The Contemporary Review, January 1883

The Anti-Lebanon consists of a series of mountain ranges, some of which run parallel with Lebanon, and flatten into the plain at "the gathering in of Hamath," while some bend off in a more easterly direction, and shoot out boldly into the desert. The westward end of this mountainous range rises into Mount Hermon. The eastward end sinks into Palmyra. North of the Anti-Lebanon, the narrow plain of Cœlo-Syria expands into the great rolling country of high-land, river, lake, and plain, where for more than a thousand years the Hittite kings rolled back the tide of Egyptian and Assyrian invasion, and where, in later years, the Selucidæ kings pastured their elephants and steeds of war.

Among the ranges and spurs of the Anti-Lebanon are many green spots of great picturesque beauty. Wherever there are fountains the habitations of men are clustered together at the water, seemingly jostling and struggling like thirsty flocks to get to its margin. The cottages cling to the edges of fountains and rivers in the most perilous positions. Sometimes they are stuck to the rocks like swallows' nests, and sometimes they are placed on beetling cliffs like the home of the eagle above the chasm. No solitary houses are met throughout the country. The people build together for safety, and near the water for life, and by the village fountains and wells cluster the fairest scenes of Eastern poetry, as well Arab and Persian as Hebrew, and around them have taken place some of the fiercest of Oriental battles.

At the villages a little water is drawn off from the rivers, and carefully apportioned among the different families and factions. By means of this water, carefully conducted to the various gardens, apples and plums, grapes and pomegranates, melons and cucumbers, corn and onions, olives and egg plants are cultivated; and such is the bounty of Nature, that with the least effort existence is possible wherever there is water. A little rancid oil and a few vegetables are sufficient to sustain life, and these can be had by a few hours labour in the cool of the day. The rest of the time may be spent squatting cross-legged by the water, or smoking and dozing in the shade. This is existence, but not life; yet why should the fellah labour for anything beyond what is absolutely necessary, when the slightest sign of wealth would create anxious solicitude on the part of the Turk?

A ride of seventy-two miles across Phœnicia, Lebanon, Cœlo-Syria, and Anti-Lebanon, brings us, by French diligence, to Damascus. Abana and Pharpar break through a sublime gorge, about 100 yards wide, down the middle of which the French road winds its serpentine course, the rivers on either side being fringed with silver poplar and scented walnut. As we look eastward from the brow of the hill, the great plain of Damascus, encircled by a framework of desert, lies before us. The river, escaped from the rocky gorge, spreads out like a fan, and, after a run of three miles, enters Damascus, where it flows through 15,000 houses, sparkles in 60,000 marble fountains, and hurries on to scatter wealth and fertility far and wide over the plain. Those who have gazed on this scene are never likely to forget its supreme loveliness. Its beauty is doubtless much enhanced by contrast. The eye has been wandering over a chocolate-coloured and heated landscape throughout a weary day; suddenly, on turning a corner, it rests on Eden.

The city is spread out before you, embowered in orchards, in the midst of a plain of 300 square miles. Around the pearl-coloured, city—first in the world in point of time, first in Syria and Western Asia in point of importance—surge, like an emerald sea, forests of apricots and olives and apples and citrons, and "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food," with all their variety of colour and tint, according to their season, sometimes all aglow with blossoms, sometimes golden and ruddy with fruit, and sometimes russet with the mellowing tints of autumn. Beyond the city the water conveys its wealth by seven rivers to shady gardens and thirsty fields; and, as far as cultivation extends, two or three splendid crops during the same year reward the industry of the husbandman. But even in the plain of Damascus the land is cultivated for only a few miles beyond the gates of the city. The water that would fertilize the whole plain flows uselessly into pestiferous marshes, and the wide plain within sight of the Damascus garrison is abandoned to the Bedawîn of the Desert and the wild boars of the jungle.58

In Palestine there is the great plain of Esdraelon, now, to a large extent, in the hands of a Greek firm at Beyrout, and partially cultivated, but capable of producing wheat and maize and cotton and barley, throughout its whole extent. On the southern side of Carmel spreads out the extensive plain of Sharon, a vast expanse of pasture-land, ablaze with flowers in early spring, and rank with thistles in the time of harvest; and further south extends the still more fertile regions of Philistia.

Looking south, from the southern slopes of Mount Hermon, the green plain of the Huleh, with Lake Merom glassed in its centre, forms a beautiful picture. Mr. Oliphant here first saw an enchanting location for his colony. "I felt," he says, "a longing to imitate the example of the men of Dan; for there can be no question that if, instead of advancing upon it with six hundred men, and taking it by force, after the manner of the Danites, one approached it in the modern style of a joint-stock company (limited), and recompensed the present owners, keeping them as labourers, a most profitable speculation might be made out of the 'Ard el Huleh.'" The lake "might, with the marshy plain above it, be easily drained; and a magnificent tract of country, nearly twenty miles long by from five to six miles in width, abundantly watered by the upper affluents of the Jordan, might then be brought into cultivation. It is only now occupied by some wandering Bedawîn and the peasants of a few scattered villages on its margin."59

East of the Jordan are the corn-growing table-land of Bashan and the beautiful and fertile high-lands of Gilead. In the former I have ridden for hours, with an unbroken sea of waving wheat as far as I could see around me, and as regards the "land of Gilead," I can confirm Mr. Oliphant's most enthusiastic descriptions of its beauty, fertility, and desolation.

Nor are the agricultural resources of Syria and Palestine limited to the great irrigated plains and broad trans-Jordanic table-lands. Throughout the country there are numerous villages shut in among bare hills, with apparently no resource; but on closer inspection it turns out that there are a few cultivated terraces, where tobacco and grape-vines and vegetables are cultivated, and on a still closer inspection it is evident that the bare mountains all around were once terraced, and doubtless clothed with the vine.

I was once crossing a series of undulating ranges abutting on Mount Hermon with an English tourist who was making merry at the utterly barren appearance of "the promised land." It turned out, however, that his attempted wit served to sharpen our observation, and we found that all the hill-sides had once been terraced by human hands. A few miles further on we came to Rasheiya, where the vineyards still flourish on such terraces, and we had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the bare terraces, from which lapse of time had worn away the soil, were once trellised with the vine, the highest emblem of prosperity and joy. Similar terraces were noticed by Drake and Palmer in the Desert of Judea, far from any modern cultivation.

It is rash to infer that because a place is desolate now, it must always have been so, or must always remain so. The Arab historian tells us that Salah-ed-Dîn, before the battle of Hattin, set fire to the forests, and thus encircled the Crusaders with a sea of flame. Now there is scarcely a shrub in the neighbourhood.

In wandering through that sacred land, over which the Crescent now waves, one is amazed at the number of ruins that stud the landscape, and show what must once have been the natural fertility of the country. Whence has come the change? Is the blight natural and permanent? or has it been caused by accidental and artificial circumstances which may be only temporary? Doubtless, each ruin has its tale of horror, but all trace their destruction to Islamism, and especially to the blighting and desolating presence of the Turk.

That short, thick, beetle-browed, bandy-legged, obese man, that so many fresh tourists find so charming, is a Turkish official. He and his ancestors have ruled the land since 1517. A Wilberforce in sentiment, he is the representation of "that shadow of shadows for good—Ottoman rule." The Turks, whether in their Pagan or Mohammedan phase, have only appeared on the world's scene to destroy. No social or civilizing art owes anything to the Turks but progressive debasement and decay.

That heap of stones, in which you trace the foundations of temples and palaces, where now the owl hoots and the jackal lurks, was once a prosperous Christian village. Granted that the Christianity was pure neither in creed nor ritual; yet it had, even in its debased form, a thew and sinew that brought prosperity to its possessors. The history of that ruin is the history of a thousand such throughout the empire. Its prosperity led to its destruction. The insolent Turk, restrained by no public opinion, and curbed by no law, would wring from the villagers the fruits of their labour. Oppression makes even wise men mad, and the Christians, goaded to madness, turned on their oppressors. Then followed submission, on promise of forgiveness. The Christians surrendered their arms, and the flashing scymitar of Islam fell upon the defenceless; and the place became a ruin amid horrors too foul to narrate. No greater proof of the exhaustless fertility of the soil of Syria and Palestine could be furnished than this: that the spoiler, unrestrained, has been in it for 365 years, and that he has not yet succeeded in reducing it all to a howling wilderness.

II. Those who embark capital in land, with a view to securing a home for themselves and their children, should look closely to the character of their title-deeds. The foremost Englishman in the Levant assured me that he never invested money in houses or land because there was no such thing as security of title in the Turkish Empire. My own opinion, based on an experience of ten years, is that it is impossible to know whether or not you have a title in Syria. Unfortunately this judgment does not rest on mere opinions as to what might happen, but it is fortified by the authoritative Commercial Reports of Her Majesty's Consuls throughout Syria and Palestine, and by a series of facts of daily occurrence.

Vice-Consul Jago, of Beyrout, in a report dated July 11, 1876, thus writes:—

"Efforts made by wealthy native Christians and Europeans to employ capital in agriculture have been invariably met by great obstacles, the apparent impossibility of getting incontestable title-deeds being one of the many, although such documents may have emanated from the highest authority in the land. Actions of ejectment have invariably followed such efforts, to which the fact of the Government itself being often the seller opposed no bar."

The same Vice-Consul, writing from Damascus, under date March 13, 1880, referring to the difficulty of investing capital in agricultural enterprise, says:—

"Unfortunately, the present judicial system is of a nature to permit, if not to foster, the thousand and one intrigues and vexations which seem to be almost inseparably connected with the possession of land in Syria, and additional facilities for such are to be found, if wanting, in the state in which the land registry offices are kept. Erasures, irregular entries, at the request of the interested, change of one name for another as the legitimate owner, resulting often in persons finding their names down in the Government books as owners of property, the existence of which was unknown to them, and vice versâ, cause the validity of title-deeds, issued as they are by various courts in the country, to be a fertile source of litigation, and fraudulent action.... The fact, however, that title-deeds can be set aside by verbal testimony perhaps sufficiently accounts for the little value they practically possess."

I could cite many instances in illustration of Mr. Jago's statements. An effort made by the Rev. E. B. Frankel, of Damascus, to secure the title-deeds of a worthless piece of barren rock without resorting to the degrading practices of the country, is interesting, not only as an illustration in point, but also as showing that an honest man would suffer loss rather than gain his point by questionable means. I was privy to the transactions as they occurred, but as Mr. Frankel has kindly furnished me with a brief history, I shall give it in his own words:—

"During my residence in Damascus, I tried one or two villages in the neighbourhood as a summer retreat, and at length fixed upon a village called Maraba, as being at a convenient distance from the city to ride there in the morning and return at night. Finding, however, that the native houses were scarcely habitable, I determined to have a small house built, close to, yet not overlooking, the village. To carry out my plan I had first of all to apply to the Vali for permission to do so. His Highness, with an outburst of Oriental liberality, declared his readiness to give me not only a piece of ground but a garden as well. This I declined with thanks, knowing the value of such an offer, but showed him on paper the spot I had chosen, consisting of a barren rock, and asked him to send a competent person to the place to examine the site and value it, and at the same time see from the plan that none of my windows would overlook my neighbours. In the course of a few days, I received a notice that a commission of six officials would meet me on the spot and settle the matter at once. I provided a luncheon al fresco, to which the sheikh of the village was invited to negotiate on the part of the villagers.

"After a long preamble, setting forth the value of land in general, and of this spot in particular, he offered at length to sell the site for 5,000 piastres (a piastre is equal to 2d.).

"'Fifty piastres,' wrote down the scribe. 'By the life of your father, it is too little—say 3,000.' 'Seventy-five,' said the scribe. 'Say 1,000—by Allah, it is worth 5,000; but Allah is great.' 100 piastres was the sum agreed to at last, and I had the permission to begin building at once.

"When the house was half finished, an order came to stop, on the ground that it was built over the tomb of a Moslem saint, and that the departed spirit might not relish the vicinity of Christians, and avenge himself by doing us some bodily harm for which the Vali would be responsible.

"After a great deal of trouble and investigation, his Highness was convinced that the existence of such a tomb was a myth. The next charge brought against me was, that whilst I pretended to build a house, I was in reality building a convent in the midst of a Mohammedan population. I had a hard struggle to convince him that Protestants had no such institutions.

"Now all these charges had been trumped up by the officials in the hope of receiving the usual bribe, which I was determined not to give—having made up my mind to carry the business through honestly and legally. One more effort was made to annoy me, or rather to force me to give the customary 'backsheesh,'—viz., that the house was built over a road leading from the village to the stream to the great inconvenience of the villagers. The Consul had at length to interfere; the Government engineer was sent to investigate the matter and report upon it, which was to the effect that there was no vestige of road or foot-path in the vicinity of the house.

"After this, I was left in peaceful possession so far, that no one could turn me out of the house, but not having the title-deeds, I could scarcely expect to find a purchaser in case I wished to sell it. My next effort was to secure the necessary papers. Month after month I applied in vain for them. The Governor pretended to be shocked to hear that his orders had not been carried out, he sent for the scribe, and threatened him with his fiercest displeasure if such an act of negligence should ever again be reported against him. The scribe pleaded a sprained wrist as an excuse for the delay, but by the life of the Prophet, he would write the document at once. I took a hasty leave of the Vali, and rushed off after the scribe, determined not to lose sight of him again; he had, however, disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed him up. These scenes were repeated over and ever again, till at the end of twelve months, having to leave Damascus, I had to sell the house at a great loss, not having the title-deeds. The purchaser, the American Vice-Consul, trusting to his official position, hoped to be able to succeed where I had failed.

"I have no doubt but that by following the usual Oriental custom of backsheesh, and dividing £10 or £20 among the officials, every obstacle would have been removed to my obtaining the title-deeds of a property for which I paid the sum of 16s. 8d."

There are a few most interesting groups of German colonists in Palestine, who belong to a religious order called "The Temple;" and who assume to be a Spiritual Temple in the Holy Land. As far as I had opportunity of judging, the colonists were men who, as colonists, would succeed in any land, except perhaps Syria. There were among them masons and carpenters and blacksmiths and shoemakers and doctors. They were all accustomed to work with their hands, and they were prepared to do, not only whatever hard work was to be done in their own colony, but also to do any jobs for their neighbours, wherever their superior skill might be employed. They were strong, patient, sober, devout, and they entered on their work with lofty but calm enthusiasm. One branch settled at Jaffa, on the ruins of an American colony which had been led there by a Mr. Adams, and which ended in sad disaster. Another has settled "under the shadow of Mount Carmel," about a mile out of Haifa, and a third near Jerusalem. Besides settling in these places, some of the girls were prepared to go out as servants, with results, in some cases, that cannot be detailed. The first batch of these colonists settled near Nazareth in 1867, and all died of malarious fever.60 But the German colonists were not daunted by preliminary disaster, and they have been since battling with the difficulties of the situation with a patient energy bordering on heroism.

Mr. Oliphant visited the colonies at Jerusalem and Haifa, and after describing the streets and gardens and homesteads created by German industry, he adds, "The colonists have scarcely any trouble in their dealings with the Government."

Captain Conder, who spent much time among the colonists, gives a more realistic picture. He says—

"The Turkish government is quite incapable of appreciating their real motives in colonization, and cannot see any reason beyond a political one for the settlement of Europeans in the country. The colonists have therefore never obtained title-deeds to the land they have bought, and there can be little doubt that should the Turks deem it expedient they would entirely deny the right of the Germans to hold their property. Not only do they extend no favour to the colony, though its presence has been most beneficial to the neighbourhood, but the inferior officials, indignant at the attempts of the Germans to obtain justice, without any regard to 'the customs of the country' (that is, to bribery), have thrown every obstacle they can devise in the way of the community, both individually and collectively."61

The two most successful agricultural enterprises in Palestine are those of Bergheim and Sursuk, and as these are often referred to with a view to induce Englishmen to embark capital in similar enterprises, a few words about each may not be superfluous. Captain Conder, writing with full and accurate information, says:—

"Probably the most successful undertaking of an agricultural kind in Palestine is the farm at Abu Shûsheh, belonging to the Bergheims, the principal banking firm in Jerusalem. The lands of Abu Shûsheh belong to this family, and include 5,000 acres; a fine spring exists on the east, but in other respects the property is not exceptional. The native inhabitants are employed to till the land, under the supervision of Mr. Bergheim's son; a farmhouse has been built, a pump erected, and various modern improvements have been introduced. The same hindrance is, however, experienced by the Bergheims which has paralyzed all other efforts for the improvement of the land. The difficulties raised by the venal and corrupt under-officials of the Government have been vexatious and incessant, being due to the determination to extort money by some means or other, or else to ruin the enterprise from which they could gain nothing. The Turkish Government recognizes the right of foreigners to hold land, subject to the ordinary laws and taxes; but there is a long step between this abstract principle and the practical encouragement of such undertakings, and nothing is easier than to raise groundless difficulties, on the subject of title, or of assessment, in a land where the judges are as corrupt as the rest of the governing body."62

More important still is the estate of seventy square miles in the plain of Esdraelon, now in the hands of Mr. Sursuk, a wealthy banker at Beyrout. Mr. Oliphant gives an account of the enterprise. "The investment," he adds, "has turned out eminently successful; indeed, so much so, that I found it difficult to credit the accounts of the enormous profits which Mr. Sursuk derives from his estate."63

From Mr. Oliphant's description, I turn to the excellent Commercial Report, written by Vice-Consul Jago, in plain prose, and I find he thus speaks of the undertaking:—

"Some few years ago, the wealthiest native Christian in the country, tempted by the low price of land near Acre offered for sale by the Government, purchased a large tract, containing thirty villages, for £18,000. The revenue accruing to the Government was, prior to the purchase, between £T.1,500 and £T.2,000 per annum, owing to the poverty of the peasants, and consequently little production.

"Large sums were spent in importing labour from other districts for cultivation, and in providing the peasants with proper means. Under judicious management the speculation paid well, as much as thirty per cent. on capital, besides increasing the taxes paid to the Government to £5,000. The peasantry likewise benefited, being assured of protection and prompt return for their labours. This state of prosperity produced local intrigue and jealousies. Actions of ejectment were brought to which the government title-deeds proved no bar. Journeys to Constantinople, and endless special commissions were the result, and it was only after a liberal expenditure of money, time, and labour, that the judicial courts of the country gave a decision, which, it is hoped, has set the matter finally at rest.... In short, a capitalist wishing to employ money in agriculture must be prepared to light his way, as it were, inch by inch, and that, too, with the weapons of the country."64

Apparently Mr. Oliphant would have no objection to use the weapons of the country. At least he seems ready to base the successful launching of his Company on such considerations. Looking out over the province of Ajlun, which is a fertile region about forty miles long by twenty-five in width, he exclaims: "I feel no moral doubt that £50,000, partly expended judiciously in bribes at Constantinople, and partly applied to the purchase of land, not belonging to the State, from its present proprietors, would purchase the entire province, and could be made to return a fabulous interest on the investment."65

I need only suggest that where investors embark their capital in philanthropic undertakings for "fabulous interest," it might be well if they reflected on the character of their proposed security and the means used to secure it.

III. Tenure of land in Syria and Palestine is regulated by Mohammedan law as administered in the Ottoman Empire. That law contemplates land under a five-fold classification.

First. Crown lands set apart at the time of the conquest as the personal share of the Sultan and the Mussulman nation. These crown lands were farmed to the highest bidders, and the rent paid for them was known as Miri. Several changes at different times were introduced with respect to the Miri, and in 1864 these were superseded by the Tapoo code, the effect of which was to give titles of possession to those who, for ten years previously, had cultivated the crown lands, on condition of their paying five per cent. of the value of the land against the issue of their title-deeds. Under the Tapoo system the crown lands become subject to two fixed taxes—the Verghoo, about four per mil. on the estimated value of the land; and the Ushr or tithe, which should be a tenth part of the produce of the soil.