Art. VII.—An Account of Jerusalem, translated for the late Sir H. M. Elliot, from the Persian text of Náṣir ibn Khusrú's Safarnámah

Abstract

On the 3rd of Ramazán, I left Ramlah, and went to a village called Khátún, and from thence to another, which they styled Kariatu-l-'Anab (Grape hamlet). On the road I observed plenty of wild rue growing spontaneously on hill and dale. I also noticed at this village a very delightful spring of water gushing out of a rock, where they had constructed reservoirs, and built edifices. From thence I proceeded up some rising ground, under the impression that I was ascending a hill, and that on going down the other side the city would lie before me. After I had climbed the ascent however for a short way, a vast wilderness lay in my front, partly stony, and partly showing merely the bare earth. At the summit of the hill stands the city of the “Baitu-l-Mukaddas” (Sacred Tabernacle, i.e. Jerusalem), between which and Tarábulis, whichis on the coast, are 56 parasangs, and from Balkh to Jerusalem 876.