the vilayet or province of Beirut. South of this point is the
sanjak[1]
of Jerusalem, to which Nazareth with its immediate neighbourhood is
added, so as to bring all the principal “Holy Places” under one
jurisdiction. East of the Jordan the country forms part of the
large vilayet of Syria, whose centre is at Damascus.
Communications.—Until 1892 communication through the country was entirely by caravan, and this primitive method is still followed over the greater part of its area. On the 26th of September of that year a railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem, with five intermediate stations, was opened, and has much facilitated transit between the coast and the mountains of Judaea. A railway from Haifa to Damascus was opened in 1905; it runs across the Plain of Esdraelon, enters the Ghor at Beisan, then, turning northwards, impinges on the Sea of Galilee at Samakh, and runs up the valley of the Yarmuk to join, at ed-Der‛a, the line of the third railway. This was undertaken in 1901 to connect Damascus with Mecca; in 1906 it was finished as far as Ma‛an, and in 1908 the section to Medina was completed. Carriage-roads also began to be constructed during the last decade of the 19th century. They are on the whole carelessly made and maintained, and are liable to go badly and more or less permanently out of repair in heavy rain. Of completed roads the most important are from Jaffa to Haifa, Jaffa to Nablus, Jaffa to Jerusalem, Jaffa to Gaza; Jerusalem to Jericho, Jerusalem to Bethlehem with a branch to Hebron, Jerusalem to Khan Labban—ultimately to be extended to Nablus; and Gaza to Beersheba. Other roads have been begun in Galilee (e.g. Haifa to Tiberias and to Jenin); but in this respect the northern province is far behind the southern. For the rest there is a network of tracks, all practically impassable by wheeled vehicles, extending over the country and connecting the towns and villages one with another.
Industries.—There are no mines and few manufactures of importance in Palestine: the country is entirely agricultural. Although the processes are primitive and improvements are discouraged, both by the policy of the government and by an indolence and suspiciousness of innovation natural to the people themselves, fine crops of cereals are yielded, especially in the large wheat-lands of Hauran. Besides wheat, the following crops are to a greater or less extent cultivated—barley, millet, sesame, maize, beans, peas, lentils, kursenni (a species of vetch used as camel-food) and, in some parts of the country, tobacco. The agriculturist has many enemies to contend with, the tax-gatherer being perhaps the most deadly; and drought, earthquakes, rats and locusts have at all periods been responsible for barren years.
The fruit trade is very considerable. The value of the oranges exported from Jaffa in 1906 was £162,000; this amount increases annually, and of course in addition a considerable quantity is retained for home consumption. Besides these are grown melons, mulberries, bananas, apricots, quinces, walnuts, lemons and citron. The culture of the vine—formerly an important staple, as is proved by the countless ancient wine-presses scattered over the rocky hillsides of the whole country—fell to some extent into desuetude, no doubt owing to the Moslem prohibition of wine-drinking. It is, however, rapidly returning to favour, principally under Jewish auspices, and numerous vineyards now exist at different centres. All over the country are olive-trees, the fruit and oil of which are a staple product of the country; the trade is however hampered by an excessive tax on trees, which not only discourages plantation, but has the unfortunate effect of encouraging destruction. Other fruit trees are abundant, though less so than those we have mentioned: such are pomegranates, pears, almonds, peaches, and, in the warmer part of the country, palms. Apples are few and poor in quality. The kharrub (carob) is common and yields a fruit eaten by the poorer classes.[2] Of ordinary table vegetables a considerable quantity and variety are grown: such are the cabbage, cauliflower, solanum (egg-plant), cucumber, hibiscus (bamieh), lettuce, carrot, artichoke, &c. The potato is also grown in considerable quantities.
Beside the agricultural there is a considerable pastoral industry, though it is principally confined to production for home consumption. Sheep and goats are bred throughout the country; but the breeding of the beasts of burden (donkeys, horses, camels) is chiefly in the hands of the Bedouin.
Of the manufactures the following call for mention: pottery (at Gaza, Ramleh and Jerusalem); soap (from olive oil, principally at Nablus); we may perhaps also extend the term to include the collecting of salt (from the Dead Sea). This last is a government monopoly, but illicit manufacture and smuggling are highly organized. Some of the minor industries, such as bee-keeping, are practised with success by a few individuals. Other industries of less importance are basket-making, weaving, and silk and cotton manufacture. Stone-quarrying has been fostered since 1900 by the great development of building at Jerusalem and other places. Wine is manufactured by several of the German and Jewish colonies, and by some of the monastic establishments. Regular industrial work is however handicapped by competition with the tourist trade in its several branches—acting as guides and camp servants, manufacture and sale of “souvenirs” (carved toys and trinkets in mother-of-pearl and olive-wood, forged antiquities and the like), and the analogous trade in objets de piété (rosaries, crosses, crude religious pictures, &c.) for pilgrims. Travellers in the country squander their money recklessly, and these trades, at once easy and lucrative, are thus fatally attractive to the indolent Syrian and prejudicial to the best interests of the country. (R. A. S. M.)
History
I.—Old Testament History.
Palestine is essentially a land of small divisions, and its configuration does not fit it to form a separate entity; it “has never belonged to one nation and probably never will.”[3] Its position gives the key to its history. Along the west coast ran the great road for traders and for the campaigns which have made the land famous. The seaports (more especially in Syria, including Phoenicia), were well known to the pirates, traders and sea-powers of the Levant. The southernmost, Gaza, was joined by a road to the mixed peoples of the Egyptian Delta, and was also the port of the Arabian caravans. Arabia, in its turn, opens out into both Babylonia and Palestine, and a familiar route skirted the desert east of the Jordan into Syria to Damascus and Hamath. Damascus is closely connected with Galilee and Gilead, and has always been in contact with Mesopotamia, Assyria, Asia Minor and Armenia. Thus Palestine lay at the gate of Arabia and Egypt, and at the tail end of a number of small states stretching up into Asia Minor; it was encircled by the famous ancient civilizations of Babylonia, Assyria, South Arabia and Egypt, of the Hittites of Asia Minor, and of the Aegean peoples. Consequently its history cannot be isolated from that of the surrounding lands. Recent research in bringing to light considerable portions of long-forgotten ages is revolutionizing those impressions which were based upon the Old Testament—the sacred writings of a small fraction of this great area; and a broad survey of the vicissitudes of this area furnishes a truer perspective of the few centuries which concern the biblical student.[4] The history of the Israelites is only one aspect of the history of Palestine, and this is part of the history of a very closely interrelated portion of a world sharing many similar forms of thought and custom. It will be necessary here to approach the subject from a point of view which is less familiar to the biblical student, and to treat Palestine not merely as the land of the Bible, but as a land which has played a part in history for certainly more than 4000 years. The close of Old Testament history (the book of Nehemiah) in the Persian age forms a convenient division between ancient Palestine and the career of the land under non-oriental influence during the Greek and Roman ages. It also marks the culmination of a lengthy historical and religious development in the establishment of Judaism and its inveterate rival Samaritanism. The most important data bearing upon the first great period are given elsewhere in this work, and it is proposed to offer here a more general survey.[5]
To the prehistoric ages belong the palaeolithic and neolithic flints, from the distribution of which an attempt might be made to give a synthetic sketch of early Palestinian man.[6] A burial cave at Gezer has revealed the existence of a race of slight build and stature, muscular, Beginning of history. with elongated crania, and thick and heavy skull-bones. The
- ↑ A sanjak is usually a subordinate division of a vilayet, but that of Jerusalem has been independent ever since the Crimean War. This change was made on account of the trouble involved in referring all complications (arising from questions relating to the political standing of the holy places) to the superior officials of Beirut or Damascus, as had formerly been necessary.
- ↑ Sometimes imagined to be the “locusts” eaten by John the Baptist, on which account the tree is often called the locust-tree. But it was the insect which John used to eat; it is still eaten by the fellahin.
- ↑ G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land, p. 58. This and the author’s art. “Trade and Commerce,” Ency. Bib. vol. iv., and his Jerusalem (London, 1907), are invaluable for the relation between Palestinian geography and history. For the wider geographical relations, see especially D. G. Hogarth, Nearer East (London, 1902).
- ↑ See especially the writings of H. Winckler, in the 3rd ed. of Schrader’s Keilinschriften und das Alte Test. (Berlin, 1903); his Religionsgeschichtlicher u. geschichtlicher Orient (1906), &c.
- ↑ See the articles on the surrounding countries and peoples, and, for the biblical traditions, art. Jews.
- ↑ See H. Vincent, Canaan d’après l’exploration récente (Paris, 1907), pp. 374 sqq., also pp. 392-426.
