The colours, which are various, and arranged with a view to science rather than to art, are as fresh as the day they were laid, and the mosaic is a combination of a map, a picture, and a ground plan.
Père Cléopas, a Greek priest, who is spoken of as the discoverer, although it had been locally known for thirteen years, thus describes it: "The artist was not content to give simply the names of the towns, but, moreover, with careful pains, he shows the form, size, and plan of any town of importance; and further how many doors and gates it has, whether these lie to east or west, what important buildings it contains, what is their style, and what is the old name of the town, as well as that in use; where hills are found and where plains; where rivers and brooks and forests; where springs and where hot springs; where ponds and lakes; where boats and ships; where palms and where bananas; all these, in their natural colours, are exactly indicated upon the map."
It is worth while to give some short account of the Madaba map, not only because the history is interesting in itself, but because it is thoroughly typical of much which happens in this country. The facts are taken from a _Mémoire_ presented by Mons. Clermont-Ganneau to the French Academy, and subsequently published in the _Recueil d'Archéologie Orientale_.
The discoverer of the mosaic was a Greek monk, of whom the very name has been forgotten, and who, in 1884, communicated the fact to the Greek Patriarch, who took no notice whatever. One feels little regret that this worthy ecclesiastic was, later, exiled to Constantinople, and succeeded by the patriarch Gerasimos, who, in 1890, six years after the original discovery, found the letter, and immediately sent off an architect with orders that the mosaic should be included in the church about to be erected at Madaba. We have the testimony of four monks that, at this time, the mosaic was almost complete, but the intelligent workman destroyed much of it in order to lay the foundations of the church, sacristy, and out-buildings; broke up part to insert a pilaster, and left much of the bordering, with its decorations of biblical imagery, outside. He then returned, with the assurance that the mosaic was unimportant.