On the 13th of March we rode to the white cliff called Tell es Sâfi, the site of the Crusading fortress of Blanche Garde, which was built in 1144 A.D., as an outpost for defence against the people of Ascalon. Of the fortress nothing remains beyond the rock scarps, which are only dimly traceable; but the position is one of immense natural strength, guarding the mouth of the Valley of Elah, and the situation is that in which Jerome describes the Philistine Gath. Identification is impossible without the recovery of the ancient name, but there is, I think, no place which has stronger claims than this site to be identified with Gath. It is now a mud village with olives beneath it; the cliff on which it is built is 300 feet high, and is burrowed with caves on the north; on the south a narrow saddle joins it to the ridge, but on every other side the “Shining Hill,” as it is well called, is impregnable, and when protected by fortifications on the weaker side, it must have been a most important post.
Beit Jibrîn had suffered severely from the fever of the last autumn. It was said that 500 people out of 1000 had died in the neighbourhood. The “cursed water” had appeared, by which title was intended a series of stagnant pools in the valley, which if not dry by autumn always foreboded fever in the village. I asked why the villagers did not drain them; the Sheikh replied, “It is from Allah.” Such is the fatalistic indolence of the peasantry, which prevents any chance of progress or of civilisation so long as the hopelessness of the creed of Islam bars the way.
From Beit Jibrîn we visited a site which is of primary interest, as representing apparently the Cave of Adullam.
This famous hold, where David collected “every one that was in distress and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,” was, according to Josephus, at the city called Adullam (Ant. vi. 12, 3). This city was one of the group of fifteen (Josh. xv. 35) situate in the Shephelah or “lowlands.” The towns next on the list, including Jarmuth (El Yermûk), Socoh (Shuweikeh), and others, lie north-east of Beit Jibrîn, and are close together. The term Shephelah is used in the Talmud to mean the low hills of soft limestone, which, as already explained, form a distinct district between the plain and the watershed mountains. The name Sifla, or Shephelah, still exists in four or five places within the region round Beit Jibrîn, and we can therefore have no doubt as to the position of that district, in which Adullam is to be sought.
M. Clermont Ganneau was the fortunate explorer who first recovered the name, and I was delighted to find that Corporal Brophy had also collected it from half a dozen different people, without knowing that there was any special importance attaching to it. The title being thus recovered, without any leading question having been asked, I set out to examine the site, the position of which agrees almost exactly with the distance given by Jerome, between Eleutheropolis and Adullam—ten Roman miles.
The Great Valley of Elah (Wâdy es Sunt) is the highway from Philistia to Hebron; it has its head not far from Terkûmieh, and runs down northwards, past Keilah and Hareth, dividing the low hills of the Shephelah from the rocky mountains of Judah; eight miles from the valley-head stands Shochoh, and Wâdy es Sunt is here a quarter of a mile across; just north of this ruin it turns round westward, and so runs, growing deeper and deeper, between the rocky hills covered with brushwood, becoming an open vale of rich corn-land, flanked by ancient fortresses, and finally debouching at the cliff of Tell es Sâfi.
About two and a half miles south of the great angle near Shochoh, there is a very large and ancient terebinth, one of the few old trees of the species, along the course of the valley, which took its Hebrew name of Elah from them. This terebinth is towards the west side of the vale, just where a small tributary ravine joins Wâdy es Sunt; and near it are two ancient wells, not unlike those at Beersheba, with stone water-troughs round them; south of the ravine is a high rounded hill, almost isolated by valleys, and covered with ruins, a natural fortress, not unlike the well-known Tells which occur lower down the Valley of Elah.