218 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



OLD OLIVE TREES IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 



'THE illustration for this subject affords a peep into the Garden 

 of Gethsernane, and in the picture is seen the golden 

 gate in the East wall of Jerusalem, a hundred feet or so above 

 the bottom of the valley in which once flowed Wady Sitty Mar- 

 yam. The snarled, venerable olive trees in the middle of the gar- 

 den still clinging to a hoary remnant of enfeebled life, enlist 

 attention. This Garden of Gethsernane can be nothing more 

 than a folk-lore affair, because the exact locality of the real 

 garden was never recorded, and these frail trunks common about 

 Jerusalem may claim an antiquity of one or two hundred years. 

 Nothing short of a stupid credulity would ever credit them with 

 eighteen or nineteen hundred, yet some guide books declare they 



come to this walled in, sanctified ground, and whether or not 

 this garden may be the real or traditional spot, it is in the 

 real valley of the Agony and sufficiently near for devotional 

 impression. These trees have been solemnized not only by 

 years, but by the kisses of devout lips, as have been most things 

 connected with the sacred bit of ground. Twenty thousand peo- 

 ple visited Palestine annually ; fifteen thousand of these were 

 Russian pilgrims. The Russian Government assisted the pil- 

 grims to reach the Holy Land, and when they reached it no 

 shrine real or traditional escaped them ; the sincerity of their 

 devotion was pathetic and impressive. They were given to ex- 

 pressing their devout feelings by kissing the objects which 







TREE ON WHICH JUDAS IS SAID TO HAVE HANGED HIMSELF 



This story may impress the tourist who does not know that the tree is at most only a few score years old but that fact does not prevent the 

 guides at Jerusalem from calmly declaring that it is the original tree on which Judas hanged himself. 



have sprung from successive growths extending back to the 

 time of Christ. The olive tree, like the apple tree, has not the 

 renovating growth of the banyan, or the persistency of the 

 bo-tree, and trees of warm latitudes. The garden is in control 

 of Franciscan monks, who point out the place of the Agony, 

 where the disciples slept, and the place where Judas gave the 

 kiss of betrayal. > 



Whether the ancestors of these decrepit trees were contem- 

 poraneous with Christ or not, they are very old; they are bible 

 trees; they have seen many generations of devoted pilgrims 



awaken these feelings. The so-called tomb of Christ in the 

 Church of the Holy Sepulchre is worn into cavities by the kisses 

 of their pious lips. They kissed the seven stations on the 

 Via Dolorosa through which Christ walked on the way to 

 Calvary ; they purchased pilgrim stocks and went afoot to Jericho 

 and the Jordan. On the way to Jericho they kissed the spot where 

 the wayfarer was "held up" by thieves ; they kissed the ruins at 

 Jericho ; they kissed the Jordan River and the Dead Sea ; and 

 these old olive trees in the Garden of Gethsernane have endured 

 a goodly apportionment of Russian osculation. 



THE TREE ON WHICH JUDAS HANGED HIMSELF 



'T 1 HIS is not offered as an historic but as a traditional tree, 

 and to show how many and how ridiculous are the myths and 

 traditions presented to the credulity of pilgrims visiting the city 

 of the great King. So much tradition, and so little historic 

 fact there is the traditional place where the tree grew from 

 which the cross was made, the traditional place of crucifixion, 

 the traditional Garden of Gethsernane, the traditional tomb of 

 Christ, in short the well-nigh traditional everything save the 



geographical features of the city's site and surroundings. The 

 feeblest and most modern of all the traditions offered by tra- 

 dition mongers, is that giving, as the tree on which Judas hanged 

 himself, a recent growth of perhaps a few score years. Some 

 sense has been displayed, however, in the choice of a likely tree ; 

 for it is located a little South of the city, conveniently near 

 Aceldama ; besides, it has a fantastic, lop-sided branching which 

 offers a free suspension. It is also of a convenient height for 

 the attachment and manipulation of the beneficent hemp. 



