Part 21

On its approach to the sea the river Awali has two separate channels, along either of which it flows in different years, according to the volume of water at the beginning of winter, but never in both at the same time.

Through lovely scenery we gradually mounted higher and higher, till arriving at the village of _Joon_, where rooms were to be prepared for us in a native house.

The nature of the district thereabout is that of numerous round hills, separated from each other by deep valleys. On one of these hills stands the village, on another the large "Convent of the Saviour," (Dair el Mokhallis,) which is the central station of the Greek Catholic sect; _i.e._, of those who, while retaining their Oriental rites and calendar, acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope of Rome; and on the third hill is Lady Hester Stanhope's house, the three forming the points of nearly an equilateral triangle. The village commands a fine prospect of the Mediterranean.

Without dismounting, we proceeded at once to the desolate house of Lady Hester, but, owing to the precipitous nature of the ground, it takes some considerable time to reach it, yet voices are easily distinguishable from one place to the other.

The house presents a melancholy spectacle, though, from the purity of the atmosphere, the walls appear clean and almost new; no roof remains, all timbers having been purposely removed immediately after her death, according to legal right of the proprietor from whom the place was rented. There has been an extensive suite of rooms, not adapted to stateliness, but meant for the reception of guests; these are all of small dimensions, and were mostly built by Lady Hester. We were told that she kept an establishment of a hundred servants, forty of whom were women. For the last five years she never travelled beyond the garden, and during that time the renowned two mares, Leilah and Lulu, (the former of which was the one with the hollow back, reserved for entering Jerusalem together with the new Messiah,) became so broken in health for want of exercise, that when Lady Hester died, they were sold with difficulty for 300 piastres (less than three pounds) each.

The stables still remaining were very extensive.

The gardens and terraces must have been beautiful, for we were told they were carefully kept and arranged. We saw large myrtle shrubs in abundance, besides fruit trees now utterly neglected--

"And still where many a garden flower grows wild,"

for there were red roses blooming without the least care or notice.

No one now resides on any part of that hill.

The eccentric lady is buried in the garden, and in the same grave (we were assured) with Captain, son of General Loustaneau, a crazy French enthusiast who lived for above twenty-five years a pensioner on her bounty. The grave is covered with this simple stone monument, of a pattern very common in the country.

[Picture: Tomb of Lady Hester Stanhope]

At the distance of a few yards is the monument over a former Moslem proprietor of the house.

Lady Hester died in June 1839, lonely and miserable, and so ended her wild dreams and fancied importance. During her long residence there she had meddled in local dissensions, patronising the Jonblats of Mokhtarah against the Ameer Besheer and the Egyptian invaders; she kept spies in the principal towns, as Acre and Saida, and had even supplied ammunition to the citadel of Acre for the Turks, but did not live to see the Egyptians ousted from the country.

There was good deal of exaggeration afloat at the time respecting her and some of her habits of life, though scarcely more extraordinary than the reality of other matters, as we are now able to judge of them; but at that period Syria and the Lebanon were very little understood in Europe, _i.e._, from 1823 to 1839. She was not so utterly removed from human society as is often supposed. She was not perched like an eagle on an inaccessible mountain, for there are villages near, besides the great Convent of Mokhallis, and she had constant communication with Saida for money and provisions.

The view around is indeed stern and cheerless in character, devoid of romantic accessories, without the rippling streams, the pines or the poplars of either Mokhtarah or Beteddeen; her hill like its neighbours was a lump of stone, with some scanty cultivation in the valley below, very little of this, and her small garden attached to the dwelling.

Before leaving this subject, I may as well state with respect to the common belief of Lady Hester being crowned Queen of Palmyra by the desert Arabs, that from information which I consider reliable this is all a mistake, or as it was expressed to me, a "French enthusiasm," the truth being that in consequence of her lavish largesses among the wild people, they expressed their joy by acclamations in which they compared her to the "Queen of Sheba" who had come among them; and then by her flatterers, or those who were unskilled in the language, the term "Melekeh" (Queen) was interpreted as above: and as for a coronation the Arab tribes have no such a custom; the greatest chiefs, nay, even the kings of the settled Arabs, such as Mohammed and his successors, have never received such an inauguration.

Returning to the village, we found our lodging provided in the house of a Greek Catholic family; unlike to our south country houses, it was built with ponderous rafters of timber in the roofs, and these rafters and planks between them are painted in coloured patterns. It was a cheerful scene as the family sat inquiring about Jerusalem, or chatting otherwise on the mustabeh (a wide stone seat) outside, with the effulgence of the setting sun reflected on the convent before us, and then the twilight pink and violet tints upon the mountain-range behind.

Then again in the early morning, how delicious were the air and the scenery of the mountains!

"Yet sluggards deem it but a foolish chase And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The weary mile and long, long league to trace; Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life that bloated ease may never hope to share!"

While mounting for the departure, our host pressing his hospitality upon us, adjured us in these words:--"May your religion be your adversary if ever you pass my door without entering it."

Arriving at Dair el Mokhallis we were there also received with cordiality. In the church a service was going on, gabbled over by a priest arrayed in white silk and gold, waving incense before the altar, his congregation consisting of one person, a sort of sacristan or beadle. There were some good pictures on the walls, but others together with them of degraded rank as works of art.

On being invited to visit the President, we found him a jovial, handsome man of middle age, reclining on cushions at a large window with wide views of the sea and the mountains before him, besides _Dar Joon_, Lady Hester's house.

This establishment is not only the largest convent and church of the Greek Catholic sect, but also a college for clerical education; their most celebrated clergy have been trained there. The inmates at this time, of all employments, were 110 in number, exclusive of servants. Those whom we saw appeared very well fed, and we were not a little surprised to find so many women servants employed within the walls.

A nunnery of the same rite, and rules of St Basil, with forty persons under vows, is a good building at half-a-mile distance, between which and the male institution a very excellent road has been made, notwithstanding the hilly nature of the ground; other roads are being improved, and all the contiguous grounds are in a state of the highest cultivation.

As we proceeded on our journey, the scenery became more and more romantic, till on a sudden turn of the road a wondrous picture of nature was opened before us, consisting of mountains, including our own, all sloping down into a plain in which was a river, and a village with its orchards and poplars; cascades rolled down the furrowed sides of these hills, their bounding and dashing were evident to the sight, but no sound audible owing to their distance; it was a fairy scene, or like a beautiful dream.

In the descent we passed a Maronite priest riding, attended by a guide on foot; the former was greeted by our party with his title of Abuna, a novelty to us Jerusalemites.

We forded the river _Barook_, a tributary to the Awali, in front of the above-mentioned village, which is _Bisrah_, amid tall poplars quivering in the breeze, for their foliage had stalks long like the aspen.

Our luggage having gone on during the visit to the convent, we could get no tidings of it and our people, but a guide was procured for part of the day's journey before us; and we betook ourselves to a hill over which was, what we were assured, the only road to Hhasbeya. A road so steep and thickly entangled by bushes and trees, that we inquired of every passer-by in his turn whether we could possibly be upon the _Sultaneh_, or high road. At first through an olive plantation, then among evergreen oak, and higher still the fragrant mountain pines. The zigzags of the road were necessarily so short and abrupt, that at each turn we had to peer up perpendicularly, guessing which way the next twist would go. Then still higher, towards the frowning sombre cliffs that seemed to touch the brilliant blue sky, the arbutus glowed with their scarlet berries, and the pine-trees became more tall, straight, and numerous. No wonder that the Assyrian king, when he boasted of being able to cut down the cedars of Lebanon, included also "the choice fir-trees thereof," (2 Kings xix. 23.)

Near what seemed to be the climax, we unexpectedly reached a village, named _'Azoor_, where a school of boys hummed their lessons in the open air on the shady side of a house; and near them a plank of wood was suspended, such as serves for a church-bell in parts of the country where the Moslems predominate, and bells are not tolerated. Here in the Lebanon every village and convent may have its bells; and they generally have them, for the Mohammedans scarcely exist throughout "the mountain," as the whole range is popularly termed from Tarabulus to Saida.

The higher we ascended, the more we obtained of a brisk breeze playing and sighing musically among the noble pines, and the ground was clothed with heather and fragrant herbs. Still onwards, "excelsior," the pines were more straight and lofty; there were patches of wild myrtle on the ground, some in white blossom; and we looked down upon the flat roofs of villages below, an appearance so strange to us after the round domes of the south country.

About noon we overtook the luggage, and the servant-boy of the muleteer swore that his head had turned gray since we left him, four hours ago, by reason of the bodily labour and anguish of mind that he had suffered on so fearful a road. He was incessantly calling upon God by epithets out of the Koran, as "O thou Father of bounty!" "O thou knower of former things!" mingled with curses hurled at the mule, or prayers that her back might be strengthened: being a Jerusalemite, he had not been accustomed to travelling of that description. This youth was nicknamed by his fellows as _Abu Tabanjah_, "the father of a pistol," from his carrying a single pistol in his girdle: it being unusual for persons in his employment to carry any belligerent weapons.

Next came the descent to _Jezzeen_, over a slippery road, with purple crocuses in blossom at intervals.

Jezzeen is romantically situated among broken rocks, with a stream of water, called the _Zaid_, bordered by a profusion of sycamore, (_i.e._, what is called so in England, a variety of the plane-tree,) walnut, and aspen trees. We halted beneath a spreading walnut-tree, whose leaves had already begun to change colour.

The inhabitants are Greek Catholic, Maronite, and a few Mutawaleh. Here we had to get another guide for an hour or two forwards--a task not easily accomplished--and he assured us that the road before us was far worse than that we had already traversed--he would on no account go the whole day's journey with us.

Forwards.--Thin white clouds were resting upon the peaks high above us, the vine terraces and poplars were succeeded by whitish-gray rocks and olive-trees, till we issued upon a comparative level of confused chaos of rugged rocks pitched and hurled about in the most fantastic combinations, rendering the road almost impassable for our cattle. Darker clouds than before were around, but not immediately over us; and the atmosphere was hot like the breath of a furnace, with now and then a momentary gush of piercing cold coming between sharp peaks and round summits.

In little more than two hours from Jezzeen we were at _Cuf'r Hooneh_, a pretty village surrounded by sycamore, walnut, poplar, and vineyards, with numerous running streams of water, bordered by oleanders in rosy blossom, very tall--girt in with romantic precipices, and rooks were cawing overhead. A spring of water issuing from the ground, of which we drank, was cold like ice.

After this the road improved, the rocks were more friable, and were often streaked with pink and yellow colour; indicating, I suppose, the existence of copper mineral, (see Deut. viii. 9,) "out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass," _i.e._, copper.

All about this region fossil shells were numerous.

In half an hour we attained our greatest elevation, with a long line of Mediterranean visible in the west. The Anti-Lebanon stretched before us on the east, and among the hills to the south our guide declared he could distinguish Safed. Here he left us, returning homewards.

Upon this eminence the air was reviving, and as the fervour of the sun abated, our horses recovered energy. Thence we descended to a green level space as void of inhabitants as the wild scenes that we had traversed; and from that to a stage lower, over a very long fertile plain running southwards, where we fell in with two or three of our fellow human beings, and over this the wind blew very cold. Forwards into another level, a glen of wild verdure, then through chalk fissures and red slopes, till in a moment there burst upon our view a prospect beyond all power of description in words; Mount Hermon, (Jebel esh Shaikh,) and the intervening long plain, also the Litani river on our right, winding between tremendous cliffs, and passing the castle of Shukeef towards the sea.

That river passing the foot of our mountain, and over which we had afterwards to cross, appeared like a narrow ribbon of pale green, so silent was it to us, for no sound from that depth could reach up so high; to this we had to descend by a precipitous path of zigzags roughly made in the face of the hill.

Half way down I first distinguished the rushing sound of the water; a flock of goats upon its margin resembled mere black spots, but the bells among them became faintly audible.

On reaching the river Litani, (the classic Leontes, and named the "Kasimiyeh" when debouching to the sea near Tyre,) we found it to be a strong stream, and the dark border, which from a distance had seemed to be low bushes, were in truth gigantic and numerous trees; on our way to the bridge, along the river side for some distance, were parapets erected for the safety of travellers and flocks of cattle.

It was after sunset, but we rested awhile to stretch our limbs after the cramp brought on by the steep and long descent.

The moon was shining as we crossed the bridge, and its light was broken in the heady dashing of the stream; the land swelled gradually upwards as we proceeded S.-E. till we passed a ridge and turned N.-E. to the village of _Cocaba_ on the great plain, which has the river _Hhasbani_ flowing through it, from which village we got directions how to find Hhasbeya. Thoroughly tired as we all were, the rest of the way was most wearisome, though not so much so as it would have been in the heat of day, after so many hours on horseback. The night was bright and clear.

Reached _Hhasbeya_ in thirteen hours from Joon in the morning.

The town is perched up in the line of the Anti-Lebanon, at the end of a _cul-de-sac_ running inwards from the plain, and stands at an elevation of more than 2000 feet above the sea-level, though this is scarcely apparent by reason of the lofty mountains everywhere around, especially Hermon, under the shadow of which Hhasbeya is nestled. This was the cleanest town and the one in best repair at that time that I had hitherto seen in Palestine or Syria; what it may be since the calamities of 1860, I know not. The majority of the inhabitants were Christian, with a good many Druses, and a few Moslems and Jews.

We had a most friendly reception from the native Protestants, and from the governor, Ameer Saad ed Deen Shehab and his family.

In the afternoon of the next day we passed on to _Banias_. How different a matter is travelling in that country from merely drawing a pencil line across the map from one point to another, and measuring the distance of that line. By such a method of making a journey it is but a trifle of thirty miles from Soor to Hhasbeya, and less than a hundred and twenty from the latter to Jerusalem. (I mention these places because they belong to the journey here described,) and it may be said by stay-at-home travellers in a carpeted saloon, at a mahogany table, that these distances can be covered on horseback in a determinate number of hours, allowing so many miles to an hour; but Palestine is not so smooth as the greater part of England, and the ways (one cannot well call them roads) are not drawn in direct lines; climate also counts for something; and unforeseen incidents will occur to mar the plans of even those habituated to the country.

To-day's progress, however, was tolerably plain, though not level, and it occupied six or seven hours.

In an hour and a half we caught first sight of the lake _Hhooleh_ (the Semechonitis of Josephus) in the due south, and at this point we entered upon a district strewn with volcanic basalt, in dark-brown pieces, porous and rounded at the edges. A peasant directed us forwards to the _Tell el Kadi_, which at length we reached--an eminence rising from the plain, out of which issues a river all formed at once, gushing from the hill over a stony bed. This is one of the heads of the Jordan, and the place is that of _Dan_, which Josephus erroneously supposed to supply the last syllable of that river's name.

But beyond all question it is the site of the city Dan known throughout Scripture history for many ages, and under a variety of circumstances: among the rest for the forcible invasion of it by a number of colonists from the tribe of Dan in the south of Palestine, where they found their allotted district too strait for their possession; and being established here, they gave the city the name of their patriarchal chief.

That history of their migration reads with peculiar interest and force on the spot, and strange to say that Tell el Kadi seems to retain their tribal name, inasmuch as _Tell_ signifies "a hill," and Kadi is but the Arabic for the Hebrew word _Dan_, "a judge," (Gen. xlix. 16.) It is not however common, very much the contrary, for names to be transmitted in this way according to their signification through the lapse of ages--they are usually perpetuated through their orthography.

The Amorite or Sidonian people living here "at ease" were worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth, or Astarte. Suddenly they were assailed by the Danites, who "smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned their city with fire;" and the newcomers set up "the graven image, and the molten image, and the teraphim," which they had stolen on their way thither over Mount Ephraim, appointing the young Levite, the owner of the images, to be priest of their idolatry. In later times it was a station of the golden calf of Jeroboam's institution, that is to say, the revived emblem of Baal, going back to the practice of the Leshemites; and there is yet an idea prevailing in our days that the Druses of the neighbourhood retain that emblem or idol among them--a remarkable instance of the perpetuity of idolatry, and one form of idolatry under different names, modified only by circumstances in the same locality. I forbear to pursue further the reflections that can be evolved at large from that idea, as they might bring us into other countries than Syria or Palestine.

Riding our horses up the full stream for a short distance, we forded it, and entered into the shade upon the hill, where we reposed under a large evergreen oak, decorated with rags as votive offerings to an Arab shaikh buried beside it. Near this tree is an extraordinary jungle of brambles and gigantic flowering shrubs, through which it seemed impossible to penetrate, but out of which tangled mass the copious stream issues, as also a minor current, which after some deflection meets the other, and forms one stream on leaving the hill, and this, when joined by the waters of Banias, to which we were now going, combines into one river, Jordan, then enters and passes through the Lake Hhooleh. For the present I omit the consideration of the Hhasbani and its spring, which not only helps to form the Jordan, but actually commences further beyond the springs of Dan and Banias.

It wanted about an hour to sunset when we turned in eastwards, round the foot of old Hermon, for _Banias_, the Caesarea Philippi of the New Testament, whose hill and ancient castle appeared not far distant.

We observed numerous small runlets of water flowing from the north and east towards the Tell el Kadi, one especially of nearly four feet wide. Yet with all these blessings the district is mostly neglected, and abandoned to a sparse population of wretched Ghawarineh Arabs and their buffaloes.

We passed through neb'k trees and stunted oaks, some karoobah trees and sumach about twenty feet high, with their red berries, besides myrtles almost as lofty. Signs of the existence of inhabitants appeared in patches of cultivation and an occasional flock of goats. Trees became closer together than at first, and at length Banias stood in face of us, touching the foot of Hermon, which formed a magnificent background of receding heights, but its summit withdrawn from view at that position. An ancient castle crowns a high peak rising above the village, and which for grandeur of situation and noble aspect is unsurpassed by any ruin that I have seen in Syria. Yet how small was all this in comparison with the mighty mass at its back! I regret the having been unable to examine this remarkable fortress, the modern name of which is the _Kula'at es Subeibeh_.