



Produced by Chris Pinfield and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)





Transcriber's Note.

Apparent typographical errors have been corrected. The use of hyphens has
been rationalised. Variations in the use of accents have been retained.

Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small capitals have been
replaced by full capitals. Two lines in blackletter font are indicated
by +plus signs+.




IN A SYRIAN SADDLE

BY

A. GOODRICH-FREER

 AUTHOR OF
 "INNER JERUSALEM," "OUTER ISLES," ETC.

 METHUEN & CO
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
 LONDON


_First Published in 1905_


 THIS RECORD IS DEDICATED

 BY THE LADY
 TO THE DOCTOR

 ON THE EVE OF STARTING TOGETHER UPON A LONGER JOURNEY




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

 IN MOAB
    I. GOING TO JERICHO                                           1
   II. STEPPING EASTWARD                                         20
  III. MADABA                                                    51
   IV. MSHATTA                                                   64
    V. AMMÂN                                                     93
   VI. JERASH, AND THE FORDS OF JABBOK                          116
  VII. ES-SALT                                                  145
 VIII. THE JORDAN VALLEY                                        161

 IN GALILEE AND SAMARIA
    I. TO NABLUS                                                178
   II. TO SAMARIA                                               194
  III. TO TAANAK AND MEGIDDO                                    217
   IV. HAIFA AND CARMEL                                         244
    V. NAZARETH AND TABOR                                       258
   VI. THE SEA OF GALILEE                                       277
  VII. TIBERIAS AND BESAN                                       302
 VIII. WEST OF THE JORDAN                                       323

 INDEX                                                          347


IN A SYRIAN SADDLE


IN MOAB




CHAPTER I

GOING TO JERICHO

 "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho"


Life is, in many respects, made very easy in the Holy Land. You can
return home in the afternoon with no anxious forebodings as to how much
waste of time is awaiting you in the shape of cards and notes on the
hall table; you may wear clothes for covering, you may eat for
nourishment; without taking thought for fashion in the one case, or of
competition with your neighbour's cook or gardener in the other.
But—according to our Occidental standards—you cannot consistently
indulge any taste you may happen to have for being grand. Your attempts
at a London, or shall we say a suburban, drawing-room, your "At Home"
days, your Europeanised service, the dress of your womankind—distantly
reminiscent of the ladies' papers and of Answers to Correspondents—are
certain to be complicated by some _contretemps_ provocative only of
mirth. The Oriental himself makes no attempt at being consistent. When
you arrive at his house he spreads a priceless carpet, but omits to
remove last week's dust from off the furniture; he gives you perfumed
coffee, which is like a dream of Olympus, and his servant brings you a
piece of bread in his fingers.

These reflections, and many more, were suggested during the waiting
which accompanied our start in the early sunrise at half-past five on
Saturday, 3rd October 1903. No one could have guessed how grand we
really were, and there were moments then, and later, when the fact
escaped even our own notice. We four, the Lady, the Doctor (of various
forms of scholarship) and the two Sportsmen, were the chosen and proud
companions of the Professor; and the Professor, besides being the
greatest epigraphist in Europe, was the representative of a Royal
Personage, and armed with all the permits and safe-conducts and special
privileges useful in a land of cholera, quarantine, and backsheesh. Our
eight horses were innocent of grooming, and their equipment was fastened
together mainly with tin tacks, pieces of rope, and bits of string; but
it would have been difficult to find in England any animal to whom you
could have proposed, still less with whom you could have carried
through, one tithe of what our ragged regiment accomplished. Our two
grooms, _mukaris_, appealed to certain senses as vaguely horsey, though
they suggested nothing more distinguished than stable-helps; but their
management of eight animals, under conditions which seemed especially
designed for their destruction, when there was not a blade of grass,
perhaps for a whole day not a drop of water; when they were ridden for
ten, twelve, or even fourteen hours at a stretch with merely an hour's
rest—without forage—at noon, would have done credit to any groom at
Badminton or Berkeley. As we proposed to ourselves both pleasure and
profit we took no servants—still less a dragoman. Our portable food had
been very carefully selected, and was the best obtainable. Bread, eggs,
chickens, grapes, and lemons we could count upon getting as we went
along.

Each member of the party had clothing and a blanket in a pair of
saddle-bags—mostly of goats' hair or camels' hair, gaily decorated with
 tassels—and these, with an extra pair for the baskets of food,
spirit-lamps, plates, knives, and tin cups, were distributed among the
three baggage animals, who also carried, in turn, the two mukaris,
perched on the top of the pile, but capable of climbing up and down with
incredibly rapid agility.

At length the cavalcade was ready, and we turned our faces towards
Jericho. First came the Professor, on a tall, white Circassian horse,
with a tail which almost swept the ground, and was dyed with henna for
protection from the Evil One, who was further defied, by each of us, by
means of a large blue bead hanging round the neck of every horse on a
 worsted rope. The Professor himself exhibited five foot of
humanity, mostly brains; a personality which consisted, to the eye, of a
large scarlet and gold silk _keffeeye_ (head covering) with a goats'
hair _akal_ (rope to keep it in place) and an elaborate silk fringe,
below which emerged a pair of black leggings, into one of which a whip
was jauntily stuck. He was mounted on a peaked, military saddle, and he
alone of all the party refused to be separated from his saddle-bags,
which contained an assortment of cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and the
long wooden pipe, for use in the saddle, such as is in favour with the
Bedu.

Next came the Lady, mounted on a long-legged Arab steed, several sizes
too large for her, but selected for her use mainly because he could do
the _rahwân_, the light canter special to the desert horses, and which
reduces fatigue to a minimum. It was discovered, later in the day, that
he was also capable, apparently, of running for the Derby, an incident
which may as well be recorded at once, as it resulted in his banishment
to the second class, and the society of the mukaris.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho still retains the character recorded
some two thousand years ago, but the thieves among whom you inevitably
fall are now licensed by the Government. There is a whole village full
of them, called Abu-dis, and they have the privilege of protecting
travellers from Bethany to Jericho—that is, of enforcing payment for
preventing anyone else from robbing you. It is but some few years ago
that an Englishman, suspected of seeking to dispense with this
advantage, had his donkey shot under him. At Bethany, accordingly, we
were joined by our escort, but, as became our dignity, he was an
officer, picturesquely attired, and mounted, unfortunately, on a
beautiful Arab mare. The misfortune lay in the fact that all our horses,
with one exception, were stallions, most of whom became restless and
uneasy, that of the Professor so unmanageable that our escort was
compelled to leave us, and to take to bypaths from which he could, more
or less, keep us in sight. Nevertheless, even the temporary
companionship had somewhat excited the entire cavalcade. We were all in
good spirits, and it must be confessed that there was a certain amount
of what may be called "fooling"—of what we would not for worlds
describe as "showing off," but, rather, as trying the paces of our
steeds—an amusement which the Professor saw reason, later, to forbid
entirely.

The road to Jericho is a descent of over three thousand feet, but at a
point nearly half way, a long and steep climb brings you from the
transverse valley Sa'b-el-Meshak to the Khan of the Good Samaritan. At
this point it occurred to the Lady's horse to have a private exhibition
on his own account, and to set off at a truly breakneck gallop, with
which no other animal in the party could possibly compete, even had it
been wise to follow, except at a considerable distance. Her strength was
quite inadequate to check him, but in the length and steepness of the
hill lay promise of safety, and it was with infinite relief that he was
seen to pull up at last. He had no vice, but the occasion was not one
for a steeplechase, and it was decided that, on the morrow, there should
be a "general post" of horses, the mukari being made responsible for his
Derby winner, and the Professor arranging, by exchange with one of the
Sportsmen, to ride an animal which would admit of conversation with the
officer, for such attainments as our leader's have not been achieved by
sitting in a library, or by confinement to the professorial chair of his
university, but rather by personal intercourse with the Arabs in the
various dialects of their own clans, by life in the desert, and
association with wandering tribes in the unexplored districts of the
Peræa Haurân and of Central Arabia.

The Sportsmen carried guns, the Doctor a notebook—though he was more
than suspected of yearning for a rifle,—the revolver which he carried at
his belt being better adapted for the murder of man than of beast—not
that the murder of man, to judge from the experiences of earlier
travellers, was a wholly improbable contingency. Our road led us along
almost the entire length of the north and east wall of Jerusalem; we
then crossed the bridge over the Kedron valley—the brook, if any exist,
is now far below the surface; we passed the Garden of Gethsemane,
skirted the southern <DW72> of the Mount of Olives, hastened past the
filthy hovels of the little village of Bethany, crowned by the so-called
Castle of Lazarus, probably the remains of a pre-crusading Benedictine
convent, and finally, about seven o'clock, pulled up at what is known as
the Inn of the Apostles' Fountain, just such a building as a child might
draw upon a slate. As this is the only well between Bethany and Jericho
it may be safely assumed that the apostles, coming up to Jerusalem,
would drink here, though it is to be hoped that it was less contaminated
than at present; for even the careless natives strain the water through
a sieve before allowing their animals to drink, though, nevertheless,
they still acquire leeches, as the bleeding mouths of the camels and
donkeys one meets along the road frequently betray. The spot has been
marked by a succession of buildings; a little white dome over the well,
and some hewn stones and the ruins of an aqueduct in the hill across the
road, being all that now remains of its old dignity.

Passing the Khan of the Good Samaritan—a modern inn and curiosity shop,
at which you can, at your leisure, renew "a certain man's"
experiences—we paused at the top of the last hill before descending
towards the Jordan valley. Here the entire neighbourhood was once
commanded by a strong mediæval castle, intended, like many all over the
country, for the defence of the district. The tribal marks of the Bedu
to be found on its walls are of extreme interest. The hill upon which it
stands is known as Tel'at ed-Dam, the hill of blood, probably from the
red colour of the rock, though some have sought to identify it, by
reason of the sound of the name, with the Adummim of Joshua xv. 7.

The view from this point is, in certain details, absolutely unique. You
look down at the lowest spot upon the earth's surface—the hollow of the
Dead Sea, blue as the sky in the morning sunshine, flecked with
cloudlike wavelets, beautiful, gay and smiling, but bitter, treacherous,
and the home only of mystery and death. The water contains about
twenty-five per cent. of solid substances; no organism higher than such
microbes as the bacilli of tetanus can live in it; even swimming is
almost impossible; neither shells nor coral testify to any happier past.
The water boils at 221 degrees Fahrenheit, but the presence of chloride
of magnesium makes it incredibly nauseous, while the oily quality, which
it derives from chloride of calcium, makes any accidental splash upon
the garments very destructive. We gratefully take in long breaths of air
which, hot and dry as it is, are, we are well aware, more fresh and
sweet than any we are likely to obtain during the next twenty-four
hours, for only personal experience of the stifling heat of that
unrivalled hollow can make it possible to realise that six and a half
million tons of water which fall into the Dead Sea—a basin about the
size of the Lake of Geneva, but with no outlet—have to be daily
evaporated. Far away southward is the great salt district, where the
salt deposit, coated with chalky limestone and clay, takes many weird
forms, among which the Arabs point out Bint Shech Luth—the woman of
Shech Lot.

"Of whose wickedness, even to this day, the waste land that smoketh is a
testimony, and plants bearing fruit that never come to ripeness, and a
standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul" (Wisdom
x. 7).

"The waste land that smoketh" is a touch of autopic description which
one remembers when, towards sunset, great wreaths of white mist lie low
in the mountain hollows, as nowhere else in Judæa. Eastward, the horizon
is bounded by the long chain of the mountains of Moab, which, ever since
our arrival in the country, have seemed a sort of mysterious dreamland,
a limit of knowledge, the gate of fairyland, the nightly stage of the
great pageant gilded and painted by the sunset. How often have we
longed, like the youngest brother of the fairy tale, to ride across the
wide plain, and to wander forth for a year and a day into that dim
Unknown! We could hardly realise that at last the time had come and we
were stepping eastward.

Below us, in the great plain, a meandering green track shows where the
banks of the Jordan are offering shade and refreshment. In the nearer
foreground the scanty hovels and many hotels of modern Jericho lie,
embowered in tropical vegetation, and we remember with an added interest
that, within even the next day or two, we shall pass through districts
of three distinct flora and fauna, and, leaving behind the oaks and
pines, the familiar sparrows and starlings of our Jerusalem environment,
we shall rest to-night among palms and bananas, we shall hear the cry of
the jackal, and smell the tracks of the hyæna, and again, in a couple of
days, find ourselves in desert surroundings, the nursery of the camel
and home of the gazelle, with the scanty herbage and stalkless flora of
an Alpine world.

Looking down upon the Jericho plain we note various points of interest.
We distinguish the sites of three Jerichos.

First we notice, to the south, the kraal-like village of to-day, on the
site of a castle and church of the Crusaders, afterwards a flourishing
Moslem town, plundered by Egyptian soldiers in 1840, and subsequently
destroyed by fire in 1871. It seems unlikely that it will ever recover
its former position; for, apart from apparent absence of all ability for
initiation on the part of the Arabs, the climate seems to have a
degenerating effect upon the inhabitants, Even German perseverance,
which has made habitable spots in the low maritime plains of Judæa where
all other colonists had failed, could not suffice to render life here
endurable, and an agricultural settlement organised within the last few
years has literally _died_ out. The Latins—or, as we say in England, the
Roman Catholics—have also failed to establish themselves, and the
Russian and Greek settlements find existence possible only under
conditions of frequent change, and the stimulus of the profits to be
made out of the thousands of Russian pilgrims who come, every year, at
Epiphany, for baptism in the Jordan. Last year, however, the Jordan was
held to have acquired so large a proportion of cholera bacilli on its
way from Tiberias, where there was a great outbreak of disease, that
approach was justly forbidden by the authorities. To the west lie the
remains of the Jericho of Bible history, of which, from earliest
childhood, most of us have had a mental picture—the great town enclosed
by walls enwreathed with vegetation, "that ancient city of palm-trees,"
few of which still remain, though they were abundant as late as the
seventh century; and in Jewish amulets, and marriage or divorce
documents, which are commonly decorated with allegorical pictures,
Jericho is still represented by a group of palms. South of the
Israelitish town, and west of modern Jericho, are the remains of the
Roman Jericho, which