Byeways in Palestine Part 32

The most rugged portion of the road was between _'Ain 'Anoob_ and _'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 of rocks. 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 pa.s.sed _'Ain Kesoor_ on 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 Sat.u.r.day.

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 the windows 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 pa.s.sing 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 stream himself 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 pa.s.sage, 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 s.e.xes in the congregation. The girls of the school (who are all taught English) were there placed by themselves, and prettily dressed, wearing the Oriental _izar_, (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 how deep 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 cla.s.s 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 Jonblat family.

The ancestral mansion he inhabits was built by one of the ancient 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 'Akal are not so marked in their difference of costume from the Juhal 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 Jahel, 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 engaged in 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 Mokhtarah, Naaman, (brother of Said Bek Jonblat,) who has retired from worldly affairs, and become a devout 'Akal, requested one of my party to ask Said to send him some orange-flower water. I have no doubt that this message ([Greek text]) 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 princ.i.p.al apartment; all thoroughly Oriental of olden time.

The Christian secretary of the Bek attended us to _Cuf'r Natta_ on 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 Suffar, being the upper part of the river that is called Damoor upon the sea-coast. This is crossed by the bridge _Jisr' el Kadi_, (so named from an ameer of the house of T'noohh, surnamed the Kadi, 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 Kadi 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 pa.s.sed along.

We alighted at the best Arab house I had ever entered, namely, that of the influential Meshakah 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, the opposite hill was suffused in a glow of pink, followed by purple light, and the Ramadan gun was fired from Beteddeen when the sun's...o...b..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 the talented 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.