Mount Tabor

“ In fact, it means nothing more than that our Lord and his three disciples betook themselves to a private place for the purpose of devotion.
The view from Mount Tabor is extolled by every traveller. "It is impossible," says Maundrell, "for man's eyes to behold a higher gratification of this nature." On the north-west you discern in the distance the noble expanse of the Mediterranean, while all around you see the spacious and beautiful plains of Esdraëlon and Galilee. ”

“ From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells, grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but partially cultivated. ”

“ Long strings of Bedouin tents are here and there strung along its borders, and numerous flocks and herds are fattening on its luxuriant herbage.
Several fierce looking Arabs visited our tents in the evening, whose appearance failed to impress us favorably respecting their future intentions; our guards occasionally fired a gun during the night, indicating their presence and preparation for defense. The following morning we passed over the Plain of Esdraelon. We now have a view of Mount Tabor, dotted with oaks from base to summit, and Mount Hermon, panoplied in snow. ”

“ The distance, in time, from Mount Tabor to Caesarea Philippi, may be conceived from the account given by Ebn Haukal, an Arabian geographer and traveler of the tenth century. He says “from Tibertheh (Tiberias, which is near Tabor) to Sur, (Tyre,) is one day’s journey; and from that to Banias, (Paneas,) is two day’s easy journey.” [Sir W. Ouseley’s translation of Ebn Haukal’s Geography, pp. 48, 49.] ”

“ But the magic of the moonlight is a vanity and a fraud; and whoso putteth his trust in it shall suffer sorrow and disappointment.
Down at the foot of Tabor, and just at the edge of the storied Plain of Esdraelon, is the insignificant village of Deburieh, where Deborah, prophetess of Israel, lived. It is just like Magdala.
CHAPTER L.
We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, rocky road to Nazareth—distant two hours. All distances in the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour over nearly any kind of a road ”

“ It rises 200 ft. above the sea, the hills on both sides being some 1500 ft. higher. The whole drainage is collected by the Kishon, which runs through a narrow gorge at the north-west corner of the plain, descending beside the ridge of Carmel to the sea. The broad valley of Jezreel on the east, descending towards the Jordan valley, forms the gate by which Palestine is entered from beyond Jordan. Mount Tabor stands isolated in the plain at the north-east corner, and rather farther south the conical hill called Nebi Duḥi rises between Tabor and Gilboa. The whole of Lower Galilee is well watered. ”

“ A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.
We reached Tabor safely, and considerably in advance of that old iron-clad swindle of a guard. We never saw a human being on the whole route, much less lawless hordes of Bedouins. Tabor stands solitary and alone, a giant sentinel above the Plain of Esdraelon. It rises some fourteen hundred feet above the surrounding level, a green, wooden cone, symmetrical and full of grace—a prominent landmark, and one that is exceedingly pleasant to eyes surfeited with the repulsive monotony of desert Syria. ”

“ After lunch we devote a couple of hours to a ramble around the spot; we might camp here, but we prefer to pass the night at Nazareth, whither our camp was moved when we started from Tiberias.
We now find that Tabor is not circular in shape, but oval, the greatest measurement being from East to West. The summit is slightly rounded and is about a thousand yards long by half that in width. There are many ruins on the summit, or rather masses of ruins; the principal thing to attract the attention is a massive wall, or the remains of one, which enclose the most of the space. ”

“ Although she epitomized a roistering era and a swashbuckling way of life made possible by the mining frontier of Colorado, the granite gloom of those powerful mountains has forever lowered the curtain on her dramatic period and on the valiant, if mistaken, spirit of Baby Doe Tabor. In relegating both, and their final evaluation, to the pages of history, the lines inscribed on the stage drop of the Tabor Opera House recur, ever again, emphasizing their fatal prophecy:
So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again,
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream. ”

“ Tabor’s lonely cabin on Fryer Hill. When the couple peered through the window, they discovered her prostrate form.
The once proud beauty was dead. Leadville, Denver, Central City and the world reacted immediately, producing a host of memories to round out the details of her extraordinary career. Other reminiscences came from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where she was born, and from Washington, D. C., where she had married Tabor, President Arthur and several members of the cabinet in attendance at the wedding. ”

“ Tabor, the central position, a mountain whose summit is 1500 feet above the plain, is bare and shapeless on the south, but to the north it is steep, and wooded with oaks and thickets in which the fallow-deer finds a home. About three miles west are the springs from which the Kishon first rises, and from this point a chain of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the dry season, the course of the river. Along this line, at the base of the northern hills, the chariots and horsemen of Sisera fled. ”

“ I have been lonely, blue, often cold and starving in the winters, and beset by many torments. But I have been sustained by a great faith and a great love. I have lived with courage and a cheery smile for my friends. As I look out over the abandoned shaft-houses and dumps of the fabulous Fryer Hill ruins, over the partially deserted town of Leadville to the glorious beauty of Colorado’s highest mountains, I know that I have surely expiated my last sin and that I have fulfilled the trust my dear Tabor put in me when he said:
“Hang on to the Matchless.” ”

“ That was January 27, 1883, and by February 3, he was being sworn in at Washington. I have never seen anyone so delighted and happy as Tabor was, leaving Denver. He was fifty-two years old but you would have thought he was twelve and had been given his first pony. I, too, was joyful and expectant.
“And what a wedding we’ll have, Baby!” he said in parting. “I’ll fix all the details and send for you to be married just before my term is up. If all goes well, you’ll have both a priest and a president at your ceremony! A lover couldn’t do more. ”

“ We lunched on the dry grass in the sun in full sight of Tabor, on the remnants of what the good missionary at Nablous had given us, and, tightening our saddle-girths, we began the ascent of the mountain. We clambered up the rude bridle-path, covered with loose stones, and knocked timidly, with the remembrance of our Nablous experiences, at the door of a large and very sightly monastery. ”

“ Tabor was very hurt at this, the more so because there seemed to be an element of truth in her words. The attitude toward him in Leadville had changed and Tabor really loved that mining camp—it was always “home” to him, much more than Denver. And in later years, I felt the same way, although just then I was eager to conquer fresh fields.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure she’s wrong—and besides what do you care about that ugly old mining camp? You’re a big man going to do the biggest things for the nation. And what if Governor Pitkin doesn’t like you? ”

“ Of course, there are many inaccuracies like referring to Tabor as “Haw” (which no one ever called him in real life) and some straight geographical and historical untruths, such as having the Arkansas flow in Clear Creek Valley and talking of Central City as a collection of shanties when it is all brick or stone. The author was most unkind to me and talked about my guarding the mine with a shotgun, when in actuality I have never owned a shotgun that worked. It is true that I do not like strangers and I have several ways of 76 dealing with them. ”

“ When he heard of Tabor’s plight, he wrote him a check for $15,000 to use in developing his Eclipse mine in Boulder County.
“There’s a true friend,” Tabor remarked with touching humility. It wrung me to the quick to see him act like this, pathetic and almost beaten. When he had had money, and even in the days before I knew him and before he became rich, his generosity and honesty had been proverbial. In return, the world gave him only deceit and niggardliness—and a cold shoulder. Many a night I wept with secret rage at the world as much as sorrow for Tabor. ”

“ If someone knocks, I peek out the corner of the window (which was once shaded by coarse lace, then burlap and finally newspapers) , lifting just a tiny flap so as to show only one eye. If they see me and recognize me, I say I’m taking a bath—and I have been known to give that same answer all day long to a series of callers!
Sometimes I alter my voice and say, “Mrs. Tabor is downtown—I am the night watchman,” (as I did when Sue Bonnie was making her first efforts to meet me) and sometimes I just sit as quiet as a mossy stone, pretending the cabin is uninhabited. ”

“ Through Tabor’s prominence in Denver and Leadville, I met and entertained many men interested in politics. The famous beauties, Lily Langtry and Lillian Russell, and other well-known figures of the nineteenth century stage such as Sara Bernhardt, Mme. Modjeska, John Drew, Augustin Daly, William Gillette, Edwin Booth, and Otis Skinner frequently played at the Tabor Opera House, and Tabor and I would entertain them at champagne suppers after their performances. They always seemed to like me and would ask to see me on our fairly frequent visits to New York. ”

“ Tabor, do come in. I’m all alone. And being Sunday night, the servants are all out—had to answer the door, myself.”
He led me into a gloomy spacious room lit only by one reading lamp and by the flames from the fireplace.
“It’s a pretty bad night for you to be out,” he remarked.
“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s nothing to the Leadville blizzards I face all the time up at the mine. I’m used to a hard life.” ”

“ There is the moonlight view out of the bush on the northern flank of Tabor, the leap of the sun over the edge of Bashan, summer morning in the Shephelah, and sunset over the Mediterranean, when you see it from the gateway of the ruins on Samaria down the glistening Vale of Barley. ”

“ I could not make him share my belief that Tabor would recoup everything. In my innermost heart, I knew he would. But here was a new kind of man in Colorado who did not look at life the way the first-comers did. Those men were plungers, gay and generous. When they had money, they spent it and when they didn’t, they had the bravery to start out on new ventures and make other fortunes. When a friend was down, they loaned him more than he needed and forgot the loan. That was Tabor. But not these newcomers who were settling and growing prosperous in Colorado. ”

“ Leadville, the Saddle Rock Cafe, and the gay, boisterous mining and promoting crowd about me all swam dizzily away from my consciousness as I dropped down in a chair between the great silver king, Horace Tabor, and his manager, Bill Bush. I was in love! That was all I knew.
I was in love with a married man. I, a divorced woman, whose future with Jake was merely a nebulous suggestion. Yet here I was, beside the man I had dreamed of for so long—
“Surely, Bill, we should have champagne on this auspicious occasion?” Mr. Tabor went on. ”

“ Silver had nearly as gorgeous clothes and toys and ponies as Lillie did. But this was not to be for long. However, at that time we had no inkling of what the future held for us. Tabor made frequent business trips East and to his mining properties. Mostly I went with him but sometimes I stayed with the children. His holdings were enormous and he was expanding in many directions that required his personal attention. He bought a yacht in New York 59 City with the idea that when the children were older we would cruise down to Honduras to see his mahogany forests. ”

“ We moved into a simple two-room suite, No. 302, in the Windsor Hotel. It was on the corner above the alley, but with an uplifting view of the mountains. Tabor went to work for the government. He was very grateful and pleased with his position, although I thought much more should have been done for him. Still, he enjoyed the work, and the regular routine of his job. He settled down into being a quiet wage-earner and family man. He practiced petty economies to live on $3,500 a year, a sum he had lost many times on one hand of poker. ”

“ The historical importance of the city of Tabor only ceased when it was captured by King George of Poděbrad in 1452. Though a large part of the ancient fortifications has recently been demolished, Tabor—or Hradiste Hory Tabor, the castle of the Tabor Hill, as it was called in the Hussite period—has still preserved many memorials of its past fame. In the centre of the city is the market-place (rynk) . Only very narrow streets lead to it, to render the approach to it more difficult in time of war. ”