asp2

ANDREW THOMSON (BROUGHTON)

Thomson2

IN THE HOLY LAND
CHAPTER VII.
Round about Jerusalem.
The brook Kidron—Happy scenes when it begins to flow—The four monuments—Their probable age—Teaching custom—Valley of Jehoshaphat—The Jews' burying-ground —Ugly adventure [Mark v. 1-3]—The fountain of the Virgin—Ascent to the village of Siloam [x Kings xi. 7; Luke xiii. 4]—Bedouin maidens—The domestic hand-mill (Matt. xxiv. 41}—The fountain and pool of Siloam [John vii. 37, 38]—" The king's gardens"—En-rogel [i Kingsi. 9]—Valley of Hinnom[i Kings xi. 7]—Probable scene of Judas's suicide [Acts i. 18]—Sepukhre of David—Plain of Rephaim—The Lower and Upper Gihon—A ruined aqueduct—Tower of David [1 Sam. v. 9]— Modern uses—Lively scenes near the Jaffa-gate—Sepulchres of the kings—The siesta—Prevalent conjecture in Jerusalem about the place of the crucifixion—Recent murder-—Road to Anathoth—Traditional grotto of Jeremiah—Subterranean quarries—Probable uses [i Kings vi. 7]—Adventures—Sunset from the Mount of Olives—Gates shut—" Bucksheesh."

WE devote this chapter mainly to objects of Biblical interest that were visited by us immediately outside the walls of Jerusalem, literally "walking about Zion and going round about her" and this, with the exception of some notices of the explorations of Captain Warren and his intelligent fellow-labourers, shall be our last chapter on the Holy City. We have the more satisfaction in conducting such a circuit, that we come into contact with a greater number of natural objects that can be identified with certainty as having sacred memories hanging around them; and that the structures of man's erection outside the walls have not so generally been destroyed by the plough of human conquest, or rendered difficult to verify by the worse plough of a too remorseless criticism.

There is a bridle-path close to the walls, on which it would be possible for one on the back of a mule to perform the circuit in a brief space of time; but there would be little benefit from this, beyond a somewhat rough and uncomfortable lesson in riding. If our chief end was to be gained, of shedding light upon the Scriptures and more fully appreciating Scripture allusions by means of objects that lay open to a little research on every side, it was necessary that we should spend a good part of our time in walking in the deep valleys by which three parts of the city are encircled. We began, accordingly, in the channel of the brook Kidron, and proceeded slowly down the valley of Jehoshaphat. The channel was quite empty, and even covered with grass, so that in many places it was not easy to trace the bed of the torrent, the fact being, that it is dry at this part nine months in the year, but leaping out from its subterranean chambers at a point a little south of Jerusalem, it flows on in a comparatively narrow stream, down past the Convent of Mar Saba to the Dead Sea. There have been persons that have spent the winter and spring in Jerusalem, who have never seen water in this Kidron channel even in the rainy months, and who have therefore raised a doubt whether its course at this part is not uniformly underground. But those seasons are exceptional; and there are other winters and springs in which the torrent courses through the valley with such force and volume as to render even an attempt to cross it dangerous.

When the cry is carried through Jerusalem in a morning, "The Kidron flows!" it is heard with universal welcome, for it is a sure sign that the hidden fountains beneath are filled, and that there will be no scarcity of water during all the summer months. The Kidron water is then sold in the city like milk, and thousands come crowding out from its various gates to keep holiday upon its banks. Turbaned men sit under the olive-trees and smoke their long tchibouks or gurgling nerghiles; white-robed women regale themselves with fruits and sweetmeats, children of both sexes gather flowers from the torrent's side, and splash in it merrily with hands and feet at the point where it seems to leap into life; even the Pasha with his suite rides along the margin of the sparkling brook as if to inaugurate its new birth, until the narrowing ground makes progress difficult; - and the genial Miss Bremer, who once witnessed such a joyous spectacle, adds this other touching feature to the picture, that even the poor lepers, catching something of the general joy, come out from their miserable dwellings, and sitting on some far-off eminence, cry aloud for alms, in the hope that the general gratitude and gladness of the people will bring them a larger meed of charity.

We pass a little way down the gorge, and, on the eastern side of the Kidron come upon a cluster of four monuments that at once arrest our attention. These are the reputed tombs of Absalom, of the martyred Zecharias, of the good King Jehoshaphat, and of the apostle James the Just. The most remarkable of these are the two first, each of which is a single block sculptured out of the solid rock, and detached from it; and the monolith of Absalom with its Ionic pilasters, its gracefully ornamented frieze, and its conically-shaped summit expanding at the top into a flower, is an elegant and striking erection. There are strong historical and architectural reasons for calling in question the authenticity of every one of these monuments. The explicit statement of Scripture that the ashes of King Jehoshaphat were laid with honour in the royal sepulchres in the city of David, is dead against the notion that this is his tomb. What probability is there that such an elaborate and unique structure would be permitted to be erected to one like Zecharias, who, though he was a true martyr, at the time of his death had power and popular feeling running against him. And can this valley of the Kidron be the "King's dale" in which Absalom erected his pillar, to perpetuate his name, when he knew that he should have no posterity! At the same time, the architectural style of these imposing structures carries us some centuries back beyond the Christian era. An archaeologist of European reputation, who was of our party in this and many other excursions, after examining the exterior of all these piles, and creeping through an aperture into one of them, where he had to clear his way with a long-pointed stick from centipedes and other horrid reptiles, fixed their date at about 200 years B.C. But even this date makes them very old; and though the occasion of their erection remains unknown, we have entire sympathy with the observation of our shrewd and learned friend, the author of "The Land and the Book," that the simple fact that they must have been standing very much as they now appear when our Lord was on the earth, and that he must often have looked on them and spoken of them, invests them with a special and sacred interest.

As both Jews and Mohammedans firmly believe that this is the actual Absalom's pillar, they are accustomed, whenever they pass it, to cast a stone at it as a testimony against filial disobedience, and to teach their children to do the same; the result of which is, that heaps of stones are gathered in a broken place near its summit, and a much greater number which had either rebounded or missed the aperture, are scattered around its base. After all, is it not one principal use of monuments to express and perpetuate public sentiment! We are not ashamed to record that we added our stone to the heap.

Our eye was next attracted to innumerable white slabs that seemed to pave the side of Olivet a good way above and around these monuments; and on passing among them, we found that they marked the ground which, for many a century, had been the principal and favourite burying-place of the Jews. Believing, as every Jew does, that the valley of Jehoshaphat beneath is to be the scene of the resurrection and of the general judgment, and that those who are buried in other places must somehow pass underground in order to reach this scene of universal gathering, they prefer this as their last resting-place above all others, in order that they may escape the unpleasant ordeal of subterranean travel, and be the first to welcome their heavenly King. It is said that they are obliged to pay a large sum for the privilege of being buried here. We were even assured that interment was not allowed to the poor Jew until after sunset, -
"By the glimmering moonbeam's dusky light,
Or the lantern dimly burning."

The greater number of the graves, which are very shallow, are dug perpendicularly in the earth; a good many are hollowed slant-wise out of the rock; but a slab of limestone slightly polished uniformly indicates the simple sleeping-place. We spent some time in wandering among those graves, and deciphering the old Hebrew inscriptions, which generally told little more than the name and age of the deceased. We did not meet with a single Jew in all that wide-stretching cemetery looking over upon the site of the ancient Temple, where the old worship had so long been dead too; and we had learned by this time easily to distinguish the common Jew, not only by his indestructible typical features, but by his usual dress of thick fur cap, and light, loose, flowing robe, and his one corkscrew curl coming down on one side of his face, and deducting somewhat from its look of manliness. But we were awakened from our reverie by another presence. Two or three stones, thrown with much force, alighted unpleasantly near us; and in looking in the direction in which they had come, we saw a man, almost quite naked, and evidently a maniac, skulking angrily away. He had been dwelling in one of the empty rock-tombs, and we had disturbed him in his ghastly cell. It was impossible not to be reminded of the demoniac long ago among the rock-graves of Gadara.

Descending again into the valley and skirting along the base of Mount Moriah, we came in less than a quarter of an hour to a large pool of water, known in these days as the "Fountain of the Virgin." It is reached by two flights of steps considerably below the ground-level, and is evidently fed, through a subterranean passage, from aqueducts or fountains far back in the Temple-mount; and, like the classic fountain of Vaucluse, it has this peculiarity on which no research or science has yet shed satisfactory light, that it ebbs and flows like a tide, though the periods of its fluctuation are irregular. As it has not been identified with any of the fountains named in Scripture, we only lingered for a few moments on its margin, to see the people filling their quaint pitchers and goat-skin pouches from it, which they were doing in considerable numbers.

But the cluster of houses, somewhat further down, and on the opposite side of the ravine, presented more to interest us. It was the village of Siloam, situated a little way up the steep rocky side of the southern extremity of Olivet, called the "Mount of Offence," because here Solomon, in the latter and inglorious years of his reign, gave way to idolatrous practices, "building a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon,"
"On that opprobrious hill, -
Audacious neighbourhood.''

Once it must have been a place of some importance, a kind of fashionable suburban village; for Pharaoh's daughter and Solomon's queen had a palace here. Even in our Lord's times we conclude that it must have contained large and imposing public buildings; for it was here that that tower of Siloam fell by which eighteen persons perished, - an event which was reported to our Lord as the news of the day, and on which he suspended great religious lessons and moral warnings for all times. But it is now a miserable and confused collection of huts, inhabited by half-savage Bedouins, who live for the most part on plunder, and help to make all the neighbourhood around Jerusalem unsafe. We clambered up to it with some difficulty; and with more difficulty we picked our way in the midst of noisome heaps and of ugly mongrel dogs which resented our intrusion. The weather had become hot, and many of the villagers had already migrated, according to their custom, to the empty cave-sepulchres in the neighbourhood, which were to be their summer residence. But it was not yet a deserted village. Listening, we heard a sound from one of the houses, which we guessed to be that of a hand-mill on which com was being ground, for the afternoon's meal. We entered, after having used the ceremony of knocking more than once, and found a young woman seated on the earthen floor, and busily at work with her mill. She showed no sign of alarm at the rather sudden apparition; but interpreting our wishes, took off the upper circular stone, showed us the iron pivot in the lower stone on which it revolved, and also the hollow slant by which the meal escaped after it was ground. As we were examining it, and remarking to our friends on its close resemblance to the Highland querns preserved in some of our antiquarian museums at home, a second girl entered, and sitting down on the opposite side, and laying hold of the well-worn handle, the little mill went round more rapidly and merrily than ever. We were struck with the attention to ornament which these young Bedouin women showed in their very humble spheres. Their arms were tattooed in various places, their nails were dyed red, and each bore upon her wrist what seemed a thin bracelet of silver, evidently old and worn, the cherished heirloom of many a Bedouin generation. But what struck us most of all was the fact that this grinding at the mill was still the work of females, as in the times of Christ; and that on the slopes of that same mountain on which this village nestled, probably not half a mile distant, He had spoken those prophetic words, when seeking to give his disciples a vivid impression of the suddenness of the destruction that was to break upon Jerusalem when her hour had come,
"Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."

This was the village of Siloam, but where were the fountain and the pool called by the same name? There, further down in the valley, at the base of Ophel and at the mouth of the Tyropcean, where it begins to divide between Mounts Zion and Moriah. Let us pilot our way down to them along that slanting path. The fountain comes flowing softly and silently out from beneath a rock that rises precipitously fifty feet above your head, - its waters clear as crystal, and deliciously cool. Josephus enables us to assure ourselves that it is the actual streamlet of which Isaiah speaks, as "the waters of Shiloah that go softly;" and coming forth as it appears to do from beneath the rocky mountain on which the Jewish Temple stood, our great Milton is not less graphically accurate when he sings of it as
"Siloah's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God."

Indeed, we might claim for Milton what the Dean of Westminster has with just admiration claimed for Keble, the wonderful power of accurately representing, even in the minuter lines of form and more delicate colours, the image of scenes on which their bodily eyes had never looked. It would be possible to produce lines and epithets as felicitous in this respect from the "Paradise Regained" as from the "Christian Year."

It had long been understood that a zigzag tunnel connected the waters that supplied this Siloam stream with the "Fountain of the Virgin," and one fruit of Captain Warren's explorations has been to place this beyond all doubt. This then is the actual fountain of which the beautiful tradition has been handed down from earliest Christian times, that during the seven days of the "Feast of Tabernacles," a procession of priests coming out from Jerusalem every morning with a golden pitcher, and filling it with water from this living rill, carried it amid the music of trumpets and cymbals, of psalteries and harps, and poured it upon the sacrifice in the Temple. Advancing a few paces inwards, we come to a pool in which the waters are gathered before emerging from the rock into the sunlight, and to which the blind man spoken of in John's Gospel was commanded by Jesus, after he had anointed his eyes with the clay, to "go and wash, that he might receive his sight." We can imagine him led down that flight of rocky steps by the hand of some little boy; but he would need no hand to guide him as he went back again to the city with restored vision and adoring gratitude.

When the stream had flowed some yards out from the rock, we saw numbers of women from the neighbouring Siloam washing clothes in the pure rocky channel. Thence it flowed to a singularly fertile spot called "the King's Gardens," where, divided into a thousand irrigating rills, it gave life and vigour to numerous fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers, rendering this the most productive spot in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Were these gardens in any way connected, in the palmy days of Jewish history, with the palace of Solomon's queen in that Siloam near at hand? Is it even extravagant to conjecture that in their graceful beauty, when art put forth all its strength and skill to help nature, these gardens, in closed retirement and exuberant Eastern abundance, may have supplied to the royal poet some of the gorgeous imagery in the Song of Songs?

We now approach the point at which the valley of Hinnom, which forms the southern boundary of Jerusalem, intersects the valley of Jehoshaphat; and not far from this point, we turn aside to another fountain of extraordinary depth, the "En-rogel" of Old Testament history, or Well of Joab. There seems no good reason to doubt that it marks the scene where Adonijah was ripening his conspiracy and holding high festival with Joab and the other leaders of his rebel faction, when they were startled by the loud shout of the loyal multitude in the neighbouring city, easily heard at this distance, which followed the proclamation of Solomon as king, and in a moment turned their ambitious hopes to terror and despair.

It is remarkable to what an extent this valley of Hinnom which we are now ascending, is associated with some of the darkest and most revolting passages in the history of the Jews. In some part of it, under the idolatrous kings of Judah, the foul and cruel worship of Moloch was maintained, in which infants were placed in the red-hot arms of the idol, and the shrieks of the little victims were drowned by the beating of drums and cymbals, and by the shouts of maddened worshippers. And certainly there were portions of the valley which appeared, as we stood and looked on them, to have been scenically adapted for such infernal orgies, just as a painter of our own times would choose some wild moor for the scene of a murder or a witches' dance. Gloomy recesses, into which the sunlight never penetrated, with blackened cliffs, and beetling crags which seemed to bear on them the curse of an everlasting barrenness. We recollect that one traveller, wandering alone in this part of Hinnom, was so depressed by the mere scenic influence of the spot, that he was glad to escape from it back , to the city, and to listen again to the sound of human voices. How fitting it was that, in the better times of Jewish history, this accursed spot, bearing upon it the deepest stains of human wickedness, was chosen as the place into which all the offal and abominations of Jerusalem were cast, to be consumed by ever-gnawing worms, or destroyed by fires that were kept smoking and burning day and night. And can we wonder that it came to be spoken of by the old prophets, and by our Lord himself, as the very type and shadow of the place of torment, "where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched!"
"Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of hell."

We still pass on through a kind of chamber of horrors, or valley of the shadow of death. For on our left there rises an eminence marked along its sides by yawning cavities, which were once elaborately formed tombs, but which now only afford an occasional shelter for shepherds with their little flocks, when they would escape the storm, or shelter themselves from the glare and fire of the noon-day sun. It is named the " Hill of Evil Counsel," from the tradition that the house of Caiaphas the high priest stood on it, and that it was the place where the priests and rulers conspired to destroy Jesus, and where Judas entered with them into his guilty pact of blood. Some scraggy olives overhang a precipitous part of this hill, and one of them is pointed out as the actual tree from which the traitor hanged himself. This is a good deal too circumstantial. But supposing this part of Hinnom to have been the scene of the suicide, it fits in exactly to the narrative in the Acts. There are places with overhanging trees of various kinds, at which the rugged rock rises sheer up to forty or fifty feet; and supposing an individual to be suspended by the neck from a branch of one ot those trees, there is nothing improbable in the branch breaking, in his falling body being torn by some jagged projecting stone as he descended and in his being dashed to pieces by the hard rock at the bottom. The potter's field, which was purchased with the thirty pieces of silver, is shown on the same eminence. We found its soil to be clayey as we walked over it; and if you ask any potter in Jerusalem where he finds his material, it is ten to one that he will direct you to this very Aceldama.

We were now under strong temptation to diverge from the lower line of the valley, and, ascending Mount Zion on our right, to visit a little mosque near the highest point of the mountain outside the city walls, which is said, with the cluster of buildings around it, to cover the sepulchre of David and his most illustrious successors on the throne of Judah. But we had looked on it once already; and we found it so guarded by Mohammedan jealousy, that we seemed almost grudged a look. We should have run the hazard of being torn to pieces, had we attempted an entrance. When will our brave explorers find access to those royal graves ? Probably not until the Crescent ensign has been taken down from yon neighbouring citadel for ever.

We continued our course in the bottom of the valley, which now expanding into fertile fields and little knots of trees, began to verify Milton's words, which up to this point had sounded strangely inapplicable: "the pleasant vale of Hinnom." We could see on our left the verdant plain of Rephaim, the scene and prize of many an ancient conflict; while on our right Zion, bearing on its sides little strips of brairded corn, towered aloft as the natural acropolis of the sacred city. We came upon the ruins of the Lower Gihon, formerly an immense reservoir or artificial lake for supplying Jerusalem with water, but whose bottom was now grown all over with grass, on which donkeys and mules were quietly feeding. The Upper Gihon is of larger proportions, and a good deal further from the city; but it has not been rendered quite useless even by the neglect of thousands of years; for it contained several feet of water; and some were bathing in it, and others leading down animals to drink. Soon after, we crossed the road leading from the Jaffa-gate to Bethlehem, and passed some straggling pillars of that princely aqueduct by which water had been conducted, in the days of the Kings, from Solomon's pools beyond Bethlehem to Jerusalem; and after a few minutes more of hard and weary climbing, we were standing and looking in at the Jaffa-gate.

Look at that black old weather-beaten tower on your right hand, very near its entrance. It is one of the most interesting objects in all Jerusalem. The houses around, and even the old walls of the city on which its shadow falls, appear quite modern beside it We believe it to be the tower Hippicus of Herod; in which case it is one of the four structures which Titus caused to be left untouched when he reduced every part of Jerusalem to ruins, in order to give those who might visit what was once Jerusalem, some notion of the strength of the city which he had taken and destroyed. But then Herod did not raise this tower from its foundations, but upon a portion of the old tower of David - the strong fortress with which the valiant king guarded and strengthened himself when, with the help of Joab, he had at length wrested this part of Mount Zion from the Jebusites, and made it the impregnable stronghold of his capital. The lower portion of the structure is evidently much older than the rest; it belongs to another style of masonry, and is probably the oldest structure in Jerusalem - older even than the foundations of the Temple. It carries our thoughts away back almost to the beginnings of the Hebrew monarchy. David's mighty men have leaned upon those stones, and gone their sentinel rounds about them. From the massive summits of that tower, when it stood in its entireness and strength, Hezekiah's chiefs have watched the movements of Sennacherib's splendid hosts. The shadow of Jesus of Nazareth has often fallen on it, as he passed by.

Even to this day, this old tower of David is not without its uses. Cannons are fired from it at the first glimpse of every new moon, and also at sunset during the Mohammedan fast of Ramazan, to let the faithful know that they have now permission to break their long day's fast, and to recover their good temper, with which, it is said, hunger makes sad havoc.

But we must keep outside the gate, which is the busiest of. all the entrances to Jerusalem. Looking out upon the rising ground which stretches away to the north of it, we behold a lively picture. That is the favourite pleasure-ground of the people - the public park and promenade of Jerusalem; for even this melancholy city does not all sit in sackcloth. Children and youths are riding on swings stretched from tree to tree. At different spots on the green grass are groups of Moslem women, white draperied, and somewhat transparently veiled, who have come out to sun themselves in the bright April afternoon, and beneath that intensely blue canopy of sky. They are surrounded by children, and served by dark-visaged female slaves. A little lamb, which has evidently been domesticated, forms part of almost every group, and is a great favourite with the children, exceeding even them in its merry gambols. They have brought basket-loads of provisions, and confections in abundance; and overtopping all are those big golden oranges from the gardens of Joppa, carrying a little well of nectar iri each of them.

There is no deep valley now until we reach the Damascus-gate ; and as we move onward, there are many tokens, in ruined cisterns and the foundations of old houses, that, in the days of Jerusalem's prosperity, the city must have extended in this direction a long way beyond the existing walls. We are aware that some interesting remains, called "the Sepulchres of the Kings," are about a mile to the northward. We have heard of the exquisite friezes that adorn their entrance, with the beautifully carved flowers and grapes, and other devices and we would willingly go, and "with torch in hand" explore those royal receptacles of the dead. But we are thoroughly fatigued; and as we wish to accomplish our circuit of Jerusalem today, we must meanwhile go and invite rest. Besides, we know that these are not the sepulchres of the kings of Bible story. And here is the Damascus-gate, where you cross the northern road to Sychar and the far-distant Damascus. We enter, and pass through the bazaar of the Mohammedan quarter, with its little heaps of tobacco, and cofiee, and dried fruits; and in a few minutes are asleep in our quiet, scrupulously clean, earthen-floored chamber.

Within an hour and a half we were again on our feet; for there was one part of the circuit of the wall - that extending, from St. Stephen's to the Damascus-gate - which we had yet to accomplish, and this must be done before sunset. Passing out by the former gate, we now turned our face eastward up the Kidron, or Jehoshaphat valley, keeping generally in the bridlepath near the wall. There is here a rather extensive and level space of ground between the wall and the Kidron gorge; and we found some of the missionaries and savans who had been longest resident in Jerusalem, fixing upon this as the real Golgotha, where the Lord of Glory was crucified. Supposing the wall to have been carried in the same course in our Lord's times as it is now, the conjecture appears far from unlikely. There was room enough not only for the three crosses, but for the crowding multitude, and for all the horrid agencies and accompaniments of crucifixion; and the priests could, in this case, have come out from the neighbouring temple and feasted their malice on the dying agonies, until the supernatural darkness drew its awful curtain over the scene. In this case, also, that Olivet across the narrow gorge would echo back the great Sufferer's dying shout of victory," It is finished! It is finished!"

We understood that the principal object of interest in this section of the city wall was the remarkably extensive quarry to which there was access from some part of it; and as the entrance was known by us to be narrow, and we had neither guide nor guide-book to help us in the search, we had no little difficulty in discovering it We recollect that at one point in our progress, on putting aside some rank grass, we came upon an apparent opening in the wall on a level with the ground, which we at once conjectured must be the entrance. What was our horror to find, instead, the dead body of a man who had evidently been murdered not long before, - the murderer not having had time to bury his victim, adopting, in his haste or fear, this readiest method of concealment! Was this some poor benighted traveller, whose steps the stealthy Bedouin had tracked almost to the very gates, and then rifled and slain him? In our own country, our immediate course would have been to inform the public authorities; and it was with some reluctance that we did violence to our English instincts, and resolved to do nothing. We should certainly have failed, had we interfered, to arouse the Turkish' authorities to energetic inquiry; or if we had succeeded in stimulating some spasmodic action about a matter so common, we and our friends would have been complicated with the tragedy. It was easier to determine thus, than to rid our imaginations afterwards of the stiff and blood-stained picture.

Moving on again, and looking far down into the valley with its dark olive-gardens, we could distinctly trace a pathway through them, which we knew to mark the road to "poor Anathoth," the birth-place of Jeremiah the prophet And as we began to turn round gradually towards the north, there was pointed out to us on the other side the traditional grotto or cave where that tenderest of the prophets, "whose eyes were as a fountain of tears," is said to have penned his Lamentations.

But where, we had begun impatiently to ask, was the opening into those underground quarries, which were affirmed by those who had in some degree explored them, to undermine nearly the whole of Jerusalem? Behind an enormous heap of rubbish, almost within sight of the Damascus-gate, we at last alight on the true entrance; and backing in on all fours and with some difficulty, we drop down some two or three feet on an equally vast hill of debris within. We have brought some lucifer-matches with us; and having lighted our candles, and affixed the end of a line of cord to a stone near the entrance, we gradually unwind it as we proceed inward - for we may chance to lose our reckonings in the windings of the labyrinth, and a hold of this will help us to find our way out And now, when we have got down to the level, what a spectacle opens up before us as our eyes become accustomed to the dim light! A subterranean quarry stretches away interminably before us - many have said even to the distance of the Temple area - while unexplored labyrinths spread into the unbroken darkness on either side. At somewhat irregular distances, rough massive pillars have been left standing to support the natural roof, which rises between thirty and forty feet above our heads - such as may be seen in our salt or coal mines at home; and between these the number of stones which have been excavated, if heaped together, would be sufficient to build a second metropolis. It is curious to notice how, in some instances, immense blocks have been partly separated from the rock, and even shaped, but the process never completed. There is evidence on every side that the mason had been here with his hewing instruments and polishing tools, as well as the quarryman, and that in countless instances the stones must have been carried forth all fashioned and prepared for their appointed place in the building. Minute chips, that would be sufficient to load ten thousand waggons, lie in heaps on every side, such as we are familiar with in the masons'-sheds at home. Surely there is no improbability in the conjecture that this was one of the principal quarries that supplied the material for Solomon's Temple; and that in those numerous recesses, lighted by openings from above, those stones were polished and prepared by cunning hands, which were afterwards to be silently laid in their predestined place in the sacred house, where
"No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung."

"For the house when it was in building was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house when it was in building." Let us welcome the analogy which the fact suggests in reference to the temple of the heavenly Church. Its living stones must all be polished and beautified, on the earth beneath, by the grace of the Divine Spirit and the discipline of Providence, ere the good angels beat them up, and they are laid by the hands of the great Builder in their own chosen place in that house in which every stone is a redeemed soul.

There are hints in Josephus which favour the suggestion that this subterranean desert served another use in the later times of Jewish history, and became the last desperate place of refuge for thousands of Jews during the closing days of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. Could those stones speak out of the rock, what tales could they tell of gnawing hunger, of abject terror, of wild hope, of impotent revenge ! Not so terrible its sights, however, as those which were witnessed in that Hinnom valley on the other side of the city through which we had wandered in the morning, which was so filled with heaps and hillocks of the dead as to make even the Roman leader when he saw them alternately shudder and weep.

Looking around us, we could see immense masses of rock that had fallen long ago from the roof; and even at times, in the death-like silence of the place, we could hear the fall of smaller fragments. This exploration, we saw, was not without danger. It was not long, therefore, ere, following the guidance of our cord, we saw a little pencil ray of light which told us where the entrance was; and it was some relief to find ourselves again under the safer roof of the bright sky.

We suppose it must have been in part the contrast of this darkness that made us wish to finish our day by retracing our steps along this portion of our walk, and going up to watch the sunset from a point on the Mount of Olives. We yielded to the impulse; though we needed all our speed to be in time to look on the descending luminary. But it was indeed a glorious vision, in which the clear atmosphere helped to produce novel effects and to paint objects with hues of exquisite beauty. With what distinctness the parting luminary brought into view distant villages - the white tomb of some old prophet - gray rocks protruding here and there from the green surface - and even the graceful outline of some solitary tree! What a glory fell upon those mountains of Judah, and on many a summit sacred in Scripture story, the effect ever changing as the great orb dipped nearer and nearer to the Mediterranean! There was another Sun whose setting was once seen from this Olivet, but who rose on the third day never to set again. But we had been forgetting in our enthusiasm that the gates of the city were closed at sunset; and a night outside the walls was likely to have much more of adventure in it than comfort. We hastened back; a learned friend, however, assuring us that sunset did not begin at the literal disappearance of the sun, but only when three stars were visible in the sky. But our matter-of-fact Turkish guards had evidently no appreciation of this beautiful tradition. When we came up to St. Stephen's gate, it was shut. What were we to do? We could have endured hunger for a night, but not the cold, which at this season of the year often sinks before midnight many degrees below the freezing-point ; and if a few prowling Bedouins found us unarmed, we were certain, at the least, to be robbed and stripped. We called aloud with all our voices, but there was no response from within; though we never doubted that all the while the guards were standing inside that rugged, old wooden gate, enjoying our plight. At length the talismanic word "bucksheesh" gave them back their powers of hearing and speech, and they indicated their willingness to come to terms. Our patience was sorely tried in reducing their demands to a reasonable number of piastres. We began to fear that they would only allow one of us to enter at a time, and that they would demand for each what they had engaged to accept for us all. We therefore held firmly by each other, and, when the gate was opened, pushed in with such a sudden force that the rascals, who had intended the very trick we feared, gave way. We threw down the stipulated piastres, which shone more brightly in the eyes of those most unsentimental Turks than all the sunsets in the world.
Go To Chapter Eight


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