Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/194

158 bounded by sides deeply furrowed. At a distance of about four miles from Bethlehem, and on the opposite side of the valley amongst the hills, is a reemarkable elevation with the form of a truncated cone, planted on a nearly level platform, on which Herod the Great erected his summer palace, and also his tomb. Its ancient name was Herodium; its present, Jebel Fureidis. Captain Conder states that this cone is surrounded by a circular wall, on which are four round towers. Under this is the remarkable Cave of Khureitûn, generally supposed to be the "Cave of Adullam," but this is a view in which Conder does not concur. We may suppose, however, that while David lay in concealment, and his enemies, the Philistines, held possession of Bethlehem and its approaches, the newly anointed king cast longing eyes towards the city of his birth, and the well of whose cool waters he had doubtless drunk when a boy. Parched with thirst and weary of life, "hunted like a partridge on the mountains," he exclaimed, "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, that is at the gate! "Hearing this exclamation of their king, the three valiant captains, at the risk of their lives, brake through the line of the Philistine guards and drew water from the well. But here the nobility of David's character was strikingly shown. Notwithstanding his thirst, and the ardent longing for water to cool his tongue, he pours out the water on the ground, exclaiming, "Shall I drink the blood of these men which have put their lives in jeopardy" for my sake? How such an act must have endeared David to his soldiers. As one stands by the well, and looks down the valley, the whole scene becomes a vivid reality.

This day's excursion enabled me to get a good idea of the character of the country south of Jerusalem, and of its geological conformation. It consists of beds of limestone, white, yellow, or reddish, sometimes chalky, and with bands of chert. The strata undulate slightly in various directions.