The Coast Routes.

JAFFA TO ASCALON AND GAZA.

1. This journey may be performed by keeping to the Jerusalem route as far as Ramleh (p. 74), and then striking south-west across a dreary plain, partly sandy, partly covered with weeds, and here and there diversified by a plot of corn, to 'Akir, or Ekron, and thence to Jabneh.

Ekron was the most northerly of the five chief Philistian cities. It was assigned to Judah (Joshua xv. II, 45, 46), and subsequently to Dan (Joshua xix. 43). Though once taken possession of by Judah, it never ceased to be a Philistian town. It was from Ekron that the Philistines finally sent back the Ark of God, after its presence had caused so much calamity in their cities (1 Sam. vi.) In 2 Kings i., Ekron is described as the place to which the dying Ahaziah sent to enquire of Baal-Zebub concerning his hopes of recovery. Amongst the prophecies referring to Ekron, are these in Jer. xxv. 20, Amos i. 8, "I will turn my hand against Ekron;" Zeph. ii. 4, "Ekron shall be rooted up;" also, Zech. ix. 5-7.

All that now represents this once royal city is the village of 'Akir, consisting of a few filthy lanes of mud hovels, inhabited by a ragged populace. Two finely built wells are all that tell of a more prosperous state of things.

2. The direct route from Yâfa, or Jaffa, to Yebna, or Jabneh, runs for thirteen and a half miles along the east side of the sand hills that fringe the Mediterranean coast in this part, and across the Wady Surâr, which is a river in the winter season. The first part of this ride, as soon as the gardens of

Jaffa are left behind is rather dreary, chiefly over sandy tracts, until, on crossing some elevated ground, the plains of Philistia are seen, gracefully undulating, and richly clothed with pastures and growing crops.

"The most striking and characteristic feature of Philistia is its immense plain of corn-fields, stretching from the edge of the sandy tract right up to the very wall of the hills of Judah, which look down its whole length from north to south. Those rich fields must have been the great source at once of the power and value of Philistia, the cause of its frequent aggressions on Israel, and of the unceasing efforts of Israel to master the territory. It was, in fact, ‘a little Egypt.' As in earlier ages the tribes of Palestine, when pressed by famine, went down to the valley of the Nile, so in later ages, when there was a famine in the hills of Samaria and the Plain of Esdraelon, the Shunamite went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years' (2 Kings viii. 2). In that plain of corn and those walls of rock lie the junction of Philistine and Israelitish history, which is the peculiarity of the tribe of Dan. This region is what the Kings of Sidon regarded as 'the root of Dan.' These are the fields of 'standing corn' with vineyards and olives' amongst them, into which the Danite hero sent down the 'three hundred jackals' (Jud. xv. 4) from the neighbouring hills. In the dark openings here and there seen from far in the face of those blue hills, were the fortresses of Dan, whence Samson ' went down' into the plain. Through these same openings, after the fall of Goliath, the Philistines poured back and fled to the gates of Ekron, and through these the milch-kine, lowing as they went, carried back the ark to the hills of Judah (1 Sam. xvii. 52, vi. 12). In the caves which pierce the sides of the limestone cliffs of Lekieh and Deir-Dubbàn

on the plain, may probably be found the refuge of Samson in the cliff' Etam before his victory with the jawbone, as, perhaps, afterwards, of David in the Cave of Adullam. It is not often that on the same scene events so romantic have been enacted at such an interval of time, as the deeds of strength which were wrought in this plain by him 'before whose lion ramp the bold Askalonite fell,' and those of our own Cœur de Lion."

Yebna is a modern town, with some ruins of the ancient Jabneh, or Jamnia, and also of a church of the Crusaders. It is well situated on an eminence declining towards the sea. The population is about 3000, subsisting chiefly by agriculture, and gathering abundant harvests with very rude appliances from the fertile lands of the vicinity. The threshing-floors round the village, and the oxen treading out the corn, are exceedingly illustrative of Scripture usages.

Jabneh was a town on the boundary of Judah, as seen in Joshua xv. II. It came into the power of the Philistines, from whom Uzziah took it, and "broke down the wall" (2 Chron. xxvi. 6). In the time of the Maccabees the place was called Jamnia(1 Macc. iv. 15). See also 2 Macc. xi. 40, where it is recorded that after the overthrow of Georgias by Judas Maccabeus at this place, the latter "found under the coats of every one that was slain things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites. Then every man saw that this was the cause for which they were slain." There must then have been idols and temples here at that time. Strabo says this district was densely populated, and that 40,000 armed men came forth from Jamnia and its vicinity. Of the harbour of Jamnia, at the mouth of the Wady Surâr, no trace remains. This was the place where Judas Maccabeus " set fire to the haven and the navy, so that the light was seen at Jerusalem " (2 Macc. xii. 9).

It is said that after the fall of Jerusalem Jamnia became noted as a seat of learning, and that Gamaliel was buried here.

Leaving the island-like hill on which Yebna stands, the traveller crosses the plain towards Esdûd.

Esdud (anciently Ashdod) is a magnificent village, beautifully situated on the eastern slope of a hill, in the midst of a richly fertile country. The cornfields sweep up to the very base of the hill, and there are terraces of orchards teeming with apricots and pomegranates, olives and figs, in place of the temples and palaces of the ancient city. The village is a mass of filth and squalor and wretchedness. Heaps of stones and a few fragments of capitals and columns, one granite column and a sculptured sarcophagus, are about all that remain to whisper of what once has been. Yet on this hill once stood the great temple of the Fish-god, Dagon, and the mighty Acropolis, that took Psammetichus twenty-nine years to subdue.

"How sad, and yet how glorious," says the author of the Giant Cities of Bashan," is the view from the top of that hill, beneath which the dust of a mighty city lies dishonoured! On the one side the noble plain, stretching away to the foot of Judah's mountains, here and there cultivated, but mostly neglected and desolate, yet all naturally fertile as in the palmy days of Philistia's power. On the

other side, a dreary, hopeless waste of drifting sand, washed, away yonder, by the waves of the Mediterranean; and here at our feet, advancing with slow and silent, but resistless step, covering and to cover flower and tree, ancient ruin and modern, but in one common tomb."

Ashdod (signifying stronghold or castle) was one of the royal Philistine cities assigned to the tribe of Judah (Josh. xiii. 3). The possessors, however, were never ousted. The

town was specially celebrated for the worship of Dagon, the Fish-god. In 1 Sam. v. we read of the disgrace of the idol in presence of the ark of God, and the plague sent on the inhabitants of the city. The walls were broken down by King Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 6), and the city was afterwards taken by Tartan, the general of the King of Assyria (Isa. XX. I).

Ashdod was a source of intermixture to the Jewish people, and often a cause of transgression. Nehemiah sorely lamented these things when he "saw Jews that had married wives of Ashdod . . . and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language" (chap. xiii. 23, 24).

The prophecies against Ashdod are in Jer. xxv. 20; Amos i. 8, "I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod " (Amos iii. 9; Zeph. ii. 4); "they shall drive out Ashdod at the noonday" (Zech. ix. 6).

In the New Testament, Ashdod, or Azotus, is mentioned as the place where Philip was found after the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts viii. 40).

In 650 B.C. Ashdod endured the longest siege in the history of the world, being invested by Pasammetichus for twenty-nine years, as related by Herodotus. During the Maccabean wars the place was destroyed and rebuilt (1 Macc. v. 68, x. 84). In early Christian times Azotus was an episcopal see, as also in the time of the Crusades.

Leaving Esdûd, the road to the south is followed across a plain constantly encroached upon by the sands. Passing Hamâmeh, with its orange-groves and well-cultivated gardens, El-Mejdel is reached. This is a large and thriving village. There is a good bazaar, and numerous substantial stone houses, and a few fragments of old ruins, consisting chiefly of large hewn stones and broken columns. Under the