Dhahariyah
Bhahariyah, Saturday, Feb. 16. 1856. — As the pale dawn -light was just beginning to glimmer through our canvas, I awoke and found our servants already astir. Heard the inner row of our tent-pins pulled up, one by one, as usual. Bather pleased at this early sound, as it indicated that our dragoman was resolved to move in spite of last night’s threats. But it remains to be seen what the sheikh will do. He does not seem as yet to have made his apjoearance.
Sauntered up the hill for a short walk. The morning was pleasant, though with some wind moving. There had been neither frost nor dew; and the air was milder than I should have expected at this season, on a height so considerable, for we are upwards of two thousand feet above the level of the sea. The climate of these southern highlands of Palestine seems pure and bracing, without the keenness of the mountain-chill, even though winter has not yet passed away.
During breakfast the sheikh came j as like a mountain-vagabond as ever. His demands were still the same, though whether he had any hope of obtaining them I cannot say. Haji-Ismail was quite as peremptory in his refusal, and went on making preparations for our departure. The sheikh stood looking on, at quarantine distance, while our Arabs packed and loaded. He spoke to them, but his words were lost on us, as they seemed to be also on them. He w7as quiet, and laid no hands on any one, and seemed to be rather in the predicament of one not knowing what to do.
About half-past eight, wre are ready to start, — a few of the villagers hovering about us, but shewung no incivility. We move right past them, our guard of health, on a little pony, leading the way. The sheikh and the dragoman are having a conference, and a minute suffices to bring them to terms. We have refused to have anything to do with the matter, so Haji is settling it himself; and, strange to say, there is no storm of any kind at the adjustment, — either of words or blows. Both parties seem satisfied. The great man has got three dollars instead of twenty pounds, — sixty piastres instead of two thousand; nor has he been able to force his camels upon us. So that he has been fairly foiled. But like other easterns in such circumstances, he is not ashamed nor disconcerted. Nor does he shew any ill will either to us or our Arabs, but quietly submits to his defeat, with a better grace than a western extortioner, baffled in a cheating plot, would have done. He probably
THE HILL COUNTRY.
thinks that to get the hundredth part of what he has asked is not a poor bargain after all,
Immediately on clearing the village we begin to descend. But the descent greatly differs from the climb of yesterday. In the latter we were kept for nearly two hours in the tortuous hollow of a mountain-gorge, in which nothing was visible beyond the rocky acclivities on either side; in the former we have an open though hilly country, over a rough and somewhat steep road. The ground is broken, — stony, not rocky, — with a considerable amount of soil, which throws up great quantities of thistles and thorns, intermixed here and there with the crimson anemone. A good deal of the land here is ploughed; but it looks shaggy and half-tilled. The old threat has not been in vain,
“Yea, I will lay it waste!
It shall not be pruned,
And it shall not be digged,
But there shall come up the briar and the thorn.”* (Isa. v. 6.)
The prophet’s yet more minute and graphic picture of the desolate land we see on all sides as we pass along.
11 Yea it shall be in that day,
That each place where were a thousand vines
At a thousand silverlings, — For briars and thorns it shall be;
* The “digging” or hoeing here spoken of, perhaps refers to the process which we so often saw, of breaking up the ground with an axe or mattock. Though Gesenius seems to prefer “weeded” here, yet he lets us know that the cognate noun means “a hoe,” probably just such as we find in use, both here and in Egypt.
With arrows and bows they shall come to it.*
Surely briars and thorns shall the whole land be.
And all the hills (now) digged with the mattock,
Thou shalt not approach them,
For fear of briars and thorns;
And the land shall be for the sending forth of oxen
And the treading of sheep,” (Isa. vii. 23-25.)
We soon come to a tolerably wide hollow, covered with stunted wood. The chief, and in some parts the only tree of which the wood is made up, is one which looks to us very like a small-leaved holly. Its native name is ballnt, and it seems a species of oak, but evergreen and prickly, with an acorn precisely the same as our own, only rougher. It seems indigenous to this hilly region. Neither the axe nor the fire of the spoiler has rooted it out. The soil and the climate suit it, and there it grows, unplanted and uncared for, but still vital and vigorous. With a firm elastic leaf, of a dark but shining green, with a tough branch and an iron stem, and a hardy root that can strike any where, it defies all extirpation. It has shaded these steeps for some thousands of years, and it shews no inclination to relinquish its hold. The races that first took shelter under it are gone, but it keeps its place in spite of every change, as if it could not be expatriated or made to lose hold of its
* They come armed because of danger. Or the meaning may be, that they who traverse the land are not peaceful husbandmen, but wandering Bedawin, armed and seeking spoil. The hills, once terraced and hoed, shall become inaccessible, just as we saw them; and the whole land, instead of being used for vineyards or oliveyards, shall be made a common pasturage like the wilderness.
TERRACES.
native rocks. Mingling itself in some places with a species of privet, it greatly softens the scene, and the two, rooting themselves in all the crevices that have split the sides of these endless hollows, give an aspect of greater cultivation to the region than it really possesses.
These mountain-forests must have been mighty in their prime. Noble coverts these for Judah’s lion; even nobler than the rocks of Jebus or El-Blreh for the wolf of Benjamin!
Daisies are looking up from the brown soil, — the first that we have seen; and still the lilies are every where, — on the hill or in the hollow.* The slopes are ridged with terraces, probably very old, and now out of use; for who is there now to use them or even to keep them in repair? It is wonderful that many of them should be in such tolerable order. For this they owe something to the strength of their original construction; but more perhaps to the climate and character of the land. Had they been in Egypt the sand or mud would long since have buried them. Had they been in the desert the fierce rush of the winter-flood would have swept them down. Had they been in our own country they would have crumbled down and gone to utter ruin long ago. But here they last amazingly; and
* “Lilies of the field,” (Matt. vi. 28); that is, wild lilies, — just as we have “grass of the field,” (Matt. vi. 30), that is, uncultivated; and also, “roes of the field,” that is wild roes. l( Asahel was light of foot as one of the roes of the field,” (2 Sam. ii. 18). If God so adorn and care for these wild lilies which no man cares for, what will he not do for you? when the exiled owner of the land returns he will find much already done to his hand, and he will enter on the labours of his fathers, in some places very much as they were left two thousand years ago. The terraces in the lower parts seem still k*pt up, and made use of; those on the hill sides left to themselves.
Hitherto we have been descending, since we loft Dhahariyah; now we begin to ascend. Still the scenery does not change. Our description of the last hour’s journey applies to this, with one exception. We now light upon the Cyclamen in full flower. It is large and handsome, and its circle is as brilliant as its leaf is delicate and soft. It sprinkles the wayside; it shoots up among the prickly oaks; it does not yield to the encumbering shrubs and brushwood, but sends up its bright circle every where. We sit down on the rocks to admire it, and to dig up some of its large bulbs for export to Great Britain.
Again we descend into a pretty spacious hollow, bearing marks of modern as well as ancient cultivation. Low hills fence it round, and these are terraced to the top; shrubs and trees of various kinds striking into every crevice and overshadowing the grey rock. Thorns are growing in abundance. It is one of the most romantic passes that we have seen, extending for miles. All this is before noon. The sun is but thinly veiled, and makes us at times feel his power. Yet the pure spring air, ever in motion upon these fresh heights, cools and braces us, so that we march on for hours on
HEWN BLOCKS.
foot, heedless of everything save the wild beauty of hill and dale, of rock and wood, insensible to everything save the enchantment of the scene. This road the patriarchs had often traversed in their frequent journeys from Beersheba to Hebron, sitting down at times, as we are now doing, not so much to rest, as to let in the joy around. Over these various ascents did Abraham go, in his way to the land of Moriah to offer up his son. The converse between father and child was once scattered along these waysides; and these rocks had been witnesses to faith’s struggles and victories in that awful journey. We could imagine, too, the difference between the going and the returning; the shadows of the one, the sunshine of the other, — the “via dolorosa” between Beersheba and Moriah, the “via triumphalis” between Moriah and Beersheba.
It is now twelve o’clock; but we feel no inconvenience from the heat of noon. We mount our camels, however, as the road is rough and rocky. We see on both sides enormous masses of rock, too peculiar in form not to draw our notice. Some are parts of old terraces of vast size, some have come more under the hammer, if not the chisel of the ancient workman. But all of them appear to be in their natural position, rooted in their old beds or attached to their original mountain sides. Some look like entrances to caves; some like doors of houses or temples; some like apertures of wells or cisterns. They are not wasting or crumbling, as in the case of the sandstone ruins and excavations of Feiran; nor do they resemble the scattered debris of houses and churches in Ruhaibeh. They far more reminded us of the massive Phoenician ruins which we had seen at Malta, with this difference, that the stones of the latter had been quarried, and set up by the hands of the builder, whereas the stones of the former are (at least, many of them) un quarried and undetached from their original rocks. The wide, but somewhat steep, ravine in which they are, is covered with vast boulders and outstanding mountain masses. Of these the original inhabitants have taken advantage, and hewn for themselves dwellings, and perhaps temples. What we see appears to us to have been the remains, not of a city cut out of a mountain- side like Petra, but of rocks which had been cut into a city. No doubt we did see one or two caves, the entrances to which had been artificially hewn and prepared; but the city itself seemed to have stood c&efly below these, among the outstanding rocks. One large mass had been cut into a regular gateway, which is still standing, though the rest of the building is gone. There are others similar, some larger, some smaller, yet all of them of great bulk. We seem to be looking on the remains of some Cyclopian city. These are scanty enough; but still sufficient to be remarkable. It is not merely, however, their size that strikes us, but their curiously mingled order and confusion, as they lie down in the ravine at our right, or rise above each other on the hill-slope at our left. We see no pillars, no ornaments, no inscriptions. What-REMAINS OF A CITY.
ever city was here, it belonged to a far antiquity, a time of rude, unadorned, but massive architecture, when men, few in number, and unable to apply any great amount of power, took advantage of natural peculiarities, such as the withdrawing cave or the outstanding boulder, and instead of shaping their materials to their plan, shaped their plan to their materials. Yet the scene is not a bare one. Far from it. There is no stream below, no rill trickling down the clefts, no moss vivifying the dead stone; but there is quite a wilderness of rich brushwood overspreading the whole. Not shrubs merely, but trees have taken possession of every free inch of soil; the ballut, the privet, and the fir, rooting themselves in each crevice, and forming an exquisite fringe or rather network of green, through whose interminable meshes the grey patches of the old rock came up like the tombstones of some primeval cemetery.*
What city has this been? Whose relics are these? They are not Roman; they are not J ewish; they are not patriarchal. They belong to an antiquity beyond these. Had we been in Sicily, we should have said, the Cyclops have been here, — this is their workmanship. Had we been in the Hauran, we should have concluded that we had stumbled into some of the cities of Og King of Bashan, which Mr Porter has so well described. But as we are in neither of these, we must consider
* The firs were not large; in leaf and colour very much resembling the Scotch fir.
what people occupied these southern highlands of Palestine.
It appears that this region was occupied at a veryearly period by the Anakim, who were of the Rephaim nations. Their chief city, Hebron, which we are just approaching, was one of the oldest cities of history, having been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt (Num. xiii. 22), the chief city of the Delta. The identity of the Anakim and Rephaim is of no consequence to our present statement; still it is worth while noticing that Moses explicitly mentions this: “The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great and many, and tall as the Anahims; which also were accounted Rephaim (in our translation” giants v), as the Anakims,” (Dent. ii. 10, 11). Thus the Anakim branch of the Rephaim were the original occupiers of Southern J udaea. They were the first that took possession of its mountains, building cities and swaying no feeble sceptre over a large region around. They were evidently, not only an ancient, but a warlike and formidable tribe. It was not of hordes of savage wanderers or herdsmen that Moses made mention, in such words as these, — “Hear, 0 Israel; thou art to pass over J ordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great, and fenced up to heaven; a people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anah V (Deut. ix. 1, 2). And even though we may admit that the report of the
ANAKIM RUINS.
spies was greatly coloured by their fears, still their language indicates the character of the Rephaim tribe. ‘; Here we saw the giants, the sons of Anah, who came of the giants f and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight,” (Num. xiii. 33).
Now it was through this region, where wTe now are, that the spies passed in their way up to Hebron; and we inay regard their words as describing the men whose giant-hands had hewn out these massive blocks that we see on both sides of us. These are Anakim ruins, amongst the oldest perhaps now in existence. These are Anakim gateways, and walls, and cisterns, and caves.
Not only are the men described to us, but the cities as well. “The people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great,” (Num. xiii. 28); “the cities were great and fenced,” (Josh. xiv. 12). These bulky but well-hewn fragments to our right give us some idea of what their walls must have been. And these terraces to our left, rising tier above tier in massive blocks, must have been meant for something more than the mere preservation of the soil. Going up as they do to the hill-tops, they intimate the true sense of that expression of Moses, u cities great and fenced UP TO heaven,” (Deut. ix. 1). It is not at all unlikely that these are not of Anakim workmanship, — but terraces of a subsequent and more agricultural age, formed
* The word “giants” here is not Rephaim but Nephilim, the same word as in Gen. vi. 4, — “There were giants in the earth in those days.” cut of the original Anakim battlements that ran along the steeps, if not over the ridges of these hills.
The scenery is fine, though wild, nay, I might say savage, from the hugeness of the blocks and the shagginess of the woods. Yet one could ill spare any part of it. To trim that brushwood, to till these terraces, to split or roll away these masses, would destroy the vision and make us forget that the giants of primeval days were here.
This probably was once a vine country; at least the neighbourhood of Hebron seems to have been so. This whole region, as well as the more northern part of it, might have been Eshcol, and from such hillsides or such hollows as these, the grapes were gathered by the spies. As Eshcol was one of Abraham’s three friends who occupied the district in which we are, some part of it in all likelihood took his name. Perhaps, however, before his days the land was rich in vineyards and famous for its clusters. Nor can one help connecting these things with Homer’s fable of the Cyclops, in whose land all is gigantic, cave, rock, tree, and herd, and who are represented as boasting of their well-watered soil and the huge clusters of their vines.
Our Arabs were not at home in this region. They had not at first wished to set foot on it, but to leave us at Dhahariyah; and they could tell us nothing of its places or their names. This was a considerable loss to us, as the track is not often trodden, and has not yet been fully examined nor described. Dr Robinson passed through it during night, and Dr Wilson amid showers
UN TRAVERSED DISTRICT.
of driving rain. We were glad to have had the opportunity of seeing it under the sunshine of such a genial noon. Travellers from Jerusalem seldom go farther south than Hebron; and those coming from Petra or any part of the South East generally strike directly to Hebron, by Main (Muon, Josh. xv. 55), Kurmul (Carmel (1 Sam. xxv. 2), and Zif (Ziph, 1 Sam. xxiii. 14), or in a more westerly route by El-Milh (Moladah, J osh. xv. 26), El-Ohuwein (Anim, Josh. xv. 50), Es-Semua (Eshtemoh, ib.), and Tatta (Jutta, Josh. xv. 55). Moving straight north from Beersheba and Dhahariyah on a pleasant spring day, Ave saw it fully and to the best advantage.
Not far off to the left lies the village of Dura, the ancient Adoraim of Rehoboam’s day, (2 Chron. xi. 9). But this we did not see, and I merely note it in passing, as it helps to bring the old memories and histories of the locality before us. To the right I observe in Dr Robinson’s map Ed’Daumah marked, — the Dumah of J oshua, (xv. 52).
Our road is a tolerably good one. It would be sufficiently rough for carriages certainly, but suits the foot-traveller, as well as the camel or the mule. It is cut in the rock, along a pretty broad ledge, half-way up the precipitous side of the ravine. The view on every side, though confined, is of no common grandeur, mingled at the same time w7ith a beauty to which spring lends peculiar softness. It is quite a dwelling for the sons of Anak; yet in it Abraham and his three friends.
Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre (Gen. xiv. 24), who doubtless knew it well, would find a beauty as suitable to their gentler spirits. David too has been here.
We have met, in the course of the day. several of the natives; not exactly the fellahin, but men apparently travelling on business. They look very superior to our Arabs, and even to our sheikh, in size, in dress, and in general appearance. Ours look a worn-out race; these Syrians seem in their prime. There is less of the Bedawi, and more of the Jew, about them; plumper and rounder, though perhaps less elastic, than our hardy men of the desert. They are not so dark in complexion, nor so thoroughly sun-tanned as our attendants, and have besides a more portly and commanding aspect. Their gaudy tarboosh or kefieh of striped red and yellow, the favourite colours of Syria, and their flowing abyah, contrast gaily with the dingy white and brown of our Bedawin head-dresses, and still more with their poor and tattered mantles.
The road does not lie straight. It twists and winds considerably. Nor is it level at almost any point here. It ascends gradually, by means of terraces, till it reaches the brow of that hill or ridge before us, up which we are slowly moving. These windings add greatly to the attractiveness of the scene, and prevent its becoming monotonous or tiresome. As we mount terrace after terrace, and take turn after turn among these roughlywooded mountain-glens, some new feature of beauty or grandeur discloses itself.
NEWS OF THE WAR.
It is now about twenty minutes past twelve, and we are almost on the brow of the ridge. A man appears upon it, and as he comes up our dragoman salutes him, and asks the news. “The Russians have yielded, and there is peace.” These are the first European tidings we have heard since we left Cairo. They greet us pleasantly in this far land; but we remember how, ere wre left home, month after month cheated us with like rumours. We shall soon learn how much truth there may be in this report when we reach J erusalem; meanwhile it is not uninteresting to note the spot, amid the hills of Judah, where the tidings met us. The bearer of them is an Egyptian proceeding southward. I suppose he has come by steamer from Alexandria to Joppa, and is now taking his way on foot to some place in the interior, perhaps to look after his flocks and herds.
Just here we see ruins, close to the right of our road, on a small platform. There has been a large square building with various compartments. We are still amid terraces, numerous and old, — furrowing, or rather ridging, the hills to the top, — perhaps about twenty feet from each other. From the levels of most of them the soil has been completely washed away, so that no small amount of labour and money would require to be expended ere they would yield anything to the care of the tiller. Yet trees and wild plants sprinkle the rocky acclivities. The lily is still here in wild profusion, and the cyclamen, though not so plentiful, yet at a hundred crevices is peeping out, and half-drooping, half-erect, shakes its brilliant coronet to the noon. Thorn-trees shoot up in various places; the arbutus, too, here and there; but it is the ballut that covers the landscape. This last seems indigenous to the district. It is not probable, however, that it was allowed to reign thus undisputed in former ages. These terraces were covered with the vine and the olive, specially with the former; for somewhere here was the great southern vineyard of Palestine, from which the spies gathered their ponderous cluster. But as soon as the region was dispeopled, and agriculture ceased, the vine withered away. It is, I believe, an ascertained fact in our own highlands, that where lands are thrown out of tillage to any extent, forest trees begin to shew themselves which had not been known to exist in the locality before. The soil, left to itself, refuses to remain idle, and throws up its natural offspring, now that it is no longer allowed to rear an artificial one planted by man. Judging, then, from what we see around, we should say that bulbs and Lallvts are the true aborigines of these rocky uplands. Man, when he took possession of the region, displaced them, and with his artificial terraces introduced an artificial forest of vines. But man has disappeared; the terraces are broken; the soil is washed away; “the vine has languished” (Isa. xxiv. 7), and “the forest of the vintage is come down” (Zech. xi. 2). The land, now left to itself, and “enjoying its Sabbaths” (Lev. xxvi. 34), has returned to its original condition, and has, for desolat;ox of the land.
ages, been sending up its purely indigenous growths, nothing else being able to maintain itself without the help of man.
This transition from the untilled and forest-covered condition of the region, in the days of the Anakim, to its cultivated and vine-clothed state in the time of Israel. — and then this return to primeval ruggedness, is the figure so strikingly made use of in the following Psalm:
A vine out of Egypt thou hast brought forth;
Thou hast driven out the nations,
And planted it!
Thou hast cleared the ground before it,
And hast rooted its roots.
Yea, with it thou hast filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shadow,
And its boughs were the cedars of God.
It sent its branches to the sea (Mediterranean),
And to the river its shoots (Euphrates).
Why hast thou broken down its fences
So that all passers by the way have plucked it?
The boar out of the forest hath wasted it,
And the wild beast of the field hath devoured it.
It is burned with fire,
It is cut down.
Because of the rebuke of thy face they have perished.
(Psa. lxxx. 8-16.)
The above figure is turned into a literal reality before us, as we look on these terraces and hollows. The figurative vine is gone, but the literal vine has perished too. The land lies under the blight, because its people are lying under judgment. Guilt intercepts the blessing and turns the fruitful soil into barrenness, (Psa. cvii. 34).
The field lies waste,
The ground mourneth,
For the corn is laid waste,
The new wine is dried up,
The oil languisheth.
Be ashamed, O ye husbandmen,
Howl, O ye vinedressers,
For the wheat and for the barley.
Surely the harvest of the field is perished.
The vine is dried up,
And the fig-tree languisheth,
The pomegranate, yea the palm and the apple;
All the trees of the field are withered;
Surely joy is withered away from the sons of men,
The seed is rotten under their clods.
The garners are laid desolate,
The barns are broken down,
For the corn is withered. (Joel i. 10-17.)
We begin once more to descend, and soon find ourselves in a pretty large valley, cultivated to a considerable extent. Our Arabs gave us Ecl-Dilbeh as its name. Passing along we notice a large pool or tank by the wayside. It is square and well built, though as to its antiquity one can say nothing. No doubt it has seen ages passing by it, and in our country would be counted an ancient relic of an extinct people; but antiquity is relative, and in these eastern lands one does not feel inclined to call anything antique which does not date farther back than the destruction of Jesusalem, or which did
RUINS OF ED-DAUMEH.
not belong to the ancient people of the land. This reservoir, which is in the middle of the valley, is fed from the hill by a stone-built water course or conduit. A little way on we see ruins to the left, and another well to the right. We are told that the water in all these wells is good. A little farther on we notice a dried-up well, cut into the solid rock of the mountain. The ruins above referred to are, I believe, those of the village of Fd-Daumeh. The name at once suggests that of Dumah mentioned among the rest of the cities in the mountains of Judah, (Josh. xv. 52); and though Ed-Daumeh does not lie on a hill, yet it is in the heart of a hilly region, and must itself be very considerably elevated above the level of the sea. It must have been well watered, and surrounded by a fruitful soil; but only the name remains to us in Scripture. It seems to have been still inhabited in the early centuries after Christ, for Jerome mentions it as being seventeen miles from Eleutheropolis, which corresponds exactly with the site of JEd-Daumeh.
Descending, we soon come to another well in a valley. We then ascend once more. The road is rough in the extreme. Great part of it is over large flat blocks of stone, like a Roman road. Again we gradually descend, and now we see that we are coming into a land of “oil and wine for on all the heights are traces of the olive and the vine. It was of a region such as this that Jacob made the prophetic gift to Judah, where” his hands might be sufficient for him “(Deut, xxxiii. 7), and where he might bind his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine” where he might “wash his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes,” (Gen. xlix. 11.) On the slope of the ridge opposite we see houses, and towers, and terraces. At first we think that it is the city itself that lies before us, so regular seems the cultivation, and so numerous the towers and walls. But we are disappointed. Hebron is not yet in sight. Another height must be surmounted. On the top of that height we see some venerable olive-trees, while all the way down to the valley under our feet are gardens, in the midst of which are square towTers, — those so often referred to in Scripture, as in Isaiah v. 2, “he built a tower in the midst of the vineyard.”* These towers seem of considerable size, as if meant for some thing more than watching; and we are told that in summer the inhabitants of the city take up their residence in their gardens, and make use of these towers for shelter by night, as they do of their olives and vines for shade by day. These well-laid out and well-fenced fields, covering the whole landscape before us, indicate a far greater amount of cultivation, as well as a much larger population than any other spot through which we have passed. It is true that only the olive is green at present; but various other fruit-trees rise up in all directions; while the vine-trellises, and interminable
* See also Matt. xxi. 33; Mark xii. 1. We did not see anything here corresponding to Isa i. 8, “a cottage (or booth) in a vineyard.”
ESHCOL.
rows of unpruned or half-pruned vines, shew that we are in the very heart of the land of Eshcol.*
These fields and gardens are beyond the “suburbs” of Hebron, though in close proximity. These suburbs extended in ail about a mile beyond the walls of the city (Numb. xxxv. 4, 5) on all sides, and seem to have formed an open space or common, for pasture, but not properly for tillage. Beyond this circle lay what were called “the fields of the city and the villages thereof” (1 Chron. vi. 56), which “villages,” as the Hebrew name implies, were more properly towers or fenced places in the midst of these fields. Then beyond these were the “villages” properly so called, or “daughters” of the city (1 Chron. ii. 23, vii. 28; Neh. xi. 31). One of these daughters of Hebron (Dumah) we had already passed. We had now arrived at “the fields and towers,” through which we are to pass into the suburbs. This, in all likelihood, was the inheritance of “Caleb the son of Jephun-
* Travellers, ancient and modern, speak of Eshcol in a very general way as somewhere hereabout, (Robinson i. 214). But Van de Velde gives us more special information: “Among the remarkable places in the district of Hebron, the governor mentioned to me the well Ain-’Eslali (the fountain of Eshcol), adding that its water was accounted the best in the whole world. The spring is about a quarter of an hour’s walk to tke north of the city, in the wadi referred to,” viz. the wadi “that crosses the vale of Hebron from north-west to south-west.” — Syria and Palestine, vol. ii. p. 6i. We have Mr Nicolayson’s testimony to the same effect.
Zunz, in his Rabbinical Geographical of Palestine, thus writes, “Hebron is distant from Jerusalem a winter-day’s journey; half an hour west of Hebron is Migdal-Eder; the valley of Eshkal is north of the mountain on which Hebron stood, and the cave of Makhpelah is east thereof.” — Asher s Benjamin, vol. ii. p. 437.
Caleb’s mountain. neh the Kenezite.” This hill that lies before us covered with these towers and vineyards, was probably the very hill of which he spoke to Joshua, “Now therefore give me THIS MOUNTAIN, whereof the Lord spake in that day; (for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced;) if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said,” (Josh. xiv. 12). The hill before us has struck us greatly for the last twenty minutes, during which we have been keeping our eyes on it as we have been slowly descending the height opposite to it. It is so singularly fruitful, so strewed with vines, so studded with towers. It looks like a wide-set city. It seems the richest spot in the neighbourhood; “quite a hill the horn of oil” (Isa. v. 1, 2, see margin), and has, I suppose, been cultivated from time immemorial. And these towers, — these Hhazorim, are they not the remains of the fenced places of the Anakim which Caleb took, — once for war only, now for protection and defence, kept up or rebuilded on the old ruins? In one place, indeed, it is said in a general way that Joshua gave him “Hebron for an inheritance,” (Josh. xiv. 13); but elsewhere the more special statement is made, that while Hebron itself and its suburbs were given to the “children of Aaron the priest, to be a city of refuge for the slayer” (Josh, xxi 13), “the fields of the city and the villages thereof (Hazorim) gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession,” (Josh. xxi. 12). This hill of
SUBURBS OF HEBRON.
vines, with its gardens and towers, just beyond the suburbs, is in all likelihood the old warrior’s hill, on the possession of which his heart seemed set, and from which “he drove the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak,” (Josh. xv. 14).
We are now in the bottom of the valley, passing between these vineyards. The road is narrow, sufficing for little more than one camel at a time. We can understand exactly the position in which Balaam is described to be when “the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side and a wall on that side,” (Numb. xxii. 24). The road, which is rough and narrow enough in itself, is made rougher and narrower at one point by the giving way of the dry wall on the left side. In one or two places we see it bulging out, — “a bowing wall and a tottering fence” (Psa. lxii. 3); in others it lies prostrate, the soil and the vines coming down along with it, as the garden to the west is evidently above the level of the road.
“Therefore shall this iniquity be to you
As a breach ready to fall,
A swelling in a high wall,
Whose breaking cometh suddenly, at an instant.”
(Isaiah xxx. 13.)
Now we ascend our last height, — the skirt of Caleb’s mountain, — over terraces and amid olives, the road rough and stony. As we clear the isolated trees at the top, and turn the ridge, the old city spreads out before us in the sunshine. It is the first real city of Palestine that we have seen; hitherto we have had nothing but villages or ruins. It is the oldest too; neither Sidon nor Jerusalem have an ancestry like this. Even Egypt bows before it. It was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt (Num. xiii. 22); yet Zoan lies with her ruins, lost amid the sand-drift. Hebron still stands erect, — a noble city to look upon, — built broadly up in massive strength against the long slope of yon olive-shaded hill, right before us.
Kirjath-Arba! City of the old giant race, the race of massive strength and mighty stature, the Titans of fable, the Eephaim of history, who, perhaps, ascending from Egypt, took first possession of this land after the dispersion, and who so firmly seated themselves amid these hills, and down the vales and plains to the sea, that many an age elapsed ere their last roots were extirpated! Cradle of Isaac, Jerome calls it. One feels more inclined to call it cradle of the giants, — yes, cradle, citadel, metropolis, all in one. City of Arba and Anak; city of Abraham and David, — still retaining something of its lordliness of aspect, as we look on it from this height; and still maintaining in its sixteen Arab villages that own the sway of its Sheikh, some traces of its ancient power. But between the Anakim chiefs of Kirjath-Arba and the Arab Sheikh of El-Khulil, the difference is wide enough.
We make our way slowly down the rugged slope, with the city all the while in view, — some of us on foot, some of us preferring to trust the surer feet of our QUARANTINE.
camels, on a road so stony and precipitous. Our “board of health “guard, who has accompanied us from Dhahariyah, goes before us to announce our arrival to the master of the quarantine. Several of the” citizens w of Hebron are standing at a little distance to get a look at the strangers; but they dare not venture to approach, as we are still supposed to be loaded with the infection of Egypt. After standing for a few minutes in front of the building to see the city more fully, we turn round and pass through the archway and gate into the court, and are soon unpacked and at rest, after a fatiguing though not long journey, for it is not more than half-past two o’clock. The quarantine house is a new one, neatly built, and tolerably commodious. It looks clean and comfortable. We mount some twenty rough steps to reach the upper story of the great central square, along the front of which a gallery runs. Here are our apartments, with doors and windows facing the town, which lies in its full beauty, recumbent against the lower part of the hill before us.
As we are resting and admiring the view, our dragoman shouts to us from below, “Bad news, gentlemen,” What! Is there a storm at hand? Are the natives about to attack us? Are we to be hindered from reaching Jerusalem? No; but we must spend four days here in quarantine. Four days! That is by no means pleasant, especially as we are caged within these walls. We find, however, that the four days are but two, in point of fact. This day on which we arrive counts one, and the day on which we start counts another; so that we have but two days’ delay after all, or rather only one, for the “day of rest” we had counted on. We had hoped to reach Jerusalem on Monday, — we must wait till Tuesday; this is all. If we can only get out of our prison, and have leave to roam abroad, we shall not mind the delay. We inquire as to this hope of liberty, but are told that it is not likely to be realised; at all events, nothing can be said till the physician of the Hebron Board of Health makes his appearance, which will be soon. His apartments are here, in the front part of the building, over the gateway; but he is out at present. In a little he comes. He is a German, and can talk only German and Arabic. We cannot be allowed to get out, to-night at least. He is inexorable. The welfare of the whole city of El-Khulil depends on his rigid adherence to the sanitary regulations. We are infected, or, at least, assumed to be so, and we must, at least, wait a night to see whether or not the plague appear on us. He does not take the trouble to examine us, but stands yonder on the opposite roof, with his fez cap, giving his instructions. Perhaps a dollar might remove all infection from us and open the gate; but we do not feel inclined to tempt him, especially as the evening draws on, and we should have little time to see anything. We submit, and content ourselves with walking to and fro along the gallery, admiring the view. Right in front of us is the mosque that covers the cave of Machpelah, and that of itself is enough for the pre-CAVE OF MACHPELAH.
sent. We cannot withdraw our eyes from it. and the words of Jacob seem ever echoing from yon hill, — “Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.” (Gen. xlix. 29, 31.)*
* Jbn Batutah (a.d. 1326) gives U3 a full account of both the facts and fictions connected with Hebron and its Mosque. “Voyages,” pp. 114-119. (Asiatic Society Edition). The latter, he tells us, was erected by the genii or gins, at the command of Solomon. Felix Fdbri, about a century later, gives us a good description of both. But as he was not a Moslem, he was refused admittance into the Mosque and “double cave,” though he offered to pay well for it. The “Saracens,” he says, told him that it was a place of greater sanctity than the Mosque at Jerusalem. They tantalized him by telling him of its ever-burning lamps suspended from golden fasteners, on silken and silver chains; of the ceaseless service of song night and day. “Evagatorium,” vol. ii. pp. 349, 350. I need not quote the description which almost every eastern traveller has given of this. A letter from Mr Nicolayson, of June 13, 1835, tells us that the Moslems of Syria reckoned the earthquakes of that year as judgments upon the land f pr the defilement of the place by some fellahs, who, enraged that the saints were not hearing their prayers for deliverance from the Pasha’s oppression, insulted the buried patriarchs by fillirg the sacred cave with dried dung, and setting it on fire as incense! — Jewish Intellige)icer for Sept. 1835 Of Jewish travellers see Pe’achia (edited by Benisch), pp. 62, 63; Asher’s Benjamin of Tudela, vol. i. p. 75, vol. ii. pp. 91, 427.