ROUTE 8. EXCURSION TO BETHANY

ROUTE 8. EXCURSION TO BETHANY.

Every one who can by any possibility walk 3 m. should make this excursion on foot. Half the pleasure is lost if it be hurried over. Every step is “holy ground,” trodden by prophets and apostles, and ONE greater than them all. We thus often feel constrained to sit down, and calmly contemplate scenes unsurpassed on earth for sacred interest.

SAMARIA, SEBASTE, SEBUSTIEH - 1858

 SAMARIA, SEBASTE, SEBUSTIEH. The situation of this royal city, if less beautiful, is more commanding than that of its sister Shechem. Nearly in the centre of a basin, about 5 m. in diameter, rises a flattish, oval-shaped hill, to the height of some 300 feet. On the summit is a long and nearly level plateau, which breaks down at the sides, 100 feet or more, to an irregular terrace or belt of level land; below this the roots of the hill spread off more gradually into the surrounding valleys.

THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON

THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON, the great battle-field of Palestine, on which we have now entered, requires a few words of general description before we proceed to visit the many places of interest situated upon it. The main body of the plain is an irregular triangle, its base to the E. extending from Jenîn to the foot of the mountains below Nazareth, about 15 m.; one side formed by the hills of Galilee, and measuring about 12 m.; the other—some 18 m. in length—running along the northern foot of the Samaria range. The apex is a narrow pass not more than 1/2  m.

Safed - 1858

SAFED is situated on an isolated peak, which rises steeply from the southern brow of the mountain-range. A deep glen sweeps round its northern and western sides, and a shallower one, after skirting the eastern side, falls into the former a few miles to the S. Beyond these, on the N.E., N., and W. are higher hills, but on the S. the view is unimpeded. The old castle crowns the peak; the Jewish quarter of the town clings to the steep western side considerably below the summit, the rows of houses looking at a distance like stairs.

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