We descend from Tabor in the direction of Nazareth, and a ride of two hours from the summit brings us to our camp. The road is crooked and narrow, and winds among forests of oaks and tangles of brush, until within a mile or more of Nazareth, when we get among bare hills. A little out of our way is the dirty village of Deburich, on the site of Dabareth, which is mentioned twice in the Old Testament. There is nothing attractive about the place; it has the repulsive features of most of the Syrian villages, and you wonder how the natives manage to live, or even wish to do so. They discuss the “backsheesh” question with us, and we have the whole perambulating mass of dirt, rags, and sores adhering to us from the moment we enter the place until we are a quarter of a mile away. We set them upon the “Doubter,” by giving them to understand that he is the cashier of the party, but unfortunately they don’t stick to him long enough to give the rest of us any peace.
There are several objects of interest here connected with the life of Christ. The guide takes us to the Virgin’s Fountain, and to the church and convent erected over the grotto which is said to have been the dwelling place of the Holy Family. The town is situated in some ravines and along some ridges on the side of a hill overlooking the plain of Esdraelon, and the buildings appear to have been dropped down higgledy-piggledy, without any regard for regularity. The houses are better than those of many Syrian villages, as they are built of stone and are kept clean in all the places where dirt cannot accumulate. But they are repulsive enough inside, and one needs a pair of stilts to enable him to walk through the streets without soiling his boots.
The population is variously estimated—no census is ever taken—at from three to four thousand. Only about seven hundred of these are Moslems; the rest are Christians of three or four kinds, with the addition of a few Jews, who must be very unhappy among so many people of a different faith. But, taken altogether, the inhabitants are not a pleasing lot, and as you look at them, you do not wonder that the question was once asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
Nazareth was unknown in history until the Annunciation. The event has been commemorated by the erection of a Latin convent, where a Greek church once stood over the site of the house of Mary.
The convent is of considerable extent, and has a massive exterior, followed by equal massiveness within. The church is about seventy feet square in its interior dimensions, and the roof is supported by strong piers, which are covered, as are also the walls, with paintings representing scriptural scenes. A flight of steps, fifteen in number, leads down to the chapel beneath the church, and in this chapel the scene of the Annunciation is located.
You first enter a vestibule about twenty-five feet by ten, and from this we enter the sanctum, which is of about the same dimensions. It contains a marble altar and a marble slab, with a cross upon it, which marks the spot where the Virgin stood at the time of the Annunciation. They show us a marble column cut in two, one part apparently suspended from the roof and the other a little way below it, and resting on the floor. The monks solemnly tell us, that the invading infidels cut through this column, in the hope of bringing down the roof, but a miracle interposed to uphold the column and has kept it there to this day.
