Tent Work in Palestine.

A Record of Discovery and Adventure.

BY
CLAUDE REIGNIER CONDER, R.E.,
OFFICER IN COMMAND OF THE SURVEY EXPEDITION.

Published for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

With Illustrations by J. W. Whymper.

New Edition.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1887.
[All Rights Reserved.]

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
T H E P R I N C E OF W A L E S
This Work is Dedicated,
WITH HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS’ GRACIOUS PERMISSION,
BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE Survey of Western Palestine was commenced under Captain Stewart, R.E., in January, 1872. Ill-health obliged that officer to return almost immediately. Lieutenant Conder, R.E., was appointed to the command, and arrived in Palestine in the summer of the same year. The work meantime had been conducted under the charge of the late Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake.

Lieutenant Conder returned to England in October, 1875, having surveyed 4700 square miles.

The remaining 1300 square miles of the Survey were finished by Lieutenant Kitchener in 1877.

The present volume contains Lieutenant Conder’s personal history of his work, without specially entering on the scientific results. These will be published with the great map in the form of memoirs, twenty-six in number, one to every sheet.

Lieutenant Conder’s conclusions and proposed identifications are, it will be understood, his own. The Committee do not, collectively, adopt the conclusions of any of their officers.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Survey of Palestine was actually commenced at the end of the year 1871. Preliminary reconnaissances of parts of Palestine had been previously made by Captain Anderson, R.E., and Captain Warren, R.E., and the Ordnance Survey of the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, with the line of levels from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, and from Jerusalem to Solomon’s Pools, had been executed by Major Wilson, R.E.

It was by the advice of these experienced explorers that the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund undertook the Survey of Western Palestine, to the scale of one inch to the mile, the object being the complete examination of the whole country, with an amount of accuracy approaching that of Ordnance work.

The officer to whom this great work was entrusted was Captain Stewart, R.E., and his staff consisted of Sergeant Black and Corporal Armstrong, R.E.; Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake was also appointed as linguist and archæologist to the expedition.

The work met with a most serious check at its commencement. Captain Stewart, arriving in the most unhealthy time of the year, and engaged in a most unhealthy part of the country, while measuring the base line, was struck down with fever and invalided home. The Committee then honoured me with the offer of the command, as his successor, and I was instructed to proceed as soon as possible to Palestine.

In the meantime the little party, under the care of Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, pursued its labours, and carried the Survey up the country to Jerusalem, and thence to Nâblus, accomplishing in the first half of 1872 about 500 square miles. This work has since, under my direction, been re-examined, and the excellent character of this part of the map reflects the highest credit on the zeal and care of the two surveyors, who, though ignorant of the language and unaccustomed to the style of work required, yet succeeded in recovering everything of value in the district; nor does it less reflect credit on the tact and judgment of my lamented friend Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, on whom devolved the arduous task of organising and managing the infant expedition.

I reached Palestine on the 8th of July, 1872, and from that date, until the 1st October, 1875, the work was pushed on with scarcely any interruption, except during my absence for four months in 1874, when I returned to England to recruit my health, which was seriously impaired by the hardships encountered in the Jordan Valley.

After the attack on the party at Safed in 1875, the work was suspended for a year. When I left Palestine four-fifths of the Survey was completed, and the remaining fifth was happily carried out during the year 1877 under the command of Lieutenant Kitchener, and the great map now extends over 6000 square miles, from Dan to Beersheba, and from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

Palestine is thus brought home to England, and the student may travel, in his study, over its weary roads and rugged hills without an ache, and may ford its dangerous streams, and pass through its malarious plains without discomfort.

This work was thus carried out by a party never stronger than five in number as regards Europeans, and was completed in little over five years in the field. The account given of the country will, I hope, be more complete than anything of the kind yet attempted for any Eastern land.

The results of the Survey are published as follows: First, a map in twenty-six sheets to the scale of one inch to the statute mile. Secondly, a reduced map engraved on copper to the scale of 660 yards to the inch.

The one-inch sheets are each accompanied by a memoir containing all the information collected by the Survey Party. Section A gives a geographical and topographical account of the country included in the sheet. Section B is an archæological description of the ruined sites. Section C includes the ethnographical notes and the local traditions of the district. The text of this memoir, with exception of Sections A and B, for sheets 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, has been my work, under the editorship of Mr. G. Grove and Colonel C. W. Wilson, R.E. The nomenclature of the Survey, including about 9000 Arabic names, has been arranged in indexes for each sheet, and edited by Professor E. H. Palmer. The memoir will contain information which I have at various times carefully abstracted from more than fifty standard works, including Egyptian, Samaritan, and Talmudic writings, the early Christian Itineraries, and the mediæval chronicles, besides the Bible narrative, and the works of Josephus and other classical authorities.

It is evident that so great a work requires some general résumé, to bring it within the reach of the general public, who might not read the memoir, or would fail to obtain from it any very vivid idea of Palestine, or of the discoveries made there during the execution of the Survey.

The present volume is intended to supply this want, and to form a popular introduction to the work of the Survey Party.

The main object of the Survey of Palestine may be said to have been to collect materials in illustration of the Bible. Few stronger confirmations of the historic and authentic character of the Sacred Volume can be imagined than that furnished by a comparison of the Land and the Book, which shows clearly that they tally in every respect. Mistaken ideas and preconceived notions may be corrected; but the truth of the Bible is certainly established, on a firm basis, by the criticisms of those who, familiar with the people and the country, are able to read it, not as a dead record of a former world or of an extinct race, but as a living picture of manners and of a land, which can still be studied by any who will devote themselves to the task.

The study is threefold. It includes the minute investigation of the detailed topography of the Bible. Former explorers have done much in this respect; but it may be claimed for the Survey that the new discoveries are almost as numerous as all those of former travellers put together.

The second branch is that of archæology. The Survey includes a complete examination of the ancient condition of the country. The old cultivation is traced by the wine-presses, olive-presses, ruined terraces, and rude garden watch-towers. The ancient sites are recognised by their tombs, cisterns, and rocky scarps. Thus we are entitled to draw conclusions as to the ancient cultivation, climate, and water-supply of Palestine, in Bible times.

The third branch is the study of the people. To this I offer a contribution in the chapters devoted to the peasantry and to other inhabitants of Palestine. I trust they may serve to show how rich a field of inquiry is opened to the student among the ancient indigenous population of the Holy Land.

In concluding these remarks, I would say a few words on the subject of identification. What is an identification? It is the recovery of an ancient historic site, still known to the natives under its original name, or a modification of that name, though unknown to Europeans. It is evident that the requisites for a satisfactory identification are—first, the suitability of the position to all the known accounts of the place; second, the preservation of all the radical parts of the name; third, in the case of the loss of the name, we require definite indications—such as measured distances, or some connection with existing buildings, or relative position to known sites. The site must show traces of antiquity, and the name must be placed beyond the suspicion of being of recent or spurious origin; the correspondence of the modern and ancient titles must, also, not be merely apparent, but must be radically exact. Failing these requirements, no identification will stand the criticism which is now brought to bear on newly-proposed discoveries.

A second question is intimately connected with this subject—namely, the authority of Christian tradition. We should not underrate this valuable means of tracing ancient and sacred sites, which has, we may hope, handed down to us the positions of such holy places as the Grotto of Bethlehem, and Jacob’s well at Shechem; nor lay aside tradition because it is tradition, disregarding one of the few ways of settling the locality of places which were quite as sacred in the fourth century as they are now.

On the other hand, a careful and minute inspection of the fourth-century writings cannot but lead to one conclusion: that Christian tradition can be taken only as an indication, not as an authority. Unsupported by other evidence, the tradition is not, in itself, sufficient to fix any site as authentic; yet most valuable hints may often be obtained by a study of these early descriptions of the land.

We may take as an example the famous Onomasticon of Eusebius and Jerome. We are now able to point out, on the map, almost every place, the position of which is clearly defined in the Onomasticon by measurement, or by reference to neighbouring places; for in almost every case the name still exists, and these places number about 200 in all.

There is thus no question that the land was thoroughly well known to Jerome and Eusebius; but when we turn from their facts to their theories, we find that the confusion is hopeless; the places proposed as identical with those noticed in the Bible are quite as often impossibly guessed as correctly fixed. In fact, the early fathers too often jumped at conclusions, and, in the fourth century, there were no critics to contradict them. This view may be supported by any number of instances. In the cases of Shiloh and Bethhoron, the sites mentioned are those now accepted. In those of Nob and Ajalon, Jerome’s identifications are not in any way capable of being reconciled with the Scripture narrative. Thus it is only as regards personal acquaintance with ancient Palestine fifteen centuries ago, that the Onomasticon has any real value.

The observations which apply to this work—the earliest and ablest of the Christian descriptions of Palestine—apply with equal force to all succeeding accounts; and few writers would attempt to justify the wild theories of the mediæval chroniclers, whose identifications, in many cases, contradict alike the Biblical accounts, and the views of the earlier Byzantine pilgrims.

With a single exception, Christian tradition regarding sacred places cannot be traced back earlier than the fourth century—the exception is the Grotto of Bethlehem. But Christian sites appear often to be fixed by Jewish tradition: and when such is the case, their reliability is evidently increased, their history being carried back to an earlier source. This latter really reliable class of traditions is distinguished by the fact that the Jewish or Samaritan, and generally the Moslem traditions point, in such cases, to the same spots venerated by the Christians. The sites of the Temple, and of Jacob’s well, with Joseph’s tomb, the sepulchres of the Patriarchs, and of Joshua, Phinehas, and Eleazar, are pointed out at the same spots by Jew, Christian, and Moslem; and there is every reason to suppose these to be authentic traditions.

It is, therefore, by consent of evidence that the true and indigenous origin of a tradition may be tested. Where this consent does not exist, it is to the Jewish and indigenous, rather than to the later Christian tradition, that we should turn, as the latter must evidently be in such cases of foreign origin.

This distinction will be carefully observed in the following pages; and, by pointing out the cases in which there is a general consent of the Jewish, Moslem, and Christian traditions, it is hoped that everything of real value preserved by tradition will be finally selected.

C. R. C.

Christmas, 1877.

TENT WORK IN PALESTINE.

CHAPTER I.
THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM.

THE morning of Monday the 8th of July, 1872, brought us in sight of the coast of Palestine, near Jaffa. The town rose from the shore on a brown hillock; the dark, flat-roofed houses climbing the hill one above another, but no prominent building breaking the sky outline. The yellow gleaming beach, with its low cliffs and sand-dunes, stretched away north and south, and in the distance the dim blue Judean hills were visible in shadow.

Jaffa is called the Port of Jerusalem, but has no proper harbour at present. In ancient times the “Moon Pool,” south of the town, now silted up, was perhaps the landing-place for Hiram’s rafts of cedar-wood; but the traveller passes through a narrow opening in a dangerous reef running parallel with the shore, or, if the weather is bad, he is obliged to make a long detour round the northern end of the same reef. By ten in the morning the land breeze rises, and a considerable swell is therefore always to be expected. The entrance through the reef is only sufficient for one boat, and thus every year boats are wrecked on the rocks and lives lost. It is said also that each year at least one person is killed by the sharks close to land.

The little Russian steamer was anchored about two miles from shore, and rolled considerably. The decks were crowded with a motley assemblage, specimens of every Levantine nationality. Each deck passenger had his bedding with him, and the general effect was that of a great rag-heap, with human faces—black, brown and white—legs, arms, and umbrellas, sticking out of the rags in unexpected places. Apart from the rest sat a group of swarthy Bedawin, with their huge head-shawls, not unlike a coal-scuttle in effect, bound with a white cord round the brow. They wore their best dresses, the black hair cloak, with red slippers. The rugged dark faces with white beards and sun-scorched eyes wore a curious mixed expression of assumed dignity and badly concealed curiosity concerning the wonders of civilisation surrounding them.

The colouring of these various groups would have been a treat to an artist. The dull rich tints were lit up here and there by patches of red leather and yellow silk. Like all oriental colour, it was saved from any gaudiness of effect by the large masses of dull brown or indigo which predominated.

The steamer was soon besieged by a fleet of long flat boats with sturdy rowers, and into these the passengers were precipitated, and their luggage dropped in after them. The swell was so great that we were in constant danger of being capsized under the accommodation-ladder. As we rowed off, and sank in the trough of the waves, the shore and town disappeared, and only the nearest boats were visible high up on the crest of the rollers.

The exciting moment of reaching the reef came next; the women closed their eyes, the rowers got into a regular swing, chanting a rude rhyme; and waiting for the wave we were suddenly carried past the ugly black rocks into smooth water close to the wharf.

The landing at Jaffa has been from time immemorial an exciting scene. We have the terrible and graphic account of the old pilgrim (Sæwulf) who, “from his sins or from the badness of the ship,” was almost wrecked, and who witnessed from the shore the death of his companions, helpless in a great storm in the offing. We have the account of Richard Lion-Heart springing, fully-armed, into the surf and fighting his way on shore. The little port, made by the reef, has been long the only place south of Acre where landing was possible; but the storms which have covered the beach with modern wrecks were equally fatal to the Genoese galleys and Crusading war-ships.

The town of Jaffa contains little of interest, though it is sufficiently striking to a new comer. The broad effects of light and shadow are perhaps enhanced here by the numerous arched streets and the flights of steps which climb from the sea-level to the higher part of the town. The glory of Jaffa consists in its beautiful gardens, which stretch inland about a mile and a half, and extend north and south over a length of two miles. Oranges, lemons, palms, bananas, pomegranates, and other fruits grow in thick groves surrounded by old cactus hedges having narrow lanes between them deep in sand. Sweet water is found in abundance at a moderate depth. The scent of the oranges is said to be at times perceptible some miles from land, to approaching ships. Still more curious is the fact that the beautiful little sun-bird, peculiar to the Jordan valley, is also to be found in these gardens. How this African wanderer can have made its way across districts entirely unfitted for its abode, to spots separated by the great mountain chain, it is not easy to explain.

Outside the town on the north-east is the little German colony, the neat white houses of which were built originally by an American society which was almost exterminated by fever, and finally broken up by internal differences, caused, I understand, by some resemblance in the views of the chief to those of Brigham Young. The land and buildings were bought by the thrifty German settlers, members of the Temple Society, with the views and history of which sect I became further acquainted during the following winter.

The soil of the Jaffa plain is naturally of great fertility. Even the negligent tillage of the peasantry produces fine harvests. The Germans ploughed deeper, and were rewarded by a crop of thistles, which to a good farmer would have been a subject of satisfaction as proving the existence of virgin soil, only requiring to be scoured by other crops for a year or two in order to yield fine harvests of corn. At this time of year, the barley had been gathered in, and only the dry stubble was left.

Our first ride was not a long one, as we only intended to reach Ramleh that night, and we arrived before sundown in sight of the town, which is first visible from a rise of ground on the road. The long olive-groves here formed a dark oasis in the treeless plain, and above them rose the beautiful tower of the “Forty,” belonging to the fine old ruined building called the “White Mosque,” built in the fourteenth century by the son of Kalawûn. The Forty were, according to the Moslems, companions of the Prophet; according to the later Christian tradition, forty martyrs of Cappadocia. A second mosque, now in use, exists in the middle of the town. This I was afterwards able to visit, and found it to be probably the most perfect specimen of a fine twelfth century church in Palestine, unchanged except that the beautiful western doorway is closed, a prayer recess scooped in the southern wall, and the delicate tracery of the columns defaced by whitewash and plaster—a vandalism not peculiar to Moslem restorers.

This fine church, which we were the first to examine and plan, is probably that visited by the old English pilgrim Sir John Maundeville, dedicated according to him to the Virgin, “where Our Lord appeared to Our Lady in the likeness which betokeneth the Trinity.”

Ramleh, like many another town in this ruined land, is full of contrasts of past prosperity and of present squalor and decay. The walls of fine stone houses are enclosed in wretched hovels of mud. Here and there an ornate Cufic or Arabic inscription is left, telling of Moslem conquerors and munificent Caliphs; but the bazaars are deserted, and starved dogs and helpless lepers meet the eye on every side.

Many attempts have been made to identify Ramleh with some ancient site. Thus the learned Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela regarded it as the birthplace of Samuel, while Christians have supposed it to be Arimathæa or Ramoth Lehi. But, against all such views, the testimony of historians, both Moslem and Christian, is decisive. They agree in representing Ramleh as founded by the son of the Caliph ’Abd el Melik early in the eighth century, after the destruction of Lydda. In Crusading history the town, which was then walled, plays a conspicuous part, and under the early successors of Saladin it rose to considerable importance; but the site, which is, as its name indicates, “sandy,” is not a natural one for a great city, and the water-supply is entirely artificial, from wells and huge tanks having Cufic inscriptions on their sides. Picturesque as is the scene, especially from among the palms on the east, Ramleh is nevertheless a modern place, when compared with the high antiquity of sites near to it.

In crossing Palestine at any point three districts are passed through, each of which receives a distinctive name in the Bible and in Jewish writings. First we cross the flat sea plain, in part sandy and barren, scattered with the black tents or reed cabins of the small encampments of Bedawin, a pastoral race gradually losing ground before the peasantry; in part a cultivated and very rich corn land, with wretched villages of mud perched on eminences whence the breeze is better felt. To the new comer these hamlets, most of which represent sites older than the time of Joshua, have a deserted appearance. The eye misses the contrast between roof and wall, and the glazed windows and wooden doors seen in Europe. The peasant hut in the lowlands of Palestine consists merely of four walls of mud, with a roof of boughs covered also with mud; hence the village, which consists of perhaps fifty or sixty such cabins huddled together without plan or order, and gradually climbing the slope so that the floor of one is level with the roof of another, has an uniform grey colour only broken by the whitewashed dome of the little chapel dedicated to the patron “Prophet” or Sheikh. In the plain there are scarcely any springs, and the village is supplied as a rule by cisterns and by a pond of stagnant rain-water banked round freshly every year. The most conspicuous object outside is the huge rubbish-heap where refuse of every kind is thrown. Savage mangy half-starved dogs keep watch above, and annoy the stranger until boldly attacked in turn. They belong to no one, are cared for by no one, and their only food appears to be an occasional carcass of a donkey or bullock. It is said that they eat mice and beetles when nothing else is to be found. All night they vie with the jackal in their howls, and they are often really dangerous when rearing their puppies.

Upon the refuse-heap, in the shade of the wall, the village elders may be seen seated smoking in rows, whilst the blue-gowned women toil up the hill with the goat-skin water-bags bound to their heads or the red pottery jars balanced upon them, holding in their tattooed lips the corner of the white head-veil which prevents their mouths being visible.

The plain once passed, the traveller enters the district called Shephelah, or “lowlands” in the Bible, consisting of low hills, about 500 feet above the sea, of white soft limestone, with great bands of beautiful brown quartz running between the strata. The broad valleys among these hills forming the entrances to the third district produce fine crops of corn, and on the hills the long olive-groves flourish better than in either of the other districts. This part of the country is also the most thickly populated, and ancient wells, and occasionally fine springs, occur throughout. The villages are partly of stone, partly of mud; the ruins are so thickly spread over hill and valley that in some parts there are as many as three ancient sites to two square miles. All along the base of these hills, commanding the passes to the mountains, important places are to be found, such as Gath and Gezer, Emmaus and Beth Horon, and no part of the country is more rich in Bible sites or more famous in Bible history.

With dawn on the 9th July we entered the “lowland” district, and before us were some of the ancient places above noticed. South of the great road, Gezer, on the road, Latrûn, north of it Emmaus.

The recovery of the site of Gezer we owe to M. Clermont Ganneau. The position is one well suited for an important place, and Gezer was a royal city of the Canaanites. The modern name, Tell Jezer, “Mound of Gezer,” represents the Hebrew exactly, the meaning being “cut off” or “isolated.”

The origin of the title is at once clear, for the site is an outlier—to use a geological term—of the main line of hills, and the position commands one of the important passes to Jerusalem. As is the case with many equally important places, there is not much to be seen at Gezer. The hill-side is terraced, and the eastern end occupied by a raised foundation, probably the ancient citadel. Tombs and wine-presses, cut in rock, abound, and there are traces of Christian buildings in a small chapel, and a tomb apparently of Christian origin.

Beneath the hill on the east there is a fine spring, which wells up in a circular ring of masonry; it is called ’Ain Yerdeh, or the “Spring of the Gatherings,” and its existence is a strong argument in favour of the antiquity of the neighbouring site.

The little Mukâm, or Moslem shrine, on the hill, commands a fine view of the plain of Sharon. On the south-west are the bare sandy dunes of “barren” Ekron, beyond which is Makkedah, and Jamnia famous for its school of learned doctors of the law, where the Sanhedrin sat after Bether had fallen. Due south the white cliff of Gath projects into the plain; on the north-west Ramleh stands among its olive-gardens, palms, and cactus hedges, and the great tower of the “Forty” rises like a belfry above them: farther north another white minaret is seen above the Church of St. George at Lydda, and olive groves again hide the houses in their midst. Many of the towns of Dan, now mere mud hamlets, are scattered over the plain, and the view is bounded by the range of yellow sand-dunes and the shining waters of the great sea; on the east rise the Judean mountains, the third district, which we were about to enter.

A most interesting and curious discovery was made in 1874 at Gezer. M. Ganneau was shown by the peasantry a rude inscription deeply cut in the flat surface of the natural rock. It appears to be in Hebrew, and to read “Boundary of Gezer,” with other letters, which are supposed to form the Greek word Alkiou. M. Ganneau has brought forward an ingenious theory that Alkios was Governor of Gezer at the time this boundary was set, and he supports it by another inscription from a tomb on which the same name occurs. This theory might seem very risky, were it not strengthened by the discovery of a second identical inscription close to the last, containing the same letters, except that the name Alkiou is written upside down. In both it is true the letters are hard to read, being rudely formed, but they are deeply cut, and of evident antiquity, whilst it can scarcely be doubted that the inscription is the same in both cases. M. Ganneau attributes them to Maccabean times; it is curious that they should thus occur in the open country, at no definite distance from the town, and unmarked by any column or monument. Altogether they are among the many archæological puzzles of Palestine, and their origin and meaning will probably always remain questionable.

On the road itself stands the old Crusading fortress, called Castellum Emmaus, and apparently also Toron of the Knights, according to Benjamin of Tudela. From the latter name (an old French word, meaning a hill) the present name, Latrûn, seems derived; by a process common enough in the Fellâh dialect, el Atrûn has taken the place of el Turûn, as Ajfât is the common pronunciation of Jefât, or Ajdûr of Jedûr. In the sixteenth century, however, a curious explanation of the name is given. It is called the Castle “Boni Latronis” of the good or repentant thief Dismas, but this is quite a late explanation. In the earlier chronicles of the twelfth century Latrûn is called the town of the Maccabees, and in the fourteenth their sepulchral monuments were shown there; but this nation cannot be traced back in earlier chronicles, and there is nothing at Latrûn which seems older than Crusading times.

The third site north of the road is one of even greater interest. The rude village of ’Amwâs preserves the name of Emmaus, famous in Maccabean history. The early Christians recognised this place as being also the Emmaus of the New Testament to which the two disciples walked upon the Resurrection Day. This view continued to be held till the fifteenth century, when it was observed that the distance given in most texts of the Gospel is “sixty furlongs,” whereas the present site is just 160 from Jerusalem. This is generally held to be fatal to the tradition, although the Sinaitic Manuscript actually reads 160 stadia instead of sixty.

The neighbourhood of Emmaus was the scene of the second great Maccabean struggle. Judas had already overthrown the army advancing on Jerusalem by the northern pass, the famous Beth Horon battle-field. A second, yet more formidable army was encamped at the mouth of the western approach to the Holy City, and so certain were its leaders of victory, that merchants accompanied the camp with money to give for Jewish slaves, and fetters to put on their limbs when sold. The battle of Emmaus was the Maccabean Austerlitz. The little band of devotees came down by night from the ancient praying-place at Mizpeh, and whilst the main part of the Greek host was enticed into the hills, the Jews advanced northwards on the camp, and took it, cutting off the retreat of the heathen. Never again in the history of this struggle did any Greek general attempt to attack Jerusalem from the western pass.

There are still ruins of the little chapel in Emmaus, which the early Christians built on the supposed spot where the Lord was recognised in breaking bread. Near to it also was a spring, thought to have healing virtues. This tradition is of Rabbinical origin, but the Christians added to it the assumption that its power was due to the touch of Christ. The name Emmaus itself means a “healing bath,” as Josephus informs us, speaking of the Galilean place of the same name. At the present day a well is shown at ’Amwâs by the peasantry, called the “Well of the Plague,” and it is said that a great plague originated from the spot.

Leaving Latrûn, we entered the third district—the mountain country—through the well-known pass called Bâb el Wâd, or the “Gate of the Valley.”

In the conformation of the Judean hills the secret of the immense vitality of the Jewish nationality is probably to be found. Had the capital of Judea been placed at Cæsarea, on the high-road from Greece to Egypt—had it even been permanently fixed at Shechem, accessible through the open valley of Samaria, it cannot be doubted that Greek or Egyptian influence would have affected far more the manners and religion of the Jews. Remote and inaccessible in its rugged mountains, Jerusalem was removed from the highway by which the hosts of the Pharaohs advanced on Assyria. It could only be reached by one of three difficult passes, unless the whole country of Samaria were in the hands of the enemy. Hence in the mountains of Judea the national faith had a secure home. The Philistines overran the plains and even came up into the Shephelah; Egyptian and Assyrian monarchs conquered Samaria and Galilee, but a small band of undisciplined peasants was able, under the Maccabees, to hold at bay the armies of the Seleucidæ, and it required the fullest efforts of Roman energy and discipline to compass the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus or under Hadrian. The history again repeats itself in Crusading times. The Judean hills resisted long after all other parts of the country had been lost, and Saladin held Jerusalem undisturbed while Richard overran the plains.

The same natural conformation renders the construction of a railway to Jerusalem an engineering project of no little difficulty. Within the distance of a few miles the hills rise suddenly from the level of the Shephelah towards the narrow plateau, 2500 feet above the sea, on which the city stands; the ascent is rough and steep, and the valleys very deep, with rugged stony sides, and ledges of hard grey rock, thickly covered with shrubs, principally lentisks and arbutus, while here and there terraces have been artificially built up with dry stone walls for the cultivation of the olive.

Near the Gate of the Valley there is a little ruined Mukâm or “station” sacred to the famous Imâm ’Aly, to whom the deeds of Samson and Joshua are commonly accredited by the peasantry. It is conspicuous from the fine group of aged terebinths which shade the little mihrab or prayer niche. Ascending thence past the ancient village of Sarîs, we reached at length the hill above the modern Kuriet el ’Anab, a place which calls for more special description.

Kuriet el ’Anab, or the “town of grapes,” is generally called Kurieh only by the peasantry, and this suggests its identity with Kirjath of Benjamin, in the territory of which tribe the village appears to lie. It was supposed in the early Christian times to be the site of Kirjath Jearim, the “town of forests,” but this appears to be an unsatisfactory identification for several reasons. The place seems scarcely on the line of the boundary of Judah, as Kirjath Jearim was; it is not a hill with a “high” place, as we should gather Kirjath Jearim to have been from the account of the hill where the ark was kept; and lastly, the important part of the name bears no reference to the ancient title, derived from some mountain covered with thick wild growth which does not exist near the village.

The Crusaders fixed upon Kuriet el ’Anab as being the ancient Anathoth, their reasons being as usual very difficult to understand. They erected a magnificent church over a spring in the valley north of the village, dedicated to Saint Jeremiah of Anathoth, and this structure remains almost intact. On its walls the dim shadows of former frescoed paintings can be traced, and over these the names of pilgrims rudely scrawled like those of the modern tourists. The church is peculiar from the careless manner in which it has been constructed, the walls not being at right angles; thus the east wall is two and a half feet longer than the west, as we found in making the plan.

The village itself consists of stone houses of better appearance than those in the plain, surrounded by beautiful vineyards, the vines trailing over the stone walls like a green cataract flowing to the valley. The place, which derives its name from these vineyards, was once the seat of the famous native family of Abu Ghôsh. The most notorious of its chiefs, a robber, who held all pilgrims to the capital in terror, was killed by the Egyptian Government, pursuing its usual policy of exterminating the great native families; since death he has been canonised, and a Mukâm erected to him near the village. At Easter, the children of the place (which is often called Abu Ghôsh after the family) are to be seen seated along the road offering water in spouted bottles to the pilgrims. This charitable custom is rare in Palestine, though occasionally in use on some of the other pilgrim routes.

The next ascent brought us in sight of a very remarkable village on the right, now called Sôba. It is separated from the ridge on which the road runs by the deep and impassable valley which, for the greater part of its length, forms the northern boundary of Judah. The place struck me much at the time—a high conical hill crowned by a village surrounded by steep rocky ledges with thick growth of wild shrubs mingled with olives. I had afterwards occasion to visit it, and found it to be undoubtedly an ancient site. Not only are there traces of a Crusading fortress, which was called Belmont, but also many ancient Jewish sepulchres cut in rock. The peasantry say it was the palace of the Sultan of the Fenish, and that his daughter lived at a certain ruined convent near the road, which we saw surrounded with ancient trees—the wilderness formed from its original garden.

Since the telegraph line has been laid to Jerusalem, this tradition has been supplemented with the detail that the Fenish had a telegraphic wire from the hill palace to that in the valley. Another favourite abode of the daughter was not far from Latrûn. Again at Beit Jibrîn and at Keratîya we found a cavern, a garden, and a castle of the Fenish; and the fact that this tradition is confined to the district south of the Jerusalem road and on the edge of the hills, leads one to suspect that the Fenish were no other than the Felish or Philistines, for the peasantry almost invariably change their L’s into N’s in this manner.

But to return to Sôba. This fine site, standing out black against the sky, with its grand ravine and wild copses, is evidently an important spot; yet the name Sôba does not recall any Scriptural place, though not far different from the Hebrew Zuph where Saul met Samuel. In modern Arabic it means “a heap,” such as the grain-heaps of the threshing-floors, a title which applies well to the shape of the hill, but probably this is a corruption of some older word.

Sôba also was at one time honoured, like Latrûn, as the ancient Modin, the true site of which was however known to Saint Jerome, east of Lydda, where El Medieh is now found. The distance of El Medieh from Jerusalem is close on that given in the Talmud for Modin, although the tomb supposed by M. Guérin to have been that of the Hasmoneans proves to be of Christian origin.

And now at length we arrived at the top of the ascent, and spurring along under the stony knoll on which the little village of Kŭstŭl—an ancient “castellum” of the Roman conquerors—stands, we fully expected to see Jerusalem. Instead of this we saw before us a huge valley over 1000 feet deep, and beyond it a straight line of hills more lofty and barren than those before passed. We could well picture the disappointment, so graphically described by the old chronicler, of the weary hosts of women and children who toiled footsore and thirsty in rear of the Crusading army, faintly asking, as each height was passed and a new view opened, “Is that Jerusalem?” If to us, well mounted and well fed, the journey was wearisome, what was it to the pilgrims harassed by Saracen skirmishers, and afraid to stop and bury those who fell, lest, as one writer says, a man might be found to be but digging his own grave.

A stony winding road led down to the bottom, a stony winding ascent led up on the other side. Around us were mountains of strikingly wild and barren character, with the dark iron-grey rocks tinged in parts with black and russet and capped by a softer white chalk. The long blue shadows, the large rounded outlines, the hardness and ruggedness of the slopes, combined to produce a scene of wild grandeur more striking than anything yet met except the dark thickets of the Sôba ridge.

The valley beneath is full of grey olive-groves; the white torrent bed is sinuous and winds gradually round west. In the hollow, south of its course, the village of ’Ain Kârim stands on an eminence, and close to it the white convent wall, with its dark cypresses, marks the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist.

The valley is a place famous in Jewish history. It commences north of Jerusalem, and leads down past Lifta (Eleph) to a little village called Kolônia which was on the road beneath us. Thence by ’Ain Kârim southwards to join the Bether valley, and by Kesla it runs down to Zoreah and Eshtaol and widens out into the great corn valley of Sorek, and so past Ekron and Jamnia to the sea. Thus it was one of those passes by which the Philistines were able to penetrate into the heart of the Jewish mountains. It was down this valley that Samuel drove the defeated host from Mizpeh, north of Jerusalem, to Ebenezer, a place probably at the entrance of the hills. In their flight they passed under Bethcar, which is not impossibly the present ’Ain Kârim. Along the stony bed of this great valley at our feet, we may picture to ourselves the nomadic hosts with their mail-clad champions flying before the followers of the prophet, while far away on the white hills the tabernacle would be seen high on the ridge of Mizpeh.

The valley was also once the scene of more peaceful events at the yearly festival of “tabernacles.” Kolônia has near it a ruin called Beit Mizzeh, the ancient Motza or “Spring-head,” a town of Benjamin. The Talmudic doctors tell us that Motza was a colonia or place free from taxes, whence the origin of the modern name, and beside the banks of the stream from the spring-head grew, and still grow, the willows used at the feast. By the restaurant and the ruins of a small monastery, the stream flows under a little bridge; and round its course shady orange-gardens and olive-yards, beneath the village perched on the hillside, often tempt the inhabitants of Jerusalem to come out for an afternoon siesta. It would seem also that on the Day of Atonement this place used to be the scene of a festival so peculiar and so unlike any other part of Jewish custom that we are tempted to believe that it was an innovation of the later Hellenising faction. The daughters of Jerusalem were encouraged to come out to meet the youths who were celebrating the newly-acquired purification from sin, with palms in their hands and songs and dances. Twice a year this festival of maidens took place, and the contrast to the stern precepts of the Talmudic doctors, who discountenanced any gaiety in which women took part, forbade a student to speak to or look at any woman but his wife, and even counselled that the less he talked to her the better, is certainly suggestive of foreign origin for the feast of Motza.

Passing by this little oasis in the hills, which has thus from time immemorial been the site of festal excursions from the capital, we began the long ascent which led, not, as we hoped, to Jerusalem, but to the edge of the plateau on the opposite side of which the city stands. The road, afterwards so familiar to me, seemed longer when the distance was unknown than when every way-mark was recognised as showing nearer approach to the end of the journey; and we did not halt to admire, as I often did afterwards, the fine view from the brow of the hill.

From that brow the great valley is seen winding southwards, and the high rounded ascent to Kŭstŭl bars out the view of the plain. Northwards the conical point of Neby Samwîl, crowned with its minaret, is a conspicuous object, and in the evening when the long shadows steal up the rugged hillsides, and the western slopes are ruddy in the setting sun, the breadth and grandeur of the colouring of the wild shapeless mountains is extremely striking, and grows upon one every time the scene opens before one’s eyes.

The first approach to Jerusalem from the west is decidedly disappointing. From the east, north, and south, the aged walls, the mosque, and Holy Sepulchre, come into view at some distance, and the scene is striking; but from the west the city is approached within less than a quarter of a mile before it is seen. The first object is the huge Russian cathedral outside the town, built in 1864. The white walls and heavy leaden roofs in the Neobyzantine style block out ancient Jerusalem. Standing on the approximate site of the old tower of Psephinus, the Russian Hospice commands the whole town, and is thought by many to be in a position designedly of military strength.

When, however, these ugly modern buildings are passed, together with the many white stone villas, country residences of Europeans or rich Jews, which form “New Jerusalem,” the traveller at length comes in view of a long grey battlemented wall, a tower, the dark trees of the Armenian convent garden, and behind all the pale blue line of the Moab hills. He enters between groups of tawny, groaning camels, and black donkeys loaded with firewood, under a dark archway, and forcing a path through a noisy bright-coloured crowd of peasantry, under the shadow of the great Tower of David he alights at a German hotel within the walls of Jerusalem.

CHAPTER II.
SHECHEM AND THE SAMARITANS.

THE Survey Camp at the time of my arrival in Palestine was fixed at Shechem, where I proceeded after a few days’ rest at Jerusalem, accompanied by Sergeant Black, R.E.

About sunset we began to descend into the narrow, stony gorge of the Robber’s Fountain. The road is not improved by the habit of clearing the stones off the surrounding gardens into the public path. It descends through olive-groves to a narrow pass with a precipice on the left, beneath which is the little spring. A ruined castle commands the pass on the Jerusalem side, and is still called “Baldwin’s Tower” by the peasantry, having no doubt been built by one of the kings of that name. The gorge once passed, we emerged into an open valley, and on our left was Sinjil, named from Raymond of Saint Gilles, who there fixed his camp when advancing on Jerusalem. The short twilight gave place to almost total darkness, as we began to climb the watershed which separates the plain of Moreh from the valley coming down from Shiloh, and the moon had risen when the great shoulder of Gerizim became dimly visible some ten miles away, with a silvery wreath of cloud on its summit. Creeping beneath its shadow we gained the narrow valley of Shechem, and followed a stony lane between walnut trees under a steep hillside. The barking of dogs was now heard, and the lights in camp at length came into view.

Shechem is the first Syrian town mentioned in the history of Abraham, and the ground round Jacob’s well was the first possession of Jacob in the Holy Land. Shechem is recognised in the Pentateuch as the capital of central Palestine, ranking with Hebron in the south, and Kadesh in the north, as a city of refuge. Later on we find Rehoboam crowned here, and indeed it is not too much to say that Shechem may be considered the natural capital of Palestine. Its central situation, its accessibility, its wonderfully fine water-supply, are advantages not enjoyed by any other city in the land. The one disadvantage which perhaps as early as the time of Rehoboam prevented its being selected as a capital, consists in its being commanded by a hill on either side so close to the town, that the old geographer, Marino Sanuto, in the fourteenth century, considers the place to be untenable by any military force, because stones might be rolled down upon the houses from either Ebal or Gerizim. It was at Shechem that the solemnities which were to be performed on the conquest of the country—the reading of the law and erection of the altar—were commanded by Moses to be performed, yet, soon after, we find the religious capital at Shiloh, and, in a few years after the great schism, the political capital of Israel was removed to Tirzah, and afterwards to Samaria.

But while the town is interesting from its antiquity and from the vicissitudes of its history, the Samaritan people are yet more so.

Who are the Samaritans? What is their origin, and relation to the other natives of the country? The answer is usually a short one. They are Cuthim, strangers from beyond Jordan—settlers who replaced the Israelites led away by Sargon. It seems to me, however, that these conclusions must be received with great reserve.

Soon after my arrival we received a visit from Amram, the Samaritan high-priest, accompanied by Jacob Shellaby. The high-priest was a wonderfully handsome old man, with fine aquiline features, and he wore the crimson turban distinctive of his race. He could speak no languages except Arabic and Samaritan, and his ideas were perhaps rather limited, as he pronounced Gerizim to be the highest mountain in the world. We represented to him that Ebal, close by, was nearly 230 feet higher. He allowed that it appeared to be so, but could not in reality be, because Gerizim was the highest mountain in the world. This fine old dignitary died in 1874. It was thought that his successor was to be a mere doll in the hands of Jacob Shellaby; a gentleman who is an accomplished savant. In England he appeared for some time in the character of a Samaritan prince. He supplied travellers with many ancient Samaritan hymn books, purloined, it is said, while the congregation were reverently prostrating themselves. He described to us with immense gusto the mode of preparing ancient manuscripts, by steeping a skin in coffee-grounds, and placing it for a month or two under the pillows of the diwan. Many an unwary traveller has been taken in by his false antiquities, stones, and manuscripts. It was thought that Shellaby would succeed, on the death of Amram, in obtaining the ancient roll of the law itself; but this is the Samaritan Fetish, and the young high-priest would not connive at such a deed—which would indeed have been the killing of the golden goose, as the manuscript brings in a yearly income—and excommunicated Jacob, who, after holding an heretical passover of his own on Gerizim, finally left the congregation and repaired to Jerusalem, where I saw him in 1875.

Jacob Shellaby’s ideas were perhaps not far in advance of the high-priest’s. He related very naïvely his delight at the supposed discovery of a gigantic emerald, which he showed us, and which was merely a large fragment of green slag from some old glass-works. He also fully believed in the story of a cave guarded by genii, and full of gold, which might be carried away, but invariably flew back by night to its place, from wherever it might be taken.

Two things struck me very much in my intercourse with the Samaritans during this first visit, and during another stay of a few days in 1875 in Nablus.

First of all it is indisputable that both in features and in figure they bear a strikingly close family likeness to the Jews. It may be urged that the Cuthim are supposed to have been Semitic, but so are the Syrians and Bedawin, yet they are not at all like the Jews. The Samaritans are a very pure stock, the beauty of their priestly family is remarkable; the aquiline nose, the lustrous brown eyes, the thick under lip, the crisp hair, the peach-like down of the complexion, are features pre-eminently Jewish. The lean and weedy figure is again peculiar also to the Palestinian Jews, and contrasts forcibly with the obesity of the Turks and the sturdiness of the peasantry. For hundreds of years the Jews have kept their race pure, and so have the Samaritans. Since the time of Christ at least, Jews and Samaritans have probably never inter-married, yet we find them now closely alike in their characteristic physiognomy.

In the second place, the Samaritans preserve an ancient copy of the Pentateuch, which, though differing in some marked peculiarities, is yet substantially the same as the Jewish text. It is written in the Samaritan character, which closely approaches the most ancient forms of Jewish writing. It cannot be supposed that these Samaritans would have adopted the religion and sacred books of a nation that they despised and hated, and the evidence of the character employed is in favour of the original copies having been made before the time of Ezra, when, according to the Rabbis, the square alphabet was adopted, before indeed the schism between Jew and Samaritan became so intense as it afterwards grew to be.

These facts naturally incline one primâ facie to consider the Samaritans as originally of the same stock with the Jews, and an investigation of the question seems to me to show that they are the last remnants of the scattered Israel, the lost Ten Tribes, whose history has always excited curiosity in the minds of so many.

It will be allowed that but little reliance can be placed on the partisan descriptions of Josephus and of the Rabbinical writers. Unfortunately we gather but little from the Bible which can throw light on the subject, and the Samaritan accounts are all very late, their oldest chronicles dating back only to the twelfth century, though apparently founded on more ancient material. It may, however, be interesting to sketch what is known of their history from various sources.

Sargon, who on his monuments is described as “Destroyer of the city of Samaria and of all Beth Omri,” took away with him in 721 B.C. all the more important and a great host of minor captives, to Assyria. Still a certain proportion of the Israelites would seem to have been left behind, as we find Hezekiah, in 717 B.C., sending messengers through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting Israelites to the Passover, which might not be eaten by strangers, and some actually attended it (2 Chron. xxx. 18). Worshippers from Shechem and Samaria are also noticed as coming to Jerusalem after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xli. 5); thus, though foreign colonists from Cutha, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim were sent into Samaria, there is reason to suppose that many of the original Israelite population were left.

The Talmudic doctors invariably call the Samaritans Cuthim. Cutha is a district as yet unknown, but it may be noticed that the Biblical account represents the men of Cutha as serving Nergal, who is known from Cuneiform inscriptions to have been a “lion-god,” worshipped by inhabitants of Cutha, and therefore an appropriate deity to appease when a plague of lions was devastating the land. It is not impossible that the Jews seized upon the close similarity of the name Cuthim with the title Kûsânîya, or “true people,” by which one Samaritan sect distinguished themselves from a second, the Lifânîyeh. The first sect believed in the future life, in future reward and punishment; the latter confined the promises of the law to temporal matters; the latter were named from a word meaning “to make light,” because, like the pupils of the Jewish Hillel, they made the law less stringent, whereas the stronger sect, the Kûsânîya, made its burden heavier, following the example of the school of Shammai.

The foreign colonists, from Cutha, found themselves, as they simply supposed, unable to appease the deity of their new country without special instructions in the peculiarities of his rite. They petitioned therefore for a priest, and an Israelite priest returned and dwelt at Bethel. It is perhaps only natural to suppose that the place here intended in the Bible is Gerizim, which was held by the Samaritans to be the site of Jacob’s vision. It follows from this account that at least one priestly family returned to Samaria, and the Samaritans claimed a descent for their priesthood from Phinehas the grandson of Aaron.

Another curious allegation, brought forward by Josephus and also to be found in the Targums, is that the Samaritans claimed to be Sidonians; this is however plainly contradictory to the view that they were Cuthim, and only serves to show the small reliance that can be placed on the later Jewish accounts.

Having then indications that the Israelites were not all carried to Assyria, and that one at least of their priests returned, and having the invariable assertion of the Samaritans that they are descendants of this small remnant, and in confirmation of this their physiognomical characteristics, their religion, their possession of an ancient text of the books of Moses, their observation of the Jewish Passover, according to the most ancient form of the rite, we may fairly place the Samaritan literature in the balance against the accounts of the Pharisees—Josephus and the Talmudic doctors—which, as above shown, are in themselves contradictory.

It seems probable that the cause of the division of the Hebrew monarchy is to be sought in an original jealousy between the great tribes of Judah and Joseph who first seized on the land; but, as we have seen above, the religious schism was not complete before the time of the revival under Ezra. Worshippers from Shechem had been received at Jerusalem, and on the return of the Jews the Samaritans were anxious to take part in the restoration of the Temple in the Jewish capital. With regard to the history of the quarrel, Jewish and Samaritan accounts are, as might be expected, diametrically opposed. Josephus, in a passage which has no parallel in the Book of Ezra (Ant. xi 4. 9.), represents ambassadors, including Zerubbabel, as going to Darius and obtaining a decree against the Samaritans, forbidding them to interfere with the building of the Temple. From the Book of Ezra it appears, however, that the enemies of Judah succeeded in stopping the work of restoration (Ezra iv. 24). The Samaritan account is in agreement with this; according to their chronicle the whole of Israel, with the exception of the Jews, wished to build the Temple on Gerizim. An appeal was made to the King, and copies of the law made by Sanballat and Zerubbabel were cast into a great fire; the former leapt out thrice unhurt, the latter were immediately consumed. These traditions cannot of course be put in the same category with the sober history of the Book of Ezra; but in the main the accounts are not discordant, as both acknowledge an appeal to Darius and the hindrance of the Jews by Samaritan opposition.

In tracing the history of the schism, it is important to remember the great similarity of doctrine which certainly existed between the Samaritans and the Sadducees. The Jews never placed their enemies in quite the same category with the heathen. In the remarkable tract on the Cuthim, a Jew is allowed to hold intercourse with a Samaritan in all cases where it might be to his own advantage, but not when it is against his interests. The two tenets which caused the exclusion of Cuthim from the congregation are stated to have been—first, their belief in Gerizim as the true religious centre; second, their denial of the resurrection, which opinion they shared with the Sadducees.

Many details of the Samaritan faith were identical with Karaite and Sadducean tenets, and the view taken of their error appears to have been, with one Jewish party, that, while originally orthodox, they had become mixed with the priests of the high places and corrupted the purity of the faith.

It cannot be doubted that it was the Pharisees who were the deadly enemies of the Samaritans. This sect, originating in the “separation” under Ezra, at once excluded the Samaritans from participation in the building of the Temple. Sanballat was connected by marriage with the Sadducean high-priest—a fact which favours the view that he was an Israelite, not a foreigner—but against this affinity Ezra set his face, and the schism was thus rendered more complete. Gradually the Pharisees gained in power as the Sadducees declined; under the Hasmoneans they obtained at length the high-priesthood, and Hyrcanus succeeded in destroying the Samaritan Temple in 129 B.C. With the exception of a short interval the Pharisees were in power until 35 B.C., and the constant reprisals which for four hundred years had been indulged in on both sides, had left such indelible hatred between the two nations that nothing but entire submission and the abandonment of Gerizim would have induced even the Sadducees to receive into the congregation a people whose religion in other respects was almost indistinguishable from their own.

The Samaritans are, indeed, in the peculiarities of their doctrine almost identical with the original Jewish party—the Karaite and Sadducean sects. They are even called Sadducees in Jewish writings, and their denial of the resurrection was, like that of the Sadducees, based on the declaration that nothing was to be found in the law of Moses on the subject. Again, their version of the law is closely similar to that of the Septuagint, which was a translation authorised by a Sadducean high-priest from a text differing from that finally established by the Pharisees. The animosity of Josephus—who was a Pharisee—the fierce denunciations of the Talmud, written by Pharisees, the destruction of the Gerizim Temple by Hyrcanus—also a Pharisee—all combine to indicate that the Jewish hatred had nothing to do with any foreign origin of the race, but rather was roused by the religious differences of a people whom they knew to be their kith and kin.

It is often supposed that the Samaritans borrowed their religion from the Sadducees. It is surely a simpler explanation that they were a sect originally identical because originally Israelite.

The Samaritan chronicles give a plain account of the origin of their people. At the time of the return from captivity a certain number of the congregation carried into Assyria came back to Palestine under Sanballat. Some thirty thousand, however, remained behind awaiting the Prophet whom they expected as a leader.

Sanballat is called in the Bible “the Horonite.” From this title it has been supposed that he was a foreigner, though the Samaritans call him Lawîni the “Levite.” The place where Israel assembled before crossing into Palestine, and where the first quarrel as to where the Temple was to be built occurred, was Horân, and this may perhaps account for the term Horonite. The Jews, under Zerubbabel, repaired to Jerusalem, the test of the congregation, three hundred thousand in all, beside youths, women, children, and strangers (probably the colonists from Cutha, Hamath, and Ava), were led to Gerizim, where they established the Temple on the 9th of Tizri. Such is the Samaritan account, which gains credibility when we compare it with the Book of Ezra, and from the fact that Sanballat was connected by marriage with a Sadducean high-priest in Jerusalem. The name Lawîni or “Levite” is still preserved as the name of a prophet whose tomb is shown to the west of Shechem.

The quarrels and recriminations of Jews and Samaritans it is useless to follow in detail. The beautiful lessons of Christ were lost on both alike, and the large charity of the parable of the good Samaritan, with the truth that neither at Jerusalem nor on Gerizim was God exclusively to be sought, seem to have been far beyond the comprehension of the disputants. Even in their own accounts the falseness and cruelty of the Samaritans are repulsively prominent; nor does the Jewish character stand high by contrast either for ingenuousness or for charity to their enemies.

By the time of our Lord the hatred of the two people had become greater than their aversion to the heathen. Wine for the Temple passing through Samaria became unfit for use, a Jew was forbidden to help a wounded Samaritan or a Samaritan woman in trouble. On the other hand, murder and treachery are charged against the Cuthim; they lighted false beacons in order to confuse the Jewish calendar depending on the appearance of the new moon; they betrayed the Jews to the Romans; they polluted the Temple with bones. Such crimes could never be forgiven, and the Jews in contempt cast them out as heathen and foreigners.

The later history of the Samaritans has been often told; under Pilate they raised a tumult, headed by a leader who (probably assuming the character of Messiah) promised to show them the golden vessels said to have been buried by Moses on Gerizim. The cruelty with which this revolt was repressed led to Pilate’s final disgrace.

In the time of Vespasian they again rebelled, and were again repressed. Under Hadrian they assisted the Romans against the Pharisees led by Bar Cocheba, but under Severus they took part in rebellion with the Jews.

The greatest revolt appears to have been, however, in the time of Justinian, when the whole race rose, in May 529 A.D., attacked the Christians, put the Bishop of Neapolis to death, and crowned a certain Julian. Their punishment was cruel, and henceforward they disappear from history, having probably been almost exterminated.

The Emperor Zeno had in 474 A.D. erected a church on Gerizim. This church Justinian converted into a sort of fortress by building a second wall round it. He also caused five churches (possibly all now represented by mosques) to be rebuilt in Neapolis.

In the fifth century the Samaritans had begun to spread over Egypt and southern Palestine, in 493 A.D. they had a synagogue in Rome. In the seventh century, according to their own records, they occupied the whole of Palestine except the Judean hills. Up to some fifty years ago they had a synagogue in Gaza, the last of their communities, which in the seventeenth century also existed in Cairo and Damascus. At the present day they are found only in the town of Nablus, and appear to have become extinct in other towns about the year 1820 A.D.

In the middle ages they seem to have been undistinguished from the Jews, and thus it is only in the writings of a Jew (R. Benjamin of Tudela) that they are described. He speaks of about one hundred Cutheans “who observe the law of Moses only,” that is to say, do not recognise the later books. Though writing with the usual Pharisaic prejudice, the Rabbi admits the priestly family to be descendants of Aaron.

The existence of an ancient roll of the law, in possession of the Samaritans, was known to Scaliger; a copy was obtained by Pietro Della Valle in 1616 A.D., and this brought the Samaritans again into notice. They became a sort of pet people among learned men, and long correspondences were held with them. Thus, although the ancient copy at Shechem has never been collated, the value of the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch is well known to students.

The most striking peculiarity of the Samaritan text is its close resemblance to the Septuagint version. This caused a most exaggerated estimate of its value to be at one time formed. It was supposed that the Masoretic text, from which our English version has been taken, was corrupt, and the Samaritan and Greek the more ancient. The labours of the great scholar Gesenius have, however, almost placed these questions at rest. He points out that though the Samaritan and Greek agree against the Masoretic text in about one thousand passages, there are numerous instances where Greek and Hebrew agree against the Samaritan. He further holds that the archaic forms of the Hebrew have been modernised in the Samaritan, and numerous corruptions introduced from purely theological reasons. The variations of the text he divided into three classes: first, Samaritan forms of words; secondly, blunders and emendations in the text; thirdly, alterations for the glorification of Gerizim and of the Samaritans. It cannot be doubted that in some cases, however, the Samaritan and Greek preserve the sense which has been lost in the Jewish version. Gesenius’s conclusion will commend itself to all by its moderation and impartiality. He holds that Samaritan and Greek are both derived from ancient codices, differing among themselves and also from the text which became received later by the Jews. Kennicott goes yet further in saying that the authority of both the versions should be recognised. The antiquity of the text from which our English version is derived, is however established by the comparison, and unless the oldest Samaritan roll differs very materially from all other copies as yet collated, we cannot expect to get much of any permanent value or interest from its examination.

The Rolls of the Law, or Five Books of Moses (considered by the Samaritans to form a single work), now found in the Synagogue at Nablus are three in number. I have twice been enabled to see them; at Jerusalem also I was shown another manuscript, not a roll but in the form of a book, which is called “The Fire-Tried,” as it claims to be one of Sanballat’s copies before noticed. These venerable documents may now be briefly described.

The Samaritan synagogue stands in the Samaritan quarter, the south-western part of the town of Nablus. It is a mean room, with white-washed walls, and a dome with a skylight. A dirty counterpane is hung before a recess, called the Musbah, in which is a cupboard. From behind this veil the manuscripts are produced. At my first visit the high-priest Amram brought out the latest scroll. It is written in black ink on parchment, and rolled on two rollers, enclosed in two cylinders of brass, covered with a florid arabesque of thin silver plates fastened on to the brass. The scroll is kept on a shelf of the cupboard, the other two are locked up. The case is enveloped in a green silk wrapper, embroidered with arabesques. Mr. Drake, who accompanied me, now asked to see the next. The high-priest answered, after affecting great surprise, that his nephew Jacob had the key; he, however, was soon persuaded to send his son to fetch it, and brought out from the locker the second, which is of older appearance, also in a brass case, with huge knobs to the rollers. By means of these rollers the parchment is slipped round, so that each column of the roll is visible in turn. The workmanship in this case is better than that of the first. The cherubim, pot of manna, Aaron’s rod, and other sacred objects, are shown in the arabesque. There is a legend with the date 820 A.H., or 1456 A.D., which gives the name of the maker as Jacob ben Phoki, a Damascene. The writing in this manuscript appears to have been touched up later.

The high-priest and his nephew Jacob now declared that there was no older scroll, but Mr. Drake said he had seen it, and at length they were reduced to saying that being ceremonially unclean they could not touch it. We accordingly stepped behind the veil, the locker was opened, and we saw the famous roll of Abishuah in a solid silver cover of modern workmanship. The greatest reluctance was manifested in showing us this sacred relic; the priests exclaimed, “Permission!” and “In the name of God.” The roll is said to have been written on the skins of about twenty rams, which were slain as thank-offerings, the writing being on the hair side; the handwriting is small and rather irregular, the lines far apart; the ink is faded and of a purplish hue, the parchment much torn, very yellow, and patched in places, and bound at the edges with green silk.

Down the centre of the scroll runs the famous title called Tarîkh or “Inscription,” a sort of acrostic. By thickening one or two letters in each line in a vertical column, the following has been obtained:

“I Abishuah, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, the favour of Jehovah be upon them, for His glory I have written this Holy Torah (copy of the law) in the entrance of the tabernacle of the congregation on Mount Gerizim, even Bethel, in the thirteenth year of the possession by the children of Israel of the land of Canaan and all its boundaries. I thank the Lord.”

My second visit was paid after the death of Amram, in company with Lieutenant Kitchener and Mr. Elkarey the missionary. Jacob, the old man’s nephew, was now high-priest; on the 10th of June, 1875, we repaired again to the synagogue. The high-priest, an eminently handsome man about thirty-five years of age, received us, dressed in robes of dark purple, with the crimson turban; his brown beard long and square, not marred at the corners; his dark eyes with drooping lids, the beautiful olive complexion and delicate aquiline nose, perhaps a little too square at the end, made him a model of beauty of a certain type—the Jewish beauty, for which the priestly family of the Hasmoneans was so famous, and which captivated Herod the Great in Mariamne, the last of her race.

Hastily admitting us, he locked the door, and brought us to the veil now covered over with a gorgeous yellow satin cloth. A younger priest brought out the second manuscript, but was hastily told “not that one;” and the silver case once more appeared, and was placed on a sort of trestle. Whilst we examined it, some urchins got up on the roof and looked through the skylight. The priest was alarmed, he drove them away, replaced the old scroll, unlocked the door, and showed us the other two.

There is a marked difference in the treatment Abishuah’s roll receives at the hands of the priests. It is indeed a Samaritan Fetish, and is only seen by the congregation once a year, when elevated above the priest’s head on the Day of Atonement.

The so-called “Fire-tried Manuscript” belongs to a poor widow in Jerusalem, named Mrs. Ducat. She lent it to a German savant named Dr. Jacob Frederic Kraus, and his essay on the manuscript is kept with it. The whole consists of 217 leaves, containing the Torah or law, from the twenty-ninth verse of the first chapter of Genesis to the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy. Six leaves are added in a smaller hand on parchment at the beginning, the first being almost illegible. The real manuscript only begins at Gen. xi. 11; three leaves are added at the end for protection, after Deut. xxix. 30. The whole is much worn, and measures eleven inches by nine inches, and three inches in thickness. The text is divided into paragraphs, with verses, sentences, and words separated by a single dot; words are not allowed to be broken by the line, but in order to fill up the line the last letters are further apart, unless they form the word Jehovah which is read Elwem. The letters are not so small as those of Abishuah’s roll, nor as large as those of the later roll; the hand is steady and uniform. The Decalogue is not numbered by marginal letters, in this respect it resembles Abishuah’s roll, and so also the paragraphs are neither numbered nor stated in either text. These points seem to show the Fire-tried Manuscript to be ancient.

Some hundreds of the Samaritan copies of the law have the acrostic like Abishuah’s roll, each giving the name, place, and date of the text; but the Fire-tried Manuscript has a note instead at the end of Genesis, to this effect:

“This holy Torah has been made by a wise, valiant, and great son, a good, a beloved, and an understanding leader, a master of all knowledge, by Shelomo, son of Saba, a valiant man, leader of the congregation, by his knowledge and his understanding, and he was a righteous man, an interpreter of the Torah, a father of blessings, of the sons of Nun (may the Lord be merciful to them!); and it was appointed to be dedicated holy to the Lord, that they might read therein with fear and prayer in the House of the High-Priesthood in the seventh month, the tenth day; and this was done before me, and I am Ithamar, son of Aaron, son of Ithamar the High-Priest; may the Lord renew his strength! Amen.”

A note at the end of the Book of Numbers connects this manuscript with the story given above from the Samaritan Book of Joshua.

“It came out from the fire by the power of the Lord to the hand of the King of Babel, in the presence of Zerubbabel the Jew, and was not burnt. Thanks be to the Lord for the Law of Moses.”

This curious manuscript, which has been photographed for the Palestine Exploration Fund, came into Mr. Ducat’s hands from a Samaritan in payment of a bad debt. It has been in England, and was then offered for sale for £1000. In 1872, £200 was asked for it. There were faint traces of gilding on the proper names still visible when shown to me in August of the same year.

Turning again to the Samaritans themselves. In 1872 the little community numbered 135 souls, of whom no less than eighty were males. The Moslems say that the number is never exceeded, and that one of the eighty dies as soon as a child is born. By the defection of Jacob Shellaby with his family, they have been reduced to a total of 130 souls.

Year by year the Samaritans are dying out. Clinging to Shechem and the Holy Mountain, they are the last left of the nation which in the fifth and seventh centuries spread far over Palestine and Egypt.

The religion of the Samaritans approaches probably closer to original Judaism than anything among the Jews themselves. Even their view that Gerizim was intended to be the Temple mountain is not without foundation, for while the blessings and curses are placed on the two Samaritan mountains, Jerusalem is not noticed in the books of Moses.

The first Samaritan doctrine is the Unity of God and His special revelation to Israel. They hold Moses to be the one messenger of God, and superior even to their expected Prophet; they believe in the immutability and perfection of the written law, and finally in Gerizim as the earth’s centre, the house of God, the highest mountain on earth, the only one not covered by the flood, the site of altars raised by Adam, Seth, and Noah, the Mount Moriah of Abraham’s sacrifice, the Bethel or Luz of Jacob’s vision, the place where Joshua erected first an altar, next the tabernacle, finally a temple. On its slope the cave of Makkedah is also shown, though now closed up. From all these sacred memories it becomes naturally the central shrine of Samaritan faith.

It appears also that they believe in future retribution, and in angels and devils as ministers of God in the unseen world, but their views as to the future life seem to be vague.

Still more interesting is the question of the Samaritan belief in a future prophet who is to be of the sons of Joseph. This expectation, founded on the words of Moses, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet like unto me” (Deut. xviii. 15), is identical with the Jewish expectation in Maccabean times. It is to this belief, no doubt, that the Samaritan woman refers in the conversation at Jacob’s well, “I know that Messias cometh” (John v. 25). In 1860 the Samaritans believed the Prophet to be already on earth. His name is to begin with the letter M, his titles are Taheb the “restorer,” and El Mahdy the “guide.” Following his direction the congregation will repair to Gerizim, under the famous “twelve stones” will find the Ten Commandments, and under the stone of Bethel the golden vessels of the Temple and the manna. After one hundred and ten years the Prophet is to die and be buried beside Joseph in the valley. Soon after, on the conclusion of seven thousand years from its foundation, the world is to come to an end.

Whilst agreeing with the Jews in the acceptance of the law in its strictest and most limited interpretation as immutable and everlasting, the Samaritans differ in many minor points as to its interpretation, not only as regards Gerizim, but also in such matters for instance as the rights of the widow who is married to the nearest relation and not to the brother of her husband. They allow bigamy if the first wife be childless, but do not permit more than two wives; they do not allow earrings to be worn, because of the use of earrings in the moulding of the golden calf. Any member of the priest’s family may be made a priest if twenty-five years old, and if his hair has never been cut. The men marry at fifteen, the girls at twelve, the dowry given by the husband being from forty to sixty pounds. Generally speaking they adhere more closely to the original spirit of the law than do the Jews, and have not invented any of those evasions which are described in the Talmud.

These details, with many more too minute to be now discussed, will be found in Juynboll’s edition of the Samaritan Book of Joshua, in Nutt’s “Sketch of Samaritan History,” and in Mills’ “Modern Samaritans.” It is needless to say that the various accusations of idolatry which have been brought against these unorthodox Israelites (unorthodox from a Jewish point of view) are groundless. They do not and never have worshipped a dove, the story originating probably in their belief in a miraculous dove which carried letters for Joshua; as to the statement that they hold the world to have been created by a goat, it appears to be altogether an invention.

A few words must be added as to the great feasts held yearly, though I have never been so fortunate as to witness the Passover on Gerizim. In addition to this great festival, the Samaritans keep the Feast of Pentecost, and the Fast of Atonement when the Torah is displayed and kissed, the law read, and sleeping, eating, and talking alike forbidden. On the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles they repair to booths of arbutus boughs pitched on the side of Gerizim: these, with the Sabbath, which is very strictly observed, and a feast in memory of the deliverance from Egypt, form their principal festivals.

The sacrifice on Gerizim, called Karaban Afsah, has been graphically described by one of the most picturesque writers on the Holy Land. A brief résumé of his and other accounts will render the present sketch more complete.

After special preparation by prayer and the reading of the Law, the congregation repair to the plateau or lower spur, running out west from the high ridge of Gerizim, on which are the ruins of the ancient Temple, and it is at this time covered with white tents; it is, however, only within the last thirty years that this has been allowed by the Moslems. At sunset on the 15th of Nizan the service begins, the high-priest standing on a large stone surrounded by a low dry stone wall. A certain proportion of the congregation wear long white robes, and all have white turbans instead of the usual red one. Six sheep are slain, as the sun goes down, by the Samaritan butcher cutting their throats; the entrails and right fore-legs are cut off and burnt; the bodies are scalded with water from two huge cauldrons heated over a fire of brushwood, the fleeces removed, the legs skewered, and the bodies then thrust into a sort of oven in the ground (Tannûr in Arabic), covered with a hurdle and with sods of earth. Here for five hours they are baked. The oven, lined with stone, can be seen on the mountain all the year round. The men of the congregation gird themselves with ropes, and with staves in their hands and shoes on their feet as though prepared for a journey, they surround the meat when brought out, and generally eat standing or walking; of late years, however, they have been seen seated. The Jews have always eaten the Passover seated, in Palestine, but until lately the Samaritans have adhered to the ancient and prescribed form to eat “in haste.” The scene of the feast, dimly visible by the light of a few candles, is one of unique interest, taking the spectator back for thousands of years to the early period of Jewish history. The men eat first, the women next; the scraps are burnt, and a bonfire kindled and fed with the fat; the rest of the night is spent in prayer for four hours. On the following day rejoicings continue; fish, rice, and eggs are eaten, wine and spirits drunk, and hymns, generally impromptu, are sung. On the 21st of the month another pilgrimage is made to Gerizim, forming the eighth festival held by the nation.

Such is a slight sketch, compiled partly from personal inquiries and partly from various standard authorities, of the history and customs of the Samaritans. To sum up the points principally worthy of consideration. We have seen that while the later Jewish accounts are contradictory as to the origin of this people, and the Bible itself silent, we have their own assertion that they are the remaining descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel. We have noticed that their physiognomy leads to the conclusion that they are of the same stock with the Jews, that their sacred book is a version of the Pentateuch and their religion a very pure form of Judaism, that the first became apparently their religious standard before the time of Ezra, and that it is inconceivable that they should have adopted Jewish dogmas at a period when they were distinguished by their hatred of that nation. Finally, we see their doctrines to be in the main identical with those of the most ancient Jewish party, the Karaite or Sadducean.

From these various reasons the conclusion which appears to me personally to follow is, that the Samaritans are to be believed in respect of their account of their own origin, and that in them we find the only true descendants of Israel, and the only remnant of the Ten Tribes with exception perhaps of those still dispersed in Assyria, who have, however, in many cases deserted their original faith.

The subject which naturally next claims attention is that of the Samaritan sacred places, and of their relation to the Biblical history. The sites in question are all grouped in the immediate vicinity of Shechem.

The modern town of Nâblus (the Roman Neapolis) probably occupies, in part at least, the site of the ancient Shechem, as is indicated by the proximity of the modern cemetery to the greater number of the Jewish rock-cut sepulchres. It is a town of some thirteen thousand inhabitants, of whom all but about six hundred are Moslems of a very fanatical spirit. The town is well built, containing several fine houses and a good bazaar. It is surrounded with walls and is long and narrow, situate at the head of the great valley, called “Valley of Barley,” which runs west to Samaria.

The Vale of Shechem is from a quarter to half a mile wide north and south, hemmed in between the twin mountains Ebal and Gerizim, the summits of which are two miles apart in a line. The valley is the most luxuriant in Palestine; long rivulets, fed by no less than eighty springs (according to the natives), run down the hill-slopes and murmur in the deep ravine; gardens surround the city walls; figs, walnuts, mulberries, oranges, lemons, olives, pomegranates, vines, plums, and every species of vegetable grow in abundance, and the green foliage and sparkling streams refresh the eye. But as at Damascus, the oasis is set in a desert, and the stony, barren mountains contrast strongly with the green orchards below.

The Crusaders have left their mark on the town: the ruined “Leper’s Mosque” to the east seems to have been probably the Hospital: the Great Mosque is a Byzantine Basilica, with an outer court, having on the east a fine Gothic portal. The little chapel of the “Wailing of Jacob” (over his lost son Joseph) was also once a Christian church. The names of the six quarters of the city appear to be ancient.

Just inside the town wall is a modern Moslem mosque, dedicated to the “Ten Sons of Jacob,” and the site is probably connected with an ancient tradition of the tombs of the sons of Israel mentioned by St. Jerome in his account of St. Paula’s travels. Olive-groves extend eastwards for half a mile from the town, and on the west also there are groves where the lepers have taken up their abode. The ancient ruins extend some way beyond the walls on the east, and the foundations of a former monastery exist above the road on the south-west.

South of Nâblus rises the rocky and steep shoulder of Gerizim. The mountain is L-shaped; the highest ridge (2848·8 feet above the sea) runs north and south, and a lower ridge projects westwards from it. The top is about 1000 feet above the bottom of the valley east of Shechem. As compared with other Judean mountains, the outline of Gerizim is very fine; the lower part consists of white chalk, which has been quarried, leaving huge caverns visible above the groves which clothe the feet of the hill. Above this formation comes the dark blue Nummulitic limestone, barren and covered with shingle, rising in ledges and long slopes to the summit. The whole of the northern face of the mountain abounds with springs, the largest of which, with ruins of a little Roman shrine to its Genius, was close to our camp.

In ascending to the summit of the western spur of Gerizim, by the path up the gully behind our camp, the contrast was striking between the bright green of the gardens, dotted with red pomegranate blossoms, and the steel-grey of the barren slope. Riding eastwards and gradually ascending, we first reached the little drystone enclosures and the oven used during the Passover. There are scattered stones round, but no distinct ruins of any buildings; the place is called Lôzeh or Luz, but the reason of this appears to have escaped notice. The title is of Samaritan origin, and is due to their view that Gerizim is the real site of Bethel or Luz, the scene of Jacob’s vision.

The highest part of the mountain is covered by the ruins of Justinian’s fortress, built 533 A.D., in the midst of which stands Zeno’s church, constructed in 474 A.D. The foundations alone are visible, showing an octagon with its entrance on the north, and remains of six side chapels; the fortress is a rectangle 180 feet east and west, 230 north and south, with towers at the corners; that on the south-west being now a little mosque dedicated to Sheikh Ghanim, who is, according to the Samaritans, Shechem the son of Hamor. The fortress walls are built of those constantly recurring drafted stones which are often loosely described as Jewish or Phœnician masonry, though the practised eye soon discriminates between the original style of the Temple at Jerusalem, and the rude rustic bosses of the Byzantines and Crusaders.

A large reservoir exists, north of the castle which is called El Kŭl’ah in Arabic, and below this a spur of the hill projects, artificially severed by a ditch and covered with the traces of a former fortress. This is perhaps the station of the Roman guards, who thus prevented the Samaritans from approaching Gerizim, for it commands the north-eastern ascent to the mountain.

Of the ancient Samaritan Temple, probably the only relics are the remains of massive masonry known as the “Ten Stones” (’Asherah Balatât), near the west wall of Justinian’s fortress. They are huge blocks rudely squared, forming one course of a foundation, the north-west corner of which was laid bare by Captain Anderson’s excavation in 1866. There are two courses, and the lower one contains thirteen stones; this course, however, was not formerly visible, and the Samaritans considered ten stones alone to lie buried, and to be those brought from Jordan at the time of Joshua—thus supposing some supernatural agency sufficient to carry such huge blocks up a steep slope 1000 feet high, to say nothing of the journey from the Jordan. Under these stones, as before noticed, the treasures of the old Temple are supposed to lie hidden.

South of the fortress is one of those flat slabs of rock which occur all over the summit. It shelves slightly down westward, and at this end is a rock-cut cistern. The whole is surrounded by a low drystone wall. This is the Sacred Rock of the Samaritans, and the cave is traditionally that in which the tabernacle was made. At the time of my second visit some peasants were using the Sacred Rock as a threshing-floor. Rude stone walls extend on every side, and farther south there is a curious flight of steps leading down east. They are called the “seven steps of Abraham’s altar,” and just beneath them, on the edge of the eastern precipice at the southern extremity of the plateau, there is a little trough cut in the rock resembling the Passover oven. This the Samaritans suppose to be the site of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, for their version of the story reads “Moreh” instead of Moriah, and makes Gerizim the scene of the Patriarch’s trial.

This question has been taken up by Dean Stanley, who favours the Samaritan view; but it must not be forgotten that Moriah is distinctly stated in the Bible (2 Chron. iii. 1) to be the hill on which the Temple was built at Jerusalem, as also the scene of Isaac’s sacrifice (Gen. xxii. 2).

The view from the summit of Gerizim is extensive and interesting. Northward the dome-like top of Ebal shuts out the distance, whilst the eastern half of Nâblus, with its gardens, is seen below. The numerous hills of the “Land of Tampne,” as the Crusaders called it, with the dark wooded height of Jebel Hazkin, or “Ezekiel’s Mountain,” and the gorge which leads down by Salem to the waters of Ænon, appear to the right. On the east the broad Plain of Moreh lies at our feet, and the mountains of Gilead rise blue and clear behind; in the middle of the plain stands ’Awertah, the place of entombment of the sons of Aaron; farther south are the mountains round Shiloh, and Tell ’Asûr (the ancient Baal Hazor), loftier than even Ebal itself by some 300 feet. The ridge of Gerizim joins on the south the chain of Mount Salmon, on whose summit in 1874 the snow lay white and thick as late as March. Gradually turning to the south-west the gleaming sand-hills and the shining sea appear, and the stone villages of the Beni S’ab hills stand up like towers in mid distance. Here on a clear day the brown ruins of Cæsarea, once the scene of bloody feuds between Jews and Samaritans, can be descried; and farther north the range above Samaria is seen over the shoulder of Gerizim, and behind this the dark woods and volcanic crater of Sheikh Iskander, with Carmel faint and blue in the extreme distance.

Crossing the narrow valley on another July day, the Survey-party ascended the eastern brow of Ebal. The Mount of the Curses is even more barren than Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing. Cactus-hedges clothe its feet, on which the culture of the cochineal insect has lately been tried without success. The slope of steel-blue rock is less abrupt than that of Gerizim, but a band of precipitous cliffs exists near the summit. The mountain is dome-shaped, its top (3076·5 feet above the sea) is higher than those of any mountains near, though both in Judea and in Galilee more lofty points occur; thus Ebal is a conspicuous object from all sides, especially from the north and from the maritime plain. The southern face of the hill has no springs on it, but many occur on the north. The southern slopes are covered with corn, and at sunset the orange-coloured flush over the bare rocks produces a startling contrast to the rich foliage of the valley beneath.

There are three curious places on Ebal; one of which is a rude stone building, enclosing a space of fifty feet square, with walls twenty feet thick, in which are chambers. The Samaritans call it part of a ruined village, but its use and origin are a mystery. It resembles most the curious monuments near Hizmeh, called the “Tombs of the Sons of Israel.” The second place is the little cave and ruined chapel of Sitt Eslamîyeh, “the Lady of Islam,” who has given her name to the mountain. It is perched on the side of a precipice, and is held sacred by the Moslems, who have a tradition that the bones of the Saint were carried hither through the air from Damascus. The third place is a site the importance of which has not been previously recognised. It is a little Moslem Mukâm, said once to have been a church, called ’Amâd ed Dîn, the “Monument of the Faith.” The name thus preserved has no connection with Samaritan tradition, but it is undisputed that the sacred places of the peasantry often represent spots famous in Bible history. It is therefore perhaps possible that the site thus reverenced is none other than that of the monumental altar of twelve stones from Jordan, which Joshua erected, according to the Biblical account, on Ebal, and not on Gerizim as the Samaritans believe, charging the Jews with having altered the names (Deut. xxvii. 4). The hill-top on which this monument stands is called Râs el Kâdy, “Hill of the Judge.” It was here that the Crusaders placed Dan, the site of Jeroboam’s Calf Temple, and the present name may perhaps be connected with this theory, Dan (“the Judge”) being translated into the Arabic Kâdy (“Judge”), just as it has been at the true Dan, now Tell el Kâdy, at the source of Jordan. The idea that Dan was to be sought on Ebal originated, no doubt, in the acceptance by the Crusaders of the Samaritan site of Bethel on Gerizim, at the foot of which mountain, according to the mediæval writers, the golden calves were made. This view cannot, however, be supported from the Bible narrative.

In the account given of the reading of the Law, we find that the Israelites stood half “over against” Gerizim, half over against Ebal, and that an altar of whole stones was built “in Mount Ebal,” where also a copy of the law was written by Joshua (Josh. viii. 30, 33). Later on we find reference to a great stone under an oak by “the holy place of Jehovah” (Josh. xxiv. 26), and the same place is probably intended by “the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem” (Judges ix. 6); it is even conjectured that the “oak which was by Shechem,” where Jacob hid the strange gods (Gen. xxxv. 4), was the same place. The pillar of the oak must not be confused with the altar on Ebal, and we have next to discuss the question of the probable position of this sacred oak.

It has been pointed out by Canon Williams and other writers that a natural amphitheatre exists, between Ebal and Gerizim, in the sloping sides of two recesses opposite each other, formed by a tributary valley from each hill; there is space for the assembly of a vast multitude, and the voice of a speaker in the valley could probably have been heard by the entire congregation, though such a requirement is not necessarily involved in the description of the reading of the law. It is striking to find here at the foot of Gerizim a place called the “Pillar,” but it cannot represent the altar on Ebal, and if it be the great stone by the oak, where Joshua made a covenant with Israel, it has no direct connection with the reading of the law. The Mosque of the Pillar (el ’Amûd) is a little shrine similar to many in the country, with small whitewashed domes and a wall surrounding a little garden. The gate is on the north, and cool pitchers of water here await the thirsty pilgrim; within is a paved court shaded by an aged tree, shrubs and palms are visible through the doorway, and the small building stands in the midst with whitewashed walls and wooden door. The modern Samaritans seem to regard this as the true site of Joshua’s stone by the oak (Josh. xxiv. 26).

It is not, however, at this mosque that the Samaritan chronicles and the early Christian pilgrims seem to agree in placing the site of the oak. Jerome and Eusebius speak of a place called Balanus or Balata, the Samaritan or Aramaic equivalent of Elon an “oak,” and the same place is noticed in the Samaritan chronicles under the Arabic titles of Balâta and Shejr el Kheir (the “tree of grace”). The site is thus carried about half a mile east, to the village of Balâta (equivalent to Ballut, an “oak”), close to Jacob’s Well.

The sites which next attract attention are situate at the point where the Vale of Shechem opens into the Plain of the Mŭkhnah or “camp.” Here close together we find Jacob’s Well and Joseph’s Tomb, and in connection with them our attention turns naturally to the Sychar of St. John’s Gospel.

The tradition of Jacob’s Well is one in which Jews, Samaritans, Moslems, and Christians alike agree. Its credibility is thus much increased, for there are only three other sites as to the position of which such unanimity exists, namely the site of the Temple at Jerusalem and those of Joseph’s and Eleazar’s tombs. In addition to this argument there are other reasons which lead to the belief that the tradition is trustworthy; the proximity of Joseph’s Tomb, and of Sychar, and finally the fact of a well existing at all in a place abounding with streams, one of which is within one hundred yards’ distance. No other important well is found near, and the utility of such a work can only be explained on the assumption that it was necessary for the Patriarch to have water within his own land, surrounded as he was by strangers who may naturally be supposed to have guarded jealously their rights to the springs. By digging the well Jacob avoided those quarrels from which his father had suffered in the Philistine country, pursuing a policy of peace which appears generally to have distinguished his actions.

The well then, as being one of the few undoubted sites made sacred by the feet of Christ, is a spot of greater interest than any near Shechem. Its neighbourhood is not marked by any very prominent monument, and indeed it would be quite possible to pass by it without knowing of its existence. Just east of the gardens of Balâta, a dusty mound by the road half covers the stumps of three granite columns. After a few moments’ search a hole is found south-west of them, and by this the visitor descends through the roof of a little vault, apparently modern, as shown in the illustration. The vault stretches twenty feet east and west, and is ten feet broad, the hole in the pointed arch of the roof being in the north-east corner. The floor is covered with fallen stones which block the mouth of the well; through these we let down the tape and found the depth to be seventy-five feet. The diameter is seven feet six inches, the whole depth cut through alluvial soil and soft rock receiving water by infiltration through the sides. There appears to be occasionally as much as two fathoms of water, but in summer the well is dry. The little vault is built on to a second, running at right angles northwards from the west end, but the communication is now walled up. In this second vault there are said to be remains of a tesselated pavement, and the bases of the three columns above mentioned rest on this floor, the shafts sticking out through the roof—a sufficient proof that the vault is modern.

The view from the well is good: on the south the rugged slopes of Gerizim; on the west the olives in the Vale of Shechem, with Ebal rising behind, and the little hamlet of Balâta with its fig gardens, the whitewashed walls and dome of Joseph’s Tomb, the mud huts of Sychar: on the north-east the neighbourhood of Shalem whence Jacob first came; and on the east the broad brown Plain of the Mŭkhnah, named perhaps (for the word is of Hebrew origin) from the great encampment of Israel at the time of the first conquest.

A Christian church was built before 383 A.D. round Jacob’s Well, but did not exist apparently in 333 A.D., when the Bordeaux Pilgrim visited the spot. Bishop Arculph, in 700 A.D., gives a plan which shows the building as cruciform, with the well in the middle; and St. Willibald (722 A.D.) mentions it as standing in his day. It was probably founded by Constantine and destroyed in the invasion of Omar, for in Crusading times it had disappeared. To this church the pavement and pillars seem to have belonged. As late as 1555 A.D. a little altar stood in the vault on which yearly mass was offered, but this practice is now discontinued.

About six hundred yards north of the well is the traditional Tomb of Joseph, venerated by the members of every religious community in Palestine. The building stands east of the road from Balâta to ’Askar, at the end of a row of fine fig trees. The enclosure is square and roofless, the walls whitewashed and in good repair, for, as an inscription on the south wall in English informs the visitor, it was rebuilt by Consul Rogers, the friend of the Samaritans, in 1868; it is about twenty-five feet square, and on the north is another building of equal size, but older and partly ruinous, surmounted by a little dome. The tomb itself resembles most of the Moslem cenotaphs—a long narrow block with an arched or vaulted roof having a pointed cross section. It is rudely plastered, and some seven feet long and three feet high. It is placed askew, and nearest to the west wall of the court. A stone bench is built into the east wall, on which three Jews were seated at the time of our second visit, book in hand, swinging backwards and forwards as they crooned out a nasal chant—a prayer no doubt appropriate to the place.

The most curious point to notice is, however, the existence of two short pillars, one at the head, the other at the foot of the tomb, having shallow cup-shaped hollows at their tops. These hollows are blackened by fire, for the Jews have the custom of burning sacrifices on them, small articles such as handkerchiefs, gold lace, or shawls being consumed. Whether this practice is also observed by the Samaritans is doubtful.

The tomb points approximately north and south, thus being at right angles to the direction of Moslem tombs north of Mecca. How the Mohammedans explain this disregard of orientation in so respected a Prophet as “our Lord Joseph,” I have never heard; perhaps the rule is held to be only established since the time of Mohammed. The veneration in which the shrine is held by the Moslem peasantry is, at all events, not diminished by this fact.

The little village of ’Askar stands on the slope of Ebal within sight of Jacob’s Well, about half a mile from it and little over a mile from Nâblus. It is merely a collection of mud-hovels like Balâta or any village near, but it has a spring issuing from a curious cave, and ancient rock-cut sepulchres beneath it, so that it is in all probability an ancient site.

It is here no doubt that we recognise the Sychar of the Fourth Gospel. An unaccountable confusion has grown up lately between Sychar and Shechem, for which the Crusaders are originally responsible, as they are indeed for most of the false theories on sacred sites. It is only through careful study, and by such work as that of the Survey, that we are beginning to escape from the entanglements and confusion caused by the ignorance of knights and priests, arriving, in the twelfth century, strangers and illiterate enthusiasts in a hostile country.

It will be evident to all readers of the Gospel narrative that Sychar, “a city of Samaria” near Jacob’s Well (John iv. 5, 6), is a description hardly to be expected of Shechem, which is moreover mentioned by its original name in the New Testament (Acts vii. 16). The early Christians recognised the distinction, and place Sychar a mile east of Shechem, as noticed in the “Itinerary of Jerusalem,” 333 A.D. It is clear that they refer to ’Askar, and the identity is maintained by Canon Williams and others; but a difficulty has always been felt by students because the modern name begins with a guttural, which cannot have occurred in the name Sychar. This difficulty the Samaritan Chronicle seems to me to remove, for in it we find a town mentioned apparently near Shechem, called Ischar, which is merely a vulgar pronunciation of Sychar; and the Samaritans themselves, in translating their Chronicle into Arabic, call it ’Askar. Thus the transition is traceable from the Hebrew form, having no meaning in Arabic but originally “a place walled in,” through the Samaritan Ischar to the modern ’Askar, “a collection” or “army” in Arabic.

But one group of sacred places remains to be noticed, in the village of ’Awertah called Abearthah in the Samaritan dialect. It stands in the Plain of the Mŭkhnah, and is sacred to the Samaritans and to the Jews as containing the tombs of Phinehas and Eleazar, Abishuah and Ithamar. It is probably to be recognised as the Hill of Phinehas, where Eleazar was buried according to the Bible (Josh. xxiv. 33), and which is described as in Mount Ephraim.

In 1872 I visited the village and examined the two principal monuments. That of Eleazar, west of the houses, is a rude structure of masonry in a court open to the air. It is eighteen feet long, plastered all over, and shaded by a splendid terebinth. In one corner is a little mosque with a Samaritan inscription bearing the date 1180 of the Moslem era. The Tomb of Phinehas is apparently an older building, and the walls of its court have an arcade of round arches now supporting a trellis covered with a grape-vine; the floor is paved. A Samaritan inscription exists here as well as at the little mosque adjacent. The tombs of Ithamar, and of Abishuah, the supposed author of the famous roll, are shown by the Samaritans close by.

The “Holy King Joshua” is said by the Samaritans to have been buried at Kefr Hâris, which they identify with Timnath Heres. This village is nine miles south of Nâblus.

The Jewish pilgrim Rabbi Jacob of Paris visited Caphar Cheres—presumably Kefr Hâris, in 1258 A.D., and mentions the tombs of Joshua, Nun, and Caleb. The Samaritans also hold that Caleb was buried with Joshua, and thus we have the curious result that Jews and Samaritans agree as to the site of these tombs, both placing them within the boundaries of Samaria. The Crusading writers point to the same site for Joshua’s Tomb, and the place is marked on the map of Marino Sanuto (1322 A.D.) in the relative position of Kefr Hâris.

The modern village has three sacred places: one of Neby Nûn, the second Neby Lush’a, the third Neby Kifl. In the two first we recognise Nun and Joshua; Neby Kifl was an historic character, but his shrine possibly occupies the place of the medieval Tomb of Caleb.

The site of Joshua’s Tomb seems therefore to be preserved by an indigenous tradition at least as authentic as that which fixes Joseph’s Tomb. It has been supposed that Jerome indicates a different site, but a careful reading of his account of St. Paula’s journey seems to show that he also refers to the tomb at Kefr Hâris.

CHAPTER III.
THE SURVEY OF SAMARIA.

IT is a remarkable fact, but one which can scarce be disputed, that while the descriptions given of tribe boundaries and cities in the Book of Joshua are full and minute in the territory of Judea, and scarcely less so in Galilee, they are fragmentary and meagre within the bounds of Samaria. A short inspection of the topographical lists will convince any student of this fact; he will find there is no account of the conquest of Samaria, that the list of Royal Cities does not include the famous Samaritan towns, Shechem, Thebez, Acrabbi, and others; that no list of the cities of Ephraim and Manasseh is included in the topographical chapters of the Book of Joshua, no description of the northern limits of Manasseh, and only a very slight one of the southern border, where that tribe marched with Ephraim. However it may be accounted for, the plain fact remains that this portion of the Book of Joshua is manifestly incomplete.

The places of primary interest between the pass of the Robber’s Fountain on the south and the Great Plain of Esdraelon on the north, are five in all. Shiloh just south of the Samaritan boundary, Samaria, Tirzah, Ænon, and Dothan, north of the Vale of Shechem.

There is no site in the country fixed with greater certainty than that of Shiloh. The modern name Seilûn preserves the most archaic form which is found in the Bible in the ethnic Shilonite (1 Kings xi. 29). The position of the ruin agrees exactly with the very definite description given in the Old Testament of the position of Shiloh as “on the north side of Bethel (now Beitîn), on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah” (Lubben) (Judges xxi. 19). It is just here that Seilûn still stands in ruins. The traveller leaves Bethel, descends into the gorge of the Robber’s Fountain, and emerges into open ground near Sinjil (Casale St. Gilles of the Crusaders). Here he leaves the main road to Shechem on the west, and passes over the corn-plain of Turmus Eyya (the Thormasia of the Talmud). The scenery of the wild mountains is finer than that in Judea; the red colour of the cliffs, which are of great height, is far more picturesque than the shapeless chalk mounds near Jerusalem; the fig-gardens and olive-groves are more luxuriant, but the crops are poor compared to those in the plain and round Bethlehem; Judea is the more fertile district, Mount Ephraim the more rugged and picturesque.

We approached Shiloh from the south, by a mountain-road of evident antiquity, from the little plain. The ruins of a modern village here occupy a sort of Tell or mound. On the east and north the site is shut in by bare and lofty hills of grey limestone, dotted over with a few fig-trees; on the south the plateau looks down on the plain just crossed. A deep valley runs behind the town on the north, and in its sides are many rock-cut sepulchres; following its course westward, we again reached the main road, thus avoiding a steep pass, and turning northwards found the village of Lebonah perched on the hillside to the west of the road and north of Shiloh, as described in the Bible.

Shiloh was for about 400 years the chosen abode of the Tabernacle and Ark. It is a question of no little interest whether this was the first spot selected after the conquest of the hills by Joshua. That Shiloh became the gathering-place after the conquest of Shechem there is abundant proof (Josh. xxii. 12), and it may be inferred that the Tabernacle was placed there early; but, on the other hand, we find “Sanctuary of the Lord” (or Holy Place of Jehovah) mentioned, by the Oak near Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 26), and we may perhaps gather that, though not recognised by the doctors of the Mishna, there was a time when the Tabernacle stood, as is believed by the Samaritans, near Shechem. The date which they give for its transference to Shiloh, in the time of Eli, whom they consider to have been the first schismatical leader of the children of Judah, does not, however, accord with the Biblical account, and the story no doubt originated in consequence of religious hatred.

The site being so certainly known, it becomes of interest to speculate as to the exact position of the Tabernacle. Below the top of the hill, on the north of the ruins, there is a sort of irregular quadrangle, sloping rather to the west, and perched above terraces made for agricultural purposes. The rock has here been rudely hewn in two parallel scarps for over 400 feet, with a court between, seventy-seven feet wide, and sunk five feet below the outer surface. Thus there would be sufficient room for the court of the Tabernacle in this area, and it is worthy of notice that the measurement north and south agrees very closely with the width of the court (fifty cubits), which was also measured north and south. From the Mishna we learn that the lower part of the Tabernacle erected at Shiloh was of stone, with a tent above.

There are, however, two other places which demand attention as possible sites, one being perhaps a synagogue, the other a little building called the “Mosque of the Servants of God.”

The building which I have called a synagogue is situate on a slope south of the ruins of Shiloh. It is thirty-seven feet square, and built of good masonry. The door is on the north, and is surmounted by a flat lintel, on which is a design in bold relief, representing vases and wreaths. Inside there are pillars with capitals seemingly Byzantine. A sloping scarp has been built against the wall on three sides, and a little mosque sacred to El Arb’ain—“the Forty” Companions of the Prophet—is built on to the east wall. There is a pointed arch on the west wall. Thus we have at least three periods—that of the old synagogue represented by the lintel, which is similar to the lintels of Galilean synagogues, that of a later Christian erection, and finally the Moslem mosque, built probably where the apse of the chapel would have been placed.

The Jami’a el Yeteim, or “Mosque of the Servants of God,” is situate at the southern foot of the Tell. It is shaded by a large oak-tree, and is of good masonry like that of the last; there was nothing very remarkable in the little low chamber within, but the name seems to preserve a tradition of the position of the Tabernacle.

The only water close to the village was once contained in a little tank with steps, south of the lower mosque. There is, however, a fine spring placed, as is often to be observed in Palestine, at a distance of no less than three quarters of a mile from the town, at the head of the valley which comes down behind the ruins from the east. A good supply of water here issues into a rocky basin, and was once carried by an underground aqueduct to a rock-cut tank, but is now allowed to run waste.

The vineyards of Shiloh have disappeared, though very possibly once surrounding the spring, and perhaps extending down the valley westwards, where water is also found. With the destruction of the village desolation has spread over the barren hills around.

A yearly feast was held at Shiloh, when the women came out to dance in the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21). It is possible that a tradition of this festival is retained in the name Merj el ’Aid, “Meadow of the Feast,” to the south of the present site.

Shiloh lies in so remote a situation, so hidden by its surrounding hills, and so out of the main highways, that neither the early pilgrims nor the Crusaders seem to have ever known of its position, and it is unnoticed by any writer but Jerome before the sixteenth century. The Crusaders considered Neby Samwîl (or Mount Joy, as they preferred to call it) to be Shiloh, and also Ramathaim Zophim, or Gibeah of Saul. Such wild ideas are sufficient to show their ignorance of the Bible, and are only noticeable as among the curiosities of Palestine geography.

The Tabernacle and Ark remained so long at this spot that it was regarded by the Jews as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. A curious peculiarity of their worship is noticed in the Mishna, where they are said to have been allowed to eat certain sacrifices at any spot whence the Tabernacle could be seen, but not farther from it. As Shiloh was shut in by mountains, the effect must have been to gather the congregation much oftener to this remote valley, than when, at Nob or Gibeon, the same sacrifices (the second tithes) might be eaten in any of the cities of Israel.

The road from Shechem to Samaria leads down the course of the western valley through groves of ancient olives with gardens of pomegranates and figs. The olives are more picturesque than in Judea, as the trees are not regularly arranged in quincunx order, but grow almost wild with a tangled underwood. Those in the valley beneath Nâblus seem to be of great age, and have split up into two or three stems from one root, with numerous suckers. Leaving these groves, the road climbs the side of a white chalk swell, where the ground is strewn with gravel from the huge blocks of beautiful brown flint conglomerate like agate, which runs in bands through the rock. It finally descends into a valley, open and well watered, and passes beneath the Hill of Samaria, which is thickly covered with olives.

Samaria is in a position of great strength, and though it would now be commanded from the northern range, it must, before the invention of gunpowder, have been almost impregnable. It stands some 400 feet above the valley, the sides of the hill being steep, and terraced in every direction for cultivation, or perhaps for defensive purposes, as Josephus tells us the hill was scarped by Herod the Great (Ant., xv. 8, 5); broad and open valleys stretch north and south, and the hill is thus almost isolated, being joined only by a low tongue on the east to the chain of Ebal. The view northwards extends to the high ridge a few miles off which divides the Nâblus district from the outskirts of the great plain. On the east the lower slopes which run out of the great dome of Ebal are visible, on the south and west the flat Samaritan hills stretch away, covered with olives, and crowned by numerous villages which stand on high knolls, generally with a central tower or larger house. It is wonderful to reflect how great the antiquity of most of these hamlets is. For four thousand years, in some instances, the little hill has been covered by a succession of probably just the same sort of cottages which now rise upon the ruins of their predecessors; for four thousand years the women have gone down to the same spring, quarrelled, talked scandal, and returned with their brown jars on their heads; for four thousand years the cattle have trampled the corn and the wind has borne the chaff from the great yellow corn-heap; for all this time the same race has lived on, and has handed down the same village name, scarcely changed from the time of Abraham to the present day.

The village of Sebŭstieh, representing the ancient Samaria, is built on the brow of the great white hill, and immediately north-east of the mud-hovels are the ruins of the beautiful Crusading church of St. John Baptist, where, in a crypt, now held sacred by the Moslem peasantry, the saint was supposed to have been beheaded. The tradition, though erroneous, is ancient, and existed in 380 A.D. The church is a mere shell, its roof and the pillars of the nave having been destroyed.

The site of the Paradise of Samaria, mentioned in the Talmud, is perhaps represented by the spring and gardens to the south of the hill. The ancient tombs, which included those of the Kings of Israel, seem to have been situate to the north, on the opposite side of the valley, and none have as yet been discovered on the hill itself.

The most interesting ruins, however, are those of Herod’s colonnade to the west of the modern village. This building seems to have run round the hill on a flat terrace, in the middle of which rises a rounded knoll on which the Temple, dedicated to Augustus, and stated by Josephus to have been in the middle of the town, presumably stood.

The cloister measures about 2100 feet east and west, and 660 feet north and south; the walk being fifty feet wide in the one case, and 100 feet in the other. The total circuit is thus some 5500 feet, but Josephus (Ant. xv. 8) estimates it at twenty furlongs or 10,000 feet; his statement is therefore considerably exaggerated, but is no doubt to be considered as conjectural only.

In the south-west angle there seems to have been a gateway flanked by small towers, the rock scarps of which remain. On the north-east there is another street of columns at the bottom of the hill, running in a line oblique to the sides of the upper colonnade. This seems to have been an avenue of approach 180 feet wide, 1450 feet long; but it may have been a distinct building, as no pillars remain on the upper slopes.

The pillar shafts are principally monoliths; they are not, however, of colossal size like Herod’s work in Jerusalem, but only sixteen feet high and two feet thick.

Samaria is not a city which can compare in antiquity with Shechem or Hebron, for only just before Ahab’s time Omri bought the Hill of Shemer. In the Talmud we find it called Shomron or “watch-tower” as in the Bible, and also Sebustieh as at present, Sebaste being Herod’s name for the town in honour of Augustus, to whom the Temple was dedicated. Strategical reasons may be supposed to have dictated the choice of the capital of Omri, for on the north the hill commands the main road to Jezreel over a steep pass, on the west it dominates the road to the coast, and on the east that to the Jordan through Wâdy Fâr’ah, the highway to Gilead. Thus we find that when the Syrians, under Benhadad, raised the siege, and fled by night down the great Fâr’ah valley to Jordan, their panic was due to the fear of reinforcements which they imagined they could hear advancing over the pass from the northern land of the Hittites, and on the west up the open valley from Egypt (2 Kings vii. 6).

The history of Samaria has often been summarised. It shared the vicissitudes of Shechem, and was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in 129 B.C. when he demolished the Temple on Gerizim. It rose to importance under Herod, and then disappears for a time from history. It became the see of a Crusading bishop about 1155 A.D., and is mentioned by many of the Christian pilgrims. It is not, however, connected with the religion of the people like Shechem, and there is therefore comparatively little to describe in the political capital of Israel.

The traveller who rides across from Samaria behind Ebal, or who follows the stony road in the magnificent gorge east of the same mountain, finds himself gradually descending to the springs which lie at the head of the great Fâr’ah valley, the open highway from the Dâmieh ford of Jordan to Shechem. It was up this valley that Jacob drove his flocks and herds from Succoth to Shalem near Shechem. It was along the banks of its stream that the “garments and vessels” of the hosts of Benhadad were strewn as far as Jordan. It was here also that Israel, returning from captivity (according to the Samaritans), purified themselves before going up to Gerizim to build the Temple; but the place possesses a yet higher interest as the probable site of “Ænon near to Salem” where John was baptizing, “because there was much water there” (John iii. 23).

The head-springs are found in an open valley surrounded by desolate and shapeless hills. The water gushes out over a stony bed, and flows rapidly down in a fine stream surrounded by bushes of oleander. The supply is perennial, and a continual succession of little springs occurs along the bed of the valley, so that the current becomes the principal western affluent of Jordan south of the Vale of Jezreel. The valley is open in most parts of its course, and we find the two requisites for the scene of baptism of a multitude—an open space and abundance of water.

Not only does the name of Salem occur in the village three miles south of the valley, but the name Ænon, signifying “springs,” is recognisable at the village of ’Ainûn four miles north of the stream. There is only one other place of the latter name in Palestine, Beit ’Ainûn near Hebron, but this is a place which has no very fine supply of water and no Salem near it. On the other hand, there are many other Salems all over Palestine, but none of them have an Ænon near them. The site of Wâdy Fâr’ah is the only one where all the requisites are met—the two names, the fine water supply, the proximity of the desert, and the open character of the ground.

The identification has been questioned on the assumption that Ænon should be found near the desert of Judea, where John first preached (Matt. iii. 1), but it will afterwards be seen that there is good reason for placing Bethabara, where also he baptized, far from Judea and higher up the valley of the Jordan than even this site of Ænon; and the large area thus supposed to have been the theatre of the Baptist’s wanderings fully accords with the words of the third Gospel, “He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance” (Luke iii. 3).

Here then in the wild desert valley, beneath the red precipices where the hawk and kite find nests in “the stairs of the rocks,” or by the banks of the shingly stream with its beautiful oleander blossoms shining in the dusky foliage of luxuriant shrubs, we may picture the dark figure of the Baptist in his robe of camel’s hair, with the broad leather Bedawi belt round his loins, preaching to the Judean multitude of pale citizens, portly grey-bearded Rabbis, Roman soldiers in leathern armour and shining helmets, sharp-faced publicans, and, above all, to the great mass of oppressed peasantry, the “beasts of the people,” uncared for, stricken with palsy, with blindness, with fever, with leprosy, but eagerly looking forward to the appearance of that Messiah who came to preach the Gospel of the poor.

The scenery of Samaria differs from that both of Judea and of Galilee; with the exception of the rugged hills south of Gerizim—the Mount Heres (or “rough mountain”) of the Bible—the greater part of the district consists of chalk hills covered with olives, and of open valleys and plains which are wonderfully fertile. The great mountain blocks of Galilee belong to the wilder ranges of Lebanon, and the long ridges of hard limestone in Judea to a class of far less picturesque scenery.

It was among these hills and valleys that the Survey was extended during the months of July and August, 1872. The land was stony and colourless, dried up by the sun, the flowers long dead, and the glare from the white rock very trying; between the ledges the little owls stared out on us; the huge grey lizards lifted their tails like race-horses, scampering across the path, or nodding angrily behind a stone with a sort of mimicry of Moslem prayer-attitudes which causes them to be killed by the Mohammedans whenever caught. In the olive-groves the hoopoes were strutting with their crests lifted, on the rocks the gazelles now and then bounded past, or a stray jackal was to be seen gazing from a safe distance. Herds of black long-eared goats, tended by the ragged shepherd boys, roamed over the uncultivated hills; by the springs the little red cattle, scarcely larger than an English calf, were huddled in the shade, flipping off the flies; and processions of blue-robed women came down from the dust-coloured villages to fetch back water.

The slabs of rock were slippery from the smooth feet of the great camels which came swinging along the highway, led by men on diminutive brown donkeys. All was grey and dusty under a sky of lead in the east wind, or deep blue when it came from the west. At the villages the corn was being threshed and winnowed with instruments as old as the time of Abraham, in their peculiarities of form. Palestine was in fact at its worst as far as picturesqueness is concerned; but all was novel and strange, and the interest had scarce time to subside before the fine changes of autumn set in.

On one of our rides we visited the little village of Kuriet Jît, west of Nâblus, in which there was a very high house fitted for a point in the triangulation. It was generally better to choose a mountain-top, as the curiosity of the villagers is often annoying. They were, however, here unaccustomed to travellers, and behaved with the solemn courtesy which used to be distinctive of the peasantry before European vulgarity and European “backsheesh” had spoiled them. They stared hard at the theodolite, which was variously conjectured to be a watch, a compass, a telescope, or a combination of all three. At noon we retired into the room which is kept especially for chance guests in every village. Here we consumed breakfast, the Sheikh and elders sitting opposite to see us feed, and afterwards invited to share the remains with our native followers. The scene in colouring was almost equal to that of Rembrandt’s interiors, the bright light through the little door touching here and there the outlines of the swarthy figures in their mantles of tawny camel’s-hair, striped with darker brown. The Sheikh was glad of our escort back, as he was carrying the taxes to Nâblus. He inquired, as he rode with us, how soon the English were coming to take the country and “build it up again.”

On the 16th of August we left Nâblus and moved the camp northwards to the village of Jeb’a.

The district thus entered is very rich, the villages large and flourishing, with good stone houses in them, and the olives and corn very fine. It is called the “Eastern District of the Jerrâr,” from the name of a famous family of native chiefs, once the governors of all the hills from the Great Plain to Nâblus on the south. The Sheikh of the village at which we camped was one of this family, and we were treated by its members with much courtesy, although this politeness may not have been altogether disinterested.

The village of Jeb’a was on the east of our camp, on a hillside, and well built of stone, with olives around it; on the north we looked across a narrow plain to Remeth of Issachar, and other ancient villages perched on heights; behind us the hills rose suddenly and stretched westwards in the long spur from Mount Ebal. East of Jeb’a stands the strong fortified village of Sânûr, on an isolated hill guarding the pass into a small plain, called the “Drowned Meadow,” which has no natural drainage, and thus becomes a marsh in the winter, drying up only in May or June.

This fortified village has often been supposed identical with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, a place which was near Dothan; but Sânûr does not fulfil one of the main requisites for the site, as it does not command a view of the Plain of Esdraelon. It is curious that the village of Mithilia, a little farther north, has been overlooked, the name of which approaches closely to that of Bethulia, whilst the plain is seen from the ridge near the village.

The head of the house of the Jerrâr lived at Sânûr, his nephew was Sheikh of Jeb’a; the younger members of the family were innumerable, and we were plagued with endless visits from them all. The Jeb’a family invited us to dinner, and we were thus able to witness a phase in peasant life not often seen by Europeans.

About six in the evening a man was sent to the camp to escort us, and we walked through the village to the highest house, that of the Sheikh. The inhabitants are wonderfully fine men, and used to be famous for their feuds with the men of ’Arrâbeh, some miles to the north; they are still redoubtable thieves, but in 1868 the Government came down on them after a riot, killed some thirty or forty, fined the village heavily, and took most of the young men for soldiers. The Sheikh’s house was well built and new; the reception-room, on an upper floor, had a raised daïs, with a low wooden rail, about six inches high, on the step. It was carpeted, and pillows arranged against the walls at the upper end in the corners, where we were requested to sit. The walls were covered with plaster very brown and cracked. A gallery for sleeping was built at the lower end of the room.

The Sheikh now appeared in his white robe, with a yellow silk kufeyeh on his head bound with a black cord; removing his red slippers from his well-washed feet, he stepped on to the daïs, touched our hands and then his own breast, lips, and head, in token of the submissive formula, “On my heart, my mouth, and my head.” The oft-repeated greetings, “How is your health?” “How is your excellency?” “your worship,” “your lordship,” next followed, with repetitions of the former signs, which are, very gracefully executed. The host sat at a distance, or rather knelt, until pressed to come near, when he gradually approached and sunk sideways on one thigh, with his feet carefully hidden. An aged elder followed, and then the son of the host; a third and fourth dropped in, and as each appeared we rose and the same ceremonies were repeated with a dignity and decorum which made one forget for a time that we were dealing with ignorant and degraded peasants.

The Natûr, or village-watchman, and some servants now brought in a round wooden table, about a yard in diameter, on legs some six inches high; it was of rough wood, and folded down the centre. A huge brass basin followed, with a brass ewer having a long spout like a coffee-pot; the Sheikh’s son distributed towels, and we washed our right hands preparatory to eating with them—to eat with the left hand being almost as bad a breach of manners as to show the sole of the foot. A dozen dishes were then brought in succession, taken by the young man from the servants and placed on the board; they contained lentils, tomatoes, and kuzah, a sort of vegetable-marrow, which were stuffed with rice; bowls of sour milk (leben), a delicious sauce to such fare, were placed between, but the centre of the table was still bare, until three huge wooden dishes of rice, piled up in cones, with fragments of boiled meat sticking out, were brought in. The most delicate dish, however, was a kid (as we then thought, but afterwards doubted whether it were not our own little gazelle which was lost soon after) dressed whole, with its head and legs still on.

As we were Europeans, the great innovation of a pewter spoon and fork was allowed, no doubt being considered as a wonderful mark of civilisation by the Sheikh; thin discs of bread, unleavened and very leathery, about a foot in diameter, were scattered on the carpet beside each guest. We were invited to draw near, but had to press our host for some time before he ventured to eat with us; finally he sat down with two more, and the son carved—that is to say, pulled the meat in pieces with his right hand, and made up little parcels wrapped in a funnel of bread for us to eat: the liver and kidneys of the kid were placed inside the ribs and considered great delicacies; the whole fare was tender and good, but rather too oily for European palates, and the want of salt rendered it insipid. No water was placed on the board, but a servant brought it when required in a green glass; as each guest drank, his nearest neighbour turned with a bow and said, “Digestion,” to which the answer is (for every formula has its proper answer), “The Lord increase your digestion,” accompanied by a touching of the head with the hand.

The meal completed we retired to our corners, and the basin was brought again with water and soap—a necessity after using the fingers in eating. Coffee was then handed round, whilst a fresh batch of guests fell upon the feast, and was succeeded by a third, who left but little remaining. The coffee was made clear, as among the Bedawin, which is far more delicious than the thick Turkish coffee usually given to travellers. The guests drank quickly, with a loud sipping sound, the cups being about the size of an egg-cup and only half full, for to fill the cup is an intimation that the host is anxious for you to go soon, as is also the offer of a third cup soon after the second. A narghili or hubble-bubble followed for each of us two, with pipes and cigarettes, and Drake talked, describing England, London, and the railways, while I, naturally, had to sit silent, not as yet knowing the language. The Sheikh supposed we were looking for crosses cut on the ruins, and that we should afterwards claim ownership of all such places—a belief probably originating from the crosses cut on the lintels of every ruined monastery of Crusading and Byzantine times.

About seven p.m. we retired, the host accompanying us to his door. We slipped a coin into the servant’s hands, and afterwards sent a present of gunpowder to the Sheikh.

Some days later we had a repetition of this scene at Sânûr. The host, an unwieldy man in a black cloak, was yet more dignified, and the purple jackets and green waistcoats of the younger men marked them out as great dandies and local grandees. This village was so strong that it once stood several days’ assault by regular troops, and only yielded on being bombarded by the Pacha. An aged elder described seeing a cannon-ball enter a room where cotton was stored, and roll the soft heap round itself. The old Sheikh, once governor of the district, declaimed bitterly against the Turks. “They rob and impoverish me,” he said. “Are my women to carry wood and fetch water? Are my sons to plough the ground?” The Government were following the same policy with the Jerrâr family which has ruined the Zeidanîyin in the north, and the Abu Ghôsh in the south, and has certainly broken the national spirit, while curbing the turbulence of the factions which caused constant local outbreaks between neighbouring villages.

The most remarkable point in the behaviour of these native gentry was the reverence for age shown even by grey-bearded men to those some ten years older. We noticed also that the religious Sheikh of the village sat above our host after the Jeb’a banquet.

On Friday, the 30th of August, we left Jeb’a and moved on to Jenîn.

By noon we reached Dothan, the scene of Joseph’s betrayal by his brethren, and halted under a spreading fig-tree beside a long cactus hedge. Just north of us was the well called Bîr el Hŭfîreh, “Well of the Pit,” and east of us a second, with a water-trough, thus accounting for the name Dothan, “two wells.” Above the wells on the north rises the shapeless mound where the town once stood, and on the west spread the dark brown plain of ’Arrâbeh, across which runs the main Egyptian road—the road by which the armies of Thothmes and Necho came up from the sea-coast, and by which the Midianite merchants went down with their captive. The cattle stood by the well, huddling in the shade, waiting to be watered, and rude cowherds and goatherds gathered around us in groups which were no doubt not far different in dress or language from Joseph’s brethren four thousand years ago.

One place of interest must be noticed in concluding this chapter—Tirzah, once the capital of Israel, famous for its beauty.

It is the only Samaritan town mentioned among the royal cities taken by Joshua, and even this name was changed by the Rabbinical writers into Tiran, a place in Galilee.

Just twelve miles east of our Jeb’a camp, on a plateau where the valleys begin to dip suddenly towards Jordan, stands the mud hamlet of Teiâsîr. We afterwards visited it from the Jordan camp, and found it to have been once a place of importance, judging from the numerous, rock-cut sepulchres burrowing under the houses, the fertile lands and fine olives round, and the monument of good masonry, seemingly a Roman tomb. Just north of it we discovered a ruin called Ibzîk, which is unquestionably a Bezek known to Eusebius, and probably the place where Saul collected his army before attacking the Ammonites (1 Sam. xi. 8).

In the latter ruin is a little chapel dedicated to Neby Hazkîn, “the Prophet Ezekiel,” and the high mountain crowned with thicket behind is called “Ezekiel’s Mountain.”

This name Teiâsîr I suppose to be Tirzah. It contains the exact letters of the Hebrew word, though the two last radicals are interchanged in position, a kind of change not unusual among the peasantry. The beauty of the position and the richness of the plain on the west, the ancient remains, and the old main road to the place from Shechem, seem to agree well with the idea of its having once been a capital; and if I am right in the suggestion, then the old sepulchres are probably, some of them, those of the early kings of Israel before the royal family began to be buried in Samaria.

CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.

OUR new camp was fixed at Jenîn, the ancient Engannim or “Spring of Gardens,” at the southern extremity of the Great Plain, a border city of Galilee according to Josephus, now a picturesque town of three thousand inhabitants, with a bazaar and a mosque, surrounded by groves of olives, through which a little stream finds its way in spring. Our camp was west of the place, and looked out on the white mosque of ’Azz ed Dîn with its minaret, the great threshing-floor with its heaps of yellow grain, the beautiful gardens of palms, oranges, and tamarisks set in cactus hedges, while behind, on the east, was the stony range of Gilboa, on the north the brown plain, the blue Nazareth hills, the volcanic cone of Jebel Dŭhy, and the shoulder of Carmel towards the west.

The Great Plain extends northwards fourteen miles from Jenîn, to Junjâr at the foot of the Nazareth chain, whilst from Jezreel on the east, to Legio on the west, is about nine miles. The elevation is about 200 to 250 feet above the sea, and a Y-shaped double range of hills bounds it east and west, with an average elevation of 1500 feet above the plain. On the north-east are the two detached blocks of Neby Dŭhy and Tabor, and on the north-west a narrow gorge is formed by the river Kishon, which springs from beneath Tabor and collecting the whole drainage of this large basin, passes from the Great Plain to that of Acre. On the east of the plain the broad valley of Jezreel gradually slopes down towards Jordan, and Jezreel itself (the modern Zer’in) stands on the side of Gilboa above it. On the west are the scarcely less famous sites of Legio, Taanach, and Jokneam, while the picturesque conical hill of Dŭhy, just north of the Jezreel valley, has Shunem on its south slope, and Nain and Endor on the north. Thus seven places of interest lie at the foot of the hills east and west, but no important town was ever situate in the plain itself—a flat expanse of arable land, the loose basaltic soil of which is extremely fertile.

The Great Plain was once the favourite resort of the Bedawin when driven by war or famine across Jordan. At times it used to be covered with camels “like the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable.” The Ruwalla (a branch of the great Arab nation called ’Anazeh), the Sukr and other important tribes came over to pasture their camels, and like the Midianites whom Gideon encountered advancing by the same great highway—the valley of Jezreel, they oppressed the native population settled in the villages. Thus in 1870 only about a sixth of the beautiful corn-land was tilled, and the plain was black with Arab “houses of hair.” But the Turks wrought a great and sudden change; they armed their cavalry with the Remington breech-loading rifle, and the Bedawin disappeared as though by magic. It was of course to be expected that when external troubles had weakened the Government, the lawless nomads would again encroach and levy toll and tribute as before; for the history of Palestine seems constantly to repeat itself from the earliest period recorded, in a recurring struggle between the settled population and the nomads, Midianites, Shasu, Bedawin, or whatever other name you may call them; thus during the year 1877 Fendi el Faiz and the Sukr again invaded the plain and levied black-mail on the luckless peasantry. In 1872 no less than nine-tenths of the plain was cultivated, nearly half with corn, the rest with millet, sesame, cotton, tobacco, and the castor-oil plant. The springs on the west are copious; from near Legio a considerable affluent flows north to join the Kishon, and even in August the streams are running to waste at the foot of the hills. The Great Plain is indeed one of the richest natural fields of cultivation in Palestine—perhaps one might say in the world.

The night came down on our newly-erected camp before even a hasty glance could be obtained of all this interesting scenery. There is something peculiarly soothing in the Syrian starlight; the planets are brighter than in the north, the milky way looks like a long white cloud, the moon, as she rises, is often accompanied by a silvery vapour floating over the mountain-tops. The silence is broken by the sigh of the night wind among the olives which form a black lattice-work overhead. In the village at intervals one hears the barking of the troops of savage dogs, and in the open plain the shrill gamut of the jackals, rising note by note, and ending in a sort of shake or quavering sound. The cicalas are asleep, but the piping of the black mole-crickets continues all night. Occasionally a horse wakes with a snort, or the English terriers hear a strange step and give the short sharp warning bark, so different from the mongrel howls of the native dogs; then once more all is still but the wind, and the silence becomes almost oppressive.

The Great Plain was the place chosen for the measurement of our second base to check the accuracy of the triangulation carried up some sixty miles from its starting-point in the Jaffa plain. On the 2nd of September we laid out the line for a distance of four and a half miles, directing it on the white dome of Neby S’ain above Nazareth, and thus obtaining a prolongation for calculation of nearly six miles. The high hills east and west gave us a second line of fifteen miles almost at right angles, and from this, large well-shaped triangles were carried away to the north. The check was perfectly satisfactory, and the closing line, when calculated in 1876 at Southampton, had a margin of only twenty feet, which is an invisible distance on the one inch scale.

One of our trigonometrical stations was placed on a high hill above the smaller plain of ’Arrâbeh in which Dothan stands just south-west of the Great Plain. Here there is a chapel dedicated to Sheikh Shibleh, a famous Emir who in 1697 waylaid the traveller Maundrell. This writer remarks drily that after extorting black-mail, “he eased us in a very courteous manner of some of our coats, which now began to grow not only superfluous but burdensome.” The Emir died, and was canonised, and his tomb looks down from the stony hill-top on the scene of his former prowess; but he is not the only sainted bandit in the Syrian pantheon.

In returning from this ride we passed through the little Christian village of Burkîn, where we were hailed with a pleasure very different from the hollow courtesy of the Moslem natives. The old Khûri or curé hastened down to show us his church on the hillside, a small whitewashed room, with a stone screen on the east shutting off the apses, as in all Greek churches in the country, and with three entrances guarded by curtains. The silver plate and ewer were kept in the north apse, the altar stood in the central one; the church was very rudely built, about fifty feet square, with a dome some twenty feet high. Two stone lecterns held the books near the screen, and a stone chair on the south side had arms with rude dogs’ heads carved on them. The pictures were all painted on wood in a stiff pre-Raffaelite style, with gaudy colouring dimmed by age. One represented the ascent of Elijah in a chariot with a red cloud beneath, and four winged horses harnessed to it, with traces looking like white tapes attached to the spokes of the wheels. Elisha below receives the mantle, and is again represented as at a greater distance striking Jordan with it, whilst a group of sons of the prophets stand like a shock of corn in a square block with gilded glories on their heads. Other pictures represented St. George, the Virgin, the Baptist with red wings and a title in Russian and Arabic characters, St. Nicholas, and the Saviour enthroned.