The author of the unpublished journal from which we have already drawn some rich materials, inspected the remains of Geraza three years ago. "We set out for the ruins, and reached them before sunrise. Having seen them only partially by a faint light and from a distance the previous evening, I had not formed a high opinion of them, and wondered that they should ever have been brought into comparison with Palmyra. A full examination now altered my decision, and left me and all the party full of admiration at the grandeur and the elegance of the ruins. We were struck with the view down the main street of the city. Close to us was a temple, a fine mass of building, surrounded by innumerable fallen columns and ruined cornices. Beneath was the great street, commencing in an elegant circular or rather oval colonnade of fifty-seven pillars, and containing a succession of straight colonnades on each side, crossed at right angles by another line of columns with an entablature. On one side was a splendid temple with columns, on a height; and on the other a bridge crossing the stream on which the ruins stand. Close to this temple is a theatre in remarkably high repair; almost all the seats are quite entire. The proscenium is still sufficiently so to give a complete idea of the plan; and it is easy to sit on one of the benches and fancy a Greek play performing to a Gerazan audience as it was seventeen hundred years ago. Proceeding northward along the great street, we soon came to a building which seemed to me one of the finest things in Jerash. It was a sort of semicircular temple, in front of which had been a portico of Corinthian columns, composing part of the grand colonnade. I do not think they can be under fifty feet in height, and their form is very elegant. The semicircular building itself is covered with a half-dome, and ornamented with particular richness and beauty. It is remarkable throughout these ruins, how admirably the columns and buildings are disposed for producing effect in combination. Of two bridges, a good deal of the one to the east remains, and the arches reach across the river, though it is not passable, owing to the destruction of the upper part. There is a paved road between the colonnades leading from the bridge."
The ground occupied by this city, which was nearly in the form of a square, might have been, enclosed by a line of four English miles in length; the distance from the ruined gateway on the south to the small temple on the north being about five thousand feet. It stood on the corresponding sloes of two opposite hills, with a narrow but not a deep valley between them, through which ran a clear stream of water, springing from fountains near the centre of the town, and bending its way thence to the southward. But so complete is the desolation of this once magnificent place, that Bedouin Arabs now encamp among its ruins for the sake of the rivulet by which they are washed, as they would collect near a well in the midst of their native desert. Such portions of the soil as are still cultivated, are ploughed by men who have no property in it; and the same spot accordingly is occupied by different persons every succeeding year, as time and chance may happen to direct.
Mr. Buckingham thinks that the similarity of situation, as well as of name, would lead to the conclusion that this Jerash of the Arabs is the same with the Gergasha of the Hebrews. Reland gives a variety of derivations, quoted from Pliny, Jamblichus, Epiphanius, and Origen; all of which are much more satisfactory as they regard the position of a certain town in the Land of Gilead, than as they convey any precise ideas as to its etymological import. After the Romans conquered Judea, the country beyond the Jordan became one of their favourite colonies; to which, from the circumstance of its containing ten cities, they gave the name of Decapolis, an appellation recognised by St. Mark in the seventh chapter of his Gospel. Geraza, it is presumed, was one of those cities; and although its history is darkened with more than the usual doubt which attaches to the Jewish annals after the fall of Jerusalem, there is reason to believe that in the time of Vespasian it suffered the penalty of rebellion, and was finally destroyed by the Saracens when they attacked the eastern boundaries of the empire.
We must satisfy ourselves with a mere glance at the hills of Gilead; the rich pasture-lands of the tribe of Reuben, and formerly the kingdom of the gigantic Og, the monarch of Bashan. It is well known that the Valley of the Jordan is bounded on the east by a range of mountains still more lofty than those which skirt its western limits; but it was not suspected till lately that the former concealed in their recesses some of the richest scenery and most valuable land anywhere to be found in Palestine. Rising gradually from the bed of the river, the traveller soon finds himself on a platform seven or eight hundred feet above its level; forming a district of extraordinary fertility, abounding with the most beautiful prospects, clothed with thick forests, diversified with verdant slopes, and possessing extensive plains of a fine soil, yielding in nothing to the most prolific parts of Galilee and Samaria. "We continued our way," says Mr. Buckingham, "to the north-east, through a country, the beauty of which so surprised us, that we often asked each other what were our sensations; as if to ascertain the reality of what we saw, and persuade each other by mutual confessions of our delight, that the picture before us was not an optical illusion. The landscape alone, which varied at every turn, and gave us new beauties from any point of view, was of itself worth all the pains of an excursion to the eastward of the Jordan; and the park-like scenes that sometimes softened the romantic wildness of the general character as a whole, reminded us of similar spots in less neglected lands."[138]
The scenery continues of the same fascinating description till the traveller reaches the Nahr el Zerkah, or river Jabbok, the ancient boundary between the Amorites and the Children of Ammon. The banks are thickly clothed with the oleander and plane-tree, the wild olive and almond, and many flowering-shrubs of great variety and elegance. The stream is about thirty feet broad, deeper than the Jordan, and nearly as rapid, rushing downwards over a rocky channel. On the northern side begins the kingdom of Bashan, celebrated for its oaks, its cattle, and the bodily strength of its inhabitants. The opposite plate exhibits a view of the Jabbok, and of the bold Alpine range which fenced the territory of one of the most formidable enemies of Israel; verifying in its fullest extent the description of Moses, who says, "The border of the children of Ammon was strong."[139]
The curious reader will find in the Travels of Mr. Buckingham some ingenious reasoning employed by him to fix the locality of Bozor, Ramoth, Jabesh, and other towns situated in Gilead, and which were rendered important by the various events recorded in the sacred volume.
About six miles from Djerash towards the north stands the village of Souf, on the brow of a lofty hill, and flanked by a deep ravine. It retains several marks of having been the site of some more ancient and considerable town, presenting large blocks of stone with mouldings and sculpture wrought into the modern buildings. In the neighbourhood are seen the walls of an edifice apparently Roman, as also the ruins of two small towers which may with equal certainty be traced to the age of Saracenic domination. Souf can boast of nearly five hundred inhabitants, all rigid Mohammedans, and remarkable for a surly and suspicious character.
Leaving this rather inhospitable village, the traveller who wishes to visit the remains of Gamala proceeds in a north-westerly direction, descending into a fine valley, and again rising on a gentle ascent, the whole being profusely and beautifully wooded with evergreen oaks below, and pines upon the ridge of the hill above. "Mr. Bankes, who had seen the whole of England, the greater part of Italy and France, and almost every province of Spain and Portugal, frequently remarked, that in all his travels he had met with nothing equal to it, excepting only in some parts of the latter country,—Entre Minho and Douro,—to which alone he could compare it."[140]
Several hamlets and some obscure indications of ancient buildings meet the eye in course of the journey to Om Keis. Before reaching this town, the road emerges into a hilly district, bleak, rocky, and ill-cultivated. The view is as monotonous as that from Jerusalem, forming a striking contrast to the rich, verdant, and beautiful scenery which distinguishes Bashan and Gilead.
Gamala, for under that name the ruins of the Roman station are most familiarly known, must have covered a site nearly square; its greatest length, from east to west, being seventeen hundred short paces, and its breadth about one-fourth less. A considerable portion of it seems to have stood on the summit of a hill, well fortified all round; the traces of towers and other works of defence being still visible even on its steepest parts. The portals of the eastern gate remain, from whence a noble street appears to have run through the whole length of the city, lined by a handsome colonnade of Ionic and Corinthian pillars. The pavement is formed of square blocks of black volcanic stone, and is still so perfect, that the ruts of wheel-carriages are to be seen in it, of different breadths and about an inch in depth, as at the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.[141]