ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
Railways and carriage-roads in Syria are chiefly due to French
enterprise. The _Société Ottomane des Chemins de Fer de Damas, Hama
et Prolongements_ has less rolling stock than its lengthy name might
lead one to expect, and its slow schedule is not always observed with a
mechanical Western exactness. Although Damascus is barely fifty miles
from Beirut, the journey thither takes ten hours; for the constantly
curving railway measures more than ninety miles and the total rise of
its numerous steep grades is over 7,000 feet. This single, narrow-gauge
road, which is carried over two high mountain ranges, is an admirable
example of modern engineering, and the scenery through which it passes is
a source of unbroken delight.
As we zig-zag up the western slope of Lebanon there appear, now at our
right and now at our left, a succession of beautiful panoramas which
differ one from the other only in revealing a constantly widening
horizon. Rich, populous valleys, lying deep between the shoulders of the
mountains, slope quickly downward to the coast where, farther and farther
below us, the silvery-green olive orchards and golden sands of Beirut
reach out into the ever-broadening azure expanse of the Mediterranean.
Sometimes great masses of billowing clouds drift up the valleys, so
that for a while we seem to be traveling along a narrow isthmus between
foaming seas. The people of Aleih—a charming summer resort where the
mountainside is so steep that there is no room for a curve and the train
has to back up the next leg of the ascent—are the butt of many a popular
tale. One day, so the wits of the neighboring villages relate, these
foolish fellows mistook the rising tide of mist for the sea itself, and
the whole populace prepared to go fishing.
Another time a number of residents of Aleih went to Beirut to buy shoes.
On their way back they all sat on a wall to rest; and when they were
ready to go on again, behold, the new shoes were all exactly the same
size, shape and color, and no man could tell which of the feet were his.
So there they sat, in sad perplexity as to how they should ever reach
home, until a passer-by, to whom they explained their difficulty, smote
the shoes smartly one after the other with his stick and thus enabled
each person to recognize his own feet.
A third Aleih story also exemplifies the ridiculous exaggeration which
so delights a Syrian audience. It seems that the only public well in
the village used to be the subject of frequent quarrels between the
inhabitants of the upper and lower quarters. So finally the sheikh
stretched a slender pole across the middle of the opening and commanded
that thenceforth each of the two opposing factions was to draw only from
its own side. For a time all went peaceably; but one dark night a zealous
partisan was discovered diligently at work dipping water from the farther
side of the pole and pouring it into his half of the well!
[Illustration]
Shortly after leaving Aleih, the train turns straight east and climbs
with labored puffings up the shoulder of Jebel Keneiseh to the
watershed, 4,800 feet above Beirut. It is very much cooler now. In
mid-summer, refreshing breezes blow down from unseen snowbanks among the
mountaintops. In winter—if, indeed, the traffic is not entirely blocked
by drifts which choke the railway cuts—the journey is memorable for
its piercing, inescapable cold, and the natives who gather idly at the
stations wear heavy sheepskin cloaks and keep their heads and shoulders
swathed in thick shawls, though, strangely enough, their legs may be bare
and their frost-bitten feet protected only by low slippers.
At last the jolting of the rack-and-pinion ceases, the train quickens its
speed, passes through two short tunnels, swings around a high embankment;
and over the crests of the lower hills we see a long, narrow stretch of
level country, bordered on its farther side by a wall-like line of very
steep mountains. The profile of the “Eastern Mountains”—as we behold
them from this point we can hardly avoid using the Syrian name for
Anti-Lebanon—seems almost exactly horizontal, and the resemblance of the
range to a tremendous rampart is heightened by the massive buttresses
which reach out at regular intervals between the courses of the winter
torrents.
The valley before us is that which the Greeks named _Coele-Syria_ or
“Hollow Syria.” In modern Arabic it is called the _Bikaʿ_ or “Cleft.”
Just as in Palestine the Jordan River and its two lakes are hemmed in by
mountains which rise many thousand feet above, so in Syria the Bikaʿ
stretches between the parallel ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. There
is, however, one striking difference between the two valleys. That of
the Jordan is a deep depression, and the mouth of the river is nearly
1,300 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, the
central valley of Syria throughout its entire length lies considerably
above sea-level, and at its highest point reaches an elevation of about
4,000 feet. The Bikaʿ, which is seventy miles long and from seven to
ten miles wide, is exceedingly fertile, and in it rise the two largest
rivers of Syria. Near their sources the Orontes and Leontes pass within
less than two miles of each other; yet the former flows to the north
past Kama and Aleppo, while the latter turns southward and reaches the
Mediterranean between Tyre and Sidon.
[Illustration: Conventionalized cross-section of Syria from Beirut (B) to
Damascus (D). The horizontal distances are marked in miles, the vertical
in feet.]
The Bikaʿ extends north and south as far as we can see and is apparently
as level as a floor. There are hardly any trees on it, only two or three
tiny hamlets and no isolated buildings. The Syrian farmers prefer to
dwell on the hillsides; for there the water of the springs is cooler, it
is easier to guard the villages against marauding bands, and all of the
arable land below is left free for cultivation. So the great flat fields
of plowed earth or ripening grain which fill the valley seem the pattern
of a long Oriental carpet in rich reds and browns and greens and yellows,
unrolled between the mountains.
As we pass from the shadow of a last obstructing embankment, there bursts
upon our vision the glorious patriarch of Syrian peaks. Twenty-five miles
to the south the splendid crest of Hermon towers into the cloudless sky a
full mile above the surrounding heights.
The familiar Hebrew name of this famous mountain means the “Sacred One,”
and the expression “the Baal of Hermon,”[12] seems to indicate that in
very ancient times it bore a popular shrine. The Jews also knew it by its
Amorite title _Senir_, the “Banner.” Modern Syrians sometimes refer to it
as the “Snow Mountain,” for its summit is capped with white long after
the summer sun has melted the drifts from the lower peaks. Most commonly,
however, it is called _esh-Sheikh_, which means “the Old Man,” or rather
“the Chieftain,” for age and authority are indissolubly associated in
the thought of the Arabic-speaking world.[13]
Hermon is by far the most conspicuous landmark in all Palestine and
Syria. I have seen it from the north, south, east and west. I have
admired it from its own near foothills and from a hundred and fifty miles
away. Viewed from every side it has the same shape—a long, gently rising
cone of wonderful beauty; wherever you stand, it seems to be squarely
facing you; and from every viewpoint it dominates the landscape as do few
other mountains in the world.
This sacred peak influenced the religious idealism of many centuries.
Upon its slopes lay Dan, the farthest point of the Land of Promise.
“From Dan to Beer-sheba,” from the great mountain of the north to the
wells of the South Country, stretched the Holy Land. Hebrew poets and
prophets sang of the plenteous dew of Hermon, its deep forests, its
wild, free animal life. Upon its rugged shoulders the Greeks and Romans
continued the worship of the old Syrian nature-gods. Hither, in the tenth
century, fled from Egypt Sheikh ed-Durazy and made it the center of the
new Druse religion. Above its steep precipices the Crusaders built two
of their largest castles. But one most solemn event of all uplifts the
sacred mountain even closer to the skies; for on some unnamed summit of
the “Chieftain” the supreme Leader stood when the heavens opened for His
transfiguration.
We cross the valley rapidly to the junction-station of Rayak and
then, again ascending, penetrate the Eastern Mountains by a winding
river-course which, as we follow it higher and higher, affords fine
views over the Bikaʿ to the range of Lebanon through which we were so
long traveling. Directly opposite us stands Jebel Keneiseh, bare, brown
and forbidding, while beside it rises the loftier Sunnin. When viewed
from the coast, this noble mountain reveals one long, even slope to
its topmost crest; but its back is made up of a multitude of rounded
eminences, so that it resembles an enormous blackberry. Twenty miles
to the north of Sunnin, near the famous Cedars of Lebanon, the range
culminates in a group of snow-capped peaks which lack the impressiveness
of Hermon’s haughty isolation, yet which actually rise two thousand feet
above even the Sheikh Mountain.
After crossing the watershed of Anti-Lebanon, we turn south through the
lovely little vale of Zebedani. At our left are the highest summits
of the range; at our right are precipitous cliffs which, save for a
glimpse of the snows of Hermon, shut off the distant view; but between
these heights is a scene of quiet, comfortable beauty. The tract is
well-watered and fertile, and its wheat-fields are as level as the
surface of a lake. Indeed, there surely must have been a lake here once
upon a time. Along the eastern edge of the grain-land are charming,
green-hedged gardens and closely planted orchards and long lines of
poplar trees, while low-bent vines hug the sunny slopes at the mountain’s
foot. This high but sheltered valley is one of the few places in Syria
where really fine apples are grown, and the grapes and apricots of
Zebedani are famous throughout the whole country.
In a small marshy lake among the hills that border the rich, slumbrous
little plain there rises one of the world’s greatest rivers; great not
in size—at its widest it is hardly more than a mountain brook and no
ship has ever sailed its waters—but great because it has made one of
the proudest cities of earth; for this slender stream which winds so
leisurely through the wheat-fields of Zebedani is the far-famed Abana,
and Abana is the father of Damascus.
At the lower end of the valley, the brook turns sharply eastward through
a break in the mountains, and we follow it swiftly down a succession of
narrow chasms and wild ravines, all the way to the end of our journey.
The first two hours of our ride we traveled but twelve miles: the last
two hours we slide forty miles around short, confusing curves. Sometimes
there are distant views of bare, reddish summits; often we are hemmed in
by the dense growth of trees which border the stream; but we are never
far from the rushing waters of the Abana.
There is ancient history along our route, not to speak of legends
innumerable. The little village of Suk Wadi Barada or “Barada Valley
Market,” was once called Abila, and was the chief city of the Tetrarchy
of Abilene, the fixed date of whose establishment helps us to compute
the chronology of the Gospels.[14] The valley itself is still known here
as Abila; and therefore, through a characteristic confusion of names,
the Moslems locate the grave of Abel on the summit of an adjoining hill.
Cain, they say, was at his wits’ end how to dispose of the dead body of
his brother, for burial was of course unknown to him; so the murderer
carried the corpse on his back many days, seeking in vain a place where
he might securely conceal the evidence of his crime. At last, according
to the Koran, “God sent a raven which scratched upon the ground, to show
him how he might hide his brother’s corpse.”[15]
Across the ravine from Suk Wadi Barada we can see the remains of an
ancient road hewn in the solid rock, and a ruined aqueduct which some
say was built by Queen Zenobia to carry the water of the Abana across
the desert to Palmyra. It is almost certain, however, that both road and
aqueduct, as well as the tombs whose openings appear higher up in the
cliff, were constructed in the second century by the Romans.
Ain Fijeh, the next important village, bears a peculiarly redundant name,
which reminds us of German Baden-Baden. The first word is Arabic and
the second is a corruption of the Greek _pege_, and both mean “spring.”
But, after all, “Spring Spring” is not such a bad name; for there gushes
from a cave in the rock such an abundant fountain that the Abana here
increases threefold in volume, and mediæval Arab geographers, as well as
the modern inhabitants of the mountains, are unanimous in considering
this the principal source of the river. From the cold, clear spring, a
small tile aqueduct has for the last few years carried drinking-water
to Damascus. Unfortunately, however, only a few of the more important
buildings are as yet supplied from this source, and the common people
are loath to journey to the public fountains when there are all over the
city so many nearer—and dirtier—streams from which to draw. “The Moslems,
especially, prefer to drink water which runs in the open rather than that
which is piped,” said a native physician in answer to my questions as to
the health of Damascus. “So, you see,” he added facetiously, “my practice
has not suffered appreciably since the completion of the aqueduct.”
[Illustration: An old bridge over the Barada River]
[Illustration: Cascade falling over the edge of the Hauran into the
Yarmuk Valley]
As we descend the narrow, winding valley of the Abana, it becomes more
and more choked with verdure. We now begin to understand why the Greeks
called this the _Chrysorrhoas_ or “Golden River.” If we take advantage of
one of the lengthy stops to step across the track and plunge our hands
into its icy waters, we realize the fitness of its modern Arabic name,
_Baradâ_—the “Cold Stream.” Occasionally we still glimpse far above
us grim, treeless heights; but, between the cliffs, dense thickets or
closely planted orchard trees line the river-banks. Now the Abana is a
roaring, foaming torrent; now it flows chill, deep and silent; but always
it hurries as if it were racing with the train. This, in its turn, goes
more rapidly. It twists and swings and bumps as it takes dangerously
short curves at—for a Syrian train—full speed. We pass into the shadow of
a beetling precipice and, beneath the thick foliage which overhangs it,
the river runs black as ink. Then, suddenly, we have left the gloom of
the mountains and are out in the bright sunlight which floods a boundless
plain. We have crossed to the eastern edge of Syria and before us, just
beyond the orchards of Damascus, lies the desert.