esh-Shâmy, Durah es-Seify) then growing. As we crossed a tract from which a crop of maize had been taken the preceding year, we observed new shoots sprouting from the roots of the old stalks. On inquiry, we were assured, that maize is here a biennial plant, yielding a crop for two successive years from the same roots. Cotton is sometimes planted, and flourishes well; but there was none at present. We saw patches where indigo had been raised a year or two before; it was said to live for seven or eight years. Edrîsi mentions the culture of it here in the twelfth century.2 Another plant which formerly was cultivated in abundance in the plains of Jericho, has also disappeared; I mean the sugar-cane. The historians of the crusades inform us, that the earliest crusaders found large tracts of these canes, growing on the coast of the Mediterranean around Tripolis and as far south as Tyre; yielding a substance called Zuccara or Zucra (sugar) then unknown in western Europe; and on whose juice the warriors often refreshed themselves under their many sufferings and privations.3 According to Jacob de Vitry the canes were also cultivated very extensively on the plains of the Jordan around Jericho; where the many hermits of that region partly lived upon them, regarding the juice as the wild honey of their predecessor John the Baptist.* 1) Zea mais, Holcus durra, Forskål Flor. Aegypt. pp. lxxv, 174. Lane's Mod. Egyptians II. p. 26. 2) Edrîsi par Jaubert, I. p. 339. 3) See in Gesta Dei per Francos: Albert. Aq. V. 37. p. 270. Fulch. Carnot. p. 401. Anonym. p. 595.-William of Tyre speaks of the sugar-cane as growing abundantly around Râs el-'Ain near the city of Tyre; Hist. XIII. 3. p. 835. 4) Speaking of the Jordan, Jacob de Vitry says, c. 53, p. 1076: "Campi autem adjacentes ex cala- From all these circumstances it would appear, that in the centuries before the crusades, the Saracens had introduced the culture and preparation of sugar into Syria and Palestine with success, and upon a large scale. To that age and object are probably to be referred the many large aqueducts around Jericho, all of Saracenic construction,' intended to spread an abundance of water over every part of the plain; as also the sugar-mills already mentioned, situated upon the acclivity west of 'Ain es-Sultân. At least all writers and travellers subsequent to the times of the crusades, are silent as to the existence of the sugarcane in this region in their day; and other circumstances which they relate, are at variance with the supposition of its further general culture, and the later construction of the aqueducts. That is to say, there seems to be no later period, when irrigation and cultivation were in like manner and to such an extent, spread out over the plain.2 In that age indeed the plain of Jericho would seem to have recovered in part its ancient renown, and to have been considered as the garden of Palestine. When the crusaders took possession of the country, this region was assigned to the church of the Holy Sepulchre as a portion of its possessions; and it is one of the reproaches brought against Arnulphus, the third Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, that he gave away this district from the endowment of the church, as a portion to his niece on her marriage with Eustache Grenier in A. D. 1111. At that time, the annual revenue Zuckerrohrs," in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy, Hist. Phil. Class, 1839. 1) Buckingham, who saw the northern aqueduct at the mouth of Wady Nawâ'imeh from a distance, says it is of Roman architecture. This is possible; but the probability is against it. Travels in Pal. p. 310. 2) Sugar-cane is still cultivated around Beirût, and at other places along the coast; but no sugar is manufactured from it. arising from this district is said to have been five thousand pieces of gold;' a proof at least of its lavish fertility. It seems soon to have reverted into the power of the church or of the government; for in A. D. 1138 we find Jericho with its rich fields assigned to the convent of nuns erected by queen Melisinda at Bethany.2 To the same period of renovated cultivation I am inclined to refer the origin of the present castle; which may not improbably have been erected for the protection of the fields and gardens that covered the plain, and was therefore placed in their midst at a distance from the fountain and the former site of Jericho. It is first mentioned by Willebrand of Oldenborg, A. D. 1211; it was already in a ruinous state and inhabited by Saracens. A village would naturally spring up around it; and such an one is mentioned by Brocardus near the close of the same century, which he regarded as the remains of ancient Jericho, consisting only of eight houses and scarcely deserving the name of a village. Subsequent travellers continue to speak of it only as a small Arab village; in Pococke's day there were here only two or three houses. In the fifteenth century apparently, the square tower or castle began to pass among the monks and pilgrims as the house of Zaccheus, an honour which it retains among them to the present day. 1) Will. Tyr. XI. 15, "cujus hodie redditus annualis quinque millium dicitur esse aureorum." Probably the gold Byzant is here intended, equal to about five Spanish dollars; see above, p. 48. 2) Will. Tyr. XV. 26. See above p. 102. Quaresmius says, there was a suffragan bishop here; but the authorities he quotes do not bear him out; II. p. 755. 3) Willebr. ab. Oldenb. in L. Allatii Symmikta p. 151. Col. Agr. 1653, "Venimus Hiericho, quod est castellum parvum, destructos habens muros, a Saracenis inhabita tum." 4) Chap. VII. p. 178. 5) Rud. de Suchem in Reissb. p. 848. Cotovicus p. 311. Quaresmius II. p. 755. Maundrell March 29. Pococke II. p. 31. 6) First mentioned as such apparently by Tucher 1479, and F. The house of Rahab, which they also found, seems to have been nearer the fountain; and has since disappeared; unless indeed it be the foundations and broken arches which are still seen in that vicinity.' Having now nothing further to detain us at the castle and village, and not having yet satisfied ourselves as to the site of ancient Jericho, we determined to make a further search along the base of the mountains near the opening of Wady Kelt. Leaving therefore the castle at 5h 50′ we proceeded along the Wady, and passed the cemetery of the village on the north bank. The graves are built over in the Muhammedan fashion with hewn stones taken from former structures. Crossing the Wady and still following it up, we came in fifteen minutes from the castle to the first aqueduct, carrying a fine full stream of water from 'Ain es-Sultân across to the southern plain. Ten minutes more brought us to the second aqueduct, now in ruins; but which once conveyed in like manner a stream, apparently from the fountain of Dûk, to a higher portion of the plain. Both these aqueducts are well and solidly built of hewn stones with pointed arches. The Wady itself, both here and below, was full of the Nubk or Dôm. We now turned somewhat more to the left, and crossing the Jerusalem track, came at 6h 25' to an immense open shallow reservoir, situated near the base of the western mountain, thirty-five minutes from the castle. It measured 657 feet from E. to W. by 490 feet from N. to S. The direction of the eastern or lower wall is S. 10° W. about six feet high and nine feet thick; all the walls being built of small stones cemented. This reservoir was probably intended to Fabri 1483, Reissb. pp. 670, 268. Quaresm. II. p. 752.-R. de Suchem, W. de Baldensel, and Sir J. Maundeville, in the 14th century, be filled from the waters of Wady Kelt, in order to irrigate this part of the plain in summer; and it may perhaps have been connected with the aqueduct mentioned by travellers, half an hour up that valley on the Jerusalem road.' On the East at a short distance are foundations, apparently of a large square building or block of buildings; and on the West also are scattered substructions, extending for ten minutes up the gentle slope. At this point are the remains of several buildings apparently not very ancient; there is among them no trace of columns, nor hardly of hewn stones. Indeed, in all the foundations in this vicinity, the stones are unhewn and mostly small. All these remains lie at the foot of the mountain, just south of the Jerusalem road; and I do not find that the reservoir has ever been noticed by former travellers. We now proceeded northwards, and found similar substructions extending all the way to Wady Kelt (about ten minutes), and also for some distance on its northern side. Near the southern bank of this Wady is a hill or mound, like a sepulchral tumulus, which one might suppose to be artificial, were there not so many similar ones scattered over the plain below. On its top are traces of former walls; and a wall seems to have run from it to the Wady. Directly on the bank of the latter are a few remains of some ancient building, faced over with small stones about four inches square, cemented together diagonally, forming a sort of Mosaic. Among the scattered foundations north of the Wady, we noticed the fragment of a column; the only trace of an architectural ornament we anywhere saw. This site is not quite five hours from Jerusalem.2 1) Monro I. p. 134. Buckingham p. 293.-From the reservoir the castle at Rîha bore N. 73° E. VOL. II. 38 'Ain es-Sultân N. 15° E. Kakôn N. 75° W. 2) Comp. Maundrell, March 29. |