Srom 1 0e fetfiratg of (professor HEKfftam ^Ejenrg (Screen QSequeafjJefc fig 0tm fo f$e fetfiravg of (prtncefon ^eofogtcaf ^emtnarg 33SIO? • ST8? v _ f-u n ~7 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/sinaipalestinein00stan_1 1 ; ' . , 1 / ELEVATIONS OF THE HEIGHTS OF EGYPT SINAI $ PALESTINE. The Maps fu'e coloured according* to -the appearance which the com, fry actnaly presents. L. > Purple RerL - Cronite Basalt J Lujht JieiL - Sandstone . cn Gtey _ _ _ _ — Panes tone . J Grey U Dark Green. _ fovea l t- — 3 Liq lit fa'cer I _ Iris tu re let mi 3 Dark Yell OH — Corn. laud. L— 3 Lirjhl ye lion •„ Sami. L-**« i/VJ Bran'll - - The ('ravel of ihe Jlcserf L~— "- I White - White Limestone- Salt or Siutw . I he -modern, names I in. Map.s where the two are mixed ) are in In arkets TJre Maps hove keen eonsirucieilvriih thrhelji of M^jb-Jermann partly from observation on the spot.paHly iron, the maps at Russepr.Kiepo* tvooR O nnu f SINAI AND PALESTINE IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR HISTORY BY ARTHUR PENRITYN STANLEY, D. D. RRGIBS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFOK3 AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH NEW EDITION, WITH MAPS AND PLANS LIBRARY OF PRINCETON OCT 0 3 2007 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 1877. CONTENTS. PAfll ADVERTISEMENT . vii PREFACE: Connection of Sacred History and Sacred Geography . x INTRODUCTION: Egypt in relation to Israel. L. Nile on the Delta. 2. View from the Citadel at Cairo. 3. Heliopolis. 4. Valley of the Nile. 5. Tombs of Beni-Hassan. 6. Tombs and Hermits. 7. Thebes — Colossal statues. 8. Thebes — Karnac and the Royal Tombs. 9. Nile at Silsilis. 10. At the First Cataract. 11. Philas. 12. Nile in Nubia. 13. Ipsambul. 14. Nile at the Second Cataract. 15. Dendera. 16. Memphis. 17. The Pyramids . xxvii CHAPTER I. PART I.— PENINSULA OF SINAI. '. General configuration — the Mountains, the Desert, and the Sea. 1. The Two Gulfs. 2. The Plateau of the Till. 3. The Sandy Tract of Debbet-er- Ramleh. 4. The Mountains of the Tor. a. The Kaa — the Shores, b. The Passes, c. The Mountains ; the Three Groups — the Colours — the Confusion — the Desolation — the Silence. d. The Wadys — the Vegetation — the Springs — the Oases . 2 I. General Adaptation to the History. The Scenery — the Physical Phenomena — the Present Inhabitants — Changes in the Features of the Desert . . 20 II. Local Traditions of the History. 1. Arab Tradition — Traditions of Moses. Loss of the Ancient Names. 2. Greek Traditions. 3. Early Traditions of Eusebius and Jerome . . . . . 29 V. Route of the Israelites. 1. Passage of the Red Sea. 2. Marah and Elim. 3. Encampment by the Red Sea. 4. Wilderness of Sin. 5. Choice between Serbal and Gebel Mousa as Sinai. 6. Special Localities of the History . 35 T. Later History of the Peninsula. 1. Elijah’s Visit. 2. Josephus. 3. Allu¬ sions of St. Paul. 4. Christian Hermitages; Convent of St. Catherine. 5. Mosque in the Convent : Visit of Mahomet. 6. Present State of the Convent. 7. Sanctuary of Sheykh Saleh ....... 48 Tote A. Mussulman Traditions of the Exodus and Mount Sinai . . . .57 iote B. Sinaitic Inscriptions . 59 PART II.— EXTRACTS FROM JOURNALS. , Departure from Egypt; Overland Route; First Encampment. II. The Passago of the Red Sea. 1. Approach to Suez. 2. Suez. 3. Wells of IV CONTENTS. PAQH Moses. III. The Desert, and Sandstorm. IV. Marah; Elim. V. Second Encampment by the Red Sea ; “ Wilderness of Sin.” VI. Approach to Mount Serbal; Wady Sidri and Wady Feiran. VII. Ascent of Serbal. VIII. Approach to Gebel Mousa, the traditional Sinai. IX. Ascent of Gebel Mousa and of Ras Sasafeh. X. Ascent of St. Catherine. XI. Ascent of the Gebel-ed-Deir ........... 64 XII. Route from Sinai to the Gulf of Akaba. 1. Tomb of Sheykh Saleh. 2. Wady Sayal and Wady El Ain. Hazeroth. XIII. Gulf of Akaba ; Elath. XIV. The Arabah. XV. Approach to Petra. XVI. Ascent of Mount Hor. XVII. Petra: Kadesii . 78 XVIII. Approach to Palestine. XIX. First day in Palestine. XX. Hebron. XXL Approach to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. XXII. First View of Beth¬ lehem. XXIII. First View of Jerusalem . 99 CHAPTER II. — PALESTINE. The Highland of Syria : Lebanon ; the Four Rivers : the Orontes, the Leontes, the Barada, and the Jordan . - . . . . . . . . 109 PALESTINE. I. Seclusion. II. Smallness and narrowness of its territory. III. Central situation. IV. Land of Ruins. V. “ Land of Milk and Honey.” VI. Variety of climate and structure. VII. A Mountain- Country; the Views of Sacred History. The fenced Cities, and High Places : Political Divisions and Conquests. Highlands and Lowlands. VIII. Scenery: Character of hills; Vegetation: Flowers; Olives; Cedars — confined to Lebanon ; Oaks and Terebinths ; Sacred Trees : Palms ; Sycomores ; Oleanders. IX. Geological Features : 1. Springs and Wells ; 2. Sepulchres ; 3. Caves ; in ancient times ; in modern times ; 4. Legend¬ ary curiosities . 112 CHAPTER III. — JUDAEA AND JERUSALEM. Judea : I. The “south” frontier — Simeon. II. Mountain country of Judah — Lion of Judah — Vineyards — Fenced cities — Ilerodion. Bethlehem: Hebron . 159 Jerusalem: I. Exterior aspect. 1. Long obscurity — Jebus — Mountain fastness. 2. Ravines of the Kedron and of Ilinnom. 3. Compactness — Growth. 4. Surrounding mountains. 5. Central situation. II. Interior aspect. 1. Hills of the city. 2. Temple-mount — Rock of the Sakrah — Spring in the Temple Vaults. 3. Walls and Towers — Palaces — Ruins. III. Mount of Olives — Slight connection with the early history. Connection with the Gospel History — Presence of Christ — Bethany — Scene of the Triumphal entry — The Ascension — Conclusion 165 CHAPTER IV.— THE HEIGHTS AND THE PASSES OF BENJAMIN. Benjamin, the frontier tribe of Judah and Ephraim — Its independent power. I. The Passes of Benjamin. 1. The Eastern Passes, a. Battle of Ai. b. Battle of Michmash. c. Advance of Sennacherib. 2. The Western Passes — Battle of Bethhoron under Joshua. Later battles of Bethhoron . 195 IL The Heights. 1. Nebi-Samuel or Gibeon ; 2. Bethel: Sanctuary — View of Abraham — Sanctuary of Jacob and of the Northern tribes — Jeroboam’s Temple — Josiah . . . . . . .209 Note on Ramah and Mizpeh . 220 CHAPTER V.— EPHRAIM. Mountains of Ephra.'m — Fertility and central situation — Supremacy of Ephraim. 225 I. Shiloh. II. Shechem. 1. First halting-place of Abraham. 2. First settle¬ ment of Jacob. 3. First capital of the conquest. Sanctuary of Mount CONTENTS. V _ . . . . PAGH Gerizim. 4. Insurrection of Abimelech. 5. Sanctuary of the Samaritans. 6. Jacob’s well . 22 1 III. Samaria : Its beauty — Its strength — Sebaste. IY. Passes of Manasseh. Dothan ............. 239 Note on Mount G-erizim. Abraham and Melchizedek. Sacrifice of Isaac. Mount Moriah . 245 CHAPTER VI.— THE MARITIME PLAIN. I. The Shephelaii, the Low Country, or Philistia: 1. Maritime character of the Philistines. 2. The Strongholds ; their sieges. 3. Corn-fielda — Contact with Dan. 4. Level plain — Contact with Egypt and the Desert . . . . 251 II. Plain" of Sharon — Pasture-land — Naphath-Dor — Eorest — Caesarea — Con¬ nection with Apostolic History . 255 III. Plain and Bay of Acre — Tribe of Asher . 259 IY. Plain of Pikenicia: 1. Separation from Palestine. 2. Harbours. 3. Se¬ curity. 4. Rivers: Tyre and Sid on — Local Prophecies . . . .262 CHAPTEE VII.— THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. The Pour Rivers of Lebanon in their courses: — The physical peculiarities of the Jordan— Unfrequented — Historical scenes . . . . . . .215 I. Yale of Siddim. 1. Battle of the Kings. 2. Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. 3. Appearance of the Dead Sea. 4. Yision of Ezekiel. 5. En-gedi . . . . . . . . . . . . .281 II. Plain and Terraces of the Jordan Yalley. 1. Plain of Abel-Shittim — Encamp¬ ment of the Israelites — Yiews from Pisgah by Balaam and by Moses — Burial-place of Moses — Passage of the Jordan — Drying up of the River. 2. Jericho — At the time of tho capture — In the time of the Prophets and of Christ. 3. Scene of the Preaching of John — Bethabara — Scene of the Temptation — Baptism in the Jordan — Bathing of the Pilgrims . . . 290 CHAPTER YIII.— PEREA AND THE TRANS-JORDANIC TRIBES. I. General character of the scenery. II. First view of the Holy Land. III. Frontier land. — First victories of Israel. IY. Isolation. Y. Pastoral character of the country and its inhabitants. Nomadic Tribes — Reuben — Gad — Manasseh — Elijah the Tishbite. YI. Land of exile. Last view of the Holy Land . . . 313 CHAPTER IX.— PLAIN OF ESDRAELON. General features. I. Boundary between northern and central tribes. II. Battle- I field of Palestine. 1. Victory over Sisera. Battle of Kishon. 2. Victory j over the Midianites. 3. Defeat of Saul. Battle of Mount Gilboa — Bethslian and Jabesh Gilead. 4. Defeat of Josiah — Battle of Megiddo . . . 327 II. Richness and fertility of the Plain — Issaciiar: Jezreel — Engannim. IY. Tabor: Fortress and Sanctuary of the Northern Tribes. V. Carmel — Scene of Elijah’s sacrifice. YI. Nain . 310 CHAPTER X.— GALILEE. jeenery of Northern Palestine — The Four Northern Tribes — their wealth — their isolation — Galilee in the New Testament . 353 I Nazareth — Its upland basin — Its seclusion — Sacred localities . . . 356 fe. Lakf of Gennesaretii. 1 . Plain of Hattin and Mountain of the Beatitudes — Battle of Hattin. 2. View of the Lake of Gennesareth. 3. Jewish His¬ tory of Tiberias. 4. Plain of Gennesareth. Traffic — Fertility of the Plain — Villas of the Herods — Fisheries of the Lake. 5. Scene of the Gospel Min- VI CONTENTS. PAaa istry — “ Manufacturing district” — The Beach — The Desert — The storms of wind — The Demoniacs — The Deeding of the Multitudes — The Plain of Gen- nesareth — Capernaum ... . .... 360 CHAPTER XI.— THE LAKE OP MEROM AND THE SOURCES OP THE JORDAN. I. Upper Valley of the Jordan — Hills of Naphthali and Manasseh — Kedesh- Naphthali. II. Lake of Merom — Battle of Merom. III. Sources of the Jordan — Tel-el-Kadi — City and Tribe of Dan — Caesarea Philippi — Hazor — Paneas — Hermon — Mount of the Transfiguration . . . . .381 CHAPTER XII.— LEBANON— DAMASCUS. Lebanon. I. In relation to Palestine and the Jordan. II. To the Leontes III. To the Orontes. IV. To the Barada. Damascus .... 397 Note A. — The Traditional Localities of Damascus . 403 Note B. — Patriarchal Traditions of Lebanon . 404 CHAPTER XIII.— THE GOSPEL HISTORY AND TEACHING, VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE LOCALITIES OF PALESTINE. L The stages of the Gospel History. 1. Infancy of Christ. 2. Youth. 3. Pub¬ lic ministry. 4. Retirement from public ministry. II. The Parables. 1. Parables of Judsea. a. The Vineyard. b. The Fig-tree. c. The Shepherd, d. The good Samaritan. 2. Parables of Galilee, a. The corn¬ fields. b. The birds, c. The fisheries. III. The Discourses — The Sermon on the Mount. 1. The city on a hill. 2. The birds and the flowers. 3. The torrent . 409 IV. Conclusions. 1. Reality of the teaching. 2. Its homeliness and universal¬ ity. 3. Its union of human and divine . . . . . . .423 CHAPTER XIV.— THE HOLY PLACES. I. Bethlehem: Church of Helena — Grotto of the Nativity — Jerome. II. Naza¬ reth : Grotto in Latin Convent — Spring near the Greek church — House at Loretto — Compared with site at Nazareth — Origin of the Legend. III. Jerusalem: Lesser localities — Church of the Ascension — Tomb of the Virgin — Gethsemane — Coenaculum — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Greek Easter — Conclusion . 431 APPENDIX.— VOCABULARY OF HEBREW TOPOGRAPHICAL. WORDS. I. — Valleys and Tracts of Land . 476 II. — Mountains, Hills, and Rocks . . . 487 III. — Rivers and Streams . 493 IV. — Springs, Wells, and Pits . 500 V. — Caves . . 505 VI. — Forests and Trees . 506 VII. — Cities, Habitations . 510 VIH. — The Sea and its Shores . . 518 INDEX • 521 ADVERTISEMENT. What is personal in this book may be briefly told. In the winter of 1852, and in the spring of 1853, in the company of the three friends,* to whose kindness I shall always feel grateful for haying enabled me to fulfil this long-cherished design, I visited the well-known scenes of Sacred History in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria. Any detailed description of this journey has been long since rendered superfluous by the ample illustrations of innumerable tra¬ vellers. But its interest and instruction are so manifold, that, even after all which has been seen and said of it, there still remain points of view unexhausted. Much has been written, and still remains to he written, both on the History and the Geography of the Chosen People. But there have been comparatively few attempts to illustrate the relation in which each stands to the other. To bring the recollections of my own journey to hear on this question, — to point out how much or how little the Bible gains by being seen, so to speak, through the eyes of the country, or the country by being seen through the eyes of the Bible, — to exhibit the effect of the * Holy Land’ * I trust that I may be permitted to name Mr. Walrond, Mr. Fremantle, and Mr. Findlay. yin ADVERTISEMENT. on the course of ‘ the Holy History/ — seemed to he a task not hitherto fully accomplished. To point out the limits of this connection will he the object of the following Preface. As a general rule, it has been my endeavour, on the one hand, to omit no geographical feature which throws any direct light on the history or the poetry of the sacred volume ; and, on the other hand, to insert no descriptions except those which have such a purpose, and to dwell on no passages of Scripture except those which are capable of such an illustration. The form of narrative has thus been merged in that of dissertation, following the course of his¬ torical and geographical divisions. Whenever I have given extracts from journals or letters, it has been when it seemed necessary to retain the impression not merely of the scene, but of the moment. Only in a few instances, chiefly con¬ fined to notes, the main course of the argument has been interrupted in order to describe in greater detail particular spots, which have not been noticed in previous accounts. I have, as much as possible, avoided the controverted points of sacred topography, both because they mostly relate to spots which throw no direct light on the history, and also because they depend for their solution on data which are not yet fully before us. The Maps have been framed with the intention of giving not merely the physical features, but the actual colouring offered to the eye of the traveller at the present time. In the use of the geographical terms of the Old and New Testament, I have aimed at a greater precision than has been reached or perhaps attempted in the Authorised Ver¬ sion ; and have thrown into an Appendix a catalogue of ADVERTISEMENT. IX such words as a help to a not unimportant field of philolog¬ ical and geographical study. For the arrangement of this Appendix, as well as for the general verification of refer¬ ences and correction of the press I am indebted to the care¬ ful revision of my friend, Mr. Grove, of Sydenham. Through¬ out the work I have freely used all materials within my reach to fill up the deficiencies necessarily left by the hasty and imperfect character of my personal observation. It is unnecessary to describe more particularly the nature of these sources ; they are mostly given in the long cata¬ logues of writers affixed to Robinson’s ‘ Biblical Researches,! and Ritter’s volumes on Sinai, Palestine, and Syria ; and I may perhaps be allowed to refer for a general estimate of their relative value to an Essay on ‘ Sacred Geography’ in the Quarterly Review for March, 1854. Finally, I have to express my deep sense of all that I owe to my friend and fellow-traveller Mr. Theodore Walrond, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Without him the journey, to which I shall always look back as one of * the most instructive periods of my life, would in all prob^ ability never have been accomplished : on his accurate observation and sound judgment I have constantly relied, both on the spot and since ; and, though I have touched too slightly on Egypt to avail myself of his knowledge and study of the subject where it would have been most valuable, I feel that his kind supervision of the rest of the volume gives a strong guarantee for the faithful repre¬ sentation of the scenes which we explored together, and of the conclusions to be derived from them. PREFACE. THE CONNECTION OF SACRED HISTORY AND SACRED GEOGRAPHY S The historical interest of Sacred Geography, though belonging in various degrees to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, is, like the Sacred History itself, concentrated on the Peninsula of Sinai and on Palestine. Even in its natural aspect the topography of these two countries has features which would of themselves rivet our attention ; and on these, as the basis of all further inquiry, and as compared with similar features of other parts of the world, I have dwelt at some length.1 But to this singular conformation we have to add the fact that it has been the scene of the most important events in the history of man¬ kind ; and not only so, hut that the very fact of this local connection has occasioned a reflux of interest, another stage of history, which intermingles itself with the scenes of the older events, thus producing a tissue of local associations unrivalled in its length and complexity. Greece and Italy have geographical charms of a high order. But they have never provoked a Crusade ; and, however hitter may have been the disputes of antiquaries about the Acropolis of Athens or the Forum of Home, they have never, as at Bethlehem and Jerusalem, become matters of religious controversy — grounds for interpreting old prophecies or producing new ones — cases for missions of diplomatists, or for the war of civilised nations. 1 See Chapters I. II. VII. and XII. PREFACE. ri This interest in Sacred Geograpny, though in some respects repelled, yet in some respects is invited by the Scriptures themselves. From Genesis to the Apocalypse there are — even when not intending, nay, even when deprecating, any stress on the local associations of the events recorded — constant local allusions, such as are the natural result of a faithful, and, as is often the case in the Biblical narrative, of a contemporary history. There is one document in the Hebrew Scriptures to which prob¬ ably no parallel exists in the topographical records of any other ancient nation. In the Book of Joshua we have what may without offence be termed the Domesday Book of the conquest of Canaan. Ten chapters of that book are devoted to a description of the country, in which not only are its general features and boundaries carefully laid down, but the names and situations of its towns and villages enumerated with a precision of geographical terms which invites and almost compels a minute investigation. The numerous allusions in the Prophetical writings supply what in other countries would be furnished by the illustrations of poets and orators. The topographi¬ cal indications of the New Testament, it is true, are ex¬ ceedingly slight ; and if it were not for the occurrence of the same names in the Old Testament or Josephus, it would often be impossible to identify them. But what the New Testament loses by the rarity of its allusions, it gains in their vividness ; and, moreover, its general history is connected with the geography of the scenes on which it was enacted, by a link arising directly from the nature of the Christian religion itself. That activity and practical energy, which is its chief outward charaeteristic, turns its XU PREFACE. earliest records into a perpetual narrative of journeyings to and fro, by lake and mountain, over sea and land, that belongs to the history of no other creed. It is easy in all countries to exaggerate the points of connection between history and geography ; and in the case of Palestine especially, instances of this exaggeration have sometimes led to an undue depreciation of any such auxiliaries to the study of the Sacred History. But there are several landmarks which can be clearly defined. I. The most important results of an insight into Influence tionaiheChar*- the geographical features of any country are those which elucidate in any degree the general charac¬ ter of the nation to which it has furnished a home. If there be anything in the course of human affairs which brings us near to the ‘ divinity which shapes men’s ends, rough-hew them as they will,’ which indicates something of the prescience of their future course even at its very com¬ mencement, it is the sight of that framework in which the national character is enclosed, by which it is modified, beyond which it cannot develop itself. Such a forecast, as every one knows, can be seen in the early growth of the Homan commonwealth, and in the peculiar conformation and climate of Greece.1 The question which the geographer of the Holy Land, which the historian of the Chosen People has to propose to himself is, 6 Can such a connection be traced between the scenery, the features, the boundaries, the situ¬ ation of Sinai and of Palestine, on the one hand, and the history of the Israelites on the other ?’ It may be that -0 there is much in one part of their history, and little in an- For the sake of convenience I may raphy of Greece,” in the first number here refer to an essay on “The Topog- of the Classical Museum. PREFACE. XLL1 other ; least of all in its close, more in the middle part, most of all in its early beginnings. But whatever be the true answer, it cannot be indifferent to any one who wishes — whether from the divine or the human, from the theolog¬ ical or the historical point of view — to form a complete estimate of the character of the most remarkable nation which has appeared on the earth. If the grandeur and solitude of Sinai was a fitting preparation for the reception of the Decalogue and for the second birth of an infant na¬ tion ; if Palestine, by its central situation, by its separa¬ tion from the great civilised powers of the Eastern world, and by its contrast of scenery and resources both with the Desert and with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian empires, presents a natural home for the chosen people ; if its local features are such, as in any way constitute it the cradle of a faith that was intended to be universal ; its geography is not without interest, in this its most general aspect, both for the philosopher and theologian.1 II. Next to the importance of illustrating the Influence on forms of general character of a natiou from its geographical exPression- situation is the importance of ascertaining how far the forms and expressions of its poetry, its philosophy, and its worship, have been affected by it. In Greece this was eminently the case. Was it so in Palestine ? It is not enough to answer that the religion of the Jewish people came direct from God, and that the poetry of the Jewish prophets and psalmists was the immediate inspiration of God’s Spirit. In the highest sense, indeed, of the words this is most true. But it must be remembered, that as every one acknowledges that this religion and this inspira- 1 See Chapters I. and II xiv PREFACE. tion came through a human medium to men living in those particular 6 times ’ of civilisation, and in those particular 6 bounds of habitation/ which God had ‘before appointed’ and 6 determined’ for them, we cannot safely dispense with this or with any other means of knowing by what local in¬ fluences the Divine message was of necessity coloured in its entrance into the world.1 Again, as there are some who would exaggerate this local influence to the highest, and others who would depreciate it to the lowest degree possible, it is important to ascertain the real facts, whatever they may be, which may determine our judgment in arriv¬ ing at the proper mean. And lastly, as there was in the later developments of the history of Palestine, in the rab¬ binical times of the Jewish history, in the monastic and crusading times of the Christian history, an abundant litera¬ ture and mythology of purely human growth, it becomes a matter of at least a secondary interest to know how far the traditions and the institutions of those times have been fostered by local considerations.2 Explanations III. In the two points just noticed, the connec- of particular events. tion between history and geography, if real, is es¬ sential. But this connection must always be more or less matter of opinion, and, for that very reason, is more open to fanciful speculation on the one side, and entire rejection on the other. There is however a connection less import¬ ant but more generally accessible and appreciable, that, namely, which, without actually causing or influencing, ex plains the events that have occurred in any particular locality. The most obvious example of this kind of concatenation between place and event is that between a battle and a 1 See Chapters II. and XIII. 3 See Chapters I. II. and XIV. PREFACE. XV battle-field, a campaign and the seat of war. No one can thoroughly understand the one without having seen or investigated the other. In some respects this mutual relation of action and locality is less remarkable in the simple warfare of ancient times than in the complicated tactics of modern times. But the course of armies, the use of cavalry and chariots, or of infantry, the sudden panics and successes of battle, are more easily affected by the natural features of a country in earlier than in later ages, and accordingly the conquest of Palestine by Joshua and the numerous battles in the plain of Esdraelon1 must be as indisputably illustrated by a view of the localities as the fights of Marathon or Thrasymenus. So again2 the boundaries of the different tribes, and the selection of the various capitals, must either receive considerable light from a consideration of their geographical circumstances, or, if not, a further question must arise why in each case such exceptions should occur to what is else the well-known and general rule which determines such events. It is to the middle history of Palestine and of Israel, the times of the monarchy, where historical incidents of this kind are re¬ lated in such detail as to present us with their various adjuncts, that this interest especially applies. But perhaps there is no incident of. any magnitude, either of the New or Old Testament, to which it is not more or less appli¬ cable. Even in those periods and those events which are least associated with any special localities, namely the 1 See Chapters IV. VII. IX. and XI. were so closely blended, it seemed most In these portions of the work I have natural not to attempt a separation, ventured on a more continuous narra- 2 See Chapters III. IV. V. VI. VIIL tive than would elsewhere have been ad- and X. missible. Where history and geography XVI PREFACE. ministrations and journeys described in the Gospels and iu the Acts, it is at least important to know the course of the ancient roads, the situation of the towns and villages, which must have determined the movements there de¬ scribed in one direction or another.1 IY. Those who visit or who describe the scenes Evidences of the ‘iiis1-1 of Sacred history expressly for the sake of finding toiy. confirmations of Scripture, are often tempted to mislead themselves and others by involuntary exaggeration or invention. But this danger ought not to prevent us from thankfully welcoming any such evidences as can truly be found to the faithfulness of the Sacred records. One such aid is sometimes sought in the supposed fulfil¬ ment of the ancient prophecies by the appearance which some of the sites of Syrian or Arabian cities present to the modern traveller. But as a general rule these attempts are only mischievous to the cause which they intend to uphold. The present aspect of these sites may rather, for the most part, be hailed as a convincing proof that the Spirit of prophecy is not so to be bound down. The continuous existence of Damascus and Sidon, the existing ruins of Ascalon, Petra, and Tyre, showing the revival of those cities long after the extinction of the powers which they once represented, are standing monu¬ ments of a most important truth, namely that the warnings delivered by ‘holy men of old’ were aimed not against stocks and stones, but then, as always, against living souls and sins, whether of men or of nations.2 But there is a more satisfactory ‘ evidence’ to be derived from a view of the sacred localities, which has hardly been 1 See Chapters VI. and XIII. * See Chapters VI. and X. PREFACE. XVI l enough regarded by those who have written on the subject Facts, it is said, are stubborn, and geographical facts hap¬ pily the most stubborn of all. We cannot wrest them to meet our views ; hut neither can we refuse the conclusions they force upon us. It is by more than a figure of speech that natural scenes are said to have c witnessed’ the events which occurred in their presence. They are 6 witnesses’ which remain when the testimony of men and hooks has perished. They can he cross-examined with the alleged facts and narratives. If they cannot tell the whole truth, at any rate, so far as they have any voice at all, they tell nothing but the truth. If a partial advocate like Volney on one side, or Keith on the other, has extorted from them a reluctant or partial testimony, they still remain to he examined again and again by each succeeding traveller* correcting, elucidating, developing the successive deposi¬ tions which they have made from age to age. It is impossible not to he struck by the constant agree¬ ment between the recorded history and the natural geog¬ raphy both of the Old and New Testament. To find a marked correspondence between the scenes of the Sinaitic mountains and the events of the Israelite wanderings is not much perhaps, hut it is certainly something towards a proof of the truth of the whole narrative.1 To meet in the Gospels allusions, transient but yet precise, to the lo¬ calities of Palestine, inevitably suggests the conclusion of their early origin, while Palestine was still familiar and accessible, while the events themselves were still recent in the minds of the writers.2 The detailed harmony between 1 See Chapter I. 3 See Chapters III. V. X. 2 xvm PREFACE. the life of Joshua and the various scenes of his battles/ is a slight but true indication that we are dealing not with shadows, hut with realities of flesh and blood. Such coin¬ cidences are not usually found in fables, least of all in fables of Eastern origin. If it is important to find that the poetical imagery of the prophetical books is not to be measured by the rules of prose, it is not less important to find that the historical books do not require the latitude of poetry. Here and there, hyperbolical expressions may appear ; but, as a gen¬ eral rule, their sobriety is evidenced by the actual scenes of Palestine, as clearly as that of Thucydides by the topography of Greece and Sicily. That the writers of the Old and New Testament should have been preserved from the extravagant statements made on these subjects by their Rabbinical countrymen,2 or even by Josephus, is, at least, a proof of the comparative calmness and elevation of spirit in which the Sacred books were composed. The copyists who, according to Origen, changed the name of 66 Bethabara” into “ Bethania,” or “ Gergesa” into “ Gadara,” because they thought only of the names3 most familiar to their ears, without remembering the actual position of the places, committed (if so be) the error into which the Evangelists were almost sure to have been betrayed had they com¬ posed their narratives in the second century, in some city of Asia Minor or Egypt. The impossible situations in numerous instances selected by the inventors of so-called 1 See Chapters IV. VII. XI. ficial area of Palestine is 1,440,000 Eng- 2 It is said, for example, by Rabbin- lish square miles. (Scwarze, p. 30.) In leal authors, that Hebron could be Josephus may be instanced the exagge- seen from Jerusalem ; that the music rated descriptions of the precipices round of the Temple could be heard at Jericho Jerusalem. (Ant. XV. ii. 5.) CJorna iii. 2 iii. 2); that the super- 3 See Chanters VII. and X. PKEFACE. XIX traditional sanctuaries or scenes, from the fourth century downwards — at Nazareth,1 at Tabor,2 on Olivet,3 at the Jordan4 — are so many testimonies to the authenticity of the Evangelical narratives, which have in every case avoided the natural snares into which their successors have fallen. This kind of proof will have a different kind of value in the eyes of different persons. To some, the amount of testimony thus rendered will appear either superfluous or trivial ; to others, the mere attempt to define sacred history by natural localities and phenomena will seem « derogatory to their ideal or divine character. But it will, at least, he granted that this evidence is, so far as it goes, incontestable. Wherever a story, a character, an event, a book, is involved in the conditions of a spot or scene still in existence, there is an element of fact which no theory or interpretation can dissolve. “ If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” This testi¬ mony may even be more important when it explains, than when it refuses to explain, the peculiar characteristics of the history. If, for example, the aspect of the ground should, in any case, indicate that some of the great wonders in the history of the Chosen People were wrought through means which, in modern language, would be called natural, we must remember that such a discovery is, in fact, an in¬ direct proof of the general truth of the narrative. We can¬ not call from the contemporary world of man any witnesses to the passage of the Bed Sea, or to the overthrow of the cities of the plain, or to the passage of the Jordan. So much the more welcome are any witnesses from the world 1 See Chapter X. 8 See Chapters III. and XIV. * See Cnapter IX. * See Otiapter V IL XX PREFACE. of nature, to testify on the spot to the mode in which the events are described to have occurred ; witnesses the more credible, because their very existence was unknown to those by whom the occurrences in question were described. Some change may thus be needful in our mode of conceiv¬ ing the events. But we shall gain more than we shall lose. Their moral and spiritual lessons will remain un¬ altered : the framework of their outward form will receive the only confirmation of which the circumstances of the case can now admit. - -V ,9 V. Even where there is no real connection, either Illustra- scenes f 4 of by wa7 °f cause or explanation, between the local¬ ities and the events, there remains the charm of more vividly realising the scene ; if only that we may be sure that we have left no stone unturned in our approach to what has passed away. Even when, as in the last period of the Sacred History, local associations can hardly be sup¬ posed to have exercised any influence over the minds of the actors, or the course of events, it is still an indescribable pleasure to know what was the outline of landscape, what the colour of the hills and fields, what the special objects, far or near, that met the eye of those of whom we read. There is, as one of the profoundest historical students of our day1 well observes, a satisfaction in treading the soil and breathing the atmosphere of historical persons or events, like that which results from familiarity with their actual language and with their contemporary chronicles. And this pleasure is increased in proportion as the events in question occurred not within perishable or perished buildings, but on the unchanging scenes of nature ; on the 1 Palgrave’s History of Normandy and England, i. 12 t PREFACE. XXI Sea of Galilee, and Mount Olivet, and at the foot of Geri- zim, rather than in the house of Pilate, or the inn of Beth¬ lehem, or the garden of the Holy Sepulchre, even were the localities now shown as such ever so genuine. This interest pervades every stage of the Sacred History, from the earliest to the latest times, the earliest, perhaps the most, because then the events more frequently occurred in connection with the free and open scenery of the country, which we still have before us. It is also a satisfaction which extends in some measure beyond the actual localities of events to those which are merely alleged to be such, a consideration not without importance in a country where so much is shown of doubtful authenticity, yet the objects of centuries of veneration. Such spots have become themselves the scenes of a history, though not of that history for which they claim attention ; and to see and understand what it was that has for ages delighted the eyes and moved the souls of thousands of mankind is instructive, though in a different way from that intended by those who selected these sites.1 In one respect the site and description of Eastern countries lends itself more than that of any other country to this use of historical geography. Doubtless there are many alterations, some of considerable importance, in the vegetation, the climate, the general aspect of these conn- tries, since the days of the Old and New Testament.2 But, on the other hand, it is one of the great charms of Eastern travelling, that the framework of life, of customs, of manners, even of dress and speech, is still substantially the same as it was ages ago. Something, of course, in Sec Chapter XIV. a See Chapters I. II. X. XXII PREFACE. representing the scenes of the New Testament, must he sought from Roman and Grecian usages now extinct ; but the Bedouin tents are still the faithful reproduction of the outward life of the patriarchs — the vineyards, the corn¬ fields, the houses, the wells of Syria still retain the out¬ ward imagery of the teaching of Christ and the Apostles ; and thus the traveller’s mere passing glances at Oriental customs, much more the detailed accounts of Lane and of Burckhardt, contain a mine of Scriptural illustration which it is an unworthy superstition either to despise or to fear.1 VI. Finally, there is an interest attaching to Poetical LuKThe' sacre(l geography hard to be expressed in words, but which cannot be altogether overlooked, and is brought home with especial force to the Eastern traveller. It has been well observed2 that the poetical events of the Sacred History, so far from being an argument against its Divine origin, are striking proofs of that universal Provi¬ dence by which the religion of the Bible was adopted to suit, not one class of mind only, but many in every age of time. As with the history, so also is it with the geography. Not only has the long course of ages invested the prospects and scenes of the Holy Land with poetical and moral associa¬ tions, but these scenes lend themselves to such parabolical 1 Although the nature of the work has not permitted me to enlarge on this source of knowledge, I cannot refrain from acknowledging the great advantage I derived from the opportu¬ nities of constant intercourse with at least one genuine Oriental — in the person of our faithful and intelligent Arab servant; Mohamed of Grhizeh. a Milman’s History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 131. “ This language of noetic incident, and, if I may so speak, of imagery .... was the vernacular tongue of Christianity, universally in¬ telligible and responded to by the human heart throughout many cen¬ turies . The incidents were so ordered, that they should thus live in the thoughts of men ; the revelation itself was so adjusted and arranged that it might insure its continued existence.” ? •i. 3t, E S Y P T. VtTTTu etta MJtsetba.- I. . Mo ktm i tr* ■^TArKbah, i® pffiAhu. ( They were enclosed within a sanctuary of temples and pyramids not made with hands, — the more awful from its total dissimilarity to anything 1 Burckbardt (Arabia, ii., 362) de¬ scribes the palm-grove as so thick, that he could hardly find his way through it. It is two miles from the village of Tor, iu a valley called emphatically, El-Wddy, “ The Wady.” (Wellsted, ii., 9.) 5 See Part IE vi. Tor I did not see. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 21 which they or their fathers could have remembered in Egypt or in Palestine. They were wrapt in a silence which gave full effect to the morning and the evening shout with which the encampment rose and pitched, and still more to the “ thunders, and the voice exceeding loud” on the top of Horeb. The Prophet and his People were thus secluded from all former thoughts and associations, that “ Separate from the world, his breast Might duly take and strongly keep The print of God, to be exprest Ere long on Sion’s steep.”1 Not less illustrative, though perhaps less explanatory, of the more special incidents recorded, are some of the more local peculiarities of the Desert. The occasional springs, and wells, and brooks, are in accordance with the notices of the “ waters ” of Marah ; the “ springs ” (mistranslated “wells”) of Elim ; the “ brook” of Horeb; the “well” of Jethro’s daughters, with its “trough” or tanks, in Midian.2 The vegetation is still that which we should infer from the Mosaic history. The wild Acacia ( Mimosa Nilotica ), under the name of “ sont,” everywhere repre¬ sents the “ seneh ” or “senna” of the Burning Bush.3 A slightly different form of the tree, equally common under the name of “ sayal,” is the ancient “ Shittah,”4 or, as more usually expressed in the plural form (from the tangled thickets into which Ps stem expands), the “ Shittim,”5 of which the tabernacle was made, — an inci¬ dental proof, it may be observed, of the antiquity of the institution, inasmuch as the acacia, though the chief growth of the Desert, is very rare in Palestine.6 The “ Retem,” or wild broom, with its high canopy and white blossoms, give its name to one of the stations of the Israelites (Rithmah),7 and is the very shrub under i Keble’s Christian Year, 13th Sun¬ day after Trinity. I have everywhere quoted from this work the illustrations it contains of Scripture scenery, not only beeaues of its wide circulation, b t because the careful attention of its learned author to all local allusions renders it almost a duty to test these allusions, whenever opportunity occurs, by reference to the localities them¬ selves. 2 Ex. xv. 23,27; Dent. ix. 21 ; Ex. ii. 16. 3 Ex. iii. 2; Deut. xxxiii. 16. See Part II. iv. 4 Isa. xli. 19. 6 Exod. xxv. 5, 10, 13; xxvi. 26; xxvii. 1, 6, &c. 6 The gum which exudes from it is said to be the old Arabian frankincense, and is brought from Sinai by Tor. See Clarke’s Travels, vol. v. 75. 7 Num. xxxiii. 18, 19. SINAI AND PALESTINE. which — in the only subsequent passage which connects the Desert w7ith the history of Israel-— Elijah slept1 in his wanderings. The “ palms,” not the graceful trees of Egypt, but the hardly less picturesque wild palms of uncultivated regions, with their dwarf trunks and shaggy branches, vindicate by their very appearance the title of being emphatically the “ trees” of the Desert;2 and there¬ fore, whether in the cluster of the seventy palm trees of the second station of the wanderings,3 or in the grove, which still exists at the head of the Gulf of ’Akaba,4 were known by the generic name of 66 Elim,” “ Elath,” or “ Eloth,”5 “ the trees.” The “ tarfa” or tamarisk, is not mentioned by name in the history of the Exodus ; yet, if the tradition of the Greek Church and of the Arabs be adopted, it is inseparably connected with the wanderings by the “ manna ” which distils from it, as gum-arabic from the acacia. It is also brought within the limit of their earlier history by the grove of “ tamarisks,”6 which Abraham planted round the wells of Beersheba, as soon as he had exchanged the vegetation of Palestine, — the oaks of Moreh and of Mamre, — for the wild and scanty shrubs of the desert frontier. The “ lasaf,” or “ asaf,” the caper plant, the bright green creeper, which climbs out of the fissures of the rocks in the Sinaitic valleys,1 has been identified on grounds of great probability with the 1 1 Kings xix. 4, mistranslated “ju¬ niper.” It is the “spartium juncum ” of Linmeus. In Job xxx. 4, it is de¬ scribed as the food of the wild inhabi- t uits of Edom when driven into the Desert. The word is also used in Ps. cxx. 4. See Part II., iv. xii. 2 The palms in the palm-grove at Tor are all registered. Property in them is capital; marriage portions are given in dates, like tulips in Holland. (Hen- niker, p. 217.) 8 Exod. xv.27 ; xvi. 1 ; Num. xxxiii. 9. 4 Deut ii. 8 ; 1 Kings ix. 26 ; 2 Kings xiv. 22; xvi. 6; 2 Chr. viii. 17 ; xxvi. 2. 6 It is the same word which in Pales¬ tine is used habitually for the ilex or terebinth ; an instructive change, because the terebinth is as emphatically the dis¬ tinguished tree (if one may so say) of Palestine, as the Palm is of the Desert. See Chapter II., p. 140. 6 The “ Eshel ” Zpovpa , LXX.) of Gen. xxi. 33. It is also used in 1 Sam. xxii. 6, for a tree at Ramah ; and in 1 Sam. xxxi. 13, for a tree at Jabesh, which in 1 Chron. x. 12, is called an “oak” (Elah). This last example perhaps throws doubt on the previous usage. But it can hardly be doubted that the tamarisk is in tended in Gen. xxi. 33. See Part II , iv., and Appendix. 7 Ritter, Sinai, 345, 761. I remember it especially in the Wady Shellal, the Wady El-’Ain, and the Sik at Petra. (See Part II. pp. 70, 81, 90.) To us, as to Lepsius and Forskal, the Bedouin name seemed to be Lasaf or Lasef But it is the same as Burckhardt, Freytag, and Richardson give under the name of Aszef and Asaf; and the other form is probably only a corrup¬ tion of al-asaf (See Journal of R. Asiat Soc., No. xv. 203); as, on the contrary, PENINSULA OF SINAI. 23 “ hyssop ” or “ ezoh ” of Scripture, and thus explains whence came the green branches used, even in the Desert, for sprinkling the water over the tents of the Israelites.1 Again, it has often been asked whether there are i ^ any natural phenomena by which the wonders of the cal pheno- ^ ^ mena giving of the Law can be explained or illustrated. There are at first sight many appearances which, to an un¬ practised eye, seem indications of volcanic agency. But they are all, it is believed, illusory. The vast heaps, as of calcined mountains, are only the detritus of iron in the sandstone formation.2 The traces of igneous action on the granite rocks belong to their first upheaving, not to any subsequent con¬ vulsions. Everywhere there are signs of the action of water, nowhere of fire. On the other hand the mysterious sounds which have been mentioned on Um-Shomer and Gebel Mousa, may be in some way connected with the terrors described in the Mosaic narrative. If they are, they furnish an ad¬ ditional illustration, not to say an additional proof, of the historical truth of the narrative. If they are not, it must rest, as heretofore, on its own internal evidence. Finally, the relation of the Deseri to its modern en™nhab!£ inhabitants is still illustrative of its ancient history. ants- The general name by which the Hebrews called “ the wilder¬ ness,” including always that of Sinai, was “ the pasture.”3 Bare as the surface of the Desert is, yet the thin clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn, especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hill-sides, furnish sufficient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand Bedouins who constitute the present population of the Peninsula. “ Along the mountain ledges green, The scatter'd sheep at will may glean The Desert’s spicy stores.”4 Bethany is sometimes called El-Az- arieh, from a corruption of Lazarieh. The arguments in favor of the identifications are thus summed up by Professor Boyle. It is found in Lower Egypt, in the deserts of Sinai. . . . its habit is to grow on the most barren soil, or rocky precipice, or the side of a wall. ... It has, moreover, always been supposed to possess cleansing properties, [especially in cu¬ taneous disorders. Pliny, II. N., xx. 15]. . . It is capable of yielding a stick, to which the sponge might bo affixed.” (Journal of li. Asiat. Soc., No. xv., p. 202.) The word voa^nug .seems to have been used by the LXX as the Greek name most nearly resembling the Hebrew “ Ezob ” in sound, though differing in sense. — Thus Bdpig is used for “ BtreJi” and Bdi fiuq for “ JBamah." 1 Numb. xix. 18. 2 See Part II. vi.. 3 “Midbar.” See Appendix, sub voce. * Christian Year, 5th Sunday in Lent. 24 SINAI AND PALESTINE. So were they seen following the daughters or the shepherd- slaves of Jethro. So may they be seen climbing the rocks, or gathered round the pools and springs of the valleys, under the charge of the black-veiled Bedouin women of the present day. And in the Tiyaha, Towara, or Alouin tribes, with their chiefs and followers, their dress, and manners, and habitations, we probably see the likeness of the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Israelites them¬ selves in this their earliest stage of existence. The long straight lines of black tents which cluster round the Desert springs, present to us on a small scale the image of the vast encampment gathered round the one Sacred Tent which, with its coverings of dyed skins, stood conspicuous in the midst, and which recalled the period of their nomadic life long after their settlement in Palestine.1 The deserted villages — marked by rude enclosures of stone — are doubtless such as those to which the Hebrew wanderers gave the name of “ Hazeroth,”2 and which afterwards furnished the type of the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh.3 The rude burial-grounds, with the many nameless head¬ stones, far away from human habitation, are such as the host of Israel must have left behind them at the different stages of their progress — at Massah, at Sinai, at Kibroth- hattaavah, 66 the graves of desire:” The salutations of the chiefs, in their bright scarlet robes, the one “ going out of meet the other,” the 6i obeisance,’5 the “ kiss” on each side the head, the silent entrance into the tent for consultation, are all graphically described in the encounter between Moses and Jethro.4 The constitution of the tribes, With the subordinate degrees of sheykhs, recommended by Jethro to Moses, is the very same which still exists amongst those who are possibly his lineal descendants — the gentle race of the Towara.5 change in As we pass from the Desert to its inhabitants, a of%heatUL)e- question naturally arises — How far can we be sure 8fcrt- that we have the same outlines, and colors, and forms, that were presented to those who wandered through 1 1 Chron. xxi. 29 ; 2 Chron. i. 3. 4 Exodus xviii. 7. 2 See p. 82, and Appendix. ‘ Ritter, Sinai, pp. 936, 937. 3 See Chapter V. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 25 these mountains and valleys three thousand years ago ? It might at first sight seem, that in this, as in other respects, the interests of the Desert of Sinai would he unique ; that here, more than in any other great stage of historical events, the outward scene must remain precisely as it was ; that the convent of Justinian with its gardens, the ruins of Paran, wfith the remains of hermits’ cells long since desolate, are the only alterations which human hands have introduced into these wild solitudes. Even the Egyptian monuments and sculptures which are carved out of the sandstone rocks, were already there, as the Israelites passed by — me¬ morials at once of their servitude and of their deliver¬ ance. But a difficulty has often been stated that renders it necessary somewhat to modify this assump¬ tion of absolute identity between the ancient and modern Desert. The question is asked — “ How could a tribe, so numerous and powerful as, on any hypothesis, the Israelites must have been,1 be maintained in this inhospitable desert ?” It is no answer to say that they were sustained by miracles ; for except the manna, the quails, and the three interventions in regard to water, none such are mentioned in the Mosaic history; and if we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant to add. Nor is it any answer to say that this difficulty is a proof of the impossibility, and therefore of the unhistorical character of the narrative. For, as Ewald has well shown, the general truth of the wanderings in the wilderness is an essential preliminary to the whole of the subsequent history of Israel. Something, of course, may be allowed for the spread of the tribes of Israel far and wide through the whole peninsula ; some¬ thing, also, for the constant means of support from their own flocks and herds. More, also, might be elicited than has yet been done, from the undoubted fact that a population nearly if not quite equal to the whole permanent i In spite of the difficulties attending upon the statement of the 600,000 armed men, as given in the Pentateuch, and the uncertainty always attached to attaining exact statements of num¬ bers in any ancient text, or in any Oriental calculation, in this case the most recent and the most critical in¬ vestigation of this history inclines to adopt the numbers of 600,000 as au¬ thentic. Ewald Geschichto. (2nd edit.), ii. 61, 253, 359. 26 SINAI AND PALESTINE. population of the Peninsula does actually pass through the Desert, in the caravan of the five thousand African pilgrims on their way to Mecca. It is, of course, a number incom¬ parably less than that ascribed to the Israelites, and passing only for a few days, but still it shows what may be done for a large addition to the habitual population of the country, even when traversing a portion of the Desert (the Tih) far less available for resources of life than the mountains of Sinai. Yet it must be acknowledged that none of these considerations solve the difficulty, though they mitigate its force. It is therefore important to observe what indications there may be of the moun¬ tains of Sinai having ever been able to furnish greater resources than at present. These indications are well summed up by Ritter.1 There is no doubt that the vegetation of the wadys has considerably decreased. In part, this would be an inevitable effect of the violence of the winter torrents. The trunks of palm-trees washed up on the shore of the Dead Sea, from which the living tree has now for many centuries disappeared, show what may have been the devastation produced amongst those mountains, where the floods, especially in earlier times, must have been violent to a degree unknown in Palestine ; whilst the peculiar cause — the impregnation of salt — which has preserved the vestiges of the older vegetation there, has here, of course, no existence. The traces of such a destruction were pointed out to Burckhardt on the eastern side of Mount Sinai,2 as having occurred within half a century before his visit; also to Wellsted,3 as having occurred near Tor, in 1832. In part, the same result has folioAved from the reckless waste of the Bedouin tribes — reck’ ess in destroying, and careless in replenishing. A fire, a pipe, lit under a grove of Desert trees, may clear away the vegetation of a whole valley. So Laborde observed,4 to justify his preference of the Wady Useit to the Wady Ghurundel as the site of Elim, against the objection that there were fewer palms in the former than 1 Ritter, Sinai, pp. 926, 927. There is 3 Burckhardt, p. 538. u chapter on the same subject in the first 8 Wellsted, ii., 15. volume of Captain Allen’s ‘‘Dead Sea.” * Commentary on Exodus, p. 85. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 27 in the latter. The truth of his remark is amply confirmed by the fact, that, in the few years which have elapsed since his visit, the case is reversed. There may, perhaps, be not more palms at Useit than in Laborde’s time, but tli ere are fewer at Ghurundel and no one now who was guided by the wish to choose the larger palm-grove, could hesitate to select Useit. Again, it is mentioned by Biippeb, that the acacia trees have been of late years ruthlessly destroyed by the Bedouins for the sake of charcoal ; espe¬ cially since they have been compelled by the Pasha of Egypt to pay a tribute in charcoal for an assault committed on the Mecca caravan in the year 1823. 2 Charcoal from the acacia is, in fact, the chief, perhaps it might be said the only, traffic of the Peninsula. Camels are constantly met, loaded with this wood, on the way between Cairo and Suez. And as this probably has been carried on in great degree by the monks of the convent, it may account for the fact, the whereas in the valleys of the western and the eastern clusters this tree abounds more or less, yet in the central cluster itself, to which modern traditions certainly, and geographical considera¬ tions probably, point as the mountains of the burning “ thorn,” and the scene of the building of the Ark and all the utensils of the Tabernacle from this very w7ood, there is now not a single acacia to be seen. If this be so, the greater abundance of vegetation would, as is well known, have furnished a greater abundance of water, and this again would re-act on the vegetation, from which the means of subsistence would be procured. How much may be done by a careful use of such water and such soil as the Desert supplies, may be seen by the only two spots to which, now, a diligent and provident attention is paid ; namely, the gardens at the Wells of Moses, under the care of the French and English agents from Suez, and the gardens in the valleys of Gebel Mousa, under the care of the Greek monks of the convent of St. Catherine. Even as late as the seventeenth century, if we may trust the expression of Moncony s, 3 the Wady Er- i In 1853 I counted twenty at Useit, 2 Riippell, p. 190. and six at Ghurundel. See Part 11. iv, 3 Journal des Voy., p. 420. 28 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Rah eh in front of the convent, now entirely bare, was “ a vast green plain,” — “ une grande champagne verte.” And that there was in ancient times a greater population than at present— which would, again, by thus furnishing heads and hands to consider and to cultivate these spots of vegetation, tend to increase and to preserve them — may be inferred from several indications.1 The Amalekites who contested the passage of the Desert with Israel were, — if we may draw any inferences from this very fact, as well as from their wide-spread name and power even to the time of Saul and David, and from the allusion to them in Balaam’s prophecy as u the first of the nations,” — something more than a mere handful of Bedouins. The Egyptian copper-mines, and monuments, and hiero¬ glyphics, in Sarbut-el-Kedem and the Whdy Megara, imply a degree of intercourse between Egypt and the Penin¬ sula in the earliest days of Egypt, of which all other traces have long ceased. The ruined cities of Edom in the mountains east of the ’Arafcmh, and the remains and history of Petra itself, indicate a traffic and a population in these remote regions which now seems to us almost 1 In the question of the mainte¬ nance of the Israelites, it is impossible to avoid considering the question of the identity of the present manna with that described in the Mosaic history. The hypothesis of their identity, it must be remembered, is no modern fancy ; but was believed by Josephus (Ant. iii. 2) and has always been main¬ tained by the Greek Church in its representatives at the Convent of St. Catherine; and portions of it have been hy them deliberately sold as such to pilgrims and travellers for many cen¬ turies. It must be acknowledged, with nil deference to so ancient a tradition, that the only arguments in its favour are the name and the locality in which it is found. An exudation like honey, produced by iusects from the leaves of the tamarisk, used only for medicinal purposes, and falling on the ground only from accident or neglect, and at present produced in sufficient quantities only to support one man for six months, has obviously but few points of similarity with the “ small round thing, small as the hoarfrost on the ground ; like cori¬ ander seed , white, its taste like wafers made with honey ; gathered and ground in mills , and beat in a mortar , baked in pans and made into cakes, and its taste as the taste of fresh oil and spoken of as forming at least a consi¬ derable part of the sustenance of a vast caravan like that of the Israelites. All the arguments in favour of the ancient view of the identity may be seen in Ritter (pp. 665 — 695), all those in favour of the modern view of the diversity of the two kinds of manna, in Robinson (vol. i., p. 170) and Laborde (Commentary on Exodus and Numbers, p. 97). So far as the argument against its identity depends on its insufficiency, the greater abundance of vegetation, and therefore of iarfa trees, should be taken into account. And it should be observed, that the manna found in Kurdistan and Persia far more nearly corresponds to tho Mosaic account, and also is asserted by the Bedouins and others to fall fresh from heaven (Wellsted, iii., 48.) PENINSULA OF SINAI, 29 inconceivable. And even in much later times,' — in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era — the writings of Christian pilgrims on the rocks, whether in the Sinaitic characters, in Greek, or in Arabic ; as well as the numerous remains of cells, gardens, houses, chapels, and churches, now deserted and ruined, both in the neighbourhood of Gebel Mousa and of Serbal, all show that even the Desert was not always the dreary w7aste that it is now. Whether these changes are sufficient to explain the difficulty in answer to which they are alleged, may be doubtful. But they at least help to meet it, and they must under any circumstances be borne in mind, to modify in some degree the image which we form to ourselves of the scenes of the Israelite history. III. And now, is it possible to descend into de- Locai tails, and to ascertain the route by which the Israel- ditions of ites passed — over the Red Sea, and then through thehlstor3, the desert to Palestine ? First, can we be guided by tra¬ dition ? In other words, has the recollection of those past events formed part of the historical consciousness and tra¬ dition of the Desert, or has it been merely devised L Arab in later times from conjectures either of the Greek traditlon- monks and hermits of Sinai speculating on the words of the Old Testament, or of the Bedouin chiefs applying here and there a fragment of their knowledge of the Koran? Such a question can only be authoritatively answered by a traveller who, with a complete knowledge of Arabic, has sifted and compared the various legends and stories of the several tribes of the Peninsula. But any one, by combining his own experience, however slight, with the accounts of pre¬ vious travellers, especially of Burckhardt, may form an ap¬ proximation to the truth. From whatever date it may be derived, there is unquestionably a general atmosphere of Mosaic tradition everywhere. From Petra to Cairo Traditions — from the northern platform of the Peninsula to of Mo8ea its southern extremity, the name and the story of Moses is still predominant. There are the two groups of “ Wells of Moses,” one on each side the Gulf of Suez — there are the “ Baths of Pharaoh ” — and the “ Baths of Moses ” fur¬ ther down the coast; there is the “ Seat of Moses,” near 30 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Bisatin, and in the Wady Feiran; there is the “Mountain of Moses ” in the cluster of Sinai ; the “ Cleft *of Moses ” in Mount St. Catherine; the “Valley” and the “Cleft of Moses,” at Petra ; the “Island of Pharaoh,” or of “Moses,” in the Gulf of ’Akaba. There is the romantic story told to Burckhardt,1 that the soughing of wind down the Pass of Nuweybi’a, on that gulf, is the wailing of Moses as he leaves his loved mountains ; there is the “ Hill of Aaron,” at the base of the traditional Horeb; the “Tomb of Aaron,” at the summit of the “ Mountain of Aaron,” overhanging Petra. It is possible, too, that the plateau of the Tih, or of the “Wanderings,” on the north of the Peninsula, — the valley of the Tih, with the Mountain of Gheiboun (Doubt), cm the southern road from Cairo to Suez — and the Gebel ’Attaka, or Mountain of Deliverance, be¬ tween that valley and Suez, have reference to the wander¬ ings and the escape of Israel. But these latter names may perhaps have originated in the dangers and deliverances of the Mecca pilgrimage. Two circumstances throw doubt on the contin- the^ancient uity of this tradition. The first is, that hardly in one instance do the actual localities bear the names preserved in the Old Testament. These names are fre¬ quent and precise. The different regions of the Desert which are indicated by their natural features, as above de¬ scribed, all seem to have had their special nomenclatures. All these as general names have perished. One name only, that of Paran , has lingered in the valley and city of that name — apparently the same as that corrupted into Feiran ; just as the name of Hellas is preserved only in a solitary hamlet on the banks of the Sperchius in Thessaly. The names of the particular stations which are given both in the general narrative, and in the special enumerar tion in the 33d chapter of the Book of Numbers, have also disappeared. There are three possible exceptions : the defile of Muktala may be a corruption of Migdol ; Ajerood of Pi-hahiroth ; Huderah of Hazeroth. But these are all doubtful, and of the others, even of the most celebrated, Marah, Elim, and Rephidim, no trace remains. 1 Burckhardt, p. 517. For the present Mussulman traditions, see Note A. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 31 More remarkable still, perhaps, if we did not remember how very rarely mountains retain their nomenclature from age to age, is the disappearance of the names of Horeb and Sinai.1 What was the original meaning or special appropriation of these two names it is difficult to de¬ termine.2 “ Horeb ” is probably the a Mountain of the Dried-up Ground ;” “ Sinai ” the u Mountain of the Thorn.” Either name applies, therefore, almost equally to the general aspect or to the general vegetation of the whole range. But both are now superseded by the fanciful appellations which attach to each separate peak, or by the common name of “ Tor,” in which all are merged alike. The names now given to the mountains, as be- Modem fore observed, are chieflv derived either from the Immes* adjacent whdys, or from their peculiar vegetation. Some few are called from some natural peculiarity, such as Gebel Hammam, so called from the warm springs at its foot; or Tas Sudr, from its cuplike shape. Some, however, both of the wadys and the mountains, are called from legendary or historical events attached to them. Such are the Wady Es-Sheykh — the central valley of the Peninsula, which derives its name from the tomb of Sheykh Saleh;3 the Gebel-el-Banat — the “ Mountain of the Damsels,” so called from a story of two Bedouin sisters having, in a lit of disappointed love, twisted their hair together, and leaped from the two peaks 1 One of the most intelligent guides I ever saw in any mountain country — Sheykh Zeddan, Sheykh of Serbal, — who accompanied us to the top of that mountain, was wholly unacquainted with the names of Horeb and Sinai ; and this seemed to be the general rule. But it must be observed, that in Nie¬ buhr’s time the Arabs spoke of the whole cluster now called “ Tor ” as “T6r Sina ” (Description de l’Arabie, p. 200); and the little Arab guides of the convent (as will be noticed afterwards, see p. 42) gave to one particular peak the name of “ Sena.” 2 The special use of “Horeb” and “Sinai” in the Old Testament has often been discussed. It appears to me that this depends rather on a distinc¬ tion of usage than of place. 1. In Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, Sinai is always and exclusively used for the scene of the Giving of the Law ; Hovel being only used twice — for the scene of the Burning Bush, and of the Striking of the Rock. (Ex. iii. 1, xvii. 6, are doubtful; Ex. xxxiii. 6, is ambiguous.) 2. In Deuteronomy, Horeb is substituted for Sinai , the former being always used, the latter never, for the Mountain of the Law. 3. In the Psalms, the two are used indifferently for the Mountain of the Law. 4. In 1 Kings xix. 8, it is impossible to determine to what part, if to any special part, Horeb is applied. For a further discussion of the subject, see Lepsius’ Letters, p. 317. 3 See p. 56; Part II., p. 79. 32 SINAI AND PALESTINE. of the mountain, which, in all probability, originated the legend ; Gebel-Katherin, or Mountain of St. Catherine, the scene of the miraculous translation of the body of that saint from Alexandria. This nomenclature suggests the likelihood that the various names before mentioned in con¬ nection with the Mosaic history are comparatively modern. If the monks of the convent have been able so completely to stamp the name of St. Catherine on one of their peaks, there is no reason to doubt that they may have been equally able to stamp the name of Moses on the other.1 But, secondly, the moment that the Arab traditions of Moses are examined in detail, they are too fantastic to be treated seriously. They may well be taken as repre¬ senting some indistinct or mysterious impression left by that colossal figure as he passed before the vision of their ancestors. But it is not possible to apply them for verification of special events or localities. The passage of the Bed Sea, as Niebuhr has well remarked, is fixed wherever the traveller puts the question to his Arab guides. The “ Wells of Moses,” the “ Baths of Pharaoh,” the “ Baths of Moses,” all down the Gulf of Suez, and the “ Island of Pharaoh,” in the Gulf of ’Akaba, equally derive their names from traditions of the passage at each of these particular spots. The “ warm springs of Pharaoh ” are his last breath as the waves past over him ; the “ Wells of Moses,” the “ Baths of Moses,” the great “ Clefts of Moses ” on St. Catherine, and at Petra, are equally the results of Moses’ rod. The “ Mountain of Moses ” is so called, not so much from any tradition of the Giving of the Law, as because it is supposed to contain in the cavity of the granite rock the impression of his back, as he hid himself from the presence of God. His visit to Sinai is apparently separated from that of the Children of Israel, who, according to the Bedouin story, occupied 1 At the same time it is impossible not to remark the much greater slow¬ ness with which loreign traditions strike root here than would be the case in Europe. Since Burckhardt’s time, the spring of Howara has been gene¬ ral y assumed to be Marali. Had this spring been in England. Italy, or Greece, the place would long before this have received the name which travellers and guides are anxious to im¬ pose upon it. But here, in spite of the endeavours made by every party that passes to extract a confession of tho desired name, “Howara” it still is, anil probably will remain. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 33 the whole forty years in vainly endeavoring to cross the platform of the Tih. If the Arab tradition fails in establishing par- 2. Greek ticnlar localities, so does also the Greek tradition tradltlons- as preserved in the convent. How far in earlier times the monks were better guides than they are at present, it is difficult to determine. At present, and as far back as the modern race of travellers extends, there is probably no branch of the vast fraternity of ciceroni so unequal to their task as the twenty-one monks of the most interesting convent in the world. Exiles from the islands in the Greek Archipelago ; rebels against monastic rules at home ; lunatics sent for recovery ; none as a general rule remaining longer than two or three years ; with an im¬ perfect knowledge of Arabic, with no call upon theii exertions and no check upon their ignorance, they know less about the localities which surround them than the humblest of the Bedouin serfs who wait upon their bounty. It may be said, perhaps, that for this very reason, they may have the more faithfully handed down the traditions of the first inhabitants of the convent. Yet. when we y remember how many of these sites have evidently been selected for the sake of convenience rather than of truth, it is not easy to trust a tradition that has descended through such channels even for fifteen hundred years, unless it can render good its claim to be the offspring of another, which requires for its genuineness another fifteen hundred still. In order to bring it into the round of the daily sights, the cleft of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, is transferred from Kadesh Barnea to the foot of Horeb. The peak of Gebel Mousa, now pointed out by them as the scene of the giving of the Law, fails to meet the most pressing requirements of the narrative. Hephidim has been always shown within an hour’s walk instead of a day’s march from the mountain. The monks in the last century confessed or rather boasted that they had themselves in¬ vented the footmark of Mahomet’s mule, in order to secure the devotion of the Bedouins. The cypress, surmounted by a cross, and cut into the shape of a serpent, in the court of the convent, in all probability was intended to 3 34 SINAI AND PALESTINE. commemorate the really remote event of the erection of the Brazen Serpent.1 Tor, and even ’Akaba, were long shown as Elim.2 There are, however, some few traces of traditions extend- 3. Early ing beyond the age of Justinian, or of Mahomet, traditions which ought not to be disregarded. Josephus, here as elsewhere, refers throughout to sources of information not contained in the Old Testament, yet free from the gro¬ tesqueness and absurdity of the Rabbinical interpretations, of Eusebius Eusebius and Jerome also speak as if the nomen- and Jerome; c}afure 0f the Desert was in some instances known to them, either by tradition or conjecture. The selection of the sites of the two great convents of Feiran and St. Cath¬ erine, though it may have been dictated in part by the con¬ venience of the neighboring water and vegetation, yet must also have been in part influenced by a pre-existing belief in the sanctity of those spots. One point there is, — not, in¬ deed, in the Peninsula itself, but in connection with the route of the Israelites — in which the local tradition so remarkably coincides with every indication furnished by historical no¬ tices, and by the nature of the country, as not only to vindi- ect cate credibility for itself, but to lend some autho- ing Mount rity to the traditions of the Desert generally — the Hor “ Mountain of Aaron” in all probability, the “ Hor” of Aaron’s grave.4 The cycle of Mosaic names and tradi¬ tions, which seems most reasonably to point to a genuine Arab source, is that which relates to the Arab chief and Jethro, or ^ag qe js caHed from his other name “ Cho- > This observation I owe to the accu¬ rate drawing of the convent by my friend Mr. Herbert Berries. 2 Wellsted (ii., 13) says that “the traditions of the country assert Tor ro be Elitn, where Moses and his household encamped and “ that the Mohammedan pilgrims proceeding to or returning from Mecca give implicit credence to the tradition,” and “ be¬ lieve the waters to be efficacious in removing cutaneous and other tropical disorders.” This shows the importance of an accurate distinction of the differ¬ ent classes of tradition. There is no doubt that the Mussulmans regard the wells as the Paths of Moses; but the question is, wdiether they regard them as Elim, or whether, as is probable, that is not a name given by the Greek con¬ vent, to which the palm-grove of Tor be¬ longs. s At the same time the rash conjecture that Jerome makes about the second encampment by the Red Sea (Numb, xxxiii., 10) shows that he was quite un¬ acquainted with the details of the geo¬ graphy. He speaks of it as a great difficulty, and solves it by imagining that there was a bay running inland, or that a pool of water with reeds (?) may possibly have been the Reedy Sea. (Ep, ad Ea biolam.) 4 See Part II. xvi. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 35 bab”) Shouaib. The most remarkable of these is the Wady Shouaib ; according to one version, the valley east of Gebel Mousa, in which the convent stands; according to another, the ravine leading down into that valley from the Ras Sasafeh. Probably the Wady Leja on the western side of the same range, and the Gebel Fureia above the plain Er-Raheh, point to the two daughters of Jethro,1 called in the Arabian legends Lija and Safuria (Zipporali). There is also the cave of Shouaib2 on the eastern shores of the Gulf of ’Akaba, a tradition the more remarkable as being by its situation removed from any connection with the Christian convents, and also being the very region which, in all probability, is the country described as Jethro’s Midian in the Pentateuch. IV. Bearing these earliest traditions in mind, o # # ' Route whenever they can be traced, it may still be possible, of the is- by the internal evidence of the country itself, to lay down, not indeed the actual route of the Israelites in every stage, but, in almost all cases, the main alternatives between which we must choose, and, in some cases, the very spots themselves. Hitherto no one traveller has traversed more than one, or at most two routes of the Desert; and thus the determination of these questions has been obscured, first, by the tendency of every one to make the Israelites follow his own track, and secondly, by his inability to institute a just comparison between the facilities or the difficulties which attend the routes which he has not seen. This obscurity will always exist till some competent traveller has explored the whole Peninsula. When this has been fairly done, there is little doubt that some of the most important topographical questions now at issue will be set at rest. Meanwhile, with the materials before us, it may be useful to give a summary of the points in dispute as they at present stand.3 1. Thepas. 1. The passage of the Red Sea, has been extended, SseL the * Seo Weil’s Biblical Legends, p. 10L 2 Itinerary of Mecca Pilgrims in Wel- sted’s ,l Arabia,” ii., 459. 3 In all that follows I have confined myself to the most concise statement consistent with perspicuity. The map must be in many cases its own in¬ terpreter. I must also refer to the subsequent portion of this Chapter (Part II.) 36 SINAI AND PALESTINE. as already observed, by the Arab traditions down the whole Gulf of Suez, and even to the Gulf of ’Akaba.1 But it may, for all practical purposes, be confined to two points — the Wady Tuarick, opposite the Wells of Moses; or the immediate neighborhood of Suez ; whether at the pre¬ sent fords, or at some point higher up the gulf which then, doubtless, extended further northward. In favour cf the former locality, besides the usual Arab tradition, there is the earlier statement of Josephus that the start was made from Latopolis, which he identifies with the Egyptian Babylon, that is, Old Cairo. If they started from this city, standing almost at the entrance of the valley which opens on the southern point of passage, the great probability is that they would have followed that course throughout. This, perhaps, is the chief argument in favour of the theory of the southern pas¬ sage. But the traditions of Josephus can hardly weigh against those2 of the Alexandrine translators, who make the departure to be from some point in the Delta in the neighbourhood of Heroopolis.3 And, in all other points, the words of the narrative almost imperatively require the shallower, the narrower, and therefore the more northern passage. If the “ strong east wind,” or, according to the Septuagint, “the strong south4 wind,” was used to part the waters, we must select a portion of the sea whose depth is not too great to forbid the agency of wind ; and this can only be at the northern end, wdiere the shoals are, and must always have been, sufficient to render a shallower passage possible. If the passage of 600,000 armed men was 1 The best representation of the con¬ flicting theories is given in the map of La horde’s Commentary on Exodus and Numbers. For the general scene, see Part II., ii. 2, 3. 2 Josephus, Ant., II., xv. 1. 3 Compare Ex. xii. 37, — “ They de¬ parted from Rameses,” — with Gen. xlvi. 28 — “ to Heroopolis in the land of Ra¬ meses.” (LXX.) See also the almost conclusive arguments by which Lepsius decides the identity of Abu-Kesheb with Rameses. (Letters, p. 438. Bohn’s Ed.) 4 Ndr e’t w eej may call the northern, the central, and the southern, Gebei Mousa the northern and the southern combine in this result, that they omit Mount Serbal, and necessarily take the Israelites to Gebel Mousa, or at least some mountain in PENINSULA OF SINAI. 39 the eastern extremity of the peninsula. But the central route, after leaving the plain of Murka, mounts by the successive stages of the Wady Shellal, the Nakb Badera, and the Wady Mokatteb, to the Wady Feiran and its great mountain, Serbal, the pride of this cluster. If, as is most probable for the reasons just assigned, the Israelites took this road, the question is at once opened whether Serbal be the Sinai of the Exodus? If it be, then we are here arrived at the end of their journey. If, on the other hand, the Israelites could be shown to have taken the northern or the southern road, or if there are insuperable objections to the identification of Serbal with Sinai, the end is to be sought where it has usually been found, in the cluster of Gebel Mousa. Between these two clusters the question must lie.1 Each has its natural recommendations, which will best appear on proceeding. The claims of tradition are very nearly equal. Gebel Mousa is now the only one which puts forward any pretensions to be considered as the place, and is indeed the only region of the Sinaitic mountains where any traditions can be said to linger. They are certainly as old as the 6th century : and they probably reach back still further. On the other hand, though Serbal has in later times lost its historical name, in earlier ages it enjoyed a larger support of tradition than Gebel Mousa. This, at least, is the natural inference from the Sinaitic inscriptions, which, of whatever date, must be prior to the age of Justinian, founder of the Convent of St. Catherine ; and which are found at the very top of the mountain and the ruined edifice on its central summit. This too is the impression conveyed by the existence of the episcopal city of Paran, at its foot, which also existed prior to the foundations of Justinian. And the description of Horeb by Josephus2 as a mountain, 1 Till Urn-Shomer has been tho¬ roughly explored it would be rash to discard entirely the highest point of the peninsula. It was ascended by Burckhardt to within 200 feet of the summit, which is white. The plain of El-Ka’a is immediately below. There is a spring and lig-trees, the turns of a convent (Deir Antous), and there are strange stories of sounds like thunder. (Burckhardt, 58G — 5,S 8.) These points agree to a certain extent with the scriptural indications of Sinai, yet it is so far removed from any con¬ ceivable track of the Israelites as to render its claims highly improbable. 2 Jos. Ant. II., xii. 1. 40 SINAI AND PALESTINE. “the highest of the region,” “with good grass growing round it,” is more like the impression that is produced on a traveller by Serbal than that derived from any other mountain usually seen in the range. It was undoubtedly identified with Sinai by Eusebius, Jerome, and Cosmas ; that is, by all known writers till the tin e of Justinian. Ruppell also asserts that the summit of Serbal was regarded by the Bedouins who accompanied him, as a sacred place, to which at certain times they brought sacrifices.1 There remains the question, whether there is any solution of the rival claims of Serbal and Gebel Mousa, which can give to each a place in the sacred history. Such an attempt has been made by Hitter, who, with his usual union of diffidence and learning, suggests the possibility that Serbal may have been 44 the Mount of God,”2 the sanctuary of the heathen tribes of the Desert, — already sacred before Israel came, and that to which Pharaoh would understand that they were going their long journey into the Wilderness for sacrifice. It may then have been the WAdy Feiran that witnessed the battle of Hephidim,3 the building of the Altar on the hill, and the visit of Jethro, and after this long pause, in 44 the third month,” they may again have moved forward to 44 Sinai,” the cluster of Gebel Mousa. There are two points gained by any such solution ; first, that Sinai may then be identified with Gebel Mousa, without the difficulty, otherwise considerable, that the narrative brings the Israelites through the two most striking features of the Desert — Wady Feiran and Serbal — without any notice of the fact ; and, secondly that it gives a scene, at least in some respects well-suited, for the encampment at liephi- dim, the most remarkable which occurred before the final 1 For the comparison of all these arguments in favor of Serbal, see Lepshis’ Letters (Bohn), pp. 310 — 321, 556 — 562. I have been unwilling to enter into more detail than was necessary to g.ve a general view of the question at issue. See Part II., vii. 3 Exodus iii. 1. ; iv. 27. 3 Bitter, Sinai, pp. 728 — 744. If Feirdn be Rep lidim, one serious diffi- lulty arises from the abundance of water in a spot where Israel is de¬ scribed as wanting water. But this applies even more to any spot in the neighborhood of Gebel Mousa. Grant (vol. ii., 256) suggests that the biO' k of Feiran may (by a fallen rock) have been subsequently diverted into its present course; or, that it may have been dry, as it was when he saw it (March 9th, 1853). PENINSULA OE SINAI. 41 one in front of Sinai itself. How far the narrative itself contains sufficient grounds for such a distinction between the two mountains is, in our present state of knowledge, very uncertain. If “ Horeb ” be taken for the generic name of the whole range, and not necessarily as identical with Sinai, then there is only one passage left (Exod. xxiv. 13, 16) in which, in the present text, “ the Mount of God ” is identified with “ Sinai ;” and even if Horeb be identified with Sinai, yet the variations of the Septuagint on this point show how easily the title of one mountain might be assumed into the text as the title of the other after the distinction between the two had been forgotten. In Exod. iii. 1, where a the Mountain of God” occurs in the present Hebrew text, it is omitted in the LXX. (though not in the Alexandrian MS. ;) as in Exod. xix. 3, where it occurs in the LXX., it is omitted by the Hebrew text. This would agree well with the slight topographical details of the battle. In every passage where Sinai, and Horeb, and the Mount of God, and Mount Paran are spoken of, the Hebrew word “ Hor ” for “mountain” is invariably1 used. But in Exod. xvii. 9, 10, in the account of the battle of Rephidim, the word used is “ Gibeah,” rightly translated “hill.” Every one who has seen the valley of Feiran will at once recognise the propriety of the term, if applied to the rocky eminence which commands the palm-grove, and on which, in early Christian times, stood the church and palace of the Bishops of Paran. Thus if we can attach any credence to the oldest known tradition of the Peninsula, that Rephidim is the same as Paran, then Rephidim, “ the resting-place,” is the natural name for the paradise of the Bedouins in the adjacent palm-grove ; then the hill of the Church of Paran may fairly be imagined to be “ the hill ” on which Moses stood, deriving its earliest consecration from the altar which he built ; the Amale- kites may thus have naturally fought for the oasis of the Desert, and the sanctuary of their gods; and Jethro may well have found his kinsmen encamping after their long journey, amongst the palms “ before the ; In Ex. xxiv. 4, is fie Si\me word, though mistranslated “hill.” See Appendix sub voc< 42 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Mount of God,” and acknowledged that the Lord was greater even than all the gods who had from ancient days been thought to dwell on the lofty peaks which over¬ hung their encampment. And then the ground is clear for the second start, described in the following chapter. “ They £ departed ’ from Rephidim, and came to the Desert of Sinai, and ‘ pitched ’ in the Wilderness ; and there Israel encamped before the Mount.”1 If the Wady Feiran, from its palm-grove and its brook, be marked out as the first long halting-place of Israel, the high valleys of Gebel Mousa with their abundant springs no less mark out the second. The great thorough¬ fare of the Desert, the longest, and widest, and most con¬ tinuous of all the valleys, the Wady Es-Sheykh, would lead the great bulk of the host, with the flocks and herds, by the more accessible though more circuitous route into the central upland ; whilst the chiefs of the people would mount directly to the same point by the Nakb Iiowy, and all would meet in the Wady Er-Raheh, the “ enclosed plain ” in front of the magnificent cliffs of the Eds Sasafeh. It is possible that the end of the range Furei’a, to which the Arab guides give the name of Sena, may have a better claim than the Ras Sasafeh, from the fact that it commands both the Wady Er-Raheh and the Wady Es-Sheykh; and that alone of those peaks it appears to retain a vestige of the name of Sinai. It is said to contain a level platform with trees,2 and undoubtedly any future traveller will do well to explore it. But no one who has approached the Ras Sasafeh through that noble plain, or who has looked down upon the plain from that majestic height, will willingly part with the belief that these are the two essential features of the view of the Israelite camp.3 That such a plain should exist at all in front of such a cliff is so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative, as to furnish a strong internal argument, not merely of its identity with the scene, Exod. xix. 2. Mousa. As this is a matter of detail I 2 bee t’almer’s Map of Arabia and have thought it best to reserve the ar- , Syria. gumeut to be stated according to my * ? Ritter (Sinai, 590 — 598) argues for own impressions on the .spot. See Iko t the Wady Seb’ayeh, at the back of (dobel II., p. 75. MAP OF THE TRADITIONAL SINAI. f n/-.- Ti n_n r * - - ■ . 'T . ! ■ ; ■ - ' • < : ■■ . ■ •• ■ . ■ i PENINSULA OF SINAI. 43 but of the scene itself having been described by an eye- witness. The awful and lengthened approach, as to some natural sanctuary, would have been the fittest preparation for the coming scene. The low line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly answer to the “ bounds ” which were to keep the people off from 66 touching the Mount.” The plain itself is not broken and uneven and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presents a long retiring sweep, against which the people could “ remove and stand afar off.” The cliff, rising like a huge altar, in front of the whole congre¬ gation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of “ the mount that might be touched,” and from which the voice of God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the plain below, widened at that point to its utmost extent by the confluence of all the contiguous valleys. Here, beyond all other parts of the Peninsula, is the adytum, withdrawn as if in the “ end of the world,” from all the stir and confusion of earthly things.1 And as in the Wady Feiran 66 the hill” of Paran may be taken as fixing with some degree of probability the scene of Rephidim, so there are some details of the plain of Er-Raheh which remarkably coincide with the scene of the worship of the Golden Calf, evidently the same as that of the encampment at the time of the Delivery of the Law. In this instance the traditional locality is happily chosen. A small eminence at the entrance of the convent valley is marked by the name of Aaron, as being that from which Aaron surveyed the festival on the wide plain below. This tradition, if followed out, would of necessity require the encampment to be in the Wady Er-Raheh, as every other circumstance renders probable. But there are two other points which meet here, and nowhere else. First, Moses is described as descending the mountain without seeing the people; the shout strikes the ear of his companion before they ascertain the cause ; the view bursts upon him suddenly as he draws nigh to the camp, and he throws i “ If I were to make a model of the valley of the convent of Mount Sinai.” end of the world, it would be from the — Henniker, p. 225. 44 SINAI AND PALESTINE. down the tables and dashes them in pieces “ beneath the mount.”1 Such a combination might occur in the Wady Er-Raheh. Any one coming down from one of the secluded basins behind the Ras Sasafeh, through the oblique gullies which flank it on the north and south, would hear the sounds borne through the silence from the plain, hut would not see the plain itself till he emerged from the Wady El-Deir or the Wady Leja ; and when he did so, he would be immediately under the precipitous cliff of Sasafeh. Further, we are told that Moses strewed the powder of the fragments of the idol on the “ waters ”2 of the “ brook that came down out of the mount.” This would be perfectly possibly in the Wady Er-Raheh, into which issues the brook of the Wady Leja, descending, it is true, from Mount St. Catherine, but still in sufficiently close connection with the Gebel Mousa to justify the expression, 4£ coming down out of the mount.” These two coincidences, which must be taken for what they are worth, would not occur either at Serbal or in the Wady Sebayeh. In the case of the former, although there is the brook from the Wady Aleyat, which would probably meet the description, there is no corresponding contiguity of the encampment. In the case of the latter, both are wanting. 6. It is hardly necessary, after what has been localities of said, to examine minutely the special traditional the history. joca[^.*eg 0f Mousa. How little could have been the desire of finding a place which should realise the general impressions of the scene ; how the great event which has made Sinai famous was forgotten in the search after traces of special incidents, of which there could be no me¬ morial, and in the discovery of which there could be no real instruction, is sufficiently apparent from the fact that, amongst all the pilgrims who visited Mount Sinai for so many centuries, hardly one noticed, and not one paid any attention to the great plain of Er-Raheh. And yet it is the very fea¬ ture which since the time that it was (we may almost say) first discovered by Lord Lindsay and Dr. Robinson, must strike any thoughtful observer as the point in the whole range the most illustrative of Israelite history. There is, 1 Exod. xxxii. 15 — 19. 3 Exod. xxxii. 20; D^ut. ix. 21. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 45 however, one general remark that applies to almost all the lesser localities. If, on the one hand, the general features of the Desert, and of the plain beneath the Has Sasafeh in particular, accord with the authentic history of Israel, there is little doubt on the other, that the physical peculiar¬ ities of the district have suggested most of the legendary scenes which subsequent tradition has fastened on that his¬ tory. Where almost every rock is a “ lusus naturae,” it is not surprising that men, like the Greek monks or the Be¬ douin Arabs, as keen in their search for special traces of the history as they wrere indifferent to its impression as a whole, should have seen marks of it everywhere. The older tra¬ vellers, the Prefect of the Franciscan Convent, Pococke, Shaw, and others, all notice what they call Den- ^ drite-stones, — i. e. stones with fossil trees marked upon them. It is curious that these have never been ob¬ served in later times. But in the early ages they seem to have been regarded as amongst the great wonders of the mountain; they were often supposed to be the memorials of the Burning Bush.1 * The mark of the back of Thebackof Moses on the summit of the mountain, which bears Moses> his name, has been already mentioned. Still more evident is the mark of the body of St. Catherine on the T'lif4 hod v of summit of Gebel Katherin. The rock of the high- st. oath est part of that mountain swells into the form of a human body, its arms swathed like that of a mummy, but headless the counterpart, as it is alleged, of the corpse of the beheaded Egyptian saint. It is difficult to trace the earliest form of the legend, now so familiar through pictorial art, of the transference of the Alexandrian m rtyr by angelic hands to the summit of Mount Sinai, — a legend which, in the convent to which the relics are thence said to have been carried down, almost ranks on an equality with the history of the Burning Bush and of the Giving of the Law. But not improbably this grotesque figure on the rock furnishes not merely the illustration, but the origin of the story.3 A third well-known instance 1 See Soheuchzer’s Physique Sacree, vol. ii., p. 2G. 3 It is well described by Monconys, p. 441. Fa^akerlcy wa. .old tkai the rock had swelled into this form on the arrival of the body. (Walpole, ii 371.) 3 Faleonius (see Butler’s Lives of the 46 SINAI AND PALESTINE. The Cow's of the kind is what in earlier times was called the head- head — at present the mould of the head1 — of the molten calf, just as the rock of St. Catherine is sometimes called the body itself ; sometimes (to accommodate it to the story of the transference of the relics to the convent), the place on which the body rested. It is a natural cavity, in a juncture of one or two stones, possibly adapted in some slight measure by art, representing rudely the round head, with two horns spreading out of it, A fourth, is one The foot- . . ~ . 7 n.ark of the of the many curious fissures and holes in the weath- Mule. " er-beaten rocks near the summit of Gebel Mousa, pointed out as the footmark of the mule or dromedary of Mahomet. It is true that the monks themselves, in the seventeenth century, declared to the Prefect of the Francis¬ can Convent that this mark had been made by themselves, to secure the protection of the Bedouin tribes. But it has more the appearance of a natural hollow, and it is more probable that they were unwilling to let the Prefect imagine that such a phenomenon should be accidental, than that they The sun- actually invented it. Another (which has not found iiTrnfing its way into books), is the legend in the convent Bush. ^ag repreSented in an ancient picture of the tradi¬ tional localities) of the sunbeam, which on one day in the year darts into the Chapel of the Burning Bush from the Cfebel-ed-Deir.2 It is only by ascending the mountain that the origin of the legend appears. Behind the topmost cliffs, a narrow cleft admits of a view, of the only view, into the convent buildings, which lie far below, but precisely com¬ manded by it, and therefore necessarily lit up by the ray, which once in the year darts through that especial crevice. The rock the most famous of all these relics is the Bock oi Moses. Moses Every traveller has described, with more or less accuracy, the detached mass,3 from 10 to 15 feet high as it stands, — in the wild valley of the Leja, under the ridge Saints, Nov. 25) expressly asserts his belief that the whole story of the miraculous transportation of the body by angels was merely a legendary repre¬ sentation of the “ translation ot the relics’' from Alexandria to Sinai in the eighth century by the monks. It is thus a curious eastern counterpart of the angelic flight of the House of Loretto. 1 To Burckhardt it was shown as the head of the calf (p. 583). He notices the fact, that the Arab guides called it, as now, Ras Bukkara, the head of the cow*- 2 See Burckhardt, p. 579. 3 See Part II., p. 77. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 47 of the Ufis Sasafeh, — slightly leaning forwards, a rude seam or scoop running over each side, intersected by wide slits or cracks, which might, by omitting or including those of less distinctness, be enlarged or diminished to any number be¬ tween ten and twenty ; perhaps ten on each side would be the most correct account ; and the stone between each of those cracks worn away as if by the dropping of water from the crack immediately above. Unlike as this isolated fragment is to the image usually formed of “ the rock in IToreb,” and incompatible as its situation is with any tenable theory of the event with which it professes to be con¬ nected, yet to uncultivated minds, regardless of general truth, and eager for minute coincidence, it was most natu¬ ral that this rock should have suggested the miracle of Moses. There is every reason accordingly to believe that this is the oldest legendary locality in the district. It is probable that it was known even in the time of Josephus, who speaks of the rock as “ lying beside 1116111” — naQaneifjiEVfiv1 — an expression naturally applicable to a fragment like this, but hardly to a cliff in the mountain. The situation and form of this stone would also have accommodated itself to the strange Rabbinical belief that the “ rock followed ”2 them through the wilderness ; a belief, groundless enough under any circumstances, but more natural if any Jewish pilgrims had seen or heard of this detached mass by the mountain side. It next appears, or rather, perhaps, we should say, its first unquestionable appearance, is in the reference made more than once in the Koran3 to the rock with the twelve mouths for the twelve tribes of Israel, evidently alluding to the curious cracks in the stone, as now seen. These allusions probably increased, if they did not originate, the reverence of the Bedouins, who, at least down to the present generation of travellers, are described as muttering their prayers before it, and thrusting grass into the supposed mouths of the stone. From the middle ages onwards, it has always been shown to Christian pilgrims ; and the rude crosses on the sides, as well as the traces of stone 1 Ant. TIL, i. 1 3 Koran, li. 57 ; vii. 160. 3 See Notes on 1 Cor. x. 4. 48 SINAI AND PALESTINE, chipped away, indicate the long reverence in which it has been held. In more modern times it has been used to serve the two opposite purposes, of demonstrating on the one hand the truth of the Mosaic history, and on the other hand the lying practices of the monastic system. Bishop Clayton triumphantly quotes it as a voice from the Desert, providentially preserved to put the infidels of tlie eighteenth century to shame. Sir Gard¬ ner Wilkinson as positively brings it forward to prove the deceptions practised by the Greek Church to secure the respect of the Arabs and the visits of pilgrims. It is one of the many instances in which both arguments are equally wrong. It is evidently, like the other examples given above, a trick of nature, which has originated a le¬ gend, and, through the legend, a sacred locality. Probably less would have been said of it, had more travellers ob¬ served what Sir Frederick Henniker1 alone has expressly noticed, namely, the fragment which lies in the same valley, less conspicuous, but with precisely similar marks. But, taking it merely for what it is, of all the lesser objects of interest in Sinai, the rock of Moses is the most remark¬ able ; clothed with the longest train of associations, allied in thought, though not in fact, to the image which, of all others in the Exodus, has, perhaps, been most frequently repeated in the devotions of Jewish and Christian worship ; of all the objects in the Desert most bound up with the sim¬ ple faith of its wild inhabitants and of its early visitants. V. It has been said, that the history of the Pe- Litci' Iiis** ' tor y of the ninsula is confined to the history of the Exodus, i o. msuia. Yet we must not forget that it is the oldest of the 66 Holy Places,” and accordingly, the halo of that first glory has rested upon it long after the events themselves had ceased. There are, as has been already intimated, traces of a sanctity even anterior to the passage of the Israelites, — • a “ Mount of God,” honoured by the Amalekite Arabs, and known at the Egyptian Court 5 a belief, as Josephus tells us, 1 TIenniker’s Notes, pp. 233, 242. This fragment we saw in 1853. Po- cocke (i. 147) had heard of a similar stone, sixteen miles to the north-west. Possibly this might be the “ Seat of Moses,” described by Laborde, in the Bueib (“ little gate ’) or Pa^s of the Wady Es Sheykh. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 49 that a Divine presence dwelt in those awful cliffs — on that long ascent, deemed unapproachable by human footsteps ; the rich pastures round the mountain foot avoided even by the wandering shepherds.1 But this reverence, whatever it was, or to whichever point it might be more especially attached, must have been thrown into the shade from the moment that it was announced that the ground on which Moses stood was “ holy ground,” — still more from the day when the Law was given, in “ fire, and blackness, and tempest.” Yet, as it has been well observed,2 so high already did the Beligion which was there first proclaimed tower above any local bonds, that throughout the whole subsequent history of Judaism there is but one known instance of a visit to this its earliest birthplace. The whole tenor of the historical and prophetical Scriptures is to withdraw the mind from the Desert to Palestine — from Sinai to Zion. “ Why leap ye so, ye high ‘ mountains ?’ This (Jerusalem) is the ‘ mountain’ which God desire th to dwell in. . . . The Lord is among them, as in Sinai , in the holy place.”3 “ God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.”4 The sanctuary of Horeb was not living but dead and deserted. One visi- 1# Elijah.s tant, however, there was to this wild region — it visit- may be, as the only one known, out of many unknown pil¬ grims, but, more probably, an exception proving the rule — driven here only by the extraordinary circumstances of his time, and bv his own character and mission, the great prophet Elijah. The scene of the address to Elijah is now localized in the secluded plain immediately below the highest point of Gebel Mousa, marked by the broken chapel, and by the solitary cypress. There, or at Serbal, may equally be found 66 the cave,”5 the only indication by which the sacred narrative identifies the spot. There, 1 Ant. III., v. 1; II., xii. 1. tainly seems to indicate a special 2 Quart. Rev. No. cxxxvii. p. 156. locality of some kind. If Serbal were 3 Psalm lxviii. 16, 17. either Sinai or “Horeb the Mount 4 Hab. iii. 3. of God,” there is a cave — or rather 5 1 Kings xix. 9 — 13. Ewald, in the cavity — much talked of by the Bedouin expression “ the cave,” ver. 9 (the Sheyk of the mountain as the cave article is not in the English version), (the “ Meg dr a”) to which travellers sees the indication of its being a are taken— formed by the overhang- cavern, well known for the recep- ing rock of the summit. See Part bon of pilgrims. The expression cer- TI , vii. 4 50 SINAI AND PALESTINE. or at Serbal, equally may have passed before him the vision in which the wind rent the granite mountains, and broke in pieces the “ cliffs,”1 followed as at the time of Moses, by the earthquake and the fire, and then, in the si¬ lence of the desert air, by the “ still small voice.” 2. visit of We hear of Sinai no more till the Christian era. ints ^f0™. In the local touches that occur from time to time eephus. *n j0Sephus, the question rises, whether he, or those from whom he received his information, had really passed through the Desert. The “ mountain” of ivhich he speaks emphatically on the shores of the Bed Sea can be no other than the Gebel ’Attaka; the “rock lying beside” Mount Sinai is probably the stone of Moses ; and although it may be dif¬ ficult in “ the highest mountain of the range, so high as not to be visible without straining of the sight,”2 to recognise any peak of Sinai, yet the exaggeration is precisely similar to that in which he indulges in speaking of the precipices, which he had himself seen, about J erusalem. There is ano¬ ther traveller through Arabia at this time, on whose visit to Mount Sinai we should look with still greater interest. 3. Allusions “ I went into Arabia,” says St. Paul,3 in describing of st. Paul. p*s conversion to the Galatians. It is useless to speculate, yet when, in a later chapter4 of the same Epistle, the words fall upon our ears, “ This Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia,” it is difficult to resist the thought that he, too, may have stood upon the rocks of Sinai, and heard from Arab lips the often repeated “ Hagar,” — “ rock,” — suggest¬ ing the double meaning to which that text alludes. If the sanctity of Sinai was forgotten under the Jewish Dispensation, still more likely was it to be set aside under the Christian, where not merely its contrast, but its infe¬ riority, was the constant burden of all the allusions to it — • “ the mount that gendereth to bondage,” “ the mount that might be touched.”5 But what its own associations could not win for it, its desert solitudes did. From the neighbouring shores of Egypt — the parent land of monasticism — the anchorites and coenobites were drawn 1 Ver. 11. The word is {1 Sela,” not “Tzur;” see p. 96, and Appendix 2 Ant. III., y. 1. 3 Gal. i. 11. 4 Gal. iv. 24, 25. * Heb. xii. 18. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 51 by the sight of these wild mountains across the Red Sea ; and beside the palm-groves of Feiran, and the springs of Gebel Mousa, were gathered a host of cells and 4. christial) convents. The whole range must have been then to liermitages- the Greek church what Athos is now. No less than six thousand monks or hermits congregated round Gebel Mousa and Paran must almost have deserved the name of a city at the time when it was frequented by the Arabian pilgrims, who wrote their names on the sandstone rocks of the Wady Mokatteb and the granite blocks of Serbal. Pro¬ bably, the tide of Syrian and Byzantine pilgrims chiefly turned to Gebel Mousa ; the African and Alexandrian, to the nearer sanctuary at Feiran. Of all these memorials of ancient devotion, the great convent of the Transfigura¬ tion, or, as it was afterwards called, of St. Cathe- . . . -rji i i • -i -i , Convent of rme, alone remains. it has been described by st cathe every traveller, and with the utmost detail by Burckhardt and by Robinson. But it is so singular of its kind, that a short summary of its aspect and recollections is essential to any account of the Peninsula of Sinai. Those who have seen the Grande Chartreuse in the Alps of Dauphiny, know the shock produced by the sight of that vast edifice in the midst of its mountain desert — the long, irregular pile, of the Parisian architecture of the fifteenth century, the one habitation of the upland wilder¬ ness of which it is the^centre. It is this feeling, raised to its highest pitch, which is roused on finding in the heart of the Desert of Sinai the stately Convent of St. Catherine, with its massive walls, its gorgeous church hung with ban¬ ners, its galleries of chapels, of cells, and of guest-chambers, its library of precious manuscripts, the sound of its rude cymbals calling to prayer, and changed by the echoes into music as it rolls through the desert valley, the double standard of the Lamb and Cross floating high upon its topmost towers.3 And this contrast is height¬ ened still more by the fact, that, unlike most monastic retreats, its inhabitants and its associations are not 1 Burckhardt, 54G. 3 See Note B. * Part of it is built on tne slope of Gebel Mousa, to avoid blocking up the narrow valley, and so preventing the rush of the torrents. (Wellsted, ii. 87.) 52 SINAI AND PALESTINE. indigenous, but wholly foreign, to the soil where they have struck root. The monks of the Grande Chartreuse, however secluded from the world, are still Frenchmen ; the monks of Subiaco are still Italians. But the monks of Sinai are not Arabs, but Greeks. There in the midst of the Desert, the very focus of the pure Se¬ mitic race, the traveller hears once again the accents of the Greek tongue ; meets the natives of Thessalonica and of Samos ; sees in the gardens the produce, not of the Desert or of Egypt, but of the isles of Greece ; not the tamarisk, or the palm, or the acacia, but the olive, the almond tree, the apple tree, the poplar, and the cypress of Attica and Corcyra. And as their present state so also their past origin, is alike strange to its local habitation. No Arab or Egyptian or Syrian patriarch erected that massive pile ; no pilgrim princess, no ascetic King : a Byzantine Emperor, the, most worldly of his race, the great * legislator Justinian, was its founder. The fame of his architectural magnificence, which has left its monuments in the most splendid churches of Constantinople and Itavenna, had penetrated even to the hermits of Mount Sinai ; and they, “ when they heard that he delighted to build churches and found convents, made a journey to him, and complained how the wandering sons of Ishmael were wont to attack them suddenly, eat up their provisions, desolate the place, enter the cells, and carry off everything — how they also broke into the church and devoured even the holy wafers.”1 To build for them as they desired a convent which should be to them for a stronghold, was a union of policy and religion which exactly suited the sagacious Emperor. Petra was just lost, and there was now no point of defence against the Arabian tribes, on the whole route between Jerusalem and Memphis. Such a point might be furnished by the proposed fortress of Sinai ; and as the old Pharaonic and even Ptolemaic kings of Egypt had defended their frontier against the tribes of the Desert by fortified temples,2 so the Byzantine Emperor determined 1 Eutychii Annales, tom. ii. p. 190; Robinson, Biblical Researches, L p. 556. 2 See Sharpe’s History of Egypt, p. 565. PENINSULA OF SINAI. Od to secure a safe transit through the Desert by a fortified convent. A tower ascribed to Helena furnished the nucleus. It stood by the traditional sites of the Well of Jethro and the Burning Bush, a retreat for the hermits when in former times they had been hard pressed by their Bedouin neighbours. It still remains, the residence of the Archbishop of Sinai, if that term may he applied to an abo&e in which that great dignitary is never resident ; the very gate through which he should enter having been walled up since 1722, to avoid the enormous outlay for the Arab tribes, who, if it were open for his reception, have an inalienable right to be sup¬ ported for six months at the expense of the convent.1 Round about this tower, like a little town, extend in every direction the buildings of the convent, now indeed nearly deserted, but still by their number indicating the former greatness of the place, when each of the thirty- six chapels was devoted to the worship of a separate sect.2 Athwart the whole stretches the long roof of Ihe church ; within which, amidst the barbaric splendour of the Greek ritual, may be distinguished with interest the lotus-capitals of the columns — probably the latest imitation of the old Egyptian architecture ; and high in the apse behind the altar — too high and too obscure to recognise their features or lineaments distinctly — the two medallions of Justinian and Theodora, probably, with the exception of those in St. Vitalis, at Ravenna, the only existing likenesses of those two great and wicked sovereigns ; than whom perhaps few could be named who had broken more completely every one of the laws which have given to Sinai its eternal sacredness. High beside the church, towers another edifice, in5th^°g*"! which introduces us to yet another link in the recol- vent lections of Sinai — another pilgrim, who, if indeed he ever passed though these valleys, ranks in importance with any who have visited the spot, since Moses first led thither the flocks of Jethro. No one can now prove or disprove 1 See Robinson, Biblical Researches, i. see the Journey of the Franciscan Prefect 142. published by Bishop Clayton, p. 22 2 For a good account of the chapels. 54 SINAI AND PALESTINE. of^frfSt the tradition which relates that Mahomet, whilst jet of Mahomet. a Camel-driver in Arabia, wandered to the great con¬ vent, then not a century old. It is at least not impossible, and the repeated allusions in the Koran to the stone of Moses,1 evidently that now exhibited ; to the holy valley of Tuwa,2 a name now lost, but by which he seems to designate the present valley of the convent ; and to the special ad¬ dresses made to Moses on the western, and on the southern slopes of the mountain,3 almost bring it within the range of probability. His name certainly has been long preserved, either by the policy or the friendliness of the monks. No where else probably in the Christian world is to be found such a cordial, it might also be said such a tender feeling towards the Arabian prophet and his. followers, as in the precincts and the memorials of the Convent of Mount Sinai. “As he rested,” so the story has with slight variations been told from age to age,4 “ as he rested with his camels on Mount Menejia,5 an eagle was seen to spread its wings over his head, and the monks, struck by this augury of his future greatness, received him into their convent, and he in return, unable to write, stamped with ink on his hand the signature to a contract of protection, drawn up on the skin of a gazelle, and deposited in the archieves of the convent.” This contract, if it ever existed, has long since disappeared ; it is said, that it was taken by Sultan Selim to Constantinople, and exchanged for a copy, which however no traveller has ever seen. The traditions also of Mahomet in the Peninsula have evidently faded away. The stone which was pointed out to Laborde in 1828 as that on which Moses first, and the youthful camel-driver afterwards, had reposed, and to which the Bedouins of his day muttered their devotions, is now comparatively unknown.6 The footmark on the rock, whatever it is, invented or pointed out by the monks, as impressed by his dromedary or mule, according as it is supposed to have been left in 1 Koran, ii. 51 ; vii. 160. 6 That which close? up the Valley of 3 Koran, xx. 12. the Convent. 3 Koran, xx. 82 ; xxvii. 45, 46. 6 I could hear nothing of it, though fre- * See Laborde’s Commentary on Exo- quently inquiring, dus and Numbers. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 55 this early visit, or on his nocturnal flight from Mecca to Jerusalem — is now confounded by the Arabs with the impress of the dromedary on which Moses rode up and down the long ascent to Grebel Mousa. But there still remains, though no longer used, the mosque on the top of the mountain, and that within the walls of the convent, in which the monks allowed the Mahometan devotees to pray side by side with Christian pilgrims ; founded, according to the belief of the illiterate Mussulmans, — in whose mind chronology and history has no existence, — in the times of the prophet, when Christians and Mussulmans were all one, and loved one another as brothers.1 As centuries have rolled on, even the Convent BtatePo?sthe of Sinai has not escaped their influence. The many Convent* cells which formerly peopled the mountains have long been /acant. The episcopal city of Paran, perhaps in consequence of the rise of the foundation of Justinian, has perished almost without a history. The nunnery of St. Episteme has van¬ ished ; the convent of the good physicians Cosmo and Damian, the hermitage of St. Onufrius, the convent of the Forty Martyrs — tinged with a certain interest from the famous churches of the same name, derived from them, in the Forum of Rome, on the Janiculan Hill, and on the Lateran — are all in ruins ; and the great fortress of St. Catherine probably owes its existence more to its massive walls than to any other single cause. Yet it is a thought of singular, one might add of melancholy, interest, that amidst all these revolutions, the Convent of Mount Sinai is still the one seat of European and of Christian civilisation and wor¬ ship, not only in the whole Peninsula of Sinai, but in the whole country of Arabia. Still, or at least till within a very few years, it has retained a hold, if not on the reason or the affections, at least on the superstitions of the Bedouins, beyond what is exercised by any other influence. Burck- hardt and, after him, Robinson,2 relate with pathetic simplicity the deep conviction with which these wild children of the Desert believe that the monks command or withhold the rain from heaven, on which the whole sustenance of the Peninsula depends. 1 See Note A. 2 Borckhardt, p. 567 ; Robinson, i. 132. 56 SINAI AND PALESTINE. It is not for us to judge the difficulties of their situa¬ tion, the poverty and ignorance of the monks, the un- tameable barbarism of the Arabs. Yet looking from an external point of view at the singular advantages enjoyed by the convent, it is hard to recall another institution, with such opportunities so signally wasted. It is a colony of Christian pastors planted amongst heathens, who wait on them for their daily bread and for their rain from heaven, and hardly a spark of civilisation, or of Christianity, so far as history records, has been imparted to a single tribe or family in that wide wilderness. It is a colony of Greeks, of Europeans, of ecclesiastics, in one of the most interesting and the most sacred regions of the earth, and hardly a fact, from the time of their first foundation to the present time, has been contributed by them to the geography, the theology, or the history of a country, which in all its aspects has been submitted to * their investigation for thirteen centuries. One other sanctuary of the Desert must be men- 7. S a n c - " tuary of the tioned. The Bedouin tribes, as has been said, have IhYyVh lost their ancient reverence for the traces of the Prophet, and every traveller has observed on theii godless life. It is very rare indeed that any sign of religious worship can be found amongst them. Few have any knowledge of the prescribed prayers of the Mussulman; still fewer prac tise them. But there is one exception. In the eastern extrem ity of the great crescent-shaped valley which embraces the whole cluster of Sinai, is the tomb of the Sheykh, from which the wady derives its name — “ the Wady Es-Sheykh,” the a Valley of the Saint.” In a tenement of the humblest kind is Sheykh Saleh’s grave. Who he was, when he lived, is en tirely unknown. Possibly he may have been the founder of the tribe of that name which still exists in the Peninsula ; possibly the ancient prophet mentioned in the Koran as preaching the faith of Islam before the birth of Mahomet.1 The present belief would seem to be, that he was one of the circle of companions of the Prophet, which, according to the dehance of all chronological laws in the minds of uneducated 1 Koran, vii. 71. For the various conjectures as to this great Bedouin Saint, set Ritter, Sinai, 650. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 57 Mussulmans, included Saleh, Moses, David, and Christ, as well as Abu Bekr, Omar, and Ali. This tomb is to the modern Bedouins the sanctuary of the Peninsula. As they approach it, they exhibit signs of devotion never seen elsewhere ; and once a year all the tribes of the Desert as¬ semble round it, and celebrate with races and dances a Bedouin likeness of the funeral games round the tomb of Patroclus. Sacrifices of sheep and camels, with sprinkling of the blood on the walls of this homely chapel, are described as accompanying this sepulchral feast.1 1 Two descriptions of these funeral rites 1835; the other, by the celebrated scholar have been preserved: one by Schimper, Tischendorf (Reise ii., pp. 207 — 214; a German, whose MS. travels are quoted Ritter, 653), who saw them in 1847. Sea by Ritter, p. 652, and who saw them in Part II. xii a. NOTE A. MUSSULMAN TRADITIONS OF MOUNT SINAI. (See pages 30 and 34.) I give these as they were communicated by our Mussul¬ man servant, Mohammed Ghizawee. Their only value is that they slightly vary from those hitherto published. They are related, as nearly as possible, in his own broken English, as we passed along the Desert. 1. The Exodus. — Pharaoun, at Cairo, wishes to make his people think that he is God Almighty, and says he can bring water by rolling on the ground. God allows him to do so : and he brings out water. He stands on the top of the two pyramids : one leg on each : and pushes up a spear against God: God tells the “Malaki,” those flying people you know — [the angels] to put blood upon it : and so he thinks that God is dead . Well — he squeezes Mousa : Mousa flies down to the sea. He, with his own tribe, only a few ; and Pharaoun with a great number : Mousa prays to God — God tells him to beat the sea with his stick — and he and his tribe pass over . Pharaoun comes in too : Mousa beats the sea with his stick, and says “ Shut,” — and Pharaoun is drowned: God is very cross with Mousa, because he drowned Pharaoun without asking Him, and He sends Sid [the Lord] Gabriel— Peace be with him — the same that God sent to our Prophet — to ask Mousa the reason why. He says that Pharaoun had begged for help, not saying 58 SINAI AND PALESTINE. 11 If it please God,” — but “ If you please,” — and so he had taken it into his own hands. Ayoun Mousa. — u There are two wells, one on each side of the Red Sea : — both ‘ Ayoun Mousa J which Monsa brought up by striking the ground with his stick.” 2. Hammam Pharaoun. — [This was from the Bedouins.] When Pharaoun came into the sea, and Mousa said “ Shut,” Pharaoun called out “Save me;” and when the sea came back, Pharaoun put his hands to his mouth, and breathed out a great breath — his last breath, The air came out warm, and so there are the warm baths by the sea¬ shore. And there are the Hammam Mousa — the bath of Mousa — where he pushed with his stick, and the water came. 3. Sinai. — Gebel Sidni Mousa [u the mountain of my Lord Moses”] is so called, because when Mousa was there, he called on God that he might see Him. God Almighty loved Mousa very much ; but when Mousa asked this, God said to him “ Shame,” — and Mousa became frightened, and went back into the rock : and the granite has the mark of his back. This is the only reason why it is called Gebel Mousa. I know nothing about the giving of the Ten Com¬ mandments. The mark of the dromedary is not of the Prophet’s, — he never was there. It was Mousa’ s dromedary — which never left him ; and he rode upon this dromedary, when he went to call to see God. The mosque and the convent were built both in aday — -in Mousa’ s time — when Christians and Mussulmans did not quarrel, and knew that they were both made by God. 4. Jethro , or Shouaib. — u He is Nebi Shouaib — like Sheikh Saleh, whose tomb we saw the other day, who was not only a Sheikh, but a Nebi [Prophet]. They were all Souabi — companions of Mohammed.” — [The Bedouins knew nothing of him except that Wady Shouaib was the name of one of the valleys near the convent.] 5. St. Catherine. — “ Gebel Katherin is called so from Sittah Mariam — our great Lady — Mary you call her. She and Catherine are one and the same, — and she came here when she fled away to Cairo with the Lord Isa [Jesus], when they tried to nail him to the cross.” PENINSULA OF SINAI. 59 NOTE B. SINAITIC INSCRIPTIONS. (See page 51.) I have preferred to give my account of these inscriptions as nearly as possible in the words of a letter, written inl¬ ine dialy after having seen the last of them on the frontier of the Desert, because I wish to confine myself simply to facts which fell under my own observation. Those who wish to know the latest and most scientific hypothesis on the subject of the language and contents of these inscrip¬ tions, will find it in Chevalier Bunsen’s “ Christianity and Mankind,” vol. iii. pp. 231 — 234. I will take this opportunity of expressing a doubt whether the learned author is justified in his identification of “the palm-grove on the sea-shore,” mentioned by Diodorus and Strabo, with the palin-grove of Feiran. I took the same view myself till I had been on the spot, but now feel convinced that they must have intended the second great palm-grove of the Desert, that of Tor, which is on the shore ; whereas that of Feiran is so entirely in the heart of the mountains, that it could only by the greatest inaccuracy be so desig¬ nated. The places here indicated as marked by the in¬ scriptions, are most of them described in the ensuing Let¬ ters and Notes. I here briefly sum up my experience of the Sinaitic inscriptions, in which, of course I go entirely by their appearance, not by their language, of which I have no knowledge whatever. 1. I have seen them in the following places : First in the Wady Sidri, the Wady Megara, and in great numbers in the Wady Mokatteb. I class these valleys together, because they are within three hours of each other. Secondly, a few in the lower parts of the Wady Feiran. Thirdly, in considerable numbers up the Wady Aleyat, and five or six in the Wady Abou Hamad, and three on the summit of Mount Serbal. These I class together as being all on the passage to the top of Serbal. Fourthly, in the WadyaSolab, three or four, and in great numbers in the Nakb-IIowy. This valley and pass form together the lower road between Serbal and Sinai. Fifthly, in great numbers in the Leja, up to the first ascent of the “ Slink Mousa,” or ravine by which you mount St. Catherine. Sixthly, on the high 60 SINAI AND PALESTINE. table-plain, called Herimet Haggag, between the Wady Sayal and the Wady-el-’ Ain ; the rock which stands at the end of this plain has more in proportion than any other spot I have seen, and there are some in the sandstone labyrinths near it. Seventhly, a few on the staircase leading np to the Deir at Petra, and, apparently, on the u isolated column” in the plain. (Some of our fellow-travellers also found them in a tomb near the Theatre.) Eighthly, on the broken columns of a ruin at or near the ancient Malatha, immediately before entering the hills of Judea. 2. This enumeration will show how widely spread they are ; it will also, I think, show that in some instances at least they have been cut by pilgrims or travellers, visiting particular, and probably, sacred localities. I allude to those of the Leja, the Deir at Petra, and especially Serbal. In all these places there is no thoroughfare, and therefore the places themselves must have been the object of the writers. What could have been their purpose in the Leja it ia difficult to say, for they go beyond the traditional Rock of Moses, and yet they fall fir short of the summit of St. Catherine ; nor have they any connection with the traditional scenes of the giving of the Law, Gebel Mousa being entirely without them. At Petra their object is evidently the Deir. At Serbal, their object must ha ye been something at the top of the mountain itself. [It will be seen that I have not visited the “ Gebel Mokatteb,” which is an isolated mountain on the shore of the Red Sea, hitherto described only by the Compte d’Amtraigues. See Forster’s u Voice of Israel,” p. 84.] It should also be observed, that they are nearly, though not quite, as numerous on the east as on the west of the peninsula. Those in the south lay out of my route. 3. Their situation and appearance is such as in hardly any case requires more than the casual work of passing travellers. Most of them are on sandstone, those of Wady Mokatteb and Herimet Haggag, and Petra, of course very susceptible of inscriptions. Those which are on granite are very rudely and slightly scratched. At Herimet Haggag one of us scooped out a horse, more complete than any of these sculptured animals, in ten minutes. Again, none that I saw, unless it might be a very doubtful one at Petra, required ladders or machinery of any kind. Most of them could be written by any one, who, having bare legs and feet as all Arabs have, could take firm hold of the ledges, or by any active man even with shoes. I think there are none that could not have been written by one man climbing on another’s shoulder. Amongst the highest in the Wady Mokatteb are single Greek names. 4. Their numbers seem to me to have been greatly exaggerated. I had expected in the Wady Mokatteb to see both sides of a deep defile covered with thousands. Such is not the case by any means. The Wady Mokatteb is a large open valley, almost a plain, with no con- PENINSULA OF SINAI. 61 tinuous wall of rock on either side, but masses of rock receding and advancing ; and it is only or chiefly on these advancing masses, that the inscriptions straggle, not by thousands, but at most by hundreds or fifties. So, on Serbal, I think we could hardly have overlooked any; but we saw no more than three, though it is difficult to reconcile this with the statement of Burckbardt, that he had there seen many inscriptions. They are much less numerous than the names of Western travellers on the monuments in the Valley of the Nile since the beginning of this century. 5. So far as the drawings of animals by which they are usually accompanied, indicate the intentions of the inscriptions themselves, it is difficult to conceive that that intention could have been serious or solemn. The animals are very rudely drawn ; they are of all kinds ; asses, horses, dogs, but, above all, ibexes ; and these last, in forms so ridiculous, that, making every allowance for the rudeness of the sculpture, it is impossible to invest them with any serious signifi¬ cation. The ludicrous exaggeration of the horns of the ibex was almost universal ; and no animal occurred so frequently. Sometimes they are butting other animals. Sometimes they, as well as asses and horses, occur disconnected with inscriptions. 6. As regards their antiquity, I observed the following data. There was great difference of age, both in the pictures and letters, as indicated by the difference of colour ; the oldest, of course, being those which approached most nearly to the colour of the rock. But, first, I found none on fallen rocks inverted, and, though I doubt not that there may be such, the sandstone crumbles so rapidly that this is no proof of age. A famous Greek inscription at Petra fell in 1846. Secondly, they are intermixed, though not in great numbers, with Greek and Arabic, and in one or two instances Latin inscriptions, these in some cases bearing the same appearance- of colour, wear and tear, as the Sinaitic. Thirdly, these Greek inscrip¬ tions, which alone I could read, were chiefly the names of the writers. The only Latin inscription which I remember was in the sandstone rocks near Herimet Haggag, — Pertus. Fourthly, Crosses of all kinds, chiefly + and were very numerous and con¬ spicuous, standing usually at the beginning' of the inscriptions, and (what is important) occurring also and in the same position before those written in Greek and Arabic; often nothing but the cross, sometimes the cross with Alpha and Omega. [These last were in the same place where I noticed the Latin inscription, (thus A + ft), of the same colour as the contiguous Sinaitic characters.] From having previously seen that Forster and Tuch (the last German writer on the subject) had united in the conclusion that the hypothesis of their being Christian inscriptions was groundless, and that the alleged appearance of crosses was a mistake, I was the more surprised to find them in such numbers, and of such a character ; 62 SINAI AND PALESTINE. and however else they may be explained, I can hardly imagine a doubt that they are the work, for the most part, of Christians, whether travellers or pilgrims. They are in this case curious, and if their object could be ascertained, would throw great light on the traditions of the Peninsula; but it cannot be reconciled with the theory of their being the work of Israelites. If the date of the columns at Malatha could be ascertained, or of the temple and tomb at Petra where they occur, the question would be settled. The two latter, I presume, cannot be older than the Roman dominion of Arabia. [I may here add the curious fact, that Laborde describes a Latin inscription in a certain tomb at Petra as “ an inscription in three lines, carved on a tablet, and of importance, as giving the name of the officer, Quintus Praetextus Florentinus, who died at Petra while he was governor of this part of Arabia. It appears to be of the time of Adrian or Antoninus Pius.” (Laborde’s u Sinai and Petra,” Eng. Tr., p. 289.) He indicates its position so precisely, that there was no difficulty in identifying it. But no single fact which he thus describes can be found in the inscription, and no single fact mentioned in the inscription is found in his description of it. It was as follows : — .... NTONII P . . I . TINT _ IIIYIRD. AYRATO _ FLANDO * TRIB * MIL. MINERYAE PROYINCIAE TRIB • PLEB Y'lII. HISP-PROCOS. LEG • AYG. PR. PR. ... PATRI EX TESTA . IPSIUS. One of the Sinai tic inscriptions of Petra is given in the u Zeit- schrift der D. Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft,” ix. 280.] i SINAI. PART II. THE JOURNEY FROM CAIRO TO JERUSALEM. The following extracts are either from letters, or (when bracketed) from journals, written on the spot or immediately afterwards. Such only are selected as served to convey the successive imagery of the chief stages of the journey, or as contained details not mentioned by previous travellers. My object has been to give the impressions of the moment, in the only way in which they could be given, — - as the best illustrations of the more general statements elsewhere founded upon them. I. Departure from Egypt ; Overland Route ; First Encampment. — II. The Passage of the Red Sea. (1.) Approach to Suez. (2.) Suez. (3.) Wells of Moses. — III. The Desert, and Sandstorm. — IV. Marah; Elim. — V. Second Encampment by the Red Sea; “Wilderness of Sin.” VI. Approach to Mount Serbdl; W4dy Sidri and Wady Feiran. — VII. Ascent of Serbal. VIII. Approach to Gebel Mousa, the traditional Sinai. — IX. Ascent of Gebel Mousa and Ras Sasafeh. — X. Ascent of St. Catharine. — XI. Ascent of the Gebel-ed-Deir. XII. Route from Sinai to the Gulf of ’Akaba.. (a.) Tomb of Sheykh Saleh. (&d Wady Sayal and Wady El’ Ain. Hazeroth.— XIII. Gulf of ’Akaba; Elath. XIV. The ’Arabah. — XV. Approach to Petra. — XVI. Ascent of Mount Hor. XVII. Petra. Kadesh. XVIII. Approach to Palestine. — XIX. Recollections of the First Day in Palestine. — XX. Hebron. — XXI. Approach to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. — XXII. First View of Bethlehem. — XXIII. First View of Jerusalem. EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS, ETC. I. - DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT — OVERLAND ROUTE - FIRST ENCAMPMENT. It was too hazy to see anything in the distance, — even the Pyra¬ mids were but shadows. Soon the green circle of cultivated land receded from view, like the shores as you sail out to sea, and in an hour we were in the desert ocean. Not, however, a wide circle of sand, but a wild waste of pebbly soil, something like that of the Plaine de Crau (near Marseilles), broken into low hills, and present¬ ing nowhere an even horizon. But the remarkable feature was a broad beaten track, smooth and even, and distinctly marked as any turnpike road in England, only twice the width, and running straight as a railway or Roman road through these desert hills. It was a striking sight in itself, to see the great track of civilized man in such a region. One of the party said, that the only thing to which it could be compared was the high-road from Petersburg!] to Moscow. It was still more striking when you knew what it was, the great thoroughfare of the British empire becoming yearly more important and interesting, as the course which so many friends have travelled, and will travel. Even the exodus for that day waxed faint before it. And, lastly, it was most instructive, as the only likeness probably which I shall ever see of those ancient roads, carried through the Desert in old times to the seats of the Babylonian and Persian Empires, to which allusion is made in the 40th chapter of Isaiah. In this comparatively level region, it is true, no mountains had to be brought low, nor valleys filled up; but it was literally “ i high-way prepared in the wilderness;” and the likeness was only interrupted, not obscured, by the solitary stations and telegraphs which, at intervals of every five miles, broke the perfect desolation. It has hitherto run along our whole course. To-day, between heaps of stones — said by one of the dragomans to be the graves of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers — which, as the heaps extended for miles and miles, with the utmost regularity, needs no remark, except as an instance af the extreme rapidity with which false local traditions spring up. They really are the “ stones,” the stumbling-blocks “cast up”1 out )f the way, and so left on each side of the road to mark it more distinctly . 1 Isa. xl. 3 ; lxiL 10. :Jk .tSk- art*. PENINSULA OF SINAI. / * ti 05 Nothing was more striking to me in our first encampment than the realisation of the first lines in Tlialaba : — “ How beautiful is night, A dewy freshness fills the silent air.” There is the freshness without coldness, and there is the silence doubly strange as compared with the everlasting clatter of the streets and inns of Cairo, and the incessant sound of songs, and screams, and shocks of the boat upon the Nile; nothing heard but the slight move¬ ment amongst the Bedouin circles round their fires, and from time to time a plaintive murmur from the camels as they lie, like stranded ships, moored round the tents. II.— THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. (1.) Approach to Suez. — I have at last, as far as mortal eyes can see it, seen the passage of the Red Sea. It was about 3 P. M. yesterday, that as we descended from the high plain on which we had hitherto been moving, by a gentle slope through the hills, called, by figure of speech, the “ defile’7 of Muktala, a new view opened before us. Long lines, as if of water, which we immediately called out to be the sea but which was, in fact, the mirage ; but above these, indubitably, the long silvery line of even hills — the hills of Asia. Onwards we still came, and in the plain below us lay on the left a fortress, a tomb, and a fortified wall. This is ’Ajerud, famous as the first great halting-place of the Mecca Pilgrimage ; famous as the scene of Eothen’s adventure ; still more famous as being the only spot on the road which, by its name and position, can claim to be identified with any of the stations mentioned in the flight of the Israelites. It may possibly be Pi-hahiroth.1 If it was so, then the low hills of Muktala, through which we descended, are Migdol, and Baal Zephon was Suez, which lay on the blue waters of the sea now incontrovertibly before us east and south ; and high above the whole scene, towered the Gebel ’Attaka, the Mountain of Deliverance,” a truly magnificent range, which, After all, is the one feature of the scene unchanged and unmistake- able. Every theory of the passage combines in representing this is the impediment which prevented the return of the Israelites into 1 Exod. xiv. 2, 9. Numb, xxxiii. 7, “ Pi-liahiroth” may be either— (I) in Klebrew, “mouth of caverns,” as in the tatican MS. of the LXX., Numb, xxxiii. K, to or i/ia Elpdt) ; or much more robably, (2) in Egyptian, “ the grassy laces,” — “ Pi” being the Egyptian article ; as in Alex. MS. of the LXX tt av'Aetg. There is no appearance of erdure now, either at ’Ajerud, nor 5 apparently at any corresponding spot in the Wady Tufirik. The name, however, may, after all, be derived from the name of the Saint, “ ’Ajerud,” who is said to be buried in the tomb beside the fortress (Burton’s Pilgrimage to Mcdineh, i. p. 230), unless, which is equally probable, the name of the saint was invented to account for the name of the place. See like instances in Chapter YI. 66 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Egypt when Pharaoh appeared on their rear £t was this which “shut them in/51 (2.) Suez. — This morning I stood on the flat roof of the house, and with Dr. Robinson’s book in my hand, made out every locality. Somewhere within my view, — somewhere under that jagged mountain, - — the greatest event before the Christian era must have taken place. Close under one’s feet, were the sandy shoals all round the moderi town of Suez, — over which they passed, according to one theory ; further down the gulf opened the deep blue sea, with the Asiatic hills just visible on the eastern side, — over which they passed, according to the other. It is the less necessary and the less possible to decide precisely, because the limits of the Desert in the previous route have evidently changed since “ the edge of the wilderness”2 was only a day’s march from the sea ; as the limits of the sea have also changed, since the time when it ran far up into the north. (3.) From the Wells of Moses (’ Ay oun Mousa). — The wind drove us to shore ; and on the shore — the shore of Arabia and Asia — we landed in a driving sand-storm, and reached this place, ’Ayoun Mousa, the “Wells of Moses.” It is a strange spot, — this plot of tamarisks with its seventeen wells, — literally an island in the Desert, and now used as the Richmond of Suez, a comparison which chiefly serves to show what a place Suez itself must be. It is not mentioned in the Bible, but coming so close as it does upon any probable scene of the passage, one may fairly connect it with the song of Miriam. And now once more for the Passage. From the beach, within half an hour’s walk from hence, the shore commands a view across the Gulf into the wide opening of the two ranges of mountains,3 the opening of the valley through which the traditional Exodus took place, and consequently the broad blue sea of the traditional passage. This, therefore, is the traditional spot of the landing, and this, with the whole view of the sea as far as Suez, I saw to-night ; both at sun- set, as the stars came out ; and later still by the full moon — the white sandy desert on which I stood, the deep black river-like sea, and the dim silvery mountains of ’Attaka on the other side. These are the three features which are indisputable. You know the straits of Gibraltar, — the high mountains of Africa, the green swells of Europe, the straits which divide them. Such in their way are the th ree characteristic features of this great boundary of Africa and i Asia, on which the Israelites looked through the moonlight of that memorable night. Behind that high African range lay Egypt, with all its wonders ; the green fields of the Nile, the immense cities, the 1 Josephus (Ant. II. xv. 3) mentions 2 Exod. xiii. 20. “the mountain.” 3 See Part I. p. 36. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 67 greatest monuments of human power and wisdom. On this Asiatic side begins immediately a wide circle of level desert stone and sand, free as air, but with no trace of human habitation or art, ay here they might Avander as far as they saw, for ever and ever. And hetAveen the tAvo rolled the deep waters of the sea, rising and falling with the tides, Avhich, except on its shores, none of them could . have seen, — the tides of the great Indian Ocean, unlike the still dead Avaters of the Mediterranean Sea. “ The Egyptians whom they had seen yesterday they Avill see no more for eArer.” Most striking, too, it is to look on that mountain of ’Attaka, and feel that on its northern and southern extremity settle the main differences Avhich on so many like questions have divided the Church in after times. For the passage at its southern end are the local Arab tradi¬ tions, the poetical interest of its scenery, the preconceived notions of one’s childhood. For the passage at the northern end are the ancient traditions of the Septuagint ; almost all the arguments founded on the text of the Bible itself ; all the Avishes to bring the event within our own understanding. It is remarkable that this event - — almost the first in our religious history — should admit on the spot itself of both these constructions. But the mountain itself remains unchanged and certain — and so does the fact itself which it witnessed. Whether the Israelites passed over the shalloAV waters of Suez by the means, and Avithin the time, which the narrative seems to imply, or whether they passed through a chan¬ nel ten miles broad, Avith Avaves on each side piled up to the height of 180 feet, there can be no doubt that they did pass over within sight of this mountain and this desert by a mar¬ vellous deliverance. The scene is not impressive in itself,— that at Suez especially is matter of fact in the highest degree, and even that at ’Ayoun Mousa is not amongst those grand frame¬ works, such as at Marathon and elsewhere correspond to the event which they have encompassed. In this very fact, hoAvever, there is something instructive; “a lesson,” as the Arabian Nights say, “to be graven on the understanding for such as would be admonished.” III. — THE DESERT, AND SAND-STORM. The clearing up of the sand the next morning revealed a Ioav range of hills on the eastern horizon, the first step to the vast plain of Northern Arabia. The day after leaving ’Ayoun Mousa •was at first within sight of the blue channel of the Red Sea. “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the deep waters, and thy footsteps are not known” How true, as of so much beside, so of the uncertainty attending the precise locality of the passage. But soon Red Sea and all were lost in a sand-storm, 68 SINAI AND PALESTINE. which lasted the whole day.1 Imagine all distant objects entirely lost to view, — the sheets of sand fleeting along the surface of the Desert like streams of wTater; the whole air filled, though invisibly, with a tempest of sand driving in your face like sleet. Imagine the caravan toiling against this, — the Bedouins, each with his shawl thrown completely over his head, half of the riders sitting back¬ wards, — the camels, meantime, thus virtually left without guidance, though, from time to time, throwing their long necks sideways to avoid the blast, yet moving straight onwards with a painful sense of duty truly edifying to behold. I had thought that with the Nile our troubles of wind were over ; but (another analogy for the shi/ts of the Desert) the great saddlebags act like sails to the camels, and therefore, with a contrary wind, are serious impediments to their progress. And accordingly Mohammed opened our tents this morning just as he used to open our cabin-doors, with the joyful intelligence that the wind was changed, — “good wind, master.” Through this tempest, this roaring and driving tempest, which sometimes made me think that this must be the real meaning of “a howling wilderness,”" we rode on the whole day. IV. — M ARAII — ELIM. We were undoubtedly on the track of the Israelites, and we saw the spring3 which most travellers believe to be Marah, and the two valleys, one of which must almost certainly, both perhaps, be Elim. The general scenery is either immense plains, or latterly a succession of water-courses, that especially of Ghurundel, exactly like the dry bed of a Spanish river. These gullies gradually bring you into the heart of strange black and white mountains, the rano-es of which overhang the Red Sea above the Hot Wells of Pharaoh, where, according to the Arab traditions of these parts, somewhat invalidating that of ’Ayoun Mousa, Pharaoh literally breathed his last. For the most part the Desert was absolutely bare, but Wady Ghurundel aad Wady Useit, the two rivals for Elim, are fringed with trees and shrubs, the first vegetation we have met in the Desert. These are so peculiar and so interesting that I must describe each. First, there are the wild palms, successors of the “ threescore and ten.” Not like those of Egypt or of pictures, but either dwarf, — - that is, trunkless — or else with savage hairy trunks and branches all dishevelled. Then there are the feathery tamarisks, here assuming gnarled boughs and hoary heads, worthy of their venerable situation, 1 I have retained this account of the sandstorm, chiefly because it seems to be a phenomenon peculiar to this special region. Van Egmont, Niebuhr, Miss Martineau, all notice it, and it was just as violent at the passage of a friend in 1841, and again of another two months after ourselves in 1853. 2 Deut. xxxii. 10. It must mean either this, or the howling of wild beasts. 3 There is nothing to add to Robinson’s description (i. 96). See Part I. p. 37. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 69 on whose leaves is found what the Arabs call manna. Thirdly, there is the wild acacia, the same as we had often seen in Egypt, but this also tangled by its desert growth into a thicket ; the tree of the Burning Bush, and the shittim wood of the Tabernacle. Keble’s ex¬ pression of the “ towering thorn” is one of his few inaccuracies. No one who has seen it would have used that expression for the tan¬ gled spreading tree, which shoots out its gay foliage and blue blos¬ soms over the Desert.1 To-day occurred a curious instance of the tenacious adherence of the Bedouins to their own traditions. We passed a cairn, said to be the grave of the horse of Abou Zennab, his horse killed in battle. Who Abou Zennab was — when he lived — what the battle was — is quite unknown, but he left an ordinance that every Arab should throw sand on the cairn as if it were barley, and say, £cEat, eat, 0 horse of Abou Zennab,” as if the dead creature was still alive So said our Bedouin, and accordingly our Arab muttered the words, and pushed the sand twice or thrice with his foot as he passed. I could not help thinking of the Recliabites, as described by Jeremiah.2 V. — SECOND ENCAMPMENT BY THE RED SEA — “ WILDERNESS OF SIN.” Another glorious day. We passed a third claimant to the title of Elim, the Wady Tayibeh, palms, and tamarisks, venerable as before; then down one of those river-beds, between vast cliffs white on the one side, and on the other of a black calcined colour, between which burst upon us once more the deep blue waters of the Red Sea, bright with their white foam. Beautiful was that brilliant contrast, and more beautiful and delightful still to go down upon the beach and see the waves breaking on that shell-strewn weed-strewn shore, and promontory after promontory breaking into those waters right and left : most delighiful of all the certainty. — I believe I may here say the certainty (thanks to that inestimable verse in Numbers xxxiii.), — that here the Israelites, coming down through that very valley, burst upon that very view, — the view of their old enemy and old friend, — that mysterious sea, and one more glimpse of Egypt dim in the distance in the shadowy hills beyond it. Above the blue sea rose the white marbly terraces, then blackened by the passage of the vast multitude. High above those terraces ranged the brown cliffs of the Desert, streaked here and there with the purple bands which now first began to display themselves. And as the bright blue sea formed the base of the view, so it was lost above in a sky of the deepest blue that I have ever observed in the East. We turned aside at last into the plain of Murka — probably the wilderness of Sin. 1 See Part I. p. 21 8 Jer. xxxv. This slightly differs from Robinson’s account, (i. p. 102), 70 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Red mountains closed it in on the north, one of which the Bedouins called Um-shwiner — different from the far greater mountain of that name. Over the hills to the south was the first view of the peaks of Serbal. From this plain we entered the Wady Shellal — the “ Val¬ ley of Cataracts;” thus, for the first time, plunging into the bosom of the strangely-formed and strangely coloured mountains we had seen so long in the distance. They closed the prospect in front, — red tops resting on black or dark-green bases. The nearer rocks cast their deep evening shades along the level surface of the valley. The bright caper plant hung from their cliffs, and dwarf j. alms nestled under the overhanging cliff at the entrance. VI. — APPROACH TO MOUNT SERBAL — WADY S1DRI AND WADY FEIRAN. The first great ascent we had made was after leaving the Wady Shellal. A stair of rock [the Nakb Badera] brought us into a glorious wfdy (Sidri), enclosed between red granite mountains descending as precipitously upon the sands as the Bavarian hills on the waters of the Kdnigsee. It was a sight worthy of all re¬ membrance, before we reached this, to see the sunbeams striking the various heights of white and red, and to think what an effect this must have had as the vast encampment, dawn by dawn, in these mountains, broke up with the shout, “Rise up, L»rd, and let Thine enemies be scattered ; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.”1 In the midst of the Wady Sidri, just where the granite was exchanged for sandstone, I caught sight of the first inscription. A few more followed up the course of a side valley where we turned up to see (strange sight in that wild region !) Egyptian hieroglyphics and figures carved in the cliffs. — strange sight, too, for the Israelites if they passed this way ; like that second glimpse of the Red Sea, for these hieroglyphics are amongst the oldest in the world, and were already there before the Exodus. Of the other inscriptions, the chief part were in the next valley, Mokatteb, “of writing,” so called from them. Of these I will speak elsewhere.'2 From the Wady Mokatteb, we passed into the endless windings of the Wady Feirdn. I cannot too often repeat, that these wadys are exactly like rivers, except in having no water ; and it is this appearance of torrent-bed and banks and clefts in the rocks for tributary streams, and at times even rushes and shrubs fringing their course, which gives to the whole wilderness a doubly dry and thirsty aspect — signs of “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” Here, too, began the curious sight of the mountains, streaked , from head to foot, as if with boiling streams of dark red matter 1 Numb. x. 35. 2 See Note B. to Part I. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 71 poured over them ; really the igneous fluid squirted upwards, as they were heaved from the ground. On the previous part of that day, and indeed often since, the road lay through what seemed to be the ruins, the cinders, of mountains calcined to ashes,1 like the heaps ol a gigantic foundry. I cannot conceive a more interesting country for a geologist. Even to the most uneducated eye the colours tell their own story, of chalk and limestone, and sandstone, and granite ; and these portentous appearances are exactly such as give the im¬ pression that you are indeed travelling in the very focus of creative power. I have looked on scenery more grand, and on scenery as curious (the Saxon Switzerland), hut on scenery at once so grand and so strange I never have looked, and probably never shall again. One other feature I must add. Huge cones of white clay and sand are at intervals planted along these mighty watercourses, guarding the embouchure of the valleys ; apparently the original alluvial deposit of some tremendous antediluvian torrent, left there to stiffen into sandstone. We encamped at El Ilessuc, the first, but not the largest of those groves of tamarisks and palms which make the Wady Feiran so important a feature in the Desert. VII. - ASCENT OF MOUNT SERbAl. At 5.30 A. M. we started. We passed the instructive and sug¬ gestive sight of the ruins of the old Christian city and episcopal palace of Paran, under the hill which has great claims to be that on which Moses prayed, whilst the battle of Rephidim was fought for the passage through what is now (whatever it may have been) the oasis of the Desert." We then turned up the long watercourse occupied in part by the brook of Wady ’Aleyat, which conducted us to the base of the mountain, where the spring rises amidst moss and fern. It is one of the finest forms I have ever seen. It is a vast mass of peaks, which, in most points of view, may be reduced to five, the number adopted by the Bedouins. These five peaks, all of granite, rise so precipitously, so column-like, from the broken ground which forms the root of the mountain, as at first sight to appear inaccessible. But they are divided by steep ravines, filled with fragments of fallen granite. Up the central ravine, Wady Abou- Ilamad (u valley of the father of wild figs,” so called from half-a- dozen in its course), we mounted. It was toilsome, but not difficult, and in about three hours we reached a ridge between the third and fourth peak. Here we rested ; close by us were the traces of a large leopard. A little beyond was a pool of water surrounded by an old enclosure. Three quarters of an hour more brought us over smooth blocks of granite to the top of the third or central peak, the steep ascent 1 See Fart I. p. 23. 2 See Part 1. p. 41. 72 SINAI AND PALESTINE. was broken bj innumerable shrubs like sage or thyme, which grew to the very summit ; and at last, also helped by loose stones arranged by human hands (whether yesterday or two thousand years ago), and through a narrow pass of about twenty feet, to the two eminences of which this peak is formed. The highest of these i3 a huge block of granite; on this, as on the back of some petrified tortoise, you stand and overlook the whole Peninsula of Sinai. The Red Sea, with the Egyptian hills opposite ; and the wide waste of the Ka a on the south, the village and grove of Tor just marked as a dark line on the shore ; on the east the vast cluster of what is commonly called Sinai, with the peaks of St. Catherine ; and, towering high above all, the less famous, but most magnificent of all, the Mont Blanc of those parts, the unknown and un visited Um-Shdmer. Every feature of the extraordinary con¬ formation lies before you ; the wadys coursing and winding in every direction; the long crescent of the Wady Es-Sheykh ; the infinite number of mountains like a model ; their colours all as clearly dis¬ played as in Russegger’s geological map, which we had in our hands at the moment ; the dark granite, the brown sandstone, the yellow Desert, the dots of vegetation along the Wady Feiran, and the one green spot of • the great palm-grove (if so it be) of Rcphidim. On the northern and somewhat lower eminence are the visible remains of a building, which, like the stairs of stones mentioned before, may be of any date, from Moses to Burckhardt. It consists of granite fragments cemented with lime and mortar. In the centre is a rough hole, and close beside it, on the granite rocks, are three of those mysterious inscriptions, which, whatever they mean elsewhere, must mean here that this summit was frequented by unknown pilgrims, who used those characters ; the more so, as the like inscriptions were scat¬ tered at intervals, through the whole ascent. A point of rock imme¬ diately below this ruin was the extreme edge of the peak. It was flanked on each side by the tremendous precipices of the two neigh¬ bouring peaks —itself as precipitous — and as we saw them overlook¬ ing the circle of Desert — plain, hill, and valley, it was impossible not to feel that for the giving of the Law to Israel and the world, the scene was most truly fitted. I say “ for the giving of the Law,” be¬ cause the objections urged from the absence of any plain immediately under the mountain for receiving the Law, are unanswerable, or could only be answered if no such plain existed elsewhere in the Peninsula. The point to which we ascended is doubtless the same as that described by Burckhardt, though it is difficult to reconcile the “three inscriptions” which we saw, with the “many” described by him, or the comparative ease of our ascent, with the immense fatigue of which he speaks. This last, however, may be accounted for by the fact that he ascended without a guide; whereas we had the PENINSULA OE SINAI. 73 assistance of the very intelligent Sheykh Zeddan, sheykh of Serbal. whom we found in the Wady ’Aleyat: with the clever boy, Fred , son of Sheykh Rassan, sheykh of the village in the same wady. He answered the names of all the mountains and wadys at a touch, [and it may be here interesting to give his version, as communicated through our dragoman, of the ruins and traditions of Feiran and Serbal. In reply to the question suggested by RappellV assertion of the estimation in which Serbal was held by the Bedouins, as shown by sacrifices on its summit, he returned the following decisive answer: ‘‘'Arabs never pray or kill sheep on the top of Serbal; sometimes, however , travellers eat chickens there. The ruined building on the top was built by the Franks, or by the Derkani, the original inhabitants of the country, for keeping treasures. The ruins in Wddy Feiran are also by Franks. There used to be a Frank windmill on the north-east side of the valley, and corn was carried across from the convent by a rope.”] It was already dark by the time that we reached our encampment at the eastern extremity of the Wady Feiran. It was a beautiful sight to see on our way the mountains lit up from top to bottom with the red blaze which shot up from the watchfires of the Bedouin tents. So they must have shone before the Pillar of Fire. The palm-groves of Feiran I saw only by the clear starlight ; yet it was still possible to see how great must be the beauty of the luxuriant palms and feathery tamarisks — the wide glades below, the vast mountains above. YIII. - APPROACH TO GEBEL MOUSA, THE TRADITIONAL SINAI. We started at 5 a.m. The camels went round by Wady Es- Sheykh ; we took the direct route by Wady Solab, which, passing by several deserted Bedouin villages of the Arab serfs of the convent, with their lonely burial-grounds, brought us to the foot of the Nakb H3wy, the “Pass of the Wind,” a stair of rock, like that by which we had mounted to the cluster of Serbal, and by which we w7ere to mount again into the second and highest stage of the great mountain labyrinth. Its entrance was formed by the white alluvial formations before mentioned, as if left by the great streams of the central mountains when they first 'burst forth to feed the lower plains and valleys of the Wady Feiran ; this being the opening into the dark range we had seen in the distance from the top of Serbal. The pass itself is what would be elsewhere a roaring torrent, like the pass of St. Gothard. It is amidst masses of rock, a thread of a stream just visible, and here and there forming clear pools shrouded in palms. On many of these rocky fragments are Sinaitic inscriptions, mostly white crosses. The steep pass is broken 1 See Part I. p. 40. 74 SINAI AND PALESTINE. in part by long green swells as of tufa. At its summit, tbe course of the stream is still traceable from time to time by rushes. We reached the head of the pass ; and far in the bosom of the mountains before us, I saw the well-known shapes of the cliffs which form the front of Sinai. At each successive advance these cliffs disengaged themselves from the intervening and surround¬ ing hills, and at last they stood out — I should rather say the columnar mass, which they form, stood out — alone against the sky. On each side the infinite complications of twisted and jagged moun¬ tains fell away from it. On each side the sky encompassed it round, as though it were alone in the wilderness. And to this giant mass we approached through a wide valley, a long continued plain, which enclosed as it was between two precipitous mountain ranges of black and yellow granite, and having always at its end this prodigious mountain block, I could compare to nothing else than the immense avenue, — the “dromos,” as it is technically called, — through which the approach was made to the great Egyptian temples. One ex¬ traordinary sensation was the foreknowledge at each successive opening of the view of every object that would next appear; as cliff and plain, and the deep gorges on each side, and lastly the Convent with its gardens burst before me, it was the unfolding of the sight of sights, of which I had read and heard for vears, till each part of it seemed as familiar as if I had seen it again and again. Was it the same or not ? The colours, and the scale of the scene, were not precisely what I should have gathered from descrip¬ tions ; the colours less remarkable, the scale less grand. But the whole impression of that long approach was even more wonderful than I had expected. Whatever may have been the scene of the events in Exodus, I cannot imagine that any human being could pass up that plain and not feel that he was entering a place above all others suited for the most august of the sights of earth. We encamped outside the Convent, at the point where the great Wady Es-Sheykh falls into the Wady Er-Raheh, immediately under the corner of the cliff. IX. — ASCENT OF GEBEL MOUSA AND OF rAs SASAFEH. The next day we started for Gebel iVIousa, the Mountain of Moses, the traditional scene of the Giving of the Law. I shall not go through all the steps of the well-known ascent. There were two points which especially struck me. First, the little plain just before the last ascent. The long flight of rude steps, which leads from the base to the summit, winding through crags of granite, at last brings you in sight of a grand archway standing between two of these huge cliffs, somewhat like that by which you enter the desert -dl the Chartreuse. You pass this, and yet another, and then find PENINSULA OF STNA1. . yourself in that world-renowned spot.1 The tall cypress which stands in the centre, had already appeared towering above the rocks before we came in sisdit of the whole. There is a ruined church on O the slope of the hill, built over the so-called cave of Elijah, and a well and a tank on the other, also ascribed to him. It is a solemn and beautiful scene, entirely secluded, and entirely characteristic, with the exception of the cypress, which marks the hand of strangers. Next, the summit itself, whatever else may be its claims, bears on its front the marks of being, or having been, regarded as the spot most universally sacred on earth. For there, side by side, and from reverence for the same event on which both religions are founded, stand the ruins of a small Christian church, once divided amongst all the Christian sects, and of a small Mahometan mosque. From whatever point we saw this famous peak, these two fragments of worship, almost always visible upon it, more distinctly than any¬ thing else told what it was. And now for the question which every one asks on that consecrated spot. Is this 1 ‘ the top of the mount” described in Exodus," or must we seek it elsewhere? The wdiole question turns on another question, whether there is a plain below it agreeing with the words of the narrative. Dr. Robinson, who has the merit of discovering first that magnificent approach which I have before described on the other side of the mountain, declares not ; but Laborde and others have so confidently maintained that there was a large and appropriate place for the encampment below this peak, that I was fully prepared to find it, and to believe in the old tradition. This impression is so instantly overthrown by the view of the Wady Seb’fiyeh, as one looks down upon it from the precipice of Gebel Mousa, that it must be at once abandoned in favour of the view of the great approach before described,- unless either the view of the plain of Er-Raheli was less imposing from above than it was from below, or the plain of Seb’ayeli more imposing from below than it was from above. The first thing to be done was, therefore, to gain the summit of the other end of the range called the Ras Sasafeh (Willow Head), overlooking the Er-Raheli from above. The whole party descended, and after winding through the various basins and cliffs which make up the range, we reached the rocky point overlooking the approach we had come the preceding day. The effect on us, as on every one who has seen and described it, was instantaneous. It was like the seat on the top of Serbfil, but with the difference, that here was the deep wide yellow plain sweeping down to the very base of the cliffs ; exactly answering to the plain on which the people “ removed and stood afar off.” . . . There is yet a higher mass of granite immediately above this point, which should be ascended, for the 1 I cannot forbear to refer to the description of it in 1! Tancrcd.” 3 Kxod. xix, 20. 76 SINAI AND PALESTINE. greater completeness of view which it affords. — The plain below is then seen extending not only between the ranges of Tlaha and Furei’a, but also into the lateral valleys, which, on the north-east, unite it with the wide Wady of the Sheykh. This is important as showing how far the encampment may have been spread below, still within sight of the same summit. Behind extends the granite mass of the range of Gebel Mousa, cloven into deep gullies and basins, and ending in the traditional peak, crowned by the memorials of its double sanctity. The only point which now remained was to explore the Wady Seb'ayeh on the other side, and ascertain whether its appearance and relation to Gebel Mousa from below was more suitable than it seemed from above. This I did on the afternoon of the third day, and I came to the conclusion, that it could only be taken for the place if none other existed. It is rough, uneven, narrow. The only advantage which it has is, that the peak from a few points of view rises in a more commanding form than the Bus Sasafeh. But the mountain never descends upon the plain. No ! If we are to have a mountain without a wide amphitheatre at its base, let us have Serbal ; but, if otherwise, I am sure that if the monks of Justinian had fixed the traditional scene on the Ras Sasafeh, no one would for an instant have doubted that this only could be the spot . Considering the almost total absence of such conjunctions of plain and mountain in this region, it is a really important evidence to the truth of the narrative, that one such conjunction can be found, and that within the neighborhood of the traditional Sinai. Nor can I say that the degree of uncertainty, which must hang over it, materially diminished my enjoyment of it. In fact, it is a great safeguard for the real reverence due to the place, as the scene of the first great revelation of God to man. As it is, you may rest on your general conviction, and be thankful. [This question between the two points of the range of Gebel Mousa asumes more importance on the spot than it deserves. On a careful consideration of the traditional statements, it seems very doubtful whether the scene of the Giving of the Law to the people as we now conceive it, ever entered into the minds of those who fixed the traditional site. The consecrated peak of Gebel Mousa was probably revered simply as the spot where Moses saw the vision of God, without reference to any more general event.] See Part I. pp. 32, 44, 58. X. - ASCENT OF ST. CATHERINE. The next day we ascended the highest peak, not of the whole peninsula, but of the Sinai range. Its wdiole historical or legendary interest depends on the story from which it derives its name, that the * MHMMH PENINSULA OF SINAI. 77 angels bore St. Catherine’s body from Alexandria over the Red Sea and Desert, and placed it on the mountain-top.1 It is a noble mount¬ ain, and glorious was the view from the top. It embraces not only the labyrinth of bare granite peaks which you see from Gebel Mousa, but a panorama over the whole peninsula. Once more we saw Serbal itself; once more, and now nearer at hand, the masses of Um- Shfmer; and (what we could not see from Serbal), both the gulfs of the Red Sea, beautifully blue, with the high mountains of Egypt and Arabia beyond. Most complete, too, was the view of Gebel Mousa below ; the reddish granite of its lower mass ending in the grey green granite of the peak itself. [The points embraced in the several views from Gebel Mousa, Ras Sasafeh, and St. Catherine have been so fully described by Dr. Robinson, that it will be superfluous to add any details of my own. I will coniine myself to points which he has omitted, or which have been questioned.— 1. Dr. Wilson, Miss Martineau, and Laborde, in contradiction to Dr. Robinson, assert that from one or both of the two former points Serbiil is visible. He is right, and they are wrong. What they took for Serbal is the double peak of El-Banit (see p. 31). 2. Dr. Robin on does not notice the very high mountain visible from St. Catherine, south-west of Um-Shomer, and apparently calculated by Riippell to be the highest in the Peninsula. We could not ascer¬ tain its name. It is possibly that called by Burckhardt (p. 576) “ThonmCn,” or “El Koly.” 3. No traveller has adequately de¬ scribed the beauty of the great ravine by which St. Catherine is ascended, under the name of “ Shuk Mousa,” “the Cleft of Moses.” And Lepsius, in particular, has much underrated the amount of water produced generally by the springs of this cluster, especially by the spring in this cleft, which sends down a regular brook through the whole of the Leja.] XI. — ASCENT OF THE GEBEL-ED-DEIR. [This mountain is the only one of the group immediately around the Convent which had never been explored.' For this reason, amongst others, we made the ascent, and for this reason I here give the account of it. It bears the various names of Gebel-ed-Deir, “ the Mountain of the Convent,” from the nunnery which once existed there — “Gebel Bestin,” from “St. Episteme,” the first abbess of the nunnery, — “ Solab,” the Cross, from the cross which stands on its summit; — of “the Burning Bush,” from the story already given.3 “ We went up with two Bedouin boys, belonging to the serfs of the Convent : — The name of the eldest was Sdleh, of the younger, Hamadan. Like all the young guides 1 See Part I. p. 45. 2 Ritter; Sinai, p. 544. 3 Part 1. p. 46. 78 SINAI AND PALESTINE. attached to the monastery, they were remarkably intelligent; and though they had never been to the summit before, found their way with great sagacity. The ascent took three hours : it was steep, but the granite was sufficiently rough to afford hold and footing. In the recesses between the peaks was a ruined Bedouin village. On the highest level was a small natural basin, thickly covered with shrubs of myrrh, — of all the spots of the kind that I saw, the best suited for the feeding of Jethro’s flocks in the seclusion of the mountain. From this, through the rock, a deep narrow cleft opens straight down upon the Convent, which lies far below, like a collection of houses of card or cork, with the leaden roof of the church standing athwart them. This, doubtless, is the explanation of the legend of the miraculous sun-beam. The highest point of all is a little above this, reached by clambering over blocks of granite, — and is crowned by the rude wooden cross which gives the mountain its name, and stands out in the blue sky, a strange sight in the Arabian wilder¬ ness. From this point, St. Catherine and Gebel Mousa are both visible; also beyond St. Catherine, the long line of peaks, which we saw from thence ; and amongst them rose the tall pyramidal mountain, of which we were still in doubt whether it was Um-Shomer. A light cloud veiled the summit of Has Sasafeh. This is the only spot which commands the view both of the Wady Seb’ayeh and of the Wady Er-Rfiheh. In other respects, it is inferior to any of the other four mountain views we saw : less extensive than Serbal or St. Catherine, less wild than Gebel Mousa, and less imposing than Ras Sasafeh. Thence we descended by a path on the south-west to the ruins of the nunnery, called ‘Magarefeh’ (‘ Security’), which was under a steep rock, and above a little spring, or stream. Steps of broken stones, like those on the ascent of Gebel Mousa, lead from thence to the Wady Ed-Deir. In the course of the descent we came to a precipitous granite rock, so smooth as to render it almost im¬ possible to pass down its surface ; the boys, with much ingenuity, turned the difficulty by discovering a fissure, through which we could creep underneath it.”] XII. — ROUTE FROM SINAI TO ’AKABA. The approach to Sinai from the west has been so often described, that I have hitherto only given the general outline contained in the letters. But the descent to the east has been so seldom and so er¬ roneously delineated both in books and maps, that I venture to add here a few words from my journal. (i.) Tomb [On leaying the Convent, the road soon falls sueh Sheykh into the crescent of the Wady Es-Sheykh, — which widens till it opens into a large plain. In the midst of this was a small chapel, with a white conical roof, PENINSULA OF SINAI. 79 containing the tomb of Sheykh Saleh, who gives his name to the htdy. Round it are a collection of small gravestones. He was, according to the Bedouins with us, one of the Souabis, or com¬ panions of the Prophet, 1 in the time of Mousa and Mohammed,’ and attended the latter, and was buried on the journey, — 1 as if — excuse me — one of you, masters, fell sick, and died, and was buried.’ 1 The tomb is still visited by all the Towara Arabs, and by them alone.’ The burial place belongs to them.’ ‘ Bedouins, not of the Towara, however near, could not be buried here.’ The Arabs who accom¬ panied us (here and here only on the journey) began to mutter prayers as they approached. They (with our own Mohammed) stood for a few minutes, saying a few prayers or addresses to the dead saint, with a great appearance of solemnity, and then entered the hovel. The Saint is buried in the floor. His wooden coffin, with a wooden handle to mark the head, closed with a lid above, — is supposed to be above the grave. This is covered with cloth, — and sticks are rudely put up round it, hung with old rags and shawls. 1 If they were of Cashmere, no one would take them.’ The one Bedouin who entered with us knelt down, and taking dust from the coffin, threw it on his head. One by one they all entered, but with a kind of delicacy waiting till we had left it. From this point we struck off from the Wady Es-Sheykh, leaving it to pursue its winding course towards the Wady Feiran — and went up the Wady Souwyrah — near the spring of Abou Souwyrah, whence the Bedouins fetched water. Up the Nakb- Souwyrah, — an abrupt, but not high or difficult pass into the wady or wide broad plain of El-Wali, the watershed between the cluster of Sinai and ’Akaba. From this pass, and from this plain, the backward view of the Sinai mountains was very fine, — St Catharine, and at times Gebel Mousa and Has Sasafeh towering above the rest ; and in front a long bul¬ wark of black and jagged peaks, like the Grampians. From this plain we descended into the Wady Sayal, — (2>. wa«iy so called, apparently, irom a few scattered acacias, the first Sayal‘ we have seen since leaving the Wady Solab. This wady is a continu¬ ous descent, between high granite rocks, occasionally red — sometimes like the deep red of old brick. In this we encamped. The next day it widened, and the acacias increased into spreading, mazy thorns. A sharp storm of rain, the only one we experienced in our whole jour¬ ney, swept from the Sinai range, during which we took shelter under a ‘ Re tern,’ or broom. The shrubs on the ground were myrrh (ser), a yellow flowering shrub, called “ Abi-rathin,” and a blue thorny plant, called “ Silleh.” The hills here are of a conical shape, curiously slanting across each other, and with an appearance of serpentine and basalt. The wady, still bearing the same name, then mounted a snort rocky pass— of hills capped with sandstone — and entered on a plain of deep sand — the first we had encountered— over which 80 SINAI AND PALESTINE. were scattered isolated clumps of sandstone, with occasional chalk— to which the Arabs gave the name of “ 7 Adj erat-el-Farous. 7 7 On two of these rocks were Sinaitic inscriptions ; one with animals, one without. At the close of this plain, an isolated rock, called by the Bedouins “ Herimet Haggag,” “ Aboutig Suleman,77 uKel’et ’Ab¬ dallah,'7 — its high tiers rising out of lower tiers, like a castle. Al¬ most all round the lower tier are inscriptions, some Sinaitic, some Arab, two or three Greek, — many animals, some recent, but the greater part of the same colour as the inscriptions, — and chiefly ibexes, with enormous horns, overlapping the whole body like a rain bow; — also camels and ostriches.1 Leaving this rock, — and leaving also the level ranges of El-Till, which now rose in front, — we turned down from the Maharid-eb lluderah, — the 1 network,7 so called from the extreme complication of small isolated masses — through a sandy desert, amidst fantastic sandstone rocks, mixed w'ith lilac and dull green, as if of tufa. Here were some more inscriptions, — and here w'e encamped. Above the encampment was a crumbling sandstone ridge, which commanded the last great view, and almost equal in beauty to any that we had seen in the Sinaitic peninsula. On the south-west was the whole Sinai range. Um-Shomer and St. Catherine were veiled in cloud, — but Ser- bfd and El-Banat were just visible, — the first like one dot, the second, wTith its double peak, like two dots, on the far horizon. On the north¬ west were the level ridges of the T.h : on the east was the vast and beautiful outline of Arabian mountains on the other side of the Gulf of ’Akaba, with yet another range beyond them, rising as if to a very great height. The near view' was of sand, isolated sandstone hills, and the green and purple hill on which we stood. At 7.30 A. M. we started through deep sand,2 — and what Dr. Robinson well calls “fragments of the Till,77 — over aflat plain, called by the Arabs Rid h an- es- S h u a 7 aa . This presently contracted into a valley (Wady Ghazaleh), winding, like the Wady Say <11, between h igh granite rocks. At 9.30, the Wady Huderah fell into it from the north-west, and the Wady Ghazaleh now opened into another and a still more tortuous valley, which, from first to last, was called by the Arabs the Wady El-7Ain — “of the Spring.77 The spring, or brook, which gives it its name, is a rill of clear fresh water, which descends into it, winding through a winding ravine from the w'est ; its course marked by rushes, the large-leaved plant called “ Esher,77 tama¬ risks, and wild palms. A venerable group of these last stands near the entrance of the brook into the Wady El-' Ain, the rough stems springing up from one vast shaggy root, — the branches, dead and living, hanging over in a tangled canopy. As it descends into the wady, it spreads out its stream with more rushes and more 1 Compare Burckharclt, 505, 50G. See Part I. p. 60. 2 See Part I. p. 9. PENINSULA OP SINAI. SI palms. The rocks rise, red granite or black basalt, occasionally tipped as if with castles of sandstone, to the height of about 1000 feet. They are absolutely bare, except where the green “ lasaf” or caper plant springs from the clefts. Occasionally they overlap and narrow the valley greatly. Finally they open on the sea — the high Arabian mountains rising beyond. At the mouth of the pass are many traces of flood — trees torn down, and strewed along the sand. This pass is certainly one of the most striking scenes in the Pe¬ ninsula. It is well described by Ruppell and by Miss Martineau, under the name of the Wady Wettir, which is a name sometimes given to the lower portion of it, from a ravine of that name which falls into it from the north, shortly after the reception of the brook. Laborde also passed through it on his return from Petra, but, singu¬ larly enough, Without a word of remark on its unparalleled beauty. In all the maps of Sinai — least so in that of Palmer — and in most of the descriptions of this route, there prevails considerable confusion on this point. The following statement, founded on our own obser¬ vation, and on a careful examination of the Slieykh M‘Dochal, who accompanied us, may be relied upon. The spring of Huderah is distinct from the spring El-’ Ain, and is at the head of the Wady Huderah, a little to the N. of the great rock of Herimet Haggag. Dr. Robinson came down the Wady Huderah, crossed the Wady Ghaz Jeh, and passed through the Wady Sumghy, which en¬ ters on the sea shore about an hour south of the Wady El-1 Ain. It is his statement, founded on hearsay, that the Wady El-1 Ain was a day and a half distant, which has misled all modern maps into placing it much too far north.] HAZEROTH. Besides the interest of the physical peculiarities of this route is the faint probability that this beautiful valley and its neighbourhood may have been the scene of the first long halt after the departure from Sinai. After Taberah and Kibroth-IIattaavah, the people “ abode ’ “ for seven days/’ at least, in Hazeroth.1 Burckhardt, and most travellers after him, have, from the resemblance of the two radical letters in the two words, identified this with Huderah. Such a conjecture must be very uncertain, the more so as the name of Ilazeroth is one the least likely to be attached to any permanent or natural feature of the . ' Numb, xl 35 ; xii. 15, 16. The arguments are well stated in Ritter; Sinai, 251, 261. 270. 6 82 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Desert. It means simply the “ enclosures,”1 such as may still be seen in the Bedouin villages, hardly less transitory than tents. Three points, however, may he mentioned, as slightly confirmatory of the hypothesis that the Israelite route lay in these valleys. First, the brook of El- Ain, as its name implies, is empha¬ tically “ the water,” “ the spring,” of this region of the Desert, and must therefore have attracted round it any nomadic settlements, such as are implied in the name of Hazeroth, and such as that of Israel must have been. If thev descended at all to the western shores of the Gulf of %/ ’Akaba, this is the most natural spot for them to have selected for a long halt. Secondly, in the murmurs pre¬ vious to their arrival at Hazeroth, u the sea” is twice mentioned, in a manner which may indicate its proximity, and which is therefore certainly more appropriate to these valleys touching on the Gulf of ’Akaba, than to the more inland route over the Till. a Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them ? or shall all the fish of the sea he gathered together, to suffice them ?”2 “ There went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea .”3 Thirdly, in connection with this incident of the u quails,” may be mentioned the fact, that on the evening and the morning of our encampment, immediately before reaching the Wady Huderah, the sky was literally darkened by the flight of innumerable birds, which proved to be the same large red-legged cranes, three feet high, with black and white wings, measuring seven feet from tip to tip, which we had seen in like numbers at the First Cataract of the Nile. It is re¬ markable that a similar flight was seen by Schubert near the very same spot. That any large flights of birds should be seen in those parts at any rate illustrates the Scripture narrative. But if a recent4 explanation of the difficult passage in Numbers xi. 31, be correct, and the 1 For the name, see Appendix. Numb. xi. 22 ; see Ritter, 327. 8 Numb. xi. 31 4 Mr. Forster’s Voice of Sinai, p. 108. 1 do not mean to guarantee the accuracy of his translation, or the applicability of his remarks to the especial subject of which he is there speaking. But I am unwilling to withhold this slight illustra- , tion of almost the only conclusion in that - work which received any confirmation from my observations PENINSULA OE SINAI. 83 expression “ two cubits high upon the face of the earth,” be applied, not to the accumulation of the mass, but to the size of the individual birds ; the flight of cranes, such as we saw, may be not merely an illustration, but an instance, of the incident recorded in the Pentateuch, and the frequency of the phenomenon in this locality may serve to show that Kibroth-IIattaavah and Huderah were not far distant. XIII. - GULF OF ?AKABA. Down this valley then, through these splendid rocks we rode, till at last, opening more widely than before, they disclosed the blue waters of the Gulf. Dromedaries, Bedouins, all set off in a race, each Bedouin urging on the dromedary of his master ; and after half an hour’s gallop we arrived on the shore. The next day, and the next, were along the shore of the sea almost the whole way. It is the Gulf of Elath and Ezion-Geber, up and down which the fleets of Solomon brought the gold of Ophir : the great channel of com¬ merce till it was diverted by Alexandria to the Gulf of Suez. The two gulfs seem, like Castor and Pollux, to have risen and set alter¬ nately. Now there is not a single boat upon it from end to end. Once a year, and once only, boats come round from Suez to ’Akaba with provisions for the Mecca pilgrims ; at all other times it is deso¬ late as the wilderness. But what a sea ! and what a shore ! From the dim silvery mountains on the further Arabian coast, over the blue waters of the sea, melting into colourless clearness as they roll up the shelly beach, — that beach red with the red sand, or red granite gravel that pours down from the cliffs above, — those cliffs sometimes deep red, sometimes yellow and purple, and above them all the blue cloudless sky of Arabia. And the sight of the shore at once reveals why this sea, in common with the Indian Ocean, was called Red by the Greeks, and the Sea of Weeds by the Hebrews. Of the red sand and rocks I have spoken ; but, besides these, fragments of red coral are forever being thrown up from the stores below, and it is these coralline forests which form the true “ weeds” 1 of this fantastic sea. But, above all, never did I see such shells. Far as your eye can reach you see the beach whitening with them, like bleaching bones ; and as you break them under your dromedary’s feet, they are like the earthenware on Monte Testaccio, only, instead of broken pottery, like white porcelain. These are the larger ones ; but there are smaller ones, of every size, and shape, and colour ; sometimes, too, the trunks of trees of white coral, shoot- 1 See Part I. pp. 5, 6. 84 SINAI AND PALESTINE. ing their roots through the sand, the upper branches gone, but still showing what these trees must be in the depths below. On the second day we had to leave the shore to cross a high mountain pass (Nakb-Muheymerat), by a very rugged path, the highest and roughest that we have seen ; the line of camels, going in single file, extended almost from top to bottom. It is important, because, being the only means of reaching the head of the gulf, it proves either that the Israelites could not have come our route, or that no pass which we have seen in Sinai would have impeded their march to any point in the Peninsula. It was about four P.M. that we reached ’Akaba. ’Akaba is a wretched village, shrouded in a palm-grove at the north end of the Gulf, gathered round a fortress built for the protection of the Mecca pilgrimage ; into whose route we here again fell for the first time since we left it at ’ Ajerud, which is guarded by a fort like this. This is the whole object of the present existence of ’Akaba, which stands on the site of the ancient Elath, — -u the Palm-Trees,” so called from the grove.1 Its situation, however, is very striking, looking down the beautiful gulf, with its jagged ranges on each side : on the west is the great black pass down which the pilgrimage descends, and from which ’Akaba (“ the Pass”) derives its name; on the north opens the wide plain, or Desert Valley, wholly different in char¬ acter from anything we have seen, still called as it was in the days of Moses, “ the ’Arabah.” Down this came the Israelites on their return from Kadesh, and through a gap up the eastern hills they finally turned off to Moab. On this view they undoubtedly looked. It was a new Red Sea for them, and they little knew the glory which it would acquire when it became the channel of all the wealth of Solomon. XIV. — THE ’ARABAH. Our journey for the first two days was along the wide and desert valley of the ’Arabah. It is one great peculiarity of the whole of the passage through the Desert, that every day you pass over a battle-field of historical or topographical controversy ; not the Forum of Rome is more fertile in such disputes. In this great valley there is no more question of the course of the Israelites. It is in¬ deed doubtful whether they passed up it on their way to Canaan, but no one can doubt that they passed down it, when the valleys of Edom were closed against them. But the geographical contro¬ versy, of which the ’Arabah is the scene, though it has or ought to have been set at rest in its essential points by the comparative levels 1 See Part I. p. 22. There is nothing to fix the site of Ezion-Geber, “ the Giant's Backbone.” PENINSULA OF SINAI. 85 of the Gulf of ’Akaba and the Lake tf Gennesareth, still remains unsettled in its lesser details. [For this reason it may be worth while to give a few notes of its general features, taken at the time. After leaving ’Akaba. we entered the Wady ’Arabali, over the mounds, supposed by Dr. Robinson to be the remains of Elath. On the east is a low gap in the hills with three low peaks visible beyond. This is the Wady Ithm, which turns the eastern range of the ’ Arabah, and through which the Israelites must have passed on their way to Moab. It is still one of the regular roads to Petra, and in ancient times seems to have been the main approach from Elath or ’Akaba, as it is the only road from the south which enters Petra through the Sik.1 II The only published account of it is that of Laborde. These mountains appear to be granite. On the west are the limestone ranges of the Tih, horizontal as before. Two remarkable wadys appeared in the eastern range, after leaving the Wady Ithm. First, the Wady Tubal, where, for the first time, red sandstone appeared in the mountains, rising, as in the Wady El-’Ain, architecture-wise, above gray granite. Of these moun¬ tains, the most prominent is Gebel Shebibeh, with Wady Moahil beneath. The next is Wady Ghurundel, a narrow gorge, with a slight brook forming small pools — rushes and dwarf palms around — innumerable goats and sheep crowded at the water, led by black - veiled Bedouin women. (This Wady must not be confounded with the more celebrated valley of the same name in the Peninsula of Sinai. ) It was about four hours after leaving the entrance of Wady Ghurundel, and one hour before arriving at the entrance of the Wady Abou-Sheykh (leading to Petra), that we arrived at what the Sheykh Mohammed'2 pointed out to us [as he had before, it seems, pointed out to Mr. Bartlett] what he considered as the division of the waters between the Gulf of ’Akaba and the Dead Sea. Two circumstances always make it difficult for travellers positively to ascertain this point. First, the slope in the level of the ’Arabah from east to west, which distorts the course of the torrents, and makes it almost impossible to distinguish whether they descend in a northerly or a southerly direction ; secondly, the difficulty of tra¬ versing the ’Arabah (when in a caravan) directly from east to west. The ridge in question was a long line of hills, formed apparently of a detritus of stone and sand, called “ Chragi-er-Rishi” (“ Saddlebags 1 See p. 89. 1 Sheykh Mohammed is the eldest son of the celebrated Sheykh of the Alouins, II ssayn. His father, now advancing in years, deputed his son to escort us ; and I feel bound to mention the almost princely courtesy which he showed to us during the journey. I have purposely omitted all account of the often repeated, though to those concerned always inter¬ esting, negotiations with the old chief himself at ’Akaba. 86 SINAI AND PALESTINE. of feathers”), which ran due west along the ’Arabah. Just before reaching these was the first view of Mount Hor, and on ascending them we looked back for the last time over the southern ’Arabah, which from this point looks like a waste of sand ; whereas, when in it, the shrubs at times give it almost the appearance of a jungle The wide opening to the sea is also visible from hence, though not the sea itself. In the midst of these hills, or rather of the undula¬ tions formed by their summits, all intersected by lesser watercourses, ii one broad watercourse, running from east to west, called Wady Iiowar, i. e., ‘ ‘ the division.” It is this which Sheykh Mohammed declares to be the watershed, and which, he maintains, “ shuts out” the waters of the Gulf of ’ Akaba from side to sided XY. — APPROACH TO PETRA. The whole prospect changes at this point. We lose the opening of the valley into the Gulf of ’Akaba, and we gain the view of Mount Hor, — the “ Mountain of Aaron,” as it is still called. Be¬ hind it lies Petra, and to Petra, through fantastic rocks, we turned aside, and encamped at last at the entrance of the pass, and waited for the morning. One isolated rock, with an excavation inside, in front of the hill, indicated the region we were approaching, appa¬ rently an outpost for a sentinel, — perhaps the very one which the Prophet had in his eye in that well-known text, “Watchman, what of the night ?” J O And now arose the strange feeling of arriving at a place which it was possible we might be prevented by force from entering, or have by force to enter. Fifty years hence, when our friend Sheykh Mohammed has put down the surrounding tribes, Petra will have lost half its interest ; but now the failures and dangers are sufficiently recent to form part of the first impression of the place. It is lite-* rally “ paved with the good intentions” of travellers, unfulfilled. There, was Mount Hor, which Robinson and Laborde in vain wished to ascend ; there, the plain half way, where Burckhardt was obliged to halt without reaching the top ; here the temple which Irby and Mangles only saw through their telescope ; here the platform from which the Marti neau party were unable to stir without an armed guard ; and, lastly, on the very plain of our encampment, at the entrance of the pass, travellers with our own dragoman were driven back last year without even a glimpse of the famous city. XVI. — ASCENT OF MOUNT HOR. We ascended the pass early in the morning ; and leaving the 1 Isaiah xxi. 11. “ He calleth to me aut of Seir.” PENINSULA OF SINAI. 87 camels and tents to go on to Petra, turned to climb the summit of Mount Ror. It is one of the very few spots connected with the wanderings of the Israelites, which admits of no reasonable doubt.1 There Aaron died in the presence of Moses and Eleazer ; there he was buried ; and there Eleazer was invested with the priesthood in bis stead. The mountain is marked far and near by its double top, which rises like a huo;e castellated building from a lower base, and on one of these is the Mohammedan chapel erected out of the remains of some earlier and more sumptuous building, over the supposed grave. There was nothing of interest within ; only the usual marks of Mussulman devotion, ragged shawls, ostrich eggs, and a few beads. These were in the upper chamber. The great High-priest, if his body be really there, rests in a subterraneous vault below, hewn out of the rock, and in a niche now cased over with stone, wood, and plaster. From the flat roof of the chapel we overlooked his last view — that view which was to him what Pisgah was to his brother. To us the northern end was partly lost in haze ; but we saw all the main points on which his eye must have rested. He looked over the valley of the ’Arabah, countersected by its hundred watercourses, and beyond, over the white mountains of the wilderness they had so long traversed ; and at the northern edge of it, there must have been visible the heights through which the Israelites had vainly attempted to force their way into the Promised Land. This was the western view. Close around him on the east were the rugged mountains of Edom, and far along the horizon the wide downs of Mount Seir, through which the passage had been denied by the wild tribes of Esau who hunted over their long slopes. A dreary moment, and a dreary scene, — such at any rate it must have seemed to the aged priest. The peculiarity of the view was the combination of wide extension with the scarcity of marked features and points on which to observe. Petra itself is entirely shut out by the intervening rocks. But the survey of the Desert on one side, and the mountains of Edom on the other, is complete ; and of these last the great feature is the mass of red bald-headed sandstone rocks, intersected, not by valleys, but by deep seams. In the heart of these rocks, itself invisible, lies Petra. Beyond spreads the range of yellow downs, tufted with vegetation, now called Sherah. And now to Petra let us O 7 descend. 1 The proofs of the identity of “ Gebel TTaroun,” as it is now called, with Mount Hor, are (1). The situation “by the coast of the land of Edom,” where it is emphatically “the mountain” (Uor). Numb, xx 23. (2). The statement of Josephus (Ant. IY., iv. 7), that Aaron’s death occurred on a high mountain en¬ closing Petra. (3). The modern name and traditional sanctity of the mountain as connected with Aaron’s tomb. SB SINAI AND PALESTINE. XVII. — PETRA.1 The first tiling that struck me in turning out of the 'Arabah up the defiles that lead to Petra was, that we had suddenly left the Desert. Instead of the absolute nakedness of the Sinaitic valleys, we found ourselves walking on grass, sprinkled with flowers, and the level platforms on each side were filled with sprouting corn ; and this continues through the whole descent to Petra, and in Petra itself. The next peculiarity was when, after having left the summit of the pass, or after descending from Mount Ilor, we found ourselves insen¬ sibly encircled with rocks of deepening and deepening red. Red in¬ deed, even from a distance, the mountains of “ Red” Edom appear, but not more so than the granite of Sinai ; and it is not till one is actually in the midst of them that this red becomes crimson, and that the wonder of the Petra colours fully displays itself. Two mistakes seem to me to have been made in the descriptions. All the describers have spoken of bright hues — scarlet, sky-blue, orange, etc. Had they taken courage to say instead, u dull crimson, indigo, yellow, and purple,”' their account would have lost something in effect, but gained much in truth. Nor really would it have lost much any way. For the colours, though not gaudy, — or rather because they are not gaudy, — are gorgeous. You are never, or nardly ever, startled by them. You could never mistake them for anything else but nature ; they seem the natural clothing of the Another mistake is, that the descriptions lead you — or. at least, they led me — to suppose that wherever you turn at Petra, you see nothing but these wonderful colours. I have already said, that from a distance one hardly sees them at all. One sees the general contrast only of the red sandstone cliffs standing out against the white limestone and yellow downs, which form their higher back¬ ground. But when one comes in face of the very cliffs themselves, then they are, as I have said, a gorgeous, though dull crimson, streaked and suffused with purple. These are the two predominant colours, — “ ferruginous,” perhaps, they may best be called. — and on the face of the rocks the only colours. But one striking feature of the whole scenery is, that not merely the excavations and buildings, but the rocks themselves, are in a constant state of mouldering decay. You can scarcely tell where excavation begins and decay ends. It is in these caves, and roofs, and recesses, whether natural 1 I have to apologise for adding another account of a place so well known as Petra now is, through the descriptions of Burck- ha^dt, Dr. Robinson, and Miss Martineau. But it was too important a stage in the journey to be altogether omitted ; and two or three points in the previous descriptions seemed to me to require corrections or additions. ; PENINSULA OF SINAI. 89 or artificial — very numerous it is true, but not seen till you are close within them — that there appears that extraordinary veining and intermixture of colours, in which yellow and blue are occasionally added — ribbon-like — to red and purple. Of the three comparisons usually made — mahogany, raw-flesh, and watered silk — the last is certainly the best. This brings me to the third great feature of Petra — its ex¬ cavations. Here again the same error has been committed. I ; had expected to be surrounded with rocks honey-combed with caves. By no means. I do not doubt, that by calculation of all in the out¬ lying ravines, you might count up thousands ; but in the most populous part that I could select, I could not number in one view more than fifty, and generally much fewer. It is their immense ramifications, rather than their concentrated effect, that is remark¬ able, and this of course can no more be seen in one view than all the streets of London. The larger excavations are temples ; the others t may be divided between modern (i. e., Roman or Arab) tombs, and Edomite or Horite1 habitations. Round about, or rather east and west, are masses of crumbling rock, their faces immediately above this mass of ruins cut out into holes, and sometimes with Grecian facades. Of these, the most remarkable are in the eastern cliffs, where four of these great excavations, apparently not tombs or I ho uses, but temples, stand close together with tiers of pillars one c above another, giving to that cliff an embattled appearance, which architecturally speaking, is the only remarkable feature in the basin of Petra, taken by itself. .... But Petra, that is, the mere site of the city, is by far the least I striking part of Petra. There any one, I think, with highly- raised I expectations will feel disappointment. In the two points I am going to describe, I believe no one. First there is the famous defile which, in ancient times, was the chief — the only usual — approach to Petra; and I feel so strongly the . loss of interest which Petra suffers by the present gradual entrance, i: that I would strongly recommend all travellers — even at the cost ol another day’s journey — to come round by this eastern approach, through which, though we only saw it reversed, I mean now to con¬ duct you, as if entering from the east. You descend from those wide dotvns and those white cliffs which I have before described as forming the background of the Red City i when seen from the west, and before you opens a deep cleft between rocks of red sandstone rising perpendicularly to the height of one, two, or three hundred feet. This is the S/tc, or u cleft;” through this flows— if one may use the expression — the dry torrent, which, rising 1 The name of the “Horim,” who preceded the Edomites (Deut ii. 22) signifies, 1 dwellers in caves.” 90 SINAI AND PALESTINE. in the mountains half an hour hence, gives the name by which alone Petra is now known amongst the Arabs — -Wady Mousa. “For,” — so Sheykh Mohammed tells us — “as surely as Gebel ILlrun (the Mountain of Aaron) is so called from the burial-place of Aaron, is Wady Mousa (the Valley of Moses) so called from the cleft being made by the rod of Moses when he brought the stream through into the valley beyond.” It is, indeed, a place worthy of the scene, and one could long to believe it. Follow me, then, down this mag¬ nificent gorge— the most magnificent, bey< nd all doubt, which I have ever beheld. The rocks are almost precipitous, or rather, they would be, if they did not, like their brethren in all this region, overlap, and crumble, and crack, as if they would crash over you. The gorge is about a mile and a half long, and the opening of the cliffs at the top is throughout almost as narrow as the narrowest part of the defile of Pfeifers, which, in dimensions and form, it more resembles than any other of my acquaintance. At its very first entrance you pass under the arch which, though greatly broken, still spans the chasm — meant apparently to indicate the approach to the city. You pass under this along the bed of the torrent, now rough with stones, but once a regularly paved road like the Appian Way. the pavement still remaining at intervals in the bed of the stream — the stream, meanwhile, which now has its own wild way, beino; then diverted from its course along; troughs hewn in the rock o o o above, or conducted through earthenware pipes, still traceable. These, and a few niches for statues now gone, are the only traces of human hand. What a sight it must have been, when all these were perfect ! A road, level and smooth, running through these tremendous rocks, and the blue sky just visible above, the green caper plant and wild ivy hanging in festoons over the heads of the travellers as they wind along, the flowering oleander fringing then, as now, this - marvellous highway like the border of a garden-walk. Ybu move on ; and the ravine, and with it the road, — and with the road in old times - the caravans of India, — winds as if it were the most flexible of rivers, instead of being in truth a rent through a mountain Avail. In this respect, in its sinuosity, it differs from any other like gorge I ever saw. The peculiarity is, perhaps, occasioned by the singularly friable character of the cliffs, the same character that has caused the thousand excavations beyond ; and the effect is, that instead of the uniform character of most ravines, you are constantly turning round corners, and catching neAV lights and new aspects, in which to view the cliffs themselves. They are, for the most part, deeply red, and Avhen you see their tops emerging from the shade and glowing in the sunshine, I could almost forgive the exaggeration that calls them scarlet. But in fact they are of the darker hues! which in the shadoAV amount almost to black, and such is their PENINSULA OF SINAI. 91 colour at this point to which I have brought you, after a mile or more through the defile— the cliffs over-arching in their narrowest contraction — -when, suddenly through the narrow opening left be¬ tween the two dark walls of another turn of the gorge, you see a pale pink front of pillars and sculptured figures closing your view from top to bottom. You rush towards it, you find yourself at the .end of the defile, and in the presence of an excavated temple, which remains almost entirely perfect between the two flanks of dark rock out of which it is hewn ; its preservation, and its peculiarly light and rosy tint being alike due to its singular position facing the ravine or rather wall of rock, through which the ravine issues, and thus sheltered beyond any other building (for one may so call it) from the wear and tear of weather, which has effaced, though not defaced, the features, and tanned the complexion, of all the other temples. This I only saw by degrees, coming upon it from the west ; but to the travellers of old times, and to those who, like Burckhardt in modern times, came down the defile, not knowing what they were to see, and meeting with this as the first image of the Red City, I cannot conceive anything more striking. There is nothing of peculiar grace or grandeur in the temple itself — (the Khazne, or Treasury, it is called) — it is of the most debased style of Roman architecture ; but under the circumstances, I almost think one is more startled by finding in these wild and impracticable mountains a production of the last effort of a decaying and over-refined civilisa¬ tion, than if it were something which, by its better and simpler taste, mounted more nearly to the source where Art and Nature were one. Probably any one who entered Petra this way, would be so electrified by this apparition (which I cannot doubt to have been evoked there purposely, as you would place a fountain or an obelisk at the end of an avenue) as to have no eyes to behold or sense to appreciate anything else. Still I must take you to the end. The Sik, though it opens here, yet contracts once more, and it is in this last stage that those red and purple variegations, which I have before described, appear in their most gorgeous views ; and here also begins, what must have been properly the Street of Tombs, the Appian Way of Petra. Here they are most numerous, the rock is honey¬ combed with cavities of all shapes and sizes, and through these you advance till the defile once more opens, and you see — strange and unexpected sight ! — with tombs above, below, and in front, a Greek Theatre (like that of Tusculum) hewn out of the rock, its tiers of seats literally red and purple alternately, in the native rock. Once more the defile closes with its excavations, and once more opens in the area of Petra itself: the torrent-bed passing now through absolute desolation and silence, thougli strewn with the fragments which 92 SINAI AND PALESTINE. show that you once entered on a splendid and busy city gathered along its rocky banks, as along the quays of some great northern river. The Sik is unquestionably the great glory of Petra ; but there is another point, on the other side, which struck me very much also, and which, if thoroughly explored, would, I think, be the mo3t instructive and interesting spot in the place.1 You turn up a torrent- bed in the western cliffs (for torrent-beds from all sides pour down into this area in the heart of the hills), but soon leave it to ascend a staircase hewn out of the rocks, steps not absolutely continuous now, though probably they once were ; broad steps glowing with the native colours, which conduct you through mag¬ nificent rocks, and along the banks of an almost second Sik, high up into the vast cluster of rocks which face Mount Hor on the north. This staircase is the most striking instance of what you see everywhere. Wherever your eyes turn along the excavated sides of the rocks you see steps, often leading to nothing; or to something which has crumbled away ; often with their first steps worn away, so that they are now inaccessible ; sometimes as mere ornaments in the facades, but everywhere seen even more than the caves themselves. High up in these rocks, withdrawn like the Khazne between two gigantic walls of cliff, with a green platform before it, is another temple of the same kind, though not of the same singular colour. In fact, it has the appearance of yellow stone, but in form it is more perfect than the Khazne, and its whole effect is so extremely modern, that I cannot better describe its impression on me than by comparing it to a London church of the last century. That is to say, you must imagine a London church, of the most debased style of ornament and taste, transplanted into a mountain nook as wild and solitary as the Splugen. I call it solitary — but it was not always so. The Arabic name, El-Heir, — “ the Convent,” — implies their belief that it was a Christian church. Crosses are carved within it. The Sinaitic inscriptions are carved on the steps by which it is approached. Ruins lie above, below, and around it. Everything, in short, tends to indicate that this was a specially sacred spot, and that it was regarded so by Christians afterwards. KADESH. With the departure from Sinai, or at least from Haze- roth, the geographical interest of the Israelite history almost ceases till the arrival in the table-lands of Moab, and the first beginning of the conquest. Not only is 1 See p. 97. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 93 the general course of their march wrapt in great obscurity, but even if we knew it, the events are not generally of a kind which would receive any special illustration from the scenes in which they occurred. No attempt shall here be made to track their course in detail. It is possible that some future traveller may dis¬ cover the stations recorded in the itinerary of the 33rd chapter of the book of Numbers. At present none has been ascertained with any likelihood of truth, unless we accept the doubtful identification of Hazeroth with Hude- rdli 1 of which I have already spoken. All that is clear is that they marched northward from Mount Sinai, pro¬ bably over the plateau of the Tih — which seems to be designated as 66 the wilderness of Paran” — then that they descended into the ’Arabah — designated, apparently, as I “ the wilderness of Zin.” Thence, on the refusal of the king of Edom to let them pass through his territory, they moved southward, encamped on the shores of the Gulf of ’Akaba, at Ezion-Geber, and then turned the corner of the Edomite mountains, at their southern extremity, . and entered the table-lands of Moab at the 66 torrent of the I willows” (“ the brook Zared”) at the south-east end of the Dead Sea. In this general obscurity, one place stands out pro- I minently. There can be no question, that next to Sinai, I the most important of all the resting-places of the Children of Israel is Kadesh.2 It is the only one dignified by the * name of “ a city.” Its very name awakens our attention 1 — the “ Holy Place” — the same name by which Jerusa- Ijlem itself is still called in Arabic, “ El-Khods.” It is I 1 A list of possible identifications may . be seen in the Descriptive Geography of | Palestine by Rabbi Joseph Schwartze,. p. Ill 212—214. 2 Although Reland (Palmstina, p. 115, ffj is probably mistaken in supposing that there were two halting-places of Israel called Kadesh, yet it does appear I that in Gen. xvi. 14;' xx. 1 ; Josh. xv. 23, another Kadesh may be intended on che northern plateau of the Tih ; and, if j jo. this may be the one found by Mr. Rowlands (Williams’ Holy City, vol. i. App. p. 466), under the same name, in a place corresponding with those indica¬ tions, but too far northward and west¬ ward to be identified with Kadesli- Barnea. The fact of the affix of “ Barnea” may indicate that there was another. Whether Israel was twice at Kadesh seems extremely doubtful. The difficulty of reducing the second part of the wanderings of Israel to distinct chronological order, will be evident to any one who compares Numb, xxxiii. 30 — 36 with Dcut. x. 6 — 7. 94 SINAI AND PALESTINE. probably the old oracular “Spring of Judgment,” mentioned as existing in the earliest times of Canaanite history as if, like Mount Sinai itself, it had an ancient sanctity before the host of Israel encamped within its precincts. The encampment there is also distinct in character from any other in the wilderness, except the stay at Sinai or perhaps at Rephidim. The exact time is not given ; but it is stated generally that “ they abode in Kadesh many days.”2 They were there at least forty days,3 during the absence of the spies. In its neighbourhood, two bat¬ tles were fought with the southern Canaanites — one a defeat, the other a victory.4 There arose the demand for water, which gave to the place its new name of Meribah- Kadesh ;5 there also the rebellion of Korah, and the death of the sister and the brother of Moses. All these indications compel us to look for some more definite locality than can be found in the scattered springs and pools in the midst of the Desert, with which travellers have usually endeavoured to identify it — such, for exam¬ ple, as ’Ain El-Weibeh, on the eastern side of the ’Arabah, which Dr. Robinson selected as the spot, and which, but for the reasons just given, would not be an inappropriate scene. The geographical notices of its situation are unfortu¬ nately too slight to be of much service. Yet thus much they fix, that it was “ in the wilderness of Zin,”6 that it was “ on the ‘ edge’ of the border of Edom”7 — that it was Kadesh” (cf. xii. 16). It is possible that the other Kadesh (before noticed) may be here meant. But, however it is explained, a passage of this kind, — with the liability to mistakes which seems to have beset the whole text of the wander¬ ings, — cannot avail against the emphatic contrast elsewhere drawn between the two wildernesses of Paran and of Zin, and the close connexion of Kadesh-Barne.. with Zin. 7 The ‘ edge,’ Numb. xx. 16, is the same word as is used in Numb. xxxiiL 37, of Mount Hor. To represent Edom as extending west of the ’Arabah in the time of Moses is an anachronism, bor¬ rowed from the times after the Captivity, when the Edomites, driven from their , ancient seats, occupied the “south” of - Judea as far as Hebron ; 1 Macc. v. 65. 1 Gen. xiv. 7. “ ’En-Mishpat (the spring of judgment), which is Kadesh.” Compare for the combination, Exod. xv. 25, “ lie made for them (at Marah) a statute and a ‘judgment1 (mishpat).” Jerome, however, distinguishes Kadesh- ’en -Mishpat from Ivadesh-Barnea, making the former to be a spot in the Valley of Gerar, well known in his days as Beer- dan, — “ the well of the judge.” De Loc. Heb. voc. Puteus judicis. 2 Deut. i. 46. 3 Judith v. 14. 4 Deut. xxviii. 2. 6 Deut. xxxii. 51. 6 Numb, xxvii. 14; xxxiii. 36; Deut. xxxii. 51. In one passage, Kadesh ap¬ pears to be placed in “ the wilderness of 1’aran.” Numb. xiii. 26. The spies re¬ turned “ unto the wilderness of Paran to PENINSULA OF SINAI. near u Mount Hor,” — that it was at the southern point to which the territory of Judah afterwards reached. Is there any place to which these indications correspond ? Possibly, if the country were thoroughly explored, there might be found several in the deserted cities of Edom, known only to the very few travellers who have entered Edom by the Wady Ithm. At present one only is known, and that is Petra. An oasis of vegetation in the desert hills ; scenery only second in grandeur to that where the Law was delivered ; a city of which the present ruins are modern, but of which the earlier vestiges reach hack to the remotest antiquity — these are some of the points which give Petra a claim to he considered as the original sanctuary of the Idumean wilderness. It is moreover one of the few facts localised by anything like an authentic tradition, — in this case preserved by Josephus, the Talmudists, Eusebius,1 and Jerome,2 — that Kadesh was either identical, or closely connected with Petra. With this the existing names (though capable of another origin) remarkably harmonise. The mountain which overhangs the valley of Petra has been known as far back as the knowledge of travellers extends, as the “ mountain of Aaron.” The basin of Petra is known to the Arabs by no other name than u the Valley of Moses.” The great ravine through which the torrent is admitted into the valley, is called “ the Cleft of Moses” — in distinct reference to the stroke of the rod of Moses.3 1 Josephus (Ant IV., iv. 7) speaks of Mount Hor as lying above Arke, which he identifies with Petra. Arke is evidently the same word (perhaps with the prefix of ’Ar for “mountain” — as in Armageddon) as “ Rekem,” the Syriac name for Petra (Jerome, De Loe. Heb. voc. Petra and Rekem) ana the Talmudist name for Kadesh, — see also the Syriac and Arabic versions, — derived (says Jerome, voc. Rekem , and Josephus, Ant. IV, vii. 1) from the Midianite chief Rohan. Abulfeda (Tabula Svrise, p. 11) speaks of Ar-Ra- kem as near A1 Balka (the Arabic name of the country east of the Gfhor), and remarkable for the houses cut in the rock. There may be other places on the east of the Gfhor to which this description would apply, but none to which it would so well apply as Petra. The Targums of Onkelos, Jonathan, and Jerusalem, call Kadesh-Barnea “ Rekem Gfiah,” — ‘ of the ravine,’ probably alluding to the Sik. See Schwarze, p. 23, 24, who has, how¬ ever, his own explanations. 2 “ Cades Barnea in deserto, quse con- jungitur civitati Petrce in Arabia.” lie notices the tomb of Miriam as still shown there, not that of Aaron. (De Loc. Heb.) 3 See p. 90. This also agrees with Jerome’s descriptions of Mount Hor. “ Or Mons, in quo mortuus est Aaron, jicxta civitatem Petr am, ubi usque qrcesentem diem ostenditur rupes qud percussd magnas aquas populo dedit. De Loc. Heb. voc. Or. 96 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Ill accordance with these confirmations are the inci¬ dental expressions of the narrative itself. The word always used for 66 the rock” of Kadesh,1 in describing the second supply of water, is “ sela ” or “ cliff” in contradistinction to the usual wTord 66 tzur ” — “ rock” which is no less invariably applied to “ the rock” of Horeb — the scene of the first supply.2 It may be difficult to determine the relative meaning of the two words. But it is almost certain that of the two, “ sela” like our word “ cliff,” is the grander and more abrupt feature ; which is of importance as excluding from the claimants to the name of Kadesh, such spots as ’Ain El- Weibeh, where the rocks are merely stony shelves of three or four feet in height. But the name “ Sela” is also the same as that by which in later times the place now called “ Petra” was designated. As the southern boundary of Judah is described as reaching over the “ ascent of scorpions” to Kadesh, so the Amorite boundary is de¬ scribed as u from the ascent of scorpions, from 6 the cliff’ ( sela ), and upwards.”3 “Amaziah took ‘the cliff’ {sela) by war.” 66 Other ten thousand did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them up to the top of • the cliff’ (sela), and cast them down from the top of 6 the cliff’ (sela), that they were all broken into pieces.”4 * The name of Kadesh almost entirely disappears from the Sacred Books before the name of Sela appears, and it is therefore possible that the latter, taken from its natural peculiarity, may have been given to it by the Edomites or later settlers, after the recollections of its earlier sanctity had passed away. That a sanctuary of this kind should have been gradually transformed into an emporium and thoroughfare of commerce, as was the case with Petra during the Homan empire, would be one out of many instances with which oriental and ancient history abounds. 1 Numb. xx. 8 — 11. See Appendix. the “daughter of Babylon,” but against 3 Exod. xvii. 6. “the children of Edom.” — “Happy shall 3 Joshua xv. 3; Judg. i. 36. he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast 4 2 Kings xiv. 7 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 12. served us; happy shall he be that taketh The use of this word in these passages and dasheth thy little ones against the makes it probable that; the denunciation ‘ cliff’ {sela)''' of Psalm cxxxvii. 9, is aimed not against PENINSULA OF SINAI. 97 If there be any ground for this conclusion, Petra assumes a new interest. Its rock-hewn caves may have served in part for the dwellings, in part for the graves of the Israelites ; it is dignified as the closing scene of the life both of Miriam and Aaron ; its sanctity may account lor the elevation and seclusion of some of its edifices, perched high among almost inaccessible rocks, and evi¬ dently the resort of ancient pilgrims ; its impressive scenery well accords with the language of the ancient hymns of Israel, in which Kadesh with the surrounding rocks of Edom is almost elevated to the rank of a second Sinai : “ Lord, when thou wentest out of JSeir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom”1 — “ God came from Tertian , and the Holy One from Mount Parang 66 He brought them to Mount Sinai and Kadesh-barneaK u The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Mount Seir unto them ; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came . . . . with ten thousands of saints”4 (if we take the Hebrew as followed in the authorised Version — but more probably with the Septuagint) — “ with the ten thousands of Kadesh ;” or (perhaps more probably still, with Ewald5), u from Merihah-Kadesh .” And if any point is to be selected in Petra, as especially the seat of this primeval sanctuary, it is that which I .have just described, commonly known by the name of the “ Heir,” or “ Convent.” Its present form is of the same modern character as that which deprives all these monuments of any deep interest — a facade, with a vast urn on the summit ; the interior, one large hall. But its situation and its accompaniments indicate the great importance, if not sanctity, with which it was invested at some period by the inhabitants of Petra. Removed as it is from the sight not only of the town, but of the numerous sepulchres or excavations with which the cliffs which surround the town are perforated, it must have had some special purpose of its own. The long ascent by which it is approached, mostly edge of a precipitous ravine, is carefully along the 1 Judg. v. 4. 4 Jude 14. 2 Habak. iii. 3. 3 Deut. xxxiii. 2. 5 Geschichte, 2nd edit., ii. 257. 7 SINAI AND PALESTINE. hewn, wherever the rocks admit, into a continuous stair¬ case, of which the steps are in more than one instance marked by the unknown inscriptions in the so-called Sinaitic character. The walls of the interior of the Deir itself, as well as the steps, are sculptured with the usual accompaniments of these inscriptions, — crosses and figures of the wild goat, or ibex. Immediately opposite is a hill, with a large chamber below, partly natural, partly artificial ; containing a sculptured niche at the end of it for a statue ; and bases of columns lie strewed around. A staircase leads to the roof of the Deir, which is again inscribed with a rude character ; and on the rocky platform with which the roof communicates,1 is a circle of hewn stones, and again still beyond is a solitary cell hewn in an isolated cliff, and joined to this platform by a narrow isthmus of rock. In the absolute dearth of records of Petra, it is impos¬ sible to decide the reason of the selection of this lonely spot for a sanctuary, thus visited, as it would appear, by the same pilgrims, who have left their traces so often elsewhere in the Peninsula. Yet its situation inevitably suggests some relation to Mount Hor. From the threshold, indeed, of the Deir, Mount Hor is not visible.2 But the whole of the upper story, and the roof — to which, as I have said, a staircase ascends as if for the express purpose of commanding a wider view, — both look upon the sacred mount of the High Priest’s tomb, and are seen from thence. It is in fact the only building of Petra included in the view from Mount Hor, through which alone, in its deep seclusion, it was first revealed to the eyes of travellers. Is it too much to suppose that this point and Mount Hor were long regarded as the two sacred spots of Petra ; that the scene of the death and sepulture of Aaron was designedly fixed in view of this, the innermost sanctuary of the Holy Place of u Kadesh that this sanctity was retained through the successive changes of Pagan and Christian worship ; and that the pilgrims of the Desert 1 This last feature I derive from Miss Martineau (Eastern Life, 2nd ed., p. 410), who is the only person who has left a record of its existence. From an oversight I omittod to see it on the spot. 2 By a not unnatural confusion of an intervening mountain with Mount Hor, Dr. Robinson (ii. 536) has asserted the contrary. It is one of the very few inac- • curacies he has committed. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 99 n mnted these time-worn steps, and traced their inscrip¬ tions upon the rock, on their way to the only spot, whence they could see the grave of Aaron ? i XVIII. — APPROACH TO PALESTINE The day of leaving Petra was occupied in the passage of the mountains into the Arabah ; the next in crossing the Arabah ; on the other side we came to Ain El-Weibeh — three springs with palms under the low limestone cliffs which form the boundary of the mass of the mountains of the Tih. This spot Dr. Robinson supposes to be Kadesh. It vas at Akaba that Mohammed, stretching out his hands in prayer after a few moments of silence, exclaimed, pointing over the palm trees, “There is the new moon,” — the new moon which gave me a thrill no new moon had ever wakened before, for, if all pros¬ pered, its fulness would be that of the Paschal moon at Jerusalem. At Akaba, too, we first came within the dominions of David and Solomon. And now we were already on the confines of the tribe of Judah, and the next day we crossed the difficult high pass of Safeh, thought to be that through which the Israelites were repulsed by the Amorites.1 Unfortunately a thick haze hung over the mount¬ ains of Edom, so that we saw them no more again. It was on Palm Sunday that we descended on the other side, and from this time the approach to Palestine fairly begun. IIow the name of Aaron rang with a new sound in the first and second lessons of that evening after the sight of Mount Hor. The Approach to Palestine — nothing can be more gradual. There is no special point at which you can say the Desert is ended and the Land of Promise is begun. Yet there is an interest in that solemn and peaceful melting away of one into the other which I cannot describe. It was like the striking passage in Thalaba describing the descent of the mountains, with the successive beginnings of vegetation and warmth. The first change was perhaps what one would least expect — the disappearance of trees. The last palms were those we left at Ain El-Weibeh. Palm Sunday was the day which shut us out, I believe, with few rare exceptions, from those beautiful creations of the Nile and the Desert springs — Judtea knows them no more.2 The next day we saw the last of our well-known Acacia — that consecrated and venerable tree of the Burning Bush and of the Tabernacle ; and then, for the first time in the whole journey, we had to take our mid-day meal without shade. But meanwhile every other sign of life was astir. O11 1 Numb. xiv. 45 ; xxi. 1 ; Deut. i. 44. gards Palestine generally. See Chapter 3 This is somewhat overstated as re- II. viii. 100 SINAI AND PALESTINE. descending from the Pass of Safeh, one observed that the little shrubs, which had more or less sprinkled the whole ’Arabah, were more thickly studded ; the next day they gave a gray covering to the whole hill-side, and the little tufts of grass threw in a general tint of green before unknown. Then the red anemones of Petra reappeared, and then here and there patches of corn. As we advanced, this thin covering became deeper and fuller ; and daisies and hyacinths were mixed with the blood-drops of the anemones. Signs of ancient habitations appeared in the ruins of forts and remains, which might have been either Canaanitish temples or Christian churches, on the hill-sides ; wells, too, deeply built with marble casings round their mouths, worn by the ropes of ages. East and west, under a long line of hills which bounded it to the north, ran a wide plain in which verdure, though not universal, was still predominant. Up this line of hills our Tuesday’s course took us, and still the marks of ruins increased on the hill-tops, and long courses of venerable rock or stone, the boundaries or roads, or both, of ancient inhabitants ; and the anemones ran like fire through the mountain glens ; and deep glades of corn, green and delicious to the eye, spread right and left before us. Most striking anywhere would have been this protracted approach to land after that wide desert sea — these seeds and plants, and planks, as it were, drifting to meet us. But how doubly striking, when one felt in one’s inmost soul, that this was the entrance into the Holy Land — u Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozra ?” Everything told us that we were approaching the sacred frontier. In that solitary ride — for all desert rides are more or less solitary, — through this peaceful passing away of death into life, there Avas indeed no profanation of the first days of Passion Week. That wide plain of which I spoke, with its ruins and walls, was the Avilderness of Beersheba ; with wells such as those for which Abraham and Isaac struggled ; at Avhich, it may be, they had watered their flocks ; the neutral ground between the Desert and the cultivated region which those shepherd-patriarchs would most naturally choose for their wanderings, before the idea of a more permanent home had yet dawned upon them. That long line of hills was the beginning of u the hill country of Judaea.” and when Ave began to ascend it, the first answer to our inquiries after the route told that it was “ Carmel,” not the more famous mountain of that name, but that on Avhich Nabal fed his flocks; and close below its long ranges, was the hill and ruin of Ziph close above, the hill of u Maon.” That is to say, we were now in the heart of the Avild country where David wandered from Saul like J It is these wliicli are called “Blood-drops of Christ.” See Chapter II. p. 138. ' 1 Sam. xxiii. 14, 24; xxv. 2. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 101 those very “ partridges in the mountains,”1 which we saw abounding in all directions. And in the extensive views which the tops of these hills commanded on the south, there was the long range of the Tih, —faithful to the last to that same horizontal character which we saw from Suez, — and Serbal ; and to the east, towering high into the hazy sky, what looked like the Alps of Moab ; and between us and them a jagged line of lower hills, the rocks of En-gedi ; and, in the misty depths which parted these nearer and those further mountains, there needed no guide to tell that there lay, invisible as yet, the Dead Sea. From these heights, by gradual ascent and descent we went on. With Ziph the more desolate region ended. The valleys now began, at least in our eyes, almost literally “to laugh and sing.” Greener and greener did they grow — the shrubs, too, shot up above that stunted growth." At last, on the summits of further hills, lines of spreading trees appeared against the sky. Then came ploughed fields and oxen. Lastly, a deep and wide recess opened in the hills — towers and minarets appeared through the gap, which gradually unfolded into the city of “the Friend of God” — this is its Arabic name : far up on the right ran a wide and beautiful upland valley, all partitioned into gardens and fields, green fig-trees and cherry-trees, and the vineyards — famous through all ages ; and far off, gray and beautiful as those of Tivoli, swept down the western slope the olive- groves of Hebron. Most startling of all was the hum through the air — hitherto “that silent air” which I described during our first encampment, but which had grown familiar as the sounds of Lon¬ don to those who live constantly within their range — the hum, at first, of isolated human voices and the lowing of cattle, rising up from those various orchards and corn-fields, and then a sound, which, to our ears, seemed like that of a mighty multitude, but which was only the united murmur of the population of the little town which we now entered at its southern end. They had come out to look at some troops which were going off to capture a refrac¬ tory chief, and they still remained sitting on the mounds — old men, women, and children, in their various dresses, which, after the monotonous brown rags of the Bedouins, looked gay and bright — sitting, with their hands shading their faces from the rays of the afternoon sun, to see the long passage of the caravan, guarded on each side by the officers of the Quarantine. High above us, on the eastern height of the town — which lies nestled, Italian-like, on the slope of a ravine — rose the long black walls and two stately minarets of that illustrious mosque, one of the four sanctuaries of the Mahometan world, sacred in the eyes of all the world besides, 1 1 Sam. xxvi. 20. place of John the Baptist. See Chapter 2 This was on the hills of Dhorayeh II. viii. and of u Juta,” the probable birth- 3 El KhaliL 102 SINAI AND PALESTINE. which covers the Cave of Machpelah, the last resting place of Abra¬ ham, Isaac,1 and Jacob. We passed on by one of those two ancient reservoirs, where King David hanged the murderers of his rival,2 up a slope of green grass, broken only by tombs and flocks of sheep, to the high gates of the Quarantine, which closed upon us, and where we are now imprisoned for the next three days, but with that glorious view of Hebron before us day and night. And now the second stage of our tour is finished. XIX. — RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST DAY IN PALESTINE. Let me say briefly what has chiefly impressed me during that first day in Palestine. After all the uncertainty of the desert topo¬ graphy, it was quite startling, though I knew it beforehand, to find the localities so absolutely authentic, to hear the names of Carmel, Maon, Ziph, shouted out in answer to my questions from our Bedouin guides, and from the ploughmen in the fields, who knew no more of David’s wanderings than of those of Ulysses. And now I am in Hebron, looking on the site of a sepulchre whose genuineness has never yet been questioned, and to that with equal certainty is to succeed Bethlehem, and to that Jeru¬ salem. With this, how much of special localities may be spared again and again. Then I am struck with the vast number and extent and massiveness of the ruins of the deserted cities, each on its mountain height, like those of Italy. I had expected mere fragments of stones — I find solid walls, columns, tow'ers. It is true they are all ascribed to Christian times. But any way, they give a notion of what the country was. And I am struck by what is also noticed by Miss Martineau — - the western, almost the English, character of the scenery. Those wild uplands of Carmel and Ziph are hardly distinguishable (except by their ruined cities and red anemones) from the Lowlands of Scotland or of Wales; these cultivated valleys of Hebron (except by their olives) from the general features of a rich valley in York¬ shire or Derbyshire. The absence of palms and the presence of daisies greatly contributes to this result, and, added to the contrast of the strange scenery which has been ours for the last month, gives a homelike and restful character to this first entrance which can never be effaced. Lastly, the great elevation of this country above the level of the sea is most forcibly brought out by the journey we have made.3 From the moment of leaving the ’Arabah has been almost a continual ascent. We mounted the great Pass of Safeh, and, having mounted, hardly descended at all — crossed the great 1 Gen. xlix. 31. 2 2 Sam. iv. 12. 3 See Chapter II. p. 129. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 103 table-land of Becrsheba — and then mounted the barrier of the hills ot Judah — and thence have been mounting ever since. Hebron is, in fact, only five hundred feet lower than Snowdon. How well one understands the expression, u They went down into Egypt.” XX. - HEBRON. This afternoon (Good Friday) we walked, under the guard of the Quarantine, around the western hills of Hebron. There was little to add to the first impressions, except the deep delight of treading the rocks and drinking in the view which had been trodden by the feet and met the eyes of the Patriarchs and Kings. I observed, too, for the first time the enclosures of vineyards with stone walls, and towers at the corners for guards. This was the first exemplification of the Parables.1 The hills, except where occupied by vineyards and olive-groves, are covered with disjointed rocks and grass, such as brought back dim visions of Wales. In that basin which lay amongst them, what well-springs of thought spring up ; numerous as those literal wells and springs with which the whole ground of the hills themselves is penetrated. One that most strangely struck me, was, that here for the first time was heard the great funeral dirge over Abner, whose last echo I had heard in St. Paul’s Cathedral over the grave of the Duke of Wellington. And mar¬ vellous, too, to think that within the massive enclosure of that Mosque, lies, possibly, not merely the last dust of Abraham and Isaac, but the very body — the mummy — the embalmed bones of Jacob, brought in solemn state from Egypt to this (as it then was) lonely and beautiful spot. And to the east was the height, the tra¬ ditional spot whence Abraham saw the smoke of Sodom rising out of the deep gulf between the hills of Engedi and the mountains of Moab. XX. — APPROACH TO JERUSALEM. v ' a In a long line of horses and mules, we quitted Hebron. Two more relics of Abraham we saw after leaving the mosque. The first was the beautiful and massive oak on its greensward, called by his name, and which, with two or three near it, at least enables one to figure the scene in Genesis xviii., and to under¬ stand why it is that the spot was called “ the oaks” (mis¬ translated “ the plain”) of Mamre.2 Whether this be the exact spot, or even the exact kind of tree, seems doubtful ; for the next object we saw was one of those solid and vast enclosures, now beginning to be so familiar ; which seems tc coincide with the account of the place 1 Sec Chapters IT. aud XIIL 3 Glen, ziii 18; xviii. 1. See Chapter II p. I ll 104 SINAI AND PALESTINE. which Josephus mentions as the site of what he calls, not the oak, uut the terebinth, of Abraham.1 However, there was the wide scenery, the vineyards, too, with their towers, reaching down on every side of the valley of Eshcol, whence came the famous cluster ; and the red anemones, and white roses on their briar-bushes. Next in one of those gray and green valleys — for these are the predominant colours — appeared, one below the other, the three pools of Solomon — • I must again say “ venerable,” for I know no other word to describe that simple, massive architecture in ruin, yet not in ruin — the u pools of water that he made to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees,” and there are the very gardens, not now, indeed, beautiful as when he came out in state as Josephus describes, with his gold- powdered servants,2 to see them, but marked by the long winding defile of Urtas — green, and fresh, and winding as a river — which leads towards Jerusalem. And along the mountain side runs the water through the channel begun by him, but — strange conjunction — restored by Pontius Pilate.3 XXII. — FIRST VIEW OF BETHLEHEM. Far away to the east rises the conical hills where Herod died, and now we mount the ridge of which that hill is the eastern extremity, and crowning the crest of the opposite ridge is a long line of houses, with the massive and lofty convent. There was a shout which ran down the long file of horsemen, followed by deep silence — “ Bethlehem.” . It is a wild bleak hill, amidst hills equally bleak — if bleak may be applied to hills which are terraced with vineyards ; in autumn, of course, rich and green, and which now in part wave with corn. One only green plain, I believe of grass, hangs behind the town. But what most arrests the eye is the elevation of the whole place, and, above all, that most striking feature, which was to me quite unexpected, — the immense wall of the mountains of Moab seeming to overhang the lower hills of Judah, from which they are only separated by that deep mysterious gulf of the Dead Sea. Well might Moses from their summits overlook the Promised Land. Well might Orpah return as to a near country — and Naomi be reminded of her sorrows. Well might her descendant David choose their heights as the refuge for his aged parents when Bethlehem was no longer safe for them. Of the one great event of Bethlehem you are, of course, reminded by the enormous convent — or convents, Latin, Greek, and Armenian — clustering round the church, which is divided amongst them in different compartments. The original nave of Helena — which is the 1 Bell. Jud. IV. ix. 7. 3 See Ritter; Palastina, p. 276. * Ant. VTIf. vii. 3. PENINSULA OF SINAI. 105 prototype of the Roman St. Paul’s, and of St. Apollinaris of Ravenna — and the subterranean church, are alone in common. Whether the Cave of the Nativity be genuine or not, yet there is the deep interest of knowing that it is the oldest special locality fixed upon by the Christian Church. Before the Sepulchre, before the Church of the Ascension, before any of the other countless scenes of our Saviour’ s life had been localised, the famous passage in Justin Martyr proves that the cave of Bethlehem was already known and reverenced as the scene of the Nativity. And one of the most striking instances of this reverence exists in a cave, or rather in one of the many winding caves which form the vaults of the church, the cell where Jerome lived and died, that he might be near the sacred spot.1 .... I have said one is reminded of the Nativity by the convent. But, in truth, I almost think it distracts one from it. From the first mo¬ ment that those towers, and hills, and valleys burst upon you, there enters the one prevailing thought that now, at last, we are indeed in the “ Holy Land.’’ It pervades the whole atmosphere — even David and Ruth wax faint in its presence . XXIII. - FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM. Next came Rachel’s Tomb — a modern mosque, but the site must be the true one — and then, far on the top of the hill opposite Bethlehem, was the Convent of St. Elias, seen from Bethlehem, and from which I knew we should see Jerusalem. It is the one place which commands the view of both. We reached the spot from its broken ridge. I saw a wide descent and ascent, and a white line rising high — of I knew not what buildings — but I knew that it was Jerusalem. . . . What were the main features of the approach ? First, there was still the mighty wall of Moab ; secondly, there was the broad green approach of the valley of Rephaim,2 so long, so broad, so green, that it almost seemed a natural entrance to the city, which still remained suspended, as it were, above it — for that white line kept increasing in height and length, as we neared it yet saw not the deep ravines which parted us from it. The first building which catches the eye is the palace of the Armenian Patriarch, then the castle, then the minaret over the mosque of David. The Mosque of Omar and even the Mount of Olives were for a long time shut out by the Hill of Evil Counsel, which, with its solitary tree3 1 See Chapter XIV. 2 I give this broad approach the name which is now usually given to it by tra¬ vellers. But, in fact, it is hardly a “valley,” — being much more what is meant by its Arabic name “ El-Beka’a,” — the plain, — the same which is given to the plain of Coele-Syria. (Ritter; Jordan, p. 184. See Josh. xi. 17 ; xii. 7.) And there are some reasons for finding the “Valley of Rephaim” further west. See Tobler’s Umgebungen, 402. 3 This is the traditional tree on which Judas hanged himself 106 SINAI AND PALESTINE. before us, intercepted all to the east. High beyond towered Ramah (of Benjamin). At last the deep descent of the Valley of Hinnom appeared, opening into that of Jehoshaphat. What struck me as new and unexpected was the rush, so to speak, of both the valleys to the south-west corner of the city. We entered the Jaffa gate about 4.80 p. m. CHAPTER II. PALESTINE. Numbers xiii. 17 — 20. -Ana Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain : and see the land, what it is ; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many ; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad ; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strongholds ; and whnf the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein or not. And be ye ol good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.” Deut. i. 7. “Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amor- ites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the ‘desert,’ in the ‘mountain,’ and in the ‘low country,’ and in the south, and by the sea-side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” PALESTINE. General features. — The four Rivers of Syria : the Orontes, the Leontes, tho Barada, the Jordan. — General aspect of Palestine. — I. Seclusion of Palestine. II. Smallness and narrowness of its territory. III. Central situation. IV. Land of ruins. V. “Land of milk and honey.” VI. variety of climate and structure. VII. Mountainous character. VIII. Scenery: hills and val¬ leys; flowers; trees: cedars, oaks, palms, sycamores. IX. Geological features: 1. Springs and wells; 2. Sepulchres; 3. Caves; 4. Natural Curiosities. X. General conclusion. Between the great plains of Assyria and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, a high mountain LlnedHigf tract is interposed, reaching from the Bay of Issus to the Desert of Arabia. Of this the northern part, which consists of the ranges known in ancient geography under the names of Amanus and Casius, and which includes rather more than half the tract in question, is not within the limits of the Holy Land ; and, though belonging to the same general elevation, is distinguished from the southern division by strongly marked peculiarities, and only enters "into the sacred history at a later time, when its connection with any local scenes was too slight to he worth dwelling upon in detail. It is with the southern division that we are now concerned. The range divides itself twice over into two parallel chains. There is first, the main chain of Lebanon, Lebauon separated by the broad valley commonly called Coele-Syria ; the western mountain reaching its highest ter¬ mination in the northern point of Lebanon ; the eastern, in the southern point of Ilermon. This last point — itself the 110 SINAI AND PALESTINE. loftiest summit of the whole range — again breads into two ranges, of which the western, with the exception of one broad depression, extends as far as the Desert of Sinai ; the eastern, as far as the mountains of Arabia Petrsea. From The Four this chain,1 flow fcnr rivers of unequal magnitude, Rivers ; on which, at different times, have sprung up the four ruling powers of that portion of Asia. Lebanon is, in this respect, a likeness of that primeval Paradise, to which its local traditions have always endeavoured to attach them- The selves. The Northern River, rising from the fork orontes, ^he ^wo ranges 0f Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and forming the channel of life and civilisation in that northern division of which we have just spoken, is the Orontes, — the river of the Greek kingdom of Antioch and Seleucia. The Western, is the Litany,2 * * * * rising The Litany, 7 «/ 7 o from the same watershed between the two ranges, near Baalbec, and falling into the Mediterranean, close to Tyre, — the river of Phoenicia The Eastern, rising from Anti-Lebanon and joined by one or two lesser streams, is The the modern Barada, the Abana or Pharpar of the Barada. Testament — the river of the Syrian kingdom of Damascus. The kingdoms which have risen in the neighbourhood or on the banks of these rivers, have flour¬ ished not simultaneously, but successively. The northern kingdom was the latest, and is only brought into connection with the Sacred History, as being that from which the “ Kings of the North” made their descent upon Palestine, and in which were afterwards founded the first Gentile Churches. It was, as it were, the halting-place of Chris¬ tianity, before it finally left its Asiatic home — beyond the limits of the Holy Land, yet not in another country or- climate ; naturally resting on the banks of the Orontes, on the way from the valley of the Jordan, before (to use the 1 For the sketch of the Four Rivers, see the instructive note on Syria in Napoleon’s Memoir es, vol, ii., 297, 298. The detailed characteristics of each will be given in Chapters VII. and XII. 2 Often in modern geography called tho Leontes , from a notion that this was its ancient name. This notion, as Ritter has shown, is doubly mistaken. I The Litany has no ancient name, except “the Tyrian river.” 2. The name of Leontes never occurs in ancient writers, and is a confusion with the genitive case of the river Leon (A eovrog TvoTufiov EKpohug), which is the name given by Ptolemy (v. 15) to a river between Sidon and Beyrout, either the Bostrenus (Aulay), or the Tamyras - (Tamar). See Ritter; Lebanon, p. 122. PALESTINE. Ill Roman poet’s expression in another and better sense) it joined “ the flow of the Orontes into the Tiber.” The eastern kingdom of Damascus on one side, the western kingdom of Phoenicia on the other, claim a nearer con¬ nection with the history of the chosen people from first to last; the one, as the great opening of communication with the distant Eastern deserts, the other with the Mediter¬ ranean coasts. The Fourth and Southern river, which rises in the point where Herinon splits into its two parallel ranges, is the River of Palestine — The Jordan. The Jordan, with its manifold peculiarities, must Thb he reserved for the time when we come to speak JOEDAN* of it in detail. Yet it must he remembered throughout, that this river, the artery of the whole country, is unique on the surface of the globe. The ranges of the Lebanon are remarkable ; the courses of the Orontes, the Leontes, and the Barada, are curious ; but the deep depression of the Jordan has absolutely no parallel. No other valley in the world presents such extraordinary physical features, none has been the subject of such various theories as to its origin and character. How far this strange conformation of the Holy Land has had any extensive influence on its history may be doubtful. But it is perhaps worth observ¬ ing at the outset, that we are in a country, of which the geography and the history each claims to be singular of its kind : — the history, by its own records, unconscious, if one may so say, of the physical peculiarity ; the geography, by the discoveries of modern science, wholly without regard, perhaps even indifferent or hostile, to the claims of the history. Such a coincidence may be accidental ; but, at least, it serves to awaken the curiosity, and strike the imagination; at least, it lends dignity to the country, where the Earth and the Man are thus alike objects of wonder and investigation. It is around and along this deep fissure that the hills of western and eastern Palestine spring up, forming Palestink the link between the high group of Lebanon on the north, and the high group of Sinai on the south ; forming the mountain-bridge, or isthmus, between the ocean of the Assyrian Desert, and the ocean (as it seemed to the ancient 112 SINAI AND PALESTINE. world) of the Mediterranean, or “ Great Sea ” oi. the west, On the one side of the Jordan these hills present a mass of green pastures and forests melting away, on the east, into the red plains of the Hauran. On the other side they form a mass of gray rock rising above the yellow Desert on the south, hounded on the west by the long green strip of the maritime plain ; cut asunder on the north by the rich plain of Esdraelon ; rising again beyond Esdraelon into the wild scenery of mountain and forest in the roots of Lebanon. Each of these divisions has a name, a character, and, to a certain extent, a history of its own, which will best appear as we proceed. But there are features more or less common to the whole country, especially to that portion of it which has been the chief seat of the national life ; and these, so far as they illustrate the general history, must be now considered. “ The Vine” was “ brought out of Egypt what was the land in which God 66 prepared room before it, and caused it to take deep root,” and “ cover the ‘ mountains’ with its shadow” ?* I. The peculiar characteristic of the Israelite rest PeoPle? whether as contemplated from their own ancient sacred records, or as viewed by their Gentile w orld. . y * neighbours, was that they were a nation secluded, set apart, from the rest of the world; “ haters,” it was said, “ of the human race,” and hated by it in return. Is there anything in the physical structure and situation of their country which agrees with this peculiarity ?2 Look at its boundaries. The most important in this respect will be that on the east. For in that early time, when Palestine first fell to the lot of the chosen people, the East was still the world. The great empires which rose on the plains of Mesopotamia, the cities of the Euphrates and the Tigris, were literally then, what Babylon is metaphorically in the Apocalypse, the rulers and corrupters of all the kingdoms of the earth. Between these great empires and the people of Israel, two obstacles were interposed. The first was the eastern Desert, which formed a barrier in front even of the outposts of Israel — the nomadic 1 Psalm lxxx. 8 — 10. 2 See Ritter; Jordan, pp. 1 — 22. PA L E S T I N E L>amanV-us Vu/tjrt Ik . Leontos T vre / ( -K i s Ah i a d (RasXaMn JPt'otzm. • ~l 7 J* A a k e , ! of '■ Liberia ( re n c'S'afttUJi ■» ’ I TI . Zerka ) ( K _Ars ii I' ) L ( Ja . Riilim 1 ■ X.shdocl I'ii/jcrb • If A 5 ■ >> V *- \> I > .Mi Hoxanuu ^ Da/t J a ^Jh^ryva / *h / 1 ip /) t ^7 ^r» 1/ y ’ q/i Wiesk J Afoi’t nn Hth'ct Yv. ; $ \ A- 2&cuireth ,| J \V ^ »• Y' y * -v , ^ tL %, '<1 r. Mi Gal b o a. \ ^Y'Oadano > ■ fitbeah (ii/iujd J‘ % * k ;h“ll// ( rg ro So. 0>¥aj/utria vtf- Khal •y/uu'Jte ni- o M tCigrizun Siud'oth fiPeniel \ M A K I A _ > ^.JaRA „ , . , , “ 1 Harriot h. (rile '(id Shiloh E JJ II R A I M Ajuaiioil Pu t bba t h Am m o? i fit Bethel A* Uhvnl'h J rj jo ^ (t i noon Khron I Orion » Totals alp uj JteshbuTL £ P3 nathhihcm >1 seal o ft M v lichron n et hint th Muitb ffoonsJusha ■S'Oi/O/ft .Sti PALESTINE. 113 tribes on the east of the Jordan ; the second, the vast fissure of the Jordan valley, which must always have acted as a deep trench within the exterior rampart of the Desert and the eastern hills of the Trans- Jordanic tribes. Next to the Assyrian empire in strength and power, superior to it in arts and civilisation, was Egypt. What was there on the southern boundary of Palestine, to secure that “ the Egyptians whom they saw on the shores of the Red Sea, they should see no more again ?” Up to the very frontier of their own land stretched that “ great and terrible wilderness,” which rolled like a sea between the valley of the Nile and the valley of the Jor¬ dan. And this wilderness itself — the platform of the Till — could be only reached on its eastern side by the tremendous pass of Akaba at the southern, and of Safeh1 at the northern end of the Arabah. On these, the two most important frontiers, the separation was most com¬ plete. The two accessible sides were the west and the north. But the west was only accessible by sea, and when Israel first settled in Palestine, the Mediterranean was not yet the thoroughfare — it was rather the boundary and the terror of the eastern nations. It is true that from the north-western coast of Syria, the Phoenician cities sent forth their fleets. But they were the exception of the world, the discoverers, the first explorers of the unknown depths, — and in their enterprises Israel never joined. In strong contrast, too, with the coasts of Europe, and especially of Greece, Palestine has no indentations, no winding creeks, no deep havens, such as in ancient, even more than in modern times, were necessary for the invitation and protection of commercial enterprise. One long line, broken only by the bay of Acre, containing only three bad harbours, Joppa, Acre, and Caipha — and the last unknown in ancient times — is the inhospitable front that Palestine opposed to the western world. On the northern frontier the ranges of Lebanon formed two not insignificant ramparts. But the gate between them was open, and 1 See Chapter I., Part ii pp. 84, 99. 114 SINAI AND PALESTINE. through the long valley of Coele-Syria, the hosts of Syrian and Assyrian conquerors accordingly poured. These were the natural fortifications of that vineyard which was “ hedged round about” with tower and trench, sea and desert, against the “ boars of the wood,” and “the beast of the field.” Smaiiness II. In Palestine, as in Greece, every traveller is nesdsnofrrfcet struck with the smallness of the territory. He is rit°ry. surprised, even after all that he has heard, at pass¬ ing, in one long day, from the capital of Judaea to that of Samaria ; or at seeing, within eight hours, three such spots, as Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. The breadth of the country from the Jordan to the sea is rarely more than fifty miles. Its length from Han to Beersheba is about a hundred and eighty miles. The time is now gone by, when the grandeur of a country is measured by its size, or the diminutive extent of an illustrious people can otherwise than enhance the magnitude of what they have done. The ancient taunt, however, and the facts which suggested it, may still illustrate the feeling which appears in their own records. The contrast between the littleness of Palestine and the vast extent of the empires which hung upon its northern and southern skirts, is rarely absent from the mind of the Prophets and Psalmists. It helps them to exalt their sense of the favour of God towards their land by magnifying their little hills and dry torrent-beds into an equality with the giant hills of Lebanon and Ilermon and the sea-like rivers of Meso¬ potamia.1 It also fosters the consciousness, that they were not always to be restrained within these earthly barriers — “ The place is too strait for me ; give me place where I may dwell.” Nor is it only the smallness, but the narrowness, of the territory which is remarkable. From almost every high point in the country, its whole breadth is visible, from the long wall of the Moab hills on the east to the Mediterranean sea on the west. Whatever may 1 Compare Ps. lxviii. 15; — “The lished on the top of the mountains.” ‘Mount’ of God is a high ‘mountain,’ Ps. xlvi. 4; — “There is a river, the as the 1 mountain’ of Bashan” ( i . e., of streams whereof shall make glad the c it? Anti-Libanus). Isa. ii. 2; — “The moun- of God.” tain of the Lord’s house shall be estab- PALESTINE. 115 be the poverty or insignificance of the landscape, it is at once relieved by a glimpse of either of these two boundaries. “ Two voices are there — one is of the sea. One of the mountains, and the close proximity of each — the deep purple shade of the one, and the glittering waters of the other — makgs it always possible for one or other of those two voices to be heard now, as they were by the Psalmist of old. “ The strength of the ‘ mountains is his also — The sea is his, and lie made it.”1 Thus, although the Israelites were shut off by the southern and eastern deserts from the surrounding nations, they yet were always able to look beyond themselves. They had no connection with either the eastern empires or the western isles — but they could not forget them. As in the words and forms of their worship they were con¬ stantly reminded how they had once been strangers in the land of Egypt ; so the sight of the hills beyond the Jordan, and of the sea beyond the Philistine plain, were in their daily life a memorial that they were there secluded not for their own sakes, but for the sake pf the world in whose centre they were set. The moun¬ tains of Gilead, and on the south, the long ridges of rabia, were at hand to remind them of those distant legions from which their first fathers Abraham and ib had wandered into the country, — from which u the camels and dromedaries of Midian and Ephah” were once igain to pour in. The sea, whitening then as now with lie ships of Tarshish, the outline of Chittim or Cyprus'2 just visible in the clear evening horizon, must have told hern of the western world where lay the u isles of the ientiles,” which “ should come to their light, arid kings to he brightness of their rising . Who are these that fly as i cloud, and as the doves to their windows ? Surely the sles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first. a ”3 See Chapter XII. 1 I’s. xcv. 4, 5. 8 Isa. lx. 3, 8, 9. 116 SINAI AND PALESTINE. The very name of the “ west” was to them “ the sea and it is not merely a poetic image, but a natural reflex of their whole history and situation, that the great revela¬ tion of the expansion of the Jewish system to meet the wants of all nations should have been made to the Apostle on the house-top at Jaffa — “ When o’er the glowing western main Iiis wistful brow was upward raised; Where, like an angel’s train, The burnished water blazed.”1 2 III. This leads us to another point of view, in which the centmi situation of Palestine is remarkably bound up with situation. -ps future destinies. “ I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.” In later times this passage was taken in the literal sense that Palestine, and Jerusalem especially, was actually the centre of the earth3 — a belief of which the memorial is yet preserved in the large round stone still kissed de¬ voutly by Greek pilgrims, in their portion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.4 It is one of the many instances in which the innocent fancy of an earlier faith has been set aside by the discoveries of later science. In the East probably there are still many points of this kind which have been long surrendered in the more stirring West. But there was a real truth in it at the time that the Prophet wrote, which the subsequent course of his¬ tory makes it now difficult for us to realize. Palestine, t hough now at the very outskirts of that tide of civilization which has swept far into the remotest West, was then the vanguard of the eastern, and therefore, of the civilised world ; and, moreover, stood midway between the two great seats of ancient Empire, Babylon and Egypt. It was on the high road from one to the other of these mighty powers, the prize for which they contended, the 1 The Hebrew “Jam,” is both “the sea” and “ the west.” 2 Christian Year. Monday in Easter week. See Chapter VI. * Ezok. v. 5. See the quota¬ tions from Jerome, Theodoret, and Kimchi, in Reland’s Palestine, cap. x. p. 52. 4 The same belief is seen in the old. mediaeval maps of the world — such as that of the 14th century, preserved in Hereford Cathedral. PALESTINE. 117 battlefield on which they fought— the high bridge,1 over which they ascended and descended respectively into the deep basins of the Nile and Euphrates. Its first appearance on the stage of history is as a halting-place for a wanderer from Mesopotamia,2 who “ passed through the land,” and “ journeyed going on still toward the south,” and “went down into Egypt.” The first great struggle which that wanderer had to maintain, was against the host of Chedorlaomer, from Persia and from Babylon. The battle in which the latest hero of the Jewish mon¬ archy perished, was to check the advance of an Egyp¬ tian king on his way to contest the empire of the then known world with the king of Assyria at Carchemish.3 The whole history of Palestine, between the return from the Captivity and the Christian sera, is a contest between the “kings of the north and the kings of the south”4 — the descendants of Seleucus and the descendants of Ptolemy, — for the possession of the country. And when at last the West begins to rise as a new power on the horizon, Palestine as the nearest point of contact between the two worlds, becomes the scene of the chief conflicts of Borne with Asia.5 There is no other country in the world which could exhibit the same confluence of associations, as that which is awakened by the rocks which overhang the crystal stream of the Dog Biver,6 where it rushes through the ravines of Lebanon into the Mediterranean sea; where side by side are to be seen the hieroglyphics of the great Bameses, the cuneiform characters of Sennacherib, and the Latin inscriptions of the Emperor Antoninus.7 IV. This is the most convenient place for noticing Land of a peculiarity of the present aspect of Palestine, Ruins- which though not, properly speaking, a physical feature, is so closely connected both with its outward imagery and 1 See Ritters interesting Lecture on the Jordan and the Dead Sea, Berlin, 1850, p. 8. 2 Genesis xii. 6, 9, 10. 3 2 Kings xxiii. 29. 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-24. 4 Dan. xi. 6, If. * This resistance of Palestine alter¬ nately to the conquerors from the East and from the West, is well put in Salvador’s Domination Romaine1 vol i. p. 53. 6 The Nahr-el-Kelb, just above Bey- rout. See Chapter VI. 7 See Ritter, Lebanon, pp. 531— 54G. 118 SINAI AND PALESTINE. with its general situation, that it cannot he omitted. Above all other countries in the world, it is a Land of Ruins. It is not that the particular ruins are on a scale equal to those of Greece or Italy, still less to those of Egypt. But there is no country in which they are so numerous, none in which they bear so large a proportion to the villages and towns still in existence. In Judaea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that whilst for miles and miles there is no appearance of present life or habitation, except the occasional goat¬ herd on the hill side, or gathering of women at the wells, there is yet hardly a hill-top of the many within sight which is not covered by the vestiges of some fortress or city cf former ages. Sometimes they are fragments of ancient walls, sometimes mere foundations and piles of stone, hut always enough to indicate signs of human habitation and civilisation. Such is the case in Western Palestine. In Eastern Palestine, and still more if we include the Hauran and the Lebanon, the same picture is continued, although under a somewhat different aspect. Here the ancient cities remain, in like manner deserted, ruined, hut standing ; not mere masses and heaps of stone, hut towns and houses, in amount and in a state of preservation which have no parallel except in the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried under the eruption of Vesuvius. Not even in Rome or Athens, hardly in Egyptian Thebes, can ancient buildings he found in such magni¬ tude and such profusion as at Baalbec, Jerash, and Palmyra. No where else, it is said, can all the details of Roman domestic architecture he seen so clearly as in the hundreds of deserted villages which stand on the red desert of the Hauran. This difference between the ruins of the two regions of Palestine arises no doubt from the circumstance, that whereas Eastern Syria has been for the last four hundred years entirely, for the last fifteen hundred years nearly, deserted by civilised, almost by barbarian, man, Western Palestine has always been the resort of a popula¬ tion which, however rude and scanty, has been sufficiently numerous and energetic to destroy and to appropriate edifices which in the less frequented parts beyond the Jordan have escaped through neglect and isolation. PALESTINE. 119 But the general fact of the ruins of Palestine, whether orect or fallen, remains common to the whole country ; deepens and confirms, if it does not create, the impression of age and decay, which belongs to almost every view of Palestine, and invests it with an appearance which can be called by no other name than venerable. Moreover, it carries us deep into the historical pecu¬ liarities of the country. The ruins we now see are of the most diverse ages ; Saracenic, Crusading, Roman, Grecian, Jewish, extending perhaps even to the old Canaanitish remains, before the arrival of Joshua. This variety, this accumulation of destruction, is the natural result of the position which has made Palestine for so many ages the thoroughfare and prize of the world. And although we now see this aspect brought out in a fuller light than ever before, yet as far back as the history and language of Palestine reaches, it was fami¬ liar to the inhabitants of the country. In the rich local vocabulary of the Hebrew language, the words for sites of ruined cities occupy a remarkable place. Four sepa¬ rate designations are used for the several stages of decay or of destruction, which were to be seen even during the first vigour of the Israelite conquest and monarchy. There was the rude “ cairn,” or pile of stones, roughly rolled together.1 There was the mound or heap of ruin,2 which, like the Monte Testaccio at Rome, was composed of the rubbish and debris of a fallen city. There were the for¬ saken villages,3 such as those in the Hauran, when a the cities were wasted without inhabitant and the houses with¬ out man,” — “ forsaken, and not a man to dwell therein.” There are lastly, true ruins, such as those to which we give the name — buildings standing, yet shattered, like those of Baalbec or Palmyra.4 1 Gal , “ rolling.” Such were the cairns over Aclian and the King of Ai ; Joshua, vii. 28 ; viii. 29. 2 Tel. “ heap.” Such were the cities so called in tli3 neighbourhood of Ba¬ bylon: — Telabib (Ezek. iii. 15), Tel- harsa, or Inresha (Ezr. ii. 59. Neh. vii. 61), Tei-melah (do. do.), Telassar (Isa. xxx vii. 12). The word has thence passed into Arabic as the common name for a “hill,” — in which sense it seems to be used in Joshua, xi. 13, “ the cities that stood still on their ‘heaps’ (telim).” 3 Azubah , “forsaken.” Isa. vi. 12; xvii. 2, 9; lxii. 12. Jer. iv. 29. Zeph. ii. 4. 4 Ai. Three towns at least were so called from this circumstance. 1, Ai, 120 SINAI AND PALESTINE. What, therefore, we now see, must to a certain extent have been seen always — a country strewed with the relics of an earlier civilisation ; a country exhibiting even in the first dawn of history the theatre of successive conquests and destruction — “giants dwelling therein of old time .... a people great, and many, and tall, .... but the Lord destroyed them before those that came after; and they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead.”1 V. But this aspect of the land, whilst it reminds us in some respects of the identity of its present appearance with that of the past, reminds us still more forcibly of its dilference. The countless ruins of Palestine, of whatever date they may be, tell us at a glance that we must not judge the re¬ sources of the ancient land by its present depressed and de¬ solate state. They show us not only that “ Syria might sup¬ port tenfold its present population, and bring forth tenfold its present produce,”2 but that it actually did so. And this brings us to the question which Eastern travellers so often ask, and are asked on their return, “ Can these stony “The land 7 ,7 *> of milk and hills, these deserted valleys, be indeed the Land of honey." 7 J 7. Promise, the land flowing with milk and honey ?” There are two answers to this question. First, as has just been observed, the country must have been very different when every hill was crowned with a flourishing town or village, from what it is since it ceased to be the seat not only of civilisation, but in many instances even of the population and habitations which once fertilised it. Josh. vii. (compare viii. 28); 2. Ije- abarim, or lira, “ in the border of Xloab Numb, xxxiii. 44; and 3. Iim, in tho south of Judah (Josh. xv. 29.) The “Avites,” or Avim, the earliest in¬ habitants of Philistia (Deut. ii. 23), seem to have derived their name from this word — “The dwellers in ruins.” To what au antiquity does this carry us back. Ruins before the days of those who pre¬ ceded the Philistines! 1 Deut. ii. 10, 12, 20, 21, 22, 23. 2 Report of Mr. Moore, Consul-Gene¬ ral of Syria, appended to Dr. Bowring’s Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria, presented to botli Houses of Par¬ liament. (London, 1840.) Pp. 90 — 111. It is needless to adduce proofs of a fact so well attested, both by existing vestiges, and by universal testimony, as the populousness of Sjuia, not only in the times of the Jewish monarchy, but of the Greek kingdom, the Roman empire, and the middle ages. But any one who wishes to see the argu¬ ment drawn out in detail, will find if. in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th chapters of Keith’s Land of Israel, — a bock disfigured indeed by an extravagant and untenable the¬ ory, but containing much useful informa¬ tion. PALESTINE. 121 “ The entire destruction of the woods which once Destruc. covered the mountains, and the utter neglect of the tionofwood- terraces which supported the soil on steep declivities, have given full scope to the rains, which have left many tracts of bare rock, where formerly were vineyards and cornfields.”1 It is probable too that, as in Europe generally, since the disappearance of the German forests, and in Greece, since the fall of the plane-trees which once shaded the bare landscape of Attica, the gradual cessation of rain pro¬ duced by this loss of vegetation has exposed the country in a greater degree than in early times to the evils of drought. This at least is the effect of the testimony of residents at Jerusalem, within whose experience the Kedron has recently for the first time flowed with a copious torrent, evidently in consequence of the numerous enclosures of mulberry and olive groves, made within the last few years by the Greek convent, and in themselves a sample of the different aspect which such cultivation more widely extended would give to the whole country. The forest of Hareth, and the thicket-wood of Ziph, in Judaea ;2 the forest of Bethel ;3 the forest of Sharon ;4 the forests which gave their name to Kirjath-jearim, “ the city of forests,”5 have long disappeared. Palm-trees, which are now all but unknown on the hills of Palestine, formerly grew, as we shall presently see, with myrtles and pines, on the now almost barren slopes of Olivet ; and groves of oak and terebinth, though never frequent, must have been certainly more common than at present. The very labour which was expended on these barren hills of Palestine in former times, has increased their present sterility. The natural vegetation has been swept away, and no human cultivation now occupies the terraces which once took the place of forests and pastures.6 Secondly, even without such an effort of imagina- ■with tha tion as is required to conceive an altered state of Defaerfc; 1 Dr. Olin’s Travels in the East, vol 8 2 Kings ii. 24 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 25. ii. 428. The whole passage is worth 4 See Chapter VI., ii. perusal, as a calm and clear statement 6 Compare 1 Sam. vi. 21, vii. 1. and 1 of a somewhat entangled and delicate Chron. xiii. 5, with Ps. cxxxii. 6. question. 6 This is well put in Keith’s Land of a 1 Sam. xxil 5; xxiii. 15. Israel, p. 425. 122 SINAI AND PALESTINE. population and civilisation, it is enough to remember the actual situation of Palestine, in its relation to the surround¬ ing countries of the East. We do not sufficiently bear in mind that the East, that is the country between the Medi¬ terranean and the table-lands of Persia, between the Sahara and the Persian gulf, is a waterless desert, only diversified here and there by strips and patches of vegetation.1 Such green spots or tracts, — which are in fact but oases on a large scale, — are the rich plains on the banks of the Tigris and the with as. Euphrates, the long strips of verdure on the banks syi-ia; 0f the occasional centres of vegetation in Arabia Felix and Idumsea ; and, lastly, the cultivated though narrow territory of Palestine itself. It is true that as compared with the depth of soil and richness of vegetation on the banks of the Nile, or with the carpet of flowers described'2 on the banks of the Chebar, Palestine seems poor and bare. But as compared with the whole surrounding country in the midst of which it stands, it is unquestionably a fertile land in the midst of barren¬ ness. The impression on entering it from the south has been already described.3 The Desert often encroaches upon it — the hills of Anti-Libanus which overhang the plain of Damascus, and those which bound Judsea on the east, are as truly parts of the wilderness as Sinai itself. But the interior of the country is never entirely destitute of the signs of life, and the long tracts of Esdra- elon, and the sea-coast and the plain of Gennesareth, are, or might be, as rich with gardens and with cornfields as the most favoured spots in Egypt. And there is, more¬ over, this peculiarity which distinguishes Palestine from the only countries with which it could then be brought into comparison. Chaldaea and Egypt — the latter of course in and with an eminent degree — depend on the course of single Esypt' rivers. Without the Nile, and the utmost use of the waters of the Nile, Egypt would be a desert. 1 The Emperor Napoleon, in his re- of civilised power reared within their marks on the short-lived character of reach. ( Memoires . Eng. Tran. vol. ii. Asiatic dynasties, ascribes it to the fact 2G5.) that Asia is surrounded by deserts, 2 Layard’s Nineveh and Babylon, pp, which furnish a never-ceasing supply of 269. 273, 308. barbarian hordes to overthrow the seats 3 See Chapter I., Part ii. p. 100. PALESTINE. 123 But Palestine is well distinguished not merely as u a land of wheat and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pome¬ granates, of oil-olive and honey,” but emphatically as “ a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of ‘ plains’ and ‘ mountains’ ” — “ not as the land of Egypt, where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : but as a land of 4 mountains’ and ‘ plains,’ which drinketh water of the rain of heaven.”1 This mountainous character — this abundance of water both from natural springs and from the clouds of heaven, in contradistinction to the one uniform supply of the great river ; this abundance of “ milk” from its “ cattle on a thousand hills,” of 66 honey” from its forests and its thymy shrubs, was absolutely peculiar to Palestine amongst the civilised nations of the East. Feeble as its brooks might be, — though, doubtless, they were then more frequently filled than now — yet still it was the only country where an Eastern could have been familiar with the image of the Psalmist : “ He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the ‘ mountains.’ ”2 Those springs too, however short-lived, are remarkable for their copiousness and beauty. Not only not in the East, but hardly in the West, can any fountains and sources of streams be seen so clear, so full-grown even at their birth, as those which fall into the Jordan and its lakes through its whole course from north to south. Wales or Westmoreland are, doubtless, not regarded as fertile regions ; and the green fields of England, to those who have come fresh from Palestine, seem, by way of contrast, to be indeed “ a land of promise.” But transplant Wales or Westmoreland into the heart of the Desert, and they would be far more to the inhabitant of the Desert than to their inhabitants are the richest spots of England. Far more : both because the contrast is in itself greater, and because the phenomena of a moun¬ tain country, with wells and springs, are of a kind almost unknown to the dwellers in the deserts or river-plains of the East. Palestine therefore not merely by its situation, but by 124 SINAI AND PALESTINE. its comparative fertility, might well be considered the prize of the Eastern world, the possession of which was the mark of God’s peculiar favour ; the spot for which the nations would contend : as on a smaller scale the Bedouin tribes for some “ diamond of the desert” — some “ palm- grove islanded amid the waste.” And a land of which the blessings were so evidently the gift of God, not, as in Egypt,1 of man’s labour, which also, by reason of its narrow extent, was so constantly within reach and sight of the neighbouring Desert, was eminently calculated to raise the thoughts of the nation to the Supreme Giver of all these blessings, and to hind it by the dearest ties to the land which He had so manifestly favoured.2 variet of VI. What has been already said is enough to in- structure dicate the extraordinary variety of structure and and climate. ^emperature exhibited in the Holy Land. It is said by Volney,3 and apparently with justice, that there is no district on the face of the earth which contains so many and such sudden transitions. Such a country furnished at once the natural theatre of a history and a literature, which was destined to spread into nations accustomed to the most various climates and imagery. There must of course, under any circumstances, be much in the history of any nation, eastern or western, northern or southern, which, to other quarters of the world, will be more or less unintelligible. Still it is easy to conceive that whatever difficulty is presented to European or American minds by the sacred writings, might have been greatly aggravated had the Bible come into existence in a country more limited in its outward imagery than is the case with Palestine. If the Valley of the Nile or the Arabian Desert had witnessed the whole of the sacred history, it is impossible not to feel how widely separated it would have been from the ordinary European mind ; how small a portion of our feelings and imaginations would have 1 Compare the remarks of the Empe¬ ror Napoleon on Egypt. Memoir es, vol. a. 211. (Eng. Tran.) “The plains of Beaune and Brie in Champagne are fe¬ cundated by regular waterings from the rains. Government has, in this respect, no influence there. But in Egypt, where the irrigations can only be artificial, gov¬ ernment is everything.” 2 See Ewald, Gcschichte, 2nd Edit, vol i. p. 296. 3 See Ritter ; Jordan, p. 350. PALESTINE. 125 been represented by it. The truths might have been the same, but the forms in which they were clothed would have affected only a few here and there, leaving the great mass untouched. But as it is, we have the life of a Bedouin tribe, of an agricultural people, of seafaring cities ; the extremes of barbarism and of civilisation ; the aspects of plain and of mountain ; of a tropical, of an eastern, and almost of a northern climate. In Egypt there is a continual contact of desert and culti¬ vated land ; in Greece, there is a constant intermixture of the views of sea and land ; in the ascent and descent of the great mountains of South America there is an interchange of the torrid and the arctic zones ; in England, there is an alternation of wild hills and valleys with rich fields and plains. But in Palestine all these are combined. The Patriarchs could here gradually exchange the nomadic life for the pastoral, and then for the agricultural, passing almost insensibly from one to the other as the Desert melts imperceptibly into the hills of Palestine. Ishmael and Esau could again wander back into the sandy waste which lay at their very doors.1 The scape-goat could still be sent from the temple-courts into the uninhabited wilderness.2 John, and a greater than John, could return in a day’s journey from the busiest haunts of men into the soli¬ tudes beyond the Jordan.3 The various tribes could find their several occupations of shepherds, of warriors, of traffickers, according as they were settled on the margin of the Desert, in the mountain fastnesses, or on the shore of the Mediterranean. The sacred poetry, which was to be the delight and support of the human mind and the human soul in all regions of the world, embraced within its range the natural features of almost every country. The venerable poet of our own moun¬ tain regions used to dwell with genuine emotion on the pleasure he felt in the reflection that the Psalmists and Prophets dwelt in a mountainous country, and enjoyed its beauty as truly as himself. The devotions of our great maritime empire find a natural expression 1 See Chapter I., Part ii. p. 100. 3 See Chapters X. and XIII. a Lev. xvi. 22. 126 SINAI AND PALESTINE. in the numerous allusions, which no inland situation could have permitted, to the roar of the Mediterranean sea, breaking over the rocks of Acre and Tyre, — cu the floods lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves,” — the “ great and wide sea,” whose blue waters could be seen from the top of almost every mountain, “ wherein are things creeping innumerable.” There go the Phoe¬ nician “ ships” with their white sails, and “ there is that Leviathan,” the monster of the deep, which both Jewish and Grecian fancy was wont to place in the inland ocean, which was to them all, and more than all, that the Atlantic is to us. Thither, “ they went down” from their mountains, and “ did their business in ships,” in the “ great waters,” and saw the “ wonders” of the “ deep and along those shores were the “ havens,” fewT and far between, “ where they would be” when “ the storm became calm, and the waves thereof were still.”1 And with these milder, and to us more familiar images, were blended the more terrible, as well as the more beautiful forms, of tropical and eastern life. There was the earthquake and possibly the volcano. “ He looketh on the earth and it trembleth — He toucheth the mountains and they smoke.”2 “ The mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.”3 There was the hurricane, with its thick dark¬ ness, and the long continuous roll of the oriental thunder¬ storm. “ He bowed the Heavens and came down, and there was darkness under His feet. . . . He rode upon the wings of the wind. . . . The Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. . . . The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.”4 Hermon, with his snowy summit always in sight, furnished the images which else could hardly have been looked for, — “ snow and vapours,” — “ snow like wTool,” u hoar-frost like ashes” — “ ice like morsels.”5 From the jun¬ gle of the Jordan valley and the wild mountains of Judah, came the 66 lions roaring after their prey.”6 And then 1 Ps. civ. 26; cvii. 23 — 30. 6 Ps. cxlvii. 16; cxlviii. 8. 3 Ps. civ. 32. 3 Micah, i. 4. 6 Ps. civ. 21; Jer. xlix. 19; ] Sana. 4 Ps. x-uii. 9; xxix. 1. xvii. 34. PALESTINE. 127 again, the upland hills experienced all the usual alternations of the seasons ; the “ rain descending on the mown grass,” the “ early and the latter rain,” the mountains “ watered from His chambers, the earth satisfied with the fruit of Ilis works ;’n which, though not the same as the ordinary returns of a European climate, were yet far more like it than could be found in Egypt, Arabia, or Assyria. Such instances of the variety of Jewish experience in Palestine, as contrasted with that of any other country, might easily be multiplied. But enough has been said to show its fitness for the history or the poetry of a nation with a universal destiny, and to indicate one at least of the methods by which that destiny was fostered ; the sudden contrasts of the various aspects of life and death, sea and land, verdure and desert, storm and calm, heat and cold, which, so far as any natural means could assist, cultivated what has been well called the “ variety in unity,” so characteristic of the sacred books of Israel ; so unlike those of India, of Persia, of Egypt, of Arabia. VII. Amidst this great diversity of physical fea- a “2 tures, undoubtedly the one which most prevails over country- the others is its mountainous character. As a general rule, Palestine is not merely a mountainous country, but a mass of mountains, rising from a level sea-coast on the west, and from a level desert on the east, only cut asunder by the valley of the Jordan from north to south, and by the valley of Jezreel from east to west. The result of this peculiarity is, that not merely the hill-tops, but the valleys and plains of the interior of Palestine, both east and west, are themselves so high above the level of the sea, as to partake of all the main characteristics of mountainous history and scenery. Jerusalem is of nearly the same elevation as Skiddaw, and most of the chief cities of Palestine are several hundred feet above the Mediter¬ ranean Sea. 1. Many expressions of the Old and New Testa- “Aram ” ments have immediate reference to this configuration of the country, the more remarkable from its contrast with the 1 I's Jxxii. 6; civ. 13. Compare Deut. xi. 14, xxxii. 2. 128 SINAI AND PALESTINE. flat from which it rises on the east and south. This pro¬ bably is at least one signification of the earliest name by which not Palestine alone, but the whole chain of mountains of which it is an offshoot, was called, — “ Aram,” or the 66 highlands,” as distinguished from “ Canaan,” “ the low¬ lands” or plain of the seacoast on the west, and the “ Beka” or great plain of the Mesopotamian deserts on the east. “ Aram”1 (or Syria, the word by which the Greeks translated the word into their own language), seems to have been the general appellation of the whole sweep of mountains which enclose the western plains of Asia, and which were thus designated, like the various ranges of Maritime, Graian, Pennine, and Julian Alps, by some affix or epithet to distinguish one portion from another. However this may be, there can be no doubt that in Palestine we are in the 66 Highlands” of Asia. This was the more remarkable in connection with the Israelites, because they were the only civilised nation then existing in the world, which dwelt in a mountainous country. The great states of Egypt, of Assyria, of India,2 rose in the plains formed by the mighty rivers of those empires. The mountains from which those rivers descended were the haunts of the barbarian races who, from time to time, descended to conquer or ravage these rich and level tracts. But the Hebrew people was raised above the other ancient 1 “ Aram-Naharaim,” “the highlands of the two rivers” (the word trans¬ lated “ Mesopotamia” by the Greek, the Latin, and the English versions), Gen. xxiv. 10, Deut. xxiii, 4, Judges iii. 8, 1 Chron. xix. 6, is applied to the mountains from which the Euphrates and Tigris issue into the plain. It is also described, in Numb, xxiii. 7, as “ Aram, the mountains of the East.” “ Padan- Aram” is “ the cultivated field of the highlands,” Gen. xxv. 20, xxviii. 2, 5, 6, 7, xlviii. 7 ; apparently either an upland vale in the hills, or a fertile dis¬ trict immediately at their feet. That this is the meaning of “ Padan,” appears both from its derivation from “ Padah” plough” — (see Gesenius, in voce) — and from the equivalent “ Sadeh”=- “ cultivated field” — arvum, — used for it in Hosea xii. 12 (though here translated ‘ country’). “ Aram of Damascus” (2 Sam. viii. 6) is “ the highlands above Damascus,” to which, in later times, the word “ Aram” (“ Syria”) became almost entirely restricted, as in Isa. vii. 1, 8; Amos i. 5 ; 1 Kings xv. 18; and so the lesser principalities of the same region are oalled “ Aram Zobah,” “ Aram Maachah,” “ Aram Beth-Re- hob.” To Palestine itself it is never applied in the Scriptures, but the con¬ stant designation of the country by Greek writers (see Reland, cap. viii.), is “ Syria Palaestina,” which, in its Hebrew equivalent, would be “ Aram Philistim.” For the meaning of Syria, see Chapter VI. 2 See the fact well given in Hegel’s Philosophy of History, c. L PALESTINE. 129 states, equally in its moral and in its physical relations. From the Desert of Arabia to Hebron is a continual ascent, and from that ascent there is no descent of any importance except to the plains of the Jordan, Esdraelon, and the coast.1 To “go down into Egypt,” to “go up into Canaan,” were expressions as true as they are frequent in the account of the Patriarchal migrations to and fro between the two countries. From a mountain sanctuary, as it were, Israel looked over the world. “ The mountain of the Lord s house,” — “ established on the tops of the mountains,” — “ exalted above the hills,” — to which “ all nations should go up,”2 was the image in which the prophets delighted to represent the future glory of their country. When “the Lord had a controversy with his people,” it was to be “before the mountains and the hills,” and “the strong foundations of the earth.”3 When the messengers of glad tidings returned from the captivity, their feet were “ beautiful upon the mountains.”4 It was to the “ mountains” of Israel that the exile lifted up his eyes, as the place from “whence his help came.”° To the oppressed it was “the mountains” that brought “judg¬ ment, and the hills righteousness.”6 “ My mountains” — “ my holy mountain,”7 — are expressions for the whole country.8 One striking consequence of this elevation of the ' j- The views whole mass of the country is that every high point of sacred • ^ ^ o a History in it commands a prospect of greater extent than is common in ordinary mountain districts. On almost every eminence there is an opportunity for one of those wide views or surveys which abound in the history of Palestine, and which, more than anything else, connect together our impression of events and of the scene on which they were enacted. There are first the successive views of Abraham; as when on “the mountain east of Bethel,” “ Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of 1 See Chapter I., Part ii. p. 102. r Isa. ii. 2, 3. 3 Micah. vi. 1, 2. 4 Isa. lii. V. 6 Ps. exxi. 1. # Ps ixxii. 3. 7 Isa. xi. 9; xiv. 25; lvii. 13; lxv. 9. 8 This whole aspect of the country is caught by Rauwulf with intelligence remarkable for so early a traveller (Travels, p. 220, 221). 130 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Abraham, Balaam, U Jordan,” — and Abraham “ lifted np his eyes, and looked from the place where he was, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward ;’n or again, when “ Abraham looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah . . . and beheld, and lo the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace or yet again, when “ he lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off in the land of Moriah.”1 2 In the later history there is unfolded still more distinctly the view of Balaam from the “ high places of Moab,” where “from the top of the rocks he saw,” from the hills he beheld,” not only “ the tents of Jacob” and the “ tabernacles of Israel,” with their future greatness rising far in the distance, but the surrounding nations also, whose fate wTas interwoven with theirs — and he thought of Edom and Seir, and “looked on Amalek,” and “looked on t lie Kenite.”3 And close upon this follows the view — the most famous in all time, the proverb of all languages — when from that same spot — “the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah,”4 — Moses, from “ the mountain of Nebo, the top of Pisgah,” saw “ all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphthali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar.”5 Such, too, in vision, was the “ very high mountain, in the land of Israel,” from which Ezekiel saw the “frame of the city,” and “the waters issuing to the east country,” “ the desert,” and “the sea.”6 Such — in vision, also — was the mountain “ exceeding high,” which nn.i of the revealed on the day of the Temptation “ all the Temptation. king(joms 0f the world and the glory of them.”7 Such — not in vision, but in the most certain reality, was that double view of Jerusalem from Mount Olivet — the first, when, at the sudden turn of the road from Bethany, “ He be.held the city, and wept over it,” the second, when Moses ; 1 Gen. xiii. 10, 14. See Chapter IV. 2 Gen. xix. 28; xxii. 4. See Chapters V. VI. 3 Numb. xxii. 41 ; xxiii. 9 ; xxiv. 5, 17, 18, 20, 21. See Chapter VII. 4 Numb, xxiii. 14 5 Deut. xxxiv. 1 — 3. See Chapter VII. 6 Ezek. xl. 2 ; xlvii. 8. See Chapter VII. 7 Matt. iv. 8. See Chapter VIII. PALESTINE. L‘U “He sat on the Mount of Olives, over against the Temple,” and saw those “great buildings. 5,1 Other prospects such as of Jacob from Mahanaim, of Deborah from Mount Tabor, of Solomon from Gibeon, though not detailed, can well be imagined ; others, again, though belonging to later times, are yet full of interest — the view, whether historical or legendary, of Mahomet2 over Damascus; the view of Jerusalem, as Titus saw it from the heights of Scopus, or as it burst, eleven centuries : later, on the Crusading armies at the same spot, or as the i pilgrims beheld it from “ Montjoye.”3 To all these I shall return in detail as we come to them in their several localities. No other history contains so many of these points of contact between the impressions of life and the impressions of outward scenery. But, besides this imaginative result, if one may so say, the mountainous character of Palestine is intimately eon- ;i nected with its history, both religious and political. 2. The infinite multiplication of these hills renders in¬ telligible two points constantly recurring in the history of the Jewish people — the “fenced cities” and the The Fenced “high places.” From the earliest times of the oc- Clt,es: cupation of the country by a civilised and stationary people, we hear of the cities great and “walled up to heaven ,” which terrified the Israelite spies; of the “fenced cities” attacked :j by Sennacherib, of the various hill-forts, Jotapata, Masada, Bother, which in the last Jewish wars held out against the Boman forces. This is still the appearance of the existing villages or ruined cities, chiefly indeed in Judaea, j but also throughout the country, in this respect more like the towns of the aboriginal inhabitants of Italy — “ pne- ruptis oppida saxis” — than those of any other country. A city in a valley, instead of being as elsewhere the rule, is here the exception; every valley has its hill, and on that hill a city is set that “ cannot be hid.” From still earlier times, the same tendency is observable in their religious history. These multiplied heights were so Luke xix. 41 ; Mark xiii. 2. See 2 See Chapter XII. Chapter IIL 3 See Chapter IV. 9 132 SINAI AND PALESTINE. an.i nigh many natural altars: at Bethel,1 on Moriah,2 at places* Dan,r at Gibeon,4 on Mount Zion,5 on Olivet,6 altars were successively erected. The national worship down to the time of Hezekiah may almost be said to have been a religion of high places. There was no one height of itself sufficient to command universal acquiescence. In this equality of mountains, all were alike eligible. Political 3. Again, the combination of this mass of hills a ,‘,diScon- with its border plains and with the deserts from quests. which it rises, has deeply affected its political and military history. The allocation of the particular portions of Palestine to its successive inhabitants, will best appear as we proceed. But the earliest and most fundamental dis¬ tributions of territory are according to the simple division of the country into its highlands and lowlands. “The Amalekites,” that is, the Bedouin tribes, “dwell in the land of the south,” that is, on the desert frontier, — “ and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains,” that is, the central mass of hills — “ and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the ‘side’ of Jordan,”7 8 that is, on the western and eastern plains. And of the early inhabitants thus enumerated, those who at least by their names are brought into the sharpest geographical con¬ trast, are the Amorites or “ dwellers on the summits,” and the Canaanites or “ lowlanders.” in 'Man is But ^ history of the conquest of Pales- au.i” low- tine, that this peculiarity is the most strongly brought out. In most countries which consist of mountains and lowlands, two historical results are observ¬ able ; first, that, in the case of invasion, the aboriginal in¬ habitants are driven to the mountains, and the plains have fallen into the hands of the conquerors ; secondly, that, in the case of semi-barbarous countries so situated, the plains are the secure, the mountains the insecure parts of the region. In Palestine, both these results are reversed. Al- 1 Gen. xii. 8. a Gen. xxii. 4. 8 Judges xviii. 30. 4 1 Kings in. 4; 2 Chron. i. 3. 6 2 Sam. vi. 17. 8 2 Sam. xy. 32 ; 1 Kings xi. 7. 7 Numb. xiii. 29. Compare Joshua XL 3. 8 See Ewald (2nd edit.), i. 315 ; and Gesenius, in vocibus. Compare Deut. i., 7, 19, 20, 44. “The mountain of the Amorites.” PALESTINE. 133 though some few of the ancient Amorite tribes, such as | the Jebusites, retained their strongholds in the hills for many years after the first conquest of Joshua, yet by far the ma¬ jority of instances recorded as resisting the progress of the conquerors are in the plains. The hills of Judah and Ephraim were soon occupied, hut “Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of Bethshan, . . nor Taanach, . . nor Dor, . . . nor Ibleam, . . . nor Megiddo, . . i [from the plains of Esdraelon and Sharon,] hut the Canaanites would dwell in the land. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, . . nor of Zidon, . . nor . . of Achzib . . [in the bay of Acre, and the coast of Phoenicia] . . hut the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.”1 “And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down into the valley. But the Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres in Aijalon and Shaalbim, yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries.”2 We are not left to conjecture as to one at least of the reasons. “The Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain ; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the j valley — because they had chariots of iron .”3 The Israelites were a nation of infantry. Their nomadic life, in this respect, differing from that of the modern Bedouins, was without horses ; and even after their settlement in Palestine, horses and chariots were unknown as a national possession until the reign of Solomon. The Canaanites, on the contrary, were famous for their chariots. One chief alone is described as possessing “nine hundred;”4 and even after the partial introduction of them during the Jewish monarchy, the contrast between the infantry of the Israelites and the chariots of the armies from Damascus, suggested the same comparison that might have been made by the Canaanites in the days of Joshua. “ Their gods are gods of the ‘mountains;’ therefore they are stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the ‘ level,’ and surely we shall 1 Judges i. 27 — 32. 2 Ibid. 34. 8 Judges i. 10. See also Josh. xvii. 16. 4 Jab in: Judges, iv. 3. 134 SINAI AND PALESTINE. bo stronger than they.” A glance at the description of Palestine given above, will show how exactly this tallies with the actual results. Roads for wheeled vehicles are un¬ known now in any part of Palestine ; and in the earlier history they are very rarely mentioned as a general means of communication. The “ chariots”1 of Jehu and of Ahab are only described as driven along the plain of Esdraelon. Under the Romans, indeed, the same astonishing genius for road-making which carried the Via Flaminia through the Apennines, and has left traces of itself in the narrow pass of the Scironian rocks, may have increased the faci¬ lities of communication in Palestine, and hence, perhaps, the mention of the chariot-road through the pass from Jerusalem to Gaza,2 where the Ethiopian met Philip. But under ordinary circumstances, they must have always been more or less impracticable in the mountain regions. It was in the plains, accordingly, that the enemies of Israel were usually successful. Another cause, not indeed for the success of the Canaanites’ resistance, but for the tenacity with which they clung to the plains, is to be seen in their great superiority both for agricultural and nomadic purposes to anything in the hills of Judaea or Ephraim. “ Judah,” we are told, at first “ took Gaza, and Askelon, and Ekron.” But these cities, with their coasts, soon fell again into the hands of the Philistines, whether the old inhabitants, or, as there is some reason to think, a new race of settlers, subsequent to the first conquest. And then, for more than four centuries, a struggle Avas main¬ tained till the reign of David. It was the richest portion of the country, and the Philistines might well fight for it to the last gasp. In the same way, Tyre and Sidon, Accho and Gaza, cared but little for the new comers, if they could but retain their hold on the corn-fields and the sea.3 Distinction And this brings us to the other peculiarity which between distinguishes Palestine at the present day, fr m 1 The only exceptions are the cha- 1 Kings xxii. 38 ; 2 Kings ix. 28, riots in which tho royal corpses were xxiii. 30. carried to Samaria and Jerusalem. 2 Acts viii. 28. 3 See Chapter VL PALESTINE. 135 oilier half-civilised regions. In Greece and Italy Palestine and Spain, it is the mountainous tract which is be- I.Ilif vUviiiLW.i set with banditti — the level country which is safe, In Palestine, on the contrary, the mountain tracts are com¬ paratively secure, though infested by villages of hereditary ruffians here and there; but the plains, with hardly an excep¬ tion, are more or less dangerous. Perhaps the most striking contrast is the passage from the Ilauran and plain of Damas¬ cus, to the uplands of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, with their quiet villages, and fruit-gardens, breathing an atmos¬ phere almost of European comfort and security. The cause is soon told. Palestine, as we have before seen, is an island in a desert waste — but from this very fact it is also an island in the midst of pirates. The Bedouin tribes are the corsairs of the wilderness ; the plains which run into the mountains are the creeks into which they naturally pene¬ trate. Far up the plains of Philistia and Sharon come the Arabs of the Tih; deep into the centre of Palestine, into the plain of Esdraelon, especially when the harvest has left the fields clear for pasturage, come the Arabs of the Ilauran and of Gilead. The same levels which of old gave an opening to the chariots of the Canaanites, now admit the inroad of these wandering shepherds. On one occasion, even in ancient times, there was a migration of Bedouins into Palestine on a gigantic scale ; when the Midianites and Amalekites, and children of the east, encamped against the Israelites in their maritime plain, “with their cattle and their tents,” and “pitched” their tents in Esdraelon, and “ lay along the valley like grasshoppers for multitude.”1 This, doubtless, was a great exception, and in the flourishing times of the Jewish Monarchy and of the Roman Empire, the hordes of the Desert were kept out, or were, as in the case of the tribes of Petra in the time of the Ilerods, brought within the range of a partial civilisation. But now, like the sands of their own deserts which engulf the monuments of Egypt, no longer defended by a watchful and living population, they have broken in upon the country far and near ; 1 Judges vi. 3, 5, 33 ; vil 12. See Chapter IX. 136 SINAI AND PALESTINE. and in the total absence of solitary dwelling-places — in the gathering together of all the settled inhabitants into villages, — and in the walls which, as at Jerusalem, enclose the cities round, with locked gates and guarded towers — we see the effect of the constant terror which they in¬ spire. It is the same peculiarity of Eastern life, as was exhibited in its largest proportions in the vast fortifica¬ tions with which Nineveh and Babylon shut themselves in against the attacks of the Bedouins of the Assyrian Desert, and in the great wall which still defends the Chinese empire against the Mongolian tribes, who are to the civilisation of Northern Asia, what the Arabs are to that of the south. scenery of VIII. What has already been said of the physical Palestine, configuration of the country, must to a great extent have anticipated what can be said of its scenery. Yet the character of scenery depends so much on its form and colour, as well as its material — on its expression as well as its fea¬ tures — that, unless something more is said, we shall have but a faint image of what was presented to the Anew of Pa¬ triarch or Prophet, King or Psalmist. Those who describe Palestine as beautiful must have either a very inaccurate notion of what constitutes beauty of scenery, or must have viewed the country through a highly coloured medium. As a general rule, not only is it without the two main elements of beauty — variety of outline and variety of colour — but the features rarely so group together as to form any distinct or impressive combination. The tangled and featureless hills of the lowlands of Scotland1 and North Wales are perhaps the nearest likeness accessible to Englishmen, of the general landscape of Palestine south of the plain of Esdraelon. 1. Bounded hills, chiefly of a gray colour2 — e:rav Character of lulls. partly from the limestone of which they are all formed, partly from the tufts of gray shrub with which their sides are thinly clothed, and from the prevalence of the 1 Compare Miss Martineau, Eastern Life, Part III., e. 1. Dr. Richardson compares the approach from Jaffa to the road between Sanquhar and LeadhiU (ii. 223). 2 This gray colour is exchanged (<>r white in the hills immediately eastward of Jerusalem. See Chapter 1., Part ii. p. 102. PALESTINE. 137 olive — their sides formed into concentric rings of rock, which must have served in ancient times as supports to the terraces, of which there are still traces to their very summits ; valleys, or rather the meetings of these gray slopes with the beds of dry watercourses at their feet-- long sheets of bare rock1 laid like flagstones, side by side, along the soil — these are the chief features of the greater part of the scenery of the historical parts of Pales¬ tine.2 In such a landscape the contrast of every excep¬ tion is doubly felt. The deep shade of the mountain wall beyond the Jordan, — or again the level plains of the coast and of Esdraelon, each cut out of the mountains as if with a knife, — become striking features where all else is mono¬ tonous. The eye rests with peculiar eagerness on the few instances in which the gentle depressions become deep ravines, as in those about Jerusalem, or those leading down to the valley of the Jordan; or in which the mountains assume a bold and peculiar form, as Lebanon and ller- mon at the head of the wThole country, or Tabor, Nebi- Samuel, and the 66 Frank mountain,” in the centre of the hills themselves. 2. These rounded hills, occasionally stretching *1.1 iii* ji l i Vegetation. into long undulating ranges, are lor the most part bare of wood. Forest and large timber (with a few excep¬ tions, hereafter to be mentioned), are not known. Corn¬ fields and, in the neighbourhood of Christian populations as at Bethlehem,3 vineyards creep along the ancient terraces. In the spring, the hills and valleys are covered with thin grass and the aromatic shrubs which clothe more or less almost the whole of Syria and Arabia. But they also glow with what is peculiar to Palestine, a profusion of wild flowers, daisies, the white flower call (id the Star of Bethlehem, but especially with a blaze of scarlet flowers of all kinds, chiefly anemones, wild tulips, and poppies.4 Of all the ordinary aspects of the country, 1 Well described by Richardson, ii. ?>74. 2 Keith, in his Land of Israel, has ex¬ actly caught this character. “ The rounded and' rocky hills of Judaea swell out in empty, unattractive, and even repulsive barrenness, with nothing to relieve t lie eye or captivate the fancy.” (P. 420.) See Appendix in v. Gibenh. 3 Well described in Lynch’s Expedi¬ tion, p. 225. 4 See Chap. T., Tart ii. p. 100. 138 SINAI AND PALESTINE. this blaze of scarlet colour is perhaps the most peculiar ; and, to those who first enter the Holy Land, it is no wonder that it has suggested the touching and significant name of “ the Saviour’s blood-drops.” It is this contrast between the brilliant colours of the flowers and the sober hue of the rest of the landscape, that gives force to the words, — “ Consider the lilies of the field. . . For I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”1 Whatever was the special flower designated by the lily of the field, the rest of the passage indicates that it was of the gorgeous hues which might be compared to the robes of the great king. The same remark applies, though in a less degree, to the frequent mention of the same flower in the Canticles, — “ I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys,” “ as the lily among thorns,” “ he feedeth among the lilies,” “ he is gone to gather lilies.”2 The same general bareness and poverty sets off in the same way the rare exceptions in the larger forms of vegetable life. The olive, the fig, and the pome¬ granate, which form the usual vegetation of the country, are so humble in stature, that they hardly attract the eye till the spectator is amongst them. Then indeed the twisted stems and silver foliage of the first, the dark broad leaf of the second, the tender green and scarlet blossoms of the third, are amongst the most beautiful of sights, even when stripped of the associations which would make the tamest of their kind venerable. On the lower slopes of the hills olives especially are more or less thickly scattered, with that peculiar colour and form which they share in common with those of Greece and of Italy; to English eyes, best represented by aged willows.3 But there are a few trees which emerge from this general obscurity. Foremost stand the cedars4 of Lebanon. In ancient Trees. Olives. Cedars : 1 See Chapter XIIL 2 Cant. ii. 1, 2, 1G; vi. 2, 3. 3 Those who have never seen an olive-tree, must read the description in Raskin’s Stones of Venice. Vol. iii. p. 175-177. 4 With the exception of the cedars. I have confined myself in this enume¬ ration strictly to the trees of Palestine. But it is worth while to notice that the foliage of Anti-Libanus is chiefly that of the light poplar, so frequent on the table-lands of Spain ; of Lebanon, that of the pine — whether the mountain pine, or 139 PALESTINE. times the sides of that mountain were covered with them. Now, they are only found in one small hollow on its north¬ western slope. But there can be little doubt that they were always confined to the range of Lebanon, and confined to therefore, properly speaking, were not trees of Pal- Lebailon- estine at all.1 The expression of Keble, — “ Far o’er the cedar shade some tower of giant old,” never could have been true of the woods and ruins of Judaea. It was the very remoteness of this noble tree, combined with its majestic height and sweeping branches, that made it, one may almost say, an object of religious reverence. It is hardly ever named without the addition, either of the lofty mountain where it grew,- — “ the cedars of Lebanon,” — or of some epithet implying its gran¬ deur and glory, — “ the trees of the Lord,” the “ cedars which He hath planted,” “ the tall cedars,” “ the cedars high and lifted up,” “ whose height is like the height of the cedars,” “ spread abroad like the cedar,” “ with fair branches,” “ with a shadowing shroud,” “ of an high stature,” “his top among the thick boughs,” “his height exalted above all the trees of the field,” “his boughs multiplied, his branches long,” “ fair in his greatness,” “ in the length of his branches,” “ by the multitude of his branches.”2 These expressions clearly indicate that to them the cedar was a portent, a grand and awful work of God. The words would never have been used had it been a familiar sight amongst their ordinary gardens, as it is in ours. It is said that the clergy of the Greek Church still offer up mass under their branches, as though they formed a natural temple, and that the Arabs call them the “trees of God.” This may now be a homage to the the stone pine, such as the forest on the plains of Bey root. See Keith’s Scrip¬ ture Lands. There is a beautiful passage in M. Van de Velde’s Travels, describ¬ ing the cypresses of Lebanon, which are occasionally mentioned in the Old Testa¬ ment. 1 It is not clear from the account in 1 Kings v. whether the cedars of Le¬ banon which Hiram’s workmen cut down for Solomon, and sent on rafts to Joppa for the building of the temple, were within the Jewish dominions at that time or not. But the stress laid on the skill of the Sidonians as wood-cutters, and the fact that Solomon sent his own tax- gatherers there, perhaps implies that they were. 2 Isa. ii. 13; xxxvii. 24; Amos, ii. 9; Ezek. xxxi. 3-10; Ps. xxix. 5; xcii. 13, civ. 1C. 140 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Oaks. extreme antiquity of those which are left ; but it may .also be a continuation of the ancient feeling towards them which filled the hearts of the poets of Israel. Another more practical indication of their size, as compared to any Pal¬ estine timber, is the fact, that from the earliest times they have always been used for all the great works of Jewish architecture. They were so employed for Solomon’s Temple, and again for the Temple of Zerubbabel, when nothing but sheer necessity could have induced the impov¬ erished people to send so far for their timber.1 They were used yet once again, probably for the last time, in Constan¬ tine’s Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. When the ceiling of that ancient edifice was last repaired, the rafters were no longer from the forests of Lebanon, but gifts from our own oaks by King Edward IV. Passing from these trees, which, secluded as the^ are in their retired nook on the heights of Lebanon, could therefore illustrate the scenery of Palestine only by contrast, we come to those which must always have pre¬ sented striking objects in the view, wherever they appeared. The first were those to which the Hebrews in Palestine emphatically gave the name of “ the tree,” or “ the strong tree,”2 namely, the “ Turkish oak” (“el” or “ elah,” in Arabic Sindian ), and those to which the same name was given by a very slight variation of inflexion (“allon”) — Terebinths turpentine or terebinth, — in Arabic Butin. The trees are different in kind ; but their general ap¬ pearance is so similar, as well as the name which the Hebrews (doubtless from this similarity) applied to both, that they may both be considered together.3 Probably the most remarkable specimen of the oak which the traveller Abraham’s sees, is that called “ the oak of Abraham,” near oak‘ Hebron, and of which an elaborate account is given by Hr. Robinson.4 A familiar example of the terebinth is that at the north-west corner of the walls of Jerusalem, 1 Ezra iii. 7. 2 The same word, which in the Desert, is applied to the Palm; as in the proper names Elim and Elatli (See Chapter I. p. 29), and in Chaldee to the tree of Daniel’s vision. 3 They are once expressly distinguished as “ the terebinth (elah) and the onkl (allon). Isaiah vi. 13. But, on the other hand, they are also confounded ; the same tree, apparently, which is called elah in • Josh. xxiv. 26, being called allon in Gen xxxv. 4. 4 Vol. ii. p. 443. PALESTINE. 141 which forms a marked object in any view including that portion of the city. They are both tall and spread¬ ing trees, with dark evergreen foliage ; and by far the largest in height and breadth of any in Palestine. But these, too, are rare ; and this also is indicated by the allusions to them in the Old Testament. In a less degree than the cedars of Lebanon, but more frequently, from their being brought into closer contact with the history of Israel, they are described as invested with a kind of religious sanctity, and as landmarks of the country, to a degree which would not be possible in more thickly wooded regions. Each successive step of sacred the first patriarchal migration is marked by a halt trees: under one or more of these towering trees. Under the oak of Moreh at Shechem, and the oak of Mamre at Hebron, was built the altar and pitched the tent of Abraham. And each of these aged trees became the centre of a long suc¬ cession of historical recollection. Underneath the 0ak of oak of Moreh, or its successor,1 Jacob buried, as in Moreh’ a consecrated spot, the images and the ornaments of his Mesopotamian retainers. In the same place, as it would seem, did Joshua set up the “ great stone” that was “ by the sanctuary of the Lord ;”2 and the tree, or the spot, appears to have been known in the time of the Judges, as the traditional site of these two events, by the double name of the “ oak of the enchantments,” and “ the oak of the pillar.”3 Still more remarkable was the history of the “ oak of Mamre.” There are here indeed two rival claimants. The LXX, translating the word “ allon” by evidently regards it as identical with elah , and therefore, as an oak ; and it is curious that the only large tree now existing in the neighbourhood, is that already alluded to as the chief of a group of ilexes in the valley of Eshcol, about a mile from Hebron ; and is, in all probability, the same, or in the same of Mamre, 1 Gen. xxxv 4. 3 Joshua xxiv. 26. 3 Judges ix. 6, 37. In each case mis¬ translated ‘ plain,’ from the Vulgate ( convallis ). In the second case Meo- nenim, signifies “ enchantments,” in al¬ lusion to Gen. xxxv. 4, where the ear¬ rings appear to have been amulets, to prevent the entrance of ill-omened words, according to a practico reproved by St. Augusti”" amongst the Christians of Africa. 142 SINAI AND PALESTINE. situation, as that alluded to in the twelfth century by Saewulf, and in the thirteenth and fourteenth by Mande- ville and Sanutus, as possessed of extraordinary virtues, and the subject of a singular legend. But the tradition in the time of Josephus was attached to a terebinth.1 None such now remains ; but there can be little doubt that it stood within the ancient enclosure which he mentions, and of which ruins still remain to the north of Hebron, under the name of “ Abraham’s house.” It was a gigantic tree, supposed to be coeval with the creation. In the time of Constantine2 it was hung with images and with a picture representing the Entertainment of the Angels — and underneath its shade was held a fair, in which Christians, Jews, and Arabs assembled every summer to traffic, and to honour, each with his own rites, the sacred tree and its accompanying figures. Constantine abolished the worship and the images, but the tree, with the fair, remained to the time of Theodosius.3 It gave its name to the spot, and was still standing within the church which was built around it, till the seventh century ; and in later times marvellous tales were told of its having sprung from the staff of one of the angelic visitants, and of its blazing with fire yet remaining always fresh.4 It is said to have been burnt down in the seventeenth i century.5 of Bethel These are the two most remarkable of the trees wanderers^ menti°ned. But there are also others : the “ oak of Bethel,” under which Deborah, the nurse of Jacob, was interred, known by the name of the “ terebinth of tears ;”6 the “oaks of the wanderers,” under which the nomad tribe of the Kenites was encamped in the north.7 And in all these cases, as they had at first been marked out as natural resting-places for the patriarchal or Arab encamp¬ ments, so they were afterwards in all probability the sacred trees and the sacred groves under which altars were built, 1 Josephus, Bell. Jud. iv. 9, 7. 3 Eusebius, Vit. Const. 81 ; Demonst. Ev. y. 9. 3 Socrates, i. 18; Sozornen, Jud. xi. (Behind, pp. 713, 714.) 4 Eustathius and Julius African us* (Reland, p. 712.) 5 Mariti. 0 Allon-Bachuth. Gen. xxxv. 8. where “ an oak,” should be “ the oak.” 7 “ The plain (oaks) of Zaanaim,” Judges, iv. 11. PALESTINE. 143 partly to the True God, partly to Astarte. One such grove, apparently with the remains of a sacred edifice, exists at llazori, near Baneas ; another, of singular beauty, on the hill of the lesser sources of the Jordan, at the ancient sanctuary of Dan.1 These instances are all more or less isolated. There is one district, however, where the oaks flourished and still flourish in such abundance as to constitute almost a forest. On the . table-lands of Gilead are the thick oak-woods of Bashan, often alluded to in the Prophets,2 as presenting the most familiar image of forest scenery — famous in history, as the scene of the capture and death of Absalom, when he was caught amongst their tangled branches. Another tree, which breaks the uniformity of the Palms> Syrian landscape by the rarity of its occurrence, no less than by its beauty, is the Palm. It is a curious fact that this stately tree, so intimately connected with our associations of Judsea by the Boman coins, which represent her seated in captivity under its shade, is now almost unknown to her hills and valleys. Two or three in the garden of Jerusalem, some few perhaps at Nablous, one or two in the plain of Esdraelon — comprise nearly all the instances of the palm in central Palestine. In former times it was doubtless more common. In the valley of the Jordan, one of the most striking features used to be the immense palm-grove, seven miles long, whicli surrounded Jericho ; — of which large remains were1 still visible in the seventh century and the twelfth, some even in the seventeenth ;3 and of which relics are still to be seen, in the trunks of palms washed up on the shores of the Dead Sea,4 — preserved by the salt with which a long submersion in those strange waters has impregnated them. En-gedi, too, on the western side of the same lake, was known in early times as Hazazon-Tamar,5 “ the felling of palm-trees.” Now not one6 is to be seen in the deep thicket which surrounds its spring, and at 1 See Chapter XL * Macmichael’s Journey, p. 207. See 2 Iau. ii. 13 ; Ezek. xxvii. 6. Chapter VII. 3 Arculf. (Early Travellers, p. 7.) Sae- 5 Gen. xiv. 7 ; 2 Chr. xx. 2. wulf (ibid p. 23.) Shaw. p. 370. 6 Robinson, vol. ii. p. 211. 144 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Jericho even the solitary palm, for many years observed by travellers as the only remnant of its former glory, has disappeared. On Olivet, too, where now nothing is to be seen, but the olive and the fig-tree, there must have been at least some palms in ancient days. In the time of Ezra they went forth unto the mount to fetch for the Feast of Tabernacles “ olive-branches, and pine-branches, and myrtle-branches, and palm-branches, and branches of thick trees.”1 “ Bethany” in all probability derives its name, “ the house of dates,” from the same cause, and with this agrees the fact that the crowd which escorted our Lord to Jerusalem from Bethany “ took branches of palm-trees.”2 Still, it is probable that even then the palm was rarely found on the high land which forms the main portion of historical Palestine. It is emphatically, as we have seen in the account of Sinai, the 66 tree” of the Desert. It is always spoken of in Iiabbinical writers as a tree of the valleys,3 not of the mountains. It grows naturally, and were it cultivated, might doubtless grow again in the tropical climate of the Valley of the Jordan. It is still found in great abundance on the maritime plains of Philistia and Phoenicia ; and doubtless from the palm- groves, which still strike the eye of the traveller in the neighbourhood of Jaffa and Beyrout, and which there probably first met the eye of the Western world, whether Greek, Homan, or Mediaeval, came the name of Phoenicia or “ the Land of Palms.”4 Hence, too, at leas’" in recent times, came the branches, which distinguished the pilgrims of Palestine, from those of Borne, Com- postella and Canterbury, by the name of “ Palmer.” But the climate of the hill country must always have been too cold for their frequent growth.5 Those un Olivet most likely were in gardens ; the very fact of the name of the “ City of Palm-trees,” applied as a distinguishing epithet to Jericho — the allusion to the palm-tree of En-gedi, as though found there and no* 1 Nehemiah viii. 15. For the myrtle 2 John xu. 13. trees on or near the same spot at the same 3 See Reland’s Palestine, 30G, 368. period compare the “myrtle trees that 4 See Chapter VI. were in the bottom,” Zech, l 8, 10, 11. 5 Buckingham, p. Sit. PALESTINE. 145 eisewnc'e — the mention of the palm-tree of Deborah at Bethel,1 as a well-known and solitary landmark — probably the same spot as that cnlled Baal- Tamar,2 u the sanctuary of the palm” — all indicate that the palm was on the whole then, as now, the exception and not Hie rule. Combined with the palm in ancient times was the sycomorea. Sycomore. This too was a tree of the plain,3 — chiefly of the plain of the sea-coast — also, as we know by one cele¬ brated instance,4 in the plains of Jericho. As Jericho derived its name from the palms, so did Sycominopolis — • the modern Caiplia, — from the grove of sycomores, some of which still remain in its neighbourhood. Oleanders. There is one other tree, which is only to be found on the tropical banks of the Jordan, hut too beautiful to be omitted ; the Oleander, with its bright blossoms and dark-green leaves, giving the aspect of a rich garden to any spot where it grows. It is, however, never alluded to in the Scriptures, unless, as has been conjectured, it is the “ tree planted by the c streams of water , which bringeth forth his fruit in due season,” and “ whose leaf shall not wither .”5 IX. The geological structure of Palestine, as of feSS^of Greece, is almost entirely limestone. The few ex- Palestine- ceptions are in the Valley of the Jordan, which must be considered in its own place. This rocky character of the whole country has not been without its historical results. 1. Not only does the thirsty character of the whole East give a peculiar expression to any places where water may be had, but the rocky soil preserves their identity, and the wells of Palestine serve as the links by which each successive age is bound to the other, in a manner which at first sight would be thought almost incredible. The name by which they are called of itself indicates their permanent character. The “ well” of the Hebrew and the Arab is carefully distinguished Wells, 1 Judges iv. 5. 2 Judges xx 33. 3 “ Cedars made he as the sycomore trees in the vale (Shefela: i.e. the low country of Philistria) for abundance:” 1 Kings x. 27, anl 2 Chr. L 15; ix. 27 ; also 1 Chr. xxvii. 28. See also the Mishna quoted in Reland’s Palestine, pp. 30G, 368. 4 Luke xix. 4. 5 Ps. i. 3. See Ritter, Jordan, p. 30L 146 SINAI AND PALESTINE. and Springs, from the “ spring.” The swing (am) is the bright. open source — the “ eye ’ of the landscape — such as bubbles up amongst the crags of Sinai, or rushes forth in a copious stream from En-gedi or from Jericho. But the well {beer) is the deep hole bored far under the rocky surface by the art of man — the earliest traces of that art which these regions exhibit. By these orifices at the foot of the hills, surrounded by their broad margin of smooth stone or marble — -a, rough mass of stone covering the top — have always been gathered whatever signs of animation or civilisation the neighbourhood afforded. They were the scenes of the earliest contentions of the shepherd-patriarchs with the inhabitants of the land ; the places of meeting with the women who came down to draw water from their rocky depths — of Eliezer with Rebecca, of Jacob with Rachel, of Moses with Zipporah, of Christ with the woman of Samaria. They were the natural halting-places of great caravans, or wayfaring men, as when Moses gathered together the people to the well of Moab, which the princes dug with their sceptered staves,1 and therefore the resort of the plunderers of the Desert, of “ the noise of archers in the places of drawing water.”2 What they were ages ago in each ot these respects they are still. The shepherds may still be seen leading their flocks of sheep and goats to their margin ; the women still come with their pitchers and talk to those “ who sit by the well ;” the traveller still looks forward to it as his resting-place for the night, if it be in a place of safety ; or, if it be in the neighbourhood of the wilder Bedouins, is hurried on by his dragoman or his escort without halting a moment ; and thus, by their means, not only is the image of the ancient life of the country preserved, but the scenes of sacred events are identified, which under any other circumstances would have perished. The wells of Beersheba in the wide frontier-valley of Palestine are indisputable witnesses of the life of Abraham.3 The well of Jacob, at Shechem, is a monument of the earliest and of the latest events 1 Numb, xxi 16, 18. 2 Judges y. 11. 8 See Chapter L, Part ii. p. 100. PALESTINE. 147 of sacred history, of the caution of the prudent patriarch, no less than of the freedom of the Gospel there proclaimed by Christ.1 2. Next to the wells of Syria, the most authen¬ tic memorials of the past times are the Sepulchres, Sepulchres and partly for the same reason. The tombs of ancient Greece or Rome lined the public roads with funeral pillars or towers. Grassy graves and marble monuments fill the churchyards and churches of Christian Europe. But the sepulchres of Palestine were, like the habitations of its earliest inhabitants, hewn out of the living limestone rock, and therefore indestructible as the rock itself. In this respect they resembled, though ion a smaller scale, the tombs of Upper Egypt, and as there the traveller of the nineteenth century is confronted with the names and records of men who lived thousands of years ago, so also, in the excavations of the valleys which surround or approach Shiloh, Shechem, Bethel, and Jerusalem, he knows that he sees what were the last resting-places of the generations contemporary with J oshua, Samuel, and David. And the example of Egypt shows that the identification of these sepulchres even with their individual occupants is not so improbable as might be otherwise supposed. If the graves of Raineses and Osirei can still be ascertained, there is nothing improbable in the thought that the tombs of the patriarchs may have survived the lapse of twenty or thirty centuries. The rocky cave on Mount Hor must be at least the spot believed by Josephus to mark the grave of Aaron. The tomb of Joseph must be near one of the two monuments pointed out as such in the opening of the vale of Shechem. The sepulchre which is called the tomb of Rachel exactly agrees with the spot described as “ a little way” from Bethlehem.2 The tomb of David, which was known with certainty at the time of the Christian era, may perhaps still be found under the mosque which bears his name on the modern Zion.3 Above all, the Cave ■ i See Chapter V. 2 (>en. xxxv. 16. There is a cave underneath it. See Schwarze, p. 110. * See Chapter XIV. 10 148 SINAI AND PALESTINE. of Machpelah is concealed, beyond all reasonable doubt, by the mosque at Hebron.1 But with these exceptions, we must rest satisfied rather with the general than the particular interest of the tombs of Palestine. The prof of identity in each special instance depends almost entirely on the locality. Instead of the acres of inscriptions which cover the tombs of Egypt, not a single letter has been found in any ancient sepulchre of Palestine ; and tradition is, in this class of monuments, found to be unusually falla¬ cious. Although some of those which are described as genuine by Jewish authorities can neither be rejected nor received with positive assurance, such as the alleged sepulchres of Deborah, Barak, Abinoam, Jael, and Heber, at Kedesh;2 and of Phineas, Eleazar, and Joshua, in the eastern ranges of Shechem ;3 yet the passion of the Mus¬ sulman conquerors of Syria for erecting mosques over the tombs of celebrated saints (and such to them are all the heroes of the Old Testament) has created so many fictitious sepulchres, as to throw doubt on all. Such are the tombs of Seth and Noah, in the vale of the Lebanon; of Moses, on the west of the Jordan, in direct contra¬ diction to the Mosaic narrative ; of Samuel, on the top of Nebi-Samuel; of Sidon and Zebulon near Zidon and Tyre ; of Iloshea, in Gilead ; of Jonah, thrice over, in Judaea, in Phoenicia, and at Nineveh. Even the most genuine sepulchres are received as such by the highest Mussulman authorities on grounds the most puerile. The mosque of Hebron is justly claimed by them as the sanctuary of the tomb of Abraham, but their reason for believing it is thus gravely stated in the “ Torch of Hearts,” a work written by the learned Ali, son of Jafer-ar-Rayz, “ on the authenticity of the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” “ I rely,” he says, “ on the testimony of Abu Horairuh, who thus expresses himself: — It was said by the Apostle of God. ‘When the angel Gabriel made me take the nocturnal flight to Jerusalem, we passed over the tomb of Abraham, and he said Descend, and make a prayer with two genuflexions, See Chapter I., Part ii. p. 103. 2 Sehwarze, 183. 8 Ibid. 141, 150, 15L PALESTINE. 149 for here is the sepulchre of thy father Abraham. Then, we passed Bethlehem, and he said, Descend, for here was born thy brother Jesus. Then we came to Jerusalem.’ ’n It may be well to notice the probable cause of this un¬ certainty of Jewish, as contrasted with the certainty of Egyptian and, we might add, of European tradition on the subject of tombs. However strongly the reverence for sacred graves may have been developed in the Jews of later times, the ancient Israelites never seem to have entertained the same feeling of regard for the resting- places or the remains of their illustrious dead, as was carried to so high a pitch in the earlier Pagan and in the later Christian world. “ Let me bury my dead out of my sight” — ■“ No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day,”2 — express, if not the general feeling of the Jewish nation, at least the general spirit of the Old Testament. Every one knows the most signal instance in which this indifference was manifested. Somewhere, doubtless, near the walls of the old Jerusalem, or buried under its ruins, is the “ new sepulchre hewn in the rock,” where “ the body of Jesus was laid,” but the precise spot, never indicated by the Evangelists, was probably unknown to the next generation, and will, in all likelihood, remain a. matter of doubt always.3 In this respect the controversy regarding the Holy Sepulchre is an illustration of a general fact in sacred topography. Modern pilgrims are troubled at the supposition that such a locality should have been lost. The Israelites and the early Christians would have been surprised if it had been preserved. 3. But the tombs are only one class of a general pecu¬ liarity, resulting from the physical structure of Palestine. Like all limestone formations, the hills of Palestine abound in caves. How great a part the caverns of Greece played in the history and mythology of that country is well known. In one respect, indeed, those of Palestine were never likely to have been of the same im¬ portance, because, not being stalactitic, they could not so forcibly suggest to the Canaanite wanderers the images of Caves, See Chapter XIV. Gen. xxiii. 4; Deut. xxxiv. 6. 1 Tbn Batouhah, 116. 150 SINAI AND PALESTINE. in ancient sylvan deities, which the Grecian shepherds natu- times. rally found in the grottoes of Parnassus and Hy- mettus. But from other points of view we never lose sight of them. In these innumerable rents, and cavities, and holes, we see the origin of the sepulchres, which still, partly natural, and partly artificial, perforate the rocky walls of the Juclman valleys ; the long line of the tombs, of which I have just spoken, beginning with the cave of Machpelah and ending with the grave of Lazarus, which was “ a cave, and a stone lay upon it,” and 66 the sepulchre hewn in the rock, wherein never man before was laid.” We see in them also, the hiding-places which served sometimes for defence of robbers and insurgents, sometimes for the refuge of those “ of whom the world was not worthy the prototype of the catacombs of the early Chris¬ tians, of the caverns of the Vaudois and the Cove¬ nanters. The cave of Lot at Zoar; the cave of the five kings at Makkedah ; the “ caves and dens and strongholds,” and “ rocks” and “ pits” and “ holes,” in which the Israelites took shelter from the Midianites in the time of Gideon,1 from the Philistines in the time of Saul;2 the cleft3 of the cliff Etam, into which Samson went down to escape the vengeance of his enemies ; the caves4 of David at Adullam, and at Maon, and of Saul at En-gedi; the cave in which Obadiah hid the prophets of the Lord ;5 the caves of the robber-hordes above the plain of Gennesareth ;6 the sepulchral caves of the Gadarene demoniacs ;7 the cave of Jotapata,8 where Josephus and his countrymen concealed themselves in their last struggle, — continue from first to last what has truly been called the “ cave-life” of the Israelite nation. The stream of their national existence, like the actual streams of the Grecian rivers, from time to time disap¬ pears from the light of day, and runs under ground in 1 Judges vi. 2. forth out of the holes where they had hid 2 1 Sam. xiii. 6; xiv. 11. themselves.” See Chapter IV. 3 Judges xv. 8. So it should be ren- 1 1 Sam xxii. 1 ; xxiii. 25 ; xxiv. 3. ilered. The passage is interesting, as 6 1 Kings, xviii. 4, 13 ; see Chapter IX illustrating the peculiar character of 6 Josephus, Bell. Jud. I., xvn 2 — 1. some of the hiding-places — not what we 7 Mark v. 3. should call caves — but holes sunk in 8 Josephus, Vita, 74, 75. the earth. “ Behold the Hebrews come PALESTINE. 151 these subterraneous recesses, — to burst forth again when the appointed moment arrives/ — a striking type, as it is a remarkable instance, of the preservation of the spiritual life of the Chosen People, “ burning, but not consumed,” “ chastened, but not killed.” In older times, there is no proof that these ancient grottoes were used for worship, either Canaanitish or Israelite. The “ green trees,” the “high places,” served alike for the altars of the Lord, and for those of Baal and Ashtaroth. The free and open heavens for the one worship, the unrestricted sight of the sun and the host of heaven for the other, were alike alien to the sepulchral darkness of the holes and caverns of the rocks. The one instance of a cave, dedicated to religious worship before the fall of the Jewish nation, is that at the sources of the Jordan, consecrated by foreign settlers as a sanctuary of their own Grecian Pan.2 But the moment that the religion of Palestine fell into the hands of Europeans, it is hardly too much to say that, as far as sacred traditions are con¬ cerned, it became “a religion of caves” — of those very caves which in earlier times had been unhallowed by any religious influence whatever. Wherever a sacred association had to be fixed, a cave was imme- modem diately selected or found as its home. First in antiquity is the grotto of Bethlehem, already in the second century regarded by popular belief as the scene of the Na¬ tivity. Next comes the grotto on Mount Olivet, selected as the scene of our Lord’s last conversations before the Ascen- These two caves, as Eusebius emphatically asserts, sion. were the first seats of the worship established by the Em¬ press Helena, to which was shortly afterwards added a third — the sacred cave of the sepulchre. To these were rapidly added the cave of the Invention of the Cross, the cave of the Annunciation at Nazareth, the cave of the Agony at Gethsemane, the cave of the Baptist in the “wilderness of St. John,” the cave of the shepherds of Bethlehem. And then again, partly perhaps the cause, partly the effect of this consecration of grottoes, began the caves of 1 See Hengstenberg on Psalm IviL 1 ; Ewald’s Geschichte, vol. v. p. 25. • See Chapter XI. 152 SINAI AND PALESTINE. hermits. There was the cave of St. Pelagia on Mount Olivet, the cave of St. Jerome, St. Paula, and St. Eustochium at Bethlehem, the cave of St. Saba in the ravines of the Kedron, the remarkable cells hewn or found in the precipices of the Quarantania or Mount of the Temptation above Jericho. In some few instances this selection of grot¬ toes would coincide with the events thus intended to be per¬ petuated, as for example the hiding-places of the prophets on Carmel, and the sepulchres of the patriarchs and of our Lord. But in most instances the choice is made without the sanction, in some instances, in defiance, of the sacred narrative. No one would infer from the mention of the “inn” or “house” of the Nativity, or of the entrance of the Angel of the Annunciation to Mary, that those events took place in caves. The very fact that, in the celebrated legend, it is a house, and not a grotto, which is transplanted to Loretto, is an indication of what would be the natural belief. All our common feelings are repugnant to the transference of the scenes of the Agony and Ascension from the free and open sides of the mountain to the narrow seclusion of subterraneous excavations. It is possible, as we are often reminded, that the very fact of caverns being so frequently used for places of dwelling and resort in Palestine, would account for the absence of a more specific allusion to them ; for grottoes are stables at Bethlehem still; and the lower stories of houses at Nazareth are excavated in the rock. But the more probable explanation is to be found in the fact, that after the devastating storm of the Roman conquest had swept away the traces of sacred recollections in human habitations, the inhabitants or pilgrims who came to seek them, would seek and find them in the most strongly marked features of the neighbourhood. These, as we have seen, would be the caves. Helena, by the con¬ secration of two of the most remarkable, would set the example ; the practice of the hermits, already begun in the rock-hewn tombs of Egypt, would encourage the belief of this sanctity. And thus the universality of the connection between grottoes and sacred events, which in later times provokes suspicion, in early times would only I PALESTINE. 153 render the minds of pilgrims more callous to the improba¬ bilities of each particular instance.1 4. I have dwelt at length on the history of the Legendary caves, because it is the only instance of a close con- cunosities- nection between the history or the religion of Palestine, and any of its more special natural features. In some few cases, the local legends may be traced to similar peculiarities. (1.) The stones called “ Elijah’s melons,” on Mount Carmel, and “ the Virgin Mary’s peas,” near Bethlehem, are instances of crystallisation well known in limestone formations. They are so called, being the supposed pro¬ duce of those two plots turned into stone, from the refusal of the owners to supply the wants of the prophet and the saint. Another celebrated example may be noticed in the petrified lentils of the workmen at the great Pyramid, as seen by Strabo at its base.2 In all three instances the traces of these3 once well known relics have now almost en¬ tirely disappeared. (2.) Another peculiarity of the limestone rock has given birth to the legendary scene of the destruction of Senna¬ cherib’s army. Two pits were formerly pointed out near Bethlehem as the grave of the Assyrian host. One still remains. It is an irregular opening in the rocky ground, exactly similar to those which may be seen by hundreds, in the wild limestone district, called the Karst, above Trieste. The real scene of the event is probably elsewhere.4 (3.) The limestone, which is usually white or grey, is occasionally streaked with red. It is in these reddish veins that the pilgrims fancied they saw the marks of the drops of blood in the so-called Scala-Santa ; or on the rock near Jerusalem, of late years pointed out as the scene of the martyrdom of Stephen. (4.) The black and white stones — usually called volcanic — found along the shores of the sea of Galilee, have been 1 See Chapter XIV. 3 Strabo, xvii. These petrified len¬ tils were probably the same as the pe¬ trified fruits said to have been in the Dossession of Omar Ibn Abd-al Aziz, Caliph of Egypt, in the 99th year of the Hejira. In this version of the story, they were supposed to be the relics of the general petrifaction of those which had supported Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus. Weil’s Legends, p. 121, 122. 3 Clarke, v. 182. “ Those on Mount Carmel were carried off by Djezzar Pasha for cannon balls.” Clarke, iv. 117. 4 See Chapter IV. 154 SINAI AND PALESTINE. transformed by Jewish fancy into the traces of the tears of Jacob in search of Joseph.1 (5.) It is not of the nature of limestone rocks to assume fantastic forms, and in this respect the contrast between the legends of Palestine and Sinai is most apparent. Some few however there are ; their very slightness indicating that they have not been the occasion, but only the handles of the stories appended to them. The cavity of the footmark on Mount Olivet ; the fissures in the rocks “ that were rent,” and the supposed entombment of Adam’s skull, in Golgotha ; the petrifaction of the ass at Bethairy ; the sinuous mark of the Virgin’s girdle by Gethsemane ; the impression of Elijah’s form on the rocky bank by the roadside, near the convent of Mar Elias, between Beth¬ lehem and Jerusalem,2 are perhaps the only objects in which the form of the rocks can be supposed to have suggested the legends. But another place will occur for speaking of these more particularly.3 It is worth while to enumerate these instances, trifling as they are, in order to illustrate the slightness of foun¬ dation which the natural features of Palestine afford for the mythology, almost inevitably springing out of so long a series of remarkable events. And this is in fact the final conclusion which is to be drawn from the character, or rather want of character, presented by the general scenery. If the first feeling be disap¬ pointment, yet the second may well be thankfulness. There is little in these hills and valleys on which the imagination can fasten. Whilst the great seats of Greek and Roman religion — at Delphi and Lebadea, by the lakes of Alba and of Aricia, — strike even the indif¬ ferent traveller as deeply impressive — Shiloh and Bethel on the other hand, so long the sanctuaries and oracles of God, almost escape the notice even of the zealous antiquarian in the maze of undistinguished hills which encompass them. The first view of Olivet impresses us chiefly by its bare matter-of-fact appearance ; the first approach to the hills of Judsea reminds the English 1 See Sandys, p. 191. Van Egmont, 2 See Quaresiraus, vol. II.; vi. 8. 364. 3 See Chapter XIV. PALESTINE. 155 traveller not of the most hut of the least striking portions of the mountains of his own country. Yet all this renders the Holy Land the fitting cradle of a religion which ex¬ pressed itself not through the voices of rustling forests, or the clefts of mysterious precipices, but through the souls and hearts of men, — which was destined to have no home on earth, least of all in its own birthplace, — which has at¬ tained its full dimensions only in proportion as it has trav¬ elled further from its original source, to the daily life and homes of nations as far removed from Palestine in thought and feeling, as they are in climate and latitude — which alone, of all religions, claims to be founded not on fancy or feeling, but on Fact and Truth. MAP OF JERUSALEM. CHAPTER III. JUDAEA AND JERUSALEM. Gen. xlix. 9, 11, 12. “Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone an : he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up ? — Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine ; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes : his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.” Psalm lxxvi. 2. “ In Salem is his ‘ covert,’ and his ‘lair’ in Zion.” Juilea: — I. The “south” frontier — Simeon. — II. Mountain country of Judah — Lion of Judah — Vineyards — Fenced cities — Bethlehem — Capital cities — Hebron — Jeru¬ salem. Jerusalem: — I. Exterior aspect. 1. Long obscurity — Jebus — Mountain fastness. 2 Ravines of Kedron and Hinnom. 3. Compactness. 4. Surrounding mountains. 6. Central situation. — II. Interior aspect. 1. Hills of the city. 2. Temple-mount — Rock of the Sakrah — -Spring. 3. Walls — Palaces — Ruins. — III. Mount of Olives — Slight connection with the earlier history — Presence of Christ — Bethany — Scene of triumphal entry — Conclusion. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. The southern frontier of Palestine almost imper- eeptibly loses itself in the desert of Sinai. It is « south* sometimes called the land of “ Goshen,”1 or the Frolltier* “ frontier,” doubtless from the same reason as the more fa¬ mous tract between the cultivated Egypt and the Arabian desert, in which the Israelites dwelt before the Exodus. But it is more commonly known as “ the south,” “ the south country.” Abraham “ went up out of Egypt into the south.” u lie went on his journeys from the south even unto Bethel.” “ Isaac dwelt in the south country .” Here, in the wide pas¬ tures between the hills and the actual Desert, the Patriarchs fed their flocks ; here were the wells, — the first regular wells that are met by the traveller as he emerges from the wil¬ derness — Moladah, Lahai-Roi, and, above all, Beersheba.2 The exact limits of this “ southern frontier” are, of course, difficult to be determined. Its main sweep, however, was through the vast undulating plain which contains the greater part of these wells, immediately under the hills of Judsea, now known as the Wady Kibab, probably what in former times was called the “ valley,” i. e. the “ torrent-bed” or Wady of Gerar.3 After the Patriarchal times, it has but few recollections. It was indeed the first approach of the Israelites to their promised home, when the spies ascended from Kadesh “ by the south,”4 but not that by which they finally entered. It was then still what it had 1 Josh. x. 41, xi. 16. pendix). Numb, xiv. 25; 1 Sam. xv. 5; 2 Robinson (i. 300) describes two, Yan 1 Clir. iv. 39 (lxx. “ Gerar” for “ Gedor.”) de Velde (ii. 136) five wells. See Chapter I., Part ii. p. 100. 8 Gen. xxvi. 17, 19, “ Nachal” (see Ap- 4 Numb. xiii. 22. 1G0 SINAI AND PALESTINE. been in the days of Abraham — a nomadic country, though with less illustrious sheykhs ; “ the Amalekites dwelt in the land of the south,”1 and after the occupation of Canaan by Joshua, 66 the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father- in-law,” with a true Bedouin instinct, “ went up into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad,”2 and between them the country was shared. And the latest notices of this region agree with the earliest. The Amalekites of the Desert were still there, in the reign of Saul, with the Kenites amongst them, “ with their sheep, and oxen, and lambs ;”3 and again, in the close of his reign, they broke in once more upon the country from which he had driven them, upon “ the south of the Cherethites and the south of Caleb, and burned Ziklag with fire.”4 Most of the habitable places in these parts are called “ Hazer ;” that is, they were merely the unwalled villages of Bedouins. The names of some indicate that they were stations of passage, like those which now are to be seen on the great line of Indian transit between Cairo and Suez. In “ Beth-marcaboth,” “ the house of chariots,” and “ Hazar-Susim,” “ the village of horses,” we recognise the depots and stations for the “ horses” and “ chariots” such as those which in Solomon’s time went to and fro be¬ tween Egypt and Palestine.5 To Simeon, the fierce and lawless tribe, the dry Simeon. ' # . J * “ south” was given, for 66 out of the portion of Judah was the inheritance of the children of Simeon ; for the part of the children of Judah was too much for them ; therefore the children of Simeon had their inheritance within the inheritance of them.”0 In the prophecy of Jacob he is “ divided and scattered in that of Moses he is omitted altogether. Amongst these Bedouin villages his lot was cast; and as time rolled on, the tribe gradually crossed the imperceptible boundary between civilisation and bar¬ barism, between Palestine and the Desert ; and, in “ the days of Hezekiah,” they wandered forth to the east to seek pasture for their flocks, and “ smote the tents” 1 Numb. xiii. 29; xiv. 25. 3 1 Sam. xv. 6, 9. 2 Judges i. 16. Compare Kinah, Josh. 4 1 Sam. xxx. 14. xv. 22 ; also, for Arad, see Numb. xxir 6 Josh. xix. 5 ; 1 Kings x. 28. 1; Josh. xii. 14. Joshua xix. 9. # - ■ i . fl ' 1 1 / : i • '• ■ j ■ •- . , • t - •:s; A fm •• * • * / . * '9{ ■ , • a V % • 4 - * W- . - v W ‘ ■ ■ ■i rx>. Asadod ( (till i'JlOP Fu Fwf/nanS ^ I • F Add5 ’J^Oph rah m ■ / & I K.Bu b i n ) I j ii Ida r. Bp tlie l * <> fh ii/ninn .t ■ i. .*»S|A ^ ( H a tula In Beertith 0 Fit wall Jit i -r Fi t ide it A ula ) l/oieer RrtJFhoron Ajal-m a l/ O 7/ _ _ Ai u'/t nms/i fribea/t ° hort>n ^ ^ -ilf ^ 4, * febn r fe/ty bUtnutel ) * * * £649 /* f/ibeo/t ^ \ff a d v K *< i% Jl ) suifAot/i o ** , E N ‘T Am I v ! Xtbv ■dnmiiel / ' * ( Ladraon jdVO /* ' W49 1* lid, eon K kno n ftV • ’ O.uai'antarrt 'irJ* AoA ° JV1 1 ofOJives 23#fi 5V yj a »V y I s it* a;/ j v A ‘ AI JBTTSALKM 2200 P /Jr/ ha n r lament oFF.li/ah bad V Kidf‘»n narhrl -v To ml Dr ir.ibir- Va /« /////> 4 Ar ,% fbolvoFVolo/ito// ^ 6^ Herodion D I A/t uh<‘ ihr/i ( Blnnr/i ego rde J ibnah VJ Asi'rLoi Bait Jibi'in 3 ( ELputlLPiiipolis ) •'j V \ 4. J- //. Hpbi'on *H< ►<> P JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 1G1 of the pastoral tribes who “ had dwelt there of old and roved along across the Arabah till they arrived at the Mount Seir — the range of Petra — and “ smote the rest of the Amalekites, and dwelt there unto this day.”1 In the midst of this wild frontier ruins still appear on the rising grounds as if of ancient cities ; such as may have been Arad, the abode of the southernmost Canaanite king, and Kirjath-sannah, so called, doubtless, from its palm-trees, the lingering traces of the Desert ; though also known by the appellation of Debir, or Kirjath-sephir, the “ city of the Oracle,” or the “ Book.” It was in the capture of this fortress that Othniel performed the feat of arms which won for him the daughter of Caleb.2 But the speech of Achsah to her father, was the best reason for the slight notice of this Desert tract in later times, and is the best introduction to the real territory of Judah, on which we are now to enter — “ Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a south land ; give me also springs of water.” The wells of Beersheba were enough for the Patriarchs, the Amalekites, and the Kenites, but they were not enough for the daughter of Judah, and the house of the mighty Caleb. II. The “hill country,” — “the mountain country,” C0“0nf as it is called — of “Judah” in earlier, of “Judaea” in Judah- later times, is the part of Palestine which best exemplifies its characteristic scenery — the rounded hills, the broad val¬ leys, the scanty vegetation, the villages or fortresses — some¬ times standing, more frequently in ruins — on the hill tops ; the wells in every valley, the vestiges of terraces, whether for corn or wine. Here the “ Lion of Judah” entrenched The Lion himself, to guard the southern frontier of the Chosen of Judah- Land, with Simeon, Dan, and Benjamin nestled around him. Well might he be so named in this wild country, more than half a wilderness, the lair of the savage beasts,3 of which the 1 1 Chron. iv. 39 — 43. 2 Josh. xv. 15—17, 49; Judges i. 11—13. 3 The “ lions” of Scripture occur usually in or near those mountains— for example, that of Samson, and that of the Prophet of Bethel, and “the lion and the bear” of David’s shepherd-youth. Compare, too, the frequency of names derived from wild beasts in those part3 — “ Shual” — “ Shaalbim” (foxes and jackals), Jos. xv. 28, xix. 3, 42 ; Jud. i. 35; compare also Jud. xv 4: “ Lobaoth” (lionesses), Jos. xv. 32, xix. 6 ; the 162 SINAI AND PALESTINE. traces gradually disappear as we advance into the interior Fixed there, and never dislodged, except by the ruin of the whole nation, “ he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion — who shall rouse him up ?” Throughout the troubled period of the Judges, from Othniel to Samson, Judah dwelt undisturbed within those mountain fastnesses. In these gray hills, and in their spacious caverns, David hid himself, when he fled to the mountains like one of their own native partridges, and, with his band of freebooters, maintained himself against the whole force of his enemy. The tribes of the east and of the north were swept away by the Assyrian kings, Galilee and Samaria fell before the Roman conquerors, whilst Judah still remained erect — the last, because the most impregnable, of the tribes of Israel. As in the general, so also in the detailed features of the country, the character of Judah is to be traced. Here, more than elsewhere, are to be seen on the sides of the hills, the vineyards, marked by their watch-towers and walls, seated on their ancient terraces — the earliest and latest symbol of Judah. The elevation of the hills and table-lands of Judah is the true climate of the vine,1 and at Hebron, according to the Jewish tradition, was its primeval seat. He “ bound his foal to the vine, and his ass’ colt unto the choice vine ; he washed his gar¬ ments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.”2 It was from the Judaean valley of Eshcol — “ the torrent of the cluster” — that the spies cut down the gigantic cluster of grapes.3 “ A vineyard on ‘ a hill of olives,’ ” with the “ fence,” and “ the stones gathered out,” and “ the tower in the midst of it,”4 is the natural figure which, both in the prophetical and evangelical records, represents the king¬ dom of Judah. The 66 vine” was the emblem of the nation on the coins of the Maccabees, and in the colossal cluster of golden grapes which overhung the porch of the second Ravine of Hyenas (Zeboira), 1 Sara. pp. 125 — 136; Cosmos, i. 125 — 126; Rit- xvii. 18 ; Valley of Stags (Ajalon), Jud. ter, iii. p. 220. i. 35 ; Josh. xix. 42. They re-appear 2 Gen. xlix. 11. (“the lions’ dens, and the mountains of 3 Numb. xiii. 23 — 24. the leopards”) in Lebanon and Anti- 4 Isa. v. 1 ; “a very fruitful hill” is Lebanon, Cant. iv. 8. “ a horn the son of oil.” Matt, xvi, 33 1 See Humboldt’s “ Asie Centrale;” iii. See Chapter XIII. JUD.EA AND JERUSALEM. 163 Herodion. Temple ; and the grapes of Judah still mark the tomb- si ones of the Hebrew race in the oldest of their European c erne tries, at Prague. But, further, on these mountain tops were gath- cuiVPof ered all the cities and villages of Judah and Ben- Judah- jamin ; in this respect contrasted, as we shall see, with the situation of the towns of the more northern tribes. The position of each is so like the other, that it is difficult to distinguish them when seen; useless to characterise them in description. Hence, although when the names are pre¬ served, their identification is certain ; when the name is lost, as in the case of Modin,1 we must be satisfied with the selec¬ tion of anyone of the many heights which, according to the description of the monument of the Maccabees, can be seen from the sea.2 The only eminence which stands out from the rest, marked by its peculiar conformation, is the square-shaped mountain east of Bethlehem, known bv the name of a the Frank Mountain,” from the baseless story that it was the last refuge of the Crusaders, or “ the Hill of the Little Paradise” (Gebel-el-Fureidis), from its vicinity to the gardens of the Wady Urtas.3 But of this the only historical recollection is the fact of its character¬ istic selection as the burial-place of Herod the Great. Amidst this host of “ fenced cities of Judah” it is enough to mention one, not only on account of its surpassing interest, but because its very claim to notice is founded on the fact that it was but the ordinary type of a Judaean village, not distinguished by size or situation from any amongst “ the thousands of Judah.”4 All the characteristics of Beth¬ lehem are essentially of this nature. Its position v A Bethleiiem. on the narrow ridge of the long grey hill which would leave “ no room” for the crowded travellers to find shelter ; the vineyards, kept up along its slopes with greater energy, because its present inhabitants are 1 1 Macc. xiii. 25 — 30. 2 Such a point may be found on any of the hills westward of the plateau of Jerusalem. Schwarzo (96) fixes on one of the name of Midan, near Kustul. 3 See Kitto’s Land of Promise, p. 28. This name slightly confirms the suppo¬ sition, that for the same reason it may in earlier times have borne the name of “ Beth-hac-Cerem” (the house of the vineyard ), which is once mentioned (Jer. vi. 1) as a well-known beacon sta¬ tion in Judaea. “Set up a sign of lire in Beth-hac-Cerem.” See Chapter L, part ii. 4 Micah v 2 164 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Christian ; the corn-fields below, the scene of Ruth’s ad¬ venture, and from which it derives its name, “the house of bread the well close by the gate, for whose water David longed ; the wild hills eastward, where the flocks of David and of “ the shepherds abiding with their flocks by night” may have wandered ; all these features are such as it shares more or less in common with every village of Judah.1 But, as in every country, so in Palestine and Judaea, there is a peculiar interest attaching to the situation of its capital cities. The earliest seat of ci vilised life, not only of Judah Heueon ' but of Palestine, was Hebron. It was the ancient city of Ephron the Hittite, in whose “ gate” he and the elders received the offer of Abraham,2 when as yet no other fixed habitation of man was known in Central Palestine. It was the first home of Abraham and the Patriarchs ; their one permanent resting-place when they were gra¬ dually exchanging the pastoral for the agricultural life.3 It was the city of Arba — the old Canaanite chief, with his three giant sons4 — under whose walls the trembling spies stole through the land by the adjacent valley of Eshcol. Here Caleb chose his portion, and gave it the new name of “ Hebron,”5 when, at the head of his valiant tribe, he drove out the old inhabitants, and called the whole surrounding territory after his own name ;6 and there, under David, and at a later period under Absalom, the tribe of Judah always rallied when it asserted its inde¬ pendent existence against the rest of the Israelite nation.7 It needs but few words to give the secret of this early selection, of this long continuance, of the metropolitan city of Judah. Every traveller from the Desert will have been struck by the sight of that green vale, with its orchards and vineyards, and numberless wells, and in earlier times we must add the grove of terebinths or oaks, which then attracted from far the eye of the wandering tribes. This fertility was in part owing to its elevation 1 See Chapter IL, part ii. 5 Judg. i. 10. 2 Gen. xxiii. 10 fi 1 Sam. xxx. 14. “Upon the So'itb 3 Gen. xxxv. 27 ; xxxvii. 14. of Caleb.” 4 Josh. xv. 13 ; xxi. 11 ; Numb. xiii. 7 2 Sam, ii. 11. ; xv. 9 — 10. 22, 39. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 165 into the cooler and the more watered region, above the dry and withered valleys of the rest of Judaea.1 Com¬ manding this fertile valley, rose Hebron on its crested hill. Beneath was the burial-place of the founders of their race. Caleb must have marked out the spot for his own, when with the spies, he had passed through this very valley. When David returned from the chase of the Amalekite plunderers on the Desert frontier, and doubted “to which of the cities of Judah he should go up” from the wilderness, the natural features of the place, as well as the oracle of God, answered clearly and distinctly, “ Unto Hebron.”2 III. But Hebron was not the permanent capital. The metropolis of Judah — of the Jewish monarchy jEKUSALEM* — of Palestine — fin one sense) of the whole world — is Jerusalem. It will be convenient first to give its general aspect expressed as nearly as possible in words written from the spot. Jerusalem is one of the few places of which the first im- Exterior as- pression is not the best. No doubt the first sight — the pect first moment Avlien, from the ridge of hills which divide the valley of Rephaim from the valley of Bethlehem one sees the white line crowning the horizon, and knows that it is Jerusalem — is a moment never to be forgotten. But there is nothing m the view itself to ex¬ cite your feelings. Nor is there even when the Mount of Olives heaves in sight, nor when “ the horses’ hoofs ring on the stones of the streets of Jerusalem.” Nor is there on the surrounding outline of hills on the distant horizon. Nebi-Samuel is indeed a high and distinguished point, and Ramah and Gibeah both stand out, but they and all the rest in some degree partake of that featureless character which belongs to all the hills of Judea, as does Olivet itself. In one respect no one need quarrel with this first aspect of Jerusalem. So far as localities have any concern with religion, it is well to feel that Christianity, even in its first origin, was nurtured in no romantic scenery ; that the discourses in the walks to and from Bethany, and in earlier times the Psalms and Prophecies of David and Isaiah, were not as in Greece the offspring of oracular cliffs and grottos, but the simple outpouring of souls which thought of nothing but God and man. It is not, however, inconsistent with this view to add. that though not romantic — though at first sight bare and pro- said in the extreme — there does at last grow up about Jerusalem a beauty as poetical as that which hangs over Athens and Rome. 1 Chapter I. part ii. p. 101. 'J 2 Sam. ii. 1. n 166 SINAI AND PALESTINE. First, it is in the highest degree venerable. Modern houses jl is true there are ; the interiors of the streets are modern : the old citv itself (and I felt a constant satisfaction in the thought) lies buried twenty, thirty, forty feet below these wretched shops and receptacles! for Anglo- Oriental conveniences. But still, as you look at it from any commanding point, within or without the walls, you are struck by the gray ruinous masses of which it is made up; it is the ruin, in fact, of the old Jerusalem on which you look, — the stones, the columns, the very soil on which you tread, is the accumulation of nearly three thousand years. And as with the city, so it is with the i view of the country round it. There is, as I have said, no beauty of form or outline, but there is nothing to disturb the thought of the hoary age of those ancient hills ; and the interest of the past, even to the hardest mind, will in spite of themselves invest them with a glory of their own . But besides this imaginative interest there are real features which would, even taken singly, be enough to redeem the dullest of pros¬ pects. In the first place there is the view of the Moab mountains ; I always knew that I should see them from Olivet, but I was not pre¬ pared for their constant intermingling with the view’s of Jerusalem itself. From almost every point, there was visible that long purple i wrall, rising out of its unfathomable depths, to us even more interest¬ ing than to the old Jebusites or Israelites. They knewT the tribes who lived there ; they had once dwelt there themselves. But to the inhabitants of modern Jerusalem, of whom comparatively few have ever visited the other side of the Jordan, it is the end of the world, — and to them, to us, these mountains almost have the effect of a dis¬ tant view7 of the sea ; the hues constantly changing, this or that pre¬ cipitous rock coming out clear in the morning or evening shade — there, the form dimly shadowed out by surrounding valleys of what may possibly be Pisgah — here the point of Kerak, the capital of Moab and fortress of the Crusaders — and then at times all wrapt in deep haze — the mountains overhanging the valley of the shadow of death, and all the more striking from their contrast with the gray or green colours of the hills and streets and walls through which you catch the glimpse of them. Next, there are the ravines of the city. This is its great charm. The Dean of St. Paul’s once observed to me tuat he thought Luxembourg must be like Jerusalem in situa¬ tion. And so to a certain extent it is. I do not mean that the ra¬ vines of Jerusalem are so deep and abrupt as those of Luxembourg, but there is the same contrast between the baldness of the level approach, the walls of the city appearing on the edge of the table¬ land, and then the two great ravines of Ilinnom and Jehoshaphat ' opening between you and the city ; and again, the two lesser ravines, rival claimants to the name of Tyropoeon, intersecting the city itself. In this respect I never saw a town so situated, for here it is not JUD^aA AND JERUSALEM. 167 merely the fortress, but the city, which is thus surrounded and entangled with natural fosses ; and this, when seen from the walls, especially from the walls on the northern side, and when combined with the light and shade of evening, gives the whole place a variety of colour and level fully sufficient to relieve the monotony which else it would share with other eastern cities. And, thirdly, it must be remembered that there is one approach which is really grand, namely, from Jericho and Bethany. It is the approach by which the army of Pompey advanced, — the first Western army that ever confronted it, — and it is the approach of the Triumphal Entry of the Gospels. Probably the first impression of every one coming from the north, west, and the south, may be summed up in the simple expression used by one of the modern travellers, — “I am strangely affected, but greatly disappointed.” But no human being could be disappointed who first saw Jerusalem from the east.1 The beauty consists in this, that you then burst ot once on the two great ravines which cut the city off from the surrounding table- land, and that then only you have a complete view of the Mosque of Omar. The other buildings of Jerusalem which emerge from the mass of gray ruin and white stones are few, and for the most part unattractive. The white mass of the Armenian convent on the south, and the dome of the Mosque of David — the Castle, with Herod’s tower on the south¬ west corner — -the two domes, black and white, which surmount the Holy Sepulchre and the Basilica of Constantine — the green corn¬ field which covers the ruins of the Palace of the Knights of St. John — the long yellow mass of the Latin convent at the north-west corner, and the gray tower of the Mosque of the Dervishes on the traditional site of the Palace of Herod Antipas, in the north-east corner — these are the only objects which break from various points the sloping or level lines of the city of the Crusaders and Saracens. But none of these is enough to elevate its character. What, however, these fail to effect, is in one instant effected by a glance at the Mosque of Omar. From whatever point that graceful dome with its beautiful precinct emerges to view, it at once dignifies the whole city. And when from Olivet, or from the Governor’s house, or from the north-east wall, you see the platform on which it stands, it is a scene hardly to be surpassed. A dome graceful as that of St. Peter’s, though of course on a far smaller scale, rising from an elaborately finished circular edifice — this edifice raised on a square marble platform rising on the highest ridge of a green slope, which descends from it north, south, and east to the walls surrounding the whole enclosure — platform and enclosure diversified by lesser domes and fountains, 1 It is this which causes Lieutenant valley, approached it first, as probably Lynch’s surprise at the magnificence of no other modern traveller has, from his first view. He, coming up from his the east adventurous expedition in the Jordan 168 SINAI AND PALESTINE. ! by cypresses, and c-lives, and planes, and palms — the whole as secluded and quiet as the interior of some college or cathedral garden— only enlivened by the white figures of veiled women stealing like ghosts up and down the green slope — or by the turbaned heads bowed low in the various niches for prayer — this is the Mosque of Omar: the Harem-es-Sherif, “ the noble sanctuary,” the second most sacred spot in the Mahometan world, — that is the next after Mecca; the second most beautiful mosque, — that is the next after Cordova . I for one felt almost disposed to console myself for the exclusion by the additional interest which the sight derives from the knowledge that no European foot, except by stealth or favour, had ever trodden within these precincts since the Crusaders were driven out, and that their deep seclusion was as real as it appeared. It needed no sight of the daggers of the black Dervishes who stand at the gate, to tell you that the Mosque was undisturbed and inviolably sacred. t( it fa a! 1)' ai it ol ft tl K cr 5 • 0 I. This is, in its main points, the modern aspect of the Holy City. Let us take these features in detail, and draw from them whatever light they throw on its long history. 1. It is one of the peculiarities of Jerusalem, that it be¬ came the capital late in the career of the nation. Rome, its long Athens, Egyptian Thebes ; the other ancient centres cibscurity. nationai life in Palestine itself, Hebron, Bethel, Shechem — extend back to the earliest periods of their re¬ spective history. But in those times Jerusalem was still an unknown and heathen fortress in the midst of the land. There is something striking in the thought, how many of those earlier events took place around it ; how often Joshua, and Deborah, and Samuel, and Saul, and David must have passed and repassed the hills, and gazed on the towers of the city, unconscious of the fate reserved for her in all subsequent time. “ Thy birth and thy nativity,” such is the language of the bitter retrospect of Ezekiel, “ is of the land of Canaan ; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite ; and as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born . . . thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee ; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.”1 o I 1 Ezek. xvL 3, 4, 5. JUDJEA AND JERUSALEM. 169 Jebttb. Yet tlie same circumstance, which afterwards contributed jto the eminence of Jerusalem, in some degree accounts for [its long previous obscurity. It was the only exception, so far as we know, to the rule, otherwise universal, that the [aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine lingered not in the hills, [hut in the plains. After every other part of the mount¬ ains of Ephraim and Judah had been cleared of its Canaan- ite population, Jehus still remained in the hands jof the ancient tribe which probably took its name [from the dry rock on which their fortress stood. And sthe causes, which for so many centuries preserved this [remnant of the early inhabitants of the country, were in [great part the same as those which made it both the first [object of David’s conquest when he found himself seated |on the throne at Hebron, and the capital of his kingdom for [all future generations. The situation of Jerusalem is in several respects singular kinongst the cities of Palestine. Its elevation1 is remarkable, loccasioned, not from its being on the summit of one of the mmerous hills of Judina, like most of the towns and villages, ut because it is on the edge of one of the highest table-lands |bf the country.2 Hebron, indeed, is higher still, by some hundred feet; and from the south, accordingly, the approach to Jerusalem is by a slight descent. But from [every other side, the ascent is perpetual ; and, to the tra¬ veller approaching Jerusalem from the west or east, it must always have presented the appearance, beyond any other capital of the then known world — we may add, beyond any important city that has ever existed on the earth — of a mountain city ; breathing, as compaied with the sultry plains of the Jordan or of the coast, a mountain air ; enthroned, as compared with Jericho or Damascus, Gaza or Tyre, on a mountain fastness. In this respect, it concentrated in itself the character of the whole country of which it was to be the capital — the “ mountain throne,” the “ mountain sanctuary,” of God. “ The ‘ mount’ of Mountain Fastness. 1 This is given with great liveliness and force by Ramvulf. 271. a Tt is needless to describe this peculiar aspect of its geographical position at greater length after the excellent account of it in Robinson’s Researches, voL i., pp. 280—383. 170 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Gorl is as the 6 mount’ of Bashan ; an high mount as the mount of Bashan. Why leap ye so, ye high ‘ mountains’ ? this is the ‘ mountain which God desireth to dwell in.”1 “ Thou hast ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity captive.”2 “ His foundation is in the holy mountains.”3 “ They that trust in the Lord shall he as the mount Zion, which may not he removed, hut standeth fast for ever.”4 a God is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed.”5 * * 8 9 It was emphatically the lair of the lion of Judah, of “ Ariel,” the Lion of God.G “ In Judah is God known; his name is great in Israel. In Salem is his c leafy covert,’ and his 6 rocky den’ in Zion.7 . . . Thou art more glorious and excellent than the ‘mountains of the robbers.’ ”8 And this wild and fastness-like character of Jerusalem was concentrated yet again in the fortress, the “ stronghold” of Zion. That point, the highest in the city, the towering height9 which most readily catches the eye from every quarter, is emphatically the “ hill-fort,” the “ rocky hold”10 of Jerusalem — the refuge where first the Jebusite, and then the Lion of God, stood at bay against the hunters. Ravines of 2. This brings us to the second feature which tends and o^Hhf to account for its early selection or future growth as com. the capital of Palestine. As the traveller advances towards Jerusalem, from the west and south, over the feature¬ less undulating plain, two deep valleys suddenly disclose themselves before us, one on the south, the larger and deeper on the north, which then sweeping round the eastern side of the city to meet the southern ravine,11 passes on by still 1 Ps. lxviii. 15, 16. 5 Ps. lxviii. 18. 3 Ps. lxxxvii. 1. 4 Ps. cxxv. 1. 6 Ps. xlvi. 5. 6 Isa. xxix. 1, 2. 7 Ps. lxxvi. 1, 2. Such seems the full expression of the words “ sucah” and “ maonah.” See Appendix. 8 Ps. lxvi. 4. 9 This would be equally the case whether Zion he the south-western hill commonly so called, or the peak now levelled on the north of the Temple Mount, as is supposed, not without considerable grounds, by Mr. Fergusson (Essay, p. 55, ft’.), and Mr. Thrupp (Ancient Jerusalem, p. 17, ft'.) 10 The word “matzad” or “ metzod” is, like the words in the preceding note, taken from the cover into which wild beasts are hunted , and was used and specially applied to the “ holds” in the wilderness of Judaea, 1 Sam. xxiii. 14, 19; 1 Chr. xii. 8, 16; Jud. vi. 2 ; Ezek. xxxiii. 27 ; Job xxxix. 28. It is the usual word for designating Mount Zion, 2 Sam. v. 7, 9 ; 1 Chr. xi. 5, 7, and (in express conjunction with Ariel). Isa. xxix. 7. 11 Josh. xv. 8. In the Mohammedan traditions the name of “ Gehenna” is ap¬ plied to the Valley of the Kedron. Ibn Batuliah, 124. JUDvEA AND JERUSALEM. 171 narrower clefts through its long descent to the Dead Sea. The deepest and darkest of the two defiles was, doubtless, for that reason, known as “ The Black Valley” (Kedron) ; the other, wider and greener, was “ the ravine” (Ge), in which probably some ancient hero had encamped, — ■“ the son of Hinnom ;” and from the name thus compounded, “ Ge-Ben-Hinnom,” “ Ge-Hinnom,” was formed the word u Gehenna,” which in later times caused what Milton truly calls “ the pleasant valley of ITinnom,” to become the re¬ presentative of the place of future torment. These deep ravines, which thus separate Jerusalem from the rocky plateau of which it forms a part, are a rare feature in the general scenery of the Holy Land. Something of the same effect is produced by those vast rents which, under the name of u Tajo,” surround or divide Honda, Alhama, and Granada, on the tabled unds which crown the summits of the Spanish mountains. But in Palestine, Jerusalem stands alone, and from this cause derives, in great measure, her early strength and subsequent greatness. When David appeared under the walls of Jebus, the “ old inhabitants of the land,” the last remnant of their race that clung to their mountain home, exulting in the strength of those ancient “ everlasting gates”1 which no conqueror had yet burst open, looked proudly down on the army below, and said, “ Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shall not come in hither; thinking, David cannot come in hither.” The blind and the lame, they thought, were sufficient to maintain what nature had so strongly defended. It was the often repeated story of the capture of fortresses through what seemed their strongest, and therefore became their weakest, point, “ Prceruptum , edque neglectum Such was the fate of Sardis, and of Rome, and such was the fate of Jebus. David turned to his host below, and said, “ Whoever smiteth the Jebusites first, Land dasheth them on the precipice,’ . . . . and the lame and the blind that are hated of David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain.”2 Joab first climbed that 1 Ps. xxiv T. tne whole the safest rendering of the 2 2 Sam. v. 8 ; 1 Chr. xi. 6. “ Dasheth passage obscurely translated and trana- thein against the precipice,” seems on posed, “ Getteth up to the gutter.” 172 SINAI AND PALESTINE. steep ascent, and won the chieftainship of David’s hosts ; and the “ ancient everlasting gates” “ lifted up their heads.” and “ David dwelt in the stronghold of Zion, and called it the city of David.” Compact- 3. What these ravines were in determining its ness. earliest defences, they have been ever since. It is needless to go through the sieges of later times; but it is obvious that the deep depressions which thus secured the city must have always been a natural trench, much as the Valley of the Jordan, on a larger scale, was to the whole country. They acted as its natural defence ; they also determined its natural boundaries. The city, wherever else it spread, could never overleap the valley of the Kedron or of Hinnom ; and those two losses, so to speak, became accordingly, as in the anal¬ ogous case of the ancient towns of Etruria, the Necropolis of Jerusalem. This distinction made it again doubly im¬ possible for the city of the living to protrude itself into the city of the dead ; and, as the southern ravine had al¬ ready given a name to the infernal fires of the other world, so in Mussulman and Mediaeval traditions, the Valley of the Kedron was identified with the Valley of Jehoshaphat,1 * or of the “ Divine Judgment;” and long re¬ garded by the pilgrims of both religions as the destined scene of the Judgment of the World. The compression between these valleys probably occasioned the words of the Psalmist, “ Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself.”" It is an expression not inapplicable even to the modern city, as seen from the east. But it was still more appropriate to the original city, if, as seems probable, the valley of Tyropoeon formed in earlier times a fosse within a fosse, shutting in Zion and Moriah into one compact mass, not more than half a mile in breadth.3 Growth. But this compactness and smallness — though in 1 Joel iii 2. 3 Psalm cxxii. 3. 3 This would be still more the case, if we could suppose that Zion — the original city of David — occupied part of what is called Moriah , the oblong mass of rock which supports the Mosque of Omar, and which must have been shut in by the Tyropoeon on the north, by the ravine of Hinnom on the south, and by the Kedron on the north and east. (See the Essays of Mr. Eergusson and Mr. Thrupp.) JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 173 itself a fitting characteristic of the capital of that terri¬ tory which, as we have seen, was remarkable for the same reason amongst the nations of the then known world • — was not such as to exclude its future growth. Hemmed in as it was on three sides by the ravines, on the western side it was comparatively open. A slight depression, in¬ deed, runs beneath what is now its wall on that side ; still, to speak generally, it is joined by its western and north¬ western sides to the large table-land which rises in the midst of Judaea, extending from the ridge of St. Elias on the south to the ridge of Bireh on the north, from the hills of Gibeon on the west to the Mount of Olives on the east. In this point, again, its situation is peculiar. Almost all the other cities of Palestine were placed, like Hebron, or Samaria, or Jezreel, on the crest of some hill, or like She- ehem, within some narrow valley which admitted of little ex¬ pansion. But Jerusalem had always an outlet on the west and north, and though it was not till the latest period of her existence that the walls, under Herod Agrippa, were pushed far beyond their ancient limits in those directions, yet the gardens, and orchards, and suburbs must, even in the reign of Solomon, have stretched themselves over the plain. And this plain was encompassed with a barrier of heights, which shut out the view of Jerusalem till within a very short distance of the city, and must always have acted as a defence to it. 4. It is probable that these must be the heights a. * — ' Mountains alluded to in the well-known verse, 66 As the moun- round Jem- ' * salem tains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about His people.”1 It is true that this image is not realised, as most persons familiar with our European scenery would wish and expect it to he realised. Jerusalem is not literally shut in by mountains, except on the eastern side, where it may be said to be enclosed by the arms of Olivet, with its outlying ridges on the north-east and south¬ east.* Any one facing Jerusalem westward, northward, or southward, will always see the city itself on an elevation higher than the hills in its immediate neighbourhood, its towers and walls standing out against the sky, and not 1 Psalm cxxv. 2. 174 SINAI AND PALESTINE. against any high background such as that which encloses the mountain towns and villages of our own Cambrian or Westmoreland valleys. Nor, again, is the plain on which it stands enclosed by a continuous though distant circle of mountains, like that which gives its peculiar charm to Athens and Innspruck. The mountains in the neighbour¬ hood of Jerusalem are of unequal height, and only in two or three instances — Nebi-Samuel, Er-Ram, and Tel-el-Fulil — rising to any considerable elevation. Even Olivet is only a hundred and eighty feet above the top of Mount Zion. Still, they act as a shelter ; they must be surmounted be¬ fore the traveller can see, or the invader attack, the Holy City; and the distant line of Moab would always seem to rise as a wall against invaders from the remote east. It is these mountains, expressly including those beyond the Jor¬ dan, which are mentioned as u standing round about Jeru¬ salem” in another and more terrible sense, when, on the night of the assault of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, they “ echoed back” the screams of the inhabitants of tho captured city, and the victorious shouts of the soldiers of Titus.1 The situation of Jerusalem was thus not unlike, on a small scale, to that of Rome ; saving the great difference that Rome was in a well-watered plain, leading direct to the sea, whereas Jerusalem was on a bare table-land, in the heart of the country. But each was situated on its own cluster of steep hills ; each had room for future expansion in the surrounding level ; each, too, had its nearer and its more remote barriers of protecting hills — Rome its Janiculum hard by, and its Apennine and Alban moun¬ tains in the distance; Jerusalem, its Olivet hard by, and, on the outposts of its plain, Mizpeh, Gibeon, and Ramah, and the ridtre which divides it from Bethlehem. o Central 5. This last characteristic of Jerusalem brings situation. us one more feature — namely, its central situa¬ tion. First, it was pre-eminently central with regard to the two great tribes of the south — which at the time .when the choice was made by David, were the chief tribes of the 1 2 vvtixzl dt' V nepaia kcil to. Kept!; oprj not in the mind of Josephus those close (Joseph. Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 1). This shows at hand, lhat the “surrounding mountains” were JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 175 whole nation, the only twro which contained a royal house — Judah and Benjamin. So long as Judah maintained its ground alone, Ilebron was its natural capital ; but from the moment that it became the head of the nation, another home had to be sought nearer its neighbour, at this time its rival tribe. Such a spot exactly was Jehus, or Jerusalem. The ancient city, as belonging to the aboriginal inhabitants, had been excluded equally from the boundaries of either tribe. The limits of Judah reached along the plain up to the edge of the valley of Ilinnom, and then abruptly paused. The limits of Ben¬ jamin in like manner crept over Olivet to the same point. But the rocky mass on which the Jebusite fortress stood was neutral ground, in the very meeting-point of the twTo tribes. From the summit of the Mount of Olives — almost from the towers of Zion — could be seen Gibeah, the capital of Benjamin, on its conical hill to the north; and the distant hills, though not the actual city, of Hebron, to the south. Yet again Jerusalem was on the ridge, the broadest and most strongly marked ridge of the backbone of the complicated hills, which extend through the whole country from the Desert to the plain of Esdraelon. Every wan¬ derer, every conqueror, every traveller, who has trod the central route of Palestine from north to south, must have passed through the table-land of Jerusalem. It was the water-shed between the streams, or rather the torrent-beds, which find their way eastward to the Jordan, and those which pass westward to the Mediterranean. Abraham, as he journeyed from Bethel to Hebron; Jacob, as he wandered on his lonely exile from Beersheba to Bethel; the Levite,1 on his wray from Bethlehem to Gibeah; Joshua, as he forced his way from Jericho, and met the kings in battle at Gibeon ; the Philistines, as they came up from the maritime plain, and pitched in Michmash, — no less than Pompey, when, in later times, he came up from the Valley of the Jordan, or the Crusaders, when they came from Tyre, with the express purpose of attacking Jerusa¬ lem, — must all have crossed the territory of Jehus. 1 Judges xix. 11. 176 SINAI AND PALESTINE. interior of II. From what maybe called the external situa- Jerusalem. ^on 0f Jerusalem, we pass to its internal relations. And here, from perfect certainty, we encounter a mass of topographical controversy unequalled for its extent, for its confusion, and for its bitterness. If the materials, however slight, on which our judgment was to be formed wrere all before us, it might be worth while to attempt to unravel the entanglement. But the reverse is the case. The data exist, perhaps in abundance, but they are inaccessible. When Jerusalem can be excavated, we shall be able to argue ; till then, the dispute is for the most part as hope¬ less as was that concerning the Homan Forum, before the discovery of the pedestal of the column of Phocas. But without descending into the controverted details, two or three broad facts emerge, which may be stated without fear of future contradiction. iiius of 1. Whatever may be the adjustment of the the city. names of the heights on which Jerusalem stands, the peculiarity imparted to its general aspect and to its his¬ tory by these various heights is incontestable. Even in the earlier times, when the city was still compact and narrow, there are traces of its double form. An upper and a lower city, — possibly the dry rock1 of “ Jebus,” or “ Zion,” the “ City of David,” as distinct from the Mountain of the Vision (Moriah), in whose centre arose the perennial spring, the “ City of Solomon,” — are dimly discerned in the first period of Jerusalem.2 But it was in its latest period that this multiplicity of eminences, which it shares, though in a smaller compass, with Rome and Constantinople, came into play. Then, as now, the broken surface of the slopes of Jerusalem arrested the attention both of Tacitus and Josephus — “the irregular outline,” the “high hills,” the winding of the ascending and descending wralls, were present to them, as they have been to the lively imagina- 1 See Ewald’s G-eschichte, iii. 155. 2 It is possible that this double existence may have given the dual form to the name of “ Jerusalem?!,” which superseded the old form of Jerusalem. It is possible, too, that ihe name of Jerusalem , “the vision of peace,” may have been first given from the same vision that originated the name of “Moriah,” 2 Chr. iii. 1. Com¬ pare “in Salem is his ‘covert’ — his ‘den’ in Zion.'1'1 (Ps. lxxvi. 1.), the “ Mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jeru-salem,” Isa. x. 32. JUDJEA AND JERUSALEM. 177 tion of the modern poet and historian to whose lot it has fallen to describe the last days of the Holy City.1 But it was from more than a mere artistic interest that these sev¬ eral points of the broken ground of Jerusalem were so care¬ fully recorded. In the earlier sieges — so far as the history is concerned — the city might have stood on a single emi¬ nence, like Ashdod or Samaria. But in the last siege by Titus, everything turns on the variety and number of posts which the four hills of Jerusalem presented, not merely to the besieged against the besiegers, and to the besiegers against the besieged, but to the besieged against each other. If in its earlier, in its more natural aspect, Jeru¬ salem was the likeness of a city that is at unity with itself, in later times its divergent summits curiously represent to us the fatal type of the house which fell, because it was divided against itself. 2. Whatever differences have arisen about the The Tem. other hills of Jerusalem, there is no question that ple Mount the mount on which the Mosque of Omar stands, overhang¬ ing the Valley of the Ivedron, has from the time of Solomon, if not of David, been regarded as the most sacred ground in Jerusalem. And on this hill, whatever may be the con¬ troversies respecting the apportionment of its several parts, or the traces of the various architecture which from the time of Solomon downwards have been reared on its rocky sides and surface, two natural objects remain, each of the highest historical interest. High in the centre of the platform rises the re- o TTIig rock markable rock, now covered by the dome of “ the of the “ sak- Sakrah.”2 “ It is irregular in its form, and meas¬ ures about sixty feet in one direction, and fifty feet in the other. It projects about five feet above the marble pave¬ ment, and the pavement of the mosque is twelve feet above the general level of the enclosure, making this rise seventeen feet above the ground .... It appears to be the natural 1 See Milman’s excellent description in almost on all sides by still loftier of Jerusalem, both in the third volume mountains.” of the History of the Jews (15-17), and 2 I quote from the only authentic ac still more strikingly in the first volume count, that by Mr. Catherwood, given of the History of Christianity, p. 318. in Bartlett’s Walks about Jerusalem, pp In that description the only words which 15G, 1G3. an eye-witness would erase, are, “ hemmed 178 SINAI AND PALESTINE. surface of Mount Moriah ; in a few places there are marks of chiseling ; but its south-east corner is an excavated chamber, to which there is a descent by a flight of stone steps. This chamber is irregular inform, and its superficial area is about six hundred feet ; the average height seven feet. In the centre of the rocky cave there is a circular slab of marble, which being struck, makes a hollow sound, thereby showing that there is a well, or excavation, be¬ neath.” This mass of rock standing where it does, must always have been an unaccountable disfigurement of the Temple area. The time for arriving at a positive conclusion re¬ specting it is not yet come. But it may be worth while to give the various explanations respecting it, fabulous or historical, during the successive stages of its known his¬ tory.1 (a.) The Christians, before the Mussulman occupation of Syria, regarded it as the rock of the Holy of Holies, and as such — so different was the feeling of the Christian world with regard to the Old Testament between the fifth century and our own — used every effort to defile it. (b.) Regarded as the site of the Holy of Holies by Caliph Omar, it was then by his successors invested with a sanctity only less than the Kaaba of Mecca ; believed to be the rock of Jacob’s pillow at Bethel ; the stone of prophecy, which would have fled on the extinction of that gift, but which was forcibly detained by the angels in an¬ ticipation of the visit of Mahomet to Jerusalem in his nocturnal flight, when it bowed to receive him, and retained the impression of his feet as he mounted the celestial Borak. Within the cave every prayer is sup¬ posed to be granted, and in the well are believed to rest the souls of the departed between death and the Resurrection.2 ( c .) Recovered by the Crusaders, it was exhibited as the scene of the Apparition of the angel to Zacharias, and of the Circumcision of Christ, as also of many other events 1 It may possibly be the “ lapis century. But this must be very doubl- pertusus” (perforated stone) used as ful. the Jews’ wailing-place in the fourth 2 The belief was that the living could JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 179 in the Gospel history of Ill’s life. The footmark of Mahomet was then represented as the trace left, when He wTent out of the Temple to escape the fury of the Jews.1 ( d .) In modern times it has been the centre of the most conflicting theories of sacred topography. Mr. Fergusson2 (chiefly from architectural arguments) has maintained that the dome of the Sakrah is the Church of Constantine, and consequently, that the rock beneath is the rock of the Holy Sepulchre. Mr. Falconer and Mr. Thrupp suppose it to be the rock, or part of the rock, on which stood the tower of Antonia. Professor Willis urges its claim to be the rock of the threshing-floor of Araunah, selected by David, and afterwards continued by Solomon and Zerub- babel as the u unhewn stone” on which to build the Altar ; the cave within being the sink described in the Talmud as that into which the blood and offal of the sacrifices were drained off. Undoubtedly, if the measurements of the area would allow of it, this last hypothesis would be the most satisfactory, except so far as it fails to produce adequate examples, of a rock so high and so rugged used for either the purposes of a threshing-floor or an altar.3 Meanwhile the rock remains, whatever be its origin, the most curious monument of old Jerusalem, and not the least so, from the unrivalled variety of associations which it has gathered to itself in the vicissitudes of centuries. All accounts combine in asserting that the water of the two pools of Siloam, as well as that of the the Temple l ' Vaults. many fountains of the Mosque of Omar, proceeds from a living spring beneath the Temple-vaults. There wTas hold converse with these souls at the mouth of the well about any disputed matter which lay in the power of the dead to solve. It was closed, because a mother going to speak to her dead son, was so much agitated at the sound of his voice from below, that she threw herself into the well to join him, and disappeared. This was the story related to me at Jerusalem. A less pleasing version is given by Catherwood (Bart¬ lett’s Walks, 154). 1 Saewulf, p. 40. 3 For Mr. Fergusson’s argument, see Chap. XIV. * One argument which Professor Willis has omitted in favour of his po1 sition may be noticed. In 1 Chr. xxi- 20, 21, it is said that “Oman and his four sons hid themselves ,” apparently within the threshing-floor, for it is added that as David came to Oman, “ Oman looked and went out of the threshing-floor.” Possibly it was cus¬ tomary to have a cave under the rock of the threshing-floor to conceal the corn — as in the cave of Gideon at Ophrah, Jud. vi. 11. A cave also exists in con¬ nection with what was undoubtedly the base of the Samaritan altar on Gerizim. (See Chap. V.) 180 SINAI AND PALESTINE. no period oi its history when such a provision would not have been important to the Temple for the ablutions of the Jewish, no less than of the Mussulman, worship ; or to the city, which else was dry even to a prov'erb. It was the treasure of Jerusalem — its supports through its numerous sieges — the “ fons perennis aquoe” of Tacitus1 — the source of Milton’s “ Brook that flowed Hard by the oracle of Hod.” But more than this, it was the image which entered into the very heart of *the prophetical idea of Jerusalem. “ There is a river [a perennial river], the streams2 whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.” “ All my fresh springs shall be in thee.”3 “ Draw water out of the wells of salvation.”4 In Ezekiel’s vision5 the thought is expanded into a vast cataract flowing out through the Temple-rock eastward and westward into the ravines of Hinnom and Kedron, till they swell into a mighty river, fertilising the desert of the Head Sea. And with still greater distinct¬ ness the thought appears again, and for the last time, in the discourse, when in the courts of the Temple, 66 In the last day, in that great day of the feast [of Tabernacles], Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, .... out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”6 3. In every approach to the modern Jerusalem, -wans and the first and most striking feature — in the approach from the south, the only striking feature, — is the long line of walls and towers. Most eastern cities are en- tered gradually. Cairo, Damascus, Beyrout, have outstepped the limits of their ancient fortifications, and the lesser towns, such as Hebron and Nablous, have not that protection. But Jerusalem is in the singular position of a city of sufficient importance, if not for its size, at least for its dignity, to have deserved a circuit of walls, whilst it is, at the same time, so exposed to the assaults of the wild villagers and still wilder Bedouins of the neighbourhood, that it has * Tac. Hist. v. 12. 4 Isa. xii. 3. a Ps. xlvi. 4. The word “ Nahar” ex- 6 Ezek. xlvii. 1 — 5 ; see Chapter VIL eludes the Kedron. 6 John vii. 37, 38. * Ps. lxxxvii. 7. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 181 not ventured to pass beyond its fortifications. The same terror which has collected the entire population of Pales¬ tine from isolated houses into villages/ has confined the population of its capital within the city walls. With the exception of the almost savage inhabitants of the caves and hovels of Siloam, no ordinary habitation can be fixed outside ; the town is entirely enclosed, the gates locked at night, and the present walls, which date from the time of the great Ottoman Sultan, Selim I., conqueror of Egypt in the year of the European Reformation, thus become an es¬ sential feature in every view of the place from within or from without. This to a certain extent must have been the case always : Jerusalem must at all times have been in a state of insecurity, too great to allow of any neglect of her fortifications. From first to last, History and Poetry is always recurring to the mention of her walls and gates and towers. “ Walk about Zion — go round about her, tell the towers thereof ; mark well her bulwarks.”2 David, Solomon, Hezekiah, are all concerned in the fortifications of the city of the Monarchy. To have raised the walls of the city of the Restoration was the chief glory of Nehemiah. I Herod’s walls and towers, called after the favourites of his court and family, were amongst his most celebrated works. The temple itself was a fortress of massive foundations and gigantic gateways on every side ; the walls great and high, with the gates of precious stone, furnished the chief images of the Heavenly Jerusalem both in the Old and New Testament ; and the idea of the “ chief corner-stone,” and of the “ stones” of the living Temple of God, which pervade the Evangelical and Apostolical imagery, were suggested, in the first instance, by the vast masses of stone which, whether of the date of Solomon or Herod, form so imposing a part of the existing walls of the ancient Temple-area. But this was not the only distinction which set off the outward aspect of the city against the other towns of Palestine. Of these the modern walls give, as has been observed, some ^ , notion. Not so, however, the modern buildings. ’ See Chapter II. pp. 135, 136. 3 Psalm xlviii. 12, 13. 12 182 SINAI AND PALESTINE. With the one exception of the Mosque of Omar, it is difficult to raise up to the mind’s eye from the ruins of the present Jerusalem the magnificent sight which, in the times both of the Davidic and the Herodian monarchy, must have pre¬ sented itself to any spectator. Other residences of regal luxury arose elsewhere, — as we shall see in Shechem and Samaria, — but Jerusalem only was a city of palaces. Compared with the other villages and towns of Palestine, contrasted with the mountain-wilderness of its own imme¬ diate neighbourhood, it is always spoken of as a splendid and dazzling spectacle. What was the architecture, what the colour, what the form of these palaces we know not ; even the Temple is only to be restored by imperfect guesses. But it was this general aspect which excited the admiration of Psalmists and prophets — a Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion “ on the sides of the north is the city of the Great King 66 God is well known in her palaces “ consider her palaces.”1 This was the ancient peculiarity of its appearance. The Ru.ng modern peculiarity is still more characteristic. If, as we have before observed, Palestine is a land of ruins, still more emphatically may it be said that Jerusalem is a city of ruins. Here and there a regular street, or a well-built European house emerges from the general crash, but the general appearance is that of a city which has been burnt down in some great conflagration ;2 and this impression is increased to the highest degree when, on penetrating below the surface, the very soil on which the city stands is found to be composed of ruins of houses, aqueducts, and pillars, reaching to a depth of thirty or forty feet below the foundations of the present houses. This circum¬ stance is important, not only as imparting to the city its remarkable form and colour, but also as telling the story of its eventful course. The old Jerusalem is buried in the overthrow of her seventeen captures. Even if the city were to be rebuilt once more, the soil on which its new foundations must be laid would bear witness to the 1 Psalm xlviii. 2, 3, 12. they had been burnt down many centuries 2 “ The houses of Jerusalem look as if ago.” .Richardson, ii. 268. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 183 faithfulness of the image of her earlier desolation; “the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of every street f1 “ they have made Jerusalem a heap of stones ;”2 “ not one stone shall he left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”3 III. It has been already observed that “the hills The mount which stand round about J erusalem” are for the most OF °LIVEB- part too remote to enter into any consideration of the situa¬ tion or internal relations of the city itself. There are none on the south nearer than the ridge of St. Elias, none on the west nearer than Nebi-Samuel, none on the north nearer than Gibeah or Ramah. But on the east the city is imme¬ diately enclosed by a long ridge, itself with four distinct summits, one outlier starting off to the north, and another to the south. This ridge is that known both in the Old and the New Testament as the Mount of Olives or of the Olive-garden.4 Its four summits are now distinguished by traditional names : — 1. The “ Galilee,” from the supposition that there the Angels stood and said, “Ye men of Galilee.” 2. The “Ascension,” covered by the village and mosque and church of the Gebel-et-Tur (the Arabic name for Olivet, as for all elevated summits), on the supposed scene of that event. 3. The “ Prophets,” from the curious catacomb called the “ Prophets’ Tombs” on its side. 4. “ The Mount of Offence,” so called from Solomon’s idol-worship. The northern outlier has been in modern times usually called “Scopus;” the southern, the “Hill of Evil Counsel,” marked from far by the single wind- driven tree called the “ Tree of Judas.” From every roof of the city this long ridge forms a familiar feature — so near, so immediately overhanging the town, that it almost seems to be within it. Even in the more distant view from the summit of Nebi-Samuel the two are so closely intermingled, that it is difficult at first sight to part the outline of the village on the top of Olivet from the outline of the town and walls of Jerusalem itself. The olives and oliveyards, from which it derived its 1 Lam. iv. 1. 4 Acts i. 12, tov eAcutivoc;, translated 2 Ps. lxxix. 1. “Olivetum” in the Vulgate, and hence 3 Mat. xxiv. 2. “ Olivet.” 184 SINAI AND PALESTINE. name, must in earlier times have clothed it far more com¬ pletely than at present, where it is only in the deeper and more secluded slope leading up to the northernmost sum¬ mit that these venerable trees spread into anything like a forest. And in those times, as we see from the name of Bethany (House of Hates), and from the allusions after the Captivity and in the Gospel History, myrtle- groves, pines, and palm-trees1 — all of which have now disappeared — must have made it a constant resort for plea¬ sure and seclusion. Two gigantic cedars, probably amongst the very few in Palestine, stood near its summit, under which were four shops where pigeons were sold for purifica¬ tion.2 The olive and fig now alone remain ; the olive, still in more or less abundance, the fig3 here and there on the road-side ; but both enough to justify the Mussulman’s belief, that in the oath in the Koran, “ By the olive and the fig,” the Almighty swears by His favourite city of Jerusalem, with this adjacent mountain. So close a proximity at once makes us expect to find the history of the Mount of Olives inseparably united with the history of the Holy City. To a certain extent this was the case. The name by which it is sometimes called “the mountain before (i. e. east of) the city;” or “the mount¬ ain” simply, indicates its near position. It was their open ground — for pleasure, for worship, for any purpose that it iniuht serve ; the “ Park” — the v Ceramicus” — the “ Cam- pus Martius” of Jerusalem. Its green slopes, as seen in the early spring, stand out in refreshing contrast to the dreary and withered ruins of the city at its foot. It wTas also, from its situation, the bulwark against any enemy approaching Connection from the east ; the thoroughfare of any going or clout tlie his" coming in the direction of the great Jordan val- torv- ley. In accordance with this, are the few notices we find of it in the older history. The sacrifice of the “ red heifer,” the only sacrifice which was to be performed outside4 the camp in the wilderness, being by 1 See Chapter II. These palms were 3 It appears probable that Bethphage of a peculiar kind, called “Zini,” “ Caph- is so called from “phage” “green tigs.” natlm.” (Sukkah, iii. 1 ; and in Schwarze, Lightfoot, ii. 37. pp. 257, 2 G4.) 4 Numb. xix. 2, 3. ’ Lightfoot, ii. 39. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 185 Flight of David. analogy excluded from the Temple-courts, was celebrated as near as possible to them, — and therefore on the slope of Olivet.1 David, before the Temple was built, — and whilst “ high places” were still the recognised scenes of religious services, — was wont to “ worship God at the top of the Mount.”2 Solomon, when, in his later years, he tolerated or adopted the idolatrous rites of his foreign wives, made “ high places” of the three summits “ on the right hand/ [that is, on the south side] of the Mount of Corruption.”4 With the exception of these general allusions, there is but one event in the Old Testament which lends any interest to its heights. It was by the ascent of Mount Olivet that David went up, on his flight from Jerusalem to Mahanaim, at the news of Absalom’s revolt.5 It was at the top of the Mount that he met Hushai, and had his last view of the rebellious city.0 It was a little way past the top that he encountered Ziba and the asses, laden with provisions. It was as he descended the rough road on the other side, that “ Shimei went along on the side7 of ‘ the mountain over against him, and threw stones at him, and cast dust.” This mournful procession — affecting as it is, and linked with every stage of the ascent and descent, — stands alone in the earlier history of the Mount of Olives. Its lasting glory belongs not to the Old Dispensation, but to the connection New. Its very bareness of interest in earlier times {,'J" sets forth the abundance of those associations which tory- it derives from the closing scenes of the Sacred His tory. Nothing, perhaps, brings before us more strikingly the contrast of Jewish and Christian feeling, the abrupt and inharmonious termination of the Jewish dispensation, — it* it excludes the culminating point of the Gospel History, — than to contrast the blank which Olivet presents to the 1 Mislma, Para, iii. 6. 2 2 Sam. xv. 22. 3 This expression seems to show that the 4 Mount of Offence’ was not the summit which is now so called on the south, but that which is called 44 Gali¬ lee,” on the north — perhaps that which in earlier times had been known as Nob, the temporary abode of the Tabernacle. 4 1 Kings xi. 7 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 12. The name of Mashchith (“ corruption”), which occurs in this last passage, is the only one by which Olivet is called in the Mishna. (Para, pp. 276, 277, 270.) It is also so called by Zuallart in the fif¬ teenth century, i. p. 38. 6 2 Sam. xv, 30 6 2 Sam. xv. 32. 7 2 Sam. xvi. 13. The word is pro¬ perly 4 rib.’ 18G STNAI AND PALESTINE. Jewish pilgrims of the middle ages, only dignified by the sacrifice of “ the red heifer and the vision too great for words, which it offers to the Christian traveller of all times, as the most detailed and the most authentic abiding-place of Jesus Christ. By one of those strange coincidences, whether accidental or borrowed, which occasionally appeal in the Rabbinical writings, — it is said in the Mishna, that the Presence of Shechinah, or Presence of God, after having finally Christ retired from Jerusalem, “ dwelt” three years and a half on the Mount of Oli ves, to see whether the Jewish people would or would not repent, calling, u Return to me, 0 my sons, and I will return to you 66 Seek ye the Lord while lie may be found, call upon Him while He is near;” and then, when all was in vain, returned to its own place.1 Whether or not this story has a direct allusion to the ministrations of Christ, it is a true expression of His rela¬ tion, respectively, to Jerusalem and to Olivet. It is useless to seek for traces of His presence in the streets of the since ten times captured city.2 It is impossible not to find them in the free space of the Mount of Olives. Let us briefly go through the points which occur in the Sacred History, of the last days of Christ, during which alone He appears for any continuous period in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood. From Bethany we must begin. A wild mountain-hamlet screened by an intervening ridge from the view of the top of Olivet, perched on its broken plateau of rock, the last collection of human habitations before the desert-hills which reach to Jericho — tli is is the modern village of El-Lazarieh, which derives its name from its clustering round the traditional site of the one house and grave which give it an undying interest.3 High in the distance are the Peraean mountains: the foreground is the deep descent to the Jordan valley. On the further side of that dark abyss Martha and Mary knew that Christ was abiding when they sent their messenger ; up 1 Roland’s Palestine, p. 331; Lightfoot, ii. p. 4 0. 2 For the special traditional localities of Jerusalem, see Chap. XIV. 3 Sehwarze (2G3) endeavours to iden¬ tity El-Azarieh with Azal (Zech. xiv. 5), and to find Bethany at a spot called by the Arabs Beth-hana, near Siloatn, oc the western side of Olivet. His motive, though entirely suppressed, is evident But his argument has next to n > thing on which to rest. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 187 that long ascent they had often watched His approach — up that long ascent lie came when, outside the village, Martha and Mary met Him, and the Jews stood round weeping. Up that same ascent He came, also, at the beginning of the week of His Passion. One night He halted in the village, as of old ; the village and the Desert were then all alive, — as they still are once every year at the Greek Easter, — with the crowd of Paschal pilgrims moving to and fro between Bethany and Jerusalem. In the morning, He set forth on His journey. Three pathways lead, and probably Triumphal always led, from Bethany to Jerusalem one, a "ini to steep footpath over the summit of Mount Olivet ; Jerusalem- another, by a long circuit over its northern shoulder, down the valley which parts it from Scopus ; the third, the natu¬ ral continuation of the road by which mounted travellers always approach the city from Jericho, over the southern shoulder, between the summit which contains the Tombs of the Prophets and that called the “ Mount of Offence.” There can be no doubt that this last is the road of the Entry of Christ, not only because, as just stated, it is and must always have been the usual approach for horsemen and for large caravans, such as then were concerned, but also because this is the only one of the three approaches wdiich meets the requirements of the narrative which follows. Two vast streams of people met on that day. The one poured out1 2 3 from the city, and as they came through the gardens8 wThose clusters of palm rose on the south¬ eastern corner of Olivet, they cut down the long branches, 1 Most travellers, I believe, go to Bethany by the third, and return by the second, and thus miss the precise views so important in fixing the localities of these events. I went by the first and returned by the third ; and the result will appear as we proceed. See the Map on p. 158. 2 John xii. 12, (eyilof 6 ehOuv elg tt/v topTT/v) “The multitude which came to the feast took the branches of the palm- trees. ('EH aj3ov tu fiata tuv (poivixuv). . . . . The multitude also met him (/cat v^ijvTTjnev avTtf). 3 Mark xi. 8, “ having cut tho branchos (i(mpuvTeg) from the gardens” (ex ruu dypfiv). So read the Vatican and Cam¬ bridge MSS., and the Syriac and Coptic versions, for tvc tCov dcvdpcjv. ’ Aypdr is properly “a cultivated field” or “pro¬ perty,” such as was found in the neigh¬ bourhood of towns. Compare Mark v. 14, “the city and the fields;” Matt. vi. 18, “ the lilies of the field.” I have used the word gardens as the nearest approach which our language affords. Eastern gardens , it must be remembered, are not flower-gardens, nor private gar¬ dens, but the orchards, vineyards, and tig- enclosures round the town. 1S8 SINAI AND PALESTINE. as was their wont at the Feast of Tabernacles, and moved upwards towards Bethany, with loud shouts of welcome. From Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had assembled there on the previous night, and who came testifying1 to the great e\ent at the sepulchre of Lazarus. The road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well-defined mountain track, winding over rock and loose stones ; a steep declivity below on the left; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above it on the right; fig-trees below and above, here and there growing out of the rocky soil. Along the road the multitudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm-branches they had already cut as they came out. The larger portion — those, perhaps, who escorted Him from Bethany — unwrapped their loose cloaks from their shoulders, and stretched them along the rough path, to form a mo¬ mentary carpet as He approached.2 The two streams met midway. Half of the vast mass, turning round, preceded, the other half followed.3 Gradually the long procession swept up and over the ridge, where first begins 66 the descent of the Mount of Olives” towards Jerusalem. At this point the first view is caught of the south-eastern corner of the city. The Temple and the more northern portions are hid by the slope of Olivet on the right ; what is seen is only Mount Zion, now for the most part a rough field, crowned with the Mosque of David and the angle of the western walls, but then covered with houses to its 1 “ The ‘ multitude’ (o oy/iof) that was with him when he called Lazarus from the grave .... ‘was bearing re¬ cord’ ” ( F.iiaoTvpet ), John xii. 17. 3 “ ‘ The greater part of the multitude’ [o n^elcTToc ‘strewed their own cloaks’ ( yOT()i,)ciav iavruu tu i/uuTia) in the ‘ road but others ‘ were cutting down’ branches from the trees, and ‘ were strewing them’ in the ‘ road’ (hcoKTov. . . eaTp&vwoi ;) Matt. xxi. 8. Ob¬ serve the difference of the tenses . . tu l/uuTia, the ‘abba’ or ‘hyke,’ the loose blanket or cloak worn over the tunic or shirt (%tTu>v). A striking instance of the practice is mentioned by Robin¬ son, ii. 162, when the inhabitants of Bethlehem threw their garments under the feet of the horses of the Engli-a Consul of Damascus, whose aid they were imploring. The brandies (icXudm) cut from the trees as they went (Matt, xxi. 8) are different from the mattings (i aTolf3aihc ), Mark xi. 8, which they had twisted out of the palm-branches as they came. 'Lri^ag is usually a mat¬ tress; in Plato’s Rep. ii. 1372, it is a mat made of ivy or myrtle Here, in all pro- bability, it was hastily woven of palm- - branches. 3 Mark xi. 9. “ Those that were going before, and those that were following, were shouting,” ui npodyovreg nal oi uku'/.oi> - 6ovvte$ bepa^ov. JUDiEA AND JERUSALEM. 189 base, surmounted by the Castle of Herod, on the supposed site of the palace of David, from which that portion of Jerusalem, emphatically the “ City of David,” derived its name. It was at this precise point, “ as lie drew near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives,”1 — (may it not have been from the sight thus opening upon them?) — that the shout of triumph burst forth from the multitude, “ Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed is He that eometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom that eometh of our father David. Hosanna . . . peace . . . glory in the highest.”2 There was a pause as the shout rang through the long defile ; and, as the Pharisees who stood by in the crowd3 complained, He pointed to the stones which, strewn beneath their feet, would immediately “ cry out” if “these were to hold their peace.” Again the procession advanced. The road descends a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is again with¬ drawn behind the intervening ridge of Olivet. A few moments, and the path mounts again, it climbs a rugged ascent, it reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant the whole city bursts into view. As now the dome of the Mosque El-Aksa rises like a ghost from the earth before the traveller stands on the ledge, so then must have risen the Temple tower; as now the vast enclosure of the Mus¬ sulman sanctuary, so then must have spread the Temple courts ; as now the gray town on its broken hills, so then the magnificent city, with its background — long since vanished away — of gardens and suburbs on the western plateau behind. Immediately below was the Valley of the Kedron, here seen in its greatest depth as it joins the 1 Luke xix. 37, “as He drew near, even now (*/(h]), at the descent of the Mount of Olives (77-pdf rrj KaraSdaei tov bpovg tuv e/.aiui’), i. e., at the point where the road over the Mount begins to descend. This exactly applies to such a shoulder of the hill as I have described, and is entirely inapplicable to the first view, the first “ nearing” of the city, on crossing the direct summit. The expression would then have been “at the top of the mount.” —The allusion to the “City of David” would be appropriate, even if, as has been recently conjectured (Thrupp’s Ancient, Jerusalem, pp. 17 — 20), the name of Zion had at that time received an appli¬ cation different from its earlier meaning. 2 I have ventured to concentrate the expressions of Matt. xxi. 9, Mark xi. 9, John xii. 13, on the one precise point described by Luke xix. 37, “The whole multitude began ... to praise God with a loud voice.” 3 Luke xix. 39. “Some of the Pha¬ risees 1 from the crowd.’ ” 190 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Valley of Hinnom, and thus giving full effect to the great peculiarity of Jerusalem, seen only on its eastern side — its situation as of a city rising out of a deep abyss. It is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn of the road, — this rocky ledge, — was the exact point where the mul¬ titude paused again, and “He, when He beheld the city, wept over it.” Nowhere else on the Mount of Olives is there a view like this. By the two other approaches, above mentioned, over the summit, and over the northern shoulder, of the hill, the city reveals itself gradually ; there is no partial glimpse like that which has been just described as agreeing so well with the first outbreak of popular acclamation, still less is there any point where, as here, the city and Temple would suddenly burst into view, producing the sudden and affecting impression described in the Gospel narrative. And this precise coincidence is the more remarkable because the traditional route of the Triumphal Entry is over the summit of Olivet ; and the traditional' spot of the lamentation is at a place half-way down the mountain, to which the description is wholly inapplicable, whilst no tradition attaches to this, the only road by which a large procession could have come ; and this, almost the only spot of the Mount of Olives which the Gospel narrative fixes with exact certainty, is almost the only unmarked spot, — undefiled or unhallowed by mosque or church, chapel or tower — left to speak for itself, that here the Lord’s feet stood, and here His eyes beheld what is still the most impressive view which the neighbourhood of Jerusalem furnishes, — and the tears rushed forth at the sight. After this scene — which, with the one exception of the conversation at the Well of Jacob, stands alone in the Gospel history for the vividness and precision of its localisation — it is hardly worth while to dwell on the spots elsewhere pointed out by tradition or probability on the rest of the Mountain. They belong, for the most part, to the “ Holy Places” of later pilgrimage, not to the authentic illustrations of the Sacred History. It is enough to know that to the gardens and olive-yards which then, as now, — but probably with greater richness of foliage, and greater JUDAEA AND JERUSALEM. 191 security of walls and watch-towers, — covered the slopes of the hill, He resorted, as his countrymen must always have resorted, for retirement and refreshment from the crowded streets of the city. On one of the rocky banks of the mountain, immediately “ over against the Temple,” The Last He sate and saw the sun go down over the city,1 Pr°Phecy- and foretold its final doom. Bethany, on the further side, was the home to which He retired; any of the fig-trees which spring out of the rocky soil on either side of the road, might he the one which bore no fruit. On the wild uplands which immediately overhang the village, He with- TheAscen- drew from the eyes of His disciples, in a seclusion si0IL which, perhaps, could nowhere else be found so near the stir of a mighty city — the long ridge of Olivet screening those hills, and those hills the village beneath them, from all sound or sight of the city behind, the view opening only on the wide waste of desert rocks and ever-descending val¬ leys, into the depths of the distant Jordan and its mys¬ terious lake. At this point, the last interview took place. “ He led them out as far as Bethany and “they returned” probably by the direct road, over the summit of Mount Olivet.2 The appropriateness of the real scene presents a singular contrast to the inappropriateness of that fixed by a later fancy, “ seeking for a sign,” on the broad top of the mountain, out of sight of Bethany, and in full sight of Jerusalem, and thus in equal contradiction to the letter and the spirit of the Gospel narrative. These are all the points which can be certainly connected with the life of Christ in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood. 1 Such at least is the probable in¬ ference from Luke xxi. 37, that He was usually in the Temple for the day¬ time, and retired to the mountain in the evening. From the circumstance that the gates of the city are closed at sunset, very few travellers have ever seen this view of Jerusalem at this most impressive moment of the day. The only recorded instance is in Bartlett’s Jerusalem Revisited, p. 115. “Beautiful as this view was in the morning, it was far more striking when the sun about to sink in the west cast a rich slanting glow along the level grassy area, and marble platform of the Temple enclosure, touching with gold the edge of the Dome of the Rock, and the light arabesque fountains with which the area is stud¬ ded; while the eastern walls and the deep valley below are thrown into a deep and solemn shadow creeping, as the orb sinks lower, further and fur¬ ther towards the summit (of Olivet), ir¬ radiated with one parting gleam of roseate light, after all below was sunk in obscurity.” 2 Luke xxiv 50; Acts L 12. See Chapter XIV'. 192 SINAI AND PALESTINE. Yet, perhaps, there is a general impression left by the whole, more instructive than any detail. Conclusion. At the sight of Delphi, there is one thought which rises even above the deep solemnity of the spot, and that is the sense of its vacancy and desertion. The scene seemed, as I saw it many years ago, to he the exact echo of Milton’s noble lines — “ The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs thro’ the arched roof in words deceiving: Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.” Something akin to this feeling is that which is finally left on the mind after exploring the neighbourhood of Jeru¬ salem. At first, there cannot but be something of a shock in seeing before our eyes and under our feet places in com¬ parison with whose sanctity the High Altar of St. Peter’s would seem profane. Yet gradually this thought dissolves, and another comes in its place. These localities have, indeed, no real connection with Him. It is true that they bring the scene vividly before us — that, in many instances, as we shall see hereafter, they illustrate His words and works in detail. But the more we gaze at them, the more do we feel that this interest and instruction are secondary, not primary : their value is imaginative and historical, not religious. The desolation and degradation, which have so often left on those who visit Jerusalem the impression of an accursed city, read in this sense a true lesson : — “ He is not here : He is risen ” CHAPTER IY THE HEIGHTS AND THE PASSES OF BENJAMIN. Joshua xviii. 11 — 13. “ And the lot of the tribe of the children of Benjamin came up according to their families : and the coast of their lot came forth between the chil¬ dren of Judah and the children of Joseph. — And their border on the north side was from Jordan; and the border went up to the side of Jericho on the north side, and went up through the mountains westward ; and the goings out thereof were at the wilderness of Beth-aven. — And the border went over from thence toward Luz, to the side of Luz, which is Beth-el, southward ; and the border descended to Ataroth-adar, near the hill that iietli on the south side of the nether Beth-horon.” Benjamin, the frontier tribe — Its independence. — I. The Passes. 1. The Eastern Passes, (a.) Battle of Ai. ( b .) Battle of Michmash. (c.) Advance of Sennacherib. 2. The Western Passes — Battles of Beth-horon — Joshua — Maccabseus — Cestius. — IT. The Heights. 1. Nebi-Samuel or Gibeon. 2. Bethel — Abraham — Jacob — Jeroboam — Josiah. Note on Ram ah and Mizpeh. [In this Chapter, as in the 7th, 9th, and 11th, I have, in consideration of the subject .bought it advisable to interweave the History with the Topography to a greater extent than would be otherwise justified.] ■ -- 5 ■ . . - ■ . . THE HEIGHTS AND THE PASSES OF BENJAMIN. J epjjsalem, as we have seen, was on the very outskirts of J udah, only excluded from the territory of Ben- • ,-1 • « 1 1 i j i -j i*-* Benjamin, jaimn by the circumstance^ that at the division of the. frontier the land by Joshua, Jehus was not yet conquered, Judah and Indeed, in the blessing on Benjamin it would ap- Ll,ln