A solitary peasant youth, from whom I inquired the names of the villages about us, was so alarmed at the appearance of a European with a Turkish attendant, in a place so remote from common high-roads, that he ran off; but finding our horses keeping up with his fleet pace, he dropped behind a large stone and levelled his gun at us in sheer terror; it was difficult to get a rational reply from him.
Before us, a little to our left, was Hhubeen, half down a hill, at the foot of which was a valley green with waving crops of wheat and barley.
In ten minutes more there opened a fine view of Bait ’Atâb, in which were some good new buildings. Before arriving at this village, which is the chief one of the ’Arkoob district, ruled by ’Othman el Lehhâm, I dismounted for rest beneath a gigantic oak, where there were last year’s acorns and their cups shed around, and half a dozen saplings rising
from the ground, sheltered from the sun by being all within the shadow of the parent tree; with arbutus bushes in every direction, wild thyme and other fragrant herbs serving as pasture for numerous humming bees, bright coloured bee-eaters were twittering in their swallow-like flight, and under the soothing influence of the whole, I fell into a pleasant slumber.
Some boughs of “the huge oak” were decorated with bits of dirty rags hanging upon the boughs as votive memorials of answers to prayers. Probably the site was that of a burial-place of some personage of ancient and local celebrity; but my attendant was positive in affirming that the people do not pray at such stations more than at any other spot whatever. There are many such venerated trees in different parts of the country. I believe that the reason as well as the amount of such veneration is vague and unsettled in the minds of the peasantry, yet the object remains a local monument from generation to generation, honoured now, as were in the Bible times—the oak of Deborah (Gen. xxxv. 8), the oak of Ophrah (Judges vi. II), for instance, with others.
“Multosque per annos
Multa virûm volvens durando sæcula vincit.”
By and by the groom overtook us on foot, having scoured about the neighbourhood in search of us. After another half an hour’s rest, we followed him
across very rocky and slippery hills towards the place of our destination—dwarf shrubs of evergreen oak, honeysuckle, a spring of water, and an old well near the village of Hhubeen, with doves cooing, and a vulture poised in the sky above. Then a ruined village called Lesed, [149] (as well as I could catch the sound from a distance,) near which, among the shrubs, the gnats troubled our horses exceedingly as evening drew on, which would imply the neighbourhood of water.
Arrived at Bait Nateef just at sunset, but no luggage had as yet arrived. This is Netophah in the lists of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The chief and elders of the village were, according to custom of the eventide, seated in a group, chattering or consulting, or calculating, probably, about taxes, or respective shares of the common harvest, or the alliances to be contracted for the next border-warfare, or marriages being planned, or the dividing of inheritances, etc. My groom was admitted into their circle, most likely welcomed as bringing the latest news from Jerusalem, or as being able to describe this strange arrival, and the road to be taken by us on the morrow.