The spectators who watch us from a distance while we dine are numerous;
and no doubt they are passing unfavourable criticisms on our table
manners, and on the Frankish custom of permitting one unveiled lady to
travel with three husbands. The population of Nablus is about
twenty-five thousand. It has a Turkish governor, a garrison, several
soap factories, and a million dogs which howl all night.
At half-past six the next morning we set out on foot to climb Mount
Ebal, which is three thousand feet high. The view from the rocky summit
sweeps over all Palestine, from snowy Hermon to the mountains round
about Jerusalem, from Carmel to Nebo, from the sapphire expanse of the
Mediterranean to the violet valley of the Jordan and the garnet wall of
Moab and Gilead beyond.
For us the view is veiled in mystery by the haze of the south wind. The
ranges and peaks far away fade into cloudlike shadows. The depths below
us seem to sink unfathomably. Nablus is buried in the gulf. On the
summit of Gerizim, a Mohammedan _weli_, shining like a flake of mica,
marks the plateau where the Samaritan Temple stood. Hilltop towns,
Asiret, Talluza, Yasid, emerge like islands from the misty sea. In that
great shadowy hollow to the west lie the ruins of the city of Samaria,
which Caesar Augustus renamed Sebaste, in honour of his wife Augusta. If
she could see the village of Sebastiyeh now she would not be proud of
her namesake town. It is there that we are going to make our midday
camp.
King Omri acted as a wise man when he moved the capital of Israel from
Shechem, an indefensible site, commanded by overhanging mountains and
approached by two easy vales, to Shomron, the "watch-hill" which stands
in the centre of the broad Vale of Barley.
As we ride across the smiling corn-fields toward the isolated eminence,
we see its strength as well as its beauty. It rises steeply from the
valley to a height of more than three hundred feet. The encircling
mountains are too far away to dominate it under the ancient conditions
of warfare without cannons, and a good wall must have made it, as its
name implied, an impregnable "stronghold," watching over a region of
immense fertility.
What pomps and splendours, what revels and massacres, what joys of
victory and horrors of defeat, that round hill rising from the Vale of
Barley has seen. Now there is nothing left of its crown of pride, but
the broken pillars of the marble colonnade a mile long with which Herod
the Great girdled the hill, and a few indistinguishable ruins of the
temple which he built in honour of the divine Augustus and of the
hippodrome which he erected for the people. We climb the terraces and
ride through the olive-groves and ploughed fields where the street of
columns once ran. A few of them are standing upright; others leaning or
fallen, half sunken in the ground; fragments of others built into the
stone walls which divide the fields. There are many hewn and carven
stones imbedded in the miserable little modern village which crouches on
the north end of the hill, and the mosque into which the Crusaders'
Church of Saint John has been transformed is said to contain the tombs
of Elisha, Obadiah and John the Baptist. This rumour does not concern us
deeply and we will leave its truth uninvestigated.
Let us tie our horses among Herod's pillars, and spread the rugs for our
noontide rest by the ruined south gate of the city. At our feet lies the
wide, level, green valley where the mighty host of Ben-hadad, King of
Damascus, once besieged the starving city and waited for its surrender.
(II Kings vii.) There in the twilight of long ago a panic terror
whispered through the camp, and the Syrians rose and fled, leaving their
tents and their gear behind them. And there four nameless lepers of
Israel, wandering in their despair, found the vast encampment deserted,
and entered in, and ate and drank, and picked up gold and silver, until
their conscience smote them. Then they climbed up to this gate with the
good news that the enemy had vanished, and the city was saved.
IV
DOTHAN AND THE GOODNESS OF THE SAMARITAN
Over the steep mountains that fence Samaria to the north, down through
terraced vales abloom with hawthorns and blood-red poppies, across
hill-circled plains where the long, silvery wind-waves roll over the sea
of grain from shore to shore, past little gray towns sleeping on the
sunny heights, by paths that lead us near flowing springs where the
village girls fill their pitchers, and down stony slopes where the
goatherds in bright-coloured raiment tend their flocks, and over broad,
moist fields where the path has been obliterated by the plough, and
around the edge of marshes where the storks rise heavily on long
flapping wings, we come galloping at sunset to our camp beside the
little green hill of Dothan.
Behind it are the mountains, swelling and softly rounded like breasts.
It was among them that the servant of Elisha saw the vision of horses
and chariots of fire protecting his master. (II Kings vi: 14-19.)
North and east of Dothan the plain extends smooth and gently sloping,
full of young harvest. There the chariot of Naaman rolled when he came
down from Damascus to be healed by the prophet of Israel. (II Kings v:
9.)
On top of the hill is a spreading terebinth-tree, with some traces of
excavation and rude ruins beneath it. There Joseph's envious brethren
cast him into one of the dry pits, from which they drew him up again to
sell him to a caravan of merchants, winding across the plain on their
way from Midian into Egypt. (Genesis xxxvii.)
Truly, many and wonderful things came to pass of old around this little
green hill. And now, at the foot of it, there is a well-watered garden,
with figs, oranges, almonds, vines, and tall, trembling poplars,
surrounded by a hedge of prickly pear. Outside of the hedge a big, round
spring of crystal water is flowing steadily over the rim of its basin of
stones. There the flocks and herds are gathered, morning and evening, to
drink. There the children of the tiny hamlet on the hillside come to
paddle their feet in the running stream. There a caravan of Greek
pilgrims, on their way from Damascus to Jerusalem for Easter, halt in
front of our camp, to refresh themselves with a draught of the cool
water.
As we watch them from our tents there is a sudden commotion among them,
a cry of pain, and then voices of dismay. George and two or three of our
men run out to see what is the matter, and come hurrying back to get
some cotton cloth and oil and wine. One of the pilgrims, an old woman of
seventy, has fallen from her horse on the sharp stones beside the
spring, breaking her wrist and cutting her head.
I do not know whether the way in which they bound up that poor old
stranger's wounds was surgically wise, but I know that it was humanly
kind and tender. I do not know which of our various churches were
represented among her helpers, but there must have been at least three,
and the muleteer from Bagdad who "had no religion but sang beautiful
Persian songs" was also there, and ready to help with the others. And so
the parable which lighted our dusty way going down to Jericho is
interpreted in our pleasant camp at Dothan.
The paths of the Creeds are many and winding; they cross and diverge;
but on all of them the Good Samaritan is welcome, and I think he travels
to a happy place.
_A PSALM OF THE HELPERS_
_The ways of the world are full of haste and turmoil:
I will sing of the tribe of helpers who travel in peace._
_He that turneth from the road to rescue another,
Turneth toward his goal:
He shall arrive in due time by the foot-path of mercy,
God will be his guide._
_He that taketh up the burden of the fainting,
Lighteneth his own load:
The Almighty will put his arms underneath him,
He shall lean upon the Lord._
_He that speaketh comfortable words to mourners,
Healeth his own heart:
In his time of grief they will return to remembrance,
God will use them for balm._
_He that careth for the sick and wounded,
Watcheth not alone:
There are three in the darkness together,
And the third is the Lord._
_Blessed is the way of the helpers:
The companions of the Christ._
X
GALILEE AND THE LAKE
I
THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON
Going from Samaria into Galilee is like passing from the Old Testament
into the New.
There is indeed little difference in the outward landscape: the same
bare lines of rolling mountains, green and gray near by, blue or purple
far away; the same fertile valleys and emerald plains embosomed among
the hills; the same orchards of olive-trees, not quite so large, nor so
many, but always softening and shading the outlook with their touches of
silvery verdure.
It is the spirit of the landscape that changes; the inward view; the
atmosphere of memories and associations through which we travel. We have
been riding with fierce warriors and proud kings and fiery prophets of
Israel, passing the sites of royal splendour and fields of ancient
havoc, retracing the warpaths of the Twelve Tribes. But when we enter
Galilee the keynote of our thoughts is modulated into peace. Issachar
and Zebulon and Asher and Naphtali have left no trace or message for us
on the plains and hills where they once lived and fought. We journey
with Jesus of Nazareth, the friend of publicans and sinners, the
shepherd of the lost sheep, the human embodiment of the Divine Love.
This transition in our journey is marked outwardly by the crossing of
the great Plain of Esdraelon, which we enter by the gateway of Jenin.
There are a few palm-trees lending a little grace to the disconsolate
village, and the Turkish captain of the military post, a grizzled
veteran of Plevna, invites us into the guard-room to drink coffee with
him, while we wait for a dilatory telegraph operator to send a message.
Then we push out upon the green sea to a brown island: the village of
Zer'in, the ancient Jezreel.
The wretched hamlet of adobe huts, with mud beehives plastered against
the walls, stands on the lowest bench of the foothills of Mount Gilboa,
opposite the equally wretched hamlet of Sulem in a corresponding
position at the base of a mountain called Little Hermon. The
widespread, opulent view is haunted with old stories of battle, murder
and sudden death.
Down to the east we see the line of brighter green creeping out from the
flanks of Mount Gilboa, marking the spring where Gideon sifted his band
of warriors for the night-attack on the camp of Midian. (Judges vii:
4-23.) Under the brow of the hill are the ancient wine-presses, cut in
the rock, which belonged to the vineyard of Naboth, whom Jezebel
assassinated. (I Kings xxi: 1-16.) From some window of her favourite
palace on this eminence, that hard, old, painted queen looked down the
broad valley of Jezreel, and saw Jehu in his chariot driving furiously
from Gilead to bring vengeance upon her. On those dark ridges to the
south the brave Jonathan was slain by the Philistines and the desperate
Saul fell upon his own sword. (I Samuel xxxi: 1-6.) Through that open
valley, which slopes so gently down to the Jordan at Bethshan, the
hordes of Midian and the hosts of Damascus marched against Israel. By
the pass of Jenin, Holofernes led his army in triumph until he met
Judith of Bethulia and lost his head. Yonder in the corner to the
northward, at the base of Mount Tabor, Deborah and Barak gathered the
tribes against the Canaanites under Sisera. (Judges iv: 4-22.) Away to
the westward, in the notch of Megiddo, Pharaoh-Necho's archers pierced
King Josiah, and there was great mourning for him in Hadad-rimmon. (II
Chronicles xxxv: 24-25; Zechariah xii: 11.) Farther still, where the
mountain spurs of Galilee approach the long ridge of Carmel, Elijah put
the priests of Baal to death by the Brook Kishon. (I Kings xviii:
20-40.)
All over that great prairie, which makes a broad break between the
highlands of Galilee and the highlands of Samaria and Judea, and opens
an easy pathway rising no more than three hundred feet between the
Jordan and the Mediterranean--all over that fertile, blooming area and
around the edges of it are sown the legends
"Of old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago."
But on this bright April day when we enter the plain of Armageddon,
everything is tranquil and joyous.
The fields are full of rustling wheat, and bearded barley, and
blue-green stalks of beans, and feathery _kirsenneh_, camel-provender.
The peasants in their gay-coloured clothing are ploughing the rich,
red-brown soil for the late crop of _doura_. The newly built railway
from Haifa to Damascus lies like a yellow string across the prairie from
west to east; and from north to south a single file of two hundred
camels, with merchandise for Egypt, undulate along the ancient road of
the caravans, turning their ungainly heads to look at the puffing engine
which creeps toward them from the distance.
Larks singing in the air, storks parading beside the watercourses,
falcons poising overhead, poppies and pink gladioluses and blue
corn-cockles blooming through the grain,--a little village on a swell of
rising ground, built for their farm hands by the rich Greeks who have
bought the land and brought it under cultivation,--an air so pure and
soft that it is like a caress,--all seems to speak a language of peace
and promise, as if one of the old prophets were telling of the day when
Jehovah shall have compassion on His people Israel and restore them.
"They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as
the grain, and blossom as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the
wine of Lebanon."
It is, indeed, not impossible that wise methods of colonization, better
agriculture and gardening, the development of fruit-orchards and
vineyards, and above all, more rational government and equitable
taxation may one day give back to Palestine something of her old
prosperity and population. If the Jews really want it no doubt they can
have it. Their rich men have the money and the influence; and there are
enough of their poorer folk scattered through Europe to make any land
blossom like the rose, if they have the will and the patience for the
slow toil of the husbandman and the vine-dresser and the shepherd and
the herdsman.
But the proud kingdom of David and Solomon will never be restored; not
even the tributary kingdom of Herod. For the land will never again stand
at the crossroads, the four-corners of the civilized world. The Suez
Canal to the south, and the railways through the Lebanon and Asia Minor
to the north, have settled that. They have left Palestine in a corner,
off the main-travelled roads. The best that she can hope for is a
restoration to quiet fruitfulness, to placid and humble industry, to
olive-crowned and vine-girdled felicity, never again to power.
And if that lowly re-coronation comes to her, it will not be on the
stony heights around Jerusalem: it will be in the Plain of Sharon, in
the outgoings of Mount Ephraim, in the green pastures of Gilead, in the
lovely region of "Galilee of the Gentiles." It will not be by the sword
of Gideon nor by the sceptre of Solomon, but by the sign of peace on
earth and good-will among men.
With thoughts like these we make our way across the verdurous inland sea
of Esdraelon, out of the Old Testament into the New. Landmarks of the
country of the Gospel begin to appear: the wooded dome of Mount Tabor,
the little village of Nain where Jesus restored the widow's only son.
(Luke vii: 11-16.) But these lie far to our right. The beacon which
guides us is a glimpse of white walls and red roofs, high on a shoulder
of the Galilean hills: the outlying houses of Nazareth, where the boy
Jesus dwelt with His parents after their return from the flight into
Egypt, and was obedient to them, and grew in wisdom and stature, and in
favour with God and men.
II
THEIR OWN CITY NAZARETH
Our camp in Nazareth is on a terrace among the olive-trees, on the
eastern side of a small valley, facing the Mohammedan quarter of the
town.
This is distinctly the most attractive little city that we have seen in
Palestine. The houses are spread out over a wider area than is usual in
the East, covering three sides of a gentle depression high on the side
of the Jebel es-Sikh, and creeping up the hill-slopes as if to seek a
larger view and a purer air. Some of them have gardens, fair white
walls, red-tiled roofs, balconies of stone or wrought iron. Even in the
more closely built portion of the town the streets seem cleaner, the
bazaars lighter and less malodorous, the interior courtyards into which
we glance in passing more neat and homelike. Many of the doorways and
living-rooms of the humbler houses are freshly whitewashed with a
light-blue tint which gives them an immaculate air of cleanliness.
The Nazarene women are generally good looking, and free and dignified in
their bearing. The children, fairer in complexion than is common in
Syria, are almost all charming with the beauty of youth, and among them
are some very lovely faces of boys and girls. I do not mean to say that
Nazareth appears to us an earthly paradise; only that it shines by
contrast with places like Hebron and Jericho and Nablus, even with
Bethlehem, and that we find here far less of human squalor and misery to
sadden us with thoughts of
"What man has made of man."
The population of the town is about eleven or twelve thousand, a quarter
of them Mussulmans, and the rest Christians of various sects, including
two or three hundred Protestants. The people used to have rather a bad
reputation for turbulence; but we see no signs of it, either in the
appearance of the city or in the demeanour of the inhabitants. The
children and the townsfolk whom we meet in the streets, and of whom we
ask our way now and then, are civil and friendly. The man who comes to
the camp to sell us antique coins and lovely vases of iridescent glass
dug from the tombs of Tyre and Sidon, may be an inveterate humbug, but
his manners are good and his prices are low. The soft-voiced women and
lustrous-eyed girls who hang about the Lady's tent, persuading her to
buy their small embroideries and lace-work and trinkets, are gentle and
ingratiating, though persistent.
I am honestly of the opinion that Christian mission-schools and
hospitals have done a great deal for Nazareth. We go this morning to
visit the schools of the English Church Missionary Society, where Miss
Newton is conducting an admirable and most successful work for the girls
of Nazareth. She is away on a visit to some of her outlying stations;
but the dark-eyed, happy-looking Syrian teacher shows us all the
classes. There are five of them, and every room is full and bright and
orderly.
On the Christian side, the older girls sing a hymn for us, in their high
voices and quaint English accent, about Jesus stilling the storm on
Galilee, and the intermediate girls and the tiny co-educated boys and
girls in the kindergarten go through various pretty performances. Then
the teacher leads us across the street to the two Moslem classes, and we
cannot tell the difference between them and the Christian children,
except that now the singing of "Jesus loves me" and the recitation of
"The Lord is my Shepherd" are in Arabic. There is one blind girl who
recites most perfectly and eagerly. Another girl of about ten years
carries her baby-brother in her arms. Two little laggards, (they were
among the group at our camp early in the morning), arrive late, weeping
out their excuses to the teacher. She hears them with a kind, humorous
look on her face, gives them a soft rebuke and a task, and sends them to
their seats, their tears suddenly transformed to smiles.
From the schools we go to the hospital of the British Medical Mission, a
little higher up the hill. We find young Doctor Scrimgeour, who has
lately come out from Edinburgh University, and his white-uniformed,
cheerful, busy nurses, tasked to the limit of their strength by the
pressure of their work, but cordial and simple in their welcome. As I
walk with the doctor on his rounds I see every ward full, and all kinds
of calamity and suffering waiting for the relief and help of his kind,
skilful knife. Here are hernia, and tuberculous glands, and cataract,
and stone, and bone tuberculosis, and a score of other miseries; and
there, on the table, with pale, dark face and mysterious eyes, lies a
man whose knee has been shattered by a ball from a Martini rifle in an
affray with robbers.
"Was he one of the robbers," I ask, "or one of the robbed?"
"I really don't know," says the doctor, "but in a few minutes I am going
to do my best for him."
Is not this Christ's work that is still doing in Christ's town, this
teaching of the children, this helping of the sick and wounded, for His
sake, and in His name? Yet there are silly folk who say they do not
believe in missions.
There are a few so-called sacred places and shrines in Nazareth--the
supposed scene of the Annunciation; the traditional Workshop of Joseph;
the alleged _Mensa Christi_, a flat stone which He is said to have used
as a table when He ate with His disciples; and so on. But all these
uncertain relics and memorials, as usual, are inclosed in chapels, belit
with lamps, and encircled with ceremonial. The very spring at which the
Virgin Mary must have often filled her pitcher, (for it is the only
flowing fountain in the town), now rises beneath the Greek Church of
Saint Gabriel, and is conducted past the altar in a channel of stone
where the pilgrims bathe their eyes and faces. To us, who are seeking
our Holy Land out-of-doors, these shut-in shrines and altared memorials
are less significant than what we find in the open, among the streets
and on the surrounding hillsides.
The Virgin's Fountain, issuing from the church, flows into a big, stone
basin under a round arch. Here, as often as we pass, we see the maidens
and the mothers of Nazareth, with great earthern vessels poised upon
their shapely heads, coming with merry talk and laughter, to draw water.
Even so the mother of Jesus must have come to this fountain many a time,
perhaps with her wondrous boy running beside her, clasping her hand or a
fold of her bright-coloured garment. Perhaps, when the child was little
she carried Him on her shoulder, as the women carry their children
to-day.
Passing through a street, we look into the interior of a carpenter-shop,
with its simple tools, its little pile of new lumber, its floor littered
with chips and shavings, and its air full of the pleasant smell of
freshly cut wood. There are a few articles of furniture which the
carpenter has made: a couple of chairs, a table, a stool: and he
himself, with his leg stretched out and his piece of wood held firmly by
his naked toes, is working busily at a tiny bed which needs only a pair
of rockers to become a cradle. Outside the door of the shop a boy of ten
or twelve is cutting some boards and slats, and putting them neatly
together. We ask him what he is making. "A box," he answers, "a box for
some doves"--and then bends his head over his absorbing task. Even so
Jesus must have worked at the shop of Joseph, the carpenter, and learned
His handicraft.
[Illustration: The Virgin's Fountain, Nazareth.]
Let us walk up, at eventide, to the top of the hill behind the town.
Here is one of the loveliest views in all Palestine. The sun is setting
and the clear-obscure of twilight already rests over the streets and
houses, the minarets and spires, the slender cypresses and round
olive-trees and grotesque hedges of cactus. But on the heights the warm
radiance from the west pours its full flood, lighting up all the
flowerets of delicate pink flax and golden chrysanthemum and blue
campanula with which the grass is broidered. Far and wide that roseate
illumination spreads itself; changing the snowy mantle of distant
Hermon, the great Sheikh of Mountains, from ermine to flamingo feathers;
making the high hills of Naphtali and the excellency of Carmel glow as
if with soft, transfiguring, inward fire; touching the little town of
Saffuriyeh below us, where they say that the Virgin Mary was born, and
the city of Safed, thirty miles away on the lofty shoulder of Jebel
Jermak; suffusing the haze that fills the Valley of the Jordan, and the
long bulwarks of the Other-Side, with hues of mauve and purple; and
bathing the wide expanse of the western sea with indescribable
splendours, over which the flaming sun poises for a moment beneath the
edge of a low-hung cloud.