CHAPTER XIV

JERUSALEM AND THE JORDAN

66

“I

THERE is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified
Who died to save us all.

Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved,

And we must love Him too;

And trust in His redeeming blood,

And try His works to do.

-MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER.

PREFER not to leave the ship," said an earnest

Christian worker from New York not long ago, as the anchor dropped outside the mighty rocks of Jaffa. Her explanation was that she was afraid contact with present-day Palestine would destroy her idea of the Holy Land gained from a study of the Bible. And to preserve this mental picture intact she remained on the ship, while the rest of the party went to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Garden of Gethsemane, Gordon's Calvary, the Mount of Olives, Bethany, Jericho and the Dead Sea.

"I feared from what I had heard that I might be disillusioned, but on the contrary my faith has been deepened by my actually standing on the ground made sacred by the feet of the blessed Saviour." The enthusiastic speaker was a charming young girl from

Philadelphia, who added in a burst of confidence: "Do you know that when we landed my blessed mother kneeled and kissed the very ground on which He walked, and I am proud to say that I fell on my knees beside her and did the same. I am so happy to have had the privilege of visiting the Holy Land.

It is said that Jaffa is derived from the word meaning beautiful, and this is a fitting term to apply when the sea is smooth. The sea was smooth when we landed at this port, which has a written history through existing tablets dating back to the fifteenth century B. C. Classical scholars claim that the name is derived from Iopa, the daughter of Æolus, Jaffa being the reputed scene of the legend of Andromeda. It is said that in Pliny's time the chains were still shown with which she was bound to the rock for the cruel monster afterward slain by Perseus. Where we landed so peacefully the cedar and the pine wood sent to Solomon by Hiram, King of Tyre, had come in floats by sea for the building of the Temple, and again other material for the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel was brought from Lebanon to Jaffa as recorded by Ezra. Here also Jonah shipped for Tarshish, or Cadiz, and here Peter raised Dorcas to life and had that remarkable vision from the House of Simon the Tanner.

By carriage it is forty miles from Jaffa to Jerusalem, but the railroad distance is twelve or thirteen miles greater. One can drive to Jerusalem in eight hours or

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM

179

can ride in a railway carriage in a little less than four hours; this does not mean that undue haste is made by carriage. The most impressive feature of the journey as one leaves the port is the great number of orangegroves. Other fruits-lemons, pomegranates, watermelons, etc.—are found in great abundance, but it is pre-eminently an orange-growing section. An orange was handed to the writer which weighed twenty-three ounces and had a circumference of fifteen inches. Frequently two or three of these great oranges hang suspended by a single stem. Hedges of prickly cactus and in some cases barbed-wire fences separated the orange groves or gardens. There are in the neighborhood of Jaffa more than five hundred of these gardens, varying in size from three and four acres to ten and twelve acres each; about one garden in five has two wells each and the rest only one well each. A flourishing German colony is at the north of the town and is making good progress in helping to restore Palestine to its former agricultural position.

From whatever part of Palestine one reaches the Holy City, he must go up to it. Through the Holy Land from north to south there runs a mountain range, and on two of the hills, known as Mount Zion and Mount Moriah, the famous city stands practically twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and four thousand feet above the Dead Sea. The former lies thirty-two miles to the west and the latter eighteen miles to the east. In every respect save

one the site is admirable. Its defect is its limited watersupply; cisterns still are numerous, and without them the water-supply would be practically cut off. Were it not for its associations, Jerusalem would not be an attractive place to visit. The barren condition of the hills detracts greatly from the natural beauty of the place. Cover the hills with vines and replace the forests which doubtless crowned the hills at one time, and the change would be tremendous.

The old city, including the area where the Mosque of Omar stands, covers only about two hundred acres, the size of a New England farm. The appearance of the city is ancient, and properly so, for the walls that surround it doubtless antedated the Christian era, but some of them look as if they would not remain in their present position much longer. The houses, like the walls, especially those inside the walls, have an ancient appearance also. The streets are narrow and without sidewalks. David Street, which cuts the city from east to west, and Christian Street, which runs from David Street to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the street leading from the Damascus Gate on the north to Zion's Gate on the south, are practically the only thoroughfares that are worthy the name of street.

The stores in Jerusalem are primitive, but the merchants manage to do a great deal of business. Some are not more than ten feet wide and fifteen feet long, but the merchant packs in them an unusually large quantity of wares. Camels and donkeys and their drivers

A GLIMPSE OF THE HOLY CITY 181

are in the streets with their own peculiar method. While the railroads are cutting up the Holy Land and Egypt, it will be some time before the conservatism of the people will do away with the camel trains which go along the old road from Damascus to Jerusalem and on

to Egypt. It is easy to refer with a sneer to the donkey as "the Jerusalem nightingale," or to speak of the camel as an American lady is reported to have done: "I don't like to criticise the Creator, but it does seem to me that I could have attached the hind legs to their bodies so as to make just as useful and much more graceful creatures. And I could improve the hanging