PALESTINE NOTES AND OTHER PAPERS By JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE

PALESTINE NOTES AND OTHER PAPERS

By JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE

Edited by JOSHUA ROWNTREE

LONDON: HEADLEY BROTHERS

1906.

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'CONTENTS.

PREFACE -

PART I.-TRAVEL JOURNALS: PAGE

Vi'.

DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE AND THE EAST 3

PHOTOGRAPHING POMPEII - 66

MEXICO AND THE WEST - 69

PART 11.-ADULT SCHOOL NOTES, ADDRESSES, &C.:

THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY 83

A LAST CENTURY LESSON - 87

RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF SEPARATION 91

PAUL'S CONVERSION 94

WINGS LIKE A DOVE - 101

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN MODERN LIFE 104

WHAT AN ADULT SCHOOL SHOULD BE - 107

ON LAY MINISTRY 110

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT 116

NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD 120

GAMBLING - - 132

LOSING AND FINDING 139

SELFISHNESS - 144

TEMPERANCE - 157

"WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE" - 161

V.

DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE AND THE EAST.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The journey East, by way of Rome and Pompeii, as stated by his companion in Syria, Lawrence Richardson, was partly undertaken in order that John Wilhelm Rowntree might see Egypt and Palestine, and so qualify himself better, for his Adult School work, before his threatened loss of eyesight should become a reality. The journey took place in March, April and May, of 1895. Dr. Bedford Pierce and Gilbert Richardson were with him in the earlier half of the tour. The traveller brought back with him 116 pill boxes of shells from the shores of the Lake of Galilee, for the members of his class, and a mummy! The local references to York and Scarborough show that the writer had no thought of any general publication present to his mind.

 DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE  AND THE EAST.

THE PYRAMIDS.

[After some days of illness in bed at Cairo, the journal begins.]

Sunday. I rose from my couch, and determined to. have done with care. The morning drive down the long avenue of acacias to the Pyramids was a pleasant change to counting flies on the ceiling. Well, and what about the Pyramids? I didn't feel physically strong enough to more than climbing half-way up the Great Pyramid, and having a good peep into his dark inside,, though I did "do," in the proper sense, the immediate environs. But though I didn't do all the orthodox things, I had a, day under the shadow .of the giants, and believe I' have formed as good an opinion of them as the average man who hops up and down again, and rushes off.

The Pyramids are undoubtedly " interesting," and though probably the most "done" things in the world, they will still continue to be unique. Utterly different to the ruins we saw at Luxor and Abydos and elsewhere, they have none of the interest: in detail which is supplied by bas-reliefs and coloured frescoes. And, I say it deliberately, their size disappoints you. There is not the impression of height given, for instance, by Cologne, when you look straight up the towers from the street, nor even the impression given by Antwerp. You can't get a straight line, and the sloping lines only carry you up 450ft. But for all that they are the most impressive human buildings I have ever seen. When you are being dragged up the weather-worn rough steps, you cannot get rid of the idea that you are climbing a rocky bill, and when close to, the size of the blocks, the enormous masses of masonry beetling in ruddy crags about you, appal utterly, when one remembers that human sinews dragged all this heap together. The base is longer than the length of York Minster by over iooft., and our central tower wouldn't reach half-way to the apex; and the trouble of it all is that this mass is practically solid. Recent clearings at the base have revealed some of the casing stone of the great Pyramid intact. You can't get a knife between the joints. When these Pyramids were finished and polished, how they must have glittered in the sun! The inner work, of which I had a good, glimpse, is much rougher—as much as two inches of mortar filling some of the joints—still, try and imagine the labour, and under an Egyptian sun! One feels most comfortable when the human agency is forgotten. Otherwise the very stones cry out, and one hears the whistle of the

⦁ rhinoceroüs hide—remember the horrors of even the modern corvêe. How many beside Cheops and Khufur lay buried

⦁ there when all was done? The Sphinx on the side of the Great Pyramid furthest from Cairo is ruinous beyond one's expectations, but it is nevertheless remarkable and suggestive. Its face is shattered, and has suffered on account of Tommy Atkins I fear, but still it is the Sphinx par excellence, though I have seen many other Sphinxes on the Upper Nile. I was

⦁ most surprised to find how much it is built up. The outer casing of the two fore-paws has disappeared, and reveal the fact that they were "stuffed" so to speak, with masonry laid in regular courses. Close to; the temple of the Sphinx —probably a Memnonium—discloses, after centuries bi burial in the shifting sand of the desert, slabs of granite of enormous size, that look as if they had been dressed yesterday. Some are sixteen feet long, and deep in proportion, and curiously enough the joints are never in the angles as one would suppose.

PALESTINE NOTES.

Wednesday, April 24th.—After further penance in bed-.--a punishment for too hastily assuming myself to be convalescent,—we left Cairo, and crossed the fertile land of Goshen by train, coming once more to Ismàilya. But instead of taking steamer here, we took the Suez railway along the canal banks, with the desert rolling away on the left, and appearing beyond the deep blue of the canal on the right. We saw some large steamers passing through before darkness closed in, and on reaching Port Said we drove straight to the steamer—an Austrian Lloyd, neither large nor comfortable. There was somewhat of a sea, and we wriggled and squirmed our corkscrew way to Jaffa through all the livelong night.

JAFFA.

There is no harbour at Jaffa, and when we came on deck we were quite at a loss to know where we were to land. There was the coast,—the houses of Jaffa, yellow in the sun, with white plastered domes, seemed piled up one above the other as if scrambling out of reach Of the surf which came in white and angry. The sea was grey and swelling in momentary mountains, that broke into foam, and rushed past us with a grand sweep. The wretched steamer was kicking and plunging like an impatient horse pawing to be off. Two other steamers were moored in the roads close to, and as they pitched and rolled, we could guess how unsteady our own boat was. I was wondering how we were going to get into the boats that were closing in on us with their lusty shouting crews, when one of the sailors, calling out "Ladies first," began passing us down the landing steps at the side of the steamer. All I remember was, that I was told to sit down on the bottom step. Below me, far out of reach, was the boat in a hollow of the surges—another instant, a Wave lifted the boat to my very feet—strong arms picked me off the ladder, and the boat sank into the next hollow only to rise again. So we loaded up, and then pulled for the shore. At least, what is called the shore. in front were jagged black

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rocks, and a sheet of foam with roaring angry surf. On we swept. J took off my Kodak in my childish innocence—(which I had slung overmy shoulders), prepared to swim for it. But of course the crew had done the same thing hundreds of times and in rougher weather. We shot through the reef with what seemed only a foot to spare. One minute boiling foam, and the next smooth water and a quiet pull to the landing.

 

Joppa was delightfully sea-blown and breezy, though it can be terribly hot when there is no wind off the sea. It was not strange to us. The only difference between Syrian Orientalism and Egyptian which I at once noticed, was the greater prevalence of red in the dresses, and the lesser prevalence of the blues and blacks so almost universal in Egypt. The houses are as dilapidated, there are more domes visible—almost all the more important private houses seem to have domed roofs,—and there is more green. The orange groves, which were in blossom and heavy with scent, were delightful, and the vine. comes largely into view. Take the old part of Scarborough, and orientalise it according to my bazaar recipe, turn on a brilliant light and put domes on the houses, remove the castle-hill and lower the coast-line, and you have a, very tolerable Jaffa indeed.

 

The customs' examination never came off. Cooks

have made an arrangement with the customs in Jaffa, and all Cooks' tourists are passed unchallenged: who does not bow

down and worship the mighty Cook? I left my watch in the customs steamer. Reported it to Cooks, and they secured it at Beirut, sent it to Jerusalem, and now it is in my pocket

I arrange for dragoman, etc., and all details from Jaffa to Beirut at the Cairo office. At Jaffa my dragoman meets

me. He knows everything, all is arranged. I have no trouble;

I have a meal at the hotel at Jaffa, to which I am driven from the steamer, and I take my seat in a first-class carriage in the

train to Jerusalem without paying a cent, or troubling about my luggage, or taking a ticket. The dragoman simply:asks 

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what you have,: you show him 'your luggage, and from that time he sees to it, sees it to the train and from the train to your

bedroom, pays all the tips and all the fares, and you have the blissful assurance, meanwhile that Allis paid for by you in advance, and that when you reach Beirut you will have spent just that sum you paid down at Cairo, and no more. When you are recovering from an unpleasant passage, this freedom from worry is particularly delightfuL We happen to be exceedingly fortunate in our dragoman. He is the drago-man who took George Adam Smith round 'Palestine, when he was writing his new "Historical Geography of Palestine." He is by far the most intelligent man we have yet had—very gentlemanly and very considerate, and judging by what we have so far seen, able and complete. He was very pleased when I told him that I had Smith's book with me, and told. me of certain incidents recorded therein for which he is responsible. This will materially add to the interest of our ride' north. His name is Harrna—John Harma—but 1 shall refer to him in future by his family name.

At the Jaffa station I noticed what had escaped me before, the sheepskin caps 'and cloaks of the peasants. There was evidence in most of the costumes of greater cold than the people of the Nile Delta seem to expect, and we soon .felt it ourselves very keenly. The season has been unusually. late ,here, and we ought to be getting it hotter, but so far we have found Jerusalem remarkably like a high Swiss resort. Keen dry . air, mountain and sea, a delightfully bracing mixture, with a hot sun. Well, I don't quite know how to describe all I have seen here, or how to give you a correct impression of things. I have been correcting previous ideas ever since ' I landed. First of all, unless you have seen for yourselves, it is difficult to realise how entirely the Israelites were a mountain people.

Let us 'say that Scarborough, altered as 1 have 'told you to alter it, and with all its modern, parts destroyed, is. Joppa. First, the train traverses a fertile plain (wheat, oranges,

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pomegranates, and other cereal and vegetable products) analagous to the journey to Malton. All the time we are approaching a range of hills—high hills, irregular, like a chain of potato-heaps, green, streaked with white limestone where the rock crops through the grass. Soon you find yourself among the hills, winding into the heart of them up broad valleys. This may be called the Castle Howard and Kirkham Abbey stage of the journey. But now at what ought to be Barton Hill we are faced by the real hills of Judea. It is as if Levisham were to replace Barton Hill, and the train was there to begin its first serious ascent. (Make the crack to Goathland narrower and finer, more rocky and precipitous). Finally where the Scarborough train reaches York, your Joppa train has reached a plateau 2,000-3,000 feet above the sea, and a walled and ancient city half the size of York. The distance from Joppa to Jerusalem by rail is just about that from Scarborough to York. It was a very curious sensation, taking train to this old capital of the Jews. I think unconsciously I had shared the feelings of the servant who, when asked what Jerusalem was, replied "something religious." It really is a shock to find the place is real, and a thing of matter of fact to its inhabitants.

 

The only two places of any importance that you pass through are Lydda and Ramleh,—Lydda, once a Benj amine city, lies right out on the maritime plain, and was occupied by the Crusaders. Here the legend of St. George and the dragon had its birth, and the plain is like a great Clifton Ings, only there are orange groves and olives. The groun4 is bright with small, dark srrlet poppies which are exceedingly plentiful, as also the ox-eyed daisy. The greenness of everything struck us very much after Egypt; no wonder the land seemed to flow with milk and honey to the Israelites, after the parching sand of the desert.

Opposite opens the vale of Ajalon, up and clown which the tide of battle between Philistine and Israelite rolled so often, but the line turns south, and we pass up the Wady es 

:PALESTINENOTE.S. H

Surar. Above us, on the rock hill-slope, are two cowsheds—. that is Beth Shemesh (i Sm. vi. 9.). Here, according to the Book of Samuel, the ark was brought by the five Philistine lords. The wheat was waving in the valley as we passed. I think it was the wheat harvest when the ark came. The ancient Zorah is also visible—a hut or two on the slopes. This is where the story of Samson is located. Down the slopes of this valley, according to the curious Old Testament narrative, the foxes (jackals) were loosed, and the jaw-bone was wielded with such Christian charity. It is all very peaceful now.. We pass groups of merry women who are acting as navvies, picking basket-loads of stones off .the fields, and throwing them on the narrow-gauge track of single line as ballast. I say "merry" women, for in Egypt only the little girls are merry, and it is very refreshing to see these. brighter faces again.

Leaving Beth Shemesh behind us, we enter the gorge through which and up which we win our tortuous way to the more open valley on the plateau. Here we see the vine cultivated, where possible,—the terraced limestone -lending itself to the culture,—but there are few trees, and in spite of the pleasant greenness from Jaffa to Jerusalem, we saw no running water. In Switzerland the gorge would have re-echoed the roar of a mountain torrent. You miss the sound of it, and can believe when, you are told that in less than a month from now, the smiling plain and green valleys will be burnt up and brown as the desert almost. It is the winter and latter rain that has made the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and the fierce Syrian sun will soon re-s'ert himself. In the meantime we were suffering from the cold keen air, that blew up the mountains from the sea—rugs, great-coats, kuffiyehs, comforters, availed not to keep us warm.

JERUSALEM.

The 'arrival at Jerusalem and the prospect of tea at the hotel was by no means unwelcome, therefore, when at last we: stopped at what seemed a south Italian town. The entry to Jerusalem is not striking by rail. You, come in by the Yéa suburb, red roofs, Italian villas—Latin monks and  priests in shovel hats,—Europe in Asia. But when you pass through the Yafa gate you know that you are back in the

 East again, there is the same unmistakable dilapidation and dirt. But please mark one great difference, here, and in the villages. Good stone is used in place of the mudbricks of Egypt, and he who has seen the latter will appreciate the change. Our hotel here, the Grand New Hotel, would seem very modest indeed in Cairo or in the Riviera, but it is comfortable and very clean. The manager flew into my arms with joy in his countenance at the magic mention of my, name He used to keep the little " Jerusalem " shop on the slope from St Nicholas Cliff to the Aquarium, just above ;the (Scarborough) Museum, and he has been most affectionate in consequence. He claims to remember me when I came ,to dig on the sands. One is at times impressed with the fact that the world is small.

Our first day, Friday, we drove with I{arma our drago-\man, to the Mount of. Olives. I write this account after four days' ight-seeing, but I don't think there is anything I look back to with such pleasure as the Mount of Olives,èven though it has not escaped the fate of everything here, and is disfigured by churches and monasteries. If you wanted to convince'anyone sceptical as to Christianity of the truth and beauty of its faith, the last place in the world to bring him to is Jerusalem. Here, if anywhere, . Mephistopholes has occasion to laugh in his sleeve; here, if anywhere, I can fully forgive the scorn and contempt of. the Moslem for the wrangling and squabbling 'sects who profess the Christ. Ono bruathes freer in the Mosque of. Omar than in the gaudy, 0)r1(Itn alitwches, and one's prejudices are irresistibly drawn on thi sido of tho Moslem. Of course as regards sites, there Is JjQ.Joj or no cortainty, and an enormous amount of super-fititioll t&id trndttIon 

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES;'

But the more one 'sees the lie of the land, and learns the connection of things and to know Jerusalem, the more Ione" feels that there could .be no other Mount of Olives. It" is so pre-eminent, the view is so much the finest, and the position, fits in with the Bible narratives. I think I am inclined to pin my faith to the Mount of Olives. But not,—emphatically not,—to the Garden of Gethsemane. You come to this before you ascend'. the Mount itself; an exposed, public situation, and now an artificial walled in arrangement of paths and flowers. You remember the artificial plot of garden behind the, Hospitium (York) by the river. 'Wall that in with a high wall, and you have a good idea of Gethsemane as it is shown.' The door into the garden is iron, and only four feet high..' 'Yu have to bend to get in. That is for fear of the 'Moslems. The path round the garden is marked' off every few feet with a gaudy picture in a shrine. Once in, you are shown where Peter slept, James slept, and John slept, where Judas stood when he kissed Jesus, etcetera—as if some one went round with stakes to mark the' different "places at the time. Close by is a hideous .'Russian church. It is a relief to pass on through 'wheat fields, and past the olive, almond and fig trees which dot the slopes, picking the brilliant poppies as' we climb, and turning now and then to look at the extending' view.' Two other 'churches 'spoil the summit, ,they .sand some distance apart, but both mark the exact spot where. Christ ascended to heaven. One belongs now to', the Moslems and is falling into ruin, the other, loud and vulgar, is Greek. We climbed the Muezzin tower of the Moslem building, and thence a wonderful view. G.' Adam Smith in that excellent historical geography speaks of the wall of' Moab. But no word-painting can give you an idea of it. It is a most impressive barrier, stretching in an unbroken line where visible along the 'east; and, looking down over the hummocky '.high lands of Judea, in a haze of heat, is the no less wonderful crack of the El Ghor, and the blue glimmer of the Dead Sea

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 3,900 feet below us.. Palestine shrinks up into a small country when you visit it. In the other direction, forty miles odd carry you to the Levant and Joppa; seventeen miles down the Jericho road and you are gazing up at the prohibitive barriers of Moab. Judea, with all its history, with all its wonderful influence on the world, is almost identical in area with Northumberland; so small was the kingdom of the Jews. Read the striking chapter on the character of Judea in Smith, and you will understand what the impression given by the view from the Mount of Olives is. You appreciate the insular character of Judea. You can understand why the great armies of the foreign conquerors so often swept past on the maritime plain, and took no account of the hill tribes.

You realise the difficulty of conquering this mountain province. The lowlands, are worth having, but who wants to conquer these wild highland Israelite tribes in their stony hills, with nothing but their fanaticism and their sheepskins? At our feet is the valley of Jehoshaphat (or Kidron); opposite and sheltering behind the city walls is Mount Moriah and the Mosque of Omar—the great enclosed space of Haram es Sherif, where the Temple used to stand—one of the few certain, sites. Not far off we make out the dome of the church of St. Sepulchre, and the ruins of the tomb of David (falsely so called), near the Jaffa gate. Jerusalem with its yellows and whites, the domed roofs, the crumbling minarets, the half-ruinous walls, lies at our feet, and beyond is the chain of the rolling hills, brown and green and smiling in the sun. It is a picture not soon forgotten—even apart from its history, a sight worth seeing, and a view to be remembered. But I cannot give you all the details, the few huts visible of Bethany, the green streak which the the 'Jordan, the crack of the River Amen', the hills which hide Bethlehem, you must take your UWU bril4h, and colour in the details from your imagination. After lunch we picked our way through the dirty

ft00 UIIi'dt-d tnr. A few tortuous byways, down steps U W&11# sti over heaps of rubbish (a common feature), and finally we found ourselves ma long lane, bounded on one side by a rough wall of average height, and on the other by a high massive wall of great stones. Standing in a row, close to it, with their faces in many cases pressed against the stone, were from one to two hundred men and women, the men at one end, the women at auother. One perpetual wail, dismal in the extreme, filled the lane with melancholy sound. They were Jews of all nationalities,—Russian, Polish, Spanish, etc.—and this curious scene is repeated at four o'clock every afternoon. Many were reading from the Talmud and the Book of Jeremiah. I saw no very poignant grief; many of the women looked round from time to time and laughed at us, and gossip was not altogether tabooed among them. But women are always women, and gossip is the air they breathe! The men were more solemn. But I could believe what I was told—namely that this curious practice is dying out. They have wailed so long in vain, poor things, that one can readily imagine they are losing faith. However, I am glad they have just let me be a spectator, for the sight is most curious. It is not at all poetical or suggestive. A frowsier, sorrier. crew I never saw; a crowd of Irish tramps might well have taken their place, and the change escape detection; but their very prosaic character adds to the incongruity of the scene. Again my ideas have undergone correction, and I have had another disillusionment.

Well, after this, we picked our way over more heaps of rubbish, and between great forbidding hedges of prickly pear—very un-English indeed—down into the Tyropcean, a valley which runs into the vale of Hinnom, and across which SolOmon built a conduit for water. A few shattered stones, and an arch called Rabinsai's arch, are all we can see of it however, and we are soon climbing, still over rubbish, up Mount Zion. Let the pious pilgrim restrain his rapture for this sacred mount; if he can forget the smells, the only inspiration he will get is the view from the wall at the top. This is limited after the Mount of Olives. At one's feet, hidden by the dirty and disreputable village of Siloam, lies the historic pool, I believe an undoubted site—unlike the pool of Bethesda,

whose site is merely traditional. The most ancient Hebrew inscription yet discovered has been found in an old tunnel of clumsy workmanship here, though, unfortunately, it has gone to a museum at Constantinople. At present, excavations are on foot, and remains have been found of part of the old city wall, which here extended further afield than the. modern. These are now being traced, and may lead to interesting, discoveries. Harma now ., took us to see the Ccenaculum, and we went as meekly as if we had been told to go by our. nurse. You feel very insignificant and powerless in the hands of a dragoman Here, on no authority, David is said to be buried, and you see a wooden sarcophagus through a grating; also the Last Supper is said to have taken place. here, likewise on worthless authority; and finally, this not apparently being enough under one roof, the Holy Ghost descended here on the assembled apostles. We listen apathetically to these statements, which our guide believes to be true, and notice with more interest that the building is Norman, and finished in Arabic style. Here are Norman arches, and round three windows the dog-tooth ornament. This building dates from Crusading times, and has been converted to a Mosque by the Arabs. The mixture of styles made the visit worth while, unexpectedly so, I may say.

Thence we found our way, still meek, to the House of Caiaphas, or, more strictly speaking, -an Armenian monastery. Here is the prison of Christ. At least so the Armenians says the Greeks have another priso1 of Christ, and deny this one. It is a hole in the wall, as big as a cupboard, beautifully tiled with blue and white tiles, a redeeming feature; redolent with incense, and hung with lamps. The church of the prison is as gaudy, over-decorated and as heavy with incense as the other churches. All these churches are built in a debased Byzantine style; unlovely, and look like bauble shops. At times there is evidence of much wealth. We saw. doors  

of tortoiseshell in St. James, inlaid with mother of pearl, and silver. Jerusalem lives on the piety and credulity of the pilgrims, and has indeed no trade but religion,—no doubt to many here a profitable one It is difficult not to let one's indignation 'get the better of one, or to feel that "if Christ came to Jerusalem," His first act would be similar to the expulsion of the money changers.

THE TEMPLE AREA.

Saturday, April 27114.—The morning was well spent. It was a relief to be among Mohammedans again, and I must say I am glad the Temple grounds are in their hands. We went straight to the Haram es Sherif, the great enclosed area where the Temple once stood, and where now is the beautiful Mosque of Omar. We had to have an escort of two soldiers, and a permit from the British Consul, and felt quite important. We entered by the ruinous gate called the Suk el Kattanin, or the Cotton gate—a long dilapidated tunnel—it was really nothing more, and emerged in a great open space Along the, walls run the hostelries for the Moslem Pilgrims, to whom this place is very sacred, the most sacred place after Mecca; for Mohammed ascended hence on his winged steed, to heaven. We pick our way through various Mostabas, raised places where .the Moslems pray in the open air, and then ascend a broad flight of shallow steps, and, passing under a ruined arcade with graceful pillars, we find ourselves on the highest plateau—on which the Mosque itself, the Dome of the Rock, stands. Here no doubt was the Temple, and the Mosque may very possibly cover the site of the Holy, of Holies.

The Kubbet es Silsjleh, an open pavilion with two concentric rows of pillars (Byzantine), beautiful mosaic floor, and a dome, attracts attention before we enter the Mosque. The mosaic work is exceedingly fine, and in harmony with the Mosque itself. This world-famous building is, in its particular way, the most* beautiful I have ever . seen. . The exterior decoration is wonderfully intricate, and here and there the design is extremely beautiful Blue and white predomin ate, especially the former, and a good deal of yellow comes into the composition also. As one would expect, the designs are entirely geometrical, :and to be properly enjoyed require to be seen at a moderate distance. A long Way off the Mosque looks ordinary and has a bluish grey tone Each tile is separ ately burnt with a separate design; many are Persian, and some of the richest effects are produced by blocks of coloured glass set in cement. With the strong sunlight upon it the

effect is wonderful. A circular, gallery runs round the central space, the rounded roof being supported by polished marble pillars with gilded capitals, and the floor paved in marble

The roof of this gallery and the intenor of the dome mosaic are the most exquisite examples of mural decoration I have ever seen. The general tone of colour reminds me as much as anything of Burne Jones' "Briar Rose"; green, red and gold are the chief colours used, and the whole effect utterly surpasses any power of description. I am naturally prejudiced against polished pillars and gilded capitals, but I would not alter anything in this Mosque; the tout ensemble is such that you are content to have it as it is. I don't expect to see anything finer in its way than this. Round the centre from the Crusaders' space runs a fine wrought iron screen dating time, and in the centre lies a naked rock. This may have been the rock of sacrifice; it has a cistern underneath, and channels f or carrying away water or blood, but it is by no means clear that it is so. The Moslems claim that it is the centre of the world, that God will sit on it on the Judgment day; that it is poised on air, and though apparently resting on awallbelow, is not really resting upon it, only pretending to. Perhaps it does to take breath at times. Mohammed sprangfrom this rock to go to heaven; you are shown where his head broke through the roof, so it must be true; and the rock was so anxious to follow that the angel Gabriel had to come and hold it down. You can see his finger-marks, so that must be true also. Not far off in the floor is a block of green jasper.

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Mohammed drove nineteen nails of gold into this A nail was to fall out at the end of every epoch, and when all had dis Appeared, the end of the world would come. The devil pulled out all but three and a half; but the angel Gabriel caught him at it, and drove him away. Very fortunate, for three and a half seems a poor number. However, they have htted so long that one may take comfort.'

Passing an ancient pool, we walked across the open plateau to the Mosque El Aksa, much simpler and less pre-tontious it is not without interest, the pulpit is a wonderful specimen of Arabesque carving at its best, dating from NurëdL-d1ns time, 1168 A.D., and one Of the transepts is an excellent specimen of the work of the Crusaders, the roof being grOined ttnd vaulted The Mosque is indeed a Christian church of Justinian (to the Virgin) transformed. Below are extensive vaults called Solomon's stables, but probably no earlier than the time of the Crusaders, the mangers and bridle rings for the horses being of that period. A walk round the walls gave us a good view, over the Vale of Jehoshaphat to the Mount of Olives, and to Mount Scopus on the North. The rolling hills are very refreshing after Egypt, and after much sight-seeing. At one point in the wall is a pillar projecting At right angles. Here Mohammed will sit astride, and Christ on the Mount of Olives; the resurrection will take place in the Vale of Jehoshaphat, and all will be made to walk across the valley on a hair of the prophet. Those who fall will go to hell. These are crude and foolish legends, but unfortunately the Christians have a stock which outnumber, if they do not rival, the Moslems. We met Miss K., of York, at the Deaconesses' Home in the evening, and she told us at supper that numbers of English and Americans came to live at Jerusalem, so as to be there if the end Of the world came; A queer old lady has just died, who used to go up the Mount of Olives every day with a tea-making apparatus. She Wanted to be able to 'offer Jesus a cup of tea when, He came!

"THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.':

I think the afternoon of Friday is the most remarkable we have spent since I left England- I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and here seem to ,be. concentrated the superstitions and follies of all Christendom. The place reminds me as much as anything of the Aihambra Music Hall in London, with its gilt and its coloured lamps, and its luxurious but tawdry magnificence. So bitter are the feuds between the different churches of Christ, that Mohammedan officials have charge of the building, and the first comment' you have on the faith of Christianity is in the Mohammedan guard at the door. I wish I could describe the scene to you. It baffles all one's powers, however The largest clear space (there is no shape or symmetry, so the ordinary terms nave, transepts, etc.,. are impossible; the church is nothing but a congeries of chapels) is called the Rotunda, and here the Chapel of the Sepulchre itself stands. It looks like a large shrine, and is covered with pictures, candles, lamps and what: not. It glitters like a fairy fountain, or a fairy grotto rather. You stoop to enter, and find yourself in what is called the Angel's Chapel (where the angel sat), a few feet square, heavy with incense, and loaded with ornament. You stoop again and find yourself by a gaudy altar with barely room to turn round. This is the actual sepulchre, and repeats th&Angel's Chapel, only more so. All the time there is a stream of people of all nationalities in and out, kissing the pictures, crossing themselves, and bowing with the utmost piety. As we came out, we saw an interesting sight. Opposite the entrance to the so-called Sepulchre is the Greek chapel (every chapel must have a raison d'être, and though all are under one roof, this covers the garden of Joseph of Arimathea and a round hole

and ball in the floor mark the centre of the world!! The

second centre I have seen in one day). Service was going

on here, and the singing was suddenly drowned by a loud

strident chant. An Armenian procession with the Armenian

patriarch was entering the Rotunda. Gorgeous jewelled robes, 

blackhooded monks, and gaily dressed acolytes, candles and

incense On they came Armenians and Greeks have been

fighting at the Easter service, so there is a bitter feeling just now. Two Greek priests rushed out, and hustled their flock out of reach of contamination. You could see the fight in their eyes, and the pleasure with which the Armenians formed up at the very door of the Greek Shrine, in order to enter one by one the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre itself. This over, they made the tour of the Rotunda, headed by two Mohammedans armed with sticks to 'prevent the Christians from fighting, a gorgeous spectacle, but scarce ly an: inspiring one. I can fancy "the man withthe leather breeches" in  the midst of all this!

We naturally came home with our heads in a whirl, and sick with incense, and weary of candles and coloured lams. What wonder the Moslems look down on us with contempt. There is much irony in the fact that it is Jerusalem that is the scene of this exhibition of weakness and folly, and still more in the fact that the centre of bitterest feud is certainly not the right, site These churches are spending their incense and pictures over an unknown site, and a fraudulent tomb.

Sunday, April 8th.—We walked down into the valley of Kidron or Jehoshaphat, and examined what is called Solomon's quarry. This again is a fictitious name, the date and origin of the quarry are unknown. It extends for two or three hundred feet under Jerusalem, and is interesting because it is possible that the stone for the Temple was hewn here. You see great blocks half-dressed and left lying, niches in the walls for lights, and so forth. Opposite is one of the suggested sites for Calvary—much more to my mind than any other I have seen. It is a low eminence overlooking the road, and with caves in its rocky face. But of course it is the merest surmise, and. I don't quite see how the real site can be found. Neither do I see why it matters, or what good  [23]

We were taken down into the vaults, through an infinity of doors, all carefully locked after us, and locked behind us again as we returned, to be shown the beginning of the Via Dolorosa In acknowledgment of the good. lady's courtesy I was fain to buy a small silver cross for my wife out of the stock of little trinkets made in the convent, and we passed out distinctly refreshed and very good friends.: The Via Dolorosa is a series of dirty lanes with all sorts of superstitions attached, to it.  

would be done if it was found The flame of superstition would have added fuel to feed it, that is all; and a great deal of sentimental writing would be produced by as many future Cooks' tourists. I prefer the present doubt.

Not far from the Cotton Grotto, as the quarry is also called, are the Tombs of the Kings. Here again, we have no authority for the name, and may be pretty certain they were not the tombs of Jewish kings, but of wealthy citizens. We visited one which may have been just like Joseph of Arimathea's. A low square-cut opening in, the cliff, face to which you descend a few steps, closed by a rolling stone which revolves I in a channel specially prepared—a square chamber cut in the rock about eight feet high, and a small aperture in the wall of this chamber for the body. No hieroglyphs, no decoration, none of the elaborate ornamentation of the Theban necropolis. The rolling stone was very interesting. Wherever the sepulchre was, the stone was probably worked in the same way to close just such an entrance four feet high.

The entrance to what may be taken as a necropolis of -the wealthy Jews is by a broad flight of steps leading down into the' hollow (like a quarry) where the rock tombs were cut. At the foot of these steps are two excellent cisterns, where the bodies were washed before burial; a much simpler arrangement than the elaborate embalming of the Egyptians.

Equally sceptical were we at the convent which contains the ruins of the Roman Praetorium, and the site of the judgment of Christ. But we enjoyed this visit. We were taken round by 'a dear old nun, with the face of an angel, and the grace and manners of a high-born lady. ,There was an indescribable flavour of sweet cloister piety about everything, and everything was beautifully fresh and clean. We felt as if in a Friends' Meeting-house in the neat, simple room. Undoubtedly there is a ruined arch over the altar in, the convent church, and here, of course, Pilate stood when he

RVO judgment. But the dear old lady believed it, and we

njoy4 tli sweet patter of the nuns at the Litany the while.

It was a relief in the afternoon to drive to Bethlehem, over a high, breezy plateau, with the hills of Moab ever visible—an unbroken barrier line, and the rolling uplands of Judea when we looked towards Hebron. You pass a Moslem Sheikh's tomb, with its dome, and are informed that this is the tomb of Rachel, and after an hour's drive, through fields of wheat and past olives, figs and terebirith and carob trees, the considerable. town of Bethlehem comes into sight. There are 8,000 inhabitants in this flourishing place, where I had expected a little village. We drove three horses abreast at a furious pace, hearts in. our mouths, through the narrow streets, and pulled up in front of the chief hotel with much clatter and noise. We went to see only one "sight" here, the so-called Church of the Nativity,; to me it was a repetition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The manger is shown you (there is another at Rome I think) and the cave and so forth, all gaudy with the usual decorations. The main nave of the church is refreshingly simple, but that is the one redeeming feature.. The Latins were holding their service, and the organ was pealing as we entered. Greeks and Armenians do not have music. Mentioning the Latins reminds me that hereby hangs a tale. The Armenian altar is in such a position, that if the Latins crush to pass in a procession to visit the Holy Manger, they must pass close to the Armenian sanctuary. The Armenians objected, and used to cicLiri

[24] to make way, and fights ensued. The Turkish governor, growing weary of this, has had to lay a carpet with one corner, cut off before the Armenian. altar, arid order the Armenians to keep off it, crossing by the diagonal where the carpet is cut off. This done, a. Turkish soldier had to be placed continually on guard there to watch that this rule is kept.

 

We sketched the view from Bethlehem after enduring the incense and candles for a while, and walked back in the sunset

light. Only then did the full glories of the Holy City appear, as we approached along the broad carriage road from Hebron, the mountains growing violet in shadow to the east, while yet 'a liquid yellow light lit up the city walls. The sense of the past history is choked out in these chapels, but out in the open you breathe freely, and catch something of the inspiration of the place. The Galilean in His rough peasant dress and turban, no doubt, . had wandered in the evening over these hills with His rude following of fisher-folk, every

whit as humble and obscure as the peasants we met on our

way. One realises the extent of the idealism of the devotional.

pictures of the west; and the help one gets in Palestine in

getting a truer picture of things, brings the figure of the Christ

nearer to you, and strengthens the human ties.

Bethlehem is famous, now, for the extraordinary beauty of its women. Some say this is due to Crusaders' blood, I only know I was much struck with the merry, vivacious manner of the people. The population is nearly all Christian; the Christians massacred and expelled the Moslems in 18301 and the difference in the Christian treatment of, the women may partly account for this. They wear a curious headdress, 'white, and quite distinct.

In Camp, May 8th, '95.

Temperature 9° F. in shade.

Place, El Fuleh, near Shunem, on the Plain of Esdraelon,

where the Philistines encamped when Saul was killed.

[25] 

  

I .expect you will smile at the date, remembering when I last wrote, but just you come here and write a diary with the thermometer at 970 F. and a clOse heat withal'! But the fact is, riding and camping mean next to no opportunity for writing. Moreover the country is so steeped and saturated in history that you spend all your time reading up. We have G. A. Smith's" Historical Geography of Palestine" with us, and are reading it as we go along.' It makes a delightful companion, and adds enormously to our understanding of what we see, as well as our understanding of the book itself.

CAMP LIFE.

The life in.camp is very healthy and really very luxurious. We two Englishmen have no less than eight servants, and eleven four-footed beasts and three tents! It would be 'a libel on Cook and Son—the immaculate dispenser of creature comforts—to call this "roughing it."

It is a picturesque sight to see the camp following sitting round, Eastern fashion, eating out of the common flesh-pot (common in the sense that it is common to all I mean), the red glow of the charcoal and the faint glimmer of the lamp flickering on the dusky limbs and many-coloured raiment. That is the sentimental hour, when, the heat of the day forgotten, and the glaring hills softened to mysterious violet in the gloom, we stroll, with cigarettes lighted, .after the sump-, tuous evening meal, up and down outside our temporary. "Castle." Then tongues are loosened, and there' steals a comfortable sense upon one of being at peace with all the world. We accept our dragoman's invitation, and squatting down Arab fashion among our cooks and muleteers, drink the coffee cup of friendship with them. Then come the jokes at our remissness in rising ;—how often we had to be called,—and the time we take to dress,—and the things we leave in the tent,—or we praise our cook's soup and his excellent rice pudding and his vegetables and chicken; and after more,

amicable converse, and tales of former adventures with, other parties from the valiant John, we turn in under the brilliant stars and the waxing moon to sleep the sleep of the just. Breakfast, when at last the patient waiter, after much calling, has got us safely seated at the table, is a royal repast. A plate of bread and milk, first-rate tea, bread, Danish butter, English marmalade, Jaffa honey tasting of the orange groves, potted meat, eggs,—and,----I ought to mention the one drawback,—innumerable flies.

 

Lunch is without our tents, and usually contrived so as to be timely by some bubbling spring or under the grateful shade of fig or olive. We recline on a carpet spread for us, and what Nabob could turn up his nose at the lemon and soda, the sardines, the cold chicken and salad, the dates and figs, and the little cup of inevitable coffee, heated on the extemporized furnace while we eat and doze ;—John, the dragoman, in his long blue-embroidered cloak, his pistol in his belt, sits gravely on another carpet, smoking his nargileh, which the groom prepares with due reverence as for a lord. Our

horses champ and whisk away the pestilential flies, nose in grass, or gulping grateful draughts from the battered tin

which serves as their trough. And when towards the close of a hot and thirsty ride we see our tents gleam white before

us, by some magic transported from our last resting place—

there is a cry of "To your tents, 0 Israel," for we know that fragrant tea and English biscuits are waiting, set out with

civilised propriety on snowy table-cloth. And dinner, illuminated by candles, is a sumptuous finish to the day's regal repasts. We have a kind of feeling that we are not performing a feat quite so heroic as across Darkest Africa!

In Camp, Mansurah. On the slopes of Mount Carmel, overlooking Fsdraelon, Nazareth visible. May 9th. Delicious cool sea breeze, 700 F. in tent.

Here goes for a dry and an uninteresting itinerary—jotib from my pocket-book, little else—with no season-In of " Fine writing!

 THE DEAD SEA.

Tuesday, April 30th.—Manetho, Strabo, and the newly-arrived L. it, who shall henceforth figure as the Philosopher with a big P., left Jerusalem on horseback at 2 p.m. Wind high from the sea, but a hot sun. We were soon zigzagging down the rocky path into the Vale of HinnOm (the horses are wonderfully sure-footed) and over steep grass-slopes. In this vale children used to be offered as sacrifices to Moloch, whence the place became known to the Jews as Gehenna, or Vale of Fire, and this I suppose has given rise to further cosmological developments much enlarged on by some, Milton for example. I understand, however, that allusions to this division of the cosmogony are falling into disrepute nowadays. We pass under frequent olives, by fields of wheat ripening, and when I say fields, of course I don't mean hedged-in enclosures, but open patches Few peasants were in evidence, one wondered where the reapers were to come from, we passed not a single village. Rounding a hill-slope into the valley of Kidron, lo and behold, an armed Bedouin, sitting silent with gown and curved scimitar, on a beautiful glossy black Arab horse. This is our escort, without which we may not travel in this part of the country. Our ride is in the main a descent. Bit by bit the scenery grows wilder, and all vegetation vanishes. First of all, goats and sheep and a few smiling vales of corn, the lower fields ripe for harvest; but after a while no life of any kind, except a stray marbled white butterfly, and a dusty black beetle hurrying out of our path, or, a gruesome, repellent centipede. The rounded hills become more and more rocky; we have entered the Judean desert. The prevailing colour of the landscape, from being a doubtful green streaked with white limestone, :5 now reddish, and as we enter a deep gorge, the rocks glow here and there as if from internal fires. We follow an ascending stony path along one side of the gorge for some way, the chasm at our left deepening and with. more precipitous walls. Suddenly rounding a corner we see the Monastery of Marsaba, and the

[28]

tents of our  camp flying the Union Jack The camping ground is a sandy cliff top, walled in by higher cliffs on three sides. In front is the monastery, clinging to the precipitous side of the gorge, and facing a bare desert wall honeycombed with caves. The Monastery, which we visit, is a Greek penitentiary for recalcitrant priests—a curious scrambling building in a weird and desolate spot. Here a court, there a block of terraced building—far up above more buildings, tunnelling, staircases and towers—you could invent a weird ghost story, or a fanciful fairy tale, or commit suicide with equal. propriety here. With its flying buttresses and higgledy piggledy arrangement, it all looks as if stuck on to the cliff face by cement Somewhere about 530 A.D., S Saba lived here—a pious anchorite (read George Eber's "Homo Sum" if you want to know more of the desert anchorites). He found a lion in the cave he lived in, but each amicably settled which corner they would occupy. So the legend runs, and you are shown the cave From the grand terrace of the Monastery we looked down into the gorge below, and saw the jackals roaming in search of fopd; at night the tent watch kept his rattle going, to scare away hynas. Surely a more lonely, unearthly penitentiary nowhere exists. Wind changed in the night to South-East. Sirocco: Temperature rose in tents at night to 84° F. [29]

make a tremendous descent down a rocky torrent bed—dry as a bone. Now and then we have to lead our horses, but they take us nevertheless where English horses could never go. Above to. the West, on A high bill, we see a white tomb Mosque, which the Mohammedans believe to be the tomb of Moses, and which they visit in pilgrimage once a year from Jerusalem. A great sight, I am told.

At last we are down on long ridges of sand dunes sloping down to the head of the Dead Sea. Here is a tropical jungle and glorious rushes, towering over our heads with great feathery plumes, but our dragoman tells us we shall get these at L. Huleh, so we pass and spare them. Wherever, as here on these marshy flats, there is fresh water, the shores of the Dead Sea are luxuriantly clothed in sub-tropical verdure, as at Engedi. We were disappointed in not finding the Dead Sea decd enough. Birds do fly across it, and there is no particular curse about it, it is simply a lake in the desert. Still, its immediate shore of pebbles with the withered branches cast up thereon gave some impression of the want of life in its waters. We bathed in the Dead Sea, and could not sink. I got a photograph of the Philosopher floating, feet and head above water, without the slightest effort: The taste is vile, and the smart in a raw place I had, excruciating. Moreover, we were all horribly sticky when we dressed, so a bathe therein is more interesting than pleasant. Of course Sodom and Gomorrah are not at the bottom, as even Kinglake seems to suppose in his "Eothen." The lake has been there, only deeper, since Tertiary times. G. A. Smith says that we must look for the site of these towns in the plain to the North, and if the account of their destruction may be taken . as historical, the site is desolate enough in all conscience. I was not prepared for this.. I had thought that the valley of the Jordan was a tropical jungle, whereas it is a flat sandy desert—at least at the southern end—intersected by verdure only where the Jordan coils its snake-like way along. We noticed as we rode to the Jordan, after lunching on the  

 

  Wednesday, May ist.—Breakfast 6.15 a.m. Off before 7 a.m. Wind veers to the North. No sun till noon. Wild ride over rolling and rocky uplands. Here and there the low black tents of the Bedouin—swarthy people. These are the "ravens—black people" of the Old Testament, who fed Elijah. Now and then, down some rocky Wady, covered with detritus and sparsely green here and there, we see the deep blue Dead Sea in a haze of heat thousands of feet below, and beyond, the Wall of Moab. Wind blows cool, but as we descend, the heat comes on gradually. After a pleasant canter—the horses canter beautifully, but can't trot—we

   30]

Dead Sea shore, tiow imposing—nay, forbidding--the mountains of Judea and Samaria looked; fully as impenetrable as Moab to the East. No wonder the Israelites were afraid to enter in and possess the Promised Land.

We ought to have seen Hermon to the North, but were prevented by the heat-haze; indeed, the heat nearly rendered us incapable of noticing anything, and we rejoiced at reaching the green trees and muddy swift stream of the world-famous river. It was really a cool day for the Jordan valley, though it was 1000 F. in the shade. It must be remembered 'that we were over 1,200 feet below the Mediterranean, and 3,900 feet below Jerusalem. These facts require to be borne in mind, if there is to be a due apprehension of the extraordinary nature of this deep crack—the El Ghor.

The Jordan is amazingly small and ordinary when you come to it; like the Nidd, for all the world, only swifter and far. muddier. We heard a dove cooing—the spot is supposed to be that where Jesus was baptised—the voice of the Turtle was heard in the land. This stream, our first running water since Jerusalem, made us appreciate as never before the allusions to water in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible. "Thou shalt lead me beside still waters," "As a hart thirsteth after the water brooks," etc., have a new meaning to the traveller in Palestine. I lazed in a boat, taking to the water to avoid some grubbing pigs on the banks, and utterly failed to realise where I was. Here the pilgrims are baptised to this day—but somehow I only felt as if back on some good old. English stream, and my heart yearned for that tight little island. After all there is no place like home. We rode on

in the late afternoon to Jericho, across melancholy dry stream beds, paths of straggling vegetation—the henna used to dye

the finger-nails is cultivated here—and finally patches of

corn, yellow and ripe. New Jericho, an hotel, some Turkish official's private house, some miserable huts, a few palm

trees, that is all! Then a thistle-covered common, donkeys, Bedouin, their black low tents and cattle, dirty and degraded 

PALESTINE NOTES. 31

looking people—the women terribly ugly, poor things, a stream, a burst of luxuriant vegetation, cactus hedges concealing palms and tropical shrubs and masses of towering red flowers, and we find our tents at the foot of a tumulus concealing old Jericho, and by a good spring. Wind strong, North, and cool. Temperature falls to 72° F. in tent.

Thursday, May znd.—Start 8 a.m. Wind veers to West, cloud driven sky. Gleams of sunshine. Ascent to Jerusalem exceedingly line. A most impressive ride—low part of the pass guarded by ancient watch-towers, reminds one of the St. Gothard above the Devil's Bridge. Crossing a ridge the scenery is less grand and majestic, but still wild—like Llanberis,.say. Good carriage road all the way. We pass another monastery clinging to the cliff wall like Mar Saba—called Mar Yahanna. The brook in the gorge is by some supposed to be the brook Cherith where Elijah was fed by the Bedouin, and the mountain overlooking Old Jericho to be the scene of the Temptation, which is hardly likely.

We meet flocks of goats and donkeys, troops of armed Bedouin on horseback with long guns, barrels brass bound, and stocks inlaid with mother of pearl; the round swelling hills become greener, and the breeze distinctly unpleasantly chilly after the hot El Ghor. Veiled Moslem ladies pass in a carriage with armed escort—whither bound?

We reach at twelve, after four hours riding, the " Apostles' Well," another merely traditional name. Round this is gathered a concourse of Bedanese, donkeys, women, children, horses, and fine dark-looking men, in black and yellow striped cloaks and black kuffiyehs, armed with a short knife and gun. They are of particular interest when one remembers that they give us a picture of what those wandering Hebrew tribes, under their great powerful sheikh Moses must have looked

like, when they came as in to the land of the Canaanite—

a great wave of emigration out of the desert sea away there

  [32]

 

Aet. 16.

(From a jthoto by W. Eskeit, York).

behind Moab—one among many waves, that from time to time have washed up on the eastern shore of Palestine, and peopled its hills and valleys with desert drift One feels grateful for the realistic picture of the past which such ascene. affords I watched these people.,giving their beasts the longed for draught, as we sat at our lunch, and felt that the Old Testament was getting to be real for me bit by bit, though one's western ideas need considerable readjustment at first And if it is a reality from which. much that we call " mira-culous " had to be eliminated, this elimination is not a loss, but an infinite gain The unbridged gulf that yawns between a past teeming with miraculous interventions, and a prosaic present where miracle is reduced to law, is bridged by a new human interest, as one feels these old Bible people were only human beings after all, and subject to the same unalterable laws of a God, the same yesterday, to day and for ever. After this well, a steep ascent. We have now been climbing four hours up a fine pass. Surely Jerusalem will be below us over this ridge—No t There is the Holy City above us still—and there: the Mount of Olives on the right—the squalid, wretched hovel of Bethany—all are above us. I know nothing that can more impressively fix the height of Jerusalem above the plain on one's mind than this view upward, after a long climb of hours. We rode in past my Golgotha; the Philosopher says that in certain lights the caves in its rock face give the appeprance of a skull, and that it is seriously supposed that this explains the phrase" the place of the skull." However, be this as it may, the Philosopher immediately alter had a bad throw from his horse, from the wounds of which he is only now recovering; and so back to the New Hotel.

Friday, May 3rd.—Marietho left us for England, amid sad farewells from the bereaved remainder. Before the Philosopher and Strabo start North, .I just want to put on record the manner of veiling among the Moslem .women at Jerusalem. This is peculiarly ghastly in its effect. A

[33]

thin handkerchief, with a pattern and colour like  bandanna, covers the whole face. You cannot see the face, or a suggestion of a face behind, though the lady can see out..: In a white shawl and with their coloured face cloths, these women look like the sheeted dead come to life—or mummies that have strayed far from Giseh.

TO SAMARIA.

We started in rain after a cold night (Therm. down to 600 F. in the bedroom). Strong wind, North-West. As we climbed the slopes of Scopus, we met a long pilgrimage of Russians straggling over two miles, some on asses, some on foot, of the peasant class apparently. There were 700 of them, and some of the women seemed very ill with the long march from Nazareth, being supported by their husbands as they rode by on their mules. I suppose these poor people will go the round of the shrines, etc., in Jerusalem, and probably spend many a hard earned penny in useless ceremonies. We had a fine . retrospect over Jerusalem, which ought to

to have been our last, but we got another glimpse in making a detour to Ramaflah. The road was very rough—like a dry mountain stream bed; scenery, bare rolling uplands—red soil, very stony ground, not a square foot being without its white limestone detritus; patches of green corn and occasional olives. Wind continues cold and strong, though the rain was slight, and soon ceased. Stony and abominable, a mere path as the road is, it is one of the great caravan routes from. Jerusalem to Damascus. We met frequent strings of ill-kempt donkeys, with dusky ragged drivers sitting sideways. We pass Tell el Ful, a high hill crowned with the ruins of a Crusaders' fort—the most frequent ruins we have seen in Palestine. We deviate from the usual route to the east, climbing a hill crowned by the village of. Ramah of Benjamin—a wretched, squalid, dirty group of hovels, with wheat growing on the sod roofs. Here we had a fine, view of the village and battlefield of Michmash, and the long line of the Moab hills opposite.

[34]

It is open, rolling hill country, and the eye is struck with the long, sweeping curves of the gradual swelling mounds and hills. The soil gave a decidedly red look to the foreground, indeed this colour is quite a feature in the district. I got a careful sketch of the battle-field before leaving. As we were riding away through the green corn, our muleteer missed a carpet; we rode back, and John threatened to the assembled villagers that he would send for ten Turkish soldiers, and arrest the whole village. The threat, after much talk and gesticulation, took effect. The house of the thief was reluctantly pointed out, to which we rode in force. The door was barricaded, and had to be broken open. There was a castigation administered to the recalcitrant owner of the house, and the carpet was then borne out in triumph.

We lunched in a fig orchard at El Bireh (the ancient Burok) now a fanatical Moslem village, the distinguishing feature of which are the ruins left by. the Templars. (We saw some columns in a pigstye at Ramah, dating also from Crusading times).

A French party of six, travelling North, here passed us, camping by our tents at Bethel. We felt that we had sufficient equipage, but these six people had a train of fifty horses and mules—palanquins for wet weather—and were carrying their chickens alive in crates. Here we branched off from the usual route once more—to the West—over a high, ploughed field. Looking back, we saw the hills beyond Jordan—looking forward ten minutes later, lo and behold, the blue Mediterranean. What a small country Palestine is!

Our detour to Ramallah proved interesting. The American Friends have a mission here, which we visited. It is. chiefly for girls, who live partly as boarders—I think twenty-four reside on the premises—the rest in the village.* Ramallah is decidedly cleaner than most of the villages. It has several missions; which seem to be doing their duty socially as well as religiously, and bringing about a better sanitary condition.

*The school has since been much enlarged, and now includes boys. PALESTINE NOTES. 35

I noticed the brighter faces of the women.. Christianity stands out very favourably by Mohammedanism in the treat-ment of the gentler sex; the position of woman, indeed, seems to me one of; the greatest blots on Mohammedan civilisation. The girls sang hymns to us in English and Arabic, in a schoolroom filled with European furniture. I only objected to their costume, sober and Quakerly perhaps, but a prim uniform, most incongruous and unsuited when you have the Oriental sense of colour to guide you. Leave the national dress alone, I say.

After a pleasant visit and chat, in the cool, whitewashed building—so clean and spruce, though simple withal,—we rode down to the head of a green vale of corn, where under a grove of olives our tents were visible. This was 'Bethel in all probability. At present it is known as Betin, and is a fearfully squalid collection of hovels. I hope the Irish cabins I have so often heard of are no worse than these. There is not much suggestion of the historic interest attaching to the place from 'Jacob to Josiah. We suppose that the unspeakable Turk must be responsible for much of the present condition of things, coming as their misrule does after the stormy centuries which succeeded Christ. But reading again in the tent the account of the battle of Michthash, we were struck

with the simple provincial style of the account. The warriors who mustered against the Philistines must surely have been much like the primitive agriculturists we have been passing.

"For there was no smith in Israel," and the ox-goad is fre-

quently to be seen in use during the day's ride. The one striking feature of Bethel now is the ruined Crusaders'

church. One realises what a grip the Crusaders did get after

all on the country, and it is possible to appreciate Smith's remarks on the subject when we see almost every height of

strategical importance, almost every site of religious interest, stamped with the impress of their civilisation. In a day or

* This is so now, the children sitting in meeting look like a garden of flowers.—

two, we shall pass over another battlefield (I am writing now Iat Nazareth), that of Hattin, where, I suppose, this civilisation received its death-blow; where, as Smith says, "a militant and truculent Christianity, as false as the relics of the True Cross round which it was rallied, met its judicial end."

Saturday, May 4th.—We were glad to be off. The night had been very cold, Temperature 500 F. in the tent, and a nasty, damp, white mist. On horseback before nine, after some delays. Rode in the cool breeze through fig orchards and over awful roads; descending after an hour or so into a lonely valley, overhung with crags and green with grass, gay with flowers and shaded by noble olives. Here we pass the usual camping ground of those going North, at what is called the Robbers' Spring—the sky clearing the while and deepening to an intense blue. We are entering the northern kingdom and leaving Judea behind, traversing the debatable ground Where the boundary fluctuated North or South of the more natural division from Michmash down Ajalon—according as North or South was strongest. And a change is really coming over the country. Figs and olives are more numerous than I have seen them since Bethlehem; the bleak, rolling uplands are giving place to a succession of shallow, flat-bottomed valleys—alps—with more trees and great sheets, rather than the patches we noted in Judea, of waving corn. The whole aspect of the land is more open and smiling, and as we proceed North, continues to open out and become yet more fertile. Bethel seems to mark a distinct stage in our journey, looking back onit.

As on the ride from Rome to Naples, we notice how the villages are almost always perched on the hill tops—seldom in the plains; with their flat roofs they are often difficult to distinguish from the limestone ribs, which everywhere peep through the green hillsides. We see yet two more Crusaders' Castles—one of Baldwin, another Casale San Cirles—and 

PALFSTINE NOTES.

then enter, the broadest, flattest, upland valley we have yet seen; like a bit of the Plain of Sharon stranded on the

heights. Crossing the well-cultivated fields and picking, our

way up through a large fig orchard, and then through ripening corn and banks of glorious flowers, morning glory, dahlias

and pinks, etc., we find ourselves at an olive tree, large and

isolated at the entrance to a shallow wady; standing alone on the height with ruined masonry under its shadow. Here

we spread our carpet and lunch. The spot is now called Seilun; once it was Shiloh, to which memories of the Ark,1 of Eli, and Samuel attach themselves. Now there is nothing for the eye to rest upon except open vales Of ploughed land and corn—rounded hills of undecided outline. Bees are humming and passing from flower to flower, beetles swarm, flying with heavy clumsy flight across the field, and everywhere the nimble lizards pop in and out among the stones. A gentle sea breeze tempers the noonday heat. Shiloh is a very pleasant spot for a picnic and a doze for such of Cooks' tourists as so incline,  but its slopes will no more be covered with the black tents of the Bedouin Ben Israel awaiting the allotment of their portions.

On the hill, down the opening vale, we see Sebim (Sebonah, Judges xxi. 19), and then turning more distinctly northward, we regain the usual route, from which we have made a detour, and in the late afternoon reach a rocky ridge of some height. The view at this point was very fine. On our left, immediately facing us, Ebal and Gerizim—reminding me forcibly. of the Malvern hills. At our feet the long fertile upland plain of El Muknah, and beyond over a distant ridge of mountain, faint, indescribably delicate with its fairy-like blue and white —the splendid triple crown of snowy Hermon. Evening was fast gathering her shadows as we descended with this view before us,—the sight of snow after hot Egypt and thirsty Judea is an experience more memorable than a first glimpse of the Alps—and we reached Hawara,—our camp—on the slopes of Gerizim, but a short time before darkness swooped down on

  38]

us Time here is A hours later than with you in England, and twilight is very short, the approach of darkness very swift It is quite dark now about seven, the sun setting about 6.30.

Sunday, May 5th.—.We did not keep Sunday here, intending to keep our Sunday, on Monday at Seboste. We had another cold. night, Temperature 54° F. Off at 8.20, sky cloudless. Burning sun but cool breeze. We rode North for a space up the broad El Muknah,with its corn and olives, and then turned up West to the gap between Ebal and Gerizim, a high pass, where Nablus, the ancient Shechem lies. On our, right we see a white ,dome, a 'bit of wall, and some green trees That is Jacob's well I will not plunge into the controversy as to the site, as my remarks would be valueless, but might mention that we had read G. A. Smith on the subject with interest the night before.

Reaching Nablus, high up (800 feet), we nevertheless' find the pretty town.of 2o,000 inhabitants gay with luxuriant verdure, palms, vines, pomegranates, and (not seen' since Jerusalem) cypresses. This is a place of great importance, connecting with the country east of Jordan. We saw the telegraph posts, which if we followed them would take us to, Fs Salt beyond the "Ghor." Here are, Turkish soldiers lounging along the streets. Somehow 1 always think of the Armenian atrocities when I see them, though I have found them most obliging and polite, and though more than once we have had a Turkish guard, armed with bayonet fixed, patrolling as a night-guard for our camp.

MOUNT EBAL.

We struck off early to the right to climb Mount Ebal, leaving our horses in a Moslem cemetery. The Moslems have two headstones on their graves, not one, as we have. We climbed a path hedged in by extraordinary hedges of cactus, most unearthly and forbidding they look too, and in an hour 

PALESTINE NOTES. 39

 

reached the top. Gerizim is the proper mountain to 'do, as of course it has more historical interest, "Neither m

 

this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem," etc But Ebal is

higher, and G A Smith gives a chapter to the view, and we determined to climb the latter on that account. We had

a perfect day,' and a marvellous view. I have never .had

the sense of looking down on so much outspread history before, and over such a vast extent of country. Our northern

limit was Lebanon—I5o miles away, to the south the upland of Judea beyond Hebron, fully fifty miles away. To the west there was the sea—to the east we saw beyond, Galilee, beyond Jordan, to the mountains of the Hannam. It is not often given to mortal men to scan at a glance 200 miles of country, where almost every peak suggests or conceals some historic spot.

I gave my time to sketching a complete outline panorama, which I managed to secure in spite of a blazing sun, from which no protection was possible, and the fact that it was not possible to get the view from one spot. The 'top of Ebal is a long ridge, with no definite peak; the mount is really only a great shoulder 3,077 feet above the sea. It is impossible in this journal to give the view in detail; the view would make excellent material for an illustrated lecture, but, it is not possible to make myself clear in a brief outline journal like this. ' Looking east, rises the dark mass of Carmel, breaking the line of the blue Mediterranean. North of this is the sweep of gold where Acre lies, and Haifa snuggles under the promontory; the flat green there is the Phcenician plain connecting with Fsdraelon by the now hidden glen of El Rais. South of Carmel sweeps the golden line of coast again. We make out Csarea and with the glasses Jaffa—four vessels at anchor, in the roads—the plain of Sharon like a map and the Shephelah breaking down the ridges, green and grey and brown, from the mountain on which we stand. Due south, over Gerizim, appear the highlands of Judea. (It is interesting to note, by the by, that Gerizim is of .Memmalite

 

40 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE

 

limestone, of the same tertiary formation as that found in the high Himalayas) East is the wall of Moab and Gilead We make out where Es Salt must lie, . can see the valley of the J'abbok, the Jebal Ajiun, catch a spur of Gilboa; see the dominating Hermon, the grandest and most conspicuous feature in the whole panorama, and just to the west, faint and far, but unmistakable, snowy Lebanon. Smith and Baedeker neither of them mention this. But we are sure of our point. The Philosopher made the most careful examination and we located the mountain with certainty, at last. We intend to write to G. A. Smith and tell him of his omission. We had  most exceptionally clear day and expect that it is rarely that Lebanon is seen, from this point.'

Coming down we ride through' the whitewashed town, and lunch in an olive grove which overlooks the valley. I must say that while Nablus looks beautiful from below or on the approach by the road, the view down from where we 'lunched or from Ebal is the reverse of pleasing—the flat roofs look so very unprepossessing as- you see them from above. Half a dozen "houses have the red roofs pitched as in Europe, which are getting so common in Jerusalem and Jaffa, and these in the green setting of the palms and other trees looked' very picturesque. I don't think, except for association's sake, that we can regret the coming in of the European architecture. ' Nablus is a fanatical place or we should have stopped here, but our dragoman says the visitors often have trouble, and Seboste is now becoming the more usual place to stay.. Thither we rode in a delicious fresh breeze off the sea. We saw nothing of the few remaining families of directly descended Samaritans who still live in a separate quarter at Nablus—nor were we there at the right time to see their Passover festival, still observed in Gerizim to this day, but we felt that the wonderful view we had had amply made up for anything we might have missed. Illustrative of the happy-go-lucky character of Oriental sanitation I may here record en passant, that barely outside the town, on the Tafa 

PALESTINE NOTES. ' . ' ' 41

highroad, one of the few' real roads. in Palestine, we passed a dead donkey decaying with intolerable stench, . one leg already a bleaching bone, and two men cutting off what was no doubt their supper from its corrupting sides. .Excuse me,'-but a detail like' this is necessary if you are to understand the difference between East and West!.

 

We rode on, not reluctantly, and soon the "Vale of Barley" opened out lovely in afternoon sunlight with, sufficient waving barley to justify its name. Dotted with villages and trees, this was perhaps the brightest bit of country side we had seen. Climbing slowly up zig-zag paths, to the right, we passed flocks of goats' and sheep following their shepherds, a large black snake three feet in length, dead on the path-way, looking as if the shepherds had just killed it, and then breasting the ridge, a puff of strong sea air, and b ! the hazy blue Mediterranean. Down into a lovely glen of olives and figs, past a well where the women were gathering for water, and up a stony steep path to a platform, brought us to Seboste. This miserablevillage—all that is left of the city of Omri, of Ahab, of Herod, crowns a hill surrounded on all sides by fertile valleys. Its flat houses and the minaret of its Mosque, a Crusaders' Church converted into 'a Mohammedan place of worship (there are also remains of the Crusaders at Nablus), look exceedingly striking and picturesque, terraced among the trees. The glen, through which you approach, carries you quite out of the scenery which has hitherto prevailed, and you feel to have entered a new country. We pitched on a platform" which was levelled to make a site for a temple of the Herods, and indeed the hill is everywhere terraced, and ruins peep out of a tangle of weeds and towering thistles. I don't think we have before or since had the impression of 'decay and of the glory of a departed civilisation so strongly as at Seboste, with its ruined theatres, its desolate colonnades, its ruined wheat-sown hippodrome, cut in a huge semi-circle into 'the hill-side. This little wretched village does not suggest a siege by Ben Haddan—or a three

  JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

years' struggle with Sargon. Where is all the Greek and Roman life that once made the hippodrome, the theatre, and the temple gay with the colour and movement of many people? What tales of passion, love, hatred, slander, of devotion and of selfishness lie buried under the wheat fields What a contrast, these ragged tatterdemalion peasants,. droning out a monotonous and unintellectual existence, year after year following each other with. Oriental sameness!

Monday, May 6th.—Remained in camp, temperature at night (mm.) 660 F., and spent the day "reading up" and dozing, and exploring the hill with camera and sketch-books. Numerous swallow-tail butterflies, speckled black-beetles swarming on thistles Captured a magnificent iridescent green beetle and a horrid, black scorpion.. Saw innumerable lizards and chameleons—the latter are wonderful illustrations of protective colouring: they change to green in the grass and a mottled gray on the stone, and often I have mistaken them for a crack or ridge in the stone. The mosque, once a church of St. John is curious, as it retains the mark of the Crusaders, though the greater part is now Arabic, while in the court are pill arsof Herod's time.

.With all their poverty and rags I have not seen what I call really degraded looking people, unless the Jericho Bedouins can be called so. Certainly you do not see, either here or in Egypt, in a whole tour of months, such as I am taking, as much real human degradation, as much self-conscious degradation, as you can see in the low parts of London in one day. Here the most ragged beggar has some suggestion, at

any rate, of dignity about him; .

Returning to our camp in the evening we passed the threshing floor. Here two oxen yoked together were treading out beans, there a man with a rude fork was tossing and beating corn, a clumsy and primitive method of winnowing.

As the light waned I seized the opportunity of sketching the ruined columns. I soon had an innumerable host of PALESTINE NOTES. '.' ' .' . . 4

admiring youths, who presently struck with an idea, climbed the columns and attitudinised for my benefit I was fain to include them in my sketch, and to pay the inevitable

backshish. .. . . .

Maximum temperature in tent during day only 84° . F.

owing to the breeze.

Tuesday, May-7th.—Off at 8 a.m.' Temp. at night 58° F. Hot, cloudless but breezy. Ride up a fine rocky glen from which we miss the water sadly. Olives, figs, sycamores, apple and pomegranate trees in dense orchards...

Numerous droves of black cattle----shorthorns; not like the great Egyptian buffaloes, but small, like our mountain cattle. . 'Wherever there is a view north we get frequent glimpses of Hermon—dominating the whole landscape. I never realised before how important an element this great snow-capped pile is in a Samarian landscape.

ESDRAELON. .

We ride all day through a succession of the broad, flat bottomed valleys which seem to be the feature of Samaria as the upland downs are of Judea, and as we proceed towards Esdraelori, these open out still more into great flat Ings, forming a series of easy passes, as Smith says, for an invader from the north. The reapers are at work here in the barley fields—the vales being alive with peasants. .for the first time. The women reap in long rows, squatting on their heels, with their skirts tucked up to the waist, singing, as they reapwith primitive hooks. Those who have babies bring them along in sledges covered with filthy cloth hangings. Every now and then a little naked fly-pestered thing is taken out to be fed. We . pass a well where there is the usual pretty group of Women, in this part of the country remarkably beautiful and attractive, and quite conscious of the flashing brilliance of their teeth, as they smile at you. The well-side in Palestine takes the place of the afternoon tea-table at home. It is  

  44 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

here that the gosip and the scandal take unto themselves the swift wings of speech, while at home it is whispered over the tea and biscuits, with chairs drawn close and many an expressive look!

The fields where the reapers have no call, are those occupied by the plough, and here the men find their work, ploughing with clumsy ploughs of bent branches, yoked to oxen and tipped with iron. The march of progress is slow here. I heard an American in the train to Jerusalem sighing because he hadn't the contract to supply that vale of Sharon with steam ploughs! I suppose that will come some day.!

Shortly before reaching Dothan, we are thrown into a state of excitement at the capture of a green chameleon, coiled up now in his last sleep in my bottle of spirits of wine. Dothan appears to be the most probable site of the well where Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. The well is there certainly, only as it is half hill of green, slimy water, I can hardly fancy Joseph remained in it long. Perhaps it was dry then. It lies by a huge cactus hedge sixteen feet high, which encloses a European house and a modern thrashing machine. A great flock of sheep, goats, and herds of cattle were reposing at the well with their shepherds, and to heighten the suggestiveness of the place, a string of loaded camels, perhaps en route for Egypt, were taking their noon-day repose. We lunched on a fine hill overlooking the well, where shade was procurable. The hills are almost always rounded in Palestine. I think I may leave the word out and let you take it for granted in future. The fact is that the country looks everywhere distinctly roche moutonizêe. We suppose there can have been no ice action, as the ice wall stopped short of Palestine) of course, even in glacial times. Is it possible that Hermon and Lebanon sent down glaciers? Or is it the way limestone Wears?

After Dothan we notice the soil changes in colour. Since Jerusalem we had commented on its redness, now it is brown. Snakes seem to abound about here; we passed a large one, four feet long, black and yellow, also dead as the previous one PALESTINE NOTES. 45

at Samaria,, and had an exciting chase after an equally large copper coloured one, which was watching us pass with raised head and glittering eye: from the meadow grass.

After Dothan and lunch, and two hours repose in the shade, we rode across country, through barley up. to our saddles (they don't seem to mind this here), in order to rejoin the Jericho road; crossing a stream, sluggish and reedy, and noticing for the first time how much whiter the corn grows here when ripe. "The fields are white unto the harvest, but the reapers are few." Both statements are correct. The thin line of reapers in these great valleys, squatting on their heels with primitive hooks, look few for the work they have to do. The hills are now much lower and less bold in outline than at Samaria. We have been coming down a sort of gigantic salmon ladder, a series of hollows each lower than the last. Pass a brilliant blue bird perched on a near rock, turn down a shallow, narrow wady, and there, white in palm, orange, lemon, almond, apple, pomegranate and other fruit trees; are the houses and minaret of Engannim, or Jenin, a market town of some little importance on the edge of Es-draelon. In the evening we strolled out to a Moslem cemetery on a low mound to the east of the town. Before us stretched Esdraelon, undulating, bathed in soft sunset light. Chequered with shadow, to the west, Carmel, fine and im-

posing, the gradually rising hills of Galilee. To the north, Nazareth visible, and Hermon towering behind. Mount Moreh,

Shunem, Jezreel, Mount Gilboa, bring the eye back along the east. It was a view of no little interest, and-we came upon it quite casually and unexpectedly. Next day we were to get a better prospect from Gilboa. Temperature at night, 68° F. Wind changes to sirocco, East.

Wednesday, May 8th.—Sirocco, hot, stifling, close. Temperature at .4.30 p.m. in shade, 97° F.,though it fell rapidly to 64° F. at night! Like a drop from an English average summer day of 65°F. to 320 F. and in 31 hours too!  

  46 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

 

Rode across level plain, ploughed land, and cornfields, to Mount Gilboa, starting 8 a.m. Reached the summit of this bare rocky hill by 10.30, to find a dirty village occupying the best point of view, and a cactus hedge doing its best to obstruct where possible. Here was a woman wielding the distaff—and from awful holes in the ground crept out numerous dirty children, dogs and chickens, which apparently live together. In spite of the dirt, the girls here too are very pretty. The Philosopher's field-glass was much I admired. One man in looking through it at the village of Nazareth, intimated that he could put his foot in Nazareth, and dwelt in a long and excited harangue on its merits and marvels to the assembled village. :1 gave my strength, however, not to the villagers, but to a careful sketch of the views—which took some considerable time. I wanted to get a thorough grip of the plain of Esdraelon, and the subsidiary plain of Jezreel, with a view to a better understanding of their bearing ion history. And as since then we have crossed and recrossed the great plain, and practically circumnavigated i, I think we have clearly impressed its features on our minds.

⦁ JEZREEL.

At our feet was the treeless plain of Jezreel, brown, green and yellow, sloping rapidly down to Beisan in the Ghor. Beyond the Ghor was the long line of Gilead, hazy and grey-blue in the heat of the sirocco wind, which blew up from them hot and lifeless. The plain of the Jordan in the wide bit by Beisan was just visible through this haze also, and what a heat there must have been down in that crack!! We could make out where Galilee lay hidden—thence the eye was led up to the heights of lordly Hermon. Safed was visible set on a bill just not eclipsed by the dark dome of Tabor. Opposite rose Moreh—Little Hermon—or. the Jebel Dabi, whence the line of Galilean hills, with Nazareth white on the green slopes, led the eye away to the grey sea. (It was not blue 

PALESTINE NOTES. 47

 

when the sirocco was blowing, but grey, under a leaden haze).

On the plain at the foot. of Mount Moreh, we can spot without the glasses the mud village of Shunem (the villages of the plain are mud like the Egyptian, for the plain is clear o the stones which cover the hills and upland valleys). A little further out is El Fuleh—a Crusaders' fort—the camping ground of the Philistines when Saul met his death, and when Gideon and his men watched the slaughter in Jezreel. Also the scene of a victory by Kieber with 1,500 horse over 25,000 of the Turkish, cavalry. Surely Napoleon must have been one of the great Persian or Egyptian warrior kings in a previous existence. The Plain of Acre is hidden, by the hills of Galilee, running down to the glen pass of Tel el Rias which connects that plain with Fsdraelon. Carmel rises .up steeply from the flat chequered carpet of brown and green, dark with its oaks and shrubs,—a strong contrast to the great treeless plain, where Carmel runs down to lesser elevations to meet the mountains of Samaria. We can just locate Megiddo, now Lejjun (a controversial site), and looking southward the hills of Samaria rise in height as we glance east, Jenin, white in its green oasis of trees nestling at their foot. Not so comprehensive a view as Ebal—it is a view at close quarters—that from Gilboa is nevertheless amply worth the detour. It is unquestionably the best point of view for the great plain. The descent from Gilboa was steep and awkward through dirty villages where, again, people seemed to come out of holes in the ground, and the huts are only ventilated and lit by a single door—the families living all together, apparently not excepting the fowls and goats. At the foot we came to a cliff with a cave in its face, whence welled a spring of beautiful water—Ain el Jalüd—with a great pond of clear water lapping the cliff-base. Here the natives were bathing in considerable numbers, and many horses and goats came to drink. It is supposed to be the spot where Gideon's men lapped; we noticed fresh-water crabs here—the first I have seen. Lunch

  48 JOHN WILhELM ROWNTREE.

was a hot, and not altogether resting occasion. We could get no shade, and this spring, almost at the head of the Vale of Jezreel, is below sea-level. A group of girls and boys who had been bathing, came and watched us with awe. A present of chocolate frightened and mystified them, even though I ate some myself, and made the Philosopher eat, I could not get them to do more than look dubiously at it. One of the girls, ragged, and not perhaps over clean, nevertheless possessed great beauty. One sees the most extreme types among the women here—from an ugliness which is really revolting, to a beauty rare in England. But it is always the young girls, twelve to seventeen years of age, who strike you; there seem to be no women who can stand the wear and tear of their hard life,, and they seem rapidly to wizen and grow old. You ride over a swelling upland of ploughed fields before you reach Esdraelon proper. A low ridge connects Gilboa and Moreh, and just on the ridge which marks off the plain of Jezreel as distinct, stands the mud village that was once royal Jezreel. Across dark brown soil, almost peaty in appearance, and through great brakes of thistles we make our way to El Fuleh, where, beside the miserable huts, we still trace the Crusaders' moat, and here also are our tents. At night there rose an unpleasant malaria, which, however, did us no harm; it appears all this region is still a swamp in winter.

How we rode thence next day to Megiddo and Mansura; how the day after we climbed Carmel and rode down to its farthest point; looking up the coast even to Acre; how we slept at Haifa and rode on thence to Nazareth where these lines are written—all these things will be set forth at a future date. At present, good-bye.

MEGIDDO.

May 9th.—We had dosed ourselves with quinine so that malarial Fuleh did us no harm, and we started at 8 a.m. to find a cool breeze instead of the exhausting sirocco of 

PALESTINE NOTES. 49

 

the day before. Our ride was across Esdraelon, back in a south-west direction to Megiddo, which we wanted to explore

at close quarters. Esdraelon was a sort of no man's land,

but is now the possession of wealthy Beyrout Christians, who collect revenues from the miserable mud villages. The

white house of a steward (we will hope a just one) was our

first land mark. The undulating ground (of a rich peaty, brown colour) was chiefly occupied by fields of yellow corn,

but great stretches, as yet unreclaimed, yielded only thistles

and hemlock—great towering brakes of them lining our path. Nothing could be less suggestive than the squalid mud hovels, and the wilderness of weeds which make the

village of Lejjun (or as some have it Megiddo, and I confess to feeling personally satisfied with G. A. Smith's plea for such an identification). I sat on the roof of one of the dwellings, and looking across the thistles and the great sheets of ripening corn, took a pencil sketch of the historic pass, by which so many armies have tramped north or south over to or from the Vale of Sharon. It was sufficiently unassuming —a herd of camels, perhaps on their way to Gaza, feeding on the slopes of the hills, and cattle grazing on the round swelling rise of ground which forms the pass itself. Fragments of masonry indicated the ancient site, and the sheikh of the village took us up through the corn to show us a ruined column which looked very forlorn indeed, standing there by itself "all alone." It is all that remains above ground of the ancient Legio. In a hot sun we skirted the rising spurs of Carmel, lunching under the grateful shade of a large olive, and crossed the famous brook Kishon, very much a brook and densely shrouded in oleander. Our camp was at Mansura, a little hamlet on the slopes of. Carmel. The foreground was dotted with numerous white tents—not the tents of Sisera, who camped near that very spot, but Turkish cavalry with horses out to grass. Esdraelon's military traditions were asserting themselves. At night our minimum temperature was 64° F.

6

  

WILHELM ROWNTREE.

CARMEL.

Friday, May ioth.—We at once began steeply to climb from our camping ground by a rugged path overhung now and then by crags. The scenery very rapidly changed, and we felt our surroundings to be distinctly more English. A fine oak tree at one point overhung with welcome sug-gestioñs of home—our first oak since England. The flowers were luxuriant—especially a hollyhock-like plant and others like tissue-paper roses, which all faded, unfortunately, in the saddle bag a few minutes after being picked. One was struck, after the bare plain, with the wealth of undergrowth and trees, thyme, wild almond, terebinth, olive, fir, sycamore, and at the same time we felt on our faces the dampness of the breeze from the sea. It is this latter that explains the former. Carmel is green long after the surrounding country has been burnt brown. At the top (the highest point Overlooks Esdraelon, not the sea) we came upon a chapel marking

the spot where Elijah is said to have withstood the prophets

of Baal. Clouds were rolling in from the Mediterranean,

and unfortunately prevented us seeing the full extent of

the view.

Landward we could not see beyond Tabor and Gilboa. To the south we got a peep at Sharon, hazy and cloud-driven, and looked over the shallow ridge, or potato heap rather, which divides it from Esdraelon.

So far we had had a Druse guide, who had engaged to take us to the point looking over the sea. Here, however, he calmly left us in spite of all expostulation, and we were left to find our way alone. John, the dragoman, did not know the exact path, for strictly speaking there are no paths, and we soon lost our way in the dense jungles of thorn and wild almond, etc., etc We had read that leopards can still be shot on Mount Carmel, and momentarily expected their roar, and flashing teeth in our horses' throats—but they must have been tame leopards; with all our beating about the bush we failed to raise a single specimen. And here I just wish 

PALESTINE NOTES. 51

to say that I don't agree with G. A. Smith when he says that Mount Ephraim, Mount Carmel is better taken as meaning a "Mount" rather than "hill-country." I had looked on Carmel as a single mount or ridge at one time, but in this ride of ours we found it to be a group of bold hills, with flat high valleys like Alps, villages, etc. At times you get so among these vales that you might be in Samaria—and though you frequently have views of Esdraelon, which with its squares and patches of green and yellow and brown looks like a badly designed carpet, you by no means have a continuous view, nor the sense of being on a ridge until you near the sea. At Es Fujeh, a Druse village, we had a fine view north to Acre, and looked over the golden sweep of sand to the green plain beyond, but Galilee was hidden all day in mist. After pressing sundry Druses into our service here and there as guides, and losing our way again when they left us with full but false directions, we finally lunched in a copse where the mountains dip to the sea, and where the rest of our road was in view. With the cold sea breeze in our faces (welcome after the sirocco) we rode down to the extreme point which is disfigured by a large Carmelite monastery with iron barred windows. Here from the terrace there was a glorious view —south as far as Athlit—north to Acre with Haifa at our feet. It was very refreshing to hear the wave music again, and to see the white fringe of foam on the beach. Among its green trees we noticed too, the pleasant relief of the red roofs of the German colony—giving unwonted colour to the scene. The flat roofs of the East are not picturesque, especially from above. After our horses had manceuvered round considerably in fear of the Monastery dogs, which were very obstreperous, we rode down a delightful path into Haifa. Vineyards and hops on either hand spoke of the German's love for his Roth Wein and Bier, while almond, fig, olive, apple, acacia and great stacks of geranium, but especially the palm trees, reminded ore of the southern latitudes. It was curious to see how neat everything was, to see German

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52 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

faces and the wicker perambulators, and unveiled women a veritable "Deutsche Wirthschaft," along with the cypresses away here in Syria. When we came near the sea our horses shied at the sound of the waves—we could hardly get them on at all—that speaks volumes for the dryness of the land, for surely a waterfall would have trained them to this had they ever heard one.

We found our tents under an olive tree of great dimensions in the outskirts of the dirtiest part of the Mohammedan quarter, and the view from our tent door of the palms, whole groves of them—the yellowstrip of coast and the sea beyond, reminded me strangely of Egypt.

NAZARETH.

Saturday, May iith.—We had seen Nazareth now since reaching JenIn, and to-day we really set off to go there. We were glad to make haste and leave the plain for the 1,000 feet of elevation which Nazareth enjoys, as the heat soon became close and oppressive. Especially on the long flat road skirting the base of Carmel were we made to feel the sun's unmerciful lash, for there was little or no shade, and the white dust of the road—a real road for once—reflected the dazzling light and beat back the heat into our faces. "It was 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road," with a vengeance. It was an unwonted experience; instead of picking our way over a dry stream bed, to be cantering hour after hour and actually covering the ground. As we rode out of Haifa we had an excellent mirage across the plain to the north, giving the impression of a palm-bordered lake where we knew only the plain of Acre to be—also, to remind us that this is not a land of Parish Councils, we came on a dead donkey in the Nazareth highway, which was being devoured by dogs, —a prelude only to a dead horse, which we were to see later in the day on the village green (threshing floor) in Nazareth itself, undergoing the same process. What would become of the Oriental without his dogs? An interesting testimony  

ALESTINE NOTES. 53

to the summer heat, and an illustration of Scripture withal, was to be observed in the booths or summer houses of boughs

and leaves built on the flat roofs of the village huts. We met women bending under great heaps, miniature stacks of green leaf foliage, which was to be made use of as a summer residence.

Then I must not forget the railway: G. A. Smith and Baedeker, both in haste to be up to date, mention a railway from Haifa down the vale of Jezreel and up the east side of Tiberias to Damascus. They both reckoned without the unspeakable Turk. He has in some way or other f11en foul of the French Company* who were constructing the line, and all is at a dead stop and likely to be. The line follows the road, overgrown with thistles two miles out of Haifa, and then stops. What could you want more than this, and the dead donkey in the road, to tell you that you are in the great and glorious Ottoman Empire?

Baedeker also speaks of the "excellent carriage road to Nazareth" just finished. It may have been quite excellent, say after the manner of a country lane before the winter rains, but now there is no evidence whatever of any attempt at keeping the road in repair, and the wash-outs are as the rains left them. I pity those who travel this road by carriage, especially those who travel by the sort of rude country waggon service which has been established, and which we passed as it jolted and swayed and tilted its way down to Haifa. Commend me even to the irritating trot of a Syrian horse by preference. At one point I ought to say, however, they were really making a bridge. The engineer was European, the navvies were women.

1 think I never saw so many chameleons in one day as I did on that ride—they were everywhere—even gazing skyward with a curious intentness, as if reading the stars, from the tops of the telegraph posts. They are a very curious feature in your day's ride—they have such an unearthly

* Afterwards the Thames Iron Company, Ltd.—En.

54 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

===

appearance,, as if made of crumpled paper with nothing inside.

Lunch was under a spreading oak tree, in cool shade, and with oaks dotting the vale on every side. For all the world this first 'ow Shephelah of Galilee was like Surrey, and had the greenness of our own dear old country. But with a difference, for as we lunched there passed a procession that has been repeated over and over again since Abraham's day. A long line of camels laden with corn from the Hauran, going down to Gaza—and if they could not sell their goods there, on to Cairo.

Camels from the Hauran had been reposing round our tents at Haifa, coming-in the evening and sitting down with that curious telescopic action that a camel has, folding himself up bit by bit deliberately as if it hurt him to sit down; but these were going no further than Haifa, and indeed passed us shortly after the first string of camels had gone by, in their return journey. Nothing changes in the east, and I am almost glad that the railway to Damascus is not going to be finished. just yet, these bits of fossilised history are none too common.

A descent into the plain of Esdraelon, followed by the final steep ascent of the main Nazarene range, soon brought us up to a sort of plateau land, limestone and shrub with the suggestion almost of English moor country. East, Carmel, Haifa, the sea, all hazy and grey-blue, except for the gleam of yellow sand. North, round hills, grey-green and yellowish brown, rising as you look still further north to the highlands of upper Galilee—Sepphoris, and sundry other mud villages peeping out here and there. North-east, Hermon. East the dark green rounded hill of Tabor, and south the great plains. Such roughly was our view as we clattered along to the straggling village in its hollow depression in the edge of the cliff-like ranges of hills,which bears one of the most world famous names.

A first view of Nazareth is most disappointing. Hideous modern churches and an excessively vulgar renaissance residence or schools brand new, are the objects which strike you  

PALESTINE NOTES. 55

as-you breast the rise in: the road, and ride down through the suburbs. We pass the well, the only spring, where, no doubt, young Mary came with the: other village girls to gossip and perhaps get impatient for her turn as the girls do now. They were laughing and chatting, and I am afraid pushing and squabbling, as no doubt in days of yore, as we rode past. A gay motley crew in their loose, baggy, many coloured trousers and sashes. Our tents were barely ready for us, we had ridden so fast, and before they were up we had had a lively introduction to Nazarene society. Somehow or other, I don't know how, a man and his wife, living near the camping ground, started to abuse our cook in good round Arabic. The hubbub grew momentarily—outsiders joined and took parts—all our camp followers rushed out and began hurling back Arabic equally vigorous at the offenders. Harma not liking the look of things, sent for the soldiers, and soon he was entertaining the officer at coffee and giving his account of the affair. Two soldiers arrested the man, but we were entirely averse to any proceedings being taken, and said we did not wish him to be sent to jail; let him apologise and promise "never to do so anymore." This he did, whether at the bayonet's point or how I do not know, and the affair passed away just as it was about to make an unpleasantly large stir in the village, a considerable crowd having collected in due course. We were able to appreciate Baedeker's statement that

the Nazarenes are of a turbulent disposition," after this without any difficulty.

After dinner we climbed up to a sort of pass in the Tiberias road (sic) where Hermon came into view, and were rewarded by a lovely sunset. We made up our minds we would keep

to the hills, do no sightseeing, visit the well once or twice

and stop two days. This we did, and as a consequence Nazareth grew upon us. We have not had our memory marred

by monkish superstition, candles, incense and false relics and sites, We carry away with us chiefly the memory of breezy hills with an extensive prospect, of a grey-green hollow

56 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

dotted with white houses and a few cypresses, and perhaps above all the gay bustling scenes around the village spring. And I don't feel that I have missed anything in "doing" Nazareth so lazily. One can only stand Jerusalem once, and does not crave to have it repeated.

Sunday, May izth.—A very heavy dew in the night—the tent wringing wet, and the dew dripping off the eaves into the ground like rain.

It was Sunday, and we simply lazed all day, reading, strolling about on the hills, and writing. Our tents were

on the slope of the hill which you climb on the ride to Tiberias —high up, and overlooking the hollow with the scattered village. A very nice site it was for a camping ground if only the Nazarene dogs had sought some other trysting ground at night, and howled and barked their serenades elsewhere. So lazy were we, that our chief expedition was to a hill commanding a fine view that rises behind the village. We had the same view as I have already described, only complete and a little more extensive, including land across Jordan. Our old travelling companion, Hermon—seen every day since Bethel,—reminded us of Pilatus, having just about as much snow as Pilatus in early summer, and appreciably less than when we first saw him, so fast was the snow disappearing.

I wish, as over and over again I have wished while in Syria, that I could number botany as an " accomplishment " ; —I can only say of the Nazarene flowers that the ground seemed mainly covered by a sort of scrub—not prepossessing, —which is enlivened by pinks, purple asters, and the same hollyhock-like plant I noticed in Carmel. The dogs we found troublesome, as they rush out and bark at you quite unprovoked. Of course you find the mixture of religion here again as at Jerusalem. We met a long string of girls in prim uniform under the charge-of nuns, and continually came across a monk in brown gown, or a shovel-hatted Latin priest.

PALESTINE NOTES. 57

The girls, many with a distinct beauty foreign to the prevailing types we had seen, and suggesting French or Italian blood, are the most interesting, quarrelling round the well, and striding through the streets with their great black jars on their heads. Even little tinies, three or four years old, go to the spring carrying little wooden dummy jars upon their heads to make believe they are carrying water. They do not seem to mind being sketched or photographed—we found we were able to do both with impunity.

Monday, May 13th.—(Night temperature 58° F.). I consider I was very diligent in the morning—painting in Edward Worsdell's outline pencil sketch of the view from behind Nazareth, especially as a cold, dry wind dried up the washes before you were prepared for it, and rendered painting difficult.

In the afternoon we witnessed the arrival of the Pasha of the district coming over from Tiberias to visit Tyre, where the Christians and Mohammedans had been fighting and killing each other. He was an old man, enormously fat. Apparently all Nazareth, i.e., male Nazareth, went out to meet him in procession. Mohammedans first, and Christians afterwards. Poor old Pasha, he must have suffered on the rough Tiberias path. He was an enormous old Turk,—one feared to see the horse break in two as he rode down past the tents, gingerly and slow.

Tuesday, May 4h.—Throughout we found Nazareth very pleasant and cool. At no time did the tent exceed 8o° F. which we have got to find very endurable.

THE LAKE OF GALILEE.

The ride down was not eventful, nor was it at all a striking one. We went by way of Kefr Kenna (possibly Cana of Galilee), down bare valleys clothed with scrub at times, occasionally between remarkable • hedges of cactus, and

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58 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

pushing our way through thorny brakes and across cornfields when we. made short cuts.

At Kefr Kenna the horses were stopped to drink at the village trough, which proved to be a Roman Sarcophagus, with battered stone wreathing still visible upon it. We lunched, as we always do when we can, in an olive orchard, and rode over bare uplands, roiling and featureless except for the somewhat striking top of Kurn HattIn, marking Saladin's great victory over the Crusaders—the death blow of all the Crusades. Here an eagle, perched on a telegraph pole, allowed us to get a near view of him, and then rose and sailed away into. space. Great herds of black cattle, driven by Bedouin with formidable clubs and staves, passed us from time to time. We purchased specimens from the astonished natives to illustrate the rod and staff that comforted free-booting David, who must have been far more like the fierce dark-looking cattle drovers in their black and yellow cloaks, than the idealistic pictures one is accustomed to.

At last the Lake of Galilee comes, into sight. The long level wall of the opposite shores—unrelieved and unbroken—the one relieving feature, Old Hermon presiding over the scene at the northern end. Nothing has more surprised me than Galilee. I suppose one unconsciously idealises historic scenes such as crowd the shores of this lake, and it is somewhat disturbing to preconceived ideas to find these stirring scenes set in such commonplace surroundings. But the dreariness of Galilee is not its worst feature—the dull black basalt shores are at least more tolerable than the awful oppressiveness of the climate.

Our descent was steep, and our first view of the one town, Tiberias, striking and picturesque. Anyone who has been to Tiberias will smile when he is told that it is a health resort for the natives. Of course, the attraction is the sulphur hot spring, it is certainly not fever-stricken Tiberias itself.

We rode through its close, stuffy streets—hung across with rags to keep off the sun; we looked into its slummy 

PALESTINE NOTES. 59

courts, smelt its many and fearful smells, and were not surprised to see the washed-out pale faces of the inhabitants —(mainly Jews who had been paid their passage from Europe by wealthy brethren who still maintain them). And yet Tiberias is named as one of the four sacred towns by the Jews, the others being Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed. Baedeker says that the King of the Fleas lived at Tiberias. If there is such a functionary, I think the locality must be correct, but how human beings can come here by choice I do not know. I have not heard it suggested before, but is it not possible that the climate, along with the invasions from beyond Jordan and other causes, has had its share in depopulating the district? The once populous lake of Galilee was 600 feet below the sea i,800 years ago as now—and then as now, the sea breezes would pass over to the Hauran and send no healing breath down to those feverish shores, while the sun would beat down just as fiercely and mercilessly.*

⦁ IOur tents were near the springs and faced the lake—a decidedly pleasant situation and well away from the town, whose black basalt castle dates from Herod's time, and whose ruined walls and white houses were more picturesque at a distance.

My I7th.—The temperature at night fell to 70 F. —cool for Galilee—but owing to the moist density of the atmosphere, much more trying than 800 F. at Nazareth. We simply streamed with perspiration all night. The dragoman had told me at Nazareth that the camp followers were always glad to 'get out of the Galilee and Huleh district as soon as possible. I could understand him even then—much more so two days later—and if the natives feel this, is not it rather in support of my argument as to the climate being a depopulating agent?

We had a morning bathe, though the Galilee water is not pleasant—a disagreeable taste and smell, and green scum

*May it not well be that the land, no less than the people; has "developed by way of deterioration" under , Moslem rule. —En.

6o JOHN WILHELM :ROWNTREE. PALESTINE NOTES. 61

on the surface, and shortly after seven, having had our breakfast, rode south along the shore to see the exit of the Jordan.

A party of natives had pitched their tents outside the Baths, coming all the way from Jaffa for the purpose—and such

baths-.--the stained, damp, filthy exterior of .the buildings ought surely have been sufficient to keep all customers at a distance, not to mention the frightful smell.

The Jordan makes a modest exit—through a plain, I suppose, of its own making—an agreeable green patch among the and hills. What a place of ruins it is! We rode past great blocks of black basalt masonry, ruinous and grass grown, nearly, all the length of the ride. We bathed from a ruined wall and the bottom was bad because of the blocks with which the shores are lined. If only Galilee were under English government and proper excavations could be made!

At 9.30 a.m. we were back at our camp, already limp with the heat—not the direct heat, of the sun, for the sky was grey, but the close heat of an unventilated greenhouse. We took ship and sailed to Capernaum,—at least to Tell Hum, which may very possibly not be Capernaum at all—so great is the doubt and obscurity in which the ancient sites are buried. We only had to pay twenty francs for the trip—very modest. We should have declined to go, but were too limp to sit in our saddles. We wanted to sail out into the middle of the lake, but that would be five francs more—in fact, any deviation was five francs, so we had to just put up with it and be sailed and rowed, we did not care what, to Tell Hum. I never want such another experience. There was no relief. I can understand people going crazy with the heat. The heat of Egypt though probably greater, was far more endurable as it was dry and crisp. Now and then we had a pretty bit—oleanders giving the banks a blaze of crimson colour.

At Tell Hum we met three English ladies with their dragoman, and explored the black basalt ruins with them. But there was nothing to see—the monks (there is a monastery

there) had hidden everything under a pile of. rubbish for fear-of the Turkish government, so there was nothing left to do but to sketch. and lunch, and row back to Khan Minyeh, our camping ground. Here we bathed again and gathered the curious shells that looked as if they ought to be on a seashore.

There is a beautiful spring here welling out under a crag, and bubbling among basalt ruins, numerous tortoises basking in its shallow, clear water—and great brakes of tall papyrus. The place was not healthy—camping practically in a marsh —but the three ladies had their camp there, too, and what three ladies were not afraid of, we were not going to be. Late in the evening the ladies' dragoman passed our tents, his hands full of birds. He had been shooting, and had got a number of blue kingfishers, magnificent colour—but I begged a specimen in vain.

At night the temperature fell to 75° F. It was not possible to sleep much—the dense swarms of mosquitoes defied evasion and got inside the curtains. The poor camp followers had  fearful time of it—John being bitten all over his portly self and very doleful thereat in the morning. In addition one of the grooms caught a fever, small wonder—and we were glad when, on May 16th, we set off over the hills to Huleh, a doleful and washed out crew.

THE GALILEAN HILLS.

But we were not destined that day to get much fresher air—occasionally a puff came from the west, but that was all. We rode over country similar in character to that which separates Nazareth from Galilee. A large Khan (Khan Jubb Josef) surrounded by cattle was the first object of any note unless one were to mention the ants busy all day dragging grains of bearded wheat to their little colonies. They were very busy harvesting indeed. Before we descended into the Huleh valley, we passed a colony floated and financed by Rothschilds. Barbed wire fencing—well cultivated ground, red-roofed houses, white, neat and clean. How this

62 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

land would blossom out again if it could be rescued from the dilapidating influence of the Turk. Huleh is merely a mountain tarn. It looked rather dreary, hung over by a heavy heat haze which made the mountains opposite indistinct. As with Galilee, Hermbn dominated everything, and gave the only character to the scene that the view possessed.

At a spring and beside running water we lunched. An old mill stood near, and here evidently the cattle from far and near were wont to take their noonday siesta. It was not long before we were surrounded by a lowing herd, and finally we found our operations with the sardines and soda water followed in breathless suspense, awestruck and admiring, by thirteen Bedouin shepherds. One of these was playing a lute made from a reed, and carved rudely during his leisure hours. Being again reminded of David, I managed with some diplomacy on John's part to purchase this treasure for the vast sum of threepence, which seemed mightily to please.

A tiring ride in oppressive heat brought us about 5.30 to our tents, pitched on a patch of dry ground at a spring called Ain Masas, not far from the great marsh which lies north of Huleh. Beyond us was a large Bedouin camp—dozens of the low black tents being scattered over the plain. We were allowed to stroll up close to them without let or hindrance, and to watch the evening meal from the common pot, which served for all the family. We were a little anxious as to malaria. We could see the ominous white mist rise over the marsh, but providentially the wind blew from our side throughout the night. When we went to bed there rose on every side, not a murmur, but a roar of frogs—even I could hear it. Again the temperature fell only to 75° F. and again the close, damp air made us suffer considerably. I had just dozed off when a crash woke me. The Philosopher was lighting the candle, and the tent was every now and then lit up by vivid flashes of lightning. The rain was coming down in torrents, and the wind blowing a hurricane, had 

PALESTINE NOTES. 63

almost carried off the tent. Found Strabo and the Philosopher sitting up in bed, luggage scattering over the marsh, and the tent no one knows where. However, we were spared that. John was out before we had time to call, and we heard him and his men rush out into the rain and hold on to the straining ropes, hammering down the pegs and making all square again. It was a near shave, but soon the storm rolled away down to Galilee, muttering and rumbling among the hills, and we were able to turn over and sleep with our confidence in our dragoman considerably increased. The work had been promptly and smartly done.

Friday, May 17th.—Still oppressive. The thunder had not cleared the air. Hermon was hid in heavy cloud.

Starting before eight, we rode weary and unrefreshed by our sleep over the steaming plain—all the streams swollen with muddy torrents from the rain,—and the ground soft and muddy. It was squelch, squelch through the bog, and splash, splash through a running stream, or stumble, stumble over rough, rocky paths—and all the while you were steaming in a Turkish bath. At seven o'clock breakfast, the thermometer had risen to over 8o° F. and was rising then —and a damp heat like that is as exhausting as anything I know. We were scarcely in the mood to enjoy the glorious banks of oleander, or wonder at the great masses of papyrus. But at length the change came. We had crossed the plain to the east and breasted the first low spurs of Hermon,—we had crossed the Hasbana—one of the sources of Jordan, a cold mountain stream roaring down over its rocks like a Swiss torrent, a most welcome sight and carrying with it a whiff of the pure mountain air. We had lunched under fig trees within earshot of the roar of Jordan's main stream issuing from its cave—and were close under the fine castled hill of Bâniâs—the ancient Caesarea Philippi—when lo! behold the clouds vanished and from the west, chasing them before him, came the cool sea breeze. It was wonderful

64 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.

the effect on one's spirits, and how the colour of everything changed under the old cloudless blue we had learned to associate with the East. Behind, like a nightmare, lay Galilee and Huleh, before us the heights of Hermon and the charm of. Damascus. If you want to see Galilee, look down on it from the heights, but do not go down to the lake itself.* After lunch we strolled up and examined the actual source of the river that over two weeks before we had seen flowing into the Dead Sea. It was issuing from a number of shallow caves at the foot of a limestone crag in a lovely wooded glen. Above on the rock face were two niches, Greek—dëdicated to the god Pan. This spot, and no wonder, had impressed the ancients. The water was icy cold. The Philosopher bathed in it and came out gasping in half-a-minute,. Less venturesome I only dipped my head in it, and withdrew it dizzy and aching. It was a refreshing contrast to the warm, slimy water of Galilee. And so we passed out of Palestine zig-zagging up, up, in magnificent air, and with widening views over the Galilean hills—up, up, till the valleys became rocky and bare, and the snow on Hermon seemed close too. Half-an-hour's climb above, and finally breasting a ridge of rock we came on a mountain valley under Hermon's very crown, and there were our tents pitched by the village of Mejdel esh She ms, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the sea. The air was magnificent, and we noticed at once the difference in the people. Down in Galilee and Huleh they were a poor, fever stricken set of people with no go about them—hee the children were romping about the green—the men were fine and sturdy, and the women good-looking and with plenty of colour in their cheeks. We went to bed with all our available rugs, etc., pressed into the service, and a hot water bottle was actually a comfort. Temperature at night 47° F.

* The account of the Lake of Galilee is a warning against Europeans visiting it so late as May. In the earlier spring it may give very different impressions, and leave memories of great and attractive beauty. Sails on the lake have been a crowning enjoyment to some of J.W. R.'s kinsfolk.—ED

PALESTINE NOTES. 65

Saturday, May 18th.—We woke immensely refreshed by a really good night, to hear a rather queer tale from John. Mejdel esh Shems is a Druse village, and four days previously a Druse had murdered the son of a Kurdish village sheikh, at Artuz, on our way to Damascus. The Druses had been behaving badly, driving off cattle, etc., and the Kurds would have no more of it, and were out on the war-trail, sworn to kill every Druse they could get. Moreover, an American had been robbed on this very route a little while ago. The awkwardness of it all lay in the constitution of our party. Two of our muleteers happened to be Druses from this very village. However, we decided to travel with the baggage and to disguise the Druses—and accordingly set out, a large and imposing party. As a matter of fact, all we saw of the disturbed state of things was an armed Druse sentry silent on the hill-slope as we descended the pass, and a troop of Turkish cavalry sent out to restore order. Nevertheless, the incident was very suggestive. The state of things in Old Testament times was after all very similar to this.

[The travellers visited Damascus and Baalbec, and returned by way of the Friends' Mission at Brumana.]

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