“Behold the excavation. Now this is the history of the Tunnel. While the excavators were still lifting up the Pick towards each other, and while there were yet three cubits to be broken through, the voice of one called to his neighbour, for there was an excess in the rock on the right. They rose up. They struck on the west of the excavation. They struck, each to meet the other, pick to pick. And there flowed the waters from their outlet to the Pool, for a thousand two hundred cubits, and . . . of a cubit was the height of the rock over the heads of the excavators.” From this it will appear that there were two working-parties, working from opposite ends, and the indefatigable explorers have actually discovered the spot where the “excess” in the rock occurred and where they probably met. Most people who have not got Palestine exploration on the brain will, however, be content to take their word for it without going to see for themselves. Still it cannot be denied that an engineering work, executed in the time of Solomon, and an inscription describing it, is of the greatest interest. The date of the inscription can be determined with tolerable accuracy by a comparison of the letters with those on the Moabite stone and other of the most ancient inscriptions known.
[5] Russia in Palestine.—The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily News says, “In Palestine, the orthodox religion and Russian influence seem to be increasing. Some days ago ‘The Orthodox Palestine Society’ celebrated its anniversary. It was made known on this occasion that the society—which is protected by the government, and which has one of the emperor's uncles, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch, as president—numbers already six hundred and fifteen members, and that its reserve capital amounts to about 90,000 roubles. The society has constructed a church at Nazareth, is constructing a church at Mudshile, and has bought a piece of ground at Jerusalem. The leaders of the Palestine Society assert that their researches have proved in ‘the most indubitable’ manner that Christ, on his way to Golgotha, ‘passed just over the ground which has been bought by the society.’ One of the society's tasks is to facilitate Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The emperor has recently given his sanction to the establishment of branches of this society in all cities of the Russian Empire.”
[THE THREE JERICHOS.]
Haifa, Sept. 2.—The signs of progress to which I have alluded in former letters as being manifest in Judea are not confined to Jaffa and Jerusalem. The contemplated carriage-road to Jericho will be an immense boon to the crowds of pilgrims who flock annually to the Jordan. The first evidence of activity in this direction was at the Khan el-Ahmah. Here are the ruins of an old building. Fragments of walls and broken arches remain, and a deep well indicates that in former days it was inhabited—probably as a half-way house of entertainment. Whether this be so or not, I was glad to see a large force of stone-masons and builders actively engaged, under the superintendence of a European, in erecting a handsome khan or rest-house, which, considering that there is not at present a single habitation between Jerusalem and Jericho, with the exception of Bethany, distant only two miles from the former city, is much needed.
This place has always had an evil reputation for thieves since the days when the Good Samaritan performed his charitable offices to the plundered and beaten wayfarer. Indeed, it is at this very place that the spot is shown to the credulous pilgrim where the incident in the parable is said to have occurred, and the guide-books solemnly warn the tourist that he must be careful to be provided with an escort, because an English traveller, Sir Frederick Henniker, was attacked here by Bedouins, stripped, wounded, and left for dead in 1820. This is imputing stagnation to the Turkish government with a vengeance. It moves slowly, it is true, but the state of security has improved somewhat in sixty-five years. Six years ago I rode alone with a friend from Jericho to Jerusalem with no thought of danger. The Bedouins find it to their interest to keep up the traditions of the guide-books, and travellers continue to pay Bedouin sheiks blackmail which they might with perfect confidence keep in their pockets. I consider the road from Jerusalem to Jericho in the present day as safe as Broadway, at all events in the daytime.
It might not be safe to venture along it quite alone at night, but the same might be said of roads in other far more civilized countries. Nevertheless, the road in places is so wild and desolate that it may well appal the imagination of the timid traveller, notably so where it enters the Wady Kelt, a deep, narrow gorge, flanked by precipitous cliffs, honeycombed with caverns, above which rise white chalk hills, presenting a tangled network of narrow water-worn torrent beds with knife-like ridges between. Hundreds of feet below the path rushes a mountain torrent, which is none other than the traditional brook Cheritt. Here, if we leave the regular track, and make up our minds to follow a dizzy path cut out of the precipitous cliff, which winds back up the gorge, soon disappearing in the depth of its gloomy recesses, we plunge into one of the wildest and weirdest scenes that the ingenuity of nature has conceived in any country, so fantastic are the crags and so labyrinthine the gorges. The only travellers who ever thus diverge from the beaten route are Russian pilgrims, whose devotional instincts lead them to pay their homage to every accessible shrine, and to the credit of the Greek Church it must be said that it has contrived to perch shrines on spots which nature only intended for eagles.
One of the most notable of these is the monastery which commemorates the cave, to which the path we are now following will lead us, in which Elijah is said to have been fed by the ravens. The monastery is literally hung on to the face of the precipice, and consists of a series of cells, and a hall supported on vaults through which lies the entrance. A few Greek monks live, like birds perched on the edge of a nest, in this singular abode, to which a chapel pinnacled on a rock is attached, dating, if we may judge from the character of the masonry, from about the twelfth century. Perhaps the little side chapel, with rock-cut chambers, and the vault containing ancient bones, to which a corridor covered with frescoes representing the Last Judgment leads, is the oldest part of these buildings, which were apparently constructed at three different epochs, as two layers of frescoes cover the wall, while the newest is in its turn covered by the piers supporting the ribs of the roof. Numerous caves, now inaccessible, are visible in the face of the cliff, which for a distance of about thirty yards is covered with frescoes now almost entirely defaced. In front of one of the cells is a heavy iron bar, from which, no doubt, in former days a ladder depended, the only means of access when these caves, now almost deserted, contained quite a population of hermits. This curious place is well worth a visit, and though lying so close to the tourist's route, I have not seen it described in any guide-book.
On reaching the base of the hills where the Wady Kelt debouches into the Jordan Valley, we find ourselves in the immediate presence of four ancient sites. Three of these are the sites of three different Jerichos, and one is the site of Gilgal. It is certain that the Jewish, the Roman, and the Byzantine Crusaders' Jericho occupied three different positions. The first has been identified with tolerable certainty as having existed where mounds of rubble mark its site, near the spring called in old times the Fountain of Elijah, and known now as the Ain es-Sultan. This was the Jericho of Joshua, and these mounds of rubble may contain the débris of the identical walls which fell to the sound of his trumpet. We pitched our tents at the beautiful and copious spring which must have supplied the old town with water, so as to have an opportunity of examining the neighbourhood at our leisure. The spring comes out beneath the mound on the east, and has on the west a wall of small masonry in hard cement. In this wall there is a small semicircular niche, probably intended to hold a statue of the genius of the spring. The reservoir from which the water gushes forth is about twenty by forty feet, and, though shallow, forms a delightful bath, with temperature slightly tepid. The high tumuli behind had been excavated by Sir Charles Warren, and I examined the traces of his cuttings. The mounds are formed for the most part of a light yellow clay, which, on being touched, crumbles into an impalpable powder. In some cases no strata could be discerned in the clay, in others, layers of brick, stone, and mortar were clearly visible. In another large mound, a little to the south, graves were found six feet below the surface. All these except one were of sun-dried brick. Bones appeared to have been thrown into these after the decomposition of the bodies. Altogether Sir Charles Warren dug trenches through no fewer than eight of the mounds, which form a conspicuous feature in the plain in which the ancient cities of Jericho were situated, as they stand to a height of about sixty feet above it; and the result at which he arrived was that they are formed by the gradual crumbling away of great towers or castles of sun-burned brick. Although in some cases shafts were sunk to a depth of forty feet, nothing was found except pottery jars, stone mortars for grinding corn, and broken glass. In one were found, eight feet below the surface, the remains of a large amphora, the neck, handles, and base of which were entire, and which must have stood about five feet high. Sir Charles Warren's working party consisted of one hundred and seventy-four men, and he thoroughly exhausted the subject.
Near the spring is a ruin which may have been that of a small Roman temple, a portion of an aqueduct, for the waters of the spring evidently irrigated a large extent of the plain, and near by traces of ruins, apparently Byzantine. Here are pillar-shafts, cornices, capitals, and other indications of a city of later date than those we have been considering.