There are many signs of squalor in el-Bîreh. The level of the floor in many of the huts is below the threshold. In fact, a large number of the houses, excluding those of the shaykhs and the Christian tribe of Rafîdya, are of the very old style of sḳîfeh dwellings, a few of which were mentioned in describing Râm Allâh, the style of buildings made with stones bedded in earth, or at best held together by poor mortar and having dirt roofs supported upon heavy boughs. The village, though possessed of wide lands, a good situation on the traffic route of the country and the best spring for many miles around, compares very poorly with Râm Allâh, just twenty minutes away and possessed of none of these advantages. The very marked superiority of the Christian village and its rapid development in the last century is a matter of significant observation. A study of the house structure already suggested in the two villages shows the typical development of village building. There are in Râm Allâh some of the sḳîfeh-huts of the same style and age apparently as the larger number of that kind proportionately in el-Bîreh. Others of this same order were pulled down long ago in Râm Allâh and replaced by houses made with dressed stone and mortar and having rolled dirt roofs, similar to some of the better grade of houses in el-Bîreh to-day. But this kind is already counted inferior in Râm Allâh, where the larger number of dwellings have the heavy, arched, dome roofs of stone, of which there are but few in el-Bîreh. An improvement even upon these is gaining ground in Râm Allâh, and much better houses, having several rooms, modern window openings and paved floors and provided in some cases with cisterns for oil or water, are being constructed by the wealthier villagers. The development of several centuries in highland peasant homes may thus be traced. A significant change in the interior structure is the doing away of the elevated living platform in the room reached by stairs that command the doorway.
EL-BIREH (FROM THE SOUTH)
[198]. In the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly for July, 1906, page 163, Dr. E. W. G. Masterman, of Jerusalem, writes of unusual weather in May preceding. Speaking of a severe hail-storm in Urṭâs and Bethlehem, he quotes the local report among the peasantry which was that “each hailstone was the size of a pigeon’s egg and had St. George’s image pictured on it.”
[199]. Compare with the exclamation of this Christian, the Moslem attribution of uniqueness to God in the well-known formula.
CHAPTER X
OTHER VILLAGES AND ENVIRONS
About a mile northwest of Râm Allâh on the Jânyeh road is a region which goes by the name of eṭ-Ṭîreh, a name commonly met in Syria. There is a question as to what it may mean. If the localities thus named were always, as they more usually are, lofty places, the suggestion has been made that eṭ-Ṭîreh might be derived from the root meaning to fly, and so such a place might be dubbed The Flyer, in the sense of a high place, but Prof. E. H. Palmer derives the name from a root meaning fort.[[201]] At this eṭ-Ṭîreh there are many remains of former buildings, the central one being the Ṣalâ‛t eṭ-Ṭîreh, the ruin of a Christian church. A large tract of ground including it has been walled in by the ecclesiastical owners. The oil of the olive-trees in the enclosure is said to be used for church purposes. The remains of the old church are very scanty compared with those at el-Bîreh, Burj Baytîn, eṭ-Ṭayyibeh or even at Khurbet el-Moḳâṭir. Some of the remaining stones have been reset in an attempt to restore the line of the wall, and the result is a smaller space enclosed than originally. At present the main enclosure is roughly fifty-two feet long by twenty-six feet wide. The line of the apse is marked by one course of stones standing loosely together. Plenty of tiny white cubes, remains of tessellated pavement, are scattered around. There are bases of four columns, many blocks and some pieces of columns.
Northeast of the ruin is a little inclined path that leads underground, where there is a fine old olive-press. It is of the kind generally used, though recently some screw-presses have been introduced into Râm Allâh.