Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The community has thus to struggle with a positively hostile government, while it receives no very vigorous support from any one. The difficulties are perfectly well known to the native peasantry, who, with the characteristic meanness of the Syrians, take the opportunity to treat with insolence people whom they believe they can insult with impunity. The property of the colonists is disregarded, the native goatherds drive their beasts into the corn, and several riots have occurred, which resulted in trials from which the colonists got no satisfaction.

The indiscretion of the younger men has brought greater difficulties on the community; they have repaid insolence with summary punishment, and finding no help from the Government, have in many instances taken the law into their own hands. Thus the colony finds itself at feud with the surrounding villages, and the hostile feeling is not unlikely to lead to very serious difficulties on some occasion of popular excitement.

There are other reasons which militate against the idea of the final success of the colony. The Syrian climate is not adapted to Europeans; and year by year it must infallibly tell on the Germans, exposed as they are to sun and miasma. It is true that Haifa is, perhaps, the healthiest place in Palestine, yet even here they suffer from fever and dysentery, and if they should attempt to spread inland, they will find their difficulties from climate increase tenfold.

The children of the present generation will probably, like those of the Crusading settlers in Palestine, be inferior in physique and power of endurance to their fathers. Cases of intermarriage with natives have, I believe, already occurred; the children of such marriages are not unlikely to combine the bad qualities of both nations, and may be compared to the Pullani of Crusading times. It seems to me, that it is only by constant reinforcements from Germany that the original character of the colony can be maintained; and the whole community, in Palestine and in Germany, is said not to number more than 5000 persons.

The expectation of the immediate fulfilment of prophecy has also resulted in the ruin of many of the poorer members of the colony, who, living on their capital, have exhausted it before that fulfilment has occurred. The colony is thus in danger of dissolution, by the gradual absorption of the property into the hands of those who originally possessed the most capital; and in any case it is very likely to lose its original character of Apostolic simplicity, some of the members becoming the servants and hired labourers of others.

The natural desire of those members who find themselves without money, is to make a livelihood by any means in their power. Where every man is thus working separately for himself, the progress of the colony, as a whole, is not unlikely to be forgotten, and the members may very probably be dispersed over Palestine, following their various trades where best they can make money.

Such are the elements of weakness in the society. In ten years it has made comparatively little progress, and ten more may perhaps see the colony decaying. Meantime the settlers might be examples to the natives (if Syrians would condescend to learn) of the advantages of European habits of industry and enterprise under very adverse circumstances. The little village of red-cheeked, flaxen-haired peasants, with cheery salutations, and honest smiling faces, is a pleasant place to visit; the women in their short skirts and brown straw hats, and the men in felt wideawakes and grey cloth, contrast most favourably with the dirty, squalid, lying Fellahîn. On the Sunday moonlight nights the sounds of the fine old German hymn tunes may be heard, softened by distance, along the beach, as the rings of men and boys stand chanting in the cool night air. A fresh sea-breeze blows all day among the acacia trees which flank the dusty street. The long heavy carts come rumbling by, the horses, harnessed with high-peaked yokes, looking rather light in comparison with German cart-horses in Europe. The flags of the Consulates are hoisted on Sundays, and the whole colony is seen soberly marching down to the meeting-house, where they are weekly comforted with the assurance that the end will soon come, and the Temple Colony be acknowledged, by God and man, to be the example of the whole world, and the true heir of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem.

The colonists freely allow the difficulties which beset their path. Meanwhile, should European attention be ever generally turned to Syria, it may be a matter of no little importance, that men acquainted with the language and the people, and, at the same time, trustworthy and honest, are to be found, who could render material assistance to new-comers, even though not attracted to the land by the belief that it is the natural inheritance of a true Israel, composed of any other nationality except the Jews.