Daily Bible illustrations : being original readings for a year, on subjects from sacred history, biography, georgaphy, antiquities, and theology : Especially designed for the family circle . NTY-EIGHTH WEEK—SATURDAY. stance was assuredly that of the caravanserai—a large and im*portant public building, with a spacious stable for the use ofthe travellers beasts, for which it was set apart, and wheretherefore oxen or any other than cattle used for travelling donot appear. The explanation we give of this matter is founded uponactual observation, made while ourselves more than once con-strained to
Daily Bible illustrations : being original readings for a year, on subjects from sacred history, biography, georgaphy, antiquities, and theology : Especially designed for the family circle . NTY-EIGHTH WEEK—SATURDAY. stance was assuredly that of the caravanserai—a large and im*portant public building, with a spacious stable for the use ofthe travellers beasts, for which it was set apart, and wheretherefore oxen or any other than cattle used for travelling donot appear. The explanation we give of this matter is founded uponactual observation, made while ourselves more than once con-strained to lodge in the stable, because there was no room inthe inn, and suggested, in fact, in such a place as enabled usto say—In such a stable as this was Jesus born; here mighthave been an excellent retreat for the Virgin; here she wouldbe completely screened from observation at the time it wasneeded; and here is the very manger, which might haveformed no unsuitable cot for her first-born son. Let us explain. A caravanserai of the kind we have in view, and which weregard as most illustrative, presents an external appearancewhich suggests to a European traveller the idea of a fortress,. being an extensive square pile of strong and lofty walls—mostly of brick ujion a basement of stone, with a gi-and arch-way entrance. This leads not, as one is prepared to expect,to imposing internal buildings, but to a large open area, with THE INN AND THE STABLE. 63 a well in the middle, and surrounded on three or four sides?with a kind of piazza raised upon a phitform three or four feethigh, in the wall behind which are small doors leading to thecells, or oblong chambers, which form the lodgings. The cell,with the space on the platform in front of it, forms the domainof each individual traveller, where he is completely secluded,as the apparent piazza is not open, but is composed of thefront arches of each compartment. There is, however, in thecentre of one or more of the sides a large arched h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectbible, bookyear1850
