Identifier: holylandbible01geikuoft (find matches)
Title: The Holy Land and the Bible;
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Geikie, John C. (John Cunningham), 1824-1906
Subjects: Bible Palestine -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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, are no less striking than on the now desert, sand-blownSouth. Ten miles north-east of the Beersheba wells are the ruins of atown among the hills, so full of ancient wells and leseruoirs that Pal-mer gave it the name of the City of Cisterns, a whole system ofcisterns literally undermining the hills. The houses are still standing,in ruins, along the crest of a triple hill; their walls built of huge blocksof flint conglomerate, many of which measure six feet in length, fourin thickness, and two in Ijreadth ; the houses formed of them beingmostly of one room, about thirty feet by twenty. One large buildinghas the appearance of a temple; and the hills around are still coveredwith ruins. Another similar town, Saawi, lies about ten miles east ofBeersheba. Fifteen miles north-east of the latter place, and 1,400 feetabove it, are the ruins of Dhahariyeh, ^ ot tlie entrance of Palestine I Judg. i. 17. The identification is very doubtful. 2 Beerslieba (level), 781 feet; Dhahariyeh, 2,180 feet.
Text Appearing After Image:
Interior of a great cavern near Bet Jibrim. (See page 188.) XII) BEERSHEBA. 167 proper, among hills covered with vegetation and dotted witli the dwarfoak, wliich lirst appears here. The valley is banked up with strong walls and terraces of venerableage, running along wliere now there is no cultivation. ))hahariyehitself is surrounded with fields, and there are two fuic olive-trees at thefoot of the hill on which it stands. Its houses consist chiefly uf cavesin the natural rock, some of them with rude arches carved over thedoorways, and all of the greatest antiquity. Small terraces on thehill-side have been chosen for the excavation of these caves, the levelobtained in front being fenced round with a mud wall, as a courtyardbefore the cave itself; dogs, goats, chickens, children, and other mem-bers of the household using it to take the air. These strange dwellingsn^ust be exactly like those of the old Ilorites, or Cave-men, who, inAbrahams day, lived in Mount Seir,^ where they were aft

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