IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 37, 12 September 1901, Page 4

IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

(By ' Viatob.')

THE CAVE OF ADULLAM.

On the hillside towards the east is the historic Cave of Adul a lam, a natural labyrinthine grotto, hollowed out of the solid rook by the ebb and flow of many waters. It is worthy of mention as being the cave where David sought refuge from the violence of Saul. The grotto abounds in passages and chambers through its long depth of 200 yards, and that it was for centuries used for interment of the dead is proved by the many niches carved in the rook, and the fragments of urns and sarcophagi strewn in profusion on the rocky floor.

THE VINE.

Running along the slopes of the hills, along these very hills, made sacred by the night journey of the Holy Family when St. Joseph, warned by an angel of Herod's fell design. ' arose and took the Child and His Mother and departed into Egypt,' along these hills may be seen, more than elsewhere in Palestine, the struggling vineyards, marked by their watch-towers and crumbling walls, still cultivated as in the olden times where the residents are Christians. Conscientious Moslems traffic not in the vine. Round about Bethlehem especially is the industry pursued. Indeed the vine is the earliest and the latest symbol of Judea. In reference and symbol and figure the vine is freely mentioned in the Old Testament ard in the New — ' He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of the grapes.' 'I am the vine, you are the branohes.' From this valley — ' the torrent of the cluster ' — Neheletcol, the spies cut down and carried back the giant cluster of grape*. A vineyard on a hill of olives with the fence and the stones gathered out, and the tower in the midst of it, is the natural figure, which both in the prophetical and evangelical records, represents the Kingdom of Judah. The vine was the emblem of the nation on the coins of the Machabees, and in the colossal cluster of golden grapes which overhung the porch of the sacred temple ; and the grapes of Judah still mark the tombstones of the Hebrew race in the oldest of their European cemeteries. Hence the vineyards and the green strip of vegetation which break the gray surface of the hills are so many threads to guide us to the chief centres of the Israelite, Hebron was the primeval seat; of the vine, the earliest centre, too, of civilisation, not only of Judah but of Palestine. It was the first home of Abraham and the Patriarchs ; their one permanent resting place when they were gradually passing from the pastoral or nomadic to the agricultural life. Here Caleb chose his portion when at the head of his valiant cribe he drove out the old inhabitants ; here under David and later under Absolam the tribe of Judah always rallied when it asserted its independent existence against the rest of the Israelite nation.

HEBRON AND BETHLEHEM are closely allied in the history of the Kings of Judah, and this green oasis between the hills, still marked by the Pools of Solomon, is eloquent of the peace and magnificence inseparable from the reign of the Wisest King of all. Amid the rocky knolls of Judea, in this valley calltd Urtas, Solomon 'planted him vineyards, and made him gardens and a paradise, and planted him trees in them of all kinds of fruit, and made him reservoirb of water ' — they ar« there now — ' to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees.' From these gardens, no doubt, came the striking imagery of the

Canticles ; and in these gardens, more than elsewhere, the wise King drew hte intimate knowledge of trees from the transplanted cedar of Libanus to the lowly hy H sop that springeth out of the .wall. The huge square hill flanking the green depression is still called by the Arabs Jebel-el-Fureidis, the Mountain of Little Paradise, evidently from its vicinity to the gardens of the Wady Urtas, whioh in the lament of Solomon are expressly called by this very name. But no oapital arose round the ' plaisanoe.' No permanent city marfcea the 'paradise.' „ . .T , , m. . I Hebron indeed was long the metropolitan city of Judan. Ifce choice was natural. As you come up from the desert on the soutn, the traveller is struck by the sight of that pleasant valley, with its t orohards and vineyards and numberless wells, and m earlier timef>, we must add, the groves of terebinths and oak which then met , the eye of the tired and wandering tribes. This fertility was m t rmrt owing to its elevation into the oooler and the more watered reeion above the dry and sandy wastes to the south. Commanding , this fertile valley, Hebron rose on the hill. When their wanderings i were over, the tribes crossed the hills of Moab and passing by the valley of the Jordon came to Hebron. At Hebron was the burial place of the founders of their race— Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Here the 7at first settled. When David returned from the ohase of the Amalekite plunderers on the desert frontier, and doubted 'to which of the cities of Judah he should go up from the wUderness, the natural features of the place, as well as the oracle of God, answered clearly and distinctly ' Unto Hebron.' You see after this outline, that Hebron has claim to notice. There were three of our party. Now see how places, like other coveted goods, «ro by favor The Dr. would rest among the hills of Moab among the fierce nomadic Bedouins. To madame fell Nablous a city where riffid rule controls the ladies. Your correspondent in quest of Deface and ease, suroease from strife, chose a lonely cell in a lonelier monastery clinging to a spur of hill over the brook (Jherith on the road to Jerioho— ' Scinduntur auctores.' Still a common consent could be centred on Bethlehem or Hebron as an ideal place to flee the madding crowd, to tell the beads of peace, ' to scorn delights and live laborious days,' to shun 'the tangles of Neseraa hair, to forswear fame ' that last infirmity of noble minds,' to build up a fair fabrio not of this world, for have we not learned the sequel as writ by him who knew— ' I ' But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, J And think to burst out into sudden blaze j Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin spun life.' ... But digression is not narrative, and I must revert to my ' moutons. On the BETURN JOTJBNBY we tarried at the usual khan, sacred aa a synagogue, durable as a fortress, encircled by a thick and lofty wall, opening to an inner oourt, showing a range of arches, an open gallery round the four sides, and generally a watch-tower from which the warder might descry the approach of marauding bands— all relics of a wild and turbulent time. In the centre of the khaD springs a fountain or water, the first necessity of an Arab's life, and around the jet and troughs, in which the limpid element flows dear and fresh and free, lies the gay and picturesque litter of the Eaßt— camels kneel and wait to be unloaded, donkeys blink peacefully in the shade, dogs quarrel for a bone, Bedouins, glorious in sheepskins and turban and pistols, spread their carpets and are wrapped in adoration and prayer. In the archways squat the merchants fumbling their bales of goods —amber from the sea, gold work from below the desert in far away Egypt, shawls from Indian looms, bric-a-brao from Damascus and Bagdad, Bpices from Arabia, precious nards from the hills of Moab, | and ' genuine eastern ' trinkets, amulets, charms, jewellery, bangles, mostly made in Germany or Birmingham. Half naked men are cleansing their hands ere sitting down to eat. Many forms, queer and quaint and robed and unrobed and dark and brown any tawny, pass in and out, striding with bare limbs and muscles strong as bandß of steel. The archway in whioh he lays up his goods and spreads out his carpet being bare, the visitor must bring with him the cruse and pan and jar and dish, the bag of rice, the tinder-box, the ooffee-oup, the brazier the charcoal. When the khan is full, crowded with pilgrims and travellers, aB happens in seasons of great foregatherings, the Arab will spread his quilt on the ground, happy in his simplicity and fatigue to share the lodgings of his camel and his ass. , , , ' Man needs but little here below, Nor needs that little long.' When the rude meal is washed down by tiny cups of real coffee, then comes the Babel of tongues, the poluphlosboio chorus of many voices, till sleep pa&Bes the word and stretches the tired limbs in rest. ' Fortunati 1 Bua si bona norint I ' . We stored away the impressions— stored them away in the recesses of memory capacious of such charming novelties— and we followed the dark line of terebinths, green, fresh, winding as a river —relics of Solomon's gardens— over the jagged peaks, down the dipping path, where the wild rose blendß with the gay poppy and lees assertive anemone and humbler daißy in hibernal springtide, till we dropped on our patient Jehu smoking the cigarette of pence by his horses. En route, as Frenchified scribes love to write, en route to the familiar Jaffa Gate that leads to our comfortable quarters in the Grand Hotel of Jerusalem.

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