I have also found a curious square structure, fourteen feet in height, twelve feet square, composed of stones averaging three feet by two, by about one in thickness, all carefully squared, and laid one upon another without cement, the whole forming a perfectly solid erection of great antiquity. It may possibly have been a vineyard watch-tower. It is on the way from here to the “Place of Burning,” or Elijah's sacrifice, and is the second I have found in that neighbourhood, the other being considerably smaller. I came upon it accidentally on the occasion of a Druse picnic to which I was invited, and which took place at the “Place of Burning,” in celebration of the last day of the feast of Ramadan, which the Druses seem to observe as well as the Moslems, though on a different day.
The female population of the village, in their gayest dresses, had preceded us on donkeys. I accompanied the sheik, who had drawn up on a little plain outside the town about a dozen horsemen as an escort, and thus, after a little of the usual imitation of the equestrian game of the djerrid, at which, in default of the real thing, the horsemen delight to exercise their horses by a mock encounter, we formed in a sort of procession, the young men of the village on foot, armed with great clubs, chanting songs of love and war, as they marched in front. There were from two to three hundred persons collected on the flat space in front of the church which the Carmelite monks have recently erected on the supposed site of Elijah's altar. And here the usual dancing-circles were formed, and the fun of the day commenced. But it was melancholy fun. How could it be otherwise, when the young men and women are not allowed to dance together, scarcely even to speak to one another? It was quite pitiful to see half a dozen of the prettiest girls that could be found in Syria sitting under the shade of a tree, gossiping, and looking at half a dozen fine, stalwart, handsome young fellows prancing about on their horses, or singing and dancing, without there being the ghost of a chance of a flirtation. The girls cooked together and ate together and danced together and sang together, and the young men amused themselves apart as best they could. As the delights of flirting are unknown to them, I suppose they did not miss them; but as I looked at the young people of both sexes thus divided, I wondered what would be the result of a similar experiment if it were tried at an American picnic.
It was a curious sight to see a bevy of at least fifty women and girls rush into the Carmelite chapel, which during the week is left in charge of a Druse, who on this occasion did the honours of it to his coreligionists, who scampered all over the premises, gazing wonderingly at the altar ornaments, and forming large dancing-circles on the flat roof. I could not exactly find out why the Druses chose the place of Elijah's sacrifice as the scene of their festivity, but there is no doubt that the traditions of a special sanctity are attached to it in their religion as well as in that of the Roman Catholics, and that the slaughter of the eight hundred false prophets by the holy man whose prayers for rain were heard on this spot, and upon whom the divine vengeance was invoked, appeals to a sentiment which is common to the Christian, the Moslem, and the Druse religions.
[1] A year later the thieves were found, and the Circassian colony to which they belonged was compelled by the government to refund the Germans the value of the horses.
[ARMAGEDDON.—THE BOSNIAN COLONY AT CÆSAREA.]
Daliet-el-Carmel, Sept. 11.—There is no fact at first more puzzling to the traveller in Palestine than the contrast between the misery and poverty of the fellahin and the extent and fertility of land owned by each village. This is, however, the inevitable result of the various fiscal devices to which the government has been compelled to resort, in order to provide a revenue which shall meet the needs of its internal administration, and the claims of its foreign bondholders. These press more severely on the peasant class than on any other in the community, and as the financial necessities of the empire increase, new methods are being constantly devised to meet them. Thus the latest arrangement requires the taxes to be paid in money instead of in kind, as heretofore, the amount being assessed on an average of the crops extending over a period of five years. This has produced the greatest consternation among the peasantry throughout the country, who find themselves quite unable to meet this new demand, and who are compelled, in consequence, to resort to extortionate money-lenders, who charge from thirty to forty per cent. for their advances, thus ruining the fellahin, whose villages are all destined by this process to fall into the hands of these grasping usurers, while the peasants remain upon them as serfs, merely receiving so much of the crop as will keep them from starving. Thus it happened that, in the belief that I had more bowels of compassion than their own countrymen, I was applied to by the villagers in all directions; among others, by those who owned the lands of Lejjun, or the biblical Megiddo. This is generally supposed to be identical with Armageddon, and the notion of becoming the proprietor of a battle-field which possesses such interesting historical associations in the past, to say nothing of the future, which may be mythical or not, according to theological fancy, induced me to pay a visit to that celebrated locality. Its position was as tempting as its sentimental considerations were remarkable. Here, jutting out into the plain of Esdrælon, of which it commands an extensive view, stands the Tell et Mutsellim, or governor's hill, upon which the traces of what may have been a palace are distinctly visible. Right opposite to us across the plain, about twelve miles distant, the houses of Nazareth gleam upon the lofty hillside; to the right are Tabor, Little Hermon, and Mount Gilboa, with the mountains of Gilead in the rear. Beneath, circling round the base of the mound, are “the waters of Megiddo,” a copious stream, turning two water-mills and irrigating an extensive tract of plain. Behind us is an undulating plateau covered with the ruins of the ancient city. Here are fragments of columns, carved capitals and cornices, and I found some subterranean chambers into which I crawled, and which, as they connected with the stream by stone conduits, I assume must, in old times, have been baths. The peasants have found antiques of various kinds, and I was shown the hand and forearm of a female figure, life-size, and beautifully carved in marble, which they had dug up. There is no saying what treasures the fortunate proprietor of this place may not unearth, and with the wealth of water at his command, of which but little advantage is now taken, he might have extensive gardens and orange groves. From this point a great military road passed, in the most ancient times, connecting Galilee with the coast road. Along it, before the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, Thothmes, the King of Egypt, led his invading hosts into Syria. Here, by “the waters of Megiddo,” was fought the great battle between Barak and Sisera, when the stars in their courses fought against Sisera; and on the same ground, six centuries later, the hosts of Pharaoh Necho met the army of Josiah, King of Judah, and vanquished it, while the king himself, being “sore wounded” as he rode in his chariot, was carried away to Jerusalem to die.
On making inquiries of a practical kind in regard to the present financial position of this property and its peasant owners, I began to suspect that any foreigner who desired to become its possessor would find himself involved in a struggle of a different kind from that of which in past times it has been the scene, and one more consonant with the spirit of the age in which we live. The invasion of Palestine of late years by foreigners of all religions and nationalities, the constant influx of Jews, and the increasing attention which the Holy Land is concentrating upon itself, has so far alarmed the Porte that foreigners are practically prohibited from purchasing any more land in the country; and the peasantry of the villages who applied to me for assistance were informed that, even if I were prepared to lend them money, they were not to be allowed to borrow. I was thus relieved of the great annoyance of having constantly to refuse applications, which, under any circumstances, I could not have satisfied.
From Megiddo I followed the historical highway through the mountain, which, in the days of Christ, when Cæsarea was rising into its grandeur, must have been one of the most frequented routes in the country. The road led through charmingly diversified scenery. I turned off from it to ascend to the town of Umm-el-Fahm, an important place, containing about two thousand inhabitants, situated on copse-clothed hills, at an elevation of fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and commanding extensive views. Here I was the guest of a local millionaire, noted for his penurious habits and his grasping nature. His ragged appearance and humble establishment did not belie his reputation. I had, however, no reason to complain, for, if the accommodation was rough, his intentions were certainly hospitable.
The romantic valleys by which the village is surrounded are thickly planted with olive groves, which contain over a hundred thousand trees, and are a great source of revenue. While, when they are too far from the village for the protection of any crop, the hillsides and summits are clothed with a dense undergrowth of scrub oak, terebinth, and other shrubs, which are only prevented from becoming forest trees by the charcoal-burners; but their quick growth testifies to the richness of the soil. To the north the range extends for fifteen miles, to the base of Carmel. The woodland disappears, and is succeeded by rolling chalk downs, affording magnificent pasturage and good arable land, for it is well watered, and from its temperate and healthy climate is called the “breezy land.”