Byeways in Palestine Part 36

The latter was for several days afterwards indulged with a fresh bough of a tree for his residence, changed about, one day of oak, next of terebinth, then of sumach, or of pine, etc.

Such was our "sweet home" and family life on the Byeways of Palestine.

But a time came when care and anxiety told heavily upon mine and my wife's health. For some days I was confined to bed in the tent, unable to move up to the house; yet enjoying the reading of my chapters in Hebrew in the land of Israel, or ruminating over the huge emphasis of St Paul's Greek in 2 Cor. iv. 17, [Greek text]. The curtains of the tent were thrown wide open at each side for the admission of air; the children were playing or reading on the shady side of another tent; muleteer and camel parties I could observe mounting or falling with the rises and dips of the Hebron road; and the jingle of bells or the singing of the men was audible or alternately lost according to the same circ.u.mstances. I lay watching the progress of sunshine or shadow around the Frank mountain as the hours rolled on; then as evening approached the Egyptian groom took down the Egyptian mare to water at the spring, followed by the foal of pure Saklawi race, that never till the preceding day had had even so much as a halter put across his head,--a Bashi-bozuk soldier with his pipe looking on,--the Abyssinian lad carrying pitchers of water to the several tents, and the pools of bright blue becoming darker blue when rippled by the evening air. All this was food for enjoyment of the picturesque, but at the same time G.o.d Almighty was leading us into deep trials of faith in Himself, and bringing out the value of that promise,--"When thou pa.s.sest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee."

As the autumn advanced, some slight sprinkling of rain fell--dews at night were heavy--mists rose from below--mornings and evenings became cooled--new flowers began to appear, such as the purple crocus, and certain yellow blossoms belonging to the season, the name of which I do not know. We therefore began to take farewell rides about the neighbourhood, as to places we were never to see again. One of these was to a very archaic pile of rude masonry, deeply weather-eaten, at a ruined site called _Bait Saweer_, through green woods and arbutus-trees, glowing with scarlet berries; a place which had only recently been brought to my notice, and of which no European had any knowledge.

The old building, whose use we could not discover, was composed, not of ordinary blocks of stone, but of huge flat slabs, unchiselled at edges or corners, laid one over another, but forming decidedly an intentional edifice. It is well worth further examination. At the time we had with us no materials for sketching, and never had an opportunity of going thither afterwards.

It lies among the wild green scene west from the Hebron road, near where, on the opposite, or east side, is the opening of the Wadi 'Aroob, with its copious springs.

Then we went to _Ma.r.s.eea'_, beyond the _Dair el Benat_--equally unknown to Europeans--and, lastly, to the green slopes and precipices towards _Nahhaleen_, where, lingering till after sunset, we became in a few minutes enveloped in a cloud of mist tossed and rolled along by gusts of wind, and several large eagles rose screaming from perches among rocks below us into the misty air, as if rejoicing in the boisterous weather.

Three months before, we had been on the same spot at the moment of sunset, and saw the whole Philistine plain hidden in a white mist in a single minute, but, of course, far below us; and this, we were told, was the usual state of things, and would remain so for another month, after which the plain would have no mist, but we should have it all on the mountains at sunset--so it was now found to be the case.

From one spot on our own grounds we were able to point out as objects in the magnificent prospect--the Moab mountains, the creva.s.se of the Jabbok into the Ghor, that of Calirrhoe into the Dead Sea, Hhalhhool near Hebron, El Khud'r below us, Rachel's sepulchre, Bethlehem, Nebi Samwil, the Scopus, Jerusalem, and our house there, to which we were soon to remove.

Before, however, quitting this subject of the Bakoosh, I may refer to one very special attraction that held us to the place, namely, an agricultural undertaking in its neighbourhood. A friend, of whom I hope to speak more in another time and place, superintended for me the rebuilding of an ancient Biblical village that lay a heap and a desolation, and cleared out its spring of water, which, by being choked up with rubbish, made its way unseen under ground, it thus became nearly as copious as that alongside of Solomon's Pools. I gathered people into the village, vineyards were planted, crops were sown and reaped there, taxes were paid to the government; and the vicinity, which previously had been notorious for robberies on the Hebron road, became perfectly secure.

On one of my visits, a list was presented to me of ninety-eight inhabitants, where a year and a half before there was not one.

Homesteads were rebuilt; the people possessed horned cattle and flocks of sheep and goats, as well as beehives. I saw women grinding at the mill, and at one of the doors a cat and a kitten. All was going on prosperously.

Purer pleasure have I never experienced than when, in riding over occasionally with our children, we saw the threshing of wheat and barley in progress, and heard the women singing, or the little children shouting at their games. Sixty cows used to be driven at noon to drink at the spring.

We returned to Jerusalem on the 21st of October, and on the 28th of November that village was again a ma.s.s of ruin--the houses demolished--the people dispersed--their newly-sown corn and the vineyards ploughed over--the fine spring of water choked up once more--and my Australian trees planted there torn up by the roots. All this was allowed to be done within nine miles of Jerusalem, to gratify persons engaged in an intrigue which ended in deeds far worse than this.

Our village was _f.a.ghoor_, and had been one of the ancient towns of the tribe of Judah. Its place in the Bible is Joshua xv., where it is found in the Greek Septuagint together with Tekoah, Etham, and Bethlehem, all noted places--neither of which is contained in the Hebrew text, and therefore not in the English translation.

It seems difficult to account for this; but it may possibly be that neither of these towns were ever in the Hebrew of that chapter, that they were not well known at the time of the original Hebrew being written; but that when the translation of the Septuagint was made, the writers knew by other means, though living in Egypt, that Tekoah, Etham, Bethlehem, and f.a.ghoor had been for a long period famous within the tribe of Judah, and therefore they filled up what seemed to them a deficiency in the register.

APPENDIX.

A.--Page 32.

The signs here referred to were guessed by Buckingham (about 1816) to be possibly some distinctive tokens of Arab tribes; but he seemed rather inclined to connect them with marks that are found in Indian caverns, or those on the rocks about Mount Sinai.

He was thus nearer to the truth than the latest of travellers, De Saulcy, who, with all his knowledge of Semitic alphabets, says of some of these _graffiti_, or scratchings, at 'Amman, which he copied: "Tout cela, je regrette fort, est lettre close pour moi. Quelle est cette ecriture? Je l'ignore." (Voyage en Terre Sainte. Tom. i. p.256. Paris, 1865.)

They are characters adopted by Arabs to distinguish one tribe from another, and commonly used for branding the camels on the shoulders and haunches, by which means the animals may be recovered, if straying and found by Arabs not hostile to the owners.

I have, however, seen them scratched upon walls in many places frequented by Bedaween, as, for instance, in the ruined convents, churches, etc., on the plain of the Jordan, and occasionally, as at 'Amman, several such cyphers are united into one complex character.

[Picture: Appendix A characters]

B.--Page 367.

Considerable discrepancy may be found among the transcripts furnished by travellers in their published works, of the Greek votive inscriptions about the entrance of the cavern of Pan at Banias.

I give the following as the result of careful study of them in 1849, and again, after the lapse of six years, in 1855, each time examining the writing, under varieties of light and shade, at different hours of the day.

There are some other inscriptions, which are entirely blackened with smoke, in the niches, made perhaps by ancient burning of lamps or of incense there. This is particularly the case in one large hollow made in the rock, which has almost its whole surface covered with Greek writing.

Within this hollow a niche is cut out, now empty.

[Picture: Sculptured niche]

One small niche has its inscription so much defaced by violence that only the letters [Greek text] are connectedly legible.

This sculptured niche has no inscription, but only the pedestal on which the statue was placed.

[Picture: Ornamental niche]

This ornamental niche has beneath it, on a tablet, the words as at present legible.

The inscription in the highest situation is as follows:--

[Picture: Inscription in the highest situation]

Beneath this is the following:--

[Picture: Inscription beneath]

Above the smoked recess, but below an upper niche, we find--

[Picture: Inscription below upper niche]

In this inscription "the emperors" can mean no others than Vespasian and t.i.tus, who had had one and the same Triumph in Rome on account of the conquest of Judea; and this very t.i.tle is used in Josephus, ("Wars," vii.

xi. 4,)

[Picture: Greek t.i.tle]

It is peculiarly suitable to that place, inasmuch as t.i.tus, previous to leaving the country, had celebrated there the birthday of his brother Domitian, with magnificent public spectacles--amid which, however, more than 2500 Jews were destroyed for popular amus.e.m.e.nt, by burning, fighting, and in combats with wild beasts.

Although these are copied with much painstaking, there may be errors unperceived in some of the letters; but at least one of the words is misspelt by the provincial artist, namely, [Greek word].