DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10358#0123
98
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
have a chapel and a college, where several languages, including Arabic, are taught, and a
library and reading-room. At the lower end of the street there is an hotel of simple
character, which is greatly praised by travellers for its cleanliness. Near it stands a guard-
house for the use of the nightly patrol.
Beyond the colony the plain extends towards the north-west to the headland of Carmel,
a distance of a mile and a quarter, with an average breadth of half or three-quarters of a mile,
and an area of about six hundred acres of good arable land, all now under cultivation, half of
it being owned or rented by the Germans, and the rest by Arabs. Olive-groves (a few groups
of which belong to the colonists) skirt the base of the hills, and the sandy seashore is fringed
with fig orchards and hedges of Cactus opuntia (prickly pear). The colonists have made a
carriage road from Haifa to Nazareth, and there is a carriage-maker among them. They
have also a soap manufactory, which is beginning to do a good trade with America. Every
family has a cow or two and a few goats, which an Arab is employed to collect and take out
to pasture every day. They are not rich, but they have enough for their actual needs, and
seem to be happy. They live peaceably with the people of the country, but apparently do not
desire to fraternise with them.*
Near to the rocky shore at the foot of the western extremity of Mount Carmel, where the
plain is not more than two hundred yards in width (its narrowest part), there is a mound of
ruins called Tell es Semak, and a ruined fortress, evidently built to guard the pass. This
probably was the site of Sycaminum, a city which Strabo, who died a.d. 24, describes as
existing only in name in his time, but which must have been of considerable importance a
century earlier, for large and beautiful gold coins of Cleopatra, the thrice-married daughter
of Ptolemy VI., surnamed Philometer, were struck at Sycamina in the year of the Seleu-
cidse 187 = b.c. 125. (The strange story of her life is graphically told in 1 Maccabees
x. xi.)
Josephus relates that when Ptolemy VIII., surnamed Lathyrus, came from Cyprus with an
army of thirty thousand men to besiege Ptolemais ('Akka), " he came to the country of
Sycamine, and there set his army ashore." Wherever the city may have stood, "the country
of Sycamine " must have included the shores of the haven within the northern headland of
Carmel, the haven of Zebulun. " Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea ; and he shall
be for an haven of ships" (Gen. xlix. 13; see page 83). rpn, the Hebrew word for haven, is
echoed, with a slight variation, and perpetuated in the Arabic name of the town of Haifa,
UU»w, and the Greek 'H<£a.
Eusebius, who died in a.d. 338, speaks of a village of Sycaminum, " also called 'H<£a," and
this seems to indicate that the new Sycaminum was built in the " haven," probably on the site
* The sect of " Temple Christians," called also " Lovers of Jerusalem," had its origin in a little village of Wurtemberg, in the year 1851.
A few piously-disposed individuals united themselves into a society for the promotion of spiritual life. Their numbers quickly increased, and
in 1853 they started a newspaper ; Christopher Hoffmann, its editor, was elected president of the community. One of their chief aspirations was
to help to restore fertility to the land once " flowing with milk and honey." Accordingly, in the year 1868, they sent pioneers to Palestine to select
suitable places for colonisation. Plots of land were purchased at Haifa and at Jaffa, and the first company of colonists arrived in the autumn
of that year. A colony was subsequently established in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
have a chapel and a college, where several languages, including Arabic, are taught, and a
library and reading-room. At the lower end of the street there is an hotel of simple
character, which is greatly praised by travellers for its cleanliness. Near it stands a guard-
house for the use of the nightly patrol.
Beyond the colony the plain extends towards the north-west to the headland of Carmel,
a distance of a mile and a quarter, with an average breadth of half or three-quarters of a mile,
and an area of about six hundred acres of good arable land, all now under cultivation, half of
it being owned or rented by the Germans, and the rest by Arabs. Olive-groves (a few groups
of which belong to the colonists) skirt the base of the hills, and the sandy seashore is fringed
with fig orchards and hedges of Cactus opuntia (prickly pear). The colonists have made a
carriage road from Haifa to Nazareth, and there is a carriage-maker among them. They
have also a soap manufactory, which is beginning to do a good trade with America. Every
family has a cow or two and a few goats, which an Arab is employed to collect and take out
to pasture every day. They are not rich, but they have enough for their actual needs, and
seem to be happy. They live peaceably with the people of the country, but apparently do not
desire to fraternise with them.*
Near to the rocky shore at the foot of the western extremity of Mount Carmel, where the
plain is not more than two hundred yards in width (its narrowest part), there is a mound of
ruins called Tell es Semak, and a ruined fortress, evidently built to guard the pass. This
probably was the site of Sycaminum, a city which Strabo, who died a.d. 24, describes as
existing only in name in his time, but which must have been of considerable importance a
century earlier, for large and beautiful gold coins of Cleopatra, the thrice-married daughter
of Ptolemy VI., surnamed Philometer, were struck at Sycamina in the year of the Seleu-
cidse 187 = b.c. 125. (The strange story of her life is graphically told in 1 Maccabees
x. xi.)
Josephus relates that when Ptolemy VIII., surnamed Lathyrus, came from Cyprus with an
army of thirty thousand men to besiege Ptolemais ('Akka), " he came to the country of
Sycamine, and there set his army ashore." Wherever the city may have stood, "the country
of Sycamine " must have included the shores of the haven within the northern headland of
Carmel, the haven of Zebulun. " Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea ; and he shall
be for an haven of ships" (Gen. xlix. 13; see page 83). rpn, the Hebrew word for haven, is
echoed, with a slight variation, and perpetuated in the Arabic name of the town of Haifa,
UU»w, and the Greek 'H<£a.
Eusebius, who died in a.d. 338, speaks of a village of Sycaminum, " also called 'H<£a," and
this seems to indicate that the new Sycaminum was built in the " haven," probably on the site
* The sect of " Temple Christians," called also " Lovers of Jerusalem," had its origin in a little village of Wurtemberg, in the year 1851.
A few piously-disposed individuals united themselves into a society for the promotion of spiritual life. Their numbers quickly increased, and
in 1853 they started a newspaper ; Christopher Hoffmann, its editor, was elected president of the community. One of their chief aspirations was
to help to restore fertility to the land once " flowing with milk and honey." Accordingly, in the year 1868, they sent pioneers to Palestine to select
suitable places for colonisation. Plots of land were purchased at Haifa and at Jaffa, and the first company of colonists arrived in the autumn
of that year. A colony was subsequently established in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.