I READ in my Bible that a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves. When this announcement was made, I am sure that every ear was all attention, for the people naturally expected some startling revelation to follow. And why? Because the way was then, and is now, lined with thieves, insomuch that it would be impossible, to-day for any Frank (Arabs call white men Franks) to go unprotected from Jerusalem to Jericho without falling among thieves. This danger is recognized to such an extent that the government (the Turkish government of course) keeps a garrison of Turkish soldiers in Jerusalem, whose sole business is to conduct tourists to Jericho, to the Jordan, and over into Arabia. And the tourist is compelled to employ these government guards. Oh well, you are not legally bound, but if you go on this trip without these extra guards, and are killed on the way, you are not allowed to sue the government. But if you take the guards, and are killed, after you are buried you may sue the government twice, if you like. I am not easily frightened, myself, but I took the guards on Johnson’s account, for I saw plainly he did not want to die here. I honestly believe that it would almost kill Johnson to die anywhere! So with four government guards, all well-equipped with broad-swords, bowie-knives, and javelins, and all splendidly mounted, we start off for an Eastern trip.

As we cross the Mount of Olives, a sacred feeling comes over us, for we know that every foot of this road was once familiar to our Divine Lord. It was here He prayed in the garden. It was here He was betrayed with a kiss. It was on this Mountain He cursed the fruitless fig-tree. It was from here, also, that He beheld and wept over the sinful city. Passing over the brow of Olivet, we come, on its eastern slope, to that sweet little village where Jesus often spent the night. Here He wept with the sisters who wept, and raised the brother who was dead. Ah! blessed household was that where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. Blessed household is that to-day, whose spiritual atmosphere is attractive to the Son of God. Oh, what a joyous time there must have been with those two sisters and their brother—“when the Lord to Bethany came!” Darkness fled at His approach. The shadows lifted when He came. O gentle reader, make your home a Bethany, and Jesus, who forsook the city for a quiet, country village, will take up His abode with you! He will weep with you when you weep. He will revive your hopes when they are buried.

Continuing our journey eastward, we soon find ourselves in a deep and narrow ravine. The floor of this wady, or ravine, is twelve or fifteen feet wide, while its rocky sides lift themselves up very steeply for three or four hundred feet, getting wider and yet wider towards the top. I now turn to my Bible, and find that once upon a time David ruled and reigned in Jerusalem. But Absalom rebelled against his father and drove the King from the city. Fleeing towards Jericho, David passed through this ravine. Then Shimei, one of Absalom’s servants, who was also one of the household of Saul, ran along on the edge of the precipice and cursed David, and rolled great stones down the steep bluff, trying to kill him, saying to him: “Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial!”

Passing on through this historic wady, we come now to where it opens wide its broad arms and forms a splendid valley of a hundred acres or more. “Halt! Halt!” cries one of the guards. “Halt!” Every horse is motionless. Every man is seized with terror. We expect the robbers to attack us at any moment. But we soon dismiss all hope on that line, for we see we are to be deprived of that privilege. Our guards simply want to exhibit to us their splendid feats of horsemanship. And ah me! how graceful they are. Each rider seems a part of his Arab horse. The guards rush at, and fight each other, to show us how skilled they are in this method of warfare, and how impossible it would be for us to resist, or escape from an attacking party of Bedouins. Each horse feels his keeping. He moves like a bundle of steel springs. It seems that he will leave the earth and fly through the air. These superb horses remind us of the beautiful story we have all read in the Arabian Nights, about those splendid Arabian mares that used to prance through the streets of Damascus, until break of day, and “then fly away towards Bagdad on enchanted carpets.”

Leaving here, the way is so rough that I can but say to my companions: “Pull off your coats, boys, pull off your coats, and roll up your sleeves, ‘for Jordan am a hard road to trabble.’” No saying was ever more true: Jordan am a hard road to travel!

We are now stopped for luncheon at a Kahn, or inn, half way from Jerusalem to Jericho, about eleven miles from either place. Once more I read in my Bible that a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. The thieves beat the man, dragged him out to one side of the road, and left him for dead. But the Good Samaritan came along, took the poor Jew who had been beaten, put him on his donkey and carried him to an inn, and paid the inn-keeper to take care of him. Now, reader, what will you think when I tell you that I suppose I am stopping at the same inn where the Good Samaritan left the unfortunate Jew? Let me take you into my confidence and tell you why I think so. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is the same now that it was 2,000 years ago. We know this from the remains of the old Roman aqueduct along the roadside. There is only one fountain on this road, and that one is close by this Kahn. I take it that every Kahn, or hotel, must, of necessity, be built near some fountain. Now if the road was the same in our Lord’s time as it is to-day, and if then, as now, there was only one fountain on the way, and if the inn, or Kahn, spoken of in the Bible was built by a fountain, then we are forced to the conclusion that it was near the spring from which we have just drunk.

Be this as it may, we can not tarry here; we must continue our eastward journey. About an hour after leaving the inn of Good Samaritan fame, we see several half-naked, ill-favored, hard-featured, cadaverous-looking Bedouins on the hillsides near the road. They are Brigands, highwaymen, and their very appearance is enough to make a civilized man shudder. They are wearing sandals. Their legs are wrapped with straw and bark of trees, which is tied on with rawhide strings. They have coarse, filthy clothes loosely drawn around the lower part of their bodies. Their arms and breasts and chins and cheeks are tattooed in figures of eagles and serpents and wild beasts. They are tall, lean, swarthy, snuff-colored, grim-visaged, wrinkled-browed, shaggy-haired, and fiery-eyed. Around each one is a leathern girdle, looped here and there with gay colored ribbons or rags. Each belt holds a bowie-knife and two horse-pistols, and supports a broad-sword suspended from it. In one hand the Brigand holds a javelin, while the other grasps a long, single-barreled, flint-and-steel shot-gun. They live in the clefts of the rocks—in the dens and caves of the earth, and the cave-scent clings to them still.

These are the robbers against whom we have to be protected. They are numerous along this route, and I repeat that without the government guards it would be impossible to escape them. And yet our guards are a part and parcel of the same clan, who would have robbed us if we had not employed them. We pay the guards so much, and it is a fact that they divide spoils with the Brigands! It is a kind of division of labor. The robbers infest the road, making the way dangerous, so that travelers will be compelled to employ protectors, and then the protectors and robbers share and share alike in the profits of the business. It is strange, and yet as true as strange, that the government itself is in league with highwaymen! A certain sheik, here, pays the Turkish government so much money each year for the privilege of robbing travelers! If Peter the Hermit could come forth from his tomb, he would speak these words in Europe: “where hearing would hatch them.” I am sure that his words against the Turkish government would “murder as they fell.” This is enough to arouse another “Crusade for Freedom in Freedom’s Holy Land.” “How long, O Cataline, wilt thou thus continue to abuse our patience!”

The country has been dreary and the road rough from the beginning of the journey, but it grows worse as we continue. We now see nothing but a succession of deep gorges, stony ridges, and rocky peaks. Imagine a thousand tea-cups turned bottom upwards, separated by a thousand deep wadys and narrow ravines, the cups, some of them, rising to the height of several hundred feet, and the yawning chasms sinking to an enormous depth, and you have a picture of what now greets my eyes. I suppose that this mountain side once supported a luxuriant forest, and that afterwards it rewarded the yeoman’s toil with abundant harvests. But ages ago the hillside ditches were neglected; hence gutters were formed, the soil was washed off, fertility gave way to barrenness, beauty to deformity. Of course the ravines have from age to age washed deeper and deeper, until now nothing is left but deep, winding chasms, bare and desolate hills. The road winds around here and there like a serpent. Now it hangs high on the bluff upon a narrow shelf of rock, which projects over the valley. Johnson and Hamlin dismount. They know that one false step would dash them to death. With more of daring than wisdom I shout to them:

“I wish your horses swift and sure of foot.
And so I do commend you to their backs.”

We now descend into the valley, only to rise again, and skirt along the bluff where the narrow road is cut into the rock.

But, praise the Lord, perilous places are past, and the scene changes. We pass out of the Wady Kelt, and lo, the broad valley, the sacred river, and the Salt Sea burst upon our vision! These things within themselves are not so attractive to the eye, but, compared with the hill-country behind us, they are as beautiful as “apples of gold in baskets of silver.” For ten miles above the Dead Sea the Jordan valley is fourteen miles wide, and is divided by the river which flows through its centre. This part of the valley west of the river is called the Plain of Jericho, while that portion beyond the river is known as the Plain of Moab. So the valley, practically level, stretches out for seven miles on either side of the river. Then on either side of the river, seven miles from it, and parallel with it, there rises up a frowning wall of rock whose savage grandeur might well typify ruin and desolation. For ages the winter torrents have been coursing down their sides, until now they are seamed and furrowed, cut and scarred in every possible manner, and the mountains seem to writhe in pain and agony!

But we have left the hills. We are now in the valley, and here before us, seven miles from the river, at the edge of the plain and at the base of the mountain, stands Jericho, old hoary-headed Jericho—“The City of Palm Trees.” She is venerable, indeed! It was Jericho that Moses looked down upon from the heights of Nebo. It was Jericho that furnished shelter to the “young men” who came from Israel’s camp to “spy out the country.” It was Jericho that Joshua first attacked “after crossing over the Jordan.” Her fortifications then were strong, her walls high. Her people thought “Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn.” But the bold spirit of Joshua was undaunted. It was God’s to command and his to obey. He surrounded the city. He sounded the tocsin. The walls fell! Now, reader, let us realize that when God commands you or me to do anything, we should move forward though confronted by walls of adamant! What is opposition to us? We move in obedience to the behest of Him who could besiege a city with “trumps of Joshua,” and route a host with the “lamps of Gideon!”

After Joshua’s day, Herod the Great rebuilt the city on a grander scale than ever. Stately castles were erected, marble palaces arose on every hand. Great wealth was lavished upon the city. She was robed in rich apparel and decked with “rubies rare.” Here Herod held high carnival. Here he ruled and reveled, and

“All went merry as a marriage Bell.”

But Time has dealt harshly with Jericho. Fickle Fortune has played her false. She has passed through all the vicissitudes of fortune. Iron-fingered Fate has torn off her royal robes, and she sits to-day clad in sackcloth and ashes. “Gray lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres, and desolation, glide in and out among the rocks, or lie still and sun themselves. Where prosperity has reigned and fallen; where glory has flamed and gone out; where beauty has dwelt and passed away; where gladness was, and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has been, and silence and death brood in high places,—there this reptile makes his home and mocks at human vanity. His coat is the color of ashes, and ashes are the symbol of hopes that have perished; of aspirations that have come to naught; of loves that are buried. If he could speak he would say, ‘Build temples: I will lord it in their ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect empires: I will inherit them; bury your beautiful: I will watch the worms at their work; and you who stand here and moralize over me: I will crawl over your corpse at last.’”

The locations of ancient and of modern Jericho are not exactly the same, though not far apart. The present village is inhabited by about 600 Arabs who are huddled together in less than seventy-five houses. Houses, did I say? They are unworthy of the name. They are wretched huts, constructed, for the most part, of rough, unhewn, undressed stone. As these stones are put together without the use of mortar, the walls are broad at the bottom, and get narrower and a little narrower towards the top, which is about six feet from the ground. In each of the four corners of this rock pen, is driven a stake which is usually about eight feet high, or some two feet higher than the top of the wall. Long, straight poles reach from one stake to another, then other poles are placed like lattice work all across the top of the pen. A thick layer of grass and weeds and cane tops having been placed on these cross poles, dirt, or earth, is then piled up to a depth of from eighteen to twenty-four inches. Thus the roof is formed. The floor is more simple in its construction, as it is composed of the native earth or bare rock. Doors are simply gaps in the wall. Windows and chimneys are unknown, and indeed unnecessary—air-holes are abundant, and the smoke can escape anywhere. The rude houses are separated from each other, and the whole village is surrounded, by a low, rough hedge of dry, thorny bushes. This is a fair representation of the present architecture of Jericho. And the inhabitants are as lazy and trifling, as filthy and ignorant, as the huts they live in would naturally suggest. The children dress in sunshine, while the parents hide their nakedness with rags and loose wraps of cloth.

The Plain of Jericho, seven by ten miles in extent, was at one time, according to Josephus, “a divine region, covered with beautiful gardens, and groves of palms of all kinds, the whole splendidly watered.” The water supply, no doubt, came then, as it comes now, from the Sultan’s Spring, or, as it is sometimes called, the Spring of Elisha. This bold and beautiful fountain bursts forth from the foot of the Judean hills some two miles from Jericho, and, flowing across the plain in a southwesterly direction, empties into the Jordan. From the main channel, a large number of small streams flow out in different directions into the valley, and thus fructify a considerable portion of the plain. The half cultivated patches we find here now, though only partially irrigated, are exceedingly rich and productive. The climate in this valley is suitable to the growth of almost any tropical or warm-natured plant. But the meagre crops are confined to wheat, millet, tobacco, cucumbers, and beans. On this plain, near the Wady Kelt, through which we entered the valley, is a large stone reservoir, 471 feet by 564 feet, called the Pool of Moses. Going across the plain to this mammoth pool, is an old aqueduct which evidently supplied it, at one time, with water. Then smaller aqueducts carried the water to all parts of the valley. This pool, and these aqueducts, were probably built by Mark Antony just before he gave this region of country to Cleopatra, or by Herod the Great, whose base life was ended at Jericho in a fit of agony. By this means of irrigation the valley became what it might be made again—“the glory of the Jordan.”