wild outlaw in their hearts, and that they were reluctant to see the
scion of a brave and ancient house brought to the gallows.
Some men have become predatory animals, and as such seek out lairs as
would the beasts of prey.
The Chinaman possesses an instinctive reversion to old subterranean
life. Wherever he goes, wherever he succeeds in forming a "China-town,"
he begins to burrow and undermine the houses in which he and his
fellow-countrymen live, and a labyrinth of passages and chambers is
constructed, communicating with the several dwellings, so that a
criminal Chinaman can rarely be trapped in the native quarter by the
police. When San Francisco was burnt, the ground under the Chinese town
was found to be honeycombed with runs and lurking-holes to an
astounding extent.
When David had to escape from the pursuit of Saul, he fled first of all
to Gath, but being recognised there, he made his way to the cave of
Adullam. "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in
debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto
him, and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about
four hundred men." [Footnote: 1 Sam. xxii. 1-2] In a word, he became
the head of a party of freebooters, who laid the neighbourhood under
contribution.
The Palestine surveyors have identified the cave of Adullam with one
now called by the peasants Aid-el-Ma. It lies in a round hill about 500
feet high, pierced with a number of caverns; the hill itself being
isolated by several valleys and marked by ancient ruins, tombs, and
quarryings. "A cave which completes the identification exists in the
hill. It is not necessary to suppose that the one used by David was of
great size, for such spacious recesses are avoided by the peasantry
even now, from their dampness and tendency to cause fever. Their
darkness, moreover, needs many lights, and they are disliked from the
numbers of scorpions and bats frequenting them. The caves used as human
habitations, at least in summer, are generally about twenty or thirty
paces across, lighted by the sun, and comparatively dry. I have often
seen such places with their roofs blackened by smoke: families lodging
in one, goats, cattle, and sheep, stabled in another, and grain or
straw stored in a third. At Adullam are two such caves in the northern
slope of the hill, and another further south, while the opposite sides
of the tributary valley are lined with rows of caves, all smoke-
blackened, and mostly inhabited, or used as pens for flocks and herds.
"The cave on the south of the hill itself was tenanted by a single
family when the surveyors visited it, just as it might have been by
David and his immediate friends, while his followers housed themselves
in those near at hand." [Footnote: Geikie (C.), "The Holy Land and the
Bible," Lond. 1887, i. p. 108.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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