At last our guide strode off before us, leaving his companion to fetch the muleteers, who, we hoped, might pass us at lunch. We struck the Roman road which runs to the south-west, not that which leads more to the south, past Umm el-Jamâl to Kalʿat ez-Zerka. The pavement on these great highways is hard on the horses’ hoofs. The track used to-day almost invariably lies alongside the road. Crossing a shallow vale, we entered a vast plain, covered with tufts of wiry grass. The beautiful iris was here also in plenty. The view offered little variety save on the horizons. Salchad, Jebel el-Kuleib, and the dark range of which they are part loomed away on the north-east. Northward lay el-Lejâʾ and the mountains that overlook Damascus. The white splendour of Hermon filled the north-western sky. A light haze half-concealed the hills of Jaulân and the highlands of Galilee, but nearly due west we could see the round head of Tabor. Before us lay the wooded hills of Jebel ʿAjlûn, the land of Gilead, while the plain stretched away to the south-east, desert-wards, as far as the eye could reach.
Several times during this desert ride we saw the mirage—now as waving trees, now as dimly outlined houses, with the sheen of water near. Happily we had supplies of water with us, and so were spared the torture these fleeting visions bring to the weary and the thirsty. The mirage is often seen in the plain of el-Bukaʿ, or Coele Syria. One most perfect and beautiful I saw in the neighbourhood of Tell Hûm, from a roof in Tiberias. It proved to be a picture of Tiberias itself, with ruined castle, broken walls, white-domed mosque, and palm trees, photographed upon the mists some nine miles away.
We crossed several little wadies in which the water from winter and spring rains had not quite dried up. The passage of these “brooks” is not always free from danger. The soft soil goes to thick black mud, when saturated with the water of the stream. Several of our party had narrow escapes from accident, the horses sinking to the saddle-girths, and struggling through only with desperate efforts, very unsettling to the riders. In the deepest and broadest of these hollows we found a green-carpeted meadow, with a few Bedawy tents. The moment we came in sight a woman ran out to meet us, with hospitable welcome, bringing a large dish of buttermilk, from which we drank heartily and were refreshed.
At this point I was some distance behind the party, detained in digging a root from the hard soil. On the north of the wady lay a rough hill, strewn with great boulders. Galloping up, I saw two figures with long guns dodging behind the rocks, furtively glancing in my direction, and clearly making to intercept me in the wady. A few steps farther, and they caught sight of our party, who fortunately were not very far away. They at once turned and made off to eastward, so sparing me what might have been at least an unpleasant brush with Arabs in search of plunder. Probably they were of the company at whose tents we met such kindness. The man who will lay down his life to protect you when you have passed under his roof may think you “fair game” if he finds you in the open.
This wady we passed early in the day, and thereafter we saw neither stream, fountain, nor cistern through all the long burning hours. Coming to what looked like an old burying-ground in the middle of the plain, we halted for lunch, and waited for the muleteers. Two hours passed before the “baggage train” appeared, from which we judged that they had lost their way. Anxiety on their behalf could not blind us to the almost certain futility of any search. Our decision to wait in the somewhat conspicuous position we occupied and give them a chance to find us was amply justified by the result. With hands and face protected from the sun as best might be, we stretched ourselves on the earth, and perhaps all indulged in the luxury of “forty winks.” As time wore on, some sought entertainment in trials of strength, agility, and skill—this last by shooting balls at a stone set up a hundred yards away. The shot, even with a smooth bore, was not alarmingly difficult; but when the stone toppled over, the Arabs who were with us stood amazed. They might have done as well themselves, but had not dreamed of Franjies shooting straight. There is an impression abroad that Franjies are on the whole rather helpless people, able perhaps to read and write. But these are despicable attainments, save, indeed, when the former may guide to the discovery of hid treasure!
Our baggage-men had wandered, much against their own will and judgment, yielding to the head-strong ignorance of the man told off to guide them. When his incompetence was plainly manifest, with contemptuous anger they dismissed him, some bidding him hold by his mother until he could walk alone, and others suggesting that perhaps his wife needed him about the house. Then trusting their own instinct, which, in these “sons of the highway” approaches genius, they proceeded to find the road for themselves. The long delay, however, destroyed all hope of seeing Jerash that night.
Soon after starting again we were joined by a bright, talkative youth, who told us he was at work among the Beduw. He knew the various tribes and their locations, and was familiar with most of the country. He came from el-Judeideh, the summer station of the Sidon American Mission, which overlooks Merj Aʿyûn, the ancient “Ijon,” from the north-west. This village supplies many of the brave, light-hearted fellows who drive their hardy beasts with the necessaries of life through all parts of the land. Most mukaries (“muleteers”) have a wholesome dread of the Lower Jordan Valley, but the men of el-Judeideh may be seen there almost any day, swinging along with careless ease, as much at home as on the slope of their native mountain. This youth was accustomed to visit these parts every spring, acting as Kâtib (“Secretary”) among the Bedawy chiefs, at the time of division and arrangement of flocks. He assisted at bargains, wrote out contracts, registered numbers, etc.; for these barbarous sheyûkh, while holding it infra dig. for an Arab to write, quite realise the value of “black and white” in a bargain. He busied himself for some months, passing from tribe to tribe, and with advancing summer turned again to his upland home. He assured us that Jerash could not be reached that night, and urged us to turn aside with him to a great Bedawy encampment, where we should find heartiest welcome and plentiful entertainment. We lived to regret our refusal; and, after all, we must have slept within an hour of the spot he indicated—probably with a smaller branch of the same tribe. Our guide vowed that water would be found on the edge of the plain, so we judged it best to push on straight towards our goal. The lad bade us gaily farewell, put spurs to his steed, and galloped away towards a black patch at the base of the hills to westward, where no doubt stood the Arabs’ “houses of hair.” A curl of smoke over an apparently ruinous village away to the north-west was due, our guide said, to the presence of Circassians, a number of whom had recently taken possession and were attempting to cultivate the surrounding soil. If any men could succeed, they should have a good chance. We shall meet them again at Jerash.
PALESTINIAN SHEPHERD AND FLOCK
Amid a confused heap of hewn stones by the wayside we found a broken column with a few fragments of Greek letters. It had served as a milestone in ancient days, but could no longer yield information as to the way. Nothing else arrested attention till we neared the edge of the waste; then we were drawn to the left by a strip of green and the music of many frogs—both indicating the presence of water. Water we found, indeed, but so little of it and so vile, that not even the thirsty animals would touch it. We came upon two huge reservoirs, with never a drop in either. They stand one above the other in the side of a gentle slope, carefully cemented, sides and bottom, a flight of stone steps leading down into each. From certain marks around, we thought they might have belonged to a system of baths. On the hill above the reservoirs stands an old fortress, Kalʿat Esdein. Still well preserved, all save the roof, which is gone, is a building to the east, which may have been a church. A large cistern within the court raised our hopes, only to dash them again. It was quite empty. The fortress must have been of considerable strength, built, as it is, round the top of a little hill, commanding the pass by which we entered the country of ʿAjlûn.