Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land: Impressions of Travel in Body and SpiritVan Dyke, Henry
Religion
Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land: Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit
Van Dyke, Henry
Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography; Palestine -- Description and travel; Van Dyke, Henry, 1852-1933 -- Travel -- Palestine
Farewell, dear Lake of Jesus! Our eyes may never rest on thee again; but
surely they will not forget thee. For now, as often we come to some fair
water in the Western mountains, or unfold the tent by some lone lakeside
in the forests of the North, the lapping of thy waves will murmur
through our thoughts; thy peaceful brightness will arise before us; we
shall see the rose-flush of thy oleanders, and the waving of thy reeds;
the sweet, faint smell of thy gold-flowered acacias will return to us
from purple orchids and white lilies. Let the blessing that is thine go
with us everywhere in God's great out-of-doors, and our hearts never
lose the comradeship of Him who made thee holiest among all the waters
of the world!
* * * * *
The Khan of Joseph's Pit is a ruin; a huge and broken building deserted
by the caravans which used to throng this highway from Damascus to the
cities of the lake, and to the ports of Acre and Joppa, and to the
metropolis of Egypt. It is hard to realize that this wild moorland path
by which we are travelling was once a busy road, filled with camels,
horses, chariots, foot-passengers, clanking companies of soldiers; that
these crumbling, cavernous walls, overgrown with thorny capers and wild
marjoram and mandragora, were once crowded every night with a motley mob
of travellers and merchants; that this pool of muddy water, gloomily
reflecting the ruins, was once surrounded by flocks and herds and beasts
of burden; that only a few hours to the southward there was once a ring
of splendid, thriving, bustling towns around the shores of Galilee, out
of which and into which the multitudes were forever journeying. Now they
are all gone from the road, and the vast wayside caravanserai is
sleeping into decay--a dormitory for bats and serpents.
What is it that makes the wreck of an inn more lonely and forbidding
than any other ruin?
A few miles more of riding along the flanks of the mountains bring us to
a place where we turn a corner suddenly, and come upon the full view of
the upper basin of the Jordan; a vast oval green cup, with the little
Lake of Huleh lying in it like a blue jewel, and the giant bulk of Mount
Hermon towering beyond it, crowned and cloaked with silver snows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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