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the severity of his manner of life, had not laid aside his love for piastres. When we were all ready for starting, that is to say, when the mules were laden and I myself on the saddle, he came to represent some difficulties, alleging that his remuneration as guide was not secure. I had to assure him in the presence of the shech of the payment of ten piastres per day, without which he declined going with me. This demand was certainly fair enough.

The way now led first a distance of thirty-five minutes north-west, after that north-north-east, to the village of Kudna, through a broad valley, along whose west side, at forty minutes' distance from Beit-Jebrîn, the rubbish heaps of Arak-hala lie, the site, undoubtedly, of an ancient city, as numerous wells seem to indicate. Here the road makes a bend round towards the west, while to the west-north-west and east-northeast two high ruin-covered hills are visible, Tell-Bûlnâb, or Bûrnâb, and Jedeidah, the most elevated hills in the whole neighbourhood. We now passed along an uninterrupted succession of cultivated fields. Here stood the corn, with the promise of an abundant harvest; there lay the land ploughed for receiving sesame and pulse, which can do without the winter rains; and, elsewhere, people were busily occupied in planting tobacco, which is done by preference among old ruins

and stones.

Kudna lies at an hour and ten minutes' distance from Beit-Jebrîn. It is an inconsiderable village, yet has the ruins of a quadrangular castle, apparently of Saracenic construction. The village shech appeared while I halted for a moment to take a glance of the

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ruins, and coming up to us, begged we would alight, in order that he might get us some coffee, by way of refreshment. Want of time, however, prevented my accepting this proffered courtesy. We rode on, and came three quarters of an hour afterwards to Deir-Dubbâ'n, a little to the north-west of which are found those huge vaulted grottoes which Robinson (Bib. Res. vol. ii. PP. 352 and 425) has described. I saw first the foursided, hewn, deep pits, corresponding with one another like a series of chambers; after that, I saw the huge caves, originally formed by nature in the white calcareous rock, and finished off by the hand of man with concave domes, most of which have an opening a-top for the admission of light. My eye differed, however, so far from that of the American travellers, which guessed those dome-shaped caves to be only from 20 to 30 feet high, and from 12 to 20 feet in diameter, that some of them appeared to me to be at least 60 feet high, and more than twice as wide. The ancient inscriptions on the walls, which Robinson neglected to take down, I have copied as accurately as I could, and now send you the result, hoping that you may meet with some one to decipher them for you.* You will see that the rock in some places has been broken off, and that, as a whole, the inscriptions have greatly suffered in the course of ages. From some of the crosses sculptured on the wall,-crosses, the ends of which have been deformed with crescents,-I saw that these caves must have served as dwellings for Christians, before their blood-thirsty conquerors, the Saracens, had made a conquest of the country. At present the under

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ground vaults of Deir-Dubbâ'n serve as stables for the cattle of the villagers. I was surrounded with camels, goats, and cows, while in the midst of a circle of curious Moslems I copied the inscriptions.

Robinson's first conjecture with regard to these caves was, that they possibly might indicate the site of the ancient Makkedah or Adullam. Afterwards he seems to have abandoned this idea; and, being assured that they were neither cisterns, nor stone-quarries, nor under-ground magazines for storing grain, he inclines at last to the opinion, that the Idumeans, who for a long period occupied these regions, as Josephus and Jerome relate, must have inhabited those subterranean dwellings. No doubt this is every way possible; but it is not thereby proved that the caves were used by the Idumeans first as dwellings, or furnished by them with domes, and openings for the admission of light, unless similar grotto residences could be found in Idumea,

a fact which future travellers in that country will perhaps ascertain. For my part, as long as no other locality is known to answer better to the statements of Scripture than this, I hold Deir-Dubbâ'n to be Adullam, the royal Canaanitish city of Josh. xii. 15, which appears in the list of the cities of Judah as situated "in the valley" near Jarmuth and Socoh (Josh. xv. 35). "The valley" is an expression that must be understood relatively. Deir-Dubbâ'n, as well as Socoh and Jarmuth, does not lie exactly in what is properly the plain, but at the foot of the Judea mountain range, and thus literally in "the valley," when viewed in relation to the cities in the mountains, although standing higher than the plain itself. The cave of Adullam, to

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which David escaped when he fled from the sight of Achish out of Gath,* not only agrees well with the cave of Deir-Dubbâ'n, but there is no other known cave at the base of the Judea mountains so well adapted for the concealment of a number of refugees. Let not this cave be confounded, however, with that to which Saul repaired, and which we some days ago visited near Tekoah (1 Sam. xxiv.) How well, then, do these words explain themselves!" His brethren, and all his father's house," went down to the cave of Adullam. From Bethlehem to Deir-Dubbâ'n, it is indeed a coming down. And here, then, it was "that every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them." Striking type of Jesus, the Son of David!

To poor ones, in their helplessness,

Their pain and misery,

Fleeing to Him in their distress,
He will a Saviour be.t

Eusebius and Jerome place Adullam ten Roman miles, or three hours and a half to the east of BeitJebrîn; but that there is a mistake here is plain, for any one going from Beit-Jebrîn eastwards, at least for three hours and a half, would find himself high among the hills, which at once disagrees with what the Scriptures say of Adullam.

Robinson seems to take Deir-Dubbâ'n for Gath, and Ritter, too, who adduces various reasons in support of this opinion. Those Scripture passages that speak

* 1 Sam. xxii.

† Ps. lxxii. 12.

Erdkunde 16ter Theil, 136-139,

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of Gath, cannot to my conviction be brought to agree with the position of Deir-Dubbâ'n.

Full three quarters of an hour's riding over and along low rocky hills, overgrown with low brushwood, and alternating with cultivated fields, brought me to the village of es-Safiëh, which lies at the foot of an isolated conical hill called Tell-es-Safiëh, the pointed summit of which commands a view of the whole surrounding country. Whether there ever stood a town here, mentioned in Scripture, we know not, though it is possible.* This only we know from Robinson and other travellers, that Tell-es-Safiëh in the time of the Crusaders had a watch-tower, or castle with four towers at the angles, called Blanche-garde, and also Clermont (Speculum Album), the remains of which are still extant.† Robinson reminds his readers of some heroic achievements of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which must have occurred in this neighbourhood. He also suggests the idea that Safiëh may possibly be derived from the Hebrew Zephathah, the vale in which Asa smote the mighty host of Zerah the Ethiopian, in answer to that remarkable prayer: "Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee." The Scottish missionaries who, in 1839, passed at fully two hours' distance to the west of Telles-Safiëh, made the same suggestion when they came upon the three villages called es-Sawafir (not Safeen).

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* Tell-es-Safiëh answers well to the Mizpah (watch-tower) of Josh. xv. 38. + Bible Researches, vol. ii. p. 336. 2 Chron. xiv. 10.

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