Haifa, Feb. 7.—It was my fate as a child to live in a country-house in
Scotland, of which one half was some centuries old, with stone walls
several feet thick, and circular stone steps leading up into a
mysterious tower, which was supposed to be haunted, and in which it was
rumoured that a secret chamber existed, built in the wall, and I
remember perfectly that certain places seemed to sound hollow to blows
of a crowbar, which as I got older, I used to apply to suspected
localities. It is more years than I care to think of since those days,
but I can trace a resemblance to that childish feeling in the sensations
by which I am animated when I wander over the gloomiest recesses of
Carmel alone in search of caverns.
It is called in some ancient Jewish record “the mountain of the thousand
caves,” and has been inhabited from time immemorial by hermits and
religious devotees. Independently of the Biblical record, we have
historical traces of its holy character. According to the most ancient
Persian traditions, sacred fire burned at the extreme western point of
Carmel. Suetonius speaks of the oracles of the god of Carmel, and
Alexander the Great repeats the saying. The Syrian city, Ecbatana,
alluded to by Pliny, was situated on this mountain. Pythagoras lived
here in retreat for some time because it had a reputation for superior
sanctity, but Strabo mentions the caves as being haunts of pirates. They
were doubtless used as places of refuge for bad characters, as well as
of seclusion for pious ones. Others were used for tombs, others for
crusaders' sentry-boxes, and now they are the retreat of flocks and
herds, and in some instances storehouses for grain.
Those, however, thus utilized are comparatively few in number; I believe
many to be unknown even to the natives, while others are invested by
them with a mysterious character, and their dimensions are probably
exaggerated. I have received accounts of some, which I hope to visit,
which are said to extend beyond any known exploration, of others which
bear traces of carving and inscriptions, but nothing can be more
uncertain or unsatisfactory than native accounts upon all matters where
definite information is required. I have tried exploring with guides and
exploring alone, and have been almost as successful one way as the
other.
One of my first visits was to a ruin which I had observed crowning a
summit of the range, but which was only visible from certain points, so
shut in was it by the intervening mountain-tops. I started on horseback,
determined to find my way alone, and struck into a valley where the
narrow path followed a ledge of limestone rock, often not more than two
feet wide. I soon found myself diving into a sombre gorge, the
precipitous sides of which rose abruptly from the bed of the winter
torrent. As I proceeded it became more and more uncanny; the path was so
narrow I could no longer venture to risk my horse's footing, as a slip
would have involved a fall of at least two hundred feet. My ruin
disappeared, and my gorge seemed to trend away from it, the sun sank
behind the range, and the deep gloom of the solitary valley, hemmed in
on all sides by terraces of limestone, with here and there a fissure
indicating some cavernous recess, was becoming depressing.
I tried to turn, but the ledge was too narrow, so I was obliged to creep
cautiously on in the wrong direction. I began now rather to fear lest I
should meet some one, not merely because passing would have been
impossible, but because the spot was eminently well calculated for an
act of violence, and, while I always go about unarmed, I find that my
neighbours seldom go out riding alone without carrying revolvers. The
aspect of a wild-looking Arab, with a gun slung behind him, suddenly
turning a corner and coming straight towards me, was, under these
circumstances, not reassuring. Fortunately, at the moment I saw him I
had reached a spot where a huge rock had been displaced, and had left a
vacant space large enough to enable me to turn comfortably, and I
retraced my steps, amply repaid for my failure in not reaching the ruin,
by the solemn grandeur of the part of the mountain into which I had been
penetrating, and by finding my Arab, when he overtook me, to be a
communicative and harmless individual, who was on his way home from a
cave in which he stored his grain, and which he assured me I should have
reached if I had continued a few hundred yards farther. Beyond this, he
said, the path led nowhere.
My next attempt was made with a friend who knew the way, and who led me
along a corresponding ledge upon the opposite side of the valley, into a
side gorge, which we followed past a wall of rock, in which were two or
three small caverns, which I entered, the largest not more than twelve
or fourteen feet square, and showing no signs of having been inhabited.
A huge rock detached from the mountain-side, and hollowed into a sort of
gallery, is so celebrated among the natives that it has a name of its
own. Just behind it we turned to scramble almost straight up the
mountain-side, covered with a scrub composed of camelthorn, odoriferous
thyme, sage, marjoram, and arbutus, and then found we were at the foot
of seven clearly defined terraces, completely encircling the rounded
hill, upon the top of which stood the crumbling walls of an old fort,
and which formed portions of its defences. On one of these stood a
shepherd's hut, and inside the enclosure made of bushes was the entrance
to a cavern, about thirty yards long, four feet high, and twenty or
thirty feet across. In it, when they were not out feeding, the shepherd
kept his flock of long-eared goats.
Ascending to the ruin, I found it to consist of the remains of what had
evidently been a fort, the walls of which, enclosing a space of about
sixty yards long by forty broad, were standing to a height of eight or
ten feet, and were composed of blocks of limestone. At one angle a
portion of the fortress had at a later period been converted into a
church, the apse, with its arches, being in a tolerable state of
preservation. The name of this ruin is Rushmea, and according to the
most reliable sources of information to which I have had access, it was
used by Saladin to watch the progress of the siege of Acre when that
place was held by the crusaders. Prior to the crusades and the formation
of the order of the Carmelite monks, the mountain was inhabited by
anchorites, some of whom claimed to have inherited the sacred character
of Elijah and Elisha. For some time seven of them seem to have divided
the claim between them, and one of them is reported to have lived in a
cave at Rushmea, which is said to contain carving and inscriptions. It
was for this cave I was especially in search; but though I have visited
the locality three times in all, twice with guides, and have found some
seven or eight caves, one of which had a carved limestone entrance, none
of them seemed of sufficient importance to answer the traditional
description. A magnificent view is obtained from the ruin over the Bay
of Acre, with the town in the distance and the plain of Kishon beneath,
and plainly visible the famous well for the possession of which Saladin
and Richard Cœur de Lion fought. I have visited this celebrated source,
with its massive masonry and crumbling cistern, in the centre of which
there is now a flourishing fig-tree. During the siege which Haifa then
withstood, the town was completely destroyed, so that the crusading army
had to remain in tents, and here it was that the lion-hearted king
caught that severe fever which gave rise to reports of his death, and
which resulted in his remaining for four weeks at Haifa to recover his
health. That plain is as unhealthy now as it was then, and the
date-groves, which are its most striking feature, must have existed
then, for they are mentioned in the records of the year 1230, when King
Amalrich II. died of a surfeit of sea-fish, for which the place is
celebrated.
To return to Rushmea. The whole hill-top is covered with the traces of
remains far anterior to the ruins of crusading times. Everywhere we come
upon the solid limestone foundations of what must have been large
buildings; there are flights of steps hewn in the rock, large square
cuttings from which blocks have been taken, places where circular holes
have been drilled, grooves, niches, and excavations. On a plateau about
a hundred yards to the west is a series of massive stone arches in a
very fair state of preservation. I found the elevation of Rushmea, by my
aneroid, to be as nearly as possible seven hundred feet above the sea.
In a valley behind it, and a hundred feet below it, are a dozen
olive-trees of immense age, and near them a celebrated spring, called
the Well of Elisha. It is not above twelve feet deep, and, on descending
into it, I found that it was in fact not a spring, but a subterranean
stream which enters a receptacle formed for it in the rock, from a cave
at the side, and from which it disappears again. Instead of returning
from Rushmea by the way I had come, I pushed up to the head of the
valley in which the spring is situated. On two of the hills which rise
from it I found terraces and the foundations of stone edifices. Indeed,
wherever one wanders in Carmel, one is apt to stumble upon these
substantial records of its bygone history. As the mountain is about
thirteen miles long and nine miles wide at its southeastern extremity,
and as every valley and hillside and plateau has at one time or other
been inhabited, and as many of these remain still to be explored for the
first time, there is abundant field for investigation, and it is
impossible to take a ride or a scramble in any direction without coming
upon some object of interest. Nor is it possible to lose one's way when
alone, except to a limited extent, for the nearest hill-top, if you can
get to it, is sure to let you know where you are.
Thus leaving Rushmea without a guide, and soon without a path, I pushed
through the scrub, now dismounting and driving my horse before me, now
forcing him, much to his discomfort, through the prickly bushes. Even at
this time of year the hills are bright with scarlet anemones, and the
delicate pink or white cyclamen, and fragrant with aromatic odours as we
crush through the shrubs. Suddenly I came upon the foundations of a
wall, which I followed for about a hundred yards, and which was about
four feet in thickness. Near it, half hidden by the bushes, was a
circular block of limestone about five feet high and the same in
diameter, in the centre of which had been drilled a hole. It looked like
the section of some gigantic column such as we see in some of the
temples of Upper Egypt; but it stood alone, and I fail to imagine its
design. Possibly it may have been used for sacrificial purposes. Shortly
after I found myself on a high, level plateau, where the soil was so
excellent, and the rocks had so far disappeared, that it would do
admirably for farming purposes. It seemed to extend over some hundreds
of acres. Formerly, the whole of these fertile tracts of Carmel were
covered with magnificent forests—even in the memory of man—but of late
years the demand for charcoal has so much increased that the mountain
has been almost completely denuded of trees, and although a strict order
has been issued by the government against the felling of timber, it
still continues, and, thanks to the system of backsheesh, the export of
charcoal from Haifa last year exceeded that of any previous year.
Keeping westward by my compass I soon after struck a path, and finally
dropped down upon the German colony near Haifa, after a day's ramble
through the most delightful scenery, every step of which was replete
with historical association and antiquarian interest.