Nablus

“ Nablus, the ancient Sichem, the chief town of Samaria, contains four thousand inhabitants, and is reputed to be one of the most ancient towns in Palestine. It is surrounded by a strong wall, and consists of a long and very dirty street. We rode through the town from one end to the other, and past the poor-looking bazaar, where nothing struck me but the sight of some fresh figs, which were at this early season already exposed for sale. ”

“ Next morning we rode out of the valley of the Jordan, which, fringed with verdure, winds like a green serpent through the burning plain of the desert. We encamped for the night at Bethel, where Jacob dreamed of his ladder. I felt so ill—all that Dead Sea again—that it was proposed that we should ride on to Nablus next day, about ten hours distant, and that we should encamp there for four or five days to let me recover.
We rode over endless stony hills, relieved by fruitful valleys. ”

“ The event which now I am going to mention shows plainly enough that the unlawfulness of such interference is distinctly recognised even in the most bigoted stronghold of Islam.
During my stay at Nablus I took up my quarters at the house of the Greek “papa” as he is called, that is, the Greek priest. The priest himself had gone to Jerusalem upon the business I am going to tell you of, but his wife remained at Nablus, and did the honours of her home. ”

“ Thence a short line ran on to Nablus, while the main line continued down the slope of the Wadi Shair to the Maritime Plain, which it reached at Tul Keram. The advanced enemy bases at Nablus and Tul Keram were served also by good roads. That from Tul Keram followed the line of the railway up to a point near Samaria, where it joined the main north-bound road leading from Nablus down to Jenin and El Afule. ”

“ The event which induced the Christians of Nablus to seek for my assistance was this. A beautiful young Christian, between fifteen and sixteen years old, had lately been married to a man of her own creed. About the same time (probably on the occasion of her wedding) she was accidently seen by a Mussulman Sheik of great wealth and local influence, who instantly became madly enamoured of her. ”

“ There had been rain during the night, and the stone houses of Nablûs, the white rocky terraces which bordered the fruit-gardens on the hill-sides, and the slabs of smooth stone in the plains, glistened like mirrors in the gleams of sunshine. The grass, the wild flowers, the fruit-trees, and the broad fields of wheat and barley were still wet with the recent shower, and looked vividly green where the quickly traveling clouds overshadowed them. ”

“ The view northwards extends to the high ridge a few miles off which divides the Nâblus district from the outskirts of the great plain. On the east the lower slopes which run out of the great dome of Ebal are visible, on the south and west the flat Samaritan hills stretch away, covered with olives, and crowned by numerous villages which stand on high knolls, generally with a central tower or larger house. It is wonderful to reflect how great the antiquity of most of these hamlets is. ”

“ A Byzantine church, which was erected over the well, gave place to a Crusaders' church, on whose ruins a modern Orthodox church is in course of construction.
Nablus itself is long and narrow, and is traversed by two parallel stcqs, containing several mosques which were for- merly Byzantine or Crusaders' churches. The " Great Mosque," in the eastern part of the town, was originally a basilica built by Justinian and rebuilt by the Crusaders in the twelfth century. Its interesting eastern porch is well preserved. Other mosques of Crusading origin are the Jami' al-Khadra and the Jami' al-Nasr ”

“ It is a rich and beautiful field in the midst of barren mountains.” The bottom of the basin is bright with gardens and orchards, divided by hedges of prickly pear twelve or fourteen feet high. The town stands on the western side of the valley and rises a little way up the slope of the hill. It has a brighter, cleaner, and more prosperous look than any town we have seen since leaving Nablus. The population was estimated by Robinson at four thousand. ”

“ Measures are being taken to regenerate the forests in the Carmel mountains, as it has been observed that the oaks which compose these forests produce larger trees than the Kermes oak of the Hebron forests, and the timber is equal in quality to that of the Kermes oak. Many of the trees which have been cut down are producing new growth from the base, and, if the young shoots are pro- tected from goats, etc., the forest will soon re-establish itself.
Forest nurseries have been organized in Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Acre and Nazareth. ”

“ He was up with a bound as soon as he heard the call of the old muezzin from the little gallery of a near-by mosque, for that meant it was time for every one to get up and say his morning prayers and begin the work of the day. All over Cairo are found these Mohammedan places of worship, and from their towers and minarets, five times a day, the muezzin's call to prayer serves the people for a town clock.
"Thou must put on thy best clothes to-day," said Nabul's mother, as she opened a low wooden box painted green with red and gold decorations. ”

“ While travelling subsequently through the country to the south-east of Gaza on my way to Ismailia, I noticed the Arabs cultivating the ground extensively; they live, of course, entirely in tents, and the barley they grow is sent in to market, but the chopped straw is made up into numbers of small heaps on the ground and covered with earth, forming little domes exactly like the nawâmîs. There are few stones on the Gaza plain, and little earth to spare in the wâdies of the peninsula. ”

“ We seat ourselves on deck, and drink to its fulness the balm of this indescribable repose. The sun goes down behind the Libyan Desert in a broad glory of purple and rosy lights; the Nile is calm and unruffled, the palms stand as if sculptured in jasper and malachite, and the torn and ragged sides of the Arabian Mountains, pouring through a hundred fissures the sand of the plains above, burn with a deep crimson lustre, as if smouldering from some inward fire. The splendor soon passes off and they stand for some minutes in dead, ashy paleness. ”

“ From no other spot, perhaps, can the mind become so fully impressed by the fact that to the Nile, and the Nile alone, does Egypt owe all she has of fertility and wealth. Beyond is the desert of sand, a sea-bed without its animate forms, lifeless and waste. Dean Stanley has well observed, that the Nile, as it glides between the Tombs of the Pharaohs, and the City of the Caliphs, is indeed a boundary between two worlds. ”

“ After a course of thorough preliminary training, arrangements were consummated for a tour of observation through Egypt, Arabia, Palestine,—the lands of Hebrew life and literature, the scenes of the early Christian history, and, later, the arena of Saracenic invasion and domination. We are now on the way thither. While the tide of mighty immigration is pouring westward toward the American desert, the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak and Cherry creek, a tiny rill of exploration is trickling eastward toward the desert of Sinai, the mountains of Egypt, the peaks of Lebanon, and the river of Jordan. ”

“ While towards the east the valley of the Nile at first sight seems to afford a natural frontier, the characteristics of what is usually called the Nubian desert are so identical in most respects with those of the Sahara proper that some authorities extend this designation to the shores of the Red Sea. The desert, indeed, does not end with Africa, but is prolonged eastwards through Arabia towards the desert of Sind. As the Nubian region is described under Sudan: § Anglo-Egyptian, the present article is confined to the country west of the Nile Valley, the Libyan desert inclusive. ”

“ We shall know one of these days whether, as scholars suspect, out of Arabia and across the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where, at the southern end of the Red Sea, Africa almost touches Asia, there came that mighty flood of more forceful men, bred in the deserts and hills, who, passing down the Nile, first brought history to Egypt; and whether it was this same Semitic people, as scholars suspect again, that spread resistlessly eastward to the Euphrates valley, and did an equal service in conquering and assimilating the black aborigines of these swamps and lagoons. ”

“ Through all the centuries the wandering shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled, comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells; to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons and all luscious fruits—this is the picture that haunts the wandering Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life. ”

“ There are many tiny villages dotted about here and there, recognisable only by their nest of palm trees and their strips of verdure. In the dim distance, to our left, arose the mountains of Arabia; beyond, the flat coast-line of El Hasa, encircling that wild, mysterious land of Nejd, where the Wahabi dwell—a land forbidden to the infidel globe-trotter. ”

“ They blow from various quarters, according to the position, with respect to Arabia, occupied by the different provinces. In Palestine the worst are from the east, the direction in which the desert is nearest; in Lower Babylonia they are from the south; in Susiana from the west or the north-west. During their continuance the air is darkened, a lurid glow is cast over the earth, the animal world pines and droops, vegetation languishes, and, if the traveller cannot obtain shelter, and the wind continues, he may sink and die under its deleterious influence. ”

“ For in the background of all is the vast peninsula of Arabia, which at long intervals fills with its wild, untamable humanity to a point beyond which it cannot support them. This has been the origin of the long succession of Semitic waves—Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite, Hebrew, Nabataean, Moslem—that have flowed over Mesopotamia and Palestine; there is every reason to suppose that they will be followed by others, and that the Arab will remain master at the end, as he was in the beginning. ”

“ There is a fascination in the unchangeable features of the Nile regions. There are the vast pyramids that have defied time, the river upon which Moses was cradled in infancy, the same sandy desert through which he led his people, and the watering-places where their flocks were led to drink. The wild and wandering Arabs, who thousands of years ago dug out the wells in the wilderness, are represented by their descendants, unchanged, who now draw water from the deep wells of their forefathers, with the skins that have never altered their fashion. ”

“ That sea runs to the borders of Arabia and Palestine, its extent being more than four days. Then we go by desert to the vale of Elim, and thence to Mount Sinai. And you must know that by this desert no man may go on horseback, because there is neither meat for horses nor water to drink; wherefore they pass that desert with camels. For the camel finds always food in trees and on bushes, and he can abstain from drink two or three days, which no horse can do.
From Babylon to Mount Sinai is twelve good days' journey, and some make it more; and some haste them, and thus make it less. ”

“ The tract of country extending from the coast to Ramudéle is a bare and joyless desert, where water is to be met with only at long intervals, where little food is to be procured either for man or beast, and where the heat is like the breath of the glass furnace. But Arabs are accustomed to the arid regions of their own stony land, and as they feed like famished wolves when food is to be obtained, they can, like those gaunt animals, endure the extremity of fasting. ”

“ To the north of the oases lay a belt of sand, and then an immense gravel and lava plain, filling up everything between the eastern edge of Syria and the banks of the Euphrates where Mesopotamia began. The practicability of this northern desert for men and motor-cars enabled the Arab revolt to win its ready success.
The hills of the west and the plains of the east were the parts of Arabia always most populous and active. In particular on the west, the mountains of Syria and Palestine, of Hejaz and Yemen, entered time and again into the current of our European life. ”

“ At their feet, winding its way for thousands of miles between limitless areas of sand, its banks lined for narrow distances with green fields and the habitations of men, flowed dark and wondrous the one thing that makes human life possible in all the lands of the Sudan and of Egypt—flowed from sources that for ages were undiscovered, and which even in this day of boasted knowledge are yet incompletely known—the Nile. ”

“ Asiatic nomads have sparsely disseminated the culture of China, Persia, Egypt and Yemen over large areas of the world. The Semite shepherds of the Red Sea deserts, through their merchants and conquerors, long gave to the dark Sudan the only light of civilization which it received, Mohammed, a Bedouin of the Ishmaelite tribe, caravan leader on the desert highways between Mecca and Syria, borrowed from Jerusalem the simple tenets of a monotheistic religion, and spread them through his militant followers over a large part of Africa and Asia. ”

“ The Fellahîn call the nomadic people Arabs, and the nomads call themselves Bedawîn, both names being derived from their place of abode—the wild lands of the broad southern and eastern plateaux.
The narrow peninsula of cultivated hills, in which the settled population lives, is surrounded by the broad sea of desert, over which the Arab delights to roam. Thus from the great Moab plateau and from the mountains of Gilead, from the southern Desert of Wanderings, and from the western plain of Sharon, the wave of nomadic life is constantly lapping against the mountains of the Fellahîn. ”