And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee -
And thy dark sin! Oh! I could drink the cup,
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My lost boy, Absalom!
But this fountain! What birds and beasts here drank undisturbed
before man came to assert his lordship! What multitudes of people
here have drunk from the days before Israel down to the present
time - the hunter, the tiller of the soil, the grape-gatherer, the
shepherd with his flocks, the warrior and his chief, - all rejoiced
and rested here, and were refreshed and strengthened by the water.
Almost with reverence we drink again; then we remount our horses
and proceed along the wady past the village of Ajlun where an Arab
joins us and guides us on over fertile patches of ground and
through olive groves until we reach the modern town of Coefrinje,
a town that probably contains several thousand inhabitants. It is
in the midst of an olive grove well up on the side of the
mountains. Here, although it is scarcely past the middle of the
afternoon, we stop for the night. It is too far to the next
village to risk going ahead - the way is none too safe, even by
day.
Several times to-day I could clearly distinguish the remains of
old Roman roads, well paved, and with curbing arrangement
excellently preserved. What vast sums of money and what great
amount of labor must have been expended on these old high-ways of
the time when this territory was occupied by the Romans! And where
Rome walked she left her path well made, and she left the impress
of her thought in rock-paved road, or in the lasting marble of
her pillared temples and carven tombs.
"By the Watch-Tower"
CHAPTER VI.
Soon after entering the village of Coefrinje my dragoman had the
rare good fortune to find a former acquaintance, but whom he did
not know to be in those mountains. His name was Elias Mitry, who,
with his wife, had come up from Jerusalem to do missionary work
under the auspices of the Church of England. Although he was a
native of Palestine and talked very poor English, yet he offered
us a welcome to his humble home than which no more royal was
accorded us anywhere. The meeting with my dragoman was an
exhibition of genuine joy, and he seemed equally pleased to have
me in his home; especially did he consider it an honor to be my
host when my dragoman told him that he was escorting a "school-
master" through the land. In that land it seems that the teacher
is almost reverenced because of his profession, while, it may be
said by way of contrast, in some sections of my home land he is
scarcely respected because of his profession. Indeed, I was
treated as a guest of honor; the best that the home afforded was
at my service. Stuffed cucumbers, figs, olives, pomegranates, and
what, for want of a better name, I call "congealed grape-juice,"
- all these were placed before me when in the early evening they
aided my guide in serving supper.
We spent little over four hours in the saddle to-day, so I am not
wearied, and I can give interested attention to the surroundings.
And there is much to interest me here. For, while the name
"Coefrinje" is not mentioned in the Bible, nor is its site
definitely identified with the location of any biblical city, yet
there is much of Bible story centered at points within five miles
of this town.
Just across the narrow valley, only a few hundred yards distant,
is the height, Kulat er Rubad. It is crowned with the ruins of an
old castle-fortress called (together with the peak on which it
stands) the "watch-tower of Gilead." The view from the dismantled
ramparts is not excelled in this part of the world. It, indeed,
rivals the view from the celebrated peak south of the Jabbok,
Jebel Osha. Dr. Thomson says, "In reality this prospect includes
more points of biblical and historical interest than any other on
the face of the earth." And Dr. Merrill, after enumerating many of
the famous characters of history that moved under the gaze of this
mount of out-look, adds, "The view is more than a picture. It is a
panorama of great variety, beauty, and significance." To me it is
wonderfully impressive.
As the evening wore on I first gave attention to the large olive-
press close to the mission-house. The press was simple in
construction, consisting of a large bowl-shaped rock from the
center of whose depression rose an upright post of wood; to this
post was fastened a long nearly-horizontal beam, not unlike what
might be seen in the old-time cider-mill or cane-mill; slipped
onto this beam by means of a large hole in its center was a large
stone shaped like a grind-stone; this rock, pushed well up to the
post, rested in the bowl of the other rock. When the natives
pushed or pulled the beam around in tread-mill fashion the
circular stone turned on the beam, and at the same time moved
round and round in the hollow of the other rock. Thus the olives
placed in the bowl-shaped rock were thoroughly crushed and the oil
was caught in vessels.
Then I watch the shepherds leading their large flocks of sheep and
goats in from the mountain pastures to their folds for the night.
All day these faithful guardians have been with their flocks
seeking good pasture and water for them, - no easy task in the fall
of the year near the end of the dry season.
