CHAPTER III.—Hasbêya to Mount Hermon.
Hasbêya is a small town beautifully situated some 2,000 feet above the sea, on the western side of Hermon, in an amphitheatre of hills well cultivated and inhabited by Maronite Christians, Druses and Moslems, all very fanatical, hating and fearing each other intensely, and not, as far as the Christians are concerned, without cause, for here they were treacherously massacred by the Druses in 1860. They were decoyed into the Konak, or Governor’s Castle, by the Turkish commander under pretence of protection, induced to part with their arms, and then the Druses being admitted men women and children were massacred without mercy. The French army of the Lebanon avenged these cowardly murders partially, and but for the milder (and doubtfully humane) counsels of the English, would have done so effectually. We saved the Druse scoundrels from their just fate then, and consequently they are quite ready to repeat the crime now. This our rulers would do well to remember that maudlin sentimentality is often another name for weakness and not true mercy which is frequently obliged “to be cruel to be kind.” Orientals do not practice and do not understand undeserved clemency. The Christians in the Anti-Lebanon feel the effects of a too lenient policy, and are periodically in a panic about their ruffianly neighbours, and the Moslem feeling too is often inflamed against Christians, the old rumour that the five kings of Europe (as the great powers are called) are about to depose the Sultan and upset Islamism, being for fanatical purposes often revived. This rumour was one of the causes which led to the rebellion of Arabi in Egypt. If Arabi had not been crushed, there would probably have been a general rising of Arabic Islam against the Ottoman Caliphate and European interference—and it may come yet. The Ottomans are no longer a nation—they are quite effete—but the Arabs are as vigorous a race as they were in the days of Alexander the Great and Mahomet. The Arabs and the Jews, the children of Abram’s two sons, are destined to endure for ever distinct races in the midst of a heterogeneous world, everlasting monuments of the truth of the Bible story.
Hasbêya is thought by many to be the Hermon and Baal-Gad of the Bible, but others identify the latter with Baalbec. We will not attempt to decide that on which many doctors differ. We lodge in one of the best houses at the head of the valley, near the Konak. A sort of stretcher, much resembling an oriental bier, is hastily run up for us as a place to sleep on. Round the room and in the courtyard below we see ranged a number of immense jars, each large enough to contain one of the “forty thieves,” some in fact could have accommodated two. We find them to be mostly full of new wine, which is rather too rich and luscious to take much of. Just as the day is dawning an oriental maiden enters our room and makes for one of the jars (to get something out of it) and we are forcibly reminded that we are in the land of the “Arabian Nights.” Next day, after about three hours toiling over mountain paths, we pass the mouth of the Wady-et-Teim, in which is the source of the Hasbâny, the highest and most northerly source of the Jordan, the Banias and Dan branches of which it joins just above the waters of Merom, or Lake Huleh, after running almost parallel with them for some distance. We crossed this stream lower down by an old Roman bridge on our way from Kadesh to Dan and Banias.