Byeways in Palestine Part 33

How curious is the domestic life of these Oriental families. Eating takes place in the princ.i.p.al room, with a throng of women and children pa.s.sing 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; but before 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 Bteddin. 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 pa.s.sed 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 must refrain, 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 pa.s.sages, coloured mosaics in profusion on the floors, painted roofs, rich columns, bra.s.s gates, carved doors, marble fountains, and basins with gold fish.

We entered the state reception room, and the old ameer's little business divan, in a balcony commanding a view of the approaches in every direction, of the meidan 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 witnessing every 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 pa.s.sing 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 Suffar 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 princ.i.p.al wife, who was a Christian; they are near the house, and surrounded by five cypresses.

Took the road towards Mokhtarah, the seat of the rival chief, the Druse Jonblat. 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 river _Barook_, so named from being the first place where the Arab camels _knelt_ on 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 the _Sumkaniyeh_, 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 Jonblatiyeh in 1825.

At length, from the commencement of a descent, we saw Mokhtarah 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 Bek Jonblat, {408} came out with a train of 'Akal 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 sidriyeh or vest was of entire cloth of gold with gold filigree b.u.t.tons: 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 Shehab 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 Suffar to his place. We sat beside those streams and cascades, so grateful at that season of the year, conversing about the Arab factions of Kaisi and Yemeni, or the Jonblat 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sumed 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 circ.u.mstances. The Bek was now adopting Moslem observances; consequently, it being the month of Ramadan, we could have nothing to eat till after sunset. What could have been his reason for this temporary disguis.e.m.e.nt I have never been able to discover. Even the adan was cried on the roof of his house, summoning people to prayer in the canonical formula of the Moslems, and Said 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 att.i.tude he was lifted reverently by the hands and elbows, by his attendants,--an a.s.sistance 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 appet.i.tes 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 pet.i.tions 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!

Said 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 his finger was sufficient to summon a number of men to receive his commands.

He was evidently a person of a different stamp from the coa.r.s.e leaders of Lebanon factions, the Abu Neked, the Shibli el 'Arian, 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 Akal councillors and military officers rose to receive him.

In the morning we took our departure, when Said Bek accompanied us as far as the Meidan, and a profusion of Druse compliments filled up the leave-taking.

We now pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble specimens of plata.n.u.s (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 plata.n.u.s 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 straggling blackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or fragments of rock.

Peasantry pa.s.sed us with a.s.s-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 Mokhtarah, 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 Ramadan 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 sh.e.l.ly beach.

How different were the temperature and the scenery from those of Mokhtarah in the early morning!

Even now in the nineteenth century one can understand how it was that in ancient Bible times the peoples inhabiting those romantic districts were distinct from each other within a small s.p.a.ce, 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 Metawali of the Phoenician 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.

XIII. NORTH-WEST OF THE DEAD SEA.

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 Gumran, 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 the _Kala'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 is saying 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 kawwas 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 Sultan 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns at the exaggerations of size and quant.i.ty made by my French friend. The cyclopean ruins seemed to us 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 creva.s.se, 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 Gumran. 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 pa.s.sing near us. The weather was hot, but exceedingly clear. The Salt mountain 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 the _Wadi Dubber_, as the guide termed it, within a circuitous winding, out of which, at a spot called 'Ain Merubba', I had pa.s.sed 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.