The King's Cup-Bearer by Amy Catherine Walton
page 39 of 175 (22%)
page 39 of 175 (22%)
|
in anything which requires continuous effort; they have left their
poorer neighbours to bear the burden alone, and to do it or not as they please. We are now passing the Old Gate, on the north of the city, the Damascus Gate of modern days, from which goes the great northern road to Samaria and Galilee. The men of Gibeon and Mizpah, whose villages lay near together, we find next on the wall, working side by side as neighbours should, and building the part of the wall which faced their own homes, two villages standing on the hills about five miles from the northern gate. Coming round the city we find ourselves passing the Gate of Ephraim and the Broad Wall. Here we see no workmen, for that part of the wall does not need repairing. Uzziah, King of Judah, had built a strong piece of wall here, about 200 yards long, and the Chaldeans had not been able to destroy it with the rest of the city. This wall was twice the thickness of the rest, and was always called the Broad Wall. Near this wall we find men of two different trades working, goldsmiths and apothecaries. Trades in the East are almost always hereditary, passing down from father to son for many generations. Thus these goldsmiths and apothecaries were joined together in family guilds or unions, and came forward together to the work. The apothecaries were the spice makers, important persons in the East, where spices are so largely used in cooking, and where so many sweet-smelling and aromatic spices are employed in embalming the dead. Then, passing on, we see the tower which protected the furnaces or brick |
|