Book I

, chaps. iii and iv, when speaking of Zur, whom he associates with Sorrento. Benjamin had few other sources of information. In the immediate neighbourhood of Pozzuoli is Solfatara, where sulphur is found. A destructive eruption from the crater took place in 1198. Hot springs abound, and the baths at Bagnoli are much frequented to the present day. The underground road is the Piedi grotta of Posilipo, constructed by Augustus.]

[Footnote 31: R. Isaac, the father of R. Judah, must be the "Greek Locust" against whom Ibn Ezra directed his satire when visiting Salerno some twenty years before R. Benjamin. See Graetz, VI, p. 441.]

[Footnote 32: Cf. Isaiah lxvi. 19.]

[Footnote 33: This city was destroyed by William the Bad in 1156. It was ordered to be restored by William the Good in 1169, so that Benjamin must have visited Bari before that date. See p. 79, note 2. We have here another clue as to the date of Benjamin's travels.]

[Footnote 34: See H.M. Adler's article on Jews in Southern Italy, _J.Q.R._, XIV, p. 111. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, chap. lvi, describing the reconquest of the southern provinces of Italy by the Byzantine Emperor Manuel, 1155, says. "The natives of Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship."]

[Footnote 35: The river Achelous falls into the Ionian Sea opposite to Ithaca.]

[Footnote 36: Anatolica is now known as Aetolicum.]

[Footnote 37: Patras, the ancient Patrae, was founded long before the time of Antipater. _Josippon_, II, chap. xxiii, is again the questionable authority on which Benjamin relied.]

[Footnote 38: Lepanto in the early Middle Ages was called Naupactus or Epacto, and to reach it from Patras the Gulf of Corinth had to be crossed.]

[Footnote 39: Chalcis, the capital of Euboea or Negroponte, is even now called Egripo. It is situated on the Straits of Euripus.]

[Footnote 40: Some twenty years later the Wallachians were in open revolt and became independent of the Byzantine Empire. Gibbon, chap. lx.]

[Footnote 41: See Gibbon, chap. liii. He often quotes Benjamin.]

[Footnote 42: The Grand Duchy of Kieff was called Russia. See page 81.]

[Footnote 43: The Petchinegs, as well as the Khazars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Turks, are called by Josippon, I, chap. i, descendants of Togarma. Patzinakia was the country from the Danube to the Dnieper, and corresponds with Dacia of classical times.]

[Footnote 44: The readings of E and A are corrupt. R has [Hebrew:], and BM. has [Hebrew:], the southern provinces of Russia were spoken of as the land of the Khazars, especially by Jewish writers, long after the Russian conquest about the year 1000, and the Crimea was known to European travellers as Gazaria. It took Rabbi Pethachia eight days to pass through the land of the Khazars. See Dr. A. Benisch, _Translation of Petachia's Travels_. In note 3, p. 70, he gives a short sketch of their history. The ruling dynasty and most of the inhabitants embraced the Jewish religion.]

[Footnote 45: _Procopius_, vol. I (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society), gives a full description of Constantinople.]

[Footnote 46: The commentator, wrongly supposed to be Rashi, gives an interesting note upon the passage in I Chron. xx. 2, where it is mentioned that David took the crown of the king of the children of Ammon, and found it to weigh a talent of gold, and it was set upon David's head. Rashi states that the meaning of the passage must be that this crown was hung above David's throne, and adds that he heard in Narbonne that this practice was still kept up by the kings in the East.]

[Footnote 47: See for a full account of these powerful Seljuk Sultans F. Lebrecht's Essay on the Caliphate of Bagdad during the latter half of the twelfth century. Vol. II of A. Asher's _Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin_.]

[Footnote 48: Ibn Verga, _Shevet Jehuda_, XXV, states that a predecessor of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus issued an edict prohibiting the Jews from residing elsewhere than in Pera, and restricting their occupation to tanning and shipbuilding.]

[Footnote 49: This place is mentioned by _Procopius_, p. 119, as having been fortified by Justinian. It is now known as Rodosto.]

[Footnote 50: Ibn Ezra visited Cyprus before his arrival in London in 1158, when he wrote the _Sabbath Epistle_. It is not unlikely that the heterodox practices of the sect of whom Benjamin here speaks had been put forward in certain books to which Ibn Ezra alludes, and induced him to compose the pamphlet in defence of the traditional mode of observance of the Sabbath day. This supposition is not inconsistent with Graetz's theory, vol. VI, p. 447. See also Dr. Friedlander, _Ibn Ezra in England, J.Q.R._, VIII, p. 140, and Joseph Jacobs, _The Jews of Angevin England_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 51: See Gibbon, chaps, lviii and lix; Charles Mills, _History of the Crusades_, I, p. 159; C.R. Conder, _Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 52: The several MSS. give different readings. The kingdom reached to the Taurus mountains and the Sultanate of Rum or Iconium.]

[Footnote 53: Beazley remarks that Benjamin must have passed along this coast before 1167, when Thoros died at peace and on terms of vassalage to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. Malmistras is forty-five miles from Tarsus. Both had been recaptured by Manuel in 1155. _Josippon_, I, chap. i, identifies Tarshish with Tarsus.]

[Footnote 54: No doubt the river Fer, otherwise Orontes, is here referred to. Ancient Antioch lies on the slope of Mount Silpius, and the city-wall erected by Justinian extended from the river up to the hill-plateau. Abulfeda says: "The river of Hamâh is also called Al Urunt or the Nahr al Maklûb (the Overturned) on account of its course from south to north; or, again, it is called Al' Âsi (the Rebel), for the reason that though most rivers water the lands on their borders without the aid of water-wheels, the river of Hamâh will not irrigate the lands except by the aid of machines for raising its waters." (Guy le Strange, _Palestine under the Moslems_, p. 59.) It is strange that R. Benjamin should call the Orontes the river Jabbok, but he always takes care to add that it rises in the Lebanon, to avoid any misconception that the Jabbok which falls into the Jordan is meant.]

[Footnote 55: Boemond III, surnamed le Baube (the Stammerer), succeeded his mother in 1163. We owe the doubtless correct rendering of this passage to the ingenuity of the late Joseph Zedner. Benjamin visited Antioch before 1170, when a fearful earthquake destroyed a great part of the city.]

[Footnote 56: It must be inferred from the context here, as well as from other passages, that when Benjamin mentions the number of Jews residing at a particular place he refers to the heads of families.]

[Footnote 57: Gebal is the Gabala of ancient geographers. See Schechter, _Saadyana_, p. 25. Many travellers, among them Robinson, identify Baal-Gad with Banias, others suppose it to be Hasbeya.]

[Footnote 58: Hashishim--hemp-smokers--hence is derived the word "assassin." See Socin, _Palestine and Syria_, pp. 68 and 99. Ibn Batuta and other Arabic writers have much to say about the Assassins or Mulahids, as they call them. They are again referred to by Benjamin on p. 54, where he states that in Persia they haunted the mountainous district of Mulahid, under the sway of the Old Man of the Mountain. The manner in which the Sheik acquired influence over his followers is amusingly described by Marco Polo (_The Book of Ser Marco Polo_: translated and edited by Colonel Sir Henry Yule; third edition, London, John Murray, 1903): "In a fertile and sequestered valley he placed every conceivable thing pleasant to man--luxurious palaces, delightful gardens, fair damsels skilled in music, dancing, and song, in short, a veritable paradise! When desirous of sending any of his band on some hazardous enterprise the Old Man would drug them and place them while unconscious in this glorious valley. But it was not for many days that they were allowed to revel in the joys of paradise. Another potion was given to them, and when the young men awoke they found themselves in the presence of the Old Man of the Mountain. In the hope of again possessing the joys of paradise they were ready to embark upon any desperate errand commanded by the Old Man." Marco Polo mentions that the Old Man found crafty deputies, who with their followers settled in parts of Syria and Kurdistan. He adds that, in the year 1252, Alaü, lord of the Tartars of the Levant, made war against the Old Man, and slaughtered him with many of his followers. Yule gives a long list of murders or attempts at murder ascribed to the Assassins. Saladin's life was attempted in 1174-6. Prince Edward of England was slain at Acre in 1172. The sect is not quite extinct. They have spread to Bombay and Zanzibar, and number in Western India over 50,000. The mention of the Old Man of the Mountain will recall to the reader the story of Sinbad the Sailor in _The Arabian Nights_.]

[Footnote 59: See Parchi, _Caphtor wa-pherach_, an exhaustive work on Palestine written 1322, especially chap. xi. The author spent over seven years in exploring the country.]

[Footnote 60: Socin, the author of Baedeker's _Handbook to Palestine and Syria_, p. 557, gives the year of the earthquake 1157. It is referred to again p. 31. There was a very severe earthquake in this district also in 1170, and the fact that Benjamin does not refer to it furnishes us with another _terminus ad quem_.]

[Footnote 61: See the narrative of William of Tyre.]

[Footnote 62: Gubail, the ancient Gebal, was noted for its artificers and stonecutters. Cf. I Kings v. 32; Ezek. xxvii. 9. The Greeks named the place Byblos, the birthplace of Philo. The coins of Byblos have a representation of the Temple of Astarte. All along the coast we find remains of the worship of Baal Kronos and Baaltis, of Osiris and Isis, and it is probable that the worship of Adonis and Jupiter-Ammon led Benjamin to associate therewith the Ammonites. The reference to the children of Ammon is based on a misunderstanding, arising perhaps out of Ps. lxxxiii. 8.]

[Footnote 63: _The Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund_ for 1886 and 1889 give a good deal of information concerning the religion of the Druses. Their morality is there described as having been much maligned.]

[Footnote 64: Tyre was noted for its glass-ware and sugar factories up to 1291, when it was abandoned by the Crusaders, and destroyed by the Moslems.]

[Footnote 65: This name is applied to the Kishon, mentioned further on, celebrated in Deborah's song (Judg. v. 21), but it is about five miles south of Acre, the river nearest to the town being the Belus, noted for its fine sand suitable for glass-making. It is not unlikely that R. Benjamin alludes to the celebrated ox-spring of which Arab writers have much to say. Mukkadasi writes in 985: "Outside the eastern city gate is a spring. This they call Ain al Bakar, relating how it was Adam--peace be upon him!--who discovered this spring, and gave his oxen water therefrom, whence its name."]

[Footnote 66: Gath-Hepher, the birthplace of Jonah, near Kefr Kenna, in the territory of Zebulon (Joshua xix. 13), is not here referred to, but the land of Hepher, I Kings iv. 10 is probably meant.]

[Footnote 67: In Benjamin's time hermits, who eventually founded the Carmelite order of monks, occupied grottoes on Mount Carmel.]

[Footnote 68: Benjamin travelled along the coast to Caesarea. Mr. Guy Le Strange (_Palestine under the Moslems_, 1890, p. 477) writes: "Tall Kanîsah, or Al Kunaisah, the Little Church, is the mound a few miles north of Athlith, which the Crusaders took to be the site of Capernaum." Benjamin must have known very well that Maon, which was contiguous to another Carmel (referred to in Joshua xv. 55), belonged to Judah, and was not in the north of Palestine. Here, as in the case of Gath and elsewhere, he quotes what was the hearsay identification current at the time he visited these places. See an article by C.R. Conder on "Early Christian Topography" in the _Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund_ for 1876, p.16. Cf. _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition_, by Prof. Fr. Hommel, p. 243.]

[Footnote 69: In the time of the Crusaders Gath was supposed to be near Jamnia, but nothing definite is known as to its site. (Baedeker, _Handbook to Palestine and Syria_, 1876, p. 317.)]

[Footnote 70: It lies between Caesarea and Lydda. See Conder's _Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem_. Munk's _Palestine_ might also be consulted with advantage.]

[Footnote 71: The tomb of St. George is still shown in the Greek church at Lydda.]

[Footnote 72: Mr. A. Cowley in an article on the Samaritan Liturgy in _J. Q.R._, VII, 125, states that the "House of Aaron" died out in 1624. The office then went to another branch, the priest being called [Hebrew:], the Levite Cohon. Cf. Adler and Seligsohn's _Une nouvelle chronique Samaritaine_. (Paris: Durlacher, 1903.)]

[Footnote 73: The small square building known as Joseph's tomb lies a short distance north of Jacob's well, at the eastern entrance to the vale of Nablous.]

[Footnote 74: Cf. Guy Le Strange, _Palestine_, 381, and Rapoport's Note 166, Asher's _Benjamin_, vol. II, p. 87.]

[Footnote 75: The MSS. are defective here; starting from Shechem, Mount Gilboa, which to this day presents a bare appearance, is in a different direction to Ajalon. It is doubtful whether Benjamin personally visited all the places mentioned in his _Itinerary_. His visit took place not long after the second great Crusade, when Palestine under the kings of Jerusalem was disturbed by internal dissensions and the onslaughts of the Saracens under Nur-ed-din of Damascus and his generals. Benjamin could at best visit the places of note only when the opportunity offered.]

[Footnote 76: This and most of the other places mentioned by Benjamin are more or less identified in the very important work published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, _The Survey of Western Palestine_. Our author's statements are carefully examined, and Colonel Conder, after expatiating upon the extraordinary mistakes made by writers in the time of the Crusaders, some of whom actually confounded the sea of Galilee with the Mediterranean, says: "The mediæval Jewish pilgrims appear as a rule to have had a much more accurate knowledge both of the country and of the Bible. Their assertions are borne out by existing remains, and are of the greatest value."]

[Footnote 77: King Baldwin III died in 1162, and was succeeded by his brother Almaric.]

[Footnote 78: The reading of the Roman MS. that there were but four Jewish inhabitants at Jerusalem is in conformity with R. Pethachia, who passed through Palestine some ten or twenty years after R. Benjamin, and found but one Jew there. The [Hebrew: daleth] meaning four would easily be misread for [Hebrew: resh] meaning 200.]

[Footnote 79: The Knights of the Hospital of St. John and the Templars are here referred to. See Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_; Charles Mills, _History of the Crusades_, 4th edition, vol. I, p. 342, and Besant and Palmer's _Jerusalem_, chap. ix.]

[Footnote 80: Cf. the writings of Mukaddasi the Hierosolomite, one of the publications of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society. See also Edrisi's and Ali of Herat's works. Chap. iii of Guy Le Strange's _Palestine_ gives full extracts of Edrisi's account written in 1154 and Ali's in 1173. See also five plans of Jerusalem designed between 1160 and 1180, vol. XV, _Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins._]

[Footnote 81: Ezek. xx. 35. The idea that the Gorge of Jehoshaphat will be the scene of the last judgment is based upon Joel iv. 2. Cf. M.N. Adler, _Temple at Jerusalem_ and Sir Charles Warren's Comments.]

[Footnote 82: In memory of Absalom's disobedience to his father, it is customary with the Jews to pelt this monument with stones to the present day. The adjoining tomb is traditionally known as that of Zechariah, 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, King Uzziah, otherwise Azariah, was buried on Mount Zion, close to the other kings of Judah, 2 Kings xv. 7. Cf. P.E. F., _Jerusalem_, as to identification of sites. Sir Charles Wilson, _Picturesque Palestine_, gives excellent illustrations of the holy places, and his work might be consulted with advantage.]

[Footnote 83: Pillars of salt are to be met with elsewhere, for instance at Hammam Meskutim in Algeria. They are caused by spouts of water, in which so great a quantity of salt is contained as at times to stop up the aperture of the spring. The latter, however, is again unsealed through cattle licking off the salt near the aperture, and the same process of filling up and unstopping goes on continually. Cf. Talmud Berachot, 54 a.]

[Footnote 84: See Baedeker's _Palestine and Syria_, pp. 233, 236; also Schwartz, _Palestine_, 1852, p. 230 and Dr. Robinson's _Palestine_, I, p. 516.]

[Footnote 85: Edrisi in 1154 writes: "The tomb is covered by twelve stones, and above it is a dome vaulted over with stones."]

[Footnote 86: Compare R. Pethachia's account of his visit (_Travels of Rabbi Petachia_: translated by Dr. A. Benisch; London, Trübner & Co., 1856, p. 63). See papers by Professors Goldziher and Guthe (_Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins_, XVII, pp. 115 and 238) for an account of the opening of the tombs at Hebron in 1119, as given in a presumably contemporaneous MS. found by Count Riant. Fifteen earthenware vessels filled with bones, perhaps those referred to by Benjamin, were found. It is doubtful whether the actual tombs of the Patriarchs were disturbed, but it is stated that the Abbot of St. Gallen paid in 1180 ten marks of gold (equal to about £5,240 sterling) for relics taken from the altar of the church at Hebron. The MS. of Count Riant further mentions that before the occupation of Hebron by the Arabs, the Greeks had blocked up and concealed the entrance to the caves. The Jews subsequently disclosed the place of the entrance to the Moslems, receiving as recompense permission to build a synagogue close by. This was no doubt the Jewish place of worship referred to by Benjamin. Shortly after Benjamin's visit in 1167 the Crusaders established a bishopric and erected a church in the southern part of the Haram. See also Conder's account of the visit of His Majesty the King, when Prince of Wales, to the Haram at Hebron. (_Palestine Exploration Fund's Quarterly Statement_, 1882.)]

[Footnote 87: Beit Jibrin was fortified by King Fulk in 1134. See Baedeker's _Palestine and Syria_, p. 309; Rapoport's _Erech Milin_, p. 54; also a preliminary notice on the Necropolis of Maresha in _P.E.F.Q.S._, Oct., 1902, p. 393. The text has [Hebrew:], but it should be [Hebrew:]. Inscriptions on tombs near Beit Jibrin show that the town, to which those buried belonged, was called Mariseh. The passage in A and all printed editions as to Shunem and Toron de Los Caballeros is corrupt. Shunem was a small place in Galilee, and is not likely to have had 300 Jews at the time of the Crusaders, still less so Toron the present Latrun.]

[Footnote 88: Shiloh, at the time of the Crusaders, was considered to occupy the site of Mizpeh, the highest mountain near Jerusalem, where the national assemblies were held at the time of the Judges. The present mosque is dilapidated, but the substructure, which dates from the Frank period, is beautifully jointed. The apse is raised. The reputed tomb of Samuel is on the western side of the church. It is still called Nebi Samwil, venerated alike by Jew and Moslem.]

[Footnote 89: This and Mahomerie-le-grand, already mentioned, are Crusaders' churches. See Rey, _Les Colonies franques de Syrie aux XII'e et XIII'e siècles_, p. 387; also Conder, _The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem_.]

[Footnote 90: Beit-Nuba near Ramleh has been identified without proof with Nob. Richard Coeur-de-Lion encamped here some twenty-five years after Benjamin's visit. He with the army of the Crusaders passed through Ibelin on his way to Askelon. Cf. Vinsauf's _Itinerarium Regis Ricardi_.]

[Footnote 91: See an interesting Paper, "Der Pass von Michmas," by Prof. D.G. Dalman, _Z.D.P.V._, 1904, vol. XXVII, p. 161.]

[Footnote 92: Asher renders [Hebrew:] Ramleh, for which there is some justification. Ramleh did not exist in Bible times--it was founded in 716. It prospered to such an extent that it became as large as Jerusalem. It was a good deal damaged by an earthquake in 1033. Ramleh had a large Moslem population, and the Jews there remained comparatively unmolested by the Crusaders. This latter fact accounts for the somewhat large number of Jews residing there. Asher's reading, and that of all the printed editions, is "about three Jews dwell there." This is obviously wrong. Probably the copyist is to blame in taking [Hebrew:] to be an abbreviation for [Hebrew:] The reports of contemporary Arabic authors will be found in Guy Le Strange's _Palestine_, pp. 303-8.]

[Footnote 93: Ali of Herat, Benjamin's contemporary, writes: "Askelon is a fine and beautiful city. There is near here the well of Abraham, which they say he dug with his own hand." Bohadin, in his _Life of Saladin_, gives a detailed account of the demolition of the city in 1192, after the conclusion of peace between King Richard I and Saladin. Ibn Batutah in 1355 found the town in ruins, but gives a detailed account of the well. (Guy Le Strange, pp. 402-3; cf. Dr. H. Hildesheimer, _Beiträge zur Geographie Palästinas_.)]

[Footnote 94: The cathedral at Lydda with the tomb of St. George was destroyed when Saladin captured the place in 1191. It was rebuilt by a King of England in the seventeenth century.]

[Footnote 95: A.M. Lunez in his Year-book for 1881, pp. 71-165, gives a complete list of the reputed Jewish tombs in Palestine. There are many records of the graves of Jewish worthies in our literature, but it is not easy to reconcile the different versions. See Jacob ben Nethanel's Itinerary given in Lunez's _Jerusalem_, 1906, VII, p. 87.]

[Footnote 96: Both BM. and R have [Hebrew:], whilst E and A have the faulty reading [Hebrew:]. The Seder Hadoroth has the same reading as E and A. Jehuda Halevi died about thirty years before Benjamin's visit, and the question of the burial-place of our great national poet is thus finally settled.]

[Footnote 97: The common belief is that Simon the Just was buried near Jerusalem, on the road to Nablous, about a mile from the Damascus Gate.]

[Footnote 98: Cf. Schechter's _Saadyana_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 99: The passage referring to the Arnon is evidently out of place.]

[Footnote 100: See Deut. xi. 24.]

[Footnote 101: For a description of the city and its great mosque, see Baedeker, also Guy Le Strange, _Palestine under the Moslems_, chap. vi. The most eastern dome of the mosque is to this day called Kubbet-es-Saa, the Dome of Hours. Mukaddasi gives an elaborate description of the mosaics and other features of this mosque.]

[Footnote 102: Cf. _Midrash Raba_, chap, xiv: [Hebrew:]; also Josephus, _Ant_. I, vii, 2 who quotes Nicolaus of Damascus in the words "_In Damasco regnarit Abramus._"]

[Footnote 103: Pethachia estimates the Jewish population at 19,000. This confirms the opinion already given (p. 26) that Benjamin refers to heads of families.]

[Footnote 104: Dr. W. Bacher with justice observes that, at the time of the Crusades, the traditions of the Palestinian Gaonate seem to have survived at Damascus. See _J. Q.R._, XV, pp. 79-96.]

[Footnote 105: Galid as a city cannot be identified. Salchah is in the Eastern Hauran, half a day's journey from Bosra, and is spoken of in Scripture as a frontier city of Bashan. (Deut. iii. 10; Joshua xii. 5.) It lies a long way to the south of Damascus, whilst Baalbec lies to the north.]

[Footnote 106: Tarmod is Tadmor or Palmyra.]

[Footnote 107: The important city Emesa, now called Homs, is here probably indicated. In scripture, Gen. x. 18, the Zemarite and the Hamathite are grouped together among the Canaanite families. In this district is the intermittent spring of Fuwâr ed-Der, the Sabbatio River of antiquity, which Titus visited after the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus (_Wars of the Jews_,