It was about this time, or a little later, that the Jews presented the extraordinary spectacle of two regular and organized communities, one under a sort of spiritual head, the Patriarch of Tiberias, comprehending all of Israelitish descent who inhabited the Roman Empire; the other under the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the Eastern Jews paid their allegiance. The Romans recognized the Patriarchship of Tiberias, granted it special privileges, and the Jewish colony round Tiberias under its auspices became very powerful. Schools of Talmudic learning were established, and the most celebrated rabbis wrote, and, in fact, stamped with their learning the Judaism which has felt their influence to the present day. Then it was that Meiron became their place of burial, and that the largest and most ancient synagogue of which we have any traces was built at Meiron. The site of the synagogue was chosen on the eastern side of a rocky mound, and the western side and floor were excavated out of the solid rock. The whole of the area is ninety feet by fifty. Pieces of columns are lying about, with pedestals and capitals, but many of the finest fragments have rolled down the eastern slope. The edifice fronted the south, and here the façade remains, with a fine portal of large hewn blocks of stone, and a side door. Some of the stones are four and a half feet long by two and a half thick. The portal is ten and a half feet high by five and a half wide. Its side-posts are each of a single stone elaborately sculptured. The sculptured lintel projects somewhat above the side-posts, but I could see nothing of the Hebrew inscription which some of the old writers mention as being over the door. The centre stone was shaken out of its place by the earthquake of 1837. Altogether, the situation and general aspect of this singular ruin, projecting as it does out of the overhanging solid rock, is full of picturesque as well as of historical interest. Meiron is probably mentioned by Josephus as Meroth, a place fortified by him in Upper Galilee. Dr. Thomson identifies it with the Meroz, so bitterly cursed by Deborah because the inhabitants would not join the expedition of Barak. And, in confirmation of this, there is a fountain near Meiron called to this day by the Jews Deborah's fountain, but the Sephardim rabbi, who was my guide, philosopher, and friend at Meiron, identified it with Shimrom-Meron, whose king was one of the thirty-one mentioned in the Book of Joshua as having been smitten by him on entering Canaan.
A great part of the village belonged to the rabbi, and, with a view of encouraging agriculture among his coreligionists, he had put six Jewish families from Morocco on the land, who were accustomed to farming, and were doing well. Besides these there were twelve Moslem families, which completed the population of the village. I was much struck by the good-feeling which existed between them and the Jews, the sheik whom I visited speaking in the highest terms of the latter, as being hard-working and excellent agriculturists. Indeed, in walking over the village lands, those which were cultivated by Jewish labour compared favourably with the crops of the Fellahin. Altogether, I was so much attracted by Meiron and its neighbourhood, which is full of interesting remains that have not yet been thoroughly examined, from an antiquarian point of view, that I propose paying it another visit.
Behind Meiron rises Jebel Jermuk, the highest mountain in western Palestine. I scrambled up it one day, finding myself as I did so in the midst of the wildest scenery to the west of the Jordan. Here villages were few and far between. Nothing was to be seen but rocky gorges and wild hillsides, trackless, excepting where the goats follow each other in search of herbage, but with a grand and savage beauty which it is difficult to reconcile with the idea that they ever supported a large population. Probably, even in the most flourishing days of Palestine, these highlands were always its wildest parts, and there are comparatively few ancient sites or traces of ruins in the remote recesses of these mountains. Jebel Jermuk rears its rounded summit to a height of four thousand feet above the sea-level, and about three hundred feet below the top are the ruins of a village which was abandoned about twenty years ago by twelve Jewish families, which formed its entire population, and who were all cultivators of the soil and owners of flocks and herds. In those days it was the highest inhabited spot in Palestine, and it is wonderful to think its pure mountain air should not have protected the inhabitants against cholera, which was then decimating the country. So far from such being the case, nearly the whole male population was carried off, and the village was abandoned, and finally became the property of a Druse village about three miles distant. The stone walls of the houses are still standing, and there is a well of delicious water, shaded by trees, making the spot altogether a desirable retreat from the summer heats and a healthy locality for a colony, if it were not so inaccessible. These mountains are not frequented by Bedouin Arabs, and need nothing but roads and cultivation to make many now barren spots fertile and profitable. The more one travels over the less-frequented parts of the country, the more one is struck with the extent of its undeveloped resources and with the possible future which is in store for it.
[THE FEAST OF ST. ELIAS.]
Haifa, July 31.—The greatest religions festival of the year in these parts takes place on the 20th of July at the Monastery of Mount Carmel, and is called the Feast of St. Elias. It does not rank in the Roman Catholic Church generally as one of the highest importance, but among the Maronites, Melchites, and the Latin Oriental Church, as well as among the Carmelites themselves, it is par excellence the great annual ecclesiastical event. From all parts of Palestine worshippers of all ranks flock to the sacred grotto, and on the evening before the saint's day as many as five or six thousand souls are often assembled on the rugged promontory and in the enclosures surrounding the monastery. Hither I repaired about six o'clock on the evening of the 19th, and sipped coffee, smoked cigarettes, and chatted with the reverend fathers, while I looked out of the iron-barred windows on the multitude assembling beneath them. It was composed for the most part of vendors of fruit, sweetmeats, and refreshments of all sorts, who were establishing their stalls for the night in sheltered nooks, for the feast begins at midnight, and is carried on till nine o'clock next day, being, in fact, a species of religious orgy, which appears to have great fascination for the native Christian mind. It must be admitted that devotions which consist chiefly in dancing and drinking, with an occasional free fight, all through the small hours of the morning, are religious exercises of a kind not unlikely to attract the country people, who go in for a sort of holy spree on a scale of large proportions. This year, however, a general panic which pervaded the country in consequence of the cholera in Egypt reduced the numbers materially, especially of the Fellahin, among whom all kinds of absurd rumours were prevalent that the disease had spread to Haifa, and that the monastery itself was in quarantine. After watching the picturesque arrivals for some time, I declined an invitation to spend the night in the monastery, and determined to return next morning at five o'clock, when I was assured that the fun would be fast and furious.
As I approached at that hour my expectations were excited by the reports of the discharge of pistols and guns, and the sounds of the discordant chorus-chanting which forms the usual accompaniment to the native dances. Passing under the archway and entering the large courtyard of the monastery, I found it nearly full of excited groups in large circles, their arms clasped around each other's necks, swaying their bodies to and fro, and keeping time with their feet to their songs, while they occasionally waved their arms aloft and fired in the air. This is the regular Syrian dance of the towns, and it is sufficiently monotonous. The Fellahin, however, have a far more picturesque performance, in which the girls, in bright-coloured garments, join, dancing singly, or in twos and threes. Of these, unfortunately, there were very few. No doubt it was in consequence of the small attendance that there had not been so much drinking as usual, and I only saw one man captured by half a dozen Turkish soldiers, who must have a curious idea of Christian devotions, for an improper use of his fist.
About this time the guest-chambers and corridors of the monastery—where families of the better class who had come from Acre, Tyre, Nazareth, Jaffa, and other towns had passed the night, in the lodging provided for them—began to disgorge, and the variety of costume displayed by the shouting, singing, and dancing multitude formed a scene sufficiently picturesque and animated. Sometimes processions are formed, where offerings are made to the miracle-working statue of Notre Dame de Mont Carmel, in return for a child that has been prayed for, or a sick person who has been healed, but on this occasion her protection did not seem to have been invoked, or, at all events, there was no public display of gratitude. There is a large terrace in front of the monastery, and here a dozen horsemen or so were throwing the djerrid and exhibiting their equestrian skill, much to the detriment of the unfortunate animals they bestrode, whose flanks were bleeding profusely from the pointed angles of the iron stirrups which serve as spurs, and from the cruel bits by which, when going at full speed, they were jerked back upon their haunches.
While all this was going on outside, mass was being performed in the church for those who wished to vary the entertainment. This is a spacious, vaulted building in the form of a Greek cross, with a fine-toned organ in one transept, and a statue of the miraculous Lady of Mount Carmel, between four Corinthian columns, seated on a sort of throne in a richly decorated dress of white satin, in the other. Both the Virgin and the Infant in her arms had golden crowns on their heads, the result of a miracle, for when the Frère Jean Baptiste undertook the reconstruction of the monastery fifty years ago, he intrusted the carving of the statue to Caraventa, a sculptor of Genoa, and, not having money enough to buy her a crown suitable to her position, procured her one of silver, and one of copper gilt for the Child, saying as he did so, “You will know how to procure yourself a better one;” and this she achieved shortly after at Naples, where a rich nobleman presented her with two in return for a miraculous cure of which he was the subject. There is a book sold in the monastery containing a list of the miracles that have been performed by this statue, which was gazed upon with the greatest awe and veneration by the country people. They prostrate themselves before her, touching the ground with their foreheads, and offering up their supplications after a fashion that would shock an enlightened Buddhist by the superstition and credulity thus suggested. On each side of the figure are two altars, one dedicated to St. Jean Baptiste, and the other to St. Simon Stock, an Englishman, who was made Prior-General of the Order of Carmelites in 1245, and who in his day did more than any other to increase their renown. On the right of this is the statue of Elijah slaying a prophet of Baal, which was sculptured at Barcelona by Dom Amédéo. The prophet has got his false rival on the ground between his feet, and, with uplifted sword, is in the act of cutting his head off. He is hung round with votive offerings, and worshippers crowd around to touch some part of the statue, and then kiss the finger that has touched it. On a table in front a monk was selling engravings to the worshippers. I bought one of these, representing Elijah sending Elisha to look for the sign of rain. In the distance is the small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, and emerging from it is the figure of the Virgin and Child, for the Roman Catholic tradition has it that in this cloud was revealed to the prophet the dogma of the immaculate conception, in which he was a firm believer from that time forward.
Descending a few rock-cut steps close to this image, we find ourselves in the cave of Elijah, a small grotto about ten feet by fifteen, at one end of which is an altar, which the devotees firmly believe is the actual rock that he used as his bed. Here a priest was performing mass. The body of the church was full of devotees, for the most part women in white burnooses, who squatted on the ground, and seemed principally engaged in suckling their babies.
The monastery derives a considerable revenue from these celebrations, as in good seasons votive offerings to a large value are brought; but the chief source of its wealth is derived from the sale of indulgences, or at least what virtually amounts to this. By these means it exercises a very powerful moral as well as financial influence all through the country, and as the Christian population, which is subject to it, is very large in proportion to the Moslem in the neighbourhood, and as it is under the exclusive protectorate of France, this influence partakes also of a very distinct political character. In fact, the Christians of the whole of this district enjoy a far more efficient protection against the oppression of the Turkish government than do the Moslems themselves.