X/ Shelf PRINCETON, N. J. Number Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/giantcitiesofbas00port_1 I t « *?[ £ . * . # THE * / Giant Cities of Bashan; , AND SYRIA’S HOLY PLACES. By the REV. J. L. ^PORTER, A.M., Author of “ Five Years in Damascus'' “ Murray's Hand-Book for Syria and Palestine “ The Pentateuch and the Gospels," &*c. New- York : THOMAS HMELSOUKT & SONS, No. 42 Bleecker Street. 1873. « * V 4 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Ifcrrtr gufferm mib Cfoudrcnrc, f &r*C. Qr*C. Y LORD—I dedicate this little volume to you in grateful acknowledgement of that personal friendship with which you have honoured me, and as a humble testimony, from one who feels a deep interest in Syria’s welfare, to those noble exertions which your Lordship made to heal the divisions and promote the prosperity of that unhappy land. I have good reason to know that the wise counsels you gave and the enlight¬ ened policy you advocated, while British Commissioner in Syria, secured the esteem and confidence of all parties; and I feel assured that, had the policy which you inaugu¬ rated with such success in the Lebanon been extended in the manner you proposed to the whole of Syria, the dawn of a bright future would ere this have begun to illumine its blood-stained plains and mountains. I have not said much in these pages of that war between u DEDICATION. rival sects which recently desolated some of the fairest provinces of Lebanon, nor of those massacres which must leave the brand of everlasting infamy alike on those who planned, fostered, and perpetrated them. I should per¬ haps have said more had I not expected that they would have found an abler historian in u our mutual friend ” Mr. Cyril Graham. In the absence of fuller details, I am hap¬ py to be able to insert in an Appendix one or two deeply interesting papers from the Rev. Smylie Robson, who, as you know, passed through the fearful three days’ carnage in Damascus. I confess that I feel considerable hesitation in placing these sketches of Bible lands and Bible story before one in every way so competent as your Lordship to detect their many imperfections. You will perceive that they are fragmentary. I do not attempt a description of all Palestine, or of all Syria. I omit many of the most noted places, and some of the most celebrated shrines. I do so, not because I think their mines of interest and in¬ struction have been exhausted ; far from it—I believe there is still much, very much, to be done for the illustra¬ tion of the history and language of the Bible by the thoughtful and observant traveller. Bible stories are grafted upon local scenes; and, as is always the case in real history, these scenes have moulded and regulated, to a greater or less extent, the course of events; consequent¬ ly, the more full and graphic the descriptions of the scenes, the more vivid and life-like will the stories become. The imagery of Scripture, too, is eminently Eastern: it is a reflection of the country. The parables, metaphors, and illustrations of the sacred writers were borrowed from the DEDICATION. • • • til objects that met their eyes, and with which the first readers were familiar. Until we become equally familiar with those objects, much of the force and beauty of God’s Word must be lost. The topography of Palestine can never be detailed with too great minuteness; its scenery and natural products can never be studied with too much care. Bible metaphors and parables take the vividness of their own sunny clime when viewed among the hills of Palestine; and Bible history appears as if acted anew when read upon its old stage. I have not avoided those more familiar localities, then, because previous writers have exhausted them, but simply because I have been anxious to lead my readers to other and less familiar scenes. I had opportunities, during my long residence in the East, of visiting regions seldom— some of them never before—trodden by European tra¬ vellers. As I could not undertake a survey of all the Bible lands over which I wandered, I have thought it best to confine myself in this volume to those which appear to furnish information in some measure fresh and new. I have passed by Bethlehem and Nazareth, Hebron and Jericho, Tiberias and Shechem, that I might linger in Philistia and Sharon, Lebanon and Palmyra, Hamath and Bashan. You will also observe, my Lord, that the book is not a simple diary of travel; nor is it a disquisition upon history or geography. I have in most cases attempted to group together in a popular way the incidents and results of two, three, and occasionally many visits to the same region, filling in the events of sacred history, and showing the customs of primitive life, as illustrated by what passed IV DEDICATION. before me. My aim lias been to give, as far as possible, a complete picture, and to enable my readers to see the distant past more clearly through the medium of the present. During all my journeys the Bible was my constant companion. I read its prophecies, as well as its history, amid the scenes to which they refer. I could not shut my eyes to the graphic details of the Record, nor to the ruin and desolations of the land; and I could not resist the conclusions which a careful comparison forced upon me. I do not wish, my Lord, to make you in any way responsible for these conclusions,, or for the views I have ventured to express. Free thought and free inquiry, con¬ ducted honestly, and in the case of the Bible reverentially, is the right of every man. This, while fully granting it to others, I claim for myself. I have in all cases attempted to exhibit two pictures,—one of the country, as seen by myself; another as sketched by the Hebrew prophets. My readers, if not satisfied with my conclusions, can draw their own. One thing, however, all Eastern travellers must admit —the perfect harmony between the Bible and the land in which it was written. I have heard your Lordship bear noble and eloquent testimony to the fact. Even M. Renan, with all his prejudices, saw it, and has ex¬ pressed it in language of equal truth and beauty: “ Toute cette histoire qui, a distance, semble Hotter dans les nuages d’un monde sans realite, prit ainsi un corps, une solidite qui m’etonnerent. L’accord frappant des textes et des lieux, la merveilleuse liarmonie de l’ideal 6vangelique avec le pay sage qui lui servit de cadre furent. DEDICATION. V pour moi comme une revelation.” These are remarkable words, which the Biblical student must fully appreciate. Permit me, in conclusion, to thank your Lordship for this opportunity of paying my hearty, though humble tribute to your high talents and distinguished services, and to subscribe myself, My Lord, Tours faithfully and respectfully, J. L. PORTER. Brandon Towers, Belfast. January 1865. CONTENTS. Basean and its Giant Cities .. ... .. The Jordan and the Dead Sea .. <,«. .» Jerusalem and its Environs— I. Jerusalem II. The Tombs of the Holy City III. Olivet and Bethany IV. The Battle-fields of Gibeon, Ai, and Michmash The Land of the Philistines .. .. Galilee and the Sea-Coast— I. Sharon and Carmel II. Mount Tabor and the Valley of Jezreel III. The Shrines of Naphtali and Cities of Phoenicia Northern Border Land— I, Lebanon •» •• •• II. Hamath and the Northern Border of Israel III. Palmyra .. .. IV. Damascus «» .. •• Appendix .. ‘ .. . . . . ■ Texts of Scripture Illustrated or Explained .. Pag« 9 99 119 136 155 172 187 227 243 262 285 307 327 342 861 871 Index 875 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. itsljsnt stub its (Siimt Cities. / L “ All Basban, unto Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. For only Og Icing of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants ; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Babbath of the children of Ammon ? nine cubits the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan , which was called the land of giants."— Deut. iii. 10-13. HISTORICAL NOTICES. ASUAN" is the land of sacred romance. From the remotest historic period down to our own day there has ever been something of mystery and of strange wild interest connected with that old ldngdom. In the memorable raid of the Arab chiefs of Me¬ sopotamia into Eastern and Central Palestine, we read that the “ Rephaim in Ashteroth-Karnaim” bore the first brunt of the onset. The Rephaim ,—that is, “ the giants,” for such is the meaning of the name,—men of stature, beside whom the Jewish spies said long afterwards that they were as grass¬ hoppers (Num. xiii. 33 ). These were the aboriginal inhabi¬ tants of Bashan, and probably of the greater part of Ca¬ naan. Most of them died out, or were exterminated at a very early period; but a few remarkable specimens of the race—such as Goliath, and Sippai, and Lahmi (1 Cliron 12 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. xx.)—were the terror of the Israelites, and the champions of their foes, as late as the time of David;—and, strange to say, traditionary memorials of these primeval giants exist even now in almost every section of Palestine, in the form of graves of enormous dimensions,—as the grave of Abel, near Damascus, thirty feet long; that of Seth, in AntidLe- banon, about the same size; and that of Noah, in Lebanon, which measures no less than seventy yards! The capital and stronghold of the Rephaim in Bashan was Ashteroth- Karnaim; so called from the goddess there worshipped,— the mysterious “ two-horned Astarte.” We shall presently see, if my readers will accompany me in my proposed tour, that the cities built and occupied some forty centuries ago by these old giants exist even yet. I have traversed their streets; I have opened the doors of their houses; I have slept peacefully in their long-deserted halls. We shall see, too, that among the massive ruins of these wonderful cities lie sculptured images of Astarte, with the crescent moon, which gave her the name Garnaim , upon her brow. Of one of these mutilated statues I took a sketch in the city of Ke- nath; and in the same place I bought from a shepherd an old coin with the full figure of the goddess stamped upon it. Four hundred years after the incursion of Chedorlaomer and his allies, another and a far more formidable enemy, emerging from the southern deserts, suddenly appeared on the borders of Bashan. Sihon, the warlike king of the Am- orites, who reigned in Heshbon, had tried in vain to bar their progress. The rich plains, and wooded hills, and noble pasture-lands of Bashan offered a tempting prospect to the shepherd tribes of Israel. They came not on a sud¬ den raid, like the Nomadic Arabs of the desert; they aimed at a complete conquest, and a permanent settlement. The aboriginal Rephaim were now all but extinct: “ Only king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants.” The last of his race in this region, he was still the ruler of his country: and the whole Amorite inhabitants, from HISTORICAL NOTICES. 18 Hermon to the Jabbok, and from the Jordan to the desert, acknowledged the supremacy of this giant warrior. Og resolved to defend his country. It was a splendid inherit¬ ance, and he would not resign it without a struggle. Col¬ lecting his forces, he marshalled them on the broad plain before Edrei. We have no details of the battle; but, doubt¬ less, the Amorites and their leader fought bravely for coun¬ try and for life. It was in vain; a stronger than human arm warred for Israel. Og’s army was defeated, and he himself slain. It would seem that the Ammonites, like the Bedawin of the present day, followed in the wake of the Israelitish army; and after the defeat and flight of the Amorites, pillaged their deserted capital, Edrei, and carried off as a trophy the iron bedstead of Og. “ Is it not,” says the Jewish historian, “in Rabbath of the children of Am¬ mon? nine cubits the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man” (Deut. iii. 11). The conquest of Bashan, begun under the leadership ot Moses in person, was completed by Jair, one of the most distinguished chiefs of the tribe of Manasseh. In narrat¬ ing his achievements, the sacred historian brings out another remarkable fact connected with this kingdom of Bashan. In Argob, one of its little provinces, Jair took no less than sixty great cities , “ fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; besides unwalled towns a great many” (Deut. iii. 4, 5, 14). Such a statement seems all but incredible. It would not stand the arithmetic of Bishop Colenso for a moment. Often, when reading the passage, I used to think that some strange statistical mystery hung over it; for how could a province measuring not more than thirty miles by twenty support such a number of fortified cities, especially when the greater part of it was a wilderness of rocks? But mysterious, incredible as this seemed, on the spot, with my own eyes, I have seen that it is literally true. The cities are there to this day. Some of them retain the ancient names recorded in the Bible. The boundaries of Argob are 14 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. as clearly defined by the band of nature as those of our own island home. These ancient cities of Bashan contain prob¬ ably the very oldest specimens of domestic architecture now existing hi the world. Though Bashan was conquered by the Israelites, and al¬ lotted to the half tribe of Manasseh, some of its native tribes were not exterminated. Leaving the fertile plains and rich pasture-lands to the conquerors, these took refuge in the rocky recesses of Argob, and amid the mountain fast¬ nesses of Hermon. “ The Geshurites and the Maacathites,” Joshua tells us, “ dwell among the Israelites until this day” (xiii. 13). The former made their home among the rocks of Argob. Pavid, in some of his strange wanderings, met with, and married the daughter of Talmai, their chief; and * she became the mother of Absalom. The wild acts of his life were doubtless, to some extent, the result of maternal training; they were at least characteristic of the stock from which she sprung. After murdering his brother Amnon, he fled to his uncle in Geshur, and found a safe asylum there amid its natural fastnesses, until his father’s wrath was ap¬ peased. It is a remarkable fact,—and it shows how little change three thousand years have produced on this Eastern land,—that Bashan is still the refuge for all offenders. If a man can only reach it, no matter what may have been his crimes or his failings, he is safe; the officers of government dare not follow him, and the avenger of blood even turns away in despair. During a short tour in Bashan, I met more than a dozen refugees, who, like Absalom in Geshur, awaited in security some favourable turn of events. Bashan was regarded by the poet-prophets of Israel as almost an earthly paradise. The strength and grandeur of its oaks (Ezek. xxvii. 6), the beauty of its mountain scenery (Ps. lxviii. 15), the unrivalled luxuriance of its pas¬ tures (Jer. 1. 19), the fertility of its wide-spreading plains, and the excellence of its cattle (Ps. xxii. 12; Micah vii. 14),—all supplied the sacred penmen with lofty imagery, GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS OF BASHAN. 15 Remnants of the oak forests still clothe the mountain-sides; the soil of the plains and the pastures on the downs are rich as of yore; and though the periodic raids of Arab tribes have greatly thinned the flocks and herds, as they have de¬ solated the cities, yet such as remain,—the rams, and lambs, and goats, and hulls,—may he appropriately described in the words of Ezekiel, as “ all of them fatlings of Bashan” (xxxix. 18 ). Lying on an exposed frontier, bordering on the restless and powerful kingdom of Damascus, and in the route of the warlike monarchs of Nineveh and Babylon, Bashan often experienced the horrors of war, and the desolating tide of conquest often rolled past and over it. The traces of an¬ cient warfare are yet visible, as we shall see, in its ruinous fortresses; and we shall also see that it is now as much ex¬ posed as ever to the ravages of enemies. It was the first province of Palestine that fell before the Assyrian invaders; and its inhabitants were the first who sat and wept as cap¬ tives by the banks of the rivers of the East. Bashan ap¬ pears to have lost its unity with Its freedom. It had been united under Og, and it remained united in possession of the half tribe of Manasseh; but after the captivity its very name, as a geographical term, disappears from history. When the Israelites were taken captive, the scattered rem¬ nants of the ancient tribes came back, — some from the parched plains of the great desert, some from the rocky defiles of Argob, and some from the heights and glens of Her- mon,—and they filled and occupied the whole country. Henceforth the name “ Bashan” is never once mentioned by either sacred or classic writer; but the four provinces into which it was then rent are often referred to,—and these provinces were not themselves new. Gaulcinitis is manifest¬ ly the territory of Golan, the ancient Hebrew city of refuge; Auranitis is only the Greek form of the Hauran of Ezekiel (xlviii. 16 ); JBatanea , the name then given to the eastern mountain range, is but a corruption of Bashan; and Tra? If) BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. chonitis , embracing that singularly wild and rocky district on the north, is just a Greek translation of the old Argob , “ the stony.” This last province is the only one mentioned in the New Testament. It formed part of the tetrarchy of Philip, son of the great Herod (Luke iii. 1). But though Bashan is not mentioned by name, it was the scene of a few of the most interesting events of New Testament his¬ tory. It was down the western slopes of Bashan’s high table-land that the demons, expelled by Jesus from the poor man, chased the herd of swine into the Sea of Galilee. It was on the grassy slopes of Bashan’s hills that the multi¬ tudes were twice miraculously fed by the merciful Saviour. And that “high mountain,” to which He led Peter, and James, and John, and on whose summit they beheld the glories of the transfiguration, was that very Hermon which forms the boundary of Bashan. And the sacred history of this old kingdom does not end here. Paul travelled through it on his way to Damascus; and, after his conversion, Ba¬ shan, which then formed the principal part of the kingdom of Arabia, was the first field of his labours as an apostle of Jesus. “When it pleased God,” he tells us, “who separat¬ ed me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apos¬ tles before me; but I went into Arabia ” (Gal. i. 15-17). His mission to Arabia, or to Bashan, seems to have been eminently successful; and that Church, which may be called the first-fruits of his labours, made steady progress. In the fourth century nearly the whole inhabitants were Christian; heathen temples were converted into churches, and new churches were built in every town and village. At that period there were no fewer than thirty-three bishop¬ rics in the single ecclesiastical province of Arabia. The Christians are now nearly all gone; but their churches, as we shall see, are there still, — two or three turned into PATRIAECHAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 17 mosques, but the vast majority of them standing desolate in deserted cities. Noble structures some of them are, with marble colonnades and stately porticos, showing us alike the wealth and the taste of their founders, and now remain¬ ing almost perfect, as if awaiting the influx of a new Christ¬ ian population. There was something to me inexpressibly mournful in passing from the silent street into the silent church; and especially in reading, as I often read, Greek inscriptions over the doors, telling how such an one, at such a date, had consecrated this building, formerly a temple of Jupiter, or Venus, or Astarte, as the case might be, to the worship of the Triune God, and had called it by the name of -the blessed saint or martyr So-and-so. Now there are no worshippers in those churches; and the people who for twelve centuries have held supreme authority in the land, have been the constant and ruthless persecutors of Christ¬ ians and Christianity. But their power is on the wane; their reign is well-nigh at an end; and the time is not far distant when Christian influence, and power, and industry, shall again repeople the deserted cities, and fill the vacant churches, and cultivate the desolated fields of Palestine. The foregoing notices will show my readers that Bashan is, in many respects, among the most interesting of the provinces of Palestine. It is comparatively unknown, be¬ sides. Western Palestine is traversed every year; it forms a necessary part of the Grand Tour, and it has been de¬ scribed in scores of volumes. But the travellers who have hitherto succeeded in exploring Bashan scarcely amount to half-a-dozen; and the state of the country is so unsettled, and many of the people who inhabit it are so hostile to Europeans, and, in fact, to strangers in general, that there seems to be but little prospect of an increase of tourists in that region. This very isolation of Bashan added immense¬ ly to the charm and instructiveness of my visit. Both land and people remain thoroughly Oriental. Nowhere else is patriarchal life so fully or so strikingly exemplified. The 18 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. social state of the country and the habits of the people are just what they were in the days of Abraham or Job. The raids of the eastern tribes are as frequent and as devastat¬ ing now as they were then. The flocks of a whole village are often swept away in a single incursion, and the fruits of a whole harvest carried off in a single night. The arms used are, with the exception of a few muskets, similar to those with which Chedorlaomer conquered the Rephaim. The implements of husbandry, too, are as rude and as sim¬ ple as they were when Isaac cultivated the valley of Gerar. And the hospitality is everywhere as profuse and as genu¬ ine as that which Abraham exercised in his tents at Mamre. I could scarcely get over the feeling, as I rode across the plains of Bashan and climbed the wooded hills through the oak forests, and saw the primitive ploughs and yokes of oxen and goads, and heard the old Bible salutations given by every passer-by, and received the urgent invitations to rest and eat at every village and hamlet, and witnessed the killing of the kid or lamb, and the almost incredible de¬ spatch with which it is cooked and served to the guests,—I could scarcely get over the feeling, I say, that I had been somehow spirited away back thousands of years, and set down in the land of Nod, or by the patriarch’s tents at Beersheba. Common life in Bashan I found to be a con¬ stant enacting of early Bible stories. Western Palestine has been in a great measure spoiled by travellers. In the towns frequented by tourists, and in their usual lines of route, I always found a miserable parody of Western man¬ ners, and not unfrequently of Western dress and language; but away in this old kingdom one meets with nothing in dress, language, or manners, save the stately and instruc¬ tive simplicity of patriarchal times. Another peculiarity of Bashan I cannot refrain from com¬ municating to my readers. The ancient cities and even the villages of Western Palestine have been almost annihilated; with the exception of Jerusalem, Hebron, and two or three ANCIENT HOUSES. 19 others, not one stone has been left upon another. In some cases we can scarcely discover the exact spot where a noted city stood, so complete has been the desolation. Even in Jerusalem itself only a very few vestiges of the ancient buildings remain: the Tower of David, portions of the wall of the Temple area, and one or two other fragments,—just enough to form the subject of dispute among antiquaries. Zion is “ ploughed like a field.” I have seen the plough at work on it, and with the hand that writes these lines I have plucked ears of corn in the fields of Zion. I have pitched my tent on the site of ancient Tyre, and searched, but searched in vain, for a single trace of its ruins. Then, but not till then, did I realize the full force and truth of the prophetic denun¬ ciation upon it: “ Thou shalt be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again ” (Ezek. xxvi. 21). The very ruins of Capernaum—that city which, in our Lord’s day, was “ exalted unto heaven”—have been so completely obliterated, that the question of its site never has been, and probably never will be, definitely settled. And these are not solitary cases: Jericho has disappeared; Bethel is “come to nought” (Amos v. 5); Samaria is “ as an heap of the field, as plant¬ ings of a vineyard” (Micah i. 6). The state of Bashan is totally different: it is literally crowded with towns and large villages; and though the vast majority of them are deserted, they are not ruined. I have more than once entered a deserted city in the evening, taken possession of a comfortable house, and spent the night in peace. Many of the houses in the ancient cities of Bashan are perfect, as if only finished yesterday. The walls are sound, the roofs unbroken, the doors, and even the window-shutters in their places. Let not my readers think that I ain transcribing a passage from the “ Arabian Nights.” I am relating sober facts; I am simply telling what I have seen, and what I purpose just now more fully to describe. “But how,” you ask me, “ can we account for the preservation of ordinary dwellings in a land of ruins ? If one of our modern Eng- 20 BASH AN" AND ITS GIANT CITIES. lish cities were deserted for a millennium, there would scarcely be a fragment of a wall standing.” The reply is easy enough. The houses of Bashan are not ordinary houses. Their walls are from five to eight feet thick, built of large squared blocks of basalt; the roofs are formed of slabs of the same material, hewn like planks, and reaching from wall to wall; the very doors and window-shutters are of stone, hung upon pivots projecting above and below. Some of these ancient cities have from two to five hundred houses still perfect, but not a man to dwell in them. On one occasion, from the battlements of the Castle of Salcah, I counted some thirty towns and villages, dotting the sur¬ face of the vast plain, many of them almost as perfect as when they were built, and yet for more than five centuries there has not been a single inhabitant in one of them. It may easily be imagined with what feelings I read on that day, and on that spot, the remarkable words of Moses: u The generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land , shall say when they see the plagues of this land, even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land ? what meaneth the heat of this great anger ?” My readers are now prepared, I trust, to make a pleasant and profitable excursion to the giant cities of Bashan. I shall promise not to make too large a demand upon their time and patience, and yet to give them a tolerably clear and full view of one of the most interesting countries in the world. THE CARAVAN. On a bright and balmy morning in February, a party of seven cavaliers defiled from the East Gate of Damascus, rode for half-an-hour among the orchards that skirt the old city, and then, turning to the left, struck out, along a broad beaten path through the open fields, in a south-easterly di¬ rection. The leader was a wild-looking figure. His dress OUR ARAB GUIDE. 21 was a red cotton tunic or shirt, fastened round the waist by a broad leathern .girdle. Over it was a loose jacket of dressed sheepskin, the wool inside. His feet and legs were bare. On his head was a flame-coloured handkerchief, fastened above by a coronet of black camel’s hair, which left the ends and long fringe to flow over his shoulders. He was mounted on an active, shaggy pony, with a pad for a saddle, and a hair halter for a bridle. Before him, across the back of his little steed, he carried a long rifle, his only weapon. Immediately behind him, on powerful Arab horses, were three men in Western costume: one of these was the writer. Next came an Arab, who acted as drag¬ oman or rather courier; and two servants on stout hacks brought up the rear. On gaining the beaten track, our guide struck into a sharp canter. The great city was soon left far behind, and, on turning, we could see its tall white minarets shooting up from the sombre foliage, and thrown into bold relief by the dark back-ground of Anti-Lebanon. The plain spread out on each side, smooth as a lake, cov¬ ered with the delicate green of the young grain. Here and there were long belts and large clumps of dusky olives, fr6lii the midst of which rose the gray towers of a mosque or the white dome of a saint’s tomb. On the south the plain was shut in by a ridge of black, bare hills, appropri¬ ately named Jebel-el-Aswad, u tli€ Black Mountains;” while away on the west, in the distance, Hermon rose in all its majesty, a pyramid of spotless snow. From whatever point one sees it, there are few landscapes in the world which, for richness and soft enchanting beauty, can be compared with the plain of Damascus. i After riding about seven miles, during which we passed straggling groups of men—some on foot, some on horses and donkeys, and some on camels, most of them dressed like our guide, and all hurrying on in the same direction as our- Reives—we reached the eastern extremity of the Black ' ' ! ' ‘ ; . . .•} Cm . > - "• Mountains, and found ourselves bn the side of a narrow ofreeu 22 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. vale, through the centre of which flows the river Pharpar. A bridge here spans the stream; and beyond it, in the rich meadows, the Sauran Caravan was being marshalled. Up to this point the road is safe, and may be travelled almost at any time; but on crossing the Awaj, we enter the domains of the Bedawin, whose law is the sword, and whose right is might. Our further progress was liable to be disputed at any moment. The attacks of the Bedawin, when made, are sud¬ den and impetuous; and resistance, to be effectual, must be prompt and decided. During the winter season, this eastern route is in general pretty secure, as the Arab tribes have their encampments far distant on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the interior of the desert; but the war between the Druses and the government, which had just been concluded, had drawn these daring marauders from their customary haunts, and they endured the rain and cold of the Syrian frontier in the hope of plunder. All seemed fully aware of this, and ap¬ peared to feel, here as elsewhere, that the hand of the Xsh- maelite is against every man. Consequently, stragglers hur¬ ried up and fell into the ranks; bales and packages on mules and camels were re-arranged and more carefully adjusted; muskets and pistols were examined, and cartridges got into a state of readiness; armed men were placed in something like order along the sides of the file of animals; and a few horse¬ men were sent on in front, to scour the neighboring hills and the skirts of the great plain beyond, so as to prevent surprise. A number of Druses who here joined the caravan, and who were easily distinguished by their snow-white turbans, and bold, manly bearing, appeared to take the chief direction in these warlike preparations, though, as the caravan was mainly made up of Christians, one of themselves, called Musa, was the nominal leader. It was a strange and excit¬ ing scene, and one would have thought that any attempt to reduce such a refractory and heterogeneous multitude of men and animals to anything like order would be absolute¬ ly useless. Some of the camels and donkeys breaking loose, STARTING OF THE CARAVAN. 23 scattered their loads over the plain, and spread confusion all round them; others growled, and kicked, and brayed; drivers shouted and gesticulated; men and boys ran through the crowd, asking for missing brothers or companions; horse¬ men galloped from group to group, entreating and threaten¬ ing by turns. At length, however, the order was given to march. It passed along from front to rear, and the next moment every sound was hushed; the very beasts seemed to comprehend its meaning, for they fell quietly into their places, and the long files, now four and five abreast, began to move over the grassy plain with a stillness which was almost painful. Leaving the fertile valley of the Pharpar, and crossing a low, bleak ridge, we entered one of the dreariest regions I had hitherto seen in Syria. A reach of rolling table-land extended for several miles on each side—shut in on the right by black hills, and on the left, by bare rugged banks. "Net a house, nor a tree, nor a green shrub, nor a living creature, was within the range of vision. Loose black stones and boulders of basalt were strewn thickly over the whole surface, and here and there thrown into rude heaps; but whether by the hand of man, or by some freak of nature, seemed doubtful. For nearly two hours we wound our weary way through this wilderness; now listening to the stories of Musa, and now following him to the top of some hillock, in the hope of getting a peep at a more inviting landscape. At length we came to the brow of a short de¬ scent leading into a green meadow, with the traces of an old camp at one side round a little fountain, near which were some tombs with rude headstones. We were told that this is a favourite camping-ground of the Anezeh during the spring. Immediately beyond the meadow a plain opened before us, stretching on the east and west as far as the eye could see, and southward reaching to the base of the Hau- raii mountains. It is flat as a lake, covered with deep, rich, black soil, without rock or stone, and, even at this early sea- 2 24 BASHAN AN D ITS GIAN1 CITIES. son, giving promise of luxuriant pasturage. Some conical tells are seen at intervals, rising up from-it s smooth surface, like rocky islets in the ocean. This is the plain of Bashan, and though now desolate and forsaken, it showed us how rich were the resources of that old kingdom. With increased speed—but still in the deepest silence— the caravan swept onward over this noble plain. We could scarcely distinguish any track, though Musa assured us we were on the Sultany, or “ king’s highway.” It seemed to us that his course was directed by a conical hill away on the southern horizon, rather than by any trace of a road on the plain itself. As we advanced, we began to notice a black line extending across the plain in the distance in front. Gradually it became more and more defined, and, ere day¬ light waned, it seemed like a Cyclopean wall built in some bygone age, and afterwards shattered by an earthquake. Biding up to Musa, I asked what it was. “ That,” said he, “is the LejaJi .” Lejah is the name now given to the an¬ cient province of Trachonitis; and this bank of shattered rocks turned out to be its northern border. The Lejah, as we shall see hereafter, is a vast field of basalt, placed in the midst of the fertile plain of Bashan. Its surface has an ele¬ vation of some thirty feet above the plain, and its border is everywhere as clearly defined by the broken cliffs as any shore-line. In fact, it strongly reminded me of some parts of the coast of Jersey. And this remarkable feature ha^not been overlooked in the topography of the Bible. Lejah, my readers will remember, corresponds to the ancient Argob. Now, in every instance in which that province is mentioned by the sacred historians, there is one descriptive word at¬ tached to it — chebel; which our translators have unfortu¬ nately rendered in one passage “ region,” and in another, “country” (Deut. iii. 4, 13, 14; .1 Kings iv. 13), but which means “ a sharply defined border, as if measured off by a rope ” (chebel); and it thus describes, with singular accuracy and minuteness, the rocky rampart which encircles the Lejah. THE HALT OF THE CARAVAN. 25 THE DESERTED CITY. The sun went down, and the short twilight was made shorter by heavy clouds which drifted across the face of the sky. A thick rain began to fall, which made the prospect of a night march or a bivouac equally unpleasant. Still I rode on through the darkness, striving to dispel gloomy forebod¬ ings by the stirring memory of Bashan’s ancient glory, and the thought that I was now treading its soil, and on my way to the great cities founded and inhabited four thousand years ago by the giant Rephaim. Before the darkness set in, Musa had pointed out to me the towers of three or four of these cities rising above the rocky barrier of the Lejah. How I strained my eyes in vain to pierce the deepening gloom! Row I knew that some of them must be close at hand. The sharp ring of my horse’s feet on pavement startled me. This was followed by painful stumbling over loose stones, and the twisting of his limbs among jagged rocks. The sky was black overhead; the ground black beneath; the rain was drifting in my face, so that nothing could be seen. A halt was called; and it was with no little pleasure I heard the order given for the caravan to rest till the moon rose. “ Is there any spot,” I asked of an Arab at my side, “ where we could get shelter from the rain ? ” “ There is a house ready for you,” he answered. “ A house ! Is there a house here ? ” “ Hundreds of them; this is the town of Burak.” We were conducted up a rugged winding path, which seemed, so far as we could make out in the dark and by the motion of our horses, to be something like a ruinous stair¬ case. At length the dark outline of high walls began to ap¬ pear against the sky, and presently we entered a paved street. Here we were told to dismount and give our horses to the servants. An Arab struck a light, and, inviting us to follow, passed through a low, gloomy door, into a spacious chamber. I looked with no little interest round the apartment of 26 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. which we had taken such unceremonious possession; but the light was so dim, and the walls, roof, and floor so black, that I could make out nothing satisfactorily. Getting a torch from one of the servants I lighted it, and proceeded to examine the mysterious mansion; for, though drenched with rain, and wearied with a twelve hours’ ride, I could not rest. I felt an excitement such as I never before had experienced. I could scarcely believe in the reality of what I saw, and what I heard from my guides in reply to eager questions. The house seemed to have undergone little change from the time its old master had left it; and yet the thick nitrous crust on the floor showed that it had been deserted for long ages. The wails were perfect, nearly five feet thick, built of large blocks of hewn stones, without lime or cement of any kind. The roof was formed of large slabs of the same black basalt, lying as regularly, and jointed as closely as if the workmen had only just completed them. They measured twelve feet in length, eighteen inches in breadth, and six inches in thick¬ ness. The ends rested on a plain stone cornice, projecting about a foot from each side wall. The chamber was twenty feet long, twelve wide, and ten high. The outer door was a slab of stone, four and a half feet high, four wide, and eight inches thick. It hung upon pivots formed of project¬ ing parts of the slab, working in sockets in the lintel and threshold; and though so massive, I was able to open and shut it with ease. At one end of the room was a small win¬ dow with a stone shutter. An inner door, also of stone, but of finer workmanship, and not quite so heavy as the other, admitted to a chamber of the same size and appearance. From it a much larger door communicated with a third chamber, to which there was a descent by a flight of stone steps. This was a spacious hall, equal in width to the two rooms, and about twenty-five feet long by twenty high. A semicircular arch was thrown across it, supporting the stone roof; and a gate so large that camels could pass in and out, opened on the street. The gate was of stone, and in its THE DESERTED CITY. 27 place; but some rubbish had accumulated on the threshold, and it apjjeared to have been open for ages. Here our horses were comfortably installed. Such were the internal arrangements of this strange old mansion. It had only one story; and its simple, massive style of architecture gave ev¬ idence of a very remote antiquity. On a large stone which formed the lintel of the gateway, there was a Greek inscrip¬ tion ; but it was so high up, and my light so faint, that I was unable to decipher it, though I could see that the letters were of the oldest type. It is probably the same which was copied by Burckhardt, and which bears a date apparently equivalent to the year b.c. 306 ! Owing to the darkness of the night and the shortness of our stay, I was unable to ascertain from personal observa¬ tion, either the extent of Burak, or the general character of its buildings ; but the men who gathered round me, when I returned to my chamber, had often visited it. They said the houses were all like the one we occupied, only some smaller, and a few larger, and that there were no great buildings. Burak stands on the north-east comer of the Le- jah, and was thus one of the frontier towns of ancient Ar- gob. It is built upon rocks, and encompassed by rocks so wild and rugged as to render it a natural fortress. After a few hours’ rest, the order for march was again given. We found our horses at the door, and mounting at once we followed Musa. The rain had ceased, the sky was clear, and the moon shone brightly, half revealing the sav¬ age features of the environs of Burak. I can never forget that scene. Huge masses of shapeless rock rose up here and there among and around the houses, to the height of fifteen and twenty feet—their summits jagged, and their sides all shattered. Between them were pits and yawning fissures, as many feet in depth; while the flat surfaces of naked rock were thickly strewn with huge boulders of basalt. The nar¬ row tortuous road by which Musa led us out was in places car¬ ried over chasms, and in places cut through cliffs. An an- 28 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. cient aqueduct ran alongside of it, which, in former days, conveyed a supply of water from a neighbouring winter stream to the tanks and reservoirs from which the town gets its present name, Burak (“the tanks”). A slow but fatigu¬ ing ride of an hour brought us out of this labyrinth of rocks and over a torrent bed into a fine plain. We soon after passed the caravan, which had started some time before us; and, as there was no danger to be apprehended, we contin¬ ued at a rapid pace southward. The dawn of morning showed us the rugged features and rocky border of the Le- jah close upon our right, thickly studded with old towns and villages; while upon our left a fertile plain stretched away to the horizon. And here we observed with surprise, that there was not a trace of human habitation, except on the tops of the little conical hills which rise up at long inter¬ vals. This plain is the home of the Ishmaelite, who has always dwelt “ in the presence (literally, in the face) of his brethren” (Gen. xvi. 12), and against whose bold incursions there never has been any effectual barrier except the muni¬ tions of rocks and the heights of hills. We rode on. The hills of Bashan were close in front; their summits clothed with oak forests, and their sides studded with old towns. As we ascended them, the rock- fields of the Lejah were spread out on the right; and there, too, the ancient cities were thickly planted. Not less than A thirty of the threescore cities of Argob were in view at one time on that day; their black houses and ruins half concealed by the black rocks amid which they are built, and their massive towers rising up here and there like the “ keeps ” of old Norman fortresses. How we longed to visit and ex¬ plore them. But political reasons made it necessary we should, in the first place, pay our respects to one of the leading Druse chiefs. On them depended the success of our future researches. Without their protection we could not ride in safety a single mile through Hauran. I felt confi¬ dent that protection would be cheerfully granted; still I SCENERY OF BASHAN. 29 thought it best not to draw the bridle until we reached the town of Hiyat, from whence, after a short pause to drink coffee with the Sheikh, who would not let us pass, we rode to the residence of Assad Amer, at Hit, where we met with a reception worthy of the hospitality of the old patriarchs. II. **Once more we look, and all is still as night. All desolate ! Groves, temples, palaces, Swept from the sight: and nothing visible, .save here and there An empty tomb, a fragment like a limb Of some dismembered giant.” SCENERY OF BASHAN. With the first dawn of the new morning, I went up to the flat roof of Sheikh Assad’s house. The house is in the high¬ est part of the town, and commands a wide view of the northern section of the mountain range and of the surround¬ ing plain. The sky was cloudless, and of that deep dark blue which one never sees in this land of clouds and haze. The rain of the preceding day had cleared the atmosphere, and rendered it transparent as crystal. The sun was not yet up, but his beams shed a rich glow over the whole east¬ ern sky, making it gleam like burnished gold, and throwing out into bold relief a ridge of wood-clad peaks that here shut in the view. From the base of the mountain on the north, a smooth plain, already green with young grass, ex¬ tended away beyond the range of vision, dotted here and there with conical tells, on whose tops were the remains of ancient fortresses and villages. But on the west lay the ob¬ jects of chief interest; the widespread rock-fields of Argob, the rich pasture-lands of Bashan encircling them, and run¬ ning away in one unbroken expanse to the base of Hermon, 30 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. Long and intently did my eyes dwell on that magnificent landscape. Now, the strange old cities rivetted my atten¬ tion, rising up in gloomy grandeur from the sea of rocks. Now the great square towers and castellated heights and tells along the rugged border of Argob were minutely ex¬ amined by the help of a powerful glass; and now the eye wandered eagerly over the plain beyond, noting one, and another, and another of those dark cities that stud it so thickly. On the western horizon rose Hermon, a spotless pyramid of snow; and from it, northward, ran the serried, snow-capped ridge of “Lebanon toward the sun-rising” (Josh. xiii. 5). As I looked on that western barrier of Ba- shan, the first sunbeams touched the crest of Hermon; and as they touched it, its icy crown glistened like polished steel, reminding me how strikingly descriptive was the name given to that mountain by the Amorites — Shenir, the “ breastplate,” or “ shield” (Deut. iii. 9). For an hour or more I sat rapt in the contemplation of the wide and wondrous panorama. At least a thousand square miles of Og’s ancient kingdom were spread out before me. There was the country whose “giant” ( Rephaim , Gen. xiv.) inhabitants the eastern kings smote before they de¬ scended into the plains of Sodom. There were those “ three score great cities ” of Argob, whose “ walls, and gates, and brazen bars ” were noted with surprise by Moses and the Israelites, and whose Cyclopean architecture and massive stone gates even* now fill the western traveller with amaze¬ ment, and give his simplest descriptions much of the charm and strangeness of romance. So clear was the air that the outline of the most distant objects was sharp and distinct. Hermon itself, though forty miles away, did not seem more than eight or ten, when the sun embossed its furrowed sides with light and shade. I was at length roused from a pleasing reverie by the deep voice of Sheikh Assad giving a cordial and truly patri¬ archal salutation. THE BEDAWIN. 31 “ What a glorious view you have from this commanding spot! ” I said, when the compliments were over. “Yes, we can see the Bedawin at a great distance, and have time to prepare for them,” was his characteristic re- p!y. “ What! do the desert tribes, then, trouble you here; and do they even venture to plunder the Druses ?” “Not a spot of border land from Wady Musa to Aleppo is safe from their raids, and Druses, Moslems, and Christ¬ ians are alike to them. In fact, their hand is against all. When the Anezeh come up in spring, their flocks cover that plain like locusts, and were it not for our rifles they would not leave us a hoof nor a blade of corn. To-day their horsemen pillage a village here; to-morrow, another in the Ghutah of Sham (Damascus); and the day following they strip the Baghdad caravan. Oh, my lord ! these sons of Ishmael are fleet as gazelles, and fierce as leopards. Would Allah only rid us of them and the Turks, Syria might prosper.” The Sheikh described the Arabs to the life, just as they were described by the spirit of prophecy nearly four thou¬ sand years ago. “ He (Ishmael) shall be a wild man; his hand against every man, and every man’s hand against him ; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” (Gen. xvi. 12). These “children of the east” come up now as they did in Gideon’s days, when “ they destroyed the in¬ crease of the earth, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cat¬ tle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for mul¬ titude ; both they and their camels were without number; and they entered into the land to destroy it” (Judges vi. 4, 5). During the course of another tour through the west¬ ern part of Bashan, I rode in one day for more than twenty miles in a straight course through the flocks of an Arab tribe. On remarking to the Sheikh the great number of old 32 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. cities in view, he pointed out to me the largest and most remarkable of them; and among these I heard with no little interest, the name of Edrei, the ancient capital of Bashan, and the residence of Og, the last of its giant kings. Others there were too, such as Shuka, and Bathanyeh, and Mus- mieh, whose names, as we shall see, are not unknown in history. From a general survey of the country I turned to an ex¬ amination of the town. Hit is in form rectangular, and about a mile and a half in circumference. I traced most of the old streets, though now in a great measure filled up with fallen houses and heaps of rubbish, the accumulations of long centuries. The streets were narrow and irregular, and thus widely different from those laid out in many other cities in this land by Roman architects. A large portion of the town is ruinous; but some of the very oldest houses are still perfect. They are simple and massive in style, containing only one story, and generally two or three large rooms opening on an enclosed court. The walls are built of large stones roughly hewn, though closely jointed, and laid without cement. The roofs are formed of long slabs placed horizontally from wall to wall; thus forming the flat “ house tops,” where the people are now accustomed to sit and pray, just as they were in Hew Testament times. In¬ deed, the “ house-top” is the favourite prayer-place of Mo¬ hammedans in Syria (see Acts x. 9; Matt. xxiv. 17; Isa. xv. 3; Zeph. i. 5). The doors are stone, and I saw many tastefully ornamented with panels and garlands of fruit and flowers sculptured in relief. There is not a single new , or even modern , house in Hit. The Druses have taken possession and settled down without any attempt at alter¬ ation or addition. Those now occupied are evidently of the most remote antiquity, and not more than half of the habitable dwellings are inhabited. I saw the remains of several Greek or Roman temples, and a considerable num¬ ber of Greek inscriptions on the old houses, and on loose AQUEDUCTS. 33 stones. The inscriptions have no historic value, being chiefly votive and memorial tablets: two of them have dates corresponding to a.d. 120, and a.d. 208. Nothing is known of the history of Hit; we cannot even tell its an¬ cient name; but its position, the character of its houses and of its old massive ramparts, seem to warrant the conclusion that it was one of those “ three score great cities” which Jail* captured in Argob (Deut. iii. 4, 14). The news of our arrival had already reached Sheikh Fares, the elder brother of our host, and one of the most powerful chiefs in Hauran. While we sat at breakfast a messenger arrived with an urgent request that we should visit him and spend the night at his house in Shuhba. We gladly consented; and as that town is only four miles south of Hit, we resolved to employ the day in exploring the northern section of the mountain range. Our horses were soon at the door. Sheikh Assad supplied an active, intel¬ ligent, and well-mounted guide, and his own nephew, a noble-looking youth of one-and-twenty, volunteered his services as escort. Mounting at once, amid the respectful salams of a crowd of white-turbaned Druses, we rode off northward in the track of an old Roman road. Finely-cul¬ tivated fields skirted our path for some distance, already green with young wheat, and giving promise of luxuriance such as is seldom seen in Palestine. The day was bright and cool, the ground firm and smooth, our horses fresh, and our own spirits high. Our new companions, too, were eager to display the mettle of their steeds, and their unri¬ valled skill in horsemanship. So, loosening the rein, we dashed across the gentle slopes, and only drew bridle on reaching Bathanyeh, about four miles from Hit. Along our route for a mile and more, we observed the opening of a subterranean aqueduct, intended in former days to supply the city with water. Such aqueducts are common on the eastern border of Syria and Palestine, especially in Hauran and the plain of Damascus. They appear to have been con- 34 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. structed as follows:—A shaft was sunk to the depth of from ten to twenty feet, at a spot where it was supposed water might he found; then a tunnel was excavated on the level of the bottom of the shaft, and in the direction of the town to be supplied. At a distance of about a hundred yards another shaft was sunk, connecting the tunnel with the sur¬ face ; and so the work was carried on until it was brought close to the city, where a great reservoir was made. Some of these aqueducts are nearly twenty miles in length; and even though no living spring should exist along their whole course, they soon collect in the rainy season sufficient sur¬ face water to supply the largest reservoirs. Springs are rare in Bashan. It is a thirsty land; but cisterns of enor¬ mous dimensions—some open, others covered—are seen in every city and village. It was doubtless by* some such “conduit” as this that Hezekiah took water into Jerusalem from the upper spring of Gihon (2 Kings xx. 20). ANCIENT CITIES. Scrambling through, or rather over, a ruinous gateway, we entered the city of Bathanyeh. A wide street lay be¬ fore us, the pavement perfect, the houses on each side standing, streets and lanes branching off to the right and left. There was something inexpressibly mournful in riding along that silent street, and looking in through half-open doors to one after another of those desolate houses, with the rank grass and weeds in their courts, and the brambles growing in festoons over the doorways, and branches of trees shooting through the gaping rents in the old walls. The ring of our horses’ feet on the pavement awakened the echoes of the city, and startled many a strange tenant. Owls flapped their wings round the gray towers; daws shrieked as they flew away from the house-tops; foxes ran out and in among shattered dwellings, and two jackals rushed from an open door, and scampered off along the street before us. The graphic language of Isaiah, uttered CITY OF BATH ANY EH. 35 regarding another city, but vividly descriptive of desola¬ tion in any place, came up at once to my mind and to my lips:—“ Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there” (Isa. xiii. 21). Bathanyeh stands on the northern declivity of the mount¬ ains of Bashan, and commands a view of the boundless plain towards the lakes of Damascus. About a mile and a half to the north-west I saw two large villages close to¬ gether. Two miles further, on the top of a high tell, were the ruins of a town, which, my guides said, are both exten¬ sive and beautiful. Three other towns were visible in the plain, and two on the slopes eastward. How we wished to visit these ! but time would not permit. From this, as from every other point where I reached the limits of my pre¬ scribed tour, I turned aside with regret; because away be¬ yond, the eye rested on enticing ruins, and unexplored towns and villages. Bathanyeh is not quite so large as Hit, but the buildings are of a superior character and in much better preserva¬ tion. One of the houses in which I rested for a time might almost be termed a palace. A spacious gateway, with massive folding-doors of stone, opened from the street into a large court. On the left was a square tower some forty feet in height. Hound the court, and opening into it, were the apartments, all in perfect preservation; and yet the place does not seem to have been inhabited for centuries. Greek inscriptions on the principal buildings prove that they existed at the commencement of our era; and in the whole town I did not see a solitary trace of Mohammedan occupation, so that it has probably been deserted for at least a thousand years. The name at once suggests its identity with JBatanis , one of the thirty-four ecclesiastical cities of Arabia, whose bishops were in the fifth century suffragans of the primate of Bostra. Batanis was the ca¬ pital of the Greek province of Batansea, a part of the te« 36 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. trarchy of Philip, mentioned by Josephus, but included by Luke (iii. 1) in the “region of Trachonitis.” The region round it is still called “the Land of Batanea;” and the name is interesting as a modern representative of the Scriptural JSashan. Turning away from this interesting place, we rode along the mountain side eastward to Shuka, four miles distant. This is also a very old town, and must at one time have contained at least 20,000 inhabitants, though now it has scarcely twenty families. Ptolemy, the Greek geographer, calls it Saccaea. It was evidently rebuilt by the Romans, as only a very few of its antique massive houses remain, and the shattered ruins of temples are seen on every side. One of these temples was long used as a church, and the ruins of another church also exist, which, an inscription tells us, was dedicated by Bishop Tiberinos to St. George in a.d. 369. Around Shuka are some remarkable tombs, square towers, about twenty feet on each side, and from thirty to forty high, divided into stories. Tablets over the doors record the names of the dead who once lay there, and the dates of their death. They are of the first and second centuries of our era. They have been all rifled, so that we cannot tell how the bodies were deposited, though proba¬ bly the arrangements were similar to those in the tombs of Palmyra. From the ruins of Shuka three other towns were in sight among the hills on the east. Remounting, we rode for ten miles through a rich agri¬ cultural district to Shuhba. We passed only one village, but we saw several towns on the wooded sides of the mountain to the left, and numerous others down on the plain to the right. Crossing a rugged ravine, and ascend¬ ing a steep bank, we reached the walls of Shuhba. They are completely ruined, so much so, that the only way into the city is over them, beside a beautiful Roman gateway, now blocked up with rubbish. Having entered, we pro¬ ceeded along a well-paved street—the most perfect speci- HOMAN CITY OF SHUTIBA. 37 men of Roman pavement I had yet seen—to the residence of the chief. In the large area in front of his mansion we found a crowd of eager people, and the first to hold out the hand of welcome was our kind host of the previous night, Sheikh Assad. He introduced us to his brother Fares, and we were then ushered into an apartment where we found comfort, smiling faces, and a hearty welcome. Shuhba is almost entirely a Roman city—the ramparts are Roman, the streets have the old Roman pavement, Roman temples appear in every quarter, a Roman theatre remains nearly perfect, a Roman aqueduct brought water from the distant mountains, inscriptions of the Roman age, though in Greek, are found on every public building. A few of the ancient massive houses, with their stone doors >/ and stone roofs, yet exist, but they are in a great measure concealed or built over with the later and more graceful structures of Greek and Roman origin. Though this city was nearly three miles in circuit, and abounded in splendid buildings, its ancient name is lost, and its ancient history unknown. Its modern name is derived from a princely Mohammedan family which settled here in the seventh century. The Emir Be shir Shehab , the last of the native rulers of Lebanon, was a member of the family, and so also was the Emir Saad-ed-Din, who was murdered in the late massacre at Hasbeiya on the side of Hermon. Beside Shuhba is a little cup-shaped hill which caught my eye the moment I entered the city. On ascending I found it to be the crater of an extinct volcano, deeply cov¬ ered with ashes, cinders, and scoriae—one of the centres, doubtless, of that terrific convulsion which in some remote age heaved up the mountains of Bashan, and spread out the molten lava which cooled into the rock fields of Argob. From the summit I had a near and distinct view of the south-eastern section of Argob. Its features are even wilder and drearier than those of the northern. The rocks are higher, the glens deeper and more tortuous. It looks, as BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. in fact, like the ruins of a country, and yet towns and vih lages are thickly studded over that wilderness of rocks. The mountains which rise behind Shuhba on the east are terraced half-way up, and their tops are clothed with oak forests. The vine and the fig flourished here luxuriantly in the days of Bashan’s glory, winter streams then irrigated and enriched the slopes, and filled the great cisterns in every city; but the Lord said in his wrath, “ I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry, up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools” (Isa. xlii. 15), and now I saw that the words of the Lord were literally and fearfully true. Sheikh Fares and his brother made all requisite arrange¬ ments for our future tour through Bashan. They told us that so long as we travelled in the Druse country we should be perfectly safe; no hand, no tongue, would be lifted against us; a welcome would meet us in every village, and a cordial wish for our welfare follow us on every path. We knew this, for we knew that policy as well as the sacred laws of Oriental hospitality, would restrain the Druses to aid and protect us to the utmost of their power. They warned us, however, that some parts of our proposed journey would be attended with considerable risk. They told us plainly that the Mohammedans could not be trusted, and that if we at¬ tempted to penetrate the Lejah (Argob), all the power of the Druses might not be sufficient to save us from the fury of excited fanatics. We attributed these warnings to the best motives, but we thought them exaggerated. To our cost we afterwards found that they were only too much needed. Sheikh Fares gave us one of the most intelligent and active of his men as guide and companion, he also sup¬ plied horses for our servants and baggage, and a Druse es¬ cort. Thus equipped, we bade farewell to our kind and generous host, and set out on our journey southward. For more than an hour we followed the course of a Roman road along the western declivity of the mountain range, passing DRUSE WOMEN WAILING FOR THE DEAD. 39 several old villages on the right and left. At one of these villages, picturesquely situated in a secluded glen, we saw a long procession of Druse women near a clump of newly made graves. They had a strange unearthly look. The silver horns which they wear upright on their heads, were nearly two feet long, over these were thrown white veils, enveloping the whole person, and reaching to the ground, thus giving them a stature apparently far exceeding that of mortals. As they marched with stately steps round the tombs, they sung a wild chant that now echoed through the whole glen, and now sunk into the mournful cadence of a death-wail. I asked the meaning of this singular and strik¬ ing scene, and was told that eleven of the bravest men in the village had fallen in the late war, these were their graves, and now the principal women of Shuhba had come to comfort and mourn with the wives of the slain; just as, in the time of our Lord, many of the Jews came from Jeru¬ salem “ to comfort Martha and Mary concerning their brother Lazarus ” (John xi. 18-31). Descending a rugged bank into a rich plain, a quarter of an hour’s gallop brought us to Suleim, a small but ancient town, containing the remains of a beautiful temple, and some other imposing buildings. A few Druses, who find ample accommodation in the old houses, gathered round us, and pressed us to accept their hospitality. We were com¬ pelled to decline, and after examining a group of remarkable subterranean cisterns, we mounted again and turned east¬ ward up a picturesque valley to Kunawat. The scenery be¬ came richer and grander as we ascended. The highest peaks of the mountains of Bashan were before us, wooded to their summits. On each side were terraced slopes, broken here and there by a dark cliff or rugged brake, and sprink¬ led with oaks; in the bottom of the dell below, a tiny stream, the first we had seen in Bashan, leaped joyously from rock to rock, while luxuriant evergreens embraced each other over its murmuring waters. From the top of every rising 40 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. ground we looked out over jungle and grove to gray ruins, which here and there reared themselves proudly above dense masses of foliage. Diving into the dell by a path that would try the nerves of a mountain goat, we crossed the streamlet and wound up a rocky bank, among giant oaks and thick underwood, to an old building which crowns a cliff impending over the glen. As we rode up we could ob¬ tain a glimpse of its gray walls here and there through dark openings, but on reaching the broad terrace in front of it, and especially on entering its spacious court, we were struck as much with its extent as with the beauty of its architecture. The doorway is encircled by a broad border of the fruit and foliage of the vine, entwined with roses and lilies, sculptured in bold relief, and with equal accuracy of design and delicacy of execution. The court was surrounded by cloisters sup¬ ported by Ionic columns, but nearly all gone now. On the north side is a projection containing a building at one pe¬ riod used as a church, but probably originally intended for a temple. The ruins of another building, the shrine or sanctuary of the whole, are strewn over the centre of the quadrangle. The graceful pillars, and sculptured pediment, and cornice with its garlands of flowers, lie in shapeless heaps beneath the shade of oak trees, and almost concealed by thorns and thistles. Yes, the curse is visible there, not so painfully visible perhaps as in Western Palestine, where only a few stones or heaps of rubbish mark the site of great cities, yet still visible in crumbling wall and prostrate column, and in those very brambles that weave a beauteous mantle round the fallen monuments of man’s genius and power. “ Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof.”—They are here. And other evidences of the curse were there too. As we approached the ruin not a living creature was visible. The air was still, and the silence of death appeared to reign over glen and mountain. A solitary fox leaped from his den by the great gateway as our feet crossed the threshold, and ADVENTURE WITH BEDAWIN. 41 took refuge in a neighbouring thicket, but this seemed to be the only tenant alike of temple and forest. So it seemed, and so we thought; yet, before we were fifteen minutes among the ruins, three or four wild-looking heads were observed peering over a cairn of stones, and the sunbeams glanced from the barrels of their levelled muskets. We went on with our examinations, and the wild heads and glittering barrels went on increasing. Mahmood, our Druse guide, fortunately saw them, and stepping out from the shade of the portico, where we had left him with the horses, he hinted that it would be well for us to keep near him, and complete our researches as speedily as possible. We soon mounted, and as we defiled through the forest a score of fierce Bedawin, armed with gun and pistol, leaped from their hiding-places, and lined our path. We were startled, * and began to think that our tour was about to come to a speedy and unpleasant termination; but Mahmood rode on in silence, not deigning to turn his head, or direct a single look to these daring outlaws. We followed in close file, and as I brought up the rear, I thought it well to give them the customary salutation, TJllah maJcum , “ God be with you.” Not a man of them returned it; and plainly, as if the words had been written on their scowling faces, I saw that they were cursing inwardly the stern necessity that kept their hands olf us. These we afterwards learned are the chief inhabitants of the mountains of Bashan—reckless, lawless, thieving vagabonds, who live by plunder, and glory in their success as freebooters. The Druses keep them in check, and they know well that a terrible vengeance would be taken on them if they should dare to interfere with any one enjoying Druse protection. How applicable to this section of Pales¬ tine, and to many another, are the words of Isaiah,—“ Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your 'presence , and it is deso* late , as overthrown by strangers ” (i. 7). 42 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. KENATH. A few minutes’ ride brought us to the brow of a hill com¬ manding a view of Kunawat. On the left was a deep dark ravine, and on the sloping ground along its western bank lie the ruins of the ancient city. The wall, still in many places almost perfect, follows the top of the cliffs for nearly a mile, and then sweeps round in a zigzag course, enclosing a space about half a mile wide. The general aspect of the city is very striking—temples, palaces, churches, theatres, and massive buildings whose original use we cannot tell, are grouped together in picturesque confusion; while be¬ yond the walls, in the glen, on the summits and sides of wooded peaks, away in the midst of oak forests, are clus¬ ters of columns and massive towers, and lofty tombs. The leading streets are wide and regular, and the roads radiat¬ ing from the city gates are unusually numerous and spa¬ cious. While the Israelites were engaged in the conquest of the country east of the Jordan, Moses tells us that “ Kobah went and took Kenath , and the villages thereof, and called it Kobah, after his own name” (Kum. xxxii. 42). Kenatfy was now before us. The name was changed into Canatha by the Greeks; and the Arabs have made it Kunawat. During the Roman rule it was one of the principal cities east of the Jordan; and at a very early period it had a large Christian population, and became the seat of a bishopric. It appears to have been almost wholly rebuilt about the commencement of our era, and is mentioned by most of those Greek and Roman writers who treat of the geography or history of Syria. At the Saracenic conquest Kenath fell into the hands of the Mohammedans, and then its doom was sealed. There are no traces of any lengthened Mohamme¬ dan occupation, for there is not a single mosque in the whole town. The heathen temples were all converted into churches, and two or three new churches were built; but THE RUINS OF KENATH. 43 none of these buildings were ever used as mosques, as such buildings were in most of the other great cities of Syria. We spent the afternoon and some hours of the next day in exploring Kenath. Many of the ruins are beautiful and interesting. The highest part of the site was the aristo¬ cratic quarter. Here is a noble palace, no less than three temples, and a hippodrome once profusely adorned with statues. In no other city of Palestine did I see so many statues as there are here. Unfortunately they are all muti¬ lated; but fragments of them — heads, legs, arms, torsos, with equestrian figures, lions, leopards, and dogs—meet one on every side. A colossal head of Ashteroth, sadly broken, lies before a little temple, of which probably it was once the chief idol. The crescent moon which gave the goddess the name Carnaim (“two-horned”), is on her brow. I was much interested in this fragment, because it is a visible illustration of an incidental allusion to this ancient goddess in the very earliest historic reference to Bashan. We read in Gen. xiv. 5, that the kings of the East, on their way to Sodom, “ smote the Rephaims in Aslitcroth-Karnaim .” May not this be the very city ? We found on examination that the whole area in front of the palace has long ranges of lofty arched cisterns beneath it, something like the temple court at Jerusalem. These seemed large enough to supply the wants of the city during the summer. They were filled by means of an aqueduct excavated in the bank of the ra¬ vine, and connected probably with some spring in the moun¬ tains. The tombs of Kenath are similar to those of Pal¬ myra—high square towers divided into stories, each story containing a single chamber, with recesses along the sides for bodies. About a quarter of a mile west of the city is a beautiful peripteral temple of the Corinthian order, built on an artificial platform. Many of the columns have fallen, and the walls are much shattered; but enough remains to make this one of the most picturesque ruins in the whole country. 44 : BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. Early in the morning we set out to examine the ruins in the glen, and to scale a high cliff on its opposite hank, where we had noticed a singular round tower and some heavy fragments of walls. The glen appears to have been an ciently laid out as a park or pleasure ground. We found terraced walks, and little fountains now dry, and pedestals for statues, a miniature temple, and a rustic opera, whose benches are hewn in the side of the cliff; a Greek inscrip¬ tion in large characters round the front of the stage, tells us that it was erected by a certain Marcus Lusias, at his own expense, and given to his fellow-citizens. From the opera a winding stair-case, hewn in the rock, leads up to the round tower on the summit of the cliff. We ascended, and were well repaid alike for our early start and toil. The tower it¬ self has little interest; it is thirty yards in circuit, and now about twenty feet high; the masonry is colossal and of great antiquity. Beside it are the remains of a castle or palace, built of bevelled stones of enormous size. The doors are all of stone, and some of them are ornamented with panels and fretted mouldings, and wreaths of fruit and flowers sculptured in high relief. In one door I observed a place for a massive lock or bar; perhaps one of those “ brazen bars ” to which allusion is made by the sacred writ¬ ers (i Kings iv. 13). But it was the glorious view which these mins command that mainly charmed us. As I sat down on a great stone on the brow of the ravine, my eye wandered over one of the most beautiful panoramas I ever beheld. From many a spot amid the lofty peaks of Leba¬ non I had looked on wilder and grander scenery. Standing on the towering summit of the castle at Palmyra, ruins more extensive and buildings far more magnificent lay at my feet. From the Cyclopean walls of the Temple of the Sun at Baal- bec I saw prouder monuments of man’s genius, and more exquisite memorials of his taste and skill. But never before had I looked on a scene which nature, and art, and destruc¬ tion had so combined to adorn. It was not the wild grand- SHEPHERDS LEADING THEIR FLOCKS. 45 eur of Lebanon, with beetling cliff and snow-capped peak; it was not the flat and featureless Baalbec, with its Cyclo¬ pean walls and unrivalled columns; it was not the blasted desolation of Palmyra, where white ruins are thickly strewn over a white plain. Here were hill and dale, wooded slopes and wild secluded glens, frowning cliffs and battlemented heights, moss-grown ruins and groups of tapering columns springing up from the dense foliage of the oaks of Bashan. Hitherto I had been struck with the nakedness of Syrian ruins. They are half-buried in dust, or they are strewn over mounds of rubbish, or they lie prostrate on the bare gravelly soil; and, though the shafts are graceful, the capitals chaste, the fretwork of frieze and cornice rich, yet, as pictures, they contrast poorly with the ivy-mantled abbeys of England, and the nature-clothed castles of the Rhine. Amid the hills of Bashan, however, the scene is changed. The fresh fo¬ liage hides defects, and enhances the beauty of stately portico and massive wall, while luxuriant creepers twine round the pillars, and wreathe the volutes of the capitals with garlands. SHEPHERDS LEADING THEIR FLOCKS. As we sat and looked, almost spell-bound, the silent hill¬ sides around us were in a moment filled with life and sound. The shepherds led their flocks forth from the gates of the city. They were in full view, and we watched them and listened to them with no little interest. Thousands of sheep and goats were there, grouped in dense, confused masses. The shepherds stood together until an came out. Then they separated, each shepherd taking a different path, and uttering as he advanced a shrill peculiar call. The sheep heard them. At first the masses swayed and moved, as if shaken by some internal convulsion; then points struck out in the direction taken by the shepherds; these became long¬ er and longer until the confused masses were resolved into long, living streams, flowing after their leaders. Such a 46 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. sight was not new to me, still it had lost none of its interest. It was perhaps one of the most vivid illustrations which human eyes could witness of that beautiful discourse of our Lord recorded by John—“And the sheep hear the shep¬ herd’s voice: and he calletli his own sheep by name, and leadetli them out, and when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow: for they know not the voice of strangers” (x. 3-5). The shepherds themselves had none of that peaceful and placid aspect which is generally associated with pastoral life and habits. They looked more like warriors marching to the battle-field—a long gun slung from the shoulder, a dagger and heavy pistols in the belt, a light battle-axe or iron-headed club in the hand. Such were their equipments; and their fierce flashing eyes and scowling countenances showed but too plainly that they were prepared to use their weapons at any moment. They were all Arabs— not the true sons of the desert, but a mongrel race living in the mountains, and acting as shepherds to the Druses while feeding their own flocks. Their costume is different from that of the Druses, and ahnost the same as that of the desert Arabs—a coarse shirt of blue calico bound round the waist by a leathern girdle, a loose robe of goats’ hair, and a hand¬ kerchief thrown over the head and fastened by a fillet of camels’ hair—such is their whole costume, and it is filthy besides, and generally in rags. THE DKTTSES. From Kunawat we saw two large deserted villages higher up the mountains, and a large deserted town below on the borders of the plain. These we had not time to visit. The hospitable Druses repeatedly urged us to spend another day with them; and we felt a strong inclination to linger in this old city, for there was much to interest us, not in the ruins merely, but likewise in the modern inhabitants. When THE DRUSES. 47 squatting in tlie evening in the large reception room of the sheikh’s house we observed with some surprise that though it was often crowded with Druses, old and young, not a man of them tasted coffee or tobacco except Mahmood. They all belonged to the order of Ukala , or “ initiatedand they are Nazirites in the widest sense. Kunawat, in fact, is almost a holy city for the Druses; their great religious chief resides here, and this place is consequently the centre of power and intrigue. They are a remarkable people. Their relig¬ ion is a mystery; their manners are simple and patriarchal; their union and courage are proverbial; and though small in number they form the most powerful party in Syria. Whenever danger threatens, or whenever they find it ex¬ pedient to resist the demands or exactions of the Porte, they congregate in the Hauran, and no force has ever been found sufficient to dislodge or subdue them. Here they de¬ fied Ibrahim Pasha, and destroyed the flower of the Egyp¬ tian army; here they have once and again defeated the Turkish troops, and driven them back with disgrace to the very walls of Damascus. Physically they are the finest race in Western Asia—tall, stalwart, hardy mountaineers. Accustomed from childhood to vigorous exercise, and trained in athletic sports and the use of arms, they form a body of brave and daring “irregulars” such as the world could scarcely match. But the grand secret of their power is their union. They act together as one man. Brotherly union in peace and war, in prosperity and adversity, is the chief article of their religious creed. As regards religion they are divided into two classes, the Initiated and the Ig¬ norant. With the former the rites, ceremonies, and doc¬ trines remain a profound secret. The holy books are pre¬ served and read by them alone. They assemble in chapels every Thursday evening, refusing admission to all others. What they do then and there is unknown; but there is rea¬ son to believe that these meetings are quite as much of a political as a religious character. 3 43 BASHAN and its giant cities. The Druse sheikhs form a hereditary nobility, and pre¬ serve with great tenacity all the pride and state of their order. They receive and entertain travellers with profuse hospitality, and no compensation in money can be offered to them. To strangers, under ordinary circumstances, they are obliging, communicative, and faithful. In time of peace they are industrious and courteous; but in war they are noted alike for daring courage and unsparing ferocity. When among this strange and primitive people in Bashan, I felt at once that I was out of the beaten track of tourists, where one can pitch his tent, picket his horses, cook his provisions, and march again, caring for nobody, and nobody caring for him. Here all is different. We are among a people of patriarchal manners and genuine patriarchal hos¬ pitality. We were looked on and treated as welcome guests. We could not pass town or village without being entreated to accept hospitality. “Will not my lord descend while his servants prepare a little food ?” is the urgent language of every village sheikh. The coffee is always on the hearth; a kid or lamb—representative of the old “ fatted calf”—is at hand, and can be “ got ready” with all the despatch of ancient days. Food for servants, “provender” for horses, accommodation for all, are given as matters of course. In travelling through Bashan one fancies himself carried back to the days when the patriarchs sat in their tent-doors, ready to welcome every visitor and hail every passer-by. III. “And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.” This text was constantly in my mind while I wandered through Bashan. In riding down from the ruins of Kenath, among the mountains, to the ruins of Suweideh at their base, it struck me that the beautiful words in which Cow- FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 49 per describes modern Sicily, are strikingly descriptive of modern Palestine. “ Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now Lie scattered where the shapely column stood. Her palaces are dust. In all her streets The voice of singing, and the sprightly chord Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show Suffer a syncope and solemn pause ; While God performs upon the trembling stage Of his own works his dreadful part alone.” We might begin, “ Alas for Palestine !” and go on through the whole passage; for Palestine’s palaces are dust, her stately columns fallen, her streets silent, her fields desolate, while God alone performs his dreadful part, fulfilling to the very letter the prophetic curses pronounced upon the land long, long centuries ago. WONDERFUL FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. We rode along the line of the Poman road, at least as closely as branches of the great old oaks, and jungles of thorns and bushes, would permit; for “ the highways lie waste ” (Isa. xxxiii. 8). Every opening to the right and left revealed ruins;—now a tomb in a quiet nook; now a temple in a lonely forest glade; now a shapeless and nameless heap of stones and fallen columns; and now, through a long green vista, the shattered walls and towers of an ancient city. The country is filled with ruins. In every direction to which the eye turns, in every spot on which it rests, ruins are visible—so truly, so wonderfully have the prophecies been fulfilled: “ I will destroy your high places , and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation ” (Lev. xxvi. 30). “ The palaces shall be forsaken” (Isa. xxxii. 14). “I will make your cities icaste. The land shall be utterly spoiled ” (Isa. xxiv. 3). Many other ruins, doubtless, lie concealed among the forests, buried beneath giant oaks, or shrouded by lux¬ uriant brambles. Judging by the “thorns and thistles” which hem in every path, and half conceal every ruin, one 50 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. would suppose that Bashan had received a double portion of the curse. The mountains of Bashan, though not generally very steep, are rugged and rocky; yet everywhere on their sides I saw the remains of old terraces—along every slope, up every bank, from the bottom of the deepest glen, where the oleander bends over the tiny streamlet, to the highest peak on which the clouds of heaven sleep, cradled on winter snows. These tell of former toil and industry; and so do the heaps of loose stones that have been collected off the soil, and piled up in the corners of the little fields. In the days of Bashan’s glory, fig-trees, and olives, and pomegran¬ ates, were ranged along those terraces; and vines hung down in rich festoons over their broken walls. But now Bashan has shaken off its fruits. “ For a nation is come up upon my land , strong , and without number. He hath laid my vine waste , and barked my fig-tree ; he hath made it clean bare , and cast it away. The field is wasted , the land mourneth. The new wine is dried up , the oil lan¬ guished. The vine is dried up , the fig-tree languished • the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also , and the apple-tree ; even all the trees of the field are withered / because joy is withered away from the sons of men ” (Joel i. 6-12). The scenery is still rich. It is rich in the foliage of the evergreen oak—the “ oak of Bashan rich in numbers of evergreen shrubs; rich in green pastures. It is picturesque too, and occasionally even grand; for the glens are deep and winding, and the outlines of the intervening ridges varied with many a dark cliff and wooded bank. The whole mountain range is of volcanic origin, and the peaks shoot up, conical or cup-shaped, forming long serried lines. One thing struck me as peculiar. The rocks are black, the soil is black, the buildings are all black. It might be thought that the landscape would thus have a gloomy aspect; and it would have, were it not for the fresh green grass of the glades and meadows, and the brilliant foliage of the oak PROPHECY CHANGED TO HISTORY. 51 forests, which often glitter beneath the blaze of sunshine like forests of prisms. I confess it was with feelings of awe I looked from time to time out over those desolate, but still beautiful slopes, to- that more desolate plain. I knew what caused the desola¬ tion. The silence, too, awed me yet more, for it was pro¬ found. The voice of nature itself was hushed, and not a leaf in the forest rustled. There is always something cheer¬ ful, something reviving to the flagging spirit, in the unceas¬ ing murmur of a great city, now rising and now falling on the breeze, as one approaches it or passes by; and in the continuous hum of a rural scene, where the call of the herd, and the whistle of the ploughman, and the roll of the wag¬ gon, and the bleatings of the flock, and the lowing of the kine, melt into one of nature’s choruses. Here cities stud¬ ded the whole country, but the stillness of death reigned in them; there was no ploughman in the field, no shepherd on the hill-side, no flock on the pasture, no waggon, no way¬ farer on the road. Yet there was a time when the land teemed with an industrious, a bustling, and a joyous popu¬ lation. At that time prophets wrote: “ Your highways shall be desolate ” (Ley. xxvi. 22). “ The wayfaring man ceaseth. The earth mourneth and languisheth ” (Isa. xxxiii. 8). “ The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled / for the Lord hath spolcen this word. Therefore hath the curse, devoured the land. Therefore the inhabit¬ ants of the land are consumed , and few men left. Every hoi*°e is shut up. The mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation , and the gate is smitten with de¬ struction ” (Isa. xxiv. 3-12). Many of the people of those days, doubtless, thought the prophets were but gloomy dreamers. Just as many in our own day regard their writ¬ ings as gorgeous fancy pictures of Eastern poets; but with my own eyes I saw that time has changed eveiy prediction into a historic fact. I saw now, and I saw at every step through Bashan, that the visions of the prophets were not 52 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. delusions; that they were not even, as some modem critics suppose, highly wrought figures, intended perhaps to fore¬ shadow in faint outline a few leading facts of the country’s future story. I saw that they were, one and all, graphic and detailed descriptions of real events, which the Divine Spirit opened up to the prophet’s eye through the long vista of ages. The language is, doubtless, beautiful, the style is poetic, and gorgeous Eastern imagery is often employed to give sublimity to the visions of the seer, and to the words of the Lord; but this does not take away one iota from their truth, nor does it detract in the slightest degree from their graphic power. Were the same holy men inspired now by the same Divine Spirit to describe the actual state of Palestine, they could not possibly select language more appropriate or more graphic than that found in their own predictions written thousands of years ago. This is no vague statement made at random, or penned for effect. God forbid I should ever pen a single line rashly or thoughtlessly on such a topic. It is the result of years of study and years of travel. It is the result of a calm and thorough comparison of each prophecy of Scripture regard¬ ing Palestine’s history and doom with its fulfilment, upon the sj)ot. I had no preconceived theory of prophetic in¬ terpretation to defend. My mind was not biassed by a false faith in literality on the one side, nor by a fatal scep¬ ticism regarding prophetic reality on the other. Oppor¬ tunities were afforded me of examining evidence, of test¬ ing witnesses, of seeing with my own eyes the truth or the falsehood of Bible predictions. I embraced these op¬ portunities, as God gave them, and to the utmost of my power and the best of my ability. I examined deliberately, cautiously, and, I believe, conscientiously. My examina¬ tions extended over all Palestine, and over most other Bible lands; and now I thank God that, with the fullest and deepest conviction—conviction that all the ingenuity of modern criticism, and all the plausibility of modern scien- DESTRUCTION of trees. 53 tific scepticism can never overthrow, could never shake—I can take up and re-echo the grand, the cheering statement of our blessed Lord, and proclaim my belief before the world, that “ Till heaven and earth pass , one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law , till cdl be ful¬ filled.” I observed around Kenath, and especially in the thickest parts of the forest on the way to Suweideh, that many of the largest and finest oak trees were burned almost through near the ground, and that a vast number of huge trunks were lying black and charred among the stones and brush¬ wood. I wondered at what appeared to be a piece of wan¬ ton and toilsome destruction, and I asked Mahmood if he could explain it. “The Bedawin do it,” he replied. “They make large quantities of charcoal for the Damascus market, as well as for home use; and that they may get more easily at the branches, which are the only parts of the tree used, they kindle a fire round the roots of the largest oaks, burn them deeply, and then the first blast of wind blows them over, and the boughs are chopped off with little axes.” “ But,” I said, “ in this way they destroy vast quantities of splendid timber.” “ True; but they do not care. All they want is a present supply, and they try to get it in the easiest way possible.” “They will soon make your mountains as bare as Jebel esh-Sheikh, and where will you go for fireAvood and char¬ coal then? You are fools to permit such needless Avaste and destruction.” “ O my lord ?” said Mahmood—and there Avas a degree of solemnity and pathos both in his tone and in his Avords— “O my lord! it is you Franks alone Avho have Avisdom to look to the future, and poAver to provide for it. We ! what can we do in this unhappy country? We are all wander¬ ers—here to-day, away to-morroAV. Should we attempt to preserve these oaks, or to plant vineyards and olives, or to 54 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. spend labour and money on fields or houses, we would only be working: out our own ruin. The Bedawin would be at- tracted in clouds round the tempting fruit; and the Turks would come, drive us out with their cannon, and seize our whole property. No, no! We can have no permanent in¬ terest in the ground. We can only hold it as we have got it, by the sword; and the poorer it looks, the less will our enemies covet it.” It was a sad picture, and, unfoitunately, a true one. By such mad acts, and by still more wanton destruction in times of war, and of party and family struggles, fruit-trees and forests have been almost annihilated in Palestine. And would it not seem as if the old prophets had been able to look down through the mists of long centuries, and to see the progress and the effects of this very mode of ruin and desolation, clearly as I saw it in Bashan? Isaiah thus wrote: “ The defenced city shall be desolate, and the habita¬ tion forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof. When the boughs thereof are withered they shall be broken off; the women come and set them on fire ; for it is a people of no understanding ” (Isa. xxvii. 10, 11). Descending from Kenath, I saw, about a mile to the right, the deserted town of Atyl. Burckhardt and one or two others visited it, but I was compelled from want of time to pass it by. It contains some fine buildings, among which are two beautiful temples nearly perfect. One of them was built in the fourteenth year of the Emperor Antonine (a.d. 150), as a Greek inscription tells us. Like Kenath, this city was in a great measure rebuilt during the Roman age, and consequently there are not many of the very ancient massive houses now remaining. Further down on the plain I saw Rimeh and Welgha, two deserted towns. Every view we got in Bashan was an ocular demonstration of the literal fulfilment of the curse pronounced on the land by Moses, more than three thousand years ago: “If ye will RUINS OF SUWEIDEH. 55 not hearken unto me , and will not do all these command- ments . I will scatter you among the heathen; and your land shall be desolate , and your cities waste ” (Lev. xxvi. 14, 33). THE Bums OF SUWEIDEH. Emerging from the oak forests we found ourselves on a low bare ridge which juts out from the mountains some dis¬ tance into the plain. It is divided down the centre by a deep rocky ravine, through which a winter torrent flows. The portion of this ridge south of the ravine is covered with the ruins of Suweideh. We were riding up to them when my attention was attracted by a singular monument stand¬ ing alone on a commanding site, a few hundred yards north of the city. It is a square tower, about thirty feet high. The sides are ornamented with Doric semi-columns support¬ ing a plain cornice, and between them, on panels, are shields, helmets, and trophies of anus sculptured in relief. A legend, inscribed in Greek and Palmyrene, states that “ Odainatus , son of Annelos , built this monument to Chamrate , his wife” Few and simple are the words. The story of Chamrate is unknown. What were her jiri- vate virtues, or public services, we cannot tell. Strange that this monument should stand as the tribute of a hus¬ band’s admiration and love, when the histories of husband, wife, and native city have passed away for long centuries! It is worthy of note that Odainatus was the name of the celebrated husband of the still more celebrated Zenobia. The Palmyrene inscription on the monument would seem to indicate that its founder was a native of the desert city. Perhaps the great Odainatus himself, during his warlike expedition into Syria, may have thus celebrated the vir¬ tues of a former wife. Crossing the ravine by a Roman bridge, we rode up to Suweideh, and under the guidance of the sheikh’s son, a fine manly boy of some fourteen years, splendidly dressed BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. in a scarlet robe, and armed with silver-hilted sword and dagger, we proceeded to examine in detail the wide-spread ruins. We visited a Corinthian peristyle; a Roman gate¬ way at the end of a straight street, nearly a mile in length, and paved throughout; the ruins of a temple of the age of Trajan; the remains of a very large church, within whose crumbling walls is the modern Christian burying-ground; a mosque, the roof of which was once supported on marble columns, doubtless rifled from an old church, or a still older temple. Then we inspected the ruins of a fountain, of an opera, and of a large theatre; and we saw two immense reservoirs, anciently supplied by aqueducts which brought water from the neighbouring mountains. Verily the destroyer has been long at work in this old city ! Here are ruins heaped upon the top of ruins; temples transformed into churches; churches again transformed into mosques, and mosques now dreary and desolate. Inscriptions were here, side by side, recording each transformation, and showing how the same building was dedicated first to Jove, then to St. George, and finally to Mohammed. We walked on after our little guide, winding among vast heaps of ruins— ruins, nothing but ruins, and desolation, and rent walls, and fallen columns. The modern dwellings are just the lower stories of the ancient houses, which have been cleared out and occupied; and the whole site has become so deeply covered with fallen structures, that the people seem, for the most part, to be residing in caves. Thirty or forty boys, with a fair sprinkling of men, fol¬ lowed us, shouting and dancing in high glee at the strange figures of the Franks, the first, probably, that most of them had seen. We should have been seriously incommoded by their attentions, had it not been for the threats of our manly little guide, accompanied now and then by a volley of stones at the boys who ventured too near. As we passed the houses, too, and the cavern-like court-yards, portly women and coy girls peeped at us with one eye over the corners of ANCIENT PROSPERITY. 57 their long white veils, and laughingly pointed out to each other some wondrous oddity about our dress. Our hats—- or kettles , as they persisted in calling them.—attracted most attention. In fact, we created among the quiet people of Suweideh quite as great a sensation as a party of Arabs with their bronzed faces, flame-coloured turbans, and flow¬ ing robes would do in Cheapside or in the High Street of Edinburgh. bio city in Bashan—not even Bozrah, its Roman capital— surpasses Suweideh in the extent of its ruins; and yet, strange to say, its ancient name is unknown, and there is no mention of it in history previous tc the Crusades. It seems to have suffered more from time and from the chances of war than any other city in the whole country. Inscriptions found on its monuments show that it was a flourishing city long before the conquest of Bashan by the Romans in a.d. 105, and that it carried on an extensive trade with Egypt and other countries down to the middle of the fourth century. William of Tyre, the historian of the Crusades, says of the region round the city: “ It is rich in the choicest products of nature,—wine, corn, and oil; the climate is salubrious and the air pure.” So late, therefore, as the twelfth century the country was prosperous and the city populous. We can see the evidence of this still. The hill-sides are every¬ where terraced, and plain and mountain alike bear the marks of former careful cultivation. The terraces are ad¬ mirably fitted for the growth of the vine, the fig, and the olive; and the rich plain even now bears crops of grain whose luxuriance is proverbial. Nowhere in Bashan, no¬ where in all Syria, did I see such convincing evidences of the surpassing richness and vast resources of the soil, as around Suweideh. One would suppose that Moses had his eye upon it when he penned these words—words equally beautiful and true: “The Lord thy G-od bringeth thee into a good land , a land of brooks of water , of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys and hills / a land of 58 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. wheat , and barley , and vines , awe? fig trees , awe? pomegran¬ ates / a land of oil olive , awe? honey / a land loherein thou shall eat bread without scarceness , ?Aow s/ea?? wo? ?ac& awy- thing in it ” (Dent. viii. 7-9). And one would suppose, too, looking at the Bible and looking at the land—comparing prophetic description with authentic history and present reality—that the prophets must surely have read the long and sad history of Palestine as I read it, and that they must surely have seen the pres¬ ent utter ruin and terrible desolation of this part of it as I saw it, and that they must surely have heard from the lips of the people the story of their oppression and their dangers as I heard it, before they could possibly have written such graphic words as these: U I will make your cities waste , and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation. I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it ” (Ley. xxvi. 31, 32). “The generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you , and the stranger that shall come from a far land , shall say , when they see the plagues of that land , and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it , T Therefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?” (Deut. xxix. 22, 24). These are only a few, a very few, of multitudes of similar predictions. And, let it be observed, the predictions are not made in mere general terms, capable of a wide rendering and a somewhat vague reference. They are special, graphic, and detailed; and their fulfilment is evident as it is com¬ plete. The fields are waste, the roads deserted, the cities abandoned, the houses without inhabitants, the sanctuaries desecrated, the vineyards, orchards, and groves destroyed. And the land is desolated by the “ violence ” and the folly “ of all them that dwelt therein f —of the Turks, its nominal owners, and of the Arabs, its periodical “ spoilersf who come up “ upon all high places through the wilderness .” “ Every one that passeth by it is astonished ” at its deserted HOSPITALITY OF A DRUSE CHIEF. 59 cities and waste fields; and “ the stranger that comes from a far country ,”—the thoughtful student of history, the thoughtful observer, the thoughtful reader of his Bible,— cannot refrain from exclaiming, as he rides through Bashan, “ Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land f ” The noble Druse chief of Suweideh, Sheikh Waked el- Hamdan, was absent on our arrival, but in the evening he returned, and entertained us with a hospitality that would have done honor to the patriarch Job, who is represented, by a local tradition, as having been the first prince of Su¬ weideh. When the evening banquet was over, the whole elders of the town crowded into the large reception room of Sheikh Waked, and squatted in concentric circles round the blazing fire. We occupied the seat of honour, on a raised dais, beside the sheikh. Rings of white turbans, the distin¬ guishing head-dress of the Druses, appeared round and round us, here and there broken by the crimson kefiyeh of a Bedawy, or the black kerchief of a Christian. An Egyp¬ tian sat by the fire preparing and distributing coffee, while an Abyssinian slave behind him pounded the fragrant berries in a huge oak mortar, beating time with the pestle, which bore some resemblance, in form and size, to an Indian war- club. Each guest, on drinking, rose to his knee, touched forehead and lips with his right hand, and bowed to the sheikh; then, on sitting down again, he made another similar salam, intended for the rest of the company, and those near him returned it, with a muttered prayer that the refreshment might do him good. It was an interesting scene, and was probably not unlike the receptions of guests in the mansion of Job and in the tents of Abraham. We talked of politics, of war, and of poetry; and most of the company took part in the conversation with a respect¬ ful propriety and a good sense that surprised me. The po¬ etry of the Arabs has some striking peculiarities. Their poets often describe the virtues and achievements of distin¬ guished men in short stanzas, containing two or four mea- 60 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. sures; and the beauty of the rhythm and boldness of the imagery are sometimes of a high order. There is a species of composition which they often try, and in which many are adepts. It is difficult for those who are ignorant of the pe¬ culiar structure of the Arabic language to understand its na¬ ture. A word is taken, and, by changing its form, a series of distinct acts is described, each act being expressed by a differ¬ ent inflexion of the root. One word will thus occur six, eight, or ten times in a stanza, with the addition of a prefix or suffix, or the insertion of an intermediate letter, or an alteration in a vowel point; and each change conveys a new and definite meaning. The warlike achievements of a favorite leader are not unfrequently graphically described in this manner by skilful and varied inflexions of his own name. The He¬ brew scholar will find something analogous to this in Ja¬ cob’s play upon the word Gilead , in Genesis xxxi. 46-48 ; but the best examples of the kind in Scripture are given in Hosea, chapters i. and ii., on the word Jezreel. The morning we left Suweideh dawned gloomy and threatening. A heavy thunder-storm had passed over the place during the night. Never before in Syria had I seen rain heavier or lightning more vivid. For an hour or more the flashes seemed to form one continuous stream, lighting up the ruins of the city, and the glens and rocks of the neighbouring mountains with an intense though lurid blaze. In the morning, dark, lowering clouds still swept along the surface of the ground, and enveloped the whole mountains. The air was cold, and the smart showers which fell at inter¬ vals made it feel still colder; but as the wind was high, and veering round to the north, we knew the day would be fine ; for the Scripture statement still holds good in Scripture lands,—“Fair weather cometh out of the north” (Job xxxvii. 22). A few minutes’ ride down the rocky slope of the ridge on which Suweideh stands brought us into the plain of Bashan, properly so called. I had heard much of its richness. I “the highways are desolate.” 61 ba6 beard of the wonderful productiveness of that deep, black, loamy soil, of the luxuriance of its grass, and of its teeming crops of grain; but up to the moment I first set foot on it, I thought—indeed I was fully persuaded—that a large amount of exaggeration must run through all those glowing descriptions. Now I saw that there had been no exaggeration, and that no part of Palestine could be com¬ pared in fertility to the plain of Bashan. No wonder the pastoral tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh made choice of this noble country, preferring its wooded hills and grassy plains to the comparatively bleak and bare range west of the Jordan, visible from the heights of Moab. The plain extended in one unbroken expanse, flat as the surface of a lake, for fifty miles, to the base of Hermon. Little hills— some conical, some cup-shaped — rise at intervals like isl¬ ands, and over their surface, and sometimes round their bases, are scattered fragments of porous lava, intermixed with basalt of a firmer texture; but the rest of the soil is entirely free from stones. On or beside these tells many of the ancient towns stand; and their black walls, houses, and towers, shattered by time and the horrors of war, often look in the distance like natural cliffs. The Roman road which anciently connected Damascus and Bostra, passing close to some of the chief cities of Ba¬ shan, lay a few hundred yards to the right of our path. Its line can still be traced,—indeed the old pavement is in many places quite perfect, as much so as any part of the Appian way; and yet, in a ride of some twenty miles this day along that route, we did not meet, we did not see, a single human being. The “ way-faring man ” has “ ceased ” here, and “ the highways are desolate.” Before reaching the town of Ary, about eight miles from Suweideh, we passed two vil¬ lages, and we saw four others a little way up the mountain¬ side, on the left,—all of which contain a few families of Druses; while away on the plain, to the right, no less than five towns were in view in one moment, entirely deserted. 62 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. The words of Jeremiah are surely fulfilled: U I beheld , ana lo, there was no man . I beheld , and , lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness , and all the cities thereof icere broken down at the presence of the Lord , and by his fierce anger ” (iv. 25, 26). The town of Ary stands on a rocky tell. It is about a mile in circuit; hut there are no buildings of any import¬ ance ; nor are there any traces of wealth or architectural beauty. It appears to have been a plain country town, which became the seat of a bishopric about the fourth cen¬ tury, as we learn from the old ecclesiastical records. We had ascended the hill-side, and were quietly occupied in examining the ruins of what seemed to have been a church, when a party of the inhabitants came up, headed by their sheikh, and invited us to accept of their hospitality. They would take no excuse. It would be a disgrace to their village if they would permit us to pass; it would be an insult to their chief if we should attempt it. They en¬ treated as Abraham would have done at his tent-door, or Lot at the gate of Sodom. We entered the sheikh’s house; and while coffee was being prepared, the whole household—• in fact a great part of the town—got into a state of commo¬ tion. A woman came into the apartment with a large cop¬ per vessel in her hand, —took “ a measure ” of flour out of a huge earthen jar in the corner, poured on water, and com¬ menced the process of “ kneading unleavened cakes” A moment afterwards we heard a confused noise of cackling: and screaming; then a flock of hens flew in terror past the open door, followed by a troop of women and boys in full chase. We saw they had resolved to make us “a feast.” The flocks were at a distance, and it would take hours to obtain a lamb or a kid,—fowls must therefore serve as a substitute. We were fully aware of the despatch of Arab cooks, and that in this respect they were not surpassed even by the patriarchal; but our time was too precious to be wasted in mere cerSmony, however interesting. Firmly, MAGNIFICENT PANORAMA. 63 "but respectfully, we assured our worthy host tnac we must proceed at once to Bozrah. To the evident regret of the stately sheikh, and the unbounded astonishment of crowds of his people, who gathered round us, and who could not understand how it was possible for any polite or respecta¬ ble person to decline proffered hospitality, we mounted our norses and rode off. Our route lay near the base of the mountains of Bashan, which rose up in dark frowning masses on our left, most of their conical peaks wooded to the summit. Kuleib, the highest of the whole range, was in full view, its top covered with snow. Low spurs here shot far out into the plain, having between them rich vales covered with luxuriant pastures. Through the midst of each vale, between high alluvial banks, now flowed a tiny winter stream. Passing the villages of Mujeimir and Wetr, we gained the crest of a ridge commanding a noble view over the plain southward. We drew bridle for a few minutes, to examine more mi¬ nutely this magnificent panorama. On the west, south, and south-east, the plain was unbounded. Every section of it to which we turned our eyes was thickly dotted with large towns and villages; yet, with the exception of a few spots near us, there was no cultivation, and we did not see a single tree or bush on that vast expanse. Mahmood pointed out the more important cities. Due southward, some five miles distant, a broad black belt extended far across the green plain; in the midst of it rose the massive towers and battlements of a great castle; while other towers and taper¬ ing minarets shot up here and there. That was JBozrah , the ancient stronghold of Bashan, the capital of the Roman province, and the first city in Syria captured by the Sara¬ cens. We saw Jemurrin, Keires, Burd, Ghusam, and a host of others on the right and left—all deserted. Low in a val¬ ley, on the sout-east, lay the wide-spread ruins and ancient Ni colossal houses of Kerioth , one of the old cities of the plain of Moab (Jer. xlviii. 24); while away beyond it, on the hor- 64 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. izon, rose a graceful conical hill, crowned with the castle of Salcah , which Joshua mentions as the eastern limit of Bashan, and of the kingdom of the giant Og (Josh. xiii. 11 , 12 ). This southern section of Bashan is richer in historic and sacred associations than the northern. I looked at it now spread out before me with feelings such as I cannot de¬ scribe. Those large deserted cities, that noble but desolate plain,—the whole history of the country for four thousand years, from the Bephaim down to the Osmanlis, is written there. The massive dwellings show the simple style and pon¬ derous workmanship of Giant architects. Jewish masonry and names; Greek inscriptions and temples; Homan roads; Christian churches; Saracenic mosques; Turkish desola¬ tions ;—all, all are there; and all alike are illustrations of the accuracy and confirmations of the truth of the Bible. IV. BOZRAH. “ And judgment is come.upon Bozrah.”— Jer. xlviii. 24. I spent three days at Bozrah. There is much to be seen there,—much of Scriptural, and still more of historical and antiquarian interest; and I tried to see it all. Bozrah was a strong city, as its name implies— Bozrah , “ fortress,”—and a magnificent city; and numerous vestiges of its ancient strength and magnificence remain to this day. Its ruins are nearly five miles in circuit; its walls are lofty and mas¬ sive ; and its castle is one of the largest and strongest for¬ tresses in Syria. Among the ruins I saw two theatres, six temples, and ten or twelve churches and mosques; besides palaces, baths, fountains, aqueducts, triumphal arches, and other structures almost without number. The old Bozrites must have been men of great taste and enterprise as well as BEDAWIN ROBBERS. 65 wealth. Some of the buildings I saw there would grace the proudest capital of modern Europe. It is a work of no little toil to explore Bozrah. The streets are mostly covered, and in some places completely blocked up, with fallen buildings and heaps of rubbish. Over these I had to climb, risking my limbs among loose stones. The principal structures, too, are so much encum¬ bered with broken columns and the piled-up ruins of roofs and pediments, that one has great difficulty in getting at them, and discovering their points of interest or beauty. In trying to copy a Greek inscription over the door of a church, I clambered to the top of a wall. My weight caused it to topple over, and it fell with a terrible crash. It was only by a sudden and hazardous leap I escaped, and barely es¬ caped, being buried beneath it. And we were hourly ex¬ posed to danger of another and still more pressing kind. Bozrah had once a population of a hundred thousand souls and more; when I was there its whole inhabitants comprised just twenty families ! These lived huddled together in the lower stories of some very ancient houses near the castle. The rest of the city is completely desolate. The fountains near the city, and the rich pastures which encircle them, at¬ tract wandering Bedawin,—outcasts from the larger tribes, and notorious thieves and brigands. These come up from the desert with a few goats, sheep, and donkeys, and per¬ haps a horse; and they lurk, gipsy-like, about the fountains and among the ruins of the large outlying towns of Bashan, watching every opportunity to plunder an unguarded cara¬ van or strip (Luke x. 30) an unwary traveller, or steal a stray camel. The whole environs of Bozrah are infested with them, owing to the extent of the ruins and the num¬ bers of wells and springs in and around them. Our arrival, numbers, and equipments had been carefully noted; and armed men lay in wait, as we soon discovered, at various * places, in the hope of entrapping and plundering some strag¬ gler. Once, indeed, a bold attempt was made by their com- 06 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. bined forces to carry off our whole party. We had fortu¬ nately taken the precaution on our arrival to engage the brother of the sheikh as guide and guard during our stay; and to this arrangement, joined to the fear of the Druse escort, we owed our safety. So true has time made the words of Jeremiah: “ The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness ... .no flesh shall have peace” (Jer. xii. 12). The words of Ezekiel, too, are strikingly applicable to the present state of Bozrah: il Thus saith the Lord God of the land of Israel; They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with aston¬ ishment, that their land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell there¬ in. And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate ” (Ezek. xii. 19, 20). The sheikh of Bozrah told me that his flocks would not be safe even in his own court-yard at night, and that armed sentinels had to patrol continually round their little fields at harvest-time. “If it were not for the castle,” he said, “which has high walls, and a strong iron gate, we should be forced to leave Busrah altogether. We could not stay here a week. The Bedawin swarm round the ruins. They steal everything they can lay hold of,—goat, sheep, cow, horse, or camel; and before we can get on their track they are far away in the desert.” Two or three incidents came under my own notice which proved the truth of the sheikh’s sad statement. One day when examining the ruins of a large mosque, the head of a Bedawy appeared over an adjoining wall, looking at us. The sheikh, who was by my side, cried out, on seeing him, “ Dog, you stole my sheep!” and seizing a stone he hurled it at him with such force and precision as must have brained him had he not ducked behind the wall. The sheikh and * his companions gave chase, but the fellow escaped. One cannot but compare such scenes, scenes of ordinary life, of everyday occurrence in Bashan, with the language of pro- THE RUINS OF BOZRAH. 67 phecy: “I will give it (the land of Israel) into the hands of strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil ;.. ..robbers shall enter into it and defile it . The land is full of bloody crimes , and the city is full of vio¬ lence” (Ezek. vii. 2, 21-23). Bozrah was one of the strongest cities of Bashan; it was, indeed, the most celebrated fortress east of the Jordan, dur¬ ing the Roman rule in Syria. Some parts of its wall are still almost perfect, a massive rampart of solid masonry, fifteen feet thick and nearly thirty high, with great square towers at intervals. The walled city was almost a rectan¬ gle, about a mile and a quarter long by a mile broad ; and outside this were large straggling suburbs. A straight street intersects the city lengthwise, and has a beautiful gate at each end; and other straight streets run across it. Roman Bozrah (or JBostra) was a beautiful city, with long straight avenues and spacious thoroughfares; but the Sara¬ cens built their miserable little shops and quaint irregular houses along the sides of the streets, out and in, here and there, as fancy or funds directed; and they thus converted the stately Roman capital, as they did Damascus and An¬ tioch, into a labyrinth of narrow, crooked, gloomy lanes. One sees the splendid Roman palace, and gorgeous Greek temple, and shapeless Arab dukhan , side by side, alike in ruins, just as if the words of Isaiah had been written with special reference to this city of Moab : u IIe shall bring down their pride together with the spoil of their hands. And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall He bring down , lay low , and bring to the ground , even to the dust ” (Isa. xxv. 11, 12). It might perhaps be as trying to my reader’s patience as it was to my limbs, were I to retrace with him all my v anderings among the ruins of Bozrah; relating every little incident and adventure; and describing the wonders of art and architecture, and the curiosities of votive tablet, and dedicatory inscription on altar, tomb, church, and temple, 68 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. which I examined and deciphered during these three days. Still I think many will wish to hear a few particulars about an old Bible city, and a city of so much historical impor¬ tance in the latter days of Bashan’s glory. To me and to my companions it was intensely interesting to note the changes that old city has undergone. They are shown in the strata of its ruins just as geological periods are shown in the strata of the earth’s crust. Some of them are recorded, too, on monumental tablets, containing the legends of other centuries. In one spot, deep down beneath the accumulated remains of more recent buildings, I saw the simple, massive, primitive dwellings of the aborigines, with their stone doors J and stone roofs. These were built and inhabited by the gigantic Emim and Eephaim long before the Chaldean shepherd migrated from Ur to Canaan (Gen. xiv. 5). High above them rose the classic portico of a Homan temple, shattered and tottering, but still grand in its ruins. Pass¬ ing between the columns, I saw over its beautifully sculp¬ tured doorway a Greek inscription, telling how, in the fourth century, the temple became a church, and was dedi¬ cated to St. John. On entering the building, the record of still another change appeared on the cracked plaster of the walls. Upon it was traced in huge Arabic characters the well-known motto of Islamism:—“ There is no God but God , and Mohammed is the prophet of God” One of the first buildings I visited was the castle, and on my way to it I passed a triumphal arch, erected, as a Latin inscription tells us, in honour of Julius, prefect of the first Parthian Philippine legion. It was most likely built during the reign of the emperor Philip, who was a native of Boz- rah. The castle stands on the south side of the city, with¬ out the walls; and forming a separate fortress, was fitted at once to defend and command the town. It is of great size and strength, and the outer walls, towers, gate, and moat are nearly perfect; but the interior is ruinous. On the basement are immense vaulted tanks, stores, and gal- THE RUINS OF BOZRAH. 69 leries; and over them were chambers sufficient to accommo¬ date a small army. In the very centre of the structure, supported on massive piers and arches, are the remains of a theatre. This splendid monument of the luxury and magnificence of former days was so designed that the spec¬ tators commanded a view of the city and the whole plain beyond it to the base of Hermon. The building is a semi¬ circle, 270 feet in diameter, and open, above, like all Roman theatres. It was no doubt intended for the amusement of the Roman garrison, when Bostra was the capital of a prov¬ ince and the headquarters of a legion.* The keep is a huge square tower, rising high above the battlements, and overlooking the plains of Bashan and Moab. From it I saw that Bozrah was in ancient times connected by a series of great highways with the leading cities and districts in Bashan and Arabia. They diverge from the city in straight lines; and my eye followed one after another till it disappeared in the far distance. One ran westward to the town of Ghusam, and then to Edrei; another northward to Suweideh and Damascus; another north-west, up among the mountains of Bashan; another to Kerioth; and another eastward, straight as an. arrow, to the castle of Salcah, which crowned a conical hill on the horizon. Towns and villages appeared in every direction, thickly dotting the vast plain; a few of those to the north are inhabited, but all those southward have been deserted for centuries. I examined them long and carefully with my telescope, and their walls and houses appeared to be in even better preservation than those I had already visited. This has since been found to be the case, for my friend Mr. Cyril ♦This opinion has been questioned by M. Rey, an accomplished French savant , who In the year 1858 retraced my footsteps through Bashan, and reviewed my “Five Years in Damascus ” as lie went along. I had the pleasure of meeting M. Rey on several occa¬ sions, and was impressed alike with his gentlemanly deportment and accomplished scholarship; but being an intimate friend of M. De Saulcy, whose pretended discoveries in and around Damascus I had criticized perhaps a little too severely, I am not surprised that he should make an occasional attempt at retaliation. 70 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. Graham visited them, penetrating this wild and dangerous country as far as Um el Jemal, the Beth-gamul of Scripture which I saw from Bozrah, and to which I called his special attention. Beth-gamul is unquestionably one of the most re¬ markable places east of the Jordan. It is as large as Bozrah. It is surrounded by high walls, and contains many massive houses built of huge blocks of basalt; their roofs and doors, and even the gates of the city, being formed of the same material. Though deserted for many centuries, the houses, streets, walls, and gates are in as perfect preservation as if the city had been inhabited until within the last few years. It is curious to note the change that has taken place in the name. What the Hebrews called “ The house of the camel,” the Arabs now call “ The mother of the camel.” I cannot tell how deeply I was impressed when looking out over that noble plain, rivalling in richness of soil the best of England’s counties, thickly studded with cities, towns, and villages, intersected with roads, having one of the finest climates in the world; and yet utterly deserted, literally “ without man , without inhabitant , and icithout beast ” (Isa. xxxiii. 10). I cannot tell with what mingled feelings of sorrow and of joy, of mourning and of thanks¬ giving, of fear and of faith, I reflected on the history of that land; and taking out my Bible compared its existing state, as seen with my own eyes, with the numerous predictions regarding it written by the Hebrew prophets. In their day it was populous and prosperous; the fields waved with corn; the hill-sides were covered with flocks and herds; the highways were thronged with wayfarers; the cities resound¬ ed with the continuous din of a busy population. And yet they wrote as if they had seen the land as I saw it from the ramparts of Bozrah. The Spirit of the omniscient God alone could have guided the hand that penned such pre¬ dictions as these: “ Then said I, Lord, how long ? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inliabitaiit , and the houses without man , and the land be utterly deso* CHURCH AND MOSQUE AT BOZRAH. 71 late , and the Lord hath removed men far away , and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land ” (Isa. vi. 11, 12). “The destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way / he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate ; and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant ” (Jer. iv. 7). In former times a garrison was maintained in the castle of Bozrah by the Pasha of Damascus, for the purpose of defending the southern sections of Bashan from the periodi¬ cal incursions of the Bedawin. It has been withdrawn for many years. The “ Destroyer of the Gentiles ” can now come up unrestrained, “ the spoilers” can now “ come upon all high places through the wilderness,” the sword now “ devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land” (Jer. xii. 12); the cities are “without in¬ habitant,” the houses are “ without man,” the land is “ ut¬ terly desolate,” judgment has come upon it all far and near; in a word, the whiole of Bashan and Moab is one GREAT FULFILLED PROPHECY. We were conducted by our intelligent guide to a large church, apparently the ancient cathedral of Bozrah. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, and on the walls of the chancel are some remains of rude frescoes, representing saints and angels. Over the door is an inscription stating that the church was founded “ by Julianus, archbishop) of Bostra, in the year a.d. 513, in honour of the blessed mar¬ tyrs Sergius, Bacchus, and Leontius.” Our guide called the building “ the church of the monk Bohira;” and a very old tradition represents this monk as playing an important part in the early history of Mohammedanism. It is said he was a native of this city, and that, being expelled from his convent, he joined the Arabian prophet, and aided in writ¬ ing the Koran, supplying all those stories from the Bible, the Talmud, and the spurious Gospels, which make up so large a part of that remarkable book. Not far from the church is the principal mosque, built, it 4 72 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. is said, by the Khalif Omar. The roof was supported on colonnades, like the early basilicas; and seventeen of the columns are monoliths of white marble, of great beauty. Two of them have inscriptions showing that they formerly belonged to some church, but probably they were originally intended to ornament a Greek temple. We extended our walk one day to the suburbs on the north and west, where there are remains of some large and splendid buildings. We then proceeded to the west gate, at the end of the main street. The ancient pavement of the street, and of the road which runs across the plain to Ghu- sam, is quite perfect,—not a stone out of place. The gate has a single but spacious Roman arch, ornamented with pilasters and niches. Outside is a guard-house of the same style and period. Sitting down on the broken wall of this little building, I gazed long on the ruins of the city, and on the vast deserted plain. My companions had taken shelter from a shower in a vacant niche; and now there was not a human being, there was not a sign of life, within the range of vision. The open gate revealed heaps of rub¬ bish and piles of stones, and shattered walls. In the dis¬ tance a solitary column stood here and there, and the trium¬ phal arch which rose over all around it, appeared as if built to celebrate the triumph of Desolation. The deso¬ lation of the plain without was as complete as that of the city within. Never before had I seen such a picture of ut¬ ter, terrible desolation, except at Palmyra; and even there it was not so remarkable. That “ city of the desert ” might rise and flourish for a season, while the tide of com¬ merce was rolling past it, and while it stood a solitary oasis on the desert highway uniting the eastern and western worlds; but on the opening up of some other channel of communication, it might naturally decline and fall. Boz- rah is altogether different. It was situated in the midst of a fertile plain, in the centre of a populous province. It had abundant resources, fountains of water, an impregnable HISTORY OF BOZRAH. 73 fortress. Why should Bozrah become desolate ? Who would have ventured to predict its ruin ? It surely was no city to grow up in a day and fade in a night! It surely did not depend for prosperity on the changeable channel of commerce ! Something above and beyond mere natural causes and influences must have operated here. We can only understand its strange history when we read it in the light of prophecy. Then we can see the impress of a mightier than human hand. We can see that the curse of an angry God for the sin of a rebellious people has fallen upon Bozrah, “ and upon all the cities of the land of Moab far and near ” (Jer. xlviii. 24). Two Bozrahs are mentioned in the Bible. One was in Edom, and is referred to in the well-known passage, “ Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah (Isa. lxiii. 1). Upon this ancient city judgments are pronounced in connection with Edom and Teman, whose inhabitants dwelt “in the clefts of the rocks,” and the “ heights of the hills,” and made their houses “ like the nests of the eagles” (Jer. xlix. 7-22). When pronouncing judgment upon Moab, the same prophet says, “Judgment is come upon the plain country ,” and he names the cities which stood in the plain, and among them are Beth-gamul, Kerioth, and Bozrah (Jer. xlviii. 21-24). Evidently these predictions cannot refer to the same place. Another fact still more conclusively establishes the point. After com¬ pleting the sentence of Moab, including one Bozrah, the Spirit of God adds, “Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days” (Jer. xlviii. 47); whereas in Edom’s doom we have these terrible words, “For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall b e, perpetual wastes ” (Jer. xlix. 13).* * Modern research in this, as in many other cases, has confirmed the accuracy of Bibli¬ cal topography. The Bozrah of Edom has been identified with the village of Buseireh, among the mountains north of Petra; and here, in the plain, we have the Bozrah cf 71 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. The plain of Moab embraced a large part of the plateau east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. A short time before the exodus the Amorites conquered the northern part of that plain; and from them it was taken by the tribes of Reuben and Gad. It is doubtful whether the Moabites were ever completely expelled. They probably retired for a time to the desert, and when Israel’s power declined, re¬ turned to their old possessions. The predictions of Jere¬ miah refer to cities once held by the Israelites, yet in his days belonging to Moab; hence he includes Bozrah in the land of Moab. Subsequently, Bozrah became the capital of a large Roman province; then the metropolitan city of Eastern Palestine, when its primate had thirty-three bish¬ ops under him; then it was captured by the Mohamme¬ dans, and gradually fell to ruin. Now we can see that the prophet’s words are fulfilled, “ Judgment has come upon Bozrah .” DESERTED CITIES. We had not gone more than four miles from Bozrah when an alarm was raised. The people of Bozrah had told us, and we had known ourselves, that though the country on our jiroposed route is thickly studded with towns and vil¬ lages, yet not a single human being dwells in them. When approaching the village of Burd we saw figures moving about. At first we thought some shepherds had taken re¬ fuge there with their fiocks; but it very soon became appar¬ ent that the figures were not shepherds. Considerable num¬ bers collected on the flat house-tops, and we could see horses led out and held beneath the Avails. They evidently saw us, and were preparing for an attack. We held a council Moab. I was somewhat surprised recently to find that the writer of the article Bozrah, in “ Fairbairn’s Dictionary of the Bible,” charges me with holding the opinion of Kitto and others, that Bozrah of Edom, Bozrah of Moab, and modern Busrah, are identical. I never held such an opinion. I have always affirmed, that Bozrah of Edom and Bozrah of Moab were distinct cities; and had the writer of the article mentioned turned to my “ Five Years in Damascus,” vol. ii. p. 160, or to my “ Handbook,” or to the article Bozrah In the last edition of “ Kitto’s Cyclopedia,” he would have seen this. DESERTED CITIES. 75 of war, and resolved unanimously to go forward, and if at¬ tacked to meet the enemy boldly. Mahmood, after exam¬ ining his gun and pistols, and loosening his sword in its scabbard, galloped oft' to reconnoitre. A horseman came out to meet him. I confess it was rather an anxious mo¬ ment, but it did not last long. A few words were spoken, and Mahmood came back with the welcome intelligence that a little colony of Druses had migrated to the village two days previously. They were as much alarmed at us as we were at them. So it is always now in this unfortunate land, where the Ishmaelite roams free—“ His hand against every man and every man’s hand against him.” Every stranger is looked upon as an enemy until he is proved to be a friend. The time and events so graphically depicted by Jeremiah have come: “ 0 inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy: ash him that fleetli , and her that es- capeth , and say , What is done? ” (Jer.xlviii. 19.) We rode on along the Roman road, stopping occasionally to examine with our glasses the deserted towns away to the right and left, and once or twice galloping to those near the road, so as to inspect their strange massive houses, standing complete, but tenantless. Often and often did our eyes sweep the open plain, and scan suspicious ruins, and peer into valleys, in the fear or hope of discovering roving Ishmaelites. We were almost disappointed that none ap¬ peared. Soon after leaving Burd, we entered a rocky district; and here, among the rocks, we found some fields where a few Druses were ploughing, each man having his gun slung over his shoulders, and pistols in his belt. This is surely cultivation under difficulties. From this place until we reached Salcah, we did not see a living creature, except a flock of partridges and a herd of gazelles. The desert of Arabia is not more desolate than this rich and once popu¬ lous plain of Moab. 76 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. SALCAH. Joshua tells us that the kingdom of Og the giant included 11 all Bashan unto Salcah ” (Josh. xiii. 11, 12); and the Is¬ raelites took and occupied the whole region from Mount Hermon “ unto Salcah.” Salcah, the eastern frontier city of Bashan, was now before me; its great old castle perched on the top of a conical hill, overlooking a boundless plain, and the city itself sjwead along its sloping sides, and reaching oui into the valley below. I felt glad and thankful that I was privileged to reach the utmost eastern border of Pales¬ tine. I had previously explored its northern border away on the plain of Hamath and on the heights of Lebanon, and its western border from Tripoli to Joppa; and since that time I have traversed the southern border from Gaza east¬ ward. Salcah is one of the most remarkable cities in Palestine. It has been long deserted; and yet, as nearly as I could es¬ timate, Jive hundred of its houses are still standing, and from three to four hundred families might settle in it at any moment without laying a stone, or expending an hour’s la¬ bour on repairs. The circumference of the town and castle together is about three miles. Besides the castle, a number of square towers, like the belfries of churches, and a few mosques, appear to be the only public buildings. On approaching Salcah, we rode through an old ceme¬ tery, and then, passing the ruins of an ancient gate, entered the streets of the deserted city. The open doors, the empty houses, the rank grass and weeds, the long straggling bram¬ bles in the door-ways and windows, formed a strange, im¬ pressive picture which can never leave my memory. Street after street we traversed, the tread of our horses awakening mournful echoes, and startling the foxes from their dens in the palaces of Salcah. Reaching an open paved area, in front of the principal mosque, we committed our horses to the keeping of Mahmood, who tied them up, unstrung his CASTLE OF SALCAH. 77 gun, and sat down to act the part of sentry, while we ex¬ plored the city. The castle occupies the summit of a steep conical hill which rises to the height of some three hundred feet, and is the southern point of the mountain range of Baslian. Round the base of the hill is a deep moat, and another still deeper encircles the walls of the fortress. The building is a patch- work of various periods and nations. The foundations are Jewish, if not earlier; Roman rustic masonry appears above them; and over ail is lighter Saracenic work, with beauti¬ fully interlaced inscriptions. The exterior walls are not much defaced, but the interior is one confused mass of ruins. The view from the top is wide and wonderfully interest¬ ing. It embraces the whole southern slopes of the moun¬ tains, which, though rocky, are covered from bottom to top with artificial terraces, and fields divided by stone fences. From their base the plain of Bashan stretches out on the west to Hermon; the plain of Moab on the south, to the horizon; and the plain of Arabia on the east, beyond the range of vision. For more than an hour I sat gazing on that vast panorama. Wherever I turned my eyes towns and villages were seen. Bozrah was there on its plain, twelve miles distant. The towers of Beth-Gamul were faintly visible far away on the horizon. In the vale imme¬ diately to the south of Salcah are several deserted towns, w r hose names I could not ascertain. Three miles off, in the same direction, is a hill called Abd el-Maaz, with a large deserted town on its eastern side. To the south-east an an¬ cient road runs straight across the plain as far as the eye can see. About six miles along it, on the top of a hill, is the deserted town of Maleh. On the section of the plain between south and east I counted fourteen towns, all of them, so far as I could see with my telescope, habitable like Salcah, but entirely deserted! From this one spot I saw upwards of thirty deserted towns! Well might I exclaim 78 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. with the prophet, as I sat on the ruins of this great fortress, and looked over that mournful scene of utter desolation, u Moab is spoiled , and gone up out of her cities . Moab is confounded / for it is broken down: hotel and cry / tell ye it in Arnon that Moab is spoiled , and judgment is come upon the plain country . Upon JKiriathaim , and upon JBeth-gamul , and upon Beth-meon , and upon Kerioth , upon Bozrah , and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near ” (Jer. xlviii. 15-24). Another feature of the landscape impressed me still more deeply. Not only is the country—plain and hill-side alike— chequered with fenced fields, hut groves of fig-trees are here and there seen, and terraced vineyards still clothe the sides of some of the hills. These are neglected and wild, hut not fruitless. Mahmood told us that they produce great quan¬ tities of figs and grapes, which are rifled year after year hy the Bedawin in their periodical raids. How literal and how true have the words of Jeremiah become! “ 0 vine of jSibmah , I will weep for thee loith the weeping of Jazer: . . . the spoiler is fallen upon thy summer fruits , and upon thy vintage. And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field , and from the land of Moab / and 1 have caused wine to fail from the wine-presses / none shall tread with shouting ” (Jer. xlviii. 32, 33). Nowhere on earth is there such a melancholy example of tyranny, ra¬ pacity, and misrule, as here. Fields, pastures, vineyards, houses, villages, cities—all alike deserted and waste. Even the few inhabitants that have hid themselves amon^ the rocky fastnesses and mountain defiles drag out a miserable existence, oppressed by robbers of the desert on the one hand, and robbers of the government on the other. It would seem as if the people of Moab had heard the injunc¬ tion of Jeremiah : “O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell in the rock , and be like the dove that mak- eth her nest in the side of the holers mouth A And even thus they cannot escape, for u He that fleeth shall fall into DESCKIPTIOX OF BETH-GAMUL. 79 the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon it, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord” (Jer. xlviii. 28, 44). y. “Judgment is come upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near.” Salcah is situated on the south-eastern corner of Bashan. Standing on the lofty battlements of its castle, Moab and Arabia lay before me—the former on the right, the latter on the left, each a boundless plain reaching from the city walls to the horizon. Behind me rose in terraced slopes the mountains of Bashan, and over their southern declivities the eye took in a wide expanse of its plain. Everywhere on that vast panorama,—on plain and mountain side, in Bashan, Moab, and Arabia, far as the eye could see and the telescope command,—were towns and villages thickly scattered; and all deserted, though not ruined. Many people might have thought, and a few still believe, that there was a large amount of Eastern exaggeration in the language of Moses when describing the conquest of this country three thousand years ago: “We took all his cities at that time, .... three¬ score cities , all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls , gates , and bars / beside unwalled towns a great many ” (Deut. iii. 4, 5). No man who has traversed Bashan, or who has climb¬ ed the hill of Salcah, will ever again venture to bring such a charge against the sacred historian. The walled cities, with their ponderous gates of stone, are there now as they Avere Avhen the Israelites invaded the land. The great numbers of uirwalled toAvns are there too, standing testimonies to the truth and accuracy of Moses, and monumental protests against the poetical interpretations of modern rationalists. There are the roads once thronged by the teeming popula¬ tion: there are the fields they enclosed and cultivated; 80 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. there are the terraces they built up; there are the vine¬ yards and orchards they planted; all alike desolate, not po¬ etically or ideally, but literally “ without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast.” My friend Mr. Cyril Graham, who followed so far in my track, and who was the first of European travellers to pene¬ trate those plains beyond, which I have been trying to de¬ scribe, bears his testimony to the literal fulfilment of proph¬ ecy. Some of his descriptions of what he saw are exceed¬ ingly interesting and graphic; and one is only sorry that they are so very brief. Of Beth-gamul he says: “ On reaching this city, I left my Arabs at one particular spot, and wandered about quite alone in the old streets of the town, entered one by one the old houses, went up stairs, visited the rooms, and, in short, made a careful examination of the whole place; but so perfect Avas every street, every house, eveiy room, that I almost fancied I Avas in a dream, wandering alone in this city of the dead, seeing all perfect, yet not hearing a sound. I don’t Avish to moralize too much, but one cannot help reflecting on a people once so great and so powerful, who, living in these houses of stone Avithin their walled cities, must have thought themselves invincible; Avho had their palaces and their sculptures, and Avho, no doubt, claimed to be the great nation, as all Eastern nations have done; and that this people should have so passed aAvay, that for so many centuries the country they inhabited has been reckoned as a desert, until some traveller from a distant land, curious to explore these regions, finds these old toAvns standing alone, and telling of a race long gone by, Avhose history is unknoAvn, and Avhose A r ery name is matter of dis¬ pute. Yet this very state of things is predicted by Jere¬ miah. Concerning this very country he says these very words,— 4 For the cities thereof shall be desolate , without any to dwell therein ’ (Jer. xlviii. 9); and the people (Moab) ‘shall be destroyed from being a p>eople' > (ver. 42). Here I think there can be no ambiguity. Visit these ancient cit- FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 81 ies, and turn to that ancient Book—no further comment is necessary.” No less than eleven of the old cities which I saw from Salcah, lying between Bozrah and Beth-gamul, were visited by Mr. Graham. Their ramparts, their houses, their streets, their gates and doors, are nearly all perfect; and yet they are “ desolate without many This enterprising and daring traveller also made a long journey into the hitherto unex¬ plored country east of the mountains of Bashan. There he found ancient cities, and roads, and vast numbers of inscrip¬ tions in unknown characters, but not a single inhabitant. The towns and villao;es east of the mountain rano;e are all, without exception, deserted; the soil is uncultivated, and “the highways lie waste.” In the whole of those vast plains, north and south, east and west, Desolation reigns supreme. The cities, the highways, the vineyards, the fields, are all alike silent as the grave, except during the pe¬ riodical migrations of the Bedawin, whose flocks, herds, and people eat, trample down, and waste all before them. The long predicted doom of Moab is now fulfilled: “ The spoiler shall come upon every city , and no city shall escape: the valley also shall perish , and the plain shall be destroyed , as the Lord hath spoken. Give wings unto Moab , that it may flee and get away; for the cities thereof shall be desolate , without any to dwell therein .” .... But why should I transcribe more ? Why should I continue to com¬ pare the predictions of the Bible with the state of the country? The harmony is complete. No traveller can pos¬ sibly fail to see it; and no conscientious man can fail to acknowledge it. The best, the fullest, the most instructive commentary I ever saw on the forty-eighth chapter of Jer¬ emiah, was that inscribed by the finger of God on the pan¬ orama spread out around me as I stood on the battlements of the castle of Salcah. It was a sad and solemn scene,—a scene of utter and terrible desolation,—the result of sin and folly; and yet I 82 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. turned away from it with much reluctance. I would gladly have seen more of those old cities, and penetrated farther into that uninhabited plain. A tempting field lay there for the ecclesiastical antiquarian and the student of sacred his¬ tory ; but the time was not suitable for such a journey, and other duties summoned me away.* Remounting our horses we rode along the silent streets and passed out of the deserted gates into the desolate country. After winding down the steep hill-side amid mounds of rubbish we halted in the centre of an ancient cemetery to take a last look of Salcah. The castle rose high over us on the crest of its conical hill, while the towers, walls, and terraced houses of the city extended in a serried line down the southern declivity to the plain, where they met the old gardens and vineyards. Everything seemed so complete, so habitable, so life-like, that once and again I looked and examined as the question rose in my mind, “ Can this city be totally deserted?” Yes, it was so;— “ without man, and without beast.” “ Slumber is there, but not of rest: Here her forlorn and weary nest The famish’d hawk has found. The wild dog howls at fall of night. The serpent’s rustling coils affright The traveller on his round.” KERIOTH. We turned westward to Kerioth, and soon fell into the line of the ancient road, its pavement in many places per¬ fect, though here and there torn up and swept away by mountain torrents. On our right, about two miles distant, lay Ayun, a deserted city as large as Salcah. Kuweiris, Ain, Muneiderah, and many others were visible,—some in * Another traveller has of late traversed part of Bashan, and penetrated the desert east¬ ward. I refer to Dr. J. O. Wetzstein, whom I had the pleasure of knowing as Prussian consul in Damascus. His little work, Reisebericht uber Hauran und die Trachon'en , Berlin, 1860, is interesting and instructive. It contains the fullest account hitherto pub¬ lished of that remarkable region, the Safa. STONE GATES AND DOORS. 83 quiet green vales, some perched like fortresses on the sides and summits of rugged hills. The country through which our route lay was very rocky; hut though now desolate, the signs of former industry are there. The loose stones have been gathered into great heaps, and little fields formed; and terraces can be traced along every hill-side from bot¬ tom to top. In two hours we reached Kureiyeh, and received a cor¬ dial welcome from its warlike Druse chief, Ismail el-Atrash. The town is situated in a wide valley at the south-western base of the mountains of Bashan. The ruins are of great extent, covering a space at least as large as Salcah. The houses which remain have the same general appearance as those in other towns. No large public building now exists entire; but there are traces of many; and in the streets and lanes are numerous fragments of columns and other vestiges of ancient grandeur. I copied several Greek inscriptions bearing; dates of the first and second centuries in our era. Among the cities in the plain of Moab upon which judg¬ ment is pronounced by Jeremiah, Kerioth occurs in con¬ nection with Beth-gamul and Bozrah; and here, on the side of the plain, only five miles distant from Bozrah, stands Kureiyeli , manifestly an Arabic form of the He brew Kerioth. Kerioth was reckoned one of the strong¬ holds of the plain of Moab (Jer. xlviii. 41). Standing in the midst of wide-spread rock-fields, the passes through which could be easily defended; and encircled by massive ramparts, the remains of which are still there,—I saw, and every traveller can see, how applicable is Jeremiah’s re¬ ference, and how strong this cit] r must once have been. I could not but remark, too, while wandering through the streets and lanes, that the private houses bear the marks of the most remote antiquity. The few towers and fragments of temples, which inscriptions show to have been erected in the first centuries of the Christian era, are modern in com¬ parison with the colossal walls and massive stone doors of 84 BASIIAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. the private houses. The simplicity of their style, their low roofs, the ponderous blocks of roughly hewn stone with which they are built, the great thickness of the walls, and the heavy slabs which form the ceilings,—all point to a period far earlier than the Roman age, and probably even antecedent to the conquest of the country by the Israelites. Moses makes special mention of the strong cities of Bashan, and speaks of their high walls and gates. He tells us, too, in the same connection, that Bashan was called the land of the giants (or Rephaim, Deut. iii. 13); leaving us to con¬ clude that the cities were built by giants. Row the houses of Kerioth and other towns in Bashan appear to be just such dwellings as a race of giants would build. Tne walls, the roofs, but especially the ponderous gates, doo^s and bars, are in every way characteristic of a period when architec¬ ture was in its infancy, when giants were masons, and when strength and security were the grand requisite**. I meas¬ ured a door in Kerioth: it was nine feet high, four and a half feet wide, and ten inches thick,—one solid slab of stone. I saw the folding gates of another town in the mountains still larger and heavier. Time produces little effect on such buildings as these. The heavy stone slabs of the roofs rest¬ ing on the massive walls make the structure as firm as if built of solid masonry; and the black basalt used is almost as hard as iron. There can scarcely be a doubt, therefore, that these are the very cities erected and inhabited by the Rephaim, the aboriginal occupants of Bashan; and the language of Ritter appears to be true: “ These buildings remain as eternal witnesses of the conquest of Bashan by Jehovah.” We have thus at Kerioth and its sister cities some of the most ancient houses of which the world can boast; and in looking at them and wandering among them, and passing night after night in them, my mind was led away back to the time, now nearly four thousand years ago, when the kings of the East warred with the Rephaim in Ashteroth- THE HOUSES OF THE REPIIAIM. 85 Karnaim, and with the Emitn in the plain of Kiriatliaim (Gen. xiv. 5). Some of the houses in which I slept were most probably standing at the period of that invasion. How strange to occupy houses of which giants were the architects, and a race of giants the original owners! The temples and tombs of Upper Egypt are of great interest, as the works of one of the most enlightened nations of an¬ tiquity; the palaces of Nineveh are still more interesting, as the memorials of a great city which lay buried for two thousand years; but the massive houses of Kerioth scarcely yield in interest to either. They are antiquities of another kind. In size they cannot vie with the temples of Karnac; in splendoui they do not approach the palaces of Khorsa- bad; yet they are the memorials of a race of giant warriors that has been extinct for more than three thousand years, and of which Og, king of Bashan, was one of the last re¬ presentatives ; and they are, I believe, the only specimens in the world of the ordinary private dwellings of remote antiquity. The monuments designed by the genius and reared by the wealth of imperial Rome are fast mouldering to ruin in this land; temples, palaces, tombs, fortresses, are all shattered, or prostrate in the dust; but the simple, mas¬ sive houses of the Rephaim are in many cases perfect as if only completed yesterday. It is worthy of note here, as tending to prove the truth of my statements, and to illustrate the words of the sacred writers, that the towns of Bashan were considered ancient oven in the days of the Roman historian Ammianus Mar- eellinus, who says regarding this country: “Fortresses and strong castles have been erected by the ancient inhabitants among the retired mountains and forests. Here in the midst of numerous towns , are some great cities, such as Bostra and Gerasa, encompassed by massive walls.” Mr. Graham, the only other traveller since Burckhardt, who traversed eastern Bashan, entirely agrees with me in my conclusions. “ When we find,” he writes, “ one after an- 86 BASHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. other, great stone cities, walled and unwalled, with stone gates, and so crowded together that it becomes almost a matter of wonder how all the people could have lived in so small a place; when we see houses built of such huge and massive stones that no force which can be brought against them in that country could ever batter them down; when we find rooms in these houses so large and lofty that many of them would be considered fine rooms in a palace in Eu¬ rope ; and, lastly, when we find some of these towns bearing the very names which cities in that very country bore before the Israelites came out of Egypt, I think we cannot help feel¬ ing the strongest conviction that we have before us the cities of the Rephaim of which we read in the Book of Deuter¬ onomy.” Kerioth is a frontier town. It is on the confines of the uninhabited plain, where the fierce Ishmaelite roams at will, “his hand against every man.” The Druses of Ke¬ rioth are all armed, and they always carry their arms. With their goats on the hill-side, with their yokes of oxen in the field, with their asses or camels on the road, at all hours, in all places, their rifles are slung, their swords by their side, and their pistols in their belts. Their daring chief, too, goes forth on his expeditions equipped in a hel¬ met of steel and a coat of linked mail. In this respect also the words of prophecy are fulfilled: “ Moab hath been at ease from his youth. . . . Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him wanderers , that shall cause him to wander , and shall empty his vessels , and break his bottles ” (Jer. xlviii. 12). What could be more graphic than this ? The wandering Bedawin are now the scourge of Moab; they cause the few inhabitants that remain in it to settle down amid the fastnesses of the rocks and mountains, and often to wander from city to city, in the vain hope of finding rest and security. 1 THE MOUNTAINS AND OAKS OF BASHAN. 87 THE MOUNTAINS AND OAKS OF BASHAN. Leaving Kerioth I turned my back on Moab’s desolate plain, and began to climb the Mountains of Bashan. Bleak and rocky at the base, they soon assume bolder outlines and exhibit grander features. Ravines cut deeply into their sides; bare cliffs shoot out from tangled jungles of dwarf ilex, woven together with brambles and creeping plants; pointed cones of basalt, strewn here and there with cinders and ashes, tower up until a wreath of snow is wound round their heads; straggling trees of the great old oaks of Bashan dot thinly the lower declivities; higher up little groves of them appear, and higher still, around the loftiest peaks, are dense forests. Our road was a goat-track, which wound along the side of a brawling mountain torrent, now scaling a dizzy crag high over it, and now diving down again till the spray of its miniature cascades dashed over our horses. For nearly two hours we rode up that wild and picturesque mountain side. We passed several small villages perched like fortresses on projecting cliffs, and we saw other larger ones in the distance; they are all deserted; and during those two hours we did not meet, nor see, nor hear a human being. We saw partridges among the rocks, and eagles sweeping in graceful circles round the mountain tops, and two or three foxes and one hyena, startled from their lairs by the sound of our horses’ feet; but we saw no man, no herd, no flock. The time of judgment predicted by Isaiah has surely come to this part of the land of Israel: “ Behold, the Lord mnaketh the land empty , and maketli it waste , and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emp¬ tied, and utterly spoiled • for the Lord hath spoken this word” (Isa. xxiv. 1 , 3). On one of the southern peaks of the mountain range, some two thousand feet above the vale of Kerioth, stands the town of Hebran. Its shattered walls and houses looked 88 BAS1IAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. exceedingly picturesque, as we wound up a deep ravine, shooting out far overhead from among the tufted foliage of the evergreen oak. Our little cavalcade was seen approach¬ ing, and ere we reached the brow of the hill the whole population had come out to meet and welcome us. The sheikh, a noble-looking young Druse, had already sent a man to bring a kid from the nearest flock to make a feast for us, and we saw him bounding away through an opening in the forest. He returned in half an hour with the kid on / his shoulder. We assured the hospitable sheikh that it was impossible for us to remain. Our servants were al¬ ready far away over the plain, and we had a long journey before us. He would listen to no excuse. The feast must be prepared. “My lord could not pass by his servant’s house without honouring him by eating a morsel of bread, and partaking of the kid which is being made ready. The sun is high; the day is long; rest for a time under my roof; eat and drink, and then pass on in peace.” There was so much of the true spirit of patriarchal hospitality here, so much that recalled to mind scenes in the life of Abraham (Gen. xviii. 2), and Manoah (Judges xiii. 15), and other Scripture celebrities, that we found it hard to refuse. Time pressed, however, and we were reluctantly compelled to leave before the kid was served. In the town of Hebran are many objects of interest. The ruins of a beautiful temple, built in a.d. 155, and of several other public edifices, are strewn over the summit and rugged sides of the hill. But the simple, massive, primeval houses were to us objects of greater attraction. Many of them are perfect, and in them the modern inhabitants find ample and comfortable accommodation. The stone doors appeared even more massive than those of Kerioth; and we found the walls of the houses in some instances more than seven feet thick. Hebran must have been one of the most ancient cities of Bashan. The view from it is magnificent. The whole country, from Kerioth to Bozrah, and from Bozrah TESTIMONY TO THE ACCURACY OF SCRIPTURE. 89 to Salcah, was spread out before me like an embossed map; while away beyond, east, south, and west, the panorama stretched to the horizon. Two miles below me, on a pro¬ jecting ridge, lay the deserted town of Afineh, thought by some to be the ancient Ashteroth-Karnaim; about three miles eastward the grey towers of Sehweh, a large town and castle, rose up from the midst of a dense oak forest. About the same distance northward is Kufr, another town whose walls still stand, and its stone gates , about ten feet high , remain in their places. Yet the town is deserted. Truly one might repeat, in every part of Bashan, the re¬ markable words of Isaiah: “ In the city is left desolation • and the gate is smitten with destruction ” (Isa. xxiv. 12). We observed in wandering through Hebran, as we had done previously at Kerioth and other cities, that the large buildings,—temples, palaces, churches, and mosques,—are now universally used as folds for sheep and cattle. We saw hundreds of animals in the palaces of Kerioth, and the large buildings of Hebran were so filled with their dung that we could scarcely walk through them. This also was foreseen and foretold by the Hebrew prophets: “ The defenced city shall be desolate, and left like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed , and there shall he lie down. . . . The palaces shall be forsaken, .... the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks ” (Isa. xxvii. 10; xxxii. 14). And of Moab Isaiah says: “The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down , and none shall make them afraid” (Isa. xvii. 2). From Hebran we rode along the mountain side in a north-westerly direction, crossing a Roman road which for¬ merly connected the capital, Bozrah, with Kufr, Kanterah, and other large towns among the mountains. It is now “ desolate ,” like all the highways of Bashan, and in places completely covered over with the branches of oak trees and straggling brambles. In an hour we passed a group of 90 BASIIAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. large villages, occupied by a few families of Druses. Here, too, we found that the largest houses are now used as stables for camels and folds for sheep. Continuing to descend the terraced but desolate hill-sides, crossing several streamlets flowing through picturesque glens, and leaving a number of deserted villages to the right and left, we at length reached Suweideh, which we had previously visited on our way to Bozrah. I had now crossed over the southern section of the ridge, and had completed my short tour among the mountains of Baslian. It was not without feelings of regret that, after a visit so brief, I was about to turn away from this interest¬ ing region, most probably for ever. I felt glad, however, that I had been privileged to visit, even for so brief a pe¬ riod, a country renowned in early history, and sacred as one of the first provinces bestowed by God on his ancient peo¬ ple. The freshness and picturesque beauty of the scenery, the extent and grandeur of the ruins, the hearty and re¬ peated welcomes of the people, the truly patriarchal hospi tality with which I was everywhere entertained, but, above all, the convincing, overwhelming testimony afforded at every step to the minute accuracy of Scripture history, and the literal fulfilment of prophecy, filled my mind with such feelings of joy and of thankfulness as I had never before experienced. I had often read of Bashan,—how the Lord had delivered into the hands of the tribe of Manasseh, Og, its giant king, and all his people. I had observed the state¬ ment that a single province of his kingdom, Argob, con¬ tained threescore great cities , fenced with high walls, gates, and bars, besides unwallecl towns a great many. I had examined my map, and had found that the whole of Ba¬ shan is not larger than an ordinary English county. I con¬ fess I was astonished; and though my faith in the Divine Record was not shaken, yet I felt that some strange statis¬ tical mystery hung over the passage, which required to be cleared up. That one city, nurtured by the commerce of a TESTIMONY TO THE ACCURACY OF SCRIPTURE. 91 mighty empire, might grow till her people could be num¬ bered by millions, I could well believe; that two or even three great commercial cities might spring up in favoured localities, almost side by side, I could believe too. But that sixty walled cities, besides unwalled towns a great many , should exist in a small province, at such a remote age, far from the sea, with no rivers and little commerce, ap¬ peared to be inexplicable. Inexplicable, mysterious though it appeared, it was true. On the spot, with my own eyes, I had now verified it. A list of more than one hundred ruined cities and villages, situated in these mountains alone, I had in my hands; and on the spot I had tested it, and found it accurate, though not complete. More than thirty of these I had myself visited or passed close by. Many others I had seen in the distance. The extent of some of them I measured, and have already stated. Of their high antiquity I could not, after inspecting them, en¬ tertain a doubt; and I have explained why. Here, then, we have a venerable Record, more than three thousand years old, containing incidental descriptions, statements, and statistics, which few men would be inclined to receive on trust, which not a few are now attempting to throw aside as “ glaring absurdities,” and “ gross exaggerations,” and yet which close and thorough examination proves to be accurate in the most minute details. Here, again, are prophecies of ruin and utter desolation , pronounced and recorded when this country was in the height of its pros¬ perity,—when its vast plains waved with corn, when its hill-sides were clothed with vineyards, when its cities and villages resounded with the busy hum of a teeming popu¬ lation ; and now, after my survey of Hashan, if I were asked to describe the present state of plains, mountains, towns, and villages, I could not possibly select language more ap¬ propriate, more accurate, or more graphic, than the lan¬ guage of these very prophecies. My unalterable conviction is, that the eye of the Omniscient God alone could have 92 BASH AN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. foreseen a doom so terrible as that which has fallen on Moab and Bashan. ARGOB. From Suweideh I rode north-west across the noble plain of Bashan, passing in succession the villages of Welgha, Rimeh, Mezraali, and Sijn, and seeing many others away on the right and left. Most of them contain a few families of Druses; but not one-tenth of the habitable houses in them are inhabited. These houses are in every respect similar to those in the mountains. I was now approaching the re¬ markable province of Lejah, the ancient Argob , properly so called. A four hours’ ride brought me to Nejran, whose massive black walls and heavy square towers rise up lonely and desolate from the midst of a wilderness of rocks. The town has still a comparatively large population; that is, there are probably a hundred families settled in the old houses, which cover a space more than two miles in cir¬ cumference. It contains a number of public buildings, the largest of which is a church, dedicated, as a Greek inscrip¬ tion informs us, in the year a.d. 564. Nejran stands just within the southern border of the Lejah. Around the city, and far as I could see westward and northward, was one vast wilderness of rocks;—here piled up in shapeless, jagged masses; there spread out in flat, rugged fields, intersected by yawning fissures and chasms. The Bible name of the province, Argob* “the Stony,” is strikingly descriptive of its physical features. I made a vigorous effort to penetrate to the interior of the Lejah, in order to visit those strange old cities which I saw in the distance from the towers of Nejran, and of which I had heard so much; but no one would undertake to guide me, * Argob appears to have been the home of the warlike tribe of Geshurites. Absalom’s mother was Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3); and when he slew his brother Amnon he fled, “ and went to Geshur, and was there three years” (xiii. 3S). Probably much of Absalom’s wild and wayward spirit may be attributed to maternal training, and to the promptings of his relatives the Geshurites. THE LEJAH. 93 and the Druses absolutely refused to be responsible for my safety should I make the attempt. The Lejah, in fact, is the sanctuary, the great natural stronghold of the people. When fleeing from the Bedawin, and when in rebellion against the government, they find themselves perfectly safe in its rocky recesses. They are consequently jealous of all strangers, and they will not under any ordinary circumstan¬ ces, guide travellers through its intricate and secret passes. Argob, Trachonitis, or Lejah,—for by each name has it been successively called,—has been an asylum for all male¬ factors and refugees ever since the time when Absalom fled to it after the murder of his brother. Being prevented from passing through the centre of the Lejah, we turned westward to Edrei, hoping to be more fortunate in obtaining guides there. The path along which we were led was intricate, difficult, and in places even dan¬ gerous. We had often to scramble over smooth ledges of basalt, where our horses could scarcely keep their feet; and these were separated by deep fissures and chasms, here and there half filled with muddy water. A stranger would have sought in vain for the road, if road it can be called. In half an hour we reached the plain; and then continued to ride along the side of the Lejah, whose boundary resembles the rugged line of broken cliffs which gird a great part of the eastern coast of England. The Hebrew name given to it in the Bible is most appropriate, and shows how observ¬ ant the sacred writers were. The word is Chebel, signify¬ ing literally “ a rope,” but which describes with singular accuracy the remarkably defined boundary line which en¬ circles the whole province like a rocky shore. We passed in succession the deserted towns of Kiratah, Taarah, and Duweireh, all built within the Lejah; and we saw many others on the plain to the left, and among the rocks on the right. We entered the town of Busr el-Har- iry, but were received with such scowling looks and savage threats and curses by its Moslem inhabitants, that we were 94 B ASTI AX AND ITS GIANT CITIES glad to effect our escape. We now felt that on leaving the Druse territory we had left hospitality and welcome behind, and that henceforth outbursts of Moslem fanaticism awaited us everywhere. EDEEI. Soon after leaving Busr, the towers of Edrei came in sight, extending along the summit of a projecting ledge of rocks in front, and running some distance into the interior of the Lejah on the right. Crossing a deep ravine, and as¬ cending the rugged ridge of rocks by a winding path like a goat-track, we came suddenly on the ruins of this ancient city. The situation is most remarkable :—without a single spring of living water; without river or stream; without access, except over rocks and through defiles all but im¬ passable; without tree or garden. In selecting the site, everything seems to have been sacrificed to security and strength. Shortly after my arrival I went up to the ter¬ raced roof of a house, to obtain a general view of the ruins. Their aspect was far from inviting; it was wild and savage in the extreme. The huge masses of shattered masonry could scarcely be distinguished from the rocks that encir¬ cle them; and all, ruins and rocks alike, are black, as if scathed by lightning. I saw several square towers, and remains of temples, churches, and mosques. The private houses are low, massive, gloomy, and manifestly of the highest antiquity. The inhabitants are chiefly Moslems; but as there is a little Christian community, we selected the house of their sheikh a& our temporary residence. Under the guidance of our host, we went out in the afternoon to inspect the principal buildings of the city. A crowd of fanatical Moslems gathered round, and followed us wherever we went, trying every means to annoy and in¬ sult us. We paid no attention to them, and hoped thus to escape worse treatment. Unfortunately our hopes were vain. I was suddenly struck down by a blow of a club EDREI. 95 while copying an inscription. The crowd then rushed upon us in a body with stones, clubs, swords, and knives. I was separated from my companions, pursued by some fifty or sixty savages, all thirsting for my blood. After some hard struggles, which I cannot look back to even yet without a shudder, I succeeded in reaching our temporary home. Here I found my companions, like myself, severely wound¬ ed, and almost faint from loss of blood. Our Druse guard defended the house till midnight, and then, thanks to a merciful Providence, we made our escape from Edrei. Edrei was the capital city of the giant Og. On the plain beside it he marshalled his forces to oppose the advancing host of the Israelites. He fell, his army was totally routed, and Edrei was taken by the conquerors (Num. xxi. 33; Deut. iii. 1-4). Probably it did not remain long in the hands of the Israelites, for we hear no more of it in the Bible. The monuments now found in it show that it was one of the most important cities of Bashan in the time of the Homans. After the Saracenic conquest, it gradually dwindled down from a metropolitan city to a poor village; and now, though the ruins are some three miles in circuit, it does not contain more than five hundred inhabitants. How applicable are the words of Ezekiel both to the phys¬ ical and to the social state of Edrei ! “ Thus saith the Lord, . . . Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places .In all your dwell¬ ing-places the cities shall be laid, waste , and the high places shall be desolate” (Ezek. vi. 3, 6). “I will bring the worst of the heathen , and they shall possess their houses.Say unto the people of the land, Thus saith the Lord God, .... They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment, .... because of the violence of all them that dwell therein . Every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished” (Ezek. vii. 24; xii. 19, &c.) In darkness and silence we rode out of Edrei. For more ~ than an hour we were led through rugged and intricate 5 96 BA SHAN AND ITS GIANT CITIES. paths among the rocks, scarcely venturing to hope that we should ever reach the plain in safety. We did reach it, however, and with grateful hearts we rode on, guided by the stars. Before long we were again entangled in the rocky mazes of this wild region, and resolved, after several vain attempts to get out, to wait for daylight. The night wind was cold, bitterly cold; my wounds were stiff and painful; and there was no shelter from the blast save that of the shattered rocks. The spot, too, was neither safe nor pleasant for a bivouac. The mournful howl of the jackal, the sharp ringing bark of the wolf, and the savage growl of the hyena, were heard all round us. Gradually they came nearer and closer. Our poor horses quivered in every limb. We were forced to keep marching round them; for we saw by the bright star-light and the flashing eyes, that the rocks on every side were tenanted with enemies almost as dangerous and bloodthirsty as the men of Edrei. There I knew for the first time what it was to spend a night with the wild beasts; and there I had, too, a practical and pain¬ ful illustration of Isaiah’s remarkable prediction, “ The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island , and the satyr shall cry to his fellow ,” &c. (Isa. xxxiv. 14.) Day-light came at last—not with the slow, stealing step of the West, but with the swiftness and beauty of Eastern climes. Mounting our jaded horses, we rode on between huge black stones and crags of naked rock. Climbing to the top of a little hill, we got a wide view over the Lejah. I could only compare it to the ruins of a Cyclopean city prostrate and desolate. There was not one pleasing fea¬ ture. The very trees that grow amid the rocks have a blasted look. Yet, strange as it may seem, this forbidding region is thickly studded with ancient towns and villages, long ago deserted. Passing through the Lejah to the town of Khubab, we rode on northward along its border, leaving the towns of Hazkin, Eib, Musmieli, and others, on DESOLATION. 97 our right. They are all deserted, and tnere is not a single inhabited spot east of Khubab. The rich and beautiful plain on the north of the Lejah is now desolate as the Lejah itself, and in a ride of ten miles we did not see a human being. We pursued our route to Deir Ali, and thence over the Pharpar, at Kesweh, to Damascus. Thus ended my tour through eastern Bashan, and my explorations of its giant cities. THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA ' ®Jye Jorbatt anb tljt Cl fab Sta. “O my God, .... I will remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.”—Ps. xlii. 6. HERE is no river in the world like the Jordan;—- none so wonderful in its historic memories, none so hallowed in its sacred associations, and none so remarkable in its physical geography. It is the river of the Holy Land. It has been more or less inti¬ mately connected with all the great events of Scripture his¬ tory from the patriarchs to the apostles. Its banks have been the scene of the most stupendous miracles of judg¬ ment, power, and love, ever the earth witnessed. When the fire of heaven had burnt up Sodom’s guilty cities and polluted plain, the waters of the Jordan rolled over them and buried them for ever from the face of man. Thrice was the swollen torrent of that river stayed, and its chan¬ nel divided to let God’s people and prophets pass over “ dry shod.” Once, at the bidding of the man of God, the iron axe rose buoyant from its channel, and floated on its sur¬ face. Once its waters gave forth healing virtue, as if to prove to the proud Syrian chief the fallacy of his sneer¬ ing exclamation,—“Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of D amascus better than all the waters of Israel ?” Greater still were those miracles of our Lord which the evangelists have grouped thickly on and around the central lake of the Jordan. There did the storm-tossed billows hear and obey the voice of their Creator; there did the incarnate God walk upon the face of the-deep; there, obedient to His will, 102 THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. the fishes filled the disciples’ nets; along those shores the lame walked, the deaf heard, the blind saw, the sick were healed, lepers were cleansed, the dead were raised to life again. But the most glorious event the Jordan ever wit¬ nessed was Christ’s baptism; for when he was baptized, “ the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon himand when the Divine Son was perfectly equipped for his great work of redeeming love—when just about to set out on his glorious mission—the voice of the Divine Father pierces the vault of heaven, and proclaims to the astonished and joyful disciples on Jordan’s banks the divine approval of both work and worker,—■“ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well jfieased.” Surely, then, we may say that every spot along this stream is “ holy ground,” and that the name Joed an is not only emblazoned on the page of history, but enshrined in the Christian’s heart. It would almost seem as if nature or nature’s God had from the first prepared this river to be the scene of wond¬ rous events, by giving to its physical geography some wondrous characteristics. Its principal fountain, bursting from the base of Hermon, is, like the mouths of other rivers, on the level of the ocean* It descends rapidly through its whole course, and at length empties into the Dead Sea, whose surface has a depression of no less than 1312 feet. The whole valley of the Jordan is thus a huge rent or fis¬ sure in the earth’s crust. Though it is not much over a hundred miles in length, at its southern end, along the shores of that mysterious lake, we have the climate and products of the tropics, while at its northern end on the brow of Hermon, we have a region of perpetual snow. * Some geographers give the fountain of Dan an elevation of 600, others 600, others 300 feet; but these seem to be erroneous, as I have shown in the article Jordan, in “Kitto’s Cyclopaedia,” last edition. THE FOUNTAINS. 103 THE FOUNTAINS. It was on a bright and cloudless summer day I first visited the fountains of the Jordan. On the preceding night I slept on a snow wreath, on the very peak of Her- mon. Beside me, in a hallowed rock, the fire of Baal had often burnt in bygone ages, and around me were the great stones of Baal’s altar and the shattered ruins of a later tem¬ ple. There I was enabled to prove for the first time how .accurate was the name given to this mount by the sacred writers , Baal-Hermon (Judg. iii. 3; 1 Chron. v. 23). A no¬ ble spot that was for the worship of the great fire-god. His priests could see the sun rising from the eastern desert long before his beams lighted up the plains below, and they could see him sinking slowly in the western sea long after he had set to the shores of Phoenicia; and then at night, on that commanding peak, they could kindle a flame whose light would flash far and wide over Syria and Palestine. Wishing to realize something of the grandeur of those old Baal-fires, we gathered a great quantity of the dry prickly shrubs that cover the mountain sides, piled them up on the rock where the fire used to burn, and applied a match. The air was perfectly still, and the flame seemed to shoot up into the very heavens, while Herman’s icy crown gleamed and glittered in the ruddy light. The descent from the top of Hermon to the fountains of the Jordan was as if one had travelled in a single day from Greenland to the equator. The heat was most oppressive when, emerging from a wild mountain glen, we entered the marshy plain of Merom. Away in front our guide pointed out a little isolated tell, apparently in the centre of the great plain,—“That,” said he, “is Tell el-kady.” We were soon beside it, and tying up my horse beneath the shade of a noble oak—a straggler from the forests of Bashan—I set out to explore. THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. 10 * DA1ST. The tell is cup-shaped, ]ike an extinct crater, which it perhaps may he, for the stones of the surrounding plain are volcanic. From its western base bursts forth one of the largest fountains in Syria, its waters forming a miniature lake, and then rushing off across the plain southward a deep rapid river. Within the tell, beneath the branches of the great oak, is a smaller fountain, whose stream breaks through the circling rim, and foaming down the side, joins its sister. This is the principal source of the Jordan. But the tell, has it no name in history, no story or legend to attract the notice of the passing pilgrim or the Bible student? It had ©nee a historic name, which is not yet quite gone; and its story is a long and a sad one. I wan¬ dered over it wherever it was possible to go. I found a few heaps of rubbish and old building stones, a few re¬ mains of massive foundations, a few fragments of columns almost buried in the soil, vast thickets of thorns, briars, and gigantic thistles, some impenetrable jungles of cane and thorn bushes, but nothing else; and yet this is the site of the great border city of Dan. Upon this hill Jeroboam built a temple, and set up in its shrine one of his golden calves, thus polluting that “Holy Land” which the Lord gave in covenant promise to the seed of Abraham. There¬ fore has the curse come upon Dan. Though one of the noblest sites in Palestine, though encompassed by a plain of unrivalled fertility, it and its plain are now alike desolate. The prophetic curse is fulfilled to the letter,— u In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste , and the high places shall be desolate ; that your altars may be laid toaste and made desolate , and your idols may be broken and cease , and your works may be abolished ” (Ezek. vi. 6). It is interesting to note how the old name .clings to the spot still, though in an Arabic translation. Tell el-kady sig¬ nifies “ the hill of the judgef and the Hebrew word Tan means “judge” (Gen. xlix. 1G). C2ESAREA PHILIPPI. 105 CiESAREA PHILIPPI. Half an hour across the plain, through pleasant forest glades, bordered with myrtle, acacia, and oleander, and an¬ other half hour up a rugged mountain side, beneath the shade of Bashan’s stately oaks, brought me to the site of the old Greek city of Panium, which Herod the Great re¬ built, and renamed Csesa-rea-Philippi. This is one of the very few really beautiful spots in Palestine. Behind rises Hermon, steep, rugged, and grand, one of its lower peaks crowned by the frowning battlements of a Phoenician cas¬ tle. In front stretches out the broad plain of Merom, like a vast meadow, and away beyond it is the mountain range of Lebanon. The city stood upon a natural terrace, which is interspersed with groves of oaks and olives and shrub¬ beries of hawthorn, myrtle, and acacia, and is all alive with streams of water and miniature cascades, fretting here and there against prostrate column and ruined wall. It is, in fact, as Dean Stanley has happily named it, a Syrian Tivoli. Behind the ruins rises a cliff of ruddy limestone. At its base is a dark cave, now nearly filled with the ruins of a temple. From the cave, from the ruins, from every chink and cranny in the soil and rocks around, waters gush forth, which soon collect into a torrent, dash in sheets of foam down a rocky bed, and at length plunge over a precipice into a deep dark ravine. This is the other great fountain of the Jordan. It is “holy ground,” for Jesus was here. Beside the fountain he uttered those memorable words, “ Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ” (Matt, xvi. 13-20; xvii. 1-13). May not the sight of the great cliff overhead have suggested the peculiar form of the ex¬ pression ? And we read that six days afterwards Christ took three of his disciples, and led them “ up into an high mountain, and was transfigured before them.” Standing there amid the ruins of Csesarea, one does not need to 106 THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA ask where the Mount of Transfiguration is. Hermon, the grandest and the most beautiful of all the mountains of Palestine, has established its claim to the title of “holy mount.” THE WATERS OF MEEOM. The streams from Dan and Caesarea unite with several others and flow into a little lake, which is called in Scrip¬ ture the “ waters of Merom.” On the north and east it is shut in by impenetrable marshes, but on the south-west is a considerable expanse of higher plain and rolling downs, above which, on the mountain side, are the ruins of the great city of Hazor. Here Jabin, the head of the northern Canaanitish tribes, assembled all his forces and numerous allies, and drew up his war chariots and cavalry, for a final attempt to drive back the Israelites. But God fought for Israel. The attack was sudden, and the route complete. When I stood on the mountain-brow, near the ruins of that royal city, and looked down on the battle-field hemmed in by the river, the lake, the marshes, and the mountains, I saw how the panic-stricken Canaanites, with their horses and chariots, would be hurled together in confused and helpless masses on the marshy plain and in the narrow ra¬ vines, and would become an easy prey to the victorious Is¬ raelites, who “ smote them until they left them none re¬ maining, .... and houghed their horses, and burned their chariots with fires” (Josh. xi). This victory virtually com¬ pleted the conquest of Palestine. A few miles below the lake the Jordan is spanned by the “Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters,”—-a name for which it is not easy to account. So far the Jordan glides lazily along through a grassy vale, between reedy banks, on which the buffalo and the wild swine find a fitting home; but at the bridge the vale becomes a wild ravine, and the sluggish stream a foaming torrent. Along its banks I rode, guided by an Arab chief, now following the windings of the chan- SEA OF GALILEE. 107 nel, now crossing a high projecting bluff. The mad river never rests until, breaking from its rocky barriers, it enters the rich plain of Bethsaida,—That Bethsaida near which Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves (Luke ix. 10). After a passing visit to the desolate site, I continued my journey, and found my tent pitched at the mouth of the J ordan. THE SEA OF GALILEE. It was a lovely sjiot. I sat there in my tent-door, and looked long and eagerly over one of the most interesting panoramas in the world. There was nothing to disturb me,—no din of human life, no jarring sound of human toil or struggle. The silence was profound. Even nature seemed to have fallen asleep. The river glided noiselessly past, and the sea was spread out before me like a polished mirror, reflecting from its glassy bosom the gorgeous tints of the evening sky; and both sea and river were fringed with a bright border of oleander flowers. East of the lake, the side of Bashan’s lofty plateau rose as a mountain chain; and at its northern end my eye rested on the very scene of that miracle of mercy, where thousands were fed; and at its southern end, on that of the miracle of judgment, where “ the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place, and perished in the waters.” Away on the west the shat¬ tered ramparts of Tiberias seemed to rise out of the bosom of the lake, and behind them a dark mountain, in whose caverned cliffs repose the ashes of many a learned rabbin, while over all appeared the graceful rounded top of Tabor. Farther to the right, on the white strand, I saw the huts of Magdala, with the coast of Gennesaret extending from it northward to Capernaum,—Christ’s own city. Far on into the night I sat by the silent shore of Galilee, gazing, now on the dark outlines of hill and mountain, now on the cres¬ cent moon, as she rose in her splendour, and now on the bright stars, as they hung trembling in the deep dark vault of heaven. 108 THE JOED AN AND THE DEAD SEA. “ All things were caljn, and fair, and passive. Earth Looked as if lulled upon an angel’s lap Into a breathless dewy sleep; so still, That I could only say of things, they be! The lakelet now, no longer vexed with gusts, Replaced upon her breast the pictured moon, Pearled round with stars.” CHORAZIN, BETHS AIDA, AND CAPERNAUM. Before the morning sun o’ertopped the hills of Bashan I was in the saddle. A ride of three miles westward along the shore brought me to the ruins of a large town. It was encompassed by such a dense jungle of thorns, thistles, and rank weeds, that I had to employ some shepherds to open a passage for me. Clambering to the top of a shattered wall I was able to overlook the whole site. What a scene of desolation was that! hfot a house, not a wall, not a solitary pillar remains standing. Broken columns, hewn stones, sculptured slabs of marble, and great shapeless heaps of rubbish, half concealed by thorns and briars, alone serve to mark the site of a great and rich city. The Ara¬ bian does not pitch his tent there, the shepherd does not feed his hock there,—not a sound fell upon my ear as I stood amid those ruins save the gentle murmur of each wave as it broke upon the pebbly beach, and the mournful sigh¬ ing of the summer breeze through sun-scorched branches; yet that is the place where Chorazin once stood! Chora- zin heard but rejected the words of mercy from the lips of its Lord, and he pronounced its doom,—“ T Voe unto thee , Chorazin ! ” (Matt. xi. 21). After riding some three miles farther along the lake I reached a little retired bay, with a pebbly strand,—just such a place as fishermen would delight to draw up their boats and spread out their nets upon. Here were numerous fountains, several old tanks and aqueducts, great heaps of rubbish, and fields of ruin. Two Arab tents were pitched a little way up on the hill side, but I saw no other trace there of human habitation or human life ; and yet that CAPERNAUM. 109 is the site of JBethsaida ,—the city of Andrew and Peter, James and John (John i. 44; Matt. iv. 8; Luke */. 10). Upon this strand Jesus called his first disciples. Like Chorazin, this city heard and rejected his words, and like Chorazin, it has been left desolate. “ Woe unto thee, Beth saida!” A few minutes more and I reached the brow of a bluff pro¬ montory, which dips into the bosom of the lake. Before me now opened up the fertile plain of Gennesaret. At my feet, beneath the western brow of the clifi*, a little fountain burst from a rocky basin. A fig-tree spreads its branches over it, and gives it a name,— Ain-et-Tin , “the fountain of the fig.” Beside it are some massive foundations, scarcely distinguishable amid the rank weeds, and away beyond it, almost covered with thickets of thorns, briars, and gigantic thistles, I saw large heaps of ruins and rubbish. These are all that now mark the site of Capernaum. Christ’s words are fulfilled to the letter,— “And thou , Capernaum , which art exalted unto heaven , shall be brought down to hell ” (Matt. xi. 23). On that day I climbed a peak which commands the lake, and the Jordan valley up to the waters of Merom. The principal scene of Christ’s public labours lay around me—a region some thirty miles long by ten wide. When He had his home at Capernaum, the whole country was teeming with life, and bustle, and industry. Ho less than ten large cities, with numerous villages, studded the shores of the lake, and the plains and the hill-sides around. The water was all speckled with the dark boats and white sails of Galilee’s fishermen. Eager multitudes followed the foot¬ steps of Jesus, through the city streets, over the flower- strewn fields, along the pebbly beach. What a woeful change has passed over the land since that time! The Angel of destruction has been there. From that command¬ ing height, through the clear Syrian atmosphere, I Avas able to distinguish, by the aid of my glass, every spot in 110 THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. that wide region, celebrated in sacred history, or hallowed by sacred association. My eye swept the lake from north to south, from east to west; not a single sail, not a solitary boat was there. My eye swept the great Jordan valley, the little plains, the glens, the mountain sides from base to summit—not a city, not a village, not a house, not a sign of settled habitation was there, except the few huts of Mag- dala, and the shattered houses of Tiberias. A mournful and solitary silence reigned triumphant. Desolation keeps un¬ broken Sabbath in Galilee now. Nature has lavished on the country some of her choicest gifts;—a rich soil, a ge¬ nial climate; but the curse of heaven has come upon it be¬ cause of the sin of man. I saw how wondrously time has changed a prophetic sentence into a graphic reality. “_Z will make your cities waste , saith the Lord / I will hrmg the land into desolation. I will scatter you among the hea¬ then. Upon the land shall come up thorns and briars / yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. /So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you , and the stranger that shall come from a far land , shall say , when they see the plagues of that land , Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger ? ” (Lev. xxvi.; Deut. xxix.; Isa. xxxii.) THE LOWER JORDAN. Between the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea lies a long: deep valley, varying from five to ten miles in breadth, and shut in by the parallel mountain ranges of Samaria and Gilead. Down the centre of this valley, in the bed of a deep ravine, winds the river Jordan. It has two distinct lines of banks. The first or lower banks confine the stream, are comparatively low, generally alluvial, and thickly fringed with foliage. The second, or upper banks are at some distance from the channel—occasionally nearly half a mile apart, and in places they rise to a height of one hund- scene of Christ’s baptism. Ill red and fifty feet. The appearance of the river itself is ex¬ ceedingly varied. Now it sweeps gracefully round a green meadow, softly kissing with its rippling waves the blushing flowers of the oleander as they bend over it;—now it clasps a wooded islet in its shining arms;—now fretted by project¬ ing cliffs, and opposed by rocky ledges, it dashes madly forward in sheets of foam. One bridge alone spans the river, on the road which joins the ancient cities of Bethshean and Gadara. But the ruins of many others are visible, and the fords are numer¬ ous. Of the latter, one of the most remarkable is Succoth , where Jacob crossed with his flocks and herds (Gen. xxxiii. IV), and where the fleeing hosts of Zebah and Zahnunna suffered so terribly from the Israelites (Judges vii. 24, sq.; viii. 4-10). The plain around Succoth is abundantly wat¬ ered by fountains and streamlets from the mountains. The soil is exceedingly rich. Dr. Bobinson says of it, “The grass intermingled with tall daisies and wild oats, reached to our horses’ backs, while the thistles sometimes over¬ topped the riders’ heads.” Jacob showed his usual worldly wisdom, when he encamped at this favoured spot, and “ made booths ( Succoth ) for his cattle.” But the most interesting spot on the Jordan is unques¬ tionably that now called the “ pilgrims’ bathing-place,” op¬ posite Jericho. Here the channel is deep, the current rapid, and yet, on three different occasions, the river was stayed by a miracle, and the channel left dry, to let God’s people pass over. And an interest still higher and holier clings to it. It is the scene of Christ’s baptism. Sitting here one day on the river’s bank, beneath the shade of a great wil¬ low tree, I read in succession the Bible narratives of the passage of the Israelites under Joshua, of the translation of Elijah, and of the baptism of Tesus; and then looking up on those grey bluffs that bound the narrow ravine, I involun¬ tarily exclaimed, “ Oh, that my eyes had seen those glorious events of which you were the witnesses! Oh, that the 112 THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. eye of sense had witnessed what the eye of faith now con¬ templates !—The marshalled hosts of Israel; the ark on which rested the Shekinah glory; then the fiery Chariot bearing God’s prophet to heaven; and last of all, 4 the Dove,’ the Heavenly Hove, coming down and abiding upon the Saviour.” It was in the month of April I visited this “ holy place ” on the Jordan. It was already the time of harvest, for the people of Jericho were reaping their little fields up on the plain. And we are told that “ Jordan overfioweth all his banks all the time of harvest” (Joshua iii. 15 ; 1 Chron. xii. 15). The fact is still true, though Palestine is changed. The heavy rains of early spring falling on the northern mountains, and the winter snow melting on the sides of Hermon, send a thousand tributaries to the sacred river. It rises to the top of the lower banks, and when I was there, the ruddy, swollen waters had flowed over and cov¬ ered portions of the verdant meadows on each side. Mounting my horse, I followed the tortuous river to its mouth, and saw it empty its waters into that sea of death. One would almost think they flow in reluctantly, for the current becomes slower and slower, and the channel wider and wider, till at length water touches water, and the Jor¬ dan is lost. Such is this sacred river, without a parallel, historical or physical, in the whole world. A complete river beneath the level of the ocean,, disappearing in a lake which has no outlet, and which could have none. In whatever way we regard it, the Jordan stands alone. THE DEAD SEA. The Head Sea fills up the southern end of the Jordan val¬ ley. It is about fifty miles in length from north to south, by ten in breadth. The mountain chains which shut in the valley become here steeper, wilder, and bleaker. In some places they rise in lofty precipices of naked rock from the bosom of the waters; in others they retire, forming wild SCENERY OF THE DEAD SEA. .113 nooks and yawning ravines, fitting homes for the wild goats which still inhabit them. The scenery of the lake is hare %> and desolate, hut grand. The water is clear and spark¬ ling, deep and beautiful azure when the sky is cloudless, hut reflecting vividly every changing hue of the firmament. In summer, when the heat is intense, a thin, whitish quiver¬ ing vapour hangs over the surface of the water, and gives a strange dreamy indistinctness to the mountains. At the northern and southern ends, the flat plains are parched, and barren, in part covered with fine sand, and in part with a white nitrous coating like hoar frost. Brackish and sulphur springs occur at intervals around the whole borders of the lake. Some of them are warm, and send up clouds of steam. At one or two places along the western shore, and also at the southern end of the lake are slimy pools and marshes, whose exhalations of sulphuretted-hydrogen taint the atmosphere for miles. Strewn along the northern shore, especially near the mouth of the Jordan, lie large quanti¬ ties of drift wood, brought down by the swollen river, and it is everywhere encrusted with salt crystals. The great depression, the fierce rays of an unclouded sun, the white mountain chains on each side, and the white soil below re¬ flecting the sun’s rays, give the whole basin of the Dead Sea a temperature like that of a furnace. Never did I suffer so much from intense suffocating heat as during the days I spent on the shores of the lake. Yet still it cannot be called a “ sea of death,” in that sense in which travellers in former ages were wont to re¬ present it. It has been stated that no vegetation could exist along its shores, and that no bird could fly over it; that, in fact, its poisonous exhalations are fatal alike to ani¬ mal and vegetable life. This is altogether untrue. At every little fountain along the shores, the vegetation has a tropical luxuriance. I have seen the oleander dipping its gorgeous flowers into the lake; and I have seen the willow and the tamarisk, and numerous other shrubs flourishing: 114 THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. where their stems were at certain seasons immersed in the waters. The cane-brakes on the shore abound with wild fowl; and occasionally flocks of ducks may be seen swim¬ ming far out on the sea. The water, however, is intolera¬ bly salt and bitter, and no fish could live in it. Yet it is not altogether destitute of living creatures, a few inferior organizations having been found in it by recent naturalists. Its specific gravity is so great that the human body will not sink in it. I have tried it myself, and can, therefore, testify to the truth of the fact. This is easily accounted for. The weight of water increases in proportion to the quantity of salt it contains in solution. Ordinary sea water has about four per cent, of salt, whilst that of the Dead Sea contains more than twenty-six per cent. The Dead Sea is thus a physical wonder, and, strange to say, it is also a historical wonder. It would appear that in ancient times, it was much smaller than it is at present, leaving room for a large and fertile plain on which the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim once stood (compare Gen. xiii. 10-12). The cities were burned by fire from heaven, and the whole plain, or, as it was called, “the vale of Siddim” (xiv. 8), was covered with water (xiv. 3). Recent exjDlorations of the sea and of the surrounding region tend, I believe, to throw some light on one of the most remarkable events of physical geography and of Biblical history. The northern section of the lake, from the mouth of the Jordan to the promontory of Lisan, is immensely deep, varying from forty to two hundred and eighteen fathoms. But the whole southern section is shal¬ low,—only a few feet of water covering an extensive flat, in which bitumen pits, and bituminous limestone abound, The latter appears to have been the plain of Sodom, for we learn from Gen. xix. 27, 28, that the plain was visible from a hill-top near Hebron, which would not be true of any part of the Jordan valley north of En-gedi. The Bible further informs us that “ the vale of Siddim was full of slime pits,” DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 115 that is, pits or wells of bitumen (xiv. 10). Now we know that bitumen burns like oil, and bituminous limestone is also inflammable. May not the houses of Sodom and the other cities have been built of the latter, and, like the tower of Babel, cemented with the former ? And if so, when once ignited by fire from heaven, they would burn rapidly and fiercely,—nay, the whole plain filled with its bitumen pits, and strewn with inflammable stones, would burn like a coal-field. How strikingly does this seem to illustrate the words of Scripture,—“And Abraham gat up early in the morning (from his tent at Mamre) to the place where he stood before the Lord (compare xviii. 16, 22), And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain, and behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of u furnace” (Gen. xix. 27, 28). JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. rit s a I * m ♦ * Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.”—Ps. xlviii. 2. T is not strange that my first night on the Mount of Olives was sleepless. Though the preceding night had been spent in the saddle, and the pre¬ ceding day in fatiguing travel, yet the vision of Jerusalem, which I had that day seen for the first time, re¬ mained so vivid before my mind’s eye, that it banished all thought of sleep and all sense of fatigue. For hours I lay absorbed in the stirring memories of the distant past, which holy scenes had called up and invested with the charm of reality. Mount Zion,—Moriah, crowned of yore with the halo of the Shekinah glory,—Gethsemane, bedewed with the tears, and stained by the bloody-sweat of the Son of man,—Olivet, where Jesus so often taught and prayed,— they were all there, each with its wondrous story written as if in letters of light. Longing for the morning, I once and again rose from my bed and threw open the lattice. The stars hung out like diamond lamps from the black vault of heaven, shining with a sparkling lustre unknown in our hazy west, and revealing in dim outline the walls and tow¬ ers of the Holy City sleeping peacefully away below. I was specially favoured during my first visit to Jeru¬ salem. An old friend had rented a little tower high up on a 120 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. the western side of Olivet, commanding a noble view of the Holy City and the surrounding country from Bethlehem to Mizpeh. It was one of those square turrets which in re¬ cent, as in ancient times, proprietors sometimes built in their vineyards as residences for keepers and temporary store-houses for fruit (Isa. v. 2; Matt. xxi. 33). Here I took up my quarters, and from the open window or the ter¬ raced roof, at all hours, day and night, I gazed on that wondrous landscape. During the soft, ruddy morning twilight,—at the full blaze of noon-day,—in the dead still¬ ness of night, when the moon shed her silver rays on the white walls and roofs of the city, my eyes were upon it,— never wearying, never satisfied, but ever detecting some new beauty in tint or form, some fresh spot of sacred inter¬ est or historic renown. While I live I can never forget that view of JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. Morning dawned; and with my kind host, to whom every spot in and around Jerusalem was familiar, I ascended to the terraced roof. Behind Olivet, on the east, the sky was all aglow with red light, which shot slanting across the hill-tops and projecting cliffs, and upon the walls and prom¬ inent buildings of the city, throwing them up in bold re¬ lief from the deeply shaded glens. Ho time could have been more opportune, no spot better fitted for seeing and studying the general topography of the Holy City. The whole site was before us, distinct and full, like a vast and beautiful embossed picture. At our feet, along the base of Olivet, was the Kidron, a deep and narrow glen, coming down from an undulating plateau on the right, and disap¬ pearing round the shoulder of the hill on the left; its banks terraced, and dotted here and there with little groves and single olive trees. Directly opposite us was Mount Moriah, its bare sides rising precipitously from the bottom of the Kidron to a height of some two hundred feet. On its sum- THE SITE OF THE TEMPLE. 121 mit is a rectangular platform, about thirty acres in extent, and taking up Yuliy one-half of the eastern side of the city. It is encompassed and supported by a massive wall, in some places nearly eighty feet high, and looking even higher where it impends over the ravine. This platform consti¬ tutes by far the most striking feature of the city. It is unique. There is nothing like it in the world. Its history, too, is wonderful. It has been “ a holy place ” for more than thirty centuries. Its Cyclopean walls were founded by Solomon. Upon it stood the Temple, in whose shrine the Glory of the Lord so often appeared, and in whose courts the Son of God so often taught. It is still to the Muslem el-TIaram esh-Sherif.\ “the noble sanctuary,” and, next to Mecca, the most venerated sanctuary in the world. The platform itself—simple, massive, and grand — is a striking object; but the buildings it contains greatly con¬ tribute to its beauty. In its centre; on a raised area of white marble, stands one of the most splendid mosques in the world, octagonal in form, encrusted with encaustic tiles of gorgeous colours, and surmounted by a graceful dome. From its area the ground slopes away to the encircling ramparts in gentle undulations of green turf, diversified with marble arcades, gilded cupolas, fountains and prayer- niches; and interspersed with venerable cypresses, olives, and palms. At the southern end is a large group of stately buildings, including the Mosque el-Aksa, once the Church of the Virgin; and round the sides of the platform are clois¬ ters, here and there covered with domes, and surmounted by tall minarets. The quiet seclusion of this sanctuary, the rich green of its grass and foliage, the dazzling whiteness of its pavements and fountains, the brilliant tints of the central mosque, and, above all, its sacred associations, make it one of the most charming and interesting spots on earth. Just behind Moriah the Tyropean Valley was distinctly marked by a deeply-shaded belt, running from north to south through the city. Beyond it rose Zion, higher and 122 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. longer than Moriah; in front, a confused mass of terraced roofs, tier above tier; farther back are seen the white buildings of the Armenian Convent, like an immense fac¬ tory ; more to the right the new English church; and in the background, crowning the hill, the massive square keep of the Castle of David. The southern section of Zion is now outside the city wall; and there a high minaret and cupola mark the tomb of David. From it the hill sinks into the Valley of Hinnom in steep terraced slopes, covered with vineyards, olives, and corn-fields. As I looked, a moving object in one of the fields rivetted my attention. “ Haste, give me the glass,” I said. I turned it upon the spot. Yes, I was right; a plough and yoke of oxen were there at work. Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled before my eyes: “Zion shall he ploughed like a field ” (xxvi. 18). Along the further side of Zion runs the deep glen of Hin¬ nom, which, turning eastward, sweeps round the southern end of the hill and joins the Kidron at En-Kogel. These two ravines form the great physical boundaries and bar¬ riers of Jerusalem; they completely cut it off from the sur¬ rounding table-land; and they isolate the hills on which it stands, and those other hills, too, or hill-tops, which as the Psalmist tells us, “ are round about Jerusalem” (cxxv. 2). These natural barriers also served to confine the city within regular and definite limits—to prevent it from send¬ ing forth straggling suburbs and offshoots as most other cities do; hence it was said, “Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together ” (Ps. cxxii. 3). A high battlemented wall encompasses the modern city. It runs for half a mile along the brow of the Kidron valley, facing Olivet, then turns at right angles and zigzags across Moriah, the Tyropean, and Zion to the brow of Hinnom. The whole circuit is two miles and a half. The city was always fortified, and the walls and towers formed its most prominent features. Hence the language of the exulting Psalmist, “Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell SCENERY OF THE ENVIRONS. 123 the towers thereof, mark ye well her bulwarks.” Jerusalem has no suburbs. There is no shading off of the city into the country—long streets radiating from a centre, then straggling houses, and villas, and gardens, such as we are accustomed to see in English towns. The moment you pass the gates of Jerusalem you are in the country—a country open, bare, without a single house, and almost desolate. Not a green spot is visible, and not a tree, save here and there a little clump of gnarled, dusky olives. Rounded hill-tops, and long reaches of plain, strewn with heaps of grey limestone, extend from the walls far away to the north and south. There is no grandeur, beauty, or rich¬ ness in the scenery. It is bleak and featureless. Hence the sad disappointment felt by most travellers on approach¬ ing Jerusalem from the west and north. They can only see the serried line of grey Saracenic walls extending across a section of a bleak, rocky plateau. But when I stood that morning on the brow of Olivet, and looked down on the city, crowning those battlemented heights, encircled by those deep and dark ravines, I involuntarily exclaimed,— “j Beautiful for situation , the joy of the whole earth , is Mount Zion , the city of the great King ” (Ps. xlviii. 2). And as I gazed, the red rays of the rising sun shed a halo round the top of the Castle of David; then they tipped with gold each tapering minaret, and gilt each dome of mosque and church; and at length bathed in one flood of ruddy light the terraced roofs of the city, and the grass and foliage, the cupolas, pavements, and colossal walls of the Haram.—No human being could be disappointed who first saw Jerusalem from Olivet. WALKS THROUGH THE CITY. In the eastern wall there is but one gate, and all the paths from Olivet and Bethany meet there. Instead of entering, however, we turn to the left, and soon reach the square tower on the north-east angle of the Haram. The 124 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. enormous size of the stones in the lower courses of the ma¬ sonry—some of them being more than twenty feet long—• and the moulding of their edges, prove that the building was founded not later than the time of Herod, and proba bly much earlier. It was one of the external defences of the fortress of Antonia, where the Roman garrison was quartered, and in which was Pilate’s “Judgment Hall” where our Lord was condemned (Matt, xxvii. 19). Proceeding southwards, we reach an ancient gate, which, though now walled up, is the most striking object on this side of the city. Travellers usually call it “ The Golden Gatebut its florid capitals and entablatures, and its de¬ based Corinthian columns and pilasters are not older than the fourth century; and, consequently, it cannot be reck¬ oned one of the gates of the temple. The Valley of Judgment — Muslem tradition .—After passing the gate, my companion directed my attention to the end of a granite column projecting from the wall far over¬ head, to which the Mohammedans have attached a curious tradition. On it, they say, their Prophet will sit on the last day to direct the work of the final judgment in the valley beneath. That part of the tradition which locates the judgment in the Kidron, or “Valley of Jehoshaphat,” they have borrowed from the Jews, and it has its origin in a misinterpretation of Joel iii. 12. But be this as it may, the belief exercises a powerful influence alike on Jews and Mohammedans. The favourite burying-place of the latter is the narrow ledge outside the Haram wall, on the brow of the Kidron; and the Jews often travel from the ends of the earth that they may lay their bones in the vast ceme- try which covers the opposite bank of the ravine. The Pinnacle of the Temple .—The south-eastern angle of the Haram is a most interesting relic of ancient Jerusa¬ lem. It is nearly eighty feet high. In its lower part are sixteen courses of bevelled stones, forming one of the finest specimens of masonry in the world. The joints are so PINNACLE OF THE TEMPLE. 125 close, and the finish of the moulding so perfect, that when new it must have produced the effect of relievo panelling. On looking at this noble work, the narrative in Mark xiii. assumed a fresh interest for me:—“ And as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples saith unto Him, Master, See what manner of stones and what buildings are here.” The “ chief corner-stones ” surpass all the others in size and finish. They measure twenty feet by six, and are designed alike for strength and beauty. How graphic must the words of Isaiah have been to the old Jews who frequented the temple courts, and were familiar with these colossal stones ! “ Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation , a stone , a tried stone , a precious corner-stone , a sure foundation ” (xxviii. 16); and how beautifully expressive is the language of the Psalmist!—“ Our daughters as corner-stones , polished after the similitude of a palace” (cxliv. 12). The angle springs from the very brow of the valley; and upon its summit stood, in Herod’s time, a splendid tower, uniting the royal cloisters which ran along the southern side of the temple court, to the cloisters or “ porch ” of Solomon (John x. 23), which occupied the eastern side. Josephus thus describes the stupendous height of this tower:—“If any one looked down from the top of the battlements, or down both those altitudes, he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth.” There can be little doubt that this was “ the pinnacle of the tem¬ ple” on which Satan placed our Lord in the temptation (Matt, iv.) Turning the corner, we walked on to the place where the modern city wall meets the ancient Haram wall at right angles; and just at the point of junction we observed part of an old gateway. We examined it in passing; but at a subsequent period I was enabled to explore it thor¬ oughly inside and out. The gate is double, and formerly opened into a long tunnelled passage, leading up by an in¬ clined plane and steps to the centre of the Haram. It was 126 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. evidently intended for the accommodation of the inhabitants of the lower part of the city; probably for the Nethinims and others who lived down in Ophel, to give them easy access to the temple (Neh. iii. 26; xi. 21). Solomon's “ Ascent ” to the Temple. — There is no gate in the city wall near the Haram, and we must, consequent¬ ly, pass round towards Zion to a little postern which is usually open upon Fridays. Entering by it, we suddenly find ourselves in a wilderness of ruins and rubbish heaps, overgrown with rank weeds and straggling jungles of the giant cactus. The shattered and half-ruinous houses of the Jewish quarter are away up on the left, clinging to the precipitous side of Zion. A tortuous path, encumbered with filth, and noisome with the putrid remains of cats, dogs, camels, and other animals, winds through this scene of des¬ olation. As we pass along, we cannot but recall the words of Micah, for his prediction is fulfilled before our eyes:—• “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps , and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest ” (iii. 12). At length we reach the south-west angle of the Haram, and feel am¬ ply repaid for a toilsome and unpleasant walk. The ma¬ sonry here is even grander than that of the other angle, and the “ corner-stones ” are still more colossal; one meas¬ ures thirty feet by six and a half! This angle stands on the brow of the Tyropean valley, which separated Moriah from Zion, but which is now in a great measure filled up with rubbish. Some forty feet from the angle, on the western side, are three courses of colossal masonry projecting from the wall, and forming the springing stones of a large arch. These stones have within the last few years attracted no little attention, and given rise to no small amount of controversy. And this is not strange, for they are unquestionably a rem nant of the bridge that once connected Moriah and Zion. Calculating by the curve of the part which remains, we find Solomon’s bridge. 127 that .the span of the arch must have been about forty feet, and five such arches would be required to cross the Tyro- pean. That the bridge existed in our Lord’s time we learn from Josephus. It is also mentioned during the siege by Pompey twenty years before Herod was made king. The exact date of the fragment still remaining, cannot, of course, be precisely fixed. One thing, however, is certain, that it is coeval with the massive foundations of the southern an¬ gles of the Haram. One of the three courses is five feet four inches high, the others are a little less. One of the stones is twenty-four feet long, another twenty, and the rest in proportion. The Cyclopean dimensions, and peculiar character of the masonry, indicate a far higher antiquity than Herod the Great, and would seem to point back to the earliest age of the Jewish monarchy. We read in 1 Kings vii. 10, that the foundations of Solomon’s temple were formed of “ costly sto?ies , even great stones ; stones of ten cubits , and stones of eight cubits .... And the great court round about was with three rows of hewed stones .” In three passages of Scripture a remarkable “ ascent ,” or “ causeway ,” is mentioned, leading from the palace to the temple, and specially intended for the use of the king (1 Kings x. 5; 1 Chron. xxvi. 16; 2 Chron. ix. 4). May we not identify this “ ascent ” with the “ viaduct ” which, ac¬ cording to Josephus, connected the royal palace on Zion with the temple court ? Such a monument of genius and power might well make a deep impression on the mind of the Queen of Sheba in that remote age; and thus a new interest is attached to the story:—“ And when the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house he had built, . . . and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord , there was no more spirit in her A What a tram of associations, holy and historic, and what a crowd of feelings, joyous and sorrowful, do these few stones awaken! Over the noble bridge which they sup¬ ported, marched in solemn splendour the kings and princes 123 JERUSALEM ANI) ITS ENVIRONS. of Israel, to worship God in His temple. Over it, too, h am' ble and despised, often passed the Son of God himself, to carry a message of heavenly peace to a rebel world. Upon its shattered arch the victorious Titus once stood, and pointing to the burning temple behind him, made a final appeal to the remnant of the Jews on Zion to lay down their arms and save themselves from slaughter by submis¬ sion to Rome. How, temple, bridge, and palace are all gone. Within the precincts of the temple-court no Jew dare set his foot; and on the site of the royal palace the wretched dwellings of that poor despised race are huddled together in misery and in squalor. The Place of 'Wailing .—Entering the inhabited part of the old city, and winding through some crooked filthy lanes, I suddenly found myself, on turning a sharp corner, in a spot of singular interest;—the “Jew’s place of wail¬ ing.” It is a small paved quadrangle; on one side are the backs of low modern houses, without door or window; on the other is the lofty wall of the Haram, of recent date above, but having below five courses of bevelled stones in a perfect state of preservation. Here the Jews are permitted to approach the sacred enclosure, and wail over the fallen temple, whose very dust is dear to them, and in whose stones they still take pleasure (Ps. cii. 14). It was Friday, and a crowd of miserable devotees had assembled—men and women of all ages and all nations, dressed in the quaint costumes of every country of Europe and Asia. Old men were there,—pale, haggard, careworn men, tottering on pilgrim staves; and little girls with white faces, and lus¬ trous black eyes, gazing wistfully now at their parents, now at the old wall. Some were on their knees, chanting mournfully from a book of Hebrew prayers, swaying their bodies to and fro; some were prostrate on the ground, pressing forehead and lips to the earth; some were close to the wall, burying their faces in the rents and crannies of the old stones; some were kissing them, some had their 129 jew’s place of wailing. arms spread out as if they would clasp them to their bo¬ soms, some were bathing them with tears, and all the while sobbing as if their hearts would burst. It was a sad and touching spectacle. Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their hearts’ affections, or deadened their feelings of national devotion. Here we see them assembled from the ends of the earth, poor, despised, down-trodden outcasts,—amid the desolations of their fatherland, beside the dishonoured ruins of their ancient sanctuary,—chant¬ ing, now in accents of deep pathos, and now of wild woe, the prophetic words of their own Psalmist,—“ 0 God , the heathen are come into thine inheritance / thy holy temple have they defiled. .... We are become a reproach to our neighbours , a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long , Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever?” (Ps. lxxix. 1, 4, 5). “ Oh, weep for those that wept by Babel’s stream, Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream ; Weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell; Mourn—where their God hath dwelt, the godless dwell! ” The Temple and its Court. —After two or three attempts to get a peep at the sacred enclosure through the open gateways, where we met with a somewhat rude reception from the guardian dervishes, we passed on to the Serai, or Pasha’s palace, at the north-west corner. My compan¬ ion had the entree, and we were soon on the terraced roof which commands the whole Haram. From this point the various buildings are seen to great advantage. I was struck with the chasteness of design, and wonderful minute¬ ness and delicacy of detail, in the Saracenic architecture. The central mosque is a perfect gem. The encaustic tiles which cover the whole exterior, reflect in gorgeous hues the oright sunlight. Over the windows and round the cornice are borders of beautifully interlaced Arabic characters, so large that one can easily read them. The graceful dome and its golden crescent crown the whole. The position of 130 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. the building on its marble platform, raised high above the surrounding area, adds vastly to its appearance. It is octagonal in form, and about one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. The roof and dome are supported by three con¬ centric circles of marble columns of the Corinthian order. Beneath the dome is the remarkable rock ,—the sanctum of the whole Haram,—which gives to the building its name, JKubbet es-Sukhrah , “ The Dome of the Rock.” It is the top of the hill,—the crown of Mount Moriah, rough and ir¬ regular in form, and rising live or six feet above the marble floor. Beneath it is a small excavated chamber, called the “Noble Cave.” The Jews regard this rock as the holiest spot on earth. Here, they tell us, Abraham offered his sacrifice; here was the threshing-floor of Oman which David bought, and on which Solomon built the Temple (2 Sam. xxiv.; 1 Chron. xxi.; 1 Kings vi.; 2 Chron. iii.) We learn from the Talmud that the great altar of burnt- offering was erected on it, and that the cave beneath was excavated as a cesspool to drain off the blood. Thus the exact site of Solomon’s Temple is identified; and thus, too, we see that the golden crescent—the symbol of the false prophet—is now raised on high, as if in scorn and derision, over the very spot where the Shekinah glory appeared of old. Ezekiel’s prophecy is fulfilled, “I will bring the worst of the heathen , and they shall possess their houses . And their holy places shall be defiled ” (vii. 24). The poor Jew may now truly exclaim, as he looks down from his squalid dwelling on the brow of Zion:— “ Our temple hath not left one stone, And mockery sits on Salem’s throne.” The whole Haram area is artificial. Part of it round the great mosque has been cut down, while the outer por¬ tions are raised, and the southern section is supported on massive piers and arches. The subterranean chambers thus formed are chiefly used as cisterns for storing water. VIA DOLOROSA. 131 In former times they were supplied by an aqueduct from Solomon’s Pools. The other buildings in the Haram have comparatively little interest. On the right, adjoining the city, are ranges of Dervish colleges, with cloisters opening on the grassy area. Away on the south-west is El-Aksa, with its pointed roof and Gothic fa 9 ade. To the left of the great mosque, and only a few paces distant, is a beautiful cupola, support¬ ed on slender marble columns; it was built by the Calif Abd el-Melek, some say as a model for the Dome of the Rock. Via Dolorosa .—A narrow lane which runs in a zig-zag line from the door of the Serai to the Church of the Se¬ pulchre has been dignified by the name Via Dolorosa , be¬ cause along it, says tradition, our Lord passed from the Judgment Hall to Calvary. I shall neither insult the un¬ derstandings of my readers, nor shock their feelings by any description of the Seven /Stations , which monkish impost¬ ure has located here. We passed along the street, making various excursions to the right and left in order to get a fuller view of the city, and to visit objects of interest. We looked into the Pool of Bethesda, so called,—but which seems to be a portion of the great fosse which protected the fortress of Antonia on the north; and we visited the Church of St. Anne, not far distant,—a chaste building of the Crusading age, recently given by the Sultan to the French Emperor. “Most of the city is very solitary and silent; echo answers to your tread; frequent waste places, among which the wild dog prowls, convey an indescribable mpression of desolation; and it is not only these waste places that give such an air of loneliness to the city, but many of the streets themselves, dark, dull, and mournful looking, seem as if the Templars’ armed tread were the last to which they had resounded.” Another thing strikes the thoughtful traveller,—the remains of the ancient city that meet the eye are singularly few; here and there, a 132 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. column in the wall, or a marble slab on the footway, or a fragment of bevelled masonry, or a Gothic arch projecting from a rubbish heap,—these are all that whisper memories of the distant past The Jerusalem of Solomon, and the Jerusalem of Herod, and even a great part of the Jerusalem of the Crusades, lie deeply buried beneath the modern lanes and houses. THE CHURCH OF THE HOLT SEPULCHRE Has been for fifteen hundred years the chief point of at¬ traction to Christian pilgrims. Its history may be told in a sentence or two. Founded by the Emperor Constantine, it was dedicated in a.d. 335—Eusebius, the father of ecclesi¬ astical history, taking part in the consecration service. It was destroyed by the Persians in 614, and rebuilt sixteen years afterwards on a new plan. It was again destroyed by the mad Calif Hakim, the founder of the Druse sect, and rebuilt in 1048. During the Crusades many changes and additions were made. The Rotunda, the Greek Church on its eastern side, the western fa 9 ade, including the pres¬ ent door and tower, and the chapel over Calvary, were then erected in whole or in part. The buildings remained as the Crusaders left them till the year 1808, when they were partly destroyed by fire. They were restored, and the church, as it now stands, was consecrated in 1810. Turning from the Via Dolorosa into a narrow lane, we soon reach an open court, its pavement worn by the feet of innumerable pilgrims, and usually littered with the wares of trinket merchants, dealers in beads, crosses, “holy” soap, and “blessed” candles, which are eagerly bought up by strangers. On the northern side of the court stands the church. Its southern fa 9 ade, the only one now uncovered, is a pointed Romanesque composition, dark, heavy, and yet picturesque. It has a wide double door, with detached shafts supporting richly sculptured architraves, representing our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Over the CHURCH OF THE SEPULCHRE. 133 door are two corresponding windows, and on the left stands the remnant of the massive Campanile, once a noble tower of five stories, but now cut down to three. On entering, it was with shame and sorrow I observed a guard of soldiers—Mohammedan soldiers—stationed in the vestibule, to keep rival Christian sects from quarreling over the tomb of their Saviour. The principal part of the build¬ ing is the Rotunda , which has a dome open at the top, like the Pantheon. Beneath the dome stands the Holy Sepul¬ chre, a little structure, like a church in miniature, encased in white stone profusely ornamented, and surmounted by a crown-shaped cupola. It contains two small chambers—the first called the “ Chapel of the Angel,” and said to be the place where the angel sat after he had rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre. The stone itself is there too! Through this we pass, and enter the Sepulchre by a very low door. It is a vault, measuring six feet by seven. The tomb—a raised couch -covered with a slab of white marble—occupies the whole of the right side. Over it hang forty lamps of gold and silver, kept constantly burning. I lingered long here—solemnized, almost awe-stricken—look¬ ing at pilgrim after pilgrim, in endless succession, crawling in on bended knees, putting lips and forehead and cheeks to the cold marble, bathing it with tears, then dragging him¬ self away backwards, still in the attitude of devotion, until the threshold is again crossed. The vault is said to be hewn out of the rock, but not a vestige of rock is now visible; the floor, tomb, walls, are all marble. The rock may be there; but if so, how one should wish “ The lichen now were free to twine O’er the dark entrance of that rock-hewn cell. Say, should we miss the gold-encrusted shrine . Or incense-fume’s intoxicating spell ?” The Rotunda and Sepulchre are common property. All sects — Latin, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Jacobite — have free access to them, but each has its own establishment 184 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. elsewhere. Round the Holy Sepulchre are numerous other “ holy places,” no less than thirty-two being clustered under one roof! Golgotha, the Stone of Unction, the Place of Apparition, the Chapel of Mocking, the Chapel of the In¬ vention of the Cross-But why go over such a catalogue ? I would not willingly mingle one light feeling or one light expression with the solemn events of the Crucifixion. Yet it is difficult to speak of these “ holy places ” gravely. It is difficult to forget how seriously such superstitions and tra¬ ditions hinder the success of missionary enterprise, and how often they make Christianity a mockery in the land which gave it birth. On another occasion, I was in the Church of the Sepul¬ chre at Easter, when crowded with pilgrims from all lands, of all sects. It was a strange and impressive, but painful scene. In that vast crowd, with the exception of a few solitary cases, I saw nothing like devotion; and in these few cases devotional feeling had manifestly degenerated into superstition. Place was the object of Avorship, and not God. The bitter animosities of rival sects came out on all sides, among the clergy as well as their flocks; and it Avas only the presence of the Turkish guard that prevented open Avar. I was then glad to think that the real place of our Lord’s Passion Avas not dishonoured. True, Christianity is a spiritual faith; it recognizes no “holy places.” Yet one’s natural feelings revolt at the bare idea of Calvary becoming the scene and the cause of superstition and strife. But some of my readers will doubtless ask, “ Does not the Church of the Sepulchre cover the real tomb of our Lord ?” The question involves a long and tangled controversy, on which I care not to enter. I may, howeA^er, gh r e my oaviT first impressions on the subject—impressions Avdiich thought and study have since deepened into conviction. Before visiting Jerusalem, I kneAv from Scripture that Christ was crucified “Avithout the gate” (Heb. xiii. 12), at a place called Golgotha (Matt, xxvii. 33), apparently beside a SITE OF CALVARY UNKNOWN. 135 public road (v. 39). I also knew that the “sepulchre” was “hewn out of a rock” (Mark xv. 46), in a garden near Gol¬ gotha (John xix. 41, 42). On visiting Jerusalem, I was not a little surprised to observe the dome of the Church of the Sepulchre far within the walls—in fact, nearly in the cen¬ tre of the city. Yet the city in our Lord’s day must have been four or five times larger than it is now. It seemed to me that topography alone makes identity all but impossi¬ ble. But whatever may be thought of traditional “holy places,” Zion and Moriah, Hinnom, Olivet, and the Kidron are there. What though the royal palace has become “ heaps,” and the temple has “ not one stone left upon an¬ other !” What though the “ Holy City ” is “ trodden down of the Gentiles,” and mockery is enshrined in its sanctuary! The glens which echoed back the monarch minstrel’s song, the sacred court within whose colossal walls Israel assem¬ bled to worship a present God, the hills over which Jesus walked, and on whose sides He taught and prayed, the vines, the figs, the olives which suggested His beautiful parables,—all are there; and no controversies or scandals can ever change their features, or rob us of the hallowed memories they recall and the illustrations of divine truth they afford. II. Cirmtrs of t\n fW]) €iig. “ But we must wander witheringly In other lands to die ; And where our fathers’ ashes be, Our own may never lie.” O may the poor Jew no w sadly sing as he wan¬ ders, a despised and persecuted outcast, among the desolations of the once proud capital of his ancestors. Wherever he turns his eyes — on Zion, Moriah, Olivet—he is reminded by rock-hewn monu¬ ment and yawning cave, that Jerusalem is not only his holy city, but that the ashes of his ancestors are there; that it is, as the captive said in Babylon, “ the place of my fathers’ sepulchres” (Neh. ii. 3). The tombs are among the most interesting monuments of Jerusalem. The temple “hath not left one stonethe palaces of Solomon and Herod have long since crumbled to dust; the Jerusalem of the prophets and apostles “became heaps” (Jer. ix. 11) centuries ago, but the tombs remain almost as perfect as when the princes of Israel were there laid “in glory, every one in his own house” (Isa. xiv. 18). I was sadly disappointed when, after days and weeks of careful and toilsome research, I could only discover a very few authentic vestiges of “ the city of the Great King;” — a few fragments of the colossal wall that enclosed the temple courts; a few broken shafts here and there in the lanes, or protruding from some noisome rubbish heap; a few remnants of the fortifications that once JERUSALEM UNDERGROUND. 137 defended Zion. All besides is gone; buried deep, deep be¬ neath modern dwellings. When excavating for the foundation of the English Church, portions of the old houses and aqueducts of Zion were found nearly forty feet below the present surface! We need not wonder that the identification of the particu¬ lar buildings of primitive ages is now so difficult; and that even the position of the valleys which once divided the quarters of the city, has come to be subject of keen contro¬ versy among antiquarians. The city of Herod was built on the ruins of the city of Solomon; the city of the Cru¬ saders was built on the ruins of that of Herod; and modern Jerusalem is founded on the ruins of them all. Hills and cliffs have been rounded off; ravines have been filled up; palaces and fortresses have been overthrown, and their very ruins have been covered over with the rubbish of mil- - lenniums. Could David revisit his royal capital, or could Herod come back to the scene of his magnificence and his crimes, or could Godfrey rise from his tomb, so complete has been the desolation, so great the change even in the features of the site, that I believe they would find as much difficulty in settling topographical details as modern schol¬ ars do. Nothing but excavation can settle satisfactorily and fin¬ ally the vexed questions of Jerusalem’s topography. A week’s work in trenches would do more to solve existing mysteries than scores of volumes and years of learned re¬ search. It may well excite the wonder of Biblical scholars, that while the mounds of Assyria, and Babylonia, and Chaldea, have been excavated at enormous cost, not a shilling has been expended upon the Holy City. By ju¬ dicious excavation, under the direction of an accomplished antiquarian, the lines of the ancient walls, the sites of the great buildings, the sepulchres of the kings, and the beds of the valleys, might all be traced. A flood of light would thus be shed upon one of the most interesting departments J 33 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. of Biblical topography; and who can tell what precious treasures of ancient art might be discovered ? Will no man of influence and wealth in our country undertake this work ? Will no learned society contribute of its funds to carry it out? Will not our beloved Prince, who has already ren¬ dered such signal service at Hebron, render a still greater service to Biblical knowledge, by encouraging such an en¬ terprise ? It is pleasant to think that amid ruin and confusion there are still some monuments left in and around the Holy City, as connecting links between the present and the distant past. The sepulchres of the Jewish nobles remain though their palaces are gone. We can see where they were bur¬ ied, if we cannot see where they lived. I could not de¬ scribe with what intense emotion I heard my friends speak familiarly of the tombs of David and Absalom, of the Judges, the kings, and the prophets; and what was the ex¬ cited state of my feelings when they proposed one bright morning a walk to Tophet and Aceldama. Some of these names may be, and doubtless are, apocryphal; none of them may be able to stand the test of full historic investigation; but the high antiquity of the monuments themselves can¬ not be denied; and an inspection of them is alike interest¬ ing and instructive, from the light they throw upon the customs of God’s ancient people, and from the illustrations they afford of many passages in God’s Word. JEWISH TOMBS. The earliest burial-places on record were caves. When Sarah died, Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah, and buried her there. Samuel is said to have been buried “in his house at Hamah” (1 Sam. xxv. 1); by which, I believe, is meant the tomb he had excavated for himself there, for the Hebrew word Beth , “ house,” is sometimes used to signify tomb, as in Isaiah xiv. 18, and Eccles. xii. 5, “ Man goeth to his long home” literally “to his eternal house” FORM AND CHARACTER OF JEWISH TOMBS. 130 We read, moreover, of King Asa, that “they buried him in his own sepulchre which he had digged for himself in the city of David” (2 Chron. xvi. 14). Elisha was buried in a cave (2 Kings xiii. 21); the sepulchre of Lazarus was a cave (John xi. 38); and the Holy Sepulchre was a new cave which Joseph of Arimathea had “hewn out in the rock” for himself (Matt, xxvii. 60). In our own land we are all familiar with the grassy mounds and marble monuments which fill the cemeteries, and which pass away almost as quickly as man himself. In Home and Pompeii we see the habitations of the dead lin¬ ing the great highways, and crumbling to ruin like the palaces of their tenants. But the moment we set our feet on the shores of Palestine, we feel that we are in an ancient country—the home of a primeval people, whose tombs ap¬ pear in cliff and glen, and mountain-side, all hewn in the living rock, and permanent as the rock itself. The tombs of Jerusalem are rock-hewn caves. I found them in every direction. Wherever the face of a crag affords space for an architectural fa 9 ade, or a projecting rock a fitting place for excavation, there is sure to be a sepulchre. I visited them on Olivet and Scopus, on Zion and Moriah, inside the modern city and outside; but they chiefly abound in the rocky banks of Hinnom and the Kidron. Near the junction of these ravines, the overhanging cliffs are actually honey¬ combed. Hundreds of dark openings were in view when I stood beside En-Pogel. Some of these tombs are small grottoes, with only one or two receptacles for bodies; others are of great extent, containing chambers, galleries, passages, and loculi , almost without number, each tomb forming a little necropolis. The doors are low and narrow, so as to be shut by a single slab. This slab was called golal , that is, “ a thing rolled,” from the fact that it was rolled back from the opening in a groove made for it. The stone being heavy, and the groove generally inclining upwards, the operation of opening required a considerable exertion of 140 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. strength. Hence the anxious inquiry of the two Marys, “ Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” (Mark xvi. 3). The stone always fitted closely, and could easily be sealed with one of those large signets such as were then in use. Or perhaps the Holy Sepulchre may have had a wedge, or small bar, pushed into the rock behind it, like that at the tombs of the kings (de¬ scribed below), and preventing the stone from being rolled back. To this the seal might be attached (Matt, xxvii. 66). I had always to stoop low on entering the doors, which reminded me of Peter at the sepulchre (Luke xxiv. 12). The fa§ades of many are elaborately ornamented; but one thing is very remarkable, they contain no inscrip¬ tions. The tombs of Egypt are covered with hieroglyphics, giving long histories of the dead, and of the honours paid to their remains. The tombs of Palmyra not only have written tablets over the entrances ; but every separate niche, or loculus in the interior has its inscription. I have counted more than fifty such in a single mausoleum; yet I have never been able to discover a single letter in one of the tombs of the Holy City, nor a single painting, sculpture, or carving on any ancient Jewish tomb in Palestine, cal¬ culated to throw light on the story, name, or rank of the dead. Simplicity and security appear to have been the only things the Jews aimed at in the construction of their se¬ pulchres. To be buried with their fathers was their only ambition. They seem to have had no desire to transmit their names to posterity through the agency of their graves. It has been well said that the words, “Let me bury my dead out of my sight,” “No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day”—express, if not the general feeling of the Jewish nation, at least the general spirit of the Old Testa¬ ment. With the Jews the tomb was an unclean place, which men endeavoured to avoid rather than honour by pilgrimages. The homage paid to them is of late date, and JEWISH MODE OF BURIAL. 141 the offspring of a corrupt age. When near relatives died it was, as it still is, customary for females to go and weep at their graves, as Martha and Mary did at the grave of Lazarus; hut the dead were soon forgotten, and except in the case of a few of the patriarchs, kings (Acts vii. 16, ii. 29), and prophets (Matt, xxiii. 29) we have no record of tombs having been even held in remembrance. There were always a few in every age who coveted out¬ ward show and splendour in their tombs, as well as in their houses. Such was the upstart Shebna, whose vanity and pretension the prophet Isaiah describes and denounces: “ What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock?” (xxii. 16.) It is evident that the greater part of the ornamented fa 9 ades, and architectural tombs, are of a late date, and not purely Jewish. JEWISH MODE OF BURIAL. The Jews used no coffins or sarcophagi. The .body was washed (Acts ix. 37), anointed (Mark xvi. 1; John xix. 40), wrapped in linen cloths (John xix. 40; xi. 44), and laid in the niche prepared for it—an excavation about two feet wide, three high, and six deep, opening endwise in the side of the rock-chamber, as is represented in the diagrams given below. The mouth of the loculus was then shut by a slab of stone, and sealed with cement. In some cases the bodies were laid on a kind of open shelf, such as I have seen in many of the chambers. It was thus our Lord was laid, for John tells us that Mary “ stooped down into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain” (xx. 21). The kings of Israel were buried with more pomp. In addition to the anointing of the sweet spices, “ burnings ” were made for them. Thus Jeremiah says to Zedekiah: “ Thou shalt die in peace; and with the burnings of thy 142 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. fathers , the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn for thee.” And in the case of Asa we are told there was “a great burning” (2 Chron. xvi. 14). It is not meant that the bodies were burned, but that sweet spices and perfumes were burned in honour of them, and probably in their sepulchres. The bodies of Saul and Jonathan are the only ones which we read of as having been burned (l Sam. xxxi. 11-13). THE TOMB OF DAVID. On the southern brow of Zion, outside the modern walls, there is a little group of buildings distinguished from afar by a dome and lofty minaret. These, according to an old tradition, believed in alike by Jews, Christians, and Moham¬ medans, cover the sepulchre of Israel’s minstrel king. As matters now stand the truth of the tradition can neither be proved nor disproved. The Turks esteem the spot one of their very holiest shrines, and they will neither examine it themselves nor permit others to do so. bTo place about Jerusalem, not even the Haram, is guarded with such jeal¬ ousy. I visited the building frequently: I walked round and through it: I peeped into every hole, window, and passage accessible to me: I tried soft words and even a liberal bakhshish with the gentlemanly old keeper : but it was all in vain; I saw no more than my predecessors had done. The principal apartment in the group of buildings is a Gothic chamber, evidently a Christian church of the cru¬ sading age, though probably built on an older site, or per¬ haps reconstructed out of an earlier model. Tradition has filled it with “ holy places,” making it the scene of the Last Supper (hence its name Coenaculum ), of the meeting after the Resurrection, of the miracle of Pentecost, of the resi¬ dence and death of the Virgin, and of the burial of Stephen. At its eastern end is a little chancel where Romish priests sometimes celebrate mass; and on the south side is a mih- TOMB OF DAVID. 143 rah where Moslems pray. It is thus a grand centre of tra¬ dition, superstition, and imposture. The crypt is the real holy place. A portion of it has been walled off and consecrated as a mosque-mausoleum. So sacred is it, that none have the entree , not even Mus- lem santons or grandees — except the sheikh who keeps it, and the members of his family. Filrer, a German trav¬ eller of the sixteenth century, tells us he gained access to it, and he probably saw the interior. In 1839 Sir Moses Montefiore was permitted to approach an iron railing and look into the chamber which contains the tomb; but he could not enter. The Jew is shut out alike from the Tem¬ ple and tombs of his fathers. Miss Barclay, a young American lady, (daughter of the author of “ The City of the Great King,”) has been more fortunate. She gained admission to the mausoleum with a female friend, a near relative of the keeper; she spent an hour in the sanctuary, took a sketch of the interior, and has given us the following description of what she saw: “ The room is insignificant in its dimensions, but is furnished very gorgeously. The tomb is apparently an immense sarcopha¬ gus of rough stone, and is covered by green satin tapestry, richly embroidered with gold. A satin canopy of red, blue, green, and yellow stripes hangs over the tomb; and another piece of black velvet tapestry, embroidered in silver, covers a door in one end of the room which , they said , leads to a cave underneath. Two tall silver candlesticks stand before this door, and a little lamp hangs in a window near it, which is kept constantly burning.The ceiling of the room is vaulted, and the walls covered with blue porcelain in floral figures.” Such then is the present state of the reputed tomb ot David. It is well known, however, that the Muslems care¬ fully shut up their most sacred shrines, and construct others either directly over them or close beside them, which they visit and venerate as the real places. So it is at the tomb 7 144 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. of Abraham in Hebron, and so, doubtless, it is here. The real sepulchre, if here at all, is in a vault beneath, and the door mentioned by Miss Barclay probably leads to it. No fact in the Word of God is more plainly stated than this, that David, and most of his successors on the throne of Israel, were buried in the “ city of David,” that is, in Zion (1 Kings ii. 10; xi. 43; xv. 24, &c.) The royal sepulchres were well known after the return of the Jews from Baby¬ lon, and Nehemiah incidentally describes their position (iii. 15, 16). Josephus says that Solomon buried David with great pomp, and placed immense treasures in his tomb. These remained undisturbed until Hyrcanus, when besieged by Antiochus, opened one room and took out three thousand talents to buy off the enemy. Herod the Great also plun¬ dered the tomb; and it is said that two of his guards were killed by a flame that burst upon them when engaged in the sacrilegious act. We have a still later testimony to the preservation of the tomb in the words of the apostle Peter regarding David: “ His sepulchre is with us unto this day ” (Acts ii. 29). We hear no more of it till the 12th century, when Benjamin of Tudela relates the following strange story, which I insert as perhaps having some slight founda¬ tion in fact:— “ On Mount Zion are the sepulchres of the house of David. In consequence of the following circumstance, this place is hardly to be recognised. Fifteen years ago one of the walls of the church on Zion fell down, and the patriarch ordered the priest to repair it, and to take the stones requi¬ site from the old wall of Zion.Two labourers when thus employed, found a stone which covered the mouth of a cave. This they entered in search of treasures, and reached a large hall, supported by pillars of marble, encrusted with gold and silver, and before which stood a table with a golden sceptre and crown. This was the sepulchre of David; to the left they saw that of Solomon in a’ similar state; and so on the sepulchres of the other kings buried TOPHET. 145 there. They saw chests locked up, and were on the point of entering when a blast of wind rushing out threw them lifeless on the ground. They lay there senseless until even¬ ing, and then they heard a voice commanding them to go forth from the place. The patriarch on hearing the story ordered the tomb to be walled up.” The royal sepulchres were doubtless hewn in the rock, like all those of great men in that age; and they must still exist. Excavation, or at least a full exploration of the place, will alone solve the mystery. Of one thing we may be assured, that the se¬ pulchre of David cannot have been far distant from the building now said to stand over it. TOPHET. On one occasion, after a long visit to Zion, I walked down through the terraced corn-fields on its southern de¬ clivity into the deep glen of Hinnom. The sun was low in the west, and the ravine, with its rugged cliffs, and dusky olive groves, was thrown into deep shadow. Not a human being was there, and no sound from the city broke in upon the silence. The high rocks along the whole southern bank are honey-combed with tombs, whose dark mouths made the place look still more gloomy. Already the jackals had left their lairs, and numbers of them ran out and in of the sepulchres, and prowling among the rocks and through the olive trees. As I wandered on down Hinnom towards the Kidron I observed that the tombs became more and more numerous, until at length, at the junction of the valleys, every available spot in the surrounding cliffs and rocks was excavated. They are mostly plain chambers, or groups of chambers opening into each other, hewn in the soft lime¬ stone, without any attempt at ornament, save, here and there, a moulding round the door. I observed a few He¬ brew and Greek inscriptions, but of late date—certainly not older than the ninth or tenth century. Here, in the mouth of Hinnom, was situated the Tophet 116 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. of the Bible, — originally, perhaps, a “music Dower,” oi “pleasure garden” of Solomon’s; but afterwards desecrated by lust, and defiled by the offerings of Baal and the fires of “ Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice and parents’ tears.” It finally became so notorious for its abominations that it was regarded as the “ very type of helland the name of the valley, Ge-Hinnom, in Greek Gehenna , was given by the Jews to the infernal regions. Jeremiah gives some terrible sketches of the fearful atrocities perpetrated in this spot in the name of religion (vii. 31); and he depicts the judgments which the Lord pronounced on the city and people on account of them (xix. 6-15). Standing on the brink of the valley I saw how literally one part of the curse had been fulfilled:—“ Wherefore the days come when it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of Ben- Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place ” (vii. 32). And as I re¬ turned that evening up the Kidron to my home on Olivet, I saw what seemed to me another terrible illustration of the outpouring of the curse. I saw hyenas, jackals, and vultures tearing the corpses from the shallow graves in the modern Jewish cemetery. With what harrowing vividness did the prophet’s dire prediction then flash upon my mind :—“Their s carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of heaven , and for the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss, because of all the plagues • thereof” (xix. 7, 8). ACELDAMA. On another occasion I went to the necropolis of Tophet with a double purpose,—to explore the rock tombs more thoroughly, and to see the painting of the Yalley of Je- hoshaphat, which the lamented Mr. Seddon was just then comjfleting. He had pitched his little tent at the door of ACELDAMA. 147 an old sepulchre on the brow of the hill; and as we ap¬ proached an armed goat-herd was before him, whom he was working into the foreground. I was equally delighted and surprised at the boldness of design, the faithfulness of colouring, and the scrupulous accuracy of detail in that admirable picture. He kindly left his work, and walked away with us to Aceldama. Another artist was of our party, whose brilliant genius was then reproducing, with all the vividness and faithfulness of reality, the scene of The Finding of Christ in the Temple. That day will ever remain as one of the sunny spots on memory’s clouded landscape. Tomb after tomb we passed and explored, lighting up their gloomy chambers and narrow loculi with our torches, and wondering at the endless variety and numbers of these homes of the forgotten dead. At length we reached a nar¬ row ledge or terrace, on the steep bank, directly facing the pool of Siloain. Here was a large square edifice, half ex¬ cavated in the living rock, half built of massive masonry. Looking in through a rent in the wall, we found that it was a vast charnel house, some twenty feet deep, the bottom covered with dust and mouldering bones. This is Acel¬ dama, “ the field of bloodbought with the “ thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value” (Matt, xxvii. 9). The tradition which identifies it is at least as old as the fourth century; and it is a remarkable fact that the peculiar clay on the adjoining terraces would seem to show that this had once been a “ potter’s field—“ They took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in” (ver. 7.) SILOAM. I had often been struck with the quaint and picturesque appearance of the little hamlet of Silwan , whose houses seem to cling like swallows’ nests to the gray cliffs of Oli- 148 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. vet. It takes its name from the fountain on the opposite side of the Kidron, at the base of Moriah; and it alone brings down to modem times the sacred name of “the waters of Siloah that flow softly” (Isa. viii. 6), and of that “ pool of Siloam ” in which our Lord commanded the blind man to wash (John ix. 7). Its inhabitants have a bad name, and are known to be lawless, fanatical vagabonds. I resolved, however, to explore their den, and I succeeded, notwithstanding repeated volleys of threats and curses, in¬ termixed now and again with a stone or two. I was well repaid. The village stands on a necropolis; and the habi¬ tations are all half caves, half buildings,—a single room, or rude porch, being attached to the front of a rock tomb. It is a strange wild place. On every side I heard children’s prattle issuing from the gloomy chambers of ancient sepul¬ chres. Looking into one I saw an infant cradled in an old sarcophagus. The larger tombs, where the ashes of Israel’s nobles once reposed, were now tilled with sheep and goats, and lambs and kids gambolled merrily among the loculi . The steep hill-side appears to have been hewn into irregular terraces, and along these the sepulchres were excavated, one above another. They are better finished than those of Tophet; and a few of them are Egyptian in style, and may, perhaps, be of that age when Egyptian influence was strong at the court of Solomon (1 Kings vii. 8-12; xi. 7 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 3; 2 Chron. viii. 11.) Absalom’s pillar. The most picturesque group of sepulchral monuments around the Holy City is that in the valley of the Kidron, just beneath the south-east angle of the Haram. There are four tombs here in a range, which, from their position in the deep narrow glen, and from the style of their archi¬ tecture, cannot fail to arrest the attention of every visitor to the Holy City. I walked up to them from Siloam. That was a sad walk. I can never forget the horrid sights I saw. Absalom’s pillar. 149 The whole side of Olivet is covered with Jewish graves. In most cases the bodies have only a few inches of loose earth thrown over them, and then a broad stone is laid on the top. All round me were revolting evidences of the car¬ nival held nightly there by dogs, jackals, and hyenas. Vul¬ tures were enjoying a horrid banquet within a stone’s throw of me; and gorged with food, they seemed fearless of my approach. Never before had the degradations to which the poor Jews must now submit been brought before my mind with such harrowing vividness :— “ Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall you flee away and be at rest ? The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country,—Israel but the grave !” The Tomb or Pillar of Absalom is a cubical structure, hewn out of the rock, measuring twenty-two feet on each side, and ornamented with Ionic pilasters. It is surmounted by a circular cone of masonry, terminating in a tuft of palm leaves. In the interior is a small excavated chamber, with two niches for bodies. The architecture shows at once that this cannot be the “ pillar ” which Absalom had “ reared up for himself during his lifetime in the king’s dale ” (2 Sam. xviii. 18) ; and indeed, his name was only attached to it about the twelfth century. It resembles some of the tombs of Petra; and may, perhaps, be the work of one of the Herods, who were of Idumean descent. A few yards farther south is another monolithic structure, somewhat resembling the preceding, and now usually called the Tomb of Zacharias —that Zacharias who was stoned in the court of the Temple in the reign of Joash (2 Chron. xxiv. 21) ; and to whom Christ refers, as slain between the temple and the altar (Matt, xxiii. 35). But there is no evi¬ dence to connect the monument with this or any other Old Testament wort ly. The Jews hold it in high veneration; and the dearest wish of their hearts is to have their bones 150 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. laid beside it. The whole ground around its base is crowded with graves. Between these two monuments is a large excavated cham¬ ber in the side of the cliff, having a Doric porch supported by two columns. Within it are several spacious vaults, and numerous loculi for bodies. Here, says tradition, the Apos¬ tle James found an asylum during the interval between the crucifixion and the resurrection. The story is, of course, apocryphal, and was not attached to the tomb till about the fourteenth century. The view of the Kidron valley from this spot is singularly impressive. There is nothing like it in Palestine, or elsewhere. The valley is deep, rug¬ ged, and altogether destitute of verdure. On one side Moriah rises in banks of naked rock and bare shelving ac¬ clivities, until it is crowned, far overhead, by the colossal wall of the Haram; on the other side the limestone cliffs are hewn out into architectural fa§ades, and stately monu¬ ments, and yawning sepulchres; while away* above them, here and there, a patriarchal olive, with sparse branches and great gnarled arms, stands forsaken and desolate, like the last tree of a forest. THE TOMBS OF THE PROPHETS. High up on the brow of Olivet, between the footpath that leads to the Church of the Ascension and the main road to Bethany, is a very remarkable catacomb, of the most ancient Jewish type. It is now called the Tomb of the Prophets , though there is no inscription, or historical me¬ morial, or even ancient tradition, to justify the name. Equipped in a “ working costume,” and furnished with a handful of little candles, we started early one morning to explore it. Crawling into a narrow hole in an open field, and then down a long gallery, we reached a circular vault, twenty-four feet in diameter; from it two parallel galleries, five feet wide and ten feet high, are carried through the rocks for some twenty yards ; a third runs in another direc- THE VIRGIN’S TOMB. 151 tion; and they are all connected by cross galleries, the outer one of which is fc~ty yards in length, and has a range of thirty loculi for bodies. The accompanying diagram will show the intricate plan and singular structure of these interesting catacombs better than any description. TOMB OP THE VIRGIN. In coming forth again to the light of day, which, after the darkness, seemed doubly brilliant, we descended the hill-side and paid a passing visit to the tomb of Mary. It is a quaint, but singularly picturesque structure, and must excite the admiration of every pilgrim to Gethsemane and Olivet. Grey and worn with age, deeply set among the rocky roots of the mount, shaded by venerable olive trees, it is one of those buildings which even all the absurdity of tradition cannot divest of interest. On entering the door we had a long descent by some sixty steps to the chapel, a gloomy, rugged, natural cave, partly remodelled by hu¬ man hands. Here tradition has placed the empty tomb of the Virgin; and here Popery has fixed the scene' of the As¬ sumption. 152 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. We walked on up the glen, through olive groves which seem denser and more ancient than anywhere else round the city. The rocky banks on both sides, but especially on that next Jerusalem, are filled with tombs; and I felt strongly impressed that some one of these was that “ new tomb” which Joseph of Arimathea u had hewn for himself” in his garden, in which Jesus was laid. Continuing our walk, we saw traces of Agrippa’s wall on the brow of the glen. Then, after crossing the Anathoth road, and turning westward, we came upon more sepulchres, with richly orna¬ mented doorways. But by far the most magnificent sepul¬ chre in this region, and indeed around Jerusalem, is the so- called TOMB OF THE KINGS. This remarkable catacomb is half a mile from the city, not far from the great northern road. On reaching the spot we find a broad trench, hewn in the rock to the depth of eighteen feet. An inclined plane leads down to it. Then we pass, by a very low doorway, through a wall of rock seven feet thick, into a court ninety-two feet long, eighty- seven broad, and about twenty deep, all excavated in the living rock. The sides are hewn quite smooth. On the western side is a vestibule, originally supported by two col¬ umns. The front has a deep frieze and comice, richly or¬ namented with clusters of grapes, triglyphs, and paterae, alternating over a continuous garland of fruit and foliage, which was carried down the sides. Unfortunately, this beautiful fi^ade is almost obliterated. When perfect, it must have been magnificent. The entrance to the tomb is at the southern end of the vestibule. The door, with its approaches and fastenings, is one of the most remarkable and ingenious pieces of mech¬ anism which has come down to us from antiquity. The whole is now in a ruinous state ; but enough remains to show what it once was. The door could only be reached TOMBS OF THE KINGS. 153 by a subterranean passage, the entrance to which was a small trap-door in the floor of the vestibule; and when reached, it was found to be covered by a circular stone, like a small millstone, which had to be “ rolled away ” to the side, up an inclined plane. In addition to this there was another large stone, which could be slid in behind the door, at right angles, along a concealed groove, and which held it immovably in its place. And there was, besides, an inner door of stone opening on a pivot, and shutting by its own weight. The interior arrangements of this splen¬ did monument will be best understood by the accompa- nying plan. In one respect it differs from all the other sepulchres yet known about Jerusalem—the inner chamber, which is several feet lower than any of the others, formerly contained two sarcophagi of white marble, beautifully orna¬ mented with wreaths of flowers. The most perfect of them was carried away by the well-known French savan, M. de Saulcy, and placed in the museum of the Louvre. The other is in fragments. Even this tomb contains no record of its history. The memory and the names of those who were laid here in royal state cannot now be ascertained with certainty. There is a high probability that it was the sepulchre of Helena, the widowed queen of Adiabene. It is known that she became 154 JERUSALEM AND ITS ENVIRONS. a proselyte to Judaism, resided in the Holy City dming the apostolic age, and made for herself a great sepulchre. Able scholars have questioned the identity. Be this as it may, we have here a costly, grand, and strongly guarded sepulchre, now opened, wrecked, and rifled, as if to show that man’s home is not, cannot he, on earth. Other celebrated tombs I visited and explored. The Tombs of the Judges , a mile farther north; the Tomb of El Musahny , recently discovered, and of the earliest Jewish type; the Tomb of Helena, &c. I need not describe them. The general plan of all is the same; and all are equally without story, without name, and without tenant. The hand of the spoiler has not even spared the ashes of fallen, outcast Israel. The time foretold by Jeremiah has come:— “ At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves ; and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and alt the host of heaven . . . . they shall not be gathered nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth” (viii. 1 , 2.) @Iibrf ixnta