Haifa, June 22.—While my two days' experiences at the Neby Schaib,
described in my last two letters, were in the highest degree novel and
picturesque, and enabled me to obtain an unusual insight into the
manners and customs and religious observances of the Druse nation, my
stay at this celebrated shrine of their pilgrimage was by no means
destitute of archæological interest. The village of Hattin, which is in
the immediate neighbourhood of the tomb of the prophet, forms the centre
of many sacred and historical associations, while it is in itself a
place of unusual beauty of situation.
In the overhanging rocks on the other side of the gorge, immediately
opposite my tent, were several sepulchral chambers, all traditional
burying-places of persons more or less historical. Some of these I
examined. The largest was one entered by a doorway, which had recently
been inhabited, for the framework of a wooden door to it still remained.
It was supposed to be the burial-place of one of Jethro's daughters. We
are told by Josephus that his family followed the Israelites out of
Midian. Its last occupant was an Indian hermit, who had lived here in
solitude for three years, when, getting tired of his seclusion, he had
gone to Tiberias about a year ago, married there, and immediately
disappeared with his wife, no one knew whither.
About a hundred yards from the Neby there issues from the mouth of the
gorge a copious spring which, in fact, forms the source of a brook, that
ultimately finds its way into the Sea of Galilee. It commences its
beneficent course, however, by fertilizing a large area immediately
surrounding the village, where flourishing gardens of oranges, lemons,
figs, apricots, pomegranates, and other fruit-trees impart an air of
luxuriant fertility to the landscape not common in these parts. Among
these gardens is one which was purchased a few years ago by Sir Moses
Montefiore, and presented by him to the Jews of Tiberias. Here I went,
at the invitation of the overseer, and, seated on mats under the
spreading arms of a fig-tree, I listened, while I sipped his coffee, to
his tale of woe: how last year he had resisted what he considered an
exorbitant charge for taxes, how his garden had in consequence been
invaded and despoiled by the tax-gatherers; how, being a
British-protected subject, and the garden being the property of British
subjects, he had appealed to the British consul for redress; how he had
spent £50 in the effort to obtain it, and had found British protection
not only a broken, but an expensive reed to trust to; and how he was
driven, by the refusal of the British government to protect its
subjects, to try and protect himself by the plentiful expenditure of
backsheesh. I explained to him that it was not the habit of the British
government to protect its subjects, but rather to abandon them, even
though they might be of exalted rank, and their lives might be at stake;
and then I went in search of ruins.
I found some immediately adjoining the garden. What had evidently once
formed part of an old Byzantine church was here turned into a mosque;
and upon one of the stones was a curious Cufic inscription. In some of
the other gardens were traces of foundations, indicating that in old
times Hattin must have been the site of a considerable town. It is about
two miles from the ruins of Irbid (which is no doubt the Arbela of
Josephus), and is probably the Caphar Hittia of the Talmud, but I find
no mention of the Hattin ruins in the memoirs of the Palestine
Exploration Fund, nor of the Cufic inscription which I found. The way to
Irbid lies across the plain, on which a collection of seven basalt
stones in a ring are called the “Hajaret en Nusara,” or “stones of the
Christians,” because tradition has it that it was here that Christ
performed the miracle of the seven loaves and two fishes.
The plain was now waving with grain, nor would it be possible to imagine
a more fertile or luxuriant upland. On its margin, where it breaks off
abruptly into the marvellous gorge of El-Hamam, with its precipitous
sides rising twelve hundred feet sheer up from the little stream which
trickles at their base, are the ruins of Irbid, interesting as
containing the remains of the oldest Jewish synagogue probably to be
found in Palestine.
The steep hillside which slopes down to the edge of the cliff is very
rocky, and numerous sarcophagi are carved on the surfaces of the natural
slabs. The largest measure from six feet to six feet five inches long,
and one foot ten inches deep, being round at the head and square at the
foot, which is slightly deeper. There was a ledge cut round to receive
the stone cover, and a channel made to keep the surface water from
running in. They were of all sizes, some, evidently, for small children
and babies. But the most remarkable tomb was one which opened out of a
deep, rock-cut chamber, which appeared to have been in connection with a
wine-press. The antechamber formed a sunk court, about twenty feet by
ten, and contained a sarcophagus. It opened into a tomb containing six
loculi. My guide was the Jew who had entertained me in the garden, and
who was well versed in local traditions.
He informed me that here were supposed to be buried four of the sons of
Jacob, he did not know which, and Jochabed and Dinah. He also pointed
out to me the tomb of the Rabbi Nitai, who was supposed to have built
the synagogue I had been examining, and who was a native of the place,
and lived about two hundred years B.C.; also a mound of stones covering
apparently a rock tomb, which he declared was the burial-place of Seth,
the son of Adam; but, although from much habit I am accustomed to
swallow a fair amount of traditional information, I was unable to push
my credulity thus far. It is described, however, by the Rabbi Gerson,
A.D. 1561, as being in a cave with a spring to which a flight of steps
led down. The tombs of Zerah and Zephaniah were also pointed out.
Indeed, there are few places in Palestine where in the same limited area
such a number of distinguished personages of sacred history are buried
as in the neighbourhood of Arbela, or Irbid. I do not now include the
tombs of the numerous rabbis whom the Jews hold sacred. If it has a
character for sanctity, it must at one time have had a reputation for
strength. From its position it must always have been a military
stronghold. Josephus tells us, in his “Life,” that when he was Governor
of Galilee he fortified it, and laid up stores of grain here; and it is
without doubt the Casale Ardelle of the Teutonic knights (1250 A.D.),
the _d_ being an error for _b_, as it is mentioned in connection with
Tiberias and Beisan, both places not very distant.
The only Biblical reference to this place is that made by Hosea, when he
says, “Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people; all thy
fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shahnan spoiled Beth-Arbel in the day of
battle.” As we stand here we can almost look into the caverns with which
the face of the opposite cliff is perforated, while the one on the edge
of which we stand is literally honeycombed with these subterranean
abodes. They are of immense extent, and are placed over each other in
different stories; some are walled up, leaving doors and windows. Some
idea of the extent of this singular natural fastness may be formed from
the fact that it is capable of containing six thousand men. The caves
communicate with each other by subterranean galleries. These are the
fortified caverns mentioned by Josephus in connection with Arbela.
Bachides, the general of Demetrius, the third King of Syria, when he
invaded Palestine, encamped at Arbela and subdued those who had taken
refuge in the caves. This event is narrated in Maccabees, where the
caves are called “stories.” It was here, also, that Herod the Great had
his famous fight with the robbers who had made their dens in the caves,
letting down his soldiers in baskets, and fighting them in mid-air.
I was determined to push my explorations to the summits of the rocky
crests which frowned above, and are called the Horns of Hattin.
Scrambling up the steep, rocky hillsides, we found ourselves at last
obliged to leave our horses and make our way on foot over the huge
blocks of basalt which are thickly strewn around these singular peaks.
On reaching the top we found that they had been artificially
superimposed one on the top of another, so as to form a rocky rampart of
immense solidity. Both crests had, at some period of remote antiquity,
been thus fortified. Beneath one of them were the foundations and ruins
of an ancient town which the inhabitants call “Medinet el-Inweileb,” or
“the ruins of the long tower.” At the southeast of the hill is an oblong
cavern cut in the rock and eased with cement, which may formerly have
been a cistern; and not far from it are the foundations of a building
which the natives say was a Christian church before the conquest of the
country by the Mohammedans, who subsequently converted it into a mosque.
Nothing could be more striking than the view from the summit of the
highest horn. Immediately beneath us, some six or seven hundred feet
below, I looked down into the gloomy gorge, with the white walls of the
Neby Schaib contrasting with the black basalt rocks, its terraces
covered with groups of brightly costumed Druses, their songs as they
danced in circles reaching us on the still air of evening, and beyond,
the modern village of Hattin, surrounded by orange-groves and
fruit-gardens of the most brilliant green. Stretching away on all other
sides were vast uplands of waving grain, till they either sunk away into
valleys or terminated at the base of hills which rose abruptly above
them. To the northeast the precipitous sides of the Wady Hamam,
honeycombed with caves, formed a vista through which appeared in the
distance a green strip of the plain of Genesareth; beyond it the waters
of the Sea of Galilee, seventeen hundred feet below us, gleamed in the
setting sun. From its eastern margin rose the steep cliffs above which
is the vast plateau of Jaulan, once the grazing lands of the flocks and
herds of Job, while a line of conical volcanic peaks, backed by
snow-clad Hermon, closed the prospect.