Part 30

There is a tendency, on the part especially of the Greek and Armenian churches, to reoccupy some of these. Certainly of all the uncomfortable and dreary and broiling monasteries I ever saw, that of Kusr Hajlah, near the Dead Sea, now inhabited by half a dozen monks, claims pre-eminence. It is placed just on the edge of the saline plain, which exhales in summer a pungent heat that must render life almost insupportable. Nevertheless, it bears all the marks of having been an important mediæval monastery. The old walls still exist on three sides, and measure about forty yards by sixty. These contained two chapels above ground and one beneath in the vaults. The walls are still covered with frescoes, the designs of which are distinctly visible, as well as the inscriptions in Greek beneath them. They are evidently of Crusading times. There is a large cistern here, thirty feet by ten and twenty-four deep, which is in good preservation. So is another at the monastery of El-Yahud, thirty feet deep, with piers and arches also almost perfect. This monastery is distant about half an hour from the Jordan, and dates from the twelfth century. It stands on the site of one which was called the Monastery of St. John on the Jordan, but which was destroyed by an earthquake. The interest attaching to these monasteries, however, is comparatively slight. Upon archæological grounds they exhibit no very striking features, while from a religious point of view they are significant chiefly as showing how soon the religion of Christ became degraded into a system of useless asceticism, and, considering the tendency which is exhibited to return to it, the lamentable reflection is forced upon one that the true spirit of Christianity is as little understood now as it was in those days.

The monks who inhabit these buildings are in one sense as interesting as the buildings themselves, for one has only to converse with them to be transported to the Middle Ages. They are probably the only class of men who have remained absolutely unaffected by nineteenth-century civilization or modes of thought. They are like the toads that have been locked up for centuries in stone, and might in so far as their religious views are concerned be the identical individuals who, in the time of the crusaders, used to inhabit the cells they now occupy. From a psychological point of view, then, it is curious to converse with them on matters of faith and religion, for unless one has had personal experience of the degree of ignorance and superstition which are still to be found in a recluse of the Armenian Church, for instance, one could not credit the fact that such a being exists; and still represents a considerable class in the days in which we live.

The Arabs around Jericho are of a tribe called Abou Nuseir. They venerate a place called “The Place of Sepulchre of Dawar.” This personage was their ancestor, and the Abou Nuseir bury their dead in the tombs of the Dawar people. Arabs of any other tribe passing this spot make use of the expression, “Permission, oh, Dawar,” and the valley is sacred, and ploughs, grain, and other articles are deposited here for safety. The usual votive offerings—sticks, rags, bracelets—are found near the tombs. This tribe is scattered about in tents among the thorny bushes that cover the plain, amid which their flocks find good pasture. They are reputed to have a bad character, but we made great friends with them, owing to a circumstance which secured their gratitude.

While sitting by the fountain one afternoon we saw a number of Arabs carrying a man on a litter. This excited our doctor's curiosity, and we immediately hailed the procession. They told us they had a wounded man, and we replied we had a doctor, and they waited till we came up. In fact, an elderly man had just received a bullet in the leg from a friend with whom he had had a quarrel, which splintered the bone a little below the knee. The ball was still lodged in the leg. The doctor, who had made five military campaigns, and had probably dressed as many gunshot wounds as any man alive, was in his element. Instantly the man was taken to the nearest tents, splints of bamboo and bandages of flour and the white of an egg were speedily extemporized, while a large audience of wild—looking men, women, children, and dogs crowded around to watch operations.

The ball was probed for, not with any surgical instrument, for we were unprepared for any such emergency, but with the finger. The only instruments forthcoming were a penknife and a razor. The question was how to get the ball out with such appliances. The occasion was one which called for a display of genius, but the demand was not made in vain; with that simplicity which is its most marked characteristic, the doctor cut into the opposite side of the leg with the razor, and then pushed the ball clean through with his finger. The astonishment of the audience was excessive at the appearance of the crushed bullet, and the wounded man, a weather-beaten old Semite, who had bellowed lustily while the operation was going on, kissed the doctor's hand effusively, and consoled himself with coffee and cigarettes, in which we joined, while the bandaging and splinting was in progress. For a couple of days after this the doctor visited his patient twice a day amid the warmest expressions of gratitude on the part of the tribe, who forthwith brought all their sick to be cured, and the blessings which were invoked upon us echoed in our ears when we took our departure, till they died away in the distance.

A SHORT CUT OVER AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

Haifa, Oct. 1.—About half a mile in rear of our camp, at Ain-es-Sultan, rose a precipice a thousand feet high, which culminated in the lofty crest of a mountain called Quarantul. It derives its name from a tradition which identifies it with the mount upon which Christ was tempted for forty days in the wilderness. Of course, it is not the mountain at all, or, at all events, there is not the smallest particle of evidence to prove that it is, but that is a trifle where sacred sites are concerned. The face of this precipitous cliff is honeycombed with the black mouths of caverns. Sitting round our camp-fire at night we observed lights gleaming from the sheer side of the rock. Otherwise there was nothing to lead us to suppose that any of these caverns could be occupied by human beings. But these fires excited our curiosity, and we determined to pay the cave-dwellers perched so high above our heads a visit.

The operation turned out a more dizzy one than I had anticipated. No guide was necessary, for we could see the track winding like a thread up the face of the precipice. For the first three hundred feet or so it was all plain sailing, but then the ledge became horribly narrow. Occasionally the path was so steep that it dwindled into rock-cut steps. A false step would have sent you thundering hundreds of feet down into the abyss. At one place the height was so dizzy, the foothold so slight, that my nerve, which for this sort of work is not what it once was, began to give way, and I ignominiously squatted down, with my face turned to the rock, and tried to steady myself by forgetting that six inches behind me was a yawning chasm, from which a pebble might have been dropped plumb to the bottom. Retreat was as bad as advance, and more humiliating. For the rest of the way I went on my hands and knees, to the amusement of my companion, whose brain was not similarly affected. I don't know anything more disagreeable than the irresistible impulse which overtakes one sometimes to pitch one's self headlong over a precipice of this kind.

At last, to my inexpressible relief, I reached the mouth of a cave, into which I sprawled, panting, with thankfulness, but oppressed nevertheless with the horrible consciousness that I had the return voyage still to make. However, I dismissed this painful consideration for the moment, and applied myself to the examination of the curious grotto which we had reached. It was a sort of ante-chamber to a tunnel in the rock, passing through which we came upon some dreadful steps out on the face of the rock; but here there was a slight, rickety balustrade of wood, and at the top stood a greasy old monk, a sight which, under the circumstances, produced a more soothing effect upon my mind than such a sight usually does. This ecclesiastical worthy received us with gracious smiles, and led us through another tunnel into a sort of vestibule, which opened into a chapel which had been constructed at the mouth of a cave, so that the front facing the precipice was of masonry. Looking out of the window which had been constructed in this wall, a stone might have been dropped at least five hundred feet without touching anything till it reached the bottom. This chapel was gorgeously fitted up, thanks to the contributions of pilgrims whose heads must have been steadier than mine was. It had a handsomely decorated screen covered with sacred designs richly gilt. The apse was six feet in diameter, and the total length from the inside of the apse to the back of the cave about twenty-five feet, the breadth being about twenty. A door led out of this chapel into a narrow passage and up two or three steps into another cave, or niche, where there was a figure of a saint.

As far as I could understand from the monk, who spoke Greek, and very bad Italian, somewhere here was the spot where Christ stood when he was tempted. The walls of the chapel were covered with frescoes. The large, cavernous vestibule was the dwelling-place of the monk, with whom was associated a younger sort of acolyte, who lived in a cave overhead, which was reached by a flight of stone-cut steps from the back of the vestibule. There was also a small inner cave, fitted with a door, in which they kept their stores. The old man told me he had lived here like an eagle in an eyrie for ten years without even descending to the plain below. I wondered how he kept his health without taking exercise. All hermits who live on the sides of precipices should, I think, have treadwheels of some kind fitted up for them, or rotating cages like those in which Italian white mice take their exercise. I don't think our old friend, however, led a very ascetic life, so far as eating and drinking are concerned. He insisted on our staying to drink some excellent coffee, after which he produced a bottle of very good mastic, or spirit made from corn and flavored with anise-seed. I observed some fresh green salad and cauliflower on his side-table, which the Arabs bring him from their gardens at the foot of the hill. He had also an abundant supply of good Arab bread. His water is supplied from a cistern, of which there are several attached to the caves. He told me that eight of these were at present inhabited, but most of them were higher up. He was the spiritual superior of them all, and although there was another chapel in ruins, his was the only one in which service was performed. He invited me to continue my explorations to the caves higher up, but my mind was so much occupied with thinking how I was to get down as to exclude from it any idea of going higher up. Altogether this hermit was a jolly, hospitable old fellow, and it would be as cruel to pick him out of his hole and drop him into the busy world as it is to pick a periwinkle out of his shell with a pin.

Partially shutting my eyes and presenting my rear to the enemy, I crawled backwards down the giddy steps, and just at an uncomfortable corner came upon a jet-black man in a sort of priestly garb, who turned out to be an Abyssinian hermit. He has no connection with the establishment I had been visiting, having his own cell and his own church all to himself. His bosom was stuffed with manuscripts in Ethiopian characters. Under any other circumstances I would have endeavored to converse with so rare a specimen of ecclesiastical humanity; but how can a man engage in a theological discussion in an unknown tongue, hanging between earth and heaven on six inches of slippery rock? I felt rather inclined to say _vade retro Satanas_—not an inappropriate remark, considering the mountain I was on; and yet the poor man meant well, and, indeed, gave me an arm. He does not stick to his perch, however, like the old raven I had been visiting above, but usually resides in Jerusalem, visiting his cave during the forty days of Lent and at other stated periods.

We now determined to bid adieu to Jericho and the Mount of the Temptation and to strike across country into Samaria. This would take us over an unbeaten track and show us a country very imperfectly known. We trusted to finding our way by asking it, or by picking up local guides when we were utterly at a loss. By this means, although one runs a considerable risk of being benighted, or of having to scramble over almost impracticable mountain paths, you get a better chance of stumbling upon objects of interest than by following a more trodden route. For more than two miles we skirted in a northeasterly direction the base of the lofty cliffs of the Jebel Quarantul. On our right a copious steam, which has its rise in a fountain called Ain Duk, irrigated an extensive tract of land, which was green and well cultivated. If there had only been population enough to develop it properly it would be a most productive region. There were all the evidences that in ancient times its resources were not thus neglected. Everywhere the remains of stone watercourses and aqueducts were visible, one bridge in particular having no fewer than three tiers of arches one above another. The construction was ingenious and peculiar. At the bottom or narrowest part of the ravine which it spanned was one huge pointed arch. Immediately over this were four pointed arches, while at the side of them was a fifth, double the height of the others, the foundations of which were in the steep side of the ravine. Above these again were six more pointed arches which supported the aqueduct. Thus there were altogether twelve arches, and of these only two were the same size. The old Roman masonry of which they were composed was still in a very good state of preservation. Near this aqueduct were also the substantial remains of an old Roman road.

We now crossed, for about three miles, a fine undulating country covered with rich herbage, upon which large herds of cattle were feeding, and followed most of the way an ancient cemented channel, about four feet wide, which had formerly conveyed the waters of another stream to swell those which had their origin at Ain Duk, and all of which were carried over the aforementioned high level bridge. The stream which we were now approaching was also surrounded by cultivated and irrigated land. The whole of this plain in its richness and wealth of water far surpassed anything my expectations had led me to anticipate. Near the base of the mountains from which this fine stream issues are the remains of an ancient fortress situated on a high mound or tell, called Khurbet el Aujeh. The stream bears the same name. This is the sixth large stream which I have counted gushing from these mountains in a distance of about eight miles. My compass now told me that I must get up into the mountains if I intended to strike the Jerusalem and Samaria road at the point which I proposed. From information which I had taken before starting I expected to find the track in question ascending the valley from which the Aujeh issues, but we looked in vain for signs of any such track. Indeed, on forcing our way up it a little distance, we found that its precipitous sides closed in on us in a manner which effectually barred all further progress. We were wondering what to do in our dilemma, when, fortunately, we observed some peasants making some irrigating channels, and from them, after much chaffering, we obtained a guide. It is a singular thing that these poor peasantry, whose day's labor in the fields cannot be worth more than ten cents to them, will refuse fifty rather than leave what they are about and act as guides. On this occasion it was with great difficulty that I bribed a man with a dollar. To our surprise he took us straight to the base of an apparently impracticable cliff and proceeded to climb up it. As my experience of Palestine horses has convinced me that they can go almost wherever a man can, provided you leave them to find their own way, we proceeded to breast the limestone crags without misgiving, the only hardship being that the day was hot and we had to climb them on foot. To scramble up a thousand feet on a stretch by a path which was generally quite invisible is no slight operation, and one which, in this instance, it would have been impossible to perform without a guide, such impassable barriers did the rocks seem to present until the guide showed us the way to circumvent them. When we did reach what we fondly hoped was the summit, it was only to find a barren, undulating wilderness stretching before us, every now and then involving more climbing, for the elevation at which we were destined to arrive before the end of our day's journey was more than four thousand feet higher than the level from which we started.

If the scenery by which we now found ourselves surrounded was rugged, it was wild and grand in the extreme. Gloomy and precipitous gorges intersect these mountains in every direction. Not a sign of a habitation is visible anywhere, and with the exception of a single goatherd we did not meet a human being for hours. The vegetation was also very sparse, relieved, however, by great quantities of the fragrant white broom in flower, and cyclamen and scarlet anemones. Even in the days of the ancients it must have been a barren, uncultivated tract, but I was repaid for the scramble across it by one or two evidences of extreme antiquity of the greatest interest. The first of these consisted of four huge prostrate slabs of stone. They were evidently the blocks which had once formed a dolmen that had been overturned. Now, the interest of this lies in the fact that no dolmen, or signs of a dolmen, has ever yet been discovered in Judea, though eagerly searched for. There is only one doubtful one in Galilee, but they are abundant to the east of the Jordan. The reason assigned for this is that the tribes to the east of the Jordan did not obey the command, when they entered the land of Canaan, to “overturn the tables of stone,” to destroy the Canaanitish altars, and to break or smash their pillars; while the tribes to the west, especially Judah and Benjamin, were very particular in this regard.

Here, I think, is the only evidence which has yet been found in Judea of this interesting fact. This region was apparently one much dedicated to Baal worship. I saw many stone circles and one or two alignments of large stones, but the most curious was an enclosure about twenty-four yards square, formed of rough, unhewn stones, each weighing a ton or more, piled to a height of two or three upon each other. In the centre was a circle, eight feet in diameter, of large stones, with a single stone in the middle of it. This was a monument which evidently existed from pre-Judaic times; but, although I attempted hurriedly to take its bearings, I am afraid that in that wilderness of stone I should never be able to find it again.

We were pretty well worn out when we reached at last the village of Mugheir, the first inhabited place we had seen since leaving our camp near Jericho, and where we proposed to call a halt for the refreshment of man and beast. Meantime, as our tents and baggage had been sent by another road, we began to feel extremely doubtful as to when we should ever see them again.

EXPLORATIONS IN PALESTINE.

Haifa, Oct. 7.—The village of Mugheir, where we halted to rest after our long and weary scramble from the Jordan valley, is one of the most out-of-the-way places to be found in Palestine. It is not on the way anywhere, but a sort of _Ultima Thule_—the last spot where ground fit for cultivation is to be found. It stands on the margin of a charming little plain, where there is a fine olive grove. Indeed, looking westward, the prospect is cheery enough, but eastward it is wild rock, black, gloomy gorges, or less precipitous but equally barren valleys. The sheik received us with great cordiality, albeit quite unused to the visits of travellers, and spread before us such fare as he could, flat Arab bread, roasted eggs, curdled goat's milk, and figs, butter, and honey. I mention the last three together because you eat them together. You first dip your dried fig into the butter, you then dip it into the honey, and then put it into your mouth. I never tried the combination before, but it is not bad. He also gave us a hot compound of flour and sugar boiled together, which he seemed to think a great deal of, but, beyond being sweet and sticky, it had no especial merit. His wife was the fairest woman I ever saw for a pure-blooded fellahah peasant. In fact, she could not have been fairer had she been a blue-eyed, light-haired Swede or German.

After satisfying my hunger I went to look for antiquities, and found several rock-cut tombs and cisterns, a fine rock-hewn wine-press, and four towers all in a good state of preservation, and three of them inhabited. They measured thirty feet square and as many in height. The basement stones were massive enough to be the masonry of a former period, but exactly of what date I am unable to say, possibly not earlier than the crusades; though I found some foundations of walls which I am inclined to ascribe to a much older date. There has been probably a town or village here from time immemorial, though I am unable to identify it with any Biblical site.

The sheik insisted upon accompanying us himself as guide to a place called Singil, which we had fixed upon as our night quarters. Our way led us through a small, depressed plain. After passing some remains of no special interest we reached a very remarkable ruin, called El-Habs. It is a tower on a rocky scarp, with walls built partly of masonry, partly of rock, which measure about sixty feet by thirty. The stones of which these walls are composed are of immense size, measuring from twelve feet up to eighteen feet in length, with a height of from three to four feet each. The masonry is thus quite equal to the average size of the temple stones in Jerusalem. The tower has two entrances. Near it are the remains of another large building of about one hundred feet square outside measurement, and with walls six feet thick. Its interior is divided into four parallel chambers, running east and west, of various breadth. One of the partition walls has archways through it, with piers between. All round these buildings are the foundations of ancient walls and houses and bell-mouthed cisterns. The whole place bears the marks of extreme antiquity. It has been examined by the officers of the Palestine Survey, but is not mentioned in any guide-book, and I am unable to form any conjecture in regard to it.