Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/339

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GOSPEL HISTORY AND PALESTINE EXPLORATION.
325

city, and priests and Levites were continually passing and repassing between Jericho and Jerusalem. In going down the Jericho road the traveller has often a wide prospect on either side; but it is, for all that, a mountain pass, with no way of escape if one were attacked; and the Bedawin, whose black tents may be seen in the distance, are the very fellows to attack the traveller now, if they dared.

The road up from Jericho brings us past Bethany—a village now of about forty small dwellings—and over the Mount of Olives, to Jerusalem.


[Authorities and Sources:—"Tent-Work in Palestine." Major Conder. "The Sea of Galilee." Sir Charles Wilson. (In vol., "Recovery of Jerusalem.") "East of Jordan." Dr Selah Merrill. "Survey Memoirs." Vol. of Special Papers. "Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund." "Galilee in the time of Christ." Dr Selah Merrill. "Twenty-One Years' Work in the Holy Land." P. E. Fund.]

2. Christ in the Capital.

The Jerusalem of Christ's day was the city as it existed in the days of Herod the Great. East and west it was no wider than at present; southward it covered the high south-western hill and a good part of the slope of Ophel; northward the third wall was not yet built, but there were suburban buildings outside the second. The Temple area had been so enlarged by Herod as to include all, or nearly all, the present Noble Sanctuary; and there were approaches from the west, one of which led over Robinson's Arch. A main street from the Valley Gate led eastward to the Temple, passing over Wilson's Arch. Another main street, running north and south, passed under Wilson's Arch and Robinson's Arch, and led to a gate in the south wall. In