Haifa, May 15.—From the ancient fortress of El-Hösn we crossed a spur to
a high projecting point, from which we could look down a sheer precipice
one thousand feet high, which had been formed by a land-slip, to the bed
of the river. Forcing their way impetuously through a gorge opposite,
the tributary waters of the Rukkad mingled their clear stream with the
turbid Yarmuk, after a rapid course from their source in the highlands
of Jaulan, from which elevated plateau they are precipitated in a
magnificent waterfall eight hundred feet high. All this scenery is as
yet absolutely unknown and unexplored, this fall having only recently
been discovered, by my travelling companion on this occasion. I
regretted being unable to visit it, but we were limited for time, and
although it was only hidden from view by a projecting spur of the
valley, so broken up is this country by precipitous ravines and gorges,
that it would have taken us a day's hard riding to reach it.
It was with regret that we found ourselves compelled to leave the
elevated position on which we now stood, and which commanded an
extensive view, limited in the extreme east by the lofty mountains of
the Jebel Druze; and, steering our way by compass, struck a
southeasterly direction, over a park-like, undulating country, covered
with oak forest, with occasional patches of cultivation. This part of
the country to the east of the Jordan, which is called the Keferat, is
thinly inhabited, the villages being very small, squalid, and far apart,
but it is a country all waiting to yield of its abundance to some future
race who may turn its magnificent resources to good account. In many
places the trees were festooned with vines, the grapes of this district
being celebrated, but the population pay little heed to their
cultivation, for it is impossible to protect them from robbers. The
Bedouins consider the sedentary inhabitants as lawful spoil, and raid
over these lands at will, practically almost unchecked by the
authorities, whose administrative hold on the country is of the
slenderest description. It is, in fact, chiefly exercised at those times
when it is necessary to send the mounted police into the villages to
collect the taxes, and they clear up all that the Bedouins may have
left, so that these poor people are engaged in a perpetual struggle to
keep body and soul together, and although they are surrounded by a
fertile country which, if it were properly cultivated, would make them
wealthy, they only cultivate enough for their barest necessities, and
have not the heart to attempt to accumulate wealth which they would not
be permitted to keep. Situated at an elevation of about eighteen hundred
feet above the sea, these high, wooded, fertile table-lands form a
district which, should this country ever come to be occupied under more
favourable conditions than now exist, will certainly be among the first
to attract an agricultural population. The wild, rocky gorges by which
it is intersected render the task of exploration, without a guide, one
attended with some uncertainty. We take our bearings by compass, gallop
under the vine-trellised trees, over green, level slopes, or along
inviting glades, till we are suddenly brought up by a precipice down
which it is impossible to scramble, which opens unexpectedly in a gulf
at our feet. The spot we are making for is not half a mile distant, but
we have to follow the edge of the gorge in the opposite direction. Then
we come upon another at right angles, which forces us to double back
still farther; so at last we wind round the head, first of one ravine
and then of another, till we find two hours have elapsed since we were
driven back on our tracks; the half-mile has now extended over five or
six, the sun is declining with a rapidity which seems accelerated
because the daylight has become so precious to us that we cannot bear to
anticipate the prospect of its vanishing. At last we reach the head of
the valley which has baffled us so long, and are compensated by
discovering a ruin. Here are sarcophagi, rock tombs and cisterns, and
carved fragments. Fortunately we come across a peasant, the only one we
have seen since leaving the river, and he tells us that its name is
Haleebna. We write it down and take its bearings as well as we can, for
it is unknown heretofore, but the day is too far spent for us to linger
for minute examination. The peasant tells us that the best thing we can
do, if we would get back to our tents, is to go down the valley we had
intended to cross. We follow his advice and have no reason to regret it.
It is a _Viâ Mala_ of grandeur and beauty, though on a small scale. We
pass between curved limestone cliffs, the fissures in which are filled
with underwood, the shrubs cling to the rocks, from which at one place
gushes a copious stream of water, by the side of which we hurry with it
down the valley, till we get back to the Yarmuk once more, and, wearied
and exhausted, reach our tents in the gathering darkness. Here we find a
picturesque-looking Kurd waiting to receive us; he is an old soldier,
and shows us the scars of five wounds—not all, however, received in
military service, but for the most part in Arab skirmishes. He is the
agent of the government in these parts, and also of the native
capitalist who is the practical owner of the land, which is cultivated
by an Arab tribe whose tents are pitched near us; they are heavily
indebted to the capitalist aforesaid, who allows them enough of the
crops to keep them from starving and takes all the rest himself. And our
Kurdish visitor is his collector of revenue. He seems to have some
difficulty in protecting his employer's interests, and tells us
triumphantly that only a few nights before he has shot an Arab whom he
caught plundering. He says that during the bathing season as many as a
hundred tents may be seen pitched round the sulphur springs of Amatha,
and that their fame is so great that they are visited by invalids from
Aleppo and Damascus. The fact, however, that Tiberias, which is five
hours distant, is the nearest place in which supplies of any sort can be
procured, and that the only accommodation to be obtained is the
patient's own tent, must operate as a serious obstacle to the use of
these springs, about whose curative value, however, there can be no
doubt.
Our way from Amatha lay back across the Jordan valley, which at this
season of the year is a sheet of waving grain, cultivated by a branch of
the Beni Sukkr Arabs, whose large encampment, with the handsome tent of
the sheik in the centre, we pass without stopping, for we are in full
pursuit at the moment of five gazelles, which scamper across country,
giving us a good run, in which we should have certainly overtaken them
had we not been checked by a ravine. We cross the Yarmuk at a point near
its junction with the Jordan, and where it carries a volume of water
certainly equal to that stream. The Jordan here falls in a fine rapid of
about thirty feet in a distance of less than a hundred yards, and would
furnish splendid water-power for mills in a part of the country which is
much in want of them. The ancient Jisr el-Medjamieh spans the stream at
this point, guarded by a government toll-house. Crossing it, we
determined to try a short-cut up the little-known Wady Bireh, which is
watered by a clear, purling brook, which, if it were utilized, would
make this valley one of the most fertile and attractive in this part of
the country. After following its winding course for some miles, we found
it finally narrowing into a crooked gorge, the sides of which approach
so closely as scarcely to admit the passage of a loaded camel between
the overhanging rocks. Indeed, when we afterwards described our route to
the natives they said it was never used by them. However, it gave us an
opportunity of seeing some most romantic scenery, and by shortening the
way enabled us to reach Nazareth, jaded and worn out, it is true, the
same night.