Haifa, May 15.—From the ancient fortress of El-Hösn we crossed a spur to a high projecting point, from which we could look down a sheer precipice one thousand feet high, which had been formed by a land-slip, to the bed of the river. Forcing their way impetuously through a gorge opposite, the tributary waters of the Rukkad mingled their clear stream with the turbid Yarmuk, after a rapid course from their source in the highlands of Jaulan, from which elevated plateau they are precipitated in a magnificent waterfall eight hundred feet high. All this scenery is as yet absolutely unknown and unexplored, this fall having only recently been discovered, by my travelling companion on this occasion. I regretted being unable to visit it, but we were limited for time, and although it was only hidden from view by a projecting spur of the valley, so broken up is this country by precipitous ravines and gorges, that it would have taken us a day's hard riding to reach it.
It was with regret that we found ourselves compelled to leave the elevated position on which we now stood, and which commanded an extensive view, limited in the extreme east by the lofty mountains of the Jebel Druze; and, steering our way by compass, struck a southeasterly direction, over a park-like, undulating country, covered with oak forest, with occasional patches of cultivation. This part of the country to the east of the Jordan, which is called the Keferat, is thinly inhabited, the villages being very small, squalid, and far apart, but it is a country all waiting to yield of its abundance to some future race who may turn its magnificent resources to good account. In many places the trees were festooned with vines, the grapes of this district being celebrated, but the population pay little heed to their cultivation, for it is impossible to protect them from robbers. The Bedouins consider the sedentary inhabitants as lawful spoil, and raid over these lands at will, practically almost unchecked by the authorities, whose administrative hold on the country is of the slenderest description. It is, in fact, chiefly exercised at those times when it is necessary to send the mounted police into the villages to collect the taxes, and they clear up all that the Bedouins may have left, so that these poor people are engaged in a perpetual struggle to keep body and soul together, and although they are surrounded by a fertile country which, if it were properly cultivated, would make them wealthy, they only cultivate enough for their barest necessities, and have not the heart to attempt to accumulate wealth which they would not be permitted to keep. Situated at an elevation of about eighteen hundred feet above the sea, these high, wooded, fertile table-lands form a district which, should this country ever come to be occupied under more favourable conditions than now exist, will certainly be among the first to attract an agricultural population. The wild, rocky gorges by which it is intersected render the task of exploration, without a guide, one attended with some uncertainty. We take our bearings by compass, gallop under the vine-trellised trees, over green, level slopes, or along inviting glades, till we are suddenly brought up by a precipice down which it is impossible to scramble, which opens unexpectedly in a gulf at our feet. The spot we are making for is not half a mile distant, but we have to follow the edge of the gorge in the opposite direction. Then we come upon another at right angles, which forces us to double back still farther; so at last we wind round the head, first of one ravine and then of another, till we find two hours have elapsed since we were driven back on our tracks; the half-mile has now extended over five or six, the sun is declining with a rapidity which seems accelerated because the daylight has become so precious to us that we cannot bear to anticipate the prospect of its vanishing. At last we reach the head of the valley which has baffled us so long, and are compensated by discovering a ruin. Here are sarcophagi, rock tombs and cisterns, and carved fragments. Fortunately we come across a peasant, the only one we have seen since leaving the river, and he tells us that its name is Haleebna. We write it down and take its bearings as well as we can, for it is unknown heretofore, but the day is too far spent for us to linger for minute examination. The peasant tells us that the best thing we can do, if we would get back to our tents, is to go down the valley we had intended to cross. We follow his advice and have no reason to regret it. It is a Viâ Mala of grandeur and beauty, though on a small scale. We pass between curved limestone cliffs, the fissures in which are filled with underwood, the shrubs cling to the rocks, from which at one place gushes a copious stream of water, by the side of which we hurry with it down the valley, till we get back to the Yarmuk once more, and, wearied and exhausted, reach our tents in the gathering darkness. Here we find a picturesque-looking Kurd waiting to receive us; he is an old soldier, and shows us the scars of five wounds—not all, however, received in military service, but for the most part in Arab skirmishes. He is the agent of the government in these parts, and also of the native capitalist who is the practical owner of the land, which is cultivated by an Arab tribe whose tents are pitched near us; they are heavily indebted to the capitalist aforesaid, who allows them enough of the crops to keep them from starving and takes all the rest himself. And our Kurdish visitor is his collector of revenue. He seems to have some difficulty in protecting his employer's interests, and tells us triumphantly that only a few nights before he has shot an Arab whom he caught plundering. He says that during the bathing season as many as a hundred tents may be seen pitched round the sulphur springs of Amatha, and that their fame is so great that they are visited by invalids from Aleppo and Damascus. The fact, however, that Tiberias, which is five hours distant, is the nearest place in which supplies of any sort can be procured, and that the only accommodation to be obtained is the patient's own tent, must operate as a serious obstacle to the use of these springs, about whose curative value, however, there can be no doubt.
Our way from Amatha lay back across the Jordan valley, which at this season of the year is a sheet of waving grain, cultivated by a branch of the Beni Sukkr Arabs, whose large encampment, with the handsome tent of the sheik in the centre, we pass without stopping, for we are in full pursuit at the moment of five gazelles, which scamper across country, giving us a good run, in which we should have certainly overtaken them had we not been checked by a ravine. We cross the Yarmuk at a point near its junction with the Jordan, and where it carries a volume of water certainly equal to that stream. The Jordan here falls in a fine rapid of about thirty feet in a distance of less than a hundred yards, and would furnish splendid water-power for mills in a part of the country which is much in want of them. The ancient Jisr el-Medjamieh spans the stream at this point, guarded by a government toll-house. Crossing it, we determined to try a short-cut up the little-known Wady Bireh, which is watered by a clear, purling brook, which, if it were utilized, would make this valley one of the most fertile and attractive in this part of the country. After following its winding course for some miles, we found it finally narrowing into a crooked gorge, the sides of which approach so closely as scarcely to admit the passage of a loaded camel between the overhanging rocks. Indeed, when we afterwards described our route to the natives they said it was never used by them. However, it gave us an opportunity of seeing some most romantic scenery, and by shortening the way enabled us to reach Nazareth, jaded and worn out, it is true, the same night.
[A DRUSE RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL.]
Haifa, May 27.—Travellers who have gone from Nazareth to Tiberias must be familiar with the singular outline of a mountain which they perceive to the left of the road, with its two rocky crests separated from each other by a hog's back about a quarter of a mile long, and called the Horns of Hattin. The summit of the higher peak, one thousand feet above the sea, and about three hundred feet above the plain across which they are riding, forms a conspicuous object in a landscape which, at this point, is one of singular interest and beauty. Rising like a gigantic natural pulpit, tradition has since declared it to be the Mount of the Beatitudes, and asserts that it was from this picturesque elevation that Christ delivered that sermon which has exercised so vast an influence on mankind ever since.
Whether this be so or not, it is certain that the plain on which the audience was supposed to have gathered which listened to it, was the scene, about eleven hundred and fifty-seven years afterwards, of the most memorable conflict in which the Crusaders ever engaged, for it was the one which lost them Palestine, and which resulted in the triumph of Saladin, the Saracen, and the slaughter or capture of the most powerful and celebrated of the Crusading chiefs. At the extremity of the plain, and immediately beneath one of the horns of the mountain, there is a precipitous gorge, down which some of the hardly pressed Crusaders vainly attempted flight, the horses and their riders, heavily panoplied with armour, only escaping the spear of the Arab to meet an even more terrible fate, as they hurled themselves headlong down the rocky precipice. As, dismounting from my active steed, I allowed him to pick his own way down this dangerous defile, I looked with interest at the scene of the disaster, and listened to the story of my guide, who narrated how, only twenty years ago, a fight had taken place here between a celebrated Bedouin chief and a Kurdish tribe, in which the latter were signally defeated on the old Crusading battle-ground, and, seeking safety, like the Christian warriors, in the direction of this treacherous gorge, left sixty dead men and horses at the bottom.
These traditions and associations served to enhance the novelty and picturesqueness of the view before me as I entered the gorge, for it was now the scene of a great gathering of the sheiks and chiefs of the Druse nation, who come here annually on a pilgrimage to the shrine of one of their most celebrated saints, at which I was fortunate enough to be allowed to assist, a privilege which, so far as I am aware, had not before been granted to a foreigner. The building which forms this sacred resort has been erected by the Druses over the tomb of a certain holy man called Schaib, but exactly who Schaib was my utmost endeavours failed to discover. The Moslems say that he is Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses; but when I asked the Druses whether Moses had married Schaib's daughter, they denied it. Then a Jew of the country, familiar with the Druses, suggested that Schaib was Balaam, but they refused altogether to admit that an ass had ever spoken to their holy man. He had crossed the Red Sea with Moses, they said, and after Moses' death had been ordered by God to bury him, and had done so, and had fought against a mighty king and prevailed against him, and had himself been buried here, and he was the Father of all Prophets and the elect of God, and there were none greater or more sacred than he. I thought possibly he might be Joshua, but him they knew by his own name, so I have given up the personality of Schaib as an insoluble mystery. He is one of those Druse characters whom their tradition has interwoven with Biblical history, but the tomb which they thus honour is undoubtedly considered by Moslems to be the tomb of Jethro, who is known among them as Schaib; and the Rabbi Bar Simeon, writing in 1210 A.D., mentions the tomb of Jethro as being at Hattin. Considering that Jethro lived in Midian, on the shores of the Red Sea, it seems rather unlikely that he should be buried here. However, that is a detail. The fact remains that the spot is one of great sanctity, but is infinitely more venerated by the Druses than by the Moslems. Indeed, I met a Moslem who laughed at the Druses' superstitions in regard to it, and who was as much surprised and puzzled as I was when he heard them deny that Moses was the son-in-law of the buried saint.
The building which the Druses have erected over the old, dilapidated Moslem shrine, which still stands here, has already cost more than $5000, all subscribed by the Druses among themselves, and it is not yet completed. It consists of a courtyard, one side of which is formed by the solid rock, while the other contains chambers. The roof forms a terrace, and above it, also partly faced by rock, is a large upper chamber surmounted by a dome. The scene as we approached was very striking. The Druse sheiks, desirous of doing honour to their guest, formed in two lines to receive me, while guns were fired off and songs of welcome were sung. The white building, with its terraces crowded by men and women in bright-coloured garments, harmonized well with the romantic character of the scenery, and formed a picture calculated to impress the imagination.
I was ushered by my hosts into an anteroom, after exchanging cordial greetings with those I knew, and being introduced to those who were still strangers to me; and then we all squatted on carpets, thus occupying all the four sides of the room, which assumed the appearance of a sort of council-chamber. As, with the exception of the Japanese, the Druses are the politest and most courteous people I have ever met, a great part of our time is taken up in salutations and compliments. First we press our hands to our hearts and lips and foreheads, with great effusion. No sooner are we seated than we repeat this process as if we had not done it just before. Then, in flowery language, we ask each other repeatedly after our respective healths, and are profuse in our thanks to God that we are well, that they are well, that our families are well, and that we are permitted to enjoy the great privilege of meeting one another. Then coffee is brought in, and after drinking it we go through the same process of saluting each other all around. Then I request permission to light a cigarette, which is necessary, as the Druses never indulge in tobacco; indeed, the more rigid eschew coffee.
As I look around at the twenty or thirty sheiks, solemnly seated with their backs to the wall, I am much struck with the dignity of their bearing, the intelligence of their countenances, and their superior physique generally. As a rule, there is a religious and a secular sheik to each village, so that about half my entertainers exercise spiritual functions, and half temporal. There was nothing, however, in their dress to distinguish them. They all wore white turbans, black or striped abbas, or wide-sleeved cloaks reaching to the knee, beneath which was the usual flowing garment of the Oriental, and their feet were bare. Many of the Druses, both men and women, have brown hair and blue eyes, and complexions as light as our own, and some of both sexes are singularly handsome.