The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

Young women in Bethlehem proudly wear their dowries—necklaces and fillets of coins, and beautifully embroidered shawls, which may mean over a year of painstaking needlework

Every bit of the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is historic ground. Over this same road Abraham travelled to Mount Moriah. Along it came the Wise Men of the East following the Star on their way to the stable where Jesus was born. They had called upon crafty King Herod at Jerusalem to ask about the King of the Jews. He had told them to find where He was born, that he might come and worship Him. The road goes by a well where it is said these Wise Men stopped to drink. It is known as the “Well of the Magi,” and is near an olive grove on the east side of the road. It is covered with a marble slab as big around as a cart wheel with a hole cut in the centre through which the water is raised by a bucket and rope. The stone is polished by the kisses of pilgrims.

The story is that the Wise Men as they trudged along in the gathering twilight sat down by this well to rest. When they stooped forward to draw some water to drink, they saw reflected in its mirror-like surface the guiding Star. They looked toward the heavens, and then, in the words of the Scripture:

Lo, the star which they saw in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was.

It was not far from here that I caught my first sight of the field where the shepherds lay when the angel and the heavenly host announced Christ’s birth to them. It is said to be the field of Boaz upon which Ruth gleaned her wheat. It lies across the valley to the east of Bethlehem. There is a little village in front of it, and a part of the field is covered by an olive grove. I saw the sheep feeding upon it, and as I rode to Bethlehem I passed flocks of them being driven to the Jerusalem markets. They were of the fat-tailed variety, some of their tails weighing, I venture, fifteen pounds each. The drivers were kind-eyed and gentle in their manners and as they went by us they cried out Neharak sa’id, or “May thy day be happy!” To this we replied Neharak sa’id umubarak which in Arabic means “May thy day also be happy and blessed.”

The shepherds were dressed in long gowns and wore handkerchiefs about their heads as turbans. Some of them wore sheepskins, and it is probable that they were clad much the same as those who “came with haste” and found the infant Jesus lying in a manger. There is a chapel now in the Field of the Shepherds, and for centuries a church and a monastery stood on the spot.

Soon after leaving Jerusalem we pass a hill on the left of the road, where, the guide says, stood the building in which Judas Iscariot sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Not far away is an old olive tree upon which the pilgrims are told Judas hanged himself in his remorse after the Crucifixion.

Going onward about four miles from Jerusalem we come to a building which has just received a fresh coat of whitewash. It is known as the Tomb of Rachel, and covers the spot where she is said to be buried. Not far from it David had his fight with Goliath, the ten-foot giant of the Scriptures. I am not sure as to the locality, but there are millions of stones there to-day, and plenty of ammunition for the slings of an army of Davids. Indeed, there is hardly a field on the hills of Judea which is not covered with stones of one size or another, and the shepherds use slings to this day.

And speaking of stones reminds me of the Field of Peas, which lies not far from Bethlehem. It is a tract on the side of a hill where the stones are so thick that if it were planted to corn you would have to carry earth to cover the grains. As the story goes, our Lord was passing by here when He saw a man sowing grain. He stopped and asked him what he was sowing. The man replied “stones.” And thereupon the seed peas in his bag turned to stones, and all that he had sown did the same. Some of the stones now on the field are gathered up and peddled to pilgrims as relics.

I had one such pedlar follow me half the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. He was a turbaned Syrian boy on a donkey, who had to gallop to keep up with my carriage. To this the donkey objected, and the boy kept him up to his work with a stick as long as a husking peg and equally sharp. He inserted this under the saddle, behind him, and then using it as a lever, pulled on the other end of the peg, forcing its sharp point into the animal’s flesh. At every such pull the donkey kicked up its heels and increased its speed, while the rider bobbed up and down, and his long, full-trousered legs stood straight out.