THE order of the narrative now takes us away from Palestine itself, to the more northern parts of Syria, where the Survey party spent the months of July, August, and September, recruiting their health, and arranging the field-work.
On the morning of June the 16th, 1873, we arrived in the Bay of Beyrout, and landed just as Midhat Pacha left the harbour, having been superseded, in the post of Governor of Syria, in favour of Hallet Pacha. The praises of Midhat as an able, upright, and liberal statesman were in the mouths of all European residents, and his dismissal was sincerely regretted.
On Tuesday, the 24th of June, I set out, at the head of my party, on a march to Damascus, along the French road. We wound slowly up the sides of Lebanon, here covered with pines, and veiled above with fleecy clouds, which, when the wind blows from the sea, gather daily on the summits, and swell the grapes by a soft damp mist, giving great potency to the Lebanon wine. Arriving at a height of over three thousand feet, we lost sight of the plain and the white city, and marched on in the mist until two p.m., only resting at a little mud cottage, where was a stream of icy water. We then began to descend, and beneath us was spread out one of the finest views in Syria. The broad flat plain of the Litany River separates the two ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and runs north and south, with the river in the middle. The outline of Anti-Lebanon was beautifully varied, with a long succession of blunt peaks, rolling ridges, knife-edged spurs, divided by deep narrow ravines, the whole bathed in the soft bright afternoon sunlight; some hills were thin and blue in the distance, some rocky and rugged in front, while the shadows were already creeping slowly up the feet of the mountains and across the plain. The Bukei’a, as the plain itself is called, was all yellow with corn, the white road, skirted by tall poplars, running across it; and, on the south, the background was formed by the dark ridge of Hermon, on which a solitary streak of snow still remained.
In a couple of hours we reached the plain, the horses being much fatigued, and one unfit for riding. We remained for the night at a miserable wooden house at Stûra.
On the first day we had ridden twenty-nine miles in seven hours. We were now once more in the saddle by 7.30 a.m., and accomplished forty-one miles in eight hours (including stoppages), the baggage animals also arriving at Damascus the same day.
Our way lay at first across the plain, which is well watered, and covered with corn-fields. Herds and flocks and black Arab tents were visible everywhere; the storks were still abundant, their long necks stretched out above the barley, and their shadows sailing along, as they wheeled above in great circles, before leaving for the north; the swallows, also, sat in long rows on the telegraph wires. Soon, however, after crossing the river, we began to enter the pass of Wâdy el Kurn, and the bare grey hills, steep crags, and wilderness of Jentisk, succeeded the more fertile scenery of the Bukei’a. Here were no signs of animal life, beyond an occasional eagle or vulture. The old yellow diligence, with three mules at the pole and three horses in front, rumbled past us down the hill. Soon a rocky range, with castellated crags, appeared in front, and we ascended hills of glaring white chalk, with here and there a black basaltic seam; at length the top of a poplar appeared in front, and we rested, for nearly an hour, by a mud stable, near a beautiful spring in the yellow rocks, round which the ruddy-coloured little oxen lay, chewing the cud, in blazing sunlight.
The country grew yet more barren as we advanced—a succession of rolling hills of an ochre colour, with here and there a steep grey crag. About two p.m. we arrived at a barren plateau, across which the road led—a streak of blinding white. In front was a range of steep hills like those left behind; great black shadows came sliding down the slopes, and so along the plain and up the eastern ridges; behind were banks of fleecy cloud, but above us a broiling sun and cloudless heaven, while before us not a trace of Damascus was to be seen. It was, indeed, wearisome work, toiling over this plateau, uncheered by any distant view of the goal, and with the apparent necessity of climbing another mountain range; great, therefore, was my relief when the road dived suddenly down into a narrow winding valley.
The scenery now became very remarkable, resembling most that of a Sinaitic oasis. The crags on either side were glaring in the sun, reddish-yellow in colour, without even a bush or shrub on the slopes, and with an intensely blue sky above; but below them, in the valley, the road led beside a swirling stream, which ran rapidly over boulders and pebbles, under the cool shadow of tall poplar groves, and gardens of cool, green foliage. The grass grew rank beside the path, trailing vines, peaches, plums, and other fruit-trees flourished on either bank. A paradise was, in short, set in a frame of most barren desert, an oasis between bare crags of sun-scorched limestone. The white road wound down the valley, which became constantly more luxuriant, whilst the hills grew higher and glared more desolate. On every side tributary streams gushed down, and we began to pass by white villas, with primitive frescoes on the walls, by groups of veiled ladies on white donkeys, and by rich merchants on fine mares. At last the valley opened, and our cavalcade, of seven horsemen, came cantering down an avenue of poplars, until, turning a sharp corner, we came suddenly in sight of the entrance to Damascus.
This approach to the city is not favourable to a just appreciation of its peculiar beauties. In front of the houses there is a sort of green, covered with short grass, and divided by the river. A large white mosque, with two tall minarets, was in front, and the castle to the right; but no great wall, as at Jerusalem, bounds the city, which has, in spite of domes and minarets, rather the appearance of a straggling village of mud houses, with windows of wood lattice, flat mud roofs, and overhanging upper stories.
We stopped at the hotel, and at once became acquainted with the real glory of Damascus—namely, its interiors. The house was built round an ample paved court, its inner walls of stucco, painted in horizontal bands of white, red, and blue. In the centre was a large square basin, surrounded by little jets, whence the water trickled slowly. It was shaded by tall lemon and orange-trees, peaches, and plums. On one side of the court opened the diwân, a cool, lofty apartment, with raised floors surrounded by low sofas, and with an octagonal fountain in the narrow central passage. The roof of this central part was more lofty, and clerestory windows let in a subdued light. The diwân walls were marble, and the roofs of inlaid woodwork, gorgeously painted on a dark-brown ground.