PART III.

In my two journeys just described, the route was over the southern part

of the long Lebanon range, not only on the main ridge, but crossing some

of the innumerable spurs thrown out towards the sea. This time, however,

we have to deal with a more northerly and higher region; and it is

because of its being in a different direction from those of 1849 and 1855

that I have not observed the consecutive order of date--this was in 1853.

We shall start from the coast, where the most projecting and western spur

subsides into Ras Bayroot, and the climbing begins almost immediately

after leaving deep yellow sands and the pine forest.

The object was to reach Mokhtarah, perched high in the heart of the Shoof

or central ridge of Lebanon, like an eyrie, as it was then, for the

princely house of Jonblat. Mokhtarah lies S.-E. from Bayroot, and to

arrive there we had to cross the intervening spurs, climbing as we went.

The town of Dair el Kamar and the palace of Beteddeen, formerly the

headquarters of the house of Shehab, lay upon the road. The remainder of

the journey after Mokhtarah consisted in a rapid descent to Sidon, the

great port in antiquity for Damascus, Phoenicia, and the Lebanon.

This tour comprised the finest range of the territory occupied by the

Druse nation.

1853. _July_.--From Bayroot, with its bewitching scenery and its

gorgeous colouring of mountains and the sea, we went to _'Abeih_, the

best known of the American missionary stations in the Lebanon.

Through the woods of pines, with their reviving fragrance, and through

_El Hadeth_, an entirely Christian village, where the bell of the

Maronite convent was ringing as we passed, we came to _Shuwaifat_, and

rose still higher towards the mountain pines and the breezes so desirable

in Syria in the month of July, leaving below the olive in abundance, the

mulberry and the fig-trees.

Beside the fountain called _'Ain Besaba_ was a pottery factory. The

nature of the rocks around was soft sandstone; a gigantic pear-tree stood

conspicuous among the excellent cultivation of the neighbourhood; higher

still, between straight tall pines and wild holly-oaks, our road curved

round and round the hills.

We overtook a company of Christians, the women riding and the men

walking--this circumstance alone would show they were not Mohammedans.

The two parties had to pass each other with much caution, as the path was

narrow and the precipice deep below.

At _'Ain 'Anoob_, where a copious supply of water issues from three

spouts, the fountain has on each side the representation of a chained

lion, sculptured in stone. One's first impression would be that this

were a relic of the Genoese or Venetian crusaders; but these figures,

whatever their meaning or origin, are not infrequent upon fountains about

the Lebanon, even when only rustically daubed in red ochre; and it has

not been often noticed that there are similar lions facing each other,

only without the chains, one on each side of St Stephen's Gate at

Jerusalem. Some of the women at the fountains wore the horns on their

head, the fashion for which is gradually passing away. The terraces on

the hills were in the highest state of cultivation, and gave abundant

promise of fruit for the coming season; the sun was near setting, the

rooks cawing overhead, and we saw two little girls each bring a lamb to

the fountain to drink and then proceed to wash them.

Sidi Ahhmad, a Druse 'Akal, with, of course, a white turban, undertook to

be our guide as far as 'Abeih.

Fresh air to breathe! how different from the oppressive heat of Bayroot!

We all drank of every spring by the way, and by consequence lifted up the

drooping head, (Ps. cx. 7,) thinking each fountain colder than that

before it.

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

passed _'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 Saturday.

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 illustrated 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 passing 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 passage, 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 sexes 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

class 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 principal 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 passed 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 orb 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.

How curious is the domestic life of these Oriental families. Eating

takes place in the principal room, with a throng of women and children

passing 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 passed 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 passages,

coloured mosaics in profusion on the floors, painted roofs, rich columns,

brass 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 passing 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 principal 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 buttons: 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 circumstances

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 assumed 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

circumstances. 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

disguisement 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 attitude he was lifted

reverently by the hands and elbows, by his attendants,--an assistance

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 appetites 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 petitions 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 coarse 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 passed 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 noble specimens of platanus (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 platanus 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 passed us with ass-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 shelly 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 space, 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 ejaculations at the exaggerations of size and quantity 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 illustrations 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 crevasse, 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 passing 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

passed 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.

No one of our party felt quite sure of being on the true road, but we

followed slight tracks in the general direction in which the convent lay;

we guessed and went on. Occasionally we got sight of the summit of the

Frank mountain or lost it again, according to the rise or fall of the

ground. Conversation flagged; but at length we struck up a Christmas

hymn to enliven us.

In the valley of Mar Saba we saw lights in the convent, but passed on.

Saw an Arab encampment, with fire and lights glimmering, where the dogs

came out to bark at us; another such in half an hour more; and a larger

camp in another half-hour, where men were discussing matters with much

vociferation in a cavern by a blazing fire; a scout called out, inquiring

if we were friends or foes?

The night grew very cold, and I should have been glad had my cloak not

been lost near Jericho. The temperature differed greatly from that of

the Dead Sea--a keen wind was in keeping with the end of December. The

stars were most brilliant: Venus richly lustrous; Sirius, dazzling; and

the huge Orion showing to best advantage. The road was alternately rough

in the valley, or over slippery ledges. At length, however, we got

cheered by coming to known objects. Passed Beer Eyoob, (En Rogel,) and

saw the battlemented walls of the Holy City sharply marked against the

sky.

The key had been left by the authorities at the city gate, to allow of

our admission; but the rusty lock required a long time for turning it,

and the heavy hinges of the large gate moved very slowly, at least so it

seemed in our impatience to reach home.

* * * * *

It is said above that I once spent a night at the 'Ain Merubba'--this was

on the occasion of an attempt, which ended in failure, to reach 'Ain Jidi

(En-gaddi) from the 'Ain Feshkah in the common way of travelling. {419}

Hhamdan, Shaikh of the Ta'amra, with about a dozen of his men, escorted

me and one kawwas in that direction. Instead of proceeding to Jericho or

Elisha's fountain, we turned aside into the wildest of wildernesses for

passing the night. Traversing the length of an extremely narrow ridge,

something like the back of a knife, we descended to a great depth below;

but the risk being judged too great for conveying the tent and bed over

there by the mule, these were left spread upon the ground for the night

under the canopy of heaven; while the men carried our food for us to make

the evening meal. Crawling or sliding, and leading the horses gently, we

got to the bottom, and then followed up a very narrow glen, winding in

and out, and round about between extraordinary precipices rising to

enormous heights, till all at once the men halted, shouted, and sang, and

stripped themselves to bathe in small pools formed in holes of the rock

by settlements of rain-water.

This was our halting-place, but the scene beggars all power of

description. We were shut into a contracted glen by a maze of tortuous

windings, between mountains of yellow marl on either side; but broken,

rugged, naked of all vegetation,--referring one's imagination to the

period when the earth was yet "without form and void," or to the

subsiding of the deluge from which Noah was delivered.

Looking upwards to a great height we could just see the tops of the

imprisoning hills gilded awhile by the setting sun, and a small space of

blue making up the interval between the precipices. Those precipices

were not, however, entirely yellow, but variegated with occasional red or

somewhat of brown ochre. So fantastic in position or shape were the

masses hurled or piled about, and the place so utterly removed "from

humanity's reach," that it might be imagined suitable to mould the genius

of Martin into the most extravagant conceptions of chaos, or to suggest

the colouring of Turner without his indistinctness of outline.

The echoes of the men's voices and bursts of laughter (the latter so

uncommon among Arabs) when splashing in the water, were reverberated from

hill to hill and back again; but there were no wild birds among the rocks

to scream in rejoinder as at Petra.

After a time a voice was heard from above, very high, (it is wonderful

how far the human voice is carried in that pure atmosphere and in such a

locality,) and on looking up I saw a dark speck against the sky waving

his arms about. It was one of the Ta'amra asking if he should bring down

my mattress. Consent was given, and, behold, down came tumbling from

rock to rock the mattress and blanket tied up into a parcel; when

approaching near us, it was taken up by the man who followed it, and

carried on his back; and when still nearer to us it was carefully borne

between two men. Thus I enjoyed the distinction above all the rest of

having a mattress to lie upon; the shaikh had a couple of cloaks, the

kawwas had one, and the others were utterly without such luxurious

accessories, and slept profoundly.

Our people called the place _'Ain Merubba'_, (the square fountain.) I

saw no fountain of any form, but there must have been one, for we had a

supply of good water, and the designation "'Ain," or fountain, is one of

too serious importance to be employed for any but its literal

signification.

Very early in the morning we started afresh, and took the beach of the

lake towards 'Ain Feshkah.

A great part of the day was spent in clambering our ponies over broken

rocks of a succession of promontories, one following another, where it

seemed that no creatures but goats could make way; the Arabs protesting

all the while that the attempt was hopeless, and besides, that the

distance even over better ground was too great for one day's march.

At length I relinquished the undertaking to reach 'Ain Jidi by that way,

and for that year had no leisure from business to try it from other

directions.

Hhamdan and I sat on a rock in his free open air dominion, discussing

possibilities, and what 'Ain Jidi was like, as well as the "Ladder of

Terabeh," (see p. 334.) At length we rose and turned towards Jerusalem.

I am not sure that I ever saw him again, for not long afterwards he was

drowned in the Jordan while attempting to swim his horse through the

stream at its highest, after assisting in a battle on the side of the

Deab 'Adwan.

XIV. SOBA.

On the crest of a high hill two or three hours west from Jerusalem,

stands the village of Soba, and it has long been imagined to be Modin,

the birth-place and burial-place of the Maccabaean heroes; though I never

heard any reason assigned for that identification, except the

circumstance of the sea being visible from it, and therefore of its being

visible from the sea, which was supposed to tally with the description

given in 1 Macc. xiii., 27-30, of the monuments erected there,--"Simon

also built a monument upon the sepulchre of his father and his brethren,

and raised it aloft to the sight, with hewn stone behind and before.

Moreover, he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father,

and his mother, and his four brethren. And in these he made cunning

devices, about the which he set great pillars, and upon the pillars he

made all their armour for a perpetual memory; and by the armour ships

carved, that they might be seen of all that sail on the sea. This is the

sepulchre which he made at Modin, and it standeth yet unto this day."

I never was persuaded that the words implied that ships carved on pillars

at Soba, could be distinguished from the sea, or even that the columns

themselves were visible from ships off the coast; but only this, that the

deliverers of their country from the intolerable yoke of the Syrians,

having opened up communication with the Grecians and Romans, marine

intercourse had become more frequent than before, a matter that the

Maccabaean family were proud of; and therefore they had ships carved on

the pillars, as might be observed by seafaring people who might go there;

yet, whatever the words might signify, they could not prove that Modin

was so far inland, and among the hills, as Soba.

However, in 1858, I went with my son and a couple of friends to inspect

the place itself, considering it at least worth while to make one's own

observations on the spot.

We passed through _'Ain Carem_, the _Karem_ of the Septuagint, to

_Sattaf_, and rested during the heat of the day in a vineyard, near a

spring of water and plots of garden vegetables, belonging to the few

houses that had been rebuilt after several years of devastation by

village warfare.

The approach to the place from any direction is through the very rough

torrent bed of the Wadi Bait Hhaneena, and along very narrow ledges upon

the sides of steep hills, quite as perilous as any that are used for

travelling in any part of the Lebanon; too dangerous to admit of

dismounting and leading the horse after the risk has once begun, by far

the safest method of advancing is to hold the reins very loose, and if

you wish it, to shut your eyes.

Opposite to Sattaf, directly across the valley, the Latins had lately

rebuilt a small chapel of former times, said to have been the prison of

John the Baptist; they name it the Chapel of the _Hhabees_, _i.e._, the

imprisoned one.

Leaving Sattaf we gradually ascended to Soba; at first through lemon and

orange plantations near the water, and then through vineyards with a few

pomegranate-trees interspersed.

It is noteworthy how, throughout most of the tribe of Judah, small

springs of water are found dribbling from the rocks, (besides the larger

sources of Urtas, Lifta, Faghoor 'Aroob, Dirweh, and Hebron,) which were

doubtless more copious in the ancient times, when the land was more

clothed with timber, and there were men, industrious men, aware of their

blessings, and ready to prevent the streams from slipping away beneath

the seams of limestone formation.

At Soba we mounted the steep hill to the _Shooneh_, or small look-out

tower at the summit, enjoying the breadth of landscape and the stretch of

the Mediterranean before our eyes.

In the village we found remains of old masonry, most likely the basement

of a fortification of early Saracenic or the Crusaders' era; besides

which there was a piece of wall in excellent condition of the best

character of Jewish rabbeted stones.

One man invited us to see some old stones inside of his house; but they

formed a portion of the basement above-mentioned, against which the rest

of his house was built. The people were unanimous in declaring that

there was nothing else of such a nature in the village. So that our

researches issued in no corroboration of Soba being Modin.

Leaving the place we descended to the high road of Jaffa to Jerusalem,

and saw a number of olive-trees dead of age; none of us, however long

resident in Palestine, had seen such before or elsewhere; we concluded

them to have been withered by age from their bearing no visible tokens of

destruction, while the ground was well ploughed around them, and from

finding others near them in progressive stages of decay, down to the

utter extinction of foliage.

Arrived at _Kaloneh_ upon the highway, certainly the site of a Roman

garrison or "colonia," (see Acts xvi. 12,) leaving Kustul behind, which

is also a derivation from the Latin word for a castle.

Near the bridge of Kaloneh, where there are good specimens of ancient

rabbeted stones, one gets a glimpse of 'Ain Carem through the olive

plantation; and the return that day was by a cross way from _Dair Yaseen_

through vineyards to Jerusalem.

* * * * *

It is only at a comparatively late period that attention has been

directed to the text of Eusebius and Jerome in the "Onomasticon," where

it is distinctly said that Modin was near Lydd, and that the monuments

were at that time (in the fourth century) still shown there.

Porter considers that therefore _Latroon_ is the true site of Modin: in

this supposition I wish to concur; for the general run of the Maccabaean

history becomes peculiarly intelligible when read with the idea in the

mind that Modin lay in just such a situation, namely, upon a hill, rising

alone from the great plain, but adjacent to the mountain ridge, and to

defiles into which the insurgents might easily retire, or from which they

might issue suddenly and surprise regular armies in their camp. I know

of no place so suitable for such operations as Latroon.

The word [Greek text], used for the armour and the ships, must mean

"carved in relievo," and such objects could never be distinguished by

persons actually passing upon the sea, if placed either at Soba, Latroon,

Lydd, or even Jaffa; it is difficult enough to imagine that the pyramids

and columns were visible from the sea at Latroon.

XV. THE TWO BAIT SAHHOORS IDENTIFIED WITH BETHSURA AND BATH ZACHARIAS.

There are two villages in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem bearing the name

of Bait Sahhoor. One lies near to the city, beyond En-Rogel, a little

way down the valley of the Kedron; the other is farther off, close under

Bethlehem. By way of distinction, the former is called "Bait Sahhoor of

the Wadi," and the latter, "Bait Sahhoor of the Christians." I think

that it can be shown that these places, though now fallen from their high

estate, once played their part in important events,--that Bait Sahhoor of

the Wadi is identical with Bethsura,--and that Bait Sahhoor of the

Christians is identical with Bath Zacharias--both of Maccabaean history.

In the year 150 of the Seleucidan era, being the fifth year of the

liberty of Zion, (the term used upon the Maccabaean coins,) a vast army

of Syrians invaded Palestine from Antioch, headed by King Antiochus

Eupator, in the twelfth year of his age, and under the official command

of Lysias, one of his relatives. The army consisted of both subjects and

hired aliens, even from the islands of the sea. They numbered "a hundred

thousand infantry, and twenty thousand cavalry, with thirty-two elephants

exercised in battle," (I Macc. vi. 30.)

The object of the expedition was to crush the Maccabaean insurrection,

and wipe out the disgrace of defeats already sustained. The first

attempt was to be the relief of the garrison at Jerusalem, which was at

this time beleaguered by Judas from the temple part of the city.

"The army was very great and mighty," (ver. 41.) "When the sun shone

upon the shields of gold and brass, the mountains glistered therewith,

and shined like lamps of fire," (ver. 39.) Each of the thirty-two

elephants was attended by "a thousand men armed with coats of mail, and

with helmets of brass on their heads; and besides this, for every beast

was ordained five hundred horsemen of the best--these were ready at every

occasion: wheresoever the beast was, and whithersoever the beast went

they went also, neither departed they from him; and upon the beasts were

there strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were

girt fast unto them with devices; there were upon every one thirty-two

strong men that fought upon them, beside the Indian that ruled him,"

(ver. 35, etc.)

This strange host marched along the Philistine plain southwards to

Idumea, which is on the south of Hebron: this being the only way for such

an army and its elephants to get at Jerusalem. Thence they swept the

land before them northwards, "and pitched against Bethsura, which they

assaulted many days, making engines of war, but they of the city came out

and fought valiantly," (ver. 31.)

Whereupon Judas desisted from his siege of the citadel--which, I may

remark in passing, must have been on Acra, not like David's citadel taken

from the Jebusites, on Zion--and hastened to attack the royal host,

mighty though it was.

Some have supposed that Bethsura is to be found at Bait Zur, near Hebron,

the Beth Zur of Josh. xv. 33; whereas this place is more than a hundred

furlongs from Jerusalem, being not much more than an hour (north) from

Hebron, and is altogether too far removed to answer the description of

Bethsura, and the operations carried on there, close to the Holy City.

The 5th verse of the 11th chapter of 2 Maccabees sets the whole question

at rest; the words are distinctly, "So he (Lysias) came to Judea and drew

near to Bethsura, which was a strong town, but distant from Jerusalem

_about five furlongs_, and he laid sore siege unto it." Again,

immediately after taking the city of Jerusalem and dedicating the temple,

Judas "fortified Bethsura in order to preserve it," (that is, Mount

Zion,) that the people might have a defence against Idumea, (I Macc. iv.

61.) And the accusation which had been formerly made to the King

Antiochus Epiphanes in Persia against Judas and his men was "that they

had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls as before, and his city

Bethsura;" also to the present king at Antioch, "that the sanctuary also

and Bethsura have they fortified," (chap. vi. 7, 26.) It is clear that

one was an outwork of the other, Bethsura being the defence of Jerusalem

against incursions from the south.

I know not how to doubt that Bait Sahhoor of the valley is the very

place. It lies upon a lofty hill across the valley not far beyond

En-Rogel. This is at present a wretched village, only inhabited for a

few weeks in the year; but the position is naturally one of great

strength. The distance from the city answers precisely the requirements

of the history,--a signal by trumpet, if not the human voice, could be

heard from one garrison to the other. I have ridden repeatedly to the

spot and examined the ground. The south-eastern angle of the temple wall

at Jerusalem (where the great stones are found) is distinctly visible

from the houses. I sat there upon my horse and remarked how unassailable

by cavalry and elephants this site must have been, and how great its

value for a military outwork to the sanctuary of the temple. The

pediment and moulding of a column lay at my feet,--around and opposite

across the valley were numerous sepulchres hewn in the solid rock; yet

the infantry of the Syrians were sufficient to overwhelm the gallant

defenders. Judas in this emergency resolved to come to their relief,

raising the siege of the citadel and outflanking the enemy. For this

purpose he "pitched at Bath Zacharias over against the king's camp,"

(ver. 32.) This was seventy stadia, or nearly nine Roman, or eight and a

half English miles distant from Bethsura, (Josephus' Antiq. xii. 9, 4.)

I believe Bath Zacharias to be the village which now bears the name of

"Bait Sahhoor of the Christians," close to Bethlehem. {432} I have

ridden over the space between the two villages called Bait Sahhoor; the

distance upon a well marked and rather winding road, answers well to the

description of the historian. The stratagem of Judas becomes here very

intelligible, which was to take the invaders in the rear, and placing

them between two hostile Jewish forces, to draw away the main attack from

Bethsura and Jerusalem; besides cutting off any assistance from the

south. Antiochus did face round in order to attack him, and was met in

narrow straits between the two localities. This I take to be the broken

ground south-east of Mar Elias, where certainly it would be just as

impossible now for two elephants to go abreast as it was when Josephus

wrote his lively description of the engagement that ensued; of the shouts

of the men echoing among the mountains, and the glitter of the rising sun

upon the polished accoutrements. It was summer, for they excited the

elephants with the blood of the grape and the mulberry. The road is to

this day defined by true tokens of antiquity, such as lines of stones

covered with hoary lichen, old cisterns, especially a noble one called

the _Beer el Kott_, with here and there steps cut in the shelves of solid

rock. The last part of the road on the south is among slippery, rocky,

narrow defiles and paths, half-way down the hill-sides.

Here six hundred of the Syrian army were cut off and Eleazar, the heroic

brother of Judas, was crushed under an elephant which he had killed. Yet

the fortune of the day was not decisive in favour of the Maccabaean army,

which retired and entrenched itself within the temple fortress.

The outlying post of Bethsura was obliged to capitulate.

Philological grounds for the above identification are not wanting.

Bethsura and Bath Zacharias may have easily represented the Arabic or

Hebrew form of Bait Sahhoor. The guttural letter in the middle naturally

disappears in the Greek text, just as the Greek word "Assidean"

represents the Hebrew Chasidim in the same history.

The following is a simple demonstration of the transition:--

[Picture: Transition from Hebrew via Greek to Arabic]

It may be asked, why did neither Josephus nor the author of the Books of

Maccabees tell us that Beth Zachariah was near Bethlehem? I answer:

first, the narrative did not make this necessary; secondly, Bethlehem was

then "among the least of the thousands of Judah," her great day had not

yet arrived; and thus it might have been quite as necessary to say that

Bethlehem was near Beth Zachariah, as to say that Beth Zachariah was near

Bethlehem.

The modern name "Bait Sahhoor of the Christians" arises most likely from

the fact that a majority of the inhabitants,--thirty families to twenty

in the year 1851,--were of that religion, and from its nearness to the

field where it is believed the angels appeared to the shepherds

announcing the birth of Christ, with its subterranean chapel, the crypt

of a large church in former times.

The other Bait Sahhoor (El Wadiyeh) is so named from its position on the

side of the Wadi in Nar, or valley of the Kedron. It is only

occasionally inhabited, the people who claim it being too few to clear

out the encumbered cisterns for their use, but prefer to identify

themselves during most of the year with other villages, such as Siloam

near at hand, where water is more abundant.

XVI. THE BAKOOSH COTTAGE.

At about seven miles from Jerusalem lie the Pools of Solomon, commonly

called the "Burak," upon the road to Hebron, which passes by the head of

the westernmost of them, on the left hand of the traveller to that city;

while immediately on the right hand, stands a hill with some cultivation

of vineyards and fig-trees, with a few olive-trees; apparently half-way

up that hill is a stone cottage, roughly but well built. It is of that

cottage and its grounds that I am about to speak, for there I resided

with my family for some weeks in 1860, and through the summer of 1862.

There is no village close at hand, the nearest one being _El Khud'r_, (or

St George, so named from a small Greek convent in its midst,) which,

however, is only visible from the highway for a few minutes at a

particular bend of the road before reaching the Pools; the next nearest,

but in the opposite or eastern direction, is Urtas, with its profitable

cultivation, nestled in a well-watered valley.

After these, in other directions again, are _Bait Jala_, near Rachel's

sepulchre, and Bethlehem, the sacred town whose name is echoed wherever

Christ is mentioned throughout the whole world, and will continue to do

so till the consummation of all things,--"there is no speech or language

where its name is not heard."

Adjoining the Pools is the shell of a dilapidated khan, of old Saracenic

period, the outer enclosure alone being now entire. Two or three

Bashi-bozuk soldiers used to be stationed there, living in wretched

hovels inside the enclosure, made of fallen building stones, put together

with mud. On account of this being a government post, the peasantry of

the country, ignorant of all the world but themselves, denominate this

old square wall, "The Castle," and that name is repeated by dragomans to

their European employers.

These were our nearest neighbours.

Close to the khan-gate and to the Pools is a perennial spring of

excellent water, which, of course, is of great value, and considering how

several roads meet at that point, and what a diversity of character there

is continually passing or halting there, it would seem to form the

perfection of an opening scene to some romantic tale.

Thus the Hebron highway lay between the Pools, with the khan on one side,

and the Bakoosh hill on the other, and no person or quadruped could pass

along it unobserved from our window.

From the cottage, the more extended prospect comprised the stony,

treeless hills in every direction, the Pools forming the head of the

valley leading to Urtas, and the outskirt beginning of green cultivation

there; then the streets and houses of Bethlehem; also the Frank mountain;

and at the back of all the Moab range of mountains.

[Picture: Ancient Sepulchre on the Bakoosh]

Within the wall enclosing the property of the cottage, with its fruit

trees already mentioned, there is one of the little round towers such as

are commonly seen about Bethlehem for summer residence of the cultivator

and his family during the season of fruit ripening, and which are meant

by the Biblical term of a tower built in the midst of a vineyard, (see

Matthew xxi. 33, and Isaiah v. 2.) It is remarkable how perfectly

circular these are always built, though so small in size. We had also a

receptacle for beehives, and an ancient sepulchre.

The hill rises very steeply, but being as usual formed into ledges or

terraces, upon one of these, in a corner near the wall, the stable was

constructed of a small tent, near a big tree, within the shadow of which,

and of a bank, the horses were picketed.

Upon the other ledges were arranged the tents for sleeping in at night,

and alongside of the cottage a kitchen was made of a wall and a roof made

of branches of trees brought from a distance.

Such was our abode in the pure mountain breezes, with unclouded sunshine,

and plenty of good spring water within reach.

Inside the stone walls of the house we stayed during the heat of the day;

the children learned their lessons there, and I transacted business in

writing, when my presence in Jerusalem was not absolutely required by

those carrying on the current daily affairs; indeed the reason for

resorting to this place was the necessity for obtaining recruitment of

health, after a serious illness brought on by arduous labour. Had not

unforeseen anxieties come upon us, no lot on earth could have been more

perfectly delicious in the quality of enjoyment, both for body and

spirit, than that sojourn upon the wild hill; among ourselves were

innocence and union, consequently peace; time was profitably spent; and

our recreations were, practice in the tonic sol-fa singing lessons, with

sketching and rambling on foot or on horseback over the breezy heights of

Judah.

And whether by evening twilight, or at the rising of the sun out of the

Moab mountains, or earlier still, by summer morning starlight, when

Sirius and Canopus (the latter unseen in England) vied with each other in

sparkling their varied colours to praise their Maker in the firmament,

His handiwork; those rambles were sources of delight that cannot be

expressed in human language; they were, however, not novelties after so

many years' residence in that Asiatic climate, but had become wrought

into our very existence.

Our Sabbaths were happy and conscientiously observed; we kept up the

services of the Church of England as far as practicable, and sometimes

had a visitor to join us in the same, not omitting the hymn singing.

The two domestic servants were of different Christian communities; for

the woman was a Latin, and would sometimes repair to her church-service

at Bethlehem, and the Abyssinian lad might be heard morning and evening,

or at night in the moonlight--such moonlight as we had there!--reading

the Gospels and Psalms in his soft native language, or even singing to a

kirar (or lute) of his own making, hymns with a chorus of "Alleluia,

Amen."

Another of our gratifications should not be omitted, namely, the hearing

of the large church bell of the Latins in Bethlehem on certain occasions,

and always on Sunday mornings; at the moment of the sun peering over the

eastern horizon that great bell struck, and was followed by a gush of the

sweetest irregular music from smaller bells, probably belonging to the

Greeks, and then by the nakoos (plank) of the Armenians, a relic of their

primitive customs, serving for a bell, {440}--all these acting with one

consent and with one intention, that of celebrating "the Lord's day," as

the early Christians delighted to call the first day of the week.

From our window we had the city of David and of David's Lord before us,

and over the window on the inside I had inscribed in large Arabic

inscription-characters, "O Son of David, have mercy upon us!" we had

therefore the writing and the town at the same glance of view.

We were not without visitors: sometimes a friend or two or three would

arrive from Jerusalem--travellers along the road would mount the hill to

see us--rabbis of Hebron on the way to Jerusalem, or Jews from the

distance of Tiberias passing to Hebron, would turn aside to pay their

respects--Arab chiefs, such as Ismaeen Hhamdan of the Ta'amra--Turkish

officers, or even the Pasha himself, found the way to the cottage--also

officers of the British navy, when visiting the sacred localities from

Jaffa. Among these I would not forget the chaplain of one of our

men-of-war, who brought up ten of his best men, namely, the Bible and

temperance class under his charge, to see the venerated places,

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Mount of Olives. On one occasion we had a

surveying party with their instruments from H.M.S. _Firefly_, who passed

some nights with us.

On the higher boundary the land was still in its natural condition of

stones, fossil shells, and green shrubs with fragrant herbs. There might

be seen occasionally starting up before the intruding wanderer,

partridges, hares, quails, the wild pigeon, the fox, or even

"The wild gazelle on Judah's hills

Exultingly would bound,"

and escape also, for I carried no gun with me.

Mounting still higher we came upon the _Dahar-es-Salahh_, a mountain

whence the prospect of all Philistia and the coast from almost Gaza to

Carmel expands like a map--no, rather like a thing of still life before

the eye, with the two seas, namely, the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea,

visible at once, with likewise the mountains of Samaria and Gerizim,

besides the Moab country eastward, and Jerusalem and Bethlehem nearer

home.

Close at hand upon the mountain on which we thus stand, are vestiges of a

monastic house and chapel called "Khirbet el Kasees," (the priest's

ruins,) and even more interesting objects still, the remains of older

edifices, distinguished by ponderous rabbeted stones.

On the mountain top is a large oval space, which has been walled round,

fragments of the enclosure are easily traceable, as also some broken

columns, gray and weather-beaten. This has every appearance of having

been one of the many sun-temples devoted to Baal by early Syrians.

By temple I here mean a succession of open-air courts, with a central

altar for sacrifice; a mound actually exists on the highest spot of

elevation, which may well have been the site of the altar.

What a vast prospect does this spot command, not only of landscape in

every direction, but of sky from which the false worshipper might survey

the sun's entire daily course, from its rising out of the vague remote

lands of "the children of the East," and riding in meridian splendour

over the land of Israel's God, till, slowly descending and cloudless to

the very last, it dips behind the blue waters of "the great sea!" Alas!

to think that such a spot as this should ever have been desecrated by

worship of the creature within actual sight of that holy mountain where

the divine glory appeared, more dazzling than the brightest effulgence of

the created sun.

Sloping westwards from the _Dahar-es-Salahh_ were agreeable rides over a

wilderness of green shrubs with occasional pine and karoobah trees, and

rough rocks on the way to _Nahhaleen_ or _Bait Ezkareh_, from which we

catch a view of the valley of Shocoh, the scene of David's triumph over

Goliath, and beyond that the hill of Santa Anna at _Bait Jibreen_. The

region there is lonely and silent, with some petty half-depopulated

villages in sight, but all far away; sometimes a couple or so of peasants

may be met upon the road driving an ass loaded with charcoal or broken

old roots of the evergreen oak. Evening excursions in that direction

were not infrequent for the purpose of seeing the sun set into the sea,

from which the breeze came up so refreshingly.

The home resources gave us among the fruit trees, goldfinches, bee-eaters

in blue or green and gold, and beccaficas, the latter for food, but so

tame that they would stay upon the branches while the gun was levelled at

them; in fact, little Alexander, returning one day with several of them

that he had shot, complained of want of sport, quoting the lines of his

namesake Selkirk in Cowper,--"Their tameness is shocking to me."

Occasionally we got water-hens or coots that had been shot upon the Pools

of Solomon; only sometimes it was not possible to fish them out as they

fell into the water, and so became entangled among the gigantic weeds

that grow up from the bottom to the level of the surface, and among which

the men were afraid to venture their swimming. Pelicans we did not see,

although one had been previously brought from thence to Jerusalem, and

was stuffed for the Museum. Then we had water-cresses from the aqueduct,

at a place where its side was partly broken between the upper and the

second pool. Often for a treat we had water particularly light for

drinking brought from the spring of Etam, (2 Chron. xi. 6.) Figs and

grapes were furnished from the ground itself, and at the end of August

the Shaikh Jad Allah sent us a present of fresh honeycomb, according to

the custom on opening a hive at the end of summer, (in that country the

bees are never destroyed for the sake of the honey;) presents thereof are

sent round to neighbours, and of course presents of some other produce

are given in return. Palestine is still a land abounding in honey.

Occasional incidents occurred on the plain at the foot of the hill,--such

as a long line of camels kneeling and growling upon the high road, while

their drivers were swimming during the blaze of noontide in the parts of

the large pool free from weeds; or military expeditions passing on to

Hebron during the night, and called up by bugle after resting a couple of

hours at the castle-gate; or camel-loads of pine-branches swinging in

stately procession from the southern hills beyond Hebron towards

Jerusalem, to furnish tabernacles for the Jewish festival; or an immense

party of Kerak people from beyond the Dead Sea, with their camels, asses,

mules, besides flocks, for sale, conveying butter and wheat to Jerusalem,

encamped below us and singing at their watch-fires by night.

Large fires were sometimes visible upon the Moab mountains at the

distance of thirty or forty miles in a straight line. These may have

arisen from carelessness, or accidental circumstances, among either

standing corn or the heaps of harvest in the open air; or they may even

have been wilful conflagrations made by hostile tribes in their raids

upon each other. In any case they showed that wherever such things

occurred in ancient times, Ruth the Moabitess, when settled in Bethlehem,

might still have been reminded in that way of her native country, which

lay before her view.

At the Bakoosh we heard the single gun-fire at sunrise or sunset while

the Pasha had his camp at Hebron; and from the highest part of our hill

could see the flash of the guns in the castle of Jerusalem when saluting

the birthday of Mohammed.

For domestic incidents we had the children pelting each other with acorns

by moonlight; bonfires made by them and the servants on the terrace to

show us the way when returning at a late hour from Jerusalem; large

bunches of grapes from the adjoining vineyard, the _Karaweesh_, suspended

against the wall, reserved to become raisins. Then family presents upon

a birthday, all derived from the ground itself,--one person bringing a

bunch of wild thyme in purple blossom,--another some sprigs from a

terebinth tree, with the reviving odour of its gum that was exuding from

the bark,--and another a newly-caught chameleon.

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 circumstances. 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 God Almighty was leading us into deep trials of faith in

Himself, and bringing out the value of that promise,--"When thou passest

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 _Marseea'_, 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 crevasse 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 mass 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 _Faghoor_, 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

Faghoor 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

Titus, who had had one and the same Triumph in Rome on account of the

conquest of Judea; and this very title is used in Josephus, ("Wars," vii.

xi. 4,)

[Picture: Greek title]

It is peculiarly suitable to that place, inasmuch as Titus, 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 amusement, 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].

INDEX OF PLACES.

N.B.--_Names with the asterisk are ancient and not modern_.

A

Aaron's tomb 306

Abadiyeh 80 106

Abasiyeh 254

Abdoon 34

Abeih 392

Abu Atabeh 239

Abu Dis 1

Abu Mus-hhaf 47

Abu'n Jaib (Jaim) 337

Abu Sabakh 203

Acre 237

Adasa 200

Afeeri 193

Afooleh 227

Ahhsaniyeh 183

Ai 204

'Ainab 391

'Ain 'Anoob 390 391

'Ain 'Aroos 324

'Ain Atha 387

'Ain Bedawiyeh 240 244

'Ain Berweh 241

'Ain Besaba 390

'Ain Carem 424

'Ain Dirweh 151 194 290

'Ain Ghazal 34

'Ain Ghazal 224

'Ain Hhood 224

'Ain Jadoor 41

'Ain Jidi 333

'Ain Kaimoon 230

'Ain Kesoor 392

'Ain Mel'hh 296

'Ain Mellahhah 371

'Ain Merubba' 48

'Ain Merubba' 417 419

'Ain Nebel 259 266

'Ain Noom 270

'Ain Saadeh 235 245 250

'Ain Shems 156

'Ain Sufsafeh 231 250

'Ain Taasan 321

'Ain Weibeh 302

'Ain Yebrood 89

'Ain Zera'ah 238

Aita 265

Aituran 387

Ajjeh 126 219

'Ajloon 38 56 69 79

'Ajoor 153

'Akir 157

Alma 108

'Alman 201

'Almeet 201

'Amman 24-36

Amooriah 156

'Anata 200 210

'Aneen 251

Annabeh 127

'Arabah 301 320 etc

'Arabeh 217 etc 251

'Arabet el Battoof 241

'Arak el Ameer 19

'Arak Hala 183

'Arak Munshiyah 177

'Ararah 248

'Arkoob 147

'Arkoob Sahhaba 336

Arzoon 254

Ascalan 163 182

Asdood 164

'Asfi 234

'Asker 90

Atarah 126 215

Athleet 224

Atna 162

'Attar 183

Aujeh 133 134

Awali 348 412

'Azair 244

'Azoor 355 377

B

Bahhjah 239

Bait Ainoon 290

Bait Atab 147

Bait Dajan 163

Bait Duras 162

Bait Ezkareh 443

Bait Hhaneena 200

Bait Hhanoon 175

Bait Jala 436

Bait Jan 271

Bait Jirja 166

Bait Jibreen 178 443

Bait Nateef 147 149 196

Bait Nejed 176

Bait Sahhoor in Nasara 428

Bait Sahhoor el Wad 428

Bait Saweer 447

Bait Soor (see Bezur)

Bait Uksa 140

Bait Unah 140

Bait U'oon 257

Bait Uzan 219

Bait Ziz (Jiz) 157

Baka 247 249

Bakoosh 435 etc

*Balah 297

Banias 364 384 385

Barook 354 376 407 411

*Bashan 66

Batteer 195

Battoof 271

Bayroot 390

Beerain 291

Beeri 88

Beer Eyoob 418

Beer El Kott 433

Beer Mustafa 203

Beer Nebala 200

Beer es Seba (Beersheba) 189 etc

Beisan 94 96 etc

Beka' el Basha 40 46

Balameh 221

Beled esh Shai'kh 235 245 247 250

Belhhamiyeh 80

Belka 19 79

*Belus 239

Beni Naim 290 291

Beni Saheela 171

Berasheet 257

Berberah 165

Berga'an 45

Besheet 160

Buteadeen 405 etc

*Bethany 1

*Bethlehem 436 437 440

Beth Zacharias 432

Bezur 152 194 430

Bidias 254

Bint el Jebail 114 255 257 388

Bisrah 355 376

Boorj (near Hebron) 184 287

Boorj (near Saida) 253

Brair 176

Burak 435

Burka 214 219

Bursa 48

Burtaa 222

Bursheen 254

Buwairdeh 321

C

Caiffa 236

*Carmel 44 67 224

*Caesarea Philippi 364

Cocab el Hawa 80 82 83 103

Cocaba 360 381

Cuf'r Bera'am 121 388

Cuf'r Cana 126

Cuf'r Enji 57

Cuf'r Hhooneh 358 378

Cuf'r Ita 247

Cuf'r Kara 222

Cuf'r Menda 244

Cuf'r Natta 398

Cuf'r Rai 126 216

Cuf'r Ruman 127

Cuf'r Saba 132 etc

Cuf'r Yuba 58

Cuferain (beyond Jordan) 9

Cuferain (near Carmel) 251

Curnub 297

D

Dabook 39

Dahair el Hhumar 23 80

Dahar es Salahh 441

Daiket 'Arar 297

Dair 68

Dair 'Ammar 137

Dair el Belahh 169

Dair el Benat 448

Dair Dewan 203 204

Dair ed Duban 177

Dair Hhanna 240 272

Dair el Kamar 400 etc

Dair el Mokhallis 348 374 412

Dair el Musha'al 136

Dair el Mushmushi 377

Dair en Nakhaz 182

Dair Thecla 254

Dair Yaseen 427

Daliet Carmel 238

Daliet er Rohha 238 251

Damooneh 241

*Dan 362

Dar Joon 349 353

Dar Kanoon 254

Dar Meemas 254

Dar Shems 254

Dar Zibneh 254

Dead Sea 3 4 12 326 etc

Deaneh 197

Deheedeh 378

Dejajeh 157

Desrah 136

Dibneh 156

Dilathah 107

Dilbeh 193

Doheriyeh 192 193

Doomeen 238

Dothan 127 219 etc

Duhheish'meh 146

Durtghayer 254

E

Ebeleen 242 247

Ed Dair 169

Edjajeh 157

Eilaboon 240

Ekfairat 17

Ekwikat 239

Elah 150 151 153 196

'Elealeh 13 17 18

El 'Areesh 170

El Hhabees 425

El Khait 108

El Kharjeh 208

El Khud'r 146 435

El Mergab 34

El Muntar el Kassar 34

Er-Ram (beyond Jordan) 9

Er-Ram (near Jerusalem) 87

Er-Rihha 4 414

Esak 194

'Esfia 235 238

Es-Salt 12 17 33 41

Esh-Shemesani 33

Esh-Shwaifiyeh 33

Etam 444

F

Faghoor 449 etc

Fahh'mah 216

Falooja 176 182

Farah 108 260

Farra'an 127

Fendecomia 126 219

Ferdisia 127

Fooleh 227

Fort 183

Fountain of Apostles 2

Furadees 224

G

*Gadara 77

*Gath 157 163 183

Ghawair 324 325

Ghor 3 12 301

Ghoraniyeh 5

Ghujar 370

Ghutt 183

Ghuzzeh (Gaza) 166 etc

*Gilboa 67 102

Gumron 414 416

H

Haddata 257

Hadeth 390

Hafeereh 220

Haita ez Zoot 257

Harakat 252

Herfaish 270

*Hermon 67 78 264 359 364 371

Hhalhhool 194 291 449

Hhamameh 163

Hhaneen 266

Hhanooneh 136

Hharrasheh 140 141

Hharatheeyeh 234 246

Hhasbani 360 380

Hhasbeya 360 379 381 etc

Hhata 176

Hhatteen 126 240

Hheker Zaboot 13

Hhesban 13 16

Hhizmeh 201 209 210

Hhooleh (Lake) 361

Hhooleh 257 386

Hhubeen 147

Hhusan 147

*Hor 301 etc

*Hormah 299

Huneen 386

Hurbaj 236 247

I

Idsaid 182

Iksal 228

Ilmah 183

Ineer 376

Irtahh 127

Izereiriyeh 254

J

Ja'arah 247

Jadeerah 200

Jahharah 386

Jaida 246

Jalood 83

Janiah 138

Jarmuk 117 118 262

Jawah 17

Jeba' 126 219

Jeba' (Gibeah of Saul) 208

Jeba' 147

Jebel el Ghurb 297

Jebel Mahas 39

Jebel esh Shaikh (See Hermon)

Jebel Sherreh 305

Jehaarah 24

Jelaad 43 48

Jelboon (Gilboa) 96 227

Jelool 17

Jeneen 84 126 226

Jerash 18 48 etc

*Jericho (See Er-Rihha)

*Jeshimon 301

Jezzeen 357 377

Jifna 88

Jish 114 115 121 261

Jis'r el Kadi 399

Jit 222

*Jokneam 230

*Joktheel 337

Joon 348 353 373

*Jordan 5 6 77 104 105 364 380 384

Judaidah 183

Julis 182

Jurah 164

K

Kabatieh 219

*Kadesh Barnea 302

Kadis 107

Kadita 116

Kaimoon 230 250

Kala'at er Reehha 414

Kala'at Rubbad 44

Kala'at Subeibeh 365

Kalinsawa 127

Kalkeeleh 127

Kaloneh 426

Kanneer 223

Karatiya 176

Karaweesh 446

Kasimiyeh 253

Kassar Waijees 33

Kayaseer 94

Keelah 152 196

Kelt 3

Kerak 14 18 34

Khalsah 370

Khan em Meshettah 17

Khan Yunas 169 etc

Kharas 151 196

Khash'm Usdum 324 etc

Khatroon 3 202

Khirbet el Kasees 442

Khirbet en Nasara 183

Khirbet es Sar 38

Khirbet Saleekhi 47

Khirbet Sellim 255

Khuldah (beyond Jordan) 39

Khuldah (on the Plain) 157 196

Kifereh 83

Kobaibeh 183

Krishneh 203

Kubbet el Baul 297

Kubeibeh 160

Kubrus 222

Kuriet el 'Aneb 179

Kuriet es Sook 17

Kustul (beyond Jordan) 17

Kustul (near Jerusalem) 426

L

Lahh'm 183

Laithma 90

Latroon 427

Lejjoon 221 229 249 250

Lesed 149

Litani 359

Lubban 90

Lubieh 126 238

M

Ma'alool 246

Ma'an 192 301

Main 17

Maisera 44

Ma'kook 206

Ma'naeen 195

Manjah 17

Mar Saba 418

Marseea' 448

Martosiyah 183

Mazaal 224

Medeba 17

Mejama'a 71 104

Mejdal 163 182

Mejdal Yaba 127 128 etc

Mekebleh 228

Menzel el Basha 230

Merash 183

Meroon 117 etc

Merj ibn Amer 228 249

Merj ed Dom 187

Med Merka 34

Mesdar Aishah 34

Mesh-had 126

*Me-Yarkon 158

Mezer 67

Mezra'a 19 140

Mezra'ah 254

Mobugghuk 329

Modzha 224

Mohhrakah 233 237

Mokatta' 233

Mokhtarah 407 etc

*Moladah 296

*Moreh 90

Mujaidel 237 245

Mukhmas 207 210

Mukhneh 90

Munsoorah 183

Mushmusheh 249

Muzaikah 297

M'zeera'a 136

N

Naa'eea 165

Naaman 239

Na'ana 157

Na'oor 18 19

Nabloos 44 90

Nahhaleen 147 443 448

*Nazareth 126

Neab 241

Neba' 17

Nebi Hhood 56

Nebi Moosa 2

Nebi Osha 44

Nebi Samwil 44

Nebi Sari 136

Nebi Yunas 290

*Negeb 145

*Nimrin 126

Nooris 83

Nuba 152 196

O

Obeyah 183

*Olivet 1 16

P

*Parah 212

*Pelesheth 144

Petra 311 etc

Point Costigan 332

Point Molyneux 332

Q

Quarantana 202

R

Ra'ana 157

Rabbah 34

Raineh 126

Rama 238 272

Ram Allah 87 143

Rameen 126

Rami 216

Ramlah 128 197

Ras el Ahhmar 108 114

Ras el 'Ain 131 132

Ras abu Ammar 147

Ras Kerker 135 137 etc

Rehhaniyeh 251

Remmoon 203 205 206

Resheef 242

Rubin 158

Rumaish 264 267

Ruman 48

Rumaneh 244

Rummet er Room 376

Runtieh 136

S

Safed 107 117 262 372

Safoot 47

Sagheefah 183

Saida 348 412

Saidoon 197

Salem 90

Salhhah 108 260

Salhhi 153

Salim 226

Salt Mountain 326

Samakh 76

Samek 17

Samma 71

Samooniah 246

Samua' 187

Sanneen 254

Sanoor 126

Sasa 121

Sattaf 424

Sawafeer Mesalkah 182

Sawafeer Odeh 182

Sawiyeh 90

*Scopus 199

Sebustieh 15 111 215 219

Se'eer 10

Seeleh 215 219

Seeleh (on Esdraelon) 226

Sefooriyeh 240

*Seir 305 306

*Selah 337

Selwan 1

Semsem 176

Semwan 239

Senabrah 182

Setcher (Seeker) 22

Sha'afat 86

Shaikh Aman 183

Shaikh el Bakkar 63

Shaikh Sad 231

Shakrah 257

Sharon 15 127 etc

Shefa 'Amer (beyond Jordan) 15

Shefa 'Amer (near Acre) 240 242 243 247

Shelaleh 238

Shemuata 239

Shemaniyeh 183

*Shephelah 145

Sheree'ah (See Jordan)

Shereeat el Menadherah 76

Shibtain 136

Shukbeh 136

Shukeef 254

Shutta 83

Sh'waifat 390

Sh'weikeh (Shocoh) 150 152 196 443

Sibta 193

Sik 313

Sindianeh 247

Sinjil 90

Siphla 145

Soba 423 425

Solam 227

Sora'a 156

Santa Anna 179 183 443

Suameh 224

Subariyeh 223

Sufah 299

Sufsafeh 231 250

Sukhneen 241

Sumkaniyeh 407

T

Ta'annuk 221 226

Tabakra 47

*Tabor 44 67 226

Taitaba 107 116

Tallooz 48

Tantoorah 224

Tarsheehhah 268

Tayibeh (beyond Jordan) 68 69

Tayibeh (near Jerusalem) 205 213

Teereh (on Sharon) 136

Teereh (in Galilee) 266

Teeri 224 238

Tela'at ed Dum 3

Tell 'Arad 293

Tell u'l 'Ejel 169

Tell el Hajjar 204

Tell el Kadi 362 384

Tell el Kasees 233

Tell es Safieh 177

Thekua' (Tekoa) 337

Terabeh 334 422

Thuggeret el Baider 33

*Thuggeret el Moghafer 48

Tiberias 78 105

Tibneen 255 264 387

Tibneh 156

Tibni 68

Timrah 175

Tool el Ker'm 127

Tubas 92

Tuleh 67

Tura 254

Tura'an 126

U

Umm el 'Aamed 17

Umm Bugghek 329

Umm ed Damaneer 47

Umm el 'Egher 47

Umm el Fahh'm 248 249 251

Umm Kais 62 71 72

Umm el Kanater 77 106

Umm Malfoof 33

Umm er Rumaneh 17

Umm Saidet 183

Umm Sheggar 17

Umm es Swaiweeneh 34

Umm ez Zeenat 251

Ursaifah 34

Urtas 435

W

Wadi Ahhmed 195

Wadi 'Arab (or Shaikh) 151 196

Wadi 'Arab 248

Wadi 'Aroob 448

Wadi Bait Hhaneena 424

Wadi Bedan 91

Wadi Berreh 82

Wadi Dubber 417

Wadi En-nab 91

Wadi Farah 210

Wadi Fara'ah 91

Wadi Fik'r 301

Wadi Fokeen 147

Wadi el Hharamiyeh 94

Wadi Hhuggereh 325

Wadi el Jaib 301 322

Wadi el Kasab 231

Wadi Keereh 232 235

Wadi el Kharnoob 136

Wadi Mel'hh 230 232

Wadi Moosa 316

Wadi Musurr 150

Wadi Nemela 318

Wadi Netheeleh 329

Wadi Pharaon 316

Wadi Soor 151

Wadi Sunt 150 154

Wadi Surar 158

Wadi Suaineet 207

Wadi Tayibeh 305

Wadi Zahari 72

Weli Jedro 247

Weli Sardoni 40

Y

Yaabad 222

Yabneh 158 159

Yaero 126

Yafah 245

Yajoor 245 247 250

Yakook 125

Yarmuk 75

Yaroon 260 388

Yehudiyeh 257

Z

Zacariah 154

Zaid 357 377

Zebdeh 222

Zeita 182

Zenabeh 127

*Zephath 299

Zer'een 67 83 226

Zerka 48 49

*Zin 301

Ziph 152 292

Zoghal 328

Zubairah 17

Zumareen 223 224

Zuwatah 219

FOOTNOTES.

{3} This is one of the frequent instances of Arabic local names

preserving the sound, while departing from the signification.

{5} This ford was called _Ghoraneyeh_. The other is called _El

Meshraa'_.

{17} Tristram has since expressed (p. 535) a doubt of the verity of this

name of a site, but I had it given to me both at Heshbon and Jerash, and

De Saulcy has since been there.

{19} How often have I regretted since that we did not know of the

existence of 'Arak el Ameer, which has of late commanded so much

interest. We might have so easily turned aside for that short distance.

{20} This word signifies "a desert." It is often found in the Arabic

Bible, especially in the prophetic books.

{33} See Appendix A.

{39} The largest sort grown there.

{58} The officer deputed from the Porte lives in a pretty village called

Cuf'r Yuba, and is said to have become enormously rich upon the levies

which he does not transmit to Constantinople.

{61} Travellers of late report that enormous sums are exacted by the

'Adwan for their escort upon this same journey as ours. It may,

therefore, be acceptable to learn what was our contract, and that it was

honourably acted upon--namely, three of the party to pay 1000 piastres

each, and 200 each for all the rest. As there were twelve in the party,

the amount was

1000 x 3 = 3000

200 x 9 = 1800

----

4800

This total we among ourselves divided equally, equal to 400 each.

We also agreed to make a present from each when in the territory, besides

giving a feast at 'Amman, and another at Jerash--the feasts were a mere

trifle.

A hundred piastres came to rather less than a pound sterling.

I am glad to confirm the recent testimonies of Tristram and De Saulcy as

to the honourable and noble deportment of Gublan and the other leaders of

the 'Adwan people.

{65} Were not these the altars or other objects employed in idolatrous

worship by the Geshurites and Maachathites who remained among the

Israelites of Gad and Reuben?--(See Josh. xiii. 13.)

{67} I mean Jebel esh Shaikh of the Anti-Lebanon, as I do not believe in

the existence of any _little Hermon_ in the Bible.

{94} He afterwards died of fever in my service, caught by rapid

travelling in the heat of July 1860, during the Lebanon insurrection,

whither he accompanied my Cancelliere to rescue some of the unfortunate

Christians in my district.

{109} According to the Talmud, private roads were made four cubits wide;

public roads sixteen cubits; but the approaches to a city of refuge were

thirty-two cubits in width. See Lightfoot's "Decas Chorographica," VII.

Latitudo viarum Tradunt Rabini. Via privata [Hebrew text] est quatuor

cubitorum--via ab urbe in urbem est octo cubitorum--via publica [Hebrew

text] est sedecm cubitorum--via ad civitates refugii est triginta duorum

cubitorum." Bava Batra fol., 100 From Lightfoot's "Centuria

Chorographica." "Synhedrio incubuit vias ad civitates hasee accommodare

eas dilatando, atque omne offendiculum in quod titubare aut impingere

posses amovendo. Non permissus in via ullus tumulus aut fluvius super

quem non esset pons erat que via illuc ducens ad minimum 32 cubitorum

lata atque in omni bivio, aut viarum partitione scriptum erat [Hebrew

text] _Refugium_ ne eo fugiens a via erraret."--Maimon in [Hebrew text]

cap. 8.

{110} On visiting Kadis some years after, I was grieved to find all this

much demolished, and the ornamentation taken away, by Ali Bek, to adorn

the new works at his castle of Tibneen.

{111} Since fallen almost to the ground.

{131a} [Greek text].

{131b} [Greek text].

{133} I have been there three times, twice late in autumn, and once in

July, and always found water abundant.

{136} Since writing the above I have seen the photograph taken of this

temple by the Palestine explorators in 1866.

{149} I do not find this place in any lists or books of travels.

{155} Since that journey I have been told by the country people that

between Gaza and Beersheba it is the practice to sow wheat very thinly

indeed, and to expect every seed to produce thirty to fifty stalks, and

every stalk to give forty seeds.

{182} In a journey to Gaza from Hebron, in the spring season of 1853, I

was proceeding from the great oak down a long valley--but I was induced

to deviate from the direct line by the tidings of _Bait Jibreen_ being

infested or taken by the Tiyahah Arabs.

We everywhere found the peasantry armed, and on arriving before _Dair

Nahhaz_, almost within sight of that town, and communicating with the

village for water to drink, as I rested under a tree, Mohammed 'Abd en

Nebi sent me word that Bait Jibreen was recovered from the Arabs, and now

occupied by themselves; that thirty-five corpses of Arabs were lying

round Bait Jibreen, and one of the two Arab chiefs (Amer) was slain--he

himself was wounded in the knee.

From hence to Gaza we passed _Zeita_, where a breastwork had been hastily

thrown up by the peasantry, and into which a number of armed men rushed

from a concealment, and parleyed before they would allow us to pass on.

Then to _Falooja_, and between _Idsaid_ and _Karatiyah_ on our right, and

the Arak Munshiyah on the left. Halted at Brair for the night.

The return from Gaza was by Ascalan, Mejdal, Julis, the two Sawafeers,

Kasteeneh, Mesmiyeh, and Latron, on the Jaffa road to Jerusalem.

{203} Pronounced sometimes _Dewan_, sometimes _Debwan_.

{204} _Beth_ is represented by the modern word _Dair_, and _Aven_ has

become _Ewan_, with the Syriac _d_' signifying _of_.

{207} It is worthy of notice that Suwan (in Arabic) (diminutive,

_Suwaineet_) signifies "flint." These rocks being flinty, it is possible

that _Seneh_ in Hebrew may have had the same meaning.

{217} 'Arabeh does not appear in any map before Vandevelde in 1854.

{230} As Hebron, Bethshemesh, Gibeon, Shechem, Beth-horon, Ta'annuk,

Jeneen, etc., besides the cities of refuge.

{238} It is worthy of note, that in this single place the ancient name

of Carmel is preserved among the people. This being called _Daliet el

Carmel_ to distinguish it from the Dalieh of the Rohha district, yet the

denomination Carmel is not otherwise given to this mountain by the Arab

population. Dalieh signifies "a vine," this, therefore, is the "vine of

Carmel," and Carmel itself signifies "God's vineyard!"

{243} They afterwards dwindled to two families, the rest removing to

Caiffa as that port rose in prosperity.

{265} Shakespeare; or as Ronsard has it:--

"qui _tire l'ire_

Des esprits mieux que je n'ecris."

{301} Yet there was a "city of palm-trees" towards the south, which the

Kenites abandoned for this district south of Arad,--probably the present

_Nukh'l_; the name has that signification.

{302} There are many such _cachets_ of water in the desert, but known

only to the tribes of each district. During the Israelitish wanderings,

Hobab, a native of the desert, may have guided them to many such.

{304} It is not to be supposed, however, that this is a just

representation of all that "great and terrible wilderness" through which

the Israelites were led for forty years. It is indeed "a land not sown,"

(Jer. ii. 2,) and a land of pits and drought fearful to contemplate, as a

journey for a wandering population of nearly two millions of souls,

especially in the hottest seasons of the year; but the peculiarly

terrible wilderness must have been among the defiles, hemmed in by

scorching cliffs in the Sinaitic peninsula.

In that direction also were the "fiery flying serpents," concerning which

I have never been able to learn anything more satisfactory than that, in

the hot and unpeopled gorges west of the Dead Sea, there is a thin and

yellow serpent called the Neshabiyeh, which flings itself across from one

point to another in the air with astonishing velocity and force. It is

therefore named after Neshabeh, a dart or arrow in Arabic. The natives

also apply to it the epithet of "flying." The wound which it inflicts is

said to be highly inflammatory and deadly, and from this effect it may be

called "fiery." It may be also that, from being of a yellow colour, it

may glitter like a flame when flying with rapidity in the sunshine.

It is only in Isaiah xxx. 6, that the epithet "flying" is used for these

serpents. Observe, however, in Hebrew Lexicons the several applications

of this word [Hebrew text].

{309} Dr H. Bonar.

{316} They take a pride in attributing everything of antiquity here to

Pharaoh, the cursed king of Egypt,--as those about the Euphrates

attribute all their old wonders to the cursed king Nimrod. These names

are learned from the Koran.

{320} Numerous travellers, however, have since gone from Jerusalem in

virtue of the agreement made on this occasion by me, and returned without

molestation from these people.

{332} This I repeat after having travelled at different times on most

parts, north, west, and south of the lake, and read all that has been

printed about the eastern side. (1867.)

{339} Since writing the above, we learn from Lieutenant Warren's very

interesting letters that the Turkish Government have sent a large force

into the trans-Jordanic region, with a view of chastising the Arabs: it

remains to be seen whether this measure will leave any permanent

effects.--(_Nov._ 1867.)

{405} Especially in a book probably little known, but published as

"Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess. By (herself) Marie Therese Asmar,"

who was in London in 1845, and supported for a time by fashionable

patronesses of romantic Orientalism.

{408} The events of 1860-61 led to a tragical termination of the career

of this young chieftain.

{419} Mr Tristram has since done this, but on foot, the rugged road

being impassable in any other way.

{432} Bait Zacari and Zecariah lie far away among the mountains in the

south-west. Neither of them would command the road which Judas desired

to intercept--neither of them therefore answers to the Bath Zacharias of

the history any more than Baitzur near Hebron does to Bethsura--all are

equally out of the question by reason of their distance.

{440} Very common in Oriental Christendom, and called by the Greeks the

[Greek text] (semantron.)

The ancient Britons used to summon the congregation to church service by

means of "sacra ligna," is it not likely that these were the same as the

above, seeing that the Celtic nations were derived from the East?