CHAPTER III.

THE SURVEY OF SAMARIA.

The places of primary interest between the pass of the Robber’s Fountain on the south and the Great Plain of Esdraelon on the north, are five in all. Shiloh just south of the Samaritan boundary, Samaria, Tirzah, Ænon, and Dothan, north of the Vale of Shechem.

There is no site in the country fixed with greater certainty than that of Shiloh. The modern name Seilûn preserves the most archaic form which is found in the Bible in the ethnic Shilonite (1 Kings xi. 29). The position of the ruin agrees exactly with the very definite description given in the Old Testament of the position of Shiloh as “on the north side of Bethel (now Beitîn), on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah” (Lubben) (Judges xxi. 19). It is just here that Seilûn still stands in ruins. The traveller leaves Bethel, descends into the gorge of the Robber’s Fountain, and emerges into open ground near Sinjil (Casale St. Gilles of the Crusaders). Here he leaves the main road to Shechem on the west, and passes over the corn-plain of Turmus Eyya (the Thormasia of the Talmud). The scenery of the wild mountains is finer than that in Judea; the red colour of the cliffs, which are of great height, is far more picturesque than the shapeless chalk mounds near Jerusalem; the fig-gardens and olive-groves are more luxuriant, but the crops are poor compared to those in the plain and round Bethlehem; Judea is the more fertile district, Mount Ephraim the more rugged and picturesque.

We approached Shiloh from the south, by a mountain-road of evident antiquity, from the little plain. The ruins of a modern village here occupy a sort of Tell or mound. On the east and north the site is shut in by bare and lofty hills of grey limestone, dotted over with a few fig-trees; on the south the plateau looks down on the plain just crossed. A deep valley runs behind the town on the north, and in its sides are many rock-cut sepulchres; following its course westward, we again reached the main road, thus avoiding a steep pass, and turning northwards found the village of Lebonah perched on the hillside to the west of the road and north of Shiloh, as described in the Bible.

Shiloh was for about 400 years the chosen abode of the Tabernacle and Ark. It is a question of no little interest whether this was the first spot selected after the conquest of the hills by Joshua. That Shiloh became the gathering-place after the conquest of Shechem there is abundant proof (Josh. xxii. 12), and it may be inferred that the Tabernacle was placed there early; but, on the other hand, we find “Sanctuary of the Lord” (or Holy Place of Jehovah) mentioned, by the Oak near Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 26), and we may perhaps gather that, though not recognised by the doctors of the Mishna, there was a time when the Tabernacle stood, as is believed by the Samaritans, near Shechem. The date which they give for its transference to Shiloh, in the time of Eli, whom they consider to have been the first schismatical leader of the children of Judah, does not, however, accord with the Biblical account, and the story no doubt originated in consequence of religious hatred.

The site being so certainly known, it becomes of interest to speculate as to the exact position of the Tabernacle. Below the top of the hill, on the north of the ruins, there is a sort of irregular quadrangle, sloping rather to the west, and perched above terraces made for agricultural purposes. The rock has here been rudely hewn in two parallel scarps for over 400 feet, with a court between, seventy-seven feet wide, and sunk five feet below the outer surface. Thus there would be sufficient room for the court of the Tabernacle in this area, and it is worthy of notice that the measurement north and south agrees very closely with the width of the court (fifty cubits), which was also measured north and south. From the Mishna we learn that the lower part of the Tabernacle erected at Shiloh was of stone, with a tent above.

There are, however, two other places which demand attention as possible sites, one being perhaps a synagogue, the other a little building called the “Mosque of the Servants of God.”

The building which I have called a synagogue is situate on a slope south of the ruins of Shiloh. It is thirty-seven feet square, and built of good masonry. The door is on the north, and is surmounted by a flat lintel, on which is a design in bold relief, representing vases and wreaths. Inside there are pillars with capitals seemingly Byzantine. A sloping scarp has been built against the wall on three sides, and a little mosque sacred to El Arb’ain—“the Forty” Companions of the Prophet—is built on to the east wall. There is a pointed arch on the west wall. Thus we have at least three periods—that of the old synagogue represented by the lintel, which is similar to the lintels of Galilean synagogues, that of a later Christian erection, and finally the Moslem mosque, built probably where the apse of the chapel would have been placed.

The Jami’a el Yeteim, or “Mosque of the Servants of God,” is situate at the southern foot of the Tell. It is shaded by a large oak-tree, and is of good masonry like that of the last; there was nothing very remarkable in the little low chamber within, but the name seems to preserve a tradition of the position of the Tabernacle.

The only water close to the village was once contained in a little tank with steps, south of the lower mosque. There is, however, a fine spring placed, as is often to be observed in Palestine, at a distance of no less than three quarters of a mile from the town, at the head of the valley which comes down behind the ruins from the east. A good supply of water here issues into a rocky basin, and was once carried by an underground aqueduct to a rock-cut tank, but is now allowed to run waste.

The vineyards of Shiloh have disappeared, though very possibly once surrounding the spring, and perhaps extending down the valley westwards, where water is also found. With the destruction of the village desolation has spread over the barren hills around.

A yearly feast was held at Shiloh, when the women came out to dance in the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21). It is possible that a tradition of this festival is retained in the name Merj el ’Aid, “Meadow of the Feast,” to the south of the present site.

Shiloh lies in so remote a situation, so hidden by its surrounding hills, and so out of the main highways, that neither the early pilgrims nor the Crusaders seem to have ever known of its position, and it is unnoticed by any writer but Jerome before the sixteenth century. The Crusaders considered Neby Samwîl (or Mount Joy, as they preferred to call it) to be Shiloh, and also Ramathaim Zophim, or Gibeah of Saul. Such wild ideas are sufficient to show their ignorance of the Bible, and are only noticeable as among the curiosities of Palestine geography.

The Tabernacle and Ark remained so long at this spot that it was regarded by the Jews as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. A curious peculiarity of their worship is noticed in the Mishna, where they are said to have been allowed to eat certain sacrifices at any spot whence the Tabernacle could be seen, but not farther from it. As Shiloh was shut in by mountains, the effect must have been to gather the congregation much oftener to this remote valley, than when, at Nob or Gibeon, the same sacrifices (the second tithes) might be eaten in any of the cities of Israel.

The road from Shechem to Samaria leads down the course of the western valley through groves of ancient olives with gardens of pomegranates and figs. The olives are more picturesque than in Judea, as the trees are not regularly arranged in quincunx order, but grow almost wild with a tangled underwood. Those in the valley beneath Nâblus seem to be of great age, and have split up into two or three stems from one root, with numerous suckers. Leaving these groves, the road climbs the side of a white chalk swell, where the ground is strewn with gravel from the huge blocks of beautiful brown flint conglomerate like agate, which runs in bands through the rock. It finally descends into a valley, open and well watered, and passes beneath the Hill of Samaria, which is thickly covered with olives.

Samaria is in a position of great strength, and though it would now be commanded from the northern range, it must, before the invention of gunpowder, have been almost impregnable. It stands some 400 feet above the valley, the sides of the hill being steep, and terraced in every direction for cultivation, or perhaps for defensive purposes, as Josephus tells us the hill was scarped by Herod the Great (Ant., xv. 8, 5); broad and open valleys stretch north and south, and the hill is thus almost isolated, being joined only by a low tongue on the east to the chain of Ebal. The view northwards extends to the high ridge a few miles off which divides the Nâblus district from the outskirts of the great plain. On the east the lower slopes which run out of the great dome of Ebal are visible, on the south and west the flat Samaritan hills stretch away, covered with olives, and crowned by numerous villages which stand on high knolls, generally with a central tower or larger house. It is wonderful to reflect how great the antiquity of most of these hamlets is. For four thousand years, in some instances, the little hill has been covered by a succession of probably just the same sort of cottages which now rise upon the ruins of their predecessors; for four thousand years the women have gone down to the same spring, quarrelled, talked scandal, and returned with their brown jars on their heads; for four thousand years the cattle have trampled the corn and the wind has borne the chaff from the great yellow corn-heap; for all this time the same race has lived on, and has handed down the same village name, scarcely changed from the time of Abraham to the present day.

The village of Sebŭstieh, representing the ancient Samaria, is built on the brow of the great white hill, and immediately north-east of the mud-hovels are the ruins of the beautiful Crusading church of St. John Baptist, where, in a crypt, now held sacred by the Moslem peasantry, the saint was supposed to have been beheaded. The tradition, though erroneous, is ancient, and existed in 380 A.D. The church is a mere shell, its roof and the pillars of the nave having been destroyed.

The site of the Paradise of Samaria, mentioned in the Talmud, is perhaps represented by the spring and gardens to the south of the hill. The ancient tombs, which included those of the Kings of Israel, seem to have been situate to the north, on the opposite side of the valley, and none have as yet been discovered on the hill itself.

The most interesting ruins, however, are those of Herod’s colonnade to the west of the modern village. This building seems to have run round the hill on a flat terrace, in the middle of which rises a rounded knoll on which the Temple, dedicated to Augustus, and stated by Josephus to have been in the middle of the town, presumably stood.

The cloister measures about 2100 feet east and west, and 660 feet north and south; the walk being fifty feet wide in the one case, and 100 feet in the other. The total circuit is thus some 5500 feet, but Josephus (Ant. xv. 8) estimates it at twenty furlongs or 10,000 feet; his statement is therefore considerably exaggerated, but is no doubt to be considered as conjectural only.

In the south-west angle there seems to have been a gateway flanked by small towers, the rock scarps of which remain. On the north-east there is another street of columns at the bottom of the hill, running in a line oblique to the sides of the upper colonnade. This seems to have been an avenue of approach 180 feet wide, 1450 feet long; but it may have been a distinct building, as no pillars remain on the upper slopes.

The pillar shafts are principally monoliths; they are not, however, of colossal size like Herod’s work in Jerusalem, but only sixteen feet high and two feet thick.

Samaria is not a city which can compare in antiquity with Shechem or Hebron, for only just before Ahab’s time Omri bought the Hill of Shemer. In the Talmud we find it called Shomron or “watch-tower” as in the Bible, and also Sebustieh as at present, Sebaste being Herod’s name for the town in honour of Augustus, to whom the Temple was dedicated. Strategical reasons may be supposed to have dictated the choice of the capital of Omri, for on the north the hill commands the main road to Jezreel over a steep pass, on the west it dominates the road to the coast, and on the east that to the Jordan through Wâdy Fâr’ah, the highway to Gilead. Thus we find that when the Syrians, under Benhadad, raised the siege, and fled by night down the great Fâr’ah valley to Jordan, their panic was due to the fear of reinforcements which they imagined they could hear advancing over the pass from the northern land of the Hittites, and on the west up the open valley from Egypt (2 Kings vii. 6).

The history of Samaria has often been summarised. It shared the vicissitudes of Shechem, and was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in 129 B.C. when he demolished the Temple on Gerizim. It rose to importance under Herod, and then disappears for a time from history. It became the see of a Crusading bishop about 1155 A.D., and is mentioned by many of the Christian pilgrims. It is not, however, connected with the religion of the people like Shechem, and there is therefore comparatively little to describe in the political capital of Israel.

The traveller who rides across from Samaria behind Ebal, or who follows the stony road in the magnificent gorge east of the same mountain, finds himself gradually descending to the springs which lie at the head of the great Fâr’ah valley, the open highway from the Dâmieh ford of Jordan to Shechem. It was up this valley that Jacob drove his flocks and herds from Succoth to Shalem near Shechem. It was along the banks of its stream that the “garments and vessels” of the hosts of Benhadad were strewn as far as Jordan. It was here also that Israel, returning from captivity (according to the Samaritans), purified themselves before going up to Gerizim to build the Temple; but the place possesses a yet higher interest as the probable site of “Ænon near to Salem” where John was baptizing, “because there was much water there” (John iii. 23).

The head-springs are found in an open valley surrounded by desolate and shapeless hills. The water gushes out over a stony bed, and flows rapidly down in a fine stream surrounded by bushes of oleander. The supply is perennial, and a continual succession of little springs occurs along the bed of the valley, so that the current becomes the principal western affluent of Jordan south of the Vale of Jezreel. The valley is open in most parts of its course, and we find the two requisites for the scene of baptism of a multitude—an open space and abundance of water.

Not only does the name of Salem occur in the village three miles south of the valley, but the name Ænon, signifying “springs,” is recognisable at the village of ’Ainûn four miles north of the stream. There is only one other place of the latter name in Palestine, Beit ’Ainûn near Hebron, but this is a place which has no very fine supply of water and no Salem near it. On the other hand, there are many other Salems all over Palestine, but none of them have an Ænon near them. The site of Wâdy Fâr’ah is the only one where all the requisites are met—the two names, the fine water supply, the proximity of the desert, and the open character of the ground.

The identification has been questioned on the assumption that Ænon should be found near the desert of Judea, where John first preached (Matt. iii. 1), but it will afterwards be seen that there is good reason for placing Bethabara, where also he baptized, far from Judea and higher up the valley of the Jordan than even this site of Ænon; and the large area thus supposed to have been the theatre of the Baptist’s wanderings fully accords with the words of the third Gospel, “He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance” (Luke iii. 3).

Here then in the wild desert valley, beneath the red precipices where the hawk and kite find nests in “the stairs of the rocks,” or by the banks of the shingly stream with its beautiful oleander blossoms shining in the dusky foliage of luxuriant shrubs, we may picture the dark figure of the Baptist in his robe of camel’s hair, with the broad leather Bedawi belt round his loins, preaching to the Judean multitude of pale citizens, portly grey-bearded Rabbis, Roman soldiers in leathern armour and shining helmets, sharp-faced publicans, and, above all, to the great mass of oppressed peasantry, the “beasts of the people,” uncared for, stricken with palsy, with blindness, with fever, with leprosy, but eagerly looking forward to the appearance of that Messiah who came to preach the Gospel of the poor.

The scenery of Samaria differs from that both of Judea and of Galilee; with the exception of the rugged hills south of Gerizim—the Mount Heres (or “rough mountain”) of the Bible—the greater part of the district consists of chalk hills covered with olives, and of open valleys and plains which are wonderfully fertile. The great mountain blocks of Galilee belong to the wilder ranges of Lebanon, and the long ridges of hard limestone in Judea to a class of far less picturesque scenery.

It was among these hills and valleys that the Survey was extended during the months of July and August, 1872. The land was stony and colourless, dried up by the sun, the flowers long dead, and the glare from the white rock very trying; between the ledges the little owls stared out on us; the huge grey lizards lifted their tails like race-horses, scampering across the path, or nodding angrily behind a stone with a sort of mimicry of Moslem prayer-attitudes which causes them to be killed by the Mohammedans whenever caught. In the olive-groves the hoopoes were strutting with their crests lifted, on the rocks the gazelles now and then bounded past, or a stray jackal was to be seen gazing from a safe distance. Herds of black long-eared goats, tended by the ragged shepherd boys, roamed over the uncultivated hills; by the springs the little red cattle, scarcely larger than an English calf, were huddled in the shade, flipping off the flies; and processions of blue-robed women came down from the dust-coloured villages to fetch back water.

The slabs of rock were slippery from the smooth feet of the great camels which came swinging along the highway, led by men on diminutive brown donkeys. All was grey and dusty under a sky of lead in the east wind, or deep blue when it came from the west. At the villages the corn was being threshed and winnowed with instruments as old as the time of Abraham, in their peculiarities of form. Palestine was in fact at its worst as far as picturesqueness is concerned; but all was novel and strange, and the interest had scarce time to subside before the fine changes of autumn set in.

On one of our rides we visited the little village of Kuriet Jît, west of Nâblus, in which there was a very high house fitted for a point in the triangulation. It was generally better to choose a mountain-top, as the curiosity of the villagers is often annoying. They were, however, here unaccustomed to travellers, and behaved with the solemn courtesy which used to be distinctive of the peasantry before European vulgarity and European “backsheesh” had spoiled them. They stared hard at the theodolite, which was variously conjectured to be a watch, a compass, a telescope, or a combination of all three. At noon we retired into the room which is kept especially for chance guests in every village. Here we consumed breakfast, the Sheikh and elders sitting opposite to see us feed, and afterwards invited to share the remains with our native followers. The scene in colouring was almost equal to that of Rembrandt’s interiors, the bright light through the little door touching here and there the outlines of the swarthy figures in their mantles of tawny camel’s-hair, striped with darker brown. The Sheikh was glad of our escort back, as he was carrying the taxes to Nâblus. He inquired, as he rode with us, how soon the English were coming to take the country and “build it up again.”

GUEST HOUSE, KURIET JIT.
GUEST HOUSE, KURIET JIT.

On the 16th of August we left Nâblus and moved the camp northwards to the village of Jeb’a.

The district thus entered is very rich, the villages large and flourishing, with good stone houses in them, and the olives and corn very fine. It is called the “Eastern District of the Jerrâr,” from the name of a famous family of native chiefs, once the governors of all the hills from the Great Plain to Nâblus on the south. The Sheikh of the village at which we camped was one of this family, and we were treated by its members with much courtesy, although this politeness may not have been altogether disinterested.

The village of Jeb’a was on the east of our camp, on a hillside, and well built of stone, with olives around it; on the north we looked across a narrow plain to Remeth of Issachar, and other ancient villages perched on heights; behind us the hills rose suddenly and stretched westwards in the long spur from Mount Ebal. East of Jeb’a stands the strong fortified village of Sânûr, on an isolated hill guarding the pass into a small plain, called the “Drowned Meadow,” which has no natural drainage, and thus becomes a marsh in the winter, drying up only in May or June.

This fortified village has often been supposed identical with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, a place which was near Dothan; but Sânûr does not fulfil one of the main requisites for the site, as it does not command a view of the Plain of Esdraelon. It is curious that the village of Mithilia, a little farther north, has been overlooked, the name of which approaches closely to that of Bethulia, whilst the plain is seen from the ridge near the village.

The head of the house of the Jerrâr lived at Sânûr, his nephew was Sheikh of Jeb’a; the younger members of the family were innumerable, and we were plagued with endless visits from them all. The Jeb’a family invited us to dinner, and we were thus able to witness a phase in peasant life not often seen by Europeans.

About six in the evening a man was sent to the camp to escort us, and we walked through the village to the highest house, that of the Sheikh. The inhabitants are wonderfully fine men, and used to be famous for their feuds with the men of ’Arrâbeh, some miles to the north; they are still redoubtable thieves, but in 1868 the Government came down on them after a riot, killed some thirty or forty, fined the village heavily, and took most of the young men for soldiers. The Sheikh’s house was well built and new; the reception-room, on an upper floor, had a raised daïs, with a low wooden rail, about six inches high, on the step. It was carpeted, and pillows arranged against the walls at the upper end in the corners, where we were requested to sit. The walls were covered with plaster very brown and cracked. A gallery for sleeping was built at the lower end of the room.

The Sheikh now appeared in his white robe, with a yellow silk kufeyeh on his head bound with a black cord; removing his red slippers from his well-washed feet, he stepped on to the daïs, touched our hands and then his own breast, lips, and head, in token of the submissive formula, “On my heart, my mouth, and my head.” The oft-repeated greetings, “How is your health?” “How is your excellency?” “your worship,” “your lordship,” next followed, with repetitions of the former signs, which are, very gracefully executed. The host sat at a distance, or rather knelt, until pressed to come near, when he gradually approached and sunk sideways on one thigh, with his feet carefully hidden. An aged elder followed, and then the son of the host; a third and fourth dropped in, and as each appeared we rose and the same ceremonies were repeated with a dignity and decorum which made one forget for a time that we were dealing with ignorant and degraded peasants.

The Natûr, or village-watchman, and some servants now brought in a round wooden table, about a yard in diameter, on legs some six inches high; it was of rough wood, and folded down the centre. A huge brass basin followed, with a brass ewer having a long spout like a coffee-pot; the Sheikh’s son distributed towels, and we washed our right hands preparatory to eating with them—to eat with the left hand being almost as bad a breach of manners as to show the sole of the foot. A dozen dishes were then brought in succession, taken by the young man from the servants and placed on the board; they contained lentils, tomatoes, and kuzah, a sort of vegetable-marrow, which were stuffed with rice; bowls of sour milk (leben), a delicious sauce to such fare, were placed between, but the centre of the table was still bare, until three huge wooden dishes of rice, piled up in cones, with fragments of boiled meat sticking out, were brought in. The most delicate dish, however, was a kid (as we then thought, but afterwards doubted whether it were not our own little gazelle which was lost soon after) dressed whole, with its head and legs still on.

As we were Europeans, the great innovation of a pewter spoon and fork was allowed, no doubt being considered as a wonderful mark of civilisation by the Sheikh; thin discs of bread, unleavened and very leathery, about a foot in diameter, were scattered on the carpet beside each guest. We were invited to draw near, but had to press our host for some time before he ventured to eat with us; finally he sat down with two more, and the son carved—that is to say, pulled the meat in pieces with his right hand, and made up little parcels wrapped in a funnel of bread for us to eat: the liver and kidneys of the kid were placed inside the ribs and considered great delicacies; the whole fare was tender and good, but rather too oily for European palates, and the want of salt rendered it insipid. No water was placed on the board, but a servant brought it when required in a green glass; as each guest drank, his nearest neighbour turned with a bow and said, “Digestion,” to which the answer is (for every formula has its proper answer), “The Lord increase your digestion,” accompanied by a touching of the head with the hand.

The meal completed we retired to our corners, and the basin was brought again with water and soap—a necessity after using the fingers in eating. Coffee was then handed round, whilst a fresh batch of guests fell upon the feast, and was succeeded by a third, who left but little remaining. The coffee was made clear, as among the Bedawin, which is far more delicious than the thick Turkish coffee usually given to travellers. The guests drank quickly, with a loud sipping sound, the cups being about the size of an egg-cup and only half full, for to fill the cup is an intimation that the host is anxious for you to go soon, as is also the offer of a third cup soon after the second. A narghili or hubble-bubble followed for each of us two, with pipes and cigarettes, and Drake talked, describing England, London, and the railways, while I, naturally, had to sit silent, not as yet knowing the language. The Sheikh supposed we were looking for crosses cut on the ruins, and that we should afterwards claim ownership of all such places—a belief probably originating from the crosses cut on the lintels of every ruined monastery of Crusading and Byzantine times.

About seven p.m. we retired, the host accompanying us to his door. We slipped a coin into the servant’s hands, and afterwards sent a present of gunpowder to the Sheikh.

Some days later we had a repetition of this scene at Sânûr. The host, an unwieldy man in a black cloak, was yet more dignified, and the purple jackets and green waistcoats of the younger men marked them out as great dandies and local grandees. This village was so strong that it once stood several days’ assault by regular troops, and only yielded on being bombarded by the Pacha. An aged elder described seeing a cannon-ball enter a room where cotton was stored, and roll the soft heap round itself. The old Sheikh, once governor of the district, declaimed bitterly against the Turks. “They rob and impoverish me,” he said. “Are my women to carry wood and fetch water? Are my sons to plough the ground?” The Government were following the same policy with the Jerrâr family which has ruined the Zeidanîyin in the north, and the Abu Ghôsh in the south, and has certainly broken the national spirit, while curbing the turbulence of the factions which caused constant local outbreaks between neighbouring villages.

The most remarkable point in the behaviour of these native gentry was the reverence for age shown even by grey-bearded men to those some ten years older. We noticed also that the religious Sheikh of the village sat above our host after the Jeb’a banquet.

On Friday, the 30th of August, we left Jeb’a and moved on to Jenîn.

By noon we reached Dothan, the scene of Joseph’s betrayal by his brethren, and halted under a spreading fig-tree beside a long cactus hedge. Just north of us was the well called Bîr el Hŭfîreh, “Well of the Pit,” and east of us a second, with a water-trough, thus accounting for the name Dothan, “two wells.” Above the wells on the north rises the shapeless mound where the town once stood, and on the west spread the dark brown plain of ’Arrâbeh, across which runs the main Egyptian road—the road by which the armies of Thothmes and Necho came up from the sea-coast, and by which the Midianite merchants went down with their captive. The cattle stood by the well, huddling in the shade, waiting to be watered, and rude cowherds and goatherds gathered around us in groups which were no doubt not far different in dress or language from Joseph’s brethren four thousand years ago.

One place of interest must be noticed in concluding this chapter—Tirzah, once the capital of Israel, famous for its beauty.

It is the only Samaritan town mentioned among the royal cities taken by Joshua, and even this name was changed by the Rabbinical writers into Tiran, a place in Galilee.

Just twelve miles east of our Jeb’a camp, on a plateau where the valleys begin to dip suddenly towards Jordan, stands the mud hamlet of Teiâsîr. We afterwards visited it from the Jordan camp, and found it to have been once a place of importance, judging from the numerous, rock-cut sepulchres burrowing under the houses, the fertile lands and fine olives round, and the monument of good masonry, seemingly a Roman tomb. Just north of it we discovered a ruin called Ibzîk, which is unquestionably a Bezek known to Eusebius, and probably the place where Saul collected his army before attacking the Ammonites (1 Sam. xi. 8).

In the latter ruin is a little chapel dedicated to Neby Hazkîn, “the Prophet Ezekiel,” and the high mountain crowned with thicket behind is called “Ezekiel’s Mountain.”

This name Teiâsîr I suppose to be Tirzah. It contains the exact letters of the Hebrew word, though the two last radicals are interchanged in position, a kind of change not unusual among the peasantry. The beauty of the position and the richness of the plain on the west, the ancient remains, and the old main road to the place from Shechem, seem to agree well with the idea of its having once been a capital; and if I am right in the suggestion, then the old sepulchres are probably, some of them, those of the early kings of Israel before the royal family began to be buried in Samaria.

VIEW FROM JENIN.
VIEW FROM JENIN.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.

The Great Plain extends northwards fourteen miles from Jenîn, to Junjâr at the foot of the Nazareth chain, whilst from Jezreel on the east, to Legio on the west, is about nine miles. The elevation is about 200 to 250 feet above the sea, and a Y-shaped double range of hills bounds it east and west, with an average elevation of 1500 feet above the plain. On the north-east are the two detached blocks of Neby Dŭhy and Tabor, and on the north-west a narrow gorge is formed by the river Kishon, which springs from beneath Tabor and collecting the whole drainage of this large basin, passes from the Great Plain to that of Acre. On the east of the plain the broad valley of Jezreel gradually slopes down towards Jordan, and Jezreel itself (the modern Zer’in) stands on the side of Gilboa above it. On the west are the scarcely less famous sites of Legio, Taanach, and Jokneam, while the picturesque conical hill of Dŭhy, just north of the Jezreel valley, has Shunem on its south slope, and Nain and Endor on the north. Thus seven places of interest lie at the foot of the hills east and west, but no important town was ever situate in the plain itself—a flat expanse of arable land, the loose basaltic soil of which is extremely fertile.

The Great Plain was once the favourite resort of the Bedawin when driven by war or famine across Jordan. At times it used to be covered with camels “like the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable.” The Ruwalla (a branch of the great Arab nation called ’Anazeh), the Sukr and other important tribes came over to pasture their camels, and like the Midianites whom Gideon encountered advancing by the same great highway—the valley of Jezreel, they oppressed the native population settled in the villages. Thus in 1870 only about a sixth of the beautiful corn-land was tilled, and the plain was black with Arab “houses of hair.” But the Turks wrought a great and sudden change; they armed their cavalry with the Remington breech-loading rifle, and the Bedawin disappeared as though by magic. It was of course to be expected that when external troubles had weakened the Government, the lawless nomads would again encroach and levy toll and tribute as before; for the history of Palestine seems constantly to repeat itself from the earliest period recorded, in a recurring struggle between the settled population and the nomads, Midianites, Shasu, Bedawin, or whatever other name you may call them; thus during the year 1877 Fendi el Faiz and the Sukr again invaded the plain and levied black-mail on the luckless peasantry. In 1872 no less than nine-tenths of the plain was cultivated, nearly half with corn, the rest with millet, sesame, cotton, tobacco, and the castor-oil plant. The springs on the west are copious; from near Legio a considerable affluent flows north to join the Kishon, and even in August the streams are running to waste at the foot of the hills. The Great Plain is indeed one of the richest natural fields of cultivation in Palestine—perhaps one might say in the world.

The night came down on our newly-erected camp before even a hasty glance could be obtained of all this interesting scenery. There is something peculiarly soothing in the Syrian starlight; the planets are brighter than in the north, the milky way looks like a long white cloud, the moon, as she rises, is often accompanied by a silvery vapour floating over the mountain-tops. The silence is broken by the sigh of the night wind among the olives which form a black lattice-work overhead. In the village at intervals one hears the barking of the troops of savage dogs, and in the open plain the shrill gamut of the jackals, rising note by note, and ending in a sort of shake or quavering sound. The cicalas are asleep, but the piping of the black mole-crickets continues all night. Occasionally a horse wakes with a snort, or the English terriers hear a strange step and give the short sharp warning bark, so different from the mongrel howls of the native dogs; then once more all is still but the wind, and the silence becomes almost oppressive.

The Great Plain was the place chosen for the measurement of our second base to check the accuracy of the triangulation carried up some sixty miles from its starting-point in the Jaffa plain. On the 2nd of September we laid out the line for a distance of four and a half miles, directing it on the white dome of Neby S’ain above Nazareth, and thus obtaining a prolongation for calculation of nearly six miles. The high hills east and west gave us a second line of fifteen miles almost at right angles, and from this, large well-shaped triangles were carried away to the north. The check was perfectly satisfactory, and the closing line, when calculated in 1876 at Southampton, had a margin of only twenty feet, which is an invisible distance on the one inch scale.

One of our trigonometrical stations was placed on a high hill above the smaller plain of ’Arrâbeh in which Dothan stands just south-west of the Great Plain. Here there is a chapel dedicated to Sheikh Shibleh, a famous Emir who in 1697 waylaid the traveller Maundrell. This writer remarks drily that after extorting black-mail, “he eased us in a very courteous manner of some of our coats, which now began to grow not only superfluous but burdensome.” The Emir died, and was canonised, and his tomb looks down from the stony hill-top on the scene of his former prowess; but he is not the only sainted bandit in the Syrian pantheon.

In returning from this ride we passed through the little Christian village of Burkîn, where we were hailed with a pleasure very different from the hollow courtesy of the Moslem natives. The old Khûri or curé hastened down to show us his church on the hillside, a small whitewashed room, with a stone screen on the east shutting off the apses, as in all Greek churches in the country, and with three entrances guarded by curtains. The silver plate and ewer were kept in the north apse, the altar stood in the central one; the church was very rudely built, about fifty feet square, with a dome some twenty feet high. Two stone lecterns held the books near the screen, and a stone chair on the south side had arms with rude dogs’ heads carved on them. The pictures were all painted on wood in a stiff pre-Raffaelite style, with gaudy colouring dimmed by age. One represented the ascent of Elijah in a chariot with a red cloud beneath, and four winged horses harnessed to it, with traces looking like white tapes attached to the spokes of the wheels. Elisha below receives the mantle, and is again represented as at a greater distance striking Jordan with it, whilst a group of sons of the prophets stand like a shock of corn in a square block with gilded glories on their heads. Other pictures represented St. George, the Virgin, the Baptist with red wings and a title in Russian and Arabic characters, St. Nicholas, and the Saviour enthroned.

The Khûri, was a native, and his robes could not well have been dirtier or shabbier. He was accompanied by two acolytes who held our horses; his pride and satisfaction in showing his church were immense.

Whilst at Jenîn we had the unusual honour of a visit from a lady, who came to ask for medical advice. Peasants suffering from ophthalmia, or from indigestion, which they explained by saying “the head of my heart hurts me,” we had to doctor every day, and one poor old gentleman, at Mujeidil, we afterwards treated with carbolic acid and nearly cured of a skin disease; but he had many other ailments which we could not treat, and he consequently became a decided nuisance. The lady came attended by her slave, a little girl in white with large dark eyes, one of which, for some unknown reason, she kept steadily shut. The mistress was dressed in yellow and white striped cotton, with the izâr or white veil above; her face-veil she was obliged to remove to show her tongue, and her eyes had a deep fringe of blue kohel all round, the eyebrows painted to meet, whilst on her chin, forehead, and upper lip, were small dots tattooed in blue in a sort of trefoil pattern; her hands had bands of blue paint and dots on the knuckles. She wore heavy rings and a blue glass bracelet; the sleeves were tight to the wrist, and under her frock she wore the gay-coloured trousers as we call them, which are in reality a petticoat sewn up, and the prettiest article of Syrian costume. Her nails and the palms of her hands were dyed orange colour with henna, and on her feet she wore the red curly-toed slippers used in walking out of doors. She described her symptoms with the usual high querulous tone and rapid chatter peculiar to the native women, and was made happy by a couple of pills.

The places visited from this camp lay principally east of the plain. We ascended the high conical peak of Jebel Dŭhy, so-called after Neby Dŭhy (“the leader or general”), a prophet whose sacred place is on the summit. Who this prophet was I am unable to say, nor can we with any certainty apply a Biblical name to the mountain. The Crusaders called it sometimes Mount Endor, and generally Little Hermon, a title still known to the Nazareth Christians. The latter name was given in consequence of the expression, “Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy name,” whence they seemed to have argued that Hermon was to be sought close to Tabor. They can never have looked northwards from the neighbourhood of Endor, or they would have seen the rounded, isolated mound, like a huge mole-hill, which is Tabor, and behind it far away the magnificent, snowy dome of the second sacred mountain of the text—the true Hermon.

The top of the mountain is composed of blocks of basalt, covered with grey lichen. The view is magnificent, extending from the Safed ranges on the north to Mount Ebal on the south, and from the peaks east of the great Hauran plateau to Carmel and the sea. Fifteen hundred feet below us is Nain, and north of this the plain in which the mediæval tradition supposed Abraham to have met Melchisedek, with the unique outline of Tabor, the Nazareth block, and distant Hermon. On the south side the broad valley of Jezreel is just below, and the villages of Kûmieh and Shŭtta, seen almost in bird’s-eye view on their little knolls surrounded by long patches of arable land, whilst on the south side of the valley the limestone of the Gilboa ridge is twisted into wavy lines by the eruptive basalt beneath, and the range is seen, end on as it were, rising shelf above shelf, while conspicuous on its knoll of rugged rock, Jezreel stands at the north-west horn of the crescent-shaped range, 500 feet above the bright pool of “Goliath’s Spring,” where the early Christians, by some curious misconception, imagined David to have fought the giant. On a clear autumn day the little Survey cairn was plainly visible on Mount Ebal at a distance of twenty-six miles. The prospect is indeed one of the finest in Palestine, with a variety of outline and extent of view rarely to be found.

The village of Nain lies below on a sort of spur to the north of Neby Dŭhy, and the road from Nazareth ascends in a hollow to the west of it. On the right of the road, yet farther west, are the rock-cut tombs, and thus the procession bearing the young man’s body would have come down the slope towards the little spring westwards, meeting our Lord on the main road. The mud-hovels on the grey tongue of limestone have no great marks of antiquity, but the surrounding ruins show the village to have been once larger, and a little mosque called “the Place of our Lord Jesus” marks, no doubt, the site of an early chapel. There are, as far as we could see, no traces of a wall, and I think we should understand by “gate of the city,” the place where the road enters among the houses, just as the word is used often in Greek, and in modern Arabic in such expressions as “gate of the pass,” “gate of the valley,” and even “gate of the city,” where no wall or gate exists.

East of Nain is a second similar village of mud-huts, with hedges of prickly pear. This is Endor, famous in connection with the tragic history of the death of Saul. The adventurous character of Saul’s night journey is very striking, when we consider that the Philistines pitched in Shunem on the southern slopes of the mountain, and that Saul’s army was at Jezreel; thus, to arrive at Endor, he had to pass the hostile camp, and would probably creep round the eastern shoulder of the hill, hidden by the undulations of the plain, as an Arab will now often advance unseen close by you in a fold of the ground. We are accustomed, probably from the various pictures of the scene, to think of the witch as living in a cave; and caves exist at Endor, but they are small, and seem to be probably modern, having been dug out in seeking for the marl used in making mortar. The hillside is bare and stony, with a low ledge of rock in which the rude entrances are cut; round one cave there is a curious circle of rocks, which form a sort of protection, and resemble somewhat a druidical circle, though the formation is probably natural. This cave would, however, offer an appropriate scene for the meeting of the sorceress with the unhappy king, whom God answered “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1 Sam. xxviii. 6).

On the southern slope stands a third and similar village called Sûlem, the ancient Shunem. There is nothing specially to mark it as an ancient site, for it is only a mud-hamlet, with cactus hedges and a spring, yet it is undoubtedly the place known in the fourth century as Shunem. West of the houses there is a beautiful garden, cool and shady, of lemon-trees, watered by a little rivulet, and in the village is a fountain and trough. Westward the view includes Fûleh—the Crusading Castle of the Bean, with its fosse and marshy pool outside, and extends as far as Carmel, fifteen miles away. Thus the whole extent of the ride of the Shunamite woman (2 Kings iv. 24) under the burning noontide sun of harvest-time is visible. Were the houses of that time no larger than the mud-cabins of the modern village, it was not a great architectural undertaking to build “a little chamber” for the prophet, and the enumeration of the simple furniture of that chamber—the bed, perhaps only a straw mat, the table, the stool, and the lamp, seems to indicate that it was only such a little hut that was intended. Another point may be noted: how came it that Elisha so constantly passed by Shunem? The answer seems simple; he lived habitually on Carmel, but he was a native of Abel Meholah, “the Meadow of Circles,” a place now called ’Ain Helweh, in the Jordan valley, to which the direct road led past Shunem down the Valley of Jezreel.

Crossing the valley, we see before us the site of Jezreel on a knoll 500 feet high. The position is very peculiar, for whilst on the north and north-east the slopes are steep and rugged, on the south the ascent is very gradual, and the traveller coming northwards is astonished to look down suddenly on the valley, with its two springs, one (’Ain Jâlûd) welling out from a conglomerate cliff, and forming a pool about 100 yards long, with muddy borders; the other (’Ain Tub’aûn), the Crusaders’ Fountain of Tubania, where the Christian armies were fed “miraculously” for three days on the fish which still swarm in most of the great springs near.

The main road ascends from near these springs and passes by the “Dead Spring,” which was re-opened by the Governor of Jenîn, and now forms a shallow pool between rocks of black basalt, covered with red and orange-coloured lichen, and also full of little fish; thence it passes on the east side beneath the knoll of Zer’în (Jezreel) to the plain on the south. Climbing up to the village, we are again struck by the absence of any traces of antiquity; the buildings, including the central tower, are all modern, and only the great mound beneath, and perhaps some of the innumerable cisterns, seem ancient; yet the site is undoubted, and has never been really lost. Here from a tower, perhaps standing where the modern one is erected, the watchman could see down the broad Valley of Jezreel as far as Bethshan, and watch the dust and the gleam of the armour advancing. The course of the two horsemen and of Jehu’s chariot was distinctly seen beneath the hill, and the distances are sufficiently extensive to give time for the succession of events.

On the east and south-east there are rock-cut wine presses on the rugged hills, where no doubt the “portion of the field of Naboth” and his vineyard are to be placed,—a good instance of the decay of vine cultivation in Palestine.

It was by the “fountain which is in Jezreel” that Saul pitched before the fatal battle of Gilboa. The Philistines removed from Shunem to Aphek, and, according to Josephus, to Rangan. Perhaps these are the modern Fukû’a and ’Arrâneh, in which case the strong position of Jezreel was turned on the south-west, where it is most assailable, and the doomed monarch was hemmed in between the enemy on the south and the precipices of the mountain on the north.

On the 28th of September we left the Jenîn camp, where we suffered from the east wind and the great heat, to find a retreat in the western hills above the Great Plain, at the modern village of Umm el Fahm.

The large and flourishing stone village above us was built within the present century, and is called Umm el Fahm, “Mother of Charcoal.” It is perched on the slope of a high, conical, wooded hill, called from the little chapel on the top Sheikh Iskander, or “Chief Alexander.” The Kadi of the village, an amusing little native, who could read and write, told us many legends of this saint. He was identified apparently with Alexander the Great, for he was said to have had two ram’s horns, and also seemingly with Melchisedek, as he was reported to have had a meeting with Abraham in the valley.

This district was almost entirely unknown in 1872; the cone is a volcanic crater, and small volcanic outbreaks exist west of it, and also at the edge of the Great Plain on the east. The range is covered with thickets of lentisk and spurge laurel, and on the western slopes is an open wood of good-sized oaks; but on the north a broad valley called Wâdy ’Arah, divides this range from a plateau of white chalk called “the Breezy Land” (Belâd er Rûhah), bare of trees and reaching to Carmel. The thickets of Sheikh Iskander reach southwards almost to the plain of Dothan; the Yahmûr or roebuck gives its name to one of the valleys in this region, and every kind of game abounds.

On the western edge of the Great Plain there are three famous sites, Taanach, Legio, and Jokneam, concerning which a few words may be said.

The ruined site of Lejjûn is the Roman Legio, a town mentioned as a military station, and an important place in the fourth century. On the maps it will be found marked as the ancient Megiddo, but this is only an instance of the very slender basis on which conclusions as to the positions of important places in Palestine have been somehow founded. There is nothing definite in the Bible as to the position of Megiddo. It is often mentioned with Taanach, the site of which, with its name unchanged, exists about four miles south of Lejjûn; but it also occurs in connection with Jezreel, and with Bethshean, east of the Great Plain. In the time of Jerome Megiddo was unknown, though the Great Plain was apparently then supposed to be the Valley of Megiddon. Dr. Robinson, in suggesting the Lejjûn site, appears to have been influenced by the Crusading chronicles, which he, as a rule, condemns. Marino Sanuto, in 1321 A.D., places Megiddo at a town which he calls Sububa, and shows it on his map as on the west side of the plain. This is evidently the present Ezbûba, a mud village two miles north of Taanach, and three miles and a quarter south-east of Lejjûn. But Crusading topography is unfortunately more remarkable than reliable, and we seek in vain for further confirmation. Dr. Robinson has relied on Jerome’s comment on a passage in Zechariah (xii. 11), “As the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the Valley of Megiddon,” concerning which St. Jerome says that Hadad Rimmon was a town afterwards called Maximianopolis in the Valley of Megiddon; and this place we learn from the Bordeaux Pilgrim was ten miles from Jezreel on the road to Cæsarea. This distance evidently points to Rummâneh south of Lejjûn, seven and a quarter English miles from Jezreel. But we are still no nearer to the satisfactory fixing of Megiddo, for we have to depend on Jerome, first for the fact of Hadad Rimmon being a town at all (a fact disputed by many authorities who make it the name of an idol); secondly, for the town, if it was one, being the same as Maximianopolis. Supposing these premises both to be granted, it still does not follow that the town Megiddo was west of the Plain of Megiddo; nor, if it were, does it follow that it was at Lejjûn.

Such is the flimsy chain of argument which has been considered sufficient to fix the site. When we discover that there is a large ruin between Jezreel and Bethshean, which still bears the name Mujedd’a, a name which occurs in no other part of Palestine, these arguments cannot be considered worth weighing against so important an indication; and the new site, as will afterwards be seen, seems perhaps to fit better the few requirements for the ancient Megiddo.

Lejjûn was indeed once a large town, with a fine water supply from a beautiful spring, but Legio appears to have been the chief town of this part of Palestine, and to it the ruins are plainly to be ascribed, the distance from Taanach fitting with that given by Jerome.

North of Lejjûn the Great Wâdy el Milh runs down from the white plateau of the “Breezy Land,” which it separates from the southern end of Carmel. Here at the mouth stands a huge Tell or mound called Keimûn, on which are remains of a little Byzantine chapel, and of a small fort erected by the famous native chief Dhahr el ’Amr. The Samaritans have a curious legend connected with this site. According to them Joshua was challenged by the giants, and enclosed here with his army in seven walls of iron. A dove carried his message thence to Nabih, king of the tribes east of Jordan, who came to his assistance. The magic walls fell down, and the King of Persia, Shobek, was transfixed by an arrow which nailed him on his horse to the ground.

The present name is a slight modification of the ancient Jokneam of Carmel, but the Crusaders seem to have been puzzled by it, and transformed Keimûn into Cain Mons, or Mount Cain, whence arose the curious legend that Cain was here slain with an arrow by Lamech, which they supposed to be the murder referred to in the Song of Lamech (Gen. iv. 23). The chapel no doubt shows the spot once held to be the site of the death of Cain, but the derivation of the name was as fanciful as that of Haifa from Cephas or from Caiaphas the high-priest.

From our pleasant camp at Umm el Fahm, where are no less than twenty springs within the village lands, and fine gardens of oranges, lemons, and large shaddocks, we marched north-west to the town of Mujeidil in the Nazareth hills. On this day (the 19th of October) we crossed the Kishon and found by experience how treacherous are the banks of this apparently insignificant stream. The subject which naturally concludes the account of the Plain, is therefore the great battle in which the host of Sisera was drowned in the swollen waters of this river.

The amount of light which can now be thrown on this episode is very great. The topography has hitherto been obscure, but the Survey does much to explain it. To suppose that Sisera fled from the Great Plain to the neighbourhood of Kedes in Upper Galilee (a distance of over thirty miles) has always appeared to me to be contrary to what we know of the general character of the Biblical stories, the scenes of which are always laid in a very confined area; nor has the name of the plain, Bitzaanaim, near Kedesh, been recovered in this direction. Bitzaanaim was a town of Issachar near Adami (Ed Dâmieh) and should therefore be sought east of Tabor in the plateau over the sea of Galilee, where we still find it in the modern Bessûm. The Kedesh of the narrative where Barak assembled his troops is therefore possibly Kedîsh on the shore of the sea of Galilee, only twelve miles from Tabor. There is thus, from a military point of view, a consistency in the advance to Tabor (a strong position in the line by which the enemy were approaching), which is lacking if we suppose a descent from the stronger hills of Upper Galilee. The Kings of Canaan assembled in Taanach and by the waters of Megiddo, but it was not at either of these places that the battle was fought. Sisera was drawn to the river Kishon (Judges iv. 7), and the host perished near Endor, “at the brook Kishon” (Psalm lxxxiii. 10). The battle-field indeed was almost identical with that from which Napoleon named the “battle of Mount Tabor,” when the French drove the Turks into that same treacherous quagmire of the Kishon springs.

There are few episodes in the Old Testament more picturesque than this of the defeat of the Canaanites. Tabor, the central position, a mountain whose summit is 1500 feet above the plain, is bare and shapeless on the south, but to the north it is steep, and wooded with oaks and thickets in which the fallow-deer finds a home. About three miles west are the springs from which the Kishon first rises, and from this point a chain of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the dry season, the course of the river. Along this line, at the base of the northern hills, the chariots and horsemen of Sisera fled. The sudden storm had swollen the stream, “the river Kishon swept them away, that river of battles the river Kishon.” The remainder fled to Harosheth, now only a miserable village (El Harathîyeh), named from the beautiful woods above the Kishon at the point where, through a narrow gorge, the stream, hidden among oleander bushes, enters the Plain of Acre.

The flight of Sisera himself was in an opposite direction, under the slopes of Tabor and across the great lava plateau on which stood, near Bessûm, the black tent of Heber the Kenite.

The Bedawin have a delicious preparation of curdled milk called Leben, which is offered to guests but generally considered a delicacy; from personal experience I know that it is most refreshing to a traveller when tired and hot, but it has also a strange soporific effect, which was so sudden in its action on one English clergyman after a long ride, that he thought he had been poisoned. It was perhaps not without a knowledge of its probable effects, that Jael gave to her exhausted guest a tempting beverage which would make his sleep sound and long.

One final illustration may be added. In the magnificent song of Deborah, the great storm which swelled the Kishon is described:

“They fought from heaven, the stars from their courses fought against Sisera” (Judg. v. 20).

The season was probably that of the autumn storms which occur early in November. At this time the meteoric showers are commonest, and are remarkably fine in effect, seen in the evening light at a season when the air is specially clear and bright. The scene presented by the falling fiery stars, as the defeated host fled away by night, is one very striking to the fancy, and which would form a fine subject for an artist’s pencil.

CHURCH OF ST. ANNE, SEPPHORIS.
CHURCH OF ST. ANNE, SEPPHORIS.

CHAPTER V.

THE NAZARETH HILLS.

Up the pass a long train of camels and of black donkeys toiled, laden with the rich crop of sesame just reaped. Ascending the steep and slippery track, we reached the soft white chalk which forms the upper portion of the range, and which produces all round Nazareth a neighbourhood of bare, white, rolling hills, quite distinct from the bold mountains of Upper Galilee and from the oak-clad downs near Carmel. Here in the valley which we were following is a beautiful garden or orchard; oranges, figs, nuts, lemons, and pomegranates grow beside a spring, the rich green contrasting with the glaring white of the chalk and the brown of the burnt grass between the ledges. Still riding north-east a busy scene greeted our eyes—a great threshing-floor, on which horses and cows were being driven round, some dragging the rude threshing-sledge, some trampling only with their feet, while great cones of corn were being winnowed with a fork. Here we turned a corner, and suddenly all Nazareth was before us, gleaming white and new-looking on the side of the hill.

The position of the village is secluded, and it is only visible from its immediate neighbourhood. The range of hills runs north-east, and the south slopes are steep; a valley comes down westward on this side, and then gradually burrows south to its mouth, at the pass by which we had come up. At the point where it turns an open dell or hollow plateau is formed, where are the gardens of Nazareth—a sort of little mountain-plain, shelving down southwards. On it stand the Greek Church of the Annunciation and the Virgin’s Fountain; the town itself climbs up from it westwards, and hangs on the side of the steep hill, on the summit of which is the Moslem Chapel of Neby S’ain. The total extent of the village or town is only about a quarter of a mile either way, but the houses stand close together, so that in this small area a population of nearly 6000 souls is crowded, of whom one third only are Moslem.

Very characteristic of the history of the Holy Land it is to find within so small an area the sacred places of no less than six sects. The most ancient building is the Latin Church over the Holy House, in the strong monastery with its shady garden and palms. North of it the graceful minaret and the dark cypresses of the mosque rise close to the Governor’s house. On the west, yet higher up the hill, white and new stands the Gothic tower of the English Church; still farther west is the Maronite chapel. In the main street by the market the Greek Catholics hold possession of the chapel where they believe the synagogue of Nazareth once to have stood; high above the town on the north a large orphanage, built by German labour with English money, has been erected by the Society for Female Education in the East. Farther east is the palace of the Greek bishop, and above the fountain is the church (also on the foundations of a building mentioned as early as 709 A.D.), where the Greeks hold the Salutation of Mary to have occurred beside the springhead beneath the hill.

Thus we see at a glance how the little town is the centre of Christian love and veneration, and the goal to which men’s thoughts have been attracted from the west, from the north, from the east, and from the south, from civilised Europe, from rough but believing Russia, from the hills of Lebanon, even from the plains of Mecca.

Twenty years ago Nazareth was a poor village, now it is a flourishing town. The freedom given to religious worship by the Turks has been indeed remarkable compared with the tyranny of Arab or Egyptian governors; thus two Latin Churches, a Latin Hospice, the English Church, and many fine houses have been built within the last dozen years or so, and hence the very white and new appearance of the town of which they are the most prominent buildings.

Past the fortress convent, where a monk was alighting from a richly-caparisoned horse, up the narrow lanes, between the little hovels of the older part of the town, up rubbish-heaps, and over slippery cobbles, we rode to the parsonage, and were hospitably entertained by Mr. Zeller, the clergyman. The next day we returned early, and thus a more intimate acquaintance with the town was reserved until later, when I spent nearly three weeks in the Latin Hospice, and again visited the city twice for a few days in 1875.

Nazareth is probably not a very ancient place, for it is not noticed in the Old Testament, though situated very near the boundary of Zebulun; nor was it probably ever a very large town, for it has but one spring. Its name is most likely derived from the colour of the hills around, and may mean “white,” though the early fathers loved to render it “flower,” and others make it to mean “watchtower.” Ancient Nazareth probably stood rather higher on the slope than modern Nazareth; the place, in fact, has slid down the hill, as is indicated by the position of the old cisterns and tombs. Thus the “brow of the hill” is more probably one of the cliffs now above the town, or perhaps another hidden beneath the houses, and there is no necessity to seek it at so great a distance as that of the Saltus Domini precipice.

It is curious that Jerome scarcely seems ever to have been in Nazareth, though travelling far and wide over Palestine. In 700 A.D. Bishop Arculph found it an open village, with two churches—one over the grotto, one over the spring, both very large; but soon after troubles began, and it was not till the time of the Crusades that Nazareth became a bishopric. In 1102 Sæwulf found it entirely wasted, only a few columns remaining at the fountain, and though enjoying a temporary prosperity under the Christian monarchy, it was again devastated by the Moslems, and in 1322 Sir John Maundeville writes of it that it was “formerly a great and fair city, but now there is but a small village;” whilst of its inhabitants he says, “they are very wicked and cruel Saracens, and more spiteful than in any other place, and have destroyed all the churches.” It is not only Sir John, unfortunately, who can attest this fact: the zealous missionaries who have seen Moslem and Christian, Latin and Greek, shedding one another’s blood, Captain Burton who there nearly lost his life, and my own party who fared but ill in the neighbourhood, will alike bear witness to the turbulence of the Nazarenes—an evil character for which they seem to have been notorious ever since the days when they sought to stone our Lord, and gave cause yet earlier for the Jewish proverb, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

The people of the town are remarkable for the gay colouring of their dresses, and the Christian women for their beauty. Many a charming bit of colour, many a shapely figure set off by picturesque costume, many a dark eye and ruddy cheek, have I seen in the streets or by the spring. This beauty is peculiar to the Christians of Bethlehem and Nazareth, and various reasons are given which agree, however, in supposing a mixture of European blood. As to the dress, the causes are manifest; the costume is that commonly worn by Christians, and is only striking by contrast because the villagers of the neighbouring places are Moslem; the townsmen are also richer, and can afford better dress, and this partly accounts for the superior beauty of the better-fed women when contrasted with the worn faces of the overworked and half-starved peasant women of the surrounding poor hamlets.

A more special description of the people, their dress, customs, and religion, must, however, be reserved until they can be treated with the rest of the natives in a future chapter: suffice it here to notice that they present a far more pleasing and picturesque appearance than most of the inhabitants of Syrian towns. Leaving the question for the present, we may next turn attention to the two sacred places of Nazareth—the Grotto of the Annunciation and the Virgin’s Spring.

The site of the Holy House was shown, as noticed above, as early as 700 A.D. in a rock-cut grotto. The pillars of the Crusading church built round it were still visible in 1620 A.D., but the new building erected in 1730 A.D. with the rest of the present monastery, has no connection with the plan of the former, the foundations of which still exist beneath. The modern church is a whitewashed, square structure, seventy feet long and fifty broad, directed north and south. The high altar above the sacred grotto is reached by a flight of stairs, from each side of the seventeen marble steps which lead down to the vestibule, called the Chapel of the Angel, where left and right are the altars of St. Joachim and the angel Gabriel. Behind the high altar is the choir, dark and roomy like that at Bethlehem. Descending into the grotto and passing through the vestibule, the old Franciscan led me into the little rock-cut chamber, with marble floor, and an altar on the north wall. This is the outer half of the grotto, and a wall of separation divides it from the inner half. The outer is called Grotto of the Annunciation, the inner that of St. Joseph. From the roof of the former, which measures twenty feet across and seven feet in depth, hangs pendant near the west side the shaft of a red granite pillar, apparently a column of the old chapel in the grotto, and believed to be miraculously suspended over the very place where the angel stood when bringing the message to Mary. Lighting the little taper on the altar, and kneeling for a moment in prayer, the monk drew the veil from before an Italian picture of the Annunciation, soft and mellow in colour, with a sweet Virgin face, and tawdry silver crown and nimbus sewn on above her head and that of Gabriel.

By the narrow entrance on the right we passed into the inner part of the chapel, dark and damp, equal in width, but double the depth of the outer part. It is only just about high enough to stand in: its altar is placed at the back of the last described, with a picture of St. Joseph. From this a narrow passage twenty feet long, with seventeen steps, leads up obliquely to the inmost part of the cave, a chamber of irregular shape, traditionally supposed to be the Virgin’s kitchen, with a chimney hewn in the rock on the east, and an entrance, now walled up, on the west, by which the father informed me the Virgin used to go out to fetch water from the spring. The whole place is very dark and low, with a damp odour, and resembles the ancient cisterns of which many exist in Nazareth; yet for nearly twelve centuries this spot has been visited by millions from every Christian land as the early home of Christ and of His mother. I observed to the monk that it was dark for a dwelling-house, but he answered very simply, “The Lord had no need of much light.”