The burj, or tower, of Râm Allâh is in the southeast of the village near the very high house that is so prominent to one viewing Râm Allâh from the eastern hills. It is said that here was the former stronghold, and that under the place is a powerful spring called ‛Ayn el-Burj. The property over it is owned by Ab ul-Bâbâ[Ab ul-Bâbâ], of the tribe of Shaḳara, who, when he built there three or four years ago, found a good cemented canal coming from what was evidently a strong spring. Over the canal was a flat stone covering. The owner filled in the place at night, concealing it with masonry for fear that the government, if aware of such a spring, might open it to the public and he receive less than its value or nothing at all. Here, if the story be true, is the treasure that Râm Allâh lacks to make it a well-watered village. This ‛Ayn el-Burj is said to be the source of the water that flows into the reservoirs near the property of the United Greeks’ (Roman Catholic) Chapel.
The chief fountains about Râm Allâh are known as ‛Ayn Miṣbâḥ (spring of the lamp), ‛Ayn Minjid (spring of help), ‛Ayn Mizrâb (spring of the conduit or channel) and ‛Ayn Umm el-Kerzam. The spring at el-Bîreh, though a mile away, is in frequent use by Râm Allâh people. ‛Ayn el-Ḳaṣr, towards Kefrîyeh and three miles away, is almost too far to be reckoned with the Râm Allâh water supply.
One October afternoon we went to ‛Ayn Minjid, where there is a well-like structure built down into the ground. The little trickling stream of the spring at that time was about as thick as the tendril of a grape-vine. In winter the water rises high up in the well-like reservoir. A child of the neighborhood was once drowned by falling into it over the unprotected edge in the time of full water. Thence we went to the spring of ‛Ayn Mizrâb, where there is a similar well-like place, built up of hewn stone and cemented on the inside, making a shaft, with the spring at the bottom. This spring was even weaker than ‛Ayn Minjid. There was a tiny depression in one side of the bottom which held a little water. Some girls were trying to scrape up some of it with their skin-buckets. The well was fully twelve feet deep. The leather bucket was let down by a rope. The top of the bucket was held open by a stick stretched across its mouth. There was hardly a basin of water in the bottom of the well, and the most skilful casting of the bucket could gather very little. From one side of the well at the bottom was a canal leading out into some vineyards. To ‛Ayn Mizrâb the women are said sometimes to bring their jars at midnight and set them about the fountain, the first one placing a jar thus claiming the right to draw first when it becomes light enough. If the moon is out they can draw water in the moonlight.
When we first reached Râm Allâh the country was suffering an unusual drought. For the preceding thirty days, during which there ought to have fallen some of the heaviest showers of the season, there had been no rain. The natives were praying for it. The country looked parched and brown at the time when it is usually beautifully decked with flowers. Food prices were high and the outlook for the poor was unpromising. Shortly after we arrived a short, sharp shower fell, but no more came until the middle of May, when the unusual again happened and a heavy downpour shut us in a day or two. We had some cool, blustering weather at a time when the hot days are expected and the dry season well begun. In times of such strange climatic anomalies the natives think they see portents of heavenly significance, that possibly the Messiah may be returning. Rain is the great blessing of nature, as fondly looked for as sunny weather is with us.[[198]]
Slight earthquakes are experienced now and then in Palestine. A severer one than usual came in the early morning of March 30, 1903, about ten minutes before one o’clock. On awakening my first thought was that people outside were trying our door and then shaking it violently. Then the movement seemed to possess the whole room, as if some mighty force were rocking it strongly and persistently. The bed was jostled. It was this persistent shaking, with the continual and uniform rattling of the articles on the wash-stand, that soon brought me to my senses with the exclamation, “It’s an earthquake.” Mrs. Grant was first awakened by the shaking bedstead. Her next thought was that the house walls were falling. We both felt a sense of nausea. I rose and lighted the candle. The floor was well sprinkled with fallen whitewash that had cracked off from the plastering. A few bottles were tipped over in the room. At first I said that it lasted a minute, but shortly after I reduced my estimate to ten seconds, and now I suppose that it must have been but a third of that duration. The rattling on our wash-stand was as uniform as if the things were on a railroad-train. It was a weird and unpleasant though tuneful jar. Mrs. Grant ran into the far part of the house, where were the dormitories of the Girls’ School, and found the girls a little excited but not much frightened. Some of the smaller girls wanted to know what made their beds shake so. One girl said that she thought that Jesus had come. After we had been up a while we heard a wall falling in the vineyards to the southwest of us. In the Boys’ School one boy tumbled out of bed. The teacher had taken a strong dose of quinine the night before and accounted thus for the fact that he slept pretty soundly and was awakened only when the flakes of whitewash from the ceiling fell on his face. One or two boys at the Boys’ School and one girl at the Girls’ School slept right through it all. The woman cook at the Boys’ School was much startled and began to cry out and pray, “My Lord, my Lord, there is no other but thee” (Yâ rubby, yâ rubby, mâfîsh ghayrak).[[199]] Niḳola, the man on the place, who slept in a little house in the yard, went back and forth to his family who lived in the village to assure himself that they were well. One stone in the gable end of the house where he slept was tumbled to the ground. The well-constructed Girls’ Training Home showed cracks, while in the poorly built Boys’ House, the roof, flooring and walls on the long south side were cracked the entire length. Our neighbor Nyland’s house suffered somewhat, so that afterwards he felt it necessary to bind the walls with iron girders, which were run through the house and clamped on the outside walls at the ends. Other effects were noticed in a morning walk through the village. In the western part of the village the damage seemed greater than in the central or eastern. One small house on the east and several on the west side had lost a wall apiece. These were the so-called sḳîfeh dwellings, or loosely constructed stone huts. In each case the front wall had fallen outward. Quite a number of larger, stronger houses were slightly cracked along a side or on top. One house wall bowed out threateningly. In one fine new house, not quite completed, there were laterally running cracks on the two longer sides of the roof. Word was brought to us that a man in Baytîn was killed by a falling stone from a house.
A large party of Russian pilgrims on their way up through the country, who had been quartered in the village the night of the earthquake, took up the customary march to Nâblus soon after. They always start northward from Râm Allâh before light.
THE VILLAGE OF RÂM ALLÂH AND OUTLYING VINEYARDS
The dominant religious influence in Râm Allâh is the Greek (Orthodox) Church. It is customary all through the near East, the field of the Greek Church, to admit to the chief ecclesiastical positions priests of Greek blood only. The head priest of the Râm Allâh Church was a Cretan who had come to this village in 1899. He spoke the Arabic language but lamely. He was very affable and rather good looking. All Greek priests wear the hair long though they knot it up for convenience. The ordinary dress is a long black gown and rimless, cylindrical black hat. When we called on the priest he conversed courteously and treated us to preserves and coffee. His attendant was a lad from the Greek islands whom he also used as his censer boy at church functions. This head priest goes by the title raîs, that is, head-one among the people. He is unmarried, as are all the superior clergy. There are four other priests for the church, who are natives of the place, speak the Arabic language, of course, and are married. The title for such a priest is Khûry. Whenever there is such a one in a family of Syrians the entire family is apt to adopt the word Khûry as a family name. The names of the four khûrys of the Râm Allâh Greek Church during my acquaintance with the village were Ḥanna, Ayûb, Ḳustandy and Salîm. These under priests have most of the intercourse with the people, intermeddle with all sorts of affairs, like any native villager, and are a visible bond between the common and the ecclesiastical life of the village. One of these four, who is reputed to be wealthy, acts as a sort of private banker in his parish, lending money about at the enormous rates which obtain among the peasants. The government rate is nine per cent, but this legal percentage is often more than doubled in practise, while for small, short-time loans the charges mount to huge proportions. One day as I walked out into the village I saw this khûry sitting in front of the dispensary. He had been consulting the physician about some ailment and had received the advice to take a sitz bath, but he lacked the very important aid of a bath-tub. He applied to me, as he saw me, to lend him a bath-tub, but I had nothing of the kind that was portable. He next heard that I was buying some articles for a new boarding-school for boys and suggested that if I bought some of the large copper vessels called ṭunjerehs, one of the variety used for washing clothes would suit his purpose. But again I had to disappoint him, as I told him I was just then short of money and decided to buy only the smaller cooking ṭunjerehs at present. He looked surprised at my confession of temporary poverty, but followed up his lead affably by declaring that I was very welcome to come to his bank. It was some minutes before I saw the line of thought the thrifty fellow was following, that I should borrow money of him (the rate was then about twenty per cent) to buy bathing facilities which he might borrow of me. This will help to illustrate the unembarrassed egotism with which some of the people deal with one after the “heads-I-win, tails-you-lose” order. They are as unimaginative as children in setting your interests at naught and complacently securing all for themselves. And they will do it with all the dramatical touches of idealism and an unselfish air.
The village tradition of the founding of Râm Allâh is told by the peasants as follows: A certain Christian shaykh living in Shôbek, down towards Wâdy Mûsâ, became the father of a little girl. A Moslem shaykh, visiting the father, spoke in a complimentary way of the little child and was courteously answered, as in all cases where praise is bestowed on any possession, whether a new article or a new child, the owner or father usually replying, “It is for you.” So in this case the father replied, “She is for you,” meaning, of course, nothing by it except the usual courtesies. Years passed by and the little baby girl became an attractive maiden, when the Moslem shaykh came and claimed her for his bride. The father protested, but was reminded of the visit of years before and the reply of the father, which had been taken in real earnest by his visitor. Consternation fell on the Christian family at the impending fate of the little daughter claimed by a Moslem. They would rather that the girl should die than marry thus, but they were in no condition to resist the demand. During the night the Christian shaykh took the only course possible, the desperate one of flight to other parts. Accompanied by his four brothers and their families he fled. No members of the large family could be left behind lest vengeance should be executed on them for the disappointment. They journeyed northward and were joined by certain Moslems who also had reasons for seeking a change of home. The two parties traveled together, probably for greater safety. They all came into the country north of Jerusalem and the Christians, being blacksmiths, chose what were then wooded hills, the present site of Râm Allâh, though now there is no growth to evidence the early conditions. The Moslems settled about el-Bîreh. To-day when the Bîreh people laugh at Râm Allâh people and say, “Your fathers must have been foolish not to choose lands near the good Bîreh spring, but over there in that thirsty country,” some of the Râm Allâh people answer, “Our fathers were blacksmiths, and in their days the hills here were covered with woods which supplied them with charcoal.” To-day, as has been noted elsewhere, the largest section of Râm Allâh’s people is called the Ḥadadeh, that is, “the blacksmiths.”