In The Levant 13

In The Levant 13

The well, like many others in Syria, is intermittent and irregular

in its rising and falling; sometimes it is dry, and then suddenly it

bubbles up and is full again. Some scholars think this is the Pool

Bethesda of the New Testament, others think that Bethesda was Siloam,

which is below this well and fed by it, and would exhibit the same

irregular rising and falling. This intermittent character St. John

attributed to an angel who came down and troubled the water; the

Moslems, with the same superstition, say that it is caused by a dragon,

who sleeps therein and checks the stream when he wakes.

 

On our way to the Pool of Siloam, we passed the village of Si-loam,

which is inhabited by about a thousand Moslems,--a nest of stone huts

and caves clinging to the side-hill, and exactly the gray color of its

stones. The occupation of the inhabitants appears to be begging, and

hunting for old copper coins, mites, and other pieces of Jewish money.

These relics they pressed upon us with the utmost urgency. It was easier

to satisfy the beggars than the traders, who sallied out upon us like

hungry wolves from their caves. There is a great choice of disagreeable

places in the East, but I cannot now think of any that I should not

prefer as a residence to Siloam.

 

The Pool of Siloam, magnified in my infant mind as "Siloam's shady

rill," is an unattractive sink-hole of dirty water, surrounded by modern

masonry. The valley here is very stony. Just below we came to Solomon's

Garden, an arid spot, with patches of stonewalls, struggling to be

a vegetable-garden, and somewhat green with lettuce and Jerusalem

artichokes. I have no doubt it was quite another thing when Solomon and

some of his wives used to walk here in the cool of the day, and even

when Shallum, the son of Colhozeh, set up "the wall of the Pool of

Siloah by the king's garden."

 

We continued on, down to Joab's Well, passing on the way Isaiah's Tree,

a decrepit sycamore propped up by a stone pillar, where that prophet

was sawn asunder. There is no end to the cheerful associations of the

valley. The Well of Joab, a hundred and twenty-five feet deep,

and walled and arched with fine masonry, has a great appearance of

antiquity. We plucked maidenhair from its crevices, and read the Old

Testament references. Near it is a square pool fed by its water. Some

little distance below this, the waters of all these wells, pools,

drains, sinks, or whatever they are, reappear bursting up through a

basin of sand and pebbles, as clear as crystal, and run brawling off

down the valley under a grove of large olive-trees,--a scene rural and

inviting.

 

I suppose it would be possible to trace the whole system of underground

water ways and cisterns, from Solomon's Pool, which send? its water

into town by an aqueduct near the Jaffa Gate, to Hezekiah's Pool, to the

cisterns under the Harem, and so out to the Virgin's Well, the Pool of

Siloam, and the final gush of sweet water below. This valley drains,

probably artificially as well as naturally, the whole city, for no

sewers exist in the latter.

 

We turned back from this sparkling brook, which speedily sinks into the

ground again, absorbed by the thirsty part of the valley called Tophet,

and went up the Valley of Hinnom, passing under the dark and frowning

ledges of Aceldama, honey-combed with tombs. In this "field of blood"

a grim stone structure forms the front of a natural cave, which is the

charnel-house where the dead were cast pell-mell, in the belief that the

salts in the earth would speedily consume them. The path we travel

is rugged, steep, and incredibly stony. The whole of this region is

inexpressibly desolate, worn-out, pale, uncanny. The height above this

rocky terrace, stuffed with the dead, is the Hill of Evil Counsel, where

the Jews took counsel against Jesus; and to add the last touch of an

harmonious picture, just above this Potter's Field stands the accursed

tree upon which Judas hanged himself, raising its gaunt branches against

the twilight sky, a very gallows-tree to the imagination. It has borne

no fruit since Iscariot. Towards dusk, sometimes, as you stand on the

wall by Zion Gate, you almost fancy you can see _him_ dangling there.

It is of no use to tell me that the seed that raised this tree could not

have sprouted till a thousand years after Judas was crumbled into dust;

one must have faith in something.

 

This savage gorge, for the Valley of Hinnom is little more than that

in its narrowest part, has few associations that are not horrible. Here

Solomon set up the images ("the groves," or the graven images), and the

temples for the lascivious rites of Ashta-roth or the human sacrifices

to Moloch. Here the Jews, the kings and successors of Solomon, with a

few exceptions, and save an occasional spasmodic sacrifice to Jehovah

when calamity made them fear him, practised all the abominations of

idolatry in use in that age. The Jews had always been more or less

addicted to the worship of the god of Ammon, but Solomon first formally

established it in Hinnom. Jeremiah writes of it historically, "They have

built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of

Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire." This Moloch

was as ingenious a piece of cruelty as ever tried the faith of heretics

in later times, and, since it was purely a means of human sacrifice, and

not a means of grace (as Inquisitorial tortures were supposed to be),

its use is conclusive proof of the savage barbarity of the people who

delighted in it. Moloch was the monstrous brass image of a man with the

head of an ox. It was hollow, and the interior contained a furnace

by which the statue was made red-hot. Children--the offerings to the

god--were then placed in its glowing arms, and drums were beaten

to drown their cries. It is painful to recall these things, but the

traveller should always endeavor to obtain the historical flavor of the

place he visits.

 

Continuing our walks among the antiquities of Jerusalem, we went out of

the Damascus Gate, a noble battlemented structure, through which runs

the great northern highway to Samaria and Damascus. The road, however,

is a mere path over ledges and through loose stones, fit only for

donkeys. If Rehoboam went this way in his chariot to visit Jeroboam in

Samaria, there must have existed then a better road, or else the king

endured hard pounding for the sake of the dignity of his conveyance. As

soon as we left the gate we encountered hills of stones and paths of the

roughest description. There are several rock tombs on this side of the

city, but we entered only one, that called by some the Tombs of the

Kings, and by others, with more reason, the Tomb of Helena, a heathen

convert to Judaism, who built this sepulchre for herself early in the

first century. The tomb, excavated entirely in the solid rock, is a

spacious affair, having a large court and ornamented vestibule and many

chambers, extending far into the rock, and a singular network of narrow

passages and recesses for the deposit of the dead. It had one device

that is worthy of the ancient Egyptians. The entrance was closed by

a heavy square stone, so hung that it would yield to pressure from

without, but would swing to its place by its own weight, and fitted so

closely that it could not be moved from the inside. If any thief entered

the tomb and left this slab unsecured, he would be instantly caught

in the trap and become a permanent occupant. Large as the tomb is,

its execution is mean compared with the rock tombs of Egypt; but the

exterior stone of the court, from its exposure in this damp and variable

climate, appears older than Egyptian work which has been uncovered three

times as long.

 

At the tomb we encountered a dozen students from the Latin convent,

fine-looking fellows in long blue-black gowns, red caps, and red sashes.

They sat upon the grass, on the brink of the excavation, stringing

rosaries and singing student songs, with evident enjoyment of the hour's

freedom from the school; they not only made a picturesque appearance,

but they impressed us also as a Jerusalem group which was neither sinful

nor dirty. Beyond this tomb we noticed a handsome modern dwelling-house;

you see others on various eminences outside the city, and we noted them

as the most encouraging sign of prosperity about Jerusalem.

 

We returned over the hill and by the city wall, passing the Cave of

Jeremiah and the door in the wall that opens into the stone quarries of

Solomon. These quarries underlie a considerable portion of the city, and

furnished the stone for its ancient buildings. I will not impose upon

you a description of them; for it would be unfair to send you into

disagreeable places that I did not explore myself.

 

The so-called Grotto of Jeremiah is a natural cavern in the rocky hill,

vast in extent, I think thirty feet high and a hundred feet long by

seventy broad,--as big as a church. The tradition is that Jeremiah lived

and lamented here. In front of the cave are cut stones and pieces of

polished columns built into walls and seats; these fragments seem

to indicate the former existence here of a Roman temple. The cave is

occupied by an old dervish, who has a house in a rock near by, and uses

the cavern as a cool retreat and a stable for his donkey. His rocky home

is shared by his wife and family. He said that it was better to live

alone, apart from the world and its snares. He, however, finds the

reputation of Jeremiah profitable, selling admission to the cave at

a franc a head, and, judging by the women and children about him, he

seemed to have family enough not to be lonely.

 

The sojourner in Jerusalem who does not care for antiquities can always

entertain himself by a study of the pilgrims who throng the city at

this season. We hear more of the pilgrimage to Mecca than of that to

Jerusalem; but I think the latter is the more remarkable phenomenon

of our modern life; I believe it equals the former, which is usually

overrated, in numbers, and it certainly equals it in zeal and surpasses

it in the variety of nationalities represented. The pilgrims of the

cross increase yearly; to supply their wants, to minister to their

credulity, to traffic on their faith, is the great business of the Holy

City. Few, I imagine, who are not in Palestine in the spring, have any

idea of the extent of this vast yearly movement of Christian people upon

the Holy Land, or of the simple zeal which characterizes it. If it were

in any way obstructed or hindered, we should have a repetition of the

Crusades, on a vaster scale and gathered from a broader area than the

wildest pilgrimage of the holy war. The driblets of travel from America

and from Western Europe are as nothing in the crowds thronging to

Jerusalem from Ethiopia to Siberia, from the Baltic to the Ural

Mountains. Already for a year before the Easter season have they been on

foot, slowly pushing their way across great steppes, through snows and

over rivers, crossing deserts and traversing unfriendly countries;

the old, the infirm, women as well as men, their faces set towards

Jerusalem. No common curiosity moves this mass, from Ethiopia, from

Egypt, from Russia, from European Turkey, from Asia Minor, from the

banks of the Tagus and the Araxes; it is a true pilgrimage of faith, the

one event in a life of dull monotony and sordid cares, the one ecstasy

of poetry in an existence of poverty and ignorance.

 

We spent a morning in the Russian Hospice, which occupies the hill to

the northwest of the city. It is a fine pile of buildings, the most

conspicuous of which, on account of its dome, is the church, a large