dwellings of the inhabitants, infested as they are with vermin; and because too we hoped thus to have more the command of our own time. But in this latter particular we reckoned without our host. The inhabitants crowded about us with their Sheikh and three priests, until the tent was completely full, besides a multitude standing around the door. Mr. Lanneau distributed among them several books and tracts in the Arabic language; and they became quite clamorous for more. They were especially delighted with the psalters; and each of the priests obtained the promise of a Bible, for which they were to come or send to Jerusalem. The Sheikh we did not like; he was shy, though cringing in his manner; and almost from the first, as he accompanied us to the ruined church, began to inquire about his bakhshish. Afterwards in the tent, he declared himself an American; and to convince us of it, drank milk in a cup of tea before the priests, although it was on Friday and therefore unlawful. It was only by ordering the people away that we could get room to eat; and it was quite late before we could even think of sleep. At length, however, we made shift to arrange our couches within our somewhat narrow limits, and laid ourselves down. The captain or responsible guard of the village himself kept watch by our tent, accompanied by two or three others; and to beguile the night and keep themselves awake, they one after another repeated tales in a monotonous tone of voice. This served their own purpose; and had too the further effect of aiding to keep us awake; so that, what with the voices of the Arabs, the barking of dogs, the crawling of fleas, and the hum of muskitoes, we were none of us able to get much sleep all night.-Two or three nights before, robbers had entered the village and stolen several sheep. The desert towards the Dead Sea was said to be full of them. Taiyibeh contains seventy-five taxable inhabitants, showing a population of from three to four hundred souls. The only other villages north of Jerusalem within the province, containing Christians, were said to be Râm-Allah and Jifneh, which we afterwards visited; and the smaller ones of Bîr Zeit and 'Ain 'Arîk, each with twenty-five Christian men and the rest Muslims. The land of Taiyibeh is held by the peasants in freehold; except that in a certain sense the whole village belongs to the Haram esh-Sherîf, to the Mutawelly of which it pays annually seventy-five Mids (measures) of barley and wheat. The Mid is equal to sixteen Sa'a, or twelve Ruba' of Egypt.' Besides this there are paid in taxes to the government: for each olive and fig-tree one Piastre; for each she-goat and ewe one Piastre; and for each ox seventy-five Piastres, which is intended rather as a tax upon the land ploughed, than upon the oxen. Each man also pays one hundred Piastres as Firdeh or capitation-tax; and being all Christians and free from the military conscription, each pays an additional tax of twenty-five Piastres, which is reckoned to the Kharâj or toleration-tax. The village was said to pay in all, not far from seventy-five purses annually, equivalent to 1875 Spanish dollars.-The Sheikh el-Beled, literally the "elder of the village," is here as elsewhere the chief man, and the medium of communication with the government. The remarkable position of Taiyibeh would not probably have been left unoccupied in ancient times; but I am unable to identify it with any earlier site, unless it be the Ophra of Benjamin. This city, according to Eusebius and Jerome, lay five Roman miles east of 1) The Egyptian Ruba' is the twenty-fourth part of an Ardeb 2) See above, p. 93. Note 2. Bethel; which accords well with the position of etTaiyibeh.1 Saturday, May 5th. Taking with us a guide from Taiyibeh, we set off at 4h 50' for Beitîn, intending to visit on our way the ruins at el-'Alya. We followed down the narrow valley by the road of yesterday for forty minutes. Here we turned W. N. W. up another branch, and then passed up an ascent, reaching the top at 6 o'clock. From this point el-'Alya lay ten minutes towards the South. We found there only a few ruins of small houses on a high plateau, with a deep valley on the West and S. W., but no traces of antiquity. Not far off towards the East is a spring of water, called 'Ain el-'Alya, 'Upper Spring,' to distinguish it from that in the valley below, which we passed yesterday. The village probably derived its name from the fountain.2 Returning to the point where we had left our road, we now proceeded again at 6h 40' on the same general course towards Beitîn. We soon crossed a broad shallow Wady, running nearly South, apparently one of the heads of that passing down on the north side of Deir Diwân; and at 7 10' reached the eastern branch of the great Nâbulus road on the higher land beyond. Hence Taiyibeh bore N. 76° E. and el-Bîreh S. 40° W. Descending gradually by this road S. W. we came to the site of Beitîn at 74 o'clock, just at the left of the path; making a distance of two hours from Taiyibeh. The ruins lie upon the point of a low hill, between the heads of two shallow Wadys, which unite below and run off S. S. E.S. into the deep and rugged val 1) Josh. xviii. 23. 1 Sam. xiii. 17. art. Aphra. Euseb. et Hieron. Onomast. 2) From 'Alya, Deir Diwan bore S. 5° W. Bîr Zeit near Jifna N. 55° W. 'Atâra beyond Tell Jifna N. 30° W. 'Ain Yebrûd on ley es-Suweinît, which passes down between Jeba' and Mukhmâs. The spot is shut in by higher land on every side; so that the only places we could see distinctly from the ruins were el-Bîreh S. 48° W. and Sha'fât S: 10° W. Perceiving however some ruins across the valley S. E. E. on the higher ground, we immediately proceeded thither, and came in eight minutes to what the Arabs called Burj Beitîn and also Burj Makhrûn, 'Castle of Beitîn or Makhrûn.' It is the ruin of a small square fortress of hewn stones, including a Greek church. Several columns were lying among the ruins, on one of which a cross was carved in relief.-Proceeding still in the direction S. by E.E. we came in ten minutes more to the ruins of another larger Greek church, situated on the highest spot of ground in the vicinity. The lower walls are still very distinct, and many columns are lying about; though it seems to have been long ago destroyed. To this ruin one of the Greek priests at Taiyibeh, who had been delving a little into Biblical history, had chosen to give the name of Ai; and we found the same name among some of the people of that village. But there is not the slightest ground for any such hypothesis. There never was any thing here but a church; and Ai must have been further off from Bethel, and certainly not directly in sight of it.' We now returned to the site of Beitîn, and took a nearer survey of its ruins. They occupy the whole surface of the hill-point, sloping towards the S. E. and cover a space of three or four acres. They consist of very many foundations and half-standing walls of houses and other buildings. On the highest part, towards the N. N. W. are the remains of a square tower; 1) From this church Beitîn bore N. N. W. W. Taiyibeh N. E. by E. 'Alya N. 54° E. Deir Diwân S. 65° E. er-Râm S. 20° W. and near the southern point, the walls of a Greek church, standing within the foundations of a much larger and earlier edifice built of large stones, part of which have been used for erecting the later structure. The broken walls of several other churches are also to be distinguished. In the western valley are the remains of one of the largest reservoirs we saw in the country; measuring 314 feet in length from N. W. to S. E. and 217 feet in breadth from N. E. to S. W. The walls were built of massive stones; the southern one is still entire; those upon the sides are partly gone; while the northern one has almost wholly disappeared. The bottom was now a green grass-plat, having in it two living springs of good water. Here we spread our carpets on the grass for breakfast, by the side of these desolations of ages. A few Arabs, probably from some neighbouring village, had pitched their tents here for the summer, to watch their flocks and fields of grain; and they were the only inhabitants. From them we obtained milk and also butter of excellent quality, which might have done honour to the days, when the flocks of Abraham and Jacob were pastured on these hills. It was indeed the finest we found anywhere in Palestine. There is little room for question, that both the name and site of Beitîn are identical with those of the ancient Bethel. The latter was a border city between Benjamin and Ephraim; at first assigned to Benjamin, but conquered and afterwards retained by Ephraim.' According to Eusebius and Jerome, it lay twelve Roman miles from Jerusalem, on the right or east of the road leading to Sichem or Neapolis (Nâbulus). From Beitîn to el-Bîreh we found the distance to be forty 1) Josh. xvi. 1, 2. xviii. 13, 22. Judg. i. 22-26. 1 Kings xii. 29. 2) Onomast. art. Bain Bethel, Ayyal Agai, Aovtár Luza. See the other notices collected by Reland from Josephus and elsewhere, Palaest. p. 636. |