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Tent Work in Palestine.
Tent Work in Palestine.
A Record of Discovery and Adventure. BY CLAUDE REIGNIER CONDER, R.E., OFFICER IN COMMAND OF THE SURVEY EXPEDITION. Published for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. With Illustrations by J. W. Whymper. New Edition. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1887. [ All Rights Reserved. ] TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS T H E P R I N C E OF W A L E S This Work is Dedicated, WITH HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS’ GRACIOUS P
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
T HE Survey of Western Palestine was commenced under Captain Stewart, R.E., in January, 1872. Ill-health obliged that officer to return almost immediately. Lieutenant Conder, R.E., was appointed to the command, and arrived in Palestine in the summer of the same year. The work meantime had been conducted under the charge of the late Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake. Lieutenant Conder returned to England in October, 1875, having surveyed 4700 square miles. The remaining 1300 square miles of the Survey wer
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
T HE Survey of Palestine was actually commenced at the end of the year 1871. Preliminary reconnaissances of parts of Palestine had been previously made by Captain Anderson, R.E., and Captain Warren, R.E., and the Ordnance Survey of the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, with the line of levels from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, and from Jerusalem to Solomon’s Pools, had been executed by Major Wilson, R.E. It was by the advice of these experienced explorers that the Committee of the Palestine Explo
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CHAPTER I. THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM.
CHAPTER I. THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM.
T HE morning of Monday the 8th of July, 1872, brought us in sight of the coast of Palestine, near Jaffa. The town rose from the shore on a brown hillock; the dark, flat-roofed houses climbing the hill one above another, but no prominent building breaking the sky outline. The yellow gleaming beach, with its low cliffs and sand-dunes, stretched away north and south, and in the distance the dim blue Judean hills were visible in shadow. Jaffa is called the Port of Jerusalem, but has no proper harbou
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CHAPTER II. SHECHEM AND THE SAMARITANS.
CHAPTER II. SHECHEM AND THE SAMARITANS.
T HE Survey Camp at the time of my arrival in Palestine was fixed at Shechem, where I proceeded after a few days’ rest at Jerusalem, accompanied by Sergeant Black, R.E. About sunset we began to descend into the narrow, stony gorge of the Robber’s Fountain. The road is not improved by the habit of clearing the stones off the surrounding gardens into the public path. It descends through olive-groves to a narrow pass with a precipice on the left, beneath which is the little spring. A ruined castle
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CHAPTER III. THE SURVEY OF SAMARIA.
CHAPTER III. THE SURVEY OF SAMARIA.
I T is a remarkable fact, but one which can scarce be disputed, that while the descriptions given of tribe boundaries and cities in the Book of Joshua are full and minute in the territory of Judea, and scarcely less so in Galilee, they are fragmentary and meagre within the bounds of Samaria. A short inspection of the topographical lists will convince any student of this fact; he will find there is no account of the conquest of Samaria, that the list of Royal Cities does not include the famous Sa
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CHAPTER IV. THE GREAT PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.
CHAPTER IV. THE GREAT PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.
O UR new camp was fixed at Jenîn, the ancient Engannim or “Spring of Gardens,” at the southern extremity of the Great Plain, a border city of Galilee according to Josephus, now a picturesque town of three thousand inhabitants, with a bazaar and a mosque, surrounded by groves of olives, through which a little stream finds its way in spring. Our camp was west of the place, and looked out on the white mosque of ’Azz ed Dîn with its minaret, the great threshing-floor with its heaps of yellow grain,
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CHAPTER V. THE NAZARETH HILLS.
CHAPTER V. THE NAZARETH HILLS.
P AST Gilboa, Jezreel, Shunem, Nain, and Endor, we sped to the foot of the great cliff 1000 feet high, which rises straight from the plain by the narrow pass to the Nazareth hills. From the middle ages down, this cliff has been shown as that from which the Nazarenes would have precipitated the Saviour. Old Maundeville quaintly terms it “the Leap of our Lord,” and other pilgrims were shown a hollow where the rock had become soft as wax, and formed a hiding-place where Christ was said to have been
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CHAPTER VI. CARMEL AND ACRE.
CHAPTER VI. CARMEL AND ACRE.
C ARMEL is best described as a triangular block of mountains, the apex being the promontory on which the Carmelite monastery stands. The watershed runs south-east from this point for twelve miles, to the Mahrakah or “place of burning,” a peak visible from Jaffa in fine weather: south of which lies Wâdy el Milh, and above that valley a large volcanic outbreak near the apparent centre of upheaval of the Carmel ridge. Another centre also exists farther west near Ikzim. The highest part of the mount
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CHAPTER VII. SHARON.
CHAPTER VII. SHARON.
T HE preceding chapters bring down the history of the Survey to the end of the campaign of 1872. In the winter Mr. Drake’s health became so much affected that he was obliged to try the effect of a sea voyage to Egypt. Thus, on the 1st of February, he left me alone for a month. On the 26th I marched out from Haifa, and again took the field, our intention being to fill in the broad tract of plain and low hills between Carmel and Jaffa, and from the sea to the Samaritan mountains previously surveye
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CHAPTER VIII. DAMASCUS, BAALBEK, AND HERMON.
CHAPTER VIII. DAMASCUS, BAALBEK, AND HERMON.
T HE order of the narrative now takes us away from Palestine itself, to the more northern parts of Syria, where the Survey party spent the months of July, August, and September, recruiting their health, and arranging the field-work. On the morning of June the 16th, 1873, we arrived in the Bay of Beyrout, and landed just as Midhat Pacha left the harbour, having been superseded, in the post of Governor of Syria, in favour of Hallet Pacha. The praises of Midhat as an able, upright, and liberal stat
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CHAPTER IX. SAMSON’S COUNTRY.
CHAPTER IX. SAMSON’S COUNTRY.
O N the 24th of September we left our pleasant camp at Bludân, and on the 29th we started southwards from Beirût, reaching Jaffa on the afternoon of the 3rd of October. Thus, in a continuous march of five days along the sea coast, with pack-animals, we had come 144 miles—a distance equal to the total length of Palestine—and not one of our beasts was laid up, or refused its feed in the evening. Although I have, subsequently, ridden farther at a stretch than the distance we rode on any one day in
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CHAPTER X. BETHLEHEM AND MAR SABA.
CHAPTER X. BETHLEHEM AND MAR SABA.
T HE tradition which indicates the grotto in the old basilica at Bethlehem, as the site of the stable where Christ was born, is the most venerable of its kind in existence, the place being noticed by Justin Martyr in the second century. It is almost the only site which we can trace earlier than the time of Constantine, and the tradition seems to me credible, because, throughout this part of Palestine, there are innumerable instances of stables cut in rock, resembling the Bethlehem grotto. Such s
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CHAPTER XI. JERUSALEM.
CHAPTER XI. JERUSALEM.
W E approach at length the centre of interest in Palestine—the Holy City. In this chapter are gathered up the results of fifteen visits to the capital, and of two winters, one passed in a country villa outside, and a second within the walls, in our “own hired house.” During this time I penetrated into almost every nook and corner of the city, and visited its underground passages, and its smallest churches and mosques. From my room in the Mediterranean Hotel I looked out at dawn. The orange-colou
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CHAPTER XII. THE TEMPLE AND CALVARY.
CHAPTER XII. THE TEMPLE AND CALVARY.
T HE subject of Jerusalem topography is too large to be minutely treated in the present volume; and I hope to be able to write a separate work on it at some future time. The following chapter is devoted to the two questions of primary interest—the Temple and Calvary. The sources of our information as to the Temple are two—the first Josephus, the second the Talmud. The first is simply a general and pictorial account; the second is a laborious and minute description by men in whose eyes the subjec
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CHAPTER XIII. JERICHO.
CHAPTER XIII. JERICHO.
T HE 15th of November, 1873, dawned, and the tents of the Survey Camp were once more struck, on a rainy morning, and packed wet on the small Bedawîn camels, the loading of which gave us much more trouble than that of the larger pack animals of the peasantry. We were starting on an anxious and difficult undertaking, and were to attempt what no European had ever done before, in settling down for several months to life in the wild and unhealthy district of the Ghôr, in order to survey it with an am
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CHAPTER XIV. THE JORDAN VALLEY.
CHAPTER XIV. THE JORDAN VALLEY.
T HE Jordan Valley is not only the most remarkable feature of Palestine, but one of the most curious places in the world. It has no exact counterpart elsewhere, and the extraordinary phenomenon of clouds sweeping as a thick mist 500 feet below the level of the sea, is one which few European eyes have seen, but which we witnessed in the early storms of the spring of 1874. The Jordan rises as a full-grown river, issuing from the cave at Baniâs, about 1000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean.
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CHAPTER XV. HEBRON AND BEERSHEBA.
CHAPTER XV. HEBRON AND BEERSHEBA.
O N the 20th of September, 1874, I once more landed in Palestine, having been absent for nearly five months, four of which were spent in England, where I was detained on account of my health. During this period the party had been engaged, under charge of Sergeant Black, in office work and survey, in the vicinity of Jerusalem. On the 5th of October we camped at ’Ain Dhirweh, just by Hŭlhûl. This village stands on the watershed of the Hebron hills, 3300 feet above the sea, and only three miles nor
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CHAPTER XVI. THE LAND OF BENJAMIN.
CHAPTER XVI. THE LAND OF BENJAMIN.
N ORTH of Jerusalem lies a narrow district, which contains more places of interest than can, perhaps, be found in any other part of Palestine within an equal area. This district was allotted to the tribe of Benjamin, and includes about two hundred square miles of hills, extending ten miles from Jerusalem to Bethel, and about twenty from the lower Beth Horon to the deserts above Jericho. We are now able to draw, with a great amount of accuracy, the north boundary of Benjamin, from Bethel to Archi
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CHAPTER XVII. THE DESERT OF JUDAH.
CHAPTER XVII. THE DESERT OF JUDAH.
T HE history of the Survey has been brought down, in the preceding chapters, to the end of the third year, at which time three districts remained to be completed: the Desert of Judah; the Philistine Plain, with the low hills east of it; and Galilee as far north as Tyre and Cæsarea Philippi. On the 25th of February I once more took the field, with a light and compact expedition, my intention being to push as rapidly as possible through the desert west of the Dead Sea, as far south as the line of
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE SHEPHELAH AND PHILISTIA.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE SHEPHELAH AND PHILISTIA.
O N the 11th of March we at last marched down from the hills to our new camp at Beit Jibrîn. Past the “Oak of rest,” and the Russian Hospice now building near it, we rode westwards to a narrow valley, wandering through vineyards and down rocky hillsides gay with flowers, and through hollows full of sprouting barley, and over slopes covered with grey olives. The road led to the hill-town of Tuffûh (Beth Tappuah), thence down to the mud village of Idhnah (Dannah), and then north-west through an op
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CHAPTER XIX. GALILEE.
CHAPTER XIX. GALILEE.
T HE Philistine campaign was followed by three weeks’ rest at Jerusalem during the east winds of May. On the 8th of June we once more marched out with our whole expedition, intending to finish the northern district, of 1000 square miles, within the year, if possible. One of the principal pieces of work to be done was the running of a line of levels from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, for which purpose the British Association had voted £100. The line which I chose, and which was approve
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CHAPTER XX. THE ORIGIN OF THE FELLAHÎN.
CHAPTER XX. THE ORIGIN OF THE FELLAHÎN.
I N order to obtain some knowledge of the native peasantry of Palestine, it is necessary to examine their character, language, and religion, which are the three fundamental questions regarding any nation. We may thus be able to conjecture their origin, and to account for their peculiarities. To these three subjects the present chapter is devoted. The character of the peasantry is a curious mixture of virtues and vices, exaggerated by the entire absence of education. Among their finer qualities m
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CHAPTER XXI. LIFE AND HABITS OF THE FELLAHÎN.
CHAPTER XXI. LIFE AND HABITS OF THE FELLAHÎN.
I N the last chapter the Fellahîn have been considered in their religious aspect, and matters connected with the possible origin of their race have been discussed; but we have now to sketch their manners and customs. The wonderful account given by Lane of the life of townsmen in Egypt, would apply almost equally well to the middle classes in Damascus and Jerusalem; but the life and manners of the peasantry are far more valuable in illustration of the Bible narrative than are those of the townsme
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CHAPTER XXII. THE BEDAWÎN.
CHAPTER XXII. THE BEDAWÎN.
T HE last two chapters have been devoted to the settled population of the villages in Palestine, the antiquity of the race being evidenced by the language and customs. The peasantry must not be confounded with the Bedawîn or nomadic tribes, living in the uncultivated districts; for the two nations are quite separate branches of the Semitic people, and they themselves acknowledge the distinction. The Bedawi speaks with the greatest contempt of the Fellâh, and rarely, if ever, do intermarriages oc
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CHAPTER XXIII. JEWS, RUSSIANS, AND GERMANS.
CHAPTER XXIII. JEWS, RUSSIANS, AND GERMANS.
T HE Jews in Palestine inhabit only the larger towns, where they are engaged in trade and in money transactions. The greater number live in the four holy cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed, and Hebron; but many are found also in the coast towns of Gaza, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tyre, and Sidon. The number of Jews in Jerusalem was estimated by the Consular reports in 1872 to be 8000, but it has considerably increased since then, owing to the arrival of a large body of Russian and Polish Jews, who fled,
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CHAPTER XXIV. THE FERTILITY OF PALESTINE.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE FERTILITY OF PALESTINE.
T HERE is, apparently, a general impression that the Holy Land is, at the present day, a barren and desolate country, and that a great change, due not only to decay of cultivation and to disappearance of former forests, but also to a material decrease in the rainfall, has come over the land. These last pages are, therefore, devoted to a brief résumé of the facts collected during the prosecution of the Survey, which bear on the question. Palestine is described in the Pentateuch as “a good land, a
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CHAPTER XXV. THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE.
CHAPTER XXV. THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE.
T HE peasantry who inhabit the remote villages of the Lebanon and Antilebanon, are said to hold in traditional reverence the tall and glossy silk hat which is the emblem of Western civilisation. They believe that the stranger who may occasionally be seen wearing this unusual covering, belongs to the high caste of the Mîlurds , who are superior even to the Konsul Kebîr himself; and it is possible that they argue to themselves, that unless induced by some ceremonial reason, or conscious of some sp
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APPENDIX. LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED.
APPENDIX. LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED.
T HE following books have been consulted in writing the Memoirs to the Survey and in the present work: LEXICONS. HEBREW LITERATURE. SAMARITAN LITERATURE. EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE. EARLY CHRISTIAN AND CRUSADING LITERATURE. JERUSALEM LITERATURE. MISCELLANEOUS. A , B , C , D , E , F , G , H , I , J , K , L , M , N , O , P , Q , R , S , T , U , V , W , Y , Z...
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