Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine - Laurence Oliphant

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result of this tragedy was the practical expulsion of the order of the Carmelites from Palestine. The Monastery of St. Brocard, after its short-lived existence, fell into ruins, and more than four hundred years elapsed before the order once more secured a footing on Mount Carmel, and built a monastery upon it at the end of the promontory, which served as a hospital for the French soldiers during Napoleon's occupation of this part of the country. His hurried evacuation of Palestine involved the destruction of the monastery and the massacre of all the wounded, to whose memory a monument has since been erected in the garden attached to the present edifice. But there can be no doubt that both for picturesqueness and historical association the old ruin of the Monastery of Saint Brocard, which altogether escapes the attention of the tourist and the pilgrim, is far more interesting than the modern monastery, which is not fifty years old, and which is about two miles distant from this old site.

      On the top of the hill above the ruins of the Monastery of St. Brocard is a plateau, called the Garden of Elijah, or the field of melons, which is abundantly strewn with geodes, or fragments of calcareous stone, having all the shape and appearance in many cases of petrified fruit, the crystallization of the centres when they are split open having confirmed this idea, thus doubtless giving rise to the legend that Elijah on one occasion, passing through the gardens which were once situated here, asked the proprietor for some fruit. He replied, not wishing to comply with the request, that they were stones, on which the prophet, apparently in a fit of temper, said, “Well, stones let them remain,” and stones they have remained ever since. I found some curious specimens so like small melons that one can well understand how this fable may have originated among an ignorant population.

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      Nazareth, Feb. 18.—There is a low range of hills, about five hundred feet above the sea-level, half-way between Haifa and Nazareth. It is beautifully timbered with oak-trees, and cut up into the most charming valleys. Running almost due north and south, it divides the plain of Esdraelon from that of Acre. Its southern extremity, terminating abruptly, forms a small gorge with the Carmel range, through which the Kishon forces its way to the sea. It was during a heavy rain-storm a week ago that I approached the ford of this river from Haifa. It was not without trepidation, for the stream had been so swollen by recent rains that communication with the interior had been interrupted. It was doubtful whether the passage of this river, which almost dries up in summer, would not involve a ducking. I therefore prudently requested my companion to precede me into the yellow, swirling stream, and although the water came up to our saddle-bags, the horses managed to get across without losing their footing. Then we galloped into the oak-woods. The sun broke out from behind the clouds, and we determined to prosecute our search for certain caves, of the existence of which we had heard, and which, owing to the state of the weather, we had almost decided to abandon.

      Leaving the high-road to Nazareth to the right, we followed a path for about half an hour which took us to the village of Sheik Abreik. It was a miserable collection of mud hovels, in the muddiest of which dwelt the sheik. After much palaver and promises of abundant backsheesh we got him to admit the existence of the caverns of which we were in search, and persuaded him to be our guide to them. The first was called by the Arabs “The Cave of Hell.” Its entrance seemed to justify the ill-omened appellation. It was a steep, sloping tunnel into the bowels of the earth, just large enough to admit the passage of a man's body. To slide into this feet foremost after a heavy rain involved a coating of mud from top to toe. After going down a few yards we found a chamber in which we could stand erect. Here we lighted our candle and looked about us. We found that it was the first of a series of similar chambers opening one into another. Each contained loculi, hewn out of the solid rock. The entrances to these chambers were arched. The pilasters on each side of the entrance were in some cases ornamented with rude sculptures and decorated with designs in a yellow pigment. These were in the form of curves, scrolls, and circles, and were carried over the roof. Each chamber was about ten feet long by six feet wide, and on an average contained three tombs or loculi, one across the chamber, facing the entrance, and one on each side. There do not seem ever to have been lids to these stone receptacles for the corpses.

      The bodies were embalmed, wrapped in cloths, as we read in Scriptural accounts of burials, notably in that of our Saviour. “Each in his narrow cell forever laid,” they remained undisturbed until rude hands, ages afterwards, “rolled away the stone from the mouth of the cave” and rifled the contents.

      Some of the entrances to the chambers had been completely filled up. In such cases the partition wall of rock had been broken through. Some of the chambers were larger than others, and there were two tiers of loculi. In order to get from one chamber to another it was often necessary to drag yourself along at full length upon the ground. In one case the roof had been broken through into a chamber above, and this probably led to more.

      I had not time fully to explore this most curious and interesting spot. Examinations of this sort in the middle of a long day's ride are very fatiguing. The effort of scrambling about on all fours, or after the fashion of the serpent, is very great, and makes you very dirty. In the absence of a string you are haunted by the idea of not being able to find your way back, to say nothing of the chance of sticking in one of these narrow passages. Altogether, I entered about fifteen different chambers, and doubtless the others did not differ in any important particulars. I am afraid, however, that I was not the first to discover them, but that this honour rests with Captain Conder, Royal Engineers, of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The sheik told us he had once before guided a foreigner to this locality, and on the next cave we visited we found the letters R. E. scratched in red paint on the rock, which under these circumstances can only mean Royal Engineers.

      The next cave was a much more comfortable one to examine, though not nearly so interesting. You could walk about it comfortably, but there was no ornamentation. The chambers were larger, but there were only five or six of them. The stone coffins had, in many instances, been completely destroyed, but the massive stone columns, or rather blocks, of living rock which supported the roof were finer than those in the “Cave of Hell.” Perhaps it owed its more dilapidated condition to the largeness of its entry, and its proximity to another huge cave which had evidently in crusading times been converted into a Christian place of worship. According to a rough measurement obtained by pacing it, the nave was seventy feet by thirty, the apse eighteen by twenty-one, and two apse-shaped transepts about twenty by eighteen; but these were very much filled with rubbish. The height of the cave was about thirty feet. The whole formed a subterranean church, which, in its perfect condition, when entered from the hillside, must have presented a very imposing appearance. On the slope of the hill, not far from this cave, was the carved pedestal of a granite column, and near it a handsome stone sarcophagus.

      Instead of going back to the Nazareth road after finishing our examination of this interesting spot, we made for a hill on the summit of which we saw some large blocks of stone betokening ruins. Here we came upon a native excavation, evidently very recent. Indeed, we heard later that it had only been abandoned the week before. The natives occasionally find an unopened tomb, and dig into it for treasure. It was useless to attempt to disabuse their minds of the idea that we were treasure-hunters. On asking them what they had found, they said, some red glass bottles, which they had broken to discover what they contained. They had also found three jars, one containing ashes, one earth, and one was empty. These they had also smashed. It was enough to make one's mouth water to hear of the destruction of these curiosities so very recently. I implored them if they found any more not to break them, but to bring them to me. They laughed, and promised to do so, saying, at the same time, “They are so very old that they are not worth anything.” This cave was evidently an important one, but the natives, finding nothing but the glass and the jars, had blocked up the entrance again, and I had to put off the examination of it to some future time. On the top of the hill there were several sarcophagi, some coffins hewn out of the living rock on the surface, with the stone lid at the side. At one place I saw a huge stone lid about eight feet long, two feet six inches broad at its base, and the same in height, but coming up to a ridge, which was evidently

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