Out-of-Doors in the Holyland . road still descendssteeply, among ragged and wrinkled hills. On ourleft we look down into the Wadi el-Kelt, a gloomygorge five or six hundred feet deep, with a stream ofliving water singing between its prison walls. Tradi-tion calls this the Brook Cherith, where Ehjah hidhimself from Ahab, and was fed by Arabs of a tribecalled the Ravens. But the prophets hiding-place was certainly on the other side of the Jordan,and this Wadi is probably the Valley of Achor,spoken of in the Book of Joshua. On the oppositeside of the canon, half-way down the face of theprecipice,
Out-of-Doors in the Holyland . road still descendssteeply, among ragged and wrinkled hills. On ourleft we look down into the Wadi el-Kelt, a gloomygorge five or six hundred feet deep, with a stream ofliving water singing between its prison walls. Tradi-tion calls this the Brook Cherith, where Ehjah hidhimself from Ahab, and was fed by Arabs of a tribecalled the Ravens. But the prophets hiding-place was certainly on the other side of the Jordan,and this Wadi is probably the Valley of Achor,spoken of in the Book of Joshua. On the oppositeside of the canon, half-way down the face of theprecipice, cUngs the monastery of Saint George, oneof the pious penitentiaries to which the GreekChurch assigns unruly and criminal monks. As we emerge from the narrow valley a great viewopens before us: to the right, the blue waters of theDead Sea, like a mirror of burnished steel; in front,the immense plain of the Jordan, with the dark-green ribbon of the river-jungle mnding through itslength and the purple mountains of Gilead and136. Great Monastery of St. George. JERICHO AND JOitUANMoab towering beyond it; to the left, the furrowedgray and yellow ridges and peaks of the northernwilderness of Judea, the wild country into whichJesus retired alone after the baptism by John in theJordan. One of these peaks, the Quarantana, is sup-posed to be the high mountain from whichthe Tempter showed Jesus the kingdoms of theworld. In the foreground of that view, sweepingfrom the snowy summits of Hermon in the north,past the Greek cities of Pella and ScythopoUs, downthe vast valley with its wealth of palms and balsams,must have stood the Roman city of Jericho, with itsimperial farms and the palaces, baths and theatresof Herod the Great,—a visible image of what Christmight have won for Himself if He had yielded to thetemptation and turned from the pathway of spirituallight to follow the shadows of earthly power andglory. Herods Jericho has vanished; there is nothing left of it but the outline of one
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