of the bank, where the water is about four feet in depth, though with a bottom of very deep mud. The Coptic pilgrims are curiously distinguished from the rest by the boldness with which they dart into the main current, striking the water after their fashion alternately with their two arms, and playing with the eddies, which hurry them down and across, as if they were in the cataracts of their own Nile; crashing through the thick boughs of the jungle which, on the eastern bank of the stream, intercepts their progress, and then recrossing the river higher up, where they can wade, assisted by long poles which they have cut from the opposite thickets. It is remarkable, considering the mixed assemblage of men and women, in such a scene, that there is so little appearance of levity or indecorum. A primitive domestic character pervades in a singular form the whole transaction. The families which have come on their single mule or camel, now bathe together, with the utmost gravity; the father receiving from the mother the infant, which has been brought to receive the one immersion which will suffice for the rest of its life, and thus, by a curious economy of resources, save it from the expense and danger of a future pilgrimage in after-years. In about two hours the shores are cleared; with the same quiet they remount their camels and horses; and before the noonday heat has set in, are again encamped on the upper plain of Jericho. . . . Once more they may be seen. At the dead of night, the drum again wakes them for their homeward march. The torches again go before; behind follows the vast multitude, mounted, passing in profound silence over that silent plain-so silent that, but for the tinkling of the drum, its departure would hardly be perceptible. The troops stay on the ground to the end, to guard the rear, and when the last roll of the drum announces that the last soldier is gone, the whole plain returns again to its perfect solitude. 1 For the constant practice of these night journeys in Arab countries, see a curious passage in Burton's Pilgrimage to Meccah, iii. 16. CHAPTER VIII. PEREA, AND THE TRANS-JORDANIC TRIBES. Psalm xlii. 6. "My soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the 'mountain' Mizar." I. General character of the scenery. II. First view of the Holy Land. exile. Last view of the III. Frontier land. IV. Isolation. V. Pastoral character of the PEREA, AND THE TRANS-JORDANIC TRIBES. WHO that has ever travelled in Palestine has not longed to cross the Jordan valley to those mysterious hills which close every eastward view with their long horizontal outline, their overshadowing height, their deep purple shade? It is this which probably constitutes the most novel feature of the Holy Land to any one who first sees it with his own eyes. Partly from the slightly historical interest which attaches to Eastern compared with Western Palestine, partly from the few visits paid to those insecure regions, it has usually happened that general descriptions of the country almost omit to notice the one elevating and solemn background of all that is poor and mean in the scenery of Palestine, properly so called. To those who, like myself, have been unable to cross the Jordan and explore those unknown heights, this distant view is the sole impression left by the mountain range of Ammon and Moab. But it is an impression which may assist them in forming some notion of the interior of the region, as described by those who have had better fortune and more abundant leisure.1 I. The mountains rise from the valley of the Jordan to the I have to express my thanks to the Rev. G. Horsley Palmer, for most of the facts of this chapter. No other traveller, to my knowledge, has explored this district so thoroughly-certainly none whom I have consulted has described it so vividly and intelligibly. The northern portion of the trans-Jordanic territoryincluding Gaulonitis, the Haurân, and Trachonitis, I have left unnoticed. partly because it was not needed for the elucidation of the history, partly because it has been fully described by Mr. Porter, in his work on Damascus. The ruins of Gadara, Gerasa, and Philadelphia (Ammân), as belonging to the late Roman period, and those described by Mr. Cyril Graham in Trachonitis, have no place in this volume. General the scenery. height, it is believed, of two or three thousand feet, and this gives them, when seen from the western side, character of the appearance of a much greater actual elevation than they really possess; as though they rose high above the mountains of Judæa on which the spectator stands. As they are approached from the Ghor, the horizontal outline which they always wear when seen from a distance is broken; and it is described, that when their summits are attained, a wholly new scene bursts upon the view; unlike anything which could be expected from below-unlike anything in Western Palestine. A wide table-land appears tossed about in wild confusion of undulating downs, clothed with rich grass throughout; in the southern parts trees are thinly scattered here and there, aged trees covered with lichen, as if the relics of a primeval forest long since cleared away; the northern parts still abound in magnificent woods of sycomore, beech, terebinth, ilex, and enormous fig-trees. These downs are broken by three deep defiles, through which the three rivers of the Yarmûk, the Jabbok, and the Arnon, fall into the valley of the Jordan and Dead Sea. On the east, they melt away into the vast red plain which, by a gradual descent, joins the level of the plain of the Haurán, and of the Assyrian desert. This is the general picture given of the trans-Jordanic territory. The first view of the Holy Land from the east. 1 II. What is the history of which this is the theatre? First, its mere outline, even as seen from the western side of the Jordan, suggests the fact that those heights, everywhere visible in central Palestine, must have commanded the first view of the Promised Land in all approaches from the east. It is said by those who have visited those parts, that one remarkable effect produced, is the changed aspect of the hills of Judah and Ephraim. Their monotonous character is lost, and the range when seen as a whole is in the highest degree diversified and impressive. And the wide openings in the western hills, as they ascend from the The upper range of Gilead, i. e. south of the Jabbok, is oak and arbutus -the central, arbutus and fir-the lower, valonidi oak-the ilex throughout (Lord Lindsay, ii. 122). Amman is outside the forest range (Ibid. p. 121). Jerash is just on its skirts. Near Heshbon is a hill crowned by a cluster of stone pines the only conspicuous group of the kind in Syria, except those at Beirut. |