Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
From natives of Haifa we learnt that a kind of deer called Yahmûr was to
be found on Carmel, and, offering a reward, we procured for some of the
Arab charcoal-burners a specimen which resembled the English roebuck.
The flesh we ate and found excellent, the skin and bones Mr. Drake sent
to the museum at Cambridge; and in 1876 I was informed by competent
authority that the specimen was indistinguishable from the English
roebuck. Now the interest of this discovery lies in the name. The Yahmûr
gives a title to a large valley in a wooded district south of Carmel,
and in translating the nomenclature I found that it was a Hebrew word
used in the Bible (Deut. xiv. 5) to designate a kind of deer. The
authorised version renders it “fallow-deer,” but this latter animal is
properly called Ayal in Hebrew and Rîm in Arabic. Thus until we were
able to ascertain the existence of the roebuck, previously heard of but
not seen by Dr. Tristram, and to obtain the name Yahmûr, there was no
clue to the true identification of the deer which furnished Solomon’s
table daily with choice venison (1 Kings iv. 23).
The history of the Carmelite settlement is interesting and not generally
known. The information which I was able to collect in 1875 from their
records and by word of mouth from the monks may be briefly summarised.
Carmel has been a sacred mountain from the time of its earliest
appearance in history. Elijah himself “repaired the altar of the Lord
that was broken down” (1 Kings xviii. 30), from which we infer that a
sacred place or Makom had existed on the summit of the mountain at an
earlier period, though, according to the Talmud, such high places
became for ever unlawful after the building of the Temple at Jerusalem.
From Tacitus we learn that Vespasian visited a place on Carmel, sacred
to the deity of the mountain, but without either statue or altar, and
even now, as above noted, the Druses hold the site at El Mahrakah in
reverence as a sacred place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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