In The Levant 18

In The Levant 18

Unattractive as this abyss is for any but a temporary summer residence,

the example of Elijah recommended it to a great number of people in a

succeeding age. In the wall of the precipice are cut grottos, some

of them so high above the bed of the stream that they are apparently

inaccessible, and not unlike the tombs in the high cliffs along the

Nile. In the fourth and fifth centuries monks swarmed in all the desert

places of Egypt and Syria like rabbits; these holes, near the scene of

Elijah's miraculous support, were the abodes of Christian hermits, most

of whom starved themselves down to mere skin and bones waiting for

the advent of the crows. On the ledge above are the ruins of ancient

chapels, which would seem to show that this was a place of some resort,

and that the hermits had spectators of their self-denial. You might as

well be a woodchuck and sit in a hole as a monk, unless somebody comes

and looks at you.

 

As we advance, the Jordan valley opens more broadly upon our sight. At

this point, which is the historical point, the scene of the passage

of the Jordan and the first appearance of the Israelitish clans in the

Promised Land, the valley is ten miles broad. It is by no means a level

plain; from the west range of mountains it slopes to the river, and the

surface is broken by hillocks, ravines, and water-courses. The breadth

is equal to that between the Connecticut River at Hartford and the

Talcott range of hills. To the north we have in view the valley almost

to the Sea of Galilee, and can see the white and round summit of Hermon

beyond; on the east and on the west the barren mountains stretch in

level lines; and on the south the blue waters of the Dead Sea continue

the valley between ranges of purple and poetic rocky cliffs.

 

The view is magnificent in extent, and plain and hills glow with color

in this afternoon light. Yonder, near the foot of the eastern hills,

we trace the winding course of the Jordan by a green belt of trees and

bushes. The river we cannot see, for the "bottom" of the river, to use a

Western phrase, from six hundred to fifteen hundred feet in breadth,

is sunk below the valley a hundred feet and more. This bottom is

periodically overflowed. The general aspect of the plain is that of a

brown desert, the wild vegetation of which is crisped by the scorching

sun. There are, however, threads of verdure in it, where the brook

Cherith and the waters from the fountain 'Ain es-Sultan wander through

the neglected plain, and these strips of green widen into the thickets

about the little village of Rîha, the site of ancient Gilgal. This

valley is naturally fertile; it may very likely have been a Paradise of

fruit-trees and grass and sparkling water when the Jews looked down

upon it from the mountains of Moab; it certainly bloomed in the Roman

occupation; and the ruins of sugar-mills still existing show that the

crusading Christians made the cultivation of the sugar-cane successful

here; it needs now only the waters of the Jordan and the streams from

the western foot-hills directed by irrigating ditches over its surface,

moistening its ashy and nitrous soil, to become again a fair and smiling

land.

 

Descending down the stony and precipitous road, we turn north, still on

the slope of the valley. The scant grass is already crisped by the heat,

the bushes are dry skeletons. A ride of a few minutes brings us to some

artificial mounds and ruins of buildings upon the bank of the brook

Cherith. The brickwork is the fine reticulated masonry such as you see

in the remains of Roman villas at Tusculum. This is the site of Herod's

Jericho, the Jericho of the New Testament. But the Jericho which Joshua

destroyed and the site of which he cursed, the Jericho which Hiel

rebuilt in the days of the wicked Ahab, and where Elisha abode after the

translation of Elijah, was a half-mile to the north of this modern town.

 

We have some difficulty in fording the brook Cherith, for the banks are

precipitous and the stream is deep and swift; those who are mounted upon

donkeys change them for horses, the Arab attendants wade in, guiding the

stumbling animals which the ladies ride, the lumbering beast with the

Soudan babies comes splashing in at the wrong moment, to the peril of

those already in the torrent, and is nearly swept away; the sheykh

and the servants who have crossed block the narrow landing; but with

infinite noise and floundering about we all come safely over, and gallop

along a sort of plateau, interspersed with thorny _nubk_ and scraggy

bushes. Going on for a quarter of an hour, and encountering cultivated

spots, we find our tents already pitched on the bushy bank of a little

stream that issues from the fountain of 'Ain es-Sultan a few rods

above. Near the camp is a high mound of rubbish. This is the site of our

favorite Jericho, a name of no majesty like that of Rome, and endeared

to us by no associations like Jerusalem, but almost as widely known

as either; probably even its wickedness would not have preserved its

reputation, but for the singular incident that attended its first

destruction. Jericho must have been a city of some consequence at

the time of the arrival of the Israelites; we gain an idea of the

civilization of its inhabitants from the nature of the plunder that

Joshua secured; there were vessels of silver and of gold, and of brass

and iron; and this was over fourteen hundred years before Christ.

 

Before we descend to our encampment, we pause for a survey of this

historic region. There, towards Jordan, among the trees, is the site

of Gilgal (another name that shares the half-whimsical reputation of

Jericho), where the Jews made their first camp. The king of Jericho,

like his royal cousins roundabout, had "no more spirit in him" when

he saw the Israelitish host pass the Jordan. He shut himself up in his

insufficient walls, and seems to have made no attempt at a defence. Over

this upland the Jews swarmed, and all the armed host with seven priests

and seven ram's-horns marched seven days round and round the doomed

city, and on the seventh day the people shouted the walls down. Every

living thing in the city was destroyed except Rahab and her family, the

town was burned, and for five hundred years thereafter no man dared

to build upon its accursed foundations. Why poor Jericho was specially

marked out for malediction we are not told.

 

When it was rebuilt in Ahab's time, the sons of the prophets found it an

agreeable place of residence; large numbers of them were gathered here

while Elijah lived, and they conversed with that prophet when he was on

his last journey through this valley, which he had so often traversed,

compelled by the Spirit of the Lord. No incident in the biblical story

so strongly appeals to the imagination, nor is there anything in the

poetical conception of any age so sublime as the last passage of Elijah

across this plain and his departure into heaven beyond Jordan. When he

came from Bethel to Jericho, he begged Elisha, his attendant, to tarry

here; but the latter would not yield either to his entreaty or to that

of the sons of the prophets. We can see the way the two prophets went

hence to Jordan. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to

view them afar off, and they saw the two stand by Jordan. Already it was

known that Elijah was to disappear, and the two figures, lessening in

the distance, were followed with a fearful curiosity. Did they pass on

swiftly, and was there some premonition, in the wind that blew their

flowing mantles, of the heavenly gale? Elijah smites the waters with

his mantle, the two pass over dry-shod, and "as they still went on and

talked, behold there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and

parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

And Elisha saw it, and he cried, 'My father, my father, the chariot of

Israel and the horsemen thereof.' And he saw him no more."

 

Elislia returned to Jericho and abode there while the sons of the

prophets sought for Elijah beyond Jordan three days, but did not find

him. And the men of the city said to Elisha, "Behold, I pray thee, the

situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth, but the water is

naught and the ground is barren." Then Elisha took salt and healed the

spring of water; and ever since, to this day, the fountain, now called

'Ain es-Sultan, has sent forth sweet water.

 

Turning towards the northwest, we see the passage through the mountain,

by the fountain 'Ain Duk, to Bethel. It was out of some woods there,

where the mountain is now bare, that Elisha called the two she-bears

which administered that dreadful lesson to the children who derided his

baldness. All the region, indeed, recalls the miracles of Elisha. It was

probably here that Naaman the Syrian came to be healed; there at Gilgal

Elisha took the death out of the great pot in which the sons of the

prophets were seething their pottage; and it was there in the Jordan

that he made the iron axe to swim.

 

Of all this celebrated and ill-fated Jericho, nothing now remains but a

hillock and Elisha's spring. The wild beasts of the desert prowl about

it, and the night-bird hoots over its fall,--a sort of echo of the

shouts that brought down its walls. Our tents are pitched near the

hillock, and the animals are picketed on the open ground before them by

the stream. The Syrian tourist in these days travels luxuriously. Our

own party has four tents,--the kitchen tent, the dining tent, and

two for lodging. They are furnished with tables, chairs, all the

conveniences of the toilet, and carpeted with bright rugs. The cook is

an artist, and our table is one that would have astonished the sons

of the prophets. The Syrian party have their own tents; a family

from Kentucky has camped near by; and we give to Jericho a settled

appearance. The elder sheykh accompanies the other party of Americans,

so that we have now all the protection possible.

 

The dragoman of the Kentuckians we have already encountered in Egypt and

on the journey, and been impressed by his respectable gravity. It would

perhaps be difficult for him to tell his nationality or birthplace; he

wears the European dress, and his gold spectacles and big stomach would

pass him anywhere for a German professor. He seems out of place as a

dragoman, but if any one desired a _savant_ as a companion in the

East, he would be the man. Indeed, his employers soon discover that his

_forte_ is information, and not work. While the other servants are

busy about the camps Antonio comes over to our tent, and opens up the

richness of his mind, and illustrates his capacity as a Syrian guide.

 

"You know that mountain, there, with the chapel on top?" he asks.

 

"No."

 

"Well, that is Mt. Nebo, and that one next to it is Pisgah, the mountain

of the prophet Moses."

 

Both these mountains are of course on the other side of the Jordan in

the Moab range, but they are not identified,--except by Antonio.

The sharp mountain behind us is Quarantania, the Mount of Christ's

Temptation. Its whole side to the summit is honey-combed with the cells

of hermits who once dwelt there, and it is still the resort of many

pilgrims.

 

The evening is charming, warm but not depressing; the atmosphere is even

exhilarating, and this surprises us, since we are so far below the sea

level. The Doctor says that it is exactly like Colorado on a July night.

We have never been so low before, not even in a coal-mine. We are not

only about thirty-seven hundred feet below Jerusalem, we are over twelve