[195]. Cf. Prov. 21: 19.
[196]. Cf. Prov. 11: 22.
[197]. Cf. Prov. 25: 16.
CHAPTER IX
THE LIFE TO-DAY AS ILLUSTRATED BY ACTUAL VILLAGES
Such tourists as have a student’s interest in addition to a desire for mere sightseeing will find the value of their Palestine visit doubled if they will allow some days for visiting villages. If one will go in as quiet and unobtrusive a way as possible, and with the aid of an introduction to some householder of the village, one will be able to learn much. Certain of the missionaries in Jerusalem as elsewhere devote themselves to itinerating among the villages and are fully acquainted with conditions of which it would be well for a novice to be informed. The village of Râm Allâh is one of the most satisfactory places accessible from Jerusalem for the purpose of seeing well-developed Syrian village life. It is ten miles north of Jerusalem and is now reached by an excellent carriage road. It is one mile from the much smaller village of el-Bîreh, which lies on the main carriage road from Jerusalem, northwards toward Nâblus (Shechem). This slight remove from the main line of tourist travel, its considerable size and the superior intelligence of its inhabitants have joined to produce a good, wholesome sample of a native village, neither so metamorphosed as some of the larger places nor so squalid and degenerate as many of the smaller villages.
It was in May, 1901, that the road mentioned was opened up for use from Jerusalem to el-Bîreh, a distance of fifteen kilometers. From the Damascus Gate, where the Bîreh and Râm Allâh carriage owners stand, the route leads out past the Dominican Compound, within which is a church of St. Stephen and a theological school conducted by the eminent French scholars of the order. On the left, opposite, is the large milling property leased for many years by Mr. Bergheim. Next on the left is an olive grove, and a little way farther on the pleasant garden and large square building of the English Church Mission, where the society conducts a collegiate institute. Next on the right, beyond an olive grove, is the costly and well-built compound of the High Church Anglican bishop for Jerusalem and the Near East. On the left opposite are the new school buildings under his auspices. Just beyond the Anglican Compound, at the fountain known as Bîr el-Kelb, a street coming from Herod’s Gate, Jerusalem, intersects the main road. Just up this street a few steps on the left is the entrance to the so-called Tombs of the Kings, one of the places well worth looking at. The next largest building on the right before coming to the minaret is occupied by the community of “The Overcomers.” They control property on both sides of the highway. A little beyond this point the road makes a long loop to the right in order to save a steep climb by the old bridle-path which goes straight on past the houses of some Moslem officials of Jerusalem who prefer the more ample and comfortable liberty of suburban building sites. Here one has a pretty view of the upper part of the Kidron Valley. On up a slight hill and then down a long easy descent, and one is brought to the foot of another steep bridle-path, which the road avoids by another curve to the right toward the Mount of Olives and a loop to the left on to the top of Mount Scopus. From Scopus there is a charming view of Jerusalem. Beginning at the far right (north) of the suburbs, one sees the black, formerly blue, dome of the Abyssinian Church; then to the left the delicate, shapely, blue cupolas of the church in the Russian Compound; then just inside the northwest corner of the city wall, the sharp spire of the Roman Catholic Church, the low black dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the whitish tower of the German Church and the domes, red and blue, of the great synagogues. To the left and farther over is the large dome and symmetrical building of the Ḳubbet eṣ-Ṣakhra (sometimes called the Mosk of Omar) in the southeastern corner of the city. Turning now from the city one will see some six miles northwest of Jerusalem the lofty minaret of Neby Samwîl, on the hill thought to be the Mizpeh of Samuel. This place can be seen from many points of old Judea. The village in the foreground almost due north and by the side of the carriage road is Sha‛fât. The name is thought to be the last two syllables of the name Jehoshaphat. Nearly opposite Sha‛fât some find the site of Nob, the city of the priests of Saul’s time. If one had time to go to the top of the hill between Scopus and the Mount of Olives, where the large buildings are placed, one could see the peculiar formation of the hill-country that leads down back of Jerusalem to Jericho and the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea and the table-land the other side of the Jordan would be visible. In fact, but a few minutes north of Scopus, on the carriage road, one may see the bluish Moab hills looming up in an even line beyond the Jordan River, whose bed is hidden because it lies over three-fifths of a mile lower than the level of this spot though less than twenty miles away. That is a very considerable drop in levels for so short a distance, as one realizes when one goes by carriage from Jerusalem down to Jericho and the Dead Sea. But to return to the village of Sha‛fât already mentioned, one sees beyond it on the right a peculiarly shaped hill with an artificial look about its incised top which is regarded as the site of Gibeah of Saul. Off to the left is the village of Bayt Ḥanînâ. After a long curve or two one begins to descend more swiftly. From this point one can see far to the right on the northeast a prettily situated village on a sharp hilltop. It is eṭ-Ṭayyibeh, of which more later on. To the left as one proceeds appear remains of an old Roman road. It is noticeable all the way from Scopus and from here to el-Bîreh, though at times as now it takes a short cut where the present road makes a curve. The old road intersects the new where the latter crosses the bridge at the bottom of the valley. This bridge is called the half-way bridge between Jerusalem and el-Bîreh. There is a good stream under the bridge in rainy weather. The small village that rises on a hill just beyond the half-way bridge to the north is er-Râm, possibly the Ramah of Samuel, though Râm and Ramah mean simply an elevated site. Just by the left (west) side of the road as one comes opposite the village is an arched ruin. About it are other evidences of decay. After the ruin comes a long level stretch and another little bridge. Along here of an evening one sometimes sees a fox. The village to the left (west) is Ḳulundyeh. To the right (east) runs a path that will take one past er-Râm to Jeba‛, and so to Wâdy Mukhmâs (Michmash) or to ‛Ayn Fâra and the Jordan. At the place where the road bends to the right around the truncated hill of ‛Aṭâra there is a dismantled lime-kiln and a rough donkey path leading off to the left (north). This rude path is the old road to the village of Râm Allâh. It goes to the west of the hill of ‛Aṭâra, while the carriage road goes to the east of it. The carriage road allows one to reach el-Bîreh easily in twenty minutes. It passes between ‛Aṭâra and another hill on the right (east) of it along a pretty stretch of valley. At least it is pretty toward evening, when perhaps one will see a little owl among the rocks. The stream of ‛Ayn Nuṣbeh is trickling or splashing, according to the season, down the side of ‛Aṭâra near a little bridge. One evening I rode out towards this place from Râm Allâh on our saddle animal “Daisy” to meet the carriage. Daisy was very loth to travel away from home, but very glad whenever I turned her head about. The evening was lovely. As the light went out over the hills toward the western sea the changing color on the horizon on the near hills, on the rocks all about, and the quietness cast a spell of peace unique to these surroundings. After the reds had faded out of the soil and rocks, a somber ink color, dark purple, black, came on. A clump of dry brush topping a little watch-tower on a near hill seemed to belong to a farther hill behind it and, as I rode along, to be a human figure moving on that far hill. I met the carriage after dark near ‛Aṭâra and came back in front of it.
At the top of the next long slope one has the vineyards of Râm Allâh on the left and el-Bîreh on the right. The little village of el-Bîreh, rich in shrubbery and the choicest spring for many miles around, lies on a gentle slope facing the south. First among its trees are some figs, then come gardens, walls and the spring with the little domed building. Beyond on the right are the ruins of its ancient khân and then the straggling village houses of stone. Pomegranates, figs, etc., are scattered through the place. The new khân is on the carriage road at the top of the village. The little shanty on the left of the road across from the spring is a sort of coffee khân merely and a lounging place for passers-by. Half-way up the road before it swings to the right towards the new khân with stables, the Râm Allâh road goes off to the left (west) over the rising ground that hides the village from view. It is less than a mile to Râm Allâh, and the path to it traverses a different part of the country from that which is seen on the carriage road. All along the highway one feels that but a few paces anywhere would take one to views of the deep cut of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea region, with the ever-enticing blue and hazy line of Moab’s hills beyond. But here is another side of the country of Palestine. This rise in the ground between el-Bîreh and Râm Allâh is on the watershed of Western Palestine. On the outskirts of the village is the land for the Boys’ School, the property of the (American) Friends (Quakers), who for many years have done most significant and practical work in the training of youth.
The inhabitants of Râm Allâh are industrious and thrifty, and most of the village land is under excellent cultivation in choice grape vineyards and orchards of figs and olives. The needs of Râm Allâh are so much in excess of the lands which are legally recorded as belonging to it that its people have bought tracts here and there all about the country. The lands right around the village are so much more valuable as vineyards and orchards than for raising the grains that the farmers have pushed out and acquired these outside fields from the lands of a dozen or more villages as far as ‛Ayn Ḳânyeh, Mukhmâs and Dayr Dîwân. For such outside lands the Râm Allâh people have no government deeds (kushân, plural kuwashîn), the title resting, so far as the government records are concerned, with the original village owners, and so the taxes are collected from them. But it is perfectly understood among the people in whom the ownership in fact rests, and these actual owners pay the yearly taxes for the land to the former owners. The government collects land taxes directly from Râm Allâh for those lands only which are within Râm Allâh’s legal boundaries, which are much narrower than its acquired boundaries. A kind of private deed suffices as part of the evidence of transfer between the peasants.
On the east of Râm Allâh as one enters the village the legal or, better, original boundary corner is marked by an underground cistern known as Bîr esh-Sherḳeh (The East Cistern). It is on one’s left in approaching the village, some rods before the property of ‛Abdullâh Ṭoṭah, which is on the other or right-hand side. The next house and property are those of ‛Isâ Shaṭâra. Then comes a small vineyard, opposite which is the Ḥarb house on the left. From the top of this building one has a view of the Mediterranean on one side and of the Moab hills on the other. Next on the right is the large monastery property of the Franciscans, on the left the house and chapel of the Church Missionary Society. Then (left) is passed the house of a dumb man, father of a considerable family and owner of a well-cultivated garden plot. He is quite ingenious at a pantomime method of talking and story-telling. His trade is that of roof-mender, which craft is in demand, as the cemented joints between the flat stones of the native roofs have to be kept in good repair against the soaking rains of winter. Next on the left is one of the entrances to the Friends’ Girls’ School property. The particular bit of their land that touches the road here goes in all the neighborhood by the name el-Khums, that is, The Fifth, because in some past division of the land it represented that fraction of a larger lot. Next by turning the bend to the left one comes into a street about three hundred twenty-five feet long and a trifle less than thirteen feet wide, in which are seven houses on the south (left) side and eight houses on the north (right) side. Among their tenants are four weavers and one dyer. The dyer is a tall, strapping fellow from the north, a Moslem who came to the village in 1901. At that time he was the only Moslem in the place. By a little jog to the left at the end of the street one avoids running into a building which for years has been used by the Friends’ Mission as a primary schoolroom and a Sunday meeting place of the congregation that attends the Friends’ meetings for worship and the Bible School. Nearly opposite this building is the dispensary of the native physician, Dr. Ma‛lûf, a graduate of the College of Medicine in Beirut. Thence one may go southeast to the front entrance of the Girls’ Training Home (Friends’) or west along the main axis of the village, the market street, which is a continuation of the street by which we just entered the village, except for the slight jog to the left in coming down hill. These very jogs, of which many may be seen about the village, are illustrative of a principle, or the lack of one, in the community life. Streets and paths grow up by common consent of the householders, who feel the need of such conveniences for egress or ingress, but they are allowances from private property or, better, communal property. Sometimes a builder finds it convenient to set his house somewhat into the road, thus destroying the alignment of the street. Walls of stone and mortar are permanent structures, and the line cannot be corrected by any legal means.
The main part of the market street runs between the property of the village church on one side (south) and a row of shops and houses on the other (north). There are ten provision shops, five shoe shops and two weaving-rooms along this street. A great deal of local marketing is done in the open street. Here the wheat-laden animals from the country northeast of Râm Allâh bring their burdens. Huge camels, with a back load of clay jars held in a rope net, or carrying sacks of melons or grain, are made to saunter in and kneel. Women with head loads of vegetables, eggs, snails and other food products, and men from Nâblus with ready-made kinabîz and other articles of men’s wear, stand ready for customers. Fruit venders, buyers and sellers from all the villages about are apt to be found here, for Râm Allâh is what might be called a county-seat. Some one from eṭ-Ṭayyibeh or from Kefr Mâlik will come to sell oil or other produce, and buy some necessities, perhaps a pair of shoes, to take home. This main market street of the village is about three hundred feet long (from Dr. Ma‛lûf’s curb to the entrance of the Greek Church yard) and for the most part about fifteen and a half feet wide. About two-thirds of the distance down there opens from it on the right (north) the entrance to the village khân.