FOOTNOTES
[1] Song of Songs 4:11f, 5:15.
[2] Isaiah 35:1f.
[3] Hosea 14:5, 7.
[4] Isaiah 60:13.
[5] See [map, page 62], and [cross-section, page 64].
[6] See further the author’s The Real Palestine of To-day, chapter III.
[7] Rev. 2:17, etc.
[8] Cf. Deut. 10:6, Josh. 9:17.
[9] In 1913, the college team defeated the champions of the British Mediterranean Fleet.
[10] The above figures are for the current year, 1913. With this exception, however, the chapter is not in any sense a composite, but describes the happenings of one actual field-day held during the author’s residence in Beirut.
[11] Since this record was made, a new athletic field with a cinder track has been laid out adjoining the campus.
[12] This is the correct rendering of Judges 3:3.
[13] C. R. Conder, the eminent Palestinian archæologist, points out that Arabic grammar necessitates our translating Jebel esh-Sheikh “Mountain of the Sheikh,” and derives the appellation from the fact that in the tenth century the founder of the Druse religion took up his residence in Hermon (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. “Hermon”). But no one who has seen the white head of the tall, strong mountain can help thinking of Hermon as itself the proud, reverend sheikh of the glorious tribe of Syrian peaks.
[14] Cf. Luke 3:1.
[15] Sura 5:34.
[16] See the author’s The Real Palestine of To-day, chapter XV, “The War-path of the Empires,” and XVIII, “The Lake of God’s Delight.”
[17] Numbers 21:33.
[18] Isaiah 2:13, etc.
[19] Job 1:15, 17.
[20] Job 1:19.
[21] Psalm 22:12, etc.
[22] Luke 3:1.
[23] Antiquities of the Jews, XV. 10.1.
[24] It is the Abana, or Barada, which waters by far the greater portion of this fertile district. The identification of the Pharpar, which Naaman mentioned also as one of the “rivers of Damascus” (II Kings 5:12), is uncertain. It may have been one of the branches into which the Abana divides as it passes through the city. More probably, however, it was the river now known as the Awaj; for this is the only other stream in the vicinity whose size is comparable to that of the Abana and, though it flows some seven miles south of Damascus, it is used for irrigating a considerable tract of the surrounding orchard-country.
[25] Isaiah 7:8.
[26] Antiquities of the Jews, I.6.4; I.7.2.
[27] The Koran, Sura 56:26f; 61:12.
[28] Estimates of the population of the city vary from 150,000 to a more probable 300,000. Of this number, some 10,000 are Jews, 30,000 are “Greek” and “Latin” Christians, and a few score are Protestants. At least four-fifths of the population is Mohammedan, and Islam is dominant and uncompromising in Damascus, as it is not in cities like Constantinople and Cairo, where Moslem fanaticism is to a greater or less degree held in check by the constant menace of interference by Christian powers.
[29] Genesis 23:11.
[30] Proverbs 20:14.
[31] This includes the American, for all who speak the English language are ordinarily classed as Ingleezy.
[32] Some years ago, our minister to Turkey, who had been promised an audience with Abdul Hamid, was made to wait half a day in an anteroom of the palace without being offered coffee. So far as I know, that fact was never published; for the American newspapers seem to have quite missed the significance of the omission, and our representative himself apparently did not realize that he had been publicly insulted. But the experienced diplomat who was then in charge of our Department of State cabled the minister, in case of further affront, to leave Constantinople immediately.
[33] Isaiah 8:4.
[34] According to the most strict Moslem teachers, the commandment of the Prophet (the Koran, sura 5:92, etc.) would prohibit the use of even the carved figures of the chess knights.
[35] The Koran, sura 4:38.
[36] In this effete generation, however, those who have the inclination and the money may take the sacred railway as far as Medina, and for many years the majority of the pilgrims from outside of Syria have traveled by steamer to Jeddah, the seaport of Mecca—under the direction of an English tourist agency!
[37] See further the author’s The Real Palestine of To-day, chapter VII.
[38] Acts 9:11. The ancient name has survived, or possibly has been revived, and the thoroughfare is still called Derb el-Mustakîm or “Straight Street.” Its more common name, however, is Suk et-Tawîleh, the “Long Bazaar.”
[39] II Kings 5:18.
[40] Jesus is frequently mentioned in the Koran as a prophet, though His divinity is denied and the Christian Trinity is misunderstood by Mohammed as consisting of the Father, Son and Virgin Mary. Characteristic passages are: “O Mary! Verily God announces to thee the Word from Him: his name shall be Messiah Jesus the Son of Mary, illustrious in this world and in the next, and one of those who have near access to God. And He will teach him the Book, and the Wisdom, and the Law, and the Evangel, and he shall be an apostle to the Children of Israel” (Sura 3:40, 43). But—“It beseemeth not God to beget a son” (Sura 19:36). “God shall say, O Jesus, Son of Mary, hast thou said unto mankind, Take me and my mother as two gods, besides God?” (Sura 5:116). “Jesus is no more than a servant whom We favored” (Sura 43:59).
[41] The Koran, sura 47:4, 9, 13, 37.
[42] I Kings 9:18.
[43] Joshua 9:1.
[44] Psalm 80:10.
[45] Jeremiah 22:7.
[46] Song of Songs 5:15.
[47] Ezekiel 17:23.
[48] Isaiah 2:13.
[49] Ezekiel 31:3f.
[50] Psalm 29:5.
[51] Zechariah 11:2f.
[52] East of the Jordan, between Jabbok and Arnon rivers.
[53] Joshua 11:17, 12:7, 13:5.
[54] Varius Avitus Bassanius, who took the name Heliogabalus upon his appointment as high priest of the sun-god, was born at Homs, A. D. 204, usurped the imperial throne at the death of his cousin Caracalla in 218 and, after a brief reign marked chiefly by its infamous debaucheries, was murdered by the Prætorians in 222.
[55] Edw. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, III. 517.
[56] Literally, “the stone of the pregnant woman.” Bearing in mind the meaning of the popular name, the reader will easily understand just how and why I have modified the frank, Oriental form of the story which follows.
[57] Many eminent scholars, however, follow Edward Robinson (Biblical Researches, III. 568) in identifying the “Entering In of Hamath” (Judges 3:3, I Kings 8:65, etc.), not with the northern end of the Bikaʿ, but with the east-and-west valley between the Lebanon and Nusairiyeh ranges, through which we have just come. While I incline more and more toward the view given in the text above, the question must be decided by one’s feeling as to which would be the more striking and appropriate landmark, rather than by any direct evidence. The territory included would be practically the same in either case.
[58] Heliogabalus. See [foot-note, page 191].
[59] Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus.