CHAPTER IX

OF THE SITE OF HEBRON, AND OF THE MONUMENTS OF THE FATHERS AND OF ADAM

HEBRON, once a city, and the capital of David’s kingdom, shows only by its ruins what it was formerly. It lies in a broad plain, twenty-two miles distant from Ælia. One furlong to the east of it is a double cave in the valley, where are the tombs of the patriarchs enclosed by a square wall, with their heads lying to the north. Each of the tombs is covered with a single stone, worked like the stones of a church, and of a white colour, for those of the patriarchs. Adam’s is of meaner and more common workmanship, and lies not far from them at the farthest northern extremity. There are also some poorer and smaller monuments of three women. The hill Mamre is a thousand paces from the monuments, and is full of grass and flowers, having a flat plain on the top. In the northern part of it is Abraham’s oak, a stump about twice the height of a man, enclosed in a church. Passing through Hebron towards the north, one sees to the left a mountain of no great size, covered with fir-trees, at a distance of three thousand paces from Hebron. Fir-wood is carried from this place to Jerusalem on camels, for carriages and waggons are seldom seen throughout the whole of Judæa.