viii. 11), and on that account he brought up the daughter of Pharaoh

out of the City of David (which is Zion, 1 Kings viii. 1), unto the house that he had built for her. The ark never went back to Shiloh after Eli sent it away. The tabernacle, however, appears to have remained there for some time, and so Shiloh remained sacred in some degree.

Soon, however, even the tabernacle would appear to have been removed from Shiloh, for although we have no direct mention of its removal, we seem to find it in other places. Samuel, the successor of Eli, judged the people, and on important occasions called the solemn assembly and offered sacrifices. He was accustomed to do this at three different places, which in his day were revered as sacred. One of these was Gilgal, rendered sacred by the first resting of the ark: and although the ark and tabernacle had been removed, and sanctity was to be transferred along with them, yet it is not easy to obliterate the sanctity of a place from the tradition and practice of the people. Another of these three places was Bethel, where Jacob had seen his vision of the ladder with angels ascending and descending, and had been constrained to say, “This is the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” The third place at which Samuel called assemblies and offered sacrifices was not Shiloh, as we might suppose it would be, but one of the many places called Mizpeh. We do not know where this Mizpeh was. Conder is inclined to identify it with _Neby Samwil_--the Mount of the Prophet Samuel, a conspicuous conical hill, 4 or 5 miles north of Jerusalem; and as Mizpeh means a watch-tower, there is plausibility in this suggestion. We do not know whether the tabernacle was pitched at either of these three places in Samuel’s day: we do not know why Samuel should be content to regard three different places as holy; but it is not altogether impossible that the tabernacle was carried from one meeting-place to another, and made each one holy in turn.

A little later we seem to find the tabernacle nearer to Jerusalem. When David is fleeing from King Saul, and taking the road from Rama in Benjamin to Gath in the land of the Philistines, he comes to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and is permitted to eat the shewbread (the holy bread exhibited before the Lord in the sanctuary), and to carry off the sword of Goliath, which had been laid up as a trophy. So here we have the priests, the shewbread, and the tabernacle at Nob. As to the locality of Nob, Dean Stanley follows Mr Thrupp in fixing it on the northern summit of the Mount of Olives, and Mr Thrupp reminds us that David brought the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, before the city itself was captured (1 Sam. xvii. 54). David, in fleeing from Rama to Gath, could hardly find a shorter or more convenient route than that which took him past Jerusalem.

This position for Nob is confirmed by Isaiah’s graphic and detailed description of the advance of the Assyrian invader (Isaiah x. 28):--

He comes to Ai, passes through Migron, At Michmash deposits his baggage; They cross the pass, Geba is our night station: Terrified is Ramah, Gibeah of Saul flees. Shriek with thy voice, daughter of Gallim; Listen, O Laish! Ah! poor Anathoth! Madmeneh escapes, dwellers in Gebim take flight. Yet this day he halts at Nob: He shakes his hand against the mount, daughter of Sion, The hill of Jerusalem.

“In this passage” (says Sir Charles Wilson), “if it has a meaning--and I cannot suppose that it has not--the prophet describes, in such detail that it is difficult to believe he is not describing an actual event, the march of an Assyrian army upon Jerusalem; and we may be quite certain that, with his knowledge of the country, and writing as he did for those who were equally well acquainted with it, he would describe a line of march, which, under certain conditions, an army would naturally follow if its special object were the capture of Jerusalem. The conditions to which I allude are the passage of the great ravine at Michmash, and encampment for the night at Geba; why this route was selected in preference to the easier road along the line of water-parting we have no means of ascertaining, and it does not affect the question.”

“Of the places mentioned by Isaiah, we know, with a considerable degree of certainty, the positions of Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Gibeah, and Anathoth; of the others nothing is known. From Geba to Nob was evidently a day’s march in the progress of the army; and the order in which the villages are mentioned leads us in the direction of Jerusalem. If, as I believe, the passage means that the Assyrian warrior was leading an army from Geba against Jerusalem, and that his progress was suddenly arrested at Nob, we must seek a site for Nob on the road between these two places, and I cannot imagine a more natural one than some place in the vicinity of that Scopus whence, in later years, Titus and his legions looked down upon the Holy City.”

Doeg, the Edomite, who happened to be present when Ahimelech gave David the sword, informed Saul, and Saul, who was mad with suspicion, slew all the priests and utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Nob. But even after the destruction of the sanctuary by his violence the sanctity of the summit of Olivet was still respected. It was necessary, however, to remove the tabernacle from the scene of so much bloodshed, and perhaps it was immediately removed to the high-place of Gibeon, where we find it in the early part of Solomon’s reign.

The state of things at the beginning of the reign of Solomon is described in 1 Kings iii.--“The people sacrificed in the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place.” We learn from 2 Chron. i. that at Gibeon was the Tent of Meeting (the tabernacle) which Moses had made in the wilderness. Moreover, the brazen altar made by the inspired artist in the wilderness was there before the tabernacle, and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it.

Thus far, then, we have at least half a dozen sacred places, venerated in turn, and more or less acknowledged simultaneously,--namely, Gilgal, Bethel, Shiloh, Mizpeh, Nob, and Gibeon. To these we must add Zion, to which David brought the ark, setting it up in the tent which he had prepared for it, though _the_ tent, time-honoured and sacred, was at Gibeon (2 Sam. vi. 17; 1 Chron. i. 4-6).

The ark, however, did not remain in “the city of David, which is Zion;” for when the temple was built upon Mount Moriah, the ark was brought up into the oracle of the house, with much sacrificing of sheep and oxen, and the Tent of Meeting was brought along with it (1 Kings viii.). Mount Moriah was now God’s holy mountain, and it was intended to concentrate all public worship at the Temple. Even previously it had been the law that the high places of the heathen should be discarded, and irresponsible sacrifice in the open field should be discountenanced, and that every man who had sacrifices to offer should bring them to the tabernacle, wherever the tabernacle might be located at the time (Levit. xvii. 1-6; Deut. xii. 1-6). So, now that the permanent temple had superseded the wandering tent, it was ordered, of course, that all sacrifices and public worship should take place on Mount Moriah. “For in my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them, serve Me in the land: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things” (Ezek. xx. 40).

Nevertheless, during the years of David’s reign, and until the temple was built, the ark resting on Zion conferred sanctity on that mountain. Psalms of David, and others written at that time, would of course make reference to Zion and not yet to Moriah.

“In Salem also is his tabernacle, And his dwelling-place in Zion.” Psalm lxxvi. 2.

And even after the ark had been carried up to the Temple, Mount Zion would retain its sanctity by tradition; or perhaps the name Zion would be extended so as to include Moriah, as they may in truth be related as the slope and the summit of the same hill.[19]

His foundation is in the holy mountains,

“The Lord loveth the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob.” Psalm lxxxvii. 1.

So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. (Joel iii. 17 and Zech. viii. 3).

Human nature would not be what it is if theory and practice always went hand in hand. Laws may be good, but universal obedience to them cannot always be secured. Solomon himself, who had built the temple, and by bringing the Tent of Meeting into it, had disestablished Gibeon, set the example, in his later years, of recognising afresh other high places and the gods of the heathen. Having married “women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites,” besides the daughter of Pharaoh, he doubtless thought it only an enlightened toleration to let them worship in their own way, and as a logical consequence he supplied them with the means, and perhaps occasionally accompanied them to their respective places of worship. “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,” and “did build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods” (1 Kings xi.).

We see in this passage that the site selected as the high place for Chemosh was on the Mount of Olives--perhaps the place where Nob had stood, a site which had the tradition of sanctity already.

Many later kings imitated Solomon, and declined to regard Jehovah as the only God, or the holy mountain at Jerusalem as the only high place possessing sanctity. It was hardly to be expected that the people should be more faithful than their kings; and the after history furnishes many examples of lapses into heathen worship, and periodical reforms attempted by such kings as Josiah and Hezekiah. It was not convenient for the more distant tribes north of Esdraelon or east of Jordan to come up to Jerusalem to worship. Added to this consideration there was the local shrine, and time-honoured tradition in its favour. Just as in our own country Ripon cathedral is built over St Wilfrid’s Saxon church, and St Paul’s cathedral on the site of a heathen temple, so on the part of the Israelites there was a disposition to keep to the old spots. What wonder if there was, besides, a frequent adherence to the old forms of worship?

The tribes east of Jordan worshipped eastern gods--Peor, Chemosh, Milcom. Gad worshipped the god of Fortune (Isaiah lxv. 11), and was named after that deity. Josephus spells the name of Reuben as _Reubel_ (Ρουβελος), and Bel was one of the eastern gods. Manasseh had a sanctuary in the city of Golan. From the east of Jordan came Jephthah, who made a rash vow like a heathen, and kept it, although it involved human sacrifice.

Beyond Esdraelon we have Kadesh Naphtali, a heathen sanctuary adopted by the Israelites as a city of refuge, but apparently without any entire suppression of the original worship. The place is now called _Kedes_, and among the ruins found by the explorers are those of a temple with a figure of an eagle on the lintel, besides richly executed scroll-work of vine-leaves, bunches of grapes, a stag, and a bust (possibly of Baal). There were also places called Beth-shemesh (House of the Sun) scattered up and down the country.

At the disruption of the kingdom, Jeroboam, fearing that his subjects would be attracted to the religious festivals at Jerusalem, established two other centres. One of these was Bethel, convenient for the southern part of his kingdom, and sacred already, because there Abram had builded an altar, and Jacob had seen his vision, and Samuel had called solemn assemblies. The other was Dan, convenient for the northern part of his kingdom, and sacred again, already, for here, in the time of the Judges some colonists from the tribe of Dan had set up a graven image and established a priesthood. Besides, it was probably a sanctuary of the Phœnician inhabitants whom the Danites displaced; and, as we have seen in a previous chapter, the heathen god Pan came to be worshipped here. Thus we see that Jeroboam selected religious centres which combined traditional sanctity with geographical convenience.

When the tribes of the northern kingdom were carried into captivity, and the Assyrian conquerors brought people from Babylon, from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 24), the foreigners, or the mixed population which sprung up, fixed upon Mount Gerizim as their sacred high place. But Mount Gerizim already possessed a traditional sanctity, for the ark and tabernacle had accompanied Joshua to Shechem; the tribes had assembled on the twin mountains to hear the reading of the Law; and in earlier time Abram had builded an altar hereabout, the first altar to Jehovah in all the Holy Land.

Thus there were many high places in Palestine, and there was much disputing as to which should have the pre-eminence, the jealousy reaching its height in the later centuries in the rival claims of Gerizim and Jerusalem. No final solution was possible excepting that which Jesus Christ gave to the woman of Samaria. “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John iv. 23). Local centres lose their special sanctity because “every place is holy ground.” The Temple at Jerusalem might be destroyed--probably soon would be--but within a marvellously short period the spiritual temple would take form. For such true teaching Jesus Christ was crucified and Stephen stoned.

* * * * *

It was a matter of much interest to Major Conder to find out if possible where the mountain of the scape-goat was situated. According to the Law of Moses the scape-goat was led to the wilderness, and there set free. “This was not, however, the practice of the later Jews. A scape-goat had once come back to Jerusalem, and the omen was thought so bad that the ordinary custom was modified, to prevent the recurrence of such a calamity. The man who led the goat arrived at a high mountain called Sook, and there was at this place a rolling slope, down which he pushed the unhappy animal, which was shattered to atoms in the fall.” The district where this was done was called Hidoodim, and the high mountain Sook. Sook was 6½ English miles from Jerusalem, as reckoned by the ten tabernacles which divided the messenger’s path into stages of 2000 cubits. Conder identifies the place in the neighbourhood of the convent of St Saba. At the required distance from Jerusalem is the great hill of _El Muntâr_, the highest point of a ridge of mountains running north and south. The rest of the ridge is called _El Hadeidûn_; and beside the ancient road from Jerusalem is a well called _Sûk_. From this high ridge the victim was yearly rolled down into the narrow valley beneath, at the entrance of the great desert, which first unfolded itself before the eyes of the messenger as he gained the summit half a mile beyond the well of Sûk.

[_Authorities and Sources_:--Colonel Warren, Colonel Wilson, &c., in the _Quarterly Statements_, P. E. Fund. “Tent Work in Palestine.” Major Conder. “Sinai and Palestine.” Dean Stanley.]

10. _The Method of the Survey, and Incidents of the Work._

At the commencement of the Triangulation Survey a base line was measured, near Ramleh, on the Jaffa plain, and this was afterwards checked by a second line measured on the Plain of Esdraelon. The method of work employed is described by Major Conder, both in his “Tent Work” and in his volume called “Palestine.” The camp, consisting of three or four tents, was pitched in some convenient central position, by a town or village. Thence the surveyors were able to ride 8 or 10 miles all round, and first visited a few of the highest hill-tops. As each was found satisfactory, or one near it preferred, they built great cairns of stones, 8 or 10 feet high, and whitewashed them to make them more conspicuous. This work took about five days. When the points were chosen, five more days were consumed in revisiting them with the theodolite, which travelled in its box bound to the back of a mule, the muleteer perched behind it; and with it went the saddle bags, holding lunch, the chisel and hammer for cutting the broad arrow on the summits of the hills, the hatchet for hewing down trees and copses. From two to four hours were spent at each point, fixing the position of every prominent object, tree, village, white dome or minaret visible within 10 miles. “The names were collected” (says Conder) “from the peasant who accompanied the party, and as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, we slowly wound down the hill-side, a rough-looking cavalcade, preceded by our Bashi-bazouk in his red boots, armed to the teeth, and followed by the non-commissioned officers, who had become well accustomed to their stout little Syrian ponies, whilst the pack-mule and guide came last. We all wore revolvers and the native head-dress, the Bedawin _Kufeyeh_ or shawl, a sure protection from sun-stroke and substitute for an umbrella. Our appearance was therefore an extraordinary compound of European and Bedawin, which is often, however, assumed by the Turkish officials in travelling, and thus attracted less attention.”

The theodolite work over, and the fixed points laid down, the filling in of the detail followed. The two non-commissioned officers divided the work between them, and Major Conder took alternate days with each, to enable him to do the hill sketching and examine the geology. In open country they found the daily riding pleasant, but when the hills were precipitous and the valleys deep and stony, the labour was very severe. Starting at eight, resting at noon, returning at sunset, and sleeping immediately after dinner, the days sped by with wonderful rapidity, and the Survey spread gradually over the country.

The old cultivation was traced by the wine-presses, olive-presses, ruined terraces, and rude garden watch-towers. Ancient sites were recognised by their tombs, cisterns, and rocky scarps. In seeking to identify sites the greatest care was exercised: it was laid down that the site must show traces of antiquity; it must be known to the natives under its original name, or a modification of that name; its position must suit the known accounts of the place; and the measured distances must lend confirmation.

The new map was to include every object that has a name, and the name itself was to be correctly given. But here was a difficulty. How are names to be accurately ascertained in Palestine? The natives are perverse, or they suspect you of designs against their country, and they purposely mislead you. On the other hand, they are obliging, and if you express a hope that you have found a Scripture site, which you name, they will confirm your impression that it is so. Or it may be that you yourself are deficient in Arabic, and after being at the greatest pains to inquire the name of a site, find that the name you have noted down signifies “a heap of stones.” A story is told of a European traveller who asked his guide the name of a place, and received the reply--_Mabarafsh_. Carefully marking it on the sketch-map of his route, he by-and-bye inquired concerning a second site which he did not recognise, and received the same reply--_Mabarafsh!_ Of course it is possible that names should be repeated, as in England we have several Newports, Nortons, and Hamptons; but _Mabarafsh_ actually means, “I don’t know!” A wise suggestion was made that travellers and surveyors should always get the sheikh of the village to write down the name correctly in Arabic; but, unfortunately, only one sheikh in ten can write at all, and he cannot spell correctly.

The plan adopted by the Survey party was one which guarded as far as possible against all mistakes. It is described by Major Conder in “Tent Work,” where he speaks as follows of his inquiries in the neighbourhood of Hebron. “My party now consisted of three non-commissioned officers; and Lieutenant Kitchener was expected to join me in about a month. We had with us eleven natives, including Habib the head man, a scribe, a second valet, two grooms, the cook (a villain who only sat and watched his boy cooking), two muleteers, and two Bashi-bazouks; the party was thus at its full strength composed of only sixteen persons, with nine horses and seven mules.... By night a guard was provided by the sheikh of the village. Four guides were hired, who received a shilling a day, a mule to ride, and breakfast. The information which they gave the Surveyors was written down from their mouths by the scribe, an intelligent young Damascene recommended by Mr Wright. Thus correctness, both of pronunciation and of locality, was ensured, and the names were checked by every means in our power. Besides obtaining names from the local guides, inquiry was made of peasants, and generally of several peasants separately. No leading questions were put, nor were either guides or peasants allowed to suppose that one name would be more acceptable than another. Such was the daily routine. The parties left by eight a.m. and returned by five p.m.; dinner was at sunset, and from about eight to eleven, or even until midnight, I studied, after the day’s work, the topography of the district. This labour was not unrewarded, for one might easily have passed over many places of interest had one not known the points to which Mr Grove and other scholars required special attention to be directed.”

Fortunately in Palestine the ancient names retain their hold very tenaciously, and reassert themselves after all the efforts of conquerors to displace them. Thus the town of Bethshan (or Bethshean) which in Greek and Roman times became Scythopolis, is to-day again known to the natives as _Beisan_. _Tell-el-Kadi_, at the foot of Mount Hermon, signifies in Arabic the “heap of the Judge;” but in Hebrew the word for judge is _Dan_, and this is the mound of Dan, the northern extremity of the land whose length was measured “from Dan to Beersheba.” Shiloh is now called _Seilun_, and no site is more certain. Almost every important site retains its Biblical name. The pretentious titles, Eleutheropolis, Nicopolis, &c., have quite vanished, and the old native names of these cities, _Beth Gubrin_, _Emmaus_, &c., are those by which they are now again known. An important exception, however, is _Nablous_ (corrupted from Neapolis) for the ancient Shechem--a change which may perhaps be traced to Jewish hatred of the name of Shechem.

Tradition also is valuable as confirming the identification of sites, although it might be insufficient if it stood alone. In the case of Jacob’s Well, near Nablous (Shechem), the Hebrew and Samaritan traditions, the Mohammedan and Christian traditions, all agree. There is agreement also about the grotto at Bethlehem, under the Church of the Nativity, as the place of Christ’s birth. There can be no question that the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought for a burial place, is that which is now covered by the great mosque at Hebron. And here again we have that valuable consent of traditions--Jewish, Christian, and Moslem--which seems to distinguish the true sites from those less genuine concerning which two or more discordant traditions have arisen. The Prince of Wales, Dean Stanley, and a few other Europeans have been admitted into the mosque; but it seems very doubtful if any living being has ever descended into the mysterious cavern beneath the floor since the Moslem conquest of Palestine. The surrounding wall of the mosque is also one of the mysteries of Palestine, and a monument inferior only to the Temple Enclosure at Jerusalem, which it resembles in style.

The Temple Area at Jerusalem is still a sanctuary; and the Tower of Antonia maintains its military character in the present Turkish barracks. In Palestine we find a Mohammedan mosque where a Christian church used to be--and built from the same materials. The church in its time had followed a Jewish synagogue. Throughout the country for thousands of years the people have gone on living in the same way and in the same place, and calling the places by the same names. The name of almost every village is Hebrew, and each stands on the great dust-heap into which the ancient buildings have crumbled. The Hebrew names are retained, and are scarcely changed since the days of Abraham, because the peasantry are really Semitic in descent.

In those parts of the country which are seldom visited by Europeans the natives were much astonished to see the Survey party at work. At one place called _Baka_ (in the Sharon district) the great gig umbrella over the theodolite attracted much attention, and the chief delight to elderly men was a peep through the theodolite telescope. “What do you see, O father?” cried the less fortunate who crowded round the observer. “I see Hammad and his cows, two hours off, as if he were close here!” replied the delighted elder.

It was a common notion that the English intended to take the country, the Survey being only preparatory to that step. The land was being parcelled out, and cairns erected on the high mountains where the chief men would build their houses. The surveyors were looking for crosses cut on the ruins, and intended to claim ownership of all such places. Most of the peasantry believed they were seeking for hid treasure, which by incantation would be wafted to England. Sometimes they dug for gold under the cairns; often they pulled them down, and had in consequence to be imprisoned. A shepherd saw the party levelling, and had a vague idea they were making a railway, “Will you let the sea into Jordan?” he asked, “or will the steamships go on wheels?” “The best idea” (says Conder) “was that we were sent by the Sultan to see what villages had become ruinous, and to remit their taxes. We were favourites then!”

The work of the Survey was not carried out without frequent discomforts. For instance, the Bukei’a plain is good corn land, “but seems to have a bad natural drainage, and our mules floundered in deep bogs, sometimes up to their girths. Farther north we began to descend a long valley, and came on a different kind of country, a basaltic outbreak appeared, and cliffs tilted in every direction; the valley bed was strewn with fragments of hard basalt. Passing over a bare ridge we descended into a most desolate valley where a muddy stream was flowing. We had ridden 15 miles, and it now began to rain again. We found to our dismay that this was where we had to camp, as no other supply of water existed in a position central to the new work. We soon made a still more unpleasant discovery. The valley was full of clear springs, but they were all tepid and salt. If the Survey was to be done at all, it appeared that we should have to drink brackish water for ten days or more. Here, then, we sat down on the wet grass, in a driving drizzle of rain, by the brackish stream: not a soul was to be seen, either Bedawi or peasant, and it was evident that food would have to be brought from a distance. The mules soon arrived with our tents and beds, which though soaked with rain, we set up on the bare ground. Of course all the party were cross, and thought themselves injured. I had a very bad cold and rheumatism, and Habib had tic-douloureux. The Arabs looked wretched; but I was glad they should have their share of the hardships, for, unlike our Abu Nuseir friends at Jericho, they were the most lazy and good-for-nothing tribe we had come across.”

Again, at the miserable little hamlet of _El B’aineh_--between Lake Tiberias and the Mediterranean--they found the inhabitants all fever-stricken from the malarious exhalations of the great swamp, which even as late as July extended over half the plain. The place was evidently unhealthy, and they were tortured by armies of huge mosquitoes, rendering sleep impossible at night. Attacks of fever were frequent. “Once or twice” (says Conder) “the fit came on while I was riding, and I can imagine nothing more disagreeable than to be 10 miles from home on a rough road, with a fever headache.”

One night the Sukr Arabs tried to steal the horses, but the big dog gave a sharp bark, and the thieves were seen and fired on just as they reached the tethering rope. In another place, when the dog had been left behind, a thief came into the tents, ripped up the saddle-bag containing the provisions and took them all with him, besides the tin washing-basin, and the plates, bread, chickens, and barley from the servants’ tents--all being noiselessly and neatly accomplished in about ten minutes. The next morning the party were without food.

But there were worse things than these to endure. In the district of David’s wanderings Corporal Brophy was attacked by four cowherds, who abused him as a “pig,” and threatened to stone him. He had, indeed, some difficulty in escaping. “The first really serious attack on the party” (says Conder), “though not the last nor the worst, was made near Mount Carmel. Sergeant Black was quietly surveying near the village of _El Harithiyeh_, where, as it appeared afterwards in evidence, a fete or ‘fantasia’ was being held. The young men were firing at a mark, and one or more turning at right angles, deliberately fired at the sergeant on the neighbouring hill. He must have been in no little danger, as he brought home two bullets which had fallen near him.”

On the 10th July 1875 a very serious attack was made upon the whole party, and it is a marvel that any of them escaped with their lives. Fatigued with a long and arduous march, and a final ascent of 2000 feet, they chose a camping ground north of _Safed_, a town which lies in a saddle of the high mountains of Upper Galilee and looks down on the lake. The tents were about half way up when Major Conder, resting on his bed, in shirt-sleeves and slippers, heard angry voices in altercation. Looking out, he saw to his astonishment a sheikh, evidently a man of good position, engaged in throwing stones at Habib, who, with his hands spread out, was calling the bystanders to witness the treatment he underwent. Conder advanced to demand an explanation; but the sheikh, who was mad with passion, strode up to him, seized him by the throat and shook him, meantime pouring out unintelligible words. Major Conder had been accustomed to be treated with respect, even by the highest officials in the country; and he felt that if he submitted to this insult he would lose his influence with the natives for ever, so he knocked the man down. He got up and returned to the attack, with one arm behind him. Conder knocked him down a second time, and as he fell observed in his hand a knife with a blade a foot long. Conder’s party consisted of five Europeans and ten Maronites, and when the latter heard news of the insult received by their “Kabtân,” they came running up, quite beside themselves, and soon seized the sheikh, took his knife away, and bound his arms behind his back. The sheikh cried out, “Where are my people?” and the Moslem bystanders began to throw stones. Conder’s servants were running to the tents for arms, for they had eight revolvers ready for use, besides three shotguns and a rifle. Their “captain,” however, was wiser; he had the sheikh immediately released, and sent Habib at once to the Governor of the town. But the crowd presently numbered about three hundred, and all the more violent engaged in hurling stones. Lieutenant Kitchener was struck more than once, and a muleteer was knocked over. The cries which Christians in Palestine have good reason to dread, associated as they are with memories of bloodshed, were now raised by the mob--“Allah! Allah!” and “Din! Din! Mohammed!” the cry of the Damascus massacres. Presently a number of fully-armed men came running down the hill-side, all relatives and retainers of the sheikh, who indeed, it afterwards appeared, was no less a person than ’Aly Agha ’Allân, a near relative of ’Abd el Kâder himself. “I advanced at once” (says Conder) “to meet these assailants, and singled out two men, one a white-bearded elder with a battle-axe, the other a tall man with a club. They addressed me with many curses, and the old man thrust the battle-axe against my ribs; but it was a wonderful instance of the influence which a European may always possess over Arabs, that they allowed me to take them by the arms and turn them round, and that on my telling them to go home, with a slight push in that direction, they actually retreated some little way. Meantime a most extraordinary figure appeared--a black man with pistols in his belt, brandishing a scimitar over his head, and bellowing like a bull. He was the Agha’s slave, and bent on revenge; seeing him so near, and seeing also a gun pointed at my head, I retreated to the tents. I could not help laughing, even at so serious a juncture, when I found myself supported by Sergeant Armstrong, who stood at ‘the charge’ armed with the legs of the camera-obscura! I now saw that Lieutenant Kitchener was opposing another group to my right front, and went forward to him, when I was greeted with a blow on the forehead from a club with nails in it, which brought the blood in a stream down my face. The man who wielded it raised it once more, in order to bring it down on the top of my skull, but luckily I was too quick for him, and ducked my head close to his chest. The blow fell short upon my neck, but even then it stunned me for the moment, and I staggered.”

All the party were wounded, and as they were averse to using fire-arms, they at last “bolted over thistles and stone-walls to a hill-side some hundred yards away, and stood there in suspense and anxiety.” They were much surprised to hear no more the cries of the crowd; but soon learned that the Governor had sent a body of soldiers, and they were safe, at least for the moment. They returned to camp, and held their ground for the night, in spite of the threat of ’Aly Agha that he would come back and cut their throats. Next morning they marched out in good order, with four mounted guards, and made for the coast. Arriving at Acre they laid the affair before the Pacha, and telegraphed to Constantinople; for it would have been unsafe to attempt to continue their work until the assailants had been punished. Such was the attack at Safed. It was due to the insolence of one man, accustomed to overbear and bully the few Christians who pass through the town, and to the fanaticism of the Moslem population.

The strain upon the Europeans had been too much for health. Excitement, fatigue, pain, and anxiety, added to malarious poison imbibed in the swamps, brought on a severe attack of fever. For twenty-four hours Major Conder was not expected to recover. Lieutenant Kitchener also soon succumbed, and the rest followed. They lay in their beds in the Carmel convent, and Sergeant Armstrong nursed them. Truly, as Conder remarks, the Survey of Palestine was no holiday work.

The Committee who organized the Survey and the officers who carried it out deserve our gratitude, for they have conferred a lasting benefit upon Palestine travellers and upon all students of the Bible. We have now a map by which a traveller can find his way. Dr Robinson and other explorers of that day used to describe the position of a place by saying it was two hours east from the last, and then one and a quarter hours north-west; but we now have exact distances. We have a map which helps us to understand Bible narratives of personal journeys or the march of armies. We can now see which route _must_ have been followed; we can pursue step by step the Scripture events. We are certain now that the Bible could not have been written in any other country under heaven.

Before the Survey the Sea of Galilee was variously computed as being from 300 feet to 600 feet below the Mediterranean: it is now fixed at 682. The courses of the affluents of the Jordan are found to be entirely different from those previously shown. Only four fords of the Jordan were known and marked on the maps, whereas we now have more than forty. Villages have had to be transferred from one side to the other of the great boundary valleys. Scores and scores of Scripture sites, wrongly placed or altogether lost, have been found and fixed. And the finding of the sites has enabled the surveyors to trace accurately the boundaries of tribes and provinces. How was it possible to understand the Bible history unless we knew the situation of towns, the boundaries of tribes, the fords and passes and valleys which were open to foreign invaders? How could we understand it unless we knew the routes of wayfarers and the way of commerce? These things have now at last been ascertained, and with accuracy. When the base line which was measured on the Jaffa plain was checked by a line measured on the plain of Esdraelon, it was found to be perfectly satisfactory; and the closing line when calculated in 1876 at Southampton had a margin of only 20 feet, which is an invisible distance on the one inch scale. It may be claimed for the Survey that the new discoveries are almost as numerous as all those of former travellers put together; and nothing so great has been done for the right understanding of the Old and New Testaments since the translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue.

[_Authorities and Sources (Western Palestine)_:--“Survey Memoirs of Palestine Exploration Fund.” “Tent Work in Palestine.” By Major Conder. “Palestine in its Physical Aspects.” Rev. Canon Tristram. “Sinai and Palestine.” By Dean Stanley. “Twenty-One Years’ Work in the Holy Land.” Published by the P. E. Fund. “Memoir on the Geology.” Dr Ed. Hull. “Mount Seir.” Dr Ed. Hull. “Introduction to the Survey.” Trelawney Saunders. “Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund.” Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.” “_Rob Roy_ on the Jordan.” John Macgregor.]

11. _The East of Jordan._

It would be well if the topographical survey could be extended so as to cover all the ground occupied by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. It is true indeed that the East of Jordan is less intimately bound up with the Scripture narrative than the West, yet still there are ninety-six places east of Jordan mentioned in the Bible--Dr Selah Merrill estimates that there are two hundred and forty--and it would be an advantage to have them all identified. On the east side, also, the country is much more thickly strewn with ruins than on the west; and although the so-called “giant cities” of Bashan may not deserve that name, yet is the region full of Roman towns, of Nabathean and Arab texts scrawled on the rocks, of Greek temples and Greek inscriptions, and of dolmen groups yet older.

In the absence of detailed trigonometrical survey of the whole region, the map published by the Palestine Exploration Society in 1890 is the best that could be compiled from all sources. The sources available were--Van de Velde’s map as a general basis; the route maps of later travellers; the work of the American Palestine Exploration Society as reported in their “Statements;” Major Conder’s survey of 500 square miles in the land of Moab in 1881 and 1882; and lastly, surveys made by Herr Schumacher in the Hauran and the Janlan.

_Bashan_: the territory of the half tribe of Manasseh. As an illustration of the abundance of the ancient remains east of Jordan, Dr Selah Merrill, the archæologist of the American Exploring Expedition, says that every one who has visited _Kanawat_ is amazed at the number and variety of the ruined buildings, castles, temples, churches, convents, theatre, bath, palaces, reservoirs, underground apartments or vaults, costly tombs, and still others which have never been fully examined. Dr J. L. Porter found here what he calls a colossal head of Astarte, sadly broken ... with the crescent moon (which gave to this goddess the name _Karnaim_ or two-horned) still on her brow. Mr Tyrwhitt Drake secured a stone at this place which was thought to be part of an altar, upon two opposite sides of which were the features of Baal and Astarte, boldly cut in high relief upon the closest basalt, with foliage, showing the artistic hand.

One’s first impression is that all the antiquities are of Roman times and date only from the early centuries of the Christian era. This is indicated not only by the style of architecture but by the considerable number of inscriptions, which form an almost continuous chain from the first century to the fourth. They belong to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Aurelius Verus, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, &c.

These Roman cities became converted to the religion of Christ, and then not only were the sanctuaries of paganism transformed into Christian sanctuaries, but new churches were erected adapted to the new worship; houses, palaces, and tombs were built; even entire cities were founded. At length all these Christian cities were abandoned at the same time--probably at the epoch of the Mohammedan invasion--and since then they have not been touched. Except that earthquakes have thrown to the ground many of the walls and columns, they lack only beams and planks, or they would be perfect edifices, which soon might be made habitable again.

But how intensely interesting the exploration of the district becomes when we learn that underneath these towns of Roman date are the dwellings of the earlier inhabitants! For example, _Burak_ is a city of the Hauran which has been identified with the episcopal city Constantia, founded, it is supposed, or at least embellished, by Constantine. But Rev. W. Wright tells us that while the houses seem to stand on a mound of black earth, they are in reality built on the foundations of houses of a more remote antiquity. In one place he descended to a depth of 16 or 18 feet, to see some pottery which had lately been discovered, and he found the walls at that depth formed of enormous undressed and unsquared stones, unlike the stones of the superstructure, which are small in size and have been better prepared for the walls. “Nor will it be doubted” (he says) “that beneath that raised mound are buried the remains of one of the ‘three-score cities’ that once existed in Bashan, and which still exist under changed circumstances, sometimes under different names.”

At another place, called _Dra’a_, Dr S. Merrill desired to explore the underground caves or chambers which were known to exist, and the sheikh sent his son as a guide. They went through several chambers, galleries, and avenues, and then entered a small room, and followed a passage leading out of it that had been cut in the solid rock. Soon they were obliged to go on their hands and knees, and after proceeding about thirty yards the guide came upon a human skeleton, at which he was so shocked that he refused to go any farther, and the party were obliged to return. How the skeleton came there was a mystery: some wild beast may have dragged a body to the place, or a murder may have been committed, or some person may have been trying to explore the caverns and failed to find his way out. _Dra’a_ ought to be a rich field for excavations, because at least three cities exist there, one beneath another. The present Arab buildings and heaps of filth are, for the most part, on the top of a Greek or Roman city, as is evident from the walls which are exposed in a multitude of places, and the masons’ marks which appear on them. And the Roman town appears to rest on one still older, in which bevelled stones were used. But whether there are two or three cities above ground, there is certainly a large one beneath them, entirely excavated in the rock on which the upper cities stand.

The underground dwellings at this place had been visited some years before by Dr J. G. Wetzstein, and he also was prevented from making a thorough exploration; for when his attendant’s light went out he was so impressed with a sense of the danger they would be in if both lights went out together, that he thought it prudent to retreat. But he had seen a good deal. After passing a difficult passage he found himself in a broad street which had dwellings on both sides of it, and whose height and width left nothing to be desired. Farther along there were several cross streets, and soon after they came to a market-place, with numerous shops in the walls, exactly in the style of the shops that are seen in Syrian cities. After a while they turned into a side street, where a great hall attracted his attention, the roof formed of a single slab of jasper, and supported by four pillars. Dr Wetzstein speaks of this remarkable place as “old Edrei, the subterranean labyrinthine residence of King Og.”

Herr Schumacher has also visited this underground city of _Dra’a_ or _Ed Der’aah_, and describes it, giving plans, in his work, “Across the Jordan.” He regards such cities as the work of the earliest inhabitants of Hauran, the so-called giants of Scripture. He was assured by the sheikh Naif, and by many others, that this underground city extends below the whole of _Ed Der’aah_.

Although the chambers and passages were ventilated, the question arises, why any people should choose to live in such gloomy seclusion instead of in the light of day? Mr Schumacher’s conjecture is that they did ordinarily live in the daylight, and that these subterranean places were hollowed out in order to receive the population in time of danger. They were thus prepared to stand a siege, as long as their magazines were filled with food, their stables with cattle, and their cisterns with water. If, however, the enemy had found out how to cut off their supply of air, by covering up the air-holes, the besieged would have been compelled to surrender or perish. Another circumstance also might have proved disastrous--if armies of wasps found their way into the underground city the inhabitants would be driven out. Some writers think that this occurrence is actually spoken of in Exodus xxiii. 28--“And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee;” and Deut. vii. 20--“Moreover the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee”--_they that are left, and hide themselves_!

Herr Schumacher and Mr Laurence Oliphant find many names and traditions which lead them to regard the country of Western Hauran as probably the land of Uz. “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job” (Job i.). The old village of _Sheikh Sa’ad_ is a spot which from the most ancient times has been held sacred to the memory of Job (_Neby Ayyub_). We find there the ruins of the Monastery of Job (_Deir Ayyub_), much venerated by the ancient people of the Hauran. At the south-eastern extremity of the long low hill upon which the village is built, and elevated about 40 feet above the surrounding plain, is the “Rock of Job,” which stands now in a mosque. Here, so says the legend, Job sat when he was leprous, and received his friends. The rock is a monolith of basalt, 7 feet high and about 4 feet broad, and on its surface are some illegible letters. There may be no truth in the legend; but it serves to show how closely the name of Job is associated with this region.

About half a day’s journey due east from Bethshan is a place called _Mahneh_, which several writers, on account of the similarity of name, have been inclined to identify with Mahanaim, where Jacob met the two companies of angels, and where David sojourned during Absalom’s rebellion. A mound exists here, and Dr Tristram picked up some pieces of old pottery, scattered about, so that it might be worth while to excavate: but we must look elsewhere for Mahanaim.

Mahanaim must have been some little distance north of the Jabbok, because Jacob came to it before he crossed that stream. It must have been in or near the Jordan Valley, for Jacob, in his prayer at that place, says, “With my staff I passed over this Jordan,” language which would not have been used if the Jordan were not within sight. The city was assigned to one of Solomon’s commissariat officers (1 Kings iv. 14), from which we may infer that it represented a district. These conditions appear to point to _Khurbet Suleikhat_, a large ruined city at the mouth of _Wady Suleikhat_, 9 miles north of the Jabbok. If we fix Mahanaim here we can understand why the name is in the dual form--the two Mahans or camps--for the ruins lie on both sides of the stream which here runs down the _Wady Suleikhat_ into the Jordan. _Khurbet Suleikhat_ is some 300 feet above the plain, and among the foot-hills, in such a way that it overlooks the valley, while the road running north and south along the valley passes nearly a mile to the west of it. A watchman from a tower could see to the north a considerable distance, also clear across the valley to the west, and down the valley to the south a long stretch, nearly or quite to the point where the Jabbok and the Jordan unite, at the foot of _Kurn Surtabeh_.

We can now understand the account of the messengers who bore the news of Absalom’s death to David. The battle between Joab and Absalom took place a little to the south-east of Mahanaim. Josephus says that Joab “put his army in battle array over against the enemy in the great plain where he had a wood behind him” (Antiq. vii. 9, 8, and 10, 1-5). Absalom’s men were routed, and fled through the forests and valleys, pursued by David’s men. The battle was scattered over the face of all the country (2 Sam. xviii. 8), and probably extended to the foot-hills. The two messengers appear to start from some point on the hills, where Joab stood on vantage ground. “The Cushite,” an Ethiopian slave of Joab’s, attempted to go across over deep wadies and broken ground; but Ahimaaz, who knew the country better, struck down to the Jordan Valley, and ran by the way of the Plain (the _Kikkar_) where he had a level and smooth road all the rest of the way. Consequently, although he started second, he arrived first. David sat between the two gates at Mahanaim, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate unto the wall, whence he descried the messengers approaching.

Succoth also was a city east of Jordan, for Jacob came to it before he crossed the Jordan from the east, and Gideon passed it after he had crossed the Jordan from the west (Judges vii. 4). From the account of Jacob’s return it would seem to be at no great distance from Mahanaim. But notwithstanding that Jacob had crossed the Jabbok southward before he met Esau, and journeyed to Succoth after parting with Esau, there is reason for placing Succoth north of the Jabbok. Jacob recrossed the stream. The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that Succoth, one of the cities “in the valley,” came to be called Darala; and just north of the Jabbok we find _Deir ’Alla_, one of the most conspicuous mounds or _tells_ in the plain, 60 feet high, and covered with broken pottery of many colours and qualities. The site was mapped by Warren in 1868.

The word Succoth means “tents,” and perhaps the place was named from the tents of the Arabs so constantly seen there. The region about the mouth of the Jabbok is fertile, with abundant grass and water, and is very much frequented now by the powerful desert tribes for the purpose of pasturing their flocks and herds. When Gideon, who crossed the Jordan near _Beisan_, had followed the Midianites down the valley to Succoth, it is said that “he went up by the way of them that dwell in tents,” apparently some well-known route leading up the Jabbok Valley to the eastern deserts.

A fair interpretation of the circumstances leads to the conclusion that Penuel was not far east of Succoth. It was a fortified city, for it had a tower, which Gideon threatened to break down; and was regarded by Jeroboam as an outpost, useful in the defence of Shechem (1 Kings xii. 25). Dr Merrill finds that there is but one suitable site for it, and that is at the mounds called the “Hills of Gold,” about 4 miles east of Jordan, in the valley of the Jabbok. The mounds are very striking objects; they are covered with ruins, and on the eastern side are the remains of an ancient castle. The work is not Moslem, Christian, or Roman; the stones are unhewn blocks, and appear to date from a remote period.

A large district east and south-east of the Sea of Galilee was called Decapolis, or the region of the Ten Cities. The name occurs frequently in Josephus and other writers, and three times in the Gospels. Immediately after the conquest of Syria by the Romans (B.C. 65), ten cities appear to have been rebuilt, partially colonised, and endowed with peculiar privileges. One of the cities was Scythopolis, west of the Jordan; the others included Gadara, Geraza, Philadelphia, Pella, &c., all on the east. The region, once so populous and prosperous, is now almost without inhabitants; and the few families that do remain--in Scythopolis, Gadara, and Canatha--live amid the crumbling ruins of palaces, and in the cavernous recesses of old tombs.

Herr Schumacher has explored Abila of the Decapolis (now _Tell Abil_), and Gadara (at _Umm Keis_), and Pella (_Fahil_).

Pella--situated just opposite _Beisan_, on the other side of the Ghor--is the city to which the Christian believers fled when Titus advanced to besiege Jerusalem. Epiphanius says that “they removed because they had been forewarned by Christ himself of the approaching siege.” Seventy years later (A.D. 135) when Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman city, and changed its name to Ælia, the Christians again left it and sought refuge in this elegant city of Pella in the Jordan valley. Dr Merrill is inclined to think that Christ himself had been in Pella (for we know that he visited Perea), and met with such favour and success as to make the city a fitting asylum for his followers. Herr Schumacher, after describing a rock-cut chamber of rectangular shape, having a ceiling cut in the shape of a cross vault, with two pillars on the southern and northern walls, says, “It may be accepted as beyond doubt that we have here a cave, once inhabited by those Christian anchorites, who, in the beginning of the Christian era and during the Jewish wars, found a refuge at Pella. The flooring consisting of earth and remains of charcoal, as well as the plan of the whole, has no sepulchral character, but rather that of a habitation; the passages being used to secure air and afford a way of escape in case of persecution, for these small caves, if their door entrance was carefully shut, were hardly visible from below, and the passage still less. The entire northern slope is honeycombed with such caves.”

The wonder is that Pella should ever have been forsaken, it is so favoured in position. Even after the long summer drought, the springs gushing out among the broken columns and ruins of former splendour are abundant enough to make fertile all the neighbouring land, which, situated on the upper level of the Ghor, and 250 feet below the sea, enjoys, perhaps, the finest climate, from an agricultural point of view, that can be found in Syria.

The capital of Perea was Gadara, a city mentioned in the Gospel narrative of the demoniac who had his dwelling among the tombs. The population of _Umm Keis_ may be about two hundred souls, and the people cultivate tobacco, vegetables, and grain. Below the ground occupied by the present village, many caves and ancient burial places have been discovered. The ruins include a Roman theatre and what may be the remains of a castle.

_Gilead._--The boundary of the tribe of Gad was some few miles north of the Jabbok, for the territory included Mahanaim; while on the south it extended to the Arnon. The region had belonged to the Ammonites; and it was long before they were driven out, for even after Saul was anointed King of Israel, Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh Gilead and sought to lay a hard condition of surrender upon the Israelites there (1 Sam. xi.). This district is the land of Gilead or “Mount Gilead” of the Bible. It is a good land for cattle, and would be prized by agricultural people in any part of the world. “It is not to be wondered at,” says Dr Merrill, “that the two and a half tribes were perfectly willing to stay on the east of Jordan. Judea has no land to compare with it; neither has Samaria, except in very limited portions. The surface of the country is slightly rolling, but the fields are broad and comparatively free from stone. Here common Arab trails broaden out into fine roads. Here are rich pasture lands and luxuriant fields of wheat and barley, and the ignorant Bedouin who own the soil point with pride to the green acres that are spread out beneath the sun.”

_Amman_, called in the Bible Rabbath Ammon (Deut. iii. 11; 2 Sam. xi. 1, &c.), was the chief city of the children of Ammon fifteen hundred years before Christ. Here the bedstead of Og, the king of Bashan, was taken by Joab, David’s general (2 Sam. xi. xii.), and Uriah the Hittite was killed in one of the sorties. Rabbath Ammon was rebuilt by Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, and its name changed to Philadelphia. Again it was destroyed by the Saracens when they conquered Syria. The stream of the Jabbok ran right through Rabbath Ammon, and it was called the “City of Waters.” It was after Joab had taken the City of Waters that he sent to David and suggested that he should come and capture the citadel himself, lest all the glory should go to his servant.

Major Conder regards _Amman_ as the most important ruin surveyed in Palestine, as regards its antiquarian interest, and the best specimen of a Roman town that he visited, except the still more wonderful ruins of Gerasa, which yield only to Baalbec and Palmyra among Syrian capitals of the second century of our era. The Roman remains include two theatres, baths, a street of columns, and remains of what was once a very great temple on the highest part of the acropolis of the city. Several noble families must have lived in the town, as shown by the magnificent private tombs surrounding the city.

But the oldest remains visible at _Amman_ are the dolmens, of which, with other rude stone monuments, there are some twenty in all. Next to these come the old rock-cut tombs, which Conder supposes to be of the early Hebrew period. But who knows whether there be not a buried city underneath _Amman_? The whole region south of _Amman_, and also north and west of it, abounds in ruins.

_Moab._--The country south of Gilead was given to the tribe of Reuben. It was the land of the Moabites, and a land where Moabite kings continued to reign, notwithstanding the rights of Reuben. From this land came Ruth, to dwell at Bethlehem with Naomi, to marry Boaz, and be held in memory by-and-bye as the ancestress of David. Perhaps it was on account of Ruth that David found the king of Moab willing to give safe asylum to his aged parents, while he himself braved the dangers of the outlaw’s life (1 Sam. xxii. 3). Yet the time came when David fought against the Moabites and conquered them, treating the captives with a severity which makes us suspect that there had been some act of perfidy or insult. It has been conjectured that the king of Moab betrayed the trust which David reposed in him, and either killed Jesse and his wife or surrendered them to Saul. We do not know.

The strong fortress of Moab was Kir-Haraseth, or Kir-Hareseth, or Kir-Heres (2 Kings iii. 25; Isaiah xvi. 7, 11); and it was on the walls of this city that King Mesha offered his son for a burnt-offering, and by the moral effect thus produced turned the tide of battle. We have reasonable ground for identifying Kir-Heres with the modern _Kerak_, near the south-eastern part of the Dead Sea. The allied armies marched round the southern end of the Dead Sea to reach it, instead of crossing the Jordan. “No chain of evidence,” says Dr Tristram, “can be less open to cavil than that which identifies Kerak with Kir-Moab (Isaiah xv. 1) or Kir-Hareseth. It was the castle ‘Kir,’ as distinguished from the metropolis ‘Ar’ of the country, _i.e._, Rabbath Moab, the modern _Rabba_.” The Targum translates the name as “Kerakah.” The Crusaders mistook it for Petra, and gave to its bishop that title, which the Greek Church has still retained, but the name in the vernacular has continued unchanged. No wonder, as we look down from the neighbouring heights upon it, that the combined armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom could not take it, and that “in Kir-Haraseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the archers went about it and smote it,” but to no purpose.

The position is so strong by nature that it would be seized upon as a fortress from the very earliest times. The platform on which the city is built is on a lofty brow, which pushes out like a peninsula and is only connected with other ground by a narrow neck. Two deep _wadies_ flank it north and south, with steeply scarped or else rugged sides. There have been originally only two entrances to Kerak, and both of them through tunnels in the side of the cliff, emerging on the platform of the town.

Another town--reckoned to Reuben in an ancient fragment of poetry, but rebuilt by Gad (Num. xxi. 30, xxxii. 34,)--was Dibon. It is now identified with _Dhiban_, on the Roman road, about 3 miles north of the Arnon, a spot where there are extensive ruins. It is described by Dr Tristram as being quite as dreary and featureless a ruin as any other of the Moabite desolate heaps. “With its waterless plain,” he says, “the prophecy is fulfilled--‘Thou daughter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst; for the spoiler of Moab shall come upon thee, and he shall destroy thy strongholds’ (Jer. xlviii. 18). The place is full of cisterns, caverns, vaulted underground storehouses, and rude semicircular arches. All the hills about are limestone, and there is no trace of any basalt but what has been brought here by man. Still there are many basaltic blocks among the ruins, dressed to be used in masonry.”

It was among these ruins that the famous Moabite Stone was found in the year 1868. It is a block of basalt measuring about 3½ feet by 2 feet, and has upon its face thirty-four lines of writing in the character known as Phœnician. As the language also is Phœnician--or probably Moabite, though closely related to Phœnician, and certainly closely related to Hebrew--there would have been no great difficulty in reading the inscription; but, unfortunately, when the Arabs found that the stone was valued by Europeans, they quarrelled about the possession of it and broke it up. About two-thirds of the fragments, however, were recovered and pieced together; besides which, a “squeeze” of the whole had been hurriedly taken before it was broken, and from this it was possible to fill in some of the gaps. The restored monument is now preserved in the Louvre at Paris, and a plaster cast is to be seen in the British Museum. The inscription shows that the monument was set up by Mesha, king of Moab (nearly nine hundred years before Christ), to record victories which he had gained and public works which he had accomplished. It would appear that after the allied armies retired from the siege of Kir-Haraseth, the fortune of war changed and went in Mesha’s favour. The translation of the inscription is as follows:--

“I, Mesha, am the son of Chemosh-Gad, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And I erected this stone to Chemosh at Korcha, a (stone of) salvation, for he saved me from all despoilers, and made me see my desire upon all my enemies, even upon Omri, king of Israel. Now they afflicted Moab many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days (Chemosh) said, (Let us go) and I will see my desire on him and his house, and I will destroy Israel with an everlasting destruction. Now Omri took the land of Medeba, and (the enemy) occupied it in (his days and in) the days of his son, forty years. And Chemosh (had mercy) on it in my days; and I fortified Baal-Meon, and made therein the tank, and I fortified Kiriathaim. For the men of Gad dwelt in the land of (Atar)oth from of old, and the king (of) Israel fortified for himself Ataroth, and I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the wall for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab; and I removed from it all the spoil, and (offered) it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed therein the men of Siran and the men of Mochrath. And Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. (And I) went in the night, and I fought against it from the break of dawn till noon, and I took it, and slew in all seven thousand (men, but I did not kill) the women (and) maidens, for (I) devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh, and I took from it the vessels of Yahveh, and offered them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel fortified Jahaz and occupied it, when he made war against me; and Chemosh drove him out before (me, and) I took from Moab two hundred men, all its poor, and placed them in Jahaz, and took it to annex it to Dibon. I built Korcha, the wall of the forest, and the wall of the city, and I built the gates thereof, and I built the towers thereof, and I built the palace, and I made the prisons for the criminals within the walls. And there was no cistern in the wall at Korcha, and I said to all the people, Make for yourselves, every man, a cistern in his house. And I dug the ditch for Korcha by means of the (captive) men of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the road across the Arnon. I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built Bezer, for it was cut (down) by the armed men of Dibon, for all Dibon was now loyal; and I reigned from Bikran, which I added to my land, and I built (Beth-Gamul) and Beth Diblathaim and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I placed there the poor (people) of the land. And as to Horonaim, (the men of Edom) dwelt therein (from of old). And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and take (it. And I assaulted it, and I took it, and) Chemosh (restored it) in my days. Wherefore I made ... year ... and I ...”

In 1881 Major Conder, aided by Lieutenant Mantell, was sent out to begin the systematic survey of Eastern Palestine. The country at that time was very much disturbed; but the party crossed the Jordan into Moab, and for two anxious months laboured at very high pressure. After measuring a base-line and connecting their triangulation with that west of the river, they worked over 500 square miles in detail. And even after attention was drawn to their presence they were able to extend their work over a considerable area, and they came back from the desert with their hands full of valuable results.

One of the most remarkable discoveries was the abundance of menhirs, dolmens, and stone-circles. They are numbered by hundreds, whereas in Judea and Samaria there are none, and in Galilee only half a dozen. Dr Merrill and Herr Schumacher found them abundant also in the Jaulan and the rest of the Hauran. According to Herr Schumacher, an examination of many specimens in Eastern Jaulan makes it apparent (1) that the dolmens are always built on circular terraces, which elevate them about 3 feet above the ground; (2) that in most cases they are formed by six upright and two covering slabs; (3) that the major axes of the dolmens all run east and west; (4) that the western end of the dolmens is broader than the eastern; (5) that the western end is often distinguished by headings, one on each corner of the top slab; and (6) that they vary in size from 7 to 13 feet in length. He finds it difficult to avoid the conclusion that these dolmens were built originally as burial places. The covered chamber, elevated above the ground, and shut in by slabs, was the first beginning of a sarcophagus; and the body was laid facing the rising sun, with its head in the west. On the other hand Major Conder, who finds in Moab many rude stone monuments of a different kind, bids us remember that stones may be placed on end for more than one purpose. After examining seven hundred examples in Moab and Gilead, he has come to the conclusion that the sepulchral theory is often quite untenable, though we cannot deny that bodies were buried in such stone chambers sometimes. In many cases in Moab it was certain that no mound of earth had ever covered the stones; there was nothing but hard rock to be found, and sometimes the structure was not large enough to cover even the body of a child. We must turn to local superstitions in order fully to understand the use of trilithons and dolmens. Wild as are the legends, they preserve, in Conder’s opinion, what was once the religion of the dolmen-building tribes. After making measured drawings of about a hundred and fifty dolmens in Moab, it seemed to him that the purpose of the builders was to produce a flat table-like surface, which they perhaps used as an altar. True that the dolmens are often more numerous in a confined area than we should expect altars to be, but we must not forget the story of Balaam and Balak, in which seven altars are built on the same mountain top, and again seven more on a neighbouring mountain top. Then, as to the absence of such monuments in Judea and Samaria, Conder suggests that they may very probably have once existed, and may have been purposely destroyed. Israel was commanded to “smash” the _menhirs_ of the Canaanites, to “upset” their altars, and to destroy their images. These commands Josiah, the zealous king of Judah, is recorded to have carried into practice.

Who built these structures? They are very likely the surviving work of Canaanite tribes. Herr Schumacher assigns those of the Hauran to the same period as the subterranean cities.

There is a curious archæological note in Deuteronomy, which speaks of the bedstead of Og, the king of Bashan, a bedstead 9 cubits long by 4 cubits wide. The passage had very much exercised the ingenuity of commentators, and some of them supposed it to refer to a sarcophagus of basalt. The Bible indeed speaks of a bedstead of iron; but basalt is a material which resembles iron in appearance, and which is actually known by the name of iron among the Arabs, while a stone coffin might allowably be spoken of as a bed or bedstead. But Conder says there is no basalt at Rabbath, and thinks it doubtful if Og was likely to be buried in a sarcophagus at all. He is disposed to render the words as Og’s _strong throne_, instead of “iron bedstead.” A memory of Irish dolmens suggested to him a possible connection between Og’s throne and some rude stone monument which tradition might have indicated as a giant’s seat, just as in Ireland dolmens are the “beds of Grain and Diarmed,” and connected with legends of giants. It was, therefore, very striking to find a single enormous dolmen standing alone in a conspicuous position near Rabbath Ammon, and yet more striking that the top stone measured 13 feet (or very nearly 9 cubits of 16 inches) by 11 feet in extreme breadth.

If we look for a coffin or a bedstead rather than a dolmen, it is very striking to find that parallels exist both for bedsteads and coffins of the same gigantic dimensions. Dr Erasmus Wilson, describing the coffins and mummies found at _Deir-el-Bahari_, says that, “the coffin of Queen Nefertari is gigantic in stature, measuring with its feathered crest 13 feet long. It is made of cloth-board and modelled into the shape of a statue, resembling, with arms crossed upon the chest, one of those architectural columns which are denominated Caryatides.” Still more remarkable is the bedstead of the Babylonian god Bel, described by Mr George Smith in his account of the “Temple of Bel.” After some description of the principal buildings, he says, “In these western chambers stood the couch of the god, and the throne of gold mentioned by Herodotus, besides other furniture of great value. The couch is stated to have been 9 cubits long and 4 cubits broad (15 feet by 6 feet 8 inches).” These are exactly the dimensions assigned to Og’s bedstead.

Before leaving Moab it was Major Conder’s privilege to stand where Moses stood, and view the landscape on all sides. There can be no doubt about the identification of Mount Nebo. It was ascertained by Canon Tristram; it has been confirmed by Conder, who finds the field of Zophim close by; and Sir Charles Warren discovered the ruins of the ancient city of Nebo at its foot. Moreover, it retains the name _Neba_, and from the summit you obtain the celebrated “Pisgah view” (Deut. xxxiv. 1-3). Naphtali, Gilead, Ephraim, and Manasseh, Judah, and the Negeb, or “dry land” south of Hebron, are all in sight, with the plains of Jericho “unto Zoar.” But, according to Conder, the Mediterranean Sea is not visible from Nebo, being hidden throughout by the western watershed of Judea and Samaria. Dr Tristram says, in his “Land of Moab,” “Carmel could be recognised, but we never were able to make out the sea to the north of it; and though it is certainly possible that it might be seen from this elevation, I could not satisfy myself that I saw more than the haze over the plain of Esdraelon.” But even if the waters of the “great sea” in the Bay of Haifa could be seen distinctly from Mount Nebo, the fact would hardly be relevant, for Deut. xxxiv. points rather to the sea south of Joppa. It is sufficient, however, that from no other summit can you get so extensive a prospect as from Mount Nebo.

Conder’s work was abruptly stopped. Even when the party went out in 1881 there was great excitement in the East. A Moslem Messiah was expected to appear in the year 1300 of the Hegira, and the war in Egypt was brewing. The British Government had served Conder with a notice that any expedition he might take out would be at his own risk, and they could not be responsible for the consequences. After fifteen months, during which the work was carried on at great risks, the Sultan heard that English captains were surveying the land, and sent orders for them to cease. In the same year Mr Rassam’s researches in Mesopotamia were stopped. Finally, Conder and his party left Syria on a steamer crowded with refugees from the Alexandria massacres.

[_Authorities and Sources_:--“East of the Jordan.” By Selah Merrill. London: Bentley & Son, 1881. “Across the Jordan.” By Gottlieb Schumacher. Bentley & Son, 1886. “The Jaulan.” By G. Schumacher, Bentley, 1888. “Abila,” “Pella,” and “Northern Ajlun.” By G. Schumacher. London: Palestine Exploration Society, 1888, 1889. “Palestine.” By Major Conder. London: George Philip & Son, 1889. “Heth and Moab.” By Major Conder. Bentley & Son, 1883. “The Land of Moab.” By Rev. Canon Tristram. London: John Murray, 1873. “Unexplored Syria.” By Burton and Drake. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1872.]