JERASH, AND THE FORDS OF JABBOK
"Once more to distant ages of the world
Let us revert, and place before our thoughts
The face which rural solitude might wear
To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece."
WORDSWORTH
There was no lingering in Ammân next morning. From sheer habit of
historic reference we speculated as to whether it were Ptolemy
Philadelphus who, having rebuilt the ancient city of Rabbath Ammân, and
bequeathed to it the name of Philadelphia, still used among the Arabs,
may have endowed it, moreover, so far as our _locanda_ was concerned,
with one of the most offensive of the ten plagues of his native land,
after which we did our best to forget our recent experiences. We may
remark in passing, however, that traces, painful traces, lingered till
later in the day, when they were finally removed by a dip in the strong
current of the Jabbok, for it had been in very mournful Gregorian
cadence that some of us had chanted "Moab is my washpot" while a little
water was poured on to our hands out of a bottle by way of morning
ablution. However, it was a privilege worth paying for to be able to
sing the Psalms in Moab under any conditions; and whatever else may have
failed the party, it was never the spirit of cheerful resignation.
We have not yet sung the praise of the early start! One must come to the
East to learn to the full the beauty of the morning and of the night, as
well as, _inter alia_, of life without fogs and coal fires and bad
cooking; of life where houses are spacious and servants serve, and a
napoleon goes further than a sovereign, and the post comes but once a
week or so, and newspapers are not.
There is here none of the discomfort of the early start at home—no
shivering over ice-cold water, no closed shutters, no bolted front door,
no makeshift breakfast brought by the wrong servant in incomplete
toilet. No matter how early you rise the world is up before you; you can
have as much at five o'clock as at nine. Your horse is a little stable
stiff; but he is as pleased with the early start as you, and he snuffs
the dewy air with æsthetic enjoyment. In the hollows of the mountains a
mist wreath is lying; here and there a few clouds even may hang low to
the west—but you know they are only dew, and that even now in October we
are perfectly certain of a fine day, with at least another thirty to
follow. You are invigorated, encouraged in mind and body for the whole
day, even when, as in our case, you know that the day will last for ten
or twelve hours.
Almost immediately on leaving the village we began to climb—for,
although Ammân is 2747 feet above sea-level, the town itself is in a
hollow—and soon found ourselves on an excellent Roman road. The
particular pleasure which the Professor had promised us for this day's
journey was that we should do homage at the tomb of Abdel Azziz en-Nimr
Shech Adwân, more often spoken of as Nimr, a great poet, of the Bedu
tribe of the Adwân, who addressed a great number of poems to Watka, his
twenty-fourth wife. We had heard one of his poems recited by our Bedawy
escort, and we were willing to take the Professor's word for the rest;
for the poet's works have been collected by but one editor, who has not
yet published them, and the two or three writers who mention the spot at
all do so mainly in connection with a certain Shech Goblan, who, before
Jerash and Ammân were given over to the Circassians, was much feared
throughout the district.
About two hours after leaving Ammân we reached the Wady el-Hammam, and,
a little later, Yajûz, a large Bedu cemetery on the side of a hill,
strewn with columns, capitals, and hewn stones, obviously the remains of
a Roman town. Some great stone troughs, which may have been sarcophagi,
attracted the attention of our horses on account of the water they
contained, and we gladly dismounted, and left them to such refreshment
as was provided by the very muddy spring, while we climbed the hill a
short distance to the tomb of our laureate, who may certainly be
regarded as having an experimental knowledge of what characteristics
were most acceptable in a wife, and whose eulogy of Watka should at
least have the merit of discrimination.
The whole hillside was covered with graves, and some curious
combinations presented themselves. There the tomb of some landowner was
marked by a plough, the inconceivably primitive instrument with which
the fellah scratches the surface of the fertile soil; there a fragment
of the blue cotton, which is the inevitable dress of the Bedu, twisted
round a stick, shows where some woman has been laid to rest; farther
again, a stone, roughly sculptured with the instruments of
coffee-making, celebrates the hospitality of some unnamed shech; and, in
strange contrast with the savagery of to-day, we step over a sculptured
capital or carven pillar, memorial of the art and culture of nigh two
thousand years ago; while, reminder that "extremes meet," our thoughts
are carried back yet another thousand years at sight of the welys—tombs
of Moslem saints—standing apart on mounds, shadowed with ancient oaks,
where the pious come to worship to-day, to the Israelites who did so of
old time, "upon every high hill and under every green tree."
Around the spring were groups of women, with the tattooed faces, hanging
veils, and curious long, narrow dresses of the East Jordan Bedu, barely
wide enough to stride in, but lying at least a yard upon the ground,
front and back, so that when they walk the skirt has to be kilted, often
to the entire violation of such ideas of modesty as may have originally
dictated its design. They had taken much interest in the Lady, and, as
usual, had speculated as to which of her companions might be her
proprietor—always the first point to ascertain—the remaining matters of
curiosity in regard to a woman being: What did she cost? and How many
boys has she?—after which they frankly discuss her "points," and express
surprise at the smallness of her waist.
Suddenly there was an instant's silence; all eyes were turned southward,
where a procession had just come into sight winding up the valley. A
weird, melancholy song broke out, the women pressed forward, and we
realised that a funeral was advancing. We had already observed a
newly-made grave; but the procession passed it by, and halted beside the
nearest wely, under a group of trees. The four men who carried the bier
laid it gently down, and the women, with loud cries, gathered about it
on the ground. The body was that of a woman, so closely wrapped in her
dress and veil that we could only perceive that she was slender. All
joined in the loud wailing, led, apparently, by a professional mourner,
who sat beside the corpse, beating her breast, and throwing dust upon
her head. It was a pathetic evidence of the homogeneousness of
humankind, despite differences of custom, that those who really wept,
silently and apart, were, we understood, the mother and mother-in-law of
the dead, while a young man who leant alone against a tree trunk was the
newly-married husband of a three days' bride. She had died, they said,
of a sudden illness, the description of which suggested measles or
small-pox. We could not but think of the little home made desolate, of
plans and hopes never to be realised, of the bereaved husband—for here,
among the Bedu, marriage is a matter of choice and not of compulsion, as
among the Arabs of the towns—of the poor girl herself, who, having
reached what is the main object of existence among the Orientals, had
been called away just as life was opening. Our point of view may have
been a little too Occidental, or it may have been another case of
"extremes meet," the mean being represented by the higher civilisation
of Khalil, a true Jerusalemite, for his one remark was: "It was a pity
the bridegroom had had no use out of his bargain when he had paid so
much for her!"
The young man was presented to the Professor, who expressed our
respectful sympathy, and we turned away after a last glance at the
loud-wailing group of the indifferent, the silent sadness of those most
concerned. Whatever the age or race, "Light sorrows speak, great grief
is dumb."
When we left the wady we climbed a precipitous hill, and found ourselves
overlooking a deep gorge to our left—the Wady er-Rumman—where abundant
verdure showed the presence of water—a rare sight to our eyes,
habituated to the aridity of Jerusalem, where running water is so
utterly unknown that if for a few hours once a year, after exceptionally
heavy rain, it is reported that the Kedron flows, the whole population
turns out to witness so extraordinary a phenomenon. As a matter of fact,
moreover, the Kedron does not flow, unless far underground, and only a
spring—the well of Job or Joab—overflows into the Kedron bed, but the
fact is always thus described. Further, we crossed a small tributary
stream, where we found a number of shepherds and herdsmen, with camels
and sheep and goats. By this time our horses were hot with the climb,
and we were forced to deny them the desired refreshment, and hastened
on, already somewhat occupied with thoughts of the luncheon promised to
us at the fords of Jabbok. When we came—some of us riding in advance
with the officer—to a pleasant stream shaded by oleanders we thought he
must be mistaken in riding resolutely forward, for we were not yet used
to a district in which two streams might be passed in a single day, and
were half inclined to wait for those behind. However, we pressed on,
and, as no shouts followed us, were glad to have made so much way that
it was possible to dismount and rest our horses for a few moments, for
the Jabbok, it appeared, was still distant—"over two hills," declared
Khalil, when he at last overtook us. They were somewhat stiff hills both
to climb and to descend, and not Jacob himself, with his two wives and
two women-servants and eleven sons, and all his other anxieties, could
have been more glad than we, when, from our last ascent, we saw beneath
us a wide expanse of fresh green, showing that we had reached the fords
of Jabbok. The river, rising from streams in the hills above Ammân, and
sweeping round by the north-west before taking a sudden turn towards the
Jordan, accomplishes a journey of sixty miles, not counting its
windings, to reach the point which, at starting, was only eighteen miles
away. In its descent of some three thousand feet its current gains great
swiftness, and it rushes with considerable violence over its rocky bed,
as the widely-scattered pebbles—white and water-worn—abundantly testify.
Two roads follow its course; and though but a couple of distant villages
were in sight, the cultivated land all along its banks showed the near
presence of active humanity: a deserted mill among the bushes, and a few
fellahin watering their cattle, were, however, our only reminder of
human life. We were free to picture any chapter in its history which
might strike our imagination—Jacob, occupied with all his family cares
and apprehensions, suddenly called upon in the darkness to remember the
world of the Unseen; Gideon pursuing the Midianites; the hosts of
Chosroes marching from Damascus to the Nile; the Roman legionaries
constructing the very road which we have followed to-day; Galilean
pilgrims coming up to the Jerusalem feasts by way of Peræa; the
propagandists of the Prophet hastening to the north; and lastly, and
more enduring than all, the fellahin, with their elementary agriculture,
seeking their daily bread like the swallows that are darting overhead or
the rat that splashes into the stream, oblivious and indifferent to all
other life, and, therefore, permanent and persistent in their own.
For ourselves, however, the fords of Jabbok represented primarily the
means of taking a bath, and secondarily, those of making tea. The sun
was still hot; we had descended considerably since leaving Ammân, and
the bushes offered welcome shade. The Circassian soldier brought the
Lady a handful of ripe blackberries—the first we had seen in Syria,
where blackberries are abundant enough, but for lack of moisture never
seem to ripen. The oleanders, with their rich crimson; the rare feast of
abundant verdure; the grey water rushing upon its white bed, with the
effect of blue which gives to the Jabbok its modern name of
Ez-Zerka—"the Blue"; the contented horses cooling their limbs in a deep
pool, made a vision we were loth to disturb; but we were already late,
and after an hour's repose were bidden to mount once more. When we had
crossed the rushing ford and regained the plateau we realised that our
shadows were already lengthening.
We had now crossed an important political boundary, for the Jabbok is
one of the three rivers at right angles with the Jordan—the Arnon,
Jabbok, and Yarmuk—which divide Eastern Palestine into three provinces;
physically, as well as, for the most part, politically, though their
disentanglement is difficult, distinct. Behind us was the Belka, the
land of Ammon and Moab, practically the Peræa of ancient history, in the
time of the Herods politically associated with Galilee, and always
regarded by the Jew as being as much a Jewish province as Judæa or
Galilee. The climate of the Belka is temperate, and in spite of
insufficient water at its highest points the treeless plateau is ever
fresh and breezy, providing pasture for innumerable herds. It is but
seventy miles from the orange gardens of the Philistine plain, but eight
hours' direct ride from the palms of Jericho, and yet the Arabs have a
proverb: "They said to the Cold: 'Where shall we find thee?' And he
answered: 'In the Belka.' 'And if not there?' 'In Baalbek is my home.'"
Now Baalbek, as we saw it in August, lies under the shadow of snowcapped
mountains.
Now we were coming into 'Ajlûn, the land of Gilead, "the region of
Decapolis," a district of forests—falling, alas! before the axe of the
Circassian—of springs and streams, tributaries of the Jordan as well as
of the Jabbok and the Yarmuk; the land whence "a company of Ishmaelites
came with their camels, bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to
carry it down to Egypt." There is still "balm in Gilead." We had
scarcely crossed the river when our soldier, stooping from his saddle,
snatched a handful of deliciously fragrant herbs, which he presented to
the Lady, who had no opportunity of verifying their species, but was
quite prepared to believe that she had enjoyed the sweetness of the
_balsamum Gileadense_, though with suppressed misgivings that it might
be only the _melissa officinalis_. Indeed, the low growth of _artemisia_
and other herbs throughout this region is so sweet that, in the wilder
parts of the Belka frequented by gazelle, which feed upon it, the Arabs
constantly pick up their droppings for the pleasure of the fragrance.
Low ranges of hills to the east lay between us and that far-away
fascination of the desert of which we had first, and most fully,
realised the spell at Mshatta, making us feel that we were, in some
degree, coming once more into touch with humanity and the commonplace of
life, and farther away from that dim region known to so few, and which
throughout history has always been the great source of danger, the check
upon the civilisation of East Jordan, ever open to the great hungry
desert, whence in all ages wild tribes have come forth to seek
sustenance from the fertile tablelands of Bashan, Gilead, and Moab.
Here not Nature and the desert but Art and Greece were the prominent
facts in the minds of some among us. Ammân, fresh in our memory, had
been already an important stronghold two hundred years before Christ,
and, later, a member of the Decapolis, although, alone of the ten cites,
lying south of the Jabbok. Here, as never before, were we able to
realise something of the nature and meaning of that mysterious alliance
of the Decapolis, of which the origin is unknown, but which we had seen
represented in miniature in the present-day policy of playing off the
Circassians against the Bedawy tribes of that same district, which, even
two thousand years ago, was then, as now, the check upon all prosperity
and progress. There seems little doubt that this confederacy—like the
Arab dynasty of the Ghassanides at a later date under Trajan—was
intended to balance these Semitic influences; and these cities were
thoroughly Hellenic, not only in art and culture, but, unlike other
parts of Eastern Palestine, in religion also, the cult of Astarte alone
being borrowed from their surroundings. Most of them were placed, like
Ammân, on either side of a stream, with fertile land all round about,
not on a hill, as was the Semitic custom, to judge from the positions of
most of the villages one sees west of the Jordan. Their pastimes, too,
were Greek—the theatres, the bath, the circus. All had the street of
columns, the forum, the temples such as we had seen at Ammân; each was
approached by just such a road as we were treading now.
While we talked and mused the sun had set, the short evening glow was in
the west, and we were soon cautiously walking our horses in the dim
twilight. Suddenly a stately arch reared itself against the fading sky;
while beyond, far as the eye could reach, dusky columns arose against
the background of the dark hillside. Before we could take in the scene
the veil of night had fallen, for here in the East "with one stride
comes the dark." We could see no longer; but we knew we were descending
into a valley, for the sound of the rushing stream at the bottom seemed
to get nearer, till at last we felt that our horses' feet were in the
water. The village was asleep, but few lights shone from the windows of
the frugal Circassian inhabitants, and we could only trust to our kindly
animals, who were taking their lead from that of the officer, who rode
in advance. We were ascending a very steep hill; soon we had reached
level ground, and we awaited the coming of the responsible members of
our party. Looking back we could see the great lordly columns standing
out snow-white in the starlight, monuments of a race, an age, a system,
a religion that had perished like last year's snow, leaving not a link
with to-day, except that common aspiration after happiness, present and
future, which had inspired the existence of the Past, as it still
inspires those who gaze upon its monuments. Never had the Past seemed to
stoop towards us as now in this eastern starlight, and it seemed as if
we might almost hope for answer when we asked:
"Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas,
Can ye listen in your silence,
Can your mystic voices tell us
Where ye hide?"
Surely somewhere in the Past there must be a voice; the intense Life
which had created yonder city could not be wholly dead; all that was
beautiful and true must somewhere, somehow, be living still! We were
roused from our meditations by the cheery voice of the Professor calling
out of the darkness to know whether any were missing among us. We were
close by the house of the mudir, and could even see the guards and
servants assembled in the lighted portico. It was an anxious moment, for
it depended upon the nature of his reception whether we had hospitable
entertainment or were cast adrift upon the resources of the village, as
had been the case last night in Ammân. We rallied our forces, dismounted
from our horses, and presented ourselves and our credentials.
We were very thankful when the door was at once unlocked, and we were
admitted into the guest-room, a large apartment, with a high divan
running its entire length provided with cushions, a few chairs, a round
table in one corner, and on the deep window-ledges great piles of very
official-looking papers. We were too tired to criticise our
accommodation, which was, at all events, infinitely superior to that of
the night before, and thankfully seated ourselves. Meantime the news of
the Professor's arrival had evidently reached the mudir himself, for in
a few minutes the scene was changed: three or four servants appeared,
the floor was spread with two magnificent carpets, either of which would
have been the pride of any London drawing-room, additional lights and
some extra chairs were brought in, and nothing was needed but a duster,
which, however, did not appear. The Lady surreptitiously cleaned the
table, the carpets having stirred the æstheticism which our Ammân
experiences had put to sleep, and we deposited our head-gear. The men
removed their shoes, and placed themselves on the high divan; the Lady,
unable to emulate so lofty an example, seized some cushions, and
established herself upon the floor, secure of violating no Oriental
etiquette, and, by the Professor's direction, covered her head with her
keffeeye, which was, he said, more distinguished under the circumstances.
Next the mudir himself appeared—'Abd el-hamid Bey, son of Nūh Bey,
already mentioned—a fine-looking man in European dress, who shook hands
cordially with all the party, and assured us of our welcome, and coffee
was at once served. To say that it was coffee with hêhl conveys nothing
to the Occidental understanding, and mere words fail to express all that
hêhl can add to a cup of coffee. It is nectar and ambrosia brewed in
Olympus; it is a taste and a perfume, a stimulus and a sedative. For
centuries we have been drinking coffee—unimaginative Occidentals that we
are!—and nobody has taught us the virtues of hêhl. It is only a bean,
portable, one would suppose, conceivably an article of commerce, or
which might be cultivated or otherwise introduced, although how, on
second thoughts, it would combine with the beverage we profanely call
"coffee" is another matter. Coffee worth the drinking must be roasted,
crushed (in Heaven's name not ground!), and made while you wait, not
brought in paper bags from the grocer, and kept for weeks. It is brought
to the door of the room in the brass pot in which it was made, and
poured out tenderly as a butler pours out a perfumed wine, leaving space
at the top of the cup, small as it is, for the aroma.
After coffee we entered into conversation—that is to say, the Professor
did—with the mudir, the Arabic-speaking Sportsman being occasionally
called in when their Arabic vocabulary ran short; for to both it was a
foreign language, the mudir, as has already been seen, being a
Circassian. He remembered the names of the few savants and other
travellers who had passed that way, and inquired after all, asked
particulars as to our journey and as to the personality of each,
exhibited some polite surprise at the presence of the Lady in these
distant regions, and still more that she was not the property of any of
her fellow-travellers. He showed great concern as to her comfort, sent
for additional cushions, and several times personally addressed her. He
is known as a man of exceptional intelligence and breadth of mind, and
of a friendly and amiable disposition, in striking contrast to the
average Circassian, who is said to be treacherous and morose. He is
quite an important person, having at his command from ten to fifteen
mounted _gens-d'armes_, and when he goes eastward among the neighbouring
tribe of the Beni Hasan for the collection of taxes is accompanied by as
many regular soldiers, with their officer. He settles small differences
and disputes, and, says Dr Schumacher, carries a few bullet-holes in his
coat as token of his office of peacemaker. More serious cases are taken
by both Bedu and fellahin before the Mutesarrif (Governor) of Haurân.
While conversation proceeded we could hear most welcome sounds
without—chopping, frying, beating of eggs; and, after a second edition
of coffee, two servants entered, carrying a large cotton drugget, which
was spread over the carpet, and upon which was set the Sanīye, a large
round tray, placed upon an X-shaped stand, which raised it several
inches from the ground. We all seated ourselves on the floor, as well as
our host and another guest, a very intelligent man, and a great talker,
but less adapted than the mudir to polite society.
Each guest had a large slice of excellent wholemeal bread, and each had
a spoon and a towel. There were two dishes of meat, with vegetables, two
of rice, two of fried eggs, and two basins of pomegranate juice,
exquisite in colour and delicious to the taste. Everything was very
good, well cooked, and neatly served. It was etiquette to help yourself
to any dish, and in any rotation you fancied, putting in your spoon, and
conveying the food direct to your mouth—a custom which had its
drawbacks, as the Lady found when she fixed her affections on
pomegranate juice, and found it becoming gradually impregnated with
onions, as her neighbour, the Bey, our fellow-guest, was alternating it
with mouthfuls of stewed mutton. The hospitable mudir constantly pressed
us to eat, inquiring, when the Lady's appetite failed, whether there
were anything else she would prefer. Finally we all adjourned to the
doorstep to have water poured upon our hands. Then followed more coffee,
always with hêhl, cigarettes, and, after half-an-hour, the samovar. If
the coffee had been worthy of the Bedu the tea was worthy of Russia. We
drank it, of course, in tumblers, with crystallised sugar and floating
slices of lemon, and we stirred it with spoons of heavy silver,
beautifully chased and enamelled.
Then came more conversation, mainly political, and it was very
interesting to hear the mudir's emphatic repudiation of prejudice,
national or religious, especially since the Circassians are accused of
fanaticism and of hatred of Europeans. "It was all one to him," he
averred—"Moslems, Jews, Nazarenes!" Two or three servants stood by the
whole time, and one could not but contrast the perfection and apparent
readiness of their service with that of the superior domestics at home.
They perceived your needs before you could find them out yourself, and
tea, or bread, or sugar, or a match, as the case might be, was ready to
your use before you were aware that you needed it. Bread or sugar was
brought in the fingers, it is true; but knives there were none, and
spoons were scarce.
The Lady gave the signal for retirement by frankly falling asleep among
her cushions. Retirement, as a matter of fact, there was none; but
mattresses, pillows, and lehafs (wadded coverlets) were brought in, and
laid side by side upon the floor. The Lady's bed, lehaf, and cushions
were covered with rich crimson satin. An ornamental sheet of white
cotton, with a coloured design, was spread upon the mattress; the silk
cushions, as is the cleanly Eastern custom, had an embroidered breadth
of cotton down the centre, and the lehaf had a sheet of fine cotton
tacked to it upon the under side. Thus luxuriously accommodated we all
slept so comfortably that we were able to think of Ammân next morning as
a nightmare of the past. We must, however, acknowledge that during the
early part of the night we were occasionally awakened by the
conversation outside the door, probably of our escort and the servants;
for in this country, where men rise at dawn, sleep odd half-hours
anywhere, and at any time in the day, they may or may not go to bed at
night if they should happen to find anything more amusing to do.
However, when at last the Professor went outside to suggest silence and
the extinction of lights, they most obligingly met his views at once.
Next morning we rose about six from our silken couches, and went outside
the door in search of towels and a piece of soap, and poured water into
each other's hands wherewith to make such ablution as was possible under
very public conditions; for, though there was none of the ill-mannered
staring and crowding around of the Madaba Christians, the Circassians
condescended to a little distant curiosity, and even a couple of women
appeared upon an opposite housetop.
We knew that a very long day was before us, and we had hoped to start
early, but our host detained us with kindly importunity. When he
appeared upon the scene our bedroom had once more become a drawing-room,
and we had taken our early cup of coffee. Then followed more coffee, and
then the samovar, with bread and excellent goat's-milk cheese; and
finally the mudir's son, a fresh, open-faced, young man, appeared,
mounted on a beautiful mare, to accompany us across the valley to the
ruined city on the western side.
From the terrace outside the mudir's house we had already taken in the
general effect—all the more striking and wonderful that the old town has
not been defaced by a single modern building, and hence is far more
easily reconstructed by the imagination than Madaba, or even Ammân—a
fact for which the history of the settlement, rather than any æsthetic
perception, accounts. When the followers of the Emir Nūh Bey arrived at
Jerash he took possession of the east side of the valley for the use of
his immediate family and attendants, reserving the opposite bank for
relatives who were to follow. For various reasons—possibly the accounts
of discord with the Bedu, possibly even some diplomacy on the part of
the family here—they have not, so far, arrived, and some two hundred
immigrants who came in 1895 were passed on southward. There seems to be
some difference of opinion as to the extent of the population, Baedeker
giving it at three hundred; Schumacher, whose very interesting monograph
is the only other available source of information, at between fifteen
and sixteen hundred souls, including some score of fellahin, who serve
as labourers and ploughmen, and a few Moslem shopkeepers, Here, as in
Ammân, we saw not a single woman in the streets.
The ruins are so extensive, and stand out so clear against the hillside,
that, with the Professor's help in identifying the buildings, it was
easy, from the east side of the valley, to reconstruct in imagination a
town which imagination only can picture, so utterly different is it from
the banalities and vulgarities of modern utilitarianism.
Owing to the harder qualities of the stone the ruins are better
preserved than those at Ammân, have lost less of their original
sharpness, and have the freshness so remarkable at Pompeii. And yet an
Arabic writer of the thirteenth century, Yakut, describes it even then
"as a great city now a ruin." In the ninth century it was mentioned with
admiration by the earlier writer, Yakubi, although its decline probably
began with the expulsion of the Byzantines.
The most striking features of the scene before us are its highest point,
the Temple of the Sun; its most southern point, the triumphal arch
leading towards the Roman road to Ammân; and the great colonnade, of
which over a hundred pillars are still standing, running from one end to
the other of the city. There are two large theatres, two temples, a
great oval forum, four bridges, and at each of the two points at which
the main street, with its propylæa, is intersected by side streets,
there is a tetrapylon, a rotunda, square on the exterior and once
decorated with statues. The town was pear-shaped, and enclosed by walls
3552 metres long, having at least three, probably six or seven, gates.
This is a mere enumeration; of such a feast of beauty for the lover of
form it is almost hopeless to attempt description. As we descended, and
took a few points in detail, we realised that, with the amount of time
at our disposal, even to catalogue such a scene was an impossibility. At
the utmost we could but note a few of the more obvious features, and we
longed for a few days to dispose of.
Crossing the main street with its great colonnade, many of its splendid
pillars lying on the ground, overthrown by earthquakes, we pass the
ruins of grand propylæa and of a ruined palace, and, climbing an almost
perpendicular ascent, reach the great Temple of the Sun, enclosed by a
colonnade, with a portico approached by steps, consisting of three rows
of immense Corinthian columns, 38 feet high and 6 feet thick, the
acanthus leaves of the capitals being of rare perfection of workmanship.
Smaller temples have stood around it, and, descending again, turning our
horses' heads a little northward, we find a theatre with sixteen tiers
of seats, and a proscenium strikingly low, intended, it is said, for
gladiatorial combats and exhibitions of wild beasts. This theatre, like
the temple, is joined to the main street by a colonnade and tetrapylon,
the rotunda of which was once decorated with statues. The forum next
attracted us. It is of oval shape, 120 paces in length, and fifty-five
of its columns are still standing, all having Ionic capitals. Another
temple, smaller than the first, lies near the south gate. Its massive
walls, 7½ feet thick, contain many niches and windows; the double
Corinthian colonnade is scattered far and wide, though the bases are
easily traced, and the little that remains testifies to the former grace
of the building.
Close beside this is a large theatre facing towards the north, so that
the spectators must have had a magnificent background of their familiar
public buildings. Twenty-eight tiers of seats are visible, but probably
others lie buried in the débris. It is estimated that the acoustic
properties of the building must have been excellent, and that at least
5000 spectators could enjoy the spectacle. We observed an arrangement
upon the pillars for the hanging of garlands. Beyond the south exit in
the town wall is the Triumphal gateway; according to some the two
gateways were alike, forming a splendid vista as one approached the
town, each being of triple construction—the central arch 29 feet in
height, the total width 82 feet. There are considerable remains of an
interesting building, thought by some to be a naumachia, or theatre for
the representation of naval battles. That there exists a circus, of
which many rows of seats still remain, cannot be doubted; but recent
authorities are of opinion that the adjoining basin, 230 yards in length
by 100 yards in width, into which well-preserved channels lead the water
from the brook below, must have served some other purpose.
We could not but regret that the lateness of our start cut short our
opportunity for further enjoyment of the scene; but a day of ten or
twelve hours was before us, and we soon found ourselves once more upon
the Roman road, with our horses turned towards the south.