Aqueduct at Gilgal
Before reaching the modern village of Jericho, on the way to the Jordan, we see this beautiful acqueduct, one of the most handsome specimens of stone work that we found in Palestine. It is intended to convey the water from Elisha’s Fountain into Jericho, and is a striking contrast to the miserable villages near it and the desolate plain around it. It looks to us like a bit of work belonging to the Western world in the midst of a decaying and degraded civilization. Not far from here the tabernacle was set up. Near here Saul was made King, and near this place also the tribe of Judah came together to welcome David from exile.—2 Kings 4:38–41. In the fields and plains about this aqueduct one went out to gather the herbs to seethe the pottage for the son of the prophets, when he found a wild vine and gathered wild gourds from it to mix with the pottage. Near this place Elijah and Elisha passed on the way from Jericho to Jordan. Lieutenant Conder describes “no less than five acqueducts that follow the course of Wady Kelt, some of them irrigating the land south of it, while others carry the water north far and wide over the plain.” The aqueduct suggests the original wealth and beauty of the land which was once watered by these springs at the foot of the Judean hills, therefore Jericho was in those days known as “the city of palm trees,” but, save a single survivor, there are palms no longer. During the time of the Crusaders there were plantations of sugar cane here that brought large revenue to the Knights of Jerusalem, and the ruins of the vaults and acqueducts that supplied water for irrigation are still seen.
Comments