DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0412
104
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
f CHAP XI
themselves, according to Eastern custom, my most obedien
slaves.
We mustered ten persons m all, including the seven Bedouin,
two servants, and myself: I rode forward alone, and a lonelier
scene never echoed to a traveller's tread: when a turn in the
road hid my own cavalcade from view, there was no longer a
sign of life in all the dreary valley: the path lay through defiles
of steep and rocky hills, piei'ced everywhere with caves and fis-
sures that harboured only the jackal and the outlaw. The scen-
ery became grander, gloomier, and sterner, as we approached
Mar Saba ; the dry bed of the brook Kedron ran winding through
the most extraordinary fissure, which clove, not a rock, but a
mountain, some ten or twelve miles in length: its lofty and pre-
cipitous sides presented curiously contorted strata in their jagged
and vertical cliffs; and were pierced with innumerable caverns,
wherein the Eremites of old lived under Hilarion's rule. The
Carismians slaughtered, it is said, 10,000 of those solitaries,
whose bones were afterwards piously collected and buried beneath
the convent-church of Mar Saba.
At length, after four hours' riding along dry, brown, and barren
cliffs, on which no lizard glanced, or herbage grew, I came in
sight of the magnificent and romantic monastery, that has stood
in these savage solitudes for 1300 years. It covers the side of an
almost precipitous ravine, occupying the whole face of the cliff
from base to summit; battlemented walls enclose it on every side,
and a deep, dark, narrow glen yawns beneath it: at its base lies
the bed of the brook Kedron, which turns away to the left, and
runs into the Dead Sea through the mountains of Engedi.
The Bedouin unceremoniously led their horses in through a
small postern gate off the road, which ran level with the highest
part of the monastery, and my servants and I descended by a
winding path to the chief gate. There were several monks scat-
tered over the cliffs, and gazing on the setting sun, whose last
beams lighted up even those fearful chasms with something of a
cheerful smile. I was admitted, and somewhat coldly received,
by a venerable-looking friar, who told me afterwards he had taken
me for a Turk. As soon as it transpired that an Englishman had
arrived, several monks came forward, and escorted me with hos-
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
f CHAP XI
themselves, according to Eastern custom, my most obedien
slaves.
We mustered ten persons m all, including the seven Bedouin,
two servants, and myself: I rode forward alone, and a lonelier
scene never echoed to a traveller's tread: when a turn in the
road hid my own cavalcade from view, there was no longer a
sign of life in all the dreary valley: the path lay through defiles
of steep and rocky hills, piei'ced everywhere with caves and fis-
sures that harboured only the jackal and the outlaw. The scen-
ery became grander, gloomier, and sterner, as we approached
Mar Saba ; the dry bed of the brook Kedron ran winding through
the most extraordinary fissure, which clove, not a rock, but a
mountain, some ten or twelve miles in length: its lofty and pre-
cipitous sides presented curiously contorted strata in their jagged
and vertical cliffs; and were pierced with innumerable caverns,
wherein the Eremites of old lived under Hilarion's rule. The
Carismians slaughtered, it is said, 10,000 of those solitaries,
whose bones were afterwards piously collected and buried beneath
the convent-church of Mar Saba.
At length, after four hours' riding along dry, brown, and barren
cliffs, on which no lizard glanced, or herbage grew, I came in
sight of the magnificent and romantic monastery, that has stood
in these savage solitudes for 1300 years. It covers the side of an
almost precipitous ravine, occupying the whole face of the cliff
from base to summit; battlemented walls enclose it on every side,
and a deep, dark, narrow glen yawns beneath it: at its base lies
the bed of the brook Kedron, which turns away to the left, and
runs into the Dead Sea through the mountains of Engedi.
The Bedouin unceremoniously led their horses in through a
small postern gate off the road, which ran level with the highest
part of the monastery, and my servants and I descended by a
winding path to the chief gate. There were several monks scat-
tered over the cliffs, and gazing on the setting sun, whose last
beams lighted up even those fearful chasms with something of a
cheerful smile. I was admitted, and somewhat coldly received,
by a venerable-looking friar, who told me afterwards he had taken
me for a Turk. As soon as it transpired that an Englishman had
arrived, several monks came forward, and escorted me with hos-