It was afternoon when we drove to Bethlehem—a pleasant drive, though dusty withal. The road lies between grain-fields—fields where Ruth may have gleaned, and where the Son of Man may have stopped to gather corn. It gives one a curious feeling to remember that these fields are the same, and that for them through all the centuries seed-time and harvest have never failed. Nor have they changed—the walls, the laborers, the methods, the crops belong to any period that this country has known.
The convent of Elijah was pointed out to us, but it did not matter. Elijah never saw it—never heard of it. It is different, however, with a stone across the way from the entrance. Elijah went to sleep on that stone, and slept so heavily that he left his imprint there, which remains to this day. We viewed that stone with interest; then we took most of it and went on.
In a little while we came to the tomb of Rachel. The small, mosque-like building that covers it is not very old, but the site is probably as well authenticated as any of that period. Jacob was on his way from Padan when she died, and he buried her by the roadside "when there was but a little way to come into Ephrath" (which is Bethlehem). He marked the grave with a pillar which the generations would not fail to point out, one to another, as the last resting-place of this mother in Israel who died that Benjamin might have life.
Poor Rachel! Supplanted in her husband's love; denied long the natural heritage of woman; paying the supreme price at last, only to be left here by the wayside alone, outside the family tomb. All the others are gathered at Hebron in the Field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from the children of Heth for Sarah's burial-place. Jacob, at the very last, made his sons swear that they would bury him at Hebron with the others. He remembered Rachel in her lonely grave, and spoke of her there, but did not ask that he be taken to lie by her side, or that she be laid with the others. He died as he had lived—self-seeking, unsympathetic—a commonplace old man.
Just outside of Bethlehem we were welcomed by a crowd of little baksheesh girls, of a better look and distinctly of a better way than the Jerusalem type. They ran along with the carriage and began a chant which, behold, was German, at least Germanesque:
"Oh, du Fröliche!
Oh, du Heilege!
Baksheesh! Baksheesh!"
I suppose "Oh, thou happy one; Oh, thou holy one," would be about the translation, with the wailing refrain at the end. I think we gave them something. I hope so; they are after us always, and we either give them or we don't, without much discrimination. You can't discriminate. They are all wretched and miserably needy. You give to get rid of them, or when pity clutches a little fiercer than usual at your heart.
A CAMEL TRAIN LED THE WAY THROUGH THE GATES