In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

Of Ziza, however, where we halted for a short time about four hours after leaving Madaba, we find a clear record in the Roman Notitia, where the name occurs, unchanged by a single letter, as an important military station, "Equites Dalmatici Illyriciani Ziza". Here we found traces of what must have been one of the largest towns of Roman Arabia, the most prominent feature being a great tank of solid masonry, 420 by 330 feet, still larger than that at Madaba, and, although the dry season was far advanced, and the reservoir is much reduced in available extent by debris, containing still a good supply of water. Steps, so wide and shallow as to be accessible even to horses, lead down to the water; many of the single stones are over six feet in length, and the reservoir was fed by an ingenious contrivance which, aided by two sets of strong sluice gates and an embankment of earth and masonry, formerly economised all the water which, in the heavy winter rains, would come rushing along the valley and down the hill side, upon which the town was built. In various parts of the valley there are embankments, to turn the water from other gorges and depressions into this central reservoir, which is also provided with dams in the event of flood, floods being frequent and dangerous in this country, where, in the early rains, the water rushes in torrents along the surface of the baked and hardened earth. In the neighbourhood of such provision for a large population one naturally looks for buildings of importance. Tristram observes that the tank, though of such infinite consequence as is barely conceivable to those who do not know the East, is not defended, pointing to a period of security, when the Dalmatian cavalry swept the surrounding plains and made their headquarters here and, possibly, at Castal. Against the horizon, on the crest of the ridge, are two castles, which we were unable to visit but which were described by Tristram: one a solidly-built fort, apparently Saracenic, although constructed of older materials, which, to judge from the sculpture remaining upon them, may have been the ruins of Byzantine churches, the other, to the east, is, he tells us, in a much more ruinous condition. The present remains seem to be Roman, but show traces of use as a mosque, and among the material are sculptured stones, possibly Byzantine, according to some Persian, as well as fragments of cufic inscriptions. Eastward, again, is the Roman town of Ziza, which includes a strange aggregation such as is found in no country other than Syria. There is a fine Saracenic building, said by the Arabs to have been perfect until the Egyptian invasion of 1832; there are cufic inscriptions and sculptured crosses; an olive mill of basalt; remains of sarcophagi; and a large Christian church, of which one apse still remains standing. All these ruins suffered considerably from the wanton destruction wrought by the Egyptian troops, who, it is said, threw down a very perfect building in the town, and several entire Christian churches. Tristram was the first European to visit Mshatta and Castal as well as Ziza; the last, at the suggestion of Zadam, the son of the great shech of the Beni Sakr, the local tribe of Bedu, who, by the intervention of Klein, the German missionary famous for the discovery of the Moabite stone, accompanied Tristram as companion, and protector of the expedition. The ruins appear to have been previously pointed out to Captain, now Sir Charles, Warren, the representative of the Palestine Exploration Fund, who, however, made no investigation, so that it fell to the share of Tristram to be the discoverer of Mshatta, one of the most remarkable architectural monuments in the world.

It was with ever-increasing eagerness of expectation that we hastened on, after asking our way from some railway workmen—Europeans—who were living in tents among the ruins, and who spoke a polyglot of Arabic, French, and Italian. Within a few minutes we crossed the line upon which they were engaged, intended—strange anachronism!—to connect Damascus with Mecca, an undertaking for which the Turkish Government deserves the credit of immense perseverance under very difficult conditions. It may be mentioned, in passing, as also to their credit, that they are now rapidly carrying out the line from Haifa northwards, undertaken some years ago by the English, and which—after the whole district had been surveyed, the line planned by the skill of Dr Schumacher, the German-American Vice-Consul at Haifa, and the work, in the hands of an English engineer and English foreman, had made some progress—was mysteriously abandoned, to the serious loss of many of the employés.

It is of this railway that Professor George Adam Smith prognosticated so hopefully, as being the most important material innovation from the West. "... Not only will it open up the most fertile parts of the country, and bring back European civilisation to where it once was supreme—on the east of Jordan—but, if ever European arms return to the country—as in a contest for Egypt or for the Holy Places when may they not return?—this railway, running from the coast across the central battlefield of Palestine, will be of immense strategic value" ("Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land," p. 20).

At the point where we cross the line the rails are not yet in place, but the iron monster will soon be here—fit symbol of an age which mocks the time that is, but creates few monuments which shall defy the time that shall be; which enables the curious to gaze at the wonders of the past, but leaves him no leisure to initiate what may survive our race, and speak, as do the ruins of Moab, to an age and a people of a distant future. We come on the wings of steam, and with all the miracles of science, but we leave no trace but unsightly heaps and a scar upon the face of the landscape. We were glad, some of us, when we had reached and crossed the unshamed anachronism, and, forgetting the noise that would break the silence of the plain, the smoke that would soil its purity, the advertisement, the competition, with their attendant vulgarity and vice, we could throw ourselves again into the arms of Nature, and listen to the voices of our Mother Earth.

It seemed far more in keeping with our mood of the moment when, an hour or so later, we crossed the Haj (pilgrim) Road from Damascus to Mecca; the road, or rather aggregation of paths, some hundreds of parallel tracks, dispersed over a width of 1000 yards, alternately dividing and amalgamating, over which, for some twelve hundred years, the followers of the Prophet have passed to the visible centre and cradle of their faith. It is possible that the sons of Isaac may have trodden this very path on their way from the desert to the land of promise, for here there can be little variation in roadways, as they are determined not by mountain passes or choice of gradient, but by the presence of water. The shech of the district is responsible for the safe conduct of the pilgrimage across his territory, and it is at their own risk that any wander from the caravan. It is not many years since a body of pilgrims, tempted by some vision of a nearer route, had to be followed up when they did not reappear. A few only were saved, but two hundred perished from thirst, and one shudders to think of the possible animal suffering involved, although, happily, most would be mounted on the long-enduring camel. The Professor told us that at times, when his caravan had lost its way in the desert at night, his mukaris would stoop down and scoop up a handful of sand some two or three inches deep, which they would smell for traces of camel droppings, showing, when they were deeper than a possible surface accident, that the travellers were on the timeworn track.

Almost involuntarily we drew rein, and paused, with mingled feelings, before this record of human emotions. Five times a day every good Moslem must turn toward Mecca, and once in a lifetime, if possible, he must journey thither in pilgrimage, either personally or by proxy. The road is strewn with the bones not only of animals but of men, who have fallen by the way, from thirst or exhaustion, it may be, or from plague and the cholera, which so constantly dog their footsteps. The Arabs have a story that a good Derwish in Mecca begged the leader of the pilgrimage to take the cholera away with him from a place where so many holy men were daily perishing. "But," said the Haj, "there are many good men in Jerusalem, whom we can ill spare!" "Well," said the Derwish, "take it, anyway, and if Allah does not want it in Jerusalem He will send it on elsewhere"; and that, says history, as well as tradition, has happened annually ever since, for though Jerusalem is left untouched, the dread cholera accompanies the returning pilgrims almost every season, and is seldom far away from the track which lay before us.

Although many now avail themselves of the steamers on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, thousands assemble every year at Damascus, where the holy tent of the caravan is kept, and large numbers still come, even from Circassia, Central Asia, and Northern Africa, in order to make the orthodox journey in its entirety. Formerly it was reckoned as lasting twenty-seven days but, owing to various mitigations in the difficulty of travel, the time tends, every year, to become shorter. Nevertheless, the Arabs have a saying which expresses a journey of indefinite length (much as we say "to go to Jericho"): "To go to the gate of God"; (Bab-el Allah) the gate that is, at the end of the Meidân, the suburb of Damascus, where the pilgrimage assembles, known as Bawâbet Allâh.

Though, in these days when, even among Moslems, the tendency shows itself to minimise the duties of life, and many only contribute to the cost of the general pilgrimage, and compromise with conscience by a mere payment in money, nevertheless, even yet, custom, superstition, temporary advantage, hereditary conventionality or, it may be, pious instinct, religious fervour, cosmic yearning, avail now, as in all ages, to the direction of human conduct, and the parallel tracks are still well trodden. To us, who can enter in part only into the spirit of the East—its absolute faith in predestination, in the predetermination of salvation or perdition, in the irrelevance between religion and conduct, in the resignation which seems to us so utterly without hope, in its limitation of the relations between Man and God, its perpetual ascription of praise with but little margin for intercession—the whole position is a great mystery, and in the tramp, tramp of thousands of feet, which seems to us to echo wearily through vast avenues of time, we find it difficult to catch any note of love, or hope, or aspiration. They carry an inevitable burden of human sorrow, which is no fit offering at such a shrine as theirs; they have hopes and fears and human longings which they may confide to none but human hearts: God is great; there is no god but God; all that befalls them is already decreed; and the pilgrimage is to His glory and in no sense for their own consolation. Browning's Epistle of an Arab Physician recurred to the mind of some among us, with the startled utterance of the Syrian contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth:

"... think, Abib; dost thou think?"

So, the All-great were the All-loving too!