STEPPING EASTWARD
"The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind all gloomy to behold;
And stepping _eastward_ seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny."
W. WORDSWORTH
The Jericho hotels were closed for the season, but with the connivance
of the negro caretaker and of an Arab in charge of the adjoining
orange-gardens we obtained entrance at one, and managed to provide
ourselves with firing and an excellent supper, and, subsequently, with
beds. The Lady, who alone of the party carried a watch, heard the negro
awakening the Professor next morning with the information that it was
three o'clock, and added greatly to her popularity by being in a
position to call out an assurance that it was only one, and that two
hours' further repose was permissible. The building, it should be
mentioned, being constructed mainly of wood and of mud bricks was well
adapted for distant conversation.
Three o'clock, however, duly arrived, all too soon, and by four o'clock
we had breakfasted and were on our way across the sandy plain which
stretches for about two hours between Jericho and the Jordan. A few
faint streaks in the east promised the coming day, but it was still so
dark that our horses required all our attention, as the plain is full of
holes; twice over a silver gleam ahead warned us of fords to be crossed,
and from time to time dark masses rose up before us, and those riding in
advance called to the others to avoid the spreading branches of the
jujube-tree, _zizyphus lotus_ and _zizyphus spina Christi_, called by
the Arabs _nebk_ and _sidr_, which are the octopods of vegetable life,
sending out long tentacles armed with fierce thorns, capable of
subtracting your head-gear, entering your saddle, and imprisoning your
horse.
The ride across the plain of Jordan, interesting at any time to persons
of imagination, was unspeakably weird and suggestive in the morning
twilight, but we differed as to whether the world in which we found
ourselves was one in course of construction or of disintegration. Some
of us were of opinion that the giant sand-hills—a labyrinth of marl and
salt deposit, worn by winds and washed by winter torrents, an old sea
bottom—which crumble at a touch, and which resemble castles, churches,
towers, domes, minarets, whole towns of every variety of architecture,
suggested an artist's dream of a world to be; while others maintained
that they were the images, in the mind of a philosopher, dwelling upon
the past. There was no limit to the tricks which fancy might play in
such surroundings, a nearer _fata morgana_; a dream materialised as it
created itself; a poem precipitated as it was sung: castles in Spain in
which each of us saw some reminder of his personal aspirations: the land
of By-and-by; the ruins of Yesterday; the house of Never, according to
our individual temperament and faculty.
Riding was not very rapid during the first hour and more, so that it was
nearly seven o'clock when we reached the Jordan bridge—the Rubicon
between Palestine and Moab, an exceedingly rickety wooden structure, of
which the only effective part is the door at either end, designed for
the enforcement of backsheesh. The river is embowered in trees, a
variety of willow known as the _safsaf_, various acacias, the
_farnesiana_, not yet filling the air with its delicious scent, the
_tortilis_, and _seyal_—with the long spines, which are found even on
many plants innocent as lambs elsewhere, but fully armed in this land of
thorns and thistles—the _zakkum_, resembling a large box-tree, also
provided with strong thorns, the inevitable jujube _zizyphus_, the
crimson-flowered oleander, which is as seldom out of blossom as is the
gorse on our English moors, above all, the Jordan tamarisk, inseparable
in one's memory from this river and its surroundings, green, graceful,
and, in comparison with its many-armed and aggressive neighbours, gentle
and friendly.
We had plenty of leisure to observe these details, for our arrangements
with the guardians of the bridge involved not only inquiry, discussion,
and the gratification of considerable curiosity but also consumption of
coffee and distribution of backsheesh. The scene about us was animated
and full of variety. The bridge may not be crossed before sunrise, and
our arrival was timely, for types of the whole desert population seemed
to have just arrived, and were pausing to reorganise their caravans. A
group of fellahin, the agricultural labourers of the country, were
bargaining with the Bedu, whose lands they are employed to cultivate at
a wage of one-third of the profits, for the Bedu toil not neither do
they spin. They are the sons of the desert, freedom is their birthright,
and the fellah, compared with them, is as the "linnet born within the
cage" to one who has always "known the summer woods." With his scanty
white robe, his black head-cloth or keffeeye, his huge akal of camels'
hair, he is probably not less ragged than the blue-robed fellah, but he
has an air of indescribable dignity. Utterly independent of his
surroundings, he is as unaffected by hunger or the absence of all the
necessaries of life, as a Highland chief, and, like him, is proud not of
the mere outside conditions of life but, literally, of the blood in his
veins. "I suppose you are descended from Abraham?" someone remarked to
an old Bedawin of this district.
"Oh no; Abraham was not at all of good family," he replied.
The Circassians, too, are there, with wide-skirted coats and astrachan
caps; the Turcomans, with flashes of scarlet and yellow where Arabs
would be wearing white or blue—to say nothing of certain Government
officials, savouring of town life, in tarbush and European boots.
Various animals of the desert are there: camels that are graceful and
asses that are intelligent; horses with the manes and tails which Nature
intended for them; stallions of the fellahin and mares of the Bedu; oxen
and goats and sheep and, as link with the wilder creatures, the pariah
dog and the feral cat. There is a whole armoury of weapons, mostly of
the kind adapted for a provincial museum, from a matchlock to a modern
breech-loader, from a two-edged dagger to a cavalry sabre, from a
horn-handled kitchen knife to the dainty instrument with which, with
some futility, one of the party is manicuring his nails.
We begin to realise that we have said goodbye not only to roads, and
sheets and tablecloths, but almost to humanity, for it seems as if the
entire population were leaving the country towards which our faces are
set. There is shouting in half-a-dozen languages—our own little party
habitually provides five—there is the utter disorder combined with the
perfect courtesy, which contrasts so strongly with the general order and
personal indifference, of what we of the West suppose to be a higher
civilisation.
The Lady showed her sense of the new order of things by betaking herself
to a second stirrup; for, when you have to hang on to precipices by your
eyelids, climb pathless mountains in the dark, descend over solid rock,
slippery and defenceless, or over shale which disappears beneath your
horse's feet; when you may expect to be ten, twelve, or even fourteen
hours a day in the saddle—and such a saddle as one is likely to obtain
in the East—a Hyde Park seat does not afford all the security and
convenience which anxious friends can desire. There was not enough
leather in our outfit to go round, and as that second stirrup hung on by
a piece of string it afforded an excellent measure of temperature,
distance, and individual mood. "When in doubt" upon any question—if
someone were desperate for a halt, when the party became scattered and
consequent waiting provided a few odd minutes of spare time, when
conversation failed or anyone were aching for occupation, if any member
of the party had a sudden access of politeness and wished to exhibit
interest or pay a little attention to the suddenly-remembered female
sex—there was always that second stirrup to fall back upon. In the
morning the string had lengthened with the night-dews, but as the day
went on and each cavalier had added an attentive knot, the rider would
allege that she had become as lopsided as a London milkwoman. By-and-by
the knots tautened, the perpetual pull of a thousand feet of ascent or
descent, as the case might be, strained the string to its utmost, and
the stirrup became inaccessible; after dusk she was suspected of
dispensing with it altogether. The whole position was an excellent
illustration of the misfit of the privileges claimed as "women's
rights!" Nevertheless, it said something for the worth of the
compromise, that she never once dismounted on account of the nature of
the ground, that she brought home her animal with sound knees, that both
horse and rider came back as fresh as they started, and that the company
were loud in declaring that their patience was unexhausted and that they
were ready, if any shred survived, to begin operations again upon that
string to-morrow.
The Professor and the Lady had both changed horses; he for one which,
however much elated by his position, could yet be induced to behave
discreetly in the neighbourhood of the Bedawi mare; she for one which,
although incapable of the much-vaunted _rahwân_, could nevertheless be
kept within such bounds as befitted ascent of pathless precipices, and
progress over the dry beds of mountain streams. It was probably owing to
the superior lightness of the burden he had to carry that her new steed,
Sadowi, a light-limbed grey, was, like his predecessor, generally ahead
of all the party. The Professor's long-legged mount and the active
wide-flanked slender-headed mare of the officer, were of course the
official leaders of the expedition, and the Lady did her utmost to
sustain a modest retirement into the background. But her task was not
easy, not only because of the personal ambitions of Sadowi, but on
account of certain human vices on the part of the Professor's horse, for
which the usual _cherchez la femme_ was the occasion. The Bedawy beauty,
with whom he carried on an active flirtation, was, on Oriental
principles, _haram_ (forbidden) to anyone else, and he refused to
tolerate the neighbourhood of any other horse, looking round perpetually
with an evil expression of suspicion and hatred, worthy only of his
human superiors. When Sadowi passed him he turned aside to bite him in
the act; when the Lady succeeded in keeping in the rear he kicked out at
irregular intervals, on the chance of the proximity of his rival.
The coffee served to us pending our arrangements at the Jordan
bridge was more than welcome, for we had almost forgotten our
half-past-three-o'clock breakfast, and the feast of the eye ceased,
after a time, to suffice the appetite. Some of us had built our hopes on
private stores of chocolate; but chocolate, in the East, even in
October, has its drawback, from a tendency to trickle out of the corners
of one's pockets in tell-tale streams which are not appetising. The
humble peppermint, of the quality stamped "Extra Strong," reminiscent of
the smell of afternoon church in the country, may rather be recommended,
as allaying both hunger and thirst, the latter probably by stimulus of
the salivary gland. Meat lozenges and other devices of the amateur
traveller share the fate of the chocolate; bread becomes rusk and, like
biscuit, is provocative of thirst; raisins, except of the kind which at
home we dedicate to puddings, are, strange to say, unknown; and figs and
dates with no water to wash them in, are—here where we know their
antecedents—for most of us out of the question. One of our mukaris went
about with a necklace of figs threaded on a string, from which he
subtracted as occasion suggested. He had learned the art of the
simplification of life: he drank almost anything that was wet, ate as
has been described, never, so far as was known, undressed, and slept
anywhere except, apparently, in a bed, but for choice on the top of one
of the baggage animals whenever the road in any degree approached the
horizontal. His only luxury was his water-pipe, which he produced at
every moment of leisure, trusting to his companion to keep it alight
without any unnecessary expenditure of _tombak_, the special tobacco
used for the narghile, whenever duty called him away. He was to such a
degree a man of resource and expedient that a story which the Professor
told us, though, as a matter of fact, observed elsewhere, might just as
well have been applied to him. Some mukari in the Professor's employ had
also a water-pipe, but seems to have been fastidious, which Khalil was
not, and on one occasion was seen looking around for something which
might be conveniently inserted into the bottle-shaped vase which holds
the water, and in which a ring of scum had formed upon the glass. His
eye fell upon a neighbouring donkey. He seized the beast's tail, twisted
it into a convenient bottle brush, performed the required ablution, and
returned it to the astonished owner, who, however, with the usual
intelligence of the Palestine ass, made no remark upon the subject.
In Syria the greatest difficulty in locomotion, except backsheesh, for
which it is the pretext, is quarantine. It is easy enough to cross the
Jordan bridge eastward on payment of a toll of three piasters (about
7d.), for man and beast, but it may not be so easy to get back again, as
quarantine may be imposed at any hour, and may last for any length of
time. It was necessary, therefore, to make it clear to the official mind
that, by special favour, we were to be allowed to return without let or
hindrance, whatever might have occurred in the interval. That, in the
name of Allah, would be as Allah and certain exalted persons willed, we
were piously assured, and finally, with much hand-shaking and
invocation—May peace go with you! May your path be broad! May your day
be blessed!—the gates were opened, and in a few minutes we were east of
the River Jordan, which in the rainy season is at least one hundred feet
wide, but was now only one-third of that distance.
A plain some four or five hours broad—for here all measurement is by
time, at the rate of three or four miles an hour, according to the
nature of the country—lay between us and the foot of the hills, although
during all the months we had looked longingly at them from the hills of
Judæa they had seemed to rise almost perpendicularly from the banks of
the Jordan and of the Dead Sea.
Our destination before nightfall was Madaba, which lies 2940 feet above
sea level. Starting from the valley of the Dead Sea, 1292 feet below the
Mediterranean, and with the wide plain of the Jordan valley to cross
before the ascent could begin, it was evident we must reserve our force
for the precipitous climb of over 4000 feet which awaited us, and we
accordingly kept our horses in check, although the sandy plain offered
temptation for a canter. We had abundance of interest. The Sportsmen
hardly expected to meet with the lions which formerly infested the
thickets of the Jordan, but traces of wild boar might be looked for,
also hyænas, jackals, and foxes (which it is considered legitimate to
_shoot_) both the desert fox, _canis niloticus_, and the _canis
variegatus_, smaller than the English fox, with a grey back, black
breast, and a large bushy tail. Cheetahs are occasionally found in the
district we were approaching, the wild cat, _felis caligata_, though
rare, is not unknown, of gazelles we should doubtless see plenty in the
mountains, the ibex, with huge horns, might be expected among the rocks
of the highest points; and the sight of a wolf was not wholly
impossible. However, the immediate expectation, considering the hour,
the place, and the sounds which accompanied our cavalcade—for nothing
short of personal danger can silence an Arab—was rather of bird than of
beast. The first prize in the mind of the Sportsmen was the francolin,
much valued in Syria as a pot-shot. It is something between a pheasant
and a partridge, of dark grey plumage, very strong both to run and fly,
and with a powerful call. Partridges, too, came within their ambitions,
and the partridge of Syria is indeed game worth the powder. Down here,
in the plains, the Hey's partridge, _ammoperdix heyi_, with its delicate
plumage, a soft grey touched with richest blue, is the most common; but
as we advance the larger Greek partridge, the _caccabis saxatilis_,
awaits us, among the rocks and boulders of the mountain passes. Pigeons
and sand-grouse, and the large Indian turtle-dove, _turtur risorius_,
were abundant, but the wedge-tailed raven, _corvus affinis_, with his
whistling cry and jackdaw-like air of gaiety, did not show until we
reached the cliffs of a higher district.
The Lady openly exulted in the lack of accessible game, and grudged even
the occasional shots fired, as disturbing to the smaller creatures in
which she found delight—the grakle, the blackbird with orange under
wings with whom we had already made friends by the brook Cherith, whose
bell-like note sounded from tree to tree, the dainty sun-bird, _cinnyris
oseæ_, whose metallic sheen flashed in and out of the tamarisk-trees,
the delicate—hued Moabite sparrow, the aristocrat of his family, who ran
up reeds and tree trunks like the familiar tits at home. We were too
early to see the flights of birds of passage on their way south to
warmer climes, and which, before and after the winter months, pause in
the thickets of the Jordan basin, and fill the air with music, which
includes the notes of the cuckoo and the nightingale, and recalls,
however irrelevantly, Browning's "Oh, to be in England, now that April's
here!" We had hoped to see the busy little jerboa, a jumping mouse with
long hind legs, like a microscopic kangaroo, but circumstances were, for
the present, against us, chiefly the noise of our cavalcade. He is a
friendly little beast, and easily tamed, and though familiar with him in
confinement we should have liked to see him under happier conditions.
We could not have happened on a more unfortunate season for flowers; the
wonderful flora of the Jordan valley was now at rest, and even the
autumn squills, the delicate muscari, and a few lingering silenae had
been left behind on the higher ground the other side of Jericho. The
only feast of colour was the oleander, familiar to most of us as a
greenhouse shrub, and which here rose with its rich crimson or pure
white flowers, single or double, wherever a little water remained to
keep the earth moist about its roots. We speculated as to what might be
its nearest cousin in our northern latitudes, and the wildest guesses
were made, including the rhododendron, mezereum, daphne, and syringa,
but no one thought of the familiar periwinkle, with its shining trails
and sapphire blooms, in habit and appearance so utterly dissimilar, but
which also belongs to the family of _apocynacea_, or dog-bane. In spite
of its rich colouring and welcome beauty, the oleander bush is highly
poisonous, affecting even the water in which it grows. A story is told
of some French soldiers in the Peninsular War who utilised some of its
twigs to serve as spits for roasting meat, with the result that seven
out of twelve who ate of it shortly died.
We knew better than to expect to find "Jericho roses" in the Jericho
district, although this curious and interesting crucifer _anastatica_
exists in considerable quantities about Masada, towards Engedi, some
twenty hours south. It is an annual, and its curious blossoms are formed
in the spring. We found, however, many specimens of the Dead Sea fruit,
though still green and unripe. It is an asclepiad, _calotropis procera_,
called by the Arabs _oshr_, and is strictly subtropical. The fruit, the
"apple of Sodom" of Josephus, has an inflated, leathery skin, which,
when crushed, leaves in the hand only fibres and bits of rind. The stalk
has a strong milky juice. The name is also given to the _solanum
sanctum_, of the family of the potato, which also resembles an apple,
and is red, with black seeds.
Tristram has happily described the high lands above the Jordan valley as
a "watershed ... the fruitful mother of many infant wadys," a _wady_
being a river bed, and as we made our way along the Wady Heshban, almost
due east, turning southward later in the day, we had glimpses of many of
these glens, and we even forded a couple of streams on their way down to
the Jordan before, towards noon, we found ourselves at the foot of the
mountains. A clear running stream, a little grove of trees, were a
temptation not to be resisted. In a moment we were off our horses,
although, unfortunately, not in time to prevent the baggage animals—left
for an instant by the mukaris, who hastened to receive our weary
steeds—from refreshing themselves in their own fashion, by a roll in the
cool water, oblivious of their encumbrances, or, possibly, possessed of
some vague notion of debarrassing themselves of a superfluity. They had
been travelling between seven and eight hours, and for the last two in
intense heat, not only overhead but, from radiation of the light sandy
soil, underfoot. We could not feel angry with them, and all cheerfully
helped the Lady to hang her entire wardrobe and personal belongings upon
the projecting branches of the jujube-trees, useful for once, as it was
her saddle-bags which had suffered most, although a supply of cake,
gingerbread, and chocolate was reduced to a condition uneatable by any
but the mukaris, who considered the incident an acceptable dispensation
of Providence, or, in their own phrase, _maktoub_—"it is decreed."
A few Bedu under the farther trees were the first human beings we had
met since leaving Jericho except some camel-drivers who, silent and
statuesque, their flocks of many scores of stately camels equally silent
and pictorial, had seemed rather to be a part of the landscape than to
have any human relation with ourselves. One of the group came forward,
and greeted us in such fluent German that we at first took him for some
agricultural speculator buying seed or seeking labourers from among the
fellahin; for the agriculture—that is the organised, not to say
scientific, agriculture of Palestine—is practically in the hands of
Germans and Jews. However, he turned out to be a native, educated at one
of the many German schools of Jerusalem, or elsewhere, at one time an
employé of the Austrian post office, on his way, alone, with a dagger
and a revolver for sole companions, to visit some property at Madaba. On
hearing that this was our destination he begged permission to join our
cavalcade, which the Professor readily granted, as the remaining
journey, among the mountains, was especially solitary. We were very
grateful for coffee and an excellent lunch of sausage, potted meat, and
jam, with white bread, brought from Jerusalem, the last European bread
we were likely to see. We ate our dainties with some sense of guilt, and
a shamefaced sensation of geographical and historical anachronism, as
the Professor, without waiting for our feast to be unpacked and spread,
produced from some secret recess three parcels, one of which was laid
aside for the moment, though with a promissory glance at the Lady, which
she knew denoted instruction in view. The other two proved to be bags,
one containing dates, the other figs, "Dates and figs," we were
informed, "were the natural food of desert wanderers, sufficing to the
body, stimulating to the mind; the wheat, the flesh, above all the
alcohol, of civilisation, were mere irrelevancies." Here some of us
sought to conceal our sandwiches and withdraw our anticipations from
private flasks. "Was it not diet such as this," and he waved a pair of
sensitive hands over his ascetic larder, "which had enabled him to reply
to the inquiry of a Personage as to how many hours a day he could ride
in the desert—'Twenty-four, your Majesty, since the day does not contain
twenty-five, and a man will endure anything for the sake of his
miserable life'? For was it not on a diet of figs and dates that he had
ridden sixty hours without dismounting, resting only for two hours, when
he dropped out of the saddle, just one hour's ride from friends and
safety? Was it your meat-eater, your wine-drinker, who remained sound
and wholesome when necessity obliged him to refrain from ablution for
twenty-one days? 'If a man must be a pig or die of thirst, your
Majesty,' he had submitted to the Personage in question, 'will he not
rather be a pig?' a sentiment with which even royalty heartily
concurred." At this point he carefully counted his date stones, observed
that two more were yet due to his appetite, and, having finished his
frugal luncheon, drew from the saddle-bag deposited beside him his
native pipe, some eighteen inches long, of which the clay head and
wooden stem were carefully and separately wrapped in paper, filled it
with strong tobacco, and lighted it with a mysterious paper match, laid
atop, which smouldered for a perceptible time, and set fire to the
precious fuel. Someone, anxious, perhaps, for the just distribution of
human praise and blame, unwisely murmured that "tobacco was a luxury."
The Professor withdrew his pipe to describe the less costly "smokes" of
desert life. The paths across the desert of Central Arabia have been the
same, probably, since the earliest ages. Man, camel-mounted, with the
same dress, food, purpose, habits, has crossed those golden sands for
æons as, and where, he crosses them now. The living of to-day are
treading the dust of yesterday, and amid that dust we may look not only
for bleached bones and hypophosphates, but even for the decomposed dust
of camel droppings. These, dried and purified, it may be, by centuries,
are the substitute for tobacco of desert life. The Professor would not
acknowledge any ability to give a personal opinion of its quality, but
the Sportsmen, adventurous in this as in all else, were suspected later,
when we reached the camel district, of making a personal experiment in
the interests of science, with what results it was never revealed.
The Professor emptied his pipe, and, calling the attention of the Lady,
opened his third parcel, which proved to contain a large square of white
net. "Such a treasure as this," he admonished her, "you would do well to
acquire. It is a luxury of travel. When I wish for repose I envelop
myself. It averts flies and mosquitoes, and is a hint to my companions
that I do not desire conversation." So saying, he modestly withdrew into
its folds, and only a neat little pair of black boots emerging
from—apparently—a bridal veil, remained to indicate his personality.
The rest of us drew our keffeeyes before our eyes, laid our heads upon
any sloping substance that offered itself, and neither man nor beast
needed further inducement to enter into the land of dreams.
At two o'clock we were again in the saddle, conscious of between 3000
and 4000 feet to climb. Our faces were set eastward, but we knew that we
had to reach a point above and beyond Mount Nebo, which lay immediately
south, "to climb where Moses stood, and view the landscape o'er." Very
soon the shrubs, which had hitherto been at least our occasional
companions, were left behind, and, perpetually climbing, we began to
realise that we had entered a new world. The limestone, dolomite, and
gravel limestone of Judæa had largely given place to a formation
different alike in colour and outline—mainly red sand-stone, often of
very fantastic features, and a certain amount of basalt—later, as we
came still farther south, masses of green-stone and boulders of
pudding-stone. The green-stone is embedded in and streaked with a deep
olive grey, but in places is as green as malachite. Tristram points out
that a dip in the strata brings the limestone again in places to the
surface, which probably accounts for the varied colouring of the
cliffs—black, red, and white—which, in the clear, brilliant sunshine, is
dazzling in its effect. The great tableland of Moab lies about 4000 feet
above the Dead Sea valley, and slopes gently eastward for some
twenty-five miles, beyond which rises another range of hills
(limestone), the watershed of Moab, and the frontier of Arabia, whose
blue distances we afterwards came to feel as a new limitation, which we
longed to cross, as formerly we had longed to cross the hills of Moab.
For miles we saw no sign of human life, no cultivation, no domestic
animal, only wide stretches of bare rock and a scant vegetation, which
seemed, although so burnt as to be difficult to distinguish, mainly
sandwort and soapwort. Now and then a flash of shadow showed that a
lizard had darted away, but even small birds were rare. When the wide
zigzag, which always seemed to turn horizontally just as we had begun to
make advance, allowed us, from time to time, to cast glimpses westward
at the mountains of Judæa, we were much astonished at their height and
grandeur. A prophet has no honour in his own country, and we had no
conception that the familiar range would have so much dignity from afar.
Finally, we reached a tableland, a wide terrace, before arriving at the
foot of the farther range of mountains, which we must still pass.
We halted beneath a solitary tree, and were thankful for the contents of
our water-bottles. Glass bottles cased with straw and packed in
saddle-bags were almost hot enough to make tea from, whereas the German
military flasks of the Sportsmen, with felt coverings damped before
starting, and hooked to the saddle, provided a deliciously cool drink.
Mount Nebo, which had all day dominated the landscape southwards to our
right, had much dwindled in importance, and indeed the end of our
journey would bring us to an elevation 600 feet its superior; and there
are indeed many points from which Moses might have had a much finer
panorama of the promised land than that conventionally pointed out.
Very soon we begin to climb the farther and final range, and to enter
into a district in which the human interest again awoke, not the less
strongly that it was connected with a past which, in England, we should
consider remote, but which we describe here as "merely Roman"—that is to
say, not quite two thousand years ago. The Roman road, which we followed
for some distance, is in much better condition than, for example, the
road between Jerusalem and Jaffa, or Jerusalem and Bethlehem, in spite
of the heavy road tax which, theoretically, keeps them in order, and the
milestones, though prostrate, are still of imperial dignity—massive
columns some six or eight feet in height.
Other columns and great hewn stones are scattered here and there by the
roadside, telling of a grandeur that is past, of a civilisation with
which we have nothing to compare. Another chapter in human history had
been recently suggested by a great dolmen, worthy of Stonehenge; some of
us longed to turn aside to examine it more closely, as it was the first
we had seen in this country, although they are very abundant east of
Jordan, especially in the district lying between Heshbon and the hot
springs of Callirhoe.
An almost perpendicular climb, which the heavier among the party thought
it only merciful to accomplish on foot, brought us to the summit of the
farther range, the Tell el Matâba, marked by an extensive stone circle,
from whence we practically looked down on Mount Nebo, and soon found
ourselves in entirely changed surroundings. Here and there signs of
cultivation, a couple of fellahin carrying a plough, a donkey bearing a
sack of grain and driven by women, all spoke of the neighbourhood of
human habitation. A great plateau gently sloping upward to the east, the
fertile Ard 'Abdallah, lay open before us, and we knew that beyond the
gentle slopes lay the city of Madaba, of which, at present, there was no
indication, except that of the industry of its inhabitants—or at least
the industry which its neighbourhood made possible. On a slight eminence
stood the tomb of 'Abdallah, of whom we could learn only that he was a
great shech, as was testified by the symbols displayed upon his
tombstone: a mortar for preparing, an iron spoon for roasting, a pot for
boiling, and a cup for drinking, the coffee, which was the symbol of his
unlimited hospitality.
Thoughts crowded into our minds with rapid confusion. We had seen too
much; disentanglement was difficult. The stone circle, the dolmen burial
monument of some primeval race, may have been looked upon by Moses in
those sad, closing hours of a disappointed life—by Balaam and Balak
wandering from point to point, from one high place of Baal to another,
among these hills, seeking for some spot whence the prophet might feel
himself inspired to curse the tents of Israel, who had made such havoc
up yonder in Heshbon, and along the very wady we had crossed. We
remembered how the cities of Moab were described by Ezekiel as "the
glory of the country," and yet how her inhabitants were warned by
Jeremiah "to flee and get away, for the cities thereof shall be
desolate." We saw, in fancy, the Roman soldiers of the tenth legion, the
military colonies, the Græco-Roman culture, the Christian, the Persian
influence; finally, in strange rivalry with powers so strong, so highly
developed, the Arab, who for thirteen hundred years has lived among the
ruins of the past, not, on the whole, actively destructive but living
only for each day's need; initiating nothing, saving nothing from decay,
not even seeking to preserve a tree or repair a cistern, and whose
finest monument, among all these ruins of the past, is that of a shech
who dispensed much coffee! He has held the country longer than anyone
else, as the eagle his eyrie or the wolf his lair, and as we advanced
each day farther and farther into the desolation of the present, more
and more closely in touch with the traces of the grandeur of the past,
we felt that here, at least, was a race perfectly adapted to the
environment it had, in great degree, created for itself.
Our tired horses, conscious of twelve hours of work already past, were
thankful for level ground, and took fresh heart as we pursued a fairly
good path, between wide expanses of fields, in which the harvest was not
yet entirely over; that wonderful Syrian harvest, which seems to be
going on continuously, here or there, during quite half the year, from
May to October. We, also weary, let the reins fall loose and wandered on
thus meditating, the Professor and our officer to the front, the mukaris
bringing up the rear. Suddenly we were conscious of a slight shock to
our body corporate, and, looking up, perceived that the Professor and
the officer were in colloquy with a body of some six or eight
wild-looking Arabs, their swarthy countenances looking the darker and
more savage for their black keffeeyes and akals.
At this moment our Sportsmen rode up, one of whom spoke Arabic like a
native, and the Professor, waving a dignified negative, rode ahead. We
joined him, and turning our horses looked back at the scene in progress.
The leader of the attacking party was in hot argument with the
Sportsman, who responded to his shouts and gestures with the cool
imperturbability which, of all European characteristics, is most
surprising to the Arab, while our mukaris, hastily collecting the
baggage animals, and casting an anxious glance ahead at the horses we
were riding, hovered timorously in the rear. As a mere accidental
coincidence we observed that another of the band had fallen upon an
unlucky fellah, who rode up at the moment, knocked him off his donkey,
and was beating him—casually as it appeared—but probably _pour
encourager les autres_—namely, our mukaris. They demanded, as we
afterwards learnt, a tax upon every horse in our company before
permitting us to enter the town of Madaba, which they represented. "If
you belong to Madaba then accompany us to Madaba, where we will pay any
tax which appears to be just," replied our Sportsman calmly, "but it
seems to me you are highwaymen," and so saying he, with our other
Sportsman, our second mukari with two baggage animals, and our
German-speaking Arab companion, rode on, and joined our distant group,
Khalil, our chief mukari, who was held responsible for all the horses,
being retained as hostage. With the usual cowardice of an Arab, in spite
of the Sportsman's assurances that he would "see him through," he very
foolishly produced his purse, satisfied their demands, and rode on
triumphant. The chatter that ensued among our three Arab companions—for
nothing in the world excites an Arab like a question of money—can only
be compared to a rookery at sunset. One had a rare opportunity of
appreciating the alleged variety of the Arabic vocabulary; its
adaptation to utterances of anger, vituperation, and regret. "They
claimed, they got, fifty-nine piasters" was the burden of the song, and
we had it in solo, antiphon, chorus, refrain, with a hundred variations,
all the rest of the way to Madaba. On our arrival we found that our
brigands belonged to Es-Salt, a town eight hours N.E. of Jericho (Madaba
being a good ten hours S.E.), and entirely unconnected with this
district; that the tax which they claimed was a war tax, just now
enforced by the Government upon every man in his own town, so that our
poor Khalil would have to pay it over again on his return to Jerusalem.
With this fact, however, we did not at present acquaint him.