N.B.—We were within sight of the sea and the fortress of Acre.
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The three previous chapters, and this one at its commencement, relate in no inconsiderable proportion to woods, glens, and glades included in proper forest scenery; but inasmuch as travellers in Palestine, describing only what they have themselves seen along high-roads from town to town, under the guidance of professional dragomans and muleteers, generally deny the existence of forest
scenery in Palestine, I may subjoin some remarks on this particular subject.
Passing over the extensive olive plantations of Gaza, and the Sahara of twenty square miles between Bayroot and Saida, as not exactly belonging to the class of timber trees; and the “pine forest” near Bayroot, which is of artificial formation for accomplishing a preconceived design; also the neb’k and other thorny trees unfit for mechanical purposes, extending for miles in wild profusion beyond Jericho, and adding beauty to the scenery; there remain the veritable forests of Gilead and Bashan beyond Jordan, seldom visited by European travellers, and the two large forests in Western Palestine, accessible to the tourists who have leisure and will for knowing the country.
First, the Belâd Beshârah to the north, north-east, and east of Tibneen, and also west and south-west of Safed, through all of which I have travelled with unceasing admiration and indulgence of the early taste implanted in childhood among old forests of England. The verdure and the shade from the Syrian sun were delightful, with the glades and vistas, as well as the amusing alternations often occurring of stooping to the horse’s neck in passing below the venerable branches that stretched across the roadway. Those sylvan scenes abound in game, and are known to contain formidable wild animals.
Secondly, the forest extending in length at least
thirty miles from below Cæsarea, northwards to the plain of Battoof beyond Sepphoris. This was designated the “ingens sylva” by the ancient Romans. I have crossed this in several lines between Nazareth and Acre or Caiffa; and twice from the Plain of Sharon to Carmel through the Wadi ’Arah by Umm el Fahh’m, a village, the very name of which (“mother of charcoal”) belongs to a woodland region; besides the line from Carmel to ’Arâbeh.
The portion of this forest immediately contiguous inland from Carmel is named “the Rôhha,” clearly from the fragrance exhaled by the pine and terebinth trees, with the wild herbs upon the hills; this, together with the dark wooded sides of the long mountain, constitutes “the forest of his Carmel” mentioned in the boasting of the King of Assyria, (Isa. xxxvii. 24; also x. 18, in Hebrew,) and it is the Drymos of the Septuagint and of Josephus, (Wars, i. 13, 2,) in the which a battle was fought by those Jews who were aiding the Parthians on behalf of Antigonus. No wonder that the loss of men was considerable among the woods and thickets there. I note the accuracy of assigning the name Δρνμος to this region, consisting as it does almost exclusively of oak.
Besides these wide tracts of woodland, there are also the summit and sides of Tabor, with woods along its north-eastern base.