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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

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Pictures from

ible Lands

Drawn with Pen and Pencil.

Edited by SAMUEL G. GREEN, D.D.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDWARD WHYMPER AND OTHER EMINENT ARTISTS ';
PRINCIPALLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS.

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul's Churchyard,
and 164 Piccadilly.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

ON THE BANKS OF THE TIGRIS.

PREFACE.

?axestine and Egypt are pre-eminently the Lands of the Bible: the
latter as the cradle of the Chosen People; the former as their
home, and the theatre of redemption. But the annals of the
Jewish nation and the early history of the Church are con
nected by innumerable links with other parts of the Eastern
world The names of many a tribe and people survive to us chiefly through
their relation to Israel. It is owing to the Bible first of all that our age
explores with so much interest the remains of Assyria and of Babylon, of
Bashan, of Edom, and of Moab ; while again the early triumphs of the
Gospel have at least an equal share with any classical associations in
the enthusiasm which leads the traveller to brave the perils of " Macedonia
and Achaia," or to conduct his researches amid the lonely ruins of
Ephesus or of Laodicea.

PREFACE.

It has been resolved, therefore, to add the present volume to the series
which already contains Those Holy Fields and The Land of the Pharaohs.
The Editor's aim has been to present in a series of sketches, accurate in
detail, though necessarily slight and fragmentary, a general view of those
outlying countries of heathendom most nearly connected with the Scripture
history, as modern travellers have found them.
Naturally, the delineation begins with Damascus, "the oldest city in
the world," and with Lebanon, so conspicuous in both the history and the
poetry of the Bible. The remains of Baalbec, that mysterious Syrian shrine
of the sun, and of " Tadmor in the wilderness," once the eastern limit of
Solomon's dominion, are next described ; the reader being then recalled from
the great desert to the region east of Jordan, the scene of Israel's early
conquests, and of so many allusions in the sacred story. Here may even yet
be seen the relics of the kingdoms once ruled by " Sihon king of the
Amorites, and Og king of Bashan ;" here was Pisgah, where the great lawT
giver died in view of the land he was not to enter, and Machserus, where
Christ's forerunner passed away in the dawning hour of the kingdom which
he had proclaimed but might not see. Decapolis is here, where Christ's own
ministry seemed for a moment to transcend its national limits and to touch
upon heathen lands ; and travelling southward we come to Petra, the marvel
of ages, and to this day an illustration of some of the loftiest strains in
Hebrew prophecy.
A third division of the work contains sketches from Northern Syria and
Asia Minor, as connected specially with New Testament history, beginning
with Antioch, where " the disciples were first called Christians," and passing
on through various scenes of apostolic labour, including the island of Cyprus,
to the " Seven Churches," to which the counsels and warnings of the
Apocalyptic Epistle were addressed, and which seem to record the
catastrophe of their unfaithfulness in the desolation of their former abodes.
Much use is made in this part of the book of Mr. Wood's recent
marvellous discoveries at Ephesus.
Nineveh and Babylon, with their mighty rivers descending from " the
land of Ararat," claim a section for themselves. A brief visit is paid to
the upper plain in which is thought to have been the primeval abode of

PREFACE.

mankind, and from which the earth was certainly re-peopled after the
Deluge ; and then an account is given, as full as space would permit, of those
modern discoveries which enable us in imagination to reconstruct the cities
where Jonah preached and Sennacherib reigned, where Jewish captives hung
their harps upon the willows, and the might of Persia entered in through
" the gates of brass." In gazing upon the relics of ancient greatness, as
contrasted with present ruin, Scripture history and prophecy alike become
clearer ; while we ponder with a strange awe what that Divine purpose may
be which points to a renovation even here : " I will make mention of Babylon
.... amongst them that know Me." " Blessed be Assyria, the work of
My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance."
Old Testament prophecy, indeed, is rich in hopes for all mankind, though
often dimly expressed, or uttered simply from a Jewish point of view.
Among the clearest and most hopeful of these foreshadowings are those that
point westward, to " the Isles," or the lands which border the Great Sea.
These pre-eminently are to "wait for Jehovah's law;" and the early diffusion
of the Gospel in this quarter of the world is the theme of many an accom
plished prediction. To these lands, accordingly, a concluding section is
devoted. Of Italy and Spain, although the former has an important part,
the latter an incidental one, in the sacred record, it has been needless to
speak ; other volumes of our series having treated fully of these countries.
But Greece has naturally claimed attention, and sketches have been given
of lands and cities visited by the great Apostle of the Gentiles.
The endeavour throughout has been, not to describe for the mere
description's sake, but to throw light upon the Word of God. In them
selves, the pictorial illustrations, which have been carefully selected and
arranged, will form an interesting and valuable memorial of many lands.
But apart from this there is a testimony, which only gathers force from
modern researches amid the ruins of empires, to the truth of the Bible
record, and to the wonderful and literal fulfilment of Bible prophecy. The
references to these topics, it is hoped, will not be too numerous for the
general reader ; such as are given it was impossible to withhold ; others
might have been added, in great number, had the plan of the work allowed.
The student will find Keith's Evidence of Prophecy a book not yet out of

PREFACE.

date ; while amongst later works, the Records of the Past, published by
Messrs. Bagster, under the sanction of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,
containing translated inscriptions from the monumental records of many early
nations, are full of marvel as well as of the deepest instructiveness.

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Lebanon : from Beirut .......... Frontispiece
Winged Bull  Title-page
On the Banks of the Tigris ... ...... Preface
The Moabite Stone . . ..... page viii

DAMAgCUJS AND

People of Syria .....

Page xii

Tobacco-cutting ....
4
Barada or Abana . ...
6
Bab esh-Sherky, Damascus
JO
Public Garden, Damascus
13
Houses on the Walls of Damascus
. 14
Straight Street, Damascus
IS
Roof-view of part of Damascus .
• 19
Temples of Baalbec ....
22
Baalbec: the "Three Stones" in the Temple
Plat-
Great Stone at Baalbec ....
• 30
THE J_(EBANON.
Arab Temple, near Baalbec . . . page 31
Lebanon ....... 32
Cedars of Lebanon . . . . . • 35
In the Cedar Grove ..... 39
Maronites at a Convent . . . . . 41
Syrian Women at Handmill .... 43
A Syrian Shepherd. . . . . . 45
Harvest-carrying in Syria .... 47
Ruins of Palmyra . . . . . . 49
Palmyra : Grand Colonnade .... 51
Palmyra : Middle Crossing of Grand Colonnade :
Granite Monolith . . . . . 53
Palmyra: Triumphal Arch .... 54
Plan of Vault at Palmyra. . . . -55
Palmyrene Mortuary Tower . . . . 55
Tower in the Desert . . . . .56
Palmyrene Figures ..... 57
Palmyra by Moonlight . . . . .58
The H/iURAn; and the J_<And beyond Jordan.
On Mount Nebo ...... 60
Columns at Bosra . . . . . .61
Irrigated Vegetable Garden .... 63
Vineyard in Syria . . . . . .64
Ruins of Bosra ...... 67
Scene in the Region of Decapolis . . 68
Jerash, the Ancient Gerasa .... 69
Rabbath Ammon . . . . . -72
Mountains of Moab ..... 74
Macha^rus ; the Scene of John's Imprisonment . 76
Mount Hor, from near Petra. ... 79
Ruins at Petra ; the " Corinthian Tomb " . .Si
Sketch Plan of Petra .... 82
Amphitheatre at Petra . .... 83
Tomb at Petra . ... 86
o**o
Nop^thefjjn (Syria, Cyprus, AJ^d &S'A Mijsiof?.
Ephesus, as Restored .
Antioch ....
Falls of the Cydnus, near Tarsus
Nicosia ....
Ruins of Paphos .
Cypriote Mill
Hierapolis .
Colossae.
91
929393 94
95
View of Patmos ....
Ruins of Ephesus .
Remains of Amphitheatre at Ephesus
Door-post: Tomb of St. Luke .
Ruins of Church, Ephesus .
Medals of Ephesus . *
Medals of Ephesus with Image
The Ephesian Plain
97 99
100
101 101 102103
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Northern ^yria, tic— continued.

On the Road to Miletus
Miletus .....
Smyrna .
Smyrna from the Sea
Bergamos — the Ancient Pergamum .
Ruins of Tergamum
Thyatira .
Tomb near Thyatira

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104105 106107 107
108 109

Capital of Pillar used as well-trough, Thyatira page 111
Ak-Hissar, the Modern Thyatira . . in
Temple of Cybele, Sardis ... 113
Ruins of Christian Church, Sai'-is . • 114
Philadelphia . • .116
Ruins of the Gymnasium. . • "7
Tomb at Hierapolis, near Laodicea . 118

The j_(And of the EA£T: Ara^at; Babylon,
Nineveh.

Ruins of Babylon . . . 120
"Super flumina Babyloms " .... 121
The "Land of the East," Sketch Map . . 122
Mount Ararat, from Kanakir, on the North Side . 123
Lake Van. . .125
Plain of Babylon, from Hemera. . 127
Ruins of Babylon : General View . . 128
Site of Seleucia 130
Remains of Ctesiphon . . . 131
The Kasr, Babylon. . . 132
Sculptured Lion, in the Kasr, Babylon . 133
Tamarisk Tree at Kasr . 134
Babylonian Jews - . 135
Birs Nimroud .... . 137
Sketch Plan of the Ruins of Babylon . 139
View on the Tigris, near Djebar 140
View on the Tigris, near Hamrin . 141

Nebi Yunas (the traditional Tomb of Jonah),
Nineveh • ¦ ...
Site of Nineveh ... ¦
Khorsabad . ....
Mosul, with Excavators at Work
Disinterment of Winged Bull at Nimroud
Cuneiform Characters
Rock Inscription of Behistun
The Black Obelisk, age of Shalmaneser and Jehu .
Battle-piece, from Nineveh .
Representation of a Siege, from Nimroud .
Captives of War : from the Palace of Sardanapalus 161
Musical Performance, Nineveh . . . 162
Sea-piece; from Nineveh. Bearing Planks for Be
sieging Works. . ¦ ¦ • .165
Brick from Babylon

143 145146
M7 149
150151155158 159

168

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The Parthenon, Athens . 170
Promontory and Temple of Sunium 171
Mosque of Salonica . 173
Salonica . . . 174
Women of Salonica • . 175
Interior of the Agora, Athens 177
Quay of the Pirasus . . . 179
Ruins of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus at
Athens ..... . 182

Mars' Hill, Athens .
View from Acropolis, Athens ; with the King's
Palace, and Mount Lycabettus
Triumphal Arch of Hadrian
Temple of Zeus during a popular Fete, Athens.
Corinth . •
Mycenae ...•¦¦
St. Paul's Bay. Malta 

183
185
188 190
192 196200

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SIDON.

DAMA^Cli^ AND THE LEBANON.

It is a moment never to be forgotten, when to the voyager in the Levant
a dark line appears across the purple sea, and he knows that the Land
of Promise is in view. He has no doubt had that familiar warning against
being disappointed, which for some inscrutable reason our pessimist friends
always associate with certain of the world's greatest and most beautiful
things — with the Rhine, with St. Peter's, with Niagara — but he quite
forgets the caveat now, as gazing from the deck he recalls names that make
the heart beat faster. There, away to the right, are Tyre and Sidon : just
where the shore-line fades into the horizon, the imagination fixes on a slight

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

upward bend as Carmel ; and only a little beyond the shore are Nazareth
and Gennesaret. But eye and soul are soon absorbed by a shadowy shape
of grandeur that rises like a white cloud against the blue heaven. It seems
as though any instant it might fade, and yet as the traveller gazes its
outline becomes firm and fixed, while long curving lines, dimly grey and
purple, seem to rise towards that whiteness from the sea. It is Lebanon.
Disappointed ! Why, there can hardly be in the world a view more wonder
fully beautiful than that which opens upon the traveller as the steamer
swiftly speeds from Larnaka to Beirut. The "goodly land" may have
within the compass of its shores many a stretch of stony barrenness where
once the hills were fair and the valleys fertile, but the shores themselves,
with the " Great Sea " from which they rise, are of perennial charm ; and
for all who would have their souls filled with impressions of outward
beauty as well as with associations of imperishable sacredness, we would
recommend this approach by Beirut. Doubly fortunate will they be if they
draw near the shore when the westering sun lights up the range of the
" White Mountain " with gold and crimson splendours, while the foreground
is of a shadowy purple, crossed by bands of the darkest green, while here
and there golden mists, slowly spreading as they rise, mark the deeper valleys
and ravines.
We may give ourselves up to the full impression of this first approach
to the sacred soil, especially as, for this time, our view of it will be so brief.
Our errand now is not to the "goodly land" itself, but to the outlying
countries — in Scripture times the realms of heathendom, and so the chosen
types of the world, as Israel was of the Church. Of these Syria and
Phoenicia were the nearest and the most intimately associated with the
country of the chosen people — now hostile, now tributary; and in the end
politically one with the remnant of Israel left in Palestine.
It is remarkable that this port of Beirut, which seems the natural
entrance to Syria from the Mediterranean, is almost or quite unrecognised
in Scripture. It does indeed speak of a Berothai * in the kingdom of
Zobah, and, in the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, of a Berothah,2 as a frontier
town of Canaan when repossessed ; but it is tolerably plain that both these
towns (whether different places or the same, is a question) were inland. Tyre
and Sidon were the great maritime cities of Phoenicia; but when, after the
conquests of Alexander, this kingdom was merged in that of Syria, the near
ness of Berytus to Damascus combined with its great natural advantages to
give it the preference, and it rose to a supremacy which it never wholly lost.
In one respect certainly the access to the Holy Land by Beirut compares
unfavourably with other approaches ; and here our traveller, who has expected
to find himself plunged at once into Eastern life, may legitimately own
1 2 Sam. viii. 8 ; the place is called Chun in i Chron. xviii. 8.
2 Ezek. xlvii. 16. See Robinson's Palestine, vol. iii. p. 442.

BEIRUT.

himself disappointed. True, the scenery is richly Oriental. Mulberry,
fig, and olive trees line the steep surburban roads, every garden has its palms,
and the hedges are of prickly cactus. But among these Eastern trees and
shrubs and the brilliant scentless flowers are pretty white French villas, with
their green sunblinds ; and the pedestrian who climbs between them to the
pine-wood at the southern summit of the town finds himself in the midst
of cafes that might almost have been transplanted — waiters, fare, and
company — from the Bois de Boulogne, or L'lle de Rousseau. He has

perhaps laboriously collected a few Arabic words and phrases to help him
on ; but at present he may keep them ; his French will do as well. Not but
that there is much to remind him that he is in the East. The turbaned men,
the veiled women, the artificers at their work in way-side sheds, the flower-
carriers with their gorgeous burdens, the comical fat children, with their fezzes
and tight-fitting vests, the stray dogs, and the general foulness of the ways
that lie out of the main track, are all eminently characteristic. Still the fact
remains, that the visitor is not reminded of the Arabian Nights so much as
he had anticipated. Even the bazaar has more of the Palais Rbyal about it

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

TOBACCO CUTTING.

than of the gorgeous East ; the jewelry
is like what one has seen before ; the
magnificent-looking silks are declared by
knowing ones to have cotton warps,
and the very "Damascus blades" look as
if they came from Sheffield. On the
whole, the Franks are the masters of the
situation, or at least divide the foremost
place with the Greeks, who here and
everywhere in the Levant show themselves
the shrewdest and most energetic among
men of business.
It will be interesting to stay at Beirut,
if only for a few days, to make acquaintance
with its Protestant missions, especially the
American Mission, with its printing-press
and noble medical college, also the remark
able educational institutions conducted by
Mr. and Mrs. Mott, of the British Syrian
Missions. So far as a passing glance can
authorise a conclusion, it may be safely
pronounced that these agencies are ad
mirably and healthily worked, while
multitudes of the Mussulman inhabitants,
receiving the benefit in various ways,
have their prejudices against Christianity
modified if not removed. So true is it
that the very leaves of the tree of life,
as well as its fruit, are for the healing
of the nations.
But we have to hasten to Damascus,
and anticipate with some excitement the
journey up the slopes of the Lebanon.
Here, however, we are again disenchanted.
After all we have heard of the difficulty
of locomotion in the East, it is a little
astonishing to find that we have to take
places by diligence, and to be directed
to a little bureau, such as we have seen
in many Swiss towns, and to have our
inquiries answered by a courteous young
Syrian in very tolerable French. The
coupi is secured, and on a starry

FLOWER MAN.

THE "FRENCH ROAD" TO DAMASCUS.

morning, two hours before sunrise, we set out upon our journey. Perhaps
it should be added that this diligence road is as yet the only one existing
in Syria and Palestine. Other tracks are still rough and primitive, and im
practicable for wheeled vehicles. Let us, then, enjoy the comparative
ease while we can, although, to tell the truth, the carriage is by no means a
model, either in capacity or comfort. The travellers in the intdrieur, and up
in the banquette,' seem terribly pinched for room; but our seats are at least
tolerable ; and as the diligence slowly winds up the zigzag, and the twilight
gradually yields to day, many a lovely view is revealed, while the panorama
over land and sea just before sunrise, as seen from a turn in the road, is
wonderfully magnificent. At length we reach the summit of the pass, a
reach of wild rocky moorland between barren, precipitous hills, and so continue
monotonously through mile after mile of wilderness, until at last the heights
recede, and through their opening a range of hills on the opposite side of a
deep valley bursts upon the sight — so near, apparently, that a bird in its
morning flight might easily cross the intervening chasm. But as we approach
nearer to the edge the valley discloses its breadth and extraordinary flatness,
with gleams of a winding river shrunken far within the limits of its bed.
The hilly range is Anti-Libanus ; the level valley is Ccele-Syria, " Hollow
Syria," or " the Valley of Lebanon," now called el-Bekda, " the Cleft ; " once
in itself an important province or " department," with populous towns and
villages, and a soil of rare fertility. Long years of neglect have left it com
paratively desolate ; and yet from the summits above it shows in the sunshine
a rich variety of verdure and gleaming colour. Away to the right towers
the mighty ridge of Hermon with its snow-white peaks, and at about an
equal distance to the left we know are the great ruins of Baalbec, to be
visited on another occasion. All this we take in during the halt of the
diligence at Shtora, on the edge of the valley ; and here, in answer to some
inquiry about the " Cedars " which are blended with the very thought of
Lebanon, and of which we have seen no real specimens all along our way,
we are told that they also are away to the north, some distance higher up
the valley than Baalbec, but on the opposite side. Our present route is
across the Cleft ; and we rapidly descend, amid almost torrid heat, to the
Litany (Leontes), the wide bed of which, with the narrow stream trickling
though the centre, is crossed by a long bridge : soon after, another stream,
or rather watercourse, is reached ; and then in long zigzags the road begins
to ascend, first through a narrow stony wady, then over a rugged plateau,
covered scantily with bushes — and on for mile after mile through a
monotonous dreary wilderness, until at last we plunge into the lovely
gorge of the Barada ("the Cool"), no doubt the ancient Abana, called
by the Greeks Chrysorrhoas, "the Golden Stream," which comes down
swiftly from the mountains, fed by a thousand secret springs from the
winter snows of Anti-Libanus. Where the road approaches the river, the

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

magnificent glen through which the river has passed from el-Fijeh opens into
a somewhat wider valley, thickly studded with tall trees, and, after the dreary
upland wilderness through which we have toiled, seems a very paradise. The
character of the journey is on a sudden magically changed. The road winds

BARADA OR ABANA.
picturesquely beside the swift-dashing river, or across level greensward
where the hills recede, at the foot of bluff overhanging rocks, and in full
view of cultivated slopes on the opposite mountain-side. Mr.- Macgregor
likens the Barada here to a Scottish salmon stream ; x and the comparison of
_ • Rob Roy on the Jordan, p. 121. The Nahr et Ai,aj, a stream a few miles to the south of Damascus,
is generally identified with the ancient Pharpar. But the Rev. W. Wright, late of Damascus, strongly questions this.
See Leisure Hour, 1874, p. 283.
6

ENTERING DAMASCUS BY WATER.

Naaman the Syrian rises spontaneously to our lips: "Are not Abana and
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? " Whatever
and wherever the " Pharpar " may have been — a disputed point to this day —
there is something in the contrast of these upper reaches of the Abana, their
picturesque grouping of rock and mountain, and the splendour of luxuriance
that lines its banks, with the barren desolation of the outlying hills, that we
need not wonder at its being taken as the very type of river loveliness as
well as of fertilising and healing power.
More fortunate than travellers in the stuffy diligence, of which by this
time we are heartily tired, notwithstanding the new energy inspired by the
change in scenery — an excitement which the very horses seem to feel — Mr.
Macgregor tells us how hereabouts, a little below Doomar, he launched his
canoe upon the rapid stream. " After months," he says, " upon the quiet
level of the Suez Canal, and the oily running Nile, and the waves of the
Red Sea, and the broad sheet of Lake Menzaleh, it was true luxury to be
whirled in the swift eddies of Abana, and to speed at a river's gallop among
rocks and forests, where the midriff is tickled in the paddler's breast by the
sensation often felt on a high rope swing, and the mind expands into an
exulting glee, always begotten by rapids encountered alone. Many birds and
animals were roused from their uninvaded haunts, and splashed into the
stream or scurried away, rustling among the dusky brakes. . . . Meantime I
was swiftly borne away into a thicket of trees, with magnificent towering
crags and snow behind them. The Abana here was about sixty feet broad,
but every mile we go down it has less of water, for the canalettes lead off
the precious liquid right and left, to far-away meads and long dry plains.
The stream is swift, and tumbles along in a rugged bed with a very lively
noise. I had to jump out into the water at least twenty times, and used a
strong pole as a prop in fording the powerful current. At one or two places
I had to haul the boat round on land, where the trees met over the water,
and their branches were interlaced, or their trunks had fallen in root foremost.
Next came a weir for a mill, a waterfall, and torrents of foam with dense woods
all round, through which no one could see me as I waded, and shoved, and
dragged away, but always somehow getting onwards, and most thoroughly enjoy
ing the varied exercise on so bright a sunny day." At length "the sun suddenly
appeared that had been hidden by rocks or trees ; the gorge had loosed its
hold of us, and the canoe soon floated along the now placid river, while
Damascus, old Damascus! gleamed out brilliant before me in the evening
lio-ht ; with its groves of green, and white shining walls, and airy minarets, a
glorious scene. The far-famed approach to this city from the west, which
unfolds upon the traveller all its gentle beauty from a lofty hill, I had well
remembered nineteen years ago ; who could forget it ? That is one of the sights
of the world; but the sudden emerging now from rapids and rocks and
dense jungle into the broad day, with such a picture before me, was more

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

striking by far than the other view, especially to me who was the first to
' A. » 1
see it. The famous view to which Mr. Macgregor alludes is lost by the
passengers along the Barada gorge ; the way to reach it is to turn off to
the left after crossing the river at Doomar, where the Rob Roy was launched,
and ascend the old caravan road up the hill Katiun. Here, it is said,
Mohammed turned back after surveying the city : " Earthly Paradise was
not for him or his followers ; it would abate their longing for the heavenly ! "
In truth the prospect is wonderfully fascinating ; its charm being that of an
oasis in the mountain-desert. An expanse of the most vivid green contrasts
with the grey and yellow tints of the Anti-Libanus slopes, and girdles the
city like a belt. On the outskirts of this bright enclosure rise multitudes of
tall poplar trees, their dark and stately
forms being a chief feature in the land
scape. But as the city is approached
these are succeeded by rich groves
and orchards of walnut, fig, pome
granate, citron, and apricot, while
from the branches of the tallest trees
hang the clustered branches of the
vine. The herbage of the fields is
inconceivably rich ; flowers of every
hue are springing into blossom, and
innumerable artificial watercourses
from the Barada intersect the fertile
scene like veins and arteries, carrying
life everywhere in their flow. Amidst
the verdure we catch glimpses of
grey walls, with which the domes
and minarets rise above the white
square-built houses. The end of the fair river which has " made " Damascus
as truly as the Nile makes Egypt, is just out of sight. It is a singular
termination to so bright and beneficent a course, for, unlike other rivers, that
merge in some mightier stream or mingle with the ocean, the Barada loses
itself in swamps, the so-called " Meadow Lakes," which are to its swift
waters as the Dead Sea to the Jordan, but with a yet more absolute extinc
tion of its life, for the Barada morasses are during parts of the year nothing
more than reedy bogs, with here and there a pool or sluggish channel
to break the monotony, while the ceaseless croaking of the frogs, or the
screams and whirrings of innumerable birds, are the only sounds that break
the silence of the weird and lonely scene. At times, I understand, the marshy
ground is so far covered with water as to appear like a veritable lake, while
1 Rob Roy on the Jordan, pp. 122-126.

DAMASCUS.

BAB ESH-SHERKY, DAMASCUS.

THE OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD.

almost every traveller notices the mirage which gives to it in the dry season
the appearance of an inland sea dotted with verdant islands.
Returning to our diligence journey, it is not without strange emotion
that at last we drive into a great courtyard, enter Dimitri's Hotel, and
find ourselves in the oldest city in the world. It is not, indeed, at the
close of a long and wearisome journey that one is most disposed to
historical or sentimental musings. The meal, and the yet more welcome
ablution, are apt to engage the first thought, to the exclusion of everything
else. And even when one has leisure to think, numbers of things crowd in
upon the mind and make the strangest medley. Eliezer and St. Paul ;
Naaman, Benhadad and Hazael ; Romans, Saracens, Crusaders and Turks ;
silk and sword-blades, damask and damsons — what may not this wonderful
city suggest ? We open the Bible, and find the city used as a familiar note
of place in the days of Abraham, for he pursued the marauding band that
had descended upon the valley of the Jordan " unto Hobah, which is on the
left hand (the north) of Damascus." Thus abruptly is the name of the city
introduced, the notice of Abraham's steward being just after — " Eliezer of
Damascus."1 Josephus attributes the foundation of the city to Uz, eldest son
of Aram ; and as a plain so favoured by nature would be among the first
localities occupied in the dispersion of Noah's descendants, the tradition is not
an improbable one. The same Jewish annalist gives a tradition, still cherished
by the people, from one Nicolaus, a Damascene ; " Abraham reigned at
Damascus, being a foreigner .... and his name is still famous in the country,
and there is shown a village called from him the Habitation of Abraham." 2
It is certain that in a hamlet about three miles north of the city there is a
shrine, held in veneration by the Moslems, known as the Masjad Ibrahim,
" the prayer-place of Abraham." But without attempting to estimate the
value of such attempts at definitely tracing the early history of Damascus,
the broad fact of its wonderful antiquity is impressive enough. "Leave the
matters written of in the first eleven chapters of the Old Testament out, and
no recorded event has occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence
to receive the news of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague past,
there was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century, for more
than four thousand years, its name has been mentioned and its praises
sung. To Damascus years are only moments, decades are only flitting
trifles of time. She measures time, not by days or months or years, but
by the empires she has seen rise and prosper, and crumble to ruin. She
is a type of immortality. She saw the foundations of Baalbec and Thebes
and Ephesus laid ; she saw these villages grow into mighty cities and
amaze the world with their grandeur; and she has lived to see them
desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats. She saw the
Israelitish empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise
1 Gen. xiv. 15 ; xv. 2. 2 Joseph. Ant. i. 7, § 2.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

and flourish two thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome
built ; she saw it overshadow the world with its power ; she saw it perish.
The few hundred years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendour were,
to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering.
Damascus has seen all that ever occurred on earth, and yet she lives. Though
another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City."
But, apart from all this, there is an indefinable charm about the place
which somehow we only feel the more as we explore its bazaars and narrow
ill-paved streets. The whole scene is so wonderfully Oriental : to use the
comparison that everybody makes, it is "like a chapter out of the Arabian
Nights? The bazaars are stored with all kinds of merchandise, very attractive
to the eye, although a lady traveller writes, " I was altogether disappointed in
the silk goods. I saw very few articles that I thought pretty, more or less,
though the fabric was substantial enough. There was a vulgarity about
the patterns — especially about those that were the most costly — which
perplexed me till I learned the secret. The famous old Damascus patterns,
the inheritance of centuries, and of which every Damascene is proud, has
been imitated by the Manchester manufacturers, so as to become quite
familiar to English eyes. The effect of this in Damascus is curious. The
inhabitants import our cotton goods largely, and when they see their own
patterns again, the gentlemen think they look as well as their own heavy
silks ; and they make their wives wear them instead, greatly to the
discontent of the ladies. The saving to the Damascene husbands is very
great ; and indeed it must be, if we consider the cost of dressing a dozen
women in one house — wives and handmaids — in such costly articles as the
heavy silks of Damascus. For my own part, I would rather wear Manchester
cottons. The dresses of Damascus silk have no variety, and the scarves
are stiff and cumbrous. Perfumes are sold very largely. Some of our party
bought attar-of-roses and a decoction of sandal wood, which, however,
presently lost its scent. The gentlemen looked at daggers and scimitars ;
but the blades of Damascus are not what they were, and I believe there
was nothing very noticeable about those arms. . . . The goldsmiths' bazaar -
was one of the most interesting, not from the quality of the jewelry, but
from the picturesque figures of the workers, bending their turbaned heads
over the blow-pipes, in their little dim shops. The alleys where galloon
weaving and silk chain making and the manufacture of slippers were
carried on, were very attractive, from the number of children employed.
The little boys, weaving and shoemaking, were extremely industrious. They
appeared to put their ' Arab intensity ' into their work, young as they were.
Sometimes, in curious contrast, a dealer of graver years would be seen fast
asleep in the next shop, his head laid back on a comfortable pillow of
goods, and his whole stock open to the attacks of any one who chose to
steal. The prettiest sight in connection with the bazaars was when a net

STREETS AND GARDENS OF DAMASCUS.

was drawn over the front of the shop, to indicate that the owner was at
prayers. Of course, theft would be perfectly easy during such an interval ;
but we were assured that it never happened, and purchasers wait, without
any repining, for the re-appearance of the pious tradesman."
Away from the bazaars, the streets are dull enough ; narrow and
unsightly, with blank mud-brick walls on either side, pierced at intervals by
wretched-looking doors, and admitting only of loopholes on the street side
for the purpose of ventilation. Once pass the threshold, however, of the

^^gN§^*?f^V^ \_ -_- ~ =|§=

PUBLIC GARDEN, DAMASCUS.

better houses, and you shut out all the outward appearance of misery and
filth, passing from loathsome heaps of garbage, howling and hungry dogs,
lanky camels, and mischievously inclined mules and donkeys, emerging as
though by magic into superb and extensive courtyards, paved with marble,
scented with the fragrance of roses and orange blossoms, shaded by apricot
and lemon trees, and cooled by the perpetual play of a sparkling fountain in
the centre ; and the shuffling enveloped figures one encounters in the streets are
replaced by elegant women in costly attire, and courtly long-robed gentlemen.
The gates being kept closed, all fear of prying eyes, on the part of govern-

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

ment spies, in a measure is laid aside; and, except on occasions of public
tumult, even the Christians are safe from the fanatical outbreaks of the
Moslems ; and sometimes whilst carrying abroad with them every appearance
ol poverty, at home they are really enjoying every comfort and luxury that
wealth can purchase.

HOUSES ON THE WALLS OF DAMASCUS,

and ^ <<StT Call6d Stralght" is naturally one of th« "rst to be visited-
and there can be no reasonable doubt that in this lnno- tW~ w '
the citv from Ap RAA ir ? \ o, f g thoroughfare crossing
me city Irom the Bab (Gate) esh-Sherky to the Bdb el-Fahv—R line of
somewhat more than a mile-we have the very thoroughfare along Thich
Sfl°7r Wasu.led' b,inded and bewildered" by the^udden Zy that
had flashed upon h,m in his way. It is, we confess, with but a a'ngufd

>sa H H W
a >>

DAMASCUS: STRAIGHT STREET: THE GREAT MOSQUE.

curiosity that we look upon the reputed " house of Judas," in a bye-lane.
Like the other localities in Damascus connected with the history of the
apostle, it has no guarantee of authenticity but monkish tradition ; and as
Dr. Porter observes, the holy places of Damascus have occasionally
undergone changes at the hands of the worthy fathers ! The scene at
present assigned as the place of Saul's conversion is not on the road from
Jerusalem, which entered at the west, but on the south-eastern side of the
city, just beyond the Christian cemetery; and the window on the wall
where he was let down in a basket by the disciples is still shown in the
immediate neighbourhood ! This window is very characteristic of Damascus ;
as shown in our view of the wall, on a preceding page.
Every visitor marvels in turn that the Street Straight ( Via Recta, Rom.)
should ever have been called by that name : it is now a narrow tortuous
lane. From some Roman remains, it seems that in early times it was
a stately pillared avenue from east to west; and it is still worth traversing,
both for the sake of these mementoes of the past, and for the very curious
bazaars which abut upon the street in its course. Towards its eastern ex
tremity the Jewish quarter adjoins it to the south, the Christian quarter
to the north. This last was desolated by the massacre. of July, i860, when
no fewer than six thousand persons fell victims to Moslem fury. The scene
of ruin was photographed soon afterwards ; and though the quarter has in
some measure been restored, it yet bears many traces of the catastrophe.
Damascus is almost beyond all other cities of the East the home of
fanaticism; the neighbourhood of many sects, nominally equal before the
law, seeming but to intensify their mutual hatred.1 Of late years, the missions
of the Irish Presbyterian and other Churches have effected much, especially
in the education of the young, the eagerness of the people for instruction
being turned to valuable account.
It is remarkable that on one of the portals of the great mosque of
Damascus may be read to this day the inscription :
H BACIAIA COY X€ BACIAIA I1AN
TttN TWN AlttNWN KAI H A€C
nOTIA COY €N nACH T€N€A
KAI r€N6A.
" Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth
THROUGHOUT ALL GENERATIONS."
The text is from Psalm cxlv. 13, according to the Septuagint ; the words
"O Christ" being added to give to the passage a Christian meaning.
Strange indeed is the history of the fabric. Beyond doubt, the building
that originally occupied the site was one of the chief among Syrian heathen
» The population is given as about no.ooo, of whom 94,000 are Mohammedans (including the Druse andMetawileh
sects) 5000 Tews, and 11,000 Christians, half of whom adhered to the Greek Orthodox Church, and half to the other
sects ' But this is only a rough approximation ; and some compute the total at not less than 150,000,

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

temples — perhaps the very "house of Rimmon " in which Naaman was wont
to bow down beside his royal master Benhadad.' (2 Kings v. 18.) This
temple was converted into a Christian church at the end of the fourth
century, and dedicated to John the Baptist, whose head, it is said, was
found in its crypt and preserved in a casket of gold. To this day the
Damascenes swear " by the head of ' Yahia.' " When Damascus was
attacked by the Moslems, a.d. 635, one half of the city was stormed, and
the other half surrendered under treaty at the same time ; the victorious
generals meeting at this cathedral, half of which was accordingly taken by
the Mohammedans, and the other half secured to the Christians, according
to the terms of the surrender. For some time, therefore, the two worshipped
beneath the same roof, entering amicably at this one gate. This arrange
ment, however, could not last, and the building, being seized upon by the
Moslems, was reconstructed with great magnificence. This portal escaped
destruction, and the inscription remained, as a silent witness of that power
which in the end shall prevail over falsehood and unbelief. It is remarkable
that one of the minarets is known by the name of Madinet Isa, "the
Minaret of Jesus :" the Moslem tradition being that Jesus will take His
stand here when He comes to judgment, and proclaim from this spot the
names that are written in the Book of Life, of course placing those of
faithful Moslems first!
The one great excursion from Damascus, for which all others, if
necessary, must be sacrificed, is that to Baalbec and the Cedars. Travellers
pressed for time may stop short with the former, but the route should
if possible be prolonged for the two days needful for a visit to the latter
also; for who would willingly leave Lebanon without seeing what was once
its "glory," and is even now wonderfully impressive, as well as unique in
the historic scenery of the world ?
The route to Baalbec traverses the southern part of Anti-Lebanon.
For a few miles we keep the Beirut road, near the Barada river, then
strike across the Syrian Sahara, a stony, arid plain, a favourite haunt
of gazelles. The sultry heat of this shadeless upland makes the descent to
the river most welcome and refreshing, and the journey up the gorge from
this point is truly magnificent. The road winds upwards among poplars and
walnut trees, with terraced vineyards and fig orchards on the slopes to the
left, on the other side of the swift foaming stream, while above us on the
right the mountain towers with broken cliffs and jutting crags to the height
of two thousand feet. A wonderful fountain is soon reached— el-Fijeh, -
perhaps f) irinyyj, "the spring," gushing from beneath the ruins of an ancient #
temple, and at once augmenting the river to twice its former volume. Still
the road ascends by the shrunken stream, and after a while reaches Suk
Wady Barada, identified as Abila, the town which gave its name to Abilene,

BAALBEC, OR HELIOPOLIS.

of which Lysanias was tetrarch. (Luke iii. i.) Local tradition connects
this word with the name of Abel, who was slain, it is said, by his brother
at Damascus, and buried at Suk Wady Barada; his grave (Neby Hdbil)
being pointed out to this day. Still ascending, we reach the plain of
Zebedani, once, no doubt, a mountain lake, now a luxuriant garden among
sublime encircling heights, fair and fruitful as one's dreams of Eden. From
this point about an hour brings us to the watershed near the pretty
village of Serghdya, where we may pitch our tents for the night, prepared
for the four or five hours' descent the next morning to Baalbec, the
wonder of Syria.
The first impression made by this vast and silent ruin is that we had
seen it before. It is the ideal ruin, — the most impressive in itself and its
surroundings, among the wonders bequeathed us by the ancient world. But
perhaps the greatest wonder is how little we know of the history of what
must have been for many generations a renowned and populous city. Baal,
we know, stands for the sun, the Phoenician object of worship, as "lord," in
his splendour, of this lower world. Hence Baalbec appears in Greek writers
as Heliopolis, City of the Sun. There was probably a close connection
between this Phoenician shrine and the On of Egypt, known by the same
Greek name. But all this is lost in the shadows of the past : the Bible
takes no note of Baalbec,1 known to Israel though it must have been from the
days when the forests of Lebanon yielded up their riches for the courts of
Jehovah's house at Jerusalem. It is vain to conjecture ; the very earliest
records of this Heliopolis, in the shape of coins, belong only to the days
of Roman supremacy in the East. Baal and Astarte had yielded to Jupiter
and Venus ; and the coins of Septimius Severus at the beginning of the
third century show the outlines of two temples, which may, without much
difficulty, be identified with those now before us, especially as John
Malala, of Antioch, a writer of the seventh century, states that " Aurelius
Antoninus Pius" (thirty years before Septimius Severus) "built at Heliopolis
of Phoenicia in Lebanon, a great temple to Jupiter, which was one of the
wonders of the world."
The three temples still standing are thus described by Dr. Porter : " The
first, which we may call the Great Temple, consists of a peristyle, of which
only six columns remain, two courts and a portico, all standing on an
artificial platform, nearly thirty feet high, and having long vaults underneath.
The second, which we may term the Temple of Jupiter, occupies a lower
platform of its own on the south side of the former, and only a few feet
1 " Some think that the place is identical with Baalgad or Baalath, in the north of Dan. (Josh. xi. 17 ; xii. 7 ; xiii. 5.)
But Dr. Thomson, author of The Land and the Book, who inclines to this view, admits that there is little to support
it but Moslem tradition and the absence of any other Baalath to account for the site,— though it is quite possible this
may have been the site of the ' House of the Forest of Lebanon ' described in I Kings vii. 2-5, 8-12." Rev. W. B. Keer,
Sunday at Home, June 21, 1879. But the situation of Baalgad is described as " in the valley of Lebanon under Mount
Hermon,'' which points to a more southward position, and Robinson identifies it with Bairas (Ctzsarea Philippi).

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

distant. A large portion of it is still in good preservation, and it forms by
far the most imposing structure in Syria. The third is the Circular Temple,
which stands alone, about two hundred yards to the south-east of the others.
Though small, and now, alas ! sadly dilapidated, it is a perfect gem."
Continuing our explorations, we soon find that, familiar as we had been
with the general aspect of these majestic, ruins, we had been utterly un
prepared for their stupendous vastness. This grows upon us every hour;
and so admirably proportioned are the cyclopean masses, that we scarcely
apprehend their size until we bring measuring-line and scale to our aid.

TEMPLES OF BAALBEC.

The builders of these temples evidently felt that only a colossal design
could redeem the structures from insignificance, in contrast with the mighty
natural features of the neighbourhood. Their first aim, therefore, was to
raise their level high above the plain ; the base of the Great Temple
being thus elevated some fifty feet. The late Dr. Buchanan, in his Notes
of a Clerical Furlough, gives some exact figures, which may aid in realising
the stupendous proportions of the whole, as well as the skill and labour
employed in the erection. He says : " The site which the ruins cover is
about a quarter of a mile in length, and from seven to eight hundred feet
in breadth. This entire area has been partly mounded and partly built up

BAALBEC: ITS STUPENDOUS RUINS.

with massive walls and arched work : and the whole has been enclosed and
supported with outer walls of such ponderous masonry as makes one wonder,
even in an age like ours, how it could ever have been put together by human
hands. In the outer substruction wall, beneath the northern base of the
Great Temple, there are nine single stones, each of which is thirty-one feet
in length, and thirteen feet by nine and a half feet in thickness. In the
outer substruction wall, beneath the western part of the temple, there are
three stones forming a course in the wall, each of which is upwards of
sixty-three feet in length, and thirteen feet in depth. These, no doubt, were
the stones which gave to the temple the name of the Ip'ikiOov — the ' Three-
stoned.' To add to the astonishment which the sight of these rock-like
masses creates, they are not the foundation stones of the wall, but occupy
a position twenty feet above the ground.
" Upon the raised platform upheld by that stupendous masonry stood the
temples of this ancient Heliopolis, or City of the Sun. How majestically
from that elevation must they have looked down on the broad plain
beneath ! From the base of the western
substruction wall to the top of the
massive entablature which ran along
the head of the columns that formed
the peristyle of the Great Temple, the
height must have been one hundred
and twenty-four feet. Of that noble
colonnade only six pillars remain. The
rest, hurled from their pedestals by
successive earthquakes, and broken in
pieces by their fall, lie, shafts here
and capitals there, a perfect picture of
desolation." " One stone," writes Dr. Wilson,
" in the western wall, overlooked both
by Maundrell and Wood and Dawkins,
probably because irregularly cut in the
outer surface, though of undivided mass,
is sixty-nine feet in length, thirteen in
depth, and eighteen in breadth, affording altogether a block of raised rock — to
give it in letters — of sixteen thousand one hundred and forty-six cubic feet."
But it is to the remnant of the colonnade which crowns this wonderful
masonry, that the eye turns again and again with ever-increasing astonishment
and delight. Their grace, their perfect proportion, the strength and airy
grace with which they sustain the fragment of entablature by which they are
crowned is the admiration and despair of architects ; and when the imagi
nation reconstructs the vast oblong peristyle, with its fifty-four columns,

A FALLEN PILLAR.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

surmounted by its rich and massive architrave, of which amazing sculptured
fragments strew the ground, we feel the traveller's verdict not too strong,
that "such grandeur of design and such grace of execution as one sees in
the temples of Baalbec have not been equalled or even approached in any
work of men's hands that has been built within twenty centuries past."
We may turn to figures again, for really there is no better way to an
adequate estimate of this wonder that we see standing in its symmetry
beneath the blue Syrian sky. The columns from their bases on the sub
structure of masonry to the top of the architrave measure seventy feet
ten inches ; their diameter one-third of the way up is seven feet three
inches ; their distance apart is eight feet seven inches. Each column con
sists of three stones, formerly clasped together with iron, but the metal has
been mostly torn away by the Turks and Arabs, much to the injury of the
pillars ; so that they cannot, to all appearance, much longer withstand the
frequent shock of earthquakes, or the slow ravages of the elements. In 1751
when these ruins were described by Messrs. Wood and Dawkins, nine pillars
were standing.
Much smaller than this temple, although in far better preservation, is the
so-called Temple of the Sun. Dr. Buchanan well describes it :
" The smaller temple is much more entire than the larger. It is near
the south-western angle of the vast area which the ruins cover, and is two
hundred and twenty-two feet in length by. one hundred and seventeen in
breadth. The entire cella or body of the temple remains. Of the noble
colonnade or peristyle that ran round its walls — consisting originally of forty-
six columns, fifteen on each side and eight at each end — only fifteen remain,
viz. six on the west and nine on the north. They are sixty-five feet in height
and six and a quarter feet in diameter at the base. The south side has
been stripped of its columns, which the earthquake has shaken from their
pedestals, and tossed down to the bottom of the lofty substruction wall on
which the temple stands. On that side but one solitary column remains,
which the shock of the earthquake has thrown backwards against the temple
wall ; and though it has done so with such violence as to dash in several
massive stones of the wall, the pillar itself is unbroken. The shaft of the
column consists of three pieces, but so firmly are they jointed together that
it remains as entire as if it had been formed of a single stone.
" The gem of these magnificent architectural remains is the main portal
of this smaller temple. This portal fronts the east, and is twenty-one feet
wide by forty-two feet high. Each side of the doorway is a single stone,
and all round it has a broad border of carved work of exquisite beauty. On
the under surface of the lintel is the figure of an eagle— not the Roman
eagle, but the same that appears on the great temple of the Sun at Palmyra,
and supposed, in consequence, to have been one of the characteristic symbols
of sun-worship.

BAALBEC : THE "THREE STONES " IN THE TEMPLE PLATFORM.

TEMPLES OF BAALBEC.

" There is a corkscrew stair within the wall on one side of the gateway,
to which two or three of us got access by creeping through a most un
comfortably narrow hole, and by which we climbed up to the top of the
walls of the temple. The key-stone of the lintel of the lofty and beautiful
portal has been in the act of dropping out during the convulsions of some
earthquake ; but the gaping wall has closed in time to catch it by its upper
edge, and there it hangs, more perilous looking than the sword of Damocles
when one is beneath it in the doorway ; and yet, standing upon it above,
we found it immovable as a rock."
Of this temple the late David Roberts says, not extravagantly : " This
is perhaps the most elaborate work, as well as the most exquisite in its
detail of anything of its kind in the world ;" while old Maundrell, surprised
into momentary enthusiasm, writes of it : "It strikes the mind with an air of
greatness beyond anything that I ever saw before, and is an eminent proof
of the magnificence of the ancient architecture."
The third and smallest of the ruined temples, called the Circular
Temple, and supposed to have been dedicated to Venus, is also the most
dilapidated. At one time it was used as a church by the Greek Christians,
but it has long been abandoned. From the plan that may even yet be traced
amid the ruinous heap, it was evidently a gem of architecture, the temple
enclosure or cella being a circle thirty-eight feet in diameter, surrounded at a
distance of nine feet by a peristyle of beautiful Corinthian monolithic pillars,
which bore an ornate architrave curved backwards between each pair of columns
nearly to the wall of the cella, and supported by pilasters projecting from
the wall. It is hard, however, to trace even thus much amid the encumbering
ruins of the place ; and the interior has no points of interest save three niches,
where no doubt the sculptured idols once stood. Of the domed roof which
once covered this small and beautiful building there is now no vestige.
" Beneath the temples are extensive subterranean passages or arched
corridors, in which the Roman soldiers once found a cool retreat from the
scorching glare and fiery heat of Syrian sunshine. And so little have the
walls been injured in this part of the structures that the numbers of the
legions or companies, though only daubed on with pigment, and not cut in,
are in some cases almost as distinct and plain as when the Roman soldiery
waked up these arches with their social merriment."1
These wonderful ruins naturally engross all the attention of the traveller,
leaving him no leisure to explore the neighbourhood, in which no doubt much
might be found worthy of at least a passing notice. For, besides the remains
of the temples, there are manifold proofs that Baalbec, although it has left
no annals behind, had a long and varied history of its own. The walls of
the city were two and a half miles in circumference ; and the whole space is
filled with ruins, shattered columns, fragments of architraves and cornices,
1 Rev. W. B. Keer, Sundav at Home, June 21, 1879.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

and bits of exquisite sculpture of different ages, as well as mounds overgrown
with vegetation, concealing many a relic of the past. It may be that the
curiosity of modern explorers may bring inscriptions to light that will tell
some portion of the forgotten story. For if, as some suppose, "the huge
masses of stone that form the substructures of platforms and walls are of the
cyclopean period, known as that of the Early Phoenician, and perhaps anterior
to that of the temple of Jerusalem,"1 we have here the architectural records
of some twelve or thirteen hundred years at least— but all silent ! We only

GREAT STONE AT BAALBEC.
know that Heliopolis in its later history was the scene ol persecution and
martyrdom ; and that nameless horrors were wrought in the name of those
imaginary deities at whose shattered shrines we stand and marvel now
Before we leave the neighbourhood we must take a walk of about a
EE^t^r ^ ^7' ^ HeS a St°ne' -dy^dtrth
the ZtZ \n ol !% PerhaP-S SiXteen hundred years- The marl<s of
the graving tool are still upon it; it is still connected with the rock,
30 ' Author of Two M™ths in Spain. See Leisure Hour, Oct. 30, 1869.

THOUGHTS ON QUITTING BAALBEC.

ready for the final strokes that were never to be given ; and there it still lies
with other vast blocks in various stages of preparation, as may be seen even
amid the drifted rubbish that half covers them — to move the wonder of
modern engineers, as to how such masses could be transported in ancient
times. This one is seventy-one feet in length by fourteen in depth, and
thirteen in width, and would probably weigh fifteen hundred tons, " nearly

ARAB TEMPLE AT BAALBEC.

equal to one of the gigantic iron tubes of the Britannia Bridge over the
Menai Strait," and more than six times the weight of " Cleopatra's Needle,"
now on the Thames Embankment.1 Yet it was evidently to be placed
entire in the colossal fabric, which it would seem was never finished.
In the neighbourhood is another ruin, but little visited, called the " Arab

1 Rev. W. B. Keer.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

Temple," and supposed to be the tomb of some Moslem saint. The granite
columns and architraves are evidently the remains of some former Greek or
Roman temple. The engraving on the preceding page is from a photograph,
and is characteristic of some of the less known features of the district.
We leave Baalbec with many thoughts which it would be superfluous
to set down here. " The tout ensemble has left on the mind a dream of
pleasure and satisfaction which we find it impossible to describe, but which

LEBANON.

we can never forget ; and if we had had no other object in our journey, we
should consider the privilege of visiting those splendid ruins before barbarism
and earthquakes have strewed them over the ground as an ample reward for
all our troubles and fatigues." Only we cannot forget that these are after
all the magnificent records of a vanished lie. Art has in turn been the slave
of many masters; and it is humiliating to think that she has rendered her
choicest service to some of the most ignoble and corrupting. Yet the plan

THE " GLORY OF LEBANON."

of Theodosius and others to turn these stately temples into sanctuaries for
Christian worship was at the best but a doubtful one. It was, they said,
" putting the new wine into old bottles." But, as Thomas Fuller well observes
in reply, the wine by such process came, too often, "to smell of the cask,"
and the attempt to purify the shrine ended in corrupting the faith. Certainly
everything we see in Syria associated with the name of religion, whether in
such memorials of classic idolatry, or in the edifices of the Greek, Roman,
or Armenian churches, or in Mohammedan mosques, makes us more in love
with simplicity of worship — the worship of the upper room !
Talking of such themes, and plunging into a disquisition as to the
possibilities of a truly Christian art, we prepare for our further journey to
that great natural sanctuary, the Cedars of Lebanon.
For we had long since learned to correct our childish impression, that
the cedar trees were to be found growing all over this great mountain range.
How far this may have been the case in ancient times it is difficult to
say ; yet it is impossible to resist the conviction, in reading the Old
Testament, to use the words of Canon Tristram, that "in ancient times the
cedar was a far more conspicuous feature in the landscape than it is now.
It was not merely a few groups, and scattered trees hidden in the most
inaccessible recesses, which could have so frequently suggested that glorious
and majestic imagery of the prophets. They spoke to men to whom the
splendour, of those monarchs of the forest was familiar." The cedar was
"the. glory of Lebanon," which it would scarcely have been called had
it been restricted, as at present, to one narrow pass among the mountains.
Further, as we traverse the rough and tedious way across the valley,
and upwards to the Jebel el-Arz, or Cedar Mountain, the thought presses
upon us : Could it have been along this route and to this mere nook
in the hills that King Solomon sent his thousands to prepare for the
building of the temple ? We read as we journey along : " And King Solomon
raised a levy out of all Israel ; and the levy was thirty thousand men. And
he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses ; a month they
were in Lebanon, and two months at home." This host of labourers must
have been dispersed over an immense area ; and the forests were, no doubt,
correspondingly vast. " The hills were covered with the shadow of it."
" Lebanon " itself was but a synonym for these " goodly trees," these " trees
of Jehovah, which He hath planted." The highest description of the world's
tribute to its King is that the harvest "shall shake like Lebanon."
Nothing could more appropriately symbolise the far-reaching pride and power
of a mighty nation. " The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair
branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top
was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set
him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out
her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and
his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he
shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and
under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young,
and under his shadow dwelt all great nations." 1 Such imagery sets forth
not merely the stately majesty of this king among trees, but the far-
spreading luxuriance of its growth over many a league where now the
rugged limestone crags and hillsides are clothed only with scantiest foliage,
with stunted oaks here and there, and everywhere the mountain juniper.
Nor are we left to conjecture alone. Some modern travellers, and notably
Canon Tristram,2 have discovered in several directions indubitable traces of
the vast primeval forests — so far asunder as to show that the hills were
literally "covered" by its shade.
For the present, however, all we have to do is to make our way again
across the Beka'a, here a comparatively narrow plain, at a considerably
greater elevation than that of the road we had traversed on our way
from Beirut to Damascus. We are almost on the watershed between
the Litany (Leontes) and the Nahr el 'Asy, the more famous Orontes ;
the latter river, here an insignificant streamlet, is soon crossed, and
little more than an hour suffices to place us on the lower spurs of
Lebanon. While looking down the valley, the long snow-crowned ridge of
Hermon appears again in its majesty. We have now reached the territory
of the Maronites, a remarkable and interesting people, of whom we
hope to see more when we have paid our visit to the Cedars. Their
industry meantime is attested by the mulberry-groves which we pass as we
ascend, and by some well-kept farms. The children run out to beg; and
we may have our choice of guides up the stony bridle-path, which is not
very difficult to find. From a height reached soon after crossing a wooded
ravine by the village of Aina,. where our weary horses are baited, we have
a magnificent retrospective view of the Anti-Libanus range, at the foot
of which " Baalbec lies like a green and brown speck " upon the ruddy
background. We now press on, for the end is near. The path descends
into a gorge, then rapidly rises up the mountain side. Magnificent glimpses
are obtained of snow-capped heights. At last we reach the summit of the
pass and cross the compactly-frozen snow, where in the words of Canon
Tristram, than whom none has described the scene more graphically—
"A joyous view burst suddenly upon us, and the whole sea-coast, from
Beirut almost to Ruad, the ancient Arvad, lay spread ten thousand feet
beneath us. In the nearer foreground below, was a sort of hollow or basin,
1 Psalm lxxx. 10 ; civ. 16 ; Ezek. xxxi. 3-6.
2 See a paper in the Sunday at Home, December 24, 1864, by the Rev. H. B. Tristram, "Discovery of Cedar
Forests in Lebanon." He names six places, some of them far apart, "where this sacred tree still exists," adding, "I
have little doubt but that a careful search among the western roots of the Lebanon, which has never yet been thoroughly
accomplished, would result in the discovery of many more relics of the primeval forest."
34

THE GREAT CEDAR GROVE.

the upper drainage of the great valley of the Kadfsha, a rough, rocky plain,
heaped with mounds, which are doubtless the 'moraines,' or deposits of
ancient ice; and its enclosing sides scarped by the traces of the primeval
glaciers which formed these moraines.
" In the midst of this area, closed in by snow-streaked mountains on
east, north, and south, but open towards the west, and looking on the broad
expanse of sea more than six thousand feet beneath, on a group of mounds,
at the very ' edge ' of the height of Lebanon, stood a dark green clump of

CEDARS OF LEBANON.

trees — the famous cedar grove. Dean Stanley, and most other visitors,
remark that the first view of the grove is a disappointment. We certainly
did not feel it so, perhaps because our view was from above instead of, as
in their case, from below ; perhaps because so many have remarked upon
the insignificance of the group, that we expected nothing. On the contrary,
we were struck by the very marked feature which the grove, inconsiderable
indeed in itself, formed in the vast and bare landscape. Where there are
few features, these, even if small, must, when in strong contrast with all
around, arrest attention.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

" There are several noticeable features which struck us at once. First,
the position of cedars at the 'edge of Lebanon,'1 the only vegetation visible
as we looked down into the wide amphitheatre, but yet themselves linked
with man and with civilisation by a narrow strip of cultivated valley, which
commences at the extremity of the grove, and gradually widens and expands,
till, in the course of a few miles, it becomes the fruitful vale of the Kadisha.
Then we have heard so much of there being only ten or twelve old trees,
and a few young ones around, that we were not prepared for a group of
more than three hundred and fifty trees, all fine timber, while from the spot
where we stood old and young were undistinguishable.
" The distance looked short from the top of the pass, but we wound
for a long two hours down the steep rocky declivity before we reached the
group, lying a little to the right of the road. The great charm of solitude
is no longer here, for a little square chapel and several rude huts have
been erected under the central clump, and the inhabitants find touting and
pestering visitors a profitable variety in their ordinary occupation of goat-
herding. " But before we came upon these, more agreeable denizens arrested our
attention. The grove was vocal with life. Innumerable cicadse hissed and
grilled around, and many a familiar, and some strange notes of birds
welcomed us from the branches. The common chaffinch, which we had never
found in Palestine since the winter, gave forth his blithe chirrup from every
tree ; numbers of the English coletit were almost out of sight aloft among
the boughs, being an addition to the birds of Syria hitherto unnoticed;
a beautiful little species of finch, akin to the canary, and which has not yet
been described, was in little bands everywhere, and a redstart, never before
brought to England {Ruticilla semirufa, H. and E.), sent forth a nuthatch
like note as he stealthily glided from trunk to trunk. Many hooded crows,
ravens, kestrels, hobby-hawks, and wood owls, were secreted in the topmost
boughs. "The trees are not too crowded, and many of the younger ones have
a circumference of eighteen feet; nor are they entirely confined to the
grove, as there are several stragglers of considerable size to the north and
west. In such a spot we could well comprehend the feeling of superstition
which seduced the chosen people to erect altars and high places 'on every
high hill, and under every green tree.' The breeze, as it soughed through
the dark boughs, seemed to breathe sounds of solemnity and awe and to
proclaim < the trees of the Lord,' the • cedars of Lebanon which He hath
planted.' "
The account given by Sir Joseph Hooker of this famous forest is worth
quoting here.
"So far," he says, "as is at present generally known, the cedars are
1 Isa. xxxvii. 24.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CEDARS.

confined on Lebanon to one spot, the head of the Kadtsha valley, which, at
six thousand feet elevation, terminates in broad, shallow, flat-floored basins,
and is two to three miles across, and as much long ; it is here in a straight
line fifteen miles from the sea, and about three or four from the summit of
Lebanon, which is to the northward of it. These open basins have shelving
sides, which rise two thousand to four thousand feet above their bases ; they
exactly resemble what are called corrys in many Highland mountains. The
floor of that in which the cedars grow presents almost a dead level to the
eye, crossed abruptly and transversely by a confused range of ancient
moraines which have been deposited by glaciers, that, under very different
conditions of climate, once filled the basin above them, and communicated
with the perpetual snow with which the whole summit of Lebanon was at
that time deeply covered. The moraines are perhaps eighty to one hundred
feet high ; their boundaries are perfectly defined, and they divide the floor
of the basin into an upper and lower flat area. The rills from the surround
ing heights collect on the upper flat, and form one stream, which winds
amongst the moraines on its way to the lower flat, whence it is precipitated
into the gorge of the Kadisha. The cedars grow on that portion of the
moraine which immediately borders this stream, and nowhere else ; they form
one group, about four hundred yards in diameter, with an out-standing tree
or two, not far from the rest, and appear as a black speck in the great area
of the corry and its moraines, which contain no other arboreous vegetation,
nor any shrubs but a few small berberry and rose bushes that form no
feature in the landscape.
"The number of trees is about four hundred, and they are disposed
in nine groups, corresponding with as many hummocks of the range of
moraines : they are of various sizes, from about eighteen inches to upwards
of forty feet in girth ; but the most remarkable and significant fact connected
with their size, and consequently with the age of the grove, is that there is
no tree of less than eighteen inches girth, and that we found no young trees,
bushes, or even seedlings of a second year's growth. We had no means of
estimating accurately the ages of the youngest or oldest tree. It may be
remarked, however, that the wood of the branch of the old tree, cut at the
time, is eight inches in diameter (exclusive of bark), presents an extremely
firm, compact, and close-grained texture, and has no less than one hundred
and forty rings, which are so close in some parts that they cannot be counted
without a lens. This specimen, further, is both harder and browner than any
English-grown cedar or native deodar, and is as odoriferous as the latter.
These, however, are the characters of an old lower branch of a very old
tree, and are no guide to the general character of the wood on the Lebanon,
and' still less to that of English-grown specimens, which are always very
inferior in colour, odour, grain, and texture. Calculating only from the rings
in this branch, the youngest trees in Lebanon would average one hundred

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

years old, the oldest two thousand five hundred— both estimates no doubt
widely far from the mark. Calculating from trunks of English rapidly-grown
specimens, their ages might be put down as low respectively as five and two
hundred years, while from the rate of growth of the Chelsea cedars the
youngest trees may be twenty-two, and the oldest six hundred to eight
hundred years old."
Dr. Wilson, in The Lands of the Bible, says he had before him half a
hundred accounts of these far-famed trees, when writing the narrative of his
own visit, which is one of the best we possess. " As first seen by us from
Jebel Mukhmel," says Dr. Wilson, " they appeared merely as a speck of green
beyond the snowy wreaths which intervened between us and them. The
perpendicular fall of the mountain to them is two thousand four hundred feet,
for they are six thousand feet above the level of the sea; but the road
winds so cautiously down the side of the mountain, that loaded horses and
mules can get to them without difficulty. They stand on the shoulder of
Lebanon, on ground of a varying level. They cover about three acres. The
venerable patriarch trees, which have stood the blasts of thousands of winters,
amount only to twelve, and these not standing close together in the same
clump ; but those of a secondary and still younger growth, as nearly as can
be reckoned, to three hundred and twenty-five. A person can walk easily
round the whole grove in twenty-five minutes. We measured all the larger
trees, one of which, at least, we found to be forty feet in circumference. We
were sorry to observe the names of many travellers, including that of
Lamartine, the poet of France, most savagely cut on their trunks."
Dr. Hooker joins M. Salle and some other travellers in doubting
whether this was the tree used in the building of the Temple. He thinks
it improbable that the "almost inaccessible valleys of the Lebanon should have
been ransacked for a wood that has no particular quality to recommend it
for building purposes."
" The lower slopes of the Lebanon," he continues, " bordering on the sea,
were and are covered with magnificent forests ; so that there was little
inducement to ascend six thousand feet, through twenty miles of a rocky
mountain valley, to obtain a material which could not be transported to the
coast without the utmost difficulty and expense. It is further to be remarked
that it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis of the former great extent of
the cedar forest with the fact of almost the only existing habitat being the
moraines of one of the most populous valleys on the mountains. The
cypress (also called cedar by the ancients), the Pinus Halepensis, and the
tall, fragrant Jtmiperus of the Lebanon, with its fine red heart-wood, would
have been far more prized on every account."
Wilson, however, while admitting that the Hebrew word "Erez" is
a generic term including various trees, as in Leviticus xiv. 6, where it cannot
refer to the cedar, maintains the affirmative in the discussion. Some portions of

38

DECAY AND DESTRUCTION OF THE CEDARS.

the wood taken to Edinburgh were found by botanists and by workmen there
to be of remarkably fine grain, compact and solid, and capable of being carved

IN THE CEDAR-GROVE.

into ornamental pieces of furniture. The quality ot the wood cannot be judged
by the softer and degenerate specimens of more rapid English growth.1
1 Three cedars grown in Bedfordshire, at the age of thirty years attained the girths respectively of 5 feet 8 inches,
6 feet, and 6 feet 6 inches. 39

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

The natives of the Lebanon still denote the cedar by " el-Arz " (whence, ac
cording to Dr. Tristram, possibly our "larch;" the trees being of kindred
species). Dr. Porter adds, " The cedars are much broken and disfigured, partly by
the snows of winter, but chiefly by the vandalism of visitors. The patriarchs,
in fact, are all hacked and hewn, tablets cut on their sides, with names
inscribed on them, names known in history and literature ; joined with others
which nobody has ever heard of, or ever will hear of elsewhere. Noble lords
figure beside the autographs of their dragomen ; and other associations occur
to excite the sneers and indignation of posterity. I shall feel that I have not
written altogether in vain if my strong protest against such barbarity tend
to save these last trees of a sacred forest from the knives of future
pilgrims. The cones are fair game as relics ; and any branch that the winter
storms may have broken off may be bargained for with the old monk ;
but deliberately to use knife or saw is an act that would disgrace a
Bedawy." We fear that this energetic protest, made more than twenty years ago,
has been ineffectual, and that unnumbered Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons
have since " made their mark " on these grand relics of the past. Lord
Lindsay, with a fine feeling says : "I would as soon have cut my name on
the walls of a church ;" but this sentiment is unintelligible to " John Smith,
Islington, London," or to " Eliphalet K. Higgs, New Persepolis, Va."
Nomina stultorimi semper parietihis hcerent. We met them at Baalbec, where
with a charred stick (as it would seem) they had proudly immortalised their
names in the Temple of the Sun : we heard of them at the Pyramids,
where a tarred paint-brush had wrought for them a yet more imposing
memorial; and again, all who come to gaze upon the "glory of Lebanon"
shall be reminded how they too once passed this way !
" In past days," Dr. Porter adds, " one of the greatest charms of this
little forest was its solitude ; but that is gone. An unsightly chapel has
been erected in the centre of the grove, and many a branch has been ruth
lessly cut down from its roof. Nightly, during the season, the monk guardian,
and a goodly train of idle boys and men who collect to see the strangers,
kindle their fire of cedar-wood to boil their coffee, light their pipes, and
temper the chill mountain blasts. Even this is not all. In the beginning
of August each year occurs the ' Feast of the Cedars,' when natives, lay
and cleric, assemble in hundreds to spend a night in prayer and revelry
around these venerable trees. Their branches are lopped off for fire-wood,
and kindled beside the massive trunks, and upon the exposed roots, of the
oldest trees ! It is to be feared that such a combination of accidents will
ere long annihilate the famed cedar grove of Lebanon."
There is yet time before we break up our little encampment here to
visit one of the Maronite monasteries ; Bsherreh, one of the chief villages

THE MARONITES.

inhabited by this sect, being close at hand. An hour's descent along the
rough and stony sides of a narrow glen brings us out upon the village,
gloriously placed upon a height that commands the valley of the Kadiiha,

MARQNJTFS AT A CONVENT,

and surrounded by terraced slopes, where tall poplars rise amid groves of
mulberry, fig, and walnut trees. The sound of running waters is everywhere,
and the verdure is exquisite. A guide conducts us over the wildest of

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

mountain-paths to the monastery of Kanobin, on a cliff overhanging the
Kadisha. In its name we recognise our coenobite, from the Greek koivo$iov.
Here the Maronite patriarch lives, Peter (Butrus) or Paul (Bulus), as the
case may be — for it is always one of the two : and we are hospitably re
ceived and entertained for the usual "consideration." At the time of our
visit, the scene is a bright and lively one, peasants repairing in gay attire to
the little rock-hewn church, on some errand connected with the silkworm or
mulberry harvest. The church is dedicated to the Virgin. Altogether, the
Maronites are a people worth studying; descendants of the old "monothe-
lites ;" one of the many sects called into being by the endeavours of early
thinkers to fathom the mystery of our Lord's twofold nature. They have
long, however, accepted the "Catholic" doctrine, and are subject to Rome,
though still reading the Syrian, not the Latin Mass, and permitting the
inferior clergy to marry. Politically, they are so far independent of the
Turkish power as to be governed by a Christian pasha, with certain special
privileges. The inveterate enmity between the Maronites and the Druses
has led to many wild scenes of strife and massacre. But take either of them
separately, and they are hard-working, inoffensive, hospitable and brave.
The Greek Church in Syria condemns and scorns them both. There are
now, it is computed, about two hundred thousand of the Maronite sect ;
their episcopal sees being Aleppo, Baalbec, Jebeil, Tripoli, Ehden, Damascus,
Beirut, Tyre, and Cyprus.
The route from Bsherreh by Ehden, and down the valley of the
Kadisha to Tripoli, is said to be wonderfully lovely, and the road by the
Mediterranean from Tripoli to Beirut, the Syrian Riviera, not unworthy to
be compared with that of Northern Italy. But these we must leave, as
they have little or no claim to a place among " Bible Lands." Jebel (or
Byblus), halfway down the coast, is no doubt the Gebal mentioned in
Ezekiel's wonderful lamentation for Tyre, as tributary to that proud city ;
the abode, also, of the Giblites, mentioned by Joshua, and of Hiram's quarry-
men engaged on Solomon's temple.1 A little lower down we come to the
place where Adonis, the Syrian Tammuz, is said to have met his fate. The
prophet Ezekiel beheld in vision the Jewish women with their faces toward
the north " weeping for Tammuz." 2 To this Milton alludes, in his list of
demon deities : " Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood,
Of Thammuz, yearly wounded."
There is a very realistic explanation of the legend ; for the wild stream
1 See Ezek. xxvii. 9 ; Josh. xiii. 5 ; 1 Kings v. 18 (margin— rec. trans., stotie-sguarers). 2 Ezek. viii. 14.

4"

THE SYRIAN RIVIERA.

"the Adonis," now called Nahr-Ibrahim, which here descends from Lebanon,
tears from the banks in the time of its fulness sufficient of dark red soil to
tinge its waters; so that, as Dr. Porter observes, "after every storm
that breaks upon the brow of Lebanon the Adonis still 'runs purple to
the sea.' "
But without lingering over any of these scenes, we must return to
Damascus for a hurried excursion to Palmyra. The visit to Baalbec and the
Cedars — out and home — has taken a week of strenuous exertion : and Sabbath

SYRIAN WOMEN AT HANDMILL.

rest was never more welcome than here in Dimitri's good hotel ; while a few
strangers from all parts of the world, but brethren in Christ, have a refreshing
season of conference and prayer.
The question will be asked, and we may take this opportunity of
answering it here, what is being done for the evangelisation of this ancient
city. The work is immensely difficult, owing to the bitter fanaticism of every
class.. "Yet," in the words of Dr. Schaff, "the thing has been done, and

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

not altogether without result. Since 1843 the United Presbyterian Church of
America, and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, have maintained jointly a
mission, with a church for converts from Jews and Greek Christians, and
with schools. The buildings were burned during the massacre of i860, but
have been substantially rebuilt, chiefly by the munificence of an English lady,
Miss Eliza Broomfield. The Protestant community was scattered, but is now
larger than before the massacre. Worship is conducted twice every Sunday
in Arabic, and occasionally also in English for the benefit of travellers. The
present missionaries are Mr. Crawford of America, and (temporarily)
Mr. Robson of Ireland. Mr. Crawford informed me that the Greeks have
been stirred up to greater zeal for education, and buy many New Testa
ments in the Arabic version of Dr. Van Dyck from the Protestant
missionaries. Many of their children and also a few Mohammedans visit
their schools.
" Besides this Presbyterian mission there is an Episcopal mission and
chapel built by the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the
Jews, which built Christ Church in Jerusalem and several schools in
Palestine. " Adjoining the Episcopal chapel are several fine school -rooms, where
boys and girls receive a Christian education. These schools were founded
by the late Mrs. Thompson of Beirut, who has done so much good for the
rising generation of Syria.
" These are small beginnings ; but the time is not far distant when, as
Abd-el-Kader prophesied, 'the mosques of Damascus will be turned into
Christian churches.' " x
The expedition from Damascus to Palmyra is a very different matter
from the comparatively easy journey to Baalbec. Not only is the distance
much greater, but a large portion of the route has to be taken over the
desert; a military escort is still indispensable, and the camels fof conveying
provisions, etc., may often be engaged from an Arab tribe to be found outside
the gates of Damascus. Altogether the journey is a new experience, not
unpleasant in the early spring, provided the various Arab tribes happen to
be on good terms one with another and with the ruling authorities at
Damascus, but long and tedious at the best.
In less than three hours after leaving the city gates we are in the desert,
• Through Bible Lands, Nisbet, 1879 ; pp. 371, 373. Elsewhere Dr. Schaff gives a brief but interesting account of
the work at Beirut, the headquarters of Protestant missions in Syria. The printing press and Bible depository of this
city "sent forth in 1876 no less than 38,450 volumes (13,786,980 pages) of Bibles, tracts, and other books, including a
series of text-books and juvenile works" (p. 376). Statistical tables show that at the close of the year 1877, there were
in Syria, connected with seventeen different societies, seventy-eight foreign missionaries, and 330 native labourers j
thirty-nine preaching stations, with an average congregation of 100 at each, and a total of 794 communicants, besides
184 schools containing 10,585 children. Among these agencies the Irish and American Presbyterian Missions take
the lead. The British Syrian Schools, and the Lebanon Schools of the Free Church of Scotland, take an important
share in the educational work.
44

EXPEDITION TO PALMYRA.

an immense undulating tract lying nearly two thousand feet above the sea-
level, with many a fair oasis, where around some springing well a little

A SYRIAN SHEPHERD.

village has arisen, while the remains of watercourses and cisterns betoken the
former existence of a great system of artificial irrigation. Plainly the soil

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

wants only a supply of water to be richly fertile almost through the entire route.
And here let us say that the notions which many persons form of " the
Desert," are considerably modified in the course of this journey. It is true
that there is many a stony tract, where, as Dr. Porter describes it, " the
ground is covered with small fragments of flint and limestone, through
which a sickly grass tuft, or half-withered weed here and there springs up.
Not a tree, not a green shrub appears within the range of vision, and
animal life is equally rare, for except chance throws in our way a troop of
gazelles or a band of Bedawin, we travel for hours without seeing a living
creature. Yet, desolate as the country is, we see traces of an ancient road,
and at every few miles are the ruins of castles or caravansaries." The truth
is that all depends upon the supply of water. The wilderness is ready to
" smile," if we may so say, everywhere, and the broken cisterns and dilapi
dated aqueducts almost pathetically explain the contrast between former
loveliness and present desolation. There is many a verdant tract besides —
treeless, certainly, but through more than half the year rich in herbage. A
traveller who went forth expecting two days' dreary ride over arid sands,
was astonished to find, in the very midst of his route, that the long grass
for many a mile came up to his horse's stirrups ! The loveliness of the
occasional glens and watercourses cannot be exaggerated. Nor would it be
easy to speak too strongly of the glorious climate. Whether it is from the
altitude of the region, or the latitude, or the ozone, or the sense of holiday
adventure, with just a touch of danger, may be left to the scientific to
settle, but the heart beats high with exultation, cares and vexations dwindle
into insignificance, it is a "luxury to live."
ferud, the first night's halting-place, is a cheerful village, surrounded by
pastures ; the second day's stage brings the tired travellers to a populous
village, Ktiryetein, where the gardens and vineyards are of unexpected luxuri
ance ; and the pilgrim who cannot sleep well in a tent may find quarters not
to be despised at the parsonage — we forget to which of the "three denomi
nations"1 that divide the Christians of the village the kindly clerical host
belongs ; but it does not matter much ; all three seem dwelling in tolerable amity
with one another and their Moslem neighbours. Here, in the vast Syrian wild,
is no place for controversy ; besides which they have all a common foe in
the Bedawy spoilers, who are attracted by the fountains and herbage of this
little paradise. Dr. Porter supposes that this village, once evidently a con
siderable town, may be the Hazar-enan, Village of Fountains, which Ezekiel
refers to as on the " border of Damascus northward." (Ezek. xlvii. 17 ; xlviii. 1.)
Two days more are passed in journeying, with little to vary the monotony,
save the appearance of herds of gazelles, which vanish almost as soon as
beheld, with swift bounds across the low hills, with now and then a suspicious-
looking group of Bedawin, who respect our escort and let us pass without
1 Greek Church, Syrian Catholics, Maronites.

46

HARVEST-CARRYING IN SYRIA.

PALMYRA.

interchange of word or sign of greeting ; or a trading caravan on their way
from Baghdad to Damascus, with gaunt, heavily-laden camels and sleepy
weary-looking men who seem pleased to accost us, and do not beg. At
length the castle, which frowns over the broad Palmyra plain, is in sight.
Horses, camels, men, alike quicken their pace, and before long we are met
in the defile by Arab men and boys offering for sale little earthenware lamps,
copper coins, nondescript images and other antiques of doubtful authenticity,
while half-a-dozen volunteer their services as guides. All these, however,
are soon disposed of by our escort, we turn a corner, and the whole mass
of ruins, occupying an extensive basin among the hills, lies outspread before

RUINS OF PALMYRA.

us. We press onwards to our selected camping-ground among the ruins,
and after a long rest prepare for a leisurely survey. This then is
" Tadmor in the wilderness," 1 at the extremity of Solomon's dominions, and
founded by himself. The modern name, Tudmur, and the tradition of ages,
seem to place this beyond dispute. Yet even here historical criticism inter
poses its difficulties. For in the first place the reading of the Hebrew seems
to be Tamar, not Tadmor (lxx. ©ap-ajp).2 Then it is added that this city
was " in the land ;" from which critics argue that it could hardly have been
1 I Kings ix. 18 ; 2 Chron. viii. 4.
2 Not a very strong argument, it must be confessed, as Tadmor is plainly cognate with Tamar, " palm-tree," and
means the same. e 49

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

so far away in Eastern Syria. There was a Tamar in Southern Judah, on
the borders of the Desert of Paran ; was not this the city which Solomon
built, with Gezer, Beth-horon and Baalath ?
We will not attempt to settle the point ; only, if this is not Solomon's
Tadmor, why are we here at all ? The answer may be found in the wonder
of the place, and its fame in history ; for although, granting this to be
the Tadmor of the Bible, we read not another word of it in any writings,
sacred or profane, for a thousand years, yet its annals connect themselves
with some of the greatest days of the Roman Empire. Adrian first took
it under the protection of Rome, and endeavoured, though in vain, to confer
his name upon it, so adding an Asiatic to the European " Adrianople.^
Old association was too strong, and the "City of Palms" it still remained.
The pathetic history of Zenobia casts a mournful splendour over the last
days of Palmyra's greatness ; and we can hardly doubt that the ruins which
we now see are those of structures which existed before the fall of its last
and proudest sovereign. Certainly, since that time the city never recovered
its greatness or its beauty.
Does this "City of Palms" vie with Baalbec, the "City of the Sun,"
in the impression which its ruins make upon the traveller ? Hardly, in
single details. There is nothing so grand as the colonnade of the great
Baalbec Temple. But, as a whole, these ruins, from their great extent as well
as their amazing variety, must be pronounced by far the more interesting,
especially to the historical student who can remain upon the spot awhile
and patiently explore. "Syria," writes Dr. Porter, "has nothing to compare
with it. Ruins so extensive, so desolate, so bare, exist nowhere else. Long
lines of columns, irregular clumps, and single pillars, rising up out of huge
piles of white stone ; fragments of gateways, and arches, and walls, and
porticoes, and the vast mass of the Temple of the Sun away beyond them
all. It is like some extravagant vision of desolation. With all we have
heard of Palmyra, we are so much astonished that we can scarcely believe
it to be real."
The approach is through a valley of tombs— square stone erections,
irregularly scattered over the hillside. In front, a little to the left, the
Turkish fortress occupies the highest peak. As we make our way to the
Temple of the Sun, our attention is attracted at once by the great colonnade
to the left, originally a street more than a mile in length, ending with a
triumphal arch. But this we must leave for further exploration. Our way
first leads to the temple, within the immense court of which the Arab
population have constructed their squalid Tudmur of clay cottages, clinging
"like swallows' nests" to the stately pillars and round the interior of the
stupendous wall. That wall, when complete, was seventy feet in height,
enclosing a square, the side of which was seven hundred and forty feet.
Within, a double colonnade parallel to the walls formed magnificent

PALMYRA: THE GREAT COLONNADE.

cloistered avenues, as in Herod's restored Temple of Jerusalem. About a
hundred of these pillars are now standing. Near the centre was the temple
proper, enclosed by Corinthian columns, surrounding the walls of the cella,
the interior of which is now a Mohammedan mosque. Here in a niche may
still be seen an ancient slab of stone with a circle bearing the signs of the
Zodiac.

PALMYRA : MIDDLE CROSSING OF GRAND COLONNADE : GRANITE MONOLITH.
The great colonnade, of which the remains are shown in our illustration,
ran nearly across the city ; and the arch which terminates it, erected to
commemorate some now forgotten personage or unrecorded victory, is one of
the most striking single objects amid the ruins. But it would be impossible
to describe the bewildering variety of objects which meet the gaze, as we
wander amid broken columns, fragments of sculptured architraves, or of
the thousand statues which once adorned the city, standing on the brackets
attached to the pillars ; for multitudes of pillars throughout this city of

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

columns had such an appendage, and the richness of the effect may be con
ceived. What heroes or demigods, or beings of the imagination, adorned
these avenues with their sculptured forms, can only be conjectured now.
The images lie all shattered around, and only fragmentary and tantalising

Moires,

PALMYRA : TRIUMPHAL ARCH.

inscriptions remain. Strange! to turn from the few wretched mendicant
representatives of a population once renowned, to those sepulchral monu
ments, which after all are the most characteristic distinction of Palmyra, and
emphasise the lesson which the ruined city well may teach.

PALMYRA: MORTUARY TOWERS.

The sepulchral remains of Palmyra are in truth an astonishment to
every visitor. In almost all directions, on hillsides, and throughout the valley,
stand these " towers of silence," often in ruins,
sometimes tolerably complete. A vast cemetery
contains a great number in every stage of
dilapidation, while humbler sepulchres, covered
and overgrown in the course of ages, give a
peculiar undulating appearance to the ground.
The treasures which these tombs contained have
long since been rifled ; there are now to be found,
here and there, only the remains of mummies
with scattered bones and skulls. The Rev. Wm.
Wright, late of Damascus, describes a visit to
one of these towers :
"Kasr eth-Thtmiyeh is thirty-three and a
half feet square at the base, and twenty-five
feet eight inches square above the basement.
Its height is one hundred and eleven feet, and
it comprises six storeys, reached by stone stairs
now much broken down. It has also under
ground an immense vault, full of bones of wild
animals and men, with pieces of mummy cloths,
etc. Opposite the door, down the centre of the
hall with a very beautiful panelled stone ceiling.

PLAN OF VAULT AT PALMYRA.

building, there is a long
In each side of the hall
are four recesses in the
wall, about the length
and breadth of a large
coffin. Shelves were
placed in these recesses,
leaving room for dead
bodies to be run in be-
tweenthem. The upper
storeys were like the
first, except that they
were not so ornate, and
contained more recesses
in the sides, some of
them as many as eight.
My companion, Mr.
Cotesworth, found by
actual counting, that
there were places for four hundred and eighty bodies in this one tower."

PALMYRENE MORTUARY TOWER.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

Inscriptions abound, but for the most part they are meaningless to us,
recording little more than names and dates ; or, as Mr. Wright, by careful
deciphering, discovered in one instance, " the name of the establishment that
supplied the sepulchral ornament!" The statuary is almost equally inexpressive.
On the opposite page is a specimen —figures and inscriptions together. What
wondrous secrets are contained in these mystic characters ! They too have
been deciphered, and Mr. Wright shall tell us their meaning. Between the
heads of the figures the inscription runs thus : Figures of Baalatga and Alliasha,
children of Buna, son of Jashubi. The legend below repeats the information,
with the addition of a date : In the month of Kanun, year 4.06. These two
likenesses are those of Alliasha
and Baalatga, children of Buna,
^E-^^^ff^-'-^. son of fashubi, sou of Belsazar,
^aeilljj! xIbsk- ESfc-- son of Hiram. Habal. Kanun
answers to November; the year
406 is a.d. 94. " Habal," says
Mr. Wright, "means, literally,
' Woe ; ' and therefore perhaps,
Alas! or Vale!" How much
the sculptor could have told us,
in those days of Domitian, last
of the Caesars — one of the
darkest eras to us in the history
of the ancient world ! But it is
almost always thus. Occasion
ally, indeed, memorials of price
less worth are discovered, won
derfully illuminating past ages,
throwing much light on the reli
gion of the Palmyrenes 1 and
confirming the truth of Scrip
ture ; but much oftener, when

TOWER IN THE DESERT.

we appear on the brink of some great discovery, the stone tablet yields nothing
but some piece of information as near to being absolutely worthless as an ancient
fact can ever be. It is a curious speculation, what fragments of our national
history the disinterred sculptures of our cities and great buildings would
tell to " Lord Macaulay's New Zealander," after fourteen or fifteen centuries
of ruin and desolation !
There was a time when Palmyra must have seemed as solidly-established
in its greatness as Britain itself is now. It was the great halting-place between
the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. Every caravan between Tyre, Sidon, or
Damascus and the cities of the Mesopotamian plain must pass through
1 A remarkable collection of Palmyrene inscriptions was published by De Vogue, in 1869.

56

PALMYRA: ITS FORMER GREATNESS.

Tadmor, which became thus the great exchange for the treasures of the
East and of the West ; while its position, islanded by a sea of desert,
seemed to protect it from possible invasion. It had the sources of fertility
within itself. Its springs still flow, as they flowed two thousand years
ago, feeding no rivers, but expending themselves on the verdure and life of

PALMYRENE FIGURES.

this marvellous oasis. But the " City of the East" has fallen, no more to rise.
From the days of Aurelian it almost disappears from history, or appears only as
an outlying military station of the Roman empire. " The seat of commerce,
of arts, and of Zenobia, gradually sank into an obscure town, a trifling fortress,
and at length a miserable village."1 There is an inscription, discovered by Wood
1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xi.

DAMASCUS AND THE LEBANON.

and Dawkins, referring to the times of Diocletian. In the Notitia Imperii,
Palmyra appears as the headquarters of the first Illyrian legion, about
a.d. 400 ; and the line of fortification, still traceable, was constructed here
by Justinian in the sixth century, as recorded by the historian Procopius, in
whose casual mention of Palmyra we have the last glimpse of the once
famous city before it fell under the yoke of Islam.
Before bidding adieu to Palmyra, we may note that a considerably
shorter route than that to Damascus leads to the banks of the ancient
Orontes, now the Asy, in the territory of the Syrian Zobah, mentioned in
the annals of David's reign as the scene of his conquests in the north.1
Here the City of Hums represents beyond doubt the ancient Emesa, scene
of Zenobia's defeat ; and this upper part of "the Cleft" (Beka'a) between the
two Lebanons is the " entrance of Hamath," the northern limit of the
territory assigned to Israel. It actually belonged to Solomon ; here he built
" store cities ;" and though lost for a time, it was retaken by Jeroboam the
Second, and reduced to desolation. Soon after this it passed under the
power of Assyria, and subsequently under that of Babylon.2
1 2 Sam. viii. 3, 5 ; a. 6, 8.
2 See Josh. xiii. 5; 1 Kings viii. 65 ; 2 Kings xiv. 25, 28; xviii. 34; xix. 13; 2 Chron. viii. 4; Jer. xxxix. 5;
Amos vi. 2, 14, etc.

58

TirS ffftUfjftN; AMD

THE LftNP BRYONP JORDAN

COLUMNS AT BOSRA.

THE HAliRAN; MD THE EMD BEYOND
JORDAN.

an^F the journey from Damascus to Palmyra must be pronounced
llnllF unequalled in interest for the general traveller, the southward
route, leading through the great mysterious land " beyond Jordan "
-possesses for the Bible student a peculiar fascination. As he sets
his face southward from the fair city, his heart beats high. On
the right, Mount Hermon towers with its snow-clad peaks ; before
him are the well-watered gardens and vineyards which owe their
fertility now, as in the days of Naaman, to the channels cut from
Abana and Pharpar. The traveller may be excused if he lingers
for awhile amid their luxuriance before committing himself to
the sterile and awful waste beyond. They are comparatively secure, too, from
Bedawin marauders ; and the cultivators are a cheerful industrious race.
In May and June these gardens are really very beautiful, when the
shadows of the leafy walnut-boughs lie dark upon the grass, and blossoms
of every kind of fruit glisten in the sunshine, and the clustering vine

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

stretches its festoons from tree to tree ; and to the Arabs of the sterile
wilderness the verdure and beauty may well appear like a glimpse of
Paradise. After crossing an inconsiderable stream by a ruined bridge, the
ground becomes hilly and bare ; then the road descends to the 'Awaj, the
" Crooked river," which is generally set down as the Pharpar of Scrip
ture, and which here glides onward in a deep, full stream among thickets
of willow and poplar, interspersed with meadows of the richest green,
beyond which, on both sides, rise bare bleak hills. We cross by a massive
stone bridge, beneath a ruined castle, at the village of Kesweh, and in this
romantic glen bid farewell for a long and weary space to anything like
beautiful scenery. We soon begin to climb a shoulder of the rocky Jebel
el-Mania, " the barrier-mountain," upon whose higher ridges we have so often
gazed from Damascus, dimly purple in the morning light, as the boundary
of the desert. After passing this ridge, a vast expanse of moorland
country opens to the view, undulating in bold black curves, and shut in on
each side by low hills. Two routes are before us now, one due south, the
Derb el-Haj, "way of Pilgrimage," the road to Mecca, the other, bearing to
the west, being an old Roman track by which we enter Bashan. We keep
to the name, so familiar to Bible readers, with its suggestions of the vast!
and the terrible. For this country was once the " land of giants." There
dwelt Og, the mighty king, last of the Rephaim, with his bedstead of iron :
"nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after
the cubit of a man." To the Israelites about to enter the Land of Promise,
this chieftain proved the mightiest foe ; his cities were " fenced with high
walls, gates, and bars ;" and the conquest of his territory was the greatest
achievement of the Twelve Tribes, before they crossed the Jordan. Nor
was it for warlike strength only that this region was famous. The fertility
of its soil was as famous as the strength of its fastnesses. " Bulls of
Bashan," roaming its pastures with their mighty bellowings, were an emblem
of untamed ferocity and strength; the well-fed lordly "kine of Bashan"
appositely represented the haughty luxuriousness of the Israelite grandees
in the worst days of the kingdom ; oaks of Bashan were monarchs of
the forest worthy to be mentioned even with the cedars of Lebanon.1 This
rich inheritance of the half-tribe of Manasseh was a scene of rich pastures,
thick waving woods, while warrior-husbandmen tilled and defended the soil ;
now it is one expanse of black desolation : " The land mourneth and
languisheth ; Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down : Sharon is like a wilder
ness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits ! "
We have the word Bashan in the Roman name of the province, Batanaea.
But this district covered only a small part of the ancient kingdom, to the
east. Ituraea, stretching northwards to the very foot of Hermon, formed its
north-western portion : Gaulanitis and Auranitis formed its south-eastern and
1 See Ps. xxii. 12 ; Amos iv. 1 ; Zech. xi. 2, etc.
62

THE ANCIENT BASHAN.

central regions, while to the north-east the Lejah, "refuge," represents Tra-
chonitis, " rugged country," or Argob, " the rough," the stronghold of King
Og, and the wonder of Bashan. It is to this district that our steps are
directed across the lava-plain ; and on our way we first meet with relics of

UTTERf/SZTHSHEATHSC,

IRRIGATED VEGETABLE GARDEN.

those deserted towns and villages which form the most characteristic teature
of this once populous territory. These need not, however, detain us, as by-
and-by we shall see far more wonderful relics of the past. Meanwhile, as
we journey across the waste, we see how the land in the days of its fertility
was irrigated. The region is a volcanic upland ; its soil consisting of

63

THE HAURANj AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

disintegrated lava. There are few streams or rivers ; only stony wadys
furrowing the higher ground, and dry during the greater part of the year;
but cisterns excavated at intervals in the basaltic rock preserved a store of
water sufficient and pure from one rainy season to another. So important

VINEYARD IN SYRIA.

was this provision, that the "city" for which we are bound was called
Burdk, cisterns. It lies at the edge of the Lejah, just where the broken
rocks which form its boundary begin to lift themselves from the valley.
Once, no doubt, it was a considerable town, being admirably placed as a

" THE REGION OF ARGOB."

frontier defence of the upland. Many ruined houses are found here, not
always easily distinguishable from the rocks. Some critics, in fact, have
been sceptical as to the real character of this and other " ruined cities ;" but
there is now no possibility of doubt ; and it is with a strange emotion that
we gaze upon these deserted dwellings that have survived their owners for
thousands of years. The architecture is very simple, three immense upright
slabs supporting another laid flat upon the top, while in front a stone door
of equal solidity revolves on pivots roughly chiselled from the mass. Dr.
Porter thinks that the city may once have contained five thousand inhabitants ;
it is now tenanted only by a few wretched Arab families ; and while many
of the houses are complete as if tenanted yesterday, the greater number
are blended with the rocks around in almost indistinguishable ruin.
The "rough country," whose verge we have reached, is in shape a kind
of irregular triangle, measuring some twenty-five miles in base and fifteen in
width. In its whole circuit, its craggy sides rise abruptly from the plain to
an average height of some twenty feet, with interior peaks of greater altitude.
So distinct is the line of demarcation, as to show very strikingly the exact correct
ness of the Bible phrase— "the line" or "limit" (literally the "rope," chebhel)
"of Argob."1 There can be little doubt that this is the "hill of Bashan"
mentioned in Psalm lxviii. 15, 16, which we should probably read thus —
" Thou mighty mountain range (' hill of God '), thou range of Bashan !
Thou many-peaked range, thou range of Bashan !
Why look ye jealously, ye mountains, ye peaks ?
That mountain which Jehovah hath chosen to dwell in,
Surely He will abide there for ever."2
The challenge thus uttered from afar, as from the Temple-mountain in
Jerusalem, to its proud rival across the northern plain, derives its force
from the rugged picturesque grandeur of the latter, with its peaks and
rocky fastnesses, and the remnants of those giant cities which the sons of
Israel had stormed in the olden time. For here were the threescore towns
which Jair the son of Manasseh captured 3— the greatest exploit, perhaps, of
that heroic age.
Near the south-western boundary Of this wonderful upland may be traced,
according to Dr. Porter, the remains of Edrei, "the Strong," the metropolis
of Og's kingdom, still bearing its ancient name, Edhr a. It "stands on a
rocky promontory, projecting from the south-west corner of the Lejah—
without water, without access, except over rocks and through defiles. The
ruins are nearly three miles in circumference, and have a strange look,
rising up in shattered masses from the wilderness of black rocks. A
number of the old houses remain ; they are low, massive and gloomy, and a
few of them are half buried beneath heaps of ruins. In these reside the
1 See Deut. iii. 4, 13; I Kings iv.13 (A. V. region) ; Deut. iii. 14 (country).
2 See The Psalms, with Introductions and Critical Notes, by Jennings and Lowe, vol. i. p. 305.
3 Deut. iii. 14 ; 1 Chron. ii. 23. F 65

THE HAURAN j AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

present inhabitants, selecting such apartments as are best fitted for comfort
and security. The short Greek inscriptions, which are here and there seen
over the doors, prove that the houses are at least as old as the age of
Roman dominion."
It was in front of this stronghold that King Og came out with all his
forces, and was decisively routed and slain by the Israelites.1 The victory was
commemorated through long generations afterwards, in the national inspired
songs, as the crowning triumph of the chosen people on the outskirts of the
Promised Land. " O give thanks ... to Him who smote great kings :
For His mercy endureth for ever :
And slew famous kings :
For His mercy endureth for ever :
Sihon king of the Amorites :
For His mercy endureth for ever :
And Og the king of Bashan :
For His mercy endureth for ever." 2
It would appear that Argob was early lost by Israel. At least we have
no mention of the place in Scripture, after a casual reference to it as one
of Solomon's commissariat districts, under the care of one Ben-Geber, in
Ramoth-Gilead ; the "threescore great cities with walls and brasen bars."3
Some, perhaps, fell into ruin, or the land relapsed into heathenism ; and pro
phecy is silent respecting it. In Roman times we read of Philip; the brother
of Herod, " tetrarch of Ituraea (from Jetur, son of Ishmael), and of the region
of Trachonitis." Through the midst of the rocky upland, a Roman road runs
from north to south, passing in its way many of the cities which have been
so fully and graphically described by Dr. Porter ;4 and emerging upon the
plain of the Hauran (Auranitis), or en-Nukra, " the Hollow," to distinguish it
from the Jebel Hauran, "Mountain of Hauran," to the east, by the base of
which we pass on our way to Bosra, or Bostra, the ruins of which tower
grandly above the plain.
As the word Bozra primarily signifies "sheep-fold," it is only natural
that different places inhabited by a pastoral people should have borne the
same name. Every reader of the Bible is familiar with the grand passage
from Isaiah, representing the Conqueror as returning triumphant from the
realms of subjugated heathendom: "Who is this that cometh from Edom,
with dyed garments from Bozrah ?"5 But this "fold" was farther south, as the
reference to Edom shows ; and it is doubtful whether the Hauranite Bosra
is so much as mentioned in Scripture. It is true that a place of the same
name is spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah, as in the "plain country" of
Moab, which Dr. Porter confidently identifies with this ruined city. It is
1 Num. xxi. 33-35 ; Deut. iii. 1-4. Mr. Wright, however, places Edrci at the modern Der'at on the plain, at some
distance from the frontier of Argob.
2 Ps. cxxxvi. 17-20. 3 1 Kings iv. 13. l See Five Years in Damascus. 5 Isa. lxiii. I.

BOSTRA.

certainly possible, as he thinks, that the Moabites, driven for a time to the <xreat
eastern desert, first by the Amorites,1 and afterwards by the host of Ismel
had found a settlement here ; and there can be no doubt as to the value of
the position as commanding the whole of the Hauran. Still it does not
appear in history until the time of the Roman Emperor Trajan, when, a d ioS
it was made the chief city of the Arabian province, and a colony under the
name of Nova Trajana Bostra. The " Bostrian era," reckoned from this date
was long in use throughout Persea. Here met several roads, especially the
great highway from Damascus to the Persian Gulf, and Bostra became a
great emporium. Successive emperors strengthened it as a military position • '
and when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, Bostra was

RUINS OF BOSRA.

made the seat of a bishopric. The place was early famous in the annals of
Islam. Mohammed himself, as a youth, travelled to its markets ; and it was
here that he met the monk Sergius, or Bahira,2 who had so much influence
on his career. The capture of Bostra by the Mohammedan general, Caled,
a.d. 632, is brilliantly related by Gibbon.3 From that time it was one of the
most important of Moslem fortresses, four days' journey from Damascus, to
which city it was the key from the south. The Crusaders vainly endeavoured to
take Bostra in the twelfth century ; but in subsequent ages it fell into decay,
and is now a melancholy ruin, although with imposing remains of its former
1 Num. xxi. 26. ' See Washington Irving's Life of Mahomet, chap. iv. 3 Decline and Fall, chap. Ii.
F 2 67

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

splendour. The traveller who cannot see Palmyra may judge from these
remains of the extent to which Rome set its mark upon this distant province
of her empire. Now only a few score people wander in and out among
the magnificent relics of this city of the past.
Westward, a desolate region extends to the valley of the Jordan ; but the

SCENE IN THE REGION OF DECAPOLIS.

desolation is that of misrule and neglect. The "Ten Cities," known to the
New Testament reader as Decapolis,1 were once the centres of busy life and

GADARA, GERGESA, AND GERASA.

numberless villages filled the plain. This, in our Lord's time, was the frontier,
uncertainly defined, between the Jewish and the heathen world ; and is
memorable for that most significant and gracious visit in which He passed
beyond the limits of the Holy Land. From " the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,"
He went through the region of Decapolis ; here once at least He uttered to
the closed ears of the deaf and dumb His mighty Ephphatha ! "Be opened!"
and it was here, in this half-heathen land, that the testimony was given
which has since been taken as the motto of His beneficent power : "He
hath done all things/ well."

JERASH, THE ANCIENT GERASA.

Another part of the Decapolis was also signalised by miracle. It still
remains a little doubtful whether it was the country of the Gadarenes, of the
Gergesenes, or of the Gerasenes, from which came the demoniac whose
healino- is recorded by three of the evangelists.1 The ruins of the three cities
largest city of Decapolis, which therefore could not have included Damascus. According to some authorities, an Abila
was included, twelve miles east of Gadara ; and Ptolemy makes Capitolias (Beit-er-Ras), a little farther to the east, one
of the ten.
1 Matt viii 28 • Mark v. 1 ; Luke viii. 26. Teschendorf reads Gadarenes in Matt., Gerasenes in Mark and Luke.
69

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

which give their names to these respective districts still remain. Gadara
is the modern Mkes, remarkable for its tomb-caverns, excavated in the
basalt, with many sculptured ornaments of the Roman period, also for the
remains of a magnificent theatre. Gergesa, identified as the modern Kersa,
is on the shore of the Lake of Galilee; and there is here a "steep place,"
answering to the description given in the record of the miracle. But Gerasa,
now called J eras h, is much farther to the south, on a tributary of the
brook Jabbok (Zerka, "the blue river"), so noted in the Old Testament, the
boundary between the territories of Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og
king of Bashan. Of the Roman Arabia, Gerasa was one of the chief cities ;
and its ruins, occupying both sides of the watercourse, and interspersed with
oleander-groves, are among the most remarkable in Eastern Syria. As in
Palmyra, there was a great street of columns, of which nearly a hundred are
yet standing, while almost all are traceable in their various stages of ruin.
At the south extremity these open into a circular forum, which has been
compared to the piazza of St. Peter's at Rome. Adjoining this are remains
of a Corinthian temple, and of a theatre which could accommodate five
thousand spectators. The seats are wonderfully well preserved. Other temples,
baths, a smaller theatre, and a basilica may be traced amid the masses of ruin ;
while outside the city there are the remains of a naumachia, or theatre for
the representation of naval spectacles, consisting of a vast stone reservoir,
about seven hundred feet by three hundred, surrounded by tiers of seats,
and supplied by conduits from the upper part of the stream. It is strangely
impressive to walk among these signs of ancient opulence and greatness, of
elaborate appliances for the amusement of a large population, as well as of
commerce, military power, and religion, in a city almost without name in
history — one of the many " colonies " which lived out their little day of out
ward prosperity, various enjoyment, perhaps of literary culture — of every
thing save freedom ; then passed away and left no mark on the history or in
the memories of mankind !
But the site of Gerasa has a history of a very different kind from that
which these magnificent ruins so dimly suggest. For here, or in the
immediate neighbourhood, was Mahanaim, the "place of two hosts," one of
them the banded company of pilgrims from Padan-Aram to Canaan, the other,
the army of their heavenly defenders. For at Mahanaim the angels of God
met Jacob returning to his early home ; and it was at the ford of Jabbok,
a little way to the south, that the patriarch wrestled with the angel till the
breaking of the day. Mahanaim became famous among the outlying cities
of Palestine. Here Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, was crowned by Abner;
hither David came on the rebellion of Absalom ; it was somewhere in the
thick woods which covered the table-land and ridges to the south and east,
and of which vestiges still remain, that Absalom met his death ; and it was
in the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim that the royal father uttered his

RABBATH AMMON.

lament, " O my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! Would God I had
died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! "
Crossing the " brook Jabbok," and traversing the oak forests which still
cover Mount Gilead, we reach the ancient Rabbath Ammon by a south
easterly route, occupying about nine hours from Gerasa. It was in this
strong metropolis of the children of Ammon, that the bedstead of King Og
was deposited by the victorious Israelites ; and here, in the wars of David,
Uriah the Hittite was slain. In the message sent by Joab, when the city
was subjugated, it is termed " the City of Waters ; " and this is still the
characteristic ; the abundant streams which pour down the ravines at the
junction of which the city stood, attracting the flocks that roam over the
plains, while " the deserted palaces and temples afford shelter to them during
the noonday heat, so that most of the buildings have something of the
aspect and stench of an ill-kept farmyard." " I will make Rabbah a stable
for camels, and the Ammonites a couchingplace for flocks : and ye shall
know that I am the Lord." 1
The town, as at present traceable, consisted of a range of buildings
along the right side of a watercourse, at the foot of a commanding hill, on
which stand the ruins of a castle. The principal building is a Grecian
temple, " square outside, round within, with massive walls of the most
elaborate Corinthian architecture, and with richly-carved cornices and mouldings.
The roof was a dome of finely-dressed stone, of which several tiers remain."
There are also the ruins of a large basilica or Greek church, with Ionic
columns. On the other side of the stream, looking towards the town, are
the remains of a theatre in good preservation, with forty-eight tiers of seats,
calculated to hold six thousand spectators, and so admirably arranged that,
as may be tested to this day, ordinary conversation on the stage could be
distinctly heard on the topmost semicircle.
These ruins, says Dr. Tristram, " in number, in beauty of situation,
and in isolation, were by far the most striking and interesting I had yet
seen in Syria. Nowhere else had we seen the vestiges of public magnifi
cence and wealth in such marked contrast with the relapse into savage
desolation. Yet it was not old Rabbah, but Philadelphia, the Roman city,
among whose prostrate marbles we groped our way. All is Roman or Greek,
and all, probably, except the citadel, subsequent to the Christian era."
The later name was given to the city by Ptolemy n. (Philadelphus), king
of Egypt, who rebuilt the city in the third century B.C. ; but, as is so
frequently the case, the older name has proved the most lasting, and the
ruins are called by the Arabs Amman.
From Rabbath Ammon, the Roman road from Bostra, on the track of
which we have re-entered, passed directly over the plateau to the height on
which stands Heshbon, capital of Sihon the Amorite, an almost indistinguish-
1 Ezek. xxv. 5. ' The Land of Israel, pp. 545, 546.

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

able ruin now, but still bearing its old name, and with remnants of the
cisterns celebrated in Solomon's Song: "Thine eyes [are] like the fishpools
in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim." x We are now upon the tableland
of Moab ; the road soon reaches Medeba, which also has retained its name
from Old Testament times. On the way, a little to the right, runs the ridge,
a peak of which was Mount Pisgah ; and the ruins and caves of Nebo, now
called Neba, are on a neighbouring lower ridge. " Could we but stand where
Moses stood!"— but it is impossible to identify the exact spot; and there are
several peaks in this vast mountain wall from which a commanding view of
Palestine could be obtained. A little to the south of Medeba, and on the

MOUNTAINS OF MOAB.

heights which overhang the IVady Zttrka Main, are some rude stone structures
which may mark places of sepulture, or perhaps ancient altars ; and there can
be little doubt, first, that this is the Beth-baal-meon, " House of Baal's habitation,"
mentioned by Jeremiah and Ezekiel in their denunciations of Moab:2 and,
secondly, that here were the high places of Baal, to which Balak, king of
Moab, led the soothsayer Balaam, that he might curse the Israelites. "Such
1 Cant. vii. 4.
2 Jer. xlviii. 23 ; Ezek. xxv. 9. See also Num. xxxii. 38 ; Josh. xiii. 17 ; which passages show the place in possession
of the tribe of Reuben, before it was retaken at some unknown time by its former heathen masters.
74

MACH&RUS : JOHN THE BAPTIST.

as reach this region," writes Dr. Porter, "will read with renewed interest the
twenty- second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth chapters of Numbers, as they
look from the ' high places of Moab,' situated probably on the projecting
peaks to the west, or north-west of Ma'in, upon the same landscape which
lay before the Assyrian prophet, as he stood by the burning sacrifices of
Baal, with the king and princes of Moab around him."
A short distance down the valley are the famous hot springs of Callirhoe,
to which Herod the Great resorted during his last illness, by the advice
of his physicians. The luxuriance of the vegetation in this glen, and the
varied hues of the rugged cliffs by which it is overhung, sandstone, lime
stone, and basalt, form a refreshing contrast to the somewhat monotonous
aspect of the table-land which is cloven by this great ravine. The "plain
of Moab" is imposing from its bold sweep of hill and moorland, in outline
not unlike the upland parts of the Craven district in Yorkshire : and in this
neighbourhood especially the views of the Dead Sea disclosed at every
break in the hills are remarkably fine. At this distance its blue waters,
lying calm and still among the grey surrounding hills, form a picture of
calm repose, little suggesting the tremendous catastrophe which destroyed
the Cities of the Plain.
The fortress of Mach/Erus, now Mkaur, occupied a height about two
thousand five hundred feet above the sea-level, a little to the south of this
great glen. Perhaps there is no spot in this whole region fraught with more
interest to the Christian traveller. For here, in a fortress-palace erected by
Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, "the tetrarch," imprisoned John the
Baptist,1 and here the great forerunner of the Messiah was slain. From
this place then it was that the question was sent to Jesus of Nazareth, in
which the world's yearning for its Deliverer may find such apt expression in
every age, Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another? The
thought invests the lonely scene with a strange pathos, especially when we regard
the question as proceeding from John's own troubled spirit. For let us not
give in to the interpretation, devised to save the credit of the Baptist, that
the inquiry was proposed simply and entirely to still the misgivings of his
disciples. Far more deeply true to human nature, even at its best, is the
opinion that John himself was beginning to doubt. The most stedfast faith
will have its intervals of wavering, the most heroic courage may yield at
times to despondent gloom. John the Baptist had been at home in the free
air of the wilderness. There he could bravely, confidently speak; and
thence could go up fearlessly to testify against kingly crime and wrong.
Life was bright before him then ; and the hope which he inspired in the
hearts of thousands was the joy of his own. But now he is imprisoned in
this dreary place ; in the very prime of his days his work seems brought
to a melancholy close ; he cannot see the fruit of his labours, the fulfilment
1 See Josephus. The Scripture narrative does not mention the place.

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

of his words : is it possible that he had been under some mistake all
through ? Thoughts like these have power to depress the best and noblest,
as with a sudden dread : and, again, the Baptist may have wondered to find
himself apparently laid aside and out of mind. Is he not forgotten ? At
any rate, he will take the wisest course, will send the utterance of his doubt
straight to the Master, in the hope to receive some message of cheer that
shall still the tumult of his thoughts, and, if need be, give him strength to
die ! We know that such a message came ; and here, amid the desolation
of the hills, we seem to hear the words once borne hither from distant Galilee,
that they might be tidings of joy, not to the imprisoned martyr only, but to
all mankind : " The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the

MACILT.RUS ; THE SCENE OF JOHN S IMPRISONMENT.
deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And
blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me."
But from such thoughts we must return to our route, which soon brings
us to the two branches of the river Arnon, the wadys Waleh and Mojib,
each crossed by a Roman bridge, the latter at Aroer, the frontier city of
Sihon's kingdom to the south, and afterwards a fortress of the Reubenites.1
Every place here connects itself more or less with the story of Israel's
entrance upon the Promised Land, and with the wars by which the heathen
were driven out ; only, however, on this eastern side of Jordan, too speedily
to resume possession. Between the two branches or wadys, which form the

,6

Josh. xii. 2 ; xiii. 9, 1 6.

FROM MOAB TO EDOM.

Arnon, is the old fortress of Dibon (Dhibdn), taken by the Israelites in their
march to Canaan, but afterwards, as prophetic allusions show, retaken by
Moab.1 It was here that the " Moabite Stone ' was discovered in 1868,
bearing the now well-known inscription in honour of King Mesha, giving
from a Moabitish point of view an account of the struggles of that nation
with Israel nearly nine hundred years before the Christian era.2
Crossing the Arnon, we reach in succession, Rabbath Moab, still called
Rabba, in the midst of a wide plain, where we find more broken cisterns,
fallen columns, and ruined heaps, betokening former greatness and importance.
Farther on is Kerak, the Biblical Kir-Moab, or Kir-hareseth? on the brow
of a hill which juts out from a yet higher range in the form of a peninsula,
flanked by stupendous ravines on three sides. It is a position of great
strength, as seems intimated by the Scripture references ; and it was here
that in desperation at the long siege by Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, the king
of Moab offered his firstborn son as a sacrifice upon the walls. During the
Crusades, Kerak became again famous, and the Crusaders' castle still remains.
The population of the modern town is between seven and eight thousand,
of whom nearly one-third are reckoned as Christians belonging to the
Greek Church. Their bishop takes his title from Petra, probably because,
when the see was founded in the twelfth century, the place was mistaken
for the great " rock city " of ancient Edom.
The journey now assumes a new character; and while more desolate,
and even dangerous, from the bands of roving Bedawin, has a wonderful
interest. For, in Bible language, we have passed from Moab to the confines
of Edom. The Dead Sea is left behind, on our right is Mount Seir, a
range of hills averaging two thousand feet in height, on this side chiefly of
limestone, swelling gradually upwards from the desert, and crowned by ridges
of a reddish sandstone, through which crop up masses of basalt. The
mountain wall is broken by deep clefts clothed with every variety of herbage,
while on every level terrace and on all the less precipitous slopes shrubs and
flowers luxuriantly grow. " It is indeed the region," remarks Dr. Robinson,
"of which Isaac said to his son 'Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness
of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.' " 4
On the left hand stretches the wilderness in which the last months of
Israel's "wandering" were passed — the dreary arid waste to which they
were driven by the inhospitality of Edom ; in which " the soul of the people
was much discouraged because of the way," the wilderness of the fiery
serpents, and still the most dreaded part of the pilgrim road to Mecca. It
is not, however, necessary for the traveller to descend into this fearful desert.
Strongly escorted, and paying due tribute to the Bedawin tribes along his
route, he may pursue his way in safety on the skirt of the hills, passing
1 See Num. xxi. 30 ; xxxii. 34 ; Isa. xv. 2 ; Jer. xlviii. 18, 22.
z See an account of the Moabite Stone in the Sunday at Home, 1870, p. 253.
8 2 Kings iii. 25 ; Isa. xv. 1 ; xvi. 7t 1 1 j Jer. xlviii. 31. 4 Biblical Researches, 11. 1S4. ^

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

through several large villages beautifully placed upon the heights, until he
reaches Petra.
Another route turns westward from Kerak to the shores of the Dead
Sea and ascends the great 'Araba valley ; an undulating expanse of stones and
gravel, with a few stunted shrubs, and the dry deep furrows of watercourses
from the hills. This was "the way of the Red Sea," or the "Wilderness
of Zin," between Kadesh and Ezion-geber. Westward lies the Desert (em
phatically) of "the Wandering," et-Tih, known in Scripture as Paran. It is
with a strange awe that the traveller now gazes across the wastes in which
the Chosen People were nurtured for their high destiny !
One thing appears plain to every explorer of the 'Araba. There never
was, or could have been, without a convulsion of which there is neither any
record in history, nor any trace in the natural features of the locality, an
outlet of the Jordan by this channel to the Red Sea. The surface of the
Dead Sea is at a depth below the ocean level of one thousand two hundred
and ninety feet : the watershed of the 'Araba is seven hundred and ninety feet
above the sea — a difference, it will be seen of more than two thousand feet.
It appears therefore certain that the Jordan has always during the present
era of the world's history ended its course in the great chasm of the Dead
Sea ; the evaporation from its heated surface fully counterbalancing the
inflow not only of the Jordan but of the streams from the south and east.
It may be added, as Dr. Tristram and others have well pointed out, that
the popular notion of the Cities of the Plain, as engulfed beneath the
"Salt Sea" waters, is due to tradition, not to Scripture. What the Bible
says is that the land is "brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown,
nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein." l
Another approach to Petra, from Akaba, at the head of the east gulf of
the Red Sea, has recently been described by Mr. Dale,2 whose vivid description,
a little condensed, we may here quote :
" Travel five or six miles up the 'Araba from the head of the Akaba
Gulf, and then strike eastwards into another valley — the Wady Ithm ; follow
the valley for a few hours, and then encamp for the night. You will probably
encamp at the foot of the mountain which Dr. Beke supposed to be Mount
Sinai. When you start again next morning, the valley in which you are
travelling will strike north-east, and will gradually become more fertile; at
its entrance it is as stony as the 'Araba. After travelling four or five hours
you reach a fine plain lying up among the hills, twenty miles in length and
eight or nine broad. On this plain you must encamp again, for the day will
have gone before your heavily-laden camels will be able to get across it.
By the afternoon of the next day you will be among pleasant hills ; your
tents will be pitched on bright, fresh grass ; you will find the air cool, and
if you are travelling in the spring the night will probably be quite cold. All
' Deut. xxix. 23. 2 See Sunday at Home, 1879, pp. 417-420.

APPROACH TO PETRA.

the next day you will travel among low hills, bright with thousands of flowers,
and perfumed with aromatic herbs. You will pass terraces on the sides of
the hills which are the monuments of ancient civilisation, and in one of the
valleys you will see the ruins of an ancient city. The next morning, still
moving northwards, you will still be among grassy hills, and after travelling
for two or three hours you will see one of the noblest and most majestic
sights to be seen in any part of the world. Your track will suddenly bring
you on to the open mountain side, four or five thousand feet above the sea ;
the mountain sweeps in a magnificent curve eastwards ; and in the hollow of

MOUNT HOR, FROM NEAR PETRA.

the curve, built up oh huge precipitous walls of red sandstone rock, there
rises Mount Hon You are standing yourself on Mount Seir ; the mountain
on which Aaron died rises in solitary grandeur before you ; the Wady 'Araba
lies a few miles to the west, and hidden among the mountains to the north
east is the marvellous city which you want to find. You will encamp within two
hours — six or seven miles — of the city, but as yet you will see no hint of it.
" Near the spot on which we encamped the afternoon before enterino-
Petra was a small reservoir, hewn in the side of the mountain, and lined
with stone ; when we were there it was filled with water. In the course of

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

the evening four villainous-looking men, armed to the teeth, did us the
honour of visiting our tents, and proposed to act as our guides while we
remained in the neighbourhood. Some of the ' recommendations ' which the
principal man among them possessed were unique : a French traveller had
written, 'Ibrahim has the reputation of being the greatest villain in these parts,
and I think he deserves it ; but he will not let the other villains touch you!
Another traveller, also a Frenchman, was equally flattering : ' Ibrahim appears
to be a very respectable man in this country, where theft and murder do nothing
to injure a mans position in society. He is a strong, active fellow, and knows
the neighbourhood well! Once or twice during the next two or three days I
was wandering about this wild country with no other companion than this
estimable person ; he treated me admirably, though occasionally he made me
understand that he coveted a brilliant silk shawl that I had bought at Cairo,
and that he was still more anxious to possess himself of my revolver. He
had shot a Greek cook a few years before, but I suppose that he thought
it might be dangerous to shoot an Englishman.
" The next morning, a little before seven o'clock, we started in search of
the city. The track ran gently down the face of the mountain. Soon after
eight o'clock we were in the Wady Mousa (' the valley of Moses '). The
cliffs on both sides of us were covered with trees and flowering shrubs ; here
and there, hewn into the rocks above our heads, we saw entrances to tombs.
" At half-past eight we were at the mouth of a mysterious and romantic
ravine — described with enthusiasm by a succession of travellers, but so
unique and marvellous, that no description conveys any just impression of it.
The Sik, as it is called, is a rent in the sandstone cliffs ; its breadth varies,
but sometimes the two walls of rock are not more than fourteen feet apart.
The projecting masses in the wall on one side are often answered by corre
sponding depressions in the wall on the other side ; so that if the cliffs were
brought together, they look as if they would closely lock into each other.
The walls rise to various heights — a hundred feet, two hundred, perhaps
three hundred ; this was my impression at the time, but reflection has made
me suspect that the narrowness of the space between them made the height
seem greater than it really is. This ravine is about a mile in length. The
colours of the rock, according to my own notes made at the time, are
' almost anything that one pleases to say,' a note which indicates, perhaps,
the state of exaltation which was produced in my own mind by the strange
ness of the scene ; but which is not likely to convey any exact idea of the
colours to my readers. I am not sure, however, that I can be more precise
now. Dean Stanley describes the rocks as being a 'deep, dull crimson,'
and this would be a very fair account of most of them when the solemn
shadows of the afternoon have quenched their glory ; but I saw them for
the first time under a brilliant morning sun which here and there struck
fiercely upon them, and they were, as my notes remind me, 'a brilliant red.'

VISIT TO PETRA.

But there were wonderful browns, soft and beautiful as the mane of a lion ;
towards the end of the ravine there were purples and violets and yellows
and whites— in fact ' almost anything one pleases to say.' Lovely hanging
plants festoon the cliffs from end to end, but these do not conceal the

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RUINS AT PETRA; THE "CORINTHIAN TOMB."

monuments of human love and reverence and sorrow. The face of each
cliff is broken by entrances to ancient tombs, by tablets cut in the solid rock,
tablets which once, no doubt, bore the names of great and famous men, and
recorded the affection and grief of those wbo mourned for them — by niches

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.

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vacant now, but which seem to have been intended for the statues of great
men whom the ruined city desired to honour.
" We English travellers passed along this wild ravine in silence unbroken
by ourselves, except by an occasional exclamation of surprise. Our com
panions were less impressed by the strange beauty and solemnity of the
scene, and where some of these companions came from was a mystery.
When we entered the Sik we had only four men with us, Ibrahim and his
three allies, in addition to five or six of the people belonging to our
permanent party. Within a few minutes
there were eight or nine of the fierce-
looking Petra men following us ; a few
minutes later a dozen ; by the time we
were out of the ravine there were twenty ;
villainous-looking men nearly all of them.
Nearly every man among them might
have been safely hanged without any
other evidence of his crime than he
carried in his face. These fellows yelled
every now and then like fiends.
" A few yards from the entrance of
the Stk a long and lofty tunnel strikes
off to the right ; at the end of it there
were oleanders and other trees in flower.
Just beyond the tunnel the Sik is crossed
by a light and elegant arch which carried
an ancient aqueduct. I estimated the
height of the cliffs from which the arch
springs as one hundred and fifty feet :
but, as I have said before, all the heights
are probably exaggerated by the narrow
ness of the ravine. About half a mile
from the entrance the cliffs retreat and
leave an open space, and immediately
facing us was a Grecian temple, hewn
in the solid rock — columns, hall, niches
for statues, all were perfect. It is a sight to strike you dumb. The colour

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SKETCH PLAN OF PETRA.

is delicious. Dean Stanley calls it ' rose pink ; ' I described it as looking like
•new terra-cotta.' This temple is the Khusneh. The principal hall, which
I entered late in the day, is about fifty foet by forty— this measurement is,
I think, tolerably accurate— and there are several smaller chambers.
"The ravine narrows again at once, and again on each side there are
tombs in the cliffs, and niches for statues, and tablets for inscriptions, and
the streaming tresses of climbing plants, and above all the glorious strip of

VISIT TO PETRA.

iT^i J!u mg ' r°CkS beC°meS rIcher and more various- Then
on the left there is an opening, and cut out of the rock is a theatre-an
amphitheatre, with more than thirty tiers of seats-capable of holding between
three and lour thousand people.
• J' i^ ^T tHe tGmple Stands there is a sharP tum t0 the right, and the
right cliff, which is gorgeous with a variety of colours, is hewn into stately
temples or tombs. A few yards further the ravine emerges on a plateau
about half a mile square surrounded by lofty cliffs. On the plateau we saw
in every direction ruined walls, broken columns, broken arches ; but Nature

AMPHITHEATRE AT PETRA.

had been generous; the ruins and the brilliant grass were bright with wild
flowers of every lovely hue.
" We were actually in Petra ; and now we began to examine it at our
leisure and to recall its history. This was the ' Rock ' mentioned several
times in the Old Testament.1 Here abode the Horites or 'cave-dwellers'
before the children of Esau drove them forth. Amaziah 'slew of Edom in
the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah (the rock) by war, and
called the name of it Joktheel ' (subdued by God).2 The city is also called
Sela in Isaiah xvi. I, and in the prophecy of Obadiah there is a most

Gen. xiv. 6 ; Deut. ii. 12.

2 2 Kings xiv. 7.

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.
striking description of Petra. ' The pride of thine heart hath deceived
thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is
high ; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground ?
Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among
the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.' 1
" I had read these words many times before, but they became strangely
vivid when I saw ' the clefts of the rocks,' the habitation on high, the
excavations in the face of the cliffs, high as the nest of the ' eagle,' ' among
the stars,' which seemed to the ancient inhabitants of the capital of Edom
to make them inaccessible to all their foes. Nor was it merely their homes in
the cliffs on which the Edomites relied ; no invader could reach them except
through narrow ravines which might be held by a hundred men against
many thousands.
"In the fourth century before Christ the descendants of Esau were driven
out in their turn by the Nabatheans, a race from the south ; and the ruins
on the plateau are plainly the ruins of the public buildings erected by the
invaders. It was the Nabatheans who made this curious city a great centre
of commerce — a Liverpool, a Hamburg — in those ancient times. The treasures
of India came up the Red Sea, passed up the Gulf of Akabah, and were there
unloaded. By the track which we had followed they were in all probability
brought to Petra on the backs of mules or camels ; and then they were sent
on by Nabathean merchants over the Araba and across to Tyre and Sidon.
Once on the shores of the Mediterranean, they were easily distributed to the
cities of Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Northern Africa. There was a Bishop
of Petra at the Council of Jerusalem in the sixth century. From that time till
Burckhardt reached the place early in this century we have no trace of it.
" It was in the cliff which bounds the northern side of the plateau that
the Horites seem to have lived. The cliff is covered with excavations which
run in tiers rising one above another and connected with 'stairs' cut in the
face of the rock. The rock dwellings in the cliff would give accommodation
to a very large number of people. When I used to read of hermits living
in caves, I had the impression that the saintly men must have had a very
unpleasant home. I discovered my mistake in Egypt. I should greatly prefer
many Egyptian caves to most of the houses in which the present population
of the country are content to live. The caves are perfectly dry and are
deliriously cook At a distance from the entrance they are dark ; but when
glass was not in common use for windows most rooms were dark. In the
sides of a cave convenient arrangements for household purposes— shelves and
the like — are easily excavated. Some of the caves at Petra were very
'desirable residences ' — lofty, cool, fairly lighted, and the 'repairs' were
not likely to be costly.
'The east cliff is excavated into stately temples and tombs. The base
' Obadiah 3, 4.

MOUNT HOR: DEATH OF AARON.

of the cliff, to the height of fifty or sixty feet, is left rough ; then comes the
row of tombs and temples cut in the solid rock ; these rise to the height of
fifty or sixty feet ; and above them there is a rough cliff again. The fancy
of the ' architects ' had free scope. Bands of colour run along the face of
the cliff, and the columns of one building are cut in deep red stone, and the
capitals are in a stratum of white and violet. The roof of the great hall
is richly decorated by flowing bands of sandstone in various colours. The
east cliff is about one-third of a mile in length, and the whole of it is hewn
into tombs and temples. The west cliff is occupied with ' private houses.'
" The second day we were in the city we explored a most romantic
ravine opening on to the western side of the plateau and filled with glorious
oleanders and other shrubs. After a rough walk of about two miles we
reached an open platform ; on the face of the mountain on our right was a
rock temple — the Deir — with a facade one hundred and fifty feet in length ;
the lower columns are seven feet in diameter, and about fifty feet in height.
On the opposite side of the plateau rises another cliff containing many ex
cavated chambers. From the summit of this cliff there is a magnificent view
of Mount Hor : the Desert lies beyond, and far away to the north-west we
could see the southern hills of Judea ; my friend Ibrahim said that he could
see the sunlight on the waters of the Dead Sea.
" On the third morning we left the city by a road which starts from
the south-west corner of the plateau and brought us on to the shoulder
of Mount Hor. The road is solid rock, roughly levelled, and the richly
variegated colours which had so amazed us in the temples were now under
our feet. Our camels were walking for several miles over ribbons of
crimson and yellow, purple and white."
Dean Stanley argues strongly that Petra was the " Kadesh " where the
rock was smitten the second time, and it is at least remarkable that this
rock is called "Sela,"1 a name, as we have seen elsewhere, appropriated to
Petra. The general opinion, however, places Kadesh, or Kadesh-barnea, on
the western side of the Araba, to the north.
A visit to Mount Hor (Jebel Harim, "Mount of Aaron"), or at least a
distant view of its wild precipices and ravines, helps to make the visit to
Petra memorable. Here it was that Aaron, the priest laden with years
and weary with the toil of the desert-wandering, was "gathered to his
people." Even Scripture has few more solemn and majestic pictures than
this of the two aged men— brothers in heart and sacred service— ascending
with the youthful Eleazar to this wild mountain-top. "In his full priestly
dress walked Aaron to his burial. He knew it; and so did all in that
camp, who now, for the last time, reverently and silently looked upon the
venerable figure of him who these forty years had ministered unto them in
holy things. There were no farewells. In that typical priesthood, all
1 Numbers xx. 8-1 1.

THE HAURAN; AND THE LAND BEYOND JORDAN.
depended on the unbroken continuance of the office, not of the person.
And hence, on the mountain-top, Aaron was first unclothed of his priestly
robes, and Eleazar his son formally invested with them. Thus the priest
hood had not for a moment ceased when Aaron died. Then, not as a
priest, but simply as one of God's Israel, was he ' gathered unto his people.'
But over that which passed between the three on the mount has the hand
of God drawn the veil of silence. And so the new priest Eleazar came
down from the solemn scene on Mount Hor to minister amidst a hushed
and awe-stricken congregation. ' And when all the congregation saw that
Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house
of Israel.'"1 The traditionary tomb of the high priest is shown to visitors in a vault
below a small chapel, which evidently occupies the place of a more imposing
structure, and is built out of its ruins. The Bedawin still hold, the name
of Aaron in great veneration. A singular custom of theirs is to sacrifice
a kid or sheep to his memory, in sight of Mount Hor, raising a heap of
stones where the blood of the animal has fallen. These heaps are seen all
through the neighbouring valley.
1 Dr. Edersheim: The Exodus, and the Wanderings of the Israelites, p. igi. The author of this valuable history,
however, rejects the ordinary view which identifies Mount Hor with this Jebel Harun, arguing that the Israelites would
never have marched into the heart of Edom, while still waiting for a reply to their request for liberty to pass through the
country, and that, moreover, they would scarcely have made their way so far south, in order to cross the mountain
range. Dr. Edersheim therefore finds Mount Hor in Modcrah, on the north-eastern edge of the 'Araba. On the other
hand, Dr. Porter says : " Few spots in Bible lands are so interesting as ' the traditional Mount Hor,' because few are
so precisely identified. The conspicuous mountain— emphatically the Hor ('mountain') on the borders of Edom
(Num. xx. 23), the narrow summit, the ancient and unbroken tradition, all tend to remove doubt, and establish the fact
that here indeed Aaron died."

ft^Ift MlNOfy

EPHESUS, AS RESTORED.

ANTIOCH.

' NORTHERN £YRIA,
CYPRUS AND A^IA MINOR.

he disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." This
fact of itself stamps with a peculiar interest the ancient Syrian
city to which we are on our way ; especially when we regard
the name as significant of the peculiar position which the
Church of Antioch occupies in the history. For, so far as
can be known, this community was the first that was gathered
from Gentile heathendom in the name of Christ. There can
be little reasonable doubt that the " Grecians," to whom the
gospel is said to have been preached in the Syrian metro
polis, should gather be termed "Greeks," and that "to the men of Cyprus
and Cyrene,"— those "anonymous evangelists," refugees from persecution,
missionaries by force of circumstance, lay-preachers from Jerusalem— belongs
the signal honour of having broken through the old Judaic restriction, and
having first proclaimed the Glad Tidings to the idolatrous Gentiles.1 In a
See Acts xi. 19-21. The best critics are substantially unanimous in the view expressed above. It should be
remembered that Cornelius was not an idolater, although uncircumcised.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

signal sense, therefore, the Church at Antioch is " mother of us all." More
over, it became the scene of St. Paul's first stated ministrations ; and thencefor
ward long remained the centre and headquarters of missions to the heathen
world. "Christian" no doubt was an appellation bestowed by the Gentile
population of the city upon the fast-increasing band of converts, conferred,
perhaps, in scorn, certainly in ignorance. And so " the Church received
from the world its new and honourable name." 1
Such memories overbear even the historic interest of Antioch; though this
also is great. Founded by the Seleucid princes only 300 years B.C., it rapidly
became the principal city of the East, or second only to Alexandria, and so
remained until the foundation of Constantinople. The Romans completed
what the Seleucids had begun ; the natural advantages of the place were
enhanced by magnificent and sumptuous public buildings, while the groves of
Apollo, in the neighbouring village of Daphne, were world-famous for their
enchanting loveliness. But this glory now is past. The plain between the
Orontes and the slopes of Mount Silpius, with its woods of arbutus and ilex,
of myrtle and pine, is rich and beautiful as ever, and the town between the
river and the mountain is still called Antdkiyeh ; but all else is changed.
Political changes long since reduced the ancient metropolis to insignificance ;
earthquake after earthquake completed its physical ruin ; it is now a poor and
squalid town of some six thousand inhabitants, and the city of Paul the
apostle, of Ignatius the martyr, and of Chrysostom the preacher, retains but
a few score professed Christians within its walls. Daphne has vanished
utterly, its very site being questioned ; although a village in a mountain glen,
about a mile and a half from the city, Bit-el-Md, "house of water," is generally
supposed to mark the place of Apollo's grove ; the streams which once
meandered through fair gardens and laved the walls of stately temples now
serving to work a few dilapidated mills.
It would be pleasant to know by which route Barnabas went from
Antioch to Tarsus, in his quest for a teacher to continue the work so happily
begun by the men of Cyprus and Cyrene. For there are two routes ; one
across the Gulf of Iskanderun, the other by the passes of the Amanus, a
series of wild defiles between the mountains and the sea. The birthplace of
the great apostle, once "a great and wealthy city,"2 and in the days of St.
Paul as distinguished for its philosophic schools as for its commercial greatness,
retains its ancient name in the form Tersoos, but has become insignificant,
and is considered by travellers as hardly worth a visit. The river Cydnus
too has sadly shrunk since the days when Cleopatra of Egypt sailed up its
waters in a stately ship to meet Mark Antony at Tarsus. The Cilician plain
is beautiful and fertile as ever, and the Taurus range forms its magnificent
1 Conybeare and Howson. It is remarked by almost all commentators, that the people of Antioch were noted for
their propensity to ridicule, and the invention of nicknames. The Emperor Julian remarked that the city " contained
more buffoons than citizens." 2 Xenophon, Anal,, i. 2, xxiii.

CYPRUS.

background, ever in view, with changing outline, as we cross from Iskanderun,
the Syrian Alexandria, or Alexandretta, which has succeeded Seleucia as
the port of Antioch, to the fair island of Cyprus, whose inland hills rise
grandly beyond the green shores and purple sea.
Recent discussions have attracted much attention to Cyprus ; and its con
nection with the early history of the Church makes its name memorable to
all readers of Scripture. As the native place of Barnabas, it had a natural
attraction for the brother missionaries in setting out from Antioch upon their
expedition to unknown lands. Disembarking at Salamis, they traversed the

FALLS OF THE CYDNUS, NEAR TARSUS.

whole island, as the narrator is careful to inform us.1 M. Renan supposes
that they may have taken the southern coast at the foot of the mountain ;
far more probable does it seem that they passed through the great central
plain of Messaria, of which long ages of misrule and neglect have not
destroyed the beauty, and which must have been then of surpassing loveliness ;
vindicating the old appellation of the island — Makaria, " the blessed :"
as Horace speaks, in words which sound to modern ears like a satire,
of beata Cyprus, " happy Cyprus ! " The Messaria plain lies between two
1 Acts xiii. 6. See the critical texts of Tregelles and others.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

hill-ranges which shut out the sea, north and south, the southern or
Olympus range being the loftier and more extended. From this chain of
heights, the streams supplying the two rivers which, diverging to the east
and west respectively, watered the plain, all descend. Olympus, too,
was clothed with magnificent forests of oak and pine, while rich veins
of copper and other metals were found in the mountain recesses. The
plain was a rich expanse of woodland, pasture and cultivated land, with
many a town and village, of which now only a few scattered heaps remain,
hardly worth the name of ruins. Much of the once cultivated land has
lapsed into rank and dreary wilds in the midst of the morasses which have
taken the place of fertilising rills, and now spread miasma among a scanty

and enfeebled population. Of the fifteen cities which, according to Pliny, the
island once contained, Nicosia, now the capital of Cyprus, is the only one of
any importance remaining. Salamis, where Paul and Barnabas entered the
island, is a mere ruin, on the Bay of Famagosta. Attium, which they also
no doubt visited, is represented by the modern Larnaka, a name that has
become familiar now as that of the most considerable port, or rather road
stead, which the island can boast. Paphos, in the apostolic age the seat of
government,1 and the place where Saul, as if to note the period of his
launching forth on his world-wide mission, lays aside for ever his Jewish
1 Acts xiii. 7. Mark the exactness of the title given to Sergius Paulus— "proconsul," wBiwaros— designating the
province as senatorial, an accordance with history the more remarkable as Cyprus was, before and after this date, imperial.

CYPRUS.

RUINS OF PAPHOS.

name for its Greek form of Paul, was at some distance from the ancient
shrine of Venus. The latter was known as "Old-Paphos;" the town of
the pro-consul was " New-Paphos." Both have now passed away, leaving
but the name (Papho or Baffd) to an inconsiderable village, still, how
ever, the seat of a bishopric of
the Greek Church. There are,
roughly speaking, about ninety
thousand inhabitants in the island,
perhaps a sixth or seventh part of
its former population. Its agri
culture is poor and primitive in
its method, its mines are worked
no longer, but its resources seem
still incalculable — granting peace,
good government, intelligence,
capital and time.
But it was upoh the mainland
to the north and west of Cyprus that the greatest wonders of those bright
heroic days were wrought. Draw a line due north from the north-eastern
promontory of the island as far as the Euxine, and it will cut off a region
than which hardly any on the face of the earth is more truly memorable.
For there, among wild mountains and on broad plains, are the ruins or —
more melancholy still the squalid, miserable towns — whose names will for
ever recall to Christian memories some of the earliest and grandest lessons
of eternal truth. It is something to stand on the very spot where a travel-
stained and weary messenger one day arrived with the little scrolls in his vest,
the reading of which was to be not only a
crisis in the lives of the hearers, but a land
mark in the religious history of the world.
Here, for instance, in the narrow valley
where the Lycus flows to the Mseander, were
three fair cities not far apart, two nearly
opposite, with the river between, and one
some twelve miles farther up. The former
were Laodicea and Hierapolis, the latter
was Colossi. The site of this last is some
what uncertain, but modern travellers identify
it with Chonas, a village at the foot of Mount
Cadmus, directly in front of a vast perpendi
cular chasm. The situation, as our engraving will show, is one of extra
ordinary beauty ; but it is not this which thrills the heart of the traveller,
as he rests on some fragment of a ruined arch under the shadow of a rock,
and tries to recall the days when Philemon, the gracious and hospitable,

CYPRIOTE MILL.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

recognised his former slave, and took from his trembling hand that brief
letter which was to be the best model of Christian courtesy to all time, or
handed to the elders of the Church that longer epistle which established
for ever the spirituality and universality of the faith, in opposition to
Jewish ritualism or mystic speculation.

HIERAPOLIS.

It may seem a digression to topics unsuited for a book like this, but
the very sight of these Colossian ruins, with the thought of the wild north
eastern regions beyond, can hardly fail to suggest the immeasurable value to
our generation of the two letters despatched of old to the Phrygian land,
this to the Church at Colossi, and that other to the " Churches of Galatia."
Most truly are both of them Tracts for the Times ; and a careful study of

COLOSSUS.

them, whether from the philosophical, the theological, or the ritual point
of view will be of the highest service in counteracting prevailing e ro s "
Not for us, however is ,t now to traverse the high lands which separate
the valley of the Lycus from the valley of the Halys" in which the Gala fan

^KlSsf

COLOSS.H.

Churches ^ lay. Could we do so, we should pass the magnificent ruins of
Antioch in Pisidia, now Yalobatch, on the northern base of a mountain ridge,
and near to the beautiful lake of Eyerdir : leaving Iconium (Konieh) far
' How valuable in this view, as in others, are the two Commentaries, by Dr. Lightfoot, the Bishop of Durham
Geological students cannot but gratefully acknowledge. 95

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

away to the south, with its memories more of Moslem pride than of Christian
evangelisation. Derbe and Lystra are farther still among the bleak Lycaonian
highlands ; their site, however, being doubtful. The whole region is but
little known, and the traveller through these districts must be prepared, as in

VIEW OF PATMOS.

the great apostle's time, for "perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils by the
heathen, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness." What Galatian cities
were visited by St. Paul cannot be known, nor the track in which his wonderful
epistle was passed on from town to town of that quick, impulsive Celtic race.
For the Galatians, or " Gallo-Grecians," it is abundantly proved, were kindred
96

EPHESUS.

with the western race with which we ourselves are so nearly connected, and
Galatia was but the Gaul of the East.
We return, however, to the valley of the Maunder, and to the city of
Laodicea, so closely connected with Colossi that the apostle directed an
interchange of his letters between the two. " When this epistle," he said

RUINS OF EPHESUS.

" is read among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the
Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea."1 What
was this last-named letter ? where is it now ? Is it to be counted as one of
the lost literary treasures of the world — priceless beyond all the rest ? Or
may we find it in another form, and under another name ? This question

1 Col. iv. 1 6.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

has much occupied Biblical scholars ; and without reproducing their arguments
and different conclusions, we may say that in the opinion of many of the
best, the letter is none other than that "To the Ephesians," prepared and
sent as a circular to the " Churches of Asia," and naturally preserved, when
it had gone its round, at Ephesus, the metropolis of the province.1
For it is unnecessary to remind the reader that Asia, in New Testament
language, does not stand for the whole continent, nor even for that part of
it which modern language terms "Asia Minor," but simply the Roman
province, Proconsular Asia, extending but a little way inland from the coast
of the ^Egean. The Seven Churches of Asia, therefore, formed a comparatively
limited group beyond the indented mountainous shore, on which the eyes of
the Exile of Patmos must often have rested, as at sunrise it casts its long
shadows over the sea, or glowed with crimson and purple in the evening
light. From the prophet, debarred by the intervening waters from the delight
of Christian fellowship and Christian labour, "so near, and yet so far," how
appropriate and pathetic is that touch in the description of the " new heaven
and the new earth," that " there was no more sea ! "
As the capital of this district, as the seat of the worship of "the great
goddess Diana," as a centre of Greek philosophy and culture, and especially
as the scene of St. Paul's most continuous and prolonged labours, the city
of Ephesus has a peculiar attraction to the Christian student. The temple
of the "great goddess Diana," and the "theatre" where the riot was raised
by Demetrius and his companions, are familiar to every reader. The " mystery
of godliness," of which the apostle speaks in his letter to Timothy at Ephesus
may perhaps contain an . allusion to the mysteries which made the temple
so famous ; and it is difficult not to believe that the reference in the same
passage to "the pillar and foundation of the truth," was suggested by his
recollection of that wondrous colonnade, with its hundred and twenty-seven
shafts of pure marble, "every one of them the gift of a king." But it was
not solely from the labours of Timothy, or the words of Paul, that Ephesus
derives its sacred interest. The "disciple whom Jesus loved" found there his
home, according to credible tradition, for many years ; and from the lips of
his risen Lord he received the message to "the angel" of the Ephesian
Church, as to the first and chief of the seven.
The traveller, who now proceeds by rail from Smyrna to Aidin, passes on
his way the station Ayasolouk,2 which is marked in many maps as the ancient
Ephesus. In reality it was a suburb, the site of the city being about a mile
distant, at the foot of the hill on which the village is built, as the remains
1 It should be noted that in some ancient copies, there is a blank in Eph. i. I, instead of the phrase "in Ephesus j"
as though intended to be filled up with the name of each city to which the letter was sent in order. The supposition
that the epistle was a circular or encyclical, would account, amongst other things, for the absence of any personal greetings
or messages. It has been thought that they could hardly have been omitted in a letter to the Ephesians, among whom
St. Paul had lived so long, and whom he loved so well.
2 Ayasolouk is, perhaps, a corruption of 8eo\6yos, the word translated "Divine" in the title to the Apocalypse,
" St. John the Divine ; " and thus retains the tradition of the apostle's association with the city
98

EPHESUS.
of the theatre show. These have long been well-known, but the temple had
utterly disappeared.
Thanks, however, to the disinterested and indomitable zeal of Mr. J. T.
Wood, the site of the temple has been recovered, and the ancient tradition
as to its splendour fully vindicated.1 In May, 1873, Mr. Wood began his
excavations, with a few Turkish workmen who had been employed on the
railway, and after having made some im
portant discoveries on his own account, fv _.
was assisted by the Trustees of the British % \ _,J ; '1
Museum to continue and complete the
work with the most valuable results.
" I commenced," Mr. Wood writes, "by
exploring the great theatre at Ephesus,
which is now called St. Paul's Theatre by
the Greeks, and which is undoubtedly the
theatre mentioned in the New Testament.
It was a grand building of the ancient city,
& f , REMAINS OF AMPHITHEATRE AT EPHESUS.
and was raised on the western slope 01
Mount Coressus, within a few hundred yards of which was situated the city
port. The outer diameter of the theatre was four hundred and ninety-five feet,
and it was capable of seating twenty-four thousand five hundred persons. It had
a splendid proscenium adorned with two tiers of columns, and at each end
of this there was an entrance for those persons of high rank, the vestal virgins
and others, who were entitled to places on the lowermost seats nearest the
stage. It must have been at one of these entrances that St. Paul struggled with
his friends, who succeeded in preventing his entrance into the theatre on the
occasion of the uproar caused by Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen ; or it
might have been at the foot of one of the slopes, probably the southern one,
which led up steep ascents from the road to the entrances. The clamour of
the thousands who rushed into the theatre was probably echoed by the upper
seats, which were partly unoccupied, and the shout of ' Great is Diana of
the Ephesians!' must have been audible in the forum, agora, and in all
that portion of the city. This event proved that Ephesus was no longer a
safe place of sojourn for the apostle, and he was persuaded to depart for
Macedonia. On a later occasion he sent for the elders of the Ephesian Church
to meet him at Miletus, instead of touching at Ephesus, on his way from Assos
to Jerusalem, where he was anxious to arrive before the day of Pentecost.
" About half a century later a certain rich Roman named G. Vibius
Salutarius, voted a number of gold and silver images to Diana, and it was
decreed that they should be placed in her temple; and on the anniversary
of her birthday, May 25, and on other days of assembly in the theatre ap
pointed by the council and the people, they were to be carried in procession
> See Discoveries at Ephesus, by J. T. Wood, F.S.A., etc. Also two papers by Mr. Wood in the Sunday at Borne.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

from the temple to the theatre, and after the assembly back to the temple.
This is recorded in a long inscription which was found on one of the walls
of the southern entrance to the theatre. This inscription reminds us strongly
of the silver shrines of Demetrius, the majority of which were probably
rough representations of the temple on thin silver plates.
" The next building of interest, the ruins of which may be seen in the
present day, is the double church on the north side of the forum. This is a
long narrow building, comprising two churches, each with an apse at its
eastern extremity. There is not sufficient remaining to enable us to decide
its exact date, but I have supposed it might have been built not long after
the destruction of the temple ; but it may be of a much later date, and it
might have been dedicated to St. James and St. John.
" The next building deserving the special attention of the modern Christian
is the tomb of St. Luke. This was a
circular building, fifty feet in diameter,
and adorned with a peristyle of sixteen
columns mounted upon a lofty base
ment, which contained a chamber with
three deep recesses, in which, perhaps,
certain services or ceremonies took
place. This interesting building stood
in the centre of a quadrangle one hun
dred and fifty feet across, and surrounded
by a colonnade. The quadrangle was
paved with thin slabs of marble, and
wherever a slab was lifted there was a
grave. These were probably Christian
graves, for which large sums of money
would be paid. On one of the door
posts of the tomb is carved a large
cross in a panel ; another panel contains
the figure of a bull with a cross over
its back ; and on the inner face of the same door-post had been carved a
human figure, which had been evidently intended to represent a saint. The
nimbus surrounding the head, having been incised, remains perfect to the
present day, presenting as it does no salient feature for the hammer of the
destroyer. This figure then, I presume, must have been that of St. Luke
the evangelist, the bull being well known as his emblem. On the opposite
door-post a large Greek cross was carved within a sunk panel, which occupied
the whole of the front of the door-post."
It should here be added that there is really no ground for believing
that the great evangelist was interred at Ephesus. The figure of the bull,
on which Mr. Wood lays so much stress, may have originally had another

DOOR-POST : TOMB OF ST. LUKE.

EPHESUS.

meaning, but in lapse of time may itself have caused the tradition that here
St. Luke lies buried. Mr. Wood continues : " There are still extensive
remains of several churches amongst the ruins of the city of Ephesus, one of
which, near St. Luke's tomb, was probably
dedicated to St. Luke. This was formerly
a basilica. Near the cleft in the rock, which
is now called the ' Cave of the Seven
Sleepers,' there is a rock-cut church, and
here, as well as at the mouth of the cave
itself, I have often seen a lamp or candle
burning, placed there by some devotee
of modern times. On the slopes of the
two mountains (Prion and Coressus) on which Ephesus was built, may now
be seen the vaulted substructures of public buildings and dwelling-houses,
of which scarcely a vestige of the superstructure remains. In some of these
swine-herds and shepherds shelter with their animals, which are guarded by
large dogs, to the terror of visitors who venture near the herds. These are
the only people who now live at Ephesus. The entrances to the caverns
are contracted by loose stones, and boughs of trees form the doorway. The
owl, the bat, the serpent, the tortoise, and the scorpion are almost undisturbed

RUINS OF CHURCH, EPHESU§.

MEDALS OF EPHESUS.

in the midst of the present desolation. And the cry of the jackal by night
adds to the well-founded impression that this once flourishing and thickly-
populated city is nothing now but a howling wilderness.
"A great portion of the plain is cultivated; barley, millet, cotton, and
even tobacco are its products. The remainder is a swamp, from which a
deadly malaria rises, and threatens human life with its fatal influence."
Mr. Wood goes on to narrate the steps by which, after the discovery
of many tombs and remains of buildings, he addressed himself by the aid of
J 101

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

the British Museum Trustees, to the exploration of the great theatre. " I
set to work in the autumn with a life and energy natural to the occasion.
The area inclosed by the peribolus wall proved to be a very large one,
and I dug over a large quantity of ground before I found even the traces
of building. At last the remains of extensive buildings were reached, and,
studying the relative position of these, I soon determined where the temple
would probably be found. On the last day of the year 1869, a workman,
who was sinking one of my deep pits within the area I had marked
out for the probable site of the temple, struck upon a thick marble
pavement in two layers, which was the first Greek pavement found within
the peribolus : this I now rightly conjectured must be the pavement of
the temple itself, or around it, as it was twenty feet below the surface. On
enlarging the hole in which this pavement was found, a piece of sculpture
was discovered which proved to be part of the sculptured drum of a

MEDALS OF EPHESUS WITH IMAGE.
column. I now concentrated my force upon the spot where these were
found, and cut a trench long and wide, throwing both the soil and stones to
as great a distance as I could conveniently. It took the remainder of the
season 1869-70 to open a space large enough to display the remains of the
temple in sufficient abundance to prove, beyond a doubt, that the temple
itself was at last found.
"When I had ascertained beyond a doubt that the portion of the
temple first found was the west end, and that the base of the column
found belonged to one of the outer columns of the peristyle on the south
side of the temple, I increased the number of my workmen, obtained a
number of wheelbarrows, and removed the soil to a distance on the southern
and western sides of the site. A small portion of the south cella wall of
the temple was found in position ; and, as the work proceeded, pier after
pier ofjubble masonry which had evidently been intended for the foundations

EPHESUS.

of a large building (probably a church) which must have been commenced
several centuries after the destruction of the temple. On close examination
of the outer faces of these piers of masonry, the impression of stonework
could be plainly seen, and when the whole of the piers (eighteen in number)
were cleared of the earth and debris surrounding them, there was no difficulty
in seeing that they had been thrown in against the cella walls of the temple,
which were found standing at that time to the height of seven or eight
feet. The small portion of walling found in position on the south side, and
a considerable length of the west wall of the cella, also found in position,
proved, if proof were wanting, the correctness of this conclusion.
" When I had opened up a sufficiently large area of the temple site to
display a number of fluted drums of columns and other interesting remains,
the Mudir paid me a visit, and desired to know what brought them there.
I explained to him that they belonged to a large church or mosque which
was built more than
two thousand years
ago, when the Greeks
did not worship the
true God as they now
do, but worshipped
gods and goddesses
of the imagination ;
and that this parti
cular building had J
been devoted to the M
worship of a goddess §
whose image, thirty m
or forty feet high,
was set up in it. He
seemed very much
perplexed at this in
formation ; at last a
light seemed to break upon him, and he said, ' Ah ! I understand they were
Protestants !' He probably conceived this notion from what he might have
seen going on in the Greek churches of Kirkenjeh and elsewhere — the
kissing of pictures, the mysterious place of retreat for the priests (the holy
of holies), the wooden images, etc. I in vain endeavoured to make the
Mudir understand that Protestants were neither heathens nor idol worshippers ;
in his eyes all Franki were Protestanti.
" When the site had been completely cleared and the measurements taken,
the temple was found to have been octastyle and dipteral, having eight columns
in front, and two ranks of columns on the flanks ; one hundred of these columns,
which were six feet in diameter and nearly sixty feet high, surrounded the

THE EPHESIAN PLAIN.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

naos,

,^s, or cella; thirty-six of the columns were sculptured, and five examples
of these sculptured columns were found on the site. The temple measured
nearly one hundred and sixty-four feet by three hundred and forty-three feet,
and it was raised to the height of nine feet five-and-a-half inches from the
pavement surrounding it on a platform, which measured on the lowest of
fourteen steps two hundred and thirty-nine feet by four hundred and
eighteen feet. The cella was nearly seventy feet wide, and was probably
adorned with two tiers of columns and entablatures. The major part of
the sculpture had been chopped up into small pieces, large heaps of which
were found ready to be thrown into the lime-kilns found on the site. All
that was found was sent to England from time to time in the men-of-war
which were sent to Smyrna for the purpose ; and in the British Museum can
be seen all that was imported. At the extreme end of the Elgin Gallery will
be found three of the sculptured drums, the
base of one of the large columns of the peri
style, a portion of the frieze, two capitals,
a lion's head from the cornice, a fine speci
men of the enriched cymatium, and several
interesting fragments of archaic sculpture:
These are some of the most important
blocks ; but the great mass of the antiquities
brought over remain in the sheds under the
portico of the Museum until more space can
be spared for the exhibition of sculpture in
the rooms and galleries which will in time
be devoted to them.
" When the excavations were suspended
in April, 1874, I had cleared out and examined
the whole of the temple site, and thirty feet
beyond the lowest step of the platform on which it was raised, excepting
on the east side, nearly one-half of which had not been explored for more
than six feet beyond the lowest step of the platform. In this large
unexplored area, and amongst the ruins of a portico which was found
surrounding the temple at a distance of thirty-one feet, who can tell what
valuable remains of the temple may not still be found on farther explorations ? "
Few results of modern enterprise have a greater charm for the historical
student than this restoration of the monuments and cities of the past ; and
the name of Mr. Wood will henceforth be honourably associated with Ephesus,
as that of Sir H. Layard with Nineveh, and of Dr. Schliemann with Mycenae
and with Troy.
The disappearance of so great and famous a city is a striking fact in
the world's history ; and it is impossible for the Christian not to connect it
with the warning words addressed to the Church within its walls when Ephesus

ON THE ROAD TO MILETUS.

MILETUS.

was in the fulness of its pride. The city remained great for many generations,
but the physical causes of its decline were already at work. Strabo, writing
while it was still " the greatest place of trade of all the Asiatic cities west
of the Taurus," points out the great mistake of Attalus, king of Pergamus,
who, about a hundred and fifty years before, had constructed a mole across
the entrance of the harbour into which the river Cayster opened, supposing
thus to deepen it. The effect, as it turned out, was precisely opposite, the
river bringing down the alluvium of the plain which being thus hindered in
its outfall to the sea gradually choked up and destroyed the port. The
maritime commerce of which Ephesus had been the centre was transferred to
other localities, and the fall of the city in the course of time was sure. The

MILETUS.

harbour is now a level marshy plain. So also the mouth ot the river
Maeander, where Miletus was once a busy city, with its " four harbours,"
but is now a silent waste. It was but an "accident" as men term it,
which connects this place with the apostolic history. The ship in which
St. Paul was speeding to Jerusalem did not touch, it appears, at Ephesus,
but had to call at Miletus, doubtless for some reason connected with the
voyage ; 1 and so the port becomes memorable to all time for the simplest,
noblest, tenderest pastoral address ever uttered. The place is silent, desolate
now ; long reeds and grass are growing now amid undistinguishable ruins,
where that weeping company once descended to the beach, " sorrowing most
1 So at least we understand Acts xx. 16. "Paul determined to sail by Ephesus" (i.e. past the city, without
stopping), and the only vessel he could find which would fulfil this condition was ©ne that had to stop at Miletus. Had
it been a question simply of delay for a day or two on the way to Syria, or had the apostle possessed control over the
course of the ship, it is difficult to see why Ephesus might not have been selected for the interview as well as Miletus.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.
And they accompanied him unto the ship."
The Seven Churches of Asia in their enumeration follow a certain
geographical order. First is Ephesus as the most important, then passing up
wards a distance of about fifty miles we arrive at Smyrna, still an important

port at the head of a deep bay, the only one of the Seven Cities which
retains its prosperity. Its situation is favourable to commerce, as well as of
singular beauty. Once "the ornament of Asia," ayaXjua ttjs 'Acrtas, she is
now indisputably the queen of the Levant.1 The hills that enclose the gulf
rise grandly from the orange groves at their base, their slopes clothed with

106

1 See Canon Tristram, the Seven Golden Candlesticks^ p. 46.

SMYRNA.

evergreens, and rising into precipitous heights beyond. The city at their foot
contains about one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants of different nation
alities and religions, about half being professed Christians, chiefly of the Greek

SMYRNA FROM THE SEA.

and Armenian churches. It is remarkable that in the seven apostolic epistles
there are but two churches addressed in language of unmixed commendation ;
and these are the only
ones not absolutely ex
tinct. It is true that
the city of Polycarp the HHMD
martyr, and of the many ^ i- 4 v f '_---_
who with him " were gv ,=54. - .="
faithful unto death " dur
ing the " ten days " of
persecution, has not re
tained the faith in its
pristine purity ; and yet,
compared with the sur
rounding darkness, there
is still a light, though
faint and flickering in this
"golden candlestick."
The Mohammedans, it
said, called Smyrna

is "the infidel city," and I
there is probably a larger
proportion here of those
who profess the name of
Christ than in any other
under Moslem rule.
Proceeding still north
ward wereach Pergamum,1 |
formerly the capital of
Mysia, an inland city on
the banks of the Caicus,
sides and summit of an

BERGAMOS— THE ANCIENT PERGAMUM.

about twenty miles from the sea, built on the
irregular basaltic hill, towering above the plain.
1 Such is the correct form of the name.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

The modern Turkish town is now at its base, while grand and massive
ruins on the hillsides attest the former greatness of the place. For a while
as classic history informs us, it was the abode of royalty, its princes having
achieved independence of the Seleucid kings of Syria. It is remarkable thai
the Pergamene rulers by their alliance with the rising power of Rome took

RUINS OF PERGAMUM.
Zarcl'^to^f ^ " *' translti°n betWeen the Macedonian "world
kwas X II \ ^ I TStTn kingd°m Which Was to suPe^de it. But
ha7 PelmTt011 *" }**"*** *** intdlectual cult-e of the age
that Pergamum became most famous. Every one knows that our word
rfrltLri^TK0" ^ ™* ^™ ^ -entfon be g due
to the ^enterprise of King Eumenes the Second, who, it is said, by his

THYATIRA.

endeavours to form a great library at Pergamum on the model of that at
Alexandria, so aroused the jealousy of the Egyptian kings, that they
forbade the exportation of papyrus, and so threw him upon his own
resources to devise some other material. The story is probably incorrect,
partly because the day of the literary Ptolemies was over in the days ol

THYATIRA.

Eumenes, and partly because there is evidence that writing on prepared
skins is of much earlier date. There can, however, be little doubt that the
invention was perfected under King Eumenes, and that the library of some
two hundred thousand manuscripts, copied on these Pergamencs chartce was
only second to the great collection formed by Ptolemy Philadelphus eighty

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

years before. The two libraries were united in Alexandria by Mark Antony,
and were destroyed together by the Caliph Omar.
But in a corrupt age the literature of a people only ministers to the
moral degradation, and Pergamos more than deserved its terrible character
as " the seat of Satan ! " The phrase perhaps refers to the worship of
^Esculapius, under the form of a serpent, or perhaps to the Nicephorium
or grove to all the gods in which were temples to the chief Greek deities.
The ecclesiastical history of Pergamum is almost a blank. " Antipas the
faithful martyr" has left but a name, nor is it known precisely what were
the heresies respectively described as "the doctrine of Balaam" and "the
doctrine of the Nicolaitanes," : except that they were the perversions of the
Christian doctrine to the purposes of licentiousness. A few professed
Christians in Bergamos still meet in "a mean and unconspicuous church," but
Mohammedanism is rampant. Heathen temples were once transformed to
churches ; and in after ages the churches were turned into mosques. Massive
ruins still show the strength and stateliness of this royal city, while amid
the squalid poverty of the present, the remains of white marble columns and
sculptures show the sumptuous magnificence of the past.
The route now turns to the south-east, and reaches Thyatira by the
Roman road from Pergamum to Sardis. " To the modern pilgrim, without
appliances and facilities, it is a two days' journey from Pergamum to Thyatira.
After a three hours' ride over the rich plain of Pergamum, we cross the
classic Caicus, and ascending a low range of hills,
where are several busy villages, we descend on the
second day to the wide region which is drained
by the Hermus, where a number of gently sloping
valleys, each watered by some stream famed in
olden story, gradually open upon the plains once
dominated by royal Sardis. Diverging a little to
the right, the broad valley of the Hyllus opens to
view, and as we look down in spring or summer,
we see before us a panorama resembling in kind,
though not equal in extent or grandeur to, the
traveller's first glimpse of Damascus. The eye
tracks across the plain the silver thread which marks
the course of one of the affluents of the Hyllus,
and in the centre, nourished by its verdure, are
crowded the white roofs of a wide-spread Turkish
city, with here and there a minaret towering in the midst, and many a
clump of tall cypresses raising their funereal plumes on high; while the
whole is girt with a rich fringe of orchards and watered gardens, over which
' These ar<; so distinctly mentioned as two forms of error-note the also in Rev. ii. 15, that it is rather curious to
find them regarded by many writers as one and the same, on the ground that Balaam is a name composed of two words,

^ f f 1 yr

TOMB NEAR THYATIRA.

' to devour Ae people," and that Nicolaitanes also may be resolved into two roots, " to conquer the people

THYATIRA.

the silver mist, drawn up by the sun, hangs in a thin quivering cloud. This
is Ak-hissar — 'the white castle' — the ancient
Thyatira." '
The original name of the place signifies
the " daughter's town," and commemorates the
birth of a daughter to Seleucus Nicator, first
Syro-Macedonian king, founder of this city as
well as of distant Antioch. It soon became
famous for its dyes. Lydia, the seller of purple
in Philippi, was from the city of Thyatira,
and the Dyers are mentioned in no fewer
than three inscriptions discovered here in recent
was an important one.

CAPITAL OF PILLAR USED AS WELL-TROUGH,
THYATIRA.

times, showing that the
By whom the
Church at Thyatira
Was founded is quite
unknown. Lydia
herself, who had gone
forth with her wares
to the Macedonian
city where she met
the apostle, may have
returned to her home
with a richer treasure.
But it is too evident
that the Christian
community soon be
came perverted from
the simple truth.
Zealous and warm
hearted as they were,
their doctrine was cor
rupted. That woman
Jezebel — probably
some female teacher
in the Church — led
many astray, veiling
their licentiousness
by philosophic subtle
ties, which with Divine
indignation are de
scribed at " depths

" guild

AK-HISSAR, THE MODERN THYATIRA.

of Satan." Explorers of the scanty
Canon Tristram, the Seven Golden Candlesticks, pp. 79, 80.

monuments and

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

inscriptions of the city have attempted, though with indifferent success, to
discover some links of connection between these facts and the forms of
idolatry prevalent in Thyatira. These seem to have culminated in the
worship of Apollo the sun-god, the representation of whom, as still seen on
coins, gives point and impressiveness to the description, at the opening of the
epistle to this church, of the Son of God, "Who hath His eyes like unto a
flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass."
The history of this little town is unimportant. It was honourably dis
tinguished as being the last city of Asia Minor, Philadelphia only excepted,
to hold out against the Moslem hosts ; and the Christian population of
Ak-hissar is still comparatively large and prosperous. The large churches
of ancient days have been converted into mosques, the chief of which still
bear the name of St. John the Divine. Generally the inhabitants live in
cottages of mud and turf, but there are few signs of that squalid poverty
which marks so many cities of ancient fame. Cotton and grain are largely
cultivated in the district, and with railway communication from Smyrna the
place bids fair to become an important mart.
A journey from Thyatira of between thirty-five and forty miles southward,
across the plain of the Hermus, the ancient centre of the Lydian monarchy,
brings the traveller to the northern ranges of Mount Tmolus, so famous
once for the vines which covered its slopes, and for the "golden sands"
which the Pactolus brought down from its recesses. Thorns and thistles now
cover the mountain sides, the golden stream has shrunk into a rivulet ten
feet in width, and about a foot deep. But in almost every direction are frag
ments of marble or heaps of masonry that have escaped the ravages of time,
forlorn memorials of vanished greatness. Of this greatness Sardis was once
the chief abode, and the little hamlet of Sart to this day perpetuates the
name. The waters of the Pactolus turn a solitary dilapidated mill ; all
else is desolation. The site of the Acropolis is still distinguishable on a
spur of the mountain, commanding a magnificent view northwards over the
plain ; and lower down the explorer will find among much that is indistin
guishable the remains of two temples ; one on the banks of the stream,
dedicated to the goddess Cybele, and belonging to the Greek period ; the
two Ionic columns still standing pronounced by Mr. Cockerell the architect,
to be among the finest remains in that style that he had ever seen. The
other ruin is evidently that of a Christian church ; the ground plan can,
though with some difficulty, be traced ; and the piers shown in our illustration
are of brickwork upon marble piers, which were evidently taken from some
earlier structure. One other church at least can be made out among the ruins,
both being of a size which suggests considerable stateliness and importance.
The Church in Sardis, it is evident from these relics, had " a name that it
lived" — but it was dead— and too probably the hour of revival never came. One
solitary gleam of light in its after-history is afforded by the life and works of

SARDIS.

Melito, bishop of this city in the second century ; theologian and apologist,
as those fragments of his writings which have reached us show, of no ordinary
versatility of power. It is to him that we owe the earliest existing catalogue

TEMPLE OF CYBELE : SARDIS.

of the Old Testament Scriptures by a Christian writer. All else is
Arundell well expresses the feelings awakened by a visit to this once
famous spot. "If I were asked," he says, "what impresses the mind most

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

strongly in beholding Sardis, I should say its indescribable solitude like the
darkness of Egypt, darkness that could be felt. So the deep solitude of the
spot, once the lady of kingdoms, produces a corresponding feeling of absolute
abandonment in the mind, which can never be forgotten. Across the valley,
on a solitary plateau, are the tombs of the Lydian kings, of whom Herodotus

RUINS OF CHRISTIAN CHURCH, SARDIS.

tells — down to Alyattes the father of Crcesus — a series of gigantic mounds
whose contents it appears have never yet been rifled. It is left to the
antiquaries of the future, remarks Canon Tristram, " to illustrate by these
hidden treasures the arts and funereal customs of a people whose civilisation
dates long before that of Greece, and is second only to Egypt and Assyria."

Discoveries in Asia Minor.

PHILADELPHIA.

For ourselves we turn away sadly from the once fair abode of a church
which in its seeming life was " dead " and is only too truly buried now !
Far different thoughts are gradually awakened as we proceed up the
plain of the Hermus, diverging southward into the little valley of the Cogamus
to the town of Allah-Shehr, " City of God," eight-and-twenty miles from
Sart, charmingly situated near the north-eastern extremity of Mount Tmolus,
and commanding also, by an easy descent, southward the plain of the Mseander.
This is the ancient Philadelphia, built by Attalus Philadelphus the Pergamene
king, and long second only to Sardis among the towns of Lydia. Here was
the church which, of the seven, received the highest commendation, and in
the comparative and continued prosperity of the little city — the last to yield
to Islam — we may surely discern His guardianship who addressed to His
servants here such memorable words of comfort and of hope. Nor is this
our conclusion only. Gibbon writes concerning the Seven Churches thus :
" In the loss of Ephesus the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel,
the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelation ; the desolation is
complete ; and the Temple of Diana or the Church of Mary will equally
elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately
theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes ; Sardis is
reduced to a miserable village ; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a
son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus ; and the
populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks
and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy, or courage.
At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperor, encompassed on all
sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom-
above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the
Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is
still erect — a column in a scene of ruins — a pleasing example that the paths
of honour and safety may sometimes be the same ! " x
The allusion to the "column" in Gibbon's words was no doubt suggested
by the words in the message to the Philadelphian Church : "Him that
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God." The promise,
as many travellers have pointed out, derives much force from the peculiar
liability of this town to earthquakes. Situated as it is upon the edge of the
volcanic district of Asia Minor ; the very luxuriance of its vineyards, and
the beauty of its gardens being due as much to the lava soil beneath, as to
the sunshine and delicious climate, it has again and again been reduced
almost to ruin ; and the assurance of stability amid the shocks and changes
of time could nowhere be more appropriate or welcome. It is remarkable
that, to this day, as if in illustration of the Saviour's words, there stands in
Philadelphia a solitary pillar, left no doubt when some earthquake had
shaken down the rest of the edifice to which it belonged. There are still
1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. Ixiv. (a.d. 1312).

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

five places of Christian worship in Allah-Shehr ; and six mosques, of which
one is still pointed out as the meeting-place of the Primitive church addressed
in the Apocalypse.
It is an interesting question, by whom these churches in the valley of
the Hermus were founded ; and perhaps the answer may be found in the

PHILADELPHIA.

words: "Paul having passed through the upper coasts (or 'inland district')
came to Ephesus." A careful examination of the map, we think, will show
that as the apostle did not visit Colossae or Laodicea,1 the likeliest road for
him to take from " Galatia and Phrygia," would lead him directly past
Philadelphia.2 We may therefore look on this fair valley and these vine-clad

Acts xix. i.

116

2 See Col. ii. i (according to the most natural interpretation).

LAODICEA.

hills with a new delight, as having been favoured with at least one transient
visit from the great apostle of the Gentiles, and as having long retained in
the faith and steadfastness of its church a memorial of his work and influence.
The points of connection, both in labour and in doctrine, between the two
apostles, John and Paul, are among the most interesting topics that can be
commended to New Testament students.
With Laodicea, in a neighbourhood we have before visited and described,
our circuit is complete. Its modern name is Eski-hissar, or " Old Castle."
We reach it from Allah-Shehr by crossing the valley of the Maeander, and
after proceeding some distance down the banks of that river, ascending the
valley of the Lycus to a small and dreary plain encircled by low hills, on
which in literal heaps of ruin are all that remains of the once wealthy com
mercial metropolis of Phrygia. A monotonous miserable dulness pervades
the whole scene. The grey grass-grown ruins, with here and there a tree
are the only objects that break the uniformity. The picture irresistibly brings
to mind the "lukewarm" church, "neither cold nor hot," content with a
barren mediocrity, an uneventful and unheroic career. All is poverty-stricken
flatness, materially now, as it was spiritually then.
We must not forget that after the days of the solemn warning from our
Lord, the church in Laodicea was not without honour in the Christian com
munity. One memorable church Synod at least was held in this city, at
which the canon of the Scriptures was
finally settled.1 But, as might be ex
pected, no name of Christian greatness
is connected with the church. Its annals
have passed into oblivion — rejected from
the Saviour's mouth.
The memorials of the past which
here strew the ground are mostly unre
cognisable — mere shattered ruins. The
chief exceptions are the aqueduct, the stadium, and (probably) the gymnasium.
No inscriptions have as yet been disinterred to tell of the former commercial
greatness of this famous mart, whose manufacturers were once so busy, and
whose merchants and bankers guided the markets of the Eastern world.
Archbishop Trench thus felicitously comments on the Saviour's words to the
Laodicean church : " / counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire" etc.
" To the merchants and factors of this wealthy mercantile city He addresses
Himself in their own dialect. Laodicea was a city of extensive money transac
tions ; so that Cicero, journeying to or from his province, proposes to take up
money there.2 Christ here invited to dealings with Him. He has gold of so
fine a standard that none will reject it. The wools of Laodicea, of a raven
blackness, were famous throughout the world. He has raiment of dazzling
1 A.D. 361. The list is hence sometimes termed " The Laodicean canon." 2 Epp. ad Div. ii. 17 ; iii. 5.

RUINS OF THE GYMNASIUM.

NORTHERN SYRIA, CYPRUS, AND ASIA MINOR.

white for as many as will receive it at His hands. There were ointments for
which many of the Asiatic cities, perhaps Laodicea among the number, were
famous, but He, as He will presently announce, has eye-salve more precious
than them all. Would it not be wise to transact their business with Him?
Thus Perkins,1 'Christ saith, " I counsel thee to buy of Me," when He alludeth
to the outward state of the city, for it was rich, and also given to much
traffic, as histories record, -and therefore He speaks to them in their own
kind, as if He should say : " Ye are a people exercised in much traffic, and
delighted in nothing more than buying and selling. Well, I have wares
that will serve your turn, as gold, garments, and oil, therefore come and buy
of Me." ' " 2
1 Exposition upon Rev. i., ii., iii. Works, vol. iii. p. 363.
2 Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia. By Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D., Archbishop of
Dublin : chap. ii. 18.

TOMB AT HIF.RAPOLIS, NEAR LAODICEA.

THE, LAND OF THE, Eft£T: ftrjftFjftT,
BABYLON, NINEVEH.

s^yg^H

liillilf

WifeJHH

SUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS.

THE kftNX) OF THE EA^T: ARARAT, BABYLON,
NINEVEH.

Among " Bible Lands," the great highland region of Armenia holds a
place of importance not to be measured by the number of times it is'
mentioned in the sacred history. It is there described as the " Land of
Ararat," a name now restricted to a single mountain, but then applied to the
whole of that mountainous volcanic plain, or rather series of plains, from which
flow the Araxes, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. It was " upon the mountains
of Ararat " that the ark first touched ground as the waters of the Deluge
began to abate. Popular tradition adds something to this statement, repre
senting the ark as having actually rested on the summit of the mountain ;
and, perhaps, there are some of our readers who will scarcely believe, until
they turn to the passage, that the Scripture does not say, "the ark rested
on the top of Mount Ararat." From the two other places where the name
is used, it is clear that it denotes a country. The one is in the account of
Sennacherib's murder by his sons. "They escaped into the land of Ararat."1
The other is in the prophecies of Jeremiah, where, among the nations sum
moned as by trumpet-blast for the destruction of Babylon, are "the kingdoms
of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz," where the last two names are those of
countries bordering dn the great Armenian upland.
1 2 Kings xix. 37 ; Isa. xxxvii. 38 ; evidently the same passage. The authorized version reads Armenia, but Ararat
is in the margin.

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
As the cradle of the human race, the whole district possesses a singular
fascination for the Christian traveller. He may be unable with any satisfaction
to identify the site of Paradise. The rival theories of Biblical geographers
have perplexed him not a little before his visit ; and when actually among
these bare uplands and wild valleys he finds it increasingly difficult to
understand how in a region so chill and uninviting could have been the
garden which the Creator planted "eastward in Eden," where "grew every
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Is it not, indeed,

A R A Ii J A P K T Ii ,F. A
Rec s e i

THE "LAND OF THE EAST," SKETCH MAP.
somewhat wonderful that with the record written of the Deluge and its
convulsions on the one hand, and the evident traces of volcanic action
throughout this region on the other, any one should expect to find the
distinct traces of the antediluvian world, or be surprised at so complete
a change in the contour of the district as to make the home of our first
parents absolutely unrecognisable ?
At the same time there is no difficulty in discerning here the second
birthplace of mankind. Not a spot on the earth's surface is so wonderfully

ARARAT.

adapted as a centre from which the families of mankind should radiate into
all lands. The descending course of the two mighty rivers, the Tigris and
the Euphrates, would naturally lead them downwards in the first instance
to the fertile Mesopotamian regions, and no one can traverse these highlands
where they slope to the south without feeling the simple vraisemblance of the
old Bible words, "They found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt
there." The inhabitants of Armenia may well be excused in their belief that the
one stupendous mountain which towers above the far extending upland is

MOUNT ARARAT, FROM KANAKIR, ON THE NORTH SIDE.
the very " centre of the world." Here is no mountain chain, with long spurs,
and mighty buttresses of rock, and billowy summits, forming a world of
themselves. Ararat, as we call the mountain in the west, rises abruptly
from the plain, with its two summits, snow-crowned, in magnificent isolation.
The upland itself is about three thousand feet above the sea : of the two
summits one is about fourteen thousand feet higher, the other ten thousand ;
or, as most recently determined, the Greater Ararat is seventeen thousand
two hundred and ten feet above the sea level, the Lesser Ararat twelve

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
thousand eight hundred and forty; the plain between them is from seven
thousand to eight thousand feet in height.
Locally, the name of Ararat appears unknown. The natives-of Armenia
call the mountain Massis ; the Turks and Tartars Aghri Dagh, perhaps " the
steep mountain ;" the Persians Kuh-i-nuh, " the mountain of Noah." The
name of the great patriarch, and the incidents of his history, are said to be
recorded in the names of many of the places that surround the great
mountain. Some of the etymologies are far-fetched enough. Thus the name
of Erivan is said to mean " the Apparent," because it was the first dry land
which appeared to Noah as he left the ark. A town in the Araxes valley
is called N akhitchevan, said to mean " He descended first !" preserving a
record of Noah's egress ! The name of Marand, a little town in the
uplands, may be made to signify in Armenian, "The mother is there,"
pointing to the interment in that neighbourhood of Noah's wife. And lastly
there is, near Ararat, a village of Arghttri, which name, as interpreted by
native scholars, means "He planted the vine," in reference to the vineyard
from which so much mischief came.1
Another favourite notion respecting Ararat is that of its inaccessibility.
On its summit, it is said, is preserved the ark intact, and secure from human
approach. Some old travellers have been even able to persuade themselves
that they descried its form up among the everlasting snows ! Until quite
modern times no traveller has ventured the ascent ; the first to reach the
summit having been a Dr. Friedrich Parrot, a professor in the University of
Dorpat, who ascended in 1829. His achievement was disbelieved, as were
those of subsequent travellers, and, says Professor Bryce, notwithstanding
the fact that in the triangulation survey of Transcaucasia, the top of Ararat
was taken as one of the stations — " At this moment I am persuaded that there
is not a person living within sight of Ararat, unless, possibly, some exceptionally
educated Russian official in Erivan, who believes that any human foot since
father Noah's has trodden that sacred summit. So much stronger is faith
than sight ; or rather, perhaps, so much stronger is prejudice than evidence."
The Professor himself, who ascended in 1876, has given the latest and liveliest
account of the whole region, and of this mountain in particular.2 The ascent
of Ararat was begun on the nth of September. At the outset, Professor
Bryce was accompanied by a friend, with a party of Cossacks and Kurds,
all of whom fell off, from various causes, before, on the following afternoon,
he reached the topmost height alone. "In the mist," he says, "which was
now thick, the eye could pierce only some thirty yards ahead ; so I walked
on over the snow five or six minutes, following the rise of its surface, which
was gentle, and fancying there might still be a good long way to go. To
mark the backward track, I trailed the point of the ice-axe along behind me
1 These fanciful etymologies and others are cited by Mr. Bryce in his Transcaucasia and Ararat, chap. vi.
Transcaucasia and Ararat : being Notes of a Vacation Tour in the Autumn of iSy6. By James Bryce.
124

ARARA T.

in the soft snow, for there was no longer any landmark ; all was cloud on
every side. Suddenly, to my astonishment, the ground began to fall away
to the north. I stopped, a puff of wind drove off the mists on one side,
the opposite side to that by which I had come, and showed the Araxes plain
at an abyssmal depth below. It was the top of Ararat."
Wonderful as was the view over the immense plain, northward to the
distant Caucasus, southward to the hills encircling the great Lake of Van,

LAKE VAN.

the upper course of the Euphrates, and the mountains of southern Kurdistan,
the historical associations of the scene were more enthralling still. " Below
and around, included in this single view, seemed to lie the whole cradle of
the human race, from Mesopotamia in the south to the great wall of the
Caucasus that covered the northern horizon, the boundary for so many ages of
the civilised world. If it was indeed here that man first set foot again on the
unpeopled earth, one could imagine how the great dispersion went, as the
races spread themselves from the sacred heights along the courses of the

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

great rivers down to the Black and Caspian Seas, and over the Assyrian
plain to the shores of the Southern Ocean, whenever they were wafted away
to other continents and isles. No more imposing centre of the world could
be imagined. In the valley of the Araxes beneath, the valley which Armenian
legend as selected as the seat of Paradise, the valley that has been for three
thousand years the high road for armies, the scene of so much slaughter and
misery, there lay two spots which seemed to mark the first and the latest
points of authentic history. One, right below us, was the ruined Artaxata,
built, as the tale goes, by Hannibal, and stormed by the legion of Lucullus.
The other, far to the north-west, was the hollow under the hills in which
lies the fortress of Kars, where our countrymen fought in 1854, and where
the flames of the war were so soon again to be lighted."
Full of such thoughts, and of yet deeper reflection on the permanent
and the transitory, in the world and human things, our traveller remained, as
the mists closed round, "alone in this little plain of snow, white, silent, and
desolate, with a vividly bright green sky above it, and a wild west wind
whistling across it, clouds girding it in, and ever and anon through the
clouds glimpses of far-stretching valleys and mountains away to the world's
end. The awe that fell upon me with this sense of utter loneliness, made
, time pass unnoticed ; and I might have lingered long in a sort of dream,
had not the piercing cold that thrilled through every limb recalled me to a
sense of the risks delay might involve." The descent was safely accomplished,
but Professor Bryce shared in one respect the fate of his predecessors.
Two days later he found himself in the Armenian monastery of Etchmiadzin,
near the northern foot of the mountain, and was presented to the archimandrite.
"It came out in conversation that we had been on the mountain, and the
Armenian gentleman who was acting as interpreter, turned to the archimandrite
and said, ' This Englishman says he has ascended to the top of Massis.'
The venerable man smiled sweetly. ' No,' he replied, ' that cannot be. No
one has ever been there. It is impossible.'"
The two principal rivers which flow from the Armenian highlands, the
Tigris and the Euphrates, have a place of their own among " Bible Lands,"
partly as they enclose the plain of Padan-Aram, " Mesopotamia," now el-Jezireh,
"the island," so closely connected with the history of the Chosen People,
both as the land of Abraham's birth, and as the home where Jacob dwelt
for twenty years with Laban ; and partly as the seat of the two great
monarchies which by their enmity to Israel became the successive types of
the world-power in its opposition to the Church.
The " twin rivers," as they are called, " Naharaim," l are but fifteen
miles apart in their sources, but soon diverge and pursue a devious course,
with so many affluents from the Armenian upland, that it is difficult to
determine which are really their headwaters. The plain which they enclose
1 See Ps. lx. title,

BABYLON.

when they leave the mountain region is, or might be, one of the most richly
fertile on the face of the earth. In the spring-time the whole district is
covered with herbage, and with flowers of every hue ; but as the hot season
draws on, and the thousand rivulets left by the winter rains are dried, the
country becomes parched and desert, excepting where the larger streams
still flow. One range of hills extending across the plain from the site of
ancient Nineveh, breaks the uniformity, and supplies the country immediately
surrounding, north and south, with fertilising waters, that renders this the
most fruitful part of the Jezireh : the rest is almost uninhabitable, or tenanted
but by roving bands ; but it is plain that in Old Testament times there were
prosperous agricultural districts now given over to desolation, and a well-

PLAIN OF BABYLON, FROM HEMERA.

devised system of irrigation would soon cause this wilderness again to smile.
As it is, we can only conjecture the site of great cities which owned the sway
successively of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Medo-Persian kings then declined
into ruin, or fell before the terrible conquering march of Macedonia
But the imagination fixes upon two cities as gathering up into themselves
and their history all that characterised the highest forms of ancient .heathen
civilisation and prowess, while the only clear light regarding their ^history ^ is
derived from the points at which their history touches that of the Chosen
People. The power first concentrated itself upon the Tigris; and a shadowy
intimation is given to us of .the rise of a great empire in the record of
Nimrod, "that mighty hunter and his game was ^j" *at " he ™tfo *h
into As hur (or Assyria) and builded Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah,

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

and Resen between Nineveh and Calah ; that is the great city."1 It thus
appears that the Assyrian power sprang first from Babylon, according to
the statement of Herodotus that Nin was the descendant of Bel, and the
monuments and inscriptions discovered in ancient years remarkably corroborate
the fact. All history, in fact, points to the Lower Euphrates as the earliest seat
of empire. After the Flood men had been but wanderers, until below the
bare limestone plateau of the northern Mesopotamian region they found that
rich alluvial plain which seemed in itself to contain every requisite for secure
and prosperous life. It was here that the thought of a world-monarchy
first took shape, and Babel — "Gate of God" was to be its proud symbol.

RUINS OF BABYLON : GENERAL VIEW.

We know how the scheme was frustrated, and the vaunting name turned
into a record of ambition confounded and pride rebuked. Babel is Confusion,
henceforth and to all time. "They left off to build the city," but in after
days it became great, although the Scripture records report nothing of it until
the days of Manasseh, Hezekiah's unworthy son, who was carried captive by
the king of Assyria to Babylon? The fact is in striking harmony with
the history as yielded by the monuments. For we find that a little before
this time Babylon had become a more provincial town of Assyria. Sen
nacherib himself tells us how he "pulled down, dug up, and burned with
fire the town and the palaces, root and branch, destroyed the fortress and
the double wall, the temples of the god and the tower of brick, and threw

1 Gen. .\. n.

Chron. xxxiii. n.

FALL OF BABYLON.

the rubbish into the river." It was under Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon
regained first independence, then supremacy, so that, having restored the
city from absolute ruin, he could say, "Is not this great Babylon that T
have built?"
The ground plan (see p. 139) gives at least a general outline of the city as it
was in the days of its greatness, and remained even after the visit of Herodotus,
when the power had already passed into Persian hands. That historian tells
us that the city was built on both banks of the Euphrates, in the form of
a square, enclosed by an inner and an outer wall, the outer one measuring
four hundred and eighty stadia, each side being thus one hundred and
twenty stadia (or about fourteen miles) in length, and the whole enclosing
an area of nearly two hundred square miles. The walls were two hundred
cubits (or three hundred and forty feet) in height, and fifty cubits (or eighty-
five feet) in width. In each part of the town there stood a vast and mighty
edifice, on the one side of the river the king's palace, on the other the
Temple of Belus. A hundred brazen gates gave access to the city. Quays
lined the river on both banks, communicating with the streets by gates,
also of brass, which, in case of alarm, could be closed, so as to prevent
access. The negligence of the guards, in leaving them open during " Belshazzar's
feast," made the city an easy prey to the Persian army, which marched up
the bed of the river, the waters having been diverted into a vast reservoir out
side the gates. And so was fulfilled that which was written (Isaiah xiv. 1-3) :
" I will loose the loins of kings,
To open before him [Cyrus] the two-leaved gates ;
And the gates shall not be shut.
I will go before thee,
And make the crooked places straight:
I will break in pieces the gates of brass,
And cut in sunder the bars of iron :
And I give thee the treasures of darkness,
And hidden riches of secret places,
That thou mayest know
That I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel."
Or to quote a prediction so exact to all the circumstances of that awful
night that prophecy seems like history (Jeremiah li. 30-32) :
"The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight;
They have remained in their holds :
Their might hath failed ; they became as women :
They [the enemy] have burned her dwelling-places;
Her bars are broken.
One post shall run to meet another,
And one messenger to meet another,
To show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end,
And that the passages are stopped,
And the reeds they have burned with fire,
And the men of war are affrighted."

129

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

The citation from prophecy would be incomplete without a reference to
that sublime delineation in which the "kings of the nations," who have gone
down to Hades, are depicted as rising from their shadowy thrones to meet
a monarch mightier than they all on his entrance into the realms of the
dead (Isaiah xiv. 10, 12.). " Art thou also become weak as we ?
Art thou become like unto us ? . . .
How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground,
Which didst weaken the nations ! "
Never, indeed, was the doom of an empire more distinctly, inexorably traced,
than by those "fingers of a man's hand" which wrote the words that only

SITE OF SELEUCIA.

the prophet of Jehovah could interpret ! For a moment it seemed as if that
doom were to be averted by a monarch greater than Babylonian, Mede, or
Persian — undreamed of when Cyrus was at the gates. There are few events
in history more dramatically impressive than the sudden arrest of Alexander
by the hand of death, just when his power was at its height, and his plans
for the future had been most vast and daring. For at Babylon it was that
he was devising the project of a new Oriental empire, in which the prowess
of the West should take advantage of the superstitions of the East, and the
military despot claim the honours of a god. Babylon, restored to more than
its former greatness, should be the metropolis of this new theocracy ; and
the Euphrates, again controlled by human skill, should distribute its waters

EXTENT AND SPLENDOUR OF ANCIENT BABYLON.

over the mighty plain, so as to render it, beyond all that Chaldean or Persian
kings had ever dreamed, the garden of the earth. We know how, as in
a moment, the Macedonian victor was smitten down in those palace-halls.
The dream was gone ; no successor of Alexander attempted the reconstruction
of Babylon. The Syrian kings, who inherited his eastern conquests, fixed
rather upon the Tigris as the seat of empire, and founded Seleucia,' which
was built of Babylonian spoils. In another age Ctesiphon was built by the
Parthians, who had made themselves masters of the plains ; and, later still,
Bagdad was founded by the Arab conquerors of the land; leaving Seleucia
and Ctesiphon, like Babylon, to the decay in which we see them now.
The descriptions given by Herodotus and Ctesias of the "great city"
show that it was rather a fortified canton than a town. Country houses,

REMAINS OF CTESIPHON.

with parks and farms, were within its walls. Artificial streams, or canals,
carried verdure and fertility into every quarter, while vast trenches and
reservoirs without the walls received the overflow of the Euphrates in times
of flood, at once preventing inundations, and retaining a supply for dry
seasons. Babylon, in short, " seems to have been the ideal of what a great
city ought to be, especially in days of internal railroads. London, containing
its millions, with its thin houses laterally squeezed together, or Paris, with
its horizontal piles of flats, and no corresponding spaces, would have excited
the horror of the ancients, who in some respects were more civilised than
ourselves." 1
1 Herodotus, by G. C. Swayne, M.A., p. 34. (Ancient Classics for English Readers) : Blackwood, 1870.

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
The "hanging gardens" appear to have been a series of terraces raised
one above another to a great height, planted with trees and shrubs of the
rarest and most beautiful kinds. They were the royal gift of Nebuchadnezzar
to his queen, a Median princess, who pined on the vast Babylonian plains for
something to remind her, however remotely, of her native hills. Inscriptions
tell how the monarch prided himself on his stately palace-home: "I have
adorned no part of Babylon — that city which is the apple of my eye — as I
have the palace. That is the house which commands the admiration of
men ; it is the central spot of the country, high and elevated ; it is the

THE KASR, BABYLON.

house of royalty in the country of Babylonia. . . . Silver, gold, metals, gems,
nameless and priceless, objects of rare value, immense treasures, have I
heaped together to ornament that tower, the abode of my majesty, which
contained the treasure of my imperishable royalty."
"Of this glorious building, still called the Kasr, or 'palace,' nothing is
now left but a ruin of loose bricks, tiles, and fragments of stone, from the
centre of which rises a solid mass of masonry, still entire, and retaining
remains of architectural ornament, while one tamarisk tree, gaunt and lightning-
smitten, is almost all that remains of the paradise prepared for the poor

TOWER OF BABEL.

Median home-sick queen. It was the terrace, perhaps the hanging gardens
of this royal palace, which Alexander the Great sought when the hand of
death was upon him ; it was within its walls that he died ; it was around that
death-chamber that hundreds of Macedonians sought and found their graves." l
The Birs Nimroud, " Tower of Nimrod," near the south-western angle
of the ancient city, was long thought to be the Tower of Babel. It is a
kind of irregular cone rising from the level plain to the height of about one
hundred and fifty feet, and crowned by a mass of bricks cemented with bitumen
(" slime," Gen. xi. 3) and vitrified by heat, as of fire or lightning, into a solid
mass. The construction of the pile has been made out to be in seven distinct
stages,2 diminishing upwards, like the old pictures of the Tower of Babel

SCULPTURED LION, IN THE KASR, BABYLON.

with which our childhood was so familiar ; and it is remarkable that, although
Scripture is silent on the matter, the destruction of the tower is represented
by tradition as having been wrought by the lightnings of heaven. With the
signal exception of the late Mr. George Smith, however, modern Assyrio-
logists have regarded the Mujellibeh as the true Babel, and the Birs Nimroud
as marking the site of the great Temple of Belus described by Herodotus.
Amidst its ruins inscribed cylinders were found by Sir Henry Rawlinson,
which show it to have been dedicated to " the Seven Planets," probably as
an observatory, and to have been completed by Nebuchadnezzar after its
commencement by former Babylonian monarchs.

1 Canon Rawlinson, in Speaker's Commentary, Dan. iv. 30.
' Sir H. Rawlinson. Layard, who gives a sketch of the " tower " as restored.

133

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

If these conclusions be correct, we are to seek the relics of Babel in the
Mujellibeh, "the Overturned" — a name full of suggestiveness!
In the earliest record of this great city we read, "they had brick for

^ TAMARISK TREE AT KASR.

stone, and slime had they for mortar." This statement remained literally
true for all succeeding ages ; Babylon was to the last a brick-built city.
Hence the comparative absence of memorials. " No sculptures or inscribed
slabs, the panelling of the walls of palaces, appear to exist beneath these

^^sjfesi^iilSEsLay

^mmm

BABYLONIAN JEWS.

BIRS NIMROUD.

ruins, as in those of Nineveh. Scarcely a detached figure in stone, or a
solitary tablet, has been dug out of the ' vast heaps of rubbish. ' Babylon is
fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken
unto the ground.' " 1 These bricks, it would appear, were painted, enamelled

BIRS NIMROUD.

with rich colouring, or covered with a cement for purposes of inscription,
like the "plaster on the wall" of Belshazzar's palace, whereon the "fingers
of a man's hand" wrote the words of doom. Embedded in the ruined
heaps of the city, vast numbers of bricks have been discovered enstamped

Isa. xxi. 9. See Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, chap. xii.

137

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

with cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters — an evident anticipation of the
art of printing. Sir H. Layard says : " Almost all the bricks brought from
the ruins of Babylon bear the same inscription, with the exception of one or
two unimportant words, and record the building of the city by Nebuchad
nezzar." All the villages round, he elsewhere says, are constructed of
Nebuchadnezzar's spoils. His name appears everywhere, in clay walls and
miserable huts, while the explorer who digs into any rubbish-heap over the
vast area is sure to come upon the word which once made nations tremble !
The fulfilment of Scripture prophecy, in literal exactness, is the one
fact which fills with a new astonishment every visitor to the spot. The
words that were written when the Babylonian empire was in the fulness of
its power and splendour, are even now the most appropriate that could be
chosen to describe its present desolation. True, there is a town, Hillah by
name, in the south-western quarter of these ruins, where among the Arab
inhabitants a colony of Jews has dwelt from time immemorial, who, so
far as prosperity can be predicated of any dwellers in this region, are the
most prosperous and thriving members of the community. But this only
brings into stronger relief the accomplishment of the words, "It shall never
be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation :
neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shepherds make
their fold there." Of the canals which once carried fertilising streams
through the whole vast area only the broken embankments remain, the lines
being distinctly traceable through the bare yellow sands. The waters of the
Euphrates in their overflow run now into marshes and lagoons, which spread
miasma around, while the bituminous soil reeks with a sickening heat. "A.
drought is upon her waters ; and they are dried up," the " wild beasts of
the desert dwell there," and " the owls dwell therein." " Babylon is fallen,
is fallen ! " Its stately palaces and temples, now heaps of ruined brickwork,
have become the lair of wild beasts — " Their houses are full of doleful
creatures .... and the wild beasts of the islands cry in their desolate houses,
and dragons in their pleasant palaces." * In presence of such comment on the
inspired word, unbelief itself becomes silent ; while faith looks onward to yet
other crises in the struggle between evil and good, corresponding with the
catastrophe of Babylon as antitype with type. Such correspondence was
seen in the downfall of pagan Rome ; and so to the end of time, whatever
power shall erect itself against the kingdom of truth and righteousness, may
take the warning as applicable to itself. Still, before that " great city," we
seem to see the "mighty angel" stand with a "stone like a great millstone,"
and "cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city
Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."2
1 See Isa. xiii. 19-22 ; xiv. 23 ; xxi. 1-10. Jer. 1. 13, 39 ; li. 37. This last chapter contains a truly wonderful
prediction of the capture of the city by Cyrus, vers. 31, 32. See p. 129.
2 Rev. xviii. 21.
138

GROUND PLAN OF BABYLON.

The accompanying rough sketch will give some notion both of the
vastness of the city and of its general arrangement. The dried up canals,
east and west, are plainly traceable by their broken embankments. The
Mujellibeh is, as we have seen, probably the site of Babel ; in the Kasr
appear the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace ; the Amran, a vast irregular
mound, indicates the most populous quarter of the ancient city ; the Birs
Nimroud marks the temple or observatory of Belus. Hillah is the squalid
Arab and Jewish town, built of material quarried from the Babylonian
mounds, with gardens and farms along
the Euphrates banks that exhibit
something of the pristine culture and
fertility. The great lake or lagoon of
Hindiyah to the west still receives of
the river's overflow, and on its banks
are some Arab settlements or villages.
To complete the outline-picture in the
mind's eye, we have only to regard the
Euphrates as forming nearly a diagonal
to a square of some fifteen miles each
way — and to fill the space enclosed with
all the pomp and glory of the world.

¦1BIR.S NIMROUD

SCALE OF MILE&

From the Euphrates to the Tigris is
a comparatively short journey ; and there
is nothing more remarkable in the annals
of the ancient world than the story of their
rival cities and of the empires of which
they were the centres. Each upon its own
river seemed to sit secure : each aspired
to the empire of mankind ; and the suc
cessive fall of both was terribly complete,
into utter and hopeless desolation.
The total disappearance of Nineveh
through many ages is one of the greatest
marvels in its history. " Herodotus speaks
of the Tigris, as ' the river upon which the town of Nineveh formerly stood.'
He must have passed, in his journey to Babylon, very near the site of the city —
perhaps actually over it. So accurate a recorder of what he saw would scarcely
have omitted to mention, if not to describe, any ruins of importance that might
have existed there. Not two centuries had then elapsed since the fall of the
' city. Equally conclusive proof of its condition is afforded by Xenophon, who
with the ten thousand Greeks encamped during his retreat on, or very near, its
site (b.c. 401). The very name had then been forgotten, or at least he does

SKETCH PLAN OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON.

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
not appear to have been acquainted with it, for he calls one group of ruins
' Larissa,' and merely states that a second group was near the deserted
town of Mespila.1 The ruins, as he describes them, correspond in many
respects with those which exist at the present day, except that he assigns
to the walls near Mespila a circuit of six parasangs, or nearly three times
their actual dimensions. Ctesias placed the city on the Euphrates, a proof

VIEW ON THE TIC-RIS, NEAR DJEBAR.
either of his ignorance or of the entire disappearance of the place. The
historians of Alexander, with the exception of Arrian, do not even allude to
the city, over the ruins of which the conqueror must have actually marched.
His great victory of Arbela was won almost in sight of them."2
Again we turn to the page of prophecy, and in the presages of this
doom we read what might be history. Truly there is something sublime in
the picture drawn by the Hebrew seer in the day of Nineveh's pride :
" And He will stretch out His hand against the north,
And destroy Assyria;
And will make Nineveh a desolation,
And dry like a wilderness.
And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her,
All the beasts of the nations :
Both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it ;
Their voice shall sing in the windows;
Desolation shall be in the thresholds :
For He shall uncover the cedar work." 3
" This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly ! " So continues the seer of
princely lineage, not wholly in scorn or exultation, but in sudden pathos, as
he saw in the doom which should befall Nineveh an awful shadow of what
1 Xenophon, Anab. lib. iii. c. 4 § 7. 2 Layard, in Smith's Diet. Bible, art. "Nineveh."
3 Zeph. ii. 13, 14. Zephaniah appears to have been a descendant of King Hezekiah (" Hizkiah," ch. i. I.)

FALL OF NINEVEH.

Judah might expect, should she continue unfaithful to her God. But a
rougher tone of warning had already sounded, perhaps from some one of the
exiles who had been carried away captive by Sargon, in the overthrow of
Israel. For the likelihood appears to be that " Nahum the Elkoshite" was
an exile, and that the weird and terrible tones of his "woe" derived much
of their intensity from having been uttered in the very land whose desolation

VIEW ON THE TIGRIS, NEAR HAMRIN.
he depicts. The modern traveller, face to face with the vast lion-emblems
by which Assyrian kings symbolised their power over the nations, can under
stand the awful rapture with which the lonely Israelite seer exclaims :
"Where is the dwelling of the lions,
And the feedingplace of the young lions,
Where the Hon, even the old lion, walked,
And the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid ?
The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps,
And strangled for his lionesses,
And filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin.
Behold, I am against thee,
Saith the Lord of hosts."
And again, with imagery drawn from a frequent sight in eastern lands, the
prophet sees in all the pomp of the Assyrian " nobles," the wealth of the
"merchants," the pride of the "honourable men," only the feebleness of the
locust swarm, for the time devastating and fearful, but in its vanishing a very
emblem of power fading into nothingness :
"Thy crowned are as the locusts,
And thy captains as the great grasshoppers,
Which camp in the hedges in the cold day.
But' when the sun ariseth they flee away,
And their place is not known where they are."1
1 See Nahum ii. 11-13 ; iii. 17-

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

The events thus predicted had indeed been foreshadowed by the early
Ninevite history. Assyria had given to history and to poetry the name of
Semiramis, emblem of conquering might as wielded by a woman's hand, and
of Sardanapalus, type of sensual indulgence carried to the uttermost pitch,
only to end in fiery catastrophe. Their story, it is true, belongs as much
to tradition as to authentic annals ; it appears only amid the dimness of
early history, that the city greatly flourished and was greatly overthrown ;
that another line of monarchs restored its greatness, and that its power was
again at its height when Shalmaneser attacked the Israelite metropolis,
leaving its final overthrow to be effected by his successor, the usurper
Sargon,1 whose son, Sennacherib, made that attack upon Jerusalem which
ended in the mysterious destruction of his army : when
" The angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the host as he passed."
It is probable that from this blow there was no real recovery. Nineveh
soon yielded to the Chaldean power ; and the Medo-Persians in the next
generation completed the catastrophe which the solitary "Elkoshite" had
foreseen : " Thy people in the midst of thee are women :
The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies :
The fire shall devour thy bars ! " 2
To a later generation it has been reserved to disinter from the mounds
of earth and rubbish, around which the towns and villages of another race
had gathered, and whose very history had been long forgotten, those memorials
of ancient empire which not only illustrate one of the most impressive chapters
in the annals of mankind, but bring confirmations, almost startling in thejr
decisiveness, of Bible statements and allusions which, up to the time of these
researches, had been among the most perplexing in the Word of God.
Nineveh, we are told in the Book of Jonah, was "an exceeding great
city of tiiree days' journey" The phrase has been variously understood. A
day's journey, according to Herodotus, seems to have been reckoned at from
one hundred and fifty to two hundred stadia, i.e., from about seventeen to
twenty-three miles ; while, according to those who have studied the Ninevite
inscriptions,3 the distance is as low as fourteen miles. It is again uncertain
whether the circuit of the walls is intended, or the length or breadth of the
city, as the aggregate of its chief thoroughfares. On the whole, the usual
interpretation appears to be the most satisfactory, that the total length of the
1 Sargon does not appear in the history ; but we learn from the monuments that it must have been he who com
pleted the conquest of Samaria. It is noticeable that the Second Book of Kings (xvii. 3, 5, 6), after mentioning
Shalmaneser as coming up against Israel in the days of Hoshea, drops the mention of his name, and refers only to the
"king of Assyria" as the captor of Samaria. Sargon is mentioned once in Scripture, in reference to his advance upon
Egypt (Isa. xxi. I). 2 Nahum iii. 13.
3 See Note by Prebendary Huxtable, Speaker's Commentary, on Jonah iii. 3.
142

hi

¦S 2x

ittf

EXTENT OF ANCIENT NINEVEH.

city walls is intended, and that the distance was about sixty miles. When it
is further added that the prophet went into the city " one day's journey," it is
no doubt intended that, for the space of that time, he traversed the streets,
not that he advanced that distance in any one direction. A further note of
the size of Nineveh is in the statement that it contained one hundred and
twenty thousand persons who could not "discern between their right hand
and their left hand" — not, as some have strangely supposed, that this was
the entire population, so described on account of their spiritual crassness and
stupidity, but, taking the expression

literally, that this was the number of
infants in the city,1 which would give,
according to the usual proportion, a total
population of six hundred thousand.
This number, large as it is in itself,
may seem small in comparison with the
immense area of the city ; but it must
be remembered that, as in the case of
Babylon, the walls would enclose wide
pleasure-grounds and farms — a fact sug
gested by the allusion to the " much
cattle" also in the city, so that all the
parts of the description confirm one
another, while they are remarkably sup
ported by the discoveries which have
in recent years been made in different
parts of the site.
The annexed plan roughly indicates
the different points where explorations
have been made, and shows at least
approximately what was the ground
anciently covered by the city.
Mosul is the modern town on the
right bank of the Tigris. Opposite to
it are two great mounds, long supposed
to be natural elevations, the hills or
tells of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunas .(" the Prophet Jonah"). The line of
a watercourse leads for about ten miles to the Arab village of Khorsabad,
standing upon a broad irregular elevation. Following the course of the
Tigris southward for about eighteen miles, we come upon the immense mound
of Nimroud, some distance above the confluence of the Tigris and the Zab,
the latter being the ancient Lycus ; and an irregular quadrangle is completed
by the mound of Karamlas, twelve miles to the north-east of Nimroud.
1 Compare Jonah iv. u, with Deut. i. 39, Isa. vii. 16.

SITE OF NINEVEH.

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
The line of the walls that engirdled the famous city may thus be made out
with tolerable correctness ; and within this vast enclosure every mound that
has been explored has yielded up its ruins ; first, of the bricks and broken
pottery, which for ages had been dug up wherever the surface was pierced,
or which lay in unregarded heaps, exciting neither wonder nor inquiry, until
Mr. Rich, the English consul at Bagdad, sent home in 1820 to the British
Museum a number of Assyrian remains, chiefly bricks bearing cuneiform
inscriptions. The researches of M. Botta, French consul at Mosul, in the
mound of Kouyunjik and the village of Khorsabad, followed some twenty
years later, and brought to light the earliest discovered series of Assyrian
sculptures, in the halls of what had evidently been a royal palace destroyed
by fire. Mr. Layard's subsequent discoveries at Nimroud brought to light
the magnificent series of sculptures and inscriptions which are now to be

J'K

KHORSABAD.

seen in the British Museum, including the great winged lions, which, among
all relics of antiquity, are perhaps the most wonderful embodiments of the
thoughts of early times respecting intellectual and physical greatness. We
can better understand the Biblical cherubic symbol, as divinely directed and
applied, when we gaze upon these attempts to represent the powers that rule-
mankind by the head of the man, the body of the lion, the legs of the bull,'
and the wings of the flying eagle. Thus far could the thought of heathenism
go ; it was reserved for insight quickened by inspiration from above to
discern in these the emblems of those manifold agencies which, as in Ezekiel,
are the bearers of the Divine chariot, or, as in the Apocalypse, the supporters
of the Divine throne, every variety of force only serving to accomplish the
purposes of the Most High,— "crying one to another, and saying, Holy, holy,
holy, is Jehovah, God of hosts."
It is not our purpose now to go into any details respecting these

146

?>

NINEVEH DISINTERRED.

marvellous discoveries, or to the inscriptions, if possible more marvellous
still, which not only serve to illustrate the monuments, but shed a flood
of light, though with many an hiatus and broken interval, upon Assyrian
history. These inscriptions, in the discovery and interpretation of which
so much was effected by the late Mr. George Smith, yet await more
complete elucidation ; and this will undoubtedly be the work of years. The
question may meantime be asked — and some are sceptically asking it still —
how that certainty which Assyriologists claim for their elucidations can possibly

DISINTERMENT OF WINGED BULL AT NIMROUD.

have been attained. At first sight nothing could seem more hopeless than
the attempt to decipher the strange characters of an unknown language ; and
it is possible that, but for the great discovery of the triliteral rock-inscription
of Behistun, on the confines of Persia, and its interpretation by Sir Henry
Rawlinson the mystery might have remained impenetrable. As it is, there
seems no reasonable cause for doubting that the right key has been found
and rightly applied. . .
Mr Lavard writes : " Hitherto the materials for the investigation of the
J 14Q

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
cuneiform character had been comparatively limited. The inscriptions copied
by travellers in Persia were short, rarely consisting of more than ten or
twelve lines, and they were for the most part of nearly the same import.
A trilingual inscription of great length was known to exist on the rock of
Behistun, near Kermanshah, on the western frontiers of Persia ; but it was,
in a position inaccessible to the ordinary traveller, and too high to admit of
its being copied from below. Sir Henry Rawlinson was the first to obtain
an imperfect transcript of it by the aid of a powerful telescope in the year
1835; bvit. it was not until 1844 that, assisted by Captain Jones and other
gentlemen attached to the mission at Bagdad, he was able to reach the
tablets, and to make copies and paper casts of the inscriptions. Like those
of Persepolis and Hamadan, they consist of the same record repeated three
times in the three languages spoken by the three great races under the
dominion of the Persian kings, and written in different modifications of the
cuneiform character. The Persian column contains no less than four hundred
and six lines. The application to this great inscription of the key furnished
by the short records previously deciphered by Grotefend and other investi
gators completely corroborated the soundness of their system of interpretation.
The Behistun tablets were found to contain a narrative of the principal!
-p -m- r* events of the reign of Darius, the son of Hystaspes,;
"¦^V-srT -TT1 ~= which in many respects coincide with those recorded by
y_ ^_ <a ,a ju. ]Z- tbe Greek historians. The effigy of the king himself is
H< H IeII 1! H -TH- sculptured on the rock. Behind him stand his attendants,
n< jf-^-'r ~+ ar)d m front are nine [ten?] captive kings or chiefs, one
?Jf-Cr^y c;Sh3£=,~-V| of whom lies prostrate at his feet. Above each figure
(r^r I It""") are short trilingual inscriptions, recording the name of the
tl>— !w <4^ r H 1 1- person represented.
" ± ^TY " By the aid of the Behistun inscription, which has
*"+""<*"" '""^rf' furnished the most ample and reliable materials we yet
__^^__ possess for the investigation of the cuneiform character,
^7 ^T~ __., ^_ » Sir Henry Rawlinson has been able to add largely to
_^.y J»».IT^y» yr trie results obtained by Grotefend, Lassen, Burnouf, and
7r , Z- <<~-k^ „tt_ d others, from the scanty records in their possession. He
^ y__ j t/i _ry " published the text of the Persian column with a complete
Cap pTU-T z.~ >-t"0 translation of it in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
^pST^i vYfX- for 1846. This translation has been subjected to the most
^^T j y^y ^n rigorous examination and criticism by Sanscrit scholars ;
<^j- ,4!"^ and those who have taken the trouble to acquaint them-
cuneieorm^haracters. selves with the subJect> and are competent to form an
opinion upon it, do not hesitate to admit that the inter
pretation of the Persian cuneiform is placed beyond a doubt.
" The Persian column of the trilingual inscription having thus been de
ciphered, a key was afforded to the interpretation of the two other inscriptions,

ROCK INSCRIPTION OF BEHISTUN.

ROCK INSCRIPTION AT BEHISTUN.

supposing always that their contents were the same, and that the language
was one which either still existed or was allied to one still spoken or written.
That the contents of the three inscriptions were the same was evident
from the corresponding recurrence of certain groups in each column. But
the Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions offered far greater difficulties than the
Persian. The letters or signs used in the Persian were limited in number,
not exceeding thirty-six ; and, as we have seen, each word was separated and
marked by an oblique wedge. In the Assyrian inscription there was no
division between the words, the letters and signs seemed not only to be un
limited in number, but to be used in the most arbitrary manner. As, how
ever, the inscriptions contained names of persons, countries, cities, etc., many
of which could be identified with those preserved in classical or Biblical
literature, the value of many letters could be determined with sufficient
confidence; and thus a clue was afforded to a few words of constant
recurrence, and proof afforded that the language of the Assyro-Babylonian
inscriptions, as might have been expected, was a Semitic dialect, allied to the
Chaldee, Hebrew, Arab, and other cognate languages, either still existing, or
of which written remains have been preserved." l
A translation of the inscription is given by Professor Rawlinson in his
Herodotus;2 and another, revised and corrected, by Sir H. Rawlinson, in
Records of the Past.3 In addition to its philological value, it is a curious
summary of Persian history, all centred in the great deeds of Darius — the
king, it will be remembered, under whom Haggai and Zechariah prophesied,
and in whose reign the second Temple was completed at Jerusalem.4 The
inscription begins :
"I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia,
the king of the provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson of Arsames,
the Achaemenian. " Says Darius, the king : My father was Hystaspes ; of Hystaspes the
father was Arsames ; of Arsames the father was Ariyaramnes ; of Ariyaramnes
the father was Teispes ; of Teispes the father was Achaemenes.
" Says Darius the king : On that account we are called Achoemenians; from
antiquity we have descended; from antiquity those of our race have been kings."
Then follows a long enumeration of the countries that had submitted
to Darius, and especially of the impostors he had crushed, and the revolts
he had subdued. The foregoing paragraphs are repeated on a tablet over
the figure of the king in the central picture, while each of the nine men
standing before him, as well as the figure prostrate at his feet, are described
by similar legends. The latter runs thus :
" This Gomates, the Magian, was an impostor ; he thus declared, ' I am
Bardes, the son of Cyrus. I am the king.' "
1 Nirteveh and Babylon, Introduction, pp. xliii.-xlv. Vol. ii. p. 590.
3 Vol. i. p. 109. 4 See Ezra iv. 24 ; vi. 15 ; Hag. i. I ; Zech i. 1, etc.

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

Over the first standing figure is read :
" This Atrines was an impostor ; he thus declared, ' I am king of
usiana. Over the second :
" This Nadinta-Belus was an impostor ; he thus declared, ' I am Nabo-
chodrossor, the son of Nabonidus ; I am king of Babylon.' "
And so throughout ; the inscriptions giving in detail the history of these
hapless men, their rebellion and their overthrow. It may be noted in passing
that the first of these, the prostrate figure, is in all probability the "Artaxerxes"
of Ezra iv. 7 (called in history the pseudo-Smerdis), who compelled the
building of the Temple to cease for a time.
One of the most interesting of the monuments brought to light is a
column of black marble (now in the British Museum) discovered by Mr. Layard
in the mound of Nimroud, recording on its four faces, both by pictorial repre
sentations and inscriptions, the exploits of Shalmaneser (the second or third
monarch of that name), not the captor of Samaria, but a contemporary of Jehu,
king of Israel, one hundred and fifty years earlier. Jehu himself appears on
the monument as proffering submission ; and, if the representation has any
truth, we must interpret the statement, that " in those days the Lord began to
cut Israel short," 1 of the aggressions of a greater monarch than Hazael the
Syrian king, of whom the inspired historian especially speaks. Our engraving
is from a plaster cast in the Louvre at Paris. The inscriptions on the
obelisk, as translated by the Rev. A. H. Sayce, m.a., are given in the Records
of the Past, vol. v.
"The king," said Mr. Layard, in describing this obelisk, "is twice
represented followed by his attendants ; a prisoner crouches at his feet, and
his vizier and eunuch are bringing before him captives and tributaries, carry
ing bars of gold and silver and other metals, vases, shawls, bundles of rare
wood, elephants' tusks, and other objects of tribute, and leading various
animals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, Bactrian, or two-humped camel,
antelope, horse, wild bulls, and several kinds of monkeys.
"In one bas-relief are two lions hunting a stag in a wood, probably to
denote the nature of one of the countries conquered by the king. From
the animals portrayed, particularly the double-humped camel, and the elephant,
which, from the size of the ear and other distinctive characteristics, is evidently
of the Indian, and not of the African species, the obelisk appears to com
memorate the conquest of nations far to the east of Assyria, extending to
the Indian peninsula.
" It would appear that the inscription on the obelisk records in brief
and terse phraseology, the annals of thirty-two years of Shalmaneser's reign,
and twenty-five successful campaigns against the nations and tribes bordering
on the Assyrian empire, including the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Armenians,
1 2 Kings x. 32.

ft I%fe; »[ii

' H. CATENACCKOEi

il

> -

!

m ,. ...,

il I

ill1! iii ¦
II) llljlllll!

1 I
;' I'll III r

the black obelisk, age of shalmaneser and jehu.

NINEVITE BAS-RELIEFS.

Hittites, and the people of Damascus, and other parts of Syria ; and the
monarch claims to have received tribute from the cities of Tyre and Sidon,
and from the Israelites. Amongst the royal names belonging to this period,
which are familiar to us from their mention in the Bible, two are found in
the inscription, that of Hazael, king of Syria, and of Jehu, king of Samaria,
who is called the son, probably meaning the descendant, of Omri. The
city of Samaria is termed, after a common Eastern figure of speech, ' Beth
Omri,' the house of Omri, after its founder. Jehu is declared to have sent
tribute, consisting principally of gold and silver in bars, and vessels in the
precious metals, to Shalmaneser ; and two of the bas-reliefs on the obelisk
are believed (though this Mr. Layard doubts) to represent the chief ambas
sador of Jehu prostrating himself before the Assyrian king, and Israelites
bearing the various objects of tribute sent by him to Nineveh." x
Other bas-reliefs speak for themselves, and, quaint as are the designs,
without any pretence of perspective or proportion, the vividness with which
they convey their impression is hardly surpassed by anything in modern art.
And, after all, is not the value of any pictorial representation, as a medium
of conveying knowledge, to be measured by its impression on the beholder's
mind, rather than by any abstract considerations ? These pictures tell their
story — so far, at least, the artist's aim was fulfilled. He did not mean us to
believe in literal truth that a king was three times as large as a common
man, but such was his way of intimating greatness. The symbolic beings
introduced among the representations of actual living creatures, as in the
remarkable sea-piece given on a subsequent page, serve a similar purpose.
The powers of the universe were on the side of the Assyrian warriors.
Some delineations again are strikingly realistic. In the subjoined
representation of a siege, for instance, on slabs discovered by Mr.
Layard at Nimroud, the attack and defence are given with a wonderful vivid
ness. The upper compartment at the right-hand corner shows us the king
himself discharging an arrow against the castle. He is protected before
and behind by warriors with uplifted shields, while a eunuch in the back
ground holds his mace and quiver. Farther in front soldiers are discharging
from a tower their arrows against the castle, which in its turn is valorously
defended. A battering-ram is placed against the wall, and a breach is
already made. To the left is seen an Assyrian warrior driving away three
women, a child, and three bullocks, as part of the spoil. The women are
casting dust upon their heads, in token of humiliation and grief. In the
next compartment of the picture the king again appears, with an attendant
warrior interposing a buckler between the monarch and the enemy, and two
eunuchs, one of whom holds over the king's head what appears a kind of
umbrella. The fight is here actively raging. A soldier is mounting to the
fortress by a scaling-ladder, another is entering by a breach or secret passage
1 Nineveh and its Remains, pp. 245-7.

THE LAND OF THE EAST; ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.

beneath, the dead and wounded are falling from the walls, and a bird of
prey hovering above anticipates his dreadful feast. On the lower compart
ment the subject is repeated from another point of view. The besiegers on
one side are effecting a breach in the walls with their spears, while archers

H.CATENACCI.DEL

O.BRUX, SC.

BATTLE-PIECE, FROM NINEVEH.

above are endeavouring to prevent them ; women on the tower are tearing
their hair in anguish ; in another direction the assailants are hurled from the
walls ; a battering-ram is being plied, steadied from below by warriors with
grappling-irons, while the defenders, by a chain let down from the wall above,
are endeavouring to catch the ram, so as to break its force. The vizier

REPRESENTATION OF A SIEGE : FROM NIMROUD.

NINEVITE BAS-RELIEFS.

appears to be in command of this division of the besieging army, and is
discharging an arrow, protected, like the king, by a buckler held in front.
A chariot is in waiting, probably for the monarch himself, and is attended
by two soldiers, each bearing a bow and a mace.
No attempt is made to depict the multitudes mingling in the fray,
still less to represent objects in their relative dimensions, individuals only
are selected, the rest is left to the imagination ; every figure, every attitude,
being fraught with a wonderful suggestiveness, and telling their own story
with singular power.
Another sketch that we give from a broken slab (p. 158), represents an

CAPTIVES OF WAR : FROM THE PALACE OF SARDANAPALUS.
engagement in which part of the army are discharging their arrows from the
covert of a grove, part are in the open field. The trees are conventionally
depicted, as in all the Assyrian monuments. The incidents of warfare repre
sented are, in fact, numberless. A favourite subject is the carrying away of
captives— men, women, and cattle; the prisoners bearing gifts in their hands,
indicating the country from which they bring their tribute. The animals
included in the spoil are often most graphically portrayed, as in the above
illustration. Another accompaniment of a triumph was the procession of
musicians and singers who went out to meet the conqueror, as in the sketch
upon the next page, where the variety of feature and the intentness of all
on their work are very noticeable. 6i

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
Many of the illustrations depict scenes of great cruelty, especially in the
treatment of captives taken in war. These are shown as slain with the
sword, impaled, flayed alive, in presence of the haughty monarch. Such
representations Avere especially numerous in the remains of the great palace
at Kouyunjik, identified by inscriptions as that of Sennacherib. Here, too,
was discovered the record of this king's expedition against Judaea, in striking
confirmation of the Scripture account. Sir H. Rawlinson translates the
inscription thus :
" Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke,
I came up against him, and, by force of arms and by the might of my
power, I took forty-six of his fenced cities ; and of the smaller towns which
were scattered about I took and plundered a countless number. And from
these places I captured and carried off as spoil two hundred thousand, one
hundred and fifty people, old and young, male and female, together with
horses and mares, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude.
And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE, NINEVEH.
in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks
of earth against the gates so as to prevent escape. . . . Then upon this
Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and he sent out to
me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem, with thirty talents of gold and
eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a rich and immense
booty. . . . All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, the seat of my
government, Hezekiah having sent them by way of tribute, and as a token
of his submission to my power." 1
Let us compare . this with the Scripture narrative.2 " Now in the
fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come
up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. And Hezekiah
king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have
offended ; return from me : that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And
the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred
talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the

162

1 Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 435.

2 Kings xviii. 13-16.

HEZEKIAH AND SENNACHERIB.

silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the
kino-'s house. At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors
of the Temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of
Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria."
The amount of gold in the tribute is the same in both records ; that
of the silver is possibly exaggerated by Sennacherib, or it may be, as
Mr. Layard suggests, that the Bible statement includes only the silver
currency, the Assyrian account adding to this the weight of the ornaments
stripped from the Temple. But the coincidence between the two becomes
yet more remarkable as we proceed. There are the customary representa
tions in the bas-reliefs, of the victorious monarch, the humiliated, bound, and
tortured prisoners, and above the king's head, the inscription, "Sennacherib,
the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of
judgment, before the city of Lachish (Lakhisha), I give permission for its
slaughter." Now we find from the sacred narrative that this very city of
Lachish was singled out as the main point of Sennacherib's attack, in his
march upon Judaea. "He laid siege to it, and all his power with him."
He himself remained there, as his headquarters, when he sent his envoys
to Jerusalem.1 And in the sculptures which are now to be seen in the
British Museum, Sennacherib himself is represented as seated on his throne
and receiving the submission of the inhabitants of the city, whilst he had
sent his generals to demand the payment of the tribute from Hezekiah.
The defenders of the castle walls, and the prisoners tortured and crouching
at the conqueror's feet, are Jews, and the sculptor has evidently endeavoured
to indicate the peculiar physiognomy of the race, and the dress of the
people. "The value of this discovery," continues Mr. Layard, "can scarcely
be overrated. Whilst we have thus the representation of an event recorded
in the Old Testament, of which consequently these bas-reliefs furnish a most
interesting and important illustration, they serve, to a certain extent, to test
the accuracy of the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions, and to remove
any doubt that might still exist as to the identification of the king who
built the palace on the mound of Kouyunjik with the Sennacherib of
Scripture. Had these bas-reliefs been the only remains dug up from the
ruins of Nineveh, the labour of the explorer would have been amply
rewarded, and the sum expended by the nation in the excavations more
than justified They furnish, together with the inscriptions which they
illustrate, and which are also now deposited in the national collection, the
most valuable contemporary historical record possessed by any museum in
the world They may be said to be the actual manuscripts, caused to be
written or carved by the principal actor in the events which it relates.
Who would have believed it probable or possible, before these discoveries
. See 2 Chron. xxxii. 9 J 2 Kings xviii. 1 7 ; xix. 8 j and Isa. xxxvi. 2 ; xxxvii. 8.
M 2 "*

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
were made, that beneath the heap of earth and rubbish which marked the
site of Nineveh, there would be found the history of the wars between
Hezekiah and Sennacherib, written at the very time when they took place
by Sennacherib himself, and confirming even in minute details the Biblical
record ? He who would have ventured to predict such a discovery would
have been treated as a dreamer or an impostor. Had it been known that
such a monument really existed, what sum would have been considered too
great for the precious record ? " x
Many delineations of battles and sieges refer to peoples and places that
cannot now be identified — suggesting the vastness of the vanished annals of
the world. Among these representations, some of the most remarkable are
those which depict scenes of naval warfare, on the two great rivers, or the
broad lagoons formed by their overflowing waters, or on the sea itself.
One, from Khorsabad, now among the bas-reliefs in the Louvre, is here
represented. The sea is indicated by the curved lines conventionally used
to represent waves, as well as by the fish and turtles. The symbolic beings,
suggestive of the supernatural powers aiding the Assyrians, include the
Chaldean fish-god, Oannes, kindred with the Dagon of the Philistines, half
man, half fish.2 "A castle stands on the shore, and the ships are employed
in bringing planks and beams of wood, to form an artificial approach, by which
the besiegers may reach the walls. Some of these planks are dragged, at
the stern of the vessels, by ropes : others are on deck."
It will be seen that the bas-reliefs and the inscriptions are mainly
occupied by warlike deeds. "I, the king, crossed the Euphrates (always a
main point of the achievement), and marched against such and such cities
and overthrew them. Then came out against me such a king, and I slew
him, and made his people slaves. None could stand against me. I killed
ten thousand in this place, and in that led fifty thousand into slavery. I
carried off great stores of gold and silver, also of sheep and goats, camels
and oxen. I built cities and placed men therein" — and so on. The words
of the inspired historian 3 read like the echo of some Ninevite inscription :
" In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried
Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the
river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." "The king of Assyria
brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath,
and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the
children of Israel : and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof."
One point is very noticeable. Unlike the Biblical records, the Assyrian monu
ments chronicle only victories, real or pretended ; they do not acknowledge
defeat ; and although indications are thought to have been found of some
such disaster as that which we know from Scripture carried off the army
of Sennacherib, there is only the slightest indication, if any, of the catastrophe.
1 Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 50-52. ' See I Sam. v. 4, margin. 3 2 Kings xvii. 6, 24.
I64

SEA-PIECE ; FROM NINEVEH. BEARING PLANKS FOR BESIEGING WORKS.

NINEVITE BAS-RELIEFS AND TABLETS.

Next to the war came the chase, as might be expected in the king
dom founded by a mighty hunter. Some, though not many, scenes of
ordinary social and civil life are represented ; agriculture also has its represen
tation, in which the forms of trees and plants, and the general aspects of
nature, are strangely but expressively conventionalized. Religion, apart from
the deification of the sovereign, and the use of a few great and well-defined
symbols, has but an inconsiderable place in these monuments.1 Legends of
the wildest mythological character abound in the inscriptions ; allegories,
perhaps, in the first instance, hardened into facts ; while some contain in
dubitable traces of the primeval history corrupted by tradition, as in the
Chaldean accounts of the Creation and the Deluge, first discovered by the
late Mr. G. Smith in the inscribed clay tablets at Kouyunjik.
The former, so far as legible, has been translated by Mr. H. Fox
Talbot,2 and contains some noticeable coincidences with the sacred record,
especially in reference to the institution of the Sabbath. From the fifth
tablet we subjoin a few lines :
" The moon He appointed to rule the night,
and to wander through the night, until- the dawn of day.
Every month without fail He made holy assembly-days.
In the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,
it shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.
On the seventh day He appointed a holy day,
and to cease from all business He commanded.
Then arose the sun in the horizon of heaven in [glory]."
But the tablets containing the story of the Deluge are of a yet deeper-
interest. Seven out of the original twelve have been deciphered, not without
great difficulty, and have been found to contain a legendary poem, dealing
with the life and exploits of a hero whose name is read by Mr. Smith as
Izdubar, and who may be identified with Nimrod. He is represented as
having lived soon after the Flood, the centre of his exploits being Urukh,
undoubtedly the city called Erech in the Mosaic account,3 where it is
mentioned next to Babel. After a life of great deeds and many conquests,
the hero falls under the dread of death, and seeks the patriarch Sisit
(evidently the Xisithrus of Berosus— the Chaldsean Noah), who had been
translated to a deathless life, to learn from him the secret of immortality.
In the reply of Sisit the story of the Deluge is related, with a multitude
of imaginative and mythological details, but containing most remarkable
accordances with the inspired history, down to minute particulars, such as
the stranding of the ark upon the mountain-side, and the sending forth of the
raven and the dove. The legend, with a fac-simile of two of the tablets,
1 See Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. part 2, ch. vii. for a valuable sketch of the Assyrian religion.
2 See Records of the Past, vol. ix. p. 115. 3 Gen. x. 10.
J 167

THE LAND OF THE EAST: ARARAT, BABYLON, NINEVEH.
will be found in Dr. W. H. Rule's Biblical Monuments} The learned
editor well says :
"The historic substance is clearly discernible through the mythic
shadows, just as indelible original writing is discerned on the page of a
palimpsest. Here, read it as you may, we have ' the seed of life ' preserved
in the ark, ready to be sown upon the void waste of a new world, that
man, and beast, and bird may not eventually perish. , Here is a confession,
written five thousand years ago, that the population of the world was
drowned for sin — that death is a penalty inflicted on mankind for sin — that
man is unclean, but may be purified — mortal, but may attain to immortality.
As to the facts recorded by the heaven-instructed writer of the Pentateuch,
we see them reflected in the tradition of the Chaldaeans, known to be
worshippers of an uncreated God. A floating ship stranded on a mountain
side. A good man abiding safely amidst the thundering, the flood, the
tempest. A good man seated happy and thankful under the serene heavens,
after the calming of the winds and the quieting of the ocean. The voice
of Hea assuring him of peace. Sacrifice offered upon a newly-erected altar
on the mountain-peak, and the great God in brightness passing over it.
The seventh day, once and again distinguished by tokens of mercy; a light
and joy, with communion between God and man restored. The sacrifice is
accepted, and the covenant is made ! "
1 Published at Croydon, 1871-3, pp. 169, 170.

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PROMONTORY AND TEMPLE OF SUNIUM.

"THE \$UZ$ OP THE QENTIEEg."

Westward the course of empire takes its way." Whatever worth these
words of Bishop Berkeley may have as a presage for the future,
they are certainly a compendium of the past. The East was the home of
ancient empire; but the world's civilisation, intelligence, commerce, power,
seem ever to have travelled towards the setting sun. A thought of the same
kind was evidently before the Hebrew seers. Across the purple waters of
the " Great Sea " their wistful gaze was bent upon the great mysterious
West ; and the promise of new triumphs for the kingdom of righteousness lay
somehow hidden behind its sea-girt shores. For "the islands," in the
language of the Psalms and Prophets, denoted all maritime lands,1 in distinction
from the vast and terrible East, separated from Israel by the Great Desert.
We must not then think only of the ^Egean and its archipelago, of Cyprus
and of Crete, when we read the invocation to the " multitude of isles " to
rejoice in the glories of the coming kingdom. The inspired poet utters his
summons to the whole western world. Here were the islands that were to
"wait for" Jehovah's "law," and to "declare His praise;" to witness His
mighty acts, to bring their "presents" to His feet, and to submit to His
universal rule.2
In this respect, as in others, the New Testament shows the predictions
1 See Isa. xx. 6 ; xxiii. 2, 6 j Ezek. xxvii. 7 ; Jer. *xv- 22 {margin).
'- See Ps. lxxii. io; xcvii. I ; Isa. xiii. lo, 12 ; xlix. 1 ; Ii. 5 ; 1*. 9 ; J«. xxxi. 10, etc The phrase Isles of he
Gentiles," is taken from Gen. x. 5 ; where it applies to the regions colonised by the descendants of Japheth, i.e., to the
whole western world. I7I

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

of the Old accomplished, but in a very unexpected way. The " islands of
the Gentiles " were to witness the full disclosure of the truths which shone
at the best but darkly upon Jerusalem when it was the joy of all the earth.
When the West first set forth to conquer the East, the occasion
furnished a worthy subject for the poems that were to become the great
epic of the world. But what new Iliad could adequately set forth the
sublime issues that lay hidden in that expedition which crossed the sea
between the Trojan and the Grecian shores, reversing the course of
Agamemnon and Achilles, but intent on a nobler conquest ? The former
expedition was fabled to be in accordance with the monition of the gods ;
the latter we know was prompted by a heaven-sent dream.
" Come over into Macedonia, and help us." In this cry from Europe lay
the secret of all its future greatness. None knew it then,— not the nations,
unconscious of the power that was on its way to bless and save them ; not
the heralds of the Gospel themselves, who "were not disobedient to the
heavenly vision." All that they had to do was to obey the mandate that
so strangely crossed their own desires. For it is evident from the history
that Paul and his comrades had thought only of extending their work in
Asia Minor, attempting one province after another ; Proconsular Asia, Mysia,
Bithynia — fain to urge their way inland by one or another path, but mys
teriously withheld from all — hurried, by impulses which they could not
comprehend, past all these inviting fields of labour, until at last they found
themselves at Troas, in the north-west corner of the land, with nothing before
them but the Mediterranean waters, and the fair countries all left behind
which they had longed to evangelise. But then, in the vision of the " man
of Macedonia " the meaning of all this was seen ; and joyfully did they
launch forth upon the waters, bearing unconsciously the destinies of nations
and the hopes of mankind in those words which first of all they simply
spoke to a few women in a little Jewish oratory by the sea-side ! Out of
that expedition, and those words, Christendom arose ; and because of them,
England, America, Australia are great to-day.
These remembrances give to our visit to Eastern Europe a strange, sad
fascination. For not more pathetic than the ruins of classic greatness are the
vestiges of apostolic teaching. Throughout Macedonia, and "round about
unto Illyricum," the name of the Christ is blasphemed by those who still
hold sway over these unhappy lands ; and even where professedly honoured,
it is amid the perversions of a corrupt creed and of ignorant worship. And
yet there is hope that once again the word of the Lord shall be "sounded
out" in "Macedonia and Achaia."
Meanwhile we pass with a divided interest from scene to scene. No
journey could, in idea, be more fascinating than one which should follow the
track of the Apostle Paul, with a view also to the classic associations of the
scenes he visited — associations which yet seemed to be so little to him. We

TRAVELS OF ST. PAUL.

can afford to admire the grandeur and the beauty of ancient art, in the relics
which survive, whether in the Elgin Marbles in our own Museum, or where

MOSQUE OF SALONICA.

they more appropriately stand beneath the blue skies of their ancient home :
for to us the art is all ; the spirit that once gave meaning to statue and
column has passed away. But to the eye of the apostle all was different.

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

His Jewish training and his Christian convictions alike made him feel that
these were symbols, unutterably hateful, of a dark and evil power. Face to
face with a living, all-pervading, all-corrupting idolatry, he could have no
thought or sentiment to spare for the beauty of its emblems. Pallas Athene
was to him but the embodiment of the wisdom that "cometh to nought."
Zeus was the stormy and insolent defier of the Most High ; Aphroditd was a
dark, seductive demon. It is hard for us to enter into the intensity of scorn with
which he wrote such words as these ; in a superficial sense how contradictory,
in their deepest meaning how harmonious and true! — "The things which the
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God ;" and yet " An idol
is nothing in the world." The classical Christian student in the nineteenth
century has his spirit "stirred within him" as he visits these renowned shores;

SALONICA.

so had the great teacher of the first; but for a very different reason— he
saw not the achievements of intellect or the glories of art, but the cities
" full of idols."
Of the two Macedonian towns in which Paul found some of his fastest
friends, Thessalonica only remains in anything like importance. Philippi is
a ruin, notable chiefly for four massive pillars, which anciently marked the
angles of the forum or "market-place," where the apostle and his com
panion Silas were scourged.1 There too, "by a river-side," may be traced
the remains of a triumphal arch, erected to commemorate the victory over
Brutus and Cassius, a.d. 42. Near this, in all likelihood, was the oratory or
proseucha of the Jews, in which the messengers of the Gospel opened their
commission. It is something to stand, at any rate, within sight and sound
1 Acts xvi. 19-23.

THESSALONICA.

of the place where Christ was first preached in Europe ! But Salonica (as
the former city is now called), from its position at the head of the gulf,
and the railway which already runs a considerable distance inland, and, if
peaceful times should ensue, will eventually be connected with the system' of
South-eastern Europe— may become a great and prosperous port. The view
of the town from the sea is very imposing ; the white buildings with their
slender minarets rising in a compact mass steeply from a foreground of dark

Af-irt't- HOTHLIU-

WOMEN OF SALONICA.

cypresses between the purple sea and the green hills. A closer visit dispels the
romance of the scene, and introduces the visitor to close and squalid streets,
inhabited for the most part by a poverty-stricken population. In Thessa-
lonica at the apostolic era was "the synagogue of the Jews"1 for the whole
district ; and it is noteworthy that, to this day, of the sixty thousand in
habitants, one-half are said to be of the Israelitish race.2 There is little trace
in Thessalonica of the faith which on "three" memorable "Sabbath days"

Acts :

2 Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 227.

"THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES?

was proclaimed in that synagogue. Many Christian churches once existed
there, but these are mostly converted into mosques ; the " work of faith, and
labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ," which so
distinguished the Thessalonians, have passed away, or " turned to profit
other-where ;" and it is with saddened feelings that we turn from the scene
which the earliest of St. Paul's epistles must make classic to the Church for
evermore. The sail down the Gulf of Salonica to the Piraeus, the port of Athens,
is of extraordinary charm. The blue sky, the purple waters, the Thessalian
shore, into which the Vale of Tempe opens between magnificent wooded
cliffs, while Olympus, Ossa, Pelion, successively rise into view; the in
numerable islands, dark green with verdure, with gleaming white buildings
seen from far, continually changing their relative position as the swift steamer
ploughs its way, so as to yield ever-new combinations of form and colour,
give a succession of pictures that long abide among our choicest memories of
beautiful things.
.We reach the Piraeus probably by the very track that Paul pursued
when he was sent away from Bercea to go by sea to Athens j1 we land where
he landed, but in a modern town with few or no memorials as yet to be
seen of ancient times. As we step upon the quay of Porto Leone, as the
place is now called, it is not only the name that reminds us of an Italian
seaport ; and when we go up into the town, with its regular streets, the
white-fronted houses with their sun-blinds, the noisy chatter of the porters
and drivers, and, alas ! the odours that meet us at every turn, the illusion
is confirmed. Only the costumes of the people remind us that we are
farther east. But our time is limited, and we must secure a guide. His
name is Miltiades ; and as he is a master of languages we have no difficulty.
He takes us to some ruins which do not interest us much— a temple
and a theatre, of course. We are more anxious to see the remains of the
"Long Walls" built by Themistocles, which played so important a part in
Athenian history ; and here, in rough and crumbling masonry, they may
very well be traced. Had we time, we might visit the tomb of Themistocles
himself; or might climb the "rocky brow" from which Xerxes watched the
battle of Salamis. But Miltiades tells us that all this would take three
hours at least, and we are anxious to proceed to Athens. Two ways are
open — a drive along the white dusty road in the track of the Long Walls,
or a railway ride of six or seven miles. We prefer the latter, and are soon
at the Athens station, whence we take a cab to an hotel.
Descriptions of Athens are now so numerous that we need not add them
here. The strangest thing of all perhaps is the language. College Qreek is
useless, at least as pronounced ; by writing something may be done, since the
modern is not essentially different from the ancient ; and, as Professor Blackie
1 Acts xvii. 14, 15.
176

ANCIENT AND MODERN GREEK.

is never tired of insisting, Greek is a living language. The newspapers are
not difficult to understand, although it is very amusing to see modern names
and references to passing occurrences set forth in " the letters Cadmus gave."
There is a decided tendency among educated Greeks to the restoration of
ancient forms and idioms ; and it is not impossible that the original New
Testament should again become a book familiar to the people. As it is, the
Romaic or modern Greek translation has considerable currency. There is,

QUAY OF THE PIRAEUS.
it is said, a theatre, fairly well supported, in which ^schylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides are played in their own resounding Greek; although without the
tragic masks, or the altar of Bacchus, and with a sadly diminished chorus.
Let no Oxonian or Cambridge student, however, make his way thither,
hoping to catch on their native ground the words and tones so familiar
to Tim in the class-room! "They who speak" would be truly "to him
barbarians," and he much more a barbarian to them.
"It was delightful," writes Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1869, to hear

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

Greek treated as a living language, and to gather new illustrations of its
genius every day from newspapers, debates, songs, and even from advertise
ments and street cries. Owing to the lamentable waste of time caused by
our antiquated mode of teaching Greek in England, the study itself is in
danger ; but our boys would go further in a month than they now do in a
year, if, instead of plodding over grammar and grinding iambics, they learned
Greek as they do French and Hindustani, in which they might have the
assistance of carefully-selected masters from the University of Athens, who
would teach it in the spirit of a modern language."
But enough of the language, our readers will say. Let us walk through
the city, after taking a cup of coffee at the restaurant nearest our hotel.
The cafe bears the name of Solon. Hence we stroll down Hermes Street,
and recross the city by ^Eolus Street, and thus far again feel that we might
almost be in Italy, save for the inscriptions over the shops, which are a never-
ending amusement to two or three bright schoolboys who have joined our
party. The talk of the people becomes a little more intelligible ; and as its
meaning clears its music deepens. At length a literary lady from America
exclaims, "This is the most beautiful language I have yet heard in Europe!"
and no one who has travelled through Germany, France, even Italy, seems
disposed to question her assertion.
The Agora at length is reached, the very market-place, no doubt, in
which the apostle "disputed daily with them that met with him." We can
call up in imagination that diminutive figure, in homely Eastern garb, with
eager kindling eye and impassioned gesture, attracting the notice even of the
solemn Stoic, or lounging Epicurean, as he passes by. Then the crowd
gathers ; some listen with attention, but scornfully ; among others a light
laugh goes round; by-and-by, as by one impulse, the listeners cry, To the
hill of Mars ! where there will be space to speak and hear, and they may
enjoy one of their favourite excitements in learning of this "new thing."
We cannot do better than follow their example.
Let us remember, as we turn to this rocky steep, that Paul was no
prisoner, summoned to trial before the court of the Areopagus. The
mistake, we think, is often made. But plainly the movement was simply a
popular one; there was no convening of the august tribunal, and the
marvellous discourse of the apostle was but an exposition. Who that listened
could have thought that these words would abide in the world's remembrance
long after the last echoes of the most famous oratory uttered on that hill
had died into silence, and that the few sentences spoken by the traveller
from a distant land would have more power to stir the hearts of men in
distant ages than all the thunders of Demosthenes ?
The steps, no doubt, by which the apostle was conducted to the platform
of Mars' Hill, are those which still lead up from the Agora, sixteen in
number, worn by age and by the tread of many feet. We are, in fact,

INI

ST. PAUL'S DISCOURSE ON MARS' HILL.

shown by our courteous guide the very spot where St. Paul stood ; but on
this point we may suspend our judgment. It is impossible, however, not to do
as thousands of travellers have done
before, to take out our pocket Testa
ment and read that discourse again :
Ye men of Athens, I perceive
that ye are altogether given to the
worship of supernatural powers.
That last sentence has un
doubtedly a modern ring as thus
put ; but it can scarcely be helped.
The apostle certainly did not offend
his hearers at starting by affirming
them to be "too superstitious." Nor,
as certainly, did he compliment them
by describing them in any true sense
as " very-religious." He simply notes
the fact, they were filled with rever
ence for unseen powers. To adopt
a phrase more modern still, the "sense
of the supernatural" was strong
within them.
For as I passed by and beheld
your objects of worship (not " devo
tions" in the modern application of
the word) / found an altar with this inscription, To A God Unknown. Whom,
therefore, ye worship in ignorance, Him declare I unto you.
There was no definite thought of any particular deity before the
Athenian mind : " The unknown God :" still less was there any intention of
acknowledging that, after all, the true God remained undiscovered by them ;
the expression was general in its reference: "Whatever God there be whom
we know not, we desire to do Him homage." And on this hint the apostle
speaks to the Athenians and to the ages.
As we gaze around upon the columns and temples visible from
this spot, we feel anew what force must have winged the apostle's words.
Nowhere in the world, except, perhaps, at Ephesus, did statelier temple
rise than that built by Pericles to Pallas Athene, the virgin goddess, full
in view ; while the vast temple of the Olympian Zeus below, begun by
Peisistratus, stood in its stupendous proportions yet incomplete, as if waiting
to be made at last a fitting shrine to the ruler of the heavens. " The temple
of the Eumenides was immediately below him; the Parthenon of Minerva
facing him above. Their presence seemed to challenge the assertion in which
he declared here, on ovk iv xeipoTron-jTois KaroLKcl 6 ©eos, that in Temples
:83

MARS' HILL, ATHENS.

THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

made by hands the Deity does not dwell. In front of him, towering over
the city from its pedestal on the rock of the Acropolis, as the Borromean
Colossus, which at this day with outstretched hand gives its benediction to
the low village of Arona, or as the brazen statue of the armed angel, which
from the summit of the Castel S. Angelo, spreads its wings on the city of
Rome, was the bronze Colossus of Minerva, armed with spear, shield and
helmet, as the Champion of Athens. Standing almost beneath its shade, he
pronounced, that the Deity was not to be likened either to that, the work
of Phidias, nor to other forms in gold, silver, or stone, graven by art and
man's device, which peopled the scene before him.
" The remark therefore which has been well made x on the skilful adaption
of St. Paul's oration to the audience which he was addressing, is equally
applicable to its perfect congruity with the place in which he was addressing
them. Nothing could present a grander, and if we may so speak, a more
picturesque and scenic illustration of his subject, than the objects with which
he was surrounded. In this respect, Nature and Reality painted, at the
time and on the spot, a nobler cartoon of St. Paul's preaching at Athens
than the immortal Raffaelle has since done." 2
Pointing, it may be, to these temples, as well as to altars rich with gold
and gems, the gifts of thousands, then to the blue heavens that overarched
the scene, and the fair landscape that stretched into the purple distance
below, the messenger of truth declares :
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord
of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; neither is
worshipped with mens hands, as though He needed any thing.
With what wonderful skill he then touches upon the exclusiveness charac
teristic of the Athenians, declaring that God has made all nations "of one
blood ;" hastening at once to suppress any rising indignation at so noble
a sentiment by the quotation from "certain of their own poets" — most
exquisite of compliments from a foreigner to a literary people !
" It was a citation," says Mr. Lewin, in his Life and Epistles of St.
Paul,3 "not of a poet, but of poets; for both Aratus and Cleanthes had
expressed the same sentiment. The reader may be curious to see the
originals, for passages that made an impression on the mind of an apostle
can be of no ordinary character. Aratus, a Cilician, and therefore a fellow-
countryman of the apostle, opens his poem (the Phenomena) thus :
' From Jove begin we — who can touch the string
And not harp praise to Heaven's eternal King?
He animates the mart and crowded way,
The restless ocean, and the sheltered bay;
Doth care perplex? Is lowering danger nigh?
We are His offspring, and to Jove we fly.'
1 By Bentley. Sermon ii. pp. 177, 178. • Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 77.
3 Vol. i. pp. 264, 265. Mr. Lewin gives both passages in the original Greek, quoting \heHymn of Cleanthes inextenso.
184

h\

ATHENIAN ANTIQUITIES: ARCH OF HADRIAN.

"And Cleanthes begins his sublime Hymn to Jupiter - thus :
' Most glorious of the gods, immortal Jove !
Supreme on earth beneath, in heaven above !
Thou great first Cause, whose word is Nature's law,
Before thy throne we mortals bend with awe ;
For we thine offspring are. To man is given —
To man alone — to lift a voice to heaven.' "
The inference is irresistible, and in the majesty of the spiritual truth
enunciated, even the splendours of art that surrounded the scene must have
sunk for the time to their proper place in the esteem of the apostle's
hearers : —
We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or
stone, graven by art and man's device.
Emboldened then by his theme, the speaker ventures to speak, here, in
the metropolis of the world's intellect, of the accepted belief as mere
ignorance, only to be let pass until a purer faith should dawn ! Thus does
he introduce the evangelical application of his argument, the call to repentance
and the Gospel of the resurrection, so closing, with as exquisite a tact as
that with which he had begun, what was, "perhaps the most extensively
and permanently effective oration ever uttered by man." 1
The impression of the whole wonderful discourse is revived and confirmed
as we read the words where they are spoken, while the surrounding scene
supplies a commentary to every clause. An honest Yorkshire squire at
our side exclaims, "Well, I wish all unbelievers could only come here!
How could any one ever doubt the truth of the Scriptures after this ? "
The feeling was natural ; and we had no heart to remind our friend that
the grounds of infidelity lie too deep to be removed, even by a scene like
the present, in which the words so familiar to us all become again a living
voice !
We .are piloted through other antiquities ; mounting to the Acropolis,
from whose rocky platform we look down upon very modern buildings indeed,
the most prominent being the big white palace of the king, made classic by
marble colonnades against its stuccoed walls. The scene beyond is very
desolate and arid. We cannot forbear the old quotation :
"'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more."
Among the ruins of the Temple of Zeus, some festivities are being
held — it may be, traditional games, instituted long ago in honour of the
Grecian " king of the gods," but with another meaning given to them
now. But we have no time at present to inquire, and pass on to the
Arch of Hadrian, commemorating an altogether different period in the history
of Athens. That Roman monarch had great dreams of an Eastern empire,
1 Dean Milman, History of Christianity, book ii. ch. 3. 187

THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

and as we know attempted to rebuild and re-name Jerusalem itself as a
centre of his power. But Ailia Capitolina is forgotten, and el-Khuds, " the
Holy " is still the name, most expressive, yet most mournful, by which the

TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF HADRIAN.

ancient '• city of God " is known. The emperor was more successful with
Athens, and his memorials here are many— chiefly this very beautiful
triumphal arch, of white marble from Pentelicus, with finely proportioned

MISSIONARY WORK IN ATHENS.

Corinthian columns in the upper part of the structure, and pilasters of the
same order supporting the arch beneath.
We cross the Ilissus — how insignificant a stream compared with our
youthful imaginings ! — and come upon a vast excavation, with parallel sides
sloping upwards, ending in a semicircle with tiers of seats. This is the
Panathenaic Stadium; and here an attempt was made in 1875 to revive the
ancient Greek Games. But somehow the old excitement and glow could not
be called up to order, and it is uncertain, while we write, that the experiment
will ever be repeated. The old Greece, with its culture, its habits, and its
pleasures, is not to be restored ; but there is hope yet that a new and
nobler era may arise for a people so gifted and so versatile. As it is, their
very religion degrades them ; and the secret of " Hellenic revival " must be
sought, not only in a rectified frontier, but in a purer faith.
Happily some wise and well-directed efforts are already made in this
direction. American missions have been carried on in Athens for many years;
and their two chief representatives, Dr. Kalopothakes and the Rev. G.
Constantine, are indefatigably at work, especially in the diffusion of a pure
literature among the people ; aided to a large extent by the Religious Tract
Society. For this there is every facility; and the eagerness of all classes for
education, and for something to read, is greatly in favour of such efforts.
Mr. Constantine is engaged in publishing a Commentary on the original text
of the New Testament, in modern Greek ; and in this most interesting task,
so far as it is completed, he has, according to the best judges, achieved a
high measure of success. Other books whose names are familiar to ourselves
are largely circulated in Greek,— the Pilgrims Progress, of course, with
Baxter's Saint's Rest, and Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted. The progress
of sceptical opinions in modern times has made the translation and pub
lication of Butler's Analogy most timely, and this also has had a fair amount
of acceptance. Some periodicals, treating of subjects of general interest with
definite evangelical teaching, are largely circulated, notably the Alheuais, The
Star of the East, and the Child's Paper. Juvenile literature is a strong point
of these missions, and thousands of children are weekly and monthly reached
by tracts, stories, picture-books, and simple hymns. It is not a little amusing
to find our early favourites, " Let dogs delight," "How doth the little busy
bee," etc., clothed in all the dignity of Greek lyric verse! But thus the
seeds of truth are sown, while provision is made for the needs of all.
Few facts in the condition of modern Greece are more striking than
the eagerness of the people for education. Sir C. E. Trevelyan, whose words
we have already quoted, says:
"A long day spent among the educational institutions of Athens made
a deep impression upon me. In England we are discussing compulsory
education (This was written in 1869.) In Greece a comprehensive system

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

of public instruction has been established in the last thirty years by the
voluntary co-operation of all classes of people. Young men come to Athens
from every part of Greece and Turkey, and serve for their keep as domestic

•z,MX
WH
<a

gsa
&

servants or clerks, on condition that they are permitted to attend the classes
at the Gymnasium or University. The number of persons of mature age,
including several young priests, who were standing among the boys, was an

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ATHENS.

unmistakeable indication of the prevailing spirit. The most hopeful sign of
all is the Arsakion, at which nearly one thousand girls of every class
receive an excellent education. It is divided into several departments,
beginning with an infant school. According to the genius of the nation, no
distinction is allowed in education. The children of rich and poor attend
the primary schools ; but the children of the rich are able to complete their
education at the University or in the highest class of the Arsakion. Young
men who have to enter early upon active life, seldom go beyond the highest
class of the Gymnasium of their district. This, however, is no vulgar
levelling feeling, for, although it suffices to secure equality before the law,
and in the enjoyment of educational and every other national advantage,
including a perfectly open career in the public service, there is no country
where families which have established a claim upon the national gratitude are
more respected than they are in Greece.
" The large private donations and bequests for the establishment of
educational and other public institutions, are so remarkable a feature of
modern Greece, that a full statement of them would leave no doubt as to
the national unity of this race, in whatever part of the world they may
happen to be sojourning. Even the passing stranger cannot fail to see signs
of a prevailing spirit of munificence. A beautiful new Academy of Arts,
Sciences, and Belles-Lettres, and a Polytechnic School, including a new
National Museum, are rising by the side of the University, both of them
gifts of patriotic Greeks.
" When the pupils in the male and female schools have been sufficiently
matured in the language as it is actually spoken, the charming popular style
of Xenophon is impressed upon them ; and the patronesses of our ladies'
colleges will be glad to hear that Thukydeedes (BoukuSiSijs), as they call
him, is read by the most advanced pupils of the Arsakion."
In one thing we are amusingly reminded of more modern cities, as we
pass through the streets of Athens. The excursion season has set in, and
the charms of the several trips are set forth, polyglot fashion, most
seductively. Who would not be attracted by an invitation to Marathon ;
" there and back in one day," " good guides and steady horses ? " The
distance is about twenty-two miles, and the grave of the one hundred and
ninety-two Athenians who fell upon the field is still there— a tumulus by the
sea. Or we can go to " Sunium's marbled steep," sad and solitary now; or
to Eleusis with its ruins ; or to Hymettus, where the bees murmur as of old ;
or to Mount Pentelicus, where the ancient marble quarries will attract us less
than the glorious view over land and sea. The traveller cannot but be
impressed, as he gazes, by the smallness of the scene which in the world's
history has been so great. Nowhere else on earth is the old lesson more
powerfully enforced of the difference between moral and material greatness.

THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

IttL woi d"5 X r SUS u^ bUt br°°ks' Parnassus is but a K«le hill, all
from rh T °r n°thing in °ne °f the American Western States ; yet
v"is d ."kind tT0" *f *** ^ *™ *** the P™ers wh"
app fed thTth K J ,-re1er maY reC°lleCt h°W fineI^ Dr- Chalmers has
Zet a^d h"^ v * f5tronomkal ^— to the place of our own
for L V , ' ltlGS °f SpaCG- TWs Sma11 world « magnitude counts
of redeZioT T r 7^ ^u^ thr°Ugh the ^-nation^nd the work
ol redemption, in its littleness it becomes sublime
to " BibleVlnd11'^1" A? ICa n6 ^ ** &Pt l° *"«* that OUr ^^ is
to Bible Lands. For, after all, the place of Athens in the Scripture record

CORINTH.

is limited to the narrative of one apostolic visit and address contained in
PrulToThTTh11 X ^Vt X ^tY^ * *« "^ ^« «
i-aul to the Thessalonian Church that he had been left at Athens for some
unknown period, alone.1 We are again reminded that power Is not to be
measured by size; and this brief story has done more to move the lu.hts
of men than volumes and speeches innumerable. Yet a more distinSed
city still in the sacred history is that Corinth, where the apostle 3 a
year and six months" of the most active and brilliant period of hs career
despatching afterwards to the Church there gathered thos'e two lcolP^
letters, which more than any other part of his writings unveil the secret of
I92 ' ' Th6SS' iif- '¦ The subscriptions to I Thess. and 2 Thess. are unauthentic.

CORINTH.

his own life, while disclosing the heights and depths of heavenly truth.
Corinth, in truth, seemed well fitted as a centre of evangelisation to the isles
of the Gentiles. Seated in apparently impregnable strength upon its rocky
isthmus, it commanded the eastern and the western seas. It was the key
of the Peloponnesus, and the natural mart of Northern Greece. Surely it will
revive from its present ruin and desolation !
From Athens the distance to Corinth is inconsiderable, but the road by
land is not safe, owing to the banditti who infest the region ; and another
route is recommended, itself of the highest interest. Starting by steamer
from the Piraeus early in the morning, we reach Kalamiki, a little port on
the eastern side of the isthmus, where it is narrowest. Here carriages and
an escort of soldiers are in waiting, and the drive across the isthmus is
delightful. In less than two hours we have reached a comfortable little
hotel at New Corinth, a small town on the table-land at the foot of the
Acropolis, or Acro-Corinthus, and overlooking the marshy, unhealthy plain.
Here we try to read the letters of the great apostle ; but the right impression
somehow is not to be summoned up. We know that this is his Corinth ; yet
we can hardly reproduce in imagination the fair city, so proud and so dis
solute, in whose streets he walked, gazing on its stately temples, taking note
of its philosophic culture, mourning over its luxurious vices, and determining
to know nothing among the people "save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
The city is all gone now; its "day" has come; its Church has been
"tried by fire," and only the spiritual work abides, in the teaching and
the power of these two wonderful epistles. The solitary ruins on the western
outskirts of the town seem only to render the surrounding desolation more
impressive. Seven Doric columns, once belonging to the front and one side
of a stately temple, still, remain, with fragments of the architrave. This
is all. Learned Hellenists have decided that the temple was that of Athene
Chalinitis, and that it must have been erected at least six centuries before
the Christian era. It is remarkable that although Corinth has given its name
to an order of architecture, there are no "Corinthian" remains in the
neighbourhood ; and the whole scene is as little calculated as any in Greece,
to suggest that this was once the centre of all that was refined in luxury

and exquisite in art.
But the true glory of the place is the Citadel-hill, the Acro-Corinthus,
which towers above the plain to the height of nearly two thousand feet.
In the words of Colonel Mure, " neither the Acropolis of Athens, nor the
Larissa of Argos, nor any of the more celebrated fortresses of Western
Europe-not even Gibraltar-can enter into the remotest competition with
this gigantic citadel. It is one of those objects, more frequently perhaps to
be met with in Greece than in any other country of Europe, of which no
drawing can convey other than a very faint notion. The outline indeed, of
this colossal mass of rugged rock and greensward, interspersed here and

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

there, but scantily, with the customary fringe of shrubs, although from a
distance it enters into fine composition with the surrounding landscape, can
in itself hardly be called picturesque ; and the formal line of embattled
Turkish or Venetian wall which crowns the summit does not set it off to
advantage. Its vast size and height produce the greatest effect as viewed
from the seven Doric columns, standing nearly in the centre of the wilderness
of rubbish and hovels that now mark the site of the city which it formerly
protected." The ascent to the Acro-Corinthus is by a steep rocky path — an
hour's good climb. It is easy to gain access to every part, although the
fortress is garrisoned by a company of soldiers. From its summit, occupied
promiscuously by the old foundations of Grecian fortresses, the remains
of Frankish walls, with traces of Venetian structures, and last of all the
crumbling fortifications of the Turk — all expressively testifying to the attempts
successively made by the powers of the world to secure this as their
citadel — a view of unequalled magnificence is obtained.
The narrow isthmus lies below, with the situation of the two ancient
harbours of Corinth, Lechaeum on the north-western side, Cenchreae on the
south-eastern, clearly indicated. Beyond the headlands of the wild and
broken shore everywhere gleams the deep blue sea. Away to the east,
across the Gulf of Salamis, the Acropolis of Athens shows against the
horizon, with the columns of the Parthenon dimly discernible. Beyond these
rise the summits of Pentelicus and Hymettus : carrying the eye westward we
discern the long ridge of Cithaeron ; and, further to the north, Mount Helicon
and Mount Parnassus. On the side of the peninsula, too, the view is
wonderfully fine, from the promontory of Sicyon, on the Corinthian gulf,
round to Mycenae and the "realm of Argos." Only a broad hill to the
west, the "eyesore of the Acro-Corinthus," as it has been often called,
mars the completeness of this view, which must surely have many a time
revealed to the great apostle's gaze the riches and glory of the classic
world, and sent him down to the city at the mountain's base more strongly
than ever fortified in his resolve to maintain at all hazards, and against all
opponents, the Gospel of the Cross.
Dean Stanley has in a graphic and characteristic passage summed up
the main points of the outward aspect which the city of Corinth presented
at the time of St. Paul.
" From the summit of the Acro-Corinthus, or huge rocky hill at the foot
of which the town was situated, the eye takes in at a glance, what is
slowly conveyed by books, the secret of its importance, as in classical, so
also in sacred history.
"To the right and to the left extend the winding shores of the 'double
sea,' whose blue waters, threading their way through islands and promon
tories innumerable, open to east and west the communication which made it

CORINTH IN NEW TESTAMENT TIMES.

once and again the natural resting-place in the apostle's journeys. From
that little bay at Cenchreae he was to take his departure for Ephesus and
Jerusalem ; up the course of that western gulf lay the direct route to Rome
and to the far West, which even now he hoped to follow, and along which,
at his second visit, he sent his Epistle to the Romans. In front lie the
hills of Northern Greece ; and on the coasts of Attica, discerned by the
glitter of its crown of temples, the Acropolis of Athens, the last scene of
St. Paul's preaching before he crossed the Saronic Gulf. Behind rise the
mountains of Peloponnesus, the highlands of Greece ; into their remote
fastnesses there was no call for the apostle to enter; and accordingly, in
the city which guards their entrance, we see, in all probability, the
southernmost point of his future travels.
"What was the appearance of the city itself we know to a certain
extent from the detailed description of it by Pausanias one hundred years
later. At present one Doric temple alone remains of all the splendid edifices
then standing; but the immediate vicinity presents various features to which
the apostle's allusions have given an immortal interest. The level plain
and the broken gullies of the isthmus are still clothed with the low pine,
which can still be identified by its modern name (nevK-q), from whose
branches of emerald green were woven the garlands for the Isthmian games,
contrasted by the apostle with the unfading crown of the Christian
combatant. " In its eastern declivities are to be seen the vestiges of that stadium in
which all ran with such energy as to be taken as the example of Christian
self-denial and exertion. On the outskirts of the city may be traced the vast
area of the amphitheatre, which conveyed to the Corinthians a lively image
of the apostle's 'fighting wild beasts,' or of his being 'set forth as the last
in the file of combatants appointed unto death,' a ' spectacle to the world, to
angels, and to men.' Around stood the temples resting on their columns —
columns of the ' Corinthian order,' which made the name of ' Corinthian
buildings' (Ephyracce cedes) proverbial- for magnificence; and which, standing
as they did in their ancient glory, amidst the new streets erected by Caesar
on the ruins left by Mummius, may well have suggested the comparison of
the 'gold, silver, and precious "marbles,"' surviving the conflagration in
which all meaner edifices of wood and thatch had perished." l
Nothing would be more interesting than to make an excursion from this
point to Mycenae, the scene of Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, or to the site
of Olympia, where explorations that promise results of equal interest are
now being made; but the steamer is waiting for us, and as the shades of
evening are closing around us we pass down the lake-like Gulf of Corinth
to Patras and so out to sea, passing rocky Ithaca, with its memories of
1 Introduction to Commentary on the Epistles to Corinthians, pp. 4, 5.
o 3 197

" THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

Ulysses, catching sight, on the mainland, of Nicopolis, where the Apostle
Paul probably spent the last winter of his life ; and so, past Zante, Ithaca,
Cephalonia, Leucadia, to old Corcyra, or Corfu, famed in legend and in
history alike, loveliest among the " islands of the Gentiles."
It is at Malta that we regain the track of the Bible story. For there
can be no reasonable doubt that this is the Melita where the Apostle Paul
was wrecked ; the chief objection, that it lies out of the Adriatic Sea, in
which the ship was " driven up and down," being met by the fact that Adria
was anciently used in a wider sense, applying not only to the gulf itself but
to the adjacent part of the Mediterranean.
Mr. James Smith of Jordanhill, in his monograph on the Voyage and Skip-
wreck of St. Paid, may be considered as having set the question absolutely
at rest. Perhaps, indeed, it might never now be seriously raised but for
a remark of Mr. Coleridge, recorded in his Table Talk. "The belief," said
he, " that Malta is the island on which St. Paul was wrecked is so rooted
in the common Maltese, and is cherished with such a superstitious nation
ality, that the government would run the chance of exciting a tumult if it,
or its representatives, unwarily ridiculed it. The supposition itself is quite
absurd. Not to argue the matter at length, consider these few conclusive
facts : The narrative speaks of the ' barbarous people ' and ' barbarians ' of
the island. Now, our Malta was at that time fully peopled and highly
civilised, as we may surely infer from Cicero and other writers. A viper
comes out from the sticks upon the fire being lighted ; the men are not
surprised at the appearance of the snake, but imagine first a murderer, and
then a god, from the harmless attack. Now, in our Malta, there are, I
may say, no snakes at all, which, to be sure, the ' Maltese attribute to St.
Paul having cursed them away. Melita, in the Adriatic , (now Meleda), was
a perfectly barbarous island as to its native population, and was, and is now,
infested with serpents. Besides, the context shows that the scene is in the
Adriatic." l
The objection as to the use of the word "Adria," or "Adriatic," has
been already met. Nor are the other two more formidable. In the first
place, the word barbarians is well known to refer, in both classic and
Scripture Greek, to all who did not speak the Greek language ; 2 and the
Maltese dialect was a corrupt mingling of Greek and Latin with the
Phoenician idioms of the ancient people. Then as to the existence of
venomous snakes on the island, Mr. Lewin. conclusively says :
"When I was at Malta in 1853, I went with two companions to the
Bay of St. Paul by land, and this was at the same season of the year as
when the wreck occurred. We now noticed, on the shore just opposite the
scene of the wreck, eight or nine stacks of small faggots, and in the nearest
stack I counted twenty-five bundles. They consisted of a kind of thorny
1 Coleridge : Table Talk, Aug. 28, 1832. s See Rom. i. 14 ; 1 Cor. xiv. II ; Col. iii. 11.
198

MALTA.

heather, and had evidently been cut for firewood ; as we strolled about, my
companions (whom I had quitted to make an observation) put up a viper,
or a reptile having the appearance of one, which escaped into the bundles
of sticks. It may not have been poisonous, but was like an adder, and
was quite different from the common snake ; one of my fellow-travellers
was quite familiar with the difference between snakes and adders, and
could not well be mistaken. After all, therefore, it may be found that
vipers, though rare, still exist at Malta. Assuming, however, that there
are none at the present day, the objection is of little weight, for vipers
are common enough in Sicily, and no doubt were so originally in the
adjacent island, but Malta (which is now more densely populated than any
other part of Europe, and contains twelve hundred persons to the square
mile) has for many centuries been under such a state of high artificial
cultivation, that vipers might well be exterminated from a narrow space,
twenty miles by twelve, just as wolves have been from Great Britain." :
Against the hypothesis that Meleda was intended, the objections are
insuperable. The "tempestuous wind," before which the ship drifted, was
(according to the best-supported reading) the Euraquilo, a hurricane from
the north-east : the fear of the sailors was lest they should be driven,
after they left the lee of Crete, "upon the quicksands" — the African
Syrtes. To avoid this danger they would bear as far as possible north
ward, in the open sea; and a glance at the map would show it to have
been impossible that they should be driven up the Adriatic Gulf. Malta, on
the contrary, would lie in their course. Again, the apostle and his escort
were taken up by a ship of Alexandria on the way to Italy, which after
leaving "Melita" first put into Syracuse, and then came to Rhegium — an
impossible course if Meleda were the island, but perfectly correspondent
with the position of -Malta.
The island itself is full of interest, though but a vast rock rising out
of the waters. We ascend the steps of Valetta, and gaze over the great
""expanse of sea, then visit the buildings, sumptuous beyond our expectation,
that bear witness to the two hundred and fifty years' rule of that unique
and opulent fraternity, the Knights of Malta, with the great fortresses, which
now speak of British rule. The place is full of cheerful life ; we are sure
at our hotel to meet with pleasant, friendly countrymen ; the sense of again
being on British ground has a peculiar charm. But the pleasantest day by
far that is spent in the island is that on which we visit Citta Vecchia, the
ancient capital, and descend to the "pretty indented bay, at the north-west
end of the island," which bears the name of St. Paul. There is the " creek
with a shore," or sandy beach, on which the waves are dashing to-day just
as when the day-break revealed the scene to Paul and his companion
Luke ; the " place where two seas met," is the channel between the islet
1 Lewin's Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. ii. p. 208.

« THE ISLES OF THE GENTILES."

of Salmonetta and the mainland ; and we can, thanks to the researches of
Mr Smith, fix almost upon the spot where the forepart of the ship
" stuck fast and remained unmoveable," while " the hinder part was broken
with the violence of the waves." A church and some other buildings now
stand near the shore of the bay, and local guides and touters offer, as
usual, to tell us, if we will but listen, far more than "is written, offering to
take us to this and that spot of legendary wonder ; but the scene itself is
sufficient ; and we retire, half unconsciously murmuring words which always
seem to us to contain a rich suggestion of hope in that yet more stormful
and dangerous voyage which we all must take :
" And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the
Ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.

INDEX

'Abana, the, 5, 61.
Abila (Sflk Wady Barada), 18.
Acro-Corinthus, 193.
Acropolis, Athens, 187.
Adriatic Sea, 198.
Agora, Athens, 180.
American Mission, Beirftt, 4.
American Missions, Athens, 189.
Anti-Libanus, 5.
Antioch, 89.
Antioch in Pisidia (Yalobatch), 95.
'Araba, the, 78.
Ararat, 121 ; height of, 123 ; names of, 124 ; ascents of,
124.
Argob, 63, 66.
Armenia, 121.
Aroer, 76.
" Asia," meaning of, in New Testament, 98.
Asia, Seven Churches of, 98.
Athens, 176 ; Agora, 180 ; Mars' Hill, 180 ; Paul at, 180 ;
Acropolis, 187 ; Temple of Zeus, 187 ; Arch of Hadrian,
188 ; missions in, 189 ; education in, 189.
Ayasolouk, near Ephesus, 98.
Baalbec, route to, 18 ; history of, 21 ; temples of, 21 ;
stones of, 25 ; quarry, 30.
Baalgad, or Baalath, 21 n.
Babel, 128.
Babylon, 128; size of, 129; destruction of, 129; pro
phecies concerning, 129 ; history of, 129 ; description
of, 131 ; the Kasr at, 132 ; mounds at, 133.
Barada, the, 5.
Bashan, 62 ; ruined cities of, 65 ; rough country of, 65.
Batanaea, 62.
Behistun inscription, 150; translation of, 153.
Beirut, 2 ; missions in, 44 n.
Beka'a, the, 5, 34.
Berothah, 2.
Berothai, 2.
Beth-baal-meon, 74.
Birs Nimroud, 133.
Bosra, 66 ; history of, 67.
British Syrian Missions, 4.
Bryce, Prof., quoted [Transcaucasia and Ararat), 124.
Bsherreh, 40.
Buchanan, Dr., quoted (Notes of a Clerical Furlough), 22,
26.
Burak, 64.
Callirrhoe, 75.
Cedars of Lebanon, 33.
"Christians," origin of the name, 89.
Chrysorrhoas, the, 5.
Citta Vecchia, 199.
Ccele- Syria, 5.

Coleridge, quoted (Table Talk), 198.
Colossce, 93.
Corinth, 192 ; ruins of, 193 ; Acro-Corinthus, 193 ; Paul
at, 193 ; appearance of, 197.
Creation, the Ninevite account of, 167.
Ctesiphon, 131.
Cyprus, 91.
Damascus, 7 ; approach to, 8 ; antiquity of, 1 1 ; houses
of, 13 ; Straight Street, 14 ; inscription on mosque,
1 7 ; population of, 1 7 n ; evangelisation of, 43 ; gardens
of, 61.
Daphne, 90.
Darius, inscription of, 150.
Decapolis, 68 ; cities of, 68 n.
Deluge Tablets at Nineveh, 168.
Desert, the Syrian, 44.
Dibon (Dhiban), 77.
Diligence to Damascus, 4.
Edersheim, Dr., quoted (Bible History), 86.
Edrei (Edhr'a), 65.
El-Fijeh, 18.
Ephesians, Epistle to the, 97.
Ephesus (Ayasolouk), 98 ; temple at, 99, 102 ; tomb of St.
Luke, 100 ; ruins at, 101 ; history of, 104.
Euphrates, 126.
Gadara (Mkes), 70.
Galatia, 94.
Gebal (Jebel), 42.
Gerasa (Jerash), 70.
Gergesa (Kersa), 70.
Gibbon, quoted (Decline and Fall), 57, 115.
Greek language, 176.
Hamath, Entrance of, 58.
Hermon, 5.
Heshbon, 73.
Hezekiah and Sennacherib, 162.
Hierapolis, 93.
Hooker, Sir Joseph, quoted, 36.
Hor, Mount, 79 ; identification of, 85.
House of the Forest of Lebanon, 21 n.
Iconium (Konieh), 95.
Jehu, obelisk representing, 154.
Jerud, 46.
John the Baptist, his imprisonment and doubts, 75.
Joktheel, a name of Petra, 83.
Kasr, the, Babylon, 132.
Katiun, 8.
Kerak, 77.

INDEX.

Khorsabad, 146 ; bas-relief from, 164.
Kir-hareseth (Kerak), 77.
Kir-Moab (Kerak), 77.
Kuryetein, 46.
Laodicea (Eski-hissar), 93 ; history of, 117.
Larnaka, 92.
Layard, Sir H., quoted (Nineveh and Babylon), 149, 154,
163.
Lebanon, first view of, 2.
Lebanon, Cedars of, 33 ; size of, 36 ; number of, 37.
Lejah, the, see Argob.
Leontes, 5, 34.
Lewin, Mr., quoted (Life and Epistles of St. Paul), 198.
Litany, the, 5, 34.
Macedonia, introduction of Gospel into, 1 72.
Macgregor, Mr., quoted (Rob Roy on the Jordan), 7.
Machaerus (Mkaur), 75.
Mahanaim, 70.
Malta, 198.
Marathon, 191.
Maronite Monastery, 40.
Maronites, 34, 41.
Mars' Hill, Athens, 180.
Medeba, 74.
Meleda, 199.
Miletus, 105.
Milton quoted, 42.
Moabite Stone, the, 77.
Mosque of Damascus, inscription in, 17.
Mosul, 145.
Mycenae, 197.
Nebo, 74.
Nicolaitanes, doctrine of, no.
Nicosia, 92.
Nineveh, 139 ; disappearance of, 139 ; prophecies con
cerning, 140 ; description of, 142 ; mounds of, 145 ;
discoveries at, 146 ; inscriptions at, 150 ; bas-reliefs,
154; tablets of, 167.
Olympus, 92.
Orontes, the, 34, 58.
Padan-Aram, 126.
Palmyra, 49 ; nomenclature, 49 ; history of, 50 ; ruins of,
50 ; approach to, 50 ; Temple of the Sun, 50 ; sepul
chral remains of, 55 ; inscriptions at, 56 ; statuary at, 56.
Paphos, 93.
Paran, 78.
Paul in Macedonia, 172 ; at Athens, 180 ; at Corinth, 193 ;
shipwreck of, 198 ; at Malta, 198.

Pergamum, 107.
Petra, approach to, 78 ; Sik, 80 ; tombs at, 81 ; temples
at, 82 ; theatre at, 83 ; history of, 83.
Pharpar, the (Nahr-el'-Awaj ?) 6 n, 61. >
Philadelphia, 115.
Philippi, 174.
Piraeus, the, 176.
Pisgah, 74.
Porter, Dr., quoted, 40, 50, 65, 75.
Porto Leone, 176.
Rabbath Ammon, 73.,
Rabbath Moab (Rabba), 77.
Rawlinson, Sir H., quoted, 153, 162.
Rule, Dr. W. H., quoted (Biblical Monuments), 168.
Salamis, 92.
Salonica, 174.
Sardis (Sart), 112.
Schaff, Dr., quoted (Through Bible Lands), 43.
Seir, Mount, 79.
Sela, a name of Petra, 83.
Seleucia, 131.
Sennacherib's expedition against Hezekiah, 162.
Shalmaneser, obelisk of, 154.
Smith, Mr. George, his discoveries at Nineveh, 167.
Smyrna, 106.
Stanley, Dean, quoted (Introduction to Commentary on the
Epistles to Corinthians), 197.
Straight Street, Damascus, 14.
Syrian Desert, the, 44.
Tadmor, 49.
Tammuz, the legend of, 42.
Tarsus, 90.
Thessalonica, 174.
Thyatira (Ak-Hissar), no; inscriptions of, m ; history
of, 112.
Tigris, the, 126.
Trench, Archbishop, quoted, 117.
Tristram, Canon, quoted, 34, 73, no.
Valetta, 199.
Van, the Lake, 125.
Wady Mousa, 80.
Wilson, Dr., quoted {Lands of the Bible), 25, 38.
Wood, J. T., quoted (Discoveries at Ephesus), 99.
Wright, Rev. W., quoted, 55.
Zenobia, S°-
Zobah, 58.

INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCED

Genesis*

page

x. 5 •

. 171

. 167
. 128
. 123
xi. 3
133
- 83
xiv. 15
. 11
Leviticus.
xiv. 6 .
Numbers.
xx. 8-1 1
xx. 23. ¦
xxi. 26
xxi. 30
xxi. 33-35
xxii.-xxiv.xxxii. 34 ¦
xxxii. 38 .
Deuteronomy.
1. 39 • •
ii. 12 . .
iii. 1-4
iii. 4. *3» 14
xxix. 23 .
Joshua.
xi. 17
xii. 2
xii. 7
xiii. 5
xiii. g,
xiii. 17
16.
1 Samuel.
2 Samuel.
vm. 3. 5
viii. 8 .
x. 6,8.
xviii. 33
1 Kings.
iv. 13 . * •
v. 18 . - •
vii. 2-5, 8-12
viii. 65
ix. 18 . . •
2 Kings.
38
145 8366 65 78
v. 18 . .
x. 32 .
xiv. 7 .
xiv. 25, 28
xvii. 3, 5, 6
xvii. 6, 24
xviii. 13-16
xviii. 17 .
xviii. 34 .
xix. 8 .
xix. 13 .
xix. 37
1 Chronicles.
u. 23 •
xviii. 8
2 Chronicles.
vm. 4 .
xxxii. 9
xxxiii. ii.
Ezra.
iv. 7
iv. 24
vi. 15 .
Psalms.
in. 25 <
v. 12 .
164
65,66 . 42
. 21 58
¦ 49
77 7
XXll. 12
lx. Title . .
lxviii. 15, 16 •
lxxii. 10 •
lxxx. 10 .
xcvii. 1 . .
civ. 16
cxxxvi. 17-20
cxlv. 13 . .
. Canticles.
vii. 16.
xiii. 19-22
xiv. 10, 12
xiv. 23
xv. 1, 2
xvi. 7, 11.
XX. I .
xx. 6 •
xxi. 1-10 .
xxi. 9 •
xxiii. 2, 6-
xxxvi. 2 .
18
i54 S353
142164162i63 58
163 58
65
49, 58
• 163
. 128
154 153153
xxxvii. 8 .
xxxv ii. 24
xxxvii. 38
xiii. 10, 12
xiv. 1-3
xlix. 1 .
Ii. s ¦
lx. 9 .
lxiii. 1.
Jeremiah.
XXV. 22 .
xxxi. 10 .
xxxix. 5 .
xlviii. 18, 22
xlviii. 23 .
xlviii. 31 •
I. 13. 39 •
li. 30-32 .
Ii- 31* 32, 37
62
126 65
171 34 34 66 17
145 136130 136 77 77
14' 171 136 135
171163
EZEKIEL.
vm. 14
xxv. 5.
xxv. 9.
xxvii. 7
xxvii. 9
xxxi. 3-6
xlvii. 16
xlvii. 17
xlviii. 1
PAGE . 163
. 36
. 121
• 171
. 129
. I71
• I71
• 171
. 66
171 171 5877 74
77
136129136
Haggai.
Zechariah.
Matthew.
Mark.
Luke.
vii. 22, 23.
viii. 26
xi. 19-21 .
xiii. 6 .
xm. 7 . •
xvi. 9 •
xvi. 19-23
xvii. 1.
xvii. 14, 15
xvii. 15-34
xix. 1 .
xx. 16.
xxvii. 44
Daniel.
iv. 30  133
Amos.
iv. 1  62
vi. 2, 14  58
Obadiah.
3,4  84
Jonah.
iii. 3  '42
iv. 11  J45
Nahum.
ii. n-13  I41
iii. 13  I42
iii. 17  I41
Zephaniah.
;. 1  z*°
ii. 13, M.  "4°
PAGE
• 153
iii
1 .
i.
Title
1.-
111.
11.
is
11.
18
111
. 12
111
. 18
xviii. 2
1
'S3 62
69 69
7669
899192
172
174 175176 180116105200
I Cokinthians.
Ephesians.
198 198
COLOSSIANS.
ii. I  »«
iii. 11 .  '9S
iv. 16  97
1 Thessalonians.  192
Revelation,
98
118
no
112
"5
117 136
203
TIT AIL to the Lord's Anointed, Great David's greater Son!
Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun !
He comes to break oppression, To set the captive free,
To take away transgression, And rule in equity.
He comes with succour speedy, To those who suffer wrong ;
To help the poor and needy, And bid the weak be strong :
To give them songs for sighing, Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying, Were precious in His sight.
He shall come down like showers Upon the fruitful earth,
And love, joy, hope, like flowers, Spring in His path to birth ;
Before Him, on the mountains, Shall Peace, the herald, go,
And Righteousness, in fountains, From hill to valley flow.
Arabia's desert-ranger To Him shall bow the knee ;
The Ethiopian stranger His glory come to see :
With offerings of devotion Ships from the Isles shall meet,
To pour the wealth of ocean In tribute at His feet.
Kings shall fall down before Him, And gold and incense bring ;
All nations shall adore Him, His praise all people sing ;
For He shall have dominion O'er river, sea, and shore ;
Far as the eagle's pinion, Or dove's light wing, can soar.
For Him shall prayer unceasing, And daily vows ascend,
His kingdom still increasing, A kingdom without end :
The mountain-dews shall nourish A seed, in weakness sown,
Whose fruit shall spread and flourish, And shake like Lebanon.
O'er every foe victorious He on His throne shall rest,
From age to age more glorious, All blessing and all-blest :
The tide of time shall never His covenant remove ;
His Name shall stand for ever, That Name to us is Love.

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