CHAPTER II

TO SAMARIA

"What these rites [_i.e._ of the Samaritans] are, I could not certainly learn, but that their religion consists in the adoration of a calf, as the Jews give out, seems to have more of spite than of truth in it."—HENRY MAUNDRELL, 1697

We rose early next morning, in order to view the sights of Nablûs, and returned in a couple of hours, in entire sympathy with the desire of the Jews to have no dealings with the Samaritans—not that we found the Jews themselves particularly attractive, for they are here of that type of feature, so rarely seen in the East, which we habitually associate with a Cockney accent.

The town lies in a long, narrow streak between Ebal and Gerizim, the sole pass in the central mountain range of Palestine, the farthest north of the line of cities—Shechem, Shiloh, Bethel, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Hebron—long commercially important, and, from the abundance of water and surrounding fertility, capable of becoming what it perhaps once was—a really beautiful city. It contains the ruins of many churches, now all converted into mosques; one, known as the Great Mosque, having been originally built by Justinian, and restored in 1167 by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, with much resemblance to their own church. Another mosque of interest, probably originally a hospital of the Templars, is now devoted to the lepers, who here present a miserable spectacle, practically uncared for, in striking contrast to all that is done for them in Jerusalem, where there are two lepers' homes—one supported by the Government, and nursed by the Sœurs de Charité; the other, and larger, by the German Moravians.

From the aspect of the Jewish and Samaritan inhabitants one may gather that the soap produced in fifteen factories is mainly an article of export. The Moslem population, which amounts to over 20,000, is more prosperous in appearance; and, indeed, Nablûs is a somewhat thriving centre of trade in wool and cotton. There are about 700 Christians, mainly of the Greek Church. The Franciscans, as well as the Jerusalem patriarchate, have churches and schools; and there is a small Protestant community, now in the hands of the C.M.S., originally founded, on very different lines, by Bowen, afterwards Bishop of Sierra Leone, who was a practical philanthropist and who established looms, gave technical instruction in various arts, instilled cleanliness and sanitation, and taught his flock to earn an honest living; after which, by degrees, and having spent himself and his substance, he gave them religious instruction. The Moslems have a girls' school and college, and several elementary schools.

We picked our way to the Jewish quarter through heaps of decaying vegetable matter and along roofed passages, dark as a cellar, and where only in the middle could one walk upright, into the Samaritan settlement, which was decidedly cleaner and more airy, but where the inhabitants, spoilt by the tourists, were clamorous for backsheesh. At every step we were tormented by would-be vendors of antiques, mainly cufic coins, the very school children bringing torn pages from their copy-books for sale to the Frenjy who were known, by experience, to be ready to buy, irrespective of the value of the articles of commerce. As a matter of fact, we did buy, from a member of the high priest's family, an Arabic seal, a silver medal of some Roman Catholic community, and some models of the rolls of the Law ingeniously made out of kerosene tins! What Palestine did before Russia and Asia Minor sent her kerosene in cubical tins, known as "gas-boxes," it is difficult to imagine—not on account of the "gas," which is, however, cheap and good, but on account of the tins, which are, in their natural state, the water-cans, flower-boxes, general receptacles, and even wine and spirit barrels, for every household. With slight additions and a little manipulation they become garden watering-pans, dust-pans, sieves, culinary vessels of various kinds, lamps, lamp-shades, reflectors, stoves, baths, musical instruments, spoons, forks, and brush handles. They serve the errand-boys for baskets, and the children for toys; they supply material for buildings, from a dog-kennel or stable up to an entire suburb of Jerusalem, known as the Box Colony—the houses, constructed out of miscellaneous materials, being entirely faced with "gas-tins"; they are raw material for the tinsmith, the gunsmith, and, in some degree, for the leather trade, as we found traces of them in our harness. And here, in Nablûs, they turned up afresh, effectively modelled into the likeness of some of the oldest bookbinding in the world.

We found ourselves, finally, in a small square or court inhabited by the Samaritan community, where climbing a few stairs, we reached a sort of balcony, in which a score of children were receiving instruction, their feet tucked up in front of them, their shoes piled together in the doorway. We followed two good-looking young men into a small, whitewashed room, the floor of which was covered with matting, and which contained, for all furniture, a sort of reading-stand, upon which were placed, for our inspection, the scrolls of the Law. Of course, we did not see the famous Samaritan Codex—who does?—but that exhibited was of sufficiently venerable appearance to appeal to our imagination, and, in a certain sense, to our reverence. It was soiled and worn, in the part exposed, from the frequent handling and kissing of many generations; and the elaborate, gilt cylinders, so often portrayed, might be, for all we knew, of considerable antiquity, although Sir George Grove, who described then nearly fifty years ago, concluded, after careful and expert examination, that the oldest could not claim to be earlier that the fifteenth century. Even had we been privileged to see the celebrated Codex itself we should not have believed that it was written by Abisha, the son of Phinehas, nor even—the alternative tradition—by Manasseh, the high priest in the time of Ezra. The Samaritans keep all the Jewish festivals, but sacrifice only at the Passover. They ignore all the traditional literature, and teach only the Pentateuch, and, according to many travellers' tales, and even a popular guide-book, the "Book of Joshua," which, however, is not a sacred volume but a mediæval MS., written in Arabic, with proper names in Samaritan, and describing the adventures of their race from Moses to Alexander. This, with a few prayers and hymns, constitutes all their literature.

No one can feel indifferent to this little community, "sent to Coventry" some two thousand five hundred years ago, when the Jews refused to allow them to share in the rebuilding of the Temple on the ground that they were mere colonists, destitute of genealogy, and that no one knew who they were, or where they came from. No wonder that the Samaritans, under the circumstances, should have set up rival Holy Places, like the Greeks and Latins, respectively, in Jerusalem to-day. Here they are still, however, on the same spot; while the Jews, who despised them as a mushroom population, are wanderers over the face of the earth. They are said to be decreasing in numbers, and amount now to only about one hundred and sixty. Benjamin of Tudela estimated them in the twelfth century as only one hundred in Nablûs; but in those days they had adherents in Ascalon, Cæsarea, and Damascus—amounting to one thousand in all. Now, this is their only settlement; the little, whitewashed synagogue the sole outward and visible sign of their race, their faith, and even their dialect, for in the ordinary affairs of life they use Arabic.

The office of high priest is hereditary in the tribe of Levi, and it is interesting to note that he holds, in addition, the secular dignity of president of the community, and is, moreover, one of the district authorities. Jerusalem has some personal acquaintance with his son and heir-apparent, who makes occasional visits to the Holy City for various purposes, including the sale of manuscripts, not, perhaps, quite convincing as to their antiquity or value; but the scion of a high priest must live, even if the methods should bring him occasionally within the arm of the Law. The official stipend is derived from tithes paid by the faithful, who, unfortunately, have little to tithe.

Their festivals have been often described; and the Samaritan Passover has become a commonplace of tourists, though, happily, there are still some to whom the slaughter and disembowelling of half-a-dozen poor little lambs, which have been tamed and kept as domestic pets, is not a pleasing sight at close quarters. One feels especially thankful for the Gospel dispensation on reading in the twentieth century such details as the following:—"Whilst the six lambs were thus lying together, with their blood streaming from them, and in their last convulsive struggles, the young _shochetim_ (five lads, who acted as butchers) dipped their fingers in the blood, and marked a spot on the foreheads and noses of the children. The same was done to some of the females."

Importunate Jews and Samaritans followed us back to the convent, their numbers increased by inquisitive Moslems coming to see the Frenjys fleeced, and a few especially impudent girls, who demanded backsheesh on the ground that they "sat down in the English school." We speedily convinced the entire crowd that we were not tourists, much to the satisfaction of the officers of the convent, who suffer much from the visitors of their guests.

"Baedeker" was on business, and we were obliged to postpone, to some future occasion, several visits we would have gladly paid; above all, the ascent of Mount Ebal, whence one has a view practically over the whole of Palestine—a country, be it remembered, however, containing no more square miles than that of Wales. Gerizim is, historically, the more famous of the two, and that most frequented, as by far the easier climb; but a view from Carmel to Jaffa, from the Mediterranean to the mountains of Moab, would have been to some of us more suggestive, and of deeper significance, than the Moslem wely alleged to contain the skull of St John the Baptist, or even the church, possibly of the Justinian period, which may be on the site of the Temple of Gerizim destroyed by Hyrcanus, rival to that at Jerusalem. At Jacob's Well also we would have willingly lingered, grateful to Professor G. A. Smith for leaving us still in possession of the traditional site, which he maintains against many opponents. ("Historical Geography," xviii.) Another site offered for consideration, as that where Abraham prepared for the sacrifice of Isaac, we summarily condemned without trial. Some of us had ridden to Beersheba, which we knew to be a good sixteen hours' ride south of Jerusalem, Nablûs being equally a good twelve hours' north, and we failed to understand how an old man and a boy, with an ass heavily burdened, could have made the journey on foot in a period of less than three days! The acoustical properties of the valley between the two mountains need astonish no one who has seen the position, or indeed many other places in Palestine, where the nature of the limestone formation, the innumerable caves, and the intense clearness of the atmosphere, carry sound to inconceivable distances, and many times we have carried on conversation with persons visible only as a distant speck. On one occasion the Lady, who had left the Artist sketching on some rising ground, and had herself crossed a valley, and climbed a Tell beyond, mindful, though somewhat incredulous, of traditions on the subject, addressed her friend, whose whereabouts she knew, but who otherwise was too distant to be easily visible. To her intense surprise she was promptly answered, and the two were able to carry on conversation without even raising the voice.

We were soon on our way north, anxious to have time to visit Sebaste, the city of Samaria, on our way to Jenin, our next halting-place for the night. The scenery of this district, if pleasing, is as unexciting as the county of Yorkshire. There are bare spaces, rocky and sterile, sloping down into fertile plains. There are pleasant fields and fruitful gardens, and we gathered our first anemones of the season, scarlet and purple and white, and noted that the mandrakes were coming into bloom—rich, compact masses of violet in their crumpled, primrose-like leaves. Here and there were trickling rills, which, although the season was dry and the early rains had been a disappointment, had enough life left in them to produce bright ribbons of verdure across the plains, which opened out amid detached hills to right and left. Not only the familiar olive-trees scattered over wide tracts of land, but oaks and carobs, and even gardens of fruit-trees—apricots, pears, apples—give to the scenery a homelike air, which to our eyes, long used to the sepias and vandyke-browns of Judæa, was reposeful and refreshing.

We were able to appreciate the observation of Professor G. A. Smith (_op. cit._ Chap. xvi.), that Samaria is the scene of all the long drives of Old Testament history—a fact due to the openness of the country, and the possibility of practicable roads passing among, rather than over, the mountains. It was here that Ahab raced the rain-storm coming up from the Mediterranean—well do we know the tearing, raging "latter rains" of Palestine; here that Jehu drove furiously; here that Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot to visit Elisha; here that Jehu gave a lift to Jehonadab, the son of Rechab; here that Ahab, who had at least the virtue of courage, was propped up to lead the battle while his life-blood streamed into the midst of his chariot, to be licked by the dogs when it was washed in the pool at Sebaste, whither we were hastening in the morning sunshine.

We passed through two or three villages, each with its gardens and springs, and noted the beauty of the women—a rare sight here, where a woman is a grandmother before thirty and a withered hag at thirty-five. They are more graceful, more shapely of limb, with better-set heads than in Judæa, where a woman's comeliness is measured by weight, especially among the so-called beauties of Bethlehem. We turned out of a well-wooded valley into a wide basin, where a rounded hill, some 300 feet high, rose suddenly in front of us, like an island in a lake, which, in days when it was crowned with a stately city of Greek architecture, and surrounded at the base by a noble colonnade nearly 2000 yards in length, must have been, indeed, an imposing spectacle.

Few spots in the whole of Palestine are possessed of associations more varied and interesting than those of Sebaste, though its history may be less familiar than that of other cities. Always strategically important, protected by mountains on three sides, looking clear out to the Mediterranean on the fourth, one cannot wonder that Omri should have recognised its value as a stronghold; nor that it should have withstood several prolonged sieges, one lasting until one mother said to another: "Give thy son that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow," and till an ass's head was sold for fourscore shekels. It must have been down below, in the plain across which we are riding, that a curiously dramatic scene was enacted when the lepers, obliged, even in times of siege, to sit in the gate, argued among themselves that they might as well die by the hand of the enemy, with a chance of food, as sit where they were, with the certainty of starvation—and so ventured into the camp of the Syrians, to find that an aural hallucination of the sound of horses and chariots had caused their flight, so that the poor pariahs "went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it." Even the Assyrians blockaded Samaria for three years before they could possess it. Alexander the Great, Ptolemy Lagos, John Hyrcanus—each in turn invested this little hill rising before us, so green and smiling in the midday sunshine, always an enviable possession. Picture after picture rose before our minds as we rode across the fertile plain, but none more vivid than that of the days of its Greek grace, its Roman luxury, as interpreted by Herod, who named it Sebaste—Greek for Augusta—in honour of his patron, Augustus, who had bestowed upon him the site of the city demolished by Hyrcanus over a century before, though to some degree restored by Gabinius, the successor of Pompey.

Herod it was, who raised the colonnades and gateways which we were approaching; who built a city, according to Josephus, two miles and a half in circumference; who beautified it with palace and theatre and hippodrome; who made it a recruiting centre whence his veterans could collect mercenary troops; who substituted the worship of Cæsar for the worship of Baal, in a temple, whereof the ruins lie a few score yards beyond those of the great Gothic cathedral of the Crusaders, now turned into a mosque—the site having been originally chosen as that of a basilica, in honour of the tradition that the body of St John the Baptist was here buried, a tradition dating, at least, from St Jerome. The tombs of Obadiah and Elisha are also shown in the same rock-hewn chamber.

Well might Isaiah call such a spot "The pride of Ephraim, the flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley!" and when, in addition to all the gifts of Nature, we add all that wealth and art could command, we cannot help reflecting, as on a score of occasions during our journey, here and in Moab, upon the persistent fashion in which history and fact are falsified by conventionality. The literature and art of a thousand years, the teaching of one's childhood, the wilful misapprehension of modern travellers, the conventional treatment of works of devotion, have combined to impress a great number of sincere and devout persons with the general idea that the surroundings of our Lord somewhat resembled those of a Highland fishing village; whereas—in Jerusalem, in Jericho, along the shores of Gennesaret, in Tyre and Sidon, in Cæsarea Philippi, in the cities of the Decapolis, and here in Sebaste—His eyes must have rested upon architecture and sculpture which, even in decay and ruin, are still a revelation of beauty to such as ourselves, accustomed to the ineffectiveness of the Thames Embankment and the trivialities of Trafalgar Square. Here in this little country of Palestine, two thousand years ago, were palaces and fortresses, theatres and hippodromes, temples, baths, colonnades, porticos, triumphal arches, forums, to which Europe, in this twentieth century, with all her boasted science, her educated "masses," her "art for the million," is at least wise enough to attempt no rivalry. In a Bedawin tent we may recreate the life of the patriarchs, and realise that Abraham was but a wealthy shech; in many a fellah village we may find such kings as the thirty-two who reinforced Benhadad; we may find everywhere types of half the characters, of most of the manners and customs, of the New or Old Testaments. The everlasting hills remain; the stars, as the sand of the sea, still shine out in millions, which in the West the ordinary observer can never look upon; the flowers spring up for us as for Solomon; the patient beasts are but intermittently remembered now as in Holy Writ; the dog is still the victim and not the friend of man; the sheep follow their shepherd—at his voice they separate from the goats; the poor are always with us—but only a strong effort of imagination, only familiarity with traditions of classic art and luxury, can revive for us the glory of the cities, "over whose acres walked those blessed feet."

On this subject at least may we here enlarge our notions, and "divest our mind of cant!" May we realise something of the glory of the Temptation-vision of our Lord, something of the æsthetic beauty over which He, beholding, wept; may imagine somewhat of the stones and the buildings which were there; may conceive the contrast between the cave-stable of Bethlehem and Herodium, the castle of the Herods, which frowned down upon the Jewish village; between the little group which surrounded the Master when He paused to heal the blind beggars of Jericho, and the sensuous beauty of the city, with its subtropical vegetation, and its luxurious winter homes.

Even Jerash, more perfect in its remains, impressed us less than Sebaste, so unique as to beauty and dignity of position. The mosque, although rich in fragments of what must have been a grand cathedral in the days when Sebaste was a bishopric—the title is still owned by the Greek Church—has been too recently restored, after destruction by fire, to be very interesting. Our attention was, in fact, somewhat diverted by some handsome Arab boys playing unmitigated hockey within the precincts. On the north sides are the outlines of a square fortress, with corner towers, probably a home of the knights of St John. Mutilated remains of the Maltese cross are still to be traced on many of the stones scattered about Sebaste. M. de Vogüe, who seems to have been the first to show, in plan, a restoration of the buildings, considers that, next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, this was the most important reconstruction of crusading times. The length is almost 165 feet, the breadth 75. The decoration of the capitals is of the beautiful palm pattern, the arches of the apse are pointed.

"Baedeker," to whom all this was already familiar, proceeded with the horses to the top of the hill to superintend the servants' preparation for luncheon, as time was precious. We found him, half-an-hour later, sitting in the midst of a group of shechs—young men, women, and children hovering in the background. With their usual absorbent interest in politics—the greater for the rarity of its gratification—they had assembled to hear the latest news, and had worked backwards from the new railway and the troubles in Macedonia—which had called into service Arab soldiery from all parts of Palestine, and had been the excuse for special taxation—to the Boer War, the Armenian question, and the visit to Palestine of the German Emperor,—the great epoch of the modern history of Syria—the occasion of new buildings, new roads, new uniforms, new trade, and a general cleaning-up along the line of route, with which only the orders issued during the cholera scare of 1903 could in any degree be compared.

With the usual courtesy of the Moslem Oriental, so different from the unabashed curiosity of Europeans and the Europeanised, they withdrew when we made preparations for food, the two or three actually engaged in conversation too important to interrupt, emphasising the occasion for discretion, by throwing stones at others who approached too closely. Some children, many of singular beauty, retired behind a neighbouring wall, and for some time lacked courage to pick up the dainties we threw to them. When we made our final move numbers came up to offer coins, fragments of carving and specimens of carnelian, lapis-lazuli, and crystal. One especial treasure was an abominable bracelet, of the type of art sold at exhibitions, and lost—to her advantage—by some tourist—not, fortunately, that many tourists visit Sebaste, as was shown by the superior manners of the people and the absence of demand for backsheesh. The village is entirely Moslem, and all behaved with self-respecting dignity, if we except, perhaps, one boy who pulled gently at the Doctor's blond locks, to see if they grew upon his head; and some men who, greatly interested in our spirit-lamps, put a match to the weeds upon which we emptied one before packing, with a childish pleasure in, as he said, "setting fire to water." One of the many cheap conveniences of this country is the fact that one gets an imperial pint of spirits of wine—no miserable "methylated" substitute—for about eightpence; but we have never found it in a Moslem village, where the use of alcohol is, of course, forbidden by religion. With much hesitation and politeness some of the men asked leave to examine a small revolver belonging to one of the party, which excited great admiration, the firearms of the country places being often of a very primitive description, sometimes of such a size that one wonders how they are carried. It is very rare, however, to meet an Arab, beyond the towns, who is not fully armed, even if his weapon be a flintlock six feet in length. It was a curious conjunction of the new and the old, when Khalil stopped a shepherd one day to ask for a light for his cigarette, a dainty Egyptian, which we had given him. The peasant produced a piece of a table-knife, picked up a flint off the roadside, tore a scrap of blue cotton from his ragged garment, and in an instant Khalil was made happy as only tobacco in any form could make him.

A self-constituted guide dispersed the crowd, and conducted us round the hill, that we might more closely observe the colonnade, some 20 yards wide, and originally over 1800 yards long. All the columns have lost their capitals and architraves, but are still 16 feet high, some being monoliths. Besides, perhaps, over a hundred still standing, columns and fragments of columns are scattered in all directions—a lesson in the history of Tells and the exaltation of the valleys of Palestine. Many were still on the surface of the ground, still more were half buried, of others only the projecting stones of the base remained visible; while here and there the observant, or rather, perhaps, the experienced, eye, could perceive by the contour of the ground that hidden treasure of sculpture lay concealed. The soil is deep, and, for the most part, cultivated; for the hill of Sebaste is no rocky scarp, and in ten years much of all this will have disappeared. A separate mound, a little away to the west, is said by some to be the site of Ahab's ivory palace, and might repay exploration. Happily, the Germans seem able to obtain firmans at will, having probably inspired confidence, even in a suspicious Government, by the liberality and thoroughness of their excavations.

We longed to linger among so much that was beautiful both in art and nature—the green hill sloping gently to the wooded plain, the hills eight miles away opening towards the west, where the intensely blue waters of the Mediterranean, though distant a score of miles, sparkled gaily in the sunshine. Little wonder that the sun-worshipping peoples should have here erected temples to the great god, whose majesty was shown to them in the smile of the sea and the glory of the sunset! Little wonder that the great Syrian princess, Jezebel, should have rejoiced in the ivory palace looking across to the northern shore she had known in her childhood's home.

One parts so reluctantly from what is beautiful that some of us resented almost angrily a reminder that it was possibly at yonder gateway that the dogs licked up the blood of Ahab; that on this smiling plain Jezebel slew the prophets of Jehovah; and Jehu, with still greater brutality, the priests of Baal and the family of the king; that here also Herod murdered Mariamne, strangled his sons, and, possibly, beheaded John the Baptist.[2]

Our last visit was to the hippodrome, lying in a bay of the hill to the north-east—a fine natural position for such a purpose (480 by 60 yards). Many fragments of columns yet remain, apparently belonging to this noble circus, but which some have alleged to belong to a second colonnade at right angles to the first, such as we saw at Jerash. Finally, as we descended to the bottom of the valley to the north-east, we passed another plateau, strewn with massive columns, but a few of which remain upright, probably the forum of the Herodian city, and noted here and there some fine sarcophagi. A ride of four and a half hours was still before us, some of which was over paths of a nature to be traversed, if possible, by daylight, and we might not linger.

[2] Another tradition, more probable, though with less dramatic fitness, places the scene of the execution at Machærus, east of the Dead Sea.