Part 11

Such were the mixed religious and race conditions by which I was surrounded, and I was much struck by the apparent tolerance and amiability with which all the members of these different religions regarded each other. The Jewish rabbi told me privately that he much preferred Druses to Christians; but he lived on good terms with all. And when I went to see the synagogue the Greek priest strolled round with me, and the rabbi returned the compliment by accompanying us when I went to visit the little Greek church. Meantime, the Hebrew sheik had summoned all the Jewish population, and they came trooping in to perform the usual Eastern salutation of kissing the hand. Old men and maidens, young men and married women and children, I saw them all, nor, so far as dress and facial type were concerned, was it possible to distinguish them from the fellahin of the country generally. These twenty families seemed all to have descended from one stock, they all had the same name, Cohen, and they have never intermarried either with the people of the country or even with other Jews. I afterwards had some conversation with the Christian and Druse sheiks in regard to them. They said that formerly more of the village lands belonged to them, but owing to the wars, pestilences, and other misfortunes which had overtaken the country at various times, their property had become diminished; indeed, there can be little doubt that the Druses themselves, when Fakr Eddin conquered this part of the country, appropriated some of it; so that now, so far as their worldly circumstances go, the Jews are badly off. Nevertheless they do not complain, and are skilful, hard-working, and persevering agriculturists, to my mind more deserving of sympathy than many of their coreligionists who have come to settle in the country as colonists, depending more upon the assistance which they derive from without than upon their own efforts. The experience and example of their coreligionists at Bukeia would make the neighbourhood of that place a desirable locality for a colony.

From Bukeia I followed a northwesterly direction, by a most picturesque mountain path, and in a few hours reached the romantically situated town of Tershiha, where I was most hospitably entertained by the Cadi, a dignified Arab gentleman of a true old Oriental type which is now becoming rare. This place contains about two thousand inhabitants. They are nearly all the adherents of a certain sheik, Ali el-Mograbi, a Moslem reformer, who emigrated to this place from the north of Africa many years ago, and whose preaching has been attended with remarkable success. As his fame grew he moved to Acre, where he exercises an extraordinary influence. The tenets of the sect of which he is the head are kept a profound secret, though there is nothing to distinguish the worship of the initiated from that of any ordinary sect of howling dervishes, to the outside observer, except the sparing use of the name of Mohammed. It is said, however, that their views are latitudinarian, and, that, so far from being exclusive or fanatic, are rather in the sense of extreme toleration for other religions. Whatever be the nature of their heterodoxy, it is not now interfered with. Indeed, it is hinted that the sheik counts among his followers some of the most highly placed officials in the empire, and there can be little doubt that his doctrines are spreading rapidly among Moslems, while even Christians have joined the society. A large new mosque is now in progress of erection at Haifa. The sheik himself, whose acquaintance I made subsequently, is now a very old man, regarded with the most extreme veneration by his followers, and the results of his teaching prove that he must be endowed with gifts of a very high order.

DOMESTIC LIFE AMONG THE SYRIANS.

Haifa, March 1, 1884.—The ordinary tourists in Palestine who write books of their experience have so little opportunity of knowing the conditions which surround the daily life of a resident in a small country town, that a few details of domestic existence here, as contrasted with those of more civilized countries, may not be uninteresting. As a general rule, the foreigner who comes to a native town to settle down as a permanent inhabitant finds himself compelled more or less to adopt the manners and customs of the richer class of Syrians, which gives him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with their home life. Some of these are wealthy merchants or large landed proprietors, with incomes varying from $5000 to $15,000, though a man whose yearly revenue reached the latter amount, of which he would not spend half, would be considered a millionaire, and few small towns can boast of so great a capitalist. As, owing to the march of civilization, the richer classes have of late years taken to travel and the study of languages, persons occupying this position generally speak either French or Italian, have visited Paris, Constantinople, or Alexandria, and have a thin varnish of European civilization overlaying their native barbarism.

The rich families of the Syrian aristocracy are almost invariably Christians, but they have only recently shaken off the manners of their Mohammedan neighbours and conquerors. The women associate far more freely than they used to do with the men. They now no longer cover their faces, and although they still wear the “fustan,” or white winding-sheet, which serves as cloak and head-dress in one, it nearly always conceals a dress of European make, while, instead of bare feet thrust into slippers, they have Paris bottines and stockings. The men of this class also dress in European garments, wearing, however, the red fez cap.

The domestic arrangements of a family of this description are by no means so refined in character as the external aspect of the house and its proprietor, when he is taking his exercise on a gorgeously caparisoned Arab horse, would suggest. If we are on sufficiently intimate terms with him to stay as a guest in his house, we find that his pretty wife, with her Paris dress and dainty chaussure, walks about in the privacy of the domestic home with bare, or at best stockinged, feet, thrust into high wooden pattens, with which she clatters over the handsome marble hall that forms the central chamber of the house, slipping out her feet and leaving the pattens at the door of any of the rooms she may be about to enter. She wears a loose morning-wrapper, which she is not particular about buttoning, but in this respect she is outdone by sundry dishevelled maid-servants, who also clatter about the house in pattens and in light garments that seem to require very little fastening in front. As for the husband, who, when he called upon you, might have come off the boulevards of Paris, barring always the red cap, he has now reverted absolutely into the Oriental. He wears a long white and not unbecoming garment that reaches from his throat to his heels, and his feet are thrust into red slippers. As he sips his matutinal cup of coffee and smokes his first narghileh of the day, there is nothing about him to remind you that he knows a word of any other language than Arabic, or has ever worn any other costume than that of his Eastern ancestors. He is sitting in his own little den, with his feet tucked under him on the divan which runs around the room, and with his wife in close proximity, her feet tucked under her, and also smoking a narghileh and sipping coffee.

Yet, if you call upon this worthy couple as a distinguished foreigner, in the afternoon, accompanied by your wife, and are not on intimate terms, you are received in a room which they never enter, except upon such state occasions, by the same gentleman, in a perfectly fitting black frock-coat and trousers, varnished boots, and a white waistcoat, and by the same lady, in a dress which has been made in Paris.

The furniture consists of massive tables with marble tops, and handsome arm-chairs and couches covered with costly satins. The walls are resplendent with gilt mirrors and with heavy hanging curtains. The floors are covered with rich carpets. There is a three-hundred-dollar piano, on which the lady never plays; and there are pictures, of which the frames are more artistic than the subjects—the whole having the air of a show repository of some sort. Indeed, if your host is at all taken by surprise, the first thing he does is to open all the shutters, as, except upon such occasions, the apartment is one of silent and absolute gloom. He has a guest-chamber, also furnished after a civilized style, in which he puts you, if you are going to stay with him, and he has so far adopted civilized habits that he sleeps on a bed himself, and not on mats on the floor, like his forefathers. His dinner is served on a table, which is spread as he has seen it spread in the houses of foreigners, but he retains the native cooking, the huge pillaw of rice, the chicken stew with rich and greasy gravy, the lamb stuffed with pistachio nuts, the leben or sour milk, the indescribable sweet dishes, crisp, sticky, and nutty, the delicious preserves of citrons, dates, and figs, the flat bread and the goat cheese, and the wine of the country.

Altogether, he gives you plenty to eat, drink, and smoke, but his conversational powers and ideas are limited, which is not to be wondered at, considering that there is not a book in the house. He tells you that the house cost him $9000, which does not seem likely to be an exaggeration when we look at the handsome marble floors and staircase, massive arches, and the extent of ground which is covered by spacious halls and ample courts.

The kitchen and offices, if you have the curiosity to look into them, are filthy in the extreme, and the process of cooking the dinner, performed by a slovenly female, had better not be too closely examined. His domestic establishment probably consists of four women and two or three men who look after the stables, in which are three or four handsome horses, and a garden requiring constant attention. He has no wheeled vehicle, for there are no roads. The women rarely take any other exercise than that of waddling on gossiping visits to each other, when their conversation turns entirely on domestic subjects, on the marital traits of their respective husbands, on congratulations on the arrival of children, if they are boys, and condolences if they are girls, and on hopeful speculation and encouragement if there are none at all; for of all misfortunes which can befall a Syrian lady, to be childless is the greatest. If there are grown-up daughters they are carefully protected from intimacy with young men, and marriages are arranged by the parents. The chances of making a good match depend more on the amount of the marriage-settlement than on their looks. If the family happens to be a large one it is not uncommon to see a young lady who has been brought up in what, in Syria, is considered luxury, married to some poor and distant connection, whose family live in the humblest manner. In such a case the contrast is greater than can be imagined in our country. She is transferred from the palatial residence I have described to a one-storied house which probably does not consist of more than two rooms, and where her husband's family live in the old style. Here she is received, perhaps, by his mother and sister, with whom she is to live; who wear the pure native costume; who have never had a shoe or stocking on in their lives; who sleep on mats on the floor, for there are no bedsteads; who partake of their meals squatting on their heels, for there are no chairs or tables; and who eat with their fingers, for there are no knives and forks.

If the newly married couple do not occupy the same room with the rest of the family, they share the other one with the domestic animals. These probably consist of a horse, a cow, and a donkey. For the sake of security they are stabled in the room of the master of the house. Their manger is on a level with the floor on which he and his bride sleep. I have before now shared such a room with a young married couple—she, the daughter of a wealthy man who lived in civilized style—and all night I have been disturbed by the crunching of the animals feeding within a few feet of where I was lying; with their constant rising up and lying down; with the movements of my host and hostess, who would get up constantly in the night, sometimes to feed the animals, which were required for work before sunrise, sometimes to replenish the charcoal fire, sometimes to attend to the baby, or to open the door and hold a whispered conference with some nocturnal visitor. As there is no undressing on going to bed, among these people, and as they indulge in long snoozes during the day, the night does not seem to be so especially devoted to sleep as with us. They appear to think that, as going to bed simply consists in lying down on the floor in your clothes, one part of the twenty-four hours will do as well for sleep as another, and their nights are restless accordingly. As a general rule, for persons who have not been long enough in the country to get used to insects, the nights are made restless from other causes.

It is curious, in the case of such a marriage as I have described, to see the change which takes place when the young wife leaves the retired village to which she has been banished, owing to the impoverished circumstances of her husband, to pay a visit to her own family. I scarcely recognize her when I meet her again. When last I saw her in her humble home her costume consisted of a thin sort of chemisette, a pair of full, baggy trousers fastened at the knee, leaving the legs and feet bare, and over these a skirt, and we were dipping our fingers amicably into the same dish of rice. Now I would walk down Broadway with her on my arm, and be rather proud of her fashionable “get up” than otherwise; and she handles her knife and fork with far greater dexterity than I did my fingers.

The wave of civilization is, however, rapidly encroaching upon these humbler classes. It is only natural that a girl brought up in this way should endeavour to introduce innovations into her husband's home. Within the last few years there has been a marked change in this respect, particularly in a town like Haifa, where the Christian population largely predominates. A veiled face is rarely to be seen, while women, even of the poorer classes, are introducing the fashion of wearing gowns, adding a table and a few chairs to their domestic furniture, and have even gone the length of sleeping on bedsteads, though I have not yet pried sufficiently into nocturnal mysteries to know whether, when they go to bed, they have progressed in civilization so far as to undress.

FISHING ON LAKE TIBERIAS.

Haifa, April 2.—I have just returned from a trip into the interior, during which I have been exploring some new and interesting country. Instead of following the usual road to the eastward by way of the valley of Esdraelon, I struck in a northeasterly direction across the fertile plain of Acre, fording the Kishon at the point of its debouchure into the sea, where, after the winter rains, we are generally obliged to swim the horses, while we cross ourselves in a ferry-boat. In two hours from this point we strike the first low range of the Galilee hills, at a depression from which, in the times of the crusaders, the armies of Saladin used to issue forth to give them battle. Indeed, the whole ground over which we ride has been from time immemorial the scene of bloody warfare, and it is not impossible, considering how events are shaping themselves in the East, that it may become so again. Rising gently, by grassy vales carpeted with wild flowers, to a height of about five hundred feet, we shortly reach the picturesquely situated town of Shefr Amr, dominated by the extensive walls of its ruined castle.

This has been a place of considerable importance ever since, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, it was the seat of the Jewish sanhedrim. It was then called Shefaram, and is probably identical with the Kefraim which Eusebius says was six miles north of Legio, and with Hapraim, which we read in the Bible was assigned to the tribe of Issachar. Since then its name has been changed to Shefr Amr, or “the healing of Omar,” from a tradition that Daher el-Amr, a prince who governed this country about a hundred and sixty years ago, recovered here from a severe illness. The fortress is said to have been built by his son Othman in 1761, and it does not appear to be older, though probably it occupies the site of a much more ancient castle. It covers a very extensive area of ground, with crenellated battlements, and contains stalls for four hundred horses. It is now partly ruined, but a portion of it is still sufficiently well preserved to be the residence of the Mudir, or local governor.

I scrambled by a most dilapidated stone stair to the top of the walls, and had a magnificent view over the surrounding country. The position is so commanding that I could well understand why Saladin chose it as a point from which he could harass the Franks who were besieging Acre, which town was plainly visible in the distance. I was informed that the whole of this extensive fortress was offered by the government for sale for $1500. The stones alone would be worth more than this amount, if it were not for the cost of transport, to say nothing of the area of land which they cover. But, as a matter of speculation, Barnum's pink-and-white elephant would be about as convenient a possession for a private individual. It is no wonder that it has been for some time in the market, or that the town itself, when capital is so scarce, should be a sleepy looking, stagnant place. Still, it is better built than the average; the houses are generally constructed of stone—many of them are of two stories—there is a fair bazaar, and a population of about two thousand five hundred inhabitants, of which fifteen hundred are Greek Christians, three hundred Moslems, six hundred Druses, and the remainder Jews. Some thirty families of Morocco Jews settled here as agriculturists about the year 1850, but after struggling against extortion for twenty years they had to give it up, and the colony is now extinct, the Jews now here being natives of the country. The Druse population is also rapidly diminishing from the same cause; a slow but steady migration takes place annually to the Druse mountains to the east of the Hauran, where they are practically independent of government control; there are also a few Protestants here, with a schoolhouse, besides a convent and church of the Roman Catholic nuns (Dames de Nazareth), built in 1866, with a girls' school.

The only other interesting building at Shefr Amr is the Greek church, which has been rebuilt on old foundations. The remains were evidently Byzantine work, dating probably from the fifth or sixth century. Many interesting tombs are to be found both north and south of the town. The most noteworthy has a handsome façade, covered with a design of a vine with grapes in bold relief, and with small figures of birds introduced. Each vine-plant grows out of a pot. On each side of the door is an effaced Greek inscription, with rosettes in lozenges below and birds above. Here, also, are fragments of Greek inscriptions, and on the left side-wall of the vestibule is a bas-relief of a lion and a small animal, perhaps a cub; on the right a lion, a cub, and a bird. The drawing is very primitive, and has a Byzantine appearance. Inside this tomb, which contains three loculi, there are mouldings round the principal arch, with tracery of vines and carvings of birds. These tombs are interesting because both the inscriptions and ornamentation belong to the Byzantine period, thus proving that the mode of sepulture practised by the Jews from the most remote date was continued by the Christians up to the fifth or sixth century after Christ.

Our way from Shefr Amr led through the beautiful oak woods which belong to that town, but which seem doomed to destruction, for I observed that many of the handsomest trees were girdled near the base, while numerous stumps bore testimony to this lamentable work of denudation. In a country where wood is becoming so rare it was heartbreaking to ride through this beautiful, park-like scenery and witness the work of destruction going on in spite of the government prohibition against felling timber. Emerging from these grassy glades we descend into the magnificent plain of the Buttauf, now a sheet of emerald green, as the young crops extend before us as far as the eye can reach. Traversing this fertile country one is more and more impressed with the incorrectness of the judgment of the ordinary tourist, who, confining himself to the route prescribed by Cook, is taken through the barren hills of Judea, and to one or two holy places in Galilee, and then goes home and talks about the waste and desolation of Palestine. The trite saying recurred to my mind as I looked on this wealth of grain: “I pity the man who can go from Dan to Beersheba and say that all is barren;” or, as my travelling-companion, who was an American, more forcibly put it: “If ever I meet a tourist who tells me that Palestine is barren, I'll lick him.”

But we were not on the tourist track, and it was not till we reached Tiberias that we found specimens, and they were too discreet; in their remarks to give my friend an opportunity of expressing his views in the manner contemplated. Here we took a boat and crossed the lake. I wanted to investigate the present fishing capabilities of these waters, but I soon found that I had not the appropriate tackle. The natives either fish with circular hand-nets, which they throw with great dexterity, or with long hand-lines, which they bait with small dead fish and haul in, thus trawling in a rough way. They have no idea of fishing with a rod, and mine came to grief, so that I had no opportunity of casting a fly, but I think it not unlikely, from the way I saw the fish jumping towards evening, that they would rise to it. The natives catch their bait by poisoning the water with pinches of a powder which they throw in near the margin. In a few moments the minnows and small fish are to be seen swimming lazily along the surface, completely stupefied, and one has only to put one's hand in and take them out. The fish we caught were principally of the bass or perch species, averaging half a pound or more each. One of the boatmen caught a dozen with two or three casts of the hand-net, but it was useless to try with a rod without proper tackle. I am convinced that a spinning artificial minnow, or a copper spoon, would be very killing; so, of course, would be trawling live bait, but the natives know only their own primitive style of fishing, and the idea of a rod and line, even with the common angle-worm at one end and a fool at the other, was entirely new to them. Indeed, scarcely any fish are taken from the lake. There are only four boats on it, but these are used more for transport than fishing purposes, and the population is so sparse on the shores that there is no demand. We were assured by our boatmen, however, that they occasionally took fish over five feet in length, and I have seen enough of what may be done to decide me to go there again some day properly provided, instead of relying on native appliances.