There was also great difficulty in obtaining supplies and transport. Our party was by this time so well organised that no time, as a rule, was lost in changing camp. But in the valley we waited day after day in the wet, suffering some of us from rheumatism, and unable to move the sodden and heavy tents. Our first camp was at Wâdy Fusail, near the site of the ancient Phasaelis; and here we found it almost impossible to get any of the Bedu to stay with us. The reason, true or not, which they gave for avoiding the place was, that it is haunted by a ghoul,—that evil and corpse-eating demon whose haunts are shown all over Syria. More than once, while exploring a dark cavern or descending a rock-cut tunnel, we have heard the frightened guide shouting outside, and found him astonished to see us emerge in safety from the ghoul’s den. The ghoul lives also in the great dolmens and in hermits’ caves; but though I have felt on one occasion, in a tunnel where it was necessary to crawl flat, the frightened bats creeping in my hair, I have never been privileged to see or hear a ghoul.
The Wâdy Fusail ghoul, however, was the cause of much delay, and when at last we induced the Arabs to come by daylight with camels, we found that they never used saddles, and their camels were, indeed, almost untrained and very small. We missed the sturdy beasts used by the peasantry, and had very great difficulty in loading the desert dromedaries at all.
It was a pleasure, in the times when the party was well provided with transport, to watch the expedition on the march. The horsemen, on trusty Arab ponies, never sick or sorry, never baffled by the stoniest bridle-path, came first, with our breed of white terriers, which were hardly recognised as dogs by the natives, and which often, night after night, saved us from the depredations of determined horse-thieves. Behind the horsemen came our own baggage-mules, carrying all that was needful for the first founding of the new camp; behind these, again, the camels with heavy stores swung slowly along, while the Maronites, on their donkeys, the Bedu guides on horses and dromedaries, formed a picturesque straggling band, which, as reviewed from a low hill, sometimes extended over half a mile of road. It is pleasant to reflect that, in the years we worked together, there was no dissension, no desertion, and no grumbling in the camp. We suffered together in seasons of sickness, but we stuck together as long as health lasted, and till the work, was done.
One of the most picturesque incidents of the Survey was a night-raid which occurred at Sulem (the ancient Shunem), where, with Sergeant Black, I was for a few days at a detached camp. At this time the difficulties of transport obliged us to separate from the rest of the party, and to remain without meat, and with very little other food, for three days. In the darkness, after a fatiguing day’s work, we were roused by the shouts of the villagers, and hastily loading our shot-guns, we turned out to witness a skirmish with the Bedu. Whether the raid was intended to capture our horses or to drive off cattle from the village was uncertain; but the dogs discovered a robber just about to cut the halters, and the hillside was for some time illumined by the flashes from the old matchlocks of the villagers, while the war-song of the retreating Arabs faded in the distance. Failing to surprise, the raiders quickly gave up their enterprise, but drove off a stray cow in the darkness. With such night-attacks we became more familiar afterwards in the wilder parts of the Moabite deserts.
The hardships of this campaign cost us dear. They were severe for the strongest, and for my comrade, Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, they were fatal. As already stated, the terrible Jericho fever had undermined his strength; and though he was successfully nursed through that attack, I have always regretted that he would not hear advice, tendered with the most friendly intention, that he should leave Palestine at least for a time. During the months we spent in the valley he suffered constantly from ague, asthma, and the terrible fever sores, from which no member of the party escaped. Finally, he was almost unable to ride, and when we reached the higher lands, rest was absolutely necessary. I left him with anxious foreboding; and as he wished during my absence in England to make a tour in Northern Syria, I wrote to friends at Damascus, begging them not to let him travel alone. Hardly, however, had he reached Jerusalem when the fever again seized him, and his grave is now marked by a simple monument in the Protestant cemetery on Sion. There can be no doubt that he fell a victim to his own earnest desire to continue his work after his powers of endurance were exhausted.
The share which he took in Palestine exploration has been fully acknowledged in more than one publication. In many respects he was peculiarly fitted for an explorer’s work. Of tall and commanding appearance, with a grave and reserved manner, such as most impresses the Oriental, with a kindliness for man and beast, which made the natives who had long served him much attached to his person, with a power of silent endurance, which made him scorn to utter a single complaint in the midst of trial and suffering constantly endured—especially in frequent attacks of asthma, Mr. Drake was a pattern of that class of Englishmen of whom we are proudest. Had he lived, his name would have been widely known as a bold and trained explorer. I have heard a French traveller, after talking with him, exclaim, “If we had such men among the youths of France, it would be better for our country.” I am happy to be able to reflect that, during those three years of constant intimacy, in the trying isolation of our camp-life, we never fell out; that our last hand-shake was that of comrades who had suffered and worked with single purpose; and that he trusted me to represent at home, at its proper value, the share which he had contributed to our common work.