LI. JERUSALEM. JERUSALEM, March 8, 1868. THE road from Jaffa (Joppa) to Jerusalem, about thirtyfive miles, lies as far as Ramleh through the rich plain of Sharon, which in this early spring-time is green with beautiful slopes covered with barley and wheat, and sprinkled with gorgeous flowers. The fertility and even the cultivation of this district surprise us. The agriculture is rude and wasteful, but it makes the country smile at least a sad smile, and relieves the general melancholy that prevails in this desolated region. The Turkish Government is engaged in making a road practicable for carriages between Joppa and Jerusalem. Already a great deal of ill-directed labor has been expended upon it. But on the plain, especially, no important improvement has yet been made upon the rude and wretched way, just passable for loaded animals, which for centuries has connected the sea-port at Joppa with the capital on the mountains. Palestine is a land of rocks, and plain and mountain are covered with loose stones to an almost incredible extent. The highways (if the worse than Indian trails deserve that name) are paved with these loose stones, on which the mules and horses tread with a courage and security which are admirable. They seldom or never stumble, and not one in our company has fallen with his rider, although several of the mules have gone down with their loads, sometimes in quags of mud, and VOL. II.-M. sometimes in the midst of rapid and sandy-bottomed streams. It is no wonder that stoning should have been so common a form of capital punishment in this country, for the instruments always lay at the foot of every man. There is, I remember, a town in the West called Rockville, from the circumstance that a single rock of perhaps half a ton's weight is found in the territory. Here a rod of surface without a rock would be as good a reason for naming a town the Stoneless. About twelve miles from Jaffa we reached Ramleh, which some have supposed to be the ancient Arimathea, and the home of Nicodemus. It appears, however, to be of Moslem origin, and has no well-founded Scriptural traditions connected with it. Richard Cœur de Leon made it his head-quarters during the Crusades, and it remained in Christian hands for more than a century, from 1099 to 1266, when it fell back into Moslem hands, and still remains there. Besides a Moslem population of two thousand, it has in it about a thousand Christians, chiefly Greeks. The Latin convent, where travelers usually find accommodations, was founded by a French duke in 1240. Bonaparte slept there just before the siege of Acre. We visited some very extensive ruins about a mile from the village. Here must have been a large khan, wholly of stone, with enormous subterranean vaults not less than forty feet deep, and extending several hundred feet across and beneath the vast square, around which were built arched chambers for guests in a double row. A noble tower of Saracenic architecture of the most solid character still lifts its head over this ruin, and from the top, reached by a fine staircase, a superb view of the plain of Sharon is commanded. The ancient Lydda lies in view about four miles off to the left, where Peter cured the paralytic (Acts ix. 32-39). The Crusaders built a church here in the middle of the twelfth century in honor of England's patron saint, St. Hills of Benjamin. 267 George, whom they asserted was born and buried here. The ruins of it are still fine. HILLS OF BENJAMIN. We lunched in the ruins of the old khan, and then took up our journey toward the hills of Benjamin, at the foot of which we proposed to plant our camp for the night. We rode at least two miles up into the bleak hills before we could find a place level enough, dry enough, and bare enough of stone, to pitch our tents on. The hills about us, spotted as thickly with white stones as they once were with flocks and cattle, presented a barren and repulsive aspect. The old terraces, where the vine was once cultivated, were traceable in many places. The hardy olive, with venerable trunk, lent a pensive coloring to a few spots. The ruins of several villages, pitched upon bleak hill-tops, were around us, and the ancient habits of the people, seeking security in spots most easily protected, are still visible in the modern customs of the land. The route from our camp to Jerusalem-about fifteen miles distance-lay directly and steadily up for two thousand feet over a region of barren and almost hopeless bleakness and ruggedness. There was neither variety nor sublimity in the scene. The hills are too uniform in their shape and proportions for one, and not high enough for the other. A more unattractive and featureless region, if one excepts the desert itself, can not be met with. It is only the associations of this place that make it tolerable. But they are enough to keep the eye and the mind stretched to the utmost. Gibeon and Mizpah and Bethel, though not distinguishable, we knew were not ten miles on the north of our route. "Little Benjamin" held the chief passes between the rival tribes of Judah and Ephraim, and furnished the house of David with its most warlike and jealous foes. Saul, Shemei, and Sheba were Benjamites, and did their great feats of prowess in this immediate neighborhood. Near here, too, Joshua stopped the sun to look upon his victory over the King of Southern Palestine, when he came up from Gilgal to help the men of Gibeon; and up and down the heights of Beth-horon they were driven with a slaughter that never slacked, while hailstones slew even more than the sword (Judges iv. 15; v. 20; 1 Sam. vii. 10). The valley of Ajalon runs from the plain of Sharon up into the hills, toward Beth-horon, and a glorious moon to-night is shining upon its corn-fields, such as once stood still to behold the dismay of the Canaanites who rushed terror-stricken down toward the sea. The Romans . advanced up this pass to Gibeon, through which the route from their colonial capital at Cæsarea to Jerusalem lay, and were repulsed at their first assault under Cestius, as Josephus tells us. The Crusaders experienced the same fate on the same ground ages afterward. APPROACH TO JERUSALEM. We passed in full view of Neby-Samwil, where Moslem tradition places the tomb of Samuel, and which Stanley thinks to be "the great high place" near Gibeon to which the tabernacle was brought after the destruction of its seat at Nob or Olivet, and where it remained until Solomon took it to Jerusalem. There is no more fit or commanding height in all the region around Jerusalem. As we approached Jerusalem the mountains seemed to form a kind of level of successive waves, so that the ridges (which run from east to west) permit no view over each other, and shut out from this direction any prospect of the Holy City until within a mile of its gates. Even then, on that side, the walls are so low and the view so level that the first sight of the city is disappointing, specially because none of the pop . Approach to Jerusalem. 269 ular representations of it are taken from that direction, which is the least artistic in its attractions. The showy modern character of the vast Russian hospice, and the fresh elegance of the Prussian school for the daughters of Zion, thrust themselves so conspicuously into the foreground of the view that nobody having his choice should approach Jerusalem first from this quarter. Of course we stopped our horses the moment Jerusalem, in the direction of which our eyes had been strained for an hour, came in sight; but it was rather in obedience to duty and from reverence for so sacred a spot, than because it commanded our attention by its picturesque or favored position. It was only after seeing it from Mount Olivet, and from its own walls, especially from the tower of David -the present useless citadel—that we realized the peculiarity of its position and the wonderful beauty of its situation, and particularly the grand site of its old Temple, now marked by the Mosque of Omar. The walls of Jerusalem are still perfect, dating only from 1523. They are of very unequal height, resting commonly upon rock which is bare for many feet above the surface of the ground. For a few courses in different parts, they are composed of the stones of previous walls, many of which, from their size and from bearing the Jewish bevel, are supposed to date back even to Solomon's time. Stones of from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length and three to four in height are not uncommon; but there has been some exaggeration as to the magnitude of these stones in the tales of travelers. After the stones of Egypt they are not very noteworthy. The walls on the two sides of the city overhang deep ravines, the vale of Jehoshaphat, in which is the dry bed of the brook Kedron, being the nearest and most marked, because it lies between Jerusalem and Mount Olivet. This mountain forms the most conspicuous object looking from the city, as well as the centre |