Not far thence we one day crossed the great gorge of Michmash, where was the fortress of the Philistines that Jonathan assaulted. We were able to lead our horses down from ledge to ledge, following the strata, to the bottom of the valley on its south side; but on the north towered the cliff of Bozez (“the shining”), which the Hebrew hero scaled. Here no horse could find a footing, and climbing up to visit the hermit’s caves, I was able to judge the effort which would be necessary to scale the whole height and then to fight at the top. No doubt the garrison must have regarded Jonathan’s feat as practically impossible.
The ridge on which Jerusalem stands, 2500 feet above the Mediterranean, runs southwards, gradually rising to 3000 feet in the neighbourhood of Hebron, where the open valley of vineyards forms one of the heads of the great Beersheba watercourse. This difficult region was surveyed in the autumn of 1874, and many ancient sites and ruins were discovered. We were not, however, at that time able to enter the Hebron Sanctuary, which had never been fully explored, and which is one of the most interesting places in Palestine. In 1882, however, I accompanied the Princes Albert Victor and George of Wales, who, under the guidance of Sir Charles Wilson, explored this zealously-guarded mosque, of which I then made the only complete plan in existence. The Haram (or “Sanctuary”) at Hebron is an oblong enclosure, repeating that of the Temple of Jerusalem on a smaller scale. It is not mentioned by early writers, yet there can be little doubt that it must be the work of Herod the Great, or of one of his immediate successors. It already existed in 333 A.D., and the walls are so exactly like those of the Jerusalem Haram, that they cannot be supposed the work of the Byzantine emperors.
The ramparts enclose a mediæval church and a courtyard, built over an ancient rock-cut cave, which in all ages has been regarded as the sepulchre purchased by Abraham from the sons of Heth, where Sarah first is said to have been buried, and afterwards Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Rebecca and Leah. Six cenotaphs, like Moslem tombs, covered with rich embroidered cloths, stand in the enclosure--two inside the church (now a mosque), two in chapels beside the porch of the same, and two in buildings against the opposite rampart walls. It is not however supposed, even by Moslems, that these are the real tombs; they only mark supposed sites of tombs beneath the floor. These lower tombs, which Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish traveller of the twelfth century, claims to have seen, are now inaccessible, and it is impossible to say how far his account can be trusted.[31] In the floor of the mosque there are two entrances closed by flagstones, which are said to lead down by steps into the rock-cut cave. No Moslem would dare to enter this sacred cavern, where, as they say, Isaac would await and slay them, while Jewish legends tell that Eliezer of Damascus stands at the door to watch the repose of Abraham asleep in the arms of Sarah. There is, however, a hole in the floor which pierces the roof of a square chamber, lighted by a silver lamp suspended from the mouth of the hole.