Daliet-el-Carmel, Oct. 30.—I have been making acquaintance with some of
my neighbours, and will take you with me to call upon what in England
would be called the leading members of the county aristocracy. They are
the blue blood of this region of country, the families which in the
early part of the present century exercised power of life and death, and
supreme control, over the inhabitants for many miles around; who thought
nothing of calling out their retainers and resisting the constituted
authority, whether it was that exercised by the various pachas of Acre,
who, though nominally Turkish governors, were themselves
quasi-independent, or the more iron rule of the Egyptian conqueror,
Ibrahim Pacha, to which, however, they were eventually forced to
succumb.
One of these families lives at a village about two hours' ride from
here. In response to a letter couched in the most flowery Oriental
hyperbole, in which my rank is exalted, my virtues are exaggerated, and
the beneficent warmth which my presence is supposed to radiate is dwelt
upon, I determine to shed it upon the writer of the letter; in other
words, to pay him a visit in the gardens to which he has invited me. Our
way lies down a wild, romantic gorge which leads to a valley situated
among the lower spurs of Carmel, beyond the confines of the mountain
proper, where the country is broken up by volcanic action into chasms
and precipices, well adapted for defensive purposes, and admirably
calculated to be the stronghold of a not over-scrupulous tribal chief.
The village itself is situated upon a high conical mound, rising some
three hundred feet above the plain; and towering above the surrounding
houses is the high, two-storied, half-castellated mansion. It is not
thither that I am at present bound, but to a narrow valley about a mile
distant from it, which is wedged in between frowning precipices, and is
a bright green strip, in delightful contrast to the gray, overhanging
crags, for it is a dense mass of orange, lemon, fig, pomegranate, olive,
quince, and other fruit-trees, the result of a crystal fountain which
gushes from the rock and fertilizes this fairy-like scene.
These are the summer gardens of my host, and from them, as he sees me
approach, he issues, with several of his retainers, and leads me to an
arbour of overhanging trees, whose dense foliage forms an impenetrable
shade against the noonday sun. Here carpets have been spread, cushions
arranged, narghiles and coffee have been prepared, and the circle is
formed and the compliments interchanged which are the invariable prelude
to an Eastern entertainment. Soon appear, on prancing horses, a
picturesque group of men in white flowing _abbayes_, or transparent
summer robes, which flutter gracefully in the wind. They are richly
embroidered, and the horses are gayly comparisoned; these are the
brothers, nephews, and other members of my host's family. One of them is
a holy man, who has studied theology in the celebrated seat of Moslem
learning, the College of El-Ahzar, in Cairo, and he is much respected
and looked up to in consequence.
Knowing that I cannot introduce a more grateful topic, and anxious to
stave off as long as possible the financial one, which I suspect is in
the background, I ask the dignified group of narghile smokers by which I
am surrounded to tell me something of their family history. About four
hundred years ago, they say, their ancestors came from the Hedjaz, being
a branch of the tribe of Beni Ab Arabs, whose home were the deserts near
Mecca, and who were closely related to the family of Mohammed. It is
this ancestral connection with the Prophet which has always given the
family the great prestige and consideration which it has enjoyed. In
those days they came into the country as conquerors, and, settling
themselves in their present village, soon reduced the surrounding
district to subjection, and continued to rule it, nominally subject to
the Pacha of Acre, but really independently, until the invasion of
Palestine by Ibrahim Pacha, when, after a sturdy resistance, they were
overcome, and the grandfather of my host was executed and the greater
part of their lands taken from them. From that time the fortunes of the
family began to decline. On the restoration of the country to the
sultan, by means of the intervention of England, they derived no
benefit. The Turkish government took care not to re-establish an
influence which in former times had proved so formidable, and, indeed,
one of my hosts had spent two years in prison. Some say it was because
he had manifested a spirit of too great independence, but others allege
that it was for the more prosaic reason of an inability or refusal to
pay his debts.
At all events, when the money-lending question came up, not then, but on
the occasion of a return visit which they afterwards paid me, I was
assured by those who ought to know that my picturesque, hospitable,
dignified, and aristocratic hosts were—well, I won't exactly repeat what
it was said they were, but they were not just the kind of people that
one would select to lend money to. This grieved me exceedingly, not
because I wanted to lend them any, but because they were such gentlemen;
in fact, I have been there since, and been very royally entertained in
the old castle—where the guests' room is gorgeously furnished, for this
part of the world—in order to make my peace for not lending them money;
for it is considered an insult, after you have been a man's guest and he
asks you to accommodate him financially, if you refuse—which is
perplexing when he has no satisfactory security to offer. Now, I want to
keep on good terms with this powerful and fascinating and somewhat
scampish family without losing my money to them, and the problem I am
engaged in solving is how to do it. I have a horrible suspicion that it
will yet be solved rather to their satisfaction than to mine.
Under these circumstances, paying aristocratic visits does not seem
likely to be an altogether profitable occupation; but they are not
always attended with embarrassments of this nature. I have other
aristocratic friends, who live about five hours distant from here. They
are also originally from the Hedjaz; they also claim kinship with the
Prophet, and they also once ruled a large tract of country. In fact, the
two families divided the whole of this country between them, and their
history has been almost identical.
My visit to this family was in some respects highly characteristic. My
way led across the Ruhah, or “Breezy-land,” across open, rolling downs,
fairly watered, and covered with the remains of what was once a
magnificent oak forest. The trees are now dotted singly over it, in
park-like fashion. The village itself was beautifully situated at an
elevation of about seven hundred feet above the sea, on the side of a
thickly wooded mountain, twelve hundred feet high. On this occasion my
host, who came out to meet me, led me to an elevated platform in front
of the village mosque, an unusually imposing edifice. Here, under the
shade of a spreading mulberry-tree, were collected seven brothers, who
represented the family, and about fifty other members of it. They were
in the act of prayer when I arrived—indeed, they are renowned for their
piety. Along the front of the terrace was a row of water-bottles for
ablutions, behind them mats on which the praying was going forward, and
behind the worshippers a confused mass of slippers. When they had done
praying, they all got into their slippers. It was a marvel to me how
each knew his own.
They led me to what I supposed was a place of honour, where soft
coverlets had been spread near the door of the mosque. We formed the
usual squatting circle, and were sipping coffee, when suddenly every one
started to his feet; a dark, active little man seemed to dart into the
midst of us. Everybody struggled frantically to kiss his hand, and he
passed through us like a flash to the other end of the platform,
followed by a tall negro, whose hand everybody, including my
aristocratic host, seemed also anxious to kiss. I had not recovered from
my astonishment at this proceeding, when I received a message from the
new-comer to take a place by his side. I now found that he was on the
seat of honour, and it became a question, until I knew who he was,
whether I should admit his right to invite me to it, thus acknowledging
his superiority in rank—etiquette in these matters being a point which
has to be attended to in the East, however absurd it may seem among
ourselves. I therefore for the moment ignored his invitation, and asked
my host, in an off-hand way, who he was. He informed me that he was a
mollah, held in the highest consideration for his learning and piety all
through the country, upon which he, in fact, levied a sort of religious
tax; that he was here on a visit, and that in his own home he was in the
habit of entertaining two hundred guests a night, no one being refused
hospitality. His father was a dervish, celebrated for his miraculous
powers, and the mantle thereof had fallen upon the negro, who had been
his servant, and who also was much venerated, because it was his habit
to go to sleep in the mosque, and be spirited away, no one knew whither,
in the night; in fact, he could become invisible almost at will.
Under these circumstances, and seeing that I should seriously embarrass
my host if I stood any longer on my dignity, I determined to waive it,
and joined the saint. He received me with supercilious condescension,
and we exchanged compliments till dinner was announced, when my host
asked whether I wished to dine alone or with the world at large. As the
saint had been too patronizing to be strictly polite, I thought I would
assert my right to be exclusive, and said I would dine alone, on which
he, with a polite sneer, remarked that it would be better so, as he had
an objection to eating with any one who drank wine, to which I retorted
that I had an equal objection to dining with those who ate with their
fingers. From this it will appear that my relations with the holy man
were getting somewhat strained.
I was, therefore, supplied with a pyramid of rice and six or seven
elaborately cooked dishes all to myself, and squatted on one mat, while
a few yards off the saint, my host, and all his brothers squatted on
another. When they had finished their repast their places were occupied
by others, and I counted altogether more than fifty persons feeding on
the mosque terrace at my host's expense. Dinner over, they all trooped
in to pray, and I listened to the monotonous chanting of the Koran till
it was time to go to bed. My host offered me a mat in the mosque, where
I should have a chance of seeing the miraculous disappearance of the
negro; but as I had no faith in this, and a great deal in the snoring by
which I should be disturbed, I slept in a room apart, as exclusively as
I had dined.
I was surprised next morning to observe a total change in the saint's
demeanour. All the supercilious pride of the previous evening had
vanished, and we soon became most amiable to each other. That he was a
fanatic hater of the Giaour I felt no doubt, but for some reason he had
deemed it politic to adopt an entirely altered demeanour. It was another
illustration of the somewhat painful lesson which one has to learn in
one's intercourse with Orientals. They must never be allowed to
outswagger you.