distrust of Christianity, Greek or Latin ; though the love
that the opposing Churches bear to each other is certainly more after the manner of St. Jerome than in imitation of the Fotmder of the common faith.
As Bethlehem shows us the beginning of the Gospel story, Bethany is connected chiefly with its end. The actual place of the Ascension was somewhere near it, but authorities differ greatly as to the exact spot. I remember standing on the gallery of the minaret of the dervishes' monastery on the top of the Mount of Olives, and looking down on a long train of Coptic women crowding into the little chapel which covers the traditional place, while our dragoman pointed out to us a round, green hill covered with stones in the neighbourhood of Bethany as the situation selected by the latest explorers. It is all more or less guesswork, of course, though St. Luke's account is clear enough as to the distance from Jerusalem, and the irAditional place on the Mount of Olives can hardly be received as possible. There is little to see in Bethany itself either but those eternal traditional sites. Yet there is one of those which is unutterably touching, for which not tradition only, but the words of the Gospel and the evidence of the situation vouch, —that corner of the road at the turn of the hill where our Lord, on his last journey into Jerusalem, first caught sight of the city, and, in the midst of the praises and rejoicings which accompanied His last progress, burst forth into that saddest outbreak of divine regret and compassion, "If thou hadst known !" Terribly solemn words, even to read ; a lament to be echoed for ages by those whose eyes are opened in a new world to their fearful mistaking. For ourselves, strengthened by preceding centuries of belief, we are inclined, with a con- sciousness of our feeble insight into what is really good or bad, to thank God that we were not born in the days when the faith of man was tested by so awful a trial.
Our way to Jericho takes us past most of these spots, and between the villages of Bethany and Bethphage, an interesting commencement to a toilsome and monotonous journey. The greater part of it lies through a succession of barren, sun- beaten wadies, the very sight of which gives one an anticipatory sense of weariness. The only relief to the monotony is afforded by meeting with our old friends the Russian pilgrims, trudging sturdily back from a pilgrimage to the Jordan, with bundles of reeds gathered on its banks in their bands. Merely to see them fling themselves down in utter weariness by the Apostles' Fountain, is sufficient to tell one what a real pilgrimage is, with real hardships quietly borne as necessary incidents in such a journey, and a real purpose to carry them through it all. It is a pleasure to meet these honest, simple Russians, with their plain, genuine devotion. In a few days we shall see them starting off for Jaffa, with their faces turned homewards at last, and that journey they have looked forward to with so many hopes and doubts at least half over : one or two of the luckiest have managed to hire donkeys, but the rest trudge along with an air of perfect contentment and pride in the treasures they are bringing home,—the reeds from the Jordan, the tapers that have been lit with the Holy Fire, and the long tin cylinders containing the sacred pictures that have been laid upon the Holy Sepulchre. As we meet them now, the quiet patience of their faces rather shames us from grumbling at the road, which is in course of making, and has been so for a consider- able time. At the present rate of progression, we calculate that it should be finished towards the close of the twenty-second century, and even then it is doubtful whether it would be safe for a carriage. We come to the end of it at last, however, and after struggling down a long and steep descent we emerge from the wilderness into a pleasant land of grass and water. We have found some relief already from the heat and iniclity of the surroundings in the cool murmur of the brook Cherith, many hundred feet below the road we were travelling On; but the sudden plunge into this valley is none the less delightful. A beautiful and rich country truly, and better watered than perhaps any spot I have seen in Palestine, but not a prosperous one ; the fields are scantily cultivated, and great tracts of good land are turned to no use whatever. Nor can we blame the natives for the lack of enterprise which fails to utilise the great resources of their country. With a jealous, exacting Government on the one aide, and lawless tribes of predatory Bedouins on the other, the native cultivator finds himself in a manner between the devil and the deep sea, and we can hardly require him to expend capital and labour, if
neither he nor his can count upon reaping the fruits. But it is a sad sight to see all this rich land going to waste.
Of Jericho itself there is very little to be seen. It is a place whose annals have been very full and troubled, and has under- gone many ups and downs of glory and degradation since it was first laid low by Joshua. There is but a handful of rude huts now to mark the place of it, and the only vestiges of its former grandeur are the great stones that once formed part of some palace or temple now built into the wall of a miserable Arab hovel. There is much that is interesting in the neigh- bourhood for those who have time, and strength and health to endure a stay in that furnace of a valley. We have only time to disagree with all opinions of the landscape that we ever met with, to admire the beautiful deep blue of the much maligned Dead Sea,—so strangely described as dismal and gloomy,—and to grumble at the turbid yellow waters of the Jordan, and the illusion of shade offered by the scanty foliage of the tamarisk trees on its banks ; and so turn our faces towards Jerusalem again, to greet the sight of the Holy City this time with a genuine joy at the end of the long, wearisome journey.
Previous page
