Esfia, Aug. 20.—The fact that the cholera was raging in Egypt, that in
the ordinary course of events it was certain to visit Syria, that even
if it did not, the months of July, August, and September are
disagreeably hot at Haifa, determined me to make the experiment of
camping out on the highest point of Carmel, and I am at this moment
sitting under a Bedouin tent, arranged after a fashion of my own, at an
altitude of eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, upon which
I look down in two opposite directions.
On the northwest, distant six miles, curves the Bay of Acre, with the
town itself glistening white in the distance; and on the southwest,
distant seven miles, the Mediterranean breaks upon the beach that bounds
the plain of Sharon, and with a good glass I can make out the outlines
of the ruins of the old port of Cæsarea. Southward are the confused
hills known as the mountains of Samaria; beyond them, in the blue haze,
I can indistinctly see the highlands of Gilead; while nearer still,
Mount Gilboa, Mount Tabor, the Nazareth range, with a house or two of
that town visible, and Mount Hermon, rising behind the high ranges of
northern Galilee, are all comprised in a prospect unrivalled in its
panoramic extent and in the interest attached to the localities upon
which the eye rests in every direction. I was some time picking out just
the spot on which to camp, so many advantageous sites suggested
themselves, but the paramount necessity of being near a village for
security and supplies, and, above all, near a good spring, decided me in
favour of my present location; and as the conditions under which I have
brought a large party up to the top of this somewhat inaccessible
mountain and planted them upon it are novel, I venture to think that an
account of our experience may prove interesting.
In the first place, the village itself was out of the question, partly
because Arab houses, as a rule, do not consist of more than one room,
and even when one has turned out their human inhabitants, it still
remains tenanted by so many others of a carnivorous character, though
minute in size, that existence becomes a burden; and partly because they
are pervaded with a singular odour of burnt manure, which the natives
use as fuel for the ovens in which they bake their bread, and which is
too pungent to be agreeable to unsophisticated nostrils. After inhaling
it for a month I have got rather to like it than otherwise. As I
suspected that such might be the case, and believed that a successful
was might be waged against the insects, I decided on hiring one of these
rooms as a guest-chamber and a place of resort from the midday sun, in
case the camp did not prove a sufficient protection. This room was
nothing more nor less than a vault like a cellar, with stone walls and a
stone roof, supported by cross arches, about twenty feet by thirty; and
I may here mention that the precaution turned out wise, for we got
fairly rid of the fleas, and the temperature in the middle of the day,
when we usually repair to it for our siesta, has never been over 80°.
But how to make a camp which should accommodate three ladies and four
gentlemen was a serious question. We had one European tent capable of
holding two people, and a smaller one for a bachelor of modest
requirements in the way of standing-room, and these we supplemented with
a tent which we hired of some neighbouring Bedouins, which was thirty
feet long, but which, when pitched according to their fashion, was an
impossible habitation for civilized beings, as it had no walls. Indeed,
the whole breadth of the black camel's-hair cloth of which it was
composed was only ten feet. We therefore decided on using it merely as a
roof, and sent down to Haifa for a camel load of light lumber in order
to make a frame on which to stretch it. We also got up two dozen cheap
mats, six feet square, at twenty-five cents apiece. With these we made
front and back walls and partitions for sleeping cribs. Finally our
erection, on which we proudly hoisted the national flag, was thirty-four
feet long, ten feet wide, seven feet high in front and five feet in
rear. These mats can be triced up in front and rear in the daytime so as
to allow a free circulation of air. On the roof, in order to keep the
sun from heating too fiercely upon us, we spread branches of the odorous
bay-tree, with which the scrubby woods of the mountain abound, and of
these same branches we erected a kitchen, and stable for the horse and
three donkeys which composed our establishment. The thermometer usually
fell to 70° at night, and there were heavy morning dews and fogs.
It was no slight task selecting the furniture, bedding,
cooking-utensils, and comestibles for a party of seven, and it took
eight camels, besides sundry donkeys, to carry all our necessaries. In
order to understand the nature of the path over which we had to travel,
the reader must get rid of the popular notion conveyed by the word
“Mount,” which is usually applied to Carmel, that it is a solitary hill.
So far from such being the case, it is a mountainous district about
fourteen miles long and twelve wide at its base. It culminates in a
promontory, which projects into the sea at its apex, but we are
established ten miles from Haifa, the path ascending abruptly from that
town, and following for nearly three hours' travel the backbone of the
ridge, disclosing views of wondrous beauty down gorges on the right and
left. It is “a rocky road to travel” for a delicate lady, involving
steep, precipitous ascents, for which sure-footed donkeys are best; but
we were obliged to resort to a chair and a litter, each carried by four
bearers, who, as they stumbled and clambered up the narrow path, seemed
bent upon capsizing their human burdens. Now, however, that we have
safely endured the perils of the way, we are amply repaid for them.
The nights and mornings are of ideal beauty. The effects of sunrise and
sunset, ever varying, over the vast landscape that stretches around and
beneath us, are a constant source of wonder and delight. From the
vine-covered terrace on which our camp is situated we look down a wild,
rocky, precipitous gorge eighteen hundred feet upon the plain of the
Kishon, scarce a mile distant, so steep is it. To the right this gorge
widens into an amphitheatre, and the hillsides, sloping more gently, are
terraced with vines, figs, and pomegranates, and at its head is the
copious spring which supplies us with water, to which one of our donkeys
makes several pilgrimages a day with a large earthen jar slung in a
straw cradle on each side. Here, morning and evening, files of Druse
women resort, and stand and gossip round the cistern into which the
water gushes from the rock, their bright-coloured dresses forming a
charming contrast with the dark-green foliage of the gardens and
orchards that are irrigated in the immediate vicinity. Besides about
five hundred Druses there are fifty Christians in the village, who do
not harmonize with the Druses very well, and there is a hot rivalry for
our favour, so that we have to exercise a considerable amount of
diplomacy to keep on good terms with all.
We have hired the vault from a Christian, and his family next door
consists of his stepmother and four half-sisters, strapping,
good-looking wenches, who are not yet married, for lack of the necessary
dowers. With them is staying a cousin from Acre, one of the most
beautiful women I have ever seen, quite Caucasian in type and
complexion, which is white and transparent as that of any Western
beauty. We have great difficulty in keeping this bevy of damsels out of
our room, as Arabs have no idea of privacy, and they imagine that
politeness consists in squatting round in a circle and asking silly
questions. Excepting for the practice it gives one in Arabic, and for a
certain insight which one thus gains into the manners and customs of the
natives, these visits would be intolerable, and, indeed, we have found
it necessary to take stringent measures to limit them. It is more
interesting to go and sit in the cool veranda outside of the little
Druse place of worship, and talk to the bright young man who is passing
most of his time in studying the abstruse metaphysical system of his
religion, and who is far more intelligent than the Syrian Catholic
priest, who also comes and sits and smokes with us with the view of
obtaining, which he has not yet succeeded in doing, some knowledge of
our own religious belief. Now and then an episode occurs illustrating
the conditions of native existence in these parts. One day I found the
village excited at an outrage which a native mounted policeman had
perpetrated. On learning that he had assaulted not merely one of the
villagers, but my own servant, who had refused him access to our vault,
I inflicted a little corporal punishment upon him, when his officer and
the village notables interfered, and interceded in his behalf. I asked
the latter why they were not glad to see a man punished who, like the
rest of his class, was forever persecuting them; they said that when I
was gone he would come back and take his revenge upon them. I finally
made the man apologize to the Druse he had assaulted, and to my servant,
all which he did very humbly, fearing that unless he did so I should
insist upon his receiving a still severer punishment from the Caimacan,
or local governor, at Haifa. The villagers were very grateful to see one
of this arrogant and overbearing class humbled, but they say that unless
one can stay and protect them their last state will be worse than their
first.