The lonely, Bedouin-infected road over the Lebanon. “Few corners of the globe offer more utter solitude than Syria and Palestine”
The lonely, Bedouin-infected road over the Lebanon. “Few corners of the globe offer more utter solitude than Syria and Palestine”
The lonely, Bedouin-infected road over the Lebanon. “Few corners of the globe offer more utter solitude than Syria and Palestine”
The Palestine beast of burden loaded with stone
The Palestine beast of burden loaded with stone
The Palestine beast of burden loaded with stone
Beyond the pass stretched mile after mile of desolation absolute, hills upon hills sank down behind each other, barren and drear, except for an occasional olive tree, a sturdy form of vegetation that, in itself, added to the general loneliness. Few corners of the globe can equal in fearful stretches of utter solitude this land so aptly termed, in Biblical phraseology, “the waste places of the earth.” All through the day I tramped on, with never a sight nor sound of an animate object, save once in mid-afternoon, when I broke my fast on bread-sheets and cakes of ground sugar-cane at an isolated shop. Darkness fell over the same haggard wilderness. The wind, howling across the solitary waste, filled my ears. On this blackest of nights I could not have made out a ghost a yard away, and the unknown highway led me into many a pitfall. Long hours after sunset I was plodding blindly on, my cloth slippers making not a sound, when I ran squarely into the arms of some species of human whose native footwear had rendered his approach as noiseless as my own. Three startled male voices rang out in guttural shrieks of “Allah”—Arabic invocations, evidently, against evil spirits—as the trio sprang back in terror.
Before I could pass on, one of them—plainly a materialist—struck a match. The howling wind blew it out instantly, but in that brief flicker I caught sight of three ugly faces under a headdress that belongs to the roving Bedouin. With a simultaneous scream of “Faranchee!” the nomads flung themselves upon the particular corner of the darkness where the match had shown me standing. The motive of their attack, perhaps, was Oriental hospitality. In the excitement of the moment I credited them with a desire to increase their capital in the kingdom of black-eyed houris, and evacuated the spot by a bit of side stepping that would have won me fame in the roped arena. In my haste to execute the manœuvre, however, I fell off the highway, and the rattling of stones under my feet precipitated another charge. A dozen times during the ensuing game of hide-and-seek I felt the breath of one of the flea-bitten rascals in my face. The Arabic rules of the game, fortunately, required the players to keep up a continualhowling for mutual encouragement, while I moved silently, after the fashion of the West. Aided by this unfair advantage, I eluded their welcoming embraces until they stopped for a consultation, and, creeping noiselessly on hands and knees, I lay hold on the highway and sped silently away, by no means certain whether I was headed towards Damascus or the coast.
An hour later the howling of dogs heralded my approach to some hamlet. Once in it, I halted to listen for sounds of human life. Its inhabitants, apparently, were lost in slumber, for what Syrian could be awake and silent? The lights that shone from every hovel proved nothing, for the Arab nations are unaccountably fearful of the evil spirits that lurk in the darkness. I beat off the snapping curs and started on again. Suddenly muffled peals of laughter and the excited voices of male and female sounded from the depths of a building before me. I hurried towards it and knocked loudly on the iron-studded door. The festivities ceased as suddenly as if I had touched an electric button controlling them. For several moments the silence was absolute. Then there came the slapping of slippered feet along the passageway inside, and a woman’s voice called out to me. I summoned up my limited Arabic: “M’abarafshee arabee! Faranchee! Fee wahed locanda? Bnam!” (I don’t speak Arabic! Foreigner! Is there an inn? Sleep!). Without a word the unknown lady slapped back along the corridor. A good five minutes elapsed. I knocked once more and again there came the patter of feet. This time a man’s gruff voice greeted me. I repeated my Arabic vocabulary. There sounded the sliding of innumerable bolts and bars, the massive door opened ever so slightly, and the muzzle of a matchlock was thrust out into my face.
The eyes that appeared above it were evidently satisfied with their inspection. The door was thrown wide open, and a very Hercules of a native, with a mustache that would have put the Kaiser to shame, stepped out, holding his clumsy gun ready for instant use. I could not but laugh at his frightened aspect. He smiled sheepishly and, retreating into the house, returned in a moment unarmed, and carrying a lamp and a rush mat. At one end of the building he pushed open a door that hung by one hinge and lighted me into a room with earth floor and one window, from which five of the six panes were missing. A heap of dried branches at one end stamped it as a wood shed.
A gaunt cur wandered in at our heels. The native drove him off, spread the mat on the ground and brought from the house a pan oflive coals. I called for food. When he returned with several bread-sheets, I drew out my handkerchief and began to untie it. My host shook his head fiercely, made the sign of the cross and pointed several times at the ceiling, implying, evidently, that he was a convert of the Catholic missionaries and that the Allah of the Christians would pay my bill.
Barely had the native disappeared when the dog poked his ugly head through the half-open door and snarled viciously at me. He was a wolfish animal of the yellow mongrel variety so common in Syria, and in his eye gleamed a rascality that gave him a startling resemblance to the thieving nomads that infect that drear land. I drove him off and made the door fast, built a roaring fire of twigs, and rolling up in the mat, lay down beside the blaze. I awoke from a half-conscious nap to find that irrepressible cur sniffing at me and displaying his ugly fangs within six inches of my face. A dozen times I fastened the door against him in vain. Had he merely bayed the moon all night it would have mattered little, for with a fire to tend I had small chance to sleep; but his silent skulking and muffled snarls kept me wide-eyed with apprehension until the grey of dawn peeped in at the ragged window.
The village was named Hemeh—a station of the railway from the coast not far beyond told me as much. The dreary ranges of the day before fell quickly away. The highway descended a narrow, fertile valley in close company with a small river, on the banks of which grew willows and poplars in profusion.
A bright morning sun soon made the air grateful, though the chill of night and the mountains still hovered in the shadows. Travelers became frequent; peasant families driving their asses homeward from the morning market, bands of merchants on horseback, well-to-do natives in a garb that recalled the ill-omened coat of Joseph. Here passed a camel caravan whose drivers would, perhaps, purchase just such a slave of his brothers this very day. There squatted a band of Bedouins at breakfast and their eating was as ceremonial as any meal among the ancient Jews. Beyond rode a full-bearded sheik who was surely as much a patriarch in appearance as Abraham of old.
The road continued its descent, the passing throng became almost a procession, and I swung at last round a mountain spur that had hidden from view an unequaled sight. Two miles away, across a vast, level plain, traversed by the sparkling river, and peopled by a battalion of soldiers in manœuvre, the white city of Damascus stood out againsta background of dull-red hills, the morning sun gleaming on graceful domes and minarets of superb Saracenic architecture. It was an ultra-Oriental panorama before which that first quatrain of Omar sprang unbidden to the lips. I passed on with the throng and was soon swallowed up in the multitude that surged through “the Street called Straight”—which isn’t.