JERICHO. 
The ancient Jericho has wholly disappeared, with the exception of some foundations 
of the external walls. The modern, which bears the Arab name of Erilia, is a miserable 
village, with a Saracenic tower, entitled the Castle, in its centre. The houses are ruins, 
formed of ruins, and generally surrounded with a thorny hedge, within which the cattle 
are brought at night, thus increasing the squalidness of the scene. The population 
amount to about two hundred souls. Yet it stands in a plain capable of the highest 
fertility, once the famous soil of the palm, the vine, the balsam-tree, and almost every 
other rich product of the earth. 
The climate of Jericho is excessively hot, and especially unhealthy for strangers. 
In traversing the short distance between Jerusalem and Jericho, the traveller passes 
from a pure and temperate atmosphere into the sultry heat of an Egyptian climate. Nor 
is this surprising, when it is considered that the caldron of the Dead Sea and the Valley 
of the Jordan lie several hundred feet below the level of the ocean, and nearly three 
thousand feet lower than Jerusalem . 1 
To the left of the Castle are the ruins of a Christian Church, on the walls of which 
may still be seen some very good Greek paintings. The dark tents of a party of 
Bedouins occupy the foreground; the cattle are enclosed in the centre of the circle 
during the night for protection. The more extensive encampment of the pilgrims lay 
behind the sand-hills, at some distance from the Castle. 
The Artist’s description of this scene and its accompaniments brings the whole 
clearly and gracefully before the eye. 
“ Our encampment was soon buried in sleep as the night came on, though occasionally 
I caught sounds of the song and the dance, either from the tents of the pilgrims or our 
Arab guard. The night was one of the most beautiful which I had seen even in that 
country, and the moon was reflected in all its brightness on the silent waters of the 
Dead Sea. 
“ I lay down, with my tent-door open, watching the lights glittering from tent to 
tent, and wondering at the combination of creeds gathered together, to visit scenes so dear 
to the memory of the Christian. Many were from the most distant parts of the Russian 
Empire, and near me sat a black group of Abyssinians in their blue turbans. . . . 
“ Before two in the morning, the whole host were roused; and at three, a gun gave 
the signal that the Governor was on horseback, and had moved forward. We followed, 
and overtook him. Lights were carried before the Governor. The moon was casually 
obscured by heavy clouds; but its light now and then burst upon the long cavalcade, 
seen as far as the eye could reach. We moved on in silence, and the heavy tread 
of the dense mass was the only sound that broke the stillness of the Desert. Day at 
last began to dawn, and the scene became only more interesting .” 2 
1 Biblical Researches, ii. 282. 
2 Roberts’s Journal. 
