Chapter VIII · WEST OF THE JORDAN

Very few things in the East fulfil adequately the purposes for which they are intended, and we were not at all surprised when the soldier, who arrived punctually at six o'clock next morning, and who had many graces, and possibly all the virtues, appeared mounted on a horse utterly unfit for the fatiguing journey we contemplated. We accordingly despatched him back to the serai, with thanks and compliments, and a message to the effect that we should prefer a better article. These little matters consume a great deal of time, and a proportionate amount of bad language, and to economise the one, and avoid the other, we went for a walk. Our kindly companion, who had been for some years a dispenser in the Scottish hospital in Tiberias, seemed to think there would be no objection to a trespass into the grounds of the mudir's private house, and obligingly lent a hand while we collected the antique busts which were dispersed about his garden, and arranged them on garden seats with a view to photography. It is not every day one comes across half-a-dozen perfect specimens of Greek art never photographed before; and so obliging an amateur of beauty as the mudir had proved himself, would assuredly have understood and pardoned our temptation had he been up, which (perhaps happily, as some element of doubt remained) he was not. We then walked somewhat farther, feasted our eyes once more upon all the pleasant things of Besan, classical and modern, and when on our return we still found the incompetent steed tied up at the entrance to our khan, we wandered off to the serai, and finally possessed ourselves of an alternative soldier, although with some suspicion that this time it was the man, and not the horse, who was incompetent.

Neither Khalil nor the Artist had a high opinion of the plan cherished by the Lady and the Doctor—one feared scarcity of barley for the horses, the other of the amenities of civilisation for herself. The Artist, however, could not speak Arabic, so if there were any collusion with the officer it could only have been on the part of Khalil. We had not, however, gone far from Besan, only far enough to be beyond reach of appeal, when we were presented with a series of pictures of the impossibilities ahead. No one knew where the Meshalcha Bedu were at present encamped—the place where they would undoubtedly be found was quite beyond a day's journey; we had started too late (it was already eight o'clock) to venture on so great a risk; it was not certain how we should be received. The consequences to ourselves were painted in vivid colours, but all these observations had for us an interest that was merely psychological and linguistic, as exhibiting the way in which the Arab mind worked. The Arab imagination was not daunted, however, and the next shot told. The fords of the Jordan would be impassable—had we not seen how full the Jalûd was, had not the little stream we had even now crossed reached to the knees of the horses, had not all the streams been drinking away there up in the hills, where Allah had so lately sent us the blessing of rain? The Lady and the Doctor looked guiltily at each other. The one put confidence in Sadowi, the other in his own inches; but if they should find they had inveigled the Artist into floating down the Jordan with not so much as an insurance upon her kodak! The Lady, somewhat disingenuously, began to enlarge upon the prospect of visiting Pella, in hope of extracting an expression of desire, which might be quotable in case of emergency; but her friend showed no enthusiasm for Greek cities, declined to endorse ravings over early Christian refugees, and asked if any other way were shorter. Khalil's honour was appealed to, as to the veracity of the soldier's allegations. He swore upon his beard, which he did not possess, and upon his eyes, of which only one was in working order, upon his head and his heart, that the thing was impossible.

What were we to do? Go meekly back to Besan, abandon all our prospects, our tent of many poles (we had been assured that we must not think of entering one with less than three, and that our dignity really required even more), our tattooed ladies with the trains of their dresses in front, our stately shech, who would undoubtedly kill a sheep and bake cakes for us, like the patriarchs did when they had guests—return to the banalities of Nablûs, where children asked for backsheesh, and finally ride home along a commonplace highroad to Jerusalem?

"When the tale of bricks is doubled Moses comes," say the Arabs—and the soldier had an idea. We were to descend the banks of the Jordan on the west side. We had been assured that no one ever did this, that the district was very wild, and even lawless, and that the few Bedu we might chance to meet were such as we should not care to house with. However, we had our soldier, who looked effective (at a distance), and was bristling with weapons, and it would be quite interesting to sleep in the desert, light a fire to keep off wild beasts, and take turns to mount guard, like a boys' story book. Apparently, however, it need not come to this. Somewhere in the wilderness was a serai, a little fortress or Government building, which existed for the accommodation of tax-collectors, and there we could, no doubt, find shelter. We were somewhat inclined to believe that the whole thing was "a put-up job," arranged before we left, and that our soldier's journey was being utilised for conveying despatches, or more, probably, messages, from the parent Government establishment in Besan. However, we could only submit; had we persisted, our leader was not so unintelligent as not to see that his prophecies were fulfilled, and we wheeled round, and turned off to the south-east, fairly content with our prospects after all.

We had followed the west side of the Jordan from the Sea of Tiberias to Besan, and now we were to follow it down to its fall into the Dead Sea—65 miles in all. Our path lay in the deep valley between the hills of Gilead on the east and the hills of Samaria and Judæa on the west—a valley which the Arabs very suitably call El-Ghor—i.e. The Rift. It varies in width from 6 or 7 miles in the district of Besan to about 3 for some 13 miles alongside the hills of Samaria, widening by slow degrees till near Jericho, when it stretches out into a plain, as at Besan. The river winds and twists deep down at the bottom, its course marked all the way by an exuberant fertility, often extending for some distance east and west, showing where tributary streams are hastening down from the watersheds above. We rode, for the most part, upon somewhat higher ground, on terraces of land at the foot, or on the side of, the hills, as the case might be, and were often able to look down into this deep hollow of vivid green, reminding us, in exaggerated form, as so much in this land is exaggerated, of a north country ghyll. To realise its depth one has to remember that it is deeper below the earth's surface than an average coal mine, that it is really an old sea-bottom, and that the rapidity of the stream, falling at first 40 feet in a mile, accounts for the weird forms of washed-out mounds of earth, for the exposed tree roots, for the heaps of débris of all kinds. The name of the Jordan is not composed of the two names Jor and Dan, as the early pilgrims so ingeniously conjectured, but means, appropriately, the "downcomer."

For some distance, all around and below Besan, there are abundant signs of extreme fertility. In ancient times it was noted for corn, dates, balsam, flax, and sugar-cane. The edicts of Diocletian refer to its trade in linen, and Vespasian settled his troops in this district as one capable of bearing a large additional population. In the course of the morning we crossed over a score of streams, and many remains of aqueducts showed how, in old days, they had been turned to the utmost account for irrigation. When we had passed but a few miles beyond Besan, we lost all traces of human habitation, although not of human handiwork, for wide patches of well-cultivated land testified that, like the Israelites of old, the hill population only comes down to sow, guard, and reap its harvests. Indeed, for the greater part of the year the Ghor would be uninhabitable. Its hothouse vegetation implies also a hothouse climate; its swamps are beautiful but malarious; its streams are valuable for irrigation but death-dealing to drink, impregnated with chlorides and sodium, and rank with decaying vegetable matter.

From time to time we came across small groups of Bedawy tents, mainly of a humble kind, although now and then a tent of three poles, with a lance planted at the doorway, testified to the presence of a shech. Within but a short distance we were certain to find large flocks of lambs, white and woolly, a rare sight to us, accustomed only to the goats capable of enduring the aridity of the Jerusalem district, and familiar with sheep only as household pets, sharing equally with the cat and the water-pipe. The problem which at first presented itself was: What had become of all the mothers? The answer was generally found a mile or so farther on, in some green spot, whither they had been driven for pasture, to be brought back later, to the safety of the camp, and the needs of their nurslings.

It seemed to us that we now and then climbed hills for the sake of descending them, and that more than once we went across country to return to the neighbourhood of the point from which we started; but, after all, it is difficult to judge of distances with only distant mountains for landmarks, and one part of such a valley as the Ghor is very much like another. We were to lunch beside the Wady Mâlih, the first stream on this part of our journey suitable alike for horse and man, but the wady was long in coming. At intervals we inquired as to its whereabouts, and were always told it was ba'ad wahad saar—"after half-an-hour"—and after about four half-hours, when the horses were getting somewhat weary, and our eyes ached from the glare of the sand, we entered a narrow valley, a wonderful garden of loveliness. For some time we had seen no animal life except lizards, an occasional jerboa (a pretty little miniature kangaroo), and occasional birds of prey—ravens, eagles, and griffon-vultures—flying high in the heavens towards some horse or camel, dead or dying. Here, at the very entrance of the valley, we disturbed innumerable pairs of busy little chats, among the daintiest of the bird creation (saxicola libanotica); and, almost equally graceful as to outline, although of a reddish-brown colour, like a robin, the little desert larks, which chattered rather than sang, as they hovered over the tangle of bulrushes and sedge-grass.

Now and then we saw a gorgeous kingfisher, blue as sapphires, turquoises—blue as the sky itself. A little later we should probably have found storks, "the father of legs" as the Arabs call them, who arrive in the early spring in immense numbers, and add to the general fairy-tale effect of this country. The stream was concealed by a thicket of verdure, bordered, on slightly higher ground, by oleanders and willows, above them a belt of white poplars and tamarisks; while the steep, sloping banks were clothed with the bushes of the graceful capers, just coming into leaf, rival, in Palestine, of our own wild rose; while everywhere chrysanthemums, ornithogalums, scented stocks, hawkweeds, and centaureas promised abundance of colour if we would but await their coming.

We clamoured for an immediate halt—where could we find so inviting a spot?—but our attendants turned a deaf ear, and pressed on, gradually mounting to higher ground, and leaving our beautiful, but probably malarious, swamp behind. We dismounted finally on a little knoll crowned with trees, the stream, now clear of foliage, and accessible for the horses, winding about its foot, and a gay little waterfall making music for us beyond. Here we lunched and rested, and then we had an illustration, characteristic of this country, of the wild-beast habits of the Arab. We are well accustomed to the fact that real solitude is here, in an ordinary way, impossible. You may scan the horizon, and see no sign of humanity for miles, but within a few minutes a picturesque Arab is beside you, asking impudently for backsheesh, insinuating that the hour is propitious for the smoking of tobacco, or offering you water or milk, according to the degree of his association with the improving influences of European civilisation. In the desert the Arab is still a gentleman, and the little group which suddenly appeared within a few feet of us—though for a dozen miles at least we had not seen so much humanity as might be implied by the presence of a single goat—offered no incivility, although they were mainly women, and therefore, as a rule, inferior in courtesy to the men. They did not even stare unduly; in fact, not half so much as we did at them. It is a curious and invariable fact that here, Arabs spring out of the earth, like London boys at an accident.

We did not feel entire confidence in our cicerone, as such; and as it was already late we dared not linger, and by three o'clock we had mounted our horses, forded the Mâlih, and, mounting the steep acclivity beyond, found ourselves on high ground, which is the watershed for the innumerable wadys which wander down to the sinuous Jordan on our left. Hence we could look back to the hoary head of the Jebel es-Shech, of Mount Hermon, and forward to the Jebel Osha in the Belka; while on the hither side a break in the hills showed where the river Jabbok, another old friend of our last ride, was working its winding way down to the Jordan. If we had but known it—such information being far from the thoughts and interests of our escort, even had they known it themselves—we ought to have turned aside some four hours later to see the caverns of Makhrûd, which are, so far as we can learn, valuable alike to the geologist, and to the student of natural history.

However, we kept on our way, on somewhat high ground, till we entered a fertile valley, tending gradually to the south-east, and which our escort saluted with joy as the Wady Faria, in which our quarters for the night were situated. Here, ba'ad wahad sa'a—"after one hour"—we should be at the end of our journey. Well-cultivated fields surrounded us, and even climbed the hill beyond, evidences of the existence of a population which remained invisible: not a tent, not a single human being was in sight. We descended yet deeper, the hour passed, and yet another, and we found ourselves in a wide plain, which we crossed to the eastward. "Ba'ad nus sâ'a" was now the promise—"after half-an-hour"; varied after yet another hour by "ba'ad chamseh sâ'a"—"after a quarter of an hour." Our guide had clearly gone too far west, and had struck the wady at the point farthest from our destination. The twilight fell, and it was then clearly evident that we had lost our way. The soldier had the sense to follow the stream, as likely to conduct us ultimately to our destination; but we had lost the path, and it was sorely rough riding. Darkness descended with true Oriental abruptness; moon there was none, and clouds obscured the stars. Suddenly Sadowi, who was foremost, declined to move, and the Artist's horse stumbled; the men got off, and felt the ground. We were on the edge of a precipice, the horses were already entangled in the rough brushwood, a perpendicular wall rose to our right—to turn back was impossible. The ladies dismounted, and placed themselves on a ledge of rock, out of the way of the uneasy horses. Khalil, afraid for the safety of his animals, broke forth into violent abuse of the soldier, whose curses, in return, were not loud but deep. The Doctor commanded silence, some of which he utilised for the expression of his own opinions. After much searching, in all the wrong places, some candles were produced, and lighted, upon which the rain most unexpectedly descended in torrents, and put them out. Anything, however, seemed better than inaction: two of us finally contrived, by means of holding the candles within our cloaks to shed enough light in front of us, to make some kind of progress; while the soldier with another went ahead. Khalil followed with the five horses, who picked their way with their usual cleverness, unencumbered except by saddle-bags, which now and then caught upon the bushes, and were disengaged with a jerk which would have reduced anything, but goats' hair, to rags. We contrived, somehow, to reach the top of the bank, and were much cheered to see, a mile or so ahead of us, a flickering light, and to hear the barking of dogs—always a welcome sound when one is in the dark and far from shelter. After half-an-hour of very rough scrambling we found ourselves again upon a path, which conducted us direct to the welcome light. This we found to proceed from a great fire in the midst of a Bedawy camp—a weird spectacle in such surroundings. We were challenged at various points by their scouts: shislu?—"Who goes there"; but, fortunately, the reply: sahib—"A friend"—appeared to be satisfactory. When we came into the camp we were immediately surrounded by the inquiring population, who offered no discourtesy; all the same, we considered it wise to keep an eye upon the contents of our saddle-bags. The open space was encumbered with cows and sheep, and the glare of an immense bonfire added to our bewilderment. The children and women gathered round us, and touched our clothes, though with far more gentleness than would be shown in London to, say, a group of Australian natives—and we must have seemed not less strange to our new friends. The serai was yet far, they averred, the night was dark, the road was rough; would we not remain with them? We escaped their kindly importunity with what grace we could, and left Khalil to bargain for a guide—a process quite as characteristically grasping as their would-be hospitality was characteristically liberal. Khalil offered a bishlik (6d.); they held out for four piasters (8d.); finally a compromise was effected upon a bishlik and a packet of tobacco. We may remark that when, at the end of the drama, we produced the tobacco from our stores Khalil intercepted the gift, and stipulated that it should not be bestowed till the Bedu, whose activity had been stimulated at the sight of so unwonted a luxury, had helped him to water the horses. We were soon picking our way among ruins too dark to distinguish, but which we believe to have been those of the ancient Archelais, erected by Herod Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great. Before long we were on a good path; the rain stopped, the stars came out, the Lady remounted her horse, and the spirits of the party rose again. Soon we were cheered by the steady gleam of a stationary light, and finally we clattered over a bridge and under a great gateway, and found ourselves in the court of the serai.

We received a friendly welcome from a gigantic negro, and were at once shown into a large room, with windows high up near the roof, and a door opening into the courtyard, around three sides of which the house was built; while the fourth was enclosed with a wall the height of the building, with a strong iron-clad door—everything, apparently, being arranged with a view to security. An official, said to be the lawyer or secretary of the establishment, politely vacated the guest-room on our behalf. Our saddle-bags were brought in, and, well content with shelter and the prospect of food, we prepared to make our arrangements for the night, our room being already not ill-furnished, all things considered, with a large rush mat and a lamp. Our host, however, proposed further hospitalities. We were well supplied with water, then with a charcoal stove for heating our soup, and finally with excellent and spotlessly clean bedding. The arrival of guests at so late an hour proved somewhat disturbing to the domestic animals housed in the courtyard, who crowed, and quacked, and barked, and mewed, according to their nature. Khalil came in to say good-night, the Bedu to be paid, the gigantic negro to inquire after our comfort, various black and white cats to solicit alms; but finally all was quiet, and we had not long to wait for sleep.

We were up betimes next morning, and enjoyed an early toilet beside the Fâria, not without a passing thought of pity for friends in England, and the different conditions which would make it less attractive there to rise at half-past five on the 10th of January, and bathe in a mountain stream. We were in the rich oasis of Karâwa, the Koreæ of Josephus, famous in ancient times for the finest sugar-canes known. Westward rose the great peak of the Karn Sartabeh, towering 2227 feet above us, although only 1243 feet above sea-level. This was one of the chain of peaks upon which, in old times (according to the Talmud), beacon fires were lighted at the time of the new moon, especially to proclaim the harvest and thanksgiving festivals. The top is covered with ruins, which, with much else in this practically unknown district, we hope some time to explore thoroughly.

Khalil, who had slept out all night, to take care of his horses, complained loudly of the cold; but our soldier, whom everyone here addressed as "Haj," denoting that he had made the Mecca pilgrimage, was quite cheery and unashamed, probably much relieved that we had entered no complaint of his incompetence at the serai. Khalil assured us of his own entire ability to take charge of the party; but as the infallible Baedeker says that for the journey in the west Jordan valley "an escort is indispensable," we decided to take our soldier on to Jericho. His weapons, though rust-eaten, looked quite effective, and for anything we knew his gun might really have gone off in an emergency, or as the kind friend in Jerusalem who provided part of our own armoury had advised, when a good echo made it "worth while to bang away."

The greatest interest to-day lay in the number of Tells, which might well repay more careful attention than has yet been bestowed upon them, and which indicate that, in spite of the forcing-house temperature of this district, it must have been at one time fairly well populated.

Our curiosity was aroused by a group of large birds perched on a rock at some little distance, and apparently motionless. We shouted at them, but they declined to rise. We discovered through our field-glasses that they were vultures, at least a score in number, and included a pair of young ones, no bigger than hens, and of a creamy white.

We were not long in reaching the pleasant Ain Fesail, the head of the Wady Fesail, which runs down into the Wady el Abyad, and meets the Jordan in the valley some two or three miles below. Here were wide green meadows, shady trees, and abundance of water, which, for the first time since last night's adventures, incited our horses to some return of cheerfulness. We had time to linger and to explore the adjacent ruins of Phasælis, and the animals were relieved of all their encumbrances that they might enjoy a roll in the fresh grass. The Lady rejoiced especially on behalf of Sadowi, who had been lately so much depressed that she had conceived the theory that the journey, which, owing to circumstances, had been slow, and therefore in some respects tedious, had been too much for him. She had even shown a sentimental desire to walk up hills, had not the Doctor sternly refused to remount her should she carry it into effect. Whether a whole field of grass all at once had the effect of intoxication upon a Jerusalem horse—the chance of a lifetime—or whether it suddenly dawned upon him that yonder were the hills of Judæa, and that he was, therefore, within twenty-four hours of home, we shall never know, but the steady Sadowi suddenly threw care, not to say respectability, to the winds, and started on a fantasia of his own. He tore off like a war-horse at sound of the trumpet, a hunter at sight of the hounds, a saucy colt in the meadows. The other horses, stimulated by evil example, executed minor interludes; Khalil and the haj scampered right and left, and one by one brought in the truants, all but the ringleader, Sadowi, who entirely refused to be caught, and we advised Khalil to desist, in the hope that he would return of his own accord. Some time later, a shout from Khalil roused our attention, and we saw him leading in a sedate and repentant Sadowi by the halter. "He ran and ran from me like the devil himself," explained his master, with some confusion of ideas, "when all at once he became afraid, and stood and trembled." The Lady seized the occasion to express a hope that this came from no recollection of previous ill-treatment, upon which Khalil threw his arms round the creature's neck, and kissed him passionately. He kicked and swore at him a few minutes later, but the horse seemed equally indifferent to both processes.

The ruins close by are those of Phasælis, a town which Herod the Great named after his brother Phasælus, and which he presented to his sister Salome, who left it to her friend, Julia Livia, the wife of the Emperor Augustus. It stood beside the excellent highroad which we had for some time been following, and which seems to have extended the whole way from Jericho up to Cæsarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon, and near the source of the Jordan, probably bordered by a forest of palms, at one time extensively cultivated here. The town has no architectural beauty, but, like the twin town of Archelais, is delightfully situated.

It was unfortunate that we had not been advised to make the slight detour up to the foot of the hills to visit the ruins of El Aujeh, and still more that we missed the caverns of Es Sumrah, some ten miles south, described by Tristram. They are sand-stone quarries, resembling those known as Solomon's quarries in Jerusalem, and have been worked so as to resemble huge grottoes. Tristram counted fifty-four pillars still left, and gives an interesting description of the traces of the wild beasts by which they are at present tenanted, and of the bones of camels, oxen, and sheep, which had been their victims.

The ride over the wide plain was exhilarating. Some of the party could now press forward, as we were nearing a more frequented district, and even the Lady was convinced that there was no need to spare the horses. As we neared Jericho we found ourselves enveloped in a sudden dust-storm, and had to give up certain schemes for botanising in the neighbourhood. Even next morning we were warned to be off without delay, in order to secure good weather for the ride to Jerusalem.

The last scene of our drama reminded us, effectually, that we had got back to "the cab-shafts of civilisation," as represented by the Turkish Government. We found the courtyard of the Inn of the Good Samaritan crowded with soldiers, and the level ground all about with laden donkeys; while excited fellahin shouted and cursed and quarrelled, or—a sight rare and pathetic among Arabs—sat still. They were peasants from the village of Bethany, returning home with corn from Moab, and intercepted by the tax-gatherers, who saw an excellent opportunity for their business. One poor wretch who had sought to escape them by making his way round through the hills had been seized, and was now in custody in the inn-yard. The worthy host was absent, but was efficiently represented by his two little boys, who ought to have been playing marbles or whipping tops, but were, instead, keeping up the character of the establishment, and perfectly capable of dealing with the problems before them, even to catching the chickens and turkeys, and shutting them up that they might not be robbed by the soldiers, who were here to see that the peasants were effectually robbed by the tax-gatherers, while they, the little boys, in turn showed considerable experience in robbing their guests.

From the point of view of the continuity of history and the homogeneousness of humanity it is at least interesting to know that even now, with all modern improvements of robbers licensed, uniformed, and salaried, one may still go down from Jerusalem to Jericho and be quite certain of falling among thieves.

But the storm did not come. The sun was bright, the air was clear, kind friends awaited us in Jerusalem, and we were content to believe that the desert of life has many oases: