Chapter 28

[p.333] declivity, in the midst of well cultivated Dhourra fields, as far as a low tract called Ardh el Hamma (Arabic). The whole district is covered with the thorny shrub Merar (Arabic). On the west side of Ardh el Hamma we again ascended, and reached the village of Kefer Sebt (Arabic), distant two hours and a half from Tabaria, and situated on the top of a range of hills which run parallel to those of Tabaria. About half an hour to the N.E. is the spring Ain Dhamy (Arabic), in a deep valley. From hence a wide plain extends to the foot of Djebel Tor; in crossing it, we saw on our right, about three quarters of an hour from the road, the village Louby (Arabic), and a little farther on, the village Shedjare (Arabic). The plain was covered with the wild artichoke, called Khob (Arabic); it bears a thorny violet coloured flower, in the shape of an artichoke, upon a stem five feet in height. In three hours and a quarter, we arrived at the Khan of Djebel Tor (Arabic), a large ruinous building, inhabited by a few families. On the opposite side of the road is a half ruined fort. A large fair is held here every Monday. Though the Khan is at no great distance from the foot of Mount Tabor, the people could not inform us whether or not the Mount was inhabited at present; nor were they hospitable enough either to lend or sell us the little provision we might want, should there be no inhabitants. At a quarter of an hour from the Khan is a fine spring, where we found an encampment of Bedouins of the tribe of Szefeyh (Arabic), whose principal riches consist in cows. My guide went astray in the valleys which surround the lower parts of Djebel Tor, and we were nearly three hours, from our departure from the Khan, in reaching the top of the Mount.

Mount Tabor is almost insulated, and overtops all the neighbouring summits. On its south and west sides extends a large

[p.334] plain, known by the name of Merdj Ibn Aamer (Arabic), the Plain of Esdrelon of the Scriptures. To the S. of the plain are the mountains of Nablous, and to the N. of it, those of Nazareth, which reach to the foot of Mount Tabor, terminating at the village of Daboury. The plain of Esdrelon is about eight hours in length and four in breadth, it is very fertile, but at present almost entirely deserted. The shape of Mount Tabor is that of a truncated cone; its sides are covered to the top with a forest of oak and wild pistachio trees; its top is about half an hour in circuit. The mountain is entirely calcareous. We found on the top a single family of Greek Christians, refugees from Ezra, a village in the Haouran, where I had known them during my stay there in November, 1810. They had retired to this remote spot, to avoid paying taxes to the government, and expected to remain unnoticed; they rented the upper plain at the rate of fifty piastres per annum from the Sheikh of Daboury, to which village the mountain belongs; the harvest, which they were now gathering in, was worth about twelve hundred piastres, and they had had the good fortune not to be disturbed by any tax-gatherers, which will certainly not be the case next year, should they remain here.

On the top of Mount Tabor are found the remains of a large fortress. A thick wall, constructed with large stones, may be traced quite round the summit, close to the edge of the precipice; on several parts of it are the remains of bastions. On the west side a high arched gate, called Bab el Haoua (Arabic), or the gate of the winds, is shewn, which appears to have been the principal entrance. The area is overspread with the ruins of private dwellings, built of stone with great solidity. There are no springs, but a great number of reservoirs have been cut in the rock, two of which are still of service in supplying water. The Christians consider

[p.335] Mount Tabor a holy place, in honour of the Transfiguration, but the exact spot at which it took place is not known; and the Latins and Greeks are at variance upon the subject. The Latins celebrate the sacred event in a small cavern, where they have formed a chapel; at about five minutes walk from which, the Greeks have built a low circular wall, with an altar before it, for the same purpose. The Latin missionaries of the Frank convent of Nazareth send annually two fathers to celebrate a mass in their chapel; they generally choose St. Peter’s day for making this visit, and arrive here in the morning, in order that they may read the evening mass in the church of St. Peter at Tabaria. The Greek priests of Nazareth visit their chapel of Mount Tabor on the festival of the Virgin, on which occasion several thousand pilgrims repair to the mountain, where they pass the night under tents with their families, in mirth and feasting.

During the greater part of the summer Mount Tabor is covered in the morning with thick clouds, which disperse towards mid-day. A strong wind blows the whole of the day, and in the night dews fall, more copious than any I had seen in Syria. In the wooded parts of the mountain are wild boars and ounces. I lodged with my old acquaintance the Arab of Ezra, who had taken up his quarters in one of the ruined habitations.

June 27th.—After mid-day we returned to Tabaria by the same road. On entering the church-yard of St. Peter’s, my old lodgings, I was not a little surprised to find it full of strangers. Mr. Bruce, an English traveller, had arrived from Nazareth, in company with several priests of the Frank convent, who intended to celebrate mass at night, this being St. Peter’s day. I was easily prevailed on by Mr. Bruce to accompany him on his return to Nazareth the following morning, the more so, as I there hoped to find a guide for the valley of the Jordan; for no person at Tabaria

NAZARETH

[p.336] seemed to be inclined to undertake the journey, except in the company of an armed caravan.

June 28th.—We left Tabaria two hours before sun-rise. There are two direct roads to Nazareth; one by Kefer Sebt and El Khan, the other by Louby. We took a third, that we might visit some spots recorded in the New Testament. In one hour from Tabaria we passed a spring called Ain el Rahham (Arabic). At two hours and a half, the road leads over a high uncultivated plain, to Hedjar el Noszara (Arabic), the Stones of the Christians, four or five blocks of black stone, upon which Christ is said to have reclined while addressing the people who flocked around him. The priests of Nazareth stopped to read some prayers over the stones. Below this place, towards the N.E. extends a small plain, called Sahel Hottein (Arabic). The country is intersected by Wadys. About one hour distant from the stones, upon the same level, stands a hill of an oblong shape, with two projecting summits on one of its extremities; the natives call it Keroun Hottein (Arabic), the Horns of Hottein. The Christians have given it the appellation of Mons Beatitudinis, and pretend that the five thousand were there fed. We travelled over an uneven, uncultivated ground, until we arrived at Kefer Kenna (Arabic), four hours and a quarter from Tabaria, a neat village with a copious spring surrounded by plantations of olive and other fruit trees, and chiefly inhabited by Catholic Christians. This is the Cana celebrated in the New Testament for the miracle at the marriage feast; and the house is shewn in which Our Saviour performed it. We rested under an immense fig-tree, which afforded shelter from the sun to a dozen men and as many horses and mules. From hence the road ascends, and continues across chalky hills, overgrown with low shrubs, as far as Naszera (Arabic) or Nazareth, eight hours from Tabaria, by the road we travelled. I alighted at the convent

[p.337] belonging to the missionaries of Terra Santa. Here Mr. Bruce introduced me to Lady Hester Stanhope, who had arrived a few days before from Jerusalem and Akka, and was preparing to visit the northern parts of Syria, and among other places Palmyra. The manly spirit and enlightened curiosity of this lady ought to make many modern travellers ashamed of the indolent indifference with which they hurry over foreign countries. She sees a great deal, and carefully examines what she sees; but it is to be hoped that the polite and distinguished manner in which she is every where received by the governors of the country, will not impress her with too favourable an opinion of the Turks in general, and of their disposition towards the nations of Europe.

Naszera is one of the principal towns of the Pashalik of Akka; its inhabitants are industrious, because they are treated with less severity than those of the country towns in general; two-thirds of them are Turks, and one-third Christians; there are about ninety Latin families; together with a congregation of Greek Catholics and another of Maronites. The house of Joseph is shewn to pilgrims and travellers; but the principal curiosity of Nazareth is the convent of the Latin friars, a very spacious and commodious building, which was thoroughly repaired, and considerably enlarged in 1730. Within it is the church of the Annunciation, in which the spot is shewn where the angel stood, when he announced to the Virgin Mary the tidings of the Messiah; behind the altar is a subterraneous cavern divided into small grottos, where the Virgin is said to have lived: her kitchen, parlour, and bedroom, are shewn, and a narrow hole in the rock, in which the child Jesus once hid himself from his persecutors; for the Syrian Christians have a plentiful stock of such traditions, unfounded upon any authority of Scripture. The pilgrims who visit these holy spots are in the habit of knocking off small pieces of stone from the

[p.338] walls of the grottos, which are thus continually enlarging. In the church a miracle is still exhibited to the faithful; a fine granite column, the base and upper part of which remain, has lost the middle part of its shaft. According to the tradition, it was destroyed by the Saracens, ever since which time, the upper part has been miraculously suspended from the roof, as if attracted by a load-stone. All the Christians of Nazareth, with the friars of course at their head, affect to believe in this miracle, although it is perfectly evident that the upper part of the column is connected with the roof. The church is the finest in Syria, next to that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and contains two tolerably good organs. Within the walls of the convent are two gardens, and a small burying ground; the walls are very thick, and serve occasionally as a fortress to all the Christians of the town. There are at present eleven friars in the convent.

The yearly expenses of the establishment amount to upwards of £900. sterling, a small part of which is defrayed by the rent of a few houses in the town, and by the produce of some acres of corn land; the rest is remitted from Jerusalem. The whole annual expenses of the Terra Santa convents are about £15,000. They have felt very sensibly the occupation of Spain by the French, and little has been received from Europe for the last four years; while the Turkish authorities exact the same yearly tribute and extraordinary contributions, as formerly;[The Terra Santa pays to the Pasha of Damascus about £12000. a year; the Greek convent of Jerusalem pays much more, as well to maintain its own privileges, as with a view to encroach upon those of the Latins.] so that if Spain be not speedily liberated, it is to be feared that the whole establishment of the Terra Santa must be abandoned. This would be a great calamity, for it cannot be doubted that they have done honour to the European

[p.339] name in the Levant, and have been very beneficial to the cause of Christianity under the actual circumstances of the East.

The friars are chiefly Spanjards; they are exasperated against France, for pretending to protect them, without affording them the smallest relief from the Pasha’s oppressions:[I understood from the Spanish consul at Cairo, that when the news of the capture of Madrid, in August, 1812, reached Jerusalem, the Spanish priests celebrated a public Te Deum, and took the oaths prescribed by the new constitution of the Cortes.] but they are obliged to accept this protection, as the Spanish ambassador at Constantinople is not yet acknowledged by the Porte. They are well worth the attention of any ambassador at the Porte, whose government is desirous of maintaining an influence in Syria, for they command the consciences of upwards of eighty thousand souls.

When the French invaded Syria, Nazareth was occupied by six or eight hundred men, whose advanced posts were at Tabaria and Szaffad. Two hours from hence, General Kleber sustained with a corps not exceeding fifteen hundred men, the attack of the whole Syrian army, amounting to at least twenty-five thousand. He was posted in the plain of Esdrelon, near the village of Foule, where he formed his battalion into a square, which continued fighting from sun-rise to mid-day, until they had expended almost all their ammunition. Bonaparte, informed of Kleber’s perilous situation, advanced to his support with six hundred men. No sooner had he come in sight of the enemy and fired a shot over the plain, than the Turks, supposing that a large force was advancing, took precipitately to flight, during which several thousands were killed, and many drowned in the river Daboury, which then inundated a part of the plain. Bonaparte dined at Nazareth, the most northern point that he reached in Syria, and returned the same day to Akka.

[p.340] After the retreat of the French from Akka, Djezzar Pasha resolved on causing all the Christians in his Pashalik to be massacred, and had already sent orders to that effect to Jerusalem and Nazareth; but Sir Sidney Smith being apprized of his intentions reproached him for his cruelty in the severest terms, and threatened that if a single Christian head should fall, he would bombard Akka and set it on fire. Djezzar was thus obliged to send counter orders, but Sir Sidney’s interference is still remembered with heartfelt gratitude by all the Christians, who look upon him as their deliverer. “His word,” I have often heard both Turks and Christians exclaim, “was like God’s word, it never failed.” The same cannot be said of his antagonist at Akka, who maliciously impressed the Christians, certainly much inclined in his favour, with the idea of his speedy return from Egypt. On retreating from Akka he sent word to his partizans at Szaffad and Nazareth, exhorting them to bear up resolutely against the Turks but for three months, when, he assured them upon his honour, and with many oaths, that he would return with a much stronger force, and deliver them from their oppressors.

The inhabitants of Nazareth differ somewhat in features and colour from the northern Syrians; their physiognomy approaches that of the Egyptians, while their dialect and pronunciation differ widely from those of Damascus. In western Palestine, especially on the coast, the inhabitants, seem in general, to bear more resemblance to the natives of Egypt, than to those of northern Syria. Towards the east of Palestine, on the contrary, especially in the villages about Nablous, Jerusalem, and Hebron, they are evidently of the true Syrian stock, in features, though not in language. It would be an interesting subject for an artist to pourtray accurately the different character of features of the Syrian nations; the Aleppine, the Turkman, the native of Mount

[p.341] Libanus, the Damascene, the inhabitant of the sea-coast from Beirout to Akka, and the Bedouin, although all inhabiting the same country, have distict national physiognomies, and a slight acquaintance with them enables one to determine the native district of a Syrian, with almost as much certainty as an Englishman may be distinguished at first sight from an Italian or an inhabitant of the south of France.

The Christians of Nazareth enjoy great liberty. The fathers go a shooting alone in their monastic habits to several hours distance from the convent, without ever being insulted by the Turks. I was told that about thirty years ago the padre guardiano of the convent was also Sheikh or chief justice of the town, an office for which he paid a certain yearly sum to the Pasha of Akka; the police of the place was consequently in his hands, and when any disturbance happened, the reverend father used to take his stick, repair to the spot, and lay about him freely, no matter whether upon Turks or Christians. The guardian has still much influence in the town, because he is supposed, as usual, to be on good terms with the Pasha, but at present the chief man at Nazareth is M. Catafago, a merchant of Frank origin, born at Aleppo. He has rented from the Pasha about twelve villages situated in the neighbourhood of Nazareth and the plain of Esdrelon, for which he pays yearly upwards of £3000.[The villages in the Pashalik of Akka are all of the description which the Turkish law calls Melk. They are all assessed at certain yearly sums, which each is obliged to pay, whatever may be the number of its inhabitants. This is one of the chief causes of the depopulation of many parts of Syria.] His profits are very considerable, and as he meddles much in the politics and intrigues of the country, he has become a person of great consequence. His influence and recommendations may prove very useful to travellers in Palestine, especially to those who visit the dangerous districts of Nablous.

NABLOUS

[p.342] It happened luckily during my stay at Nazareth, that two petty merchants arrived there from Szalt, to take up some merchandize which they sell at Szalt on account of their principals at this place. Szalt was precisely the point I wished to reach, not having been able to visit it during my late tour in the mountains of Moerad; on their return therefore I gladly joined their little carayan, and we left Nazareth at midnight, on the 1st of July.

July 2d.—Our road lay over a mountainous country. In two hours from Nazareth we passed a small rivulet. Two hours and a half, the village Denouny (Arabic), and near it the ruins of Endor, where the witch’s grotto is shewn. From hence the direction of our route was S.S.E. Leaving Mount Tabor to the left we passed along the plain of Esdrelon: meeting with several springs in our road; but the country is a complete desert, although the soil is fertile. At five hours and a half is the village of Om el Taybe (Arabic), belonging to the district of Djebel Nablous, or as it is also called Belad Harthe (Arabic). The inhabitants of Nablous are governed by their own chiefs, who are invested by the Pasha. It is said that the villages belonging to the district can raise an army of five thousand men. They are a restless people, continually in dispute with each other, and frequently in insurrection against the Pasha. Djezzar never succeeded in completely subduing them, and Junot, with a corps of fifteen hundred French soldiers, was defeated by them. The principal chief of Nablous at present is of the family of Shadely (Arabic). In six hours and three quarters we passed the village of Meraszrasz (Arabic), upon the summit of a chain of hills on the side of Wady Oeshe (Arabic), which falls into the Jordan. At about half an hour to the north of this Wady runs another, called Wady Byre (Arabic), likewise falling into that river. Between these two valleys are situated the villages of Denna (Arabic) and Kokab (Arabic). Beyond Meraszrasz

BYSAN

[p.343] we began to descend, and reached the bottom of the valley El Ghor in seven hours and three quarters from our departure from Nazareth. We now turned more southward, and followed the valley as far as Bysan, distant eight hours and a quarter from Nazareth.

The two merchants and myself had left the caravan at Meraszrasz, and proceeded to Bysan, there to repose till the camels came up: but the drivers missed the road, and we continued almost the whole day in search of them. Bysan (Bethsan, Scythopolis) is situated upon rising ground, on the west side of the Ghor, where the chain of mountains bordering the valley declins considerably in height, and presents merely elevated ground, quite open towards the west. At one hour distant, to the south, the mountains begin again. The ancient town was watered by a river, now called Moiet Bysan (Arabic), or the water of Bysan, which flows in different branches towards the plain. The ruins of Scythopolis are of considerable extent, and the town, built along the banks of the rivulet and in the valleys formed by its several branches, must have been nearly three miles in circuit. The only remains are large heaps of black hewn stones, many foundations of houses, and the fragments of a few columns. I saw only a single shaft of a column standing. In one of the valleys is a large mound of earth, which appeared to me to be artificial; it was the site perhaps of a castle for the defence of the town. On the left bank of the stream is a large Khan, where the caravans repose which take the shortest road from Jerusalem to Damascus.

The present village of Bysan contains seventy or eighty houses; its inhabitants are in a miserable condition, from being exposed to the depredations of the Bedouins of the Ghor, to whom they also pay a heavy tribute. After waiting here some time for the arrival of the caravan, we rode across the valley, till we reached the

VALLEY OF THE JORDAN

[p.344] banks of the Jordan, about two hours distant from Bysan, which bore N.N.W. from us. We here crossed the river at a ford, where our companions arrived soon afterwards.

The valley of the Jordan, or El Ghor (Arabic), which may be said to begin at the northern extremity of the lake of Tiberias, has near Bysan a direction of N. by E. and S. by W. Its breadth is about two hours. The great number of rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides, and form numerous pools of stagnant water, produce in many places a pleasing verdure, and a luxuriant growth of wild herbage and grass; but the greater part of the ground is a parched desert, of which a few spots only are cultivated by the Bedouins. In the neighbourhood of Bysan the soil is entirely of marle; there are very few trees; but wherever there is water high reeds are found. The river Jordan, on issuing from the lake of Tiberias, flows for about three hours near the western hills, and then turns towards the eastern, on which side it continues its course for several hours. The river flows in a valley of about a quarter of an hour in breadth, which is considerably lower than the rest of the plain of Ghor; this lower valley is covered with high trees and a luxuriant verdure, which affords a striking contrast with the sandy slopes that border it on both sides. The trees most frequently met with on the banks of the Jordan are of the species called by the Arabs Gharab (Arabic) and Kottab (Arabic) [The following are the names or the rivulets which descend from the western mountains into the Ghor, to the north or Bysan. Beginning at the southern extremity of the lake of Tiberias are Wady Fedjaz (Arabic), Ain el Szammera (Arabic), Wady Djaloud (Arabic), Wady el Byre (Arabic), and Wady el Oeshe (Arabic). To the south of Bysan are Wady el Maleh (Arabic), Wady Medjedda (Arabic), with a ruined town so called, Wady el Beydhan (Arabic), coming from the neighbourhood of Nablous, and Wady el Farah (Arabic). On the east side of the Jordan, beginning at the Sheriat el Mandhour, and continuing to the place where we crossed the river, the following Wadys empty themselves into it: Wady el Arab (Arabic), Wady el Koszeir (Arabic), Wady el Taybe (Arabic), Wady el Seklab (Arabic), which last falls into the Jordan near the village Erbayn, about one hour’s distance north of the place where we crossed. This Wady forms the boundary between the districts; called El Koura and El Wostye.