1 Dr. Robinson says that the modern aqueduct was mostly laid with tubes of pottery; but, northeast of Rachel's tomb, he saw "the traces of an ancient aqueduct which was carried up the slope of the hill by means of tubes, or perforated blocks of stone, fitted together with sockets and tenons, and originally cemented." This was in 1842. Dr. Eli Smith drew my attention in 1845 to the same thing. Such stones are said to be seen nowhere else in that region.
The visit to Hebron had no important results. During the five months spent at Jerusalem, seven hundred copies of Scripture were sold. In the last six weeks, Mr. Fisk suffered from an attack of fever, with headache, restlessness, and tendency to delirium, and had no medical adviser. On the 22d of April, the two brethren went to Jaffa, from whence they proceeded, with Mr. King, to Beirût, where they arrived on the 4th of May. With Messrs. King, Bird, and Goodell around him, Mr. Fisk thus gives expression to his feelings: "These days of busy, friendly, joyous intercourse have greatly served to revive the spirits that drooped, to refresh the body that was weary, and to invigorate the mind that began to flag. I came here tired of study, and tired of journeying, but I begin to feel already desirous to reopen my books, or resume my journeys. We have united in praising God for bringing us to this land. I suppose we are as cheerful, contented, and happy, as any little circle of friends in our favored country. Dear brother Parsons! how would his affectionate heart have rejoiced to welcome such a company of fellow laborers to this land! But he is happier in union with the blessed above."
On the 22d of June, 1824, Messrs. Fisk and King set out for Damascus, where they expected to find peculiar facilities for Arabic studies. Aleppo being still more advantageous for them, they proceeded to that city in July, with a caravan, notwithstanding the intense heat of midsummer. On the 19th, they suffered much from exposure to the heated air, filled with sand and dust. On the 25th, they encamped at Sheikhoon, a dirty Mussulman village of a thousand inhabitants. There was neither tree nor rock to shade them. The strong wind was almost as hot as if it came from a furnace, and they had nothing to eat but curdled milk, called leben, and bread that had been dried and hardened by the heat of eight or ten days. Yet it was the Sabbath, and they declared themselves to be happy. In the last day of their journey, which was July 28, they were joined by a large caravan from Latakia, much to their satisfaction, as that day's journey was considered the most dangerous.
On the 25th of October the brethren started on their return to Beirût, going by way of Antioch, Latakia, and Tripoli, a journey of nineteen days. While traveling across the mountains, often in sight of the ruined old Roman road to Antioch, they were repeatedly drenched by the great rains of that season. No wonder the brethren of Mr. Fisk at Beirût were not a little anxious about him, amid such exposures, but his usual health seems to have returned with the cold season.
CHAPTER II.
PALESTINE.
1824-1843.
In February, 1824, the Grand Seignior, influenced, as it would appear, by Rome, issued a proclamation to the Pashas throughout Western Asia, forbidding the distribution of the Christian Scriptures, and commanding those who had received copies to deliver them to the public authorities to be burnt. The copies remaining in the hands of the distributors were to be sealed up till they could be sent back to Europe. But few copies were obtained from the people, and the Turks seemed to take very little interest in the matter.
Messrs. Fisk and King made their third and last visit to Jerusalem in the spring of 1825, arriving there on the 29th of March. On their way, they had stopped a few weeks in Jaffa, where their labors gave rise to some very absurd reports, which yet appeared credible to the superstitious people. Some said, that the missionaries bought people with money; that the price for common people was ten piastres, and that those ten piastres always remained with the man who received them, however much he might spend from them. Others said, that the picture of professed converts was taken in a book, and that the missionaries would shoot the picture, should the man go back to his former religion, and he would of course die. A Moslem, having heard that men were hired to worship the devil, asked if it were true, saying that he would come, and bring a hundred others with him. "What," said his friend, "would you worship the devil?" "Yes," said he, "if I was paid for it."
The brethren were cordially received by their acquaintances at Jerusalem. Two days afterwards, the pasha of Damascus sat down before the city, with three thousand soldiers, to collect his annual tribute. The amount to be paid by each community was determined solely by his own caprice, and what he could not be induced to remit was extorted by arrest, imprisonment, and the bastinado. Many of the inhabitants fled, and the rest lived in constant terror and distress. So great was the confusion and insecurity within and around the city, that the brethren decided to return to Beirût, where they arrived on the 18th of May. From 1822 to 1825 they and their associates had distributed nearly four thousand copies of the Scriptures, and parts thereof, in different languages, and about twenty thousand tracts. After staying a month at Beirût, Mr. King passed six weeks at Deir el-Kamr in the study of Syriac, with Asaad el-Shidiak for his teacher, a remarkable young Maronite, who will have a prominent place in this history. On returning to Beirût, Mr. King wrote a farewell letter to his friends in Palestine and Syria, which Asaad translated into excellent Arabic, and afterwards multiplied copies for distribution. It was a tract destined to exert an important influence.