We camp at the Waters of Merom.
This valley of the Jordan, if drained and planted, would be immensely rich, but it teemed now with luxurious rankness, fever, and death. We pitched our tents under a large tree, divided from the lake by papyrus swamps; a most unwholesome spot, where we were punished by every sort of insect and crawling thing in creation; and we all got headache and sore throat at once.
The Bahret el Huleh, or the Waters of Merom in Josh. xi. 5-7, anciently called Lake Semachonitis, is a small blue triangular lake, the first and highest of the three basins of the Jordan. We had all our escort with us; we had scarcely any food; there was none for the horses. We had to turn them all loose to forage for themselves, except the stallions, and they had to be led. It was a hideous expanse of fœtid mire and putrefying papyrus. We had a frightful night, a stifling heat, a very blizzard of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, and we were camped under the only tree in the plain. It was black dark; the ground was bad-smelling black mud; we passed the dark hours in holding our tent-pole against the wind, and digging trenches outside to let the water off. There were no dry clothes to be had, and the various vermin would not let one rest. We were like that for three days; so we piled up the trunks and sat at the top of them, and read "Lothair," by Disraeli, which we had brought with us. The description of the great houses of England read so funnily sitting in this black mud in the centre of desolation, surrounded by feverish swamps.
In spite of the difficulties of moving in such weather, Richard and I were agreed that if we stayed there any longer, we should all perhaps get in such a state as not to be able to move at all; so we saddled our horses, and ordering our followers and escort to strike tents, pack, load, and follow, we mounted and waded our horses through the water, scrambled over stones and slippery rocks, and in and out mud and slush for two hours, often sinking deep, till we reached the mountain roots and began to ascend.
After some hours' climbing we arrived at the seventy-two tents of the Shaykh Hadi Abd Allah; he instantly gave us hospitality, barley for our horses and food for ourselves. They were all yellow and sickly, and, even at this height, dying like sheep of fever from the miasma arising out of the plain that we had been in for three days. They had lost many children, and double sorrow when sons. One boy was dying as we entered. Our tents came up to us late that day with all our belongings. Our animals and people were fed. We stayed with the tribe long enough to doctor them all round, and to leave remedies and directions; and I baptized the incurables and the dying children.
Then came down the Amir Hasan el Fá'ur of the Benú Fadl, or Fazli tribe. He heard of our being in the neighbourhood, and took us off to his camp on the summit of a mountain called Jebel Haush, a day's ride away, where we found his three hundred tents. The whole tribe turned out to meet us, mounted and couching their lances, and jeríded the whole way back. The reception tent was fifty feet long, and each divan was twenty-five feet long. The retainers cleared a space for our camp, corn was brought, horses picketed; an excellent dinner on a large scale in the big tent was cooked, lambs and kids roasted whole, stuffed with pistachios and rice, bowls of leban, unleavened bread, honey, and camels'-milk butter, bowls of clear sparkling water. I love to think now of those dark, fierce men, in their gaudy flowing costumes, lying about in different attitudes, the moon lighting up the scene; the lurid glare of the fire on their faces, the divans and pipes, narghílehs and coffee, their wild and mournful songs, their war-dances, their story-telling; and on that particular night, and on all these sort of nights, my husband would recite to them one or another tale out of the "Arabian Nights"—those tales which he has now translated literally for the London world; and I have seen the gravest and most reverend Shaykhs rolling on the ground and screaming with delight, in spite of their Oriental gravity, and they seemed as if they could never let my husband go again.
Richard is stung by a Scorpion.
I can remember that night, when he and I went to our tent and lay down on our respective rugs, he called me over, for he was stung by a scorpion, but when I struck a match there was nothing but a speck of blood, as though from a black ant; so we lay down again, and he called out, "Quick, quick! I know it is a scorpion." I ran over and struck another light, and plunged my hand into the shirt by the throat, and the scorpion caught my finger. I drew it out and shook it off, and killed it; but it did not sting me, being, I supposed, exhausted. I rubbed some strong smelling-salts into the wounds, and, seeing he was pale, ran off to the provision-basket and got a bottle of raki, and made him drink it, to keep the poison from the heart, and he woke in the morning quite well.
I now discovered that though they were treating us with this splendid hospitality, that behind the scenes they were also dying in their tents of fever, although they were in the purest air; so here we again stayed to doctor, and nurse, and baptize, and leave directions and remedies.
We then went on to most of the romantic and hospitable Druze villages which cling to the southern and eastern folds of Hermon—Mejdel Esh Shems to Birket er Ram, or Lake Phiala,[5] a little round lake which we found interesting enough to come back to afterwards. Mejdel is on a declivity of a mountain defile—their favourite position—a Druze stronghold, very fighting and turbulent, where we were received and treated like relations. Then we got to Beyt-Jenn, where we had a mixed Druze and Christian place. We came in for a very interesting Druze wedding at Arneh, at the foot of Hermon, just above which rise the sources of the Awaj, which waters El Kunayterah. We then went to a Druze village called Rimeh, to look for a stone with an inscription, which we found in a stable, and then to the Bukkásim, which is the Druze frontier. Here our Druze cavalcade took an affecting leave of us. As we rode away I could see them for three-quarters of an hour standing on a high rock to watch us out of sight, one or two of them with their faces buried in their mares' necks.