Page:Travels from Aleppo, to the city of Jerusalem, and through the most remarkable parts of the Holy Land, in 1776.pdf/14

 over it, and a little way off is the place where the men of Galilee stood, when the angel asked them, ‘Why stand ye gazing up, &c.’ 23. Where the angel told the Virgin he should be raised in three days. 24. Pelagius’s grot, whence we saw Bethpage, where the asses colt was tied. 25. The tree under which our Saviour stood when he preached the judgment sermon. 26 The place where he made the Lord’s prayer. 27. Where the apostles made the creed, being a group of 12 arches. 28. The sepulchre of the prophets, 47 in number, cut out of the rock, and entering in at a door, we came into a large grot, where are several places cut out, fit to contain a coffin, and here we paid one livre. 29. The tree where Judas hanged himself. 30. The sepulchre which Jehosaphat intended for himself, but being a king, he was buried in the sepulchre of the kings. 31. Absalom’s pillar or sepulchre, cut out of the rock, and about the bigness of a small chamber, with pillars round about like a room built for one single person; it is of a good height, and hath some carving about it.32. They say, near by is the print of Christ’s feet; for, when he was carried to Jerusalem he stopped at the brook Kidron, and desired to drink. This brook runs along the east side of Jerusalem, and the west side of Mount Olivet, thro’ the valley of Jehosaphat, and tho’ it receives all the rivulets about Jerusalem, it is but small and sometimes dry; but upon sudden rains it swells much, and runs with great violence, and carries off the filth of the city, which by the common sewers is carried into it.33. The place where St. James hid himself three days and three nights; it is cut out of the rock. 34. On the side of the hill on which Solomon worshipped Molech, are chambers cut out of the rock, which they say was the place wherein the 300 wives and 700 concubines of Solomon were kept, when he gave himself up to that abominable idolatry. Molech, which literally signifies king, was an idol of the Ammonites; this idol was of brass, and placed on a throne of the same metal; his head, which resembled that of a calf or ox, was adorned with a royal crown, and his arms were extended, as if to embrace any that approached him. He was hollow within, where fire was placed to heat the idol, that it might burn the offerings. There were seven different apartments for receiving the different oblations of meal, turtles, ewes, rams, calves, oxen, and children. It is said the unhappy parent, who offered his child to Molech, put him into the burning arms of the idol, where he expired amidst terrible pain, while drums, &c. were beat to drown his cries, and that the sacrificed child was burnt, in order to obtain a blessing on the rest of the family. 35. The fountains of the Virgin Mary, which you go down by stone steps: the water whereof is so sweet, that were a man blindfolded, he could not think it to be any thing but milk and water.36. The place where the prophet Isaiah was sawn asunder; his sepulchre