Part 36 (1/2)
Near this monument is a little piece of ground, in which are picked up a little sort of small, round stones, exactly resembling peas, concerning which they have a tradition here that they were once truly what they now seem to be; but that the blessed Virgin petrified them by a miracle, in punishment to a surly rustic, who denied her the charity of a handful of them to relieve her hunger.
Being arrived at Bethlehem, we immediately made a circular visit to all the holy places belonging to it, as namely, the place where it is said our blessed Lord was born; the manger in which it is said he was laid; the chapel of St. Joseph, his supposed father; that of the Innocents; those of St. Jerom, of St. Paula and Eustochium, and of Eusebius of Cremona; and lastly, the school of St. Jerom; all which places it shall suffice just to name.
From the top of the church we had a large prospect of the adjacent country. The most remarkable places in view were Tekoah, situate on the side of a hill about nine miles distant to the southward; Engedi, distant about three miles eastward; and somewhat farther off, the same way, a high, sharp hill called the mountain of the Franks, because defended by a party of the crusaders forty years after the loss of Jerusalem.
_April 1._-This morning we went to see some remarkable places in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. The first place that we directed our course to was those famous fountains, pools, and gardens, about one hour and a quarter distant from Bethlehem southward, said to have been the contrivance and delight of king Solomon. To these works and places of pleasure that great prince is supposed to allude[582] where, amongst the other instances of his magnificence, he reckons up his gardens, and vineyards, and pools.
As for the pools, they are three in number, lying in a row above each other, being so disposed that the waters of the uppermost may descend into the second, and those of the second into the third. Their figure is quadrangular. The breadth is the same in all, amounting to about ninety paces. In their length there is some difference between them, the first being about one hundred and sixty paces long, the second two hundred, the third two hundred and twenty. They are all lined with wall, and plastered, and contain a great depth of water.
Close by the pools is a pleasant castle of a modern structure; and at about the distance of one hundred and forty paces from them is the fountain from which, princ.i.p.ally, they derive their waters. This the friars will have to be that ”sealed fountain” to which the holy spouse is compared[583]; and, in confirmation of this opinion, they pretend a tradition that king Solomon shut up these springs, and kept the door of them sealed with his signet, to the end that he might preserve the waters for his own drinking in their natural freshness and purity. Nor was it difficult thus to secure them, they rising under ground, and having no avenue to them but by a little hole like to the mouth of a narrow well. Through this hole you descend directly down, but not without some difficulty, for about four yards, and then arrive in a vaulted room fifteen paces long and eight broad. Joining to this is another room of the same fas.h.i.+on, but somewhat less. Both these rooms are covered with handsome stone arches, very ancient, and perhaps the work of Solomon himself.
You find here four places at which the water rises. From those separate sources it is conveyed, by little rivulets, into a kind of basin; and from thence is carried, by a large subterraneous pa.s.sage, down into the pools. In the way, before it arrives at the pools, there is an aqueduct of brick pipes, which receives part of the stream, and carries it, by many turnings and windings about the mountains, to Jerusalem.
Below the pools there runs down a narrow, rocky valley, inclosed on both sides with high mountains. This the friars will have to be the inclosed garden alluded to in the same place of the Canticles before cited: ”A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” What truth there may be in this conjecture I cannot absolutely p.r.o.nounce. As to the pools, it is probable enough they may be the same with Solomon's, there not being the like store of excellent spring water to be met with any where else throughout all Palestine; but for the gardens, one may safely affirm that, if Solomon made them in the rocky ground which is now a.s.signed for them, he demonstrated greater power and wealth in finis.h.i.+ng his design than he did wisdom in choosing the place for it.
From these memorials of Solomon we returned towards Bethlehem again, in order to visit some places nearer home. The places we saw were, the field where it is said the shepherds were watching their flocks when they received the glad tidings of the birth of Christ; and, not far from the field, the village where they dwelt; and a little on the right hand of the village, an old desolate nunnery built by St. Paula, and made the more memorable by her dying in it. These places are all within about half a mile of the convent, eastward; and with these we finished this morning's work.
Having seen what is usually visited on the south and east of Bethlehem, we walked out after dinner to the westward, to see what was remarkable on that side. The first place we were guided to was the well of David, so called because held to be the same that David so pa.s.sionately thirsted after[584]. It is a well (or rather a cistern) supplied only with rain, without any natural excellency in its waters to make them desirable; but it seems David's spirit had a farther aim.
About two furlongs beyond this well are to be seen some remains of an old aqueduct, which anciently conveyed the waters from Solomon's pools to Jerusalem. This is said to be the genuine work of Solomon, and may well be allowed to be in reality what it is pretended for. It is carried all along upon the surface of the ground, and is composed of stones ...
feet square, and ... thick, perforated with a cavity of ... inches diameter, to make the channel. These stones are let into each other, with a fillet framed round about the cavity to prevent leakage, and united to each other with so firm a cement that they will sometimes sooner break (though a kind of coa.r.s.e marble) than endure a separation.
This train of stones was covered, for its greater security, with a case of smaller stones, laid over it in a very strong mortar. The whole work seems to be endued with such absolute firmness as if it had been designed for eternity; but the Turks have demonstrated, in this instance, that nothing can be so well wrought but they are able to destroy it; for of this strong aqueduct, which was carried formerly five or six leagues, with so vast expense and labour, you see now only here and there a fragment, remaining.
Returning from this place, we went to see the Greek and Armenian convents, which are contiguous to that of the Latins, and have each their several doors opening into the chapel of the holy manger. The next place we went to see was the grotto of the blessed Virgin. It is within thirty or forty yards of the convent, and is reverenced upon the account of a tradition that the blessed Virgin here hid herself and her divine babe from the fury of Herod for some time before their departure into Egypt. The grot is hollowed into a chalky rock; but this whiteness they will have to be not natural, but to have been occasioned by some miraculous drops of the blessed Virgin's milk, which fell from her breast while she was suckling the holy infant; and so much are they possessed with this opinion, that they believe the chalk of this grotto has a miraculous virtue for increasing women's milk; and I was a.s.sured, from many hands, that it is very frequently taken by the women hereabouts, as well Turks and Arabs as Christians, for that purpose, and that with very good effect; which perhaps may be true enough, it being well known how much fancy is wont to do in things of this nature.
_April 2._-The next morning, presenting the guardian with two chequeens apiece for his civilities to us, we took our leave of Bethlehem, designing just to visit the wilderness and convent of St. John the Baptist, and so return to Jerusalem.
In this stage we first crossed part of that famous valley in which it is said that the angel, in one night, did such prodigious execution in the army of Sennacherib. Having travelled about half an hour, we came to a village called Bootesh.e.l.lah, concerning which they relate this remarkable property, that no Turk can live in it above two years. By virtue of this report, whether true or false, the Christians keep the village to themselves without molestation, no Turk being willing to stake his life in experimenting the truth of it. In somewhat less than an hour more we came to the fountain where they told us, but falsely, that Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. The pa.s.sage here is so rocky and uneven that pilgrims, finding how difficult the road is for a single horseman, are ready to think it impossible that a chariot, such as the eunuch rode in[585], should ever have been able to go this way; but it must not be judged what the road was in ancient times by what the negligence of the Turks have now reduced it to; for I observed, not far from the fountain, a place where the rock had been cut away in old time, in order to lay open a good road, by which it may be supposed that the same care was used all along this pa.s.sage, though now time and negligence have obliterated both the fruit and almost the signs of such labour.
A little beyond this fountain we came to that which they call the village of St. Philip, at which, ascending a very steep hill, we arrived at the wilderness of St. John. A wilderness it is called, as being very rocky and mountainous: but is well cultivated, and produces plenty of corn, and vines, and olive trees. After a good hour's travel in this wilderness, we came to the cave and fountain where, as they say, the Baptist exercised those severe austerities related of him[586]. Near this cell there still grow some old locust trees, the monuments of the ignorance of the middle times[587]. These the friars aver to be the very same that yielded sustenance to the Baptist; and the Popish pilgrims, who dare not be wiser than such blind guides, gather the fruit of them, and carry it away with great devotion.
Having done with this place, we directed our course towards the convent of St. John, which is about a league distant eastward. In our way we pa.s.sed along one side of the valley of Elah, where David slew the giant, that defier of the army of Israel[588]. We had likewise in sight Modon, a village on the top of a high hill, the burying-place of those heroical defenders of their country, the Maccabees.
Being come near the convent, we were led a little out of the way to visit a place which they call the house of Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist. This was formerly a convent also, but it is now a heap of ruins, and the only remarkable place left in it is a grotto, in which (you are told) it was that the blessed Virgin saluted Elizabeth, and p.r.o.nounced her divine magnificat[589].
The present convent of St. John, which is now inhabited, stands about three furlongs distance from this house of Elizabeth, and is supposed to be built at the place where St. John was born. If you chance to ask how it came to pa.s.s that Elizabeth lived in one house when she was big with the Baptist, and in another when she brought him forth, the answer you are like to receive is, that the former was her country, the latter her city habitation, and that it is no wonder for a wife of one of the priests of better rank, such as she was[590], to be provided with such variety.
The convent of St. John has been, within these four years, rebuilt from the ground. It is at present a large square building, uniform and neat all over; but that which is most eminently beautiful in it is its church. It consists of three aisles, and has in the middle a handsome cupola, under which is a pavement of mosaic, equal to, if not exceeding, the finest works of the ancients of that kind. At the upper end of the north aisle you go down seven marble steps, to a very splendid altar, erected over the very place where they say the holy Baptist was born.
Here are artificers still employed in adding farther beauty and ornament to this convent, and yet it has been so expensive a work already, that the friars themselves give out that there is not a stone laid in it but has cost them a dollar; which, considering the large sums exacted by the Turks for licence to begin fabrics of this nature, and also their perpetual extortion and avarrias afterwards, besides the necessary charge of building, may be allowed to pa.s.s for no extravagant hyperbole.
Returning from St. John's toward Jerusalem, we came in about three quarters of an hour to a convent of the Greeks, taking its name from the holy cross. This convent is very neat in its structure, and in its situation delightful. But that which most deserves to be noted in it, is the reason of its name and foundation. It is because there is the earth that nourished the root, that bore the tree, that yielded the timber, that made the cross. Under the high altar you are shown a hole in the ground where the stump of the tree stood, and it meets with not a few visitants so much more very stocks than itself as to fall down and wors.h.i.+p it. This convent is not above half an hour from Jerusalem; to which place we returned this evening, being the fifth day from our departure hence.
After our return, we were invited into the convent to have our feet washed, a ceremony performed to each pilgrim by the father guardian himself. The whole society stands around, singing some Latin hymns, all the while the father guardian is doing his office; and when he has done, every friar comes in order, and kisses the feet of the pilgrim. All this was performed with great order and solemnity; and if it served either to testify a sincere humility and charity in them, or to improve those excellent graces in others, it might pa.s.s for no unuseful ceremony.
_April 3._-We went about mid-day to see the function of the Holy Fire[591]. This is a ceremony kept up by the Greeks and Armenians, upon a persuasion that every Easter-Eve there is miraculous flame descends from heaven into the holy sepulchre, and kindles all the lamps and candles there, as the sacrifice was burnt at the prayers of Elijah[592].
Coming to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, we found it crowded with a numerous and distracted mob, making a hideous clamour very unfit for that sacred place, and better becoming Baccha.n.a.ls than Christians.
Getting with some struggle through the crowd, we went up into the gallery on that side of the church next the Latin convent, whence we could discern all that pa.s.sed in this religious frenzy.
They began their disorders by running round the holy sepulchre with all their might and swiftness, crying out, as they went, ”Huia!” which signifies ”this is he,” or ”this is it,” an expression by which they a.s.sert the verity of the Christian religion. After they had, by these vertiginous circulations and clamours, turned their heads and inflamed their madness, they began to act the most antic tricks and postures, in a thousand shapes of distraction. Sometimes they dragged one another along the floor all round the sepulchre; sometimes they set one man upright on another's shoulders, and in this posture marched round; sometimes they took men with their heels upward, and hurried them about in such an indecent manner as to expose their nudities; sometimes they tumbled round the sepulchre after the manner of tumblers on the stage.