Among the Holy Places: a pilgrimage through Palestine ... Illustrated

Preface

. THE primary aim of these chapters is to place the reader, in a measure, in the position of the traveller — to let him see the country and the people with his own eyes. At the same time, historical reminiscences are by no means excluded ; nor have the results of the latest explorations been ignored. Little space is devoted to disputes on doubtful locali ties. The traditional Calvary, however, is defended ; and the scene of the Transfiguration is probably located at last. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Land ....... i II. To Jerusalem ..... 9 III. Jerusalem ... . . 19 IV. Jerusalem {continued) .... 29 V. Jerusalem [continued) . . . . 49 VI. Jerusalem {continued) .... 58 VII. To Hebron . . . ... 65 VIII. To Adullam and Mar Saba ... 92 IX. Bethlehem . . . . . .112 X. Down to Jericho .... 126 XI. In the Jordan Valley . . . .145 XII.

North ...... 176 XIII. To Shechem ...... 190 XIV. To En-gannim ..... 207 XV. To Nazareth . . . . .217 XVI. To Tiberias ..... 234 XVII. The Lake 246 XVIII. To the Waters of Merom ... 262 XIX. To Hermon ...... 273 XX. Hermon ...... 295 XXI. Drawing Nigh unto Damascus . . .315 XXII. Damascus ...... 323 XXIII. Damascus {continued) .... 350 XXIV. Damascus {continued) .... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre . . Frontispiece Approaching Jaffa, Hebron . . . Facing page 2 Jerusalem . . . . . „ „ 19 The Stephen Gate, Jerusalem . . „ „ 38 The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem . ,. „ 49 The Mount of Olives . . . „ „ 50 Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives . „ „ 56 Hebron ... „ „ 65 Bethlehem . . . . . „ „ 112 Jericho . . . 145 The River Jordan . . . ,, „ 157 Fording the Jordan . . . „ „ 172 Nazareth . . . . . „ „ 217 The Lake of Tiberias . . . „ „ 246 Mount Hermon .... „ „ 295 Damascus . . . . . „ „

Chapter I. Land

THE shore now comes in sight, to the south, a thread of yellow. Soon the nothward-curving coast is added to the view. There you have both Egypt and Palestine — the Egyptian desert, and, adjoining it (the river of Egypt between), the land of the Philistines, and the region to the south of Gaza. And now that you have drawn nearer, and the outlines of the hillocks are more distinctly marked, you look south as they point out to you the ruins of Ascalon, birth-place of Herod the Great, he who slew the children. It stood on the coast, three hours to the north of Gaza. Some towers have partly survived, and in the distance the place looks not unlike a city set on a hill. Still forward, and now Jaffa itself is in view : the houses can be distinguished. To your surprise it seems to rise almost perpendicularly from the sea.

Built on the face of a great rock, the coast to the south of it getting suddenly lower, and that to the north receding so as to form a bay, Jaffa presents a most imposing appearance. And the houses seem literally packed together, and piled above each other. The only open spaces to be seen in the town are two very small patches of grass, about the middle. z And just by one of these rises a little lighthouse. This is the object your attention is directed to when you begin inquiring as to where the house of Simon the tanner stood : the house you refer to stood immediately by where the lighthouse now is. The ship comes to anchor a good mile off, for Jaffa possesses no harbour : the traffic, which is very con siderable, has all to be carried on by boats between the town and the ships. The landing place is hardly worthy of the name of quay : it rather resembles a narrow paved foot-path, on to which you are pulled from the boat ; for the all but absence of tide in the Mediterranean does not necessitate lofty erections from which to load and unload boats.

Proceeding to the hotel, which you are informed is in the German-American colony, a little behind the town on the north-east side, you pass along a narrow way to the left, a continuation of the quay, in fact. This path skirts the foot of the cliffs on which the town is built, and your route lies round the north end of the promontory, along the outside of the town wall. It has rained, and the path is ankle-deep with well-beaten mud ; for the whole of the marine traffic passes this way. Rounding the overhanging cliff, you are speedily instructed as to the nature of that traffic. Scarcely have you gone twenty paces when, in order to let a heavily laden camel pass towards the quay, you must thrust yourself bolt upright against the town wall. Even then the great boxes that hang from either side of the poor beast, and sway in the careening like the pendulum of a clock meant for the eternal world, have no more than room to pass ; and if you escape a squeeze, it is because the swing of the load happens to favour you.

Your stand is prolonged, for in truth the line of camels seems to be endless : they are still coming when you have given up as hopeless the intention of waiting till they should pass. APPROACHING JAFFA. LAND. 3 Happily the narrow way has an end : it opens into a large quadrangular market-place. Your route lies across this, and out by its north-east corner. Now you are in the country : houses are dotted along the right-hand side of the road, while on the left are luxuriant orange gardens, with the yellow fruit hanging in great abundance. This road, too, is wet and soft, but it is sandy, a pleasant variety from the black liquid layer on the quay path. A little way forward and you turn in through a gateway on the right, up an incline, and so into the colony. These colonists are here, having been moved to immigrate by a belief that the time had nearly arrived for the return of the Jews to their own land.

Eager to see the town, you shortly sally forth, bent on a quiet stroll of discovery. The market-place has a fascination for you : the glimpse you got of it in crossing has just been sufficient to whet your curiosity. Strolling down, then, through the gateway by which you came in — the colony is enclosed — you take a look at the road that passes here. It is not by any means a firstrate highway,. being in fact what would be called a bye-road in the West, one that is but little used, and therefore little attended to : it is nevertheless the high road to Nabulus or Shechem, and therefore a most important thoroughfare. Glancing furtively at the clusters of yellow oranges, as if half longing to be inside the tall palings, you plod on down to the market-place. It is fringed, as you at a glance can ascertain, with a border of huts and sheds and stalls of the most squalid description ; and the people thronging the place are all of them more or less suggestive to you of the poorer sort of showmen and pedlars you have seen frequenting fairs at home.

At the south end of the market-place you turn to the right, and enter the town, and at the same time the bazaar, by the Jerusalem Gate. The bazaar is a street of shops or rather stalls, which runs along the lower part of the town, towards the sea, a little way above the muddy path where you met the camels. It looks almost gay : what with tin smiths' stalls, and provision stalls, and displays of saddlers' gear, and sweet-meats, and butchers' meat, and the other requisites of a community — for all the shops of the town are here — the street is lively and interesting. And the women seem never done carrying water from a well situated on a picturesque white-washed little square on the lower side of the street. Here comes the first veiled woman you have seen — for the peasant women are not so particular in the matter of hiding their faces.

Having got, in a small way, accustomed to the Egyptian veil — a long narrow strip of black crape, suspended just under the eyes, by a string drawn through a brass tube that rests on the forehead — you are not a little surprised and shocked on seeing the Syrian fashion. This woman is enveloped from head to foot in a pure white linen sheet. That, too, would be a rarity in Egypt, where black and blue are the colours almost universally worn. But, instead of the suspended veil, this individual has a black flowered one drawn tight over head and face ; the face is completely covered with the veil, and the white sheet comes over the head and down by the cheeks and so to the feet. The veil is an old institution ; for Isaiah says, " Remove thy veil ; strip off the train." This busy street leads into the heart of the town.

Beyond the point where the shops cease, it is no longer a street : it degenerates into a narrow lane, off which in numerable other lanes, narrower still if possible, branch up and down the steep town. Retracing your steps, and coming out again by the Jerusalem Gate — not a very pretentious erection — you turn to the right and climb a long steep street which runs by the back of the town. Here, on the left side, are many workshops of coppersmiths, all in a row ; and the noise is LAND. 5 deafening. Curious little holes they are, where this work is carried on : down a step or two, in a space about six feet square, the workman is hammering away at a huge basin ; next door, or rather next hole, a boy is acquiring skill by blowing the bellows. And the work these shops produce is marvellous : there is nothing amateurish to be seen about the finished articles : they are faultless, works of art, and beautiful to behold.

It would be in a hole like one of these that Alexander the coppersmith plied his trade — he who did Paul much harm. And towards the top of the road, where it widens some what, is a khan, wherein scores of camels are to be seen lying resting, and men bustling about among the boxes and other packages. At the upper end of this road you are in a position to take your bearings. Down on the left, or east, slopes a cemetery, beyond which is a marsh, and beyond that, again, rises the high ground, on the farther side of which lies the German-American colony. The side facing you is clad with orange gardens. Advancing, you come round to the south side of the town, where the hill is steep below you ; and on a rising ground beyond the ravine is another cemetery. You next essay the town proper — a difficult task.

A very little investigation opens your eyes to the fact that here you have no streets, properly so called, whereby to guide your movements : the place is a network of narrow and crooked lanes, quite a maze to the stranger. Consequently you make up your mind to lose your way, and that at once. The lane, which at the outset is scarcely more than a step in width, gives no indications of widening as you go on : with a dogged consistency worthy of a better cause it keeps to its original dimensions. You meet a stray individual now and then, but the place is oppres sively quiet : the people seem either to be resting indoors, or to be absent in the field or elsewhere. And but few windows look into the lanes. There is no paving ; and even these upper regions can boast of a share of the mud so prevalent below.

After threading your way through a great part of the upper town, and finding nothing but a repetition of backs of houses, -you begin to bethink you of trying to work a passage down the face of the place. Entering upon a promising-looking path, you go gaily down a few paces, turn to the left, through an open doorway, and find your self confronted with a stone stair. Somewhat disconcerted and discouraged, you return, and resolve before making any further experiments downwards, to try if you cannot find out the lighthouse and the adjoining little mosque said to occupy the site of Simon the tanner's house — by the way, there are to this day several tanneries about the place : they lie to the south of the town, and are but on a small scale, yet the presence of tanneries at all is a curious comment on the Scripture narrative.

More by chance than otherwise you do hit upon the spot. It lies off a level lane that runs north and south, apparently skirting the edge, just about where the steepest part of the declivity in the town begins. This seems to be somewhat more of a thoroughfare than the rest. The house is indeed an unassuming structure. The passage whereby you approach it leads to some other houses farther through. You take courage and penetrate to these. Your daring is amply rewarded : the people are glad to see you, invite you to enter, and after leading you to the housetop — the top of Simon's house — to enjoy the superb view out over the sea, accompany you to the interior. It is a Muslim place of worship, of the size of an ordinary room, one storey in height, and in the care of nobody in particular. In the passage without stands a blind beggar : few and small the coins he gathers, no doubt.

Tempted by the seeming thoroughfare-look of another LAND. 7 rapidly descending lane a little to the south of Simon's house, you advance boldly, in the confident hope of this time succeeding in getting down to the beach. Alas ! your hopes are speedily blighted : twenty paces or so, and you stand in a small court, wherefrom outlet there is none : you have barely time to turn and flee, before some of the denizens, aroused by the cries of a child seated in a door, are out to see what the cause of the unwonted disturbance may be. This is enough : regaining the high level lane, wherein you now feel quite at home, you work southwards, avoiding anything that offers a descent ; and after sundry turnings, you come forth to the open once more. You now make for the beach, by the glen that divides this end of the town from the cemetery : a road descends the glen.

The sands, though not of any very great extent, are smooth 'and clean ; and a few of the inhabitants are taking advantage of this the only promenade about the place. You penetrate northwards under the town, and find that the sands soon come to an end, the sea and the more or less submerged flat rocks off the quay blocking the way. Under the town a strong wall girds the land, acting at once as a breakwater and a basis for the lowest line of dwellings. You now perceive why you failed to reach the beach by any of the descending lanes: the beach cannot be reached but by going out of the town, and working round by another way. A curious incident comes under your notice as you stand here on the sands in front of the wall gazing up at the town. A man, close by you, is conversing with some one who looks out of a small window in a house right above the wall.

Attracted by the conversation, you have fixed your eyes on the window aloft. Immediately a child is pushed out, and two hands hold it fast by the armpits. You naturally suppose this is being done by way of amus ing the infant, and that shortly it will be drawn in again. But no : to your horror the living thing drops, like a stone, towards the beach at the foot of the wall, where the man stands. Just when apparently about to touch the earth it is abruptly pulled up ; the man has it in his arms ; and the cord by which it has been so dexterously lowered is pulled in by the window again. You cannot help thinking of the words recorded in the Book of Joshua, how that Rahab at Jericho let the spies down by a cord through the window, her house being upon the town wall. Jaffa was a prominent sea-port in the days of old : as stated in Second Chronicles, the king of Tyre promised to send timber from-Lebanon for the building of Solomon's temple : it was to be conveyed in floats by sea to Joppa> and thence carried to Jerusalem.

Here also the sacred narrative makes Jonah take ship, when he sought to flee from the presence osthe Lord. Jonah'snative village lay in the neighbourhood of Nazareth ; and therefore Haifa, had it been a port in those days, would have been nearer ; but Tyre and Sidon were the only shipping places to the north, and these were much farther off from Jonah's village than Joppa. " He went down to Joppa," says the Scripture, " and found a ship going to Tarshish : so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it " — precisely as one would do to-day. And then, in New Testament times, Dorcas lived here, a woman full of good works. She died. They laid her in an upper chamber; and sent to Lydda — not far off — for Peter. He called her by name, and she opened her eyes and sat up. It is after this incident that Peter settles down here, in Simon the tanner's house, and stays many days.

And hither come the messengers from Cæsarea — a twenty seven miles' journey down a treeless coast — arriving just after Peter has seen the vision on the housetop. The Greeks point out the site of Dorcas' house a little to the east osthe town ; while the Latins locate it on the south, near the shore.

Chapter II. To Jerusaleym

IN less than half an hour after leaving the Jerusalem Gate of Jaffa, you have passed through the rich belt of orchards that lie round the back of the town. These are the wealth osthe place. You picked up your conveyance in a suburb that creeps out the Jerusalem road a little way. The use of conveyances here is not of long standing : it is only since the road from the coast to the holy city was constructed that travelling by wheeled vehicles has been practicable in these parts. As for the road, you will be better able to judge of its merits as you proceed, although thus far it is a good highway, macadamized after the Western fashion, and equal to most of the ordinary Western roads. Very pleasant is the drive through the garden district ; though you must own to a measure of dislike to those coarse-looking cactus hedges that line the road.

The shade of handsome trees is grateful. All around seems a paradise. The carriage which conveys another and yourself is constructed to carry four, and a fifth if necessary beside the driver : so you have ample room. It is a long wooden car, built of the rough material, having four uprights which carry a canopy or cover like a four-poster bed. The passengers are meant to sit facing the horses, two by two. To enter the hinder compartment you climb over the side, there being no door. The front compartment is entered in like manner. Ladies would find it difficult. A water- AaIIOaVG THE HOLY PLACES. 10 proof blind can be let down or rolled up, either to shut or open the space by which you climb in. Two horses are harnessed, one on either side of a pole ; and a third renders assistance by pulling alongside.

The driver is a pleasant-faced old man, in rags. Outside the garden region, you are at once in the Plain of Sharon. This is one of the three great plains of Pales tine : commencing at Mount Carmel it stretches south, practically the whole length of the country, though they give a different name — Philistia — to the part of it south of Jaffa. On the east it is bounded by the hill country of Judea, and on the west by the sea. Narrow at first, it widens as it sweeps south, till at this point it is some ten miles across. Your journey this afternoon, therefore — for you are to pass the night at Ramleh on the farther edge — is simply across the Plain of Sharon. At first you seem to be going to traverse a boundless flat, with neither tree nor house nor fence to break the monotony. The land looks fairly fertile, though sandy, and is under cultivation in parts.

But to a great extent it is left to the occupation of weeds and wild flowers: the red anemone especially is plentiful : the ground is tinted with it as far as the eye can see : you say to yourself, " Surely this flower must have been the rose of Sharon." By and by you pass a village ; then, a couple of miles farther on, another. The plain here is not so very level : some heights and hollows serve to diversify the scene. The little square watch-towers dotted along the road at intervals of a mile or two, and intended originally for the protection of travellers and goods, though now shut up, help to keep you on the alert : no sooner has one been passed than you begin to look out for the next. The mountains before you in the background are be coming more distinct ; while immediately in front lie extensive plantations — olives, it appears.

Through these, the road grows bare again, and you are glad to salute another watch-tower. And now the lofty tower of Ramleh looms in the distance. The rest of the way thither is in prospect of plantations ; while another village on a hill to the south seems to join in assuring you that you are by no means travelling into a desert. Ramleh is pleasantly situated on the edge of the plantations that, beginning here, extend eastwards, apparently indefinitely, and sweep the mountains northwards by the foot of the not very distant hills. But Ramleh itself is a wretched village. The hotel, though small, is modern and excellent, kept by a German Jew, one of the afore mentioned immigrants who came as the forerunners of Israel, and as farmers meanwhile of the Plain of Sharon. There is no particular necessity for breaking the journey here : the only thing is, by breaking it you cut off ten miles, thus reducing the next day's stretch to thirty : forty at a sitting would be tiresome.

Ramleh, though it has been held by some to be identical with Arimathea, and was undoubtedly in later times a town of some consequence, has little to offer the visitor. Sallying forth to inspect the place, you are startled to find yourself close upon a row of lepers. These, some ten or a dozen in number, and of both sexes, have doubtless learned of the arrival of a conveyance, and have seated themselves by the roadside not far off from the hotel. They are the first lepers you have seen ; and it takes a moment or two before you can realize what it is that ails them. Their countenances are horribly disfigured, and they holdout knobs of fingerless hands, a pitiable spectacle. Their breath is almost in your face before you give the matter a thought. The bazaar is the poorest possible : you seem to be parading an alley lined with cow-houses, when, at the next turn, though all continues as squalid, the open holes appear, displaying their several articles of stock ; and a few of the villagers are congregated for gossip.

You pass AaMONG THE HOLY PLACES. 12 through as hastily as you decently can ; andmake west ward for the tower. On your way thither you pass between great cactus hedges, and across a cemetery more extensive than the village. On the farther side rises the tower. Extensive ruins stand around. Ascending the tower — not without difficulty, for the stair is much worn and broken — you are charmed with the view. Especially do you note Lydda — whence Peter was summoned to Joppa : it nestles white among the woods a couple of miles to the north, near the foot of the hills. From the extent of the orchards about Ramleh you would have expected a better village. The jingling of bells in the distance announces the approach of a caravan. This turns out to be a party of four men whom you met on the steamer. They carry tents, and are to pitch beyond the village.

You wander, later, as far as the camp : it stands on a piece of lovely turf by the side of a large walled pond of brown water, from which the villagers keep carrying supplies — not possibly for drinking, surely not for washing. But, then, these people's notions of water are very different from yours. The sun goes down as you retrace your steps. Passing near by the somewhat vast mosque, which is situated at the east end of the village, you hear the voice of the muezzin reverberating from the balcony of the lofty minaret, calling the faithful to prayer. In the stillness of the evening the man's voice is heard afar ; and he trills out his monotone notes not so unsweetly. Awakened early in the morning by the jingling of mules' bells, you look out to see what sort of cavalcade is about to pass, for your window overlooks the road.

They appear to be the advance contingent of a tenting party, as the beasts are laden with articles of the sort carried for a tourist caravan. The riders will no doubt follow, expecting to find the tents pitched, and dinner well-nigh cooked, by the time they ride into camp. Your old man has the three horses harnessed, and everything ready for the start, by seven o'clock, the appointed hour. Poor fellow, he does not look as if he had rested well : his bed would be in the stable, and made up of very little straw : such a commodity is too precious in these parts to be given to drivers to sleep on, drivers, by the way, who cannot afford to pay anything. You wonder whether he has had breakfast — certainly he has not had what you would call breakfast : a crust of bread, and perhaps the luxury of a fig, will be all he has tasted.

But you have provided for the mid-day meal, at any rate : lunch sufficient for three or four has been put in, and you think it as well to let him have his share shortly after starting : he can then take it when he pleases. A little way on the road, you have passed beyond the plantations which imparted such a delicious feeling of freshness both before being reached and also while being traversed. And now the fields again stretch on either side, and occasional villages appear, mostly set on hills. And the hills and dales proclaim the fact that though not yet in the hill country of Judea proper, you have left the Plain of Sharon behind. On a hill, about four miles to the right, lie the ruins of Gezer. The name of this town is probably not familar to the ordinary student of Scripture. It has played its part, however, and had its troubles ; and now it rests in peace.

In First Kings it is stated that Pharaoh had gone up and taken Gezer, and burnt it, slaying the Canaanites who inhabited it ; and had given it for a portion to his daughter, Solomon's wife. Solomon rebuilt it. Farther, over heights and hollows, the country growing distinctly more stony and rough, and cultivation being restricted to mere patches, you pass along on the south side of a bare hill, a village lying a little way up from the road. Here a curious sight meets your view. The road is being repaired, and its course slightly altered so as to AMONG THE HOLY PLACES. 14 avoid an abrupt declivity. Unhappily the old portion is still the route, and you have the benefit of it. Never was there such pitching and tossing, jerking and jolting : hold on as you may, you are unseated, and for a moment it is a question whether the home-made cart will be able to hold together, or escape being overturned.

Once over the hazard, you have time to inspect the work of road-making as carried on in these parts. It appears that instead of levying a rate, the more practical method of requisitioning hands is resorted to. This village, consequently, is required to supply so much labour ; and it does it mainly through the females : a whole string of girls, bearing on their heads straw baskets of the size and shape of wash-hand basins, fetch the necessary broken stones. These carriers seem to do the work with a will : they laugh and talk and are apparently quite happy. Clad in blue bathing-gowns tightened round the waist with a string, bare legged and bare armed, they are a small regiment in uniform. And the way they walk in line, one following close upon another, recalls the pictures of labourers one sees on the tombs in Egypt.