CHAPTER XV--“FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA.”--JOURNEYING THROUGH THE HOLY LAND.

_Our first morning in Palestine--Breaking Camp at Banias--“From Dan to Beer-sheba”--Explanation of the phrase--The Cup of the Hills--The Golden Calf of Jeroboam--Story of Vishnu and his Idol--An Incident and its Moral--The Battlefields of Joshua--A singular species of Plough--The “Doubter” in a quandary--Joseph’s Pit--The Sea of Galilee--Fishing with Poisoned Bait--Capernaum and its Ruins--Scene of Christ’s Miracles--The Birthplace of Mary Magdalen--A horde of Beggars--A Pitiful Spectacle--The Robber’s Cave--Herod and his Strategy--The Jews of Tiberias--A Seedy Crowd--Ruins of the Ancient City--The spot where Christ fed the Multitude._

IN the morning we are roused by the voice of the dragoman or one of his servants, and have half an hour for dressing. We rise reluctantly, for we are still weary from the fatigues of yesterday, and how we do wish for just a few minutes more.

The “Doubter” pulls at the handle of the Judge’s umbrella, under the impression that it is a bell-knob, and sleepily asks for a cocktail. But there is nothing of the kind to be had, and after grumbling at everybody and everything, he proceeds to his toilet and soon comes out with an appearance suggestive of an Italian brigand who has had a run of bad luck.

While we are at breakfast, the men strike the tents and are off. They go straight to our camping place for the coming night, so that they will have everything ready by the time we arrive. One pack-horse and a servant with the lunch remains with us, and they and their burden come in very handy about noon. We have no trouble in getting up good appetites in this clear air of Palestine, though unfortunately it is a trifle too warm for com{330}fort. A rugged path, where the rocks threaten to give us some dangerous tumbles, brings us to Tell-el-Kady, about four miles from Banias. This place is better known as Dan. Who has not heard of going “from Dan to Beersheba?” The latter place--Bir-es-seba, or “well of the covenant”--is on the southern border of Palestine, while Dan is on the northern. Consequently, “from Dan to Beersheba” means “from one end of the country to the other.” The identity of the site cannot be doubted, as the place is clearly described in Biblical and other history, and the remains of the ancient city are here.

There is a sort of cup-shaped mound here, in a plain, less than a hundred feet above it, and possibly a thousand yards across. The whole place is covered with a tangle of brushwood and weeds, and if we take the trouble to penetrate this thicket, we shall find hewn stones, broken columns, and other indications of the city that has passed away. There are some oak trees here, and one of them can boast of considerable size. It is one of the oaks of Bashan, and others can be seen on the mountain near us, and dotting in irregular patches various parts of the landscape. The oaks of Bashan are less famous now than they were three thousand years ago.

History tells us that this was once a Phoenician settlement, under the name of Laish, and was captured by some Danites, who changed its name to Dan. They took things easily, and had a good time, and whenever there was a chance to make an honest penny by a little robbery, they were up to the scratch.

Dan is mentioned in the first book of Kings (xii. 28-32) as one of the places where Jeroboam erected a golden calf.

Jeroboam understood human nature, when he selected gold as the metal of which the calf should be made. Brass would have been just as bright, but it has its defects, and the chief one is a lack of intrinsic value.

Vishnu once appeared in the guise of a beggar to a Brahmin who was superintending the erection and dedication of a temple in one of the sacred groves of India. The temple was complete, and the Brahmin was directing his fellows how to place the pedestal for the idol which he was just taking out of the box. He removed the straw and wrappings, and brought to {331}light an idol of common wood, with pieces of white porcelain for eyes.

“Stop, O, Brahmin,” said the beggar. “Erect not that wooden idol, for your temple will then be no more than others.”

“But make an idol of pure gold, and give it a pair of diamonds for eyes, and the whole world will come here to worship.”

The beggar waved his hand, and behold! an idol such as he had described stood upon the pedestal. The Brahmin turned to thank the stranger, but he had disappeared.

And that shrine has ever been the most sacred in all the land of India.

The Brahmin sent the wooden idol back to the factory, and they accepted it at twenty per cent. off, less the freight and charges for repacking. And they sold it to a retail cigar dealer, who used it for a sign in front of his shop.

The most interesting thing at Dan is the great fountain of the Jordan. It bursts out at the western, base of the mound, and forms a small pond, and out of this pond flows the stream, the largest in all Syria from a single source.

Less than an hour from Dan, over, a stony and marshy plain, brings us to Ain Belat, another fountain, and there is another of the same sort not far away. There is nothing particularly interesting here, and so we go on to Ain Mellahah, where we find the tents waiting for us near an old mill that stands by the spring.

Lake Huleh, a sheet of water about three miles by four, is close at hand, but it has no intrinsic attractions.

All around the lake is a marshy ground, spreading out on the North into a plain, that has some claims to fertility. The Bedouins cultivate it after a fashion, and some speculators have bought ground there and leased it out to the natives.

Syrian agriculture is of a very primitive kind. They use, in this country, the root of a tree for a plough, and they do little more than scratch the soil. An American plough, either ‘breaker’ or ‘subsoil,’ would drive the natives into confluent hysterics, and the sight of a steam-plough turning half, a dozen furrows at once would strike them dead with astonishment.

The first time the “Doubter” saw one of these Syrian scrapers, he asked what it was. When we told him it was a plough, {332}he said he knew better, and we needn’t try to “play it on him.” Then we thought it might be a horse-rake or a wheel-barrow, possibly a brake to attach to a fiery saddle-horse to keep him from descending a hill too fast.

Then we concluded it might be a pillow or a tooth-pick, and finally a part of the equipment of a lunatic asylum. The “Doubter” at length concluded it was a weapon of warfare, and with this wise conclusion he dropped the subject.

Our forenoon’s ride from this camp is a dreary one. We have five hours of it, or nearly that period, in a wild country overlooking the valley of the Jordan on the left, and having no attractions of its own. It is a scene of desolation. There were no trees--scarcely is there any vegetation, and the only inhabitants are people who live somewhere else. The hot, dry landscape is unforbidding in every feature, and only the historic character of the country rewards us for our trouble.

We come to a wretched Khan, which is said to contain the pit into which Joseph was thrown before he was sold by his brethren. The authenticity of the story rests only upon tradition, and there are two or three other places in the country which claim to be the real, original, Joseph’s pit. They show us the hole, which is certainly capable of containing a man. The “Doubter” does not {333}believe it is the real pit, because he cannot see the footprints of the fellows that flung their brother in. Some one tells the story of the New York boot-black, who was induced one day to go to Sunday school. The teacher told the story of Joseph and asked:

“What did Joseph’s brethren put him in the pit for?”

“I know,” said the gamin, with a confident air.

“Then tell us.”

“Fifteen cents!” shouted the young vagabond.

He was a frequenter of the old Bowery Theater, and familiar with the prices at that establishment.

But we are in haste to go on; for before us is the Sea of Galilee, shimmering under the scorching rays of a Syrian sun. It lies deep-set in a basin of rough, barren mountains, and its surface, as we first look upon it, is very far below us. If any of us have pictured a lake, surrounded with luxuriant fields and shady groves, its waves kissing the feet of waving palms, and reflecting the rich foliage of the tropics, we are doomed to disappointment. It is a scene of desolation, akin to that revealed when we look from the bleak hills beyond Bethlehem, and cast our vision downward to the Dead Sea. The country must have undergone a great change in the past two thousand years, as we cannot understand how it could support the population that history accords to it.

The lake is oval in shape, and about thirteen miles long by six in width, and where there were many boats in Christ’s time, there are now only two. These are devoted more to the ferriage of travellers and their excursions to points of interest along the shores, than to the fisheries. A favorite mode of catching fish at the present time is to poison them with bread crumbs soaked in corrosive sublimate. The fish die, and rise to the surface, whence they are gathered and taken to the market of Tiberias for sale. The natives do not mind any little trifle like this, but foreigners should be cautious about the fish that they eat.

All around the shore of the lake is historic ground. We reach it at Capernaum, or rather at one of the three points claimed to be the site of that city, and known by the modern name of Khan Minyeh. It has, perhaps, the best claims to recognition, but I shall not attempt to say that it is or is not the real place. {334}The ruins are not extensive, and can be seen in a short time. Traces of foundations and walls of buildings can be found here and there among the brushwood, and now and then a broken column or capital rewards the search of the explorer.

Proceeding along the western bank of the lake, we reach Magdala, the birth-place of Mary Magdalene. The shore of the lake in this part is quite fertile, but the fertility is not utilized, except to a very slight degree. Game is not unknown here, but the varieties are not numerous. Quails are abundant, and so are turtle doves. “The voice of the turtle is heard in the land,” is sure to be repeated by some one of the party as we ride through the tangle of thistles, weeds, and brushwood that lines the way from Capernaum to Magdala.

In itself, and without its historic associations, Magdala is of very little consequence. It contains about twenty houses, of the Syrian pattern, flat-roofed, and not over-pleasing in appearance. There are ruins of houses of a more pretentious character, and the indications are general that there was once a town here, of some consequence.

The inhabitants come out of their squalid dwellings and beg for anything we choose to give. Money, old clothes, defaulted railway bonds, State bonds, shares in a petroleum company, cold meat, bound volumes of newspaper files, and anything else can {335}be included in the word “backsheesh.” It is a generic, not a specific, term, and those who continually din into your ears the supplication, “Backsheesh, O Howadji!” are not at all particular about what they receive.

It is a good dodge to get the first innings on them once in a while. When you catch sight of a native approaching you, it is morally certain that he intends to beg. Take the bull by the horns, approach _him_ and ask for “backsheesh.” He will generally see the point, though he does not always do so.

We have time to take a little run to some curious caves that lie in a cliff about half an hour’s ride from Magdala. A steep and {336}narrow path leads to them, and while we are climbing it we see how easily the caves could be defended. Their origin and history are unknown, and they were evidently the work, not of one, but of several, generations. They are mentioned by Josephus as fortified caverns, belonging to the city of Arbela, whose ruins are close at hand. At various periods they have been the resort of bandits, and probably would be so at present if the bandit business was at all profitable. Herod the Great had an unpleasantness with some free-booting gentlemen who dwelt in these caves. They made things disagreeable for travellers and others, and would not divide with the King, and so he sent an army to teach them better manners and bring their heads home in carpet-sacks. But the fellows defended their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor so desperately, and had so good a place to defend them in, that the army couldn’t gain a point on them.

But Gen. Herod knew a thing or two, and after scratching his head awhile over the problem, he sent for his carpenters and blacksmiths and ordered them to get their tools ready and then come before him at five o’clock the next morning.

They came, they saw, (each carpenter had one,) and they concurred with him.

“Go,” said the general to the carpenters, “and make some boxes of strong plank, about six feet square and four feet high. Make them as strong as you would a travelling trunk for a thousand-mile journey on an American railway.”

Then turning to the blacksmiths he said:

“And you, sons of Vulcan, get up lots of ox-chains, strong enough to support these boxes with a thousand pounds in each.”

“A thousand pounds, in sovereigns, will weigh more than the same amount in five-pun notes,” said the boss blacksmith, musingly. “Does Your Majesty pay gold or paper?”

“A thousand pounds avoirdupois, you idiot,” replied the King. The blacksmith apologized, and whispered to his neighbor that he thought it would turn out so, as the King was hard up, and couldn’t raise five hundred guineas in a month unless he stole them.

The boxes were made, and the _ferblantiers_ and _charpentiers_ wondered what the king could be about. When they were ready,

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{339}he put a dozen infantry men with plenty of carbines and revolvers and supplies of provisions and ammunition into each box, and lowered the whole lot of them simultaneously down the face of the cliff above the canals. Thus the soldiers were enabled to make it nasty for the robbers. They killed most of them, and what they didn’t kill they flung over the face of the precipice.

We will not go back to Magdala, as there is a shorter route to Tiberias, which is our next point of interest. As our cavalcade enters the town, the inhabitants turn out to greet us, and we hear a word we think we have heard before--“backsheesh.” The people differ materially from those of Magdala and Capernaum, in being more numerous; in other respects there is a marked similarity. They wear the same amount of dirt, rags, and sore eyes, and an ophthalmist could make a fortune here, provided he could get rich by practicing without fees. There are about two thousand inhabitants, one-third of them Jews, and they are a very seedy and unhappy lot of Israelites. I presume that those who are born in Tiberias want to die there, and to look at them one would think that they ought to wish to die as soon as possible.

Tiberias is a sacred place for the Jews, as they believe that the Messiah will rise from the sea of Galilee, and after landing in the city will proceed to the summit of Mount Safed, which {340}is not far away. Comparatively few of the Jews speak Arabic; they are divided into two sects, one of Russian and the other of Spanish origin, so that they use the languages of the countries whence they or their ancestors came. They are not on the best of terms with their neighbors, and live in a part of the town assigned to them.

Tiberias once had a wall; the remains of it are there yet, and it was in tolerable condition until about forty years ago, when an earthquake played the mischief with it and left it full of great gaps and cracks that are anything but pleasing. Your earthquake, a real, first-class one, is a consummation not devoutly to be wished.

The ancient city is scattered promiscuously along the shore of the lake, but there isn’t enough of it to make more than half-a-dozen hog-yards. The modern town has absorbed nearly all that was worth absorbing.

There is a Latin convent at Tiberias, with a church attached to it, which is regarded with veneration by many Christian pilgrims. Like Jerusalem, Tiberias is a sacred spot for both Christian and Jew, and thousands of Jews consider it a blessing to be buried there, and it certainly would be a blessing to bury those that we see in Tiberias. It was at one time their chief residence in Palestine, and was their most prominent city for more than three hundred years. Tiberias has been in the hands of Jews, Persians, Arabs, and Crusaders, and has had the usual misfortunes of Oriental towns.

There are some warm baths near Tiberias, and they are highly recommended to strangers. The natives never patronize these baths or any other. The only time a Syrian washes himself is when he gets caught in a shower, without an umbrella, and can’t find any shelter, or get home.

All around the lake there are historic spots. Days could be spent in a study of the places whose names have been made familiar to us by a perusal of the Old and New Testaments.

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