Part 2

Passing through this cutting, we debouch upon a sandy plain and a reedy marsh, in which my companion had the year before killed a wild boar; and here we were in the presence of a majestic ruin. Immediately facing us was a fragment of wall, eighty feet high, sixteen feet thick, and thirty-five yards long. It towers to a height of one hundred and twenty feet above the sea, and is a conspicuous landmark. It has been partially stripped of the external layer of carved stone blocks, and has furnished a quarry to the inhabitants for some centuries. The wall had evidently once continued across the base of the promontory upon which the ancient fortress and town were built. Passing up a rocky passage and under an archway of comparatively modern date, and which could still be closed by means of massive wooden doors, we enter the _enceinte_, and discover that the whole promontory is underlaid with huge vaults. It became also evident that the immense fragment I have described was the outer wall of a large building, for on the inside were three ribbed, pointed arches, supported on corbels, representing on the left a bearded head, on the right a head shaven on the crown, with curling hair on the sides; in the centre a cantilever, with three lilies in low relief. As the roof had fallen in, the spring of the arches alone remained. The whole was constructed of blocks of stone about three feet long, two feet high, and two feet wide. The promontory upon which all this solid masonry had been erected was washed on three sides by the sea. It rose above it precipitously to a height of about fifty feet. The area was occupied by a miserable population of possibly a hundred squalid, half-clad Arabs, whose huts were built among the ruins, thus preventing any effectual examination of them. It would be difficult to conceive a greater contrast than is presented by these wretched fellahin and their burrowing habitations with the splendour of the edifices and the opulence which must have characterized the former inhabitants. Here and there we see a fragment of a granite column, while, when we reach the brink of the cliff which forms the sea-face of the promontory, we are again surprised at the stupendous scale of these ancient works, and of the sea-wall built out upon a ledge of rocks, exposed to the full fury of the waves, and still standing to a height of forty or fifty feet.

To the right of the promontory, a wall, the base of which is washed by the waves, is perforated by three arches. It presents a most picturesque appearance. The southern face is, however, the most perfect. Here there were evidently two tiers of walls, one upon the sea-level and one upon the face of the cliff. Descending into the space between these I perceived an opening in the side of the rock, and found myself in a vaulted chamber, which was sufficiently lighted by apertures in the rock for me to measure it roughly. I estimated the length at a hundred and twenty feet, the breadth at thirty-six, and the height at thirty. It so happened that on the occasion of my visit it was blowing half a gale of wind from the seaward. The breakers were rolling in upon the reefs at the base of the promontory, throwing their spray high up on the ruined walls, and producing an effect which, with the grandeur of the surroundings, was indescribably impressive. This chamber was the handsomest of a series of vaults, several others of which I have explored under the guidance of the sheik, by means of candles and torches. They are altogether six in number, running round a rectangle measuring about five hundred feet by three hundred. They are of different sizes, varying from fifty to three hundred feet in length, from thirty to fifty in breadth, and from twenty-five to thirty in height.

The name of the town which stood here in ancient times has never been discovered. This is the more singular as it must evidently have been a place of considerable importance in the time of the Romans, more probably as a fortress than as a place of commerce. Its natural advantages for defence suggest themselves at once. It is important in the history of the crusades as being the last spot held in Palestine by the crusaders, who evacuated it in 1291. It was then destroyed by the Sultan Melik el Ashraf, so that the most modern parts of the ruins are only six hundred years old. But the crusaders must have entered into possession of what was then an ancient fortress in a high state of preservation. When they took it, it became celebrated as Castellum Peregrinorum, or the Castle of the Pilgrims. It is also spoken of in the crusading records as Petra Incisa, from the fact that it was entered through the cutting in the rock which I have described. In 1218 the Knights Templars restored the castle, and constituted it the chief seat of their order. They found “a number of strange, unknown coins.” That it was a place of great strength may be inferred from the fact that it was chosen by such good judges as the Knights Templars as their chief stronghold; that it was successfully besieged by one of the sultans of Egypt, and that it was finally abandoned only because every other crusading possession in Palestine had succumbed.

A JEWISH COLONY IN ITS INFANCY.

Haifa, Dec. 10.—About sixteen miles to the south of the projecting point of Carmel, upon which the celebrated monastery is perched above the sea, there lies a tract of land which has suddenly acquired an interest owing to the fact of its having been purchased by the Central Jewish Colonization Society of Roumania, with a view of placing upon it emigrants of the Hebrew persuasion who have been compelled to quit the country of their adoption in consequence of the legal disabilities to which they are subjected in it, and who have determined upon making a _bona fide_ attempt to change the habits of their lives and engage in agricultural pursuits. I was invited by the local agent in charge of this enterprise to accompany him on a visit to the new property, whither he was bound with a view of making arrangements for housing and placing upon it the first settlers. Traversing the northern portion of the fertile plain of Sharon, which extends from Jaffa to Carmel, we enter by a gorge into the lower spurs of the Carmel range, which is distant at this point about three miles from the seacoast, and, winding up a steep path, find ourselves upon a fertile plateau about four hundred feet above the level of the sea. Here over a thousand acres of pasture and arable land have been purchased, on which a small hamlet of half a dozen native houses and a storehouse belonging to the late proprietor compose the existing accommodation. This hamlet is at present occupied by the fellahin who worked the land for its former owner, and it is proposed to retain their services as laborers and copartners in the cultivation of the soil until the new-comers shall have become sufficiently indoctrinated in the art of agriculture to be able to do for themselves.

The experiment of associating Jews and Moslem fellahin in field labor will be an interesting one to watch, and the preliminary discussions on the subject were more picturesque than satisfactory. The meeting took place in the storehouse, where Jews and Arabs squatted promiscuously amid the heaps of grain, and chaffered over the terms of their mutual copartnership. It would be difficult to imagine anything more utterly incongruous than the spectacle thus presented—the stalwart fellahin, with their wild, shaggy, black beards, the brass hilts of their pistols projecting from their waistbands, their tasselled kufeihahs drawn tightly over their heads and girdled with coarse black cords, their loose, flowing abbas, and sturdy bare legs and feet; and the ringleted, effeminate-looking Jews, in caftans reaching almost to their ankles, as oily as their red or sandy locks, or the expression of their countenances—the former inured to hard labor on the burning hillsides of Palestine, the latter fresh from the Ghetto of some Roumanian town, unaccustomed to any other description of exercise than that of their wits, but already quite convinced that they knew more about agriculture than the people of the country, full of suspicion of all advice tendered to them, and animated by a pleasing self-confidence which I fear the first practical experience will rudely belie. In strange contrast with these Roumanian Jews was the Arab Jew who acted as interpreter—a stout, handsome man, in Oriental garb, as unlike his European coreligionists as the fellahin themselves. My friend and myself, in the ordinary costume of the British or American tourist, completed the party.

The discussion was protracted beyond midnight—the native peasants screaming in Arabic, the Roumanian Israelites endeavoring to outtalk them in German jargon, the interpreter vainly trying to make himself heard, everybody at cross-purposes because no one was patient enough to listen till another had finished, or modest enough to wish to hear anybody speak but himself. Tired out, I curled myself on an Arab coverlet, which seemed principally stuffed with fleas, but sought repose in vain. At last a final rupture was arrived at, and the fellahin left us, quivering with indignation at the terms proposed by the new-comers. Sleep brought better counsel to both sides, and an arrangement was finally arrived at next morning which I am afraid has only to be put into operation to fail signally. There is nothing more simple than farming in co-operation with the fellahin of Palestine if you go the right way to work about it, and nothing more hopeless if attempted upon a system to which they are unaccustomed. Probably, after a considerable loss of time, money, and especially of temper, a more practical _modus operandi_ will be arrived at. I am bound to say that I did not discover any aversion on the part of the Moslem fellahin to the proprietorship by Israelites of their land, on religious grounds. The only difficulty lay in the division of labor and of profit, where the owners of the land were entirely ignorant of agriculture, and therefore dependent on the co-operation of the peasants, on terms to be decided between them.

I eagerly welcomed the first streaks of dawn to get out of the close atmosphere in which three had been sleeping besides myself, and watch the sun rise over the eastern mountains of Palestine. Ascending to the top of the hill in rear of the hamlet, I enjoyed a magnificent view. To the south the eye followed the coast-line to a point where the ruins of Cæsarea, plainly visible through a glass, bounded the prospect. From the plain of Sharon, behind it, the hills rose in swelling undulations, unusually well-wooded for Palestine, to a height of about two thousand feet, the smoke of numerous villages mingling with the morning haze. In the extreme distance to the northeast might be discerned the lofty summits of Hermon, and in the middle distance the rounded top of Tabor; while northward, in immediate proximity, was the range of Carmel, with the Mediterranean bounding the western horizon. While exploring the newly purchased tract and examining its agricultural capabilities, I came upon what were evidently the traces—they could hardly be called the ruins—of an ancient town. They were on a rocky hillside, not far from the hamlet. My attention was first attracted by what had evidently been an old Roman road, the worn ruts of the chariot-wheels being plainly visible in the rock. Farther on were the marks of ancient quarrying, the spaces in the rock, about two feet square, showing where massive blocks had been hewn. The former owners of the property, observing the interest with which I examined these traces, took me to a spot where the natives, in quarrying, had unearthed a piece of wall composed of stone blocks of the same size, neatly fitted, and approached by steps carved in the rock. In close proximity to this was a monument, the meaning of which I was for some time at a loss to conjecture. It consisted of three sides of a square excavation hewn out of the solid rock of the hillside, uncovered, and the depth of which it was difficult to determine, on account of the débris which had accumulated. Upon the faces of the chamber thus formed, rows of small niches had been carved, each niche about a foot high, six inches wide, and six inches deep. The niches were about two inches apart, and on one face I counted six rows or tiers of eighteen niches each. The other sides were not so perfect, and the rock had broken away in places. I finally decided that the whole had probably in ancient times been a vault appropriated to the reception of cinerary urns, but the matter is one which I must leave to some more experienced antiquarian than I am to determine definitely. It is not to be wondered at that this obscure and partially concealed ruin should have escaped the notice of the Palestine Exploration Survey.

One of the fellahin now told us of a marvel in the neighbourhood. It was a hole in the rock, to which, by applying one's ear, one could hear the roar of a mighty river. Attracted by the prospect of so singular a phenomenon, we scrambled through the prickly underwood with which the hillsides are thickly covered, and finally emerged upon a small valley, at the head of which was an open grassy space, and near it a table of flat limestone rock. In the centre of it was an oblong hole, about two inches by three, the sides of which had been worn smooth by the curious or superstitious, who had probably visited the spot for ages. First, the Arab stretched himself at full length, and laid his ear upon the aperture. I followed suit, and became conscious not only of a strong draught rushing upward from subterranean depths, but of a distant roaring sound, as of a remote Niagara. For a moment I was puzzled, and the Arab was triumphant, for I had treated his rushing subterranean river with a contemptuous scepticism; yet here were undeniably the sounds of roaring water. Had it been a distant gurgle or trickle it would have been explicable, but it was manifestly impossible that any river could exist large enough to produce the sounds I heard. Though the day was perfectly still, the draught upward was strong enough to blow away the corner of a handkerchief held over the mouth of the hole. At last I solved the problem to my own satisfaction. By ascending the hill on the right the roar of “the loud-voiced neighbouring ocean,” distant between two and three miles, was distinctly audible. It had been blowing the day before, and the rollers were breaking upon the long line of coast. I now conjectured that the crack in the rock must extend to some cavern on the seashore, and form a sort of whispering-gallery, conducting the sound of the breakers with great distinctness to the top of the hills, but blending them so much that it seemed at first a continuous rushing noise. This was an explanation contrary to all tradition, and it was received by the Arab with incredulity.

We now descended once more to the plains, and, crossing them, reached the village of Tantura, where we arrived about midday, passing first, however, the ruined fortress of Muzraá, a massive block of masonry about fifty yards square, the walls of which are standing to a height of about ten feet; then turning aside to the old Roman bridge, which spans in a single high arch the artificial cutting through the limestone rocks by which the ancients facilitated the egress of a winter-torrent to the sea. The inhabitants of Tantura have the reputation of being very bad people, and three years ago I saw a party of French tourists at Jerusalem who had been attacked and robbed by them. We were, however, entertained with the greatest hospitality, having a levée of the sheik and village notables, and with difficulty escaping from a banquet which they were preparing for us. They live in a miserable collection of hovels amid the almost defaced ruins of the old town, traces of which, however, are abundant in the neighbourhood. A lofty fragment of wall on a projecting promontory half a mile to the north of the town is all that remains of what must have been a castle of grand dimensions. A chain of small, rocky islets, a few hundred yards from the shore, forms a sort of natural breakwater, and at very little expense Tantura could be converted into a good port. As it is, when the weather is smooth, native craft run in here, and when once at their anchorage can defy any gale. Tantura, or Dor, was one of the towns assigned to the half tribe of Manasseh, but we read that they failed to expel the Canaanites from it, though when Israel “became strong they put them to tribute, but did not utterly drive them out.”

In the time of the Romans Dor was a mercantile town of some importance, and, though in the wars of the Diadochi it was besieged and partly destroyed, the Roman general Gabinius restored the town and harbor, and its architectural beauty was such that we read that even in the time of St. Jerome its ruins were still an object of admiration. Unfortunately, since the Turkish occupation, all these coast cities have been used as quarries for the construction of mosques and fortifications. The marble and granite pillars and columns, and the carved blocks of stone which formed the outside casings of the walls, have been carried away, leaving nothing but the mere skeletons of ruins as forlorn and desolate as the peasantry who find shelter beneath them.

THE TEMPLE SOCIETY.

Haifa, Dec. 25.—There are probably not many of your readers who have ever heard of “The Temple Society,” and yet it is a religious body numbering over 5000 members, of whom more than 300 are in America, 1000 in Palestine, and the remainder scattered over Europe, principally in Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.

The founder of the sect, if sect it can be called, is a certain Prof. Christophe Hoffman of Würtemberg, who, after studying at the University of Tübingen about thirty-five years ago, became a minister of the Lutheran Church and the principal of the College of Crischona, not far from Basle, in Switzerland. Here he became known as entertaining certain theological opinions which soon acquired some notoriety, as they consisted mainly of a criticism on the action of the Church with reference to the rationalistic opinions then becoming prevalent in Germany, and which found their culminating expression in the writings of the late Dr. Strauss. Mr. Hoffman, who was an ardent opponent of the modern and sceptical tendency of German thought, attributed its growing influence to the feeble opposition offered to it by the Church, and maintained that its impotency to arrest the evil arose from the inconsistent practice of its members with the moral teaching which they professed. Under the influence of this conviction he abandoned his charge at Crischona, and with his brothers-in-law founded a college at “Salon,” not far from Stuttgart, and commenced an agitation in favour of church reform, both in written publications and by his personal influence. He was shortly after elected to the Diet at Frankfort, where he presented a petition signed by 12,000 persons in favour of reform of the Lutheran Church.

His Biblical studies at this time, especially of the book of Revelations, led him to the conclusion that the period of the second advent of the Messiah was approaching, but that Christ could only be received by a Church which had attempted to embody his moral teaching in daily life; in fact, that he could only recognize those as his own at his second coming who had succeeded in practically applying the ethical code which he had taught when he came first; and he reproached the Church with failing to inaugurate a social reconstruction which should render possible a Christ life in the true acceptation of the term. A doctrine based on Scripture, and directed against the ecclesiastical system to which he belonged, naturally brought him into direct collision with it; and as an interpretation of the New Testament which strikes at the root of all compromise between profession and practice must ever be an inconvenient doctrine to churches which are based upon such compromise, Mr. Hoffman was summarily expelled, carrying with him, however, a large body of followers.

He now, with a few friends, established a sort of colony in Würtemberg, where an effort was made to put into daily practice these high aspirations, and the number of adherents throughout Europe and in America grew as his views began to be more widely promulgated and understood. In 1867 the more prominent members of the society held a meeting, at which it was decided that as the second advent of the Messiah was expected to occur in Palestine, the Holy Land was the fitting place for the establishment of the central point of the Church which was preparing itself to receive him; that there should be laid the corner-stone of the new spiritual temple which gave the name of the society; and that it was the first duty of those who were waiting for his coming to restore the land to which so many Biblical promises especially attached. While they considered that the new kingdom which was to own Christ as its king was to embrace all those who were prepared to receive him, in all lands and from among all races, yet the spiritual throne would be erected in Palestine, and its material restoration must be a necessary preliminary to its final and ultimate redemption. It was therefore decided that while the great majority of the members of the society should remain in Europe to witness for the truth, and to contribute to the support of the attempt to be made in the Holy Land, a certain number should proceed thither to establish themselves in trade and agriculture, and endeavour by the example of honest industry to elevate the native population and redeem the land from its present waste and desolate condition.

In 1868 Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Hartegg, and some others went to Constantinople with a view of obtaining a firman from the Porte, but, failing in this, they proceeded in the following year to Palestine, where, attracted by the great advantages of soil, climate, and position offered by the lands at the foot of Mount Carmel, in the neighbourhood of Haifa, they fixed upon that locality as the initial point of the enterprise. Hither shortly flocked agriculturists and handicraftsmen representing all the important industries, and they proceeded to lay out their village and build their houses on the slope between the foot of the mount and the sea, about a mile to the westward of the native town; but they soon found that it was impossible to do this without meeting with the most strenuous opposition on the part of the native government, and incurring the covert hostility of the monks who have for seven hundred years enjoyed a spiritual monopoly of Mount Carmel. As the colonists were almost without exception men of very moderate means, and believed in the responsibilities of individual ownership, and not in any communistic system, they soon found themselves engaged in a severe and unequal struggle.

Ignorant of the language, the country, the methods of agriculture, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, who regarded them askance, and unused to the climate, their faith and powers of endurance were taxed to the utmost. Not only did they persevere with the most unflinching resolution at Haifa, but extended their operations to Jaffa, where at that time a colony of American Adventists, whom some of your readers may remember, and who had emigrated there about twenty years ago, was in process of dissolution. Purchasing the remains of their settlement, a new group of the Temple Society established themselves there. Since then two more colonies have been formed, one at Sarona, about an hour distant from Jaffa, and one in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where the leader, Mr. Hoffman, at present resides.