TRAVEL AND COMMUNICATION
In preparing for the active service of a missionary, it was necessary to
have a horse and a touring outfit. Our servant was told that we wanted
to buy a horse, and if he heard of any good chance, to let us know. In a
few days a man came to the house with a large gray mare for me to try. I
rode on her a little and examined her so far as I was capable of doing,
and was greatly pleased with her. I knew enough, however, of oriental
methods, to show no particular zeal over the matter, and left the owner
without any indication of my pleasure. In my own mind, I decided that I
should like to own that mare, and that I would be willing to pay as much
as twenty pounds for her, though I hoped to secure a horse for half that
amount. As I came in I told the servant to make inquiry about the price
of the mare. He returned soon, saying the owner would sacrifice his own
interests so far as to let me have her for seventy-five pounds. I did
not buy that mare, but waited several months until I found a sturdy gray
horse, which I bought for less than ten pounds. He served me well for
five years, when I sold him for little less than the original cost.
Tripoli field was rejoicing and congratulating itself in those days over
the macadamized road recently opened between Tripoli at the coast and
Homs and Hamath in the interior. It was sixty-five miles to Homs and
thirty-five more to Hamath. A cumbersome diligence made the trip to Homs
in eleven hours, going one day and returning the next, and a lighter
vehicle made the round trip between Homs and Hamath every day. This was
a great advance in rapid transit and a great convenience in all lines of
work.
In all Syria there was not a mile of railroad, and in northern Syria
there was no carriage road besides the one line just mentioned. All
traveling had to be done on horseback or afoot. Horses, donkeys, mules
and camels were the universal means of travel and transportation. Every
day caravans of camels came into Tripoli by the hundred, bringing grain,
olive oil and Syrian butter from the interior. They returned loaded with
sugar, rice, kerosene oil, and English yarn and cloth. The first
railroad was built in the early nineties from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Later
came the line from Beirut to Damascus; then the line from Haifa through
Galilee to Damascus, the line from Damascus to the south, and the line
from Damascus to Medina. Then came the branch line, from the
Beirut-Damascus line, to Homs, Hamath and Aleppo, and finally the
Tripoli Homs line and the German Bagdad line, passing through Aleppo
from east to west. With many other lines and extensions under
consideration, it is evident that railroad communication is fairly
started in Syria and that this part of the East has begun to feel the
influence of steam.
During our first year in Tripoli, before I was at all familiar with the
various places, I overheard a conversation between two of our associates
about a recent trip to Beirut by land. The remark was made, "I suppose
you took a carriage from Junieh to Beirut." This is about one fourth of
the distance and was considered a great gain in the facilities of
transportation. The answer came, with even greater evidence of
satisfaction, "No, I rode in a carriage from Jebail." This meant a
doubling of the advantage, as Jebail is halfway between Tripoli and
Beirut. That was in 1889 and it was not until 1912 that this carriage
road was completed, so that one could make the whole distance on wheels.
The tramway connecting Tripoli City and the Mina, or harbor, was the
only tramway in Syria and was an object of great pride. It had a single
track about two miles long, with a switch in the middle for the passing
of cars from the opposite ends. A car started from each terminus about
once in twenty minutes and made the trip in about the same length of
time, the fare being four cents and the motor power horses or mules. The
cars were originally imported from Birmingham, of the double-decker
type. They are still in daily service, receiving a fresh coat of paint
and necessary repairs every year. This line continues to run, though
with somewhat more frequent service and with a reduced fare of two
cents, since public carriages now run on a road alongside the tram.
Carriage roads now extend in several directions from Tripoli, and there
are many public carriages to hire; even an automobile is occasionally
seen and several bicycles have made their appearance.
The postal system is a curiosity to those who are accustomed to free
delivery several times a day. It would be supposed that the Turkish
post would carry all letters for people in Turkey, since Turkey is a
member of the International Postal Union. At all the seaports, however,
one finds foreign post offices, which do a large business in receiving
and forwarding mail by all the steamers. To points in the interior they
cannot deliver mail. In Tripoli we had the French, and later the
Austrian service. In 1890 cholera appeared in Tripoli and all steamers
stopped calling at the port, to avoid quarantine. We were confined to
the use of the Turkish mail. Two messengers brought the mail by land
from Beirut each week. It was Tripoli which was infected with cholera,
and yet the incoming mail was stopped outside the city and drenched with
carbolic acid, while the outgoing mail was not touched. The mail
distributor in Tripoli could not read any language, not even Arabic, and
so he used to bring the bag directly to our house and empty it on the
floor, in order to get my help in assorting the letters for him. We were
glad to have the first pick of the mail, as it assured our receiving
all our own mail, and that promptly.
At the last conference of the International Postal Union there was a
general reduction of postage and an increase in the unit of weight.
Turkey has given her adherence to this international arrangement, but
maintains her old internal rates so that we have the present absurd
condition, that a piaster stamp will carry twenty grams to any place
abroad, while it will carry only fifteen grams from one town to its next
neighbor. Additional weight abroad requires three quarters of a piaster
for each additional twenty grams, while for internal use every
additional fifteen grams requires a full piaster. Thus a letter weighing
sixty grams will go from an interior town like Homs to San Francisco for
two piasters and a half, while the same letter, if sent from Homs to
Tripoli, would cost four piasters.
It might be supposed that there would be good caravan roads, at least,
in a country where all produce must be carried on quadrupeds, and all
travelers must ride or walk. The reverse was true, and though the past
twenty-five years have witnessed great improvement in this respect,
there is still much to be desired in most localities. Many of the roads
cannot be described as anything but trails through the rocky ground. The
chief consideration in locating a road seems to be to have it run
through ground which is fit for nothing else, for it would be a pity to
waste arable ground, and so a road must go around, no matter what the
distance. Whatever stones are gathered from the fields are thrown into
the highway, making it rougher than ever. In some parts of the
mountains, the road will lie along the top of a solid stone dike, ten to
fifteen feet wide, from which the traveler looks down to a depth of
eight or ten feet upon the fields and mulberry patches on each side. It
has been said that a road, in Syria, is that part of the country to be
avoided in traveling, so far as possible. This inference is easy to
understand when you notice that all the trodden paths are in the fields
at either side, and that people travel in the rough roads, only when
there is no escape. While the grain is growing the farmers will do their
best, by building up stone walls, to keep the animals out of their
fields, but just as soon as the harvest is gathered these obstructions
go down and the current of traffic resumes the easier course until the
winter rains make the mud a worse enemy than the rough stones.
In other places it is often an interesting study to try to decide
whether the water flows in the road, or whether people travel in the
watercourses. It is something like the insolvable question as to which
came first, the hen or the egg. The fact remains that, as a rule, in wet
weather and rough country, the traveler will find his horse splashing
through a stream of water flowing down the road. The explanation is
simple. There is nowhere any system of drainage, and every man's
purpose is to turn the streams of rain water away from his own land.
Useful land cannot be wasted for watercourses any more than for roads,
and hence the waste lands are devoted to the double purpose, with the
resulting confusion as to which is the intruder.
The obscurity of the roads leads to many more or less unpleasant
experiences. There are roads so steep and difficult that it is no
unusual experience to see a muleteer take hold of his mule's tail as he
goes down the mountain path, and by a judicious holding back, help the
animal to steady himself under a heavy, awkward load. On the other hand,
when he is going up the mountain, the tired muleteer will take hold of
the same convenient handle to get a little help for himself in the
ascent.
One summer night, Mrs. Nelson and I were belated on the higher slopes of
Mount Lebanon. The trail was little more than a path for goats, and was
quite unfamiliar to us. In the dark night, we lost the way more than
once, and we were becoming quite exhausted in repeated efforts to regain
the path, when, at last, we seemed to have strayed completely, and I
could not locate the road at all. We had to take a little rest, and wait
for the moon to rise. We sat upon the mountain side, under the shade of
fragrant cedars, tired, hungry and thirsty. The surroundings were
charming and the dim outlines of forest and mountain beautiful. The
night air was refreshing, after an exceptionally hot day; but when one
has lost his way, he is not in a condition to appreciate fully the
beauties of nature or the charms of his surroundings. As we sat there,
gaining some rest, I began to study the outline of the hills, and
concluded that the road must lie in a certain curve of the mountains not
far away. On investigating I found my impression correct, and we resumed
our journey, reaching our destination just as the moon appeared over the
highest ridge of the mountains.
On another occasion it was the intelligence of my horse rather than my
own which saved me considerable inconvenience. I was belated upon the
mountain and overtaken by sunset, some eight miles from my destination.
Confident in my horse as well as in myself, I pushed on as rapidly as
possible over the rough path. To add to my difficulty, a thick mountain
fog settled about me until it was impossible to see the path ten feet
ahead. In descending a steep slope, leading my horse, I missed the trail
and found myself in the vineyards. I knew that the village was close at
hand and anticipated no difficulty in working down to the road. At any
rate, it seemed likely that we should arouse the night watchman in the
vineyard and it would be his duty to turn us out of the vineyard,
exactly what we wished for. We stumbled along, over grapevines and
stones, but came no nearer to the road, nor did we disturb the sleeping
watchman. After what seemed like endless wandering, though the distance
was not far nor the time long, I came up against a stone wall and could
see a path beyond. Getting over this wall was simple, but which way to
turn in the road was not clear. I tried the turn to the right,
tentatively, not fully convinced myself. My horse yielded reluctantly
and walked very slowly indeed over the rough stones. After a few minutes
my own doubts increased and I determined to test the horse. Dropping the
reins loosely on his neck, I gave him no sign of guidance at all. As
soon as he felt the relaxing of pressure on the bits, his head rose, his
ears stood erect and he seemed to cast an inquiring glance out of the
corner of his eye. When convinced that he was free to choose for
himself, he immediately swung around and started at a rapid walk in the
opposite direction. In a very few minutes I could see the village lights
struggling through the mists, and was soon at my own door.
This same horse gave me another illustration of his intelligence. I was
riding along the carriage road, on the seashore, intending to turn up
to one of the mountain villages. There were two roads to this village,
and when we came to the first my horse tried to turn up, but was easily
held back and started briskly along, as if fully understanding my
purpose. When we came to the second road we found that it had been
plowed under and that grain several inches high was growing where the
path had been. I knew that the road had been moved a short distance so
as to pass a khan recently erected. The horse had not yet gone over this
altered road and so was puzzled. I left him to his own guidance. When he
came to the point where the road had divided, he stopped and looked at
the grain, and then went slowly on, looking constantly at the field,
until, after about twenty or thirty feet, he decided to make a plunge,
and struck directly through the growing grain to where the old road had
been at the other edge of the field.
The introduction of railroads and carriages throughout the country
facilitates travel and business a great deal, but it takes away much of
the interest and diversion of getting about from place to place.