Byeways in Palestine Part 30

On returning to the tents, the shaikh of the village came, attended by some of his relatives belonging to Hhasbeya, begging for some quinine medicine: I gave him eight of my twelve remaining pills. On the adjacent plain there must needs be fever and ague; in fact, so unwilling was I on account of malaria to remain longer at Banias, that we resumed our travelling by night.

At three o'clock, A.M., we were mounted--there was a little rain at the time, and clouds that threatened more of it obscured the setting moon; there was lightning also in the same direction. I even altered my plan of going on to "the bridge of the daughters of Jacob," (the thoroughfare between Safed and Damascus,) in order to escape from the plain as quickly as possible. For this purpose we turned westwards, and had to struggle through marshes and rough ground by starlight and lightning. Most unwisely we had neglected to take a meal before starting, not expecting the district to be so plashy and unwholesome as it proved to be. The plain, north of the Lake Hhooleh, is traversed by innumerable channels of water, among which rice is grown, of which I gathered a handful as a trophy to exhibit in Jerusalem. And there were lines of tents of the poor Ghawarineh Arabs upon dry ground, besides small scaffolds standing in the rice marshes, from which elevations the people watch the crops and fire upon wild beasts that come to injure or devour the crops; dogs barked as we pa.s.sed, and fires were visible in several directions.

Arriving at the bridge of _El Ghujar_, my companion and I both felt sick, and had to dismount and rest for a time.

Our guide's account of the river differed from that given in Robinson; instead of the stream being the Hhasbani and the bridge named El Ghujar, he averred that the river is El Ghujar, and that it rises out of the ground like the waters of Banias and of Tell el Kadi. Perhaps this may account for Porter more recently placing the bridge El Ghujar in a different situation, much farther north. The circ.u.mstance is not without value in inquiries as to the collective formation of the Jordan.

As daylight broke we could see herds of buffaloes among the marshes, or swimming in the water with only their heads raised above the surface; the village of _Khalsah_ was half way up the hill-side.

From this point the road was level, dry, and comfortable, running due southwards along the western margin of the plain, but with streams occasionally crossing it, rushing from the hills towards the lake.

Near _'Ain el Mellahhah_ two Arabs rode up to us and planted their spears in the ground near our horses heads as a warning to stop, and I suppose to pay ghuf'r. I kept on, leaving the kawwas to parley with them.

Not far from the fountain we rested under a terebinth tree (not a favourable specimen) upon a rising ground; beneath us, but at a short distance, the strong stream turns a mill, pa.s.sing through a house, and escapes to the plain.

The Arabs met us again, and said they were looking for a horse that was lost, and we saw no more of them.

In another hour my companion was taken with a strong fit of ague, which urged us the more to press onward for Safed. From the hills, as we rose higher and higher, the Lake Hhooleh was perceived to be, above one-third of it, choked up with weeds and rushes. Old Hermon showed himself in surpa.s.sing grandeur; not a confused ma.s.s--as he does from the plain looking upwards from close beneath him--but as one grand "monarch of mountains."

"On a throne of rocks, with a robe of clouds, And a diadem of snow."

The sun was hot and the hills chalky over which we pa.s.sed. In one place by our wayside, and at considerable elevation, I found squared masonry stones and traces of houses, with fragments of columns.

A poor Arab peasant, driving an a.s.s laden with a wooden box, was groaning with pain, and implored us for a draught of water, but I fear that our people had neglected to bring any with them, as they expected to be so soon in Safed.

Rested under the shade of some large stones, and sent on a message before us to the town. In quarter of an hour, however, some peals of thunder roused us to pursue the journey; the strong wind that arose at the same time was not good for ague patients. Across the great plain as we looked back was a broad faint piece of rainbow, and the huge mountain, mantled with clouds about his shoulders, but bright below, appeared peculiarly fantastic, with flickering shadows of clouds chasing over his sunny sides.

On the outskirts of Safed we found, as customary at that season, (Bairam,) the newly white-washed graves of the Moslems, adorned with bunches of myrtle.

At Safed we lodged in the house of a Rus...o...b..itish Jew, and letters from Jerusalem that had awaited us came safe to hand, after which followed the necessary reception of visitors, very troublesome to weary and exhausted travellers, and at last a supper which had been long in preparing--at least so it seemed to be.

PART II.

This, like the journey last described, of six years before, was portion of a much longer tour, but I omit all that cannot come under the designation of a Byeway in Palestine. The two routes were very similar to each other, with the exception of the pa.s.sage from Banias to Safed.

Starting from Saida, and trending south-eastwards towards Hhasbeya, we climbed the mountains, which here rise almost from the sea-sh.o.r.e, and crossed romantic pa.s.ses of rugged eminences and deeply cleft ravines.

From Hhasbeya the line was due south to Banias, thence westward by Tell el Kadi, and Hhuneen, and Tibneen, the capital of the Belad Besharah, thus almost reaching once more the plain of Phoenicia on its eastern verge; next by the antiquities of Kadesh Naphtali southwards to Safed; and homewards to Jerusalem, but this latter route is not to be described, for the reason given above.

I was accompanied by my niece and another lady, a settled resident of Jerusalem. The first object after quitting Saida was to visit Joon, and to show my companions the residence of Lady Hester Stanhope in years gone by. This we reached just before sunset, on the 2d of October 1855.

The tomb was found much dilapidated; in 1853 it was no longer in so good a condition as it had been in 1849, but it was now even worse, and the whole spectacle of house, stables, and gardens, was melancholy in the extreme: the deprivation of roofs gives a peculiar aspect of desolation to any abandoned dwelling, especially when the gardens have still their cultivable flowers remaining, but running riot within their marked-out beds; these had now been sixteen years neglected, yet the roses and myrtle only required pruning.

We proceeded to the convent, the road was stony, and we had to find the way by twilight and starlight.

At the great door we were received by the new president, and several of the clergy chanting psalms for welcome, and the great bell was ringing at the same time. I could not but attribute all this unusual display to the operation of political affairs in Europe.

On taking possession of the rooms allotted to us, I received a visit of the Greek Catholic Bishop of Saida, he being there on business connected with the election of a new patriarch in the place of Maximus; his deportment was that of a man of polite society. Our rooms were lighted by huge ecclesiastical tapers of wax.

Next morning, after returning the visit of the bishop at the patriarchal residence in front of the convent, we breakfasted in the corridor with the president and another of the convent clergy. Our ladies then set themselves to sketching the view from the window, and talking about church singing from notes, whereupon the president sent a deacon to fetch his book, and the latter sang for us an anthem, the vociferation and screechings of which was so alarming, not to mention the nasal tw.a.n.g, that my niece had to run away to indulge in an obstreperous laugh, and her senior companion had also much difficulty in refraining from the same kind of expression of opinion. The Oriental system of church musical notation is very complicated, having no stave-lines or bars, but only certain arbitrary marks over the notes to designate high or low, plain or flourishing.

Afterwards we inspected the church; then the refectory, and there they showed us the desk at which one of the community reads to the rest at meal time, triumphantly a.s.suring me that they read the Bible, yet the two books I found on the desk were, one the Apocryphal writings, the other some homilies of St Basil, under whose rule the convent is const.i.tuted.

Next we walked over the roof, and looked at the great bell, and the gong; the view, as might be expected, repaid the trouble. After this the kitchen and the store-rooms.

On leaving the convent we proceeded to the nunnery in the neighbourhood.

The ladies visited the inmates, while I remained in an outer apartment chatting with a priest, till a curtain was drawn aside, and there, behold! were the lady-president and her flock, curious to see a consul, and blaming the servants for not having admitted me together with my companions.

The latter gave me afterwards as their opinion of the establishment, that it very much resembled a comfortable asylum or almshouse for old women.

By this deviation from the high roads we lost the fairy view in that neighbourhood which had charmed me so much in 1849.

There is a pleasing novelty to us non-Lebanonites in being in a native Christian country. Every hill there has its convent, every convent its bells; clergy are continually pa.s.sing along the road; and on our descent of the hill we met a nice old gentleman in clerical dress, with a very white beard, holding a crimson umbrella over his head, (this is not uncommon in Palestine,) and preceded by a kawwas with a silver-headed official staff, also accompanied by a few peasants carrying guns,--this was a Maronite bishop.

Crossed the river Barook at _Bisrah_, and ascended the usual highway leading to Hhasbeya.

At the village of _Ineer_ we took further directions, and followed over a very wild scene to nearly the summit of a mountain called _Rummet-er-Room_, (the Ramah, or high-place, of the Greeks,) from which the glorious landscape surpa.s.ses all power of description--it is one not to be forgotten.

At _'Azoor_, a clean pleasant village, the women and girls ran in crowds to gaze at my ladies; one of the women shouted "Bon soir" in good French, and a man, accompanied by his wife, saluted us in Italian.

Rested in a beautiful wood of pines, though rather late for luncheon, as the sun was falling below the western mountains. Rising higher on the march we got into rolling misty clouds, and the brilliant effect of sunbeams between the hills and clouds could not but be surprising. Our clothes, however, got damp and chill.

At _Jezzeen_ our tents were found ready pitched in a grove of n.o.ble walnut-trees, with the brook _Zaid_ running among them; near alongside was a Maronite convent, with a bridge.

The muleteers having left us in the morning, lost their way, and had taken the more precipitous road by _Dair Mushmushi_.

Here the people behaved with great hospitality to us.

The night was very cold, and in the morning the water for washing felt like ice. The position of our encampment, as perceived by daylight, was so low between hills that the sun could not reach us till the day should be considerably advanced, yet we were at a very high alt.i.tude. Pity that we had no aneroid barometer with us to ascertain the amount of our elevation above the sea. The poplar-trees and walnut-trees, with fruit trees of various kinds, showed we were in a totally different region from that of Jerusalem.

Jezzeen is almost exclusively a Christian village, with a Greek Catholic church, besides two Maronite churches, and the small convent mentioned above.

There were clergy walking about; the people cleanly and well clothed, the children modestly behaved, and even when rendering a service, not asking for bakhsheesh.

At the time of our leaving, a party of women were wailing over a dead body under a tree.

The scene gradually became more romantic; and we soon came to a village, if such it may be denominated, where the only dwellings are dispersed among vineyards. These vineyards were, at that autumn season, becoming of a brown and golden tint.

After traversing the wondrous chaos referred to in the former journey, we pa.s.sed through the villages of _Cuf'r Hooneh_ and _Deheedeh_, adjoining each other; where there was abundance of water, and oleander bushes fringing the streamlets, with poplar and maple trees.

The rest of the journey had no remarkable difference from that of 1849, except that on the brow of the great descent to the plain, between Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, we rested beneath an olive-tree entwined with honeysuckle, enraptured with the magnificence of the scene, which would require a Milton to portray it in words, or a Martin in painting.

I observed that the prevailing tints of the whole great prospect were of russet and ochreous colours.

Crossed the bridge, charmed with the beauteous verdure and freshening rapid stream of the Leontes river; and when arrived at Hhasbeya, repaired to the house of the native Protestant pastor, (Mr John Wartabed,) till a house could be prepared for us.

Next morning some deputations of the religious sects of the town called upon me; also the Ameer Saad ed Deen and his five sons in rich dresses; and lastly, an old Druse who had distinguished himself as a friend of the Protestant movement. Among all these, my visit there had a beneficial effect upon the existence and progress of native Protestantism. In the Lebanon the Druses have always favoured the missionaries, their schools and their chapels, while the native Christian communities, under the direction of their clergy, have naturally opposed them by every possible means of the direst persecution. In proper time and place I may hereafter have more to say respecting this visit to Hhasbeya.