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The Giant Cities of Bashan and Syria’s Holy Places

Rev. J. L. Porter D. D.

LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK

1877

Pages: 48 - 63

III.

"And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits."

This text was constantly in my mind while I wandered through Bashan. In riding down from the ruins of Kenath, among the mountains, to the ruins of Suweideh at their base, it struck me that the beautiful words in which Cowper describes modern Sicily, are strikingly descriptive of modern Palestine.

"Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now
Lie scattered where the shapely column stood.
Her palaces are dust. In all her streets
The voice of singing, and the sprightly chord
Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause;
While God performs upon the trembling stage
Of his own works his dreadful part alone."


We might begin, "Alas for Palestine!" and go on through the whole passage; for Palestine’s palaces are dust, her stately columns fallen, her streets silent, her fields desolate, while God alone performs his dreadful part, fulfilling to the very letter the prophetic curses pronounced upon the land long, long centuries ago.

WONDERFUL FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY.

We rode along the line of the Roman road, at least as closely as branches of the great old oaks, and jungles of thorns and bushes, would permit; for "the highways lie waste" (Isa. 33:8). Every opening to the right and left revealed ruins; - now a tomb in a quiet nook; now a temple in a lonely forest glade; now a shapeless and nameless heap of stones and fallen columns; and now, through a long green vista, the shattered walls and towers of an ancient city. The country is filled with ruins. In every direction to which the eye turns, in every spot on which it rests, ruins are visible-so truly, so wonderfully have the prophecies been fulfilled: "I will destroy your high places, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation" (Lev. 26:30). "The palaces shall be forsaken" (Isa. 32:14). "I will make your cities waste. The land shall be utterly spoiled" (Isa. 24:3). Many other ruins, doubtless, lie concealed among the forests, buried beneath giant oaks, or shrouded by luxuriant brambles. Judging by the "thorns and thistles" which hem in every path, and half conceal every ruin, one would suppose that Bashan had received a double portion of the curse.

The mountains of Bashan, though not generally very steep, are rugged and rocky; yet everywhere on their sides I saw the remains of old terraces-along every slope, up every bank, from the bottom of the deepest glen, where the oleander bends over the tiny streamlet, to the highest peak on which the clouds of heaven sleep, cradled on winter snows. These tell of former toil and industry; and so do the heaps of loose stones that have been collected off the soil, and piled up in the comers of the little fields. In the days of Bashan’s glory, fig-trees, and olives, and pomegranates, were ranged along those terraces; and vines hung down in rich festoons over their broken walls. But now Bashan has shaken off its fruits. "For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away. The field is wasted, the land mourneth. The new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. The vine is dried up, the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree; even all the trees of the field are withered; because joy is withered away from the sons of men" (Joel 1:6-12).

The scenery is still rich. It is rich in the foliage of the evergreen oak-the "oak of Bashan;" rich in numbers of evergreen shrubs; rich in green pastures. It is picturesque too, and occasionally even grand; for the glens are deep and winding, and the outlines of the intervening ridges varied with many a dark cliff and wooded bank. The whole mountain range is of volcanic origin, and the peaks shoot up, conical or cup-shaped, forming long serried lines. One thing struck me as peculiar. The rocks are black, the soil is black, the buildings are all black. It might be thought that the landscape would thus have a gloomy aspect; and it would have, were it not for the fresh green grass of the glades and meadows, and the brilliant foliage of the oak forests, which often glitter beneath the blaze of sunshine like forests of prisms.

I confess it was with feelings of awe I looked from time to time out over those desolate, but still beautiful slopes, to that more desolate plain. I knew what caused the desolation. The silence, too, awed me yet more, for it was profound. The voice of nature itself was hushed, and not a leaf in the forest rustled. There is always something cheerful, something reviving to the flagging spirit, in the unceasing murmur of a great city, now rising and now falling on the breeze, as one approaches it or passes by; and in the continuous hum of a rural scene; where the call of the herd, and the whistle of the plough man, and the roll of the waggon, and the bleatings of the flock, and the lowing of the kine, melt into one of nature’s choruses. Here cities studded the whole country, but the stillness of death reigned in them; there was no ploughman in the field, no shepherd on the hill-side, no flock on the pasture, no waggon, no wayfarer on the road. Yet there was a time when the land teemed with an industrious, a bustling, and a joyous population. At that time prophets wrote: "Your highways shall be desolate" (Lev. 16:22). "The wayfaring man ceaseth. The earth mourneth and languisheth" (Isa. 33:8). "The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled -- for the Lord hath spoken this word. Therefore hath the curse devoured the land. Therefore the inhabitants of the land are consumed, and few men left. Every house is shut up. The mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction" (Isa. 24:3-12). Many of the people of those days, doubtless, thought the prophets were but gloomy dreamers. Just as many in our own day regard their writings as gorgeous fancy pictures of Eastern poets; but with my own eyes I saw that time has changed every prediction into a historic fact. I saw now, and I saw at every step through Bashan, that the visions of the prophets were not delusions; that they were not even, as some modern critics suppose, highly wrought figures, intended perhaps to foreshadow in faint outline a few leading facts of the country’s future story. I saw that they were, one and all, graphic and detailed descriptions of real events, which the Divine Spirit opened up to the prophet’s eye through the long vista of ages. The language is, doubtless, beautiful, the style is poetic, and gorgeous Eastern imagery is often employed to give sublimity to the visions of the seer, and to the words of the Lord; but this does not take away one iota from their truth, nor does it detract in the slightest degree from their graphic power. Were the same holy men inspired now by the same Divine Spirit to describe the actual state of Palestine, they could not possibly select language more appropriate or more graphic than that found in their own predictions written thousands of years ago. This is no vague statement made at random, or penned for effect. God forbid I should ever pen a single line rashly or thoughtlessly on such a topic. It is the result of years of study and years of travel. It is the result of a calm and thorough comparison of each prophecy of Scripture regarding Palestine’s history and doom with its fulfilment, upon the spot. I had no preconceived theory of prophetic interpretation to defend. My mind was not biassed by a false faith in literality on the one side, nor by a fatal scepticism regarding prophetic reality on the other. Opportunities were afforded me of examining evidence, of testing witnesses, of seeing with my own eyes the truth or the falsehood of Bible predictions. I embraced these opportunities, as God gave them, and to the utmost of my power and the best of my ability. I examined deliberately, cautiously, and, I believe, conscientiously. My examinations extended over all Palestine, and over most other Bible lands; and now I thank God that, with the fullest and deepest conviction-conviction that all the ingenuity of modern criticism, and all the plausibility of modern scientific scepticism can never overthrow, could never shake - I can take up and re-echo the grand, the cheering statement of our blessed Lord, and proclaim my belief before the world, that "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled."

I observed around Kenath, and especially in the thickest parts of the forest on the way to Suweideh, that many of the largest and finest oak trees were burned almost through near the ground, and that a vast number of huge trunks were lying black and charred among the stones and brushwood. I wondered at what appeared to be a piece of wanton and toilsome destruction, and I asked Mahmood if he could explain it.

"The Bedawîn do it," he replied. "They make large quantities of charcoal for the Damascus market, as well as for home use; and that they may get more easily at the branches, which are the only parts of the tree used, they kindle a fire round the roots of the largest oaks, burn them deeply, and then the first blast of wind blows them over, and the boughs are chopped off with little axes."

"But," I said, "in this way they destroy vast quantities of splendid timber."

"True; but they do not care. All they want is a present supply, and they try to get it in the easiest way possible."

"They will soon make your mountains as bare as Jebel esh-Sheikh, and where will you go for firewood and charcoal then? You are fools to permit such needless waste and destruction."

"O my lord?" said Mahmood - and there was a degree of solemnity and pathos both in his tone and in his words - " O my lord! it is you Franks alone who have wisdom to look to the future, and power to provide for it. We! what can we do in this unhappy country? We are all wanderers - here to-day, away to-morrow. Should we attempt to preserve these oaks, or to plant vineyards and olives, or to spend labour and money on fields or houses, we would only be working out our own ruin. The Bedawîn would be attracted in clouds round the tempting fruit; and the Turks would come, drive us out with their cannon, and seize our whole property. No, no! We can have no permanent interest in the ground. We can only hold it as we have got it, by the sword; and the poorer it looks, the less will our enemies covet it."

It was a sad picture, and, unfortunately, a true one. By such mad acts, and by still more wanton destruction in times of war, and of party and family struggles, fruit-trees and forests have been almost annihilated in Palestine. And would it not seem as if the old prophets had been able to look down through the mists of long centuries, and to see the progress and the effects of this very mode of ruin and desolation, clearly as I saw it in Bashan? Isaiah thus wrote: "The defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof. When the boughs thereof are withered they shall be broken off; the women come and set them on fire for it is a people of no understanding" (Isa. 27:10, 11).

Descending from Kenath, I saw, about a mile to the right, the deserted town of Atyl. Burckhardt and one or two others visited it, but I was compelled from want of time to pass it by. It contains some fine buildings, among which are two beautiful temples nearly perfect. One of them was built in the fourteenth year of the Emperor Antonine (A.D. 150), as a Greek inscription tells us. Like Kenath, this city was in a great measure rebuilt during the Roman age, and consequently there are not many of the very ancient massive houses now remaining. Further down on the plain I saw Rimeh and Welgha, two deserted towns. Every view we got in Bashan was an ocular demonstration of the literal fulfilment of the curse pronounced on the land by Moses, more than three thousand years ago: "If ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments ... I will scatter you among the heathen; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste" (Lev. 26:14, 33).

THE RUINS OF SUWEIDEH.

Emerging from the oak forests we found ourselves on a low bare ridge which juts out from the mountains some distance into the plain. It is divided down the centre by a deep rocky ravine, through which a winter torrent flows. The portion of this ridge south of the ravine is covered with the ruins of Suweideh. We were riding up to them when my attention was attracted by a singular monument standing alone on a commanding site, a few hundred yards north of the city. It is a square tower, about thirty feet high. The sides are ornamented with Doric semi-columns supporting a plain cornice, and between them, on panels, are shields, helmets, and trophies of arms sculptured in relief. A legend, inscribed in Greek and Palmyrene, states that "Odainatus, son of Annelos, built this monument to Chamrate, his wife." Few and simple are the words. The story of Chamrate is unknown. What were her private virtues, or public services, we cannot tell. Strange that this monument should stand as the tribute of a husband’s admiration and love, when the histories of husband, wife, and native city have passed away for long centuries! It is worthy of note that Odainatus was the name of the celebrated husband of the still more celebrated Zenobia. The Palmyrene inscription on the monument would seem to indicate that its founder was a native of the desert city. Perhaps the great Odainatus himself, during his warlike expedition into Syria, may have thus celebrated the virtues of a former wife.

Crossing the ravine by a Roman bridge, we rode up to Suweideh, and under the guidance of the sheikh’s son, a fine manly boy of some fourteen years, splendidly dressed in a scarlet robe, and armed with silver-hilted sword and dagger, we proceeded to examine in detail the wide-spread ruins. We visited a Corinthian peristyle; a Roman gateway at the end of a straight street, nearly a mile in length, and paved throughout; the ruins of a temple of the age of Trajan; the remains of a very large church, within whose crumbling walls is the modern Christian burying-ground; a mosque, the roof of which was once supported on marble columns, doubtless rifled from an old church, or a still older temple. Then we inspected the ruins of a fountain, of an opera, and of a large theatre; and we saw two immense reservoirs, anciently supplied by aqueducts which brought water from the neighbouring mountains.

Verily the destroyer has been long at work in this old city! Here are ruins heaped upon the top of ruins; temples transformed into churches; churches again transformed into mosques, and mosques now dreary and desolate. Inscriptions were here, side by side, recording each transformation, and showing how the same building was dedicated first to Jove, then to St. George, and finally to Mohammed. We walked on after our little guide, winding among vast heaps of ruins - ruins, nothing but ruins, and desolation, and rent walls, and fallen columns. The modern dwellings are just the lower stories of the ancient houses, which have been cleared out and occupied; and the whole site has become so deeply covered with fallen structures, that the people seem, for the most part, to be residing in caves.

Thirty or forty boys, with a fair sprinkling of men, followed us, shouting and dancing in high glee at the strange figures of the Franks, the first, probably, that most of them had seen. We should have been seriously incommoded by their attentions, had it not been for the threats of our manly little guide, accompanied now and then by a volley of stones at the boys who ventured too near. As we passed the houses, too, and the cavern-like court-yards, portly women and coy girls peeped at us with one eye over the corners of their long white veils, and laughingly pointed out to each other some wondrous oddity about our dress. Our hats - or kettles, as they persisted in calling them-attracted most attention. In fact, we created among the quiet people of Suweideh quite as great a sensation as a party of Arabs with their bronzed faces, flame-coloured turbans, and flowing robes would do in Cheapside or in the High Street of Edinburgh.

No city in Bashan - not even Bozrah, its Roman capital - surpasses Suweideh in the extent of its ruins; and yet, strange to say, its ancient name is unknown, and there is no mention of it in history previous to the Crusades. It seems to have suffered more from time and from the chances of war than any other city in the whole country. Inscriptions found on its monuments show that it was a flourishing city long before the conquest of Bashan by the Romans in A.D. 105, and that it carried on an extensive trade with Egypt and other countries down to the middle of the fourth century. William of Tyre, the historian of the Crusades, says of the region round the city: "It is rich in the choicest products of nature, - wine, corn, and oil; the climate is salubrious and the air pure." So late, therefore, as the twelfth century the country was prosperous and the city populous. We can see the evidence of this still. The hill-sides are everywhere terraced, and plain and mountain alike bear the marks of former careful cultivation. The terraces are admirably fitted for the growth of the vine, the fig, and the olive; and the rich plain even now bears crops of grain whose luxuriance is proverbial. Nowhere in Bashan, nowhere in all Syria, did I see such convincing evidences of the surpassing richness and vast resources of the soil, as around Suweideh. One would suppose that Moses had his eye upon it when he penned these words - words equally beautiful and true: "The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys and hills; a land if wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it" (Deut. 8:7-9).

And one would suppose, too, looking at the Bible and looking at the land-comparing prophetic description with authentic history and present reality-that the prophets must surely have read the long and sad history of Palestine as I read it, and that they must surely have seen the present utter ruin and terrible desolation of this part of it as I saw it, and that they must surely have heard from the lips of the people the story of their oppression and their dangers as I heard it, before they could possibly have written such graphic words as these: "I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation. I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it" (Lev. 26:31, 32). "The generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" (Deut 29:22, 24).

These are only a few, a very few, of multitudes of similar predictions. And, let it be observed, the predictions are not made in mere general terms, capable of a wide rendering and a somewhat vague reference. They are special, graphic, and detailed; and their fulfilment is evident as it is complete. The fields are waste, the roads deserted, the cities abandoned, the houses without inhabitants, the sanctuaries desecrated, the vineyards, orchards, and groves destroyed. And the land is desolated by the "violence" and the folly "of all them that dwelt therein," - of the Turks, its nominal owners, and of the Arabs, its periodical "spoilers," who come up "upon all high places through the wilderness." "Everyone that passeth by it is astonished" at its deserted cities and waste fields; and "the stranger that comes from a far country," - the thoughtful student of history, the thoughtful observer, the thoughtful reader of his Bible, - cannot refrain from exclaiming, as he rides through Bashan, "Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land?"

The noble Druse chief of Suweideh, Sheikh Waked el-Hamdan, was absent on our arrival, but in the evening he returned, and entertained us with a hospitality that would have done honour to the patriarch Job, who is represented, by a local tradition, as having been the first prince of Suweideh. When the evening banquet was over, the whole elders of the town crowded into the large reception-room of Sheikh Waked, and squatted in concentric circles round the blazing fire. We occupied the seat of honour, on a raised dais, beside the sheikh. Rings of white turbans, the distinguishing head-dress of the Druses, appeared round and round us, here and there broken by the crimson kefiyeh of a Bedawy, or the black kerchief of a Christian. An Egyptian sat by the fire preparing and distributing coffee, while an Abyssinian slave behind him pounded the fragrant berries in a huge oak mortar, beating time with the pestle, which bore some resemblance, in form and size, to an Indian war-club. Each guest, on drinking, rose to his knee, touched forehead and lips with his right hand, and bowed to the sheikh; then, on sitting down again, he made another similar salam, intended for the rest of the company, and those near him retuned it, with a muttered prayer that the refreshment might do him good. It was an interesting scene, and was probably not unlike the receptions of guests in the mansion of Job and in the tents of Abraham.

We talked of politics, of war, and of poetry; and most of the company took part in the conversation with a respectful propriety and a good sense that surprised me. The poetry of the Arabs has some striking peculiarities. Their poets often describe the virtues and achievements of distinguished men in short stanzas, containing two or four measures; and the beauty of the rhythm and boldness of the imagery are sometimes of a high order. There is a species of composition which they often try, and in which many are adepts. It is difficult for those who are ignorant of the peculiar structure of the Arabic language to understand its nature. A word is taken, and, by changing its form, a series of distinct acts is described, each act being expressed by a different inflexion of the root. One word will thus occur six, eight, or ten times in a stanza, with the addition of a prefix or suffix, or the insertion of an intermediate letter, or an alteration in a vowel point; and each change conveys a new and definite meaning. The warlike achievements of a favourite leader are not unfrequently graphically described in this manner by skilful and varied inflexion’s of his own name. The Hebrew scholar will find something analogous to this in Jacob’s play upon the word Gilead, in Genesis 31:46-48; but the best examples of the kind in Scripture are given in Hosea, chapters 1 and 2, on the word Jezreel.

The morning we left Suweideh dawned gloomy and threatening. A heavy thunder-storm had passed over the place during the night. Never before in Syria had I seen rain heavier or lightning more vivid. For an hour or more the flashes seemed to form one continuous stream, lighting up the ruins of the city, and the glens and rocks of the neighbouring mountains with an intense though lurid blaze. In the morning, dark, lowering clouds still swept along the surface of the ground, and enveloped the whole mountains. The air was cold, and the smart showers which fell at intervals made it feel still colder; but as the wind was high, and veering round to the north, we knew the day would be fine; for the Scripture statement still holds good in Scripture lands,-" Fair weather cometh out of the north" (Job 37:22).

A few minutes' ride down the rocky slope of the ridge on which Suweideh stands brought us into the plain of Bashan, properly so called. I had heard much of its richness. I had heard of the wonderful productiveness of that deep, black, loamy soil, of the luxuriance of its grass, and of its teeming crops of grain; but up to the moment I first set foot on it, I thought-indeed I was fully persuaded-that a large amount of exaggeration must run through all those glowing descriptions. Now I saw that there had been no exaggeration, and that no part of Palestine could be compared in fertility to the plain of Bashan. No wonder the pastoral tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh made choice of this noble country, preferring its wooded hills and grassy plains to the comparatively bleak and bare range west of the Jordan, visible from the heights of Moab. The plain extended in one unbroken expanse, flat as the surface of a lake, for fifty miles, to the base of Hermon. Little hills - some conical, some cup-shaped-rise at intervals like islands, and over their surface, and sometimes round their bases, are scattered fragments of porous lava, intermixed with basalt of a firmer texture; but the rest of the soil is entirely free from stones. On or beside these tells many of the ancient towns stand; and their black walls, houses, and towers, shattered by time and the horrors of war, often look in the distance like natural cliffs.

The Roman road which anciently connected Damascus and Bostra, passing close to some of the chief cities of Bashan, lay a few hundred yards to the right of our path. Its line can still be traced, - indeed the old pavement is in many places quite perfect, as much so as any part of the Appian Way; and yet, in a ride of some twenty miles this day along that route, we did not meet, we did not see, a single human being. The "wayfaring man" has "ceased" here, and "the highways are desolate." Before reaching the town of Ary, about eight miles from Suweideh, we passed two villages, and we saw four others a little way up the mountain-side, on the left, - all of which contain a few families of Druses; while away on the plain, to the right, no less than five towns were in view at one moment, entirely deserted. The words of Jeremiah are surely fulfilled: "I beheld, and, lo, there was no man ... I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger" (4:25, 26).

The town of Ary stands on a rocky tell. It is about a mile in circuit; but there are no buildings of any importance; nor are there any traces of wealth or architectural beauty. It appears to have been a plain country town, which became the seat of a bishopric about the fourth century, as we learn from the old ecclesiastical records.

We had ascended the hill-side, and were quietly occupied in examining the ruins of what seemed to have been a church, when a party of the inhabitants came up, headed by their sheikh, and invited us to accept of their hospitality. They would take no excuse. It would be a disgrace to their village if they would permit us to pass; it would be an insult to their chief if we should attempt it. They entreated as Abraham would have done at his tent-door, or Lot at the gate of Sodom. We entered the sheikh’s house; and while coffee was being prepared, the whole household - in fact a great part of the town-got into a state of commotion. A woman came into the apartment with a large copper vessel in her hand, - took "a measure" of flour out of a huge earthen jar in the corner, poured on water, and commenced the process of "kneading unleavened cakes." A moment afterwards we heard a confused noise of cackling and screaming; then a flock of hens flew in terror past the open door, followed by a troop of women and boys in full chase. We saw they had resolved to make us "a feast." The flocks were at a distance, and it would take hours to obtain a lamb or a kid, - fowls must therefore serve as a substitute. We were fully aware of the despatch of Arab cooks, and that in this respect they were not surpassed even by the patriarchal; but our time was too precious to be wasted in mere ceremony, however interesting. Firmly, but respectfully, we assured our worthy host that we must proceed at once to Bozrah. To the evident regret of the stately sheikh, and the unbounded astonishment of crowds of his people, who gathered round us, and who could not understand how it was possible for any polite or respectable person to decline proffered hospitality, we mounted our horses and rode off.

Our route lay near the base of the mountains of Bashan, which rose up in dark frowning masses on our left, most of their conical peaks wooded to the summit. Kuleib, the highest of the whole range, was in full view, its top covered with snow. Low spurs here shot far out into the plain, having between them rich vales covered with luxuriant pastures. Through the midst of each vale, between high alluvial banks, now flowed a tiny winter stream. Passing the villages of Mujeimir and Wetr, we gained the crest of a ridge commanding a noble view over the plain southward. We drew bridle for a few minutes, to examine 'more minutely this magnificent panorama. On the west, south, and south-east, the plain was unbounded. Every section of it to which we turned our eyes was thickly dotted with large towns and villages; yet, with the exception of a few spots near us, there was no cultivation, and we did not see a single tree or bush on that vast expanse. Mahmood pointed out the more important cities. Due southward, some five miles distant, a broad black belt extended far across the green plain; in the midst of it rose the massive towers and battlements of a great castle; while other towers and tapering minarets shot up here and there. That was Bozrah, the ancient stronghold of Bashan, the capital of the Roman province, and the first city in Syria captured by the Saracens. We saw Jemurrin, Keires, Burd, Ghusam, and a host of others on the right and left - all deserted. Low in a valley, on the south-east, lay the wide-spread ruins and ancient colossal houses of Kerioth, one of the old cities of the plain of Moab (Jer. 48:24); while away beyond it, on the horizon, rose a graceful conical hill, crowned with the castle of Salcah, which Joshua mentions as the eastern limit of Bashan, and of the kingdom of the giant Og (Josh. 13:11; 12).

This southern section of Bashan is richer in historic and sacred associations than the northern. I looked at it now spread out before me with feelings such as I cannot describe. Those large deserted cities, that noble but desolate plain, - the whole history of the country for four thousand years, from the Rephaim down to the Osmanlis, is written there. The massive dwellings show the simple style and ponderous workmanship of Giant architects. Jewish masonry and names; Greek inscriptions and temples; Roman roads; Christian churches; Saracenic mosques; Turkish desolations; - all, all are there; and all alike are illustrations of the accuracy and confirmations of the truth of the BIBLE.


The Giant Cities of Bashan IV