within jurisdiction of Damascus, and my wife resolved to accompany me.
In this little enterprise I was warmly seconded by the Vicomte de
Perrochel, a French traveller and author, who had twice visited
Damascus in the hope of reaching Tadmor, and by M. Ionine, my Russian
colleague. The Governor-General, the Field Marshal commanding the army
of Syria, and other high officials, lent us their best aid. We engaged
a pair of dragomen, six servants, a cook, and eight muleteers; twelve
mules and eight baggage-asses to carry tents and canteen, baggage and
provisions; and we rode our own horses, being wrongly persuaded not to
take donkeys――on long marches they would have been a pleasant change.
We were peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of head dragoman, a
certain Anton Wardi, who had Italianised his name to Riza. Originally
a donkey-boy at Beyrut, he made, by “skinning” sundry travellers, some
80,000 francs in ten years. He was utterly spoiled by his French
friends, M. de Sauley and M. de Perrochel; he had also dragomaned the
then Princess Amadeo, who, in return for his mean conduct, had
promised him, and afterwards sent him, greatly to the disgust of every
Italian gentleman, the Order of the Rose. This “native gentleman,” the
type of the ignoble _petit bourgeois_ of Syria, had been trusted
without any contract having been made. He charged us a hundred francs
per diem, and the others each fifty francs and forty francs. When the
bill was produced for settlement, it proved to be a long list of _des
extras_: everything was _un extra_; two bottles of cognac, reported
broken, appeared as _des extras_; even the water-camels were _des
extras_. The fact was, he had allowed, when galloping about the
country, some francs to fall from his pocket, and he resolved that
_les extras_ should replace them.
We altogether regretted the assistance of Mohammed, Shaykh of the
Mezrab tribe, who had systematically fleeced travellers for a score of
years. He demanded two napoleons a head for his wretched camels,
sending a score when only one was wanted; like all other chiefs, he
would not guarantee his protégés, either in purse or person, against
enemies, but only against his own friends; he allowed them but two
days at Palmyra; he made them march twenty, instead of fifteen, hours
between Karyatayn and their destination; he concealed the fact that
there are wells the whole way, in order to make them hire camels and
buy water-skins; and, besides harassing them with night marches, he
organised sham attacks, in order to make them duly appreciate his
protection. I rejoice to say that Mohammed’s occupation has since
gone; his miserable tribe was three times plundered within eighteen
months, and, instead of fighting, he fell back upon the desert. May
thus end all who oppose their petty interests to the general good――all
that would shut roads instead of opening them! With a view of keeping
up his title to escort travellers, he sent with us a clansman upon a
well-bred mare and armed with the honourable spear. But M. de
Perrochel hired the mare; the crestfallen man was put upon a
baggage-mare, and the poor spear was carried by a lame donkey.
Armed to the teeth, we set out in a chorus of groans and with general
prognostications of evil. Ours was the first party since M. Dubois
d’Angus was dangerously wounded, stripped, and turned out to die of
hunger, thirst, and cold, because he could not salary the inevitable
Bedouin. It would, doubtless, have been the interest of many and the
delight of more to see us return in the scantiest of costumes;
consequently a false report generally flew abroad that we had been
pursued and plundered by the Bedouin.
The first night was passed under canvas near a ruined khan in the
fifth valley plain east of the Syrian metropolis. The weather became
unusually cold the next morning when we left the foggy lowland and
turned to the north-east in order to cross the ridgy line of hills,
which, offsetting from the Anti-Libanus, runs from Damascus toward the
desert, and afterwards sweeps round to Palmyra. The line of travel was
a break in the ridge. Then, gently descending, we fell into a northern
depression, a section of that extensive valley in the Anti-Libanus,
which, under a variety of names, runs nearly straight north-east (more
exactly, 60°), to Palmyra. Nothing can be simpler than the geography
of the country. The traveller cannot lose his way in the Palmyra
Valley without crossing the high and rugged mountains which hem it in
on both sides, and, if he is attacked by raiders, he can easily take
refuge, and laugh at the Arab goatees. During the time of our journey
the miserable little robber clans Shitai and Ghiyas had completely
closed the country five hours’ riding to the east of Damascus, whilst
the Sorbai and the Anergah bandits were making the Merj a battlefield
and were threatening to burn down the peaceful villages. Even as we
crossed the pass we were saddened by the report that a troop of
Bedouin had the day before murdered a wretched peasant within easy
sight of Damascus. This state of things was a national scandal to the
Porte, which, of course, was never allowed to know the truth.
We resolved to advance slowly, to examine every object, and to follow
the most indirect paths. Hence our march to Palmyra occupied eight
days; we returned, however, in four with horses that called loudly for
a week’s rest. The regular stations are as follows:――
Hours.
1. Damascus to Jayrud 9
2. Jayrud to Karyatayn 10-11
3. Karyatayn to Agu el Waah 8
4. Agu el Waah to Palmyra 9
On the second day we dismissed our escort, one officer and two
privates of irregular cavalry, who were worse than useless, and we
slept at the house of Daas Agha, hereditary Chief of Jayrud. A noted
sabre, and able to bring one hundred and fifty lances into the field,
he was systematically neglected by the authorities, because supposed
to be friendly with foreigners. Shortly after my departure he
barbarously tortured two wretched Arabs, throwing them into a pit full
of fire, and practising upon them with his revolver. Thereupon he was
at once taken into prime favour, and received a command.
Daas Agha escorted us from Jayrud with ten of his kinsmen mounted upon
their best mares. In the upland valley we suffered severely from cold,
and the sleety sou’wester which cut our faces on the return was a
caution.
At Karyatayn, which we reached on the fifth day, Osman Bey, who was
waiting for rations, money, transport, in fact, everything, offered us
the most friendly welcome, and I gave official protection to Shaykh
Faris, in connection with the English post at Baghdad. The former
detached with us eighty bayonets of regulars and twenty-five sabres of
Irregulars, commanded by two officers. This body presently put to
flight anything in the way of Bedouin; a war party of two thousand men
would not have attacked us; and I really believe that a band of thirty
Englishmen armed with carbines and revolvers could sweep clean the
Desert of the Euphrates from end to end.
At Karyatayn we hired seventeen camels to carry water. This would have
been a complete waste of money had we gone, like other travellers, by
the Darb el Sultain, or High Way. Some three hours’ ride to the right,
or south, of the road amongst the hills bounding the Palmyra Valley is
a fine cistern (Ibex Fountain), where water is never wanting. There
is, however, a still more direct road _viâ_ the remains of an aqueduct
and a river in the desert. This short cut from Karyatayn to Palmyra
may be covered in twenty-four hours of camel walking, fifteen of horse
walking, and twelve by dromedary or hard gallop. Travellers would
start at 6.30 or 7 a.m., and encamp after being out from twelve to
thirteen hours; but this includes breakfast and sundry halts,
sometimes to inspect figures, real or imaginary, in the distance, at
other times to indulge in a “spurt” after a gazelle or a wild boar.
We chose, however, the little-known Baghdad, or eastern, road. The
next day we rested at a large deserted khan, and on the eighth we made
our entrance into Palmyra, where we were hospitably received by Shaykh
Faris. Our muleteers, for the convenience of their cattle, pitched
their tents close to, and east of, the so-called Grand Colonnade, a
malarious and unwholesome site. They should have encamped amongst the
trees at a threshing-floor near three palms. Travellers may be
strongly advised not to lodge in the native village, whose mud huts,
like wasps’ nests, are all huddled within the ancient Temple of the
Sun, or they may suffer from fever or ophthalmia. The water of Tadmor
is sulphurous, like Harrogate, the climate is unhealthy, and the
people are ragged and sickly. May there, as in most parts of the
northern hemisphere, is the best travelling-season, and in any but a
phenomenal year the traveller need not fear to encounter, as we did,
ice and snow, siroccos and furious sou’westers.
If asked whether Palmyra is worth all this trouble, I should reply
“No” and “Yes.” No, if you merely go there, stay two days, and return,
especially after sighting noble Báalbak. Certainly not for the Grand
Colonnade of weather-beaten limestone, by a stretch of courtesy called
marble, which, rain-washed and earthquake-shaken, looks like a system
of galleries. Not for the Temple of the Sun, the building of a Roman
emperor, a second-rate affair, an architectural evidence of Rome’s
declining days. Yes, if you would study the site and the environs,
which are interesting and only partially explored, make excavations,
and collect coins and relics, which may be bought for a song.
The site of Palmyra is very interesting; she stands between the
mountains and the sea; like Damascus, she sits upon the eastern slope
of the Anti-Libanus, facing the wilderness, but unhappily she has a
dry torrent bed, the Wady el Sayl, instead of a rushing Barada. She is
built upon the shore cape, where the sandy sea breaks upon its nearest
headlands. This sea is the mysterious Wilderness of the Euphrates,
whose ships are camels, whose yachts are high-bred mares, and whose
cock-boats are mules and asses. She is on the very threshold of the
mountains, which the wild cavalry cannot scour, as they do the level
plain. And her position is such that we have not heard the last of the
Tadmor, or, as the Arabs call her, Tudmur. Nor will it be difficult to
revive her. A large tract can be placed under cultivation, where there
shall be protection for life and property; old wells exist in the
ruins; foresting the highlands to the north and west will cause rain;
and the aqueducts in the old days may easily be repaired.
I am unwilling to indulge in a description of the modern ruin of the
great old depôt, which has employed so many pens. But very little has
been said concerning the old tomb-towers, which have taken at Palmyra
the place of Egyptian pyramids. Here, as elsewhere in ancient Syria,
sepulture was extramural, and every settlement was approached by one
or more Viâ Appia, much resembling that of ancient Rome. At Palmyra
there are, or, rather, were, notably two: one (south-west) upon the
high road to Damascus; the other, north-west of the official or
monumental city, formed, doubtless, the main approach from Hauran and
Hamah. The two are lined on both sides with those interesting
monuments, whose squat, solid forms of gloomy and unsquared sandstone
contrast remarkably with the bastard classical and Roman architecture,
meretricious in all its details, and glittering from afar in white
limestone. Inscriptions in the Palmyrian character prove that they
date from about A.D. 2 and 102; but they have evidently been restored,
and this perhaps fixes the latest restoration. It is highly probable
that the heathen method of burial declined under the Roman rule,
especially after A.D. 130, when the Great Half-way House again changed
its name to Adrianopolis. Still, vestiges of the old custom are found
in the Hauran and in the Druze Mountain west of the great valley,
extending deep into the second century, when, it is believed,
Gassanides of Damascus had abandoned their heathen faith for
Christianity. I found in the tombs, or cells, fragments of mummies,
and these, it is suspected, were the first ever brought to England.
Almost all the skulls contained date-stones, more or less, and a peach
stone and an apricot stone were found under similar circumstances. At
Shathah we picked up in the mummy-towers almond shells with the sharp
ends cut off and forming baby cups.
There are three tomb-towers at Palmyra still standing, and perhaps
likely to yield good results. The people call them Kasr el Zaynah
(Pretty Palace), Kasr el Azin (Palace of the Maiden), and Kasr el Arus
(Palace of the Bride). They number four and five stories, but the
staircases, which run up the thickness of the walls, are broken, and
so are the monolithic slabs which form the lower floors. Explorers,
therefore, must take with them ropes and hooks, ladders which will
reach to eighty feet, planks to act as bridges, and a short crowbar.
We had none of these requirements, nor could the wretched village
provide them. I have little doubt that the upper stories would be
found to contain bones, coins, and pottery, perhaps entire mummies.
The shortness of our visit allowed me only a day and a half to try the
fortune of excavation at Palmyra. It was easy to hire a considerable
number of labourers at two and a half piastres a head per diem――say
6_d._――when in other places the wages would be at least double.
Operations began (April 15th) at the group of tomb-towers bearing
west-south-west from the great Temple of the Sun: I chose this group
because it appeared the oldest of the series. The fellahs, or
peasants, know it as Kusin Ahi Sayl (Palaces of the Father of a
Torrent); and they stare when told that these massive buildings are
not royal residences but tombs. Here the tombs in the several stages
were easily cleared out by my forty-five coolies, who had nothing but
diminutive picks and bars, grain-lugs and body-cloths, which they
converted into buckets for removing sand and rubbish. But these cells
and those of the adjoining ruins had before been ransacked, and they
supplied nothing beyond skulls, bones, and shreds of mummy cloth,
whose dyes were remarkably brilliant.
The hands were then applied to an adjoining mound: it offered a
tempting resemblance to the undulations of ground which cover the
complicated chambered catacombs already laid open, and into one of
which, some years ago, a camel fell, the roof having given way. After
reaching a stratum of snow-white gypsum, which appeared to be
artificial, though all hands agreed that it was not, we gave up the
task, as time pressed so hard. The third attempt laid open the
foundation of a house, and showed us the well, or rain-cistern,
shaped, as such reservoirs are still in the Holy Land, like a
soda-water bottle. The fourth trial was more successful; during our
absence the workmen came upon two oval slabs of soft limestone, each
with its kit-cat in high relief. One was a man with straight features,
short, curly beard, and hair disposed, as appears to have been the
fashion for both sexes, in three circular rolls. The other was a
feminine bust, with features of a type so exaggerated as to resemble
the negro. A third and similar work of art was brought up, but the
head had been removed. It would be hard to explain the excitement
caused by these wonderful discoveries; report flew abroad that gold
images of life-size had been dug up, and the least disposed to
exaggeration declared that chests full of gold coins and ingots had
fallen to our lot.
On the next morning we left Palmyra, and, after a hard gallop which
lasted for the best part of four days, we found ourselves, not much
the worse for wear, once more at Damascus.
[8] Burton writes of Syria in 1870. The journey from Beyrut
to Damascus has now been made easy by the opening of the
railway. The line rises some four thousand feet, crosses two
ranges of mountains on the Lebanon, and passes through some
beautiful scenery. After traversing the Plain of Bakaa
through the Anti-Lebanon, the railway enters the Yahfâfeh,
continuing to Sûk Wady Barada, the ancient Abila, where is
seen the rock-cut aqueducts made by Zenobia to convey the
water of the Abana to Palmyra; then, passing the beautiful
fountain of Fijeh and the remains of an old temple, the
train follows the River Abana until it arrives at
Damascus.――W. H. W.
[9] The journey from Damascus to Palmyra can now be made in
five days _viâ_ Mareau Said and Niah――the pleasantest route,
passing by much water, and averaging six to seven hours
riding a day. But Palmyra is still under the care of
rapacious shayks, and great care has to be observed in
arranging for a tour to that city of grand ruins. Things are
a little better than they were in Burton’s day, but there is
still danger.――W. H. W.
_Printed by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
Transcriber’s Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the
end of the chapter. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and
abbreviations were added. Duplicate words at line endings or page
breaks were removed.
Inconsistent hyphenation and misspelled words were not changed.
At the end of the phrase “They took up comfortable positions on the
cut-throat em,” the last portion of the word beginning with “em” is
not printed in the original; “embankment” is assumed.