Soon afterwards we observed, by our wayside, a square of solid ancient masonry, three courses high. In England this would be certainly the pedestal of some old demolished market-cross; but it may have been the lower part of some memorial pyramid. In the previous year I had seen just such another at Ziph (Josh. xv. 55,) beyond Hebron.
Then we came upon a distinct piece of Roman paved road, which showed that we were upon the
high-road between Neapolis and Scythopolis, alias Shechem and Bethshan, alias Nabloos and Beisân.—Crossed a stream richly bordered with rosy-blossomed oleander, and soon turned the head of the water. A demolished castle was on our right, commanding the entrance of Wadi Fara’ah.
Soon after noon we gained the olive-trees alongside of Tubâs, a prosperous village, yet inhabited by a people as rude and coarse as their neighbours. Tubâs is always liable to incursions from the eastern Bedaween, and always subject to the local wars of the Tokan and ’Abdu’l Hadi factions. I have known it to be repeatedly plundered. The natural soil here is so fertile that its wheat and its oil, together with those of Hanoon, fetch the highest prices in towns; and the grain is particularly sought after as seed for other districts.
The place, however, is most remarkable to us as being the Thebez of Judges ix. 50, where Abimelech was slain by the women hurling a millstone on his head from the wall. The more I become acquainted with the peculiar population of Jebel Nabloos, (i.e. the territory of which Nabloos is the metropolis,) a brutish people “waxing fat and kicking,” the more does the history of the book of Judges, especially the first twelve chapters, read like a record of modern occurrences thereabouts. It is as truly an Arab history as any other oriental book can supply. I observed that Mount Gerizim can be
seen from Tubâs,—which fact seemed to give additional emphasis to the words, “And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads; and upon those came the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubbaal.”
The site of Tubâs is elevated. It is still a considerable village, and possesses that decided evidence of all very ancient sites in Palestine—a large accumulation of rubbish and ashes.
I was told that here, as well as in several of the villages around, there are scattered Christians, one or two families in each among the Moslems, without churches, without clergy, without books or education of any kind; still they are Christians, and carry their infants to the Greek Church in Nabloos for baptism. What a deplorable state of things! Since the date of this journey the Church Missionary Society’s agents have in some degree ministered to the spiritual destitution of these poor people by supplying some at least with copies of the Holy Scriptures.
Here my principal kawwâs, Hadj Mohammed es Serwân, found the fever, which had been upon him more or less for the last three days, so greatly increased, that it was not possible for him to proceed farther with me. The fever he attributed to his having, on arrival at Nabloos, indulged too freely in figs and milk together. The general experience of the country warrants this conclusion.
Poor fellow! after several times dismounting,