Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

Our most valuable discoveries in this part of the country included the probable site of a synagogue at Tireh east of Shefa ’Amr, and the recovery of Osheh, a town known to have been close to Shefa ’Amr (or Shafram) and one of the places where the Sanhedrim sat for many years; it seems undoubtedly to be the present ruin of Hûsheh. We also found a very remarkable tomb at Shefa ’Amr, profusely covered with sculpture, and with a Greek inscription and crosses. Outside the door are sculptured lions, a grape-vine with birds in the branches, and other designs. It appears to be a Christian sepulchre, probably of the fourth or fifth century, but perhaps earlier. A Byzantine church also exists in the village.

On the last day of June we marched east to the miserable little hamlet of El B’aîneh, which, with two others, stands on the north slopes of Jebel Tôr’an, an isolated block of mountain rising out of the plateau of the Buttauf. Here we found the inhabitants all fever-stricken from the malarious exhalations of the great swamp, which even as late as July extended over half the plain. The place was evidently unhealthy, and we were tortured by the armies of large musquitoes rendering sleep impossible at night. The levelling operations required us to camp in the plain, but we hastened on the work as much as possible, looking forward to a retreat into the mountains of Upper Galilee, which, being 4000 feet above the sea, would be cool and pleasant, and, as we hoped, safe from the scourge of cholera, which had already devastated Damascus, and was creeping slowly south.

The view from the summit of Tôr’an is interesting and extensive. The Sea of Galilee is visible, and we were able to fix the direction of many points along its shore.

On the south, separated from Tôr’an by a second plain, lay the low bare range of the Nazareth hills, Neby S’ain, and Gath Hepher with the tomb of Jonah, being visible, while rather farther east Kefr Kenna stood among its olive-groves and gardens of pomegranates.

Tabor, crowned with two monasteries, was also plainly visible, east of the Nazareth range, the slopes partly hidden by oak-groves. Through a gap, between it and the western hills, the outline of Gilboa and part of Jebel ed Duhy could be seen. The plain of Esdraelon was hidden, but the cone of Sheikh Iskander was visible to the south-west.

To the west the view extended over the low wooded hills to the long range of Carmel, which was visible, from the Peak of Sacrifice to the white monastery where, on a little spit, stands the German wind-mill, which showed up quite black against the gleaming sea.

The brown and fertile plain of the Buttauf, in the basaltic soil of which tobacco, corn, maize, sesame, cotton, and every species of vegetable grow luxuriantly, lay at our feet. The high blunt top of Jebel Deidebeh (“mountain of the watch-tower”), crowned with its ring of thicket, rose behind, shutting out the view. Beyond this was the chain of hills running eastwards, with rolling grey up-lands dotted with olives, while farther still, some ten or twelve miles away, rose the mountain wall of Upper Galilee, culminating in Jebel Jermûk, a bare craggy ridge which closed the view to the north. Turning yet farther east, the large town of Safed shone white on the mountain-side, divided into two quarters, with a double-pointed summit behind them. Beyond all, dark and dreamlike, the great Hermon, “Sheikh of the mountains,” was seen streaked with silver lines of snow.

But the view due east of Tôr’an was yet more interesting. A yellow plateau shelves down from the foot of the mountains of Upper Galilee and runs into little tongues and promontories, separated by tiny bays, along the north-western shores of the Sea of Galilee: only in one part of this line is there a cliff, just where the little fertile plain of Gennesaret terminates at Khân Minieh; the rest is shelving ground almost to the water’s edge.

The deep chasm running down from Safed, and known as “the Valley of Doves” (W. el Hamâm), debouches into the green oasis of the Ghŭweir—the plain of Gennesaret. East of the sea the long flat plateau of Bashan stretches from the precipices which enclose the lake, and reaches away to the volcanic cones and dreary lava-fields which are backed by the peaks of Jebel ed Drûz.

Tiberias was hidden below the cliffs, and only about half the blue and limpid lake was seen behind them; most conspicuous on this line are the Horns of Hattin, so fatal to the Christian kingdom in 1187, and here also, as on the east, a broad plateau runs almost to the top of the precipices.