[VILLAGE FEUDS.]
Daliet-el-Carmel, Oct. 15.—In order to really understand this country, to become acquainted with the inner life of its inhabitants, to familiarize one's self with their manners and customs, their necessities, and their aspirations, such as they are, and to arrive at a true estimate of the national character, it is needful to remove one's self from any centre of so-called civilization, however crude, and to live among them, as I have been doing for the last three months and a half, not as a stranger, but as a villager owning property, identified with their local interests, and with a will to afford them such practical counsel and aid as may lie in one's power. People wonder what I can find to do in a remote Druse village in the back parts of Carmel; but in practice the days are not long enough to deal with the varied interests that crowd into them.
Scarcely a day passes that visitors do not arrive from some of the surrounding villages—sheiks of high or low degree, as the case may be—generally with polite invitations that I should return their visits, which I know from experience means a financial proposition of some sort in reserve, for all the villages are more or less embarrassed in their pecuniary circumstances, and have been so victimized by the native money-lenders of Haifa that they eagerly turn towards any one who they think possesses bowels of compassion.
The return visits which these invitations involve are often highly characteristic in their attendant circumstances, and in the varied incidents which accompany them; and, besides, they give one an opportunity of becoming minutely acquainted with the neighbourhood, and afford one an insight into the motives by which Oriental human nature is actuated. There is, for instance, a village about four miles from here, so beautifully situated among its olive groves, as seen from a distance, that I had long intended paying it a visit, and wondered why its sheik had never come to make my acquaintance. The mystery was explained one day by an old woman whose extreme poverty had induced me to employ her as a water-carrier. On asking how she had become so destitute, she said that she was a widow, and that her only son and support had been waylaid and murdered some months previously by some of the young men of the village in question. All her efforts to obtain justice had been unavailing, and since then the two villages had not been on visiting terms.
As none of the inhabitants of Dalieh would accompany me, I found my own way one day to the village, to try and discover the rights of the story. I was received with great politeness by a tall, gentlemanlike man, whom I supposed to be the sheik, but who turned out to be the very individual who had been accused of the murder. Soon the sheik and a number of village notables arrived, and, seated around the neatly-matted guest-chamber, we exchanged compliments and discussed the topics of the day. These all turn upon the payment of the new government taxes; and the price of wheat this year has been so low that the unhappy peasantry are driven to their wits' end, and finally to usurious money-lenders, to obtain the necessary cash. In this emergency I am appealed to in every direction for assistance, and I was well aware that our interview on this occasion would not terminate without the usual demand.
When it came, I saw my chance for alluding to the delicate subject of the murder, and the objections I entertained to lending money to people who were in the habit of murdering their neighbours. They admitted the murder, which had been attended with robbery, but my host denied that he had been in any way implicated, though he had unjustly suffered several months' imprisonment on suspicion, and had only been finally released on payment of a heavy sum as backsheesh. It seems that the evidence as to who the culprit really was rested on the dying deposition of the victim, who had been attacked by four men, all of whom he named on his deathbed. On the other hand, my host had succeeded in proving an alibi. The real culprit had, he said, escaped, and had never ventured back to the village.
Under these circumstances I refused any loan of money, unless the notables of the village would come to Dalieh, tender their humble apologies, offer a money indemnity to the mother of the murdered man, and effect a complete reconciliation. This, according to Arab custom, is a solemn ceremony, which must be performed in the presence of the notables of neighbouring villages; but it yet remained to be seen whether the indemnity question could be arranged at Dalieh, as the man who said he had been unjustly accused declared that he had already suffered so much, in person and in purse, that he was indisposed to do much in that line. The poor widow, in spite of her destitution, was still more intractable; she thirsted for vengeance, for which she said no money could compensate. However, I have hopes of bringing them both to reason, and so healing the feud which extends to all the population of both villages. Meantime the loan stands in abeyance.
There would, indeed, be a good opening for a professional peacemaker in these villages, where feuds are bitter and prevalent, not merely between different villages, but between rival sheiks in the same locality. There are almost always two, and sometimes three, of these in each village who are not on speaking terms, and who each have their partisans, so that the opposing factions keep themselves entirely aloof from each other. More than once I have had occasion to call on the same day on two rival sheiks. In that case one escorts me until he sees his enemy in the distance. He then takes leave of me, and I stand still until the other comes up to take me in charge. These sheiks, I am sorry to say, often combine with the money-lenders against the interests of their own fellow-villagers. The mode by which a money-lender obtains possession of a village is simple; he goes to the sheik, and says: “You and your village are unable to meet the government demands; if you will persuade your village to borrow from me at forty per cent., I will give you so much commission, and if at the end of three years you can manage irretrievably to ruin your villagers, so that I can come down upon them and obtain possession of the village in satisfaction of my debt for half its value, your profit shall be so much, and you shall retain such a share of the village lands.” As the sheiks wield an unbounded influence over their own faction, this would be an easy operation were it not for the rival sheik, who is in negotiation with a rival money-lender. When two money-lenders take to fighting over a village there is some chance for the villagers, and from this point of view the feuds of their sheiks are not an unmixed evil.
Where a sheik is supreme, as at Dalieh, he has practically the fortunes of the villagers in his hands, and he must be watched to see that he uses his influence and authority justly. The only man in a position to watch him is the person upon whom he depends for assistance to meet the government demands. If this individual happens to be content with a moderate rate of interest, and to have no ulterior designs upon the village itself, it is evident that he may have it in his power to do a great deal of good. The villagers are quite astonished if one comes to them and says, “I do not want your village, I only want your good-will. I desire to help you out of your financial scrape, and I am willing to lend you money at the legal rate of interest if you will furnish me with the necessary security.” Any one saying this finds at once that he has arrayed against him the money-lenders, who take three times the legal rate of interest; the government officials, who go shares with the money-lenders; and, in many instances, the village sheiks themselves, who, of course, find their interest lies rather with these two classes than with the unhappy villagers. These latter, accustomed to be plundered all around, naturally do not know whom to trust, and are apt to look with suspicion on a new proposal, however favourable and disinterested it may seem. The obstacles, therefore, to the working-out of improved conditions by any single man, even in the case of one village, seem almost insuperable, and can only be overcome by much personal intercourse with the villagers themselves.
The Druses are sensitive to kindness, and grateful for it, and as there are generally some sick in the village, and quack doctoring, provided one treads cautiously, is better than none, we do a good deal of empirical practice, and our efforts have met with such success that we are obtaining a somewhat alarming reputation. Of course, we come across difficult cases, as, for instance, the sheik's daughter. She is rather a nice-looking girl of eighteen, with a crick in her neck and an asthmatic affection. On asking how long she had been ill, we were informed that her mother, on the occasion of her birth, was so angry at finding the child was a girl and not a boy, that she threw her out of the window, and she had never been well since. Cases of this sort we don't attempt to grapple with, but I have ceased to wonder at the sheik having taken a dislike to the old lady. Indeed, my own feelings towards her have entirely changed since hearing of this episode, and, although it happened eighteen years ago, I treat her with comparative coolness.