Some years before our visit to the country, a governor of the Belka summoned the Adwân chiefs to Nâblus, promising to make them Government officials with salaries, recognised as his lieutenants in their own country. Goblan counselled them not to go, and not to be tempted by such promises. They went and Goblan stayed behind. Those who went were cast into prison and fined, and Diab, the eldest, was so roughly handled that his leg was broken. He came to see me as a lame old man, who had abdicated in favour of his son, having lost all the reputation to which Goblan, by his superior judgment of the case, attained. A Russian Grand Duke at Jericho gave Goblan, rather later, a valuable ring, which this same governor at Nâblus found means to make him give up. These were the personal reasons for Goblan’s hate of the Turks, and it was on such grounds that he was able and willing to help us in our exploration of the forbidden ground. These lines can now be freely penned, for poor Goblan is no more. His wild life—an untaught savage life, not without its elements of greatness, of pathos, and of romance—has closed at a ripe old age in a peaceful death. Neither by Turkish jailor nor by Arab lance was his life ended; he died among his own people in the desert home of his race.
The peculiar position of the man led me into more than one adventure. Some of our trigonometrical stations were on the border of the Beni Sakhr country, which I had promised not to enter without their escort. The Beni Sakhr chiefs and Goblan had met in my tents, but there he was safe as my guest. Had we been caught, however, in their land, by a relation of the murdered man already mentioned, Goblan would have been slain, and I should have been placed in the dilemma of either leaving him to his fate, or else myself becoming a blood enemy to an Arab tribe. On such occasions, while we took angles on a high hill, Goblan sat with his eyes fixed on the distant camp of his foes, scanning the plateau, so that he should not be taken unawares. On another occasion, riding somewhat in advance of my party, I suddenly saw bearing down upon me a group of horsemen with long spears. We met and saluted, and the first question was, “Where is Goblan?” I never made out to what tribe these cavaliers belonged, but Goblan had vanished as though swallowed by the earth, and not till we were far away from this spot, near his own camp, did he reappear.
Another day he and I went out alone to survey the borderland between the two tribes. At one place, as I was taking angles, he came and pointed to distant figures. “All horsemen,” he said; “make haste and finish your work.” I noted my angles as fast as I could, when he again touched me. “They are only camels,” he said; “you can go on as long as you like.” However, as I got on my horse, he again pointed to the plain, where we saw three horsemen about a mile away. There were no friendly camps near, and so I gained experience of how an Arab acts in such a case. We rode away quietly on the side of the hill, where we could not be seen, but were able from time to time to look over the crest at the advancing figures. Finally, we came to a sort of dell by a ruin, with banks all round, and here we lay comfortably lurking, and saw the group following the road to my camp. When they had gone some way, Goblan boldly emerged, and we rode parallel with them in the open. The reason was soon apparent. Though quite near, they were separated from us by one of those great rents in the plateau which form narrow gorges many hundred feet deep. Coming to the brink, he called across and they answered, but could not reach us without riding round many miles; and besides this, we were now close to a camp of Goblan’s people. “It is well we did not stay,” said Goblan to me; “they are Satâm and his brothers.” These were the Beni Sakhr chiefs who had been to my camp, and who sought his life. Like David calling across the valley to Saul, Goblan stood thus within hearing of his helpless foes, and quietly greeted them. Such is the etiquette of Arab life. The blow may be struck when the time comes, but to revile one another would be discourteous between foes.
Another incident showed me Arab life in a more pleasing colour. We had ridden through Jordan, and were resting on the bank, when a poor Arab with his wife on a donkey came down to the river. Addressing Goblan in that simple way in which the meanest Arab addresses the greatest chief, he said, “Goblan! take my wife over the river.” The old chief at once complied, and ordered his son to take the woman on his horse behind him. Rather sulkily his handsome son obeyed, and went back through the river to the western bank. These men were the true sons of that great Arab who, having conquered all Syria, rode into Jerusalem on his camel in the simple garb of the desert.
The kindly greetings which Goblan bestowed on the men he met, on the women and children at the springs, and on the poorest of his fellows, showed perhaps that he had learned the secret of governing others, and his strength lay in the simplicity and steadfast constancy of his actions. They had but one opinion in Moab, that Goblan alone represented the freedom of earlier days.
Tall, gaunt, with a dusky colour, one eye red and sightless, one cheek furrowed with the sword, with a thick, straight, obstinate nose, and a few silver locks, usually hidden, the old chief was yet at times, when no one mentioned the Turks and the Beni Sakhr, of cheerful mien. He is one of the few Orientals I ever met with a sense of humour, and often laughed most heartily. He could neither write nor read, and he never smoked tobacco.
Peace be to his ashes; and I hope the monument which covers them is at least equal to that which is erected in Goblan’s own country to his great rival, Fendi el Faiz, who died on his way to the Beni Sakhr country.
CHAPTER V.
EXPLORATIONS IN GILEAD.
NORTH of Heshbon the country rises slightly, and we enter the region surrounding the large ruined city of ’Ammân—the Rabbath Ammon of the Bible and the Roman Philadelphia. This was the most important ruin surveyed in Palestine, as regards its antiquarian interest, and the best specimen of a Roman town that I visited, except the still more wonderful ruins of Gerasa, which yield only to Baalbek and Palmyra among Syrian capitals of the second century of our era.
On the slopes below the plateau in this region is the still more interesting ruin of Tyrus, the only dated Jewish building of early age that we possess. Although it had often been visited, we were able to add some interesting architectural details, and to correct a false impression about the great Jewish inscription of five letters here boldly carved on the rock.