plain, we reached our tent at a quarter before 6 o'clock. We found it already pitched on the northern bank of the Wady, near the castle and village, in a neglected garden among Nŭbk and fig-trees. We were glad to take possession of our temporary home. We had had a long and fatiguing day; but a day too of intense and exciting enjoyment; and we now rejoiced to recline our weary limbs upon our couches, and think only of repose. After a week of such toil and excitement, we likewise looked forward with gratification to a day of rest day of rest upon the morrow. The village and the Aga were forgotten for the night, and we saw nothing of either. The merry notes of frogs assured us that water was near; and as the darkness gathered around, we listened with delight to the chirping of the cricket and the song of the nightingale. The less welcome music of the musquito was also not wanting; but these insects were not numerous. The thermometer at sunset stood at 78° F. Sunday, May 13th. We passed the whole day at Jericho; but in consequence of various circumstances, it had less of the quiet repose of the Christian Sabbath than we could have wished; while the excessive heat gave us an uncomfortable specimen of the climate of the Ghôr. As we sat at breakfast, we learned that the Aga had called to pay us a visit; but had gone away again on hearing that we were at our meal. We thought it better afterwards to return his civility, in order to have done with the matter of official courtesies as soon as possible. We went accordingly, accompanied by our Sheikh, and found the Aga in the narrow court of the castle, by the side of a reservoir, under a temporary shed or bower built up against the wall, preparing to set off in an hour for the country east of the Jordan, where he expected to be absent a week. Several VOL. II. 35 Bedawîn of the 'Adwân were present, a tribe inhabiting the tract across the Jordan, from the river to the summit of the mountains as far as to Hesbân. This tribe had so misused and oppressed the Fellâhîn of the district, who dwell in the villages and till the ground in which the government is interested, that they had abandoned their dwellings and fled to the region of Kerak. The Aga had once been over in order to restrain the oppressions of the Bedawîn, and induce the peasants to return; and he had now summoned the 'Adwân whom we saw, to attend him on a second excursion. His purpose was to afford protection to the peasants, so that they might come down from the mountains and reap the harvest in the plain; both for their own benefit and that of the government. The Aga received us very courteously, and had his carpet spread for us in a better spot under the shed on the inner side of the basin. He was an active and intelligent Turk, with a thin visage and nose, and a European cast of countenance; he was probably an Albanian. Although exceedingly civil to us, in respect to whom he had received a personal order from the governor of Jerusalem, yet he certainly looked capable of any deed of cruelty and blood. Two persons were sitting by with their legs chained together; these were Christians from 'Ajlûn, who had been taken in some misdeed; they had been examined by the Aga, who had made out his report respecting them to the governor of Jerusalem. An old priest was also present, whom we recognized as one of our former friends at Taiyibeh. The Aga informed us, that the country around es-Salt, 'Ajlûn, and Jerash, was then quiet and safe, so that we could visit it without danger, if we chose; but the district around Kerak was still disturbed. He seemed gratified to meet with some one who could speak Turkish with him, and was quite communicative; gave us two cups of coffee, a degree of civility quite unusual; and said he had been expecting us for several days. He was ready, he said, to escort us to the Jordan; a kindness which we were very glad not to need; and told his officers to aid us in all we might desire during his absence. The garrison appeared not to consist of more than a dozen men, all Albanians. A poetical traveller might find here materials to make out quite a romantic description of our visit. Here was the old tower or castle with its decayed walls, a memorial of the times of the crusades; the narrow court with a reservoir and fountain; and a bower erected over them to shield off the burning beams of an oriental sun. On the inside of the cool fountain, beneath the bower, the Aga and his visitors were seated on costly carpets, all wearing the Tarbûsh or oriental cap and tassel; and he with a splendid sash, with scimetar, pistols, and dagger in his girdle. Opposite to us, on the other side of the reservoir, stood as silent spectators the wild fierce-looking chiefs of the 'Adwân, attired in the Kefîyeh and costume of the desert; near whom in strong contrast was seen the mild figure of the old priest of Taiyibeh in his dark robes and blue turban, and our own stately Khatîb looking on with a subdued expression of scornful independence. Here and there round about was an officer or soldier with pistols and scimetar; behind, on our left, sat the two prisoners, who probably would have told us a far different story of their fortunes; one of them an old man with a long beard pounding coffee; and near them another old man cutting up the green leaves of tobacco. Young slaves, some of them jet black, and others with fair intelligent countenances, were loitering about, bringing coffee and pipes, or presenting the snuff-box of the Aga to his guests; maidens came with water-skins, and having filled them at the fountain, bore them off on their shoulders; while around the walls of the court, beautiful Arab horses, gaily caparisoned for the warlike expedition, were impatiently champing the bit and pawing the ground. All was oriental in full measure; yet, with the exception of the horses, all was miserable and paltry in the extreme. The reservoir was a large drinking-trough for animals in the midst of a stable-yard; the bower was a shed of dry cornstalks1 and straw, resting on rough crotches; and the persons and garments of the people were shabby and filthy. So much for the romance of the scene. Leaving the Aga, from whose further civilities we were glad to be relieved so easily, we passed out of the court; and observing some people threshing wheat a little east of the castle, we walked towards them. It was truly a scriptural harvest-scene, where the reaping and the threshing go on hand in hand. The people, we found, were our old acquaintances, the inhabitants of Taiyibeh, who had come down to the Ghôr in a body, with their wives and children and their priest, to gather in the wheat-harvest. They had this year sown all the wheat raised in the plain of Jericho, and were now gathering it on shares; one half being retained for themselves, one quarter going to the people of the village, and the remaining quarter to the soldiers of the garrison in behalf of the government. The people of Jericho, it seems, are too indolent, or, as it was said, too weak to till their own lands. The wheat was beautiful; it is cultivated solely by irrigation, without which nothing grows in the plain. Most of the fields were already reaped. The grain, as 1) That is, the dry stalks of maize, the Indian corn of the United States. 2) It brought up before our eyes the scenes of the book of Ruth; c. ii, iii. soon as it is cut, is brought in small sheaves to the threshing-floors on the backs of asses, or sometimes of camels. The little donkies are often so covered with their load of grain, as to be themselves hardly visible; one sees only a mass of sheaves moving along as if of its own accord. A level spot is selected for the threshing-floors; which are then constructed near each other of a circular form, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, merely by beating down the earth hard. Upon these circles the sheaves are spread out quite thick; and the grain is trodden out by animals. Here were no less than five such floors, all trodden by oxen, cows, and younger cattle, arranged in each case five abreast, and driven round in a circle or rather in all directions over the floor. The sled or sledge is not here in use, though we afterwards met with it in the north of Palestine.1 The ancient machine with rollers, we saw nowhere.2 By this process the straw is broken up and becomes chaff. It is occasionally turned with a large wooden fork, having two prongs; and when sufficiently trodden, is thrown up with the same fork against the wind, in order to separate the grain, which is then gathered up and winnowed. The whole process is exceedingly wasteful, from the transportation on the backs of animals to the treading out upon the bare ground. The precept of Moses: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out," was not very well regarded by our Christian friends; many of their animals having their mouths tied up; while among the Muhammedans, I do not remember ever to have seen an animal muzzled. This precept serves to show, that of 1) See under June 15th, at Sebustieh. 2) Is. xxviii. 27, seq. Niebuhr found it still in use in Egypt, called Nôrej; Reisebeschr. I. pp. 151, 152. Lane also describes it under the same name; Mod. Egyptians II. |