Palestine, or, the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

by Michael Russell

These considerations gave great probability to the conjectures of those pious persons who, in the fourth century of our era, assisted the mother of Constantine in fixing the locality of holy scenes. From that period down to the present day, the devotion of the Christian and the avarice of the Mohammedan have sufficiently secured the remembrance both of the places and of the events with which they are associated. But no length of time can wear out the impression of deep reverence and respect which are excited by an actual examination of those interesting spots that witnessed the stupendous occurrences recorded in the inspired volume. Or, if there be in existence any cause which could effectually counteract such natural and laudable feelings, it is the excessive minuteness of detail and fanciful description usually found to accompany the exhibition of sacred relics. The Christian traveller is delighted when he obtains the first glance of Carmel, of Tabor, of Libanus, and of Olivet; his heart opens to many touching recollections at the moment when the Jordan, the Lake of Tiberias, and even the waters of the Dead Sea spread themselves out before his eyes; but neither his piety nor his belief is strengthened when he has presented to him a portion of the cross whereon our Saviour was suspended, the nails that pierced his hands and feet, the linen in which his body was wrapped, the stone on which his corpse reposed in the sepulchre, as well as that occupied by the ministering angel on the morning of the resurrection. The skepticism with which such doubtful remains cannot fail to be examined is turned into positive disgust when, the guardians of the grotto at Bethlehem undertake to show the water wherein the infant Messiah was washed, the milk of the blessed Virgin his mother, the swaddling-clothes, the manger, and other particulars neither less minute nor less improbable.

But such abuses, the fruit of many ages of credulity and ignorance, do not materially diminish the force of the impression produced by scenes which no art can change, and hardly any description can disguise. The hills still stand round about Jerusalem, as they stood in the days of David and of Solomon. The dew falls on Hermon, the cedars grow on Libanus, and Kishon, that ancient river, draws its stream from Tabor as in the times of old. The Sea of Galilee still presents the same natural accompaniments, the fig-tree springs up by the wayside, the sycamore spreads its branches, and the vines and olives still climb the sides of the mountains. The desolation which covered the Cities of the Plain is not less striking at the present hour than when Moses with an inspired pen recorded the judgment of God; the swellings of Jordan are not less regular in their rise than when the Hebrews first approached its banks; and he who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho still incurs the greatest hazard of falling among thieves. There is, in fact, in the scenery and manners of Palestine, a perpetuity that accords well with the everlasting import of its historical records, and which enables us to identify with the utmost readiness the local imagery of every great transaction.

The extent of this remarkable country has varied at different times, according to the nature of the government which it has either enjoyed or been compelled to acknowledge. When it was first occupied by the Israelites, the land of Canaan, properly so called, was confined between the shores of the Mediterranean and the western bank of the Jordan; the breadth at no part exceeding fifty miles, while the length hardly amounted to three times that space. At a later period, the arms of David and of his immediate successor carried the boundaries of the kingdom to the Euphrates and Orontes on the one hand, an in an opposite direction to the remotest confines of Edom and Moab. The population, as might be expected, has undergone a similar variation. It is true that no particular in ancient history is liable to a better-founded suspicion than the numerical statements which respect nations and armies; for pride and fear have, in their turn, contributed not a little to exaggerate, in rival countries, the amount of the persons capable of taking a share in the field of battle. Proceeding on the usual grounds of calculation, we must infer, from the number of warriors whom Moses conducted through the desert, that the Hebrew people, when they crossed the Jordan, did not fall short of two millions; while, from facts recorded in the book of Samuel, we may conclude with greater confidence that the enrolment made under the direction of Joab must have returned a gross population of five millions and a half.

The present aspect of Palestine, under an administration where every thing decays and nothing is renewed, can afford no just criterion of the accuracy of such statements. Hasty observers have indeed pronounced that a hilly country destitute of great rivers, could not, even under the most skilful management, supply food for so many mouths. But this precipitate conclusion has been vigorously combated by the most competent judges, who have taken pains to estimate the produce of a soil under the fertilizing influence of a sun which may be regarded as almost tropical, and of a well-regulated irrigation which the Syrians knew how to practise with the greatest success. Canaan, it must be admitted, could not be compared to Egypt in respect to corn. There is no Nile to scatter the riches of an inexhaustible fecundity over its valleys and plains. Still it was not without reason that Moses described it as "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayst dig brass."[5]

The reports of the latest travellers confirm the accuracy of the picture drawn by this divine legislator. Near Jericho the wild olives continue to bear berries of a large size, which give the finest oil. In places subjected to irrigation, the same field, after a crop of wheat in May, produces pulse in autumn. Several of the trees are continually bearing flowers and fruit at the same time, in all their stages. The mulberry, planted in straight rows in the open field, is festooned by the tendrils of the vine. If this vegetation seems to languish or become extinct during the extreme heats,—if in the mountains it is at all seasons detached and interrupted,—such exceptions to the general luxuriance are not to be ascribed simply to the general character of all hot climates, but also to the state of barbarism in which the great mass of the present population is immersed.

Even in our day, some remains are to be found of the walls which the ancient cultivators built to support the soil on the declivities of the mountains; the form of the cisterns in which they collected the rain-water; and traces of the canals by which this water was distributed over the fields. These labours necessarily created a prodigious fertility under an ardent sun, where a little moisture was the only requisite to revive the vegetable world. The accounts given by native writers respecting the productive qualities of Judea are not in any degree opposed even by the present aspect of the country. The case is exactly the same with some islands in the Archipelago; a tract, from which a hundred individuals can hardly draw a scanty subsistence, formerly maintained thousands in affluence. Moses might justly say that Canaan abounded in milk and honey. The flocks of the Arabs still find in it a luxuriant pasture, while the bees deposite in the holes of the rocks their delicious stores, which are sometimes seen flowing down the surface.

The opinions just stated in regard to the fertility of ancient Palestine receive an ample confirmation from the Roman historians, to whom, as a part of their extensive empire, it was intimately known. Tacitus, especially, in language which he appears to have formed for his own use, describes its natural qualities with the utmost precision, and, as is his manner, suggests rather than specifies a catalogue of productions, the accuracy of which is verified by the latest observations. The soil is rich, and the atmosphere dry; the country yields all the fruits which are known in Italy, besides balm and dates.[6]

But it has never been denied that there is a remarkable difference between the two sides of the ridge which forms the central chain of Judea. On the western acclivity, the soil rises from the sea towards the elevated ground in four distinct terraces, which are covered with an unfading verdure. The shore is lined with mastic-trees; palms, and prickly pears. Higher up, the vines, the olives, and the sycamores amply repay the labour of the cultivator; natural groves arise, consisting of evergreen oaks, cypresses, andrachnés, and turpentines. The face of the earth is embellished with the rosemary, the cytisus, and the hyacinth. In a word, the vegetation of these mountains has been compared to that of Crete. European visitors have dined under the shade of a lemon-tree as large as one of our strongest oaks, and have seen sycamores, the foliage of which was sufficient to cover thirty persons along with their horses and camels.

On the eastern side, however, the scanty coating of mould yields a less magnificent crop. From the summit of the hills a desert stretches along to the Lake Asphaltites, presenting nothing but stones and ashes, and a few thorny shrubs. The sides of the mountains enlarge, and assume an aspect at once more grand and more barren. By little and little the scanty vegetation languishes and dies; even mosses disappear, and a red burning hue succeeds to the whiteness of the rocks. In the centre of this amphitheatre there is an arid basin, enclosed on all sides with summits scattered over with a yellow-coloured pebble, and affording a single aperture to the east through which the surface of the Dead Sea and the distant hills of Arabia present themselves to the eye. In the midst of this country of stones, encircled by a wall, we perceive extensive ruins; stunted cypresses, bushes of the aloe and prickly pear, while some huts of the meanest order, resembling whitewashed sepulchres, are spread over the desolated mass. This spot is Jerusalem.[7]

This melancholy delineation, which was suggested by the state of the Jewish metropolis in the third century, is not quite inapplicable at the present hour. The scenery of external nature is the same, and the general aspect of the venerable city is very little changed. But as beauty is strictly a relative term, and is everywhere greatly affected by association, we must not be surprised when we read in the works of eastern authors the high encomiums which are lavished upon the vicinity of the holy capital. Abulfeda, for example, maintains, not only that Palestine is the most fertile part of Syria, but also that the neighbourhood of Jerusalem is one of the most fertile districts of Palestine. In his eye, the vines, the fig-trees, and the olive-groves, with which the limestone cliffs of Judea were once covered, identified themselves with the richest returns of agricultural wealth, and more than compensated for the absence of those spreading fields waving with corn which are necessary to convey to the mind of a European the ideas of fruitfulness, comfort, and abundance.