EAST OF THE JORDAN.*
WHILE the English Palestine Exploration Society were making their survey of Western Palestine, the American Society under- took the survey of Eastern Palestine. But when the latter sent in their maps, they were found—as Mr. Glaisher told a meeting of the English Society held in London in November, 1880—to be so defective that it was resolved that the work must be begun de novo, and that it should be undertaken—as it since then has been undertaken—by the same English staff which, under Captain Condor, had already surveyed Western Palestine so well. Meanwhile, the American Society have published the volume now before us, with a notification that the author's "topographical Notes on Eastern Palestine, in which he gives, in a concise and scholarly manner, the results of the explorations already made, withheld from publication for the present, for reasons which need not be detailed, will appear in due time. The present volume has assumed a popular form. Personal incidents enliven the narrative. The illustrations are fresh and
mauy of them from the author's own drawings. The hook contains a large amount of matter wholly :new. The author was careful and patient in his investigations, and now tells the story of his life beyond the Jordan in a manner equally entertaining and instructive." This is a fair enough account of the book, from the popular point of view ; yet we cannot but think that we have evidence also that Mr. Glaisher and the English Exploration Society were right in deciding that the American investigations were only " reconnaissances," which left the real survey still to be done. The book is full of enter- taining and interesting matter, but—if we may borrow a phrase from the author's own countrymen—we must say that it "slops considerably over on all sides." As a regular journal, it cannot compare with that most admirable of all the accounts of Palestine, by the American Dr. Robinson, which was pub- lished some thirty years ago, nor is it a digested narrative or description based on the journalist's notes. But, in one way or another, we have a good deal of gossiping information, of which we proceed to give such specimens as our space will allow of. The author arrived at Beira in August, 1874, as archceologist of the American Palestine Exploration Society, and during the next two years made four expeditions, of which he tells us that two are given at length. The party sent out consisted of four persons, and at Beira they were joined by three other gentlemen, of whom one was a photographer, and one at least a physician. They had twenty-three baggage animals and nine horses, eight muleteers, six servants, including two cooks and a table boy, and two native servants from the
Rag of the Jordan; a Record of Travel and Observation in the Countries of Moab, Gilead, and Radian. By Selah Morrill, Archaeologist of the American Palestine Exploration Society. London : Richard Bentley and Son. 1881.
Protestant College at Beira. The region east of the Jordan, which they were directed to survey, is a table-land of about 6,000 square miles, averaging 2,500 feet above the Mediterranean, and with only a single group of hills, called the Haman Moun- tains. It is a region of such natural fertility that the American travellers could only compare it with their own Western States in this respect. It has larger plains and mere perennial streams than the country west of the Jordan, while it shares the special advantages of the almost tropical character of the Jordan Valley itself. Mr. Merrill says :—
" I hardly know which has surprised me most, the exceeding fer- tility of the country east of the Jordan, or the wonderful ruins which dot its surface. These plains burn up in summer, and, in one sense, the phrase Hauran desert' is appropriate; at the same time, as generally used, it would mislead almost any one who has not visited the region itself. The finest wheat in Syria is said to come from the Hauran, while in the northern portion, where there are villages, the productions are varied and abundant. In the fields near the foot of Hermon, on the plains towards Damascus, in Jebel 'Ajlfin, and about Es Salt, the grape crop is a perfect marvel, both in regard to the amount produced and the quality of the fruit. Farther east, about Bozrah, Solohad, and on the slopes of the Hauran Mountains, are traces of ancient vineyards, which show the suitableness of the entire Bashan country for vine-culture. Neither in Europe nor in Cali- fornia have I ever tasted sweeter or more delicately flavoured fruit of this kind, nor seen clusters of such immense size as I have seen and tasted in Eastern Palestine."
In the present day, this natural fertility of the land is reduced to its lowest value by the steady, unremitting extortion and oppression of the Turkish Government on the one hand, and the predatory invasions of the hordes of Bedawin from the Desert on the other. But those "wonderful ruins which dot the surface" are the records of what the country has been in other ages. There are " dolmens, flint implements, and bone caves, which take us back into the remotest antiquity." There are "round towers, and other cyclopean work." There are "artificial mounds, pottery, and glass, which belong to the earlier civilisation." Nearly three thousand inscriptions have been found, in ten different languages. The remains of the cities of successive races and generations are said to have been counted to the number of nearly four hundred. There are Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Persian buildings,—palaces, temples, theatres, reservoirs, cisterns, aqueducts, fortresses, and Christian churches ; and it is believed that "there is in Palestine anImportant aonld
world beneath the surface of the ground m and wealthy cities existed in Bashan fifteen and twenty centuries before the birth of Christ, and their foundations are yet to be laid bare, and their buried treasures and relics to be brought to light."
Of the remains of the Roman architecture in Bashan, or the Hauran, Mr. Merrill gives us a most interesting account, ex- tracted from the preface to De Vogue's Syiie Centrale: Arehiteelutre, Ci'oile of Religieuse, du Premier an Septi6mo &Met Paris, 1867. The special feature of the architecture of the Hansen is that stone—and that a very hard basalt—is the only material used in its construction. We do not understand why De Vogii6 should say that the reason was that the country produces no trees, for the oaks of Bashan nut only did, but do still exist. • But in this architecture stone was, in fact, used to the exclusion of wood, in those parts of the buildings—joists, roofs, doors, windows—in which wood is usually employed. And, on the other hand, the land has since been given up to the wandering Arabs, who live in tents, and who have not, like other races who have entered into the inherit- ance of their Roman predecessors, taken the materials of the old cities to build new ones. And the result is that which De Vogii6 thus describes :— " I should almost refuse to apply the term 'ruins' to a series of cities nearly intact, or at least of which all the elements remain, fallen sometimes, but never scattered, the sight of which transports the traveller into the midst of a lost civilisation, and reveals to him, as it were, all its secrets. In traversing these deserted streets, these abandoned courts, these porticos where the vino entwines itself about the broken columns, one receives an impression analogous to that which one experiences at Pompeii ; less complete, because the climate of Syria does not protect its treasures like the ashes of Vesuvius, but more novel, because the civilisation which one con- templates is loss known than that of the age of Augustus. Indeed, all these cities, which number more than a hundred, on a space of thirty to forty leagues, form a collection of which it is impossible to detach anything ; where all is united and linked together, pertaining to the same style, to the same system, to the same epoch, in fact, and that the primitive Christian epoch ; and as respects the matters of art, the most unknown even to the present time, namely, that which extends from the fourth to the seventh century of our era. One is transported into the midst of Christian society ; one observes its life, not the hidden life of the Catacombs, not the timid, humble,
enffering existence which is commonly pictured, but a. large, opulent, artistic life, in grand houses, built of immense hewn stones, perfectly arranged, with covered galleries and balconies, beautiful gardens, planted with vines, presses for wine, cellars and vessels of stone for preserving it, large subterranean kitchens, stables for horses, beauti- ful squares lined with porticos, elegant baths, magnificent churches, with columns flanked with towers and surrounded with splendid tombs."
Mr. Merrill would connect with this period of Christian archi- tecture the wonderful buildings at M'Shita, which Dr. Tristram, Mr. Fergusson, and Canon Rawlinson consider to be the remains of the palace built by Chosroes, King of Persia, between A.D. 614 and A.D. 627. He maintains that there is reason to question whether Chosroes was himself in Syria, objects that
there is nothing specially Persian in the architecture of this supposed palace, and that it is improbable that a Persian King
should have built a palace for himself in a desert ; and he suggests that it may have rather been a magnificent church and convent, built by one of the Christian Emperors, during the period referred to in the passage quoted from Do Yoga& Of the Bedawin tribes who now roam with their flocks and herds through these once fertile and populous regions, re- placing the ancient cities with their tents, which are still of
black goat's hair, as in the days of the Hebrew Psalmist, Mr. Merrill and his party saw a good deal: he lived on very friendly terms with them, and gives us very interesting descriptions of their life and habits. Like the Midianites of old, they +combine trade with plunder ; and while they despise all manual labour, they hire Christian peasants to cultivate land enough to supply them with food. Through these lands pass every year the great caravans of pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca, though somewhat shorn of their splendour since the opening of the route by the Suez Canal. And when we read in another page of the appearance of Cook's tourists in Jerusa- lem, we cannot help imagining a day when Mr. Cook may include Mecca, too, in his programme ; and putting ourselves at the Mahommedan's point of view, we are reminded of Hawthorne's
New Pilgrim's Progress," with a, railway to the Celestial City, and Apollyon employed as stoker to the engine.
On the Biblical topography and archaeology, this volume does not throw much new light. For that, we must wait for Captain Conder's Survey.
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