The Cradle of Christianity: chapters on modern Palestine ... With nine photo-engravings

Preface

. ' ■ volume has been written specially for -****- readers who are not deeply versed in recent literature on Palestine. My purpose in writing has determined the selection of topics and their manner of treatment. I have read most of the best English books on Palestine, but have endeavoured to touch only on those broad aspects of the subject which are likely to be of greatest interest to my readers. The descriptions of scenery and of the life of the inhabit ants are based upon notes made on the spot. I have taken for granted that my readers will be specially interested in whatever may illustrate the Life of Christ. The last chapters deal with the relation of Christianity to the land of its birth. The Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund have kindly granted me permission to use their photograph of Russian Pilgrims. The other photo graphs used by the engraver are, with one exception, from the excellent series of Syrian photographs by

PREFACE.

. Bonfils, of Beyrout. For the design of the Palestine Iris — probably the " Lily of the Field " — which appears on the cover, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Thomas Dunn. I am specially indebted to the Rev. George Adam Smith for the great care he has bestowed on the proof sheets, and for the numerous valuable suggestions he has made. D. M. ROSS. Dundee, November 1891. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction 3 False expectations in Palestine travel — Three elements of interest : (1) Wealth of the historical associations of Palestine ; (2) Variety in the civilisation, nationality, and religion of the people ; (3) A commentary on the sacred history.

Chapter I

A BIRD'S-EYE view. (1) Physical Features 11 Size — Position — Mountainous character — Jordan Valley and Plain of Esdraelon. (2) The Scenery 14 The plains — Hill country of Judæa — Samaria — The trees — Streams, wells, and fountains — Wild flowers — Mountain prospects. (3) Villages and Villagers 23 Bedawin — Fellahin — Villages in the distance — In side a village — Dulness of village life — Rarity of mosques. (4) In the Fields 29 Monotony of the tilled ground — Crops — The plough — A ride through the fields — Sheep and goats. CONTENTS. X PAGE (5) The Antiquities 33 " A land of ruins " — The Crusaders — The Romans — Old Jewish antiquities. (6) On the Road 39 Recent introduction of carriage roads — The caravan roads — No shade — Palestine hotels — Tent life — The people one meets — Syrian sunshine in spring. Note on the Palestine Exploration Fund . . 44

Chapter II. Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome — First view of Jerusalem — View of Jerusalem from Bethany Road on Mount of Olives 49 (1) Within the Walls 56 Walls and gates — The streets — Street scenes — Con trast with Western cities — Dirt and fever — The four hillocks on which Jerusalem is built — Debris of older cities under Modern Jerusalem — Three centres of interest : (a) Mosque of Omar — The Sacred Rock — Interesting inscription ; (b) The Wailing Place — Des cription of the Jews — Specimens of the dirges chanted; (c) The Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Centre of attraction for Christians — Description of the building — The Rotunda — Calvary — Other "Sacred Spots" — Turkish soldiers as guardians of the peace — Does the Church of the Holy Sepulchre enclose the true sites of the Crucifixion and Burial ? — Historical interest of the church.

(2) Outside the Walls 78 Houses outside the walls — A conjectural site for Calvary — Valley of the Kedron — Garden of Geth- CONTENTS. XI PAGE semane — The Mount of Olives — A place of graves — St. Mary's Well — The Valley of Hinnom — Lepers at the gates — Bethany — Bethlehem. (3) Jerusalem at Easter 88 Pilgrims in Jerusalem — The Jewish Passover — The Mohammedan festival of Neby Musa — The Easter services of the Christians — The Holy Fire — Descrip tion — Jerusalem and the Message of Easter.

Chapter III. Galilee

Galilee in harmony with the religion of Christ — The colour it has given to His teaching .... 107 (1) Nazareth no Its position — Bareness of encircling hills — Bright and thriving town — The Virgin's Well — " Holy Places" — The hill of Nazareth — Christ's love of mountains. (2) The Sea of Galilee ... ... 114 A glimpse of the lake from Mount Tabor — View from Mount of Beatitudes — Description of the lake — Semi-tropical climate — Abundance of fish — The silence of the lake — The charm of the silence — Threatened invasion of the silence — Tiberias — Sulphur baths — A row on the lake — Tell Hum — The northern shore and Christ's ministry.

Chapter IV. On The Banks Of The Jordan

Contrast of the Jordan with the Nile and the Abana — Poor in service — Little imagery supplied to Hebrew poetry — Sacred associations the creation of the Christian centuries — " The Descender " . . . CONTENTS. XII PAGE (i) Below the Sea of Galilee 142 The Gh6r — The outflow from the Sea of Galilee — Desolateness of the Ghor — View from the heights above Jericho — Historical associations — Modern Jericho — The Oasis at Jericho — A possible future for Jericho — Jordan pilgrims — At the Dead Sea — At the bathing-place. (2) Above the Sea of Galilee 156 The contrast — Lake Huleh and its papyrus — Mount Hermon and the sources of the Jordan — The fountain at Dan — The fountain at Cæsarea Philippi — Christ and the disciples at Cæsarea Philippi — The Trans figuration.

Chapter V. Queer Folk In Palestine

Strange medley of human beings — Christians — Jews — Mohammedans 167 (1) The Temple Christians . . . ... .170 Sarona — Wiirtembergers — A Swabian patriarch — A desert transformed into a garden — Christopher Hoffmann, the founder of the Temple Society — His interpretation of Biblical prophecy — Meaning of the name Temple Christians — First colonies in Palestine —Visit to the colony at Jerusalem — The general assembly of Temple Christians — A debate — Bier brauerei — Influence of Temple Christians in Palestine. (2) The American Adventists 181 Ill-instructed students of prophecy — Their house near the Damascus Gate— A shipwreck in the Atlantic — Hardships in Jerusalem — Fulfilment of predictions. CONTENTS. XIII PAGE (3) The Samaritans 185 Nablous — Jacob's Well — The Samaritans — Their origin and history — Samaritan synagogue — Boys and girls at school — Samaritan Pentateuchs — Jacob Shellaby and his attitude towards Christianity — As cent of Mount Gerizim — The Samaritan Passover — The Samaritans and Christ's great saying to the woman of Samaria.

(4) The Russian Pilgrims 195 Their dress — Hardships — At service in the Russian Cathedral — Pilgrims in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Kissing the hands of bishops and patri archs — Funeral of a pilgrim — Pilgrims not sightseers — Pilgrimage to the Jordan — Pilgrims on board ship at Smyrna.

Chapter VI. How The Cross Was Supplanted By The Crescent

The Jerusalem of the New Testament and the Jerusalem of to-day — Stages in the history : (1) Christ's ministry in the central tableland and by the Sea of Galilee ; (2) Apostolic Christianity feeling its way outwards ; (3) The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; (4) Jerusalem turned into a heathen colony by Hadrian ; (5) Reverence for holy places in time of Constantine — Church of the Nativity — " Discovery " of the tomb of Christ — Warnings of Church Fathers — St. Jerome ; (6) Monks in the caves of Palestine — Internal strifes and corruptions of Eastern Christendom ; (7) Mohammedan conquest — Mildness of the Mohammedan yoke ; (8) Palmers from Europe ; (9) The Crusades — Severity of the Seljukian Turks — Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban — Struggle for a century and a half ; (10) The Mohammedans finally victorious . . . CONTENTS. PAGE

Chapter VII. Religion In Modern Palestine

(i) The Mohammedans 225 Mohammedans at prayer — In the Damascus bazaars — Villages mostly Mohammedan — Palestine sacred land to Mohammedanism — Relation of Mohammed anism to Judaism — The religious temper of Moham medans. (2) The Christians . . . . , . . .231 The native Christians — Majority belong to the Greek faith — The Greek Church — Its ceremonialism — The Greek clergy — Lack of missionary zeal — The Roman Catholic Christians — Greek CathoHcs — The Maronites — The Catholic Jacobites. (3) The Jews 238 Increase of Jewish population — Weakly and bigoted. NOTE ON MISSIONS IN PALESTINE. Unpromising field — Jewish prejudice against Christianity — Mohammedan prejudice — Roman Catholic Missions — Protestant Missions — Schools and dispensaries — Orphanages — Mission work amongst native Christians 240 CONCLUDING NOTE.

THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE. Progress in Palestine — Restiveness of the population under Turkish government — France and Russia — Immigration of Jews .... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Conjectured Site of Calvary Frontispiece Bedawin To face page 23 Bethlehem Reapers ,. 42 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre . . . „ 70 Lepers at Jerusalem „ 85 Ruins of Synagogue at Tell Hum . . . . „ 131 The Dead Sea „ 1S2 Russian Pilgrims „ !95 Jerusalem Jews „ 23^ I

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

. " "\ T 7" ERE you disappointed with Palestine?" ■ * That is a question which every traveller in Palestine is sure to be asked on his return. The answer depends on the expectations the traveller has previously formed as to what he will see on a Palestine tour. He will be disappointed if he expects to see beautiful cities, like Edinburgh or Florence. Damas cus, indeed, encircled with luxuriant and far-spreading orchards, and recalling the witchery of the " Arabian Nights," is a beautiful city even when measured by a European -standard. But Damascus is beyond the northerly limit of Palestine. The cities of Palestine proper are not beautiful, though some of them can boast of a picturesque situation. They have no fine gardens or squares, no spacious streets or handsome shops, and whatever may be their attractions, neither cleanliness nor airiness is amongst the number.

The lover of the " Row," or of the Paris boulevard, will feel ill at ease in the David Street of Jerusalem or the bazaars of Nablous. The traveller will be dis appointed if he expects to feast his eye on excep tionally beautiful scenery. There is magnificent

INTRODUCTION.

. 4 scenery to the north of Palestine in the Lebanons, and to the south in the desert of Sinai, while in Palestine itself there are one or two charming spots, and there are many striking views, but the scenery is, on the whole, tame. There is nothing to compare with the rich loveliness of the English Midlands, with the glow of a heather-clad hill on the shores of a Scottish loch, with the dark slopes of the pine-clad hills of the Black Forest, or with the lake scenery of Italy and Switzerland. The traveller will also be disappointed if he expects to find such monuments of art as he meets with in Italy or Greece or Egypt. There are no sculptures, and painting is represented by daubs in Greek and Latin churches. There are the ruins of beautiful churches of the times of the Crusades, and the Mosque of Omar is a singularly beautiful building.

But art, it is plain, has had its home elsewhere than in the Sacred Land. But no traveller need burden himself with such false expectations. So much has been written on Palestine within the last half century, and especially within the last quarter of a century, that the traveller has himself to blame if he suffers the pain of dds illusionement. And though Palestine is lacking in many of the elements of interest which are dear to tourists who are " doing " the sights of the world, it is rich in elements of interest which are peculiarly its own. They are such as these : — I. There is no equally small territory which has

INTRODUCTION.

. 5 gathered round it such a wealth of historical associa tions. Situated almost at the meeting-point of the three continents of the old world, it has been involved in the wider history of Africa and Asia and Europe. Hittites and Phœnicians had their settlements in Pales tine, and their relations with Old Testament history. The two great empires of the ancient world, the Empire of the Nile and the Empire of the Euphrates, never came into collision without involving Palestine in their conflict. The chariots of the Egyptian Thothmes thundered along the Plain of Esdraelon long before the Exodus ; and, in later days, the Assyrians poured their armies into the land of Israel on their southward march to the rich valley of the Nile. In the Judæan hills and passes you see the battlefields on which the Maccabæans asserted Jewish independence against the successors of Alex ander the Great ; in roads and bridges and castles you see the effects of the Roman occupation ; and near Jerusalem you see the plateau along which Titus advanced to the siege of the city.

Churches like the church within the fortress on Mount Gerizim are memorials of the Byzantine Empire. At Kurn Hattin you look down upon the great battlefield where Saladin crushed the crusading hosts, and in the Plain of Philistia you are amid the scenes of the wild prowess of Richard the Lion-hearted. At Acre and in the Plain of Esdraelon you see the scenes of Napoleon's conflict with the Turks. In no other

INTRODUCTION.

. 6 country of the world — not even in Greece or Italy — can you find so many points of contact with the wider history of the race. 2. There is no equally small territory where you can find such a variety in the nationality, civilisation, and religion of the people. On that ground alone it is worthy of a visit from the student of human nature. You have the nomads of the desert side by side with the dwellers in cities and villages. You have Jews and Mohammedans and Christians, and amongst the Christians — resident or on pilgrimage — you have representatives of every section of Christendom. Travel in such a. land is brimful of interest to the student of men and manners, and is an admirable instrument for widening one's horizon. 3. Travel in Palestine supplies a commentary on the sacred history.

That history, it is true, is chiefly significant for its moral and spiritual lessons, which are best understood through the faith and love of a humble heart. Yet something is gained by seeing that old history start into vividness amid its own native scenes. When you see an Arab shekh at the head of his tribe, herds of cattle and goats gathered by their shepherds round the troughs at a well, strings of camels laden with merchandise, the black tents of the Bedawin on a stretch of pasture, and the solitary thick-leafed oaks which invite the traveller to their shelter in the heat of the day, the stories of the patriarchal age seem as if they were being acted

INTRODUCTION.

. 7 out before your eyes. When you cross the plains of Philistia, dive into the tortuous mountain country of Judæa, ride past the heads of the passes of Benjamin, climb the hills of Samaria, wander over the plain of Esdraelon, and camp on the breezy heights of Galilee, you have a better understanding of the story of Israel's long and stormy conflicts with her enemies. When you ride past the vineyards of Judæa and through the olive groves of Ephraim, view Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, watch the swallows in the Temple Area, camp upon a threshing floor, see the gazelle on its hurried rush to a pool unexhausted by the blazing sun, feast the eye upon the wealth of wild flowers in the months of spring, and gaze upon the snow-clad peaks of Hermon and Lebanon, the imagery of psalmists and prophets becomes more meaningful.

Many of the words of Jesus are equally intelligible in Palestine or out of it, but some of His sayings have the atmosphere of His own land, and gain in vividness from Palestine travel. Shepherds separating their sheep and goats for the night, women going down from the village to the well with their waterpots, a sower in a Palestine field, the solitary fig tree in a vineyard, — scenes like these help to give a more distinct edge to our Lord's words. Not a day passes but the traveller gets a clearer setting for some part of the gospel story.

Chapter I. A Bird's-eye View

CHAPTER I.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW. Physical Features. I HAD read that Palestine was a small country, and must have been taught in my school days the number of its square miles, but I confess that its smallness surprised me. If you exclude the district east of the Jordan,* Palestine is only about a fifth part of the size of Scotland, or, to put the comparison in a more convenient form, it is about the size of the three Scotch counties of Perth, Forfar, and Aberdeen. Travelling at the rate of twenty-five miles a day, you could go from Beersheba to Dan in six days. The average breadth from the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley is less than fifty miles. From many of the * In many respects the district east of the Jordan is more interesting than Western Palestine. It has been less explored — an attraction for most travellers.

It has finer wheat-fields, finer pastures, and finer sorests. Its ruins of great Roman cities, like Gerash and Amman, are more extensive. The nomadic life of most of the inhabitants is more in teresting than the life of the villagers west of the Jordan. (See Laurence Oliphant's "Land of Gilead," and S. Merril's "East of the Jordan.") But in these chapters trans-Jordanic Palestine may be left out of view hill-tops in the central tableland, you can see on the one hand the Mediterranean, and on the other the mountains to the east of Jordan. It is that little morsel of the earth's surface from which has come forth the power that is exercising such a mighty in fluence on the destinies of the civilised word. True are the words of the prophet : " Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."

Strangely hemmed in, too, is that tiny tract of territory. On the west the Mediterranean breaks upon a coastline which offers the scantiest harbourage. On the south Palestine is separated from Egypt by a long stretch of desert ; and on the east the fertile pastures beyond the Jordan are separated from the Euphrates by a continuation eastwards of the same vast desert of Arabia. Only towards the north is there easy communication by land with the world beyond its own borders, and in that direction the alpine ranges of Hermon and Lebanon form a gigantic natural barrier. A fitting home for a people who were taken in hand to be specially disciplined for playing a special part in the education of the human race, and a fitting sphere, also, at that junction of three continents, for the development of a religion in which there was to be recognised neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor barbarian, bond nor free.

Nearly the whole country consists of a mountainous tableland. In the north there is a shallow strip of plain between the sea and the mountains, and farther south the Plain of Sharon broadens out into the Plain of Philistia, which in the extreme south is twenty miles wide. But Palestine, more even than Scotland or Wales, is a land of mountains. Excluding Hermon, (9166 ft), there are no mountains whose height from their base is as great as that of Ben Nevis or Ben Lomond, or even Ben Venue. But the whole central part of Palestine is raised to a height not approached by any inhabited tableland in this country. Hebron is about 3000 feet above the level of the sea, and Jerusalem only 500 feet less. Shechem is situated in the gorge between Gerizim and Ebal, but the bed of the valley is nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea.

The main features of the country are easily grasped. It is a hundred and fifty miles long by forty to sixty broad. From the seaboard the backbone of the tableland is approached through a succession of lower heights. On the east there is the extraordinary depression of the Jordan Valley, bordered on either side by steep mountains ; only at one place is the mountainous tableland cut through by a plain — by the Plain of Esdraelon, which stretches from the Bay of Acre to the Jordan Valley. This is the one tract of country where the traveller can cross from the coast to the Jordan without climbing over ground 1500 or 2000 feet high, and on this broad and level plain were fought many of the great battles of the Old Testament. To the north of this plain lies Galilee, whose highest mountains reach a height of 4000 feet, and to the south lie Samaria and Judæa, where the tableland is broken up by an intricate network of plains and valleys.

A hilly tableland lying between the maritime plain (varying in width from a few yards to twenty miles) and the great depression of the Jordan Valley, and cut across by the plain of Esdraelon, — such are the main features of the physical geography of Palestine. The Scenery. I chanced to see the landscape of Palestine under the most favourable circumstances — in the month of April, after vegetation had been freshened by the latter rains in the end of March, and by one or two subsequent showers. The plains — Sharon, Esdraelon, and smaller plains enclosed in the hills — were green with vast breadths of barley and wheat, diversified with patches of ploughed land for maize or beans. But acres of green can be monotonous. There are no trees by the roadsides or bridlepaths ; there are no hedges or fences in the fields ; there are no single cottages or mansions in the landscape.

With the exception of an occasional village, — and there are few villages in the plains, — there is almost nothing to break up the long stretches of growing corn. In the Plain of Sharon, Jaffa has its orange groves, and Ramleh and Lydda have their olive groves ; in the Plain of Esdraelon, or in the Plain of Mahnah, there « is no such pleasing break in the monotony. Most travellers receive their first impression of the mountain scenery of Palestine from Judæa, — unfortunately, for the Judæan hills are the least attractive part of the country. In some parts of Judæa there are, it is true, striking peaks, graceful outlines, and grand crags, but for the most part the hills are cold, bare, and shapeless.* Nor is there any impression of height. Neby Samwil (Mizpeh), the highest and most picturesque mountain near Jerusalem, rises less than IOOO feet from its base.

The tableland is so high, that a mountain which is actually three thousand feet high may seem scarcely as many hundreds. The hillsides are grey and stony, and the thin soil affords but poor feeding to the sheep and goats. In some of the valleys in the neighbourhood of villages, fruit trees are fairly abundant, and one can still see the broken terraces far up the hillsides on which the olive and the vine had flourished in the happier days of the land. There are crops of barley and wheat on the flat * The hills of Palestine are limestone. Volcanic rocks (basalt) make their appearance amongst the limestone round the shores of the sea of Galilee and farther north. The prevalence of the limestone accounts in part for the tame outline of the hills. The limestone gives rise to another feature of the Palestine hills — the enormous number of caves.

These caves have been extensively used for rock-cut tombs, and to-day they are occasionally converted into sheep-cotes or even dwelling houses. Every reader of the Old Testament is familiar with their use as hiding-places, and, as we shall see in Chapter VI., they lent themselves to the development of the monkish life in the early Christian centuries. ground of the plateau, and occasionally on the hillsides, but the stones seem as thick as the blades of corn. The landscape is not lovely. Towards the Dead Sea the mountains gradually lose even their scanty vegetation, and grow weird in their rugged desolation. The hills of Samaria are only a little less grey and stony than those of Judæa, but they draw apart and leave room for valleys and little plains deliciously green in the months of spring.

The ride from Bethel to Jenin by Shiloh, Nablous, Samaria, and Dothan gives the traveller a succession of varied and charming views. After Judæa, it was a welcome surprise to come upon so many bits of delightful scenery. At one point our road took us down into a valley rich in newly planted fig trees and vines ; at another, to the top of a hill from which Hermon was visible in the distance ; and at another, along the side of a slope overlooking a fertile plain. And wherever the road might be, it scarcely ever took us beyond the sight of green corn at the base of the hills. In Galilee, of which I shall have to speak in greater detail in another chapter, the scenery is still more varied ; the hills have more shapely outlines, and are more richly clothed with verdure. The farther north the traveller goes, the greater becomes the beauty of the scenery, till at last he finds himself beside the gorges and alpine heights of the Lebanon.

Palestine is very largely a treeless country — which accounts for the coldness and bareness of its scenery. Near towns and villages fruit trees are often abundant — figs, vines, quinces, mulberries, pomegranates, and almonds. But the olive, with its gnarled, twisted stem and grey-green leaves, is the tree of Palestine. It is an element of almost every view which includes trees, but its foliage makes too little of a contrast with the greyness of the hills, to give that beauty to the landscape which we associate with an Italian olive grove against its background of rich green. The palm was at one time abundant in Palestine ; there were miles of palm groves at Jericho, of which there is not now a solitary relic. A few palms can be seen at Jaffa, Jenin, Tiberias, and elsewhere ; but it is rare to find specimens, like those in Jerusalem, in the central tableland.

There are other trees than fruit trees, but in the southern part of the country they can easily be counted. So rare are they, that they are marked on the Survey map. The two most common of these " forest " trees are the ever-green oak and the terebinth, which are not unlike each other in size and shape. Stray specimens are to be found here and there at welies (large tombs of Mohammedan saints), on mountain ridges, and in the neighbourhood of villages. They are umbrageous, and form a grateful resting-place for travellers ; but much as they are esteemed by the inhabitants, none of them can com pare in size and beauty with one of our average oaks or plane trees. The very fact that the Israelites were profoundly impressed with the cedars of Lebanon is sufficient proof that they had no trees of great dimen sions in their own country.

On Carmel, on Tabor, and in some parts of Galilee there are forests, but these forests are little more than dwarfish trees not always thickly planted. By far the finest trees I saw in Palestine were in the upper valley of the Jordan beside Cæsarea Philippi, and amongst these trees it was a peculiar pleasure to come across the white hawthorn in full blossom. There is evidence that the peasants in their search for firewood, and the goats in search of something to nibble, are responsible in part for the treelessness of modern Palestine, but there is also evidence that Palestine was never a well wooded country. Even the wood for the temple had to be brought from beyond Palestine. And the frequent mention in the Old Testament of single oak trees implies the treelessness of the surrounding country.

One of the chief drawbacks to the scenery of Palestine is the scarcity of running water. " It is a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." So it is, compared with the desert or with rainless Egypt ; but it is not so, compared with a country like our own. The Jordan and some of its affluents are perennial, and the Mediterranean receives one or two perennial streams. But in the centre of the country, our bonny burn and trouting stream are represented by wadies, whose dry, bouldery beds are filled with water only during the rains. So seldom, indeed, are the watercourses filled with water, that in some places (e.g., part of Wady-el-Haramiyeh) they form the caravan road. I drove from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and rode from Jerusalem to Tiberias, without crossing more than one or two watercourses with running water.

Even streams marked perennial in the Survey map, I found dry so early as the month of April. The " shady rill," at least as far as the central tableland is concerned, exists only in poetry. If it does emerge into actual existence, it is no longer a " shady rill," but a winter torrent. In many parts of Palestine, the inhabitants are dependent for their water supply upon the rain-water collected in cisterns or reservoirs, or more often upon the deep-sunk well, whose stone mouth is deeply furrowed by centuries' friction of the bucket rope, and at which the shepherds can often be seen filling the stone troughs for their flocks. But more pictur esque than the deep-sunk wells are the fountains which send forth their waters from the limestone rock. They are found in great abundance in some districts — in greatest abundance at Shechem, which was therefore a favourite spot with the patriarchs.