The Land and the Book, Or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1865. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... each of whose three sides has an arched recess parallel to it, from the back of which perpendicular loculi enter into the rock. In some respects this is a more remarkable catacomb than that of the kings, and the arrangement is more varied and complicated. Why the name Tomb of the Judges is given, no one can assign any plausible explanation. In all directions from this locality, but especially toward the city, the strata of the mountain have been cut and carved into perpendicular faces by ancient quarricrs, and in them are innumerable tombs of every variety of pattern. Indeed, the prodigious extent of these quarries and tombs is one of the most striking indications of a great city, and of a long succession of prosperous ages, which the environs of Jerusalem furnish. The tombs of the prophets are here near the southern summit of Olivet. I have never examined them with much care, 1 For interior view, see vol. i. p. 1T3. X2 but they are regarded as very mysterious excavations by antiquarians. Mr. Williams thus describes them. Through a long gallery, first serpentine and then direct, but winding as you advance, one passes into a circular hall, rising into a conical dome about twenty-four feet in diameter. From this hall run three passages, communicating with two semicircular galleries connective with the hall, the outer one of which contains in its back wall numerous recesses for the corpses, radiating toward the centre hall. No inscriptions or remains of any kind have been discovered to elucidate the mysteries of these mansions for the dead. The so-called Grotto of Jeremiah is beneath the high tell of Ez Zahera, about forty rods to the northeast of Damascus Gate. This tell, no doubt, once formed the termination of the ridge (of Acra?), and the rock between it and th...