The remarkable facial likeness to the Jews found among the people east of the Jordan leads one to wonder if there is not a closer relationship than that of cousinship between the two races—if, in short, the eastern tribes did not in the end mingle freely with their nomadic neighbours, and thus become gradually alienated in sympathy from the people and religion of Israel, as they were already separated from them by the mighty gorge of Jordan. It was this very calamity the prophetic foresight of their fathers sought to obviate, when they erected the gigantic altar of witness “in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the children of Israel.” It should be an altar of witness to succeeding generations of the unity of the people, lest the children of the tribes westward should be tempted at any time to say, “What have ye to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord hath made a border between us and you.” The real danger lay in another direction. Thus there was a certain fitness in the fact that these eastward tribes were the first to bear the brunt of the great invasions from the north by which Israel was scourged.
KANAWÂT, SCULPTURED DOORWAY IN TEMPLE
A Druze villager who attached himself to our company proved a pleasant and chatty companion. Bright eyes looked out from under his spotless turban; black whiskers and shining white teeth combined with a frank, open countenance to prepossess us in his favour. He said he had been teacher in a school which the Englîze had supported for some time in the village. By way of corroboration he aired a few words of English picked up from his superior. Very strangely they sounded from his lips, without any connection, and seemingly so out of place amid these surroundings. His acquaintance with English was like that of a Syrian gentleman friend of mine, who occasionally in company announces that he knows English. “What,” he will ask, “is English for Narghîleh?” And without waiting for reply, exclaims, “Hubble-Bubble!” laughing heartily at his own joke.
The school had been summarily closed by the authority of the Government, to the sorrow of the villagers, who were beginning to appreciate the advantage of a rudimentary education. There is a great field for missionary enterprise—medical by preference—in all this region. The missionary’s efforts would find assistance in the generous instincts of the people themselves. They are yet uncorrupted by the unhappy influences associated with the passage of the great travelling public. These are often, unfortunately, all of civilisation known to the untutored inhabitants; and the barriers thus raised against the missionary and his work can be fully appreciated only by those who have had them to face.
Our cheery companion waited until we were all mounted, then led the way, by many tortuous windings, through the old town, to an opening which had once been a gate, on the road to Suweida. Few traces are left of the ancient Roman road, and soon we were on a track of the usual kind, very soft in parts, from the recent rains. We passed between fruitful vineyards and cultivated patches, where the white turbans of the vine-dressers moved to and fro among the green with pleasing effect. Our ride that afternoon along the hillsides, through oak and thorn thickets, the green interspaces sprinkled with flowers, openings in the foliage affording glimpses of the wonderful plains of Bashan, was the most agreeable by far of all we enjoyed in Haurân. The freshness of the leaf, the music of the birds, and above all, the cool breeze that met us, almost persuaded us that the Orient was but a dream, and that we were traversing an upland in Bonnie Scotland.
Through a break in the forest we descried our tents, pitched on the green sward, and ready for our reception, beside a curious-looking block of masonry. Then sweeping round into the open, we obtained our first view of Suweida, lying darkly on the farther bank of a little ravine, by which it was separated from our camping-ground. The roofs were alive with men straining their eyes in our direction. Our advent clearly caused no small stir in that remote town. Arriving at our tents, we found a large company assembled to survey us. They watched all our movements with an amused curiosity, like that of children in a menagerie. We were in time to witness the sunset, and in the calm cool air were tempted to watch how long he took to disappear, from the instant when his under rim touched the horizon. We looked earnestly, and seemed relieved when at last he vanished. Our observers, I am sure, entertained a shrewd suspicion that some remnants of sun-worship still lingered among these curious westerns. Little thought they how our hearts followed the departing beams to the land where, in the slant rays of the longer evening, dear ones sat musing, drawing vague pictures of regions famed in sacred story, and praying the Father of all, the light of whose eye fades not from earth like the passing day, to guard the wanderers from peril.
CHAPTER VI
Healing the sick—A strange monument—Telegraph and post in Haurân—Cruel kindness—The Ruins of Suweida—Turkish methods of rule—ʿIry—Sheyûkh ed-Druze—Jephthah’s burial—Enterprise of Ismaʾîl el-ʿAtrash.
Here, as at every point touched in our journey, we had ample evidence of the prevalence of sickness and suffering, and of the crying necessity for competent medical aid. The weak and diseased are a prey to every travelling quack, and they bore in their bodies only too convincing proof of their simple-hearted confidence in men who professed to be able to relieve them. Ruined eyes and maimed limbs told only too plainly what havoc unscrupulous men work among these trustful people. The quack hopes to pass but once in any given way, and cares but little for the results of his operations if only he make present gain. The name of the good doctor wrought like magic. Almost before we could realise it the camp was surrounded by patients; a motley gathering they were—Moslem, Druze, and Christian; men, women, and children, of all ages, clad in richly varied costumes; they came forward, one by one, to tell of their sufferings, and receive what help was possible. Not unpleasantly the time passed, examining antique coins, making cautious purchases, and engaging the more intelligent in conversation about their town and district, until the cheerful voice of the dinner-bell summoned us within.