JERICHO.
The 15th of November, 1873, dawned, and the tents of the Survey Camp
were once more struck, on a rainy morning, and packed wet on the small
Bedawîn camels, the loading of which gave us much more trouble than that
of the larger pack animals of the peasantry. We were starting on an
anxious and difficult undertaking, and were to attempt what no European
had ever done before, in settling down for several months to life in the
wild and unhealthy district of the Ghôr, in order to survey it with an
amount of accuracy of detail equal to that which we had obtained in the
more civilised country of the settled population.
Through the white desert of the Bukei’a we marched north to a deep
gorge, and descended into the broad flat plain of Jericho--a dusty
expanse, with a black oasis of trees near the hills, and a black line of
jungle round Jordan.
In this descent we came for the first time upon beds of the curious
“stink-stone,” or bituminous shale, probably part of the bed of a former
Salt Sea at a higher level. It is a rock outwardly white like limestone,
inwardly black, with a strong odour, and burning freely; here also the
knolls and peaks of marl are striped with pink and yellow, and
interstratified with great layers of flint.
Reaching Jericho we were again disappointed. The long groves which
appear so charming at a distance are entirely composed of thorny shrubs.
The Dôm or Zizyphus grows into a tree, with small green leaves and
formidable prickles; the Nebk, another species, forms long hedges of
briar, of which it is said the cruel Crown of Thorns was woven, for
which reason it is called Spina Christi. The Zakkûm or balsam-tree
(Balanites) is equally thorny, and beneath these grow poisonous
nightshades, and other noxious plants. The distant beauty of the groves
is only a mockery, and the environs of Jericho, when reached, are as
stony and unlovely as any other part of the country.
Yet, in some respects, the place is still charming. Here, late in
autumn, the sound of running water, and the song of birds greeted our
ears. Among the high mounds, or Tellûl, bare and dusty, a fresh
beautiful stream was flowing from ’Ain es Sultân, the site of the first
Jericho. The great spring wells up in a stony pool, under a high
hillock, and opposite to this Tell is a jungle crowned by a very large
castor-oil tree and other thick foliage. In this grateful shade the
birds have found a retreat. The great grey shrikes (Abu Zereik) sit on
the top branches, and the queer “hopping thrushes,” with their tails
stuck up like rapiers, bound about beneath. The bulbul also sings in the
groves--a grey bird with a black head and a curious yellow patch at the
root of the tail. Still more beautiful are the great Smyrna kingfishers
(Abu Nukr), in their blue coats and chocolate-coloured waistcoats,
white-throated, with bills like red sealing-wax; and the grey African
species (Abu Kubeia), which also flutters above the stream. Last, but
not least, come the lovely sun-birds (Suweid), peculiar to the Jordan
Valley, darting about like little black wrens, but resplendent, when
seen close, with all the colours of the prism.
The days were short, for night comes on in the valley almost an hour
earlier than on the hills; but on awaking next morning early, the view
from the tents on every side was very fine. To the south we looked out
over the long thorn-groves, towards the open plain stretching for eight
miles to the Dead Sea, which appeared as a gleaming thread, shut in by
long dim ridges of mountain, while the square tower of the modern Erîha
or Jericho appeared in mid distance. In the early morning I looked out,
and saw the long steel-blue ranges capped with rolling wreaths of cloud,
behind which the ruddy streak of dawn ran out, the very light which,
morning after morning, used to be watched by the priests in the Temple,
gradually spreading towards the Hebron mountains.
West of us rose the steep precipice of Kŭrŭntŭl, or
Quarantania, the traditional mountain of Our Lord’s forty days of
fasting, a cliff a thousand feet high, burrowed with caves, chapels and
cells, and crowned with a fortress of the Templars. Northwards the low
shelf of gleaming marl hills ran out into a curious cone, called
“Raven’s Nest,” of which more hereafter; to the east was Jordan, hidden
between his banks; and behind rose the fine rounded summit of Mount
Nebo, and the Moabitic chain.
The district around us was full of places of interest--Jericho, Gilgal,
the Cities of the Plain, Jordan and the Salt Sea. The ruins were also
important--Roman and later aqueducts, Crusading monasteries, and rock
chapels. The results summed up in the following pages, represent the
continuous labour of more than a month, during which I was in the saddle
till late every day, and engaged till midnight in writing and drawing,
rising before the sun began to appear behind the Moab wall. Twice again
in the following years I returned to the valley, and revisited the sites
round Jericho.
There is only one natural position for a large town in the plains of
Jericho, namely, the neighbourhood of the beautiful fountain called “the
Sultan’s Spring,” near the foot of the Quarantania precipice. Nothing
can well explain the choice of a new position, but the fact that Jericho
was cursed by Joshua, and that the curse was fulfilled. Thus it is by
the spring that we naturally place the Jericho of Joshua’s time, and
this view receives confirmation from the account of the flight of the
spies “to the mountain;” for if situated in the immediate vicinity of
the great crag of Kŭrŭntŭl, the city was so near that the
fugitives might easily have crept through the cane jungle and
thorn-groves to the shelter of one of the innumerable caverns in the
face of its precipices.
Of ancient Jericho nothing now remains but the bright spring, and the
shapeless mound above it. We can hardly wonder at this when we find that
even the Jericho of Herod has disappeared, and that only a vague
conjecture can be made as to the position of Thrax and Taurus, the great
towers which once defended it. It seems probable that this second town
stood south of ancient Jericho, and even closer to the hills, for the
great aqueduct which brought water, a distance of four miles, from the
fine spring at the head of the wild Kelt chasm leads just to the opening
of the plain, and seems to be the only one of the numerous aqueducts
which dates back to Roman times. At the mouth of the pass, also, is the
rock-fort called Jubr or Chubr, in which title we may recognise, as my
companion, Mr. Drake, pointed out, a relic of the name Cupros, which was
given to a tower above Herod’s Jericho.
Jerome tells us that there were in his day two Jerichos, and in 333 A.D.
the anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux found a town at the foot of the pass.
Here also we have remains of a bridge which has the _opus reticulatum_
of Roman masonry, and this, with a few strewn fragments and with two
great mounds of sun-dried brick, seems all that is left of the second
Jericho. The Byzantine, or fourth-century town, mentioned by Jerome as
the second Jericho, is no doubt represented by the foundations and
fragments of cornice and capital, over which the rider stumbles among
the thorn-groves east of the ’Ain es Sultân.
By 700 A.D. Jericho had again disappeared, and thus, in the twelfth
century, we find the site once more moved. The modern Erîha then springs
into existence near a square tower, such as the Crusaders erected along
their pilgrim-roads, and a tradition of the “Garden of Abraham” comes
into existence as early as the time of Sæwulf (1102 A.D.). In the
fourteenth century Sir John Maundeville finds Jericho a little village,
and Abraham’s Garden is then stated to be at the foot of the
Quarantania. Fetellus makes the distance between Jericho and the latter
mountain two miles, and thus it is pretty clear that the modern Erîha
represents the site which was created in the Crusading period.
A question of even greater interest is that of the long-sought site of
Gilgal, and our inquiries were rewarded with success. Robinson had heard
the name Jiljûlieh, but had not been able to fix the site. A German
traveller (Herr Schokke), in 1865, had been more fortunate, and was
shown the place at a mound about a mile east of Erîha. It was important
to ascertain the reliability of this discovery, and I succeeded in
recovering the spot visited by this traveller, by means of the
compass-bearing which he had been wise enough to take. I found three
persons who knew the site by the name Jiljûlieh, and one of them
conducted me to ruins to which a curious tradition applies.
There was, however, still a difficulty to be met; for Captain Warren had
been shown another place, as the true site of Gilgal, north of this
Jiljûlieh, where are ruins of a large mediæval monastery. The
explanation is, however, the usual one. Our Jiljûlieh is the Gilgal
known to the early Christians, which St. Willibald (724 A.D.) places two
miles from the Jericho of his time, and five miles from Jordan; Captain
Warren’s site is just in the position in which Gilgal is shown on the
mediæval map of Marino Sanuto. The Crusaders have again in this instance
changed the site, and both traditions are extant among the natives. The
questions naturally rise, which is the true one, or whether either is
worthy of notice? The ruins of Jiljûlieh, east of Jericho, appear to me
to bear away the palm, for two reasons; first, the position is that
described in the Bible, “in the east border of Jericho” (Josh. iv. 19);
secondly, the fourth-century site is noticed by Jerome, not as fixed by
a monkish tradition, but as held in reverence by the inhabitants of the
country, and thus apparently connected with a genuine or indigenous
tradition. It is true that the existing ruins, with hewn stones and
tesseræ of glass, indicate traces of the early Byzantine monastery which
is noticed as containing the Church of Galgalis, but this does not
militate against the genuine character of the site, for the tradition,
in this case, appears to be derived from a more authentic source than
that which fixes most of the early Christian sacred spots.
The recovery of Gilgal ranks as one of the most important successes of
the Survey work. The name is not commonly known among the natives, for
the site is generally called Shejeret el Ithleh, “the tamarisk-tree,”
from the very large tamarisk just west of the ruins. The tradition
connected with the place is, however, apparently common among the Arabs
of the neighbourhood.
South-east of the tamarisk is an oblong tank lined with rubble,
measuring one hundred feet by eighty. It resembles other reservoirs
found in early Byzantine buildings, especially in monasteries. Near it
are about a dozen mounds some ten feet in diameter and three or four
feet high, which, when excavated, proved to consist of sandy marl, with
pottery, glass, and tesseræ imbedded. North-east of the tree is a modern
Arab graveyard, showing, perhaps, that the place is held sacred by the
Bedawîn, as they generally prefer to bury in the neighbourhood of
consecrated ground. The grave-stones are blocks apparently belonging to
some ancient building, and many other stones are strewn round. These
remains--stones, tesseræ, and the tank--indicate the former existence of
a monastery similar to the numerous other religious establishments which
once covered the plain. The mounds are called Telleilât Jiljûlieh, “the
little hillocks of Gilgal;” the tank is named Birket Jiljûlieh, “the
Pool of Gilgal.”
The site is conspicuous from a distance, because of the magnificent old
tamarisk, and the view from it is very fine, extending up the Jordan
Valley as far as the grand peak of Sŭrtubeh, which stands out, like a
bastion, in front of the line of hills, and culminates in a sharp cone,
not unlike the outline of Monte Viso, seen near Turin. The ’Osh el
Ghŭrâb, or “Raven’s Nest,” in front, equally white, and almost as
pointed, repeats the Sŭrtubeh in miniature, and above the Quarantania
crag stands the lofty summit of Jebel Nejmeh 3000 feet above the valley.
The white marl banks--shores of a former Dead Sea--skirt the Jericho
plain thinly dotted with Dôm-trees, balsam-trees, and tamarisks, and
reach the foot of Quarantania. In front are the shapeless mounds round
the Sultan’s Spring, and the thorn-groves reaching to the tower of
Erîha, which is brown and square, with a solitary palm beside it. The
rest of the view is almost the same as that seen from ’Ain es Sultân.
The Bedawîn of the district have a well-known tradition regarding the
site of Jiljûlieh. Over the coffee and pipes in the evening, after the
day’s work was done, they related it to us. By the old tamarisk once
stood the City of Brass, which was inhabited by Pagans. When Mohammed’s
creed began to spread, ’Aly, his son-in-law, “the lion of God,” arrived
at the city, and rode seven times round it on his horse, Maimûn. The
brazen walls fell down, destroyed by his breath, and the Pagans fled,
pursued by the Faithful towards Kŭrŭntŭl; but the day drew to a
close, and darkness threatened to shield the infidels. Then ’Aly,
standing on the hill which lies due east of the Kŭrŭntŭl crag,
called out to the sun, “Come back, O blessed one!” And the sun returned
in heaven, so that the hill has ever since been called the “Ridge of the
return.” Here stands the Mukâm, or sacred station of ’Aly, and here also
is the place where Belâl ibn Rubâh, the Muedhen of the Prophet, called
the Faithful to prayer after the victory.
Such is the legend. In it we see mixed up and assigned to the Imâm ’Aly
ibn Abu Tâleb, and to Belâl ibn Rubâh, two episodes of the life of
Joshua--the fall of Jericho and the battle of Ajalon.
At first one is tempted to believe this to be a genuine tradition, for
Jerome tells us that Gilgal was shown, in his time, as a deserted place,
“two miles from Jericho, and held in wondrous reverence (_miro cultu_)
by the people of that region.” When, however, we examine the question
more fully, the original source of the story seems doubtful. It attaches
to the site of a monastery, it is related by the descendants of a race
which only entered Palestine with Omar in the seventh century; and,
above all, it is connected most probably with another Crusading
tradition, for the Chapel of the Apparition of St. Michael to Joshua
stood, in 1185 A.D. (as Phocas tells us), below Quarantania, apparently
just where the present Mukâm of ’Aly is to be found.
It may appear strange, and perhaps improbable, that the Bedawîn should
retain and hand down Christian traditions derived from monks. Yet,
within this very district, there is a second undoubted instance which
may here be given as illustrating the above.
The Quarantania, or Kŭrŭntŭl mountain, has, from the twelfth
century down, been shown as the place to which Our Lord retired for the
forty days of fasting in the desert. Near to it the Crusaders also
looked for the “exceeding high mountain” whence the Tempter showed Our
Lord “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them” (Matt. iv.
8). Sæwulf tells us that the site of this mountain was three miles from
Jericho. Fetellus places it north of that town, and two miles from
Quarantania. The measurements bring us to the remarkable cone before
noticed, called ’Osh el Ghŭrâb, or “Raven’s Nest.”
The story is wonderfully illustrative of the simplicity of men’s minds
in the twelfth century, for the summit of the “exceeding high
mountain,” whence all the kingdoms of the world were to have been seen,
is actually lower than the surface of the Mediterranean, and it is
surrounded on every side by mountains more than double its height. This
tradition is nevertheless still extant among the Bedawîn. The valley
which comes down from the side of the mountain is called Mesâ’adet
’Aisa, “the ascension of Jesus;” and the name has, no doubt, its origin
in the tradition that Our Lord was carried by Satan to this conspicuous
summit. It can hardly then be doubted that mediæval monkish traditions
still linger among the Arabs of the Jordan Valley.
Another great antiquarian question claimed our careful attention from
the Jericho camp. It was that of the “Cities of the Plain” or “Ciccar.”
The Crusaders placed them south of the Dead Sea, and their supposed
sites of Sodom (Usdum) and Zoar (Zûeirah) are easily recovered. The
Moslems believe, as did also Josephus, that the wicked cities lie
beneath the Sea of Lot, as they call the Lake Asphaltites; but the
geological evidence all goes to prove that the Dead Sea must have
existed pretty much in its present condition in the time of Abraham, and
that such a convulsion as they suppose cannot have occurred within
historical times. Modern scholars, therefore, have sought anew for the
sites of Sodom and Gomorrah, Zoar, Zeboim, and Admah. It seems almost
certain that these cities should be placed north of the lake, because
the term Ciccar applies properly to the Jordan Valley and to the Jericho
plain; our utmost efforts were therefore directed to the discovery of
the sites of the Cities of the Plain (or Ciccar) in this direction. Over
almost every acre of ground between Jericho and the Dead Sea, I rode day
by day. The whole is a white desert, except near the hills, where rich
herbage grows after the rains. The time of year was most favourable for
such exploration, because no long grass existed to hide any ruins. In
all that plain I found no ruin, except the old monastery of St. John and
a little hermit’s cave, and it seems to me probable that no other ruins
will ever there be found.
With regard to this subject several points require to be kept in memory.
The ancient record, which commences so curiously “in the days of
Amraphel king of Shinar” (Gen. xiv. 1), refers to events which occurred
four thousand years ago. The cities are said to have been overwhelmed by
fire, and their names were blotted out of the later topography of the
time of Joshua. To expect to find their ruins is manifestly to disregard
the Bible history, and even had they not been overthrown, what hope
could there be of their preservation at the present time, when the
buildings of Herod, twenty-one centuries later, are not now in
existence?
In the second place, there is no very accurate indication in the Bible
of the position of the cities: they were in the Vale of Siddim, “which
is the Salt Sea,” but they may have been very far apart. One thing alone
seems pretty certain. If they were near the Salt Sea they would also
probably have been situated near fresh-water springs, as Engedi is
situated. Such springs are few and far between in the neighbourhood of
the Dead Sea, and none occur along the north shore, or in the plain
immediately near it. On the north-west, however, there is one fine
outflow of water at ’Ain Feshkhah, and higher up the Jordan Valley
springs are abundant.
Although no ruins were found by the Survey party, and, as I have urged
above, were not to be expected, yet there are names in the district,
applying to portions of the ground, which seem to me to have a possible
connection with those of Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim.
The great spring of ’Ain Feshkhah is a probable site for one of the
Cities of the Plain, and the great bluff not far south of it is called
Tubk ’Amrîyeh, and the neighbouring valley Wâdy ’Amrîyeh. This word is
radically identical with the Hebrew Gomorrah, or Amorah as it is spelt
in one passage (Gen. x. 19), meaning, according to some authorities,
“depression,” according to others “cultivation.” It is possible then
that the name of Gomorrah is preserved in this modern district title.
Admah means “red earth,” a description which would hardly apply to the
ground near the Dead Sea. A “city Adam” is noticed in the Book of
Joshua, and the name Ed Dâmieh applies to the neighbourhood of the
Jordan ford east of the Sŭrtubeh, about twenty-three miles up the
valley. It has always seemed to me possible that Adam and Admah were one
and the same; for the Ciccar or “plain” extended yet higher up the
Jordan Valley, and included Succoth (Tell Der’alah) within its limits (2
Chron. iv. 17).
Zeboim means “hyenas,” and is identical with the Arabic _Dub’a_. Now the
cliff just above the plain, near the site of Roman Jericho, is called
Shakh ed Dub’a, “lair of the Hyena;” but the title is Hebrew, not
Arabic:--Shakh being a word not found in the Arabic dictionaries. Might
not Zeboim, I would ask, have stood here?
Sodom alone remains without a suggestion, and of this word we find no
trace west of Jordan. I may note, however, that the word Siddim is
apparently the same with the Arabic _Sidd_, which is used in a peculiar
sense by the Arabs of the Jordan Valley as meaning “cliffs” or banks of
marl, such as exist along the southern edge of the plains of Jericho,
the ordinary meaning being a “dam” or obstruction. Thus the Vale of
Siddim might well, so far as its name is concerned, have been situated
in the vicinity of the northern shores of the Dead Sea.
Such are the only suggestions I am able to offer on this interesting
question. To discover the sites of these cities, on the north shores of
the Dead Sea, will, I feel convinced, be impossible, unless springs of
fresh water be also there discovered, which are not to be found on the
Survey sheets.
A morning ride brings the traveller from the Sultan’s Spring to the
banks of Jordan, at the spot where the Kelt valley debouches, and where
the Crusading monastery of St. John-on-Jordan, replacing the original
building erected by the Emperor Anastasius, stands on the marl hillocks,
by the fine reservoir built by Justinian for the former structure.
From the fourth century downwards, the great ford at this place has been
pointed out as the scene of Our Lord’s Baptism--the Bethabara of the
fourth Gospel. This view is sanctioned by the Greek and Latin churches
alike, and pilgrims yearly repair hither at Easter-time to bathe in
Jordan.
Writers who have endeavoured to cast discredit on the Gospels, have,
from an early period, caught at this identification as showing a
physical impossibility. Bethabara was a spot where certain events took
place on consecutive days, while on the “third day,” Christ was at Cana
of Galilee (John i. 29, 35, 43; ii. 1). Now Cana was at least seventy
miles from the neighbourhood of Jericho, and the distance is manifestly
too great for one day’s journey. But the error lies, not with the
Evangelist, but with his opponents, who assume that the fourth-century
tradition is necessarily correct. The name Bethabara is not to be found
in the neighbourhood of Jericho, and the site discovered, by the Survey
party, in 1874 (to be described in the next chapter) is much higher up
the valley. The existence of the name in another direction, where the
requisites of the New Testament narrative are fully borne out, is
therefore, I think, fatal to the traditional site. But though the spot
in question cannot apparently claim to be the real Bethabara, there is
every reason to suppose that it is the place where Joshua and his host
crossed over in front of Jericho, and it has thus an historical interest
of a scarcely inferior degree.
Leaving behind us the mud hovels and black tents among low vineyards,
which now make up modern Jericho, since the fire which lately destroyed
the village, we rode through cornfields, and over open plains where the
alkali plant (Hubeibeh) grows; descending a sort of step we came upon an
extent of white-crusted mud, too salt for any plant to grow on, and so
to the Zor, or broad trench in which the river flows. The Zor is full of
Dôm trees and tamarisks in which the sun-birds swarm, while the ground
is riddled with the burrows of the jerboa. The river itself flows in a
brown swirling rapid stream, amid a thick jungle of tamarisk, cane, and
willow. Here the Nimr or hunting leopard, much feared by the Arabs,
finds a retreat, and, beside the river, I came suddenly on a wolf
prowling alone.
The lower valley teemed with wild life along the stony bed of the Kelt;
the desert partridges marched in a file of eight or ten, and the blunt
noses of the jerboas peeped out of their holes. A large black water-bird
was slowly flying up stream, and a flock of wild pigeons hovered over
the opposite cliff.
Just where the Kelt falls into the Jordan there is a great bend
westward, and an open shingly shore to the river. The opposite bank,
some twenty yards off, is a flat expanse of mud, with a perpendicular
marl-cliff above, some fifty feet high. North of this ford is a group of
magnificent tamarisks, apparently of great antiquity; on the south the
thick jungle again hides the stream.
From the Pilgrim’s Bathing-place we rode down by the beautiful blue pool
of ’Ain Hajlah, and over the desolate expanse of grey, salt mud, to the
mouth of Jordan, where a delta of soft marsh and vegetable debris is
formed, and so along the open pebbly beach of the Dead Sea.
The scenery round the sea is very fine. It is compared, by those who
have seen both, to that of the Lake of Geneva. The appearance of the
shore is desolate in the extreme, in consequence of the long line of
white driftwood--dry trunks of tamarisks and willows, brought down by
the winter floods, and now bleaching fifteen feet above the summer level
of the water, crusted over with white and bitter salt.
The present chapter is too short to allow of an account of the sea
itself, of its nauseous taste, its high specific gravity, or of the
peculiar sensations of bathing in its waters. On my first visit I had to
swim out to the curious island, called Rujm el Bahr (the Cairn of the
Sea), covered with stones, and connected by a stony causeway with the
land--a place which seems to me to be the ruin of an artificial pier or
jetty. When I got back, very sore and with smarting eyes, I soon became
coated with white salt. On this day also I noticed flocks of wild-fowl
swimming about half a mile from shore--a practical contradiction of the
old fable that birds flying over the Dead Sea fall into it dead. I have
never, however, found any living animal in the water, though many fish,
brought down by the Jordan current, lie salted and pickled along the
shores.
On the east side of the Jordan stretches a plain, corresponding to the
Jericho plain, in which possibly Sodom once stood. Above this, on the
south-east, rise the steep cliffs of the Ammonite ranges. On the west
there are precipitous hills, 800 feet high, with a narrow beach, and a
marl-cliff, or Sidd, below. Here lies the curious ruin of Kumrân, and
beneath it is a cane-brake extending to the Feshkhah springs, where the
beach is terminated by the promontory of the same name rising sheer from
the water, its base surrounded with the huge fallen “fragments” from
which the title Feshkhah seems derived. This spot, with the running
stream, the broad shallow pool, the cane-brake, and the steep precipice
behind, is perhaps the most picturesque on the shore.
There is one other remarkable natural feature in this interesting plain
of Jericho which demands attention--the Kelt Valley, running from the
spring of that name, and south of Erîha, past Jiljûlieh to Jordan. There
seems no doubt that this is the Valley of Achor, in which Achan was
stoned; and the bed of the valley is full of boulders and pebbles of
every size, which would account for its being chosen as the scene of
the execution, as there is hardly a stone in the greater part of the
plain round it.
Wâdy Kelt has been also thought to be the Brook Cherith, and the scene
seems well fitted for the retreat of the prophet who was fed by the
“’Oreb,” whom some suppose to have been Arabs. The whole gorge is
wonderfully wild and romantic; it is a deep fissure rent in the
mountains, scarcely twenty yards across at the bottom, and full of canes
and rank rushes between vertical walls of rock. In its cliffs the caves
of early anchorites are hollowed, and the little monastery of St. John
of Choseboth is perched above the north bank, under a high, brown
precipice. A fine aqueduct from the great spring divides at this latter
place into three channels, crossing a magnificent bridge seventy feet
high, and running a total distance of three miles and three-quarters, to
the place where the gorge debouches into the Jericho plain. On each side
the white chalk mountains tower up in fantastic peaks, with long
knife-edged ridges, and hundreds of little conical points, with deep
torrent-seams between. All is bare and treeless, as at Mar Saba. The
wild pigeon makes its nest in the “secret places of the stairs” of rock;
the black grackle suns its golden wings above them; the eagle soars
higher still, and over the caves by the deep pools the African
kingfisher flutters; the ibex also still haunts the rocks. Even in
autumn the murmuring of water is heard beneath, and the stream was one
day swelled by a thunderstorm in a quarter of an hour, until it became a
raging torrent, in some places eight or ten feet deep.
The mouth of the pass is also remarkable; for on either side is a
conical peak of white chalk--one on the south called the “peak of the
ascent” (Tuweil el ’Akabeh), while that to the north is named Bint
Jebeil, “daughter of the little mountain,” or Nusb ’Aweishîreh,
“monument of the tribes.”
These peaks are again, to all appearance, connected with a Christian
tradition. Jerome speaks of Gebal and Gerizim as two mountains close
together, shown in his day just west of Jericho. In the name Jebeil we
may perhaps recognise the Gebal of this tradition; and in that case the
“monument of the tribes” would be the traditional altar of Joshua in
Ebal. If this be so, the southern peak must be the early Christian
Gerizim; but the name is apparently lost.
The neighbourhood of Jericho has been a favourite retreat for hermits
since the fourth century. In the twelfth it was full of monasteries, and
the ruins of no less than seven of these buildings remain, without
counting the chapels on Kŭrŭntŭl, or the Templars’ church in
the fortress on the summit of the same mountain. The interior walls of
these ruins were covered with frescoes, in some cases well preserved,
and all the designs have painted inscriptions. The character used fixes
the frescoes as not earlier than the twelfth century, and the masonry
and pointed arches lead to the same conclusion regarding the date of
these buildings.
The monastery in Wâdy Kelt was dedicated to the anchorite St. John of
Choseboth; the names of Athanasius, Gerasmius of Calamon, and St.
Joachim--traditionally held to have here lived in seclusion--are written
above the figures of three saints on its walls. A barbarous inscription
in Greek and Arabic states the monastery to have been restored, by a
certain Abraham and his brothers, of the Christian village of Jufna.
The Kŭrŭntŭl chapels, which we visited in 1873, are perched
half-way up the crag, and full of frescoes with the names of Gregory,
Basil, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and other fathers of the Church. In the
great monastery of St. John of Beth Hogla, half-way between Jericho and
the Dead Sea, we found the names, Andrew of Crete, John Eleemon
(Patriarch of Jerusalem, in 630 A.D.), Sophronius of Jerusalem, and
Sylvester, Pope of Rome (probably the famous Sylvester II., 998 A.D.).
The remaining monastic sites include St. John on Jordan, now called
“Jews’ Castle,” and Tell Mogheifir, or Tell el Kursi (“mound of the
throne”), in which name we perhaps find a trace of that of the old
monastery of St. Chrysostom, rebuilt in the twelfth century.
Such was the work which occupied us in the end of November, 1873. The
Arabs round us were willing and intelligent; they made good guides, and
shot for us, not only birds, but also a fine “bedn,” or ibex. The Sheikh
Jemîl, an old friend of Dr. Tristram’s, accompanied me day after day,
and often inquired after the Doctor, whom he called “the father of the
beard.” He rode an elegant little dromedary, which was extremely tame.
The great speed which could be got out of the animal was surprising, but
the rider seemed regularly shaken to pieces by the pace, when keeping up
with my horse at a canter. He was a good shot, and one of the best
fellows I ever met among the Bedawîn, though avaricious, as are all
Arabs who come much in contact with Europeans.
The autumn rains commenced in 1873 with a great thunderstorm on the 24th
of November; and now the face of the country suddenly changed, and the
cool, clear, delightful autumn weather set in--most treacherous of all
the seasons in Palestine, as the sun then draws out the reeking miasma
from the softened ground. The plains became green with tender grass, the
great cloud-banks rose behind the hills, and I awoke one morning to
hear, to my dismay, the croaking of frogs close to the camp. With the
experience of one more year, we should at once have moved to higher
ground. We stayed however where we were, and suffered in consequence.
The climate of Jericho must have altered greatly since Josephus
described the place as “a region fit for gods.” Thrice we visited the
Jordan Valley; three times the terrible remittent fever of Jericho
threatened valuable lives in our party, and once it proved fatal. The
change of climate is due, I imagine, to the decay of cultivation. Herod
planted palm-groves, and watered them by aqueducts still remaining. The
groves existed in the seventh, and even in the twelfth century; but now
only two trees can be found. The Crusaders also undertook cultivation,
and made sugar at the ruined mills under Quarantania, still called the
“sugar mills.” At the present day the land is quite as productive as
ever; but the Arabs disdain agriculture, and the inhabitants of Erîha
are so enervated, by the climate, that they bring men down from the
hills to reap their scanty crops. Every kind of vegetable will grow
here--tomatoes, vegetable marrows, grapes and indigo; yet the beautiful
streams of Kelt and of Elisha’s Fountain (’Ain es Sultân) are allowed to
run to waste, or to form malarious pools, and thus the unfilled lands in
the plain reek with miasma.