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My Three Days in Gilead
I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm;
I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm;
I love to wet my foot in Herman's dews;
I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse;
In Carmel's holy grots I'll court repose,
And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose.
--J. PIERPONT.
MY THREE DAYS IN GILEAD
By Elmer U. Hoenshel, D. D.,
Principal of Shenandoah Collegiate Institute and School of Music
In profound gratitude, this little volume is dedicated to the
memory of William Barakat of Jerusalem.
My faithful, careful dragoman, who in manhood's prime, yet not
many months before his death, guided me in safety, not only during
my trying "Three Days in Gilead," but also throughout an extended
tour otherwhere in his native land--the Holy Land of my faith.
THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
At last, after waiting twenty leaden-winged years from the time in
which a fixed purpose was formed in me to visit the Orient, the
realization came. The year that saw the fulfillment of my
cherished ambition was definitely determined upon eight summers
before it took its place in the calendar of history. Fortune
smiled upon my plan. I was ready. My joy was akin to ecstasy.
Imagine my disappointment when, in the month of May of my chosen
year, 1900, I learned that no agency would organize a tourist
party to move at a time in the summer or autumn that would suit
me! There was but one alternative--to travel independent of any
organization. This I would do. The decision to do so brought
instant and happy relief.
At no time in my period of absence of five months did I meet a
single former acquaintance. I planned every move, and held myself
in every way responsible for results. The experience I thus gained
in the many countries visited I value highly. Not infrequently I
found myself in trying situations; but all ended well. To-day, in
my inventory of life's rich and helpful experiences, though it
were possible for me to do it, I would not eliminate one of these.
It was a kind Providence that denied me the luxury of a place in a
modern "personally conducted" tourist party.
A few articles descriptive of certain experiences have been
written by me for publication. Some themes I have presented on the
lecture platform a few hundred times. My auditors, universally,
have been kind in their criticisms. Many have been the requests
that I write a volume reciting the story of my travels. In
response I have steadily refused. Many books on travel have
appeared in recent years, possibly too many; but I have seen very
little that has been written about the trans-Jordanic highlands.
And it is not strange, for, though multitudes of tourists annually
visit Palestine, not one person out of a thousand of them ever
goes east of the Jordan. And is it worth while? We shall see.
On my trip I tried to identify no biblical site; I tried to locate
no city of antiquity; I dug into no mound; I disturbed no ruin.
All this I left to the geographer, the historian, and the
archaeologist who had preceded me, or who should come after me.
True, with the help of my Bible, map, guide-book, and guide, I
formed opinions, and was happy in the fitness of some of them;
but, in the main, I was content to rest in the conclusions reached
by those who had studied scientifically and reverently every hill
and valley and ruin in this neglected region.
But my observation and experience no other has had. I know of no
other who mapped out or traveled the route chosen by me. I sought
and expected much; I found and experienced more. And though eight
years have passed since my journeyings in Gilead, yet so fresh is
the memory of those days that I need make but slight reference, as
I write, to the notes that were then written. Often, in recent
years, I have found myself lingering in thought on some high ridge
looking out over an extended panorama filled with sacred
associations, or silently gazing up into the strangely impressive
Oriental sky by night. Even as I write I seem to catch again a
perfume-laden breeze, bearing repose to my weary soul. And if the
memory of this land seen in its desolation is so refreshing to a
foreigner, what must not the possession of the real in the days of
its fatness have been to the weary, battle-scarred Israelites who
secured permission to abide here!
So, in response to the call of my friends, and with the hope of
adding somewhat to the meager fund of information concerning a
once famous district, or, at least, to create additional interest
in the territory occupied by the tribe of Gad in the days of early
allotment, I undertake to tell the story of "My Three Days in
Gilead."
Dayton, Virginia, February 20, 1909.
Contents
Chapter I. "Waiting at Damascus"
Chapter II. "Through Bashan"
Chapter III. "Among Bedouins"
Chapter IV. "At Gerasa"
Chapter V. "Up Into the Mountains"
Chapter VI. "By the Watch-Tower"
Chapter VII. "Down to the Jordan"
Chapter VIII. "At the Bridge"
"Waiting at Damascus"
CHAPTER I.
Damascus! A city that numbers the years of its existence in
millenniums; that witnessed in the dawn of history the migration
of Abraham as he went out from Ur to a land not known to him, and
to whom she gave one of the best of her sons; that sent out the
leper, Naaman, to Palestine for healing and received him back
whole; that hailed with great preparations the coming of Elisha,
who had previously blinded her army at Dothan; that welcomed Saul
of Tarsus in his blindness, restored his sight, and sent him,
transformed in his life, to transform Asia Minor and classic
Europe. Damascus! A city surviving an age-long struggle with the
encroaching desert--a struggle that must go on through ages to
come; but, as long as the Abana and Pharpar continue to flow, the
sands that would bury her forever in oblivion will be changed into
a soil of life-giving and life-sustaining fertility sufficient to
support her thousands of inhabitants. Damascus! A city of the long
ago, practically unchanged, where the Occidental may look to-day
with unfeigned interest upon architecture, costumes, and customs
similar to those that prevailed in the East while Greece and Rome
were yet young. Damascus! A city celebrated for a thousand years
for its bazaars, work-shops, and roses; a city so beautiful
thirteen hundred years ago that Mohammed, viewing it for the first
time from a distance, is said to have exclaimed: "Man can have but
one paradise. My paradise is heaven; I cannot enter yonder city!"
a city to-day of unsurpassed beauty, when viewed from the
distance, with its white domes and slender minarets rising above
the shrubbery and trees of its thirty thousand gardens. Here in
this old city; in this historic city; in this beautiful city; in
Damascus, I greet you and extend to you an invitation to join me
in my proposed trip through Gilead.
My party as yet consists of but two persons. My dragoman, William
Barakat, of Jerusalem, in response to a telegram sent from
Constantinople, met me several days ago at Beyrout. He is a native
Syrian, talks good English, dresses like an American, (save that
he wears a red fez,) and is a Christian in faith. Before reaching
this city he has already rendered me excellent service. He is
intelligent, having attended the American College at Beyrout. I
can trust him.
My arrangements with my guide are simple. He is to take me over my
desired route by best possible methods of travel; to furnish the
best of fare and lodging obtainable; to guarantee me a safe
escort; and he is to do all this within a specified time and for a
stipulated price. I did not then know how little I was asking as
to fare and lodging, but when I knew that he was fulfilling his
part of the agreement I had little cause for just complaint.
By early dawn, on October thirtieth, we had breakfasted and had
bidden good-by to all the servants about the hotel, (many of whom
I did not know to exist, but who, somehow, had learned of me, and
had risen thus early to witness my departure and to ask a fee for
services that I am quite sure some of them had had no part in
rendering,) and had ordered the driver to lose no time in reaching
the station of the Damascus-Hauran Railroad, about two miles
distant. But, notwithstanding the early hour, the streets were
already crowded with people, mules, donkeys, dogs, and other
things. It was only with great effort that we could make any
headway, and at times it seemed that the crowd, angered at our
persistence, would stop us entirely in our struggle to pass
through. We did the best we could, but we missed the train. Since
there were ONLY THREE TRAINS A WEEK on that road, it meant that I
must go back to that same hotel and spend two more days in
Damascus at the rate of ten dollars a day, and then, again, on
leaving, must fee those same servants for service that I did not
want, and, generally speaking, did not get. But, though the
disappointment was great, it brought additional opportunity to
study the wonders and ways of the wonderful city wherein I was
forced to remain.
A second time my dragoman prepares food for our journey; and
again, on the morning of November first, we hurry to the station.
This time we do not miss the train--we wait for it--and we wait a
long time; but with the waiting there is contentment, for, if the
train move south, I, too, am sure of going.
"Through Bashan"