These are only specimens of the superstitious legends with which the whole region is filled.
On our return to the convent, we found an excellent dinner in a state of preparation by the monks, who indeed, during the whole of our visit, treated us with great hospitality and attention; on leaving it, we, in return, made them a present of some gold coin, which, as was perfectly proper, they accepted. During the recent troubles in the country, the strong walls of their monastery had afforded protection to the persons and property of many of the inhabitants of Bethlehem; and we found several of the chambers and passages still filled with furniture and bags of grain. While dinner was in preparation, the natives of the town crowded in with a great variety of articles which they are in the habit of making for pilgrims; crosses, inkstands, boxes of mother of pearl, huge clasps for girdles made of a complete shell with figures cut in relief, and beads of the same material, and of a substance called Mecca-stone, which is sometimes colored red or black. Most of these objects were rude enough, but some of the figures in relief were conceived and executed in a manner that would not have disgraced an Italian artist. The pilgrims place these things first in the Cave of the Nativity, and then carry them to the Holy Sepulchre, where, being deposited on the tomb, prayers are said over them, which are supposed to give them a supernatural power over evil spirits, so far as to protect the persons and property of the possessors.
While most of us were laying in large stores of their bead and pearl manufactures, some of our younger companions were submitting to the painful process of having figures, from Scriptural subjects, pricked and stained in the arm with blue or black pigment, a species of tattooing, at which, it seems, the Bethlehemites are expert, and to which pilgrims very often submit. It is not often that they have such a market for their commodities, and I believe our visit to Bethlehem will long be remembered; to us it was certainly a very interesting epoch.
Taking our usual interpreter, an intelligent young Armenian, for a guide, and accompanied, whether we would or no, by a half crazy and yet very shrewd fellow, called Yaoub, a party of us made an excursion one day to “the Tombs of the Kings.” They lie about three quarters of a mile north of the city, amid olive groves and fields; and we found the walk there pleasanter than we anticipated.
We passed out by the Damascus gate, so called from the circumstance that the great road from Damascus enters the city here; and soon after leaving it, turned to our right to examine a huge cavern that stood yawning upon us. It is called the Cave of Jeremiah, from a tradition that he made it his residence; it is above 100 feet deep, by seventy in width and thirty in height, and is a gloomy, desolate place, such as we may suppose would have been chosen by the author of the Lamentations; but I presume there is no other authority for its name.
We were now on the hill Bezetha, where stood the Neopolis, or New City, inclosed by Agrippa’s wall. The hill is still marked with tolerable distinctness, though it is in no place very high. It is ridge shaped, declining gently towards the east and west, and ascending gradually towards the north. Passing on, we reached, in a short time, a square pit with smooth perpendicular sides, about 100 feet on each side and fifteen in depth, cut in the solid rock, and resembling a quarry, which it may have originally been. An inclined plane at the north-eastern angle leads to the bottom; and having descended by this, we had opposite to us, on the south, a portico about twenty-five feet long by ten in depth, cut out of the solid rock; this is surmounted by an entablature, enriched with flowing sculpture of plants and fruits, in bold relief, and of very superior execution. At the eastern end of this portico was a hole, formerly a door-way of easy passage, but now so filled up that we could enter only by prostrating ourselves flat on the ground, and pushing ourselves forward by the feet. Having entered in this manner, we found that we were in a room about twenty feet square, cut entirely out of the solid rock. It appears to have served as a vestibule to other chambers, of which there are six in number, each with one or more receptacles for the dead. These consist of troughs cut out of the native rock, not sunk in the floor as is generally the case in the ancient sepulchres about this city, but on its level; fragments of the covers of one or two were scattered about the rooms; these were enriched with flowing sculpture, very well executed in strong relief; the coffins or sarcophagi were in other respects entirely plain.
The doors by which these chambers were closed are very remarkable objects. They are of stone, and are in dimensions about forty by thirty inches, and are six inches in thickness. Above and below are projecting knobs, forming a portion of the same stone, four inches in length; these were inserted into corresponding sockets, and formed the pivots on which the door revolved; but the question, how they were inserted into the grooves, is one that it would be difficult to solve. It is said that the ancients had a mode of fastening these doors so that no one who had not the secret could open them without breaking the stone. I have seen similar grooves in the gateway of the citadel of Mycenæ in Greece; and the sculpture belonging to these tombs, so strongly resembling the Grecian, appears to indicate for them an origin in the latter days of the ancient city. They are probably what by Josephus are called Herod’s Monument, and in another place, “the sepulchral caverns of the Kings;”[71] and I think we may reasonably suppose them to have been formed by Herod. If this surmise with regard to their name is correct, they receive an additional interest, as showing us the northern boundary of the “new city” of Bezetha.
From this we proceeded to visit “the Tombs of the Judges,” which lie nearly a mile further, in a course somewhat west of north. The ground was still cultivated in patches, and was covered with olive trees; the surface undulating. We passed, on the way, several subterranean apartments like that which Dr. Clarke discovered on the Mount of Olives, and which he supposed to have been a chapel for the secret and forbidden worship of the false gods. They are in shape like a bee-hive, are plaistered, and are entered by a small hole at the apex, which is the only opening. To our judgment they seemed designed to be reservoirs for water, or for granaries, but were most probably the former. Several years since I discovered one exactly similar to these, on some heights overlooking the site of the ancient Abydos at the Dardanelles.
We were now getting into an interesting region, evidently that from which were procured the huge blocks that formed the walls of the ancient city. The rock here is compact and solid, and of a fine texture; and for a great distance, and in every direction, exhibited the appearance that rocks would do from which large rectangular blocks with smooth surfaces had been cut. The vertical sections were regular and smooth, and sometimes fifteen or twenty feet in height. In the face of them were a great number of tombs, such as I have already described; sometimes consisting of a single chamber, sometimes of a succession of chambers, and with from two to four burial-places each, generally without ornament, and, as far as we observed, without inscriptions.