In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

We found their reception room crowded with a group of some dozen villagers, prominent among whom was a dignified-looking shech, who at once claimed acquaintance with the Professor, and proved to have been his guide in this district upon a former occasion. He was engaged in a discussion with the priests, which we had evidently interrupted, and the moment opportunity permitted he returned to his point. There was nothing discourteous in his persistence, he was obviously attempting to make a bargain, and the price offered had already, we were told, reached 200 francs. The priest met all his advances with a decided negative, which grew more and more imperative as time went on, but time is of no value to an Arab, and we could not but be reminded of the parable of the importunate widow. After a time, at the express desire of our hosts, they all withdrew into an outer room while we enjoyed our much-needed refreshment, but when we afterwards went out to look about us they returned to the charge, and we even found them still at it next morning. The very delicate point at issue was afterwards explained to us. The man, a member of the Eastern branch of the Church, desired to marry his niece, and having failed—after perhaps equal pertinacity in enforcing his point—in obtaining permission from his own priest had come to see whether it might be worth his while to change his religious views, in hope of receiving the sanction of the Latins. Apparently he thought the real question at issue was "How much?"—and from time to time, after consultation with his companions, he would raise his bid by a few piasters. Again and again the priests roundly assured him it was of no avail; he was not to be convinced, and when we finally rode away he was sitting on a stone by the door of the presbytery. It would have been interesting to know what were the special attractions of the lady for whom he was willing to venture so much.

Madaba may best be described as a village of what, in England, we should call "squatters." They are Christian exiles from the Moslem town of Kerak, who, about 1880, took possession of a city which had been in ruins some thirteen hundred years, having been devastated, according to a learned monograph upon the subject by the Dominican Père Séjourné, most probably by Chosroes, in his destructive march to or from the north. The present population, of some 900, of whom about two-thirds are Greeks, the rest Latins, occupies a small hill about 100 feet in height, of which almost a third is debris. The new residents, in digging for foundations, have brought to light a great deal that is of extreme interest and, as naturally follows, have destroyed still more. Dr Bliss, referring to the article of Père Séjourné, and describing the town in 1895, observes that certain ruins have disappeared in the meantime, and we, in turn, failed to find others which appear in the sketches of Professor Brünnow, also of 1895.

Madaba is undoubtedly a place very precious to the archæologist; to the merely æsthetic it is disappointing and sad. The ruin, the débris, the desecration, the filth of the last quarter of a century force themselves upon our consciousness to a degree difficult to overcome, and it requires an effort, of which we were little conscious elsewhere, to realise its former dignity. When Joshua was old and well stricken in years it must have been a little discouraging to him to learn that, besides other large tracts of country in this district, "all the plain of Madaba unto Dibân" remained to be possessed. Mesha, King of Dibân, over six hours' ride to the south, mentions upon the famous Moabite stone (897 B.C.) that it belonged to the Israelites in his period, the reign of Omri, but it afterwards passed into the possession of the Moabites, and, still later, into that of the Nabateans, who came hither from the south of Arabia. Madaba withstood Hyrcanus during a siege of six months about a century before Christ, and, during the Christian era, was the seat of a bishopric. Early in the seventh century, like many places on this side of Jordan, it disappears from history.

Madaba must have been a town of some importance, although the space enclosed within its walls was barely a quarter of a mile square. Père Séjourné, the Dominican archæologist, saw gates on the north and east which have disappeared, but indications remain of the existence of four. The population was well provided for as to water, for, in addition to two smaller reservoirs, a pool at the S.W. angle measures 108 yards long, by 103 yards wide, and 13 feet deep. It is now used as a field for the cultivation of tobacco, for as long as it served its original purpose it was the cause of constant feuds with the Bedu. There was a street of columns 150 yards in length. Bliss and Baedeker mention five churches, the Père Curé told us he had evidence of the existence of eight, for which almost disproportionate number the bishopric may account. The piety of to-day takes another form. Schumacher, in a valuable monograph (1895), relates that the former curé, Pater Biever, describing his ten years' experience among the people, related that the hardest things to teach them had been not to bring their sabres and other weapons into church and not to greet him, if they chanced to arrive while service was proceeding, with the usual respectful but loud-voiced, Marhabā jā chūre!—"May thy path be broad, O priest!"

When he enunciated the teaching, "Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you," an old shech called out: "Halt, priest! you can preach that to the old women." In certain respects the people of Madaba stand higher than the Christians west of the Jordan, and offences against morality are very rare—among the genuine Bedu they are almost unknown. Monogamy is the rule in Madaba, though in Kerak, whence the people come, polygamy is found even among Christians, and among others is quite usual.

In matters of peace and warfare they observe the rules of the Bedu, and Schumacher quotes interesting examples of what he truly calls the sound views of honour and manliness, to be noticed even among the wild customs of these children of nature.

Their absolute disregard of the beautiful, their indifference to the abominations of their surroundings, is almost incredible. Chickens and goats defile the most exquisite mosaics; a Corinthian capital, picked up by chance, is inserted between an unhewn stone and a slab of marble; a squalid hut has a carved lintel. Père Séjourné points out that in a small church, which Bliss describes as the most interesting which he visited, an inscription reveals the age of the building, and serves, so to speak, as a point de repère for others. It recites that "the mosaic work of this sanctuary and of the holy house of the altogether pure Sovereign Mother of God has been made by the care and the zeal of this town of Madaba ... in the month of February of the year 674, indication 5"—that is, 362 of our present era. Another church, portions of which have to be sought for in several different dwellings, has been regarded as the cathedral; it is 125 feet long, with aisles twice the breadth of the nave, which is 29 feet, all in Corinthian style.

But the pièce de résistance at Madaba, the goal of the savant's pilgrimage, is the celebrated mosaic—the Madaba map—which, discovered in 1884, was not known to the public till 1897. We were armed with a letter from the Greek patriarch desiring that the Professor and his party might have every assistance in their investigations. We accordingly made our way to the Greek church at the foot of the rising ground upon which the town is built. They had not been aware of our coming, and suggested that, in order that suitable preparations might be made, we should return next day, which was, unfortunately, impossible. By the time that a solid mass of dust and dirt had been laboriously removed (for the means taken for the preservation of the mosaic, render it accessible only in detached sections, each covered by glass) the twilight was so far advanced that we saw it very imperfectly, and are glad therefore not to depend upon our own impressions for a description. It is a map, in fine mosaic, of Palestine, including a part of Lower Egypt, much broken and injured at the edges, and, obviously, reduced in extent. It serves, at present, as part of the flooring of the Greek church, but, on account of its value, as possibly the oldest map of Palestine in existence, it is, very properly, covered in with glass, on a principle strongly resembling a cucumber frame.

The colours, which are various, and arranged with a view to science rather than to art, are as fresh as the day they were laid, and the mosaic is a combination of a map, a picture, and a ground plan.

Père Cléopas, a Greek priest, who is spoken of as the discoverer, although it had been locally known for thirteen years, thus describes it: "The artist was not content to give simply the names of the towns, but, moreover, with careful pains, he shows the form, size, and plan of any town of importance; and further how many doors and gates it has, whether these lie to east or west, what important buildings it contains, what is their style, and what is the old name of the town, as well as that in use; where hills are found and where plains; where rivers and brooks and forests; where springs and where hot springs; where ponds and lakes; where boats and ships; where palms and where bananas; all these, in their natural colours, are exactly indicated upon the map."