It was a curious sight to see a bevy of at least fifty women and girls rush into the Carmelite chapel, which during the week is left in charge of a Druse, who on this occasion did the honours of it to his coreligionists, who scampered all over the premises, gazing wonderingly at the altar ornaments, and forming large dancing-circles on the flat roof. I could not exactly find out why the Druses chose the place of Elijah's sacrifice as the scene of their festivity, but there is no doubt that the traditions of a special sanctity are attached to it in their religion as well as in that of the Roman Catholics, and that the slaughter of the eight hundred false prophets by the holy man whose prayers for rain were heard on this spot, and upon whom the divine vengeance was invoked, appeals to a sentiment which is common to the Christian, the Moslem, and the Druse religions.
[1] A year later the thieves were found, and the Circassian colony to which they belonged was compelled by the government to refund the Germans the value of the horses.
ARMAGEDDON.—THE BOSNIAN COLONY AT CÆSAREA.
Daliet-el-Carmel, Sept. 11.—There is no fact at first more puzzling to the traveller in Palestine than the contrast between the misery and poverty of the fellahin and the extent and fertility of land owned by each village. This is, however, the inevitable result of the various fiscal devices to which the government has been compelled to resort, in order to provide a revenue which shall meet the needs of its internal administration, and the claims of its foreign bondholders. These press more severely on the peasant class than on any other in the community, and as the financial necessities of the empire increase, new methods are being constantly devised to meet them. Thus the latest arrangement requires the taxes to be paid in money instead of in kind, as heretofore, the amount being assessed on an average of the crops extending over a period of five years. This has produced the greatest consternation among the peasantry throughout the country, who find themselves quite unable to meet this new demand, and who are compelled, in consequence, to resort to extortionate money-lenders, who charge from thirty to forty per cent. for their advances, thus ruining the fellahin, whose villages are all destined by this process to fall into the hands of these grasping usurers, while the peasants remain upon them as serfs, merely receiving so much of the crop as will keep them from starving. Thus it happened that, in the belief that I had more bowels of compassion than their own countrymen, I was applied to by the villagers in all directions; among others, by those who owned the lands of Lejjun, or the biblical Megiddo. This is generally supposed to be identical with Armageddon, and the notion of becoming the proprietor of a battle-field which possesses such interesting historical associations in the past, to say nothing of the future, which may be mythical or not, according to theological fancy, induced me to pay a visit to that celebrated locality. Its position was as tempting as its sentimental considerations were remarkable. Here, jutting out into the plain of Esdrælon, of which it commands an extensive view, stands the Tell et Mutsellim, or governor's hill, upon which the traces of what may have been a palace are distinctly visible. Right opposite to us across the plain, about twelve miles distant, the houses of Nazareth gleam upon the lofty hillside; to the right are Tabor, Little Hermon, and Mount Gilboa, with the mountains of Gilead in the rear. Beneath, circling round the base of the mound, are “the waters of Megiddo,” a copious stream, turning two water-mills and irrigating an extensive tract of plain. Behind us is an undulating plateau covered with the ruins of the ancient city. Here are fragments of columns, carved capitals and cornices, and I found some subterranean chambers into which I crawled, and which, as they connected with the stream by stone conduits, I assume must, in old times, have been baths. The peasants have found antiques of various kinds, and I was shown the hand and forearm of a female figure, life-size, and beautifully carved in marble, which they had dug up. There is no saying what treasures the fortunate proprietor of this place may not unearth, and with the wealth of water at his command, of which but little advantage is now taken, he might have extensive gardens and orange groves. From this point a great military road passed, in the most ancient times, connecting Galilee with the coast road. Along it, before the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, Thothmes, the King of Egypt, led his invading hosts into Syria.