our troubadours, and the bestowing of our guerdon, these left us on their way to the other camp at Na’oor; and our packing up commenced.
Strange medley of costumes and languages among the grand colonnades. Our Arabs left us, having the luggage in charge, and indicating to us the camping-ground where we were to meet again at night—thus leaving us in care of the Saltîyeh friends of ours, who were to escort us to their town and its neighbourhood, as the ’Adwân might not go there themselves.
Both the Christian and Moslem shaikhs of the town came to meet us on the way. The former was a very old man; and he could with difficulty be persuaded to mount his donkey in presence of a train so majestic, in his eyes, coming from the holy city of Jerusalem.
We passed an encampment of Beni Hhasan. These people are few in number, and exist under the shadow of the ’Adwân.
There were plenty of locusts about the country; but we soon came to a vast space of land covered with storks, so numerous as completely to hide the face of the earth, all of them busily employed in feeding—of course devouring the locusts. So great is the blessing derived from the visits of storks, that the natives of these countries regard it as a sin to destroy the birds. On our riding among them they rose in the air, entirely obscuring he sky and the sun from our view. One of our party attempted to fire among them with his revolver, but, by some heedlessness or accident, the bunch of barrels, being not well screwed down flew off the stock and was lost for a time; it took more than half an hour’s search by all of us to find it again, and the Arabs considered this a just punishment for wishing to kill such useful creatures.
We traversed a meadow where Shaikh Faisel, with a detachment of the ’Anezeh, had encamped for pasture, and only left it thirty-five days before. His flocks and herds were described to us as impossible to be counted; but our friends were unanimous in stating that his camels were 1500 in number.
Came to Khirbet es Sar, (Jazer?) whence the Dead Sea was again visible. Our Arabs declared that they could distinguish the Frank mountain, and see into the streets of Bethlehem. Here there is a mere heap of ruin, with cisterns, and fragments of arches, large columns, and capitals; also a very rough cyclopean square building of brown striped flint in huge masses.
This site is three hours due north of Na’oor, in a straight line, not turning aside to Dëâb’s camp or ’Ammân. Northwards hence are the well-wooded hills of ’Ajloon. To my inquiries for any site with a name resembling Nebo, I was referred to the Neba, half an hour south of Heshbon, which is given in the list taken down by me at Heshbon.
Proceeding northwards, we had the hills of Jebel Mâhas parallel on our right hand; and to our left, in a deep glen below, was the source of the stream Se’eer, which had flowed past us at Cuferain, our first encampment after crossing the Jordan.
Arrived at the ruined town (modern in appearance) of Dabook, from whence they say the Dabookeh grapes at Hebron [39] had their origin; but there are none to be seen here now (see Jer. xlviii. 32, 33)—“O vine of Sibmah, I will weep for thee with the weeping of Jazer: thy plants are gone over the sea, they reach even to the sea of Jazer: the spoiler is fallen upon thy summer fruits and upon thy vintage. And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab; and I have caused wine to fail from the wine-presses,” etc.: with nearly the same words in Isa. xvi. 8–10.
At a short distance upon our right was a ruined village called Khuldah. This was at the entrance of woods of the evergreen oak, with hawthorn, many trees of each kind twined round with honeysuckle. There Shaikh Yusuf, (the Moslem of Es-Salt,) who is a fine singer, entertained us with his performances, often bursting into extemporaneous verses suitable to the occasion and company.
On reaching an exceedingly stony and desolate place, he related the original story of Lokman the miser, connected with it:—“Formerly this was a fertile and lovely spot, abounding in gardens of fruit; and as the Apostle Mohammed (peace and blessings be upon him!) was passing by, he asked for some of the delicious produce for his refreshment on the weary way, but the churlish owner Lokman denied him the proper hospitality, and even used insulting language to the unknown traveller, (far be it from us!) Whereupon the latter, who was aware beforehand of the man’s character, and knew that he was hopelessly beyond the reach of exhortation and of wise instruction, invoked upon him, by the spirit of prophecy, the curse of God, (the almighty and glorious.) And so his gardens were converted into these barren rocks before us, and the fruit into mere stones.”
Such was the tale. But similar miraculous punishments for inhospitality are told at Mount Carmel, as inflicted by the Prophet Elijah; and near Bethlehem by the Virgin Mary.
From a distance we caught a distant view of the Beka’ el Basha, or Pasha’s meadow, where we were to encamp at night, but turned aside westwards in order to visit the town of Es-Salt. Upon a wide level tract we came to a small patch of ground enclosed by a low wall, to which a space was left for entrance, with a lintel thrown across it, but still not above four feet from ground. On this were bits of glass and beads and pebbles deposited, as votive offerings, or tokens of remembrance or respect. The place is called the Weli, or tomb, of a Persian Moslem saint named Sardoni. But it should be recollected that in Arabic the name ’Ajam, or Persia, is often used to signify any unknown distant country to the east.
At ’Ain el Jadoor we found water springing out of the rocks, among vineyards and fig and walnut trees, olives also, and pomegranates—a beautiful oasis, redeemed from the devastation of Bedaween by the strong hand of the town population. Near this the Christian Shaikh Abbâs, being in our company, was met by his venerable mother and his son Bakhi.
In every direction the town of Es-Salt is environed by fruitful gardens, the produce of which finds a market in Nabloos and Jerusalem. The scenery reminded me of the Lebanon in its green aspect of industry and wealth.
Entering the town we dismounted at the house of Shaikh Yusuf, and took our refreshment on the open terrace, on the shady side of a wall.
Some of us walked about and visited the two Christian churches: they are both named “St. George,” and are very poor in furniture. Of course they have over the door the universal picture in these countries of St. George on his prancing gray horse. This obtains for them some respect from the Mohammedans, who also revere that martial and religious hero. Inside the churches we found some pictures with Russian writing upon the frames; the people informed us that these were presents from the Emperor Nicholas, which is worthy of notice.
The ignorance of the priests here is proverbial all over Palestine. I have heard it told of them as a common practice, that they recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Fathhah, or opening chapter of the Koran, alternately, on the ground that these are both very sublime and beautiful; and it is said that they baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Virgin Mary. There is reason to believe them very grossly ignorant; but it may be that some of these reports about them emanate from the Roman Catholic authorities in Jerusalem, who never hesitate at propagating slanders to the detriment of non-Romanists.
In a church porch I found a school of dirty ragged children reading the Psalms from the small English printed edition; not, however, learning to read by means of the alphabet or spelling, but learning to know the forms of words by rote; boys and girls together, all very slightly dressed, and one of the boys stark naked.
People came to me to be cured of ophthalmia. I got out of my portmanteau for them some sugar of lead; but it is inconceivable the difficulty I had to get a vessel for making it into a lotion—bottles or phials were totally unknown, not even cups were to be procured. At one time I thought of a gourd-shell, but there was not one dried in the town; so they told me. I might have lent them my drinking-cup, but then I wanted to prepare a large quantity to be left behind and to be used occasionally. I forget now what was the expedient adopted, but I think it was the last named-one, but of course only making sufficient for immediate use. I left a quantity behind me in powder, with directions to dilute it considerably whenever any vessel could be found; warning the people, however, of its poisonous nature if taken by mouth.
One man came imploring me to cure him of deafness, but