In Camp, Mount Carmel, Sept. 10.—It is not generally known that the
Druse nation extends as far south as Carmel. The most southern village
occupied by them in Syria is at Dalieh, about two miles from my present
camp; their most northern home is at Aleppo. When, nine hundred years
ago, Duruzi, the teacher from whom they take their name, came from Egypt
to spread his new teaching, it was accepted by a tribe of people who
lived in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, whither they had originally
migrated from the province of Yemen, in Arabia. Adopting the new and
mysterious faith, which, while it is a most interesting metaphysical and
theological study, is too recondite to enter upon here, the body of the
tribe migrated south, took possession of the valleys of the southern
Lebanon, and made their headquarters at the foot of Mount Hermon.
Spreading east from there, they crossed the tract known in ancient times
as Iturea, and found a natural fortress in the volcanic region anciently
called Trachonitis, the Biblical Argob, and in the mountains now called
the Jebel Druse. Here they increased and multiplied, and in the early
part of the seventeenth century produced that most remarkable warrior
Fakr-Eddin, the only man of note of whom the Druses can boast. He
conquered Beyrout and the southern coast towns, extending his sway as
far south as Carmel, and as far east as Tiberias; and under his auspices
the mountains of Galilee and Carmel became settled by Druses.
It is, therefore, not much more than two hundred and fifty years since
the Druses first came to Carmel, and it is probable that when they did
so they found the mountain wholly unoccupied, excepting by a few
Christian hermits and devotees who lived in its caves—for the Carmelite
monks had been driven away and their monastery destroyed three hundred
years before; and, indeed, it was only at the time of the Druse
occupation that the first attempt was made to restore it. For the two
centuries during which the crusaders held the Holy Land prior to the end
of the thirteenth century, Carmel was occupied by them, and the remains
of their military posts are still to be found on many of the summits of
the mountain; indeed, many of the old stones of which the village of
Esfia is built, near which my camp is situated, bear their devices
carved on them. Before the time of the crusaders there may have been
Moslem villages on Carmel, but its glory departed when Palestine was
conquered by the Saracens in the seventh century, and the last remains
of Roman civilization, the traces of which still cover the mountain,
were destroyed.
About the time of Christ, and for four or five centuries afterwards, it
must have been in its full loveliness, its hillsides terraced with
vineyards or clothed with magnificent forests, and its summits crowned
with towns adorned with the grace and beauty of the architecture of the
period. The discoveries I have made in proof of this I will postpone to
another letter, as my intention now is to describe the present
population by which the mountain is inhabited.
It is a curious fact that to this day there are no Moslems on Carmel
proper. There are five or six Moslem villages at its base, on the
various sides of the triangle which comprises the district, and they
have lands running up into the mountain; but the actual population
consists of two Druse villages, numbering together about eight hundred
souls, and about fifty Christians, besides the twenty-five monks who
inhabit the monastery. The mountain is nevertheless capable of
containing a population of many thousands, as it evidently did in old
times, and is a much larger district than is popularly supposed.
The eastern side, from the apex of the triangle, is thirteen miles in
length, the western twelve, and the base nine, giving a total
circumference to this highland region of thirty—four miles. The tract
comprised in this area is beautifully diversified by wild gorges, grassy
valleys, level or undulating plateaus covered with underwood, and rocky
summits; and the scenery in places is as romantic as can well be
imagined. The two Druse villages of Esfia and Dalieh are situated two
miles apart, about three quarters of the way down the triangle from its
apex (the projecting promontory on which the monastery is built), and
occupy the most fertile part of the mountain.
When the Druses first settled here they founded no fewer than eight
villages, but when, forty years ago, this country was conquered by Egypt
and governed by Ibrahim Pacha, his rule was distasteful to the majority
of Druses, and the inhabitants of six villages abandoned them, and
migrated to the Jebel Druse. All these villages occupied the sites of
ancient Roman towns, and were constructed of the ancient stones. In the
course of my rambles I have visited them all. Of the two villages which
remained, one, Dalieh, was occupied by some families which had migrated
direct from Aleppo; the other, Esfia, is peopled by Druses from the
Lebanon. There is a marked difference between the two, and the people of
Dalieh are far superior to those of Esfia.
I went over there the other day, and spent the day and night as the
guest of the sheik—or, I should rather say, of the sheiks, for there are
two—one is the temporal and the other the spiritual head of the
village—and I divided my attentions and my meals equally between them.
They are very reluctant to talk about their religion, always turning the
subject when any attempt is made to induce them to converse about it;
but there is one question which they always ask, and that is whether
there are any Druses in England. As it is an accepted fact among them
that there are, any denial of it is considered a discreet reticence, and
rather a proof than otherwise that one is somewhat of a Druse one's
self. They also believe that the majority of Chinamen are, unconsciously
to themselves, Druses; and they are firmly convinced that the world is
drawing to a close, and that the appearance of Hakim, a divine
incarnation, which was prophesied to take place nine hundred years after
his last manifestation and translation, is now imminent, as the time is
just about expiring.
The Druses are a sober, fairly honest, and industrious people, and have
their own notions of morality, to which they rigidly adhere. They have
only one wife, but they have great facilities of divorce. An amusing
illustration of this came under my immediate notice while I was the
sheik's guest. His son, a fine young man, had been my guide among some
neighbouring ruins the day before. I had also made the acquaintance of
the wife of the latter, a remarkably pretty woman, with a baby. Indeed,
I was much struck with the beauty of the type of all the Dalieh women.
Suddenly a tremendous uproar took place in the village. My host rushed
out to restore order. While I looked down on the scene from an upper
window, I saw his son, bareheaded, brandishing a huge stone in the air,
and vehemently gesticulating, apparently in reply to a bevy of women who
were screaming at him at the top of their voices. Indeed, all the women
in the place seemed to have conspired to drive him to frenzy by their
abuse. When the sheik appeared in the midst of them order was somewhat
restored, for, to my surprise, he seemed to take part with the women,
and dealt his son one or two sound blows. Then there was some
palavering, and during the whole time I saw the wife of the enraged
young man looking calmly on as a spectator. She had put her child in its
cradle and was rocking it. Two or three old women were crying and still
vociferating. Presently I saw a man come and lift the cradle with the
baby, and the mother rose and followed him. They went into a
neighbouring house, and were followed by the sheik and as many as could
crowd in. Then ensued a long pause, until the sheik reappeared, with a
document which he had been writing, in his hand, and the village
population gathered around. At this time I could not see his son
anywhere, but the wife was among the audience. When he had finished
reading, the audience broke up and the sheik returned to me. When I
asked what had been the matter, he replied, “Oh, foolish people
quarrelling.” So I applied elsewhere for information, and was told that
for some time past the sheik's son had been tired of his wife and in
love with another woman, and had been seeking a cause of quarrel. He had
apparently found it in some dispute he had just been having with his
wife, and had uttered in his rage the formula of divorce, by which he
dismissed her and sent her back to her family. Hence the feminine
outbreak against him. The sheik had disapproved his son's conduct, as
the wife was his own niece, and, therefore, her husband's first cousin,
and he considered it a family disgrace; but, after what had happened,
patching up the matter had become impossible, and he had nothing for it
but, according to Druse law, to pronounce the divorce. I must say that
the entire indifference manifested by the wife, when she followed her
baby's cradle away from her husband's house, deprived her of the
sympathy I should otherwise have felt.
From what I have been able to gather, the Druse women, if they are
pretty, are a heartless lot. Another characteristic incident was a
procession of Esfia Druses to the cave of Elijah, below the monastery,
in fulfilment of a vow, when a child was dedicated to a religious life,
and a goat was sacrificed to God, as in the times of old. After being
sacrificed, it was nevertheless eaten, which seems somewhat to deprive
the performance of its merit, as the share of the Deity was the bones.
There was a great clanging of discordant instruments and loud singing as
they came back, some of the men caracoling around on horseback, and
others, with arms clasped, dancing in a measured step, followed by a
group of dancing women, in dark-blue garments, with gaudy borders and
fringes and sashes, and flowing white head-dresses bound with
bright-coloured scarfs. They formed a most picturesque tableau, chanting
their way to their home on this wild mountain hill-top.
One day a magnificent figure of a man, armed with sword and pistol,
suddenly entered my tent. I asked him where he had come from. He said
from the Jebel Druse, and, seeing a foreign tent, he had turned in to
see who I was. So we exchanged confidences. He was, in fact, an outlaw.
He had been fighting against the government, and was wandering from one
Druse village to another, not daring to go back to his own, which was in
the Lebanon. He said that at this moment the Druses of the Jebel Druse
were in full revolt against the Turkish government; that no Druse dare
show himself in Damascus, and no Turk dare show himself in the Jebel
Druse. They had defied the Governor-General, who knew that it would be
useless in their wild mountains to attempt to conquer them. He offered
to take me to the Jebel Druse, if I would avoid all places where there
were any Turks. He had a profound contempt for his coreligionists of
Dalieh and Esfia. “I am ashamed of such Druses,” he said. “Why, I saw a
Moslem insult one, the other day, and, instead of killing him, he walked
away. Why don't they leave a place where they dare not punish insult,
and come to the mountain?” I have rarely seen a finer specimen of
humanity than this man was, and, with all the defiant recklessness and
daring of his expression, there was the charm of entire frankness and
good-nature combined with it.
Besides the two villages on Carmel, there are fourteen Druse villages,
nearly all within sight of it, on the southern slopes of the mountains
of Galilee. It is not improbable that, unable to support the military
conscription and taxation which presses upon them, the inhabitants may,
before long, abandon their present homes, and go to swell the numbers of
their brethren in the Jebel Druse. The whole population of the Druse
nation is about 120,000; they can put into the field 25,000 men of the
best fighting material in Turkey; they are slowly migrating to the Jebel
Druse, where about two thirds of the nation have already asserted their
semi-independence.