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THE DESERT AND
THE SOWN

[Frontispiece: Bedouins of the Syrian Desert.
(JOHN SARGENT. R.A.)]


SYRIA
THE DESERT & THE SOWN


BY

GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL


_WITH FRONTISPIECE BY JOHN SARGENT, R. A.
ALSO MANY ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP_


NEW YORK
E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
1907




[Illustration: arabic]


He deems the Wild the sweetest of friends, and travels on
where travels above him the Mother of all the clustered stars

TA'ABATA SHARRAN




To A. C. L.
WHO KNOWS THE HEART
OF THE EAST




PREFACE


Those who venture to add a new volume to the vast literature of travel,
unless they be men of learning or politicians, must be prepared with an
excuse. My excuse is ready, as specious and I hope as plausible as such
things should be. I desired to write not so much a book of travel as an
account of the people whom I met or who accompanied me on my way, and to
show what the world is like in which they live and how it appears to
them. And since it was better that they should, as far as possible, tell
their own tale, I have strung their words upon the thread of the road,
relating as I heard them the stories with which shepherd and man-at-arms
beguiled the hours of the march, the talk that passed from lip to lip
round the camp fire, in the black tent of the Arab and the guest-chamber
of the Druze, as well as the more cautious utterances of Turkish and
Syrian officials. Their statecraft consists of guesses, often shrewd
enough, at the results that may spring from the clash of unknown forces,
of which the strength and the aim are but dimly apprehended; their
wisdom is that of men whose channels of information and standards for
comparison are different from ours, and who bring a different set of
preconceptions to bear upon the problems laid before them. The Oriental
is like a very old child. He is unacquainted with many branches of
knowledge which we have come to regard as of elementary necessity;
frequently, but not always, his mind is little preoccupied with the need
of acquiring them, and he concerns himself scarcely at all with what we
call practical utility. He is not practical in our acceptation of the
word, any more than a child is practical, and his utility is not ours.
On the other hand, his action is guided by traditions of conduct and
morality that go back to the beginnings of civilisation, traditions
unmodified as yet by any important change in the manner of life to which
they apply and out of which they arose. These things apart, he is as we
are; human nature does not undergo a complete change east of Suez, nor
is it impossible to be on terms of friendship and sympathy with the
dwellers in those regions. In some respects it is even easier than in
Europe. You will find in the East habits of intercourse less fettered by
artificial chains, and a wider tolerance born of greater diversity.
Society is divided by caste and sect and tribe into an infinite number
of groups, each one of which is following a law of its own, and however
fantastic, to our thinking, that law may be, to the Oriental it is an
ample and a satisfactory explanation of all peculiarities. A man may go
about in public veiled up to the eyes, or clad if he please only in a
girdle: he will excite no remark. Why should he? Like every one else he
is merely obeying his own law. So too the European may pass up and down
the wildest places, encountering little curiosity and of criticism even
less. The news he brings will be heard with interest, his opinions will
be listened to with attention, but he will not be thought odd or mad,
nor even mistaken, because his practices and the ways of his thought are
at variance with those of the people among whom he finds himself.
"'Ādat-hu:" it is his custom. And for this reason he will be the wiser
if he does not seek to ingratiate himself with Orientals by trying to
ape their habits, unless he is so skilful that he can pass as one of
themselves. Let him treat the law of others respectfully, but he himself
will meet with a far greater respect if he adheres strictly to his own.
For a woman this rule is of the first importance, since a woman can
never disguise herself effectually. That she should be known to come of
a great and honoured stock, whose customs are inviolable, is her best
claim to consideration.

None of the country through which I went is ground virgin to the
traveller, though parts of it have been visited but seldom, and
described only in works that are costly and often difficult to obtain.
Of such places I have given a brief account, and as many photographs as
seemed to be of value. I have also noted in the northern cities of Syria
those vestiges of antiquity that catch the eye of a casual observer.
There is still much exploration to be done in Syria and on the edge of
the desert, and there are many difficult problems yet to be solved. The
work has been well begun by de Vogüé, Wetzstein, Brünnow, Sachau,
Dussaud, Puchstein and his colleagues, the members of the Princeton
Expedition and others. To their books I refer those who would learn how
immeasurably rich is the land in architectural monuments and in the
epigraphic records of a far-reaching history.

My journey did not end at Alexandretta as this account ends. In Asia
Minor I was, however, concerned mainly with archæology; the results of
what work I did there have been published in a series of papers in the
"Revue Archéologique," where, through the kindness of the editor,
Monsieur Salomon Reinach, they have found a more suitable place than the
pages of such a book as this could have offered them.

I do not know either the people or the language of Asia Minor well
enough to come into anything like a close touch with the country, but I
am prepared, even on a meagre acquaintance, to lay tokens of esteem at
the feet of the Turkish peasant. He is gifted with many virtues, with
the virtue of hospitality beyond all others.

I have been at some pains to relate the actual political conditions of
unimportant persons. They do not appear so unimportant to one who is in
their midst, and for my part I have always been grateful to those who
have provided me with a clue to their relations with one another. But I
am not concerned to justify or condemn the government of the Turk. I
have lived long enough in Syria to realise that his rule is far from
being the ideal of administration, and seen enough of the turbulent
elements which he keeps more or less in order to know that his post is a
difficult one. I do not believe that any government would give universal
satisfaction; indeed, there are few which attain that desired end even
in more united countries. Being English, I am persuaded that we are the
people who could best have taken Syria in hand with the prospect of a
success greater than that which might be attained by a moderately
reasonable Sultan. We have long recognised that the task will not fall
to us. We have unfortunately done more than this. Throughout the
dominions of Turkey we have allowed a very great reputation to weaken
and decline; reluctant to accept the responsibility of official
interference, we have yet permitted the irresponsible protests,
vehemently expressed, of a sentimentality that I make bold to qualify as
ignorant, and our dealings with the Turk have thus presented an air of
vacillation which he may be pardoned for considering perfidious and for
regarding with animosity. These feelings, combined with the deep-seated
dread of a great Asiatic Empire which is also mistress of Egypt and of
the sea, have, I think, led the Porte to seize the first opportunity for
open resistance to British demands, whether out of simple miscalculation
of the spirit that would be aroused, or with the hope of foreign
backing, it is immaterial to decide, The result is equally deplorable,
and if I have gauged the matter at all correctly, the root of it lies in
the disappearance of English influence at Constantinople. The position
of authority that we occupied has been taken by another, yet it is and
must be of far deeper importance to us than to any other that we should
be able to guide when necessary the tortuous politics of Yildiz Kiosk.
The greatest of all Mohammedan powers cannot afford to let her relations
with the Khalif of Islām be regulated with so little consistency or
firmness, and if the Sultan's obstinacy in the Tābah quarrel can prove
to us how far the reins have slipped from our hands, it will have served
its turn. Seated as we are upon the Mediterranean and having at our
command, as I believe, a considerable amount of goodwill within the
Turkish empire and the memories of an ancient friendship, it should not
be impossible to recapture the place we have lost.

But these are matters outside the scope of the present book, and my
_apologia_ had best end where every Oriental writer would have begun:
"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!"


MOUNT GRACE PRIORY.




CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
INDEX




ILLUSTRATIONS

Bedouin of the Syrian Desert  Frontispiece
The Mosque of 'Umar, Jerusalem
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
A Street in Jerusalem
St. Stephen's Gate, Jerusalem
A Mahommedan Procession passing the Garden of Olives
Russian Pilgrims
Pilgrims receiving Baptism in Jordan
Monastery of Kuruntul above Jericho
Crossing the Ghōr
The Bridge over Jordan
The Monastery of Mar Saba, Wilderness of Judæ
The Wall of Lamentation, Jerusalem
Jews of Bokhara
Abyssinian Priests
An Arab of the 'Adwān Guarding Crops
An Encampment near the Dead Sea
The Theatre, 'Ammān
A Gateway, 'Ammān
The Temple, Khureibet es Sūḳ
Mausoleum, Khureibet es Sūḳ
Arabs of the Belḳa
A Ruined Church, Mādeba
The Ḳal'ah at Zīza
A Christian Encampment
Flocks of the Ṣukhūr
A Roman Milestone
Mshitta
Mshitta, the Façade
Mshitta, the Inner Halls
Arabs of the Belḳa
Fellāḥ ul 'Isa ad Da'ja
A Capital at Muwaġġar
A Capital at Muwaġġar
A Capital at Muwaġġar
Milking Sheep
G̣ablān ibn Ḥamūd ad Da'ja
On the Ḥājj Road
Arabs Riding Mardūf
A Travelling Encampment of the 'Ag̣ēl
A Desert Well
A Desert Water-course
Camels of the Ḥaseneh
Umm ej Jemāl
Watering Camels
Striking Camp
Muḥammad el Aṭrash
Desert Flora and Fauna
The Castle, Ṣalkhad
Nasīb el Aṭrash
A Group of Druzes
From Ṣalkhad Castle, looking South-East
Ḳreyeh
A Druze Ploughboy
Boṣrā Eski Shām
The Village Gateway, Ḥabrān
A Druze Maḳ'ad, Ḥabrān
Lintel, el Khurbeh
The Walls of Ḳanawāt
Ḳanawāt, The Basilica
Ḳanawāt, Doorway of the Basilica
Ḳanawāt A Temple
The Temple, Mashennef
Ḳal'at el Beiḍa
Ḳal'at el Beiḍa
Ḳal'at el Beiḍa, Door of Keep
Mouldings from Ḳal'at el Beiḍa and from Palmyra
A Gateway, Shakka
The Sheikh's House, Ḥayāt
In the Palmyrene Desert 135
The Great Mosque and the Roofs of the Bazaar from the Fort
A Corn Market
The Ḳubbet el Khazneh
The Tekyah of Nakshibendi
Gate of the Tekyah
Mushḳin Kalam
Sweetmeat Sellers
Court of the Great Mosque
Threshing-floor of Karyatein
The Tekyali of Nakshibendi
Outside Damascus Gates
A Water seller
Suḳ Wādi Barada
Ba'albek
The Great Court, Ba'albek
Columns of the Temple of the Sun, Ba'albek
Temple of Jupiter, Ba'albek
Capitals in the Temple of Jupiter, Ba'albek
Fountain in the Great Court, Ba'albek
Fragment of Entablature, Ba'albek
Basilica of Constantine, Ba'albek
A Stone in the Quarry, Ba'albek
Rās ul 'Ain, Ba'albek
Cedars of Lebanon
The Ḳāmu'a Hurmul
An Eastern Holiday
A Street in Ḥomṣ
Coffee by the Road-side
Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn
Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, Interior of the Castle
Windows of the Banquet Hall
Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, Walls of the Inner Enceinte
Fellaḥīn Arabs
The Temple at Ḥuṣn es Suleimān
North Gate, Ḥuṣn es Suleimān
City Gate, Masyād
Capital at Masyād
Capital at Masyād
A Na'oura, Ḥamāh
The Ḳubbeh in the Mosque at Ḥamāh
The Tekyah Killāniyyeh, Ḥamāh
Capital in the Mosque, Ḥamāh
A Capital, Ḥamāh
Ḳal'at es Seijar
Ḳal'at es Seijar, The Cutting through the Ridge
A Capital, Ḥamāh
A House at el Bārah
Moulding at el Bārah and Lintel at Khirbet Hāss
Tomb, Serjilla
Sheikh Yūnis
House at Serjilla
Tomb of Bizzos
Church and Tomb, Ruweiḥā
Ḳaṣr el Ḃanāt
Tomb Dāna
A Beehive Village
The Castle, Aleppo
A Water-carrier
Ḳal'at Sim'ān
Ḳal'at Sim'ān
Ḳal'at West Door
Ḳal'at Circular Court
Ḳal'at Circular Court
Ḳal'at The Apse
Ḳal'at West Door
A Funeral Monument, Ḳāṭurā
Khirāb esh Shems
Khirāb esh Carving in a Tomb
Capital, Upper Church at Kalōteh
Barād, Canopy Tomb
Barād, Tower to the West of the Town
Mūsa and his Family
Bāsufān, a Kurdish Girl
Tomb at Dānā
The Bāb el Hawa
The Temple Gate, Bāḳirḥa
Ḳalb Lōzeh
The Apse, Ḳalb Lōzeh
Ḥārim
Salḳīn
Travellers
Antioch
Antioch
On the Bank of the Orontes, Antioch
The Corn Market, Antioch
Roman Lamp in Rifa't Agha's Collection
Head of a Sphinx, Antioch
Daphne
The Garīz
The Statue in the Mulberry-Garden
Lower Course of the Garīz
Sarcophagus in the Seraya, Antioch




[Illustration 01: THE MOSQUE OF 'UMAR, JERUSALEM]




CHAPTER I


To those bred under an elaborate social order few such moments of
exhilaration can come as that which stands at the threshold of wild
travel. The gates of the enclosed garden are thrown open, the chain at
the entrance of the sanctuary is lowered, with a wary glance to right
and left you step forth, and, behold! the immeasurable world. The world
of adventure and of enterprise, dark with hurrying storms, glittering in
raw sunlight, an unanswered question and an unanswerable doubt hidden in
the fold of every hill. Into it you must go alone, separated from the
troops of friends that walk the rose alleys, stripped of the purple and
fine linen that impede the fighting arm, roofless, defenceless, without
possessions. The voice of the wind shall be heard instead of the
persuasive voices of counsellors, the touch of the rain and the prick of
the frost shall be spurs sharper than praise or blame, and necessity
shall speak with an authority unknown to that borrowed wisdom which men
obey or discard at will. So you leave the sheltered close, and, like the
man in the fairy story, you feel the bands break that were riveted about
your heart as you enter the path that stretches across the rounded
shoulder of the earth.

It was a stormy morning, the 5th of February. The west wind swept up
from the Mediterranean, hurried across the plain where the Canaanites
waged war with the stubborn hill dwellers of Judæa, and leapt the
barrier of mountains to which the kings of Assyria and of Egypt had laid
vain siege. It shouted the news of rain to Jerusalem and raced onwards
down the barren eastern slopes, cleared the deep bed of Jordan with a
bound, and vanished across the hills of Moab into the desert. And all
the hounds of the storm followed behind, a yelping pack, coursing
eastward and rejoicing as they went.


[Illustration 02: THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM]


No one with life in his body could stay in on such a day, but for me
there was little question of choice. In the grey winter dawn the mules
had gone forward carrying all my worldly goods--two tents, a canteen,
and a month's provision of such slender luxuries as the austerest
traveller can ill spare, two small mule trunks, filled mainly with
photographic materials, a few books and a goodly sheaf of maps. The
mules and the three muleteers I had brought with me from Beyrout, and
liked well enough to take on into the further journey. The men were all
from the Lebanon. A father and son, Christians both, came from a village
above Beyrout: the father an old and toothless individual who mumbled,
as he rode astride the mule trunks, blessings and pious ejaculations
mingled with protestations of devotion to his most clement employer, but
saw no need to make other contribution to the welfare of the
party--Ibrahīm was the name of this ancient; the son, Ḥabīb, a young
man of twenty-two or twenty-three, dark, upright and broad-shouldered,
with a profile that a Greek might have envied and a bold glance under
black brows. The third was a Druze, a big shambling man, incurably lazy,
a rogue in his modest way, though he could always disarm my just
indignation in the matter of stolen sugar or missing piastres with an
appealing, lustrous eye that looked forth unblinking like the eye of a
dog. He was greedy and rather stupid, defects that must be difficult to
avoid on a diet of dry bread, rice and rancid butter; but when I took
him into the midst of his blood enemies he slouched about his work and
tramped after his mule and his donkey with the same air of passive
detachment that he showed in the streets of Beyrout. His name was
Muḥammad. The last member of the caravan was the cook. Mikhāil, a
native of Jerusalem and a Christian whose religion did not sit heavy on
his soul. He had travelled with Mr. Mark Sykes, and received from him
the following character: "He doesn't know much about cooking, unless he
has learnt since he was with me, but he never seems to care twopence
whether he lives or whether he is killed." When I repeated these words
to Mikhāil he relapsed into fits of suppressed laughter, and I engaged
him on the spot. It was an insufficient reason, and as good as many
another. He served me well according to his lights; but he was a touchy,
fiery little man, always ready to meet a possible offence half way, with
an imagination to the limits of which I never attained during three
months' acquaintance, and unfortunately he had learned other things
besides cooking during the years that had elapsed since he and Mr. Sykes
had been shipwrecked together on Lake Van. It was typical of him that he
never troubled to tell me the story of that adventure, though once when
I alluded to it he nodded his head and remarked: "We were as near death
as a beggar to poverty, but your Excellency knows a man can die but
once," whereas he bombarded my ears with tales of tourists who had
declared they could not and would not travel in Syria unsustained by his
culinary arts. The 'arak bottle was his fatal drawback; and after trying
all prophylactic methods, from blandishment to the hunting-crop, I
parted with him abruptly on the Cilician coast, not without regrets
other than a natural longing for his tough ragôuts and cold pancakes.

[Illustration 03: A STREET IN JERUSALEM]

[Illustration 04: ST. STEPHEN'S GATE, JERUSALEM]

I had a great desire to ride alone down the desolate road to Jericho, as
I had done before when my face was turned towards the desert, but
Mikhāil was of opinion that it would be inconsistent with my dignity,
and I knew that even his chattering companionship could not rob that
road of solitude. At nine we were in the saddle, riding soberly round
the walls of Jerusalem, down into the valley of Gethsemane, past the
garden of the Agony and up on to the Mount of Olives. Here I paused to
recapture the impression, which no familiarity can blunt, of the walled
city on the hill, grey in a grey and stony landscape under the heavy
sky, but illumined by the hope and the unquenchable longing of
generations of pilgrims. Human aspiration, the blind reaching out of the
fettered spirit towards a goal where all desire shall be satisfied and
the soul find peace, these things surround the city like a halo, half
glorious, half pitiful, shining with tears and blurred by many a
disillusion. The west wind turned my horse and set him galloping over
the brow of the hill and down the road that winds through the Wilderness
of Judæa.

[Illustration 05: A MAHOMMADAN PROCESSION PASSING THE GARDEN OF OLIVES]

[Illustration 06: RUSSIAN PILGRIMS]

At the foot of the first descent there is a spring, 'Ain esh Shems, the
Arabs call it, the Fountain of the Sun, but the Christian pilgrims have
named it the Apostles' Well. In the winter you will seldom pass there
without seeing some Russian peasants resting on their laborious way up
from Jordan. Ten thousand of them pour yearly into the Holy Land, old
men and women, for the most part, who have pinched and saved all their
life long to lay together the £30 or so which will carry them to
Jerusalem. From the furthest ends of the Russian empire they come on
foot to the Black Sea, where they take ship as deck passengers on board
a dirty little Russian boat. I have travelled with 300 of them from
Smyrna to Jaffa, myself the only passenger lodged in a cabin. It was
mid-winter, stormy and cold for those who sleep on deck, even if they be
clothed in sheepskin coats and wadded top-boots. My shipmates had
brought their own provisions with them for economy's sake--a hunch of
bread, a few olives, a raw onion, of such was their daily meal. Morning
and evening they gathered in prayer before an icon hanging on the cook's
galley, and the sound of their litanies went to Heaven mingled with the
throb of the screw and the splash of the spray. The pilgrims reach
Jerusalem before Christmas and stay till after Easter that they may
light their tapers at the sacred fire that breaks out from the Sepulchre
on the morning of the Resurrection. They wander on foot through all the
holy places, lodging in big hostels built for them by the Russian
Government. Many die from exposure and fatigue and the unaccustomed
climate; but to die in Palestine is the best of favours that the Divine
hand can bestow, for their bones rest softly in the Promised Land and
their souls fly straight to Paradise. You will meet these most
unsophisticated travellers on every high road, trudging patiently under
the hot sun or through the winter rains, clothed always in the furs of
their own country, and bearing in their hands a staff cut from the reed
beds of Jordan. They add a sharp note of pathos to a landscape that
touches so many of the themes of mournful poetry. I heard in Jerusalem a
story which is a better illustration of their temper than pages of
description. It was of a man who had been a housebreaker and had been
caught in the act and sent to Siberia, where he did many years of penal
servitude. But when his time was up he came home to his old mother with
a changed heart, and they two set out together for the Holy Land that he
might make expiation for his sins. Now at the season when the pilgrims
are in Jerusalem, the riff-raff of Syria congregates there to cheat
their simplicity and pester them for alms, and one of these vagabonds
came and begged of the Russian penitent at a time when he had nothing to
give. The Syrian, enraged at his refusal, struck the other to the earth
and injured him so severely that he was in hospital for three months.


[Illustration 07: PILGRIMS RECEIVING BAPTISM IN JORDAN]


When he recovered his consul came to him and said, "We have got the man
who nearly killed you; before you leave you must give evidence against
him." But the pilgrim answered, "No, let him go. I too am a criminal."

Beyond the fountain the road was empty, and though I knew it well I was
struck again by the incredible desolation of it. No life, no flowers,
the bare stalks of last year's thistles, the bare hills and the stony
road. And yet the Wilderness of Judæa has been nurse to the fiery
spirit of man. Out of it strode grim prophets, menacing with doom a
world of which they had neither part nor understanding; the valleys are
full of the caves that held them, nay, some are peopled to this day by a
race of starved and gaunt ascetics, clinging to a tradition of piety
that common sense has found it hard to discredit. Before noon we reached
the khān half way to Jericho, the place where legend has it that the
Good Samaritan met the man fallen by the roadside, and I went in to
lunch beyond reach of the boisterous wind. Three Germans of the
commercial traveller class were writing on picture-postcards in the room
of the inn, and bargaining with the khānji for imitation Bedouin
knives. I sat and listened to their vulgar futile talk--it was the last
I was to hear of European tongues for several weeks, but I found no
cause to regret the civilisation I was leaving. The road dips east of
the khān, and crosses a dry water-course which has been the scene of
many tragedies. Under the banks the Bedouin used to lie in wait to rob
and murder the pilgrims as they passed. Fifteen years ago the Jericho
road was as lawless a track as is the country now that lies beyond
Jordan: security has travelled a few miles eastward during the past
decade. At length we came to the top of the last hill and saw the Jordan
valley and the Dead Sea, backed by the misty steeps of Moab, the
frontier of the desert. Jericho lay at our feet, an unromantic village
of ramshackle hotels and huts wherein live the only Arabs the tourist
ever comes to know, a base-born stock, half bred with negro slaves. I
left my horse with the muleteers whom we had caught up on the
slope--"Please God you prosper!" "Praise be to God! If your Excellency
is well we are content"--and ran down the hill into the village. But
Jericho was not enough for that first splendid day of the road. I
desired eagerly to leave the tourists behind, and the hotels and the
picture-postcards. Two hours more and we should reach Jordan bank, and
at the head of the wooden bridge that leads from Occident to Orient we
might camp in a sheltered place under mud hillocks and among thickets of
reed and tamarisk. A halt to buy corn for the horses and the mules and
we were off again across the narrow belt of cultivated land that lies
round Jericho, and out on to the Ghōr, the Jordan valley.

[Illustration 08: MONASTERY OF KURUNTUL ABOVE JERICHO]

The Jericho road is bare enough, but the valley of Jordan has an aspect
of inhumanity that is almost evil. If the prophets of the Old Testament
had fulminated their anathemas against it as they did against Babylon or
Tyre, no better proof of their prescience would exist; but they were
silent, and the imagination must travel back to flaming visions of
Gomorrah and of Sodom, dim legends of iniquity that haunted our own
childhood as they haunted the childhood of the Semitic races. A heavy
stifling atmosphere weighed upon this lowest level of the earth's
surface; the wind was racing across the hill tops above us in the
regions where men breathed the natural air, but the valley was stagnant
and lifeless like a deep sea bottom. We brushed through low thickets of
prickly sidr trees, the Spina Christi of which the branches are said to
have been twisted into the Crown of Thorns. They are of two kinds these
sidr bushes, the Arabs call them zaḳūm and dōm. From the zaḳūm
they extract a medicinal oil, the dōm bears a small fruit like a crab
apple that ripens to a reddish brown not uninviting in appearance. It is
a very Dead Sea Fruit, pleasant to look upon and leaving on the lips a
taste of sandy bitterness. The sidrs dwindled and vanished, and before
us lay a sheet of hard mud on which no green thing grows. It is of a
yellow colour, blotched with a venomous grey white salt: almost
unconsciously the eye appreciates its enmity to life. As we rode here a
swirl of heavy rain swooped down upon us from the upper world. The
muleteers looked grave, and even Mikhāil's face began to lengthen, for
in front of us were the Slime Pits of Genesis, and no horse or mule can
pass over them except they be dry. The rain lasted a very few minutes,
but it was enough. The hard mud of the plain had assumed the consistency
of butter, the horses' feet were shod in it up to the fetlocks, and my
dog Kurt whined as he dragged his paws out of the yellow glue. So we
came to the Slime Pits, the strangest feature of all that uncanny land.
A quarter of a mile to the west of Jordan--the belt is much narrower to
the east of the stream--the smooth plain resolves itself suddenly into a
series of steep mud banks intersected by narrow gullies. The banks are
not high, thirty or forty feet at the most, but the crests of them are
so sharp and the sides so precipitous that the traveller must find his
way across and round them with the utmost care. The shower had made
these slopes as slippery as glass, even on foot it was almost impossible
to keep upright. My horse fell as I was leading him; fortunately it was
on a little ridge between mound and mound, and by the most astonishing
gymnastics he managed to recover himself. I breathed a short
thanksgiving when I saw my caravan emerge from the Slime Pits: we might,
if the rain had lasted, have been imprisoned there for several hours,
since if a horseman falls to the bottom of one of the sticky hollows he
must wait there till it dries.

[Illustration 09: CROSSING THE GHŌR]

Along the river bank there was life. The ground was carpeted with young
grass and yellow daisies, the rusty liveries of the tamarisk bushes
showed some faint signs of Spring. I cantered on to the great bridge
with its trellised sides and roof of beams--the most inspiring piece of
architecture in the world, since it is the Gate of the Desert. There was
the open place as I remembered it, covered with short turf, sheltered by
the high mud banks, and, Heaven be praised! empty. We had had cause for
anxiety on this head. The Turkish Government was at that time sending
all the troops that could be levied to quell the insurrection in Yemen.
The regiments of southern Syria were marched down to the bridge, and so
on to 'Ammān, where they were entrained and sent along the Mecca
railway to what was then the terminus, Ma'ān near Petra. From Mā'an
they had a horrible march across a sandy waste to the head of the Gulf
of 'Aḳabah. Many hundreds of men and many thousands of camels perished
before they reached the gulf, for the wells upon that road are three
only (so said the Arabs), and one lies about two miles off the track,
undiscoverable to those who are not familiar with the country.

[Illustration 10: THE BRIDGE OVER JORDAN]

We pitched tents, picketed the horses, and lighted a huge bonfire of
tamarisk and willow. The night was grey and still; there was rain on the
hills, but none with us--a few inches represents the annual fall in the
valley of Jordan. We were not quite alone. The Turkish Government levies
a small toll on all who pass backwards and forwards across the bridge,
and keeps an agent there for that purpose. He lives in a wattle hut by
the gate of the bridge, and one or two ragged Arabs of the Ghōr share
his solitude. Among these was a grey-haired negro, who gathered wood for
our fire, and on the strength of his services spent the night with us.
He was a cheery soul, was Mabūḳ. He danced with pleasure, round the
camp fire, untroubled by the consideration that he was one of the most
preposterously misshapen of human beings. He told us tales of the
soldiery, how they came down in rags, their boots dropping from their
feet though it was but the first day's march, half starved too, poor
wretches. A Ṭābūr (900 men) had passed through that morning, another
was expected to-morrow--we had just missed them. "Māsha-'llah!" said
Mikhāil, "your Excellency is fortunate. First you escape from the mud
hills and then from the Redīfs." "Praise be to God!" murmured Mabūḳ,
and from that day my star was recognised as a lucky one. From Mabūḳ
we heard the first gossip of the desert. His talk was for ever of Ibn er
Rashīd, the young chief of the Shammār, whose powerful uncle
Muḥammad left him so uneasy a legacy of dominion in central Arabia.
For two years I had heard no news of Nejd--what of Ibn Sā'oud, the
ruler of Riāḍ and Ibn er Rashīd's rival? How went the war between
them? Mabūḳ had heard many rumours; men did say that Ibn er Rashīd
was in great straits, perhaps the Redīfs were bound for Nejd and not
for Yemen, who knew? and had we heard that a sheikh of the Ṣukhūr had
been murdered by the 'Ajārmeh, and as soon as the tribe came back from
the eastern pasturages. . . . So the tale ran on through the familiar
stages of blood feud and camel lifting, the gossip of the desert--I
could have wept for joy at listening to it again. There was a Babel of
Arabic tongues round my camp fire that evening, for Mikhāil spoke the
vulgar cockney of Jerusalem, a language bereft of dignity, and Ḥabīb
a dialect of the Lebanon at immense speed, and Muḥammad had the
Beyrouti drawl with its slow expressionless swing, while from the
negro's lips fell something approaching to the virile and splendid
speech of the Bedouin. The men themselves were struck by the variations
of accent, and once they turned to me and asked which was right. I could
only reply, "God knows! for He is omniscient," and the answer received a
laughing acceptance, though I confess I proffered it with some
misgiving.

[Illustration 11: THE MONASTERY OF MAR SABA, WILDERNESS OF JUDÆA]

The dawn broke windless and grey. An hour and a half from the moment I
was awakened till the mules were ready to start was the appointed rule,
but sometimes we were off ten minutes earlier, and sometimes, alas!
later. I spent the time in conversing with the guardian of the bridge, a
native of Jerusalem. To my sympathetic ears did he confide his sorrows,
the mean tricks that the Ottoman government was accustomed to play on
him, and the hideous burden of existence during the summer heats. And
then the remuneration! a mere nothing! His gains were larger, however,
than he thought fit to name, for I subsequently discovered that he had
charged me three piastres instead of two for each of my seven animals.
It is easy to be on excellent terms with Orientals, and if their
friendship has a price it is usually a small one. We crossed the Rubicon
at three piastres a head and took the northern road which leads to Salt.
The middle road goes to Ḥeshbān, where lives the great Sheikh of all
the Arabs of the Belḳa, Sulṭān ibn 'Ali iḍ Ḍiāb ul 'Adwān, a
proper rogue, and the southern to Mādeba in Moab. The eastern side of
the Ghōr is much more fertile than the western. Enough water flows from
the beautiful hills of Ajlūn to turn the plain into a garden, but the
supply is not stored, and the Arabs of the 'Adwān tribes content
themselves with the sowing of a little corn. The time of flowers was not
yet. At the end of March the eastern Ghōr is a carpet of varied and
lovely bloom, which lasts but a month in the fierce heat of the valley,
indeed a month sees the plants through bud and bloom and ripened seed. A
ragged Arab showed us the path. He had gone down to join the Redīfs,
having been bought as a substitute at the price of fifty napoleons by a
well-to-do inhabitant of Salt. When he reached the bridge he found he
was too late, his regiment having passed through two days before. He was
sorry, he would have liked to march forth to the war (moreover, I
imagine the fifty liras would have to be refunded), but his daughter
would be glad, for she had wept to see him go. He stopped to extricate
one of his leather slippers from the mud.


[Illustration 12: THE WALL OF LAMENTATION, JERUSALEM]


"Next year," quoth he, catching me up again, "please God I shall
go to America."

I stared in amazement at the half-naked figure, the shoes dropping from
the bare feet, the torn cloak slipping from the shoulders, the desert
head-dress of kerchief and camel's hair rope.

"Can you speak any English?" I asked.

"No," he replied calmly, "but I shall have saved the price of the
journey, and, by God! here there is no advancement."

I inquired what he would do when he reached the States.

"Buy and sell," he replied; "and when I have saved 200 liras I shall
return."

[Illustration 13: JEWS OF BOKHARA]

The same story can be heard all over Syria. Hundreds go out every year,
finding wherever they land some of their compatriots to give them a
helping hand. They hawk the streets with cheap wares, sleep under
bridges, live on fare that no freeborn citizen would look at, and when
they have saved 200 liras, more or less, they return, rich men in the
estimation of their village. East of Jordan the exodus is not so great,
yet once in the mountains of the Haurān I stopped to ask my way of a
Druze, and he answered me in the purest Yankee. I drew rein while he
told me his tale, and at the end of it I asked him if he were going
back. He looked round at the stone hovels of the village, knee deep in
mud and melting snow: "You bet!" he replied, and as I turned away he
threw a cheerful "So long!" after me.

When we had ridden two hours we entered the hills by a winding valley
which my friend called Wād el Ḥassanīyyeh, after the tribe of that
name. It was full of anemones and white broom (rattam the Arabs call
it), cyclamen, starch hyacinths, and wild almond trees. For plants
without a use, however lovely they may be, there is no name in Arabic;
they are all hashīsh, grass; whereas the smallest vegetable that can be
of service is known and distinguished in their speech. The path--it was
a mere bridle track--rose gradually. Just before we entered the mist
that covered the top of the hill we saw the Dead Sea below us to the
south, lying under the grey sky like a great sheet of clouded glass. We
reached Salt at four o'clock in real mountain weather, a wet and driving
mist. Moreover, the ground near the village was a swamp, owing to the
rain that, passing over us the night before, had fallen here. I
hesitated to camp unless I could find no drier lodging. The first thing
was to seek out the house of Ḥabīb Effendi Fāris, whom I had come to
Salt to see, though I did not know him. My claim upon him (for I relied
entirely upon his help for the prosecution of my journey) was in this
wise: he was married to the daughter of a native preacher in Haifa, a
worthy old man and a close friend of mine. Urfa on the Euphrates was the
_Stammplatz_ of the family, but Abu Namrūd had lived long at Salt and
he knew the desert. The greater part of the hours during which he was
supposed to teach me grammar were spent in listening to tales of the
Arabs and of his son, Namrūd, who worked with Ḥabīb Fāris, and
whose name was known to every Arab of the Belḳa.

"If ever you wish to enter there," said Abu Namrūd, "go to Namrūd."
And to Namrūd accordingly I had come.

A very short inquiry revealed the dwelling of Ḥabīb Fāris. I was
received warmly, Ḥabīb was out, Namrūd away (was my luck forsaking
me?), but would I not come in and rest? The house was small and the
children many: while I debated whether the soaked ground outside would
not prove a better bed, there appeared a magnificent old man in full
Arab dress, who took my horse by the bridle, declared that he and no
other should lodge me, and so led me away. I left my horse at the khān,
climbed a long and muddy stair, and entered a stone paved courtyard.
Yūsef Effendi hurried forward and threw open the door of his
guest-chamber. The floor and the divan were covered with thick carpets,
the windows glazed (though many of the panes were broken), a European
cheffonier stood against the wall: this was more than good enough. In a
moment I was established, drinking Yūsef's coffee, and eating my own
cake.

[Illustration 14: ABYSSINIAN PRIESTS]

Yūsef Effendi Sukkar (upon him be peace!) is a Christian and one of the
richest of the inhabitants of Salt. He is a laconic man, but as a host
he has not his equal. He prepared me an excellent supper, and when I had
eaten, the remains were set before Mikhāil. Having satisfied my
physical needs he could not or would not do anything to allay my mental
anxieties as to the further course. Fortunately at this moment Ḥabīb
Fāris arrived, and his sister-in-law, Paulina, an old acquaintance, and
several other worthies, all hastening to "honour themselves" at the
prospect of an evening's talk. ("God forbid! the honour is mine!") We
settled down to coffee, the bitter black coffee of the Arabs, which is
better than any nectar. The cup is handed with a "Deign to accept," you
pass it back empty, murmuring "May you live!" As you sip some one
ejaculates, "A double health," and you reply, "Upon your heart!" When
the cups had gone round once or twice and all necessary phrases of
politeness had been exchanged I entered upon the business of the
evening. How was I to reach the Druze mountains? the Government would
probably refuse me permission, at 'Ammān there was a military post on
the entrance of the desert road; at Boṣrā they knew me, I had slipped
through their fingers five years before, a trick that would be difficult
to play a second time from the same place. Ḥabīb Fāris considered,
and finally we hammered out a plan between us. He would send me
to-morrow to Ṭneib, his corn land on the edge of the desert; there I
should find Namrūd who would despatch word to one of the big tribes,
and with an escort from them I could ride up in safety to the hills.
Yūsef's two small sons sat listening open-eyed, and at the end of the
talk one of them brought me a scrap of an advertisement with the map of
America upon it. Thereat I showed them my maps, and told them how big
the world was and how fine a place, till at ten the party broke up and
Yūsef began spreading quilts for my bed. Then and not till then did I
see my hostess. She was a woman of exceptional beauty, tall and pale,
her face a full oval, her great eyes like stars. She wore Arab dress, a
narrow dark blue robe that caught round her bare ankles as she walked, a
dark blue cotton veil bound about her forehead with a red handkerchief
and falling down her back almost to the ground. Her chin and neck were
tattooed in delicate patterns with indigo, after the manner of the
Bedouin women. She brought me water, which she poured over my hands,
moved about the room silently, a dark and stately figure, and having
finished her ministrations she disappeared as silently as she had come,
and I saw her no more. "She came in and saluted me," said the poet, he
who lay in durance at Mecca, "then she rose and took her leave, and when
she departed my soul went out after her." No one sees Yūsef's wife.
Christian though he be, he keeps her more strictly cloistered than any
Moslem woman; and perhaps after all he is right.

The rain beat against the windows, and I lay down on the quilts with
Mikhāil's exclamation in my ears: "Māsha-'llah! your Excellency is
fortunate."




CHAPTER II


The village of Salt is a prosperous community of over 10,000 souls, the
half of them Christian. It lies in a rich country famous for grapes and
apricots, its gardens are mentioned with praise as far back as the
fourteenth century by the Arab geographer Abu'l Fīda. There is a ruined
castle, of what date I know not, on the hill above the clustered house
roofs. The tradition among the inhabitants is that the town is very
ancient; indeed, the Christians declare that in Salt was one of the
first of the congregations of their faith, and there is even a legend
that Christ was His own evangelist here. Although the apricot trees
showed nothing as yet but bare boughs the valley had an air of smiling
wealth as I rode through it with Ḥabīb Fāris, who had mounted his
mare to set me on my way. He had his share in the apricot orchards and
the vineyards, and smiled agreeably, honest man, as I commended them.
Who would not have smiled on such a morning? The sun shone, the earth
glittered with frost, and the air had a sparkling transparency which
comes only on a bright winter day after rain. But it was not merely a
general sense of goodwill that had inspired my words; the Christians of
Salt and of Mādeba are an intelligent and an industrious race, worthy
to be praised. During the five years since I had visited this district
they had pushed forward the limit of cultivation two hours' ride to the
east, and proved the value of the land so conclusively that when the
Ḥājj railway was opened through it the Sultan laid hands on a great
tract stretching as far south as Ma'ān, intending to convert it into a
chiflik, a royal farm. It will yield riches to him and to his tenants,
for if he be an indifferent ruler, he is a good landlord.

[Illustration 15: AN ARAB OF THE 'ADWĀN
GUARDING CROPS]

Half an hour from Salt, Ḥabīb left me, committing me to the care of
his hind, Yūsef, a stalwart man, who strode by my side with his wooden
club (G̣unwā, the Arabs call it) over his shoulder. We journeyed
through wide valleys, treeless, uninhabited, and almost uncultivated,
round the head of the Belḳa plain, and past the opening of the Wādy
Sīr, down which a man may ride through oak woods all the way to the
Ghōr. There would be trees on the hills too if the charcoal burners
would let them grow--we passed by many dwarf thickets of oak and
thorn--but I would have nothing changed in the delicious land east of
Jordan. A generation or two hence it will be deep in corn and scattered
over with villages, the waters of the Wādy Sīr will turn mill-wheels,
and perhaps there will even be roads: praise be to God! I shall not be
there to see. In my time the uplands will still continue to be that
delectable region of which Omar Khayyām sings: "The strip of herbage
strown that just divides the desert from the sown"; they will still be
empty save for a stray shepherd standing over his flock with a
long-barrelled rifle; and when I meet the rare horseman who rides over
those bills and ask him whence he comes, he will still answer: "May the
world be wide to you! from the Arabs."

[Illustration 16: AN ENCAMPMENT NEAR THE DEAD SEA]

That was where we were going, to the Arabs. In the desert there are no
Bedouin, the tent dwellers are all '_Arab_ (with a fine roll of the
initial guttural), just as there are no tents but houses--"houses of
hair" they say sometimes if a qualification be needed, but usually just
"houses" with a supreme disregard for any other significance to the word
save that of a black goat's hair roof. You may be '_Arab_ after a
fashion even if you live between walls. The men of Salt are classed
among the tribes of the Belḳa, with the Abādeh and the Da'ja and the
Hassaniyyeh and several more that form the great troup of the 'Adwān.
Two powerful rulers dispute the mastership here of the Syrian desert,
the Beni Ṣakhr and the 'Anazeh. There is a traditional friendship,
barred by regrettable incidents, between the Ṣukhūr and the Belḳa,
perhaps that was why I heard in these parts that the 'Anazeh were the
more numerous but the less distinguished for courage of the two
factions. I have a bowing acquaintance with one of the sons of Talāl ul
Fāiz, the head of all the Beni Ṣakhr. I had met him five years before
in these very plains, a month later in the season, by which time his
tribe moves Jordan-wards out of the warm eastern pasturages. I was
riding, escorted by a Circassian zaptieh, from Mādeba to Mshitta--it
was before the Germans had sliced the carved façade from that wonderful
building. The plain was covered with the flocks and the black tents of
the Ṣukhūr, and as we rode through them three horsemen paced out to
intercept us, black-browed, armed to the teeth, menacing of aspect. They
threw us the salute from afar, but when they saw the soldier they turned
and rode slowly back. The Circassian laughed. "That was Sheikh Fāiz,"
he said, "the son of Talāl. Like sheep, wāllah! like sheep are they
when they meet one of us." I do not know the 'Anazeh, for their usual
seat in winter is nearer the Euphrates, but with all deference to the
Ṣukhūr I fancy that their rivals are the true aristocracy of the
desert. Their ruling house, the Beni Sha'alān, bear the proudest name,
and their mares are the best in all Arabia, so that even the Shammār,
Ibn er Rashīd's people, seek after them to improve their own breed.

[Illustration 17: THE THEATRE, 'AMMĀN]

From the broken uplands that stand over the Ghōr, we entered ground
with a shallow roll in it and many small ruined sites dotted over it.
There was one at the head of the Wādy Sīr, and a quarter of an hour
before we reached it we had seen a considerable mass of foundations and
a big tank, which the Arabs call Birket Umm el 'Amūd (the tank of the
Mother of the Pillar). Yūsef said its name was due to a column which
used to stand in the middle of it, surrounded by the water; an Arab shot
at it and broke it, and its fragments lie at the bottom of the tank. The
mound or tell, to give it its native name, of Amēreh is covered with
ruins, and further on at Yadūdeh there are rock-hewn tombs and
sarcophagi lying at the edge of the tank. All the frontier of the desert
is strewn with similar vestiges of a populous past, villages of the
fifth and sixth centuries when Mādeba was a rich and flourishing
Christian city, though some are certainly earlier still, perhaps
pre-Roman. Yadūdeh of the tombs was inhabited by a Christian from Salt,
the greatest corn-grower in these parts, who lived in a roughly built
farm-house on the top of the tell; he too is one of the energetic
new comers who are engaged in spreading the skirts of cultivation. Here
we left the rolling country and passed out into the edges of a limitless
plain, green with scanty herbage, broken by a rounded tell or the back
of a low ridge--and then the plain once more, restful to the eye yet
never monotonous, steeped in the magic of the winter sunset, softly
curving hollows to hold the mist, softly swelling slopes to hold the
light, and over it all the dome of the sky which vaults the desert as it
vaults the sea. The first hillock was that of Ṭneib. We got in, after
a nine hours' march, at 5.30, just as the sun sank, and pitched tents on
the southern slope. The mound was thick with ruins, low walls of
rough-hewn stones laid without mortar, rock-cut cisterns, some no doubt
originally intended not for water but for corn, for which purpose they
are used at present, and an open tank filled up with earth. Namrūd had
ridden over to visit a neighbouring cultivator, but one of his men set
forth to tell him of my arrival and he returned at ten o'clock under the
frosty starlight, with many protestations of pleasure and assurances
that my wishes were easy of execution. So I went to sleep wrapped in the
cold silence of the desert, and woke next day to a glittering world of
sunshine and fair prospects.

[Illustration 18: A GATEWAY, 'AMMĀN]

The first thing to be done was to send out to the Arabs. After
consultation, the Da'ja, a tribe of the Belḳa, were decided to be the
nearest at hand and the most likely to prove of use, and a messenger was
despatched to their tents. We spent the morning examining the mound and
looking through a mass of copper coins that had turned up under
Namrūd's ploughshare--Roman all of them, one showing dimly the features
of Constantine, some earlier, but none of the later Byzantine period,
nor any of the time of the Crusaders; as far as the evidence of coinage
goes, Ṭneib has been deserted since the date of the Arab invasion.
Namrūd had discovered the necropolis, but there was nothing to be found
in the tombs, which had probably been rifled centuries before. They were
rock-cut and of a cistern-like character. A double arch of the solid
rock with space between for a narrow entrance on the surface of the
ground, a few jutting excrescences on the side walls, footholds to those
who must descend, loculi running like shelves round the chambers, one
row on top of another, such was their appearance. Towards the bottom of
the mound on the south side there were foundations of a building which
looked as though it might have been a church. But these were poor
results for a day's exploration, and in the golden afternoon we rode out
two hours to the north into a wide valley set between low banks. There
were ruins strewn at intervals round the edge of it, and to the east
some broken walls standing up in the middle of the valley--Namrūd
called the spot, Ḳuṣeir es Saḥl, the Little Castle of the Plain.
Our objective was a group of buildings at the western end, Khureibet es
Sūḳ. First we came to a small edifice (41 feet by 39 feet 8 inches,
the greatest length being from east to west) half buried in the ground.
Two sarcophagi outside pointed to its having been a mausoleum. The
western wall was pierced by an arched doorway, the arch being decorated
with a flat moulding. Above the level of the arch the walls narrowed by
the extent of a small set-back, and two courses higher a moulded cornice
ran round the building. A couple of hundred yards west of the Ḳaṣr
or castle (the Arabs christen most ruins either castle or convent) there
is a ruined temple. It had evidently been turned at some period to other
uses than those for which it was intended, for there were ruined walls
round the two rows of seven columns and inexplicable cross walls towards
the western end of the colonnades. There appeared to have been a double
court beyond, and still further west lay a complex of ruined
foundations. The gateway was to the east, the jambs of it decorated with
delicate carving, a fillet, a palmetto, another plain fillet, a torus
worked with a vine scroll, a bead and reel, an egg and dart and a second
palmetto on the cyma. The whole resembled very closely the work at
Palmyra--it could scarcely rival the stone lacework of Mshitta, and
besides it had a soberer feeling, more closely akin to classical models,
than is to be found there. To the north of the temple on top of a bit of
rising ground, there was another ruin which proved to be a second
mausoleum. It was an oblong rectangle of masonry, built of large stones
carefully laid without mortar. At the south-east corner a stair led into
a kind of ante-chamber, level with the surface of the ground at the east
side owing to the slope of the hill. There were column bases on the
outer side of this ante-chamber, the vestiges probably of a small
colonnade which had adorned the east façade. Six sarcophagi were placed
lengthways, two along each of the remaining walls, north, south and
west. Below the base of the columns on either side of the stair ran a
moulding, consisting of a bold torus between two fillets, and the same
appeared on the inner side of the sarcophagi. The face of the buttress
wall on the south side rose in two in-sets, otherwise the whole building
was quite plain, though some of the fragments scattered round upon the
grass were carved with a flowing vine pattern. This mausoleum recalls
the pyramid tomb which is common in northern Syria; I do not remember
any other example of it so far south. It may have resembled the
beautiful monument with a colonnaded front which is one of the glories
of the southern Dāna, and the fragments of vine scroll were perhaps
part of the entablature.

[Illustration 19: THE TEMPLE, KHUREIBET ES SŪḲ]

[Illustration 20: MAUSOLEUM, KHUREIBET ES SŪḲ]

When I returned to my tents a little before sunset, I learnt that the
boy we had despatched in the morning had lingered by the way and,
alarmed by the lateness of the hour, had returned without fulfilling his
mission. This was sufficiently annoying, but it was nothing compared
with the behaviour of the weather next day. I woke to find the great
plain blotted out by mist and rain. All day the south wind drove against
us, and the storm beat upon our canvas walls. In the evening Namrūd
brought news that his cave had been invaded by guests. There were a few
tents of the Ṣukhūr a mile or two away from us (the main body of the
tribe was still far to the east, where the winter climate is less
rigorous), and the day's rain had been too much for the male
inhabitants. They had mounted their mares and ridden in to Ṭneib,
leaving their women and children to shift for themselves during the
night. An hour's society presented attractions after the long wet day,
and I joined the company.

[Illustration 21: ARABS OF THE BELḲA]

Namrūd's cave runs far into the ground, so far that it must penetrate
to the very centre of the hill of Ṭneib. The first large chamber is
obviously natural, except for the low sleeping places and mangers for
cattle that have been quarried out round the walls. A narrow passage
carved in the rock leads into a smaller room, and there are yet others
behind which I took on trust, the hot stuffy air and the innumerable
swarms of flies discouraging me from further exploration. That evening
the cave presented a scene primitive and wild enough to satisfy the most
adventurous spirit. The Arabs, some ten or a dozen men clothed in red
leather boots and striped cloaks soaked with rain, were sitting in the
centre round a fire of scrub, in the ashes of which stood the three
coffee-pots essential to desert sociability. Behind them a woman cooked
rice over a brighter fire that cast a flickering light into the recesses
of the cave, and showed Namrūd's cattle munching chopped straw from the
rock-hewn mangers. A place comparatively free from mud was cleared for
me in the circle, a cup of coffee prepared, and the talk went forward
while a man might smoke an Arab pipe five times. It was chiefly of the
iniquities of the government. The arm of the law, or rather the mailed
fist of misrule, is a constant menace upon the edges of the desert. This
year it had been quickened to baleful activity by the necessities of
war. Camels and mares had been commandeered wholesale along the borders
without hope of compensation in money or in kind. The Arabs had gathered
together such live stock as was left to them and sent them away five or
six days to the east, where the soldiery dared not penetrate, and
Namrūd had followed their example, keeping only such cattle as he
needed for the plough. One after another of my fellow guests took up the
tale: the guttural strong speech rumbled round the cave. By God and
Muḥammad the Prophet of God we called down such curses upon the
Circassian cavalry as should make those powerful horsemen reel in their
saddles. From time to time a draped head, with black elf locks matted
round the cheeks under the striped kerchief, bent forward towards the
glow of the ashes to pick up a hot ember for the pipe bowl, a hand was
stretched out to the coffee cups, or the cooking fire flashed up under a
pile of thorn, the sudden light making the flies buzz and the cows move
uneasily. Namrūd was not best pleased to see his hardly gathered store
of fire-wood melt away and his coffee beans disappear by handfuls into
the mortar. ("Wāllah! they eat little when they feed themselves, but
when they are guests much, they and their horses; and the corn is low at
this late season.") But the word "guest" is sacred from Jordan to
Euphrates and Namrūd knew well that he owed a great part of his
position and of his security to a hospitality which was extended to all
comers, no matter how inopportune. I added my quota to the conviviality
of the party by distributing a box of cigarettes, and before I left a
friendly feeling had been established between me and the men of the Beni
Ṣakhr.

The following day was little more promising than that which had preceded
it. The muleteers were most unwilling to leave the shelter of the caves
and expose their animals to such rain in the open desert, and
reluctantly I agreed to postpone the journey, and sent them into
Mādeba, three hours away, to buy oats for the horses, cautioning them
not to mention from whom they came. It cleared a little in the
afternoon, and I rode across the plain southwards to Ḳasṭal, a
fortified Roman camp standing on a mound.

This type of camp was not uncommon on the eastern frontiers of the
Empire, and was imitated by the Ghassānids when they established
themselves in the Syrian desert, if indeed Mshitta was, as has been
surmised, but a more exquisite example of the same kind of building.
Ḳasṭal has a strong enclosing wall broken by a single gate to the
east and by round bastions at the angles and along the sides. Within,
there is a series of parallel vaulted chambers leaving an open court in
the centre--the plan with slight variations of Ḳal'at el Beiḍa in
the Safa and of the modern caravanserai.[1] To the north there is a
separate building, probably the Prætorium, the house of the commander
of the fortress. It consists of an immense vaulted chamber, with a
walled court in front of it, and a round tower at the south-west corner.
The tower has a winding stair inside it and a band of decoration about
the exterior, rinceaux above and fluted triglyphs below, with narrow
blank metopes between them. The masonry is unusually good, the walls of
great thickness; with such defences stretching to his furthest borders,
the citizen of Rome might sleep secure o' nights.

[Illustration 22: A RUINED CHURCH, MĀDEBA]

When I passed by Ḳasṭal, five years before, it was uninhabited and
the land round it uncultivated, but a few families of fellaḥīn had
established themselves now under the broken vaults and the young corn
was springing in the levels below the walls, circumstances which should
no doubt warm the heart of the lover of humanity, but which will send a
cold chill through the breast of the archæologist. There is no
obliterator like the ploughshare, and no destroyer like the peasant who
seeks cut stones to build his hovel. I noted another sign of encroaching
civilisation in the shape of two half starved soldiers, the guard of the
nearest halting place on the Ḥājj railroad, which is called Zīza
after the ruins a few miles to the west of it. The object of their visit
was the lean hen which one of them held in his hand. He had reft it from
its leaner companions in the fortress court--on what terms it were
better not to inquire, for hungry men know no law. I was not
particularly eager to have my presence on these frontiers notified to
the authorities in 'Ammān, and I left rather hastily and rode eastward
to Zīza.

[Illustration 23: THE ḲAL'AH AT ZĪZA]

The rains had filled the desert watercourses, they do not often flow so
deep or so swiftly as the one we had to cross that afternoon. It had
filled, too, to the brim the great Roman tank of Zīza, so that the
Ṣukhūr would find water there all through the ensuing summer. The
ruins are far more extensive than those at Ḳasṭal; there must have
been a great city here, for the foundations of houses cover a wide area.
Probably Ḳasṭal was the fortified camp guarding this city, and the
two together shared the name of Zīza, which is mentioned in the
Notitia: "Equites Dalmatici Illyriciana Zīza." There is a Saracenic
Ḳal'ah, a fort, which was repaired by Sheikh Ṣoktan of the
Ṣukhūr, and had been furnished by him, said Namrūd, with a splendour
unknown to the desert; but it has now fallen to the Sultan, since it
stands in the territory selected by him for his chiflik, and fallen also
into ruin. The mounds behind are strewn with foundations, among them
those of a mosque, the mihrab of which was still visible to the south.
Zīza was occupied by a garrison of Egyptians in Ibrahīm Pasha's time,
and it was his soldiers who completed the destruction of the ancient
buildings. Before they came many edifices, including several Christian
churches, were still standing in an almost perfect state of
preservation, so the Arabs reported. We made our way homewards along the
edge of the railway embankment, and as we went we talked of the possible
advantages that the land might reap from that same line. Namrūd was
doubtful on this subject. He looked askance at the officials and the
soldiery, indeed he had more cause to fear official raiders, whose
rapacity could not be disarmed by hospitality, than the Arabs, who were
under too many obligations to him to do him much harm. He had sent up a
few truck-loads of corn to Damascus the year before; yes, it was an
easier form of transport than his camels, and quicker, if the goods
arrived at all; but generally the corn sacks were so much lighter when
they reached the city than when Namrūd packed them into the trucks that
the profit vanished. This would improve perhaps in time--at the time
when lamps and cushions and all the fittings of the desert railway
except the bare seats were allowed to remain in the place for which they
were made and bought. We spoke, too, of superstition and of fears that
clutch the heart at night. There are certain places, said he, where the
Arabs would never venture after dark--haunted wells to which thirsty men
dared not approach, ruins where the weary would not seek shelter,
hollows that were bad camping grounds for the solitary. What did they
fear? Jinn; who could tell what men feared? He himself had startled an
Arab almost out of his wits by jumping naked at him from a lonely pool
in the half light of the dawn. The man ran back to his tents, and swore
that he had seen a jinni, and that the flocks should not go down to
water where it abode, till Namrūd came in and laughed at him and told
his own tale.

[Illustration 24: A CHRISTIAN ENCAMPMENT]

We did not go straight back to my tents. I had been invited out to dine
that evening by Sheikh Nahār of the Beni Ṣakhr, he who had spent the
previous night in Namrūd's cave; and after consultation it had been
decided that the invitation was one which a person of my exalted dignity
would not be compromised by accepting.

"But in general," added Namrūd, "you should go nowhere but to a great
sheikh's tent, or you will fall into the hands of those who invite you
only for the sake of the present you will give. Nahār--well, he is an
honest man, though he be Meskīn,"--a word that covers all forms of mild
contempt, from that which is extended to honest poverty, through
imbecility to the first stages of feeble vice.

The Meskīn received me with the dignity of a prince, and motioned me to
the place of honour on the ragged carpet between the square hole in the
ground that serves as hearth and the partition that separates the
women's quarters from the men's. We had tethered our horses to the long
tent ropes that give such wonderful solidity to the frail dwelling, and
our eyes wandered out from where we sat over the eastward sweep of the
landscape--swell and fall, fall and swell, as though the desert breathed
quietly under the gathering night. The lee side of an Arab tent is
always open to the air; if the wind shifts the women take down the tent
wall and set it up against another quarter, and in a moment your house
has changed its outlook and faces gaily to the most favourable prospect.
It is so small and so light, and yet so strongly anchored that the
storms can do little to it; the coarse meshes of the goat's hair cloth
swell and close together in the wet so that it needs continuous rain
carried on a high wind before a cold stream leaks into the
dwelling-place.

The coffee beans were roasted and crushed, the coffee-pots were
simmering in the ashes, when there came three out of the East and halted
at the open tent. They were thick-set, broad-shouldered men, with
features of marked irregularity and projecting teeth, and they were cold
and wet with rain. Room was made for them in the circle round the
hearth, and they stretched out their fingers to the blaze, while the
talk went on uninterrupted, for they were only three men of the
Sherarāt, come down to buy corn in Moab, and the Sherarāt, though they
are one of the largest and the most powerful of the tribes and the most
famous breeders of camels, are of bad blood, and no Arab of the Belḳa
would intermarry with them. They have no fixed haunts, not even in the
time of the summer drought, but roam the inner desert scarcely caring if
they go without water for days together. The conversation round Nahār's
fire was of my journey. A negro of the Ṣukhūr, a powerful man with an
intelligent face, was very anxious to come with me as guide to the Druze
mountains, but he admitted that as soon as he reached the territory of
those valiant hillmen he would have to turn and flee--there is always
feud between the Druzes and the Beni Ṣakhr. The negro slaves of the
Ṣukhūr are well used by their masters, who know their worth, and they
have a position of their own in the desert, a glory reflected from the
great tribe they serve. I was half inclined to accept the present offer
in spite of the possible drawback of having the negro dead upon my hands
at the first Druze village, when the current of my thoughts was
interrupted by the arrival of yet another guest. He was a tall young
man, with a handsome delicate face, a complexion that was almost fair,
and long curls that were almost brown. As he approached, Nahār and the
other sheikhs of the Ṣukhūr rose to meet him, and before he entered
the tent, each in turn kissed him upon both cheeks. Namrūd rose also,
and cried to him as he drew near:

[Illustration 25: FLOCKS OF THE ṢUKHŪR]

"Good? please God! Who is with you?"

The young man raised his hand and replied:

"God!"

He was alone.

Without seeming to notice the rest of the company, his eye embraced the
three sheikhs of the Sherarāt eating mutton and curds in the entrance,
and the strange woman by the fire, as with murmured salutations he
passed into the back of the tent, refusing Nahār's offer of food. He
was G̣ablān, of the ruling house of the Da'ja, cousin to the reigning
sheikh, and, as I subsequently found, he had heard that Namrūd needed
a guide for a foreigner--news travels apace in the desert--and had come
to take me to his uncle's tents. We had not sat for more than five
minutes after his arrival when Nahār whispered something to Namrūd,
who turned to me and suggested that since we had dined we might go and
take G̣ablān with us. I was surprised that the evening's gossip should
be cut so short, but I knew better than to make any objection, and as we
cantered home across Namrūd's ploughland and up the hill of Ṭneib, I
heard the reason. There was blood between the Da'ja and the Sherarāt.
At the first glance G̣ablān had recognised the lineage of his fellow
guests, and had therefore retired silently into the depths of the tent.
He would not dip his hand in the same mutton dish with them. Nahār
knew, as who did not? the difficulty of the situation, but he could not
tell how the men of the Sherarāt would take it, and, for fear of
accidents, he had hurried us away. But by next morning the atmosphere
had cleared (metaphorically, not literally), and a day of streaming rain
kept the blood enemies sitting amicably round Namrūd's coffee-pots in
the cave.

The third day's rain was as much as human patience could endure. I had
forgotten by this time what it was like not to feel damp, to have warm
feet and dry bed clothes. G̣ablān spent an hour with me in the
morning, finding out what I wished of him. I explained that if he could
take me through the desert where I should see no military post and leave
me at the foot of the hills, I should desire no more. G̣ablān
considered a moment.

"Oh lady," said he, "do you think you will be brought into conflict with
the soldiery? for if so, I will take my rifle."

I replied that I did not contemplate declaring open war with all the
Sultan's chivalry, and that with a little care I fancied that such a
contingency might be avoided; but G̣ablān was of opinion that strategy
went further when winged with a bullet, and decided that he would take
his rifle with him all the same.

In the afternoon, having nothing better to do, I watched the Sherarāt
buying corn from Namrūd. But for my incongruous presence and the lapse
of a few thousand years, they might have been the sons of Jacob come
down into Egypt to bicker over the weight of the sacks with their
brother Joseph. The corn was kept in a deep dry hole cut in the rock,
and was drawn out like so much water in golden bucketsful. It had been
stored with chaff for its better protection, and the first business was
to sift it at the well-head, a labour that could not be executed without
much and angry discussion. Not even the camels were silent, but joined
in the argument with groans and bubblings, as the Arabs loaded them with
the full sacks. The Sheikhs of the Ṣukhūr and the Sherarāt sat round
on stones in the drizzling mist, and sometimes they muttered, "God!
God!" and sometimes they exclaimed, "He is, merciful and compassionate!"
Not infrequently the sifted corn was poured back among the unsifted, and
a dialogue of this sort ensued:

[Illustration 26: A ROMAN MILESTONE]

_Namrūd_; "Upon thee! upon thee! oh boy! may thy dwelling be destroyed!
may thy days come to harm!"

_Beni Ṣakhr_: "By the face of the Prophet of God! may He be exalted!"

_Sherarāt_ (_in suppressed chorus_): "God! and Muḥammad the Prophet
of God, upon Him be peace!"

_A party in bare legs and a sheepskin_:

"Cold, cold! Wāllah! rain and cold!"

_Namrūd_: "Silence, oh brother! descend into the well and draw corn. It
is warm there."

_Beni Ṣakhr_: "Praise be to God the Almighty!"

_Chorus of Camels_: "B-b-b-b-b-dd-G-r-r-o-o-a-a."

_Camel Drivers_; "Be still, accursed ones! may you slip in the mud! may
the wrath of God fall on you!"

_Ṣukhūr_ (_in unison_): "God! God! by the light of His Face!"

At dusk I went into the servants' tent and found Namrūd whispering
tales of murder over the fire on which my dinner was a-cooking.

"In the days when I was a boy," said he (and they were not far behind
us), "you could not cross the Ghōr in peace. But I had a mare who
walked--wāllah! how she walked! Between sunrise and sunset she walked
me from Mezerīb to Salt, and never broke her pace. And besides I was
well known to all the Ghawārny (natives of the Ghōr). And one night in
summer I had to go to Jerusalem--force upon me! I must ride. The waters
of Jordan were low, and I crossed at the ford, for there was no bridge
then. And as I reached the further bank I heard shouts and the snap of
bullets. And I hid in the tamarisk bushes more than an hour till the
moon was low, and then I rode forth softly. And at the entrance of the
mud hills the mare started from the path, and I looked down and saw the
body of a man, naked and covered with knife wounds. And he was quite
dead. And as I gazed they sprang out on me from the mud hills, ten
horsemen and I was but one. And I backed against the thicket and fired
twice with my pistol, but they surrounded me and threw me from the mare
and bound me, and setting me again upon the mare they led me away. And
when they came to the halting place they fell to discussing whether they
should kill me, and one said: 'Wāllah! let us make an end.' And he came
near and looked into my face, and it was dawn. And he said: 'It is
Namrūd!' for he knew me, and I had succoured him. And they unbound me
and let me go, and I rode up to Jerusalem."

The muleteers and I listened with breathless interest as one story
succeeded another.

"There are good customs and bad among the Arabs," said Namrūd, "but the
good are many. Now when they wish to bring a blood feud to an end, the
two enemies come together in the tent of him who was offended. And the
lord of the tent bares his sword and turns to the south and draws a
circle on the floor, calling upon God. Then he takes a shred of the
cloth of the tent and a handful of ashes from the hearth and throws them
in the circle, and seven times he strikes the line with his naked sword.
And the offender leaps into the circle, and one of the relatives of his
enemy cries aloud: 'I take the murder that he did upon me!' Then there
is peace. Oh lady! the women have much power in the tribe, and the
maidens are well looked on. For if a maiden says: 'I would have such an
one for my husband,' he must marry her lest she should be put to shame.
And if he has already four wives let him divorce one, and marry in her
place the maiden who has chosen him. Such is the custom among the
Arabs."

He turned to my Druze muleteer and continued:

"Oh Muḥammad! have a care. The tents of the Ṣukhūr are near, and
there is never any peace between the Beni Ṣakhr and the Druzes. And if
they knew you, they would certainly kill you--not only would they kill
you, but they would bum you alive, and the lady could not shield you,
nor could I."

This was a grim light upon the character of my friend Nahār, who had
exchanged with me hospitality against a kerchief, and the little group
round the fire was somewhat taken back. But Mikhāil was equal to the
occasion.

"Let not your Excellency think it," said he, deftly dishing up some
stewed vegetables; "he shall be a Christian till we reach the Jebel
Druze, and his name is not Muḥammad but Ṭarīf, for that is a name
the Christians use."

So we converted and baptized the astonished Muḥammad before the
cutlets could be taken out of the frying-pan.


[Footnote 1: Admirable plans and photographs of the fort have been
published by Brünnow and Domaszewski in vol. II. of their great work,
"Die Provincia Arabia." This volume was not out at the time I visited
Ḳasṭal.]




CHAPTER III


The morning of Sunday, the 12th of February, was still stormy, but I
resolved to go. The days spent at Ṭneib had not been wasted. An
opportunity of watching hour by hour the life of one of these outlying
farms comes seldom, but my thoughts had travelled forward, and I longed
to follow the path they had taken. I caught them up, so it seemed to me,
when G̣ablān, Namrūd and I heard the hoofs of our mares ring on the
metals of the Ḥājj railway and set our faces towards the Open desert.
We rode east by north, leaving Mshitta a little to the south, and though
no one who knew it in its loveliness could have borne to revisit those
ravished walls, it must be not forgotten that there is something to be
said for the act of vandalism that stripped them. If there had been good
prospect that the ruin should stand as it had stood for over a thousand
years, uninjured save by the winter rains, it ought to have! been
allowed to remain intact in the rolling country to which it gave so
strange an impress of delicate and fantastic beauty; but the railway has
come near, the plains will fill up, and neither Syrian fellah nor
Turkish soldier can be induced to spare walls that can be turned to
practical uses. Therefore let those who saw it when it yet stood
unimpaired, cherish its memory with gratitude, and without too deep a
regret.

[Illustration 27: MSHITTA]

Namrūd and G̣ablān chatted without a pause. Late in the previous
night two soldiers had presented themselves at the door of the cave, and
having gained admittance they had told a strange tale. They had formed
part, so they affirmed, of the troops that the Sultan had despatched
from Baghdad to help Ibn er Rashīd against Ibn Sa'oud. They related how
the latter had driven them back step by step to the very gates of
Ḥāil, Ibn er Rashīd's capital, and how as the two armies lay facing
one another Ibn Sa'oud with a few followers had ridden up to his enemy's
tent and laid his hand upon the tent pole so that the prince of the
Shāmmaṝ had no choice but to let him enter. And then and there they
had come to an agreement, Ibn er Rashīd relinquishing all his territory
to within a mile or two of Ḥāil, but retaining that city and the
lands to the north of it, including Jōf, and recognising Ibn Sa'oud's
sovereignty over Riāḍ and its extended fief. The two soldiers had
made the best of their way westward across the desert, for they said
most of their companions in arms were slain and the rest had fled. This
was by far the most authentic news that I was to receive from Nejd, and
I have reason to believe that it was substantially correct.[2] I
questioned many of the Arabs as to Ibn er Rashīd's character: the
answer was almost invariably the same. "Shātir jiddan," they would say;
"he is very shrewd," but after a moment they would add, "majnūn" ("but
mad"). A reckless man and a hot-headed, so I read him, with a restless
intelligence and little judgment, not strong enough, and perhaps not
cruel enough, to enforce his authority over the unruly tribes whom his
uncle, Muḥammad, held in a leash of fear (the history of the war has
been one long series of betrayals on the part of his own allies), and
too proud, if the desert judges him rightly, to accept the terms of the
existing peace. He is persuaded that the English government armed Ibn
Sa'oud against him, his reason being that it was the Sheikh of Kweit,
believed to be our ally, who furnished that homeless exile with the
means of re-establishing himself in the country his ancestors had ruled,
hoping thereby to weaken the influence of the Sultan on the borders of
Kweit. The beginning of the trouble was possibly the friendship with the
Sultan into which Ibn er Rashīd saw fit to enter, a friendship blazoned
to the world by the appearance of Shammaṝi mares in Constantinople and
Circassian girls in Ḥāil; but as for the end, there is no end to war
in the desert, and any grievance will serve the turn of an impetuous
young sheikh.

[Illustration 28: MSHITTA, THE FAÇADE]

[Illustration 29: MSHITTA, THE INNER HALLS]

Though we were riding through plains which were quite deserted and to
the casual observer almost featureless, we seldom travelled for more
than a mile without reaching a spot that had a name. In listening to
Arab talk you are struck by this abundant nomenclature. If you ask where
a certain sheikh has pitched his tents you will at once be given an
exact answer. The map is blank, and when you reach the encampment the
landscape is blank also. A rise in the ground, a big stone, a vestige of
ruin, not to speak of every possible hollow in which there may be water
either in winter or in summer, these are marks sufficiently
distinguishing to the nomad eye. Ride with an Arab and you shall realise
why the pre-Mohammadan poems are so full of names, and also how vain a
labour it would be to attempt to assign a definite spot to the greater
number of them, for the same name recurs hundreds of times. We presently
came to a little mound which G̣ablān called Thelelet el Ḥirsheh and
then to another rather smaller called Theleleh, and here G̣ablān drew
rein and pointed to a couple of fire-blackened stones upon the ground.

[Illustration 30: ARABS OF THE BELḲA]

"That," said he, "was my hearth. Here I camped five years ago. Yonder
was my father's tent, and the son of my uncle pitched his below the
slope."

I might have been riding with Imr ul Ḳais, or with any of the great
singers of the Age of Ignorance, whose odes take swinging flight lifted
on just such a theme, the changeless theme of the evanescence of desert
existence.

The clouds broke in rain upon us, and we left Theleleh and paced on
east--an Arab when he travels seldom goes quicker than a walk--while
Namrūd, according to his habit, beguiled the way with story telling.

"Oh lady," said he,--"I will tell you a tale well known among the Arabs,
without doubt G̣ablān has heard it. There was a man--he is dead now,
but his sons still live--who had a blood feud, and in the night his
enemy fell upon him with many horsemen, and they drove away his flocks
and his camels and his mares and seized his tents and all that he had.
And he who had been a rich man and much honoured was reduced to the
extreme of necessity. So he wandered forth till he came to the tents of
a tribe that was neither the friend nor the foe of his people, and he
went to the sheikh's tent and laid his hand on the tent pole and said:
'Oh sheikh! I am your guest' "('Ana dakhīlak,' the phrase of one who
seeks for hospitality and protection)." And the sheikh rose and led him
in and seated him by the hearth, and treated him with kindness. And he
gave him sheep and a few camels and cloth for a tent, and the man went
away and prospered so that in ten years he was again as rich as before.
Now after ten years it happened that misfortune fell upon the sheikh who
had been his host, and he in turn lost all that he possessed. And the
sheikh said: 'I will go to the tents of so-and-so, who is now rich, and
he will treat me as I treated him.' Now when he reached the tents the
man was away, but his son was within. And the sheikh laid his hand on
the tent pole, and said, 'Ana dakhīlak,' and the man's son answered: 'I
do not know you, but since you claim our protection come in and my
mother will make you coffee.' So the sheikh came in, and the woman
called him to her hearth and made him coffee, and it is an indignity
among the Arabs that the coffee should be made by the women. And while
he was sitting by the women's hearth, the lord of the tent returned, and
his son went out and told him that the sheikh had come. And he said: 'We
will keep him for the night since he is bur guest, and at dawn we will
send him away lest we should draw his feud upon ourselves.' And they put
the sheikh in a corner of the tent and gave him only bread and coffee,
and next day they bade him go. And they sent an escort of two horsemen
with him for a day's journey, as is the usage among the Arabs with one
who has sought their protection and goes in fear of his life, and then
they left him to starve or to fall among his enemies. But such
ingratitude is rare, praise be to God! and therefore the tale is not
forgotten."

[Illustration 31: FELLĀH UL 'ISA AD DA'JA]

We were now nearing some slopes that might almost be dignified with the
name of hills. They formed a great semicircle that stretched away to the
south and in the hollow of their arm Fellāḥ ul 'Isa had pitched his
tents. The Da'ja, when I was with them, occupied all the plain below the
amphitheatre of the Jebel el 'Alya and also the country to the
north-west between the hills and the river Zerka Mujēmir, the young
sheikh, was camped to the north, his two uncles, Fellāḥ ul 'Isa and
Ḥamūd, the father of G̣ablān, together in the plain to the south. I
did not happen to see Ḥamūd; he had ridden away to visit some of his
herds. G̣ablān put his horse to a canter and went on ahead to announce
our arrival. As we rode up to the big sheikh's tent a white-haired man
came out to welcome us. This was my host, Fellāḥ ul 'Isa, a sheikh
renowned throughout the Belḳa for his wisdom and possessed of an
authority beyond that which an old man of a ruling house exercises over
his own tribe. Six months before he had been an honoured guest among the
Druzes, who are not used to receiving Arab sheikhs on terms of
friendship, and for this reason Namrūd had selected him as the best of
counsellors in the matter of my journey. We were obliged to sit in his
tent till coffee had been made, which ceremony occupied a full hour. It
was conducted in a dignified silence, broken only by the sound of the
pestle crushing the beans in the mortar, a music dear to desert ears and
not easy of accomplished execution. By the time coffee drinking was over
the sun had come out and with G̣ablān and Namrūd I rode up the hills
north of the camp to inspect some ruins reported by the Arabs.

[Illustration 32: A CAPITAL AT MUWAG̣G̣AR]

The Jebel el 'Alya proved to be a rolling upland that extended for many
miles, sloping gradually away to the north and north-east. The general
trend of the range is from west to south-east; it rises abruptly out of
the plains and carries upon its crest a series of ruins out of which I
saw two. They seem to have been a line of forts guarding a frontier
that, in the absence of inscriptions, may be conjectured to have been
Ghassānid. The first of the ruined sites lay immediately above
Fellāḥ ul 'Isa's camp--I surmise it to have been the Ḳaṣr el Ahla
(a name unknown to the Da'ja) marked on the Palestine Exploration map
close to the Ḥājj road. If this be so, it lies four or five miles
further east than the map makers have placed it, and its name should be
written Ḳaṣr el 'Alya. It was a small tell, ringed round with the
foundations of walls that enclosed an indistinguishable mass of ruins.
We rode forward some three or four miles to the east, and at the head of
a shallow valley on the northern side of the Jebel el 'Alya we found a
large tank, about 120 feet by 150 feet, carefully built of dressed
stones and half full of earth. Above it, nearer the top of the hill,
there was a group of ruins called by the Arabs El Muwag̣g̣ar.[3] It
must have been a military post, for there seemed to be few remains of
small dwellings such as would point to the existence of a town. To the
east lay a building that the Arabs maintain to have been a stable. It
was planned like a church, in three parallel chambers, the nave being
divided from the aisles by arcades of which six arches on either side
were standing, round arches resting on piers of masonry. On the inner
sides of these piers were holes through which to fasten tethering ropes,
and possibly horses may at some period have been stabled between the
arches. The three chambers were roofed with barrel vaults, and wall and
vault alike were built of small stones set in brittle, crumbling mortar.
A few hundred yards to the north-west there was a big open cistern,
empty of water, with plastered sides and a flight of steps at one
corner. The largest ruin was still further to the north-west, almost at
the summit of the hill; it is called by the Arabs the Ḳaṣr, and was
probably a fortress or barracks. The main entrance was to the east, and
since the ground sloped away here, the _façade_ was supported on a
substructure of eight vaults, above which were traces of three, or
perhaps four, doorways that could only have been approached by flights
of steps. Moulded piers had stood on either side of the doorways--a few
were still in their places--and the _façade_ had been enriched with
columns and a cornice, of which the fragments were strewn over the
ground below together with capitals of various designs, all of them
drawn from a Corinthian prototype, though many were widely dissimilar
from the parent pattern. Some of the mouldings showed very simple
_rinceaux_, a trefoil set in the alternate curves of a flowing stalk,
others were torus-shaped and covered with the scales of the palm trunk
pattern. The width of the _façade_ was forty paces; behind it was an
ante-chamber separated by a cross wall from a square enclosure. Whether
there had been rooms round the inside of this enclosure I could not
determine; it was heaped up with ruins and overgrown with turf. On
either side of the eight parallel vaults there was another vaulted
chamber forming ten in all; but the two supplementary vaults did not
appear to have supported a superstructure of any kind, the massive side
walls of the ante-chamber resting on the outer walls of the eight
central vaults. The masonry was of squared stones with rubble between,
set in mortar.

[Illustration 33: A CAPITAL AT MUWAG̣G̣AR]

We rode back straight down the hill and so along the plain at its foot,
passing another ruined site as we went, Najēreh was its name. Such
heaped up mounds of cut stones the Arabs call "rujm"; it would be
curious to know how far east they are to be found, how far the desert
was inhabited by a permanent population. A day's journey from 'Alya,
said G̣ablān, there is another fort called Kharaneh, and a third not
far from it, Umm er Resas, and more besides, some of them with pictures,
and all easy to visit in the winter when the western pasturages are
comparatively empty.[4] As we rode he taught me to read the desert, to
mark the hollow squares of big stones laid for the beds of Arab boys,
and the semi-circular nests in the earth that the mother camels scoop
out for their young. He taught me also the names of the plants that
dotted the ground, and I found that though the flora of the desert is
scanty in quantity, it is of many varieties, and that almost every kind
has been put to some useful end by the Arabs. With the leaf of the
utrufān they scent their butter, from the prickly kursa'aneh they make
an excellent salad, on the dry sticks of the billān the camels feed,
and the sheep on those of the shīḥ, the ashes of the g̣āli are used
in soap boiling. The _rôle_ of teacher amused G̣ablān, and as we
passed from one prickly blue-grey tuft to another equally blue-grey and
prickly, he would say: "Oh lady, what is this?" and smile cheerfully if
the answer came right.

[Illustration 34: A CAPITAL AT MUWAG̣G̣AR]

I was to dine that night in Fellāḥ ul 'Isa's tent, and when the last
bar of red light still lay across the west G̣ablān came to fetch me.
The little encampment was already alive with all the combination of
noises that animates the desert after dark, the grunting and groaning of
camels, the bleating of sheep and goats and the uninterrupted barking of
dogs. There was no light in the sheikh's tent save that of the fire; my
host sitting opposite me was sometimes hidden in a column of pungent
smoke and sometimes illumined by a leaping flame. When a person of
consideration comes as guest, a sheep must be killed in honour of the
occasion, and accordingly we eat with our fingers a bountiful meal of
mutton and curds and flaps of bread. But even on feast nights the Arab
eats astonishingly little, much less than a European woman with a good
appetite, and when there is no guest in camp, bread and a bowl of
camel's milk is all they need. It is true they spend most of the day
asleep or gossiping in the sun, yet I have seen the 'Ag̣ēl making a
four months' march on no more generous fare. Though they can go on such
short commons, the Bedouin must seldom be without the sensation of
hunger; they are always lean and thin, and any sickness that falls upon
the tribe carries off a large proportion of its numbers. My servants
feasted too, and since we had left Muḥammad, or rather Ṭarīf the
Christian, to guard the tents in our absence, a wooden bowl was piled
with food and sent out into the night "for the guest who has remained
behind."

Fellāḥ ul 'Isa and Namrūd fell into an interesting discussion over
the coffee, one that threw much light on the position of the tribes of
the Belḳa. They are hard pressed by encroaching civilisation. Their
summer quarters are gradually being filled up with fellāḥin, and
still worse, their summer watering places are now occupied by Circassian
colonists settled by the Sultan in eastern Syria when the Russians
turned them out of house and home in the Caucasus. The Circassians are a
disagreeable people, morose and quarrelsome, but industrious and
enterprising beyond measure, and in their daily contests with the Arabs
they invariably come off victors. Recently they have made the drawing of
water from the Zerka, on which the Bedouin are dependent during the
summer, a _casus belli_, and it is becoming more and more impossible to
go down to 'Ammān, the Circassian headquarters, for the few necessities
of Arab life, such as coffee and sugar and tobacco. Namrūd was of
opinion that the Belḳa tribes should have asked the Government to
appoint a Ḳāimaḳām over their district to protect their interests;
but Fellāḥ ul Tsa hesitated to call in King Stork, fearing the
military service he might impose, the enforced registration of cattle
and other hateful practices. The truth is that the days of the Belḳa
Arabs are numbered. To judge by the ruins, it will be possible, as it
was possible in past centuries, to establish a fixed population all over
their territory, and they will have to choose between themselves
building villages and cultivating the ground or retreating to the east
where water is almost unobtainable in the summer, and the heat far
greater than they care to face.

Namrūd turned from these vexed questions to extol the English rule in
Egypt. He had never been there, but he had heard tales from one of his
cousins who was a clerk in Alexandria; he knew that the fellahin had
grown rich and that the desert was as peaceful as were the cities.

[Illustration 35: MILKING SHEEP]

"Blood feud has ceased," said he, "and raiding; for when a man steals
another's camels, look you what happens. The owner of the camels comes
to the nearest konak and lays his complaint, and a zaptieh rides out
alone through the desert till he reaches the robber's tent. Then he
throws the salaam and enters. What does the lord of the tent do? he
makes coffee and tries to treat the zaptieh as a guest. But when the
soldier has drunk the coffee he places money by the hearth, saying,
'Take this piastre,' and so he pays for all he eats and drinks and
accepts nothing. And in the morning he departs, leaving orders that in
so many days the camels must be at the konak. Then the robber, being
afraid, gathers together the camels and sends them in, and one, may be,
is missing, so that the number is short. And the judge says to the lord
of the camels, 'Are all the beasts here?' and he replies, 'There is one
missing.' And he says, 'What is its value?' and he answers, 'Eight
liras.' Then the judge says to the other, 'Pay him eight liras.'
Wāllah! he pays."

Fellāḥ ul 'Isa expressed no direct approval of the advantages of this
system, but he listened with interest while I explained the principles
of the Fellaḥīn Bank, as far as I understood them, and at the end he
asked whether Lord Cromer could not be induced to extend his rule to
Syria, an invitation that I would not undertake to accept in his name.
Five years before, in the Ḥaurān mountains, a similar question had
been put to me, and the answering of it had taxed my diplomacy. The
Druze sheikhs of Ḳanawāt had assembled in my tent under shadow of
night, and after much cautious beating about the bush and many
assurances from me that no one was listening, they had asked whether if
the Turks again broke their treaties with the Mountain, the Druzes might
take refuge with Lord Cromer in Egypt, and whether I would not charge
myself with a message to him. I replied with the air of one weighing the
proposition in all its aspects that the Druzes were people of the hill
country, and that Egypt was a plain, and would therefore scarcely suit
them. The Sheikh el Balad looked at the Sheikh ed Dīn, and the horrible
vision of a land without mountain fastnesses in which to take refuge, or
mountain paths easy to defend, must have opened before their eyes, for
they replied that the matter required much thought, and I heard no more
of it. Nevertheless the moral is obvious: all over Syria and even in the
desert; whenever a man is ground down by injustice or mastered by his
own incompetence, he wishes that he were under the rule that has given
wealth to Egypt, and our occupation of that country, which did so much
at first to alienate from us the sympathies of Mohammedans, has proved
the finest advertisement of English methods of government.[5]

As I sat listening to the talk round me and looking out into the starlit
night, my mind went back to the train of thought that had been the
groundwork of the whole day, the theme that G̣ablān had started when
he stopped and pointed out the traces of his former encampment, and I
said:

[Illustration 36: G̣ABLĀN IBN ḤAMŪD AD DA'JA]

"In the ages before the Prophet your fathers spoke as you do and in the
same language, but we who do not know your ways have lost the meaning of
the words they used. Now tell me what is so-and-so, and so-and-so?"

The men round the fire bent forward, and when a flame jumped up I saw
their dark faces as they listened, and answered:

"By God! did they say _that_ before the Prophet?"

"Māsha'llah! we use that word still. It is the mark on the ground where
the tent was pitched."

Thus encouraged I quoted the couplet of Imr ul Ḳais which G̣ablān's
utterance had suggested.

"Stay! let us weep the memory of the Beloved and her resting place in
the cleft of the shifting sands 'twixt ēd Dujēl and Haumal."

G̣ablān, by the tent pole, lifted his head and exclaimed:
"Māsha'llah! that is 'Antara."

All poetry is ascribed to 'Antara by the unlettered Arab; he knows no
other name in literature.

I answered: "No; 'Antara spoke otherwise. He said: 'Have the poets
aforetime left ought to be added by me? or dost thou remember her house
when thou lookest on the place?' And Lebīd spoke best of all when he
said: 'And what is man but a tent and the folk thereof? one day they
depart and the place is left desolate.'"

G̣ablān made a gesture of assent.

"By God!" said he, "the plain is covered with places wherein I rested."

He had struck the note. I looked out beyond him into the night and saw
the desert with his eyes, no longer empty but set thicker with human
associations than any city. Every line of it took on significance, every
stone was like the ghost of a hearth in which the warmth of Arab life
was hardly cold, though the fire might have been extinguished this
hundred years. It was a city of shadowy outlines visible one under the
other, fleeting and changing, combining into new shapes elements that
are as old as Time, the new indistinguishable from the old and the old
from the new.

There is no name for it. The Arabs do not speak of desert or wilderness
as we do. Why should they? To them it is neither desert nor wilderness,
but a land of which they know every feature, a mother country whose
smallest product has a use sufficient for their needs. They know, or at
least they knew in the days when their thoughts shaped themselves in
deathless verse, how to rejoice in the great spaces and how to honour
the rush of the storm. In many a couplet they extolled the beauty of the
watered spots; they sang of the fly that hummed there, as a man made
glad with wine croons melodies for his sole ears to hear, and of the
pools of rain that shone like silver pieces, or gleamed dark as the
warrior's mail when the wind ruffled them. They had watched, as they
crossed the barren watercourses, the laggard wonders of the night, when
the stars seemed chained to the sky as though the dawn would never come.
Imr ul Ḳais had seen the Pleiades caught like jewels in the net of a
girdle, and with the wolf that howled in the dark he had claimed
fellowship: "Thou and I are of one kindred, and, lo, the furrow that
thou ploughest and that I plough shall yield one harvest." But by night
or by day there was no overmastering terror, no meaningless fear and no
enemy that could not be vanquished. They did not cry for help, those
poets of the Ignorance, either to man or God; but when danger fell upon
them they remembered the maker of their sword, the lineage of their
horse and the prowess of their tribe, and their own right hand was
enough to carry them through. And then they gloried as men should glory
whose blood flows hot in their veins, and gave no thanks where none were
due.

[Illustration 37: ON THE ḤĀJJ ROAD]

This is the temper of verse as splendid of its kind as any that has
fallen from the lips of men. Every string of Arab experience is touched
in turn, and the deepest chords of feeling are resonant. There are no
finer lines than those in which Lebīd sums up his appreciation of
existence, a poem where each one of the fourteen couplets is instinct
with a grave and tragic dignity beyond all praise. He looks sorrow in
the face, old age and death, and ends with a solemn admission of the
limitations of human wisdom: "By thy life! the casters of pebbles and
the watchers of the flight of birds, how know they what God is doing?"
The voice of warning is never the voice of dismay. It recurs often
enough, but it does not check the wild daring of the singer. "Death is
no chooser!" cries Tārafa, "the miser or the free-handed, Death has his
rope round the swift flying heel of him!" But he adds: "What dost thou
fear? To-day is thy life." And as fearlessly Zuhair sets forth his
experience: "To-day I know and yesterday and the days that were, but for
to-morrow mine eyes are sightless. For I have seen Doom let out in the
dark like a blind camel; those it struck died and those it missed lived
to grow old." The breath of inspiration touched all alike, old and
young, men and women, and among the most exquisite remnants of the
desert heritage is a dirge sung by a sister for her dead brother, which
is no less valuable as a historical document than it is admirable in
sentiment. An Naḍr Ibn el Hārith was taken prisoner by Muḥammad at
Uthail, after the battle of Bedr, and by his order put to death, and
through the verses of Ḳutaila you catch the revolt of feeling with
which the Prophet's pretensions were greeted by those of his
contemporaries who would not submit to them, coupled with the necessary
respect due to a man whose race was as good as their own. "Oh camel
rider!" she cries,


"Oh camel rider! Uthail, methinks, if thou speedest well,
shall lie before thee when breaks the fifth Dawn o'er thy road.
Take thou a word to a dead man there--and a greeting, sure,
but meet it is that the riders bring from friends afar--
From me to him, yea and tears unstanched, in a flood they flow
when he plies the well rope, and others choke me that stay
behind.
Raise clear thy voice that an Naḍr may hear if thou call on him--
can a dead man hear? Can he answer any that shouts his name?
Day long the swords of his father's sons on his body played--
Ah God! the bonds of a brother's blood that were severed there!
Helpless, a-weary, to death they led him, with fight foredone;
short steps he takes with his fettered feet and his arms are bound.
Oh Muḥammad! sprung from a mother thou of a noble house,
and thy father too was of goodly stock when the kin is told.
Had it cost thee dear to have granted grace that day to him?
yea, a man may pardon though anger burn in his bosom sore.
And the nearest he in the ties of kinship of all to thee,
and the fittest he, if thou loosedst any to be set free.
Ah, hadst thou taken a ransom, sure with the best of all
that my hand possessed I had paid thee, spending my utmost
store."


And on yet stronger wing the wild free spirit of the desert rose in his
breast who lay in ward at Mecca, and he sang of love and death with a
voice that will not be silenced:


"My longing climbs up the steep with the riders of El Yemen,
by their side, while my body lies in Mecca a prisoner.
I marvelled as she came darkling to me and entered free,
while the prison door before me was bolted and surely barred.
She drew near and greeted me, then she rose and bade farewell,
and when she turned my life well-nigh went forth with her.
Nay, think not that I am bowed with fear away from you,
or that I tremble before death that stands so nigh.
Or that my soul quakes at all before your threatening,
or that my spirit is broken by walking in these chains.
But a longing has smitten my heart born of love for thee,
as it was in the days aforetime when that I was free."[6]


The agony of the captive, the imagined vision of the heart's desire
which no prison bars could exclude, then the fine protest lest his foes
should dream that his spirit faltered, and the strong man's fearless
memory of the passion that had shaken his life and left his soul still
ready to vanquish death--there are few such epitomes of noble emotion.
Born and bred on the soil of the desert, the singers of the Age of
Ignorance have left behind them a record of their race that richer and
wiser nations will find hard to equal.


[Footnote 2: Since the events above recorded, Ibn Sa'oud has, I believe,
come to terms with the Sultan after a vain appeal to a stronger ally,
and Ibn er Rashīd is reported to be struggling to turn out the Turkish
garrisons which were appointed nominally to aid him. Quite recently
there has been a rumour that Ibn er Rashīd is dead.]

[Footnote 3: El Muwaḳḳar it is written, but the Bedouin change the
hard k into a hard g. The site has been described in "Die Provincia
Arabia," vol II.]

[Footnote 4: Several of these ruins were visited by Musil, but his took
is not yet published.]

[Footnote 5: The present unrest in Egypt may seem to throw a doubt upon
the truth of these observations, but I do not believe this to be the
case. The Egyptians have forgotten the miseries from which our
administration rescued them, the Syrians and the people of the desert
are still labouring under them, and in their eyes the position of their
neighbours is one of unalloyed and enviable ease. But when once the wolf
is driven from the door, the restraints imposed by an immutable law eat
into the temper of a restless, unstable population accustomed to reckon
with misrule and to profit by the frequent laxity and the occasional
opportunities of undeserved advancement which characterise it. Justice
is a capital thing when it guards your legal rights, but most damnable
when you wish to usurp the rights of others. Fellāḥ ul 'Isa and his
kind would not be slow to discover its defects.]

[Footnote 6: I have borrowed Sir Charles Lyall's beautiful and most
scholarly translation of this and the preceding poem.]




CHAPTER IV


There is an Arabic proverb which says: "Ḥayyeh rubda wa la ḍaif
muḍḥa"--neither ash-grey snake nor midday guest. We were careful
not to make a breach in our manners by outstaying our welcome, and our
camp was up before the sun. To wake in that desert dawn was like waking
in the heart of an opal. The mists lifting their heads out of the
hollows, the dews floating in ghostly wreaths from the black tents, were
shot through first with the faint glories of the eastern sky and then
with the strong yellow rays of the risen sun. I sent a silver and purple
kerchief to Fellāḥ ul 'Isa, "for the little son" who had played
solemnly about the hearth, took grateful leave of Namrūd, drank a
parting cup of coffee, and, the old sheikh holding my stirrup, mounted
and rode away with G̣ablān. We climbed the Jebel el 'Alya and crossed
the wide summit of the range; the landscape was akin to that of our own
English border country but bigger, the sweeping curves more generous,
the distances further away. The glorious cold air intoxicated every
sense and set the blood throbbing--to my mind the saying about the Bay
of Naples should run differently. See the desert on a fine morning and
die--if you can. Even the stolid mules felt the breath of it and raced
across the spongy ground ("Mad! the accursed ones!") till their packs
swung round and brought them down, and twice we stopped to head them off
and reload. The Little Heart, the highest peak of the Jebel Druze,
surveyed us cheerfully the while, glittering in its snow mantle far away
to the north.

[Illustration 38: ARABS RIDING MARDŪF]

At the foot of the northern slopes of the 'Alya hills we entered a great
rolling plain like that which we had left to the south. We passed many
of those mysterious rujm which start the fancy speculating on the past
history of the land, and presently we caught sight of the scattered
encampments of the Ḥassaniyyeh, who are good friends to the Da'ja and
belong to the same group of tribes. And here we spied two riders coming
across the plain and G̣ablān went out to greet them and remained some
time in talk, and then returned with a grave face. The day before, the
very day before, while we had been journeying peacefully from Ṭneib,
four hundred horsemen of the Ṣukhūr and the Ḥoweiṭāṭ, leagued
in evil, had swept these plains, surprised an outlying group of the Beni
Ḥassan and carried off the tents, together with two thousand head of
cattle. It was almost a pity, I thought, that we had come a day too
late, but G̣ablān looked graver still at the suggestion, and said that
he would have been forced to join in the fray, yes, he would even have
left me, though I had been committed to his charge, for the Da'ja were
bound to help the Beni Ḥassan against the Ṣukhūr. And perhaps
yesterday's work would be enough to break the new-born truce between
that powerful tribe and the allies of the 'Anazeh and set the whole
desert at war again. There was sorrow in the tents of the Children of
Ḥassan. We saw a man weeping by the tent pole, with his head bowed in
his hands, everything he possessed having been swept from him. As we
rode we talked much of ghazu (raid) and the rules that govern it. The
fortunes of the Arab are as varied as those of a gambler on the Stock
Exchange. One day he is the richest man in the desert, and next morning
he may not have a single camel foal to his name. He lives in a state of
war, and even if the surest pledges have been exchanged with the
neighbouring tribes there is no certainty that a band of raiders from
hundreds of miles away will not descend on his camp in the night, as a
tribe unknown to Syria, the Beni Awājeh, fell, two years ago, on the
lands south-east of Aleppo, crossing three hundred miles of desert,
Mardūf (two on a camel) from their seat above Baghdad, carrying off all
the cattle and killing scores of people. How many thousand years this
state of things has lasted, those who shall read the earliest records of
the inner desert will tell us, for it goes back to the first of them,
but in all the centuries the Arab has bought no wisdom from experience.
He is never safe, and yet he behaves as though security were his daily
bread. He pitches his feeble little camps, ten or fifteen tents
together, over a wide stretch of undefended and indefensible country. He
is too far from his fellows to call in their aid, too far as a rule to
gather the horsemen together and follow after the raiders whose retreat
must be sufficiently slow, burdened with the captured flocks, to
guarantee success to a swift pursuit. Having lost all his worldly goods,
he goes about the desert and makes his plaint, and one man gives him a
strip or two of goats' hair cloth, and another a coffee-pot, a third
presents him with a camel, and a fourth with a few sheep, till he has a
roof to cover him and enough animals to keep his family from hunger.
There are good customs among the Arabs, as Namrūd said. So he bides his
time for months, perhaps for years, till at length opportunity ripens,
and the horsemen of his tribe with their allies ride forth and recapture
all the flocks that had been carried off and more besides, and the feud
enters on another phase. The truth is that the ghazu is the only
industry the desert knows and the only game. As an industry it seems to
the commercial mind to be based on a false conception of the laws of
supply and demand, but as a game there is much to be said for it. The
spirit of adventure finds full scope in it--you can picture the
excitement of the night ride across the plain, the rush of the mares in
the attack, the glorious (and comparatively innocuous) popping of rifles
and the exhilaration of knowing yourself a fine fellow as you turn
homewards with the spoil. It is the best sort of fantasia, as they say
in the desert, with a spice of danger behind it. Not that the danger is
alarmingly great: a considerable amount of amusement can be got without
much bloodshed, and the raiding Arab is seldom bent on killing. He never
lifts his hand against women and children, and if here and there a man
falls it is almost by accident, since who can be sure of the ultimate
destination of a rifle bullet once it is embarked on its lawless course?
This is the Arab view of the ghazu; the Druzes look at it otherwise. For
them it is red war. They do not play the game as it should be played,
they go out to slay, and they spare no one. While they have a grain of
powder in their flasks and strength to pull the trigger, they kill every
man, woman and child that they encounter.

[Illustration 39: A TRAVELLING ENCAMPMENT OF THE 'AG̣ĒL]

Knowing the independence of Arab women and the freedom with which
marriages are contracted between different tribes of equal birth, I saw
many romantic possibilities of mingled love and hatred between the
Montagues and the Capulets. "Lo, on a sudden I loved her," says Antara,
"though I had slain her kin." G̣ablān replied that these difficult
situations did indeed occur, and ended sometimes in a tragedy, but if
the lovers would be content to wait, some compromise could be arrived
at, or they might be able to marry during one of the brief but
oft-recurring intervals of truce. The real danger begins when blood feud
is started within the tribe itself and a man having murdered one of his
own people is cast out a homeless, kinless exile to shelter with
strangers or with foes. Such was Imr ul Ḳais, the lonely outlaw,
crying to the night: "Oh long night, wilt thou not bring the dawn? yet
the day is no better than thou."

[Illustration 40: A DESERT WELL]

A few miles further north the Ḥassaniyyeh encampments had not yet
heard of yesterday's misfortune, and we had the pleasure of spreading
the ill-news. G̣ablān rode up to every group we passed and delivered
his mind of its burden; the men in buckram multiplied as we went, and
perhaps I had been wrong in accepting the four hundred of the original
statement, for they had had plenty of time to breed during the
twenty-four hours that had elapsed between their departure and our
arrival. All the tents were occupied with preparations not for war but
for feasting. On the morrow fell the great festival of the Mohammedan
year, the Feast of Sacrifice, when the pilgrims in Mecca slaughter their
offerings and True Believers at home follow their example. By every tent
there was a huge pile of thorns wherewith to roast the camel or sheep
next day, and the shirts of the tribe were spread out to dry in the sun
after a washing which, I have reason to believe, takes place but once a
year. Towards sunset we reached a big encampment of the Beni Ḥassan,
where G̣ablān decided to spend the night. There was water in a muddy
pool near at hand and a good site for our tents above the hollow in
which the Arabs lay. None of the great sheikhs were camped there and,
mindful of Namrūd's warnings, I refused all invitations and spent the
evening at home, watching the sunset and the kindling of the cooking
fires and the blue smoke that floated away into the twilight. The
sacrificial camel, in gorgeous trappings, grazed among my mules, and
after dark the festival was heralded by a prolonged letting off of
rifles. G̣ablān sat silent by the camp fire, his thoughts busy with
the merrymakings that were on foot at home. It went sorely against the
grain that he should be absent on such a day. "How many horsemen," said
he, "will alight to-morrow at my father's tent! and I shall not be there
to welcome them or to wish a good feast day to my little son!"

[Illustration 41: A DESERT WATER-COURSE]

We were off before the rejoicings had begun. I had no desire to assist
at the last moments of the camel, and moreover we had a long day before
us through country that was not particularly safe. As far as my caravan
was concerned, the risk was small. I had a letter in my pocket from
Fellāḥ ul 'Isa to Nasīb el Aṭrash, the Sheikh of Ṣalkhad in the
Jebel Druze. "To the renowned and honoured sheikh, Nasīb el Aṭrash,"
it ran (I had heard my host dictate it to Namrūd and seen him seal it
with his seal), "the venerated, may God prolong his existence! We send
you greetings, to you and to all the people of Ṣalkhad, and to your
brother Jada'llah, and to the son of your uncle Muḥammad el Aṭrash
in Umm er Rummān, and to our friends in Imtain. And further, there goes
to you from us a lady of the most noble among the English. And we greet
Muḥammada and our friends. . . . etc., (here followed another list of
names), and this is all that is needful, and peace be with you." And
beyond this letter I had the guarantee of my nationality, for the Druzes
have not yet forgotten our interference on their behalf in 1860;
moreover I was acquainted with several of the sheikhs of the Ṭurshān,
to which powerful family Nasīb belonged. But G̣ablān was in a
different case, and he was fully conscious of the ambiguity of his
position. In spite of his uncle's visit to the Mountain, he was not at
all certain how the Druzes would receive him; he was leaving the last
outposts of his allies, and entering a border land by tradition hostile
(he himself had no acquaintance with it but that which he had gathered
on raiding expeditions), and if he did not find enemies among the Druzes
he might well fall in with a scouring party of the bitter foes of the
Da'ja, the Ḥaseneh or their like, who camp east of the hills.

[Illustration 42: CAMELS OF THE ḤASENEH]

After an hour or two of travel, the character of the country changed
completely: the soft soil of the desert came to an end, and the volcanic
rocks of the Ḥaurān began. We rode for some time up a gulley of lava,
left the last of the Ḥassaniyyeh tents in a little open space between
some mounds, and found ourselves on the edge of a plain that, stretched
to the foot of the Jebel Druze in an unbroken expanse, completely
deserted, almost devoid of vegetation and strewn with black volcanic
stones. It has been said that the borders of the desert are like a rocky
shore on which the sailor who navigates deep waters with success may yet
be wrecked when he attempts to bring his ship to port. This was the
landing which we had to effect. Somewhere between us and the hills were
the ruins of Umm ej Jemāl, where I hoped to get into touch with the
Druzes, but for the life of us we could not tell where they lay, the
plain having just sufficient rise and fall to hide them. Now Umm ej
Jemāl has an evil name--I believe mine was the second European camp
that had ever been pitched in it, the first having been that of a party
of American archæologists who left a fortnight before I arrived--and
G̣ablān's evident anxiety enhanced its sinister reputation. Twice he
turned to me and asked whether it were necessary to camp there. I
answered that he had undertaken to guide me to Umm ej Jemāl, and that
there was no question but that I should go, and the second time I backed
my obstinacy by pointing out that we must have water that night for the
animals, and that there was little chance of finding it except in the
cisterns of the ruined village. Thereupon I had out my map, and after
trying to guess what point on the blank white paper we must have
reached, I turned my caravan a little to the west towards a low rise
from whence we should probably catch sight of our destination. G̣ablān
took the decision in good part and expressed regret that he could not be
of better service in directing us. He had been once in his life to Umm
ej Jemāl, but it was at dead of night when he was out raiding. He and
his party had stopped for half an hour to water their horses and had
passed on eastward, returning, by another route. Yes, it had been a
successful raid, praise be to God! and one of the first in which he had
engaged. Mikhāil listened with indifference to our deliberations, the
muleteers were not consulted, but as we set off again Ḥabīb tucked
his revolver more handily into his belt.

[Illustration 43: UMM EJ JEMĀL]

We rode on. I was engaged in looking for the rasīf, the paved Roman
road that runs from Ḳal'at ez Zerka straight to Boṣrā, and also in
wondering what I should do to protect if necessary the friend and guide
whose pleasant companionship had enlivened our hours of travel and who
should certainly come to no harm while he was with us. As we drew nearer
to the rising ground we observed that it was crowned with sheepfolds,
and presently we could see men gathering their flocks together and
driving them behind the black walls, their hurried movements betraying
their alarm. We noticed also some figures, whether mounted or on foot it
was impossible to determine, advancing on us from a hollow to the left,
and after a moment two puffs of smoke rose in front of them, and we
heard the crack of rifles.

G̣ablān turned to me with a quick gesture.

"Ḍarabūna!" he said. "They have fired on us."

I said aloud: "They are afraid," but to myself, "We're in for it."

G̣ablān rose in his stirrups, dragged his fur-lined cloak from his
shoulders, wound it round his left arm and waved it above his head, and
very slowly he and I paced forward together. Another couple of shots
were fired, and still we rode forward, G̣ablān waving his flag of
truce. The firing ceased; it was nothing after all but the accepted
greeting to strangers, conducted with the customary levity of the
barbarian. Our assailants turned out to be two Arabs, grinning from ear
to ear, quite ready to fraternise with us as soon as they had decided
that we were not bent on sheep stealing, and most willing to direct us
to Umm ej Jemāl. As soon as we had rounded the tell we saw it in front
of us, its black towers and walls standing so boldly out of the desert
that it was impossible to believe it had been ruined and deserted for
thirteen hundred years. It was not till we came close that the rents and
gashes in the tufa masonry and the breaches in the city wall were
visible. I pushed forward and would have ridden straight into the heart
of the town, but G̣ablān caught me up and laid his hand upon my
bridle.

"I go first," he said. "Oh lady, you were committed to my charge."

And since he was the only person who incurred any risk and was well
aware of the fact, his resolution did him credit.

[Illustration 44: WATERING CAMELS]

We clattered over the ruined wall, passed round the square monastery
tower which is the chief feature of the Mother of Camels (such is the
meaning of the Arabic name), and rode into an open place between empty
streets, and there was no one to fear and no sign of life save that
offered by two small black tents, the inhabitants of which greeted us
with enthusiasm, and proceeded to sell us milk and eggs in the most
amicable fashion. The Arabs who live at the foot of Ḥaurān mountains
are called the Jebeliyyeh, the Arabs of the Hills, and they are of no
consideration, being but servants and shepherds to the Druzes. In the
winter they herd the flocks that are sent down into the plain, and in
the summer they are allowed to occupy the uncultivated slopes with their
own cattle.

I spent the hour of daylight that remained in examining the wonderful
Nabatæan necropolis outside the walls. Monsieur Dussaud began the work
on it five years ago; Mr. Butler and Dr. Littmann, whose visit
immediately preceded mine, will be found to have continued it when their
next volumes are given to the world. Having seen what tombs they had
uncovered and noted several mounds that must conceal others, I sent away
my companions and wandered in the dusk through the ruined streets of the
town, into great rooms and up broken stairs, till G̣ablān came and
called me in, saying that if a man saw something in a fur coat exploring
those uncanny places after dark, he might easily take the apparition for
a ghoul and shoot at it. Moreover, he wished to ask me whether he might
not return to Ṭneib. One of the Arabs would guide us next day to the
first Druze village, and G̣ablān would as soon come no nearer to the
Mountain. I agreed readily, indeed it was a relief not to have his
safety on my conscience. He received three napoleons for his trouble and
a warm letter of thanks to deliver to Fellāḥ ul 'Isa, and we parted
with many assurances that if God willed we would travel together again.

[Illustration 45: STRIKING CAMP]

The stony foot of the Jebel Ḥaurān is strewn with villages deserted
since the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century. I visited two that
lay not far from my path, Shabḥa and Shabḥīyyeh, and found them to
be both of the same character as Umm ej Jemāl. From afar they look like
well-built towns with square towers rising above streets of
three-storied houses. Where the walls have fallen they lie as they fell,
and no hand has troubled to clear away the ruins. Monsieur de Vogüé
was the first to describe the architecture of the Ḥaurān; his
splendid volumes are still the principal source of information. The
dwelling-houses are built round a court in which there is usually an
outer stair leading to the upper story. There is no wood used in their
construction, even the doors are of solid stone, turning on stone
hinges, and the windows of stone slabs pierced with open-work patterns.
Sometimes there are traces of a colonnaded portico, or the walls are
broken by a double window, the arches of which are supported by a small
column and a rough plain capital; frequently the lintels of the doors
are adorned with a cross or a Christian monogram, but otherwise there is
little decoration. The chambers are roofed with stone slabs resting on
the back of transverse arches. So far as can be said with any certainty,
Nabatæan inscriptions and tombs are the oldest monuments that have been
discovered in the district; they are followed by many important remains
of pagan Rome, but the really flourishing period seems to have been the
Christian. After the Mohammadan invasion, which put an end to the
prosperity of the Ḥaurān uplands, few of the villages were
re-inhabited, and when the Druzes came about a hundred and fifty years
ago, they found no settled population. They made the Mountain their own,
rebuilt and thereby destroyed the ancient towns, and extended their
lordship over the plains to the south, though they have not established
themselves in the villages of that debatable land which remains a happy
hunting ground for the archæologist. The American expedition will make
good use of the immense amount of material that exists there, and
knowing that the work had been done by better hands than mine, I rolled
up the measuring tape and folded the foot-rule. But I could not so far
overcome a natural instinct as to cease from copying inscriptions, and
the one or two (they were extremely few) that had escaped Dr. Littmann's
vigilant eye and come by chance to me were made over to him when we met
in Damascus.

To our new guide, Fendi, fell the congenial task of posting me up in the
gossip of the Mountain. Death had been busy among the great family of
the Turshān during the past five years. Fāiz el Aṭrash, Sheikh of
Kreyeh, was gone, poisoned said some, and a week or two before my
arrival the most renowned of all the leaders of the Druzes, Shibly Beg
el Aṭrash, had died of a mysterious and lingering illness--poison
again, it was whispered. There was this war and that on hand, a terrible
raid of the Arabs of the Wādy Sirḥān to be avenged, and a score with
the Ṣukhūr to be settled, but on the whole there was prosperity, and
as much peace as a Druze would wish to enjoy. The conversation was
interrupted by a little shooting at rabbits lying asleep in the sun, not
a gentlemanly sport perhaps, but one that helped to fill and to
diversify the pot. After a time I left the mules and Fendi to go their
own way, and taking Mikhāil with me, made a long circuit to visit the
ruined towns. We were just finishing lunch under a broken wall, well
separated from the rest of the party, when we saw two horsemen
approaching us across the plain. We swept up the remains of the lunch
and mounted hastily, feeling that any greeting they might accord us was
better met in the saddle. They stopped in front of us and gave us the
salute, following it with an abrupt question as to where we were going.
I answered: "To Ṣalkhād, to Nasīb el Aṭrash," and they let us pass
without further remark. They were not Druzes, for they did not wear the
Druze turban, but Christians from Ḳreyeh, where there is a large
Christian community, riding down to Umm ej Jemāl to visit the winter
quarters of their flocks, so said Fendi, whom they had passed a mile
ahead. Several hours before we reached the present limits of
cultivation, we saw the signs of ancient agriculture in the shape of
long parallel lines of stones heaped aside from earth that had once been
fruitful. They looked like the ridge and furrow of a gigantic meadow,
and like the ridge and furrow they are almost indelible, the mark of
labour that must have ceased with the Arab invasion. At the foot of the
first spur of the hills, Tell esh Shīḥ (it is called after the
grey white Shīḥ plant which is the best pasturage for sheep), we left
the unharvested desert and entered the region of ploughed fields--we
left, too, the long clean levels of the open wilderness and were caught
fetlock deep in the mud of a Syrian road. It led us up the hill to Umm
er Rummān, the Mother of Pomegranates, on the edge of the lowest
plateau of the Jebel Druze, as bleak a little muddy spot as you could
hope to see. I stopped at the entrance of the village, and asked a group
of Druzes where I should find a camping ground, and they directed me to
an extremely dirty place below the cemetery, saying there was no other
where I should not spoil the crops or the grass, though the crops.
Heaven save the mark! were as yet below ground, and the grass consisted
of a few brown spears half covered with melting snow. I could not
entertain the idea of pitching tents so near the graveyard, and demanded
to be directed to the house of Muḥammad el Aṭrash, Sheikh of Umm er
Rummān. This prince of the Ṭurshān was seated upon his roof, engaged
in directing certain agricultural operations that were being carried
forward in the slough below. Long years had made him shapeless of figure
and the effect was enhanced by the innumerable garments in which the
winter cold had forced him to wrap his fat old body. I came as near as
the mud would allow, and shouted:

[Illustration 46: MUḤAMMAD EL AṬRASH]

"Peace be upon you, oh Sheikh!"

"And upon you peace!" he bawled in answer.

"Where in your village is there a dry spot for a camp?"

The sheikh conferred at the top of his voice with his henchmen in the
mud, and finally replied that he did not know, by God! While I was
wondering where to turn, a Druze stepped forward and announced that he
could show me a place outside the town, and the sheikh, much relieved by
the shifting of responsibility, gave me a loud injunction to go in
peace, and resumed his occupations.

My guide was a young man with the clear cut features and the sharp
intelligent expression of his race. He was endowed, too, like all his
kin, with a lively curiosity, and as he hopped from side to side of the
road to avoid the pools of mud and slush, he had from me all my story,
whence I came and whither I was going, who were my friends in the Jebel
Druze and what my father's name--very different this from the custom of
the Arabs, with whom it is an essential point of good breeding never to
demand more than the stranger sees fit to impart. In Aṭ Ṭabari's
history there is a fine tale of a man who sought refuge with an Arab
sheikh. He stayed on, and the sheikh died, and his son who ruled in his
stead advanced in years, and at length the grandson of the original host
came to his father and said: "Who is the man who dwells with us" And the
father answered: "My son, in my father's time he came, and my father
grew old and died, and he stayed on under my protection, and I too have
grown old; but in all these years we have never asked him why he sought
us nor what is his name. Neither do thou ask." Yet I rejoiced to find
myself once more among the trenchant wits and the searching
koḥl-blackened eyes of the Mountain, where every question calls for a
quick retort or a brisk parry, and when my interlocutor grew too
inquisitive I had only to answer:

"Listen, oh you! I am not 'thou,' but 'Your Excellency,'" and he
laughed and understood and took the rebuke to heart.

There are many inscriptions in Umm er Rummān, a few Nabatæan and the
rest Cufic, proving that the town on the shelf of the hills was an early
settlement and that it was one of those the Arabs re-occupied for a time
after the invasion. A delighted crowd of little boys followed me from
house to house, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to point
out a written stone built into a wādi or laid in the flooring about the
hearth. In one house a woman caught me by the arm and implored me to
heal her husband. The man was lying in a dark corner of the windowless
room, with his face wrapped in filthy bandages, and when these had been
removed a horrible wound was revealed, the track of a bullet that had
passed through the cheek and shattered the jaw. I could do nothing but
give him an antiseptic, and adjure the woman to wash the wound and keep
the wrappings clean, and above all not to let him drink the medicine,
though I felt it would make small odds which way he used it, Death had
him so surely by the heel. This was the first of the long roll of
sufferers that must pass before the eyes and catch despairingly at the
sympathies of every traveller in wild places. Men and women afflicted
with ulcers and terrible sores, with fevers and rheumatisms, children
crippled from their birth, the blind and the old, there are none who do
not hope that the unmeasured wisdom of the West may find them a remedy.
You stand aghast at the depths of human misery and at your own
helplessness.

The path of archæology led me at last to the sheikh's door, and I went
in to pay him an official visit. He was most hospitably inclined now
that the business of the day was over; we sat together in the maḳ'ad,
the audience room, a dark and dirty sort of out-house, with an iron
stove in the centre of it, and discussed the Japanese War and desert
ghazus and other topics of the day, while Selmān, the sheikh's son, a
charming boy of sixteen, made us coffee. Muḥammad is brother-in-law to
Shibly and to Yahya Beg el Aṭrāsh, who had been my first host five
years before when I had escaped to his village of 'Areh from the Turkish
Mudir at Boṣrā, and Selmān is the only son of his father's old age
and the only, descendant of the famous 'Areh house of the Ṭurshān,
for Shibly died and Yahya lives childless. The boy walked back with me
to my camp, stepping lightly through the mud, a gay and eager figure
touched with the air of distinction that befits one who comes of a noble
stock. He had had no schooling, though there was a big Druze maktab at
Kreyeh, fifteen miles away, kept by a Christian of some learning.

"My father holds me so precious," he explained, "that he will not let me
leave his side."

"Oh Selmān," I began----

"Oh God!" he returned, using the ejaculation customary to one addressed
by name.

"The minds of the Druzes are like fine steel, but what is steel until it
is beaten into a sword blade?"

Selmān answered: "My uncle Shibly could neither read nor write."

I said: "The times are changed. The house of the Turshān will need
trained wits if it would lead the Mountain as it did before."

But that headship is a thing of the past. Shibly is dead and Yahya
childless, Muḥammad is old and Selmān undeveloped, Fāiz has left
four sons but they are of no repute, Nasīb is cunning but very
ignorant, there is Muṣṭafa at Imtain, who passes for a worthy man of
little intelligence, and Ḥamūd at Sweida, who is distinguished mainly
for his wealth. The ablest man among the Druzes is without doubt Abu
Tellāl of Shaḥba, and the most enlightened Sheikh Muḥammad en
Naṣṣār.

The night was bitterly cold. My thermometer had been broken, so that the
exact temperature could not be registered, but every morning until we
reached Damascus the water in the cup by my bedside was a solid piece of
ice, and one night a little tumbling stream outside the camp was frozen
hard and silent. The animals and the muleteers were usually housed in a
khān while the frost lasted. Muḥammad the Druze, who had returned to
his original name and faith, disappeared the moment camp was pitched,
and spent the night enjoying the hospitality of his relations. "For,"
said Mikhāil sarcastically, "every man who can give him a meal he
reckons to be the son of his uncle."

I was obliged to delay my start next morning in order to profit by the
sheikh's invitation to breakfast at a very elastic nine o'clock--two
hours after sunrise was what was said, and who knows exactly when it may
suit that luminary to appear? It was a pleasant party. We discussed the
war in Yemen in all its bearings--theoretically, for I was the only
person who had any news, and mine was derived from a _Weekly Times_ a
month old--and then Muḥammad questioned me as to why Europeans looked
for inscriptions.

"But I think I know," he added. "It is that they may restore the land to
the lords of it."

I assured him that the latest descendants of the former owners of the
Ḥaurān had been dead a thousand years, and he listened politely and
changed the subject with the baffled air of one who cannot get a true
answer.

The young man who had shown us our camping ground rode with us to
Ṣalkhad, saying he had business there and might as well have company
by the way. His name was Ṣāleh; he was of a clerkly family, a reader
and a scribe. I was so tactless as to ask him whether he were 'ākil,
initiated--the Druzes are divided into the initiated and the
uninitiated, but the line of demarcation does not follow that of social
pre-eminence, since most of the Ṭurshān are uninitiated. He gave me a
sharp look, and replied:

"What do you think?" and I saw my error and dropped the subject.

[Illustration 47: DESERT FLORA AND FAUNA]

But Ṣāleh was not one to let slip any opportunity of gaining
information. He questioned me acutely on our customs, down to the laws
of marriage and divorce. He was vastly entertained at the English rule
that the father should pay a man for marrying his daughter (so he
interpreted the habit of giving her a marriage portion), and we laughed
together over the absurdity of the arrangement. He was anxious to know
Western views as to the creation of the world and the origin of matter,
and I obliged him with certain heterodox opinions, on which he seized
with far greater lucidity than that with which they were offered. We
passed an agreeable morning, in spite of the mud and boulders of the
road. At the edge of the snow wreaths a little purple crocus had made
haste to bloom, and a starry white garlic--the Mountain is very rich in
Spring flowers. The views to the south over the great plain we had
crossed were enchanting; to the north the hills rose in unbroken slopes
of snow, Ḳuleib, the Little Heart, looking quite Alpine with its
frosty summit half veiled in mist. Two hours after noon we reached
Ṣalkhad, the first goal of our journey.




CHAPTER V


Salcah, the city of King Og in Bashan, must have been a fortified place
from the beginning of history. The modern village clusters round the
base of a small volcano, on the top of which, built in the very crater,
is the ruined fortress. This fortress and its predecessors in the crater
formed the outpost of the Ḥaurān Mountains against the desert, the
outpost of the earliest civilisation against the earliest marauders. The
ground drops suddenly to the south and east, and, broken only by one or
two volcanic mounds in the immediate neighbourhood, settles itself down
into the long levels that reach Euphrates stream; straight as an arrow
from a bow the Roman road runs out from Ṣalkhad into the desert in a
line that no modern traveller has followed beyond the first two or three
stages. The caravan track to Nejd begins here and passes by Kāf and
Ethreh along the Wādi Sirḥan to Jōf and Ḥāil, a perilous way,
though the Blunts pursued it successfully and Euting after them.
Euting's description of it, done with all the learning and the minute
observation of the German, is the best we have. Due south of Ṣalkhad
there is an interesting ruined fort, Ḳal'at el Azrak, in an oasis
where there are thickets full of wild boar: Dussaud visited it and has
given an excellent account of his journey. No doubt there is more to be
found still; the desert knows many a story that has not yet been told,
and at Ṣalkhad it is difficult to keep your feet from turning south,
so invitingly mysterious are those great plains.

[Illustration 48: THE CASTLE, ṢALKHAD]

I went at once to the house of Nasīb el Atrāsh and presented Fellāḥ
ul 'Isa's letter. Nasīb is a man of twenty-seven, though he looks ten
years older, short in stature and sleek, with shrewd features of a type
essentially Druze and an expression that is more cunning than pleasant.
He received me in his maḳ'ad, where he was sitting with his brother
Jada'llah, a tall young man with a handsome but rather stupid face, who
greeted me with "Bon jour," and then relapsed into silence, having come
to the end of all the French he knew. Just as he had borrowed one phrase
from a European tongue, so he had borrowed one article of dress from
European wardrobes: a high stick-up collar was what he had selected, and
it went strangely with his Arab clothes. There were a few Druzes
drinking coffee in the maḳ'ad, and one other whom I instantly
diagnosed as an alien. He turned out to be the Mudīr el Māl of the
Turkish government--I do not know what his exact functions are, but his
title implies him to be an agent of the Treasury. Ṣalkhad is one of
three villages in Jebel Druze (the others being Sweida and 'Areh) where
the Sultan has a Kāimaḳām and a telegraph station. Yūsef Effendi,
Kāimaḳām, and Milḥēm Iliān, Mudīr el Māl, were considerably
surprised when I turned up from the desert without warning or
permission; they despatched three telegrams daily to the Vāli of
Damascus, recounting all that I did and said, and though I was on the
best of terms with both of them, finding indeed Milḥēm to be by far
the most intelligent and agreeable man in the village, I fear I caused
them much perturbation of mind. And here let me say that my experience
of Turkish officials leads me to count them among the most polite and
obliging of men. If you come to them with the proper certificates there
is nothing they will not do to help you; when they stop you it is
because they are obliged to obey orders from higher authorities; and
even when you set aside, as from time to time you must, refusals that
are always couched in language conciliatory to a fault, they conceal
their just annoyance and bear you no ill will for the trouble you have
caused them. The government agents at Ṣalkhad occupy an uneasy
position. It is true that there has been peace in the Mountain for the
past five years, but the Druzes are a slippery race and one quick to
take offence. Milḥēm understood them well, and his appointment to the
new post of Ṣalkhad is a proof of the Vāli's genuine desire to avoid
trouble in the future. He had been at Sweida for many years before he
came to Ṣalkhad; he was a Christian, and therefore not divided from
the Druzes by the unbridged gulf of hatred that lies between them and
Islām, and he was fully aware that Turkish rule in the Jebel Ḥaurān
depends on how little demand is made on a people nominally subject and
practically independent. Yūsef Effendi was not far behind him in the
strength of his conviction on this head, and he had the best of reasons
for realising how shadowy his authority was. There are not more than two
hundred Turkish soldiers in all the Mountain; the rest of the Ottoman
forces are Druze zaptiehs, well pleased to wear a government uniform and
draw government pay, on the rare occasions when it reaches them, though
they can hardly be considered a trustworthy guard if serious differences
arise between their own people and the Sultan. To all outward appearance
Nasīb and his brother were linked by the closest bonds of friendship
with the Kāimaḳām; they were for ever sitting in his maḳ'ad and
drinking his coffee, but once when we happened to be alone together,
Yūsef Effendi said pathetically in his stilted Turkish Arabic: "I never
know what they are doing: they look on me as an enemy. And if they wish
to disobey orders from Damascus, they cut the telegraph wire and go
their own way. What power have I to prevent them?"

[Illustration 49: NASĪB EL AṬRASH]

[Illustration 50: A GROUP OF DRUZES]

Nevertheless there are signs that the turbulent people of the Mountain
have turned their minds to other matters than war with the Osmanli, and
among the chief of these are the steam mills that grind the corn of
Ṣalkhad and a few villages besides. A man who owns a steam mill is
pledged to maintain the existing order. He has built it at considerable
expense, he does not wish to see it wrecked by an invading Turkish army
and his capital wasted; on the contrary, he hopes to make money from it,
and his restless energies find a new and profitable outlet in that
direction. My impression is that peace rests on a much firmer basis than
it did five years ago, and that the Ottoman government has not been slow
to learn the lessons of the last war--if only the Vāli of Damascus
could have known how favourable an opinion his recent measures would
force on the mind of the intriguing Englishwoman, he might have spared
his telegraph clerks several hours' work.

There could scarcely have been a better example of the freedom with
which the Druzes control their own affairs than was offered by an
incident that took place on the very evening of my arrival. It has
already been intimated on the authority of Fendi that the relations
between the Mountain and the Desert were fraught with the usual
possibilities of martial incident, and we had not spent an afternoon in
Ṣalkhad without discovering that the great raid that had occurred some
months previously was the topic that chiefly interested Nasīb and his
brother. Not that they spoke of it in their conversations with me, but
they listened eagerly when we told of the raid on the Ḥassan yyeh and
the part the Ṣukhūr had played in it, and they drew from us all we
knew or conjectured as to the present camping grounds of the latter
tribe, how far the raiders had come, and in which direction retreated.
The muleteers overheard men whispering at the street corners, and their
whispers were of warlike preparations; the groups round Mikhāil's fire,
ever a centre of social activity, spoke of injuries that could not be
allowed to pass unnoticed, and one of the many sons of Muḥammad's
uncle had provided that famished Beyrouti with a lunch flavoured with
dark hints of a league between the Wādi Sirḥan and the Beni Ṣakhr
which must be nipped in the bud ere it had assumed alarming proportions.
The wave of the ghazu can hardly reach as far as Ṣalkhad itself, but
the harm is done long before it touches that point, especially in the
winter when every four-footed creature, except the mare necessary for
riding, is far away in the southern plain.

My camp was pitched in a field outside the town at the eastern foot of
the castle hill. The slopes to the north were deep in snow up to the
ruined walls of the fortress, and even where we lay there were a few
detached snowdrifts glittering under the full moon. I had just finished
dinner, and was debating whether it were too cold to write my diary,
when a sound of savage singing broke upon the night, and from the
topmost walls of the castle a great flame leapt up into the sky. It was
a beacon kindled to tell the news of the coming raid to the many Druze
villages scattered over the plain below, and the song was a call to
arms. There was a Druze zaptieh sitting by my camp fire; he jumped up
and gazed first at me and then at the red blaze above us. I said:

[Illustration 51: FROM ṢALKHAD CASTLE, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST]

"Is there permission to my going up?"

He answered: "There is no refusal. Honour us."

We climbed together over the half frozen mud, and by the snowy northern
side of the volcano, edged our way in the darkness round the castle
walls where the lava ashes gave beneath our feet, and came out into the
full moonlight upon the wildest scene that eyes could see. A crowd of
Druzes, young men and boys, stood at the edge of the moat on a narrow
shoulder of the hill. They were all armed with swords and knives and
they were shouting phrase by phrase a terrible song. Each line of it was
repeated twenty times or more until it seemed to the listener that it
had been bitten, as an acid bites the brass, onto the intimate recesses
of the mind.


"Upon them, upon them! oh Lord our God! that the foe may fall
in swathes before our swords!
Upon them, upon them! that our spears may drink at their hearts!
Let the babe leave his mother's breast!
Let the young man arise and be gone!
Upon them, upon them! oh Lord our God! that our swords may
drink at their hearts. . . ."


So they sang, and it was as though the fury of their anger would never
end, as though the castle walls would never cease from echoing their
interminable rage and the night never again know silence, when suddenly
the chant stopped and the singers drew apart and formed themselves into
a circle, every man holding his neighbours by the hand. Into the circle
stepped three young Druzes with bare swords, and strode round the ring
of eager boys that enclosed them. Before each in turn they stopped and
shook their swords and cried:

"Are you a good man? Are you a true man?"

And each one answered with a shout:

"Ha! ha!"

The moonlight fell on the dark faces and glittered on the quivering
blades, the thrill of martial ardour passed from hand to clasped hand,
and earth cried to heaven: War! red war!

And then one of the three saw me standing in the circle, and strode up
and raised his sword above his head, as though nation saluted nation.

"Lady!" he said, "the English and the Druze are one."

I said: "Thank God! we, too, are a fighting race."

Indeed, at that moment there seemed no finer thing than to go out and
kill your enemy.

And when this swearing in of warriors was over, we ran down the hill
under the moon, still holding hands, and I, seeing that some were only
children not yet full grown, said to the companion whose hand chance had
put in mine:

"Do all these go out with you?"

He answered: "By God! not all. The ungrown boys must stay at home and
pray to God that their day may soon come."

When they reached the entrance of the town, the Druzes leapt on to a
flat house roof, and took up their devilish song. The fire had burnt out
on the castle walls, the night struck suddenly cold, and I began to
doubt whether if Milḥēm and the Vāli of Damascus could see me taking
part in a demonstration against the Ṣukhūr they would believe in the
innocence of my journey; so I turned away into the shadow and ran down
to my tents and became a European again, bent on peaceful pursuits and
unacquainted with the naked primitive passions of mankind.

We had certain inquiries to make concerning our journey, and stores to
lay in before we set out for the eastern side of the Mountain, where
there are no big villages, and therefore we spent two days at Ṣalkhad.
The great difficulty of the commissariat is barley for the animals.
There had been enough for our needs at Umm er Rummān, but there was
none at Ṣalkhad; it is always to be got at Sweida, which is the chief
post of the Turkish government, but that was far away across the hills,
and we decided to send down to Imtein, the path thither being bare of
snow. It is worth recording that in the winter, when all the flocks are
several hours away in the plain, it is impossible to buy a sheep in the
Mountain, and the traveller has to make shift with such scraggy chickens
as he may find. The want of foresight which had left our larder so
ill-furnished affected Mikhāil considerably, for he prided himself on
the roasting of a leg of mutton, and he asked me how it was that all the
books I had with me had not hinted at the absence of the animal that
could supply that delicacy. I answered that the writers of these works
seemed to have been more concerned with Roman remains than with such
weighty matters as roasts and stews, whereat he said firmly:

[Illustration 52: ḲREYEH]

"When your Excellency writes a book, you will not say: 'Here there is a
beautiful church and a great castle.' The gentry can see that for
themselves. But you shall say: 'In this village there are no hens.' Then
they will know from the beginning what sort of country it is."

The first day of my visit I spent with Nasīb, watching him give orders
for the grinding of the corn needed for the coming military expedition
(to which we sedulously avoided any allusion), photographing him and the
notables of his village, and lunching with him in his maḳ'ad on gritty
brown-paper-like bread and dibs, a kind of treacle made from boiled
grape juice, and a particularly nasty sort of soup of sour milk with
scraps of fat mixed in it--_kirk_ the Druzes call it and hold it in an
unwarrantable esteem. In the afternoon Nasīb was riding some ten miles
to the south, to settle a dispute that had arisen between two of his
villages, and he invited me to accompany him; but I thought that there
were probably other matters on hand, in which it might be awkward if a
stranger were to assist, and I compromised by agreeing to go with him
for an hour and turn aside to visit a shrine on top of a tell, the Weli
of El Khuḍr, who is no other than our St. George. Nasīb rode out in
style with twenty armed men by his side, himself arrayed in a long
mantle of dark blue cloth embroidered in black, with a pale blue
handkerchief tucked into the folds of the white turban that encircled
his tarbūsh. The cavalcade looked very gallant, each man wrapped in a
cloak and carrying his rifle across his knees. These rifles were handed
to me one by one that I might read the lettering on them. They were of
many different dates and origins, some antiquated pieces stolen from
Turkish soldiers, the most French and fairly modern, while a few came
from Egypt and were marked with V.R. and the broad arrow. Nasīb rode
with me for a time and catechised me on my social status, whether I
would ride at home with the King of England, and what was the extent of
my father's wealth. His curiosity was not entirely without a motive; the
Druzes are always hoping to find some very rich European whose
sympathies they could engage, and who would finance and arm them if
another war were to break out with the Sultan; but so contemptuous was
he of the modest competence which my replies revealed, that I was roused
to ask subsequently, by methods more tactful than those of Nasīb, what
was wealth in the Mountain. The answer was that the richest of the
Ṭurshān, Ḥamūd of Sweida, had an income of about 5000 napoleons.
Nasīb himself was not so well off. He had some 1000 napoleons yearly.
Probably it comes to him mainly in kind; all revenues are derived from
land, and vary considerably with the fortunes of the agricultural year.
The figures given me were, I should think, liberal, and depended on a
reckoning according with the best harvest rather than with the mean.

[Illustration 53: A DRUZE PLOUGHBOY]

Presently Nasīb fell behind and engaged in a whispered conversation
with an old man who was his chief adviser, while the others crowded
round me and told me tales of the desert and of great ruins to the
south, which they were prepared to show me if I would stay with them. At
the foot of the tell we met a group of horsemen waiting to impart to
Nasīb some important news about the Arabs. Mikhāil and I stood aside,
having seen our host look doubtfully at us out of the comers of his
eyes. That the tidings were not good was all we heard, and no one could
have learnt even that from Nasīb's crafty unmoved face and eyes
concealed beneath the lids as if he wished to make sure that they should
not reveal a single flash of his thoughts. Here we left him, to his
evident relief, and rode up the tell. Now there is never a prominent
hill in the Jebel Druze but it bears a sanctuary on its summit, and the
building is always one of those early monuments of the land that date
back to the times before Druze or Turk came into it. What is their
history? Were they erected to Nabatæan gods of rock and hill, to
Drusāra and Allāt and the pantheon of the Semitic inscriptions whom
the desert worshipped with sacrifice at the Ka'abah and on many a
solitary mound? If this be so the old divinities still bear sway under
changed names, still smell the blood of goats and sheep sprinkled on the
black doorposts of their dwellings, still hear the prayers of pilgrims
carrying green boughs and swathes of flowers. As at the Well of El
Khuḍr, there is always in the interior of the sanctuary an erection
like a sarcophagus, covered with shreds of coloured rags, and when you
lift the rags and peer beneath you find some queer block of tufa, worn
smooth with libations and own brother to the Black Stone at Mecca. Near
at hand there is a stone basin for water--the water was iced over that
day, and the snow had drifted in through the stone doors and was melting
through the roof, so that it lay in muddy pools on the floor.

The next day was exceedingly cold, with a leaden sky and a bitter wind,
the forerunner of snow. Milḥēm Iliān came down to invite me to lodge
with him, but I refused, fearing that I should feel the temperature of
my tent too icy after his heated room. He stayed some time and I took
the opportunity of discussing with him my plan of riding out into the
Ṣafa, the volcanic waste east of the Jebel Druze. He was not at all
encouraging, indeed he thought the project impossible under existing
conditions, for it seemed that the Ghiāth, the tribe that inhabits the
Ṣāfa, were up in arms against the Government. They had waylaid and
robbed the desert post that goes between Damascus and Baghdad, and were
expecting retribution at the hands of the Vāli. I f therefore a small
escort of zaptiehs were to be sent in with me they would assuredly be
cut to pieces. Milḥēm agreed, however, that it might be possible to
go in alone with the Druzes though anything short of an army of soldiers
would be useless, and he promised to give me a letter to Muḥammad en
Naṣṣār, Sheikh of Ṣāleh, whom he described as a good friend of
his and a man of influence and judgment. The Ghiāth are in the same
position with regard to the Druzes as are the Jebeliyyeh; they cannot
afford not to be on good terms with the Mountain, since they are
dependent on the high pasturages during the summer.

Towards sunset I returned Milḥēm's visit. His room was full of
people, including Nasīb newly returned from his expedition. They made
me tell them of my recent experiences in the desert, and I found that
all my friends were counted as foes by the Druzes and that they have no
allies save the Ghiāth and the Jebeliyyeh--the Sherarāt, the Da'ja,
the Beni Ḥassan, there was a score of blood against them all. In the
desert the word _gōm_, foe, is second to none save only that of _daif_,
guest, but in the Mountain it comes easily first. I said:

[Illustration 54: BOṢRA ESKI SHĀM]

"Oh Nasīb, the Druzes are like those of whom Kureyt ibn Uneif sang when
he said: 'A people who when evil bares its teeth against them, fly out
to meet it in companies or alone.'"

The sheikh's subtle countenance relaxed for a second, but the talk was
drifting too near dangerous subjects, and he rose shortly afterwards and
took his leave. His place was filled by new comers (Milḥēm's
coffee-pots must be kept boiling from dawn till late at night), and
presently one entered whom they all rose to salute. He was a Kurdish
Agha, a fine old man with a white moustache and a clean-shaven chin, who
comes down from Damascus from time to time on some business of his own.
Milḥēm is a native of Damascus, and had much to ask and hear; the
talk left desert topics and swung round to town dwellers and their ways
and views.

"Look you, your Excellencies," said a man who was making coffee over the
brazier, "there is no religion in the towns as there is in country
places."

"Yes," pursued Milḥēm--

"May God make it Yes upon you!" ejaculated the Kurd.

"May God requite you, oh Agha! You may find men in the Great Mosque at
Damascus at the Friday prayers and a few perhaps at Jerusalem, but in
Beyrout and in Smyrna the mosques are empty and the churches are empty.
There is no religion any more."

"My friends," said the Agha, "I will tell you the reason. In the country
men are poor and they want much. Of whom should they ask it but of God?
There is none other that is compassionate to the poor save He alone. But
in the towns they are rich, they have got all they desire, and why
should they pray to God if they want nothing? The lady laughs--is it not
so among her own people?"

I confessed that there was very little difference in this matter between
Europe and Asia and presently left the party to pursue their coffee
drinking and their conversation without me.

Late at night some one came knocking at my tent and a woman's voice
cried to me:

"Lady, lady! a mother's heart (are not the English merciful?) listen to
the sorrow of a mother's heart and take this letter to my son!"

I asked the unseen suppliant where her son was to be found.

"In Tripoli, in Tripoli of the West. He is a soldier and an exile, who
came not back with the others after the war. Take this letter, and send
it by a sure hand from Damascus, for there is no certainty in the posts
of Ṣalkhad."

I unfastened the tent and took the letter, she crying the while:

"The wife of Nasīb told me that you were generous. A mother's heart,
you understand, a mother's heart that mourns!"

So she departed weeping, and I sent the mysterious letter by the English
post from Beyrout, but whether it ever reached Tripoli of the West and
the Druze exile we shall not know.

The Ḳāimaḳām came out to see us off next morning and provided us
with a Druze zaptieh to show us the way to Ṣāleh. The wind was
searchingly cold, and the snow was reported to lie very deep on the
hills, for which reason we took the lower road by Ormān, a village
memorable as the scene of the outbreak of the last war. Milḥēm had
entrusted my guide, Yūsef, with the mail that had just come in to
Ṣalkhad; it consisted of one letter only, and that was for a
Christian, an inhabitant of Ormān, whom we met outside the village. It
was from Massachusetts, from one of his three sons who had emigrated to
America and were all doing well, praise be to God! They had sent him
thirty liras between them the year before: he bubbled over with joyful
pride as we handed him the letter containing fresh news of them. At
Ormān the road turned upwards--I continue to call it a road for want of
a name bad enough for it. It is part of the Druze system of defence that
there shall be no track in the Mountain wide enough for two to go
abreast or smooth enough to admit of any pace beyond a stumbling walk,
and it is the part that is the most successfully carried out. We were
soon in snow, half melted, half frozen, concealing the holes in the path
but not firm enough to prevent the animals from breaking through into
them. Occasionally there were deep drifts on which the mules embarked
with the utmost confidence only to fall midway and scatter their packs,
while the horses plunged and reared till they almost unseated us.
Mikhāil, who was no rider, bit the slush several times. The makers of
the Palestine Exploration map have allowed their fancy to play freely
over the eastern slopes of the Jebel Druze. Hills have hopped along for
miles, and villages have crossed ravines and settled themselves on the
opposite banks, as, for instance, Abu Zreik, which stands on the left
bank of the Wādi Rājil, though the map places it on the right. At the
time it all seemed to fit in with the general malevolence of that day's
journey, and our misery culminated when we entered on an interminable
snow field swept by a blizzard of cutting sleet. At the dim end of it,
quite unapproachably far away, we could just see through the sleet the
slopes on which Ṣāleh stands, but as we plodded on mile after mile
(it was useless to attempt to ride on our stumbling animals and far too
cold besides) we gradually came nearer, and having travelled seven hours
to accomplish a four hours' march, we splashed and waded late in the
afternoon though the mounds of slush and pools of water that did duty as
streets. There was not a dry place in all the village, and the snow was
falling heavily; clearly there was nothing to be done but to beat at the
door of Muḥammad en Naṣṣār, who has an honoured reputation for
hospitality, and I made the best of my way up steps sheeted with ice to
his maḳ'ad.

[Illustration 55: THE VILLAGE GATEWAY, ḤABRĀN]

If Providence owed us any compensation for the discomforts of the day,
it paid us, or at least it paid me, full measure and running over, by
the enchanting evening that I spent in the sheikh's house. Muḥammad en
Naṣṣār is a man full of years and wisdom who has lived to see a
large family of sons and nephews grow up round him, and to train their
quick wits by his own courteous and gracious example. All the Druzes are
essentially gentlefolk; but the house of the sheikhs of Ṣāleh could
not be outdone in good breeding, natural and acquired, by the noblest of
the aristocratic races, Persian or Rajputs, or any others distinguished
beyond their fellows. Milḥēm's letter was quite unnecessary to ensure
me a welcome; it was enough that I was cold and hungry and an
Englishwoman. The fire in the iron stove was kindled, my wet outer
garments taken from me, cushions and carpets spread on the divans under
the sheikh's directions, and all the band of his male relations, direct
and collateral, dropped in to enliven the evening. We began well. I knew
that Oppenheim had taken his escort from Ṣāleh when he went into the
Ṣafa, and I happened to have his book with me--how often had I
regretted that a wise instinct had not directed my choice towards
Dussaud's two admirable volumes, rather than to Oppenheim's ponderous
work, packed with information that was of little use on the present
journey! The great merit of the book lies in the illustrations, and
fortunately there was among them a portrait of Muḥammad en Naṣṣār
with his two youngest children. Having abstracted Kiepert's maps, I was
so generous as to present the tome to one of the family who had
accompanied the learned German upon his expedition. It has remained at
Ṣāleh to be a joy and a glory to the sheikhs, who will look at the
pictures and make no attempt to grapple with the text, and the hole in
my bookshelves is well filled by the memory of their pleasure.

[Illustration 56: A DRUZE MAḲ'AD, ḤABRĀN]

We talked without ceasing during the whole evening, with a brief
interval when an excellent dinner was brought in. The old sheikh, Yūsef
the zaptieh, and I partook of it together, and the eldest of the nephews
and cousins finished up the ample remains. The topic that interested
them most at Ṣāleh was the Japanese War--indeed it was in that
direction that conversation invariably turned in the Mountain, the
reason being that the Druzes believe the Japanese to belong to their own
race. The line of argument which has led them to this astonishing
conclusion is simple. The secret doctrines of their faith hold out hopes
that some day an army of Druzes will burst out of the furthest limits of
Asia and conquer the world. The Japanese had shown indomitable courage,
the Druzes also are brave; the Japanese had been victorious, the Druzes
of prophecy will be unconquerable: therefore the two are one and the
same. The sympathy of every one, whether in Syria or in Asia Minor, is
on the side of the Japanese, with the single exception of the members of
the Orthodox Church, who look on Russia as their protector. It seems
natural that the Ottoman government should rejoice to witness the
discomfiture of their secular foes, but it is more difficult to account
for the pleasure of Arab, Druze (apart from the secret hope of the
Druzes above mentioned), and Kurd, between whom and the Turk there is no
love lost. These races are not wont to be gratified by the overthrow of
the Sultan's enemies, a class to which they themselves generally belong.
At bottom there is no doubt a certain _Schadenfreude_, and the natural
impulse to favour the little man against the big bully, and behind all
there is that curious link which is so difficult to classify except by
the name of a continent, and the war appeals to the Asiatic because it
is against the European. However eagerly you may protest that the
Russians cannot be considered as a type of European civilisation,
however profoundly you may be convinced that the Japanese show as few
common characteristics with Turk or Druze as they show with South Sea
Islander or Esquimaux, East calls to East, and the voice wakes echoes
from the China Seas to the Mediterranean.

We talked also of the Turk. Muḥammad had been one of the many sheikhs
who were sent into exile after the Druze war; he had visited
Constantinople, and his experiences embraced Asia Minor also, so that he
was competent to hold an opinion on Turkish characteristics. In a blind
fashion, the fashion in which the Turk conducts most of his affairs, the
wholesale carrying off of the Druze sheikhs and their enforced sojourn
for two or three years in distant cities of the Empire, has attained an
end for which far-sighted statesmanship might have laboured in vain. Men
who would otherwise never have travelled fifty miles from their own
village have been taught perforce some knowledge of the world; they have
returned to exercise a semi-independence almost as they did before, but
their minds have received, however reluctantly, the impression of the
wide extent of the Sultan's dominions, the infinite number of his
resources, and the comparative unimportance of Druze revolts in an
empire which yet survives though it is familiar with every form of civil
strife. Muḥammad had been so completely convinced that there was a
world beyond the limits of the Mountain that he had attempted to push
two of his six sons out into it by putting them into a Government office
in Damascus. He had failed because, even with his maxims in their ears,
the boys were too headstrong. Some youthful neglect of duty, followed by
a sharp rebuke from their superior, had sent them hurrying back to the
village where they could be independent sheikhs, idle and respected.
Muḥammad took in a weekly sheet published in Damascus, and the whole
family followed with the keenest interest such news of foreign politics,
of English politics in particular, as escaped the censor's pencil.
Important events sometimes eluded their notice--or that of the
editor--for my hosts asked after Lord Salisbury and were deeply grieved
to hear he had been dead some years. The other name they knew, besides
Lord Cromer's, which is known always and everywhere, was that of Mr.
Chamberlain, and thus there started in the maḳ'ad at Ṣāleh an
animated debate on the fiscal question, lavishly illustrated on my part
with examples drawn from the Turkish gumruk, the Custom House. It may be
that my arguments were less exposed to contradiction than those which
most free traders are in a position to use, for the whole of Ṣāleh
rejected the doctrines of protection and retaliation (there was no
half-way-house here) with unanimity.

There was only one point which was not settled with perfect satisfaction
to all, and that was my journey to the Ṣafa. I have a shrewd suspicion
that Milḥēm's letter, which had been handed to me sealed, so that I
had not been able to read it, was of the nature of that given by Prætus
to Bellerophon when he sent him to the King of Lycia, and that if
Muḥammad was not commanded to execute the bearer on arrival, he was
strongly recommended to discourage her project. At any rate, he was of
opinion that the expedition could not be accomplished unless I would
take at least twenty Druzes as escort, which would have involved so much
preparation and expense that I was obliged to abandon the idea.

At ten o'clock I was asked at what hour I wished to sleep, and, to the
evident chagrin of those members of the company who had not been riding
all day in the snow, I replied that the time had come. The sons and
nephews took their departure, wadded quilts were brought in and piled
into three beds, one on each of the three sides of the immense divan,
the sheikh, Yūsef and I tucked ourselves up, and I knew no more till I
woke in the sharp frost of the early dawn. I got up and went out into
the fresh air. Ṣāleh was fast asleep in the snow; even the little
stream that tumbled in and out of a Roman fountain in the middle of the
village was sleeping under a thick coat of ice. In the clear cold
silence I watched the eastern sky redden and fade and the sun send a
long shaft of light over the snow field through which we had toiled the
day before. I put up a short thanksgiving appropriate to fine weather,
roused the muleteers and the mules from their common resting place under
the dark vaults of the khān, ate the breakfast which Muḥammad en
Naṣṣār provided, and took a prolonged and most grateful farewell of
my host and his family. No better night's rest and no more agreeable
company can have fallen to the lot of any wanderer by plain and hill
than were accorded to me at Ṣāleh.

[Illustration 57: LINTEL, EL KHURBEH]




CHAPTER VI


My objective that day was the village of Umm Ruweik on the eastern edge
of the Druze hills. Remembering the vagaries of the map, I took with me
one of Muḥammad en Naṣṣār's nephews as a guide, Fāiz was his
name, and he was brother to Ghishghāsh, the Sheikh of Umm Ruweik. I had
singled him out the night before as being the pleasantest member of the
pleasant circle in the maḳ'ad, and in a four days' acquaintance there
was never an incident that caused me to regret my choice. He was a man
with features all out of drawing, his nose was crooked, his mouth was
crooked, you would not have staked anything upon the straight setting of
his eyes; his manner was particularly gentle and obliging, his
conversation intelligent, and he was full of good counsel and resource.
We had not ridden very far along the lip of the hills, I gazing at the
eastern plain as at a Promised Land that my feet would never tread,
before Fāiz began to develop a plan for leaving the mules and tents
behind at Umm Ruweik and making a dash across the Ṣafa to the
Ruḥbeh, where lay the great ruin of which the accounts had fired my
imagination. In a moment the world changed colour, and Success shone
from the blue sky and hung in golden mists on that plain which had
suddenly become accessible.

[Illustration 58: THE WALLS OF ḲANAWĀT]

Our path fell rapidly from Ṣāleh, and in half an hour we were out of
the snow and ice that had plagued us for the last day and night; half an
hour later when we reached the Wādi Buṣān, where the swift waters
turned a mill wheel, we had left the winter country behind. Ṣāneh,
the village on the north side of the Wādi Buṣān, looked a
flourishing place and contained some good specimens of Ḥaurān
architecture--I remember in particular a fine architrave carved with a
double scroll of grapes and vine leaves that fell on either side of a
vase occupying the centre of the stone. It was at Ṣāneh that we came
onto the very edge of the plateau and saw the great plain of the Ṣafa
spread out like a sea beneath us. The strange feature of it was that its
surface was as black as a black tent roof, owing to the sheets of lava
and volcanic stone that were spread over it. At places there were
patches of yellow, which I afterwards discovered to be the earth on
which the lumps of tufa lay revealed by their occasional absence, and
these the Arabs call the Beiḍa, the White Land, in contradistinction
to the Ḥarra, the Burnt Land of lava and tufa. In the Ṣafa the White
Land is almost as arid as the Burnt, though generally the word Beiḍa
means arable, for I heard Fāiz shout to the muleteers: "Come off the
Beiḍa!" when the mules had strayed into a field of winter wheat. The
literary word for desert bears a puzzling resemblance to this other, as
for instance in Mutanabbi's verse.


"Al tail w'al khail w'al beida ta'rafuni:
Night and my steed and the desert know me--
And the lance thrust and battle, and parchment and the pen."


[Illustration 59: ḲANAWĀT, THE BASILICA]

The Ṣafa ran out to a dark mass of volcanoes, lying almost due north
and south, but we were so high above them that their elevation was not
perceptible. Beyond them again we could see a wide stretch of Beiḍa
which was the Ruḥbeh plain. To the east and south on the immensely
distant horizon a few little volcanic cones marked the end of the
Ḥaurān outcrop of lava and the beginning of the Ḥamād, the
waterless desert that reaches to Baghdad. To the north were the hills
round Dmer, and still further north the other range bounding the valley
ten miles wide that leads to Palmyra, and these ran back to the slopes
of Anti-Libanus, snowcapped, standing above the desert road to Ḥomṣ.
We turned east to Shibbekeh, a curious place built above a valley the
northern bank of which is honeycombed with caves, and north to Sheikhly
and Rāmeh on the southern brink of a very deep gully, the Wādi esh
Shām, down which are the most easterly of the inhabited villages,
Fedhāmeh and Ej Jeita. The settlements on this side of the Mountain
have an air of great antiquity. The cave villages may have existed long
before Nabatæan times; possibly they go back to the prehistoric
uncertainties of King Og, or the people whom his name covered, when
whole towns were quarried out underground, the most famous example being
Dera'a in the Ḥaurān plain south of Mezērib. We left Mushennef to
the west, not without regrets on my part that I had not time to revisit
it, for mirrored in its great tank is one of the most charming of all
the temples of the Jebel Druze, not excepting the magnificent monuments
of Ḳanawāt. El Ajlāt, north of the Wādi esh Shām, is perched on
top of a tell high enough to touch the February snow line, and another
valley leads down from it to the Ṣafa--I heard of a ruin and an
inscription in its lower course but did not visit them. We got to Umm
Ruweik about four o'clock, and pitched tents on the edge of the mountain
shelf, where I could see through my open tent door the whole extent of
the Ṣafa.

Sheikh Ghishghāsh was all smiles. Certainly I could ride out to the
Ruḥbeh if I would take him and his son Aḥmed and Fāiz with me. He
scoffed at the idea of a larger escort. By the Face of the Truth, the
Ghiāth were his servants and his bondmen, they would entertain us as
the noble should be entertained and provide us with luxurious lodgings.
I dined with Ghishghāsh (he would take no refusal), and concluded that
he was an easy tempered, boastful, and foolish man, extremely talkative,
though all that he said was not worth one of Fāiz's sentences. Fāiz
fell into comparative silence in his company, and Aḥmed too said
little, but that little was sensible and worth hearing. Ghishghāsh told
great tales of the Ṣafa and of what it contained, the upshot of which
was that beyond the ruins already known there was nothing till you
travelled a day's journey east of the Ruḥbeh; but that there you came
to a quarry and a ruined castle like the famous White Ruin of the
Ruḥbeh which we were going to see, but smaller and less well
preserved. And beyond that stretched the Ḥamād, with no dwellings in
it and no rujm--even the bravest of the Arabs were forced to desert it
in the summer owing to the total lack of water. My heart went out to the
mysterious castle east of the Ruḥbeh, unvisited, I believe, by any
traveller; but it was too distant a journey to be accomplished on the
spur of the moment without preparation. "When you next return, oh
lady----." Yes, when I return. But I shall not on a future, occasion
rely on the luxurious entertainment of the Ghiāth.

[Illustration 60: ḲANAWĀT, DOORWAY OF THE BASILICA]

[Illustration 61: ḲANAWĀT, A TEMPLE]

After consultation I decided that Mikhāil and Ḥabīb should accompany
us, the latter at his special request. He would ride his best mule, he
said, and she could keep pace with any mare and carry besides the rugs
and the five chickens which we took with us to supplement the
hospitality of the Ghiāth. I had a fur coat strapped behind my saddle
and, as usual, a camera and a note-book in my saddle-bags. We rode down
the steep slopes of the hills for an hour, three other Druze horsemen
joining us as we went. I presently discovered that the sheikhs had added
them to the stipulated escort, but I made no comment. One of the three
was a relative of Ghishghāsh, his name Khittāb; he had travelled with
Oppenheim and proved to be an agreeable companion. We passed through the
ploughland of Ghishghāsh's village and then down slopes almost barren,
though they yielded enough pasturage for his flocks of sheep shepherded
by Arabs, and at the foot of the hill we entered a shallow stony valley
wherein was a tiny encampment surrounded by more herds that quarried
their dinner among the boulders. After an hour of the valley, which
wound between volcanic rocks, we came out onto the wide desolation of
the Ṣafa. It is almost, but not quite, flat. The surface breaks into
low gentle billowings, just deep enough to shut out the landscape from
the horseman in the depression, so that he may journey for an hour or
more and see nothing but a sky-line of black stones a few feet above him
on either side. The billowings have an ordered plan; they form
continuous waterless valleys, each one of which the Arabs know by a
name. Valley and ridge alike are covered with blocks of tufa, varying
from six inches across to two feet or more, and where there is any space
between them you can perceive the hard yellow soil, the colour of sea
sand, on which they lie. An extremely scanty scrub pushes its way
between the stones, ḥamād and shīḥ and ḥajeineh, and here and
there a tiny geranium, the starry garlic and the leaves of the tulip,
but generally there is no room even for the slenderest plants, so
closely do the stones lie together. They are black, smooth and edgeless,
as though they had been waterworn; when the sun shines the air dazzles
above them as it dazzles above a sheet of molten metal, and in the
summer the comparison must hold good in other respects, for the pitiless
heat is said to be almost unendurable. It would be difficult to cross
the Ṣafa if it were not for the innumerable minute paths that
intersect it. At first the rider is not aware of them, so small and
faint they are, but presently as he begins to wonder why there is always
just enough space before him for his horse to step in, he realises that
he is following a road. Hundreds of generations of passing feet have
pushed aside the tufa blocks ever so little and made it possible to
travel through that wilderness of stones.

[Illustration 62: THE TEMPLE, MASHENNEF]

We rode by the depression called the Ghadir el Gharz, and at the end of
two hours we met one in rags, whose name was Heart of God. He was
extremely glad to see us, was Heart of God, having been a friend of the
family for years (at least eighty years I should judge), and extremely
surprised when he discovered me in the cavalcade. There his surprise
ceased, for when he heard I was English it conveyed nothing further to
him, his mind being unburdened with the names and genealogies of the
foreigner. He told us there was water close at hand and that Arab tents
were not more than two hours away, and bade Ghishghāsh go in peace, and
might there be peace also upon the stranger with him. In the matter of
the tents he lied, did Heart of God, or we misunderstood him; but we
found the water, a muddy pool, and lunched by it, sharing it with a herd
of camels. Water in the Ṣafa there is none fit to drink according to
European canons, and for that matter there is none in the Jebel Druze.
There are no springs in the hills; the water supply is contained in open
tanks, and the traveller may consider himself fortunate if he be not
asked to drink a liquid in which he has seen the mules and camels
wallowing. Under the most favourable conditions it is sure to be heavily
laden with foreign ingredients which boiling will not remove, though it
renders them comparatively innocuous. The tea made with this fluid has a
body and a flavour of its own; it is the colour of muddy coffee and
leaves a sediment at the bottom of the cup. Mikhāil carried an
earthenware jar of boiled water for me from camp to camp, and having
brought him to use this precaution by refusing to drink of the pools and
tanks we might meet by the way, I had no difficulty in continuing the
system in the Ṣafa. He and the Druzes and the muleteers drank what
they found, whether in the Mountain or in the Ṣafa, and they did not
appear to suffer from any ill effect. Probably the germs contained in
their careless draughts were so numerous and so active that they had
enough to do in destroying one another.

We rode on and on over all the stones in the world, and even Ghishghāsh
fell silent or spoke only to wonder where the tents of the Ghiāth might
be. Khittāb opined that when we reached the Ḳantarah, the Arch, we
should catch sight of them, and I pricked up my ears at a name that
seemed to imply some sort of construction. But the Ḳantarah was
nothing more than a rise in the ground, a little higher than the rest
and no less stony. There are many such; leading up to the crest of most
of them is a track by which the Arabs creep on their stomachs to look
out for foes, hidden themselves behind the small black pile that has
been erected as a permanent bastion on the summit. In summer the Ṣafa
is swept with raiders. Big tribes like the 'Anazeh ride through to deal
a sudden blow at some enemy to the south or north, harrying the Ghiāth
as they pass, and since there are exceedingly few places where water is
to be found in the unparalleled heat of the stony waste, the raiders and
such men of the Ghiāth as are still in the plain have no choice but to
frequent at dusk the same muddy holes, and the days and nights of the
Ghiāth are dogged in consequence by constant terror till the great
tribes go east again to the Ḥamād. There was no sign of tents to be
seen from the Ḳantarah, and it began to seem probable that we should
spend a waterless night among the stones under the clear frosty sky,
when about an hour before sunset Khittāb exclaimed that he could see
the smoke of camp fires to the north-west. We rode a good way back,
making a semicircle of our course, and got to the tents at nightfall
after a journey of nine hours. With the goats and camels who were
returning home after a laborious day's feeding we stumbled in over the
stones, and very miserable the little encampment looked, though it had
been so eagerly desired. A couple of hundred pounds would be a handsome
price for all the worldly goods of all the Ghiāth; they have nothing
but the black tents and a few camels and the coffee-pots, and if they
had more it would be taken from them in a midsummer ghazu. They live by
bread alone--shirāk, the thin flaps that are like brown paper--and for
the whole length of their days they wander among the stones in fear of
their lives, save for the month or two when they come up to the Jebel
Druze for the pasturage.

We scattered, being a large party, and Ghishghāsh, my servants and I
went to the house of the sheikh, whose name was Understanding. His two
sons, Muḥammad and Ḥamdān, lighted a fire of thorn and camel dung
that smoked abominably, and we sat round and watched the coffee making.
Muḥammad, being the eldest, officiated. He was skilful in the song of
the pestle, and beat out a cheerful tattoo upon the mortar. His face was
dark and thin and his white teeth shone when he smiled; he was dressed
airily in dirty white cotton garments, a cotton kerchief fell from the
camel's hair rope on his head down on to his bare breast, and he spoke
in a guttural speech which was hard to follow. Our dinner was of shirāk
and dibs; the Ghiāth are too poor to kill a sheep for their guest, even
when he is a personage so important as Ghishghāsh. He, foolish man, was
in his element. He preened himself and swelled with pride, combed out
his long moustache before the admiring gaze of his hosts and talked
without ceasing until far into the night, silly talk, thought I, who
longed to be allowed to sleep. I had a rug to cover me and my saddle for
a pillow, and I lay in a corner by the sāḥah, the division against
the women's quarter, and at times I listened to a conversation which was
not particularly edifying, and at times I cursed the acrid, pungent
smoke. Towards the middle of the night I was awakened by the moon that
shone with a frosty brilliance into the tent. The fire had burnt down
and the smoke had blown out; the Arabs and the Druzes were lying asleep
round the cold hearth; a couple of mares stood peacefully by the tent
pole and gazed with wise eyes upon their masters within, and beyond them
a camel lay chumping among the black stones. The strange and silent
beauty of a scene as old as the world caught at the heart and spurred
the fancy even after sleep had fallen upon it again.

Before dawn Mikhāil had succeeded in making me a cup of tea over the
fitful blaze of the thorns, and as the sun rose we got into the saddle,
for we had far to go. "God's bright and intricate device" had clothed
the black plain in exquisite loveliness. The level sun towards which we
were riding cast a halo of gold round every stone, the eastern ranges of
volcanoes stood in clear cut outline against the cloudless sky, and to
the north-west the snows of Anti-Libanus and Hermon gleamed incredibly
bright above the glittering blackness of the foreground. One of the
Arabs was added to our party as a guide; 'Awād was his name. He rode a
camel, and from that point of vantage conversed with us in a raucous
shout, as though to bridge the immense distance between rākib and
fāris, a camel rider and one who rides a mare. We were all shivering as
we set out in the chill dawn, but 'Awād turned the matter into a jest
by calling out from his camel: "Lady, lady! do you know why I am cold?
It is because I have four wives in the house!" And the others laughed,
for he had the reputation of being a bit of a Don Juan, and such funds
as he possessed went to replenishing his harem rather than his wardrobe.

I think we must speedily have re-entered the Ghadīr el Gharz. After two
hours' riding we crossed some rising ground to the south-west of the
Tulūl es Ṣafa, the line of volcanoes, and cantered across a
considerable stretch of stoneless yellow ground, Beiḍa, till we came
to the southern end of the lava bed. The lava lay on our left hand like
a horrible black nightmare sea, not so much frozen as curdled, as though
some hideous terror had arrested the flow of it and petrified the lines
of shrinking fear upon its surface. But it was long long ago that a
mighty hand had lifted the Gorgon's head before the waves of the Tulūl
es Ṣafa. Sun and frost and æons of time had splintered the original
forms of the volcanoes, rent the lava beds, shattered the precipices and
obliterated the features of the hills. One or two terebinths had found a
foothold in the crevices, but when I passed they were still bare and
grey and did nothing to destroy the general sense of lifelessness.

As we rode round these frontiers of death I became aware that we were
following a track almost as old as the hills themselves, a little thread
of human history leading us straight through that forbidding land.
'Awāḍ kept talking of a stone which he called El 'Ablā, a word that
denotes a white rock visible from afar, but I was so much used to names
signifying nothing that I paid no attention until he stopped his camel
and shouted:

"Oh lady! here it is. By the Face of God, this is El 'Ablā."

It was no more nor less than a well stone. It bore the groove of the
rope worn a couple of inches deep into it, and must have served a
respectable time, since this black rock is extremely hard, but there was
no modern well within miles of it. Close at hand was a big heap of
stones and then another and another, two or three in every quarter of a
mile, and when I looked closely I perceived that they were built, not
thrown together. Some of them had been opened by Arabs seeking for
treasure, and where the topmost layers had been thus removed a square
shallow space lay revealed in the centre of the mound, carefully
constructed of half-dressed blocks. 'Awāḍ said that as far as he knew
nothing had ever been found in these places, whatever they might have
contained formerly. Clearly the mounds were made to mark the line of
that ancient road through the wilderness. 'Awāḍ stopped again a few
hundred yards further at some black rocks almost flush with the ground,
and they were like the open pages of a book in which all the races that
had passed that way had written their names, in the queer script that
the learned call Safaitic, in Greek, in Cufic, and in Arabic. Last of
all the unlettered Bedouin had scrawled their tribe marks there.

"By Shuraik son of Naghafat son of Na'fis (?) son of Nu'mān," so ran
one of them; and another: "By Būkhālih son of Ṭhann son of An'am son
of Rawāḳ son of Būkhālih. He found the inscription of his uncle and
he longed after him and . . . ." And there was another in a label which
I did not copy sufficiently well to admit of its being deciphered with
certainty. Probably it contains two names connected by "ibn," "son of."
Above the names are seven straight lines which, according to Dussaud's
ingenious suggestion, may represent the seven planets.[7] The Greek
letters spelt the word Hanelos, which is John, a Semitic name written
possibly by its owner in the foreign script that he had learnt while he
served under the Roman eagles; the Cufic sentences were pious
ejaculations calling down a blessing on the traveller who had paused to
inscribe them. So each man according to his kind had left his record and
departed into the mists of time, and beyond these scratches on the black
rocks we know nothing of his race, nor of his history, nor of the errand
that brought him into the inhospitable Ghadīr el Gharz. As I copied the
phrases they seemed like the murmur of faint voices from out the limbo
of the forgotten past, and Orpheus with his lute could not have charmed
the rocks to speak more clearly of the generations of the dead. All the
Ṣafa is full of these whisperings; shadows that are nothing but a name
quiver in the quivering air above the stones, and call upon their God in
divers tongues.

[Illustration 63: ḲAL'AT EL BEIḌA]

I copied in haste, for there was no time to lose that day. The Druzes
stood round me impatiently, and 'Awāḍ shouted, "Yallah, yallah! ya
sitt," which being interpreted means, "Hurry up!" We rode on to the
eastern limit of the Ṣafa, turned the corner of the lava bed, and saw
the yellow plain of the Ruḥbeh before us. I know, because I have
observed it from the Jebel Druze, that it stretches for a great distance
to the east; but, when we reached it, it seemed no wider than half a
mile, and beyond it lay a wonderful lake of bluish misty water. The
little volcanoes far away to the east rose like islands out of the sea,
and were mirrored in the water at their feet; yet as we rode towards
that inland flood, its shores retreated before us, for it was but a
phantom sea whereat the phantom hosts of the Ṣafa may fitly assuage
their thirst. Then on the brink of the lava hills we caught sight of a
grey tower, and in the plain below it we saw a domed and whitewashed
shrine, and these were the Khirbet el Beiḍa and the Mazār of Sheikh
Serāk. Sheikh Serāk inherits his position as guardian of the Ruḥbeh
from Zeus Saphathenos, who is in turn the direct heir to the god El, the
earliest divinity of the Ṣafa. His business is to watch over the
crops, which in good years the Arabs sow round his soul's dwelling
place; he is respected by Moslem and by Druze alike, and he holds a
well-attended yearly festival which had fallen about a fortnight before
I came. The shrine itself is a building of the Ḥaurān type, with a
stone roof supported on transverse arches. Over the doors there is a
carved lintel taken from the ruins of the White Castle.

[Illustration 64: ḲAL'AT EL BEIḌA]

But I could scarcely stay while my men assembled here, so eager was I to
see the Ḳal'at el Beiḍa--Khirbeh or Ḳal'ah, ruin or castle, the
Arabs call it either indifferently. I left the Druzes to pay such
respects as were due to Zeus Saphathenos or whoever he might be, and
cantered off to the edge of the lava plateau. A deep ditch lay before
the lava, so full of water that I had to cross it by a little bridge of
planks; Ḥabīb was there watering his mule, that admirable mule which
walked as fast as the mares, and, entrusting my horse to him, I hastened
on over the broken lava and into the fortress court. There were one or
two Arabs sauntering through it, but they paid as little attention to me
as I did to them. This was it, the famous citadel that guards a dead
land from an unpeopled, the Ṣafa from the Ḥamād. Grey white on the
black platform rose the walls of smoothly dressed stones, the ghostly
stronghold of a world of ghosts. Whose hands reared it, whose art
fashioned the flowing scrolls on door-post and lintel, whose eyes kept
vigil from the tower, cannot yet be decided with any certainty. Hanelos
and Shuraik and Būkhālih may have looked for it as they rounded the
corner of the Wādi el Gharz, and perhaps the god El took it under his
protection, and perhaps the prayers of the watchman were turned to some
distant temple, and offered to the deities of Greece and Rome. A
thousand unanswered, unanswerable, questions spring to your mind as you
cross the threshold.

De Vogüé and Oppenheim and Dussaud have described the Khirbet el
Beiḍa, and any one who cares to read their words may know that it is a
square enclosure with a round tower at each corner, a round bastion
between the towers and a rectangular keep against the south wall; that
its doorways are carved with wonderful flowing patterns, scrolls and
leaves and flowers, with animals striding through them; and that it is
probably an outlying fortress of Rome, built between the second and
fourth centuries. The fact remains that we are not certain of its
origin, any more than we are certain of the origin of the ruins near it
at Jebel Sēs, or of Mshitta, or of any of the buildings in the western
desert. There are resemblances between them all, and there are marked
differences, just as there are resemblances between Ḳal'at el Beiḍa
and the architecture of the Ḥaurān, and yet what stonecutter of the
Mountain would have let his imagination so outstrip the classic rule as
did the man who set the images of the animals of the desert about the
doors of the White Castle? There is a breath of something that is
strange to neighbouring art, a wilder, freer fancy, not so skilled as
that which created the tracery of Mshitta, cruder, and probably older.
It is all guess work; the desert may give up its secrets, the history of
the Ṣafa and the Ruḥbeh may be pieced together from the lettered
rocks, but much travel must be accomplished first and much excavation on
the Syrian frontiers, in Hira perhaps, or in Yemen. I would only remark
that the buildings at Ḳal'at el Beiḍa cannot as they stand belong to
one and the same period. The keep is certainly a later work than the
curtain walls of the fort. While these are built with mortar, like the
Roman camp at Ḳasṭal and the fortress at Muwaḳḳar, the keep is
of dry masonry resembling that which is universal in the Ḥaurān, and
in its walls are set carved stones which were assuredly not executed for
the positions they occupy. Even the decoration about the main door of
the keep is of borrowed stones; the two superimposed carved blocks of
the lintel do not fit each other, and neither fits the doorway. But the
only conclusion I venture to draw is, that the two suggestions of origin
that have been made by archaeologists, the one that the place was a
Roman camp, the other that it was the Ghassānid fortress, may both be
true.

The edge of the lava plateau lies a few feet above the plain. Along this
natural redoubt are other buildings besides the White Castle, but none
of them are of the same architectural interest. Their walls are roughly
made of squared tufa blocks laid dry, whereas the castle is of a grey
stone, and part of it is constructed with mortar. The only building of
any importance that I visited lay a little to the north and had been
roofed after the Ḥaurān manner with stone slabs laid on transverse
arches. At intervals along the lava bed there were small towers like
sentry boxes guarding the approach to the castle, and these, too, were
of dry masonry.

[Illustration 65: ḲAL'AT EL BEIḌA, DOOR OF KEEP]

A couple of hours' halt was all that we could allow ourselves, for we
had to be in sight of our encampment before the dusk closed in at the
risk of passing the night in the open Ṣafa. So after devouring hastily
the remains of the five chickens we had brought from Umm Ruweik,
flavoured by stalks of wild onions that 'Awāḍ had found in the lava,
we set off homewards. We just accomplished the ride of 4 3/4 hours in
time, that is we saw the smoke of the camp fires before night fell, and
got our direction thereby. A series of spaces cleared of stones led us
to the camp. These open places are the marāḥ (tent marks) of the
'Anazeh, who used to camp in the Ṣafa before the Druzes established
themselves in the Mountain over a hundred years ago. The marāḥ,
therefore, have remained visible after at least a century, and will
remain, probably, for many centuries more. There was a strong cold wind
that evening, and the main wall of the tent had been shifted round to
shelter us the better; but for all that we passed a comfortless night,
and the cold woke me several times to an uneasy sense of having fallen
asleep on an ant hill. How the Arabs contrive to collect so many fleas
among so few possessions is an insoluble mystery. There was hardly a
suitable place for them to lodge in, except the tent walls themselves,
and when those walls are taken down they must show skill and agility
beyond the common wont of fleas in order to get themselves packed up and
carried off to the next camping ground, but that they are equal to the
task every one knows who has spent a night in a house of hair. After two
nights with the Ghiāth our own tents seemed a paradise of luxury when
we returned to them the next afternoon, and a bath the utmost height to
which a Sybaritic life could attain, even when taken in a temperature
some degrees below freezing point.

During our ride homewards an incident occurred which is worth recording,
as it bears on Druze customs. The sect, as has been remarked before, is
divided into initiated and uninitiated. To the stranger the main
difference between the two is that the initiated abstain from the use of
tobacco, and I had noticed in the evening I spent at Ṣāleh that none
of Muḥammad en Naṣṣār's family smoked. I was therefore surprised
when Fāiz, finding himself alone with Mikhāil and me, begged the
former for a cigarette, and I apologised for having omitted to offer him
one before, saying that I had understood smoking to be forbidden to him.
Fāiz blinked his crooked eyes, and replied that it was as I had said,
and that he would not have accepted a cigarette if another Druze had
been in sight, but that since none of his co-religionists were present
he felt himself at liberty to do as he pleased. He begged me, however,
not to mention to his brother this lapse from virtue. That night in the
maḳ'ad of Umm Ruweik the three sheikhs and I laid many plans for a
further exploration of the Ṣafa, settled the number of camels I was to
take with me, and even the presents which were to reward the escort at
the end of the journey. Fāiz and Aḥmed and Khittāb shall certainly
be of the expedition if the selecting of it lies in my hands.

[Illustration 66: MOULDINGS FROM ḲAL'AT EL BEIḌA AND FROM PALMYRA]

Next morning at 8.30 we started on our three days' ride to Damascus. Of
Umm Ruweik I need only add that it took exactly four days to scrape
together sufficient money among the inhabitants for the changing of a
gold piece. We had brought a bag of silver and copper coins with us from
Jerusalem, but when it was exhausted we had the utmost difficulty in
paying our debts--this is also one of the Hints to Travellers that
Mikhāil urged me to embody in the book I was to write. We rode by
enchanting slopes, covered where the snow had melted with the sky-blue
Iris Histrio, and spent an hour or two at Shakka, which was one of the
principal scenes of de Vogüé's archæological work. The basilica which
figures as almost perfect in his book is now fallen completely into
ruin, only the façade remaining, but the Ḳaisarīeh still stands, and
the monastery which he believes to be one of the oldest monastic
buildings in existence. We rode by Ḥīt, an interesting village
containing a fine pre-Arabic house in which the sheikh lives, and camped
at Bathaniyyeh in a frost that sent me shivering to bed. It was here
that a running stream was completely frozen. Next day I made a circuit
to visit Ḥayāt, where there is a lovely Kalybeh, published by de
Vogüé, and a castle, that I might fill up some gaps in my former
journey and see what sort of buildings are to be found on the northern
slopes of the mountain, if I could do no more. The old villages are
rapidly filling up, and in a few years little trace of their monuments
will remain. So we came down into the plain, joined the Lejā road from
Shaḥbah to Damascus at Lahiteh, and pursued our mules to Brāk, the
furthest village of the Ḥaurān. There is a military post at Brāk
held by a score of soldiers; just before we reached it we met a little
Druze girl who cowered by the roadside and wept with fear at the sight
of us. "I am a maid!" she cried, "I am a maid!" Her words threw an
ominous shadow upon the Turkish regime under which we were now to find
ourselves again. Almost opposite the fort we passed two Druzes returning
from Damascus. They gave me a friendly greeting, and I said:

[Illustration 67: A GATEWAY, SHAKKA]

"Are you facing to the Mountain?"

They said: "By God! may God keep you!"

I said: "I come from thence--salute it for me," and they answered:

"May God salute you! go in peace!"

It is never without a pang that the traveller leaves the Druze country
behind, and never without registering a vow to return to it as soon as
may be.

[Illustration 68: THE SHEIKH'S HOUSE, ḤAYĀT]

Having passed under the protection of the Sultan, I found that my road
next day lay across a really dangerous bit of country. The Circassians
and Turks of Brāk (the Turks were charming people from the northern
parts of Asia Minor) dissuaded me strongly from taking the short cut
across the hills to Damascus, so strongly that I had almost abandoned
the idea. They said the hills were infested by robbers and probably
empty of Arab encampments at this time of year, so that the robbers had
it all their own way. Fortunately next morning we heard of a company of
soldiers who were said to be riding to Damascus across the hills, and
the report encouraged us to take the same path. We never saw them, and I
do not believe that they had any real existence; on the other hand, we
did see some black tents which gave us confidence at the worst bit of
the road, and the robbers must have been otherwise engaged for they did
not appear. But I noted with interest, firstly, that desert life comes
to within an hour or two of Damascus, a fact I had not been able to
observe before when I went by the high road, and secondly that the
Sultan's peace, if peace it can be called, ceases almost at the walls of
the chief city of Syria. We crossed the Nahr el 'Awāj, which is the
Pharpar, and reached soon after midday the Circassian village of Nejhā,
where I stopped to lunch under a few poplars, the first grove of trees I
had seen since we left Salt. Whether you ride to Damascus by a short cut
or by a high road, from the Ḥaurān or from Palmyra, it is always
further away than any known place. Perhaps it is because the traveller
is so eager to reach it, the great and splendid Arab city set in a
girdle of fruit trees and filled with the murmur of running water. But
if he have only patience there is no road that will not end at last; and
we, too, at the last came to the edge of the apricot gardens and then to
the Bawābet Ullaḥ, the Gates of God, and so passed into the Meidān,
the long quarter of shops and khāns stretching out like the handle to a
great spoon, in the bowl of which lie the minarets and domes of the rich
quarters. By four o'clock I was lodged in the Hotel Victoria, and had a
month's post of letters and papers in my hands.


[Footnote 7: Dussaud, "Mission Scientific," p. 64. The translation of
the inscriptions I owe to the kindness of Dr. Littmann, who will include
the original copies in his "Semitic Inscriptions."]




CHAPTER VII


When I had come to Damascus five years before, my chief counsellor and
friend--a friend whose death will be deplored by many a traveller in
Syria--was Lütticke, head of the banking house of that name and
honorary German consul. It was a chance remark of his that revealed to
me the place that the town had and still has in Arab history. "I am
persuaded," said he, "that in and about Damascus you may see the finest
Arab population that can be found anywhere. They are the descendants of
the original invaders who came up on the first great wave of the
conquest, and they have kept their stock almost pure."

[Illustration 69: IN THE PALMYRENE DESERT]

Above all other cities Damascus is the capital of the desert. The desert
stretches up to its walls, the breath of it is blown in by every wind,
the spirit of it comes through the eastern gates with every camel
driver. In Damascus the sheikhs of the richer tribes have their town
houses; you may meet Muḥammad of the Ḥaseneh or Bassān of the Beni
Rashīd peacocking down the bazaars on a fine Friday, in embroidered
cloaks and purple and silver kerchiefs fastened about their brows with
camels' hair ropes bound with gold. They hold their heads high, these
Lords of the Wilderness, striding through the holiday crowds, that part
to give them passage, as if Damascus were their own town. And so it is,
for it was the first capital of the Bedouin khalifs outside the
Ḥejāz, and it holds and remembers the greatest Arab traditions. It
was almost the first of world-renowned cities to fall before the
irresistible chivalry of the desert which Muḥammad had called to arms
and to which he had given purpose and a battle-cry, and it was the only
one which remained as important under the rule of Islām as it had been
under the empire of Rome. Mu'āwiyah made it his capital, and it
continued to be the chief city of Islām until the fall of the house of
Ummayah ninety years later. It was the last of Moslem capitals that
ruled in accordance with desert traditions. Persian generals placed the
Beni Abbās upon their throne in Mesopotamia, Persian and Turkish
influences were dominant in Baghdad, and with them crept in the fatal
habits of luxury which the desert had never known, nor the early khalifs
who milked their own goats and divided the spoils of their victories
among the Faithful. The very soil of Mesopotamia exhaled emanations
fatal to virility. The ancient ghosts of Babylonian and Assyrian palace
intrigue rose from their muddy graves, mighty in evil, to overthrow the
soldier khalif, to strip him of his armour and to tie him hand and foot
with silk and gold. Damascus had been innocent of them; Damascus, swept
by the clean desert winds, had ruled the empire of the Prophet with some
of the Spartan vigour of early days. She was not a parvenue like the
capitals on the Tigris; she had seen kings and emperors within her
walls, and learnt the difference between strength and weakness, and
which path leads to dominion and which to slavery.

When I arrived I was greeted with the news that my journey in the
Ḥaurān had considerably agitated the mind of his Excellency Nāzim
Pasha, Vāli of Syria; indeed it was currently reported that this much
exercised and delicately placed gentleman had been vexed beyond reason
by my sudden appearance at Ṣalkhad and that he had retired to his bed
when I had departed beyond the reach of Yūsef Effendi's eye, though
some suggested that the real reason for his Excellency's sudden
indisposition was a desire to avoid taking part in the memorial service
to the Archduke Serge. Be that as it may, he sent me on the day of my
arrival a polite message expressing his hope that he might have the
pleasure of making my acquaintance.

I confess my principal feeling was one of penitence when I was ushered
into the big new house that the Vāli has built for himself at the end
of Ṣalaḥiyyeh, the suburb of Damascus that stretches along the foot
of the bare hills to the north of the town. I had a great wish to
apologise, or at any rate to prove to him that I was not to be regarded
as a designing enemy. These sentiments were enhanced by the kindness
with which he received me, and the respect with which he inspires those
who come to know him. He is a man of a nervous temperament, always on
the alert against the difficulties with which his vilayet is not slow to
provide him, conscientious, and I should fancy honest, painfully anxious
to reconcile interests that are as easy to combine as oil with vinegar,
the corner of his eye fixed assiduously on his royal master who will
take good care that so distinguished a personality as Nāzim Pasha shall
be retained at a considerable distance from the shores of the Bosphorus.
The Vāli has been eight years in Damascus, the usual term of office
being five, and he has evidently made up his mind that in Damascus he
will remain, if no ill luck befall him, for he has built himself a large
house and planned a fine garden, the laying out of which distracts his
mind, let us hope, from preoccupations that can seldom be pleasant. One
of his safeguards is that he has been actively concerned with the
construction of the Ḥejāz railway, in which the Sultan takes the
deepest interest, and until it is completed or abandoned he is
sufficiently useful to be kept at his post.[8] The bazaar, that is
public opinion, does not think that it will be abandoned, in spite of
the opposition of the Sherlf of Mecca and all his clan, who will never
be convinced of the justice of the Sultan's claim to the khalifate of
Islām nor willing to bring him into closer touch with the religious
capitals. The bazaar backs the Sultan against the Sherīf and all other
adversaries, sacred or profane. The wheels of the Turk grind slowly and
often stop, but in the end they grind small, especially when the grist
is Arab tribes rendered peculiarly brittle by their private jealousies
and suspicions and pretensions. Turkish policy is like that of which Ibn
Kulthum sang when he said:

[Illustration 70: THE GREAT MOSQUE AND THE ROOFS OF THE BAZAAR
FROM THE FORT]


When our mill is set down among a people they are as flour before
our coming.
Our meal cloth is spread eastwards of Nejd and the grain is the whole
tribe of Ḳuda'a.
Like guests you alighted at our door and we hastened our hospitality
lest you should turn on us.
We welcomed you and hastened the welcoming: yea, before the
dawn, and our mills grind small.

[Illustrations 71: A CORN MARKET]

Nāzim Pasha, though he has been eight years in Syria, talks no Arabic.
We in Europe, who speak of Turkey as though it were a homogeneous
empire, might as well when we speak of England intend the word to
include India, the Shan States, Hongkong and Uganda. In the sense of a
land inhabited mainly by Turks there is not such a country as Turkey.
The parts of his dominions where the Turk is in a majority are few;
generally his position is that of an alien governing, with a handful of
soldiers and an empty purse, a mixed collection of subjects hostile to
him and to each other. He is not acquainted with their language, it is
absurd to expect of him much sympathy for aspirations political and
religious which are generally made known to him amid a salvo of
musketry, and if the bullets happen to be directed, as they often are,
by one unruly and unreasonable section of the vilayet at another equally
unreasonable and unruly, he is hardly likely to feel much regret at the
loss of life that may result. He himself, when he is let alone, has a
strong sense of the comfort of law and order. Observe the internal
arrangements of a Turkish village, and you shall see that the Turkish
peasant knows how to lay down rules of conduct and how to obey them. I
believe that the best of our own native local officials in Egypt are
Turks who have brought to bear under the new regime the good sense and
the natural instinct for government for which they had not much scope
under the old. It is in the upper grades that the hierarchy of the
Ottoman Empire has proved so defective, and the upper grades are filled
with Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and personages of various nationalities
generally esteemed in the East (and not without reason) untrustworthy.
The fact that such men as these should inevitably rise to the top,
points to the reason of the Turk's failure. He cannot govern on wide
lines, though he can organise a village community; above all he cannot
govern on foreign lines, and unfortunately he is brought more and more
into contact with foreign nations. Even his own subjects have caught the
infection of progress. The Greeks and Armenians have become merchants
and bankers, the Syrians merchants and landowners; they find themselves
hampered at every turn by a government which will not realise that a
wealthy nation is made up of wealthy subjects. And yet, for all his
failure, there is no one who would obviously be fitted to take his
place. For my immediate purpose I speak only of Syria, the province with
which I am the most familiar. Of what value are the pan-Arabic
associations and the inflammatory leaflets that they issue from foreign
printing presses? The answer is easy: they are worth nothing at all.
There is no nation of Arabs; the Syrian merchant is separated by a wider
gulf from the Bedouin than he is from the Osmanli, the Syrian country is
inhabited by Arabic speaking races all eager to be at each other's
throats, and only prevented from fulfilling their natural desires by the
ragged half fed soldier who draws at rare intervals the Sultan's pay.
And this soldier, whether he be Kurd or Circassian or Arab from
Damascus, is worth a good deal more than the hire he receives. Other
armies may mutiny, but the Turkish army will stand true to the khalif;
other armies may give way before suffering and privation and untended
sickness, but that of the Sultan will go forward as long as it can
stand, and fight as long as it has arms, and conquer as long as it has
leaders. There is no more wonderful and pitiful sight than a Turkish
regiment on the march: greybeards and half-fledged youths, ill-clad and
often barefoot, pinched and worn--and indomitable. Let such as watch
them salute them as they pass: in the days when war was an art rather
than a science, of that stuff the conquerors of the world were made.

[Illustration 72: THE ḲUBBET EL KHAZNEH]

But I have left the Governor of Syria waiting far too long. We talked,
then, in French, a language with which he was imperfectly acquainted,
and from time to time a Syrian gentleman helped him in Turkish over the
stiles and pitfalls of the foreign tongue. The Syrian was a rich
Maronite landowner of the Lebanon, who happened to be in good odour at
Government House though he had but recently spent a year in prison. He
had accompanied me upon my visit and was then and there appointed by the
Vāli to be my cicerone in Damascus; Selīm Beg was his name. The talk
was principally of archæology, I purposely insisting on my interest in
that subject as compared with the politics of the Mountain and the
Desert, to which we thus avoided any serious allusion. The Vāli was
affability itself. He presented me with certain photographs of the
priceless manuscripts of the Ḳubbet el Khazneh in the Great Mosque,
now closed for ever to the public eye, and promised me the rest of the
series. To that end a bowing personage took my English address and noted
it carefully in a pocket book, and I need scarcely say that was the
last any one heard of the matter. Presently the Vāli announced that
Madame Pasha and the children were waiting to see me, and I followed him
upstairs into a sunny room with windows opening on to a balcony from
which you could see all Damascus and its gardens and the hills beyond.
There is only one Madame Pasha, and she is a pretty, sharp-featured
Circassian, but there was another (gossip says the favourite) who died a
year ago. The children were engaging. They recited French poems to me,
their bright eyes quick to catch and to respond to every expression of
approbation or amusement; they played tinkling polkas, sitting very
upright on the music stool with their pig-tails hanging down their
velvet backs. The Pasha stood in the window and beamed upon them, the
Circassian wife smoked cigarettes and bowed whenever she caught my eye,
a black slave boy at the door grinned from ear to ear as his masters and
mistresses, who were also his school-mates and his play-fellows,
accomplished their tasks. I came away with a delightful impression of
pretty smiling manners and vivacious intelligence, and expressed my
pleasure to the Pasha as we went down stairs.

"Ah!" said he politely, "if I could have them taught English! But what
will you? we cannot get an Englishwoman to agree with our customs, and I
have only the Greek lady whom you saw to teach them French."

I had indeed noticed the Greek woman, an underbred little person, whose
bearing could not escape attention in the graceful company upstairs, but
I was not slow to expatiate on the excellence of the French she
spoke--may Heaven forgive me! The Pasha shook his head.

"If I could get an Englishwoman!" said he. Unfortunately I had no one to
suggest for the post, nor would he have welcomed a suggestion.

[Illustration 73: THE TEKYAH OF NAKSHIBENDI]

Before I left, two distinguished personages arrived to have audience of
the Vāli. The first was a man by complexion almost a negro, but with an
unmistakable look of race and a sharp quick glance. He was the Amīr
'Abdullah Pasha, son of 'Abd ul Ḳādir, the great Algerian, by a negro
slave. The second was Sheikh Ḥassan Nakshbendi, hereditary
chief--pope, I had almost said--of an orthodox order of Islām famous in
Damascus, where its principal Tekyah is situated. (Now a Tekyah is a
religious institution for the housing of mendicant dervishes and other
holy persons, something like a monastery, only that there is no vow of
chastity imposed upon its members, who may have as many wives as they
choose outside the Tekyah; Sheikh Ḥassan himself had the full
complement of four.) All the wily ecclesiastic's astuteness shone from
the countenance of this worthy. I do not know that his wits were
especially remarkable, but his unscrupulousness must have supplemented
any deficiencies, or his smile belied him. The meeting with these two
accomplished my introduction to Damascus society. Both of them extended
to me a warm invitation to visit them in their houses, the Tekyah or
anywhere I would, and I accepted all, but I went to the Amīr 'Abdullah
first.

[Illustration 74: GATE OF THE TEKYAH]

Or rather, I went first to the house of his elder brother, the Amīr
'Ali Pasha, because it was there that 'Abd ul Ḳādir had lived, and
there that he had sheltered, during the black days of the massacres in
1860, a thousand Christians. About his name there lingers a romantic
association of courage and patriotism, crowned by a wise and honoured
age full of authority and the power lent by wealth, for the 'Abd ul
Ḳādir family own all the quarter in which they reside. The house,
like any great Damascus house, made no show from the outside. We entered
through a small door in a narrow winding street by a dark passage,
turned a couple of comers and found ourselves in a marble court with a
fountain in the centre and orange trees planted round. All the big rooms
opened into this court, the doors were thrown wide to me, and coffee and
sweetmeats were served by the groom of the chambers, while I admired the
decoration of the walls and the water that bubbled up into marble basins
and flowed away by marble conduits. In this and in most of the Damascene
palaces every window sill has a gurgling pool in it, so that the air
that blows into the room may bring with it a damp freshness. The Amīr
'Ali was away, but his major domo, who looked like a servant _de bonne
maison_ and had the respectful familiarity of manner that the Oriental
dependant knows so well how to assume, showed us his master's treasures,
the jewelled sabre presented to the old Amīr by Napoleon III, 'Abd ul
Ḳādir's rifles, and a pair of heavy, silver-mounted swords sent as a
gift last year by 'Abd ul 'Aziz ibn er Rashīd--there is a traditional
friendship, I learnt, between the Algerian family and the Lords of
Ḥāil. He showed us, too, pictures of 'Abd ul Ḳādir; the Amīr
leading his cavalry, the Amīr at Versailles coming down the steps of
the palace with Napoleon, bearing himself as one who wins and not as one
who loses, the Amīr as an old man in Damascus, always in the white
Algerian robes that he never abandoned, and always with the same grave
and splendid dignity of countenance. And last I was led over a little
bridge, that crossed a running stream behind the main court, into a
garden full of violets, through which we passed to stables as airy, as
light and as dry as the best European stables could have been. In the
stalls stood two lovely Arab mares from the famous studs of the Ruwalla
and a well-bred mule almost as valuable as they. There was a sad-looking
man who accompanied us upon our round, though he did not seem to belong
to the establishment; his face was so gloomy that it arrested my
attention, and I asked Selīm Beg who he was. A Christian, he answered,
of a rich family, who had been persecuted to change his religion and had
sought sanctuary with the Amīr 'Ai. I heard no more of his story, but
he fitted into the picture that 'Abd ul Ḳādir's dwelling-place left
upon the mind: the house of gentlefolk, well kept by well-trained
servants, provided with the amenities of life and offering protection to
the distressed.

On the following morning I went to see the Amīr 'Abdullah, who lived
next door to his brother. I found there a nephew of 'Abdullah's, the
Amīr Ṭāhir, son of yet another brother, and my arrival was greeted
with satisfaction because there happened to be staying with them a
distinguished guest whom I should doubtless like to see. He was a
certain Sheikh Ṭāhir ul Jezāiri, a man much renowned for his
learning and for his tempestuous and revolutionary politics. Summoned
hastily into the divanned and carpeted upper room in which we were
sitting, he entered like a whirlwind, and establishing himself by my
side poured into my ear, and into all other ears in the vicinity, for he
spoke loud, his distress at not being permitted by the Vāli to
associate freely with gifted foreigners such as the American
archaeologists or even myself ("God forbid!" I murmured modestly), and a
great many other grievances besides. When this topic had run
comparatively dry, he sent the Amīr Ṭāhir to seek for some
publications of his own with which he presented me. They dealt with
Arabic and the allied languages, such as Nabatæan, Safaitic and
Phœnician, the alphabetical signs of which he had arranged very
carefully and well in comparative tables, though he had not an idea of
the signification of any one of the tongues except his own. A curious
and typical example of oriental scholarship was Sheikh Ṭāhir, but
from the samples I had of his conversation I am not sure that the
sympathies of those who respect peace and order would not be with the
Vāli. Presently another notable dropped in, Muṣṭafa Pasha el
Barāzi, a member of one of the four leading families of Ḥamāh, and
the whole company fell to talking of their own concerns, Syrian politics
and other matters, while I listened and looked out of window over the
Amīr's garden and the stream at its foot, and wondered what had made me
so fortunate as to be taking part in a Damascene morning call. At length
the Amīr 'Abdullah and his nephew took me aside and discussed long and
earnestly a great project which I had broached to them and which I will
not reveal here. And when the visit was over Selīm and Muṣṭafa and
I went out and lunched at an excellent native restaurant in the Greek
bazaar, sitting, cheek by jowl with a Bedouin from the desert and eating
the best of foods and the choicest of Damascus cream tarts for the sum
of eighteen pence between the three of us, which included the coffee and
a liberal tip.

There was another morning no less pleasant when I went with the faithful
Selīm to pay my respects on a charming old man, the most famous scribe
in all the city, Muṣṭafa el Asbā'i was his name. He lived in a
house, decorated with the exquisite taste of two hundred years ago
inlaid with coloured marbles and overlaid with gesso duro worked in
patterns like the frontispiece of an illuminated Persian manuscript and
painted in soft rich colours in which gold and golden brown
predominated. We were, taken through the reception rooms into a little
chamber on an upper floor where Muṣṭafa was wont to sit and write
those texts that are the pictures of the Moslem East. It was hung round
with examples from celebrated hands ancient and modern, among which I
recognised that of my friend Muḥammad 'Ali, son of Beha Ullaḥ the
Persian prophet, to my mind the most skilful penman of our day, though
Oriental preference goes out to another Persian of the same religious
sect, Mushḳin Kalam, and him also I count among my friends. We sat on
cushions and drank coffee, turning over the while exquisite manuscripts
of all dates and countries, some written on gold and some on silver,
some on brocade and some on supple parchment (several of these last
being pages of Kufic texts abstracted from the Ḳubbet el Khazneh
before it was closed), and when we rose to go Muṣṭafa presented me
with three examples of his own art, and I carried them off rejoicing.

[Illustration 75: MUSHḲIN KALAM]

Later in the afternoon we drove out to the valley of the Barada, Selīm
and I, and called on a third soil of 'Abd ul Ḳādir: "Amīr Omar,
princ d'Abd ul Ḳādir" ran his visiting card, printed in the Latin
character. He is the country gentleman of the family. 'Ali has been
carried into spheres of greater influence by his marriage with a sister
of 'Izzet Pasha, the mighty Shadow behind the Throne in Constantinople;
'Abdullah has always a thousand schemes on hand that keep him to the
town, but 'Umar is content to hunt and shoot and tend his garden and
lead the simple life. So simple was it that we found him in a smoking
cap and a dressing gown and carpet slippers walking the garden alleys.
He took us into his house, which, like the other houses of his family,
was full of flowers, and up to a pavilion on the roof, whither his
pointer followed us with a friendly air of companionship. There amid
pots of hyacinths and tulips we watched the sun set over the snowy hills
and talked of desert game and sport.

Nor let me, amid all this high company, forget my humbler friends: the
Afghan with black locks hanging about his cheeks, who gave me the salute
every time we met (the Amīr of Afghanistan has an agent in Damascus to
look after the welfare of his subjects on the pilgrimage); the sweetmeat
seller at the door of the Great Mosque, who helped me once or twice
through the mazes of the bazaars and called to me each time I passed
him: "Has your Excellency no need of your Dragoman to-day?"; or the
dervishes of Sheikh Ḥassan's Tekyah, who invited me to attend the
Friday prayers. Not least the red-bearded Persian who keeps a tea shop
in the Corn Market and who is a member of the Beha'i sect among which I
have many acquaintances. As I sat drinking glasses of delicious Persian
tea at his table, I greeted him in his own tongue and whispered: "I have
been much honoured by the Holy Family at Acre." He nodded his head and
smiled and answered: "Your Excellency is known to us," and when I rose
to go and asked his charge he replied: "For you there is never anything
to pay." I vow there is nothing that so warms the heart as to find
yourself admitted into the secret circle of Oriental beneficence--and
few things so rare.

Upon a sunny afternoon I escaped from the many people who were always in
waiting to take me to one place or another and made my way alone through
the bazaars, ever the most fascinating of loitering grounds, till I
reached the doors of the Great Mosque. It was the hour of the afternoon
prayer. I left my shoes with a bed-ridden negro by the entrance and
wandered into the wide cloister that runs along the whole of the west
side of the Mosque. A fire some ten years ago, and the reparations that
followed it, have robbed the Mosque of much o its beauty, but it still
remains the centre of interest to the archæologist, who puzzles over
the traces of church and temple and Heaven knows what besides that are
to be seen embedded in its walls and gates. The court was half full of
afternoon shadow and half of sun, and in the golden light troops of
little boys with green willow switches in their hands were running to
and fro in noiseless play, while the Faithful made their first
prostrations before they entered the Mosque. I followed them in and
watched them fall into long lines down nave and aisle from east to west.
All sorts and grades of men stood side by side, from the learned doctor
in a fur-lined coat and silken robes to the raggedest camel driver from
the desert, for Islām is the only republic in the world and recognises
no distinctions of wealth or rank. When they had assembled to the number
of three or four hundred, the chant of the Imām began. "God!" he cried,
and the congregation fell with a single movement upon their faces and
remained a full minute in silent adoration till the high chant began
again. "The Creator of this world and the next, of the heavens and of
the earth, He who leads the righteous in the true path and the wicked to
destruct on God!" And as the almighty name echoed through the colonnades
where it had sounded for near two thousand years, the listeners
prostrated themselves again, and for a moment all the sanctuary was
silence.

[Illustration 76: SWEETMEAT SELLERS]

That night I went to an evening party at the invitation of Shekīb el
Arslān, a Druze of a well known family of the Lebanon and a poet
foreby--have I not been presented with a copy of his latest ode? The
party was held in the Maidān, at the house of some corn merchants, who
are agents to the Ḥaurān Druzes in the matter of corn selling and
know the politics of the Mountain well. There were twelve or fourteen
persons present, Shekīb and I and the corn merchants (dressed as befits
well-to-do folk in blue silk robes and embroidered yellow turbans) and a
few others, I know not who they were. The room was blessedly empty of
all but carpets and a divan and a brazier, and this was noteworthy, for
not even the 'Abd ul Ḳādir houses are free from blue and red glass
vases and fringed mats that break out like a hideous disease in the
marble embrazures and on the shelves of the gesso duro cupboards.
Shekīb was a man of education and had experience of the world; he had
even travelled once as far as London. He talked in French until one of
our hosts stopped him with:

"Oh, Shekīb! you know Arabic, the lady also. Talk therefore that we can
understand."

His views on Turkish politics were worth hearing.

"My friends," said he, "the evils under which we suffer are due to the
foreign nations who refuse to allow the Turkish empire to move in any
direction. When she fights they take the fruits of her victory from her,
as they did after the war: with the Greeks. What good is it that we
should conquer the rebellious Albanians? the Bulgarians alone would
gain, advantage and the followers of our Prophet (_sic_, though he was a
Druze) could not live under the hand of the Bulgarians as they would not
live under the hand of the Greeks in Crete. For look you, the Moslems of
Crete are now dwelling at Ṣalaḥiyyeh as you know well, and Crete has
suffered by their departure."

There was so much truth in this that I who listened wished that the
enemies of Turkey could hear and would deeply ponder the point of view
of intelligent and well-informed subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

[Illustration 77: COURT OF THE GREAT MOSQUE]

My last day in Damascus was a Friday. Now Damascus on a fine Friday is a
sight worth travelling far to see. All the male population dressed in
their best parade the streets, the sweetmeat sellers and the auctioneers
of second-hand clothes drive a roaring trade, the eating shops steam
with dressed meats of the most tempting kind, and splendidly caparisoned
mares are galloped along the road by the river Abana. Early in the
afternoon I had distinguished visitors. The first to wait on me was
Muḥammad Pasha, Sheikh of Jerūd, an oasis half way upon the road to
Palmyra. Jerūdi is the second greatest brigand in all the land, the
greatest (no one disputes him the title) being Fayyāḍ Agha of
Karyatein, another oasis on the Palmyra road. Fayyāḍ, I fancy, is an
evil rogue, though he had been polite enough to me when I had passed his
way, but Jerūdi's knavery is of a different brand. He is a big,
powerful man with a wall eye; he was a mighty rider and raider in his
day, for he has Arab blood in his veins, and his grandfather was of the
high stock of the 'Anazeh, but he has grown old and heavy and gouty, and
his desire is for peace, a desire difficult to attain, what with his
antecedents and the outlying position of Jerūd, which makes it the
natural resort of all the turbulent spirits of the desert. He must keep
on terms both with his Arab kin and with the government, each trying to
use his influence with the other, and he the while seeking to profit
from both, with his wall eye turned towards the demands of the aw, and
his good eye fixed on his own advantage, if I understand him. Justly
irate consuls have several times demanded of the Vāli his immediate
execution; but the Vāli, though he not infrequently signifies his
disapproval of some markedly outrageous deed by a term of imprisonment,
can never be brought to take the further step, saying that the
government has before now found Jerūdi a useful man, and no doubt the
Vāli is the best judge. To his great sorrow Muḥammad Pasha has no
sons to inherit his very considerable wealth, and the grasshopper, in
the shape of a tribe of expectant nephews, has come to be a burden on
his years. Recently he married a daughter of Fayyāḍ's house, a girl
of fifteen, but she has not brought him children. A famous tale about
him is current in Damascus, a tale to which men do not, however, allude
in his presence. At the outbreak of the last Druze war Jerūdi happened
to be enjoying one of his interludes of adhesion to the powers that be,
and because he knew the Mountain well he was sent with thirty or forty
men to scout and report, the army following upon his heels. It happened
that as he passed through a hamlet near Ormān, his old acquaintance,
the sheikh of the village, saw him, and invited him in to eat. And as he
sat in the maḳ'ad awaiting his dinner he heard the Druzes discussing
outside whether they had not better profit by this opportunity to kill
him as an officer of the Turkish army; and he desired earnestly to go
away from that place, but he could not, the rules of polite society
making it incumbent upon him to stay and eat the dinner that was
a-cooking. So when it came he despatched it with some speed, for the
discussion outside had reached a stage that inspired him with the
gravest anxiety, and having eaten he mounted his horse and rode away
before the Druzes had reached a conclusion. And as he went he found
himself suddenly between two fires; the Turkish army had come up and the
first battle of the war had begun. He and his men, discouraged and
perplexed, took refuge behind some rocks, and, as best they might, they
made their way back one by one to the extreme rear of the Turkish
troops. The Druzes have composed a song about this incident; it begins:

[Illustration 78: THRESHING-FLOOR OF ḲARYATEIN]


Jerūdi's golden mares are famed,
And fair the riders in their stumbling flight!
Muḥammad Pasha, tell thy lord
Where are his soldiers, where his arms!


This piece is not often sung before him.

[Illustration 79: THE TEKYAH OF NAKSHIBENDI]

My next visitor was Sheikh Ḥassan Nakshibendi, he of the sleek and
cunning clerical face. He contrived to make good use even of the ten
minutes he spent in the inn parlour, for noticing a gaudy ring on Selīm
Beg's finger he asked to see it, and liked it so well that he put it in
his pocket saying that Selīm would certainly wish to give a present to
his khānum, the youngest of his wives, whom he had married a year or
two before. Selīm replied that in that case we must go at once to his
house in Ṣalaḥiyyeh that the present might be offered, and both
Sheikh Ḥassan and Muḥammad Pasha having their victorias at the door,
we four got into them and drove off to Ṣalaḥiyyeh through the bright
holiday streets. At the door of the house Selīm announced that I ought
first to take leave of the Vāli, who lived close at hand, and borrowed
Jerūdi's carriage that we might go in style. Then said Selīm to
Muḥammad Pasha:

"Are you not coming with us?" But the question was put in sarcasm, for
he knew well that Jerūdi was going through a period of disgrace and
that he had but recently emerged from a well-merited imprisonment.

Jerūdi shook his head and drawing near to us, seated in his victoria,
he whispered:

"Say something in my favour to the Pasha."

We laughed and promised to speak for him, though Selīm confided to me
as we drove away that when he had been in disgrace ("entirely owing to
the intrigues of my enemies"), not a man had come forward to help him,
while now that he was in favour every one begged for his intervention;
and he drew his frock coat round him and lent back against the cushions
of Jerūdi's carriage with the air of one who is proudly conscious that
he is in a position to fulfil scriptural injunctions to the letter.

Nāzim Pasha was on his doorstep taking leave of the commander-in-chief.
When he saw us he came down the steps and called us in with the utmost
friendliness. The second visit to his house (he had been to see me in
between) was much less formal than the first. We talked of the Japanese
War, a topic never far from the lips of my interlocutors, great or
small, and I made bold to ask him his opinion.

"Officially," said he, "I am neutral."

"But between friends?"

"Of course I am on the side of the Japanese," he answered. And then he
added: "It is you who have gained by their victory."

I replied: "But will you not also gain?"

He answered gloomily: "We have not gained as yet. Not at all in
Macedonia."

Then he asked how I had enjoyed my visit to Damascus. Selīm replied
hastily:

"To-day she has had a great disappointment."

The Vāli looked concerned.

"Yes," continued Selīm, "she had hoped to see a chief of brigands, and
she has found only a peaceful subject of your Excellency."

"Who is he?" said Nāzim.

"Muḥammad Pasha Jerūdi," answered Selīm. The good word had been
spoken very skilfully.

[Illustration 80: OUTSIDE DAMASCUS GATES]

When we returned to Sheikh Ḥassan's house we related this conversation
to the subject of it, and Jerūdi pulled a wry face, but expressed
himself satisfied. Sheikh Ḥassan then took me to see his wife--his
fifth wife, for he had divorced one of the legal four to marry her. He
has the discretion to keep a separate establishment for each, and I do
not question that he is repaid by the resulting peace of his hearths.
There were three women in the inner room, the wife and another who was
apparently not of the household, for she hid her face under the
bed clothes when Sheikh Ḥassan came in, and a Christian, useful in
looking after the male guests (there were others besides Jerūdi and
Selīm) and in doing commissions in the bazaars, where she can go more
freely than her sister Moslems. The harem was shockingly untidy. Except
when the women folk expect your visit and have prepared for it, nothing
is more forlornly unkempt than their appearance. The disorder of the
rooms in which they live may partly be accounted for by the fact that
there are neither cupboards nor drawers in them, and all possessions are
kept in large green and gold boxes, which must be unpacked when so much
as a pocket-handkerchief is needed, and frequently remain unpacked.
Sheikh Ḥassan's wife was a young and pretty woman, though her hair
dropped in wisps about her face and neck, and a dirty dressing gown
clothed a figure which had, alas! already fallen into ruin.

But the view from Nakshibendi's balcony is immortal. The great and
splendid city of Damascus, with its gardens and its domes and its
minarets, lies spread out below, and beyond it the desert, the desert
reaching almost to its gates. And herein is the heart of the whole
matter.

This is what I know of Damascus; as for the churches and the castles,
the gentry can see those for themselves.


[Footnote 8: Since I wrote these sentences, a turn of the political
wheel has brought him down, and he is now reduced to an unimportant post
in the island of Rhodes.]


[Illustration 81: A WATER SELLER]




CHAPTER VIII


The Vāli had inquired of me closely whither I was going from Damascus,
and when I told him that Ba'albek was my goal he had replied that he
must certainly send a small body of armed men to guard so distinguished
a traveller. Thereupon I had answered quickly, so as to avoid further
discussion, that I should go by train. But as I had in reality no
intention of adopting that means of progression it was necessary to make
an early start if I would journey alone. We left the city on a bright
and sunny morning; the roads were full of cheerful wayfarers, and our
horses tugged at the bits after the week's rest. We passed by the Amīr
'Umar's house in the Wādi Barada, and saw that nobleman enjoying the
morning sun upon his roof. He shouted down to me an invitation to enter,
but I replied that there was business on hand, and that he must let me
go.

"Go in peace!" he answered. "Please God some day we may ride together."

"Please God!" said I, and "God requite you!"

A mile or two further we came to a parting of the ways and I altered my
route and struck straight into the Anti-Libanus the better to avoid the
attentions of all the official personages who had been warned to do me
honour. We rode up the beautiful valley of the Barada, which is full of
apricots (but they were not yet in flower), crossed the river above
Suḳ Wādi Barada, a splendid gorge, and journeyed over a plain between
snowy mountains to Zebdāny, famous for its apples. Here we pitched a
solitary camp in a green meadow by a spring, the snowy flanks of Hermon
closing the view to the south and the village scattered over the hill
slopes to the north, and no one in Zebdāny paid any attention to the
two small tents. Next day we crossed the Anti-Libanus in a howling wind;
a very lovely and enjoyable ride it was nevertheless, but a long stage
of eight and a quarter hours. There were Latin inscriptions cut at
intervals in the rocks all down the valley that falls into the
Yaḥfūfa at Jānta--I imagine we were on the Roman road from Damascus
to Ba'albek. The last long barren miles were done in driving rain and we
arrived wet through at Ba'albek. It was almost too windy to pitch a
camp, and yet my soul revolted against the thought of a hotel;
fortunately, Mikhāil suggested a resource. He knew, said he, a decent
Christian woman who lived at the entrance of the village and who would
doubtless give us a lodging. It happened as he had predicted. The
Christian woman was delighted to see us. Her house contained a clean
empty room which I was speedily made ready for my camp furniture,
Mikhāil established himself and his cooking gear in another, the wind
and the rain beat its worst against the shutters and could do us no
harm.

The name of my hostess was Ḳurunfuleh, the Carnation Flower, and she
was wife to one Yūsef el 'Awais, who is at present seeking his fortune
in America, where she wishes to join him. I spent an hour or two with
her and her son and daughter and a few relations who had dropped in for
a little talk and a little music, bringing their lutes with them. They
told me that they were very anxious about their future. The greater part
of the population of Ba'albek and round about belongs to an unorthodox
sect of Islām, called the Metāwileh, which has a very special
reputation for fanaticism and ignorance. These people, when they heard
of the Japanese victories, would come and shake their fists at their
Christian neighbours, saying: "The Christians are suffering defeat! See
now, we too will shortly drive you out and seize your goods." Mikhāil
joined in, and declared that it was the same thing at Jerusalem. There,
said he (I know not with what truth), the Moslems had sent a deputation
to the Mufti, saying: "The time has come for us to turn the Christians
out." But the Mufti answered: "If you raise a disturbance the nations of
Europe will step in, for Jerusalem is the apple of their eye" (so the
Mufti affirmed), "and they will take the whole land and we shall be
worse off than before." I tried to comfort Ḳurunfuleh by saying that
it was improbable that the Christians of Syria should suffer
persecution, the country being so well known and so much frequented by
tourists, who would not fail to raise an outcry. The yearly stream of
tourists is, in fact, one of the best guarantees of order. Now
Ḳurunfuleh was a Lebanon woman, and I asked her why she did not return
to her own village, where she would be under the direct protection of
the Powers and exempt from danger. She said:

[Illustration 82: SUḲ WĀDI BARADA]

"Oh lady, the house here is taken in my husband's name, and I cannot
sell it unless he return, nor yet leave it empty, and moreover the life
in the Lebanon is not like the life in the plain, and I, being
accustomed to other things, could not endure it. There no one has any
business but to watch his neighbour, and if you put on a new skirt the
village will whisper together and mock at you saying, 'Hast seen the
lady?' Look you, I will show you what it is like to live in the Lebanon.
I eat meat in Ba'albek once a day, but they once a month. They take an
onion and divide it into three parts, using one part each evening to
flavour the burghul (cracked wheat), and I throw a handful of onions
into the dish every night. Life pinches in the Lebanon."

Life pinches so straitly that all of the population that can scrape
together their passage money are leaving for the United States, and it
is next to impossible to find labour to cultivate the corn, the mulberry
and the vine. There is no advancement, to use the Syrian phrase. The
Lebanon province is a _cul de sac_, without a port of its own and
without commerce. True, you need not go in fear of death, but of what
advantage is an existence that offers no more than the third of an onion
at supper time? As usual, the Sublime Porte has been too many for the
Powers. It has accorded all they asked, oh yes, and gladly, but the
concessions that seemed to lay open the path of prosperity have in
reality closed the gates for ever upon those who should have profited by
them.

Next day the rain had not abated. I received the Commissioner of Police,
who had run me to earth--he proved to be a charming man--and paid a
visit to a large family of Portuguese who were staying at the hotel hard
by my lodging. Monsieur Luiz de Sommar, with his wife and daughters and
nephews, had come up from Jerusalem to Damascus by the Jebel Druze. I
had heard of their arrival at Sweida while I was at Ṣalkhad, and had
wondered how they had gained admission. The story was curious and it
redounds to the credit of Monsieur de Sommar, while it shows how eager
the Government still is to keep the Mountain free from the prying eyes
of tourists. The Portuguese family had met Mr. Mark Sykes at 'Ammān,
and he had advised them to change their route so as to pass through
Ḳanawāt in the Jebel Druze, saying they would have no difficulty in
obtaining permission to do so. Monsieur de Sommar went guilelessly
forward, but when he reached Sweida, which is the chief post of the
Government, the Ḳāimaḳām stopped him and intimated politely but
firmly that he must return the way he had come. He replied as firmly
that he would not, and sent telegrams to his Consul in Damascus and his
Minister at Constantinople. Thereupon followed an excited exchange of
messages, the upshot of which was that he was to be allowed to proceed
to Ḳanawāt if he would take a hundred zaptiehs with him. The country,
said the Ḳāimaḳām, was extremely dangerous--that country through
which, as I know well, a woman can ride with no escort but a Druze boy,
and might ride alone, even if she had her saddle-bags full of gold. But
Monsieur de Sommar was a man of judgment. He replied that he was quite
willing to take the hundred zaptiehs, but not one piastre piece should
they receive from him. Thus countered, the Ḳāimaḳām changed his
note and diminished the escort till it numbered twenty, with which guard
the de Sommars reached Ḳanawāt in safety. I congratulated them on
their exploit, and myself on having sought my permit from Fellāḥ ul
Tsa, and not from the Vāli of Syria.

[Illustration 83: BA'ALBEK]

In spite of the rain, the day at Ba'albek was not mis-spent. Since my
last visit the Germans had excavated the Temple of the Sun and laid bare
altars, fountains, bits of decoration and foundations of churches, which
were all of the deepest interest. Moreover, the great group of temples
and enclosing walls set between the double range of mountains, Lebanon
and Anti-Libanus, produces an impression second to none save the Temple
group of the Athenian Acropolis, which is easily beyond a peer. The
details of Ba'albek are not so good as those at Athens; the matchless
dignity and restraint of that glory among the creations of architects
are not to be approached, nor is the splendid position on the hill top
overlooking the blue sea and the Gulf of Salamis to be rivalled. But in
general effect Ba'albek comes nearer to it than any other mass of
building, and it provides an endless source of speculation to such as
busy themselves with the combination of Greek and Asiatic genius that
produced it and covered its doorposts, its architraves and its capitals
with ornamental devices infinite in variety as they are lovely in
execution. For the archæologist there is neither clean nor unclean. All
the works of the human imagination fall into their appointed place in
the history of art, directing and illuminating his own understanding of
it. He is doubly blest, for when the outcome is beautiful to the eyes he
returns thanks; but, whatever the result, it is sure to furnish him with
some new and unexpected link between one art and another, and to provide
him with a further rung in the ladder of history. He is thus apt to be
well satisfied with what he sees, and above all, he does not say: "Alas,
alas! these dogs of Syrians! Phidias would have done so-and-so;" for he
is glad to mark a new attempt in the path of artistic endeavour, and a
fresh breath moving the acanthus leaves and the vine scrolls on capital
and frieze.

[Illustration 84: THE GREAT COURT, BA'ALBEK]

Our departure from Ba'albek was marked by a regrettable occurrence--my
dog Kurt was found to have disappeared in the night. Unlike most Syrian
pariah dogs, he was of a very friendly disposition, he was also (and in
this respect he did not differ from his half fed clan) insatiably
greedy; the probability was, therefore, that he had been lured away with
a bone and shut up till we were safely out of the road. Ḥabīb set off
in one direction through the village, Mikhāil in another, while the
Commissioner of Police, who had appeared on the agitated scene, tried to
pour balm upon my wounded feelings. After a few minutes Ḥabīb
reappeared with Kurt, all wag, behind him on a chain. He had found him,
he explained breathlessly, in the house of one who had thought to steal
him, fastened with this very chain:

"And when Kurt heard my voice he barked, and I went into the yard and
saw him. And the lord of the chain demanded it of me, and by God! I
refused to give it him and struck him to the earth with it instead. God
curse him for a thievish Metāwileh! And so I left him."

I have, therefore, the pleasure to record that the Metāwileh are as
dishonest a sect as rumour would have them to be, but that their
machinations can be brought to nought by vigilant Christians.

[Illustration 85: COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN, BA'ALBEK]

We rode down the wide and most dreary valley between Lebanon and
Anti-Libanus. I might have gone by train to Ḥomṣ, and eke to
Ḥamāh, but I preferred to cross from side to side of the valley as
the fancy took me, and visit such places of interest as the country had
to show, and this could only be done on horseback. North of Ba'albek all
Syria was new to me; it marked an epoch, too, that we had reached the
frontier of the Palestine Exploration Map. I now had recourse to
Kiepert's small but excellent sheet, which I had abstracted from the
volume of Oppenheim that had been left at Ṣāleh. There is no other
satisfactory map until, at a line some thirty miles south of Aleppo,
Kiepert's big Kleinasien 1-400,000 begins; when the American Survey
publishes its geographical volume the deficiency will, I hope, be
rectified. After four and a half hours we came to Lebweh, where one of
the principal sources of the Orontes bursts out of the earth in a number
of springs, very beautiful to see; and here we were overtaken by two
soldiers who had been sent after us by the Ḳāimaḳām with a polite
inquiry as to whether I would not like an escort. I sent one back and
kept the other, fearing to hurt the Ḳāimaḳām's feelings; Derwīsh
was the man's name, helpful and pleasant he proved, as indeed were all
in the long series of his successors who accompanied us until I stepped
into the train at Konia. Some of them added greatly to the pleasure of
the journey, telling me many tales of their experiences and adventures
as we rode together hour by hour. They enjoyed the break in garrison
life that was thus afforded them, and they enjoyed also the daily fee of
a mejideh (4_s._ roughly) which was so much more certain than the
Sultan's pay. I gave them besides a little tip when they reached the
term of their services, and they fed themselves and their horses on
provisions and grain that I shrewdly suspect were taken from the
peasantry by force, a form of official exaction that the traveller is
powerless to prevent.

At Lebweh are the ruins of a temple built in the massive masonry of
Ba'albek. A podium of four great courses of stones crowned by a simple
moulding, a mere splay face, is all that is left of it. The village
belongs to a man called Asad Beg, a rich Metāwileh and brother to a
certain Dr. Haida, who is a ubiquitous person well known in north Syria.
I never go to Damascus without meeting him and never meet him without
satisfaction, for he is well read in Arabic literature and exceptionally
intelligent. He has recently been engaged in some job on the Mecca
railway, and he is, so far as I know, the only example in his sect of a
man who has received a good education and risen to a certain
distinction.

We pitched camp at Rās Ba'albek, where there is an excellent spring in
a gorge of the barren eastern hills an hour and a half from Lebweh. The
frost had ceased to pinch us of a morning, praise be to God! but it was
still cold. When we rose at dawn the sleet was beating against the tents
and we rode all day in the devil's own wind. This was March 8; Spring
travels slowly into Northern Syria. I sent my camp by the direct path
and rode with Derwīsh to a monument that stands on some rising ground
in the middle of the Orontes valley and which in that desolate expanse
is seen for a day's journey on either side. It is a tall tower of
massive stonework capped by a pyramid and decorated with pilasters and
a rough frieze carved in low relief with hunting scenes and trophies of
arms. The Syrians call it Ḳāmu'a Hurmul, the Tower of Hurmul after
the village close by, and the learned are of opinion that it
commemorates some great battle of the Roman conquest, but there is no
inscription to prove them right or wrong. It lies two hours to the west
of Rās Ba'albek. Buffeted by the furious wind we rode on another hour
and a half to a line of little mounds protecting the air-holes of an
underground water channel--a Ḳanāt it would be called in Persian, and
I believe is so called in Arabic. Another two and a half hours brought
us to Ḳṣeir, the mules came up a quarter of an hour later, and we
camped hard by the cemetery outside the ugly mud-built town. The wind
dropped after sunset, and peace, moral and physical, settled down upon
the camp. Even Mikhāil's good humour had been somewhat disturbed by the
elements, but Ḥabīb had come in as smiling as ever, and I am glad to
remember that I, feeling my temper slipping from me down the gale, had
preserved the silence of the philosopher. Muḥammad the Druze was no
longer with us, for he had been left behind in Damascus. Whether through
his own fault or by reason of a conspiracy against him among the others,
difficulties and quarrels were always arising, and it was better to
sacrifice one member of the staff and preserve the equanimity of the
caravan. My contract with him ceased at Damascus; we parted on the best
of terms, and his place was taken by a succession of hirelings,
indistinguishable, as far as I was concerned, the one from the other.

[Illustration 86: TEMPLE OF JUPITER, BA'ALBEK]

The valley of the Orontes was formerly an Arab camping ground and is
still frequented in dry seasons by a few skeikhs of the Ḥaseneh and of
the 'Anazeh, particularly by the Ruwalla branch of the latter tribe, but
the bulk of the Bedouin have been driven out by cultivation. The
Ḳāmu'a Hurmul bears the record of them in the shape of ancient tribe
marks. It was more curious to reflect that we were in the southern
headquarters of the Hittites, whoever they may have been; the famous
examples of their as yet undecyphered script which were found at
Ḥamāh are now lodged in the museum at Constantinople, where they have
baffled all the efforts of the learned. The present population of
Ḳṣeir is composed partly of Christians and partly of the members of
a sect called the Noṣairiyyeh. They are not recognised by Islām as
orthodox, though, like all the smaller sects, they do their best to
smooth, away the outward differences between themselves and the dominant
creed. They keep the tenets of their faith secret as far as possible,
but Dussaud has pried into the heart of them and found them full of the
traces of Phœnician tradition. Living apart in mountain fastnesses that
have remained almost inviolate, the Noṣairiyyeh have held on to the
practices of ancient Semitic cults, and they occupy an honourable
position in the eyes of Syriologists as the direct descendants of
paganism, while remaining themselves profoundly ignorant of their
ancestry. Native report speaks ill of their religion, following the
invariable custom by which people whisper scandal of what they are not
allowed to understand, and I was told that the visible signs of it as
expressed by the conduct of the sect left everything to be desired.
Dussaud has, however, washed away the stain that lay upon their faith,
and my experience of their dealings with strangers leads me to adopt an
attitude of benevolent neutrality. I spent five days in the mountains
west of Ḥomṣ and a week near Antioch, in which districts they are
chiefly to be found, and had no reason to raise a complaint. Kurt was
not so well pleased with the company in which he found himself at
Ḳṣeir. He kept up a continual barking all night; I could almost have
wished him back in the courtyard of the Metawīleh.

Next day the weather was gloriously fine. With Mikhāil I made a long
circuit that I might visit Tell Nebi Mendu, which is the site of Kadesh
on the Orontes, the southern capital of the Hittites. Kadesh in its day
must have been a fair city. The mound on which it was built rises out of
a great corn-growing plain; to the south the wide valley of the Orontes
runs up between the twin chains of Lebanon, to the west the Jebel
Noṣairiyyeh protect it from the sea, and between the ranges of Lebanon
and the Noṣairiyyeh mountains there is a smiling lowland by which
merchants and merchandise might pass down to the coast. Northwards to
the horizon stretch the plains of Coelo Syria; the steppes of the
Palmyrene desert bound the view to the east. The foot of the tell is
washed by the young and eager Orontes (the Rebellious is the meaning of
its Arabic name), and in the immediate foreground lies the lake of
Ḥomṣ, six miles long. The mound of Kadesh is approached by grassy
swards, and among willow trees a mill wheel turns merrily in the rushing
stream. The site must have been inhabited almost continuously from
Hittite times, for history tells of a Seleucid city, Laodocia ad
Orontem, and there are traces of a Christian town. Each succeeding
generation has built upon the dust of those that went before, and the
mound has grown higher and higher, and doubtless richer and richer in
the traces of them that lived on it. But it cannot be excavated
thoroughly owing to the miserable mud hovels that have inherited the
glories of Laodocia and Kadesh, and to the little graveyard at the
northern end of the village which, according to the Moslem prejudice,
must remain undisturbed till Gabriel's trump rouses the sleepers in it.
I noticed fragments of columns and of very rough capitals lying about
among the houses, but my interest, while I stood upon the mound, was
chiefly engaged in picturing the battle fought at Kadesh by the Hittite
king against the Pharaoh of his time, which is recorded in a famous
series of hieroglyphs in Egypt. A quarter of an hour's ride to the north
of Tell Nebi Mendu there is a singular earthwork which is explained by
the Arabs as being the Sefinet Nuh (Noah's Ark) and by archæologists as
an Assyrian fortification, and the one account of its origin has as much
to support it as the other. It is a heap of earth, four-square, its
sides exactly oriented to the points of the compass, standing some forty
to fifty feet above the level of the plain and surrounded by a ditch,
the angles of which are still sharp. We rode to the top of it, and found
it to be an immense platform of solid earth, about an eighth of a mile
square, the four corners raised a little as if there had been towers
upon them, and tower and rampart and platform were alike covered with
springing corn. Whoever raised it, Patriarch or Assyrian, must have
found it mighty tiresome to construct, but until a few trenches have
been cut across it the object that directed his labours will rest
undetermined. We rode down to the lake and lunched by the lapping water
on a beach of clean shells. There are two mounds close to the shores,
another a mile or two out of Ḥomṣ, while the castle of Ḥomṣ
itself was built upon a fourth. They have all the appearance of being
artificial, and probably contain the relics of towns that were sisters
to Kadesh. The fertile plain east of the Orontes must always have been
able to support a large population, larger perhaps in Hittite days than
in our own. The day's ride had lasted from 9.30 to 2 o'clock, with
three-quarters of an hour at Tell Nebi Mendu and half an hour by the
lake.

[Illustration 87: CAPITALS IN THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER, BA'ALBEK]

We approached Ḥomṣ through the cemeteries. That it should be
preceded by a quarter of a mile of graves is not a peculiarity of
Ḥomṣ, but a constant feature of oriental towns. Every city is
guarded by battalions of the dead, and the life of the town moves in and
out through a regiment of turbaned tombstones. It happened to be a
Thursday when we came to Ḥomṣ, and Thursday is the weekly Day of All
Souls in the Mohammedan world. Groups of veiled women were laying
flowers upon the graves or sitting on the mounds engaged in animated
chat--the graveyard is the pleasure ground of Eastern women and the
playground of the children, nor do the gloomy associations of the spot
affect the cheerfulness of the visitors. My camp was pitched in the
outskirts of the city on a stretch of green grass below the ruins of
barracks built by Ibrahīm Pasha and destroyed immediately after his
death by the Syrians, who were desirous of obliterating every trace of
his hated occupation. All was ready for me, water boiling for tea and a
messenger from the Ḳāimaḳām in waiting to assure me that my every
wish should have immediate attention, in spite of which I do not like
the town of Ḥomṣ and never of free will shall I camp in it again.
This resolution is due to the behaviour of the inhabitants, which I will
now describe.

[Illustration 88: FOUNTAIN IN THE GREAT COURT, BA'ALBEK]

[Illustration 89: FRAGMENT OF ENTABLATURE, BA'ALBEK]

The conduct of the Ḳāimaḳām was unexceptionable. I visited him
after tea, and found him to be an agreeable Turk, with a little of the
Arabic tongue and an affable address. There were various other people
present, turbaned muftis and grave senators--we had a pleasant talk over
our coffee. When I rose to go the Ḳāimaḳām offered me a soldier to
escort me about the town, but I refused, saying that I had nothing to
fear, since I spoke the language. I was wrong: no knowledge of Arabic
would be sufficient to enable the stranger to express his opinion of the
people of Ḥomṣ. Before I was well within the bazaar the persecution
began. I might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin from the way the
little boys flocked upon my heels. I bore their curiosity for some time,
then I adjured them, then I turned for help to the shopkeepers in the
bazaars. This was effective for a while, but when I was so unwary as to
enter a mosque, not only the little boys but every male inhabitant of
Ḥomṣ (or so it seemed to my fevered imagination) crowded in after
me. They were not annoyed, they had no wish to stop me, on the contrary
they desired eagerly that I should go on for a long time, that they
might have a better opportunity of watching me; but it was more than I
could bear, and I fled back to my tents, pursued by some two hundred
pairs of inquisitive eyes, and sent at once for a zaptieh. Next morning
I was wiser and took the zaptieh with me from the first. We climbed to
the top of the castle mound to gain a general idea of the town. Though
it has no particular architectural beauty, Ḥomṣ has a character of
its own. It is built of tufa, the big houses standing round courtyards
adorned with simple but excellent patterns of white limestone let into
the black walls. Sometimes the limestone is laid in straight courses,
making with the tufa alternate bars of black and white like the facade
of Siena cathedral. The mind is carried back the more to Italy by the
minarets, which are tall square towers, for all the world like the
towers of San Gimignano, except that those of Ḥomṣ are capped by a
white cupola, very pretty and effective. All that remained of the castle
was Arabic in origin, and so were the fortifications round the town,
save at one place to the east, where the Arab work seemed to rest on
older foundations. I saw no mass of building of pre-Mohammedan date but
one, a brick ruin outside the Tripoli gate which was certainly Roman,
the sole relic of the Roman city of Emesa. The castle mound is also
outside the town, and when I had completed my general survey we entered
by the western gate and went sight-seeing. This is a process which takes
time, for it is constantly interrupted by pressing invitations to come
in and drink coffee. We passed by the Turkmān Jāmi'a, where there are
a couple of Greek inscriptions built into the minaret and a sarcophagus,
carved with bulls' heads and garlands, that serves as a fountain. The
zaptieh was of opinion that I could not do better than pay my respects
to the Bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, and to his palace I went,
but found that I was still too early to see his lordship. I was
entertained, however, on jam and water and coffee, and listened to the
lamentations of the Bishop's secretary over the Japanese victories. The
Greek Orthodox Church held penitential services each time that they
received the news of a Russian defeat, and at that moment they were kept
busy entreating the Almighty to spare the enemies of Christendom. The
secretary deputed a servant to show me the little church of Mār Eliās,
which contains, an interesting marble sarcophagus with Latin crosses
carved on the body of it and Greek crosses on the lid, a later addition,
I fancy, to a classical tomb. Outside the church I met one called 'Abd
ul Wahhāb Beg, whom I had seen at the Serāya when I was calling on the
Ḳāimaḳām, and he invited me into his house, a fine example of the
domestic architecture of Ḥomṣ, the harem court being charmingly
decorated with patterns in limestone and basalt. When I came out, the
zaptieh, who had grasped what sort of sight it was I wished to see,
announced that he would take me to the house of one Ḥassan Beg Nā'i,
which was the oldest in Ḥomṣ. Thither we went, and as we passed
through the narrow but remarkably clean streets I noticed that in almost
every house there was a loom, whereon a weaver was weaving the striped
silk for which Ḥomṣ is famous, while down most of the thoroughfares
were stretched the silken yarns. The zaptieh said that the workers were
paid by the piece, and earned from seven to twelve piastres a day (one
to two shillings), a handsome wage in the East. Living was cheap, he
added; a poor man could rent his house, that is a single room, for a
hundred piastres a year, and feed his family on thirty to forty piastres
a week or even less if he had not many children.

[Illustration 90: BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE, BA'ALBEK]

Ḥassan Beg Nā'i was a red-haired and red-bearded man, with a
hard-featured face of a Scotch lowland type. He was not at all pleased
to see me, but, at the instance of the zaptieh, he slouched out of his
bachelor quarters, where he was drinking a Friday morning cup of coffee
with his friends, took me across the street to his harem, and left me
with his womenkind, who were as friendly as he was surly. They were,
indeed, delighted to have a visitor, for Ḥassan Beg is a strict
master, and neither his wife nor his mother nor any woman that is his is
allowed to put her nose out of doors, not even to take a walk through
the graveyard or to drive down to the meadow by the Orontes on a fine
summer afternoon. The harem had been a very beautiful Arab house on the
model of the houses of Damascus. There were plaster cupolas over the
rooms and over the liwān (the audience hall at the bottom of the
court), but the plaster was chipping away and the floors and staircases
crumbled beneath the feet of those that trod them. A marble column with
an acanthus capital was built into one wall, and on the floor of the
liwān stood a big marble capital, simple in style but good of its kind.
It had been converted into a water basin, and may have done duty as a
font before the Arabs took Emesa and after the earlier buildings of the
Roman town had begun to fall into decay and their materials to be put to
other uses. I passed as I went home a fine square minaret, built of
alternate bands of black and white. The mosque or the Christian church
to which the tower belonged had fallen; it is reputed, said my zaptieh,
to be the oldest tower in the town. The mosque at the entrance of the
bazaar was certainly a church of no mean architectural merit.

[Illustration 91: A STONE IN THE QUARRY, BA'ALBEK]

There was nothing more to see in Ḥomṣ, and as the afternoon was fine
I rode down to the meadow by the Orontes, the fashionable resort of all
holiday makers in spring and summer. The course of the Orontes leaves
Ḥomṣ a good mile to the south-west, and the water supply is both bad
and insufficient, being derived from a canal that begins at the northern
end of the lake. The Marj ul 'Asi, the meadow of the Orontes, is a good
type of the kind of place in which the Oriental, be he Turk or Syrian or
Persian, delights to spend his leisure. "Three things there are," says
an Arabic proverb, "that ease the heart from sorrow: water, green grass
and the beauty of women." The swift Orontes stream flowed by swards
already starred with daisies, where Christian ladies, most perfunctorily
veiled, alighted from their mules under willow trees touched with the
first breath of spring. The river turned a great Na'oura, a Persian
wheel, which filled the air with its pleasant rumbling. A coffee maker
had set up his brazier by the edge of the road, a sweetmeat seller was
spreading out his wares by the waterside, and on a broader stretch of
grass a few gaily dressed youths galloped and wheeled Arab mares. The
East made holiday in her own simple and satisfactory manner, warmed by
her own delicious sun.

[Illustration 92: RĀS UL 'AIN, BA'ALBEK]

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to society and to fruitless
attempts to escape from the curiosity of the townsfolk. It was a Friday
afternoon, and no better way of spending it occurred to them than to
assemble to the number of many hundreds round my tents and observe every
movement of every member of the camp. The men were bad enough, but the
women were worse and the children were the worst of all. Nothing could
keep them off, and the excitement reached a climax when 'Abd ul Ḥamed
Pasha Druby, the richest man in Ḥomṣ, came to call, bringing with
him the Ḳāḍi Muḥammad Sāid ul Khāni. I could not pay as much
attention to their delightful and intelligent conversation as it
deserved, owing to the seething crowd that surrounded us, but an hour
later I returned their call at the Pasha's fine new house at the gate of
the town, accompanied thither by at least three hundred people. I must
have breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed upon my escort, for
as I established myself in the cool and quiet liwan, 'Abd ul Ḥamed
said:

[Illustration 93: CEDARS OF LEBANON]

"Please God the populace does not trouble your Excellency; for if so we
will order out a regiment of soldiers."

I murmured a half-hearted refusal of his offer, though I would have been
glad to have seen those little boys shot down by volleys of musketry,
and the Pasha added reflectively:

"The Emperor of the Germans when he was in Damascus gave orders that no
one was to be forbidden to come and gaze on him."

With this august example before me I saw that I must bear the penalties
of greatness and foreignness without complaint.

The talk turned on religious beliefs. I began by asking about the
Noṣairiyyeh, but the Ḳāḍi pursed his lips and answered:

[Illustration 94: THE ḲĀMU'A HURMUL]

"They are not pleasant people. Some of them pretend to worship 'Ali and
some worship the sun. They believe that when they die their souls pass
into the bodies of other men or even animals, as it is in the faiths of
India and of China."

I said: "I have heard a story that they tell of a man who owned a
vineyard, and the man died and left it to his son. Now the young man
worked in the vineyard until the time of the harvest, and when the
grapes were ripe a wolf entered in, and every evening he ate the fruit.
And the young man tried to hunt him forth, and every evening he
returned. And one night the wolf cried aloud: 'Shall I not eat of the
grapes who planted the vines?' And the young man was astounded and he
said: 'Who art thou?' The wolf replied: 'I am thy father.' The young man
answered: 'If thou art indeed my father, where did'st hide the pruning
knife, for I have not found it since thy soul left thy body!' Then the
wolf took him to the place where the pruning knife lay concealed, and he
believed and knew it was his father."

[Illustration 95: AN EASTERN HOLIDAY]

The Ḳāḍi dismissed, the evidence.

"Without doubt they are mighty liars," said he.

I asked him next whether he had any acquaintance with the Behā'is. He
answered:

[Illustration 96: A STREET IN ḤOMṢ]

"As for the Behā'is and others like them, your Excellency knows that
the Prophet (may God give him peace!) said that there were seventy-two
false creeds and but one true, and I can tell you that of the
seventy-two there are certainly fifty in our country."

I replied that it appertained to prophets alone to distinguish the true
from the false, and that we in Europe, where there were none to help us,
found it a difficult task.

"In Europe," said the Ḳāḍi, "I have heard that the men of science
are your prophets."

"And they make answer that they know nothing," I observed. "Their eyes
have explored the stars, yet they cannot tell us the meaning of the word
infinity."

"If you speak of the infinite sky," remarked the Ḳāḍi, "we know
that it is occupied by seven heavens."

"And what beyond the seventh heaven?"

"Does not your Excellency know that the number one is the beginning of
all things?" said he. "When you have told me what comes before the
number one, I will tell you what lies beyond the seventh heaven."

The Pasha laughed, and said that if the Ḳāḍi had finished his
argument he would like to ask me what was the current opinion in Europe
in the matter of thought-reading. "For," said he, "a month ago a ring of
price was stolen in my house, and I could not find the thief. Now a
certain Effendi among my friends, hearing of my case, came to me and
said: 'I know a man in the Lebanon skilful in these things.' I said: 'Do
me the kindness to send for him.' And the man came, and he sought in
Ḥomṣ, until he found a woman gifted with second sight, and he worked
spells on her until she spoke and said: 'The thief is so-and-so, and he
has taken the ring to his house.' And we sought in the house and found
the jewel. This is my experience, for the event happened under my eyes."

I replied that thought-readers in the Lebanon made a better use of their
gifts than any I had heard of in London, and the Pasha said
meditatively:

"It may be that the woman of the bazaar had a complaint against the man
in whose house we found the ring--God alone knows, may His name be
exalted!"

And so we left it.

When I returned to my tent I found a visiting card on my table, bearing
the name and title, "Hanna Khabbāz, the preacher of the Protestant
Church at Ḥomṣ." Beneath this inscription was written the following
message: "Madam,--My wife and I are ready to do any service you need in
the name of Christ and the humanity. We should like to visit you if you
kindly accept us. I am, your obedient servant." I sent word that I would
kindly accept them if they would come at once, and they appeared before
sundown, two friendly people, very eager to offer me hospitality, of
which I had no opportunity to take advantage. I regretted it the less
because the Pasha and the Ḳāḍi had been good enough company for one
afternoon, and when I look back on the tumultuous visit to Ḥomṣ, the
hour spent with those two courteous and well-bred Mohammadans stands out
like the memory of a sheltered spot in a gale of wind.




CHAPTER IX


We left next day at an early hour, but the people of Ḥomṣ got up to
see us off. Nothing save the determination to afford them no more
amusement than I could help kept me outwardly calm. In a quarter of an
hour we had passed beyond the Tripoli Gate, and the Roman brickwork, and
beyond the range of vision of the furthest sighted of the little boys;
the peaceful beauty of the morning invaded our senses, and I turned to
make the acquaintance of the companions with whom the Ḳāimaḳām had
provided me. They were four in number, and two of them were free and two
were bound. The first two were Kurdish zaptiehs; one was charged to show
me the way to Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, and the other to guard over the
second pair of my fellow travellers, a couple of prisoners who had been
on the Ḳāimaḳām's hands for some days past, waiting until he could
find a suitable opportunity, such as that afforded by my journey, to
send them to the fortress in the Jebel Noṣairiyyeh, and so to the
great prison at Tripoli. They were clad, poor wretches, in ragged cotton
clothes and handcuffed together. As they trudged along bravely through
dust and mud, I proffered a word of sympathy, to which they replied that
they hoped God might prolong my life, but as for them it was the will of
their lord the Sultan that they should tramp in chains. One of the Kurds
interrupted with the explanation:

"They are deserters from the Sultan's army: may God reward them
according to their deeds! Moreover, they are Ismailis from Selemiyyeh,
and they worship a strange god who lives in the land of Hind. And some
say she is a woman, and for that reason they worship her. And every year
she sends an embassy to this country to collect the money that is due to
her, and even the poorest of the Ismailis provide her with a few
piastres. And yet they declare that they are Muslims: who knows what
they believe? Speak, oh Khuḍr, and tell us what you believe."

The prisoner thus addressed replied doggedly:

"We are Muslims;" but the soldier's words had given me a clue which I
was able to follow up when the luckless pair crept close to my horse's
side and whispered:

"Lady, lady! have you journeyed to the land of Hind?"

"Yes," said I.

"May God make it Yes upon you! Have you heard there of a great king
called the King Muḥammad?"

Again I was able to reply in the affirmative, and even to add that I
myself knew him and had conversed with him, for their King Muḥammad
was no other than my fellow subject the Agha Khān, and the religion of
the prisoners boasted a respectable antiquity, having been founded by
him whom we call the Old Man of the Mountain. They were the humble
representatives of the dreaded (and probably maligned) sect of the
Assassins.

Khuḍr caught my stirrup with his free hand and said eagerly:

"Is he not a great king?"

But I answered cautiously, for though the Agha Khān is something of a
great king in the modern sense, that is to say he is exceedingly
wealthy, it would have been difficult to explain to his disciples
exactly what the polished, well-bred man of the world was like whom I
had last met at a London dinner party, and who had given me the
Marlborough Club as his address. Not that these things, if they could
have understood them, would have shocked them; the Agha Khān is a law
unto himself, and if he chose to indulge in far greater excesses than
dinner parties his actions would be sanctified by the mere fact that
they were his. His father used to give letters of introduction to the
Angel Gabriel, in order to secure for his clients a good place in
Paradise; the son, with his English education and his familiarity with
European thought, has refrained from exercising this privilege, though
he has not ceased to hold, in the opinion of his followers, the keys of
heaven. They show their belief in him in a substantial manner by
subscribing, in various parts of Asia and Africa, a handsome income that
runs yearly into tens of thousands.

[Illustration 97: COFFEE BY THE ROAD-SIDE]

We rode for about an hour through gardens, meeting bands of low-caste
Arabs jogging into Ḥomṣ on their donkeys with milk and curds for the
market, and then we came to the plain beyond the Orontes, which is the
home of these Arabs. The plain had a familiar air; it was not dissimilar
from the country in the Druze hills, and like the Ḥaurān it was
covered with black volcanic stones. It is a vast quarry for the city of
Ḥomṣ. All the stones that are used for building are brought from
beyond the river packed on donkeys. They are worth a metalīk in the
town (now a metalīk is a coin too small to possess a European
counterpart), and a man with a good team can earn up to ten piastres a
day. In the Spring the only Arabs who camp in the Wa'r Ḥomṣ, the
Stony Plain of Ḥomṣ, are a despised race that caters for the needs
of the city, for, mark you, no Bedouin who respected himself would earn
a livelihood by selling curds or by any other means except battle; but
in the summer the big tribes such as the Ḥaseneh settle there for a
few months, and after the harvest certain of the 'Anazeh who feed their
camels upon the stubble. These great folk are much like salmon in a
trout stream coming in from the open sea and bullying the lesser fry.
When we passed in March there was a good deal of standing water in the
plain, and grass and flowers grew between the stones; and as we
journeyed westward, over ground that rose gradually towards the hills,
we came into country that was like an exquisite garden of flowers. Pale
blue hyacinths lifted their clustered bells above the tufa blocks,
irises and red anemones and a yellow hawksweed and a beautiful purple
hellebore dotted the grass--all the bounties of the Syrian Spring were
scattered on that day beneath our happy feet. For the first five hours
we followed the carriage road that leads to Tripoli, passing the khān
that marks the final stage before the town of Ḥomṣ, and the boundary
line between the vilayets of Damascus and of Beyrout; then we turned to
the right and entered a bridle-path that lay over a land of rolling
grass, partly cultivated and fuller of flowers than the edges of the
road had been. The anemones were of every shade of white and purple,
small blue irises clustered by the path and yellow crocuses by the banks
of the stream. In the eyes of one who had recently crossed southern
Syria the grass was even more admirable than the flowers. The highest
summits of the Jebel Noṣairiyyeh are clad with a verdure that no
fertile slope in Samaria or Judæa, can boast. The path mounted a little
ridge and dropped down to a Kurdish village, half Arab tent and half
mud-built wall. The inhabitants must have been long in Syria, for they
had forgotten their own tongue and spoke nothing but Arabic, though,
like the two zaptiehs, they spoke with the clipped accent of the Kurd.
Beyond the village a plain some three miles wide, the Bḳei'a,
stretched to the foot of the steep buttress of the Noṣairiyyeh hills,
and from the very top of the mountain frowned the great crusader
fortress towards which we were going. The sun shone on its turrets, but
a black storm was creeping up behind it; we could hear the thunder
rumbling in the hills, and jagged lightning shot through the clouds
behind the castle. The direct road across the Bḳei'a was impassable
for horsemen, owing to the flooded swamps, which were deep enough, said
the villagers, to engulf a mule and its load; we turned therefore
reluctantly to the right, and edged round the foot of the hills. Before
we had gone far we met two riders sent out to welcome us by the
Ḳāimaḳām of Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, and as they joined us the storm
broke and enveloped us in sheets of rain. Splashing through the mud and
drenched with rain we reached the foot of the hills at five o'clock, and
here I left my caravan to follow the road, and with one of the
Ḳāimaḳām's horsemen climbed by a steep and narrow bridle-path
straight up to the hill top. And so at sunset we came to the Dark Tower
and rode through a splendid Arab gateway into a vaulted corridor, built
over a winding stair. It was almost night within; a few loopholes let in
the grey dusk from outside and provided the veriest apology for
daylight. At intervals we passed doorways leading into cavernous
blackness. The stone steps were shallow and wide but much broken; the
horses stumbled and clanked over them as we rode up and up, turned corner
after corner, and passed under gateway after gateway until the last
brought us out into the courtyard in the centre of the keep. I felt as
though I were riding with some knight of the Fairy Queen, and half
expected to see written over the arches: "Be bold!" "Be bold!" "Be not
too bold!" But there was no magician in the heart of the castle--nothing
but a crowd of villagers craning their necks to see us, and the
Ḳāimaḳām, smiling and friendly, announcing that he could not think
of letting me pitch a camp on such a wet and stormy night, and had
prepared a lodging for me in the tower.

[Illustration 98: ḲAL'AT EL ḤUṢN]

The Ḳāimaḳām of Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn is a distinguished man of
letters. His name is 'Abd ul Ḥamid Beg Rāfi'a Zādeh, and his family
comes from Egypt, where many of his cousins are still to be found. He
lives in the topmost tower of the keep, where he had made ready a guest
chamber commodiously fitted with carpets and a divan, a four-post
bedstead and a mahogany wardrobe with looking-glass doors of which the
glass had been so splintered in the journey a camel back from Tripoli
that it was impossible to see the smallest corner of one's face in it. I
was wet through, but the obligations of good society had to be
fulfilled, and they demanded that we should sit down on the divan and
exchange polite phrases while I drank glasses of weak tea. My host was
preoccupied and evidently disinclined for animated conversation--for a
good reason, as I subsequently found--but on my replying to his first
greeting he heaved a sigh of relief, and exclaimed:

"Praise be to God! your Excellency speaks Arabic. We had feared that we
should not be able to talk with you, and I had already invited a Syrian
lady who knows the English tongue to spend the evening for the purpose
of interpreting."

[Illustration 99: ḲAL'AT EL ḤUṢN, INTERIOR OF THE CASTLE]

We kept up a disjointed chat for an hour while the damp soaked more and
more completely through my coat and skirts and it was not until long
after the mules had arrived and their packs had been unloaded that the
Ḳāimaḳām rose and took his departure, saying that he would leave
me to rest. We had, in fact, made a long day's march; it had taken the
muleteers eleven hours to reach Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn. I had barely had
time to change my wet clothes before a discreet knocking at the inner
door announced the presence of the womenfolk. I opened at once and
admitted a maid servant, and the wife of the Ḳāimaḳām, and a
genteel lady who greeted me in English of the most florid kind. This
last was the Sitt Ferīdeh, the Christian wife of the Government land
surveyor, who is also a Christian. She had been educated at a missionary
school in Tripoli, and I was not long left in ignorance of the fact that
she was an authoress, and that her greatest work was the translation of
the "Last Days of Pompeii" into Arabic. The Ḳāimaḳām's wife was a
young woman with apple cheeks, who would have been pretty if she had not
been inordinately fat. She was his second wife; he had married her only
a month or two before, on the death of his first, the mother of his
children. She was so shy that it was some time before she ventured to
open her lips in my presence, but the Sitt Ferīdeh carried off the
situation with a gushing volubility, both in English and in Arabic, and
a cheerful air of emphasising by her correct demeanour the fervour of
her Christianity. She was a pleasant and intelligent woman, and I
enjoyed her company considerably more than that of my hostess. The first
word that the Khānum ventured to utter was, however, a welcome one, for
she asked when I would please to dine. I replied with enthusiasm, that
no hour could be too early for me, and we crossed a muddy courtyard and
entered a room in which a bountiful meal had been spread out. Here we
were joined by an ancient dame who was presented to me as "a friend who
has come to gaze upon your Excellency," and we all sat down to the best
of dinners eaten by one at least of the party with the best of sauces.
A thick soup and four enormous dishes of meat and vegetables, topped by
a rice pudding, composed the repast. When dinner was over we returned to
my room, a brazier full of charcoal was brought in, together with
hubble-bubbles for the ladies, and we settled ourselves to an evening's
talk. The old woman refused to sit on the divan, saying that she was
more accustomed to the floor, and disposed herself neatly as close as
possible to the brazier, holding out her wrinkled hands over the glowing
coals. She was clad in black, and her head was covered by a thick white
linen cloth, which was bound closely above her brow and enveloped her
chin, giving her the air of some aged prioress of a religious order.
Outside the turret room the wind howled; the rain beat against the
single window, and the talk turned naturally to deeds of horror and such
whispered tales of murder and death as must have startled the shadows in
that dim room for many and many a century. A terrible domestic tragedy
had fallen upon the Ḳāimaḳām ten days before: his son had been
shot by a schoolfellow at Tripoli in some childish quarrel--the women
seemed to think it not unusual that a boy's sudden anger should have
such consequences. The Ḳāimaḳām had been summoned by telegraph he
had ridden down the long mountain road with fear clutching at his heart,
only to find the boy dead, and his sorrow had been almost more than he
could bear. So said the Sitt Ferīdeh.

The ancient crone rocked herself over the brazier and muttered:

"Murder is like the drinking of milk here! God! there is no other but
Thou."

A fresh gust of wind swept round the tower, and the Christian woman took
up the tale.

"This Khānum," said she, nodding her head towards the figure by the
brazier, "knows also what it is to weep. Her son was but now murdered in
the mountains by a robber who slew him with his knife. They found his
body lying stripped by the path."

The mother bent anew over the charcoal, and the glow flushed her worn
old face.

"Murder is like the spilling of water!" she groaned. "Oh Merciful!"

It was late when the women left me. One of them offered to pass the
night in my room, but I refused politely and firmly.

[Illustration 100: WINDOWS OF THE BANQUET HALL]

Next day I was wakened by thunder and by hailstones rattling against my
shutters. There was nothing for it but to spend another twenty-four
hours under the Ḳāimaḳām's roof and be thankful that we had a roof
to spend them under. I explored the castle from end to end, with immense
satisfaction to the eternal child that lives in the soul of all of us
and takes more delight in the dungeons and battlements of a fortress
than in any other relic of antiquity. Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn is so large
that half the population of the village is lodged in the vaulted
substructures of the keep, while the garrison occupies the upper towers.
The walls of the keep rise from a moat inside the first line of
fortifications, the line through which we had passed the night before by
the vaulted gallery. The butcher of the castle lodged by the gateway of
the inner wall; every morning he killed a sheep on the threshold, and
those who went out stepped across a pool of blood as though some
barbaric sacrifice were performed daily at the gate. The keep contained
a chapel, now converted into a mosque and a banquet hall with Gothic
windows, the tracery of which was blocked with stones to guard those who
dwelt within against the cold. The tower in which I was lodged farmed
part of the highest of the defences and rose above three stories of
vaults. A narrow passage from it along the top of the wall led into a
great and splendid chamber, beyond which was a round tower containing a
circular room roofed by a fourfold vault, and lighted by pointed windows
with rosettes and mouldings round the arches. The castle is the "Kerak
of the Knights" of Crusader chronicles. It belonged to the Hospitallers,
and the Grand Master of the Order made it his residence. The Egyptian
Sultan Malek ed Dāher took it from them, restored it, and set his
exultant inscription over the main gate. It is one of the most perfect
of the many fortresses which bear witness to the strange jumble of noble
ardour, fanaticism, ambition and crime that combined to make the history
of the Crusades--a page whereon the Christian nations cannot look
without a blush nor read without the unwilling pity exacted by vain
courage. For to die in a worthless cause is the last extremity of
defeat. Kerak is closely related to the military architecture of
southern France, yet it bears traces of an Oriental influence from which
the great Orders were not immune, though the Templars succumbed to it
more completely than the Hospitallers. Like the contemporary Arab
fortresses the walls increased in thickness towards the foot to form a
sloping bastion of solid masonry which protected them against the
attacks of sappers, but the rounded towers with their great projection
from the line of the wall were wholly French in character. The Crusaders
are said to have found a castle on the hill top and taken it from the
Moslims, but I saw no traces of earlier work than theirs. Parts of the
present structure are later than their time, as, for instance, a big
building by the inner moat, on the walls of which were carved lions not
unlike the Seljuk lion.

[Illustration 101: ḲAL'AT EL ḤUṢN, WALLS OF THE
INNER ENCEINTE]

After lunch I waded down the muddy hill to the village and called on the
Sitt Ferīdeh and her husband. There were another pair of Christians
present, the man being the Sāḥib es Sandūḳ, which I take to be a
kind of treasurer. The two men talked of the condition of the Syrian
poor. No one, said the land surveyor, died of hunger, and he proceeded
to draw up the yearly budget of the average peasant. The poorest of the
fellaḥīn may earn from 1000 to 1500 piastres a year (£7 to £11),
but he has no need of any money except to pay the capitation tax and to
buy himself a substitute for military service. Meat is an unknown
luxury; a cask of semen (rancid butter) costs 8_s._ or 10_s._ at most;
it helps to make the burghul and other grains palatable, and it lasts
several months. If the grain and the semen run low the peasant has only
to go out into the mountains or into the open country, which is no man's
land, and gather edible leaves or grub up roots. He builds his house
with his own hands, there are no fittings or furniture in it, and the
ground on which it stands costs nothing. As for clothing, what does he
need? a couple of linen shirts, a woollen cloak every two or three
years, and a cotton kerchief for the head. The old and the sick are
seldom left uncared for; their families look after them if they have
families, and if they are without relations they can always make a
livelihood by begging, for no one in the East refuses to give something
when he is asked, though the poor can seldom give money. Few of the
fellaḥīn own land of their own; they work for hire on the estates of
richer men. The chief landowners round Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn are the
family of the Dānadisheh, who come from Tripoli. Until quite recently
the government did not occupy the castle; it belongs to the family of
the Zā'bieh, who have owned it for two hundred years, and still live in
some rooms on the outer wall. The Treasurer broke in here and said that
even the Moslem population hated the Ottoman government, and would
infinitely rather be ruled by a foreigner, what though he were an
infidel--preferably by the English, because the prosperity of Egypt had
made so deep an impression on Syrian minds.

That evening the Ḳāimaḳām sent me a message asking whether I would
choose to dine alone or whether I would honour him and his wife, and I
begged to be allowed to take the latter alternative. In spite of a
desire, touchingly evident, to be a good host, he was sad and silent
during the earlier stages of the dinner, until we hit upon a subject
that drew him from the memory of his sorrow. The mighty dead came out to
help us with words upon their lips that have lifted the failing hearts
of generations of mankind. The Ḳāimaḳām was well acquainted with
Arabic literature; he knew the poets of the Ignorance by heart, and when
he found that I had a scanty knowledge of them and a great love for them
he quoted couplet after couplet. But his own tastes lay with more modern
singers; the tenth-century Mutanabbi was evidently one of his favourite
authors. Some of the old fire still smoulders in Mutanabbi's verse; it
burnt again as the Ḳāimaḳām recited the famous ode in which the
poet puts from him the joys of youth:


"Oft have I longed for age to still the tumult in my brain.
And why should I repine when my prayer is fulfilled?
We have renounced desire save for the spear-points,
Neither do we dally, except with them.
The most exalted seat in the world is the saddle of a swift horse,
And the best companion for all time is a book."


"Your Excellency," concluded the Ḳāimaḳām, "must surely hold that
couplet in esteem."

When we returned to the guest-chamber he asked whether he should not
read his latest poem, composed at the request of the students of the
American College at Beyrout (the most renowned institution of its kind
in Syria) to commemorate an anniversary they were about to celebrate. He
produced first the students' letter, which was couched in flattering
terms, and then his sheets of manuscript, and declaimed his verses with
the fine emphasis of the Oriental reciter, pausing from time to time to
explain the full meaning of a metaphor or to give an illustration to
some difficult couplet. His subject was the praise of learning, but he
ended inconsequently with a fulsome panegyric on the Sultan, a passage
of which he was immensely proud. As far as I could judge it was not very
great poetry, but what of that? There is no solace in misfortune like
authorship, and for a short hour the Ḳāimaḳām forgot his grief and
entered into regions where there is neither death nor lamentation. I
offered him sympathy and praise at suitable points and could have
laughed to find myself talking the same agreeable rubbish in Arabic that
we all talk so often in English. I might have been sitting in a London
drawing-room, instead of between the bare walls of a Crusader tower, and
the world is after all made of the one stuff throughout.

[Illustration 102: FELLAḤĪN ARABS]

It was still raining on the following morning and I had dressed and
breakfasted in the lowest spirits when of a sudden some one waved a
magic wand, the clouds were cleared away, and we set off at half-past
seven in exquisite sunshine. At the bottom of the steep hill on which
the castle stands there lies in an olive grove a Greek monastery. When I
reached it I got off my horse and went in, as was meet, to salute the
Abbot, and, behold! he was an old acquaintance whom I had met at the
monastery of Ma'alūla five years earlier on my return from Palmyra.
There were great rejoicings at this fortunate coincidence, and much jam
and water and coffee were consumed in the celebration of it. The
monastery has been rebuilt, except for a crypt-like chapel, which they
say is 1200 years old. The vault is supported by two pairs of marble
columns, broken off below the capital and returned into the wall, a
scheme more curious than attractive. The capitals are in the form of
lily heads of a Byzantine type. By the altar screen, a good piece of
modern wood carving, there are some very beautiful Persian tiles. In the
western wall of the monastery I was shown a door so narrow between the
jambs that it is scarcely possible to squeeze through them, impossible,
said the monks, for any one except he be pure of heart. I did not risk
my reputation by attempting to force the passage.

We rode on through shallow wooded valleys full of flowers; the fruit
trees were coming into blossom and the honeysuckle into leaf, and by a
tiny graveyard under some budding oaks we stopped to lunch. Before us
lay the crucial point of our day's march. We could see the keep of
Ṣāfiṭa Castle on the opposite hill, but there was a swollen river
between, the bridge had been swept away, and report said that the ford
was impassable. When we reached the banks of the Abrash we saw the river
rushing down its wide channel, an unbroken body of swirling water
through which no loaded mule could pass. We rode near two hours down
stream, and were barely in time with the second bridge, the Jisr el
Wād, which was in the last stage of decrepitude, the middle arch just
holding together. The hills on the opposite bank were covered with a low
scrub, out of which the lovely iris stylosa lifted its blue petals, and
the scene was further enlivened by a continuous procession of
white-robed Noṣairis making their way down to the bridge. I had a
Kurdish zaptieh with me, 'Abd ul Mejīd, who knew the mountains well,
and all the inhabitants of them. Though he was a Mohammedan he had no
feeling against the Noṣairis, whom he had always found to be a
harmless folk, and every one greeted him with a friendly salutation as
we passed. He told me that the white-robed companies were going to the
funeral feast of a great sheikh much renowned for piety, who had died a
week ago. The feast on such occasions is held two days after the
funeral, and when the guests have eaten of the meats each man according
to his ability pays tribute to the family of the dead, the sums varying
from one lira upwards to five or six. To have a reputation for holiness
in the Jebel Noṣairiyyeh is as good as a life insurance with us.

Owing to our long circuit we did not reach Ṣāfiṭa till four. I
refused the hospitality of the Commandant, and pitched my tents on a
ridge outside the village. The keep which we had seen from afar is all
that remains of the White Castle of the Knights Templars. It stands on
the top of the hill with the village clustered at its foot, and from its
summit are visible the Mediterranean and the northern parts of the
Phœnician coast. I saw a Phoenician coin among the antiquities offered
me for sale, and the small bronze figure of a Phœnician
god--Ṣāfiṭa was probably an inland stronghold of the merchant
nation. The keep was a skilful architectural surprise. It contained, not
the vaulted hall or refectory that might have been expected, but a great
church which had thus occupied the very heart of the fortress. A service
was being held when we entered and all the people were at their prayers
in a red glow of sunset that came through the western doors. The
inhabitants of Ṣāfiṭa are most of them Christians, and many speak
English with a strong American accent picked up while they were making
their small fortunes in the States. Besides the accent, they had
acquired a familiarity of address that did not please me, and lost some
of the good manners to which they had been born. 'Abd ul Mejīd, the
smart non-commissioned officer, accompanied me through the town, saved
me from the clutches of the Americanised Christians, twirled his fierce
military moustaches at the little boys who thought to ran after us, and
followed their retreat with extracts from the finest vocabulary of
objurgation that I have been privileged to hear.

Late in the evening two visitors were announced, who turned out to be
the Ẓābit (Commandant) and another official sent by the
Ḳāimaḳām of Drekish to welcome me and bring me down to his
village. We three rode off together in the early morning with a couple
of soldiers behind us, by a winding path through the hills, and after
two hours we came to a valley full of olive groves, with the village of
Drekish on the slopes above them. At the first clump of olive-trees we
found three worthies in frock coats and tarbushes waiting to receive us;
they mounted their horses when we approached and fell into the
procession, which was further swelled as we ascended the village street
by other notables on horseback, till it reached the sum total of
thirteen. The Ḳāimaḳām met us at the door of his house,
frock-coated and ceremonious, and led me into his audience room where we
drank coffee. By this time the company consisted of some thirty persons
of importance. When the official reception was over my host took me into
his private house and introduced me to his wife, a charming Damascene
lady, and we had a short conversation, during which I made his better
acquaintance. Riẓa Beg el 'Ābid owes his present position to the fact
that he is cousin to 'Izzet Pasha, for there is not one of that great
man's family but he is at least Ḳāmaiḳam. Riẓa Beg might have
climbed the official ladder unaided; he is a man of exceptionally
pleasant manners, amply endowed with the acute intelligence of the
Syrian. The family to which he and 'Izzet belong is of Arab origin. The
members of it claim to be descended from the noble tribe of the Muwāli,
who were kin to Harūn er Rashīd, and when you meet 'Izzet Pasha it is
as well to congratulate him on his relationship with that Khalif, though
he knows, and he knows also that you know, that the Muwāli repudiate
his claims with scorn and count him among the descendants of their
slaves, as his name 'Ābid (slave), may show. Slaves or freemen, the
members of the 'Ābid house have climbed so cleverly that they have set
their feet upon the neck of Turkey, and will remain in that precarious
position until 'Izzet falls from favour. Riẓa Beg pulled a grave face
when I alluded to his high connection, and observed that power such as
that enjoyed by his family was a serious matter, and how gladly would he
retire into a less prominent position than that of Ḳāimaḳām! Who
knew but that the Pasha too would not wish to exchange the pleasures of
Constantinople for a humbler and a safer sphere--a supposition that I
can readily believe to be well grounded, since 'Izzet, if rumour speaks
the truth, has got all that a man can reasonably expect from the years
during which he has enjoyed the royal condescension. I assured the
Ḳāimaḳām that I should make a point of paying my respects to the
Pasha when I reached Constantinople, a project that I ultimately carried
out with such success that I may now reckon myself, on 'Izzet's own
authority, as one of those who will enjoy his life-long friendship.

By this time lunch was ready, and the Khānum having retired, the other
guests were admitted to the number of four, the Ẓābit, the Ḳāḍi
and two others. It was a copious, an excellent and an entertaining meal.
The conversation flowed merrily round the table, prompted and encouraged
by the Ḳāimaḳām, who handled one subject after the other with the
polished ease of a man of the world. As he talked I had reason to
observe once more how fine and subtle a tongue is modern Syrian Arabic
when used by a man of education. The Ḳāḍi's speech was hampered by
his having a reputation for learning to uphold, which obliged him to
confine himself to the dead language of the Ḳur'ān. As I took my
leave the Ḳāimaḳām explained that for that night I was still to be
his guest. He had learnt, said he, that I wished to camp at the ruined
temple of Ḥuṣn es Suleimān, and had despatched my caravan thither
under the escort of a zaptieh, and sent up servants and provisions,
together with one of his cousins ta see to my entertainment. I was to
take the Ẓābit with me, and Rā'ib Effendi el Ḥelu, another of the
luncheon party, and he hoped that I should be satisfied. I thanked him
profusely for his kindness, and declared that I should have known his
Arab birth by his generous hospitality.

Our path mounted to the top of the Noṣairiyyeh hills and followed
along the crests, a rocky and beautiful track. The hills were extremely
steep, and bare of all but grass and flowers except that here and there,
on the highest summits, there was a group of big oaks with a white-domed
Noṣairi mazār shining through their bare boughs. The Noṣairis have
neither mosque nor church, but on every mountain top they build a shrine
that marks a burial-ground. These high-throned dead, though they have
left the world of men, have not ceased from their good offices, for they
are the protectors of the trees rooted among their bones, trees which,
alone among their kind, are allowed to grow untouched.

Ḥuṣn es Suleimān lies at the head of a valley high up in the
mountains. A clear spring breaks from under its walls and flows found a
natural platform of green turf, on which we pitched our tents. The hills
rise in an amphitheatre behind the temple, the valley drops below it,
and the gods to whom it was dedicated enjoy in solitude the ruined
loveliness of their shrine. The walls round the temenos are overgrown
with ivy, and violets bloom in the crevices. Four doorways lead into the
court, in the centre of which stand the ruins of the temple, while a
little to the south of the cella are the foundations of an altar,
bearing in fine Greek letters a dedication that recounts how a centurion
called Decimus of the Flavian (?) Legion, with his two sons and his
daughter, raised an altar of brass to the god of Baitocaicē and placed
it upon a platform of masonry in the year 444. The date is of the
Seleucid era and corresponds to A.D. 132. It is regrettable that Decimus
did not see fit to mention the name of the god, which remains
undetermined in all the inscriptions. The northern gateway is a triple
door, lying opposite to a second rectangular enclosure, which contains a
small temple in antis at the south-east corner, and the apse of a
sanctuary in the northern wall. This last sheltered perhaps the statue
of the unknown god, for there are steps leading up to it and the bases
of columns on either side. As at Ba'albek, the Christians sanctified the
spot by the building of a church, which lay across the second enclosure
at right angles to the northern sanctuary. The masonry of the outer
walls of both courts is very massive, the stones being sometimes six or
eight feet long. The decoration is much more austere than that of
Ba'albek, but certain details so intimately recall the latter that I am
tempted to conjecture that the same architect may have been employed at
both places, and that it was he who cut on the under side of the
architraves of Baitocaicē the eagles and cherubs that he had used to
adorn the architrave of the Temple of Jupiter. The peasants say that
there are deep vaults below both temple and court. The site must be well
worthy of careful excavation, though no additional knowledge will
enhance the beauty of the great shrine in the hills.

[Illustration 103: THE TEMPLE AT ḤUṢN ES SULEIMĀN]

The Ḳāimaḳām had not fallen short of his word. Holocausts of sheep
and hens had been offered up for us, and after my friends and I had
feasted, the soldiers and the muleteers made merry in their turn. The
camp fires blazed brightly in the clear sharp mountain air, the sky was
alive with stars, the brook gurgled over the stones; and the rest was
silence, for Kurt was lost. Somewhere among the hills he had strayed
away, and he was gone never to return. I mourned his loss, but slept the
more peacefully for it ever after.

[Illustration 104: NORTH GATE, ḤUṢN ES SULEIMĀN]

All my friends and all the soldiers rode with us next day to the
frontier of the district of Drekish and there left us after having
hounded a reluctant Noṣairi out of his house at 'Ain esh Shems and
bidden him help the zaptieh who accompanied us to find the
extraordinarily rocky path to Masyād. After they had gone I summoned
Mikhāil and asked him what he had thought of our day's entertainment.
He gave the Arabic equivalent for a sniff and said:

"Doubtless your Excellency thinks that you were the guest of the
Ḳāimaḳām. I will tell you of whom you were the guest. You saw
those fellahin of the Noṣairiyyeh, the miserable ones, who sold you
antīcas at the ruins this morning? They were your hosts. Everything you
had was taken from them without return. They gathered the wood for the
fires, the hens were theirs, the eggs were theirs, the lambs were from
their flocks, and when you refused to take more saying, 'I have enough,'
the soldiers seized yet another lamb and carried it off with them. And
the only payment the fellahin received were the metalīks you gave them
for their old money. But if you will listen to me," added Mikhāil
inconsequently, "you shall travel through the land of Anatolia and never
take a quarter of a mejīdeh from your purse. From Ḳāimaḳām to
Ḳāimaḳām you shall go, and everywhere they shall offer you
hospitality--that sort does not look for payment, they wish your
Excellency to say a good word for them when you come to Constantinople.
You shall sleep in their houses, and eat at their tables, as it was when
I travelled with Sacks. . . ."

[Illustration 105: THE CITY GATE, MASYĀD]

But if I were to tell all that happened when Mikhāil travelled with
Mark Sykes I should never get to Masyād.

The day was rendered memorable by the exceptional difficulty of the
paths and by the beauty of the flowers. On the hill tops grew the alpine
cyclamen, crocuses, yellow, white and purple, and whole slopes of white
primroses; lower down, irises, narcissus, black and green orchids,
purple orchis and the blue many-petalled anemone in a boscage of myrtle.
When we reached the foot of the steepest slopes I sent the unfortunate
Noṣairi home with a tip, which was a great deal more than he expected
to get out of an adventure that had begun with a command from the
soldiery. At three we reached Masyād and camped at the foot of the
castle.

[Illustration 106: CAPITAL AT MASYĀD]

Now Masyād was a disappointment. There is indeed a great castle, but,
as far as I could judge, it is of Arab workmanship, and the walls round
the town are Arab also. A Roman road from Ḥamāh passes through
Masyād, and there must be traces of Roman settlement in the town, but I
saw none. I heard of a castle at Abu Kbesh on the top of the hills, but
it was said to be like Masyād, only smaller, and I did not go up to it.
The castle of Masyād has an outer wall and an inner keep reached by a
vaulted passage like that of Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn. The old keep is
almost destroyed, and has been replaced by jerry-built halls and
chambers erected by the Ismailis some hundreds of years ago when they
held the place, so I was told by an old man called the Emir Muṣṭafa
Milḥēm, who belonged to the sect and served me as guide. He also said
that his family had inhabited the castle for seven or eight hundred
years, but possibly he lied, though it is true that the Ismailis have
held it as long. Built into the outer gateways are certain capitals and
columns that must have been taken from Byzantine structures. There are
some old Arabic inscriptions inside the second gate which record the
names of the builders of that part of the fortifications, but they are
much broken. I was told afterwards that I ought to have visited a place
called Deir es Sleb, where there are two churches and a small castle. It
is not marked in the map, and I heard nothing of it until I had left it
far behind. I saw bits of the rasīf, the Roman road, as I travelled
next day to Ḥamāh. At the bridge over the river Sarut, four and a
half hours from Masyād, there is a curious mound faced to the very top
with a rough wall of huge stones. Mikhāil found a Roman coin in the
furrows of the field at the foot of it. From the river we had two and a
half hours of tedious travel that were much lightened by the presence of
a charming old Turk, a telegraph official, who joined us at the bridge
and told me his story as we rode.

"Effendim, the home of my family is near Sofia. Effendim, you know the
place? Māsha'llah, it is a pleasant land! Where I lived it was covered
with trees, fruit trees and pines in the mountains and rose gardens in
the plain. Effendim, many of us came here after the war with the
Muscovite for the reason that we would not dwell under any hand but that
of the Sultan, and many returned again after they had come. Effendim?
for what cause? They would not live in a country without trees; by God,
they could not endure it." Thus conversing we reached Ḥamāh.


[Illustration 107: CAPITAL AT MASYĀD]

[Illustration 108: A NA'OURA, ḤAMĀH]




CHAPTER X


You do not see Ḥamāh until you are actually upon it--there is no
other preposition that describes the attitude of the new comer. The
Orontes at this point flows in a deep bed and the whole city lies hidden
between the banks. The monotonous plain of cornfields stretches before
you without a break until you reach a veritable entanglement of
graveyards--the weekly All Souls' Day had come round again when we
arrived, and the cemeteries were crowded with the living as well as with
the dead. Suddenly the plain ceased beneath our feet, and we stood on
the edge of an escarpment, with the whole town spread out before us, the
Orontes set with gigantic Persian wheels, and beyond it the conical
mound on which stood the fortresses of Hamath and Epiphaneia and who
knows what besides, for the site is one of the oldest in the world. Two
soldiers started from the earth and set about to direct me to a camping
ground, but I was tired and cross, a state of mind that does sometimes
occur on a journey, and the arid spots between houses to which they took
us seemed particularly distasteful. At length the excellent Turk, who
had not yet abandoned us, declared that he knew the very place that
would please me; he led us along the edge of the escarpment to the
extreme northern end of the city, and here showed us a grassy sward
which was as lovely a situation as could be desired. The Orontes issued
from the town below us amid gardens of flowering apricot trees, the
golden evening light lay behind the minarets, and a great Na'oura ground
out a delicious song of the river.

Ḥamāh is the present terminus of the French railway,[9] and the seat
of a Muteserrif. The railway furnished me with a guide and companion in
the shape of a Syrian station-master, a consequential half-baked little
man, who had been educated in a missionary school and scorned to speak
Arabic when he could stutter in French. He announced that his name was
Monsieur Kbēs and his passion archæology, and, that he might the
better prove himself to be in the van of modern thought, he attributed
every antiquity in Ḥamāh to the Hittites, whether it were Byzantine
capital or Arab enlaced decoration. With the Muteserrif I came
immediately into collision by reason of his insisting on providing me
with eight soldiers to guard my camp at night, a preposterous force,
considering that two had been ample in every country district. So
numerous a guard would have been an intolerable nuisance, for they would
have talked all night and left the camp no peace, and I sent six of them
away, in spite of their protestations that they must obey superior
orders. They reconciled the Muteserrif's commands with mine by spending
the night in a ruined mosque a quarter of a mile away, where they were
able to enjoy excellent repose unbroken by a sense of responsibility.

[Illustration 109: THE ḲUBBEH IN THE MOSQUE AT ḤAMĀH]

For picturesqueness Ḥamāh is not to be outdone by any town in Syria.
The broad river with its water wheels is a constant element of beauty,
the black and white striped towers of the mosques an exquisite
architectural feature, the narrow, partly vaulted streets are traps to
hold unrivalled effects of sun and shadow, and the bazaars are not as
yet disfigured by the iron roofs that have done so much to destroy the
character of those at Damascus and at Ḥomṣ. The big mosque in the
centre of the town was once a Byzantine church. The doors and windows of
the earlier building are easily traceable in the walls of the mosque;
the lower part of the western minaret was probably the foundation of an
older tower; the court is full of Byzantine shafts and capitals, and the
beautiful little Ḳubbeh is supported by eight Corinthian columns. On
one of these I noticed the Byzantine motive of the blown acanthus. When
they grew weary of setting the leaves in a stereotyped uprightness, the
stone-cutters laid them lightly round the capital, as though the fronds
had drifted in a swirl of wind, and the effect is wonderfully graceful
and fanciful. Kbēs and I climbed the citadel hill, and found the area
on the top to be enormous, but all the cut stones of the fortifications
have been removed and built into the town below. My impression is that
the isolation of the mound is not natural, but has been effected by
cutting through the headland that juts out into the valley, and so
separating a part of it from the main ridge. If this be so, it must have
been a great work of antiquity, for the cutting is both wide and deep.

The chief interest of the day at Ḥamāh was supplied by the
inhabitants. Four powerful Mohammadan families are reckoned as the
aristocracy of the town, that of 'Aẓam Zādeh, Teifūr, Killāni and
Barāzi, of which last I had seen a member in Damascus. The combined
income of each family is probably about £6000 a year, all derived from
land and villages, there being little trade in Ḥamāh. Before the
Ottoman government was established as firmly as it is now, these four
families were the lords of Ḥamāh and the surrounding districts; they
are still of considerable weight in the administration of the town, and
the officials of the Sultan let them go pretty much their own way, which
is often devious. An ancient evil tale of the 'Aẓam Zādeh is often
told, and not denied, so far as I could learn, by the family. There was
an 'Aẓam in past years who, like King Ahab, desired his neighbour's
vineyard, but the owner of it refused to sell. Thereupon the great man
laid a plot. He caused one of his slaves to be slaughtered and had him
cut into small pieces and buried, not too deep, in a corner of the
coveted property, and after waiting a suitable time he sent a message to
the landlord saying, "You have frequently invited me to drink coffee
with you in your garden; I will come. Make ready." The man was gratified
by this condescension and prepared a feast. The day came and with it the
'Aẓam prince. The meal was spread under an arbour, but when the guest
saw it he declared that the spot selected did not suit him, and led the
way to the exact place where his slave had been buried. The host
protested, saying that it was a mean corner dose to the refuse heaps, but
the 'Aẓam replied that he was satisfied, and the entertainment began.
Presently the guest raised his head and said, "I perceive a curious
smell." "My lord," said the host, "it is from the refuse heaps." "No,"
said the other, "there is something more;" and summoning his servants he
bade them dig in the ground whereon they sat. The quartered body of the
slave was revealed and recognised, and on an accusation of murder the
lord of the garden was seized and bound, and his possessions taken from
him by way of compensation.

[ILLUSTRATION 110: THE TEKYAH KILLĀNIYYEH, ḤAMĀH]

Nor, said Kbēs, have such summary methods of injustice ceased. Quite
recently a quantity of onions were stolen from a shop belonging to 'Abd
ul Ḳādir el 'Aẓam in the quarter immediately below my camp. The
servants of 'Abd ul Ḳādir came to the house of the sheikh of the
quarter and demanded from him their master's property, and since he knew
nothing of the matter and could not indicate who the thief might have
been, they seized him and his son, wounding the son in the hand with a
bullet, dragged them to the river bank, stripped them, beat them almost
to death, and left them to get home as best they might. The incident was
known all over Hamāh, but the government took no steps to punish 'Abd
ul Ḳādir. I went to the house of Khālid Beg 'Aẓam, which is the
most beautiful in the city, as beautiful as the famous 'Aẓam house in
Damascus. Khālid took me into rooms every inch of which was covered
with an endless variety of Persian patterns in gesso duro and woodwork
and mosaic. They opened upon a courtyard set round with an arcade of the
best Arab workmanship, with a fountain in the centre and pots of
flowering ranunculus and narcissus in the corners. The women of the
house of 'Aẓam have even a greater reputation than the sumptuous walls
that hold them; they are said to be the loveliest women in all Ḥamāh.

The Killāni I visited also in their charming house by the Orontes, the
Tekyah Killāniyyeh. It contains a mausoleum, where three of their
ancestors are buried, and rooms looking over the river, filled with the
pleasant grumbling of a Persian wheel. From thence I went to the
Muteserrif, who is an old man bent almost double, and acquainted with no
tongue but Turkish. I was considerably relieved to find that he bore no
malice for my unruly conduct in the matter of the guard. As we walked
home to lunch we met an aged Afghan clad in white. Dervish Effendi was
his name. He stopped the station-master to inquire who I was, and having
learnt that I was English he approached me with a grin and a salute and
said in Persian, "The English and the Afghans are close friends." He was
in fact as well-informed as the British public--possibly better
informed--of the interchange of visits and civilities between Kabul and
Calcutta; and the moral of the episode (which developed into a long and
tiresome, but most cordial, visit from Dervish Effendi) is that the
report of what happens in the remotest corner of Asia is known almost
immediately to the furthest end, and that it is scarcely an exaggeration
to say that if an English regiment is cut up on the borders of
Afghanistan the English tourist will be mocked at in the streets of
Damascus. Islām is the bond that unites the western and central parts
of the continent, as it is the electric current by which the
transmission of sentiment is effected, and its potency is increased by
the fact that there is little or no sense of territorial nationality to
counterbalance it. A Turk or a Persian does not think or speak of "my
country" in the way that an Englishman or a Frenchman thinks and speaks;
his patriotism is confined to the town of which he is a native, or at
most to the district in which that town lies. If you ask him to what
nationality he belongs he will reply: "I am a man of Isfahān," or "I am
a man of Konia," as the case may be, just as the Syrian will reply that
he is a native of Damascus or Aleppo--I have already indicated that
Syria is merely a geographical term corresponding to no national
sentiment in the breasts of the inhabitants. Thus to one listening to
the talk of the bazaars, to the shopkeepers whose trade is intimately
connected with local conditions in districts very far removed from their
own counters, to the muleteers who carry so much more than their loads
from city to city, all Asia seems to be linked together by fine chains
of relationship, and every detail of the foreign policies of Europe,
from China to where you please, to be weighed more or less accurately in
the balance of public opinion. It is not the part of wanderers and
hearers of gossip to draw conclusions. We can do no more than report,
for any that may care to listen, what falls from the lips of those who
sit round our camp fires, and who ride with us across deserts and
mountains, for their words are like straws on the flood of Asiatic
politics, showing which way the stream is running. Personal experience
has acquainted them with the stock in trade and the vocabulary of
statecraft. They are familiar with war and negotiation and compromise,
and with long nurtured and carefully concealed revenge. Whether they are
discussing the results of a blood feud or the consequences of an
international jealousy their appreciations are often just and their
guesses near the mark.

[Illustration 111: CAPITAL IN THE MOSQUE, ḤAMĀH]

For the moment, so far as my experience goes, the name of the English
carries more weight than it has done for some time past. I noticed a
very distinct difference between the general attitude towards us from
that which I had observed with pain five years before, during the worst
moments of the Boer War. The change of feeling is due, so far as I can
judge from the conversations to which I listened, not so much to our
victory in South Africa as to Lord Cromer's brilliant administration in
Egypt, Lord Curzon's policy on the Persian Gulf, and the alliance with
the conquering Japanese.

When I had at last got rid of the Afghan and was sitting alone on the
fringe of grass that separated my tent from the city hundreds of feet
below, a person of importance drove up to pay his respects. He was the
Mufti, Muḥammad Effendi. He brought with him an intelligent man from
Boṣrā el Ḥarīr, in the Ḥaurān, who had travelled in Cyprus and
had much to say (and little good to say) of our administration there.
The Mufti was a man of the same type as the Ḳāḍi of Ḥomṣ and
the Sheikh Nakshibendi--the sharp-eyed and sharp-witted Asiatic, whose
distinguished features are somewhat marred by an astuteness that amounts
to cunning. He established himself upon the best of the camp chairs, and
remarked with satisfaction:

"I asked: 'Can she speak Arabic?' and when they answered 'Yes,' verily I
ordered my carriage and came."

His talk was of Yemen, whither he had been sent some years before to
restore peace after the last Arab revolt. He spoke of the three days'
journey over torrid desert from the coast, of the inland mountains
covered with trees where there is always rain summer and winter, of the
enormous grapes that hang in the vineyards, and the endless variety of
fruits in the orchards, of the cities as big as Damascus, walled with
great fortifications of mud a thousand years old. The Arabs, said he,
were town dwellers not nomads, and they hated the Ottoman government as
it is hated in few places. When the armies of the Sultan went out
against them they were accustomed to flee into the mountains, where they
could hold out, thought the Mufti, for an indefinite number of years.
But he was wrong; a few months were enough to give victory to the
Sultan's troops, what with daring generalship and the power to endure
desert marches, and the rebellion failed, like many another, because the
Arab tribes hate each other more vindictively than they hate the
Osmanli. But, after the fashion of repressed rebellions in Turkey, it
has already broken out again. The Mufti told me also that in Ḥamāh
wherever they dug they found ancient foundations, even below the river
level.

He was followed by my friend the Turkish telegraph clerk, who rejoiced
to see me so well encamped, and then by the Muteserrif, pursuing an
anxious and tottering course from his carriage through my tent ropes.
The latter lent me his victoria that I might visit the parts of the town
that lie on the eastern banks of the Orontes, and Kbēs and I drove off
with two outriders quite exceptionally free from rags. The eastern
quarter, the Hāḍir it is called, is essentially the Bedouin quarter;
the city Arabic is replaced here by the rugged desert speech, and the
bazaars are filled with Arabs who come in to buy coffee and tobacco and
striped cloaks. It contains a beautiful little ruined mosque, said to be
Seljuk, called El Ḥayyāt, the mosque of Snakes, after the twisted
columns of its windows. At the northern end of the courtyard is a
chamber which holds the marble sarcophagus of Abu'l Fīda, Prince of
Ḥamāh, the famous geographer. He died in 1331; his tomb is carved
with a fine inscription recording the date according to the era of the
Hejra.

[Illustration 112: A CAPITAL, ḤAMĀH]

I gave a dinner party that night to the station-master, the Syrian
doctor, Sallūm, and the Greek priest. We talked till late, a congenial
if incongruous company. Sallūm had received his training in the
American College at Beyrout, from whence come all the medical
practitioners, great and small, who are scattered up and down Syria. He
was a Christian, though of a different brand from the priest, and Kbēs
represented yet another variety of doctrine. On the whole, said the
priest, there was little anti-Christian feeling in Ḥamāh, but there
was also little respect for his cloth; that very day as he walked
through the town some Moslem women had thrown pebbles at him from a
house-top, shouting, "Dog of a Christian priest!" Kbēs discussed the
benefits conferred by the railway (a remarkably ill-managed concern I
fancy) and said that without doubt Ḥamāh had profited by it. Prices
had gone up in the last two years, meat that would otherwise have found
no market was now sent down to Damascus and Beyrout, and he himself who,
when he first came, had been able to buy a sheep for a franc, was now
obliged to pay ten.

The Muteserrif of Ḥamāh provided me with the best zaptieh that I was
to have on all my travels, Ḥājj Maḥmūd, a native of Ḥamāh. He
was a tall broad-shouldered man, who had been in the Sultan's own guard
at Constantinople, and had made the pilgrimage three times, once as a
pilgrim and twice as a soldier of the escort. He rode with me for ten
days, and during that time told me more tales than would fill a volume,
couched in a fine picturesque speech of which he was the master. He had
travelled with a German archaeologist, and knew the strange tastes of
the Europeans in the matter of ruins and inscriptions.

"At Ḳal'at el Mudīk I said to him: 'If you would look upon a stone
with a horse written upon it and his rider, by the Light of God! I can
show it to you!' And he wondered much thereat, and rewarded me with
money. By God and Muḥammad the Prophet of God! you too, oh lady, shall
gaze on it."

Now this exploit of Maḥmūd's was more remarkable than would appear at
first sight, for one of the great difficulties in searching for
antiquities is that the people in out-of-the-way places do not recognise
a sculpture when they see it. You are not surprised that they should
fail to tell the difference between an inscription and the natural
cracks and weather markings of the stone; but it takes you aback when
you ask whether there are stones with portraits of men and animals upon
them, and your interlocutor replies: "Wāllah! we do not know what the
picture of a man is like." Moreover, if you show him a bit of a relief
with figures well carved upon it, as often as not he will have no idea
what the carving represents.

Maḥmūd's most memorable travelling companion had been a Japanese who
had been sent by his government, I afterwards learnt, to study and
report on the methods of building employed in the eastern parts of the
Roman empire--to such researches the Japanese had leisure to apply
themselves in the thick of the war. Maḥmūd's curiosity had evidently
been much excited by the little man, whose fellows were snatching
victory from the dreaded Russians.

"All day he rode, and all night he wrote in his books. He eat nothing
but a piece of bread and he drank tea, and when there came a matter for
refusal he said (for he could talk neither Arabic nor Turkish), 'Noh!
noh!' And that is French," concluded Maḥmūd.

I remarked that it was not French but English, which gave Maḥmūd food
for thought, for he added presently:

"We had never heard their name before the war, but by the Face of the
Truth! the English knew of them."

The Orontes makes a half circle between Ḥamāh and Ḳal'at es Seijar,
and we cut across the chord of the arc, riding over the same dull
cultivated plain that I had crossed on my way from Masyād. It was
strewn with villages of mud-built, beehive-shaped huts; they are to be
met with on the plains all the way to Aleppo, and are like no other
villages save those that appear in the illustrations to Central African
travel books. As a man grows rich he adds another beehive and yet
another to his mansion, till he may have a dozen or more standing round
a courtyard, some inhabited by himself and his family, some by his
cattle, one forming his kitchen, and one his granary. We saw in the
distance a village called Al Ḥerdeh, which Maḥmūd said was
Christian and used to belong entirely to the Greek communion. The
inhabitants lived happily together and prospered, until they had the
misfortune to be discovered by a missionary, who distributed tracts and
converted sortie sixty persons to the English Church, since when there
has not been a moment's rest from brawling in Al Ḥerdeh. As we rode,
Maḥmūd told tales of the Ismailis and the Noṣairis. Of the former
he said that the Agha Khān's photograph was to be found in every house,
but it is woman that they worship, said he. Every female child born on
the 27th of Rajab is set apart and held to be an incarnation of the
divinity. She is called the Rōẓah. She does not work, her hair and
nails are never cut, her family share in the respect that is accorded to
her, and every man in the village will wear a piece of her clothing or a
hair from her body folded in his turban. She is not permitted to marry.

"But what," said I, "if she desire to marry?"

"It would be impossible," replied Maḥmūd. "No one would marry her,
for is there any man that can marry God?"

The sect is known to have sacred books, but none have yet fallen into
the hands of European scholars. Maḥmūd had seen and read one of
them--it was all in praise of the Rōẓah, describing every part of her
with eulogy. The Ismailis read the Ḳur'ān also, said he. Other
strange matters he related which, like Herodotus, I do not see fit to
repeat. The creed seems to spring from dim traditions of Astarte
worship, or from that oldest and most universal cult of all, the
veneration of the Mother Goddess; but the accusations of indecency that
have been brought against it are, I gather, unfounded.[10]

Of the Noṣairis Maḥmūd had much to tell, for he was we acquainted
with the hills in which they live, having been for many years employed
in collecting the capitation tax among the sect. They are infidels, said
he, who do not read the Ḳur'ān nor know the name of God. He related a
curious tale which I will repeat for what it is worth:

"Oh lady, it happened in the winter that I was collecting the tax. Now
in the month of Kānūn el Awwal (December) the Noṣairis hold a great
feast that occurs at the same time as the Christian feast (Christmas),
and the day before, when I was riding with two others in the hills,
there fell a quantity of snow so that we could go no further, and we
sought shelter at the first village in the house of the Sheikh of the
village. For there is always a Sheikh of the village, oh lady, and a
Sheikh of the Faith, and the people are divided into initiated and
uninitiated. But the women know nothing of the secrets of the religion,
for by God! a woman cannot keep a secret. The Sheikh greeted us with
hospitality and lodged us, but next morning when I woke there was no man
to be seen in the house, nothing but the women. And I cried: 'By God and
Muḥammad the Prophet of God! what hospitality is this? and are there
no men to make the coffee but only women?' And the women replied: 'We do
not know what the men are doing, for they have gone to the house of the
Sheikh of the Faith, and we are not allowed to enter.' Then I arose and
went softly to the house and looked through the window, and, by God! the
initiated were sitting in the room, and in the centre was the Sheikh of
the Faith, and before him a bowl filled with wine and an empty jug. And
the Sheikh put questions to the jug in a low tone, and by the Light of
the Truth I heard the jug make answer in a voice that said: 'Bl... bl...'
And without doubt, oh lady, this was magic. And while I looked, one
raised his head and saw me. And they came out of the house and seized
hold of me and would have beaten me, but I cried: 'Oh Sheikh! I am your
guest!' So the Sheikh of the Faith came forth and raised his hand, and
on the instant all those that had hold of me released me. And he fell at
my feet and kissed my hands and the hem of my coat and said: 'Oh
Ḥājji! if you will not tell what you have seen I will give you ten
mejides!' And by the Prophet of God (upon him be peace!) I have never
related it, oh lady, until this day."

[Illustration 113: ḲAL'AT ES SEIJAR]

After four hours' ride we came to Ḳal'at es Seijar. It stands on a
long hog's back broken in the middle by an artificial cutting and
dropping by steep bluffs to the Orontes, which runs here in a narrow bed
between walls of rock. The castle walls that crown the hill between the
cutting and the river make a very splendid appearance from below. There
is a small village of beehive huts at the bottom of the hill. The
Seleucid town of Larissa must have lain on the grassy slopes to the
north, judging from the number of dressed stones that are scattered
there. I pitched my camp at the further end of the bridge in a grove of
apricot trees, snowy with flower and a-hum with bees. The grass was set
thickly with anemones and scarlet ranunculus. The castle is the property
of Sheikh Aḥmed Seijari and has been held by his family for three
hundred years. He and his sons live in a number of little modern houses,
built out of old stones in the middle of the fortifications. He owns a
considerable amount of land and about one-third of the village, the rest
being unequally divided between the Killānis of Ḥamāh and the
Smātiyyeh Arabs, a semi-nomadic tribe that dwells in houses during the
winter. I had a letter of introduction to Sheikh Aḥmed from
Muṣṭafa Barāzi, and, though Maḥmūd was of opinion that I should
not find him in the castle owing to a long-drawn trouble between the
Seijari family and the Smātiyyeh, we climbed up to the gate and along a
road that showed remains of aulting, like the entrance to Ḳal'at el
Ḥuṣn, and so over masses of ruin till we came to the modern village
where the Seijari sheikhs live. I inquired which was the house of
Aḥmed, and was directed to a big wooden door, most forbiddingly shut.
I knocked and waited, and Maḥmūd knocked yet louder and we waited
again. At last a very beautiful woman opened a shutter in the wall above
and asked what we wanted. I said I had a letter from Muṣṭafa to
Aḥmed, and wished to see him. She replied:

"He is away."

I said: "I would salute his son."

"You cannot see him," she returned. "He is in prison at Ḥamāh,
charged with murder."

[Illustration 114: ḲAL'AT ES SEIJAR, THE CUTTING THROUGH
THE RIDGE]

And so she closed the shutter, leaving me to wonder how good manners
would bid me act under these delicate conditions. At that moment a girl
came to the door and opened it a hand's breadth. I gave her the letter
and my card written in Arabic, murmured a few words of regret, and went
away. Maḥmūd now tried to explain the matter. It was one of those
long stories that you hear in the East, without beginning, without end,
and without any indication as to which of the protagonists is in the
right, but an inherent probability that all are in the wrong. The
Smātiyyeh had stolen some of the Seijari cattle, the sons of Aḥmed
had gone down into the village and killed two of the Arabs--in the
castle it was said that the Arabs had attacked them and that they had
killed them in self-defence--the Government, always jealous of the
semi-independence of ruling sheikhs, had seized the opportunity to
strike down the Seijari whether they were at fault or no; soldiers had
been sent from Ḥamāh, one of Aḥmed's sons had been put to death,
two more were in prison, and all the cattle had been carried off. The
rest of the Seijaris were ordered not to stir from the castle, nor
indeed could they do so, for the Smātiyyeh were at their gates ready
and anxious to kill them if they stepped beyond the walls. They appealed
to Ḥamāh for protection, and a guard of some ten soldiers was posted
by the river, whether to preserve the lives of the sheikhs or to keep
them the more closely imprisoned it was difficult to make out. These
events dated from two years back, and for that time the Seijaris had
remained prisoners at Ḥamāh and in their own castle, and had been
unable to superintend the cultivation of their fields, which were
running in consequence to rack and ruin. Moreover, there seemed to be no
prospect of improvement in the situation. Later in the afternoon a
messenger arrived saying that Aḥmed's brother, 'Abd ul Ḳādir, would
be pleased to receive me and would have come himself to welcome me if he
could have left the castle. I went up without Maḥmūd and heard the
whole story again from the point of view of the sheikhs, which helped me
to no conclusion, since it was in most essentials a different story from
that which I had heard from Maḥmūd. The only indisputable point (and
it was probably not so irrelevant as it seems) was that the Seijari
women were wonderfully beautiful. They wore dark blue Bedouin dress, but
the blue cloths hanging from their heads were fastened with heavy gold
ornaments, like the plaques of the Mycenæan treasure, one behind either
temple. Agreeable though their company proved to be I was obliged to cut
my visit short by reason of the number of fleas that shared the
captivity of the family. Two of the younger women walked down with me
through the ruins of the castle, but when we reached the great outer
gate they stopped and looked at me standing on the threshold.

"Allah!" said one, "you go forth to travel through the whole world, and
we have never been to Ḥamāh!"

I saw them in the gateway when I turned again to wave them a farewell.
Tall and straight they were, and full of supple grace, clothed in narrow
blue robes, their brows bound with gold, their eyes following the road
they might not tread. For whatever may happen to the sheikhs, nothing is
more certain than that women as lovely as those two will remain
imprisoned by their lords in Ḳal'at es Seijar.

We rode next day by cultivated plains to Ḳal'at el Mudīk, a short
stage of under four hours. Although there were several traces of ruined
towns--one in particular I remember at a hamlet called Sheikh Ḥadīd,
where there was a mound that looked as if it might have been an
acropolis--the journey would have been uninteresting but for Maḥmūd's
stories. His talk ran through the characteristics of the many races that
make up the Turkish empire, with most of which he was familiar, and when
he came to the Circassians it appeared that he shared my aversion to
them.

"Oh lady," said he, "they do not know what it is to make return for
kindness. The father sells his children, and the children would kill
their own father if he had gold in his belt. It happened once that I was
riding from Tripoli to Ḥomṣ, and near the khān--you know the
place--I met a Circassian walking alone. I said: 'Peace be upon you! Why
do you walk?' for the Circassians never go afoot. He said: 'My horse has
been stolen from me, and I walk in fear upon this road.' I said: 'Come
with me and you shall go in safety to Ḥomṣ.' But I made him walk
before my horse, for he was armed with a sword, and who knows what a
Circassian will do if you cannot watch him? And after a little we passed
an old man working in the fields, and the Circassian ran out to him and
spoke with him, and drew his sword as though to kill him. And I called
out: 'What has this old man done to you?' And he replied: 'By God! I am
hungry, and I asked him for food, and he said "I have none!" wherefore I
shall kill him.' Then I said: 'Let him be. I will give you food.' And I
gave him the half of all I had, bread and sweetmeats and oranges. So we
journeyed until we came to a stream, and I was thirsty, and I got off my
mare and holding her by the bridle I stooped to drink. And I looked up
suddenly and saw the Circassian with his foot in my stirrup on the other
side of the mare, for he designed to mount her and ride away. And, by
God! I had been a father and a mother to him, therefore I struck him
with my sword so that he fell to the ground. And I bound him and drove
him to Ḥomṣ and delivered him to the Government. This is the manner
of the Circassians, may God curse them!"

I asked him of the road to Mecca and of the hardships that the pilgrims
endure upon the way.

"By the Face of God! they suffer," said he. "Ten marches from Ma'ān to
Medā'in Ṣāleḥ, ten from there to Medīna, and ten from Medīna to
Mecca, and the last ten are the worst, for the Sherif of Mecca and the
Arab tribes plot together, and the Arabs rob the pilgrims and share the
booty with the Sherif. Nor are the marches like the marches of
gentlefolk when they travel, for sometimes there are fifteen hours
between water and water, and sometimes twenty, and the last march into
Mecca is thirty hours. Now the Government pays the tribes to let the
pilgrims through in peace, and when they know that the Ḥājj is
approaching they assemble upon the hills beside the road and cry out to
the Amīr ul Ḥājj: 'Give us our dues, 'Abd ur Raḥmān Pasha!' And
to each man he gives according to his rights, to one money, and to
another a pipe and tobacco, to a third a kerchief, and to a fourth a
cloak. Yet it is not the pilgrims that suffer most, but those who keep
the forts that guard the water tanks along the road, and every fort is
like a prison. It happened once that I was sent with the military
escort, and my horse fell sick and could not move, and they left me at
one of the forts between Medā'in Ṣāleḥ and Medina till they should
return. Six weeks or more I lived with the keeper of the fort, and we
saw no one, and we eat and slept in the sun, and eat again, and slept,
for we could not ride out for fear of the Ḥoweiṭāṭ and the Beni
'Atiyyeh who were at war together. And the man had lived there ten years
and never gone a quarter of an hour from that spot, for he watched over
the stores that feed the Ḥājj when it passes. By the Prophet of God!"
said Maḥmūd, with a sweeping gesture of the hand from earth to sky,
"for ten years he had seen nothing but the earth and God! Now he had a
little son, and the boy was deaf and dumb, but his eyes saw further than
any man's, and he watched all day from the top of the tower. And one day
he came running to his father and pointed with his hands, and the father
knew he had seen a raiding party far off, and we hastened within and
shut the doors. And the horsemen drew near, five hundred of the Beni
'Atiyyeh, and they watered their mares and demanded food, and we threw
down bread to them, for we dared not open the doors. And while they eat
there came across the plain the raiders of the Ḥoweiṭāṭ, and they
began to fight together by the castle wall, and they fought until the
evening prayer, and those who lived rode away, leaving their dead to the
number of thirty. And we remained all night with locked doors, and at
dawn we went down and buried the dead. But it is better to live in a
fortress by the Ḥājj road," he continued, "than to serve as a soldier
in Yemen, for there the soldiers receive no pay and of food not enough
on which to live, and the sun bums like a fire. In Yemen if a man stood
in the shade and saw a purse of gold lying in the sun, by God! he would
not go out to pick it up, for the heat is like the fire of hell. Oh
lady, is it true that in Egypt the soldiers get their pay week by week
and month by month?"

I replied that I believed it to be the case, such being the custom in
the English army.

"As for us," said Maḥmūd, "our pay is always due to us for half a
year, and often out of twelve months' pay we receive but six months'.
Wāllah! I have never touched more than eight months' pay for a complete
year. Once," he added, "I was in Alexandria--Māsha'llah, the fine city!
Houses it has as big as the palaces of kings, and all the roads have
paved edges whereon the people walk. And there I saw a cabman who sued a
lady for his fare, and the judge gave it to him. By the Truth! the ways
of judges are different with us," observed Maḥmūd thoughtfully; and
then, with an abrupt transition, he exclaimed: "Look, oh lady! there is
Abu Sa'ad."

I looked, and saw Abu Sa'ad walking in the ploughed field, with his
white coat as spotless as though he had not just alighted from a journey
as long as one of Maḥmūd's, and his black sleeves folded neatly
against his sides, and I made haste to welcome the Father of Good Luck,
for in Syria the first stork is like the first swallow with us. He
cannot, however, any more than the swallow make summer, and we rode that
day into Ḳal'at el Mudīk, in drenching rain.

[Illustration 115: A CAPITAL, ḤAMĀH]

Ḳal'at el Mudīk is the Apamea of the Seleucids. It was founded by
Seleucus Nicator, that great town builder who had so many cities for his
god-daughters: Seleucia in Pieria, Seleucia on the Calycadnus, Seleucia
in Babylonia, and more besides. Though it has been utterly destroyed by
earthquakes, enough remains in ruin to prove its ancient splendour, the
wide circuit of its walls, the number of its temples and the
magnificence of its columned streets. You can trace the main
thoroughfares from gate to gate by the heaped masses of the colonnades,
and mark the stone bases of statues at the intersections of the ways.
Here and there a massive portal opens into vacuity, the palace which it
served having been razed to the ground, or an armed horseman decorates
the funeral stele on which the living merits of his prototype are
recorded. The Christians took up the story where the Seleucid kings had
left it, and the ruins of a great church with a courtyard set round with
columns lie on the edge of the main street. As I plunged in the soft
spring rain through deep grass and flowers and clumps of asphodel, to
the discomfiture of the grey owls that sat blinking on the heaps of
stones, the history and architecture of the town seemed an epitome of
the marvellous fusion between Greece and Asia that came of Alexander's
conquests. Here was a Greek king whose capital lay on the Tigris,
founding a city on the Orontes and calling it after his Persian
wife--what builders raised the colonnades that adorned this and all the
Greek-tinged towns of Syria with classic forms used in a spirit of
Oriental lavishness? what citizens walked between them, holding out
hands to Athens and to Babylon?

The only inhabited part of Ḳal'at el Mudīk is the castle itself,
which stands on the site of the Seleucid acropolis, a hill overlooking
the Orontes valley and the Noṣairiyyeh mountains. It is mainly of Arab
workmanship, though many hands have taken part in its construction, and
Greek and Arabic inscriptions are built pellmell into the walls. To the
south of the castle there is a bit of classical building of which I have
seen no explanation. It looks as if it might be part of the proscenium
of the theatre, for the rising ground behind it is scooped away in the
shape of an auditorium. A very little digging would be enough to show
whether traces of seats lie under the grassy bank. In the valley there
is a ruined mosque and a fine khān, half ruined also. The Sheikh of the
castle gave me coffee, and told me yet another version of the Seijari
story, irreconcilable with either of the two first, whereat I
congratulated myself on having early determined not to attempt to
resolve that tangled problem. From the castle top the valley of the
Orontes seemed to be all under water: it was the great swamp of the
'Asī, said the Sheikh, which dries in summer when the island villages
(as I saw them now) resume their places as parts of the plain. Yes,
certainly they were very unhealthy, summer and winter they were
fever-stricken, and most of the inhabitants died young--lo, we belong to
God and unto Him do we return! In winter and spring these short-lived
folk follow the calling of fishermen, but when the swamp dried they turn
into husbandmen after a fashion of their own. They cut the reeds and
sowed maize upon them, and set them alight, and the maize rose out of
the ashes and grew--a phœnix-like method of agriculture.

At Apamea the excellent cakes I had bought in Damascus came to an
end--it seemed a serious matter at the time when the bill of fare was
apt to be monotonous. Lunch was the least palatable of all our meals.
Hard-boiled eggs and chunks of cold meat cease to tempt the appetite
after they have been indulged in for a month or two. Gradually I taught
Mikhāil to vary our diet with all the resources the country offered,
olives and sheep's milk cheese, salted pistachios, sugared apricots and
half a dozen other delicacies, including the Damascus cakes. The native
servant, accustomed to feeding Cook's tourists on sardines and tinned
beef, thinks it beneath the dignity of a European to eat such food, and
you must go hunt the bazaars with him yourself and teach him what to
buy, or you may pass through the richest country and starve on cold
mutton.


[Footnote 9: It will be the terminus only for a month or two longer for
the line has at length been continued to Aleppo.]

[Footnote 10: The plural of Ismaili in the vernacular is Samawīleh. I
do not know whether this is the literary form, but it is the one I have
always heard.]




CHAPTER XI


The next day's journey is branded on my mind by an incident which I can
scarcely dignify with the name of an adventure--a misadventure let me
call it. It was as tedious while it was happening as a real adventure
(and no one but he who has been through them knows how tiresome they
frequently are), and it has not left behind it that remembered spice of
possible danger that enlivens fireside recollections. We left Ḳal'at
el Mudīk at eight in pouring rain, and headed northwards to the Jebel
Zāwiyyeh, a cluster of low hills that lies between the Orontes valley
and the broad plain of Aleppo. This range contains a number of ruined
towns, dating mainly from the fifth and sixth centuries, partially
re-inhabited by Syrian fellaḥīn, and described in detail by de
Vogüé and Butler. The rain stopped as we rode up a low sweep of the
hills where the red earth was all under the plough and the villages set
in olive groves. The country had a wide bare beauty of its own, which
was heightened by the dead towns that were strewn thickly over it. At
first the ruins were little more than heaps of cut stones, but at Kefr
Anbīl there were some good houses, a church, a tower and a very large
necropolis of rock-cut tombs. Here the landscape changed, the cultivated
land shrank into tiny patches, the red earth disappeared and was
replaced by barren stretches of rock, from out of which rose the grey
ruins like so many colossal boulders. There must have been more
cultivation when the district supported the very large population
represented by the ruined towns, but the rains of many winters have
broken the artificial terracings and washed the earth down into the
valleys, so that by no possibility could the former inhabitants draw
from it now sufficient produce to sustain them. North-east of Kefr
Anbīl, across a labyrinth of rocks, appeared the walls of a wonderful
village, Khīrbet Ḥass, which I was particularly anxious to see. I
sent the mules straight to El Bārah, our halting place that night,
engaged a villager as a guide over the stony waste, and set off with
Mikhāil and Maḥmūd. The path wound in and out between the rocks, a
narrow band of grass plentifully scattered with stones; the afternoon
sun shone hot upon us, and I dismounted, took off my coat, bound it (as
I thought) fast to my saddle, and walked on ahead amid the grass and
flowers. That was the beginning of the misadventure. Khīrbet Ḥass was
quite deserted save for a couple of black tents. The streets of the
market were empty, the walls of the shops had fallen in, the church had
long been abandoned of worshippers, the splendid houses were as silent
as the tombs, the palisaded gardens were untended, and no one came down
to draw water from the deep cisterns. The charm and the mystery of it
kept me loitering till the sun was near the horizon and a cold wind had
risen to remind me of my coat, but, lo! when I returned to the horses it
was gone from my saddle. Tweed coats do not grow on every bush in north
Syria, and it was obvious that some effort must be made to recover mine.
Maḥmūd rode back almost to Kefr Anbīl, and returned after an hour
and a half empty handed. By this time it was growing dark; moreover a
black storm was blowing up from the east, and we had an hour to ride
through very rough country. We started at once, Mikhāil, Maḥmūd and
I, picking our way along an almost invisible path. As ill luck would
have it, just as the dusk closed in the storm broke upon us, the night
turned pitch dark, and with the driving rain in our faces we missed that
Medea-thread of a road. At this moment Mikhāil's ears were assailed by
the barking of imaginary dogs, and we turned our horses' heads towards
the point from which he supposed it to come. This was the second stage
of the misadventure, and I at least ought to have remembered that
Mikhāil was always the worst guide, even when he knew the direction of
the place towards which he was going. We stumbled on; a watery moon came
out to show us that our way led nowhere, and being assured of this we
stopped and fired off a couple of pistol shots, thinking that if the
village were close at hand the muleteers would hear us and make some
answering signal. None came, however, and we found our way back to the
point where the rain had blinded us, only to be deluded again by that
phantom barking and to set off again on our wild dog chase. This time we
went still further afield, and Heaven knows where we should ultimately
have arrived if I had not demonstrated by the misty moon that we were
riding steadily south, whereas El Bārah lay to the north. At this we
turned heavily in our tracks, and when we had ridden some way back we
dismounted and sat down upon a ruined wall to discuss the advisability
of lodging for the night in an empty tomb, and to eat a mouthful of
bread and cheese out of Mahmūd's saddle-bags. The hungry horses came
nosing up to us; mine had half my share of bread, for after all he was
doing more than half the share of work. The food gave us enterprise; we
rode on and found ourselves in the twinkling of an eye at the original
branching off place. From it we struck a third path, and in five minutes
came to the village of El Bārah, round which we had been circling for
three hours. The muleteers were fast asleep in the tents; we woke them
somewhat rudely, and asked whether they had not heard our signals. Oh
yes, they replied cheerfully, but concluding that it was a robber taking
advantage of the stormy night to kill some one, they had paid small
attention. This is the whole tale of the misadventure; it does credit to
none of the persons concerned, and I blush to relate it. It has,
however, taught me not to doubt the truth of similar occurrences in the
lives of other travellers whom I have now every reason to believe
entirely veracious.

[Illustration 116: A HOUSE AT EL BĀRAH]

[Illustration 117: MOULDING AT EL BĀRAH AND LINTEL AT KHIRBET HĀSS]

Intolerable though El Bārah may be by night, by day it is most
marvellous and most beautiful. It is like the dream city which children
create for themselves to dwell in between bedtime and sleep-time,
building palace after palace down the shining ways of the imagination,
and no words can give the charm of it nor the magic of the Syrian
spring. The generations of the dead walk with you down the streets, you
see them flitting across their balconies, gazing out of windows wreathed
with white clematis, wandering in palisaded gardens that are still
planted with olive and with vine and carpeted with iris, hyacinth and
anemone. Yet you may search the chronicles for them in vain; they played
no part in history, but were content to live in peace and to build
themselves great houses in which to dwell and fine tombs to lie in after
they were dead. That they became Christian the hundreds of ruined
churches and the cross carved over the doors and windows of their
dwellings, would be enough to show; that they were artists their
decorations prove; that they were wealthy their spacious mansions their
summer houses and stables and out-houses testify. They borrowed from
Greece such measure of cultivation and of the arts as they required,
find fused with them the spirit of Oriental magnificence which never
breathed; without effect on the imagination of the West; they lived in
comfort and security such as few of their contemporaries can have known,
and the Mahommadan invasion swept them off the face of the earth.

[Illustration 118: TOMB, SERJILLA]

I spent two days at El Bārah and visited five or six of the villages
round about, the Sheikh of El Bārah and his son serving me as guides.
The Sheikh was a sprightly old man called Yūnis, who had guided all the
distinguished archæologists of his day, remembered them, and spoke of
them by name--or rather by names of his own, very far removed from the
originals. I contrived to make out those of de Vogüé and Waddington,
and another that was quite unintelligible was probably intended for
Sachau. At Serjilla, a town with a sober and solid air of respectability
that would be hard to match, though it is roofless and quite deserted,
he presented me with a palace and its adjacent tomb that I might live
and die in his neighbourhood, and when I left he rode with me as far as
Deir Sanbīl to put me on my way. He was much exercised that day by a
disturbance that had arisen in a village near at hand. A man had been
waylaid by two others of a neighbouring village who desired to rob him.
Fortunately a fellow townsman had come to his assistance and together
they had succeeded in beating off the attack, but in the contest the
friend had lost his life. His relations had raided the robbers' village
and carried off all the cattle. Maḥmūd was of opinion that they
should not have taken the law into their own hands.

"By God!" said he, "they should have laid the case before the
Government."

But Yūnis replied, with unanswerable logic:

"Of what use was it to go to the Government? They wanted their rights."

In the course of conversation I asked Yūnis whether he ever went to
Aleppo.

"By God!" said he. "And then I sit in the bazaars and watch the consuls
walking, each with a man in front clothed in a coat worth two hundred
piastres, and the ladies with as it were flowers upon their heads." (The
fashionable European hat, I imagine.) "I always go to Aleppo when my
sons are in prison there," he explained. "Sometimes the gaoler is
softhearted and a little money will get them out."

[Illustration 119: SHEIKH YŪNIS]

I edged away from what seemed to be delicate ground by asking how many
sons he had.

"Eight, praise be to God! Each of my wives bore me four sons and two
daughters."

"Praise be to God!" said I.

"May God prolong your life!" said Yūnis. "My second wife cost me a
great deal of money," he added.

"Yes?" said I.

"May God make it Yes upon you, oh lady! I took her from her husband, and
by God (may His name be praised and exalted!) I had to pay two thousand
piastres to the husband and three thousand to the judge."

[Illustration 120: HOUSE AT SERJILLA]

This was too much for Ḥājj Maḥmūd's sense of the proprieties.

"You took her from her husband?" said he. "Wāllah! that was the deed of
a Noṣairi or an Ismaili. Does a Moslem take away a man's wife? It is
forbidden."

"He was my enemy," explained Yūnis. "By God and the Prophet of God,
there was enmity between us even unto death."

"Had she children?" inquired Maḥmūd.

"Ey wāllah!" assented the Sheikh, a little put about by Maḥmūd's
disapproval. "But I paid two thousand piastres to the husband and three
thousand----"

"By the Face of God!" exclaimed Maḥmūd, still more outraged, "it was
the deed of an infidel."

And here I put an end to further discussion of the merits of the case by
asking whether the woman had liked being carried off.

"Without doubt," said Yūnis. "It was her wish."

We may conclude, therefore, that ethics did not have much to do with the
matter, though he indemnified so amply both the husband and the judge.

This episode led us to discuss the usual price paid for a wife.

[Illustration 121: TOMB OF BIZZOS]

"For such as we," said Yūnis, with an indescribable air of social
pre-eminence, "the girl will not be less than four thousand piastres,
but a poor man who has no money will give the father a cow or a few
sheep, and he will be content."

After he left us I rode round by Ruweiḥā that I might see the famous
church by which stands the domed tomb of Bizzos. This church is the most
beautiful in the Jebel Zāwiyyeh, with its splendid narthex and carved
doorways, its stilted arches and the wide-spanned arcades of its
nave--how just was the confidence in his own mastery over his material
which encouraged the builder to throw those great arches from pier to
pier is proved by the fact that one of them stands to this day. The
little tomb of Bizzos is almost as perfect as it was when it was first
built. By the doorway an inscription is cut in Greek: "Bizzos son of
Pardos. I lived well, I die well and well I rest. Pray for me." The
strangest features in all the architecture of North Syria are the
half-remembered classical motives that find their way into mouldings
that are almost Gothic in their freedom, and the themes of a classical
entablature that grace church window or architrave. The scheme of Syrian
decoration was primarily a row of circles or wreaths filled with whorls
or with the Christian monogram; but as the stone-cutters grew more
skilful they ran their circles together into a hundred exquisite and
fanciful shapes of acanthus and palm and laurel, making a flowing
pattern round church or tomb as varied as the imagination could
contrive. The grass beneath their feet, the leaves on the boughs above
their heads, inspired them with a wealth of decorative design much as
they inspired William Morris twelve hundred years later.

There is another church at Ruweiḥā scarcely less perfect than the
Bizzos church, but not so splendid in design. It is remarkable for a
monument standing close to the south wall, which has been explained as a
bell tower, or a tomb, or a pulpit, or not explained at all. It is
constructed of two stories, the lower one consisting of six columns
supporting a platform, from the low wall of which rise four corner piers
to carry the dome or canopy. The resemblance to some of the North
Italian tombs, as, for instance, to the monument of Rolandino, in
Bologna, is so striking that the beholder instinctively assigns a
similar purpose to the graceful building at Ruweiḥā.

We camped that night at Dāna, a village that boasts a pyramid tomb with
a porch of four Corinthian columns, as perfect in execution and in
balanced proportion as anything you could wish to see. On our way from
Ruweiḥā we passed a mansion which I would take as a type of the
domestic architecture of the sixth-century. It stood apart, separated by
a mile or two of rolling country from any village, with open balconies
facing towards the west and a delightful gabled porch to the north, such
a porch as might adorn any English country house of to-day. You could
fancy the sixth-century owner sitting on the stone bench within and
watching for his friends--he can have feared no enemies, or he would not
have built his dwelling far out in the country and guarded it only with
a garden palisade. At Ḳaṣr el Banāt, the Maidens' Fortress as the
Syrians call it, I was impressed more than at any other place with the
high level that social order had reached in the Jebel Zāwiyyeh, for
here were security and wealth openly displayed, and leisure wherein to
cultivate the arts; and as I rode away I fell to wondering whether
civilisation is indeed, as we think it in Europe, a resistless power
sweeping forward and carrying upon its crest those who are apt to profit
by its advance; or whether it is not rather a tide that ebbs and flows,
and in its ceaseless turn and return touches ever at the flood the
self-same place upon the shore.

[Illustration 122: CHURCH AND TOMB, RUWEIḤĀ]

Late at night one of Sheikh Yūnis's sons rode in to ask us whether his
father were still with us. On leaving us that enterprising old party had
not, it seemed, returned to the bosom of his anxious family, and I have
a suspicion that his friendly eagerness to set us on our way was but
part of a deep-laid plot by means of which he hoped to be able to take a
hand in those local disturbances that had preoccupied him during the
morning. At any rate he had made off as soon as we were out of sight,
and the presumption was that he had hastened to join in the fray. What
happened to him I never heard, but I am prepared to wager that whoever
bit the dust at the village of El Mughāra it was not Sheikh Yūnis.

Three rather tedious days lay between us and Aleppo. We might have made
the journey in two, but I had determined to strike a little to the east
in order to avoid the carriage road, which was well known, and to
traverse country which, though it might not be more interesting, was at
least less familiar. Five hours' ride from Dāna across open rolling
uplands Brought us to Ṭarutīn. We passed several ancient sites,
re-occupied by half-settled Arabs of the Muwāli tribes, though the old
buildings were completely ruined. All along the western edges of the
desert the Bedouin are beginning to cultivate the soil, and are
therefore forced to establish themselves in some fixed spot near their
crops. "We are become fellaḥīn," said the Sheikh of Ṭarutīn. In
some distant age, when all the world is ploughed and harvested, there
will be no nomads left in Arabia. In the initial stages these new-made
farmers continue to live in tents, but the tents are stationary, the
accompanying dirt cumulative, and the settlement unpleasing to any of
the senses. The few families at Ṭarutīn had not yet forgotten their
desert manners, and we found them agreeable people, notwithstanding the
accuracy with which the above remarks applied to their village of hair.

[Illustration 123: ḲAṢR EL ḂANĀT]

I had not been in camp an hour before there was a great commotion among
my men, and Mikhāil came to my tent shouting, "The Americans! the
Americans!" It was not a raid, but the Princeton archæological
expedition, which, travelling from Damascus by other ways than ours, was
now making for the Jebel Zāwiyyeh; and a fortunate encounter my camp
thought it, for each one of us found acquaintances among the masters or
among the muleteers, and had time to talk, as people will talk who meet
by chance upon an empty road. Moreover, the day I spent at Ṭarutīn
provided me with an admirable object lesson in archæology. As the
members of the expedition planned the ruins and deciphered the
inscriptions, the whole fifth-century town rose from its ashes and stood
before us--churches, houses, forts, rock-hewn tombs with the names and
dates of death of the occupants carved over the door. Next day we had a
march of ten hours. We went north, passing a small mud village called
Ḥelbān, and another called Mughāra Merzeh, where there were the
remains of a church and rock-cut tombs of a very simple kind. (None of
these places are marked on Kiepert's map.) Then we turned to the east
and reached Tulūl, where we came upon an immense expanse of flood
water, stretching south at least twelve miles from the Maṭkh, the
swamp in which the River Kuweēk rises. At Tulūl some Arab women were
mourning over a new-made grave. For three days after the dead are buried
they weep thus at the grave side; only at Mecca and at Medina, said
Maḥmūd, there is no mourning for those who are gone. There when
breath leaves the body the women give three cries, to make known to the
world that the soul has fled; but beyond these cries there is no
lamentation, for it is forbidden that tears should fall upon the head of
the corpse. The Lord has given and He has taken away. So we went south
along the edge of the high ground to a little hill called Tell Selma,
where we turned east again and rounded the flood water and rode along
its margin to a big village, Moyemāt, half tents and half beehive huts
built of mud. There is no other material but mud in which to build; from
the moment we left the rocky ground on which Ṭarutīn stands we never
saw a stone--never a stone and never a tree, but an endless unbroken
cornfield, with the first scarlet tulips coming into bloom among the
young wheat. It was heavy going, though it was soft to the horses' feet.
If there were a little more earth upon the hills of Syria and a few more
stones upon the plain, travelling would be easier in that country; but
He, than whom there is none other, has ordered differently. From
Moyemāt we rode north-east until we came to a village called Hober, at
the foot of a spur of the Jebel el Ḥaṣṣ, and here we tried to
camp, but could get neither oats nor barley, nor even a handful of
chopped straw; and so we went on to Kefr 'Ābid, which is marked on the
map, and pitched tents at six o'clock. The villages unknown to Kiepert
are probably of recent construction, indeed many of them are still half
camp. They are exceedingly numerous; about Hober I counted five within a
radius of a mile or two. The Arabs who inhabit them retain their nomad
habits of feud. Each village has its allies and its blood enemies, and
political relations are as delicate as they are in the desert. My diary
contains the following note at the end of the day: "Periwinkles, white
irises of the kind that were blue at El Bārah, red and yellow
ranunculus, storks, larks." These were all that broke the monotony of
the long ride.

[Illustration 124: TOMB, DĀNA]

[Illustration 125: A BEEHIVE VILLAGE]

About half an hour to the north of Kefr 'Ābid there is a little beehive
village which contains a very perfect mosaic of geometrical patterns.
The fragments of other mosaics are to be found scattered through the
village, some in the houses, and some in the courtyards, and the whole
district needs careful exploration while the new settlers are turning up
the ground and before they destroy what they may find. We reached Aleppo
at midday, approaching it by an open drain. Whether it were because of
the evil smell or because of the heavy sky and dust-laden wind I do not
know, but the first impression of Aleppo was disappointing. The name, in
its charming Europeanised form, should belong to a more attractive city,
and attractive Aleppo certainly is not, for it is set in a barren,
treeless, featureless world, the beginning of the great Mesopotamian
flats. The site of the town is like a cup and saucer, the houses lie in
the saucer and the castle stands on the upturned cup, its minaret
visible several hours away while no vestige of the city appears until
the last mile of the road. I stayed two days, during which time it
rained almost ceaselessly, therefore I do not know Aleppo--an Oriental
city will not admit you into the circle of its intimates unless you
spend months within its walls, and not even then if you will not take
pains to please--but I did not leave without having perceived dimly that
there was something to be known. It has been a splendid Arab city; as
you walk down the narrow streets you pass minarets and gateways of the
finest period of Arab architecture; some of the mosques and baths and
khāns (especially those half ruined and closed) are in the same style,
and the castle is the best example of twelfth-century Arab workmanship
in all Syria, with iron doors of the same period--they are dated,--and
beautiful bits of decoration. There must be some native vitality still
that corresponds to these signs of past greatness, but the town has
fallen on evil days. It has been caught between the jealousies of
European concession hunters, and it suffers more than most Syrian towns
from the strangling grasp of the Ottoman Government. It is slowly dying
for want of an outlet to the sea, and neither the French nor the German
railway will supply its need. Hitherto the two companies have been
busily engaged in thwarting one another. The original concession to the
Rayak-Ḥamāh railway extended to Aleppo and north to Birijik--I was
told that the tickets to Birijik were printed off when the first rails
were laid at Rayak. Then came Germany, with her great scheme of a
railway to Baghdad. She secured a concession for a branch line from
Killiz to Aleppo, and did what she could to prevent the French from
advancing beyond Ḥamāh, on the plea that the French railway would
detract from the value of the German concession--my information, it may
be well imagined, is not from the Imperial Chancery, but from native
sources in Aleppo itself. Since I left, the French have taken up their
interrupted work on the Rayak-Ḥamāh line, though it is to be carried
forward, I believe, not to Birijik, but only as far as Aleppo.[11] It
will be of no benefit to the town. Aleppo merchants do not wish to send
their goods a three days' journey to Bey rout; they want a handy seaport
of their own, which will enable them to pocket all the profits of the
trade, and that port should be Alexandretta. Neither does the Baghdad
railway, if it be continued, offer any prospect of advantage. By a
branch line already existing (it was built by English and French
capitalists, but has recently passed under German control) the railway
will touch the sea at Mersina, but Mersina is as far from Aleppo as is
Beyrout. That a line should be laid direct from Aleppo to Alexandretta
is extremely improbable, since the Sultan fears above all things to
connect the inland caravan routes with the coast, lest the troops of the
foreigner, and particularly of England, should find it perilously easy
to land from their warships and march up country. Aleppo should be
still, as it was in times past, the great distributing centre for the
merchandise of the interior, but traffic is throttled by the fatal
frequency with which the Government commandeers the baggage camels. Last
year, with the Yemen war on hand and the consequent necessity of
transporting men and military stores to the coast that they might be
shipped to the Red Sea, this grievance had become acute. For over a
month trade had been stagnant and goods bound for the coast had lain
piled in the bazaar--a little more and they would cease to come at all,
the camel owners from the East not daring to enter the zone of danger to
their beasts. Here, as in all other Turkish towns, I heard the cry of
official bankruptcy. The Government had no funds wherewith to undertake
the most necessary works, the treasuries were completely empty.

[Illustration 126: THE CASTLE, ALEPPO]

Though my stay was short I was not without acquaintances, among whom the
most important was the Vāli. Kiāzim Pasha is a man of very different
stamp from the Vāli of Damascus. To the extent that the latter is,
according to his lights, a real statesman, in so far is Kiāzim nothing
but a _farceur._ He received me in his harem, for which I was grateful
when I saw his wife, who is one of the most beautiful women that it is
possible to behold. She is tall and stately, with a small dark head, set
on magnificent shoulders, a small straight nose, a pointed chin and
brows arching over eyes that are like dark pools--I could not take mine
from her face while she sat with us. Both she and her husband are
Circassians, a fact that had put me on my guard before the Vāli opened
his lips. They both spoke French, and he spoke it very well. He received
me in an offhand manner, and his first remark was:

"Je suis le jeune pasha qui a fait la paix entre les églises."

I knew enough of his history to realise that he had been Muteserrif of
Jerusalem at a time when the rivalries between the Christian sects had
ended in more murders than are customary, and that some kind of uneasy
compromise had been reached, whether through his ingenuity or the
necessities of the case I had not heard.

"How old do you think I am?" said the pasha.

I replied tactfully that I should give him thirty-five years.

"Thirty-six!" he said triumphantly. "But the consuls listened to me. Mon
Dieu! that was a better post than this, though I am Vāli now. Here I
have no occasion to hold conferences with the consuls, and a man like me
needs the society of educated Europeans."

(Mistrust the second: an Oriental official, who declares that he prefers
the company of Europeans.)

"I am very Anglophil," said he.

I expressed the gratitude of my country in suitable terms.

"But what are you doing in Yemen?" he added quickly.

"Excellency," said I, "we English are a maritime people, and there are
but two places that concern us in all Arabia."

"I know," he interpolated. "Mecca and Medina."

"No," said I. "Aden and Kweit."

"And you hold them both," he returned angrily--yes, I am bound to
confess that the tones of his voice were not those of an Anglo-maniac.

Presently he began to tell me that he alone among pashas had grasped
modern necessities. He meant to build a fine metalled road to
Alexandretta--not that it will be of much use, thought I, if there are
no camels to walk in it--like the road he had built from Samaria to
Jerusalem. That was a road like none other in Turkey--did I know it? I
had but lately travelled over it, and seized the opportunity of
congratulating the maker of it; but I did not think it necessary to
mention that it breaks off at the bottom of the only serious ascent and
does not begin again till the summit of the Judæan plateau is reached.

This is all that need be said of Kiāzim Pasha's methods.

A far more sympathetic acquaintance was the Greek Catholic Archbishop, a
Damascene educated in Paris and for some time cure of the Greek Catholic
congregation in that city, though he is still comparatively young. I had
been given a letter to him, on the presentation of which he received me
with great affability in his own house. We sat in a room filled with
books, the windows opening on to the silent courtyard of his palace, and
talked of the paths into which thought had wandered in Europe; but I
found to my pleasure that for all his learning and his long sojourn in
the West, the Archbishop had remained an Oriental at heart.

"I rejoiced," said he, "when I was ordered to return from Paris to my
own land. There is much knowledge, but little faith in France; while in
Syria, though there is much ignorance, religion rests upon a sure
foundation of belief."

The conclusion that may be drawn from this statement is not flattering
to the Church, but I refrained from comment.

He appeared in the afternoon to return my call--from the Vāli downwards
all must conform to this social obligation--wearing his gold cross and
carrying his archiepiscopal staff in his hand. From his tall brimless
hat a black veil fell down his back, his black robes were edged with
purple, and an obsequious chaplain walked behind him. He found another
visitor sitting with me in the inn parlour, Nicola Ḥomṣi, a rich
banker of his own congregation. Ḥomṣi belongs to an important
Christian family settled in Aleppo, and his banking house has
representatives in Marseilles and in London. He and the Archbishop
between them were fairly representative of the most enterprising and the
best educated classes in Syria. It is they who suffer at the hands of
the Turk,--the ecclesiastic, because of a blind and meaningless official
opposition that meets the Christian at every turn; the banker, because
his interests call aloud for progress, and progress is what the Turk
will never understand. I therefore asked them what they thought would be
the future of the country. They looked at one another, and the
Archbishop answered:

"I do not know. I have thought deeply on the subject, and I can see no
future for Syria, whichever way I turn."

That is the only credible answer I have heard to any part of the Turkish
question.

The air of Aleppo is judged by the Sultan to be particularly suitable
for pashas who have fallen under his displeasure at Constantinople. The
town is so full of exiles that even the most casual visitor can scarcely
help making acquaintance with a few of them. One was lodged in my hotel,
a mild-mannered dyspeptic, whom no one would have suspected of
revolutionary sympathies. Probably he was indeed without them, and owed
his banishment merely to some chance word, reported and magnified by an
enemy or a spy. I was to see many of these exiles scattered up and down
Asia Minor, and none that I encountered could tell me for what cause
they had suffered banishment. Some, no doubt, must have had a suspicion,
and some were perfectly well aware of their offence, but most of them
were as innocently ignorant as they professed to be. Now this has a
wider bearing on the subject of Turkish patriotic feeling than may at
first appear; for the truth is that these exiled pashas are very rarely
patriots paying the price of devotion to a national ideal, but rather
men whom an unlucky turn of events has alienated from the existing
order. If there is any chance that they may be taken back into favour
you will find them nervously anxious, even in exile, to refrain from
action that would tend to increase official suspicion; and it is only
when they have determined that there is no hope for them as long as the
present Sultan lives, that they are willing to associate freely with
Europeans or to speak openly of their grievances. There is, so far as I
can see, no organised body of liberal opinion in Turkey, but merely
individual discontents, founded on personal misfortune. It seems
improbable that when the exiles return to Constantinople on the death of
the Sultan they will provide any scheme of reform or show any desire to
alter a system under which, by the natural revolution of affairs, they
will again find themselves persons of consideration.

There is another form of exile to be met with in Turkey, the honourable
banishment of a distant appointment. To this class, I fancy, belongs
Nāzim Pasha himself, and so does my friend Muḥammad 'Ali Pasha of
Aleppo. The latter is an agreeable man of about thirty, married to an
English wife. He accompanied me to the Vāli's house, obtained
permission that I should see the citadel, and in many ways contrived to
make himself useful. His wife was a pleasant little lady from Brixton;
he had met her in Constantinople and there married her, which may, for
ought I know, have been partly the reason of his fall from favour, the
English nation not being a _gens grata_ at Yildiz Kiosk. Muḥammad 'Ali
Pasha is a gentleman in the full sense of the word, and he seems to have
made his wife happy; but it must be clearly understood that I could not
as a general rule recommend Turkish pashas as husbands to the maidens of
Brixton. Though she played tennis at the Tennis Club, and went to the
sewing parties of the European colony, she was obliged to conform to
some extent to the habits of Moslem women. She never went into the
streets without being veiled; "because people would talk if a pasha's
wife were to show her face," said she.

We reached the citadel in the one hour of sunlight that shone on Aleppo
during my stay, and were taken round by polite officers, splendid in
uniforms and clanking swords and spurs, who were particularly anxious
that I should not miss the small mosque in the middle of the fortress,
erected on the very spot where Abraham milked his cow. The very name of
Aleppo, said they, is due to this historic occurrence, and there can be
no doubt that its Arabic form, Ḥaleb, is composed of the same root
letters as those that form the verb to milk. In spite of the deep
significance of the mosque, I was more interested in the view from the
top of the minaret. The Mesopotamian plain lay outspread before us, as
flat as a board--Euphrates stream is visible from that tower on a clear
day, and indeed you might see Baghdad but for the tiresome way in which
the round earth curves, for there is no barrier to the eye in all that
great level. Below us, were the clustered roofs of bazaar and khān,
with here and there a bird's-eye glimpse of marble courtyards, and here
and there the fine spire of a minaret. Trees and water were lacking in
the landscape, and water is the main difficulty in Aleppo itself. The
sluggish stream that flows out of the Maṭkh dries up in the summer,
and the wells are brackish all the year round. Good drinking water must
be brought from a great distance and costs every household at least a
piastre a day, a serious addition to the cost of living. But the climate
is good, sharply cold in winter and not over hot for more than a month
or two in the summer. Such is Aleppo, the great city with the
high-sounding name and the traces of a splendid past.


[Footnote 11: The line is now completed as far as Aleppo.]


[Illustration 127: A WATER-CARRIER]




CHAPTER XII


All my leisure moments during the two days in Aleppo were occupied in
changing muleteers. It seemed a necessary, if a regrettable measure. At
Antioch we should reach the limits of the Arabic speaking population.
Ḥabīb and his father had no word of Turkish, Mikhāil owned to a few
substantives such as egg, milk and piastre, while I was scarcely more
accomplished. I shrank from plunging with my small party into lands
where we should be unable to do more than proclaim our most pressing
needs or ask the way. The remarkable aptitude of north Syrian muleteers
had been much vaunted to me--the title of muleteer is really a misnomer,
for as a fact the beast of burden in these parts is a sorry nag, kadish,
as it is called in Arabic; from Alexandretta to Konia I doubt if we ever
saw a mule, certainly we never saw a caravan of mules. I had heard,
then, that I should not begin to know what it was to travel in comfort,
without worry or responsibility, and with punctuality and speed, until I
had reorganised my service, and that when I reached Konia I should be
able to break up my caravan if I pleased, and as I pleased, and the
Aleppo men would find their way home with another load. So I said
good-bye to my Beyroutīs--and to peace.

The system on which the journey was henceforth conducted was the
sweating system. The sweater was a toothless old wretch, Fāris by name,
who shared with his brother one of the largest teams of baggage animals
in Aleppo. Owing to his lack of teeth he spoke Arabic and Turkish
equally incomprehensibly; he supplied me with four baggage-horses and
rode himself on a fifth, for his own convenience and at his own expense,
though he tried vainly to make me pay for his mount when we reached
Konia; he hired two boys, at a starvation wage, to do all the work of
the camp and the march, and fed them on starvation fare. This unhappy
couple went on foot (the independent men of the Lebanon had provided
themselves with donkeys), and it was a part of their contract with
Fāris that he should give them shoes, but he refused to do so until I
interfered and threatened to dock his wages of the price of the shoes
and buy them myself. I was obliged also to look into the commissariat
and see that the pair had at least enough food to keep them in working
condition; but in spite of all my efforts the hired boys deserted at
every stage, and I suffered continual annoyance from the delays caused
by the difficulty of finding others, and, still more, from the necessity
of teaching each new couple the details of their work--where the tent
pegs were to be placed, how the loads were to be divided, and a hundred
other small but important matters. I had also to goad Fāris, who was
furnished with a greater number of excuses for shirking labour than any
man in Aleppo, into doing some share of his duty, and to superintend
night and morning the feeding of my horses, which would otherwise have
escaped starvation as narrowly as the hired boys. Finally, when we came
to Konia, I found that Fāris had turned the last of his slaves on to
the street, and had refused categorically to take them back to their
home at Adana, saying that when he escaped from my eye he could get
cheaper men than they; and since I would not abandon two boys who had,
according to their stupid best, done what they could to serve me, I was
obliged to help them to return to their native place. To sum up the
evidence, I should say that those who recommend the muleteers of Aleppo
and their abominable system can never have directed a well-trained and
well-organised camp, where the work goes as regularly as Big Ben, and
the men have cheerful faces and willing hands, nor can they have
experience of real businesslike travel, for that is possible only with
servants who show courage in difficulties, enterprise and resource. I
admit that my experience is small, and I confidently assert that it will
never be larger, for I would bring muleteers from Baghdad rather than
engage Fāris or his like a second time.

It was just when the difficulties of the journey multiplied that
Mikhāil's virtue collapsed. Two days spent in drinking the health of
his departing companions, with whom he was on excellent terms, as the
members of a good camp should be, were enough to shatter the effects of
two months' sobriety. From that time forward the 'arak bottle bulked
large in his saddle-bags, and though an 'arak bottle can be searched for
and found in saddle-bags and broken on a stone, no amount of vigilance
could keep Mikhāil out of the wine shop when we reached a town.
Adversity teaches many lessons; I look back with mingled feelings upon
the uneasy four weeks between our departure from Aleppo and the time
when Providence sent me another and a better man and I hardened my heart
to dismiss Mikhāil, but I do not regret the schooling that was forced
on me.

Ḥājj Maḥmūd reached at Aleppo the term of his commission, and from
him also I took a most reluctant farewell. The Vāli provided me with a
zaptieh whose name was Ḥājj Najīb, a Kurd of unprepossessing
appearance, who proved on acquaintance a useful and obliging man,
familiar with the district through which we travelled together, and with
the people inhabiting it. We were late in starting, Mikhāil being
sodden with 'arak and the muleteers unhandy with the loads. The day (it
was March 30) was cloudless, and for the first time the sun was
unpleasantly hot. When we rode away at ten o'clock it was already
blazing fiercely upon us, and the whole day long there was not a scrap
of shade in all the barren track. We followed for a mile or so the
Alexandretta high road, passing a café with a few trees about it, soon
after which we struck away to the left and entered a path that led us
into the bare rocky hills, and speedily became as rocky as they. Our
course was east with a touch of north. At half-past twelve we stopped to
lunch, and waited a full hour for the baggage, during which, time I had
leisure to reflect upon the relative marching speed of the new servants
and the old, and on the burning heat of the sun that had not been so
noticeable when we were ridings Half an hour further we passed a hovel,
Yaḳit 'Ades, where Najīb suggested that we might camp. But I decided
that it was too early, and after we had given strict injunctions to
Fāris concerning the route he was to follow and the exact spot where we
should camp, the zaptieh and I bettered our pace, and without going
beyond a walk were soon out of sight of the others. We rode along the
bottom of a bare winding valley, past several places that were marked on
the map though they were no more than the smallest heaps of ruins, and
at four o'clock turned up the northern slope of the valley and reached a
hamlet, unknown to Kiepert, which Najīb informed me to be Kbeshīn.
Here amid a few old walls and many modern refuse heaps we found a
Kurdish camp, one of the spring-time camps in which half nomadic people
dwell with their flocks at the season of fresh grass. The walls of the
tents, if tents they may be called, were roughly built of stone to a
height of about five feet, but the roofs were of goats' hair cloth,
raised in the centre by tent poles. The Kurdish shepherds crowded round
us and conversed with Najīb in their own tongue, which sounded vaguely
familiar on account of its likeness to Persian. They spoke Arabic also,
a queer jargon full of Turkish words. We sat for some time on the
rubbish-heap watching for the baggage animals till I became convinced,
in spite of Najīb's assurances, that some hitch must have occurred and
that we might watch for ever in vain. At this point the Kurdish sheikh
announced that it was dinner time, and invited us to share the meal. One
of the advantages of out-door life on short commons being that there is
no moment of the day when you are not willing and ready to eat, we fell
in joyfully with the suggestion.

[Illustration 128: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN]

The Kurd has not been given a good name in the annals of travel. Report
would have him both sulky and quarrelsome, but for my part I have found
him to be endowed with most of the qualities that make for agreeable
social intercourse. We were ushered into the largest of the houses; it
was light and cool, airy and clean, its peculiar construction giving it
the advantages of house and of tent. The food consisted of new bread and
sour curds and of an excellent pillaf, in which cracked wheat was
substituted for rice. It was spread upon a mat, and we sat round upon
rugs while the women served us. By the time we had finished it was six
o'clock but no caravan had appeared. Najīb was much perplexed, and our
hosts sympathised deeply with our case, while declaring that they were
more than willing to keep us for the night. Our hesitation was cut short
by a small boy who came running in with the news that a caravan had been
seen to pass by the village of Fāfertīn on the opposite side of the
valley, and that it was then heading for Ḳal'at Sim'ān, our ultimate
destination. There was no time to be lost, the sun had set, and I had a
vivid recollection of our wanderings in the night about El Bārah in a
country not dissimilar from that which lay in front of us, but before we
started I took Najīb aside and asked him whether I might give money in
return for my entertainment. He replied that on no account was it to be
thought of, Kurds do not expect to be paid by their guests. All that was
left me was to summon the children and distribute a handful of metalīks
among them, an inexpensive form of generosity, and one that could not
outrage the most susceptible feelings. We set off, Najīb leading the
way and riding so quickly along the stony path that I had the greatest
difficulty in keeping up with him. I knew that the great church of St.
Simon Stylites stood upon a hill and must be visible from afar, though
the famous column of the saint, round which the church was built, had
fallen centuries ago. After an hour's stumbling ride Najīb pointed
silently to the dim hills, and I could just make out a mass of something
that looked like a fortress breaking the line of the summit. We hurried
on for another half hour and reached the walls at 7.30 in complete
darkness. As we rode through the huge church we heard to our relief a
tinkle of caravan bells that assured us of the arrival of the tents--we
heard also the shouts and objurgations of Mikhāil, who, under the
influence of potations of 'arak, was raging like a wild beast and
refusing to give the new muleteers any hint as to the way in which to
deal with my English tent. Since I was the only sane person who knew how
the poles were to be fitted together, the pegs driven in and the
furniture opened out, I was obliged to do the greater part of the work
myself by the light of two candles, and when that was over to search the
canteen for bread and semen for the muleteers, an order to my rebellious
cook that he should prepare the customary evening meal of rice having
been greeted with derisive howls mingled with curses on all and sundry.
It is ill arguing with a drunken man, but with what feelings I kept
silence I hope that the recording angel may have omitted to note.

[Illustration 129: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN]

At last, when all was ready, I wandered away into the sweet Spring
night, through the stately and peaceful church below the walls of which
we were lying, and presently found myself in a circular court, open to
the sky, from whence the four arms of the church reach out to the four
points of the compass. The court had been set round with a matchless
colonnade, of which many of the arches are still standing, and in the
centre rose in former days the column whereon St. Simon lived and died.
I scrambled over the heaps of ruin till I came to the rock-hewn base of
that very column, a broad block of splintered stone with a depression in
the middle, like a little bowl, filled with clear rain water in which I
washed my hands and face. There was no moon; the piers and arches stood
in ruined and shadowy splendour, the soft air lay still as an unruffled
pool, weariness and vexation dropped from the spirit, and left it bare
to Heaven and the Spring. I sat and thought how perverse a trick Fortune
had played that night on the grim saint. She had given for a night his
throne of bitter dreams to one whose dreams were rosy with a deep
content that he would have been the first to condemn. So musing I caught
the eye of a great star that had climbed up above the broken line of the
arcade, and we agreed together that it was better to journey over earth
and sky than to sit upon a column all your days.

[Illustration 130: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE WEST DOOR]

The members of the American survey have mapped and thoroughly explored
the northern mountains as far as Ḳal'at Sim'ān, but neither they nor
any other travellers have published an account of the hilly region to
the north-east of the shrine.[12] I, who rode through it, and visited
almost all the ruined villages, found that it was generally known to the
inhabitants as the Jebel Sim'ān, by which title I shall speak of it.
The Mountains of Simon, with the Jebel Bārisha, to the south-west, and
the Jebel el 'Ala still further to the west, belong to the same
architectural system as the Jebel Zāwdyyeh, through which we had passed
on our way to Aleppo. It would be possible to draw distinctions of style
between the northern group and the southern; the American architect, Mr.
Butler, with his wide experience of the two districts, has been able to
do so, but to the hasty observer the differences appear to depend
chiefly on natural conditions and on the fact that the northern district
fell more directly under the influence of Antioch, the city which was
one of the main sources of artistic inspiration (not for Syria alone) in
the early centuries of the Christian era. The settlements in the Jebel
Sim'ān are smaller and the individual houses less spacious, possibly
because the northern mountains were much more rugged and unable to
support so large and wealthy a population; they would seem to have begun
earlier and to have reached the highest point of their prosperity a
little later, nor did they suffer the period of decline which is evident
in the South during the century preceding the Arab invasion.[13] The
finest sixth-century churches in the north show an almost florid
luxuriance of decoration unapproached in the latest of the Southern
churches, all of which are to be dated a century earlier, except the
Bizzos church at Ruweiḥā. It is interesting to observe that the
Ruweiḥā church, though it is a little later than Ḳal'at Sim'ān, is
far more severe in detail, and to this it may be added that even small
houses in the north present not infrequently a greater variety and
lavishness of decoration than is customary in the South.[14] When the
traveller reads the inscriptions on church and dwelling, and finds the
dates reckoned in the north always by the era of Antioch, he may be
pardoned for surmising that it was the magnificent hand of Antioch that
touched here architrave and capital, moulding and string-course. The
church of St. Simon was raised not by local effort only but as a tribute
to the famous saint from the whole Christian world, and probably it was
not executed by local workmen but by the builders and stone-cutters of
Antioch; if that be so it is difficult not to attribute the lovely
church of Ḳalb Lōzeh to the same creative forces, and a dozen smaller
examples, such as the east church at Bāḳirḥa, must be due to
similar influences.

[Illustration 131: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE CIRCULAR COURT]

I spent the morning examining the church of St. Simon and
the village at the foot of the hill, which contains some very
perfect basilicas and the ruins of a great hostelry for pilgrims. At
lunch time there appeared upon the scene a Kurd, so engaging and
intelligent that I immediately selected him to be my guide during the
next few days, the district I proposed to visit being blank on the map,
stony and roadless. Mūsa was the name of my new friend, and as we rode
together in the afternoon he confided to my private ear that he was by
creed a Yezīdi, whom the Mohammedans call Devil Worshippers, though I
fancy they are a harmless and well-meaning people. The upper parts of
Mesopotamia are their home, and from thence Mūsa's family had
originally migrated. We talked of beliefs as we went, guardedly, since
our acquaintance was as yet young, and Mūsa admitted that the Yezīdis
worshipped the sun. "A very proper object of adoration," said I, and
thinking to please him went on to mention that the Ismailis worshipped
both sun and moon, but he could scarcely control his disgust at the
thought of such idolatry. This led me to consider within myself whether
the world had grown much wiser since the days when St. Simon sat on his
column, and the conclusion that I reached was not flattering.

[Illustration 132: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE CIRCULAR COURT]

The rain interrupted our wanderings among the villages at the foot of
Jebel Sheikh Barakāt, the high peak to the south-east of Ḳal'at
Sim'ān, and drove us home, but the clouds lifted again towards evening,
and I, watching from the marvellous west door, saw the hills turn the
colour of red copper and the grey walls of the church to gold. Mikhāil,
depressed and repentant, served me with an excellent dinner, in spite of
which I should have dismissed him if St. Simon could have supplied me
with another cook. Indeed, I was half inclined to send back to Aleppo
for a new man, but the doubt whether I should secure a good servant by
proxy, combined with the clemency of indolence, led me to a course of
inaction which I attempted to justify by the hope that Mikhāil's
repentance would be of a lasting nature. Thus for a month we lived on a
volcano with occasional eruptions, and were blown up at the end. But
enough of this painful subject.

[Illustration 133: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE APSE]

[Illustration 134: ḲAL'AT SIM'ĀN, THE WEST DOOR]

Next day I set off with Mūsa to explore the villages in the Jebel
Sim'ān to the east and north-east of the church of St. Simon. We rode
almost due east for rather less than an hour to Burjkeh, which exhibited
all the characteristics of these villages of the extreme north. It had
the tall square tower, which is nearly universal. All the stone work was
massive, the blocks frequently laid not in courses, or if so laid, the
courses showed great variety of depth. The church had a square apse,
built out beyond the walls of the nave, and a running moulding hooded
each window, passed along the level of the sill from one window to
another, and ended beyond the last in a spiral, as though it had been a
bit of ribbon festooned over the openings with the surplus rolled up.
This moulding is peculiar to sixth-century decoration in North Syria.
The houses of Burjkeh were very simple square cottages, built of
polygonal masonry. Mūsa got wind of a newly opened tomb near the
church. I contrived with some difficulty to crawl down into it, and was
rewarded by finding on one of the loculi the date 292 of the era of
Antioch, which corresponds to 243 A.D. Below the date were three lines
of Greek inscription, much defaced. We rode on for half an hour to
Surkanyā, a deserted village, charmingly situated at the head of a
shallow rocky valley in which there were even a few trees. The houses
were exceptionally massive in construction, with heavy stone balconies
forming a porch over the door. One was dated, and the year was 406 A.D.
The church was almost exactly similar to that at Burjkeh. Another three
quarters of an hour to the north and we reached Fāfertīn, where, it
began to rain. We took shelter under an apse, which was all that
remained of a church larger than any we had yet seen, but rude in
workmanship.[15] The village was inhabited by a few families of Yezīdi
Kurds. In the streaming rain we rode for an hour north-east to Khirāb
esh Shems, but could do nothing there owing to the weather, and so north
by Kalōteh to Burj el Kās, where I found my tents pitched on a damp
sward. Mūsa was much distressed by the heavy rain, and said that the
wet spring had been disastrous to his fields, washing down the soil from
the high ground into the valleys. The work of denudation, which has so
greatly diminished the fertility of North Syria, is still going forward.

[Illustration 135: A FUNERAL MONUMENT, ḲĀṬURĀ]

At Burj el Kās there was a square tower on the top of the hill and some
old houses that had been repaired and re-inhabited by the Kurds. On one
lintel I saw the date 406 A.D., on another an inscription difficult to
decipher. The end of this stone was hidden by the angle of a rebuilt
house, but peering along it I could just make out that there was a small
carving at the extreme point. The owner of the house announced that it
represented without doubt the Lady Mary. This would have been a curious
addition to the meagre collection of sculpture in North Syria, as well
as a theological innovation, and I expressed my regret that I could not
see it better. Thereupon my friend fetched a pickaxe and chipped off a
corner of his house, and the figure of the Virgin proved to be a Roman
eagle.

[Illustration 136: KHIRĀB ESH SHEMS]

[Illustration 137: KHIRĀB ESH SHEMS, CARVING IN A TOMB]

With Najīb and Mūsa I returned to the villages that I had passed in
the rain the previous day. We left Najīb with the horses at Kalōteh,
and ourselves walked to Khirāb esh Shems, the path being so rocky that
I wished to spare my beasts a second journey over it. Khirāb esh Shems
contained a fine church, twenty-one paces long from the west door to the
chord of the apse. The outer walls to north and south had fallen,
leaving only the five arches on either side of the nave with a
clerestory pierced by ten small round-headed windows, a charming
fragment like a detached loggia. Further up the hill stood a massive
chapel, destitute of aisles, with an apse built out and roofed with a
semi-dome of square slabs, resembling the fifth-century baptistery at
Dār Kīta.[16] In the hill side we found a number of rock-hewn tombs,
in one of which I had the satisfaction to discover some curious reliefs.
On the loculus to the left of the door were four roughly carved figures,
their arms raised in the attitude of prayer, and on the rock wall in a
dark corner a single figure clothed in a shirt and a pointed cap, holding
a curious object, like a basket, in the right hand. Returning to
Kalōteh we visited an isolated church on some high ground to the west
of the village. On the wall by the south door there was a long
inscription in Greek. The nave was separated from the aisles by four
columns on either side, some of which (to judge by the fragments) had
been fluted and some plain. The arcade ended against the corner of the
apse with engaged fluted columns carrying beautiful Corinthian capitals.
The apse, prothesis and diaconicum were all contained within the outer
wall of the church. The west door showed a stilted relieving arch above
a broken lintel, the lintel decorated with a row of dentils. To the
south of the church there was a detached baptistery, some 9 ft. square
inside, the walls still carrying the first course of the stone vault.
The church must have been roofed with tiles, for I saw a number of
fragments lying in the nave. A massive enclosing wall surrounded both
church and baptistery. The village below contained two churches, that to
the west measuring 38 ft. by 68 ft., the other 48 ft. by 70 ft. The
mouldings round the doors in both churches indicate that they cannot
have been earlier than the sixth-century. There Were also some houses
with stone verandahs.

[Illustration 138: CAPITAL, UPPER CHURCH AT KALŌTEH]

[Illustration 139: BARĀD, CANOPY TOMB]

An hour and a half to the north-west of Kalōteh lies Barād, the
largest and most interesting of the villages in the Jebel Sim'ān. It is
partly re-inhabited by Kurds. I found my camp pitched in an open space
opposite a very lovely funeral monument consisting of a canopy carried
by four piers set on a high podium. Near it stood a large rock-cut
sarcophagus and a number of other tombs, partly rock-cut and partly
built. I examined two churches in the centre of the town. In one the
nave, 68 ft. 6 in. long, was divided from the aisles by four great
piers, 6 ft. deep from east to west, with an intercolumniation of 18 ft.
The nave was 23 ft. wide and the apse 12 ft. deep. The wide
intercolumniation is a proof of a comparatively late date, sixth century
or thereabouts. The second church was still larger, 118 ft. 6 in. by 73
ft. 6 in., but completely ruined except for the west wall and part of
the apse. To the north of it there was a small chapel, with an apse
perfectly preserved; near it lay a sarcophagus which suggested that the
chapel may have been a mausoleum. The eastern end of the town contained
a complex of buildings of polygonal masonry, including a square
enclosure with a square chamber ill the centre of it, resting on a vault
that was possibly a tomb. To the extreme west of the town stood a fine
tower with some large and well preserved houses near it. A small church
lay between it and the main body of the town. Near my camp was a curious
building with two apses irregularly placed in the east wall. I take it
to have been pre-Christian. The walls stood up to the vault, which was
perfectly preserved. While Mūsa and I measured and planned this
building we were watched by two persons in long white robes and turbans,
who exhibited the greatest interest in our movements. They were, said
Mūsa, Government officials, sent into the Jebel Sim'ān to take a
census of the population with a view to levying the capitation tax.

The next day was one of the most disagreeable that I remember. A band of
thick cloud stretched across the sky immediately above the Jebel
Sim'ān, keeping us in a cold grey shadow, while to north and south we
saw the mountains and the plain bathed in sunshine. We rode north for
about an hour to Keifār, a large village near the extreme edge of the
Jebel Sim'ān. Beyond the valley of the Afrīn, which bounds the hills
to the north-west, rose the first great buttresses of the Giour Dāgh.
Mūsa observed that in the valley and the further hills there were no
more ruined villages; they end abruptly at the limits of the Jebel
Sim'ān, and Syrian civilisation seems to have penetrated no further to
the north, for what reason it is impossible to say. At Keifār there
were three churches much ruined, but showing traces of decoration
exquisitely treated, a few good houses, and a canopy tomb something like
the one at Barād. There was a large population of Kurds. We rode back
to Barād and so south-east to Kefr Nebu, about an hour and a half away
through bitter wind and rain. There was a Syriac inscription here on a
lintel, one or two Kufic tombstones, and a very splendid house partially
restored, but I was a great deal too cold to give them the attention
they deserved. Chilled to the bone and profoundly discouraged by
attempts at taking time exposures in a high wind, I made straight for my
tents at Bāsufān, an hour's ride from Kefr Nebu, leaving unexplored a
couple of ruined sites to the south.

[Illustration 140: BARĀD, TOWER TO THE WEST OF THE TOWN]

Mūsa's home is at Bāsufān; we met his father in the cornfields as we
came up, and:

"God strengthen your body!" cried Mūsa, giving the salutation proper to
one working in the fields.

"And your body!" he answered, lifting his dim eyes to us.

"He is old," explained Mūsa as we rode on, "and trouble has fallen on
him, but once he was the finest man in the Jebel Sim'ān, and the best
shot."

[Illustration 141: MŪSA AND HIS FAMILY]

"What trouble?" said I.

"My brother was slain by a blood enemy a few months ago," he answered.
"We do not know who it was that killed him, but perhaps it was one of
his bride's family, for he took her without their consent."

"And what has happened to the bride?" I asked.

"She has gone back to her own family," said he. "But she wept bitterly."

Bāsufān is used as a _Sommerfrische_ by certain Jews and Christians of
Aleppo, who come out and live in the houses of the Kurds during the hot
months, the owners being at that season in tents. There are a few big
trees to the south of the village sheltering a large graveyard, which is
occupied mostly by Moslem dead, brought to this spot from many miles
round. The valley below boasts a famous spring, a spring that never runs
dry even in rainless years when all its sister fountains are exhausted.

The Kurds used to grow tobacco on the neighbouring slopes, and the
quality of the leaf was much esteemed, so that the crop found a ready
sale, till the Government régie was established and paid the Kurds such
miserable prices that they were unable to make a profit. As there was no
other market, the industry ceased altogether, and the fields have passed
out of cultivation except for the raising of a little corn: "and now we
are all poor," said Mūsa in conclusion.

I had not been an hour in camp before the rain stopped and the sun came
out, bringing back our energy with it. There was a large church at
Bāsufān, which had been converted at some period into a fort by the
addition of three towers. What remained of the original building was of
excellent work. The engaged columns by the apse were adorned with spiral
flutings--the first example I had seen--and the Corinthian capitals
were deep and careful in cutting. Mūsa showed me a Syriac inscription
in the south wall, which I copied with great labour and small success:
the devil take all Syriac inscriptions, or endow all travellers with
better wits! When this was done there still remained a couple of hours
of afternoon light, and I determined to walk over the hills to Burj
Ḥeida and Kefr Lāb, which I had omitted in the morning owing to the
rain and the cold. Mūsa accompanied me, and took with him his
"partner"--so he was introduced to me, but in what enterprise he shared
I do not know. Burj Ḥeida was well worth the visit. It contained a
square tower and three churches, one exceedingly well preserved, with an
interesting building annexed to it, perhaps a lodging for the clergy.
But the expedition was chiefly memorable on account of the conversation
of my two companions. With Mūsa I had contracted, during the three days
we had passed together, a firm friendship, based on my side on gratitude
for the services he had rendered me, coupled with a warm appreciation of
the beaming smile that accompanied them. We had reached a point of
familiarity where I thought I might fairly expect him to enlighten me on
the Yezīdi doctrines, for, whatever may be the custom in Europe, in
Asia it is not polite to ask a man what he believes unless he regards
you as an intimate. Nor is it expedient; it awakens suspicion without
evoking a satisfactory answer. I began delicately as we sat in the
doorway of the little church at Kefr Lāb by asking whether the Yezīdis
possessed mosque or church.

"No," replied Mūsa. "We worship under the open sky. Every day at dawn
we worship the sun."

"Have you," said I, "an imam who leads the prayer?"

"On feast days," said he, "the sheikh leads the prayer, but on other
days every man worships for himself. We count some days lucky and some
unlucky. Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are our lucky days, but Thursday
is unlucky."

"Why is that?" said I.

"I do not know," said Mūsa. "It is so."

"Are you," I asked, "friends with the Mohammadans or are you foes?"

He answered: "Here in the country round Aleppo, where we are few, they
do not fear us, and we live at peace with them; but every year there
comes to us from Mosul a very learned sheikh who collects tribute among
us, and he wonders to see us like brothers with the Muslimīn, for in
Mosul, where the Yezīdis are many, there is bitter feud. In Mosul our
people will not serve in the army, but here we serve like any other--I
myself have been a soldier."

"Have you holy books?" said I.

"Without doubt," said he, "and I will tell you what our books teach us.
When the end of the world is near Hadūdmadūd will appear on earth. And
before his time the race of men will have shrunk in stature so that they
are smaller than a blade of grass,--but Hadūdmadūd is a mighty giant.
And in seven days, or seven months, or seven years, he will drink all
the seas and all the rivers, and the earth will be drained dry."

"And then," said the partner, who had followed Mūsa's explanation
eagerly, "out of the dust will spring a great worm, and he will devour
Hadūdmadūd."

"And when he has eaten him," continued Mūsa, "there will be a flood
which will last seven days, or seven months, or seven years."

"And the earth will be washed clean," chimed in the partner.

"And then will come the Mahdi," said Mūsa, "and he will summon the four
sects, Yezīdis, Christians, Moslems and Jews, and he will appoint the
prophet of each sect to collect his followers together. And Yezīd will
assemble the Yezīdis, and Jesus the Christians, and Muḥammad the
Moslems, and Moses the Jews. But those that while they lived changed
from one faith to another, they shall be tried by fire, to see what
creed they profess in their hearts. So shall each prophet know his own.
This is the end of the world."

"Do you," said I, "consider all the four faiths to be equal?" Mūsa
replied (diplomatically perhaps): "The Christians and the Jews we think
equal to us."

"And the Moslems?" I inquired.

"We think them to be swine," said Mūsa.

These are the tenets of Mūsa's faith, and what they signify I will not
pretend to say, but Hadūdmadūd is probably Gogmagog, if that throws
any light on the matter.

The sun was setting when we rose from the church step and began to
clamber homeward over the ruins of Kefr Lāb. There was some broken
ground beyond the village, and I noticed large cavities under the rocks
at the top of the hill. Before them Mūsa's partner paused, and said:

"In this manner of place we look for treasure."

"And do you find it?" said I.

He replied: "I have never found any, but there are many tales. Once,
they say, there was a shepherd boy who lost his goat and searched for it
over the hills, and at last he came upon it in a cave full of gold
coins. Therefore he closed the mouth of the cave and hastened home to
fetch an ass whereon he might load the gold, and in his haste he left
the goat in the cave. But when he returned there was neither cave, nor
goat, nor gold, search as he would."

"And another time," said Mūsa, "a boy was sleeping in the ruins of Kefr
Lāb and he dreamt that he had discovered a great treasure in the earth
and that he had dug for it with his hands, and when he woke his hands
were covered with the dust of gold, but no memory remained to him of the
place wherein he had dug."

Neither of these stories offer sufficient data, however, to warrant the
despatch of a treasure-hunting expedition to the Jebel Sim'ān.

[Illustration 142: BĀSUFĀN, A KURDISH GIRL]

As we reached Bāsufān Mūsa asked whether his sister Wardeh (the Rose)
might honour herself by paying her respects to me. "And will you," he
added, "persuade her to marry?"

"To marry?" said I. "Whom should she marry?"

"Any one," said Mūsa imperturbably. "She has declared that marriage is
hateful to her, and that she will remain in our father's house, and we
cannot move her. Yet she is a young maid and fair."

She looked very fair, and modest besides, as she stood at the door of my
tent in the pretty dress of the Kurdish women, with a bowl of kaimak in
her hands, a propitiatory gift to me; and I confess I did not insist
upon the marriage question, thinking that she could best manage her own
affairs. She brought me new bread for breakfast next morning, and begged
me to come and visit her father's house before I left. This I did, and
found the whole family, sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren,
assembled to welcome me; and though I had but recently breakfasted, the
old father insisted on setting bread and bowls of cream before me, "that
the bond of hospitality may be between us." Fine, well-built people were
they all, with beautiful faces, illumined by the smile that was Mūsa's
chief attraction. For their sake the Kurdish race shall hold hereafter a
large place in my esteem.


[Footnote 12: Since writing this chapter I have learnt that Mr. Butler
and his party extended their explorations to the north of Ḳal'at
Sim'ān after my departure, and I look forward to a full description of
the district in their future publications.]

[Footnote 13: I would suggest that this decline was due in part to the
excessive burden of taxation laid by Justinian on the eastern provinces
of his empire during his efforts to recover the western. Readers of
Diehl's great work on Justinian will remember how the social and
political organisation of his dominions collapsed under the strain of
his wars in Italy and North Africa. The eastern parts of the empire were
the richest and suffered the most.]

[Footnote 14: This was noticed by Mr. Butler, "Architecture and other
Arts."]

[Footnote 15: Butler in his report states that this church is dated 372
A.D., which gives it the distinction of being the earliest dated church
in Syria, if not the earliest dated church in the world.]

[Footnote 16: Butler, "Architecture and other Arts," p. 139.]




CHAPTER XIII


We started from Bāsufān at eight o'clock on the morning of April 4,
and rode south by incredibly stony tracks, leaving Ḳal'at Sim'ān to
the west and skirting round the eastern flanks of the Jebel Sheikh
Barakāt. Mūsa declared that he must accompany us on the first part of
our way, and came with us to Deiret 'Azzeh, a large Mohammadan village
of from three hundred to four hundred houses. Here he left us, and we
went down into the fertile plain of Sermeda, ringed round with the
slopes of the Jebel Ḥalaḳah. At midday we reached the large village
of Dāna, and lunched by the famous third-century tomb that de Vogüé
published, to my mind the loveliest of the smaller monuments of North
Syria and worthy in its delicate simplicity to stand by the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates at Athens. There was nothing else to detain us at
Dāna, and having waited for the baggage animals to come up I sent them
on with Mikhāil and a local guide, bidding them meet Najīb and me at
the ruins of Deḥes. After some consultation Najīb and the local man
decided on the spot, known to me only from the accounts of travellers,
and it was not till we had reached it that I discovered that we were at
Meḥes instead of Deḥes. It was all one, however, since we had met
and found the place to be a convenient camping ground. From Dāna,
Najīb took me north along the Roman road by a Roman triumphal arch, the
Bāb el Hawa, finely situated at the entrance of a rocky valley. We rode
along this valley for a mile or two, passing a ruined church, and struck
up the hills to the west by a gorge that brought us out on to a wide
plateau close to the deserted village of Ksejba.[17] We went on to the
village of Bābiska, through country which was scattered with flowers
and with groups of ruined houses and churches: the heart leapt at the
sight of such lonely and unravished beauty. On these hilltops it was
difficult to say where stood Bāḳirḥa, the town I wished to visit,
but near Bābiska we found a couple of shepherd tents, and from one of
the inhabitants inquired the way. The shepherd was a phlegmatic man; he
said there was no road to Bāḳirḥa, and that the afternoon had grown
too late for such an enterprise, moreover he himself was starting off in
another direction with a basket of eggs and could not help us. I,
however, had not ridden so many miles in order to be defeated at the
last, and with some bullying and a good deal of persuasion we induced
the shepherd to show us the way to the foot of the hill on which
Bāḳirḥa stands. He walked with us for an hour or so, then pointed
towards the summit of the Jebel Bārisha and saying, "There is
Bāḳirḥa," he left us abruptly and returned to his basket of eggs.

[Illustration 143: TOMB AT DĀNA]

High up on the mountain side we saw the ruins bathed in the afternoon
sun, and having looked in vain for a path we pushed our horses straight
in among the boulders and brakes of flowering thorn. But there is a
limit to the endurance even of Syrian horses, and ours had almost
reached it after a long day spent in clambering over stones. We had
still to get into camp, Heaven alone knew how far away; yet I could not
abandon the shining walls that were now so close to us upon the hill,
and I told the reluctant Najīb to wait below with the horses while I
climbed up alone. The day was closing in, and I climbed in haste; but
for all my haste the scramble over those steep rocks, half buried in
flowers and warm with the level sun, is a memory that will not easily
fade. In half an hour I stood at the entrance of the town, below a
splendid basilica rich in varied beauty of decoration and design. Beyond
it the ruined streets, empty of all inhabitants, lay along the mountain
side, houses with carved balconies and deep-porched doorways, columned
market-places, and the golden sunlight over all. But I was bent upon
another pilgrimage. A broad and winding road led up above the town until
it reached the boundary of the flowered slopes, and nothing except a
short rocky face of hill lay between the open ground where the path
ended and the summit of the range. The mountain was cleft this way and
that by precipitous gorges, enclosing between their escarpments
prospects of sunlit fertile plain, and at the head of the gorges on a
narrow shelf of ground stood a small and exquisite temple. I sat down by
the gate through which the worshippers had passed into the temple court.
Below me lay the northern slopes of the Jebel Bārisha and broad fair
valleys and the snow-clad ranks of the Giour Dāgh veiled in a warm
haze. Temple and town and hillside were alike deserted save that far
away upon a rocky spur a shepherd boy piped a wild sweet melody to his
scattered flocks. The breath of the reed is the very voice of solitude;
shrill and clear and passionless it rose to the temple gate, borne on
deep waves of mountain air that were perfumed with flowers and coloured
with the rays of the low sun. Men had come and gone, life had surged up
the flanks of the hills and retreated again, leaving the old gods to
resume their sway over rock and flowering thorn, in peace and loneliness
and beauty.

[Illustration 144: THE BĀB EL HAWA]

So at the gate of the sanctuary I offered praise, and having given
thanks went on my way rejoicing.

Najīb welcomed me back with expressions of relief.

"By God!" said he, "I have not smoked a single cigarette since I lost
sight of your Excellency, but all this hour I have said: 'Please God she
will not meet with a robber among the rocks.'"

Therewith, to make up for lost opportunity, he lighted the cigarette
that his anxiety had not prevented him from rolling during my absence,
and though I will not undertake to affirm that it was indeed the only
one, the sentiment was gratifying. I thought at the time (but next day's
march proved me to be wrong) that we rode down to the plain of Sermeda
by the roughest track in the world. When we got to the foot of the hill
we turned up a valley to the south, a narrow ribbon of cultivation
winding between stony ranges. Presently it widened, and we passed a
large modern village, where we received the welcome news that our camp
had been seen ahead; at a quarter past six we struggled into Meḥes or
Deḥes, whichever it may have been, feeling that our horses would have
been put to it if they had been asked to walk another mile. An
enchanting camp was Meḥes. It was not often that I could pitch tents
far from all habitation. The muleteers pined for the sour curds and
other luxuries of civilisation, and indeed I missed the curds too, but
the charm of a solitary camp went far to console me. The night was still
and clear, we were lodged in the ruined nave of a church, and we slept
the sleep of the blessed after our long ride.

[Illustration 145: THE TEMPLE GATE, BĀḲIRḤA]

There was one more ruin that I was determined to visit before I left the
hills. It was the church of Ḳalb Lōzeh, which from descriptions
seemed to be (as indeed it is) the finest building after Ḳal'at
Sim'ān in all North Syria. I sent the baggage animals round by the
valleys, with strict, but useless, injunctions to Fāris that he was not
to dawdle, and set out with Mikhāil and Najīb to traverse on horseback
two mountain ranges, the Jebel Bārisha and the Jebel el 'Ala. It is
best to do rock climbing on foot; but if any one would know the full
extent of the gymnastic powers of a horse, he should ride up the Jebel
el 'Ala to Ḳalb Lōzeh. I had thought myself tolerably well versed in
the subject, but I found that the expedition widened my experience not a
little. We rode straight up an intolerably stony hill to the west of
Meḥes, and so reached the summit of the Jebel Bārisha. The ground
here was much broken by rocks, but between them were tiny olive groves
and vineyards and tiny, scattered cornfields. Every ledge and hollow was
a garden of wild flowers; tall blue irises unfurled their slender buds
under sweet-smelling thickets of bay, and the air was scented with the
purple daphne. This paradise was inhabited by a surly peasant, the least
obliging and the most taciturn of men. After much unsuccessful
bargaining (the price he set on any service he might render us was
preposterous, but we were in his hands and he obliged us to give way) he
agreed to guide us to Ḳalb Lōzeh, and conducted us forthwith down the
Jebel Bārisha by a precipitous path cut out of the living rock. It was
so steep and narrow that when we met a party of women coming up from the
lower slopes with bundles of brushwood--brushwood! it was flowering
daphne and bay--we had great difficulty in edging past them. At the
bottom of this breakneck descent there was a deep valley with a lake at
one end of it, and in front of us rose the Jebel el 'Ala, to the best of
my judgment a wall of rock, quite impossible for horses to climb. The
monosyllabic peasant who directed us--I am glad I do not remember his
name--indicated that our path lay up it, and Najīb seeming to
acquiesce, I followed with a sinking heart. It was indescribable. We
jumped and tumbled over the rock faces and our animals jumped and
tumbled after us, scrambling along the edge of little precipices, where,
if they had fallen they must have broken every bone. Providence watched
over us and we got up unhurt into a country as lovely as that which we
had left on top of the Jebel Bārisha. At the entrance of an olive grove
our guide turned back, and in a few moments we reached Ḳalb Lōzeh.

Whether there was ever much of a settlement round the great church I do
not know; there are now but few remains of houses, and it stands almost
alone. It stands too very nearly unrivalled among the monuments of
Syrian art. The towered narthex, the wide bays of the nave, the apse
adorned with engaged columns, the matchless beauty of the decoration and
the justice of proportion preserved in every part, are the features that
first strike the beholder; but as he gazes he becomes aware that this is
not only the last word in the history of Syrian architecture, spoken at
the end of many centuries of endeavour, but that it is also the
beginning of a new chapter in the architecture of the world. The fine
and simple beauty of Romanesque was born in North Syria. It is curious
to consider to what developments the genius of these architects might
have led if they had not been checked by the Arab invasion. Certain it
is that we should have had an independent school of great builders,
strongly influenced perhaps by classical tradition and yet more strongly
by the East, but everywhere asserting an unmistakable personality as
bold as it was imaginative and delicate. There is little consolation in
the reflection that the creative vigour that is evident at Ḳalb Lōzeh
never had time to pass into decadence.

I had heard or read that in the mountains near Ḳalb Lōzeh were to be
found a few Druze villages, inhabited by emigrants from the Lebanon, but
as I had not yet come upon them I had almost forgotten their existence.
Near the church stood half a dozen hovels, the inhabitants of which came
out to watch me as I photographed. Almost unconsciously I was struck by
some well known look in the koḥl-blackened eyes and certain
peculiarities of manner that are difficult to specify but that combine
to form an impression of easy and friendly familiarity with perhaps a
touch of patronage in it. When the women joined the little crowd my eye
was caught by the silver chains and buckles that they wore, which I
remembered vaguely to have remarked elsewhere. As we were about to
leave, an oldish man came forward and offered to walk with us for an
hour, saying that the way down to Ḥārim was difficult to find, and we
had not walked fifty yards together before I realised the meaning of my
subconscious recognition.

"Māsha'llah!" said I, "you are Druzes."

The man looked round anxiously at Najīb and Mikhāil, following close
on our heels, bent his head and walked on without speaking.

"You need not fear," said I. "The soldier and my servant are discreet
men."

He took heart at this and said:

"There are few of us in the mountains, and we dread the Mohammadans and
hide from them that we are Druzes, lest they should drive us out. We are
not more than two hundred houses in all."

[Illustration 146: ḲALB LŌZEH]

"I have been hoping to find you," said I, "for I know the sheikhs in the
Ḥaurān, and they have shown me much kindness. Therefore I desire to
salute all Druzes wherever I may meet with them."

"Allah!" said he. "Do you know the Turshān?"

[Illustration 147: THE APSE, ḲALB LŌZEH]

"By God!" said I.

"Shibly and Yaḥya his brother?"

"Yaḥya I know, but Shibly is dead."

"Dead!" he exclaimed. "Oh Merciful! Shibly dead!" And with that he drew
from me all the news of the Mountain and listened with rapt attention to
tales for which I had not thought to find a willing ear so far from
Ṣalkhad. Suddenly his questions stopped and he swerved off the path
towards a vineyard in which a young man was pruning the vines.

"Oh my son!" he cried. "Shibly el Aṭrash is dead! Lend me thy shoes,
that I may walk with the lady towards Ḥārim, for mine are worn."

The young man approached, kicking off his red leather slippers as he
came.

"We belong to God!" said he. "I saw Shibly but a year ago." And the news
had to be repeated to him in detail.

We journeyed on along the stony mountain tops, brushing through purple
daphne that grew in wonderful profusion, and talking as we went as
though we had been old friends long parted. When we came to the lip of
the Jebel el 'Ala we saw Ḥārim below us, and I insisted that my
companion should spare himself the labour of walking further. He agreed,
with great reluctance, to turn back, and stood pouring out blessings on
me for full five minutes before he would bid me farewell, and then
returned to us again that he might be sure we had understood the wav.

"And next time you come into the Jebel el 'Ala," said he, "you must
bring your camp to Ḳalb Lōzeh and stay at least a month, and we will
give you all you need and show you all the ruins. And now may you go in
peace and safety, please God; and in peace and in health return next
year."

"May God prolong your life," said I, "and give you peace!"

So we separated, and my heart was warm with an affection for his people
which it is never difficult to rekindle. Cruel in battle they may
be--the evidence against them is overwhelming; some have pronounced them
treacherous, others have found them grasping; but when I meet a Druze I
do not hesitate to greet a friend, nor shall I until my confidence has
been proved to have been misplaced.

Ḥārim castle stands on a mound at the entrance of one of the few
gorges that give access to the Jebel el 'Ala. Beyond it lies the great
Orontes plain that was a granary in old days to the city of Antioch.
Much of the northern part of the plain was under water, the swampy lake
which the Syrians call El Baḥra having been extended by the recent
rains to its fullest limit. We turned south from Ḥārim and rode along
the foot of the slopes of the Jebel el 'Ala to Salḳīn, a memorable
ride by reason of the exceeding beauty of the land through which we
passed. I have seen no such abundant fertility in all Syria. Groves of
olive and almond shared the fat ground with barley and oats; tangled
thickets of gorse and broom, daphne and blackberry, edged the road, and
every sunny spot was blue with iris stylosa. Salḳīn itself lay in a
wooded valley amid countless numbers of olive-trees that stretched
almost to the Orontes, several miles away. We dismounted before we
reached the town in an open spot between olive-gardens. It was five
o'clock, but Fāris had not arrived, and we disposed ourselves
comfortably under the trees to wait for him. Our advent caused some
excitement among the people who were sitting on the grass enjoying the
evening calm; before long one, who was evidently a person of
consideration, strolled up to us, accompanied by a servant, and invited
me to come and rest in his house. He was a portly man, though he had
barely touched middle age, and his countenance was pleasant; I accepted
his invitation, thinking I might as well see what Salḳīn had to
offer. Opportunities of enlarging the circle of your acquaintance should
always be grasped, especially in foreign parts.

[Illustration 148: ḤĀRIM]

I soon found that I had fallen into the hands of the wealthiest
inhabitant of the town. Muḥammad 'Ali Agha is son to Rustum Agha, who
is by birth a Circassian and was servant in the great Circassian family
of Kakhya Zādeh of Ḥamādan--that is their Arabic name, the Persians
call them Kat Khuda Zādeh. The Kakhya Zādehs migrated to Aleppo two
centuries back; by such transactions as are familiar to Circassians,
they grew exceedingly rich and are now one of the most powerful families
in Aleppo. Their servants shared in their prosperity, and Rustum Agha,
being a careful man, laid by enough money to buy land at Salḳīn near
his master's large estate in the Orontes valley. Fortune favoured him so
well that the hand of a daughter of the Kakhya house was accorded to his
son. I did not learn all these details at once, and was astonished while
I sat in Muḥammad 'Ali's harem to observe the deference with which he
treated his wife, wondering why the sharp-featured, bright-eyed little
lady who had borne him no sons should be addressed by her husband with
such respect, for I did not then know that she was sister to Reshīd
Agha Kakhya Zādeh. Muḥammad 'Ali's only child, a girl of six years
old, what though she were of so useless a sex, was evidently the apple
of her father's eye. He talked to me long of her education and
prospects, while I ate the superlatively good olives and cherry jam that
his maid servants set before me. The Khānum was so gracious as to
prepare the coffee with her own hands, and to express admiration of the
battered felt hat that lay, partly concealed by its purple and silver
kerchief, on the divan beside me.

"Oh, the beautiful European hat!" said she. "Why do you wear a mendīl
over it when it is so pretty?"

And with that she stripped it of the silk scarf and camel's hair rope,
and placing it in all its naked disreputableness on her daughter's black
curls, she declared that it was the most becoming head-dress in the
world.

At six o'clock news was brought that my baggage animals had arrived, but
before I could be allowed to return to my tents Rustum Agha had to be
visited. He was lying on a couch heaped with wadded silken coverlets in
an upper chamber overlooking the beautiful rushing stream and the two
great cypresses that add much to the picturesqueness of Salḳīn. These
trees stand like tall black sentinels before the gate of the house,
which is the first and the largest in the winding village street. Rustum
Agha was very old and very sick. His face lay like the face of a corpse
upon the pale primrose silk of the bedclothes. He seemed to be gratified
by my visit, though when he opened his lips to greet me he was seized
with such an intolerable fit of coughing that his soul was almost shaken
out of his body. As soon as he recovered he asked for the latest tidings
of Russia and Japan, and I marvelled that he, who seemed so near his
end, had the patience to ask anything of us, but whether we could see
the lagging garnerer with the scythe hobbling up between the cypresses
at the door.

[Illustration 149: SALḲĪN]

As I sat down to dinner in my tent two of Muḥammad 'Ali's servants
staggered into camp bearing a large jar of olives grown in the gardens
of Salḳīn and preserved in their own oil. They brought too a request
from their master that he might come and spend an hour with me, and I
sent back a message praying that he would honour me. He appeared later,
with one or two people in attendance to carry his hubble-bubble, and
settled himself for a comfortable chat to the gurgling accompaniment of
the water pipe, a soothing and an amicable sound conducive to
conversation. He told me that Salḳīn was one of the many Seleucias,
and that it had been founded by Seleucus I. himself as a summer resort
for the inhabitants of Antioch. The spot on which I was camped, said he,
and the graveyard beyond it, formed the site of the Seleucid town, "and
whenever we dig a grave we turn up carved stones and sometimes writing."
It seems not unnatural that the fertile foothills should have been
selected by the people of Antioch for their country houses, but I have
no further evidence to support the statement. He said also that his
brother-in-law, Reshīd Agha, was staying with him, and he expressed a
hope that I would call on him before I left next day.

If Reshīd Agha Kakhya Zādeh is the chief magnate of the district he is
also the chief villain. I found him sitting in the early morning under
the cypresses by the foaming stream, and a more evil face in a sweeter
setting and lighted by a fairer sun it would have been hard to picture.
He was a tall man with an overbearing manner; his narrow forehead
sheltered a world of vicious thoughts, his eyes squinted horribly, his
thick sensuous lips spluttered as they enunciated the vain boastings and
the harsh commands that formed the staple of his conversation. He was
wrapped in a pale silk robe, and he smoked a hubble-bubble with a
jewelled mouthpiece. By his side lay a bunch of Spring flowers, which he
lifted and smelt at as he talked, finally offering the best of them to
me. It is one of the privileges of the irresponsible traveller that he
is not called upon to eschew the company of rogues, and when I found
that my friend Muḥammad 'Ali was about to accompany Reshīd Agha to
the latter's house at Alāni and that this lay upon my path, I agreed to
their suggestion that we should start together. The animals were brought
out, we mounted under the cypresses and trotted off through olive groves
towards the Orontes valley. Reshīd Agha rode a splendid Arab mare; her
black livery shone with the grooming she had received, she was lightly
bitted, her headstall was a silver chain, her bridle was studded with
silver ornaments, her every movement was a pleasure to behold. Her
master appealed repeatedly to Muḥammad 'Ali, who jogged along by his
side on a fine mule, for admiration of his mount, and when the latter
had replied obsequiously with the required praise, his words were taken
up and reinforced by an old fat man who rode with us upon a lean pony.
He was jester and flatterer in ordinary to the Kakhya Zādeh, and, if
his countenance spoke truly, panderer to his employer's vices and
conniver at his crimes--among such strange company I had fallen that
April morning. Ḥājj Najīb trotted along contentedly enough behind
us; but Mikhāil, whose sense of the proprieties was strong, could
barely conceal his disapproval, and answered in monosyllables when the
jester or Reshīd Agha addressed him, though he unbent to Muḥammad
'Ali, whom he judged (and rightly) to be of another clay. We rode for an
hour over soft springy ground, Reshīd pointing out the beauties of his
property as we went.

"All these olive-gardens are mine," said he, "by God and the Prophet of
God! there are no such olives in the land. Every year I come out from
Aleppo and see to the olive harvest with my own eyes lest the knaves who
work for me should cheat me, God curse them! And therefore I have built
myself a house at Alāni--God knows a man should make himself
comfortable and live decently. But you shall see it, for you must eat
with me; my table is spread for all comers. And around the house I have
planted fields of mulberry-trees; ten thousand stripling trees I have
set in the last five years. I shall raise silkworks, please God! in
great number. Oh Yūsef! show her the boxes of eggs that came from the
land of France."

[Illustration 150: TRAVELLERS]

The jester drew out of his breast a little cardboard box marked with the
brand of a French firm; but before I could express my respect for the
Agha's industry his attention had been distracted by some peasants who
were pruning the olives not to his liking, and he spurred his mare up to
the trees and poured out volleys of oaths and execrations upon the
unfortunate men, after which he returned to my side and resumed the tale
of his own prowess.

The house was large and new, and furnished throughout with plush and
gilt-framed mirrors. Nothing would satisfy the Agha but that I should
see and admire every corner, and the jester gave me the lead in praise
and congratulation. From him I gathered that I was chiefly called upon
to exalt the merits of the iron stoves that were prominent in each of
the rooms--no doubt they added to the comfort if not to the
picturesqueness of the establishment. This over we sat down on a divan
to wait till lunch was ready. The Agha employed the time in relating to
me with an over-emphasised indignation his struggles against the corrupt
and oppressive government under which he lived, but he omitted to
mention that what he suffered at the hands of those above him he passed
on with interest to those below.

"By God!" he spluttered, "you have seen how I labour among my
olive-trees, how I plant mulberries and send for the silkworm eggs from
afar, that I may make a new trade at Alāni. Is the Vāli grateful? No,
by the Prophet! He sends his men and they say: 'Stop! till we see how
much more we can tax you!' And when I would have set up a mill by the
river for the grinding of my corn, they said: 'Stop! it is not lawful.'
Then they sent for me in the middle of the harvest, and I rode hastily
to Aleppo, and day by day and week by week they kept me waiting, and
forbade me to leave the city. And by God!" shouted the Agha, thumping on
a little inlaid table with his fist, "I baffled them! I went to the
Ḳāḍi, and said: 'From whom is the order?' He said: 'From the
Vāli.' Then I went to the Vāli and said: 'From whom is the order?' And
he answered: 'I know not; perchance from the Ḳāḍi.' And I bade them
put it in writing, but they dared not, and so they let me go."

In the middle of these tales three visitors were announced. They took a
deferential seat on the opposite divan, and expended themselves in
salutations and compliments. The Agha received them as an emperor might
receive his subjects, and one of them presently seized the opportunity
of saying to me in a stage whisper audible to all:

"You have seen what manner of man is the Agha? He is like a king in this
country." Whereat the Agha grew yet more regally gracious.

We sat down at last to a board loaded with every variety of Syrian
delicacy, and few cuisines can beat the Syrian at its best. The Agha
talked and ate with equal eagerness, and pressed one dish after another
upon his guests. When the feast was in full swing a servant came to him
and said that there was a certain Fellāḥ who wished to speak with
him.

"Let him come!" said the Agha indifferently. A ragged peasant figure
appeared in the doorway and gazed with eyes half sullen, half frightened
at the company, and the profusion of delicate meats.

"Peace be upon you, oh Agha!" he began.

But as soon as he saw the suppliant the Agha started to his feet in a
very fury of passion. His face became purple, his squinting eyes started
from his head, and he thumped the table with his clenched fist while he
cried:

"Begone! and may God curse you and your offspring, and destroy your
father's house! Begone, I tell you, and bring the money, or I will send
you to prison with your wife and your family, and you shall starve there
till you die."

"Oh Agha!" said the man, with a certain dignity that faced the other's
rage, "a little time. Grant me a little time."

"Not a day! not an hour!" yelled the Agha. "Away! go! and to-night you
shall bring me the money."

The peasant vanished from the doorway without another word, the Agha sat
down and continued his interrupted conversation and his interrupted
meal; the other guests ate on as if nothing had happened, but I felt a
little ashamed of my place at Reshīd's right hand, and I was not sorry
to bid him farewell.

The Agha sent us down to the Orontes and caused us to be conveyed across
the stream in his own ferry-boat. When we reached the other side
Mikhāil ostentatiously took a crust from his pocket and began to eat
it.

"Have you not eaten at Alāni?" said I.

"I do not eat with such as he," replied Mikhāil stiffly.

At this Najīb, whom no such scruple had withheld from enjoying the
unwonted luxury of an ample meal, nodded his head and said:

"The Agha is an evil man, may God reward him according to his deeds! He
squeezes their last metalīk from the poor, he seizes their land, and
turns them out of their houses to starve."

"And worse than that," said Mikhāil darkly.

"By God!" said Najīb. "Every man who has a fair wife or a fair daughter
stands in fear of him, for he will never rest until the woman is in his
hands. By God and Muḥammad the Prophet of God! many a man has he
killed that he might take his wife into his own harem, and no one is
hated more than he."

"Cannot the law prevent him?" said I.

[Illustration 151: ANTIOCH]

"Who shall prevent him?" said Najīb. "He is rich--may God destroy his
dwelling!"

"Oh Mikhāil!" said I as we picked our way across the muddy fields. "I
have travelled much in your country and I have seen and known many
people, and seldom have I met a poor man whom I would not choose for a
friend nor a rich man whom I would not shun. Now how is this? Does
wealth change the very heart in Syria? For, look you, in my country not
all the powerful are virtuous, but neither are they all rogues. And you
and the Druze of Ḳalb Lōzeh and Mūsa the Kurd, would you too, if you
had means, become like Reshīd Agha?"

"Oh lady," said Mikhāil, "the heart is the same, but in your country
the government is just and strong and every one of the English must obey
it, even the rich; whereas with us there is no justice, but the big man
eats the little, and the little man eats the less, and the government
eats all alike. And we all suffer after our kind and cry out to God to
help us since we cannot help ourselves. But at least I did not eat the
bread of Reshīd Agha," concluded Mikhāil rather sententiously; and at
this Najīb and I hung our heads.

[Illustration 152: ANTIOCH]

[Illustration 153: ON THE BANK OF THE ORONTES, ANTIOCH]

Then followed five hours of the worst travelling. It may have been a
judgment upon Najīb and me for sitting at the table of the wicked, but,
like most of the judgments of Providence, it fell impartially on the
just and the unjust, for Mikhāil endured as much as we. All that we had
suffered the day before from the rocks we now suffered at the opposite
end of the scale from the mud. The torture was a thousand times more
acute. For five hours we crossed hills of earth on which there was never
a stone, but the sticky slime of the slopes alternated with deep
sloughs, where our horses sank up to their girths, and when at last we
emerged from this morass into the Orontes valley man and beast were
exhausted. The rising ground, which we had left, now rose into rocky
ridges and peaks, the broad valley lay on our right hand, half full of
flood water, and beyond it stood a splendid range of mountains. It was
not long before we caught sight of the Byzantine towers and walls
crowning the ridges to the left, and between hedges of flowering bay we
stumbled along the broken pavement of the Roman road that led to
Antioch. The road was further occupied by a tributary of the Orontes,
which flowed merrily over the pavement. It was with some excitement that
I gazed on the city of Antioch, which was for so many centuries a cradle
of the arts and the seat of one of the most gorgeous civilisations that
the world has known. Modern Antioch is like the pantaloon whose clothes
are far too wide for his lean shanks; the castle walls go climbing over
rock and hill, enclosing an area from which the town has shrunk away.
But it is still one of the loveliest of places, with its great ragged
hill behind it, crowned with walls, and its clustered red roofs
stretching down to the wide and fertile valley of the Orontes.
Earthquakes and the changing floods of the stream have overturned and
covered with silt the palaces of the Greek and of the Roman city, yet as
I stood at sunset on the sloping sward of the Noṣairiyyeh graveyard
below Mount Silpius, where my camp was pitched, and saw the red roofs
under a crescent moon, I recognised that beauty is the inalienable
heritage of Antioch.


[Footnote 17: The ancient towns in the Jebel Bārisha have been visited
and described by the American Expedition.]




CHAPTER XIV


A further acquaintance with Antioch did not destroy the impressions of
the first evening. The more I wandered through the narrow paved streets
the more delightful did they appear. Except the main thoroughfare, which
is the bazaar, they were almost empty; my footsteps on the cobble-stones
broke through years of silence. The shallow gables covered with red
tiles gave a charming and very distinctive note to the whole city, and
shuttered balconies jutted out from house to house. Of the past there is
scarcely a vestige. Two fine sarcophagi, adorned with putti and garlands
and with the familiar and, I fancy, typically Asiatic motive of lions
devouring bulls, stand in the Serāya, and one similar to these, but
less elaborate, by the edge of the Daphne road. I saw, too, a fragment
of a classical entablature in the courtyard of a Turkish house, and a
scrap of wall in the main street that may certainly be dated earlier
than the Mohammadan invasion--its courses of alternate brick and stone
resembled the work on the Acropolis. For the rest the Antioch of
Seleucus Nicator is a city of the imagination only. The island on which
it was built has disappeared owing to the changing of the river bed, but
tradition places it above the modern town. The banks of the Orontes must
have been lined with splendid villas; I was told that the foundations of
them were brought to light whenever a man dug deep enough through the
silt, and that small objects of value, such as coins and bronzes, were
often unearthed. Many such were brought to me for sale, but I judged
them to be forgeries of an unskilful kind, and I was confirmed in my
opinion by a Turkish pasha, Rifa't Agha, who has occupied his leisure in
making a collection of antiquities. He possesses a fine series of
Seleucid coins, the earlier nearly as good as the best Sicilian, the
later nearly as bad as the worst Byzantine, and a few bronze lamps, one
of which, in the shape of a curly-haired Eros head, is a beautiful
example of Roman work. The Agha presented me with a small head, which I
take to have been a copy of the head of Antioch with the high crown, and
though it was but roughly worked, it possessed some distinction borrowed
from a great original.

[Illustration 154: THE CORN MARKET, ANTIOCH]

Forty years ago the walls and towers of the Acropolis were still almost
perfect; they are now almost destroyed. The inhabitants of Antioch
declare that the city is rocked to its foundations every half-century,
and they are in instant expectation of another upheaval, the last having
occurred in 1862; but it is prosperity not earthquake that has wrought
the havoc in the fortress. The town is admirably situated in its rich
valley, and connected with the port of Alexandretta by a fairly good
road; it might easily become a great commercial centre, and even under
Turkish rule it has grown considerably in the past fifty years, and
grown at the expense of the Acropolis. To spare himself the trouble of
quarrying, the Oriental will be deterred by no difficulty, and in spite
of the labour of transporting the dressed stones of the fortress to the
foot of the exceedingly steep hill on which it stands, all the modern
houses have been built out of materials taken from it. The work of
destruction continues; the stone facing is quickly disappearing from the
walls, leaving only a core of a rubble and mortar which succumbs in a
short time to the action of the weather. I made the whole circuit of the
fortress one morning, and it took me three hours. To the west of the
summit of Mount Silpius a rocky cleft seamed the hillside. It was full
of rock-cut tombs, and just above my camp an ancient aqueduct spanned
it. On the left hand of the cleft the line of wall dropped by
precipitous rocks to the valley. Where large fragments remained it was
evident that the stone facing had alternated with bands of brick, and
that sometimes the stone itself had been varied by courses of smaller
and larger blocks. The fortifications embraced a wide area, the upper
part leading by gentle slopes, covered with brushwood and ruined
foundations, to the top of the hill. In the west wall there was a narrow
massive stone door, with a lintel of jointed blocks and a relieving arch
above it. The south wall was broken by towers; the main citadel was at
the south-east corner. From here the walls dropped down again steeply to
the city and passed some distance to the east of it. They can be traced,
I believe, to the Orontes. I did not follow their course, but climbed
down from the citadel by a stony path into a deep gorge that cuts
through the eastern end of the hill. The entrance to this gorge is
guarded by a strong wall of brick and stone, which is called the Gate of
Iron, and beyond it the fortifications climb the opposite side of the
ravine and are continued along the hill top. I do not know how far they
extend; the ground was so rough and so much overgrown with bushes that I
lost heart and turned back. There was a profusion of flowers among the
rocks, marigold, asphodel, cyclamen and iris.

[Illustration 155: ROMAN LAMP IN RIFA'T AGHA'S COLLECTION]

Beyond the gorge of the Iron Gate, on the hill side facing the Orontes,
there is a cave which tradition calls the cave of St. Peter. The Greek
communion has erected a little chapel at its mouth. Yet further along
the hill is a still more curious relic of ancient Antioch, the head of a
Sphinx carved in relief upon a rock some 20 ft. high. Folded about her
brow she wears a drapery that falls on either side of her face and ends
where the throat touches the bare breast. Her featureless countenance is
turned slightly up the valley, as though she watched for one that shall
yet come out of the East. If she could speak she might tell us of great
kings and gorgeous pageants, of battle and of siege, for she has seen
them all from her rock on the hill side. She still remembers that the
Greeks she knew marched up from Babylonia, and since even the Romans did
not teach her that the living world lies westward, I could not hope to
enlighten her, and so left her watching for some new thing out of the
East.

[Illustration 156: HEAD OF A SPHINX, ANTIOCH]

There was another pilgrimage to be made from Antioch: it was to Daphne,
the famous shrine that marked the spot where the nymph baffled the
desire of the god, the House of the Waters it is called in Arabic. It
lies to the west of the town, about an hour's ride along the foot of the
hills, and in the Spring a more enchanting ride could not be found. The
path led through an exquisite boscage of budding green, set thickly with
flowering hawthorn and with the strange purple of the Judas tree; then
it crossed a low spur and descended into a steep valley through which a
stream tumbled towards the Orontes.

No trace remains of the temples that adorned this fairest of all
sanctuaries. Earthquakes and the mountain torrents have swept them down
the ravine. But the beauty of the site has not diminished since the days
when the citizens of the most luxurious capital in the East dallied
there with the girls who served the god. The torrent does not burst
noisily from the mountain side; it is born in a deep still pool that
lies, swathed in a robe of maidenhair fern, in thickets "annihilating
all that's made to a green thought in a green shade." From the pool
issues a translucent river, unbroken of surface, narrow and profound; it
runs into swirls and eddies and then into foaming cataracts and
waterfalls that toss their white spray into the branches of mulberry and
plane. Under the trees stand eleven water-mills; the ragged millers are
the only inhabitants of Apollo's shrine. They brought us walnuts to eat
by the edge of the stream, and small antique gems that had dropped from
the ornaments of those who sought pleasures less innocent perhaps than
ours by the banks of that same torrent.

[Illustration 157: DAPHNE]

It is impossible to travel in North Syria without acquiring a keen
interest in the Seleucid kings, backed by a profound respect for their
achievements in politics and in the arts; I was determined therefore to
visit before I pushed north the site of Seleucia Pieria, the port of
Antioch and the burial-place of Seleucus Nicator. Inland capital and
seaport sprang into being at the same moment, and were both part of one
great conception that turned the lower reaches of the Orontes into a
rich and populous market--in those days kings could create world-famous
cities with a wave of the sceptre, and the Seleucids were not backward
in following the example Alexander had set them. Like Apamea, Seleucia
has shrunk to the size of a hamlet, or perhaps it would be truer to say
that it has split up into several hamlets covered by the name of
Sweidiyyeh. (The nomenclature is confusing, as each group of farms or
huts has a separate title.) The spacing of the population at the mouth
of the Orontes is due to the occupation in which the inhabitants of the
villages are engaged. They are raisers of silkworms, an industry that
requires during about a month in the Spring such continuous attention
that every man must live in the centre of his mulberry-groves, and is
consequently separated by the extent of them from his neighbours. After
three hours' ride through a delicious country of myrtle thickets and
mulberry gardens we reached Sweidiyyeh, a military post and the most
important of the scattered villages. Here for the first and only time on
my journey I was stopped by an officer, the worse for 'arak, who
demanded my passport. Now passport I had none; I had lost it in the
Jebel Zāwiyyeh when I lost my coat, and it is a proof of how little
bound by red tape the Turkish official can show himself to be that I
travelled half the length of the Ottoman Empire without a paper to my
name. On this occasion the zaptieh who was with me demonstrated with
some heat that he would not have been permitted to accompany me if I had
not been a respectable and accredited person, and after a short wrangle
we were allowed to pursue our way. The reason of this meticulous
exactitude was soon made clear: the villages on the coast contain large
colonies of Armenians; they are surrounded by military stations, to
prevent the inhabitants from escaping either inland to other parts of
the empire or by sea to Cyprus, and the comings and goings of strangers
are carefully watched. One of the objects that the traveller should ever
set before himself is to avoid being drawn into the meshes of the
Armenian question. It was the tacit conviction of the learned during the
Middle Ages that no such thing as an insoluble question existed. There
might be matters that presented serious difficulties, but if you could
lay them before the right man--some Arab in Spain, for instance,
omniscient by reason of studies into the details of which it was better
not to inquire--he would give you a conclusive answer. The real trouble
was only to find your man. We, however, have fallen from that faith. We
have proved by experience that there are, alas! many problems insoluble
to the human intelligence, and of that number the Turkish empire owns a
considerable proportion. The Armenian question is one of them, and the
Macedonian question is another. In those directions madness lies.

It was with the determination not to waver in a decision that had
contributed, largely, I make no doubt, to happy and prosperous
journeyings, that I rode down to Chaulīk, the port of ancient Seleucia.
I found my resolve the less difficult to observe because the Armenians
talked little but Armenian and Turkish, at any rate the few words of
Arabic that some of them possessed were not sufficient to enable them to
enter into a detailed account of their wrongs. He who served me that
afternoon as a guide was a man of so cheerful a disposition that he
would certainly have selected by preference a different topic. His name
was Ibrahīm, he was bright-eyed and intelligent, and his cheerfulness
was deserving of praise, since his yearly income amounted to no more
than 400 piastres, under £2 of English money. From this he proposed to
save enough to bribe the Turkish officials at the port that they might
wink at his escape in an open boat to Cyprus: "for," said he, "there is
no industry here but the silkworms, and they give me work for two months
in the year, and for the other ten I have nothing to do and no way of
earning money." He also informed me that the Noṣairis who inhabited
the adjoining villages were unpleasant neighbours.

"There is feud between you?" said I.

"Ey wāllah!" said he with emphatic assent, and related in illustration
the long story of a recent conflict which, as far as it was
comprehensible, seemed to have been due entirely to the aggressions of
the Armenians.

"But you began the stealing," said I when he had concluded.

"Yes," said he. "The Noṣairis are dogs." And he added with a smile: "I
was imprisoned in Aleppo for two years afterwards."

"By God! you deserved it," said I.

"Yes," said he, as cheerfully as ever.

And this, I rejoice to say, was all that Ibrahīm contributed to the
store of evidence on the Armenian question.

The Bay of Seleucia is not unlike the Bay of Naples and scarcely less
beautiful. A precipitous ridge of the hills, honeycombed with rock-hewn
tombs and chambers, forms a background to the mulberry-gardens, and,
sweeping round, encloses the bay to the north. Below it lie the walls
and water-gates of the port, silted up with earth and separated from the
sea by a sandy beach. The Orontes flows through sand and silt farther to
the south, and the view is closed by a steep range of hills culminating
at the southern point in the lovely peak of Mount Cassius, which takes
the place of Vesuvius in the landscape. I pitched my camp near the
northern barrier in a little cove divided from the rest of the bay by a
low spur which ran out into a ruin-covered headland that commanded the
whole sweep of the coast, and I pleased myself with the fancy that it
was on this point that the temple and tomb of Seleucus Nicator had
stood, though I do not know whether its exact situation has ever been
determined. Below it on the beach lay an isolated rock in which a
columned hall had been excavated. This hall was fragrant of the sea and
fresh with the salt winds that blew through it: a very temple of nymphs
and tritons. Ibrahīm took me up and down the face of the precipitous
cliffs by little paths and by an old chariot-road that led to the city
on the summit of the plateau. He said that to walk round the enclosing
wall of the upper city took six hours, but it was too hot to put his
statement to the test. We climbed into an immense number of the
artificial caves, in many of which there were no loculi. They may have
been intended for dwellings or storehouses rather than for tombs. At
this time of the year they were all occupied by the silkworm breeders,
who were now at their busiest moment, the larvae having just issued from
the egg. The entrance of each cave was blocked by a screen of green
boughs to keep out the sun, and the afternoon light filtered pleasantly
through the budding leaves. At the southern end of the cliff there was a
large necropolis, consisting of small caves set round with loculi, and
of rock-hewn sarcophagi decorated, when they were decorated at all, with
the garland motive that adorns the sarcophagi at Antioch. The most
important group of tombs was at the northern end of the cliff. The
entrance to it was by a pillared portico that led into a double cave.
The larger chamber contained some thirty to forty loculi and a couple of
canopied tombs, the canopies cut out of the living rock; the smaller
held about half the number of loculi, the roof of it was supported by
pillars and pilasters, and I noticed above the tombs a roughly cut
design consisting of a scroll of ivy-shaped and of indented leaves.

[Illustration 158: THE GARĪZ]

The builders of Seleucia seem to have been much preoccupied with the
distribution of the water supply. Ibrahīm showed me along the face of
the cliff a channel some 2 ft. wide and 5 ft. high, which was cut 3 or 4
ft. behind the surface of the rock, and carried water from one end of
the city to the other. We traced its course by occasional air-holes or
breaches in the outer wall of rock. The most difficult problem must have
been the management of the torrent that flowed down a gorge to the north
of the town. A great gallery had been hewn through the spur to the south
of my camp to conduct the water to the sea and prevent it from swamping
the houses at the foot of the cliff. The local name for this gallery is
the Garīz. It began at the mouth of a narrow ravine and was tunnelled
through a mass of rock for several hundred yards, after which it
continued as a deep cutting open to the air till it reached the end of
the spur. At the entrance of the tunnel there was an inscription in
clear cut letters, "Divus Vespasianus" it began, but the rest was buried
in the rocky ground. There were several others along the further course
of the Garīz, all of them in Latin: I imagine that the work was not
Seleucid, but Roman.

To one more spectacle Ibrahīm tempted me. He declared that if I would
follow him through the mulberry-gardens below the cliff he would show me
"a person made of stone." My curiosity was somewhat jaded by the heat
and the long walk, but I toiled back wearily over stones and other
obstacles to find a god, bearded and robed, sitting under the mulberry
trees. He was not a very magnificent god; his attitude was stiff, his
robe roughly fashioned, and the top of his head was gone, but the low
sun gilded his marble shoulder and the mulberry boughs whispered his
ancient titles. We sat down beside him, and Ibrahīm remarked:

"There is another buried in this field, a woman, but she is deep deep
under the earth."

"Have you seen her?" said I.

"Yes," said he. "The owner of the field buried her, for he thought she
might bring him ill luck. Perhaps if you gave him money he might dig her
up."

I did not rise to the suggestion; she was probably better left to the
imagination.

[Illustration 159: THE STATUE IN THE
MULBERRY-GARDEN]

Close to the statue I saw a long moulded cornice which was apparently
_in situ_, though the wall it crowned was buried in a cornfield: so
thickly does the earth cover the ruins of Seleucia. Some day there will
be much to disclose here, but excavation will be exceedingly costly
owing to the deep silt and to the demands of the proprietors of mulberry
grove and cornfield. The site of the town is enormous, and will require
years of digging if it is to be properly explored.

Near my tents a sluggish stream flowed through clumps of yellow iris and
formed a pool in the sand. It provided water for our animals and for the
flocks of goats that Armenian shepherd boys herded morning and evening
along the margin of the sea. The spot was so attractive and the weather
so delightful that I spent an idle day there, the first really idle day
since I had left Jerusalem, and as I could not hope to examine Seleucia
exhaustively, I resolved to see no more of it than was visible from my
tent door. This excellent decision gave me twenty-four hours, to which I
look back with the keenest satisfaction, though there is nothing to be
recorded of them except that I was not to escape so lightly from
Armenian difficulties as I had hoped. I received in the morning a long
visit from a woman who had walked down from Kabūseh, a village at the
top of the gorge above the Garīz. She spoke English, a tongue she had
acquired at the missionary schools of 'Aintāb, her home in the Kurdish
mountains. Her name was Kymet. She had left 'Aintāb upon her marriage,
a step she had never ceased to regret, for though her husband was a good
man and an honest he was so poor that she did not see how she was to
bring up her two children. Besides, said she, the people round Kabūseh,
Noṣairis and Armenians alike, were all robbers, and she begged me to
help her to escape to Cyprus. She told me a curious piece of family
history, which showed how painful the position of the sect must be in
the heart of a Mohammadan country, if it cannot be cited as an instance
of official oppression. Her father had turned Muslim when she was a
child, chiefly because he wished to take a second wife. Kymet's mother
had left him and supported her children as best she might, rather than
submit to the indignity that he had thrust upon her, and the bitter
quarrel had darkened, said Kymet, all her own youth. She sent her
husband down next morning with a hen and a copy of verses written by
herself in English. I paid for the hen, but the verses were beyond
price. They ran thus:


Welcome, welcome, my dearest dear, we are happy by your coming!
For your coming welcome! Your arrival welcome!
Let us sing joyfully, joyfully,
Joyfully, my boys, joyfully!
The sun shines now with moon clearly, sweet light so bright, my
dear boys,
For your reaching welcome! By her smiling welcome!
The trees send us, my dear boys, with happiness the birds rejoice;
Its nice smelling welcome! In their singing welcome!

I remain.

Yours truly,

GEORGE ABRAHAM.


I hasten to add, lest the poem should be considered compromising, that
its author was not George Abraham, who as I found in the negotiations
over the hen had no word of English; Kymet had merely used her husband's
name as forming a more impressive signature than her own. Moreover the
boys she alludes to were a rhetorical figure. I can offer no suggestion
as to what it was that the trees sent us; the text appears to be corrupt
at this point. Perhaps "us" should be taken as the accusative.

It was with real regret that I left Seleucia. Before dawn, when I went
down to the sea to bathe, delicate bands of cloud were lying along the
face of the hills, and as I swam out into the warm still water the first
ray of the sun struck the snowy peak of Mount Cassius that closed so
enchantingly the curve of the bay. We journeyed back to Antioch as we
had come, and pitched tents outside the city by the high road. Two days
later we set off at 6.30 for a long ride into Alexandretta. The road was
abominable for the first few miles, broken by deep gulfs of mud, with
here and there a scrap of pavement that afforded little better going
than the mud itself. After three hours we reached the village of
Kāramurt, and three-quarters of an hour further we left the road and
struck straight up the hills by a ruined khān that showed traces of
fine Arab work. The path led up and down steep banks of earth between
thickets of flowering shrubs, gorse and Judas trees, and an undergrowth
of cistus. We saw to the left the picturesque castle of Baghrās, the
ancient Pagræe, crowning a pointed hill: I do not believe that the
complex of mountains north of Antioch has ever been explored
systematically, and it may yet yield fragments of Seleucid or Roman
fortifications that guarded the approach to the city. Presently we hit
upon the old paved road that follows a steeper course than the present
carriage road; it led us at one o'clock (we had stopped for three
quarters of an hour to lunch under the shady bank of a stream) to the
summit of the Pass of Bailān, where we joined the main road from Aleppo
to Alexandretta. There was no trace of fortification, as far as I
observed, at the Syrian Gates where Alexander turned and marched back to
the Plain of Issus to meet Darius, but the pass is very narrow and must
have been easy to defend against northern invaders. It is the only pass
practicable for an army through the rugged Mount Amanus. The village of
Bailān lay an hour further in a beautiful situation on the northern
side of the mountains looking over the Bay of Alexandretta to the bold
Cilician coast and the white chain of Taurus. From Bailān it is about
four hours' ride to Alexandretta.

As we jogged down towards the shining sea by green and flowery slopes
that were the last of Syria, Mikhāil and I fell into conversation. We
reviewed, as fellow travellers will, the incidents of the way, and
remembered the adventures that had befallen us by flood and field, and
at the end I said:

"Oh Mikhāil, this is a pleasant world, though some have spoken ill of
it, and for the most part the children of Adam are good not evil."

[Illustration 160: LOWER COURSE OF THE GARĪZ]

"It is as God wills," said Mikhāil.

"Without doubt," said I. "But consider, now, those whom we have met upon
our journey, and think how all were glad to help us, and how well they
used us. At the outset there was Najīb Fāris, who started us upon our
way, and Namrūd and G̣ablān--"

[Illustration 161: SARCOPHAGUS IN THE SERAYA, ANTIOCH]

"Māsha'llah!" interrupted Mikhāil. "G̣ablān was an excellent man.
Never have I seen an Arab so little grasping, for he would scarcely eat
of the food that I prepared for him."

"And Sheikh Muḥammad en Naṣṣār," I pursued, "and his nephew
Fāiz, and the Ḳāimaḳām of Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, who lodged us for
two nights and fed us all, and the Ḳāimaḳām of Drekish, who made a
great reception for us, and the zaptieh Maḥmūd----" (Mikhāil gave a
grunt here, for he had been at daggers drawn with Maḥmūd.) "And
Sheikh Yūnis," I went on hastily, "and Mūsa the Kurd, who was the best
of all."

"He was an honest man," observed Mikhāil, "and served your Excellency
well."

"And even Reshīd Agha," I continued, "who was a rogue, treated us with
hospitality."

"Listen, oh lady," said Mikhāil, "and I will make it clear to you. Men
are short of vision, and they see but that for which they look. Some
look for evil and they find evil; some look for good and it is good that
they find, and moreover some are fortunate and these find always what
they want. Praise be to God! to that number you belong. And, please God!
you shall journey in peace and return in safety to your own land, and
there you shall meet his Excellency your father, and your mother and all
your brothers and sisters in health and in happiness, and all your
relations and friends," added Mikhāil comprehensively, "and again many
times shall you travel in Syria with peace and safety and prosperity,
please God!"

"Please God!" said I.




INDEX

ABĀDEH tribe, the, 23
Abana River, the, 152
'Abdul 'Aziz ibn er Rashīd, 146
   Ḥamed Pasha Druby, 189,
   194
   Hamid Rafi 'a Zādeh, 201-219,
   339
   Ḳādir, the great Algerian,
   145-46
   Ḳādir el Aẓam, 224-27,
   237
   Mejīd, Kurdish zaptieh, 210-11
   Wahhāb Beg, 182
'Abdullah Pasha, the Amīr, 145-49
'Abd ur Raḥmān Pasha, 239
Abraham, George, 335
Abrash River, the, 210
Abu Kbesh, castle of, 218
   Zreik, village of, 101
   'l Fīda, sarcophagus of, 230
Acropolis, Athens, 167; Antioch,
   322, 324-25
Adana, 271
Aden, 265
'Adwān tribes, 16
Afrīn, valley of the, 288
Agha, Muḥammad 'Ali, 311-14
   Reshīd, 339
   Rifa't, collection of, 322-23, 325
   Rustum, 311-12
Aḥmed, son of Ghishghāsh, 111-12, 128
'Ain esh Shems, 7, 217
'Aintāb, missionary schools at, 334
Ajlūn hills of, 16
'Akabah, Gulf of, 14
Al Ḥerdeh, village of, 233
'Ala, Jebel el, 276, 302,
   305, 309, 310
Alāni, 314-16
Aleppo, 66, 222_n._, 232,
   244, 250, 251,
   256, 270-72,
   311, 314;
   description, 260-69
Alexander the Great, 242, 336
Alexandretta, 262, 265,
   270, 324, 336
Alexandria, 240
Ali id Diāb ul 'Adwān, Sultān ibn, 16
   Muḥammad, Pasha of Aleppo,
   148, 268
   Pasha, Amīr, 145-47, 149
Allāt, 95
'Alya, Jebel el, 51-52, 64
Amanus, Mount, 336
Amereh, mound of, 26
American College, Beyrout, 208, 230
   Survey, the, 77, 171,
   276, 297
'Ammān, 13, 20, 27, 56, 164
'Anazeh tribe, the, 24, 25, 65, 127, 152,
   172, 197
Anglo-Japanese alliance, 229
'Antara, poetry of, 59-60
Anti-Libanus, 111, 121, 159, 167
Antioch, 175, 270, 277, 278, 281, 310;
   description and relics, 318-27, 336
Apamea, 242, 327
Apostles' Well, the, _see_ 'Ain esh
   Shems
Arabic inscriptions, 122, 242
Arabs, 14, 16, 23 _et seq._, 56-58, 66-67;
   hospitality, 32-33, 37, 55-57;
   customs, etc., 36-37, 42, 49, 67;
   poetry, 60-63; inter-tribal relations, 65-66
'Areh, village of, 81, 85
'Arjārmeh, the, 14
Armenians, 140; the Armenian question, 328-29
Asad Beg, 171
Asbā 'i, Muṣṭafa el, 148
'Asī, swamp of the, 242
Assassins, sect of the, 196
At Tabari, history of, 80
Athens, 297; the Acropolis, 167
Awād, the Arab, 121-23, 127
'Awais, Yūsef el, 160
Aẓam Zādeh family at Ḥamāh, 223-24
Azrak, Kala 'at el, 84

BA'ALBEK, 159-160; Temple of The
   Sun, 164-169; Temple of Jupiter,
   172, 176; Basilica of Constantine,
   183; Ras ul 'Ain, 187; Christian
   church at, 214
Bāb el Hawa, the, 297, 301
Bābiska, village, 297-98
Babylonia, 241
Baghdad, 66, 111; the railway to,
   261-62
Baghrās, castle of, 336
Bailān, Pass of, 336
Baitocaicē, 214
Bāḳirḥa, ruins of, 278, 298-303
Balad, Sheikh el, 58
Barād, village of, 287-89
Barada, the Wādi, 159
Barāzi family, Ḥamāh, 224
Barāzi, Muṣṭafa Pasha el, 147, 148, 236
Bārisha, Jebel, 276, 298, 301, 302
Bashan, 84
Basilica of Constantine, Ba'albek, 183
Bāsufān, church at, 288, 291
Bathaniyyeh, 131
Bawābet Ullaḥ, the, Damascus, 133
Bedouins, 10, 23, 56, 122, 197, 256
Bedr, battle of, 62
Behā'is, religion of the, 150, 193
Beiḍa, Ḳal'at el, 34, 123-28
   White Land, 108, 121
Belḳa plain, 19, 23-24; tribes of the,
   23-26, 56-58
Beni 'Atiyyeh, the, 239, 240
   Awājeh tribe, the, 66
   Ḥassan tribe, the, 65, 68, 96
   Ṣakhr, 24, 33, 38, 41, 43
   Sha 'alān, the, 25
Beyrout, 99, 198, 208, 230, 231, 262
Birijik, railway at, 261-62
Birket Umm el 'Amūd, the, 25-26
Bizzos, Tomb of, 253-54, 277-78
Bḳei'a, the plain, 198
Black Sea, 8
   Stone at Mecca, 96
Blunts, the travellers, 84
Boer War, the, 229
Bologna, 254
Boṣrā, 20, 74, 81
   el Harīr, 229
Brāk, village of, 132
Brünnow, "Die Provincia Arabia,"
34_n._, 52_n._
Būkhālih, 125
Burj el Kās, 282
   Ḥeida, 292
Burjkeh, village of, 280-81
Busān, the Wādi, 107
Butler, Mr., 75, 244, 276-78, 286

CALCUTTA, 227
Calycadnus River, the, 241
Cassius, Mount, 330
Cave villages, in
Caves, Namrūd's, 31-37
Chamberlain, Mr., 105
Chaulīk, 329
Circassians, 56, 132, 238-39
Coffee, customs, 19-20
Coins, Roman, 27; Seleucid, 322
Constantine, coins of, 27
Constantinople, 48, 104
Crete, Moslems of, 152
Cromer, Lord, 58, 105, 229
Crown of Thorns, the, 11
Crusaders, 205-6
Cufic inscriptions, 80, 122-23
Curzon, Lord, 229
Cyprus, 229, 328, 335

DA'JA tribe, the, 24-27, 40, 51, 96
Damascus, 77, 99, 128-33, 198, 231
   History, 134-58; houses of,
   136-51, 227; the Great
   Mosque, 142, 150-51, 153
   Friday in, 152
Dāna, 298; tomb at, 31, 254, 259, 299
Danīdisheh family, 207
Daphne Road, Antioch, 322; shrine, 326
Dār Kīta, 286
Dark Tower, Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn, 201
Dead Sea, 10; Dead Sea Fruit, 11-12
Decimus of the Flavian Legion, 214
Deḥes, 297, 302
Deir es Sleb, 219
Deiret 'Azzeh, village of, 297
Dera'a, cave village, 111
Derwīsh, soldier, 171, 172
Dīn, Sheikh ed, 58
Drekish, village of, 211-12
Drusūra, 95
Druze, the Jebel, 20, 43, 64, 70, 164
Druzes, the, 38, 43, 51, 58, 67, 70
   Habits and customs, 79-80, 82,
   83, 86, 128; the fight against
   the Ṣukhūr, 88-106; dread
   of the Mohammadans, 306-309
Dussaud, Monsieur, 75, 84, 102, 122-23, 125, 175

EFFENDI, Dervish, 227
   Yūsef, 85-87, 135
Effendim, 219-220
Egypt, English rule in, 57-58
Ej Jeita, village of, in
El, the God, 124
   Ajlāt, 111
   Bahra, lake of, 310
   Bārah, village of, 245, 247, 249
   Ḥayyāt, mosque of, 230
   Khuḍr, Well of, 94, 96
   Mughāra, village of, 255
   Muwaggar, 52-54, 126
Emesa, Roman city, 181, 186
Epiphaneia, fortress of, 221
Ethreh, 84
Euphrates, the, 268
Euting, M., 84

FĀFERTĪN, village of, 274, 282
Fāiz, nephew of Muḥammad en
   Nassār, 107, 111-12, 128, 339
   el Aṭrash, Sheikh of Kreyeh, 77, 81
   Talal ul, 24, 25
Fāris, muleteer, 270 _et seq._, 302, 310
   Ḥabīb, 19-20, 22, 339
Fayyād, Agha of Karyatein, 152
Fedhāmeh, village of, 111
Fellahīn, the, 56; social condition,
   206-7, 217-18
   Bank, the, 58
Fendi, guide, 77, 78, 88
Fīda, Abu 'l, 22
France, Baghdad railway scheme, 261

G̣ABLĀN, the Arab, 39-40, 44, 49, 52,
   54, 55, 59-60, 65, 76, 339
Garīz, the, Seleucia, 331, 333, 334, 337
Gates of God, the, 133
Germany, Baghdad railway scheme, 261
Gethsemane, valley of, 4
Gharz, the Ghadīr el, 116, 121-23
   the Wādi el, 125
Ghassānid forts, 34, 52, 126
Ghawārny, the, 41
Ghazu, the sport, 66-67
Ghiāth, the, 96, 119-28
Ghishghāsh, Sheikh of Umm Ruweik,
   107, 111-12, 120
Ghōr, the, 11, 16-19, 23
Giour Dāgh, the, 288, 301
Greek inscriptions, 122-23, 242, 253-54
Greeks, 140

ḤABĪB, muleteer, 3, 16, 74, 112, 124,
   168, 172, 270
Hadūdmadūd, 293
Haida, Dr., 171
Haifa, 19
Ḥāil, town of, 44, 47, 48, 84
Ḥājj Railway, the, 22, 34
   road, the, 239-40
Ḥamād, the, 111, 112
Ḥamāh, 168
   Roman road from, 218-220;
   description, 221-23; the
   Mosque, 223; people, 223-29
Hamdān, son of Sheikh Understanding, 120
Ḥamūd, 51
   of Sweida, 82, 94
Hanelos, 125
Ḥārim, 306, 309-310; the castle,
   310-311
Hārith, Ibn el, 62
Harra, the Burnt Land, 108
Harūn er Rashīd, 212
Ḥaseneh tribe, the, 172, 197
Hāss, Jebel el, 260
Ḥassan Beg Nā'i, 182-85
Ḥassaniyyeh tribe, the, 24, 65-70, 88
Ḥaurān, mountains of, 18, 58, 70, 75, 76
Hayāt, Kalybeh at, 131
Heart of God, 116
Ḥejāz Railway, the, 136
Ḥelbān, mud village of, 256
Hermon Mountains, 121, 159
Heshbān, 16
Hind, the land of, 195, 196
Hira, 126
Hīt, village of, 131
Hittites, the, 175
Hober, village of, 260
Holy Sepulchre, Church of the, 2
Ḥomṣ, 111, 168, 175, 176, 193-94
   Castle of, 179, 181; people of,
   180-81, 186-90; houses of,
   182-86; the Marj ul' Asi, 186;
   Stony Plain of, 197
Homsi, Nicola, 266
Ḥoweiṭāṭ, the, 65, 239, 240
Hurmul, Tower of, 172, 175
Ḥuṣn es Suleimān, 213-17
   Ḳal'at el, 195, 199, 201-209,
   339; Greek Monastery at,
   209-210

IBRAHĪM, the Armenian, 329-30, 333-34
   muleteer, 3
   Pasha, 36, 180
Iliān, Milḥēm, 85, 86, 96-99, 102, 105
Imtain, 70, 82, 92
Iron Gate, Antioch, 325
'Isa, Fellāḥ ul, 51, 55-57, 69-70, 164
Islāmism, 227-29
Ismailis, 195; religion, 233-35, 279
'Izzet Pasha, 149, 212-13

JADA 'llah, 69, 85
Jaffa, 8
Japanese War, 103-4, 156, 160, 182
Jebel Ḥalaḳah, the, 297
Jebeliyyeh Arabs, the, 75, 96
Jericho, the road to, 10, 11
Jerūn, oasis of, 152-53
Jerūdi, the brigand, _see_ Muḥammad
   Pasha, Sheikh of Jerūd
Jerusalem, 4, 99, 160, 266
Jisr el Wād, bridge of, 210
Jōf, 47, 84
Jordan valley, 10 _et seq._
Judæa, 7-10

KABUL, 227
Kabūseh, village of, 334, 335
Kadesh, 176-79
Kāf, 84
Ḳais, Amr ul, 59, 60, 67
Kalam, Mushḳin, 148, 149
Ḳalb Lōzeh, church of, 278, 302-6
Kalōteh, 282, 285; church of, 286-87
Kāmu'a Hurmul, 172, 175
Ḳanawāt, 164; the basilica, 111;
   illustrations, 108, 112, 115
Ḳantarah, the, 119
Kāramurt, village of, 336
Karyatein, oasis of, 152
Ḳaṣr el Ahla, _see_ Ḳaṣr el 'Alya
   'Alya, 52
   Banāt, 255, 256
Ḳasṭal, 34, 126
Katurā, 282
Kbēs, Monsieur, 222-24, 230, 231
Kbeshīn, hamlet of, 273
Kefr 'Abīd, 260
   Anbīl, 244, 246
   Lāb, 292-95
   Nebu, 288
Keifār, village of, 288
Kerak, 205-6
Khabbāz, Hanna, 194
Khālid Beg 'Aẓam, 227
Kharāneh, ruins of, 54
Khayyām, Omar, 23
Khirāb esh Shems, 282, 283; church
   at 285-86
Khīrbet Hass, village of, 244-45
Khittāb, 112, 119, 128
Khuḍr, prisoner, 196
Khureibet es Sūḳ, temple and mausoleum, 28-31
Kiāzim Pasha, Vāli at Aleppo, 262-66
Kiepert, maps, 168-71, 259, 260, 273
Killāni family at Ḥamāh, 224, 227, 235
Killāniyyeh Tekah, Ḥamāh, 224, 227
Killiz, 261
Knights Hospitallers, 205-6
Knights Templars, 206, 211
Konia, 171, 270
Kreyeh, 78, 81
Ḳṣeir, town of, 172-75
Ksejba, village of, 297
Ḳūbbeh in Mosque at Ḥamāh, 223
Ḳubbet el Khazneh, the, 141, 147, 148
Kuda'a, tribe of, 139
Kuleib, 83
Kulthūm, Ibn, song of, 139
Ḳur'ān, reading of the, 233-34
Kurds, 103, 273-74, 288, 291-96
Kurumfuleh, the, 160-63
Kuruntul, monastery of, 11
Ḳuṣeir es Sahl, 28
Kutaila, dirge of, 62
Kuweēk River, the, 259
Kweit, 48, 265
Kymet, the Kurdish woman 4-35

LAHITEH, 132
Laodocia ad Orontem, 176
Larissa, town of, 235
Lava, 121, 124, 126
Lebanon, Mount, 163, 164, 176
Lebīd, poetry of, 60, 61
Lebweh, ruins at, 171
Lejā road, the, 132
Littinann, Dr., 75, 77, 123_n._
Loculi, 329, 330
Lütticke of Damascus, 134
Lyall, Sir Charles, 63_n._
Lysicrates, monument of, 297

MA'ALULA, monastery of, 209
Ma'ān, 13, 14, 22, 239
Mabūk, the Arab, 14
Mādeba, 16, 22, 24, 26
Maḥmūd, Ḥājj, the zaptieh, 231-46,
   250, 252, 259, 272, 339
Malek ed Dāher, Sultan, 206
Manuscripts, illuminated, 148
Mār Eliās, church of, 182
Mar Saba, monastery of, 15
Marāh, teut marks, 127
Marj ul 'Asi of the Orontes, 186
Marlborough Club, the, 196
Masyād, 217-19
Maṭkh swamp, the, 259, 269
Mazār of Sheikh Serāk, 123
Mecca, 265
   Railway, 13, 171; pilgrims, 68;
   239; the Black Stone at, 96;
   customs, 259
Medā'in Ṣāleh, 239
Medīna, 239, 259, 265
Meḥes, 297, 302
Meidan, the, Damascus, 133, 151
Mersina, 262
Mesopotamia, 135, 279
Meskīn, 37
Metawīleh sect, the, 160, 168, 171
Mezērib, 111
Mikhāil, the cook, 3, 4, 12, 14, 15, 19,
  21, 43, 73, 78, 82, 88, 92, 101, 112,
  116, 120, 128, 131, 160, 168, 172,
  175, 217-19, 243-46, 256, 270-72,
  297, 302, 306, 314, 317-19, 336-40
Milḥēm, Emir Muṣṭafa, 219
Moab, 10, 38
Mohammadan invasion, seventh century,
  76, 77
Morris, William, 254
Mosaics, 260
Mosul, 293
Mounds, 26-28, 52, 54, 122, 219, 221, 223
Moyemāt, village of, 259
Mshitta, 24, 28, 34, 45, 47, 48, 126
Mu'āwiyah, 134
Mudīk, Ḳal'at el, 231, 238; ruins
   of, 241-43
Mughāra Merzeh, mud village, 256
Muḥammad Effendi, Muftī, 229-30
   el Aṭrash, Sheikh, 69, 79
   muleteer, 3, 16, 43, 56, 82, 172
   Pasha, Sheikh of Jerūd, 152-57
   Sāid ul Khāni, Ḳāḍi, 189-94
   Bedouin, 120
   the Agha Khān, 196-97, 233
   uncle of Ibn er Rashīd, 14, 48
Mujēmir, Sheikh, 51
Mūsa, Kurdish guide, 279-82, 285,
   288, 291-97, 339
Mushennef, Temple at, 111, 116
Musil, 55_n._
Mutanabbi, poetry of, 108, 208
Muwaggar, _see_ El Muwaggar
Muwāli tribe, the, 212, 256

NABATŒAN necropolis, 75; inscriptions, 80
Nahār, Sheikh, 37-39, 43
Nahr el 'Awāj, the, 133
Najēreh, ruins, 54
Najīb, Ḥājj, zaptieh, 272-73, 285,
   297-98, 301, 302, 305, 306, 314,
   317-19
Nakshibendi, Sheikh Ḥassan, 143,
  145, 155, 157
Namrūd, Abu, guide, 19, 20, 26-41,
   44, 50-52, 56-57, 339
Napoleon III., 146
Nasīb el Aṭrash, Sheikh of Ṣalkhad,
   84-85, 93-99
Naṣṣār, Muḥammad en, 81, 82, 96,
   102-106, 339
Nāzim Pasha, Vāli of Syria, 135-39,
   141-45, 156-57, 268
Nebi Mendu, Tell, 175-79
Negroes, 38
Nejd, 14, 47, 84, 139
Nejha, village of, 133
Noṣairis, the, 175, 190, 210-13, 233-35, 329
Noṣairiyyeh, the Jebel, 176, 195, 198

OG, King, 84, 111
Olives, Mount of, 7
Omar, Amīr, 149, 159
Omer, 111
Oppenheim, book of, 102, 112, 125, 168
Ormān, village of, 100, 154
Orontes, the, 171, 172, 176, 186, 221,
   222, 232, 235, 242, 244, 310, 320,
   322, 326-28, 330

PALMYRA, 28, 111, 129, 176, 209
Petra, 14
Pieria, 241
Poets of the Ignorance, 60-63, 208
Princeton archaeological expedition,
   256

RĀ'IB Effendi el Ḥelu, 213
Railways
   Ḥājj, 22, 34; Ḥejāz, 136; Mecca,
   13, 171; Rayak-Ḥamāh,
   261; Baghdad, 261-62; the
   French, 222
Rājil, Wādi, 101
Rāmeh, 111
Rās Ba'albek, 171
Ras ul 'Ain, Ba'albek, 185
Rashīd, Ibn er, 14, 25, 44-48
Rayak, 261-62
Redīfs, the, 14, 16
Rhodes, island of, 136
Riāḍ, 14, 47
Riza Beg el' Ābid, 211-13, 339
Rolandino, monument in Bologna, 254
Roman coins, 27, 219; camps, 34;
   tanks, 35; roads, 74, 160, 218,
   219, 297; forts, 125
Rōẓah, the, 233
Ruḥbeh plain, the, 107-12, 123
Russia, pilgrims, 7-9
Ruwalla, the, 146, 175
Ruweiḥā, the churches at, 253-55,
   277-78

SACHAU, M., 250
Sacrifice, Feast of, 68-69
Ṣafa, the, 96, 105, 107-128
Safaitic inscriptions, 122
Ṣāfiṭa Castle, 210, 211
St. Peter, Cave of, 325
St. Simon Stylites, church of, _see_
   Sim'ān, Kala 'at
St. Stephen's Gate, 4
Ṣalaḥiyyeh, 136, 152, 155
Salamis, Gulf of, 167
Salcah, city of, _see_ Ṣalkhad
Ṣāleh, guide, 82-83
Ṣāleh village, 101-6
Salisbury, Lord, 105
Saikhad, 60, 82-100
Salkīn, town of, 310-14
Sallūm, Syrian doctor, 230-31
Salt, village of, 16, 18-19, 22-23
Samaria, 266
San Gimignano, 181
Sanctuaries, 95-06
Sandūk, the Sāhib es, at Ḳal'at el
   Housn, 206
Sāneh, village of, 107
Sa'oud, Ibn, 14, 44-48
Saphathenos, Zeus, 124
Sarut, the River, 219
Safīnet Nuh (Noah's Ark), 176
Seijar, Kal' at es, 232, 235-38
Seijari, Sheikh Aḥmed, 235-38
Selemiyyeh, 195
Seleucia, Bay of, 329-30
   Pieria, 327-36
   Nicator, temple and tomb of,
   241, 313, 322, 327, 330
Selīm Beg, 141, 147, 148, 155-57
Seljuk, 206, 230
Selmān, 81
Serāk, Sheikh, 123-24
Serāya, the, Ḥomṣ, 182; Antioch, 322
Serge, Archduke, 135
Serjilla, town and ruins, 249, 250, 252
Sermeda, plain of, 297, 302
Sēs, Jebel, 126
Shabha, village, 76
Shabhīyyeh, village, 76
Shahbah, 132
Shakka, the Kaisarieh at, 131
Shām, Wādi esh, 111
Shāmmaṝ, the, 14, 25, 47, 48
Sheikh Barakāt, Jebel, 280, 297
Sheikhly, 111
Shekīb el Arslān, 151-52
Sherarāt tribe, the, 38-41, 96
Shibbekeh, 111
Shibly Beg el Aṭrash, 77, 309
Shuraik, 125
Sidr bushes, the, 11-12
Siena Cathedral, 181
Silk industry, 313-17, 330
Silpius, Mount, 321, 324
Sim'ān, Ḳal'at, 274-81; the villages,
   276-96
Sīr, the Wādy, 23, 25
Sirhān, the Wādy, 77, 84
Sitt Ferīdeh, the, at Ḳal'at el Ḥuṣn,
   202, 206
Slime Pits of Genesis, the, 12-13
Smātiyyeh Arabs, the, 235-38
Smyrna, 8, 99
Soktan, Sheikh, 35
Sommar, Mon. Luiz de, 164
Spina Christi, legend, 11
Stones, lettered, 122
Suḳ Wādi Barada, 159, 161
Ṣukhūr tribe, the, 14, 25, 31, 65, 88
Sukkar, Yūsef Effendi, 19-21
Surkanyā, village, 281-82
Sweida, 82, 85, 92, 164
Sweidiyyeh, the, 327, 328
Sykes, Mr. Mark, 3, 4, 164, 218
Syria, rule in, 140-41; condition of
   the poor, 206-7; the term, 228
Syriac inscriptions, 292

ṬĀHIR, the Amīr, 147
   ul Jezāiri, Sheikh, 147
Tārafa, poetry of, 61
Ṭarutīn, ruins at, 256
Teifūr family at Ḥamāh, 224
Tell esh Shīh, 78
Tell Selma, 259
Tellāl, Abu, of Shahba, 82
Temples
   Khureibet es Sūḳ, 28-31; Mushennef,
   111, 116; the Sun,
   Ba'albek, 164, 168; the Lebweh,
   171; Jupiter, Ba'albek,
   172, 176, 214; Ḥuṣn el Suleimān, 213-17
Theleleh, 49
Thelelet el Hirsheh, 49
Tigris, 242
Ṭneib, mound of, 20, 26, 27, 32
Tombs
   Yadudeh, 26-28; Bizzos, 253-54;
   Seleucia Nicator, 330
Tripoli, 195, 197
   Gate, the, 195
Tufa, 115-16, 181
Tulūl, 259
   es Safa, the, 121
Turkey, rule of, 14, 16, 22, 35, 44-48
   85, 86, 139-41, 207, 267-68
Turkmān Jāmi'a, the, Ḥomṣ, 182
Turkshān, the, 81-83, 309

ULLAḤ Beha, Persian prophet, 148
'Umar, Amīr, _see_ Omar
   Mosque of, Jerusalem, 1
Umm ej Jemēl, ruins, 70, 74
   er Resās, ruins, 54
   Rummān, village, 69-70,
   78-79
   Ruweik, village, 107, 111
Ummayah, house of, 135
Understanding, Sheikh of the Ghiāth, 120
Uneif, Kureyt ibn, 99
United States, emigration to the, 17-18,
   163, 211
Urfa, on the Euphrates, 19
Uthail, 62

VAN, lake, 4
Victoria Hotel, Damascus, 133
Vogüé, Monsieur de, 76, 125, 131,
   244, 250, 297

WAD el Ḥassan'yyeh, 18
Waddington, M., 250
Wall of Lamentation, Jerusalem, 17
Wa'r Ḥomṣ, 197
White Castle of the Knights Templars, 211

YADUDEH, tombs of, 26
Yaḥfūfa, the, 160
Yahya Beg el Atrāsh, 81, 309
Yaḳit 'Ades, 272
Yemen, 126, 229; the insurrection
   in, 13, 82, 262; the soldier in, 240
Yezīdis, beliefs of the, 279, 282, 293-94
Yildiz, 268
Yūnis, Sheikh of El Bārah, 250-53,
   255, 339
Yūsef, zaptieh guide, 23, 26, 100, 103

ZA'BIEH, family of the, 207
Ẓābit, the, at Safita Castle, 211-13
Zādeh, Reshīd Agha Kakhya, 311-19
Zāwiyyeh, Jebel, 244 _et seq._, 256, 276
Zebdāny, 159
Zerka River, the, 51, 56
   Kala'at ez, 74
Ziza, Roman tank at, 35
Zuhair, poetry of, 61