It may be asked, why did neither Josephus nor the author of the Books of Maccabees tell us that Beth Zachariah was near Bethlehem? I answer: first, the narrative did not make this necessary; secondly, Bethlehem was then “among the least of the thousands of Judah,” her great day had not yet arrived; and thus it might have been quite as necessary to say that Bethlehem was near Beth Zachariah, as to say that Beth Zachariah was near Bethlehem.
The modern name “Bait Sahhoor of the Christians” arises most likely from the fact that a majority of the inhabitants,—thirty families to twenty in the year 1851,—were of that religion, and from its nearness to the field where it is believed the angels appeared to the shepherds announcing the birth of Christ, with its subterranean chapel, the crypt of a large church in former times.
The other Bait Sahhoor (El Wadîyeh) is so named from its position on the side of the Wadi in Nar, or valley of the Kedron. It is only occasionally inhabited, the people who claim it being too few to clear out the encumbered cisterns for their use, but prefer to identify themselves during most of the year with other villages, such as Siloam near at hand, where water is more abundant.
XVI. THE BAKOOSH COTTAGE.
At about seven miles from Jerusalem lie the Pools of Solomon, commonly called the “Burâk,” upon the road to Hebron, which passes by the head of the westernmost of them, on the left hand of the traveller to that city; while immediately on the right hand, stands a hill with some cultivation of vineyards and fig-trees, with a few olive-trees; apparently half-way up that hill is a stone cottage, roughly but well built. It is of that cottage and its grounds that I am about to speak, for there I resided with my family for some weeks in 1860, and through the summer of 1862.
There is no village close at hand, the nearest one being El Khud’r, (or St George, so named from a small Greek convent in its midst,) which, however, is only visible from the highway for a few minutes at a particular bend of the road before reaching the Pools; the next nearest, but in the opposite or eastern direction, is Urtâs, with its profitable cultivation, nestled in a well-watered valley.
After these, in other directions again, are Bait Jala, near Rachel’s sepulchre, and Bethlehem, the sacred town whose name is echoed wherever Christ is mentioned throughout the whole world, and will continue to do so till the consummation of all things,—“there is no speech or language where its name is not heard.”
Adjoining the Pools is the shell of a dilapidated khan, of old Saracenic period, the outer enclosure alone being now entire. Two or three Bashi-bozuk soldiers used to be stationed there, living in wretched hovels inside the enclosure, made of fallen building stones, put together with mud. On account of this being a government post, the peasantry of the country, ignorant of all the world but themselves, denominate this old square wall, “The Castle,” and that name is repeated by dragomans to their European employers.