Eleven hundred thousand persons perished during the siege, by famine, pestilence, or by human violence. Ninety-seven thousand at its close were carried as captives into distant lands.[70]
CHAPTER XIX.
Visit to Bethlehem. Well of the Star. Monastery of Elijah. Rachael’s Tomb. Plain of the Shepherds. Town of Bethlehem. Character of its inhabitants. Church and Cave of the Nativity. Traditions. The Turpentine Tree, &c. Manufactures of the Bethlehemites. Tattooing. Country northward from Jerusalem. Cave of Jeremiah. Hill of Bezetha. Tombs of the Kings. Dr. Clarke’s subterranean Chapels. Ancient quarries. Tombs of the Judges. Thorn from which the Saviour’s crown is supposed to have been made. Difficulty at the Gates. Yaoub and the Soldiers.
On the morning of the 18th we started for Bethlehem, which lies at the distance of about five miles from Jerusalem on the south. Leaving by the Jaffa gate, and crossing by difficult paths the valley of Hinnom, we had then before us an elevated plain bordered eastwardly by the valley of Jehoshaphat, about two miles wide, and extending three miles toward the south, in which direction it has a slight ascent. As we passed on, a troop of cavalry, which had been out at their morning drill, came sweeping along on our left; but when they had passed us, we were left alone in the open country, where scarcely a sign of cultivation appeared. A blight has for a great many years been upon this doomed and unhappy land. At the distance of about two miles from the city, we came to a well, called “the well of the kings,” or, “the well of the star,” from a tradition that when the wise men had left Jerusalem for Bethlehem, and had reached this place, the star (Matthew ii. 9.) appeared again, and led them on to the couch of the infant Messiah. At the extremity of this plain, and on a height commanding a view both of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, is the Greek monastery of Elijah, where is one of the sacred places of the country. “Here,” says el Devoto Peregrino, “is a rock impressed by the body of the holy prophet, as natural as if it had been stamped there; for we see the head, the shoulders, the ribs and body, extended horizontally. This is the place to which the holy prophet retired to contemplate the future Messiah; and where, looking towards Bethlehem, he saw him enveloped in coarse swaddling clothes, but surrounded by angels, singing glory to God in the highest; and, looking towards Jerusalem, saw him nailed to the cross and crowned with thorns, while the multitude around were blaspheming and insulting him.”
Sandys, in his quaint style, remarks of it: “Hard by is a flat rock, whereon they told us that the prophet was accustomed to sleepe, and that it beares as yet the impression of his body. Indeed, there are certaine hollowes in the same, but not by mine eyes apprehended to retaine any manly proportions.”
I speak of the place from the authority of others, for I felt no disposition at the time to trouble myself with matters of this nature. Indeed, it requires a constant effort in travellers among these places to keep the mind free from disgust, and from the baneful effects of the errors, that, like leeches, have fastened themselves to the truth, covering and deforming it, and exhausting its power, while they themselves live on its fading strength.
The monastery is surrounded by a strong wall, and looks as if it might be a place adapted as much for defence as for devotion.
Bethlehem here came into full view, though more than two miles distant; the country between it and us, although broken, being rather low, and the town itself being situated on an eminence of steep ascent. On the way, we left, at a short distance on our right hand, a small square edifice surmounted by a dome, evidently a modern structure, but called the tomb of Rachael, and regarded by Moslems as well as by the Christian sects here with high respect. Further on to our left, and below the town of Bethlehem, was a small valley, covered even at this hot season with a refreshing verdure; and here they inform us the shepherds were watching their flocks by night, when the angel appeared to announce glad tidings of great joy, the birth of “a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Near this is also a well, said to be the one from which David’s three “mighty men” procured him water at the risk of their lives. Passing these spots, we soon after arrived at the outskirts of Bethlehem; and as our large cavalcade wound up the steep ascent, the whole population of the place came crowding along the way, hanging over the rude walls, and filling every door and window. They are all Christians in name, though they bear an indifferent character; and, what in these countries strikes one with surprise, the women appeared with their faces exposed, and frequently very good-looking faces they were. Our arrival seemed to excite a very unusual sensation, which I was able to account for by and by, when one of the men, taking me aside in the convent, asked seriously whether the report was true, “that we had come to take the place from the Egyptian Pasha.” They bear no good feeling towards the Moslem power, and have always been refractory and troublesome subjects to the Porte; their insulated situation, and the facilities for retiring to mountain fastnesses in the wild country around, encouraging in them bold and independent habits. We were informed that when the general order from Mohammed Ali for disarming the populace of Syria was carried to them, they sent in about a dozen muskets, saying, that these were all they had; nor could any threats wrest more from them, though the place has three or four hundred fighting men well equipped. The town is situated on a piece of isolated table land, of sudden elevation on every side. On the east this runs out into a narrow tongue, and at the extremity of this projection, 200 yards distant from the village, are the monastery and church of the Franciscans, covering the spot where the Messiah was born.