It stands on the edge of the gorge of the Kedron, here from a thousand
to twelve hundred feet deep, the rocky sides of which are almost
precipitous, and at the bottom of the ravine are only a few yards apart.
Looked at from beneath, parts of the building are seen to be literally
clamped to the perpendicular walls of rock, and hang perilously over the
abyss. Other portions of the edifice are constructed in chambers cut out
of the mountain-side. The labyrinth of caves, chambers, and passages is
most bewildering. Only an inmate of the convent can find his way from
one part to another. What may be called the land side of the monastery
is enclosed by a high wall of great thickness. The only entrance is by a
massive gate, through which no one is admitted unless vouched for by the
Greek patriarch at Jerusalem. Bedouin and women are not admitted at all.
The former for the obvious reason that on several occasions, having
forced their way in, they massacred all the inmates. Ladies are
excluded, because, as Miss Martineau bitterly expresses it, “the monks
are too holy to be hospitable.” The rule of the monastery is very rigid.
The monks never eat meat, and subject themselves to severe austerities.
Though there is a valuable library, it seems to be entirely unused;
indeed, a majority of the ascetics are unable to read, and their only
recreation consists in drinking _raki_, and in feeding the birds and
Jackals, which are very numerous.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF MAR SABA.]
Only once, when I crossed the _Mer de Glace_ at midnight, have I seen
anything to compare with the wild, unearthly impressiveness of one view
of this famous monastery. We had encamped at nightfall about a couple of
miles above Mar Saba. The stars were shining with extraordinary
brilliancy in a cloudless sky, and the moon was just coming above the
horizon. I suggested an excursion along the bottom of the ravine, so as
to see the convent from beneath. On proposing this to the Sheikh, he of
course declared that it was impossible, no one had ever done it—there
was no road—he would not answer for our heads if we attempted it, with
much more to the same purpose. But finding us determined to make a
start, and that there was a prospect of backshish, he withdrew his
objections and despatched a party of Bedouin as guides and escort. The
bottom of the gorge was in almost total darkness, but we could see the
jagged peaks overhead, silvered with the moonlight. Stumbling along the
bed of the Kedron, now perfectly dry, winding in and out amongst huge
boulders, scrambling over masses of rock which blocked up the narrow
passage, we made our way down the valley. No sound was heard, save our
own footsteps and the howling of jackals. Every now and then, emerging
silently as a ghost from behind a projecting crag or from the mouth of a
cave, a Bedouin, armed with his long gun, would step forward, speak a
few words to our escort, and then silently disappear. At length we
reached a point immediately beneath the convent. The moon had now risen
high enough to pour a flood of intense white light upon it whilst we
were still wrapped in gloom. It seemed to be detached from earth, and to
hang suspended in the heavens. The solitary palm tree, said to have been
planted by St. Saba himself, stood out clear and distinct, every frond
relieved against the deep blue of the sky behind it. Even our Bedouin
escort, usually so insensible to natural scenery, seemed awed and
impressed by the wild weird grandeur of the view.
The Valley of Kidron begins its course on the east side of the Temple at
Jerusalem, and runs down to the Dead Sea, through a barren, arid,
waterless waste. It is thus the probable scene of the prophetic vision
in which Ezekiel beholds the glory of “the latter days,” when waters,
issuing from beneath the altar, shall flow eastward in an ever deepening
stream, bringing with them fertility and beauty wherever they come.
“Very many trees” are seen to spring up along its banks on either side.
Reaching the bitter, stagnant, poisonous waters of the Dead Sea, its
desolate solitudes become the haunts of busy life. Fishers spread their
nets from En-Eglaim to En-Engedi, for the fish have become as “the fish
of the great sea, exceeding many.” “And by the river upon the bank
thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat,
whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed:
it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their
waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be
for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”[88] Reading such promises
of future blessings amid these desolate and sterile regions, we are
impressively reminded that when “the spirit be poured upon us from on
high, the wilderness shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field
be accounted for a forest, ... and the work of righteousness shall be
peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for
ever.”[89]
[Illustration: THE WILDERNESS OF JUDÆA.]
The strange unique conformation of the country which we noticed as we
approached Mar Saba becomes even more extraordinary as we continue our
journey eastward. The soil consists of a soft chalk or white marl,
furrowed in every direction by a labyrinth of valleys and pits from
fifty to a hundred feet deep, cut, ages ago, by torrents long since
dried up, leaving fantastic flat-topped mounds of every conceivable
shape, which Maundrell aptly compares to gigantic lime kilns.
[Illustration: NORTHERN SHORE OF THE DEAD SEA.]
In a little more than three hours we find ourselves descending into the
VALLEY OF THE JORDAN and the DEAD SEA. Reaching the plain, we ride
through an extensive cane brake where the reeds are higher than our
heads, and which is the haunt of wild boars, wolves, jackals, and
leopards, and from which lions were driven out “from the swelling of
Jordan.”[90]
From this point all vegetation ceases, for the bitter, acrid waters are
fatal alike to animal and vegetable life. Even sea-fish turned into the
lake die immediately.[91] The beach is strewn with trunks of trees,
bones of animals, and shells of fish brought down by the Jordan or by
the winter torrents which come from the mountain-sides. After tossing,
perhaps for centuries, in the bitter brine, they are cast ashore so
saturated with salt that the wood will scarcely ignite, and if it burn
at all, only gives a feeble blue flame. Those gaunt skeletons of ancient
trees are all the more ghastly from the fact that they are covered by a
saline deposit of which the fine glittering crystals are found
efflorescing all along the beach. It is caused by the evaporation either
of the receding waters after the winter floods, or of the spray which is
flung ashore by the winds, which rush with extraordinary violence
between the rocky walls which hem in the valley.
[Illustration: SOUTHERN SHORE OF THE DEAD SEA. EXPLORING PARTY OF LIEUT.
LYNCH.]
Whilst the northern shore is thus a flat desolate waste, the view down
the sea, looking southward, is not wanting in a solemn grandeur and
beauty. The water, clear as crystal, is of a deep blue, almost purple;
its waves are crested with foam of a dazzling whiteness. Along the
eastern shore the mountains of Moab stand like a mighty wall, the ridges
and precipices of which slope down “in wild confusion to the shore,
terminating in a series of perpendicular cliffs, from twelve hundred to
two thousand feet above the water.” Though their outline is somewhat
monotonous and unbroken, their marvellous colouring, which varies from a
delicate pink to a rich crimson, invests them with a magical beauty.
Seen, especially in the morning or the evening light, their tints are
quite unearthly. The mountains of the western side, though lower than
those of the eastern, seldom rising above fifteen hundred feet, are more
irregular and broken, at least as seen from the northern end, and assume
forms of striking grandeur. The most characteristic feature of the
southern shore is a vast ridge of fossil salt, called Jebel Usdum, which
is cut into ravines and hollows by the action of winter torrents. Canon
Tristram describes many of these in terms which recall the glacier caves
of the Alps. The light gleaming through the roof produces an exquisite
play of colour—green and blue and white of various shades. Columns of
rock salt are constantly left standing, detached from the general mass.
Travellers—forgetful of the fact that these isolated fragments are but
of short duration, and are, in the course of a few years, washed away by
the same agency which produced them—have often identified one or another
with the pillar of salt referred to in Genesis xix. 26. Sulphur and
bitumen, which are found throughout the whole region, are very abundant,
and traces of ancient igneous action are more obvious here than
elsewhere.
[Illustration: THE DEAD SEA.]
[Illustration: APPROACH TO ENGEDI.]
Whilst the general character of the scenery is one of sterility and
desolation, some of the wadies which run down to the sea are oases of
the utmost fertility and beauty. Chief among these is that of Engedi or
the Kid’s fountain. It runs out on the western side of the sea in the
direction of Hebron. Fertilised by a rill of pure water, and having an
almost tropical temperature, it forms a perfect garden. Even the Arabs,
who are usually so insensible to natural beauty, speak of it with
enthusiasm. My servant Mohammed, on one occasion gathered twenty-five
different varieties of flowers in a few minutes. Solomon sums up his
description of the charms of the Shunammitess by saying, “My beloved is
unto me as a cluster of camphire on the vineyards of Engedi.”[92] The
vineyards, the palms and the balsam trees, which once abounded here,
have disappeared, but traces of ancient cultivation remain to show what
once it was and might be yet again.
Under its original name of Hazezon-Tamar (the pruning of the palm
trees), it was the scene of the first pitched battle in an organized
campaign which history records.[93] Here, and in the adjoining Vale of
Siddim, Chedorlaomer defeated his rebellous tributaries, the kings of
Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar, carrying away Lot and his
family amongst the captives.
Here amongst cliffs and precipices dwelt the Kenites when Balaam,
looking across the valley from a height on the opposite side, uttered
his impassioned prophecy, and said:
“Strong is thy dwellingplace
And thou puttest thy nest in a rock.
Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted,
Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.”[94]
Here, too, David retired when hard pressed by Saul. He had to leave the
neighbourhood of Ziph and Maon, just as many an Arab sheikh is
accustomed to do at the present day, to escape from the tyranny, or the
justice, of the government. In these inaccessible fastnesses he was safe
from pursuit, almost from discovery. Behind him was the wilderness of
Judea. Before him were the mountains of Moab in case further retreat
should seem expedient. And here it was that heroic chief mercifully
spared the life of his pitiless foe when the “Lord had delivered him
into his hand.”[95]
In more modern times the shores of the Dead Sea have been associated
with two tragic events which add to the gloomy memories which enshroud
it. Among the mountains on the eastern side, looking down upon the gorge
of the Callirhoe, is Makaur, the ancient Machærus, in which John the
Baptist took his place among “the noble army of martyrs.” Dr. Tristram,
the first European known to have visited it since the time of the
Romans, says that he found amongst the ruins “two dungeons, one of them
very deep, and its sides scarcely broken in. That these were dungeons,
not cisterns, is evident from there being no traces of cement, which
never perishes from the walls of ancient reservoirs, and from the small
holes, still visible in the masonry, where staples of wood and iron had
once been fixed. One of these must surely have been the prison-house of
John the Baptist.” On the western shore stood Masada, the
palace-fortress of Herod, in which was enacted the last awful tragedy in
the Jewish war of independence. Jerusalem had fallen. One fortress after
another had surrendered to the Romans. This impregnable stronghold alone
remained, held by a band of men who, with the courage of despair,
determined to die rather than to yield. The fatal moment at length
arrived at which further resistance was impossible. Eleazar, son of
Judas the Galilean, called the garrison together and urged upon them
that death was to be preferred to dishonour. Each man thereupon stabbed
his wife and children to the heart, and lying down beside those whom he
loved, bared his neck to the ten who were chosen by lot to consummate
the slaughter. One of these last survivors then slew the other nine and,
having set fire to the building, stabbed himself. When the Romans
entered the breach on the morning of Easter Day A.D. 73, they found
nothing but corpses and smouldering ruins. Two women and five children,
who had hidden themselves in the vaults, alone survived to tell the
tale, nearly a thousand persons having perished.
[Illustration: MAKAUR, THE SITE OF ANCIENT MACHÆRUS.]
But all other historical associations with this district shrink into
insignificance in comparison with that fearful catastrophe, when the
Lord overwhelmed and destroyed the guilty cities with fire from heaven.
When “Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that
it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord,”[96] he
not only failed to take account of the licentiousness and “filthy
conversation of the wicked,”[97] choosing temporal wealth at the peril
of his soul’s welfare; but he knew not or cared not that the soil was
one vast arsenal filled with instruments of destruction. The cities
rested upon a bed of sulphur and bitumen. They were built and cemented
from “the slime-pits of Siddim.”[98] When the longsuffering of God was
exhausted and “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was very great and their
sin very grievous,” the hour of judgment came. The destruction may have
been altogether miraculous. Or it may have been brought about by miracle
working through natural agencies. The whole region is volcanic.
Lightnings flashing from heaven, and the bursting forth of the
subterranean fires, may have turned the whole plain into “a burning
fiery furnace,” in which not the cities only but the very soil on which
they stood were turned into one vast sea of flame. Imagination shudders
at the awful spectacle when “the smoke of the country went up like the
smoke of a furnace.”
[Illustration: THE DEAD SEA NEAR MASADA.]
The exact site of the cities thus destroyed cannot be decided with
certainty. It has been commonly supposed that the Dead Sea covers the
spot upon which they stood. Of this, however, we have no evidence in
Scripture, and an examination of the geology of the district shows that
it is impossible. Those who would locate them on the plain to the south
of the Sea, urge in proof of their view an early and continuous
tradition to this effect, the presence of a vast mountain of rock-salt
which breaks up into isolated columns, the most remarkable of which has
been called Lot’s wife, and the similarity of names, Usdum being
identified with Sodom, Amrah with Gomorrah, and Zuweirah with Zoar. But
the biblical narrative rather points to the conclusion that they stood
on or near the northern shore where the “well-watered plain” of the
Jordan, even to this day, attracts by its extraordinary fertility.[99]
[Illustration: MAP OF THE DEAD SEA. SOUNDINGS IN FATHOMS.]
It is only within the present generation that the physical conditions of
the Dead Sea have been subjected to scientific investigation. Dean
Stanley truly says, “Viewed merely in a scientific point of view, it is
one of the most remarkable spots of the world.” At some remote period
beyond the range of history or tradition, the Jordan seems to have
flowed onward over what is now the elevated valley of Arabah into the
Red Sea. By geological action, the nature of which cannot as yet be
ascertained, the whole Jordan valley has sunk, so that the Sea of
Galilee is probably six hundred feet, and the Dead Sea about thirteen
hundred feet, below the level of the Mediterranean—a phenomenon without
parallel on the earth’s surface. The sea itself is divided into two
unequal parts by a projecting tongue of land, called by the Arabs _El
Lisan_ (the tongue). The northern portion is very deep; the greatest
depth being given by Lieutenant Lynch at thirteen hundred and eight
feet. Its bed, therefore, at this point would be twenty-six hundred feet
below the level of the sea. The southern portion is much shallower,
nowhere exceeding two fathoms. The depth, however, varies with the
seasons. The total superficial area is about two hundred and fifty
miles, which is nearly that of the Lake of Geneva. Its excessive density
and saltness have been already referred to. Analysis gives the following
results:
Chloride of Magnesium 145·8971
„ Calcium 31·0746
„ Sodium (common salt) 78·5537
„ Potassium 6·5860
Bromide of Potassium 1·3741
Sulphate of Lime 0·7012
---------
264·1867
Water 735·8133
---------
1000
It will thus be seen that one fourth part of the waters of the Dead Sea
consists of various salts.[100] Hence its nauseous, bitter taste and its
extraordinary density. My own experience was that I could not sink,
however much I tried, and after bathing I found an acrid slime left upon
the skin from which I could not rid myself for two or three days.
[Illustration: THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM.]
[Illustration: Head-Piece—Arabs of the Plain]
JERICHO AND THE JORDAN TO JERUSALEM.
LEAVING the sterile desolate shores of the Dead Sea, we ride in a
north-westerly direction over a plain encrusted with salt and sulphur,
through a morass overgrown by a jungle of reeds and rushes, and then
enter upon the plain of the Jordan. The soil is cumbered with clumps of
_nubk_, its thorns sharp as prongs of steel, and thickets of _Zizyphus
Spina Christi_, from which tradition says that the crown of thorns was
made. The _osher_ or apple of Sodom, its flowers resembling those of the
potato, its fruit green or yellow, attracts the eye by its deceitful
beauty. Innumerable pools and rills of water, fed by the perennial
fountains which spring up near the site of the ancient Jericho, nourish
this rank and unprofitable vegetation. The climate is semitropical, in
consequence of the deep depression of this part of the Jordan valley
below the sea level. “Well watered” and with such a climate, the
district once was and might still be, an Eden of fertility and
beauty.[101] Now its only settled inhabitants are a few wild and
lawless, squalid and poverty-stricken Arabs.
[Illustration: ER RIHA, NEAR JERICHO.]
Turning eastward, we soon reach the FORDS OF THE JORDAN, the traditional
site of our Lord’s baptism and the present bathing place of the
pilgrims. The river comes down from the Sea of Galilee in a turbid
impetuous stream. It has cut its channel so deeply in the marly soil,
that throughout the greater part of its course it is hidden from view.
From any elevated point, however, it is easy to trace its course, from
the fringe of bright green which marks it. Innumerable willows,
oleanders, and tamarisks grow upon its banks and overhang the river-bed.
Hence the incident recorded of the sons of the prophets, who, in the
days of Elisha, went down to the Jordan to cut timber, one of whom let
the head of a borrowed axe fall into the river.[102]
[Illustration: PLAIN OF THE JORDAN NEAR JERICHO.]
As we contrast this muddy, turbulent torrent, rushing unprofitably along
its deep cut channel, with the clear bright waters of Damascus, which
spread fertility and prosperity wherever they come, it is easy to
understand the scornful words of Naaman the Syrian: “Are not Abana and
Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?... So
he turned and went away in a rage.”[103]
[Illustration: ARABS IN PLAIN OF JERICHO.]
Like the Dead Sea, the physical phenomena of the Jordan are absolutely
unique. Emerging from the Sea of Galilee at a probable depression of six
hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean, it rushes along a
narrow fissure of sixty miles in length; but doubling and winding as it
goes, its actual course is two hundred miles. Starting from so low a
level, its current might be expected to be slow and torpid. So far from
this, it plunges over a series of rapids,[104] and finally loses itself
in the Dead Sea, to emerge no more, at a depth of thirteen hundred feet
below the level of the Mediterranean. No river famous in history is so
unproductive and useless. Like the Upper Rhone, its rapid torrent and
its sudden violent floods,[105] make it an object rather of dread than
delight to the dwellers on its banks. Yet, even in these physical
characteristics, we can see its admirable adaptation to the divine
purpose. The Israelites were to be cut off from intercourse with the
licentious idolaters on the east bank of the Dead Sea. A river easily
crossed, with numerous fords and bridges, would have failed to answer
this purpose. But the Jordan, though only from twenty to thirty yards
wide, offered an almost insuperable barrier to intimate association, the
fords being few and dangerous, and the floods rendering bridges almost
impossible.
[Illustration: BANKS OF THE JORDAN.]
[Illustration:
THE JORDAN,
FROM THE SEA OF GALILEE TO THE DEAD SEA.
]
Crossing the plain in a westerly direction, we reach, in about an hour,
a wretched village of mud huts, dominated by a single ruinous tower. Its
modern name is Er Riha. Near it was the site of the ancient GILGAL. Here
the column of stones, taken from the bed of the Jordan, was piled; here
the first camp in the promised land was pitched; here the covenant with
God was renewed by the celebration of the passover and the circumcision
of the people; here “the manna ceased” and “they did eat of the old corn
of the land, unleavened cakes and parched corn on the selfsame day;” and
here it was that “the Captain of the Lord’s host,” with “a sword drawn
in his hand,” appeared to Joshua to encourage him in the conflicts which
yet awaited him.[106] It is not to be wondered at that something of
sanctity should attach to a spot hallowed with such memories and
associations as these. Hence we find that the Tabernacle remained at
Gilgal during the stormy period which followed till it was removed to
its resting-place in Shiloh.[107] And in after ages the people still
assembled to offer sacrifices on the spot so memorable in their
history.[108] As this was in a certain sense the cradle, if not the
birth-place, of the national existence, we find that it was at Gilgal
that Saul was made king,[109] and that the men of Judah assembled to
reinstate David upon the throne on his return from exile.[110] From the
residence of Elijah and Elisha in Gilgal, and from the events which are
recorded to have happened there, it is clear that a school of the
prophets continued to exist on the site of the ancient sanctuary down to
a late period of the monarchy.[111]
The sad tendency to apostacy and idolatry which cast so deep a shadow
over the history of the Jews, was specially manifest on this sacred
spot, for we find Hosea and Amos singling out Gilgal for special censure
and denunciation,[112] teaching that no sanctity of place, no hallowed
memories, no outward influences, can avail to check the corruptions of
“an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”[113]
[Illustration: SITE OF ANCIENT JERICHO, WITH MONS QUARANTANIA.]
About half an hour after leaving Er Riha, we reach some mounds of
crumbling debris at the foot of a range of barren precipitous mountains,
which form the western boundary of the Jordan valley. It is the site of
JERICHO. The soil around it is fertile as ever. Its fountains still pour
forth streams over the “well watered” plain. Nowhere has the primæval
curse fallen more lightly. With the slightest effort on the part of man,
the whole region would become a garden. But alas! it is a desolate
waste. The Bedouin lead their flocks across the plain as did the
patriarchs of old. But there is no other sign of human life. The groves
of palm trees which once stretched for miles around the city and gave it
its name,[114] have disappeared. One solitary survivor lingered up to
the year 1835, but this, too, has now perished. Nothing is left to break
the depressing sense of solitude and desolation. The curse pronounced
upon the doomed city still seems to linger amongst its ruins: “Cursed be
the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city of
Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in
his youngest son shall he set up the gates thereof.”[115]