212 PARTING WITH THE ALOUINS. en returned, and resumed their seats in silence. It was a living commentary on the words, "She goeth unto the grave to weep there." For three days we had been in the pastoral country of the Patriarchs, the scene of most of their good and great deeds; where, also, much of the romantic and perilous life of the youthful David had been spent up to the end of his seven years' reign in Hebron, before he reigned in Jerusalem. We were about to set our faces towards the Holy City. But there was a group of dusky men who lingered around us, and assisted to strike the tents and load the camels for the last time. Their own were standing near, haltered and harnessed. They seemed as if they could not part with us, yet they had no farther expectations; they had received their buksheesh, and were satisfied. They were our Alouins. For twelve days they had been our only companions-had served us by day and guarded us by night. We never expressed a wish they did not endeavour to gratify, and we were not conscious of having lost the value of a pin while under their protection. A friendship had grown up between them and us which made both parties somewhat sad at parting.* They mounted their camels and we our donkeys, and taking leave on the green hillside before Hebron, they disappeared in the valley southward, bound for their homes in the Desert, and we swept round the town to * I am aware all this is at variance with the experience of most travellers. One might hope the Alouins have improved, certainly I think we succeeded in winning their confidence and esteem; but perhaps the great cause of our good fortune was, that owing to some ill treatment of an English nobleman and his party about eight months before, no Franks had passed through Wady Mousa during that time. The sheikhs held a congress, and agreed to treat all travellers well. We were the first under the new arrangement, and therefore were treated with great kindness and care, that our report to the consuls at Cairo might operate in their favour, and send them more travellers, the north, and entered the valley of Eshcol, in which the spics cut the cluster of grapes under which two of them staggered as, on their shoulders suspended from a staff, they bore it away to the camp in Kadesh.— (Num.. xiii., 23.) 214 DESOLATE REGION. CHAPTER XXII. HEBRON TO JERUSALEM. Route from Hebron.-Desolate Region.-Pools of Solomon.-The great Aqueduct.-Bethlehem.-Dilapidated Appearance of the Place.-Trade in pious Toys.-The Convent.-Roman Catholic Service.-Greek Service.Tomb of Jerome.-Pretended Birthplace of Christ.-Tomb of Rachel.First View of Jerusalem.--Disappointment.-Quarantine.-Kindness of Friends.-Carnival.-Negotiation For three quarters of an nour after leaving Hebron our road lay up the valley of Eshcol, between stone walls enclosing olive-groves and vineyards on either hand, extending up to the summits of the terraced hills. Emerging from this cultivated district, in an hour from Hebron we were in the midst of a rocky, desolate district, the hills covered with prickly oak so gnarled and crooked that I could not cut a good stick, and the ravines, rather than valleys, so uneven and rocky that our camels and donkeys had to walk all the time. Every few minutes appeared the ruins of a town, or a tower, or cisterns, while the steeps still retained traces of terrace walls. Doubtless this had once been a fertile and populous district. During five hours from Hebron we did not fall in with a single traveller; a shepherd now and then was seen on the hills, and as we approached Bethlehem, women were gathering sticks and binding them up in bundles, which they bore on their backs to Bethlehem and Jerusalem for fuel. Occasionally a huge Syrian camel was seen laden with a cord or more of wood, on the way to market. Nearly five hours out from Hebron we came to three pools, in all respects similar to the great pool in Hebron, POOLS OF SOLOMON. 215 except that they are perhaps three times as large and deep. They lie on the right of the road, in a gently declining valley, one above another, with perhaps two hundred feet intervening between them. At a little distance to the left of the road is a fountain, concealed by very ancient subterranean arches, from whence an aqueduct leads along the north sides of the pools, and being tapped to supply them with water, extends by Bethlehem to Jerusalem, winding around the sides of the hills and heads of the valleys so as to preserve its level until it sweeps round the southern declivity of Mount Zion and enters the Holy City. It is said that it might be easily repaired and made available for a supply of water. Of the antiquity of these pools no one can doubt. The style of their masonry, and the employment of earthenware cylinders in the construction of the aqueduct, may well support the opinion that they are the "Pools of Solomon." His "houses, vineyards, gardens, orchards, and trees of all kinds of fruit" (Eccl., ch. 2) have long since disappeared, the dance and the song with which they resounded have ceased, and silence reigns in their stead, broken only by the passing traveller. Shortly after leaving the pools, from the summit of a ridge we suddenly descried the village of Bethlehem sitting like a crown of light on a distant hill. The sensation was as sudden and powerful as that experienced at the sight of Sinai, but how different! The terrible front of Horeb inspired indescribable awe; the light and airy vision of Bethlehem of Judea filled the heart with joy. I felt assured that all over those gray hills the heavenly glory had shined on the night of the Nativity, when the angel of the Lord proclaimed to the af frighted shepherds, “Behold, I bring you good tidings 216 66 BETHLEHEM. of great joy, which shall be to all people: for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;" and this joyous announcement was confirmed and celebrated by the sudden appearance of a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men." I rode silently forward, seeming to hear the celestial music of the heavenly host as it swelled over the hills and expired far up amid the stars, when the divine choir returned into heaven to announce there the mysterious incarnation. At a My revery was broken by the halting of our caravan on the side of a hill where a rocky path diverges to the right, ascending to Bethlehem, while the larger track goes directly forward to Jerusalem. Thither camels and servants were sent to await us at the Jaffa Gate. We ascended the hill obliquely, and approached the "city of David" from the west, passing through olive-groves and vineyards covering the terraced hills, and forming a pleasing girdle around the town. distance Bethlehem looked well, but upon entering it the agreeable vision was dispelled. The principal street was narrow and dirty, bordered, not by regular lines of houses, but rather by confused masses of cracked arches, half arches, rent walls, and small, dark stone cells for shops. Here and there was a good house, apparently constructed from the fragments of former buildings, whose ruins form a labyrinth in which the inhabitants burrow rather than dwell. The town has not recovered from the storming and pillage of the Egyptian army in 1834. The population is wholly Christian, and amounts perhaps to 2500. They subsist on the produce of the hills and valleys around the town, and by a brisk trade in religious toys representing holy places, |