was as much at home as anyone, and treat'ed,
apparently, on the same footing as the rest; the others were standing,
sitting^ or lounging about. Coflfeeberries were presently brought out,
and having been put into a rude stone mortar, were brayed with a
piece of wood for a pestle, just as at times, only on a larger scale, wheat
IS crushed. It reminded me of the words in the Proverbs : " Though
thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet
will not his foolishness depart from him."^ The operation was carried
out on the ground, for there was neither table, chair, nor stool. It
appeared that these Arabs belonged to the tribe a member of which
had committed the recent murder in Gaza, of which I have spoken*
and that they had pitched their tents close to the village in order
to have what protection it afforded against a sudden attack
from the tribe of the victim. All their flocks and herds were
with them, so that they might enjoy the security yielded by the village
street. A small cup of coffee, profuse salaams, and a very formal
leave-taking, ended the visit, and we remounted our horses for 3!^eit
Jibrin.

The Arabs are, as a race, very ignorant and childish. None of them
know how old they are, nor can they tell how long ago it may have
been since any event in their history occurred, unless they chance to
remember the number of harvests between then and now. As
we rode slowly on I enjoyed flome stories about them, gathered
from the wide experience of my friend. A Bedouin, who lived with
him in Gaza for a time, came one morning, radiant of countenance.
" What has happened ? " " Oh, my wife has a son ! " By night, how-
ever, his happiness had passed into sadness. " What has happened?"
"Ah, the bov has turned out to be a girl!" His wife's mother had
been so frightened lest he should divorce her daughter for having a
girl, that she lad pretended it was a son. In another case a husband,
1 Oen. xxiv. 67. ; Prov. xxvli. 22. 3 See page 16ft.

View from Beit Jibrin toward the Mediterrauean. (See page 198.)

XIII.]

OAZA TO I*ALVJfiH.

177

anxious to be the father of a son, solemnly vowed that he would
divorce his wife if she had a girl. Unfortunately, she had twin daugh-
ters. The poor fellow, however, really loved his wife, and racked his
brains to get out of his oath. At last he solved tlie dif&cultv. " I
said I, would divorce her if she had a daughter, but not if she had
two;" and so he kept her. How forcibly such incidents remind one
of the words of Jeremiah : " Cursed be the man who brouglit tidings
to thy father, saying, A man child is born unto thee ; making him
very glad;"^ or those of our Lord: "A woman hath sorrow, but as
soon as she is delivered of the child she remembereth the sorrow no
more, for joy that a man is born into the world." ^ Indeed, so proud
is a husband of a son, that he is henceforth known only as " the father
of Mahomet," or whatever be the name given to the child. We may
from this imagine the eagerness with which Abraham and Sarah
longed for an heir to their great possessions, and how great the trial of
the patriarch's faith must have been when be was asked to ofter as a
sacrifice, with his own hand, the child at last given to him.

On one occasion, my friend and a German savant, travelling in
Palestine, came to an Arab encampment, at which they were hospitably
received. The German, however, took the notion of photographing
the sons of the desert, and proceeded to get ready his apparatus.
Knowing the ignorance and superstition of the race, his companion
was.alarmed, and begged him to desist, since the Bedouins might think
he was working a charm for their hurt, in which case they would
have no scruple in cutting their throats. Luckily the sheikh's son got
them out of the dilemma. "Oh," said he, " that is a far-see-er" —
the Arab name for a telescope. " You will be able to look through it
and see the mosques at Gaza" — which, by the way, was far below the
horizon. Out the whole camp sallied,' and sat down, looking at what
was going on, so that an excellent photograph was obtained. This
achieved, the company were invited to look through the camera.
After a time the young wiseacre, who had been at Gaza and Jo[)pa,
where he had seen a telescope, came up, with no little fear, and putting
liis eye t the glass, shouted that he not only saw the mosques, but the
muezzin on them, calling the faithful to prayers. Nor did he after-
wards flinch. At Gaza he maintained to the governor, when that
dignitary called at the house of my friend, that he could recognize the
muezzin, for when he looked through the glass he saw his face!

The peasantry and the Bedouins have little love for each other — as
little as the lamb and the wolf. The Bedouins, in fact, speak with
the greatest contempt of the fellah, and a marriage between the two
races is very rare. The desert which surrounds Palestine to the east
and south is the true home of the tent tribes; but the temptation to

iJer. XX. 15. 2Jobnxvi.21.

17d

THE HOLT LAND AND THE BIBLE.

tCHAfr.

seek better pastures lures small encampments to loam over all the out-
lying parts of the settled land. Thus we find them in many parts of
the plains of Philistia and Sharon, and on the hills of the Shephelah.
Old sites appear to have a special charm for these fragments of once-
powerful tribes. Tiie vales of Sharon are one of their favorite haunts ;
out on the plains they have learned to use the plough and pay taxes,
which, of course, degrades them in the eyes of their brethren of the
desert. They do not, however, live in houses, but in tents, and look
on the dwellers in the mud cottages as infinitely beneath them. As of
old, when the Midianites overran the best of the land, the desert tribes
are constantly on the look-out for a chance to invade the country in
force, and are only kept back by the presence of Turkish soldiery.
When war calls these away, the wave of barbarism at once advances ;
the commons of the villages are overrun, and blackmail is extorted
wherever possible. It is not many years since the whole plain of
Esdraelon was covered with the tents of the Eastern Arabs from the
desert, who had come to harry the land, and even hold it, if possible,
and who were only driven back by a strong Turkish force.

It is striking to see how exactly modern Arab life illustrates that of
the patriarchal age. In passing an Arab encampment you may see
some elder of the tribe sitting, as Abrahani did, in the shade of the
open side of his tent, in the h^at of the day} and you may very pos-
sibly be entreated by him to take advantage of the coolness he is
enjo3'ing, and may get water poured over your feet, if you accept the
invitation; some quickly-cooked meal being presently ordered to be
set before you. The same grave courtesy at meeting will be seen now
as then ; the slave will pour th« water on your feet from much the same
kind of long-spouted copper vessel, as you hold them over a metal
basin of a pattern that has tiot, perhaps, clianged for millenniums.
The sheikh will hurry to his wife in "the woman's tent," 2 and tell
her, as the queen of tne encampment, to "make ready, quickly, some
measures of fine meal," that is, the finest and purest she has ; and she
will, herself, take her kneading-trough and prepare the dough, while
some slave-girl kindles a fire of grass or stalks, on which to lay
the iron plate for baking. Or the mistress may, perhaps, prefer to
light the fire over a small bed of stones and heat them, so that her
thin cakes may be baked upon them after the fire is swept off, just as
the cake of Elijah was "baken on the hot stones; "^ or in her haste
she may cover them with the hot ashes, to quicken the baking, as the
Hebrew text seems to imply was done by Sarah. It would, indeed,
take very little time, in any .case, to prepare such thin " scones " as
Arabs still use. You could hardly expect, however, that the same
honor would be done you as was shown to guests so illustrious as

1 Gen. XTiii 2-12. 2Gen.xvlii.6(Hel>.)- S 1 Kings xiz. 6 (Heb.).

XlU.l

QA2A TO FALUJEH.

179

those of Abraham. An Arab very rarely kills a calf, as the patriarch
did ; it needs a great occasion to call for such an unusual liberality. You
may count on a chicken, or a male kid — for female kids are carefully
preserved ; but a calf is only for some very eminent guest. Repentant
Israel could not more earnestly promise fervent gratitude for the for-
giveness they implored than by saying they would render the calves of
their lips^ — the best they could give — the most thankful and heart-
felt acknowledgements. Nor could the father of the prodigal son
better show the yearning love he felt towards his restored child than
by calling aloud to kill even the fatted calf, to greet liis return.^ If
special guests arrive, an Arab sheikh will even now kill a calf, as
Abraham did, in their honor; himself, like the patriarch, running to
the herd to fetch it. The same rapidity in dressing it will Le shown :
the fowl, the kid, or part of the calf which you have just seen alive,
will be served up in, perhtips, half an hour. It has always been the
rule, as in the time of St. reter, that killing and eating* follow each
other without any considerable interval. You still, like the guests of
Abraham,* get curdled milk or "leben," with milk fresh from the
goat as the beverage at your meal, and you still sit on the floor and
dip your hand into a common dish,'^ set in the middle, between all the
company, using pieces of your thin broad for spoons, to raise to the
mouth the gravy of the stew, or, it may be, the mixture of meat and
rice. Abraham's tent was always, when possible, pitched under the
shade of a tree, just as the tents of the Arabs are now, where trees
can be found. At Shechem and at Hebron^ he sought the shadow of
an oak ; at Beersheba he planted a tamarisk-grove, to get shade as
soon as the plants had grown.' And just as Abraham " stood by" his
guests under the tree, and waited on them, so the sheikh, your enter-
tainer, stands beside you to-day ; his wife, like Sarah, close at hand,
but hidden behind the curtain of the women's part of the tent, watch-
ing all that is going on.

When there is no dried grass or other light natural fuel, the Arab
uses dried camels'-dung, as the Tartars do, or cakes of cow-dung, made
by the women.* Abraham's encampment must have consisted of a
great many tents, with a population of from 2,000 to 8,000 persons,
young ana old, since there were 318 young men trained to arms,
belonging, by birth, to the patriarch's tribe, and the number of his
male and female slaves, bought, or born to slave parents, seems to
have been large.® He would doubtless, therefore, arrange his camp in
some special form, for the protection rf his flocks, which must have
been very great; most prooably in a circle, as large Arab encamp-

IHofl. xiv. 2; lit. buUoeltf. 2 Luke zv. 23. SAotax. 1& 4 Gen. xviU. 8; for "butter," read as
in text. 6 Matt. xxvl. 23; Mark xlv. 20: John stii. 26. 6 Oen. xil. 6, xHI. 18; for "plain," read
"oak." 7Gen.xxi.33. 8 See ante, pp. 122, 155. 9 Gen. xli. ft; for "gotten," read "bouglit;" xli.
16;xiii.6,8:xiT.14.

180

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

ments are pitched now, tliat the herds and flocks may be driven into
the central space at night. The Arabs call such camps "dowars," and
they are mentioned in the Old Testament under the name of Hazerim,
or Hazeroth, though these words are also applied to villages in the
usual sense. In many cases, however, they must mean Arab tent
encampments, as where we read of the "towns" of the sons of Ishmael,
and their "castles," which should really be, their "tent- villages and
encampments."^ "The Avim," a race of aboriginal inhabitants in
Palestine, are said to have dwelt in Ilazerim, even to Gaza;'-* and we
read of the, Hazerim that "Kedar [an Arab tribe] doth inhabit."*

An Arab tent has no furniture, as I have said, in tho men's part;
the part sacred to the woLien is the larder, kitchen, and store-house.
A copper pot or two, kettles, and frying-pans; wooden bowls, for milk-
ing the flocks and herds, water-jars and skin bottles, a pair or two of
handmill-stones, and a wooden mortar, constitute the principal house-
hold property. The skin bottles, indeed, are a special domestic treas-
ure, as they serve all purposes. Milk, as we have seen, is churned in
them, by pressing and wringing them, a custom to which Proverbs
alludes when it says, "Surely the churning [wringing] of milk
bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth
forth blood."* , These skin bottles are of all sizes, according as
they are made from the skin of kids, he-gcats, cattle, or camels.
When a goat or other animal is killed, its feet and head are cut off,
for Orientals never eat a beast's head, and the skin is drawn oft" without
opening the body. The holes where the legs were are duly sewed up,
when the skin has been dried or rudely tanned with acaoia-bark; the
neck being left as the mouth. I have .«een huge "bottles" made of an
ox-skin; two of them, full of oil, a load for a camel. The outside is
laboriously soaked with grease, to keep them soft, and to make them
hold their liquid contents. One meets with them constantly in the
East. The water-seller carries a huge skin on his back, the mouth
below one arm, ready for opening. Milk, water, everything by turns,
is carried in them. Hung up in the smoky tent, they get dry, and
black with soot; a fit image of a mourner, with face darkened and
saddened by affliction or fasting. Hence it was natural for the Psalm-
ist, in a time of great sorrow, to cry out that he was become "like a
bottle in the smoke." ^ These bottles have been in use from the earli-
est times, for Hagar went away with her son from his father's tents
bearing a skin of water on her shoulder.^ And the Gibeonites over-
reached the plain soldier Joshua, and passed themselves off as ambas-
sadors from some far-away nation, by appearing before him with old
sacks on their asses, looking as if worn out in carrying provender from
a distant country; with old wine-skins, shrivelled in the sun, rent,

1 Gen. xxT. 16. 2 Deut. U. 28. 8 Isa. xlii. 11. 4 FroT. xxz. 83. 5 Fs. oxix. 88. 6 Qen. JUti. li.

xm.]

GAZA TO PALUJEH.

181

patched, and bound up; with dry and mouldy bread in their wallets;
and wearing ragged clothes and old clouted sandals.^ When a skin
bottle gets old and rends, the hole is covered with a patch, or sewed
together, or even closed by inserting a flat piece of wood ; but care
must be taken, if it is not ere long to trouble the heart of its owner.
Ad old wine-skin naturally becomes thin and tender, and is unfit to
8tand the violent fermentation of new wine. Hence, as our Lord says,
" Men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and
the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put new wine
into new bottles, and both are preserved." ^ But, at the best, skin
bottles are poor substitutes for those of more solid materials. When
exposed to the sun on a journey, they must be constantly greased, else
the water in them will soon evaporate; aiid their contents so often
turn bad that one name for them comes from this fact.^ It is a curious
illustration of the Oriental character of Bible imagery that these
strange-looking things supply Job with a metaphor for the clouds,
when he asks, " Who can empty out the skin bottles of heaven?"*

As the reader has already seen, the dress of the Bedouins is simple.
A long shirt, sometimes white, generally blue, reaches to the ankles,
and is kept to the person by a leathern strap or girdle round the waist.
As it is partly open above this, a great pocket is thus formed, down to
the girdle; and in this pocket is stowed whatever the wearer wishes
to carry easily. As, moreover, the dress is very loose, he can easily
pull it far enough through the girdle to make an overhanging bag in
which to carrv grain or anything else he chooses. It is to this that
our Saviour refers when He savs, "Give, and it shall be given unto you;
good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they
give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you withal."* These words, by the way, need the expla*
nation as to the "measure," &c., which the custom still prevalent in the
East affords. When grain is bought after harvest, for winter use, it is
delivered in sacks, and the quantity in these is always tested by a pro-
fessional measurer. Sitting down on the ground, of course crosslegged,
this functionary shovels the wheat or barley into the measure, which
is calle"3 a "timneh," using his hands to do so. When it is quite full,
he shakes the "timneh" smartly, that the grain may settle; then fills
it to the brim again, and twists it half round, with a swift jerk, as it
lies on the ground, repeating both processes till it is once more full to
the top. This done, he presses the contents with his hands, to fill up
any still vacant space, till at last, when it will hold no more, he raises
a cone on the top, stopping when it begins to run over at the sides;
and this only is thought to be good measure. A skilful measurer can

1 Josh. ix. 4. 2 Matt. ix. 17. 3 "Hameth," from "hamatb," to he spoiled, foul, rancid, a»
water, butter, «o. 4 Job zxxvi. i. 37 (Heb.). 6 Luke vi. 88; Matt. TiLflt lurk, iv.21.

182

THS HOLY LAND AND THlfi BIBLS.

rOBA».

thus make the " timneh " hold nearly twelve pounds more than it
would if simply filled at once, without shaking or pressing.

Among the Arabs neither men nor women wear drawers, and bv th«
villagers among whom they move, they are ridiculed as "going uafeed."
But if we may judge from the strictness of the command that the
priests should wear drawers, this seems to have been the jpractioe
among the Hebrews also. No priests were to enter the tabernacle
without linen drawers, "lest they die."^ When on a journey, or
engaged in shepherding, the Arati generally wears an "abba," loosely
hung on his slioulders, and this is commonly his only covering by
nighi.* During the burning heat, moreover, it often serves to give
welcome shade, when spread out on the top of sticks. A bright silk
or cotton kerchief (the "keflyeh"), square, but folded crosswise, is used
to cover the head, and, with a double turn of soft camels'-hair rope
round it to keep it in its place, as already described, is the best possible
head-gear for such a cl'mate. Many have skull-caps below, but not a
few use the " kefiyeh " only. The feet are generally bare, unless a pair
of red leather slippers can be stolen from some traveller, or bought in
a border town. These are literally made of the same " rams' skins,
dved red," that were used as one of the coverings of the tabernacle.*
There is no pretence of fitting, and it must be quite an art to keep
them on, as they have no backs, and are generally much too large.
The poorer Arabs often make themselves sandals of camels' skin —
mere soles, secured by thongs passed round the ankle; just such sub-
stitutes for shoes as were worn oy the ancient Hebrews.* Very poor
Arabs, however — and they are many — have only one article of cloth-
ing, the loose blue-and-white cotton shirt, generally the worse for
wear.

Arabs are, as all know, divided into tribes, which, like the Scotch
clans, take their names from their earliest head. As there are in
North Britain, Macgregors and Macdonalds — that is, sons of Gregor or
of Donald — there are, in the desert, Beni Shammar, the sons of Sham-
mar, and many other tribes, similarly called after their first ancestor.
The aristocratic families of a tribe marry only in a very limited circle,
to keep their wealth and influence in as few hands as possible. But
the blue-blooded husbands make up for this by marrying several wives,
leaving the supreme rank for the one of purest descent, who has the
honor of giving out the provisions of the household, and of preparing
the meals for her husband and his guests: a prerogative which was
ceded as a matter of course to Sarah, when Abraham entertained the
angels, and was proudly accepted by her. If the husband, as is some-
times done, accept from a childless wife the gift of one of her female

1 Bzod. zzviii. 42, 43. 2 Exod. xxii. 26, 27.
xziz. 6; Josh. ▼. 15; Buth t. 7, 8; 1 Kings U. 6.

3 Exod. ZZVi. 14. 4 Ezod. 111.5; Deut. ZXT. 9|

XIV.J

FALUJEH TO BEIT JIBRIN AND HEBRON.

188

slaves, as a wife of inferior rank, in the hope that the latter may have
a child whom her mistress may adopt, tlie child, until adopted and
formally declared free, is, like its mother, a shive, and the property of
the wife, and can be sold or driven out as she pleases, the husband,
according to Arab custom, being helpless. Hagar and Ishmael were
in this way the slaves of Sarah, and she was within her right when
she demanded the expulsion of both from the encampment.^

The authority of a father is supreme in the desert household. The
life and property of nil its members are in his hands, though he may
rarely exercise his stern prerogatives. But by this immemorial family
law Abraham was free to kill his son Isaac, and, had he actually done so,
would have felt no sense of guilt, for Isaac was his to kill, if he thought
good. Tiie same frightful usage extended, moreover, to neighboring
races, for the King of Moab, in the exercise of his right, offered his
eldest son on tiie town wall as a burnt-offering, to obtain the favor of
his god ; and even two Jewish kings, Ahaz and Manasseh, caused, not
one child, but several, "to pass through the fire" — that is, burnt them
alive, as a sacrifice to Moloch.^ But tliis was in distinct contravention
of the law of Moses.* It was not, however, till almost the last days
of the Jewish kingdom that Josiah finally "defiled Topheth, in the
valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or
his daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch."^

CHAPTER XIV.

FALUJEH TO BEIT JIBRIN. — ^THE ROAD THENCE TO HEBRON.

The plain east and north oi Falujeh stretches unbroken for miles.
Half-way to the hills we passed on our right the village of Arak, on
the top of a hill 678 feet high, and then reached Zeita, about the same
height above the sea, at the entrance to the hill-region. It was only a
poor hamlet, as indeed was Arak, but there were no other communities
for miles around ; the country, rich as it was, lay without population.
Relics of better days were to be seen, however, even in such paltry
collections of hovels. Herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, belonging
to the Arabs, fed on the common. Finely-built cisterns marked every
ancient site or modem hamlet, often with marble pillars lying round,
their sides grooved with the well-ropes of hundreds of years. Frag-
ments of tesselated pavements, Corinthian capitals, stone channels, con-
\ ^p, jjj^t, JO, i ^ qiroo, j^xvJii. 9 j w»m, 9. ? ^v. nym, ^ j pei^t, nf^ Ip, 4 9 Kings wUlr Vft

184

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

necting wells with plastcretl stone tanks — built, who knows liow long
ago? — spoke of a very (hft'crent state of things fnnn the present. in
one place, a colony ot sparrows had taken posession of an ancient dry
cistern, and chirped lustily. Tlie sides of a wady, here and there,
showed pieces oi ancient walls, built strongly across the valley, to
check the rush of tlie winter torrents, and save tlicm for irrigation ;
but all was now in ruins. Little girls at the village rain-pond, flying
about with dirty faces and streaming hair; boys playing round, or
bathing in the pond; women drawing water from it for the household;
all alike, women and children, witli no clothing but a longer or siiorter
smock ; men lounging on the village dust-heap, their favorite place of
assembly — were the ever-recurring sights at each widely-separated
cluster of mud huts.

Beit Jibrin lies in a valley, approached by a steep track over bare
sheets of rock, loose stones, boulders, and every variety of roughness.
It had grown quite dark before we reached the beginning of the long
descent, so that there was nothing for it but to let my horse have its
own way, over, round, or between the stones and bare rocks, as it chose.
A false step might have thrown me over the side of the hill, 1 knew
not into what abyss. Such a ride brings before one, as perhaps nothing
else could, the force of the Bible promises that the people oi God will
be kept firom sliding and falling ; and the terribleness of the threats
that the workers of iniquity shall be set in slippery places, and that
their feet shall slide in due time.^ I could realize what Jeremiah said
of the wicked of his days, that "their way should be unto them as slip-
pery ways in the darkness." ^ At last, however, we reached Beit Jibrin,
a village of 900 or 1,000 inhabitants. But here a new trouble awaited
us. Tne men with the tents had not arrived. We went hither and
thither in search of them, but it was of no use; they had evidently
taken some other road, and had stayed for the night where darkness
overtook them. Nothing was left for us but to seek shelter in the
sheikh's house, a huge, rough building, constructed of stones taken
from the ruins of the ancient castle of the town, a massive wreck, near
which we had alighted from our horses. The way to the house was as
dark as midnight, and full of turnings, past dust-heaps, decayed mud
hovels, sunken courtyards, and much else, which covered the slope,
while fierce dogs barked and snarled on every side, just as they "com-
passed" the Psalmist long ago.* It needed my own stick and that of
my friend to protect us from these 8av}i<>e brutes. Quiet by day, they
make a fierce noise at night, as in the old Hebrew villages.*

At last we reached the sheikh's house, to which a large patched and
broken gate, standing open, gave entrance, under a rough arch. An

1 ProT. ill. 23; .Ter. zzxi. 9; Deut. xxxii. 35.
{^ fn, JW?}1, 16. 4 f?, ^^. 6, ^e (ftKe, pp. 11, 12,

2 Jer. xxiii. 12, 9ee »l99 fs, my. «: bnOU, 19.

XIV.J

FALUJKII TO HKIT .MHRIN AND IIEHUON.

180

in
19.

old pillar lay acroHs tlio tliresliold, requiring ono to innkc a high step
to get over it — a matter all tiie more difficult as tliero was no light
insiue, while the ground was uneven and tliieic with dry mud and
manure. Walking on under tlie arch for twenty or thirty feet, aoham-
ber, with a wall up to the entrance-arcli, opened to tlie left— a large

Slace, lighted by only one small lamp, high up, at the far end. The
oor was raised about two feet, e.xcepting a horse-shoe space, which
was unpaved. On tlie ground in the middle of tliis glimmered a wood
fire, round which sat fifteen or twenty men on rude benches and stones,
some smoking, others gazing idly at the embers. On the dais, at the
head of this oblong pit, stood tne great »nan, who, with all tlie rest,
rose to receive us, beckoning to me and my friend to sit down on a
small car[)et and some cushions, at his side. It was a repetition of the
experience of Job in his prosperity. " When I prepared my seat in
the street, the aged arose and stood up."^ When we sat down, they
did the same. Opposite me, along the wall of the da'is, sat a number
of men, and just before the sheikh squatted a Turkish soldier, in blue
and white, with a "kefiyeh" on his head. We had chanced to come
on a "town-council" meeting, the subject being worthy of the place.
The Governor of Jerusalem had sent two soldiers to arrest one or more
offenders at Beit Jibrin, and this gathering of the elders had been sum-
moned to arrange with these military bailiffs what they would accept
in the way of bribe to go back and say they could not find 4;he men
they sought. My friend found this out as we sat listening.

The town has an evil name, its population of well-grown, muscular
men, who are thus very different from the peasants of other parts,
being bold and insolent, though industrious, as a whole, and compara-
tively well-to-do. The father of the sheikh at whose side I sat had
been a ruffian of the worst kind, the terror of the neighborhood and of
the townsmen. Tales of monstrous crimes committed by him were
rife. It is said that if he heard of a man having married a handsome
wife, he would invite the two to his house, and if he fanc'^d the girl,
would stab the husband on the spot, and make the widow marry him
forthwith. Till his death no traveller dared visit Beit Jibrin, and the
traders from Hebron could not venture to come near it with their goods.
The Turks, however, have brought down the pride of the house since
his death, for the family are now much reduced, as the ruinous condi-
tion of parts of the rough mansion showed.

After a while it was time to rest, and we proceeded to our room.
Led out to the roofless, earth -floored entrance, we mounted a terribly
rickety stair, the carpentry of which may have dated, for its rudeness,
from any time since the Flood, to a plaster-floored chamber, with an
open hole in one corner, over the yard, large enough to be a peril to

> Jol)xxl3i.7,

186

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

I- i t

any baby. This was the discharge-gap for refuse from this particular
rooTi. On the way up-stairs, I could see into the place I had left,
where the men were sitting ; the wall next the court being built up
only to the spring of the arches on which the second story rested. A
high outer wall enclosed the court, making it part of the mansion, and
the stair to my dormitory clung, on one side, to this; but, though the
wall ran up tnus, there was no roof; the court was open to the sky.
A narrow passage projecting from the side of our room faced the court:
a mere shaky bridge of rough wood, leading to the women's apart-
ments, which looked out on the high wall. Half the space apparently
occupied by the house, as seen from the outside, was thus really a yard,
only the front and one side having a roof, which, of course, was flat.
Our room was arched, or rather, four arches met in the centre, over-
head, as in the " council chamber," below us. Two pairs of old mill-
stones lay in one corner; one of them, the lower, in a wooden tray with
edges as high as the top of the stone, to catch the flour. A thin car-
pet, the size of a large hearthrug, and a quilted coverlet, large enough
to cover one person, were the only furniture. Ere long, however, the
colporteur, who seemed quite at home^ brought me a pillow of red
cloth, on seeing me lie down quite worn out, and this was supplemented
a little later by two thick quilts as mattresses, for my companion and
myself, and a thin quilt for bedclothes. The door, of sycamore, may
have been of any age, so clumsy and primitive was it. One of its hinges
was gone, but it could be closed after a fashion, with the help of two
men to lift it. To shut it exactly was, however, an impossible feat.
The only bolt was a rough cut of a thick branch, which we propped
against the door, but only to see it knocked down, soon afterwards, by
some intruder. There were two windows, without glass, but with lat-
tices, the openings between the laths being of the size of small panes.
The windows were closed by shutters of half-inch wood, one of them
kept in its place by a great piece of timber laid against it. As to their
fitting the window-spaces, no such idea had troubled the genius who
.:iade them. You could see through the gaping chinks in pretty nearly
every direction. A small recess in the wall was lighted by a little
tin paraffin lamp, with no glass: a dismal affair, giving a light like that
of a tallow candle, and spreading a rich perfume round.

To get any supper was the difficulty. Nothing whatever was offered
by our host. After a time I managed to secure a little hot Arater, and
infused some compressed tea, in a small tin. We had sugar, but no
milk; bread, made at Gaza, in flat "bannocks;" some hard-boiled eggs,
and, I believe, the wreck of a cold chicken. There was no table, no
chair, no anything; so we sat on the floor and did our best. Then
came the almost hopeless attempt to sleep. One of the many wolf-
like, long-muzzled, yellow town dogs, prowling through the open gate-

■■-v

at-

lat

sred
and
no

no
hen
olf-
ate-

s>yi-^ — - —

View o£ hei.1011 from "Abraham'- Oak." (See page 3C4.)

XIV.J

FALUJEH TO BEIT JIBRIN AND HEBRON.

187

way, had wandered up to us, and smelling the food, darted into the
room, knocking down our ingenious prop behind the gaping door.
The colporteur, however, was a match for him. My long-legged friend
had composed himself to sleep with his back against the wall, and his
lower members stretchec out far across the floor, but he gathered them
up in a moment, and, with a volley of fierce Arabic, drove the quad-
ruped at a gallop down the rickety outside stair ; then settled down at
the same right angle as before, for his night's enjoyment. As to
myself, sleep danced round my pillow, but would not do me the kind-
ness of mesmerizing my tired brain. Indeed, it would Lave been hard
to get into oblivion, in any case, under the fierce-attacks of regiments,
brigades, and army corps of fleas which presently marched or leaped
over me, like the myriad Lilliputians over Gulliver. What a nig-ht!
I never spent such another, I think, except once, twenty-five years
ago, when I bivouacked on the shore of Lake Huron, on a missionary
visit to the Indians with my excellent friend, now Vicar of Ogbourne
St. George's, in Wiltshire. The sand-flies and mosquitoes there were
even worse than the hosts of fleas at Beit Jibrin, for they bit Mr.
Pyne's nose till it was a great deal thicker at the bridge than at the
nostrils ; inverted it, in fact, as to shape. Morning, however, broke at
last ; we liad no clothes to put on, for we had not undressed ; the
women were already astir, carrying brushwood to their room, for firing;
children came and looked in on us; breakfast was easily made on the
scraps of last night's feast, and we gladly sought the open air, to take
a survey of the town and neighboriiood. Arab hospitality had done
very little in our case.

Beit Jibrin is thought by Dr. Tristram to be the successor of ancient
Gath; by others, to be that of the old city of Eleutheropolis or
Bethogabra, " the House of Gabriel." The ancient name, Beit Jibrin
— "the House of Giants" — now restored to it, seems to point to the
survivors of the race to which Goliath belonged, a being once settled
here, and we know that they lived in Gath. Conder, however, as we
have seen, believet Tell es Safieh to have been the ancient Philistine
city, but which opinion is right must, I fear, be left to others for future
discussion. At the foot of the rising ground on which the sheikh's
mansion stood are the remains of a great fortres.s, with tremendous
walls, still cased, in parts,'with squared stones, and, in places, thirty-
two lengths of my foot thick. There is nothing in Palestine so exten-
sive, and massive, except the substructions of the ancient Temple at
Jerusalem, or the Mosque at Hebron. A ruined wall of large squared
stones, laid on each other without mortar, encloses the fortress at a
good distance ; a row of ancient massive vaults, with fine round arches,
running along, inside, on the west and north-west, many of them
ljviri^4 ip rubbishy but SQme still serving as houses. The space thus

188

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Ohap.

shut in, to form the anoient oastle-yard, is about 600 feet square ; the
fortress itself being a square 195 feet, and showing the magnificent
arohitecture of the Crusaders. Beyond the enclosure, remains of the
town wall, or fortifications, extend, in all, to ab'>ut 2,000 feet, with a
ditch in front : a defence strong enough, in all its parts, one would
have thought, to keep out the Saracens for eyer, as indeed it would have
done had the Crusaders been united among themselves.

Outside the walls are three wells: two with water, one dry: the
masonry apparently crusading, though both they and the fortress have
been patched up in later times, the last repairs seeming to have been
made, if we may judge from an inscription, about 300 years ago. Since
then everything has fallen to ruin, the very enclosure of the castle,
where the rubbish allows, being used for mud hovels, or for patches of
tobacco or vegetables. One of the wells, of great size and probably
100 feet deep, full to overflowing after rain, is of itself enough to show
what the place might be made under a good government. Ornaments
on the marble capitals found here and there show that Beit Jibrin has
had a long, eventful history, one of them exhibiting such purely Jewish
devices as the seven-brancned candlestick: a relic, probably, of Macca-
bsean times.

The fortifications of Beit Jibrin are not, however, so remarkable as
the artificial caverns found in its neighborhood. There are fourteen in
all, rudely circular, and connected together; their diameter from twenty
to sixty feet, and their height from twenty to thirty. Crosses are cut
on the walls of all the caves, and early Arabic inscriptions, of which
one is the name of Saladiu. In some of the caverns there are
also many niches, for lamps; in others rows, of larger niches
probably for urns containing the ashes of the dead after crema-
tion. There are, besides, spaces cut for bodies, marking the
change from burning to burial. Altogether, the caverns are very
remarkable, but it is hard to form any safe judgment either as to their
origin or tlie purpose for which they were first used. They are about
a mile south of the town, in a hill which is completely honeycombed
with them. You enter by a perpendicular shaft in the hill-side, into
which you have to creep after your guide, letting yourself down as he
directs. Candles for light, and a cord to show the way back are neces-
sary. Pressing through the briars and loose pieces of stone at the
mouth, you reach the bottom after a time, and then lighting your can-
dles, creep on all fours along a winding passage, to the bottom of a cir-
cular dome-shaped cavern, about sixty feet high, and solid at the top.
A flight of stone steps winding round the sides leads, about half-way
up, by a twisting tunnel, through which it is again necessary to creep,
to another cavern; but there are smaller chambers on the way, and
passages branch gfS in aU 4irection§ in a perfect mfa§, Tp vi^it 9t\\

XlV.l

fJjAjJtn to ^Ell! JtBttiK AI^D dEBliOI^.

idd

these strange caves would be a difficult, and indeed almost impossible,
task; but one or two are a fair sample of all.

In their present size and condition tiiey are of comparatively late
origin; but the fact that many Jewish tombs have been more or less
destroyed in enlarging them shows that they must, in their earlier state,
be at least as old as the time when the Hebrews ruled over this dis-
trict, in the MaccabsBan age, or earlier. The entrances are sometimes
at the top. sometimes at the bottom; and there is no provision for
lighting. Nor are they in any measure on the same level : bottoms
and tops alike go up and dowr without plan or regularity. That they
were intended for tombs is impossible: but they may have been a vast
svstem of underground reservoirs of water to provide against the con-
tingJQncies of a siege, all the caverns being, as I have said, connected.
That there are no openings at the top of most of them seems, however,
to militate against such a theory in these particular excavations, though
there are others to which it may apply. Were they originally caves
of the Horites, who lived in such excavations in the rocks as these
must originally have been ; or are they a counterpart of the subter-
ranean cities still to be found in some regions east of the Jordan ? *
Cofisul-General Wetzstein and Herr Schumacher are, so tar as I know,
the only persons who have fully explored one of these subterranean
cities and as the narrative of the former is much more vividly written
than that of his fellow-countryman, I quote it :

"I visited old Edrei — the subterranean labyrinthine residence of
King Og — on the east side of the Zamle hills. Two sons of the shiekh
of the village — one fourteen, the other sixteen years of age — accom-
panied me. We took with us a box of matches and two candles.
After we had gone down the slope for some time, we came to a dozen
rooms which, at present, are used as goat-stalls and store-rooms for
straw. The passage became gradually smaller, until at last we were
compelled to lie down flat, and creep along. This extremely difficult
and uncomfortable process lasted for about eight minutes, when we
were obliged to jump down a steep wall, several feet in height. Here
I noticed that the younger of my two attendants had remained
behind, being afraid to follow us; but probably it was more from
fear of the unknown European than of the dark and winding passages
before us.

"We now found ourselves in a broad street, which had dwellings on
both sides of it, whose height and width left nothing to be desired.
The temperature was mild, the air free from unpleasant odors, and I
felt not the smallest difficulty in breathing. Furtner along there were
several cross-streets, and mv guide called my attention to a hole in the
ceiling for air, like three others which I afterwards saw, (now) closed up

1 Wetzstein, Meueberichi iiber Haurdn, ii. 47, 48 ; Schumacher, Aerom Me Jordan, p. 186.

.u^i. yjgjissm': '.rtaaa^J.-*'!.,'. - .

190

THE UOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

from above. Soon after, we came to a market-place; where, for a
long distance, on both sides of a pretty broad street there were
numerous shops in the walls, exactly m the style of the shops that are
seen in Syrian cities. After a while we turned into a side street,
where a great hall, whose roof was supported by four pillrrs attracted
my attention. The roof, or ceiling, was formed of a single slab of jas-
per, perfectly smooth, and of immense size, in which I could not per-
ceive the slightest crack. The rooms, for the most part, had no
supports; the doors were often made of a single square stone;
and here and there I also noticed fallen columns. After we had passed
several cross-alleys or streets, and before we had reached the middle
of this subterranean city my attendant's light went out. As he was
lighting again by mine, it occurred to me that possibly both our lights
might be put out, and I asked the boy if he had any matches. 'No,'
he replied, ' my brother has them.' 'Could you find your way back if
the lights were put out?' 'Impossible,' he replied. For a moment I
began to be alarmed at this underworld, and urged an immediate
return. Without much difficulty we got back to the market-place,
and from there the youngster knew the way well enough. Thus, after
a sojourn of more than an hour and a half in this labyrinth, I greeted
the light of day."

No wonder that it needed swarms of hornets to drive the population
out of such a stronghold as this, and bring them within reach of the
swords of the Hebrews.^

The caverns of Beit Jibrin are certainly very inferior to such a city,
but they may represent a diflferent stage of civilization. A great pro-
portion of the inhabitants of the Haurfin still live in caves, and I have
already described a cave- village near Beersheba.

Half-way between the caverns and the town is an interesting ruin,
the Church of St. Anne, one of the finest Byzantine churches in Pales-
tine. The path to it runs south, across the fine valley from which
rises the low hill on which Beit Jibrin stands. Many olive-trees in
avenues shade the way towards the gentle acclivity, shutting in the
town on the south ; the town, by the way, is quite surrounded with
hills of sufficient elevation to conceal it from view till their crest is
reached. On the road I learned that here also, as in other parts of
Southern Judaea, and in most districts of the Turkish Empire, men
frequently multilate themselves, that they may be unfit for military
service, which they profoundly dread, from its carrying them so far
from home. One man was pointed out to me who had hacked off his
thumb to escape conscription, inflicting on himself voluntarily the
injury to which, in Joshua's time, seventy local chiefs had been sub-
jected iy a ferocious Canaanite kinglet, to make them incapable of

1 Ex. xxiii.28; Deut. vii. 20; Josh. xxiv. 12.

nail
the
at
thei
eart
may
time
1 Ju

XIV.]

FALUJfiH TO BfilT JIBRIN AND UEBRON.

191

holding the sword or the speftr, and thus quite powerless for war.* To
strengthen the empire, it is a custom with the Sultan to send recruits
to distant countries; Arabs, ()erlt(ips, being sent to guard Constanti-
nople, while Turks, or Kurds, garrison Palestine. The soldiers I saw
tbe night before proved to be Kurtls. The blinding of an eye is more
frequent than the cutting off ot a thumb, some burning liquid being
used for the purpose; but the sight of both eyes is often lost in the
process.

The Church of St. Anne stands half-way up the slope, and at once
carries the thoughts back to the old Byzantine times, though it has
been restored by the Frank Crusaders in the Gothic style, perhaps
when far gone in decay. The east end is still perfect, and there are
a few courses above the foundation along the whole nave, which
extended to a length of 124 feet, with a width of thirty-two feet, while
the breadth of the church, as shown by remains of the walls, was 154
feet; so that the building was, originally, not far from square. Two
tiers of windows, five feet broad, ran along the sides, and at the east
end was a semi-circular projection, or apse, in whicli were three win-
dows. The height of the apse had originally been forty-three feet, but
a piece of the roof of the nave is ten feet lower, so that a dome or other
construction must have been used to join the two. It is touching to
see such a ruin in a land now given up to Mahommedanism. The con-
quests of the Cross have shrunk as well as expanded. Countries once
Christian are so no longer. The crescent has taken the place of the
Cross all over the East, and along the southern shores of the Mediter-
ranean. Let the West carry back the standard of our faith to these
once Christian lands I

Between the Church of St. Anne and Beit Jibrin there are many
more caverns, but, unlike the others, all are more or less open at tlie
top. In some cases, a circular hole still exists, about six feet in diam-
eter, such as one might expect i)i cisterns; and of others portions of
the roofs have fallen in. Many Christian symbols cut out of the soft
rock on the sides of these strange vaults show that the region was once
zealous for the Cross, and carry the date of the caverns back to an age
at least earlier than the invasion of the Saracens. But how much ear-
her, who can tell? The sides have been dresued with picks diago-
nally, and great pillars of rock have, in some cases, been left to support
the roof. It is touching to find that in some cases there are recesses
at the east side, as if these subterranean halls, so rude and strange in
their lofty circular hollow, had been used as chapels — "caves of the
earth," where the friends of the Saviour often met together. They
may, however, as Dr. Thomson suggests, have been used in earlier
times as reservoirs for water in ease of a siege, so that the city, which

1 JttdK.i.7.

192

TfiE aOLV LAND AKD THE BIBLE.

tOHAV.

be thinks was identical with Gath, should never be taken because of a
failure of the supply. This theory is strengthened by the fact tliat at
Zikrin, six miles north- west of Beit Jibrin, there are vast excavations
beneatii a platform of hard rock which is pierced by forty openings
into the reservoirs below, whence water is even now drawn daily by
the villagers. The excavations at Zikrin closely resemble those of
Beit Jibrin, both in shape and size, and are all connected by passages,
so that the water stands at the same level in each.^

Carpet-weaving is followed extensively in Beit Jibrin. On the flat
tops of the mud houses, women engaged in this industry were busy at
the most primitive looms, with their fingers for shuttles, producing
work at once firm and thick in its substance. Wilton and Axminster
would be horrified if set to rival them and restricted to the use of such
appliances; but the East does wonders under amazing difficulties.
Outside the town, long strips of ground beside the paths were used by
the yarn-makers and dyers in preparing the threads before handing
them to the dusky weavers. There were a good many flocks and
herds, and the shepherds were all armed, both with guns and axes, to
protect their charge from the wolves, which plunder the folds in the
nills, as the Bedouins do those in the plains. One shepherd-boy was
lamenting, with tears, that a wolf from one of the caves had just car-
ried off a kid.

The sheikh, as I have remarked, has been so thoroughly humbled
by the Turk's since his hateful father's death that he is now quite poor.
His hereditary authority, however, retains for him great formal respecf
from those who approach him, which they do kneeling on one knee,
and kissing his hand. His equals do not seem to pay this form of
homage, but only the humbler people. So, the Son of Sirach tells us
"till he hath received, the borrower will kiss a man's hand."^ Such
formal kissing is common in the East. They kiss the beard, the mouth,
and even the clothes. Niebuhr, on one occasion, was allowed, as a
great honor, to kiss both the back and the palm of an Arab Ymr&m,
and also the hem of his clothing ; and kings, in Bible times, required
conquered chiefs or princes to kiss their feet, or, as the prophet
expresses it, to "lick up the dust from them."* It was, therefore,
unconsciously, a nobly symbolical acknowledgment of lowly reverence
to our Lord, as her King, when the poor sinful but penitent woman
came behind Him and kissed His feet, after having washed off the dust
with her tears.* The sheikh's castle or mansion has apparently
belonged for centuries to the same family, which is one of the highest
in the country, its chief holding the hereditary dignity of sheikh over
sixteen villages of this region, in return for which he is required, if
necessary, to supply the Government with 2,000 soldiers ready for war.
The brother of our host ruled at Tell es Safieh.

1 land and Soot, p. 600. 2EecIa8.zxlx.5. 8l8a.xliz.23;8olnFi.lzzlLtl 4LulnTlLtfb

xiv.l

FALUJEtt Ho ttVr JlBtim X^D J{EBBON.

Oman
dust

ently

ghest
over

ed, if
war.

The view from the hill, south-west of the Cliurch of St. Anne, was
striking. Its top is a flat plain, about HOO feet across ; but as it is
nearly 1,100 feet above- the sea, the great Philistine plain lay spread
out at our feet on the west, a blue strip of tlie Great Sea shutting in
the horizon. To the east rose the mountains of Hebron. South-west
and east the hills were strewn with ruins of many places, of which the
very names have long ago perished. Tombs and cisterns in the white
chalk were numerous. Less than half a mile on the south-west a
ruined heap, on the top of gently-sloping hills, marks the sight of
Mareshah, where King Asa defeat^'! Zera, the Ethiopian King, who
brought against him an army of a hundred thousand men and three
hundred chariots.^

As the asses with our tents had not even now come, we were forced
to start for Hebron without them . The road lay through a beautiful
plain, girt in by gentle hills, here and there stony, elsewhere green
with olives or grain, or showing yellow ploughed land. Carved stones
lay around, among them a Corinthian capital, half buried in the grass.
Pits were open in several places, for digging out dressed stones of
ancient buildings. A marble pillar was built into a water-trough ;
and a mound of earth showed, by a slip of the soil at one part, that it
was all masonry underneath. There must have been a great popula-
tion here in Jewish times, if only from the vast number of Hebrew
tombs in the plain and in the hills. Tiie two soldiers who had caused
such a commotion in the sheikh's dovecot the night before, were
returning to Hebron, and formed our improvised escort. One — the
Kurd — had on a blue military jacket, trimmed with orange and blue
braid; the other wore an old grey coat, pink-and-blue striped cotton
tunic, big boots, and sword. The first had on his head a fez, the sec-
ond a flowing "kefiyeh." As to the men they were sent to bring back,
their answer to the governor was ready: "They won't come, and we
can't fetch them;" but their pockets told the true reason.

The valley was lovely as we rode on. Fences of squared stones
from the ruins divided the fields of different owners. Rows of beauti-
ful olive-trees, patches of green barley, lentils, beans, and wheat, diver-
sified the plain, through which a small dry water-course, with green
slopes, wound its way. The white limestone cropped out at places on
the hill-sides, along which were numerous marks of ancient terrace
cultivation. "Smoke, at more than one point, showed where charcoal-
burners were at work, using the stunted bushes and dwarf-trees of
some of the hills as material. A poor fellah passed, with his wife and
children and all his household goods — some pots and miserable "traps"
—on a camel, which he led. They w^ere removing from one part to
another.
1 2Chron. xiv. 0.

194

. THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(Chav.

The road soon began to cliange as we got higher, for the whole way
to Jlebron is an ascent. The valley became often very stony and bar-
ren, till one wondered, v hen a plough was seen slowly moving through
such fields of ballast, whether the land could be worth the labor of
cultivation. As we aijproached the famous hill of Judsea the slopes
were covered with olives, grey stone gleaming out amidst them.
Soon, however — not more, indeed, than two hours after the time we
started, 8 a. m. — the route became desolate in the extreme. One
ravine succeeded another, and the path was a chaos of stones, over
which it seemed next to impossible for horses to travel. But by dint
of winding about, stepping nigh, and almost climbing, they did con-
trive to make way, which they certainly could not have done had they
not been born in the land. Only here and there was the semblance of
a track to be discerned. The hills on each side of the valley we were
ascending were grey as a chalk clift', but set off* with thickets of myr-
tle, low thorny bushes, and various shrubs. Stone dams ran across
the wady and formed terraces, by which the soil brought down by the
rains was Tovented from being swept away, and spread out into snuill
fields or patches. Dam after dam thus paved successive terraces with
fertile earth, which was green with crops. The wady had now shrunk
to very narrow limits, being only a stone's-throw across; the hills,
grey and barren except for the myrtles and bushes, slanted up steeply,
on either side, to their rounded tops. About noon we came, at lost,
to water, at a spot which seemed the picture of desolation, but for the
artificial shelves of verdure secured by dams, which now reappeared,
after a long interval of hideous desolation. We were vMI ttie old
Koman road ; but it had not been repaired for 1,500 years. I should
think, indeed, that it must have been only a few feet broad at first, and
certainly one would not now dream that it had ever been a road, were
it not for odd traces at wide intervals.

The soldiers had kept ahead of us up this wild defile, which, by the
way, has in all ages been the only high road, awful as it is, between
Hebron, Beit Jibrin, and Gaza. Having at last reached a spot where
water burst out of the rooUs on the left, they stopped, and we gladly
did the same. A peasant had raised a miserable house for himself at
the side of the wady, above the reach of the torrent that sweeps down-
ward after rain, and had fenced in a few yards with a stone wall, and
planted some fig-trees, which were in full leaf. The path was on the
other side of the drv water-courae, but it needed good management to
get across the few yards of rocky shelves and boulders to the spring.
Once safely over, the horses were allowed to graze as they could on
patches of grass in the wady where the water of the spring reached,
and in the shadow of the rocks^ we sought what shelter was to be had

1 Isa. xxxii. 2.

XIV.J

FALUJEH TO BEIT JIBRIN AKD BBBltOK.

196

the

from the burning sun. One of the soldiers, meanwhile, betook himself
to the very opposite occupation of washing his face and his " abba,"
of course without soap. We sought what refreshment was procurable
from a cup of cold tea, a hard egg, some dry bread, and a little water-
cress, gathered below the spring, which leaped out of the bare hill-side
like a full stream from a large hose. The road from Jerusalem strikes
into this wady at its worst part, and if this be the route taken by St.
Philip the Evangelist when he fell in with the eunuch, 1 don't wonder
at the statement that it was "desert."^

When fairly rested, we set out once more, the road continuing much
the same, but the weariness of it relieved by wild songs from the sol-
diers — the subjects known only to themselves. I was greatly refreshed
by a cup of cold water brought me by one of them before starting; its
coolness at such a time forcibly reminding me of the value set by the
Saviour on such a gift bestowed on His little ones in these very hills
of Palestine, so hot and dry in their chalky greyness.^ Af some
places there was a little fertility, and we even found some peasants
ploughing on an artificial terrace in the wady, while other spots were
ploughed at its sides where, for a time, it grew wider. The ploughers
nad left their overcoats at home, as was noticed of those in His day by
our Lord,^ and they followed their ploughs with eager joy, preparing
for summer crops. Two oxen dragged one plough ; another was pulled
along by an ox and an ass, in vivid contravention of the old Hebrew
law.* Sometimes even an ass and a camel are yoked together to this
task — a union sufficiently comical. Black goats, on the steep sides of
the ravine, were feeding on the gnarled dwarf-oak scrub, a few feet
high, the dwarf-pistachio and arbutus, with tufts of aromatic herbs,
some especially fragrant beds of thyme, myrtle-bushes, and the like,
which were springing out of the countless fissures of the rocks. Such
a region was, in fact, a paradise for goats, which delight in leaves and
twigs, and care little for grass. Their miik in every form — sour, sweet,
thick, thin, warm, or cold — forms, with eggs and bread, the main food
of the people, a state of things illustrating very strikingly the words
of Proverbs: "Thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for
the food of thy household, and for maintenance for their maidens."^
Shepherds, with long flint-guns, were watching the flocks.

There could be no hunting-ground for robbers more suitable than
these lonely hills, and it was well for us that we had the soldiers in our
company. As we advanced, the path led over a broad desolate plateau,
the waterehed of the district ; streams moving on one side towards the
east, and on the other towards the west. Gradually descending, we
reached, at last, the wide skirt of vineyards which borders Hebron for
miles. The ground was very stony, but had been cleared partly to get

1 Acts vUL !». 2 Matt. X. 42 ; Mark ix. 41. 3 Matt. xxiv. 18. 4 Deut. xxil. 10. 5 Frov. xxvll. 21.

106

tRS HOLY LASD Al^D THE BtBLfi.

tOiif.

materials for walls five or six feet thick, which were in every direction;
and partly to form paths, a few feet broad, between tlie*«e ramparts.
The name for such walls, in Palestine, is "yedurs;" the Hebrew coun-
terpart of which, "gadair," often occiirs in the Old Testament. Thus
Balaam is said to have been riding in justsuch a narrow " path between
vinevards, with a 'gaduir' on this side, and u 'gadair' on that side,"^
so tnat it was no wonder the ass crushed his foot against one of them.
Ezra uses the "gadair" as a symbol of the peaceful enjoyment of the
land, when he thanks Ood for having given his people "a 'gadair' in
Judah and Jerusalem."'' These rougii constructions of dry, unmortared
stones of all sizes are the fences of gardens, orchards, vineyards, sheep-
folds, and all other enclosures, and are therefore employed as a symbol
of rural life. Such masses of loose stones, however, are not so stable
as they look. Rising gradually, after each clearing of the surface
insidcj to a height of from four to six feet, they readily give way, more
or less, if one attempt to climb them, while the swelling of the ground
by rain often throws them off the perpendicular, or they bulge out in
the middle from the pressure of the mass of stones against an ill-built
portion of the outer coating. At Hebron, I came frequently upon a
"gadair" which, from some of these causes, had ruslicdin promiscuous
ruin into the path, and left hardly any space to get past its confused
heaps. The Psalmist, therefore, used a telling ilkjstration of the ruin
awaiting his enemies when he said, "as a bowing wall shall ye be, and
as a tottering 'gadair.'"* Of the vineyard of Israel, the Northern
Kingdom, the inspired writer of the 80th Psalm cries, "Why hast thou
then [O God] broken down her 'gadairs,' so that all they which pass
by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the 'yaar' doth waste it,
and the wild beast of the open country doth devour it."* Ezekiel
compares the lying prophets of his day to the foxes or jackals which
hid in the gaps of the "gadair" of Israel, helping to throw them down,
when it should have been the duty of true men to repair them, that
Israel might stand safely behind them in the day of battle.^ With a
like familiar knowledge of these structures, Ecclesiastes tells us that
"whoso breaketh a 'gadair,' a serpent shall bite him;"* many kinds of
serpents delighting in the crevices of such open walls as their lurking
place. The sheepfold of loose stones, so common in many parts of the
country, is called a "gadairah," a feminine form of "gadair," so that
we can understand what the tribes beyond the Jordan meant when they
said, "We will build 'gideroth ' for the flocks."' They had stone in
their territory, while the shepherds of the stoneless plains do not use
this word, but substitute for it another.

1 Num. xxU. 24. 2 Ezra ix. 9. 3 Ps. Ixii. 3. 4 Ps. Ixxx. 13; seealsolsa. v. 5. 6 Ezek. xiii. 4, 6;
see also xxli. 30. 6 Eccles. x. 8. See ante, p. 246. 7 Num. zxxil. 16.

Pools of Hebron. (See page tWb.)

Ixili. 4, 5;

XV.]

HEBRON.

197

CHAPTER XV.

HEBRON.

The vineyards of Pfilestine disappoint those who have poetical ideas
of spreading branches and hanging clusters. The vines are planted in
wide rows, and are simply so many single sterns, bent at a sharp angle
with the ground, and cut off when four or five ff at long, the end being
supported by a short forked stick, so that the slioots may hang clear
of the soil. A vineyard is as prosaic a matter at Hebron as on the
Rhine; the vines looking like so many dirty sticks, with a few leaves
on the shoots from the top or sides. There are towers for the " keepers
of the vineyards;"^ stone buildings, of no grent size, by which a look-
out can be kept on all sides; there is also a shelter for the husbandmen,
the vineyards in many parts being far from any village. In Canticles,
Sulamitii has the task of care-taker assigned to her,^ so that women,
at times, did this duty among the ancient Hebrews; but it is a hard
and menial task, exposing one to the fierce sun, which, in Sulamilli's
case, burned her " black."^ In most cases, the protection for the
watcher is only a rude wooden hut, covered with boughs, so that Job
could say of the frailness and instability of the hopes of the wicked,
" He buildeth his house ?s a moth, and as a booth that the keeper
maketh,"* and Isaiah could compare Jerusalem, made desolate by war,
to a " booth in a vineyard."^ The watchmen employed are generally
armed with a club, and are very faithful, often risking their lives in
the protection of the property they are set to guard. But it is not
always easy to get men to undertake the task, since it not only involves
danger, but requires wakefulness through the whole night, making
even the most loyal weary for the light. It is to tliis that the Psalmist
refers when he says that '' his soul looketh out for the Lord, more than
watchmen [or keepers] for the morning."^ To guard against drowsi-
ness and to frighten away thieves, they call out from time to time
through the darkness: a practice to which the prophet refers when he
describes the Chaldaeans as encamped round Jerusalem, and calling out
like keepers of a field.' Cain insolently asks, "Am I my brother's
keeper? "* So it is said that "the Lord keepeth all the bones of the
righteous, not one of them is broken ; He keepeth the souls of His
saints; He keepeth the simple;" and, unlike keepers among men,
" He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."^

The wine of Hebron is still famous, and is very cheap, a bottle cost-
ing about sixpence. On the hill-side, among the vineyards, an ancient

1 Cant. i. 6. 2 The word for "keeper" In this case is femlulue. 8 Cant. 1. 6. See ante, p. 238
4 Job xxvli. 18. 5 Isa. 1. 8 (Heb.). 6 Ps. cxxx. 6. 7 Jer. Iv. 16. 8 Gen. iv. 9. 9 Ps. xxxiv. 20:
XCVii. 10; cxvi. 6; cxxi. 4. '

198

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Grav.

wine-press fortunately stood near the road, so that I was able to inspect
it at leisure. It consisted of two troughs, hewn out of the rook, one
higher than the other, and both well cemented on the sides and at the
bottom. The grapes are cast into the upper one, and trodden with the
feet, so that the juice flows out into the lower; the old practice, so
often introduced in Scripture, being followed at this day. The length
of the trough was only about four feet, and it was not quite two feet
broad, and very shallow. The treading of the grapes is left to the
poor, as in Job's day, when the lawless rich "took away the sheep from
the hungry, who make oil within their walls, and tread their wine-
presses, and suffer thirst."^ The vintage, however, was always, as it
still is, a time of general gladness, merry songs accompanying it at
times, while, as in all joint work among Orientals, the laborers encour-
age each other by shouts. Hence, even now, a period of national
trouble, such as war, could not be more vividly painted than in the
words of Isaiah, that "in the vineyards there shall be no singing,
neither joyful noise; no treader shall tread out wine in the presses; the
vintage shout shall cease." ^ "The shouting," says Jeremiah, in a
similar passage, "shall be no shouting;"* no shout of joy, but the
shout of battle. The jubilant exultation when the ruddy grape was
yielding its wine was, in those days, apparently, even more ardent and
claiiiorous than now, for the same prophet compares it to the cry of an
attacking host, telling us that Jehovah will give a shout, as they that
tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.* The
presses are generally large enough for several treaders to crush the
grapes in them at once, and to this circumstance, as will be remem-
bered, there is an ino -ect allusion in the awful picture of Him who is
mighty to .save returning from the destruction of His enemies. The
treading of them down is like the treading out of the blood of the
wine-fat, but He had trodden it alone; He trod them (by Himself) in
His "fiiry," and as the person and clothing of the treaders are stained
with the red juice, so, He says, "their life-blood is sprinkled upon My
garments, and I have stained all My raiment:"^ words spoken in
answer to the question of the prophet, " Wherefore art Thou red in
Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-
fat?"«

The vine has been cultivated in Palestine from the earliest times,
and during the Hebrew period flourished everywhere over the land.
Palestine is, indeed; peculiarly fitted for the grape, its sunny limestone
slopes, through which tlie rains quickly percolate, leaving a dry sub-
soil. The heat by day and tlie heavy mists by night make it the very
home in which the plant delights. Henoe, long before the time of
Moses, it was not only a land "flowing with milk and honey," but also
IJobuiv.n. 2isa.xvi.ia 8 ^er. xlTlU. 88b 4j0r.nr.ao. ft Ha. IzUi. 2; 8 (R. V.) % Ibid.

XV.]

HEBRON.

199

the

ine-

one
,ub-
ery
of
ilso

IMd.

famous for its wine, as we read in the annals of Thoihmes III., of
Egypt, who reigned 1,600 years before Christ.^ "With the green and
silver olive, and the dark-green fig-tree, the vine was the characteristic
glory of the hill-country? Every hill-side was covered with vine-
yardfs, terrace above terrace, while wine-presses and vats were in great
numbers hewn in the rocks. Especially famous were the vineyards of
Engedi, "the Fountain of the Kid," by the Dead Sea,^ where, on the
hill-sides north of the spring, the terraces on which they were situated
are still as perfect as in Bible times; large rock-hewn, carefully-
cemented cisterns, also, still remaining on each terrace, with a network
of cemented pipes running from them in all directions, to bear water
to the root of each vine. But the grape has long since vanished from
that locality. Hebron, still famous above all other parts of the land
for its vines, had a great name for them in the earliest times. The
men of the valley of Shechem used to go out, in the time of the
Judges, and gather their vineyards, and tread the grapes, and hold
merry meetings over the vine harvest.* The vineyards of Shiloh
were equally flourishing.^ Uzziah drew part of his revenue from his
vines at Carmel;® and the vineyard of Naboth, at Jezreel, is only too
sadly commemorated.*^ Outside Palestine, Lebanon yielded wine
which was greatly praised,* and the vines of north Moab, especially
those of the now unknown Sibmah, were in very high repute,® as were
also those of Helbon, near Damascus,i®which are still highly esteemed.
On the Lake of Galilee, Josephus tells us, the plain of Gennesareth,
warm as Egypt, yielded grr.pes for ten months in the year," which one
can hardly realize when he looks at it now, bearing nothing more valu-
able than thistles. So general, indeed, was the diffusion of the vine
that, as we have seen, even the now desolate valleys south of Beer-
sheba show long swathes of stone heaps, over which vines grew in
ancient times. Eshcol, from which the spies brought the wonderful
cluster, must, in fact, have been in that region: not, as often supposed,
near Hebron; for Israel, as has been noticed, was then, encamped at
Kadesh, and the prize must have be/^n found comparatively near that
place, since the spies could not have uared to carry it for any distance
through a hostile and alarmed population^^Kadesh, however, lay just
to the east of the grape-mound region, and could easily be reached
with the precious burden without notice being attracted, the desert
lying near the valley that yielded it. Yet Eshcol does not appear to
have grown finer grapes than southern Judaea, to the north of it, if we
may judge from the dying blessing of Jacob, which paints Judah as

1 Records qf the Paa, 11. 44. 2 Gen. xllx. 11 : Deut. vi. 11 ; vlll. 8; Num. xvl. 14; Josh. xxlv. 13;
1 Sam. viil. 14: Jer. xxxlx. 10; 2Klngsxxv. 12; Neh. V.3. 3 Cant. 1.14. 4 Jude. ix. 27. 6 .Tudg.
xxi. 20. 6 2 Chron. xxvl. 10. 7 1 Kings xxl. 1. 8 Cant. Till. 11; Hos. ziv. 7. 9 Isa. xvl. 8—10;
Jer.xlTm.32,83. 10Ezek.zxTU.18. n J09. JBcO. /ttd., lU. 10, 8. 12 See ante, p. 260.

200

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Or f.

"washing its garments in wine, and its clothes in the blood of the
grane"!

A vineyard needs to be carefully fenced, tj keep sheep, goats, or
cattle from eating it down ; and hence the " gadair," or loose stone
wall, round it, is constantly mentioned, as are the clearing oft' of the
loose surface stones, and the building of a tower in it, and the hewing
out of a wine-press,2 which are still necessary, as of old. Pj-ivate
malignity, in ancient as in modern times, might be tempted to let
flocks or herds into an enemy's vineyard ; but against this the law
made provision, by enacting that if a man shall cause a vineyard to
be eaten, "of the best of his own vineyard shall he make resitu-
tion." * After the vintage, however, the owner, even noM', turns in
his own beasts to browse ; and when the vines are pruned, in the
spring, the trimmings are carefully gathered as forage. The jackal,
v^hich differs from the fox in liking fruit as well as flesh, is a foe to
the vine-grower in every part of the country, and in Lebanon the wild
boar sometimes breaks through and does much damage — "the boar
out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast doth devour it."*
The foxes — that is, the jackals — still need to be " taken," as much .as
when the Beloved, in Canticles, longed for their capture.^

Though vineyards, as has been said, are prosaic-looking enough, I
found at Damascus and elsewhere, trained over lattice-work in the
court yards of houses, or against the walls, some vines which were
more in keeping with our preconceived ideas, since they covered a
broad space or adorned the whole breadth of a dwelling, as it is clear
they must have done also, in some cases, in Bible times, from the com-
parison of the mother of a large and beautiful family to a " fruitful
vine by the sides of a house."* In vine-yards, however, the vines
are rigorously pruned back each year, only three or four shoots being
left at the top of the short black stem, as in the time of our Lord:
" Every branch that beareth fruit, the husbandman purgeth " — that is
prunes — " that it may bring forth more fruit." '^

Grapes are sold in Jerusalem as early as the end of July, but the
regular grape-harvest does not begin, even in warm situations, till the
opening of September, and in colder positions it continues till the end
of October, while the sowing-time for corn is in November. Thus,
when there is a rich grape harvest, and an early fall of the first rains,
the image of plenty pictured by Amos is realized : " Behold the days
come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and
the treader of grapes him that soweth seed."* It is not uncommon
to find a vine trained over a fig-tree in a garden, for the shade it
affords, as in old times, when it was a favorite image of peacefiil

1 Gen. xlix. 11. 2 Isa. v. ^: Ps. Ixxx. 12; Matt. xxi. 33: Mark xii. 1. 8 Ex. xxil. 5. 4 Fs. Izxz.
13. 5Cant. ii. 16. 6 Ps. cxxviii. 3. 7 John xv. 2; Isa. v. 9. 8 Amos Ix. 13.

XV.J

HEBRON.

201

[the

the

lend

lUS,

^ins,
lays
land
ion
Jle it
lefiil
ixtx.

security that a man should be able to sit " under his vine and under
his fig-tree," and no one should make him afraid.^ This may mean
either a trellised vine, shading the court of the house, or a fig-tree
growing near, or the two growing together.

Red grapes were grown much more than green, and thus the wine
in common use readily supplied our Lord, on the occasion of the Last
Supper, with an emblem of His blood shed for the salvation of man-
kind ; 2 hence, too, we so often read of the " blood " of the grape.^
At present, however, at Hebron and Bethlehem, green grapes are
grown almost exclusively, and it may also have been so in olden times.
Indeed, it is quite possible that the famous cluster from Eshcol was
green, as this variety is still famous for its huge berries and clusters,
many of the latter being three pounds in weight, while they occasion-
ally reach from nine to twelve.

Wine-presses cut in the rocks are found in nearly every part of the
country, and are the only sure relics we have of the old days of Israel
before the Captivity. Between Hebron and Beersheba they are found
on all the hill-slopes ; they abound in Southern Judaea ; they are no
less common in the many valleys of Carmel, and they are numerous
in Galilee. With such an abundance, it was natural that there should
be liberality ; and hence the law permitted the traveller to eat at his
will as he passed, though he was not to carry oft' any grapes in a
vessel.* In the same spirit the right of gleaning was legally reserved
to the poor.^

The use of wine having been prohibited by Mahomet, the vine is
not now much cultivated in Palestine; the products of the grape are,
however, to be found in every market. Raisins are still dried, as they
were in Southern Judaea when Abigail, among other gifts, carried a
hundred bunches of them to make peace with David.® They must
also have been seen on the fruit-stalls in all the Israehtish cities and
towns, as they are frequently mentioned in Scripture' — sometimes,
indeed, when readers of the English would not suspect it, for the word
translated "flagons of wine" in several passages should really be
rendered "cakes of raisins."^ The ancient Hebrews likewise used
the syrup of grapes, or "dibs," which, with rasins, is the only product
a Mahommedan takes from his vineyard. It is made by boiling
down the juice of ripe grapes to a third of its bulk, thus making it
like treacle, though of a lighter color. It was, perhaps, used in Bible
times, as it is now, either in making sweetmeats, or mixed with water,
to be eaten with bread. It is called " honey" in Scripture,® so that in
many passages it is impossible to tell whether the honey of bees, or

1 Mic. iv. 4; Zech. iii. 10; 1 Kings iv. 25; 1 Mace. xiv. 12. 2 Matt. xxvi. 28. 8 Isa. Ixiii. 3, «:
Ecclus. xxxix. 26. 4 Deut. xxiii. 24. 5. Lev. xix. 10; Deut. xxiv. 21. 6 1 Sam. xxv. 18. 7 1 Sam.
XXX. 12; 1 Chron. xil. 40; 2 Sam. xvi. 1. 8 2 Sam. vi. 19; 1 ChroQ. xvi. 3; Cant. U.6: Hos. Ui. 1.
9 "Debash."

202

THE HOLT LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

this syrup, is intended. It would seem, however, that that which
Jacob sent with spices, &c., to the great man in Egypt was " dibs," and
not bees' lioney, and that it was " dibs " which Ezekiel speaks of as
being sent largely to Tyre.^

It was the custom in ancient times, as it still is in the East, to mix
spices and other ingredients with wine, to give it a special flavor, or
make it stronger, or the reverse. This is the " strong drink" of which
Isaiah speaks,'^ and the "spiced wine" of the Canticles,* and it is like-
wise the wine which "Wisdom " mingled," and to which she invites
the wise ; but it is also that " mixed wine " to look on which, the
Book of Proverbs tells us, is to bring on one-self woe ; * and it is to this
that the awful verse refers, " In the hand of the Lord there is a cup,
and the wine is red ; it ia full of mixturer^ Another kind of wine,
generally translated " vinegar " in our version, also in the Revised
Version, is the common sour wine used by the poor. It was this into
which I^uth was to dip her bread as she sat beside the reapers.* In
all probability, moreover, it was this which was offered to our Saviour
on the cross,' since it was part of the daily allowance of a Eoman
soldier, and was given, not in derision, but in pity, to quench His thirst
or dull His agony, the soldiers having more sympathy with him than
the priests or the Jewish people. When Isaiah speaks of " wine on
the lees, well refined " as part of the great feast in the day of the
triumph of God's people, he alludes to the custom pf leaving new wine
for a time on its lees, after fermentation, to improve its strength and
color. It being thus left, all impurities settled, and it is drawn off
clear and bright.® Palestine in our day is a very sober country, a
drunken person being very seldom seen; but I fear as much could not
be said for olden times, since drunkenness is mentioned, either metp
phorically or literally, more than seventy times in the Bible.

The road from Beit Jibrin to Hebron has few places of historical
importance in its long, dreary ascent; but it is otherwise with that
from Adullam, which lies about fifteen miles north of Hebron, in a
straight line — nearly the same distance as the road we came. I have
already spoken of the number of ruin-covered sites on the other side
of Adullam; they are equally numerous as you ride southward.
Indeed, Captain Conder reckons that there are three in every two
square miles; so dense was the population in early times. Hebron
Hes over 2,000 feet higher than Beit Jibrin; but though Adullam is
on a higher level than Beit Jibrin, the road from it to Hebron is a con-
tinual ascent also. The Hill of Adullam is in a region of caves, which,
in some of the valleys, are still inhabited by veritable cave-dwellers,
like those in the south. To the north-west, beyond the hills, lie the

1 Oen. zliU. 11 ; Ezek. xxTli. 17. 2 Isa. ▼. 22. 3 Cant. vilL 2. 4 FtOT. tab St nltt. MK 6 F8. Ixzy.
8. 6ButhU.14. 7Matt.xxTiL48. 8lM.zxT.«.

XV.J

HfiBRO^.

20d

IT.

charming olive-groves through wliioh we passed before. On the other
side of these the road winds, roughly eiiougii, up a confusion of small
glens — hollows green witli corn in spring — though the peasants who
have planted it are nowhere to be seen, as tliey live in distant villages.
On every side are stony hills, bright with cyclamen and anemone, but
without a human habitation. Krom Adullam the road leads up the
Wady es Sur, which is the upper part of the valley of Elah, conse-
crated to the memorv of Samson and David. Traces of a road older
than the Roman period show themselves in the broad valley, as we
ascend it, past Keilah and liareth, where it shrinks into a mere gully,
amidst steep, bare hills, through and up which the patli is lit for goats
rather than for horses. A bare plateau is at last reached, like that
met with in coming from Beit Jibrin, and the track soon begins to
descend, about 300 feet, to reach Hebron. The hills, in fact, are about
that height above the ancient town, by both approaches. Bare rocks,
tracts of brushwood, and stretches of meagre pasture gradually give
place to vineyards and orchards, and we ride on longing to sea Abra-
ham's city, but doomed to be disappointed till the last moment, for
only then does it come in sight.

A mile from Hebron, on a slope to the right of the narrow, stony
path, between vineyards and their great loose " gadaii-s," stands the
Russian hospice, built to provide accommodation for the pilgrims of
the Greek Church, who flock to Hebron in great numbers each year
to visit Jutta, the reputed birth-place of St. John the Baptist, which
is a few miles off. It is a large, flat-roofed, stone building, and must
be a great blessing to the poor wanderers from the wide regions of the
Russian Empire. Just before it stands a magnificent old evergreen
holm oak, which is venerated as the very tree under which Abraham's
tent was pitched at Mamre. But it is easier to make this assertion
than to prove it; for it is quite certain that this particular tree, though
it has been worahipped for at least 300 years as "Abraham's Oak," is
only of yesterday compared with the long ages since the patriarch's
day. Moreover, it is not destined to contiime very much longer an
object of veneration, as it is growing old, and has lost more than half
its branches during the last twenty-fivo years. Still, it looks vigorous
in parts, though some of its boughs are apparently dead; and perhaps
it may yet weather some generations. At the ground its trunk
measures thirty-two feet in circinnferojce, and at the height of about
twenty feet it divides into a nutnber of Imge limbs — some vigorous,
some dry and leafless — spreading out to a distance of about ninety-five
steps round. Josephus tells us that the Tree of Abraham stood three-
quarters of a mile from Hebron, and was a very great and very ancient
terebinth; but in the fourth century a similar tree was shown two
miles north of Hebron as that of the patriarch. It is hard, therefore,

204

THE ttOLY LAKD AlfD THE BIBLE.

[Cbat.

to decide which is the true spot, though the Buasian hospice, I fear,
enjoys only an apocrypluvl glory from iitj great oak. The vines on the
slope were partly lying along the ground, and partly propped on low
forked sticks; the soil of one vineyard was well cleared of stones and
weeds, while that of another was rough and foul. The stems of the
vines were on an average six to eight inches round, with shoots thick
enough, at times, for such sceptres as Ezekiel tells us could be made
from the "strong rods" of the vme of Israel.^ From my own experi-
ence I could once and again repeat, as my horse stumbled on over the
stone-heaped path, the words of Proverbs^ : " I went by the vineyard
of the man void of understanding, and lo, it was all grown over with
thorns, and nettles had covered tiie face thereof, and the stone wall
thereof was broken down," This vineyard, indeed, lay well-nigh
across the whole path, in a steep slope. A spring ran at the side of
the road, from below a small cano{)y, as we aj)proached Hebron, mak-
ing the borders of it^ channel bright with grass and flowers.

At last we rode down a sloj)e between stone walls, interrupted by a
few two-story stone houses at the sides of a broader road, figs and
olives filling most of the space on either hand, and, turning sharply to
the right, were before one of the gates of Kiriuth Arba, as the ancient
Hebron was once called. This old name probably meant " the City of
Arbn," some old Canaanite hero; but it was explained by the Jews as
meaning "the City of Four" — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam, who
were all alleged to have been buried here — Arba standing for " four"
in Hebrew. The Arabs of to-day call the city El-Khalil — " the
ii^riend " — in memory of the universally-honored patriarch Abraham,
"the friend of God."^ The gate was a solid building, blocking up the
street, with an arch for entrance. Loungers sat at the low walls lead-
ing to it; women and men were busy drawing water from a stone-
covered well with stei)s, just before it, the stone mouth deeply furrowed
by the ropes of centuries; and on the other side of the left wall lay
one of the pools of Hebron, over which, perhaps, nearly 8,000 years
ago, men saw hung up the hands and feet of the murderers of
Ishbosheth, Saul's son, who were slain by order of David.* A sta*ip
of olive-trees lay behind, on each side, a very suitable spot for pitch-
ing our tents upon, but unfortunately they had not come. Happily
for us, however, the German medical missionary, who lived close to
the gate, kindly invited us to stay with him, so that we had the luxury
of a house instead of the wretchedness of canvas. Having rested and
taken some refreshment, it was necessary to make inquiries about our
missing asses, and for this purpose we had to go to the governor's
quarters.

The streets were filthy beyond description, and some of them were

1 Ezek. xix. 11. 2 Prov. xxiv. 30, 31. 3 James ii. 28. 4 2 Sam. iv. 12.

xv.i

HEBRON.

205

jre

sunk in the middle, for cattle and beasts of burden, as some of those in
Jerusalem still are, and as all, probably, once were. At last we reached
the house of the commanding officer for Southern Palestine, who is
governor of tiio town. The room into which we were conducted was
furnished with a cushioned divan, or sofa, on one side, and a lower seat
on another. The German medical man who had come with ua sat
down on this, cross-legged ; the great man motioned my friend and me
to the higher seat of honor. First, however, came the salutation of my
friend, who, being known to the governor, was kissed by him on both
cheeks, his beard stroked, and his knee patted after he had sat down.
So Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand, to ki.ss him,^
though with treacherous designs not entertained by the governor. The
chamber was carpeted, and there was some pretence to neatness in the
decoration of the walls; but the approach to the house, and even the
entrance, were like a wynd in Sunderland or Edinburgh ; indeed, not
half so respectable as such places are now, for no slum in the East- End
of London can be imagined so offensive. Coffee and cigarettes were
of course handed round, and the subject of our visit broached. Notli-
ing could be more courteous than the governor's bearing. " He would
instantly send soldiers off after the asses." The man who brought the
coffee took the order; a sergeant presently appeared, and the patrol
was off on horseback within a few minutes.

Many of tlie streets through which we passed are arched like tunnels,
with dwellings over them, out of sight, the approaches being through
the dt..iS which serve as shop ;. A wall three feet high and two broad,
running in front of these, forms a counter on which the tradesman ex-
poses his goods for sale, he himself often taking his seat, cross-legged,
among them. The shops were only small recesses, without any light
except from the front, and very little coming even from that direction,
for the street in many parts was nothing more than a long stone arch-
way : a delightful place for an unscrupulous shop-keeper, for no one
can see defects. The Jewish quarter has gates, which are shut at night,
and so with the .other parts of the town. In the Jewish district the
filth was simply distressing.

Our greeting in the governor's house was only a sample of what
was to be seen when any neighbors happened to meet, for the greatest
care is taken to observe every detail of conventional good manners.
When two men meet they lay the right hand on the heart, then raise
it to the brow, or the mouth, and only after this take hold of each
other's right hand. Then follows a string of sounding words, expressive
v'l intense mutual interest in each other's fathers, grandfathers, and
ancestry generally, with numberless other inquiries before they bid
good day and pass on. The insincerity of such protracted greetings,

1 2 Sam. xz. 9.

tttE rtOLV tAlfn AlfD TliE BIBLE.

t^A».

the waste of time, and above all the distraction from the mission of the
disciples which would inevitably arise, sufficiently explain our Lord's
command to His messengers to "salute no man by tlie way."^ An
Oriental cannot forbear from a long gossip as often as he stops, and is '
delighted with nothing so much as mixing himself up with tne Hettle-
ment of any business transaction which he may casually encounter on
his journey. The directions not to carry either purse, scrip, shoes, or
staft',^ were as strange to Eastern habits as the forbidding of saluta-
tions. When journeying any distance from home, the Oriental puts
some of the thin leathery bread of the country, sonje dried figs, a few
olives, and perhaps a little cheese, into his "scrip" or "wallet" — a
leather bag made of the whole skin of a kid — which hangs from his
shoulders, and with this simple fare, and some water from a fountain,
he satisfies his hunger and thirst. In Christ's day, however, an addi-
tional motive led the Jews to carry wiih them this "scrip" filled v;ith
eatables legally " clean." On everv side they were among heathen —
or among Samaritans, whi".h they thought almost worse — and to taste
food prepared by persons so utterly "unclean" was defilement. Hence
each individual of the thousands whom our Lord twice miraculously
fed had a "basket," which was just this scrip, that he might always
avoid what had been prepared by anyone who was not a Jew. This
"basket," indeed, was so invariable a part of a Jew's outfit, wherever
he was found, that Ju^ »nal, the Roman satirist, notices it as familiar
in Italy .^ That the disciples were not to take this inseparable accom-

Eaniment of their countrymen with them was a deadly blow at the
evitical purism of the day, only to be compared, in our own times,
with an injunction by a Brahmin to his disciples no longer to pay
attention to caste, though hitherto it has been their supreme concern.
To take no money with them threw these first missionaries directly on
the good feeling of those to whom they were sent: a more likely
means, surely, of awaking personal interest, and opening a way for the
Gospel, than if they had borne themselves independently, as those who
made at least their living by their office, and could pay for their sus-
tenance. They were to go forth with empty girdles — that is, penniless,
the girdle being still the purse of the Oriental; it <vas to be their trust
that love would beget love, as it always does, and they were to show
that they sought the sheep rather than the fleece. Nor were they to
encumber themselves in any way. They were to show by their poverty
that they believed what they preached when they said that their king-
dom was not of this world, and tliat they were fired by an enthusiasm
which threw aside every encumbrance, and trusted to their heavenly
Father for daily bread and friendly aid.

1 Luke X. 4. 2 Matt. x. 9, 10 ; Mark vi. 8 ; Luke ix. 3 ; x. 4 ; xxii. 35. 3 Juv. Sal., 111. 14 ; vl. 611 ;
lee also Wahl, Oavis, 278 b.

. ■-;i^', '■ 'ifv.,-^;

^:^^:

rty
ng-

jnly

■^vi*!

V ■-'■»s,--*ri-*»-. ■• ■■ -,■

.^5.

""*<-..-''

^?*iv ■ -'^.'f-.

And it came to pusa after tliis,
that David (MjqiiinHl of the Lord.
Bayinji;, Shall I go up into any of
the citii>s of Judah? And the
Lord said unto him, Go up. And
David said, Whither shall I go
up? And he said, Unto Hebron.
So David went up tliither, and his two wives. . .

And his men that were with him did Duvid
bring up, every man with his household ; and
they dwelt in the citiea of Hebron. And the men
of Judah came, and there they anointed David
liing over the house of Judah.

And the time that David was king in Hebron
over the house of Judah was seven years and six
months. — 2 Sam. ii. 1-4, 11.

.-li'-^o^'^.

EUIN8 OF A WELI, SOUTH OF HEBRON. (See page 216.)

.641;

XTJ

HIBROV.

207

Some of the itreets of Hebron were shielded fVom the sun by straw
or palm mats. The fVuit market was especially good. There were
piles of oranges IVom Joppa, of dutes from Egypt, of raisins and figs
grown in Hebron itself, as well as in other places. Besides these, glass*
ware formed one of the chief articles for sale; Hebron having once
enjoyed almost a monopoly of vitreous productions in the markets of
E^ypt and Syria, and still filling those of Jerusalem and other towni
with them. Many camel-loads of glass bracelets and rings are sent to
Jerusalem at Eanter, and the v seem to be the sole articles sold by some
lar^c establishments near tne Holy Sepulchre. The glass-works in
which these trinke^ii, so peculiar to Hebron, are made seem strange to
Western eyes, for they consist of only a low, miserable, earth-floored
room, wretched in every sense, with three or four small furnaces in it,
filled with melted glass ; primitive bellows being used to raise sufAcient
heat, with charcoal for fuel. An iron rod thrust into the glowing mass
brings out a little of it, which is quickly twisted and bent into a circle,
and simply ornamented by the clever use of a long metal blade, like a
butcher's knife. Thrust a second time into the furnace, it is then, by
means of a second rod, lengthened and finished; the whole time
required for the manufacture of a bracelet being only a minute or two.
The colors on those seen in Jerusalen and elsewhere are mingled in the
furnace, or added by such manipulations as are practiced by the glass-
blowers of Venice. Among the other staple industries of Hebron is
the manufacture of leather bottles from goats' skins, of earthen pottery,
and of light woollen fabrics ; while a steady succession of caravans
brings to the city, by way of the desert, the produce and manufactures
of Egypt. The weavers' quarter is near one of the bazaars, and is very
poor, the workshops being only so many halves of cellars, in which the
workmen sit on tne ground, cross-legged. Nothing could be more

Erimitive than the looms, but the weaving seems no longer to be done
y wonien as it used to be in ancient times,* for only men were driv-
ing the shuttle, as was the cases with the ancient Egyp^Jans.

The hoiises at Hebron are of stone, many being of two, and some of
three, stories;'' but owing to the scarcity of wood, each floor is really
a set of vaults, with arwies meeting overhead from the comer of each
room, the domes being hidden, on the upper story, by a parapet,
within which, round the top of the arch, is a flat space, such as Orien-
tals delight in. Built on the slopes of a hill, the houses rise above
each other, terrace over terrace, with a fine effect. The great mosque
over the cave of Machpelah stands out above all, as the chief building
of the town. Drainage, the lighting of the streets, water supply
brought to the houses, any system of cleaning the streets, are of course
unknown ; indeed, there never seem to have been any such Western
1 rroT.i>xL18i2KliigizxU1.7. See onte., p. ITS.

208

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

impertinences in an Eastern town or city, except perhaps in CsBsarea,
which Herod drained in the Roman manner. Tlie population was said
by the German missionary to be 17,000 of whom 2,000 are Jews, and
the rest bigoted Mahommedans, there being only five Christians in the
whole city.

A part of Hebron, the western, is still called Eshcolah, from Eshcol,
the king in Abraham's day, and a small wady near is called Wady
Eshcol.i There are two pools, with stairs leading down to the water;
they are not often full, but sometimes, after long-continued rains, they
overflow. One, some distance down the valley, is called "Othniel's
Pool,'' by a mistake as to the scene of Caleb's gift of the upper and
lower springs to his laughter.^ The sides are cemented, but the water
was green, and, as Westerns would think, unfit for use. The other
pool, which I passed on entering the town, is "Abraham's Pool."
J3oth are of a good size, the lower one 133 feet square, and about
twenty-two feet deep; the other, at the town, eighty-five feet by fifty-
five, and nineteen feet deep. Men and women are constantly ascending
and descending the steps inside, the former with great black skin bot-
tles on their backs, the women with large water-jars. On tlie open
ground round the other pool naked and half-naked Mahommedan child-
ren were wrangling and playing — fierce shoots from a fierce stock.
Till within a few years a Christian was certain to be insulted, or even
stoned, by them; but latterly they have confined their hostility to the
Jews, the sight of a boy of this race being a signal for cursing him and
his whole people, from his father backward!?. The Orientals are, indeed,
mighty in cursing, and always have been. They will curse the fathers
and mothers, the grandfather, and all the ancestors of anyone with
whom they have a dispute, imprecating all kinds of evils on everyone
related to the object of their rage. We can see the same custom in
diifereut parts of the Old Testament — for it needed Christ to teach men
love. An example is offered in David's curse on Joab for the murder
of Abner. "Let the dead man's blood rest on the head of Joab, and
on all his father's house, and let there not fail from the house of Joab
oud that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or
that falleth on a sword, or that lacketh bread."' So, too, we read that
Saul's rmger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him,
"Thou b-ri of the perverse, rebellious woman,'** thus cursing his son's
mother — his own wife.

The great Mosque of Abraham, built over the Cave of Machpelah,
where the patriarchs are supposed to lie buried, is on the eastern edge
of the town, with houses of all sizes close around it on every side, so
that you come upon it before you are aware. Except a few royal per-

1 This Is a corruption of Aln Kashkaleh, north of the town. 2 Josh. xv. 10 ; Judg. i. 15. 3 2 Sam.
Ui.29. 4 1 Sam. XX. 30.

part
of tU
floor,
than
the d
this

XV.]

HEBRON.

209

um,
bon's

pi ah,

jdge

|e, so

per-
\ Sam.

sonages, our Prince of "Wales and his sons among them, no one, if not
a Mahommedan, has in modern times been allowed to enter it. It is
enclosed on three sides by an outer wall of Arab construction. The
mosque itself is a quadrangle, of grey stone, 197 feet long by 111 feet
broad, and strengthened at intervals by buttresses, the masonry of the
walls showing, throughout, a bevel on the four edges of each stone, as in
the older masonry of the Haram at Jerusalem. The thickness, apart from
the buttresses, is no less than eight and a half feet, which, again, is
just the same as that of the Haram walls at Jerusalem. The mosque is
built on a hill, so that the paved floor of the inner space between these
ancient walls and the modern Saracenic walls enclosing them is about
fifteen feet above the street, while the height of the ancient wall, with
its simple projecting cornice, is about forty feet ; but a modern wall,
with battlements, is built on the top of the original one. We were
led to the eastern side, which is reached by ascending a filthy lane, and
found a door — the only one there is — opening into the court. Through
this we were permitted to go and look at the great old wall ; but we
could only stand inside the door; to go down to the area, and touch the
wall, was not permitted. Even for this privilege, moreover, we had to
pay a good "bakshish."

The interior of the mosque, it appears, was used, at leant in the time
of the Crusades, as a Christian church; a portion at the south end,
seventy feet long, being divided into a nave and two aisles, lighted by
windows in a clerestory raised from the centre of the roof along its
whole length. The roof itself was groined, and nearly flat, with a lead
covering outside, and rested within on four great pillars, with capitals
set off with thick leaves, in the mediaeval style.

The only known entrances to the Cave of Machpelah, which lies
underneath the church, are unfortunately covered by the stone floor,
and are never opened, to avoid the displacement of the pavement, which
would be regarded as a desecration of so sacred a spot. The sheikh
of the mosque, however, describes the cave as being double, w^iich
agrees with its name Machpelah — "Division m Half" — and also with
the uniform tradition which led it, in the Middle Ages, to be spoken of
as " the Double Cave."

Of the spots under which the three entrances to this venerable rest-
ing-place of the patriarchs are said to be, one is covered with stone
slabs, clamped with iron ; the second simply with stone flags, forming
part of the floor of the cliurcn ; while the third, close to the west wall
of the church, is a shaft, rising slightly above the level of the church-
floor, and covered, like a well, with a stone, the hole in which is more
than a foot across. A strong light having been let down through it,
the door, walls, floor, and sides of the chamber beneath eire seen; but
this is not, after all, either of the two caves, but a roonc. which is said
18

210

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(CH4P.

to len'3 to the western cavern, with a doorway at the south-east of it,
very much like the square doorways to ancient rock-cut tombs in Pal-
estine. Strange to say, the floor is tUickly covered with written pray-
ers to the patriarchs, tiirown down by the Mahommedans through 1 'e
well-1'.ke shaft in the church-floor. From these and other details. Cap-
tain Conder, after personal examination, thinks that Machpelah "pro-
bably resembles many of the rock-cut sepulchres of Palestine, with a
square ante-chamber carefully quarried, and two interior sepulchral
cliambers, to which access has been made, at a later period, through
the roofs."! There was, no doubt, an entrance, in Abraham's time,
from the "field of Mamre, before the cave," but this has long ago been
blocked up by buildings.

The space outside the part of the edifice once used as a church, and
anciently forming the courtyard, is now filled up with various Arab
structures connected with the mosque. The church itself was outside
the anciciit end wall of the sanctuary, through which there are two
openings, to permit passing from the church to the inner space. In
the building as a whole there are six monuments, or mock tombs, to
the illustrious dead who are assumed to be below, each being supposed
to lie immediately under the cenotaph bearing his or her
name. Those of Isaac and Kebekah are in the church half,
in the direction of the nave, so that they are not placed as
Mahommedan custom requires, for ir that case they would be at
right angles with their present position ; and it is the same with the
cenotaphs in the other half of the mosque. The monuments to
Isaac and Rebekah are enclosed in oblong walls with gable roofs, rising
about twelve feet above the church-floor, the material being alternate
bands of yellowish and reddish limestone, from the neighboring hills.
At the gable ends are brass crescents, and there are windows in the
sides and roofs, with heavy iron bars, thrmgh which the imitation
tombs are visible, a door of wood ornamented with brass- work giving
access to each. The tombs tliemselves are covered with richly-
embroide ed silk hangings — green for Isaac, crimson for Hebekah — and
have cloths hung as canopies over them, while manuscript copies of
the Koran lie open around on low wooden rest. The same colors
mark the two sexes in the coverings over the other cenotaphs, which
are more or less like these. All claim, as I have said, to be spread
over the spots where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their wives,
Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, rest. The walls of the church are veneered
with marble to the height of six teet, and have a band of Arabic writing
running along above, the rest of the wall being whitewashed, as are the
great pillars, and the piers corresponding to them in the end walls. The
floor is cc ^red with carpets throughout.

1 Pal. Fund Bcportt, 1882, p. 200,

XVJ

HEBRON.

211

The cenotaph of Abraham, in the mosque half of the building, is
about eiglit feet long, eight feet high and four feet broad, and is cov-
ered with green and white silk, embroidered with Arabic texts in gold
thread. Two green banners with gold lettering lean against the tomb,
the shrine and walls round which are pierced with open-barred gates,
said to be of iron plated with silver; an inscription on one bearing
the date of a. d. 1259, and containing an invocation to Abraham.
Silver lamps and ostrich egg-shells hang before the cenotaph, and
copies of the Koran, on low rests, surround it. The walls of the
shrine in which it stands are cased with marble. The shrine of
Sarah is much the same, with open-barred gates and a domed roof.
Besides the cenotaphs to Jacob and Leah, there is one, outside the
inner wall to Joseph, with a passage from it to a lower one to tbe same
patriarch.

The fullest account of Machpelah as it was in past ages is that of
Benjamin of Tudela, by whom it was visited in or about the year 1163,
when it was held by the Christians. He speaks of it as "a large place
of worship, called St. Abraham," and adds that " the Gentiles or Chris-
tians have erected six sepulchres in this place, which they pretend to be
those of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Eebekah, Jacob and Leah.
The pilgrims are told that they are the sepulchres of the fathers, and
money is extorted from them. But if any Jew comes, who gives an
additional fee to the keeper of the cave, an iron door is opened which
dates from the times of their forefathers, who rest in peace, and, with
a burning candle in his hands, the visitor descends into a firet cave,
which is empty, traverses a second which is in the same state, and at
last reaches a third which contains six sepulchres — those of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and of Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah — one opposite the
other."

"All these sepulchres," the writer proceeds, "bear inscriptions, the
letters being engraved. Thus, upon that of our father Abraham, we
read (in Hebrew), ' This is thr tomb of Abraham our father: upon
him be peace.' A lamp burrs in the cave and upon the sepulchres
continually, both night and day, and you the' e see tubs, filled with the
bones of Israelites ; for to this day it is a custom of the House of
Israel to bring thither the bones of their forefathers, and to leave them
there." Such tubs, or arks, of bones, bearing rude Hebrew inscrip-
tions, have repeatedly been found in tombs near Jerusalem.

The stones of the ancient wall of tlie mosque are marvellously fin-
ished and fitted to their places, which was no light task, since one of
them is thirty-eight feet long and three and a half feet high. Every-
where the chiselHng is very fine, and all, as I have said, have the old
Jewish bevel at the edges, broad, shallow, and beautifully cut. Of
the age of this noble piece of architecture, various opinions have been

212

THE HOLY LAND ANU THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

formed, many thinking that it dates from before the captivity, others
that it was built by Herod the Great. It certainly existed in the days
of Josephus, for he speaks of its being "of beautiful marble and
admirably worked," and it has been forcibly said that if it had been
one of the creations of Herod, whose magnificence the historian so
delighted to extol, it would have been mentioned as one of his works.
Tradition assigns it to King Solomon, and it may be as old as the Jew-
ish monarchy.

The entrance to the mosque is by a flight of broad steps, which, in
m}'^ innocence, I approached, without thinking of the fact that Chris-
tians are not allowed to enter the sacred building. I had only
got up two or three steps, however, when my ambitious career was
brought to a stop, and I had to content myself with looking at a hole
in the wall through which the poor Jews are permitted to thrust pieces
of paper on which their names are written, in the hope that Abraham
may see them and intercede in their behalf. What a strange thing is
human faith !

But are the bodies of the patriarchs really at Hebron? St. Stephen,
in his defence, tells us that "Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died,
himself, and our fathers; and they were carried over into Sliechem,
and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price, in silver, of
the sons of Hamor in Shechem."^ But as Genesis tells us expressly
that the burial-place bought by Abraham was in Hebron, n3t at
Shechem, and also that Joseph and his brethren buried Jacob at Heb-
ron, in the "cave of the field of Machpelah," it is clear that, in the
excitement of his position before his judges, Stephen had confused the
buying of a sepulchre at Shechem by Joseph, and the burial in it of
Joseph and possibly his brethren, with the provision of a cave tomb at
Hebron, in which Joseph afterwards laid his father.^

It is striking to find how exactly the narrative of Abraham's pur-
chase of the grave and his sorrow at Sarah's death,* is in keeping with
what would even now follow two such incidents in ordinary life. The
patriarch, we are told, "came to mourn" for his dead wife — that is, to
hold a public mourning — which, in the case of " the princess" of such
a powerful emir as her husband, would even now be a great event.
He, himself, would sit for a time in his tent beside the corpse; but the
climate made speedy burial necessary, so that he would very soon have
to "stand up from before his dead." Tlie mourning women, the dirge
music, and the lamentations general in the demonstrative East, must
have engrossed all Hebron for the time. Even for one in a much hum-
bler position the loud weeping, the beating of the breast, the cries, and
wailing music are well-nigh overpowering ; for one so distinguished as
Sarah, they must have been irresistibly affecting.
1 Acts vii. 15, 16 (R. v.). 2 Gen. 1. 13; Josb. xxiv. 82; Qen. xzxiii. 10. 8 Oen. xxiii.

XV.J

HEBRON.

213

ir-
ith
rhe

to
[ch
Int.
Ihe
Ive
I'ge

ist

Im-

Ind

The story of the purchase of the tomb is intensely Oriental. It was
of the utmost moment to Abraham that no dispute should, at any time,
arise as to the right of property in the tomb where his wife was to be
laid, and where he, himself, in due time wa^ to rest by lier side. He
comes before the sons of Heth, therefore, at the gate of the town,^ and
tells them that he is, as they know, only a stranger and a sojourner
with them, and therefore owns no ground in Hebron : will any of them
sell him a piece suitable for the grave of his dead wife, and others of
liis family afterwards? — for it was usual with such a man to have a
hereditary burial-place.^ A number of the townsmen were, as usual,
in the open space at the gate — the great gossiping haunt of Eastern
buyers to-day ; and the crowd which the patriarch gathered round were
ready to entertain his proposal, though, with true Oriental dexterity,
prompt to veil their keenness to sell under an air of courteous liber-
ality. " He was ' a chief of God ' among them ; the choice of their
sepulchres was at his disposal : none of them would withhold his sep-
ulchre from him." But he knew too well what all this meant. He
was aware that it was only a flourish preliminary to a keen bargain.
He had already fixed his heart on the Cave of Machpelah, and so, after
bowing grateful acknowledgments of their politeness, he begged that
if they would, indeed, be so good as to help him, they might mediate
between him and Ephron, the son of Zohar, for the purchase of Mach-
pelah, which lay in the end of Ephron's field. Mediators are always
employed in such transactions, even at the present day ; indeed, no bar-
gain can be made without all the crowd around having something to
say to it. Abraham would pay full value for the property ; let them
intercede for him — that was all he would ask.

Ephron, who ail this time was among ^ the good folks gathered to
this colloquy, and who were seated, like himself, cross-legged on the
ground, instantly responded, just as a Hebron man in a similar case
would to-day. Sell it 1 — that be far from him ! He would give it to
the great stranger — yes, he would give it 1 In the same way the Arab
at Gaza, as I hr.ve already said, gave me his spear;* and so Orientals,
generally, upon meeting you, might profess to give you their house and
all that was in it ; the words meaning nothing beyond a recognized
form of politeness. Ephron had three times in a breath vowed that he
would give Abraham the field, calling the " sons of his people " to wit-
ness his doing so ; but the patriarch knew what the gift was worth,
and, gravely bowing his thanks, went on with his proposals to buy it.
"If thou wilt indeed show kindness to thy servant, I will give thee
money for the field, and I will bury my dead there." This brought
Ephron to the point, and forced him to name his terms. " The land
is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that betwixt me

1 Gen. xxiii. 10. 2 Wiuer, i. 444. 8 Hebrew. 4 See ante, p. 26Q.

214

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

and thee?" Anyone who wishes to buy a piece of land, or a'-ything
else, in Palestine to-day, will hear the very same words. But Abra-
ham was a shrewd man of business ; he knew what all these generous
professions meant, and forthwith closed the bargain by weighing out
the silver to Ephron, there being no coins as yet, although there were
traders as keen as their descendants of the nineteenth century. Indeed,
Abraham would have needed, even in our time, to weigh the money,
for every " merchant " carries scales with him to guard against light
weight, coins sometimes being " sweated" or clipped by Jews.

The mere pay men', of the money was not, however, enough. Then,
as now, a formal act was requisite, by which all the details of the pur-
chase — " the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees
that were in the field, and that were in all the borders round about " —
^ere recited and duly acknowledged by Ephron. In Abraham's time
this legal completion of the sale apparently consisted in a recapitula-
tion of every item before the assembled burghers at the city gate ; no
document being drawn up. But in our day every particular must be
duly stated in a written deed, as prolix and minute as a conveyance by
a Western lav/yer, so that no possible loophole be left for a future eva-
sion of the bargain.

The hills round Hebron, one of the few towns in Palestine that lie
in a hollow, look utterly barren, except the one to the south, which
appears covered with olives as one looks up from below. But when
you climb to the top of the hills behind the city, on the north-east, the
whole valley lies at your feet, with the hills on all sides, and you then
receive a very diflferent impression. Behind the town the slopes are,
indeed, barren ; but towards the south they stretch away in soft out-
lines, covered with olives, till they fade into a blue mist towards the
wilderness of Edon. A small but well-cultivated valley lies behind,
on the east, dotted thickly with olives. The hills on which I stood
were bare for the most part, but there was a pretence of pasture on
Some portions. To the west lay the long valley of Hebron and the
slopes on its further side, covered with glorious olive-woods and vine-
yards, and rich olive-grounds and gardens reached away to the south
also. On the north, hills rose beyond hills, covered with vineyard
above vineyard, on countless terraces, the loose stones carefully built
into walls, step above step, to oatch all the soil brought down by the
winter storms ; so tliat slopes which without this provision would have
been bare sheets of rock, were transformed by it into rich fertility.

The fame . 3 valley in which the patriarchs fed their flocks in ages
long gone by, and in which they now rest in their deep sleep, was all
before me.^ The city at my feet had been a busy hive of men during
a period dating back seven years before Zoab-Tanis, the old capital of

1 Gen. xlii. 18; xxUi. 2; xxztU. 14.

XV.]

HEBRON.

215

on
Itlie
ine-
luth
lard

uilt
Ithe

ave

the Delta, was founded in Egypt, in the grey morning of the world.
For seven years and a half David, the Shepherd King and the Psalmic*.
of Israel, oad held his rude court before the very gate under my Lyea}
The pool over vvhioh the hands and feet of the murderers of Ishbosheth
had been nailed up fay in the afternoon sun. It seemed as if one could
see Joab once more stalking through the narrow streets ; as if one
could hear the wail over the chieftain Abner, foully murdered by him,
perhaps in that very gateway.* In the country around David had for
years led an unsettled life, at the head of a band of men made up of all
who were "in distress, or debt, or who were discontented " * — a wand-
ering Arab, in fact, living by requisitions on the wealthy, in return for
protecting their property fVom others like himself, and for not taking
what he wanted by violence.* An outlaw, he had lived as best he
could, with his rough followers, in the woods and caves a few miles
cfT.^ The hills around Hebron are still covercid, often for miles
together, with scrub of all kinds, and are therefore much frequented by
charcoal-burners, who export finom this region most of the charcoal
used in Jerusalem. Tiie aefeat of Saul at Gilboa was the beginning of
David's rise. Recognized as king by the elders of Hebron, after he
had propitiated them by gifts, the son of Jesse came hither with his
braves and was accepted by Judah as ruler.^ We are apt to forget
his long residence at Hebron, on account of the splendor of his subse-
quent reign in Jerusalem ; but his contemporaries regarded the town
with the greatest reverence as the home or Abraham, and the cradle
of David's empire.

Many years after the latter had been joyfully ^eted in it as king,
the streets rang with rejoicing over the accession of Absalom, his
treacherous son, who here raised the banner of revolt. Idumaeans,
Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Crusaders, and Turks had since then ruled
the destinies of Hebron, in long succession, but the changeless features
of the landscape, of the climate, and even of the human life around
me, veiled the immense gulf between long-vanished ages and the pres-
ent, and seemed to bring up again before my eyes the moving life of
tlie distant past.

12Sam. T.o. 2 2 Sam. Hi. 27. S I Sam. xxtl. 2. 4 See his demand from Kabal of CarmeWl Sam.
XXV. 5). 5 1 Sam. xxli. 1-6 ; xxiU. IS. 6 1 Sam. zxx. 26, SI { 2 Sam, it. 1-4,

ges
all

ing
of

216

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COUNTRY SOUTH OF HEBRON.

The south of Palestine, from the region of Hebron, sinks in a series
of gigantic steps to the wilderness of Et Tih, south of Beersheba. In
the neighborhood of Juttah, the traditional birth -place of St. John the
Baptist, the landscape falls abruptly to a broad plateau, divided into
two by the great wady which runs from the north of Hebron to Beer-
sheba, and thence, in a north-west curve, to Gerar and the sea, ^.^.st
below Gaza, after a total course of about sixty-five English mi^ js, in
which it descends more than 3,000 feet. The plateau is about 2,600
feet above the sea-level, but t is 900 feet lower than the hills imme-
diately north of Hebron, whicli are 3,600 feet above the Mediterranean.
Juttah itself, on the edge of the plateau, is about 2,800 feet above the
sea, so that in five or six miles the country descends 700 feet, and
presently sinks, suddenly, 200 feet more. The table-land consists of
open downs and arable so^l, of sol't white chalk, formed since the hard
limestone of the Judaean hills. All the rain that falls on this district
forthwith filters through the surface deposit — a feature which causes
an entire absence of springs; and hence the inhabitants, once numerous,
but now verv few, have always depended on cemented wells and tanks.
The water, however, need not be lost, if there were but skill enough
to reach it, for it is soon stopped in its filtration downwards by the
dense limestone, and flows over it as a subterranean river towards the
sea. A second great land-step, farther south, brings the level at Beer-
sheba to a little under 800 feet above the sea; so that in the twenty
miles from Hebron to Beersheba, in a straight line, the descent is nearly
2,700 feet.

There are only two inhabited villages on the Juttah table-land ; but
ruins on all sides show that it was once thickly peopled, as, indeed, is
seen from the same evidence a great part of the way to Beersheba.
There are no trees, and in summer the surface is dry and sunburnt;
but in spring the rains make it a field of verdure and flowers, and
there is always pasture, in one part or another, for great numbers of
flocks and herds. Caves, such as are still inhabited in some parts,
abound in the countless hills; so that tiiis would seem to have been
part of the country once inhabited by the Horites, or "Cave-men."
Indeed, their name clings to the locality iu the designations of two
ruined towns. This is the region known in the Bible as the Negeb,
which unfortunately is always translated "the south," though the
Revised Version admits the compromise of a capital letter. It comes
from a root meaning "to be dry," or "dried up," which accurately

ZYI.]

THE COUNTRY SOUTH OF HEBRON.

217

describes its appearance. It was in this district that Caleb gave his
daughter, with lier dowry, to the valiant Othniel ; * and it has an abid-
ing charm as the scene of David's wanderings.

Juttah, an ancient priestly town, is held by the Greek Church to be
the birth-place of St. John the Baptist, as has been said, and as such
it is the goal of pilgrimage to thousands of Greek Christians each
year. Support to this view is believed to be found in the words ^^^ Si.
Luke, which, in our version, speak of the Virgin Mary as journej^ing
"into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah."' This, it is
held, should be " to the town Judah," or Juttah, since it would be
vague in the extreme to speak merely of "a city of Judah." On this
ground, so great authorities as Reland, Robinson, and Riehm^ think
this place was actually the residence of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and
tlie birth-place of the Baptist. It is a large stone village, standing
high on a ridge; but some of the population live in tents. Under-
ground cisterns supply water, and on the south there are a few olive-
trees, but the hill and its neighborhood are very stony, though the
vine must in ancient times have been extensively cultivated, since
rock-out wine-presses are found all round the village. There are,
besides, some rock-cut tombs, which also date from antiquity. But,
poor though the country looks and is, the population are veiy rich in
flocks, the village owning, it is said, no fewer than 7,000 sheep, besides
goats, cows, camels, horses, and donkeys. Its sheikh, indeed, owned a
flock of 260 sheep. The hills everywhere are very rugged and stony,
consisting of hard crystalline limestone ; but the valleys, which are
numerous, have good soil in them, some of them being especially fer-
tile. The vineyards and olive plantations on the west, north, and
south of Hebron — for the east side of the town has none — appeared
like a great oasis in a desert, though the Negeb is very far from being
a desert as things are judged in such a land as Palestine. A low scrub
covered the rising ground and rounded hill-tops, except on the eastern
slopes, whi «h. being quite cut off from the night mists from the west,
are bare of vegetation, except after the spring rains. The valleys, in
spite of their fertility, are narrow and itiore or less stony, with steep
slopes and occasional cliffs, some of them breaking down very suddenly
from the watershed to a depth, in a few cases, of over 500 feet.

From Juttah it is a very short distance south-east — about three
miles — to Carmel, now known as Kurmul, famous for the episode in
David's history of his dispute with the rough and niggardly Nabal,
and his obtaining Abigail, the poor creature's widow, as wife. A
great basin between the bills stretches from the north of Juttah tff
Carmel, rich with fine fields of wheat over its undulating surface, and
almost free from rocks, even the loose stones being less abundant than

IJosta. XT. 16— 19. 2 Luke i. 39. 8 SeIand,Pix{e«tfti«, p. 870; Robinson, 11.828; Riehin,.Ai<(aA.

218

THE HOLY LAND ASU THE filBLS.

[Oba^.

usual. The land belongs to Qovernment, and is rented by men of
Hebron.

When Dr. Robinson passed over it the grain was ri{)ening for the
siokle, and watchmen were posted at intervals to nrotect it from entile
and flocks. His Arabs, he tells us, " were an hungred," and freely
"plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their IuukIh,"'
no one thinking it wrong, but an ancient custom, which even the own-
ers of the fields would recognize. The Jews who challenged tlie dis-
ciples could hardly have done so simply because tiie corn had been
plucked, even though it was the Sabbath. The trouble was tliat the
offenders had rubbed the ears in their hands, which, as a kind of
threshing, was doing work on the holy day, and thus a violation of
law which these bitter Sabbatarians could nut pass by. It is possible,
however, that they also reckoned the plucking of the ears as a kind
of reaping.

The terror of tent Arabs is so universal among the j. easantry of the
Holy Land, that a band of countrymen who passeo by thought it
unsafe, for fear of these plunderers, that we should spe id the night at
a place so lonely as Carmel, advising us to go on to Ma >n, where there
are sheepfolds among the ruins of that old city, and consequently
shepherds, whose presence would secure safety. The land round Car-
mel was, in David's time, partly the property of Nabal ; but there was
even then a village of the name, as, indeed, there had been in the days
of Joshua.^ At present the ruins are those of an important town,
including remains of a castle and two churches; and there is, besides,
a fine reservoir, well built, lying below the ancient site, and measuring
no less than 117 feet in length by seventy-four feet in width ; a spring,
which runs from a cave in an underground rock-cut channel, still serv-
ing to fill it. The ruins mark the splendor of the short-lived Christian
kingdom in Palestine, for they are all examples of the magnificent
architecture of the Crusaders. How old the reservoir may be is
unknown, but it was already in existence more than 700 years ago.
The walls of the old Crusadfing fortress, seven feet thick, are still, in
parts, twenty-four feet high, but thev have to a large extent been
carried off for building material. Mailed warriors once clambered the
ruined stair still seen in the thickness of the north wall, and watched
the Saracen from the fiat roof, or sped arrows at his horsemen through
the loopholes. Courts, towers, revetments, outside walls, ditches, and
much else, were once the busy care of a strong Christian garrison, but
for centuries have lain in ruins. Of the two churches, the one is about
ejghty feet long and forty broad, with carved pillars and sculptured
medallions still to be seen. The other is not qrite so long, but as
broad.
1 Matt. xli. 1 : Mark ii, 28 ; Luke tL L 2 Josh. ZT. V.

xvt.i

THK COUNTHY SOUTH OV MEBROK.

219

As Iftto as 300 yciirs after CliriHt, a Roman garrison kept watch anil
ward in Carmel against the Arabs from tlio south and east; but tiio
city doubtless fell into decay long before the arrival of the Crusadels,
of whom King Anialrich had here liis head-([uarters. The ruins of
the town lie round the top and alon^ the two sides of a pleasant and
rather deep valley, the heatl of which is shut in by a half-circle of bare
rocky hills. Foundations and broken walls of dwellings lie scattered
in dreary confusion and desolation, for, as I have otten said, under the
Tur!c the country has become almost depopulated.

It was here that Saul set up the trophy of his victory over the
Amalekites, and that the sheep-shearing feast of Nabal was held which
led the poor ohurlish man to so disastrous an end.^ David and his
men, like many tribes of tent Arabs now, depended largely for their
support, us we have seen, on contributions from the population in their
neigliborhood; and having associated in the wilderness pastures with
the herdsmen and shepherds of Nabal, protecting them from the plun-
derers aroutjd and doing other good offices for them, they naturally
expected, according to Arab usage, a liberal recognition of their ser-
vices. Nabal, however, had : small soul. To pay black-mail either
for volunteered protection of his flocks, or as a reward for the defenders
having abstained from helping themselves at his expense, was a sore
trouble to him, though he had 8,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. But it
was a rough state of things that allowed David, in revenge for such
meanness, to order his 400 men to gird on their swords and kill, with-
out mercy, bv a sudden night attack, every creature that "pertained to
Nabal." 2 Sheep-shearing is always marked by a rude feast to the
shearers; and Nabal himself held a banquet like that of a king,^ so
that he might well have been more generous. But David's threatened
revenge is that of a wild sheikh of the desert, and shows that the
Hebrews must in some respects have been little better than Bedouins,
in those ages. It was well that Abigail, a lady of this very place,
Carmel, had read^ wit and gracious softness, else David would have
committed a terrible crime. Maon, where Nabal's houSe stood, is a
conical hill, about a mile south of Carmel, which lies lower, though
still 2,700 feet above the sea. From the hill-top you look down
towards the Dead Sea, on the north; Hebron is seen in its valley, and,
on the west, the ancient Debir, the city of Caleb. Nine places still
bearing their ancient names are in sight — Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah,
Jattir, Socoh, Anab, Eshtemoa, and Hebron — so close together lie the
localities mentioned in Bible history. Only some small foundations
of hewn stone, a square enclosure, and several cisterns are now to be
seen at Maon: are they the remains of Nabal's grent establishment?

Ijcss than three miles west lies Eshtemoa, now uulled Semua, one of

1 1 Sam. XT. 12; xxv. 2. 2 1 Sam. xxv. 2—88. 3 1 Sam. xxv. 86.

220

TBE HOLY LAND AKD TfiES BiBLtt.

tOttir.

the hill-towns of Judah, allotted, with the land round it, to the priests,^
and fre(^uented by David in the dark years of his fugitive wilderness
life, during which it was so friendly to him that he sent gifts to his
elders after his victory over the Amaleisites.^ It is seven miles from
Hebron, and is a considerable village, built on a low hill, among broad
stony valleys almost unfit for tillage, but yielding tufts of grass and
plants, on which sheep and goats thrive in Palestine. Some olive-trees
are growing south of the village, and old stones, very large, and
bevelled at the edges, in the old Jewish style, some of them ten feet
long, occur as the remai/js of ancient walls. There are alao some
ruins of a mediaeval castle, but it has lain for centuries a ruin amidst
ruins. Seven miles straight south, and we are at the limit of Palestine,
the hills forming the boundry trending northwards, after passing
Beersheba, and thus leaving so much less distance between Hebron
and the border. It may here be pointed out how small a country
Palestine is, for it is only about thirty-three miles in a straight line
from Jerusalem to Tell Arad, a solitary hill facing the desert ; the seat
in Joshua's time of a petty Canaanite chief.' From Hebron, it is
less than seventeen English miles off, and yet David never seems to
have wandered so far south, for Ziklag, which was given to him by
the Philistine king, Achish, lies on a line further north, on the upper
side of the Wady es Sheria, elrven English miles east-south-east from
Qaza,an«l nineteen south-west from Beit Jibrin. The name Zuheilika,
recovered there by Conder and Kitchener in 1875, fixes the site of
Ziklag on one of tnree low hills from which David was to keep watch
for his Philistine patron against the Bedouir. hords of the desert.*
Beersheba lay fifteen miles to the south-east, and yet from it to Dan,
the northern boundry of Palestine, is only 131) miles ; and the paltry
breadth of twenty miles, from the coast to the Jordan on the north,
increases slowly to only forty between the Mediterranean and the
Dead Sea at Gaza on tne south. Palestine, in fact, is only about the
size of Wales.

So small is* the country which was honored by God to be the scene
of Divine Bevektion. But it has special characteristics, which emi-
nently fitted it for such a dignity. Apart from the religious peculiari-
ties of the Shemitic race — their love of simple, untroubled faith, as
opposed to the restless speculation of the Aryan races — the position
of the Holy Land, in the centre of the ancient world, was exactly
!9Uited to the dissemination of the great doctrines of the true faith
among mankind. Its isolation from heathen countries was, however,
not less marked, for the sea bounded it on the one side, and tlie desert
on the south and east, while on the north access to it could only be
had through the long valley of Lebanon. No land, therefore, could

1 Itoth. xxl 14; 1 Chron. vi. 67. 2 1 P«in. xx\. 28. 8 Josh. zll. 14. 4 ICiehin, 1837.

XVIJ

Ttttt COtJNTftY SOUTfl Of flKBftOl^.

221

le
le

[i:

have Ibeen better fitted to protect Revelation from the contamination
of other creeds, or from the infl *cace of foreign manners — then, of
course, idolatrous. Yet the physical configuration of the country was
such as to save its people from the narrow experience of dwellers in a
land where there is less variety of landscape. On the north, the
snows of Lebanon presented thu scenery of regions where winter
triumphs, and brougnt before the Hebrews the plants, the trees, the
animals, and other natural phenomena familiar to cold climates. In
the Jordan valley, on the other hand, though still within sight of
snowy peaks, they had around them the plants, the birds, the animals,
the scenery, and the distinctive features of an Indian province ; while
in the central hill-country thty had every gradation between these
great extremes. Hence the Bible, written in a country presenting
within its narrow limits the main features of lands widely separated,
is a book of the world, notwithstanding its Oriental color. Its
imagery and its wealth of spiritual experience adapt it to every region
of the earth, and secure it a welcome wherever man is found, making
it not only intelligible, but ricti in a varied interest.

The "south country," or Negeb, of which Eshtemoa may be
regarded as the centre, was the favonte pasture-land of the patriarchs.
Over these stony hills the flocks of Abraham, Isaac, and tJacob must
often have wandered, for they had to go far afield at times, when the
drought withered the herbage of the early months. Indeed, we find
the sheep and goats of Jacob as far north as Dothan, close to the plain
of Esdraelon, about ninety miles in a straight line from Beersheba,
where his tents were pitched ; and of course the journey, in such a
tangle of hills, must have been far longer by the winding routes.
Abraham seems to have lived by turns at Beersheba and Hebron ;
Isaac at Gerar, Lahai-roi, and Beersheba ; ^ Jacob mainly at Beersheba^
though his early and later lift' were both spent in foreign countries.
Lahai-roi seems, however, if the proposed identification be correct, to
have been a wonderful distance for so sedentary a man as Isaac to
travel. It appears to have kin on the caravan-road from Beersheba
to Egypt, ten hours south of Ruheibeh, the ancient Rehoboth — " the
Open Place " — a spring about twenty miles «?outh-west of Beersheba,
mentioned by Moses, and recorded in the Nineveh inscriptions as the
frontier town of the Assyrian Empire towards Egypt* — a very
striking " undesigned coincidence," indeed, betVeen Scripture and the
tablets of Nineveh! There are, even now, wells at Lahai-roi known
as Hagar's Springs, and the wady in which they occur is famous for
its abundance of water wherever wells have been sunk for it. The
supply over all this region, and, indeed, in the hilly Negeb also, has
always to be obtained by tapping the subterranean river of which I

1 Q«n. XiU. 18; XXi, S3; xxlv. 62; xxv. 1.1 ; xxvl. 1. 8S. t ICahlau Mid VoUck, p. 783.

222

THE HOLT LAKD AND THE BIBLfi.

tCiUV

have so often spoken as extending under a great breadth of country
Isaac was famous in this way, and perhaps some of the wells still
used were originallj'^ dug and cased with masonry by his slaves. Nor
will anyone who looks at those still found in these districts think
lightly of the labor involved in constructing them, or wondev that
even so great a man as Uzziah was remembered for the number he dug,*
I have often asked myself whether some of these filled up at Gerar
might have been among the number stopped by the Philistine herds-
men after Abraham and Isaac, with great toil, had opened them .^ It
is quite possible for the destruction of wells has in all ages been a
barbarous custom in Eastern quarrels, though it, in effect, reduces a
fertile district to a wilderness.

The thirsty Negebj and still more tho sandy region south and east
of Palestine, are often mocked by that strange phenomenon of hot and
desert regions, the n irage. We meet it also on the coast-plains, and
in the Haur&n, and always with the same curious imitation of ni^*ural
objects, and the same illasory appearance of water, though the whole
is only the reflection of rays of light on particles of floating vapor.
Every tuft is exaggerated into a tree, and the blades of grass, shooting
up here and there, become a jungle. You even see them reversed, in
wnat seems a wide lake, along whose shores they rise. The best
description of the mirage that I know is that by Major Skinner, in his
"Journey Overland to India." He was travelling across the desert
between Palestine and the Euphrates, and tells us that — "About noon
the most perfect deception that can be conceived exhilarated our spiriis,
and promised an early resting-place. We had observed a slight mirage
two or three times before, but this day it surpassed all I had even
fancied. Although aware that these appearances have often ^ed people
astray, I could not bring myself to believe that this was unreal. The
Aral« were doubtful, and said that as we had found water yesterday, it
was not improbable we should find some to-day. The seeming lake
was broken in several parts by little islands of sand, which gave
strength to the delusion. The dromedaries of the sheikhs at length
reached its borders, and appeared to us to have commenced to ford, as
they advanced and became more surrounded by the vapor. I thought
they had got into deep water, and moved with greater caution. In

gassing over the sand-banks their figures were reflected in the water.
o convinced was Mr, Calmun of its reality, that he dismounted and
walked towards the deepest part of it, which was on the right band.
Hp followed the deceitful lake for a long time, and to our sight was
strolling on its bank, his shadow stretching to a great length beyond.
There was not a breath of wind; it was a sultry day, and such a one
as would have added dreadfully to the disappointment if we had been
laCbnm.xxTi. 10. 30en.sxTL17fl.

XVI.1

THE COUNTRY SOUTH OP HEBRON.

223

at any time witli^ut water." The Arab word for the mirage is sgrab,
and this we find once in the Bible in the Hebrew form, sarab. It is
used by Isaiah when he says that "the parched ground shall become a
pool, and the thirsty land springs of water," ^ before the Tribes ransomed
from Babylon, and returning across the desert to Palestine. The
correct rendering, however, is, "the miraye shall become a pool" — the
mock lake in the burning waste, so often the despair of the wanderer,
shall become a real lake, the pledge of refreshment and joy.''

The story of David's wanderings presents itself with wonderful
vividness as we journey from point to point over the great upland
plateau of the Negeb. We have seen him in the caves, high up the
low slope of the brown rounded Hill of Adullam, at the head of the
broad flat corn-valley of Elah, and have followed him to Keilah on its
steep hill, a few miles to the south, but still looking down into the same
wide glen. "The Forest of Hareth," as we have noticed, was near at
hand, supplying, in its dense "yaar" of scrubby contorted trees, a secure
hiding-place for the time, on the edge of the heights overlooking the
Shephelah. But at last he had to flee from each of these retreats and
betake himself still further south, to the country round Ziph, a small
town lying on a hill which rises about a hundred feet above the others
that surround it. It is only about five miles, almost due south from
Hebron, but in such a tangle of hills and glens that even so short a
distance would have secured effective concealment had the people been
loyal. David must often have looked out from the top of the hill,
whi^h offers a clear survey of the wide plains running out from below
the town — then very fruitful, but now lying waste, with no man to till
them, for Ziph is an uninhabited heap. To the east he must many
times have looked over Jeshimon — "the Wilderness" — as the bare
hills which stretch away in hideous nakedness, sinking in huge sun-
smitten steps towards the Dead Sea, were then called — a region of wild,
irreclaimable desolation, seamed with countless ravines, frequently so
narrow and precipitous that the sun shines into them only for a very snort
time in the longest and brightest day — profound clefts, so dark that
the Heb 'ews spoke of one and another as " the Valley of the Shadow
of Death " — that is, dark as the subterranean regions of the dead —
David himself using their dispiriting and teriifj'ing gloom as an image
of the direst affliction.* Ziph must have been at one time a consider-
able town, j.idging from the ruins that now lie on a low ridge to the
east of the Tail; but David would find himself safer on the hills around,
which are even now covered with stunted growth of all kinds, and
were then, apparently, still better veiled by underwood, though no i,iees,
in our sense, could ever have flourished in this sun-scorched and water-
less regioni Here the famous meeting betwixt the shepherd-hero and

224

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(cauv.

Jonathan took place,^ when the two made a covenant of friendship,
faithfVilly kept Wore Jehovah; Jonathan strengthening his friend's
"hand in God."

In our English Bible we are told that David "abode in the wood,"
using its "strongholds" as hiding-places;^ and no doubt he did so for a
time; but the discovery by Captain Conder of a site known, even now,
as Khoreisa, little more tlian a mile to the south of Ziph, makes it
probable that we should understand Khoresh, the worn translated
"wood," rather as the name of a village among the brush -covered hills,
than as meaning the "yaar" round Ziph. The treachery of the Ziph-
ites drove the fugitive ere long from their neighborhood, to seek refuge
in the lonely and forbidding solitudes of the Jeshimon, to the east of
their town. Every part of this appalling wilderness would be familiar
to the shepherd of Bethlehem, whose flocks must have strayed from
time to time down many of its ravines, when the spring rains had
brightened them for a few weeks with passing flowers and thinly-
sprinkled herbs and grass. Every cave in it would be known to him,
for he must often have used them as a fold for his sheep or goats when
beli.ted in these wilds, so dangerous from wild beasts and still wilder
men. From Khoresh, or Ziph, he doubtless often looked down the
rough sea of white peaks and cones, seamed with countless torrent-
beds, and worn into deep caverns by the rains of a thousand centuries;
and his eye must have frequently rested on the high pointed cliflF of
Ziz, over Engedi, "the Fountain of the Kid," where precipices 2,000
feet high overhang the Dead Sea, which was about fifteen miles from
v/here he then stood, though in the clear air of Palestine appearing to
be much nearer. If forced to do so, he could find a hiding-place in
some cave on the steep face of these great crags, among the wild goats,
which alone seemed fit for siich places. The blue waters of "the Sea"
o^leamed as if at his feet as he looked down Jeshimon, and beyond it
the yellow-pink hills of Moab, torn into deep furrows by the winter
torrents, would seem, with their level tops, like a friendly table-land,
to which lie migh'; make his escape, if even the towering rock- wall
of Engedi could not protect him.

First, however, he fled to a solitary hill close at hand, Hachilah,
apparently one of the peaks of the ridge El-Kolah, about six miles
east of Ziph. But he was still pursued, like the partridge which the
fowler chases, from spot to spot, over these bills. On the north side
of Kolah — not very different in sound from " Ha-kilah " — is a cave,
known still as that of " the Dreamers," perhaps the very scene of
David's venture into the camp of Saul, when he took away the king's
spear, stuck upright in the ground at his head while he slept, as that
of the Arab sheikh is now, and the cruse of water which stood at its
U8ftm.xxm,;«. 21 Sam. joau.w, 18,19,

XVI.1

THE COUNTRY SOUTH OF HEBRON.

226

ir
11

side, as also is still the Arab custom.^ Even here, however, the hated
one was not safe. A hiding-place farther within the wilderness was
needed. This time his refuge was in a ridge known as Hammahle-
koth,2 perhaps the same as that now known as Malaky, which forms
the precipitous edge of a wady running east and west about a mile
south of Kolah.* All Jeshimon is more or less cleft with deep per-
pendicular chasms, only a few yards across, but often a hundred feet
deep, making a circuit of miles necessary to pass from the one side to
the other. There is, apparently, however, no other spot in what the
Bible calls the wilderness of Maon — the wilderness near that place —
except Malaky, where such opposing cliflfs occur; and that there were
such precipices at Hammahlekoth is shown by the use of the Hebrew
word Selah in speaking of it. It may well be, therefore, that this was
the scene of the memorable interview between Saul and David, when
the two stood on "the top of the mountain, afar off, a great space being
between them,"* that is, the yawning chasm which Saul could not
have crossed to get at his enemy, had he wished. Or it may be the
scene of David's escape when the Philistine invasion saved him for the
time, and when " Saul went on this side of the mountain," cleft in two,
as it was, by the i ipassable gulf, "and David and his men on that
side of the mountain." *

Not far from Hebron stood, in ancient days, the town Debir, which
has been identified, by some, with the village of Dhaheriyeh, by others
with El-Dilbeh — the former about twelve miles, th^ latter a little over
four miles, south-west of Hebron.^ The ancient Debir was first con-
quered by Joshua, but having passed again from the hands of Israel,
was retaken by Othniel, a young hero fighting under Caleb, who, as
we have seen,' gave him his daughter Achsah in marriage, as the
reward of his valor.® The young bride's cleverness in obtaining from
her father, for dowry, a valley in which there were springs, known as
the Upper and Lower,, is delightfully told in Judges. As she was
being brought home, she urged her husband to ask her father for a
field ; but it appears as if he lacked the courage to do so, or perhaps
his bride seemed dowry enough in herself. She, however, was not to
be balked of a good beginning in married life. Caleb could afford her
a handsome gift, and she would have it. Besides, did not so fine a
fellow as Othniel deserve it ? So, as the cavalcade rode slowly on to
Othniel's home, Achsah dropped behind till she was alongside her
father, then, alighting suddenly from her ass — for like everyone, even
now, in Palestine, she had an ass for her steed: — and laying hold of the
grey veteran with soft embrace, and winning looks, she conquered him
on the spot. "What wilt thou?" was all lie could stammer out.

1 1 Sam. xxvl. 12. 2 1 Sam. xxiii. 28. 3 Tetd Work in PvOestine. 4 1 Sam. xxvi. 13 (B. V.}.
6 1 Sam. xxiii. 26 (R. V.). 6 First, Knobel, Coader; second, Vau der Velde. 7 See ante, p. ~
8 JoBh. X. 38; xi. 21; xli. 13; xv. 16; Judg. I. U.

226

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

" What do X wish?" said she; "why, father, tliou hast given me for
dowry a dry, burnt-up tract of ground; pray give me also a piece with
springs of water, for what is land without flowing springs in a country
hkethis?" What could he do on the wedding-day? " Well, Achsah,
thou shalt have 'the upper s^^rings and the nether springs;'" a great
gift, with the promise of which she went back quickly enough to tell
her husband her good fortune. A secluded valley, exactly suiting this
incident, is found at El-Dilbeh. Even at the end of October, after tlie
fierce summer heats. Captain Conder found here a considerable brook
running down the middle of the glen, and branching oft" through small
gardens for four or five miles. Such a supply of water is a phenom-
enon in Palestine; but it is still more extraordinary in the Negeb,
where no other springs are found. There are, in all, fourteen springs,
in three groups, at El-Dilbeh, both upper and lower — higher up the
valley and lower down — which bubble forth all the 3'ear round, afford-
ing water enough, if there were energy to utilize it, to turn the whole
valley into a paradise.^

Debir must have had a strange history, for its earlier name had been
Kiriath Sepher, or " Book-town," a seat of old Canaanite culture, where
scribes diligently recorded and preserved what seemed in their eyes
worthy of note. Who can tell how far back this carries the art of
writing? But, indeed, among the Accadians on the Euphrates, it had
flourished, as the inscriptions in the British Museum prove, for an
unknown succession of centuries before Abraham left that region!
There was also another name to this strange old town, Kiriath Sanna
— "the Town of Learning" — Avhere the priests of the primsBval world
gathered their students, and tauglit them the wisdom of the day.

At Dhaheriyeh, one of the claimants for the honor of representing
Debir, there is a wine-press of unusual size — nearly eighteen feet long,
and over fifteen feet broad — which helps us to understand how Gideon
could " thresh wheat by the wine-press, to save it *iom the Midian-
ites."2 Cut out, as it was, in the living rock, and of great size, he
could store his grain in it unobserved by those at a distance, which
would not have been possible if the "floor" had, as usual, been in the
open field, or on the top of a hill. Dhaheriyeh is visible a great way
off in every direction, for it lies high, but when it is reached it ))roves
to be only a rude collection of stone hovels, some broken down, others
half underground. There are the remains of a square tower, now used
as a dwelling, and the arched doorways of many of the hovels are of
hewn f.tone, relics of better days. There seems to have once been a
stronghold here: one of the line of "fortified towns" which anciently
stood along all the southern border of Palestine. The number of able-
bodied men in the village is about a hundred; and it may assist in

I pea. Beportt, 1874, p. 65. 2 Judf?. vl. H,

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ZVL]

VBl COUNTRY SOUTH OF HBBBOV.

realizing the oppression of their subjects by Eastern govemments,
when I state that when the Egyptians held the country before 1840,
out of this hundred no fewer than thirty-eight were carried off to serve
in distant lands, in tlie army. Ruined as it is, the village is rich in
flocks and herds, and has at least a hundred camels. Yet the country
around is very barren. The limestone stands out from the sides and
tops of the bald hills in hu^e sheets and rough masses, giving the
wnole landscape a ghastly white color. There are no trees, nor any

§ rain-patches, except at the bottom of the narrow ravines. Still, the
ocks and herds showed that even this dreary and forbidding desola-
tion affords good pasture, for tiiey were both fat and sleek; and this
very region lias been the haunt of shepherds since the days of the
patriarchs.

From Dhaheriyeh to El-Dilbeh the trLck is, in part, verv steep and
rocky ; then comes a broad wady ; then more hills and nollows, the
hills, however, gradually beginning to show dwarf-oaks, arbutus, and
other scrub. The Wady-el-Dilbeh, with its springs of running water,
is a delightful relief to the tl<irsty traveller. There is no village now ;
but in summer the caves in the hills on each side are used as dwell-
ings by companies of peasants, who migrate to the spot with tlieir
flocks and all their belongings, deserting their villages for the time.
As Hebron is approached, the hills become more thickly clothed with
bushes, while a kind of thyme fills the air with its sweetness. Then
follow the vineyards and olive-grounds of the old city, each with its
small house or tower of stone for a keeper, though the people of Heb-
ron themselves go out and live in them during the vintage, to such an
extent that the town for the time seems almost deserted. Presently,
as you ascend another hill, the city comes ^n sight, lying low down on
the sloping side of its valley, mostly facing the south-east ; the houses,
as I have said, all of stone, high and well built, with windows and flat
roofs, dotted with low domes, of which a single dwelling has some-
times two or three, marking the crown of the arched stone chambers
below. Hebron has no walls ; but there are gates at the entrance of
one or two streets which lead from the country. Besides the great
Mosque of Machpelah, there is a castle, not high, but with enormously
strong walls, parts of which, however, as is usual with any Turkish
building, are in ruins. There is also a large khan, or place of rest for
traders and others as they pass through or transact business in Hebron,
a stone over the gate Plating that it was built in A. D. 1282.

A visit to a tannery in this vicinity showed how the skin bottles of
the country are made. On the hill-side north of the mosque was a
large tan-yard for the manufacture of water-skins, which, as I have
said, are merely the skins of goats, stripped oflf whole, except at the
legs, tail, and neok, the holes of the legs and tail bein^ sewn up, whil^

228

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[OnAF.

the neck is left open as a inoutli. The skins are first stufiecl to tlie
utmost wiiii oak chips, on which a strong solution ot oak -bark is then
plentifully puureil, and the t.iiole left till the hair becomes fixed an<i
the skin tainied. This is all that is done with them. Quantities o!'
these swollen headless and legless skins lay in rows, to the number of
not less than 1,500, presenting a very strange spectacle. The price of
a bottle varies from about three shillings to eignt in our money.

A last look at the valley impresses one witli the strange contradic-
tions to be met in Palestine. The hills all round the town look utterly
barren, except the one to the south, which is covered with olives ; yet
the vineyarus, and orchards of pear, quince, fig, pomegranate, apricot,
and other fruits, had covered miles as I approached at first, fVom the
west. All the hill-sides had been terraced, and every spot of soil
among the rocks utilized. But even where thus made artificially fer-
tile, the slopes seemed, from l)elow, a sheet of bare rock, on account of
the stone walls of the terraces rising so closely one over the other.
In summer, when the leaves are in their glory, the scene must be more
attractive; but at no time can vines grown like those of Hebron be
picturesque. The one stem from four to six feet high, erect, or bent
almost to the ground, with a longer or shorter prop to keep it fVom
actually touching the earth, and a few shoots from «^^oh crown, make
only a modest picture.

The threshing-floors of Hebron are on the slopes of the hill, beside
the cemetery, on the south-west side of the valley. All who have
any grain, of whatever kind, to tread out, make free use of them.
Barley, lentils, and vetches, which are grown chiefly for camels, are
the first crops ripe, and are laid in heaps till the owners can bring their
beasts to pace round over them as they lie spread out in a circle. Nor
do they care to finish at once ; other calls detain their animals, so that
they come to the floor only when it suits them, leaving after two or
three hours, since in this climate there is no fear of rain. Sometimes
two, or even four beasts are driven round over the grain — donkeys,
cattle, or horses, as the owner possesses one or other. None of these
animals are muzzled, for it is still against custom to prevent the crea-
tures tl at tread out the com from rewarding themselves for their toil
by a chance mouthful.^ The winnowing is done by tossing the trod-
den straw against the wind with a fork ;^ and the owners of the crops
come every night and sleep on their threshing-flor rs to guard them,
just as Boaz did more than three thousand years ago.'

The people of Hebron, in their higher and lower classes, are, per-
haps, the best representation to be found in Palestine of purely Eastern
manners. The poor live in a very humble way indeed, mainly on
fruit, bread, and vegetables. The rich are more elaborate in their
I Peud. »y. 4; 1 CQr. lx.9: ; Tim. v. 18. 2 ^tt. }ii. Vi; Luke Iti. 17. 8 J^nth )t(. »-l4.

XVt,]

tttS COt7l7tIlV SOtJTfi 01!* IttBBllO^.

per-
stern
y on
their

meals. I have described the reception-room of the officer in command
of the troops in tlie south of l^alestine, but he was partly Western in
his ideas and dress> It is very different with the principal local lam-
ilies. Their mode of living may be illustrated us a wliole from the
details of one dinner, at which several distinguished personages were
present. A very large circular tray of tinned copper, placed on a
course wooden stool about a foot high, served as the table. In the
centre of this stood another big tray, with a mountain of pillau, com-
posed of rioe, boiled and buttered, with small pieces of meat strewn
through and upon it. This was the chief dish, though there were
other smaller dishes, both meat and vegetable. Ten persons sat round
the table, or rather squatted on the carpet, with their knees drawn up
close to their bodies. Each had before him a nlate of tinned cop{)er
and a wooden spoon, which some used without tne plate. Most, how-
ever, preferred to use the fingers of the left hand, several dipping their
hands together into the dish, as the apostles did at the Last Supper.'-^
As soon as anyone had finished, he rose and went into anotiier room,
to have water poured over his hands to wash them, and the vacant
place at the table was instantly filled by a new-comer.

Such was the dinner provided for three governors, among other
grandees. The bread, I may say, was laid on the mat under the tray,
80 as to be easily reached ; and a jar of water, the only beverage used
during the meal, stood within reach. Besides rice, stews of beans or
cracked wheat, with thick soup or sauce poured over them, in the
great central bowl, are also in fashion. Spoons, though sometimes
provided, are often wanting — pieces of the thin bread, doubled, serving
instead. Knives and forks are unknown; and as there is no special
dining-room, there is no furniture suited for one. Kence tables and
chairs are never seen. The meat being always cut up into small pieces,
there is no need for a knife, and chickens can easily be torn asunder
with the hands. So far, indeed, are Orientals from thinking it strange
to dip their fingers into the common dish, that it is a special act of
politeness to grope in it for the visitor, and lay nice morsels before
him, or even to insist on putting them into his mouth. Chickens are
the most common form of animal food met everywhere. A traveller
from the West, in fact, gets disgusted with their constant appearance
at every meal, especially as he often hears their death-cries only a few
minutes before they are served up. "To kill and eat" follows with
the same closeness now as in the days of St. Peter,^ whether it be
chickens or anything larger.

1 See ante, p. 327. 2 Matt. xzvi. 23 ; Mark xiv. 20. 3 Acts z. 18.

280

¥HS ItOLy LAND AND YfitS btBLB.

tOlAT.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE COUNTRY NORTH OF HEBRON.

The road fVom Hebron to Jerusalem is rough and mountainous, but
very direct. Our kind host wished us to stay with him longer, but
this being impossible, wo sent on our donkeys with the tents, the Turk-
ish soldiers having duly found the wanderers and brought them to
Hebron. They had been overtaken by night, they said, at Falujch,
and fearing robbers, had slept there — that is, they had lain down beside
their beasts in the dress thev wore. A spring runs down from the
north side of the hill as you leave Hebron, and makes the track for a
time muddy ; but this is rather a welcome sight in Palestine. A fringe
of grass at the sides, below the broad, low walks of loose stones picked
oft' the small fields, vineyards, &;c., which skirted our way, was a lovely
green. The path soon aftor was for a time rongiily paved — when, or
by whom, is a very hard question to answer; but the stones are now
at such angles, and in such heights and hollows, that they would break
the legs of any horses not bred in the country. Before long the road
became simply fearful, running in the dry bed of a winter torrent
strewn with stones of all sizes, in thick masses. Every patch of soil
on the bare hill-sides was in some wav utilized. Four camels passed
us with bags of tallow, then a man with a very primitive gun — a shep-
herd from the hills. We next came to a well, where there were
women in blue cotton, with white cloth over their heads, some draw-
ing water, others pounding household linen with a stone at a small
pool by the well-side; the linen, I fear, sadly wanting their kind
offices. Not far from Hebron a small valley ran into the one we were
climbing, with fine vineyards growing on terraces up the hills. This
has been thought to be the valley of Eshcol, from which the spies
brought back the grapes,* but, as I have previously said,* tlie fruit
must have been gathered much farther south, near Kadesh.

The road, bad though it was, bore every appearance of having
always been the highway between Hebron and Jerusalem, for it is
direct, and has evidently been made by human labor in a long-past age.
It is certain, however, that it could never have been passable for
wheels, for they could not be dragged over such a wilderness of bould-
ers and loose stones of all sizes, or up slopes so steep. Nor, indeed, do
we hear of wheeled vehicles in the parts south of Jerusalem, except
when Joseph sent wagons to bring down his father Jacob to Egypt ;
and they only came as far as Hebron, whence Jacob, then very old, trav>
elled in them to Beersheba.' As in olden times, the ass is the main
1 Num. xiU. 28. 8 Soe aaU, pp. 960, 818. 8 Oen. xlv. 19, 20, 27 1 xlvl. 1.

kind

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TfiS COtTKTHY KOtlTR OP HBBllOI^.

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I trav-
main

help for a journey, liorees still being few, and mules only used for bag-
gage and uther burdens. Dig men on diminutive donkeys are seen
everywhere, and, at times, a woman and child on the family ass, while
the husband walks at the side of his wife. Thus Josepii, it is to be
supposed, travelled with the Blessed Virgin from Bethlehem to Egypt,
and from Egypt to Nazaretii.^ So, also, rode the ancient king8,'^auu
so rode our Lord, as the Son of David, in fultihneut of the words of
Zeohariah : " Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, lowly, and riding
upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass; " and we are told that
Saul rode to the field spear in hand, as peasants on their asses now
carry their clubs or guns, and with a small water-jar tied to his rude
saddle, as in our day.^

About three miles from Hebron a path runs oft' towards Tekoa; and
on this, al)out five minutes' ride from the road we were following, are
two courses of ancient hewn stones, among which one measured fifteen
and a half feet long, and three and a third feet tliick. There are l^i
such walls, at right angles to each other, apparently the remains oi An
enclosure, one side of which measures 200 feet, and the other 160. The
Jews of Hebron call this " the House of Abraham," regarding it as the
spot where the patriarcli pitched his tent, and where his famous tere-
binth-tree grew. Nor is this really improbable, when we see the
extreme age of the walls, as shown by their bevel, and by the size of
the stones. Besides, the tradition is at least 1,500 years old. When
between four and five miles from Hebron, a ruined mosque was pointed
out on the right, about three miles from tlie road, bearing the name of
Neby Yunas — "the Prophet Jonah." There is another with the same
name, on the coast below Acre, a place natural enough for it; but why
there should be a mosque to Jonah near Hebron is not so easy to
understand. It shows, at least, how deep a hold the narrative about
the prophet obtained on the popular mind. What kind offish or crea-
ture it was that swallowed him has been discussed a thousand timos,
some insisting that it must have been a whale, since the English Testa-
ment says so.* But the words used, both in the Old Testament and
the New, speak only of a great fish or other sea-monster, leaving the
kind entirely an open question. Bochart, in his wonderful " Hierozoi-
con,"* has long ago shown that huge sharks are found in the Mediter-
ranean, able to swallow a man entire, and Dr. Pusey has quoted
instances in his elaborate book on tiie Minor Prophets;* but it is not
necessary to trouble ourselves with such details. That a human being
should have lived for any time in the body of a voracious animal was
itself a miracL so great, tlint there need be no difficulty as to the mon-
ster that was able to contain liim.^

■i

1 Mfttt. II. 14, 31. a Zeoh. Ix. 9; Matt. xxi. 5. 8 1 Sam. xxvi. U.
ft Hkrot. ii. 742—746. 6 Fuitey, Minor Prophett— Jonah,

4 £oiMloiKlM«Jtooft,p.68.

ISB noVt LAITD AND THE BIBLB.

tOitA».

The prophet's gourd has also been the subject of much ooiitiovoisy.
St. Jerome thought tlie word should be " ivy " ; and many have fancied
that the castor-oil tree is intended. T\na certainly reaches a consider-
able size, being founrl twelve or fifteen feet high in Palestine ; but it
has widely open-branches, and is indifferently fitted for giving shade.
Dr. Tristram, on this ground among others, thinks that the bottle-
gourd is meant — a plant very commonly used in Palestine and else-
where to cove? and give cooling shade to arbors. I have often seen
it,, both in the Holy Land and in America, trained over such shelters,
its rapid growth and large leaver admirably adapting it to such a pur-
pose, while the extreme fragility of its stem exposes it to a striking
suddenness of decay, should a storm strike it or a caterpillar gnaw at
its root. One day it may be seen in its glory ; the next, it hangs
withered and dried up. This would exactly suit the narrative. The
prophet's frail booth covered with soft green, as it were in a night,
Blight, before another sunset, be left bare as at first by the violence of
a passing wind, or a chance injury to the stem, even from a cause so
insign.iicant as the tooth of a "worm."^ Dr. Thompson ^ agrees
with Canon Tristram in rejecting the castor-oil plant for the gourd,
and, indeed, the difficulty could only have arisen from the similarity in
sound, in the modern languages of Palestine, between the names of the
two — " kurah " meaning gourd, and "kurwah " castor-oil plant ; while in
the Hebrew the gourd is " kikayon ; " and in Herodotus the castor-oil
plant is " kiki."

Tarshish, to which Jonah's ship was bound, seems to have been the
name given originally to the Guadalquivir, in Spain, and to a populous
town at its mouth. It is Ln aboriginal Spanish word rather* than a
Phoenician ; but a Carthaginian — that is, a Phoenician — colony,
founded in the neighborhood, adopted it as the name of the port which
became famous as the farthest western harbor of Tyrian sailors in
the southern seas of Europe. Ships of large size were hence called
" Tarshish ships," whether sailing to that port or not ; ^ their dimen-
sions and splendid finish seeming to the Hebrew prophets one of the
supreme illustrations of human power and pride.* Solomon's ships,
trading to Ceylon or East Africa, were also called " Tarshish ships; "
and so were those ot Tehoshaphat, which were built on the Red Sea.^
But Jonah's ship was apparently about to sail for Tarshish, in Spain,
and must have lain out in the roads at Joppa, having only called there
for freight or passengers, after sta' ting from the docks at Tyre. The
description of such a vessel in Ezekiel® helps us to realize the circum-
stances of the attempted voyage, though the details given by the
prophet may have varied in different ships. The deck was of cypress ;

1 Jonah iv. 6-t. 2 Land an/! iAe Book, p. 70.
6 IXlngrfx. 23 {1x11.49. 6Ez')k. xxvll.

8lMkU.16;ls.e. 4Isa.szU.l(Ezek.xxTU.25.

XVliJ

?^flE coUNi'RY North of rtfiBuoM.

283

the mast, a tall cedar ; the helm, oak of Baslmn ; the oar-benches, of
the cypress of Cyprus, inlaid with ivory ; the sails, of white Egyptian
canvas, gaily embroidered; while the awnings over the quarter-deck,
to keep the sun from the cabin-passengers, were of blue and purple.
The oarsmen were the famed sea-dogs of Sidou and Aradus ; the
steersmen, from Tyre, had the care of the sails and rigging, and were
under the command of a chief steersman, or "master"; the staft* of
ship carpenters was from Gebal ; and there were, besides, traders,
soldiers attached to the ship, and passengers. A wonderful picture of
an ocean-going ship of three thousand years ago !

At El-Dirweh, about six miles from Hebron, on the right of the
track, a fountain was pouring clear, sparkling water into a stone trough,
at a short distance from the ruins of a fortress, the scene of brave
deeds in the Lirue of the Maccabees, for it is the site of the ancient
Bethsur, a tower bearing that name standing on a low height a little
way off the road. Only one side of it is left ; but some of the stones
are draftee* , showing that the masonry is at the oldest Byzantine.
There are also hewn stones lying around, and l'( imdations of buildings ;
but there are no marks of a fortified wall round the station. The
tower itself is only about twenty feet square, put its position is very
strong, and it commanded, in its day, the great road from the south to
Jerusalem. Josepaus speaks of it as the strongest fortress in Judaea.^
Already existing as a village in the time of Joshua, Bethsur was forti-
fied in that of Eehoboam, and its inhabitants, alter the exile, helped
to rebuild the long-destroyed walls of Jerusalem.^ A fierce battle
once raged all round these hills and gorges, when Judas Maccabaens
defeated the Syrian general, Lysias, and was able to strengthen the
tower against the Edomites.'* Nor was this the last time that these,
rocks were colored with blood, for the Syrian retook Bethsur, and it was
wrested from him once more and made stronger than ever by Simon
Maccabaeus, the last survivor of the great brothers.^ The fountain is
only seven minutes' walk from this memorable spot, and issues from
beneath a wall of large hewn stones, a runnel from it flowing down the
road. On the other side of the track is a small tank lined with cement,
as well as a larger and rougher one, uncemented . There are marks of an
ancient pavement, now ' roken and terribly rough, but once, no doubt,
very different. The ruins of an ancient church lie near the fountain,
with remains of the old wall that enclosed its yard. It has been
thought that Bethsur was the scen< of the baptism of the eunuch by
St. Philip when on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza ; but it is much
more likely that the incident occurred between Beit Jibrin and Gaza,

1 Jos. Ant., xiii. 5, 6. 2 Josh. xill. 68 ; 2 Ghron. xl. 7; Neh. i!i. 16. 3 1 Mace. iv. 29, 61 : 2 Mace. xi.
6 ; Jos. ArU., \\\. 7, 5. 41 Mace. vi. 31, 60; ix. 62 ; x. 14 ; xi. 65, 66 ; xlv. 7, 33.

234

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

especially since St. Philip whs afterwards found at Ashdod, on the
Philistine plain.^ Bethsur lies 3,180 feet above the sea.

Just after passing it, a wady on the left, with the name Bereikut,
recalled the valley of Berachaii,'^ the scene of Jehoshaphat's thanks-
giving, which the locality exactly suits, as Tekoa is only about three
miles oft' to the east. On a hill to the left stood the hamlet of Jedur,
the ancient Gedor.^ The read lay mostly through a broad valley,
with successive swells and hollows, the level still rising, and, hills,
single or together, shutting in the view east and west. The slopes
v/ere mostly covered with scrub-trees and herbs, hiding the bare chalks
and here and there lime-kilns were to be seen, burning oi* idle. Ruins
crowned most of the hill-tops both right and left, and smoke from the
charcoal burners' fires often rose from the bush, but there was
nowhere c village on the whole road. Some parts showed ancient
terraces, and in one place there were cultivated patches, "tind even
small fields, among the stones; yet, as a whole, the road led through
wild desolation. At one point it seemed, indeed, to vanish, leaving
only a track, visible perhaps to horses and mules, but beyond my
recognition. Climbing the side of a very steep hill, it crept along
through a chaos of rocks, witii only room enough at some places for
my beast to get through without leaving me behind. Thj valley lay
two or three hundred feet below when we reached our highest point ;
but before us and on both sides the grey barren rocks stretched slowly
up, the picture of a desert. To trust the sensible beast I rode was the
only security, as it climbed the stony roughness, or dropped its fore-
legs over some huge boulder. Not seldom the path was hardly broad
enough to let the creature pass along without falling over the side ;
and there was present to my mind the comfortable reflection that,
once offj it would roll to an indefinite depth down the wild steep.
The broad glen, far below, was at this part more or less cultivated ;
and no doubt there was some road through it, but my guide had taken
a short cut over the mountains, to his own delight perhaps, but
certainly not to mine.

Once more on a safe level, we found ourselves in the midst of a
great number of Russian pilgrims on their way to Juttah, the birth-
place of St. John the Baptist. There were some priests among them
with the strange brimless hat of the (jreek Church, and the flowing
beard of which its clergy are all so proud. Most of the pilgrims were
of middle age, and the two sexes were equally well represented. Fur
caps, thick woollen coats, trousers, petticoats, and heavy boots, seemed
very ill suited to the climate ; but they would at least withstand the
wear and tear of the long journev from Russia and back. Many
carried pots and cooking vessels ; some, bundles of household gear ;

1 Acts viii. 38. 2 2 Chron. xx. 26. 3 Josb. xii. 13.

xvn.]

THE COUNTRY NORTH OP HEBRON.

285

and all were comfortably, if roughly, equipped. They had no doubt
come from Constantinople to Joppa in a Russian steamer, enduring
what to us would be intolerable hardships, and were now proposing to
return to Jerusalem in time for Easter, and then, to go down to the
Jordan and dip in its sacred waters, finding their way back to Russia
as they best could, after having completed this long pilgrimage. So,
in ancient days, had there come to Jerusalem " Jews, devout men, out
of every nation under heaven,"^ to keep the Passover, the Easter of
the Hebrew.

The hills on each side of the valley, beyond this, were covered with
bushes, through which the remains of ancient terraces showed them-
selves; but a ruined village, with olive-trees and some ploughed
land round it, and a rainwater pond, were almost the only signs
that the land was still in some parts inhabited. A little further
on, where a valley crossed our path at right angles, making a
wide open space, we reached the famous reservoirs known as Solo-
mon's Pools. The three huge cisterns thus designated are built of
squared stones, and bear marks of the highest antiquity. They lie
one below the other, at a height of 2,600 feet above the sea, at th^i
west end of the narrow Wady Urtas, which runs east and west across
the track by which we had come from Hebron. In a place so lonely,
theoe vast structures fill the mind with wonder. They are separated
from one ar ^ther by only a short interval, and the bottom of each is
higher than the top of the one below it. The uppor pool has the
great length of 380 feet, and is 229 feet broad at tlie west, and 236 at
the east end, whilv its depth is tvventy-five feet. The middle pool,
however, is no less than 423 feet long, 160 feet broad at the west, and
250 at the east end, and its depi'i is thirty-nine feet. But the lowest
pool is the largest of the three, measuring 582 feet in length, 148 feet
iDroad at the west, and 207 at the east end, with a depth of fifty feet.
The depth, I may say, is in each case that of the lower, or eastern, end.
Between the surfaces of the upper and middle pools there is a distance
of 160 feet and the lower pool is 248 feet from the middle one, so that
this gigantic series of reservoirs extends, in all, to the great distance
of 1,793 feet, or more than the third of a mile. The inside and the
bed of all three, so far as can be seen, are lined with cement, which,
however, has broken away in some places, while in others it has evi-
dently been repaired. Flights of steps at the corners and the middle
lead to the water, and huge*steps along the sides at the bottom, leave
a central channel of extra depth, in which the bare rock shows itself
in many places. Water stood in the upper and middle pools, but the
lower one was dry. The steps at the sides, along the bottom, are cut
in the native rock, but I did not attempt to go down to them, as they

1 Acta ii. 6.

286

THE HOLY LAlJt) AND *flBS ttfitEl.

tCittl#.

were largely covered with the jelly of decayed water- weeds, beds of
which floated in the pools. The lower pool is connected with the
second by a steep channel, through which, however, there was no
water running ; but a steady flow came into the second pool from an
opening connecting it with the first. The walls must be immensely
strong to have stood firm for so many centuries ; but, of course, they
are in reality only a facing to the rock, out of which all the cisterns
have been hewn.

Immediately to the north-west of the Pools is an abandoned, strag-
gling fort, built by the Saracens, and known as El-Burak. T "^ or
three men were living in the rude chambers inside the gate, and some
poor Arabs had sought temporary shelter in the wide, forsaken interior,
which is square and devoid of buildings. Herds and flocks evidently
made use of it as a spacious fold. In its day the fort had helped to
protect the Pools, but this service is no longer necessary. Grass and
flowers sprinkled the ground outside, but the slopes north and south,
closing in the valley, were unusually wild and bare ; the winter storms,
unchecked by trees or shrubs, having v.''ashed down all the soil and left
the hill-sides strewn with great blocks of stone in the wildest con-
fusion.

The Wady Urtas sinks steeply from west to east, the direction of
the Pools ; so that, had one pool been made instead of three, the wady
must have been dammed by a gigantic wall — if, indeed, any structure
could have resisted the weight of such a body of water as would thus
have accumulated. But even to hew out the three separate pools must
have been a wonderful undertaking, especially in an age when science
was so imperfect that it has left one end of each excavation broader
than the other, apparently from inability to follow a straight line.
Indeed, there are many indications of imperfect engineering, though
the effect, as a whole, is so striking. Tradition ascribes Jie enterprise
to SolomoL, and we know that he had great gardens near Jerusalem,
and a pleasure-palace, to which he drove out in royal pomp. These,
it may be, were in Wady U^tas, watered by the abundant streams from
the Pools. Perhaps it is of these, and in this very place, that the
Beloved sings: "Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south, blow
upon my garden, that the spices may flow out.^ Let my beloved
come into his garden and eat his precious fruits." Perhaps it was in
these delicious retreats that he sang of his bride as "a garden barred,
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," and'compared her to a paradise-
garden of pomegranates and all kinds of noble fruits, henna, with spike-
nard plants, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all
kinds of incense-bearing trees, myrrh and aloes, and all the best of
spices.2 The beauty of the Wady Urtas lower down makes it easy
1 Cant. iv. 16; rather "that its fragrance may spread abroad." 2 Cant. Iv. 12—14.

red,

of
[asy

XVII.J

THE COUNTUY NOIITII OF HEBRON.

237

to think that the famous king enjoyed the glories of spring in its bosom.
We read of him, " I made me great works ; I builded me houses ; I
planted me vineyards ; I made me gardens and parks ; and I planted
trees in them, of all kinds of fruits ; I made me pools of water, to
water therefrom the fruit where trees were reared."^ Why may not
these pools be those of Urtas? They may well have beea the work of
that ancient time ; their very defects, in some respects, being an indirect
evidence of their antiquity, for while the supreme triumphs of Hebrew
architecture were carried out by the help of skilled Tyrian architects
and masons, those in whioh only native skill could be employed would
naturally be less perfect. We see an illustration of this in the subter-
ranean rook conduit at Siloam, dating, it is thought, from the reign of
Hezekiah, for the workmen, beginning at both ends, have missed each
other's approach, so as to need a cross-opening to effect a junction. It
is quite possible, then, that these hu^e excavations are a memorial of
the labor exacted by Solomon from his people, the bitterness of which
led, under Rehoboam, to the revolt of the Ten Tribes.^

The supply of these great reservoirs was derived from four springs,
one of which flows underground into the west, or upper pool, through
a vault ; the second is said to bubble up from beneath the bottom of
the Pools ; the third runs through a small channel, partly of stones,
partly of stoneware pipes, from tne hill-side south-east of the fort : a
clear, bright stream, with whioh I quenched my thirst, at a gap in the
top of its square stone bed. The forth rises inside the ola castle.
There was, besides, a high-level aqueduct which brought water down a
long wady from the south, partly the flow of a spring now dried up,
but also the surface drainage of the hills, for provision was made that
nothing should be lost. But the chief of all these sources is that which
rises on the hill-side, about 200 paces west of the upper pool, and flows
into it, as I have said, through a vault; its subterranean course lead-
ing to a popular belief that it is the " sealed fountain " of Solomon's
Song.

In former times, when the whole water system of which the Pools
were the centre was perfect, a great aqueduct, the continuation of that
which stretched for nearlv ten miles from the south, ran under the
Pools, receiving additional supplies from them, and was led on, by a
winding course, along the hill-sides, past Bethlehem, to the Temple
space in Jerusalem. The portion of this great work which lies south
of the Pools is apparently very old, the cnanir^l being sometimes cut
in the rocks, and at one place tunnelled through them. For the most
part, however, it is formed of strong masonry, sometimes six or eight
feet high, and faced with ashlar; the waterway varying from eighteen
inches to two feet in breadth, and from a foot tQ ty^Q W^^ ^ half Ibet ii;

238

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

depth, lined throughout witli strong cement, and covered with loose
slabs of stone. Under the Pools the water flowed in stoneware pipes,
with air-holes at intervals, to relieve the pressure.

There were, moreover, according t > Mr. Drake, four other aqueducts
connected witli the Pools and the Valley ot Urtas: one which entered
Jerusalem near the Jo])pa Gate, at a high level; another, now quite
ruined, which stretched if the smu direction; a third to supply
villa;' ' to the et-stward; v- |;ii< ii i >urth was led, apparently by
Herod, towards his lamou!:' !V)rtri'is«' anc; city of Ilerodium, now the
Frank Mountain, to water tiio yarn <i8 with which he beautified the
neighborhood. The officers u tlie F lostine Survey think that all
these gigantic works date from tlie lioiian period. Some of them,
indeed, are very probably the identical conduits of which Josephus
speaks, as built by Pontius Pilate with money taken from the Temple
treasury, and therefore sacred, as "corban," or devoted to God. This
effort, however, to benclit the city involved Pilate in more hatred than
all his other acts, it being regarded as a sacrilegious robbery of Church
funds. But, though Roman governors may have added to works they
found already in existence, and perhaps repaired dilapidations whicn
may have been extensive, why should Josephus have mentioned Pilate
as having made only one aqueduct, which was an undertaking so much
less magnificent than the Pools, if they themselves were his work or
that of any other Roman? From the roofing of portions of the aque-
ducts with half- formed arches, and from the look of the fragments of
the great one, near Jerusalem, being so much more ancient than the
Roman style, I cannot refrain f^om the belief that though the contem-
poraries of our Lord may have repaired or added to existing structures,
the glory of hewing oul the ^ uge Pools belongs to the great Hebrew
king, Solomon, and that they form a splendid relic of his peaceful
greatness.

Such works for the supply of water to Jerusalem and the countrj'-
east of Urtas may well excite astonishment in the present condition of
Palestine. It has been noticed, however, by Canon Tristram that
aqueducts are found not only in a district like this, where nearness to
the capital might explain their presence, but in places which have, for
ages, been unpeopled and desolate. They span in many places the pro-
found gorges between Jerusalem, and Quarantania; we find traces of
them at Engedi, on the Dea Sea ; they are still visible at different parts
of the dismal wilderness of Judaea. Indeed, even in the v/adys at the
south-west corner of the Dead Sea we find traces of carefully-cemented
conduits, once supplying cisterns which are still perfect, and may some
day restore fertility, after ages of neglect, to regions which need only
water to blossom like the ros^.^

1 Pict. Palfttine, i. 14}.

XVII.l

THE COUNTRY NORTH OF HEBRON.

289

The villri»c cf Ui'^as lies nea^- the bottom of the valley, about a mile
east of the Poold, clinging, in ruin, to the south slope, which is both
Bteep and bare, like all the " ?enery around. There are still some
inhabitants, who live, for the iiiost part, in hovels on the hill-side, unfit
foi buman dwellings. A ^ew trees grow amidst the houses, which are
flat-roofed, and roughly built of stones, but showing every stage of
dilwpidatijn. Except for the climate, such a place would, in I'act, be
uninhabitable. Yet this seems to have been the site of Etam, where
Solomon had his royal gardens, with streams running through them.
Rehoboam, also, thought Etam worth fortifying, along with Bethle-
hem and Tekoa.i There are still, indeed, the foundations of a square
tower — a low, broad wall of large squared stones ; and V^ rocks are in
some places hewn and scarped: evidences of a militaj / ]. t, with its
defences, in olden clays. One attraction yet exists w; 'cli ..y account
for the importance once attached to a spot now so .ai.,-rable: a foun-
tain sends forth an abundant supply of fine wai,..-, wi ich flows in a
bright, murmuring stream, all the year round, down he valley. In
such a thirsty land, it may well have delighted b b Solomon and his
foolish son, and no doubt it might, even now, if uti::Zf d as it should be,
make Wady Urtas a paradise. It is, however, used to some extent,
for along its sides aro gardens of citrons, pomegranates, figs, oranges,
and even pears, apples, and cherries, intermingled with plots in which
grow cauliflowers, turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables. Shut in by
steep slopes of grey rock, which are sprinkled at one spot with the
dilapidated hovels of the village, this greenery is all the more delight-
ful on that account, and serves to show what the place may have been
in Solomon's day.

Insect life was already quickening in the sun, and ants were busy, as
always in warm weather, at their multifarious occupations. Was it
here that the Wise Man noticed them, and wrote, "Go to the ant, thou
sluggard: consider her ways, and be wise; which having no chief,^
overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth
her food in the harvest"?^ Modern science has felt a difficulty in
these words, dnce the ant does not live on grain, but on flesh, insects,
and the sweet sap or other exudations of trees, which it could not store
up for winter use, 'uid since it sleeps during winter, in all but very hot
climates. The truth is, we must not look in Scripture for science,
which was unknown in early ages, for it is n jt the purpose of Revela-
tion to teach it, and the sacred writers, in this as in other matters of a
similar kind, were left to write according to v;he popular belief of their
day. We fi[nd the same idea in another passage of the same book.
" There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are
exceeding wise : the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare
12Chron.xi.6. 2 Or "Judge." 8 Prov. vi. 6-8.

240

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

CChar

their meat in the summer." * It was universally believed in antiquity
that ants did so, and even Dr. Thomson, in " The Land and the Book,^'
and Neil, in his " Palestine Explored," cling to the idea.* Ants do,
indeed, fill their nests with many things, but it is to pad them warmly,
and keep themselves from the damp earth ; and hence, though they are
undoubtedly assiduous in harvest-time in carrying off grains of corn,
chaff, grass, seeds, and vegetable husks of all kinds, they do so to make
their underground rooms comfortable, not to lay up food for a season
during which, in many parts, they eat nothing. Anyone may see the
proof of this for himself by opening an ants' nest. He will find every-
thing to make it warm, but the supposed " stores " are left quite
untouched.

It is not certain, indeed, that in Palestine ants hibernate, for they
may be seen — at least in the warm district round the Dead Sea — busy
on the tamarisk-trunks, seeking their food, even in January. The mis-
take is similar to t'iat which prevails very generally, even in our own
day, as to ants' eggs, which is the name popularly given, both in Eng-
land and Germany, to the pupse, or ants in process of transformation
into the perfect insect. They then closely resemble grains of corn, and
are carried out daily by their nurses to enjoy the heat of the sun, and
taken in again ^ .^ore evening. Who that has broken into an ants'
nest, by accident or intentionally, has not seen the workers rushing off
with these white, egg-like bouies, in trembling haste, to bear them to
a place of security? But if we nowadays make a popular mistake in
thmking these to be eggs, how much more natural was it that errone-
ous ideas, on another point of ant-life, should obtain three thousand
years ago I Mr. Neil's experience, indeed, shows how easily a mistake
might arise. While encamped, about the middle of March, near
Tiberias, on the Lake of Galilee, he noticed a line of large, black ants
marching towards their nest, each laden with a grain of barley, larger
and longer than itself, so that they looked like a moving multitude of
barleycorns. This line, he found, extended to a spot where some of
the corn for his beasts had been spilt by the mule-drivers, or had fallen
from the nosebags, and was now being appropriated by the ants. That
they should carry it off, seemed at once to justify the supposition that
they were doing so to la^r up food for the winter, and yet, as I have
said, nothing is more certain than that ants do not eat dried barley or
any other dry grain.
I Prov. XXX. 24, 25. 9 Land ani the Book, p. 609; PaletHne Explored, p. 7(J.

XVIII.]

URTAS.

241

CHAPTER XVin.

URTAS.

In the valley of Urtas, and on the hills, flocks r^ sheep and goats,
mingled together, were feeding, as Laban's flocks used to do long ago
under the care of Jacob;* the sheep of course, all broad-tailed; tluit is,
with a great mass of lat, in the middle of which the tail runs down
like a dividing line, projecting from it at the lower end. There were
also a few camels, and some cattle, so that on the.se apparently barren
hill-sides there was nourishment for even the larger animals. The
gardens ceased before the pasturage began; the gravelly soil soon
drinking up the sweet rivulet which had been brawling over the peb-
bles and stones

Tekoa, and also the Frame Mountain, where Herod the Great was
buried, could both be visited better from Urtas than from any other
point. It is a steady climb from the bottom of the wady to the table-
land above; the track leading to the right, and the pleasant compan-
ionship of the old aqueducts, still supplying Jerusalem, brightens part
of the journey. At one place, a spring pours out through two mouths
under a canopy, its waters in part supplying Bethlehem; water-cnr-
riers were fiUing their skins at it, and carrying them to the town.
This stream, no doubt, was once connected with the aqueduct that led
from Solomon's Pools to the forecourts of the Temple at Jerusalem.
The aqueduct is still perfect for some distance; its bed measures about
a foot deep and the same in width, with a covering of flat stones,
which, however, was gone in some places, giving man and beast a
highly-prized opportunity of quenching their thirst. The conduit,
was, in fact, exactly Lke that which 1 had seen on the north side
of the Pools, and from which I had drunk; indeed, it was a continua-
tion of it.

The hills between Urtas and El-Fureidis — a diminutive of the Ara-
bic word for Paradise — are very desolate and scorched, but had once
been carefully terraced and cultivated. The mountain honored by
Herod as the site of his fortress rises steep and round — 300 or 400 feet
above the plain — like the cone of a volcano from which the top has
been cut away. Yet it is only 190 feet higher than the village of
Urtas, so that if the road had ascended for part of the way, there must
have been a descent for the rest of it — the beginning of the slope
towards the Jordan. This isolated height, Josephus tells us, Herod
raised still higher, or, at least, filled up and trimmed to suit his design,
erecting on the flat space at the top a great Roman castle, with rounded

1 Gen. XXX. 85.

242

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[ORAV.

towers, and providing within it ii tniignifioent palace for liimselC. The
fortress was reached by a wonderful stairway of hewn stone, 200 steps
high. At the foot of tlio hill other gran<l palaces were built for him-
self and his friends, and the whole ulain around was covered with
houses, forming a large town in the Italian style, with all the advan-
tages of Western civilization and refinement; the castle protecting the
whole.

The name of "the Little Paradise," which the place still bears, may
have arisen from the beauty of the gardens, no less than of the town,
for, as I have said, Herod brought a plentiful stream from the Pools
of Solomon to irrigate the soil and supply every want of the com-
munity, in an age when public and private baths were considered a
first necessity of life. He had defended himself bravely against
the Parthians at this 8[)ot, when pursued by Antigoims, and had
been forced to flee from Masada, where his brother Joseph had
command, and to seek refuge, first in Egypt and then in Rome. On
his triumphant return, however, he resolved to fortify a spot not only
dear to him from the memory of his escape from great peril, but also
of high importance as commanding the gorges towards the Dead Sea.
Here, also, he was at last buried with great pomp,^ his body being
carried to its last resting- place''' from Jericho, to which he had gone
very shortly before his death from the warm baths of Callirrhoe, on the
other side of the Dead Sea.

A steep ascent of ten minutes, on foot, brings one to the top of the
hill, where the flat surface of the ground forms a space about 750 feet
round. The whole of this is enclosed by the ruins of a circular fort-
ress of hewn stones, with four massive round towers, standing, one at
each of the cardinal points. Inside, the ground slopes to a hollow in
the centre, as if the walls had been built on an artificial mound. There
are no escarpments on the hill, as on that of Samaria, for though there
are remains of terraces round the lower part of it, they have evidently
been rather for cultivation than defense. The tradition of the locality
is that Herod was buried at the foot of the hill, beside the great pub-
lic reservoir; and a mound which may one day repay a search, stands
now in the centre of the long-dried pool. After the fall of Jerusalem,
the Roman general took Herodium without resistance, and with this
incident it passes from history. Since then, however, the legend arose
from which it got its present name in Western Europe — the Frank
Mountain — the Crusaders being fabled to have held it aj];^ainst the Sar-
acens for forty years after Jerusalem had been wrested from them.
But as Irby and Mangles remark,^ "the place is too small ever to have
contained half the number of men which would have been requisite to
make any stand in such a country: and the ruins, though they might

1 Qelkle, Lifa and Worda qf Christ, i. 80-48. 2 Ibid., i. 248. 8 TravOt, p. 840.

kviti.j

\3MAA.

be those of a spot onoe defended by tlie Franks, appear to Imvo had an
earlier origin, as the architeoture Hooins to 1k) Uoinan."

The view from the top is very wide towards the north, but less so
towards the south and west. The Mount of Olives stands out as if
elose at hand, and on eaeh side of it the eye notes hill beyond hill,
eaeh a venerable site. To the east and south the landscape is especi-
ally interesting, as that of the region consecrated by the story of David
and St. .John the Baptist. To the south stretches a desolate succession
of earth -waves, sinking towards both south and east; their color dark
grey; their outline relieved by no tree or verdure, for the sparse
growth to be seen here and there is dried up till it is brown, instead of
green. Ruins on the hills add artificial to natural desolation, and the
sense of this is deepened by the knowledge that these ridges of forbid-
ding barrenness are, in many cases, the walls of yawning ravines, into
whose depths the sunshine falls only in a passing gleam, as it crosses
the narrow opening above. To the east, the same desert loneliness
and lifeless silence prevail, till the eye rests on the blue waters of the
Dead Sea, 3,000 feet below where you stand. Near you, the long
undulations of rock, broken into countless gorges and small vallevs, are
like nothing so much as rudely crumpled, coarse, dark greyish-brown

{)aper. You have immediatfly before you the home of the viper, the
ocust, the wild bee, the fox, the jackal, the partridge, and the wild
goat; for ages it has been shunned by man. Beyond this foreground,
still looking eastwards, light, pinkish-yellow hills succeed, ridge
beyond ridge, sinking ever lower and lower, till through their clefts
the Dead Sea carries the eye across its deep blue to the light red or
purple mountains of Moab, rising some hundreds of feet above the hills
on this side, and seamed into wide ravines by the torrents of innumer-
able winters.

Over this wild, inhospitable region, David wandered when a shep-
herd, for no landscape in Palestine is so rocky or barren as not to afford
pasture to wandering flocks of sheep and goats, either on the slopes or
in the ravines. Here, also, he lived with his 400 outlaws, when huntef'
like a partri-^^^e by Saul; hiding in the caves so numerous in every
ravine, or in o. e or other of the countless valleys or gorges which cut
up the face of the country into so tangled a network or labyrinth that
the whole district has been a favorite iiaunt, in all ages, of those who,
from any cause, desired security from the interference of i\v) oulstiuo
world. Here, also, St. John the Baptist spent long years of solitary
musing on the things of God, till his soul kindled into iiresistible
ardor, which drove him forth among men to plead with t'lein to pre-

f)are for the coming of the Messiah. During the hot months it is a
and of scorpions, lizards, and snakes, so that his experience readily
supplied him with a comparison for his wicked contemporaries, whom

244

THE HOLY t.AND Al^D THE BIBLE.

tOHAP.

he denounced as "a generation of vipers."^ "Wild bees make their
combs in the hollows of the hmestone rocks; the aromatic thymes,
mints, and other labiate plants, sprinkled over the face of the wilder-
ness, furnishing them with honey, which is more plentiful in the wil-
derness of Judaea than in any other part of Palestine. They thus pro-
vided for him a main article of hiSidiet, while in one wady or another,
or in some cleft, there was always water enough to quench his thirst.
Locusts, the other article of his food, are never wanting in this region,
and, indeed, are to this day eaten by the Arabs in the south-east of
Judaea, the very district where John lived ; by those of the Jordan
valley, and by some tribes in Gilead. They stew them, as we have
seen, with butter, and travellers, say — for I myself have never tasted
them — that they are very like shrimps in flavor.

Locusts, thus alwaya iound in the wilderness of Judaea, multiply
sometimes, as every reader of the Bible knows, into vast swarrhs, and
betake themselves to the cultivated parts of the country. Canon
Tristram came on such an invading host at the banks of the Jordan, in
1864 — 5. " The swarms, then in a larva or wingless state," he tells
us, " marched steadily up the trees which fringed the river, denuding
them of every strip of foliage, and even of the tender bark, not sparing
the resinous tamarislc. As they stripped the twigs they marched
onwards, pushed b^ the hordes behind, and fell by myriads into the
rapid stream, where they were at once eaten in thousands by the
fisn."* The Rev. Canon Holland also gives us a vivid description of
a visitation of locusts which he encountered. "On April 5th, when
we were encamped at the fort of Jebel Musa (Mount Sinai)," he says,
" the locusts were first seen by us. A light breeze from the north-
west was blowing, and they came up, in its face, from the south-east,
flying steadily against it, many of them at a great height. They soon
increased in number, and as their glazed wings glanced in the sun,
they had the appearance of a snow-storm. Many settled on the
ground, which was soon, in many places, quite yellow with them, and
every blade of green soon disappeared. For two days the flight passed
over our heads, undiminished in numbers. They did not appear to be
able to fly much against the wind, their wings being blown across if
they got thei]* tail to leeward, and then they came spinning down to
the ground; when they alighted they always faced the wind. On the
third morning, the flight had diminished much in numbers, but many
were still passing over, and as we walked along, clouds of them rose
before us. They were difficult to catch, except in the early morning,
when they seemed benumbed with cold, before the sun had risen.
We found them all over the peninsula, wherever we went."

"In vain," says the same writer, "the Arabs in charge of the con-

1 Matt. lii. 1, 5-7 ; Luke iii. 3, 7. 2 Nat. Hist.qf Bible, p. 314.

in
in

be<

XVUIJ

URTAS.

245

bon-

vent gardens beat iron pans, and shouted, and brushed them away from
the beds, with palm-leaves; thej swarmed in, till every green thing
was eaten."

In Palestine locusts, by means of their ovipositors, lay their eggs,
before the rainy season begins, in holes and cracks of the earth; and
these, if they have escaped their numerous enemies, are hatched in
spring, to the number of one hundred or more for each motlier-locust.
In April and May the insects are as large as flies, and cover the earth
with a black, moving mass of larvae, such as Canon Tristra describes,
even more hurtful than the full-grown insect. In two months they
are four times as large as in May, and, having rapidly grown to the
size of the common grasshopper, march on in a straight line, crawling
at first, but afterwards leaping, as they get older; their path like the
Garden of Eden before them, and behind them like a desolate wilder-
ness.^ It is as if " a fire devoured " everything green as they
advanced; aud their track, when they have passed, is as if utterly
burned up.^ Fields of standing wheat and barley, vineyards, mulberry
orchards, groves of olive, fig, and other trees, are in a few hours
stripped of every green blade and leaf, the very bark being often
destroyed, so that, as Joel says, "the twigs are made white."^ Tiiey
cover the face of the ground, as of old, during the Plagues of Egypt,
so that the earth is hidden by them,* and, as Canon Holland says, they
sweep on in such numbers that they take days to pass. In 1881, 250
tons of liAjusts were destroyed by the English in Cyprus, each ton con-
taining over 90,000,000 of these pests.^ When they fly, the light
shines like a yellow haze through the swarm. Quiet at night, they
weigh down the bushes and hedges till the sun revives them, and then
they set forward again on their awful progress.® They have no king,
as the Book of Proverbs tells us,'^ "yet they go forth, all of them," as
in an ordered march. Nothing turns them aside. As in the Egyptian
plague, "they fill the houses" of rich and poor alike;® "they run up
any wall that opposes them, they climb up upon the houses, they enter
in at the windows," so that in many cases, as at Nazareth in 1865, the
inhabitants have to give up tiieir dwellings to them. Impelled by
blind instinct, they do not even seek to avoid any pool or stream in
their path, but walk or leap steadily on, and are either entirely swept
away or gradually form a bridge over which those behind may cross
in safety. The dead bodies, in such cases, often cause a pestilence, as
in the visitation mentioned in Joel.®

When they have acquired wings, which they do in June, or the
beginning of July,i®they naturally betake themselves to the air, through

1 Joel li. 3. 2 Joel H. 8. 3 Deiit. xxviil. 38, 39, 42: Ps. Ixxvill. 46; Joel i. 7. 4 Exod. x 5.
6 Gelkle, Houm wUh thf Bible, Iv. 157. 6 Nah. 111. 17. 7 Piov. xxx. 27. 8 Exod. x. 6: Joel II. 9.
9 Joti 11. 20. 10 Wetzstein (Delltzsch, Hoh>. «. Pred., p. 446) says that as a rule the locusts are
seen r^reepiiiK about In Syria In the middle of March, and develop so quickly that they begin to
reproduce by the middle of April.

THE HOLY tAJJD AND THE BIBLE.

tCflAf.

which they pp.ss like a cloud,^ with a noise which no one can forget
who has once heard it.^

By the Mosaic Law locusts were reckoned "clean," so that St. John
the Baptist, a strict Jew, could lawfully eat them. Winged creatures
that go on four legs were forbidden, Out the Hebrews might eat such
as had two legs rising above the four feet, for the purpose of leaping.
"Even these of them ye may eat, the locust after his kind, and the bald
locust after his kind, and the chargol [another kind of locust] after his
kind, and the giasshopper after his kind."^ There are no fewer than
nine words in the Bible for the locust in its different stages, or in its
different varieties: some of these words, however, are incorrectly trans-
lated in our English version. Thus the "beetle" in Leviticus xi.* is a
kind of locust, and so the "grasshopper" in the same verse. The
"palmer- worm "^ is, perhaps, the migratory locust in its larva state, and
so, apparently, are the "cankerworm"^ and the " caterpillar." ''

When these terrible destroyers visit a district, great iires are lighted
to keep them from the fields or gardens; ditches are dug, into which
they walk, and can thus be destroyed, and birds follow and feed on them
greedily. They are often finally banished, for the season, by a con-
tinuance of cold rainy weather, with moist air, which is fatal both to
the eggs in the groumi, and to the insects in their various stages. The
wind, also, is not unfrequently a deliverer. Flying swarms are power-
less against it, becoming an imago of helplessness used by the Psalmist
when he says, "I am tossed up and down as the locust."^ Hence they
are often carried into the ^ea, or into rivers, as in the case of the locust
plague on the Nile, or the visitation in Joel ;^ their putrefying bodies, as
I have said, not seldom causing pestilence.

That David should have roamed as shepherd and outlaw over the
region south of the Frank Mountain, led, in the age of the Crusades, to
the belief that the Cave of Khureitun, in a wady about a mile south
of the site of Herodium, was no other than the famous Cave of Adul-
1am, which, however, as we have seen, has been discovered further to
the west.^^ The ride to Khureitun carries us deeper into the utter bar-
renness of the wilderness of Judaja, unrelieved by a tree or a shrub;
the few tui'ts of dwarf plants showing almost the only visible life in the
thousands of white snails which feed on them, and are, in their turn,
the food of the larks and other desert biids. The whole country is
found to be ploughed by the rains of millenniums into countless gorges
running in all directions: occasionally mere precipitous gaps in the solt
chalky marl ; sometimes white valleys, divided from each other only
by towering walls of reck; but altogether a bewildering labyrinth,
across which no direct travel is possible.

"" " ■, ' . I

is also translated "caterpillar" (Ps. cv. 34,
Joel ii. 20. 10 See ante, p. 108.

3 Lev. xi. 20, 22. 4 Lev. xl. 22. The werd occurs onl
in this verse. 5 Joel. 1. 4, &c. 6 Joel. 1. 4, &c. Th
c). 7 Ps. Ixxviii. 46. 8 Ps. cix. 28. 9 Exod. x. 19:

'1
is

lolt

ith,

.19:

! :>

B
B

xvra.i

URTAS.

247

Khureitun is said to have received its name from a hermit of the
fourth century, St. Chariton, who took up his abode in this valley as
an anchorite, in gratitude for his having escaped from robbers while
travelling through it. I* was a wild place in which to choose a home,
but in those days of asceilc piety, the more savage a locality, the
greater its attractions. Already, in the time of Christ, there were,
perhaps, 4,000 such anchorites in Palestine, living in colonies, however;
not alone. They had, perhaps, borrowed their idea of an isolated life,
devoted to the strict observation of Rabbinical precepts, from the
TherapeutaB of Egypt, although the East has always favored such a
form of religious zeal. We hear of one Judas who lived as a hermit
somewhere in Judeea, about 110 years before Christ, and from his day
they multiplied, till after tlie fall of Jerusalem they were to be found
everywhere, but especiall}' to tiie east.

With such modes of thought prevailing among numbers of the
intensely religious, it is not to be wondered at tliat there v ere ascetics
in the Christian Church from the first, or that it is related of St. James,
the brother of our Lord, that throughout his life he followed the self-
denying rules of the Nazarites. In the prosecution under Decius — in
the middle of the third v. juLury — multitudes fled to the deserts and
mountains to escape the stem; imitating the example of St. John the
Baptist and others of Christ 3 day, and adding seclusion from the world,
for the purposes of reiigiouL meditation, to the mortified life then much
in favor. Before long this itw form of self-sacrifice became almost a
craze, so that the deserts I ordering on Egypt, and those in or near
Palestine, abounded with hermits or monks; the hermits living each
in a separate cell, and passi.ig a solitary life ; the monks, as members
of a settlement who lived in common.^ The caves v ich abound in
Palestine were used in early ages as dwellings; some | s of the coun-
try, as we have seen, showing this rude mode of life ^ i now. They
were not, however, very largely employed for this pui se by the Jews,
though a cave, used as a store-house or manger, was often connected
with the dwelling. They were mostly reserved for mbs, as may be
seen from the shelves for the dead hewn out in thei^ des. There was
very little land that was not rocky; burial-ground v re utiknown, and
everyone could so easily obtain some cave in wincli to lay his dead,
that the cases of Rachel and Joseph are the only ones in which we
read of another form of sepulture. But this habit had in great meas-
ure ceased when the Jews were driven from their native land, and the
caves, so far as shepherds had not appropriated them for folds, were
free to hermits who might choose to make them a dreary home.
Hence St. Chariton lived and died in the cave now Jorg known by his
name.

I Uitigltam, Christ. AtU., III. SO,

248

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

(Chap.

The Wady Kliureitun, though comparatively broad towards the
north, soon shrinks into a narrow gorge, which might almost be called
a fissure in the hills; its sides towering in precipices several hundred
feet high. The layers of rock are perfectlj'^ level, and have been
weathered and worn at the edges till a steep slope of fragments has
covered up their face to a good height; their broad bands running
along, above, like the walls of terraces. High up, on the southern
side, stands a ruined tower, once square, and above and below it are
the hovels of the village of Khureitun, which cling to a slope so steep
and so entirely unprotected that it is a wonder anyone can live there.
That young children, at least, do not roll down the abyss at the very
doors of the cabins, shows that they must be able to hold on like flies.
The mouth of the cave 's beyond the village, and considerably lower;
the latter standing on the top of the chft"; the former opening from its
surface. There is no approach to the cave, except by a narrow ledge,
from which you look down to the bottom of the gorge, far below ; and
to make matters worse a great rock, turned on edge, almost bars you
from finally reaching it. This mv.st be got over as it best can, and
then, at last, a narrow, low, and dark passage winds in tediously, with
small caves on each side, till the great cave is reached.

You then find j^ourself in a huge cavern, deep in the hill, 120 feet
long, and forty feet wide, rising in great natural arches. Woe to the
traveller who has not taken the precaution to bring lanterns to protect
his lights, for the bats which make this dark vacuity their home,
scared by the brightness, dash wildly hither and thither, in thousands,
driving against your face, and especially against the candles, if they
are bare. In that case, they are inevitably extinguished in a few
moments. F. m the central cave numerous passages branch out in all
directions, to be crossed, very soon, by others at right angles, the whole
forming a labyrinth never hitherto fully explored. One of the galleries
is 100 feet long, and all are about four feet high, and three feet wide —
partly natural, partly artificial — and all on one level. There is, how-
ever, in some of the smaller caves, a sloping passage which leads to a
series of chambers underneath. Niches are found in many of the inner
caverns, and fragments of stone coffins, and funeral urns, show that
they have been used as resting-places for the dead, as well as for cells
of the living. The air is pure and good.

This vast system of caverns and passages was, doubtless, originally
formed by water absorbing the carbonic acid gas in the limestone, and
thus setting free the particles of the rock, so that the entire hill was
gradually hollowed out into these strange natural excavations. They
could never have been used by David and his men as their stronghold,
if only on account of the dampness and the want of light. They

XVIII]

UHTAS.

249

swarm, moreover, with scorpions during tlie liot months; and as to
bats, they seem the lioadnniirters of the tribe for this district.

The ruins of Tekoa lie two miles to the south-west, on the top of a
hill, about 2,000 (oet above the sea. Jjeaving the gorge of Khureitun,
you gradually climb to the plateau of the wilderness, over which, by a
track now rising, now sinking, Tekoa is easily reached. Its ruins,
which cover the broad top of a gently-sloping hill over an area of four
or five acres, consist chieily of the foundations of houses, once of
squared stones, some of ihom bevelled in the Jewish style. The wreck
of a large square castle rises high above all; and there are also some
remains of a Greek church, with several fragments of coin mn.s, once
sup])orting its roof, and, what is more touching, a baj)tismal font of
rose-colored limestone, which might easily be taken for marble.
Numerous cisterns have been hewn out of the rock, and theio is i; run-
ning sj)ring within a short distance.

This was the spot to which ,loab sent for the "wise woman" \/lio
should inveigle David to recall his worthless son, Absalom.^ An.
open village in these earlier davs, it was afterwards fortified by Reho-
boam, in his an.xiety to keep at Ijast tJjc ♦'-.i, neat o^f his father's
empire still left him after the defection of the «' . w !^'ilx.'s; and here, in
the closing years of tho Northern Kingdom, was born the Prophet
Amos. That he wns a she[)lierd may be easily realized, for this dis-
trict is now the territory of a tribe of Arabs whose flocks of sheep and
goats are often driven over ihe seemingly bare hills around, and man-
age to pick herbage enough to keep tliem in good condition, though
English sheep, 1 fear, wouhl starve on such pasture. A belt of table-
land surrounds Tekoa upon most sides, and is to some extent ploughed
and sown; a few patclu\s of grain reaj)pearing each spring. It was to
the wilderness stretching away to the west, or rather to the broad
hollow lying below it, in that ilirection — the best pasture-ground near
— that Jehoshai)hat led forth his fighting men, headed by a chorus of
Levites, and found his enemies fled, having quarrelled amongst them-
selves. It was hither, also, after the death of their magnificent brother
Judas MaccabaMis, that.Ionathan, Simeon, and John fled from Bacchides,
the Syrian general before whom Judas had fallen.^ The unfortunate
John, however, was taken ju'isoner, and all his band were carried off,
by a force of Ammonites from Medeba,^ across the Jordan. He had
been sent by his brother to tho south of the Dead Sea, to make friendly
arrangements wit'.x the Nalmthanms, when he and his com])any were
thus cut off. But whil«' Simoon and Jonathan still lay round this very
Tekoa, they had a romantic and terrible revenge for their brother's
fate. Word came to them that a grand nnirriage had been arranged
between the Ammonite leader's daughter and some great man west of

I 2 Sam. xiv. '1 : J Oliron. xt. G ; xx. 20 ; Amos Mil Mace. Ix. 93, 2 v. o. 169, 3 This is Gi1inm'9
^m^ndi^tiou, aiulit seems jiut,

250

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CliAT.

the Jordan, and that the bride was being led Irom Medeba, with a
splendid retinue, bciitting "the daughter of one of the great prinees of
Canaan." " Therefore they remembered .John, their brother, and went
up [from tlie valle}'] and liid themselvesunder cover of the mountains,"
to await their prey. And now, as "they lii'ted up their eyes, and
looked, behold, there was much ado," and a long train of camels and
other beasts, laden with all that would show the rank and wealth of
the bride; "and the bridegroom came fortli, and his iViends and
brethren, to meet them, witli timbrels and instruments olinusie, and
many weajions ; " and no doubt they had a glad tin»o, as the two parties
saluted each otlier, antl joined in one grand eavaleade, to lead the bride
home. But meauwliile Jonatlian lay in ambush near the path by
which they wore advancing, and whe>\ ho had fairly caught them, he
called up his men, and set on tho pmcession so fiercely that " many
fell down dead, and the rest fled into the mountain, and Jonathan took
all their spoils." "Thus was the marriage turned into mourning, and
the noise of their melody into lamentation."^ The merry laughter,
the clattering, humming timbrels, the marriage songs, the bridegroom
and his well-horsed companions, full of life, and proud of themselves
and c^ ! '"e bride, as they pace along under a sky inispecked by cloud;
the coy delight of the bride and her maids that the hour and the man
have at last arrived, and then. Fate, in the shape of Jonathan and his
band, springing with wild cries from behind every rock, and death
around instead of the hope that had danced before them — wha'; a
strange and tragic i 'ry !

The country bet\v>!en Tekoa, El-Fureidis, and ^lar Saba, which is
six or eight miles oft" to the north-east, towards the Dead Sea, is sacred
to different encampments of Arabs, who pitch their tents as the wants
of their flocks require. There are several of these encampments in the
district, each with clearly -defined limits of territory, and all much
alike. Twenty to thirty long black tents, oj)en in front and sloping
downwards at the back, are set up close together, each containing two
apartments ; the one for the women and children, the other for the
men. When you .approach you find yourself annoimced by the loud
voices of the hateful dogs, whose barking presently brings out young
and old to see the stranger; the children in the most wretched pretence
of dress, or without any at all. Now and then, a full-armed sheikh on
horseback is nu t, waking a disagivoable feeling as he passes, with his
long spear, and his black eyes shuuiig out from his dark face: as wild
as Ishmael. North-east from El-Fureidis tho country is less bare than
to the east or south ; sometimes, indeal, even pleasant to the eye.
Fields, here and there, run down the slopes, and peasants are plough-
ing with oxen and asses. Flowers deck the sides of the path; grasg-

\ 1 M*cc. |x. 36-41,

AVilderness ol .Iiidea near EnKetli. (See page »46.)

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XVUl.J

UIITAH.

251

lionpcrs juul otlier iiisoctn diirp, leap, luid fly about. Tlic graHsliopper
ami locust tribr.s arc aiiioii^ llic low bright things one meets, lor they
arc of all colors scarlet, crimson, bright blue, dark blue, yellow, white,
greiMi, and brown, as tiiey well may be if the Rabbis be correct in
asserting that there are no fewer than 800 varieties of them. Where
the hills permit a wide view, the landscaj)e shows a varied outline, but
in this part it is neither precipitous nor wild ; the ridges stretching
away in soft hues, and the valleys nowhere sinking to great depths.
Trees are not to be seen.

The district as a whole between Mar Saba and IJrtaa is, however,
very desolate, the lirst village seen from a distance being Tekoa, to the
south. Three thousand years ago, the valleys and heights may have
been more alive with popidation, but they cannot at any time have
been thickly inhabited. Here, as elsewher iu this region, the son of
Jes.se, strong and brave, led his flocks in his youth. Lions came up to
the hills from the "swellings of Jordan,"^ that is, from the reeds and
thickets of its lower course, as, indeed, they did till a few centuries
ago; filling the wild gr<ges of the Kedron with their terrible roar.
Perhaps it was among these very hills that there came a lion, or a
bear, and took a lamb out of the flock, and the lad "went alter him,
and srnole him, and delivered it out of his mouth;" and when tl;^
fierce creature rose against his assailant, he "caught him by his beard,
and smote him, and slew him."^ Yonder, perhaps, on the.se bare
slopes, David wandered before his sheep and goats, sleeping at riight
in some cave or under some rock, or even in the open, after gathei-ing
thorns and kindling a fire to keep olV wild beasts ; his drink, water
from a cleft in the rocks, or from a small pool left in the torrent-bed ;
his food, some dried figs and bread, stowed in his scrip, or in the bosom
of his tunic, the favorite pocket of the common people even now.
Here, it may be, morning and night, as his charge came out of some
cave used as a fold, or went into it, he made them pass one by t)ne
under his shepherd's staiV, counting them, lest even one stray land)
should be wanting ; and here, alone with, his flock, the silent hills, the
shining skies, his own soul, auO God, he may often have taken up the
harp he had invented, and com})osed to its notes some of those Psalms
wliieh have been the joy of a hundred generations, and are still so
nnspeakably dear to the heart.^

The way to Bethlehem led flirough Wady Urtas again, and gave
another opportunity for seeing the great Pools, from the eastern side.
The lowest of the three had no water, the second had some, and the
highest had most; the second being about half full. A strong but-
tressed wall runs across, at the eastern end of each, its strength pro-

1 Jer. xlix. 19; 1. 44; xii.5. "Pride." in R. V. L 1 Sam. xvii.34 (R. V.). 3 Lev. xxvil 32 ; Jer.
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262

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

Eortioned to the weight of water it had to resist, that of the lower pool
avjng a slope of about ten feet, as seen at a spot where the earth,
elsewhere banked up nearly to the top of the wall, revealed the struct-
ure underneath. There must, therefore, at the bottom of this wall
have been a thickness of not less than fifteen feet of masonry. Exquis-
itely green patches of wheat and barley were growing in the little val-
ley below ; their brightness sj)ecinlly attractive because of the desola-
tion on both sides. It is, indeed, a strange characteristic of Palestine
that utter barrenness and rich fertility are almost everywhere seen side
by side ; the limit of moisture drawing a sharp line between them. I
noticed overflow ducts in the top of the pool, and conduits to lead off
the water, when there was too much. That on the north side, next the
old castle, in which the spring was flowing, was of old red pottery pipe,
half an inch thick, lying in a squpre frame of stonework covered with
small flat slabs, some of which, as I have said, were missing.

CHAPTEE XIX.

BETHLEHEM.

The road to Bethlehem from the old castle El-Burak ran for a time
over the shoulder of a low ascent, unfenced, but ploughed and sown,
with no walls to protect the ground on the sides of the track, which
followed the line of the old aqueduct to Jerusalem, now no longer to be
traced except in a few places. We had left a multitude of Eussian
pilgrims refreshing themselves on the open ground at the castle and
the Pools, and had regaled ourselves with some bread and sour goats'-
milk — *' leben " — bought by our man from the wife of one of the two
or three soldiers in the castle. It was very nice indeed, but I was
thankful afterwards, when I went inside the castle gate, that I had not
seen the matron who supplied it, or her house, for acquaintance with
either would inevitably have prevented my indulging in the luxury.
Everyone knows that he must swallow an alarming amount of unclean-
ness in the course of his life, but there is no advantage in absorbing a
double dose, though the traveller in Palestine is in constant danger of
doing so.

At times, as we rode on, of course at a walk, for you can very rarely
go faster in the Holy Land, because of the state of the roads, men
passed r- asses or horses, which they rode without compunction through
\]x^ ifisinr grain. The broad valley, running east and then north^ from

•

XEK.]

BETHLEHEM.

253

El-Burak^ to Bethlehem, soon grew more and more attractive, as we
neared the town. Olive and fig groves covered the slopes, intermixed
with vineyards, each with its water-tower, reminding one of ancient
times.* Where the ascent was steep, terraces rose, one over the other,
to prevent the soil being washed away by the rains. The path along
which we were advancing broadened into a road, with dry stone walls
of yellowish-white limestone on each side, while similar walls ran in
atl directions, above us on the right, and below on the left, netting over
the whole basin of the valley. Husbandmen were everywhere busy
at spring work. Everything looked fresh and cheerful. The walls
were new and well-built ; the red soil, cleared of stones,^ and planted
with young orchards, or laid out for vegetables, was pleasant to look
upon. Not a foot of ground was lost. For several miles there were
no weeds, nor ruins : a very striking experience in Palestine. The
industry expended was evident, for not a few vineyards oii the higher
side of the road, as we came near Bethlehem, seemed like the bottoms
of quarries, so covered were they with stones. The secret of this
unusual activity and life is easily to be found : the people of the dis-
trict are Christians.

Passing a road which dipped, on the left, through avenues of olives,
and then went across the valley, and up the slopes on the other side to
Beit Jala, another Christian village somewhat smaller tlian Bethlehem,
we rode on by mistake over the bare limestone which here forms the
track, instead of turning to the right, which would have taken us
straight to the town. The Tomb of Eachel, by the roadside, first
showed our error, for it stands north of Bethlehem, so we turned and
went back by another road which climbed up a steep ascent, with the
limestone scarped here and there to widen the track. The hill-side
below the houses is terraced into a succession of " hanging gardens,"
rich with olives and other fruit-trees, great walls running along the
ascent to form the level breadths. Down the valley rich groves
flourished everywhere, till, as the eye followed them, green fields and
ploughed land, in some directions, gradually took their place. Grey-
rock, however, greatly predominated in the view, so that as a whole
the landscape was still very desolate, though this oasis lay in its midst.
The purple Moabite hills rose to the east, their tops rising in what
seemed a table-land; at their feet lay the deep blue waters of the Dead
Sea; then came the great buildings grouped beside the Church of the
Nativity — the Latin, Greek, and Armenian convents, v/hich, with the
church itself, stretch along the top of the town-ridge, on the south-east ;
the great buttresses reaching down the sides of the hill with a very
imposing eftect.

But now we had come to the houses, which were flat-roofed^ of yel-
(^ep. 236, 2Isa,y.2. S^st^y.^

254

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

lowish -white limestone; many of two, others of three stories, and a
few of one. Some men were enjoying a quiet gossip on the roof of a
k)w building, which had two large arched windows, with olive-trees
before the door. A boy leaned idly over the wall, a little below, look-
ing at the green field on the slope beneath. Then came a man astride
a donkey, which already carried a sack thrown across it, half on each
side, the man sitting above it, his legs thrust out on a level with the
donkey's chest; next, some bare-legged peasants in skull-caps, each,
of course, with a long stick in his hand; some townsmen in diflferent
costumes, and some Bethlehem women also passed, one way or the
other.

The female dress is peculiar in this locality. Maidens wear a light
frame on the head, covered with a long white linen or cotton veil,
which falls over the shoulders to the elbows; they have earrings, and,
over the' front of the head, showing some of the hair below it, and just
under the veil, is a diadem of silver, or silver-gilt, with a band of orna-
ments of the same material, loosely fastened to it at both ends, so as to
rest on the brow immediately under the hair, leaving the forehead only
partly visible. Their black hair hangs on their shoulders in heavy
plaits, just seen beneath the veil, which always leaves the face exposed
— for are they not Christians? Their chief, or indeed, it may be, only
garment, is a long blue or striped gown, generally of cotton, loosely tied
in at the waist, with open sleeves hanging down to the knees, like
those of a surplice; its front, above the wai.st, always set off', more or
less, with red, yellow, or green patches of cloth, embroidered to the
wearer's taste. Over this gown, however, the well-to-do are fond of
wearing a bright red short-sleeved jacket, reaching, in some cases, to
the waist; in others, to the knees.

Matrons have a somewhat different head-dress, the veil resting on
the top of a round, brimless felt hat, much like that of a Greek priest,
its front ornamented, in most cases, with coins. All wear earrings, and
strings of coins glitter round their necks, hanging, at times, down to
the breast. The veil is about two yards long, and not quite a yard
wide— large and stout enough to hold anything the owner may think
fit to carry in it, when she turns it, for the time, to some prosaic use,
as when Ruth held out her veil to Boaz while he filled it with six
measures of barley and then laid it on her back or head. And very
gladly, no doubt, she set out with it, up the steep hill-track, to Naomi's,
to show her good fortune.^ Veils are still used thus by the women of
Bethlehem, though the ends are gaud)^ enough with colored silk to
keep it, when new, from such humble service. The whole fortune of
maiden or matron alike is often sewn on her head-dress, or hung round
her neck, and not a lew women have be^n murdered in past days for
1 Buth iii. IS.

XIX.]

BETHLEHEM.

255

the sake of the wealth thus changed, in the strictest sense, into vanity.
The men, though Christian, generally wear the turban, not a few,
however, having only the red Turkish fez; a striped, wide-sleeved
dressing-gown, of bright-colored cotton, being thrown over the white
or colored under-shirt.

The town is picturesque in the highest degree. Its fortified walls
have long vanished, but its position on a long, narrow ridge, has con-
fined it to the limits of three thousand years ago, and its houses, very
probably, are just the same in appearance as those of the time of
David, or even earlier. In fact, we nave before us an old Jewish city
such as men inhabited in the Bible ages. But its picturesqueness is
the best of it, for the streets are as far from being clean as those of
other Eastern towns. Bivulets of abomination run across them or
stand in puddles, for scavengers are unknown, and the masterless,
dogs cannot eat all the garbage. The main street is largely occupied
by workshops, or rather arches, with no window, which is not much
loss in such a climate. Looking in, one sees that the fioor is covered
with men sitting cross-legged, hard at work making carved rosaries from
the stones of the Dom palm, or the common date, or olive-wood ; crosses
from fig- wood, stained black ; fancy trifles from the asphalt of the
Dead Sea ; endless souvenirs of the town in olive-wood ; but, above
all, cutting medallions from the mother-of-pearl oyster-shells of the
Red Sea, or engraving them with the story of our Lord from His birth
to His death. In this one art alone there are, perhaps, 500 workmen
engaged. The staple industry of the town is in fact the manufacture
of endlessly varied mementoes of Bethlehem, to be sold, after they
have been blessed b^ the priests, to the pilgrims. This being a
Christian town, the wives and daughters often sit with their husbands
or brothers : a strange sight in the East, but one that goes far, by
what it suggests, to account for the general prosperity.

The buildings show that no masons could be better than the Bethle-
hemites, though there are not many good houses except in the front
street, and even this has its better and its worse end. Inside, some
are, of course, very superior to others, and it is the same with the
workshops. Here is one, where men and women are busy making
beads for rosaries. All the men are on the ground, cross-legged ; the
women on low pieces of wood, their bare feet visible outside their
dress. Mat baskets, or large wooden bowls, of beads cut from olive
rods, are on the ground ; one man saws a small piece of wood fixed
upright in a vice, another turns the beads at a most primitive lathe,
driven by a cord stretched ci a bent fiddle-stick arrangement. The
work-bench consists of some beams on the ground, but one man has a
yice fixed in the earth, and is filing something vigorously ; the women
have fiddle*bows of their own, but the string is a fine saw to cut the

tHE HOLY LAl^D ANt) THE BIBLBJ.

tC«AI>.

beads apart. The long stick whi(ih tliey dissect with this tool rests
on an upright, and is held straight by the left hand.

The workshop of Joseph at Nazareth could not have been simpler,
or, I miglit say, ruder, for this one seems originally to have been a
small cavern in the hill-side, the front being filled in, except the door,
with masonry, to fit it for its present purpose. The roof is ceiled with
a coating of reed-stalks, which sadly needs repair; the walls are in
their mitnral roughness; the floor is the limestone; the door might
have been made by one of Noah's carpenters, so roughly is it put
together. A woman outside, with a nearly naked child asti'ide her
shoulder, her forehead jind neck bright with coins, is looking in, with
ourselves, at the busy scene. Turning uj) one of the short steep side-
lanes, 1 found a second street parallel with the principal one, but
dirtier. Careful stepping over pools and rivulets which were not from
the heavens, was needed to reach the Protestant School, which I
wished to visit. Inside, I need not say, English taste and cleanliness
formed a wonderful contrast to the dismal approach. At some points,
on the lower side of the main street, houses extend a short way down
the hill, with stairs outside. One I noticed with the stone wall built
on the edge of the lime stone, so that the view was uninterrupted to
the bottom of the valley. A very rickety hand-rail guarded the inner
side; such a rail as the whole West could not match; made of natural
wood, rough, bent, gaping, set on the steps, and held in its place one
knew not how. Two flights led up to the door, over which was a
sacred picture, the inmates belonging to the Greek Church. Stairs
and house alike were built in arch'^s ; the wooded railing alone vindi-
cating the rude backwardness of the East. Two women sat grinding
corn on the landing above the first flight; a young woman and a
young man were enjoying an interview lower down, and a miserable-
looking old woman surveyed the world from above.

Going towards the Church of the Nativity, the scene became livelier.
Sellers of vegetables sat on the ground along the walls, their stores at
their side, or in front of them; beggars, in long blue gaberdines, silently
stretched out their hands for alms; women with their white side
veils and bright dresses passed and re-passed; open-air grocers dis-
played their wares ; one turbaned figure sat amidst a show of broken
and mended umbrellas ; another watched over a collection of mouse-
traps, which he very much wished to convert into piastres ; a third
fimdly hoped you would invest in his figs, raisins, or oranges ; a fourth
had bread or cakes to tempt you. A few shops, faintly trying to look
European, presented in the windows a varied collection of local niemeni
tos ; and, of course, there were one or two places where thirsty souls
might drink, though foreigners alone, I doubt not, sought any stronger
beverage than coffee.

tix.i

BfiTHLEHEM.

25t

The entrance to the Church of the Nativity faces an open space; the

Sromenade of older Bethlehemites, and the playground of younger.
>ld marble pillars lie side by side in one part ot it, and serve as a seat
for the weary or idle, and a centre of activity for urchins, who must
clamber over something, even in the city of David. The old arched
gateway into the church has been long ago filled up with heavy square
stones, to resist attack, and now the onlv entrance is by a small door,
less than three feet broad, and hardly four feet high;* but it is well
that the proudest have to stoop in entering a building so venerable.
Contemporary evidence proves that it was built by order of Constan-
tine,* so that it is the oldest church in Palestine, perhaps in the world.
Within, you are in the presence of sixteen centuries, and tread ground
hallowed by the footsteps of nearly fifty generations of believers in the
Crucified one. You find yourself in a small bare porch, once
approached through a spacious quadrangle on the open space outside,
with covered ways, lined with rows of pillars, in front and at the sides,
and provision for baptism and oblation in the centre. From this, three
spacious arched gates led into the ancient porch, which ran along great
part of the west end of the church ; but two of the gates have been
entirely built up, and, as we have seen, only a very small doorway is
left in the third, for fear of the Mahommedans. The porch is dark,
and is divided by walls into different chambers.

Inside, the venerable simplicity is very impressive. You face the
east end, which is 170 feet from the western wall, and, proceeding to
the centre, find yourself under a nave which rises in a pointed roof
about thirty feet over the capitals of the great pillars, nineteen feet
high, which support an aisle on each side. A clerestory, with five
arched windowrs at each side, admits abundant light. The aisles are
flat-roofed, supported in the centre by a row of eleven massive pillars,
while another row of the same number holds up the straight beams of
the lofty nave, the windows over which correspond to the spaces
between the columns below. Once elaborately painted, there is now
little ornament left on them, except some faint indications of former

Sictures of saints, and armorial bearings and mottoes, left eight hun-
red years ago by the Crusaders, with whose greatest chiefs it was a
great matter to have their names emblazoned in the Church of tlie
Nativity. The columns, each one mighty whole, are of reddish lime-
stone with white veins, and rest on great square slabs, the capitals
being Corinthian, and the architraves very simple. The pointed roof
of the nave was once richly painted and gilded, but this glory has long
ago departed ; and the spaces between the high windows and its sides
were formerly covered with marbles and mosaics, but though the mar-
bles remain, the mosaics survive only in fragments. When perfect,
1 It is tbirty-two inches by forty-six. 2 a. d. 806—387.

258

THE HOLY LANli AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAr.

these represented, on the south side, the seven immediate ancestors of
Joseph, the husband of tlje Holy Virgin. Above tliem, concealed by
curtains, are niches containing altars, on which books of tlie Gospels
rest ; and on a line with these is a strange mosaic of colored glass, on
a gilded ground, representing a huge plant, the creation of someone's
brain, long ago, not the imitation of any natural growth. On the left
wall of this aisle, high up, there once were mosaics of ancient cliurches,
but only those of Antioch and Sardis now remain, in very primitive
drawing, without perspective. The mosaics were put up by Manuel
Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople, about A. D. 1160 ; but the great
pillars and the structure as a whole, with its crosses and Corinthian
capitals, admittedly date from the time of Constantine. The beams of
the lofty roof of the nave are of plain unpainted cypress, and are not
in any way concealed.

A short way cown the aisle stands the ancient baptismal font, eight-
sided, with an inscription in Greek on a tablet below, over a small
sculptured cross, " (Given) as a memorial, before God, and for the peace
and forgiveness of the sinners (who presented it), of whom the Lord
knows the names." Humble enough 1 But all the more likely to be
noted above. It brings one in mind of the dying request of the once
imperious Alfonso de Ojeda, erewhile the haughtiest knight of Castile,
yet in the end lowly before his Saviour — that they should bury him
at the entrance to the cathedral at Havana, that everyone, as he went
in, might tread on the dust of so unworthy a worm. This inscription,
and the rude scratchings of their crests on the pillars by old Crusading
warriors, gone over to the majority eight hundred years ago, touched
me greatly. There are two crowns among them, with the crest rising
high above, and the cheek-plates of the helmet below; and four crests
and helmets of knights, with legends, now beyond m}' reading, to tell
who it was that each was intended to immortalize. But the wearers
have all, long since, gone on a longer journey than that which brought
them here.

A wall on the east side of this many-pillared square space runs across
aisles and nave alike ; the former ending here, though the nave really
extends beyond this line to the east end of the church, which is rounded
into a projecting half-circle, or apse: tlie secret chamber of the Greek
altar and choir, for in Greek worship both are hidden from the con-
gregation by a screen. This apsidal end, with two similar semicircles
at the two ends of the transept, gives the shape of a Latin cross to the
whole building. The ends show some remains of very old mosaics,
which merit close study as illustrations of ancient Christian ideas. In
that at the south side, Christ is entering into Jerusalem, riding on an
ass, and accompanied by a disciple, the other figures of His escort
being destroyed. People who have come out from the city to meet

Mother of Pearl workers ia Bethlehem (making beads for rosaries . ) (See page S&5.)

xix.i:

BETnLEREM.

259

Him spread tlieir garments in the way; one man is climbing n tree, to
cut oft branches with whicli to do llini honor, and a woman, with a
child sitting on her left shoulder/ looks on. At the north side, St.
Thomas is being invited by our Saviour to examine His wounds, but
here, and also in the fragment of another mosaic, he and his fellow-
apostles are represented witiiout a nimbus, or ring of glory, round the
head. In one part, the Virgin Mary is sitting between two angels.

But these ancient glories are apt to be overlooked in the blaze of
comparatively modern splendor with which the Greeks have filled this
sacred spot. The pillars, with rich Corinthian capitals, are ornamented
with large pictures of saints. Six low steps lead to a raised floor,
before the east end of the nave, which is hidden by an elaborate screen
about twenty-three feet high, with a decorated cross, some sacred
pictures, and small carved angels with wings, rising above it; while
there is another row of pictures immediately under the cornice. Be-
hind this screen the Elements are consecrated, and the choir sing.
The recess between the pillars of the transept and this georgeous par-
tition is shut oflf, at each side, by a screen beautifully panelled, about
eight feet high, surmounted, on the left side, by a row of hanging
lamps, of which there are altogether fourteen on the two sides facing
the nave and the transept. Two huge candlesticks, with a candle in
each, rising about twelve feet high, and a row of smaller ones on the
edge of the socket, stand before the high screen; and a string of lamps,
looped up in the centre into two graceful curves, hang across from tne
capitals of the corner pillars.

Worshippers are always coming and going; nearly all the men in
tvibans ana striped "abbas;" some resting on the stone steps; others
sitting on the floor; yet others praying with their faces to the east,
before the great screen. Christ has followers of many nations, and, I
feel sure, not a few faithful ones among the ebbing and flowing congre-
gation who lift up their hearts to Him, day by day, in this specially
sacred temple. We are apt to regard foreign Ch.irches harshly; to
know them better, would lead us to respect them more. At Athens,
at Odessa, and at St. Petersburg, the result of inquiries from those
likely to be best informed — Bible Society agents, and the head of a
great Protestant Missionary School — was to fill my heart with joy, for
I learnt that, alike in Greece and in vast Russia, not a few true Chris-
tians are everywhere found in the ancient communion.

Descending the steps from the raised floor of the eastern part of the
nave, and turning sharply to the left, a half-sunk arched doorway leads
you down by thirteen steps to the Chapel of the Nativity ; once a rude
cave ; now paved and walled with marble, and lighted by thirty-two
lamps. About forty feet from east to west, it is only sixteen wide,
1 Isa. zlix, 22.

260

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

and ten liigli, and, of course, would be totally dark but for the artifi-
cial illumination, ibr it lies immediately under the great choir, at the
very east of the church. The roof is covered with what had once
been striped cloth of gold; three huge candlesticks, with candles rising
higher than your head, stand at the back ; and in front, between two
marble pillars, a large picture of the Nativity, and some small ones
below it, rest on a i)rojecting shelf of marble, forming the altar.

Below this is a shrine unsi)eakably sacred to millions of our fellow
Christians. It is semicircular, arching out wards above, and at most
only four feet high. Fifteen silver liimi)s burn in it, night and day,
lightino' up the painted marbles which encrust it ; and in the centre of
its small floor is a silver star — marking the spot, it is believed, over
which the Star of the East once rested — with an inscription, at the
sight of which, I frankly confess, I wei)t like a child : ^'■Hic de Viryine
Maria Jesus Christus natiis est'''' ( 'Here Jesus Christ was born of the
Virgin Mary"). A Turkisli soldier, gun in hand, and fez on head,
stood a few steps behind, but I forgot his presence. Pilgrims kneeled
down and kissed the silver which s[)oke a story so infinitely touching,
and I did the same, for I do not believe in indiscriminate scepticism.

As far back as the middle of the second century — that is to say,
within less than 120 years of our Loid's death, and within thirty or
forty years after that of the last of the apostles, the beloved St. John —
Justin Martyr, himself a man of Nablus, speaks of the Saviour's birth
as having taken place "in a certain cave very close to the village;"
and this particular cave, now honored as the scene of the Saviour's
birth, was already so venerated in the days of Hadrian^ that, to des-
ecrate it, he caused a grove sacred to Adonis to be planted over it, so
that +he Syrian god might be worshipped on the very spot — a form of
idolatry peculiaily abhorrent to the pure morals of Christianity.
Origen, in the opening of the third century, speaks of this cave as
recognized even by the heatheii as the birth-place of their Lord.^
And to this spot came St. Jerome,^ making his home for thirty years
in a cave close by, that he might be near the birth-place of his Master;
Hadrian's grove had been destroyed sixteen years before his birth, to
make room for the very church now standing. There is no reason,
therefore, so far as I can see, to doubt that in this cave, so hallowed by
immemorial veneration, the Great Event associated with it actually
took place.

Nor is there any ground for hesitation because it is a cave that is re-
garded as the sacred spot. Nothing is more common in a Palestine
village, built on a hill, than to use as adjuncts of the houses, the caves
with which all the limestone rocks of the country abound ; making
them the store-room, perhaps, or the workshop, or the stable, and

1 A.D. 117-138. 2 A.D. 185->253. 8 A. D. 381-420. iLandqf JwrQa,p.12,

XIX.]

BETHLEHEM.

261

building the dwellings before them so as to join the two. Canon
Tristram^ speaks of a farm-house he visited, north " Acre, which
was a granary and stable below and a dwelling-place above ; and many
stables in the neighborhood of Bethlehem are still recesses cut in the
rock, or mere natural caves.^ In Egypt I have often seen houses
where goats, sheep, cattle, or an ass, were in one part, and the human
beings in the other. Had the piety of the monkp left the alleged site
of the Nativity in its original state there would have been no pre-
sumption against it from its being a cave.

As might have been expected, centuries have brought many doubtful^
accretions to the original simple story. Passing from the Cave of the
Nativity, you are led, still underground, past what the Latin Church
says is the very manger, to an altar on the spot where, it is alleged,
the Magi worshipped the Infant Savior; then to a spring from which
the Holy Family was sujjplied ; next to the place where the vision
appeared commanding the flight into Egypt; then to the chapel where
the Innocents were buried; and finally to the tombs of Eustocnium and
Paula, the pupils of St. Jerome, and of the great father himself, and to
the cave in which he lived so long, preparing his immortal Vulgate
Bible; the only light of this gloomy retreat being the opening into the
passage of the Latin monastery. That he lived and was buried here,
and that Paula was buried near him, is very probable; as to the rest,
fiction seems to have run wild.

Joined to the famous church, are the three monasteries of the Greeks,
Armenians, and Latins, which have fine orchards, rooms to receive
travellers, and charming views from their roofs. In that of the Latins
were some fat swine, the only ones I saw in Palestine. In that of tlie
Greeks there is a monkish wonder which at least shows the strength
of human credulity. A cave is shown, on the floor of which a drop
of the Holy Virgin's milk is said to have fallen, with the result, as is
universally believed, of making the pulverized rock highly effica-
cious for inc" "lasing the milk of women and even of animals, for which
purpose round cakes, mixed with dust from it, are to this day sold to
pilgrims !

Only the portion of the church from the transept eastward is now
used for worship, and I must say that the air and behavior of the local
clergy and laity, as they walk about in the aisles and nave of the other
half, make it hard to realize the sanctity of the place. Sellers obtrude
their wares on the visitor, inviting attention to their trays of local
keepsakes and "curios," or producing them from their dress; often dis-
turbing the sacred house by noisy haggling and chaffering, till one
feels something of the righteous indignation that roused our Lord to
drive their predecessors in this sacrilege from the Temple courts.*

I Jmtt qf Jtrael, p. 72, 2 Tft Work in PaMine, p. lH. 3 Hwrk zL 15-18.

262

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[OBiLP.

The south side of Bethlehem looks down as deep a valley as that
on the north, with similar terraces, rich in I'ruit-trees, hinking in great
steps to the hollow below, which is crowded with garden.^ and orchards.
All round Bethlehem, indeed, the eye wanders over scenes beautiful ia
their natural charms, or hallowed by sacred memories. Directly to
the north lies the tomb of Eachel, whom Jacob buried by the wayside,
as Tie tells his sons on his death-bed many long years after :^ his lieart
true, even in death, to her whom he had loved at first sight in distant
Mesopotamia, and had so early lost but could never forget. Tlie town
was called Ephrath then, for the name Bethlehem ("the House of
Bread") — now corrupted by the Arabs into Beit-Lahm ("the House of
Flesh") — was given to it centuries later. On the slopes down the
valley to the east, the beautiful idyl of Ruth had its scene. The
fields in which she gleaned are there, of course; and the path by which
she and Naomi, two lonely widows, climbed up to the town is still, no
doubt, the same as that by which the daughters of Bethlehem come
up to the village from the glen. In that Wady Kharubeh, and on the
hill-side beyond, lay the fields of Boaz, where he allowed the Moab-
itess to glean after the reapers, as you may still .see girls and women
doing in harvest-time. The old man was smitten by the young widow
before he knew it, for as soon as he saw her, he must needs beg her not
to glean in any other part of the valley but his, and to stay fast by his
maidens.^ Women, it seems, shared the toil of liarvesting in those
early days, as they do now, no less than the "young men," who, to
their shame, needed the warning of Boaz not to touch the poor gleaner.
Reapers, even now, come from all parts of the country to work lor hire,
and are not too much to he trusted in either morals or manners. Har-
vest is earlier on the sea-coast and plains, and in the Jordan vallev,
than on the hills, and hence the hill-men are free to go doAvn to help m
it without neglecting their own grain, and the lowlanders can come up
to the hills because tlieir harvest is over.

The land belonging to Bonz was not fenced off, for there are
neither hedges nor fences in Palestine, except round orchards or gar-
dens ; but it was marked off by boundary stones, sacredly respected by
every one. To remove a neighbors landmarks was to incur the curse
of God ; and Job could not picture the unscrupulously wicked more
vividly than by charging them with this crime.^ You see these stones
in every part of Palestine; generally a rough block, partly sunk in the
ground. On the hills beyond there were none, for no cue owned anv
part of these in private right; they were the "commons," on which
eacli had an equal right to pasture his flock or herd. Harvest in every
century is a joyful time, and the heart of Boaz was in keeping with the
good nature of all around. As now, the whole village, one may suppose,
1 Oen. xlvill. 7. 2ButbU.8. 8 Deut.xls.l4; «xvU.17: »oy.»[U.9;mU.]0; JObuiT.a.

XTX.]

BETHLEHEM.

268

had gone out to the fields ; the children and aged gleaning ; the strong, of
both sexes, plying tlie sickle. It is quite likely, too, that some of the
workers from the lowlands, or the Jordan valley, had brought their wives
and families with them, that the women and children might get a share
of the gleaning, for thev do this still, sleeping on the ground at night,
under the bright sky. The whole business, indeed, is taken easily, for
good weather is certain, and there is so little reason for hurry that you
may at times see a whole line of reapers sitting at their task and moving
forward to the grain without a thought of rising. Rain in harvest is, in
fact, such an unusual ocr-urrence that it will be remembered how, on its
faUing at the call of Samuel, it was recognized by the people as a
miraculous sign.*

Boaz saluted the reapers, when he came among them, with the cour-
teous phrase, "The Lord be with you," and received the response, " Tlie
Lord bless thee." The owner meets his laborers to-day with the very
same words, and the same answer is returned. The evening meal is
still the same as that wTiich Rnth was invited to share. A fire of dry
grass or stalks of weeds, or stubble or straw, is kindled, and a lapful
of ears tossed on it and left till the husks are scorched off". On this
sign that they are ready for eating, the whole are cleverly swept from
the embers into a cloak spread out to receive them. The grain is then
beaten out and winnowed, by being thrown up into the air, and after
this is spread out for the hungry mouths around. Sometimes it is
roasted in a pan or on an iron plate, or a bunch of wheat is held over the
fire till the chaflf is burnt off; some liking this method better than throw-
ing the ears on the fire. Women have this task, and it is amusing to
see them holding the corn in the flame till the precise moment when
the husks are consumed, and then beating out the grain with skilled
dexterity, with the help of a short stick. Such "parched corn"^ is so
pleasant to the taste that one cannot wonder at its having kept its
ground, as the reaper's food, for over three thousand years. As in
those early days^ vinegar is still often mixed with water, to make a
cooling drink m the warm summer, so that in this, also, modern and
ancient customs agree. One can easily, moreover, see the need of
Boaz guarding Ruth from the broad and noisy humor so natural in
8uch company after the labor of the day was over. No picture could
be more beautiful in its simplicity than that of Ruth sitting beside the
reapers, Boaz taking his place among them, near her, and reaching her
some of the parched corn, of which he was partaking with his men.*

Ruth began her gleaning when the barley ripened, and followed
Naomi's sagacious advice, to keep to the field of Boaz till the wheat
was reaped; the one crop being often cut before the other is ripe.*
Hence, the gift of Boaz was six measures of barley — not wheat, for

1 1 Sam. xii. 17, 18. 2 Ruth ii. 14. 3 Suth ii. 14. 4 Ruth ii. 22, 23.

264

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

though barley is eaten only by the poor, the wheat was not yet ready,
and barley bread is excellent when better cannot be had. Nor are we
to suppose that she carried home all the straw of lier gleaning, for we
are tola that "she beat out what she had gleaned,"^ just as tlie women
do now, after the day's gleaning is over; sitting down by the roadside
and beating out the grain with a stone or stick into her stout linen veil,
and throwing away the straw; then climbing the hill with her ephah
of barley^ — four gallons, says Joseph us; eight, say the Rabbis — safely
tied up, and poised on her head. The law gave the right of gleaning
to the poor, for whom, in Israel, there was no more formal provision;
and this custom has become so deeply rooted that one sees, at the
present day, well-nigh as many gleaners as reapers, when a valley is
being harvested. That Ruth and Naomi should have taken advantage
of this kindly system shows that they must have been poor. But this
was no bar to Ruth's marriage with Boaz, though he was rich ; fbr
society in the East is not divided by dift'erencQ of culture, as it is with
us; the poorest bear themselves with a natural self-respect which brings
them closer to the rich than is the case with the same class in the
"West. The humblest man in a village comes in at the open door of a
rich man's house, to enjoy the spectacle of a merry-making, without a
thought of impropriety on either side. And there is no distinction of
caste in Eastern worship. The merchant, tlie herdsman, the slave, and
the beggar, kneel promiscuously on the floor of the rnosqt ^, or join
hands in the ring formed round a saint's tomb, at a "zikr;"* and a
man in the very meanest garment walks into the presence of a gover-
nor to speak with him, without the slightest constraint on the one side
or feeling of intrusion on the other.

Besides inviting Ruth to a share of the '* parched corn " and the
"vinegar," Boaz also told her that she was free to drink from the water-
jars, or water-skins, when she felt thirsty,* just as a modern farmer
might show a similar courtesy to a. modern gleaner, water being a
necessary in the field, in such a climate. Indeed, we see in the tomb-
paintings of Egypt a similar provision of water in skins and jars, from
which reapers and gleaners alike quench their thirst. But it seems as
if the refreshments of the field were not confined to water, vinegar, and
parched corn, for we read that Boaz " had eaten and drunk, and his
heart was merry," before he went to lie down at tlie end of the mound
of threshed grain ;5 and in the story of the churlish Nabal we have an
instance of a harvest-feast on a very liberal scale ; while Abigail car-
ried to David, as his share of the bounties dispensed at the harvest-
home, not only parched corn, but loaves of bread, skins of wine, roasted
sheep, clusters of raisins, and cakes of figs.® It is not, indeed, to be
supposed that this was the everyday fare of either reapers or master,

1 Butb U. 17. 2 Butb ii. 17. 3 See ante, p. 177. 4 i;'Jth ii. 9. 6 Buth 111. 7. 6 Sam. xxf. IS-Mi

K -

And David was then in an hold, and the
garrison of tlie Pliilistines was then in Beth-
lehem. And David longed, and said, Oli
that one would give nie drink of the water
of the well of Beth-lehem, which is by the
gate.

And the three mighty men brake through
the host of the Philistines, and drew water

out of the well of Beth-lehem, that was by
the gate, and took it, and brought it to Da-
vid: nevertheless he would not drink there-
of, but poured it out unto the Lord.

And he said, Be it far from nie, O Lord,
that I should do this : is not this the blood
of the men that went in jeopardy of their
lives? therefore he would not drink it. —
2 Sam. xxiii. 14-17.

DAVID'S WELL AT BETHLEHEM. (See page 267.)

XIX.]

BETHLEHEM.

266

for the habits of the East are very simple; but it marked, at any rate,
the finishing of the year's work. Homer's description of the harvesit-
field closes tlie labors of the day with a substantial repast: —

" A field
Crowded with corn, in which the reapers toiled,
Each with a sliarp-tooth'd sickle in liis hand.
Along the furrow liere, tlie harvest fell
In frequent liandfuls; there, they bound the sheaves.
Three binders of tlie sheaves tlieir sultry tusk
All plied industriou" and, behind them, boys
Attended, filling with the corn their arms,
And offering still their bundles to be bound.
Amid them, stuiFin hand, the master stood
Silent exulting, while, beneath an oak
Apart, his heralds busily prepared
The banquet, dressing a well-thriven ox.
New slain, and the attendant maidens mixed
Large supper for the hinds, of whitest flour. "^

Yet the parched corn and vinegar would be the usual fare, as it is now ;
a feast like that of Nabal's men, or the one depicted by Homer, would
be the great event when all was over. I certainly never heard of such
a thing, and the manners of the East do not change.

Ruth's mode of calling the attention of Boaz to her claims on him
as her next-of-kin, or "goel," bound to "redeem " her from the calamity
of widowhood by lionorable marriage, seems strange to us, but is quite
in keeping with the everyday life of Eastern countries. Boaz himself
praises her for it, finding a proof of special worth in her having sought
him, an old man, for a husband, instead of " following young men,
whether rich or poor."^ Naomi, however, had made a mistake in
sending her to Boaz, as there was a still nearer kinsman ; so that Boaz,
however love-sick, could not marry her till the other had refused to
do so.

Orientals cover their head and their feet when they go to sleep, but
both sexes lie down in the clothes worn through the day, so that they
can easily rest in the warm months wherever night overtakes them,
without any preparation. Nor was there anything in Ruth's action to
shock conventional propriety, for she followed the advice of the pure
and godly Naomi, and was commended by Boaz himself as a woman
known by all the town for her virtuous character.'

The refusal of a next-of-kin to do his duty, by marrying the widow
of his brother or other relative, was the occasion of a curious custom
in ancient Israel. " If the man likes not to take his brother's [or kins-

1 niad, bk. xviii. (Cowper). 2 Butb ill. 10. 8 Buth iU. U.

2dd

tfiB HOLT tAI^D A^D tHE BI^LlC.

tOHAfr.

man's] widow," says Deuteronomy, " then let the widow go up to the
gate [of the town ^r village, where all public business is transacted]
unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother or [kinsman] refuseth
to raise up to his brother a name in Israel; he will not perform the
duty of my husband's brother [or kinsman]. Then the elders of the
city shall call him and speak unto him, and if he stand to it, and say,
I like not to take her; tlien shall his brother's widow come unto him
in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from oft' his foot, and
spit in his face, and shall answer and say, "So shall it be done unto
tliat man that will not build up his brother's house. And his name
shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed."^
In Ruth's case, however, it would seem that the refractory kinsman
drew off his own shoe, and handed it to Boaz as a sign of the transfer-
ence of his rights over Ruth.^ May we see an explanation of this,
though a veiy prosaic one, in a custom which is still observed by the
Jews of Barbary in a marriage? "When the bride enters the room
whe^ the bridegroom awaits her, as she crosses the thresliold, he stoops
down, and, slipping off his shoe, strikes her with the heel of it on the
nnpe of the neck,"* as a sign and public acknowledgment that she is
his wife ; a husband only having the right he has thus exercised. So
the ungracious kinsman, in handing over his shoe to Boaz, gave up to
him his matrimonial riglits, of which the use of the slipper in a sum-
mary way, should discipline require it, was the acknowledged symbol.
I have no doubt that Boaz, a respectable, formal, elderly man, was
careful to assert his supremacy and the obedience dve by Ruth in the
usual way ; but we may be vory sure that the tap on i er shoulders on
the marriage-day was the first and last occasion of hiii needing to use
this mild substitute for the modern hob-nailed boot.

The marriage thus strangely brought about, and as strangely cele-
brated by the transferance of the masterful sandal, was, as all know,
most happy in its results. It gave Ruth, as her husband, the repre-
sentative of one of the oldest families of Bethlehem, for Boaz was
descended from the greatest house of Judah, that of Pharez:* a line
which, from David's time, was famous for the illustrious warriors it
gave the State,'' the royal house itself being its head; a line, too,
which became so numerous that 468 sons of " Perez" came back with
Zerubbabel from Babylon, Zerubbabel himself being one of the stock.*
Ibzan, the Bethlehemite, who judged Israel for seven years after Jeph-
thah,'^ and who had thirty sons and thirty daughters,is asserted in the
Talmud to have been no other than Boaz himself: a point difficult to set-
tle. But it is through his grandson Jesse that the husband of Ruth is
most illustrious, for the youngest of Jesse's sons, as every one knows, was

1 Deut. XXV. 7—10. 2 Ruth iv. 8. 3 PtUara of Hercules, 1. 805. 4 Or "Perez" (Oen. xzxvili. 29;
Ruth iv. 12; Matt. i. 3.). 5 1 Chron. xxvii. 2. 3; xi. 11; 2 Sam. xxiii. 8. 6 1 Chrou. ix. 4; Neh. xl. 4
-6 ; 1 Esdr. v. 6. 7 Judg. xii. 8—10.

Xix.)

6ETHLEHEM.

no other than David. Tradition reports that Jesse spent his days in
Bethlehem, a weaver of veils for the Temple, thougn, so far as we
know, his wealtli consisted mainly in some slieep and goats which David
tended.^ But lie must have Men a village dignitary as well as a
worth V man, to have his name so persistently given in connection
with his greatest sou, who is constantlv mentioned as "the son of
Jesse," while the Saviour Himself is proclaimed as a "shoot out of the
stock of Jesse," and " the root of Jesse which should stand as an
ensign to the people."* Jesse must have owned land in Bethlehem,
perhaps the fields of his grandfather Boaz, for David gave away
ground near the village ;^ and, indeed, if Jesse had not been the lead*
ing man of the place, he could hardly have presided with the village
elders at the sacrificial feast of the community, held on the first new
moon of each year, as we find him doing when the Pro{5het Samuel
came to anoint his shepherd-son.*

There are not many incidents connecting David with Bethlehem,
though he lived in it till after his victory over Goliath."* We learn,
however, that even while in the court of Saul, he continued to visit
the place at the yearly sacrificial feast of the family.* Just before you
reach the town, on the flat sheet of rock on which our tents vere
pitched, were three round walls,' or rather well-shafts, to the largest
of which the name of David's "Well is given, though on \;hat
authority it is hard to tell. The largest of the three openings proved
to be twenty-six feet deep, but it is partly filled with stones, so that the
original depth cannot be known. Between two and three feet of water
stood at the bottom ; but the other openings, which were about twelve
feet deep, were dry. Tlie water in the first pit was fresh and good,
like that of a spring, and it is likely that it flows from one, though
most of the water seems to find some escape through the rocks. In
David's time it may have risen much higher in the shaft. Situated at
the only spot where " a gate " could have been built — the north end of
the town, which alone joins the country without an intervening valley
— this well seems fairly entitled to be regarded as that from which the
precious draught was brought to the shepherd- king. It is, by the
way, the only spring in Bethlehem, the town depending entirely on
cisterns.

As the shafts are entirely unprotected, they were a terror to me in
the night, notwithstanding their venerable associations ; for a sudden
disappearance into one of them would have left little hope of escape.
There is another well, however, which the monks honor with the name
of David, about three-quarters of a mile north-east of Bethlehem,
beyond the valley beneath the town ; but it is much more probable

1 lSain.x7i.il; xTii. 34, 85. 2 Isa. xi. 1, 10. 3 2 f^^m. xix. 87, 38 ; Jer. xll. 17. 4 1 Sam. xvi. 8-5.
ft 1 Sam. xTii. 12, fl. 6 1 Sam. xx. 6. 7 It is said tk .t tliere are five sliafts, but I saw only three.

268

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Cbap.

that the one at my tent-side was that from which ho longed for a
draught of water: a gratification obtained for him at the risk of their
lives by three mighty men of his band.^ Somewhere, also, in Bethlelium,
in his father's sepulchre, lies tlio striuliiig Asaiiel, David's cousin, so
swift of foot, and who was slain by A oner in self-defence.* In times
far earlier, the village had been the home of Jonathan, the sou or
descendant of Gershom the son of Moses, and whoso name has been
changed by the rabbis into Manaaseh, to screen the memory of the
great lawgiver from the stain of having so unworthy an apostate
among his near posterity. For it was this Jonathan who wandered to
the north, and, after serving as ])rie8t in the idol-house of Micah the
Ephraimite, became priest of the graven ima,i.'o at Dan: an office
wnich continued in his family till the Cnptivitv." Yet the greatest
honor of Bethlehem, unique iu the history of the world, and, indeed,
of the universe, was that foretold by Micah : — "But thou, Bethlehem-
Ephratah, though thou bo little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall He come forth unto mo that is to be ruler in Israel ;
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.''* For iu
this small village was born the Saviour of the world.

Looking along the sweeping vallev to the south-east, beyond the
fields to which Kuth " went down," the eye rests on softly-rising hills,
to the south of which she could see those of Moab, so sadly dear to her,
rising purple beyond the Dead Sea. The slopes of the hills close at
hand are those, as tradition maintains, on which the shepherds were
watching by night, when the angel and the heavenly choir appeared,
to announce the birth of Ilini who was "Christ, the Lord.'' Tiie
grey, barren wilderness of Judaea creeps up to them, but they are,
themselves, comparatively green. A clump of olive-trees surrounds a
ruin fancifully supposed to be that of the shepherds' tower. The wall
still seen is of good-sized stones, left there because building material
is abundant in tho neighborhood. Old gnarled olives, their trunks
riven, twisted, pierced by age, and disproportionately large for their
crown of silver-green leaves, give a touch of beauty to the baldness of
of the landscape, and afford shade to the peasant while tending the
long-eared, broad-tailed sheep, and lively black goats, that browse
among them. Bare-legged, bare-armed, with huge slippers, it may be,
and a white or colored kerchief, old and faded, round liis close-fitting
skull-cap ; over his blue shirt, which reaches to his calves, a striped
abba, rude enough in its tailoring, rather a square bag than a coat, a
leather belt keeping it tight round him, — he sits there in the spring
time, among the red anemones, tulips, and poppies, the short lived
glories of the pastures of Palestine, and looks tne picture of vacuity,
his staff on the ground beside him, and his club tied to his girdle.
1 2 Sam. zzUi. 14 ; 1 Cbron. xl. 17. 2 2 Sam. 11. 32. 8 Judg. xvlil. 80. 4 llicah v. 2.

It!

XIX.]

BETHLEHEM.

269

Born of hereditary ignorance, his intelligence is little superior to that
of the sheep he watches.

Bethlehem stands 100 feet higher than Jerusalem^ being 2,550 feet
above the sea at its highest point. But the neighboring hills are
lower than those round the Holy City, and there is more cultivation;
Bethlehem looks slightly down on its surrounding heightSj while
Jerusalem is commanded by its girdle of hills. The population of
David's city consists of Latin, Greek, and Arnenian Christians, through
the influence of the triple, fortress-like convent round the ancient
church, but they are on good terms with each other, and even inter-
marry, which .these rival sects seldom do in Jerusalem. The Eoman
Catholics have splendid school-buildings, much larger and finer than
any others, and I have no doubt they do much good.

I did not see any tattooing among the women, and, indeed, through- .
out Palestine, there is little of it, compared with the fashion in Egypt,
where the features and arms are often quite disfigured. The peasant-
women of the Holy Land, with better taste, confine themselves to a
mark on the palms of their hands, between the eyes, and on the chin,
with a row of small points along the lower lip, producing an effect
something like that of the patches worn last century by English ladies.
But the women of Bethlehem are superior to these rude follies.
Thanks, perhaps, to +he blood of the Crusaders, of a share of which
they boast, they are altogether finer than any women I saw elsewhere
in Palestine, with the exception, perhaps, of those of Nazareth. The
population is said to be about 4,000.

Though the town was walled in the time of Boaz, when the elders
"sat in the gate," and when Eehoboam fortified it,^ there are no walls
now. The flat roofs join each other in many cases, and thus afford an
easy passage from one house to another, which is often used. Thi»
explams our Lord's counsel to His disciples^ not to think, when
troubles burst on the land, of coming down to take anything out of
the house, if they chanced to be on the housetop at the moment the
news reached them. They were rather to flee along the roofs, and
thus escape. The- local tradesmen sometimes press one to come into
their dwellings to- inspect their wares, and an opportunity is thus given
of seeing the inside of a Bethlehem establishment. The room is of
arched stone, without furniture, except the inevitable divan, or broad
seat along the wall; and the women have no timidity at your entrance.
Squatted on the floor, one, it may be, is busy sewing while she watches
lier baby in the cradle, another is preparing to bake, and a third will
bring you a water-pipe and a glass of water, while you look over the
crucifixes, rosaries, olive-wood boxes, mother-of-pearl carved shells,
and little jars and cups of asphalt, or red stone.
I t^m lY. 1 ; 2 Chron. xi. 6, 6. 2 l(«tt. xxiv. 17 ; M^rk x|i|. 16; Luke xyU. 91.

■

270

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

Talking of housetops reminds one of the variety of allusions to them
in the Bible. Samuel communed with Saul on the housetop,* for
privacy, so that his dwelling must have been flat-roofed. Absalom
spread a tent on the top of David's house for his father's wives, that it
might be seen by all Israel that he had assumed the throne, by his
taking them as his own.'-^ "It is better," says tlie Book of Proverbs,
"to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in
a wide house ;"^ nor would it be any great hardship to do so in Pales-
tine in the hot weather, for in the summer months the roof is the best
sleeping-place. The text, however, doubtless means that even in the
colder season any wretched spot, though exposed alike to rain and wind,
is better than the best room with the company of a scold. Who would
have thought that old Hebrew families were ever thus miserable?

When the paralytic was brought to Jesus, his bearers took him up
the outside stairs, so common still in the court or yard, and carried
him to the housetop. Many roofs have a hatchway opening into the
room below, but closed in the cold months; and this having been
lifted, it was easy to let the man down at the feet of the Saviour.* His
couch, we may be sure, was simply a hammock, offering no difficulty
to his entrance through the opening. To think of his bearers breaking
up the roof, is out of the question. If cemented, it would be quite a
task to do so, and the house would have been spoiled ; nor would it
have been much better had it been necessary to tear or break a way
through a thick bedding of earth and boughs, such as we find in some
places. The crowd below would have been very soon scattered by
such a rain . f dust and clods — not to speak of broken sticks or stalks
— as would have come down on them. There was just such a hatch-
way as I have described on the top of the schoolhouse of the American
Mission at Assiout, in Egypt, and they are common in Palestine.
Isaiah speaks of the people of Moab assembling on their housetops,
"howling and weeping abundantly" at the news of the taking of their
capital by the foe,^ and of the population of Jerusalem as " wholly
gone up to the housetops"^ to look out for the Assyrians coming to
attack them, or at the country people streaming through the gates for
protection, or in hopes of catching sight of the standards of Tirhakah
advancing to their deliverance.' Jeremiah, like Isaiah, predicted that
there would be "lamentation upon all the housetops of Moab."* The
Jews, in their apostasy, copied the evil example of Ahaz in erecting
altars to the host of heaven on the top of his house,^ for they built
private ones for the same idolatry on their own roofs, and burnt
incense upon them.*® And Christ, again, tells His disciples to use the
low housetops for a pulpit from which to proclaim the glad news He
had told tiiem.ii

1 1 Sam. ix. 26. 2 2 8ain. xvl. 22. 3 Prov. xxl. 9.
7 Geikie, Hours u^U^ the Bible, iv. 440. 8 Jer. xlviii. 81
W, UJI»tt,x.87,

4 Luke V. 19. 6 Isa. zv. 3. 6 Isa. xxii. 1.
9 2 Klnj^s xxii. 12. 10 Zepb. i. 6 { Jer, xlx.

CHAP.

them
,1 for
lalom
bat it
)y his
verbs,
I an in
Pales-
e best
in the
I wind,
would

aim up
carried
nto the
ig been
* His
if&culty
ireaking
I quite a
jvould it
k a way
in some
;ered by
or stalks
a hatch -
American
'alestine.
ousetops,
r of their
'"wholly
joming to

gates for
Tirhakah
icted that

;'8 The
n erecting
they built
and burnt

to use the
a news He

Pasture near Bethlehem . (See page 268 . )

6 Isa. xxll. 1.
1.1.6? JeMStX*

)

XX.]

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

271

CHAPTER XX.

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

It brings very forcibly before the mind bow small a country Pales-
tine is, to find that the chief scenes of David's life, before lie reigned in
Jerusalem, lie within a circle of not more than twelve or fifteen miles
round his native village. It was only a three or four hours' journey
for the boy from Bethlehem to Saul's camp at Socoh ; and by starting
early, as he would, he could readily have been among the fighting men
in the beginning ol* the forenoon, so as to leave abundant time for his
magnificent duel with Goliath. It would be little for one so strong
and active, to go on his venturous challenge down the stony, brush-
wood-covered hill on which his brothers and the other Hebrews stood
drawn up, across the half-mile of broad, flat valley, now covered every
season with grain, then over the narrow trench in the middle full of
white pebbles worn by the rain ; nor would it have been more than
a youth could do without special eftbrt, to return again the same night
to his father's house in Bethlehem. AduUam, Keilah, Carmel, Ziph,
"all lie within a small circle: David's adventures, indeed, during several
years, may all be followed in a space smaller almost than any of our
Englisli counties.

But it was time to leave this most interesting spot, where, in David's
own words— called forth, it may be, by the scenery round his native
town — "the little hills rejoice on every side: the pastures are clothed
with flocks, and the valleys are covered over with com."^ It takes
but a few minutes to strike a tent, and a very short time to pack it on
the backs of the patient donkeys, so that we were soon on the way to
Jerusalem. The road was thronged with town and country people,
going to their gardens, or bringing loads from them. Asses quietly
pattered on beneath huge burdens of cauliflowers large enough to
rejoice the heart of an English gardener. Camels stalked up the hill
with loads of building stone : their drivers with clubs in their girdles.
Men and women, in picturesque dress, passed this way and that as we
jogged down towards Pilate's Aqueduct, which runs level with the
ground, or nearly so, is covered with flat unhewn stones, and would be
overlooked as only a common wall but for openings at intervals through
which the running water is seen. The road turns straight to the north,
with stony fields on the right, and a narrow open hollow of olives on
the left, the ground slowly rising on this side, however, till at Rachel's
grave, about a mile from Bethlehem, there is for the time a level space,
well strewn, as usual, with gtones of all siaes,

272

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

The place where the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, the patriarch
Jacob's early and abiding love, is buried, is one of the few spots
respecting which Christian, Jew, and Mahommedan agree. The pres*
ent building consists of four square walls, each twenty-tiireo foet long,
and about twenty feet high, with a flat roof, from which a dome, witli
the plaster over it in sad disrepair, rises for about ten feet more. The
masonry is rough : the stones set in rows, with no attemi)t at finish, or
even exact regularity. Originally there was a large arch in each of
the walls, which between them enclose an open space, but these arches
have at some time been built up. The building dates, perhaps, from
the twelfth century, though tiie earliest notice we have of it is a slcctch
in an old Jewish book of the year a. d. 1537. Joined to tiio back of
it is another building consisting of four stone walls coarsely built, and
about thirteen feet high, the space enclosed being thirteen feot deep
and twenty-three feet broad — that is, as broad as the domed building ;
with a flat roof. Behind this again, the walls are continued, at tlie
same height, for twenty-three feet more each way, forming a covered
court, used for prayer by the Mahommedans. Under the dome stamls
an empty tomb of modern appearance, but entrance to this ])art, and
also to the second chamber, is in the hands of the Jews, who visit it on
Fridays. The pillar erected by Jacob has long since dis«i)pearcd, hav-
ing apparently been replaced at various times by dift'erent construc-
tions. No part of the present building, I may say, except the high
domed part, is older, apparently, than the present century.

The stone raised by Jacob in memory of his much-loved wife has
been turned to wonderful account by recent "advanced critics" of the
Old Testament, who have founded on this simple act the astounding
assertion that Jacob and the patriarchs were sun-worshippers, and this
poor headstone an idolatrous sun-pillar, such as were set up in the tem-
ples of Baal and Astarte, the foul gods of Canaan.^ This amazing
theory rests, like a pyramid on its sharp end, on the minute fact that
the word for the obelisks raised to the sun-god was used also for such
memorials as this tombstone to Rachel, or that erected in attestation
of the covenant between Jacob and Laban, or for the stone set up by
Jacob himself at Bethel on his return to Canaan, as a witness to the
second covenant made with him there by Jehovah.^ Twelve similar
stones, described by the same word, were erected by Moses when the
Twelve Tribes accepted the covenant made with them by God t^ to
remain a permanent proof of their having done so, and a silent plea
for their fidelity. Did the great law-giver who proclaimed, " Hear,
Israel, Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah,"* and commanded! that Israel
should have no other gods before Him, or make any graven image, or

1 Robertson Smith, Old Test, in the Jewish Church, pp. 226, 353. 2 OOD. XXVlii. 18. 22 : xxxl. 13, 45, 51.
&2; XXXV. 14. 3 Exod. xxlv. 4-7. 4 Deut. vl. 4 (Heb.). «. • "^ i •

\Bkr.

arch
jpots
pres-
long,
■witli

The
3li, or
oil of
.rches

I'rom
kctoli
ck of
It, aiul
t tlocp
kling ;
(It tho
ovcrcd
stumla
rt, aiivl
,it it on
il, Imv-
nstruc-
le high

rife lias

of the
mnding
md this
he tern-
iiiiazing
i\ot that
or such
estation
up by
tjs to the

similar
irhen the
bd-.s to
lent plea

Hear,
lat Israel

mage, or

xl. 13, 46, 51,

Tomb of Bftcbel, (.See page 271 . )

XZ.]

BETHLEHESM TO JERUSALEM.

278

likeness of anything in hea\en above, or in the earth ber^ath, or in
tlie water under the earth^ ^lid this earnest and lofty soul, filled with
loyalty to the one living and true God, set up twelve sun-pillars in
honor of Baal? Credulity lias gone a gVeat way when it can believe
this, nor can muoli be said for the modesty which would suggest it.

I own to a specially kindly feeling to Jacob from the story of his
aft'ectioii for his first love. liow tender it was, is seen, as has been
noticed already, by his going back to the scene of her death in his
dying conversation with Joseph, more than forty vears after he had
lost her .2 The headstone at Bethlehem was still oefore his eyes, in
these last hours of his life, and she was as precious to him then as
when she first won his heart, seventy years before. He had faults, and
great ones, but the man who is capable of an unchanging love has a
great deal in him to respect.

It is striking how much there is in the story of the patriarchs which
the manners of the East even yet illustrate. The sending of Eliezer to
Mesopotamia to get a wife for Isaac is exactly what the sheikh of an
Arab tribe would do to-day. A Bedouin always marries in his own
clan, and will take any trouble to do so, and the same custom prevails
among the Hindoos ; ^ while there was a strong religious motive in the
directions of Abraham on this point — to keep his descendants from
going over to the idolatry of Canaan.* What Isaac was doing when
Rebekah came in sight has been vigorously disputed. Our Bible tells
us he had gone out to meditate,** but a great German scholar maintains
that he had gone out to collect dry stalks and weeds for the evening
fire,' showing no little ingenuity in defence of his novel interpretation,
which, indeed, had aire ifly been suggested by some of the rabbis. He
could, to be sure, meditate while at his task, for one need not be idle to
turn his thoughts in a serious direction, and in the East no detail of
tent life is beneath a sheikh's personal attention ; for we are told that
even the great Abraham ran to the herd and, himself, "fetched a calf,
and gave it to a young man, to kill and dress for his visitors."' Just
as an Arab bride would do now in being brought to her future hus-
band, Rebekah "lighted off the camel" and veiled herself,* because she
would not ride while he was on foot, and she could not allow her face
to be seen till she was his wife.

Isaac had been brought up, in childhood, in his mother Sarah's part
of the tent, shut off from the men's part, and thither he took his bride,
fortunately " loving her " when now for the first time he saw her. She
would be led to it by her nurse and her maids who had come with her,
but, one by one, these would leave her, till she was all alone with the
nurse, wondering whether she would please Isaac when he came.

1 Exod. XX. 3, 4. 2 Gen. xlvlii. 7. 3 Rosenmiiller, A. u. N. Morgenland, 1. 102.
6 Gen. xxiv. 63. 6 Bottcher, Aekrente$e, 1. 19. 7 Qen. xvlii. 7. 8 Gen. xxiv. Qi, 06.

i Gen. xxiT. 6.

■i

274

THE HOLY LAND AND THB BIBLE.

. [CBAV.

After a time, the nurse would throw a shawl over her head, and, a sig-
nal having been given, the curtain would be pushed aside lor a moment,
and the bridegroom would enter, and tlie iiuiso witlidruw. Man and
wife would thus for the first time be face to face. Now cnme the
moment for removing the veil, or shawl, tliat hid the bride's face. If
he had been a modern Oriental, Isaac would have said, " In the name
of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful," and, then, raising the shawl,
would greet his wife with the words, "Blessed be this night," to which
her answer would be, "God bless thee." This was the first time Isaac
had seen Kebekah unveiled, and it would be an anxious matter for the
nurse and the maids, and, above all, for Rcbekah herself, whether she
pleased or disappointed her husband, for there might have Ix'en an
antici.pfttion of Jacob's trouble, by finding a Leah instead of a Kachcl.
But Rebekah's facd pleased her iuture lord, as, indeed, the face of the
bride generally does a bridegroom, and he would announce this fact to
the anxious women outside, who, forthwith, no doubt, set up a shrill
cry of delight, just as their sisters who stand in the same relation to a
young wife do now To the Semitic races this shout of the triumphant
and satisfied bridegroom is one of the most delightful sounds that can
be uttered, and has been so for immemorial ages ; and it is to this our
Saviour alludes when He says, " He that hath the bride is tiie bride-
groom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth
him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom/a voice." ^

The characte' of Jacob was a duplicate of that of his mother. As
her pet, she trained him, perhaps unconsciously, in her own faults, and
he was clearly an apt scholar. The sister of Laban, a man full of craft
and deceit like most Arabs, was not likely to be very open or straight-
forward. To make a favorite of one of a family, at least so as to show
preference, is a sign of narrow, though perhaps deep, aftection ; but to
overreach a husband like Isaac, for the injury of one of her two sons,
was as heartless as it was ignoble. Tlie wonder is that, with such a
mother, Jacob was, in the end, even as worthy as he proved himself.
His being a plain man, living in tents,^ points to the contrast between
the wild unsettledness of his brother and his own quiet, or, we might
say, " domesticated " nature, and so does his life as a shepherd, roving
about with his flocks and tents — a life greatly honored among the
Hebrews — while Esau spent his days in what they thought the rough,
savage pursuits of a hunter. The red pottage of lentils for wiiich
Jacob bought the birthright,^ is still a favorite dish among the poorer
classes in the East ; the lentils being first boiled, and then made tasty
by mixing some fat with them,* or olive-oil and pepper. Barzillai, it
will be remembered, brought a quantity of them, among other things,
with him to Ma;ianaim, as a gift to David, during the rebellion of
1 Etwrs, egyptt ii« 96. John ill. 29. 2 Gen. xxv. 27. 3 Gen. zxt. 80. 4 Bobinson, Bib, Set., i. 2M,

A».

ZX.]

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

275

3tg'

ent,
Olid
tlie
If
ame
awl,
UicU
Isaao
V the
r she
liw an
\cl\el.
)f tlio
net to
sUrill
II to a
iphant
at can
r.s our
briclc-
learetli

ir. As
Its, nm\
of craft
traight-
to sliow
; but to
wo sons,
1 such a
himself,
between
/e might
3, Toving
iiong the
le rough,
or wlncb
he poorer
lade tasty
arzillai, it
ler things,
jbellion of
iib. Bes., i. a».

Absalom ; and we find that in times of soaroit^ in tlie days of Ezckiel
they were mixed with wlieat and otiier grain, including spelt, to make
bread.^ Lentils are still grown in great quAUtities in Egypt, and
largely in Palestine, where que might tbinic them pens, at an enrly
stage of their growth, for tliey riae only to a height of six or eiglit
inches, and have tendrils ixul pods hke the pea, though purple, not
green. In England and Wales they are grown as food for cattle,
though it would be a bletsing for the peasantry if they recognized their
rich nutritiousness, and used them for themselves. European children
born in Palestine are passionately fond of lentil porridge; nature
unchecked by prejudice, turning eagerlv to tliat which it finds best
suited to its wants. Two kinds of the pfant are grown, the brown and
the red ; the latter being the better. ..

The deceit of Rebekah and Jacob was sorely visited on both. It
must have been a great trial to the mother to lose her favorite son for
ever, for Jacob not only never saw his mother again, but lost all the
fruit of his years of toil under his fntlier, and had to begin the world
again in Mesopotamia, with a very hard master; spending more than
twenty years oefore he had flocks enough to be independent of him.
But Isaac was not free from blame, for a father should not show favor-
itism in his family, especially if it rest to a large extent on so poor a
basis as the love of savory meat.^ The gazelles which Esau hunted
still abound in the Negeb, where Isaac had his tents ; and it must
have tasked Rebekah's skill to disguise a young kid so as to give it
the flavor of the wild creature. It may seem strange to read that
Isaac "smelled" Jacob's clothes,^ but in India, to this day, a similar
custom prevails ; so that parents will compare the smell of a child to
that of a fragrant plant, and a good man will be spoken of as having a
sweet smell.*

The stone at Bethel^ would have been a hard pillow for a European,
but the thick turban of the Oriental, and the habit of covering the
head with the outer garment during sleep, would make a cushion.
The meeting with Rachel, like that of Eliezer with Rebekah, is true,
in the minutest touches, to Eastern life. Abraham's deputy makes his
camels kneel down, without the city, "by a well of water, at the time
of evening; the time that women go out to draw water;" and so
would an Arab now. Wells are commonly, though not always, just
outside the towns; and it is not only correct that evening is the time
for drawing water, but that the task falls to the women. The peasant
is then returning from his labor in the field, or driving home his small
flock, and his wife and daughters have the evening meal to prepare,
for which water is needed. It is, moreover, the cool of the day. At
any Eastern village you meet long files of women thus occupied. That
1 Ezek. iv. 9. 2 Gen. xxvlL 4. 8 Qen. xxvii. 27. 4 Roberts, Indian JOutlrtiHoiu. 5 Gen. xxvili. U.

276

tHfi UOtY LAI^I) ANt) THU llIHLtl.

tCnAl>.

Rolxikali should have carried her wator-jnr on her Hhouldor is another
touch of exactness, tor Syrian vvonien still carry tlic jar thus, while
tlieir Egyptian sisters balance it un tlicir houds.

Jt is striking, when we think of tlie place of our Saviour's birth, to
read of the camels being brought into Labau's liouse.^ T have often
seen beasts thus pul up with the liouschokl. ]n the same way we can
restore the whole narrative of Jacob's meeting with Kachel,* from
everyday life in the East at the present time. The well is in the
field ; that is, in the open pasture-lanci. Water being scarce, all the flocks,
for miles round, meet at it to be watered. The heavy stone rolled
over its mouth may be seen by any traveller in many parts of Pales-
tine. The daughters of the flock-masters still go, in many pierces, to
tend and water the flocks. You may see them thus engagea near
almost any Arab tents in the plain of Sharon or of Philistia. That
Laban kissed Jacob eft'usivelv is onlv what one sees Orientals doing
every day, on meeting a neiglibor or friend. The wily Syrian, in ad-
mitting that it is better to give Rachel to the son of Isaac than to
another man, acted simply on the Bedouin law that a suitor has the
exclusive right to the hand of his first cousin, so that even if he do
not himself wish to marry her, she cannot be married without his
consent. To give a female slave to a daughter, as part of her dowry,
is usual now, where means permit, so that Zilpah's being given to
Leah at her marriage is another proof of the unchanging sameness of
Eastern life in all ages. Excuses for sending home an elder daughter,
instead of a younger, to the bridegroom, need still to be made in not
a few cases, and are exactly the same as those with which Laban
palliated the substitution of Leah for Rachel. The mandrakes found
by Reuben, and craved by Rachel, are still in demand among Eastern
women, in the same belief that they quicken . e, and have other
related uses. The plant is not rare in Palestine, and ripens in April or
Ma^. It has long, sharp-pointed, hairy leaves, of a deep green,
springing from the ground, with dingy white flowers splashed with
purple, aiid fruit which the Greeks called "love-apples," about the size
of a nutmeg, and of a pale orange color; the root striking down like a
forked carrot. It is closely allied to the deadly nightshade, and has
in all ages been famed, not only among women, but among men, in the
latter case for its qualities as an intoxicant. From Leah and Rachel the
interest in the mandrake passed down through each generation of
their Hebrew descendants, so that we find its smell very appropriately
introduced in the Song of Songs by the lovesick maiden, as awaiting
her beloved if he go out with her to the vineyard.^ The wish of a
wife for a son, as a surety that her husband will not divorce her, is as
much a characteristic of Eastern women to-day as it was in the time
1 Gen. zxlv. 31, 82. 2 Qen. zxix. 8 Cant. vU. 18.

A Jewish oottoD cleaner removing the seeds with the " bow."

in'

xx.i

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

277

of the patriarch, as has been already noticed. So great an event is a
son's birth tliat, as I have said, a father is no longer known by his
own name after the son is born, bi\,t as the father of Abdallah, or
Ibrahim, or whatever name the child receives.

The teraphim of Laban, carried off by Each el, open a curious chap-
ter in the history of old Jewish religion. They were images, small
enough to be stored in the large saddle-bags, or panniers, of Eachel's
camel, and thus evidently much below the human size, and were
regarded by Laban as his gods, the possession of which was of vital
importance. Eachel, no doubt, shared in his opinion of their super-
natural power, and had taken them, we may well suppose, that they
might transfer to her husband some of the advantages of which he
had been unjustly defrauded by her father. By Josephus they are
called household gods,^ which it was usual for Ihe owner to carry with
him for good fortune, if he went to a distance from home. How
Laban made use of them is not told, though he speaks in one place
of "divining,'"^ and probably did so by consulting them as oracles ;
just as we find Joseph, in Egypt, divining by a cup,^ perhaps by the
movements of water in it or of substances put into the water; the
fondness for such superstition clinging to him through his mother. If
we may judge from later instances, Laban's teraphim were decked with
an ephod, as a medium for divine communications — a broad orna-
mented belt round the body, reaching from the armpits to the lower
ribs ; held in place by a strap or girdle of the same material, and also
by cords from a broad collar or cape of the same stuft" covering the
shoulders,* It was on the front of such an ephod that the Jewish
high priest, in later times, wore the oracular Urim and Thummim.
Tlius Micah, in Mount Ephraim, "had an house of gods, and made an
ephod and teraphim," which Jonathan, the apostate descendant of
Moses, whom Micah had made his priest, carried off" to Dan, and
used there for idolatrous worship.^ The ephod, indeed, is mentioned
in connection with teraphim as late as the time of Hosea, just before
the overthrow of the Ten Tribes.^ The Danites evidently believed in
the oracular power of such a combination, since the discovery of it in
Micah's possession led them at once to the conclusion that they could
use it to see what they were to do next, in their adventurous journey
on the war-path in search of a new home.'^ House-gods, in various
form, have always, indeed, been a great feature in idolatrous systems.
Thus in the ruins of the great palace of Khorsabad, at Nineveh,
Botta discovered under the threshold of the gates a number of statu-
ettes in baked clay ; images of Bel, Nergal, and Nebo, placed there, as
an inscription telis us, " to keep away the wicked, and all enemies, by

IJos. ^?i<., xvlil. 9, 5. 2 Gen. XXX. 27 (Heb.). 3Gen. xllv. 6. 4 Riehm, p. 387. 5 Judg.xvii.6:
xvlli. 18-20. 6 Hos. ill. 4. 7 Judg. xvlil. 4, 6.

iMnifiriiWirrniiitng

278

THE HOLY LAND ANt) THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

the terror of death." ^ Different parts of a house were placed under
th^i protection of separate divinities; and a magic formula, which has
bef;n discovered, directs that u small image of one god ought to be
pi. iced at the court-gate of a house; of another, in the ground near
the bed; of a tliird, inside the door; of a fourth, under the threshold
cf the door, at each side. We do not know of the Hebrews currying
their superstition so far as this, but the protection sought by means
of the tcraphim is closely allied to it, and the Israelites certainly
sprang from an idolatrous stock, for Joshua states tliat their fathers,
who dwelt on the other side of the Euplirates, served other gods than
Jehovah.2 Indeed, this ancestral tendency lingered among them till
extirpated by the sharp discipline of the Captivity, and even after
their return they could not wean themselves from dabbling in some
forms of the black art.

The pres( noe of such images, and also of magic charms and amulets
implying faith in "strange gods," seemed, however, to Jacob, incom-

Eutiblc with his appearing as he ought before Jehovah at Bethel, on
is return to Western Palestine, and they were consequently buried
under "the terebinth which was by Sliechem," known apparently from
that time as "the Terebinth of the Diviners." ^ But though it was
thrust out ^rom his own encampment, the patriarch could not uproot
from his ruco the belief in their power. We have seen how Micah
turned to them during the anr r'ihy of the period of the Judges, and
that his images continued to be icverenced and consulted at Dan till
the Captivity. They must, moreover, have been very general even in
later times, for we find David's wife, Michal, taking the household
teraphim and laying it on the bed, with goat's hair over the brow, to
imitate that of her husband — if, indeed, the hair of a common fly-net
be not meant* — thus enabling him to escape from hei father's messen-
gers.^ David's house could hardly be exceptional in such a matter,
even apart from the fact that he movf 3 in the front rank of "society,"
and would find abundant imitation on this ground alone, for fashion is
sec by royalty or position in all ages. Even so late as tlie fifth century
before Clirist, indeed, we find the Prophet Zechariah affirming that
"tiie teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie,
and have told fiilse dreams:"^ words which conclusively prove that
teraphim were in his day consulted as oracles. The earnest-souled
Josiah first made a raid on these images, and swept them away for the
time,'^ though, we llsar, hardly^ for a permanence, for we find that they
were honored by the BaV'ionians among whom the Captivity carried
Israel; Ezekiel describing Nebuchadnezzar as standing where the
roads partf.d, on one hand to Eabbath of Ammon, and to Jerusalem on
the other, consulting his teraphim as to which route he should take.*

1 ,v normani;, Ln Manie, p. 45. 2 Josli. xxiv. 2. " Jiulg. ixt 37 (Heb.). 4 Heizog, Real, Eiicyd.,
XV. 551, 2te Auf. 5 1 Sum. xix. 13, 14. 6 Zech. x. 2. 7 2 Kings xxiil. 24. 8 Ezek. xxi. 21.

VVl

XX.]

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

279

The best account of this interesting feature in old Jewish religious
life is that of Ewald.^ "An image of this kind," he says, "did not
consist of a single piece, but of several parts, at least wlien the owner
cared to have one of the more elaborate and comj)lete form. The sim-
ple image, made of stone or wood, was always that of a god in human
form, sometimes as large as a man, but even in early times the bare
image seemed too i)lain. It was, therefore, as a rule, plated with gold
or silver, partly or as a whole, and hence the bitter words of the
stricter worshippers of Jehovah, who abhorred all image- worship, and
spoke of it contemptuously as the work of the carver or the metal-
founder, who^e arts united in the production of the idol. Where the
precious metals were plentiful enough, however, the image might be
formed entirely of them. To this point, therefore, a house god, apart
from its particular form, was prepared exactly like every other idol;
something added to it formed the special characteristic of the primitive
house-god of Israel. To understand this, it must particularly be
remembered that these house-gods were used, from the earliest times,
as means for obtaining oracles, or communications from above, so tlint
the teraphim were, in fact, strictly identical with the idols which pci*-
formed oracles. To equip them for this purpose, an ephod was put on
the image; an elaborate tippet round the shoulders, to which was fixed
a pouch, (iontaining the pebbles or otlier lots used for determini no-
oracles, as the Urim and Thummim were hung on the breast of the
high priest. A kind of mask was next set on the head of the idol
from which, ai)parently, the priest seeking an oracle decidod by some
sign whether or not the god would give a response atthotime. These
masks were needed to complete the image, and hence they got from
them the name teraphim, a nodding countenance or living mask. At
the same time, we can understand how the terapliim are described
now as of human size and form, and elsewhere as so small and li<>ht
that they could be hidden under a camel-saddle; for tlie two tihicf
oracular details — the ephod and the mask — were the main thino-s
especially in a house-god, long and tenderly preserved and loved.
Such, one cannot doubt, wa'e the primitive house-gods of Israel and if
we consider the extraordinary tenacity with which everythip.n- of a
domestic character held its ground, w'th little change, in spite of the
fundamentally opposed principles of the religion of Jehovah, it is not
surprising that many sought protection and oracular communications
from these family idols, through centuries, fancying, however, that it
was Jehovah Himself who spoke through them."

From the sad spot where he buried his well-loved Kachel. Jacob
wandered on towards the south, with his tents and his motherless babe
— a son of sorrow to her who was gone, but the son of his right hand^

1 £wald, AUerthumer, p. 297. 2 Gen. xxxv. 18.

!f Bll

280

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

to the broken-hearted father — and encamped on the way to Hebron
near a tower built for the protection of shepherds and their flocks ;i
folds, of dry stone, with prickly bushes laid on the top of the walls, as
is the custom now, being, no doubt, connected with it. Hebron and
its neighborhood seems to have been the permanent home of the patri-
arch, so far as his black tents, pitched on one of the slopes near, could
be called home, till he went down to Egypt on Joseph's invitation.^
He and his tribe dift'ered, however, in one point from modern Arabs —
they had no horses, so far as we know, though the horse was so
abundant in Palestine in the time of Thothmes III,, who reigned from
B. c. 1610 to B. c. 1556,3 that he captured 2,041 mares and 191 fillies
at the battle of Megiddo, which was fought about 250 years after the
death of Jacob. The Hebrews, as "plain men living in tents" in their
earlier history, and as simple hill-men after their successful invasion
of Canaan, never adopted the horse till Solomon introduced it from
Egypt to gratify his inordinate love of display and self-indulgent
extravagance. Hence they were known, among the people who
boasted of cavalry, for their use of the ass instead of the nobler animal.
There is, in accordance with this, a painting on the walls of a tomb at
Benihassan, on the Nile, of the arrival, about the time of Abraham's
visit to Egypt, of a Semitic family desiring leave to settle in the Nile
valley: their goods being carried on asses, the only beast of burden
they appear to have. It was alleged, indeed, in later ages, so identified
witn the ass did the Hebrews become, that, having been driven from
Egypt as lepers, they were guided to a supply of water by an ass in
their journey thence, and, in consequence, they worshipped the race of
their four-footed benefactor. It was said, also, that when Antiochug
Epiphanes forced his way into the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, he
found there the stone likeness of a long-bearded man, who sat on an
ass, and whom he took for Moses. From this, the rumor spread that
the Jews worshipped an ass's head of gold in their Holy of Holies.
The slander, doubtless, arose, at first, from the worship of the ass by
the Egyptians, as the symbol of their god Typhon, who was said to
have fled through the wilderness on one of these animals.* It is strik-
ing, however, to notice how easily the story might arise, for Abra-
ham's ass is mentioned more than once in the Bible ; Issachar was
compared by Jacob to a strong ass; Achsau rode on an ass; the
princes and nobles rode on asses; the asses of Kish are famous; Moses
set his wife and his sons on an ass which the Eabbis have honored
with the most astounding fables ; and the sons of Jacob took asses for
the corn they were to bring back from Egypt.^

That sucli comparatively feeble creatures can stand a journey across

1 This Is the meaniiiK of "the tower of Edar" (Gen. xxxv. 21). 2 Gen. xxxv. 27; xlvi. 1.
8 Ebers, in Riehn. 4 J. G. Muller, in Sludien und Kritikm, 1843, pp. 906—912, 930—935. 5 Gen. xxiL
3, 5; xlix. 14; Ex. Iv. 20; Josh. xv. 18; Judg. v. 10; Zech. Ix. 9; Gen. xllv. 3.

Ttower of David, Jeruaatom. (See page S88.)

XX.]

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

281

the desert, is known to every traveller in the East. Camels are
employed for the most part, but donkeys are always found as part of a
caravan ; and I have seen large droves of horses on the wajr to Egypt
from Damascus. The fact is that water, the want of which is thought
to make travelling over the desert wastes practicable only for camels,
is found in almost any direction, in quantities sufficient loi- either
horses or asses. Camels can bear thirst for days together, and other
animals can do with far less drinking than is supposed. Only one
day's journey between Palestine and Cairo is quite waterless, and any
muddy brackish supply found in some desert hollow on the second day
suffices. Water for human beings is sometimes carried in skins, but
this provision is not needed for animals.

The sky over Bethlehem, the night before leaving :t, brought forci-
bly to my mind the promise given to Abraham,^ when he was
" brought forth abroad " from his tent and told to look up to the stars,
which, innumerable as they seemed, his posterity was to outnumber.
The spectacle of the heavens at night is at all times magnificent in
Palestine, for the heavenly bodies, instead of merely shining afar, like
gems inlaid in the firmament, hang down like resplendent lamps,
beyond which r>ne looks away into the infinite. That the patriarch
should have risen so far above his contemporaries as to regard these
moving orbs as the work of an invisible Creator, is assuredly to be
explained only on the hypothesis of a revelation granted to him, For,
even now, how inscrutable is the mystery of nature, after all our
science; how complicated the theories of its origin and continuance;
how profound the ignorance implied in the latest attitude of science —
the simple acceptance of facts as they stand, without an attempt to rise
to any intelligent first cause ! That the heavenly bodies should be
worshipped in such a climate as tiiat of Syria or Mesopotamia in ages
when science was as yet unborn, and motion, or impulse of any kind,
seemed to indicate life, was as inevitable as the fancies of a child at
the whirl of a leaf or the flow of water. Mankind were children in
tiie infancy of the world, and their religions the religions of children.
How wonderful that Abraham, bred amidst such mental simplicity,
should have risen, not oiily above his own age, but above all ages
since, outside the teaching of the Bible! It was intensely interesting,
mijreover, to look up, in David's own village, on the skies which he
had watched with the eyes of a poet, and whose glory, as a tribute to
that of Jehovah, he had sunji', perhaps on the very hills lying asleep in
the moonlight round me, in the hallowed strains —

" O Jehovah, our God,
How excellent is Tliy name in all the earth I

1 Qen. XV. 6.

282

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

Who hast set Thy glory upon the heavens.

When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers

The moon and the stars, whicli Thou hast ordained,

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him,

And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"^

A little north of the grave of Rachel, part of the soil is thickly cov-
ered with stones, about the size of peas. Christ, says the legend, was
once passing here, when a peasant was sowing peas on this spot, and,
being asked what he sowed, churlishly answered, "Stones." "For
this answer," said Christ, " you will reap stones," and from that time
the ground was barren, and covered with the pea-like s' )nes we see.
Many pilgrims, traveller, and country people were passi*^ to Bethle-
hem, or going from it to the capital, some on horses, others on asses,
but most on foot. A l^and of Americans of both sexes, young and old,
rode on together to Javid's city in high spirits; some Englishmen
were forcing their beasts into a gallop northwards; a Greek woman
with a child was moving slowly forward on an ass, the husband walk-
ing at the creature's side and quickening its tired pace by rough words.
Peasant- women were returning from Jerusalem, each with an empty
basket on her head, stepping on bravely in their narrow blue dresses,
without any thought of hiding their natural shape by any tricks of
fashion, and. shortening the way with loud, cheerful banter and gossip.
Lines of camels, laden or without burdens, stalked with awkward, slow
steps towards Hebron. The ground sinks a little after we pass Eachel's
grave, then rises again as we approach the large building known as
the Monastery of Elias, which is inhabited by a few Greek monks who
fondly believe that the prophet Elijah rested here in his flight from
Jezebel,^ leaving his footprint in the rock as a memorial. Unfortu-
nately, it is known that the original building was erected by a Bishop
Elias, at an early date, so that the claim on behalf of the prophet is
more than usually apocryphal. A comparatively fruitful valley lies
below the monastery, running to the east, but the hills in every direc-
tion are as rough and bare as the most barren parts of the Scotch
Highlands. The view from the monastery hill, however, is remark-
ably fine. To the south stand the white houses of Bethleliem on their
height; on the north, beyond a broad plain, rise the walls and build-
ings of Jerusalem — the high, sloping top of Neby Samwil closing the
view on the distant horizon; on the east the eye wanders over hills,
sinking, wave after wave, towards the Dead Sea, of which part lies, in
deepest azure, between these and the yellow-red table-land of Moab,
which seems, in the transparent air, only a few miles distant. On the
west the landscape is shut in by high ridges of hills. This spot, from
IPs. tUI.1-4. 2 lKlagsxlx.8.

I<
ri
o

XX.]

BETHLEHEM TO JERUSALEM.

288

which the traveller coming from the south first sees Mount Mori ah,
the site of the Jewish Temple, wakes tlie tenderest recollections in
every heart that reverences the Father of the Faithful. Here Abra-
ham, on his sad journey from Beersheba, at God's command that he
should offer his only and well-loved son Isaac on Moriah, first came in
sight of the hill. It was on the third day of his torturing ride from
the south that, lifting up his eyes, he saw the place afar oft*. " Then
Abraham said to his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I
and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." ^
This must have been spoken just about where the Monastery of Elias
now stands, and yet, strange to say, the monks have thought only of
fables respecting Elijah, and have never realized the peculiar interest
of their dwelling in connection with Abraham and his son. The land
round the monastery is carefully tilled, and fenced with stroug walls
of dry stone, gathered with heavy labor from the surface of the ground
to make it fit for cultivation. The monks have also planted fine
olive-groves, and show the real benefit such a colony may be in a
wild region, when industrious and intelligent. The building itself is
strong enough to resist a Bedouin attack should one at any time be
made.

The road sank very gently from Mar Elias towards the north, and
presented the very unusual sight, in Palestine, of gangs of men at work
to make it passable for carriages. Levelling, filling up, smoothing,
were all in progress ; the laborers swarming, in turbans, fezzes, wide
" abbas," or close cotton shirts, and bare-legged, in all directions. Such
a phenomenon, in any part of the Turkish Empire, well deserves notice.
How long the spurt of activity will last, who gave the money, and who
will get it finally, are all questions more easily asked than answered.
Still sinking, the road leads gradually to the Valley of Hinnom,
through stony slopes, sprinkled, as I passed, with the green of rising
crops; but very different from English land, for there were, as it
seemed, more stones than grain. It was the Valley of Rephaim, and
promised what in Palestine is thought a rich harvest, such as it yielded
when Isaiah, passing perhaps along this very track in the summer, saw
" the harvest-man gathei'ing the corn, and reaping the ears with his
arm." 2 But one might look in vain f^ . Cue wood of mulberry-trees
behind which David, that.ks in part to the rustling of the leaves in the
wind,* was able to steal, unperceived, upon the Philistines when
encamped in this valley. It was here, also, that at another time these
foes of Israel were gathered when the tiiree braves broke through their
host and brought David the water from tlie well at the Gate of Beth-
lehem.* The wide plain it offers for nearly two miles before one
reaches Jerusalem made Rephaim, in fact, the scene of many a fierce
onslaught in ancient times between the Hebrews and their invaders.
1 Oen. xxii. 4, 6. 2 Isa. xvil. 6. 8 2 Sam. v. 22-25. 4 2 Sam. xxi. i. IS— le.

284

THE HOLY LANI.) AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

The road now crosses the Valley of Hinnom, over which the walls
of Jerusalem look down, at this i)art, across a pleasant slope dotted
with olive and other trees. Tiie aqueduct from Solotnon's Pools passes
to the side of the valley next the city, just above the Lower Pool of
Gihon ; and our path crossed close below it, alter passing a row of cot-
tages built on the hill-side for his fellow Israelites by the late Sir
Moses Montefiore. To the left, as we rose out of the Valley of Rephaim,
the long upward slope of the hill, facing the west side of t>ie city,
was covered with olives; and there was also a windmill. Passing
along the east side of the pool the road kept straight north, on the
east side of the valley, which was not broad ; a steady rise of nearly
200 feet in all bringing us at last to the Joppa Gate, past the gardens
of the Armenian monastery within the walls, and past the mossy cita-
del with its great slanting foundations, cut off from the road by a deep
fosse, into which it jutted out in grim strength, one of the few relics of
the great Herod. My feet stood at last within the gates of Jerusalem I

CHAPTER XXI.

JERUSALEM.

The Joppa Gate, by which I entered the Holy City, stands near the
north-west angle of the walls, rising on the south side from a deep hol-
low inside the wall, but standing on ground level with the road in all
other directions, It is a castle-like building about fifty feet high, with
battlemented top, very unfit now, however, to bear guns of even the
lightest calibre, for the stones are but slightly held together by the
rotten mortar, and, indeed, have fallen down at some spots. Grass
grows where the watchman once looked out, and time has for centuries
been allowed to play what freaks it pleased. As in many other gates,
there is a turn at right angles befoi'c you ^et through: a plan adopted
in olden days to help the defence. The front is, perhaps, forty feet
across in all; the sides, about eighteen feet deep; the entrance, from
the city side, is through a comparatively narrow gate, which fits
roughly into the lower part of a hi«ih pointed arch, filled in with
masonry above and at the sides to suit the rickety door. In the bow of
the arch, about twenty feet above the ground, is an inscription in
Arabic, and on the door itself are a very rude star and crescent, the
emblems of Turkish rule. Outside, the Joppa road stretches up a
slope, lined for a short distance ou the upper side by some shops and

!BAP.

XXM

JERUSAtBSM.

285

mils
(ttod
vsses
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adopted
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houses, including the British Consul's oflfice ; an open space spreading
out on tlio other side, covered more or less witli the feootlis of small
dealers, donkeys waiting for liire, and a native oafo, of wood, Injfore
which numbers of laborers and workmen sit on low stools, smoking
water-pipes, at all hours. Eating or drinking they do not indulge in ;
water-pipes seeming to be all that the cafe supplies.

A long wall, rising from the ditch and overgrown with leaves and
stalks, runs along, inside the gate, on the right hand of the Tower of
David. On the left the first sample of the domestic architecture of
Jerusalem that one meets is a wretched house, about twelve feet higii
and eight broad, on a line with the left side of the gate ; its front
showing only decaying plaster, a rough door, and a small window, so
high that no one can see through it ; the tiled roof broken and moult-
ing. One or two other hovels and a higher serpentine wall, turning
hither and thither on its private account, to shut in some wretchedness
or other, C()m[)lete the picture. Camels passing through the gate took
up for the moment all its available space as they stalked on, looking,
as these creatures always do, straight before them, and meekly follow-
ing a dark-skinned Arab who strode on in front, in white "kefiyeh"
and cotton shirt, with bare legs; a water-bottle in one hand, a cord
from the nose of the foremost camel in the other, and a bundle on his
back. A gentleman in a fez and stripped " abba " sat on the ground,
with his back to the gate, behind a modest display of fruit, chiefly
oranges, set out on flat dishes and extemporized trays made from old
boxes. Besides him stood a brother Terusalemite, enjoying the shade
of the gate, and looking quite dignified in a turban and flowing brown-
and-white "abba" as he indulged in a quiet gossip with the fruit mer-
chant at his feet. Three or four donkeys, unemployed for the moment,
were smelling the low limestone wall, or biting each other ; a less for-
tunate member of their race pattered on under a baggy -breeched fig-
ure ; a donkey-boy was looking at a turbaned purchaser who had sat
down on nothing, as only Orientals can, and was resting on his feet,
his knees at his mouth, as he cheapened the terms on which a lady,
sitting in the same attitude on the other side of some native brown
unglazea earthenware dishes and jars, was willing to part with these
treasures; both carefully using the scanty shadow of the wall during
their solemn and protracted negotiations. Two grave turbaned figures
stood behind, resting against the parapet in all the delight of idleness.
The donkeys, and some pedestrians who had buttonholed each other
for a chat, filled up, in a loose way, the space between this side of the
street and the opposite, Avhere another fruit merchant had extempor-
ized a rude shade of old matting and branches, propped on a few sticks
of all sizes, and dipping sadly in the middle. Under this, sat a man
on the ground, with a water-bottle at his lips, as I passed, and open

286

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIttLK.

tCHAl*.

palm baskets of fVuit on all sides. Near him, and connected with tlie
same establishmenf, an old man sat un the ground, with iiis legs, tor a
wonder, straight out in front, bargaining with a donkey-boy as to liow
many oranges he could aftbrd to give for a farthing: a transaction
which two bearded, turbaned citizens, in flowing robes, were following
with rapt attention. Two camels went by, one tied to tlio other's
coarse wooden pack-saddle, both with a large bag on each side, and
surmounted by two human figures in " kefiyehs," with stout sticks,
and faded linen, seated on the humps of the animals, with their legs
crossed above the neck, as the brutes swayed slowly onwards. At
every step such Oriental phenomena, human and four-footed, filled the
way more numerously, as my horse paced wearily on, past the citadel,
down the slope to the hotel whore I was to put up.

The population of the city is one of its great attractions; one can
never weary of looking at the endless variety of dress and occupation.
An open space before the hotel was delig^jtful for the human
kaleidoscope it offered. Day by day you could /ateh kneeling camels
waiting to be hired or to receive their loads, and waving lines of men
and women, the one in "abbas," the other in tie female counterpart,
the "izar," sitting on the stones, or on a sack, /^ith their knees on a
level witli their chins, behind heaps of cauliflo\/ers, lemons, onions,
radishes, oranges, and other fruit or vegetables, hoping for customers
who seemed never to come. The wall towards the Joppa Gate, and in
front of the citadel, which occupied the corner of the open space, was
a f&vorite haunt of lowly tradesfolk. A few short poles resting on the
ground and on the top of the low wall formed a frame over which to
spread an old mat, laid on a shaky roof of sticks, nailed or tied
together, the horizontal poles serving to display all kinds of wares,
dangling from them ; a few box-tops, or mat baskets, or sacks spread
on the ground, letting the public into the secret o!" the extra stores
awaiting their coin. A tempting display of wire, a wooden mouse-
trap, a sheaf of ancient umbrellas in various stages of decay, but
about to he resuscitated, filled up some yards of wall. An old man,
with his back resting against the stones, and a few rags below him
for cushion, a white turban on his head, an old brown striped " abba "
over some unknown under-garment, and a long pipe in his hand, sat
with the gravity of a pasha at the side of three small baskets of
lemons, raisins, and figs: his whole stock-in-trade, worth in all, per-
haps, a shilling. A low rush stool at his side was set for any chance
purchaser.

As I passed, a filthy camel swung slowly down the rough stones of
the street, with a huge barrel balanced on each side. Jews were
numerous in wideawakes, or in flat cloth cars with fur round them, a
lovelock banging at each ear ; their dress a long black gown over a

th tlie
1, for a
o how
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citadel,

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>es on a
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stomerg
, and in
ice, was
w on the
Jhich to
or tied
wares,
3 spread
a stores
mouse-
ay, but
)ld man,
ow him
"abba"
land, sat
skets of
all, per-
f chance

stones of

ws were

them, a

n over a

XXI.]

JElursALKM.

287

yellow tunic fitting the body and roachin^f the feet. A breadsoller
displayed some queHtioimbhi brown "hoouch" on a board, laid on two
small boxes; himself scuteil on u bug on the ground; his outfit, a
large white turban, a striped cotton tunic extending to his ankles, and
a patched black stuff jacket; all, like himself, the worse for wear. A
bead and trinket seller had his wares spread out on a bit of brown
sacking, alongside the wall, with a small packing-box before him — his
counter by day, and his safe at night. Each morning fresh cauli-
flowers rose in banks and mounds, on the two stone steps opposite the
hotel, with a passage left in the middle of the street for traffic. A
venerable figure with' a great white beard, surmounted bv a white
turban, and set off with a striped "abba," sat near by, cross-legged, on
some rags, beside a few fly blown figs of the year before, not larger
than nuts; his scales beside him, as if anyone would ever think of
investing in his poor display! Near at hand, another cross-legged
patriarch presided over some oranges and lemons, in all the dignity of
a white turban, a blue cotton coat reaching to his calves, and an old
colored sash round his waist. Passing in front of him was a knife-
grinder, carrying his wheel on his back, ready to set it down when a
job offered, and shouting his presence, to attract customers. Water-
carriers, in skull-caps or turbans, bare-armed and bare-legged, moved
about with black skins full of the precious fluid, which they were
taking to houses to empty into the domestic water-jars, sometimes
through a hole in the wall; for it is not always reckoned safe to allow
a man to enter the kitchen and thus see the other sex in the
household.

Well-to-do men occasionally brightened the general air of poverty ;
one, for example, in a long blue cloth coat lined with fur, a white
turban, yellow baggy breeches, a white vest, and a bright-colored sash.
Women with bundles of fagots upon their heads for fuel ; ridiculous-
looking Armenian females with baggy breeches instead of petticoats;
Turkish soldiers in shabby blue uniform ; an occasional American,
Englishman, or Continental European ; a woman with a child astride
her shoulders ; some Russian pilgrims, who had, perhaps, walked from
Archangel to Constantinople, with fine manly beards, fur, mortar-board-
like caps, long warm great-coats, thick boots, or shoes, their legs,
where they had not boots over their trousers, tied up with cross-
straps, over warm wrappings which served for stockings; beggars
with long sticks in their hands, and the oddest mockery of cotton
clothing; a peasant with his plough on his shoulder, taking it to the
smith to mend or sharpen; camels with huge loads of olive-cuttings,
or fagots, for fuel, the driver in a "kefiyeh " sitting aloft over all, with
the guiding-rope in one hand and a long pipe in the other — all this
was only a sample of the ever-changing spectacle of the street.

288

THE HOLY LAND AKD THE BIBLE.

[CoaP.

The citadel, which rose almost opposite my hotel, is one of tlie most
striking features of the Holy City. It stands on Mount Zion, in the
middle of the western side, occupying, with its ditch and walls, about
150 yards from north to south, and about 125 from east to west;
another space, seventy -five yards square, being taken up on the south
side by the Turkish barracks. Beyond these the splendid garden of
the Armenian monastery runs, for another 250 yards, inside the wall ;
the fortress, barracks, and garden occupying a continuous stri]) within
the wall, a little less than 500 yards in length; the west side, in fact,
of Mount Zion. How great a piece this'is of tho city may be judged
by the size of the whole town, omitting the great Temple grounds to
the east, now those of the Mosque of Omar. From nortli to south, it
is about 1,200 yards from the Damascus Gate to the Zion Gate, and it is
about 700 yards from the Joppa Gate, on the west, to the Temple
grounds on the east. Add to this a square of less than 400 yards,
joining the north end of the Temple space, and you have the entire
city ; the area once sacred to the Temple, which also is within the
walls, filling up an extra 300 yards or so of breadth, and a length of
about 500 yards. The walk round the walls, which, of course, enclose
everything — monasteries, gardens. Temple space, citadel, streets, and
churches — is about two miles and a half. But it is about three miles
and a half round Hyde Park, including Kensington Gardens.*

The western side of the city is slightly higher than the eastern:
the ground near the Joppa Gate and on Mount Zion, to the south of it,
lying about 2,550 feet above the sea, while the Temple space is 110
feet lower. There is thus a slope to the east in all the streets running
thence from the west, although the levels of the ancient city have been
greatly modified by the rubbish of war and peace during three thous-
and years. The Jerusalem of Christ's day lies many feet beneath the
present surface, as the London of Roman times is buried well-nigh
twenty feet below the streets of to-day. The citadel stands at nearly
the highest point of the town, and as it was thus connected originally
with the great palace and gardens which Herod n- eated for himself at
this point, it is only necessary to imagine the space now covered, by
the barracks and the Armenian garden as once more occupied by a
magnificent pile of buildings and pleasure-grounds, to bring back the
aspect of this portion, at least, of the Jerusalem of our Lord's day. All
remains of Herod's grand structure are buried, however, beneath more
than thirty feet of rubbish, with the exception of portions of two of
the three great towers which he built on the north side of his grounds.
" These huge fortresses,' says Josephus, " were formed of great blocks
of white stone, so exactly joined that each tower seemed a solid rock."

n of .Terusalem, and the plan in Murmy's Handbook of London,
Robinsoa makes the circumference of Jerusalem the same as I

1 Measured on Baedeker's plan of .Jerusalem, and the plan in Murray's Handbook of London,

of course only approximately
do.

XXI.]

jEtltSAt£M.

289

One of them, named after his best-loved but tntirdered wife, Mariamne,
has entirely vanished, but Phasaelus and Hippicus still in part survive.
When they guarded the wall, thirty cubits nigh, which entirely sur-
rounded Herod's palace, with it?, decorated towers at intervals rising
Still higher, they must have been imposing in their strength, to judge
from the noblest relic they offer — the so-called Tower of David, which
seems to have been part of the Phasaelus Tower, or perhaps of Hippi-
cus, for authorities differ upon ihe subject. It stands on a great sub-
structure rising, at a slope of about 45°, from the ditch below, with a
pathway along the four sides at the lop. Above this, the tower itself,
for twenty-nine feet, is one solid mass of stone, and then follows the
superstructure, formed of various chambers. The masonry of the sub-
structure is of large drafted blocks, many of them ten feet long, with a
smooth surface ; that of the solid part of the tower has been left with-
out smoothing. Time has dealt hardly with the stone of the super-
structure, which is comparatively modem, but even that of the solid
base and the substructure is rough with lichens and a waving tangle
of all kinds of wall-plants. Still, as one looks up from the street, it
seems as if the shock of a battering-ram could have had little effect on
the sloping escarpment, or the solid mass over it. Nor would escalade
have been easy, if possible, when the masonry was new, so smooth
and finely jointed is the whole. Besides other buildings, there are in
the citadel grounds five towers, once surrounded by a moat, which ic
now filled up. The outer side of one of these, the second of Herod's
three, rises from a deep fosse at the s'de of the road below the Joppa
Gate, as you go down the Valley of Hinnom, and helps one to realize
still more forcibly the amazing strength of the ancient portions of these
structures.

Desirous to have a view of Jerusalem from a height, I ascended to
the top of the Tower of David. The entrance from the open space
i3efore it is through a strong but time-eaten and neglected archway,
surmounted by pinnacles, he fleurs-de-lis on the top of which, half
grown over by grass and rank weeds, show the work of those won-
drous builders, the Crusading princes. Half the central archway is
built up, leaving open a pointed gate, over which a clumsy wooden
ornament represents two crescent moons. On the right is a recess in
the wall for the sentries ; on the left a side gate ; the recess and side
gate, alike, arched and small. A rough platform of three rows of
stone, ascended by steps, juts out before the recess, and on this a sen-
tinel stands, scimitar or gun in hand — another standing at the centre
gate: strong men from some distant part of the empire, perhaps from
Kurdistan, perhaps from Asia Minor. Some town dogs lay below the
rude bank of stone at the guard-house door, asleep by da}^ noisy
enough by night. A man sat on a rush stool beside the low wall,
19

290

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BtBLE.

[Chap.

jmoking his water-pipe; a second lay on the ground; a third had a
small, low, round table before him, with a few oranges for sale; pend-
ing the arrival of a customer, he was gravely sucking the long coiled
tube of a water-pipe, or hubble-bubble, holding discourse, in tho inter-
vals of breath-taking, with the two gentlemen on the ground near him,
or with a fourth who stood, in flowing r"»bes, slippered feet, and tur-
ban, propping himself against his stick, a fierce club-liko affair. Of
course he was bare-legged. In Europe, all four would have been tat-
tered beggars ; but they looked quite dignified in Eastern costume. A
causeway, slightly raised above the rough cobble stones of the open
square, led through the gateway, over the ditch, by a wooden bridge
in very poor condition, and originally of carpentry so primitive that it
might have been antediluvian, though really Turkish and modern.
Stairs on the outside of the great tower led half-way up its height,
beyond the solid lase, and the rest was scaled by other stairs inside,
by no means safe, for the Turk never repairs anything. Bound the
top is a par pet, through the embrasures of which cannon might be
turned on the city, which the position commands. But though there
were some guns on the cemented roof, it is a question wL ther any of
them were in a condition to be used, for, like everything else, they
were far gone in decay.

The view from this point was very striking. Close at hand to the
south, beyond the barracks, were the noble gardens of the Armenian
monastery, not only part of the grounds of Herod s palace nearly two
thousand years ago, but perhaps of those of David and Solomon's gar-
dens, for these also covered the western top of Mount Zion. One
could understand how difficult the victory of Titus must have been,
with three such castles to take, for, looking down into th'j ditch, it
seemed as if this one, at least, must have been impregnable before the
discovery of gun-powder. It was easy, moreover, to understand how
the Egyptian warriors so long withstood, within thete strongholds, the
Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon and his companions. Looking
over the houses of the city, the eye was bewildered by the multitude
of small domes rising from the fiat roofs, to protect the tops of the
stone arches below, for the houses are all built arch above arch, wood
being scarce and stone plentiful. Of course, everything was old and
weatherbeaten ; every wall-top feathered with grass 2nd weeds ; the
walls unspeakably rude in their masonry ; the one or two sloping roofs
that showed themselves, very woe-begone ; everything indeed marking
a city far sunk in decay, and at best only holding together while it
could, with no prospect of returning to vigorous life. A party of men
were on a flat roof near, smoking; a poor little child, very likely a
slave, standing on one side of the low dome with a tray find coffee-cups
on th'^ ground beside him, and a man leaning against the other side oF

tCHAP.

had a
pend-
Ljoiled
inter-
rhim,
id tur-
'. Of
an tat-
le. A
e open
bridge
that it
lodern.
height,
inside,
ind the
ight be
h there
any of
se, they

i to the
•menian
,rly two
•n's gar-
Q. One
ve been,
ditch, it
jfore the
and how
olds, the
Looking
mltitude
ps of the
3h, wood
i old and
leds; the
(ing roofs
marking
r while it
;y of men
y likely a
oflfee-cups
ler side of

3CXI.]

JERUSALEM.

291

the dome, as he played with his water-pipe. A slight puff of kitchen-
smoke here and there showed where the small fires used for Oriental
cookery were alight. Several parapets had triangles of open clay cylin-
ders in them, f- v look-out holes and air, as is common in Eastern
towns. On one roof some clothes were drying. A solitary palm-tree
rose aloft out of a court. On one house-top a flat awning of mats had
been raised on poles, and under this were a group of idlers. Windows
seemed almost absent, for the Oriental has no idea of ventilation. He
never has windows on tlie grour..d-iioor, and even those higher up are
either miserably small openings m the wall, or rough projecting wood-
work, which leaves only a small place for lattices. IHiere were, of
course, some better houses; bat, as a whole, one might fancy himself
to be looking down on an East End district of London. Few houses
were mnre than two stories high.

Beyond the city, nature redet^ns the sordid outlook over these mis-
erable human abodes. The hilis rise on every side, recalling the words
of the Psalmist, who, from some such eminence as that on which I
stooQ, had cried out, " As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
so the Lord is round about His people from hencefortli even for ever." ^
On some such point of vantage, also, the prophet had imagined him-
self set as a warder, when he saw with the eye of the spirit, as if before
him, the restoration of the city, after it had been laid desolate by the
Chaldffians, and cried aloud at the prophetic sight of the herald bring-
ing the announcement that Jehovah was returning to Zi on. Himself the
leader of Israel from captivity, " How beautiful upon the mountains are
U\e feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that
bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ; that saith
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! The voice of thy watchmen! they lift
up the voice, together do they sing ; for they shall see eye to eye, now
the Ijord returneth to Zion."^

The four hills, north, east, and south, on which the city is built,
could, more or less, be traced iDeneath by deeper or slighter depressions
of the view. The hill on the north, on which the huge copper dome
of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre rises between two Mahommedan
minarets, continues to mount with a vory gradual ascent beyond the
walls, presenting the only easy approach to Jerusalem from any side,
and hciice offering the point from which hostile armies have always
assailed it. It was from this plateau that Godfrey de Bouillon stormed
the city, and on the height 600 yards north-west of the Joppa Gate,
where now rise the buildings of the Kussian Hospice, the tents of Titus
once stood.

On the north of the Temple grounds, and thus at the north-east cor-
ner of the city, lies the hill Bezetha, part of the Mahommedan quarter

1 Ps. cxxv. 2. 2 Isa. Hi. 7. 8.

MMHtfittlb

THE aoLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

tdHA^.

of Jerusalem, the rest of wliicli extends, on the north, to the Damascus
Gate, and, thence, down to the street which runs east from the Joppa
Gate. The Temple space is thus guarded by Mahommedans at its
different entrances. The corner between the Damascus Gate and the
Joppa Gate, on the north-west, is assigned to the Roman Catholics and
the Greeks, and the rest, from the south side of the street, running east
from the Joppa Gate, is divided between the Armenians and the Jews,
these latter having the consolation of knowing that their district
borders, in part, the wall of their deeply-loved Mount Moriah. Directly
east, and slightly lower, lay the wide open area, of somewhat less than
thirty-five acres, where once stood the Temple.^ On the south-west
stretched out Mount Zion, the highest and oldest part of the city ; that
pai' which David wrested from the Jebusites, and made his capital.
The city wall at one time enclosed the whole of the hill, but it now
runs, south-west, across it, leaving on the spot where, perhaps, onco
stood the palace of Solomon, an open space, on which are the Christian
cemetery and the Protestant schools. Part, however, is still open
ground, where the peasant drives his plough over the wreck of the
City of David, fulfilling, even to this day, the words of Micah, that
Zion would be ploughed as a field.^ But the most extensive view was
to the south-east, where the deep blue of the Dead Sea, the pinkish-
yellow hills of Moab, and the sea of hills in the wilderness of Judaea
and beyond it, lay within the horizon. Most noticeable of all, just out-
side Jerusalem, sloping upwards to the east, the noble form of the
Mount of Olives rose more than 200 feet above the Temple enclosure*
— that is, above the summit of the ancient hill of Moriah.

The back windows of the hotel looked down into a great pool 144
feet broad, and 240 feet long, but not deep ; the bottom, of rock,
covered with cement. It was well filled with water, which comes,
during the rainy season only, by the surface drain, or gutter, leading
from the "Upper Pool" in the Mahommedan cemetery, on the high
ground about 600 yards west of the Joppa Gate, from which point it
runs underground. This seems to be the reservoir which Hezekiah
constructed when he "made a pool and a conduit, and stopped the
upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west
side of the city of David,*'* and "digged the hard rock with iron, and
made wells for water." ^ Its south side is separated only by a line of
houses from the street ; the Coptic monastery is at its northern end,
and at a little distance to the north west is the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, with its high dome and its unfinished tower. The houses
bordering the pool are of all heights; one with a sloping roof and a
projecting rickety balcony, just above the water; another, roofed in

1 It is an irregular parallelogram, measuring on the west 536 yards; on the east, 512 yards; on
the north, 348 yards; on the south, 309 yards. 2 Micah iil. 12. 3 The respective heights are 2,440
feet and 2,663 feet. 4 2 Kings xx. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. 5 Ecclus. xlviii. 17.

And H(
ing niucli
and he a
uries for
• . • .
also for
and wine
for all mi
cotes for
provided
sessions o
abuiidanc
liira suhst
This sa
stopper
course of
it straigh
side of th<
Hezekiah
works. — 2
37-30.

And Hezekiah had exceed-
ing Qiuch riches and honor :
and he made himself treas-
uries for silver and for gold,

storehouses

also for the increase of corn
and wine and oil ; and stalls
for all manner of beasts, and
cotes for flocks. Moreover he
provided him cities and pos-
sessions of flocks and herds in
abundance : for God had given
hira substance very much.

This same Hezekiah also
stopped the upper water-
course of Gihon, and brought
it straight down to the west
side of the city of David. And
Hezekiah prospered in all his
works. — 2 Chronicles xxxii.
3T-30.

Qp;?EiqAH'S POOL

(Sen pag^e

XXI.]

JERUSALEM.

293

the same way, but more than a story higher, with a square wooden
chamber, supported by slanting beams, built out, partly, it would seem,
to let the inmates drop a bucket through a hole in the floor, to the
water. A frame of poles covered one flat roof, to serve as support for
a mat awning in the hot months, a wooden railing acting as parapet
on the pool side ; projecting windows, larger or smaller, were frequent,
one with boxes of flowers outside ; and, of course, the roofs had their
usual proportion of men idling over their pipes. As everywhere else,
the walls round the pool were thick with naturally-sown wall-plants,
the very emblem of a neglect which extended, perhaps, over centuries.
The pool is capable of containing about 3,000,000 gallons of water, but
it is in very bad repair. As to cleaning it out, nothing so revolution-
ary ever entered the brain of a Jerusalemite. The bottom isdeep with
tiie black mud of decayed leaves and vegetation, and one corner is a
cesspool of the worst description. The water is said to be used only
for household washing, but the poorer people frequently drink it in
aummer, when water is scarce, though it is then in its worst condition,
having lain stagnant, perhaps for months, since the rains.

A few steps down David Street — the lane leading east and west from
the Joppa Gate to the Temple enclosure — brings you to Christian
Street, which runs north ; and close to this, on the under side, is the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre. But what would anyone think of the street
called after the hero-king of Israel, if suddenlj'- set down at the end of it!
It is a lane rather than a street, with houses, for the most part only two
stories high, o^ieach side, the lower one being given up to shops, if you
can call such dens by so respectable a name. Over the doors a continuous
narrow verandah of wood, built at a slant into the houses, gives shade
to the goods, but when it was put up or repaired in any way is an in-
solvable historical problem. Its condition, therefore, may be easily
fancied. The causeway of the street is equally astonisliing, for even a
donkey, most sure-footed of animals, stops, puts its nosf, to the ground,
and makes careful calculations as to the safe disposition of its feet,
before it will trust them to an advance. No wonder there are no
people in the streets after dark ; without a lantern they would infalli-
bly sprain their ankles, or break a leg, each time they were rasli
enough to venture out. But during the day the stream of many-
colored life flows through this central artery of the Holy City in a
variety to be found, perhaps, nowhere ehe. The open space at the
head of it, before the Tower of David, is always thronged, as I have
tried to describe, but every time you look at it, or look from it down
the Street of David, the scene is difterent. As soon as light breaks,
strings of camels, led and ridden by dark-faced Bedouins, begin to
swing through the Joppa Gate to this common centre — the largest open
space in the city. Women from Bethlehem, with dresp^s set off with

2U4

Tllli HOLY LANJJ AND THE BIBfiE.

(Chap.

blue, red, or yellow, and unveiled faces, though they have veils over
their shoulders ; Mahoinmedau women in blue gowns, which might be
called by a humbler name if they were wliite : their eyes, the only
part of their faces to be seen, looking larger than they are from tlie
black pigment with which the edges of the eyelids are darkened;
soldiers i)i a variety of strange uniforms; trains of donkeys with
vegetables ; a stray Arab, in wild desert costume, with red boots, on a
horse with a red saddle — his spear, more than twelve feet long, in his
hand ; women in white " izars," which are coverings put on over the
dress from head to foot, puffing out like balloons as the wearer ad-
vances ; a half-naked dervish holding out his tin pan for alms, which he
asks in the name of the AU-me^jiful, a company of Turkish soldiers,
in poverty -stricken uniforms, but strong fellows all, following their
band, which plays only short, unmeaning flourishes, in the French
style ; Bussian pilgrims : Jews of 3very nationality ; residents from all
Occidental climes; — all these, wit.i many ot'iers, pour on through the
narrow gullet of David Street, or rest for k time m the market space.
You may even see a family of gypsies encamped there, under their
low black tent; for, within wide limits, everyone does as he likes in
the East.

Christian Street is specially the quarter of the Christian tailors,
shoemakers, and other craftsmen. Passing about 200 steps along it,
we come to a very narrow street on the right, running downhill, witli
a frightful causeway. Turning into this, you presently come to a few
steps on the left, which your donkey, if'ycu have one, makes no diffi-
culty in descending, and are in the open paved space before the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre. This is a favorite haunt of Bethlehemite
sellers of mementoes in mother-of-pearl and olive-wood, which, with
other trifles, are exposed on the pavement. At festival times the
throng in this spot is curious in the extreme. Men and women, chil-
dren and the very old, priests and laymen from every country, repeat
the spectacle and the Babel-like confusion of tongues seen and heard
of old in this very city on the diy of Pentecost.* The only entrance
to the church is on the southern side, and it was shut when I reached
it, but a gift to the doorkeeper having turned the key, I entered. On
each side of the quadrangle are chapels, Armenian, Coptic, and Greek,
the last pretending to be the place where Abraham was about to off'ei-
up Isaac. The front of the great church itself ip impressive from its
evident antiquity. There were originally two round-arched gate-ways,
but that on the right is built up, ar, is also the upper part of the other.
Above these gateways are two arches of the same size and style,
deeply sunk, in whict, within receding masonry, once elegantly carved,
are two round-topped windows of comparativ bly small siae,^ On a ledge
I Acts U. 8— U. 2 Abowt ten (eet by six,

■'■'■■' \ ■' .A' ' H' '"^■' ■ ' -^'A-::

%. ■■■■■' ■ ■' ,~i..'\:\^immm.^- ,"'■' ■■'"'■■ -\..!

■ r .— • *^

v:::t :;i: -".• \! ■..:.:;: -■ :: ■

: 1

..... ■' ■' "**.!,, -•'■,..

}

V^ntranoe tQ tbe Qhurph of the Hol^ Sepulcher. (See pa^ S94.)

XXI.]

JERUSALEM.

296

below tuem, where the pillars of the arches begin, some tasteful monlc
had put various pots of flowers, the short, rougli ladder bv wiiich he
had descended from the window-sill remaining where ho left .'t. lie
had forgotten the poor blossoms, however, anuwant of water had told
sadly on them. Over the two window-arches, which, with their orna-
mentation, reach nearly to the top of the church wall, is a square
railing, enclosing the dome, which, itself, may well be regarded as worth
looking at, since a dispute as to its repair was the ostensible cause of
the Crimean War, and, tlius, of the death of many thousaiid.s of men
who never heard of the church in their lives. A window, as large as
the others and on the same line, but without the imposing urcli, dis-
figured moreover by a frame of thick iron cross-bars, stiuuls at the
right, outside the central facade; these three, about forty feet above
the ground, being the only windows in front of the clmrcli, so Car as is
seen* from the forecourt. Tlie whole front dates from the twelfth
century, when the Crusaders remodelled the building. 'Die influence
of the French art of that day is seen in the close resemblance of the
ornamentation to that of some churches in Normandy. Indeed, a fine
carving over one of the doors, representing Christ's entry into Jerusa-
lem, was probably sent from France.

Just inside the door a guard of Turkish soldiers, kept there to secure
peace between the rival Christian sects, jars on the feelings, as being
sadly out of place amid such surroundings, however necessary. To
see them lying or sitting on their mats, smoking or sipping coftee, is
by no means pleasant, but after all it is better to have quiet at even
this price than such riots and bloodshed as have disgraced the church
at various times. Immediately before you is a stone, said to mark the
spot on which our Lord's body was laid in preparation for burial, after
being anointed. It is a large slab of limestone, and has at least the
merit of having lain there for seven or eight hundred years, as an
object of veneratica to poor simple pilgrims. A few steps to the
left is the place where, as they tell us, the wonr.en stood during the
anoittting, and from this you pass at once, still keeping to the left,
into the great round western end of the church — the model of all the
circular churches of Europe — under the famous dome, which rests on
eighteen pillars, with windows round the circle from which the dome
springs. In the centre of this space, which is sixty seven feet across,
is the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, about twenty-six feet long and
eighteen feet wide, a tasteless structure of reddish limestone, like
marble, decorated all along the top with gilt nosegays and modern
pictures, and its front ablaze with countless lamps. Inside, it is divided
into two parts : the one marking, as is maintained, the spot where the
angels stood at the Resurrection ; the other believed to contain the
sepulchre Qf Christ. Huge Liarble gandlesticks, with gigantic was

296

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLK.

[CHAP

candles, lighted only on high-days, stand before the Clinjxjl of the
Angels, on entering whioh pilgrims take off' tlicir shoes, before treading

on ground so sacred. A hole on each side of the entrance shows the
scene of one of the few mock-miracles still played olf on human
credulity, for through them the " Holy Fire," said to be sent from
heaven, is given out, every Greek Easter, amidst a tumult and pressure
of the outside crowd which seems to threaten numerous deaths. On
the evening before the day of the Fire, every spot inside the church is
densely packed with worshippers, sleeping as they stand, in weary
expectation of the approaching event, or if awake, crosning their
breasts, sighing aloua, and, if possible, prostrating themselves on the
floor. The next forenoon, a Turkish guard, in double line, o[>en8 a
passage round the sepulchre, broad enough for three men to pass
through abreast, and outside this armed wall the crowd, pressed jnto
the smallest possible space, extends from the wall of the Rotunda to
that of the Sepulchre Chapel. How so many human beings get into
so small a standing-ground seems, itself, miraculous. Cajitain Conder's
description of what follows is so vivid that I follow it.* " The sun-
light came down from above, on the north side, where the Greeks
were gathered, while on the south all was in shadow," though it was
noon. "The mellow grey of the marble was lit up, and a white centre
of light was formed by the caps, shirts, and veils of the native Chris-
tains. A narrow cross-lane was made at the Fire-hole on the north
side," where "six herculean guardians, in jerseys, and with handker-
chiefs round their heads, kept watch — the only figures plainly
distinguishable among the masses."

The pilgrims, who represent every country of Eastern Christendom
— Armenians, Copts, Abyssinians, Russians, Syrians, Arabs, each race
by itself,. in its national dress, marked by its colors as well as its style;
not a few women among them, some with small babies in their arms,
wailing above the hubbub of multitudinous tongues in many languages
— had been standing in their places for at least ten hours, yet they
showed no signs of weariness. Every face was turned to the Fire-
hole; the only distraction rising when great pewter cans of water were
brought round by the charity of the priests. Patient and stolid, the
Russians and Armenians stood quietly, each pilgrim holding aloft in
his hand, to keep them safe, a bunch of, perhaps, a dozen candles, to
light at the "Fire" when it should appear. The Egyptians sat silent
and motionless. The Greek Christians, mostly Syrians by birth, were
restless, on the other hand, with hysterical excitement. Occasionally,
one of them would struggle up to the shoulders of his neighbors, and
be pushed over the heads of the crowd, towards the front. Chants
repeated by hundreds of voices, in perfect tune, were freo^uently raised
; J}(i\i Work in fvikt^ne, p. ^TJJ,

XXI.]

JEttUSALSlf.

297

by individual leaders; among them — "This is the Tomb of our Lord ; "
"God help the Sultan;" "O Jews, Jews, your feast is a feast of
apes;" "The Christ is given us; with his blood he bought us. Wo
celebrate the day, and the Jews bewail;" "The seventh is the Fire and
our feast, and this is tiio Tomb of our Lord."

Amidst all the wild confusion the patience of the soldiery was
admirable, though at times there seemed danger. A lash from a thick
hippopotamus-hide whip carried by the colonel, however, instantly
administered where there seemed risk of disturbance, restored peace as
by magic. About one o'clock the natives of Jerusalem arrived,
bursting in suddenly, and surging along the narrow lane; many of
them stripped to their vest and drawers. To clear the line once more,
after this irruption of a second crowd, was dilBcult, but it was at last
done, amidst loud shouts of " This is the Tomb of our Lord," repeated
over and over with wondrous rapidity. The llotuncia now contained in
its little circle of sixty-seven feet diameter, from which the space
occupied by the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre must be deducted,
about 2,000 persons; and the whole church, perhaps, 10,000; but at
last the chant of the priests was heard in the Greek cliurch, and the
procession had begun. First came very shabby banners; the crosses
above them, bent on one side. The old Patriarch looked frightened,
and shuffled along, with a dignitary on both sides carrying each a great
silver globe, with holes in it, for the Fire which was to be put inside.
Now rose a chorus of voices from the men, and shrill cries from the
women ; then all was still. Two priests stood, bare-headed, by the
Fire-hole, protected by the gigantic guardians at their side.

Suddenly a great lighted torch was in their hands, passed from tho
Patriarch within, and with this, the two gigantic men turned to the
crowd; they and their guard trampling like furies through it. In a
moment the thin line of soldiers was lost in the two great waves of
human beings, who pressed from each side to the torch, which blazed
over them, now high, now low, as it slowly made its way to the outside
of the church, where a horseman sat, ready to rush off w'^h it to Beth-
lehem., In its slow and troubled advance, hundreds of hands, with can-
dles, were thrust out towards it, but none could be lighted in such a
rocking commotion. Presently, however, other lighted torches were
passed out of th*^ Fire-hole, and from these the pilgrims, in eager
excitement, more and more widely succeeded in kindling their tapers,
but woe to the owner of the one first lit! it was snatched from him, and
extinguished by a dozen others, thrust into it. Delicate women and
old men fought like furies; long black turbans flew off uncoiled, and
what became of the babies who can tell? A wild storm of excitement
raged, as the lights spread over the whole church, like a sea of fire,
extending to the galleries and choir. A stalwart negro, struggling and

298

THE HOLY LAND aKD THE BIBLE.

tOHAir.

charging like a mad bull, ran roiiiRl the church, followed by writhing
arms seeking to light their tajjers IVom his; then, as they succeeded in
doing so, some might be seen bathing in the flame, and sii^geing their
clothes in it, or dropping wax over themselves as a memorial, or even
eating it. A gorgeous procession closed the whole ceremony; all the
splendor of jewelled crosses, magnificent vestments, and every accessory
of ecclesiantical pomp, contributing to its effect.

A religious phenomenon so strange as this yearly spectacle is
nowhere else to be found. Dean Stanley's account of it supplies some
additional touches, and brings it not less vividly before us. "The
Chapel of the Sepulchre,"^ he says, "rises from a dense mass of pil-
grims, who sit or stand, wedged round it; whilst round them, and
beneath another equally dense mass, which goes round the walls of the
church itself, a lane is formed by two lines, or rather two circles, of
Turkish soldiers, stationed to keep order About noon this cir-
cular lane is suddenly broken through by a tangled group, rushing vio-
lently round, till they are caught by one of the Turkish soldiers. It
s.jms to be the belief of the Arab Greeks that unless they run round
the sepulchre a certain number of times, the Fire will not come. Pos-
sibly, also, there is some strange reminiscence of the funeral games and
races round the tomb of an ancient chief. Accordingly, the night
before, and from this time forward, for two hours, a succession of gam-
bols takes place, which an Englishman can only compare to a mixture
of prisoner's base, football, and leapfrog, round and round the Holy
Sepulchre. First, he sees these tangled masses of twenty, thirty, fifty
men, starting in a run, catching hold of each other, lifting one of them-
selves on their shoulders, sometimes on their heads, and rushing on
with him till he leaps off, and some one else succeeds; some of them
dressed in sheepskins, some almost naked ; one usually preceding the
rest, as a fugleman, clapping his hands, to which they respond in like
manner, adding also wild howls, of which the chief burden is, ' This is
the Tomb of Jesus Christ — God save the Sultan ; ' 'Jesus Christ has
redeemed us.' What begins in the lesser group, soon grows in magni-
tude and extent, till, at last, the whole of the circle between the troops
is continuously occupied by a race, a whirl, a torrent, of these wild fig-
ures, wheeling iound the sepulchre. Gradually the frenzy subsides or
is checked; the course is cleared, and out of the Greek Church, on the
east of the Eocunda, a long procession with embroidered banners,
supplying in their ritual the w xnt of images, begins to defile round the
sepulchre.

"From this moment the excitement, which has before been confined
to the runners and dancers, becomes universal. Hedged in by the
soldiers, the two huge masses of pilgrims still remain in their places,

1 Sinai and Pakdim, p. 460. «•

itbing
ded ill
r their
r even
all the
;es8ory

acle is
IS some
"The
of pil-
iin, and
3 of the
cles, of
his cir-
ing vio-
ers. It
n round
5. Pos-
oies and
e night
of gam-
mixture
he Holy
ty, fifty
them-
ling on
of them
ding the
in like
This is
irist has
magni-
e troops
wild fiR-
jsides or
on the
banners,
3und the

confined
by the
ir places,

XXI.]

JSRUSALBM.

209

all joining, however, in a wild succession of yells, through which are
caught, from time to time, strangely, almost aft'ectingly mingled, the
chants of the pvocession. Thrice the procession paces round; at the
third time, the two lines of Turkish soldiers join and fall in behind.
One great movement sways the multitude from side to sifie. The crisis
of tlie day is now approaching. The presence of the Turks is believed
to prevent the descent of the Fire, and at this-point they are driven, or
consent to be driven, out of the church. In a moment, the confusion,
as of a battle and a victory, pervades the church. In every direction
the raging mob bursts in upon the troops, who pour out of the church
at the south-east corner — the procession is broken through, the ban-
ners stagger and waver. They stagger, and waver, and fall, amidst
the flight of priests, bishops, and standard-bearers, hither and thither,
before the tremendous rush. In one small but compact band, the
Bishop, who represents the Patriarch, is hurried to the Chapel of the
Sepulchre, and the door is closed behind him. The whole church is
now one heaving sea of heads, resounding with an uproar which can
be compared to nothing less than that of the Guildhall of London, at a
nomination for the City. One vacant space alone is left: a narrow
lane from the aperture on the north side of the chapel, to the wall of
the church. By the aperture itself stands a priest, to catch the Fire;
on each side of the lane, as far as the eye can reach, hundreds of bare
arms are stretched out like the branches of a leafless forest — like the
branches of a forest quivering in some violent tempest.

"In earlier and bolder times the expectation of the Divine Presence
was, at this juncture, raised to a still higher pitch by the appearance
of a dove, hovering above the cupola of the chapel, to indicate the
visible descent of the Holy Ghost. This has now been discontinued,
but the belief still continues. Silent — awfully silent — in the midst of
this frantic uproar, stands the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. At last
the moment comes. A bright flame, as of burning wood, appears
within the hole, kindled by the Bishop within — but, as every pilgrim
believes, the light of the descent of God Himself upon the Holy Tomb.
Any distinct feature or incident is lost in the universal whirl of excite-
ment which envelops the church, as, slowly, gradually, the fire spreads
1 om hand to hand, from taper to taper, through that vast multitude —
till, at last, the *vhole edifice, from gallery to gallery, and through the

area below, is one wide blaze of thousands of burning candles

It is now that a mounted horseman, stationed at the gates of the
church, gallops off with a lighted taper, to communicate the Sacred
Kire to the lamps of the Greek Church in the convent at Bethlehem.
It is now that the grea^ rush, to escape from the rolling smoke and
the suffocating heat, and to carry the lighted tapers into the streets
and houses ol' Jerusalem, througli the one entrance to the church, leads

wttSS

300

tflE ttOLY LAND AlfD THE fllBLU.

tOttAV.

11!

at times to the violent pressure which, in 1834, cost the lives of hun-
dreds. For a short time, the pilgrims run to and fro, rubbing their
faces and breasts against the fire, to attest its supposed harmlessniifes.
But the wild enthusiasm teriirinates from the moment that the fire is
communicated. Such is the Greek Easter."

But we must return to the chapel. In the centre, cased in marble,
stands what is called a piece of the stone rolled away by the angels;
and at the western end, entered by a low doorway, is the reputed
tomb-chamber of our Lord, a very small spot, for it is only six feet
wide, a few inches longer, and very low. It seems to belie its claim
to be a burial-place by the glittering marble with which it is cased,
but it is solemnly beautiful in the soft light of forty-three gold and
silver lamps, hung from chains and shining through red, yellow, and
green glass; the colors marking the sects to which the lamps belong:
thirteen each for Franciscans, Greeks, and Armenians, and four for the
Copts. • The tomb itself is a raised table, two feet high, three feet
wide, and over six feet long, the top of it serving as an altar, over
which the darkn3ss is only relieved by the dim lamps. Due east from
the Rotunda is the Greek nave, closed, at the far end, by a magnificent
screen. A short column in the floor, which is otherwise unoccupied,
marks what was anciently believed to be "the centre of the world; "
for has not Ezekiel said, " This is Jerusalem ; I have set it in the
midst of tht nations and countries, that are round about her"?* Gar-
lands of lamps, gilded thrones for the Bishop and Patriarch, and the
lofty screen, towering up to the roof, carved with figures in low relief,
row above row; the side walls set off with panels, in which dark

Eictures are framed; huge marble candlesticks, two of them eight feet
igh, — all this, seen in the rich light of purple and other colored
lamps, makes up an effect which is very imposing.

At the western extremity of the so-called sepulchre, but attached to
it from the outside, is a little wooden chapel, the only part of the
church allotted to the poor Copts; and further west, but parted from
the sepulchre itself, is the still poorer chapel of the still poorer
Syrians, happy in their poverty, however, jfrom its having probably
been the means of saving from marble and decoration the so-called
tombs of Joseph and Nicodemus, which lie in their precincts, and in
which rests the chief evidence ol the genuineness of the whole site,'^
for it is certain that they, at least, are natural caves in the rock.

It would be idle to dwell on the multitudinous sacred places gath-
ered by monkish ingenuity under the one roof of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and which must weary the patience of the pilgrims,
however fervent. Two spots only deserve special notice. On the
east of the whole building, from behind the Greek choir, a staircase

1 Ezek. T. 5. 2 Sinai and Pakstine, p. 460.

tCttA».

; hun-
; their

38nt!&8.

fire is

larble,
mgels;
eputed
ix feet
I claim
cased,
)ld and
•w, and
)elong:
for the
ree feet
ir, over
st from
nificent
jcupied,
rorld;"
t in the
L Gar-
and the
V relief,
ih dark
ght feet
^colored

ched to
of the

ed from
poorer

robably

o-called
and in
e site,'^

es gath-
of the
►ilgrims,
On the
staircase

Uhapel of the Holy Sepulcher. (See page 300.)

XXI.]

JERUSALEM.

801

of twenty-nine steps leads down to the Chapel of St. Helena, the
mother of the Emperor Constantine, who in the year a.d. 326, at the
age of nearly eighty, visited Palestine, and caused churches to be
erected at Bethlehem, where Christ was born, and on the Mount of
Olives, from some part of which He ascended to heaven. Nothing is
said till the century after her death about her discovering tlie Holy
Sepulchre, or building a church on the spot, but legend and pious fraud
iiad by that time created the story of tlie " Invention (or Finding) of
the Cross." In a simpler form, the chapel has been ascribed to Con-
stantine himself, who, it is affirmed by a contemporary ,i caused the
earth under which the enemies of Christianity were said to have buried
the Holy Sepulchre to be removed, and built a church over it. Eob-
inson, who gives a full quotation of the authorities on the subject,^
thinks there is hardly any fact of history better accredited than the
alleged discovery of wnat is called the true cross. Thus, Cyril, Bishop
of Jerusalem from a.d. 348 onwards, only about twenty years after the
event, frequently speaks of his preaclsing in the church raised by Con-
stantine to commemorat'i it, and expressly mentions the finding of the
cross, under that emperor, and its existence in his own day. Jerome
also, in A.i>. 386, relates that in Jerusalem, Paula, his disciple, not only
performed her devotions in the Holy Sepulclire, but prostrated herself
before the cross in adoration. But, though a cross seems to have
really existed, and is said to have been found underground, how easy
would deception have been in such a case, and how improbable that
fcny cross should have lain buried for 300 years! The upright beam
of such instruments of death, moreover, was a fixture on which fresh
cross-pieces were nailed for each sufferer, so that identification of a
whole cross as that on which Christ died seems beyond possibility.
Besides, the crucifixion is expressly said to have taken place outside
the city,^ and this the present site never was. The Chapel of St.
Helena, therefore, and the other holy places connected with it, however
venerable, are in no d'jgTee vouchers for the amazing incidents associated
with them.

It is very striking to come upon a vaulted church, with high arches,
carved pillars, glittering strings of lamps, exquisite screens, and large
sacred pillars, so far underground. But there is still another below it.
Thirteen steps more lead to the "Chapel of the Finding of the Cross,"
which is either a cavern in the rock artificially enlarged, or an ancient
cistern, about twenty-four feet long, nearly as wide, and sixteen feet
high, paved with stone. It contains ar. altar, and a large portrait of
the Empress Helena, but is so dark that candles must be lighted to see
either. This was the place, says tradition, where the three crosses of

1 Eusebius, VU. Oona., iii. 25-40.
Heb. xiii. 12, 18.

2 Bib. Researches, ii. 12—16. 3 John xlx. 17, 20 ; Mark xv. 20 ;

802

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Gha».

Calvary were found ; the one on wliica our Saviour died being discov-
ered by taking the three to the bedHide of a noblo lady afflicted with
incurable illness, which resisted the touch of two, Itut left her at once
when the third was brought near.

Remounting the steps, you are led by a stair from the Greek choir
to what is saiJ to be Golgotha, or Mount Calvary, now consecrated by
three chapels of different sects, the floor being Iburteen and a half feet
above tliat of the church below. An opening, faced with silver, shows
the 8| ot where the cross is said to have been sunk in the rock, and
less than five feet from it is a long brass 0})cn-work slide, t)ver a cleft
in the rock which is about six inches deep, but is supposed by the pil-
grims to reach to the centre of the earth. This is said to mark the
I'cnding of the rocks at the Crucifixion. But there is an air of unre-
ality over the whole scene, with its gorgeous decorjttions of lamps,
mosaics, pictures, and gilding; nor could 1 I'cel more than tiic gratifi-
cation of my curiosity in the midst of such a monstrous aggregation of
wonders. Faith evaporates when it finds so m*ny demands made upon
it — when it is assured that within a few yards of each other are the
scene of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, that of the appearance of Christ
to Mary Magdalene; the stone of anointing; the spot where the
woman stood at the solemn preparation for the tomb; the place where
the angels stood at the Eesurrection; the very tomb of our Lord; the
tombs of Joseph and Nicodemus; the column to winch Christ was
bound when he was scourged; His prison; the scene of the parting of
the raiment; of the crowning with thorns; of the actual crucifixion;
of the rending of the rocks; of the finding of the true cross; of the
burial-place of Adam, under tlie spot where the cross afterwards rose,
the tree in which the goat offered instead of Isaac was caught, and
much else.

CHAPTER XXII.

imii

JERUSALEM — ( Continued.)

Close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are the ruins of the
Muristan or Hospice of the Knights of St. John — "muristan" being
the Arabic word for a hospital, to which part of the great pile of
buildings that once covered the site was devoted. A few paces lead
one to a fine old gateway, over which is the Prussian eagle, half of the
site having been given to Prussia, in 1869. The whole space, once

[Cba».

lisoov-
d with
it once

c choir
ited by
(ilf feet
, shows
uk, and

• a cleft
the pil-
nrk the
)f unre-
' lamps,
I gratifl-
iition of
,de upon

• are the
)f Christ
icre the
;e where
ml; the
irist was
irting of
cilixion;

of the
rds rose,
ight, and

ns of the
m" being
at pile of
)aces lead
lalf of the
3ace, once

street Caf 6 iu Jer usalem. (See page 80S.)

XXII.]

JERUSALEM.

303

filled up with courts, halls, cliambers, a church, and a hospital, is ovei
500 feet sq'iare, and now lies, for the most part, in desolation. The
arch hv wliioh you enter is :emicircular, and was adorned 700 years
ajTo with a "sries of figures illustrating the months — men nnmir.g,
sowing, reaping, threi:hiug, and the like; but the carvings are now
very much mutilated. Within, a large space has been cleared of rub-
tUh ana abomination by the German Government, the ruins being left
to tell their story witd silent eloquence. Already, in A. D. 1048, a
church had been built in Jerusalem by Italian merchants, and a hos-
pital attached to it, close to a chapel consecrated to John, at that time
ratriarch of Alexandria. From him, the monks, who had undertaken
to nurse and care for •sick and poor pilgrims, too' il. ' name of
Johnites, or Brethren of the Hospital. .Raised to the c*.igr. of a sep-
arate Order in a.d. 1113, they received great possessi ^n h ..< Godfrey
de Bouillon and others. A little later in the twelfth "ic 'Ty they were
further changed into an Order of clerical monks, som jf whom were
set apart for military service, others for spiritual service, as chaplains,
and the rest as Serving Brothers, to jare for the -V,; and escort pil-
grims to the holy places. Gradually extending itseif, ihe Order gained
vast possessions in nearly every part of Christendom, and had a corres-
ponding influence, which secured for it the hearty support of the
rapacy, and especial privileges. Their splendid history in Palestine,
Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta lies outside my limits; but it is pleasant
to recall their humbler services to successive generations of poor and
sick pilgrims in the once busy halls and chambers of the Muristan.
Hundreds of these forlorn wanderers could be received into the great
hospital and hospice at once, and who can doubt the devotion on one
side, and the gratitude on the other, that must, a thousand times, have
made these now ruined walls sacred ? He remembers, with whom no
good deed done in His name, no tear ever shed in lowly thanksgiving,
is ever overlooked ! A hundred and twenty-four stone pillars once
supported the arched halls of the palace, but now in the very midst of
the city thfjro are only, where the ruins have not been cleared, heaps
of rubbish, patches of flowering field-beans, straggling arms of the
prickly pear, rising forbiddingly aloft, and here and there a fig-tree.
Outside the gate, there is nothing offensive, as there used to be, but
simple stalls, where parti-colored glass ringu from Hebron, and other
trifles, are sold. The German Government hi!,ve made the space given
to them within, a centre for the German Protestants of Jerusalem ;
erecting on it a church for them, and other buildings.

The bazaars of the city, which are probably much the same as the
business part of Jerusalem was in the days of Christ, stretch along the
east side of the Muristan, southwards, to David Street. They consist
of three arched lanes, lighted only by hol'i in the loo^ and henoe

304

TIIK HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLK.

[CHAP.

very dark, even at noon. Tlie western one is the flesli-market, but
displays only j)art8 of slieep and goats, for very few oxen antl ealves
are used for i'ood. \n the other lanes, tradesmen of diiVerent kinds —
fruiterers, oil, grain, and leather sellers — sit, cross-legged, in dark holes
in the archetl sides, or in front of these, waiting for business. Here
you see a row of shoemakers, yonder a range of •pipe-stem borers.
More than one of the tradesmen, in the intervals of Ijusiness, sits at
the mouth of his den with the Koran open before him, his left hand
holding j)Mper on which to write his comments, his right holding the
pen, dipped from time to time in the brass "inkhorn" stuck in his
girdle.^ At a recess in the side, on which light falls, sits a bearded
old man, duly tiirbancd, with llowing robes, a broad sash round his
waist insido his light "abba," his slippers on tl^c ground before him,
his feet bent up beneath him, his long ])ipe resting against the bench
at liis side, it being iMij)ossible that he should use it for the moment,
as he is b.'sv wiiting a letter for a woman who stands veiled, behind,
giving him instructions what to say. He is a ])rofcssional letter-
writer: a class of Avhich one- may see representatives in any Oriental
city. Just as they could be seen in olden times in English towns, before
education WMS so Avidely si)rcad as it is now. The j)aj/er is held in the
left hand, ik ' id on a desk, and the scribe writes from the right hand
to the left, with a ])icce of reed, jwinted like a pen, but without a
split: the same instrument, apparently, as was used in Christ's day,
for in the New Testament a pen is called halamos^ a reed, and its name
is still, in Arabic, kalem, which has the same meaning. The jiens and
ink are held in a brass case, which is thrust into the girdle when not
in use; the hollow shaft containing the pens, and a small brass box
whi(!h rises on one side at the end, the ink, poured into cotton wadding
or on ])alni threads, to keep it from spilling. A few hints given him
are enough : off he goes, with all mamier of Oriental salaams and
comj)liments, setting forth, in the fashionable, high-flown style natural
to the East, what the poor girl wishes to say.

There are two words in the Old Testament for a pen ; one of these
occurs only twice, aud is translated differently each time. Aaron is
said to have " fashioned " the golden calf with "a graving tool," 2 but
the same word is used by Isaiah for a pen — " Take thee a great tablet
and write upon it with the pen of a man."^ This shows that heret, at
least, meant a metal stylus, or sharp pointed instrument, with which
surfaces like that of wax, spread on tablets, or even the surfnce of
metal plates, might be marked with written characters. The other
word, e/, occurs four times, and in two of these the implement is said
to be of iron,^ so that, so far as the Old Testament indicates, reed
pens had not come into use till its books had all been written. The
I £zek. ix- 2, 3, IL 2 Ex. xsxU. 4. 3 Isa. vlii. 1. iooh xlx. 24 ; Jer. xtU. 1.

ron IS
but
tablet
ret, at
/Inch

t'Pi of

other
s said
reed
The

stairway leading to Cburcb of 8t. John, Patriarcb of Alexandria, (See page 80S.)

XXIL)

JERUSALBH.

800

word translated "inkhom" is found only in Ezekiel,^ and owes its
English rendering to our anoestors having horns for ink, the Hebrew
word meaning simply a round vessel or cup, large or small, and, as we
see in the case of the prophet, worn, at least sometimes, in the girdle.
It may, therefore, have been similar to the " inkhorns " at present uni-
versal in the East.

Writing was known in Palestine long before the invasion of the
Hebrews, as we see in the name of Kirjath Sepher — " Book Town"*
— but was brought by them from Egypt, for, while there, the^r had
ahoterim among them: the class known in our Bible as "scribes"
or "writers."" It is not surprising, therefore, to read of Moses
"writing in the book,"* or that the priests could write,* or that
the people generally could do so, more or less. Tiiev were to write
parts of the law on their door-posts and gates;* a husband, in divorc-
ing his wife, was to " write her a bill, or book, of divorcement,"' and
tlia king was to write out the Book of the Law * Letters were writ-
ten by Jezebel, in the name of Ahab, and sealed with his seal; by
Jehu, Hezekiah, Babshakeh, and many others.

The seal is a very important matter, as the name of the wearer is
engraved on it, to l>e affixed by iiirn to all letters and documents. It
is, therefore, constantly carriea on the person, and when trusted to
another, virtually empowers him to act in its owner's place. Even
Judah had his signet,^ which he perhaps wore as the bridegroom in
Canticles wore his, on the breast, suspended by a string.*® The seal is
used in the East in ways peculiar to those regions — to seal up doors,
gates, fountains, and tombs. The entrance to the den of lions was
sealed upon Daniel with the signet of the king and of his lords; the
bride in Canticles, as we already know, is compared for her purity to
a fountain sealed; and we all remember how the guard made the
sepulchre of our Lord " sure, sealing the stone." ** A letter must be
sealed, if an insult be not actually intended, so that when Sanballat
sent his servant to Nehemiah with an open letter in his hand, he
offered the great man a deliberate affront.^^ Ti^e \j^\^ jjq^ ^g^^^ jp made
of gum, ^ampblack, and water, and is said never to fade. Small horns
are still jsea in some parts of Egypt to hold it. In sealing a letter
or document, a little ink is rubbed over the face of the seal, a spot
damped on the paper, and the seal pressed down ; but when doors or
the like are spoken of aa sealed, it was done by impressiiDg the seal
on pieces of clay*' or other substances. When Pharaoh " took off liis
ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand,"" it was the s?g?i of
.his appointment to the Viziership of Egypt, just as a similar aci, a
Turkey, now, installs a dignitary as Grand Vizier of ttie empire.

1 Ezek. iz. 2, 3, 11. 2 Josh. xt. 16. 3 Ex. v. «. Trannlated wrongly " officers." lie B. V., M
in so many other cases, retains this mistranslation. 4 Ex. zTil.l4;xziT.4. ftNiim.* £3. 6Deut.
Ti.9;xl.a0. 7 Deut. zxlv. 1, 8. 8 Deut. xvil. 18. 9 Oen. xxxviii. 18. lOCaut. vllLS UOanv.lT.
12tDan.vi.l7;Hatt.zxvli.M. l2Neh.Ti.5. 18 Job zxxtU. 14. 14 Oen. xiii. 43.

'':Aiiis.!ixma)tUiif:t». ..

ttummmsasiii

SBwBBBBS^^S

306

THE HOLY LAND AND THfe BIBLE.

[Chap.

The display in the stalls of Jerusalem, for they hardly deserve to be
called by a name so respectable as " shops," varies of course v/ith the
season. In the market before the citadel, cauliflowers, and vegetables
generally, are the main features in March, but as the year advances,
cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes, figs, prickly pears, pomegranates, from
the neighborhood, and oranges, lemons, and melons from Joppa and
the plain of Sliaron, are abundant. Koses are so plentiful in the early
summer that they are sold by weight for conserves and attar of roses,
and every window and table has its bunch of them. In the streets
and bazaars, during the busy part of the day, all is confusion on the
horrible causeway, and image-like stolidity on the part of many of the
sellers. The butchers, however, like members of the trade elsewhere,
shout out their invitations to come and buy, and the fruit-sellers in
their quarter rival or even outdo them by very doubtful assurances
that they are parting with their stock for nothing! Women from
Bethany or Siloam, in long blue cotton gowns, or rather sacks, loosely
fitting the body, Avithout any attemi)t at a waist, sit here and there on
the side of the street, at any vacant spot, selling eggs, olives, cucum-
bers, tomatoes, onions, and other rural produce. Bright-colored ker
chiefs tied round the head distinguish them from their sisters of Beth-
lehem, who lu.ve white veils over their shoulders and bright parti-col-
ored dresses, and are seen here and there trying their best to turn the
growth of the garden or orchard into coin. Young lads wander about
offering for sale flat round " scones " and sour milk. The grocer sits
in his primitive stall, behind baskets of raisins, dates, sugar, and other
wares, pipe in mouth. No such tumble-down establishment could be
found in the worst lane of the slums of London. The two half-doors
— hanging awrj'^ — which close it ai, night, would disgrace a barn ; the
lock is a wooden affair, of huge size ; a rough beam set in the wall,
perhaps seven feet from the ground, supports the house overhead,
while some short poles resting on it bear up a narrow coping of slabs,
old and broken, to keep off", in some measure, the sun and rain. The
doors, when closed, do not fit against this beam by a good many inches;
and there is the same roughness inside. Rafters, coarse, unpainted,
twisted, run across; a few shelves cling, as they best can, to the walls;
hooks here and th-ere, or nails, bear up part of the stock, but the whole
is a picture of utter untidiness and poverty which would ruin the hum-
blest shop in any English village. A cobbler's shop, yonder, next to
an old arch, is simj)ly the remains of a house long since fallen down,
except its ground arch, which is too low for a tall man to stand in it.
The priclcly pear is shooting out its great deformed hands overhead ;
grass and weeds cover the tumbling wall. Beams, never planed but
only rough-hewn, no one could tell how long ago, form the door-post,
sill, and lintel, against which a wooden gate, that looks as if it were

Grocer's Stall in Jerusaleiu. (Soo page 805.)

xxn.]

JEBUSALSIC.

307

never intenced to be moved, is dragged after dark. A low butcher^s
block serves as anvil on which to beat the sole-leather ; over the cave-
mouth a narrow shelf holds a row of bright red and yellow slippers
with tumed-up toes, and there are two other and shorter shelves with
a similar display. The master is at work on one side, and his starved
servant on the other, close to the entrance, for there is no light except
from the street. The slippers of the two lie outside, close to them,
and a jar of water rests near, from which they can drink v^hen they
wish. A few old, short boards jut out a foot or two over the shelf of
slippers above, to give a trifle of shade. There is no paint ; no one in
the East thinks of such a thing; indeed, such dog-holes as most shops
are defy the house-painter. Arabs and peasants, on low rush stools,
sit in the open air, before a Mahommedan caf^, engrossed in a game
like chess or draughts, played on a low chequered table ; the stock of
the establishment consisting of the table, a small fire to light the pipes
and prepare coffee, some coffee-cups, water-pipes, and a venerable col-
lection of red clay pipe-heads with long wooden stems. Grave men sit
silently hour after hour before such a house of entertainment, amusing
themselves with an occasional whiff of the pipe, or a sip of coffee.
But all the shops are not so poor as the cobbler's, though vretched
enough to Western eves. David Street, with its dreadful causeway,
can boast of the goods of Constantinople, Damascus, Manchester, and
Aleppo, but only in small quantities and at fabulous prices. Towanls
the Jewish quarter, most of the tradesmen are shoemakers, tinsmiths, and
tailors, all of them working in dark arches or cupboards, very strange to
see. Only in Christian Street, and towards the top of Davia Street, can
some watery reflections of Western ideas as to shopkeeping be seen.

To walk through the sloping, roughly-paved, narrow streets of the
modern Jerusalem, seemed, in the unchanging East, to bring back
again those of the old Bible city. One could notice the characteristics
of rich and poor, old and young, townspeople and country folks, of
bjth sexes, as they streamed in many-colored confusion through the
bazaars and the lane-like streets. The well-to-do townspeople delight
to wear as great a variety of clothes as they can afford, and as costly
as their purse allows. Besides their under-linen and several light
jackets and vests, they have two robes reaching the ankles, one of
cloth, the other of cotton or silk. A costly girdle holds the inner long
robe together, and in it merchants always stick the brass or silver pen
and ink case.^ A great signet ring is indispensable, as it was alreadv
in the days of Judah.^ Many also carry a bunch of flowers, with which
to occupy their idle fingers when they sit down or loiter about. The
head ia covered with a red or white cap, round which a long cotton
cloth is wound, forming the whole into a turb»n.

1 Bzek. iz. 2. 2 See an<e, p. 490.

808

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAf.

The peasant is clad mucli more simply. Over his shirt he draws
only an " abba " of camels' or goats'-hair cloth, with sleeves or with-
out, striped white and brown, or white and black. It was, one may
think, just such a coat which Christ referred to when Eo toM the
Apostles not to cany a second.^ Many peasants have not even an
abba, but content themselves with the blue shirt, reaching their calves,
and this they gird round them with a leather strap, or a sash, as the
fishermen did in the time of St. Peter.^ If he has any money, the peas-
ant carries it in the lining of his girdle; and hence the command to
tlie Apostles, who wen; to go forth penniless, that they were to take
no money in their girdles? Elijah and John tiie Ba]>tist wore
leathern gii-dle.'i; Jercmiali had ou« of linen.* It is thus still witli the
country people, but the townsfolk indulge themselves in costl3' saahes.
The water-carrici's, who bond under their huge goat-skin bags of the
precious fluid, selling it to any customers in the streets whom they
may attract by their cry or by the ringing of a small bell, or taking it
to houses, are the most i loanly clad of any citizens, A shirt, reaching
to the knees, is their only garment. Their calling, and that of the
hewers of v/ood, is still the humblest in the community, just as in the
days when Moses addressed Israel before \n^ death, lor he puts the
heads of the tribes at the top, and the Ivewers of wood and drawers of
water at the bottom, of his enumeratio« <^ claSvSes ; setting even the
foreigne'" who might be in their midst above these latter.'' The Gib-
eonites, whom Joshua was compelled by his ontli to spare, were thus
doomed to the hardest fate, next to death, that could be ai^v^igned them,
when sentenced to perpetual slavery, with tlio sjxM'/ial task of hewing
wood and drawing water for tlie community.^ Jt is in allusion to
water being boi-ne about in skins like those o-f to-day tiiat the Psalmist
in his affliction prays God to "))ut his tears >ito His bottle,"'^ that
they might not i n away unmarked.

Female dress is strangely like that of the men, but while the poor
peasant-woman or girl has often only a long blue shirt, without a gir-
dle, her sisters of the town, where they are able to do so, draw a great
veil over various longer and shorter garments, which covers them
before and behind, from head to foot, so tfiat they are entirely con-
cealed. It is this v/hich puff's out. balloon-like, as I have already
noticed, when they pass by ; but it is iiwt probable that Hebrew women
wor:. i-dch a thing, as they seem to have appealed in public, both before
and alVr nwi Ti;igo, with their faces exposed. JJence, the Figyptians
could see M beauty of Sarah, and Eliezer noticed {hat of Rebekah,
whi^e I'lli ff \v the I'ps of Ilannal moving in silent prayer.^ The vnil,
in iKct, fcetuis lo biivp b(;on -"A orn only as an occasional ornament, HH

1 Ma*.. .<. )% .lolii. '\1.7. 3 Murk vl. 8 (Greek). 4 2 Kings I. 8; Matt. 111,4; Jer. xill. 1-
6 Deut. \<',x.. U-, U. (5 Jiah. Ix. 3, 27. 1 J s, Ivi. 8. 8 Gen. xll. 14; xxlv. 16; xxlx. 10; 1 Sam. 1. 12-

ekah,

;iil

(ID

Kill. 1-

km. i. 12-

Put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon tliou Btandest is holy Ki'^uud. — Kv. iii,5.

And I liave led you forty years in the wiider-
iicss : your clotlca are not waxen old upon you,
and thy shoe is uot waxen old upon thy foot.—
Deut. xxix, 6.

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O
prince's daughter I — Cant. vii. 1.

None shall be weary nor stumble among them;
none shall slumber nor sleep: neither shall the
girdle of their bins be loosed, nor the latchet of
their shoes be broken. — Isa. v. 27.

Thus saith the Lord ; for three transgressions
of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the
pu nishment tliereof ; because they sold the
righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of
shoes.— ^mo« ii. 6.

8H0EMAKE3'8«H0P IN JEBUSAIJEM. (See page 108.)

XXII.]

JERUSALEM.

309

when the loved one, in Canticles, is said to have behind her veil eyes
like dove's eyes, and temples delicate in tint as the pomegranate ; ^ or.
by betrothed maidens before their future husbands, as Rebekah took
a veil and covered herself before Isaac met her;^ or when concealment
of the features was specially desired for questionable ends.^

A natural and earnest wish of a poor girl of Jerusalem is to be able
to hang a line of coins along her brow and down her cheeks, as is com-
mon elsewhere, for she sees rich women round her with a great display
of such adornment on their hair, and notices that even the children of
the wealthy have numbers of small gold coins tied to the numerous
plaits which h^ng down their shoulders ; indeed, some children have
them tied round their ankles also. The double veil, falling both before
and behind, is not so frequent as in Egypt, but it would appear to have
been more common among Jewish women anciently, at least in wor-
ship, if we may judge from the command of St. Paul that the women
should never appear in the congregation at Corinth without having
their heads covered.^ Among the poorer classes in Jerusalem, as else-
where in Palestine, both men and women tattoo themselves. The
women darken their ej'elids, to brighten the eyes and make them seem
larger, and often puncture their arms fancifully < .< substitute for arm-
rings. Among the peasant-women the chin anc cheeks, also, are often
seen with blue punctured marks, and the nails are very generally dyed
i-ed.

From the bazaars, the street running almost directly north brought
me to the Damascus Gate: the entrance to the city from Samaria and
all the northern country. The slope of the ground here shows very
clearly the line dividing the eastern from the western hill — Moriah
from Zion — a depression once known as the Cheese-makers' Valley,
still running towards the ancient temple enclosure. Originally this
was a deep gully opening into the Valley of Jehoshaphat at its junc-
tion with that of the Sons of Hinnom, on the south-east corner of the
city; but it is now well nigh filled up with the rubbish of many cen-
turies, so that it can only be detected near the Damascus Gate. No
more thoroughly Oriental scene can be imagined than that offered when,
standing at this gate, you look at the two streets which branch off* from
it, south-west and south-east. The houses are very old, with a thick
growth of wall-vepfetution wherever it can get a footing; no one think-
ing of repairs, or even of preventing decay, in whatever form it may
come. Flat roofs one cannot see, but only the low domes covering the
tops of arches; the house corners, the few pieces of sloping roo^ the
ledges jutting out here and there, the awnmgs of mats stretched on
epileptic poles, ar.d projecting over the street, the woodwork filling in
the round of arches used as caP^s or for business, and even the time-

1 Cant. lY. 1, 3; Tl. 7 (Heb.). 2 Gen. xxlv. 65. 8 Gen. xzxviil. 14. 4 1 Cor. zL 6.

f —

810

THE HOLY LAIfD AND THE BIBLE.

tCni».

1.1

Ml
Nil!

worn stones of tV, buildings us a whole, form a picture of dilapidation
which must '.^c seen to be rculi/ed.

A nondeserij)t building of one story faces yon, on the left hand; the
dome of the urch which constitutes the structure rising through the
flat roof. Another house of two stories joins it on the right, the
ujiper story rising like a piece of a tower, slanting inwards on all sides,
with a parajTct on the top, through which a row of triangles of clay
pipes supj)ly ornament ami peep-holes. One very snjall window in the
tower is the only opening for liglit, except two U^w arches, the semi-
circles of which are filled up with rough old woodwork. Tlie cause-
way is, of course, antediluvian. Figures, in all kinds of strange
dress, sit on low rush stools in the street along the front of this build-
ing, some of them enjoying the delicacies of a street-cook, whose bra-
zier is alight to provide whatever in his art any customer may demand.
Some sit cross-legged on the stones; others literally on nothing, their
feet supporting them without their body touching the ground ; a feat
which no Occidental could possibly perlbrm for more tiian a few min-
utes together. Can\els stalk leisurely towards the Gate; a man on the
hu;w>> of the foivmost, with his leet out towards its neck. Long-
muzzled yellow street-dogs lie about, or prowl after .scraps. On the
right a two-leaved door which would disfigure a resi)ectable barn, hangs
open, askew, and reveals the treasures of sonic slioj)keeper; grave per-
simagcs sit along the wall beside deei) baskets of fruit; a tu'-baned
figure passes w.'K his worldly all, in the shajjc of some sweetmeats on
a tray, seeking to decrease his stock by jirofilable sale. A wretched
arch admits to the street beyond, but into this with its stream of pas-
sengers, I did not enter. At the head of the street on the left hand,
leading to the south-east, a gronj) of Bedouins were enjoying their
pipes in the open air, and of course there were idlers about; but the
rest of the street was almost deserted. It leads to the Austrian Hos-
pice, a W'jll-bnilt modern Home for Pilgrims, where, for a gratuity of
five francs a di>v, one may forget, in the mid.st of Western comfort, that
he is in the Eiist. From this point you enter a street famous in later
monkish tradition as the Via Dolorosa^ — the way by which our Saviour
went from the judgment-seat of l^ilate \q His crucifixion. That no
reliance can be })laoed on this is, however, cU>ar from the self-evident
fact that the route taken must dt»|HMid on the situation of Pilate's Hall,
of which nothing is known, though it seems natural that it should
have been on the high ground of Zion, tho site of the palace of Herod,
rather than in the contined and sordid lanes 6f the city. We may,
moreover, feel confident that the Jerusalem of Christ's day perished, for
the most part, in the siege of Titus, so that even the lines of the ancient
streets, traced over the deep beds of rubbish left by the Eomans,
raur.t be very ditt'erent, in many cases, from those of the earlier city.

Fool o£ Bethesda. (See page 811.)

ai
ill
T
oi

§;

til

til
til

B
D

th
di
ov

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ov
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hu
eiK
wl

1
but

XXII.]

JERUSALBM.

811

This, however, has in no degree fettered monkish invention, for tliere
are fourteen stations for prayer in the Via Dolorosa, at whicli dift'erent
incidents iu the story of the Gospels are said to have taken place.
The street rises gently to an arch apparently of the time of Hadrian, and
originally an arch of triumph, now said to mark the spot where Pilate,
pointing to the bruised and stricken Saviour said, "Benoldthe Man!"^
There were once, it would seem, two side arches, with a larger one in
the middle, but only the central one, and that on one side, are now
standing; the other, and even part of the centre span, being built into
the Ciiurch of the sisters of Zion. Before reaching this you pass the
place at which Simon of Cyrene is said to have taken up the cross, and
that where Christ fell under its weight. The house where Lazarus of
Bethany dwelt after being raised from the dead and the mansion of
Dives, are also shown.

Pilate's Judgment-hall is affirmed to be identical with the mansion
of the Pasha of Jerusalem, at the Turkish barracks on the north-west
corner of the Temple enclosure. This building is said to be the old
tower called Antonia by \,he Romans, and used by them to control the
worshippers at the passover season; but the main structure is compar-
atively modern, though some old stones remain at the gateway, '^n
tiiese rises, to a height of about forty feet, a square tower of slight
dimensions, from which an archway twelve or fourteen feet high bends
over the street. A mass of old wall surmounts this and fills in what
was once a second lofty arch, surmounted by a great window, only the
bottom of which now remains. A huge growth of prickly pear leans
over the broken street-wall below, the side of the tower is partly fallen,
and wild vegetation flourishes wherever it has been able to get a foot-
hold. Passing on a short distance, we come to a pool on the right,
which claims to be that of Bethesda,^ where Christ healed the blind
man. This huge basin, in great part excavated in the living rock, is
860 feet long, 126 feet wide, and eighty feet deep; but it is so filled
with a mass of rubbish, rising thirty-five feet above a great part of the
bottom, that it is difficult to realize the full size or depth. 1 got access
to the surface through a hole in a wall, but had to take the greatest
care to avoid the pollutions which covered nearly every step of my
way through weeds and bushes to the edge. Such a work speaks for
he grand ideas of its originator, who is unknown, but was perhaps
o\e of the old Jewish kings. The north wall of the Temple enclosure
rises high over the pool to the south, and deepens the impression of its
hugeness. Steps, very irregular, lead down to the bottom at the west
end, and the pressure of the water is provided against at the east end,
where the hill rapidly descends, by a dam forty-five feet thick, which

1 John xixy 5. 2 .Tolin v. 2. A smaller pool, once called " Struthion," north-west of Bethesda,
t>ut now hullt over, is thought by some to nave heen Bethesda.

IMAGE EVALUATION
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(716)a73^S03

812

THE UOLV i.ANl) AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP

serves also as part of tlie city wall. Whether this was really Bethesda,
has been warmly disputed, Sir Charles Warren thinking that two
pools, once near the Church of St. Anne, close by, were "the Twin
Pools" which were believed in the early Christian centuries to be
Betliesda,^ while Captain Conder says that the present pool is not
clearly mentioned before the tenth century, and may have been built
by the Komans or early Arabs.^ The wonderful perfection of the
cement of lime and broken pottery over the bottom, which needed to
be blasted before it could be broken up, and the immense care with
which the stone under it had been prei)ared, certainly seem to point to
an origin in the palmy days of Israel, when vast works could be car-
ried out at leisure.

About seventy-five yards north of this great pool is a fine specimen
of Crusading architectui-e — the triple-naved pure Gothic Church of St.
Anne, formerly used as a mosque, but after many centuries given back
to the Christians, as a gift of the Sultan to Napoleon III., at the close
of the Crimean War. A huge cistern excavated in the rock below it
and carefully cemented is actually claimed to have been the home of
St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary.

West of the great pool, three gates open into the Temple enclosure,
now the Harem esli Sherif, but entrance by these is strictly prohibited
to any save Mahommedans. Indeed, it is only a few years since tliat
unbelievers were permitted to enter at all, and many a rash intruder,
ignorant of the danger, has in former days been killed for daring to
intrude on such holy ground. The bitter fanaticism of the past has,
however, yielded so far that a fee, paid through one of the consulates,
enables strangers to enter, if duly attended by one of the richly-
bedizened "cavasses," or servants of such an office. I was thus
enabled, in company with a party of Americans, to go over the
mysterious space, which, indeed, has sights one cannot well forget.
The great Silseleh Gate, at the foot of David Street and thus almost in
the centre of the western side of the enclosure, admits you by two or
three steps upwards to the sacred precincts, which offer in their wide
open space of thirty-five acres, the circumference nearly equal to a
mile,3 a delightful relief, after toiling through the narrow and filthy
streets. Lying about 2,420 feet above the Mediterranean, this spot is
comparatively cool, even in summer. The surface was once a rough
hill sloping or swelling irregularly, but a vast level platform has been
formed, originally under Solomon, by cutting away the rock in some
places, raising huge arched vaults at others, and elsewhere by filling
up the hollows with rubbish and stones.

Near tl". north-west corner the natural rock appears on the surface,

1 Rf coven/ of feri'mlem, p. 198. 2 Tent Work in Palestine, p. 185. 3 On the map In The Recovery qf
Jerusalem, the entires space is about 4,800 feek round, about 500 feet less than a mile.

[CHAP

ethesda,
liat two
tie Twin
58 to be
1 is not
;en built
n of the
ceded to
are with
point to
\ be car-
specimen
•cli of St.
ven back
the close
below it
home of

mclosure,

rohibited

since that

intruder,

daring to

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was thus

over the

ill forget.

almost in

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squal to a

and filthy

lis spot is

e a rough

has been
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by filling

le surface,

Tie Becovery qf

And the ass saw the
angel of the Lord stand-
ing in the way, and his
sword drawn in his hand :
and the ass turned aside
the way. and went into the field:
and Balaam smote the ass, to
turn her into the way.

But the anq:e1 of the Lord stood
in a path of the vineyards, a wall
lH>ing on this side, and a wall on
that side. And when the aas saw the angel
of the Lord, she thrust heraelf unto the wall,
and crushed Balaam's foot against the
wall : and he smote her again. — Num.
xxii. 23-35.

SQVTI? WALI< OF the; I14HBH EgH-SIJEHIF.

(See page 8U,)

xxn.]

JERUSALEM.

818

or is only slightly covered, but it was originally much higher. The
whole hill, however, has been cut away at this part, except a mass at
the angle of the wall, rising with a perpendicular face, north and south,
forty feet above the platform. On tnis, it seems certain, the Boman
Fort Antouia was built, for Josephus speaks of it as standing at
this corner on a rock fifty cubits nigh.* This platform is, more-
over, separated from the north-eastern hill by a deep trench, fifty-
yards broad, now occupied in part by "the rool of Bethesda," and
this, also, agrees with what the Jewish historian says of Antonia.
The north-east corner has been "made" by filling up a steep slope
with earth and stones, but the chief triumph of architecture
was seen on the south, where the wall rose from the valley to a
height almost equal to that of the tallest of our church-spires, while
above this, in the days of Herod's Temple; rose the royal porch, a
triple cloister, higher and longer tlian YorK Cathedral, when seen from
tlie valley outside ; the whole, when fresh, glittering with a marble-
like whiteness. The vast space thus obtained within was utilized in
many ways.

Level as is the surface thus secured by almost incredible labor, it
covers wonders unsuspected, for the ground is perfectly honeycombed
with cisterns hewn in the rock ; the largest being south of the central
height. All appear to have been connected together by rock-cut
channels, though their size was so great in some cases that, as a whole,
they could probably store more than 10,000,000 gallons of water ; one
cistern — known as the Great Sea — holding no less than 2,000,000 gal-
lons. The supply for this vast system of reservoirs seems to have
been obtained from springs, wells, rain, and aqueducts at a distance.
It is, indeed, a question whether any natural springs existed in or near
Jerusalem, except the Fountain of the Virgin in the Kedron valley.

Nearly in the centre of the great open area is a raised platform of
marble, about sixteen feet high, reached by broad steps, and on this
stands the so-called Mosque of Omar, built over the naked top of
Mount Mori h, whence Mahomet is fabled to have ascended to heaven.
Dated inscriptions from the Koran represent that it was built between
the years A.D. 688 and a.d. 693, under the reign of the Cahph
Abd-el-Melek. It has eight sides, each sixty-six feet in length, so that
it is over 500 feet in circumference. Inside, it is 152 feet across. A
screen, divided by piers and columns of great beauty, follows the lines
of the eight sides, at a distance of thirteen feet from them, and, then,
within this, at a further distance of thirty feet, is a second screen, round
the sacred top of the mountain, relieved in the same way with pillars,
which support aloft tl>e beautiful dome, sixty-six feet wide at its base.
Outside, tiie height of the wall is thirty-six feet, and it is pierced

} J9S. fUtt. /ttd., T* Sf 8>

814

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Ohav.

below by four doors. For sixteen feet from the platform it is cased in
difterent-colored marbles, but at that height there is an exquisite series
of round arches, seven on each face, two-thirds of them pierced for
windows; the rest with only blind panels. The upper part was at one
time inlaid with mosaics of colored and gilt glass, but these are now
gone. The whole wall, above the marble casing, is covered with
enamelled tiles, showing elaborate designs in various colors; a row in
blue and white on which are verses of the Koran in interlaced charaO'
ters running round the top. Within, the piers of the screens are cased in
marble, and their capitals gilded ; the screens themselves, which are
of fine wrought iron, being very elaborate, while the arches under the
dome are ornamented with rich mosaic, bordered above by verses from
the Koran, and an inscription stating when the mosque was built, the
whole in letters of gold. The walls and dome glitter with the richest
colors, in part those of mosaics, nnd the stained glass in the windows
exceeds, for beauty, any I have seen elsewhere. There could, indeed.,
I should suppose, be no building more perfectly lovely than the Mosque
of Omar, more correctly known as the Dome of the Rock.

All this exquisite tnste and lavish munificence is strangely expended
in honor of a hump of rock, the ancient top of Moriah, which rises in
the centre of the building, within the second screen, nearly five feet at
its highest point, and a foot at its lowest, above the marble pavement,
and measures fifty-six feet from north to south, and forty-two feet from
east to west. Had the Mosque been raised in honor of the wondrous
incidents connected with the spot in sacred history, it would have had
a worthy aim; but to the Mahommedan it is sacred, almost entirely,
because he beheves t)iat this vast rock bore the Prophet up, like a
chariot, to Paradise; the finger-marks of the angel who steadied it in
its amazing flight being still shown to the credulous. Yet, foolish
legend discarded, this rough mountain-top has an absorbing interest to
tlie Jew and the Christian alike. It was here that the Jebusite,
Araunah, once had his threshing-floor.^ It is, as I have said, the
highest point of Mount Moriah, which sinks steeply to the valley of the
Kedron, on the east, and more gently in other directions. On that
yellow stretch of rock the heathen subject of King David heaped up
liis sheaves and cleansed with his shovel or fork the grain which his
threshing-sledge had separated from the straw; throwing it up against
tlie wind, before which the chafli* flew afar, as is so often brought beforef
us i n the imagery of the sacred writers.^ The royal palace on Zion must
have looked down on this threshing-floor, and it may thus have already
occurred to David's mind as a site for his Temple, before the awful
incident which finally decided his choice.^ Nor could any place so
suitable have been found near Jerusalem; and it appears, besides, to

I 2 Sam. JLxlv. 18, 22 ; 1 CbroQ. xxi. 18. 2 Fs. i. 4 ; xxxv. 5 ; Job zxi. lb. 8 2 CbroD. Ui. 1.

[Obat.

ased in
Q series
ced for
I at one
ire now
d with
, row in
charao-
}ased in
iicli are
ider the
;es from
uilt, the
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irindows
indeed;
Mosque

upended
rises in
B feet at
vement,
set from
ondrous
ave had
entirely,
p, hke a
lied it in
t, foolish
terest to
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he awful
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\\7 %-^. nmm

Northwest corner of the Harem esh S'.erif. (See page 818.)

XXII.]

JERUSALEH.

816

have had the special saoredness of having been the scene, in far earlier
times, of the offering of Isaac by the Father of the Faithful, though
Araunah's use of it shows that it had not on that account been set
apart from common ground. In later days, also, a special sanctity is
associated with this spot as that on which, in all probability, the great
altar of the Jewish Temple stood. Sir Charles Warren found that
huge vaults exist on the north side of the Temple area, and that if
these, and the loose earth over them, were removed, that end of the
rock would show a perpendicular face, part of it having in ancient
times been cut away, while in another direction a gutter cut in the
rock has been found, perhaps to drain off the blood from the sacrifices
on the altar.^

Underneath the rock, reached by a flight of steps, is a large cave,
the roof of which is about six feet high, with a circular opening in it,
through which light enters. The floor sounds hollow, and so do the
rough sides : a proof, say the Mahommedans, that this mountain is
hung in the air. There is, however, probably, a lower cave, or possi-
bly a well, but no one is allowed to nnd this out. Fantastic legends,
connected with every part of the whole summit, are repeated to the
visitor; but to the Christian the place is too sacred to pay much heed
to them. To the Mahommedan world it is "the Rock of Paradise, the
Source of the Rivers of Paradise, the Place of Prayer of all Prophets,
and the Foundation Stone of the World."

Though these religionists claim with perfect justice that the mosque
was built by Caliph Abd-el-Melek, it is by no means certain that tiiere
were not various predecessors of this beautiful building. Mr. James
Fergusson believea that it, rather than the Church of the Holy Sep-
ulchre, is, in all essential particulars, the very Church of the Resurrec-
tion, built by Constantine over the place where our Lord was believed
to have been buried, which, in his opinion, was the cave under this
rook. Other experts have thought that a church stood here between
the reigns of Constantine and Justinian — ^some say, in the first third
of the sixth century. It was, at any rate, for generations a Christian
church under the Crusaders, and Prankish kin^s offered up their
crowns to Christ before the rock on the day of their coronation.

The Mosque el-Aksa, which stands at the south end of the great
enclosure, was originally a basilica or church built by Justinian in the
sixth century in honor of the Virgin. The noble fagade of arches,
surmounted by a long range of pinnacles, is, however, Gothic, and
appears to have been the work of the Crusaders. Within there are
seven aisles, of various dates, pillars a yard thick, dividing the nave
firom the side aisles, and a dome rising over the centre of the transept;
but the effect of the whole is poor, for the building, though 190 feet
1 JWQMnr qf tAniMliM, pp. 219-dtt.

316

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAr.

wide, and 270 feet broad, is wliitewnshed and coarsely painted. By
this church tiie Templars once hud tlieir residence; and the twisted
columns of tlieir dining-hall still remain. The struggle between Mos-
lems and CliristiaiLs, at the capture of Jerusalem, was especially fierce
in this building, tiie greater part of the ten thousand who perished by
the sword of the Christian warriors falling inside and round these
walls. A flight of ste[)s outside the principal entrance leads down to a
wonderful series of arched vaults, which, with the great sculptured
pillars, help one to realize vividly the vast substructures needed to
bring this part of the hill to the general level. When they were built,
however, is a question as yet undecided; only a umall portion here and
there is very old.

You could wander dnv after day through one part or another of the
strange sights of the 'J em pie enclosure, and never tire. In one place
is a Mahommedan pulpit, with its straight stair, and a beautiful canopy
resting on light pillars: a work of special beauty. Minarets rise at
different points around, enhancing the picturesque effect. Fountains,
venerable oratories, and tombs dot the surface. The massive Golden
Gate still stands towards the centre of the eastern wall, though long
since built up, from a tradition that the Christians would one day
re-enter it in triumph. Seen from the inside it is a massy structure,
with a flat low-domed roof, carved pilasters, and numerous small
arches, slowly sinking into decay. It was always the chief entrance
to the Temple from the east, but, apart from later tradition, would
seem to have been kept closed from a very early period.^ Ir its pres-
ent form, the gateway dates Irom the third or, perhaps, the sixth cen-
tury after Christ, and till A.D. 810 there was a flight of steps from it
down to the Kedron valley. During the time of the Crusaders the
gate was opened on Palm Sunday, to allow the Patriarch to ride in
upon an ass, amidst a great procession bearing palm-branches, and
strewing the ground before him with their clothes, in imitation of tiie
entry of Christ. But it will, I fear, be long before a representative of
the true Messiah rides through it again.

The view of the Mount of Olives from the Temple area is very fine,
for only the Kedron valley, which is quite narrow, lies between the
Mount and Moriah. Mount Zion rises on the south-west, but it is
only by the houses and citadel that you notice the greater elevation.
The Crescent flag is seen waving over the old Tower of David. On
the south-east the eye follows the windings of the Valley of Jehosha-

fliat, which is the name given to the upper part of that of the Kedron,
nto it were, one day, to fall the streams which Ezekiel describes in
his vision of the restored sanctuary, as destined to pour forth from
under the door-sill of the Temple, and gather to such & body as will
1 ^ek.zliT.1,2.

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ZxiM

JKRUSALKll.

817

reach the Dead Sea, deep down in its bed to the east, changing its life,
destroyin^^ water to healing floods.^ From south-west to north-west
the city rises like an amphitheatre round the sacred area, as Josephus
noticed in his day.^ Part of this wide space is paved with slabs of
limestone, feathered with grass at every chink, mucli ^of this being
green, and sprinkled, in springtime, with thousands of bright flowers.
Olive-trees and cypresses flourish here and there, and give most wel-
come shade.

It was much the same thousands of years ago on this very^ spot.
The Psalmist could then cry out, " I am like a green olive-tree in the
bouse of God." " Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall
flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bring forth fruit in old
age: they shall be fat and flourishing."^ Hero, protected by high
walls, reclining under the peaceful shade of some tree, the pious Israel-
ite realized his deepest joy, as he meditated on God, or bowed in prayer
toward the Holy of Holies, within which Jehovah dwelt over the
Mercy-seat.^ Now in soft murmurs, now in loud exclamations of rap-
ture, now in tones of sadness, now in triumphant singing, his heart
uttered all its moods. It was his highest conception of pertect felicity
that he "should dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."'^ Hither,
from Dan to Beersheba, streamed the multitude that kept holy-day,
ascending with the music of pipes and with loud rejoicings to the holy
hill, bringing rich offerings or cattle, sheep, goats, and produce and
fruit of all kinds, to the King of kings.* Here the choirs of Levites
sang the sacred chants ; here the high priest blessed the people, year
by year, as he came' forth from the Holy of Holies, into wnich he had
entered with the atoning blood, his reappearance showing that his
mediation had been accepted, and their sins forgiven. And so Christ,
now within the holy place in the heavens pleading the merits of His
own blood, will one day come forth again, and " appear to them that
look for Him, without a sin-dBTering, unto salvation." "^ Here, as we
are told by the Son of Sirach,^^ousands on thousands cast themselves
on the ground, at the sight of their priestly mediator, fresh from the
presence of the holy and exalted Lord of Hosts. " Then shouted the
sons of Aaron, and sounded the silver trumpets, and made a great
noise to be heard, for n remembrance before the Most High. Then all
the people hasted, and fell down to the earth upon their faces, to
worship the Lord God Almighty, the Most High. Then he went
down, and lifted up his hands over the whole congregation of the chil-
dren of Israel, to give tlie blessing of the Lord with his lips, and to
rejoice in His na'me." And at an earlier time it was here, upon the
entrance of the ark into the newly-built Holy of Holies, at the Temple

1 Ezek. xlvli. 1-8. 2 Jos. 4n<., xv. 11, 5. 3 Ps. Hi. 8; xcli. 18, 14. 4 Ex. xxv. 22; Fa. xolx. 1*
5 Pa. xxili. 6. 6 2 Chron. xxx. 6, 24 ; Deut. xii. 5 ; 2 Ghron. xxxv. 7. 7 Heb. Ix. 88. 8 Ecclus. 1. 10,
17,20.

818

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

tCtikV.

dedication under Solomon, "it came even to pass, as the trumpeters
and singers, as one, made one sound to be heard in praising and thank-
ing the Lord ; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets
and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying.
For He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever: that then the house
was filled with a cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house
of God." 1 The heavenly and earthly Fatherland of the Israelite thus
seemed here to fade into each other. Who does not remember the
touching cry of the Jewish prisoner from the sources of the Jordan, on
his way to exile? "As the heart panteth after the water-brooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, God. . . . For I had gone with the
multitude, 1 went with them to the house of God, with the voice of
joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday."^ But peaceful
as this place is now, and sacred as it was in its earlier days, how often
has it been the scene of the most embittered strife, since the times of
Solomon I The first Temple, with all its glory, had gone up in smoke
and flames, amidst the shouts of Nebuchadnezzar's troops, after a
defence which steeped the wide area in blood ; and at the conquest of
the city by Titus, thousands fell, within its bounds, by the weapons of
the Roman soldiers, or perished in the flames of the third Temple,
amidst shrieks from the crowds on Zion, heard even above the roar of
strife and of the conflagration.

isi

CHAPTER XXin.

JERUSALEM — {Continued.)

It is not easy to restore in imagination the appearance presented by
the Temple in its most glorious days, but it must have been very mag-
nificent. Even from what still remains, we cannot wonder that the
disciples should have called the attention of their Master to the archi
tecture around : " Master, see what manner of stones and what build-
ings are herel"* The solid wall, at one comer, still rises to a height
of 180 feet above the ancient level of the ground — now buried thus
deep under rubbish; at another place it is 138 feet above it; and in
one spot you may see, at a height of eighty-five feet above the original
surface, a stone nearly thirty-nine feet long, four feet high, and ten feet
deep, which was lifted into the air and put in its place while the wall
was being built. The rubbish which now lies from sixty to nearly 100

1 2 Ghron. v. IS, 14. 2 Ps. zlii. 1, 4. 3 Mark xiii. 1.

Ii
I

XXIU.]

JERUSALEM.

819

feet deep, against different parts of the walls, hides their originally
grand effect ; but they were bare, and in all the dazzling whiteneps of
reoent erection, when Christ and His disciples stood to admirf hem.

These amazing walls were surrounded by magnificent cloisters,
which were double on tl.3 north, east, and west sides; columns, of a
single piece of white marble, supporting roofs of carved cedar. The
royal cloisters on the south wall were still grander, for they consisted
of three aisles, the roofs of which were borne up by 16?. huge pillars
with Corinthian capitals, distributed in four rows. The centre arch,
which was higher than the two others, rose forty-five feet rloft — twenty
feet above its neighbors — and the roofs of the whole, like those o^ the
other cloisters, were of carved cedarr The front was of polished stone,
joined together with incredible exabtness and beauty. On all sides of
the Temple, a space varying from about thirty-six to forty-fivfl feet
formed the cloisters into which, as into the Court of the Gentiles, pros-
elytes might enter ; whence its name. This was the part where the
changers of provincial coins into the shekel of the sanctuary, which
alone could be put into the Temple treasury, had their tables in
Christ's day, and here doves were sold for offerings, and beasts for saC'
rifice, and salt for the altar, with whatever else was needed by worship-
pers: the whole a mart so unholy that our Lord, as He drove the
intruders forth, declared it to be a den of thieves.^ The magnificent
cloister on the east side was called Solomon's Porch ; its cool shade
offered, at all times, attractions to crowds whom the Babbis, and also
our Lord, took occasion to gather round them from time to time.^
Hither also the multitude ran after St. Peter and St. John, when they
had cured the lame man at the Beautiful, or Nicanor, Gate,^on the
east of the Court of the Priests.

A few steps upwards led from the Court of the Gentiles to a flat ter-
race, about twenty feet broad on the south side, and about fifteen feet
on the others, its outer limit being guarded by a stone screen over four
feet high, upon which, at fixed distances apart, hung notices, a cast
from one of which l.i now in the Louvre, threatening death to any for-
eigner who should pass within. The inscription reads : " No stranger
is to enter within the balustrade round the Temple enclosure. "Who-
ever is caught will be responsible to himself for his death, which will
ensue." It was for being supposed to have taken Trophimus, an
Ephesian proselyte, inside these prohibitory warnings, that the Jews
rose in wild excitement against St. Paul, and would have torn him in
pieces had not the commandant of the fortress Antonia, on the north-
west corner of the Temple grounds, hurried to his aid with a band of
soldiers.*

1 M»tt. xxl.18: Mark xi.l7; Luke xix.46. The Court of the Gentiles was nearly 150 feet in
extent on the north and east, 100 on the vest, and 800 on the south. 2 John x. 23. 3 Acts. ili. 2.
4 Actsxxi.M.

820

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

A part of the inside space formed the Court of the "Women, who
were allowed to walk or worship here, if cerernouially clean, but not
to go nearer the sanctuary. The Inner Temple stood on a platform,
reached by another flight of steps through gates from below, but by
the worshippers there, and in the still lower Court of the Gentiles, only
so much of the Temple itself was seen as rose above a platform nearly
forty feet high, forming a square more than 300 feet long on each face,
on which the sacred building stood. Seven gates opened from this
into the Courts of the Men of Israel and of the Priests, and three more
led into the Court of the Women. One of these, the Beautiful, was
also called the Nicanor Gate, because the hands of the Syrian general
of that name were nailed over it, when he fell before the host of Judas
Maccabseus; report alleging that he had lifted these hands, in con-
tempt, towards the Holy Place, and sworn to destroy it. The name
" Beautiful "was fitly given to this gate from its being made of almost
priceless Corinthian brass, and covered with specially rich plates of
gold. The other nine gates, and even their side-posts and lintels, shone
resplendent with a covering of gold and silver. Within them rose the
Temple, reached by passing through the Court of the Israelites and
that of the Priests, one above the other, with flights of steps between.
Beyond and above them, on the highest terrace of all, stood the Tem-
ple ; its front about 150 feet long, though the Holy Place, or Temple
pi'oper, behind this, was only about sixty feet from east to west, forty
feet across, -and about forty-five feet high, while the Holy of Holies
* was a small dark chamber, not more than, thirty feet square. In front
of the Temple ran a porch, about sixteen feet deep,, extending, appar-
ently, to within forty feet of each side, and shut off* from the Holy
Place by a wall nine feet thick. Through this that awful chamber
was entered by a door, before which hung a heaVy veil ; another of
the finest texture, from the looms of Babylon, adorned " with blue and
fine linen, and scarlet, and purple," hanging before the sacred solitude
of the Holy of Holies. A screen, in front of the porch, was sur-
mounted by a great golden vine, which, it may be, our Lord had in
mind when He spoke of Himself as the True Viue.^

Thirty-eight small chambers, in two stories on the north and south,
and three on the west, clung to the Temple on these three sides. The
entrance was from the east, perhaps so that worshippers, while pray-
ing before Jehovah, might turn their backs on the sun, so universally
honored as the Supreme God by the heathen nations of Western Asia.
Thus the men seen in Ezekiel's vision praying in " the inner court of
the Lord's house, between tho porch and the altar, with their backs
towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the east,"
showed that to " worship the sun " they had turned away from wor-
1 John XT. 1.

Old Qn>nw Trees ia the Garden ot Buna Beh'Shertf. (See page a?.)

xxm.]

JEBUSALEM.

821

shipping Jehovah.* The great brazen altar stood, as these words of
the prophet indicate, in the open spaoe before the porch.

Such a building, rising on a marole terrace of its own, with its walls
of pure white stone, covered in parts with plates of bright gold, and
marble-paved courts lying one under another beneath — all held up,
over the whole vast area of the levelled summit of Moriah, by walls of
almost fabulous height and splendor — must have presented an appear-
ance rarely if ever equalled by any sanctuary of ancient or modern
times.

Two bridges led from Zion, the upper hill, ove»the Valley of the
Cheese-mongers to Moriah. One of these, now known as Eobinson's
Arch, from its discoverer, was built thirty-nine feet north of the south-
west corner, and had a span of forty-two feet : forming, perhaps, the
first of a series of arches leading by a flight of stairs from the Tyro-
poeon Valley, or Valley of the Cheese-mongers, to the broad centre
aisle of Solomon's Porch, which, as we have seen, ran along the west-
ern wall of Herod's Temple. The stones, of which a few still jut from
the wall of the Temple enclosure, were of great size — some from nine-
teen to twenty-five feet long — but all, except those forming the three
lower courses, with the fine pillars that supported them, now lie more
than forty feet below the present surface of the ground, where they fell
when the bridge was destroyed ; the pavement on which they rest is
of polished stone. So deep below the level of to-dav was that of this
part of the acity in the time of our Lord. Even this depth, however,
m a place so ancient, does not represent the original surface, for below
the pavement, thus deeply buried, were found remainsof an older arch,
and, still lower, a channel for water, hewn in the rock ; perhaps one of
the aqueducts made by order of Hezekiah, when he introduced his
great improvements in the water-supply of the city.^ The masonry
at the corner of the enclosure, which is ancient up to the level' of the
present surface and even slightly above it, shows better perhaps than
any other part the perfection of the original workmanship throughout,
for the blocks of stone are so nicely fitted to each other, without mor-
tar, that even now a penknife can hardly be thrust between them.
There must, of course, have been a gate through which Bobinson's
Arch led to the sacred area, but the present wall was built after the
arched approach had been destroyed, and ignors it. About forty- three
yards farther north there are the remains of another gate, which led
from the western cloisters of the Temple to the city, showing by the
size of the entrance when it was perfect how great the concourse must
have been that passed through it, for it was nearly nineteen feet wide,
and twenty-nine feet high ; its lintel being formed by one enormous
stone, reaching across the whole breadth, as in Egyptian temples.

1 Ezek. viii. 16. 2 2 Chron. xzxli. 9.
21

822

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[UHAl'.

The extreme age of Jerusalem ns a city receives another illustration
ill the fact that, though the gate is noticed by Josephus, its sill rests
«>n very nearly fifty feet of accumulations over the natural rock below.
It once gave access to a vaulted passage wliich ran up in a sharp angle
from the city to the Temple area.

A little north of this gate is a spot of intense interest — the place
where the Jews of both sexes, all ages, and from all countries, come
daily, but especially on Fridays, to lament the destruction of their
Temple, the defilement of their city, and the sufferings of their race.
Ever since the^fall of Jerusalem, the Israelite has mourned, in deepest
sorrow, over his religious and national griefs, but the faith that Zion
will one day rise again from her degradation to more than her former
glory, is alike invincible and amazing. At least seventy feet of rub-
bish lie heaped over the ground where the mourners assemble, so high
is the present pavement above that trodden by their fathers; but some
courses of the ancient Temple wall still rise above it, and it is believed
that this point is nearest to where the Holy of Ilolies once stood.
Huge bevelled masses of stone lie in fair order one over another, defy-
ing the violence of man and natural decay. The Jews cannot enter
the sacred enclosure any more than the Christians, but here, at least,
they obtained many centuries ago, by a heavy ransom, the privilege
of touching and kissing the holy stones. Prayer-book in hand they
stand in their fur caps and long black gaberdines, reciting supplica-
tions for '^ion, in hope that the set time to favor hgr may speedily-
come. The Seventy-ninth Psalm is often read aloud, and is always in
their hearts: "O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance;
Thy holy temple have they defiled ; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
. . Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee,
and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Thy name."^ The
most touching litanies are recited; one of them beginning thus: —

<< For the palace that lies waste ;
For the Temple that is destroyed ,
For the walls that are torn down ;
For our glory that is vanished ;
For the great stones that are burned to dust;'*

the hearers, after every lament, responding : —

" Here sit we now, lonely, and weep I"

The Jews live in their own quarter on the eastern sWpe of Zion,
close to the old Temple area, but their part of Jerusalem is as unat-
tractive as their sorrows are touching. Their streets are the filthiest

1Pb.1zx1x.1-«.

1 Jer.
xvi. 29.

xxin.]

JERUSALEM.

828

in a filthy city, and their dwelling among the poorest. They may
have had " wide houses and large chambers, and windows out out, and
ceilings of cedar, and walls of vermilion" in the days of Jeremiah,^
but these are traditions of a very distant past. Until recently, indeed,
their condition was even more wretchea than it is now, "The Israel-
itish Alliance" in Western Europe having afforded them systematic
lielp for a number of years, though the first necessity, beyond question,
is to teach them the most elementary ideas of cleanliness. How they
live aimidst the foulness of their alleys is a wonder. They are all
foreigners, for during many centuries no Jew was permitted to dwell in
the Holy City. Now, however, }car fter year, numbers come, es-
pecially from Spain and Poland, to spend their last days in their dear
Jerusalem, and oe buried beside their fathers, in the valley of Jeho-
shaphat, the scene, as they believe, of the resurrection and of the final
judgment.2 To be there saves them, they think, a long journey after
death, through the body of the earth, from the spot where they may
lie to this final gathering-place of their people. They come to Jeru-
salem to die, no*; to live, but many arc in the prime of life and have
families, and the rising generation are less gloomy in their views.
The young men, in all wie glory of love-locks, fur-edged caps, and long
gaberdines, are as keen after business or pleasure as their brethren
elsewhere, their creed evidently being a settled aim to make the best
of at least the present world.

To make sure of a rart in the kingdom of the Messiah, and the
glories of the restored Ti>iii|ilu and city, ^e Jerusalem Israelite leads a
strenuously religious life, according to his idea of religion; striving
with painful earnestness to fulfil all the ten thousand lUbbinical pre-
cepts founded on the Law of Moses, so as to be like St. Paul, " blame-
less " touching that righteousness.* The Law is studied through the
whole night in the schools; frivolous applications of the sacred letter
being eagerly sought, in supposed fulfilment of the command, " Ye
shall teach these. My words, to your children, speaking of them when
thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, when
thou liest down and when thou risest up."* In the synagogue, men
are found at all hours, busy reading the Talmud. I'he Sabbath is
observed with more than its anc'ent strictness. From the evening of
Friday to that of Saturday, no light or fire is kindled, in accordance
with the injunction, " Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habita-
tions upon the Sabbath day."* To go beyond two thousand steps on
the holy day is a grave sin, for it is written, " Abide ye every man in
his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day:"® a
precept understood so literally by one Jewish sect in past times that

1 Jer. xxii. 14. 2 Joel Ul. 2, 12; Zecb, xiv. 4. 8 Phil. ill. 6. 4 Deut. vi. 7. 5 Ex. xxxv. 3. 6 Ex.
xvl.29.

824

THB ttoLY LAKD AND TAB BIBLK.

(Ohap.

they never rose on llic Sabbath from the place where its first moment
found them. Indeed, the Essenes, a sect of Jewish ascetics iu the days
of our Lord, would not even lift a vessel to quench their thirst on that
day.^ In the afternoon of each day there is preaching in the syna>
gogues. At the Passover only unleavened bread is eaten, and booths
are raised at the Feast of Tabernacles.^ But the most solemn day of
the year is the one preceding the Jewish New Year's Day, in Septem-
ber. Penitential prayers are said for three hours before sunrise, and
every Jew allows himself to receive forty stripes save one,* the flagel-
lator saying to the person he chastises, " My son, despise not the chas-
tening of the Lord ; neither be weai-y of His correction. For whom
the Lord loveth. He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he
delighteth."* On the other hand, there is great rejoicing in the
synagogues at some of the other feasts, the congregation leaping, danc-
ing, singing, and shouting in their gladness. On some of these occa-
sions the multitude stream forth with bright faces, men and women
singing aloud, and make a procession through their quarter, with the
roll of the Law in their midst. The traditions of their fathers thus
live with * ^em still, for, in some such way, David, three thousand years
ago, in the same place, "danced before the Lord with all his might."*
If the condition of the Israelites in Jerusalem, of whom there are
about four thousand, is in general very humble and wretched, it is
made still harder by their frozen bigotry. Protestant missions, es-
pecially in late years, have undoubtedly made some progress, but the
mass of the Hebrew population still hate the light, and ding to the
great memories of the past, embittered against the whole iiu*nan race.
It is a striking thought, that in all probability the Praetcrium, in
which our Saviour was tried and condemned, lay in the quarter now
inhabited by the Jews.® A great marble-paved space ex.«nded iu
front of it, surrounded by halls, resting on rows of lofty pillars. On a
raised platform facing this square, the judgment-seat of Pilate was

f)laced, and here the Innocent One was shown by the Governor to the
anatical mob below, only, however, to raise a wild outcry of "Crucify
Himl Crucify Him! His blood come on us and on our children."^
But those children were still in the vigor of hfe when the last hideous,
despairing struggle with the Komans drove them hither, after the
Temple had been burned, and turned the mansion and Judgment-hall
of Pilate into the scene of their final destruction. "Victorious here, as
already in the upper city, the legionaries cut down everyone they
could, till the streets were covered with dead bodies and the whole
town was soaked in gore; many a burning house, if we may trust
Josephus, having its flames extinguished in blood.^ The descendants

1 Herzog, 2te Auf.. xiii. 167. 2 Lev. xziii. 4, 40: Neh. viii. 15, 16. 3 Deut. xxv. 3; 2 C!or. zi. 24.
4 Frov. Hi. 11 : Heb. xil. 5, 6. 5 2 Sam. vl. 14. 6 Blehm, p. 609. 7 Matt. zxTii. 22, 23, 25. 8 Jos'.

Let them
make haste, and
take up a wail-
ing for us, that
our eyesmav
run down with
tears, and our
eyelids gush out
with waters.

For a voice of
wailing is heard
out of Zion,
How are we
spoiled I we are

freatly con-
ounded, be-
cause we have
forsaken the
land, because
our dwellings
have oast us
out.

Tet hear the
w o r d o f the
Lord, O ye
wornen, and let
your ear receive
the word of his
mouth, and
teac h y our
daughters wail-
inp;.— Jlsr. ix.
18-30.

THE WAILINQ PLAGE OTP THE JEWS. (See page 8M0

xxin.]

JERUSALKM.

825

of that unhappy generation have built their homei over the rabbiih
under iwhioh Pilate'i Judgmeiit-oourts are deeply buried, but their
souls are still bound in the same chains as then enslaved their aaces*
turs, and their darkness is still as profouDd. Were Christ to stand
before them to-day, there can be no doubt He would meet the same
cry — to send Him to the cross. The time to favor Zion, in the high-
est sense, has not yet come. But amidst all their humiliation and
misery, they still draw consolation from the fact that they inhabit the
Holy City, and have had part of Mount Zion itself assigned them as
their quarter. Even this cannot be without influence on tlieir spiritual
life, in spite of their narrowness and pride. For have not their
ancient psalmists and prophets sung its praises? "Beautiful for situa-
tion, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the great
King."* To he brought thus, continually, to the contemplation of
Jehovah, must exercise a mighty power in raising and purifying their
inner religious thoughts.

A sitort distance north of the Wailing-place of the Jews are the
remains of the second bridge,''' which formed part of another great
viaduct from the Temple grounds over the valley to Mount Zion: the
most striking relic yet found of ancient Jerusalem. It is on a line
with David Street, which passes over part of it, but other foundations
of arches, vaults, and chambers extend, at the side of the street, for
more than 2f feet from the Temple enclosure. One hall seems as if
it had been a ^ard-house as long ago as the time of the Maccabees,
and even now it is connected with a long subterranean gallery, con-
struoted, most probably, to enable soldiers to passjrom David's Tower,
near the Joppa Gate, to the Temple, without being seen. A strange
use of it by Simon, the son of Giorias, one of the leaders of the final
insurrection against the Romans, vividlv recalls the scene after the
capture of Jerusalem by Titus; for by this tunnel he passed from the
upper city to the Temple enclosure, trying to frighten the Roman sol-
diers, and thus escape by pretending to be a ghost. The Castle, or
Tower, of Antonia, which owed its name to Herod the Great's flattery
of Mark Antony, then his patron, stood, as has been noticed, on the
site of the present Turkish barracks, at the north-west corner of the
Temple area. A mass of rock, separated, on the north, from the low
hill of Bezetha by a ditch 165 feet wide, and from twenty-six to thirty-
three feet deep, formed the plateau fVom which it rose. Of great size, it
was the key to the possession of the Temple, as the citadel was to that
of the upper town. The rock foundation was seventy-five feet high,
its face cased over with smooth stones like the lower part of the Tower
of David, "so that anyone who tried either to climb or descend it had
no foothold." At each corner of the fort were towers; the one at th^

iyi.xlvUl.3. 2 8«e ante, p. 016.

S2d

Yfifi noVt LA^D AKD Tfifi BI&Lti.

tORA».

south-east, over 100 feet high, to overlook the whole Temple area,
while that at the south-west had underground passages by which sol-
diers could be marched into the cloisters of the Temple to quell any
tumult.

Mount Zion falls very steeply to the south and south-west, and must
therefore have been very easily defended. In the grounds of the
Protestant Schools, moreover, on the south-west corner a system of
rock-cisterns and a series of perpendicular escarpments of the rock,
twenty-five feet high, which appear to have been continued, in huge
steps to the bottom of the hill far below, have been discovered, which
show that the Jebusites, who originally held Jerusalem, spared no pains
to make it impregnable. It was natural, therefore, that they should
taunt David when he wished to get possession of it, telling him, "Thou
shalt not come in hither; for even the blind and the lame will keep
thee away."^ A fiery spirit like that of the shepherd -king could iU
brook such an insult. "Whoso smiteth the Jebusites, and hurleth
both blind and lame down the cliff, shall be chief captain," ^ cried he,
in his anger, and Joab won the award. Once master of Zion, David
began that enriching of it with palaces and public buildings which,
continued under his successors, made it, till the destruction of Jerusa-
lem by Nebuchadnezzar, the concentration of all the pomp and splen-
dor of the kingdom, that associated with the Temple excepted. It
was, apparently, on Zion that he built his palace, through the skilled
aid of Phoenician architects, masons, and carpenters ;3 the very wood
coming, in rafts, from Tyre to Joppa,, whence it was ci jagged up to
Jerusalem. Near the royal dwelling probably, rose the barracks spoken
of in Nehemiah as "the House of the Heroes,"* for the Crethi and
Plethi,^ who formed the king's body-guard: a band of the warlike
Philistines, enrolled by David for his personal defence, after the subju-
gation of the Philistine plain. The two names seem to imply this, for
they are respectively those of the first immigration of the race from
Crete in the patriarchal times, and of the second immigration in the
days of the Judges. Captain Conder, indeed, speaks of the Philistines
as called Cherethites or Crethi, from "Keratiyeh," a village still
existing in the Philistine plain, and of Pelethites as simply equivalent
to "immigrants" — he supposes, from Egypt; but neither of these
details disproves the original exodus of the race was from Caphtor,*
which is admittedly Crete.

The ambition of the great king, true to the spirit of an Oriental,
turned especially upon the construction of a grand series of rock-hewn
tombs for himself and his descendants, on the south-west luce of the
Tyropoeon Valley.^ There, perhaps, to this day, lie the twelve suc-

12Sam. V.6. 2 2Sain. v. 8. Ewald's reading. Kell follows it. 3 2 Sam. v. 11 ; 1 Chron. xlv. 1.
4 Nell. iii. 16. 5 2 Sam. viii. 18; xv. 18; xx. 7, 23; 1 Kiu^s i. 38, 44; 1 Cliron. xviit. 17. 6 Ainos ix.7.
7 Nell. iii. 16.

[Ctua.

i area,
ah sol-
3II any

i must
of the
tem of
e rock,
n huge
which

pains
should
"Thou
11 keep
ould ill
hurleth
ried he,
, David

1 which,
Jerusa-
d splen-
ted. It

skilled
y wood
d up to
spoKen
ithi and
warlike
e subju-
this, for
ice from
»n in the
lilistines
ige still
uivalent
3f these
aphtor,*

Oriental,
ck-hewn
!e of the
elve suc-

hron. xiv. 1.
> Ainosix.7.

ces
pr
toi
A,
11
aff
th
du
da

XXIII.l

JERUSALEM.

827

cessors of David, from Solomon to Aliaz, with Jelioiada, the great high
priest, but without Uzziah, who was excluded for his leprosy.^ The
tomb of David was still well known in the time of the Acts of the
Apostles,^ but, according to Josephus, it had been opened, first by
Hyrcanus, and then by Herod, to rob it of the treasures which tradition
affirmed Solomon to have buried with his father.* So early as the
third century after Christ, however, the true site of this " acre of royal
dust" had been lost, and we can only hope that excavation may one
day bring it again to light. Authorities differ as to the position of
Solomon's palace, but no less an expert than Dr. Miihlau thinks it was
built on the western side of the Tyropoeon, and thus on Mount Zion.*
On the same spot, at a later date, rose also the palace of the Asmonsean
kings, and that of Agrippa II. Under Solomon the citizens had the
glory of Zion increased by the magnificent " House of the Forest of
Lebanon," so called from its costly cedar pillars, numerous, it was
boasted, as the trees of a wood, and, besides other grand buildings, by
the palace of his Egyptian queen. In the days of Christ, the great
palace of Herod, as has been said, occupied the top of the hill, behind
where the citadel now stands; its magnificent gardens, its broad
wateis, shaded by trees, its gorgeous halls, and the height and strength
of the great wall which enclosed its grounds, with the mighty towers
of Hippicus, Mariamne, and Phasael^ at its corners, making the whole
one of the glories of Jerusalem. At the foot of the slope of Zion, to
the east, immediately in front of the spot on which the palace of
Agrippa II. afterwards stood, was the Xystus, a great colonnade, en-
closing an open space, used especially for athletic games after the
Greek fashion, but occasionally for public assemblies, while behind it,
in Christ's day, was the Council Hall, to which, as the place where
the High Council sat, St. Paul was "brought down" from the Tower
of Antonia, after he had been taken prisoner because of the tumult
about Trophimus.* Near this also, apparently, were the theatre, built
by Herod in servile imitation of Eoman manners, and the public build-
ings connected with the official head-quarters of Pilate, though the
grand palace of Herod, on the top of tb'^ hill, .was, no doubt, also used
as a State building.

Amidst all this splendor of public architecture, the houses of the
citizens, if we may judge from the immemorial characteristics of the
East, were mean and wretched, for a despotic State in a certain stage
of civilization can boast of magnificent temples, palaces, and State
edifices, while the homes of the people are, perhaps, even more
wretched than in earlier and simpler times. So it was in Nineveh,

1 2 Chron. xxlv. 16; xxvl. 23. 2 Acts li. 29. 3 Jos. Ant., vii. 15, 3; xlll. 8, 4: Bett. Jud., I. 2. 5.
4 Rieliin, p. 684. 5 Called Hippicus after a friend of Herod ; Mariamne after his favorite wife,
whom he murdered ; Fliasaelus after bis brother, who was slftio (n tUe fartb^^n Wi^r, 6 A<!t9
X](li. 90; }(xiii. 10; x?(i. 29,

828

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

fCtt

BabyloT), and the ruined cities of Central America, and so it is even in
Constantinople at this day, if we except the houses of wealthy for-
eigners. Nor, perhaps, can Britain say very much when she remem-
bers the slums and alleys of her cities. But all the glory of Zion has
passed away. " Jehovah hath swallowed up all the habitations of
Jacob, and hath not pitied ; He hath thrown down, in His wrath, the
strongholds of the daughter of Judah ; He hath brought them down
to the ground. He hath poured out His fury like fire; her gates are
sunk into the ground; He nath destroyed and broken her bars."^

The present walls of Jerusalem were built by Sultan Suleiman in
the sixteenth century, and give picturesqueness, if not strength, to the
town. An inscription over the Joppa Gate, and others in various
places, record that the order to rebuild them was given in a.d. 1542 ; ^
the materials used being the remains of the older walls, which were
several times thrown down and restored during the 200 years of the
Crusades. The stones themselves are evidently ancient, and are all
hewn, and bedded in mortar, but they are not very large. Seen from
the heights around, with their towers and battlements, the walls look
very imposing, though their chief advantage now seems to be the broad
walk which a breastwork inside supplies, enabling one to look out on
the landscape round the whole city. There are only four gates open
through this antiquated defence, one on each side of the city; but
there were formerly four more. Passing south, through the road in a
line with Christian Street, which leads to the Damascus Gate on the
north, we come to Zion Gate on the south. It is simply an arch in
tl)e wall, filled in with dressed stones, so as only to leave space for a
moderate-sized two-leaved door, with an Arabic inscription over its
lintel. Two short, narrow slits in the wall, like loop-holes, with an
ornamental arch over them, and a few rosettes and ornaments of carved
stone here and there, are the only signs of its being an entrance to the
city; but the wall, as you come out, is seen to be very thick. From
within a dry stone wall on the opposite side of the narrow road, a
great prickly pear shoots out its hand-like leaves almost to the height
of the top of the high central arch. It grows at the edge of a field,
green, when I saw it, with barley which had been sown over the rub-
bish of the ancient glory of Mount Zion.

On the left of the gate, inside the wall, is a row of hovdls given up
to lepers, who, through the day, sit begging outside the gate, and at
other parts round the city. Suffering from a hopeless disease, and cast
out from among men, these wretched creatures live together, under a
sheikh who is himself a leper. Dependent on charity, they sit in
groups, apparently cheery enough; and when someone passes, they,
without rising, clamor for alms, which are thrown intp ft tin dish pq
I ]4m, ii. 5, 9, i Ye^r o( t^Ue Flight, 999,

xxm.]

JERUSALEM.

829

the ground before them. Now, as in the case of Job, their "skin is
broken and become loathsome"* with putrid ulcers. Often, as with
him, the sufferer itches all over, so that it is a relief "to take a pot-
sherd and scrape himself withal."'* Often, again, the breath corrupts,
so that the husband becomes "a stranger to his own wife."^ The dis-
ease is hereditary, but bad nourishment and a wretched home lead to
its development, and possibly in some cases to its origin. There are
two kinds, both found in Palestine, and both almost equally horrible.
Some months before the outbreak of leprosy the victim is languid and
cold, shivers and becomes feverish by turns. Eeddish srjots then
make their appearance on the skin, with dark red lumps under them,
more or less movable. In the face, particularly, these lumps run into
one another, till they look like bunches of grapes. The mouth and
lips swell, the eyes run, and the whole body is often tormented with
itching. The mucous membrane begins to corrupt, and lumps form
internally also. The eyes, throat, tongue, mouth, and ears become
affected. At last the swellings burst, turn into dreadful festering sores,
and heal up again, but only to break out elsewhere. The fingers
become bent, and the limbs begin to rot away. This kind of leprosj
differs from what is known as the smooth leprosy, but even that is
sufficiently dreadful, as it produces painful, flat, inflamed patches on
the skin, which, turn into revolting sores. Other diseases, moreover,
are brought on by leprosy, and yet it is so slowly fatal that the sufferer
sometimes drags on his wretched life for twenty years, or even more,
before death relieves him. The children of leprous parents do not
show the disease, generally, till they attain mannood or womanhood,
but then it is certain lo break out. Among the ancient Jews it was
very common, yet there was only one case in the Jewish hospital in
Jerusalem, between the years 1856 and 1860, of a Jew suffering from
it. In early Bible times it made the sufferer unclean, so that he was
required to live outside the camp, while, to prevent anyone being
defiled by approaching him, he was further obliged to rend his clothes
and keep his head bare, and to put a covering upon his upper lip, and
cry, "Unclean, unclean!"* It was in accoiSance with this that the
ten men who were lepers stood afar off as Jesus passed by, and " lifted
up their voices ;"5 and it was in compliance with the Levitical law
that our Lord said to them, when cleansed, "Go, shew yourselves unto
the priests." It was necessary that a leper, when cured, should go to
Jerusalem, and, after examination by a priest, take part in a number
of ceremonies, make certain offerings, and obtain a written declaration
from the priests of his being healed, before he could go back to free
intercourse with his fellows.*

Under a respectable government leprosy could no doubt be extin-

1 Job II. 7 ; V II. .6. 2 Job 11. 8. 8 Job xlx, 17. 4 Lev. xUi. 45. 5 Luke xvll. 14, 6 Qelkle, m^
0nd Wmd» of Ckn»t, ii. 18—16,

880

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE,

[Cbaf.

guisbed in Palestine, as it has been in Britain and other countries
where it was once common. But for ages the wretched beings, with-
out palates, or with no hands, or with swollen and hideous faces, have
been allowed to marry and live together, at tiie gates of Jerusalem,
perpetuating the plague in their unhappy oftspring. Nor is it confined
to tne Holy City. Lepers are found over the whole country. Precau-
tions are, indeed, taken to guard the healthy, but as leprosy is not
contagious, these are in reality of no value. In Bible times, anyone
thought to be attacked was shut up, and removed outside the city on
the disease showing itself; he, his clothes, his very house, and every-
thing he touched, being pronounced unclean. Nowadays, he may,
perhaps, be allowed to live immediately inside the gates of Jerusalem,
but he has still a separate dwelling assigned him, and everyone keeps
aloof from him as polluted and dangerous. Nor will any one touch a
leper, or eat with him, or use anything he has handled. Arabs thrust
a leper away from their encampments.

The prevalence of leprosy among the ancient Jews gave a strange
ooior to the fancies of the Western nations of antiquity respecting
them. Tacitus thus gives the various opinions afloat concerning them,
viz., that Crete was their original home, its great mountain Ida being
the source of their name, " Judaei ; " that they were a colony of Egyp-
tians who emigrated, under the leadership of Hierosolynius and Judali,
through the pressure of population on the Nile ; that they were Ethi-
opians whom fear and hatred forced to leave their country ; that they
were an Assyrian race, who, having no landfa, established themselves
in Egypt, and finally spread to Syria ; and, lastly, that they were the
descendants of the Solymi, a nation famous *in Homer; whence the
name of their capital, Hierosolyma. All this, however, he owns to be
doubtful. What is more generally admitted, he continues, is that
Egypt being infected with a kind of leprosy which covered the whole
body, the king, after consulting the oracle of Ammon respecting the
means of removing it, was ordered to purge his kingdom of lepers,
who seemed hateful to the gods, and to send them off to other lands.
All the diseased, having therefore been searched out and collected, were
left in the midst of the desert. On being thus abandoned, they gave
way to despair, except one, Moses, who urged them to look for help
neither from the gods nor from man, since they were abandoned by
both, but to put their faith in him as a Heaven-sent leader, promising
that, if they followed him, he would deliver them from their miseries.
To this they agreed, and began their march, ignorant of the way or its
dangers. Nothing, however, distressed them as they went on so much
as the want of water; but when they were in extremities, sinking, ex-
hausted, along the whole line of march, a herd of wild asses passed
from the open field to a rocky place, hidden by woods, and Moses, hj^y

And the sons of strangers shall
build up thy walls, and their
kings shall minister unto thee :
for in my wrath I smote thee, but
in my favor have I had mercy
on thee.

Therefore thy gates sliall be
open continually ; they shall not
be shut day nor night ; that men
may bring unto thee tlie forces of
the Gentiles, and that their kings
may be brought. — Isa. Ix. 10, 11,
TBE JOPPA GATE OF JERUSALEM. {See pape 335.)

XXI

ing

nes

the

are

th(

sa)

sac

•

/ . "

lii

•e

•I

hi
is

xxnx.]

JBRUSALBM.

881

ing followed, in the thought that the richness of the grass boded the
nearness of springs, discovered great fountains of water. This saved
them, so that after a further continuous march of six days, they, on
the seventh, having defeated the inhabitants, won the land in which
are their city and Temple.*

All this IS so curious that perhaps I may quote a little more. To
put the nation thoroughly under his control, says Tacitus, Moses gave
them an entirely new religion, the opposite of that of any other peo-
ple. In it all is abhorred which we revere, and all is revered which
we abhor. An image of the beast which had relieved their thirst and
saved them, was set up, as sacred, in their Holy of Holies. They
sacrifice the ram, as if in contempt of the god Ammon (who was ram-
headed), and for the same reason they offer up the ox, which the
Egyptians worship under the name Apis. They abstain from pork, in
memory of the shameful disease under which they suffered so terribly:
a disease to which the pig is liable.^

Much in this is, of course, fanciful, but it is certain that the Hebrews
brought leprosy with them from Egypt, for at the very commence-
ment of their forty years' wanderings, Moses commanded that every
leper should be put out of the camp,^ and the disease could not have
been brought on in the wilderness. It had, therefore, no doubt, broken
out through their miseries while in Egypt, which we may the better
imagine when we recollect that Josephus speaks of their having been
sent to quarries on the eastern side of the Nile, to cut out the huge
blocks used in Egyptian architecture.* There, he tells us, "they re-
mained for a long time." Condemnation to the hideous slavery of this
life was a usual punishment under the Pharaohs for criminals and all
who gave the State trouble, the unfortunates being banished to the
quarries with their wives and children, without regard to age, even
tneir relatives sometimes sharing their fate." In later ages, great
numbers of Christians, many of them of prominent social position,
were thus condemned to the porphyry quarries between the Nile and
the Red Sea, and others were sent to those in the Thebais.^ The un-
speakable wretchedness of an existence in^such burning craters as these
quarries must have been, without care, shelter, or sufficient food, and
with unbroken toil under the lash, may well have lowered the system,
till leprosy and diseases of similar origin took wide hold of the suf-
ferers.

That leprosy was very common among the ancient Jews, is in any
case certain, for their laws are very full and stringent with respect to
'■'., Pud enumerate various forms of the •disease.''' They even speak of

1 Tac. Hid., V. 2, 8. 2 Tac. Hist, v. 4. 8 Num. v. 2. 4 Jos. Omt. Ap.. I. 2fi. Tacitus appears to
have used Manetho, from whom Josephus quotes, or perhaps he quoted from Josephus, who flour
ished A.D. 38—97. Tacitus lived a.d. 61—117. 6 Ebers, Piirch Qosen, p. IBS. 6 Evs. Hist, Ecclu,,

882

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

leprosy in woollen or linen garments, or in leather, and, still more
strange, in houses, but it seems probable that these passages refer to
skin diseases resembling leprosy, and which are therefore classed by
Moses with it. It is well known that many such skin ailments, whicn
to the untrained eye may easily be confounded with leprosy, spring
from microscopic vermin,^ or from the minute sporules of some kinds
of fungus, and botii th.ese sources of dire calamity cling to garments
and to household utensils, and even to the stones and mortar of a
house. This appears to be the true explanation of the Leviticnl laws
respecting "leprosy " in inanimate substances, and they were clearly
wise and plnlosopliical, for modern science is no less concerned tiian
they were with germs and their propagation.

A comparatively broad street leaus first west, then north, from Zion
Gate to the open space befctre the Tower of David. On the south lies
the ploughed field, over the wreck of the past ; on the west, after
turning trie corner, you sye the great gardens connected with the
Armenian Monastery, which provides accommodation for several
thousand pilgrims. The church belonging to this establishment is

fraud with lamps, carpets, pictures, and gilding. A fine house for the
'atriarch is appropriately connected with a cemetery in which all his
Eredecessora lie buried. The monastery is said to stand on the site of the
ouse of the high priest Caiaphas, and, in keeping with this veracious
tradition, the stone which closed the Holy Sepulchre is shown under the
church altar, and the e\ 3ts pointed out where Christ was in prison,
where Peter denied Him, and where the cock was perched when it
crew, though the surface of the Jerusalem of Christ s day, as I hava
mentioned, lies buried beneath some thirty feet of rubbish. It is
pleasant to look away from these monkish stupidities to the glorious
gardens, the fairest in Jerusalem, .with their tall poplars and many
other kinds of trees waving above the city walls.

Just before reaching the open space at David's Tower, a short way
from the street, on the right, is tlie English Protestant Church, for the
English-speaking population, which mainly consists of visitor?.. It is
only within a few decades that Evangelical religion has obtained such
a permanent footing in the Holy City, but since it has become natural-
ized, if I may so speak, it has attracted a steadily-growing interest in
the country. The time is past when a devout soul like Luther could
think that God cares just as much for the cows of Switzerland as for
the Holy Grave which lay in the hands of the Saracens., The great
importance to the intelligent study of the Bible of a closer acquaintance
with Palestine is universally recognized, and the land of Holy Scppture
has been felt to have claims on the loving interest of all Christians, as
that from which th© sftlvatioj,' of the WOrW W^Rt forth, The Jewish
I Acwit

xxm.i

JlClttTSALSM.

888

MiBsion, of whiob I have already spoken, was the firuit of thii newly-
awakened enthuiiasm, though ezperienoe seems to show that Jerusalem
is precisely the most unfavorable sphere for its success. But preaching
to the Jews is not the only form or local Christian activity. As it was
desirable to raise the spiritual condition of native Christians generally,
by a diffusion of simple Evangelical truth, Prussia and England in
conjunction, at the suggestion ot King Frederick William IV., founded
a bisjjopric, to give Protestantism a more imposing representation in
Jerusalem. The present church also was, after a time, built chiefly
with English money, and Prussian and English Consulates were estab-
lislied, giving additional weight to the Reformed creed. Hospitals for
Jews, and also for all nationalities, without distinction, have been
founded and are in active operation, showing, perhaps more strongly
than any thing else could, how true and deep is the interest Evan-
gelical religion takes in all human sorrows. A child's hospital has
been established by Dr. Sandreckski, an accomplished Prussian, and is
maintained at his own risk, the subscriptions towards it being often
deficient. I visited it and the English hospitals, and can honestly
praise them both, though I confess that my heart went out most
tenderly to that for children, which was filled when I went through it.
The Germans also have a hospital for themselves, admirably managed.
Evangelical missions of other kinds are not wanting, and it ia only
right to say they could in no place be more needed.

If the rigorous observance of religious forms, including prayer and
the worship of God, were enough, Jerusalem might be pronounced, in
fact as in name, the Holy City. It is the same with the Jew of to-day
as with his ancestors, who wearied themselves with offerings and other
external observances, but were so corrupt and morally worthless as to
rouse the bitterest reproaches of the prophets. " Rend your hearts,
and not your garments," cried Joel, "and turn unto the Lord your
God." ^ " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," sang the Psalmist.^
Such prophet voices are no less needed in Jerusalem now. Conscience
seems asleep; the moral sense dead. That it is possible to trade
without lying and fraud is as monstrous an idea to the Oriental to-day
as it was when Jesus the Son of Sirach wrote, " As a nail sticketh fast
between the joinings of the stones, so doth sin stick close between
buying and selling."* The first consideration of the vendor is the
extent to which he may presume on the simplicity of his customer,
and so skilled in trickery are all traders alike— Moslems, Christians,
and Jews — that the webs of lies they spin, and the depth of their
wretched cunning, are entirely beyond the conceptions of the Western
world. Indeed, they even boast of their cleverness in lying. Nor is
this the only great sin infecting the community, and oondoned by tho

1 Joel U. 18. a PR. U. 17. 8.BMlai.uTU.&

S84

tafi fiOLY LAl^D AND THE BIBLE.

tOukf.

corruptness of local public opinion; meanness, pettiness, and baseness
are so common that it must be very hard to walk uprightly and
without hypocrisy in Jerusalem.

It is to the lasting honor of Bishop Gobat that he saw the necessity
of religious education, to raise the moral tone of the Christian popula-
tion. His school-house, a stately building, stands immediately above
the steep descent of Mount Zion. It was founded in 1858, and, when I
visited it, had forty-five boys and thirteen youths, who might be
called students, but no day scholars. This is a much smaller attendance
than at the American college at Beyrout, but perhaps the locality is
less favorable. There is, besides, a school for girls in the city, with
seventy on the books when I was in Jerusalem ; this is a day school.
The Germans also have training schools. To the east of Bishop Gobat's
school lies a pleasant garden, divided by a wall from the English
burial-ground. In laying out this, vast masses of rubbish had to be
removed, and a broad terrace was thus laid bare, cut oft* on the north from
the higher rock by a perpendicular escarpment. Fragments of the old
wall or the city still remained on the top of this escarpment when it
was first uncovered, and a number of hewn stones lay around. There
are, moreover, remains of a rock-hewn stair, and, as I have said, a
number of rock-hewn cisterns, with a round hole in the covering
through which the old Jebusites once drew up water. The stair
without question formed a comparatively secret way from the city
walls to the bottom of the valley.

The streets of Jerusalem, like those of all Oriental cities or towns,
are left at night in total darkness, except where a feeble lamp, hung
out by a kindly householder, sheds a glimmer for a few yards. Nor is
there any cheering light from the houses themselves, for there are no
windows except high up, and the thick lattice shuts in an^ iceble beam
there may be in a few nigher chambers. No one, therefore, can move
about without a lantern, since to do so would insure a speedy fall over
the rough stones, or headlong precipitation into some gulf; not to speak
of dangers from the town dogs, and the nameless filth of the side
streets. It is, therefore, obligatory to carry one's own light, and any-
one found abroad without a lantern after nine o'clock is at once stopped
by the turbaned curiosities who do duty as watchmen.

' The population of Jerusalem is about 80,000, who are divided and
subdivided into no fewer than twenty-four distinct religious parties,
more than half of which are Christian; the whole showing anything
rather than brotherly love to each other. It has often been a question
how the vast multitudes who in ancient times thronged to the Pass-
over, found room in a place which the configuration of the ground pre-
vented from ever being much larger than it is now; but we have, at
least, a slight help towards understanding the possibilities of an East-

pre-
e, at

XXIV.I

ROUND JERUSALEM.

885

em town in this respect, in the sights presented at Jerusalem each
Easter. Thousands of pilgrims of all the Oriental Christian national-
ities are then in the city, and at the same time vast multitudes of
Mahommedans arrive from every Moslem country, and even from India,
to pray withiu the sacred enclosure on Mount Moriah ; the object of
the institution of this counter-pilgrimage, if one may call it so, having
been, apparently, to secure the presence in the Holy City of a great
body of "true oelievers" when the Christians were assembled in force.
At these times every khan, convent, and lodging-house is crowded,
tents are pitched outside the walls, and all available spots within the
city are used for sleeping-places by the poorer pilgrims, who cook their
simple food in the open air, and lie through the night in the streets.
The open space before the Tower of David is a favorite spot for this
bivouac ; men, women, and children cowering as closely as 'they can
on its rough stones. It must have been the same in ancient Jerusalem,
but there was the great additional aid that every family opened its
rooms, and even its roofs, to pilgrims; inns being then unknown.
Besides, a convenient fiction of the Eabbis extended the sacred limits
of Jerusalem, during the feasts, as far as Bethany, so that the thous-
ands who could find no space inside the walls had ample room without
them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

,. ROUND JERUSALEM.

'L'hb Joppa Gate lay nearest to my hotel, and was, hence, that by
vviiich I commonly passed outside the walls. The Valley of Hinnom
sank, at first, very gradually, to the south-east. About 500 yards to
tlie west, upon rising ground at the side of the road to Gaza, was the
leper hospital; on the left, from its deep, broad ditch, rose a mass of
huge walls and low towers, forming the citadel, over which floated the
Turkish flag. A minaret towered up proudly beyond, while from the
gardens inside the crenelated rampart rose some olive-trees, and the
outside sloping walls of the Titanic base were feathered everywhere
with the creeping plants which in Palestine take the place of our ivy.
The whole constituted a grim, forbidding Bastille, with memories red
with blood. A broad, bare space west of it, looking dov/n the valley,
is a favorite spot for the tents of travellers. Clumps of ancient olive-
trees, growing on the open slopes, dot the gradual descent, and are in
great favor with camel-arivers for their shade, in which the beasts can

836

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CHAP.

rest, and they themselves eat their simple meals. As we descend the
>^-'" the east side, which is Mount Zion, sinks, almost at once, quite

vailt-

-i '

steeply, while on the west the slope is gentle. The prevailing color
of the barren hills is yellow, but the young springgreen of some sma'l
fields down the valley, and a sprinkling of olive-trees on the west, any
the daik foliage of the poplars rising from the Armenian gardens, over
the weather-worn city wall, soften the wildness of the view. Yet, as
Strabo said in the generation before Christ, Jerusalem is very stony,
and the environs are both barren and parclied.i The road was
enlivened with travellers of all nations — Arabs and their camels ; asses
with everv possible form of load; turbaned pedestrians; veiled women,
and pilgrims of both sexes, coming back to Jerusalem, or setting out
from it. How much men freely undergo in the hope of earning
heaven, so long as the self-denial leaves their inner lives untouched I
There were almos-. as manj' women as men among these far-travelled
visitors to the holy shrines; but while all had expended so much
"bodily exercise which protiteth little" in honor of their religion, how
many worshipped in spirit and in truti), having begun by purifying the

temple of the soul? A good many, let us hope, but yet ! Lepers

sat at the roadside begging, with their tin dishes before them for alms;
some very far gone in their malady ; others apparently as yet untouched
by it, though certaii! after a time to be as borely afflicted as the rest.
Well might one piiy them.

Passing downwards under the proud tv>wers and walls of the citadel,
one reaches a path leading to the top of Mount Zion by a steep ascent.
The summit is flat, or at most gently undulating, between the city wall
and the steep side of the hill, and, as I have before said, is in some
places turned into small fields, protected by old walls of dry stone.
Most of the surface, however, is used as the Christian cemetery, dif-
ferent strips being set apart for Latins, Greeks Armenians, and foreign-
ers, who sleep peacefully under the rubbish o.C the ancient Jerusalem.
The English Protestant cemetery is distinct from this; the former
opens from the ground of Bishop Gobat's schools, and is sacred, already,
with the rust of r.ot a few of our countrymen. Some women were
sitting beside a new grave in the larger burial-ground, weeping loudly
and almost convulsively, so that one vould have supposed them over-
whelmed with sorrow for the loss of a dear friend or relation. But it
appeared that all this to-do was only professional acting, duly hired for
so much coin, and meant no more than the groans and weeping of so
many stage damsels in a theatre. It seems strange that such simulated
grief should find a market, but is it much more unreal ihan the palls,
bands, feathers, and other hideous fripperies which our undertakers
furnish at a fixed scale of prices? At any rate it is very old. Wail-

1 strabo, Geog., p. 880, ed. 157C.

was

s«*iii?^. ;• .: •

Lower part of the Valley of Hianom. (To the right the Village of Silou.) (See page 339.)

XXIV.l

ROUND JERUSALEM.

337

ing women are the counterpart, in the primitive E:*st, of our funeral
music for the rich, or great, or good, and tlieir office is to express the
deep emotion of the survivors. The hired mourners raise their shrieks
in the house of death, in the funeral procession, and at the grave, to
which they come for seven successive mornings .o renew their lamen-
tations. One begins and the others join, with skilled dexterity of
words, tones, and attitudes. Thus it was in the house of Jairus, when
his little daughter lay dead,i and thus it was when "great lamentation"
was made over St. Stephen,^ and in all other cases where grief for the
dead is mentioned in Scripture.*

The most touching feature in burials in the East is the quickness
with which they follow death. As dissolution approaches, a sick-
chamber is still thronged, as it was in the troubled home of Jairus,
with a crowd of neighbors and friends, all frantic with grief. Mr. Mills*
mentions one case of a poor dying woman whom he visited. Her
brother supported her, and the rest pressed round, raising their hands
and bursting out into agonizing shrieks; the noise and the crowd
being themselves enough to kill her. Indeed, she died in the midst of
the tumult, just perhaps as the daughter of Jairus did. She breathed
her last about eleven in the morning, and her funeral took place at
three the same afternoon. The friends assembled at that hour and
bore away the body, which was simply shrouded in white calico, with-
out any coffin, and laid on a bier much like our own, except that it
had a high border round it to prevent the corpse from being shaken
off. The women took the foremost place in the funeral procession,
but in this case there were no hired mourners, as there are in Mahom-
raedan funerals, for the deceased was a Christian, and the real sorrow
of those who attended her to the grave needed no art to deepen the
sadness of the cries which broke continually from them. The grave
was dug without any shovel or other tool, simply by hand, with the aid
of a chance stone. As the corpse lay awaiting interment, it was still
quite warm, but a doctor, sent for by Mr. Mills, pronounced life extinct.
The grave was only about two feet deep, with a layer of stones on the
bottom and at the sides, barely leaving room enough to cover the body,
When it had been laid in its shallow bed, large stones were put across,
resting on those at the sides, so as to make a kind of coffin-Hd, to pro-
tect the dead from the small stones and earth, which were gathered
with hands and feet into a low mound over her form. She had been
full of mirth the evening before, but now ! The females, to the num-
ber of a dozen or more, remained all night at the dead woman's house,
almost continually lifting up their voices in mournful lamentations,
and early next morning went out to the grave, to sit there and weep,
as the Jews supposed Mary had done in the case of Lazarus. * This
1 Matt. Ix. U ; Mark v. 3S. 2 Acts Till. 2. S Se eunte., p. 177. 4 Mills, IftMiUt p. 168. 6 John zi. 31*

838

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Graf.

tliey continued to do for nine successive days. In the evening of the
burial-day food was prepared by neighbors and consumed in a funeral
meal by the afflicted household, who ate together. This is the coun-
terpart to the "cup of consolation " which Jeremiah speaks of, as given
to comfort mourners for the loss of their father or mother,^ and to the
"bread of men" which Ezekiel was forbidden to eat when his wife
died.2

Near the cemetery is an old Christian church, the successes of one
which stood on Mount Zion before the erection of the Church of the
Sepulchre ; that is, at least as early as 300 years after Christ's birth.
In the times of the Crusaders apparently it was rebuilt, but in its
present form it dates only from a.d. 1333, when it had come into the
hands of the Franciscans. For 300 years back, however, the Mahom-
medans have taken it into their possession, and they guard what they
think its more sacred parts with almost greater jealousy than they
show about the Mosque of Omar. The Tomb of David was one of the
holy places in the church as long ago as the reign of the Frankish
kings, and it is still claimed as a glory of the spot by its present cus-
todians, who say it is underground, and let no unbeliever see it. Prob-
ably there are ancient tombs below the present surface, but this is not
apparently the place to look for tlie tomb of the Psalmist-king. A
long, bare room, up a flight of steps in the building, is however open,
ou payment of a small fee ; its attraction being the tradition that here
Christ ate the Last Supper with His disciples. But the Jerusalem of
Christ's day, I need hardly repeat, is buried below thirty feet of
rubbish.

From the edge of the hill there is a fine view of the Sultan's Pool,
known as the traditional Lower Pool of Gihon — a huge reservoir, 245
feet broad at its upper, and 275 feet at its lower end ; 592 feet long,
and about forty feet deep. It has been made by building great dams
across the valley, but they are of very little use, as there was no water
in the pool when I saw it, though it had rained only a day or two
before. The camels and other beasts of burden, however, were the
better for the showers, for the bottom was covered with delicious fresh
green, on which some were feasting as I passed. To get down from
the cemetery, I had followed the line of some low and rough stone
walls dividing the hill-side into dift'erent properties, but it was by no
means a pleasant descent, so steep was the slope of about 100 feet. In
summer the bottom of the pool is in great request as a threshing-floor,
for which it is admirably fitted when the heat has withered up the
grass which, in spring, covers its rocky surface. The pool has, been
made by removing the earth between the lower and upper dams, across
the valley, leaving the rock in its natural state so that it slopes down

1 Jer. xvl. 7. 2 Ezek. xxlv. 17 ; 2 Sam. iii. 35 ; xii. 20.

VoUey of Hinnom. (Ancient Graves to the left, OUve Trees to the BlgW.) (See page 840.)

XXIV.J

ROUND JERUSALEM.

889

irregularly at the siaes, with a narrow channel in the middle. A road
crosses the dam at the lower end, the side walls of which are very
much broken. In the centre there is a fountain — once fed by the
aqueduct from Solomon's Pools near Bethlehem, which crosses the
valley immediately above the upper end of the pool. The pool itself
lies so low that it could only have been used to irrigate garaens lower
down the valley, though, when water-tight, it must have spread fertility
far and wide, as it would contain about 19,000,000 gallons. The dam
at the upper end is only slight. The present name of this huge reser-
voir is due to its having been repaired by Sultan Suleiman, but the
excavation id very ancient, Kobinson supposing it to be the Lower
Pool mentioned by Isaiah. Nine small arches, spanning the valley,
preserve the memory of the aqueduct which once poured its clear
waters into the great cisterns on Mount Moriah : an incalculable bene
lit to a city so naturally deficient in its water-supply. It was to repair
this artery of the common life that Pilate took funds from the Temple
treasury, and thereby roused the fury of the priests at what they were
bold enough to denounce to the ignorant multitude as a robbery of the
Church. As if the gold lying idle in the Temple vaults could have
been better used 1 Under the Turks, who do nothing for the good of
any country unfortunate enough to be under them, and leave every-
thing to go to destruction, this monument of the wise beneficence of
antiquity is of no benefit to Jerusalem.

On the western side of the pool stands a row of fine almshouses,
built within the last few years for poor Jews by their rich brethren in
the West. A garden stretches out before them, but the soil is very
rocky, and requires much labor for small results. On the brow of the
slope over the houses, and belonging to the same charity, a stone wind-
mill breaks the monotony of the view by its great, slow-circling vans.

South of the Sultan's Pool the valley leads to the east and becomes
very narrow, steep rocks forming its wall on the under side, while on
the upper side Mount Zion descends in steps like terraces, but very
steeply. Olive and almond trees cast their soft shadows over the ris-
ing green of the little stony fields in the hollow and on the rocky sides
of the hills, while on the east the walls of Jerusalem look down into
the ravine. The whole scene is beautiful in * Jo quiet repose. Yet it
was in this narrow valley, now filled with budding fruit-trees and
springing grain and sweet flowers, that the Israelites once offered their
children to Moloch, and these very rocks on each side have echoed the
screams of the innocent victims, and reverberated with the chants and
drums of the priests, raised to drown the cries of agony. It is well
called the Valley of Hinnom — " the Valley of the Groans of Chil-
dren: "^ a name which perpetuates the horror once excited by the
1 OST) 'p '; (2 Kings zxilL 10.) StrloUy, " of fhe Children ol Oroanlng."

840

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

friiAP.

scenes it witnessed; especially, it would seem, in this lower part
Here, under Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon, the hideous ox-headed human
figure of Moloch — the summer sun in his glowing and withering might
— was raised in brass or copper, with extended arms, on which were
laid, helplessly bound, tiio children given up by their parents "to pass
through the fire" to him ; a heated furnace behind the idol sending its
flames through the hollow limbs, till the innocents writhed oft' into a
burning firo beneath. Aha5i and Manasseh had set a royal example in
this horrible travesty of worship, by bun.!ng alive some of their own
ohildroi ; ^ and what kings did, commoners would be ready to (!opy.
Yet who can tell the agony of soul it must have cost a father or
mother, among a race where sons were so great a glory, to give up one
to such a death, us a religious act? How many among ourselves
would be capable of a tribute of devotion to the true God fit to be men-
tioned alongside of this, as a surrender to Him of all that the heart
loves best ?

It was not till within less than thirty years of the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Chaldseans, that the idol and its accessories were
swept away from the valley hy/ the good Josiah,^ and the place so
defiled that it could never again be desecrated by tliis frightful wor-
ship. But so deeply had the horrors of the past printed themselves
on the popular mind, that henceforth the spot bore the name of Tophet
— "the Abomination" — "the Place to be Spat upon;" and in later
times the very words Ge-Hinnom — "the "Valley of Hinnom" — sliglitly
changed into Gehenna, became the common name for hell. The
destruction of Assyria is pictured bv Isaiah as a huge funeral pile,
"deep and large," with "much wood," " prepared for the king," and
kindled by tiie breath of Jehovah, as if by "a stream of brimstone." '
Jeremiah speaks of "high places" in this valley, as if children had
been burned on different altars; and he can think of no more vivid
image of the curse impending over Jerusalem than that it should
become an abomination before God, like this accursed place.

The Hill of Evil Counsel rises on the south from the Valley of
Hinnom ; it owes its name to a tradition that the house of the nigh
priest Caiaphas, in which the leaders of the Jews resolved on the
death of our Lord, stood there. Beneath it the steep rocky sides of
the valley are pierced with a great number of tombs, showing that
this spot was used by the Jews in ancient times as a cemetery.* Some
of these sepulchres are cut into domes in the rock and ornamented,
others are mere holes for bodies, hewn in the face of the hill ; some
have many such holes dug out in the sides of a larger or smaller cham-
ber, most of the entrances to these appearing to have been closed by a

1 2 Kings xvi. 3: xxi. 6. 2 2 Kings xxiii. 10; Isa. xxx. 33; Jer. v)i. 31 : xlz. 6, U, 12, 18. 8 l8«.
xxx. 83. 4 Some tbinlc tlie toinl>9 Cliristiao.

XXIV.J

ROUND JERUSALEM.

841

;

stoiio door, turning on a socket hinae, arid secured by bolts. Wander-
ing amidst these graves, once full, but now long enn)ty, one feels liini-
self surrounded by a city of the dead, tiie beginnings of which run
back to the grey antiquity of the early Jewish Icings. Close at hand,
but a little higher up tlie valley, is a spot with the evil name of Acel-
dama — " the Field of Blood," * on which rises an old ruin thirty feet
long and twenty wide, one side partly the naked rock, the other dratled
stone, the whole forming a flat-roofed cover to a dismal house of tlie
dead. Two caverns open in the floor, their rocky sides pierced with
holes for bodies ; and galleries of tombs run into the hill from the
bottom. Holes in the roof are still seen, through which tlie corpses
were let down by ropes, and there are marks of steps by which the
tombs were entered. Here, say the local traditions, was "the Pot-
ters' Field," bought for the burial of strangers by the high priests with
the thirty pieces of silver for which our Saviour was betrayed. Clay
from around it is still used by the potters of Jerusalem.

About a hundred steps from Aceldama, Hinnom merges into another
valley running along the south side of the city. Wliere the two thus
join, the Tyropoeon or Cheese-makers' Valley, from between Mounts
Moriah and Zion, also opened out, in ancient times, on the north side
before it was filled up by the wreck of the city and Temple. In those
days both it and the Valley of Hinnom girdled Mount Zion from the
west to the south-east, where the hill descends in huge steps, here and
there rocky ; the steps plentifully strewn with stone, and pitted with
cisterns and small caves, in which the goats sleep at night, but
veiled in part bv olive, almond, and pomegranate trees. In David's
time Zion was surrounded by a wall, forming the original city ; but
under Solomon, Moriah was encircled by a second wall, and ultimately
the Tyropoeon was incorporated with the two, by a rampart across the
mouth of the valley to Ophel, tlie south-east spur of Moriah, which
sinks down from the height of the great Temple wall in several broad
shelves and steep slopes, the last of which is not more than forty feet
above the bottom of the valley. Rough, stony, and swift in its
descents, the surface is, however, diligently cultivated wherever pos-
eible— of course in a rude Oriental way. On the lower of these slopes
and terraces the Nethinim, or Temple slaves, lived in olden times,^
while on those higher up and nearer the Temple were some of the
houses of the priests.* The fortifications enclosing Ophel had grown
old in the days of Jotham and Manasseh, and were consequently
repaired, heightened, and strengthened by them,* while they were
rebuilt by Ezra and Nehemiah afler the return from Babylon, a lofty
watch-tower being added,^ the foundations of which, projecting from

1 Acta 1. 19.
2&-27.

Neb. ill. 26; xl. 21. 3 Neh. lU. 21—26. 4 2 Chron. xxvii. 3; xxxili. 14. 5 Neh Hi.

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBIJS.

(CHAP.

t;he main line of defence, have been discovered by the Palestine Fund
^xplorers.i Shafts sunk near these show how stupendous the labor
spent by the Hebrew kings on fortifying Jerusalem must have been,
for the wall is yet standing to the height of sixty-six feet below the
rubbish of ages, and the face of the hill was found to have been cut
away, where needful, into perpendicular scarps from forty to sixty feet
high.

Bounding the southern end of Ophel, and turning a little way north,
you reach the fcmous Pool of Siloam, on the western side of the valley.
It is fifty -two feet long and eigliteen wide, some piersj like flying but-
tresses, standing on its norrh side, while part of a column rises in the
middle of it. These are the remains of an old church, built over it
thirteen hundred years ago, or of a monastery, erected at a spot so
sacred, in the twelfth century. It was apparently to this pool that
Christ sent the blind man to wash his eyes,^ and the miracle which
followed naturally invested it with such peculiar sacredness that baths
were erected under the ancient church, to let the -sick have the benefits
of the wondrous stream. You go down eight ancient stone steps to
reach the water, which is used by the people lor drinking, for washihg
their not particularly clean linen, and for bathing. Everything around
is dilapidated: the stones loose, and in many cases fallen ; the approach
rough as the bottom of a quarry. At the north end a small tunnel
opens in the rock, bringing the water from the Spring of the Virgin,
which lies 1,700 feet higher up the valley. This ancient engineering
work is about two feet wide, and from two to sixteen feet in height,
with a branch cut due west from it to a shallow basin within the line
of the ancient walls, where a round shaft more than forty feet deep has
been sunk to reach it. On the top of this a great chamber hewn in
the rock, with a flight of steps leading down to it, made it possible for
the citizens, by covering over and hiding the spring outside, to cut oft"
the supply of water from an enemy, while themselves, by means of this
striking arrangement, enjoying it in safety, without leaving their
defences. A notable discovery connected with the cutting of the main
tunnel, which, as we have seen, is nearly one-third of a mile long, was
made in 1880, by a youth, while wading up its mouth. Losing his
footing, he noticed, as he was picking himself up, what looked like
letters cut in the rocky side, and these on inspection proved to be an
inscription left by the workmen, when they had finished their great
undertaking. It appears that they began at botr" e. ds, but as engin-
eering was hardly at its best three thousand year:, ago, their course
was very far from being exactly straight, windings of more than 200
yards, like the course of a river, marking their work.* There aire, in

I Eecovery qf Jenualem. 2 John ix. 7. 8 The tunnel measures 670 yards: the straight course
would haYO been only 368 yards.

.. . •-.■:- ~..ca:

Upper Fool of SUoam. (See page 841.)

XXIV.I

HOUND JERUSALEM.

343

fact, several short branches, s^iovving where the excavators found them-
selves going iu a wrong (3 lection, and abruptly stopped, to resume
work in a truer line. When at last they met they proved to be a lit-
tle on one side of each other, and had to connect their excavations by
a short side cutting. The inscription, as translated by Professor Sayoe,
is as follows: —

" Behold the excavation 1 Now this is the history of the tunnel.
While the excavators were lifting up the pick, each towards the other,
and while there were yet three cubits to be broken through. ... the
voice of one called to his neighbor, for there was an excess (?) in tlie
rock on tlie right. They rose up . . . they struck on the west of the
excavation — the excavators struck-— each to meet the other, pick to
pick. And then flowed the waters from their outlet to the Pool, for
the distance of a thousand cubits and [three-fourths?] of & cubit was
the height of the rock over the excavation here." ^ Professor Sayce
thinks that this undertaking, so wonderful for such an age and for so
small a people, dates from about the eighth century befoi-e Christ, and
Professor Mublau refers it to that of Hezekiah,* while others think it
in part, at least, a relic of the earlv inhabitants of Jerusalem before
David * The depth of the tunnel fcelow the surface, at its lowest, is
156 feet. The slope is very small, so that the water must always have
flowed with a gentle leisure from the spring to the pool : a character-
istic which reminds us of the words of Isaiah in his prophecy of the
result of Israel's allying itself with Syria, instead of trusti ng in God,
or, as he expresses it, in " the waters of Shiloah that go softly." *
This unworthy confederacy would bring on the nation the overwhelm-
ing Euphrates-flood of an Assyrian invasion, terrible to imagine as a
contrast to the placid flow of their gentle spring. The one stream was
a symbol of the peacefulness of the kingdom of God, established in
Israel ; the other, of the stormy and violent kingdoms of the world.
The present pool, into which the water still flows, was not originally,
however, the only reservoir supplied by it. The remains of four other
basins have been discovered, which were apparently once connected
with it; and a little way from it, down the valley, is an ancient
" Lower Pool," vvhich lies to the east of the upper one, but now has
its bottom overgrown with trees, the overflow from the higher pool
having for centuries trickled past it instead of fiUiiig it. This lower
pool, known as the Red Pool — from the color of the soil — is famous
for an old mulberry- tree, carefully guarded by stones, marking the spot
on which, according to tradition, the great Prophet Isaiah was sawn
asunder by Manasaeh.

The Virgin's Well, from which the whole supply comes, lies at the
bottom of two flights of stone uteps — thiity in all — broken and partly

1 Pta. FumdlUpL, 1881, p. 284. 2 Biehm, p. K78. 2 PaL JPund B/epL, 1881, p. TIL 4 Isa. VliLO.

844

THK HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Chap.

ruined, and has the glory of being the only spring rising in the Tem-
ple Mount. Its basin is about twelve feet long, and five wide, and
the bottom is covered with small stones ; but it is no longer worthy of
its fine name, for two men were bathing in it when I saw it last. The
waters have the curious feature of overflowing into the tunnel only at
intervals : from three to five times a day in rainy winter, twice a day
in summer, and only once a day in autumn, while after a dry winter
the overflow takes place only once in three or four days. Explana-
tion is easy. A deep natural basin in the interior of the rocks is fed
by numerous streamlets, but it has only one narrow outlet, which
begins near the bottom of the basin, and after rising above the top of
it af>ain descends, outwards. Whenever the stream rises to the bend
in the outlet it begins to flow through it, and continues to flow, on the
principle jf the syphon, till the water in the hidden rock-basin has
been lowered to below tlie point at which the bend commences. It is
very possible that this peculiarity marks it as the Dragon's Pool of
NehemJah ;^ popular superstition supposing that the intermittent gush
of waters was due to a gigantic water-monster in the hill, which drank
up the stream and vomited it forth, in turn. The taste of the water is
slightly salt and very unj^leasant, from its having filtered through the
vast mass of foul rubbish on which the city stands, and which has
been soaked with the sewage of many centuries. The sides of the tun-
nel are covered, to a height of about three feet, with thin red cement,
very hard, and full of pounded potsherds, and exactly like that with
which, under the name of " homrah," cisterns in Palestine are lined at
this time. The bottom is covered with a black slimy deposit, two or
three inches thick, which makes the water still worse at Siloam than
at the Virgin's Well. Still, from time to time water-carriers come to the
ore or the other to fill their water-skins ; and women, with their great
jars on their shoulders, like Hagar,^ repair to them, likewise, for their
household supply. Yet Siloam must have been far livelier than now
in the olden times, when a fine church rose over the spring, and pil-
grims bathed in a great tank beneath it. Where this was, there are
now gardens. Already, in the days of Christ, perhaps from the
thought of the healing powers of the pool as issuing from Mount
Moriah, it must have been the custom to wash in it, else the blind
man would hardly have been directed in so few words to do so.' But
even if washing was theu common, one can only hope it was a little
more thoroughly carried out than it is to-day.

South of Siloam there is an open space at the union of the Kedron,

Tyropoeon, and Hinnom valleys. Here, in ancient times, David and

Solomon had their royal gardens,^ and Jerome tells us that in his time

it still boasted of delightful gardens, watered by the Fountain of

lNeli.U.13. 2 Gen. zxi. 14. 8Johnlx.7. 4Neh.iii.l&. Jo8.iliit,vtt.l4,4i U.10,4.

I-

(Chap.

be Tern-
iride, and
orthy of
St. The
1 only at
ce a day
y winter
Sxplana-
ks is fed
t, which
e top of
;he bend
% on the
asin has
s. It is
Pool of
jnt gush
h drank
water is
ugh the
tich has
the tun-
cement,
lat with
lined at
, two or
,m than
e to the
ir great
3r their
an now
md pil-
lere are
>m the
Mount
e blind
» But
a little

[edron,
id and
is time
ain of

Si
ar
so
he
ai

k
li
t(
tl

XXIV.l

ROUND JERUSALEM.

845

Siloali.i To-day, the hollow, and even the lower slopes at the sides,
are still coveredwith gardens, watered by countless rills from the pool,
so that every bed of flowers or plants is constantly moist. Wlien the
heat of summer has burned up the landscape, till rook and soil alike
are mere yellow stone, these gardens and terraces, fed and quickened
by the never-ceasing flow, are richlv green. Such cool, refreshing
verdure, springing up in the hot montlis in the midst of universal bar-
'•''nness, must have been a delight age after age, filling the soul of the
godly Israelite of old with sweet imagery, such as the race has always
loved. It may have been from these very gardens that Jeremiah, who
lived most of his life in Jerusalem, had the touching words sugges ,ed
to him : "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope
the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that
spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat
cometh, but her leaf shall be green ; and shall not be careful in the
year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." ^ It was the
opening spring when I gave myself up to the impressions of the spot.
The mighty light filled the heavens ; Ophel and Moriah rose in long
slopes or liuge steps on the one side of the valley, and the village of
Siloam, with its flat-roofed stone houses clinging to the bare hill, on
the other; old walls of loose stone stretched, apparently without any
plan, hither and thither over the hollow of the valley ; the fruit-trees
of these regions were putting forth their fresh leaves ; the gardens
were beautiful with tender green ; the soft murmur of flowing water
carried one over land and sea to his distant home ; and as a setting to
this fair picture, there was enough of barrenness on the hills around to
heighten its charms by contrast. After the long cold mouthi.1, all the
seeds of life were quickening, at once, in the sunshine. One could
realize the description of spring in the Song of Songs : " Lo 1 tb.e winter
is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ;
the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of tbo turtle is
heard in our land."^

A short distance south of the gardens is En Rogel, " the Fountain
of the Scout," or, as the Targum has it, " the Fullar's Spring," which
Josephus tells us used to be in the king's gardens/* Its present Arab
name is " Job's Well," though the patriarch had never, of course, any
connection with it. Through how many ages it has been used by
man, may be in part realized from the fact that it is mentioned, under
the name En Rogel, in Joshua, as the boundary between the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin.^ Round this spot a very tragic history gath-
ers.* It was here that Adonijah "slew sheep and oxen and fat
cattle," and invited to the feast all his brothers, David's sons, and all

1 Oomm.inJer. vi}, 90.
<i 1 Khigs 1. 9,

2 J9r. «yf)L 7,& 9 Cant. il. U, 12. 4 Jos. AnL, vii. 14, 4. 6 '^ooh. xy. 7.

846

THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[Ghap.

the officers of his father, intending through their help to seize the
kingdom and exchide Solomon. It was only natural, that he should
have expected to reign, for after Absalom's death he was the eldest
living son of David, having been born in Hebron, before his father's
accession to the throne of Israel. Like Absalom, he was at once hand-
some and ambitious, and resembled him also in being heartless, for he
did not wait for his father's death to get the throne, but tried to sup-
plant him while he lived. Surrounded, like a king, with a body-
guard, and i'ollowed by a strong force of retainers, he fancied all would
pro.') '^r, '^ov; tliat David was sinking to 'lis death. Had he not, more-
over,, the support of J^ab, the head of tho king's fighting men, and of
Abiatliar, thg higV priest? But the energy of Nathan the prophet
spoiled the finely-contrivcfl plot, and the wassail shouts — "God save
King Adonijah 1 " — were rudely interrupte I at En Kogel by the huzzas
r the multitude at Gihon hailing Solomon as the nc monarch. That
this was their meaning was hastily told by runncs from the scene. It
was enough. The guests vanished, every man rising, in mortal terror,
and going his own way. Joab and Adonijah escaped, for the time,
through the new prince's clemency, b".t they could not leave oft' plot-
ting, and, ere long, fell victims of a new attempt to seize the throne.^
The well is lined with masonry d'nvn to the rock, and is 126 feet
deep in all, with a huge rock-hewn reservoir at the bottom, to collect
the water running over the lower hard limestone, which we have seen
so frequently elsewhere. The pit appears, indeed, to have been deep-
ened at some unknown time, for a second chamber is found, thirteen
feet above the lower one. The well is entirely dependent on the rain-
fall, but, deep though it be, it overflows after four or five days of
winter rain. During the wet winter of 1873-4 a steady brook flowed
from it, down the Kedron valley. When I saw it, it had about thirty
feet of water, and it scarcely ever quite dries up. Towards autumn,
when many cisterns in Jerusalem have but little water, and that very
bad, a great quantity is obtained from En Koge), hundreds of asses
being employed daily in carrying filled water-skms up to thf city,
which lies from 600 to 700 feet above it, on the other side of the nar-
row valley. Women and maidens, also, resort to it, and have done so
for immemorial ages, for it was by caking advantage ol this that the
faithful " wench " came and told the spies of David — Jonal'ian and
Ahimaaz, sons of the high priest— that Absalom had rejected the
counsel of Ahithophel.^ The villagers of Silcam, upon the hill to th"
north-east of the well, drive a trade of their own in carrying water , up
to the city for sale to the poorer people ; but they are a sorry set of
cheats, often filling their skins, more or less, with air. Their 'extreme
poverty is their only excuse, for they get no more th?in from a penny

) 1 Kings il. 18, ft. 2 2S^.XTim-2^

His branches shall spread, and his beauty
shall be as the olive tree and his srnell as
Lebanon. They that dwell under his
shadow shall return; tliey shall revive as
the corn and grow as the vine : the scent
thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. —
Hosea xiv. 6, 7.

Altiiough the fig tree shall not Mossom,
neither shall fruit be in the \iiies: the labor
of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall
yield no meat ; the fl(tck shall be cut off
from tlie fold, and there shall be no herd in
the stalls : Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation. —
mb. iii. 17, 18.

PWVE GROVE BELOW JOB'S WELL.

(See page 840.)

XXIV.J

ROUND JERUSALEM.

847

to sixpence for a skinful of water delivered in the city. It might
Ijave been thought that, with a valley between it and the town, tho
water would be sweet ; but, though much better than that of Siloam,
it still shows traces of sewage.

The view from En Rogel is very striking. The hills rise high, to
both east and west. On tne north, are the outlying slopes of Zion and
Moriah, with part of the city walls, overhead, and to the south the eye
follows the course of the valley to its south-eastern bend. There, the
hill, which sinks gently southwards, off'ers a pleasant view of luxuriant
olive-trees and springing fields, but the one east of the well is as rough
and barren as tne other is attractive. It bears the ominous name of
the Hill of Offence, from the belief that it was here that Solomon
built temples to Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and to
the other heathen gods of the neighboring peoples.^ The Hill of Evil
Counsel, opposite, is far less uninviting, for its slopes show patches of
grain between the outcroppings of rock, though the solitary, weird-
looking tree on its bare top is hardly a pleasant landmark.

A mass of ruinous walls, apparently very ancient, rise beside the
mouth of En Rogel, but their history is unknown. Wall-plants hang
from between the rows of large square stones in long waving festoons,
and the low roof, once resting on stone arches, has partly fallen in,
while grass and weeds cover what remains. Deep though it be, there is
no way of drawing the water except by hand, as in the case of the well
of Samaria, in the days of Christ.^ Heaps of stones once forming the
walls of an enclosure lie around, but, as we already know, the idea of
repairing any building never enters into the head of an Oriental.

The Kedron valley runs northwards, past the Mount of Offence,
which is east from it, though indeed the valley, strictly speaking,
begins only from the south-east corner of Moriah, stretching for nearly
a mile and a half, first north, with Mount Moriah on its western and
the Mount of Olives on its eastern side; then west. It is best known
has the valley of Jehoshaphat, though indeed, as it sweeps past the
Temple Hill, it is a ravine rather than a valley. Opposite Ophel,

{)ercned on a very steep and slippery scarp cut in the face of the hill,
ies the village of Silwan, or Siloam. There could hardly be a better
defence than its difficult approach, which must at all times have made
it a striking feature in the valley. Names cling age after age to the
same spots, in the East, and to this steep face of rock the villagers
may be heard still giving the name Zehweileh, "the Slippery Place,"
which seems to be- only a slight change from Zoheleth, the name for
the great "stone," or "rock," near En Rogel, close to which Adonijah
held his ill-fated banquet.^ I could not pretend to descend it, and was
glad to take an easier road down to the valley, after having looked into

\ I Kings zi. 7. 2 John iv. 11. 8 1 Kin^s {. 9,

848

THE IIULY LAND AND THE BIBLE.

[CUAP.

the village, which is a curious place, part of the inhabitants living in
large caves and tombs of groat antiquity. Tliere are sonje houses, Ijut
they are of the rudest : generally mere hovels, built at the mouths of
tombs tliat form part of tlie ancient cemetery of the Jews of which so
many remains are seen in the Valley of Ilinnom, or, possibly, of a still
n^ore ancient burial-place. Here, truly, one is face to face with anti-
quity. On one spot M. Ganneau discovered an illegible inscription
tliought to contain the words "Beth Baul." The cliff, once evidently a
quarry, rises high behind the houses and cave dwellings, so that the
village is as inaccessible from above as from below. Everything is
filthy in the extreme, even lor tlio East, and the villagers, as becomes
such a place, have a bad name for dishonesty. Very strangely, about
a hundred of them are called Men of Dibon, and form a distinct body,
apparently the descendants of a colony of Moabites sent from Dibon,
in Moul), perhaps in connection with the altar of Chemosh, built by
Solomon on tlie hill on which Siloam stands. The village may thus
mark the s[)()t where high places were built on "the Mount of Cor-
ruptiuu" for "Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians, and
for Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom
[Moloch], the abomination of the children of Ammon."^ But from
whatever stock they are derived, the villagers are as industrious as
they are churlish or given to larceny. I noticed two or three poor
little oxen which had been let out to pick what they could get from
between the stones on the steep hill-side : a rare sight in Palestine.
A goatherd was playing on his monotonous reed pipe before his black
flock, as they followed him along the side of Mount Moriah. A bare-
legged, turbaned figure, in a loose white shirt, was guiding a primitive
plough : one hand on its handle ; the other holding a long goad, like a
clumsy fishing-rod, with which to quicken the speed of his slow oxen.
Near En Rogel some sheep were grazing. The Siloam poultry
scratched the dust before the hovels of their owners, and crowed
lustily against others at a distance. Some women in blue cotton
passed with baskets of vegetables on their heads, and a knot of idlers
gossiped under the shade of a fig-tree. A picture, one could not help
thinking, of how it must have been in ancient Israel.

Making m}'^ way down the steep path, I crossed over to the Virgin's
Fountain, to remind myself of the fantastic legend from which the
place takes its name — that here the Virgin washed the swaddling-
clothes of our Lord — and to listen once more to the murmur of the
water, and then went down the two flights of steps to the opening of
the tunnel which conducts it to Siloam, the favorite bathing-place of
the men and boys of the neighborhood.
12Klngsxxlii.l8.

- ■,_,^„ttiimliimi

BuliiB of SUoam seeo from Jaoob^s Tomb. (See page 8I7>)