Opening the text

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8Paxton, J. D. (John D.)

Religion

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

Name: Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8
Author: Paxton, J. D. (John D.)

Paxton, J. D. (John D.)

Palestine -- Description and travel

We set out in the morning to visit the fountain of Elisha before
we went down to the Jordan. It lies about three miles north-west
of Jericho. As our guide did not know the way, we tried to engage
a person from the village, and on inquiring for a boy, they told
us they had no boys; all their boys and young men were taken for
soldiers. They are all Mohammedans in this village; and it is only
Mohammedans, or Druses and Ansairi, who are next-door neighbours to
them, that the Pasha honours with a forcible incorporation into his
army--a happy deliverance for the Christian. After some inquiry,
a woman engaged to be our guide so far as to put us in the right
road. The spring is a fine large one, near a small hill, half a
mile in the plain. There were some appearances of ruins in the
piles of stone that lay about its head. The water is clear, but not
cold; there is a considerable spreading of the waters by means of
small channels, and also from the level character of the ground.
This district is for some extent covered with the thorn-bush I have
mentioned, together with some intermixture of other growth.

Mount Quarantania, which is one of the highest and roughest parts
of that range of hills that border on the plain, has a peculiarly
desolate appearance, and is full of holes and caves. This is the
mountain into which, as the monks tell us, our Lord was led, after
his baptism, to be tempted of the devil. Between its base and the
fountain are a number of old walls and buildings, which indicate
that a place of some consequence may once have been situate there.

The French prince whom I have mentioned before as on a visit to
Palestine, we learned, had spent the night at the fountain with his
retinue. He had come the day before from Bethlehem to the Dead Sea,
and from thence came up past Jericho to the fountain of Elisha, and
was off this morning for Jerusalem before we arrived. It would seem
that even to unbelievers this land has a most intense interest; and
well it may, for what land ever witnessed such wonders as have taken
place in Palestine?

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8Paxton, J. D. (John D.)

Religion

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

Paxton, J. D. (John D.)

Palestine -- Description and travel

We set out in the morning to visit the fountain of Elisha before
we went down to the Jordan. It lies about three miles north-west
of Jericho. As our guide did not know the way, we tried to engage
a person from the village, and on inquiring for a boy, they told
us they had no boys; all their boys and young men were taken for
soldiers. They are all Mohammedans in this village; and it is only
Mohammedans, or Druses and Ansairi, who are next-door neighbours to
them, that the Pasha honours with a forcible incorporation into his
army--a happy deliverance for the Christian. After some inquiry,
a woman engaged to be our guide so far as to put us in the right
road. The spring is a fine large one, near a small hill, half a
mile in the plain. There were some appearances of ruins in the
piles of stone that lay about its head. The water is clear, but not
cold; there is a considerable spreading of the waters by means of
small channels, and also from the level character of the ground.
This district is for some extent covered with the thorn-bush I have
mentioned, together with some intermixture of other growth.

Mount Quarantania, which is one of the highest and roughest parts
of that range of hills that border on the plain, has a peculiarly
desolate appearance, and is full of holes and caves. This is the
mountain into which, as the monks tell us, our Lord was led, after
his baptism, to be tempted of the devil. Between its base and the
fountain are a number of old walls and buildings, which indicate
that a place of some consequence may once have been situate there.

The French prince whom I have mentioned before as on a visit to
Palestine, we learned, had spent the night at the fountain with his
retinue. He had come the day before from Bethlehem to the Dead Sea,
and from thence came up past Jericho to the fountain of Elisha, and
was off this morning for Jerusalem before we arrived. It would seem
that even to unbelievers this land has a most intense interest; and
well it may, for what land ever witnessed such wonders as have taken
place in Palestine?

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

Letters from Palestine: Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

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