Birdseye Views of Far Lands Part 8

Our first landing place on this sacred soil was at the city of Haifa, which is located at the foot of Mount Carmel near the northern part of the country. Haifa is a small city of some ten thousand people and to visit the market place in the early morning makes one think that the people are very much alive. Not far from the city are shown some rock-cut chambers in Mount Carmel that are said to be the very rooms where Elisha conducted his school for the young prophets.

On the top of this mountain perhaps four or five miles from Haifa is a sort of a natural amphitheater and in this an old, old, rock-cut altar that is pointed out as the place where Elijah and the prophets of Baal had the great test to see whose G.o.d would answer by fire. At the foot of the mountain is a large mound which is to this day called the "Priest's Mound" and which is the traditional burial place of the false prophets who were slain at that time.

From Haifa we went to Nazareth which is about eighteen miles in an eastward direction. We traveled for several miles along a railroad that the builders had started and then abandoned. The story told me at the time as to why this project was abandoned became quite significant when the war broke out, although it was told me several years before this happened. They said an English company secured the right to build a railway from Haifa to Damascus. About the time the work was started the Kaiser came to visit Palestine.

Great preparation had been made for this visit and as a wors.h.i.+pper (?) he visited all the sacred places. On his return he spent a week in Constantinople with the Sultan of Turkey and that immediately after this visit this Turkish ruler decided that this railway would give the English too much power and the company was compelled to give up the work. Of course the railway was finished later on, but not by the English. As it developed after the war broke out, the Kaiser and the Sultan of Turkey had worked together for years.

Stopping by the highway a Mohammedan woman was drawing water at a well and on request she cheerfully gave us a drink. These people never refuse to help even an enemy get a drink of water so I was told. The women do most of the hard work in Palestine. Where we stopped to pay the government tax that was always collected from travelers, I saw a man and woman building a stone wall. The only thing the man did was to sit on the wall while the woman mixed the mortar and carried both it and the stone to him. She even had to lift the stone up on the wall without any a.s.sistance from him, but he did manage to spread the mortar alone.

Spread out before us was the great Plain of Esdraelon, which was often spoken of as the world's greatest battlefield. Here more battles that decided the destiny of nations have been fought than on any other spot on the globe. To behold the place where "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera" and a score of other world-famous struggles was a marvelous sight to say the least.

Nazareth is a beautiful little city on the side of a mountain. The streets are narrow, the paving stones are worn slippery, and the shops are all open to the streets. In the Church of the Annunciation they point out "Joseph's Workshop" and "Mary's Kitchen" and with great solemnity show you the tools used by the Galilean carpenter and the cooking utensils used in the sacred home. There is in Nazareth one building the walls of which perhaps were standing nineteen hundred years ago. This old wall is h.o.a.ry with age and the Hebrew characters above the door indicate that it used to be a Jewish synagogue. Possibly it was the place where the great sermon was preached which so enraged the people that they tried to mob the preacher, but he escaped from their hands.

An amusing experience was when we visited the Hall of Justice. The officials found that we had come into their city without permission from the authorities at Haifa. At once we were held up and fined. The fines and costs amounted to sixty cents each and I had to pay one dollar and twenty cents for myself and guide. When this was paid they gave us permission to proceed on our journey. That all might know that we had this permission it was so stated upon the back of our pa.s.sports.

The last thing I remember before going to sleep one night in the city of Nazareth was the loud talk of a crazy man in the street near the window.

As there were no asylums for these unfortunate people they often just wandered around. I visited the only asylum for crazy people in all Syria at that time, and Dr. Waldimier told me with his own lips that it took him nineteen long years to get permission from the Turkish government to found the inst.i.tution.

From the top of the mountain near Nazareth one has a wonderful view of the entire country. As Palestine is less than one hundred and fifty miles long and but one-third as wide one can see almost entirely over the land from some high elevation. To the east and southeast of the top of this mountain lies the great Jordan valley with the mountains of Moab in the background. It was from one of these peaks, Mount Nebo, that Moses viewed the landscape o'er. Only about fifteen miles to the northeast lies the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias and Lake of Gennesaret. One cannot see the water in this lake, but the depression where it lies is very marked.

To the north is the "Horn of Hattin," where the famous Sermon on the Mount was given to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude. Still further is Mount Hermon which was the scene of the transfiguration. Still farther away are the mountains of Lebanon. To the west is old Mount Carmel and beyond that the great Mediterranean Sea. Stretched out to the southwest is the Plain of Esdraelon, and beyond that the mountains of Samaria. Just east of this plain are Mount Tabor and Gilboa. One can stand for hours and not get tired of looking for every foot of the ground is historic.

CHAPTER XVI

A WORLD-FAMOUS CITY--JERUSALEM

The history of the world is largely the story of the rise and fall of great cities. In these great centers one can feel the heart-throb of civilization. Some of the great cities of today are famous for their size, such as New York and London; some for their beauty, like Paris and Rio Janeiro; some for their culture and learning, as Boston and Oxford; some for their manufacturing and commercial supremacy, as Detroit and Liverpool. But there is one city on the globe not nearly as large as Des Moines, not at all beautiful, its people neither cultured nor learned, has no factories and one narrow gauge railway takes care of most of its commerce, and yet it is by far the most famous city of all time. It is the city of Jerusalem.

The site of the city was once owned by a farmer whose name was Oman. He had a thres.h.i.+ng floor on the top of Mount Moriah. The city as it is today is on top of two mountains, but the valley between has been filled up so that it is almost like one continuous mountain top. Higher mountains are practically on every side so that the moment one sees the city he thinks of the scripture, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about his people."

To get an idea of the city as it was when the war broke out you must imagine a city of about sixty thousand people, without street cars, electric lights, telephones, waterworks, sewer system or any modern improvements whatever. However, General Allenby's entrance into the city in December, 1917, was the beginning of a new era. In three months the English did more for the city than the Turk did in a thousand years.

There is an old Arab legend which says: "Not until the River Nile flows into Palestine will the Turk be driven from Palestine." Of course this was their way of saying that such a thing would never come to pa.s.s for the Turk actually believed that he had such a hold on that country that there was no power on earth that could make him give it up. But when the English started from Egypt they not only built a railroad as they went toward Jerusalem, but not far from the Nile they prepared a great filtering process to cleanse the water, and then laid a twelve-inch pipe and brought the pure water along with them for both man and beast.

Wherever they stopped for a length of time in the desert, "the glowing sands became pools," as the prophet had forecasted, and the desert began to "blossom as the rose." Sixty-five days after General Allenby entered the Jaffa Gate into the city of Jerusalem the water pipe or system was brought into the city and the Canadian engineer had made the Arab legend a reality, bringing the sweet waters of the Nile, a hundred and fifty miles away, into the City of the Great King.

Jerusalem is to this day a walled city. The walls average some thirty feet high and are about fifteen feet thick at the top. It is a little less than two and one-half miles around the city wall, but the city itself has outgrown these limitations, quite a portion of it being on the outside of the wall. The hotel at which the writer stopped while visiting the city some years ago, was located outside the wall, as are many of the best buildings. The streets are narrow, the houses have flat tops and many of them are but one or two stories high.

There was a time, however, when this city boasted of having the finest building ever erected by the hands of man, viz: Solomon's Temple. This was built on Mount Moriah which was a great flat mountain top of uneven rock. Great arches were built around the sides and then the top leveled off until the large temple area was formed. Below the sides of this area are still seen the ma.s.sive rooms that are called Solomon's stables. The writer rambled for hours through these great underground vaults and saw the holes in the stone pillars where the horses were tied. Here multiplied thousands took refuge during some of the memorable sieges that the city went through.

Not far away are the great vaults known as Solomon's Quarries. Here is where the ma.s.sive stones were "made ready" and the master builder's plans were so perfect that, "there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the temple while it was in building." The marks of the mason's tools and the niches where their lamps were placed can be seen to this day. It is a remarkable fact that in sinking shafts alongside the temple wall, great stones have been discovered but no stone chips are found by them. There are numerals and quarry marks and special mason marks on some of these stones but they are all Phoenician, thus confirming the Bible account that Hiram, the great Phoenician master builder prepared the stones and did the building for King Solomon.

Jerusalem has several large churches the most noted of which is the one built over the traditional tomb of Christ. It is called the "Church of the Holy Sepulchre." For sixteen hundred years there was no question but what this tomb was the identical one in which the body of Christ was laid. This church as it stands today is a magnificent building with two great entrances. The sad thing about it is the fact that it is divided up into various chapels, each held by sects of so-called Christians, and a large-armed guard has to be kept in the church to keep these fanatical people from killing each other. Before soldiers were placed there, scenes of conflict and bloodshed were very common indeed--a sad spectacle for Jews and Moslems and other enemies of the Christ to gaze upon.

In the Church of Pater Noster I counted the Lord's Prayer in thirty-two different languages inscribed on marble slabs so that almost any person from any country can read this prayer in his own language. In this connection it is interesting to note that at the gate entrance to the Pool of Bethesda the scripture story of the healing of the impotent man is written, or rather inscribed, beneath the arch, in fifty-one different languages.

One of the large churches in the city was dedicated by the ex-kaiser when he visited the city in 1898. It was later found out that this German church was built for military purposes. During the war a wireless outfit and great searchlights were found in its tower. This self-appointed world ruler is represented on the ceiling of the chapel of a building on Mount Olivet in a companion panel with the Deity. In this same building the ex-kaiser is represented as a crusader by a figure and the Psalmist is painted with the moustache of a German general. When the ex-kaiser entered the city of Jerusalem, a breach was made in the wall near the Jaffa Gate, so instead of entering through the gate like an ordinary mortal, he went in through a hole in the wall.

He would no doubt be glad now to go through another "hole in the wall"

to have his liberty.

To the writer, however, perhaps the most interesting place in or about the entire city is the Garden Tomb and Mount Calvary. This is almost north of the Damascus gate and on the great highway from Jerusalem from the north. Mount Calvary is only a small hill. The Jews speak of it as the Hill of Execution, or the Skull Place, as the outline of the hill seen from a certain direction resembles the form of a gigantic skull. It is said that no Jew cares to pa.s.s this place after night and if he pa.s.ses it in daylight he will mutter a curse upon the memory of him who presumed to be the King of the Jews.

Near this Skull Place is an old tomb that just fits the Bible narrative, viz: "Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre wherein never man was yet laid." This tomb was discovered many years ago by General Gordon and is often spoken of as Gordon's Tomb, also called the Garden Tomb. When excavating about it a wall was found which proved to be a garden wall the end of which b.u.t.ts up against Mount Calvary. One writer who has examined every nook and corner says in regard to this tomb: "It stands in the ma.s.s of rock which forms the northern boundary of a garden which literally runs into the hillside to the west of Mount Calvary itself."

One of the first things noted as the writer went into this tomb was the fact that it is a Jewish tomb. They made their tombs different from those of any other people. That it was a "rich man's tomb" is also very certain, as is the fact that it dates back to the Herodian period in which Jesus lived. There is also some frescoed work upon it showing that it was held sacred by the early Christians. Then the "rolling stone" and the groove in which it was placed is very interesting. This was something like a gigantic grindstone which rolled in the groove and was large enough to cover the opening when the tomb was closed.

While in and about Jerusalem the writer visited the famous "Upper Room,"

the "Jew's Wailing Place," the "Mosque of Omar," which stands upon the very spot where Solomon's Temple used to stand, the "Way of Sorrows,"

the "Ecco h.o.m.o Arch," the "Castle of Antonio," "Tower of David," the "Pool of Siloam," and a great many other interesting places. The Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives as well as scores of other places were fascinating but it would take a large volume to describe them all.

CHAPTER XVII

A WORLD-FAMOUS RIVER--THE JORDAN

The great Mississippi and Amazon rivers are noted for their length; the Hudson and the Rhine for their scenery; the Thames and Tiber for the great cities on their banks; the Volga and the Dneiper for their commerce; the Nile and the Yellow rivers for their annual overflow, the former to give life and the latter to destroy; and the Euphrates and Tigress for the ruins of mighty cities of other days.

But this chapter is a description of a river only a little more than two hundred miles in length, no scenery to speak of near it, never a great city on its banks, no sail or steamboat for commerce ever traveled upon its waters, no one scarcely ever cared whether it was within its banks or not, and not even any ruins worth while along its sh.o.r.es; and yet it is today and has been for centuries the most famous river on the face of the earth.

It is the River Jordan, and a glimpse of it brings forth some of the most wonderful characteristics possessed by any river, as well as many historical events that make their memories dear to the hearts of men and women wherever civilization has found its way. Unlike all other rivers which rise in some elevated place and flow toward the sea level, nearly every mile of this river is below the surface of the ocean.

At the foot of Mount Herman in northern Palestine there is a spring of water that is almost ice cold. That spring is but a few hundred feet above sea level. The water from this spring is joined by that of several other springs and small rivulets caused by the melting snows on the mountain, flows to the south a distance of a few miles, and forms a small lake which is about three miles wide and four miles long. This lake is just on a level with the Mediterranean Sea which is only about thirty miles to the west. This is spoken of in the Bible as "the waters of Merom." From the southern end of this lake the Jordan begins.

The first ten and one-half miles the water falls six hundred and eighty feet to where it enters the Sea of Galilee. This pear-shaped body of water is a little more than a dozen miles long and half that wide and is surrounded by mountains. The river enters through a small canyon at the northwest and pa.s.ses out through another canyon at the south end.

Sometimes the wind will rush down the canyon at the northwest and in a few moments the waters of the lake are like a great whirlpool. These sudden storms often imperil any small boats which may be out on the sea as was the case in Bible times when the Master was sleeping and his disciples awakened him, saying: "Lord, save us; we perish."

From this body of water to the point where the Jordan empties into the Dead Sea is only sixty-five miles by airline, but the way the river winds like a gigantic serpent, one would travel twice that distance were he to go in a boat. This Jordan valley is from four to fourteen miles wide and the mountains on each side rise to the height of from fifteen hundred to three thousand feet.

Within this Jordan valley is what might be called an inner valley which is from a quarter of a mile to a mile wide, and from fifty to something like seventy-five feet deep. This might be called the river bottom and the river winds like a snake in this smaller valley. That boy was a wise lad who wrote a description of the Jordan as follows: "The Jordan is a river which runs straight down through the middle of Palestine, but if you look at it very closely, _it wriggles about_." When the river overflows it simply covers the bottom of this inner valley.

As noted above, the Sea of Galilee is six hundred and eighty feet below the level of the ocean. During this sixty-five miles (airline) to the Dead Sea, it falls more than six hundred feet more, so that the Dead Sea itself is about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea which is only forty miles west. Should a ca.n.a.l be cut across to the Mediterranean which would let the water through, not only would the Dead Sea and the River Jordan disappear, but the Sea of Galilee be included in a great inland sea east of Palestine.

While the Jordan as well as other smaller streams flow continually into the Dead Sea, it is said that it never raises an inch. This, with the fact that this body of water has no outlet whatever, makes a problem to which geologists and scientific men have failed to give a satisfactory solution. Of course, the water evaporates very rapidly, but in the spring when the Jordan overflows and pours a much greater volume of water into it, how does it come that it evaporates so much faster than at any other time in the year?

When the writer visited the Dead Sea the water was as smooth as gla.s.s.

The water is so salty that a human body will not sink in it at all.

Should the body go under it will bob up again like a cork. I have never learned to swim; in deep water simply cannot keep my feet up, but in the Dead Sea they could not be kept down, and of course I could swim like a duck. Nothing grows near this body of water. Everything about it is dead. Like some people, it is always receiving but never giving. At the mouth of the Jordan one can see dead fish floating on the water. When carried by the swift current into this salty water they soon die.

The River Jordan runs very swiftly. It is about the size of the Des Moines river in northern Iowa, not nearly so large as this river in the southern part of the state. At the fords of the Jordan I waded out into the stream but the current was so swift that I did not attempt to go entirely across.

Here at this ford occurred some of the greatest events of Bible history.