The sun set, and a bad road had to be traversed in order to reach our destination at Safed.
PART III.
In my two journeys just described, the route was over the southern part of the long Lebanon range, not only on the main ridge, but crossing some of the innumerable spurs thrown out towards the sea. This time, however, we have to deal with a more northerly and higher region; and it is because of its being in a different direction from those of 1849 and 1855 that I have not observed the consecutive order of date—this was in 1853. We shall start from the coast, where the most projecting and western spur subsides into Ras Bayroot, and the climbing begins almost immediately after leaving deep yellow sands and the pine forest.
The object was to reach Mokhtârah, perched high in the heart of the Shoof or central ridge of Lebanon, like an eyrie, as it was then, for the princely house of Jonblât. Mokhtârah lies S.-E. from Bayroot, and to arrive there we had to cross the intervening spurs, climbing as we went.
The town of Dair el Kamar and the palace of Beteddeen, formerly the headquarters of the house of Shehâb, lay upon the road. The remainder of the journey after Mokhtârah consisted in a rapid descent to Sidon, the great port in antiquity for Damascus, Phœnicia, and the Lebanon.
This tour comprised the finest range of the territory occupied by the Druse nation.
1853.July.—From Bayroot, with its bewitching scenery and its gorgeous colouring of mountains and the sea, we went to’Abeih, the best known of the American missionary stations in the Lebanon.
Through the woods of pines, with their reviving fragrance, and throughEl Hadeth, an entirely Christian village, where the bell of the Maronite convent was ringing as we passed, we came toShuwaifât, and rose still higher towards the mountain pines and the breezes so desirable in Syria in the month of July, leaving below the olive in abundance, the mulberry and the fig-trees.
Beside the fountain called’Ain Besâbawas a pottery factory. The nature of the rocks around was soft sandstone; a gigantic pear-tree stood conspicuous among the excellent cultivation of the neighbourhood; higher still, between straight tall pines and wild holly-oaks, our road curved round and round the hills.
We overtook a company of Christians, the women riding and the men walking—this circumstance alone would show they were not Mohammedans. The two parties had to pass each other with much caution, as the path was narrow and the precipice deep below.
At’Ain ’Anoob, where a copious supply of water issues from three spouts, the fountain has on each side the representation of a chained lion, sculptured in stone. One’s first impression wouldbe that this were a relic of the Genoese or Venetian crusaders; but these figures, whatever their meaning or origin, are not infrequent upon fountains about the Lebanon, even when only rustically daubed in red ochre; and it has not been often noticed that there are similar lions facing each other, only without the chains, one on each side of St Stephen’s Gate at Jerusalem. Some of the women at the fountains wore the horns on their head, the fashion for which is gradually passing away. The terraces on the hills were in the highest state of cultivation, and gave abundant promise of fruit for the coming season; the sun was near setting, the rooks cawing overhead, and we saw two little girls each bring a lamb to the fountain to drink and then proceed to wash them.
Sidi Ahhmad, a Druse ’Akal, with, of course, a white turban, undertook to be our guide as far as ’Abeih.
Fresh air to breathe! how different from the oppressive heat of Bayroot! We all drank of every spring by the way, and by consequence lifted up the drooping head, (Ps. cx. 7,) thinking each fountain colder than that before it.
The most rugged portion of the road was between’Ain ’Anooband’Ainab, and zigzag were the worn tracks of the way. Sometimes a musical jingle of bells announced the coming of travellers in front, who were however invisible till they pounced upon us from between two pinnacles ofrocks. On the steepest ascents it was necessary to halt and await the coming up of our baggage mules.
From mountain heights it is often difficult to distinguish the blue expanse of the Mediterranean Sea from the similar blue expanse of the sky, until the actual moment of sunset, when the bright orb becoming suddenly flattened on its lower curve reveals the exact horizon line; and so it was this evening.
Wearied with the climbing position of the saddle, hour after hour, I passed’Ain Kesooron foot, the ’Akal leading the horse. This was shortly before ’Abeih, but there I rode up to the mansion of Kasim Bek, the local governor, to ask hospitality; it was dark night, and Saturday. My intention was to spend the Sunday in a Christian manner among the American missionaries. The journey had been one of five hours and a half from Bayroot.
We were heartily received into a fine old house, in which were shaikhs and chiefs of sundry grades seated on the divan with the host, and immediately the means for washing were brought by the domestics with great respect. A good supper was prepared, the Bek eating with us, to my surprise, but I afterwards learned that this is not uncommon with a non-’Akal Druse, as he was.
Sunday.—Quiet morning. Bell of the Capuchin Convent almost adjoining the house. From thewindows there is a fine prospect of Bayroot and the coast-outline.
After breakfast I went up to the chapel of the American missionaries, and entered just as the Arabic service was about to commence—Dr de Forest in the pulpit; and his sermon was preached with fluency of language equal to that of a native. The subject was taken from 1 Cor. i. 12, 13, concerning those who named themselves followers of Paul or of Apollos. The women were screened off from the men in the congregation.
After service Dr de Forest welcomed me, and led me up the hill to the mission-house, where I found my old friend, Dr Eli Smith, who was unwell, and about to leave them on the morrow for his home at B’hamdoon. With Mrs de Forest there was a young lady just arrived from the United States to be a teacher in the school.
The residence is a good one; with the girls’ school on the ground plan, and the dwelling apartments above. The scenery and prospect equal all that the highest imagination could conceive of the Lebanon. Over the sea, the island of Cyprus can occasionally be distinguished from the terrace, that is to say, three peaks of a mountain show themselves at sunset, particularly if the wind be in the north, in the month of May or the beginning of June. This view, therefore, gives the outskirts of “the isles of Chittim,” as seen from the Holy Land, (Num. xxiv. 24, and Jer. ii. 10.)
After dinner we all went together to the English service in the chapel. Mr Colquhoun preached a simple but impressive sermon from John x. 4; which text he illustrated by an incident that he had witnessed in a recent journey northwards.
A shepherd with a flock arrived at a river of some impetuosity. He entered it first, trying the depths with his staff, got over at the best place, and then with his voice called over the sheep to him. From which the following points were deduced:—
1. That the shepherd led the way, and the flock waited for his call.
2. That the sheep followed when he called, although not all of them at the precise ford he had discovered. Some of them trusted to their own judgment, and these generally got out of their depths for a time. His way was certainly the best one.
3. That as the shepherd stood on the opposite bank, he showed no symptoms of uneasiness, for he was confident that every one of the flock would get safely across.
4. That the sheep in passing over used each his own efforts to get across, apparently just as much as if there were no one present to help; although no doubt the presence of the shepherd had a good effect upon their exertions. It is beyond our reach to explain the metaphysical mystery of this.
5. The shepherd in first crossing the streamhimself tested the force of the stream. Each individual creature had to do the same; but those who followed the closest upon his track had an easy passage, while those who tried new ways for themselves were some of them swept down the current for a distance, and had to make hard struggles to rejoin their companions and to reach the beloved shepherd.
6. All got safely over, for they were his sheep; he knew them all by name; he had tried the way before them and shown it; he then called them to himself.
Of course each of these points was made use of as personally applicable to the hearers. The sermon did me much good from its quiet and truthful character.
At this service, it is needless to observe, that there was no separation of sexes in the congregation. The girls of the school (who are all taught English) were there placed by themselves, and prettily dressed, wearing the Orientalizâr, (or large white veil,) with flowered borders, a novelty to us.
Returning to the mission-house, the late afternoon and the time of sunset and twilight were spent in rational conversation of Christian character. And such was our Sabbath-day of devotion and repose.
How glorious were the colours spread over the vast extent of mountain and sea, modified by length of shadows as the sun declined! Oh howdeep are such beauties and the perception of their value laid in the innermost recesses of our soul’s nature, only to be completely gratified in the eternity to come. Here, below, we have gorgeous tints differing in succession, even after actual sunset, to be followed by a delicate after-glow, which again gives place to the splendour of night. And as in earth, so in heaven, with the exception of night; for surely there will be alternations of beauteous scenes above; surely there will be developments and variety in light, colour, music, harmony, and the rest of those “pleasures for evermore,” which are everywhere emanations from the direct love of “Him who first loved us,”—His gifts, who even here bestows prismatic hues upon icebergs in the arctic circle, and a rosy flush to the peaks of Jebel Sanneen in the Lebanon.
Monday.—Letters were brought at a late hour last night in four hours from Bayroot, giving recent intelligence from our fleet—all political affairs going on successfully.
Everybody speaks well of our host the governor, and his family. He is a studious man, and has acquired from the Americans a good deal of history and general knowledge; his youngest brother attends the natural-history class of the mission-school. He is a relative of the famous Abu Neked, and his wife (Druses have but one wife each) is of the Jonblât family. The ancestral mansion he inhabits was built by one of theancient race called the T’noohh, who flourished there from the 10th to the 17th century, and artists had been brought for the purpose from Constantinople; the symmetry of the masonry is admirable, and consequently the shadows formed from it are particularly straight and sharp in outline.
The village contains specimens of every form of religion to be found throughout the Lebanon; each sect, however, keeps somewhat apart from the rest, which practice being common in the mountain, may account for the villages appearing to a stranger to consist of separate pieces not quite joined together.
Some women still wear horns, although the Christian clergy set themselves strongly against these ornaments; some even refusing the Communion-Sacrament to those who persist in retaining that heathenish emblem derived from ancient mythology.
Among the Druse men, the ’Akâl are not so marked in their difference of costume from the Juhâl as formerly, except in the extreme cleanliness and careful plaiting of the white turban. My host, notwithstanding the antiquity of his family and his studious character, is not one of the initiated, he is but a Jâhel, yet he probably serves his people best in that capacity, as he is thereby enabled to hold government employments.
From his windows we could see on the south side of Ras Bayroot several small vessels engagedin sponge-fishing; the crews of these are generally Greeks from the islands: yesterday with the telescope we had a good view of the mail-steamer arriving.
We went to take leave of the American friends, who showed us some excellent specimens of English writing, and of drawing from the girls’ school.
Returning to the Druse friends, I visited Seleem, a brother of the Bek. On hearing that we were proceeding to Mokhtârah, Naamân, (brother of Saïd Bek Jonblât,) who has retired from worldly affairs, and become a devout ’Akal, requested one of my party to ask Saïd to send him some orange-flower water. I have no doubt that this message (Φωναντα συνέτοισιν) covered some political meaning.
The house of Seleem was simplicity and neatness in the extreme, the only ornamentation being that of rich robes, pistols, swords, and the silver decorations of horses, suspended on pegs round the principal apartment; all thoroughly Oriental of olden time.
The Christian secretary of the Bek attended us toCuf’r Nattaon a fine Jilfi mare, where he got for us a pedestrian guide to Dair el Kamar. A very deep valley lay before us, into which we had to descend, lounging leftwards, and then to mount the opposite hill, returning rightwards, to an elevation higher than that of Cuf’r Natta. Down we went by zigzags through groves of pine that were stirred gently on their tops by the mountain breeze,and there was plenty of wild myrtle on the ground; we frequently met with specimens of iron ore, and pink or yellow metallic streaks in the rocks, to the river Suffâr, being the upper part of the river that is called Damoor upon the sea-coast. This is crossed by the bridgeJisr’ el Kâdi, (so named from an ameer of the house of T’noohh, surnamed the Kâdi, or Judge, from his legal acquirements, and who erected the bridge in old times,) near which the limestone rock of the water-bed is worn into other channels by the occasional escapements of winter torrents. There are mills adjoining.
We all rested in a coffee-station at the end of the bridge. Several parties of muleteers had halted there at the same time. By the little fireside a large hawk was perched, and the owner of the place had his apparatus for shoemaking in the middle of the room.
Flowering oleander and fruit trees imparted liveliness to the scene outside, our several parties in variegated costumes adding not a little to the same.
Crossing the bridge, (which is level, and has no side parapets,) we commenced the great ascent; the hill-side was largely planted with sherabeen, (sprouts,) of a kind of cedar, not the real cedar of Lebanon. At a spring half way up we found a poor Turkish infantry soldier resting all alone, he was a pitiable object in a district so unfriendly to him.
What a different country would Palestine or all Syria be were it like the Lebanon, industriously cultivated inch by inch! How different would the Lebanon be were this industry and its produce never interrupted by intestine warfare!
Higher still we saw a train of shaikhs on horseback, attended by men on foot, coming in our direction longitudinally on the opposite hill from a remote village.
All the distance, I think, from Jis’r el Kâdi forwards, notwithstanding the steep nature of the country, was over a paved or made road. There is no such a thing in the south; here, however, the desolation of Turkish rule is but little known, and the people are not only industrious, but a fine muscular race.
We overtook small groups of village people who had, it seems, gone out to meet the important riding party lately seen by us. Suddenly, at a turn of the road, the cheerful town of Dair el Kamar opened out to view, with the hills and palaces of Beteddeen behind. This was at three hours from ’Abeih, exclusive of the hour’s rest at the bridge.
The town appeared to be well built, better than many a European town, notwithstanding the destruction arising from recent warfare, and the people cleanly; it was, however, no proof of the latter quality that I saw a pig being fed at a house-door as we passed along.
We alighted at the best Arab house I had ever entered, namely, that of the influential Meshâkah family. After some repose the host took me and the friends who had accompanied me from Soor and Saida to look about the town. Through streets and bazaars we came to a large open place occupied by silk weavers at work, among whom was the father of Faris, the Arabic teacher in the Protestant school at Jerusalem, he having been instructed by the Americans at ’Abeih, and whose sister I had seen there the day preceding. The silk stuffs of the town maintain a respectable rivalry with those of Damascus.
Turkish soldiers were dawdling about the streets.
We called at some Christian houses, in one of which (very handsome, with a garden) the recesses in the wall of one side of the divan room, containing bedding as usual in the East, were screened by a wide curtain of white muslin spangled with gold. Upon the other sides of the room were rude fresco paintings. Opposite the door on entering was the Virgin and Child; over the door was a dove with an olive branch; and the remaining side was embellished by the picture of a fine water-melon, with a slice cut off and lying at its side, the knife still upright in the melon, and an angel flying above it, blowing a trumpet!
The town is romantically situated upon successive levels of terraces in the hill, and environed by orchards of fruit. As evening approached, theopposite hill was suffused in a glow of pink, followed by purple light, and the Ramadân gun was fired from Beteddeen when the sun’s orb dropped upon the horizon. Suddenly the hills exchanged their warm colours for a cold gray, in harmony with the gloaming or evening twilight.
The population of Dair el Kamar at that time numbered 700 full-grown men of Maronites, 220 of Greek Catholics, 150 of Druses, with a few Moslems and Jews—each of the sects living apart from the rest. The silk manufacture was more extensive than that of Saida, and a constant communication was kept up with Damascus, which is at twenty hours’ distance. The Christians are far more hardy than their fellow-Christians the Maronites are in their special district to the north. The whole population is industrious, and the Druses maintain their characteristic steadfastness of purpose, secrecy, and union among themselves.
The house in which I was so hospitably received had been almost entirely destroyed in the war of 1841; and its proprietor (brother of the two brothers now its owners) shot dead in his own court, by persons who owed him money, namely, the Druse party of Abu Neked, two hundred of whom had for a fortnight lived at free quarters there.
The two brothers who were my hosts are Christians of the Greek Catholic sect, named Gabriel and Raphael. A third surviving brother is thetalented Protestant controversialist residing in Damascus, and practising medicine as learned from the Americans. The one who was shot by the Druses was Andrew; the eldest of all is Ibrahim, settled in Bayroot, and his son named Khaleel is dragoman of the English consulate there—it was he who furnished us with the introduction to this house in Dair el Kamar.
How curious is the domestic life of these Oriental families. Eating takes place in the principal room, with a throng of women and children passing heedlessly about, or visitors entering as they please. Among these, during the dinner time, came in a Jew speaking Jewish-German. He was a dyer, who had known me at Jerusalem, and conversed with remarkable self-possession: it seemed as if the mountain air, and absence from the Rabbis of Jerusalem, had made a man of him. In attendance on the meal was an ancient woman-servant of the family, very wrinkled, but wearing the tantoor or horn on her head.
On retiring from the table, if we may use that expression as applicable to an Oriental dinner, there came in the Greek Catholic Bishop of Saida, and several heads of houses of the Maronites, on visits of ceremony.
The fatigue of the day was closed, and rewarded by a night of sleep upon a bed of down and crimson silk, under a covering of the same.
In the morning our journey was resumed; butbefore quitting this interesting town, I cannot forbear quoting Dr Porter’s admirable description of Dair el Kamar, from Murray’s “Handbook for Syria and Palestine,” part ii. page 413:—
“Deir el Kamr is a picturesque mountain village, or rather town, of some 8000 inhabitants, whose houses are built along a steep, rocky hill-side. A sublime glen runs beneath it, and on the opposite side, on a projecting ledge, stands the palace of Bteddîn. Both the banks, as well as the slopes above them, are covered with terraces, supporting soil on which a well-earned harvest waves in early summer, amid rows of mulberries and olives and straggling vines. Industry has here triumphed over apparent impossibilities, having converted naked rocky declivities into a paradise. In Palestine we have passed through vast plains of the richest soil all waste and desolate—here we see the mountain’s rugged side clothed with soil not its own, and watered by a thousand rills led captive from fountains far away. Every spot on which a handful of soil can rest, every cranny to which a vine can cling, every ledge on which a mulberry can stand, is occupied. The people too, now nearly all Christians, have a thrifty well-to-do look, and the children, thanks to the energy of the American missionaries, are well taught.”
This was in 1857, and the description corresponds to what I witnessed in 1853; but, alas! how great a change ensued in 1860. I mustrefrain, however, from enlarging upon the melancholy tragedy that occurred there during the insurrection of that memorable year.
First we went to Beteddeen, and witnessed the sad spectacle of the Ameer Besheer’s luxurious palace in a process of daily destruction by the Turkish soldiery, who occupied it as a barrack. Accounts had been read by me in Europe[405]of its size and costliness, but the description had not exceeded the reality.
The officer in command gave us permission to be guided over the palatial courts and chambers. We wandered through the Hhareem-rooms, and saw baths of marble and gilding, sculptured inscriptions in the passages, coloured mosaics in profusion on the floors, painted roofs, rich columns, brass gates, carved doors, marble fountains, and basins with gold fish. We entered the state reception room, and the old ameer’s little business divân, in a balcony commanding a view of the approaches in every direction, of the meidân for equestrian practice, of the inner courts, of the gardens below, and of a cascade of water rolling over lofty cliffs, at the exact distance whence the sound came gently soothing the ear, and from that spot also was obtained a distant view of the Mediterranean; not omitting the advantage of witnessingevery important movement that could be made in the streets of Dair el Kamar, across the deep valley.
Beteddeen had been a truly princely establishment, but now adds one more lesson to the many others of instability in human greatness. Fourteen years before, it was all in its glory—the courts were thronged with Druse and Maronite chiefs arrayed in cloth of gold, with soldiers, with secretaries, with flatterers and suppliants; whereas now, before our eyes, the dirty canaille of Turkish soldiers were tearing up marble squares of pavement to chuck about for sport, doors were plucked down and burned, even the lightning-rods were demolished, and every species of devastation practised for passing away their idle time.
I shall not here describe the political movements that led to this great reverse of fortune, or to the present condition of the family of Shehab.
The mountains around were still in careful cultivation, chiefly with the vine and olive; and the aqueduct still brings water from the springs of Suffâr at several miles’ distance, and this it is which, after supplying the palace, forms the cascade above described, and afterwards turns two mills.
At short distances are smaller palaces, erected also by this powerful ameer for his mother and his married sons; but the same fate has overtaken them all—Turkish devastation.
Before leaving the place, I visited the tomb of the ameer’s mother and that of his principal wife, who was a Christian; they are near the house, and surrounded by five cypresses.
Took the road towards Mokhtârah, the seat of the rival chief, the Druse Jonblât. For some distance after Beteddeen the roads have been carefully constructed, over an unusually level plateau for the Lebanon; but an enormous ridge of mountain stands conspicuous in the N.-E. This is the highest part of the Shoof, near the sources of the riverBarook, so named from being the first place where the Arab camelsknelton arriving in the Lebanon in A.D. 821. The sad spectacle of villages and good farm-houses desolate and blackened by fire, frequently met the view; for this open tract, called theSumkanîyeh, has frequently been a scene of conflict between the leading factions; it was especially the ground of the considerable battle of the Ameer Besheer and the Jonblatîyeh in 1825. At length, from the commencement of a descent, we saw Mokhtârah upon an opposite hill, commanding the view of our approach—a great advantage in times of warfare. Our road lay downwards by odd turns and twists, and over a precipice to the river Barook, with its romantic banks and fruit-trees peering between overhanging rocks.
On our arrival, the great man, Said BekJonblât,[408]came out with a train of ’Akâl councillors and a crowd of humbler retainers. He was a handsome man of about twenty-eight, and richly apparelled. Beneath a large abai or cloak of black Cashmere, with Indian patterns embroidered about the collar and skirts, he wore a long gombaz of very dark green silk embossed with tambour work; his sash was of the plainest purple silk, and his sidrîyeh or vest was of entire cloth of gold with gold filigree buttons: on the head a plain tarboosh, and in his hand sometimes a cane ornamented with ivory or a rosary of sandal-wood. His gold watch and chain were in the best European taste.
I need not here expatiate on the sumptuous reception afforded us; it may be enough to say, that having some hours to spare before sunset—the universal time for dinner in the East—we walked about, and the Bek shewed me the yet unrepaired damages, inflicted in his father’s time, at the hands of the victorious Ameer Besheer’s faction, on that palace and paradise which his father Besheer had created there, thus teaching the Shehâb Ameer how to build its rival of Beteddeen,—and the limpid stream brought from the high sources of the Barook to supply cascades and fountains for the marble courts, which the other also imitated in bringing down the Suffâr to his place. We satbeside those streams and cascades, so grateful at that season of the year, conversing about the Arab factions of Kaisi and Yemeni, or the Jonblât and Yesbeck parties of the Druses, or his own early years spent in exile either in the Hauran or with Mohammed ’Ali in Egypt,—but not a word about actual circumstances of the Lebanon, or about his plans for restoring the palace to more than its former splendour, which he afterwards carried out. This was all very agreeable, but a curious fit of policy assumed at the time rendered my host to some degree apparently inhospitable to us Christians.
It is well known that the Druse religion allows its votaries to profess outwardly the forms of any other religion according to place and circumstances. The Bek was now adopting Moslem observances; consequently, it being the month of Ramadân, we could have nothing to eat till after sunset. What could have been his reason for this temporary disguisement I have never been able to discover. Even the adân was cried on the roof of his house, summoning people to prayer in the canonical formula of the Moslems, and Saïd Bek, with his councillors, retired to a shed for devotional exercises, as their prayers may be appropriately termed; and I remarked that at every rising attitude he was lifted reverently by the hands and elbows, by his attendants,—an assistance which no true Mohammedan of any rank, that I had ever met with, would have tolerated.
At length the sunlight ceased to gild the lofty peaks above us, and pipes, sherbet, and ice were served up as a preparation for the coming dinner.
There is in front of the house a square reservoir of water, with a current flowing in and out of it; this is bordered by large cypress-trees, and in a corner near the house wall grows a large acacia-tree, the light-green colour and drooping foliage of which gave somewhat of an Indian appearance to the scene.
Lamps were then lit beneath an arcade, and near the water a huge cresset was filled with resinous pine splinters, and the light of its burning flickered fantastically over the pool, the house, and the trees.
Next came the dinner, late for the appetites of us travellers, and tedious in its duration—with music outside the open windows.
After the meal the Bek withdrew to the corner of his divan for transaction of business with his people, as the Moslems do at that season. His part of the affairs consisted in endorsing a word or two upon the petitions or addresses that were produced by the secretaries—these were written on small rolls of paper like tiny cigarettes, pinched at one end. How very un-European to carry on business in so few words, either written or spoken!
Saïd Bek was a man of few words in such transactions, but what he did say seemed always to hit exactly the point intended; and the wave of hisfinger was sufficient to summon a number of men to receive his commands. He was evidently a person of a different stamp from the coarse leaders of Lebanon factions, the Abu Neked, the Shibli el ’Ariân, and such like; he is proud of his family antiquity, refined in dress and manners, and has always, like the rest of the Druses, courted the favour of the English nation.
On the entrance of his son, named Nejib, probably four or five years old, all the Akâl councillors and military officers rose to receive him.
In the morning we took our departure, when Saïd Bek accompanied us as far as the Meidân, and a profusion of Druse compliments filled up the leave-taking.
We now passed for some hours along the river side, through the utmost loveliness of Lebanon scenery. Among other trees that lined its banks, or adorned the precipitous cliffs, or followed the rising and falling road, were noble specimens of platanus (plane) and lofty zanzalacht, (the peepul of India;) crystal rills tumbled down the rocks, as if sparkling alive with enjoyment; then the usual poplar, walnut, evergreen oak, and a large plantation of olive: the river sometimes smiled with the fringe of oleander. We halted for a time under a wide-branching platanus at the end of a bridge, between the masonry of which grew bunches of the caper plant, then in blossom of white and lilac, and at the piers of which grew stragglingblackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or fragments of rock.
Peasantry passed us with ass-loads of wood for fuel, (camels being unknown in that region.) The same features continually repeated themselves as we advanced; large broken cliffs were overhanging us, and birds singing in the solitude; it need not be added that the sun was cloudless the whole day long.
Forward we went to the Convent of the Dair el Mokhallis, which we reached in four hours and a half from Mokhtârah, where we rested a few hours; then visited once more the house of Lady Hester Stanhope.
Thence descending to the sea beach, we crossed the river Awali, and looked back with regret to the heights of Lebanon. Just as the last gun of Ramadân was fired, (for it was the termination of that fast and the commencement of Beiram,) we galloped our horses into the sea-wave near the walls of Sidon, which they enjoyed as refreshing to their heated fetlocks, and we found a luxury in the breeze and in the rustling sound of the endless roll of wavelets upon the shelly beach.
How different were the temperature and the scenery from those of Mokhtârah in the early morning!
* * * * *
Even now in the nineteenth century one canunderstand how it was that in ancient Bible times the peoples inhabiting those romantic districts were distinct from each other within a small space, having separate kings and alien interests, for here in the lapse of few hours I had traversed regions where the inhabitants differed greatly in religion, in manners, customs, dress, and physical aspect. The Maronite and the Druse of Lebanon; the Syrian and the Turk of Bayroot, Saida, and Soor; the Metawâli of the Phœnician district, no more resemble each other than if they were men or women of different nations, as indeed they are by derivation; each of these is but a fragment of antiquity, representing to us his several ancient race; yet all these fragments are united for the present by the slenderest of bonds, those of using one common language, the Arabic, and of an unwilling subjection to the Ottoman scymitar.
Alas! for the beautiful country thus parcelled out by peoples, who, cherishing ancient rivalries and modern blood-feuds, have, and can have no national life, or sentiment of patriotism.
In December 1856, I met, by appointment, at Jericho the Rev. A. A. Isaacs, and my friend James Graham, who were going with photographic apparatus to take views at the site called Wadi Gumrân, near ’Ain Feshkah, where a few years before M. de Saulcy, under the guidance of an ardent imagination, believed he had found extensive and cyclopean remains of the city Gomorrah, and had published an account of that interesting discovery.
It was on Christmas eve that we rose early by starlight, and had our cups of coffee in the open air, beside theKala’at er Reehha, (Castle of Jericho,) while the tents were being struck and rolled up for returning to Jerusalem, where we were to meet them at night.
Only the artistic apparatus and a small canteen were to accompany us; but the muleteer for these was even more dilatory in his preparations than is usual with his professional brethren—and that issaying much; no doubt he entertained a dread of visiting the Dead Sea at points out of the beaten track for travellers; considerable time was also occupied in getting a stone out of the mule’s shoe; then just as that was triumphantly effected, my mare happened to bolt off free into the wilderness; when she was recovered, it was ascertained that my cloak was lost from her back; during the search for this, the guide abandoned us, and it was with much difficulty that we hired one from Jericho.
At length we commenced the march, leaving the kawwâs to look for the cloak, (which, however, he did not succeed in recovering; it would be a prize for the thieves of the village, or even, if it should fall in their way, for one of the Bashi-bozuk,) and got to’Ain Feshkah, much in need of a real breakfast. There the water was found to be too brackish for use—as unpalatable, probably, as the water of ’Ain es Sultân was before being healed by the prophet Elisha; so we drank native wine instead of coffee, while seated among tall reeds of the marshy ground, and not pleased with the mephitic odour all around us.
Our photographers having ascertained the site for their researches by means of the guide, and by the indications furnished in the work of De Saulcy; they set themselves to work, during which they were frequently uttering ejaculations at the exaggerations of size and quantity made by my French friend. The cyclopean ruins seemed tous nothing but remnants of water-courses for irrigation of plantations, such as may be seen in the neighbourhood of Elisha’s fountain, or heaps of boulders, etc., that had been rolled down from the adjacent cliffs by natural causes during a succession of ages.
Mr Isaacs has since published a book descriptive of this expedition, containing illustrations from his photographs taken on the spot. In this he has given the reasons for our differing from M. de Saulcy, and considering his theories unfounded.
At the end of a strip of beach, which the discoverer calls “the plain,” the cliffs have a narrow crevasse, down which water rushes in the season when there is water to form a cascade. This is difficult to reach from “the plain,” and very narrow; and it is what our Arabs called the Wadi Gumrân. In front of this opening is a hill with some ruins upon it; thither we mounted easily, and saw vestiges of some ancient fort with a cistern.
When all the observations were taken upon points considered necessary, we prepared to return home by way of Mar Saba, hardly expecting to arrive by daylight at Jerusalem. We were, however, desirous of spending Christmas day there rather than in the bleak wilderness.
On the way we fortunately got some camel’s milk from a party passing near us. The weather was hot, but exceedingly clear. The Saltmountain of Sodom, (Khash’m Usdum,) showed itself well at the southern extremity of the lake, thirty miles distant; and from a raised level near its northern end we gained superb views of Mount Hermon (Jebel esh Shaikh) in the Anti-Lebanon, capped with snow. This was entirely unexpected and gratifying; but I could nowhere find a spot from which both Hermon and Sodom could be seen at once. Perhaps such a view may be had somewhere on the hills.
We turned aside through theWadi Dubber, as the guide termed it, within a circuitous winding, out of which, at a spot called ’Ain Merubba’, I had passed a night in the open air some years before.
Long, dreary, and tiresome was the journey; the two Bashi-bozuk men complained of it as much as we did. At sunset we came to a well with some water left in troughs near it, but not enough for all our horses, and we had no means of getting more out of the well. This was in a wide, treeless, trackless wilderness.
No one of our party felt quite sure of being on the true road, but we followed slight tracks in the general direction in which the convent lay; we guessed and went on. Occasionally we got sight of the summit of the Frank mountain or lost it again, according to the rise or fall of the ground. Conversation flagged; but at length we struck up a Christmas hymn to enliven us.
In the valley of Mar Saba we saw lights in the convent, but passed on. Saw an Arab encampment, with fire and lights glimmering, where the dogs came out to bark at us; another such in half an hour more; and a larger camp in another half-hour, where men were discussing matters with much vociferation in a cavern by a blazing fire; a scout called out, inquiring if we were friends or foes?
The night grew very cold, and I should have been glad had my cloak not been lost near Jericho. The temperature differed greatly from that of the Dead Sea—a keen wind was in keeping with the end of December. The stars were most brilliant: Venus richly lustrous; Sirius, dazzling; and the huge Orion showing to best advantage. The road was alternately rough in the valley, or over slippery ledges. At length, however, we got cheered by coming to known objects. Passed Beer Eyoob, (En Rogel,) and saw the battlemented walls of the Holy City sharply marked against the sky.
The key had been left by the authorities at the city gate, to allow of our admission; but the rusty lock required a long time for turning it, and the heavy hinges of the large gate moved very slowly, at least so it seemed in our impatience to reach home.
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It is said above that I once spent a night at the ’Ain Merubba’—this was on the occasion of an attempt, which ended in failure, to reach ’Ain Jidi(En-gaddi) from the ’Ain Feshkah in the common way of travelling.[419]
Hhamdan, Shaikh of the Ta’amra, with about a dozen of his men, escorted me and one kawwâs in that direction. Instead of proceeding to Jericho or Elisha’s fountain, we turned aside into the wildest of wildernesses for passing the night. Traversing the length of an extremely narrow ridge, something like the back of a knife, we descended to a great depth below; but the risk being judged too great for conveying the tent and bed over there by the mule, these were left spread upon the ground for the night under the canopy of heaven; while the men carried our food for us to make the evening meal. Crawling or sliding, and leading the horses gently, we got to the bottom, and then followed up a very narrow glen, winding in and out, and round about between extraordinary precipices rising to enormous heights, till all at once the men halted, shouted, and sang, and stripped themselves to bathe in small pools formed in holes of the rock by settlements of rain-water.
This was our halting-place, but the scene beggars all power of description. We were shut into a contracted glen by a maze of tortuous windings, between mountains of yellow marl on either side; but broken, rugged, naked of all vegetation,—referring one’s imagination to the period when theearth was yet “without form and void,” or to the subsiding of the deluge from which Noah was delivered.
Looking upwards to a great height we could just see the tops of the imprisoning hills gilded awhile by the setting sun, and a small space of blue making up the interval between the precipices. Those precipices were not, however, entirely yellow, but variegated with occasional red or somewhat of brown ochre. So fantastic in position or shape were the masses hurled or piled about, and the place so utterly removed “from humanity’s reach,” that it might be imagined suitable to mould the genius of Martin into the most extravagant conceptions of chaos, or to suggest the colouring of Turner without his indistinctness of outline.
The echoes of the men’s voices and bursts of laughter (the latter so uncommon among Arabs) when splashing in the water, were reverberated from hill to hill and back again; but there were no wild birds among the rocks to scream in rejoinder as at Petra.
After a time a voice was heard from above, very high, (it is wonderful how far the human voice is carried in that pure atmosphere and in such a locality,) and on looking up I saw a dark speck against the sky waving his arms about. It was one of the Ta’amra asking if he should bring down my mattress. Consent was given, and, behold, down came tumbling from rock to rock themattress and blanket tied up into a parcel; when approaching near us, it was taken up by the man who followed it, and carried on his back; and when still nearer to us it was carefully borne between two men. Thus I enjoyed the distinction above all the rest of having a mattress to lie upon; the shaikh had a couple of cloaks, the kawwâs had one, and the others were utterly without such luxurious accessories, and slept profoundly.
Our people called the place’Ain Merubba’, (the square fountain.) I saw no fountain of any form, but there must have been one, for we had a supply of good water, and the designation “’Ain,” or fountain, is one of too serious importance to be employed for any but its literal signification.
Very early in the morning we started afresh, and took the beach of the lake towards ’Ain Feshkah.
A great part of the day was spent in clambering our ponies over broken rocks of a succession of promontories, one following another, where it seemed that no creatures but goats could make way; the Arabs protesting all the while that the attempt was hopeless, and besides, that the distance even over better ground was too great for one day’s march.
At length I relinquished the undertaking to reach ’Ain Jidi by that way, and for that year had no leisure from business to try it from other directions.
Hhamdan and I sat on a rock in his free open air dominion, discussing possibilities, and what ’Ain Jidi was like, as well as the “Ladder of Terâbeh,” (see p. 334.) At length we rose and turned towards Jerusalem. I am not sure that I ever saw him again, for not long afterwards he was drowned in the Jordan while attempting to swim his horse through the stream at its highest, after assisting in a battle on the side of the Dëab ’Adwân.
On the crest of a high hill two or three hours west from Jerusalem, stands the village of Soba, and it has long been imagined to be Modin, the birth-place and burial-place of the Maccabæan heroes; though I never heard any reason assigned for that identification, except the circumstance of the sea being visible from it, and therefore of its being visible from the sea, which was supposed to tally with the description given in 1 Macc. xiii., 27-30, of the monuments erected there,—“Simon also built a monument upon the sepulchre of his father and his brethren, and raised it aloft to the sight, with hewn stone behind and before. Moreover, he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father, and his mother, and his four brethren. And in these he made cunning devices, about the which he set great pillars, and upon the pillars he made all their armour for a perpetual memory; and by the armour ships carved, that they might be seen of all that sail on the sea. This is thesepulchre which he made at Modin, and it standeth yet unto this day.”
I never was persuaded that the words implied that ships carved on pillars at Soba, could be distinguished from the sea, or even that the columns themselves were visible from ships off the coast; but only this, that the deliverers of their country from the intolerable yoke of the Syrians, having opened up communication with the Grecians and Romans, marine intercourse had become more frequent than before, a matter that the Maccabæan family were proud of; and therefore they had ships carved on the pillars, as might be observed by seafaring people who might go there; yet, whatever the words might signify, they could not prove that Modin was so far inland, and among the hills, as Soba.
However, in 1858, I went with my son and a couple of friends to inspect the place itself, considering it at least worth while to make one’s own observations on the spot.
We passed through’Ain Carem, theKaremof the Septuagint, toSattâf, and rested during the heat of the day in a vineyard, near a spring of water and plots of garden vegetables, belonging to the few houses that had been rebuilt after several years of devastation by village warfare.
The approach to the place from any direction is through the very rough torrent bed of the Wadi Bait Hhaneena, and along very narrow ledgesupon the sides of steep hills, quite as perilous as any that are used for travelling in any part of the Lebanon; too dangerous to admit of dismounting and leading the horse after the risk has once begun, by far the safest method of advancing is to hold the reins very loose, and if you wish it, to shut your eyes.
Opposite to Sattâf, directly across the valley, the Latins had lately rebuilt a small chapel of former times, said to have been the prison of John the Baptist; they name it the Chapel of theHhabees,i.e., the imprisoned one.
Leaving Sattâf we gradually ascended to Soba; at first through lemon and orange plantations near the water, and then through vineyards with a few pomegranate-trees interspersed.
It is noteworthy how, throughout most of the tribe of Judah, small springs of water are found dribbling from the rocks, (besides the larger sources of Urtas, Lifta, Faghoor ’Aroob, Dirweh, and Hebron,) which were doubtless more copious in the ancient times, when the land was more clothed with timber, and there were men, industrious men, aware of their blessings, and ready to prevent the streams from slipping away beneath the seams of limestone formation.
At Soba we mounted the steep hill to theShooneh, or small look-out tower at the summit, enjoying the breadth of landscape and the stretch of the Mediterranean before our eyes.
In the village we found remains of old masonry, most likely the basement of a fortification of early Saracenic or the Crusaders’ era; besides which there was a piece of wall in excellent condition of the best character of Jewish rabbeted stones.
One man invited us to see some old stones inside of his house; but they formed a portion of the basement above-mentioned, against which the rest of his house was built. The people were unanimous in declaring that there was nothing else of such a nature in the village. So that our researches issued in no corroboration of Soba being Modin.
Leaving the place we descended to the high road of Jaffa to Jerusalem, and saw a number of olive-trees dead of age; none of us, however long resident in Palestine, had seen such before or elsewhere; we concluded them to have been withered by age from their bearing no visible tokens of destruction, while the ground was well ploughed around them, and from finding others near them in progressive stages of decay, down to the utter extinction of foliage.
Arrived atKalônehupon the highway, certainly the site of a Roman garrison or “colonia,” (see Acts xvi. 12,) leaving Kustul behind, which is also a derivation from the Latin word for a castle.
Near the bridge of Kalôneh, where there are good specimens of ancient rabbeted stones, one gets a glimpse of ’Ain Carem through the oliveplantation; and the return that day was by a cross way fromDair Yaseenthrough vineyards to Jerusalem.
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It is only at a comparatively late period that attention has been directed to the text of Eusebius and Jerome in the “Onomasticon,” where it is distinctly said that Modin was near Lydd, and that the monuments were at that time (in the fourth century) still shown there.
Porter considers that thereforeLatroonis the true site of Modin: in this supposition I wish to concur; for the general run of the Maccabæan history becomes peculiarly intelligible when read with the idea in the mind that Modin lay in just such a situation, namely, upon a hill, rising alone from the great plain, but adjacent to the mountain ridge, and to defiles into which the insurgents might easily retire, or from which they might issue suddenly and surprise regular armies in their camp. I know of no place so suitable for such operations as Latroon.
The word επνγεγλυμμένα, used for the armour and the ships, must mean “carved in relievo,” and such objects could never be distinguished by persons actually passing upon the sea, if placed either at Soba, Latroon, Lydd, or even Jaffa; it is difficult enough to imagine that the pyramids and columns were visible from the sea at Latroon.
There are two villages in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem bearing the name of Bait Sahhoor. One lies near to the city, beyond En-Rogel, a little way down the valley of the Kedron; the other is farther off, close under Bethlehem. By way of distinction, the former is called “Bait Sahhoor of the Wâdi,” and the latter, “Bait Sahhoor of the Christians.” I think that it can be shown that these places, though now fallen from their high estate, once played their part in important events,—that Bait Sahhoor of the Wâdi is identical with Bethsura,—and that Bait Sahhoor of the Christians is identical with Bath Zacharias—both of Maccabæan history.
In the year 150 of the Seleucidan era, being the fifth year of the liberty of Zion, (the term used upon the Maccabæan coins,) a vast army of Syrians invaded Palestine from Antioch, headed by King Antiochus Eupator, in the twelfth year of his age, and under the official command of Lysias, one ofhis relatives. The army consisted of both subjects and hired aliens, even from the islands of the sea. They numbered “a hundred thousand infantry, and twenty thousand cavalry, with thirty-two elephants exercised in battle,” (I Macc. vi. 30.)
The object of the expedition was to crush the Maccabæan insurrection, and wipe out the disgrace of defeats already sustained. The first attempt was to be the relief of the garrison at Jerusalem, which was at this time beleaguered by Judas from the temple part of the city.
“The army was very great and mighty,” (ver. 41.) “When the sun shone upon the shields of gold and brass, the mountains glistered therewith, and shined like lamps of fire,” (ver. 39.) Each of the thirty-two elephants was attended by “a thousand men armed with coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads; and besides this, for every beast was ordained five hundred horsemen of the best—these were ready at every occasion: wheresoever the beast was, and whithersoever the beast went they went also, neither departed they from him; and upon the beasts were there strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were upon every one thirty-two strong men that fought upon them, beside the Indian that ruled him,” (ver. 35, etc.)
This strange host marched along the Philistine plain southwards to Idumea, which is on the southof Hebron: this being the only way for such an army and its elephants to get at Jerusalem. Thence they swept the land before them northwards, “and pitched against Bethsura, which they assaulted many days, making engines of war, but they of the city came out and fought valiantly,” (ver. 31.)
Whereupon Judas desisted from his siege of the citadel—which, I may remark in passing, must have been on Acra, not like David’s citadel taken from the Jebusites, on Zion—and hastened to attack the royal host, mighty though it was.
Some have supposed that Bethsura is to be found at Bait Zur, near Hebron, the Beth Zur of Josh. xv. 33; whereas this place is more than a hundred furlongs from Jerusalem, being not much more than an hour (north) from Hebron, and is altogether too far removed to answer the description of Bethsura, and the operations carried on there, close to the Holy City.
The 5th verse of the 11th chapter of 2 Maccabees sets the whole question at rest; the words are distinctly, “So he (Lysias) came to Judea and drew near to Bethsura, which was a strong town, but distant from Jerusalemabout five furlongs, and he laid sore siege unto it.” Again, immediately after taking the city of Jerusalem and dedicating the temple, Judas “fortified Bethsura in order to preserve it,” (that is, Mount Zion,) that the people might have a defence against Idumea, (I Macc. iv. 61.) And the accusation which had been formerlymade to the King Antiochus Epiphanes in Persia against Judas and his men was “that they had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls as before, and his city Bethsura;” also to the present king at Antioch, “that the sanctuary also and Bethsura have they fortified,” (chap. vi. 7, 26.) It is clear that one was an outwork of the other, Bethsura being the defence of Jerusalem against incursions from the south.
I know not how to doubt that Bait Sahhoor of the valley is the very place. It lies upon a lofty hill across the valley not far beyond En-Rogel. This is at present a wretched village, only inhabited for a few weeks in the year; but the position is naturally one of great strength. The distance from the city answers precisely the requirements of the history,—a signal by trumpet, if not the human voice, could be heard from one garrison to the other. I have ridden repeatedly to the spot and examined the ground. The south-eastern angle of the temple wall at Jerusalem (where the great stones are found) is distinctly visible from the houses. I sat there upon my horse and remarked how unassailable by cavalry and elephants this site must have been, and how great its value for a military outwork to the sanctuary of the temple. The pediment and moulding of a column lay at my feet,—around and opposite across the valley were numerous sepulchres hewn in the solid rock; yet the infantry of the Syrians were sufficient tooverwhelm the gallant defenders. Judas in this emergency resolved to come to their relief, raising the siege of the citadel and outflanking the enemy. For this purpose he “pitched at Bath Zacharias over against the king’s camp,” (ver. 32.) This was seventy stadia, or nearly nine Roman, or eight and a half English miles distant from Bethsura, (Josephus’ Antiq. xii. 9, 4.) I believe Bath Zacharias to be the village which now bears the name of “Bait Sahhoor of the Christians,” close to Bethlehem.[432]I have ridden over the space between the two villages called Bait Sahhoor; the distance upon a well marked and rather winding road, answers well to the description of the historian. The stratagem of Judas becomes here very intelligible, which was to take the invaders in the rear, and placing them between two hostile Jewish forces, to draw away the main attack from Bethsura and Jerusalem; besides cutting off any assistance from the south. Antiochus did face round in order to attack him, and was met in narrow straits between the two localities. This I take to be the broken ground south-east of Mar Elias, where certainly it would be just as impossible now for two elephants to go abreast as it was when Josephus wrote his livelydescription of the engagement that ensued; of the shouts of the men echoing among the mountains, and the glitter of the rising sun upon the polished accoutrements. It was summer, for they excited the elephants with the blood of the grape and the mulberry. The road is to this day defined by true tokens of antiquity, such as lines of stones covered with hoary lichen, old cisterns, especially a noble one called theBeer el Kott, with here and there steps cut in the shelves of solid rock. The last part of the road on the south is among slippery, rocky, narrow defiles and paths, half-way down the hill-sides.
Here six hundred of the Syrian army were cut off and Eleazar, the heroic brother of Judas, was crushed under an elephant which he had killed. Yet the fortune of the day was not decisive in favour of the Maccabæan army, which retired and entrenched itself within the temple fortress.
The outlying post of Bethsura was obliged to capitulate.
Philological grounds for the above identification are not wanting. Bethsura and Bath Zacharias may have easily represented the Arabic or Hebrew form of Bait Sahhoor. The guttural letter in the middle naturally disappears in the Greek text, just as the Greek word “Assidean” represents the Hebrew Chasidim in the same history.
The following is a simple demonstration of the transition:—
Transition from Hebrew via Greek to Arabic
It may be asked, why did neither Josephus nor the author of the Books of Maccabees tell us that Beth Zachariah was near Bethlehem? I answer: first, the narrative did not make this necessary; secondly, Bethlehem was then “among the least of the thousands of Judah,” her great day had not yet arrived; and thus it might have been quite as necessary to say that Bethlehem was near Beth Zachariah, as to say that Beth Zachariah was near Bethlehem.
The modern name “Bait Sahhoor of the Christians” arises most likely from the fact that a majority of the inhabitants,—thirty families to twenty in the year 1851,—were of that religion, and from its nearness to the field where it is believed the angels appeared to the shepherds announcing the birth of Christ, with its subterranean chapel, the crypt of a large church in former times.
The other Bait Sahhoor (El Wadîyeh) is so named from its position on the side of the Wadi in Nar, or valley of the Kedron. It is only occasionally inhabited, the people who claim it being too few to clear out the encumbered cisterns for their use, but prefer to identify themselves during most of the year with other villages, such as Siloam near at hand, where water is more abundant.