Daliet-el-Carmel, Oct. 2.—The habit of tourists of visiting only those
spots in Palestine called holy places, or to which some striking
Biblical association is attached, causes them to neglect ruins of the
highest historical interest, and which are often as well worth seeing
from a picturesque as from an archæological point of view. They make an
effort to go to Nazareth, which differs in no respect from an ordinary
Syrian town, and which does not boast a single object of antiquarian
interest, while they omit from their programme, because it is not
included in the books, a ruin like Cæsarea, a city unsurpassed for
grandeur and magnificence by anything in Palestine when Herod raised it
to the dignity of a metropolis, and the scene of many important events,
both Biblical and historical. Here Peter baptized the first Gentile
convert to Christianity; here Philip lived with his four daughters,
engaged in missionary work; here Paul preached before Felix, and “almost
persuaded” Agrippa to become a Christian. It was in the theatre, the
remains of which are still to be seen, that Herod made his oration to
the multitude when “the angel of the Lord smote him, and he was eaten of
worms and gave up the ghost.” It was in the streets of Cæsarea that, on
the occasion of a quarrel between the Greek and Jewish population,
twenty thousand Jews were massacred. Here the celebrated historians
Eusebius and Procopius were born, and here was found, when the city was
taken by the crusaders, the hexagonal vase of green crystal which was
supposed to contain the Holy Grail.
The old Roman wall can be traced for a mile and a half, enclosing an
area strewn with the remains of a theatre, hippodrome, temple,
aqueducts, and mole; while a second line of fortification, still in
admirable preservation, and over half a mile in extent, marks the
_enceinte_ of the old Crusading fortress, with its castle and donjon
keep, its cathedral, its Northern church, and harbour. This tendency on
the part of travellers is the more to be regretted as the opportunity of
examining these extensive ruins is now about to pass away, never again
to return.
The Slav colonists, whose immigration I described in my last letter, are
laying out broad streets right across the most interesting ruins, using
the old foundations, appropriating the beautiful masonry, the white
stones which formed the temple built by Herod, and the brown limestone
blocks of the cathedral of the crusaders, quarrying into ancient
buildings beneath the surface of the ground, levelling down the ruins at
one place, levelling them up in another, and so utterly transforming the
whole picturesque area that it will soon be no longer recognizable.
Within five months over twenty good stone houses have been built, some
of three stories high, others with vaults for merchandise and storing
grain; in some cases the old Crusading vaults, evidently used for the
same purpose, have been made available. The dwellings are being built on
the plan which renders the towns of the Moslem Slavs of European Turkey
so dull and uninteresting; they are all enclosed with courtyards, the
high stone walls of which jealously guard the harems of the proprietors.
In this respect these western Mohammedans are far more particular than
the Arabs, who allow their women comparative freedom; but during the
period of my stay in Cæsarea I did not see one of the female colonists.
Their male belongings, however, were most hospitable, especially when
they found that I knew their country and was familiar with Mostar and
Cognitza, in the neighbourhood of which towns had been their former
homes. They were the landed aristocracy of their own country, and have,
therefore, brought a considerable amount of wealth with them. A large
tract of the most fertile land of the plain of Sharon has been donated
to them by the Turkish government, and there can be no doubt that the
country will gain by their settlement in it. In manners and costume they
form a marked contrast to the natives, who are evidently much impressed
by their wealth and dignity.
The lower or peasant class of Bosnia and Herzegovina were not obliged,
when the country was conquered by the Moslems, to change their religion,
and they have continued Christians; while the descendants of their
masters, who remained the proprietors of the soil, became bigoted
Mussulmans. The consequence has been that now that the country has been
handed over to the Austrians, the Christian peasantry have naturally
found protection from the authorities against the oppression of their
former masters, who, unable to endure the humiliation of seeing the
tables turned, and their old servants enabled to defy them with
impunity, have sold all their possessions and migrated to the dominions
of the sultan, rather than endure the indignities to which they declare
they were exposed from their new Christian rulers and their old
Christian serfs—very much on the same principle that the Southern States
became intolerable to some of the landed proprietors after the
emancipation of their slaves. Whether they will agree with their
Circassian neighbours remains yet to be seen. They form the _avant
garde_ of a much larger migration which is to follow as soon as
arrangements can be made to receive them. One of the leading men, who
has opened a store, assigned me an unfinished house as a lodging, and
said that he intended to enlarge it into a hotel for travellers.
It is worthy of the notice of intending travellers in Palestine next
season that they can now drive the whole way, if they wish, in wagons
belonging to the German colonists, from Jerusalem to Nazareth, in four
easy days, instead of having to ride, and camp in tents as heretofore.
There are excellent hotels at Jaffa. The next stopping-place would, now
that accommodation is promised there, be Cæsarea, the next day to Haifa,
where the hotel is being enlarged and put on a thoroughly comfortable
and European basis, and the next day to Nazareth, where good quarters
can be obtained at the convent, but where, if this route comes to be
adopted, a hotel will doubtless shortly be built. As soon as travellers
give up their present expensive habit of travelling through Palestine
with tents, the hotel accommodation will be increased, and the existing
carriage roads, as well as the vehicles which traverse them, be
improved. The government has recently determined to construct a carriage
road along the coast from Acre to Beyrout and Tripoli, which, if it is
carried out, will alter all the existing conditions of travel.
The most striking features of the ruins of Cæsarea are the Crusading
castle and the old Roman mole. The former is built upon a long, narrow
reef or breakwater, partly artificial, which runs out into the sea for
one hundred and sixty yards, forming the southern side of the harbour,
while the northern side is formed by a sort of mole or jetty more than
two hundred feet long, which is composed of some sixty or seventy
prostrate columns lying side by side in the water like rows of stranded
logs. They are from five to twenty feet in length, and average about
eighteen inches in diameter. I never in my life before saw such an array
of granite pillars so closely piled together or used for such a purpose.
Indeed, to judge by those which remain, Cæsarea must have been a city of
columns. The crusaders used them to thorough-bind their walls, from
which the butts project like rows of cannon from the side of a
man-of-war. They must have built many hundreds of old Roman columns thus
into their fortification.
The Crusading wall enclosing the town rises from a moat which is about
forty feet wide, but, being much filled in with rubbish, is not more
than five or six feet deep. The wall itself is about nine feet thick,
with buttresses at intervals which are from thirty to fifty feet long
and project from twenty to twenty-six feet; but it is especially in the
castle and donjon, which is built out into the sea on the projecting
reef, that the columns are used as thorough-bonds. Some of these are of
red granite, others of gray. The Bosnian colonists are perching a _café_
on the ruins of the old donjon, immediately above two magnificent
prostrate columns of red granite, nine feet long and four in diameter. I
observed here also a finely polished block of red granite over six feet
square and three feet six inches thick. There is also a curious double
tessellated pavement, evidently of two periods, as the upper tesseræ are
at least six inches above the lower ones. I am afraid, as the masons are
working immediately above them, they will soon disappear, as will also a
beautiful carved capital in white marble. I scrambled up to the top of
this picturesque ruin, where the rib of the groined roof of the upper
chamber still remains supported on a corbel in the form of a human head,
and looked out of the pointed, arched window sheer down seventy feet on
the sea, beating against the base of the sea wall. The mouth of the
small artificial harbour is about two hundred yards across, but the
latter is too much exposed and too small ever to be of much value.
Among the Roman remains, the hippodrome, the theatre, and the aqueduct
are the most interesting. The first is a sunken level space about three
hundred yards long by one hundred wide, surrounded by a mound, and in
the middle are three truncated blocks of red granite, which, when
standing on each other, must have formed a conical pillar about nine
feet high and seven feet diameter at the base. There is also another
fine block of red granite nearly forty feet long and four feet in
diameter, which has been broken. The theatre is a semicircular building
of masonry in an immense artificial mound, surrounded by a trench near
the sea. It is mentioned by Josephus as capable of containing a large
number of persons. Indeed, the account by this historian of the building
of this city by Herod the Great, which I have just been reading, is most
interesting. It occupied twelve years, and was finished thirteen years
before Christ. He says that the stones of which the sea wall was built
were fifty feet in length, eighteen in breadth, and nine in depth.
For nearly six hundred years it was a Christian city and the seat of an
archbishop, then for five hundred years it fell under Moslem rule, and
an Arab traveller in A.D. 1035 describes it as “an agreeable city,
irrigated with running water and planted with date palms and oranges,
surrounded by a strong wall pierced by an iron gate, and containing a
fine mosque.” Then for one hundred and fifty years it remained a
Crusading stronghold, while its final and complete destruction by the
Sultan Bibars took place in 1265 A.D., since which time it has remained
a howling wilderness. I have dwelt somewhat fully on the present aspect
of the ruins, as the transformation they are undergoing will soon be
complete.
From Cæsarea I followed the coast northward with the high-level
aqueduct, which in places is still in tolerably good preservation, on my
right. This aqueduct was the chief source of the water supply for the
inhabitants. It was eight miles long, and at one point tunnels the rock
for a quarter of a mile, thirty feet below its surface. There was also a
low-level aqueduct, three miles long, which drew its water supply from
the Crocodile River. At some seasons this is a dangerous stream to ford,
though I experienced no difficulty. That it is not misnamed I possess
indisputable proof, for a few weeks ago an Arab acquaintance presented
me with a piece of crocodile skin about a foot square, cut from the hide
of a crocodile which he himself helped to kill in this river. Passing
Tantura, which also contains some Crusading ruins and rock-cut tombs, I
reached the Jewish colony of Zimmarin, which I had not visited for
eighteen months, and where I was pleased to find the colony in a
thriving condition, the colonists hopeful, industrious, and contented,
the crops promising fairly, and their progress only checked by the
refusal of the government to allow them to build permanent dwellings, a
difficulty which it is hoped may be overcome by a judicious display of
firmness and patience.