# On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 21

Contents
CHAPTER XXI.
THROUGH THE HILL COUNTRY TO BETHLEHEM.
If one test of the civilization of a country be the existence of roads, we are in a land as yet but very imperfectly civilized: for there is not a road in all Palestine — or only one, and that hardly worthy of the name. Some years ago, when the Empress Eugénie, having been to Egypt to give by her presence Imperial pomp and state to the ceremony of opening the Suez Canal, was to pay a brief visit to the Holy Land, the authorities, by extraordinary exertions, smoothed the rough places, so that a carriage could be driven from Jaffa to Jerusalem; and Mr. Cook still sends a waggon over the road, in which travellers can be jolted up and down the hills; though one who is used to the saddle will suffer less fatigue on horseback. There is also a macadamized road from Beirut over the Lebanon to Damascus, built some years since by a French company, but that is far to the North, in Syria; so that it remains true that, with the exception of forty miles of driving to Jaffa, there is not a road in all Palestine, and we have still to go mounted, as when we were on the desert. The only change is from camels to horses. But this we found a great relief. Horses are much better suited to Palestine, where, instead of long stretches of sand, one has to pick his way — at least as soon as he enters the Hill Country — over rough, stony paths, both in the narrow valleys and along the sides of the mountains. The ​Syrian horses are small, but active and hardy. They generally go on a walk, but step more quickly than camels, and accomplish a greater distance in the day. They are also very sure-footed — a matter of great importance in going up and down the mountains.
Thus mounted, our cavalcade of horses and mules, though less picturesque than a caravan of camels, presented quite a brave show the next morning as we filed out of the missionary compound, where we had said good-bye to our kind friends, and set out for Jerusalem. The mules of the country, though not so tall as camels, are still very large and strong, and will carry about as heavy loads. The number of animals for our pack train was diminished as their burdens were lightened. Having left the desert, it was no longer necessary to carry the heavy casks of water. Our provisions, too, could be reduced, as we had only to lay in a store for a few days, instead of weeks. Six mules carried our tents with their furniture, and the necessary provisions. Dr. Post and I had a couple of gray ponies that bore us so lightly that we rode with little fatigue. Another horse was for the dragoman. After this file of horses and mules came a very small donkey, which brought up the rear. This was for the captain of the muleteers, who was a large man, and his proportions being swelled out by his turban and his baggy trousers, he looked like the Grand Turk; and as he bestrode his little beast, he made a comical figure waddling along behind the huge mules, that kept up a constant jingling of bells as they swung along the road.
In the vicinity of Gaza are some majestic olive trees, which, by their age (for they must be centuries old) and their gnarled and knotted limbs, remind us of the ancient oaks of England. Skirting the road for a mile or two, they form a kind of fringe or border for the fields of ​wheat and barley, which stretch away in the distance. As soon as we are fairly in the country, we find it the same as that over which we passed in coming up from the South — not a plain, but a succession of gentle undulations. This South Country is the richest part of Palestine, unless it be the Plains of Sharon and Esdraelon. The soil itself is fitted to yield abundant harvests. Think of a land without a stone! Scarcely a pebble can be picked cut of the soft, warm earth. It is only as we approach the hills that the stone begins to crop out. For hours we pursued our way through this richly-cultivated country. Great numbers of the people were abroad in the fields, engaged in the husbandry of the Spring. Farmers were plowing their land, sometimes with a single beast, and often with a camel and an ass, or an ox and an ass, yoked together, in disregard of the Hebrew law. The plow was always of wood, pointed with iron, and had but a single handle, so that there was a special force in the singular number "hand" — not "hands" — being put to the plow.
Yet rude as were the implements of agriculture, there were on every side signs of the industry which the earth repays with abundant fruit. In one respect the people show a more careful husbandry than ours; they weed out their fields of grain, as we weed out our gardens. This afternoon, all round us, as far as the eye could reach, the country was of the purest emerald green. One drawback only there was to the beauty of the landscape — the absence of trees. This is caused by the accursed Turkish Government, which blights whatever it touches, and which virtually prohibits tree-culture by imposing a tax on every tree, not when it is grown and bearing fruit, but as soon as it is planted. But even despotism cannot destroy the natural fertility of the earth, and it yields such increase as makes this truly a land flowing with milk and honey. The best ​pictures of it are found in the Psalms of David, who passed in it, or on its border, many of his early years. In yonder Hill Country he took refuge when he was pursued by Saul, and "hunted like a partridge on the mountains." From the recesses of those hills he looked out on the same rolling sea of green that glistened in the sunrise this morning, and here he found much of his imagery of flocks and herds and shepherds. From his eagle's nest he saw far below, stretching away to the horizon, the illimitable pastures, "the cattle on a thousand hills," and sang exultingly, "The hills are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." A knowledge of the methods of agriculture still pursued, and which have doubtless come down from that day, sometimes leads us to detect new beauties of expression, as when we observe that, while the fields are plowed, they are never harrowed, their levelling being left to the gentle rain: "Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou settlest the furrows thereof; Thou blessest the springing thereof."
Some of the signs of civilization are wanting: there are no roads and no fences; the fields are divided only by stones. But the divisions are as fixed and as sacred as if the fields were hemmed in by walls ten feet high. "Cursed," said the Hebrew law, "be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark"; and to this day, to touch one of these stones is an offence which is more likely than almost any other to lead to bloodshed.
Somewhere on this rolling country, between two swells of land, there flows a brook, beside which we sat down to rest, and found an interest in the rural scene, from the conjecture of Robinson, which seems not improbable, that this little stream was the very one in which Philip baptized the eunuch, who was riding in his chariot towards Gaza, and who went on his way rejoicing in his new-found ​faith, to carry light and joy back to the darkness of his own country of Ethiopia.
As we come up out of the South, we enter gradually the foot-hills of that mountain region which forms the Hill Country of Judea. We leave behind us what the Scotch would call the Lowlands of Palestine, and what in some of their features are not unlike the Lowlands of Scotland; we leave the broad uplands and wide valleys; the swells of ground rise higher on either hand, leaving but a narrow intervale, sometimes a mere strip of green, between hills that are rugged and rocky, but whose ruggedness is somewhat relieved by the fig trees, winch are just "in blossom," and the low shrubs which partly cover the rocks, and make them beautiful, as the purple heather clothes with bloom the bald Highlands of Scotland.
As we advance, the country becomes more thickly inhabited; villages are more frequent, and though the houses are of mud, they are more fit for human habitation than the black tents of the Arabs, open to all the winds and rains of heaven. There is also more of comfort and of decency in the clothing of men, women, and children. It was a pleasure to see once more the unveiled face of woman — a face perhaps plain and common, and bearing traces of labor and care, yet not disfigured by the hideous black veil, which does not of necessity betoken modesty in the wearer. As we rode through the villages, women were sitting round the fountains, or carrying water jars on their heads or their shoulders, like the Rachels and Rebeccas of patriarchal times.
We camped at Shummeit, just out of the little town, on the top of a hill which commanded a wide sweep of the horizon southward and westward; over the country we had left behind, and away towards the coast where the sun went down into the western sea.
​The next morning we were early in the saddle, and after starting our baggage train northward in a direct course to Bethlehem, we struck across country to Beit Jebrin, which has some remarkable ruins, that date from the time of the Romans. From the remains of walls, it was evidently a fortified town, and was doubtless the site of a Roman camp, placed here to overawe Philistia. The Roman arch shows that these were built by the Imperial people, when they were masters of Palestine, as of ail the East. The country about is honeycombed with structures underground, some of which are natural caves, which were perhaps used for the storing of grain; while others are hollowed out of the rocks, with passages and galleries, which may have been designed for the retreats of hermits. Besides these, there are other structures, which have more distinctly an ecclesiastical design, in which the pointed arch shows that they were of a later time, built perhaps by the Crusaders.
From Beit Jebrin we took a guide, as indeed we had need, for the hills were more and more closing in upon us. The road in which we could ride side by side, dwindled to a narrow bridle path, in which we had to keep in single file, and this became more steep and stony till it required all the vigor of our little ponies to clamber over the rocks. All day long we were making our way over the hills, rugged and bare and wild, such as we were afterwards to traverse in a large part of Palestine. It was five o'clock when we reached the summit of the ridge, and turned to look back over the sea of mountains, and away southward to the Plain of Philistia, and westward to the Mediterranean. As we rose over this point, which from its height commands an extensive view to the north, the dragoman, pointing to a long white line on the crest of a mountain, which was suddenly lighted up by the descending sun, exclaimed ​"There is Jerusalem!" It was our first glimpse of the Holy City. It was not an ancient wall that we saw, nor even the dome of the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the site of the Temple of Solomon, but the Armenian Convent (for the numerous convents are the most conspicuous objects of the modern city); but for the instant a thrill shot through us as if we had caught a glimpse of the Heavenly Jerusalem. We said but few words, but gazed and gazed as we rode on over the hills and down the passes, till just at evening we dismounted at Solomon's Pools, which he built to furnish water to Jerusalem.
When we turned away from the Pools of Solomon, the sun was set, but we had still a long ride before us — at least it seemed long, for we were weary, the road was rough, and the shades of night were gathering. The moon, but a week old, lighted faintly the rocky path through which we picked our way. We rode on in silence till we began to ascend; we were climbing a hill, and when we reached its top we were in Bethlehem! Winding our way through the streets of the little town, we found our camp, and crawled off our horses, having been in the saddle twelve hours.
But the bright lights and the refreshing tea awaiting us soon put us in a cheerful glow, and we went out to take a night view of the scene around us. Our tents were pitched on the brow of a hill, looking down into a deep valley, where all lay as in profound slumber. Not a sound broke the deep stillness:
The beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.
But those hearts beat fast, for what memories were there to stir the depths of emotion. That valley below us was the field of Boaz where Ruth gleaned the blades of ripened grain!
​And look across the valley to yonder hillside! That gentle slope, which is seen dimly in the pale moonlight, is the field in which, according to tradition, "shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night," when "the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them." In this matter of localities it is best not to be too precise or too positive. Nor is it necessary to fix the identical spot. The exact point in space matters little, any more than the exact point of time. All we know, and all that we need to know, is that it was somewhere within the circuit of these hills that the shepherds watched; that it was in these skies that they saw the multitude of the heavenly host, and heard the song "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." That is enough to make the very heavens above us more serene, and the stars shine with a softer, tenderer light. We look upward as if we might catch some faint gleam of the angelic wings, or a far-off echo of the angelic voices. How they soared and sang! Never before did the earth hear such harmonies as these, which filled all the depths of air.
At length they ceased, and the vision vanished like a cloud. Higher and higher rose the heavenly host, and farther and farther the strains died away, till once more heaven and earth were still. And yet may it not be that they died away only to the shepherds' ears, while elsewhere they kept sounding on? Perhaps the celestial choir only ascended into a higher atmosphere, and there floated over other mountain tops and other valleys, the waves of sound circling round them till they touched every shore, and all tribes and kindreds of men heard the good tidings of great joy. O Christ, at whose birth the angels sang, will that song ever be heard again in the upper air of this poor world of ours?