Letters from Palestine / Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

by J. D. Paxton

A little more than an hour brought us to the end of the plain, where the Bareda turns short to the east, and passes by a narrow and deep defile, through the mountain. The road follows the stream. The whole mountain, as seen on both sides of the pass, is of a peculiar character. The stratum of the rock is very irregular; at places it has the dip, but with much irregularity. The rock is limestone, of a very soft, yielding kind, and breaks to pieces readily from the action of the atmosphere. Much of it is a very coarse kind of breccia—appears to have been broken into small pieces, and again combined with a soft cement. Some of the pieces seem to have been subjected to the action of water, while in a separate state. But a great deal of the mountain has all the appearance of an immense mass of marl, and much of it is in a very soft state, so as to be easily reduced to a fine white dust. In some places the road is worn or cut ten, fifteen, or perhaps twenty feet, down through this marl-like rock.

There are at some parts of the pass considerable precipices of rock on one or both sides, and on the face of some of these rocks and at a considerable height from the ground we saw the entrances of tombs. It must have been difficult to cut such holes in the face of the rock at such a height. Near the end of the pass we crossed a good arched stone bridge, and soon found the valley beginning to open. The character of the rock continued the same, and the whole face of the country was peculiarly barren, except a narrow strip along the river. The waters of the river, even in the mountains, were taken out of its bed, wherever it could be done, and made to water a little space on both sides, which space was more or less covered with trees. We saw indeed in two places, channels cut across the face of the rock above the road, which I am of opinion was for the purpose of carrying the water thus high, that on clearing the pass, it might be used for watering a wide space of country on the eastern side. If this was the case, the neglect of modern times has let go to ruin what may formerly have given fertility to a wide district east of the mountain, now almost utterly barren. Many things have fallen back greatly in this country. As the valley opened below the pass, the water was taken out, and made to keep nearly a horizontal course, along both sides of the channel, and used to water all the district between it and the former bed, and on this district were fields, corn, vines, fruit-trees, poplars, willows, and grass for the flocks of sheep and goats, and other domestic animals.

We passed one or two small villages, and night began to set in. After looking in vain for the cover of a good tree, in such a situation as we wished, we spread our carpets on a little elevation about fifty yards from a small village, and made our beds for the night. A few of the villagers came to look at us; but they did not seem to have as much curiosity or politeness as our good friends at Zebdane. They were rather a shabby set.

About the time we had finished our supper and were going to bed, some cause of dissatisfaction among the villagers, or a family quarrel, took place; and for a short time there was a terrible strife of tongues. It died away in part, and I hoped was about to terminate; but was revived or continued mainly between one man and woman, as the voices indicated; and such a scold I have seldom heard. The woman appeared manifestly to have the advantage. Her tongue was like a sharp sword. It must have been used before, or it could not have been wielded with such terrible power on the present occasion. I thought of the old saying, that "the tongue is the only instrument that grows sharper and sharper by daily use." The adversary, whether neighbour, or brother, or husband, I know not, but suspect it was the latter, appeared to feel that he had a losing case. He yielded, lowered his tone, let her do two-thirds, three-fourths, and, towards the last, a still larger portion of the talking. Such a storm could not last always, it gradually passed away and the voices became silent. How many such storms daily take place on earth! but not one in heaven, no, not one!

It was a Mohammedan village, and this probably a Mohammedan wife, maintaining her rights against an unkind or petulant husband. Verily, we of the western world are far from the truth in the judgments we form about the domestic manners and intercourse of the Mohammedans, and especially their mode of treating their wives. We not only take it for granted that the Mohammedans believe their women have no souls, (which is not true,) but we suppose they have no rights, no privileges, and dare hardly look at their lords, much less speak to them, under fear of losing their heads. Now, all this is wide of the mark. The Mohammedan ladies have their rights, as well as our own fair ones, and know how to stand up for them—and the female tongue is fully as powerful an instrument in the East as it is in the West. Judging from what I used to hear when a boy about the Mohammedans, I should have expected to have seen this fair one put in a sack and thrown in the river, or, as water is rather scarce here to be used for drowning scolds, I should at least have expected to have seen her head cut off, and her tongue nailed up in terror to others. But it was plain that the good lady was in no fear of such treatment; and the good people of the village, instead of coming to the relief of the man, were glad to keep out of harm's way; and the ruler of the town, if it had any, knew better than to intermeddle with other people's matters; and the man himself received a lesson which I hope may do him more good than it did me.

"On that night could not the king sleep!" And so it was with me. Whether it was owing to the train of thinking which the strife of tongues occasioned; or whether that Angelo had made my tea too strong, which he is almost sure to do, for I can't get the notion out of his head that the stronger and the richer his dishes are, so much the better; or whether other and unknown causes tended to chase sleep from my eyes, I know not; but so it was, I could not sleep. And really it was worth remaining awake to look on the face of such a sky. We lay on the summit of a little hill; not a bush or a green leaf near us. We had a fair horizon, and one of the clearest skies that I ever saw. It seemed that I could see farther than usual into the deep abyss, over which the stars are scattered in wild, irregular, but beautiful confusion. I do not wonder that astronomy began in the East, and, admitting the very strong and general tendency of mankind to idolatry, I the less wonder that, in this eastern world, with such heavens nightly spread over them, there should have been so strong a tendency to the worship of the host of heaven. It has much more show of reason than the worship of stocks and stones, the work of men's hands.

When we arose in the morning, there was a scarcely perceivable dampness on our bedding; but the dust in the road was not laid. The case was, however, different on our return. We slept out near Zebdane, and not far from a district irrigated by the waters of the Bareda. Then our bedding was wet, and we all felt chilly. The dew was most copious. This was no doubt owing to the low situation, and its vicinity to a large district over which the water had been thrown. It was also near the trees and gardens which for a mile or two cover the plain.

We had about four hours' ride from our place of lodging to Damascus. Our course was south-east, and, for the most part, we followed the course of the Bareda. This stream runs in a channel depressed below the general level of the country. The country indeed rises into hills, and small mountains, all of which, without exception, are wholly destitute of trees. Indeed, it is rare to see a bush on them under which a lamb could be shaded. There are a few stunted thistles, and furze, and an occasional tuft of grass. I have often noticed the fact, that the thistles, a small stunted thorn, and the furze, which has on it many prickles of a thorn-like character, are more uniformly to be found than any other plants. "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." It is even so in these eastern regions. They grow where nothing else will, but some places are too bad for them.

The rock through this whole district is of a soft, friable nature. Much of it has that puddingstone appearance, which I mentioned as abounding in the mountain through which we had just passed. I was inclined to think it that kind of limestone called aolite. Many of the hills were so white, and washed so easily, that I doubted whether they did not belong to the chalk formation. They reminded me of the chalk cliffs of Dover, and the general appearance of the chalk formation as seen near Dover.

When near the top of the last high range of hills, near Damascus, we had, on looking back, the most striking view of a naked and barren district that I ever saw. The whole range of country, up to the top of the mountain through which we passed on leaving Zebdane, and far to the north and south, was in full view; a range of fifteen or twenty miles in diameter, perhaps much more; and, except the little green strip that at some points could be seen along the river Bareda, there appeared to be neither tree nor bush, nor any green thing. I called Mr. B——'s attention to it, and asked him if he could point out, with the exception just made, one green thing—tree or bush. He could not. As the river runs in a deep channel, and the trees along it are small, it was only at a few places that their tops could be seen. A more dry, parched, desolate landscape I never saw.