Tent Work in Palestine — Part 58

The top of the mountain is composed of blocks of basalt, covered with grey lichen. The view is magnificent, extending from the Safed ranges on the north to Mount Ebal on the south, and from the peaks east of the great Hauran plateau to Carmel and the sea. Fifteen hundred feet below us is Nain, and north of this the plain in which the mediæval tradition supposed Abraham to have met Melchisedek, with the unique outline of Tabor, the Nazareth block, and distant Hermon. On the south side the broad valley of Jezreel is just below, and the villages of Kûmieh and Sh[)u]tta, seen almost in bird's-eye view on their little knolls surrounded by long patches of arable land, whilst on the south side of the valley the limestone of the Gilboa ridge is twisted into wavy lines by the eruptive basalt beneath, and the range is seen, end on as it were, rising shelf above shelf, while conspicuous on its knoll of rugged rock, Jezreel stands at the north-west horn of the crescent-shaped range, 500 feet above the bright pool of "Goliath's Spring,” where the early Christians, by some curious misconception, imagined David to have fought the giant. On a clear autumn day the little Survey cairn was plainly visible on Mount Ebal at a distance of twenty-six miles. The prospect is indeed one of the finest in Palestine, with a variety of outline and extent of view rarely to be found.

The village of Nain lies below on a sort of spur to the north of Neby D[)u]hy, and the road from Nazareth ascends in a hollow to the west of it. On the right of the road, yet farther west, are the rock-cut tombs, and thus the procession bearing the young man's body would have come down the slope towards the little spring westwards, meeting our Lord on the main road. The mud-hovels on the grey tongue of limestone have no great marks of antiquity, but the surrounding ruins show the village to have been once larger, and a little mosque called "the Place of our Lord Jesus” marks, no doubt, the site of an early chapel. There are, as far as we could see, no traces of a wall, and I think we should understand by "gate of the city,” the place where the road enters among the houses, just as the word is used often in Greek, and in modern Arabic in such expressions as "gate of the pass,” "gate of the valley,” and even "gate of the city,” where no wall or gate exists.