Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land Part 11

Do you agree with this? I do not know. But at least if you were with us on this glorious morning, riding down from the heights of Jebel Osha you would feel the vivid beauty, the subduing grandeur of the scene. You would rejoice in the life-renewing air that blows softly around us and invites us to breathe deep,--in the pure morning faces of the flowers opening among the rocks,--in the light waving of silken gra.s.ses along the slopes by which we steeply descend.

There is a young Gileadite running beside us, a fine fellow about eighteen years old, with his white robe girded up about his loins, leaving his brown legs bare. His head-dress is encircled with the black _'agal_ of camel's hair like a rustic crown. A long gun is slung over his back; a wicked-looking curved knife with a bra.s.s sheath sticks in his belt; his silver powder-horn and leather bullet-pouch hang at his waist. He strides along with a free, n.o.ble step, or springs lightly from rock to rock like a gazelle.

His story is a short one, and simple,--if true. His younger brother has run away from the family tent among the pastures of Gilead, seeking his fortune in the wide world. And now this elder brother has come out to look for the prodigal, at Nablus, at Jaffa, at Jerusalem,--Allah knows how far the quest may lead! But he is afraid of robbers if he crosses the Jordan Valley alone. May he keep company with us and make the perilous transit under our august protection? Yes, surely, my brown son of Esau; and we will not inquire too closely whether you are really running after your brother or running away yourself.

There may be a thousand robbers concealed along the river-bed, but we can see none of them. The valley is heat and emptiness. Even the jackal that slinks across the trail in front of us, droops and drags his tail in visible exhaustion. His lolling, red tongue is a signal of distress.

In a climate like this one expects nothing from man or beast. Life degenerates, shrivels, stifles; and in the glaring open s.p.a.ces a sullen madness lurks invisible.

We are coming to the ancient fording-place of the river, called Adamah, where an event once happened which was of great consequence to the Israelites and which has often been misunderstood. They were encamped on the east side, opposite Jericho, nearly thirty miles below this point, waiting for their first opportunity to cross the Jordan. Then, says the record, "the waters which came down from above stopped, and were piled up in a heap, a great way off, at Adam, ... and the people pa.s.sed over right against Jericho." (Joshua iii: 14-16.)

Look at these great clay-banks overhanging the river, and you will understand what it was that opened a dry path for Israel into Canaan.

One of these huge ma.s.ses of clay was undermined, and slipped, and fell across the river, heaping up the waters behind a temporary natural dam, and cutting off the supply of the lower stream. It may have taken three or four days for the river to carve its way through or around that obstruction, and meantime any one could march across to Jericho without wetting his feet. I have seen precisely the same thing happen on a salmon river in Canada quite as large as the Jordan.

The river is more open at this place, and there is a curious six-cornered ferry-boat, pulled to and fro with ropes by a half-dozen bare-legged Arabs. If it had been a New England river, the practical Western mind would have built a long boat with a flat board at each side, and rigged a couple of running wheels on a single rope. Then the ferryman would have had nothing to do but let the stern of his craft swing down at an angle with the stream, and the swift current would have pushed him from one side to the other at his will. But these Orientals have been running their ferry in their own way, no doubt, for many centuries; and who are we to break in upon their laborious indolence with new ideas? It is enough that they bring us over safely, with our cattle and our stuff, in several bands, with much tugging at the ropes and shouting and singing.

We look in vain on the sh.o.r.e of the Jordan for a pleasant place to eat our luncheon. The big trees stand with their feet in the river, and the smaller shrubs are scraggly and spiny. At last we find a little patch of shade on a steep bank above the yellow stream, and here we make ourselves as comfortable as we can, with the thermometer at 110, and the hungry gnats and mosquitoes swarming around us.

Early in the afternoon we desperately resolve to brave the sun, and ride up from the river-bed into the open plain on the west. Here we catch our first clear view of Mount Hermon, with its mantle of glistening snow, hanging like a cloud on the northern horizon, ninety miles away, beyond the Lake of Galilee and the Waters of Merom; a vision of distance and coolness and grandeur.

The fields, watered by the full streams descending from the Wadi Farah, are green with wheat and barley. Along our path are balsam-trees and th.o.r.n.y jujubes, from whose branches we pluck the sweet, insipid fruit as we ride beneath them. Herds of cattle are pasturing on the plain, and long rows of black Bedouin tents are stretched at the foot of the mountains. We cross a dozen murmuring watercourses embowered in the dark, glistening foliage of the oleanders glowing with great soft flames of rosy bloom.

At the Serai on the hill which watches over this Jiftlik, or domain of the Sultan, there are some Turkish soldiers saddling their horses for an expedition; perhaps to collect taxes or to chase robbers. The peasants are returning, by the paths among the cornfields, to their huts. The lines of camp-fires begin to gleam from the transient Bedouin villages.

Our white tents are pitched in a flowery meadow, beside a low-voiced stream, and as we fall asleep the night air is trembling with the shrill, innumerable _brek-ek-ek-coax-coax_ of the frog chorus.

II

MOUNT EPHRAIM AND JACOB'S WELL

Samaria is a mountain land, but its characteristic features, as distinguished from Judea, are the easiness of approach through open gateways among the hills, and the fertility of the broad vales and level plains which lie between them. The Kingdom of Israel, in its brief season of prosperity, was richer, more luxurious, and weaker than the Kingdom of Judah. The poet Isaiah touched the keynote of the northern kingdom when he sang of "the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim," and "the fading flower of his glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley." (Isaiah xxviii: 1-6.)

We turn aside from the open but roundabout way of the well-tilled Wadi Farah and take a shorter, steeper path toward Shechem, through a deep, narrow mountain gorge. The day is hot and hazy, for the Sherkiyeh is blowing from the desert across the Jordan Valley: the breath of Jehovah's displeasure with His people, "a dry wind of the high places of the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, neither to fan nor to cleanse."

At times the walls of rock come so close together that we have to wind through a pa.s.sage not more than ten feet wide. The air is parched as in an oven. Our horses scramble wearily up the stony gallery and the rough stairways. One of our company faints under the fervent heat, and falls from his horse. But fortunately no bones are broken; a half-hour's rest in the shadow of a great rock revives him and we ride on.

The wonderful flowers are blooming wherever they can find a foothold among the stones. Now and then we cross the mouth of some little lonely side-valley, full of mignonette and cyclamens and tall spires of pink hollyhock. Under the huge, dark sides of Eagle's Crag--bare and rugged as Ben Nevis--we pa.s.s into the fruitful plain of Makhna, where the silken grainfields rustle far and wide, and the rich olive-orchards on the hill-slopes offer us a shelter for our midday meal and siesta. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim now rise before us in their naked bulk; and, as we mount toward the valley which lies between them, we stay for a while to rest at Jacob's Well.

There is a mystery about this ancient cistern on the side of the mountain. Why was it dug here, a hundred feet deep, although there are springs and streams of living water flowing down the valley, close at hand? Whence came the tradition of the Samaritans that Jacob gave them this well, although the Old Testament says nothing about it? Why did the Samaritan woman, in Jesus' time, come hither to draw water when there was a brook, not fifty yards away, which she must cross to get to the well?

Who can tell? Certainly there must have been some use and reason for such a well, else the men of long ago would never have toiled to make it. Perhaps the people of Sychar had some superst.i.tion about its water which made them prefer it. Or perhaps the stream was owned and used for other purposes, while the water of the well was free.

It makes no difference whether a solution of the problem is ever found.

Its very existence adds to the touch of truth in the narrative of St.

John's Gospel. Certainly this well was here in Jesus' day, close beside the road which He would be most likely to take in going from Jerusalem to Galilee. Here He sat, alone and weary, while the disciples went on to the village to buy food. And here, while He waited and thirsted, He spoke to an unknown, unfriendly, unhappy woman the words which have been a spring of living water to the weary and fevered heart of the world: "G.o.d is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

III

NABLuS AND SEBASTE

About a mile from Jacob's Well, the city of Nablus lies in the hollow between Mount Gerizim on the south and Mount Ebal on the north. The side of Gerizim is precipitous and jagged; Ebal rises more smoothly, but very steeply, and is covered with plantations of thornless cactus, (_Opuntia cochinillifera_), cultivated for the sake of the cochineal insects which live upon the plant and from which a red dye is made.

The valley is well watered, and is about a quarter of a mile wide. A little east of the city there are two natural bays or amphitheatres opposite to each other in the mountains. Here the tribes of Israel may have been gathered while the priests chanted the curses of the law from Ebal and the blessings from Gerizim. (Joshua viii: 30-35.) The cliffs were sounding-boards and sent the loud voices of blessing and cursing out over the mult.i.tude so that all could hear.

It seems as if it were mainly the echo of the cursing of Ebal that greets us as we ride around the fierce little Mohammedan city of Nablus on Friday afternoon, pa.s.sing through the open and dilapidated cemeteries where the veiled women are walking and gossiping away their holiday. The looks of the inhabitants are surly and hostile. The children shout mocking ditties at us, reviling the "Nazarenes." We will not ask our dragoman to translate the words that we catch now and then; it is easy to guess that they are not "fit to print."

Our camp is close beside a cemetery, near the eastern gate of the town.

The spectators who watch us from a distance while we dine are numerous; and no doubt they are pa.s.sing unfavourable criticisms on our table manners, and on the Frankish custom of permitting one unveiled lady to travel with three husbands. The population of Nablus is about twenty-five thousand. It has a Turkish governor, a garrison, several soap factories, and a million dogs which howl all night.

At half-past six the next morning we set out on foot to climb Mount Ebal, which is three thousand feet high. The view from the rocky summit sweeps over all Palestine, from snowy Hermon to the mountains round about Jerusalem, from Carmel to Nebo, from the sapphire expanse of the Mediterranean to the violet valley of the Jordan and the garnet wall of Moab and Gilead beyond.

For us the view is veiled in mystery by the haze of the south wind. The ranges and peaks far away fade into cloudlike shadows. The depths below us seem to sink unfathomably. Nablus is buried in the gulf. On the summit of Gerizim, a Mohammedan _weli_, shining like a flake of mica, marks the plateau where the Samaritan Temple stood. Hilltop towns, Asiret, Talluza, Yasid, emerge like islands from the misty sea. In that great shadowy hollow to the west lie the ruins of the city of Samaria, which Caesar Augustus renamed Sebaste, in honour of his wife Augusta. If she could see the village of Sebastiyeh now she would not be proud of her namesake town. It is there that we are going to make our midday camp.

King Omri acted as a wise man when he moved the capital of Israel from Shechem, an indefensible site, commanded by overhanging mountains and approached by two easy vales, to Shomron, the "watch-hill" which stands in the centre of the broad Vale of Barley.

As we ride across the smiling corn-fields toward the isolated eminence, we see its strength as well as its beauty. It rises steeply from the valley to a height of more than three hundred feet. The encircling mountains are too far away to dominate it under the ancient conditions of warfare without cannons, and a good wall must have made it, as its name implied, an impregnable "stronghold," watching over a region of immense fertility.

What pomps and splendours, what revels and ma.s.sacres, what joys of victory and horrors of defeat, that round hill rising from the Vale of Barley has seen. Now there is nothing left of its crown of pride, but the broken pillars of the marble colonnade a mile long with which Herod the Great girdled the hill, and a few indistinguishable ruins of the temple which he built in honour of the divine Augustus and of the hippodrome which he erected for the people. We climb the terraces and ride through the olive-groves and ploughed fields where the street of columns once ran. A few of them are standing upright; others leaning or fallen, half sunken in the ground; fragments of others built into the stone walls which divide the fields. There are many hewn and carven stones imbedded in the miserable little modern village which crouches on the north end of the hill, and the mosque into which the Crusaders'

Church of Saint John has been transformed is said to contain the tombs of Elisha, Obadiah and John the Baptist. This rumour does not concern us deeply and we will leave its truth uninvestigated.

Let us tie our horses among Herod's pillars, and spread the rugs for our noontide rest by the ruined south gate of the city. At our feet lies the wide, level, green valley where the mighty host of Ben-hadad, King of Damascus, once besieged the starving city and waited for its surrender.

(II Kings vii.) There in the twilight of long ago a panic terror whispered through the camp, and the Syrians rose and fled, leaving their tents and their gear behind them. And there four nameless lepers of Israel, wandering in their despair, found the vast encampment deserted, and entered in, and ate and drank, and picked up gold and silver, until their conscience smote them. Then they climbed up to this gate with the good news that the enemy had vanished, and the city was saved.

IV

DoTHaN AND THE GOODNESS OF THE SAMARITAN

Over the steep mountains that fence Samaria to the north, down through terraced vales abloom with hawthorns and blood-red poppies, across hill-circled plains where the long, silvery wind-waves roll over the sea of grain from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, past little gray towns sleeping on the sunny heights, by paths that lead us near flowing springs where the village girls fill their pitchers, and down stony slopes where the goatherds in bright-coloured raiment tend their flocks, and over broad, moist fields where the path has been obliterated by the plough, and around the edge of marshes where the storks rise heavily on long flapping wings, we come galloping at sunset to our camp beside the little green hill of Dothan.

Behind it are the mountains, swelling and softly rounded like b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

It was among them that the servant of Elisha saw the vision of horses and chariots of fire protecting his master. (II Kings vi: 14-19.)

North and east of Dothan the plain extends smooth and gently sloping, full of young harvest. There the chariot of Naaman rolled when he came down from Damascus to be healed by the prophet of Israel. (II Kings v: 9.)

On top of the hill is a spreading terebinth-tree, with some traces of excavation and rude ruins beneath it. There Joseph's envious brethren cast him into one of the dry pits, from which they drew him up again to sell him to a caravan of merchants, winding across the plain on their way from Midian into Egypt. (Genesis x.x.xvii.)

Truly, many and wonderful things came to pa.s.s of old around this little green hill. And now, at the foot of it, there is a well-watered garden, with figs, oranges, almonds, vines, and tall, trembling poplars, surrounded by a hedge of p.r.i.c.kly pear. Outside of the hedge a big, round spring of crystal water is flowing steadily over the rim of its basin of stones. There the flocks and herds are gathered, morning and evening, to drink. There the children of the tiny hamlet on the hillside come to paddle their feet in the running stream. There a caravan of Greek pilgrims, on their way from Damascus to Jerusalem for Easter, halt in front of our camp, to refresh themselves with a draught of the cool water.

As we watch them from our tents there is a sudden commotion among them, a cry of pain, and then voices of dismay. George and two or three of our men run out to see what is the matter, and come hurrying back to get some cotton cloth and oil and wine. One of the pilgrims, an old woman of seventy, has fallen from her horse on the sharp stones beside the spring, breaking her wrist and cutting her head.

I do not know whether the way in which they bound up that poor old stranger's wounds was surgically wise, but I know that it was humanly kind and tender. I do not know which of our various churches were represented among her helpers, but there must have been at least three, and the muleteer from Bagdad who "had no religion but sang beautiful Persian songs" was also there, and ready to help with the others. And so the parable which lighted our dusty way going down to Jericho is interpreted in our pleasant camp at Dothan.

The paths of the Creeds are many and winding; they cross and diverge; but on all of them the Good Samaritan is welcome, and I think he travels to a happy place.

_A PSALM OF THE HELPERS_

_The ways of the world are full of haste and turmoil: I will sing of the tribe of helpers who travel in peace._