CHAPTER IX.

[From A. D. 500, to A. D. 554.]

I. The opening scene of our narrative lies in the barren Solitude between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the West, and the sunken coast of the Dead sea, or Lake Asphaltites, on the East. The wild and austere features of desolation which pervade this mountainous desert, will readily occur to the imagination of every one who has attentively studied the geography of Palestine. But it can scarcely be accounted a useless interruption, if we pause here to take a more careful and particular view of a region so full of interest, and which retains to this day nearly the same appearance it wore in the sixth century.

Beginning our survey at the northeastern extremity, and standing on some elevated spot, if such there be, in the fields adjacent to the once flourishing Jericho, we should find ourselves in the midst of an uneven plain, of great length and considerable breadth. Its fertility départed, ages ago, with the banished tribes, and left little remains on the parched surface, except a kind of spiny grass, and a few detached groves and plantations. Two leagues to the East, the plain is divided by the

reedy and shrub-covered banks of the Jordan, whose turbid waters hasten along through a narrow channel towards their entrance into the Dead Sea. If we turn around, so as to face the North, we behold the level country lose itself in the distance. But close at hand appears the miserable village of Arab huts, which occupy a little space on the site of the ancient Jericho; and several spots of beautiful vegetation, sometimes improved into gardens, mark the course which the streams from Elisha's Fountain, a little distant, still maintain through the surrounding barrenness. If we now cast our eyes to the West, the huge, precipitous mountain of Quarantania, at the distance of only three miles, stands full before us, and lifts to heaven those naked cliffs, whence, tradition says, the Tempter showed our Saviour all the kingdoms of this world. Looking past the southern side of the mountain, we farther off, in the way to Jerusalem, the wild congregation of barren hills that form the boundary of the plain. Rising just behind the first range, are seen tops of rifted and shapeless mountains, among whose deep and tremendous ravines, lies, hidden from our view, the Desert of the Temptation. Far in the rear, beyond a succeeding tract of less elevation, and of less sterility, we might perhaps descry, through some fortunate opening, the low, triple summits of Mount Olivet, at the distance of eighteen miles to the southwest, shutting out the city of Jerusalem from the eastern prospect.

discover, a little

As we turn around to the left from the quarter of Mount Olivet, with our backs upon Jericho, the eye still

ranges along the broken mass of hills, a few miles southward, where. the plain terminates at their bases, or is invaded by their more advanced and separate crags. Beyond them all, we catch the glympse of remoter eminences appearing here and there above the horizon, and by their dismal whiteness betraying the solitude and decay which reign in the interior. Traversing, with a sidelong glance, the successive ridges down to the left, as they approach the Dead Sea, we perceive their height gradually increasing to the very brink where they suddenly fall off, to make room for the bed of the lake. The lake itself may be seen, still farther around to the eastward, coming up into the limits of the plain ; and nothing but an intervening promontory shuts out, from our eye, the whole expanse of waters spreading southward to indiscernible distance.

From our post of observation, it is but five or six miles, over a sandy tract, to the nearest part of the Dead Sea; and if quitting the fields of Jericho, we now proceed thither, and follow the shore down to the South, we come at length to the mountainous border already surveyed. Here, we enter on a wide beach, which runs the whole remaining length, perhaps, of the lake, between the margin of the waves and the lofty battlement of cliffs on the West. Advancing along this desolate valley, we traverse heaps of sand, and patches of dry mud, covered thick with salt; and sometimes a solitary and stunted shrub shakes the dust from its scanty foliage, in the wind. On our right, we see the towering masses of rock still bearing onward, but frequently broken

by huge chasms that wind in many intricacies through their heavy range. The dreary lake now spreads full before us, to the south; but its extremity is far beyond the reach of the eye. To the east, however, we see its contracted breadth, at the distance of ten or fifteen miles, bounded by the dark, and to appearance, perpendicular mountains of Arabia, which stand on the opposite shore like a stupendous wall. Not a solitary peak seems to break the uniformity of their continuous summit; and we merely perceive slight inflections here and there, as though the hand of the painter, who drew this horizontal line across the sky, had sometimes trembled in the bold

execution.

After following the wide strand or valley for six or eight miles, to the south, we may turn to the right, and seek our way up the precipices. Arrived at the summit of the range, the whole country, as far as Mount Olivet in the northwest, the hills of Bethlehem in the west, and those of Tekoa in the southwest, bursts at once in desolate majesty, upon our sight. Plains and narrower glens without verdure or inhabitant, hills whose aged rocks are themselves decaying into dust, sharp ridges and misshapen points in the distance, fill up the scene. Throughout a large part of this tract, the spirit of religious madness, of fanatical seclusion, might find accommodations in the profound labyrinths channelled out between solid cliffs, and in numerous caverns, some of them almost inaccessible. Even close around the summit on which we stand, we may look down into chasms that sink to the very base.

If we look to the North, the plain of Jericho appears; if to the South, the concourse of mountains stretches off beyond the outlet of the Cedron, and finally fades in the prospect amidst the vast Desert of Ruba. Below us, to the West, extends a considerably wide plain, through which, in ancient times, lay the rode from Jericho to Hebron. Descending from the heights, and crossing this open space westwardly, our course runs among little hillocks of chalk and sand, and some scattered patches of herbage; till, at the end of three miles, we come to the boundary. Here we begin to climb through the narrow gorges of another chain of mountains, white, arid, and dusty; and not a solitary shade, not a plant, not even the last effort of vegetation, a single tuft of moss, meets the eye as we proceed. Four or five miles, in the same direction, brings us to the edge of the long, tremendous chasm, through which, in the rainy season, gushes the torrent Cedron, on its southeastward course from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Through a sudden opening, that city itself may be descried, looking like a confused heap of rocks, nearly a dozen miles to the northwest; and the naked summits that rise on every quarter above us, command a prospect of the eastern lake. Proceeding, now, a small distance up the channel of the Cedron, we discover, in its very bed, and three or four hundred feet below us, the ancient monastery of St. Sabas, surrounded with numerous cells in the precipices, and still occupied as a

convent a.

a For the account of this region, see Relandi Palæstina Illustrata; Pococke's Description of the East, Vol. ii. Part 1. pp. 30-45;