Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
population migrating from Austrian rule to Asia, in order to be under a
Moslem government.
Close beside the new Bosnian colony there are planted in the plain of
Sharon two or three colonies of Circassians. These are the people who
committed the Bulgarian atrocities. The irony of fate has now placed
them within three or four miles of colonists belonging to the very race
they massacred. They, too, fleeing from government by Christians, have
sought refuge under the sheltering wing of the sultan, where, I regret
to say, as I described in a former letter, they still indulge in their
predatory propensities. In immediate proximity to them are the black
tents of a tribe of Turcomans. They belong to the old Seljuk stock, and
the cradle of their tribe gave birth to the present rulers of the
Turkish Empire. They have been here for about three hundred years, and
have forgotten the Turkish language, but a few months ago a new
migration arrived from the mountains of Mesopotamia. These nomads spoke
nothing but Turkish, and hoped to find a warm welcome from their old
tribesmen on the plain of Sharon. In this they were disappointed, and
they have now, to my disgust, pitched their tents on some of the spurs
of Carmel, where their great hairy camels and their own baggy breeches
contrast curiously with the camels and costumes of the Bedouins with
whom we are familiar.
Besides the Slavs, the Circassians, and the Turcomans, we have the
Jewish colony of Zimmarin, distant about ten miles from Cæsarea; the
German colony at Haifa, and the Druse villages on Carmel, making, with
the Bedouins, the negroes, and the native fellahin, no fewer than nine
different races engaged in the cultivation of the soil in this
neighbourhood.
CÆSAREA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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