Haifa, March 15.—There is no part of ancient Palestine which offers a
more fertile field for antiquarian research than that portion lying to
the east of the Jordan, which fell to the share of the half-tribe of
Manasseh. In Biblical times a part of it was called Golan, and its
modern name of Jaulan is almost identical with its ancient appellation.
It is to this day the finest grazing land in all Palestine, as it was in
the days of old, when Job fed his vast flocks and herds upon its more
eastern pastures, but it is now very sparsely inhabited. The sedentary
population has all been driven away by the wandering tribes of Bedouins
who have appropriated the country; the very few villages that remain are
squalid and miserable, and the inhabitants live in terror for their
lives, for they never know what day, or rather night, the Arabs may not
be down upon them, and carry off their stock. They surround their
houses, therefore, with large yards enclosed by stone walls, and it was
in one of these that I found a lodging on the night that I had so nearly
been obliged to spend in the wilds of the Wady Samak. Attached to these
yards are large stone vaults, capable of containing great herds of
cattle, and some of them apparently of great antiquity. In the one in
which I staked my horses I found, on examining it in the morning, part
of a Corinthian column, still _in situ_, standing to a height of about
six feet. I failed to discover any more, but the vault was so dark that
my examination was carried on with difficulty, and I had no time to
spend over it. The sheik's house in which I lodged, and to which this
vault belonged, was evidently, however, built on the site of what had
formerly been a building of some importance, for in the yard, to my
surprise and delight, I came upon a prostrate statue of a woman, life
size. The head was severed from the body, and the feet had been broken
off at the ankles, but it was a fine specimen of Greek statuary. Both
the features and the drapery were beautifully executed. The feet I found
_in situ_, the ankles just appearing on a level with the ground. On
clearing this away I laid bare the feet, which were still firmly fixed
on the original pedestal, which it would have required a great deal of
labour to disinter. It is not improbable that the pedestal is covered
with carving in _basso-rilievo_, and I promise myself at some future
time to dig it up. In the meantime both feet and pedestal cannot be
safer than where they are, more especially as my companions secured the
head. This the sheik was induced to part with for $3. The body was too
cumbersome to carry away now, as a camel would have been needed for its
transport, and, as it is not of much value without the head, it may be
considered secured by the possession of that portion.
The statue apparently represented Artemis, as the left arm clasped what
seemed to be a quiver for arrows. The right arm was unfortunately broken
away, otherwise the statue would be perfect when put together. The
pedestal, without doubt, contains an inscription describing the statue
and the goddess represented upon it. I was sorely tempted to devote a
day to its examination, but, in that case, I should have been compelled
to give up visiting some other spots of interest which had never before
been investigated, and the hardships and discomforts of these
preliminary dashes into the wilds, more especially in the depth of
winter, are so great that one is not tempted to prolong them—my present
object being rather to know where to go at some future time, when the
conditions, political and otherwise, may be more favourable than they
are now. I therefore did not linger longer than was absolutely necessary
at this place. I had seen enough to prove to me that it would, in all
probability, amply repay a fuller investigation, and I determined
without delay to push on to a village called Khisfin, which I was
extremely anxious to examine, as it has hitherto escaped the careful
attention of all former travellers. And yet, from the records which I
have been able to examine in regard to it, it must have been a place of
considerable importance in mediæval history, though hitherto my efforts
to trace it back to an earlier date than the beginning of the tenth
century or to identify it with any Biblical site have been in vain.
Yakubi, an Arab geographer, who lived about the year 900 A.D., mentions
it as one of the chief towns of the province of the Jordan. In his day
Syria was divided into three provinces, namely: The province of
Damascus, the province of the Jordan, and the province of Palestine.
Yakut, in the thirteenth century, mentions it as a town of the Hauran
district, below Nawa on the Damascus road, between Nawa and the Jordan.
Khisfin was also at one time a fortress of the Saracens, as it is
further mentioned as the place to which Al Melek Al Adil, Saladin's son
and successor, fled after having been routed at the battle of Beisan by
the Crusaders, who advanced upon him from Acre. As it is mentioned as
being one of the chief towns of the province, so long ago as 900 A.D.,
it is probable that its importance dates from a much older period, as
indeed was indicated by some of the ornamentation which I found there.
Securing my host, the sheik, as a guide to a locality which promised to
be so full of interest, we started at a brisk pace across the plateau,
in the teeth of a bitterly cold east wind and driving sleet, and, after
riding an hour, came to the ruins of Nab, situated on a small mound.
They consist of blocks of basalt building-stone, some traces of
foundations, some fragments of columns and capitals, and a tank, dry at
the time of my visit, but which evidently held water at some time of the
year. It had, apparently, been much deeper at a former period, only the
two upper courses of masonry being new visible. It was oval in shape,
and measured sixty yards by thirty. This place does not appear to have
been previously visited or described. Shortly after leaving it I
observed masses of black stone, which, on nearer approach, proved to be
the walls of a fortress that, my guide told me, was Khisfin itself. It
loomed strikingly up from the grassy plain, and gave rise to pleasing
anticipations as I galloped impatiently up to the base of the walls,
and, jumping off my horse without even waiting to tether him, in my
excitement, scrambled up a breach to see what was inside. I looked down
upon a ruin-strewn area, but, alas, no columns, nor capitals, nor signs
of Roman remains. This had evidently been in turn a Saracen and a
Crusading construction. The outer walls measured sixty-eight yards one
way by fifty-four the other. They are nine feet in thickness, and are
eight courses of stone in height, the stones being from one foot to one
foot six inches square; but some are much larger. Within the fort are
the traces of a second or inner wall, forming a sort of keep in the
centre; but the whole area was too much encumbered with ruin for any
accurate plan to be possible in the limited time at my disposal.
A little beyond the fort stood the village itself. All the intervening
and surrounding fields were thickly strewn with the large hewn blocks of
black basalt of which the houses of the former population had been
constructed, and which, to judge from the area which they covered, quite
justified the description of Yakubi, that in his day this was one of the
chief towns of the province, and the centre of a very large population.
The present squalid inhabitants, few in number, seemed to live in a
perfect quarry of these old building-blocks. No difficulty had they in
finding material wherewith to build their houses, their large cattle
vaults, and enclosing yards. They simply piled the tumbled masses of
stone in a little more regular order, one above another, to make walls
of any height or thickness they chose, without mortar or cement, and had
houses that would last forever. As all the stones were beautifully
squared and shaped, they had far more symmetrical walls, thanks to the
ancients, than if they had been left to themselves. These black, massive
huts all jumbled together with their vaults and yards, without regular
streets or lanes, formed one of the strangest looking villages I ever
saw. In some cases the walls were formed of stones placed diagonally, in
others horizontally, in others perpendicularly. The very roofs were of
stone, with earth on the top of them to fill up the cracks. Where hewn
stone is so abundant and wood almost impossible to obtain, it is
astonishing what uses the former can be put to. And now came a search
which I would willingly have protracted over days instead of over
minutes, which were all I had to give to it. To “do” Khisfin thoroughly
one ought to examine carefully every stone in every house, besides the
acres of stones by which the present village is surrounded. As it was, I
went into as many houses as I had time for, and made sketches of what
ornamentation I found. The natives had evidently used as lintels for
their doorways the stones which had served the ancients for the same
purpose. These were usually four or even five feet long, and many of
them were ornamented with curious devices. They were in part Crusading
and in part Saracenic. There were the tablets with half-effaced
escutcheons, rosettes, bosses, crosses, and other Crusading emblems,
which left no doubt in my mind that this must have been at one time an
important Crusading fortress, though in the only book relating to the
crusades which I happen to have by me no mention is made of it. There
were several of those curious carvings, difficult to describe, which
characterize Saracenic architecture as an evidence that the Moslem
conquerors of the crusaders had also had a hand in its adornment; but
what was more interesting, there were floral wreaths and carved devices
which are a feature in Byzantine art, which gave clear evidence that
before the conquest of this province from the Byzantine empire in the
seventh century it had been an important city of that civilization which
immediately succeeded the Roman.
The important question which I could not determine was whether, in the
old Roman times, it had been a place of note. There can be little doubt
that a future examination, of a more minute character than I was able to
give, would determine this point, and it is not at all impossible that
upon the old stones might be found seven-branched candlesticks, pots of
manna, or emblems of a still older date, which would carry it back to
Jewish times. Meanwhile I looked anxiously, but in vain, for an
inscription which might throw some light on the subject, and it is
certain that amid such a mass of ruin such are to be found. All my
inquiries for old coins only tended to alarm the villagers, who looked
on my proceedings with their usual suspicion, and associated my visit
and my desire for old money with their taxes, which is the only idea
that the fellah of Palestine seems able to connect with the visit of a
prying and inquisitive stranger. The whole of the country which
surrounds Khisfin is susceptible of the highest degree of cultivation;
the land is eminently fertile and almost a dead level, capable of
producing abundant crops, if there were any people to cultivate it. As
it is, it is allowed to run to waste. It affords pasture to their
flocks, but these are scanty, through fear of the Arabs, and the people,
unable to rely upon the government for protection, and, indeed, being
only aware that there is a government through its tax-gatherers, are
sullen and suspicious and discouraged, and utterly without energy to do
more than provide themselves with the barest necessaries of life.