The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and SpainTaylor, Bayard
History
The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
Taylor, Bayard
Middle East -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
Jordan, at a place which François called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!
The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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