CHAPTER I

TO NABLUS

"And then men go to Shiloh, where the ark of God with the relics were long kept ... and after men go to Shechem, formerly called Sichar ... and there is a fair and good city, called Neapolis, whence it is a day's journey to Jerusalem."

SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, 1322

Those who have undertaken the education of the tourist have instilled into him, among other irresponsible statements, the superstition that one can travel in the Holy Land only during the three spring months of the year, thus leaving the far more agreeable season from September to March for the delectation of the serious student. This conviction, and the absence from our party of pith helmets, white umbrellas, hats invested with floating veils, blue spectacles, superfluous luggage, broken-kneed horses, dragomans, and other impediments to comfort and convenience, made possible the unsportsmanlike start which otherwise might have caused a careless observer to mistake us for the "Personally Conducted."

To drive in a carriage as far as El Bireh, sending our horses in advance, was however a venial sin; for the ride to Nablûs was before us, the first three or four hours being along a highroad of very moderate interest; and, at best, we could not hope to get in before nightfall, in spite of our start at six o'clock on a December morning.

We were a very attenuated party—only the Lady and the Doctor remaining of our former group. We were reinforced, however, by the Artist, a lady whose saddle-bags were weighty with cameras and sketching-blocks; and by another learned doctor, who, on account of his association with a celebrated guide-book, we designated "Baedeker." Sitting in a carriage is not inspiriting, and even the sight of the Holy City in the sunrise, viewed from Mount Scopas, as purple in the morning as it is pink in the evening, failed to arouse our conversational powers. The tribe of Benjamin welcomed us coldly on the broad plain assigned to it, and we could think only with some dejection, of the bygone days when this plucky little people could afford to lose twenty-five thousand men in a single battle (Judges xx.), and when the six hundred who held out on yonder hill of Ramah, repudiated by all their neighbours, possessed themselves of wives in the good old Sabine fashion, and made a fresh start in their frontier colony. Fifteen Moslem families now inherit the traditions of former glory; and, indeed, the population hereabouts is very thinly scattered. It is whispered that some of the villages have so evil a reputation that the neighbouring districts now, as two or three thousand years ago, are wont to say: "There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife"—the women already established there not being desirable associates for those otherwise brought up.

At El Bireh our vehicle drew up in front of the khan or village inn, where there is a good deal of accommodation for horses, and a single small room for man. There we breakfasted, while our steeds were collected and our saddle-bags dispersed. We had no baggage-horses, and had all our personal belongings, as well as fodder for the beasts, to distribute as best we could, so that we were unable to accede to the characteristically Oriental request of a Greek priest that we would relieve him and his horse of a part of their burden. We had been at El Bireh before, and so did not linger to see the ruins of the very fine Church and Hospice of the Knights of St John, which testify to its former renown. The church, which is of the same ground-plan as that of St Anne at Jerusalem and that of St Cleophas at Qoubeibeh (probably Emmaus), had three naves, terminating in a triapsidal chancel. It was rebuilt by the Crusaders, who had here a fortress and stronghold. The tradition which it commemorates, is that it was here, a day's journey from Jerusalem, that the child Jesus was missed by His parents, who returned to seek Him. There is also a further tradition that it was here that, seated under a palm-tree, the prophetess Deborah judged Israel. The palm-trees remain, with many other signs of the fertility produced by the presence of an excellent spring.

No horses were visible, although we were assured that they had left Jerusalem at two o'clock—a statement we ventured to doubt when they were at length produced, still perspiring, and obviously over-driven. The Arab has little idea of time, and, indeed, Khalil's sense of veracity never permits him to make a promise more definite than: _Iumkin inshallah_—"Perhaps, if God will"; and his idea of futurity is limited to _bookra_ or _ba'ad bookra_—literally, "to-morrow," or "after to-morrow," but used as equivalent to "by-and-bye," near or remote. The Arab has no compunction in keeping you waiting; but is equally indifferent to losing time himself, and cheerfully sits down on your doorstep until you are ready to give him attention. "Baedeker," much experienced, had carefully selected his own saddle and bridle, sound ones, the pride of their owner, who had naturally reserved them for the decoration of his stables, and had sent the usual aggregation of unrelated straps, patched leather, and rotten string. Our friend had a fluent command of Arabic and some half-dozen other languages, and he expressed his views on the manners and customs of the country at considerable length to Abdallah, who was no further moved than to ejaculate: _Ana baraf? Allah baraf_—"Do I know? God knows" when his patron's breath was exhausted, and to pass the palm of his left hand over the back of his right, the palm of his right over the back of his left, in testimony of his personal innocence and irresponsibility.

The Lady was, of course, faithful to her old friend Sadowi; but the horses all knew the Nablûs road, and, having no desire to better their acquaintance, professed disinclination in various forms. Somewhere about 1900 it was decided to make a road between the capitals of Judæa and Samaria—Jerusalem and Nablûs—and all the beasts of both towns are well aware of the undertaking, which has been finished only as far as El Bireh, the remainder, some nine hours' journey, being in various stages of that incompleteness which is so infinitely more discouraging than no road at all. As, however, we could see for some miles ahead of us what bore the aspect of a _Sultaniyeh_, the Turkish equivalent for the king's highway, some of us weakly proposed to take the carriage farther. This, however, we found impossible, as the road at present is only to be looked at—a wise provision, as we later discovered.

At Beitin, about half-an-hour farther, we passed from the territory of Benjamin to that of Ephraim, from Judæa into Samaria, from the arid and treeless Jerusalem district into the verdure, the colour, the obviously greater prosperity which one finds anywhere else. Surely every traveller who permits himself to think, unfettered by conventionality and tradition, must continually ask himself why the Jewish people should have taken for their capital a site which, however "beautiful for situation," was, from the point of view of milk and honey, of vineyards and olive-yards, of corn and wine, inferior to almost any other in Palestine; where water must always have been scarce, and the hillsides bare, though, undoubtedly, less arid and desolate than now; where the winter winds and the summer siroccos were more pitiless than anywhere else; where the soil was shallow, and the season of possible cultivation short. So long as one is in the Holy City, under the spell of its influences, of its associations, sacred and profane, its interests, literary and archæological, its Babel of tongues, its cosmopolitan population, its immigrants from every corner of the world, so long as one hears the music of its place-names, as one feels the enchantment of its moonlight, sunlight, starlight, of its colouring, of its life—so long is one prepared to echo the vauntings of the Psalmist and the prophets; but one has only to visit almost any other spot in Palestine to ask, from the point of view of common-sense and the practical, why Joshua did not settle in Shechem, or David in his native town of Bethlehem; why Abraham was not satisfied with Hebron, or Solomon with the plain of Sharon; or here at Beitin, assuming it to be Bethel, why Samuel did not remain permanently, instead of returning from his annual visits to his shelterless home, perched on the arid hilltop, north-west of Jerusalem.

In the Middle Ages Bethel was located farther north, near Nablûs, but later historians identify it with Beitin. It is a miserable village, with only the remains of a crusading church—said to be on the site of Jacob's vision, now a mosque—to recall past prosperity; but there is abundance of water, and everything was looking green and fresh after the early rains. The associations, Jacob's dream, the burial of Rebecca's nurse, Jeroboam's golden calf, Elisha's bears, seemed to diminish in historical perspective when we heard of a circle of stones of probable religious significance and extreme antiquity, and very rare, west of the Jordan; but time would not permit us to examine them. There is a fine reservoir, 300 by 200 feet, which has a spring in the middle; and all about were scattered hewn stones and remains of columns, which one is free to fancy may have belonged, as is said, to the temple of the golden calf. A little beyond lie the pleasant little villages of Jifna and Bir es Zet, occupied by Christians, with churches belonging to both Greek and Latin Catholics, some English missionaries, and a school supported by the American Quakers of Ramallah, about an hour away, who, here and elsewhere, have excellent institutions of a really useful and practical kind.

Ruins on various hilltops remind us that the district was of importance in Roman times, that Jifna was the capital of one of the ten toparchies into which the Romans divided Judæa, and that, probably on account of its importance as the great north road, several points of vantage were fortified by the Crusaders—a stronghold known as Casale Saint Giles, after Count Raymond of Saint Giles, having its special significance for the English.

The Lady was particularly interested in a hill lying to the south, as being associated with a piece of folklore of which a close variant is found in the Outer Hebrides. An inhabitant of Jifna, returning home from fulfilling his Passover obligations in Jerusalem, was recounting the wonders which had lately taken place in the Holy City—the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. His friends were quite disposed to believe in the miracles of healing related, but when he concluded with the account of the Resurrection his wife, who was plucking a fowl for supper, observed: "Your story is just as probable as that this cock should fly out of my hands and escape"; upon which the bird returned to life, and, flying through the door of the house, alighted upon the opposite hill, which is called _Jebel ed deek_—Hill of the Cock—to this day (_cf._ Goodrich-Freer "Outer Isles," Chap. x.). According to some, the village of Et-tayyibeh, which fronted us as we left Beitin, is "the city called Ephraim," where Jesus retired after the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, so that something of His fame was, perhaps, already known in the neighbourhood.

Truly, the tribe of Ephraim had a beautiful inheritance! All the way we go are signs of a rich abundance such as our eyes are little accustomed to; fig-trees, whose wide-spreading branches sweep the ground; olive-trees, whereof the young shoots, the biblical "olive branches," have grown into veritable individual trees, and each hoary veteran stands king in a little grove of his own kindred. In a narrow valley, where there is only just room for the new road above the bed of what must be at times a torrent, we noticed many Jewish tombs cut into the rocks on our left, and stopped to examine one, of more elaborate workmanship than the others, having the seven-branched candlestick sharply cut into the rock to the left of the entrance, three pairs of branches turning upward and four downward.

Two of the party turned aside to visit the village of Seilun, lying about half-an-hour east of the road—a scene of manifold interest. The view alone is worth the détour, affording the first glimpse of Hermon, the great landmark of Palestine and Syria—a chain extending for about twenty miles, and averaging over 9000 feet in height. The identification of Seilun with Shiloh,[1] at once brings to the mind a crowd of associations—the resting-place, from the time of Joshua to that of Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant; the scene of the prayer of Hannah, and of the dedication of Samuel; of the life and tragic death of Eli; of the visit, in disguise, of the wife of Jeroboam.

Nothing is more tiresome than the conventionality which obliges a tourist, at sight of a bat or an owl, to recall some quotation or apply a prophecy, as if bats and owls were never found unannounced by the minor prophets; but the utter desolation of Seilun, ruined even in the time of St Jerome, can hardly fail to remind the spectator of the words in Jeremiah, although we do not know the nature of the catastrophe referred to: "Go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel." The mound is covered with débris of buildings, hewn stones, broken columns, and fragments of carving. One of the more complete among the ruins is evidently built of fragments from some earlier structure, the lintel of the door, now fallen, being a monolith covered with beautiful sculpture. The main building, a mediæval fortress church, is some 33 feet square, the roof having been supported by four columns with Corinthian capitals. A small mosque has been added on the east side at some later period, and is known as _Jâmi' el Arba' in_—the forty companions of the Prophet. These forty saints turn up in various forms in Palestine—Jewish, Christian, and Moslem; and at Ramleh (Arimathea, probably) the same tower has done service in honour both of the forty Christian martyrs and of the forty companions of the Prophet. An exceedingly realistic picture in the Armenian cathedral at Jerusalem supplies full details of the martyrdom. Upon Mount Carmel we have a sacred grove known as "the trees of the forty" (_i.e._ martyrs), and near Nablûs we passed a chapel known as Rijal el-'Amud—"Men of the Columns"—the burial-place of forty Jewish prophets. The new road came to an end at the thirty-fifth kilometre, just after the separation of our party. It had passed through various stages illustrative of the history of road-making, and had lately been reduced to the merest anatomy, wholly destitute of covering. It now reverted to the piles of rocks which, under the name of roads, are to be so carefully avoided in the East—at best resembling the bed of a mountain torrent, but more often the wreck of a Yorkshire wall. The riders naturally made their way across the nearest ploughed fields, and finally, by a precipitous descent, found themselves in the small plain or wide valley of the Lubban, where a busy scene presented itself. In a corner of the triangular plain, or at the mouth of the valley, as one prefers to regard it, an abundant spring takes its rise beside the ruins of an ancient khan, and here large numbers of fellahin and Bedu had paused to water their cattle, horses, and camels. Here our party reunited once more, and here we lunched, to the great amusement of a large audience, who were particularly entertained with our spirit-lamps. A testimony to the greater fertility of this district was afforded by the immense flocks of birds passing over our heads eastwards, probably to the newly-sown fields, and by the rooks following the plough.

It was after three o'clock before we were again on our way, and the twilight soon overtook us, although we did our best to push on, warned of a very bad descent before we should reach the great plain framed by the hills of Samaria. Just below this descent, and before coming into the Plain of El-Makhna, we met the other end of the new road coming out from Nablûs to meet that from Jerusalem. We avoided it with much care, grateful to the whiteness of its newly-macadamised surface for warning us, in the darkness, where not to go. For something like three hours the great hills of Ebal and Gerizim loomed vast before us; while far away we knew the great snow crown of Hermon must be looking down upon us; but we had little pleasure in our ride, for the darkness had already descended, and from lack of interest we were all tired. Even the Arab servants, Khalil and Abdallah, did not talk, and only from time to time broke out into song. So many persons of all kinds must traverse this road from Jerusalem to Nablûs, and so few but tourists must trouble themselves to carry tents, that one wonders someone does not establish a decent khan to serve as half-way house in the twelve or thirteen hours' ride—though it might be difficult to say where, as the Christian villages of Bir es Zet and Jifna occur too early in the day's march from Jerusalem. However, when the new road is once opened, some of the neighbouring villages, El Lubban, for instance, may send out feelers in the direction of the highway of commerce.

The stars, of a brightness of which we know nothing in the West, came out suddenly, as if a curtain had been withdrawn, not piercing the darkness one by one, as with us; and soon a radiant moon looked over the top of the great screen of mountains on our left; and when, by-and-bye, we turned, somewhat suddenly, west, we had sufficient light to be conscious of the great hills of Ebal and Gerizim on either hand, and to catch a glimpse of the enclosure around Joseph's Tomb and, a little farther on, Jacob's Well. Our horses, who had been dejected and uninterested all day, seemed to be aware that the worst was over, and, suddenly reviving, were soon clattering over the cobble-stones of Nablûs. At every turn we expected to be stopped by a demand for our teskerys (passports), or some other formality, as in no town in Palestine is the traveller so subject to demands for backsheesh as here, and it was with some surprise, as well as relief, that we found ourselves in the spacious reception-room of the convent. By a kindly provision of the patriarchate in Jerusalem, here and at certain other places, one can obtain very comfortable sleeping accommodation and the means of preparing food.

[1] One can hardly feel doubt as to the identification, the biblical description being so very exact: "Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem [_i.e._ Nablûs] and on the south of Lebonah [_i.e._ Lubban]."