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I

A PAINTER. IN
PALESTINE DONALD MAXWELL

I

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

A PAINTER IN PALESTINE

A LADDER SET UP
C(N THE EARTHAND THE
TOP OF rr REACHED TO HEAVEN

A PAINTER IN PALES
TINE BEING AN IMPROMPTU
PILGRIMAGE THROUGH THE HOLY
LAND WITH BIBLE AND SKETCH-BOOK
BY DONALD MAXWELL with
A FOREWORD BY THE DEAN OF
ROCHESTER ^ ^ ^ ^

London: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
New York: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXXI

Printed in Great Britain bp R. Clay ds 5ong, Ltd,, London and Bungay

TO
FREDERICK B. PALMER
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS
ENCOURAGEMENT OF MY LITERARY ADVENTURES
IN THE EAST

_r:_

PREFAGE
THE story of these travels in Palestine
was written before the war, in the
summer of 1914. The fact that
my journey was accomplished when the
land was still under Turkish rule made for
adventure, and the fact that the " war
interest " had not been attached to Biblical
places made for greater simplicity of study.
I have since revisited Palestine and gone
over the same ground under new condi
tions. These later travels have been
exceedingly interesting to me, but any
attempt to make comment or to "foot
note " what I had written would be dis
astrous and necessitate several volumes of
additional matter. Therefore I have let
everything stand as I wrote it at the time.
Palestine and its people are still very
much to the fore during the renaissance of
the Middle East, and our administrators
will need unusual wisdom and tact in
steering clear of great political difficulties.
vii

viii PREFACE
The preservation of many spots, especially
in the Holy Land, has become a very
well-thought-out duty. When in Jerusalem
just after the armistice, I had the pleasure
of a talk with the Governor, and he told
me something of his policy in that city
with regard to religious difficulties. It is
not only that definite sites known as
" Holy Places " should be cared for, but
also that some attempt should be made
to discourage wanton inroads of unneces
sary modernity into picturesque and primi
tive scenes that recall the days of long
ago. For instance, his order forbidding
the erection of tin roofs to some extent
protects the native against himself.
It is to a certain extent a happy coinci
dence that it is to the Governor's father,
the Dean of Rochester, that I am so greatly
indebted for helping me see this book
through the press and for his Introduction.
I purpose in this book not so much to
dwell on the narrative side of my itinerary
—which, as will be seen, was wildly
impromptu — but on the perspective in
which we can view these stories of Scripture

PREFACE ix
familiar to us all. To many this want of
true perspective has led to a general
scepticism concerning the whole Bible.
The story of Lot's wife, to take one ex
ample, has become as mythical as Father
Christmas. Yet this is only because we
live in Balham or Kensington, where the
metamorphosis of a respectable resident
into a pillar of salt would be looked upon
as rather a tall story. To the denizens
of the Dead Sea plain the fact of a lady
being struck dead by touching a live wire
would be equally difficult of belief.
It is a great loss that the average man
has given up reading the Bible. I say
this not from a religious, but from a
literary point of view. It used to be the
one constant standard of superb English
in the hands of every man.
Should some orator from the East appear
on the stage of the London Hippodrome
and tell us in the words of the Authorized
Version the story of the lights and pitchers
and the battle-cry of Gideon, of the golden
image and the fiery furnace, or of the hand
of a man that wrote upon the wall in the

X PREFACE
banquet hall of Belshazzar, he would be
hailed as a consummate artist until people
found out that he was only reading things
out of the Bible.
Why this prejudice on the part of the
average man? It is because he has been
taught in his youth very often to take all
the books of the Bible literally, and without
a common-sense discrimination between
allegory, poetry, drama, and the narrative
of events recorded by eye-witnesses and
attested as such. The result is that when
he disbelieves in Adam and Eve and the
serpent he doubts also that Jesus Christ
was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Thus,
regarding the whole thing as a more or less
pious fraud, he is blinded to the beauty
of its art and cannot feel the glamour of
its poetry — or if he can, it is with that
grudging admiration which a man will give
to the skill of the penman who has success
fully forged his name to a document.
To the devout and simple soul who
still takes the Bible with utmost literalness,
greeting. You will not have been dis
turbed though the higher critics rage

PREFACE xi
furiously together. You will remain, I
feel, a sort of religious Gallio who cares
for none of these things, and will imagine
that I am using a lot of powder and shot
for nothing, and think, too, that I have
much overstated the case against the
average man.
I know well that I have not. It is
in you, average man, that I would arouse
interest, Bible in hand as a modernist
missionary. Come with me to Palestine
with your cynical comments and your
dead beliefs. They are very many and
they are very dry. And behold, a shaking
and the bones shall come together, bone
to his bone. And they shall live and
stand upon their feet, an exceeding great
army. Donald Maxwell.
The Beacon,
Borstal, Rochester, Feb. 15, 1921.

FOREWORD
BY THE DEAN OF ROCHESTER
MY friend Mr. Donald Maxwell, the
author of this little book, is a
great traveller. But he is more
than this ; he is a devout Churchman who
sees everything not only with the eye of
a thoughtful tourist, but with that of a
reverent-minded and accomplished artist.
And it is as an artist that he describes
the Holy Places and the Sacred Cities of
Palestine. This point of view — especially in con
nection with modern criticism as to the
literal accuracy of certain narratives of
the Bible — is important and illuminating.
To take one instance only. The story of
Jacob's Dream as suggested by the picture
on the frontispiece comes home to us with
fresh beauty and a deeper reality if " suc-
xiii

xiv FOREWORD
cessive ledges of limestone rock," stretch
ing upwards from earth towards heaven,
may take the place of the " ladder " or
staircase of our childhood.
There are truths to be learnt from
painting which neither photography, how
ever exact, nor writing, however graphic,
can teach. Some of these truths Mr.
Maxwell impresses upon us in a way that
" whoso runs may read," as for example
his discussion of the visit of the Magi
and the Star of Bethlehem. His writings
will make admirable aids to the study of
those absorbing questions.
Having been privileged to spend three
months in the Holy Land last year, I am
glad indeed to bear witness to the accuracy
both of the author's illustrations and
descriptions. The book is certainly unconventional,
but it is not marred by the slightest tinge
of irreverence, and it may well claim to
be a serious contribution to the study of
Bible Lands.
Those who have never visited Jerusalem
will gather much valuable instruction

FOREWORD XV
from these pages. Those who have will
be stirred to vivid memories of sacred
associations and hallowed hours.
I wish all success to A Painter in
Palestine.
John Storks.
The Deanery,
Rochester, Feb. 14, 1921.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. THE HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH . . 3
II. THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM ... 29
m. THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM ... 59
IV. THE WILDERNESS AND THE SOLITARY
PLACE  89
V. THE DEAD SEA CLEFT . . . .117
VI. THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN . . . 135

XVll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF PLATES
FoAdflg pagi
"A LADDER SET UP ON THE EARTH, AND THE
TOP OF IT REACHED TO HEAVEN." Frontispiece
"JERUSALEM IS BUILDED AS A CITY THAT IS
COMPACT together" .... 30
THE VALLEY OF BONES ..... 36
THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM .... 62
NIGHT IMPRESSION OF A SYRIAN STABLE . 84
AN UPPER ROOM ...... 126
" THERE WAS A GARDEN " . . . . 136
" NOW JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED IN A PLACE NIGH
TO THE city" ..... 142
GOLGOTHA ? . . . . . ¦ • 144
JERUSALEM FROM THE SKULL HILL . . 152
LIST OF LINE SKETCHES,
MAPS AND PLANS
PAGE
LIGHTERS AT JAFFA ..... 5
A WATER MILL AT HAIFA .... 7
MAP : TYRE TO JERUSALEM .... 9
xix

XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE HILL OF THE PRIESTS ....
A VILLAGE IN THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL .
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE POSITION OF NAZARETH
SAMARIA .......
the north wall of jerusalem .
via dolorosa ......
the temple area from siloam .
houses on west side of tyropceon valley
sketch to show how jerusalem stands in
the hills
map: kedron at Jerusalem
the damascus gate, jerusalem
the west wall of jerusalem
the well of the magi
diagram to show star in the east when
THE SUN IS BELOW THE HORIZON (fIG. 1)
DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI
FROM JERUSALEM TO BETHLEHEM AND THE
POSITION OF THE MAGl's WELL (fIG. 2) .
DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE POSITION OF THE SUN
ABOVE THE HORIZON WHEN THE STAR IS
SOUTH (fig. 3) .... .
SOME KILNS IN THE MEDWAY COUNTRY
THE TOMB OF RACHEL .....
THE GATE OF A " CITY " ....

13
1517
23333541434755 57
6567
7071
75
77
79 81

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
PAGE
MAP OF THE DEAD SEA .... 88
MAP : JERUSALEM TO DEAD SEA . . .91
map: JERUSALEM AND THE TWO VALLEYS . 95
CAVE DWELLING, MAR SABA .... 103
THE MONASTERY OF MAR SABA . . . 105
THE DEAD SEA FROM THE WILDERNESS OF
JUD^A ....... Ill
IN A DEAD SEA GORGE . . . .115
MAP SHOWING LEVELS IN JORDAN VALLEY . 119
DIAGRAM OF LEVELS FROM JERUSALEM TO DEAD
SEA  120
MAP : CHURCH OF HOLY SEPULCHRE, THE SKULL
HILL AND THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM . 134
PLAN OF THE GARDEN TOMB . . . 139
map: VALLEY OF HINNOM AND TYROPCEON
VALLEY (fig. 1) .... . 147
DIAGRAM : WALLS OF JERUSALEM AT DIFFERENT
PERIODS (fig. 2)  151
DIAGRAM : WALLS OF JERUSALEM AT DIFFERENT
PERIODS (fig. 3)  155

A PAINTER IN PALESTINE

CHAPTER I
THE HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH
IT had been dark when I went ashore
at Haifa the night before. Beyond
a glimpse of the country along the
coast and a twilight silhouette of palms
against the sky as the landing -boat glided
up to the quay I had seen nothing. And
now, as dawn grew into day I stood upon
Mount Carmel which was to me a very
Pisgah of expectation to see revealed a
country which I was to go up and possess
pictorially . Would it ' be a land flowing
with the milk and honey of line and
colour? Would it contain for the artist
what it contained for the pilgrim and the
student? Would its scenes be like those
enchanted fields in which our imagina-
3

4 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
tion from childhood has roamed or merely
like coloured photographs ? Would there
be romance in the landscape where the
hosts of Israel crossed dry-shod over Jor
dan or where the chariots and horses of
fire stood round about Elisha on the
mountain? Common sense said sternly.
No, but imagination whispered Yes, and
it is imagination and not common sense
that achieves the big things in life.
In the north-east the sky had reddened
and showed up the snow-streaked peak of
Hermon over the Galilean hills. Across
the bay lay Acre, and beyond it the head
land where climbs the ladder of Tyre into
Phoenicia. The long, wooded range of
Carmel led the eye from ridge to ridge
until it rested on the mountains of
Samaria. Between these mountains and
the rocky heights at Nazareth appeared
the great plain of Esdraelon, that field of
a hundred battles, like a carpet stretched
across from hill to hill. Round the head of
the bay green fields and many-coloured
crops gave a domestic touch to the scene,
and the brook Kishon, that ancient river.

highway from the north 5
now almost dried up by the summer
heat, glowed red with oleander blossom
where once it had been dyed with the
blood of the prophets of Baal.
When, at last, the disc of the sun
climbed into the sky and turned from

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orange to gold, and from gold to fire,
pouring a stream of light over the hill
and plain and barring them with purple
shadow, a goodly world of land and sea
lay spread out below. To start on the
interpretation of its character with a pen

6 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and a bottle of Indian ink seemed mad
ness, yet this is exactly what I was setting
out to do, encouraged by the sight of
Acre, the key of Palestine, glittering on
the shores of the deep blue waters of the
bay. Here started the Crusaders with
the sword, and the sword failed them.
But the pen is mightier than the sword,
and I would make it a two-edged weapon
and march through the land wresting the
Holy Places from the infidel and the un
speakable Turk. Thus highly coloured
was my optimism on that glorious morn
ing, surrounded by the excellency of
Carmel. I could see no difficulties ahead
and heeded not the sage advice of Ahab,
" Let not him that girdeth on his harness
boast himself as he that putteth it off."
I was under the spell of the morning
and quite unmindful of obstacles, but I
was in reality in a desperate position. I
had arrived in Palestine long after the
time when the heat is considered bear
able for European travellers, having
been held up on desert roads by motor
troubles in the North of Syria, and now

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 7
having taken steamer from Beirut to
Jaffa, I had been suddenly given the
alternative of proceeding to Egypt or
landing her,e, as a telegram from Jaffa

A WATEK MILL AT HAIFA.

had declared the port closed by quaran
tine on account of plague. I chose to
land, but all my carefully-planned itinerary
had been dislocated and I should have to

8 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
find my way to Jerusalem by road, either
on horseback or by carriage, a matter of
some days and probably, as I was alone,
it would be none too safe. In the event of
the port being closed for long, and it well
might be, I should be unable to get out
again except by making this hot and
dusty journey twice. I decided to go
down to the hotel and breakfast and then
make a few practical inquiries about the
route I was to take.
The path descended through groves of
olive trees until it passed by the wall of a
garden. There I overtook a man pre
ceding me on the same path. He greeted
me in English, and proved to be a
Syrian medical student from the Ameri
can College at Beirut. He lived at Jeru
salem and was trying, as I was, to get
there, having been landed from another
steamer bound for Jaffa. He told me of
two other unfortunate travellers held up
in like manner. There would be diffi
culty about carriages, and they were
apparently waiting until a sufficient party
were ready to share a large conveyance.

10 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
I threw in my lot with them, and we
decided to take the train to Jennin and
there to stay the night and bargain for a
vehicle. An Italian monk and an Armenian
commercial traveller made up the party,
and, although we represented an extra
ordinary assortment of vocations, I could
not help seeing certain advantages gained
by travelling in a way that would show
me a side of life I should otherwise miss.
There is one train a day to Jennin. It
was advertised to leave at three o'clock, so
we all went to the station at about 1.30
to wait for it in case, I was told quite
solemnly, it felt inclined to go earlier. It
is a Turkish railway and it is, therefore,
useless to argue about anything or ex
pect reasonable methods. The taking of
tickets was a lengthy process because
the money is so complicated that both
the booking clerk and the traveller have
to make elaborate calculations on little
bits of paper. The Syrian student took
my ticket for me or I should have been
there arguing till now, as it is impossible,

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 11
without knowing Arabic characters, to
tell the price of the ticket or its destina
tion, and all the change from a Turkish
pound was given in copper, which made
a weighty pile of enormous size.
The refreshment department consisted
of a man with a pyramid of little loaves
in a basket on his head, and a picturesque
water-seller clashing his brass cymbals to
attract attention. Most of the natives
carried tonkas (earthenware jars). These
were often hung outside the windows of
the train to get more rapid evaporation,
for it is by evaporation through the porous
clay that the water is kept cool.
There is some relief from the oppressive
heat when the train starts. On the left
are the gardens that fringe the sea and
a belt of date palms through which we
could catch a pleasant glimpse of sand
where some men were engaged in building
a boat, on the right the rolling slope
of Carmel, thickly wooded with close-
growing scrub. From time to time the
regular curves of the mountain are broken
into by little wild valleys where cliffs and

12 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
rugged places appear. The priest pointed
out to me the place marked by tradition
as the spot where Elijah held his dramatic
contest with the prophets of Baal. The
range of Carmel ends here, falling
steeply to the plain of Esdraelon and
facing Jezreel where the mountains rise
again. The train stopped near a flat-topped
hill, called the " Hill of the Priests," and
I was able to get a rough sketch (p. 13)
showing the main features of the scene
which is said to be the spot on the banks
of the brook Kishon, where the four
hundred and fifty were put to the sword.
The distance across the level plain
between the place of sacrifice and the
sight of Jezreel is a good twelve miles^
and it has been suggested by some that
it cannot be taken literally that a man
of Elijah's age ran before Ahab's chariot
the whole way to the entrance of Jezreel.
But a consideration of the landscape of
this piece of country will teach us much.
Standing between Carmel and the hills
of Samaria the traveller will notice one

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 13
gap in the ranks of the hills that shut
out the sea. It is the funnel-like space
between the high lands of Galilee and the
ridge at Haifa. Now the Bay of Acre
is among sailors a notoriously bad
anchorage when it is a lee shore, and the
reason is to be found in this gap into

TV. «iU ij C.^»^t

THE HILL OF THE PRIESTS.

which the wind pours with extraordinary
fury. From the fact that it was over the
sea that Elijah's servant saw the cloud
like a man's hand rise up, we may assume
that the storm came from the west.
Then taking into account the flowing
nature of an Eastern garment even though

14 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
the prophet girded up his loins, it is
not difficult to imagine the scene. " The
heaven was black with clouds and wind "
and the old man borne along before the
whirling, driving tempest would make
so wonderful a figure that all who saw
him would recount that the hand of the
Lord was upon him as he ran before Ahab
to the entrance of Jezreel.
The train stopped at a little place called
Affuleh, a note of which is reproduced
on the opposite page. It serves well to
show the nature of these mud-built vil
lages of the plain which, in the distance,
look like rambling castles. I should
imagine that many of the cities men
tioned in the Old Testament were not
unlike these tiny towns, and that accounts
for no single trace of them remaining,
for, although they often look massive
and are quite sufficient to stand a sunny
climate where there is damp only for a
short rainy season, they do not last very
long, nor do they need to be made of
very permanent material, as they are so
quickly and easily re-built.

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 15
I have explored many of these villages
carefully, my attention being especially
called to them by their extraordinary
resemblance to old cement works in my
own Medway country — which cement
works, please note, I often admire as
picturesque additions to the river side,
and therefore I mean nothing but honour
to these Eastern mud towns by the

comparison. (The reason of the resem
blance is not far to seek. Drifting
cement-dust settling on the angles and
corners of walls and windows soon en
crusts them so that everything is rounded
and softened, and the colour being the
same the resemblance of effect is strik
ing.) Possibly the twenty cities in the
land of Galilee which Solomon gave to

16 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Hiram, King of Tyre, were made of this
unstable material. The cities along the
sea coast of Phoenicia must have been
built of stone. Perhaps that explains
the disappointment felt by the recipient.
" And Hiram came out from Tyre to see
the cities which Solomon had given him;
and they pleased him not."
On the other side, almost due north, lies
Nazareth. I had time to scribble this
rough note (opposite) to mark how strik
ing is the situation of the village perched
up on the mountains. Photographs of the
town do not show its position, and I do
not remember to have seen a drawing
of it made from the plain. I have lettered
the sketch for identification of features.
Nazareth lies in a hollow over the letters
A and B. It is possible to see the white
houses on the near and far side of this
depression. The Mount of Precipitation
is the one over letter C. It is so called
from a mediaeval tradition that this is the
place where the people sought to cast
down Our Lord, but as it lies some way
from the village — nearly two miles on

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 17
foot, though it seems so close — it has
probably no other claim to authenticity
than its strikingly wild walls of cliff along
its summit.
The line to Deraa (Edrei) in the Hauran
— ^joining the line from Damascus to Me
dina — ^runs straight on by Bethshan and
the Lake of Galilee, but a branch is
being made to Nablus (Shechem), and

Jennin lies on this route. Trains run for
several miles further, but Jennin, we were
told, was the last place where it would
be possible to get any kind of conveyance
and where there was anywhere to sleep.
Leaving Jezreel on the hill to the left,
the train came in sight of the Fountain
of Gardens, the En-gannim of Scripture,

18 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
a pleasant and fruitful spot, still abound
ing in little rivers running through
plantations thick with goodly trees and
palms, the modern Jennin.
The village lies about three-quarters
of a mile from the station, and we had
great difficulty in procuring anything
whatever to cart our baggage. After a
deal of talking, in which everybody joined,
we heard of a cart and sent a boy to
fetch it. It was a decrepit and sorry-
looking thing, and was in such bad repair
that it did not look as if it would last
out till it reached its destination, but
there was nothing else, so we had our
things piled into it and ourselves walk
ing, we set out straight across some
ploughed fields which offered a better
surface than the road.
The inn at which we stayed was like
all native inns in Syria, a high spacious
room in which were tables for meals.
Round the sides of this central hall doors
led into various bedrooms. So truly
" native " was the catering that it was
impossible to get bread other than in the

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 19
Arab style of baking. This is quite un
recognizable to a European as bread, and
when I first saw some I thought it was
a large piece of chamois leather folded
up, for it resembles a huge, tough and
dry pancake, and looks more like an
article of clothing than something to
eat. We bargained for a carriage in thor
oughly Eastern manner. It appeared
that there was only one conveyance in
the place that there was any probability
of being able to hire, and as the owner
knew this he thought it a good oppor
tunity for making a fortune. We all
four went round to his house and drank
coffee in a leisurely way as if the matter
of hiring a carriage was a matter of only
remote importance to be talked about
possibly on some later occasion. When
every topic except that of carriage-hiring
had been discussed, the Armenian brought
the subject round to our visit to Jennin.
We explained that we were so pleased
to see him that we should like to make
a long stay and enjoy his society but

20 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
that as we were all on the way to Jerusa
lem we would make a start in that
direction if by any chance a carriage
were at our disposal.
I cannot give even an outline of the
conversation that followed, for it would
occupy several books, but it led finally
to an offer on the part of the owner to
contract to drive us all to Jerusalem for
a fabulous sum of money. After protest
on our part he excused himself from any
suspicion of imposition by declaring that
one of our party was an Englishman.
The monk then rose to the occasion and
said that he would be quite wiUing to
walk the whole distance if anyone would
walk with him. We said we would do
so, all of us, and send for our baggage
afterwards— unless, however, we could get
a carriage at a reasonable price. This
brought the figure down with a run, and
he closed with an offer of five pounds
for the four of us and our impedimenta —
a sum that I thought very low. Then
happened the most extraordinary part
of the proceedings. He agreed to let us

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 21
have the conveyance with driver and three
horses by three in the morning and gave
us two pounds on account. The Syrian
student explained to me that it was the
custom for the hirer of horses or car
riages to take a hostage in the shape of
money as a guarantee that the contract
would be fulfilled. The money is to be
returned together with the price of hire,
but in the event of the contract being
broken the intending hirer is entitled to
the deposit. It seems an extraordinarily
inverted way of doing things : equivalent
to a man ordering a suit at the same time
insisting on his tailor giving him five
pounds to be repaid when the bill is met.
But in the East it is we who are accused
of doing things backwards — ^we take off
our hats when we should take off our
shoes, and write and print in the wrong
direction. At 2.30 a.m. I was awakened. I
looked out to see what the weather was
like, more out of force of habit than for
information, for the weather is always
fine in these lands at this time of the year.

22 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
It was dark but for a dust of stars that
made the landscape dimly visible. The
ghostly white of a mosque with its mina
ret, and the black outline of some palms
rising from the dark gardens were easily
made out, and after my eyes had grown
accustomed to this light I could see the
shape of the mountains of Gilboa.
The carriage was a four-wheeled vehicle,
without much in the way of springs. It
was covered with a canopy from which
hung side blinds of canvas to keep out
the sun, though now these were roUed
up. We rumbled along in the dark,
sometimes having to hold on to avoid
being pitched out as we crossed V-shaped
water courses that ran through the road
at right angles, until it began to grow
light, and we climbed a low, long hill
and descended again into the valley the
other side. Two jackals stole across our
path and disappeared, and we started
up a fox which ran some distance ahead
of us along the road. Then a village
came into view and the driver pointed out
the sight of a pit which is traditionally

24 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
the one into which Joseph was cast by
his brethren. We had come to Dothan.
Samaria is little more than a heap of
ruins although the modern village with
its minaret and mosque looks quite a
bright little town from the distance. It
is, on closer inspection, disappointing,
however, and the chief interest in the
way of ancient remains is to be found in
the Street of the Columns, which dates
from the time of the Herods. We did
not stop there long as the heat was get
ting oppressive, and continuous dust
storms were blowing along the dry hill
sides. We had to cover our faces to
keep out the dust, and I do not know how
the driver managed to see where he was
going at all. Sometimes everything in
sight would be blotted out for minutes
together and we had to stop.
Nablus, the ancient Shechem, was our
midday halt, and we changed horses and
started again at three o'clock. The
natural acoustic properties of the valley
are wonderful, and it was from the cliffs
on these mountain sides that the blessings

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 25
and the cursings of the land were pro
nounced upon the assembled tribes of
Israel. Near Lubban (the ancient Lebonah)
begins a feature in the landscape which
becomes more and more striking as we
proceed. It is the regular step-nature of
the hills. In some places these terraces
are in ledges forty feet high, at others
almost on as small a scale as an ordinary
staircase. Near Shiloh it is particularly
noticeable, and there are similar forma
tions in the region of Bethel. When the
sun was low and obscured by clouds I
caught a glimpse of the effect I have
put down in the frontispiece. In this
case the low sun, the down streaming
light catching on the successive ledges of
limestone rock undoubtedly accentuate
the peculiar nature of the place, and it is
seldom that I have seen it brought out
under so favourable conditions.
How often have we not seen pictures
of Jacob's dream with magnificent Re
naissance marble staircases with balus
trades, and yet it is reasonable to suppose

26 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
that he never could have dreamed such
a thing. Dreams are invariably made
up of material that the dreamer has seen,
however distorted, and mixed or exagger
ated. It is doubtful whether Jacob ever
saw a staircase at all, but it is quite pos
sible that in a country like this he might
have seen a striking effect of sunlight,
showing a ladder of limestone steps that
stretched from earth to heaven. And
when he dreamed, his dream was built of
this material. It was when the sun was
low in the sky that he drew near to Bethel
from the south, for we are told " he
lighted upon a certain place, and tarried
there all night, because ihe sun 'was set,
and he took of the stones of that place,
and put them for his pillow, and lay
down in that place to sleep."
When we left the region of Bethel it
was dark and a strong wind had got up
from the direction of the sea, and it
looked as if a storm was brewing, an ex
ceptional thing, so the Syrian told me,
for this time of the year. From being
oppressively hot it had become exceed-

HIGHWAY FROM THE NORTH 27
ingly cold, and we took shelter at a cara
van stable where we fed the horses and
held counsel as to what we should do-
Under normal conditions we should have
driven on through the night till we
reached Jerusalem, but it was too cold
to think of it as "v\re were dressed for hot
weather and had not dreamt of rain. We
therefore took the horses out and shook
down as best we could on straw.
I slept for an hour or so and then went
out to see the storm. The wind was
tearing and rattling the whole country
side, and sending black scud flying across
the sky.
Was it some such tempest as this, with
its weird noises and ominous intervals of
silence, arising suddenly at twilight, that
caused panic in the hosts of Benhadad,
King of Syria, when he was encamped
here, before Samaria, in the days of Elisha ?
The Syrian troops evidently dreaded the
mountains, for they said of the Israelites,
" Their gods are the gods of the hills ;
therefore they were stronger than we;
but let us fight against them in the plain

28 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and surely we shall be stronger than
they." The fear of the unknown is the most
fruitful cause of panic, especially among
Orientals, and one can imagine such a
night as this striking terror into their
ranks. " For the Lord had made the host of the
Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a
noise of horses, even the noise of a great
host : and they said one to another, Lo,
the King of Israel hath hired against us
the Kings of the Hittites, and the Kings
of the Egyptians, to come upon us.
Wherefore they arose and fled in the
twihght."

CHAPTER II
THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM
" Walk about Zion, and go round about her : tell the
towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider
her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation
following.^'
IT is inevitable that the first sight of
the Holy City as viewed by the
traveller under ordinary conditions
must be one of profound disappointment.
So much has been built up in the pilgrim's
imagination that it is impossible for
him to approach it without a clearly-
defined and highly-coloured mental picture
of its appearance. " Jerusalem is builded
as a city that is compact together," and
behold, a straggling mass of large white
buildings, rather suggestive of a modern
German town, in the midst of which can
be discerned some grey, old walls.
Lector : Wait ! This is not a fair de-
29

30 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
scription. The views from the Kidron
Valley or from Mount Scopus are, each
in their way, most impressive. People
should not be so unromantic as to pour
in by train with Cook's tickets. You
have described only the view from the
neighbourhood of the railway station.
PiCTOR : Quite so. I am not defend
ing their method of travel. There is a
certain poetic justice in this prosaic first
view of the city for people who arrive in
so prosaic a fashion, but I am recording
the impression of ninety-nine people out
of a hundred.
Lector : Surely they could have known
what to expect of Jerusalem. Are there
not whole books of splendid photographs ?
PiCTOR : Certainly, and it is because
of photography that people are justified
in looking for something far more roman
tic in the original. I have seen snap
shots of a cruiser labouring in a fearful
sea in the Bay and it was only the fact
that her bow was out of the water that
gave any indication that the sea was
rough. So much for photography.

TT

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 31
It was more or less by accident that I
caught my first glimpse of Jerusalem
under the most favourable circumstances
possible for a painter. Soon after dawn
we four belated pilgrims looked down
from the height of Mount Scopus into
the Holy City. It is the spot whence
countless thousands, pilgrims, and war
riors of the Cross, have first set eyes
upon the Holy Places. In the mysterious
light of early morning Milton's words
inevitably suggest themselves :
Underneath them fair Jerusalem,
The Holy City, lifted high her towers,
And, higher yet the glorious Temple reared
Her pile, far oft appearing like a mount
Of alabaster, top't with golden spires.
It is not my purpose in this volume
to write about Palestine from the
point of view of the scholar or the
archaeologist, because to do so would be
to expose my ignorance and contribute
nothing whatever to the study of this
subject. Rather I desire to look at the
matter frankly from the painter's point
of view. In so doing I feel drawn to-

32 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
wards those scenes which by their general
character bring out most strongly the
unalterable characteristics of the stage
upon which the world's greatest drama
has been played. No sooner is the site
of some great happening authenticated —
or considered to be authenticated — ^than
it is walled in and built over and, except
as a relic, destroyed. The Well of
Jacob, for instance, is now inside a hand
some church in course of construction,
and so the site, undoubtedly genuine,
has become of no value as a " picture "
of the spot where Our Lord rested by
the wayside and talked with the woman
of Samaria. Not so, however, the land
scape around. The slopes of Mount Geri-
zim dip down to the cornfields white
already to harvest. We are looking at
the actual setting of the scene recorded
by St. John.
It is certain that Jerusalem is entirely
unlike the city as it was in the time of
Our Lord, and the exact position of its
walls on two sides is still a matter of
controversy. But " her foundations " are

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 33
upon " the holy hills " as in the days of
her glory. From the depths of the val
leys that surround her she still stands on

THE NORTH WALL, JERUSALEM.

high as of old and from here, deep down
beneath the walls, it is possible to capture
some idea of the strong ramparts that
have been the inspiration of prophets and

34 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
have become for all time the type of the
bulwarks of the City of God.
I will therefore confine my notes to
the study of Jerusalem from without the
walls, literally obeying the Psalmist's
exhortation to go round about her and
tell the towers thereof. Before the wild
ness of the Valley of the Kidron and the
Valley of Hinnom is spoilt by possible
encroachments — already it is rumoured
that electric tramways are projected — I
will mark well her bulwarks that I may
tell it to the generation following.
I arose in the night and went out by
St. Stephen's Gate and stood upon the
slopes of Kidron. It was dark under
the high east wall but a low moon lit
up the other side of the valley, the
valley of Jehoshaphat, where white shapes
loomed out and showed the houses of
Siloam stretching up the steep, bare hill.
It was a scene of weird and wonderful
charm. The dim line of the high ramparts and
the sleeping city recalled the exploit of
Nehemiah when he went out by night at

VIA "DOLOROSA

35

36 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
the gate of the valley to view the walls
of Jerusalem which were broken down.
" Then went I up in the night by the
brook and viewed the wall, and turned
back, and entered by the gate of the
valley, and so returned."
Hundreds of white stones marked
Moslem graves around me and across
the cleft of the dry Kidron stood rock-
hewn sepulchres, the tomb of Zechariah
and Absalom's pillar, and a sea of stones
denoting graves innumerable. It is a
veritable Valley of the Dead, and it is
the wish of all devout Jews to be buried
here because of the words of the prophet
Joel, " I will also gather all nations, and
will bring them down into the valley of
Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them
there for my people and for my heri
tage Israel, whom they have scattered
among the nations, and parted my land."
" Assemble yourselves, and come all ye
heathen, and gather yourselves together
round about : thither cause Thy mighty
ones to come down, O Lord. Let the
heathen be wakened, and come up to the

THE VALLKY
OF BONES

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 37
Valley of Jehoshaphat : for there I will
sit to judge all the heathen round about.
Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is
ripe." One could picture, too, in this strange
place white with unnumbered graves,
Ezekiel in the Valley of Bones. " And
behold there were very many in the open
valley ; and they were very dry . . . there
was a noise, and behold a shaking, and
the bones came together, bone to his
bone." Dawn had begun to break and
the serried ranks of white stones ap
peared like a pale multitude of shrouded
figures recumbent upon the wild valley
sides. But there was no breath in them.
When the breeze stirred fitfully as the
morning broke, it needed little imagina
tion to complete the picture of the
prophet's vision. " Then said he unto me.
Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son
of man, and say to the wind. Thus saith
the Lord God : Come from the four winds,
O breath, and breathe upon those slain,
that they may live. So I prophesied as
he commanded me, and they lived, and

38 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
stood up upon their feet, an exceeding
great army."
The light had grown now to full day
but the sun had not yet risen. The
Mount of Olives crowned by the Church
of the Ascension stood out sharply against
the eastern sky and I could see the dark
trees of Gethsemane on its lower slopes.
This site of the Garden has been known
as such since the fourth century. It is
now enclosed, and forms part of the
Franciscan grounds. There seems no
reason to doubt that somewhere near this
spot was the scene of the Agony. The
words of St. John say clearly, " He
went forth with His disciples over the
brook Cedron, where was a garden into
which He entered and His disciples."
This must mean at some point opposite
one of the eastern gates of the city.
In expressing a belief that this is
almost undoubtedly the true locality it is
not necessary to be tied down to the
belief that the part enclosed is the site of
the Garden. It does not tend to convic
tion that the exact spots are pointed out

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 39
where the disciples slept, where Our Lord
knelt and where Judas gave the kiss of
betrayal. To my mind this over emphasis
of detail rather gives rise to doubtful
ness. I do not believe that originally this
identification of every exact site was a
pious fraud. No doubt it was a means
of helping unimaginative pilgrims to re
construct the scene. " Here is the place
where this event took place," says the
guide, " and here stood St. John and here
St. Peter." The places are marked to
illustrate the story. Such identifications
would soon crystallize into a definite
belief that by some infallible means the
exact locality of the incidents had been
preserved. Later the continuous tradi
tion of centuries makes the acceptance of
them a matter of faith.
Without, therefore, accepting evidence
of very uncertain tradition about these
details we have evidence of great strength
that this is the region of the scene of
Our Lord's agony in the garden, and be
trayal. Eight very old olive trees stand
here, but the whole hillside was no doubt

40 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
much more thickly wooded than it is now.
Across the Kidron rise the eastern walls
of Jerusalem.
Now these eastern walls, although not
ancient, are built on the foundations of
the walls as they were in Our Lord's
time. They probably do not now look
very different although the steep ascent
to them was no doubt then steeper. Much
debris must have accumulated at their
base since the period of the Gospel story.
The principal features, in fact the one
break in the otherwise straight face of
the wall at this part of the city, the
Temple area, is the Golden Gate — the
gate through which Our Lord on Palm
Sunday entered Jerusalem. Such is the
tradition. The gate is now walled up.
There is a belief that when He comes
again it will be through this gate that
He will make His triumphant entry into
Jerusalem to overthrow the Moslems.
The gate is probably sixth-century work,
although it is thought by archaeologists
that parts of it are more ancient. It is
no doubt reconstructed on the site of the

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 41
original edifice, and tradition in this case
would appear to be correct. The road
from Bethany leads up to this side of the
city, which adds to the certainty that
this gate by the Temple area is that

THE TEMPLE AREA FROM SILOAM.
through which Our Lord passed on the
first Palm Sunday.
As a devout Jew it may be supposed that
Our Lord would pray towards the Temple,
which from here lay almost exactly be
hind the Golden Gate. As He knelt down
to prepare Himself for the end He saw

42 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
before Him the scene of His triumphal
entry when acclaimed by the populace
on Palm Sunday. He must have felt here
especially the bitterness of desertion and
the knowledge that His chosen people
who had so loudly acclaimed Him their
King were now ready to hound Him to
a felon's death. Tintoretto in his great
picture of the Crucifixion has put into the
foreground an ass eating the remnants
of withered palm leaves. The Golden
Gate seen above the trees of Gethsemane
pale and wan in the moonlight would in
like manner emphasize the desertion and
utter loneliness of the Man of Sorrows
as He resigns Himself to death.
Upon the valley side north of Siloam,
at the foot of the Mount of Olives, rises
a small cliff. In the face of this, hewn
out of the living rock, are two monu
ments popularly known as the tombs of
Zechariah and St. James. Beside them
stands the curious Absalom's Pillar.
(This feature and the situation of the cliff
is shown in the drawing " The Valley of
Bones.") A certain mystery surrounds

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 43
the place, for the names have been vari
ously given by pilgrims from the fourth
century to the Middle Ages. The exact
period of their workmanship is not
known and the only direct evidence is
a Hebrew inscription of the first century

HOUSES ON WEST SIDE OF TYROPCEON VALLEY.
A.D. on an entablature in the tomb of
St. James, giving the names of the Bene
Hezir priests who were buried here. This,
of course, is only evidence one way —
i. e. that the work is not later than the
first century— and does not prove that the
monument is not of an earlier period.

44 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
It would be fanciful to see in Absalom's
PiUar the monument which is mentioned
in the second book of Samuel. " Now
Absalom in his lifetime had taken and
reared up for himself a pillar, which is in
the King's dale : for he said, I have no
son to keep my name in remembrance;
and he called the pillar after his own
name : and it is called unto this day
Absalom's place."
The King's Dale is the name given to
the lower part of the Kidron Valley, so
that it is just possible that the " pillar "
marks the site of a former monument.
It is more probable that the identification
of this tomb with Absalom's Pillar has
resulted because it is the only conspicuous
object in the dale and of such a shape
that the word " pillar " can be used to
describe it.
Beyond these tombs and running
nearly due south the valley path descends,
so that the walls of Jerusalem tower
against the sky. On the other side, built
on a precipitous edge are some tower
like houses of Siloam. How seldom are

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 45
photographs taken from this point of
view. Photographers love to get high
up in order to show as many buildings
as possible. From here only a bit of
wall and a steep slope are visible, but it
is wonderfully effective. The sun was up
now and the south-east corner of the
Temple area flamed orange against a pale
blue sky. How simple yet how majestic
appeared those ramparts even as they
are to-day, shorn of most of their ancient
splendour. What memories rushed to
my mind. I write " memories " but that
is hardly the word. Indeed I cannot
think of quite the one to use. It is im
possible to have memories of what one
has never seen before. Yet there are
memories of the pictures which we have
painted in our imagination. There are
places fashioned in the realms of fancy
which have become so real that to all
intents and purposes they exist.
No need to be an artist to paint these
pictures and to create these places. Who
has not a definite and concise idea of
Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace? I can

46 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
see it distinctly with one furnace door
flung open so that a ray of light wander
ing into the night blue strikes the summit
of the golden image and throws out
its grim features, blood-red against the
star-lit sky. Or the watchman at Jezreel.
Have you not seen him straining his eyes
to make out the meaning of a black speck
and a moving cloud of dust? As a child
I gave him a telescope and made the
chariot cover the ground like a mono
plane about to take the air. Now that
I have visited Jezreel and revised my
ideas on the speed of chariots, I still see
the same sight. The picture is modified
but not effaced. It gave me a peculiar
pleasure to find that the view from
Jezreel to some extent coincided with my
boyish conception of the scene.
It is because of these preconceived
ideas of the appearance of historic places
that what is ordinarily the first view of
Jerusalem is so disappointing. It is diffi
cult to come upon it as I did by looking
down from Mount Scopus. To do that
means a two-days' journey from the

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 47
Nazareth district. It would be well if
travellers could approach it from the
Kidron valley's lower end, but this is
practically impossible. From there one

vis>,^ rvwCt, TB-.'*- 5

gets a glimpse of Jerusalem that satisfies
one's anticipations. I saw it once at
five o'clock in the morning when the sun
had touched the city but not the lower

48 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
hills of the gorge. The appearance of
the walls crowning the steep ascent justified
the lines Vain the leaguer ! her foundations
Are upon the holy hills,
and it is one of the most striking distant
views of the Holy City. To get there
at such a time means leaving Jerusalem
on horseback at four o'clock — of course
in the dark — and a very long ride. I
scribbled a note of it which shows the
position of the main features.
The eastern walls of Jerusalem are
built on the foundations of the ancient
walls. They date from the sixteenth
century as in fact do all the existing walls
of the city. The lowest courses of stone
work, however, are ancient and it is
thought that there are some parts in the
wall of the Temple area (S.E. corner)
dating from the time of Solomon. The
general view of the eastern walls when
viewed frorii below I should think would
give a very good idea of their appear
ance in ancient times. No doubt they

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 49
were more steeply perched up on the
banks of the Kidron, because the cen
turies of accumulated debris and remains
of successive destructions must have
banked up their base. In Nehemiah's
time it was recorded " there is much rub
bish; so that we are not able to build
the wall." Many times since then have
these walls been thrown down. Josephus
describes (Antiquities of the Jews, Book
XV.) Herod's building of the temple walls
(a few stones of which at the base are said
to exist now) as the most prodigious
work ever heard of by man. He speaks
first of the foundations on which Herod
worked. " The hill was a rocky ascent, that de
clined by degrees towards the east parts
of the city, till it came to an elevated
level. This hill it was which Solomon,
who was the first of our kings, by Divine
revelation, encompassed with a wall; it
was of excellent workmanship upwards,
and round the top of it. He also built
a wall below, beginning at the bottom,
which was encompassed by a deep valley ;

50 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and at the south side he laid rocks to
gether, and bound them one to another
with lead, and included some of the inner
parts, till it proceeded to a great height,
and till both the largeness of the square
edifice and its altitude were immense, and
till the vastness of the stones in the front
were plainly- visible on the outside, yet so
that the inward parts were fastened to
gether with iron, and preserved the joints
immovable for all future times."
In the same chapter he describes the
steepness of the valley at this south-east
corner with some exaggeration evidently,
for never could the valley have been so
precipitous as to fulfil this description :
" For while the valley was very deep,
and its bottom could not be se^, if you
looked from above into the depth, this
further vastly high elevation of the
cloister stood upon that height, insomuch
that if anyone looked down from the
top of the battlements, or down both
those altitudes, he would be giddy, whilst
his sight could not reach to such an
immense depth."

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 51
I kept the path along the bed of the
Kidron — ^the word " brook " does not give
much idea of this almost invariably dry
watercourse — ^until I had passed Siloam,
then climbed the hill on my left and took
up a position indicated in the sketch
(p. 41). The traces of the old walls and
the wall of Ophel are disappointing, be
cause they are invisible. A swelling
shoulder of hill reaching up to the wall
of the Temple area is all the indication
left of its position. Directly underneath
the dome shown in the sketch is the part
of the hillside that bore its name, now
buried. Joram built much on the wall of Ophel,
but he did not imagine anyone would have
to sink wells sometimes 100 feet deep in
order to find traces of it. Yet Sir Charles
Warren did so (1865-1870) and discovered
a wall and towers and even " the tower
that lieth out " mentioned by Nehemiah.
The Pool of Siloam lies on the other
side of the Kidron, that is on the Jerusalem
side. It lay outside the old walls, but in
the fifth century Eudocia built a new city

52 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
wall to enclose it. An inscription thought
to be as old as 700 B.C. and in Hebrew
characters was discovered in the aqueduct
leading to it. It gave an account of the
cutting of the tunnel by workmen work
ing independently from opposite directions
until they met. Although it happened
2,600 years ago it sounds strangely like the
making of a railway tunnel in the Alps.
In order to gain as clear an idea as
possible of the position of Jerusalem with
regard to the two valleys which entrench
it, I followed the Kidron valley for some
distance downwards and then mounting
upon the hillside took stock of the posi
tion of things. The letter Y will serve as
a diagram. I was standing at the foot
of the stem of the letter, facing Jeru
salem which lay high up in the fork.
The arm on the right hand side was the
Valley of Kidron and on the left the
Valley of Hinnom. At the junction of
the branches with the stem is Job's well.
Bear in mind that the Y-shape is pressed
in and the country stands up steeply all
round. The part of Siloam from which

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 53
I have just come is on the right of the
right-hand branch and the Hill of Evil
Counsel, the spot where, according to
tradition, Caiaphas met with the Jews and
consulted how they might put Jesus to
death, bounds the left-hand branch. Due
north rises the Temple area now showing
the dome of the Mosque el-Aksa, which
was originally a magnificent basilica built
by Justinian in honour of Our Lady in
A.D. 536. The small dome in sketch
(p. 41) shows its position. The larger
dome, the Dome of the Rock, marks the
position of the great Moslem shrine, built
upon the place where Solomon's Temple
stood. It does not show in this drawing,
but the view of Jerusalem from Mount
Scopus on p. 30 gives an idea of its posi
tion. The line of the city runs upward
towards the west. The indentations of
the valleys within the walls are not very
noticeable and a sketchy description of
the appearance of the city would be that
it is more or less flat, perched up on a
hill and slightly tilted from the north-west
to the south-east.

54 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
The lower end of the right-hand fork
at the foot of Siloam bears the name of
the King's Dale and the gardens — ^if these
stony bits of stony, cultivated land can
be called gardens — near the Pool of Siloam
are the King's Garden mentioned by
Nehemiah — " and the wall of the Pool
of Siloah by the King's Garden, and
unto the stairs that go down from the
city of David."
The region of the King's garden is
known as Paradise and is the type of
the fulfilment of the promises to Israel.
The Valley of Hinnom, however, is
Gehenna and the type of punishment.
Standing here by Job's Well it is a strik
ing picture. At the foot of the Valley
of Jehoshaphat we are facing God's
Temple — type of everlasting truth.
" Multitudes, multitudes in the valley
of decision : for the day of the Lord is
near in the valley of decision."
By the well is a threshing floor and
the oxen are treading out the corn.
Fanned by the morning breeze the chaff

THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM 55
is drifting in a golden dust. On the
right hand the King's garden, type of
rest, and on the left hand Gehenna, type

I

of punishment and death— the Hill of
Evil Counsel, Tophet and the Field of
Blood.

56 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Of all the scenes around Jerusalem there
is none that conjures up so many asso
ciations as this rocky valley. Itself
beautiful in a wild and barren way on
account of its cliffs, its rock-hewn
sepulchres and its gaunt twisted olive
trees rooted in the bare and stony
ground, it seems to be alive with
Dantesque pictures.
We think of Jeremiah breaking the
earthen jar and prophesying that this
accursed place which had been " filled
with the blood of innocents " should no
more be called Tophet but the Valley
of Slaughter.
We think of Josiah stamping out the
devilries of human sacrifice as Milton has
described it, held in this dreadful place to
Moloch, horrid king, besmeared in blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears.
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children's cries unheard, that passed through
fire
To this grim idol' — ^in the pleasant vale of Hinnom,
Tophet thence.
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
We think of Our Lord's allusion to

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57

58 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
this Valley of Death, looked upon by all
as accursed, into which were cast the car
casses of dead animals, the place of the
burning of refuse — " where the worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched."
And finally we think of Judas flinging
down the money for which he had be
trayed innocent blood, and groping his
way to this place of guilt in the red
dawn-light of Earth's most awful day.
Climbing the steep and rocky path that
ascends through the Valley of Hinnom
I came to the lower Pool of Gihon where
crosses the road to Bethlehem and passed
under the west walls, but of these I will
write in the next chapter. Passing along
the road that leads by the north wall,
a knoll which is thought by some to be
Golgotha and which I will describe later
on, I came again to the Valley of the Kidron
and St. Stephen's gate. Thus I obtained
some connected idea of the appearance of
Jerusalem from without.

CHAPTER III
THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM
BY broad daylight the approach to
any city thrusts unsympathetic
features before you. You are de
frauded. The vision splendid fades. The
meaner side of a sordid utilitarianism
loudly contradicts the oft-told story of
its old-world charm. Ghosts are shy
things and they will not come out and
walk about until there is a mysterious
quality in the air. You should first come
upon the streets of some ancient town
at twilight or at dawn or, better still,
by moonlight. Then there will be some
points of contact between your world of
fancy and the world of fact. No vio
lence will be done to your dream of this
long anticipated journey's end. Rather
a transmutation of the substance and a
59

60 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
remodelling of your vision in other terms.
The walls and towered ramparts that you
see are not quite like your preconceived
idea, but in some measure they are the
same. At least they are massive and
high and mysterious in the half light and
that is what you expected them to be.
It is a most important thing this first
impression of a place, because it is likely
to dominate all future observation of its
character, so strangely and unconsciously
are we influenced by first impressions.
That old town in France where we arrived
without our baggage in the pouring rain
and were swindled out of some money;
how second-rate its architecture, how in
ferior in charm to the one we came to
unexpectedly the next day, where we
stayed with some delightful people and
where we were so pleased with the views
and the wonderful cathedral. Yet our
conviction of the poorness of the one
place and the richness of the other as a
field for the painter was pure hypnotism
following from the initial impression.
I should like to start a society. It

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 61
should be called The Society for insisting
on travellers seeing places from ihe right
point of view. It would be the most un
practical society that ever existed and
probably a very uncomfortable one for
travellers to be in touch with. It would
mean starting out for journeys at un
earthly hours and very often in dreadful
weather, and there would be a perfectly
bewildering amount of controversy among
its members. Yet, in the abstract, it is
a good idea.
If I cannot realize this scheme I can
at least do for my readers something
which I should like to do if we were
together on the spot, show them the
scenes of Bethlehem and the Road of the
Magi under such conditions that a touch
of poetry^ shall be there, that poetry which
religion has created and the art of cen
turies has fostered.
After a few days in Jerusalem I sought
out my Syrian friend — the medical student
who had travelled with the party from
Haifa. We took horses and rode to Beth
lehem one night under a brilliant moon.

62 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
The road leads from the Jaffa Gate under
the shadow of the west walls down to the
Sultan's Pool — the masonry of which forms
its lower end and becomes the bridge
across the valley. Looking back, the
ramparts of Jerusalem and the Tower
of David stand out black against the sky.
There is no controversy about the posi
tion of the walls here, and it is universally
acknowledged that the lower masonry of
the Tower of David is of great antiquity
and part of the structure as it stood in
the time of Our Lord. The sloping, outer
scarp dates from about the thirteenth
century. The top has been several times
rebuilt and is nowhere of very great age.
From the gate of the city we could see
the road stretching like a white ribbon
across the hills — ^the road the Wise Men
took nearly two thousand years ago. A
dusty strip of track like any other up
land path, yet more than a road. This
six miles of trodden path has become a
symbol — a symbol of the Quest of Truth.
Crossing the valley at the lower end of
the Sultan's Pool the road rises for some

THE ROAD TO
BETHLEHEM

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 63
distance till it reaches the Valley of the
Giants and then on the roadside to the
left appears a well. It is called the Well
of the Magi, and here tradition asserts
the Wise Men, stopping to rest, beheld
the star, the position of which they had
lost, reflected in the water.
I am possibly of a rather sceptical
nature where these picturesque traditional
details are concerned, but in this case
from the slight knowledge of astronomy
which I possess I- am inclined to pay
serious attention to it.
Lector : There you are again. In the
preceding chapter you were throwing cold
water on tradition and saying that tra
ditional details tended rather to diminish
than enhance the credibility of the belief
that some sacred site has been identified.
Now when it suits you, you call in
tradition to help you.
PiCTOR : That is because the nature of
the tradition is different. The case you
have in mind is that of traditional spots
where certain disciples stood at certain
events. Now the possibility of someone

64 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
present at the time noting these details
and recording them afterwards is per
fectly credible. The fact that no record
seems to have been made of these sites
until a very late date does not prove them
to be untrue. Neither does the fact that
" rival " sites are shown by other com
munities in different places necessarily
imply that they are untrue. It may mean
that the true ones have been copied by
spurious ones, just as many relics have
been rendered difficult to believe in be
cause of later imitations. Nor does it
follow because money is made out of the
viewing of sites and relics that these sites
and relics are false, any more than the fact
of enterprising people making money out
of tours to the Holy Land proves that
Palestine is spurious. In the case you
refer to there is nothing in the nature of
the tradition that gives any internal evi
dence of its truth. Therefore it does not
carry as much weight as a tradition which
undoubtedly contains within it some
recognizable probability.
Lector : I am afraid I do not see your

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65

66 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
distinction. In dne case there is a tradi
tion that at such and such a spot the
disciples slept in the Garden of Gethse
mane, and in the other case that there is
a well into which the Wise Men looked
when they beheld the star. Of the two
I prefer the tradition which deals with a
fact that is mentioned in the Bible to
the one connected with an event which
may never have happened.
PiCTOR : I am afraid I have not made
clear the nature of the distinction I have
in my mind. I admit that there must be
some spot where the three disciples slept
in Gethsemane and there may be no well
into which the Magi looked. But I feel
that the probability of the site of this spot
in Gethsemane being known is slight,
while the possibility of the well story is
great. Not, I should say, the identity
of this well with the well in the story,
but the fact that the Wise Men saw the
star in a well.
Lector : You had better get on with
your book. I will not interrupt again
until I can see what you are driving at.

WT7 r

t\

67

68 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
A great deal of interest was caused
some years ago by the extraordinary
brilliant appearance of Venus in the
eastern sky before sunrise. The discus
sion of the phenomenon' led to many
speculations as to the nature of the Star
of Bethlehem. Learned astronomers as
well as quite unscientific thinkers con
tributed to the correspondence. The ex
planations of its nature might be tabulated
as follows :
1. A conjunction of planets.
2. A comet.
3. A variable star.
4. A supernatural light not to be dealt
with in terms of astronomy.
I am inclined myself to think that 2
and 3 are the most probable. With
regard to 1 it hardly fits the Bible narra
tive. No conjunction at that time could
have been such that two planets appeared
as one. Thus 1 does not seem a likely
explanation. The way in which the Wise
Men recorded their observation of the
star to Herod does not make it appear

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 69
that they thought the star itself was very
extraordinary, but its significance. There
fore I think 4 improbable.
If, however, we assume that it may
have been either a comet or a variable
star, both are subject to certain move
ments such as rising or setting in the
sky. Then difficulties present themselves.
(A variable star is one which becomes
bright for a period and then disappears.)
Lector : Why are you trying to evade
the supernatural and endeavouring to
bring everything down to science?
PiCTOR : I am not evading the super
natural. We read in the Book of Genesis
that God set a bow in the cloud and it
was a covenant between Him and the
dwellers upon earth, but it is not evading
the supernatural to discuss the nature of
a rainbow. The supernatural element was
the revelation of its significance to Noah.
The supernatural element in the star of
Bethlehem, I am suggesting likewise, may
have been in its significance to the Magi.
The statement of the Wise Men, " We
have seen his star in the east," implies,

70 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
of course, that it was visible only in the
east, i. e. that it was a " morning star "
rising in the east and becoming invisible
in any other quarter by the fact of day
light (Fig. 1). A star which rose in the

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east say at twilight would be visible in
the south at midnight and in the west
at dawn, so the term " in the east " would
not be any more descriptive of its posi
tion than south or west. We must put
aside as astronomically absurd, although

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 71
decoratively wise, the creations of artists
that depict the Wise Men crossing the
desert from Chaldea to Jerusalem guided
by the star. (Remember it was not on
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this journey that the star " went before
them.") We must remember that they
were travelling due west (Fig. 2). The
difficulty comes later on. After leaving

72 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Jerusalem on the road to Bethlehem they
were travelling due south. How, then,
on the assumption of the astronomical
reasonableness of the theory we have
taken, could the star have been in front
of them ? If it were in the east it was
not over Bethlehem, and if it were over
Bethlehem it would not be visible, because
the sun would be up.
" And when they saw the star, they
rejoiced with exceeding great joy." This
sentence certainly seems to imply that
they had for some time lost sight of it.
" And, lo, the star, which they saw in
the east, went before them." This can
not mean that it was in the east now,
for Bethlehem lay due south. Therefore
the expression " which they saw in the
east " implies that they had not seen it
since their journey to Jerusalem, and then
finding it again they were overjoyed.
Let us sum up the evidence of the
situation from an astronomical point of
view. The following facts can, I think,
be assumed from the narrative in St.
Matthew's Gospel.

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 73
1. That the star had been visible in the
east, i. e. a " morjiing " star, thus on
account of daylight not to be observed in
any other position.
2. That the Wise Men had lost sight of
it. Otherwise, had it been visible all the
time, the expression " when they saw the
star they rejoiced with exceeding great
joy " seems to lose much of its force.
3. That they were not guided to Beth
lehem by the star because they had been
told to go there and search diligently for
the Young Child, and were evidently upon
their way when they discovered it again.
4. The explanation that their catching
sight of the star may have meant that they
could see the star because of darkness
setting in is not tenable even if so regular
an occurrence can be taken to account
for the evident surprise in their joy, unless
we assume that the star had become in
visible for a long period and then become
an " evening " star on the other side of
the sun. But then it would have been
in the west and not over Bethlehem, which
is due south from Jerusalem.

74 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
For a star to appear to be going be
fore them as they journeyed to Bethlehem
and also to stand over where the Young
Child was when they arrived with their
gifts before the house it would have to
be situated almost overhead and a little
towards the south. It is clear too, that
if this were a " morning " star the sun
would be in the sky and thus it would
not be visible unless exactly located and
of extraordinary brightness. (Fig. 3.)
Now there is only one way of seeing
a star by daylight, that is with a tele
scope or through any long dark tube.
It is possible to see stars by daylight
from the bottom of a coal mine, from the
shaft of a factory chimney, or from a well.
A well with still water at the bot
tom forms a reflecting telescope though
with no magnifying power. A traveller
approaching this well, called the Well of
the Magi (or in fact any well on the
road) from the direction of Jerusalem
would be facing south, and as he stooped
to look down into the water it is possible
that he would see a bright star reflected

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 75
in the water should there be one in the
sky almost overhead and slightly to the
south. This seems to have been, if our
deductions are correct, the probable posi
tion of the star at this time. If it were

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a very bright star, now that the Magi
knew exactly where to look for it, they
could no doubt see it with the unaided
eye although the sun was up.
There is one other theory tenable with
regard to the appearance and re-appear-
76 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
ance of this star — ^that it was an intermit
tent or recurrent " variable," *. e. one of
those stars that from time to time be
come very brilliant and die away again
after some weeks or months, sometimes
to re-appear. This might explain the
fact of the star becoming visible again
after the Wise Men's journey to Jeru
salem, but it does not account for it being
observable in daylight, unless it was of
extraordinary brightness.
Many astronomers take up the attitude
which is a very reasonable one, that there
is insufficient evidence in St. Matthew's
narrative from which to make scientific
deductions, because the story is told from
a religious and not from a scientific
point of view.
I- mention this interesting tradition
about the Magi and the well and believe
that it throws some light on the subject,
but I hasten to say that I do not attach
any particular importance to an astrono
mical theory which accounts for the Star
of Bethlehem. Our faith does not depend
in any wise upon the scientific correctness

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 77
of details in the Bible story. Sufficient
it is for us that the heavens which ever
declare the glory of God should have led
the Gentiles to come to His light, and
Kings to the brightness of His rising.
Beyond the Well of the Magi the road
still rises till it reaches the summit of

the hill on which the Convent of Elijah
is built — its connection with Elijah is
very vague and it probably takes its name
from a Bishop Elias who founded it —
and then descends again towards a white
dome which in the moonlight looked very
picturesque. Again a suggestion of the
chalk country of the Medway came into

78 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
my mind as before at Jezreel, and to
justify my belief which may sound fanci
ful, I give a sketch on page 77 of some
old kilns near Rochester. I have always
loved them and called the region in which
they are built the Very Neaf East.
The place is the Tomb of Rachael, and
although it is modern yet it is no doubt
one of many successive buildings marking
the spot where Jacob set up a " pillar."
" And Rachel died, and was buried in
the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.
And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave :
that is the pillar of Rachel's grave irnto
this day."
Bethlehem comes into sight mysterious
and massive-looking in the moonlight.
The dark foliage and the white square
shapes of the town make a pleasing con
trast and the Church of the Nativity rises
like a fortress from the fields of grey
olives. By daylight Bethlehem is getting
spoiled. There are too many large stone
buildings of mean design though preten
tious in size. By this bright moon this

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 79
defect is not noticeable, and it would be
difficult to find a more charming night
scene than this aspect of the City of
David. Yet it is the inevitable penalty
of pilgrimage places that numbers flock
ing thither obscure at last its innermost

lesson. The keynote of our thoughts on
Bethlehem is that of simplicity, and now
the place is beginning to look pretentious.
To see Bethlehem we must go to some
other village where no shrines exist
and about which nothing historical is
recorded. You will not find now anything answer
ing to the gate of the town where Boaz

80 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
met his kinsman, and where the elders of
the city witnessed the curious procedure
in accordance with the Mosaic law.
But such " City Gates " exist in Pales
tine. In an out of the way village in the
north I scribbled a sketch of one — I don't
remember the name of the place — and
have given it on the opposite page.
I will not write of the Church of the
Nativity, for volumes have been written
about it and its treasures. I would rather
show you the country-side of Bethlehem
in the moonlight. The literature of the
Holy Land is full and there remains little
to be said in the way of description of the
historic places. Yet here and there has
been left some clue that has not been
taken up and I am gleaning, hke Ruth
who followed the harvesters in the fields
which are hard by this very spot, and
perhaps gaining, as she gained, by the
generosity of the great who have pur
posely refrained from gathering up every
trifle. Here in the fields outside the village
it is possible to picture the scene that has

.sv

THE GATE OE A " CITY."

82 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
been the inspiration of poets and painters
— ^the shepherds watching their flocks by
night when the angel appeared to an
nounce the birth of Christ. The devo
tion of ages has inevitably turned the
rock-hewn stable into a shrine — ^but
here we see the scene as the shepherds
saw it on the first Christmas night —
some fields divided by stone walls and
thick with olive trees, the white walls
of the City of David on the hillside and
away over leagues of rolling upland dark
and mysterious shapes, the mountains of
the wilderness that fringe that dreadful
cleft, the region of the Dead Sea. Tradi
tion matters little in this view, because
the view does not depend upon the " field
of the shepherds " being a genuine sight
or not. One field is very like another
here and the general locality is certain.
We saw the dawn break and the sky
lighten beyond the desert hills, and then
rode back to Jerusalem.
On a subsequent ride together in the
country not far from here we got belated
and stopped for a few hours to rest our

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 83
horses at a caravan stable. It was a
low round-roofed stone building, partly
cut out, I think, in the natural rock of
which this limestone country abounds.
It was crowded with men and boys
asleep among their animals. The ox
and the ass were patiently munching. A
number of camels knelt upon the ground
chewing the cud — I wonder for the first
time why camels are never represented in
Nativity pictures but only in those of the
Epiphany — ^and a single lantern threw a
dim light on the scene. The mangers
in which the animals were eating — such as
had mangers — ^were built into the wall and
made a space something like a niche for
a statue. It seems strange that no
painter has painted this kind of manger
in a picture of the Nativity, because it
is decoratively so suitable for the setting
of a principal figure.
I have said that the stable in which Our
Lord was born has become a shrine. It
is no longer recognizable as a rock-hewn
building, for the walls are covered entirely.
One cannot but sympathize with those

84 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
who have for centuries brought gifts and
sought to overlay it with gold and pre
cious stones. If gratitude for the benefit
of the Incarnation is to be expressed in
the offerings of the faithful at this most
sacred spot, then nothing can be too
costly to bring. Yet we can learn
nothing of the nature of the scene of the
Nativity from the most careful inspection.
Here, where neither pilgrim nor tourist
has any interest to go, I had come upon
the most enlightening picture : a dark
stable with one glimmering light and an
opening through which a deep blue night
sky showed sprinkled with a dust of
stars, a caravan and a medley of men and
beasts of burden, all seeking shelter from
the night — silence but for the munching
of the camels and an occasional movement
of a sleeping muleteer.
Suddenly I realized the significance of
the scene. It was on such a night and in
such a place that Christ was born. Nearly
two thousand years in the unchanging
East have made no difference to external
things. The Church of the Nativity

NIGHT IMPRESSION
OF A SYRIAN STABLE

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 85
stands like a fortress on the hillside, elo
quent of Divine Power ; this dimly lighted
caravan stable spoke of the Divine
Humility. Bethlehem is significant not only his
torically. It is significant geographi
cally. The spot where Ruth gleaned in
the fields of Boaz and where the boy
David watched over his flocks is a fruit
ful place upon the borders of an arid
waste. Orchards abound and vine and
fig tree. In ancient times, when irriga
tion was general, it was doubtless far
more prolific than it is to-day. Its foun
tains were the more noted on account
of the dryness of the region leading up
to it, the region in which David dwelt
when he longed for water and exclaimed,
" O that one would give me drink of the
water of the well of Beth-lehem, which
is by the gate."
The country to the east is a rolling up
land becoming wilder and more desolate
as it reaches the border of the Dead Sea.
Above the last ridge of this nearer hill
country appears a distant ridge, almost

86 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
straight-topped. This is the region of
the mountains of Moab across the Dead
Sea and touching the fringe of Arabia.
This hill country visible from the fields
of Bethlehem took me completely by sur
prise. I must have seen hundreds of
photographs and- scores of pictures of
Bethlehem — for I " got up " the places
before I started — ^yet not one of them had
shown or emphasized the nature of the
landscape enough for it to be in any way
noticeable. It may be that painters and
photographers have been looking for
pastoral simplicity and let go the other
qualities of landscape.
There is, however, a deep symbolizing
in this association of mountain wilder
ness and pastoral simplicity in the place
of the Messiah's birth. Yonder faint ridge
of the mountains of Moab recalls the
wanderings of the Hosts of Israel. The
Dead Sea symbolizes the wrath of God.
In this deep chasm unique in the world's
geology lie buried the cities of the plain.
The salt desert and the rock-strewn val
leys seem to speak of Israel desolate :

THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 87
Bethlehem of her restoration. Bethlehem
is the region which fulfils literally the
prophet's picture. " For in the wilder
ness shall waters break out, and streams
in the desert. And the parched ground
shall become a pool, and the thirsty land
springs of water : in the habitation of
dragons, where each lay, shall be grass
with reeds and rushes."
The landscape of Bethlehem is in itself
a parable. Christ was born where the
wilderness gives place to life. The
desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the
rose. " It shall blossom abundantly, and
rejoice even with joy and singing."

JERaSPLEN]

HEBRON

"nfe*P6At> 5E/^.

CHAPTER IV
THE WILDERNESS AND THE SOLITARY
PLACE
AT half-past three the horses were
ready. I could hear them under
my window as I finished shav
ing by the light of one candle. I was
to face the discomfort of life in the desert
hills for days, but there is no need to
add to that discomfort by growing a
beard. I know it is the proper thing
to do. Travellers — especially those who
have to lead conventional and suburban
lives for fifty weeks in the year — pride
themselves generally on their shaggy con
dition when roaming far from the madding
crowd. I admit that the desert is a suitable
place for a man to start growing a beard
if he insists on doing so. It renders him
89

90 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
less painful to his friends and possibly
protects him by making him appear more
terrifying to his enemies. Yet a razor
is one of the very last things to let go
on a forced march. There is a subtle
connection between your chin and your
moral character. I have only been once
tempted to highway robbery, and that
was when I had been unshaven for five
days. I looked like a brigand, I felt like
a brigand. The next thing would be to
act like one.
When I had packed up my remaining
worldly possessions — my camera, plates,
a waterproof and bag full of things hav
ing been lost on the preliminary part of
my journey — I found my English friend
up and ready to see me off. He was
giving a few final directions in Arabic
to the muleteer, a black-bearded Syrian,
who was to be my sole guide, philosopher
and friend on this expedition. I wish he
had not given these final directions, for
they were to the effect that I was a great
writer of books and must be shown all
objects of interest, especially ruins in

THE WILDERNESS

91

the neighbourhood of the places through
which we should pass. The faithful fol
lowing of this instruction to the best
of the good muleteer's ability led to a

JERUSALEKL

BEWLEHeM

great waste of time and miles of tedious
detour to examine perfectly ludicrous
" historical remains " — in one case the
relics of a broken iron pump.
I took with me a couple of cold chicken.

92 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
two loaves, twenty hard-boiled eggs and
some flagons of water. The Syrian car
ried my bag and sketching things. They
made quite an imposing array upon his
horse in a way that was irresistibly
reminiscent of the White Knight in Alice
through the Looking-glass. My English
friend wished luck to the voyage, and we
trotted along the road that leads to the
Jaffa Gate. The Syrian could speak noth
ing but Arabic, of which I did not know
three words. We were unarmed, and had
very vague ideas of the route. Bound for
the borders of Arabia, across the wilder
ness of Judaea and the Dead Sea cleft, I
had started on the most extraordinary
travel experience which it has been my
good fortune to undergo.
The expedition had arisen partly
through necessity and partly through a
desire to explore. There was still a
quarantine on Jaffa, and the port was
closed. It was thus impossible to get
out of Palestine from Jerusalem except
by returning through Samaria on the
north road to Haifa — the road on which

THE WILDERNESS 93
I had come. This was the only ordinary
alternative. But there was another
way open to a traveller with some love
of adventure, and that was to go on horse
back and strike out into the country
beyond Jordan, through the hills of Moab
into the land of the Ammonites and the
land of Og, the King of Bashan, to join
the pilgrims' Mecca railway.
This line is the one and only Turkish
railway in Syria. Starting from Damas
cus through the Hauran to Dera'a, the
ancient Edrei — whence a branch runs to
Haifa — it runs almost due south through
the country east of the Dead Sea to
Maan and Medina. It has never suc
ceeded in getting any further, although
it is generally called the Mecca Railway,
the distance between Medina and Mecca
being covered by road. The vested in
terests of the Arabs of the desert in that
region have been too strong for the
would-be railway constructors. Every
time the lines have been laid they have
been ruthlessly pulled up by these tribes,
whose living depends upon the passage

94 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
of the pilgrims. Europeans cannot book
even as far as Medina.
My plan was to get down to the Jordan
not by the ordinary road from Jeru
salem to Jericho, but by way of the Kid
ron Valley to the monastery of Mar Saba
and then to cross the desert hills where
there is no road, and descend by one of
the wddys to the Dead Sea. Jericho was
our objective for the day, and as it was
June 21, and as the Dead Sea lies in a
depression 1300 feet below the level of
the Mediterranean and nearly 4000 feet
below Jerusalem, you can imagine that
the heat was terrific and that a day's ride
under such conditions was a heavy task.
But the unique nature of the country, with
its awful ravines and dreadful descent
to the Dead Sea plain, was an experience
to a painter worth some physical fatigue.
The road to Mar Saba follows the Val
ley of Hinnom and branches off where
the Bethlehem road crosses at the lower
end of the Sultan's Pool. It is a euphem
ism to call it a road — a narrow and
uneven track, strewn with loose stones,

THE WILDERNESS

95

becoming further on a recognizable path
on the hillside and no more. As it first
descends among the olive trees, the walls

of Zion rise steeply upon the left. The
rock scarp here marks the ancient south
west corner of the upper city and is
thought to be the position of the tower
of the furnaces alluded to by Nehemiah.

96 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
I have often wondered what was meant
by this tower of the furnaces. I used
to picture it as a monstrous and uncouth
structure, a sort of primaeval factory
chimney, but this is no doubt wide of the
mark. It seems reasonable to suppose,
judging from the ancient nomenclature
of the towers of Jerusalem, that it was
one of the numerous towers along the
walls, and was described as the tower of
the furnaces because it stood over against
them. But what were the furnaces ?
This part of the city looked over Gehenna,
which we know was used for the burn
ing of refuse. Were they some kind of
kilns perpetually smouldering, everlast
ing fires, ever destroying, the smoke of
their burning going up for ever? Or
were they furnaces connected with the
smelting of metals and such work, form
ing a sort of manufacturing quarter with
out the walls ?
We have all pictured Jerusalem to our
selves. Jerusalem as a mighty city,
far stateHer and more imposing in its
ancient splendour than now. In doing

THE WILDERNESS 97
so, I like to picture this corner of the city
with its furnaces smoking in the deep
valley, a sign of industry to give a homely
touch to the scene just as the cement
works in the Medway valley give —
Lector : Hold on ! Why can't you
write about Palestine without dragging
in your old cement works in the Medway
country ? Keep to your impressions of
the country.
PiCTOR : That's just what I am doing.
You don't want to hear my impressions
of Palestine. You want me to think
along certain conventional lines or you
become impatient. The principal reason
why so many books of travel are per
sistently dull is that travellers often write
down not what they think and feel about
a place but what they think is the proper
thing to think and feel. I have deter
mined throughout these pages to record,
however unconventionally, what I really
thought and felt about these scenes of
Biblical association.
The Valley of Hinnom joins the Kid
ron Valley at the lower end of Siloam,

98 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and the continuation of the stream is,
at first, nearly due south between steep
hills. As I have explained in a previous
chapter the letter Y will serve as a dia
gram. The right branch is the Kidron
by Siloam and Olivet, the left branch is
the Valley of Hinnom, and the stem is
the Kidron where it begins its descent
between steep hills to the Dead Sea. We
had now entered this stem with our backs
towards Jerusalem at a point known as
Job's Well. For a time the path Ues
along the stream bed now quite dry, and
always so in the summer. The word
" brook " does not suggest the nature of
the Kidron at all. At first it is an open
valley in which some traces of a stony
stream are faintly indicated by the forma
tion of the lowest hollow, but there is
seldom even a trickle of water. In the
summer and autumn there is none. Lower
down it becomes a rock-strewn rivulet,
turning towards the east between steep
and barren hills, and then a torrent bed
at the bottom of an awful chasm of most
savage and forbidding gloom.

THE WILDERNESS 99
I expect in ancient times the system
of irrigation in the King's Garden and
elsewhere would have led a certain
amount of water through it in all seasons of
the year, but in its lower course it must
always have been what it is now, dependent
upon heavy rains to become a river of any
strength. The three types of the scenery of the
Kidron are very marked, the trickling
shallow brook, and stony mountain stream
and the awful, raging torrent hurling itself
between grim walls on its descent to the
Dead Sea.
Ezekiel in his dramatic vision of the
regeneration of the wilderness by the
stream of holy water that flowed forth
from the Temple at the south side of the
altar gives a picture of the Kidron, and
shows the different stages of the river's
course when in flood. " And when the
man that had the line in his hand went
forth eastward he measured a thousand
cubits and he brought me through the
waters; the waters were to the ankles."
This, I think, is a picture of the brook by

100 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
the east side of the Temple, where it
would flow by the King's Garden.
" Again he measured a thousand, and
he brought me through the waters; the
waters were to the knees." This is a
picture of the stony stream between the
steep hills which gets deeper as it re
ceives the waters of brooks from the
side valleys. " Again he measured a
thousand, and brought me through; the
waters were to the loins."
Then the stream, a raging and relent
less torrent, plunges into the gaping
gorge before Mar Saba. " Afterward he
measured a thousand; and it was a river
that I could not pass over : for the waters
were risen, waters to swim in, a river that
could not be passed over."
The force of the parable is much more
apparent when it is borne in mind what
was the subject-matter of which it is
composed. There is no doubt that the
Kidron is meant. For the description
of the river in every respect answers to
it. Starting from the side of the Temple
which is built on the slopes of the Kid-

THE WILDERNESS 101
ron, " These waters issue out toward
the east country, and go down into the
desert, and go into the sea." That it
must mean the Dead Sea is clear, be
cause En-Gedi is mentioned as a place
to spread forth nets when the waters are
healed. In the whole world I do not think
there can be any region more savagely
desolate than this gorge, and the mere
fact of suggesting such a thing as
finding foliage upon its banks would
sound, to anyone who knew it, the
ravings of a madman. A ravine blasted
and desolate, utterly hopeless and savage,
the very antithesis of fertility and
life. Yet the prophet sees this place trans
formed and speaks of it in the terms of
a garden. " And by the river upon the bank
thereof, on this side and on that side,
shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf
shall not fade, neither shall the fruit
thereof be consumed : it shall bring forth
new fruit according to his months, be-

102 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
cause their waters they issued out of the
sanctuary : and the fruit thereof shall
be for meat, and the leaf thereof for
medicine." The path climbs, and we reached the
top of the cliffs on the right-hand side
of the gorge. Far down in the narrow
torrent bed could be seen the track of
the swirling waters although now it was
dry and dusty. In ledges of the cliff,
at points that seemed absolutely inacces
sible, you could see from time to time little
bits of rude masonry where some sort of
house had been improvised. They are
hermits' caves and burying-places used
still by the bedawin for store-rooms,
goat sheds, and even houses. It is a
mystery how they get up to them or
descend from them, and why anyone
should choose to live there except as a
mortification of the flesh, I cannot imag
ine. I have sketched one, on page
opposite, of these " houses " built into
the cliff with an ingenious use of the fan
tastic, natural rock. It would be possible
to hide for ever in such places, for the

^

\

103

104 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
rock is honeycombed with cavities. The
cave of AduUam was in this region of
limestone country.
The monastery of Mar Saba is one of
the most extraordinary places it is pos
sible to dream about. Partly hewn in
the rock and partly built in terraces on
ledges, it rises up from the gorge like
tier upon tier and tower upon tower. It
might well be built in the moon or on
some other planet by creatures other than
ourselves. When it first comes into sight
from the cliff road it does not show to
the full its wonderful construction, but
by climbing down into the bed of the
Kidron and looking up at it I do not think
it is easy to find another place in the world
more weirdly situated.
I did not have time to see the monas
tery from inside as the distance we were
to cover was already enough to occupy
us the whole day, and it would not do to
risk being benighted in the desert, because
of our horses. We had little fodder for
them and no water. I will therefore quote
part of the description of the monastery

THE MONASTEKY OE MAB SABA,

105

106 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
within from Cook's handbook for Palestine
and Syria —
" Having entered, we find ourselves in
one of the strangest places that human
ingenuity ever contrived for a dwelling-
place. It is a series of precipices with
walls of natural rock and artificial battle
ments. You look down at buildings,
and courtyards, and labyrinths of pas
sages, and up at curious holes in the walls
— ^with ledges in front — ^where are the
cells and dwelling-places of monks. The
place is full of mystery. You see men
walking upon these ledges of rock, and
turning into these holes in the walls;
and you look upon a little garden hanging
in the air, as it seems, with a solitary
palm-tree looking down into the chasm,
in which are more buildings and chapels
and cupolas. None but the initiated could
ever find his way through these mysterious
labyrinths." " The founder of this remarkable
monastery was one Sabas, who was born
in Cappadocia, a.d. 439. He was famous
for his sanctity, for his learning, and for

THE WILDERNESS 107
his power of working miracles. The de
vout gathered round him in great num
bers, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem made
him abbot of all those who were named
after him, Sabaites."
There is a weird and wonderful fascina
tion about this dreadful gorge, but it
must be a depressing place to live in. It
may be that to retreat here is to be re
moved from the things of the world and
the flesh but not the things of the devil.
The whole gorge seems to suggest the
abode of evil spirits lurking in the cavern
ous recesses of these fearful walls of rock.
Christian, dost thou see them
On the holy ground,
How the troops of Midian
Prowl and prowl around ?
These words were written by a monk,^
Andrew of Mar Saba, and it was in this
fearful desert, possibly in this very gorge
that Our Lord Himself was led of the
spirit to be tempted of the devil. " And
he was there in the wilderness forty days
1 Afterwards Archbishop of Crete. Died in 734,

108 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and tempted of Satan ; and was with wild
beasts; and the angels ministered unto
him." The next stage of our journey lay
across a waste of hills, pathless and
utterly monotonous. A bedawin under
took to act as guide, and he strode on
ahead, a picturesque figure, with staff
in his hand. The ground was rough and
rocky and our horses could scramble
along only at walking pace. Ridge after
ridge of monotonous outline appeared
against the sky. At each point it seemed
as though we had reached the summit
and would look over to the Dead Sea,
but in each case the view presenting itself
was a repetition of the last. This kind
of progress went on for hours, and it was
getting hotter and hotter. It was now
about ten o'clock, and I knew that it was
nothing to what we should experience
later. Soon after leaving Mar Saba we came
to a flock of goats feeding in a place that
did not show a blade of grass or green
of any kind. What they could possibly

THE WILDERNESS 109
find to eat I do not know, but there is
a scrubby and coarse kind of plant grow
ing here and there among the stones, so
I suppose they succeed in getting some
sort of nourishment out of that. The
scattered black spots caused by a herd of
goats upon the bleached, pale colours of
the hillside are very noticeable.
After this barren pastoral scene there
was no more life. We kept on doggedly,
up and down and round, and up and down
again. The muleteer's horse always out
walked mine and the bedawin out -walked
us both. The result was a very strag
gling formation. The bedawin, half-a-mile
or so in advance, solemnly stopping and
beckoning us on as he disappeared round
every shoulder of hill. The Syrian rode
some hundred yards ahead of me, also
beckoning when he disappeared. I tried
breaking into a trot to catch up, but
nearly brought down my horse in the at
tempt as the rocky ground did not give
any firm footing.
It never seemed possible either for the
bedawin or the muleteer to go any slower,

110 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
but from time to time they would halt
and we formed up again in close order,
only to become more and more and more
an attenuated " line ahead " till the next
pull up. All the English that the Syrian
knew besides yes and no were the words
" come on ! " He had apparently a rather
vague notion as to its meaning, and would
use it indiscriminately to the guide ahead
or to his own horse, or as a general ex
clamation to call attention to anything.
Whenever he wanted to indicate some
thing of interest he would point to it and
say " come on."
At last the monotony of the desert hills
was ended and we came out into open
space. A vast panorama lay spread out
before us — the Dead Sea, the Valley of
Jordan and the mountains of Moab on
the other side. We were thousands of
feet above the Dead Sea plain, and it was
still a long way before the final descent
although the country from here was
beginning to fall away as it stretched
eastward. Our guide left us, now that the way

o

n

?/^^ ^

o
P3Fh¦«1
CO O
nH
EH

in

112 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
was plainer, and we struck out across a
long plateau till we reached the hiUs
shown in the drawing on page 111 as
the last ridge before the drop. We took
a path between two mountains— the gap
shows in the drawing a little to the right
of the centre of the picture and immedi
ately under the north end of the Dead
Sea visible above. In this view the ap
pearance is deceptive, and it looks as if
the traveller had merely to walk out of
this pass into the Valley of Jordan. There
is, however, a terrific and precipitous
drop of thousands of feet, and the way
we took downwards seemed in places
absolutely impassable.
Have you ever visualized Isaiah's
simile, " The voice of him that crieth in
the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make straight in the desert a high
way for our God " ? I had thought, and
I believe most people think, of some
neglected and sandy waste, something like
the Sahara, perhaps overgrown with
scrub. But the force of the illustration
becomes ten times stronger when you

THE WILDERNESS 113
realize what the word desert and wilder
ness can mean in these Judaean hills. The
hyperbole is terrific; the voice echoing
through savage defiles and vast spaces
of immeasurable waste — unanswered, un
heard : the making of a highway out of
these blind paths and precipitous descents
where there is scarcely foothold for a
goat — the miracle of the conversion of
this place to make the crooked straight,
and the rough places plain.
The first part of the descent was down
the side of a steep-sided mountain. The
"path" — ^that is, the only possible place
of progress — zigzagged in a bewildering
manner. We had to dismount and lead
our horses. They were evidently used to
the kind of thing because they often
stepped down to a ledge below and tried
the firmness of a footing before putting
all their weight upon it. Diffieilis descen
sus Averni would be a good warning to
post at the top to those who venture
upon this way.
It was now noon and at midsummer.
The increasing air pressure as we got
I

114 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
down below sea-level made the frightful
heat still more unbearable. There was
no turning back now. Pity the painter who
has to work under such conditions . I could
do nothing but the roughest pencil notes.
At the last we approached a chasm that
seemed the end of all things. It seemed
that we were to plunge into some inferno
from which no road would bring us out
again. " All hope abandon, ye who enter
here." The ribs of a mule emphasized
the horror of the scene. It recalled to
me Dante's picture of the approach to the
seventh circle of Hell.
The place where to descend the precipice
We came was rough as Alp : and on its verge
Such objects lay as every eye would shun.
We led our horses with long cords,
and had to climb very cautiously down
slippery faces of rock lest we should pull
the animals upon us. It is somewhat
terrifying to see a horse skidding down
upon you where there is hardly room to
get clear and where a precipice is yawning
at your feet.

THE WILDERNESS 115
At last we reached the bottom of this
savage defile and picked our way along
the dry torrent bed. Around us rose

IN A DEAD SEA QOBGE.

fantastic walls and strange, paxterned
shapes that suggested some rude and pre
historic sculpture. Great pillars and hum
mocks of rock with rolling, round tops like
giant fungi glared in bUnding, ashy light.

116 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Fierce heat radiated from the sides of this
sun-baked gorge like heat from a furnace.
The narrow ravine was impressive, and
in its way beautiful, but it was the beauty
of hell and the impressiveness of death.
The clear sunlight and the calm blue
heavens seemed to add desolation to the
scene rather than brightness. They mocked
it. The happy laughter of a child had
become the fixed grin of a skeleton.
We could not halt here. We must
push on. So staggering along the stony
torrent-bed we rode toward the east till
we came out by the salt-laden shores of
the Dead Sea and stood looking at the
most desolate region in the world.

CHAPTER V
THE DEAD SEA CLEFT
" A ND Lot lifted up his eyes and
J^\^ beheld all the plain of Jordan,
that it was well watered every
where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah, even as the garden of
the Lord." A far cry this to the blasted
expanse of sun-baked and devastated
land that stretched as far as eye could
see northward from the shores of the
Dead Sea, between high-set ramparts of
the hills east and west; a great plain
bleached into desert, a pale and ash-
coloured expanse upon which the track
of the Jordan and its tributaries made
irregular dark green patterns and which,
in the direction of Jericho, seemed to be
relieved by an oasis. There were white
and hummocky patches of salt or chalk
117

118 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
and other zones stretching mile upon
mile, bearing a scant scrub of thorns and
thistles. It was midsummer, and everything had
been burnt up when I saw it, yet under
the most favourable conditions this valley
could not now be described by the wildest
romancer as a garden of the Lord, and its
climate must have altered not a little
(temperature, about 120° in the shade !)
if Josephus was accurate in describing it
as " a region fit for gods."
I have referred to this valley of the
Jordan as the Dead Sea Cleft, because
it is of the nature of a deep scar in the
surface of the earth. There are not many
places where the land lies more than a
jfew feet below the level of the sea. Some
large tracts of country — I believe the
Sahara Desert is one — are a hundred feet
or so below the surface of the sea. I
write from memory, not having time to
look the matter up. The surface of the
Dead Sea, however, is 1292 feet below
the Mediterranean, and the whole scar
takes the form of a deep cut, beginning

f^ LEBANON MOUNTAINS
VOlV\^^' HERMON (fOi-Z

WffTERS OF MCROrh +7 Xui
SEA OF GflUUEJE. -i83^

TOKTION

ni

DEAD SEfl -I2.?«.;p

;7, Wfl-mRSHE-D of V^RftMH ¦t-gOQ.fur

&UUF OF /^tViBfl

119

120 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
south of the Lebanon Mountains by the
waters of Merom, wliich are seven feet
above the Mediterranean, running down
wards to the Lake of Galilee, which is
682 feet below sea-level, and so south
wards till it reaches the lowest point at
the Dead Sea, and ascends again on the

B —
A-

DERUSftJ-EM
¦^M '•¦^>.,— T'ESegTHIUS OF V — i3oo f~J
UEVEi. OF
OEflD SEA
ISOoft-frctrio
A. S«a. -fvyel Qt\{jiJi/,raA>la^)
south to the watershed of Arabah, which
is 800 feet above sea-level. The shape
of this deep valley would be still more
striking if there were no water in the
Dead Sea, which is very deep, about
1300 feet, so that the total depth of
this scar is about 2600 feet below the
Mediterranean. Similar " faults " probably occur in the

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 121
earth's surface, but they are deep down
under the sea, and the unique nature of
this Dead Sea cleft is that it is the only
one in which the water has for the most
part disappeared, owing to the fact that
it has been cut off from the ocean. It
is thought by geologists ¦ that the Gulf
of Akaba, a branch of the Red Sea,
stretched right up to the mountains of
Lebanon. Thus the whole of the Jordan
VaUey, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of
Galilee would be included in one long
fjord. Some tremendous convulsion of
nature cut off the outside sea by throw
ing up a ridge at the watershed of Akaba
and the fjord became a huge lake. In
the accompanying map I have marked it
as a shaded portion.
The waters which flowed into the lake
would not give a sufficient supply to
make up the loss by evaporation. Con
sequently it has shrunk into three pools
joined by a river. It is improbable that
the drying-up process will continue, for
an equilibrium has been struck between
the supply of the rivers and the demand

122 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
of evaporation. If there is any change,
it seems to be the other way, for the
general level of the Dead Sea is thought
to be higher than it was sixty or seventy
years ago.
The weird and extraordinary character
of the desolate Dead Sea region has
naturally given rise to many impossible
yarns, the two principal survivors being
the belief that birds cannot fly over the
surface of the water, as they are poisoned
by the noxious fumes given off, and that
Sodom and Gomorrah are situated some
where underneath its waves. The first
of these stories can be disproved any day,
because birds are constantly flying over
it, and the other is disposed of by the
knowledge that the waters of the Dead
Sea were there long before the time of
Lot. It is true, however, that no fish
can live in water so impregnated with
salt, and that it is impossible to sink when
swimming. I wanted to have a swim,
but my guide made energetic signs that
I should not do so, pointing to the sun
and to the top of his head. I suppose

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 123
he meant I should get sunstroke bathing
in such terrific heat, and I must confess
I could not uncover my head, and thus,
if I bathed, would have to do so i» a
topee. Some fanciful writer has likened the
scenery of the Dead Sea to that of the
Lake of Geneva. There may be some
faint geological resemblance, but any
thing more entirely different in feeling it
would be impossible to imagine. There
are some magnificent gorges and cliffs
where many a wddy comes down to the
beach, but they are bleached and burnt
and utterly desolate. The Jordan, when
in flood, brings down trees and branches,
and these, thrown up on the beach, and
crystallized with salt, suggest the bones of
some stranded monster, and give a still
more gruesome touch to the lakeside
scenery. The nature of the catastrophe that
overtook the Cities of the Plain has always
been an object of speculation, and it is
no longer considered to be undermining
the authority of Holy Scripture to see

124 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
natural causes at work when the Lord
" rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out
of heaven." Even a slight acquaintance
with the geology of this extraordinary
region will throw a good deal of Ught on
the subject, and there are hints in the
Book of Genesis, which is not written
from a geological point of view, as to the
curious nature of this region of the Dead
Sea. In the account of the Battle of the Four
Kings against five, when Lot was taken
prisoner, the scene of the contest is given
as " the vale of Siddim, which is the salt
sea." Now, working on the geological
theory that the Dead Sea is the remains
of an arm of the Red Sea, it would fol
low that it would never have been a fresh
water lake which has since become salt.
The fertility of the district " before the
Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah "
and its being well watered does not imply
that there were not tracts of salt marsh
and bituminous country then as now.
To-day you can find bituminous rock in

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 125
vast quantities and it will burn readily
if lighted.
It is evidently to this deposit of bitumen
that the " slime pits " of chapter xiv. refer :
" And the Vale of Siddim was full of
slimepits : and the Kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they
that remained fled to the mountain." A
reference to " slime " in chapter xi. seems
to settle the point that bitumen is meant.
" And it came to pass as they journeyed
from the East, that they found a plain
in the land of Shinar : and they dwelt
there." This is, of course, in Mesopo
tamia where the ruins of various periods,
now excavated, show that bitumen was
used as mortar : " And they said one to
another. Go to, let us make brick, and
burn them thoroughly. And they had
brick for stone, and slime had ihey for
morter." Beside bitumen this wild region yields
naphtha and has recently been " dis
covered " as a possible oilfield of the
future. The finding of oil, and the
floating of an American oil company

126 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
(rumoured) has caused considerable alarm
to lovers of Palestine. The alarm is
natural if the Jordan Valley is to become
a second Baku, and if pioneers of industry
are to replace the old-time pilgrim.
" There's money in it," says the company
promoter, and, alas ! even the most reli
gious people have listened seriously to
that argument. Fortunately the yield is
not very great, and thus an industry that
would obliterate Palestine is very unlikely.
Most of the oil country is in wild and
inhospitable desert, where it may enliven
the dreadful monotony. If there should
be fresh fields discovered in places of
Biblical and historic interest it is to be
hoped some sort of preserve will be created.
It would be a poor exchange to make a
flourishing industry, which would benefit
only a few people, and lose Palestine. I
hear a hundred indignant voices exclaim :
" Shall the Lord be pleased with ten
thousands of rivers of oil ? "
Since this country was then, as now,
bituminous and naphtha-bearing, it is not
difficult to imagine that God's punishment

AN UPPER ROOM

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 127
of the cities of the plain was a natural
but extraordinary conflagration. It may
be that some earthquake shock released
springs of naphtha which during a terrific
storm of lightning from the hills became
ignited and set fire to the whole country,
till finally the bitumen deposits caught
and gradually turned the region into a
slag heap, so that Abraham saw nothing
but a field of fire. " And he looked toward
Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the
land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo,
the smoke of the country went up as the
smoke of a furnace."
During this fearful storm, the salt
marshes, across which Lot and his family
were fleeing, would be white with driv
ing dust and salt. To-day can be seen
encrusted objects, and there are many
pillars of salt, and the fact of Lot's wife,
turning to meet the storm, being suffo
cated and overwhelmed is a perfectly
natural occurrence and not at all, as
many have tried to show, a thing that needs
an effort of faith to beUeve.
I should like to have been able to give

128 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
drawings of these salt encrustations and
hummocks, and also of other things on
the shores of the Dead Sea, but the fear
ful heat — one o'clock on midsummer day !
— made anything in the way of a careful
drawing impossible. I had not got a
camera. I made a series of notes in
pencil. When my head swam so that I
appeared to be holding several pencils and
a sea of sketch books I gave it up, and
did no more sketches till I reached Jericho.
The way was long (although only four
or five miles as the crow flies) and the
ride tedious. Innumerable gullies and
dry water- courses made a continuous
switch-back of a place that seemed flat a
few hundreds yards away. Jericho seemed
always within five minutes' ride and
then these wretched wanderings in and
out of hollows would take us further
and further from it. What seemed from
a distance luxuriant foliage, principally
consisted of brambly bushes. The city
of Jericho was a collection of miserable
hovels with a hotel which was shut up.
My muleteer, however, found an inn

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 129
where it was possible to sleep. After
resting for an hour or so, I started off
to find ancient Jericho, which is hard by
Elijah's spring, the source of the little
river of sparkling and delicious water
which fertilizes this green belt of cultivated
land. The good muleteer walked some dis
tance behind as a bodyguard. There
were pleasant plantations of bananas
and orchards of olive and fig, and crops
which showed how rich and productive
is this soil if properly watered. The
change of the face of the country from
a place of gardens and palms to its pre
sent condition is simply due to the decay
of irrigation works. Long after the
overthrow of the Cities of the Plain this
Jordan Valley had been irrigated and
well watered like a garden of the Lord
by a system of irrigation, the remains of
which are still visible. Traces of Roman
work in innumerable aqueducts and ruins
of water mills of the time of the Crusaders
are a sufficient indication of what this
valley could become again if properly
K

130 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
looked after instead of being allowed to
run to waste under the blight of Turkish
rule. The cliff that overshadows the slopes
above the site of ancient Jericho is full
of caves, and a small monastery is built
into the steep face of the rock. These
wild and cavernous places are similar to
those at Mar Saba, and are also hermits'
caves. The rock itself is called Quaran-
tania, because it is the traditional site
of the scene of Our Lord's forty days'
fast. I think, however, there is no evidence
to support this idea.
Lector : I wish you would not always
assume that because you have heard of
no evidence for the authenticity of a site
that there is none. You take very scant
notice of tradition if it does not work in
with some pet theory of yours.
PiCTOR : I take a great deal of notice
of tradition, and in cases where Moham
medan, Jewish and Christian tradition all
point without hesitation to the same spot,
I think it is very strong evidence, but it
is wise to see, if possible, how a tradition

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 131
is arrived at. In this case there is the
traditional site of Our Lord's Baptism in
the Jordan as a startilig-point.
Lector : There you are again taking as
a starting-point something which is also
a tradition. PiCTOR : Quite so. I am trying to put
myself in the position of the monks,
who, rightly or wrongly, believing a certain
point on the Jordan to be the scene of Our
Lord's baptism, proceeded to fix other
points. Looking up toward the wilderness
of Judaea from the banks of the Jordan
at this point the most striking mountain
outline is this cliff now called Quaran-
tania, and it was only natural to fix upon
it as the " exceeding high mountain " from
the summit of which the tempter could
show all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them.
It seems that this proximity to the
scene of the Baptism is the explanation of
the tradition, because there is no other
reason why it should be chosen. It is
one of the lower hills, and there are many
all around that are twice the height.

132 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
From the point of view of an extensive
panorama, however local or figurative
the " kingdoms of the world " might be,
it is hardly a Ukely site, because the sum
mit of this height is 200 feet below the
level of the sea. It commands a view of
nothing but the Jordan Valley.
Lector : Most people, I think, take it
that this view was in the nature of a
vision, therefore it would not matter
whether the mountain from which it was
seen was a particularly commanding one
or not.
PiCTOR : I agree. But as the other two
temptations are concerned with actual
things or places it would be natural to
expect a real mountain. The stones which
might have been made bread, and the
pinnacle of the Temple existed in fact,
and some high point embracing a vast
view of Palestine seems fitting as the
basis of a vision of a far greater extent
— the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time and the glory of them. Pisgah,
from which Moses saw the promised land,
or the snow-clad heights of Hermon

THE DEAD SEA CLEFT 133
strike the imagination as being more
likely if any actual mountain was the
scene of this temptation.
A turn in the road by a bubbling foun
tain, and I am looking at some curious
remains. The red light is flaming on the
hills of Moab, the shadow of the Quaran-
tania cliffs are creeping across the valley,
and there are heaps of stones, and just
recognizable bases of a rampart. They
are the foundations of the walls of Jericho.

T)/1«/I5CU5

Jaffa _^^_

HEl6

"3? Dovwi Sj^

134

CHAPTER VI
THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN
THE question of the site of Calvary
and the Holy Sepulchre is one
around which a whole literature
has arisen. The purchase in 1894 of a
rock-hewn sepulchre north of Jerusalem
and the claim made more recently by a
group of quite sincere, but rather un
critical enthusiasts that it is undoubt
edly the tomb in which Our Lord was
laid, has added considerably to the
interest of the problem involved. Sen
timent rather than knowledge was the
leading note in a great many of the
arguments used in favour of this tradi
tional site, the arguments against it
and the arguments for the new site
which is generally referred to as the
Gordon Tomb, because General Gordon
135

136 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
took a great interest in it and beUeved
that it ought to be preserved, though it
seems that he never actually stated that
he thought it was the sepulchre of Our
Lord. I propose therefore by means of sketches
and plans to show something of the
appearance of the place under discussion,
and, without either affirming or denying
the authenticity of the traditional site
or of the garden tomb, to inquire into
the matter frankly from the painter's
point of view.
Now the painter must take note of the
external appearance of things and must
teach by the things that are seen. In
this he will quarrel with the learned who
resent his comparisons between cement
works and the enchanted East, but he is
right for all that. The rocky hill outside
the Damascus gate, which has recently
come to be identified by many as Cal
vary, and the Tomb in the garden at its
side, may never be believed in by the
faithful, but they are valuable as enabling
us to picture the places in the Bible

THERE WAS A GARDEN

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 137
narratives. However authentic the sites
in and around the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre may be, this at least is certain,
that they can tell us nothing of the
appearance of Golgotha, or of the Tomb
in the garden. However spurious may
be the claim of the place that some have
not hesitated to call a modern " Protestant
Myth," it can at least show many " near
analogies to that in which Our Lord
was laid," to quote the words of Dr.
Sanday, who is one of the opponents of
the claims of this newly-discovered garden
tomb. The question therefore which the painter
most wants to ask is not " Where is the
true site of some Holy Place ? " but " How
did it look?"
How did it look, that bit of landscape
outside the walls of old Jerusalem?
How did it look, dark Golgotha with
its gaunt gibbets blackening the blood-
streaked sky as twilight fell on that
first Good Friday ? " Now in the place
where he was crucified there was a
garden." How did it look, that fair

138 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
green garden — ^paradise regained— in the
clear dawn light of the first Easter Day ?
In order to arrive at some ground
work for testing the various theories
about the position of Calvary and the
Holy Sepulchre, let us imagine that we
do not know anything about the geo
graphy of Jerusalem and try to collect
from the four Gospels evidence about the
probable position of places mentioned.
I have tabulated on pages 140-141 all the
references in the accounts by the four
evangelists that give clues to the main
points. The first important deduction
we make is that the Crucifixion took
place at some point outside the walls of
the city. This fact is plainly stated by
St. John in the words " the place where
Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city,"
but there is no indication here of the
distance. The general impression conveyed by
the narrative is that Golgotha was not
immediately outside, but at some distance
along the road, for the words " and when
they were come unto a place caUed Gol-

~PU=)N OF "me GftW>£N "TbHS

139

CALVARY AND THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
Evidence from the four Gospels from whioh to draw deductions as to their position with
regard to Jerusalem in the time of Christ.

That tbe place of
the Oraciilsion
was outside the
city.

That it was hi
Ti«w of a road.

St. Matthew

St. Mabk

St. LtTKE

St. John

XXVII.
32. And as they came
out, they found a
man of Gyrene,
Simon by name : him
they compelled to
bear his cross.
33. Aud when they
were come unto a
place called Gol
gotha, that is to
say, a place of a
skull, . . .

XV.
21. And they compel
one Simon a Cyren-
ian who passed by
coming out of the
country, the father
of Alexander and
Rufus, to bear the
cross.22. And they bring
him unto a place
Golgotha, which is,
being interpreted.
The place of a skull.

XXIII.
33. And when they
were come to the
place, whioh is call
ed Calvary, there
they crucified him.

XIX.
17. And he bearing
his cross went forth
into a place called
the place of a skull,
which ia called in the
Hebrew, Golgotha.
20. ... for the place
where Jesus was
crucified waa nigh to
the city.

39. And they that
passed by reviled
him.

29. And they that
passed by railed on
him. Also v. 21 above.

That it was in
Bnch a promm
ent position that
it could be seen
from a distance.

*^ That the tomb
*"" may have been
cut out of the
rocky sides of
some knoll or
hill on whicb tbe
crosses were
placed.

41.

31.

49.

Likewise also the

Likewise also the

And all his ac

chief priests mock

chief priests mock

quaintances, and the

ing him, with the

ing said among

women that followed

scribes and elders.
themselves with the
him from GaUlee,
scribes, . . . Let
stood afar off, be
55.
Christ the King of
holding these things.
And many women
Israel descend now
were there behold
from the cross, that
ing afar off, . . .
we may see and
beheve, . . .
40. There were also
women looking on
afar off.
60.
46.
53.
41.
... in his new
. . . and laid him
, . . and laid it
Now in the place
tomb, which he had
in a sepulchre
in a sepulchre that
where he was cruci
hewn out in the
which was hewn out
was hewn in stone.
fied there was a gar
rock : . . .
of a rock.
wherein never man
den; and in the
was before laid.
garden a new sepul
chre, wherein was
never man yet laid.
42. There laid they
Jesus therefore be
cause of the Jews'
preparation day for
the sepulchre was
nigh at hand.
142 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
gotha," and the mention that Simon of
Cyrene was passing by " coming out of
the country," would seem unnecessary if
it meant that they met him at the gate or
immediately outside. The words " nigh
unto the city," too, imply some distance,
because a place very close at hand would
probably be described more locally as
" nigh unto the gate," or " nigh unto the
walls." The mention of the passers-by " revU-
ing him," indicates that the Crucifixion
took place within sight of the road.
[We know, as a matter of fact, that it
was the Roman custom to crucify at
roadsides and that makes the inference
still stronger, but in this analysis we
are collecting facts from the Gospels
alone.] Another deduction from the mention
of the women " afar off, beholding these
things," is that the crosses must have
been in some prominent position —
either visible from higher ground or
themselves on a hill. The familiar refer
ence to " a green hill far away," and the

THE PLACE WHERE
JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED
WAS NIGH TO THE CITY

A sketch made in Jerusalem in 11)14. The three
crosses are the only imaginary features. If t/te
Skull Hill, where they are placed, be the correct
site or not, the picture serves to illustrate the
probable appearance of the place of Crucifixion
outside ihe lualls at the time of our Lord.

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 143
numerous paintings of the Crucifixion
have made people imagine that Calvary
was a hill, but the Gospels do not so
describe it. The first mention of " Mount
Golgotha," Sir Charles Wilson tells us,
" appears in the Itinerary of the Bordeaux
Pilgrim, a.d. 333, and it was applied,
not inaptly, to the Rock of Calvary, in
the present Church of the Holy Sepul
chre, which had then been recently
violated by cutting away the adjoining
rock." The fact that the High Priests, who
could not approach the place of execu
tion on account of ceremonial defilement,
were able to see what was going on sup
ports the idea of the position of the
crosses being on a hill. Their suggested
test, that Christ, the King of Israel,
should come down from the cross that
they might see and believe, clearly
shows that the Crucifixion was in full
view of this group as well as of the
women " afar off." This does not prove
that it was upon a rise or hill, for the
position would fit the account as well

144 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
if it was one in a valley or in any
place commanded by surrounding high
ground. The next point to examine is the prob
able position of the garden belonging to
Joseph of Arimathsea and the nature of
the sepulchre it contained.
Here we have very little to guide us.
The expressions " In the place where he
was crucified," and " nigh at hand,"
merely show that it must be looked for
not far away, the determining factor
being the identification of Golgotha. It
would seem that this garden was
bounded by some cliff or face of rock in
which it would be convenient to hew out
a sepulchre. There is one other passage which
seems somewhat to support the idea
that the Holy Sepulchre must have been
some distance from the gate of the city,
but it is a vague one to build upon, and
therefore I have not placed it in the table
with the others. St. Matthew records
that the women, after the angel had
instructed them to go and tell the

•V ' .
r ff'-'^.'J '- ¦ --''>'yii ,'l^ 'Jll-

^l.#- (f

M/
THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 145
disciples, " departed quickly from the
sepulchre with fear and great joy; and
did run to bring his disciples word.
And as they went . . . Jesus met them.
. . . And they came and held him by the
feet and worshipped him," This reads as
if the incident occurred when they were
alone and not in full view of the gate
of the city. It also seems that they had
left the sepulchre and the garden and
were running along the road towards
Jerusalem. Thus the distance would not
be a very short one.
We have now analyzed the various
clues as to the position of Calvary and
the Holy Sepulchre from the account
given in the four Gospels as they might
be read by a traveller to Jerusalem who
had never heard of the Resurrection of
Our Lord and who knew nothing about
Jerusalem or its history. His search for
the sites of Golgotha and the tomb
would be conducted in the light of these
inferences, that the Place of a Skull was
somewhere situated within sight of a
frequented path or road in a prominent

146 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
position, outside the waUs of the city
and possibly some distance outside, and
that the tomb was one hewn out of the
natural rock near this same place
Golgotha. On arriving at Jerusalem he would be
struck by the nature of the landscape.
It is very uneven and there is no flat
country anywhere near the city. The
whole place is indented with rocky knoUs
and steep valleys. The place of a skuU,
as far as prominence of position went,
might be in one of many hiUs or deep
down in many ravines and be visible
from " afar off." The vaUey sides are
honeycombed with tombs, especiaUy in
the VaUey of Hinnom, where the Ume-
stone is always faUing away into little
cliffs, giving suitable rock surfaces for the
hewing out of sepulchres.
The difficulty that would arise at once
in identifying possible sites would be
almost entirely one of finding out the
position of the walls of Jerusalem in the
time of Our Lord. The site of the " skull
hill," outside the gate of Damascus at

6
Fig. 1.

147

148 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
the north of Jerusalem accords with the
evidence collected from the Gospels, if the
walls of the city on the north side were
built on the site of the present walls by
the Damascus gate. But it is claimed by
those who advocated the authenticity of
the traditional site on which the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre now stands, that
this, too, once accorded with the descrip
tion in the Gospels, that it was outside the
walls. It is necessary, therefore, to go very
carefully into the geography of the site
on which Jerusalem is built. Let us sup
pose that we could see the site of the hills
on which Jerusalem has been built as they
were before any trace of a city stood
there. In Fig. 1, I have shown the
principal features. The Valley of the
Kidron and the Valley of Hinnom join
together at the south, making a deep
trench. In the middle lies a centre fork not
so deep, but a considerable valley. It is
the Tyropceon. This bends round towards
the west, separating two hills A and B.
A is the hill on which stood the citadel

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 149
of Zion and B is the hill on which now
stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
On the other side of the Tyropceon, to
the east, is a hill D, which became the
site of the Temple. Another valley runs
north from the Tyropceon. This is the
Hasmonean VaUey and separates the hill C
from B. Further north is a hill E which
is the skull-shaped knoll above the garden
tomb. Study this sketch map carefully and
get these points fixed in your mind, if
you want to follow this problem of the
walls without getting lost in a maze of
names which complicate it considerably.
Now supposing the hills A and B are to
be connected and fortified, it would be
necessary for purposes of defence to build
walls approximately as marked with lines
in Fig. 2. Walls are placed, of course, on
rising ground, or at the top of a ridge.
The dotted line marked 12 3 4 5 6, would
be the highest and simplest position, but
the high ground at XX and YY on the
other side of the Valley of Hinnom and
VaUey of the Kidron, is too far away to

150 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
" command " the walls if brought down
to Z, in order to enclose a larger space.
This shape represents almost exactly the
first wall at the time of the destruction by
Nebuchadnezzar, 588 B.C.
There was, however, a second wall,
and about its position a great deal of
controversy has arisen. The hill B, the
site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
is well outside the first wall, but it is
difficult to see, from a miUtary point of
view, how another wall could have been
built to enclose parts of the city north of
this without also including B. Josephus
records that this second wall " encircled
the north quarter of the city, and reached
as far as the Tower Antonia." There is
no doubt as to the position of the Tower
Antonia, which was at N. He states
that this second wall started from the
Gennath Gate, which belonged to the
first wall. The position of this gate is
unknown, but it must have been some
where at M, because the part now occu
pied by the Pool of Hezekiah and the
Muristan was shown to have been inside

Fio. 2.

IBl

152 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
this wall. I have marked this region
with a shaded oblong. Even supposing
that the Gate Gennath was somewhere at
P and the " encircling " wall made a
salient at O, it does not make much
difference to the argument that it is
difficult to see how the hill at B could
have been excluded from any wall that
could be built to the Tower of Antonia
at N.
Putting away the question of the Gate
Gennath, the rudiments of military science
demand that if any addition were made
at all to the walls on the north side (and
we know that this enlargement of the
enclosed area was made) it would embrace
a much larger area. The form which
I have marked out with small squares,
ab c d ef, is the one that would obviously
be chosen — i. e. the high ground along the
tops of the ridges.
In Fig. 3 I have marked the pre
sent walls of Jerusalem with a plain line
and the walls as they probably were in
the time of Our Lord, by a shaded belt.
There is no doubt as to the position of

'¦V \. "4.^ ii^*.l.

JERUSALEM FROM
THE SKULL HILL

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 153
the ancient walls on the south, and these
will illustrate the point we are dealing
with. The present south walls of Jeru
salem more or less mark the site of Solo-
man's walls. When various kings of
Judah enlarged the city, they were built
further south as at S in Fig. 3. This en
largement was possible as it was a down-
hiU extension still commanding a slope
and not threatened from high ground
on the other side of the valley. The
same enlargement has been possible at T
west of the hill B, where an extension has
been made to R, which still commands a
slope. At X, however, at the ridge C, no
extension of small extent could be made
towards Y, as it would be commanded
by high ground on the other side, but
to extend to Z and thus make use of the
high ground was possible and has been
done. In the same way, if the first wall had
been extended to dotted line MN, exclud
ing the hill B, it would have been com
manded by B, and if the part at W were
extended at all it would be an example of

154 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
a salient commanded by rising ground on
each side which, from a military point of
view, is absurd. Thus it will be seen
that a very difficult task is before those
who maintain that the traditional site of
Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, although
now within the city, was, in the time of
Our Lord, outside the walls.
Now that we have examined topo
graphical evidence, which seems to throw
doubt on the traditional sites, it is only
fair to examine the arguments advanced
by those who cling to them as the true
Holy Places.
There is an undisputed example of a
Jewish rock tomb within the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, known as the Tomb
of Nicodemus. This has been used as an
argument that the spot in which this is
situated must have been outside the walls.
But it is also known that the Tombs of
Judaean kings were inside the city, and
Colonel Conder supposes that these may
actually refer to the place known as the
Sepulchre of Nicodemus. If this tomb
could be proved to be as late as the

Vl^\^ .

Fig. 3.

155

156 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Herodian period, it would be important
evidence, but there is nothing to show
that it was of so late a date.
The other arguments advanced are two
fold : that the exact site was handed
down from generation to generation by
the early Christians, and that in the fourth
century it was miraculously revealed by a
vision when the true cross was discovered.
This occurred on the same day that Con
stantine's Church of the Anastasis was
dedicated. All other traditions appear after that
miraculous " Invention of the Cross," and
the Via Dolorosa is so named in the
fourteenth century and there are many
later identifications in connection with the
Holy Places. There is hardly any limit
to this over-elaboration of detail. In a
street lying off the Via Dolorosa there is
a stone " black and greasy with the kisses
of pilgrims," which is shown as one that
would have cried out if the children had
held their peace on Our Lord's triumphant
entry into Jerusalem.
It would seem impossible to go further.

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 157
But there is a further stage. The high-
water mark of absurdity is reached in a
stone, forming part of a building in the
Armenian nunnery of Ez Zeituny, which
the Abbess will quite solemnly show as
one which actuaUy did cry out. At the
attempt of the chief priests and scribes
to stop the children singing praises, this
good stone could control itself no longer,
but " burst into a melodious ' Hosanna '
as soon as the children were silent." It is
one of the lesser tragedies of life that people
can be genuinely and intensely religious
without possessing the smallest spark of
humour. The " skull hill " north of the Damascus
gate has been since 1842 alluded to by
various writers as a probable site of Cal
vary. It is a knoll with a small cliff of
rock, so indented as to suggest a skull.
I have sketched it (next page) without
exaggerating the markings, though in
some lights I have seen the skull shape
more clearly. The black patch on the
left is part of a cistern and the place at
the foot of the cliff on the right is known

158 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
as Jeremiah's grotto. This resemblance
to a human skull is considered by many
to be the origin of the name Golgotha,
" the place of a skull." There is very
strong evidence, if not absolute proof,
that here was the place of Jewish execu
tions, and thus, as the place fits in with
the requirements of the Gospel narratives,
it seems at first glance a very probable
site. Three questions, however, immediately
present themselves. Is it likely that this
accidental marking in a cUff, not of
granite but of comparatively crumbling
limestone, would have existed nearly two
thousand years ago in this same form,
suggesting a skull and giving the place
a name? We might, however, get over
that point by assuming that the marks
that give the skull's features are in the
nature of flaws that would repeat them
selves as the rock crumbled away. Or it
may be that the associations of the place
of execution would warrant the title it
had been given and that the skull shape
is an accident of later date.

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 159
Then assuming that this was indeed
the Place of Stoning (and there seems to
be very little doubt about this, as recent
discoveries have shown that in all prob
ability St. Stephen was stoned here) — are
we therefore driven to conclude that Our
Lord suffered here? The Crucifixion was
an ordinary Roman punishment. Would
not Pilate have had it carried out in the
ordinary way and not in the Jewish Place
of Stoning?
Again, if the Crucifixion was in the
Place of Stoning, the garden of Joseph
of Arimathaea, which was close at hand,
would have been near a spot which any
Jew would have looked upon with ab
horrence. Is it likely that a rich man
would choose to have a garden in such a
neighbourhood ?
The rock-hewn tomb of which I have
drawn a plan on page 139 consists of an
outer and inner chamber. The inner cham
ber is at a lower level and lighted by a
small opening. The recess on the left of
the entrance has a place for the head
to rest, and this, pointing to the valley

160 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
of Jehoshaphat, is part of the evidence
that it was originally a Jewish tomb. It
is in this left-hand recess that the body
of Our Lord must have been laid, if this
sepulchre is the one that answers to the
Gospel narrative.
Many alterations have been made, how
ever, in this tomb, and it has undoubtedly
been used as a Christian burial place.
When excavated, it was full of bones and
contained Latin crosses chiselled in the
rock and painted red, belonging apparently
to the twelfth century.
It is a valuable possession. Its posi
tion outside the walls accords with the
Gospel story; but even if the traditional
site be the true site and was in Our Lord's
day outside the walls, still this new site,
by the fact of its having escaped much
alteration, shows us what the place of
Our Lord's sepulchre must have been Uke
at the time of His burial.
There is one point, however, that the
believers in the Garden Tomb seem to
have left out of their calculations. The
simpUcity of the garden at the foot of the

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 161
skull hill and the striking contrast it pre
sents when compared with the crowded
and exploited condition of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre depends upon the fact
that the Christian world does not accept
it. If it did, its character would be in
stantly changed. If tens of thousands of
pilgrims wanted to visit it instead of a few
hundred, there would have to be drastic
alterations in the approach to it.
At present it is hidden away in the
garden in such a way that the assembling
of great numbers of people would be im
possible. A way of entry and a way of
exit would have to be made in the space
before the tomb, and it would inevitably
be enclosed and become as unrecogniz
able as any other undisputed site in
Palestine. The " reUgious difficulty " would become
acute, and either services would have to
be forbidden altogether, which is impos
sible, or provision would have to be made
for various rites as in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the
Nativity at Bethlehem.
M

162 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
Let us hope, therefore, that this site
will remain " a priceless possession " as a
picture of the place nigh unto the city,
where was a garden, and let us hope that
it will never come to be regarded as the
true site of the Holy Sepulchre.
There is a tendency in human nature
to say " Lo here, lo there," to places where
Our Lord has worked marvellous works.
The tendency is natural and the result is
inevitable. Beginning with a desire to
instruct, it generally has ended in a
tendency to obscure. The lesson of the
denial of St. Peter becomes an unseemly
desire to determine the exact place on
which the cock stood when it crew the
second time. The lesson of the Divine
Humility taught by the lowly stable-cave
in Bethlehem is so forgotten that there,
more than in any spot in Christen
dom, His disciples have disputed who
shall be the greatest in the Kingdom
of Heaven. May it not be well that
we are not told and can never know
for certain where was that site that was
nigh unto the city or where was that rock-

THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN 163
hewn tomb that was in the place where
Jesus was crucified? When all Christen
dom was certain of the site of Calvary
and the Holy Sepulchre, what did it profit '.
the Faith ? '
" There was a garden." A certain mys
tery surrounds the story. Our thoughts
go back to the first garden, and we
hear that far-away melody in Eden before
man's fall. " To dress it and keep it "
— yes, and with what result, when man
had fallen from his high estate? Thorns
and thistles and the herb of the field.
But it was not always to be so. " Instead
of the thorn shall come up the fig tree,
and instead of the brier shall come up the
myrtle tree." " Awake, O north wind ;
and come thou south; blow upon my
garden, that the spices thereof may flow
out. Let my beloved come into his garden,
and eat his pleasant fruits."
There was a garden— dark Gethsemane.
Steep-sided Cedron had become the vaUey
of the shadow.
There was a garden — near to Calvary.
Sweet-scented with a hundred spices, it

164 A PAINTER IN PALESTINE
had become the garden of God. Paradise
regained. For, lo, the winter was past.
The flowers had appeared on earth, and
the time for the singing of birds had
come.

THE END

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A DWELLER
IN MESOPOTAMIA
With numerous Illustrations by the Author
in Colour, Half-tone, and Line. Crown 4to.
£1 5s. net.
Morning Post. — " The sketches are particularly attractive both
in subject and expression, and all are faithfully reproduced. . . .
Altogether this is a delightful volume, chastely bound in green
and brown-toned linen."
Evening Standard.— " A delightful sketch-book. . . . His
adventures are told in breezy, unofficial style."
Observer. — " Mr. Maxwell's receptive eye and delicate hand."
Outlook. — " His iUustrations are eloquent of the fascinations
of the ancient East . . . makes interesting reading."
Daily Telegraph. — " Mr. Donald Maxwell's previous book,
' The Last Crusade,' was a happy mixture of art and literature
dealing with Palestine, and his new volume, ' A Dweller in
Mesopotamia,' is, we think, even a happier combination, for
while the art is as true and as excellent as ever, the descriptions
of the people he met and the adventures he experienced are
more vivid, varied, and entertaining. . . . The book will be
treasured by those who value good artistic work and racy
description."

JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo St., W. i.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE LAST CRUSADE
1914-1918
With 100 Sketches in Colour, Monochrome,
and Line made by the Author in the autumn
and winter of 191 8, when sent on duty to
Palestine by the Admiralty for the Imperial
War Museum. Crown 4to. £1 5s. net.
Saturday Review, — " Exceedingly interesting. . . . The letter
press is full of vitality and humour ; the reader is irresistibly
carried on from one incident to another without a dull
moment." Westminster Gazette. — "A very handsome book. It makes
good reading, and a still better 'picture book,' and it is a
valuable addition to the vast literature of the war."
Outlook. — "Full of good matter. The pictures are finely
done, and neither the colour nor the black and white repro
ductions leave anything to be desired. It is indeed one of the
best war books published."
Pall Mall Gazette. — " A very handsome souvenir of the Last
Crusade." Field. — " Mr. Maxwell's book is an exceedingly entertaining
one both to read and look at."
Connoisseur. — "The drawings possess great artistic merit.
One of the most attractive books which the war has yet
evoked."
JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo St., W. i

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

ADVENTURES WITH A
SKETCH BOOK
With numerous Illustrations in Colour and
Black and White by the Author. Crown 4.to.
12s. 6d. net.
observer. — " Artistically, and from the literary point of view,
it is one of the most delectable travel books that have been
published for many a long day, for Mr. Maxwell has not only
an eye for the picturesque, and a frank, clear style both of pen
and brush, but he has the even rarer gift of finding old-world
romance and adventure in places near at hand where their
presence would never be suspected by the ordinary traveller. . . .
Mr. Maxwell's book is wholly free from any suspicion of guide
book padding, and is as interesting and exciting to read as a
work of romantic fiction. The chief feature which should
ensure it a permanent position on the library shelf are the
very vital and expressive illustrations, the very spacing of which
on the printed page is delight to the eye.''
Athenaum. — '* Mr. Maxwell is a most original traveller. . . ,
We have said so much of Mr. Maxwell, the writer and traveUer,
that there is a danger of forgetting Mr. Maxwell the artist. All
the work has character ; most of it has that delicacy of colour
and outline which we have learned to associate with the
author." Morning Post. — " On page after page Mr. Maxwell delights
the eye with views and • bits ' picturesque, quaint or amusing,
while his anecdotes and adventures make us laugh and long to
follow in his footsteps, for he has the gift of description in words
as well as in pictures. This is one of the most thoroughly
satisfactory artist-tourist books we have seen, and its publisher
has done justice to the good material at his disposal."
JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo St., W. i.

" The most thrilling volume of the year." Daily Mail,
SOME EXPERIENCES OF A
NEW GUINEA RESIDENT
MAGISTRATE
By Captain C. A. W. Monckton, F.R.G.S.,
F.Z.S., F.R.A.I. With numerous Illustrations.
Third Edition. Demy 8vo. £1 Is. net.
Robert Lynd in the Daily Neivs, — ** Captain Monckton has
a lively pen. He has enjoyed his life among savages . . . and
his book is written with the zest of a schoolboy ... a frank
and cheerful book."
Times Literary Supplement, — ** Mr. Monckton has written a
boy's book for men. In it something happens on every page.
... It is a long book, though not a page too long."
Daily Mail. — "A book of entrancing interest for boys and
their fathers. It is a plain and a true one, and is stranger than
fiction. The most remarkable book of travel and exploration
since Stanley's * Darkest Africa.' "
MACEDONIA: A Plea for the
Primitive By A. Goff and Dr. Hugh A. Fawcett. With
Drawings in Colour, Pencil, and Line, by Dr.
Hugh A. Fawcett. Demy 8vo. £1 Is. net.
Evening Standard. — "The authors have done their work
thoroughly ; places, people, and customs are described in a very
interesting fashion ; and the illustrations add much to the
attraction of the book."
Country Life. — " The authors write well. The peasant in this
country is a very primitive and so a very interesting creature,
and we are grateful to the authors for their careful study of his
ways, as also to Mr. Fawcett for his pictures."
JOHN LANE, The Bodley Head, Vigo St., W. i

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