“Oh, the Romans!” they ejaculated, with a curious expression of countenance, as if disappointed at the mention of such comparatively modern people. So true is it that in the Holy Land, the Bible is the only book of history for Christians, and scriptural incidents are the traditions which leap over any number of centuries at a time. How little of this state of mind existing among the inhabitants of that country is comprehended in England!
But, in reference to the people Israel and the possession of it as the promised land, this allotment, shared partly by each of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and Judah, has a peculiar denomination—it is called the Shephêlah, (translated by the common word vale in Josh. x. 40, xi. 16, and elsewhere.) In Arabic authors also of Mohammedan period, this large plain bears the same name, Siphla, meaning the same as in Hebrew, the “low country.”
Thus, as one expanse from the hills to the sea, it bears one territorial name, either Philistine or Hebraic, just as another region is called the Negeb, or south, (see in the verses referred to above,) or as others were designated the hill country, or the desert, or Phœnicia. And many a time have I stood on the summits of hills to the west of Bethlehem, the eye ranging over its extent from the vicinity of Carmel to Gaza, with Jaffa and Ekron in front, and have sometimes seen beyond this, ships of large size sailing past on the “great and wide sea” of the 104th Psalm.
The ancient Philistines were not only exceptionally, but generally, a large race of people, and the population there are to this day remarkably tall; they are, even amid disadvantages, (that especially of want of water,) much more cleanly in their persons and clothing than the peasants of the hills, and many of their habits of life are modified by their circumstances, such as the pressure of their wild Arab neighbours from the southern desert that lies between them and Egypt.
Over this plain I have made several journeys at different periods, and now proceed to put down my jottings of an excursion in the spring of 1849.
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May 1st.—“Sweet May-day” in the Holy Land as well as in England.
At Rachel’s sepulchre, “in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem,” we parted from a company of friends who had ridden with us from Jerusalem, and passed along the valley Duhheish’mah to the Pools of Solomon, then turned aside by the convent and village of El Khud’r (or St George), surrounded by flourishing vineyards. Then mounting up a stony ridge, we came in view of the wide Philistine plain, the hills falling in successive gradations from our feet to the level of the plain, but separate objects could scarcely be distinguished on account of the thick air of the prevailing Shirocco; green bushes, however, and abundant wild flowers,
including the red everlasting, pheasant’s eye, cistus, and some late anemones, were about us; the larks and the linnets were singing with delight.
In front was the village of Hhusân, and two roads led forward, that on the left to Nahhâleen, Wad Fokeen, and Jeba’; this was the road that I ought to have taken to Bait Nateef, our place for the night, but being considerably ahead of our baggage mules, I had ridden on with a kawwâs, under Hhusân and Ras abu ’Ammâr; by our wayside lay a defaced Roman milestone.