U N I VLR5 ITY Of ILLINOIS Received by bequest from Albert H. Lybyer Professor of History University of Illinois 1916-1949 t^\ JEHOSAPKAT ul-ABSOLO M | f|n^ACOB qjza6,Maria , TOMB8 OF THE PROPHETS* jg*LSMfa. # solomo«s f ' “5 _ IDOLTEMP,/ ><7 ft? o°r BETHLEHEM lj CASTLE O^' DAVID mm L^J|a c - r Bo|*^^^BEN aN 0I ENT db TH REMAINS op A lVi A or FIELD q F blood w IPILAM ©IF II BAILIE M . v LANDS, CLASSICAL AND SACRED. BY LORD NUGENT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., 22, LUDGATE STREET. 1845. London : Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. TO THE EIGHT REVEREND GEORGE, LORD BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR, THIS SECOND VOLUME, RELATING IN PART TO INQUIRIES CONDUCTED UNDER HIS LORDSHIP’S KIND SUGGESTIONS AND ADVICE, IS, WITH ALL RESPECT, DEDICATED, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/landsclassicalsa02nuge_0 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. CHAPTER I. PAGE Journey between Hebron and Jerusalem — Khalkhul —Fountain of Simeon — Dr. Robinson’s Biblical Researches — -Pools of Solomon — Bethlehem — Franciscan Convent — Chapel of the Nativity — Field of the Shepherds — Well of David — Tomb of Rachel — Plain of Rephaim — Jerusalem . 1 CHAPTER II. Topography of Jerusalem — Inadvertences of Dr. Robinson — Course of the Second Wall — Holy Sepulchre — Calvary — Bethesda * — Garden of Gethsemane ...... 34 CHAPTER III. Topography of Jerusalem continued — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Calvary— Tomb of Christ — Mount of Olives — Chapel of the Ascension —Mount of the Ascension . . . .73 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. page Bethany — Tomb of Lazarus — Return to Jerusalem — Mount of Offence — Mount of Evil Counsel — Tombs called those of the Prophets — Tombs in the Valley of Jehoshaphat — Siloam — Wail- ing-place of the Jews — Mosques of Omar and Aksa — Temple Area — Cave of Jeremiah — Tombs called those of the Kings . . .97 CHAPTER V. Modern Jerusalem — Its Police — Excursion to Je- richo — An Engagement — and Defeat — Jusuf Abounshee — A Night at Jericho — The Jordan • — Dead Sea — A Dinner Party with Bedouins — Return to Jerusalem . . . . .122 CHAPTER VI. Departure from Jerusalem — Ataroth — Gibeon — Beth-horon — Ajalon — Beeroth — Bethel — Mr. Veitch’s Account of a ruined Town near Bethel — Ain a Broot — Nablous — Well of Jacob — Town of Nablous — u Vale of many Waters” — Valley of Sebaste — Frontier of the Land of Issachar — Jenin — Plain of Esdraelon — Naza- reth . . . . . . .158 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER VII. PAGE Nazareth — Fountain of the Virgin — Mount Tabor — Plain of Galilee — Hattein — Tiberias — Sea of Tiberias — Hot Springs — Mount of the Beati- tudes — Hadjar en Nassara — Cana of Galilee — Return to Nazareth . . . . .192 CHAPTER VIII. Departure from Nazareth — The Plain of Zep- plioreh — Mountain ridge — Vale and River of Kishon — Kaiffa — Acre — Boussah — Ladder of Tyre — Tyre — Sarepta — Sidon — Beyrout. . 225 CHAPTER IX. Journey to the Vale of Coelo-Syria — Passage of Lebanon — Village of Kerak — Maronites, Arme- nians, and Druses of the Kesrouan — Metawelis — Baalbec — Return to Beyrout . . . 268 CONCLUSION. Return to Malta by Rhodes, Cerigo, Athens, Corinth, Patras, and Corfu . . . .311 ERRATA. Page 229, line 14 ,for u Caiaphas,” read u Cephas.’’ Page 263, line 3, for u Beyrtus,” read u Berytus.” LANDS, CLASSICAL AND SACRED. CHAPTER I. Journey between Hebron and Jerusalem — Khalkhul — Fountain of Simeon — Dr. Robinson’s Biblical Re- searches — Pools of Solomon — Bethlehem — Fran- ciscan Convent — Chapel of the Nativity — Field of the Shepherds — Well of David — Tomb of Rachel — Plain of Rephaim — Jerusalem. The road from Hebron as you “ set your face towards Jerusalem,” is rugged and dreary. The country of the vine, the mulberry, and fio -tree is no more. The richness of cultiva- O tion reaches no further than about a couple of miles to the northward of the town. What lies before you is grand in its outlines, but barren and desolate. A distant view of Mamre opens to the right. Dr. Robinson mistakes where he says (‘ Biblical Researches,’ vol. i., pp. 317,318) that “ what the Jews call the House of Abraham is at about five mi- VOL. II. B 2 KHALKHUL. ^CHAP. I. nutes’ walk from the great highway” between Hebron and Jerusalem, in “ a blind path to the right, at right angles leading to Tekua.” You are nowhere within more than a mile of it. At the end of an hour and a half the hill and village of Khalkhul appear on the right ; — the Halhul of which the book of Joshua speaks (xv. 58), “ Halhul, Beth-sur, and Gedor.” (St. Jerome; 4 Onomasticon,’ article 4 Elul.’) At the end of half an hour more, close by the road, likewise to the right, and on the side of a sloping bank, with an extensive plain running into the mountains in its front, a fine fountain of bright and sweet water gushes forth in an abundant stream : a little glade of close short turf is at the foot of the bank in which it rises. Behind it are some curious tombs of very remote antiquity, to all appearance Jewish, hewn in the face of the low rocks. This place is known by the Arabs under the name of 44 Ain Simin,” or the fountain of Simeon, In the plain in front was fought (a.d. 1192-3) a battle between Richard Cceur de Lion and Dll. ROBINSON. 3 CHAP. I. Saladin, in which the Sultan, having by forced marches placed himself between Richard and Askalon, from whence he was advancing on Jerusalem, and thus having threatened to interrupt his supplies, with great loss of men on the Saracen side forced him to cut his way through them back to the sea-line, which he never more could , leave ; till, long deserted, and at last be- trayed by Philip Augustus of France, his partner in the war, the English king, at the head of the last invading army who kept the field in that crusade, found all his remaining hopes of success extinguished. In entering, for the first time, the land of the New Testament, a memorable epoch in life to all who visit it, every one, probably, who would form conclusions for himself on questions of fact or locality, resolves on some general system by which to collect evidence, and try its credibility. To prepare -myself for this part of my journey, I had naturally given a good deal of attention to the study of Dr. Robinson’s work, 4 Biblical Researches in Palestine,’ as being the latest work of authority on the subject, and also the one b 2 4 BIBLICAL RESEARCHES OF fCHAP. I. which enters into its details the most, and brings the largest mass of general learning to bear upon them. I cannot approve of two out of the three cardinal principles which, with the professed objects of his journey, Dr. Ro- binson says he laid down for himself. “ The first principle,” says he, (vol. i., p. 377,) “ was to avoid as far as possible all contact with the convents, and the authority of the monks,* — to examine everywhere for * Dr. Robinson throughout his book speaks of the fathers of all the convents as u monks.” The truth is, that from the monastery of Mount Sinai, till you reach that of Mount Carmel, you will not find one monk in all Palestine. They are all Franciscan friars. This error might not be worth observing upon, but that it is universal through the work. It is a common inac- curacy, in speaking carelessly of traditions and legends of the Romish church, to dispose of them all as u monkish legends,” and u inventions of the monks,” and to accuse “ travellers in general,” as Dr. Robinson does, (p. 377,) of <£ following only beaten paths, where monkish tradi- tion had already marked out the localities they sought.” Surely this is unworthy of a writer who professes so severe an accuracy in all details, and is not very sparing in his strictures upon any instance in which he believes himself to have discovered an incorrectness, in the most unimportant respects, in any who has preceded him. CHAP. I. DR. ROBINSON. 5 ourselves, with the Scriptures in our hands, and to apply for information solely to the native Arab population.” Of the soundness of the second rule there can be no doubt. The first and last are somewhat violent gene- ralities, if rigidly adhered to ; and, as must be the fate of propositions irreconcileable with any just or reasonable scheme for arriving at truth, are abandoned in Dr. Ro- binson’s next page : but without any qua- lification of the principle so severely pro- pounded in the preceding one. For he says (p. 378) that “ though it happened that, dur- ing the whole time of his sojourn in the Holy City, he never entered the Latin con- vent, or spoke with a monk, his neglect was not intentional ; for he several times made appointments to visit the convent ; and his companion was there repeatedly.” To refuse or shun any testimony on par- ticular subjects of inquiry, merely because we differ in general opinions from the wit- ness who offers it, or because we believe him to be warped in his judgement by motives we do not hold in common with him, is not the 6 BIBLICAL RESEARCHES OF [chap. i. most promising course for bringing truth to light among conflicting statements and nicely balanced probabilities. Some allega- tions there undoubtedly are which one daily meets with in the Holy Land, referring to supposed events, and to the places where they are said to have happened, that, I agree with Dr. Robinson, are not only so mon- strously improbable, but so little in harmony with what has been given us to know in the revelation by which the Almighty has di- rected our belief and worship, that we must without hesitation pass them by as unworthy inventions, and some of them as in the high- est degree offensive. But there is much im- portant testimony, a priori, derivable from tradition at all hands. Tradition must be admitted to be the foundation of all ancient history. Tradition (tried, wherever it is capable of it, by cross-examination, but tra- dition still) is the foundation of some of the most important rights acknowledged by English and all other law. Extensive te- nures of property, privileges of all sorts, are contested and confirmed upon mere tradition CHAP. I.] DR. ROBINSON. 7 of “ long repute.” And surely it is not the part of wisdom to peremptorily exclude from consideration any evidence not flagrantly in- consistent with itself or with what we find established in the general or particular course of revelation. And even the information to be derived from the native Arab population, to which Dr. Robinson solely applies him- self, he rejects, as will be seen in some re- markable cases, for no stated reason, when it is contradictory to the conclusions he has come to on other grounds. Dr. Robinson professes to examine for him- self, with the Scripture in his hands. But he is not, in every case, as may be shown in one or two important instances, verbally accurate in his citations from the Scriptures : and in some he neglects to verify his conclusions by personal examination of the places concern- ing which he raises the controversy. I impute to Dr. Robinson in this nothing further than that he sets out, as it appears to me, with a strong preconceived theory, which, as if in- dependence of judgement forbade all agree- ment with others, he pursues in a spirit liable 8 BIBLICAL RESEARCHES OF [chap. i. to lead men, unawares, into distorting au- thority and refusing inquiry. Indeed, the dread of being duped by others may some- times produce a tendency to dispute the opinions of all who have gone before, and thus, unconsciously, to deceive ourselves. The general appearance of this defect, in a work of great learning and labour, has not only exposed Dr. Robinson to much just criticism, but has also brought upon him some observations which, I am bound to say, I think undeserved and unprovoked, and of a sort never to be hazarded except when religious subjects have been dealt with in a manner the very reverse of what per- vades and characterizes a work written like Dr. Robinson’s, in a tone of the deepest reve- rence for Holy Writ, and for all matters of divine revelation. As an instance, not a solitary but a remark- able one, of this injustice, the opinions given by Dr. Robinson on a merely topographical question, as to the point at which the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, have been very inconsiderately assailed in a small narrative, CHAP. I.] DR. ROBINSON. 9 not long ago published, of a ‘ Tour in the East, ,# the author of which insinuates that they betray a desire to lower the miraculous character of that event, and to account for it by a supposition of only natural agency. Now there never was a passage written with more apparent caution or greater propriety than that in which Dr. Robinson guards himself (vol. i., pp. 82-86) against so wan- ton a misrepresentation of his whole argu- ment. I mention this, not as venturing any observations of my own on the topographical dispute, — for on this I am indeed unable to offer any, never having visited the place in question, — but in order to avoid being so much misunderstood in anything I may take the liberty of saying as to certain errors into which I think Dr. Robinson has fallen, as to * I do not think fit to speak more particularly of a work which indeed contains little to invite notice on any account, and the less because I trust that before this time the author himself has wished the passage expunged in which he has so arrogantly and so flip- pantly placed what he represents as his own religious opinions in contrast with what he presumes to call Dr. Robinson’s “ laxity of belief.” B 3 10 POOLS OF SOLOMON. J^CHAP. I. be suspected of presuming to question his opinions on points on which he has so fully, so carefully, and so reverentially expressed them for himself. The approach to Bethlehem, and particu- larly the first glimpse of it, which may be caught at the distance of five or six miles, among the rocks and brakes to the left of the road, is very striking. The view is afterwards shut in by the hills, covered with brushwood, along the sides of which you pass, till within an hour of the city. At about that distance from it, a steep gorge opens itself to the left, crossed by an abrupt and broad bank, at the foot of which gushes forth a bright and rapid stream of water into a narrow aqueduct of stones and tiles, wind- ing on in the direction of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Behind the first rise of this bank, and at half an hour’s distance from Ain Simin, is the lowest of the three stupendous works called the Pools of Solomon. From the natural pent of the ground, the levels are so abruptly placed that, as you mount, CHAP. I.] POOLS OF SOLOMON. 11 each is successively hidden by the one next below it. They are lined with cement throughout, and the two higher ones ter- raced at the sides, with steps at intervals leading down into them. The lowest, which is the largest, appeared to me, according to the best measurement I could make, to be 589 English feet long, 169 wide in the middle, and 47 feet deep to the water’s edge. The second, 430 in length ; medium width, 180; and depth to the waters edge, 30 feet. And the upper pool 387 feet long, 240 medium width, and 13 feet deep to the waters edge. Dr. Robinson makes each a very few feet smaller each way. As I had no better apparatus with me than a stick of four feet, perhaps not very accu- rately scored off, I doubt not that his mea- surements, which did not differ very much from my own in proportions, excepting as to the depth, which I had no means of ascer- taining below the water’s edge, are most to be relied upon. He gives them thus Lower Pool : length, 582 feet ; breadth, east end, 207 ; west end, 148 ; depth, 50, of 12 POOLS OF SOLOMON. [chap. I. which 6 are water. Middle Pool : length, 423 ; breadth, east end, 250 ; west end, 160 ; depth, 39, of which 14 are water. Upper Pool : length, 380 ; breadth, east end, 236 ; west end, 229; depth, 25, of which 15 feet water. The water escapes, by passages which time has worn through the hill, and be- low the conduits intended for it, into the gush beneath. Above the highest of the three, the water is supplied from a small chamber of masonry, a “ sealed fountain,” with a narrow entrance, that has the ap- pearance of having been closed with a stone door. Into this building rush several streams, conducted from springs that rise among the several surrounding hills, and flowing still in probably as much abundance as when the conduits were first made. About a hundred yards to the right, and on the crest of the highest bank, stands a square fort, of Saracenick architecture, of no beauty, ill arranged for defence, and garrisoned by a wretched picket of ill- armed Turkish guards, watching over three mouldering iron guns, CHAF. I.] BETHLEHEM. 13 which are left there to defend I know not what ; — not the springs ; for no force of man could damage them, or the massive work enclosing them, which would not also be much more than enough to overpower the guard. From hence we proceeded along the heights to Bethlehem. It stands upon a hill some three miles farther on the right, separated to the westward by a pretty and deep valley from a village called by the Arabs “ Beit Jal,” the “ Yellow House.” The ancient city of David, Bethlehem Ephratah, or “ the fruitful,” still called by the Arabs “ Beit Lahm,” the e£ House of Bread,” retains an outward appearance of beauty and stateliness; and, within, though the streets are narrow and steep, they are of more regularity than those of most of the towns of Palestine, and of remarkable clean- liness. The houses, even the meanest, are all roofed ; and those small cupolas abound, which give to the towns and to the houses of the Holy Land an air of comfort, and even of importance, in strong contrast with 14 BETHLEHEM. CHAP. I. the dreariness of the uniform flat roofs, or oftener roofless mud-walls, of iEgypt. Bethlehem is inhabited mostly by Christians, Roman Catholick and Greek. There is but one small mosque ; few Mohammedans ; and no Jews. The dress of the Christian women here is singularly graceful and be- coming ; probably little varied in fashion from those of Naomi, and her daughter-in- law who “ clave unto her, and said, Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” The young women wear a light veil, or rather hood ; not covering the fea- tures, like the Turkish or ^Egyptian cimaar, but descending on each side of the face, and closed across the bosom, and showing the front of a low but handsome head-dress, usually composed of strings of silver coins plaited in among the hair, and hanging down below the chin as a sort of necklace. The mothers and old women wear a darker and longer robe. At the easternmost extremity of Beth- lehem, on the edge of a steep rock over- hanging a plain of several miles in ex- chap. 1.] SITE OF THE NATIVITY. 15 tent, stands the Franciscan convent of the Nativity, containing within its precincts what is said to be the place where the Saviour was born into this world. In the plain to the eastward, a little less than a mile from the convent walls, is what is said to be the field where the shepherds, watching their flocks by night, received the glad tid- ings of the Saviour’s birth. My impression is strongly in favour of the identity of the place shown as that of the Nativity. It is, I admit, scarcely to be believed that the precise spot of ground now pointed out as that on which the Virgin lay when she “ brought forth her first-born son,” or that the small space where stood a manger, perhaps constructed temporarily during the influx of strangers from all that district of Judaea, has been accurately ascertained. And, even if this be so, it has been more than once utterly changed in appearance and in form ; once by the edifice of pagan worship which the Romans built upon it, and since by the strangely mis- directed zeal which, after the pagan shrine 16 SITE OF THE NATIVITY. [chap. i. had been removed, has disfigured and over- whelmed what remained with marble and alabaster. But still, though there is no record of our Saviour, or his mother, or Joseph, ever having revisited Bethlehem, it is hard to suppose that the place where the shepherds worshipped, and the kings brought their gifts, and the first act of our redemption was made manifest, could have been forgotten or neglected by those who from the first had believed, or could have failed to be pointed out by them to after- comers with the utmost reverence and care. Nor can there be any reason to imagine that Eusebius or Jerome, who chose that hill for their dwelling-place as having been the site of that great event, should, after a time so short in the history of great events, have suffered themselves to be deceived, or have had any motive for practising an irreverent deception upon others. I am furthermore confirmed, by the hostile testimony of high pagan authority, in my opinion that we are not deceived in this. Hadrian seems to have attached no small importance to his efforts CHAP. I. ITS DESECRATION. 17 to discredit the religion of the Nazarenes, since we find that he was active in the work of desecration wherever he found a place specially hallowed by them as the scene of some great act of our redemption. He raised a shrine and a statue here to Adonis, dedicating the place to his worship. This statue both Eusebius and Jerome (the former of whom wrote at a distance of not above seventy years from the time) tell us, on their own authority, was found there by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, and destroyed. It is little probable that Hadrian, who was in Palestine scarcely more than one hundred years after the death of Christ, (in the year of the birth of Christ 137 ; when, therefore, many men of the se- cond generation from the time of the first apostles must have been still alive,) and who was so careful to desecrate, would have done it on slight evidence as to the place. But, when we come to the question of the supposed manger itself, we have to deal with a very different class of pro- babilities. The manger, we are told in the traditions of the Greek and Roman 18 “ CHAPEL OF THE NATIVITY.” [chap. i. church, was carried by Pope Sixtus V. to Rome. If this was the real manger, surely the discovery and identification of it in a place which had been so demolished, recon- structed, and changed, not in form only, but in levels also, and thus as may be said in identity, can, on the part of those who be- lieve it, be accounted for only by miracle. But, believing as I do, for the reasons I have stated, that the “ Chapel of the Nativity ” does cover the ground on which that manger stood, I am quite as much in- clined to believe in the identity of the Field of the Shepherds. For I think it much more than probable, nay, amounting almost to a moral certainty, that men who had been witnesses of so great a prodigy, and who had been led from witnessing that great prodigy to fall down in worship before “ where the young child lay,” would not, even if they never again had entered under that roof, have failed to keep in solemn recollection, and to note for the remembrance of all dwellers round Bethlehem in after time, where it was that they heard the “ glad tidings of great joy,” proclaiming, 44 Glory chap, i.] SHEPHERDS’ FIELD. 19 to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men !” In events of much less note, how much more likely that the place agreed upon by many men, and handed down through many generations of men as that of their occur- rence, should be true than false. How many events, how immeasurably less, have marked the places of their occurrence, and will mark them, by tradition which none have doubted, and none will doubt so long as the coun- tries which contain them shall endure. Nor is their probability less reasonable because we cannot disprove the objection that it is possible that, in ways and for reasons no longer capable of being traced, a fraud may have been originally imposed, and perpetuated since. The Shepherds’ Field is still pasture land, and must, from its posi- tion, have always been so ; surrounded on three sides by almost bare and rocky hills, and nigh to the city. There certainly are not the same mo- tives for believing in the tradition on the strength of which a cave within a few hundred yards to the eastward of the 20 UNCERTAINTY OF [chap. I. convent is shown as the place where the blessed Virgin and St. Joseph secreted the infant Saviour during the massacre of the young children of the country round, and before the flight into iEgypt. First, because a cave in the rock, close to the city concern- ing which Herod commanded that all the children found therein “ and in all the coasts thereof’'' should be slain, was not a likely place to be chosen for concealment ; and secondly, and mainly, because St. Matthew, who recounts circumstantially (chap, ii.) the events belonging to the escape from Herod’s search and persecution, not only does not give any authority for supposing that the young child was at any time kept hidden in the city of his birth, or in any place near it, but rather leaves us with the contrary impression, that he was carried into iEgypt without delay, as soon as the edict was known, and before it took effect. Indeed, proportionally with the reason- able inclination felt to give credence, a priori, to such traditions as are in harmony with Holy Writ, is the jealousy with which those TRADITIONS. 21 CHAr. may be viewed for which there is no Scrip- tural warranty whatever ; and which, there- fore, may not unreasonably be suspected to have been framed with the desire of multi- plying the places of veneration claimed by the rival zeal or rival interests of the two great factions into which what were called the Eastern and the Western Churches were so early divided. There is much to be felt in excuse, nay, more than excuse, for the imaginative warmth of minds dwelling in habitual excitement among such scenes. And, even where we question or reject many of the imaginations they adopt and cling to, it is neither generous nor just to deal with them as fabrications of corruption and fraud. Still it is very lamentable to trace, as one does, wherever the Greek and Roman churches hold a conflicting jurisdiction over the minds of men, the unworthy bickerings and rancorous ill - will that are between them ; dishonouring, as in the Holy Land, the very ground on which the Saviour trod with their shameless slanders and un- charitable assaults upon each other. “Mutuo metu, mutuis moribus et montibus divisi,” 22 SITE OF THE NATIVITY. [chap. i. as Tacitus says of the ancient Germans and Gauls, the priests of the Eastern and Western Churches are inveterate against each other, rather as it appears on account of the nearness of their faith and discipline, — of the beliefs, the ceremonies, and the saints, which they have in common, — than of the differences that divide them ; while neither Friar nor Kaloyer fails to receive the Pro- testant with kindness, who meets with no annoyance but in the ceaseless and bitter appeals made to him upon the grievances each feels against his fellow-worshipper. The spot shown as the place of the Nati- vity, and that of the manger, both of which are in a crypt or subterraneous chapel under the church of St. Katherine, are in the hands of the Roman Catholicks. The former is marked by this simple inscription on a silver star set in the pavement, “ Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est.” The place, as it is called, of the “ Pre- sepio,” is within a few yards of it. Into this you descend by a few low steps. It contains an alabaster trough or hollowed bed, made to represent the manger and FRANCISCANS. 23 ciiAr. i. replace it. This also is enclosed within a shrine hung with blue silk, and embroidered with silver. Both these and the narrow passage adjoining to them are lighted by a profusion of silver lamps kept always burning ; offerings of various ages and nations. Directly opposite the shrine of the manger, and but a few yards from it, are another chapel and altar. Here it is said the Kings from the East opened their gifts, and wor- shipped. This last place is in the hands of the Greek church. We found the Franciscan Friars, into whose convent we were very hospitably received, loud in their complaints and remonstrances against one of the many mistakes made by Baron Geramb, monk of La Trappe, in his narrative of the journey which he calls a 6 Pilgrimage to the Holy Land/ whose “ appeal to the powers of Christendom,” in their behalf, has very much disturbed and offended them. In the overflowing of his zeal against their rivals of the Greek church, he imputes to the “ Schismaticks,” that they 24 TOMB OF ST. JEROME. [chap. I. have unfairly got possession of the place of our Lord’s Nativity. Now, with whatever ap- probation the Franciscans might regard any censure cast in that direction, they deeply resent, and above all too in so zealous a partisan with them in their warfare against the schismaticks, its being untruly said that the guardianship of so treasured a trust is no more, as it has ever been from the found- ation of their convent, the distinctive glory of their order throughout the Christian world, and that it has passed away from theirs into other and so unworthy hands. Besides these three shrines, the same crypt contains the chapel and tomb of St. Paula, and her daughter St. Eustochia, (or Eus- tochium, as some writers call her,) two pious Roman ladies of illustrious family, descended, as their epitaph informs us, from Scipio and the Gracchi, who, in the third century, founded a convent of nuns at Bethlehem. Here, likewise, are the tombs of St. Jerome and Eusebius ; and, under the same church, is shown the cave in which the former father dwelt for nearly fifty years ; the greater part CHAP. I.] FRANCISCAN CONVENT. 25 of which time he passed in the translation of the books of the New Testament. The church above is handsome ; particularly the centre aisle. The roof springs into bold arches, said, I know not how truly, to be of cedar-wood from Lebanon, and is sup- ported by two double rows of twenty-eight lofty marble pillars of the most florid Co- rinthian ; a somewhat irregular combina- tion ; but on the whole gorgeous and striking. This church is one of the oldest in Pales- tine; founded by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine. The convent is built in the most un- adorned style of ancient Byzantine architec- ture ; having, from without, the appearance of a rude fortress, and being well adapted for defence against all the means of attack with which it could be threatened in the middle ages, or now likely to be brought against it by its only enemies, the wander- ing Arabs who might visit it for plunder. It is accessible only at one entrance, se- cured by a massive iron door ; so low, like the entrance of most houses and of all VOL. II. c 26 FRANCISCAN CONVENT. [chap. I. places of defence in Palestine, that a tall man must stoop nearly double to pass, and even a short man bent, and head foremost, in a posture little adapted either for aggres- sion or resistance. Within there is little worthy of observation ; excepting some very good editions of ancient books of travels, topography, and divinity, which are kept in the sleeping-cell of the librarian. Among these is a fine copy of Quaresmius, sent there as a present from himself. Apart are some handsome manuscripts; someArabick, some French ; the latter in the long character of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; most of them relating to early statisticks of Palestine, and probably the work of the im- mediate successors of the “ Father Guardians” established here after the third Crusade. The windows, which are all on the upper floor, and the terrace command an extensive view over the Field of the Shepherds and the plain beyond, and even to the easternmost mountains of Judah. About midway be- tween these and the plain, and at a short distance from Tekoah, rises a large hill of CHAP. I.] “ FRANK MOUNTAIN.” 27 the form of a truncated cone, now known as the “ Frank Mountain.” This is supposed to have been the ancient Bethulia, (of Judith,) and, as Pococke is inclined to be- lieve, identical also with the Beth-haccerem of the prophet Jeremiah : “ Oh, ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem ; and bio w the trumpet in Tekoah, and set up a sign of fire in Beth- haccerem ; for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction ” (vi 1). Dr. Robinson suggests, with no small probability, and in accordance with Mariti, that it is the site of the city Herodium, built and fortified by Herod the Great; and afterwards his burying-place, whither his body was brought from Jericho, where he died. Josephus describes it. (‘ Antiq.’ xv. 9. 4 ; 4 Bell. Jud.’ i. 21. 10.) Its present name is derived from a some- what obscure story, vouched by Quaresmius and others, that here a party of Crusaders maintained themselves for forty years after Jerusalem fell for the last time into the hands of the Saracens, in 1187. This, how- c 2 28 ENGEDI. [chap. I. ever, is disbelieved, and for apparently con- clusive reasons, by Captains Irby and Man- gles. (‘ Travels,’ p. 340.) Beyond this, far away to the left, are the fastnesses of Engedi, whose tops and deep gorges have been so often, and in all ages, even down to the wars of Ibrahim Pasha, the place of refuge for the vanquished and de- nounced. In the Field of the Shepherds is a walled enclosure of some thirty yards across ; and, in the centre of it, a small cave formerly used as a chapel by the priests of the Greek church. This is called the Grotto of the Shepherds, and shown as the place where they were “ abiding in the field.” From Bethlehem to Jerusalem the distance is hardly more than six miles ; and over a country so much less rugged than the usual hadj roads of Palestine and Syria, that, though loaded camels, going their conven- tional pace, make it a journey of rather more than two hours, a man can easily do it on horseback in much less than an hour, or in an hour and a half on foot. On the CHAP. I.] WELL OF BETHLEHEM. 29 right, at about a quarter of a mile from the road, and not more than twice that distance from the walls of Bethlehem, is the fountain from whence David longed for water; and “ three mighty men ” of the host of Judah “ drew water and brought it to David. Never- “ theless he would not drink thereof, but “ poured it out unto the Lord ; and said. Be “ it far from me, O Lord, that I should do “ this. Is not this the blood of the men that “ went in jeopardy of their lives ?” (2 Sam. xxiii. 15.) As I looked from hence toward Bethlehem, it did not appear to me, as it has to some, that this spring is too far from the “ gate of the city ” to answer the description given of the difficulty and hazard of the enterprise. It does not appear from any- thing that is said in the book of Samuel that a part of the garrison might not have been lying outside the city. On the contrary ; the men of Judah “ brake through the host of the Philistines.” And, furthermore, I believe there is no other spring outside the walls on the side of Rephaim, which was the side the Philistines occupied. (Id. 13.) 30 TOMB OF EACHEL. [chap. I. At not quite halfway to Jerusalem is the tomb of Rachel, (Gen. xxxv. 19,) who was “ buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.” It is not, however, the “ pillar ” which Jacob her husband set up; nor, from its appearance, is it of a date nearer to it than some two thousand years, or probably much more ; for it bears clear evidence of Saracenick design and workmanship. Still there is no reason to doubt the identity of the site ; and all writers seem on this point to agree in opinion with the tradition, on the strength of which the place is held in high veneration by Moslems as well as Jews. At about an hour’s distance for a horse- man to the north-westward is the vil- lage of Rama ; where was “ a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourn- ing, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not.” (Matt. xi. 17, 18.) A little further, on an eminence to the right of the road, is the monastery of St. Elias. And hence the city of Jerusalem (“ El Khoods,” or CIIAP. I.] VIEW OF JERUSALEM. 31 “ the Sacred ”) is in full view. In front a plain stretches away along the mountains to the left. This is the Plain of Rephaim, or the Giants, where David twice encountered and vanquished the Philistines. (2 Sam. v. 18, et seq.) The first view of the Holy City from this direction many persons say has disappointed their expectations. No man can measure the expectations of others, or account for their first impressions. Jerusalem, it is true, does not rise to any commanding height above the plain. It is not seen from hence, as from the Damascus side, backed bv the sky, nor by the Mount of Olives, as when you approach it from Jaffa. It presents a long line of embattled wall crossing the hill of Zion, and extending down to where the ravines of Hinnom and the Kedron meet ; and the broken ground of the former is hidden by the intervening plain. Nor do you see the valley of Jehoshaphat in all its depth and length. For the south-eastern angle of the wall of the Temple area juts out before all but the southern entrance of it. 32 ENTRANCE TO JERUSALEM. [chap. i. Yet the cupolas of the Holy Sepulchre, and those of the two mosques of Omar and of Aksa, occupying the whole of Mount Moriah, on which the Temple stood, rise proudly above the wall. The old square tower of David crowns the western angle of Zion, looking down the slope of the city towards the valley of the Kedron ; and the Mount of Olives towers high above it to the east. It is the city so often pictured to our imagination under all the different aspects of its wondrous history. And the first glimpse of it, with all its associations, even apart from all con- sideration of its position, which of itself is majestick, fulfils, as it appears to me, all that the most fervent expectations can desire. On your approach to the walls you skirt the deep valleys, or rather clefts, of Hinnom and of Gihon to your right, leaving the upper pool of Gihon to your left, and enter Jeru- salem by the Jaffa or Bethlehem gate, flanked by the ancient castle of David, called by the Crusaders the “ Pisans’ Tower.” Travellers, on their first appearance before the gates, are stopped by a demand for their chap, i.] ENTRANCE TO JERUSALEM. 33 passports and clean bills of health. Our passports were from the British Consul at Cairo. Our bills of health were those we had obtained from the French quarantine officer at Gaza. Hardly had we proceeded down the first street from the Tower of David, when we met Mr. Pollen and his brother, who had left iEgypt some weeks before us. They had taken the longer route by Sinai, and had been about a week in Jerusalem. We were introduced by them into the lodging-house where they had their abode. It was kept by a Maltese resident of the name of Salvador, in the Coptick quarter of the town. Here we found excellent ac- commodation. Thenceforward, Major Grote and I joined company with these two gentle- men, with whom we not only remained during our stay in the city, but whom we had also the good fortune to find disposed to undertake the rest of our journey with us, through Samaria, Galilee, and Syria. ( 34 ) [chap. II. CHAPTER II. Topography of Jerusalem — Inadvertences of Dr. Ro- binson — Course of the Second Wall — Holy Sepulchre — Calvary — Bethesda — Garden of Gethsemane. A question has of late years arisen and been maintained with much eagerness, which has not unnaturally engaged much of the atten- tion of the greater number of travellers visit- ing Jerusalem — I mean with reference to the identity of what are shown as the places ren- dered memorable by some of the principal acts of our Saviour’s life and passion ; par- ticularly of the church formerly known as that of the Resurrection, now called that of the Holy Sepulchre. To this inquiry I ap- plied myself with no small attention, and pursued it with little intermission during the whole of my three weeks’ stay at Jerusa- lem. I had indeed, for some time before, arranged the course which appeared to me CHAP. II.] JERUSALEM. 35 the most likely to assist in forming a reason- able opinion on this subject. I will state at once the conclusion at which, in consequence, 1 have arrived, and which, indeed, appears to me irresistible. If erroneous, it is from a fault of judgement in applying evidence, not from want of diligence in searching for it. I have not a doubt remaining that the places shown as the site of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre are really the places of the Crucifixion and of the tomb of Christ. It remains to give my reasons for this belief. But I must do this in some detail, which will be utterlv unin- teresting to all but such as may feel a cu- riosity on this subject. I had the good fortune, soon after my arrival at Jerusalem, to form an acquaint- ance with Dr. Schultz, the Prussian Consul there, a gentleman to whose society I should on every account esteem it a valuable privi- lege to be admitted ; but in the prosecution of this inquiry the more so, because he has during several years’ residence in that city brought to bear upon the subject of its topo- graphy powers of dear and calm reasoning, 36 INADVERTENCES OF [chap. II. and a large store of scholarlike learning. We made our local researches together with reference to the principal branches of the in- quiry, and I am authorized to say, that he has come to the same conclusion as I have, with an equal conviction of the soundness of the grounds. I am aware of the hazard of avowing a directly opposite opinion to that maintained in Dr. Robinson’s very ela- borate work. But my belief is that if Dr. Robinson had made himself as well ac- quainted with the topography of Jerusalem as he has with that of most other parts of Pales- tine, he could not have arrived at the opi- nion which he so confidently expresses in his book. I must also observe, from his own statement, that, singularly, he refused even to visit some of the places which it is most important to examine, step by step, with a view to the subject, — that he has assumed some facts very hastily, and without assign- ing any reason for doing so, — and that, in his haste, he has on one or two points mis- cited authorities, so as to confirm himself in a theory which these authorities do not sup- port, but the reverse. CHAP. II.] Dll. ROBINSON. 37 To so arrange the form of the ancient city as to suppose that the ground on which stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was formerly without the walls, (and this must of course be done in order to suppose that it covers the real site either of Calvary or the tomb of Christ,) may at first view seem diffi- cult, and to require a strange distortion of that north-westernmost part of the ground- plan, the line which connects the gate of David with the Damascus gate. Be it how- ever remembered that Josephus describes the second wall — which, until long after the time of the grandson of the second Herod under whose tetrarchy Christ was crucified, was the outermost wall of the city on that side, — as running in a curve (ev kvk\cp) ; which phrase Dr. Robinson seems too hastily to interpret as meaning a convex curve. Now if these words were intended to imply any- thing more than “encircling” the city, or being “ cast round” the city,* as St. Luke uses them, — if they were intended to de- * So in Luke xix. 43, u Kal ire plkvk\uxth. A. 9. Anthim. Gaz. Lexic. Ellen. Yenet. * Thus the site now occupied in the modern town of Athens by the hiTapo€a£ap, or Corn-bazaar, at the north-eastern corner of the second Agora, is the very spot where stood the ancient Corn-market. There the workmen, digging foundations for the new buildings, found several ancient modia, vessels for measuring corn, which have since been built into a conspicuous part of an adjoining wall to mark the coincidence of the place which was chosen in entire ignorance of its being that which formerly was applied to the same purpose. Local reasons in such cases still remain the same in directing the choice. CHAP. II.] SECOND WALL. 57 what now are the bazaars ; and a gate, very nearly adjoining the angle I have so often mentioned, is still known by the Arabick name of “ Bab-el-Katanin,” the “ Gate of Cotton I should not desire in pursuit of this sub- ject to enter upon the historical reasons, of which there are so many, for believing that, though the credulous piety of the Empress Helena was without doubt betrayed into assigning some names and legends to places without either proof or probability, she did not err with respect to the site of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. These do not pro- perly belong to a narrative in which I would limit myself, as strictly as I can, to such evi- dences as have come under my own observa- tion while upon the spot. Yet I cannot take leave of the subject without observing that, whereas Eusebius and Jerome speak posi- tively, addressing themselves to others, whose traditional knowledge of Jerusalem was as fresh as their own, of a statue of Venus having been found upon Calvary, and of Jupiter upon the Holy Sepulchre,— placed d 3 58 TESTIMONY OP [chap. ii. there by the Emperor Hadrian for the pur- pose of desecration, and destroyed by the Empress Helena not more than a hundred years before the latter, and not more than twelve years before the former, of these writers wrote, — and therefore while the facts were all within recent memory, — and that that emperor had fixed upon these places for desecration, while many descendants in not above the second degree from those who had stood under the Cross and borne witness to the evidence of the resurrection were still alive, — it requires a very strong case indeed to overthrow that in favour of the identity of the site.* * Dr. Robinson admits (vol. ii. p. 73) that, “ could this be regarded as a well ascertained fact, it would certainly have great weight in a decision of the ques- tion.” But he proceeds to impeach the fact upon what he supposes to be a discrepancy between the relations given by Eusebius and Jerome. The discrepancy amounts to this — That whereas Eusebius, earlier by eighty years than Jerome, says that u impious men ” had raised “ a temple of Venus over the Sepulchre,” Jerome says the “ marble statue of Venus was on the rock of the Cross, on Golgotha, and an image of Jupiter on the place of the resurrection.” A temple is chap, ii.] EUSEBIUS AND JEROME. 59 I must add, from personal and careful ob- servation, that those who object that the altar built upon what is said to be Calvary is too near to what is called the Sepulchre for any likelihood of truth, misstate the nearness of these two places to each other. The altar of Calvary, as I have before stated, is a little more than forty-four yards (for I measured the distance, allowing as well as I could for the^ intervening angles of the walls and the difference of levels) from the part of the shrine of the Sepulchre nearest to it, and raised to Yenus over the Sepulchre, which also covered with its roof (as the present church of the Sepulchre does) the place of crucifixion. The statue of the goddess was placed upon the site of Calvary, and a statue of the father of the gods upon that of the tomb, in the same temple. And Dr. Robinson does not see that these two accounts, so far from being in any respect contradictory, are in perfect accordance with, and confirmatory of, each other. I desire to guard against the supposition of an impious parallel. But, in illustration of what I mean, — if we were told that a Roman Catholick Church was raised in honour of a Saint whose statue was within, and also that an image of still higher veneration, a representation of the cru- cifixion, was under the same roof, should we pronounce this to be an inconsistent narrative ? 60 CONCLUSION OF PROOFS. [chap. II. from the tomb itself full six yards more. Fifty yards then (and the distance is more) is quite sufficient space to allow between them, according to the words of Scripture, which describe them as close adjoining to each other. “ In that place was a garden.” Nor need those who are acquainted with the East be reminded what small plats of ground they are which in those countries are called by the name of garden. I wish to make but one more observation on this subject. It was about the ninth hour, (Matt, xxvii. 46,) three in the afternoon, when Jesus gave up the ghost. It was ne- cessary to hasten the preparations for inter- ment, for the next day was the Sabbath, and that Sabbath was a high day. The Jewish Sabbath commences at sunset ; and this was in the early spring : and neither Jews nor Mohammedans will work for the last hour or two before sunset on the eve of their re- spective Sabbaths. After three it was then that Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate (Mark xv.) to beg the body of Christ. Pi- late doubted whether he could yet be dead. CHAP. II.] DOUBTFUL LEGENDS. 61 He made inquiry from the Centurion. After inquiry, leave was given to take down the body from the Cross. Joseph returned, took down the body, and, with Nicodemus, (John xix.,) “ wound it in a linen cloth, with spices, as was the custom of the Jews,” and laid it in the Sepulchre. And all this within an hour and a half, or, at most, two hours. I call attention to these things only to show that the place of interment and of crucifixion must have been not only close to each other, but close also to the city. The zeal, in many cases misdirected, of Christians living in Jerusalem, or visiting it, even from as far back as the end of the third century, has doubtless filled that city not only with most doubtful legends, but also with topographical fictions, forged to fit them- selves to those legends as well as to events recorded in Holy Writ; of the former, such as the station of the house in the Via Dolo- rosa, whence St. Veronica, or Berenice, is said to have come forth to wipe the bleeding brows of Christ, — or of the latter, such as the spot shown as that on which He fell be- 62 TRADITIONS CONFIRMING THE [chap. ii. neath the weight of his Cross, — or the place outside the prsetorium where the cock crew when Peter denied his Lord. One turns from these, and from the enu- meration of them, lamenting that the sacred simplicity with which the inspired narrative recounts the sufferings of the Son of God should have been thus outraged by human inventions. They can be pardoned only by making all allowance for the excitement natural to minds dwelling on the contem- plation of those sufferings within view of the guilty city in which they were endured. In such cases the authority of tradition, good only where the graft derives its life and character from the stock of Gospel truth, has transgressed its proper limits, and must be cast aside. But, where it is in ac- cordance with any Scriptural probability, or even where no improbability, no unrea- sonableness, is manifest, or motive for dis- torting truth discoverable in it, I must con- tend that it lays just claim to be taken as strong a priori testimony, and to be treated not only with respect, but favour. Nay ciiap. ii.] SCRIPTURE NARRATIVE. 63 more : we are bound to consider how many historical facts there are belonging to the history of mankind, — of our own country, — the topographical associations belonging to which can be traced to no other authority than that of long undisputed tradition, and which yet it would be preposterous now to dispute. As, for example : who would dispute the identity of Hastings or of Ptunymede with the place it represents ? And yet the site shown as that of the battle-field has no testimony to its truth, save what is given by the ruins of an ancient monastery, the exact date of which is doubtful ; — nor has the sedgy island where the first charter of English liberty was signed any, save that of a tradition more than twice as remote from the time than the days of Eusebius or of Jerome were from that of an event cherished with feelings so much higher and more sacred. These are the proofs (I make no apology for the length of the digression into which they have led me) which I venture to oppose to the theory of Dr. Robinson concerning 64 ST. STEPHEN’S GATE. [chap. II. these places ; a theory which, be it remem- bered, does not even attempt to assign any other as the probable place of these events, — but which, after a five weeks’ residence at Jerusalem, he would substitute for the un- interrupted tradition of all the Christians of five churches, and of all the resident popu- lation of Jerusalem, during at least fifteen hundred years. I now proceed to two other of the most memorable points in the disputed topogra- phy of this city. On the right of what is called St. Stephen’s Gate,* (the Sheep Gate of the Bible,) the principal entrance on the east from the valley of the Kedron, or of Jehoshaphat, is the great oblong excavation * Dr. Schultz is of opinion that the small gate to the north, now closed, called the Gate of Herod, but by the Arabs “ Bab-es -Zahara,” may have been the one near which St. Stephen was stoned, and that the name “ Zahara ” ( qua u Wreath of Flowers,” Ura^aroe) may have some relation to his name. On this subject I do not venture to express any judgement, not having attended to it. Nor indeed does Dr. Schultz, whose judgement is so sound on all matters of Jewish to- pography, go further on this than to suggest the question. C1IAP. IT.] POOL OF BETHESDA. 65 which, at least from the time of Constantine, has been always known as the Pool of Be- thesda. This great and ancient reservoir, (admitted by Dr. Robinson to have been a reservoir, on the evidence of the cement with which it is throughout lined, and ancient, upon the evidence of the whole of its con- struction,) he believes nevertheless not to have been that of Bethesda ; though it is a pool of great space and depth within the town,* as Bethesda was, whose traces there- fore could not easily have been effaced. He shows, indeed, very good reason for supposing, what I believe is universally ad- mitted, that the fortress of Antonia, which was built for the protection of the Temple and its area on the north side, stood between this reservoir and what is now the great mosque of the Caliph Omar : he assumes that the excavation was made merely to serve as a ditch of defence for that fortress. f * I say within the town, because all the pools with- out the walls are mentioned in the books of Chronicles and Kings. t See ‘ Biblical Researches,’ vol. i. p. 433, et seq. to 489. 66 POOL OF BETHESDA. [chap. II. But why in that case it was made of so pre- posterous a width as of one hundred and thirty English feet in a town so limited in its space for inhabitants and garrison, or of seventy- five feet to the bottom where a fall of twenty feet in a wet ditch would have answered every purpose of defence, — or why, if it were only for defence, it should have been a wet ditch at all, where an enemy in possession of its northern bank might at any time have so easily drained it into the Valley of Jehosha- phat, — he does not show. It probably did answer the purpose of a ditch to the fortress Antonia ; but it appears quite clear that it was constructed also for the purpose of a mighty pool or reservoir to supply the city with water. And, if so, and if it was a pool, but not the Pool of Bethesda, why do we find no mention made by the Bible or by Jose- phus of any other such pool in that direc- tion ? The Pool of Bethesda was also called the Sheep Pool ; and there can be no doubt that the gate, so near to the great pool in question, is the one called (Neh. iii. 1-32) the Sheep Gate. chap, ir.] “ VIRGIN’S FOUNTAIN." 67 Dr. Robinson suggests, (vol. i. p. 508,) “ as perhaps worthy of consideration,” whe- ther what is now shown as the “ Virgin’s Fountain,” near Siloam, may not have been the real Bethesda ; and this only on account of an irregular flow of the waters of the upper pool of Siloam, and a communication which he believes may exist between them and those of the Virgin’s Fountain. This he suggests may have some reference to the troubling of the water in the Pool of Be- thesda :, — a subject, surely, to be approached with caution, considering the manner in which it is treated in Scripture. But this theory is beset with difficulties, any one of which would be insuperable. The excavation known by the name of the Vir- gin’s Fountain, which has every appearance of having been hewn out of the living rock, and therefore of having never been larger than now, is very much too small to have con- tained the “ five porches ” mentioned by St. John (ch. v. ver. 2) ; — and that the trou- bling of the water in any pool within the walls of Jerusalem should be caused by any 68 GARDEN OF [chap, II. irregular flow of the upper pool of Siloam is contrary to the law of nature ; for there is no spot within the walls which is not at the least eighty or ninety feet above the level of that upper pool. The great pool, which has for so manv centuries borne with- «/ out dispute the name of Betliesda, has every appearance of having been much shortened at the western end. Dr. Robinson shows the probability of its having been filled up at that end when the fortress Antonia was levelled by the Romans. Here, then, may well have been the five porches, where lay the sick “ waiting for the moving of the waters.” The last instance which I will mention of the inaccuracy of Dr. Robinson’s topography of Jerusalem refers to the spot of ground which, of all in or about Jerusalem, is in- vested with the deepest interest, the Garden of Gethsemane, — of all places, the one to which belong the most affecting and the most solemn associations ; undisfigured by misdirected zeal, and undisturbed, in its silence and solitude, as when the Saviour CHAP. II.] GETIISEMANE. 69 accepted there the cup of agony for the redemption of the whole human race, and went forth to be betrayed and led away, bound, to judgement at the hands of the people he so much loved. Dr. Robinson does not question that “ here, or at least not far off,” (p. 347,) the Saviour endured his passion. Yet, says he, (p. 346,) as if such an admission required a qualification, ‘ 4 there is nothing peculiar in this plat to mark it as Gethsemane ; for adjacent to it are other similar enclosures, and many olive-trees equally old an in- conclusive reason, even if the latter fact were assumed on good ground. But, in truth, as all who visit this spot and the parts adjacent cannot fail to observe, there is a very remarkable difference in the apparent, the manifest, age of the eight old olive-trees in the garden of Gethsemane and any others along the whole course of the valley of the Kedron or the site of the Mount of Olives. M. de Chateaubriand, indeed, says, (‘ Iti- neraire,’ vol. ii. p. 37,) “ en voici la preuve that, on the occupation of Jerusalem by the 70 ANCIENT OLIYE TREES. [chap. II. Turks, they laid upon all olive-trees which should be planted after that time a duty amounting to one-half of the produce ; but on those already there a tax of only one medin each ; and that these eight trees only pay the eight medins, and no further tribute. He does not give his authority for this, which, if established, would be a curious fact. And I am bound to say, that, after much and various inquiries I have made on the subject, I have not been able to trace the story to any foundation. The Francis- can friars themselves, to whom the garden belongs, treat this story as apocryphal, and know nothing of any payment of medins. Granting it to be founded on good autho- rity, it would by no means show that these trees are the same that stood there in the time of our Saviour. Nor do I think it at all probable that they are ; particularly considering that Josephus tells us all the trees round Jerusalem were cut down by the Romans during the siege ; though, from the almost indestructible vitality of the olive root, after the trunks have been cut down. CHAP. II.] GETIISEMANE. 71 or even destroyed by fire, these may very possibly be shoots from the plants which were in existence eighteen hundred years ago. At all events, the reason assigned by Dr. Robinson for his doubt of the identity of the place is hasty and unfounded ; — an identity which is, indeed, beyond all doubt. Its position “ over the brook Kedron,” and close by the ancient path which leads to the Mount of Olives, — the narrowness of the space “ where there was a garden ” between the brook and the ascent of the mount, — its nearness to the city, whence, “ while he yet spake/’ Judas came “with a great multitude from the chief priests to take him,” — every feature, every part of the evidence, internal and external, of the place declares that here, among the gnarled stems of the eight vene- rable olive-trees which overshadow it, you are within at most a few paces of where he was “ sorrowful even unto death.” One who has been in Gethsemane must afterwards, I think, re-enter the modern city of Jerusalem and wander among its much 72 GETIISEMANE. [CHAF. II. changed sites, of holy memory, with feelings much less deep and awful than those which arise within that small enclosure ; apart as it is from all disturbance, and undefaced by any of those gorgeous superstructures which else- where interfere with, instead of assisting, the impressions that belong to these scenes. “ Strong vaulted cells, where martyred seers of old Far in the rocky walls of Zion sleep ; Green terraces, and arched fountains cold, Where lies the cypress shade so still and deep. Th’ unearthly thoughts have passed from earth away As fast as evening sunbeams from the sea. Thy footsteps all, in Zion’s deep decay, Were blotted from the holy ground. Yet dear Is every stone of hers. For thou wert surely here. * * * * There is a spot within this sacred dale That felt thee kneeling, touched thy prostrate brow — One angel knows it !” CHAP. III.] ( 73 ) CHAPTER III. Topography of Jerusalem continued — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Calvary — Tomb of Christ — Mount of Olives — Chapel of the Ascension — Mount of the Ascension. In the last foregoing chapter I have spoken of the three places on every account the most interesting to persons who visit Jeru- salem for Jerusalem’s sake. And, if I have treated of these in more of a spirit of con- troversy than I might otherwise have wished, it was from a desire to justify myself in not subscribing to certain topographical doubts which have found their way into some men’s minds, and on which I have always sought, as far as I might enable myself, to satisfy my own. I offer no apology for the freedom with which I have ventured to differ, on these points, from a learned and laborious writer, whose volumes are, in some respects, a valuable and useful guide through VOL. II. E 74 UNFAIRNESS OF [CHAP. III. those parts of the East in which it was my fortune to find myself upon his track. As far as relates to the appearances of the coun- try, and distances measured by time, in accordance with the usual rate of travelling there, Dr. Robinson’s accuracy and diligence are entitled to much praise. But, as re- specting his strictures on Jerusalem, as far as I have been able to form a judgement on observation, made with, I believe, entire impartiality, and certainly not without care, there are few of his statements which I can commend for their fidelity, and much of his reasoning which I cannot but think very loosely constructed on the facts which he avers. I have observed a careless spirit of gene- ralization in some of the writers on the Holy Land, and of a sort against which all tra- vellers should specially guard themselves. I mean this. When speaking of those childish traditionary fictions, (many of them manifestly inconsistent with each other,) which are to be found in the mouths and writings of certain churchmen and other CHAV. III.] GENERAL CENSURES. 75 enthusiasts, there is a careless habit of de- scribing* them as the “ frauds of the monks,” of “ the priests,” of “ the Romanists,” &c. Nothing can lead to conclusions more injurious or more untrue. And, if this spirit of generalization be admitted, no so- ciety, no class could escape them. It always gives me occasion to think how unjust it would be to make any of the professions, callings, or classes in our own country an- swerable for every foolish or wicked thing which might proceed from any one member of them. I would protest against any man judging after this fashion of the calm and modest bravery of her soldiers, the learning of her courts, the integrity of her merchants, the wisdom of her statesmen, or the piety, intelligence, and fitness of her ecclesiastical ministry. Again ; — not only are there bad men, and weak men, and heated men, to be met with everywhere, but, let it be remembered, the traveller, with his note-book in his hand, may often fall into the error of imputing gross absurdity or deception to e 2 76 M. LE ROY. [chap. hi. others, which, on examination, will be found much more truly chargeable to the ac- count of his own hasty mode of coming at conclusions, and his ignorance of idioms and customs, into which he has neglected to make due inquiry. In this way, error, injustice, and theological hate, are often transmitted unquestioned, and in unbroken succession. Above all things, no man should allow his opinion of any institution whatever to be formed only on the representations of its opponents. I found a remarkable in- stance of this in the case of a learned and enlightened man, whose name I have before mentioned, M. Le Roy, a dignitary of the Roman Catholick church, and superiour of a missionary college in Syria, in whose company I sailed from Syria to Alexandria. In conversation with this gentleman, upon some controverted tenets, he stated to me, as a fact universally acknowledged, and beyond dispute, that a certain belief is held by all Protestants, of a sort so monstrously blasphemous, as to be totally unfit even to be alluded to. It required that I should CHAP. III.] JERUSALEM. 77 assure him of its utter groundlessness before I could disabuse him of an impression, which I doubt not that many, who have never heard it disclaimed by Protestants, enter- tain concerning them, as he did. I am bound to say that, among the priests, and friars, and monks I have met with in Palestine and Syria, I have found not only much less than 1 had expected of what we term legendary superstition, but also, in most cases, a gentleness and liberality in conversation with Protestants concerning local traditions, for which what I had heard and read before I went among them had not prepared me. The steps of a new comer to Jerusalem naturally direct themselves, as mine did on the first morning after my arrival, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, — to the top of the governor’s house, to which all Franks are freely admitted, and whence a near and complete view may be had of the whole area of the mosques of Omar and Aksa, — to the pool of Bethesda, — and the garden of Gethsemane. The Church of the 78 CHURCH OF THE [chap. III. Holy Sepulchre, or, as formerly and more appropriately named, the Church of the Resurrection,* is entered by a lofty doorway to the south. This front is a fine specimen of what is called the later Byzantine style of architecture — not older ; evidently added on by the Knights Hospitallers, who ex- - tended, and, in great part, rebuilt what had been left unfinished by the later Em- perors of Rome, or having been completed by them had been afterwards utterly de- stroyed by the Persians and Saracens ; the edifices built here by Constantine and by his mother, and afterwards those that were set up by Heraclius to replace them. * Surely it is entitled to reverence rather as the place of the resurrection than of the entombment. As the sepulchre merely, the object of veneration is de- parted. And this cannot but be considered as a manifest confusion of ideas on the part of the crusaders, who spoke always of rescuing the tomb of Christ out of the hands of infidels, as it might be said of a tomb in which still are the remains of one whose memory is held sacred. The reverence appears to be more properly attributed to it as to the place where, by the resur- rection, the victory was obtained over the grave, and the great crowning evidence showed forth of the truth of the promises given to his disciples. CHAP. III.] HOLY SEPULCHRE. 79 That which was the work of Constantine, and called the Basilica, included only the se- pulchre within its walls. The chapel, under which his mother Helena was reported to have discovered the true cross of Christ, was a separate edifice. And Calvary was not brought under the same roof until probably the time of the restoration of the edifice by Heraclius, a.d. 624. The entrance faces a square open court, formerly fenced off from the street b}^ a row of columns, whose bases yet re- main, in a line parallel with that of the church, and at about forty yards from it. This space is filled by sellers of all sorts of wares, — of bracelets, hardware, and cloth, —but mostly of rosaries of olive-wood from Bethlehem, and strings of mother-of-pearl beads from the Red Sea, and shells from the same place rudely sculptured with repre- sentations of the Nativity, the Flight into iEgypt, the Crucifixion, and Resurrection. The sellers are seated on the pavement, in the open air, with their merchandizes spread before them. 80 CALVARY. [chap. III. The small tribute, which was formerly exacted by the Porte from all Christians entering the church, was, within the last few years, abolished by Mohammed Ali, and has not since been re-imposed by those who have been placed here in his stead. The entrance is by an aisle, nearly fronting to which is a large flat stone, surrounded by iron rails. On this stone it is said that the body of Jesus was laid to be anointed for the burying. On your right, eight-and- twenty winding steps lead up to the chapel of Calvary, where, before the altar, are the holes in which, it is said, the crosses were fixed. Within two or three paces to the right of these is a long narrow opening in the pavement, faced with metal, and covered with glass, through which you see, at a few inches below, a cleft in the natural rock : you are told it is one of the rents made by the earthquake at the time when the Redeemer bowed his head and gave up the ghost. It ap- peared to me to be unquestionably made by a rending asunder of this part of the rock, — - CHAP. III.] HOLY SEPULCHRE. 81 not by the chisel. For the edges of the cleft, all along, follow each the torn line of the other in a manner which, according to my judgement, no effort of art could imitate. Descending from thence, and passing again by the stone of the anointing, you enter the nave of the church. It is circular. In the centre of it, under a lofty cupola, stands the little vaulted building which co- vers the spot on which was the tomb of Christ. This shrine, as it is called, is cased with Oriental alabaster, its entrance veiled by a rich curtain, and illumined by tall can- delabra and massive lamps. The distance between this entrance and the place of crucifixion is, I have before stated, a little more than forty-four yards. It opens first upon a vestibule of not more than eleven feet square, in the middle of which is a small square block of dark marble. On this you are told it was that the angel sate, who announced to the women coming to the tomb, that “ He is not here, but He is risen.” * * This is one of the many pretended relicks that so unhappily interrupt in their course the feelings E 3 82 TOMB OF CHRIST. [chap. III. The doorway into the little chamber of the sepulchre itself is so low as to oblige you to bend nearly double in passing through, and is some six feet in thickness. Upon the shape and appearance of what is now shown as the place in which the Body was laid, no argument can be reasonably con- structed to confirming or impeaching the probability of its being truly supposed to be so. The desecration of the tomb of Christ by Hadrian, to which I have before adverted, began (according to Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen) by overwhelming it with a great mass of earth, on which the Pagan fane was afterwards raised. Twice was it ravaged which, in such a place, it is grievous to disturb by an appeal to coarse superstition. If even it be supposed that, after the successive demolitions of the place of sepulture, the stone which was u rolled back from the monument ” was yet to be found, this is evidently not the stone, which was “ very great ” (Mark xvi. 4), and on which the angel sate (Matthew xxviii. 3). It is, besides, not at all resembling in character any formation of rock near Jerusalem ; and it is not surely a probable supposition that the “ great stone” “ rolled” by Joseph to the door of £< his own monument hewn out of the rock,” and afterwards sealed by the Chief Priests and Pharisees, was a bit of foreign marble. CHAI*. III.] TOMB OF CHRIST. 83 and destroyed in after years ; once by Chos- roes the Persian, in 613, # and again by Hakim, Caliph of iEgypt, in 1011 ; though it had been respected during the interme- diate invasion and occupation by Omar and by his general Abou Obeida, who reduced all Palestine, and entered Jerusalem in 637, the 16th of the Hegira. Nothing, therefore, can be now preserved but the site : and even that is almost as much defaced by the marble and alabaster with which Christian piety has overlaid it, as by the rude assaults of Pagans and mis- believers.')' * Heraclius retook Jerusalem in 624. | Seldom lias there been, if ever, a less happy effort than that of the Vicomte de Chateaubriand to express strong feeling at the first view of that tomb. Sufficient warning against the vanity and impropriety of attempt- ing an ingenious conceit on such a subject ; a thing hardly ever in harmony with deep reverence. “ Le seul tombeau qui a la fin des siecles n’aura rien a rendre.” What meaning can be affixed to this ? It might as truly be said of any tomb which no longer contains a human body. But supposing that, by any gloss, this phrase could be made to signify what it probably must have been the meaning of the Vicomte to express, that the body which rose from this sepulchre was the only 84 TOMB OF CHRIST. [chap. III. There can be little doubt, according both to the usual method of Jewish sepulture, and to the particular account given in Scripture, that it must have been a horizontal cave hewn out into a tomb in the natural rock. It has now the appearance of a sarcophagus covered with an alabaster slab, which forms it into a kind of low altar on which mass is said, and which occupies nearly half of the chamber. An officiating friar stands, night and day, in attendance at the head of the tomb. A great part of this church, and the whole of the principal cupola, was, in 1808 , de- stroyed by fire. The flames, however, did not reach the shrine of the sepulchre, nor Calvary on the one side of it, nor the cave shown as the burying-place of Joseph of Arimathea and of Nicodemus on the other. one which never saw corruption, nor remained to be raised at the last day ; how would this agree with the Roman Catholick belief in the Assumption, body and soul, into heaven, of the Virgin Mary, of which in the 361 st page of the same volume the Vicomte thus speaks? “ St. Thomas ayant fait ouvrir le cercueil, on n’y trouva plus qu’une robe virginale, simple et pauvre vetement de cette Reine de gloire que les anges avaient enlevee aux cieux.” chap, hi.] GODFREY OF BOULOGNE. 85 Nor was there any destruction of the south front, under which is the entrance, nor of the venerable tower that flanks it. The chapel appropriated to the worship of the Greek church, occupying the whole eastern end of the nave, is magnificent in its pro- portions and decorations, and restored with good taste and judgement. To the north is the Latin chapel, likewise restored within the last few years from the ravages of the fire. Between the Greek chapel and the altar on Calvary, were formerly the tombs of Godfrey of Boulogne and of King Bald- win. The sword and spurs of the former of these two great men are still preserved. To Godfrey is justly due a far higher honour than that of the mere military achievement of taking, with an almost innumerable but ill-disciplined assemblage of all the adven- turers of Christendom, a small city which has never been capable of successful resist ance by either valour or skill, since the time when all its natural as well as artificial means of defence were destroyed to the very roots by its Roman conquerors. To Godfrey is justly 86 FINDING OF [chap. III. due the far higher honour of having strug- gled to restrain the victorious army within the terms of the capitulation, and staunch the torrent of faithless and ruthless bloodshed- ding, which left so foul a stain on the fame of his three colleagues, and on the history of the otherwise glorious first Crusade. * 1 do not stay to describe the several sta- tions, shown, under the same roof, in com- memoration of different passages of our Saviour’s passion, or of his appearance after the resurrection. These details have been abundantly furnished, and are well known. I have little to say of the probable authen- ticity of most of them nothing on which persons who have never visited Jerusalem are not as well able to form an opinion as those who have. Those who see reason to believe that the broken shaft of a pillar, now shown as that to which Jesus was bound during the tor- ture of the scourge, was miraculously pre- served and attested, may still see it there. Miraculously it must have been preserved and revealed, if at all, after the ground on CHAI>. III.] THE TRUE CROSS. 87 which it stands had been so often laid waste, and buried under a heap of ruins. In like manner the spot is said to be au- thenticated where, after the resurrection, he stood before Mary Magdalene. From the consideration of these I gladly turn without notice, as from frivolous and unworthy inventions. Nor can I persuade myself to regard with any more trust the place and history of the supposed finding of the true cross on which Christ suffered, beset, as the evidences of that discovery are, with what are at the least great improba- bilities, and what it is difficult not to suspect of being gross frauds.* One is naturally led from the site of the passion and tomb of Christ to that of the * I should not permit myself this phrase, however much I might be convinced of the unreasonableness of the evidences of the discovery, but for the authorized legend, audacious as it appears to me, of the trial made of the comparative virtues of the crosses found, by applying them successively to the body of a sick person, who is said to have received no relief when touched by the crosses of the thieves, but to have been instantly cured on the approach of that of the Saviour. On the same authority we are also told that the Empress 83 MOUNT OLIVET. [chap. III. last recorded miracle wrought at Bethany, and to the places where those latter days were passed when his “ hour was at hand.” From Gethsemane a steep footpath leads over Mount Olivet. At about halfway up the ascent, a low square tower is on the left, built, as tradition tells you, on the very spot where Jesus wept over the devoted city. There can be no doubt that it was on some part of this path, or within a very short distance from it. The city, as you turn round to view it, — the whole circuit of the Helena having engaged that, if the true cross should be found, she would build and endow a church in com- memoration of the finding, — -not only the three crosses, but also the crown of thorns, the inscription which Pilate wrote, and the spear which pierced the Saviour’s side, were all discovered and presented to her ! (See Butler’s ‘ Lives of the Saints,’ 1 Life of St. Helena.’) Add to these the belief which seems to have been enjoined on high ecclesiastical authority— at all events, suffered to be entertained, and never, as far as I can trace, disavowed or discouraged — that the cross of the Redeemer, so found, possessed, among its other mi- raculous qualities, that of affording an inexhaustible supply of relicks to the faithful (see Yeronius, Annal. Eccles. a.d. 306, No. 50) ; a prudent provision for continued and unlimited imposture. cnxv. III.] JERUSALEM AT SUNSET. 89 ancient and the modern walls, and all with- in them, — from the broad area of the Temple, up to Zion and the Tower of David, and round to Bezetha and the northernmost corner of the Valley of the Kedron, — every street, — those along which the Saviour passed when he went to “ preach daily in the Temple,” those along which he was to be led to the judgement and to crucifixion,— all lies open before you and beneath you. The first evening when I sat on that hill- side, the sun was setting behind Jerusalem. The outline of high ground at the back was strongly marked against the yellow sky. Between the horizon and where stood the Terebinth was the Vale of Elah, where, of old, before yet the banner of the Lord and the Throne of David were reared in the stronghold of the Jebusites, the Shepherd Boy, destined to be in after days her con- queror and King, and from whose line was to be born the Saviour of the World, went forth in the name of the God of Israel, with his sling and five small pebbles from the brook, to smite the champion of the Phi- listines. Below, the city spread itself down 90 MOUNT OLIVET. [chap. III. to the walls and cliff which overhang the Kedron ; — Jerusalem, once the chosen and cherished of the Most High, and the bride and nursing-mother of Prophet Kings, his anointed -Jerusalem, the guilty, the de- nounced, and the desolate. The shadows were mounting from Gethse- mane, the place of the agony, along the walls, and courts, and towers of that city, from which, after the long day of God’s pe- culiar favour, a dark veil of wrath has hid his countenance. The domes of Calvary and the sepulchre showed gloomily forth upon the last lurid gleam of departing light. It was from hence, from the Mount of Olives, “ over against the Temple,” that Christ sadly foretold the judgements that must befall her before that generation of her people should have passed away. There is another station, on the verv sum- mit of the Mount, marked by tradition, and, as I think, with every probability of truth, as that from whence, in view of his disciples, he ascended into heaven, and “ a cloud re- ceived him out of their sight.” Yet, so monstrously is it desecrated, not by Pagan chap, in.] -CHAPEL OF TIIE ASCENSION. 91 hate but Christian fanaticism, much more to be deplored, that I find it impossible to leave what relates to the precincts of Jeru- salem, without here transgressing the law I have endeavoured to observe, that of never speaking of mere feelings excited by subjects presented to me. Enthusiasm is to be respected, even where it is not shared, as generally giving earnest of deep sincerity. Tradition is to be re- spected, as generally bearing good witness on doubtful matters of topography and his- tory. But there may be enthusiasm of a sort that profanes the object of its reverence, and tradition which would disturb our whole system of trust in the most important truths. And of such a sort is the spectacle which I have heard, on the authority of those who are ready to show it, may be seen by any one disposed to enter, for this purpose, the Chapel of the Ascension on this mount. Within it is preserved what I was, more than once, invited to see, what I have heard de- scribed bv some who have seen it, and what the Vicomte de Chateaubriand describes as having seen, and, therefore, I cannot doubt 92 CHAPEL OF THE ASCENSION, [chap. hi. to be there. A mark is shown in the floor in the natural rock, resembling that which would be impressed by a human foot in clay. This, it is pretended, is the print of the foot of our Lord as he left the earth. The mark of the other foot, it is said, was taken away by the Saracens, and placed in the Mosque of Omar. # 1 did not enter the chapel. For, on a subject of this sort, I can understand but one wish ; a strong one ; to shun such a sight ; — particularly on ground to which recollections and feelings of so different a sort so justly belong, but defaced by what I cannot but believe to be a profane fiction — offensive I should think to all, in proportion to their affection to what they feel as truth, — ■ and borrowed from a hideous mythology to be engrafted on the stock of Christian Reve- lation.! * Chateaubriand, ‘ Itineraire,’ vol. ii. p. 47. f I have not used this last phrase hastily, or without in good truth believing it to be justified. I impute nothing but what I have expressed in words, the blind- ness of misguided zeal adopting in remote times and in ignorance of its tainted source, a fiction borrowed from a hideous mythology, and applying it as it were in aid of the most sublime and the crowning miracle of the chap, hi.] PLACE OF THE ASCENSION. 93 But the tradition which points out the top of Mount Olivet as the place of the Ascension, a tradition admitted to have existed in the third century, long before the time of the Empress Helena,* I am as far as possible from being able to pronounce, as Dr. Robinson does, to be “ absolutely false.” On the contrary, I see the probabilities to be strongly in its favour. He delivers his judgement much more clearly than his rea- Christian Revelation. The earliest pagan systems we know of in the East are full of the imposture of pre- tended foot-marks of false gods. The print of the foot of Budha is shown by the Hindoos in the Island of Ceylon upon the top of a central mountain. But this mountain is called by the Mohammedans “ Adam’s Peak,” and they believe the impression to have been miraculously left there by the father of the human race, and hold it in high veneration. It is probably in imitation of this that the last foot-mark of Mahomet also is preserved at Mecca for the worship of the Hadjis. Lamentable that an appeal, like this, to the grossest materialism, without any warranty in Scrip- ture, should have found its way among the places where were manifested the presence and doctrines of Him who taught that u God is a Spirit, and to be wor- shipped in spirit and in truth.” * Dr. Robinson , 6 Biblical Researches,’ vol. i. p. 375. 94 PLACE WHENCE [chap. III. soning in its behalf. For he cites only so much from Scripture as would favour his conclusion, and, even in that citation, in- terpolates a short but very important word not to be found in the original. Against the probability of this having been the place of the Ascension, he cites the passage (Luke xxiv. 50, 51) thus ; that “ Christ led out his disciples as far as to Bethany, and there ascended from them into heaven.” St. Luke does not say that Christ there ascended. The adverb of place is an interpolation of Dr. Robinson’s. And it is so far from being an unimportant one that it is no less than an assumption of the whole fact in question. He adverts, it is true, but vaguely and in a note, to that other text (Acts i. 12) which gives the impression that this miracle took place on Mount Olivet. That text says, in plain words, that Christ having been “ taken up,” and a cloud having “ received him out of their sight,” “ then returned they ” (the disciples) “ unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet.” The adverb of time (the word “ then ”) Dr. Robinson here CHAP. III.] CHRIST ASCENDED. 95 omits, as lie had before interpolated the adverb of place. These are minute inaccu- racies ; but the citations have each the same tendency in the argument, and would, if the Scripture gave the passages as Dr. Robinson cites them, advance his view of it in no small degree. But there appears to me to be no discre- pancy whatever in the two narratives. The one (that in the Acts) seems very plainly to fix the place of the Ascension on. Mount Olivet. The other says that he “ led them out as far as to Bethany. And he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.” To reconcile these accounts it needs only to be observed that Bethany, as well as Bethphage, is repeatedly spoken of in Scripture, not as the name of a village only, but also as that of a district, adjoining to the village, and reaching as far as the Mount of Olives. In Luke xx. 29, it is said of our Saviour (coming from Jericho, between which city and the Mount of Olives lay the villages of Bethany 96 MOUNT OLIVET. [csap. hi. and Bethphage), “When he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany , at the mount called the Mount of Olives whereby it appears that a part, at least, of the districts called by the name of those villages lay even between Jerusalem and the mount. And, in Mark xi. 1, it is said of the same journey, “ And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany , at the Mount of Olives’ 9 a phrase whereby it appears that certain parts of the Mount of Olives were within the districts known by these names. This, then, surely reconciles the two pas- sages, and leaves the place of the Ascension there, agreeably to the tradition cited by Eusebius (‘ Demonstr. Evang.’ vi. 18). Eu- sebius surely could have had no interest or motive for mis-stating what must have been transmitted to him through hardly more than two generations of men from those who had been eye-witnesses of the great event which we are warranted by Scripture in believing to have taken place on this hilh CHAP. IV.] ( 97 ) CHAPTER IV. Bethany — Tomb of Lazarus — Return to Jerusalem — Mount of Offence — Mount of Evil Counsel — Tombs called those of the Prophets — Tombs in the Valley of Jehoshaphat — Siloam — Wailing-place of the Jews — Mosques of Omar and Aksa — Temple Area — Cave of Jeremiah — Tombs called those of the Kings. The village of Bethany, lying on the other side of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem, and distant from the city about fifteen fur- longs, (John xi. 18 ,) answered well and thoroughly in its appearance the expect- ations which my mind had formed of it. A pathway leads down a gentle open slope to the east, after passing over the summit of the Mount of Olives, for about a mile, to the place whither Jesus was wont to resort, and where dwelt the friends whom he loved. As you stand on this brow, looking east- ward, the whole country, down to Jericho, and to where once stood the five cities of the VOL. II. F 98 BETHANY. [chap. IV. plain, even to the mountains of Moab, full five-and-thirty miles off, lies open before you. Along the furthest plain, and near the foot of the mountains, you may, on a clear and sunny day like that on which I stood here, see a narrow winding line, as of silver thread, which loses itself in a bright broad sheet of dazzling sea to the south-east. That plain is the plain of Gilgal, and “of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar.” That narrow winding thread of silver is the Jordan, and the sea is the “sea of a great judgement,” the “sea of the plain, even the salt sea under Ashdoth Pisgah.” Descending hence about half a mile, you enter an open grove of olives, evergreen oaks, and karub trees, from whence the village of Bethany appears on your right, upon the side of a low bank, rising from a narrow valley beneath. Bethany, picturesque at a distance, in its peaceful solitude, is, however, but a wretched village of some thirty or forty roof- less cabins. These are inhabited, for the most part, by a colony of poor Arabs, who pasture a few sheep among its olive gardens, CHAP. IV.] 13ED0UINS, 99 belonging to persons living in Jerusalem, whose trees and fruit also they guard. Upon this employ they subsist, and upon occasional contributions from their wandering brethren of the tribes, to whom most of the families are in relationship, and to whom they afford an occasional asylum and a home.*' * Of the Bedouins of the Hill country, unlike those of the desert, each tribe occupies a separate tract or country ; a wide one ; but within whose limits its tents are pitched, surrounded by its flocks and herds. The pastoral habits of these men in no wise interferes with their other vocation, that of levying tribute on way- farers ; in the which the more or less gentleness of the process depends entirely on whether the stranger comes to them alone, and without show of forcible intrusion, or attended by any appearance of armed escort. In the former case he is generally received with courtesy by them, and rarely any further demand made upon him than for a certain sum, at a rate conventionally understood on such occasions, and which he may ascertain before his journey is begun ; the payment of which gives him safe conduct to the limits of their bailiwick. In the latter case an attack is almost inevitable ; and generally by ambush, the blow taking precedence of the word. It is but within the last two years that these tribes have returned to their ancient habits. Before the powerless government of the Sultan was substituted in these pashalieks for the strong and effective authority of Mohammed Ali, an impression in ink of his signet on F 2 100 TOMB OF LAZARUS. [chap. IV. What is shown as the tomb of Lazarus, by the roadside as you enter the village of Bethany, I am of opinion with Mr. Carne, and for the reasons which he assigns, may well be believed to be really the place where was performed the last great recorded mira- cle of Christ before he was betraved. The entrance to the tomb, which is through a low square doorway formed of large hewn stones, appears to be of a much later date. A flight of twenty-six steep and narrow stairs leads down into a dark vaulted chamber, cut into the natural rock, and having all the cha- racter of an ancient Jewish burying-place. This is large enough to contain three or four bodies, and was probably a place of family sepulture. The bank above is surmounted by a small open Wely, of very plain Sarace- nick workmanship, raised by the Musulmans in honour of Lazarus, who is held in vene- ration by them as a saint. The village of Bethany is called, after his name, Lazarieh.* the traveller’s passport was an available and unfailing- protection. * This word, (which is mistakenly spelt by Dr. Ro- CHAP. IV.] TOMB OF LAZARUS. 101 Besides the local tradition, (which is pro- bably from very remote time, certainly older than that of Eusebius,) there are other things that mainly strengthen the case in behalf of the identity of this tomb. It is the only one in or near the village which bears that cha- racter of high antiquity, and it answers in every respect the description given in the text, which says of it, as distinguishing its appearance from that of the other sepulchres binson, vol. i. p. 379, El Azarieh,) when uttered slowly by the Arab inhabitants of the village very plainly shows itself to be a feminine adjective, formed from the name of Lazarus, and signifying, as all names of places so terminating do, the place belonging to the thing or person whose name is expressed in the former syllables ; as in Matarieh, Esbekieh, &c. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, having received the impression from Dr. Robinson’s book that the name given to this place was Azarieh, suggested, with great appearance of probability, that the Saracens here may have fallen into the same error as in the word “ Iskander,” where they evidently mistake the first syllable of Alexander’s name for the article El, as if it were El Iskander. But I have no doubt, having often heard the name of this village pro- nounced slowly and distinctly by the people here, that the name is Lazarieh ; and therefore that the difficulty does not exist to which Sir Gardner Wilkinson ap- plied this very ingenious solution. 102 MOUNTS OF OFFENCE AND [chap. iv. thereabouts, “ It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.” On the whole, I think that Mr. Fisk, prebendary of Litchfield, in his ad- mirable volume, in which he leans to the same opinion, underrates the probability, in saying that he has “ no satisfactory grounds on which to doubt the actual identity of this tomb.” (‘Pastor’s Memorial,’ p. 278.) There is another and a wider road between Jerusalem and Bethany than the path directly over the Mount of Olives. It is the main road from the city over the hills towards Jericho. It leads to the south-east of the village of Siloam, passing by what must have been the site of Bethphage, and leaving farther to the south the small mount known by the name of the Mount of Offence as that on which Solomon, when he “ turned away after false gods,” built “ an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem ; and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.” (1 Kings xi. 7.) Nearly opposite to this, and on the other side of the Brook Kedron, and overlooking CXIAI*. IV.] EVIL COUNSEL. 103 the angle formed by the junction of the valley of Jehoshaphat with that of Hinnom,* is the Mount of Evil Counsel, so called, I know not on what authority anteriour to the time of the Crusades, (for the words of Eusebius and Jerome have been applied to it by a very forced construction, and contrary to all probability,) as being the place where “ the chief priests and elders took counsel to put Jesus to death.” I cannot but suspect that this spot has been fixed upon to repre- sent the place of “ Evil Counsel ” by a fanci- ful association with the Aceldama, the Pot- ter’s Field, or Field of Blood, afterwards “ used to bury strangers in,” which is hard by it, and whose identity there seems no reason to question. Intermediate between the two ways by * Tophet, u which is the Valley of Hinnom ” or Gehenna ; known by the Arabs as Wady Jehennan. The vale in which Ahaz and the priests u burned in- cense, and burned the children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel ” (2 Chron. xxviii. 3) ; and the cries of the victims were drowned amidst the clang of trumpets and cymbals in honour of Baalim and Molech. 104 TOMBS OF THE [chap. IV. which you may go to Bethany, (the steep path over Mount Olivet, and the more cir- cuitous but wider and more level road that winds along its foot, which is the horse- road toward Jericho,) and, on your left, and within a few hundred yards of the summit of Mount Olivet, is a range of very ancient sepulchres, to which the only entrance is through the narrow descent of what must have originally been a natural cave on the side of the hill. These are known by the name of the Tombs of the Prophets. Why so called, or to which of the prophets the name refers, I have not been able to ascer- tain. Of the prophets, generally so desig- nated in Scripture, — to such as were buried near Jerusalem, or, as being also kings, were buried within its walls, — special places of interment are assigned. Many other of the inspired prophets, we are told by Scripture, were buried far away from the Holy City and from Judaea. I am inclined to believe that, in this instance, the word “ Prophets ” may very probably have been used in its ancient CHAP. IV.] PROPHETS. 105 and etymological sense as “ Preachers, (as in 1 Corinth, xiv. passim; 2 Peter xi. 1, 2,) and may have had reference to such of the expositors of the Jewish law, and mi- nisters of the Sanhedrim, as belonged to the “ College of the Prophets or Teachers.” Of such was “ Huldah the prophetess,” who, we are told in 2 Kings xxii. 14, and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22, “ dwelt at Jerusalem in the School of the Prophets.” To that school or college this place of sepulture may have been attached. There are some peculiarities, however, in the structure of these remains, which might lead to a different supposition, suggested to me by my friend the Rev. Mr. Veitch, with whom I visited them, and to whom I am obliged for some subsequent communica- tions relating to them. It is a very re- markable range of sepulchres, and seldom entered by travellers, though easy enough of access, and well deserving observation and research ; much more than I was able to bestow upon it. It is very slightly men- tioned by Pococke as being “ very large, f 3 106 TOMBS OF THE [chap. IV. having many cells to deposit bodies in.” “ The further end of them,” says he, “ they call the Labyrinth, which extends a great way. I could not find the end of it. This part seems to have been a quarry.” (‘ De- scription of the East,’ vol. ii. 29, fol.) Mr. Veitch and I were more fortunate, although our researches were but imperfect. I have subjoined a ground-plan of these sepulchres as far as, I believe, they are capa- ble of being explored. After a descent of about 30 feet from A, you find yourself in a small hall B, open at the top to the light. From thence a narrower gallery of about 40 feet long (the latter part of which is so low as to oblige you to creep on your hands and knees) leads you to where two passages di- verge at C ; one to the south-east, the other due south. Pursuing the former for some 30 feet to D, you arrive at where they are again united, by what is now but a small hole nearly choked up, the other passage, which goes south-west, having led through three halls, of which I will presently speak. You 5 10 2 o 3 o 40 5o 60 7o 8 o 90 loo F E £ T To face page 107. The Tombs of the Prophets. Vol. II. CHAP. IV.] PROPHETS. 107 now enter a much wider gallery, still in a south-easterly course, till at about 15 feet further it is crossed, at right angles at E, by one equally wide, passing into a great cir- cular hall to the right, of about 24 feet in diameter. Parallel to the southern semi-circumfe- rence of the hall run two wide galleries, the further one of which has a range of niches marked F in the diagram, about 2 feet 6 inches in height, 6 feet 2 inches long, and 2 feet 3 inches in width, arched at the en- trances. The interiour walls of all the larger passages have been stuccoed with great care, and, from the external appear- ance of many of the niches, it seems as if they had originally been all stuccoed over so as to conceal the entrances. At G is a narrow entrance at a height of about 6 feet from the floor, into a small square chamber, called, but evidently from fancy only, with- out the least authority, the sepulchre of Haggai. Returning, however, to the point from whence the two passages first diverged, at 10$ TOMBS OF THE PROPHETS. [chap. iv. C, the one which leads due south brings you at once into a square chamber, with four niches, which are either unfinished, or were not intended to serve as tombs. They are much too short for the reception of bodies. From thence you enter a triangular hall, H, without tombs ; and close adjoining to it is a small circular space, I, communicating, by the hole now nearly filled up, with the large passage at D. The circular hall rises in a conical shape like a furnace. The aperture in the roof of it is now blocked from the open air above by a large stone. The very remarkable fur- nace-like structure of the hall, diverging to the southward from the entrance to the tombs, has given rise, in the mind of Mr. Veitch, to an ingenious question concerning its possibly having reference to the rites of Baal. We read of “joining themselves to Baal Peor,” and “ eating the offering of the dead and here is what has every ap- pearance of a subterraneous furnace, close to the sepulchres of the dead. No inscription, no tracery of any sort has CHAP. IV.] ABSALOM’S TOMB. 109 yet been found in any of these galleries or chambers, by which any probable opinion can be formed as to either the intent or date of their construction. They are, however, well worth minute examination. To the south-west of the descent from hence, and on the verge of the valley of Je- hoshaphat, are what are shown as the tombs of Absalom, Jehoshaphat, and Zachariah. These structures are apparently of a time not more ancient than that of the Roman, and probably of the Lower Empire, of which they have all the character. Whether or •/ not originally intended to commemorate the persons whose names they now bear, it is very improbable that they cover the place in which the bodies of those persons lie. At all events that of Absalom. Absa- lom was cast into a pit at Beersheba, near to where he was slain, and stones were heaped in infamy upon him. (2 Sam. Xviii. 17.) Nor are there any grounds for the belief that, though the father humbled him- self in natural sorrow for the death of the rebellious son, the corpse of the rebel was 110 SILOAM. [chap. IV. brought from its dishonoured grave to be buried among the princes of Judah, or where the monuments of her princes and honour- able men in after times should be reared by his side.* But these sepulchres have been too often described, and are of too little beauty or interest to justify any lengthened notice. They are cumbrous, without size or dignity, and what were intended for deco- rations are of the worst taste and execution. Built upon the western slope of the Mount of Offence, and clinging to its crags, is the village of Siloam (Silouan). A little beyond is the pool, fed by the fountain of the same name which rises on the opposite side of the valley ; 44 Siloa’s Fount, that flowed fast by the Oracle of God.” Only one pool or one fountain of Siloam is mentioned in the New Testament, though Josephus and Eusebius describe the two, * The kingly column reared by Absalom himself in “ the King’s Dale,” to his own honour (2 Sam. xviii. 18) does not appear to have been designed by him as a sepulchral monument ; nor was he buried there ; nor has the building in question the character of the archi- tecture of those days or of several centuries after. ciiAr. iv.] PLACE OF WAILING. Ill and under the same names, as shown even at this day. Wherefore it is left in doubt which of them was made the instrument of Christ’s miracle, when the man who had been blind from his birth was enjoined to wash the clay from his eyes, and saw. The fountain on the slope of Zion, towards the east and towards the valley, appears as if it had always been the more important of the two, as being received in a large and deep arched basin hewn in the bosom of the rock, and approached by a broad flight of many steps. Tradition, however, points to the other reservoir in the village, on the side of the Mount of Olives, as the pool of the miracle. I cannot leave this quarter of the city without notice of what, next after the places I have mentioned, I feel to be, on many accounts, the most interesting within its walls, — the wailing-place, as it is called, of the Jews. It is hard by the southern part of the temple area, that part of it on which stands the smaller of the two mosques, the mosque of Aksa, covering what is supposed to 112 PLACE OF WAILING. [chap. IV. have been the site of the Holy of Holies. Soon after the re-admission of the Jews, who had been expelled by Hadrian in punishment of their second revolt, they obtained leave to weep here over their deserted sanctuaries, their fallen city, and proscribed nation ; — buying from the Roman soldiers the privi- lege of moistening with their tears the ground where their fathers had bought the bloodshedding of the Lord. “ Et ut ruinam sum eis flere liceat civitatis, pretio redimunt. Ut qui quondam emerunt sanguinem Christi emant lachrymas suas.” (Hieron. in Zephan. i. 15). But I shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the condition of the Jews in Pa- lestine. I am speaking now only of their wailing-place. Their posture of abject sor- row, — their appearance, — of all ages and of either sex, in the distinctive and historical garb of their people, (they are no more a nation now, but a people still,) — the low and peculiarly plaintive tones in which their voices blend, — young men, and elders, and “ daughters of Jerusalem weeping for them- CHAP. IV.] MOSQUE OF OMAR. 113 selves and for their children,” clinging, as it were, to the rent skirts of their city’s ancient glory, and praying the God of their fathers again to “ turn his face toward the neglected vine which he fostered with exceeding care,” — all this forcibly and pathetically recalls, along with the words of prophecy so sadly verified, those yet unfulfilled, which “ cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, and her iniquity is pardoned.” (Isaiah xl.2.) From the opposite side of the great temple area, from the top of the governor’s house, overlooking what was the site of the fortress Antonia, and built not improbably on the very ground where was the Praetorium of Pilate, you command a near and entire view of the two mosques, the great mosque of Omar III., called Es Schereiff, the Sacred, (or the Haggiar Sacrat, as having been built over the blessed stone left suspended by Mahomet when he took flight to Mecca,) and the lesser mosque of Aksa, near the southern angle of the city wall. The first mentioned of these two is of imposing ap- pearance. The massive dignity of the whole 114 MOSQUE OF AKSA. [chap. iv. building is, I think, in no respect impaired by the lightness of the architectural details, nor by the splendour and variety of co- louring. Whether it belong to mere associations of climate and history I know not, for many of these associations in our minds are neither to be traced nor defined, but the cypress- tree appears to me to harmonize wondrously with the outlines and colours of Asiatick architecture. Just as the stone-pine does with the Grecian or Palladian. Surely if the overshadowing canopy of the pine be more in accordance with the deep project- ing portico or peristyle, the graceful spirals of the cypress are not less so with the Sa- racenick minarets and cupolas, the slender shafts and wavy-pointed arches. The tall dark cypresses shooting up against the varie- gated tiles and marbles of the mosque of Omar from the green beds that surround the spacious pavement on which it stands, their thin lines here and there united by an undergrowth of round-topped orange-trees, or broken by small flanking shrines and low chap, iv.] VAULTS UNDER THE MOSQUE. 115 perforated terrace-walls, give an effect of neatness and splendour combined, in striking contrast with the air of sordid desolation which pervades the narrow rugged alleys of the town through which you approach this scene. Christians as well as Jews are strictly for- bidden to approach the area. And, if pic- turesque impression were your only object, you, perhaps, might not desire to do so. Much of the illusion might be lost on enter- ing it. Yet there is much within this area, particularly within the precincts of the lesser mosque of Aksa, which one might well wish to see. The accounts given by Dr. Richard- son, who visited these places in 1818, and by Messrs. Catherwood, Bonomi, and Arun- dale, who were also permitted, in 1833, under special licence from the Pasha, to enter, restricted as even their researches were, excite a longing desire for the oppor- tunity which some future travellers may enjoy to thoroughly explore the vaults be- neath ; coasval, as no doubt they are, with the Temple, if not as built by Solomon, at least as restored by Zerubbabel under the 116 VAULTS UNDER THE MOSQUE, [chap. iv. decree of Cyrus after the Babylonish Cap- tivity. To speculate now upon what such a scru- tiny might disclose, throwing light upon par- ticulars yet unknown concerning the church history of the Jews during the times that im- mediately preceded the final destruction of their nation by the Romans, would be an idle pursuit ; because without guide or clue. This, at least, appears, that these vaults communicate with the surface on which stood the place of Presentation ; probably with the Holy of Holies, which none but the high-priest was allowed to enter. Cer- tain that all access to them has been sealed with jealous care since the beginning of the Saracen rule, and never with more jealousy than since the old Turkish sway in Jerusa- lem has been substituted for the more liberal system which was gradually, but surely, advancing- under Mohammed Ali. Certain that all trace of the Ark of the Covenant is lost in Scripture history since soon after it was brought back from out of the hands of the Assyrian conquerors, and that there is no account of its having been seen when CHAP. IV.] VIA DOLOROSA. 117 Pompey entered the sanctuary. It is not improbable that it may have been deposited in the concealment and custody of these very vaults. And, whenever the time shall come at which the feebleness of the Turkish go- vernment shall surrender up to the advancing spirit of international communion those bar- barous jealousies which were fast subsiding under the enlightened policy of the iEgyp- tian Pasha, when those barriers which still impede historical as well as other inquiry in this land shall be removed, whether or no free access to these ancient subterranean remains shall then bring any unexpected or important subject of Biblical research to light, they will, without doubt, be the most inter- esting of all the places as yet unexplored at Jerusalem. I will not pause upon a description of the Via Dolorosa, the street along which you are told that our Saviour was led from the judgement hall to Calvary. Not that I have any doubt that it must have been in this direction that he passed, bearing his cross; but because, after the repeated and utter 118 GOLDEN GATE. [chap. IV. devastations of this city, not only the build- ings which now form this way, but the ground itself over which it passes, must be utterly changed in appearance and in shape, and because, thus changed, the street is crowded with fanciful records which cannot be true ; — the modern arch of the Ecce Homo, — the wall by the side of which Christ sank under the burthen of his cross, — or the spot where he turned to the weeping daugh- ters of Jerusalem ; — one leaves these with a natural distaste to any further pursuit of such a subject. The Golden Gate, a building evidently of a date long subsequent, which stands about midway of the wall that bounds the area of the mosque of Omar to the east, is shown as that through which our Saviour was brought from Gethsemane to the judgement hall. Here, probably, was the ancient gate so called ; and probably, also, it was by this gate he entered ; for it would have been the nearest road, by the fortress of Antonia, to the house of Pilate. It is now closed with masonry, perhaps under the influence of a CHAP. IV.] GOLDEN GATE. 119 legendary superstition, which still subsists among the Moslems, that it is by this way that if the Christians enter they will again become masters of the city. At a short distance to the southward of this gate are some of the largest of those stones which formed the ancient wall, and of which “ one of the disciples ” said to our Lord, “ Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here. And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”* Dug up to the foundations by Titus, the walls of the temple area are now composed, for the most part, of the ancient stones. Some of those of which I have spoken, — and which, from their form, are evidently of the Jewish times, — to the south of the Golden Gate, and, in the second tier from the ground, are more than twenty-five feet long ; but now disposed in the wall after a manner which shows that the whole has been rebuilt ; not one retaining the position * Mark xiii. 1. 120 CAVE OF JEREMIAH. I” CHAP. IV'. for which it was first hewn and where in the first building it was laid. The prophecy has been completed to the very letter. It was from the northern side, right against the Damascus Gate, that the city was taken by Titus. Issuing forth by this gate, the outer face of which, a fine specimen of the massive style of Saracenick architecture, was the work of Suleiman the Magnificent, you leave on your right hand the remains of a deep pool, part of which still retains its ancient coating of stucco ; — and, directly in front, but to the right of the Damascus road, is the cavern of Jeremiah. Here, ac- cording to tradition, the prophet dwelt, and lienee looked upon the town and nation whose ruin he so sadly foretold. Wrought in the rock over against the gate, this cave is accessible by only a narrow path on its side. During the reign of the Cru- saders and their successors in Jerusalem, it was the abode of successive hermits. Held sacred, from that time, by the Moslems, it was used by them as a place of worship and prayer, (a college of dervishes, says Maun- chap, iv.] SEPULCHRE OF QUEEN HELENA. 121 drell,) and closed against the approach of strangers, till within the last few years, when the barrier was removed. Further, about half a mile to the north, are those splendid remains known by the name of the Tombs of the Kings of Israel. The whole range of sepulchres is either directly underground, or cut in the rocky bank farthest from the city, and facing it. Some of the latter have traces remaining of elaborate workmanship ; but rather in the taste of the Roman than of the ancient Jewish workmanship. Whether or not ori- ginally places of sepulture for some of the early kings, the more important of these are clearly of a much later date. And the con- clusion at which all modern topographers have arrived, and which many of the earlier admitted as the probable one, appears to be placed now almost beyond question ; namely, that the larger and more florid remains are the ruins of the great sepulchre of Queen Helena, the wife of Adiabene, and that here stood the pyramidal monument raised by her, and described by Josephus. VOL. II. G ( 122 ) [chap. V. CHAPTER V. Modern Jerusalem — Its Police — Excursion to Jericho — An Engagement — and Defeat — Jusuf Abounshee — A Night at Jericho — The Jordan' — Dead Sea — A Dinner Party with Bedouins — Return to Jerusalem. The modern parts of what is now the outer wall of Jerusalem — I mean what were built by the Kaliphs and Sultans from Omar to Suleyman, and by Saladin in 1190 — have a rampart on the inner side, like that which probably in the remotest times went, as it now r does, all round the city. The view from every part of this rampart is fine, whether looking down upon the lower town, or against the face of Bezetha, or Zion. Jerusalem, thus seen, or from any of the heights around, is rendered picturesque be- vond any other Eastern town I have seen, by the number of its small white cupolas ; most of the houses having one such, many CHAP. V.] MODERN JERUSALEM. 123 two, and some three or four. These are so constructed in order to relieve the beams of the roof, to (Economize timber, and give light and air. The streets, though they are nar- row, and so steep and rugged as to be, some of them, absolutely dangerous for mounted passengers, and more generally cut out of the natural rock than paved, are, for the most part, clean. The shops in the different bazaars are well furnished, and bespeak a busy trade. These are principally in the occupation of Mohammedans, and of Armenian Christians. The latter are the more numerous class of tradesmen ; they are the best artizans, and conduct all the higher business of commerce. According to the best accounts I have been able to obtain, I believe the six sects of Christians — Greeks, Roman Catholics, Ar- menians, Copts, Nestorians, and Maronites, to form a population of about four thousand ; the Jews about as many ; and the Moham- medans some twelve thousand. At the approach of Holy Week and Easter, there is a temporary influx of pilgrims, which generally almost doubles the Christian popu- g 2 124 MODERN JERUSALEM. [chap. V. lation. The Jews, partly from their long- established usage of living separate from all other sects, and partly from the desire — not unnatural under the present system of Turk- ish law and police — of concealing their pro- perty whenever their industry has enabled them to accumulate any, open no stalls or workshops, but labour in the privacy of their own dingy and secluded houses, and bring their manufactures and other goods to cus- tomers for sale. It is a singular spectacle to witness — that of the number and variety of separate reli- gions and sects all having their institutions and places of ceremonial and worship close to each other ; Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians — the latter divided into sects and factions more jealous of each other than those who differ even in the objects of their worship, and all alike esteeming the city holy, both by prescription and by miracle, each deeming it hallowed by a revelation denoting his faith as that which has received from the Most High the assurance of his peculiar favour. CIIAV. V.] ITS POLICE. 125 A few words concerning the police of Jerusalem, if any system can be so called which, giving no security against depreda- tion or outrage of any sort, on the contrary lets loose upon the city and its outskirts an armed gang, under the name of a municipal guard, who are in truth the most lawless and dangerous part of the population. Since the political arrangements of 1840, the whole of Palestine and Syria has been forced back from its condition of gradual and not tardy improvement into one under which all ancient prejudices and corruptions are restored by state authority ; the rights, interests, and persons of Europeans deprived of protection, and their commerce conse- quently impeded. Thus Jerusalem, with the country round, has become unsafe as an abode for foreigners, and ungovernable by its masters — a condition of disquiet com- parable only to what we read of Paris under the commission de la Surete Publique. The appointed guardians of the publick peace are a garrison of undisciplined, ill- paid, and uncontrouled miscreants, Albanian 126 THE POLICE OF [chap. V. Moslems or apostate Christians, known by the common name of Arnaouts, which does not truly belong to one half of them. They reel along the streets in bands, by day and night, drunk, and with girdles full of knives and loaded pistols, committing all sorts of excesses, unprovoked by the sufferers, unpu- nished and unrepressed. Whilst I was at Jerusalem, one of our party was sketching on the Mount of Olives. Some of the Arnaout police were on the op- posite wall of the city, one of whom sent a musket-shot at him, that whistled over his head ; which, when he complained of it, he was told, for consolation, had in all proba- bility not been fired in anger, or from any motive of personal ill-will, but in conse- quence only of his having offered to the Ar- naout a temptation too strong for an am- bitious marksman to resist; and that his best mode in future was to be provided always on such occasions with a good dou- ble gun, which might prevent any like ex- periment from being made, or return it with two shots for one. CHAP. V.] JERUSALEM. 127 Not much above three years ago, one of the first fruits of the restoration of what was called the lawful authority of the Porte in the East was this. — A gentleman officially connected with one of the Christian govern- ments of Europe was walking, with his niece, in the open street. They were met by a band of these drunken Arnaouts, one of whom having offered some outrage to the girl, and being struck by the uncle, drew a loaded pistol and instantly shot — not him who had stepped in to protect the girl from brutal insult, but the poor girl against whom the insult had been directed. The uncle bore his dying niece to his house. He applied to the Turkish authorities to prevent, by punish- ing the murderer, a like calamity being inflicted on other victims. He was told, with many expressions of regret, that his testi- mony to the fact could not be judicially taken; that the religion of Mahomet was the law of the Mohammedan courts, and that, conformably with it, no oath of a Christian or Jew could be taken against a true believer. In vain was other evidence sought. Moham- medans had seen the murder, but not one 128 THE POLICE OF [chap. V. of them could be brought to give true evi- dence in the case, and the crime has to this day been followed by no legal consequences. Only this was done : the Arnaout was re- moved by the arbitrary order of the Governor, who was convinced in his own private judge- ment that the accusation was true. Accord- ingly you are always advised to take with you a Cavash, or some other Musulman, not as a guard, but as a witness to any dis- pute which may occur. Even this is a very imperfect security ; for, in such a case, it is very unlikely that your Musulman will tell the truth to convict a co-religionist ; but per- chance his presence may act upon the fears, however groundless, of some ruffian who might otherwise assail you. I believe this state of things — the power- less condition of the government and the insecurity of all rights — to be almost daily becoming more and more grievous ; and that of all foreigners residing in Jerusalem since Great Britain took so decisive a part in the settlement of Syrian affairs, the English have the greatest cause to complain ; and this, not in consequence of any want of CHAP. V.] JERUSALEM. 129 energy or proper spirit in that very deserving publick officer, Mr. Young, our Consul, but of the special disregard in which the British name is held by the Turkish authorities there since our restoration of them. It is not so with the French ; although, the year before last, a serious dispute arose out of their Consul having raised the French flag upon his house-top on the day of a na- tional festival — a thing absolutely forbidden by the law. But the disagreement is ad- justed, and the same Consul continues, it is said, to procure for French interests a more attentive consideration than those of any other European nation can obtain. The Pasha of Jerusalem, however, is hardly able to carry any publick measure or order of his own into effect. It .is but a few months ago, as I am informed from authority I can trust, that Abou Gosh, a powerful sheik and robber, who has long- held the country between Ramlah and Jeru- salem, waylaid the Pashas of Jaffa and Lydda, and struck off their heads. The Pasha of Jerusalem was unable to punish g 3 130 EXCURSION TO JERICHO. [chap. V* this outrage. The whole district became so disturbed that he was fain to warn all within the city not to stir beyond its walls ; and a body of the Sultan's troops, whom he sent for to strengthen his hands, were obliged to sue to Abou Gosh for leave to march through his lines. Our next object was an excursion to Jeri- cho, to the plain of the Jordan, and the Dead Sea. The party consisted of the two Mr. Pollens, Major Grote and myself, and four other English gentlemen — Mr. Child, Mr. Penrice, Mr. Beamish, and Mr. Vialls, who joined us. At the house of Mr. Young we bargained with a sheik named Abdallah for safe conduct. He had before made the journey with several travellers, and had been recommended to us as head of a tribe occupying the whole country as far as the Jordan, and as being therefore able to ensure us a passage thither and back without mo- lestation. Our bargain was for an escort of sixteen armed men, who should attend us, some on horseback and the rest on foot, for CHAP. V.J EXCURSION TO JERICHO. 131 the two days during which we should be absent from Jerusalem. For these our party were to pay, including the backsheish to the sheik, the sum of eight hundred piastres — one hundred piastres, or about £1, each. Having also hired horses for ourselves, and servants, and tents, we set out on our expedition. We were joined by two pilgrims, a Greek and an Armenian, who wished to take advantage of our escort. Soon after daybreak of the 8th of March, issuing forth by St. Stephen’s Gate, and crossing the valley of the Kedron, we took the great road which leads round the south side of the Mount of Olives, through Bethany. The whole distance to Jericho is nearly thirty miles, though, geogra- phically, not more than three or four and twenty ; for the road is circuitous, and lies for the most part through a frequent succes- sion of deep valleys and steep ascents. At about a couple of miles from Bethany begins a rapid descent of about a mile into a long narrow plain, which turns to the left. At the entrance of it, to the right, is a fine spring which gushes out from a kind of 132 EXCURSION TO JERICHO. [chap. v. porch of hewn stone. This is called by the Bedouins the Fountain of the Apostles, from a tradition that they were wont to resort thither with our Saviour. For about eight or nine miles further the way is tolerably good, winding here and there through dales thinly cultivated, and barren hills of not very rugged road, until two ways branch off, that to the right lead- ing towards Mar Saba and the country of Edom, and that to the left towards Jericho. Here arose a discussion with Abdallah, the captain of our guard, who now pro- fessed to us to have understood our intention to be to go to Mar Saba. And a suspicion suggested itself to our minds, which after- wards proved well founded, that he had deceived Mr. Young, and through a decep- tion practised on him had misled us into the belief of his having the means of providing safe conduct for us to the plain of the Jor- dan. Another and more powerful tribe had resumed the command in that country, which Abdallah had held only since the others had been driven from it by Ibrahim Pasha, in 1834, and to which they had now returned. ’ a/ CHAP. V.] EXCURSION TO JERICHO. 133 This, however, he had not explained to us, as it would have lost him the benefit of his bargain ; and he now endeavoured to per- suade us to change our intention and pro- ceed with him to Mar Saba. This, of course, we refused, and were left to be confirmed afterwards in the notion we had formed of why he was reluctant to pursue the way with us to Jericho. At two or three miles further, after mounting and descending some rough and steep mountain passes, we came upon a range of wild hills much less abrupt, with wide plains between, in which were large troops of camels and flocks of sheep. At the distance of about a mile in front was a large encampment, consisting not of tents, but long black awnings, such as the Bedouin shepherds use in all the pasture-country of this part of the East. As we approached them, we saw a very venerable-looking per- sonage with a long white beard, sitting on a bank by the road-side, surrounded by a company of younger men, who seemed to be better armed than men usually are who make pasturage their sole occupation. Their 134 AN ENGAGEMENT : [chap. V. horses, good-looking Arabs, were picketed near them. As we passed, we observed that our sheik approached this ancient personage with a much more humble inclination of the head and laying of the hand upon the breast than is usual from a Bedouin in command of an escort of sixteen men with matchlocks and spears, and other warlike apparatus, such as our guards were provided with. The ancient gentleman did not return the salute, nor did he appear at all inclined to enter into the discussion which our sheik on his part appeared to solicit. We had not proceeded above two or three hundred yards further before we were met by another small party of men on foot, with musquets, who seemed disposed to dispute the road with us. The time was plainly come for our military to act ; they accord- ingly formed line, and such as had their matches alight — which were not all — le- velled their matchlocks to command a pas- sage. But the war instantly assumed a new aspect ; the whole hill-side, for about half a mile to the left, became peopled CHA1\ V.] AND DEFEAT. 135 and in arms. It seemed as if every rock and bush had been garrisoned ; and a host came running towards us, some two hun- dred, who soon began to cover their advance under a shower of stones from the hand and from slings. Not a shot was fired, fortu- natelv for us, on either side ; but a flank movement commenced on our side to the right, a rapid and not very orderly one. Abdallah set off at full gallop ; such of his men as were on horseback making it a con- test of speed, and those on foot following at their best and quickest pace. For a short time we fancied the intention of our chief had been to take up a position on a hill in the rear, and there that we should maintain ourselves, or at least treat on ho- nourable and becoming terms. But not a bit of it; — it soon became clear that there was no such view. All sense of dignity and self- respect was abandoned by our chief and his followers ; the rout was complete ; the stones flew about us and past us, fiercely, and with very disagreeable force, from the slings. All vociferation to halt and rally was as to the winds. As Major G rote’s Belgian 136 A CAPITULATION. [chap. V. servant afterwards said, “ Notre morale etoit perdue.” Our heroes were deaf to exhorta- tion, and scattered themselves over the hills, making a large circuit, but manifestly with the determination to set their faces again towards Jerusalem. Some two or three of our companions, of the European part of our profligated army, together with our tents and our baggage, had remained in the hands of the hostile tribe. One only prudent course was open for such of us as were with our routed and flying guards — to turn back, seek our friends, and capitulate with the enemy. We did so; we rode straight back among them ; it succeeded. They were “ thieves of mercy they received us with every demonstration of kindness, as they had before received our friends, whom we found with them, safe and sound, and our baggage untouched. They assured us that their hostility had been directed solely against our escort, who had no right within that bailiwick, and invited us to the welcome of their camp — coffee, pipes — and to stay with them, the longer the better. CHAP. V.] JUSUF ABOUNSHEE. 137 We found it now more difficult to decline their hospitality than it had been to escape their wrath. We promised to return to them next day, in our way back to Jerusalem, but told them we much wished to reach the vale of the Jordan that night, which would be impos- sible if we were to suffer ourselves to accept their invitation, but requested that some of their men might be permitted to accompany us. Forty of the tribe instantly turned out, with their old chief Jusuf Abounshee, (his name must always be remembered by us with honour and gratitude,) mounted on a fine Arab mare, whose small head, wide nos- trils, and mild eye, bespoke her blood, and whose pedigree she bore recorded in many characters on her flank, from shoulder to hip. We now proceeded in great glory. Our escort was much more respectable, had a look of being much more in earnest, and were not only a much more numerous, but, if anything, a more picturesque assem- blage than that of the day before— “ Cava- liers a toutes armes, et a toutes montures — on Arab coursers, on ponies, and on dro- 138 EXCURSION TO JERICIIO. [chap. V. medaries, (but good trotting and cantering dromedaries,) and armed with sabres, pistols, lances, firelocks, axes, and long clubs. And they had an air of merriment which showed they were masters of the ground they went over; and they shouted, and sang, and occa- sionally careered at full speed round us, like men who did not care who should know that they were there. The rest of the way was more steep and rugged, till we descended on the plain ; sometimes leading up steep stairs hewn in the rock, sometimes winding along abrupt hills and deep ravines, on the opposite sides of which rocks arose to a great height, in many places upright as a wall for a long space, and curiously variegated with strata of bright red, yellow, and grey stone. From this scenery the descent is sudden to a plain, the nearer part of which is thickly set with brushwood and flowering shrubs, and the distance bounded by the high moun- tains of Moab and Nebo, towering high at the extreme north of the chain. Taking a northerly direction, we had now about an hour’s ride further on the flat, till, CHAP. V.] EL ERISCIIA — JERICHO. 139 crossing a narrow rapid stream, and a sort of jungle of oleanders, we were among some small hillocks of earth and sand interspersed with patches of green corn and a few T wretched hovels, still retaining the ancient Chaldaick name, El Erischa.* One large square tower appeared on our right ; and this is all that marks where stood for ages the great city of “ Hiel the Bethelite,” (1 Kings xvi. 34,) Jericho, the fruitful “ city of palms and of the balsam -tree the wealthy and the war- like ; the first of the conquests of Joshua ; whose walls, for seven days encompassed round, had bid defiance to the “ forty thou- * Not Rihah, as the name has been spelt by Mr. Buckingham, and which some have supposed to have reference to the name of “ Rahab the Harlot.” At least it was not so pronounced to us. The similarity of sound between the names of “ Jericho” and of ^Eris- cha,” which appears to be that under which this place is now known by the Arabs, does seem to me to lead to a somewhat more probable conclusion. The place to the northward, where Mr. Buckingham found extensive mounds, foundations, shafts of columns, and a capital of the Corinthian order, appears not improbably to be the site of the city of Hai, or Ai, between which and Beth-el Abraham pitched his tent (Gen. xii. 8 ; xiii. 3), and which Joshua took by ambush (Josh. viii.). 140 JERICHO. [chap. V. sand prepared for war,” but fell before the sound of the trumpet and before the Ark of the Covenant of God, (Joshua v.) The stream we had crossed flowed from the “ spring of the waters that were healed ” by Elisha; (2 Kings ii. 19, et seq . ;) and be- hind us rose to a great height the mountain named Quarantana, because said to be that on which Christ fasted forty days and stood in person before the tempter of mankind. The large square tower on our right is the only ancient house, and the only house of stone, remaining on the whole plain of Je- richo. Whether the building be of Jewish times, or Roman, or Saracenick, there is nothing in its structure or appearance that bespeaks its age. It is of course said by the pilgrims to be the house of Zaccheus in which our Saviour abode, and where he spoke the parable of the ten talents. (Luke xix.) We proceeded to pitch our tents upon the highest knoll at a few hundred yards in front. While we were thus employed, Jusuf Abounshee came to us, saying that he must CHAP. V.] NIGHT AT JERICHO. 141 have coffee and bread for his men, that they had brought none with them, only barley for their horses, and could not watch through the night without food and without coffee. We had hardly enough for ourselves. He told us, however, that there was a village at about an hour and a half’s distance from us among the mountains, whither he could send two of his company to buy them things if they had money. Now, thought we, the plunder begins. We asked him what sum would suffice. After some calculation he told us, to our great surprise, that a piastre each would buy for them all they should want ; forty piastres, (eight shillings and fourpence,) among forty men ! And this not for the food of that night only, but of the greater part of next day also. For on this they subsisted until, on our return on the following day, they had reached their own encampment. And this was an Arab tribe, among their own mountains, in which they were freebooters, in whose hands we were, defenceless. No, we were not defence- less. We were under the best safeguard ; 142 AKAB HOSPITALITY. [chap. y. that of the Arab law of hospitality and pro- tection to the stranger who casts himself con- fidently among them. A law, I believe, hardly ever transgressed. Travellers have been, and are frequently, assaulted, robbed, and murdered among these mountains and on this plain. But it has been, is, and will be, when travellers go with an escort from another tribe, making show of wealth and precaution, and as it were bring- ing war into the country. And, if a tra- veller thus attended shall separate himself but a few hundred yards from his escort, or lag behind them, he will probably be struck down by the hands of just such men as lay round our tents that night, and next day rode by our side in friendship till they had seen us safe again in view of the city from which we had come among them. And therefore, if I were again to undertake this journey, or any other in the wilder parts of Palestine where the Bedouins dwell, (ob- serve, I am not speaking of the more cul- tivated country, such as Samaria, which is inhabited by a very different race,) whether CHAP. V.] ARAB HOSPITALITY. 143 alone or with other Europeans, — even if women were of the party the same, — I would do as I advise, take but an interpreter as guard, advance toward the tribe, who are sure to be seen somewhere by the wayside on the journey, claim protection from them, and give them their reward when their ser- vice shall have been completed. Even if no better feeling on their parts than that of interest protected you, a sense of interest only would tell them it is better policy to guard the stranger back to his home, where he can give them an adequate present in return, and recommen d future travellers to their care, than rob him of what the}?" know would be lesst han they might honestly earn from him, and so deter others from coming that way from whom future reward would also be obtained. Many travellers have gone with an escort from Jerusalem, and returned, uninterrupted. But that was in the time when Moham- med Ali’s authority was acknowledged here. Things are changed now. By daybreak, next morning, we were on 144 THE JORDAN. [chap. V. our way towards the Jordan. Which was the exact point at which the waters were “ cut off from those that came down from above,” and “ the priests that bare the Ark of the Covenant stood firm on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over Jordan,” and where the f< twelve stones ” were set “ as a memorial to Israel,” (Joshua iii. iv.,) can now no longer be found in any probable tradition. Yet, advancing as the host of Joshua then was from the land of Moab on the south-east, and passing over “right against Jericho,” (Josh. v. 16,) there can be little doubt that it was at, or within a short distance of, that part of the river which was before us. It was on this plain too that Elijah smote the stream with his mantle. But where it was, throughout this river’s long and winding course, that that greater testimony was given to mankind at the baptism of Christ, no trace or record remains that claims the least at- tention. It is true that the zeal of pilgrims has not failed to assign a place to this mi- racle. The Greeks have chosen for it one, CHAP. V.j THE JORDAN. 145 very peculiar in the beauty of its scenery, at a turn of the stream overhung with tall trees. But the Roman Catholicks have fixed it elsewhere, at about three miles further to the north ; and, hard by, they have raised a small monastery, with a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The whole of the flat country from hence, even along the south-eastern shore of the Dead Sea to the country of the Idumaeans, is now known as the Valley of El Ghor, or of the Jordan. The plain of Gilgal “ in the east border of Jericho,” where the twelve stones were placed by Joshua, and where he afterwards encamped the whole host, I believe, for the reason I have already given, to be the portion of it which com- mences at some three or four miles to the west of the Dead Sea, and extends north- ward along the western bank of the Jordan. The whole expanse of this great flat, uncul- tivated and dreary as it is, is everywhere broken into patches of green and flowering shrubs ; — the tamarisk, dwarf oak, myrtle, oleander, the thorn called by Dr. Pococke VOL. II. H 146 THE JORDAN. [CHAI>. V. the myrtobalanum of Pliny, and a kind of wild bramble rose, which I believe to be peculiar to this country, to parts of Galilee, and the district of Syria lying between Bey- rout and Lebanon. We found no plant which we could recognize by description as the bitter dusty apple of the Asphaltic lake. At about three-quarters of the way across the plain we forded a small brook that runs between hollow banks parallel to the river, and, at the end of some seven miles from the site of Jericho, (which, looked back upon, has a grand and commanding aspect fit for that of a great city, ) are the thickets of the Jordan, such as line it, I believe, along the whole of its course hither from the sea of Galilee. Jackalls and gazelles are the only wild animals now inhabiting these coverts, save a few wolves, which are rarely seen but when forced out upon the plain by the swelling of the waters from the mountain torrents, after the autumnal rains. # The * “ He shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan.” (Jer. xlix. 19.) “ For Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest.” (Josh. iii. 15.) CHAP. V.] THE JORDAN. 147 stream when we saw it, at the beginning of March, ran strong, and at only a few feet below the level of its steep banks ; the water of a deep yellow hue, but not unpleasant to the taste. Its general breadth is of between fifty and sixty yards ; perhaps a little wider ; and in most parts it is too deep, within a few feet out, to allow any but swimmers to trust themselves out of arm’s reach of the brink and of its drooping branches and tall reeds. And thus the pilgrims bathe who come hither in crowds as the Easter time draws near. Some of us tried to make way against the current, but were carried several yards down before reaching even the full strength of it. The windings of this river are of great Maundrell speaks of the end of March being “ the proper time for these inundations and we find (1 Chron. xii. 15) that the Jordan had overflowed its banks in the first month, March, which was possibly the authority which Maundrell takes as a general observa- tion, instead of being one in exception to what is said in more general terms in the passage of Joshua above re- ferred to. Probably these floods take place whenever the mountain streams have been swollen by any long con- tinued rain, whether in autumn or spring. But autumn is generally the more rainy season of the year. H 2 148 DEAD SEA. [chap. V. beauty. From the white stems and broad leaves of the stately sycomore or dark mas- sive shadow of the sturdv ilex to the slender shoots of the pale green willow or the red tamarisk between whose restless boughs gleams of bright light come quivering across the water, the forms and colours among which the Jordan flows are all the more admirable in their contrast with those of the wild mountains and dreary plain over which is the approach to it. Striking from hence again across the plain, due south, we reached, in a little more than three miles, the northernmost shore of the Dead Sea, which covers the once fruitful “ Vale of Siddim,” and the five cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar. It is called in Scripture the Sea of the Plain, the Salt Sea, and the East Sea ; by the classical writers Asphaltites, and by the Arabs Bahar el Amout, or Bahar Lout, the Dead Sea, or Sea of Lot. The sun was shining brightly through the whole day which we spent in view of it and on its shores. Whether this alone may ac- chap. v.] DEAD SEA. 149 count for it or not, the colour of the sea and of the mountains on each side was by no means dark, nor their general appearance gloomy, as has been so often described. On the contrary, the mountains were tinged with a variety of hues, and the sea sparkled bril- liantly in the sunbeams, and was clear as crystal even to its level shores. But we observed, both in approaching and in leaving them, a haze or steam arising from it in the distance, certainly much more intense than any I have ever seen produced elsewhere by the heat of the air in the noonday, and more resembling the heavy dew of the evening. The saltness of the water is intensely pun- gent to the tongue, and intolerably nauseous, and the skin of the hand wetted with it retains a greasy look and feel, and is not readily dried again. No one of us was tempted to try, by entering it, the experi- ment of its peculiar buoyancy, so often de- scribed.* The bituminous substance thought * Dr. Marcet’s analysis of this water has been given in almost every book of modern travels ; but I subjoin it. He determines its specifick gravity to be as 1211 to 150 DEAD SEA. [CHAP. V. to be the peculiar produce of this sea abounds. Small lumps of it may be found in all parts along its shores. Whether its surface is subject to any visible rise at seasons when the rivers and torrents flow into it in larger streams, or whether it is only driven further in upon the beach by the winds, I know not. But at the northern end, where the beach is flat- test, there was, at full thirty feet from the water’s edge, when we were there, a raised line of white saline encrustations of weeds and shingle heaped up, and of boughs and trunks of trees which have every appearance of having come down the stream of the Jordan and been left here by some tide, which also, from the more or less apparent freshness of the substances left, seems to be 1000 of fresh water, and the substances held in solution by it to be to 100 grains — Muriate of lime ,, magnesia ,, soda . Sulphate of lime . 3-920 10-246 10-360 8-050 24-580 CHAP. V.] DEAD SEA. 151 periodical, and at intervals of not more than a few weeks apart. The island seen by M. Seetzen has, by more recent travellers, been supposed to be “ one of those temporary islands of bitumen which Pliny describes as being several acres in extent.” Captains Irby and Mangles relate that they saw from the southern extremity a low dark line like a bar of sand to the northward, and on another occasion two small islands 44 between a long sharp promontory on the western shore.” There is, (at all events there was when we were there,) a long low island, of apparently full two acres, at not more than four hundred yards from the shore, and lying at about half-way between the north-western- most angle of the sea, and where the Jordan falls into it to the eastward. This may have been a temporary deposit of either bitumen or sand. But I think it to be too large to be accounted for in this way, and am led to imagine it is permanent. This is easy to be ascertained ; and, if we had been aware at that time of any doubt existing on the sub- ject, any one of the party might, by a very DEAD SEA. [chap. V. i5‘2 short swim, have been able to satisfy himself as to the nature of ground of which it is composed. It is not true, according to the long pre- vailing and long believed story, that no living thing is ever to be seen moving near the Dead Sea, nor on the wing above its proscribed and desert surface. It is true we saw no large sea fowl of any of those sorts which throng the Mediterranean, either on these sands or winging their flight from shore to shore. But here and there a scanty troop of small birds ran along upon the margin, and flew in narrow circles over the water. Whether any fish inhabit this sea is a con- tested subject among writers, some, among whom is M. Chateaubriand, reporting, on the authority of guides, that shoals of small fry had been seen. The shells which are found near cannot be said to afford positive proof, as they may have been brought from elsewhere by birds. It is remarkable that there is no tradition of any attempt in late times to explore in boats the wonders of this sea, except the unsuccessful and fatal one made by Mr. Costigan the Irish tra- CHAf. V. DEAD SEA. 153 veller, in 1836. He had proceeded in a small boat down the whole line of the Jor- dan, and had advanced several miles upon the Dead Sea. But here, attacked by a fever, and reduced to the greatest distress for want of fresh water, (his only companion his Maltese servant having by an extraor- dinary blunder started, to lighten the boat, the only cask of water they had brought with them from the Jordan,) he perished, and all his notes of observations were, by the carelessness of the same servant, also lost. It remains for some more fortunate per- son, with better precautions, to carry this object into effect. To ascertain perhaps by soundings, or, if some ancient historians be to be believed, by sight, the position of the submerged cities of the plain, and to lay down accurately the shape and measure- ments of the sea itself, about which there is such a conflict of testimony among geo- graphers.* This would be an enterprise of * Pliny makes it as much as a hundred English miles long, and twenty-five in the broadest, and six in H 3 154 ARAB ENTERTAINMENT. [CHAP. V. no mighty difficulty. It would consist only in transporting a boat or two hither, and in providing money enough to engage the ser- vices of the strongest tribe of Arabs in the neighbourhood to protect the landing of the party at whatever points they might wish to disembark. On our return towards Jerusalem, at some three or four miles from the point at which we began to ascend the mountains, we fell into the same track by which we had tra- velled hither the day before. On our ap- proach to the camp of our friend Jusuf Abounshee, he insisted on our redeeming the promise we had made him of accepting his hospitality within his own tabernacle. It was a large awning, closed with walls of black woollen stuff on three sides, and sepa- rated from the abode of his wife and the the narrowest part. Josephus is nearly in agreement with Diodorus Siculus, and the other Roman historians, who make it only somewhere between sixty and seventy miles long. As to the breadth, these also materially differ ; from seven and a half to near nineteen. Some recent travellers have estimated the length at not more than thirty miles. chap, v.] ARAB ENTERTAINMENT. 155 wives of his sons and their families, and sur- rounded by those of the rest of his tribe. Carpets were spread, and coffee and pipes duly presented, accepted, and consumed, in fellowship with our host. The whole force of the tribe then assembled round us. Mrs. J.,— I mean the lady of our friend Jusuf, — I speak of her familiarly, she was very kind to us, — Mrs. J., I say, sat among us. She smoked with us, she asked us where our wives were, seemed perfectly satisfied with our answers, and then asked us again the same questions for conversation’s sake. She did all that hospitality could suggest, except take off the towel which covered the whole of her face but the eyes, eyebrows, and as little of her mouth as she could conveniently smoke from. And the glimpses we had of these features and of her hands and arms left nothing further to be wished for. The supply of kohl, I suppose, had run short in the wilderness, and lamp-black, fixed with grease, had fully supplied its place upon her eyelashes and e undoubted evidence left upon her hands, yebrows. And there was 156 ARAB ENTERTAINMENT. [chap. v. that they and no other had done this. After many messages, to and fro, between her and the adjoining apartment of the ladies, her daughter-in-law also joined us, — the wife of one of her sons, — clad and adorned like her mother-in-law, not only with the advantages of paint, but also like her with rich strings of silver Turkish coins, hung wherever necklaces and bracelets could conveniently be made to reach. Then the children of all the principal persons of the tribe were brought in and set round us ; and then dinner was brought in and set before us. Many dishes there were, and very substan- tial ; — all to be eaten with the fingers, and all the best bits given us, from sheer hospi- tality, with the fingers of all within reach of us. Then came sour buttermilk, and again coffee and pipes. At length, having persuaded these kind people to let us depart, we remounted, Jusuf and his son accom- panying us, and a third on horseback bear- ing a live lamb which Jusuf insisted on our accepting at his hands in pledge of friend- ship. Jusuf, who told us on the way that CHAr. V.] RE-ENTER JERUSALEM. 157 he did not know his own age, but that he was very old, and could not remember ever having slept one night under any roof but of canvas or of cloth, took up his abode that night, wrapped in his haick, and with a blanket under him, on some straw in the yard of our Jew’s house at Jerusalem. His son did the like. Next morning he was overjoyed at receiving a present of an achro- matick day-and-night glass, and a pocket pis- tol with detonating lock, a lot of copper caps, and a pound or two of English gunpowder. I hope he will never put these last to any evil use. We also paid him the sum which we had bargained to pay for safe conduct to Abdallah, against whom we presented a pro- test in writing, signed by us all, to Mr. Young, together with a strong recommenda- tion to all future wayfarers in the direction of Jericho to put themselves into the hands of the Sheik Jusuf Abounshee. ( 158 ) [chap. VI. CHAPTER VI. Departure from Jerusalem — Ataroth — Gibeon — Beth- horon — Ajalon — Beeroth — Bethel — Mr. Veitch’s Account of a ruined Town near Bethel — Ain a Broot — Nablous — Well of Jacob — Town of Nablous — “ Vale of many Waters” — Valley of Sebaste — Fron- tier of the Land of Issachar — Jenin- — Plain of Es- draelon— N azareth . On the morning of the 13th of March we left Jerusalem to pursue our journey through the northern parts of Palestine, the country of Ephraim, Samaria which is Manasseh, Issachar, and Galilee which is of the tribe of Zabulon, to the coasts of Phoenicia and Syria. We left it — as probably all do who for the first time have sojourned among those places which from earliest childhood have filled their imagination and called forth their deepest reverence — with the utmost reluc- tance and regret ; with what would be almost affliction, but for a lingering hope chap, vi.] DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM. 159 and fancy that the farewell look now turned back upon those walls and towers, those hal- lowed vales and mounts, will not be the last which the chances of life may permit them to cast upon scenes the most impressive, surely, that memory can recall or that this world contains. And yet we were anxious to hasten our departure. For the pilgrims were now beginning to flock in from all coun- tries — Greeks, Roman Catholicks, Copts, Armenians, Maronites — for the Holy Week and Easter ceremonies. These ceremonies we were to the full as eager to avoid as they were to take their share in them. Anxious indeed we were that all the tranquil recol- lections of these places we so much cherished should not be disturbed by the witness of such things done there as we had' heard described by persons who had joined in them with the warmest and most pious zeal ; — Christ’s passion made a stage play, on the anniversary of the night when in this very city he was betrayed ; and the Redeemer himself personated in his sufferings by a wretched mime ; — a solemn fraud enacted at 160 DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM, [chap. vi. the return of the morning, and on the very place of his resurrection from the dead ; fire secretly kindled by priests, and given out to the multitude as if received by miracle ; and a police of Mohammedan guards fain to keep the peace by force among an infu- riated throng of rival Christians coming to blows, for the firstfruits of this scandalous imposture, over the very tomb from which their Saviour rose. One w r ishes not to be moved to a feeling of impatience by what many others deem to be acceptable and right, and therefore these are scenes we could not but wish to avoid. We had made our bargain for horses and mules, to carry us and our servants, our baggage, and the three moukris (horse keep- ers) who were to be our guides, and attend upon our cattle, as far as to Beyrout. Hav- ing assembled our party outside the Damas- cus gate, and finally arranged the order of our march, (a tedious and noisy proceeding among Turks as among Arabs,) we set forth, leaving the tombs of the Kings a little on our right. chap, vi.] DEPARTURE FROM JERUSALEM. 161 I am not sure whether the view of Jeru- salem from the first range of heights on the Damascus road is not, on the whole, the most impressive of any, always excepting that which opens upon the approach from the eastward, from Bethany. Bezetha and Zion rise more boldly, the city sweeps down more gracefully towards the Temple area and the valley of the Kedron, and the Mount of Olives towers above the whole in greater majesty than when seen across the wide plain of Rephaim on the opposite side, or over that of Ramla, Lydda, and Gihon, to the west. The pace of the horse and sumpter mule travelling with baggage cannot be taken at much more than three miles an hour, over this part of Palestine, and until they reach the plains beyond Ephraim. What with the occasional stoppage of a few minutes to re-adjust a swagging load, or tie afresh a broken cord, we found the rate, each hour through the day, might pretty fairly and equally be reckoned at this average. In two hours and a quarter the ruins of an 162 ATAROTH. [chap. VI. ancient town appeared upon a low bank on our left. Three fine arches of large hewn stones, apparently of the early Jewish time, stand like a crown upon its top ; and on the right of the road, for the road must have formerly passed through the town, are spa- cious semi-circular terraces in the rock, with broad steps at regular intervals leading up to them, and from one to the other. These ruins are called Atara. Two towns are spoken of in the book of Joshua (xvi. 5, 7 ; xviii. 13) under the name of Ataroth : one as being on the borders of Ephraim and Benjamin ; the other as Ataroth Adar, 44 near the hill that lieth on the south side of the nether Beth-horon,” which answers well in position with this place. Onwards the way lies along a ridge slop- ing away on both sides. To the north is, at many miles off, the high land of Bethel ; in the valley to the south the village of Ram, the Ramah of the Bible. To the westward a range of hills, abrupt and barren, is crossed by a single pass into the plain beyond. These are the hills before Gibeon (El Djib). CHAP. VI.] GIBEON. 163 Behind this pass lie the upper and lower Beth-horon, (Beit-ur;) and, in a narrow gorge far away to the east of them and of our road, is the village of Ajaloun (Ajalon).* And this is the country famous for one of the greatest prodigies recorded in the Old Testament, when “the Lord discomfited the five kings of the Amorites before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah and unto Makeddah.” “ Then spake Joshua to the Lord, in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said, in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged them- selves upon their enemies.” (Joshua, ch. x.) At the end of an hour and a quarter from hence, the road descends and is shut in, and on the slope of a bank to the right is a * This is the vale mentioned by Captains Irby and Mangles, in the country by the Jordan. 164 BEEROTH. [chap, VI. ruined Wely, on both sides of which is a fine gush of clear water. Here is the ancient Beeroth, now called El Bir, or the Well. The hills around are full of bubbling springs. It is as though the living waters had been pushed back by a mighty hand to the north and to the south of the country of Benjamin, when the iniquity of Jerusalem had brought a curse upon it; and to the vineyards of Canaan and the pleasant verdure of Samaria were left their richness as a reproach to the land, now parched and desolate, over which the Redeemer’s tears had been shed in vain * It is said by the Moslim people as well as by the Christian pilgrims that it was here, at Beeroth, and by this fountain’s side, that the mother of Jesus, seeing that her son had * Tacitus calls the whole of Judaea “ uber solum and Justin, (lib. xxvi. c. iii.,) speaking of a valley in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, in the now barren country to the south-east between it and the Dead Sea, says, u Non minor loci ejus apricitatis quam ubertatis admiratio est.” The hill country of Judah, in the time of Asa, sent “ three hundred thousand, and the tribe of Benjamin two hundred and fourscore thousand mighty men of valour.” (2 Chron. xiv. 8.) chap, vi.] REMARKABLE CAVERN. 165 tarried behind, turned back with Joseph, sorrowing, to Jerusalem, on the day when they found him reasoning with the elders in the Temple. In an hour further, a broad valley spreads itself among the hills to the right ; the upper land clustering with a profusion of gum cistus, and the lower with myrtle and oleander, betokening a moist and fruitful soil. Close upon the left the head of the valley is formed by an abrupt and rocky hill. Midway up is a wide and low-browed cavern ; a multitude of bright little stream- lets come welling out among the clefts below it, and, uniting, form a rapid brook, running eastward towards the Jordan. As you enter the mouth of this cavern, a large dark cham- ber opens before you. Short thick columns are left, whether formed by art or nature one knows not, to support its roof. The whole space within is covered with water some eighteen inches or two feet deep ; and so transparent that you might easily be deceived into stepping down upon the stony floor through which it rises without a ripple on 166 BETHEL. [chap. VI. its surface in a silent but powerful flow. To this singular and beautiful cavern we could not find that the people of the country gave any name ; nor that they have any tradi- tion concerning it, as to whether it was the work of Nature or of man. But it appears as if, in part at least, it was artificial. An hour more brings you to a deep pass, from which the road rises steeply in front. On the right is a ledge of rocks, surmounting a glade of fine green turf ; a clear well bubbles up at its foot. This is among the hills of Bethel, and within a short distance of what was probably the ancient city : here we pitched our tents for the night. I have described this as being near where probably stood the ancient city : for, mount- ing to the top of the rocky hill to the right that evening, and, looking due east, we had a * glimpse of some mounds covered with large hewn stones, at about a mile from the beaten track. We examined these remains next morning, before pursuing our journey. They mark the site of a city apparently of consi- derable extent and importance ; and among CHAr. VI.] BETIIEL. 167 all the descriptions I have met with of this country I do not find one which makes mention of these very remarkable ruins. I have little doubt, from their appearance, that the greater part of them are of the ancient Jewish times. At the part nearest to you, as you approach them from the hill on the side of the pass, is a large square pool, still half full of water, cemented exactly after the fashion of the pool of David at Hebron, the pools of Bethesda, and of Hezekiah, and of Gideon, and that which is by the side of the Damascus gate of Jerusalem. Above the pool, at about a furlong to the east, are the remains of a fortified Acropolis, which has very much the appearance of a Roman work. This must have been of considerable extent, and of great strength. On the next height, at some three or four hundred yards to the north, but connected with it all along by large foundations, is a building half covered with earth, of very rude and unadorned stone workmanship, the entrance to which is under an arch of what appeared to me to be rather the early Assyrian than Jewish archi- 168 BETHEL. [chap. VI. lecture; I mean without a key-stone, and formed of a succession of large hewn stones overlapping each other, secured by masonry bolted into the heel of each successive stone, and by earth heaped over that, and the centre surmounted by a long flat slab, which forms the crown.* At the end of the first hour from Bethel * My friend Mr. Yeitch, in a letter, tells me of some ruins on an opposite eminence, where are remains of buildings apparently of very high antiquity, formed of beautifully squared stones, laid without cement of any sort. On one side three doorways, one large centre one and two smaller, not arched, but surmounted with an architrave. At one corner of these is a square tower, evidently very modern as compared with the other work, and apparently built out of older ruins. “ Under the old buildings/’ says Mr. Yeitch, “ is an immense exca- vation with a well-like mouth, which the Arabs assured us was as large as the area of the building itself, and that when you were within, (the depth being, I should think, forty or fifty feet,) if you proceeded some way along, you would come to a place with water. The name of the ruin is Burj Mukrua. Is it possible that I have lighted on the place which Jeroboam set up, and that this building contained the golden calf of Bethel ? It is a curious thing that the Arabs certainly connect the one place with the other. One of them assured us they were joined by a subterranean passage.” CHAP. VI.] PLAIN OF EPHRAIM. 169 we passed a well-built town called Ain a Broot. It stands on a conical hill in a narrow vale, surrounded by low but bluff crags. The scenery now becomes more mountainous as you proceed along a winding and rocky road. But the wild outlines of the peaks as they rise in front and around are everywhere softened by cultivation. On each side of these steep passes, terrace stands over terrace, rich with fig and walnut trees ; the fig-trees already beginning to put forth their leaves, and here and there an olive- tree in bud ; whereas those which, two days ago, we had left on the outskirts of Jeru- salem, had not yet begun to stir from their wintry state. Indeed, though travelling due north, it was remarkable that we were entering a country not only where vegeta- tion was more advanced, but the climate very much warmer. After a gradual descent of two hours fur- ther, a range of fertile plains opens for about three miles to the right, with a large mo- nastery in the distance. In front are the boundary mountains of Ephraim, which we VOL. II. i 170 GERIZIM AND EBAL. [chap. VI. passed at the end of three hours more. From the ridge of these, looking over the flat country between the hills of Samaria to the left, appears on the extreme horizon a glimpse of the blue waters of the Mediter- ranean. Again descending from hence, in two hours the road passes under the w r alls of Hawarrah, a considerable village on the left. Mount Gerizim now rises in the north-west, across an angle of the wide plain of Machna. Further on, the gorge gradually opens to the west, between Gerizim and Ebal, leading up to Nablous — the Sichem of the Old Testa- ment and the Sychar of the New — “ Sichem in the land of Moreh,” where Abraham sojourned, (Gen. xii. 6,) and where Jacob bought the parcel of land from Ham or, the father of Shechem, which he gave to Joseph, (Gen. xxxiii. 19 ; Josh. xxiv. 32.) Two hours from Hawarrah bring you to the entrance of this delightful vale, rich with the freshest verdure, and towards the town, which stands at the further end, shaded with a profusion of clustering trees. The bases of the two noble mountains that CHAP. VI.] JACOB’S WELL. 171 tower above this pass on either side are not more than a quarter of a mile apart. The southernmost, Gerizim, is said by the tradi- tion of the country to be the mountain on which Abraham prepared for the sacrifice of his only son ;* and here the children of Israel were commanded to build an altar to the Lord, and the blessings of the law were pronounced with a loud voice to the people from Gerizim, and its curses from Ebal. (Deut. xxvii. 1 — 13.) No place can better fulfil all that imagination can conceive or desire for such a scene. But a far more interesting spot, and of far more sacred memory, is nigh to the entrance of the valley of Nablous ; — the well of Jacob, * From the similarity of the name of this country, (which Abraham u saw afar off,” after three days’ jour- neying from Beersheba,) with that of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, on which the temple was afterwards built, a confusion has arisen that has led some to suppose the latter to have been the place of the patriarch’s great act of obedience, for which he was rewarded with the promise and the blessing, — and that the site of the temple was fixed there in consequence. A careful reading of the whole passage (Genesis, chap. xxi. and xxii.) will, it appears to me, show this to be an error. i 2 172 “ WOMAN OF SAMARIA.” [chap. VI. where Jesus conversed with the woman of Samaria. This well, still known by the people there as “ Ain Yacoub” or “ Es Samarieh,” (the fountain of Jacob, or of the Samaritan woman,) is on your right before you enter the gorge ; near it are the founda- tions, and only the foundations, remaining of a small church. The well is now but a narrow triangular hole cut in the floor of rock. Maundrel descended and found a chamber and second well, directly under the first, “ For the well was deep.” (See also Mr. Buckingham’s description.) Dr. Robinson answers very satisfactorily the difficulty which some have suggested as to how it happened that the woman should have come to such a distance from the city to draw water there, when there are so many fountains just round the city; one fountain, a very powerful one, which rushes close by the road between it and the well. He observes, and very truly, that the Scrip- tures do not say that she came thither from the city, nor that she dwelt in the city. She might have dwelt or been labour- CHAP. VI.] JACOB’S WELL. 173 ing near the well, and have gone into the city only to make report respecting Him who had spoken such wonders to her. Or, even granting that her home was in the city, it is not an improbable supposition that a peculiar value may have been attached by the inhabitants to the water of this well of their great patriarch. But the former appears to be tbe pro- bable solution. At all events, not only the unbroken tradition, but the exact de- scription given by St. John, of the position of this well where Christ reposed on his wav from Galilee, and from whence he sent « j in his disciples to the city to buy bread, re- moves all possibility of reasonable or tenable doubt as to its identity. Here the Redeemer sat, and here first delivered that great doctrine of the new covenant which was to break down for ever the ceremonial barrier between Jew, Sama- ritan, and Gentile, and call to an equal par- ticipation in worship and inheritance. “The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, worship the 174 NABLOUS. [chap. yi. Father.” . . . . “ The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” . . . “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” And here, in sight of that plain to which the stream of fruitfulness flows forth from that rich valley, and in which we saw the young corn springing up into like verdure,— here it was that he said to his disciples, “ Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. 5 ' The inhabitants of Nablous, most of them descended from the ancient Samaritan stock, and worshipping, as their fathers did, upon Gerizim, are peaceful and industrious ; and their town has, within as without, an air of prosperity. But hordes of thieves that people the villages near, prowl about the outskirts of the town at nightfall, infest the mountains at all times, and descend, in bands of eight or ten together, upon unarmed strangers, demanding tribute, and threaten- ing violence if refused. It is dangerous, as the evening approaches, for small parties to CHAP. VI.] AN ENCOUNTER. 175 trust themselves, unarmed, without the walls of Nablous. A show of arms, however, is quite sufficient protection ; to rob being the trade of these people ; on no account to fight. The whole tract from hence all along the % range of villages, northward, to the sea is acknowledged as being the most lawless of any in Palestine. We had an encounter at .Jacob’s Well, — not a conflict, for it ended instantly, and very whimsically, in our merely showing that we were armed. It was near sunset when we reached the well ; and we had sent our moukris with the horses and our servants, to make ready our tents for the night under the protection of the town walls. We were four together, and, by good hap, each of us had a double-barrelled, pistol in his pocket. Whilst we were occupied in sketching, two or three persons came round the foot of the mountain to us, and very civilly offered to hold our sketch-books and pencils ; a kind of enthusiasm for the fine arts it appeared to be. We observed, how- ever, that each had a long gun across his 176 AN ENCOUNTER. [chap. VI. shoulders. And, after they had remained with us for some time, seeing that others had joined them, and that their number had become five, and that more amateurs might be expected, we thought it prudent to bring our occupa- tions there to a conclusion before our com- pany of visitors should further increase ; and we accordingly rose to walk towards the town. One of them now shouted out the im- portant word “ Baksheish,” which we, of course, affected not to understand, and did not reply to. After repeating it several times, the spokesman unslung his musket, and was proceeding to level it at the hind- most of us, one of the Mr. Pollens, who instantly grappled with him for it. Our four other visitors now ran up, and were in the act of unslinging their muskets too. No time was to be lost on our parts. And the next moment presented a perfect parody on that stage incident which Sir Fretful in the play calls the “ Dead Lock.” The five assailants, each with a single-bar- relled gun, looked round, and beheld eight barrels opposed to them. A pause and a CHAP. VI.] AN ENCOUNTER. 177 difficulty ensued. All extremity of war and all menace of it was now manifestly at an end. Nobody wished for fight ; but it was an important question which party should first break ground, assailants or de- fendants. For, as it was, each kept the adverse party in check. “ Rhua ma Saleem el Allah,” (“ Go with the peace of God,”) kindly suggested our first assailant ; an invitation which required to be well con- sidered. For, decisive as our advantage then was, at close quarters, the circumstances would be much changed upon our retiring to a distance convenient for a long shot, which we could but ill have answered with pocket pistols. After a short parley, the question was solved. With the best Arabick we had at hand, accompanied by appropriate action, we stipulated that one of the attack- ing force should depart round the foot of the mountain whence he had come ; then, after he should be well out of sight, a second ; then a third ; and so on, until, having thus marched them off successively, when the last was fairly gone we ourselves i 3 178 NABLOTTS. [chap. VI. marched to the town, “ thanking heaven we were rid of scurvy company.” Europeans have, in a conjuncture of this sort, a notable advantage : the deep reverence entertained by all evil disposed men in these parts of the East, (the locks of whose fire- arms are for the most part very uncertain,) for the wide-spread reputation of the unfail- ingness of copper caps; an invention into the philosophy of which they do not pretend to enter, but of whose effect they have a high opinion. The gentlemen with whom we had made our expedition to the Dead Sea, Mr. Child, Mr. Beamish, Mr. Yialls, and Mr. Penrice, and who had taken nearly the same route as we had from Jerusalem hither, but were not of our party, (for we should have been too many all together for accommodation when we should have arrived at the convents in the upper parts of Palestine and Syria,) had encamped that night on the opposite side of Nablous. They were plundered of some of their travelling boxes by some per- sons who had crept in the dark under the CHAP. VI.] NABLOUS. 179 canvas walls of their tent, but who for- tunately contented themselves with privately stealing within the dwelling. Next morning we resumed our journey. The interiour of the town is well built, and the bazaars good ; and a stream of clear water rushes down the whole length of the main street, in which are the remains of a church of fine Byzantine architecture, and a hand- some arched gateway, both probably of the time of the first Crusades, spanning it towards the northern end. Our way lay over a high bank to the north-westward, shaded by a grove of ancient olives and oak trees, and commanding a splendid view of Nablous and the country beyond. Thence we descended rapidly into a wide valley, proceeding for an hour along lanes flanked on each side with gardens of mulberry and fig. The richness of the whole valley is hardly to be described. Between the gardens and the road, the margin is lined with a natural and abundant growth of aromatick bay-trees of great size, and pomegranates and medlars in full bloom 180 VALLEY OF SEBASTE. [chap. VI. thus early in the year. In many places they overarch the road for some distance. Bright streams and fountains gush forth on all sides, to join in a wide and rapid stream, that flows westward, in the opposite direction from those on the other side of the heights we had just left. This is the “ Yale of many Waters,” and we had passed the boundary which divides their course. In a quarter of an hour further, the village of Beit Wadan was on our left ; and now, turning more to the north, we mounted a ridge of low hills, where tillage and garden culture ceases, and the soil is no longer deep enough for the growth of trees ; but the stony ground is covered with ranunculus, anemone, and lupine, of great size, and dazzling brightness of blue and white. In three-quarters of an hour more, the valley of Sebaste is seen to the north, and, in the extreme distance to the west, between the low peaks of rocky hills, the Mediterranean opens in a long line now glittering in the sunbeams.* A short steep * This view of the Mediterranean is described by Dr. Robinson (vol. iii. 144) as “ including not less than CIIAP. VI.] SEBASTE. 181 pass leads down into the valley, and another quarter of an hour brought us to the town of Sebaste, known by the name of the pro- vince of which it was the capital, Samaria, till the time of Augustus Csesar, when the Greek name it now bears was given to it by Herod the Great in honour of the emperor. The view of this town is strikingly pictu- resque. It rises on the other side of a valley and a broken bridge which partly crosses a stream rushing by the foot of the steep hill, once the Acropolis, now crowned by the stately ruin of a fane dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and, as tradition says, his place of burial. There is also a legendary story of this having been the place where he was beheaded ; in absolute contradiction, how- ever, to the more credible narratives of Josephus and Eusebius, who distinctly relate twenty-five degrees between W. by N. and N.W.”— fifteen hundred geographical miles. I merely cite the words. It would be vain to attempt to reach their meaning, since, according to every known system of geography, the Mediterranean Sea, in its whole ex- tent, reaches not quite forty-one degrees of longitude, and not more than seven of latitude. 182 COUNTRY NEAR SEBASTE. [chap. vi. that that act was done at Machaeros, on the other side Jordan. The lower town, or rather village as it now is, for it consists of but a few poor houses, built generally of the stones of what were probably large edifices destroyed, is in a grove of old olives, sycomores, and karubs, with here and there gardens, and between them an undergrowth of wild flowering shrubs. At the east end of the reputed place of sepulture of the Baptist, is a vaulted, half octagonal chancel, with buttresses at its angles, and standing, like a tower, upon the brow of the cliff. It affords, in its present state, an interesting specimen of what is called the early Lombard style. But, from its appearance within, I am inclined to believe that the structure was originally Roman ; a pagan temple, to which the outer facing of closed intercolumniations and arched windows was afterwards added when it was applied to the purpose of a sepulchre and church. Beyond is, for several miles, a continuance of the same character of scenery, (fruitful CHAP. VI.] SHEEP — VULTURES. 183 vales, and careful cultivation, watered by rushing brooks,) that pervades the whole land of Samaria. At the end of two hours and a half, we were on the top of that magnificent moun- tain boundary that runs between the coun- tries of Manasseh and Issachar. Again the sea lies broad and open to the west. The way lies over the high ground for two hours more, when an arable country appears to the north-west, sloping downward to a dead fiat in the haze of distance. This is the southern end of the great plain of Esdraelon. The sea is no longer visible. In half an hour more, we had descended into a valley of about three miles in extent each way, cultivated throughout with wheat and maize. On the right is pasture-land, with large flocks of sheep, over whose head was “ sailing with supreme dominion ” a troop of some twenty or thirty bald-headed vultures. They winged their flight towards us, and accompanied our march across the flat, circling and shrieking at a few hundred feet above us, until they saw us clear of their 184 CABATIEII. [chap. VI. solitude which we had invaded, (for not a human being but each other had we seen for many miles,) and then returned again to look from out “ the azure vault of air ” for any straggler who might leave the flock. In an hour from hence we entered the village of Cabatieh, at which we found it adviseable not to halt even to give food or half an hour’s rest to our horses, wearied as they were with plodding through many miles of very deep ground. For the people of this village, as we had been informed before we left Sebaste, were engaged at that time in open hostilities with their neighbours of the town of Jenin, and many inroads had lately taken place, and some few lives had been sacrificed on both sides. And we were in our way to that town, and might not un- naturally be mistaken, from the amount of our force, (being no less than four of us, with two European and two ^Egyptian servants, and three moukris, and much baggage,) as an important reinforcement of military means and supplies in full march to the enemy. Indeed, the sudden retreat of the whole chap, vi.] PLAIN OF ESDRAELON. 185 population of the village to the shelter of their wretched hovels on our approach, the sinister reconnaissances which were taking place from behind and from over the mud walls, and, as we departed, the flocking out of those who had before concealed themselves, and now saluted us with most unfriendly howlings, confirmed us in the impression that such had been the view taken of us, and that it had been only the imposing numbers and array of our party which had made it matter of prudence with the garrison of Cabatieh to let us pass without challenge or attack. In an hour and a quarter further, we entered a roman tick pass between two high turfy hills, partially studded with evergreen oaks, which, gradually widening, opened, after an hour more, upon the entrance of a great plain stretching away far to the left. On the right is the walled town of Jenin. The plain that was on our left is the great and famous plain of Esdraelon ; famous in many of the most memorable parts of the history of the Old Testament, famous dur- 186 JENIN. [chap. VI. mg some of the conflicts of the third Cru- sade, and famous in our own times for the stout resistance made by General Kleber, with a small force of French infantry, to the overwhelming army led by the Turkish Vizir; — a resistance which Napoleon, after a forced march to the support of his gallant colleague, with numbers still vastly inferiour to that of the enemy, converted into a bril- liant and decisive victory. It was called by the French the battle of Mount Tabor, though fought on the plain of Loubieh, several miles to the north-west of it. Having made a hurried advance of some leagues over the mountains, from the neigh- bourhood of Nazareth, in the morning, he gained his victory, returned with his staff to dine at Nazareth, and that night slept at Acre. Jenin, from the evidence of its position and description, as well as from that of its name, is clearly the Ginsea ( Temla ) of Jo- sephus, (‘ Bell. Jud.’ iii. 3. 4 ; 4 Ant.’ xx. 6. 1,) and most probably also the En-Gannim mentioned as a city of the borders of Issa- CHAl*. VI.] GILBOA — BETH -SHAN. 187 char, near to Jezreel, and near to the Kishon. (Josh. xix. 21 ; xxi. 29.) It has been very carelessly, by some travellers, confounded with Jezreel. We pitched our tents on a gently rising ground to the west of the town, but close to its walls, separated from them only by some narrow strips of garden- ground, with their hedges of prickly pear. Early next morning we began our route across the plain, which it took us four hours and three-quarters to traverse. It is, throughout, a deep rich soil, and, at the season when we were there, wet and toilsome to travel over. But at every step we were in view of places of the highest historical interest. The skirts of Gilboa (Jelbon) soon became visible to our right, where, in the last fatal battle fought by Saul, Israel fled from before the Philistines, and Saul and his three sons were slain. And as we proceeded we saw the plain sweep downwards still further east towards the country of the Jordan, and towards Beth-shan, (now Bei- san,) where the bodies of the fallen king of Israel, and of his three sons, were “ fastened to the wall.” (1 Sam. chap, xxxi.) 188 END OR — NAIM. [chap. VI. Some twelve or fourteen miles away, north and by west, and round the westernmost slope of the Lesser Hermon, are the hill and village of Endor, where, on the gathering of the Philistines for battle, the unhappy Saul sought the “ woman with the familiar spirit,” because “ the Lord had departed from him.” And there he bowed himself before the spectre of Samuel, and before the words that “ the kingdom was rent out of his hand,” and that “ Israel was delivered with him into the hand of the Philistines.” (1 Sam. chap, xxviii.) To the right of Endor rises the Djebel el Duhieh, or Lesser Hermon, mentioned by Jerome as being near Mount Tabor, in distinction from the greater mountain of that name, the Hermon of the Scriptures, far away to the north, the highest peak of Anti-Lebanon. At the foot of the Lesser Hermon is the village of Naim, where our Saviour raised the widow’s son from the dead. About halfway across the plain, and at some three miles to the right of the track leading towards Nazareth, is a small conical hill, not high, but with some low houses on CHAP. VI.] JEZREEL. 189 its side, and surmounted with the ruins of walls, as of an acropolis, and a low square tower of ancient masonry. It commands the plain all round. This is Zerin, the site of Jezreel, round which “ the Midianites and Amalekites, and the children of the East, were gathered together,” when “ the spirit of the Lord came on Gideon.” (Judg. chap, vi.) And this was the city of Ahab and Jezebel ; and it was on this plain, on the road which leads from Samaria, that Joram and Ahaziah looked forth and saw Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, “ driving furiously, 5 ’ and went out to meet him. (J Kings, chap. xxi. ; 2 Kings, chap, ix.) At the north-eastern foot of the hill of Jezreel is still the fountain, flowing towards the Jordan, near which the Israelites pitched their tents, (1 Sam. xxiv. 1,) and where, in the time of the third Cru- sade, the Saracen and Christian hosts alter- nately encamped. And William of Tyre (xxii. 27) says it was reported that great numbers of fish appeared in the waters while the Christians were there, and supplied them with food. Behind Jezreel, and between it 190 MOUNT TABOR. [chap. VI. and the foot of the Lesser Hermon, is the village of Solam, anciently the Shunam where Elisha long abode, and restored the son of the Shunamitish woman to life. (2 Kings, chap, iv.) A track here branches off to the north toward Tiberias. This is ge- nerally supposed to have been the ancient road from Jerusalem thither, and so on to Damascus. Mount Tabor soon after was seen rising in great majesty to the north-westward of us. As we mounted the hills at the further end of the plain, the road is steep and rugged, in parts of it abrupt precipices rising on each side. One of these, the highest and most re- markable in its form, is known by the name of the “ Mount of the Precipitation,” in con- sequence of a very foolish tradition, and ma- nifestly untrue, although it has subsisted for many ages, that this was the rock from the brow of which the people of Nazareth would have cast down our Saviour. “ But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.” I say a tradition manifestly untrue. I CHAP. VI.] NAZARETH. 191 shall, in the course of the next chapter, en- deavour to justify this opinion. After an ascent of three-quarters of an hour we reached a fine spring bursting forth from a circular wall of thick masonry, on the very crest of the. mountain. From hence is a more gradual and easier descent of a quarter of an hour, which leads into the small and lovely Yale of Nazareth. The town stands on the left, at the westernmost end of the vale, commanding a delightful view over it, and is itself exceedingly picturesque, backed by high cliffs, approached from under the shade of spreading oaks, and its houses, the square massive walls of its church and monastery, and the minarets of its two mosques overtopped here and there, and in- terspersed with tall spiral cypresses. ( 192 ) [chap. VII. CHAPTER VII. Nazareth — Fountain of the Virgin — Mount Tabor — Plain of Galilee — Hattein — Tiberias — Sea of Tibe- rias — Hot Springs — Mount of the Beatitudes — Hadjar en Nassara — Cana of Galilee — Return to Nazareth. The Church of the Annunciation, and the convent which forms part of the same build- ing, stand on a knoll, almost apart, at the north-east end of the town of Nazareth. The town itself stretches along a semicircular ledge, overhung with rocks, behind which the ground continues to rise to the west, until it commands a view both ways, not only along the valley to the east, but to the westward also, over the plain of Zephurch, to the heights which part it from that of Megiddo, as far as Mount Carmel and the sea. To the north it slopes downwards for not more than about a quarter of a mile, when, on that side also, it is shut in by hills. The convent here, as in all other parts of CHAP. VII.] NAZARETH. 193 Palestine and Syria, gives hospitable enter- tainment and commodious lodging to all travellers, for which in no case is any remu- neration required. The same hospitality is universally extended ; but those travellers who receive it, not as poor wayfarers or pilgrims, give, at their departure, to one of the lay brothers a small sum in repayment to the community for the charges and at- tendance they have cost it. This sum is generally at the rate of not more than about a dollar a day for each person, which is re- ceived thankfully as a donation. The Franciscan friars of Nazareth are peculiarly kind and attentive. The superiour is an Italian gentleman of hardly two-and- thirty years of age. His countenance is of the most regular and striking beauty I think I ever saw in a man, and his manners are graceful and engaging. He converses very agreeably not in his own language only, but also in excellent French. The easternmost extremity of the building is occupied by the church. From the nave a double flight of steps leads to the space VOL. II. K 194 NAZARETH. [ CHAT . VII. containing the high altar. A narrower stair between these, descends to what is shown as the place where stood the house of the blessed Virgin : a single chamber, or grotto, with a small recess bevond, in which an altar is raised, is said to be the spot where she re- ceived the annunciation that from her should be born the Saviour of the world. I cannot see any sufficient reason to ques- tion the identity of this place, or to doubt that in Nazareth, where our Lord passed all his earlier years, in the midst of a country also the abode of some of his earliest fol- lowers, it should have been held in true remembrance. I endeavoured as far as I could, without risk of offence, (for it is hardly right to question curiously concerning sub- jects of this sort, when they are not put forward for observation, and where it might be suspected by those to whom the question is addressed that their answer would be re- ceived with a disposition to cavil,) to ascertain whether, in truth, the friars attached any credit to the legend of the house, which is supposed to have stood within this space, CHAP. VII. J NAZARETII. 195 having been carried by angels to Loretto. The only answer which the lay brother gave, of whom I made the inquiry in a way which I hoped might not appear impertinent or offensive, was “ E una tradizzione.” The chamber is hewn in the rock, and two pillars of dark marble were raised by the Empress Helena from the floor of it to the roof, about twelve or fourteen feet high. That on the left of the entrance from the foot of the stair is broken. Of this, it is said by some travellers, among others, Burck- hardt, that a story was told by the friars that the upper part of the shaft, which is all that remains, a fragment of some five feet in length, is suspended miraculously. It is not impossible that, among some enthusiasts in former times, such a legend may have been entertained. But the friars who showed it to us told no such tale. They said the pillar was Jbroken by the Saracens, and never hinted to us any subject of wonder in the simple fact of a portion of it having re- mained attached to the roof of a cave, which it evidently from the first was intended 196 NAZARETH. [t'HAl*. VII. rather to adorn than to support. In the church is a fine organ, and of the pictures on the walls some are better painted than those usually found in this part of the world. Two are said to be by Murillo. But these, which are heads of saints, have much more of the air of one of the Italian schools than of the Spanish. The supposed house of Joseph, where Christ passed his childhood, is about two hundred yards higher up to the north of this. I spoke, in the last chapter, of the “Mount of the Precipitation strangely so called as signifying the place from which the Jews did not precipitate the Saviour ; for he “ passed through the midst of them, and went his way.” This place, more than two miles from Nazareth, is, however, assuredly not the one from which they would have cast him down ; for that , says St. Luke, (iv. 29,) was u on the brow of the hill whereon their city was built.” If, to support this legendary fiction as to the place shown as the “ Mount,” it be alledged, as some have alledged, that the site of the ancient city was chap, vii.] FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN. 197 there, what becomes of the identity of the place of the Annunciation ? But, in truth, it is plain from the description given by all the earliest topographers, and from internal evidences amounting to proof, that the city has not shifted its position. Nor can the fiction be traced back to any writer beyond the latter part of the twelfth century ; and on the brow of the hill whereon the city is built, there are many rocks, from any one of which the attempt may have been made to cast our Saviour down. From Nazareth, on the next day after our arrival there, the 17th of March, we set forth for Mount Tabor and the Lake of Genne- sareth. We descended, about a quarter of a mile to the eastward, to the fountain called the “ Fountain of the Virgin,” or of the “ Lady Mary,” (El Ain es Siti Mariam ;) a bright stream of delicious water falling into a trough from out of a niche in a low wall of ancient masonry, backed by a small Greek church of the architecture of the middle ages, built, it is said by the Greeks, where Mary first met the Angel of God, as she was drawing 198 MOUNT TABOR. [chap. VII. water at the fountain. Thence we struck off nearly due south, over the rising ground, with the valley of Nazareth to our right. After about a mile and a half, our road ran through a succession of small hills and vales, clothed with fine open grove of ancient oaks and karub-trees, and carpeted with the richest turf and wild flowers ; sweet-smelling cyclamen, anemone, and asphodel, and the largest variegated iris I ever saw, springing up in the most glowing luxuriance. Among this greenwood scenery our path gradually rose, till, from the top of a bank some three or four miles from Nazareth, we saw, at about as much further before us, Mount Tabor, standing alone and eminent above the plain, which fades into hazy distance beyond it ; a horizon unbroken till by the hills of Gilboa rising to the south, and, a little more to the eastward, the mountains which line the fur- ther bank of Jordan. From Nazareth to the foot of Tabor is a distance of nearly two hours and a quarter. Its sides, which are rugged and steep, with here and there a glade or flat terrace of fine CHAP. VII.] MOUNT TABOR. 199 turf, are covered with a like profusion of wood, but of less stately growth. The ex- treme height of the mount is not more than about a thousand feet above the plain. A little less than an hour’s sharp walk took us to the top. There are various tracks up its side, often crossing each other. We mounted by that which rises from the northern base of the mountain. Not only much length of way, however, but some time also may be saved by now and then scrambling over the rocks to cut off the angles of the path ; an ascent, with the help of the brushwood, not much more rugged than many parts of the path itself. At a little more than three-quarters of the way up are the remains of two massive gateways, one on the east side and one on the west of what may be called the crown of the mountain, with the foundations of flanking towers, and of a connecting wall which appears to have at some time formed a belt all round, and to have been the first outwork of the fortress that covered the top. Almost on the summit, to the south-east, 200 MOUNT TABOR. [chap. VII. are the ruins, (bare walls now, and crum- bling into an arched vault below,) of what Quaresmius speaks of as the Latin chapel of the Transfiguration. At the north end is, in a like state of dilapidation, the Greek chapel of the same name. The crest of the mount is table-land, of some six or seven hundred yards in length from north to south, and about half as much across ; and a flat field of about an acre is at a level of some twenty or five-and-twenty feet lower on the eastern brow. There are the remains of several small ruined tanks on the crest, and one well of full sixty feet deep, which still catches the rain-water dripping through the crevices of the rock, and preserves it cool and pure, as we were told, throughout the year. Tabor, itself famous, from the time when the Israelites first entered the Promised Land, through the history of almost every age, looks over the whole of Esdraelon ; that splendid plain of which it has been well said that it “ has been the scene of encamp- ment of every army that has invaded Pales- CHAP. VII.] MOUNT TABOR. 201 tine, from Saul to Kleber.” * From this mount Barak beheld Sisera, and all the mighty host he had gathered together, and his nine hundred chariots of iron ; and “ De- borah said unto him, Up, for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thy hand.” (Judg. chap, iv.) But there is a greater history far than that of Deborah and Barak, with which a popular belief has, during the last few cen- turies, (mistakenly as I think appears,) con- nected the name of Mount Tabor. It is held generally by the Christians dwelling in Palestine, and by the pilgrims, and is spoken of by not a few travellers, as the “ High Mountain apart,” where our Saviour was transfigured before Peter, James, and John. In this instance the probability which, in my opinion, tradition always affords to the identity of the site assigned to so memorable an event, must give way before the stronger evidence opposed to it by circumstances, that cannot admit of doubt. * Hon. W. F. Fitzmaurice, ‘ Cruise to iEgypt, Palestine, and Greece/ p. 57. K. 3 202 MOUNT TABOR. [ciiap. VII. First, the tradition does not reach back to the date of what may be termed first-class testimony of this sort, such as applies itself to most of what are called “the Holy Places.” It is true that Cyril of Jerusalem, and Jerome in the Epitaph of Paula, mention this mount but very slightly, and as if only designating it by the name of the Place of the Trans- figuration, as the name by which it had then begun to be known. And this was at the end of the fourth century. But Eusebius, and Jerome himself in the Onomasticon, a work of high topographical authority, com- piled more than forty years before, make frequent mention of Tabor, with no reference to the transfiguration having taken place there ; in itself almost conclusive on the question the other way ; at all events show- ing that the connexion of this place with that great miracle was a discovery or a fiction not then accredited by these fathers. But what brings it nearer to apparent disproof is this. From the days of Deborah and Barak to those of Vespasian, Mount Tabor was a place of arms, whence hosts CIIA1\ VII. j MOUNT TABOR. 203 poured forth in time of war, and a garrison was maintained even in peace. A city was on the summit, called by Polybius Ata- byrion, which was besieged and taken by Antiochus the Great, 218 b.c. It is called by Josephus Itabyrion ; and he speaks of a victory gained there over the Jews by the Romans, under the Proconsul Gabinius, b.c. 50 or 53. And, later, when Josephus himself held the country of Galilee against the forces of Vespasian, he built new works and enclosed the city with a wall. Thus w r e find that a fortified town was upon it, and on the summit, as the remains now in existence, and the natural shape of the hill, sufficiently attest, for more than 280 years ; that is for at least 220 years before the birth of Christ, and for at least sixty after ; the latter period including that at which Jesus took his dis- ciples 44 to a high mountain apart, and there was transfigured before them.” The place of transfiguration was evidently a solitude, as appears, not from the word 44 apart ” only, but also from the words of St. Peter, who, in his alarm, and 44 not knowing what he said,” 204 MOUNT TABOR. [chap. VII. spoke of building “ three tabernacles ” there. This part of Galilee is full of high mountains apart ; and Tabor, famous and venerable for many great events, cannot, I think, for the reasons I have stated, maintain the station assigned to it by secondary tradition among the “ holy places” of the New Testament. The view from the summit, — though one edge or the other of the table-land, wherever you stand, always intervenes to make a small break in the distant horizon, — is, on the whole, the most splendid I can recollect having ever seen from any natural height. I remember a remark that in my boyhood I heard from a person from whom it came with great authority, Mr. Kiddell, who had then lately published a map of all the moun- tains of the globe with their several eleva- tions. He said in my hearing that he had never been on any natural hill, or rock, or mountain, from which could be seen an un- broken circumference with a radius of three miles in every part ; and that he did not be- lieve any such to exist. Of course he did not say this of the tops of artificial structures, ciiAr. vii.] PLAIN OP GALILEE. 205 nor of the hollows of valleys, of which there are many from which a complete horizon of much more than this extent may be seen. But the observation struck me as worthy of note ; and I have since never forgotten it when I have been on the summit of a moun- tain, hill, or rock ; and I have never yet been able to find it disproved. Perhaps Skopo in the island of Zante, and Lycabet- tus near Athens, and I will add the more familiar name of the Wrekin in Shropshire, are the three places that I have seen which promised the fairest for an exception from this apparently universal law of nature. But even in those places this law holds good. It is the same on Tabor, though there are many abrupt points of vantage ground on the summit. From the northern foot of the mountain, across the flat country which is known as the Plain of Galilee, to the brow of the hills beyond, is a distance of about four hours and a quarter. At nearly halfway, we passed two ancient forts, apparently of the age of the Crusades; one on our right and the other 206 IIATTEIN. [chap. VII. on our left. A copious spring discharges itself into a trough beneath the outer wall of the former of these buildings, affording a commodious watering-place for cattle. Fur- ther to the left, and at some five or six miles away from the main track, the Jebel el Hat- tein rises in sight ; a detached mount of no great height, near and around which was fought, in 1187, the great battle to which it gave its name ; the last great battle of the second crusade. Here Guy de Lusignan, the last Christian king who reigned in Jeru- salem, lost by his rashness, obstinacy, and incapacity, the crown to which he had raised himself by treachery. He was utterly de- feated by Saladin, made prisoner with almost all the flower of his chivalry who survived that fatal day, and the whole of his army put to the rout. The nominal sovereignty of Jerusalem was borne successively by Amaury, brother of Guy of Lusignan, and afterwards by Con- rad Count of Tyre, by whom it descended in the female line to Jean de Brienne, after- wards king of Naples, to whose son-in-law, CHAP. VII.] RICHARD I. 207 the Emperor Frederick, and his issue, it was confirmed in fief by the Pope. But the battle of Hattein opened the gates of Jeru- salem to Saladin, from whose hands it never fell. Nor did the Christian forces ever from that time hold a permanent footing in any part of Palestine except Tyre, and Sidon, and KaifFa, and Ptolemais. Ptolemais, named by the Crusaders St. Jean d’Acre, was the first place retaken. It fell before the arms of our Richard Coeur de Lion, after a siege of two years, a.d. 1182, who maintained it and contested a few other of the cities of the sea-coast, during the brilliant but un- successful third crusade. Deserted by his col- league, Philip Augustus, and left alone with his English to support the honour of the red cross standard against the whole power of the East, Richard concluded a treaty with Saladin, securing thenceforth the inviolabi- lity of the Holy Sepulchre, the tenure of the monasteries of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Naza- reth, and Carmel, and safe conduct to Chris- tian pilgrims to the holy places. This treaty, generously concluded by Saladin in an in- 208 STRIKING SCENERY. [chap. VII. terview with his gallant enemy, whose prowess had won his esteem, has ever since been faithfully maintained by the Moslems ; maintained notwithstanding the rash and fruitless enterprises that afterwards took place — the total failure of the expedition of Louis IX. of France, in 1249 — and the ill- concerted, though gallant rally of the forces of some of the Christian princes in 1270, in which our Edward the First took the field during the lifetime of his father, and recap- tured Acre, which however was again and finally lost ten years after, in the war called the eighth and last crusade. After proceeding onwards up a gently rising ground for some three miles, we came suddenly on a view, one of the most striking of any in Palestine ; not only in respect of all the associations of its wondrous history, but also of the natural beauties of the scene.* * I speak of the grandeur of this scene as I was im- pressed with it. I regret to differ in any opinion, even on a matter of taste only, from Captain Irby and Cap- tain Mangles, who write of the whole of this country with so much general good judgement, as well as feeling ; but of the land about the lake of Tiberias, CHAP. VII.] LAKE OF TIBERIAS. 209 About a mile below* in the depth of a steep descent, is the city of Tiberias, still a large walled town, on the brink of that fa- mous lake, the Lake Gennesareth or Tibe- rias, or Sea of Galilee ; from whose shores the first Apostles were called, by doctrine and by miracle, to preach the Gospel to all nations. At some four miles to the westward its bright waters form a bay, on whose hollow beach a rank growth of high grass and brushwood covers the ground where of old stood Capernaum, and which still bears its name.* Further still and almost hid they say that it has “ no striking features, and that the scenery is altogether devoid of beauty.” I am happy, however, to find my own impressions in entire agreement with those of Mr. Fitzmaurice, who, in his very agreeable little journal, which every one who reads it must wish had been extended to a narrative of greater length, speaks of this view with a degree of admiration which comes with authority from so ac- complished an artist. (Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice’s Cruise, &c., p. 59.) * Capernaum, (called now- Caphernahoum, or Tell Houm,) as described by Josephus, (‘ Bell. Judaic.,’ iii. 10,) answers to this in position. 210 TIBERIAS. [chap. vh. within its windings, towards the north-west, were Magdala (Migdal), and Chorazin and Bethsaida (Corasi and Beitsid), in which if the mighty works that were done “ had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” Further yet to -the north-westward are the scanty walls of Saphet, “ the city built upon a hill and, at full forty miles of distance, Mount Hermon, Jebel es Sheik, rears aloft against the sky its majestick head, white with eternal snows. Here, by this waters side, the Son of God after his crucifixion again stood manifest be- fore those who, on the night when he was betrayed, had “ forsook him and fled,” and spoke to them the words which were to fill the whole earth and open the kingdom of Heaven to man. A large proportion of the inhabitants of Tiberias (Burckhardt says a fourth ; Buck- ingham, I think, with more probability, one half) are Jews, from all parts ; generally of German, Polish, and Italian extraction. The race of Spanish Jews, descendants of those CIIAP. VII.] TILE JEWS. 211 who were banished under the persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabella, is now much re- duced in number. Unlike those in other parts of the Levant, those of Tiberias mostly wear the high-crowned hat and gaberdine. They are assembled there in anxious, in almost daily, expectation of the coming of the Messiah ; an anxiety made more urgent now by the long looked-for year, 1843, hav- ing passed without the fulfilment of their hopes : many of them looking forth upon that lake with some undefined notion — not gathered certainly from any passage, or from any gloss or interpretation of any passage, in their prophets, nor yet as, I believe, in the Talmudick commentaries, or the Mishnah, the authorized traditional exposition, that can be held to warrant it — that He is to arise from those waters. The lake is not mentioned in the Old Testament, nor does it appear what reverence can be attached to it save what arises from the records of the New, and in connexion with the ministry and miracles of Christ. Indeed the divisions in belief are remarkable which have lately 212 THE JEWS, [chap. VII. arisen among the Jews, particularly among those in the four holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Sichem, and Tiberias, and have placed that people in a somewhat new rela- tion towards their forefathers, towards the doctors of the Sanhedrim from the beginning of the Christian sera, and towards the fol- lowers of the Christian faith. Among all the divisions in all sects and religions of the world, there is none more notable than what has arisen of late among the Jewish people. I will mention a very singular opinion professed by many — I know not whether it be to be found among the Jews elsewhere : I certainly was not aware of its existence until I saw and conversed with several of that persuasion in the East, and found from other authority too that there is a certain number of them, bearing I know not what proportion to the whole, but not an inconsiderable one, in Palestine, who hold that our Saviour, though no prophet, was an innocent man, unjustly put to death And, strangely, they connect this with a belief that this unjust act has turned away CHAP. VII.] THE JEWS. 213 the favour of the Almighty from their na- tion, and laid them under a ban, not to be removed until the Messiah shall come, to call them again together to their inheritance, and proclaim to them forgiveness of the iniquity of their fathers. How they can find footing on this strange ground, and believe that those who had so often embrued their hands in the blood of prophets, and followed after false gods, and yet had been forgiven, should have brought this heavy curse upon their children by the unjust condemnation of one man, whose mis- sion and doctrine they nevertheless reject, is not easy to comprehend. Y et on this slippery verge, acknowledging on the one hand so terrible an expiation of their offence towards Him, and on the other refusing to admit His truth, these unhappy people linger, a mourning remnant of their dispersed and rejected race, in the land, now wasted, of their forepast glories, and of their still en- during but long deferred hopes. To duly feel for the condition of the Jews, they should be seen in Palestine, and as they are 214 LAKE OE TIBERIAS. [chap. VII. now ; not persecuted indeed, but desolate and despised. I walked out, late at night, upon the shore a little to the east of the town, with my poor friend who had been the companion of my whole journey, and in company with whom I then hoped often in days to come to recall the remembrance of the deeply-interesting hours we had passed together in such scenes. The night was overcast ; and a strong wind was setting up the lake : and the dark waters heaved before us on which the Saviour had, “ in the fourth watch,” walked forth to his disciples ; when they, who knew him not, and cried out for fear, heard his voice bidding them “ be of good cheer those words of tender fatherhood, that warrant of sure refuge in a “ love that casteth out fear,” which no other religion ever gave to man, and which the best philosophy of former times had but dimly and imperfectly con- ceived — “ It is I, be not afraid.”* * u Am tt]Q (fooftepag tccii cpXey/jLaivovarjg £ ei vidai p.o- nag , Tr,v acrcjjaXr] peer eXtt iSwv ayciOivy ev&zfieiav evepyn- Zerai.” — Plutarch, in Vit . Pericl. CIIAP. VII.] TIBERIAS. 215 The next morning was bright, and the lake smooth as a mirror. There was but one boat at Tiberias — it was a punt rather — an ill-constructed and crazy one, without sail or even step for a mast, and with but two unwieldy paddles. It was tied to the end of a small rough jetty of stones and timber, and appeared to be common property at the disposal of any one who might choose to avail himself of it. My servant and I pushed off in it, to bathe ; a design which seemed likely enough to be accomplished without our being put to the trouble of jumping out. It is said that the lake is full of fish ; and some are taken in casting-nets ; but not a boat did we see on an}^ part of the shore or surface, except that one machine of roughly-jointed planks, which could be but rarely used by fishermen. Until the utter subjugation of Palestine by the Moslems, the city of Tiberias never ceased to bear an important part in its his- tory. The resistance it offered, under the command of Josephus, to the Roman power is memorable ; nor was it reduced till after 216 TIBERIAS. [chap. VII. the great naval battle on its waters, where Titus, Vespasian, and Trajan commanded in person. Six thousand five hundred are said to have perished in this engagement, and in the pursuit and rout on shore at Tarichsea, besides twelve hundred afterwards massacred in cold blood. (Joseph. ‘ Bell. Judaic.,’ iii. 17.) In the seventh century, the city was taken from Heraclius by the Kaliph Omar. (Basnage, ‘ Hist, of the Jews,’ as cited by Van Egmont, vol. ii., 30.) Dr. Pococke says that, in the eleventh century, of the Jewish population all but the Rabbins had left it for above eight hundred years. But they still maintained an university here, to which, after that period, their disciples gra- dually returned. And still there is a Rab- binical college here. The sheiks of Tiberias have always held an independent rule, and, Pococke says, have never been subdued, though often besieged by the Pashas of Da- mascus. At a little more than a mile along the strand to the eastward, are the hot baths, in modern times enclosed within a high-walled chap, vii.] “STONE OF THE CHRISTIANS.” 217 building, of three chambers, with divans after the Turkish fashion. The springs are said to be, at their rise, of a temperature somewhat exceeding 150 of Fahrenheit, and strongly sulphureous. The place is known in Arabick as “ El Hummaum in Hebrew, and by all the Jews as “ Emmaus names both signifying “ The Bath,” and assigned, also to several other places in Palestine. We began our journey back towards Na- zareth by a track further west than that which we had taken on the foregoing day ; skirting, as we left Tiberias, the lofty hill that overhangs the city to the south. It is a less steep way, but one that affords a longer continued view of the lake — though a less commanding, a very extensive one — for full three miles after reaching the level of the plain above. Not more than two miles from Tiberias, to the right of this track, is a clus- ter of large stones of a very dark colour, called by the people of this country “ El Hadjar en Nasara,” or the Stone of the Christians, which they tell you is the place where the miracle was wrought of feeding VOL. II. L 218 MOUNT OF THE CHAP. VII. the five thousand. In an hour and a half we were again abreast of the Mount of Hattein, now not more than a mile on our right. I have already spoken of this mount, and of the plain around it, as of the scene of the great battle fatal to the Christian host in the second Crusade. But a much deeper interest than this belongs to its history. It has been held, from time immemorial, by all the Christians of the Holy Land, Greek, Roman Catholick, Armenian, Copt, and Maronite, to be the mount from whence our Lord preached his sermon to his disciples, and, on this account, known under the name of the Mount of the Beatitudes. There seems no reason whatever to doubt, and every reason to give credit to the probable truth of this tradition ; strengthened, as it is, by the internal evidence of its position, which appears to be more in accordance than any other with that described in the Scripture narrative. It is in the midst of the plain ; where, therefore, it is more easy to understand how the multitudes, who had fol- CHAI*. VII.] BEATITUDES. 219 lowed him earlier on that day, joined him “ when he was come down from the moun- tain,” than if he had retired with the twelve among the gorges of any part of the range further off. It is also at no great distance from Capernaum, into which he “ retired,” as it appears, forthwith, having tarried only to heal the leper on his way. (Matt. iv. 25 ; viii. 1-5.) The mount stands single, with no high ground near it for several miles, and, though rising but to some fifty or sixty feet in perpendicular height, commands, from the narrow table-land upon its top, an exten- sive view over the lake on one side, and the plain of Galilee on the three others.* * Dr. Robinson is extremely inaccurate, as will be seen by any visiting that plain, where he says (vol. iii. p. 240) that “ there are in the vicinity of the lake perhaps a dozen other mountains which would answer just as well to the circumstances of the history.” And he is equally so in saying (id. 241) that “ the total silence of the Greek church as to the sermon on the Mount is fatal to the Latin hypothesis which connects that discourse with the mountain in question.” It surely would not be fatal to that hypothesis, if the Greek church were silent upon it. But such is not the case. The members of the Greek church in Palestine, equally with the Latins, hold this tradition, and equally L 2 220 MIRACULOUS SITES. [chai\ VII. From hence three hours and a quarter more, on the way towards Nazareth, brought with them, and with the Armenians, Copts, and Ma- ronites, make their pilgrimages there. He falls also into another great inaccuracy in his note (Id. id.) on the subject of the supposed place of the feeding of the multitude of five thousand. He says, “ It is hardly necessary to remark that the tradition attached to this spot can be only legendary, since the feeding of the jive thousand took place 071 the east side of the lake , and probably also that of the four thousand .” There is not the smallest warranty in Scripture for believing that either of these miracles took place on the east side of the lake, but just the reverse. St. Mark says dis- tinctly, that the miracle of the feeding of the five thou- sand was “after he went out from thence,” {i. e % “the country of the Gadarenes,” to the east of the lake,) “ and had come into his own country,” (i. e. of the Nazarenes, to the west,) Mark vi. 1. The same Gospel also says, (id. xlv.) that after the miracle “ straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and go to the other side , before, unto Bethsaida , while he sent away the people.” See also Matthew xiv. 34 ; see also John vi. 23. “ Tiberias, nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after the Lord had given thanks.” Nor is Dr. Robinson more correct in his supposition about the miracle of feeding the four thousand. For it appears that Jesus had been in “ the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,” from whence he “ came nigh unto the sea of Galilee.” (Matthew xv. 21, 29.) Dr. Robinson’s error, perhaps, arose out of his taking only the text of KEFFR KENNA. 221 CHAr. VII.] us into a tract of hill country, on the southern side of which is the village of Keffr Kenna, said to be the Cana of Galilee, where Christ changed the water into wine. It consists now but of a few poor cottages built around the Avails of a small ruined church, and look- ing doAvn, on the left, over an extensive opening among the hills, and in front on a narrow vallev- At its foot is a larsre and copious spring-head of fine water, forming a brook which runs to the eastward to Jordan. A tradition, older certainly than the time of Quaresmius, (who refers to it, but who, never- theless, believes this village to have been the place of our Lord’s first miracle,) speaks of another village, at two hours’ distance to the Avest, and visible from it, as being the Cana of the NeAV Testament. The other village, Dr. Robinson says, on the authority only of his Arab guide, (vol. iii. p. 204-5,) bears the St. Luke, (ix. 10,) which says it was (( a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida .” But Dr. Ro- binson must be aware that, all over Palestine, many lands among the tribes were of a country belonging to a city far distant. But all the three other Gospels dis- tinctly fix the place of both miracles to the west of the lake. 222 CANA OF GALILEE. [chap. VII, Arabick name of Cana el Jelil, (or “ of Galilee.”) This name, he argues, gives it the decided preference in the doubt. It perhaps might, if the fact were established that it does bear that name.* Though still the testimony of the Arabick name might go no further than to show that the Arabs of that place have, in modern times, so called it, on account of the contested claim. Dr. Pococke, the first modern traveller who * Dr. Robinson declares the question to be “ entirely set at rest.” But, as is too much his habit where he undertakes to decide upon a topographical difficulty, having in this case determined the ruin shown to him as Cana el Jelil to be the true Cana, he mis-cites Dr. Pococke’s authority, stating it to be in his favour, and that Dr. Pococke, who “ alone seems to have heard of Cana el Jelil, inclines correctly to regard it as the true site of Cana. (Yol. iii. p.296, note 2.) Dr. Pococke does not even mention any such place as Cana el Jelil by that name. What he says is, u In the village (Keffr Kenna) is a large ruined building, the walls of which are almost entire. Whether it was a house or church I could not well judge : but they say the house of the marriage was on this spot. Near it is a large Greek church. It is certain this situation, so near Nazareth, makes it probable that it was the place where this miracle was wrought. But the Greeks have a tradition that it was at Gana , on the west side of the CHAP. VII.] CANA OF GALILEE. 223 observes upon this doubt, gives the state of the dispute with great fairness,, as maintained between Quaresmius and another writer, Adrichomius, whose work I never had an opportunity of consulting, and whose name 1 cite, therefore, only on the authority of Dr. Pococke. But Dr. Pococke states the argu- ment with such impartiality, as to conclude with giving no opinion of his own upon it. (See Pococke’s Travels, chap, xvii.) One hour more brought us back to Nazareth. If, in the course of the descriptions I have given of those parts of Palestine where the Redeemer principally sojourned while on earth, I have been led into a minuteness of plain of Zabulon, about three or four miles north-west of Zephoreh : and it is very extraordinary that they should allow that the water was carried from this foun- tain, which is four or five miles from it. Whichever was the place, it seemed to be a matter unsettled about the beginning of last century, when a writer, on the Holy Land endeavoured to fix it here as the most pro- bable place, though Adrichomius seems to give stick a description of it from several authors as would incline to think that it was the other KanaP (Pococke, chap, xvii.) I give this only to show how hasty Dr. Robin- son is in his conclusions, and how much his references require examination. 224 RETURN TO NAZARETH. [chap. vix. detail, and perhaps sometimes into a tone of controversy tedious to the generality of readers, my excuse must be this ; that it may not be easy, without having personally visited these scenes, to understand the ab- sorbing interest with which all the minutest circumstances belonging to them are in- vested, in the mind of one who is actually, or has been, among them ; or the perhaps overrated estimate he thus forms of the im- portance likely to be attached to them by others. And, also, when he finds in the works of some who have taken the track which in part he followed, and whose authority he consulted on his journey, points stated and inferences drawn to which he cannot sub- scribe, he naturally feels that to pass them by without observation would be in some sort to give his consent to what he sees to be inaccuracies, tending to mislead others. CHAP. VIII,] ( 225 ) CHAPTER VIII. Departure from Nazareth — The Plain of Zepphoreh— Mountain ridge — Vale and River of Kishon — Kaiffa — Acre — Boussah — Ladder of Tyre — Tyre — Sarepta — Sidon — Beyrout. On the nineteenth of March we left Naza- reth. As we shaped our course to the north- west, a warm sun lit up the vale behind us, shining with so dazzling a brightness on the rocks in front, among the clefts of which the iris with its broad petals was in its fullest bloom, that it seemed as if the early spring was summer here. Again from the heights above the town we caught sight for a short time of the sea, and of the winding coasts towards which we were on our way. We soon descended into the plain of Za- bulon, known also as the Vale of Zepphoreh, leaving to the north-east the lofty ridge on L 3 226 PLAIN OF ZEPPHOREII. [chap. viii. which that ancient town, the Diocsesarea of the Romans, the Zippor of the Bible, stood ; its place still marked by the low white walls of a straggling village, and the ruins of a church, built, as Quaresmius says, in the time of Constantine. Three hours and a half took us to the foot of the mountain range which parts this vale from that of the Kishon. On both sides of the track along which we gained the top, towered the grey stems of lofty trees, whose foliage quivering against the clear blue hea- ven, in many places almost closed above our heads. It was much the same sort of scenery as that through which we had passed on our ride to Tabor. But the ash mingling with the oak here gave it more the character of the finest English greenwood, that of parts of Whittlebury, or the New Forest. Alas for the little wild flowers of England, that here and there peep forth and sparkle among the brambles of the thicket, or cluster in bunches far apart upon the short turf of the open grove, when compared with the blaze of rich ranunculus, anemone, and gaudy iris, chap, viii.] EASTERN WOODLANDS. 227 carpeting the green sward of the woods of Palestine, and the cyclamen that absolutely perfumes the air far around. Yet one prin- ciple of gladness is wanting in these lands, to which the classical and sacred writers were not insensible in their descriptions of the charm of woodland scenery, but which is never enjoyed here in the measure in which it abounds in our northern countries, — the song of birds. Nothing is to be seen moving in these shades, but here and there the ma- jestick crane stalking between the boles of the trees, nothing heard but the rustle of the kite or vulture when he bursts from among the boughs, and soars screaming to the skies. And these but bespeak the deep loneliness, which for a moment they disturb, to leave it without a living thing to be seen, or a living sound to break the silence of your solitary path. As we rose higher, the sky appeared even to the foot of tall stems, till from the brow we saw Carmel rising in the distance on our left, and again, across a dreary flat, the winding shore of the bay far below opening up to the blue horizon of the Medi- 228 THE KISHON. [chap. vnr. terranean. Turning round, we looked back over the tops of the foliage on the wide plain of Esdraelon, which lies as in a map, with the lesser Hermon and the dark green side and level summit of Tabor in the middle distance, and Gilboa on its furthest verge. We descended from hence to the westward through a wider dell, still mantled with glowing colours, and flanked with shadowy trees, till we entered the vale of the Kishon, or Megiddo. This vale is almost one con- tinued swamp, crossed by tracks not always easy to find, little raised above the mud and plash, and often broken by transverse gullies through which a horse can but hardly floun- der. In the winter season these tracts are nearly impassable, and the swelling of the Kishon, “ that swept away the host of Sisera, that ancient river, the river Kishon/’ (Judges, v. 22,) fills the plain with a deep and rapid flood. In an hour more we reached its shore, and, after a short time spent in searching for a ford, passed it at a place of no great depth, and, but that ciiAr. vm.] KAIFFA. 229 the banks are somewhat hollow, of no great difficulty. The next half hour brought us to a nar- row pass between rock and deep water. The face of the rock extends for about a hundred yards along the left side of the road, and close upon it, and is full of powerful springs which flow across to unite in a large pool, from whence again they form a brook, run- ning in one ample channel to join the Kishon. The bay of Kaiffa now opened at about a mile before us. In the hollow on the left, and on a level beach, stands the town which gives its name to the bay ; the Caiaphas of the Bible, according to Pococke the Por- phyrion of the Romans, where Pliny says the Tyrian purple dye was made from the shell- fish of this coast.* It shows the remains of a strong fortified wall, now in many places demolished, which, in the times of the Cru- sades, and probably from much earlier, girded * The Porphyrion near to Ptolemais must not be confounded with the other town of the same name on the same coast, the Porphyrion beyond Sidon, so called, like this, probably from its traffick in the murex. 230 KAIFFA. [chap. VIII. it all around. But, untenable as the town must ever be against cannon from the land- side, because commanded on three sides by the heights we had left and those which rise at the foot of Carmel, its defences have, for many ages, been limited to its sea-front. Even on this side the works are now dismantled, and we saw but one gun in the whole place, an old disabled iron one, that stands at the eastern gate of the town, or rather leans from a broken car- riage against it. A small picket, however, of Turkish soldiers lay smoking and sleep- ing at its entrance, with their arms piled by the roadside at a great distance from them, to show that it is still a military post. It is no unusual “point of discipline ” among Turks guarding a pass, to pile their muskets where they shall glisten, for appearance sake, in the sunshine ; while the picket and sentries, for convenience, retire to repose around their officers in the shade. Arms, (not good ones however,) might thus, upon occasion, be easily picked up by such tra- vellers as may want them. chap, viii.] MONASTERY OF CARMEL. 23 1 From Kaifla we passed through a grove of venerable olive-trees, for about a mile to the foot of a steep but broad and good road that leads straight up to the monastery of Carmel. This monastery, which has within the last few years been built upon the ruins of the old one, is the largest and richest in Pa- lestine, though in the hands of monks of the poorest and most rigid order. The hospitality with which they receive strangers is but what is found in all the monastick houses. But the comforts and almost splendour of the entertainment are peculiar to this. Arriving, as we did, in the evening, (and our party now amounted to eight, besides servants, we having been overtaken by the four other gentlemen who were travelling on the same route,) we were welcomed with a graceful apology as from men too well mannered to distress us by making too much of it, for their not having provided as they could wish for so large a party coming to them unawares. The monks, who by the rules of their order never taste flesh, had none at that late hour 232 MONASTERY OF CARMEL, [chap. viii. to set before us. But they gave us all that we could want, and more than we expected ; an excellent supper of fish and pastry, ad- mirable wine (the vino d’oro), which they make from their own vineyards and their own presses, and an excellent bed, and a clean airy room to each of us. At an early hour next morning we found a breakfast prepared for us, such as might have put us upon making burthensome apologies to them for the trouble we had cost them, if we had not received from them, the night before, so perfect a lesson of what was due between guest and host. Our only trouble was to separate ourselves from a person calling himself a French pilgrim, who had arrived a short time after us the night before, and who favoured us with his society. Not having any knowledge of him, but from his appearance and address, which were not en- gaging, we were at some pains to relieve ourselves with the monks from the impres- sion that he was of our company. The view from the terrace of the monas- tery, looking down on the bay to the right, CHAT. VIII.] CARMEL. 233 and across to the headland and town of Acre backed by the snowy ranges of Leba- non and Anti-Lebanon, and in front over the open sea, is magnificent. To the left is a chain of high mountains, the nearest and loftiest peak of which is traditionally pointed out as being the part of Carmel whence Elijah looked out toward the sea, and saw a little cloud arise, “ as it were a man’s hand,” that told of rain ; — and, hard by, the moun- tain where the fire descended on the offering of Elisha, before Ahab and “ all Israel,” and whence he “ brought the prophets of Baal down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.” Descending from Carmel, we passed again through Kaiffa, and, keeping along the sweep of the level sea-beach to the left, passed the Kishon near its mouth. Here it is wide, and not deep ; and the bottom is of sand and shingle, giving good foothold to the horses. Two hours and a half more brought us to the bend of the shore which forms the bay of Acre. At this bend the river Belus falls into the sea ; — a stream probably taking its name from Baal, or Bel, the deity of the Phoenicians. 234 ACRE. [chap. VIII. It is better known in classical than sacred literature, as the river from whose sands the first glass is supposed to have been made, and on whose banks, according to the fable, Hercules discovered the herb colocasia, by the juice of which his wounds were healed. In the Septuagint the God Baal is more than once called 'Hpa/cAj/s*. The eastern gate of Acre is about half a mile beyond ; in all, three hours and a half from Carmel. Of Ptolemais, — so called ever since the times of Ptolemy Lath yr us until after those of the third Crusade, when it was given in fief to the Knights of St. John, under the name of St. Jean d’Acre, — of this town and fortress, through so many ages renowned as the theatre of glorious achievements, recalling proud thoughts to England, — from the time of that memorable and trium- phant siege when it fell before the arms of Richard, in face of every effort of Saladin to save it, to that of the memorable and trium- phant defence when it was sustained by the influence of a spirit not less heroick than Richard’s, in the face of every effort of Na- CHAP. VIII.] SIR SYDNEY SMITH. 235 poleon to reduce it, — of this town and for- tress little remains now to be seen, little to be described, but dismantled walls and ruined dwellings ; a town sacked in the conflict of the two barbarous pashas, in 1834, and bored through and through, and torn up in every part by the shot and shells of 1840; unrepaired still and desolate, and, under its present government, likely to re- main so. Never was a more lamentable monument of enduring havock. Yet every Englishman must look with feelings of pride at a place, in its former history, and within the recollection of many of us, made so fa- mous by such a defence as that which was conducted, with so few means but those which his own genius and the example of his bravery supplied, — by our <£ dauntless seaman,” the ill-requited Sir Sydney Smith.* To such as knew him, (and in measure * u Ill-requited ” is little, indeed, to say of him who, at the close of a career so distinguished, having by his brilliant valour secured the respect, and by his generous humanity the gratitude, of the vanquished, was left to pass his old age and die in France, not only unre- warded, but ruined in his private fortunes, which he had lavished in the successful service of the publick. His 236 SIR SYDNEY SMITH. [chap. vin. as they knew him they loved him, and cling with a more jealous affection to his memory,) it is a pleasure, turning from the sad subject of his country’s ingratitude to him, to listen to the manner in which his name is spoken of in the East, even to this day. Some yet survive of those who were with him here heart and every thought were England’s ; but he was too poor and too proud to live in the country that never repaid one debt she owed him, until, after his death, by the unavailing vote of a cenotaph. M. Eusebe de Salle, Ancien Premier Interprete de l’Armee d’Afrique, permits himself to say, in his 1 Peregrinations en Orient,’ vol. i. p. 395, while speaking of the defence of Acre, “ Sidney Smith re. VIII.] ALI EFFENDI. 211 no further assistance, and that “ all was very good;” which latter sentiment he joined in, politely referring the compliment to the coffee and tobacco. This topick, repeated very often, lasted for the first half-hour, at the end of which we awoke Mr. Pollen’s Nubian servant Ali, to expound between us. God bless Ali Effendi’s # radiant black face, wherever it be now, and whatever may be the poor fel- low’s future ups and downs of life in his native East, — which he must never leave ; for he would be out of his appropriate ele- ment taken from the excitement of a wan- dering Eastern life ; and Eastern life would have afforded us many a merry hour the less but for the never-failing amusement which the talking with him and the talk- ing of him supplied : — and bless the in- * The title of honour, “ Effendi,” appended to Ali’s name was one with which he had been arbitrarily invested by his travelling masters. He was never addressed without the addition of “ Effendi,” or “ gen- tleman,” an appellation which he bore with a much better grace than many I know, to whom it is given in much graver courtesy. VOL. II. M 242 ALI EFFENDI. [chap. Till. exhaustible good temper with which he met our frequent laughter at his expense, and the quaint drollery and shrewdness, and well-bred tact that raised him far above the meanness of buffoonery. For, in the ac- knowledgment of all, he had, when “ drawn out,” the power always (without ever pre- suming upon it, or forgetting the duties of his station) to give back, by a sly and quiet retort, at the least as good as he received. And all these things were combined in this precious fellow, with scrupulous honesty and zealous fidelity. Ali Effendi was awakened, and summoned to the support of our very defective Arabick ; and then our sheik gave us to understand that he was charged by his office of agent to the American missionaries of Bey rout, to distribute Arabick translations of the Bible in that part of Syria ; that he had exhausted his stock ; and that, if we happened to have a superfluity of Arabick Bibles with us, he should be glad of some. That he had a little school of Christian children, and a few adult converts there, to whom indeed he some- chap, viii.] THE SHEIK OF BOUSSAH. 243 times gave a theological lecture, in his com- pound capacity of Maronite teacher and agent to a Protestant Mission. (Not but that I believe, from all I had heard in Jerusalem, and afterwards learnt at Bey rout, the Ame- rican Mission, conducted with great zeal and activity, has had more general success, and done more good, than have hitherto attended the labours of any like establishment, of which, however, there are several active and exemplary ones in the East.) He told us that the road on through Tyre and Sidon to Beyroutwas now clear from all interruption. He then proceeded to lengthen out the evening by making particular inquiries after the health of Her Majesty the Queen of Eng- land, which we in our turn assured him, although we had not received any very recent advices, we hoped and believed to be in as good a state as could be desired ; from which assurance he professed to derive great comfort. And then he began the whole conversation over again. At length he left us, engaging himself, without any pressing, to be with us again m 2 244 ROAD TO TYRE. [CUAP. VIII, early in the morning, to smoke another pipe with ns at breakfast, before our de- parture. And this he faithfully did, and brought his whole family with him, two sons and two daughters ; the youngest of whom, a beautiful little girl of some ten or eleven years old, was glittering with a profusion of silver coins hung on strings among her hair and round her neck. We added to her collection of ornaments a six- pence of Queen Victoria’s. Overcome by the splendour of the present, (it was a new sixpence,) she pressed it to her forehead and then to her heart, made one of her brothers drill a hole in it with the point of his long knife, hung it on to her necklace, and kissed our hands. We took the way by the sea-side, which, though very rough and tiresome, (our horses struggling at every step between large stones half buried in deep sand,) is a less difficult road than the shorter one across the moun- tains. An hour and a half brought us to the banks of a stream some nine or ten yards wide, that rushes through a hollow rocky CHAP. VIII. J “ WHITE PROMONTORY.” 245 channel, thickly lined with a covert of ole- ander, then in flower, and a great variety of other aquatick shrubs. In about two hours more we came to the foot of the “ White Promontory,” which takes some half hour of ascent along the steep and winding path leading over the ridge nearest to the sea. From the top there is an extensive view on both sides across the whole extent of what was anciently called the Phoenician Plain. It may be almost said to join itself on to the plain of Kishon, which reaches from the foot of Carmel along the sea-coast for about ten or twelve miles in breadth, stretching itself out to the back of Acre. It then becomes Phoenician, passing through a narrow vale between the mountains now bearing due east of us, and again swelling out into a wide sandy flat to the beach, bounded to the north by the headland before Beyrout, to the east by low rocks and sand- hills, and to the north-east by the double range of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Close to our left, the cliffs beetled over the sea, at 246 “ LADDER OF TYRE." [CIIAP. VIII. six or seven hundred feet above it, and, on the highest pinnacle of a narrow ledge of natural rock that parts the road from the precipice, stands a small square tower, appa- rently of ancient construction, now used as a khan. The shrieking of the sea-birds that wing their way in mid air between the brow of this mountain and the deep sea it overhangs, whose waves are heard moaning faintly in the depths below, and whose high horizon blends itself with the sky, adds vastly to the bewil- dering grandeur of this scene. We descended by a path as steep as that by which we had mounted, but longer and more winding, into the northern part of the plain. This is the famous pass known by the name of the “ Ladder of Tyre,” and said to have been constructed by Alexander the Great. At about half an hour from the northern foot of the promontory, we crossed the mouth of another called El Tineh ; whence, following the curve of the level shore, in an hour and a quarter more we arrived at Ras el Ain, or the “ Fountain Head.” Here by CHAP. VIII.] ROAD TO TYRE. 247 the roadside are the remains of three large cisterns, in which the water stands at a depth of many feet, and whence it rushes through many channels and in a strong current to the sea. These cisterns (as is said, not without much probability) are those which in the days of Hiram supplied Tyre with water ; in those days of her glory when that proud city occupied not the low and jutting isthmus only, at the end of which, (then an island,) the town of Tsur now stands ; but when the eastern and southern parts of the city, known, till it was destroyed by Alexander, under the name of Palaeotyre, covered a large extent of what is now barren and almost trackless beach. Its outskirts probably reached near to this spot : “ a fountain of gardens, a well of living water, and streams from Lebanon.” (Song of Solomon, iv. 15.) Some round arches of an aqueduct remain ; but evidently of more modern construction ; built, per- haps, by the Saracens ; perhaps by some of the Venetian princes of Tyre, in the twelfth or thirteenth centurv. 248 TYRE. [CHAP. Till. Twenty minutes more brought us to the causeway of sand that Alexander, during the siege, formed out of the ruins of Palseo- tyre, which he had destroyed. This has, by the accretions of shingle washed against it, become an isthmus of more than a fur- long broad, joining the ancient island of Tyre with the main. On the western and south-western faces of the town towards the sea, hardly a trace of rampart or mound remains. A broken outer wall stretches across the eastern side, against the isthmus, and a large square tower is still standing on the low rocks at the water’s edge, to the north, from whence, of old, ran out the great semicir- cular wall that formed the harbour. But not an appearance is to be seen of either of the towers which once were on the horns of the harbour, and from which nightly a chain was drawn across to close its entrance. The lower tiers of this great wall still ap- pear a little above the surface of the water that heaves and flows between the huge masses of hewn granite once a bulwark to O CHAP. VIII.] TYKE. 249 shelter the navies and guard the merchan- dize of nations from the storm and from the enemy. Surge after surge flowing in has cumbered the ancient port with sand, so that we could ride along by the inner side of this wall for many hundred yards into the sea, that hardly reached our horses’ girths. Our progress was interrupted only by the shafts of fallen columns lying under the transpa- rent water. Some few of their bases and shafts, some of granite and some of marble, are still standing. From the multitude of these which lie in prostrate rows and in heaps below, it appears that they must have formed a colonnade along the whole line. Spight of a bright sun and clear blue sea, nothing can be more desolate than the whole aspect of “ the burden of Tyre.” Her “ walls destroyed,” her “ towers broken down,” and “ made like the top of a rock,” “ a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea,” and “ a spoil to the nations.” That “ renowned city, which was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants,” merchant of the people for many isles,” and “ of per- m 3 250 TYRE. j^CHAP. Till. feet beauty whose armies and those of her confederates in war “ hanged their shields upon her walls round about, and made her beauty perfect 44 fine linen, with broi- dered work from /Egypt, was spread forth to be her sail/’ 44 blue and purple from the isles of Elisbah covered her,” and all the wealthy of the earth were among 44 her merchants, by reason of her multitude of all kinds of riches.” (Ezek. xxvi. xxvii.) The day of her glory past away, this city, in the middle ages a principality and an archbishoprick, has, since, been in a state of ever varying transition from extreme poverty, almost from ceasing to be an abode of men at one time, to a partial revival at another of a scanty trade, and a partial restoration to what Tsur now is — a small town spread over the site of a large one — without even a bazaar; houses, the frequent flaws of whose mud walls are so patched with the fragments of splendid architecture as to be equally compounded of the vilest and the richest materials to shelter her scattered population, — fishermen, and a few poor mer- CHAr. VIII.] TYRE. 251 chants dealing in the tobacco manufactured on the coast of Lebanon. Maundrell, in the seventeeth century, says that he found there “not so much as one entire house left,” and only a few fishermen harbouring among its vaulted ruins. Pococke, a hundred years after, mentions a French factory, of but a few families, settled there for a traffick in the exportation of corn. Hasselquist, again, a few years after, describes it as containing hardly more than ten inhabitants, and these subsisting only on fishing ; and, in Volney’s time, a small village appears to have risen on the isthmus, where a scanty trade was carried on in the export of grain and tobacco. The population is said to have amounted, during the recent times of the ^Egyptian rule in Syria, to about 3,000. We went on from Tyre, keeping the sea- shore close on our left for about a quarter of an hour, and then turned off to our right to a place about twenty minutes further, which I mention only to warn other tra- vellers from encamping there, as we did, for the night. It is at about a mile from the sea, a dell of tempting appearance, clothed 252 THE KASSIMIEH. [chap. tux. with brushwood. We had heard of it and read of it as having a pure spring of water, held sacred by the Mohammedans, and sup- posed by them to be gifted with healing properties. But I will not think so ill of those who recommend this as a halting- place on account of its delicious water, as to believe that they had tasted of that spring. The mistake had been this : — It had been described to us as a “ fine ” water 64 in sensu medicinali.” Considered “ sim- pliciter,” it was abominable. I can easily give credit to its medicinal qualities : it is quite sufficiently saline and nauseous in every respect to justify the belief without further inquiry. We had not tasted it till we had pitched our tents, and the sun had set. What with the want of good water, and the setting in of a strong wind down the valley, and the howling of jackalls round our tents all night from sunset to sunrise, it was an undesirable and uncom- fortable sojourn. Within the hrst hour and a half of our ride along the beach next morning, we came to the bank of a fine pebbly river, which we CliAP. VIII.] SARAFA, SAREPTA. 253 wished we had, the evening before, known to be so near. It is wide, and of some depth, but easily fordable. It now goes by the name of Kassimieh, and is believed by some to have been the Leontes of the ancients, though, according to Ptolemy, the river Leontes, and according to Strabo, the city Leontopolis, were to the north of Sidon. From hence, following a track that led a little more towards the right into a country of rocks and underwood, we lost sight of the sea ; nor did we approach it again for two hours; at the end of which it opened upon us between two low sandy hills, where were remains of extensive foundations surrounding a small tower now used as a khan ; and we w r ere again upon the strand, among shingles, and in a narrow pass between the sand-hills and the waves. The flat ground became gradually broader as we advanced, until, in half an hour, a village appeared on our right, on the side of a ridge about three-quarters of a mile from the sea. This is Sarafa, the Zarephath of the Old Testament, “which be- longeth to Sidon,” — theSareptaof the New, — where Elijah, or Elias, “ when great famine 254 SIDON. [chap. VIII. was throughout all the land/’ sojourned at the widow’s house, whose barrel of meal wasted not, neither did her cruse of oil fail,” and whose son he raised from the dead. (1 Kings xvii. ; Luke iv. 25, 26.) Down to the end of the first few centuries of the Christian asra, Sarepta was a city of some importance, and a bishoprick from the time of the first Crusade till the final overthrow of the Christian power in Syria. Three hours more over rough ground, (sometimes sand so deep and toilsome for the horses that we found the best riding was below where the waves poured in, and knee- deep among them, sometimes a narrow path among the rocks and brambles of the hills,) brought us to the beautiful bay and town of Sidon (Saida). We crossed the mouths of several streams that flow from Lebanon. The approach to Sidon for the last two miles lies past the remains of divers ancient build- ings, most of them probably Roman, and that large prostrate column of granite called a Roman mile-stone, whose Latin inscription, of no importance or interest, has been so often copied, and through flowering orange ciiAr. viii.] SIDON. 255 gardens and avenues of venerable tama- risks. Sidon, built upon jutting ground like Tyre, is of much more imposing appearance from without ; a much larger town, and its houses for the most part regularly and well built of stone. Yet it contains little within worthy of observation but the Wakeleh, or house of merchandize, built by the famous Emir of the Druses, Fakhr ed Dhein (or Fakredine), for the use of the French Factory established here in the 17th century. It is still called the Khan of the Franks. It surrounds a court, the entrance of which is through a handsome gateway. In the centre is a large fountain, of constant and copious flow, and it is adorned with a profusion of fine orange trees. Three sides of the court are occupied with the dwelling-rooms of the khan, whose balconies overlook it, and the fourth by a hall and storehouse. The south side of the city is commanded by its citadel, which is still entire, and is said to have been built by Louis IX. of France. Its ancient port, to the north, not 2 56 SIDON. [CHAI\ VIII. very unlike that of Tyre, but in a far less ruined plight, is still protected by a hand- some range of massive stone- work, (granite,) half pier, half bridge, the arches of which are but in a few places broken down or de- cayed. The port was filled up with large stones by Fakredine, to protect it from the galleys of the Turks, when he was besieged here by five powerful pashas, whom Amu- rath IV. had sent against him ; and now it affords no entrance but to small boats. There has been but little foreign trade in Sidon for two centuries. The wealth of its inhabitants now consists principally in their fruit-gardens and corn. They rear a large quantity of silkworms, and cultivate the mulberry-tree in profusion for maintaining them, — but they manufacture no silken stuffs. They send the material, raw, to Damascus and Beyrout. We encamped that evening on the shore, about half a mile to the northward of the town. It was a lovely spot. A soft breeze was blowing; from the land side, and perfumed the whole air among our tents CIIA.F. VIII.] SIDON. 2 57 with the fragrance of the orange-trees over which it came to us. We were under the shelter of a bank topped by a line of hedge of the prickly pear, and over this the heads of the orange-trees and pomegranates formed a canopy of bloom and fragrance. The waves poured in high and hollow on the gently sloping beach within fifty yards in front of us, from the Mediterranean, whose distant waters of dark blue were tinged as they approached the horizon, with all the rich blending colours of a glowing sun- set. Sidon, on the point of the headland that rounded the bay upon our left, with its arched pier, its square towers and houses, and the graceful minaret of its principal mosque, stood out dark against a sky of bright flame. The first few miles of our next day’s journey from Sidon to Bey rout, led us through a country of very picturesque and cheerful beauty. At the end of the first three-quarters of an hour we left the sea- shore, turning to the right at the mouth of a broad, clear, and rapid river, unfordable, 258 JOURNEY TO BEYROUT. [chap. viii. and rushing through a hollow bed of rock and pebbles, — the Nahr el Auleh, supposed by some to be the Bostrenus, by others, the Eleutherus, by others, again, the Leontes. The road takes the course of its southern bank, overshadowed by a luxuriant canopy of oaks and karubs, that rise out of an underwood of arbutus and other flowering shrubs. The hills, opening in succession before us as we wound along the gorge, sweep gracefully down, on either side, towards the stream. At the end of another three-quarters of an hour, a turn of the valley brought in sight, at about half a mile in front, a lofty bridge, said to have been built by the Emir Fakredine, which spanned the river with one arch, now broken. We passed the water at a shallow ford not more than a hundred yards higher up its course. From thence, as we mounted the hills to the northward, the track became confused and rugged ; and, having descended a rocky pass about an hour beyond, we travelled, for two hours more, along a flat beach of deep CHAr. VIII.] JOURNEY TO BEYROUT. 259 sand and low rocks. In one of the coves of this coast, into which the sea was surging with a heavy swell, we saw the dark brown head and shoulders of a man who seemed struggling, as if in distress, against the waves that raised him sometimes aloft upon their crest, and then during a lull left him some- times for near a minute at wading depth and erect upon his feet. At these intervals he seemed busily engaged with arranging some burthen on his left shoulder, which he flung forward with a graceful action of his right arm. He was heaving a casting-net,- — the first time I had ever seen this mode adopted of fishing on an open sea-coast. Nor did it seem in this instance to be crowned with suc- cess ; at all events the four or five casts which we stayed to see the result of produced no- thing. And the proceeding was not only very laborious, but, as appeared to us, not without some danger; for any entanglement with his net while the high swell was coming in would have been destruction to him. How- ever, after each cast, (and I never saw a very large net, as this was, spread with greater precision or power,) he allowed the line, 260 JOURNEY TO BEYROUT. [chap. viii. which was a very long one, to float loose from his arm till he had regained a sure footing, and then slowly landed the heavy burthen of his net on the nearest reef. We left him patiently pursuing this speculation, which I suppose experience had taught him was sometimes successful. The whole of this day’s march was toil- some and uninteresting; little varied, except by the occasional passing of a brook or dry ravine, lined with oleander, and tufted with low oaks, till, at the end of about five hours from Sidon, we began to cross the chord of the promontory that stretches away to the left, and behind which is Bey rout. Having mounted to the top of the ridge, we had a wearisome struggle of full two hours more through deep and yielding red sand, but with the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Leba- non opening their wild gorges and snowy sides majestically on our right. We then descended a gradual slope of country and toiled up a corresponding ascent as long and gradual, till we suddenly came upon a full view of the city and vale. It lies, not as an oasis surrounded by a cnAP. viii.] BEYROUT. 261 wilderness; fora glorious sea sparkles into illimitable distance on the left, and in front. It lies upon the bosom of a fair bright bay to the right, among rich groves and glowing gardens, giving pleasant welcome after a dreary day’s ride ; the northernmost bourn of our three months’ peregrinations from the coasts of iEg} 7 pt. As we crossed the plain which lay for about three miles between us and Beyrout and stretches far to the eastward, we left, at a short distance to our right, an extensive open wood of lofty stone pines, that forms a very striking and agreeable middle distance to the masses of eternal snow, towering from bases at least five-and-thirty miles away to tops whose outlines can hardly be distinguished from the clouds that wrap them round, until the evening sun lights up and tinges them. From hence we entered at once among green lanes, fenced off by hedges of prickly pear from a succession of highly cultivated gardens and mulberry groves. The palms also are plentiful about Beyrout, and shoot up to a great height. Nor must 1 forget to mention 262 BEY110UT. [chap. VIII. a sycomore, the largest and most venerable I have. seen, which stands on the roadside to the left, within a quarter of a mile of the city walls. Its trunk, gnarled but unde- cayed, measures, at the height of a man’s shoulders, twenty-two feet in circumference, and its branches overshadow the ground for a large space round. Leaving the southern gate of the city close on our right, we went for lodgings to a house outside the walls to the westward, where we had been recommended to take up our abode. And a very good place it is for the reception of travellers ; standing on a little cliff above the sea, and com- manding a magnificent view of the city and bay. It is kept by one Bianchi, an Italian. Another lodging-house, hard by, equally well placed, and which promises to be even more commodious, was in the course of preparation; probably by this time com- pleted. The proprietor, Habib Rizallah, a native of Lebanon, an active, clever person, lived some time in England, speaks English well, and I have no doubt will make his cnAP. viii.] BEYROUT, BERYTUS. 263 house a very desirable residence for tra- vellers. Beyrout, the Berytus of the ancients, (Strabo xvi. 2, Ptolem. xv. 4,) and not im- probably the Berothai of Samuel, (2 Sam. viii. 8,) and the Berothath of Ezekiel, (xlvii. 16,) the Felix Julia of the Roman Empire, (Pliny, ‘H. N.’ v. 20, “ Berytus Colonia, quee Felix Julia adpellabatur,”) * was early illus- trious as a school of Grecian letters, and, under the Romans, a college for the study of the civil law. It was taken by King Baldwin and the Crusaders in the first Cru- sade, and remained in the hands of the Christians, till, together with the greater number of the cities on this coast, it surren- dered to Saladin after the battle of Flattein. In the third Crusade it was again taken from the Saracens, and again annexed to the Kingdom, as it was called, of Jerusalem. Nor was it finally lost to the Christian * Sir William Drummond, in his ‘ Origines,’ cites Stephanus Byzantinus for the name of Berytus being a corruption of the Hebrew Beeroth , or the Arabick Birath , on account of the multitude of its water springs. 264 BEYROUT. f CHAP. VIII. powers till their last and total overthrow in Syria in the eighth Crusade. It is now the place of the most extensive commerce in Syria, although its port is faced by a dangerous reef of rocks, and accessible only to small boats, and its roadstead open, and a heavy sea running in it when the wind is blowing strong from any quarter but the south or south-east. Not only is there a well-stocked range of bazaars, but the streets also abound with shops after the European fashion. The best houses of the Franks, with the exception of those of our consul-general, Colonel Rose, and of Mr. Moore, the vice-consul, are for the most part outside the town, each house having a large garden and vineyard. The path along the shore to the westward is lined with the foundations of the ancient Roman walls, the baths, and the theatre, now lying deep but visible under the clear blue sea, which has encroached deeply on this coast. The outskirts of the city, not only those before the southern gate, where the Arnaout guards usually pitch their tents, and before CHAP. VIII.] BEYKOTJT. 265 the eastern, where is the artillery ground, but those on the western side also, were covered with encampment. For, while we were at Beyrout, the Pasha of Tripoli came on some business, I know not what, with a large staff and escort, and set up his pavilion on that part of the hill outside the walls. It was no very gorgeous display of military pomp, though the pavilion itself, open in front during the day-time, was of great size and many colours, supported by gilt poles, with many flags displayed around it, and a very noisy band playing before it through- out the day, till sunset. Yet there was very little vigilance or jealousy among his guard, to interfere with the close approach of stran- gers. We might, whenever it pleased us, go within the line of the pickets, and stand there without let or hindrance, and without question asked, to look at the Pasha and his officers, as they sat cross-legged on their carpets taking their chibouk and coffee. And, go when we would, there he sat, — (seternumque, unhappy-Theseus-like, seemed disposed to sit,) — in the same place, on the VOL. II. N 266 THE NAHR EL KELB. [CHAP. TUI, same carpet, — coffee, chibouk, and officers still the same. I have no doubt that to be looked at was also part of the day’s amuse- ment to them ; or they would not have taken it so quietly. The rides in all directions about the city are through a country of exceeding beauty. The Nahr el Kelb, or Dog River, the ancient Lycus, some eight miles from Beyrout, on the eastern side of the bay, is visited by almost all travellers. The road thither is rough, and the rain, which had fallen almost incessantly during the first four or five days we passed here, had left the whole plain deep in mud. It lies through fine groves of sycomore, date palms, pomegranates, orange, and mulberry-trees. The bank of the river is bold and precipitous, commanding a glorious view of the bay and distant city. But little more is to be seen worthy peculiar notice, except the ancient bridge, and, on the rocks as you approach it, the Roman inscriptions, particularly those two, so often transcribed, which relate that the military road through these mountains was made by the Emperor ciiAr. viii.] THE NAHR EL KELB. 267 “ M. Aurelius Antoninus Pius,” which de- signation Burckhardt, in agreement with M. Guys, believes to mean Caracalla, be- cause of the surname, Britannus. Travellers, English especially, are directed, as matter of duty, to observe the very spot, on the shore of this bay, where St. George of Cappadocia encountered and slew the Dragon. The hospitality and kindness of Colonel Rose, and of Mr. Moore, the vice-consul, and of Mrs. Moore, whose talents and vi- vacity make their house so agreeable, give a great charm to the society of Beyrout, which is in every respect a delightful sojourn for an European. Nevertheless, we daily wished for the return of fair weather to enable us to undertake our expedition to Baalbec. ( 268 ) [chap. IX. CHAPTER IX. .Journey to the Yale of Coelo -Syria — Passage of Leba- non — Village of Kerak — Maronites, Armenians, and Druses of the Kesrouan — Metawelis — Baalbec — Return to Beyrout. Our next and last expedition in Syria was to Baalbec. And very different, in many respects, it was from any we had before made in that country. We knew what it was to journey among the heated sands or dazzling rocks, under the sunshine and soft air of winter in the plains of the Levant. We were now to take a turn among the chill rains and driving snows of early spring in its bleak hill country. The weather had cleared up for a day, giving every promise that weather can of “ set fair.” Betimes we were under way, on horses and with moukris engaged upon the same terms by the day as those that had brought us from Jerusalem ; that is to say, 25 piastres a-day for each horse; this sum including all CHAP. IX.] QUIT BEYHOUT. 269 expenses of maintaining them and the men who should be sent with them. Our party consisted of four, and three ser- vants, and three moukris ; and we took with us, besides the horses we were upon, a mule, to carry such of our baggage as remained beyond what we could conveniently bestow upon the beasts we rode. For, having been warned of exceeding bad roads, and poor lodging, and cold, among the mountains, during the few nights we should be out, and that we should have to wade through a great deal of wet, even though all overhead should continue fair, which was doubtful, we took more in the shape of hammock, blankets, clothing, and provision of every sort, including even some fuel, than we should otherwise have deemed necessary. For about two miles after quitting the eastern gate of Beyrout we kept the same road by which we had first approached it ; but, when we had entered the plain of the Pine Trees, we struck off to the left, passing through the midst of the grove, in the direc- tion of the mountains. At the further end of 270 NAHR BEYROUT. [chap. IX. the space where the tall trees grow is another, of about ecpial extent, some forty or fifty acres, covered with plants of not more than fifteen or twenty years old ; and, beyond these again, is another square plot, as large, having the appearance of some of those wild nursery tracts on the heaths of Surrey, where there are none that rise more than a foot or two above the fern. Self-sown I have no doubt they are, but cleared, probably by design, of all the parent trees that overgrew them, and, though not fenced, evidently tended and thinned out with care. At the end of two hours of exceeding bad road across the plain, we passed the Nahr Beyrout, a full and rapid stream of no great breadth, by a high arched bridge of rude stone-work, near which are a khan and water-mill. The ground was wet and boggy, along what had once been paved as a causeway, now all the more difficult on that account for the horses’ feet, the uneven stones standing up at short intervals in the deep mire. This lasted for an hour beyond, till we began to rise into the hill country. In two CHAT*. IX. 1 NAUR IBRAHIM. 271 hours more is a new and commodious khan by the wayside to the right, on the top of a round-headed hill that commands a fine view back over Beyrout and the bay, and forward among the vast gorges of Lebanon. The scenery became wilder and more grand at every mile as we advanced, — the moun- tains rising in front in all their towering pride, — pine-woods beneath them, and ever- lasting snow from halfway upwards to the summit, — each summit overlooked by three or four behind it loftier than itself, — and trenched to their foundations by precipitous valleys, through which foam “ the rushing water-floods, even the floods from Lebanon and from the tops thereof.” One of the streams, the largest, falls into the sea far north w r ard, not far from Antoura ; Nahr Ibrahim it is now called ; of old the Adonis. Among the brakes and mountains that over- hang its banks it was that the luckless young hunter urged the chase, and the bereaved goddess mourned his fate, — unlikely places wherein now to find or hunter to rouse their echoes with his cheer, or “ Beauty, all be- 272 GREAT PASS. [CHAF. IX. yond compare of other face or form, with loud laments, turning black grief into new show of loveliness.” The river flows full and rapid, though no longer swollen by her tears, and has forgotten that stain of blood which, on the faith of all classick mythology we know, yearly mingled with its waters, to the reproach of such wild swine as still might haunt the coverts round. We had mounted gradually by a winding ascent the whole way since leaving the valley of Beyrout. We now approached the foot of the great pass leading over that part of the ridge of Lebanon which must be crossed in the way to the plain of the Bekaa on the one hand, or to that of Damascus on the other. This pass begins at about an hour from the new khan that I have men- tioned. The road is more and more rugged as it rises, till, about halfway up, it becomes one of no small difficulty at this time of year. I believe that the late rains, melting the snows all along the higher range, had made it worse than usual. For, obstructed as it is almost throughout by fragments CHAP. IX.] BAB EOABS. 273 crumbling from above to rest midway in the path, and by deep narrow cdefts and holes in the foundation of the road itself, anciently paved in part, and in part cut out of the bed of natural rock, the snow and water stood and flowed in these clefts and holes so as to render their depth a question which the horse can fathom only by experiment. Such of the stones as are not too large to be overstepped he steps over only to place his foot in the unseen hollow filled to its brim on the other side. Such as are too large for this he must scramble to the top of, and then, after standing there for awhile with his feet all together, (much in the attitude in which the Arab’s goat is repre- sented on the top of the staff,) slide down into the nearest chasm open to receive them. To guide or check him in these performances is a constant temptation, but a most dan- gerous expedient. The best chance is to leave him to the efforts of his own instinct and activity. And such is the tact of these ani- mals, and such their power of distorting their action to suit it to circumstances, that they n 3 274 BAD ROADS. [chap. XX. generally bring the rider safe out of them. Not one of our horses fell in clambering up this pass, or in descending it the other side, though almost every alternate step subsided into a flounder. I have seen bad roads in Greece, and others in Syria, but never aught like this. A wearisome half-hour to the top, and another wearisome quarter in descending, brought us to a plainer path covered with snow for a mile or two along the side of the highest ridge of the mountain chain that rises on the left. ' The north wind swept down from thence with great force, bearing before it light drifts of snow T against us, or whirling them in eddies over our heads. A scene more thoroughly bleak can hardly be imagined. I have crossed the Pindus in winter; but it was nothing to what this is in a wet and stormy April. We soon, however, got on lower ground again. We passed some fine ravines, along which the mountain streams came tumbling down, or from the sides of which here and there they burst in jetting cascades. CHAP. IX.] KHANS. 275 Another khan at an hour from the top of the pass ; and another half-hour, during which we skirted the brow of a hill. From thence we entered a large plain, where the Da- mascus road branches off to the right. Then a small village with mills, and some walled and cultivated ground. Then another khan, more wretched than the last. For the last, though built of rough and very open stone- work, had an entire roof ; but this had a very imperfect one. Then another steep ascent, with a short descent from it of road nearly as bad as that of the great pass, brought us to a somewhat better khan, called the Khan Madarieh, on the torn at the head of a large valley. Here we rested for the night, after a little more than ten hours from Bevrout. There were four rooms : J one held the family to whom the house belonged ; one, our servants, where thev cooked ; one held us, and one the horses. Next day rose fair, and we were early on our way. The first half-hour from the khan was up-hill, about as bad as the downward track to it had been the night before. But 276 CCELO- SYRIA. [chap. IX. the remainder of the road over the high ground was tolerably level, and covered with snow. In three hours more we began gradually to descend, where the plain of Bekaa, or of Ccelo-Syria,- — so called by the ancients as being the hollow country between the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, — opens far below to the south-east, and runs pa- rallel to the line along which we were going. After two hours and a half from leaving the high land, the roads part ; the one lead- ing up a steep valley to the left, to the town of Yachle. The other proceeding onwards brought us, in half an hour more, to Malekeh, a pretty village on the slope of a hill at the foot of the Lebanon range, and near where the plain of Ccelo-Syria makes a sweep to the northward of east, towards Baalbec. Malekeh is inhabited almost entirely by Maronite Christians, a very small part of its population being Druse. The knoll on which it stands commands a fine view, is dry, and seldom visited by the fever and ague which the first return of warm weather generally brings with it to the valley from the exhalations of the cuA.r. ix.] MARONITES AND ARMENIANS. 277 damp left by the floods of winter and of spring. The Maronites, like the Armenians, are a tranquil and industrious people. Separated from the Church of Rome during the theo- logical struggle arising out of the Eutychian and Nestorian controversies in the fifth cen- tury, the former of these two churches adopted the opinions of those called the Monothelites concerning the unity of will in the Redeemer, condemned by the Sixth General Council ; the latter, the Armenians, inclined to those of the Monophysites, assert- ing his single and exclusively Divine nature. But, since the twelfth century, the Maronites, and a certain division of the Armenians also, have become reconciled to the Papal supre- macy, and, by a compromise, the patriarchs of both churches, elected by synods of their own, are confirmed in their election by the Pope. Wherever the inhabitants of a place are generally Maronites or Armenians, it is cleanly, and has an appearance of prosperity and comfort. With the Druses, they fill the greater part of the Kesrouan, the wide 278 THE DRUSES. [chap. IX. mountain district to the north of Lebanon, to which that chain belongs and is a boun- dary. The whole province is governed by the Emir Beschir. The men are active, careful, and diligent in the culture of the land around. The women, handsome, jocund, and hospitable, keep the houses with great neatness. Their principal handicraft is embroidery in cotton, silk, and gold. Their ornamental work is in high repute all over Syria, — and deservedly. The Druses, in like manner hospitable, industrious, honest, and kind, are a nation peculiar in customs and in dress. Their religion is very peculiar, not only on ac- count of the deep mystery which involves both its origin and rites, but also of tenets strangely at variance with each other, opposed to those of every other creed, and yet compounded of many. A combination of the ancient elemental idolatry of the remote East with the worship of one God, and a belief of an incarnation in the person of that God, — Hamsa. They hold high in reverence the prophets of the Jewish Tes- CHAP. IX.] THE DRUSES. 279 tament, and not only conform to many parts of the discipline of the Mohammedans but make the Koran a text-book in their schools. Not known as a nation till after the time of the Crusades, and, according to some writers, supposed to be a remnant of some Christian race who came to Syria with the Crusaders, but, disguising whatever stock of Christian faith they may have inherited from thence with grafts borrowed indiscriminately from Pagan idolatry, Jewish tradition, and Mo- hammedan ceremonial and doctrine, they have grown up into a numerous common- wealth, living under the rule of an inde- pendent prince, who, of their sect and nation, governs a large population of Christians also. They have always lived in perfect social agreement with both Christians and Moslems, save when, at different times, the latter have endeavoured to oppress them by inroads and by taxes. And then they have raised their standard, and bravely de- fended their mountains; and always with success, until, in 1834, they were excited by the Porte to join in the insurrection against 280 THE DRUSES. [CHAP. IX. the Viceroy of iEgypt, when they were utterly defeated by Ibrahim Pasha.* The men are gracefully and simply clad, without ornament, except the richly-em- broidered pouch, and their weapons often * Much has been said, and truly, of the scrupulous good faith of the Mussulmans generally in their trans- actions with strangers when their word has once been pledged. Towards each other, or towards those whom they consider in the relation of subjects to them, they practise a very different moral code. There, as is the case with all half-barbarous nations in their treaties with each other, the most solemn obligations are shame- lessly sacrificed to any object of momentary advantage. A stronger instance can hardly be imagined than that of the conduct of the Pasha of Damascus three years ago to the revolted tribes who came in from the Druse Moun- tains upon terms of free amnesty offered by the Pasha, to which, fortunately for themselves, the mountaineers had solicited the guarantee of a person in whose honour both parties had the most implicit and well-placed con- fidence, — Mr. Wood, our consul, residing at that city. They had no sooner laid down their arms, than orders arrived from the Sultan that three hundred should be selected from their body to suffer the punishment of death for example’s sake. This order the Pasha was prevented from carrying into execution only by the firm and peremptory protest of Mr. Wood in behalf of his own personal honour and that of the nation he so worthily represents. CHAP. IX.] THE DRUSES. 281 curiously inlaid. The only part of their garb that retains a Mohammedan look is the turban, which they continue to wear, and which the Mussulmans have of late years so generally discarded for the Greek cap. The dress of the women is becoming; — with the exception always of the monstrous tantour, or horn, worn on the fore part of the head- dress, which, from the allusions so frequently made to it in the Psalms and the other poetical parts of the Old Testament, seems of itself to bespeak for their race a far higher antiquity than tradition usually assigns to them. From this cumbrous and weighty projection (the horn of a well-dressed woman being always made of silver, and in that case steadied by what a seaman would call a preventer stay of gold or silver cord, made fast to the shoulders, to take off some of the strain from the nape of the wearer’s neck) descends a long veil which they sometimes close over the face, but not, like the Turkish women, for habitual concealment. The Druse nation are divided into two 282 METAWELI — KERAK. [chap. IX. classes ; the Djakel, or unlearned, and the Akhoul, the priests and teachers. The Moslems of this part of Syria, called Metaweli, are followers of the sect of Ali, and are held by all other Mussulmans, except those of Persia, to be unorthodox, as cleaving to the wrong line in descent from the Pro- phet, though conforming, I believe, in all respects to the same religious doctrine and ceremonial. At the further end of Malekeh, and hardly separated from it, is the Moslem village of Kerak, in which is what the inhabitants still venerate as the tomb of Noah. A large wely covers the oblong space occupied by a stone trunk or sarcophagus, upwards of twenty feet long, which they hold to have been the dimensions necessary for containing the body of the restorer of the human race. The remainder of the way to Baalbec, of full seven hours, runs principally along a flat, low shelf of deep ground, till, about half-way, it turns off to the right into the great valley of Coelo-Syria, or the Bekaa, along the middle of which runs the river, or CHAP. IX.] APPROACH BAALBEC. 283 rather the wide swampy brook of Leitani, in its way towards the country of Damascus, whence, contributing, I believe, to form the Eleutherus, it falls into the sea to the north of Sidon. It was night before we came within the last six or seven miles of Baal bee ; we had seen the tall columns dimly in the distance by the light of the setting sun, as its last rays shot along the plain. As we approached the city, at a little more than a mile from it, we saw, dark against the sky, to the left of the road, and within a hundred yards of it, columns, the remains of a small but massive octagonal temple. Riding up to it, we dis- mounted to examine them. The moon was now up. They are of a polished granite, still so hard as to retain all the glossy smoothness of its surface, and have in their general character a resemblance to the Dorick, but not in their details, being of much larger girth in proportion to their height, and not fluted. Two of these, probably shaken by an earthquake, are much out of the perpen- dicular ; one has fallen, and has been placed 284 BAALBEC. [chap. IX. again upright, but on its smaller end. The roof appears to have been a dome or cove ; for all the fragments of it lying scattered below (none remain upon the architrave) are segments of a large circle. This ruin is called by the Syrians Kabet Douris. Just outside the gate of what were once the city walls, by the wayside and on the left of it, is a Moslem burying-ground, from which rises the tallest and largest cy- press-tree I ever can remember having seen. By a dim and hazy moonlight it looked like a huge tower, so broadly and black did its shadow stream along the ground. As we stood in admiration before it suddenly a loud rustling arose among its branches, and a crowd of owls rushed out, winging their way in all directions, and for a few moments darkening the sky above our heads. The town, or rather village, where once stood one of the three great treasure cities of the Assyrian kings, is indeed a dreary maze of narrow muddy streets throughout, thinly lined by hovels straggling and de- cayed ; so desolate as to give more the CHAP. IX.] BAALBEC. 285 appearance of an abode of the dead than did the cemetery we had just left. That at least bore evidence of a living population being nigh ; for most of the little grave- stones, turban crowned, had been lately whitened, and all were in repair. But the huts in which the living slept were crum- bling, and all dark, except where the night sky was seen through the naked spaces of the windows and the doors. Our moukris took us straight to the house of the Armenian bishop, where we soon gained admittance, and, what we much wanted, warmth and rest ; for we had been more than thirteen hours on horseback. We had been wetted through by occasional showers of snow and sleet, and partially dried by a piercing wind. The north wind sets strongly up the valley. Valley it must be called ; for the higher peak of Lebanon rises, to face Anti -Lebanon on the other side, full 4000 feet above the watery plain on which the ruins stand. But this peak, the “ mountain upon a mountain,” the “ Sannin,” is 9520 feet above the level of 286 BAALBEC. [chap. IX. the sea. So the valley itself is of above 5000 feet of elevation. This day’s journey had been the most wearisome of any we had yet made ; yet not so much from the unbroken length of hours through which we had ridden as from the general heaviness of the ground, and the slowness of our pace through the wet and chill. The bishop’s house stands on the top of a steep and narrow stone stair leading out of the court where are the sheds for the horses, and the hovels which our moukris shared with the bishop’s household. Above are six rooms : three, close adjoining to the small church, were inhabited by the bishop, his assistant priest, and an ancient housekeeper. The other three were given up to us and to our servants. And, in this apparently fair and equal division of his house, I saw in a few days after, when I visited our venerable host in the apartment he had retained, that the better share had been given up to us. Not that any one of the three rooms which we occupied offered any luxuries beyond the bare means of CHAP. IX.] BAALBEC. 287 lighting a fire and arranging our small stock of bedding within a somewhat imperfect shelter from the elements of air and water. The building is all composed of rough hewn stones, which let in the wind at every joint ; and crazy shutters but scantily occupied the spaces of the windows, where (as the rem- nants of wooden frames still bore witness, wagging to and fro as if impatient to leave their useless offices) glass once had been. But fire, boiled rice, and bed, soon made us forget all previous privation of creature comforts. I will not say that this oblivion of all bodily grievance lasted long with me. For my hammock was hung in a thorough draught, (I could find no better berth for it,) and the stream of cold air, acting upon bones rather severely shaken by a fall I got the day before among the rocks, woke me with a rheumatism which made a bedridden cripple of me for the whole of the next day and a part of that which followed it. I mention this for two reasons only : first, to account for having been deprived of the opportunity 288 BAALBEC. [chap. IX. of going on to Damascus, which we had all intended to do on the second day, while I was still unable to move, and of visiting also what I much more regret having left the East without seeing than even Damascus itself, the scanty but venerable remains of Panias, — anciently a grotto and fane dedi- cated by the Greeks to the mysterious rites of Pan and the Nymphs, — afterwards a bor- der city of the Jews on the northern frontier of Palestine, hard by what is said to be the spring-head where the Jordan found both its source and name, — the Dan of the Old Tes- tament,- — and, lastly, the Caesarea Philippi of the New, enlarged and decorated by the Tetrarch Herod Philip, and which he dedi- cated to the glory of Tiberius, not forgetting to put in a word for his own. In truth, there is no part of this whole land which he whom circumstances have forbidden from seeing it may not well regret the having left unseen, or which he who has once seen it may not well regret the not having seen more of, and strongly wish to see again. But I speak of the slight accident that CHAP. XI.] BAALBEC. 289 befel me, and of the short confinement to my bed that was the consequence of it, for another reason also. I should not have spoken of it if my poor friend Grote had still lived. But the remembrance of his kind and brotherly solicitude, and of the sacrifice he made for my sake of some of the objects of his journey to which he had looked forward with great eagerness, rather than leave me in pain and discomfort, deprived of the use of my limbs, in a place where comforts did not abound, and doubtful how long I might continue so, — the remembrance of this is what I would not willingly pass over in silence now. And I should be ungrateful if, while expressing what I feel of the diligent care I received from others, I could forget what I owe to the intelligence and inde- fatigable zeal shown on this as on so many other occasions by one whose services, during the many years and various scenes we have together passed through, have always been rendered to me rather in the spirit of an attached friend than in the mere fulfilment of the duty of a trusty servant ; — I mean VOL. II. o 290 TEMPLE OF BAALBEC. [chap. ix. my good Joseph Turpin, who from his boy- hood has been by my side, and whose skill as well as attention contributed so much now to set me soon upon my legs again. The wonders of the great Temple of Baal- bec, wonders indeed they are, have been given in thejr detail in so many books, as to make every general reader acquainted with all except what no description can possess him of — the impression produced by them in their combination. Such gigantick enter- prise, such consummate art, a taste so fas- tidious, a scale so passing grand and gor- geous; and all this now in the midst of a desolation so silent, so dreary, and so hope- less ; a waste of plashy waters all around, and, all above, a waste of snows as enduring as the mountain masses which they shroud. The proportions of angles, sides, and elevations of buildings are easily valued bv measurement: Wood and and Dawkins, t j and more recent travellers who can but verify and repeat what Wood and Dawkins have so faithfully given, have described all that is capable of description. An chap, ix.] TEMPLE OE BAALBEC. 291 impression of awe rather than of pleasure is felt while contemplating the application of mechanical powers, inconceivable, yet visible in what they have produced, and presented, not as a cold problem, but as a stupendous mystery. The three great stones, which of themselves form a whole tier of the basement running all along below the peristyle of the Temple of the Sun, Maundrell, having seen, was alarmed when he first offered the measure- ment of them for belief on his own single © assertion. He speaks of them as of “ another curiosity in this place which a man had need to be well assured of his credit before he ventures to relate, lest he should be thought to strain the privilege of a traveller too far.” So fearful is he of being suspected of exag- geration that he understates their size. He says, “ they extend sixty-one yards in length — one twenty-one, the other two each twenty yards. In deepness they are four yards each.” This is understated. The depth of the tier, built into the basement at about twenty feet above the level of the great o 2 292 TEMPLE OF BAALBEC [chap. IX. trench of rock on whose brink the temple stood, is fifteen feet. The length of the small- est stone is sixty-two feet, the next sixty-four feet three inches, the largest sixty-eight feet. By what machinery they were placed on this level, — by what machinery moved there, up an inclined plane of masonry, which it is sup- posed was built in front of the range for this operation and afterwards removed, — or how they were brought from the quarry, more than a mile off, where a fourth, of the size of the largest of the three, still lies hewn ready for removal, — how the strain of such powers could be applied so equally as to deal with such masses of a kind of coarse large- grained marble without breaking them, — these are mysteries which mechanical science may perhaps arrive at the mode of solving, but all who cannot undertake very high questions in- deed of this sort must be content with won- dering at. The eastern front on the returning angle of this wall is surmounted by the six famous Corinthian pillars, all that remains standing of the superstructure of the great Temple. Not only the difference between the chap, ix.] TEMPLE OF BAALBEC. 293 materials of which these columns are made and those of the lower range on which they stand, (the columns being of polished red granite,) but the totally different character of their architecture also, seems to confirm the impression which dark tradition and imperfect history give of the Roman Temple having been raised, (as Mr. Wood, on the authority of John of Antioch, believes, by Antoninus Pius,) upon a site and basement of a much older date. The name of Raalbec, preserved in the Greek compound, Heliopo- lis, as the Habitation of the Great Light, has a clear reference to the Sun worship that prevailed in Syria from the earliest ages. But as to whether the more ancient Temple was founded, as tradition says, by Solomon, or, according to the more probable theory, by some of the older Phoenician kings, all history is silent. Nor is there any evidence to shew whether the site of the larger and smaller temples, and of the court which joins them, was originally a fortification as well as a place of worship and sacrifice. That the present outer wall, 294 TEMPLE OF BAALBEC. [chap. ix. embattled and loopholed, was a work of the Saracenick times is clear from the evidence of the fragments of Corinthian columns and architraves adorned with florid relief which are built into it. From every point and at every distance at which they can be seen, these ruins are of striking grandeur. But it is impossible to select any one view which will bring to the eye all that contributes to the exceeding mag- nificence of the whole. The view taken from the inner court gives a notion of the colossal size and graceful proportions of the columns of the great Temple. But from thence all the lower range formed by the three great stones is hidden ; nor is the dreary wildness seen of the surrounding vale, interspersed with patches of that glossy verdure and careful cultivation which doubtless in ancient times overspread the whole ; nor the forms of either of the great mountain boundaries which fence it in. At a distance, whence the whole extent of the ruins and the plain are in view, backed by the mountains on either side, the stupendous scale of the columns chap, ix.] INSCRIPTION DISCOVERED. 295 and the walls is lost. The little circular temple, at about a furlong from the north- eastern angle of the others, is of choice beauty, though the roof has fallen in, and several of the columns have been thrown very much out of the perpendicular by the force of earthquakes within the last few years. A few more years, and all these will probably be prostrate. During the third day of our stay at Baalbec, Major Grote gave me intelligence of an Arabick inscription he had found on a tomb in an old ruined mosque to the east- ward of the town, which I examined with him. I do not find it observed upon in any work I have read. The tomb and the in- scription equally bear traces unequivocal of at least several centuries of antiquity. We were assisted in the reading of the inscrip- tion, at two different times ; each time by a separate Arab ; and both concurred in giving the literal translation thus : — “ Under “ this tablet is laid, by God’s power, his most “ mighty officer, to whom there was no rival ; “ — King of the Arabs, — King of all the Seas 296 GRAVE OF SALADIN. [chap. IX. “ and Land, — King of all Nations, — lover “ of peace and justice, — the most intelligent “ servant of the Most High God, unto whom “ he built this sanctuary ; — the most noble, “ powerful, and wise ; — the honour of all the “ world ; — the greatest king, — Saleh alia ed “ Dhein, — who by the wisdom of his mind “ won all these countries, as also the affec- “ tion of all the people whom he subdued in 44 this the land of peace.” This, as it appears from the whole context, can have reference to none but the great Saladin. It is known that he died at Damascus. I never heard of his having been buried at Baalbec. Yet, in his time, it was no inconsiderable city, though tributary to Damascus. Can this unadorned grave have been that of the greatest of the sovereigns of the East ? It is, at all events, in keeping with his unos- tentatious character to suppose that it may have been ; and I know of no mausolceum elsewhere, nor did I ever hear of any, sup- posed to have been raised over his remains. The snows were much too deep on the north-western sides of Lebanon for any travel- chap, ix.] HETUHN TO BEYROUT. 297 ler, at this early season, to reach the Cedars, or even the district of Ehden, in all the wild beauty of its groves and cascades, which has borne immemorially the name of the garden of our First Parents, contesting with three other places very distant from it, its claims to be so called. To the Cedars or to Ehden, the Druse guides, when we were leaving Baalbec, told us it would be impracticable for them to take us ; and, though we offered them money to make the attempt, they all refused. Major Grote and I, with two of the Moukris and two servants, returned to- gether to Beyrout by the way we had come, our companions having gone to Damascus. We turned out of the road to the right to Yachle, to sleep at the Greek convent of St. Elias. We wished to see that town, having heard much of the beauty of the scenery that surrounds it. Besides, the weather was so severe, and the snow and rain and strong wind had so chilled us during a ride of some seven hours and a half, that we were glad to take advantage of o 3 298 YACHLE. [chap. ix. the shelter of a well-built house, instead of the khan of Madarieh, for the night. I have described the climate and appear- ance of the Vale of Ccelo-Syria as we found it in the midst of the cold storms of what here is alwa}^s the most dreary and bois- terous time of the year. The town of Yachle overlooks an exceed- ingly picturesque and well-cultivated valley, on the south bank of which it stands. A fine river flows past its foot, and, as far as the eye can follow the windings of the sheltering hills, they are on both sides covered with fig-trees, mulberries, and vines. The con- vent stands at its westernmost end. A heavy rain prevented our making an early start next day ; and we proceeded no further than the khan of Madarieh. On our arrival at Beyrout we found Mr. and Mrs. Burr, who had arrived from the southward in their beautiful schooner yacht, the Gitana, with Sir Gardner Wilkinson on board. Mr. Burr was kind enough to offer me a passage to Athens. I have known what it was in my early chap, ix.] REFLECTIONS ON THE EAST. 299 youth, when I might reasonably suppose that the larger portion of my life was yet before me, and often since, to leave a sojourn in foreign lands that had highly interested me, both in reference to their ancient his- tory and modern condition, with a feeling which could seek refuge only in the hope and belief that I might perhaps revisit them in after years. And often have those wishes been fulfilled. But I can truly say my im- pression is, that of such persons as can find an interest in the objects of travel, there are few who, at any age, in taking leave of /Egypt, Palestine, or Syria, — but specially Palestine, — could willingly be reconciled to the belief that they were bidding it a last adieu. As with the remembrance of friend- ships that in this world can never be re- newed, so, in a far less but not. a small degree, when leaving scenes that have engaged so much attention and afforded so much delight, it is natural to look back on them with a misgiving, amounting almost to self-reproach, that we have not availed ourselves, as afterwards we could wish w'e 300 REFLECTIONS ON THE [chav. ix. had, of many of the occasions which for a time were offered us. I know of no moment when this last-mentioned feeling, in reference to places the hope of revisiting which must be vague at least, if not improbable, is so strong as on taking leave of the shores of this part of the East. Its present desolation, the misgovernment under which it languishes, are subjects of melancholy reflection. The doubts of how the apathy of its own people, or the impolicy or injustice of other states, more powerful because further advanced in the race of civilization, may have an evil in- fluence over its destinies in the great changes which are at hand, are topicks of not less melancholy anxiety. The apophthegm so beautifully cited by Lord Falkland in reference to a corrupted Church, “ Religio peperit Divitias, et filia devoravit matrem,” aptly applies itself to the whole system and present state of civil government in the Mohammedan East. The means of national luxury and display can be acquired only by a career of conquest or a chap, ix.] STATE OF THE EAST. 301 system of commercial industry. The Eastern institutions discourage, on the one hand, that inexpensive simplicity and exemption from artificial wants which enable small and un- ambitious states to subsist in poverty and without foreign commerce, and, on the other hand, that intimate communion with other countries, and free participation with them in habits and interests, which the spirit of foreign commerce produces and requires. The career of Mohammedan aggrandisement by conquest has long been at an end, and the Porte has no general system by which to supply her wants, now that the stream of conquest is stopped. Her taxation consists almost entirely of what is ruinous in prin- ciple, expensive in collection, and unpro- ductive in amount, — Capitation Tax, and duties on Exportation. Though among the Mohammedans, personally, there is little now remaining of their ancient jealousy of foreigners, their laws give little encourage- ment or protection to foreigners dealing or residing with them. In questions of pro- perty, justice is to be had only through the 302 REFLECTIONS ON THE [chap. ix. injustice of delay or corruption; and, in criminal cases, no evidence is admissible in i their courts or before their magistrates, but that of a true believer.* But the institutions of the East cannot re- main where they are, while those of all the rest of the world are in rapid progress. The spirit of popular improvement is too subtle a spirit to be excluded by any prohibitory laws. The Moslem people are advancing slowly, but still advancing, in knowledge and in * Colonel Rose, with all the high spirit and perse- vering diligence that belong to his character, began and conducted to the end a very difficult remonstrance on this subject, arising out of a great outrage in which British subjects were the sufferers, not above five years ago. Though Colonel Rose was very properly and actively supported by both Lord Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen, and at Constantinople by the British Am- bassador under each successive Government, no better result could be obtained, after an eager and protracted correspondence, than the engagement, on the part both of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Religion, that, although, according to the religion of Mahomet, which is the foundation of the law, the oath of an un- believer cannot be taken, still, on a representation made by British authorities that testimony to a certain effect had been borne, such representation should be taken as evidence in chief in the Moslem Courts. chap, ix.] STATE OF TIIE EAST. 303 communion with the rest of mankind ; and knowledge and communion with the rest of mankind must destroy the very principle of civil institutions that are not constructed to outlive change or relaxation. The civil institutions of the East are fit for war, not peace, — for the acquirement of power, not for making that power useful, enjoy- able, or lasting. They throve in anta- gonism with the wild crusading spirit that prevailed in Christendom from the times of the early Greek emperors to the middle of the thirteenth century. They withstood in later times even the ambition and power of Venice, — in the last century, the ambition and power of Russia. But they have bent and must utterly give way before Peace and Education. It is a system strong to subdue states, but weak to govern them ; fit for a conquering army, not for an enduring com- monwealth. The Musulman now grants entire religious toleration, reserving to himself the privilege only of indolent contempt for the faith of all without the pale of that which he professes. 304 REFLECTIONS ON THE [chap. ix. You are free in your opinions and practice, so that you never approach his mosque or stare at his wife. And indeed the latter would be a very innocent indulgence. For, out of doors, where alone she can be seen, one man’s wife is precisely like every other man’s wife, and every man’s wife is com- parable in appearance only to one of those things sometimes set up to frighten children in Europe, a clothes-basket set up on one end, with a white sheet over it, and the feet of a pair of man’s boots jutting out from below. This varies in some cases by the sheet being open at the face. But then a black or coloured handkerchief is strained across the opening, which produces an effect indescribably alarming. The two social doctrines that, above all others, are admitted universally as axioms in all civilized states, have made little pro- gress in the East. Even Mohammed Ali, with all that he has done to form for himself just notions of political science, and with all that he has done towards the political ad- vancement of the country he rules, has failed chap, ix.] STATE OF THE EAST. 305 to comprehend the first of them, and has proceeded but a little way yet towards pro- moting the second in general acceptance. He has not yet learned the first lesson, namely, that the prosperity of a nation, to be lasting, must be rooted in the general happiness, the freedom, and acknowledged privileges of the people. This is, of all, the most difficult for an arbitrary ruler to learn. The second, hardly less important, is that all the highest and best qualities of men are formed under the well-directed influence that well-educated women bear in society. That all the worthiest and noblest incen- tives are derived to a man in his early youth from the care of a wise and high-minded mother, and the most faithful and useful support in the affairs of after life from the counsels of a wife, fitted by education to be his equal and adviser, and taught, by being respected of him she most loves, to respect herself. The application of this latter doc- trine is contrary, not to the written word of the Koran, but to the commentaries, and to their law, which professes to be an ex- 306 REFLECTIONS ON THE EAST. [chap. ix. position of their religion in its practice.* The former maxim, of free intercourse and communion among states, is opposed to what has been immemorially an essen- tial part of their discipline, both civil and religious. Commerce is everywhere gra- dually straightening more and more the family bond of states. The Ottoman Em- pire cannot subsist without commerce, nor resist the close sympathy of feelings, habits, and interests that necessarily follows in its train ; nor can she alone remain an example of exclusive institutions, an exception from every other nation in the world, and is at the general law that rules the destinies of length acknowledged by all, reluctantly or willingly. I should not like to close the observations I have made on these lands, without adding * The secluded, uneducated, and degraded condition of the women of the East became matter of discipline, (for till then it was unknown, some of the earliest of the Oriental poetry and books of science having been the works of women,) under the institutions of Hakim, the third Fatimite Caliph, a.d. 1009, an impious and profligate tyrant. CHAP. IX.] MR. ROBERTS. 307 a few words in testimony of the extraordi- nary fidelity of Mr. Roberts’ published drawings of such parts as I have seen, and as come also within the range of his beauti- ful work. In lower iEgypt, Palestine, Phoe- nicia, wherever Mr. Roberts’ journey has lain with mine, every expression of climate he has given in his colouring, every detail of scenery, every building, rock, and tree described in his outline, is a faithful copy. He has nowhere made sacrifice of truth for the sake of picturesque effect, although with consummate taste and genius he has chosen all the most striking and agreeable effects to make his drawings the great works of art which they are. To look upon them is to see every scene he describes just as it is viewed from the point that best gives its general character. And this is all the more gratifying to those persons who have been on his track, from the exceeding inaccuracy of almost every other publication, at least of such as I have seen, illustrative of these places. There is a subject, certainly not without its importance to most travellers, and per- 308 EXPENSES OF [chap, IX. haps therefore not uninteresting to any who may look forward to making a tour like that of which I have now concluded the narrative. I mean the necessary expenses of it. On this I have hitherto said nothing, except as far as relates to the hire of drome- daries and camels for the desert, and of horses for the journey in Palestine and Syria. I have said, generally, that the most costly mode of travelling in these countries is the most incommodious ; I mean with a large retinue and large outfit of tents and beds, and other apparatus ; and that, so long as the traveller is furnished with the few things absolutely necessary for his few and very moderate wants, his means of comfort are materially assisted by discarding all that is superfluous ; and that any discomforts he may have to encounter very much increase with the encumbrances with which he will find he has embarrassed himself by neglect- ing this precaution. Beyond rice, flour, and coffee, and a few cakes of portable soup, (a small keg of brandy I do not prohibit,) he ought to eschew all thought of carrying with CItAr. TX. J TRAVELLING. 309 him what is called 44 provision for good living;.” Furnished with these materials, and now and then favoured by the accidental opportunity of buying a fowl, (lean enough,) or a kid, he will find his Arabs or his native servant expert and sufficient in cookery, and he will also have the gratification of feeling that by no expedient could the first magis- trate of the city of London enable himself, with all his appliances, to fare better, were he moved to make a like pilgrimage. If you must needs “ drink soda water in the Desert,” I counsel you by all means to limit the course of your adventures to “ Mr. Wag- horn’s line ” from Cairo to Suez. I believe that tli at able 44 entrepreneur ” has made arrangements there for supplying travellers with it at his 44 stations,” at not more than half-a-crown a bottle — warm. I relish well the Arab bread which they bake for the nonce on the embers, and all the other dishes they compound, so that they are re- strained from any mixture of sour milk of camel or goat, which they sometimes volun- teer as a treat. And, remembering always 310 EXPENSES OF TRAVELLING. [chap. ix. this exception, I venture to recommend them; bound as I am, however, to admit that I have been told I am an indifferent judge of these matters, and not sufficiently ambitious of being reputed a good one. While travelling in the East, there are no means, even if the spending of money be an object desired by the party, of spending any, except in the hire of beasts of burthen and their attendants, and they ought to be few, — and in kitchen stuff, and that ought to be limited to the ar- ticles of consumption I have described. And in the towns, — Athens, Syra, Alexandria, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Beyrout, — whether in an hotel or a lodging-house, if the simple precaution be adopted of making an agree- ment, ex-parte ante, one lives very cheaply. Nothing is expensive but the steam-packet. In short, from Corfu, which I left on the twentieth of December, to leaving Beyrout on the tenth of April, all the expenses of travelling and living, inclusive of steam- packets, for myself and my servant, stood me in just one hundred and forty pounds. ( 311 ) CONCLUSION. Return to Malta by Rhodes, Cerigo, Athens, Corinth, Patras, and Corfu. On the tenth of April we got under way with the first slant of favourable wind ; for it had been blowing a gale dead against us ever since our return from Baalbec. The brisk breeze which enabled us on leaving the roadstead of Beyrout to lie within a point or two of our course, failed us in the night, and a swell from the northward of west portended a return of adverse weather. And adverse weather we had. For, what with successive head-winds and calms, (al- though the Gitana, to do her justice, could make the best of every faint breath, or, however strong it might blow, so long as she could carry her four sails, would go fast through the water, looking up within five points of the wind,) it was not till near 312 COLOSSUS OF RHODES. sunset on the third evening that we saw the high land of Cyprus. During two days more we remained floating within sight of the port of Baflfa, (Paphos,) and it was four more before we entered the great harbour of Rhodes. Here we were in quarantine, permitted to land only on the lazaretto ground, and to pull in the gig round the two harbours, — the larger and more modern of the two, the eastern, constructed bv the Knights, with the fine old square tower that guards its mouth, — and the other, the more ancient, to the westward of it, across the entrance of which formerly strode the brazen Colossus. Two rocks are shown as those on which his feet are said to have rested. A bold tra- dition, For if this be true (the rocks being about two hundred yards apart), the legs of the Colossus, stride he never so widely, could not have measured much less than six hun- dred feet in height to the hips ; and the statue, if its legs bore the same proportion to the body as those of the human figure, near twelve hundred to the top of the RHODES. 313 head. Somewhat more than eleven times the height given according to the measure- ments recorded by Pliny. Well indeed would this have entitled it to the first instead of the fourth or fifth place among the won- ders of the world ; — the Pyramids or the Pharos mere pygmies, and the recumbent giant of Mount Athos a conception easily executed, in comparison with this. Rhodes, from what we saw in approaching the port and in leaving it, must be a beauti- ful island ; the mountains bold, and every valley and plain fruitful as a well-cultivated After leaving Rhodes, a succession again of calms and head-winds determined us to steer for Cerigo. We speculated also on the chance of getting pratique there under the indulgence granted in all British ports to yachts to reckon, as men-of-war do, the number of days since leaving the place in quarantine towards the time required for obtaining pratique. While urging this view of the subject at the Lazaretto of Kapsali, the port of Cerigo, it was our good fortune VOL. II. p .314 ATHENS. that I was recognised by the chief officer of health there, who remembered me in former times. This recognition led to a shaking of hands ; and this shaking of hands effectually settled the question of admitting the yacht to a free bill of health. With this trium- phant exemption from all further quarantine, and with a fair breeze that sprang up within an hour after, we reached the Peira3us the next evening. My second sojourn at Athens, which lasted but for ten days, I will not pause to describe. It was passed among those well- known scenes which I cannot understand how any one can leave without reluctance, or return to without increased admiration and delight. I had the pleasure of revisiting many of them with Mr. and Mrs. Burr, to whom they were new; the latter, a lady among whose many talents and accomplish- ments is that of sketching with all the taste and power of a perfect artist. Spring had now clothed the hills round Athens in all their bloom of many-coloured heaths and flowers, and the olives of the EXCURSION TO BARI. 315 plain were rich with their earliest and brightest green. I made several excursions to a part of the plain of Attica I had not seen before, under the Hymettian range, and on the road to Laureium and the Sunian Promontory ; — among others, a very interesting one to the district of Bari (Anagyrus), which I saw under the greatest advantages, with my old friends Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge. I was so fortunate as to find them at Athens on the day after my landing, and they invited me to pass with them much of the short time that remained to me there. From their inti- mate knowledge of all that is best worth seeing in this country, where Mr. Bracebridge has property and often comes to reside, it cannot be seen under better auspices than with persons of so much information, and more- over of so much taste and enthusiasm for Greece. They were kind enough also to introduce me to the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Hill, the American missionary, a man eminent for his scholarship as well as for his zeal and success in the business of p 2 316 ANCIENT REMAINS. publick instruction. He, with his family, were of our party to Bari. The way from Athens to the village of Bari, pursuing what was probably the old Sphettian road, passes by the remains of towns whose very names are lost, and whose site is traceable only by mounds and foun- dations, and, here and there, subterraneous galleries, perhaps tombs, perhaps granaries. The general and best opinions seem to favour the latter supposition. At about nine miles from Athens, on the banks to the right and left, are fine bits of wall of the second order of Cyclopean ma- sonry ; the stones in horizontal ranges, but not all squared. At about a mile further are a few columns, and a fragment, in relief, of an equestrian figure, built into the sides and door-posts of a small Greek church, where probably stood the principal temple of the ancient city of Anagyrus. Beyond, to the left, the great Mesogsean Plain stretches away north-eastward to the sea, at Brauron, and to Probalinthus and Marathon along the shore to the north. THE NYMPHCEUM. 317 At the back of Hymettus, immediately to the left, and about halfway up the steep, among rocks and brushwood, is the Nym- phceum ; a cave, completed, as one of the inscriptions on the rock records, by Arche- demus of Pherse, and dedicated, as others shew, to the worship of many rustick and sylvan deities, — Pan and the Nymphs, the Pastoral or Nomian Apollo, the Rural Graces, and the God Ersus ; — the latter supposed by Welcher to have been revered as^Epo?, "'Epw?, the Principle of Increase, but more probably, Mr. Wordsworth suggests, # as the Influence, ’'Ep7, of Dew. Any description of this very curious and interesting cave, with its inscriptions and the rude but primaeval sculpture on its walls, “ a natural temple on a solitary mountain, dedicated to natural deities,” where “Time has exerted no power,” — the “ faint light, the inscriptions which declare the former sanctity of the place, the basins scooped in the rock from which the sacred libations were made, and the limpid well in the cave’s * See Wordsworth’s ‘ Athens and Attica,’ p. ] 98. 318 THE NYMPHCEUM. recess, from which water was supplied for those libations to the rural deities, — with no other objects about you to disturb the impres- sion which these produce, — where you might fancy some shepherd of this part of Attica had just left the spot, and that he would return before evening from his neighbouring sheep- fold on Hymettus with an offering from his flock, or with the spoils of his mountain chase, or with the first flowers which at this season of the year have just peeped forth in his rural garden,” must be but a transcript, in full, of one of the most eloquent and learned passages in Dr. Wordsworth’s book, or a comparatively feeble and imperfect paraphrase. One of the most striking parts of that passage is the very ingenious and probable ground he lays for the conjecture that this is the cave to which Plato in childhood was led by his parents up the slopes of Hymettus to make offerings to the tutelary deities in behalf of his future destinies,* and that here, and among these * T ov nXarw^a Aa€o vteq ol yoveiQ teQeikucelv ev rw 'YfirjTTM, (jovXo/xevoL vi rep avrov to~iq eke~l OeoIq Haw kcl) GENERAL ELECTION. 319 scenes, so little changed since then in their appearance, that young mind was first im- bued with its feelings of sublime devotion, which afterwards engrafted on Paganism itself the notions of a purer worship and the vast conception of the soul’s immortality. We returned to Mr. Bracebridge’s farm be- tween the western foot of Hymettus and the Ilissus, delighted with the recollections of the day we had passed. The National Assembly had closed its sittings, and the writs were out for the general election. No one, I think, wishing well to Greece, can but regret the change which, for a time, since the meeting of the new Assembly, has been wrought in the ad- ministration of her affairs. Undue means are said to have been largely employed to influence the returns. But let those who are now reproaching the Greek people for this, and propound therefrom a gloomy view of their future prospects, — let those who have AttoWuvi N o/jl'ho kol N v/xtycug 6v