_NORTHERN SYRIA._
Palestine proper--from Dan to Beersheba--extends only over the southern
half of the Syrian coast which runs northwards to the Bay of
Alexandretta, distant 370 miles from Gaza. Yet there is no true
geographical division which separates Palestine from Syria, and it is
only because the Land of Israel attracts our interest chiefly, that the
northern region of Lebanon and the Land of the Hittites is less
generally visited. The scenery is perhaps finer than that of Palestine,
the antiquities are more important, and the ancient history of the
region is equally interesting, though mainly traced through the
fragmentary notices of monumental records. Mention has already been made
of the ride in Northern Syria which led to our discovery of Kadesh on
Orontes, and which extended over half the length of the region. In the
following year I twice followed the coast by sea to Alexandretta, but
found no opportunity of visiting Antioch and Aleppo. The travels of Mr.
Tyrwhitt Drake in this region are published in Captain Burton’s
“Unexplored Syria,” and among other modern explorers De Vogüé and Rey
have perhaps done most to recover all that is of greatest interest,
while valuable discoveries have been made by members of the American
Missionary Society. On the coast also the excavations of Renan at
Byblos produced important Phœnician discoveries, and the magnificent
collection of the late M. Peretié, which he kindly showed to me at
Beirut, was mainly gathered in Northern Syria. It is probable, however,
that much still awaits the explorer in this region, hidden in the great
mounds of the Buka’a, and in the truly Oriental towns on both sides of
the Lebanon.
Northern Syria is divided into two regions by the River Eleutherus,
which rises in a hollow plain on the watershed--a saddle dividing the
Lebanon on the south from the Anseiriyeh Mountains (the old Mons
Bargylus), which runs northwards to the valley of Antioch. East of these
chains is the plateau of the Buka’a, watered towards the south by the
Litâni River, but for the greater part of its length on the north by the
Orontes, which finally turns sharply to the west, entering the valley of
Antioch, and falling into the Mediterranean at Seleucia, the old port of
Antioch, south of the Bay of Alexandretta. Farther east, the
Anti-Lebanon runs out to the great bastion of Hermon, dividing the
plains of Damascus from the Buka’a; and on the north this chain sinks
into isolated white peaks, where the Buka’a broadens out, east of Homs,
into the desert of Palmyra.
The east and west slopes of the Lebanon present a considerable contrast,
due in part to the geological formation, and in part to climatic causes.
On the west, the deep gorges in the ruddy sandstone are fringed with
umbrella pines and tangled copses, and the green of the vineyards
extends high up the slopes towards the iron-grey limestone of the upper
ridges. On the east, the barren limestone and the gleaming chalk below
are only sparsely covered with stunted trees, though olive groves occur
round the villages. This contrast is, however, not peculiar to the
Lebanon--it is notable in all parts of Palestine. The western slopes of
Gilead are clothed with oak woods, while the eastern slopes of the
Palestine hills are barren deserts. The hills of Galilee, Samaria, and
Judea west of the watershed are for the most part well covered with
copses, and in the Anti-Lebanon also the same contrast is (though to a
less degree) observable.
The reason of this contrast is very evident. The cool and humid western
breezes blow from the Mediterranean, and all the vapour so carried
inland is caught by the western slopes. Those which face the east are,
on the other hand, exposed to the hot blast which blows from the Syrian
deserts, while they are at the same time shut out from the sea-breeze.
In the Anti-Lebanon the western slopes also are partly excluded from the
same life-giving breeze by the superior height of the Lebanon range,
while the more fertile sandstone is covered in the Anti-Lebanon by white
chalk, grey limestone, and nummulitic beds, which, as a rule, have very
little surface soil. The vine is, however, much grown on this range, and
its broken ridges present a finer sky-line than is to be found, as a
rule, in Lebanon itself. The broad valley which divides these ranges
contains some of the best corn-land in Syria, and the Orontes is one of
the brightest rivers that water this part of Asia.
The true source of the Orontes is found west of Baalbek, but the main
supply of water is from the spring nearly thirty miles farther north,
now called ’Ain el ’Asy. The river is here invisible from the plain,
being hidden in a ravine some 300 feet deep. The pool, fringed with
willows and full of cresses, is surrounded with tawny cliffs, and the
full-grown river rushes rapidly northwards in a broad, shallow stream,
breaking over a rocky bed between barren slopes dotted with wild olives.
Above these slopes rises the grey and stony ridge of the Lebanon on the
west, while the brown Buka’a stretches on the east. After about fifteen
miles’ run the river emerges again on to the plain near Riblah, and
flows by Kadesh to the long artificial lake of Homs, already noticed.
Then breaking over the Roman dam in cascades, it again sinks into a
trench in the plain, and flows by the gardens of Homs or Emesa, and so
on to the hot and unhealthy gorge near Hamath, and to the marshy plain
of El Omk, where it joins the Kara Su (“black water”), and suddenly
bends to the west.
The limestone both on Lebanon and on Anti-Lebanon appears to be
honeycombed with great subterranean caverns, in which underground
rivers, fed by the snows of the higher ridges, flow towards the plains.
The Abana, which rises in the plain of Zebdâny, west of the main ridge
of the Anti-Lebanon, springs up in a blue pool of unknown depth, where
the snow-cold water rises with great force and feeds a considerable
stream, which, when increased by the rushing fountain at ’Ain Fiji (one
of the most picturesque spots in the region), becomes the “River of
Damascus,” which Naaman rightly preferred to the muddy waters of Jordan.
At Beirut, also, the Dog River rises in magnificent stalagmitic caves in
the bowels of the Lebanon, and farther north the old castle of Krak
(already noticed) looks down on a narrow valley where is the monastery
of St. George, near the cave in which rises the famous Sabbatic River,
whose intermittent flow was reckoned among the wonders of Syria by the
ancients. This river springs from a pool in the cave, and at intervals
of between four and seven days a rumbling sound is heard in the
mountains, and torrents of water flow forth from the cavern, pouring
down the valley for several hours. In the Hermon region there is another
similar phenomenon, which is, however, only to be seen in winter. The
plain near the village of Kefr Kûk is said yearly to be turned into a
lake by a torrent which rushes out of its cavern with a roaring noise
like that of the Sabbatic River.
Josephus (VII. Wars, v. I) has given us a correct account of the rise of
the Sabbatic River, which Titus visited on his return from the Jewish
war, but Pliny has inverted the facts (H. N., xxxi. II), and supposes
the river to observe the Sabbath, flowing all the week and resting on
the seventh day. The Bordeaux pilgrim makes the same mistake. In the
Middle Ages the legend of the River Sambation became famous among the
Jews, who identified it with the Ganges, and held that the ten tribes
existed beyond its banks, and there awaited the day when, on the
appearance of the Messiah, its waters should be dried up. Thus the true
origin of the story was forgotten, and the situation of the river,
which, however, still preserves its ancient name in the modern Arabic
title, Nahr es Sebta.
The western slopes of the Lebanon fall abruptly into the sea, and the
flat ground at the foot of the mountains is at most a narrow strip,
while the coast road often leads over the rugged stony limestone of the
promontories. There is no real harbour along the shore at all comparable
to that of Smyrna, but the Phœnicians made the most of outlying reefs
and shallow bays to construct their little ports. The harbour of Tripoli
is reckoned the best in Syria by the captains of coasting steamers. The
Bay of St. George at Beirut is subject to storms, as is also the gulf at
Alexandretta, where in winter the gusts from the mountains are often
very dangerous. At Latakia there is only an open roadstead, and Gebal or
Byblus, famous as its sailors were in early historic times, presents
only a shelving beach.
The shore scenery is throughout of most picturesque character, not
unlike some of the South Italian coast; and the steep slopes,
pine-dotted and riven with great gorges, rise to snowy summits, often
wrapped in cloud even in summer. Near Tripoli the shore plain widens,
and the Eleutherus flows through an open sandy flat. This river, which
formed the boundary of Jewish conquest in the Hasmonean age, has often
been mistaken for the Sabbatic River. Its source is in a sort of crater
west of the Lake of Homs, a picturesque basaltic hollow plain, marshy
and dotted with oak trees. The black basalt extends westwards along the
open valley, which leads down seaward, confining Lebanon on the north;
and the pass, which has always been important in history, is commanded
by the great castle of the Knights Hospitallers, already mentioned, and
perhaps the best preserved of the Crusading strongholds.
Into the wilder mountains of the Anseiriyeh it was not my good fortune
to be able to penetrate. The thick copses here cover remains of ancient
cities, of which but little is known. On the north the vale of Antioch
divides this ridge from the great spur of the Taurus, which rises over
the gloomy Gulf of Alexandretta. The steep mountains here spring from
the sea, and a narrow, pestilent, swampy shore lies at their feet,
making this port at the “gates of Syria” the most notoriously unhealthy
place in the Levant. Many suggestions for draining the swamp may be
found in consular reports; but the difficulty is that its level is only
a few feet above the sea, allowing no fall for any irrigatory channels.
If ever the great railway which may connect the Mediterranean with the
Persian Gulf is made, it is to be hoped that the port will be chosen at
the old harbour of Seleucia, at the mouth of the Orontes, and not in the
fever-stricken and mountain-locked bay of Issus, as the Alexandretta
Gulf was called when Alexander won on its shores the great victory over
the Persians which made him master of all Western Asia.
The climate of the Lebanon is superior to that of Palestine on account
of the brisk mountain air, some 4000 feet above the highest points
reached by even the Galilean mountains, while the snow-fed rivers and
streams give an abundant water-supply throughout. The modern inhabitants
are a hardy and ruddy-faced people, whose cheerful independence
contrasts with the dull fatalism of the Southern peasants. Thus from the
dawn of history there has been perhaps more energy, enterprise, and
civilisation in Syria than in Palestine; and trade and art flourished in
Phœnicia and among the Hittites, while in the south the wandering
Shasu ranged over an unsettled land. In order to preserve some method in
briefly describing the early civilisation of this country, it will be
best to adopt an historic sequence, for the centres of power were
constantly changing, and a geographical treatment of the subject is
difficult.
The earliest known notice of Northern Syria is in the time of Thothmes
III., about 1600 B.C. After the great battle of Megiddo, which laid
Palestine at his feet, the hardy Nubian advanced northwards, even beyond
Aleppo and across the Euphrates. At Karnak he has recorded the names of
218 towns in Syria and Aram which he claimed to have conquered; and from
this list we know that even as early as the seventeenth century B.C.
many famous cities of later times were already in existence, including
Hamath, Aleppo, Calchis, Circesium, Nisibis, Aradus, Carchemish, Pethor,
and Kadesh on the Orontes.
Even earlier, however, than this time it appears that the Hittites dwelt
in Northern Syria, which is called also the “Land of the Hittites” in
the Book of Joshua. Thothmes I. is believed to have reigned about 1700
B.C., and began his career by attacking the Hittites, who, however, at
that early period, may have extended their rule farther south.
Seven years after the battle of Megiddo, Thothmes III. attacked Kadesh
on Orontes, and cut down the trees near it. Twice again in later
campaigns he stormed the town on his way to Mesopotamia, and carried off
silver and precious stones as tribute; but on his death the Hittites
recovered their independence, and about 1540 B.C. they became a
formidable power. The recently discovered Tell el Amarna tablets show us
that an early Babylonian conquest of Phœnicia dates from that period.
The kings of Egypt and of Mesopotamia were then in alliance, and
governors who used the cuneiform script appear even to have been posted
at Tyre and at Sidon; but the Semitic invaders were jealous of the
Hittite power, and Tunep (now Tennib) appears then, as well as later, to
have been a Hittite city.
Two centuries passed, and Rameses II. found the Hittite power as
formidable as ever. The great battle of this period was fought near
Kadesh; and the celebrated battle picture at Abu Simbel gives us most
lively portraits of these great Mongol warriors in their chariots, and
of their walled and tower-crowned city, with its name written over it,
and its bridges over the Orontes and the smaller western stream, which
together surrounded the mound now known as Tell Nebi Mendeh. The
Egyptian advance followed the coast-line north of Beirut, where Rameses
left his bas-reliefs cut on the cliff by the Dog River, and the army
reached a town called Shabatuna, which some scholars place near the
Sabbatic River, in which case their road lay, no doubt, up the valley of
the Eleutherus, already noticed as the highway from Tripoli to Homs.
Kadesh, we learn, was on “the west bank of Hanruta” or Orontes; and the
incautious advance of the Pharaoh very nearly led to his defeat and
death. The city was, however, again taken, and the great alliance, which
included auxiliary forces from Aradus, Cyprus, Carchemish, and even from
Mæonia and Southern Asia Minor, was defeated. The Egyptian conqueror
pursued his way far north and west, and left his cartouche on Mount
Sipylus, where the old figure of the “Weeping Niobe” had already been
carved.
[Illustration: HITTITES FROM ABU SIMBEL.]
In this same reign we have also an incidental notice of the same region
in the celebrated “Travels of an Egyptian,” which were carried as far
north as Kadesh. Speaking of the Lebanon, he says: “The sky is darkened
by the cypresses, the oaks, and the cedars, which grow to heaven. There
also are lions found, and wolves and hyenas, which the Shasu hunt.” Yet
the spoils taken and tribute offered in Syria at that time abundantly
witness the civilisation of the Hittites and of the Phœnicians, whose
“holy city Gebal” is noticed in this early papyrus with Sidon, Sarepta,
and Tyre.
Two centuries passed by, and, with the decreasing power of Egypt, the
freedom and prosperity of the independent kingdoms of Israel and of the
Hittites increased. Yet while Samuel was still a child we find Tiglath
Pileser I. hunting in the Lebanon. The account recovered from a
cuneiform tablet is of great interest, seeming to show that the Lebanon
ridge was the division between the Semitic Phœnicians on the coast
and the Mongolic Hittites along the Orontes. The broken obelisk in the
British Museum records of Tiglath Pileser that “in ships of Arvad he
rode, a porpoise in the great sea he slew, wild bulls (_rimi_) fierce
and fine he slew at the city Araziki, which is opposite to the land of
the Hittites at the foot of Lebanon.” Thus the wild bull, which is
mentioned in the Bible, was still found in Syria as late as 1100 B.C.
The foundation of our knowledge of the Hittite hieroglyphic system of
writing, which was probably in use as early as 2000 B.C., was laid by
Burckhardt’s discovery of one of their monuments at Hamath. That great
traveller and observer describes a stone, now in the Constantinople
Museum, but then in a wall in the city of Hamath, as covered with
hieroglyphics which differed from those of Egypt. Yet the discovery was
without further result until the stone, with four others, was
rediscovered by the American visitor Mr. J. A. Johnson in 1870. The
further finds at Carchemish, and in Asia Minor, of similar monuments
have shown that Northern Syria possessed a written character of its own,
and that a language akin to the old speech of the Medes and Akkadians
was spoken by the Hittite chieftains as well as by their relatives, the
Lydians, Carians, and early Cappadocians.
[Illustration: HAMATH STONE, NO. 1.]
As we advance to the eighth century B.C., we find the power of this
Mongolic stock decreasing, while that of the Semitic race increases.
Among the most interesting discoveries of this period is that of the
general diffusion of the worship of Jehovah throughout all Syria and
Assyria. As early as 822 B.C. the names of Assyrian officials are
compounded with the divine name, and yet earlier, in 887, the name
Abijah occurs in Assyria. In the time of Sargon, Yaubidi was king of
Hamath, and the names of Joram, king of Edom, Zedekiah, king of Ascalon,
Padiah, king of Ekron,[59] tell the same tale as does the name of Joel
in a Phœnician text from Malta. The adoration of Jehovah was not
peculiar to the Hebrews, nor does the Bible state it to have been. It
was common, as early at least as the tenth century B.C., to all the
Semitic peoples of Western Asia as far east as Nineveh; for, as Malachi
wrote somewhat later, “From the rising of the sun to the going down of
the same, My name is great among the Gentiles ... saith Jehovah Sabaoth”
(Mal. i. 11).
In spite of such community of religion, the growth of Assyria brought
troublous times on Northern Syria.[60] About 854 Assur Nazir Pal
defeated the Hittites, and advanced as far as Tyre; but a great battle
was fought on the Orontes, in which we find Ahab of Sirlai[61] leagued
with the kings of Damascus, Arvad, and Ammon--a force in all of 85,000
men, and this league for a time stopped the Assyrian advance. In the
same long reign, however, about 842 B.C., another battle was fought near
Hermon, and Damascus was besieged and the Hauran overrun by Assyrian
armies. From that time forward the road to Palestine began to be open.
Tiglath Pileser II. advanced in 740 to Hamath, and six years later
invaded the Land of Israel and marched to Ascalon and Gaza. In 720
Sargon takes Samaria and quells an outbreak in Hamath; and about this
time the system of deportation, which was the ordinary Assyrian policy,
led to the establishment of North Syrian, Chaldean, and Thamudite Arab
colonies in Palestine, and to the captivity of the Ten Tribes. In 717
Carchemish fell to Sargon, and the power of the Hittites was finally
overthrown, and six years later the Assyrians were at Ashdod in
Philistia. Sennacherib followed in 701, and penetrated even to Petra in
688. Yet the internal troubles of the Assyrian Empire gave a brief
respite after his death, when a new foe appeared in the northward march
of the Arabs and Nabatheans, who raided through Eastern Palestine and
the Hauran into Northern Syria in 650 B.C. With the fall of Assyria a
period of peace followed, but a century later we find Nebuchadnezzar on
his way to Jerusalem, following the defeated Egyptians from Carchemish.
Of this troublous history the rocks of Syria themselves give evidence.
At the mouth of the Dog River, near Beirut, where Rameses II. had
erected three bas-reliefs in honour of Ptah, Ra, and Ammon, Tiglath
Pileser I.--the hunter already noticed who also conquered the
Hittites--left his statue about 1100 B.C., and another Assyrian tablet
on this spot is thought to be even older. Four more tablets were added
later, between 885 and 681 B.C., by Assur Nazir Pal, by Shalmanezer
III., by Sennacherib, and by Esarhaddon, showing that all these
conquerors passed by Beirut. Near this group of tablets mutilated
inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar have also been found, and quite recently,
in 1884, other inscriptions by Nebuchadnezzar have been recovered on the
eastern slope of the Lebanon not far from Kadesh.
The Medes swept away the Babylonians, the Persians succeeded the Medes,
and the Syrians continued to preserve their own civilisation, as
witnessed by the art of Phœnicia, which throve especially in the
Persian period. The battle of Issus raised a new power in Asia, and with
the successors of Alexander a new capital arose in the valley of the
Orontes at Antioch. It is remarkable, considering the power and wealth
of these Greek monarchs, that they should have left us no monuments in
Syria, as far as is at present known. Their coins are frequently found,
and are often of great beauty, being among the earliest on which the
head of a king appears portrayed from life. During this age, even as
late as 307 B.C., the Greek kings of Cyprus were still using the
peculiar script called the Cypriote syllabary, but no trace of its use
has yet been discovered in Syria, where the simpler Phœnician
alphabet reigned supreme, while on the Greek coins of the Seleucids the
kindred Greek characters appear.
Nor are the troublous times of the great struggle which gave Syria to
the Romans represented by monuments; but with the Antonines a great
architectural period began, when Baalbek was built, as well as many
great cities throughout Syria. It has often been supposed that the
enormous stones which form part of the outer wall at Baalbek are remains
of a Phœnician temple preceding the Roman fane, but the visitor can
satisfy himself that these huge blocks--more than sixty feet in length,
and unrivalled elsewhere in Syria--stand on Roman masonry; and we have
nothing to lead us to suppose that the Phœnicians ever used such
enormous masonry. The Baalbek Temple is indeed one of the most
certainly-dated buildings in Syria, and the Latin inscription on the
east wall, copied by Ward and Dawkins, but now almost illegible, gives
the names of Antoninus Pius and Julia Domna, who appear to have founded
the huge sanctuary in honour of the “great gods of Heliopolis.”
In the wild mountains of the Anseiriyeh other remains of the same period
have been found. Though attributed by popular tradition to Solomon,
these buildings, by the details of their architecture, and by the Roman
eagle, whose winged form occurs here as well as at both Baalbek and at
Rukhleh on Hermon, are to be ascribed to the Roman period, to which also
we must refer the curious monument near the source of the Orontes called
Kamu’at el Hirmil, on which, in bas-relief, is represented the chase of
the stag, the boar, and the bear.
Homs, the ancient Emesa, was the birthplace of Julia Domna, the mother
and bride of emperors. This city also had a famous fane--that of the
Black Stone, which was transported to Rome. When El Mukaddasi in the
tenth century visited the city, he found a remarkable statue still
standing in the mosque--“the figure of a man in brass standing on a
fish, and the same turns to the four winds.” It was regarded as a
talisman against scorpions, and was apparently a kind of weathercock. It
was perhaps to this statue that the Greek inscription which I copied in
the same mosque originally belonged, the text, when translated, reading
thus:--
“Image of the round earth, the king ...
The people having all, with wise mind ...”
El Mukaddasi says that this mosque was formerly a church, and its nave
and aisles I found still clearly traceable in the later Moslem building.
The third century saw the rise and fall of Palmyra, the great Syrian
trading city which formed the emporium of Northern Syria, connecting the
coast towns with the Euphrates by a route across the desert from its
oasis. As the bulwark of the Roman Empire against Persia, the Palmyrene
colony was allowed privileges amounting almost to independence, and
under Odenathus and his widow Zenobia it flourished until rebellion
brought down on that famous queen the heavy Roman hand. Its celebrated
buildings show how strong was the influence of Græco-Roman art on the
Aramaic inhabitants; but its numerous inscriptions are for the most part
in the native script--a late form of the old Phœnician alphabet--and
its gods are the old Phœnician deities, though Christian heretics
found shelter at Zenobia’s capital. Whether any remains of earlier ages
are to be found in the desert city is still perhaps open to inquiry,
since a very curious Aramean tablet was recovered from the vicinity by
M. Peretié. The ruins as yet known are of Zenobia’s time, but tradition
points to Palmyra as the Tadmor or Tamar in the wilderness founded by
Solomon--Tamar, which is perhaps the better-authenticated reading, being
the Hebrew name (“palm tree”) equivalent to the classic title Palmyra.
In the later days of Paganism Northern Syria was very famous for its
temples--the shrine of Daphne, in its oleander thickets near Antioch;
the yet more picturesque site at the source of the Adonis River, where
stood, under a theatre of barren crags, high up on Lebanon, the shrine
of the mourning Venus; and the curious temple of the Dea Syria at
Heliopolis (the ancient Carchemish) on the Euphrates. Three statues
existed at the latter shrine, one representing the mother goddess seated
on the lion--whose image, standing on the same, has been found carved by
the Hittites--the second the father god on a bull, and the third a deity
of unknown name. Two lofty obelisks stood in the porch, and to their
summits the priests went up, and remained for seven days in converse
with the gods and never sleeping. It was perhaps the memory of this
strange rite (not, however, peculiar to Syria, but known also in India)
which led Simeon the Stylite to ascend his column four centuries later
at a site not very far west of the old temple of the Dea Syria, for the
ruins of the great monastery erected over the base of his pillar are
still to be seen at Kal’at Sima’an, between Aleppo and Turmanin.
The temples of Daphne and Afka were famous for their licentious rites,
the temple-women who served Aphrodite in Cyprus and in Babylon here
remaining recognised until suppressed by Constantine. At Afka the statue
of Venus was represented with its hands covered by its robes, and the
lamentations which were part of the midsummer ritual were but the
survival of the old Akkadian and Phœnician “mourning for Tammuz,”
which was observed even in the Temple at Jerusalem. A star was believed
to fall annually into the great pool or lake at the temple, where the
sacred river, which falls in cascades in a deep and wooded gorge, to
flow into the sea at Byblus, had its spring. The river itself was said
to run red with the blood of Adonis in spring-time, and I have crossed
it on Easter Day when it was turbid and ruddy with the rich red
sandstone soil from Lebanon. It was at this season that the
Phœnician women at Byblus used to set little papyrus cradles floating
on its stream, holding an image of the infant sun-god.
The disciples of Simon Stylites were spread all over Syria, and even as
late as the twelfth century they sat on solitary pillars. This may
account for the single columns which are to be found standing alone in
the plains of Syria in more than one case. West of Baalbek one of these
pillars is to be seen, called “the pillar of the maidens,” and there is
another not far from Acre. In the eleventh century the monastery already
mentioned, called Kal’at Sim’an, still held no less than sixty Georgian
monks, and Phocas mentions another of their establishments at St.
Gerasimus, on the banks of Jordan, in the Jericho valley, where was “a
hermit’s pillar.” At present the hermits are content to inhabit
inaccessible caves on the Quarantania Mountain, where the pious go to
fill the baskets which they lower down the cliff.
In Justinian’s time a perhaps more useful invention was brought to Syria
by monks from China, who introduced the silkworm. The Roman silk was
imported from the far East, but in the sixth century it began to be
manufactured in Syria and in Cyprus, and continues to be made on the
slopes of Lebanon, and even as far south as Tyre. The mulberry gardens
round Beirut are cultivated to feed the worms. Under the Crusading rule
the silks of Tripoli and Antioch were also famous. In the tenth century
El Mukaddasi speaks of the silkworms of Ascalon as renowned.
Considering how eagerly the Christian pilgrims sought out every site of
Bible interest, it is curious that the early notices of the cedars of
Lebanon are so few. The destruction of the cedar forests, however,
began early. Assyrian and Babylonian monarchs, not less than Solomon,
appear to have sought out the Lebanon cedar-wood to adorn their palaces
and temples. Justinian could hardly get cedar enough to roof the great
Church of the Virgin which he built at Jerusalem, and in the Middle Ages
the private houses of Sidon were ceiled with cedar. The trees usually
visited at Ehden are not, however, the only survivors, for within the
last fifty years at least other groves existed, and perhaps still exist,
in the Northern Lebanon east of Tripoli. Seetzen, in 1805, found
thousands of cedars at Etnub, and the less known forests have probably
the better chance of surviving.
Northern Syria was overrun by the Moslems before Jerusalem fell. Abu
Obeideh advanced from Damascus to Homs, Hamah, Latakia, Jibeil, Aleppo,
and Tarsus, before the Byzantine army took the field; and though he was
forced to beat a rapid retreat to the Yermuk, south-east of the Sea of
Galilee, his great victory on that river confirmed his conquests. This
Arab raid of the seventh century A.D. repeats in a curious manner the
old incursion of the Arabs in the seventh century B.C., to which
allusion has already been made. The Crusaders, in like manner, after the
fall of Antioch, followed the same route which the various Assyrian
conquerors had taken, and after passing Hamath and Homs, went down by
the Eleutherus to Tripoli, and thence south along the sea-shore by the
historic tablets of Rameses and Tiglath Pileser.
In the twelfth century Northern Syria was divided into two great
fiefs--Beirut and Tripoli--belonging to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and
embracing all the Lebanon; while the Anseiriyeh Mountains were part of
the principality of Antioch. The Buka’a appears generally to have been
under the rule of the Turkish Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus, and the
border castles were on the eastern slopes of the Anseiriyeh chain. In
this region, also, the famous Assassins established an independent
colony, which was only subject to tribute in the times when Christian
rule was strongest. The Normans were forced in this region to enter into
treaty with the Saracen rulers, whose dread of the Tartars rendered them
long indifferent to the cause of Islam.
Mention has already been made of the many mystic sects which dwelt in
Palestine, and more especially in Northern Syria, in the Middle Ages.
Even in the tenth century El Mukaddasi speaks of a considerable
population of Shi’ah--or Persian Moslems--in Syria, whose descendants
still survive as Metâwileh, Anseiriyeh, and Ismailiyeh, the latter
representing the mediæval Assassins or “hemp-smokers.” This sect was
founded in the eleventh century, but whether the curious Paradise story,
according to which the young devotee was initiated for a few days into
the joys of the Moslem Eden, has any foundation in fact may be doubted.
It is, however, not doubtful that the influence of the Sheikh el Jebel,
or “old man of the mountain,” over his disciples caused the murder of
many well-known Crusaders and Norman princes, including Conrad of
Montferrat and Raymond of Tripoli, as well as of an Egyptian Khalif and
of several Turkoman and Arab princes. In 1174 the Assassins attempted
the life of Saladin himself, and in 1172 of Prince Edward of England at
Acre. Hence came the suppression of the order by Saladin, and by the
Mongols in Persia, the original seat of the society. The Assassins owned
ten castles, according to William of Tyre, extending their sway as far
west as Tortosa.
There were two famous places of pilgrimage in North Syria in Crusading
times. One of these was Tortosa, on the sea-coast, which the good
Joynville visited, and where was one of the pictures of the Virgin
painted by St. Luke. At that time it appears that the Mother of God was
absent in Egypt helping St. Louis (who sadly needed help), a fact which
the pious knight states to have been immediately reported to the Legate.
The other shrine was that of Notre Dame de la Roche at Sardenay--the
present Jacobite convent of Saidnaiya (“Our Lady”), north of Damascus.
This was venerated by Christians and Moslems alike. The Jacobites were
friendly to the Normans, and were then more numerous than they now are.
They preserved the old rite of circumcision, which they received from
the early Ebionite Christians, who dwelt in the Hauran in the second
century A.D. They preserved also the old Syriac language--almost the
same spoken in Palestine in the time of Christ--and their old alphabet,
a late form of the Palmyrene. In our own time the Maronite churches of
Lebanon still contain curious pictures dating back to the Middle Ages,
with Syriac inscriptions; but the Syriac language is said only to
survive in three villages not far from Saidnaiya.
The miraculous image at this place had a long legendary history. It was
said to be partly of wood, partly of flesh, and from its breasts
distilled a sacred oil which was used to light the lamps in the church,
and carried away to France, where it was treasured in many abbeys. In
the present age the image is not shown to the faithful, as it is said
that any who look upon it would be struck dead; but the saint is still
believed to be able to grant offspring to her adorers, and it is
reported that her chapel is filled with indecent pictures. She is, in
short, a Lucina, who no doubt traces her descent from the old Ashtoreth
of Syria, adored by Hittites and Phœnicians alike.
It might be thought that miraculous pictures and images had ceased to
work wonders in the nineteenth century, but the Roman sect has no
monopoly of such marvels, nor is human credulity limited to any period
of time. Colonel Churchill, in 1853, was still able to report the
existence of a miraculous sweating picture of St. George in the Maronite
church at Heitât, producing a liquid eagerly purchased by Christians;
and many a survival of early Paganism may yet be traced among the
priest-ridden peasantry of the Lebanon.
The Normans held on to their North Syrian possessions almost to the end
of the thirteenth century, and till the fall of Acre they still kept
possession of the shore towns. The success of Saladin and Bibars seems
to have led the Franks to look to a Tartar alliance as the best means of
retaining their power. It was generally believed that the Tartars--to
whom the Armenians were tributary--were Christians, and the legend of
Prester John, the Christian king of Central Asia, was eagerly accepted.
For this reason St. Louis sent Rubruquis even as far as Siberia offering
his alliance, and the plan was still in favour apparently in 1282, when
Sir Joseph de Cancy wrote his letter home to Edward I., for he says, in
describing the battle between the Egyptians and the Tartars near Homs,
that “the King of Cyprus not being yet come up, could not join the
Tartars.” It appears that the Mongol princes, who were then following
the steps of their Mongol predecessors, the Hittites, were willing, in
a very politic manner, to nurse such illusions for their own purposes,
and indeed the tolerance shown to Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists by
Genghiz Khan and his descendants contrasted in a marked manner with the
zeal of the Arab and Turkish Moslems.
There is no part of Syria where the past is more vividly recalled than
in the little-visited regions of the Northern Lebanon. Standing on the
ramparts of Kal’at el Hosn, where the great towers retain their
battlements, and the great oak door still swings in the gateway, the
traveller, as he looks down on the village which nestles at the foot of
the fortress, climbing the steep sides of the hill, might almost expect
to see the mailed knights ride forth, or the Turkoman princes advancing
under their emblazoned banners[62] from the east. At Homs the
picturesque bazaars are still girt by the black basalt walls with their
round gate-towers, which no doubt existed when, in 1281, the power of
the Mongols was broken in the plain before them, and which may have been
built before Zenghi attacked the town in 1130, by Normans or by Turkoman
princes. The influence of Europe had not visibly reached this city in
1881, when I explored its narrow lanes, and it stands amid its green
gardens by the Orontes much as it was some seven centuries ago.
Yet, on the other hand, the Lebanon district presents us with the one
bright spot in the Turkish Empire, the freest and best governed of the
Sultan’s provinces. Under the guardianship of European states, with a
Christian governor, a constitution, a taxation amounting to only a
shilling a head, a smart mounted police, and a coach-road over the
mountain, the Lebanon province has become prosperous and happy, filled
with a cheerful population, and covered with vineyards and gardens, thus
presenting a most remarkable contrast to the ill-ruled province of
Tripoli on the north and the ruined regions of Palestine on the south.