Stream from under Mount of Temptation
On the west of Jericho rise the rugged cliffs of Quarantania, which since the twelfth century has been shown as the Mount of our Lord’s Temptation. Its great cliffs frown above a green oasis, where the Sultan’s Spring, called by Christians “Elisha’s Spring,” rises and spreads verdure as far as the site of ancient Jericho, which once depended upon it for water. Standing upon this height we can see the plain of Jordan below us, the road taken by Joshua and the army of Israel when they advanced into the interior of Canaan, the road passed by Samuel on his way to Gibeah of Benjamin, and possibly the path on which Elijah and Elisha descended together for the last time. For many centuries devout persons of many nations have come here for days or years of fasting until the face of the mountain is honey-combed with cells and caves. Even now a few Abyssinian Christians keep Lent here each spring. Canon Tristram, who, with his party, by the aid of Bedouin guides, explored these cliffs, says: “On the eastern face of the mountain are thirty or forty habitable caves or chapels and probably a much larger number on the south face, in the gorge of the kelt.” Dr. Thomson at an earlier date found that they were inhabited by Bedouin robbers, and no one could venture near them. This is really a city of hermits. It is claimed that from this mountain Abraham and Lot descended to the fair plain of Jordan. In our picture we see the stream that flows from underneath the Mount of Temptation.
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