Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/230

190 while we visited Petra and Mount Hor, between the 8th and 10th of December, 1883.

In its name Jebel Haroun (Aaron's Mount), Mount Hor retains the memory of that event which forms so melancholy a chapter in Jewish history. The identification of J. Haroun with "Mount Hor, by the coast of the Land of Edom" (Numb. xx, 23), has been disputed by Dr. Trumbull, but (as it seems to me) on insufficient grounds. He suggests Jebel Madurah, an isolated hill near Ain Kadeis, as the real scene of Aaron's death. Dr. Trumbull has doubtless seen Jebel Madurah, but if he had visited Jebel Haroun he would have been aware how completely this conspicuous elevation fulfils the requirements of the narrative. The language, "that the whole congregation journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto Mount Hor," appears to indicate an interval of perhaps several days' march from the time of their departure from the one, till their arrival at the other. It may also be presumed that, as Moses was permitted to view the Land of Canaan from Mount Nebo, Aaron was permitted to do so from Mount Hor. In both these respects Jebel Haroun meets the requirements of the case. The summit of Mount Hor, rising as it does about 4,580 feet (as determined by Major Kitchener) above the Mediterranean, or 5,875 feet above the level of the Salt Sea and The Ghôr, affords a commanding prospect of the great valley of the Arabah, and the borders of Seir, of the depression of The Ghôr, itself, and of the tableland of Southern Palestine; and we may well suppose the eyes of the high priest of Israel were allowed to rest themselves upon the hills of Judea, ere he resigned his priestly robes, and prepared himself for his resting-place, perhaps in the little cave which is covered by a Mohammedan shrine, whose white walls are visible to the traveller for many a mile around.

4. The Site of Calvary.— One of the most recent identifications in or about Jerusalem is the site of Calvary, the topographical details of which have been very clearly elucidated by Captain Conder. Attention has up till recent times been diverted from this determination by the assumption that the site of our Lord's Crucifixion is beneath the roof of "The Church of the Holy Sepulchre," which occupies a position nearly in the centre of the modern city. The labours of the officers of the Palestine Survey, and others, have not only succeeded in exploding the