The Holy Land and Syria

During my several trips to Palestine I have visited Bethlehem, where our Saviour was born, and have lived for days in Nazareth, where His boyhood was spent. I have gone over much of the road Joseph and Mary followed when they carried the child into Egypt, and have crossed the mountains of Samaria from Galilee to Jerusalem, where He went as a boy of twelve and was found teaching the doctrine in Solomon’s Temple.

I have even climbed the hills and gone into the wilderness where our Lord was tempted of the devil after those forty days of hunger and thirst. At Capernaum I saw the recently excavated marble synagogue where some of His first preaching was done. I have climbed to the top of the hill above the Sea of Galilee, where He delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and have picked flowers from the rolling green sward below, where the miracle of the loaves and fishes was performed. Not far from that place, on the opposite shore, may be seen a steep hill down which rushed the swine possessed of the devils our Saviour had cast out of the Gadarene man. I have been in Bethany, where lived Mary and Martha, and have sat under the trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Many of these places are about the same as they were when our Saviour was alive. Some have been covered with churches and convents, but the warring sects of Christians have not been able to change the bright sky. Nature is the same now as it was then. The same flowers bloom and the same birds sing. Besides, it is not so long, after all, since Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The average lifetime of a man is not much more than was that of our Saviour. He lived thirty-three years. It would take only fifty-eight such lifetimes to cover the period between now and the birth of Christ. Each of us has a relative who is, perhaps, sixty-five years old. The lives of thirty such men would, if joined together, reach back to the days of King Herod.

We shall take carriages for our trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. We start at the Jaffa Gate, next David’s Tower, on the top of Mount Zion, near where, it is claimed, the Crucifixion took place. The gate was widened by the breach in the wall made in honour of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, so all sorts of vehicles can now go through it. As we leave the gate we pass coffee houses where people of a dozen different nationalities are drinking, go by the railroad station, where a puffing locomotive is just in from the Mediterranean, skirt the valley of Hinnom, in which is the Pool of Gihon, where David was anointed, and a little later on stop near the village where King Saul was crowned.

The road is excellent. It is of hard limestone walled on each side by limestone fences and backed by green fields now covered with the dust of the highway. The traffic is constant, so that the air is white with dust. It fills our eyes, mouths, and nostrils, and makes us look like millers. We cover our eyes with smoked glasses to keep out the glare. The road is dazzling white, the fences are white, a white dust covers the green of the fields. As we are going toward the south, the sun is full in our faces. It is hot, although a cold wind is blowing over these hills of Judea which whirls the dust around and sends columns of it into the air.

Soon after leaving Jerusalem we cross a depression carpeted with green, which is known as the Valley of Roses. Farther on are olive groves, and as we near Bethlehem there are great fields of green. At the left we can see the plain where the young widow Ruth garnered wheat for old Boaz and thus got food and a husband.

All the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem crops are growing. There are signs of increased cultivation, and every bit of available land is being set out in orchards and gardens. I went over the same road twenty-odd years ago. Then the country was bare rocks with bits of grass here and there. To-day the land is divided into fields. The surface rocks have been gathered together and laid up in fences as high as my head. The cleared land is now planted in wheat, corn, and barley. New olive orchards are rising, while many of the old ones still stand. The trunks of the old trees are knotted and gnarled, but the leaves are of green dusted with silver, and I am told they still bear fruit. I photographed one tree not more than thirty feet high which had a trunk as thick as a hogshead and branches which shaded a large tract of ground. The soil of Palestine is as fertile to-day as it was when Joshua led the Israelites across it, and barring the fences, I doubt not the landscape is about the same now as it was when Christ was born.

Every bit of the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is historic ground. Over this same road Abraham travelled to Mount Moriah. Along it came the Wise Men of the East following the Star on their way to the stable where Jesus was born. They had called upon crafty King Herod at Jerusalem to ask about the King of the Jews. He had told them to find where He was born, that he might come and worship Him. The road goes by a well where it is said these Wise Men stopped to drink. It is known as the “Well of the Magi,” and is near an olive grove on the east side of the road. It is covered with a marble slab as big around as a cart wheel with a hole cut in the centre through which the water is raised by a bucket and rope. The stone is polished by the kisses of pilgrims.

The story is that the Wise Men as they trudged along in the gathering twilight sat down by this well to rest. When they stooped forward to draw some water to drink, they saw reflected in its mirror-like surface the guiding Star. They looked toward the heavens, and then, in the words of the Scripture:

It was not far from here that I caught my first sight of the field where the shepherds lay when the angel and the heavenly host announced Christ’s birth to them. It is said to be the field of Boaz upon which Ruth gleaned her wheat. It lies across the valley to the east of Bethlehem. There is a little village in front of it, and a part of the field is covered by an olive grove. I saw the sheep feeding upon it, and as I rode to Bethlehem I passed flocks of them being driven to the Jerusalem markets. They were of the fat-tailed variety, some of their tails weighing, I venture, fifteen pounds each. The drivers were kind-eyed and gentle in their manners and as they went by us they cried out Neharak sa’id, or “May thy day be happy!” To this we replied Neharak sa’id umubarak which in Arabic means “May thy day also be happy and blessed.”

The shepherds were dressed in long gowns and wore handkerchiefs about their heads as turbans. Some of them wore sheepskins, and it is probable that they were clad much the same as those who “came with haste” and found the infant Jesus lying in a manger. There is a chapel now in the Field of the Shepherds, and for centuries a church and a monastery stood on the spot.

Soon after leaving Jerusalem we pass a hill on the left of the road, where, the guide says, stood the building in which Judas Iscariot sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Not far away is an old olive tree upon which the pilgrims are told Judas hanged himself in his remorse after the Crucifixion.

Going onward about four miles from Jerusalem we come to a building which has just received a fresh coat of whitewash. It is known as the Tomb of Rachel, and covers the spot where she is said to be buried. Not far from it David had his fight with Goliath, the ten-foot giant of the Scriptures. I am not sure as to the locality, but there are millions of stones there to-day, and plenty of ammunition for the slings of an army of Davids. Indeed, there is hardly a field on the hills of Judea which is not covered with stones of one size or another, and the shepherds use slings to this day.

And speaking of stones reminds me of the Field of Peas, which lies not far from Bethlehem. It is a tract on the side of a hill where the stones are so thick that if it were planted to corn you would have to carry earth to cover the grains. As the story goes, our Lord was passing by here when He saw a man sowing grain. He stopped and asked him what he was sowing. The man replied “stones.” And thereupon the seed peas in his bag turned to stones, and all that he had sown did the same. Some of the stones now on the field are gathered up and peddled to pilgrims as relics.

I had one such pedlar follow me half the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. He was a turbaned Syrian boy on a donkey, who had to gallop to keep up with my carriage. To this the donkey objected, and the boy kept him up to his work with a stick as long as a husking peg and equally sharp. He inserted this under the saddle, behind him, and then using it as a lever, pulled on the other end of the peg, forcing its sharp point into the animal’s flesh. At every such pull the donkey kicked up its heels and increased its speed, while the rider bobbed up and down, and his long, full-trousered legs stood straight out.

Climbing the hill, we come into the town of Bethlehem. We find ourselves in a maze of box-like, one-, two-, and three-story limestone houses. They stand close to the edges of winding streets, which are here and there arched over to shut out the sun. The town, which has about fifteen thousand inhabitants, is probably ten times as large as it was when Christ was born. Its chief revenue comes from its association with the Christian religion and the fact that Christ was born here. There are thousands of tourists who visit the birthplace of the Saviour every year, and the chief business of the Bethlehemites is making rosaries, crosses, and articles of wood and mother-of-pearl for sale to the pilgrims as well as for shipment abroad. I was surprised to learn that the mother-of-pearl used is imported from the United States, where it is known as “pearl waste.” Shells are carved and sold to tourists in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and the Palestine beads, so largely used as rosaries, both by Mohammedans and Christians, are made here. These beads are filed out of oyster shells until they are the right size. Holes are then drilled in them and they are polished by shaking them about in crockery vessels with a little water. After this they are treated in a weak solution of nitric acid, polished again, and strung on cords of silk or wire. Crosses and hearts are made of mother-of-pearl, and sometimes a little image of the Saviour is attached to the rosary. Much of this work is done by women and girls, who receive from twelve to twenty-five cents a day. It is estimated that the total production of such wares sells for in the neighbourhood of two hundred thousand dollars a year, and that something like thirty thousand dollars’ worth are shipped to the United States annually.

The grotto or cave in which Christ was born is in the very heart of the Bethlehem of to-day. There is an open square in front of it surrounded by stores and schools, and a great church known as the Church of the Nativity has been built over it. The church is entered by a door which looks like a square hole cut through a stone wall. It is so low that all who enter, even the children, must stoop. As I started to go in I saw a Bethlehem woman with a baby in her arms standing outside. The baby was small, and I could imagine the woman as Mary and the child as the Saviour. Taking a coin out of my pocket, I asked her to pose for my camera. She did so, carrying the child into the sun. Near by, in the shadow of the church, was a bearded Syrian in turban and gown, and at first I thought he might make a good Joseph to pose with my Mary. Upon bringing him into the light, however, I found that he was a beggar and would not fit into the picture, so I enriched him with a gift of five cents and sent him back to his seat.

One part of the Church of the Nativity is controlled by the Armenians and Latins, another by the Greeks, and there are soldiers on hand to keep the worshippers in order. These two sects fight for the right to take care of the birthplace of Jesus, and not long ago a controversy arose over which should clean one of the windows. Both the Armenians and the Greeks were quarrelling over it when the Mohammedan authorities came in and forbade either sect to touch it. Therefore, that window remained unwashed.

The stable is under the church. It is reached by a winding staircase going down into a cave floored with marble about twelve feet wide and forty feet long. Thirty-two lamps burn day and night within it. Set in the marble pavement is a star over which there is an inscription stating that on that spot the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ. This star is held down by nails. Once the Armenian who had the right to clean it was working away when he knocked off the head of one of the nails. This caused a great commotion. The Greeks, Latins, and Armenians began to fight over it, and the governor of Jerusalem, to settle the dispute, called in a blacksmith to drill out the old nail and put in a new one. The blacksmith proved to be a member of one of the quarrelling sects. In order to settle the trouble the governor called in a gypsy, who had no religious standing whatever, and he replaced the nail without opposition.

At one side of the cave is a recess called the Chapel of the Manger, where it is said the Saviour was laid after His birth. The manger is of brown-and-white marble, and a wax doll lies in it representing the Christ. The Latins claim that they have the original manger in one of their cathedrals in Rome. It is shown every Christmas.

As I stood in the stable not far from the manger, a party of twenty Franciscan monks came in and knelt down and sang a service concerning the Nativity. They were burly men with shaved heads and long beards. They wore long gowns and their heads and feet were bare. They knelt upon the floor as they sang, and at the end each bowed down and kissed the star marking the spot of Christ’s birth.

This Bethlehem grotto, if indeed it was ever used as a stable, has been so changed by the decorations that it is impossible to conceive it to be the place of the Nativity. It is probably a fraud, as is also the well at one side of the crypt where the water is said to have burst forth from the naked rock for the use of the Holy Family. I looked down into this well. It is said that the star, that guided the Magi fell into it, but that it is only visible to the eye of a virgin.

I tried in vain to imagine the scenes of Christ’s birth. The decorations were out of all keeping with the place, and the warring Christians prevented reverent thought. I got a better idea by going into some of the actual stables which are in use in Palestine to-day, and which are just about the same now as they were nineteen hundred years ago. I remember one such stable near Jerusalem. It was a cave with a floor of rough stone, divided into chambers or stalls, which opened into a sort of court. There were men and women sleeping on the floors of the courts, with the animals eating out of their stone boxes or mangers about them. The people had no bedclothing except their blankets, and ate their meals on the floor. It was on such a floor that Mary had to lie, because there was no room at the inn, and the manger in which the baby Christ lay was probably a hollowed-out stone box such as those in which the donkeys were eating. Within this stable I saw a Bedouin woman with a sleeping baby on her knee. She had just been feeding the child and one breast peeped out between the folds of her coarse, rough gown. Her arms were bare to the shoulders and there were bracelets upon her wrists. Her face was as sweet as that of any Madonna I have ever seen upon canvas, and her baby, still in its swaddling clothes, looked as pure and as innocent as the most famous representation of the infant Christ.

It was in such stable that the Wise Men knelt and presented their gifts. It was there that the shepherds came, and it was there that our Redeemer first saw the light of this world.

Here at Bethlehem occurred the slaughter of the innocents. King Herod had learned that the Saviour was born, and he thought that if this infant King of the Jews still lived at Bethlehem he would make sure of His death. So his soldiers killed all the children under two years of age. In a place here, which the guides tell you was used for storing the bodies, there are oil paintings horribly done depicting the killing. Bethlehem was so small that it must have been difficult to hide the infant Christ from the men sent by King Herod to search for Him, and it is no wonder that Joseph and Mary took the Holy Child and fled with Him to Egypt.

The Bethlehem of to-day has entirely recovered from the massacre of Herod. Its streets swarm with babies many of whom are not as clean as they should be. There are many older children as well, and all howl for baksheesh. The Bethlehemites are noted for their beauty, especially the girls, who are fair-skinned and bright-eyed. Their plump, well-rounded forms are clad in long gowns of white linen so beautifully embroidered in silk that one dress requires many months’ work. The main part of their costume is much like a lady’s nightgown. The gown falls to the feet, being open at the front in a narrow slit as far down as the breast. Over the gowns they wear sleeveless coats of dark red stripes and cover their heads with shawls of linen embroidered in silk. Each girl has necklaces of coins and a headdress decorated with coins of silver or gold. They do not cover their faces, and their features are usually refined. They are very intelligent, and in trading with them I find that they generally get the best of the bargain.