THE GREAT PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.
Our new camp was fixed at Jenîn, the ancient Engannim or “Spring of
Gardens,” at the southern extremity of the Great Plain, a border city of
Galilee according to Josephus, now a picturesque town of three thousand
inhabitants, with a bazaar and a mosque, surrounded by groves of olives,
through which a little stream finds its way in spring. Our camp was west
of the place, and looked out on the white mosque of ’Azz ed Dîn with its
minaret, the great threshing-floor with its heaps of yellow grain, the
beautiful gardens of palms, oranges, and tamarisks set in cactus hedges,
while behind, on the east, was the stony range of Gilboa, on the north
the brown plain, the blue Nazareth hills, the volcanic cone of Jebel
Dŭhy, and the shoulder of Carmel towards the west.
The Great Plain extends northwards fourteen miles from Jenîn, to Junjâr
at the foot of the Nazareth chain, whilst from Jezreel on the east, to
Legio on the west, is about nine miles. The elevation is about 200 to
250 feet above the sea, and a Y-shaped double range of hills bounds it
east and west, with an average elevation of 1500 feet above the plain.
On the north-east are the two detached blocks of Neby Dŭhy and Tabor,
and on the north-west a narrow gorge is formed by the river Kishon,
which springs from beneath Tabor and collecting the whole drainage of
this large basin, passes from the Great Plain to that of Acre. On the
east of the plain the broad valley of Jezreel gradually slopes down
towards Jordan, and Jezreel itself (the modern Zer’in) stands on the
side of Gilboa above it. On the west are the scarcely less famous sites
of Legio, Taanach, and Jokneam, while the picturesque conical hill of
Dŭhy, just north of the Jezreel valley, has Shunem on its south
slope, and Nain and Endor on the north. Thus seven places of interest
lie at the foot of the hills east and west, but no important town was
ever situate in the plain itself--a flat expanse of arable land, the
loose basaltic soil of which is extremely fertile.
The Great Plain was once the favourite resort of the Bedawin when driven
by war or famine across Jordan. At times it used to be covered with
camels “like the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable.” The
Ruwalla (a branch of the great Arab nation called ’Anazeh), the Sukr and
other important tribes came over to pasture their camels, and like the
Midianites whom Gideon encountered advancing by the same great
highway--the valley of Jezreel, they oppressed the native population
settled in the villages. Thus in 1870 only about a sixth of the
beautiful corn-land was tilled, and the plain was black with Arab
“houses of hair.” But the Turks wrought a great and sudden change; they
armed their cavalry with the Remington breech-loading rifle, and the
Bedawin disappeared as though by magic. It was of course to be expected
that when external troubles had weakened the Government, the lawless
nomads would again encroach and levy toll and tribute as before; for the
history of Palestine seems constantly to repeat itself from the earliest
period recorded, in a recurring struggle between the settled population
and the nomads, Midianites, Shasu, Bedawin, or whatever other name you
may call them; thus during the year 1877 Fendi el Faiz and the Sukr
again invaded the plain and levied black-mail on the luckless peasantry.
In 1872 no less than nine-tenths of the plain was cultivated, nearly
half with corn, the rest with millet, sesame, cotton, tobacco, and the
castor-oil plant. The springs on the west are copious; from near Legio a
considerable affluent flows north to join the Kishon, and even in August
the streams are running to waste at the foot of the hills. The Great
Plain is indeed one of the richest natural fields of cultivation in
Palestine--perhaps one might say in the world.
The night came down on our newly-erected camp before even a hasty glance
could be obtained of all this interesting scenery. There is something
peculiarly soothing in the Syrian starlight; the planets are brighter
than in the north, the milky way looks like a long white cloud, the
moon, as she rises, is often accompanied by a silvery vapour floating
over the mountain-tops. The silence is broken by the sigh of the night
wind among the olives which form a black lattice-work overhead. In the
village at intervals one hears the barking of the troops of savage dogs,
and in the open plain the shrill gamut of the jackals, rising note by
note, and ending in a sort of shake or quavering sound. The cicalas are
asleep, but the piping of the black mole-crickets continues all night.
Occasionally a horse wakes with a snort, or the English terriers hear a
strange step and give the short sharp warning bark, so different from
the mongrel howls of the native dogs; then once more all is still but
the wind, and the silence becomes almost oppressive.
The Great Plain was the place chosen for the measurement of our second
base to check the accuracy of the triangulation carried up some sixty
miles from its starting-point in the Jaffa plain. On the 2nd of
September we laid out the line for a distance of four and a half miles,
directing it on the white dome of Neby S’ain above Nazareth, and thus
obtaining a prolongation for calculation of nearly six miles. The high
hills east and west gave us a second line of fifteen miles almost at
right angles, and from this, large well-shaped triangles were carried
away to the north. The check was perfectly satisfactory, and the closing
line, when calculated in 1876 at Southampton, had a margin of only
twenty feet, which is an invisible distance on the one inch scale.
One of our trigonometrical stations was placed on a high hill above the
smaller plain of ’Arrâbeh in which Dothan stands just south-west of the
Great Plain. Here there is a chapel dedicated to Sheikh Shibleh, a
famous Emir who in 1697 waylaid the traveller Maundrell. This writer
remarks drily that after extorting black-mail, “he eased us in a very
courteous manner of some of our coats, which now began to grow not only
superfluous but burdensome.” The Emir died, and was canonised, and his
tomb looks down from the stony hill-top on the scene of his former
prowess; but he is not the only sainted bandit in the Syrian pantheon.
In returning from this ride we passed through the little Christian
village of Burkîn, where we were hailed with a pleasure very different
from the hollow courtesy of the Moslem natives. The old Khûri or curé
hastened down to show us his church on the hillside, a small whitewashed
room, with a stone screen on the east shutting off the apses, as in all
Greek churches in the country, and with three entrances guarded by
curtains. The silver plate and ewer were kept in the north apse, the
altar stood in the central one; the church was very rudely built, about
fifty feet square, with a dome some twenty feet high. Two stone lecterns
held the books near the screen, and a stone chair on the south side had
arms with rude dogs’ heads carved on them. The pictures were all painted
on wood in a stiff pre-Raffaelite style, with gaudy colouring dimmed by
age. One represented the ascent of Elijah in a chariot with a red cloud
beneath, and four winged horses harnessed to it, with traces looking
like white tapes attached to the spokes of the wheels. Elisha below
receives the mantle, and is again represented as at a greater distance
striking Jordan with it, whilst a group of sons of the prophets stand
like a shock of corn in a square block with gilded glories on their
heads. Other pictures represented St. George, the Virgin, the Baptist
with red wings and a title in Russian and Arabic characters, St.
Nicholas, and the Saviour enthroned.
The Khûri, was a native, and his robes could not well have been dirtier
or shabbier. He was accompanied by two acolytes who held our horses; his
pride and satisfaction in showing his church were immense.
Whilst at Jenîn we had the unusual honour of a visit from a lady, who
came to ask for medical advice. Peasants suffering from ophthalmia, or
from indigestion, which they explained by saying “the head of my heart
hurts me,” we had to doctor every day, and one poor old gentleman, at
Mujeidil, we afterwards treated with carbolic acid and nearly cured of a
skin disease; but he had many other ailments which we could not treat,
and he consequently became a decided nuisance. The lady came attended by
her slave, a little girl in white with large dark eyes, one of which,
for some unknown reason, she kept steadily shut. The mistress was
dressed in yellow and white striped cotton, with the izâr or white veil
above; her face-veil she was obliged to remove to show her tongue, and
her eyes had a deep fringe of blue kohel all round, the eyebrows painted
to meet, whilst on her chin, forehead, and upper lip, were small dots
tattooed in blue in a sort of trefoil pattern; her hands had bands of
blue paint and dots on the knuckles. She wore heavy rings and a blue
glass bracelet; the sleeves were tight to the wrist, and under her frock
she wore the gay-coloured trousers as we call them, which are in reality
a petticoat sewn up, and the prettiest article of Syrian costume. Her
nails and the palms of her hands were dyed orange colour with henna, and
on her feet she wore the red curly-toed slippers used in walking out of
doors. She described her symptoms with the usual high querulous tone and
rapid chatter peculiar to the native women, and was made happy by a
couple of pills.
The places visited from this camp lay principally east of the plain. We
ascended the high conical peak of Jebel Dŭhy, so-called after Neby
Dŭhy (“the leader or general”), a prophet whose sacred place is on
the summit. Who this prophet was I am unable to say, nor can we with any
certainty apply a Biblical name to the mountain. The Crusaders called it
sometimes Mount Endor, and generally Little Hermon, a title still known
to the Nazareth Christians. The latter name was given in consequence of
the expression, “Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy name,” whence
they seemed to have argued that Hermon was to be sought close to Tabor.
They can never have looked northwards from the neighbourhood of Endor,
or they would have seen the rounded, isolated mound, like a huge
mole-hill, which is Tabor, and behind it far away the magnificent, snowy
dome of the second sacred mountain of the text--the true Hermon.
The top of the mountain is composed of blocks of basalt, covered with
grey lichen. The view is magnificent, extending from the Safed ranges
on the north to Mount Ebal on the south, and from the peaks east of the
great Hauran plateau to Carmel and the sea. Fifteen hundred feet below
us is Nain, and north of this the plain in which the mediæval tradition
supposed Abraham to have met Melchisedek, with the unique outline of
Tabor, the Nazareth block, and distant Hermon. On the south side the
broad valley of Jezreel is just below, and the villages of Kûmieh and
Shŭtta, seen almost in bird’s-eye view on their little knolls
surrounded by long patches of arable land, whilst on the south side of
the valley the limestone of the Gilboa ridge is twisted into wavy lines
by the eruptive basalt beneath, and the range is seen, end on as it
were, rising shelf above shelf, while conspicuous on its knoll of rugged
rock, Jezreel stands at the north-west horn of the crescent-shaped
range, 500 feet above the bright pool of “Goliath’s Spring,” where the
early Christians, by some curious misconception, imagined David to have
fought the giant. On a clear autumn day the little Survey cairn was
plainly visible on Mount Ebal at a distance of twenty-six miles. The
prospect is indeed one of the finest in Palestine, with a variety of
outline and extent of view rarely to be found.
The village of Nain lies below on a sort of spur to the north of Neby
Dŭhy, and the road from Nazareth ascends in a hollow to the west of
it. On the right of the road, yet farther west, are the rock-cut tombs,
and thus the procession bearing the young man’s body would have come
down the slope towards the little spring westwards, meeting our Lord on
the main road. The mud-hovels on the grey tongue of limestone have no
great marks of antiquity, but the surrounding ruins show the village to
have been once larger, and a little mosque called “the Place of our Lord
Jesus” marks, no doubt, the site of an early chapel. There are, as far
as we could see, no traces of a wall, and I think we should understand
by “gate of the city,” the place where the road enters among the houses,
just as the word is used often in Greek, and in modern Arabic in such
expressions as “gate of the pass,” “gate of the valley,” and even “gate
of the city,” where no wall or gate exists.
East of Nain is a second similar village of mud-huts, with hedges of
prickly pear. This is Endor, famous in connection with the tragic
history of the death of Saul. The adventurous character of Saul’s night
journey is very striking, when we consider that the Philistines pitched
in Shunem on the southern slopes of the mountain, and that Saul’s army
was at Jezreel; thus, to arrive at Endor, he had to pass the hostile
camp, and would probably creep round the eastern shoulder of the hill,
hidden by the undulations of the plain, as an Arab will now often
advance unseen close by you in a fold of the ground. We are accustomed,
probably from the various pictures of the scene, to think of the witch
as living in a cave; and caves exist at Endor, but they are small, and
seem to be probably modern, having been dug out in seeking for the marl
used in making mortar. The hillside is bare and stony, with a low ledge
of rock in which the rude entrances are cut; round one cave there is a
curious circle of rocks, which form a sort of protection, and resemble
somewhat a druidical circle, though the formation is probably natural.
This cave would, however, offer an appropriate scene for the meeting of
the sorceress with the unhappy king, whom God answered “neither by
dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1 Sam. xxviii. 6).
On the southern slope stands a third and similar village called Sûlem,
the ancient Shunem. There is nothing specially to mark it as an ancient
site, for it is only a mud-hamlet, with cactus hedges and a spring, yet
it is undoubtedly the place known in the fourth century as Shunem. West
of the houses there is a beautiful garden, cool and shady, of
lemon-trees, watered by a little rivulet, and in the village is a
fountain and trough. Westward the view includes Fûleh--the Crusading
Castle of the Bean, with its fosse and marshy pool outside, and extends
as far as Carmel, fifteen miles away. Thus the whole extent of the ride
of the Shunamite woman (2 Kings iv. 24) under the burning noontide sun
of harvest-time is visible. Were the houses of that time no larger than
the mud-cabins of the modern village, it was not a great architectural
undertaking to build “a little chamber” for the prophet, and the
enumeration of the simple furniture of that chamber--the bed, perhaps
only a straw mat, the table, the stool, and the lamp, seems to indicate
that it was only such a little hut that was intended. Another point may
be noted: how came it that Elisha so constantly passed by Shunem? The
answer seems simple; he lived habitually on Carmel, but he was a native
of Abel Meholah, “the Meadow of Circles,” a place now called ’Ain
Helweh, in the Jordan valley, to which the direct road led past Shunem
down the Valley of Jezreel.
Crossing the valley, we see before us the site of Jezreel on a knoll 500
feet high. The position is very peculiar, for whilst on the north and
north-east the slopes are steep and rugged, on the south the ascent is
very gradual, and the traveller coming northwards is astonished to look
down suddenly on the valley, with its two springs, one (’Ain Jâlûd)
welling out from a conglomerate cliff, and forming a pool about 100
yards long, with muddy borders; the other (’Ain Tub’aûn), the Crusaders’
Fountain of Tubania, where the Christian armies were fed “miraculously”
for three days on the fish which still swarm in most of the great
springs near.
The main road ascends from near these springs and passes by the “Dead
Spring,” which was re-opened by the Governor of Jenîn, and now forms a
shallow pool between rocks of black basalt, covered with red and
orange-coloured lichen, and also full of little fish; thence it passes
on the east side beneath the knoll of Zer’în (Jezreel) to the plain on
the south. Climbing up to the village, we are again struck by the
absence of any traces of antiquity; the buildings, including the central
tower, are all modern, and only the great mound beneath, and perhaps
some of the innumerable cisterns, seem ancient; yet the site is
undoubted, and has never been really lost. Here from a tower, perhaps
standing where the modern one is erected, the watchman could see down
the broad Valley of Jezreel as far as Bethshan, and watch the dust and
the gleam of the armour advancing. The course of the two horsemen and of
Jehu’s chariot was distinctly seen beneath the hill, and the distances
are sufficiently extensive to give time for the succession of events.
On the east and south-east there are rock-cut wine presses on the rugged
hills, where no doubt the “portion of the field of Naboth” and his
vineyard are to be placed,--a good instance of the decay of vine
cultivation in Palestine.
It was by the “fountain which is in Jezreel” that Saul pitched before
the fatal battle of Gilboa. The Philistines removed from Shunem to
Aphek, and, according to Josephus, to Rangan. Perhaps these are the
modern Fukû’a and ’Arrâneh, in which case the strong position of Jezreel
was turned on the south-west, where it is most assailable, and the
doomed monarch was hemmed in between the enemy on the south and the
precipices of the mountain on the north.
On the 28th of September we left the Jenîn camp, where we suffered from
the east wind and the great heat, to find a retreat in the western hills
above the Great Plain, at the modern village of Umm el Fahm.
The large and flourishing stone village above us was built within the
present century, and is called Umm el Fahm, “Mother of Charcoal.” It is
perched on the slope of a high, conical, wooded hill, called from the
little chapel on the top Sheikh Iskander, or “Chief Alexander.” The Kadi
of the village, an amusing little native, who could read and write, told
us many legends of this saint. He was identified apparently with
Alexander the Great, for he was said to have had two ram’s horns, and
also seemingly with Melchisedek, as he was reported to have had a
meeting with Abraham in the valley.
This district was almost entirely unknown in 1872; the cone is a
volcanic crater, and small volcanic outbreaks exist west of it, and also
at the edge of the Great Plain on the east. The range is covered with
thickets of lentisk and spurge laurel, and on the western slopes is an
open wood of good-sized oaks; but on the north a broad valley called
Wâdy ’Arah, divides this range from a plateau of white chalk called “the
Breezy Land” (Belâd er Rûhah), bare of trees and reaching to Carmel. The
thickets of Sheikh Iskander reach southwards almost to the plain of
Dothan; the Yahmûr or roebuck gives its name to one of the valleys in
this region, and every kind of game abounds.
On the western edge of the Great Plain there are three famous sites,
Taanach, Legio, and Jokneam, concerning which a few words may be said.
The ruined site of Lejjûn is the Roman Legio, a town mentioned as a
military station, and an important place in the fourth century. On the
maps it will be found marked as the ancient Megiddo, but this is only an
instance of the very slender basis on which conclusions as to the
positions of important places in Palestine have been somehow founded.
There is nothing definite in the Bible as to the position of Megiddo. It
is often mentioned with Taanach, the site of which, with its name
unchanged, exists about four miles south of Lejjûn; but it also occurs
in connection with Jezreel, and with Bethshean, east of the Great Plain.
In the time of Jerome Megiddo was unknown, though the Great Plain was
apparently then supposed to be the Valley of Megiddon. Dr. Robinson, in
suggesting the Lejjûn site, appears to have been influenced by the
Crusading chronicles, which he, as a rule, condemns. Marino Sanuto, in
1321 A.D., places Megiddo at a town which he calls Sububa, and shows it
on his map as on the west side of the plain. This is evidently the
present Ezbûba, a mud village two miles north of Taanach, and three
miles and a quarter south-east of Lejjûn. But Crusading topography is
unfortunately more remarkable than reliable, and we seek in vain for
further confirmation. Dr. Robinson has relied on Jerome’s comment on a
passage in Zechariah (xii. 11), “As the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the
Valley of Megiddon,” concerning which St. Jerome says that Hadad Rimmon
was a town afterwards called Maximianopolis in the Valley of Megiddon;
and this place we learn from the Bordeaux Pilgrim was ten miles from
Jezreel on the road to Cæsarea. This distance evidently points to
Rummâneh south of Lejjûn, seven and a quarter English miles from
Jezreel. But we are still no nearer to the satisfactory fixing of
Megiddo, for we have to depend on Jerome, first for the fact of Hadad
Rimmon being a town at all (a fact disputed by many authorities who make
it the name of an idol); secondly, for the town, if it was one, being
the same as Maximianopolis. Supposing these premises both to be granted,
it still does not follow that the town Megiddo was west of the Plain of
Megiddo; nor, if it were, does it follow that it was at Lejjûn.
Such is the flimsy chain of argument which has been considered
sufficient to fix the site. When we discover that there is a large ruin
between Jezreel and Bethshean, which still bears the name Mujedd’a, a
name which occurs in no other part of Palestine, these arguments cannot
be considered worth weighing against so important an indication; and the
new site, as will afterwards be seen, seems perhaps to fit better the
few requirements for the ancient Megiddo.
Lejjûn was indeed once a large town, with a fine water supply from a
beautiful spring, but Legio appears to have been the chief town of this
part of Palestine, and to it the ruins are plainly to be ascribed, the
distance from Taanach fitting with that given by Jerome.
North of Lejjûn the Great Wâdy el Milh runs down from the white plateau
of the “Breezy Land,” which it separates from the southern end of
Carmel. Here at the mouth stands a huge Tell or mound called Keimûn, on
which are remains of a little Byzantine chapel, and of a small fort
erected by the famous native chief Dhahr el ’Amr. The Samaritans have a
curious legend connected with this site. According to them Joshua was
challenged by the giants, and enclosed here with his army in seven walls
of iron. A dove carried his message thence to Nabih, king of the tribes
east of Jordan, who came to his assistance. The magic walls fell down,
and the King of Persia, Shobek, was transfixed by an arrow which nailed
him on his horse to the ground.
The present name is a slight modification of the ancient Jokneam of
Carmel, but the Crusaders seem to have been puzzled by it, and
transformed Keimûn into Cain Mons, or Mount Cain, whence arose the
curious legend that Cain was here slain with an arrow by Lamech, which
they supposed to be the murder referred to in the Song of Lamech (Gen.
iv. 23). The chapel no doubt shows the spot once held to be the site of
the death of Cain, but the derivation of the name was as fanciful as
that of Haifa from Cephas or from Caiaphas the high-priest.
From our pleasant camp at Umm el Fahm, where are no less than twenty
springs within the village lands, and fine gardens of oranges, lemons,
and large shaddocks, we marched north-west to the town of Mujeidil in
the Nazareth hills. On this day (the 19th of October) we crossed the
Kishon and found by experience how treacherous are the banks of this
apparently insignificant stream. The subject which naturally concludes
the account of the Plain, is therefore the great battle in which the
host of Sisera was drowned in the swollen waters of this river.
The amount of light which can now be thrown on this episode is very
great. The topography has hitherto been obscure, but the Survey does
much to explain it. To suppose that Sisera fled from the Great Plain to
the neighbourhood of Kedes in Upper Galilee (a distance of over thirty
miles) has always appeared to me to be contrary to what we know of the
general character of the Biblical stories, the scenes of which are
always laid in a very confined area; nor has the name of the plain,
Bitzaanaim, near Kedesh, been recovered in this direction. Bitzaanaim
was a town of Issachar near Adami (Ed Dâmieh) and should therefore be
sought east of Tabor in the plateau over the sea of Galilee, where we
still find it in the modern Bessûm. The Kedesh of the narrative where
Barak assembled his troops is therefore possibly Kedîsh on the shore of
the sea of Galilee, only twelve miles from Tabor. There is thus, from a
military point of view, a consistency in the advance to Tabor (a strong
position in the line by which the enemy were approaching), which is
lacking if we suppose a descent from the stronger hills of Upper
Galilee. The Kings of Canaan assembled in Taanach and by the waters of
Megiddo, but it was not at either of these places that the battle was
fought. Sisera was drawn to the river Kishon (Judges iv. 7), and the
host perished near Endor, “at the brook Kishon” (Psalm lxxxiii. 10). The
battle-field indeed was almost identical with that from which Napoleon
named the “battle of Mount Tabor,” when the French drove the Turks into
that same treacherous quagmire of the Kishon springs.
There are few episodes in the Old Testament more picturesque than this
of the defeat of the Canaanites. Tabor, the central position, a mountain
whose summit is 1500 feet above the plain, is bare and shapeless on the
south, but to the north it is steep, and wooded with oaks and thickets
in which the fallow-deer finds a home. About three miles west are the
springs from which the Kishon first rises, and from this point a chain
of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the
dry season, the course of the river. Along this line, at the base of the
northern hills, the chariots and horsemen of Sisera fled. The sudden
storm had swollen the stream, “the river Kishon swept them away, that
river of battles the river Kishon.” The remainder fled to Harosheth, now
only a miserable village (El Harathîyeh), named from the beautiful woods
above the Kishon at the point where, through a narrow gorge, the stream,
hidden among oleander bushes, enters the Plain of Acre.
The flight of Sisera himself was in an opposite direction, under the
slopes of Tabor and across the great lava plateau on which stood, near
Bessûm, the black tent of Heber the Kenite.
The Bedawin have a delicious preparation of curdled milk called Leben,
which is offered to guests but generally considered a delicacy; from
personal experience I know that it is most refreshing to a traveller
when tired and hot, but it has also a strange soporific effect, which
was so sudden in its action on one English clergyman after a long ride,
that he thought he had been poisoned. It was perhaps not without a
knowledge of its probable effects, that Jael gave to her exhausted guest
a tempting beverage which would make his sleep sound and long.
One final illustration may be added. In the magnificent song of Deborah,
the great storm which swelled the Kishon is described:
“They fought from heaven, the stars from their courses fought against
Sisera” (Judg. v. 20).
The season was probably that of the autumn storms which occur early in
November. At this time the meteoric showers are commonest, and are
remarkably fine in effect, seen in the evening light at a season when
the air is specially clear and bright. The scene presented by the
falling fiery stars, as the defeated host fled away by night, is one
very striking to the fancy, and which would form a fine subject for an
artist’s pencil.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. ANNE, SEPPHORIS.]