The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-04-26

are written down at once.-Boston Tran
script.
The Wilderness Of judea, Where John
Preached and Jesus TASTED.
WE crept out of the valley of The
Jordan, wrapped to our eyes in cloaks of
coarse camel's.hair. You would have
thought us smothering in the voluminous
folds of this Bedouin garment, but the
truth is, we were comparatively comforta.
bic, for the sun cannot penetrate the thick
web of homely homespun, and your
Bedouin scout will brave the fierce
ftirnace.heat Of the desert under the
shelter and the shadow of his one clumsy
robe. We were not long in the bed of the
valley till we started the partridge, the
wild pigeon and the hare in the brush, and
had shot or two that brought US nothing
more substantial than u sharp echo,
shattered to fragments in the gorgcs of the
mountains close ~ hand. If Q curse
hangs over the plains of Jericho, wither-
ing the roses thereof, and stufing the
plump apples with dry dust, it is nothing
in comparison with the eternal blight thet
sears the Judean wilderness as with fire.
Never so much IS blade of grass starts
from the parched and gaping crust that
crumbles under the hO0f like plaster.
Mountains of chalk, sand, gypsum, ebert
and tufa, gashed and SCARED, cut down 10
the quick by the fierce winter torrents;
tumbled hither ana thither by the forgot
ten but terrible commissions of Nature;
deserted by every lovely form Of life; the
haunt of the fox, the vulture. the hyena,
leopard and wolf; the snake c0iling in the
sun and kissing in the shadow of the
caves that everywhere perforate the abrupt
walls Of the gorges-this is the wilderness
of st. John. Here he fed on locusts and
wild honey, and dwelt apart among the
caves clad in shirt Of camel's-hair-
the very garment that is worn to.
day by the children Of Esau the
Bedouin. All through the desolate land
of Judea the tribes of the desert pitch
scanty flocks upon such edible litter as
nOisclessly in and out among the sitting
over the ridges, watching every rock that
keeping nervous finger on the clumsy
trigger of an antique musket with bar
rel seven feet long.
OPe uPe NPS u Aot oVVRRAAG eOsVAAS0 WAOASA
us insecure footing, for they are as smooth
as glass, and our animals are beginning
to flag in the relentless heat. 1t is not
only the flame of the sun that pours down
upon us from dawn to dark, but the oven.
like crust under foot, sending up glow
so intense that objects little distant seem
to dance in it, and the eyes shut against
it, stung with sharp agony. We follow
the painful track of the Kidron. Had
the valley or gap been burnt out by tor.
rent of fire, instead of water, it would
scarcely have presented amore forbiddirg
spectacle. We drop into this frightful
gorge and follow its bed for some dis
lance, turning to right and left and losing
sight of one another for q few moments,
during which we begin to realize the un-
utterable loneliness of the wilderness.
The fissure of the Kidron, half q thousand
feet deep and very narrow, has been the
haunt of eremites and pi0us sOlitaires for
many centuries. They have followed
closely In the footsteps of st. John, and
to-day the monks of Mar Saba are almost
as frugal and fanatical as the young man
who went down to Jericho to preach the
Word some eighteen hundred years ago,
and who seemed to have had creditable
success from the beginning. As we
climbed over the mountains of the wilder
ness we twice or thrice caught glimpses
of the Dead Sea far below us, glimpses
that were like visions of Paradise, fatal to
the Joy of him who is denied admittance.
Then came q distant view of q small
tomb on the ridge over the Kidron, q spot
very sacred in the eyes of the M0hamme-
dana, for it is their tomb of Moses. Chris
tians doubt it and try to prove their geog-
raphy by Holy Writ; but of the two sites
this of the MOhammedans is the more pop.
ular.
By and by our track, if so shadowy q
course may be called a track, lay over q
ridge and through long stretch OF desert
that glOwed like the disk of highly pol.
ished shield. The air was charged with
flame, it flashed in our faces like powder,
it shone through our shut eyelids-a Grim.
son light that blinded us and half con.
sumed our eyes in their sockets. Dark
smoked glasses afforded little relief, blu,
through the clouded glass I saw away of
in the midst of this blazing desert clus-
ter of black tents, stretched lightly over
slender poles, like 80 many spider-webs,
coated thick with dust. 1t was the Bedouin
at home, the pest of the wilderness, for he
alone is the uncomfortable master of all
this desolation. He knows the undis-
covered chambers beneath the cliffs, out
of this garish light, beside living spring,
where he may gather his tribe and battle
the most vigilant pursuers. He can starve
you out of his realm, choke the springs,
assault you in narrow passes, where es-
cape is utterly impossible. He sits in this
fierce heat and braves the terrible light
with the quick and unerring eye of the
eagle; he basks like q lizard in the sun,
and lives on air and goats milk. He is q
salamander and . fatalist, and bears q
charmed life. don't find his grave by
the way side, this fire-bed Bedouin; be.
lieve that he ia Matched in the sand like
an ostrich; that he lives thousand years
on the chameleon's dish, and is then con-
sumed away, being at white heat, and out
of his ashes springs his phenix son! Son
of the sun, welded to the daughter of the
moon, begetting tribes as slim and as
swift-footed a. lizards, and holding for.
ever the unl0vely wilderness of fire and
faminei That is the sum and substance
of the tribe of Esau, for Esau was . hairy
man and as unpopular as goat!-Chortea