every writer about palestine speaks of the smallness and concentration of the land, yet these take the best informed by surprise. it is “the least of all lands” indeed, when one thinks how much has happened in it. leaving jaffa at 10 a.m., the steamer reaches beyrout at 6 p.m. the passengers in that short sail have seen the whole of palestine. national life there is a miniature rather than a picture. in a stretch of country equal to that between aberdeen and dundee you cover the whole central ground of the bible, from the sea of galilee to jerusalem. in a ride equal to the distance from london to windsor there may be seen enough to interpret many centuries of the world’s supreme history. the dead sea is but 50 miles from the mediterranean, the sea of galilee about 25 miles; while the distance in miles between the two seas is only 55. yet in that little land there is every kind of soil, from mere sand and broken limestone to rich red and chocolate loam. it is a mountainous country throughout, and its inhabitants{38} are a race of highlanders. so numerous are its mountain spurs that you may pass up and down the centre of the country for scores of miles, and yet never catch sight of the sea, though you constantly feel it in the breeze. everything is there—the gorge, the wide sweeping valley, the great plain, the rolling tableland. it is, indeed, a land in miniature, the multum in parvo of lands. its history and religion, like its natural features, are crushed together and compact. the epigram is the only form of speech that can express it.
this idea of smallness and compression, however, is by no means the only possible view which may be taken. all depends on what it is with which one compares palestine. thinking of it as a field of history, one inevitably has other fields in mind. if we think of britain, palestine is but the size of wales; if of france and germany, it is the equivalent of alsace. but a more primitive point of view is gained when you regard it as a reclaimed tract of the desert. just as egypt is a huge river-meadow, and venice a glorified harbour in the sea, so syria is the largest oasis in the world. its whole geographical character is that of desert, more or less modified by water. the sculptured hills are here, the rock and the shingle and the sand. dry up its rivers and arrest its rainfall, and you will have a continuation of the peninsula of sinai, except that instead of granite it will be of limestone. it is this, as we have seen, that has led its inhabitants to regard it with a rare appreciation, an extraordinary sense of its{39} preciousness, and a tendency to exaggerate both its beauty and its fertility.
nothing illustrates this loving appreciation of their land better than the play of imagination which has created the place-names of palestine. hebrews, arabs, and crusaders vie with each other in the poetic beauty of their nomenclature. it is a little land, but there is much witchery in it. for its inhabitants it lives personified, and its masses of mountain scenery are often named from parts of the human body. there are “the shoulder,” “the side,” “the thigh,” “the rib,” “the back.” the “head” of pisgah looks down upon the “face” of the wilderness.[5] there is a “hollow hearth”—homeliest of names to a semite. in other names poetry has reached its utmost of epigrammatic beauty—“the dance of the whirls,” “the star of the wind,” “the diamond of the desert.” yet sacred and beautiful as its scenery was to israel, she had a dearer bond with her land than that. she was kept from nature-worship by a spiritual faith which created such names as “bethel” (the house of god), and many others of similar significance. these claim the land in all its length and breadth for the god of israel. every green spot was for the semites the dwelling-place of some divinity; this whole oasis of hers was for israel the house of her god of peace and blessing. to the ancient greek “god was the view”; to the hebrew, god was the inhabitant of the view—he himself was righteousness. and because the land{40} was his—rescued by him from the desert with his waters, and given to the people in his love—it was tenfold more dear to them. down every vista which shewed them a land that was very far off, their eyes caught sight also of some vision of the king in his beauty; every high hill was a veritable mountain of the lord’s house.
let us try to get, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of this fascinating country, noticing in their right perspective and significance its outstanding natural features. dr. smith’s historical geography has perhaps rendered no service higher than the aid towards this which is afforded by its epitome and map (pp. 49, 50, 51). these divide palestine into five parallel strips running north and south. cutting across these strips in a straight line westwards from the desert to the sea, we first traverse the range of the eastern mountains; then dip to the immense gulf of the jordan valley, far below the mediterranean level; then climb by precipitous ascents to the summit of the central range; then descend through the foot-hills; and finally land on the maritime plain. to grasp thoroughly the lie of these five longitudinal regions is the first necessity for understanding the geography of palestine. its general impression is one of extraordinary brokenness of contour, and zangwill points out the important fact that a land with so much hill surface has in reality a very much larger superficial area than that estimated by multiplying its length by its breadth.
by far the most remarkable feature in the whole{41}
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jerusalem—the pool of hezekiah.
territory is the jordan valley. rising from springs at the western roots of hermon, high above sea level, it sinks by rapid stages till at the dead sea it reaches bottom nearly 1300 feet below the mediterranean. down its extraordinary gully flows the one great river of palestine. there are other perennial streams, but none to compare with jordan either for volume or for associations. it is this mass of flowing water which stands as the heart and soul of the syrian oasis. its mighty stream has overcome the desert, and claimed the western land for greenness and for life. it is this huge cleft that has isolated the holy land for the purposes of its god.
the only clear opening from the jordan to the mediterranean is the plain of esdraelon. standing on jordan’s bank below bethshan and looking westward, you see before you a valley whose farther end shows nothing but sky. many streams cut their way down its slopes beside a green morass, and hold in their embrace the ruins of a strong city. you must follow them up westwards for some ten miles before you reach sea level, and soon after that you cross the watershed in a wide valley with mountains rising to north and south. jezreel stands above you on a protruding tongue of high cultivated land to the south. at a level of about 200 feet above the sea, you suddenly emerge upon a great triangular plain, with carmel at its apex, 15 miles to the west. this is the plain of esdraelon. the one really large level space in syria, its rich soil, even surface, and plentiful water-supply make it a famous piece of cultivated ground. but it is also the natural battlefield{42} of the east, and its chief associations are not with agriculture but with war.
esdraelon, however, is but an incident in the geographical fact of syria, though an important and large incident. it is but the largest of those open spaces into which syrian valleys swell out. there are three or four of them in the jordan valley, and several of smaller size are scattered here and there throughout the country. the really essential feature of the land—that, indeed, which historically is the land—is the mountain range that sweeps from lebanon to hebron and beyond. it was on the mountains that israel lived. the plain of esdraelon, being the ganglion of the natural main routes of traffic and of war, was but a doubtful possession, precariously held at best, and often changing owners. the strong city of bethshan at the eastern mouth of its main valley was held by israel’s enemies during almost the whole of her history; and, until a year or two ago, the arabs made yearly raids upon the plain. again, the sea-coast was largely in the hands of enemies; while the jordan valley, with its insupportable heat and malaria, was thinly peopled, and its population swiftly degenerated from national as well as from moral loyalties. thus he who would know the holy land must, in every sense of the words, “lift up his eyes unto the hills.”
it was our good fortune to have this view at its very best for our first sight of palestine. we should have landed at jaffa, but a rather doubtful case of plague at alexandria inflicted a two days’ quarantine on all ships{43} coming out of egypt. so we looked at jaffa from under the yellow flag, and sailed off in the morning sunlight northward to beyrout. all day long we lay on deck, with maps spread out before us. the quarantine had cost us the sight of the greek easter ceremony at jerusalem, but it gave us in exchange the rare experience of a daylight sail along the syrian coast. the day was marvellously clear, and every object on the shore was seen in photographic outline, while the various distances were preserved in fading colours, back to the thin transparency against the sky which stood for the furthest mountain ranges. the shore was barren: a low belt of tawny sand, broken by dark olive-green scrub, and very desolate. one solitary house was all we saw for the first two hours, and in another place a column of smoke, apparently rising from some invisible camp. beyond this the foot-hills east of the plain were seen, lifting towards the great central ridge of the mountain range. though broken here and there by an occasional point, or overlooked by a peak that rose very high beyond, the crest of the range was remarkably level, with wavy outline. until we passed carmel it shewed as a unity—“the mountain” of ephraim and judah. north from that there was a bolder sky-line, much nearer to the sea, which led on eventually to the magnificent heights of lebanon, beautiful as they are mighty.
let us suppose ourselves to land at beyrout and journey from north to south well inland. at first we climb eastwards among bold bare hills, in whose recesses{44} mulberry gardens nestle and on whose heights innumerable villages perch. cedars are conspicuous by their absence, but there are plenty of humbler trees. soon we come to realise the large-scale meaning and contour of the district. we have been crossing lebanon, whose highest peaks have revealed themselves now and then far to the north. some twenty miles from the coast we find ourselves in the valley of the litany (leontes). this whole region is easily understood. it consists of the magnificent ranges of lebanon and antilebanon and the spacious valley between them, running in ample curves parallel with the shore.
mighty though these are, however, it is neither of them that has received the name of jebel-es-sheikh—“the patriarch of mountains.” that honour is reserved for hermon, the range and summit which antilebanon thrusts south from it into galilee, just opposite damascus. it is happily named “the sheikh.” go where you will in palestine, hermon seems to lie at the end of some vista or other. for many miles around it, hermon commands everything. its mass tilts the plain and sends out innumerable spurs of rich and fertile land; its snow shines far and gives character to the view; its eastern waters redeem the wilderness through many a mile of hauran; and from its western roots spring all the fountains of the jordan. this is the king of syria, by whose beneficent might the desert has become oasis.
while the southern continuation of hermon holds up the high tableland of bashan and runs it on into the{45} mountains of gilead and moab east of jordan, the thrust of lebanon into western galilee ends curiously in a succession of hills divided by valleys running east and west, like great waves of mountain rolling south to break along the northern edge of the plain of esdraelon. there is a quiet regularity about these galilean highlands, which gives the impression of a region made to plan. the eastern end of esdraelon is blocked by the group of tabor and “little hermon,” while the feature of the western end is the long lonely ridge of carmel.
crossing the plain we enter samaria, whose deep rounded valleys, rich in corn, send their sweeping curves in all directions. here there is neither the dominant north-and-south trend of lebanon, nor the horizontal ripple of galilee, but an intricate network of curving valleys, which leave the mountains everywhere more individual and distinct, and which frequently expand into wide meadows or fields. yet the general rise of the region is from west, sloping up to east. the watershed is perhaps 10 to 15 miles from jordan, while it is more than 30 miles from the sea. but jordan here is well-nigh 1000 feet below sea-level, so that the eastern slope is immensely steeper than the western.
as we enter judea, we find the land, as it were, gathering itself up on almost continuous heights. the lesser valleys are shallow, and the hilltops swell from the lofty plateau in colossal domes or cupolas. so high is the general level that when we come to jerusalem we look in vain for the mountains we had understood to be{46} round about her. no peaks cleave the sky—only smooth and gentle hills, which have never been in any way her defence, but have made excellent platforms for the siege-engines of her enemies, and have grown wood for the crosses of her inhabitants. the lateral gorges of judea, both east and west, cut into her high tableland in angular zigzags, and as you descend these in either direction you realise what is really meant by “the mountains round about jerusalem.” she does not see them, lying secure upon the height to which they have exalted her. but he who approaches her must come by their gorges, where for many miles his sky will be but a strip seen between sheer heights of cliff and scaur.[6] the rugged sharpness of outline reaches its climax on the eastern side, where the range, split in the wildest gorges, falls in fragmentary masses between their mouths down to the jordan valley. nothing in the land has a more bare and savage grandeur than the square-chiselled mountain blocks of quarantana, seen from below at jericho in black angular silhouette against the sunset. south of jerusalem the kidron gorge, cleaving the intruding desert, exaggerates the wildness of the north, but as you climb past bethlehem to hebron you are in a region liker to samaria, with its deeper and more rounded valleys and its richer pasture and cultivation. south of hebron the range spreads fanwise and gradually sinks to the desert.
the most impressive memories of the land, so far as {47}its form and contour go, are two—the gorges cleft through the judean mountain, and certain isolated conical hills thrown up from the samaritan valleys. judea is mountain, emphasised by gorge; samaria is valley, diversified by hill. the gorges are uncompromising. when we read, for instance, the third verse of the seventh chapter of joshua, we think of an ordinary march—“the men went up and viewed ai. and they returned to joshua, and said unto him, let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite ai; and make not all the people to labour thither.” but he who has himself “gone up” from jericho to ai puts feeling into his reading of the words “to labour thither.” that is the only way of going up. the recollection is of several hours of precipitous riding, with beasts stumbling and riders pitched ahead. when the climb is over you turn aside to the south, and view the gully of michmash along whose northern edge you have scrambled inland. it looks not like a valley, but a crack in rocks, hundreds of feet deep. the valley of achor, next to the south of michmash, presents an almost more dramatic appearance as you view its entrance from the jordan foot-hills. it gapes on the plain, like the open mouth of some petrified monster.
the isolated hills of the northern territory are in their way as memorable as the gorges of the south. in judea you cannot see the mountains for “the mountain.” the whole land is one great elevated range, and the noticeable features of the district are the gorges that cut across it. samaria, on the other hand, is a place of{48} valleys and of plains, and its mountains are seen as mountains. this fact finds its most striking instance in certain “gilgals,” or isolated cones standing free in the midst of plain, or cut off by circular valleys round their bases. the most perfect of these is that which bears the name of gilgal, rising detached in the wide valley to the south-east of jacob’s well.[7] it is in shape an almost perfect cone, whose gradual curve renders it very easy of ascent. the hill of samaria itself is another such “gilgal,” the centre of a splendid circular panorama of hills. sanur, in the country of judith and holophernes, is a third, on a smaller scale, but with even wider panorama. north of esdraelon, again a long ripple of mountains sweeps round at least one such gilgal, leaving sepphoris isolated on the peak of it. and tabor itself might plausibly be counted in this class—tabor the irrelevant, whose cone seems always to be peeping over the shoulder of some lower ridge, unlike any other landmark, commanding all the views eastward from the heights of nazareth. these curious cones are in palestine to some extent what the righi is in switzerland. with the exception of tabor, they are but lesser heights; yet they give the widest mountain views, and seem to shape the land into a succession of circles, of which their summits are the centre-points.
the mountains of israel are the characteristic features of her history as of her geography. in every part of syria they are the companions of the journey. great{49}
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mount hermon, from the slopes of tabor.
the lofty mountain in the extreme distance is mount hermon.
distant masses, or near crests of them, seem to accompany you as you move. and as you travel through the history of the land it is in the same companionship. the jordan valley lies along the western side of the mountain range, a place of luxury and temptation. but israel abides on the hills, sending down to it only the most degenerate of her children. it is a very striking fact that jesus was tempted to sin for bread on the mountain almost within sight of jericho, where the herodians were sinning with surfeits of wine and rich meats. all that is truest to israel and most characteristic of her at her best is on the hills. they are the places of her war and of her worship. the gilgals have almost all stood siege. all, or at least the most of them, have been fortified. on some of them the rude remains of ancient sacred circles, or the decayed steps of altars cut in the rock, may still be traced. her enemies found by bitter experience that “her gods are gods of the hills.” her ark had its abode on the tableland at shiloh or on the hill of zion. its history on the low ground was but a story of calamity; it had to be sent up again to kirjath-jearim among the hills. yet the heights of israel stand for more than this blend of war and worship; they were her home. all her greater towns nestle among them somewhere; most of them stand on the summits, or just below them. it was a race of highlanders that gave us our bible—men whose home was on the heights.
her wars, indeed, were everywhere, for it is a blood-drenched{50} land. many of her battles were fought at the edge of the mountain-land, on the kopjes that run along the southern border of esdraelon, or among the foot-hills near the mouth of the western gorges. there, or on the great plain, she met her invaders. but the heights were the scenes of battles in the last resort, and the gorges are associated with the advance and retreat of armed hosts, the rush of the invader and the headlong retreat of armies that had been surprised and routed from above.
meanwhile, in the middle spaces, she fought her continuous battle with the desert and the sun for her daily bread. it is said that in malta, where every possible spot is cultivated, the earth has been all imported, and that the knights of malta allowed no vessel to enter the harbour without paying dues in soil. the denuded hill-sides of palestine, with their ruined heaps of stones that once built up terraces for cultivation, tell a similar story. on some hillsides the remains of sixty or even eighty such terraces may still be traced. in many places the valleys are rich in an altogether superfluous depth of fertile soil. but this did not suffice the inhabitants, and they built up the terraces along the southward slopes, in many places quite to the walls of their mountain villages. on not a few of these slopes labour must have actually created land, and men’s hearts grown strong within them as they changed the rocks into gardens and the slopes of shingle into harvest fields.