Byeways in Palestine Part 7

That is to say, a register of the names of the Antonine emperors; but there must have been other names on the upper part, now broken away.

Then pa.s.sed under _Er Ram_ on our right hand, the Ramah of the Old Testament, but as it is not often noticed, may be found in Jeremiah xl.

1, as the place where the Babylonish captain of the guard, as a favour, released the prophet, after bringing him with the rest in chains from Jerusalem.

Slept in a house at _Ram Allah_. This is a village about three-quarters of an hour N.W. from Er Ram. The weather being cold we first lit a fire, thereby trying the utility of a chimney that was in the house--in vain, for no smoke would pa.s.s up it; it all settled in the room itself; and the people excused themselves on the ground that it had never been tried before. Probably it was a novelty imported to the place by some of the people who had been employed by Europeans in Jerusalem; and yet I have always found that the old Saracenic houses of the Effendis in Jerusalem have all of them chimneys; and the word for _chimney_ is well known in Arabic.

This being almost exclusively a Christian village, it was interesting to hear the people addressing each other as Peter, James, Elijah, John, Paul, etc., instead of Mohammed, Ali, Omar, or other such appellations.

It is a little beside the purpose, but I may remark in pa.s.sing, that throughout these countries there are names in use common to all religions,--some scriptural, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, or David; and others mere epithets, as a.s.saad or Selim.

In this village are three priests, (Greek orthodox,) idle, ignorant, and coa.r.s.e men; but the peasantry are a bold set of fellows, speaking and acting very independently of clerical domination,--very indifferent as to whether they shall turn Protestants or Papists. One thing they are in earnest about, and that is to get schools for their children.

Ram Allah exhibits the same characteristic as all other Christian villages in Palestine, that of being in good condition--new houses being built, and old ones repaired; contrary to the condition of Moslem villages, almost without one exception--that of falling to decay. There is, however, no water here; the women bring it in jars upon their heads from _Beeri_, a considerable distance.

We made a _detour_ from the high-road, in order to look for _Jifna_, the _Gophna_ of Josephus, where t.i.tus and his renowned Tenth Legion (recently arrived from Britain) slept the night before reaching Jerusalem. Then the Eagles were gathered together over the doomed carca.s.s of the city.

Inquiring our way from Ram Allah to Jifna, some said there was a road without going to Beeri; some said there was none. At length we were put upon a pretty decent path.

In ten minutes we came to a sort of well with a little water, where women were thumping clothes upon stones; this is called washing in the East.

Magnificent view westwards of the great plain, the Great Sea, Jaffa, Ramlah, etc.

We wandered about hills and among vineyards, and came to a small village named _Doorah_, in good condition, with water, and excellent cultivation of garden vegetables in small patches, similar to those of Selwan (Siloam) and Urtas; then turning a corner saw Jifna at some distance, in the midst of a plain enclosed by hills; and there it must have been that the manipulus with S.P.Q.R. was posted in front of Italian tents, and the soldiers bustling about or jesting in Latin or British language, before their retiring to rest, in the spring season of the year A.D. 70.

Becoming entangled among a long belt of vineyards between us and it, and time pa.s.sing away while our luggage was far on the road to Nabloos, we turned aside and regained the high-road at _'Ain Yebrood_. Reluctantly I retreated from _Jifna_, for I had wished to discover the precise road upon which t.i.tus and his army marched towards Jerusalem. Pa.s.sing _Sinjil_, _Lubban_, and _Sawiyeh_, we rested just beyond _Sawiyeh_ under the great oak, at the divergence of the valley of _Laithma_. Beneath its wide-spreading branches a flock of sheep was resting at noon (Cant. i.

7.) From these we got good draughts of fresh milk.

As evening approached, we were pa.s.sing within the huge shadow of Mount Gerizim; and in Nabloos I remained till Monday morning,--this being the end of Thursday.

28_th_. Preparing for descent into the Jordan valley, I engaged, in addition to the usual servants, a horseman of the Bashi Bozuk, recommended by the local governor, Suliman Bek Tokan. It seemed prudent to obtain this man's attendance, as he might be known and recognised by disorderly persons throughout the turbulent and unknown country before me, whatever might be his character for valour or discretion. Two of the native Protestants of Nabloos accompanied me also for about four hours on the way.

Pa.s.sing Joseph's sepulchre and the village of _Asker_, (is not this Sychar? it is near the traditional Jacob's Well,) we went northwards over the plain of _Mukhneh_, equivalent to Makhaneh, "camp," in Hebrew, (the _Moreh_ of Gen. xii. 6, Deut. xi. 30, and Judges vii. 1) having left the eastern valley with _Salem_ (Gen. x.x.xiii. 18) on our right. To my surprise the plain was soon and abruptly terminated at the foot of a very lofty mountain, and we commenced a descent among chasms of great convulsions of nature, displaying remarkable contortions of geological strata. This brought us into the Wadi _En-Nab_, so called from the growth there of a fruit-tree, (the Jujube,) bearing that name, better in quality than anywhere else in Palestine; and, indeed, the tree is found in but few other places. At the confluence of this valley with the Wadi _Bedan_ there are several fragments of ancient columns remaining, quite four feet in diameter.

Hitherto we had met many more peasants travelling with merchandise than I had expected. They were all going in one direction, namely, towards Nabloos, and therefore from Es-Salt in Gilead, beyond Jordan.

These, however, ceased after we had crossed the water of Wadi Bedan into the larger _Wadi Fara'ah_,--which is, however, the high-road to Es-Salt.

Soon afterwards we observed, by our wayside, a square of solid ancient masonry, three courses high. In England this would be certainly the pedestal of some old demolished market-cross; but it may have been the lower part of some memorial pyramid. In the previous year I had seen just such another at Ziph (Josh. xv. 55,) beyond Hebron.

Then we came upon a distinct piece of Roman paved road, which showed that we were upon the high-road between Neapolis and Scythopolis, _alias_ Shechem and Bethshan, _alias_ Nabloos and Beisan.--Crossed a stream richly bordered with rosy-blossomed oleander, and soon turned the head of the water. A demolished castle was on our right, commanding the entrance of Wadi Fara'ah.

Soon after noon we gained the olive-trees alongside of _Tubas_, a prosperous village, yet inhabited by a people as rude and coa.r.s.e as their neighbours. Tubas is always liable to incursions from the eastern Bedaween, and always subject to the local wars of the Tokan and 'Abdu'l Hadi factions. I have known it to be repeatedly plundered. The natural soil here is so fertile that its wheat and its oil, together with those of _Hanoon_, fetch the highest prices in towns; and the grain is particularly sought after as seed for other districts.

The place, however, is most remarkable to us as being the _Thebez_ of Judges ix. 50, where Abimelech was slain by the women hurling a millstone on his head from the wall. The more I become acquainted with the peculiar population of _Jebel Nabloos_, (_i.e._ the territory of which Nabloos is the metropolis,) a brutish people "waxing fat and kicking,"

the more does the history of the book of Judges, especially the first twelve chapters, read like a record of modern occurrences thereabouts.

It is as truly an Arab history as any other oriental book can supply. I observed that Mount Gerizim can be seen from Tubas,--which fact seemed to give additional emphasis to the words, "And all the evil of the men of Shechem did G.o.d render upon their heads; and upon those came the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubbaal."

The site of Tubas is elevated. It is still a considerable village, and possesses that decided evidence of all very ancient sites in Palestine--a large acc.u.mulation of rubbish and ashes.

I was told that here, as well as in several of the villages around, there are scattered Christians, one or two families in each among the Moslems, without churches, without clergy, without books or education of any kind; still they are Christians, and carry their infants to the Greek Church in Nabloos for baptism. What a deplorable state of things! Since the date of this journey the Church Missionary Society's agents have in some degree ministered to the spiritual dest.i.tution of these poor people by supplying some at least with copies of the Holy Scriptures.

Here my princ.i.p.al kawwas, Hadj Mohammed es Serwan, found the fever, which had been upon him more or less for the last three days, so greatly increased, that it was not possible for him to proceed farther with me.

The fever he attributed to his having, on arrival at Nabloos, indulged too freely in figs and milk together. The general experience of the country warrants this conclusion.

Poor fellow! after several times dismounting, and renewing his efforts to keep up with me, he was at length totally disabled; and our Protestant friends, who were now about to return home, engaged to get him into the village, and have him carefully attended to, there and at Nabloos, till he should be able to return to his family at Jerusalem. I left him under a large tree, gazing wistfully after me, and endeavouring to persuade me not to go down to that Gehennom of a place, Beisan. {94}

My forward journey lay through fine olive-grounds and stubble-fields of wheat. In an hour we pa.s.sed _Kayaseer_, a wretched but ancient place, with exceedingly old olive-trees about it. Then going on for some time among green bushes and straggling shoots of trees, we descended to the water-bed of a valley. Once more upon a Roman road, on which at twenty minutes' distance was a prostrate Roman milestone, but with no inscription to be seen; perhaps it was on the under side, upon the ground. Then the road, paved as it was with Roman work, rose before us on a steep slope, to a plain which was succeeded by the "Robbers'

Valley," (Wadi el Hharamiyeh,) in which we met two peasants driving an a.s.s, and inquired of them "Is the plain of the Jordan safe?"--meaning, Are there any wild Bedaween about? The reply was "It is safe;" but the whole conversation consisted of four words in the question, and one in the answer.

Over a precipitous and broken rocky hill,--the worst piece of road I ever met with,--till we came suddenly upon the grand savage scenery of the Ghor, with the eastern barrier of the mountains of Gilead. The river Jordan is not visible, as is the case in most parts, till one almost reaches the banks.

Here the vegetation had changed its character,--leaving all civilisation of olive-trees behind, and almost all consisting of oak and hawthorn. We had instead the _neb'k_ or _dom-tree_, and the _ret'm_ or juniper of Scripture; the heat excessive.

At the junction of the Valley with the Ghor are three Roman milestones, lying parallel and close side by side,--all of them in the shape and size stereotyped throughout the country. This, then, was probably a measured station of unusual importance; and from it the acropolis of Bethshan just comes into view. This is known in the country by the name of _El Hhus'n_.

The ground was in every direction covered with black basalt fragments, among which, however, was corn stubble remaining; and we were told that the crop belonged to the people of Tubas.

We kept upon a straight path leading directly up to Beisan, which all the way was intersected by running streams issuing from the hills on our left, and going to the Jordan.

The water was not often good for drinking; but at most of these rivulets our attendant, Suliman Bek's horseman, alighted to say his prayers, out of fright on account of the Arab Bedaween.

Tabor N.W. and Hermon N.E. were both prominent objects in the landscape, with the town of Beisan between the two,--the ground abounding in the kali plant and neb'k trees, with bright yellow fruit, from which we frequently saw clearly desert camels cropping the lower branches, notwithstanding the long and sharp thorns upon them.

We marched straight on, from one ancient artificial mound to another, with Beisan before us, the streams all the way increasing in width and rapidity,--some of them bordered, or even half-choked, with a jungle of oleander in flower, hemlock, gigantic canes, wild fig-trees, neb'k, and tangled ma.s.ses of blackberry. Some of them we had to ford, or even leap our horses over. We were surprised at such torrents of water rushing into the Jordan at such a season of the year.

Reached Beisan at half-past six,--a wild-looking place, with magnificent mountains in every direction around, but all frowning black with volcanic basalt; and the people horribly ugly--black and ferocious in physiognomy.

They were just in the busiest time of the indigo harvest; but they had herds of very fine cows brought home, as the sun in setting threw over us the shadow of the mountains of Gilboa. My companion from Jerusalem looked up with horror to these hills, and began quoting the poetic malediction of David upon them on account of the death of Saul and Jonathan: "Let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fields of offerings," etc.

It was indeed a notable event in one's life to have arrived at the place where the body of the first king of Israel, with that of his son, the dear friend of David, after being beheaded, were nailed to the walls of the city. Jabesh-Gilead could not have been very far off across the Jordan; for its "valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the walls of Bethshan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days," (1 Sam. x.x.xi. 12, 13). This respectful treatment was by way of grateful recompense for Saul's past kindness, as the very first act of his royalty had been to deliver them from danger when besieged by Nahash the Ammonite (I Sam.

xi.); and they kept his remains till king David removed them into the ancestral sepulchre within the tribe of Benjamin (2 Sam. xxi. 14).

To return. The people of Beisan urged upon us their advice not to sleep in our tents, for fear of Arabs, who were known to be about the neighbourhood. I however preferred to remain as I was; and many of the people slept around the tents upon heaps of indigo plant, making fires for themselves from the straw. Before retiring to sleep, I several times found the horseman at his prayers by moonlight. During the night the roaring of the water-torrents re-echoed loudly from the rocky hills.

29_th_.--We learned that the indigo cultivation is not very laborious.

The seed is scattered over the ground, and then the people turn the streams over the surface for inundation. There is no ploughing. This is done directly after barley-harvest from the same ground. There is no produce for two years, but after that period the same stalks successively for five years produce about seventy-two-fold. I bought a timnah (measure) of the seed for curiosity, to deposit in our museum.

We finished breakfast, had the tents struck, and the mules laden, all before the sky began to look red, announcing the coming sun.

The castle of 'Ajloon was a very conspicuous object on the mountainous horizon of the east.

I then spent about three hours in exploring the Roman antiquities of the place when it bore the name of Scythopolis. These are all contained within or along a natural basin, of which I here give a rough map.

[Picture: Scythopolis]

The general form is that of an oval, the centre of which has four pediments for the arch of a bridge, or a triumphal arch, over a rivulet that traverses the whole obliquely. From this central square of four pediments extends right and left one long colonnade, or dromos. Within the basin, but on the south bank of the water, is the theatre; on the north, and outside of the oval, is the lofty mound, surmounted by fortified buildings, forming the acropolis, the _Hhus'n_, which is visible for miles and miles over the country. In the S.E. corner is the modern village--a very insignificant one, but with remains of a Christian church, for I should suppose the Moslems never built so good a mosque at Beisan. Of course the present inhabitants use it for their devotions.

The building is all angular, with a square tower at the south end. The princ.i.p.al doorway--that at the north end--is perforated into a walled-up large pointed arch.

The princ.i.p.al object of my curiosity was the theatre, which, like all those of the Romans and Greeks, is a building of nearly a semicircle in form, with the extremities connected by a chord or straight line; this latter was the _proscenium_ or stage, and is near 200 feet in length.

Upon the ground-plan, at half distance from the centre to the outer curve, the _vomitories_ or pa.s.sages for entrance and exit begin, leaving an open area; these are formed in concentric semicircles, divided across by radii, all coming from the one centre.

Over these pa.s.sages the seats for spectators are constructed, rising higher as approaching to the outer curve--and the dens for the wild beasts, when they were to be exhibited, were under the front seats. The vomitories are of the most perfect design for utility, and still remain in complete preservation, all vaulted over with admirable workmanship.