IN THE HOLY
LAND
CHAPTER VII.
Round about Jerusalem.
The brook KidronHappy scenes when it
begins to flowThe four monumentsTheir probable ageTeaching
customValley of JehoshaphatThe Jews' burying-ground Ugly
adventure [Mark v. 1-3]The fountain of the VirginAscent to the
village of Siloam [x Kings xi. 7; Luke xiii. 4]Bedouin maidensThe
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 DavidPlain of RephaimThe Lower and Upper
GihonA ruined aqueductTower of David [1 Sam. v. 9] Modern
usesLively scenes near the Jaffa-gateSepulchres of the
kingsThe siestaPrevalent conjecture in Jerusalem about the place of
the crucifixionRecent murder-Road to AnathothTraditional
grotto of JeremiahSubterranean quarriesProbable uses [i Kings vi.
7]AdventuresSunset from the Mount of OlivesGates 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
Home | Links | Literature | Biography