Part 44 (1/2)

The spot where our tents were pitched commands a view, I think one of the loveliest in the world. Perhaps with me a.s.sociation has something to do with the feeling. That broad sweep of the plains of Jericho, bright with their groves of Zizyphus trees; the lake waters coming in at the south; the great line of the Moab horizon, and the heights of the western sh.o.r.e; and then the constant changes which the light makes in revealing all these; I found it a study of beauty, from the morning till the night. From the time when the sun rose over the Moab mountains and brightened our dom trees and kissed our spring, to the evening when the shadow of Quarantania stretched over all our neighbourhood, as it stretched over Jericho of old, and the distant hills and waters and thickets glowed in colours and lights of their own.

The next morning after my walk I was up early, and going a little way from my tent door, I sat down to enjoy it. The servants were but just stirring; my father and Mr. Dinwiddie safe within their canvas curtains. It was very nice to be alone, for I wanted to think. The air was deliciously balmy and soft; another fair day had risen upon us in that region of tropical summer; the breath of the air was peace. Or was it the speech of the past? It is difficult to disentangle things sometimes. I had troublesome matters to think about, yet somehow I was not troubled. I did not lay hold of trouble, all the while I was in Palestine. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had revealed to me that it might be my duty to tell my father all that was in my heart. Suspicions of the fact, only, had crossed my thought before; but ”as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” I saw more clearly. And the longer I sat there on my stone looking over to the line of the Jordan and to the hills through which the armies of Israel had once come down to cross it, the clearer it grew to my mind, that the difficulty before me was one to be faced, not evaded. I saw that papa had a right to know my affairs, and that he would think it became me as a Christian not to make a mystery of them. I saw I must tell papa about myself. And yet, it did not appal me, as the idea had often appalled me. I was hardly afraid. At any rate, there before me the hosts of the Israelites had pa.s.sed over dry shod; though the river was swift and strong; and the appeal of Elisha, - ”Where is the Lord G.o.d of Elijah?” - came home to my ear like a blast of the priests' silver trumpets. I felt two hands on my shoulders.

”Studying it all, Daisy?”

”Papa, I am never tired of studying.”

”This is a wonderful place.”

”Papa, you know little about it yet. Old Jericho was up there.”

”You speak as if I had gone to school in 'old Jericho,' ” said my father, laughing. ”I have the vaguest idea, Daisy, that such a city existed. That is all.”

”Sit down, papa, while breakfast is getting ready, and let me mend your knowledge.”

So we read the story there, on the stone by the spring. Mr.

Dinwiddie joined us; and it was presently decided that we should spend the morning in examining the ground in our neighbourhood and the old sites of what had pa.s.sed away. So after breakfast we sat out upon a walk over the territory of old Jericho.

”But it is strange,” said papa, ”if the city was here, that there are no architectural remains to testify as much.”

”We rarely find them, sir, but in connection with Roman or Saracenic work. Shapeless mounds, and broken pottery, as you have it here, are all that generally mark our Palestine ruins.”

”But Herod?” said papa. ”He was a builder.”

”Herod's Jericho was a mile and a half away, to the east. And moreover, if anything had been remaining here that could be made of use, the Saracens or Crusaders would have pulled it to pieces to help make their sugar mills up yonder, or their aqueducts.”

”There is no sugar cane here now?”

”Not a trace of it. Nor a palm tree; though Jericho was a city of palms; nor a root of the balsam, though great gain was derived to Judea in ancient times from the balsam gardens here.”

We mounted our horses and rode down to the site of Herod's Jericho, on the banks of the little stream that issues from the gorge of the Wady Kelt. How lovely, and how desolate, it was. The stream overhung with trees and bordered with oleanders and shrubs of which I have forgotten the names, and crossed by old arches still; and around, the desolate tokens of what once was. Foundation lines, and ruined aqueducts. Mr.

Dinwiddie made us remark the pavement of the road leading up to the Kelt, the old road to Jerusalem, the road by which Jesus went when the blind men called him, and over which, somewhere on its way, stretched the sycamore tree into which Zaccheus climbed. Ah how barren and empty the way looked now!

- with Him no longer here. For a moment, so looked my own path before me, - the dusty, hot road; the desolate pa.s.s; the barren mountain top. It was only a freak of fancy; I do not know what brought it. I had not felt so a moment before, and I did not a moment after.

”Where His feet lead now, the green pastures are not wanting, -” Mr. Dinwiddie said; I suppose reading my look.

”Never, Mr. Dinwiddie?”

”Never!”

”But it _seems_, often, to people, that they are wanting.”

”Their eyes are so blinded by tears that they cannot see them, sometimes. Even then, they can lie down and feel them, - feel that they are in them.”

”Are there any sycamore trees here now?” my father asked.

”Two or three poor old specimens; just enough to show for the story. Those sycamore figs belong to the low and warm situations; this is the proper place for them.”

Papa felt so well that we determined to push on to the Jordan.

It was a hot, long ride, over a shadeless and barren plain; and when we came to the river papa declared himself very much disappointed. But I was not. Narrow and muddy as the stream was, it was also powerful in its rapid flood; no one could venture to bathe in it. The river was much swollen and had been yet more so; the tracks of wild animals which the floods had disturbed were everywhere to be seen. Papa and Mr.

Dinwiddie reasoned and argued, while I sat and meditated; in a deep delight that I should see the Jordan at all. We took a long rest there, on its banks. The jungle was a delicious study to me, and when the deep talk of the gentlemen subsided enough to give me a chance, I got Mr. Dinwiddie to enlighten me as to the names and qualities of the various trees and plants. They were of fine luxuriant growth. Poplars and sycamores and other trees, willows, I think, and exquisite tamarisks in blossom; and what I specially admired, the canes.