around the city where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the words: “Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28). These hours, with what time I had already spent here, enabled me to see several places of interest. Tradition points out many places connected with the lives of Joseph and Mary, but tradition is not always reliable, for it sometimes happens that the Greeks and the Romans each have a different location for the same event. This is true with regard to the point where the angry people were about to throw Jesus over “the brow of the hill” (Luke 4:29). I saw no place that struck me as being the one referred to in the Scriptures, and in reply to an inquiry, a lady at the English Orphanage, who has spent twenty years in Nazareth, said she thought it was some place on that side of the town, but the contour of the hill had probably changed. She also mentioned that the relics taken out in excavations were all found on that side, indicating that the old city had been built there. When Brother McGarvey visited Palestine, he found two places that corresponded somewhat with Luke’s reference to the place. Concerning one of them he wrote: “I am entirely satisfied that here is where the awful attempt was made.” I was shown the “place of annunciation” in the Latin monastery. On the top of a column stands the figure of a female, probably representing the Virgin, and a bit of ruin that is said to date back to the time of Constantine is pointed out. Here, I was told, stood the first church building erected in Nazareth. One of the “brothers” took the key and went around to a building supposed to stand on the site of Joseph’s carpenter shop. It is a small chapel, built about 1858 over the ruins of some older structure. In the floor of marble or stone there are two wooden trapdoors, which are raised to show the ruins below. Over the altar in the end opposite the door is a picture to represent the holy family, and there are some other pictures in different parts of the little chapel. From here I went to the Virgin’s Fountain. If it be true that this is the only spring in Nazareth, then I have no doubt that I was near the spot frequently visited by the Nazarene maid who became the mother of our Lord. I say near the spot, for the masonry where the spring discharges is about a hundred yards from the fountain, which is now beneath the floor of a convent. The water flows out through the wall by two stone spouts, and here the women were crowded around, filling their vessels or waiting for their turn. The flow was not very strong, and this helps to explain why so many women were there before daylight the morning I went to Tiberias. I saw one woman, who was unable to get her vessel under the stream of one of the spouts, drawing down a part of the water by sticking a leaf against the end of the spout. I also visited some of the bazaars and went to the Orphanage. This missionary institution is nicely situated in a prominent place well up on the hill, and is managed entirely by women, but a servant is kept to do outside work. They treated me very kindly, showing me about the building, and when the girls came in to supper they sang “the Nazareth Hymn” for me.
One of the occupations of the people here is manufacturing a knife with goat horn handles that is commonly seen in Palestine. Many of the women go about the streets with their dresses open like a man’s shirt when unbuttoned, exposing their breasts in an unbecoming manner. The same is true of many women in Jerusalem. About one-third of the mixed population are Jews; the other two-thirds are Mohammedans and professing Christians, made up of Orthodox Greeks, United Greeks, Roman Catholics, Maronites (a branch of the Greek Church), and Protestants. I went back to Haifa and spent a night. The next morning I boarded the Austrian ship _Juno_ for Jaffa. When I first landed here I had trouble with the boatman, because he wanted me to pay him more than I had agreed to pay, and on this occasion I again had the same difficulty, twice as much being demanded at the ship as was agreed upon at the dock; but I was firm and won my point both times. While in Galilee I had crossed the province from sea to sea; I had visited the city in which Jesus spent the greater part of his earth life, and the sea closely connected with several important things in his career. I had ascended Carmel, and from the top of Tabor I had taken an extensive view of the land, and now I was satisfied to drop down the coast and enter Judaea.
CHAPTER V.
SIGHT-SEEING IN JERUSALEM.
Before leaving the ship at Jaffa I was talking with Mr. Ahmed, a gentleman from India, who had spent some time in Egypt, and had traveled extensively. He claimed to be a British subject, and was able to speak several languages. While we were arranging to go ashore together, one of the many boatmen who had come out to the ship picked up my suit-case while my back was turned, and the next thing I saw of it he was taking it down the stairs to one of the small boats. By some loud and emphatic talk I succeeded in getting him to put it out of one boat into another, but he would not bring it back. Mr. Ahmed and I went ashore with another man, whom we paid for carrying us and our baggage. I found the suit-case on the dock, and we were soon in the custom house, where my baggage and passport were both examined, but Mr. Ahmed escaped having his baggage opened by paying the boatman an additional fee. As we arrived in Jaffa too late to take the train for Jerusalem that day, we waited over night in the city from whence Jonah went to sea so long ago. We lodged at the same hotel and were quartered in the same room. This was the first and only traveling companion I had on the whole journey, and I was a little shy. I felt like I wanted some pledge of honorable dealing from my newly formed acquaintance, and when he expressed himself as being a British subject, I mentioned that I was an American and extended my hand, saying: “Let us treat each other right.” He gave me his hand with the words: “Species man, species man!” He meant that we both belonged to the same class of beings, and should, therefore, treat each other right, a very good reason indeed. A long time before, in this same land, Abraham had expressed himself to Lot on a similar line in these words: “Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we are brethren” (Gen. 13:8). On Saturday we moved our baggage over to the depot and boarded the train for Jerusalem. On the way to the depot an old gentleman, whom I would have guessed to be a German, passed me. When I entered the car it was my lot to ride by him. He learned that I had been to Bristol, England, and had visited the orphan homes founded by George Muller, and he remarked: “You are a Christian, then.” He probably said this because he thought no other would be interested in such work. It developed that he was a converted Jew, and was conducting a mission for his people in the Holy City. Without telling him my position religiously, I inquired concerning different points, and found his faith and mine almost alike. This new acquaintance was D.C. Joseph, whose association I also enjoyed after reaching Jerusalem.
It was late in the afternoon of October ninth when we got off the train at the Jerusalem station, which is so situated that the city can not be seen from that point. By the time we had our baggage put away in a native hotel outside the city walls it was dark. We then started out to see if there was any mail awaiting me. First we went to the Turkish office, which was reached by a flight of dark stairs. Mr. Ahmed went up rather slowly. Perhaps he felt the need of caution more than I did. According to my recollection, they handed us a candle, and allowed us to inspect the contents of a small case for the mail. We found nothing, so we made our way down the dark stairway to the German office, situated on the ground floor, nicely furnished and properly lighted, but there was no mail there for me, as mail from America goes to the Austrian office, inside the Jaffa gate.
The next day was Lord’s day, and for the time being I ceased to be a tourist and gave myself up mainly to religious services. I first attended the meeting conducted by Bro. Joseph at the mission to Israel. It was the first service I had attended, and the first opportunity that had come to me for breaking bread since I left London, the last of August. After this assembly of four persons was dismissed, I went to the services of the Church of England and observed their order of worship. The minister was in a robe, and delivered a really good sermon of about fifteen minutes’ duration, preceded by reading prayers and singing praise for about an hour. By invitation, I took dinner with Miss Dunn, an American lady, at whose house Bro. Joseph was lodging. As she had been in Jerusalem fifteen years and was interested in missionary work, I enjoyed her company as well as her cooking. After dinner I went to a little iron-covered meeting-house called the “tabernacle,” where a Mr. Thompson, missionary of the Christian Alliance, of Nyack, New York, was the minister. At the close of the Sunday-school a gentleman asked some questions in English, and the native evangelist, Melki, translated them into Arabic. By request of Mr. Thompson, I read the opening lesson and offered prayer, after which he delivered a good address on the great, coming day, and at the close the Lord’s Supper was observed. I understood that they did this once a month, but it is attended to weekly at the mission where I was in the morning. At the tabernacle I made the acquaintance of Mr. Stanton, a Methodist minister from the States; Mr. Jennings, a colored minister from Missouri, and Mr. Smith, an American gentleman residing in Jerusalem. There was another meeting in the tabernacle at night, but I staid at the hotel and finished some writing to be sent off to the home land.
Monday was a big day for me. Mr. Ahmed and I went down inside the Jaffa gate and waited for Mr. Smith, who was our guide, Mr. Jennings, and a Mr. Michelson, from California. Mr. Smith had been a farmer in America, but had spent three years at Jerusalem and Jericho. He was well acquainted with the country, and we could depend upon what he told us. Add to all this the fact that he went around with us without charge, and it will be seen that we were well favored. On this Monday morning we started out to take a walk to Bethany, the old home of that blessed family composed of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. We passed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, walked along the street called the Via Dolorosa, and saw several of the “stations” Jesus is supposed to have passed on the way to the execution on Calvary. We passed the traditional site of the “house of the rich man,” the “house of the poor man,” and the Temple Area. After passing the Church of St. Anne, we went out of the city through St. Stephen’s gate, and saw the Birket Sitti Mariam, or Pool of Lady Mary, one hundred feet long, eighty-five feet wide, and once twenty-seven and a half feet deep. It is supposed that Stephen was led through the gate now bearing his name and stoned at a point not far distant. Going down the hill a few rods, we came to the Church of St. Mary, a building for the most part underground. It is entered by a stairway nineteen feet wide at the top, and having forty-seven steps leading to the floor thirty-five feet below. We went down, and in the poorly lighted place we found some priests and others singing or chanting, crossing themselves, kissing a rock, and so on. This church probably gets its name from the tradition that the mother of Jesus was buried here. Just outside the church is a cavern that is claimed by some to be the place of Christ’s agony, and by others, who may have given the matter more thought, it is supposed to be an old cistern, or place for storing olive oil or grain. Perhaps I would do well to mention here that tradition has been in operation a long time, and the stories she has woven are numerous indeed, but often no confidence can be placed in them. I desire to speak of things of this kind in such a way as not to mislead my readers. It was near this church that I saw lepers for the first time. The valley of the Kidron is the low ground lying between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. The water flows here only in the wet part of the year. Crossing this valley and starting up the slope of the Mount of Olives, we soon come to a plot of ground inclosed by a high stone wall, with a low, narrow gateway on the upper side. This place is of great interest, as it bears the name “Garden of Gethsemane,” and is probably the spot to which the lowly Jesus repaired and prayed earnestly the night before his execution, when his soul was “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” It is really a garden, filled with flowers, and olive trees whose trunks, gnarled and split, represent them as being very old, but it is not to be supposed that they are the same trees beneath which Jesus prayed just before Judas and “the band of soldiers and officers” came out to arrest him. There is a fence inside the wall, leaving a passageway around the garden between the wall and the fence. Where the trees reach over the fence a woven-wire netting has been fixed up, to keep the olives from dropping on the walk, where tourists could pick them up for souvenirs. The fruit of these old trees is turned into olive oil and sold, and the seeds are used in making rosaries. At intervals on the wall there are pictures representing the fourteen stations Jesus passed as he was being taken to the place of crucifixion. This garden is the property of the Roman Catholics, and the Greeks have selected another spot, which they regard as the true Gethsemane, just as each church holds a different place at Nazareth to be the spot where the angry Nazarenes intended to destroy the Savior.
Leaving the garden, we started on up the slope of Olivet, and passed the fine Russian church, with its seven tapering domes, that shine like the gold by which they are said to be covered. It appears to be one of the finest buildings of Jerusalem. As we went on, we looked back and had a good view of the Kidron valley and the Jews’ burial place, along the slope of the mountain, where uncounted thousands of Abraham’s descendants lie interred. Further up toward the summit is the Church of the Lord’s Prayer, a building erected by a French princess, whose body is now buried within its walls. This place is peculiar on account of at least two things. That portion of Scripture commonly called “the Lord’s prayer” is here inscribed on large marble slabs in thirty-two different languages, and prayer is said to be offered here continually. There is another church near the Damascus gate, where two “sisters” are said to be kneeling in prayer at all hours. I entered the beautiful place at different times, and always found it as represented, but it should not be supposed that the same women do all the praying, as they doubtless have enough to change at regular intervals. The Church of the Creed is, according to a worthless tradition, the place where the apostles drew up “the creed.” It is under the ground, and we passed over it on the way to the Church of the Lord’s Prayer. The Mount of Olives is two thousand seven hundred and twenty-three feet above sea level, and is about two hundred feet higher than Mount Moriah. From the summit a fine view of Jerusalem and the surrounding country may be obtained. The Russians have erected a lofty stone tower here. After climbing the spiral stairway leading to the top of it, one is well rewarded by the extensive view. Looking out from the east side, we could gaze upon the Dead Sea, some twenty miles away, and more than four thousand feet below us. We visited the chambers called the “Tombs of the Prophets,” but the name is not a sufficient guarantee to warrant us in believing them to be the burial places of the men by whom God formerly spoke to the people. On the way to Bethany we passed the reputed site of Beth-page (Mark 11:1), and soon came to the town where Jesus performed the great miracle of raising Lazarus after he had been dead four days. (John 11:1-46.) The place pointed out as the tomb corresponds to the Scripture which says “It was a cave” where they laid him. Twenty-six steps lead down to the chamber where his body is said to have lain when the “blessed Redeemer” cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” Whether this is the exact spot or not, it is probably a very ancient cave. One writer claims that it is as old as the incident itself, and says these rock-cut tombs are the oldest landmarks of Palestine. Tradition points out the home of Lazarus, and there is a portion of an old structure called the Castle of Lazarus, which Lazarus may never have seen. Bethany is a small village, occupied by a few Mohammedan families, who dislike the “Christians.” On the rising ground above the village stands a good modern stone house, owned by an English lady, who formerly lived in it, but her servant, a Mohammedan, made an effort to cut her throat, and almost succeeded in the attempt. Naturally enough, the owner does not wish to live there now, so we found the building in the care of a professing Christian, who treated us with courtesy, giving us a good, refreshing drink, and permitting us to go out on the roof to look around.
From this point we turned our footsteps toward Jerusalem, “about fifteen furlongs off”–that is, about two miles distant. (John 11:18.) When we reached the lower part of the slope of Olivet, where the tombs of departed Jews are so numerous, Mr. Michelson and Mr. Jennings went on across the Kidron valley and back to their lodging places, while Mr. Ahmed, Mr. Smith and I went down to Job’s well, in the low ground below the city. The Tower of Absalom, the Tomb of James, and the Pyramid of Zachariah were among the first things we saw. They are all burial places, but we can not depend upon them being the actual tombs of those whose names they bear. The first is a peculiar monument nineteen and one-half feet square and twenty-one feet high, cut out of the solid rock, and containing a chamber, which may be entered by crawling through a hole in the side. On the top of the natural rock portion a structure of dressed stone, terminating in one tapering piece, has been erected, making the whole height of the monument forty-eight feet. The Jews have a custom of pelting it with stones on account of Absalom’s misconduct, and the front side shows the effect of their stone-throwing. The Grotto of St. James is the traditional place of his concealment from the time Jesus was arrested till his resurrection. The Pyramid of Zachariah is a cube about thirty feet square and sixteen feet high, cut out of the solid rock, and surmounted by a small pyramid. It has many names cut upon it in Hebrew letters, and there are some graves near by, as this is a favorite burial place. Some of the bodies have been buried between the monument and the wall around it in the passage made in cutting it out of the rock. Going on down the valley, we have the village of Siloam on the hill at our left, and on the other side of the Kidron, the southeastern part of the Holy City. St. Mary’s Well is soon reached. This spring, which may be the Gihon of 1 Kings 1:33, is much lower than the surface of the ground, the water being reached by two flights of stairs, one containing sixteen steps, the other fourteen. The spring is intermittent, and flows from three to five times daily in winter. It flows twice a day in summer, but in the autumn it only flows once in the day. When I was there, the spring was low, and two Turkish soldiers were on duty to preserve order among those who came to get water.
The Pool of Siloam, fifty-two feet long and eighteen feet wide, is farther down the valley. The spring and the pool are about a thousand feet apart, and are connected by an aqueduct through the hill, which, owing to imperfect engineering, is seventeen hundred feet long. From a Hebrew inscription found in the lower end of this passageway it was learned that the excavation was carried on from both ends. A little below the Pool of Siloam the valley of the Kidron joins the valley of Hinnom, where, in ancient times, children were made “to pass through the fire to Moloch” (2 Kings 23:10). Job’s Well, perhaps the En Rogel, on the northern border of Judah (Joshua 15:7), is rectangular in shape and one hundred and twenty-three feet deep. Sometimes it overflows, but it seldom goes dry. When I saw it, no less than six persons were drawing water with ropes and leather buckets. The location of Aceldama, the field of blood, has been disputed, but some consider that it was on the hill above the valley of Hinnom. There are several rock-cut tombs along the slope of the hill facing the valley of Hinnom, and some of them are being used as dwelling places. The Moslems have charge of a building outside the city walls, called David’s Tomb, which they guard very carefully, and only a portion of it is accessible to visitors. Near this place a new German Catholic church was being erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars. We entered the city by the Zion gate, and passed the Tower of David, a fortification on Mount Zion, near the Jaffa gate.
On the ship coming down from Beyrout I had a conversation with a man who claimed to have been naturalized in the United States, and to have gone to Syria to visit his mother, but, according to his story, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Turks. After being mistreated in the filthy prison for some time, he secured his release by bribing a soldier to post a letter to one of the American authorities. He expressed a desire to visit Jerusalem, but seemed afraid to get back into Turkish territory. Learning that I was going there, he wrote a letter to the Armenian Patriarch, and I presented it one day. In a few minutes Mr. Ahmed and I were led into the large room where the Patriarch was seated in his robe and peculiar cap. Meeting a dignitary of the Armenian Church was a new experience to me. I shook hands with him; Mr. Ahmed made some signs and sat down. In the course of our limited conversation he said rather slowly: “I am very old.” Replying to a question, he informed me that his age was eighty years. I was on the point of leaving, but he hindered me, and an attendant soon came in with some small glasses of wine and a little dish of candy. The Patriarch drank a glass of wine, and I took a piece of the candy, as also did Mr. Ahmed, and then we took our leave.
The eleventh day of October, which was Tuesday, was occupied with a trip to Hebron, described in another chapter devoted to the side trips I made from Jerusalem, but the next day was spent in looking around the Holy City. Early in the morning the Mamilla Pool, probably the “upper pool” of 2 Kings 18:17, was seen. One author gives the dimensions of this pool as follows: Length, two hundred and ninety-one feet; breadth, one hundred and ninety-two feet; depth, nineteen feet. It is filled with water in the rainy season, but was empty when I saw it. Entering the city by the Jaffa gate, I walked along David and Christian Streets, and was shown the Pool of Hezekiah, which is surrounded by houses, and was supplied from the Mamilla Pool.
The next place visited was that interesting old building, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where our Lord is supposed to have been buried in Joseph’s new tomb. Jerusalem has many things of great interest, but some few things are of special interest. The Temple Area and Calvary are of this class. I am sure my readers will want to know something of each, and I shall here write of the latter. No doubt the spot where Jesus was crucified and the grave in which he was buried were both well known to the brethren up to the destruction of the city in the year seventy. Before this awful calamity the Christians made their escape, and when they returned they “would hardly recognize the fallen city as the one they had left; the heel of the destroyer had stamped out all semblance of its former glory. For sixty years it lay in ruins so complete that it is doubtful if there was a single house that could be used as a residence; during these years its history is a blank.” There is no mention of the returned Christians seeking out the site of either the crucifixion or burial, and between A.D. 120 and A.D. 136 Hadrian reconstructed the city, changing it to a considerable extent, and naming it Aelia Capitolina. This would tend to make the location of Calvary more difficult. Hadrian built a temple to Venus, probably on the spot now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Eusebius, writing about A.D. 325, speaks of Constantine’s church built on the site of this temple. It is claimed that Hadrian’s heathen temple was erected to desecrate the place of Christ’s entombment, and that Constantine’s church, being erected on the site of the temple, and regarded as the place called Calvary, fixes this as the true site; but whether the church and temple were on the same site or not, the present church stands where the one built by Constantine stood, and is regarded by the mass of believers as the true location.
Constantine’s church stood two hundred and eighty years, being destroyed by Chosroes II., of Persia, in A.D. 614, but was soon succeeded by another structure not so grand as its predecessor. In 1010, in the “reign of the mad caliph Hakem,” the group of churches was entirely destroyed, and the spot lay desolate for thirty years, after which another church was erected, being completed in eight years. This building was standing in 1099, the time of the Crusaders, but was destroyed by fire in 1808. This fire “consumed many of the most sacred relics in the church. Marble columns of great age and beauty crumbled in the flames. The rich hangings and pictures were burned, along with lamps and chandeliers and other ornaments in silver and gold. The lead with which the great dome was lined melted, and poured down in streams.” The building now standing there was finished in 1810 at a cost of nearly three millions of dollars, one-third of this, it is said, being expended in lawsuits and Mohammedan bribes. It is the property of several denominations, who adorn their separate chapels to suit themselves.
The church is entered from a court having two doors or gates. Worshipers pass through the court, and stop at the left-hand side of the door and kiss the marble column, which clearly shows the effect of this practice. Just inside of the building there is a guard, composed of members of the oldest Mohammedan family in the city. The reader may wonder why an armed guard should be kept in a church house, but such a reader has not seen or read of all the wickedness that is carried on in the support of sectarianism. Concerning this guard, which, at the time of the holy fire demonstration, is increased by several hundred soldiers, Edmund Sherman Wallace, a former United States Consul in this city, says in his “Jerusalem the Holy”: “This Christian church has a Moslem guard, whose duty it is to keep peace among the various sects who profess belief in the Prince of Peace. * * * It is a sickening fact that Moslem brute force must compel Christians to exercise, not charity toward each other, but common decency and decorum. But it is a fact nevertheless, and will remain apparent to all so long as priestcraft takes the place of New Testament Christianity and superstition supplants religion.”
A little beyond this guard is the “Stone of Unction,” upon which many believe Jesus was prepared for burial, but the original stone for which this claim was made is not now visible, being covered with the present slab to keep it from being worn out by the kissing of pious pilgrims. It is eight and a half feet long and four feet wide. Pilgrims sometimes bring the goods for their burial robes here and measure them by this stone. Some large candles stand by it, and above it are eight fine lamps, belonging to the Greek and Roman Catholics, the Copts, and Armenians. Not far away is a small stone, which I understood was called the place where the women watched the preparation by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. (John 19:38-42.)
In the center of the rotunda, with its entrance facing the east, is the Chapel of the Sepulcher, the holiest place in all this holy building. Passing through the small door, the visitor finds himself in the Chapel of the Angels, a very small room, where a piece of stone, said to have been rolled away from the grave by the angels, is to be seen. Stooping down, the visitor passes through a low opening and enters the Chapel of the Sepulcher proper, a room only six and a half feet long and six feet wide. The “tomb” is at the right hand of the entrance, occupying about half of the floor, above which it rises two feet. It is covered with marble, so that even if this were the very spot where the Lord and Savior was laid by the hands of kind friends, the modern visitor would not know what it looked like when that event took place. The little chapel, capable of accommodating about six people at a time, contains some pictures and forty-three silver lamps, the property of the Copts, Armenians, Greek and Roman Catholics. A priest stands on guard, so that no damage may be done to any part of the place.
The Greek chapel, the largest, and to my notion the finest that I saw, is just in front of the sepulcher. From its having two sections and a partition, I was reminded of the tabernacle of the wilderness journey. Services were being conducted once while I was there, and I saw the Patriarch and others, gorgeously robed, going through with a service that was at least spectacular, if not spiritual. At one point in the exercises those participating came down close to where I was standing, passed around the spot designated “the center of the world,” and went back again to the farther end of the richly ornamented room. One of the priests, with hair reaching down on his shoulders, bore a silver vessel, which I suppose contained burning incense. The long hair, beautiful robes, the singing, praying, and such things, made up a service that reminded me of the days of Solomon and the old priesthood.
The demonstration of the “holy fire” takes place in this church once a year, and there are thousands who believe that the fire passed out from the Chapel of the Angels really comes from heaven. This occurs on the Saturday afternoon preceding Easter, and the eager, waiting throng, a part of which has been in the building since the day before, soon has its hundreds of little candles lighted. As the time for the appearance of the fire approaches the confusion becomes greater. Near the entrance to the sepulcher a group of men is repeating the words: “This is the tomb of Jesus Christ;” not far from them others are saying: “This is the day the Jew mourns and the Christian rejoices;” others express themselves in the language: “Jesus Christ has redeemed us;” and occasionally “God save the Sultan” can be heard.
Mr. Wallace, from whose book the foregoing items are gleaned, in telling of a fight which took place at one stage of the service, describes it as “a mass of wriggling, struggling, shrieking priests and soldiers, each apparently endeavoring to do all the possible injury to whomever he could reach. * * * But the fight went on. Greek trampled on Armenian, and Armenian on Greek, and Turk on both. Though doing his very best, the commanding officer seemed unable to separate the combatants. The bugle rang out time after time, and detachment after detachment of soldiers plunged into the melee. * * * This went on for fifteen minutes. Just how much damage was done nobody will ever know. There were a number of bruised faces and broken heads, and a report was current that two pilgrims had died from injuries received.” This disgraceful and wicked disturbance is said to have been brought about by the Armenians wanting two of their priests to go with the Greek Patriarch as far as the Chapel of the Angels. And it is furthermore said that the defeat of the Armenians was brought about, to some extent at least, by the muscular strength of an American professional boxer and wrestler, whom the Greeks had taken along in priestly garb as a member of the Patriarch’s bodyguard. It is not surprising that Mr. Wallace has written: “The Church of the Holy Sepulcher gives the non-Christian world the worst possible illustration of the religion of Him in whose name it stands.”
As I was going through the city, I saw a camel working an olive press. The poor blindfolded animal was compelled to walk in a circle so small that the outside trace was drawn tightly over its leg, causing irritation; but seeing the loads that are put upon dumb brutes, and men too, sometimes, one need not expect much attention to be given to the comfort of these useful servants. Truly, there is great need for the refining, civilizing, and uplifting influence of the gospel here in the city where it had its earliest proclamation. I also visited two grist mills operated by horses on a treadmill, which was a large wooden wheel turned on its side, so the horses could stand on it. I was not pleased with the nearness of the manure in one of these mills to the material from which the “staff of life” is made.
The German Protestant Church of the Redeemer is a fine structure on the Muristan, completed in 1898. The United States consulate is near the Austrian postoffice inside of the Jaffa gate. I went there and rested awhile, but saw the consul, Selah Merrill, at his hotel, where I also met Mrs. Merrill, and formed a favorable opinion of both of them. Here I left my belt, checks, and surplus money in the care of the consul.
Continuing my walk on Wednesday, I passed one of the numerous threshing floors of the country. This one was the face of a smooth rock, but they are often the ground on some elevated spot, where a good breeze can be had to blow away the chaff, for the grain is now threshed and cleaned by the primitive methods of long ago. After the grain has been tramped out (1 Cor. 9:9), the straw, now worn to chaff, is piled up, and when a favorable wind blows, a man tosses it in the air with a wooden fork. The grain falls in a pile at his feet and the chaff is carried aside some distance. When this operation has been carried on as long as is profitable, the wheat and what chaff remains in it are thrown into the air with a wooden shovel, called in our Bibles a “fan.” (Matt. 3:12.) The final cleaning is done by washing the grain, or with a sieve.
The Tombs of the Kings, which may never have contained a king, are extensive and interesting. They are surrounded by a wall, and to reach them the visitor must go down a very wide stairway. The steps probably do not number more than twenty-five, but the distance from one side of the stairs to the other is twenty-seven feet. There are channels cut in the rock to carry the water that comes down these steps to the cisterns, two in number, one of which is a good-sized room cut in the rock at the side of the stairway. It contained about three feet of water when I saw it, although there had been no rain in Jerusalem for half a year. The other one, at the bottom of the stairs, is much larger, and was empty. The vaulted roof is supported by a column, and there are steps leading from one level of the floor to another.
Turning to the left at the foot of the big stairway, we passed through an arch cut through the rock into a court made by excavating the earth and stone to a depth of perhaps twenty feet. It is ninety feet long and eighty-one feet wide. The entrance to the tombs is by a vestibule cut in the rock at one side of the court, and it appears that this once had a row of pillars along the front, like veranda posts. We went down a few steps and stooped low enough to pass through an opening about a yard high. Beyond this we found ourselves in a good-sized room, cut in the solid rock. There are five of these rooms, and so far as the appearance is concerned, one might suppose they had been made in modern times, but they are ancient. The bodies were usually buried in “pigeon-holes” cut back in the walls of the rooms, but there are some shelf tombs, which are sufficiently described in their name. One room seems never to have been completed, but there are burial places here for about forty people.
One of the interesting things about these tombs is the rolling stone by which they were closed. It is a round rock, resembling a millstone. The height is a little over three feet and a half, and the thickness sixteen inches. It stands in a channel cut for the purpose, but was rolled forward before the entrance when it was desirable to have the tombs closed. When Jesus was buried, a “great stone” was rolled to the mouth of the sepulcher, and the women thought of this as they went to the tomb on the first day of the week, saying: “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb?” (Mark 16:3.) They went on and found the tomb open; so, also, we may often find the stone rolled away if we will go forward in the discharge of our duties, instead of sitting down to mourn at the thought of something in the distance which seems too difficult.
On our way to the tombs just mentioned, we passed the American Colony, a small band of people living together in a rather peculiar manner, but they are not all Americans. I understood that there had been no marriages among them for a long time until a short while before I was in Jerusalem. Some of them conduct a good store near the Jaffa gate. We passed an English church and college and St. Stephen’s Church on the way to Gordon’s Calvary. This new location of the world’s greatest tragedy is a small hill outside the walls on the northern side of the city. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands on ground which for fifteen hundred years has been regarded as the true site of our Lord’s death and burial, but since Korte, a German bookseller, visited the city in 1738, doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of the tradition. Jesus “suffered without the gate” (Heb. 13:12), and “in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was man never yet laid” (John 19:41), and it appears to have been near a public road. (Mark 15:29.) In 1856 Edward Robinson, an American, offered proof that the site sustained by the old tradition was inside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion, and more recent discoveries, made in excavating, confirm his proof. The new Calvary meets the requirements of the above mentioned scriptures, and gets its name “Gordon’s Calvary,” from the fact that General Gordon wrote and spoke in favor of this being the correct location, and a photographer attached his name to a view of the place. In the garden adjoining the new Calvary I visited a tomb, which some suppose to be the place of our Lord’s burial.
On the way back to my lodging place we passed the Damascus gate, the most attractive of all the old city gates, and one often represented in books. It was built or repaired in 1537, and stands near an older gateway that is almost entirely hidden by the accumulated rubbish of centuries, only the crown of the arch now showing. As we went on we passed the French Hospice, a fine modern building, having two large statues on it. The higher one represents the Virgin and her child, the other is a figure of the Savior. The Catholic church already mentioned, where two sisters are to be seen in prayer at all times, is near the Hospice. It is a rather impressive sight to stand in this beautiful but silent place, and see those women in white robes kneeling there almost as motionless as statues.
Thursday and a part of Friday was taken up with a trip to Jericho, but we got back in time to spend the afternoon in looking around Jerusalem, and we had an interesting visit to the home of Mrs. Schoenecke, a German lady, whose father, named Schick, spent fifty-six years of his life in Jerusalem. From what information Mr. Schick could gather from the Bible, Josephus, the Talmud, and his personal observations during the time the Palestine Exploration Fund was at work, he constructed large models of the ancient temples that stood on Mount Moriah from the days of Solomon to the time of Herod and Christ. I was told that the original models were sold to an American college for five thousand dollars. Mr. Schick then constructed the models shown to us, and explained by Mrs. Schoenecke. We were also shown a model of the tabernacle used while Israel was marching to the promised land.
The Wailing Place is a rectangle one hundred feet long by fifteen feet wide on the outside of the Temple Area, on the western side, where the wall is about sixty feet high. Some of the stones in this section are of large size, and authorities admit that they are of Solomon’s time, but the wall in which they now stand may be a reconstruction. The Jews come here on the Sabbath, beginning at sundown on Saturday, for a service which one author describes as follows: “Nearest to him stood a row of women clad in robes of spotless white. Their eyes were bedimmed with weeping, and tears streamed down their cheeks as they sobbed aloud with irrepressible emotion. Next to the women stood a group of Pharisees–Jews from Poland and Germany. * * * The old hoary-headed men generally wore velvet caps edged with fur, long love-locks or ringlets dangling on their thin cheeks, and their outer robes presented a striking contrast of gaudy colors. Beyond stood a group of Spanish Jews. * * * Besides these there are Jews from every quarter of the world, who had wandered back to Jerusalem that they might die in the city of their fathers, and be buried in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, under the shadow of the Temple Hill. The worshipers gradually increased in number until the crowd thronging the pavement could not be fewer than two hundred. It was an affecting scene to notice their earnestness; some thrust their hands between the joints of the stones, and pushed into the crevices, as far as possible, little slips of paper, on which were written, in the Hebrew tongue, short petitions addressed to Jehovah. Some even prayed with their mouths thrust into the gaps, where the weather-beaten stones were worn away at the joints. * * * The congregation at the Wailing Place is one of the most solemn gatherings left to the Jewish Church, and, as the writer gazed at the motley concourse, he experienced a feeling of sorrow that the remnants of the chosen race should be heartlessly thrust outside the sacred inclosure of their fathers’ holy temple by men of an alien race and an alien creed.” So far as I know, all writers give these worshipers credit for being sincere, but on the two occasions when I visited the place, I saw no such emotion as described in the foregoing quotation. The following lines are often rehearsed, the leader reading one at a time, after which the people respond with the words: “We sit in solitude and mourn.”
“For the place that lies desolate;
For the place that is destroyed;
For the walls that are overthrown; For our majesty that is departed;
For our great men who lie dead;
For the precious stones that are buried; For the priests who have stumbled;
For our kings who have despised Him.”
This solemn practice has been observed for about twelve hundred years, but the same place may not have been used all the time. “She is become a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary! Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing” (Lam. 1: 1, 8).
On Friday evening we entered some of the many synagogues yet to be found in Jerusalem and observed the worshipers. On Saturday we went to the House of Industry of the English church, where boys are taught to work. Olive wood products are made for the tourist trade. We passed a place where some men were making a peculiar noise as they were pounding wheat and singing at their work. This pounding was a part of the process of making it ready for food. An old lady was standing in an open door spinning yarn in a very simple manner. We watched her a few minutes, and I wanted to buy the little arrangement with which she was spinning, but she didn’t care to part with it. She brought out another one, and let me have it after spinning a few yards upon it. I gave her a Turkish coin worth a few cents, for which she seemed very thankful, and said, as Mr. Ahmed explained: “God bless you and give you long life. I am old, and may die to-day.” She told us that she came from Mosul, away beyond the Syrian desert, to die in Jerusalem. We visited the synagogue of the Caraite Jews, a small polygamous sect, numbering in this assembly about thirty persons. They also differ from the majority of Hebrews in rejecting the Talmud, but I believe they have a Talmud of their own. Their place of worship is a small room almost under the ground, where we were permitted to see a very fine old copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament. The work was done by hand, and I was told the man who did it was sixteen years of age when he began it, and was sixty when he finished the work, and that the British Museum had offered five thousand dollars for the book. Some of these people speak English, and we conversed with one woman who was quite intelligent. They kindly permitted us to go up and view the city from the housetop.
In the afternoon we visited the Temple Area, an inclosure of about thirty-five acres, in the southeastern part of the city, including the Mosque of Omar (more appropriately called the Dome of the Rock), the Mosque El Aksa, and Solomon’s Stables. For Christians to enter this inclosure, it is necessary to notify their consul and secure the service of his _cavasse_, an armed guard, and a Turkish soldier, both of whom must be paid for their services. Thus equipped, we entered the inclosure, and came up on the east front of the Dome of the Rock, probably so named from the fact that the dome of this structure stands over an exposed portion of the natural rock, fifty-seven feet long, forty-three feet wide, and rising a few feet above the floor. After putting some big slippers on over our shoes, we entered the building and saw this great rock, which tradition says is the threshing floor of Araunah, and the spot where Melchizedek sacrificed. It is also the traditional place where Abraham sacrificed Isaac, and it is believed that David built an altar here after the angel of destruction had put up his sword. It is furthermore supposed that the great altar of burnt offerings stood on this rock in the days of Solomon’s Temple, which is thought to have been located just west of it. This is the probable location of Zerubbabel’s Temple, and the one enlarged and beautified by Herod, which was standing when Jesus was on earth, and continued to stand until the awful destruction of the city by the Roman army in A.D. 70.
The modern visitor to this fine structure would have no thought of the ancient temple of God if he depended upon what he sees here to suggest it. All trace of that house has disappeared. The Dome of the Rock, said to be “the most beautiful piece of architecture in Jerusalem,” belongs to the Turks. It has eight sides, each about sixty-six and a half feet long, and is partly covered with marble, but it is, to some extent, in a state of decay. Between the destruction of the temple and the erection of this building a heathen temple and a church had been built on the spot.
The Mosque El Aksa was also visited, but it is noted more for its size than the beauty of its architecture. The Turkish Governor of Palestine comes here every Friday to worship at the time the Sultan is engaged in like manner in Constantinople. Solomon’s Stables next engaged our attention. We crossed the Temple Area to the wall on the southeastern border, and went down a stairway to these underground chambers, which were made by building about a hundred columns and arching them over and laying a pavement on the top, thereby bringing it up on a level with the rest of the hill. The vaults are two hundred and seventy-three feet long, one hundred and ninety-eight feet wide, and about thirty feet high. They were not made for stables, but were used for that purpose in the middle ages, and the holes through the corners of the square stone columns show where the horses were tied. A large portion of these chambers has been made into a cistern or reservoir.
After a visit to what is called the Pool of Bethesda and the Church of St. Anne, we went outside the city wall on the north side and entered what looks like a cave, but upon investigation proves to be an extensive underground quarry. These excavations, called Solomon’s Quarries, extend, according to one authority, seven hundred feet under the hill Bezetha, which is north of Mt. Moriah. The rock is very white, and will take some polish. Loose portions of it are lying around on the floor of the cavern, and there are distinct marks along the sides where the ancient stone-cutters were at work. In one part of the quarries we were shown the place where visiting Masons are said to hold lodge meetings sometimes. Vast quantities of the rock have been taken out, and this is probably the source from whence much of the building material of the old city was derived.
The trip to the quarries ended my sight-seeing for the week. The next morning I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and witnessed a part of the service of the Greek Catholics. At a later hour I went around to the mission conducted by Bro. Joseph, and, with the little congregation there assembled, broke bread in memory of Him who in this city, almost two thousand years ago, gave his life for the sins of the world, after having instituted this supper, a monumental institution, representing to our minds the cost of the world’s redemption. In the afternoon I attended the preaching service in Mr. Thompson’s tabernacle, and visited the Abyssinian church, near Mr. Smith’s house. This Abyssinian house is circular, and has a small, round room in the center, around which the congregation stands and worships, leaning on their staves, for the place is void of seats. At night I preached in the tabernacle on the question: “What must I do to be saved?” Melki, the native evangelist, translated for me as I went along, and the congregation paid good attention and seemed pleased to have heard me. I know I am pleased to have had opportunity to “preach the word” in the city from whence it was first published to the world.
One of the first sights beheld when I started out on Monday morning was a foundation, laid at the expense of a woman who intended to build a house for the “hundred and forty-four thousand.” It represents one of the many peculiar religious ideas that find expression in and around Jerusalem. We went on to the railway station, where I saw a young man, a Jew, leave for that far-off land called America. Next the Leper Hospital was visited. This well-kept institution is in the German colony, and had several patients of both sexes. A lady, who spoke some English, kindly showed me through the hospital, and explained that the disease is not contagious, but hereditary, and that some lepers refuse to enter the hospital because they are forbidden to marry. The patients were of various ages, and showed the effects of the disease in different stages. In some cases it makes the victim a sad sight to look upon. I remember one of these poor, afflicted creatures, whose face was almost covered with swollen and inflamed spots. Some were blind, and some had lost part or all of their fingers by the disease. One man’s nose was partly consumed.
At Bishop Gobat’s school we were kindly received, and given a good, refreshing drink. The founder of this school, a member of the English church, was one of the pioneers in Jerusalem mission work, and stood very high in the estimation of the people. His grave is to be seen in the cemetery near the school, where one may also see the supposed site of the ancient city wall. Besides the Leper Hospital, we visited another hospital under German control, where patients may have medical attention and hospital service for the small sum of one _mejidi_, about eighty cents, for a period, of fifteen days, but higher fees are charged in other departments. We soon reached the English hospital, maintained by the Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews. It is built on a semi-circular plan in such a way that the wards, extending back from the front, admit light from both sides. This institution is free to the Jews, but I understand Mohammedans were not admitted without a fee.
The Syrian Orphanage had about three hundred children in it, who were being instructed in books and in manual labor. Those who can see are taught to work in wood, to make a kind of tile used in constructing partitions, and other lines of useful employment. They had some blind children, who were being taught to make baskets and brushes. On the way back to Mr. Smith’s I stopped at the Jewish Library, a small two-story building, having the books and papers upstairs. They have a raised map of Palestine, which was interesting to me, after having twice crossed the country from sea to sea.
The last Thursday I was in the city I went with some friends to the Israelite Alliance School, an institution with about a thousand pupils, who receive both an industrial and a literary education. We were conducted through the school by a Syrian gentleman named Solomon Elia, who explained that, while the institution is under French control, English is taught to some extent, as some of the pupils would go to Egypt, where they would need to use this language. The boys are instructed in wood-working, carpentry, copper-working, and other lines of employment. We saw some of the girls making hair nets, and others were engaged in making lace. Both of these products are sent out of Palestine for sale. The institution has received help from some of the Rothschild family, and I have no doubt that it is a great factor for the improvement of those who are reached by it. Jerusalem is well supplied with hospitals and schools. The Greek and Roman Catholic churches, the Church of England, and numerous other religious bodies have a footing here, and are striving to make it stronger. Their schools and hospitals are made use of as missionary agencies, and besides these there is a Turkish hospital and numerous Mohammedan schools.
On Friday I had an opportunity to see a man measuring grain, as is indicated by the Savior’s words: “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 again” (Luke 6:38). He filled his measure about full, and then shook it down thoroughly. He next filled it up and shook it down until he evidently thought he had all he could get that way, so he commenced to pile it up on top. When he had about as much heaped up as would stay on, he put his hands on the side of the cone opposite himself and gently pulled it toward him. He then piled some more on the far side, and when he had reached the limit in this way, he carefully leveled the top of the cone down a little, and when he could no longer put on more grain, he gently lifted the measure and moved it around to the proper place, where it was quickly dumped. In the evening Mr. Smith and I walked out on Mount Scopus, where Titus had his camp at the time of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, as foretold by our Lord and Master in the twenty-fourth of Matthew.
As we went along, Mr. Smith pointed out the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The view from Scopus is very extensive. We could look away to the north to Nebi Samwil, where the Prophet Samuel is supposed by some to have been buried. Ramallah, the seat of a school maintained by the Society of Friends, is pointed out, along with Bireh, Bethel, and Geba. Nob, the home of the priests slain by command of Saul (1 Samuel 22:16), and Anathoth, one of the cities of refuge (Joshua 21:18), are in sight. Swinging on around the circle to the east, the northern end of the Dead Sea is visible, while the Mount of Olives is only a little distance below us. Across the valley of the Kidron lies the Holy City, with her walls constructed at various periods and under various circumstances, her dome-shaped stone roofs, synagogues, mosques, and minarets, being “trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). Here, with this panorama spread out in the evening light, I may say my sight-seeing in the City of the Great King came to an end.
I lacked but a few hours of having been in the city two weeks, when I boarded the train for Jaffa on my way to Egypt. The most of the time I had lodged in the hospitable home of Mr. Smith, where I had a clean and comfortable place to rest my tired body when the shadows of night covered the land. I had received kind treatment, and had seen many things of much interest. I am truly thankful that I have been permitted to make this trip to Jerusalem. Let me so live that when the few fleeting days of this life are over, I may rest with the redeemed. When days and years are no more, let me enjoy, in the NEW JERUSALEM, the blessedness that remains for those that have loved the Lord.
“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:2-4).
CHAPTER VI.
SIDE TRIPS FROM JERUSALEM.
Early on Tuesday morning, the eleventh of October, I set out by carriage, with some other tourists, for a trip to Bethlehem, Solomon’s Pools, and Hebron. Bethlehem is about five miles south of Jerusalem, and Hebron is a little southwest of the Holy City and twenty miles distant. We started from the Jaffa gate and passed the Sultan’s Pool, otherwise known as Lower Gihon, which may be the “lower pool” of Isaiah 22:9. “The entire area of this pool,” says one writer, “is about three and a half acres, with an average depth, when clear of deposit, of forty-two and a half feet in the middle from end to end.” We drove for two miles, or perhaps more, across the Plain of Rephaim, one of David’s battlefields soon after he established himself in Jerusalem. Here he was twice victorious over the Philistines. In the first instance he asked Jehovah: “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Wilt thou deliver them into my hand?” The answer was: “Go up; for I will certainly deliver the Philistines into thy hand.” In this battle the invaders were routed and driven from the field. “And they left their images there; and David and his men took them away.” But “the Philistines came up yet again, and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of Jehovah, he said, Thou shalt not go up: make a circuit behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself, for then is Jehovah gone out before thee to smite the hosts of the Philistines.” David obeyed the voice of the Lord, and smote his enemies from Geba to Gezer. (2 Samuel 5:17-25.)
On the southern border of the plain stands the Greek convent called Mar Elyas. This is about half way to Bethlehem, and the city of the nativity soon comes into view. Before going much farther the traveler sees a well-built village, named Bet Jala, lying on his right. It is supposed to be the ancient Giloh, mentioned in 2 Samuel 15:12 as the home of Ahithophel, David’s counselor, for whom Absalom sent when he conspired against his father. Here the road forks, one branch of it passing Bet Jala and going on to Hebron; the other, bearing off to the left, leads directly to Bethlehem, which we passed, intending to stop there as we returned in the evening. At this place we saw the monument erected to mark the location of Rachel’s tomb, a location, like many others, in dispute. When Jacob “journeyed from Bethel and there was still some distance to come to Ephrath,” Rachel died at the birth of Benjamin, “and was buried in the way to Ephrath (the same is Bethlehem). * * * And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave” (Gen. 35:16-20). The spot, which for many centuries was marked by a pyramid of stones, is now occupied by a small stone building with a dome-shaped roof, at the east side of which is a room, open on the north, with a flat roof. For hundreds of years tradition has located the grave at this place, which is indeed near Bethlehem, but in 1 Samuel 10:2 it is mentioned as being “in the border of Benjamin,” which has occasioned the belief that the true location is some miles farther north.
Before long we came to Solomon’s Pools. We first stopped at a doorway, which looks like it might lead down to a cellar, but in reality the door is at the head of a flight of stairs leading down to what is known as the “sealed fountain” (Song of Solomon 4:12). The door was fastened, and we were not able to descend to the underground chamber, which is forty-one feet long, eleven and a half feet wide, with an arched stone roof, all of which, except the entrance, is below the surface. A large basin cut in the floor collects the water from two springs. After rising a foot in the basin, the water flows out into a channel more than six hundred feet long leading down to the two upper pools. These great reservoirs, bearing the name of Israel’s wisest monarch, are still in a good state of preservation, having been repaired in modern times. The first one is three hundred and eighty feet long, two hundred and twenty-nine feet wide at one end, two hundred and thirty feet wide at the other, and twenty-five feet deep. The second pool is four hundred and twenty-three feet long, one hundred and sixty feet wide at the upper end, two hundred and fifty feet wide at the lower end, and thirty-nine feet deep at that end. The third pool is the largest of all, having a length of five hundred and eighty-two feet. The upper end is one hundred and forty-eight feet wide, the lower end two hundred and seven feet, and the depth at the lower end is fifty feet. The pools are about one hundred and fifty feet apart, and have an aggregate area of six and a quarter acres, with an average depth approaching thirty-eight feet. The upper two received water from the sealed fountain, but the lower one was supplied from an aqueduct leading up from a point more than three miles to the south. The aqueduct from the sealed fountain leads past the pools, and winds around the hills to Bethlehem and on to the Temple Area, in Jerusalem. It is still in use as far as Bethlehem, and could be put in repair and made serviceable for the whole distance. An offer to do this was foolishly rejected by the Moslems in 1870. The only habitation near the pools is an old khan, “intended as a stopping place for caravans and as a station for soldiers to guard the road and the pools.” The two upper pools were empty when I saw them, but the third one contained some water and a great number of frogs. As we went on to Hebron we got a drink at “Philip’s Well,” the place where “the eunuch was baptized,” according to a tradition which lacks support by the present appearance of the place.
Towards noon we entered the “valley of Eschol,” from whence the spies sent out by Moses carried the great cluster of grapes. (Num. 13:23.) Before entering Hebron we turned aside and went up to Abraham’s Oak, a very old tree, but not old enough for Abraham to have enjoyed its shade almost four thousand years ago. The trunk is thirty-two feet in circumference, but the tree is not tall like the American oaks. It is now in a dying condition, and some of the branches are supported by props, while the lower part of the trunk is surrounded by a stone wall, and the space inside is filled with earth. The plot of ground on which the tree stands is surrounded by a high iron fence. A little farther up the hill the Russians have a tower, from which we viewed the country, and then went down in the shade near Abraham’s Oak and enjoyed our dinner.
Hebron is a very ancient city, having been built seven and a half years before Zoar in Egypt. (Num. 13:22.) Since 1187 it has been under the control of the Mohammedans, who raise large quantities of grapes, many of which are made into raisins. Articles of glass are made in Hebron, but I saw nothing especially beautiful in this line. The manufacture of goat-skin water-bottles is also carried on. Another line of work which I saw being done is the manufacture of a kind of tile, which looks like a fruit jug without a bottom, and is used in building. Hebron was one of the six cities of refuge (Joshua 20:7), and for seven years and a half it was David’s capital of Judah. It is very historic. “Abraham moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built there an altar unto Jehovah.” (Gen. 13:18.) When “Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan, * * * Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” At this time the worthy progenitor of the Hebrew race “rose up from before his dead, and spoke unto the children of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” The burial place was purchased for “four hundred shekels of silver, current money of the land. * * * And after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave in the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan” (Gen. 23:1-20). Years after this, when both Abraham and his son Isaac had passed the way of all the earth and had been laid to rest in this cave, the patriarch Jacob in Egypt gave directions for the entombment of his body in this family burial place. “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah” (Gen. 49:31), and here, by his own request, Jacob was buried. (Gen. 50:13.) Joshua, the successor of Moses, “utterly destroyed” Hebron (Joshua 10:37), and afterwards gave it to Caleb, to whom it had been promised by Moses forty-five years before. (Joshua 14:6-15.) Here Abner was slain (2 Samuel 3:27), and the murderers of Ishbosheth were put to death. (2 Samuel 4:12.)
The most interesting thing about the town is the “cave of Machpelah,” but it is inaccessible to Christians. Between 1167 and 1187 a church was built on the site, now marked by a carefully guarded Mohammedan mosque. It is inclosed by a wall which may have been built by Solomon. We were allowed to go in at the foot of a stairway as far as the seventh step, but might as well have been in the National Capitol at Washington so far as seeing the burial place was concerned. In 1862 the Prince of Wales, now King of England, was admitted. He was accompanied by Dean Stanley, who has described what he saw, but he was permitted neither to examine the monuments nor to descend to the cave below, the real burial chamber. As the body of Jacob was carefully embalmed by the Egyptian method, it is possible that his remains may yet be seen in their long resting place in this Hebron cave. (Gen. 50:1,2.)
Turning back toward Jerusalem, we came to Bethlehem late in the afternoon, and the “field of the shepherds” (Luke 2:8) and the “fields of Boaz” (Ruth 2:4-23) were pointed out. The place of greatest interest is the group of buildings, composed of two churches, Greek and Latin, and an Armenian convent, all built together on the traditional site of the birth of the Lord Jesus. Tradition is here contradicted by authorities partly on the ground that a cave to which entrance is made by a flight of stairs would probably not be used as a stable. This cave is in the Church of St. Mary, said to have been erected in 330 by Constantine. Descending the stairs, we came into the small cavern, which is continually lighted by fifteen silver lamps, the property of the Greeks, Latins, and Armenians, who each have an interest in the place. Beneath an altar, in a semi-circular recess, a silver star has been set in the floor with the Latin inscription: “_Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus Natus est._” An armed Turkish soldier was doing duty near this “star of Bethlehem” the evening I was there. The well, from which it is said the “three mighty men” drew water for David, was visited. (2 Samuel 23:15.) But the shades of night had settled down upon the little town where our Savior was born, and we again entered our carriages and drove back to Jerusalem, having had a fine day of interesting sight-seeing. On the Wednesday before I left Jerusalem, in the company of Mrs. Bates, I again visited Bethlehem.
Thursday, October thirteenth, was the day we went down to Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan. The party was made up of the writer, Mr. Ahmed, Mr. Jennings, Mrs. Bates, four school teachers (three ladies and a gentleman) returning from the Philippines, and the guides, Mr. Smith and Ephraim Aboosh. We went in two carriages driven by natives. “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead” (Luke 10:30). This lonely road is still the scene of occasional robberies, and the Turkish Government permits one of its soldiers to accompany the tourist for a fee, but we did not want to take this escort, as neither of the guides feared any danger. Accordingly we took an early start without notifying the soldiers, and reached Jericho, about twenty miles away, in time to visit Elisha’s Fountain before dinner. The road leads out past Bethany, down by the Apostles’ Fountain, on past the Khan of the Good Samaritan, and down the mountain to the plain of the Jordan, this section of which is ten miles long and seven miles wide. Before the road reaches the plain, it runs along a deep gorge bearing the name Wady Kelt, the Brook Cherith, where the prophet Elisha was fed by the ravens night and morning till the brook dried up. (1 Kings 17:1-7.) We also saw the remains of an old aqueduct, and of a reservoir which was originally over five hundred feet long and more than four hundred feet wide. Elisha’s Fountain is a beautiful spring some distance from the present Jericho. Doubtless it is the very spring whose waters Elisha healed with salt. (2 Kings 2:19-22.) The ground about the Fountain has been altered some in modern times, and there is now a beautiful pool of good, clear water, a delight both to the eye and to the throat of the dusty traveler who has come down from Jerusalem seeing only the brown earth and white, chalky rock, upon which the unveiled sun has been pouring down his heat for hours. The water from the spring now runs a little grist mill a short distance below it.
After dinner, eaten in front of the hotel in Jericho, we drove over to the Dead Sea, a distance of several miles, and soon we were all enjoying a fine bath in the salt water, the women bathing at one place, the men at another. The water contains so much solid matter, nearly three and a third pounds to the gallon, that it is easy to float on the surface with hands, feet and head above the water. One who can swim but little in fresh water will find the buoyancy of the water here so great as to make swimming easy. When one stands erect in it, the body sinks down about as far as the top of the shoulders. Care needs to be taken to keep the water out of the mouth, nose and eyes, as it is so salty that it is very disagreeable to these tender surfaces. Dead Sea water is two and a half pounds heavier than fresh water, and among other things, it contains nearly two pounds of chloride of magnesium, and almost a pound of chloride of sodium, or common salt, to the gallon. Nothing but some very low forms of animal life, unobserved by the ordinary traveler, can live in this sea. The fish that get into it from the Jordan soon die. Those who bathe here usually drive over to the Jordan and bathe again, to remove the salt and other substances that remain on the body after the first bath. The greatest depth of the Dead Sea is a little over thirteen hundred feet. The wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stood here some place, but authorities disagree as to whether they were at the northern or southern end of the sea. In either case every trace of them has been wiped out by the awful destruction poured on them by the Almighty. (Gen. 18:16 to 19:29)
The Jordan where we saw it, near the mouth, and at the time we saw it, the thirteenth of October, was a quiet and peaceful stream, but the water was somewhat muddy. We entered two little boats and had a short ride on the river whose waters “stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off,” that the children of Israel might cross (Joshua 3:14-17), and beneath whose wave the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was baptized by the great prophet of the Judaean wilderness. (Matt. 3:13-17.) We also got out a little while on the east bank of the stream, the only time I was “beyond Jordan” while in Palestine. After supper, eaten in Jericho, we went around to a Bedouin encampment, where a dance was being executed–a dance different from any that I had ever seen before. One of the dancers, with a sword in hand, stood in the center of the ground they were using, while the others stood in two rows, forming a right angle. They went through with various motions and hand-clapping, accompanied by an indescribable noise at times. Some of the Bedouins were sitting around a small fire at one side, and some of the children were having a little entertainment of their own on another side of the dancing party. We were soon satisfied, and made our way back to the hotel and laid down to rest.
The first Jericho was a walled city about two miles from the present village, perhaps at the spring already mentioned, and was the first city taken in the conquest of the land under Joshua. The Jordan was crossed at Gilgal (Joshua 4:19), where the people were circumcised with knives of flint, and where the Jews made their first encampment west of the river. (Joshua 5:2-10.) “Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel,” but by faithful compliance with the word of the Lord the walls fell down. (Joshua 6:1-27.) “And Joshua charged them with an oath at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before Jehovah, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: with the loss of his first-born shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.” Regardless of this curse, we read that in the days of Ahab, who “did more to provoke Jehovah, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him, * * * did Hiel the Beth-elite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun” (1 Kings 16:33,34). “The Jericho * * * which was visited by Jesus occupied a still different site,” says Bro. McGarvey. The present Jericho is a small Arab village, poorly built, with a few exceptions, and having nothing beautiful in or around it but the large oleanders that grow in the ground made moist by water from Elisha’s Fountain. We had satisfactory accommodations at the hotel, which is one of the few good houses there. Jericho in the time of our Lord was the home of a rich publican named Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10), and was an important and wealthy city, that had been fortified by Herod the Great, who constructed splendid palaces here, and it was here that “this infamous tyrant died.” The original Jericho, the home of Rahab the harlot, was called the “city of palm trees” (Deut. 34:3), but if the modern representative of that ancient city has any of these trees, they are few in number. Across the Jordan eastward are the mountains of Moab, in one of which Moses died after having delivered his valedictory, as recorded in Deuteronomy. (Deut. 34:1-12.) From a lofty peak the Lord showed this great leader and law-giver a panorama of “all the land of Gilead unto Dan. * * * And Jehovah said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Jehovah. And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”
Early Wednesday morning we began our toilsome journey back to Jerusalem, having nearly four thousand feet to climb in the twenty miles intervening. We stopped awhile at the Khan of the Good Samaritan, which stands near some old ruins, and may not be far from the place to which the Good Samaritan carried his poor, wounded fellow-man so long ago. Here I bought some lamps that look old enough, but may be quite modern imitations of the kind that were carried in the days of the wise and foolish virgins. A stop was also made at the Apostles’ Fountain, near Bethany, where I saw an Arab working bread on his coat, which was spread on the ground. Over by the Damascus gate I one day saw a man feeding his camel on his coat, so these coarse cloth garments are very serviceable indeed. We got back to Jerusalem in time to do a good deal of sight-seeing in the afternoon.
The following Tuesday was occupied with a trip on “donkey-back” to Nebi Samwil, Emmaus, Abu Ghosh, and Ain Kairim. Our party was small this time, being composed of Mr. Jennings, Mr. Smith, the writer, and a “donkey-boy” to care for the three animals we rode, when we dismounted to make observations. He was liberal, and sometimes tried to tell us which way to go. We went out on the north side of the city and came to the extensive burial places called the “Tombs of the Judges.” Near by is an ancient wine press cut in the rock near a rock-hewn cistern, which may have been used for storing the wine. En Nebi Samwil is on an elevation a little more than three thousand feet above the sea and about four hundred feet higher than Jerusalem, five miles distant. From the top of the minaret we had a fine view through a field glass, seeing the country for many miles around. This is thought by some to be the Mizpah of the Bible (1 Kings 15:22), and tradition has it that the prophet Samuel was buried here. A little north of Nebi Samwil is the site of ancient Gibeon, where “Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the servants of David” (2 Samuel 2:12-17).
We next rode over to El Kubebeh, supposed by some to be the Emmaus of New Testament times, where Jesus went after his resurrection and sat at meat with his disciples without being recognized. (Luke 24:13-25.) The place has little to attract one. A modern building, which I took to be the residence of some wealthy person, occupies a prominent position, and is surrounded by well-kept grounds, inclosed with a wall. The Franciscan monastery is a good sized institution, having on its grounds the remains of a church of the Crusaders’ period, over which a new and attractive building has been erected. One section of it has the most beautiful floor of polished marble, laid in patterns, that I have ever seen. It also contains a painting of the Savior and the two disciples.
We went outside of the monastery to eat our noon-day lunch, but before we finished, one of the monks came and called us in to a meal at their table. It was a good meal, for which no charge was made, and I understand it is their custom to give free meals to visitors, for they believe that Jesus here sat at meat with his two disciples. We enjoyed their hospitality, but drank none of the wine that was placed before us.
Our next point was Abu Ghosh, named for an old village sheik who, “with his six brothers and eighty-five descendants, was the terror of the whole country” about a century ago. Our object in visiting the spot was to see the old Crusaders’ church, the best preserved one in Palestine. The stone walls are perhaps seven or eight feet thick. The roof is still preserved, and traces of the painting that originally adorned the walls are yet to be seen. A new addition has been erected at one end, and the old church may soon be put in repair.
The last place we visited before returning to Jerusalem was Ain Kairim, a town occupied mainly by the Mohammedans, and said to have been the home of that worthy couple of whom it was written: “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6). The portion occupied by the Latins and Greeks is very beautifully situated on the side of the mountain. The stone houses, “whited walls,” and green cypresses make quite a pretty picture. The Church of St. John, according to tradition, stands on the spot where once dwelt Zacharias and Elizabeth, the parents of John, the great forerunner of Jesus. Night came upon us before we got back to our starting place, and as this was my first day of donkey riding, I was very much fatigued when I finally dismounted in Jerusalem; yet I arose the next morning feeling reasonably well, but not craving another donkey ride over a rough country beneath the hot sun.
On Saturday, the twenty-second of October, I turned away from Jerusalem, having been in and around the place almost two weeks, and went back to Jaffa by rail. After a few miles the railway leads past Bittir, supposed to be the Beth-arabah of Joshua 15:61. It is also of interest from the fact that it played a part in the famous insurrection of Bar Cochba against the Romans. In A.D. 135 it was captured by a Roman force after a siege of three and a half years. Ramleh, a point twelve miles from Jaffa, was once occupied by Napoleon. Lydda, supposed to be the Lod of Ezra 2:33, was passed. Here Peter healed Aeneas, who had been palsied eight years. (Acts 9:32-35.)
Jaffa is the Joppa of the Bible, and has a good deal of interesting history. When “Jonah rose to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah,” he “went down to Joppa and found a ship going unto Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah.” (Jonah 1:3.) His unpleasant experience with the great fish is well known. When Solomon was about to build the first temple, Hiram sent a communication to him, saying: “We will cut wood out of Lebanon as much as thou shalt need; and will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem” (2 Chron. 2:16). In the days of Ezra, when Zerubbabel repaired the temple, we read that “they gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and food, and drink, and oil, unto them of Sidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, unto Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 3:7). It was the home of “a certain disciple named Tabitha,” whom Peter was called from Lydda to raise from the dead. (Acts 9:36-43.) Simon the tanner also lived in Joppa, and it was at his house that Peter had his impressive vision of the sheet let down from heaven prior to his going to Caesarea to speak the word of salvation to Cornelius and his friends. (Acts 10:1-6.)
The city is built on a rocky elevation rising one hundred feet above the sea, which has no harbor here, so that vessels do not stop when the water is too rough for passengers to be carried safely in small boats. Extensive orange groves are cultivated around Jaffa, and lemons are also grown, and I purchased six for a little more than a cent in American money. Sesame, wine, wool, and soap are exported, and the imports are considerable. The train reached the station about the middle of the day, and the ship did not leave till night, so I had ample time to visit the “house of Simon the tanner.” It is “by the sea side” all right, but looks too modern to be impressive to the traveler who does not accept all that tradition says. I paid Cook’s tourist agency the equivalent of a dollar to take me through the custom house and out to the ship, and I do not regret spending the money, although it was five times as much as I had paid the native boatman for taking me ashore when I first came to Jaffa. The sea was rough–very rough for me–and a little woman at my side was shaking with nervousness, although she tried to be brave, and her little boy took a firm hold on my clothing. I don’t think that I was scared, but I confess that I did not enjoy the motion of the boat as it went sliding down from the crest of the waves, which were higher than any I had previously ridden upon in a rowboat. As darkness had come, it would have been a poor time to be upset, but we reached the vessel in safety. When we came alongside the ship, a boatman on each side of the passenger simply pitched or threw him up on the stairs when the rising wave lifted the little boat to the highest point. It was easily done, but it is an experience one need not care to repeat unnecessarily.
I was now through with my sight-seeing in the Holy Land and aboard the Austrian ship _Maria Teresa_, which was to carry me to the land of the ancient Pharaohs. Like Jonah, I had paid my fare, so I laid down to sleep. There was a rain in the night, but no one proposed to throw me overboard, and we reached Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, the next day.
CHAPTER VII.
EGYPT, THE LAND OF TOMBS AND TEMPLES.
The _Maria Teresa_ landed me in Port Said, Egypt, Lord’s day, October twenty-third, and at seven o’clock that evening I took the train for Cairo, arriving there about four hours later. I had no difficulty in finding a hotel, where I took some rest, but was out very early the next morning to see something of the largest city in Africa. The population is a great mixture of French, Greeks, English, Austrians, Germans, Egyptians, Arabians, Copts, Berbers, Turks, Jews, Negroes, Syrians, Persians, and others. In Smyrna, Damascus, and Jerusalem, cities of the Turkish empire, the streets are narrow, crooked, and dirty, but here are many fine buildings, electric lights, electric cars, and good, wide streets, over which vehicles with rubber tires roll noiselessly.
I first went out to the Mokattam Heights, lying back of the city, at an elevation of six hundred and fifty feet. From the summit an extensive view can be obtained, embracing not only the city of Cairo, with its many mosques and minarets, but the river beyond, and still farther beyond the Gizeh (Gezer) group of the pyramids. The side of the Heights toward the city is a vast quarry, from which large quantities of rock have been taken. An old fort and a mosque stand in solitude on the top. I went out by the citadel and passed the mosque tombs of the Mamelukes, who were originally brought into the country from the Caucasus as slaves, but they became sufficiently powerful to make one of their number Sultan in 1254. The tombs of the Caliphs, successors of Mohammed in temporal and spiritual power, are not far from the Heights.
As I was returning to the city, a laborer followed me a little distance, and indicated that he wanted my name written on a piece of paper he was carrying. I accommodated him, but do not know for what purpose he wanted it. I stopped at the Alabaster Mosque, built after the fashion of one of the mosques of Constantinople, and decorated with alabaster. The outside is full of little depressions, and has no special beauty, but the inside is more attractive. The entrance is through a large court, paved with squares of white marble. The floor of the mosque was nicely covered with carpet, and the walls are coated for a few feet with alabaster, and above that they are painted in imitation of the same material. The numerous lamps do much towards making the place attractive. The attendant said the central chandelier, fitted for three hundred and sixty-six candles, was a present from Louis Philippe, of France. A clock is also shown that came from the same source. The pulpit is a platform at the head of a stairway, and the place for reading the Koran is a small platform three or four feet high, also ascended by steps. Within an inclosure in one corner of the building is the tomb of Mohammed Ali, which, I was told, was visited by the Khedive the day before I was there.
The most interesting part of the day was the afternoon trip to the nine pyramids of the Gizeh group. They may be reached by a drive over the excellent carriage road that leads out to them, or by taking one of the electric cars that run along by this road. Three of the pyramids are large and the others are small, but one, the pyramid of Cheops, is built on such magnificent proportions that it is called “the great pyramid.” According to Baedeker, “the length of each side is now seven hundred and fifty feet, but was formerly about seven hundred and sixty-eight feet; the present perpendicular height is four hundred and fifty-one feet, while originally, including the nucleus of the rock at the bottom and the apex, which has now disappeared, it is said to have been four hundred and eighty-two feet. * * * In round numbers, the stupendous structure covers an area of nearly thirteen acres.”
It is estimated that two million three hundred thousand blocks of stone, each containing forty cubic feet, were required for building this ancient and wonderful monument, upon which a hundred thousand men are said to have been employed for twenty years. Nearly all of the material was brought across from the east side of the Nile, but the granite that entered into its construction was brought down from Syene, near Assouan, five hundred miles distant. Two chambers are shown to visitors, one of them containing an empty stone coffin. The passageway leading to these chambers is not easily traversed, as it runs at an angle like a stairway with no steps, for the old footholds have become so nearly worn out that the tourist might slip and slide to the bottom were it not for his Arab helpers. A fee of one dollar secures the right to walk about the grounds, ascend the pyramid, and go down inside of it. Three Arabs go with the ticket, and two of them are really needed. Those who went with me performed their work in a satisfactory manner, and while not permitted to ask for “backshish,” they let me know that they would accept anything I might have for them. The ascent was rather difficult, as some of the stones are more than a yard high. It is estimated that this mighty monument, which Abraham may have looked upon, contains enough stone to build a wall around the frontier of France. Of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Pyramid of Cheops alone remains. The other attractions here are the Granite Temple, and some tombs, from one of which a jackal ran away as we were approaching. I got back to Cairo after dark, and took the eight o’clock train for Assouan.
This place is about seven hundred miles from Port Said by rail, and is a good sized town. The main street, fronting the river, presents a pleasing appearance with its hotels, Cook’s tourist office, the postoffice, and other buildings. Gas and electricity are used for lighting, and the dust in the streets is laid by a real street sprinkler, and not by throwing the water on from a leathern bag, as I saw it in Damascus. The Cataract Hotel is a large place for tourists, with a capacity of three hundred and fifty people. The Savoy Hotel is beautifully located on Elephantine Island, in front of the town. To the south of the town lie the ancient granite quarries of Syene, which furnished the Egyptian workmen building material so long ago, and still lack a great deal of being exhausted. I saw an obelisk lying here which is said to be ninety-two feet long and ten and a half feet wide in the broadest part, but both ends of it were covered. In this section there is an English cemetery inclosed by a wall, and several tombs of the natives, those of the sheiks being prominent.
Farther to the south is a great modern work, the Nile dam, a mile and a quarter long, and built of solid masonry. In the deepest place it is one hundred feet high, and the thickness at the bottom is eighty-eight feet. It was begun in 1899, and at one time upwards of ten thousand men were employed on the works. It seemed to be finished when I was there, but a few workmen were still engaged about the place. The total cost has been estimated at a sum probably exceeding ten millions of dollars. There are one hundred and eighty sluices to regulate the out-flow of the water, which is collected to a height of sixty-five feet during the inundation of the Nile. The dam would have been made higher, but by so doing Philae Island, a short distance up the river, would have been submerged.
The remains on this island are so well preserved that it is almost a misnomer to call them ruins. The little island is only five hundred yards long and sixty yards wide, and contains the Temple of Isis, Temple of Hathor, a kiosk or pavilion, two colonnades, and a small Nilometer. In the gateway to one of the temples is a French inscription concerning Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt in 1799. All the buildings are of stone, and the outside walls are covered with figures and inscriptions. Some of the figures are just cut in the rough, never having been finished. Here, as elsewhere in Egypt, very delicate carvings are preserved almost as distinct as though done but recently. The guard on the island was not going to let me see the ruins because I held no ticket. After a little delay, a small boat, carrying some diplomatic officers, came up. These gentlemen, one of whom was a Russian, I think, tried to get the guard to let me see the place with them, but he hesitated, and required them to give him a paper stating that I was there with them. Later, when I got to the place where the tickets were sold, I learned that Philae Island was open for visitors without a ticket. Perhaps the guard thought he would get some “backshish” from me.
I made an interesting visit to the Bisharin village, just outside of Assouan, and near the railroad. The inhabitants are very dark-skinned, and live in booths or tents, covered with something like straw matting. I stopped at one of the lodges, which was probably six feet wide and eight feet long, and high enough to enable the occupants to sit erect on the floor. An old man, naked from the waist up, was sitting outside. A young woman was operating a small hand mill, and one or two other women were sitting there on the ground. They showed me some long strings of beads, and I made a purchase at a low price. While at this lodge, for I can not call it a house, and it is not altogether like a tent, about a dozen of the native children gathered around me, and one, who could speak some English, endeavored to draw out part of my cash by repeating this speech: “Half a piaster, Mister; thank you very much.” The girls had their hair in small plaits, which seemed to be well waxed together. One of the boys, about ten years of age, clothed in a peculiar manner, was finely formed, and made a favorable impression on my mind. I would like to see what could be made of him if he were taken entirely away from his unfavorable surroundings and brought up with the care and attention that many American boys receive. He and another lad went with me to see the obelisk in the granite quarry, and I tried to teach them to say: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” As I was repeating the first word of the sentence and trying to induce one of them to follow me, he said, “No blessed,” and I failed to get either of them to say these beautiful words. In Egypt and other countries there are millions of persons just as ignorant of the gospel and just as much in need of it as the curly-headed Bisharin lad who conducted me to the granite quarry.
I took a pleasant boat ride across the river, past the beautiful grounds of the Savoy Hotel, to the rock tombs of the great persons of ancient Elephantine. I tarried a little too long at the tombs, or else did not start soon enough, for darkness came upon us soon after leaving them. For some distance the boatman walked on the shore and towed the boat with a long rope, while I tried to keep it off of the rocks with the rudder. There was not enough wind to make the sail useful, and as we were passing around the end of Elephantine Island we drifted against the rocks, but with no other loss than the loss of some time. It was my desire to see the Nilometer on the island, and I did see it, but not until after I had sent the boatman to buy a candle. This ancient water-gauge was repaired in 1870, after a thousand years of neglect. The following description by Strabo is taken from Baedeker’s _Guide to Egypt_: “The Nilometer is a well, built of regular hewn stones, on the bank of the Nile, in which is recorded the rise of the stream–not only the maximum, but also the minimum, and average rise, for the water in the well rises and falls with the stream. On the side of the well are marks measuring the height for the irrigation and other water levels. These are published for general information. * * * This is of importance to the peasants for the management of the water, the embankments, the canals, etc., and to the officials on account of the taxes, for the higher the rise of the water, the higher the taxes.” It needs to be said, however, that this “well” is not circular, but rectangular, and has a flight of steps leading down to the water.
On the way back to Cairo I stopped at Luxor, on the site of the ancient city of Thebes. The chief attraction here is the Temple of Luxor, six hundred and twenty-one feet long and one hundred and eighty feet wide. In recent times this temple was entirely buried, and a man told me he owned a house on the spot which he sold to the government for about four hundred and fifty dollars, not knowing of the existence of a temple buried beneath his dwelling. Some of the original statues of Rameses II. remain in front of the ruins. I measured the right arm of one of these figures, from the pit where it touches the side to the same point in front, a distance of about six feet, and that does not represent the entire circumference, for the granite between the arm and the body was never entirely cut away. Near by stands a large red granite obelisk, with carvings from top to bottom. A companion to this one, for they were always erected in pairs, has been removed. In ancient times a paved street led from this temple to Karnak, which is reached by a short walk. This ancient street was adorned by a row of ram-headed sphinxes on each side. Toward Karnak many of them are yet to be seen in a badly mutilated condition, but there is another avenue containing forty of these figures in a good state of preservation.
The first of the Karnak temples reached is one dedicated to the Theban moon god, Khons, reared by Rameses III. The Temple of Ammon, called “the throne of the world,” lies a little beyond. I spent half a day on the west side of the river in what was the burial ground of ancient Thebes, where also numerous temples were erected. My first stop was before the ruins of Kurna. The Temple of Sethos I. originally had ten columns before it, but one is now out of place. The Temple Der el Bahri bore an English name, signifying “most splendid of all,” and it may not have been misnamed. It is situated at the base of a lofty barren cliff of a yellowish cast, and has been partially restored.
In 1881 a French explorer discovered the mummies of several Egyptian rulers in an inner chamber of this temple, that had probably been removed to this place for security from robbers. In the number were the remains of Rameses II., who was probably reigning in the boyhood days of Moses, and the mummy of Set II., perhaps the Pharaoh of the Oppression, and I saw both of them in the museum in Cairo.
The Ramasseum is another large temple, built by Rameses II., who is said to have had sixty-nine sons and seventy daughters. There are also extensive remains of another temple called Medinet Habu. About a half a mile away from this ruin are the two colossal statues of Memnon, which were surrounded by water, so I could not get close to them. The following dimensions of one of them are given: “Height of the figure, fifty-two feet; height of the pedestal on which the feet rest, thirteen feet; height of the entire monument, sixty-five feet. But when the figure was adorned with the long-since vanished crown, the original height may have reached sixty-nine feet. * * * Each foot is ten and one-half feet long. * * * The middle finger on one hand is four and a half feet long, and the arm from the tip of the finger to the elbow measures fifteen and one-half feet.”
All about these temples are indications of ancient graves, from which the Arabs have dug the mummies. As I rode out, a boy wanted to sell me a mummy hand, and another had the mummy of a bird. They may both have been counterfeits made especially for unsuspecting tourists. There are also extensive rock-cut tombs of the ancient kings and queens, which are lighted by electricity in the tourist season. I did not visit them on account of the high price of admission. The government has very properly taken charge of the antiquities, and a ticket is issued for six dollars that admits to all these ruins in Upper Egypt. Tickets for any one particular place were not sold last season, but tourists were allowed to visit all places not inclosed without a ticket.
While in Luxor I visited the American Mission Boarding School for Girls, conducted by Miss Buchanan, who was assisted by a Miss Gibson and five native teachers. A new building, with a capacity for four hundred boarders, was being erected at a cost of about thirty-five thousand dollars. This would be the finest building for girls in Egypt when finished, I was told, and most of the money for it had been given by tourists. I spent a night in Luxor, staying in the home of Youssef Said, a native connected with the mission work. His uncle, who could not speak English, expressed himself as being glad to have “a preacher of Jesus Christ” to stay in his house.
Leaving Luxor, I returned to Cairo for some more sight-seeing, and I had a very interesting time of it. In Gen. 41:45 we read: “Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath-paneah; and gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On.” Heliopolis, meaning city of the sun, is another name for this place, from whence the wife of Joseph came. It is only a few miles from Cairo, and easily reached by railway. All that I saw of the old city was a lonely obelisk, “probably the oldest one in the world,” standing in a cultivated field and surrounded by the growing crop. It is sixty-six feet high, six feet square at the base, and is well preserved.
The Ezbekiah Gardens are situated in the best portion of Cairo. This beautiful park contains quite a variety of trees, including the banyan, and is a resort of many of the people. Band concerts are held, and a small entrance fee is taken at the gate.
On the thirtieth of the month I visited the Museum, which has been moved to the city and installed in its own commodious and substantial building. This vast collection of relics of this wonderful old country affords great opportunities for study. I spent a good deal of time there seeing the coffins of wood, white limestone, red granite, and alabaster; sacrificial tables, mummies, ancient paintings, weights and measures, bronze lamps, necklaces, stone and alabaster jars, bronze hinges, articles of pottery, and many other things. It is remarkable how some of the embalmed bodies, thousands of years old, are preserved. I looked down upon the Pharaoh who is supposed to have oppressed Israel. The body is well preserved, but it brought thoughts to me of the smallness of the fleshly side of man. He who once ruled in royal splendor now lies there in very humble silence. In some cases the cloths wrapped around these mummies are preserved almost perfectly, and I remember a gilt mask that was so bright that one might have taken it for a modern product. After the body was securely wrapped, a picture was sometimes painted over the face, and now, after the lapse of centuries, some of these are very clear and distinct. I saw a collection of scarabaei, or beetles, which were anciently worshiped in this country. Dealers offer figures of this kind for sale, but the most of them are probably manufactured for the tourist trade.
On Lord’s day, October thirtieth, I attended the evening services at the American Mission, and went to Bedrashen the following day. This is the nearest railway station to Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, now an irregular pile of ruined mud bricks. I secured a donkey, and a boy to care for it and tell me where to go. We soon passed the dilapidated ruins of the old capital. Two prostrate statues of great size were seen on the way to the Step Pyramid of Sakkara, which is peculiar in that it is built with great offsets or steps, still plainly visible, although large quantities of the rock have crumbled and fallen down. The Department of Antiquities has posted a notice in French, Arabic and English, to the effect that it is dangerous to make the ascent, and that the government will not be responsible for accidents to tourists who undertake it. I soon reached the top without any special difficulty, and with no more danger, so far as I could see, than one experiences in climbing a steep hill strewn with rocks. I entered another pyramid, which has a stone in one side of it twenty-five feet long and about five and a half feet high. Some more tombs were visited, and the delicate carving on the inner walls was observed. In one instance a harvest scene was represented, in another the fish in a net could be discerned. The Serapeum is an underground burial place for the sacred bull, discovered by Mariette in 1850, after having been buried since about 1400 B.C. In those times the bull was an object of worship in Egypt, and when one died, he was carefully embalmed and put in a stone coffin in one of the chambers of the Serapeum. Some of these coffins are twelve feet high and fifteen feet long.
Before leaving Cairo, I went into the famous Shepheard’s Hotel, where I received some information about the place from the manager, who looked like a well-salaried city pastor. The Grand Continental presents a better appearance on the outside, but I do not believe it equals Shepheard’s on the inside. I was now ready to turn towards home, so I dropped down to Port Said again, where there is little of interest to the tourist except the ever-changing panorama of ships in the mouth of the Suez Canal, and the study of the social condition of the people. My delay in the city while waiting for a ship gave me a good deal of time for writing and visiting the missionaries. The Seamen’s Rest is conducted by Mr. Locke, who goes out in the harbor and gathers up sailors in his steam launch, and carries them back to their vessels after the service. One night, after speaking in one of these meetings, I rode out with him. The American Mission conducts a school for boys, and Feltus Hanna, the native superintendent, kindly showed me around. The Peniel Mission is conducted by two American ladies. The British and Foreign Bible Society has a depot here, and keeps three men at work visiting ships in the harbor all the time. I attended the services in the chapel of the Church of England one morning. With all these religious forces the city is very wicked. The street in which my hotel was located was largely given up to drinking and harlotry.
On the ninth of November the French ship _Congo_ stopped in the harbor, and I went down late in the evening to embark, but the authorities would not permit me to go aboard, because I had not been examined by the medical officer, who felt my pulse and signed a paper that was never called for, and I went aboard all right. The ship stopped at Alexandria, and I went around in the city, seeing nothing of equal interest to Pompey’s Pillar, a monument standing ninety-eight feet and nine inches high. The main shaft is seventy-three feet high and nearly thirty feet in circumference. We reached Marseilles in the evening of November sixteenth, after experiencing some weather rough enough to make me uncomfortable, and several of the others were really seasick. I had several hours in Paris, which was reached early the next day, and the United States consulate and the Louvre, the national museum of France, were visited. From Paris I went to London by way of Dieppe and New Haven. I left summer weather in Egypt, and found that winter was on hand in France and England. London was shrouded in a fog. I went back to my friends at Twynholm, and made three addresses on Lord’s day, and spoke again on Monday night. I sailed from Liverpool for New York on the _SS. Cedric_ November twenty-third. We were in the harbor at Queenstown, Ireland, the next day, and came ashore at the New York custom house on the second of December. The _Cedric_ was then the second largest ship in the world, being seven hundred feet long and seventy-five feet broad. She carries a crew of three hundred and forty, and has a capacity for over three thousand passengers. On this trip she carried one thousand three hundred and thirty-six, and the following twenty classes of people were represented: Americans, English, French, German, Danes, Norwegians, Roumanians, Spanish, Arabs, Japanese, Negroes, Greeks, Russian Jews, Fins, Swedes, Austrians, Armenians, Poles, Irish, and Scotch. A great stream of immigrants is continually pouring into the country at this point. Twelve thousand were reported as arriving in one day, and a recent paper contains a note to the effect that the number arriving in June will exceed eighty thousand, as against fifty thousand in June of last year. “The character of the immigrants seems to grow steadily worse.”
My traveling companion from Port Said to Marseilles and from Liverpool to New York was Solomon Elia, who had kindly shown me through the Israelite Alliance School in Jerusalem. I reached Philadelphia the same day the ship landed in New York, but was detained there with brethren on account of a case of quinsy. I reached home on the fourteenth of December, after an absence of five months and three days, in which time I had seen something of fourteen foreign countries, having a very enjoyable and profitable trip.
CHAPTER VIII.
GEOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE.
This section of country has been known by several names. It has been called the “Land of Canaan,” the “Land of Israel,” the “Land of Promise,” the “Land of the Hebrews,” and the “Holy Land.” Canaan was simply the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, extending from Mt. Lebanon on the north to the Desert of Arabia on the south. Dan was in the extreme northern part, and Beer-sheba lay in the southern end of the country, one hundred and thirty-nine miles distant. The average width of the land is about forty miles, and the total area is in the neighborhood of six thousand miles. “It is not in size or physical characteristics proportioned to its moral and historical position as the theater of the most momentous events in the world’s history.” Palestine, the land occupied by the twelve tribes, included the Land of Canaan and a section of country east of the Jordan one hundred miles long and about twenty-five miles wide, occupied by Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. The Land of Promise was still more extensive, reaching from “the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates,” embracing about sixty thousand square miles, or a little less than the five New England States. The country is easily divided into four parallel strips. Beginning at the Mediterranean, we have the Maritime Plain, the Mountain Region, the Jordan Valley, and the Eastern Table-Land.
The long stretch of lowland known as the Maritime Plain is divided into three sections. The portion lying north of Mt. Carmel was called Phoenicia. It varies in width from half a mile in the north to eight miles in the south. The ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon belonged to this section. Directly east of Mt. Carmel is the Plain of Esdraelon, physically a part of the Maritime Plain. It is an irregular triangle, whose sides are fourteen, sixteen, and twenty-five miles respectively, the longest side being next to Mt. Carmel. Here Barak defeated the army of Sisera under Jabin, and here Josiah, king of Judah, was killed in a battle with the Egyptians under Pharaoh-necoh.
The Plains of Sharon and Philistia, lying south of Carmel, are usually regarded as the true Maritime Plain. Sharon extends southward from Carmel about fifty miles, reaching a little below Jaffa, and has an average width of eight miles. The Zerka, or Crocodile river, which traverses this plain, is the largest stream of Palestine west of the Jordan. There are several other streams crossing the plain from the mountains to the sea, but they usually cease to flow in the summer season. Joppa, Lydda, Ramleh, and Caesarea belong to this plain. Herod the Great built Caesarea, and spent large sums of money on its palace, temple, theater, and breakwater.
The Plain of Philistia extends thirty or forty miles from the southern limits of Sharon to Gaza, varying in width from twelve to twenty-five miles. It is well watered by several streams, some of which flow all the year. Part of the water from the mountains flows under the ground and rises in shallow lakes near the coast. Water can easily be found here, as also in Sharon, by digging wells, and the soil is suitable for the culture of small grains and for pasture. During a part of the year the plain is beautifully ornamented with a rich growth of brightly colored flowers, a characteristic of Palestine in the wet season.
Gaza figures in the history of Samson, who “laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.” Ashkelon, on the coast, is connected with the history of the Crusades. Ashdod, or Azotus, is where Philip was found after the baptism of the eunuch. It is said that Psammetichus, an ancient Egyptian king, captured this place after a siege of twenty-seven years. Ekron and Gath also belonged to this plain.
The ridge of mountains lying between the coast plain and the Jordan valley form the backbone of the country. Here, more than elsewhere, the Israelites made their homes, on account of the hostility of the inhabitants in the lowlands. This ridge is a continuation of the Lebanon range, and extends as far south as the desert. In Upper Galilee the mountains reach an average height of two thousand eight hundred feet above sea level, but in Lower Galilee they are a thousand feet lower. In Samaria and Judaea they reach an altitude of two or three thousand feet. The foot-hills, called the Shefelah, and the Negeb, or “South Country,” complete the ridge. The highest peak is Jebel Mukhmeel, in Northern Palestine, rising ten thousand two hundred feet above the sea. Mt. Tabor, in Galilee, is one thousand eight hundred and forty-three feet high, while Gerizim and Ebal, down in Samaria, are two thousand eight hundred and fifty feet and three thousand and seventy-five feet respectively. The principal mountains in Judaea are Mt. Zion, two thousand five hundred and fifty feet; Mt. Moriah, about one hundred feet lower; Mount of Olives, two thousand six hundred and sixty-five feet, and Mt. Hebron, three thousand and thirty feet. Nazareth, Shechem, Jerusalem, and Hebron belong to the Mountain Region.
The Jordan Valley is the lowest portion of the earth’s surface. No other depressions are more than three hundred feet below sea level, but the Jordan is six hundred and eighty-two feet lower than the ocean at the Sea of Galilee, and nearly thirteen hundred feet lower where it enters the Dead Sea. This wonderful depression, which includes the Dead Sea, forty-five miles long, and the valley south of it, one hundred miles in length, is two hundred and fifty miles long and from four to fourteen miles in width, and is called the Arabah. The sources of the Jordan are one hundred and thirty-four miles from the mouth, but the numerous windings of the stream make it two hundred miles long. The Jordan is formed by the union of three streams issuing from springs at an elevation of seventeen hundred feet above the sea. The principal source is the spring at Dan, one of the largest in the world, as it sends forth a stream twenty feet wide and from twenty to thirty inches deep. The spring at Banias, the Caesarea Philippi of the Scriptures, is the eastern source. The Hashbany flows from a spring forming the western source. A few miles south of the union of the streams above mentioned the river widens into the waters of Merom, a small lake nearly on a level with the Mediterranean. In the next few miles it descends rapidly, and empties into the Sea of Galilee, called also the Sea of Chinnereth, Sea of Tiberias, and Lake of Gennesaret. In the sixty-five miles from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea the fall is about six hundred feet. The rate of descent is not uniform throughout the whole course of the river. In one section it drops sixty feet to the mile, while there is one stretch of thirteen miles with a descent of only four and a half feet to the mile. The average is twenty-two feet to the mile. The width varies from eighty to one hundred and eighty feet, and the depth from five to twelve feet. Caesarea Philippi, at the head of the valley, Capernaum, Magdala, Tiberias, and Tarrichaea were cities on the Sea of Galilee. Jericho and Gilgal were in the plain at the southern extremity, and Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, upon which the wrath of God was poured, were somewhere in the region of the Dead Sea.
The Eastern Table-Land has a mountain wall four thousand feet high facing the river. This table-land, which is mostly fertile, extends eastward about twenty miles, and terminates in the Arabian Desert, which is still higher. Here the mountains are higher and steeper than those west of the Jordan. Mt. Hermon, in the north, is nine thousand two hundred feet high. South of the Jarmuk River is Mt. Gilead, three thousand feet high, and Mt. Nebo, lying east of the northern end of the Dead Sea, reaches an elevation of two thousand six hundred and seventy feet. Besides the Jarmuk, another stream, the Jabbok, flows into the Jordan from this side. The Arnon empties into the Dead Sea. The northern section was called Bashan, the middle, Gilead, and the southern part, Moab. Bashan anciently had many cities, and numerous ruins yet remain. In the campaign of Israel against Og, king of Bashan, sixty cities were captured. Many events occurred in Gilead, where were situated Jabesh-Gilead, Ramoth-Gilead, and the ten cities of the Decapolis, with the exception of Beth-shean, which was west of the Jordan. From the summit of Mt. Pisgah, a peak of Mt. Nebo, Moses viewed the Land of Promise, and from these same heights Balaam looked down on the Israelites and undertook to curse them, Moab lies south of the Arnon and east of the Dead Sea. In the time of a famine, an Israelite, named Elimelech, with his wife and sons, sojourned in this land. After the death of Elimelech and both of his sons, who had married in the land, Naomi returned to Bethlehem, accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Ruth, the Moabitess, who came into the line of ancestry of David and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once, when the kings of Judah, Israel, and Edom invaded the land, the king of Moab (when they came to Kir-hareseth, the capital) took his oldest son, who would have succeeded him on the throne, “and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall.” At this the invaders “departed from him and returned to their own land.”
The political geography of Palestine is so complicated that it can not be handled in the space here available. Only a few words, applicable to the country in New Testament times, can be said. The provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea were on the west side of the Jordan, while the Decapolis and Perea lay east of that river. The northern province of Galilee, which saw most of the ministry of Jesus, extended from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, and a much greater distance from the north to the south. It was peopled with Jews, and was probably a much better country than is generally supposed, as it contained a large number of cities and villages, and produced fish, oil, wheat, wine, figs, and flax. “It was in Christ’s time one of the gardens of the world–well watered, exceedingly fertile, thoroughly cultivated, and covered with a dense population.”–_Merrill_.
Samaria, lying south of Galilee, extended from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, and was occupied by a mixed race, formed by the mingling of Jews with the foreigners who had been sent into the land. When they were disfellowshiped by the Jews, about 460 B.C., they built a temple on Mt. Gerizim.
The province of Judaea was the largest in Palestine, and extended from the Mediterranean on the west to the Dead Sea and the Jordan on the east. It was bounded on the north by Samaria, and on the south by the desert. Although but fifty-five miles long and about thirty miles wide, it held out against Egypt, Babylonia, and Rome.
The Decapolis, or region of ten Gentile cities, was the northeastern part of Palestine, extending eastward from the Jordan to the desert. Perea lay south of the Decapolis, and east of the Jordan and Dead Sea. The kingdom of Herod the Great, whose reign ended B.C. 4, included all of this territory. After his death the country was divided into tetrarchies. Archelaus ruled over Judaea and Samaria; Antipas (“Herod the tetrarch”) had control of Galilee and Perea; Philip had a section of country east of the Sea of Galilee, and Lysanius ruled over Abilene, a small section of country between Mt. Hermon and Damascus, not included in the domain of Herod the Great. Herod Agrippa was made king by Caligula, and his territory embraced all that his grandfather, Herod the Great, had ruled over, with Abilene added, making his territory more extensive than that of any Jewish king after Solomon. He is the “Herod the king” who killed the Apostle James and imprisoned Peter. After delivering an oration at Caesarea, he died a horrible death, “because he gave not God the glory.” At his death, in A.D. 44, the country was divided into two provinces. The northern section was ruled by Herod Agrippa II. till the Jewish State was dissolved, in A.D. 70. He was the “King Agrippa” before whom Paul spoke. The southern part of the country, called the province of Judaea, was ruled by procurators having their seat at Caesarea. When Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, the country was annexed to Syria.
The climate depends more upon local conditions than on the latitude, which is the same as Southern Georgia and Alabama, Jerusalem being on the parallel of Savannah. In point of temperature it is about the same as these localities, but in other respects it differs much. The year has two seasons–the dry, lasting from the first of April to the first of November, and the rainy season, lasting the other five months, during which time there are copious rains. One authority says: “Were the old cisterns cleaned and mended, and the beautiful tanks and aqueducts repaired, the ordinary fall of rain would be quite sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants and for irrigation.” The summers are hot, the winters mild. Snow sometimes falls, but does not last long, and ice is seldom formed.
Palestine is not a timbered country. The commonest oak is a low, scrubby bush. The “cedars of Lebanon” have almost disappeared. The carob tree, white poplar, a thorn bush, and the oleander are found in some localities. The principal fruit-bearing trees are the fig, olive, date palm, pomegranate, orange, and lemon. Grapes, apples, apricots, quinces, and other fruits also grow here. Wheat, barley, and a kind of corn are raised, also tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, and tobacco. The ground is poorly cultivated with inferior tools, and the grain is tramped out with cattle, as in the long ago.
Sheep and goats are the most numerous domestic animals, a peculiarity of the sheep being the extra large “fat tail” (Lev. 3:9), a lump of pure fat from ten to fifteen inches long and from three to five inches thick. Cattle, camels, horses, mules, asses, dogs and chickens are kept.
CHAPTER IX.
HISTORIC SKETCH OF PALESTINE.
In the ancient Babylonian city called Ur of the Chaldees lived the patriarch Terah, who was the father of three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Lot was the son of Haran, who died in Ur. Terah, accompanied by Abram, Sarai, and Lot, started for “the land of Canaan,” but they “came unto Haran and dwelt there,” “and Terah died in Haran.” “Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” So Abram, Sarai, and Lot came into the land of Canaan about 2300 B.C., and dwelt first at Shechem, but “he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.” Abram did not remain here, but journeyed to the south, and when a famine came, he entered Egypt. Afterwards he returned to the southern part of Canaan, and still later he returned “unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. * * * And Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.” On account of some discord between the herdsmen of the two parties, “Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we are brethren.” Accepting his uncle’s proposition, Lot chose the well watered Plain of the Jordan, “journeyed east,” “and moved his tent as far as Sodom,” but “Abram moved his tent,