“Go away, boy, go away,” he repeats in the intervals of the demand for “backsheesh.” The boy does not heed the remark and grows more importunate as he sees we do not take sides with the “Doubter.”
“Isn’t this Hasbeiya?” Gustave says, with a twinkle in his eye.
I nod and speak assent.
“You must give him something at once,” says Gustave, turning to the skeptic. “This place is the most dangerous in all Syria. The majority of the inhabitants are Chrétiens, and will murder you on the slightest provocation. If that boy goes away unpaid, after you have doubted his honor, he will bring down a dozen or more armed men and your life won’t be worth three centimes.”
The “Doubter” is incredulous, but there is enough in Gustave’s statement to alarm him, and we see that he changes color. After a moment’s hesitation he suggests that Gustave had better pay the boy and send him away if the place is so very dangerous.
“That will never do,” responds Gustave, “you have committed the offense and it is you they will be after. Do you see those men in front of that house? They know something is wrong. Give the boy half a franc and send him away.”
The “Doubter” reluctantly draws half a franc from his pocket and places it in the boy’s hand. He is suspicious that he has been hoaxed, but he has some regard for his continued stay on this planet and is willing to pay a small sum. But rather than give a franc he would take the chances. One must draw a line somewhere, you know.
Before 1860 Hasbeiya contained a population of about five thousand, four-fifths of them Christians. It was the scene of one of the most terrible massacres of that year. The town stands in a glen, and is surrounded on three sides by high hills which are terraced and covered with vineyards, and fig and olive trees. In a secure place on a rocky ridge is a strong building formerly the palace of a local chieftain, and capable of resisting any attack with small arms. In 1860 it had a garrison of two hundred soldiers commanded by a Turkish colonel, and when the Christians were attacked by the Druzes they appealed to the Colonel for protection. He gave them a written guarantee of safety on condition that they should come into the palace and surrender their weapons, which they did. They were then kept for seven days in the palace and at the end of that time the colonel ordered the gates thrown open. The Druzes were admitted, and the Christians to the number of a thousand were massacred. The soldiers of the garrison did not join in the massacre, but they prevented the Christians fleeing or seeking concealment, and in some instances pushed them forward to be killed. The Colonel was afterward tried, condemned and shot, at Damascus, by order of the British Commissioner, Lord Dufferin. He (the Colonel) insisted that he was acting under authority of his superiors, and the belief is very prevalent that the whole series of massacres was covertly ordered from Constantinople.
From Hasbeiya we take an early start and ride to Banias through a rough and picturesque country, fairly wooded for Syria and containing frequent olive groves. We pass a lot of villages, each looking so much like the other that it is not worth while to try to make much distinction between them. We pass near one of the sources of the Jordan, a fountain that has flowed without cessation for unknown thousands of years, and will probably flow on for thousands of years to come. One of the villages on the route contains the tomb or one of the tombs, of Nimrod, the mighty hunter. Very little is left of it—about as much as there is of Nimrod himself.
Banias, better known as Cesarea-Philippi, is picturesquely situated. A mountain crowned by a ruined castle overlooks abroad terrace which commands a fine view of mountain and plain. The ruins of the city and the huts of the modern town are situated on this terrace, and the spot reflects creditably on the man who chose it. I don’t think he is around now, as he performed his work a good while before King Solomon was thought of. The time of the foundation is unknown, but it is certain that a city stood here at a very early date. The name Banias comes from Panias or Panium; the Greek settlers in Syria established here a temple to the worship of the God Pan and from the establishment of the temple a city grew up.