Part 1

HAIFA OR LIFE IN MODERN PALESTINE

BY

LAURENCE OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF ‘THE LAND OF GILEAD,’ ‘ALTIORA PETO,’ ‘PICCADILLY,’ ETC.

SECOND EDITION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXVII

PREFACE.

The expectations which have been excited in the minds of men by the prophecies contained in Scripture, and the hopes which have been roused by them, have ever invested Palestine with an exceptional interest to Biblical students; while its sacred conditions, historical associations, and existing remains prove an attraction to crowds of pilgrims and tourists, who annually flock to the Holy Land. As, however, the impressions of a resident and those of a visitor are apt to differ widely in regard to the conditions which actually exist there, and the former has opportunities of researches denied to the latter, I have ventured to think that a series of letters originally addressed to the New York ‘Sun,’ and extending over a period of three years passed in the country, might not be without interest to the general reader. Many of these will be found to deal chiefly with archæological subjects, which must, indeed, form the main subject of attraction to any one living in the country, and conversant with its history.

A flood of light has been thrown of recent years upon its topography, its ancient sites, and the extensive ruins which still exist to testify to its once teeming population, by the prolonged and valuable researches of the “Palestine Exploration Fund” of London.

As, however, these are embodied in volumes so expensive that they are beyond the reach of the general public, and are too technical in their character to suit the taste of the ordinary reader, I have in many instances endeavoured to popularise them, availing myself extensively of the information contained in them and in Captain Conder's excellent ‘Tent Work in Palestine,’ and quoting freely such passages as tended to the elucidation of the subject under consideration, more especially with regard to recent discovery at Jerusalem; but which, as I was grubbing about, I have not been able to define as exactly as I should have liked to do had all the publications been beside me at the moment.

The experience and investigation of the last three years, however, have only served to convince me that the field of research is far from being exhausted, and that, should the day ever come when excavation on a large scale is possible, the Holy Land will yield treasures of infinite interest and value, alike to the archæologist and the historian.

HAIFA, 1886.

CONTENTS.

PAGE INTRODUCTION vii A VISIT TO EPHESUS 1 THE RUINS OF ATHLIT 6 A JEWISH COLONY IN ITS INFANCY 11 THE TEMPLE SOCIETY 17 THE TEMPLE COLONIES IN PALESTINE 22 EXPLORING MOUNT CARMEL 27 THE VALLEY OF THE MARTYRS 33 THE ROCK-HEWN CEMETERY OF SHEIK ABREIK 38 EASTER AMONG THE MELCHITES 43 THE JEWISH QUESTION IN PALESTINE 48 “HOLY PLACES” IN GALILEE 53 PROGRESS IN PALESTINE 59 THE FIRST PALESTINE RAILWAY 63 SAFED 68 MEIRON 72 THE FEAST OF ST. ELIAS 77 A SUMMER CAMP ON CARMEL 82 THE DRUSES OF MOUNT CARMEL 87 EXPLORATION ON CARMEL 93 A PLACE FAMOUS IN HISTORY 98 THE BABS AND THEIR PROPHET 103 AN ANCIENT JEWISH COMMUNITY 108 DOMESTIC LIFE AMONG THE SYRIANS 114 FISHING ON LAKE TIBERIAS 119 A VISIT TO THE SULPHUR SPRINGS OF AMATHA 125 EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE YARMUK 130 EXPLORATION ON THE YARMUK 135 A DRUSE RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL 139 THE GREAT FESTIVAL OF THE DRUSES 145 HATTIN AND IRBID 152 THE JEWISH FEAST OF THE BURNING AT TIBERIAS 157 HOUSE-BUILDING ON CARMEL 162 DOMESTIC LIFE AMONG THE DRUSES 168 CIRCASSIAN HIGHWAYMEN.—A DRUSE FESTIVAL AT ELIJAH'S ALTAR 173 ARMAGEDDON.—THE BOSNIAN COLONY AT CÆSAREA 178 CÆSAREA 186 VILLAGE FEUDS 192 THE ARISTOCRACY OF MOUNT CARMEL 198 THE JORDAN VALLEY CANAL 204 LOCAL POLITICS AND PROGRESS 208 THE IDENTIFICATION OF ANCIENT SITES 213 THE SEA OF GALILEE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST 218 THE SCENE OF THE MIRACLE OF THE FIVE LOAVES AND TWO SMALL FISHES 223 CAPERNAUM AND CHORAZIN 228 DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE 233 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUINS OF SYNAGOGUES 239 A NIGHT ADVENTURE NEAR THE LAKE OF TIBERIAS 244 KHISFIN 250 FURTHER EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 256 THE PLACE WHERE THE SAVIOUR SENT THE EVIL SPIRITS INTO THE HERD OF SWINE 262 THE ROCK TOMBS OF PALESTINE 268 GENERAL GORDON'S LAST VISIT TO HAIFA 274 THE CONVENT OF CARMEL _versus_ THE TOWN OF HAIFA 281 PROGRESS EVEN IN PALESTINE 285 THE RECENT DISCOVERY OF GEZER 290 TRADITIONAL SITES AT JERUSALEM 296 TRADITIONAL SITES AT JERUSALEM.—_Continued_ 303 PROGRESS IN JERUSALEM 309 THE THREE JERICHOS 319 MODERN LIFE IN PALESTINE 325 RAMBLES IN PALESTINE 332 EXPLORATIONS IN PALESTINE 339 SACRED SAMARITAN RECORDS 345 THE TEN LOST TRIBES 352 RESEARCHES IN SAMARIA 358 A DRUSE FATHER'S VENGEANCE 364

INTRODUCTION.

THE chapters which compose this volume originally formed a series of letters, all of which passed through my hands. I prepared them for their first appearance in print, and corrected the proofs afterwards. Finally, it was at my suggestion and advice that they were gathered together in a book.

The deep interest which the land of Palestine possesses for every thoughtful mind makes us all greedy for fresh and truthful information, alike concerning its present condition and the discoveries which new researches add to our knowledge of the past. From this point of view, many of the pages which follow are of exceeding importance. Every Christian will read with deep attention the author's description of the present state of places connected with momentous events of New-Testament history; and when, as in the present instance, the traveller and investigator is one whose judgment and whose accuracy may be entirely relied upon, the value of the report surpasses every careless estimate.

It is with this feeling that I have urged my friend to complete his work for publication, and with this feeling I earnestly commend it to the reader. Nor is its interest confined to historical and Biblical questions alone; the ethnologist examining the races of modern Syria, and the philosopher contemplating the marvellous processes of Asiatic transformation, will also find here material which will repay their most careful study.

C. A. DANA.

NEW YORK, November, 1886.

HAIFA.

A VISIT TO EPHESUS.

Smyrna, Nov. 4, 1882.—There are two ways of doing Ephesus: you may either go there and, like the Apostle, “fight with beasts,” in the shape of donkeys and donkey boys, or you may wear yourself to death under the blazing sun, alternately scrambling over its rocks, and sinking ankle deep in the mire of its marshes. In old days it was an easy two days' ride from Smyrna to Ephesus, the distance being about fifty miles, but the Smyrna and Aiden Railway speeds you to the ruins in about two hours now, first through the romantic little gorge from whose rocky ledge rises the hill crowned by the ruined castle which overlooks the town, past a modern and an ancient aqueduct, the latter moss-grown and picturesque, with its double sets of arches rising one above the other; through orange and pomegranate groves, and vineyards yellow and languishing at this season of the year from the drought; across fertile plains from which the cereals and corn crops have been removed, and where flocks of sheep and goats are scattered on distant hill slopes, or follow in long lines the striking figures of the shepherds in their broad-shouldered felt coats; past the black tents of the Yourouks, a nomadic tribe of Turcomans, whose kindred extend from here to the great wall of China, and who vary their pastoral operations from one end of Asia to the other with predatory raids upon unsuspecting travellers; and so on into a wilder country, where the mountains close in upon us, and the Western tourist begins to realize that he is really in Asia, as groups of grunting camels, collected at the little railway stations, and their wild-looking owners, tell of journeys into the far interior, and excite a longing in his Cockney breast to emancipate himself from the guidance of Cook, and plunge into the remote recesses of Asia Minor or Kurdistan.

As we approach Ephesus the country again becomes more fertile, and groves of fig-trees, surpassing all preconceived notions of the size ordinarily attained by these trees, reveal one of the principal sources of supply of those “fine fresh figs” which find their way in such abundance to American railway cars. As the modern Ephesus is a miserable little village, containing only a few huts and a very limited supply of donkeys, the wary traveller will see that his are sent on from Smyrna beforehand, and will probably find some consolation for the absence of any competent guide or decent accommodation, or appliances for seeing the ruins, in the evidence which this fact affords of the comparative rareness of tourist visitors.

So far from being assailed by shouts for backsheesh, or bombarded by sellers of sham antiques, or struggled for by rival guides, one is left entirely to one's own devices on that desolate little platform. There is an apology for a hotel, it is true, where cold potted meats are to be obtained, and, by dint of much searching, a guide, himself an antique, turns up, but we are very sceptical of his competency. A row of columns still standing, which once supported an aqueduct, and the crumbling ruins of a castle on a conical little hill immediately behind the railway station, suggest the mistaken idea that these are the ruins of Ephesus. They are very decent ruins, as ruins go, but the castle is a comparatively modern Seljük stronghold, and there is nothing certain about the antiquity of the aqueduct. In exploring the castle we find that the blocks of stone of old Ephesus have been built into its walls, and that a still more ancient gateway, dating from the early period of the Byzantine Empire, is also largely composed of these antique fragments, upon which inscriptions are to be deciphered, proving that they formed part of a Greek temple. So, in the old mosque of Sultan Selim, which is at the base of the hill, we find that the magnificent monolith columns of a still more ancient edifice have been used in the construction of what must in its day have been a fine specimen of Saracenic architecture; but we have not yet reached the site of ancient Ephesus. As we stand on the steps of the old mosque we look over a level and marshy plain, about a mile broad, which extends to the foot of two rocky hills, each about two hundred feet high, and divided from each other by what appears to be a chasm. Behind these is a higher ridge, backed by the mountain chain. It is on these two rocky eminences, and on their farther slopes, now hidden from view, that the ancient Ephesus stood; but the problem which has for many years vexed antiquarians is the site, until recently undiscovered, of what gave the town its chief notoriety.

The temple of the great goddess Diana, about a quarter of the way across the plain, was a wide, low mound, and here it is that the recent excavations of Mr. Wood have laid bare one of the most interesting archæological discoveries of modern times. We eagerly tramp across the mud and over the corn-stalks of this year's crop to the débris, and, climbing up it, look down upon a vast depressed area, filled with fragments of magnificent marble columns, and with carved blocks on which are inscriptions so fresh that they seem to have been engraved yesterday, all jumbled together in a hopeless confusion, but from amid which Mr. Wood, who has had a force of three hundred men excavating here for the three previous years, has unearthed many valuable memorials. At the time of our visit the work was suspended and Mr. Wood was away, nor was it possible to obtain from the utterly dilapidated old Arab who called himself a guide, any coherent account of the last results, beyond the fact that a ship had come to take them away.

I made out one inscription, which was apparently a votive tablet to the daughter of the Emperor Aurelius Antoninus, but in most cases, though the engraving, as far as it went, was clear, the fragments were too small to contain more than a few words. In places the marble pavement of the temple was clearly defined, and its size was well worthy the fame which ranked it among the seven wonders of the world. From here a long, muddy trudge took us to the base of the hill, or mount, called Pion, on the flank of which is the cave of the Seven Sleepers, and attached to it is the well-known legend of the seven young men who went to sleep here, and awoke, after two hundred years, to find matters so changed that they were overcome by the shock. When I surmounted the hill and looked down upon the Stadium, the Agora, the Odeon, and other ruins, I was conscious of two predominating sentiments. One was surprise and the other disappointment; surprise, that one of the most populous and celebrated cities in the world should have arisen on such a site; and disappointment, that so little of its magnificence remained.

From an architectural point of view there is absolutely nothing left worth looking at. Lines of broken stone mark the limits of the principal buildings. The Stadium, which accommodated 76,000 persons, and one of the theatres, which accommodated over 56,000, are almost shapeless mounds. The whole scene is one of most complete desolation, and we are driven to our imagination to realize what Ephesus once must have been. In the case of Palmyra and Baalbec no such effort is necessary; enough is left for us to repeople without difficulty those splendid solitudes; but in Ephesus all is savage and dreary in the extreme; deep fissures run into the rock, which must have formed nearly the centre of the town; huge boulders of natural stone suggest the wild character of some portion of the city in its palmiest days. It is difficult to conceive to what use the citizens devoted this Mount Pion, with its crags and caverns and fissures. The lines of the old port are clearly defined by the limits of a marsh, from which a sluggish stream, formerly a canal, runs to the sea, about three miles distant, not far from the debouchure of the Meander. No doubt the mass of the city surrounded the port, but there is a marvellous lack of débris in this direction. Between the Temple of Diana and the foot of Mount Pion there is not a stone, so that the probability is that the temple was situated amid groves of trees. On the hill there are stones, or, rather, rocks, enough, but they are of huge size, and for the most part natural. Of actual city comparatively few remains still exist. No doubt its columns and monuments and slabs have supplied materials for the ornamentation and construction of many cities, and the convenience of getting to it by sea has materially aided the spoilers. Still, the site of ancient Ephesus affords abundant material for conjecture, and the more one studies the local topography the more difficult is it to picture to one's self what the ancient city was like.

From historical association it must ever remain one of the most interesting spots in the East, while, even from a purely picturesque point of view, the wild and rugged grandeur of the scenery amid which it is situated cannot fail to stamp it upon the memory. As I believe it is intended to continue excavations, we may hope for still further results, and there can be no doubt that, when once the obstacles which are now thrown in the way by the present government, to all scientific or antiquarian research in Turkey, are removed by the political changes new pending in the East, a rich field of exploration will be opened, not at Ephesus alone, but throughout the little-known ruined cities of Asia Minor.

THE RUINS OF ATHLIT.

Haifa, Nov. 27, 1882.—The more you examine the countries most frequented by tourists, the more you are perplexed to comprehend the reasons which decide them to confine themselves to certain specified routes, arranged apparently by guides and dragomans, with a view of concealing from them the principal objects of interest. There is certainly not one tourist in a hundred who visits the Holy Land who has ever heard of Athlit, much less been there, and yet I know of few finer ruins to the west of the Jordan. To the east the magnificent remains of Jerash, Amman, and Arak-el Emir are incomparably more interesting, and these, of course, are also almost ignored by tourists; but that may be accounted for by the fact that special permission from the government is required to visit them, while an impression still exists that the journey is attended with some risk. Practically this is not the case. It takes a long time to remove an impression of this kind, and it is the interest of a large class of persons who live on blackmail to keep it up. But in the case of Athlit there is no such drawback. Probably the neglect with which it is treated is due largely to the fact that no scriptural association attaches to the locality, and people would rather go to Nazareth than examine the majestic remains of Roman civilization, or the ruder superstructures of crusading warfare.

The easiest way to reach Athlit is to go to it from Carmel. As the monastery there is a most modern structure, about fifty years old, tourists often get as far as that, because the guide takes them there; but they know nothing of the mysteries of this sacred mountain, second only to Sinai, in the estimation of the modern Jew, in the sanctity of its reputation, and they turn back when, by riding a few miles down the coast, they would follow a route full of interest. The road traverses a plain about two miles in width. On the left, the rugged limestone slopes of the mountain are perforated with caves—in the earliest ages of Christianity the resorts of hermits, from whom the order of the Carmelites subsequently arose. Here tradition still points out the spot where the crusading king, St. Louis of France, was shipwrecked; and in a gorge of the mountains may still be seen the foundations of the first monastery, near a copious spring of clearest water, where the pious monarch was entertained by the first monks, whom, out of gratitude, he enabled subsequently to establish themselves upon the site occupied by the present monastery, and to found an order which has since become celebrated. Along this line of coast there is an uninterrupted stretch of sandy beach, upon which the full force of the Mediterranean breaks in long lines of rollers, and which would afford an interesting field of study to the conchologist. Among the most curious shells are the _Murex brandaris_ and the _Murex trunculus_, the prickly shells of the fish which in ancient times yielded the far-famed Tyrian purple. The Phoenicians obtained the precious dye from a vessel in the throat of the fish.

Instead of following closely the line of coast, I kept near the base of the Carmel range, reaching in about two hours from Carmel the village of El Tireh, where the mosque is part of an old Benedictine monastery, the massive walls of which have been utilized for religious purposes by the Moslems. Their worship has had little effect upon the inhabitants, who are the most notorious thieves and turbulent rogues in the whole country side. They are rich enough to indulge their taste for violence with comparative impunity, as they can always square it with the authorities. Their village is surrounded with a grove of thirty thousand olive-trees and the rich plain, extending to the sea, is nearly all owned by them. Indeed, their evil reputation keeps other would-be proprietors at a distance. Here the plain begins to slope backward from the sea, so as to prevent the water from the mountains from finding a natural outlet, and in summer the country becomes miasmatic and feverish.

From El Tireh, where the inhabitants treated me with great civility, I crossed the plain, and in an hour more reached an insignificant ruin called El Dustrey, a corruption of the crusading name “_Les Destroits_,” or “The Straights,” so called from a gorge in the limestone ridge, which here separates the plain from the sea. This very remarkable formation extends for many miles down the coast. It is a rugged ridge, varying from twenty to fifty feet in height, and completely cutting off the sea beach from the fertile plain behind. Here and there it is split by fissures, through which the winter torrents find their way to the sea. Skirting this ridge, we suddenly come upon an artificial cutting, just wide enough to allow the passage of a chariot. At the entrance, holes were cut into the rock on both sides, evidently used in ancient times for closing and barring a passage-way. The cutting through the rock was from six to eight feet deep and from sixty to eighty yards in length. The deep ruts of the chariot-wheels were distinctly visible. Here and there on the sides steps had been cut leading to the ridge, which had been fortified.