II The Reverse Way From West to East
1. Acre to Tiberias
March 1850.
Crossed the river Naamân, and paced slowly over the extensive marshes, making for Shefa ’Amer.
Among these marshes was a herd of about two hundred horses at free pasture upon the grass, weeds, and rushes, so succulent at that season of the year; these were on their way from Northern Syria, and were intended for sale.
Also among the marshes was a temporary village of tabernacles or huts made of plaited palm-leaves, and papyrus canes or reeds, such as one sees on the line of the Jordan or about the lake Hhooleh, with the same class of proprietors in both cases, the Ghawârineh Arabs. Strange that this race of human beings should prefer to inhabit feverish marshes.
We came upon a paved causeway (called the Resheef) leading from a large mill towards the sea, but only the portion nearest to the mill now remains entire. Probably this was turned to some account during the French military operations against Acre in 1799.
At Shefa ’Amer we had ’Ebeleen in sight. Both places are conspicuous over the district around. At some distance from the town is a large well for its supply, and along the broad road between the well and the town, the Druse women are constantly passing with their horns over the forehead and their jars on the shoulders.
Shefa ’Amer is crowned by the remains of the Palace Castle erected by Shaikh Daher, (celebrated in Volney’s “Syria,”) and the shell of a large old Christian church; near these are some very ancient wells cut into solid rock, but now containing no water.
The majority of the inhabitants are Druses. There are a few Moslems and a few Christians; but at that time there were thirty Jewish families living as agriculturists, cultivating grain and olives on their own landed property, most of it family inheritance; some of these people were of Algerine descent. They had their own synagogue and legally qualified butcher, and their numbers had formerly been more considerable. 243
I felt an especial interest in these people, as well as in the knowledge of a similar community existing at a small village not far distant named Bokea’h.
Upon the road that day, and in half an hour from the town, I met a couple of rosy-faced, strong peasant men, with sparkling Jewish eyes, who set to speaking Hebrew with some Rabbis in my company. It was in a scene of woodland and cornfields under the blue canopy of heaven; their costume was that of the ordinary Metâwaleh peasantry, i.e., a scarlet and embroidered short coat with large dark blue trousers. I shall never forget this circumstance, of finding men of Israel, fresh from agricultural labour, conversing in Hebrew in their own land.
Our road then led through glades of exceeding beauty: an English park backed by mountains in a Syrian climate. The gently undulating land was clothed with rich grass, and sprinkled (not thronged) with timber, chiefly terebinth. Linnets and thrushes were warbling among the trees.
Cuf’r Menda was on our left; Sefoorieh at a distance on the right; Rumâneh and ’Azair before us. Then we entered upon the long plain of ’Arâbet el Battoof, and rested a short time before sunset at ’Ain Bedaweeyeh for refreshment. Carpets were spread upon long grass which sank under the pressure. The horses and mules were set free to pasture, and we formed ourselves into separate eating groups; one Christian, one Jewish, and one Moslem. Some storks were likewise feeding in a neighbouring bean-field, the fragrance of which was delicious, as wafted to us by the evening breeze.
On remounting for the road to Tiberias, several hours beyond, we put on cloaks to keep off the falling dew, and paced on by a beautiful moonlight, at first dimmed by mist or dew, which afterwards disappeared; the spear carried by one of the party glimmered as we went on; and the Jews whiled away the time by recitation of their evening prayers on horseback, and conversing in the Hebrew language about their warrior forefathers of Galilee.
2. Caiffa to Nazareth
July 1854.
Passing through the rush of ’Ain Saadeh water as it tumbles from the rocky base of Carmel, and by the Beled esh Shaikh and Yajoor, we crossed the Kishon bed to take a road new to me, namely, by Damooneh, leaving Mujaidel and Yafah visible on our right, upon the crests of hills overlooking the Plain of Esdraelon. We passed through a good deal of greenwood scenery, so refreshing in the month of July, but on the whole not equal in beauty to the road by Shefa ’Amer.
3. Caiffa to Nazareth
Sept. 1857.
By Beled esh Shaikh and Yajoor, where threshing of the harvest was in progress in the Galilean fashion by means of the moraj, (in Hebrew the morag, Isa. xli. 15 and 2 Sam. xxiv. 22,) which is a stout board of wood, with iron teeth or flints on the under surface. The plank turns upward in front, and the man or boy stands upon it in exactly the attitude of a Grecian charioteer: one foot advanced; the head and chest well thrown back; the reins in his left hand, and with a long thonged whip, he drives the horses that are attached to it at a rapid pace in a circle, shouting merrily or singing as they go,—a totally different operation from the drowsy creeping of the oxen or other animals for threshing in our Southern Palestine.
In due time we crossed the bed of the Kishon, which was quite dry in that part above the Sa’adeh, except where some green stagnant puddles occurred at intervals.
We passed a herd of camels belonging to the Turkomans, walking unburdened, whereas all other animals that we met were laden with grain for the port of Caiffa. At the commencement of the ascent on the opposite hills we rested under the Tell el Hharatheeyeh, beneath a noble tree of the evergreen oak; and near there we passed alongside of a camp of degraded Arabs called Beramki, in a few tattered tents, but they had some capital horses picketed around them. The villagers regard these people with ineffable disdain, as “cousins of the gipsies.” It seems that they subsist by singing songs among real Arab camps, and by letting out their horses as stallions for breeding, with variations of picking and stealing. We saw some of their women and children, filthy in person, painfully employed in scraping away the ground wherever black clay showed itself, in the hope of reaching water, however bad in quality.
There was threshing at Jaida as we passed that village. We halted at the spring of Samooniah, and at Ma’alool; the priest of the village was superintending the parish threshing: his reverence was covered with dust from the operation.
4. Caiffa to Shefa ’Amer
June 1859.
From Beled esh Shaikh and Yajoor, across the Kishon channel, upon the plain of Acre, and rested a short time at the Weli of Jedro, (very like a Hebrew name,) and then near us, all close together were the three villages of Cuf’r Ita, Ja’arah and Hurbaj. Thence to Shefa ’Amer, first diverging somewhat to ’Ebeleen.