Haifa, April 2.—I have just returned from a trip into the interior,
during which I have been exploring some new and interesting country.
Instead of following the usual road to the eastward by way of the valley
of Esdraelon, I struck in a northeasterly direction across the fertile
plain of Acre, fording the Kishon at the point of its debouchure into
the sea, where, after the winter rains, we are generally obliged to swim
the horses, while we cross ourselves in a ferry-boat. In two hours from
this point we strike the first low range of the Galilee hills, at a
depression from which, in the times of the crusaders, the armies of
Saladin used to issue forth to give them battle. Indeed, the whole
ground over which we ride has been from time immemorial the scene of
bloody warfare, and it is not impossible, considering how events are
shaping themselves in the East, that it may become so again. Rising
gently, by grassy vales carpeted with wild flowers, to a height of about
five hundred feet, we shortly reach the picturesquely situated town of
Shefr Amr, dominated by the extensive walls of its ruined castle.
This has been a place of considerable importance ever since, shortly
after the destruction of Jerusalem, it was the seat of the Jewish
sanhedrim. It was then called Shefaram, and is probably identical with
the Kefraim which Eusebius says was six miles north of Legio, and with
Hapraim, which we read in the Bible was assigned to the tribe of
Issachar. Since then its name has been changed to Shefr Amr, or “the
healing of Omar,” from a tradition that Daher el-Amr, a prince who
governed this country about a hundred and sixty years ago, recovered
here from a severe illness. The fortress is said to have been built by
his son Othman in 1761, and it does not appear to be older, though
probably it occupies the site of a much more ancient castle. It covers a
very extensive area of ground, with crenellated battlements, and
contains stalls for four hundred horses. It is now partly ruined, but a
portion of it is still sufficiently well preserved to be the residence
of the Mudir, or local governor.
I scrambled by a most dilapidated stone stair to the top of the walls,
and had a magnificent view over the surrounding country. The position is
so commanding that I could well understand why Saladin chose it as a
point from which he could harass the Franks who were besieging Acre,
which town was plainly visible in the distance. I was informed that the
whole of this extensive fortress was offered by the government for sale
for $1500. The stones alone would be worth more than this amount, if it
were not for the cost of transport, to say nothing of the area of land
which they cover. But, as a matter of speculation, Barnum's
pink-and-white elephant would be about as convenient a possession for a
private individual. It is no wonder that it has been for some time in
the market, or that the town itself, when capital is so scarce, should
be a sleepy looking, stagnant place. Still, it is better built than the
average; the houses are generally constructed of stone—many of them are
of two stories—there is a fair bazaar, and a population of about two
thousand five hundred inhabitants, of which fifteen hundred are Greek
Christians, three hundred Moslems, six hundred Druses, and the remainder
Jews. Some thirty families of Morocco Jews settled here as
agriculturists about the year 1850, but after struggling against
extortion for twenty years they had to give it up, and the colony is now
extinct, the Jews now here being natives of the country. The Druse
population is also rapidly diminishing from the same cause; a slow but
steady migration takes place annually to the Druse mountains to the east
of the Hauran, where they are practically independent of government
control; there are also a few Protestants here, with a schoolhouse,
besides a convent and church of the Roman Catholic nuns (Dames de
Nazareth), built in 1866, with a girls' school.
The only other interesting building at Shefr Amr is the Greek church,
which has been rebuilt on old foundations. The remains were evidently
Byzantine work, dating probably from the fifth or sixth century. Many
interesting tombs are to be found both north and south of the town. The
most noteworthy has a handsome façade, covered with a design of a vine
with grapes in bold relief, and with small figures of birds introduced.
Each vine-plant grows out of a pot. On each side of the door is an
effaced Greek inscription, with rosettes in lozenges below and birds
above. Here, also, are fragments of Greek inscriptions, and on the left
side-wall of the vestibule is a bas-relief of a lion and a small animal,
perhaps a cub; on the right a lion, a cub, and a bird. The drawing is
very primitive, and has a Byzantine appearance. Inside this tomb, which
contains three loculi, there are mouldings round the principal arch,
with tracery of vines and carvings of birds. These tombs are interesting
because both the inscriptions and ornamentation belong to the Byzantine
period, thus proving that the mode of sepulture practised by the Jews
from the most remote date was continued by the Christians up to the
fifth or sixth century after Christ.
Our way from Shefr Amr led through the beautiful oak woods which belong
to that town, but which seem doomed to destruction, for I observed that
many of the handsomest trees were girdled near the base, while numerous
stumps bore testimony to this lamentable work of denudation. In a
country where wood is becoming so rare it was heartbreaking to ride
through this beautiful, park-like scenery and witness the work of
destruction going on in spite of the government prohibition against
felling timber. Emerging from these grassy glades we descend into the
magnificent plain of the Buttauf, now a sheet of emerald green, as the
young crops extend before us as far as the eye can reach. Traversing
this fertile country one is more and more impressed with the
incorrectness of the judgment of the ordinary tourist, who, confining
himself to the route prescribed by Cook, is taken through the barren
hills of Judea, and to one or two holy places in Galilee, and then goes
home and talks about the waste and desolation of Palestine. The trite
saying recurred to my mind as I looked on this wealth of grain: “I pity
the man who can go from Dan to Beersheba and say that all is barren;”
or, as my travelling-companion, who was an American, more forcibly put
it: “If ever I meet a tourist who tells me that Palestine is barren,
I'll lick him.”
But we were not on the tourist track, and it was not till we reached
Tiberias that we found specimens, and they were too discreet; in their
remarks to give my friend an opportunity of expressing his views in the
manner contemplated. Here we took a boat and crossed the lake. I wanted
to investigate the present fishing capabilities of these waters, but I
soon found that I had not the appropriate tackle. The natives either
fish with circular hand-nets, which they throw with great dexterity, or
with long hand-lines, which they bait with small dead fish and haul in,
thus trawling in a rough way. They have no idea of fishing with a rod,
and mine came to grief, so that I had no opportunity of casting a fly,
but I think it not unlikely, from the way I saw the fish jumping towards
evening, that they would rise to it. The natives catch their bait by
poisoning the water with pinches of a powder which they throw in near
the margin. In a few moments the minnows and small fish are to be seen
swimming lazily along the surface, completely stupefied, and one has
only to put one's hand in and take them out. The fish we caught were
principally of the bass or perch species, averaging half a pound or more
each. One of the boatmen caught a dozen with two or three casts of the
hand-net, but it was useless to try with a rod without proper tackle. I
am convinced that a spinning artificial minnow, or a copper spoon, would
be very killing; so, of course, would be trawling live bait, but the
natives know only their own primitive style of fishing, and the idea of
a rod and line, even with the common angle-worm at one end and a fool at
the other, was entirely new to them. Indeed, scarcely any fish are taken
from the lake. There are only four boats on it, but these are used more
for transport than fishing purposes, and the population is so sparse on
the shores that there is no demand. We were assured by our boatmen,
however, that they occasionally took fish over five feet in length, and
I have seen enough of what may be done to decide me to go there again
some day properly provided, instead of relying on native appliances.
The spot at which we were moored on the eastern shore of the lake was
immediately under a precipitous conical-shaped hill, which rose abruptly
to a height of twelve hundred feet from the waters. Its summit was
crowned with the ruins of the ancient city of Gamala. The modern name
for it is Kalat el-Hosn, but it owes its ancient appellation to its
shape, which is exactly that of a camel's hump. It is interesting as
having been a purely Jewish fortification, the last that was sacked by
Vespasian and Titus before the siege of Jerusalem, and it has remained
to this day exactly as they left it. Josephus gives a very graphic
account of the siege, which took place in the last days of September,
sixty-nine years after the birth of Christ. Owing to the precipices by
which it was surrounded it was supposed to be impregnable, and when, at
last, after a twenty-nine days' siege, it was found not to be so, the
whole population who had survived its horrors, consisting of five
thousand men, women, and children, flung themselves into the yawning
gulf below the ramparts, thus perishing by their own act. Of the entire
population only two women escaped alive.
When we compare the fighting of those days with the siege of Paris, for
instance, where the population surrendered because there was a little
too much sawdust in the bread, the results of modern as contrasted with
ancient civilization suggest some curious reflections. That the
civilization of those days was of a high order is attested by the
magnificent remains which still exist in Gamala. Here are to be found,
strewn over the ground, some thirty huge granite columns, which must
have been transported from Egypt to this giddy height by engineering
contrivances which would puzzle the science of these days, and
Corinthian capitals neatly cut in hard, black basalt, and sarcophagi and
other monuments, all evidencing a high state of art.
These ruins have hitherto been only superficially examined, and there
can be no doubt that the investigations of the Palestine Exploration
Fund, when the society is permitted by the Turkish government to
prosecute their researches to the east of the Jordan, will bring many
interesting treasures to light. I only regretted that I had no time to
give to these ruins, as my objective point lay farther to the south and
east.