Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
The top of the mountain is composed of blocks of basalt, covered with
grey lichen. The view is magnificent, extending from the Safed ranges
on the north to Mount Ebal on the south, and from the peaks east of the
great Hauran plateau to Carmel and the sea. Fifteen hundred feet below
us is Nain, and north of this the plain in which the mediæval tradition
supposed Abraham to have met Melchisedek, with the unique outline of
Tabor, the Nazareth block, and distant Hermon. On the south side the
broad valley of Jezreel is just below, and the villages of Kûmieh and
Shŭtta, seen almost in bird’s-eye view on their little knolls
surrounded by long patches of arable land, whilst on the south side of
the valley the limestone of the Gilboa ridge is twisted into wavy lines
by the eruptive basalt beneath, and the range is seen, end on as it
were, rising shelf above shelf, while conspicuous on its knoll of rugged
rock, Jezreel stands at the north-west horn of the crescent-shaped
range, 500 feet above the bright pool of “Goliath’s Spring,” where the
early Christians, by some curious misconception, imagined David to have
fought the giant. On a clear autumn day the little Survey cairn was
plainly visible on Mount Ebal at a distance of twenty-six miles. The
prospect is indeed one of the finest in Palestine, with a variety of
outline and extent of view rarely to be found.
The village of Nain lies below on a sort of spur to the north of Neby
Dŭhy, and the road from Nazareth ascends in a hollow to the west of
it. On the right of the road, yet farther west, are the rock-cut tombs,
and thus the procession bearing the young man’s body would have come
down the slope towards the little spring westwards, meeting our Lord on
the main road. The mud-hovels on the grey tongue of limestone have no
great marks of antiquity, but the surrounding ruins show the village to
have been once larger, and a little mosque called “the Place of our Lord
Jesus” marks, no doubt, the site of an early chapel. There are, as far
as we could see, no traces of a wall, and I think we should understand
by “gate of the city,” the place where the road enters among the houses,
just as the word is used often in Greek, and in modern Arabic in such
expressions as “gate of the pass,” “gate of the valley,” and even “gate
of the city,” where no wall or gate exists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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