The valley was also once the scene of more peaceful events at the yearly festival of "tabernacles.â Kolônia has near it a ruin called Beit Mizzeh, the ancient Motza or "Spring-head,â a town of Benjamin. The Talmudic doctors tell us that Motza was a _colonia_ or place free from taxes, whence the origin of the modern name, and beside the banks of the stream from the spring-head grew, and still grow, the willows used at the feast. By the restaurant and the ruins of a small monastery, the stream flows under a little bridge; and round its course shady orange-gardens and olive-yards, beneath the village perched on the hillside, often tempt the inhabitants of Jerusalem to come out for an afternoon siesta. It would seem also that on the Day of Atonement this place used to be the scene of a festival so peculiar and so unlike any other part of Jewish custom that we are tempted to believe that it was an innovation of the later Hellenising faction. The daughters of Jerusalem were encouraged to come out to meet the youths who were celebrating the newly-acquired purification from sin, with palms in their hands and songs and dances. Twice a year this festival of maidens took place, and the contrast to the stern precepts of the Talmudic doctors, who discountenanced any gaiety in which women took part, forbade a student to speak to or look at any woman but his wife, and even counselled that the less he talked to her the better, is certainly suggestive of foreign origin for the feast of Motza.
Passing by this little oasis in the hills, which has thus from time immemorial been the site of festal excursions from the capital, we began the long ascent which led, not, as we hoped, to Jerusalem, but to the edge of the plateau on the opposite side of which the city stands. The road, afterwards so familiar to me, seemed longer when the distance was unknown than when every way-mark was recognised as showing nearer approach to the end of the journey; and we did not halt to admire, as I often did afterwards, the fine view from the brow of the hill.
From that brow the great valley is seen winding southwards, and the high rounded ascent to K[)u]st[)u]l bars out the view of the plain. Northwards the conical point of Neby Samwîl, crowned with its minaret, is a conspicuous object, and in the evening when the long shadows steal up the rugged hillsides, and the western slopes are ruddy in the setting sun, the breadth and grandeur of the colouring of the wild shapeless mountains is extremely striking, and grows upon one every time the scene opens before one's eyes.