Hassan: a fellah. A romance of Palestine

Chapter I

I SHALL wait till she returns," he said. "My hope is as the first-fruits in harvest. My heart is lifted up for joy because of her. Surely love comes of its own accord! How can a man help it? Who shall say it nay?" And he settled himself with a complacent air under the shelter of a great rock, in a position from which he could watch his sheep while they cropped the early and still meagre herbage of the hillside. Below, in the hollow of the valley, was the principal well of the village, to which the women, from long distances, came to draw water ; for the well was noted for the abundance and purity of its supply of the precious liquid. And the words which the stalwart young shepherd had spoken to himself had reference to a childlike girl who had just tripped by, with nicely-balanced kulleh, or water-jar, on head, on her way to the ain, or fountain.

The young man, Hassan, his shepherd's crook in his hand, sat partly in the shade of the rock, partly in the clear penetrating blaze of the Palestine sun, and, except that he was of unusually noble stature, was a perfect type of the native fellah or peasant. He had not quite completed his eighteenth year, and was as handsome, after his kind, as he well could be. The single scanty garment of the country, of coarse white cotton, clung here and there to him, barely saving him from the divine nudity of a Greek statue. On the right side the polished round of the shoulder protruded ; and from there, downward, over the well-turned flank and thigh, to the tip of the toe, the full sweep of his contour was absolutely beyond criticism. I Hassan : a Fellah 2 It gladdened the heart to see so much perfection in a man.

The almost uniform equality of the fine bronze of his skin told of his habitual disregard of dress. His head, for the time being without any other covering than its thickly-clustering raven-black hair, was bent slightly forward, the chin resting on his right hand. His dark hazel eyes looked out confidently from under the pair of strongly accentuated curves — narrow black dashes — that formed his brows, and which seemed like marks of attention inviting to the inspection of his beauty. The dress, doubtless, was similar to that worn by David as he kept the sheep of his father Jesse — a dress sanctioned by the usage of scores upon scores of generations of the men of the country. To-day the unbreeched peasant of Palestine, free of all constraint, immodestly innocent of all shame in his state of semi-nudity, goes his way in unconfined liberty of heart and limb, wearing the vesture that Abraham wore, and with the motion and action of a lord of creation.

Habit and custom are everything; and no offence is taken where none is meant. No raiment, to be dress at all, could certainly be less conventional. But it had its advantages. It was suited to the climate and the people, and its very simplicity made it graceful, and permitted full and wholesome ventilation of all parts of the body. Its longest sweep reached little below the knee ; and, as occasion required, it could be tucked up and rendered much shorter. If it had the stains of the outdoor life upon it, the odour of the pasture also clung about it; and, as old Isaac said, it had " the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed." For cold weather, and morning and evening wear, was the heavy brown and white striped abai, woven of camel's or goat's hair. This was waterproof, and a perfect pro tection from the storm ; and, wrapped in it, a man could sleep comfortably out-of-doors all night.

And peasants, and especially shepherds, as the season demanded, also often might be seen in a short coat or jacket formed of sheepskin, the woolly side turned in or next the body. Hassan : a Fellah 3 It was plain that Hassan's attention was more than divided from the care of his sheep by his interest in the young girl. He watched her every motion with appre ciative glance and an earnest feeling that was not the growth of a day. Frequently, on other occasions, had he followed her with ardent gaze, and finding out the hours at which she was wont to pass by, of late had managed to pasture his sheep, at such times, near to the way she went. So far, he had not ventured to speak to her ; though, more than once, he had made up his mind to the act. Even a simple peasant has a peculiar reserve, shame facedness, or diffidence under such circumstances ; and the habits and customs of the land, even in the country parts, are not friendly to very familiar intercourse on the part of the opposite sexes.

With the Moslem in cities, and among the Turks, of course, nothing of the kind is ever permitted ; a man not even being allowed to see his wife till the night of the wedding, or the morning after their marriage. That this last is the prevailing custom in the Orient, is well known ; and how long it has kept a foothold there is fully attested by the story of Jacob and Leah, and the sharp practice of Laban on the wedding night. But the peasant in his village has, under certain limits and restraints, much greater freedom in this respect, and from necessity ; the seclusion of women, as practised in cities and towns, being out of the question in the country. Neither do the women go with face veiled in the latter, as they invariably do in the former. A common saying with the men, who do not mince matters in expressing themselves on the subject, is : " How does anybody know whether the thing which is behind the curtain be handsome or ugly?" which sufficiently explains their position.

However, in the case of Hassan, the young shepherd, there existed other reasons of restraining influence. The girl resided in a village only a short distance from his ; but between the two villages had existed, from time immemorial, a blood-feud which, though it had had its origin in a cause long since forgotten, still perpetuated Hassan : a Fellah 4 itself in many dissentient customs and a general unfriendly feeling between the communities. Intermarriage was prohibited, and whenever, under some peculiar circum stances, such an event took place, it was made the occasion to stir up, from the very depths, the old rancour and its antiquated observances. Of late years, it must be admitted, there had been, to a certain extent, a relenting from the worst phases of the senseless enmity. But that it should be altogether laid aside was not to be thought of.

There is a cruel ad herence to custom in the Orient, which is scarcely to be believed by those who never have resided there. Hassan had not inaptly been called " the handsome young giant." This grand young man, of noble form and mien, physically a masterpiece, and in the full per fection of his manhood while yet in his eighteenth year, was a descendant of those tall Canaanites of the hill country, who, in the days of the Hebrew invasion of the land, struck such terror into the hearts of the children of Israel. He was a son of Anak, though the fact had been unknown to him and to those among whom he dwelt, — lost in the misty trackless past. "Who can stand before the children of Anak?" It had become a proverb more than three thousand years ago. They were described as giants ; and the nomadic Hebrews, though toughened from their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, had wept cowardly tears as they shuddered at the thought of encountering those high and mighty men of the hills.

"The people is taller and greater than we," they cried, and they wanted to turn back into Egypt. " We have seen the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grass hoppers, and so we were in their sight." It was a strange coincidence that an Englishman, a traveller of note, who had met Hassan while yet a lad, and was attracted by his tall stature and fine build, un usual in one of his age, had called him " a son of Anak " and given him the name of Talmai, with refer ence to the individual of that name, who, at the time of the visit of Caleb and the Spies, was a chief or prince Hassan : a Fellah 5 of the Anakim, living near Hebron, and nigh to the Brook Eshcol, which was even then, as we know, celebrated for the superior quality of its grapes, figs, and pomegranates, as it is unto this day.

As in the case of many other usages, certain names have a decided permanency among certain tribes of the people of Palestine ; and the Englishman, aware of this, and observing that Hassan smiled, saying he liked the name well, for it had been his father's and his father's father's name, made direct investigations. He found, among other interesting facts, that Hassan and his people were from the hill-country, not far from Hebron, which stimulated further research, — the result being that he finally became fully persuaded in his own mind that the lusty youth was a descendant of the Anakim. True, the ancient record states, as he was aware, that the Anakim were cut off utterly in the mountains of Judah, on the incoming of the Israelites. But he con sidered all such sweeping statements must be taken with a grain of salt — require qualification ; and Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod are particularly excepted from the exter mination.

Now Gath, the City of Giants, was in the hill-country, and nearly four hundred years after this extermination was still the abode of the Philistines, and sent out, to defy Israel, a notable giant in the person of Goliath, whom David slew. Moreover, subsequently, did not King David take as one of his many wives the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, who bore him his handsome, faithless, but well-beloved son Absalom? It, however, must be added that Hassan gave little heed to anything of this, as connected with himself, regarding the matter with almost sublime indifference. As the girl, on her return from the ain, approached, bearing on her shoulder the heavy water-jar, Hassan arose and stood upright, filled with the determination he had formed to speak to her. It was an impulse he could no longer resist.

Day after day it had grown upon him ; and now, with the fatalism of the East, he felt the time had come. Ad vancing a few steps to meet her, he waited by the path way where she must pass. Hassan : a Fellah 6 He had resumed his head-covering, a tarboosh of some what faded crimson with blue silk tassel, and surrounded with turban-like cloth of white, banded with stripes of a dead-gold colour. It was astonishing to one unaccustomed to it to see the ease and rapidity with which he wound this cloth into the turban shape around his head. A few deft turns of the hand, and it was done, the end passed be neath the folds securing all in place. Standing thus, ready to receive her, his crook resting against his shoulder, he must have presented a strong likeness to the youth of fair countenance, afterwards known as the shepherd-king, and the man after God's own heart, — the sweet singer of Israel, who so many centuries ago had tended sheep on these very mountain sides, and who was the result of more than one inter marriage with the people of the land.

The fresh breeze, rushing through the valley and up the slopes, no respecter of persons, and no aider and abetter of prudery, at each gust, lightly swept aside his loosely-hanging raiment, more fully revealing his per fect form. He had thrust his feet into his sandal-like slippers, as a protection from the sharp stones. How large and lustrous his eyes looked ! How bright the red of his full lips, beneath his dark mustache ! His crispy, almost wiry hair, a characteristic of the people, was now concealed beneath his tarboosh, all but a luxuriantly defiant tuft which ravishingly protruded in front. An unusual glow lighted and warmed his olive cheek. Yes, he was an uncommonly handsome man, — " fear fully and wonderfully made," as the Scripture has it, — a noble representative descendant of the most ancient people of the land, even the Canaanites, as they gen erically had been named from their country, which was called Canaan.

There was not the least expression of shame or em barrassment on the part of the young girl as the two met. He saluted her with the easy, almost princely manner of the Oriental, raising his hand with the usual elegant gesture to his breast, lips, and forehead. " Niharak-sai'd — Good morning," he said. " Will the Hassan : a Fellah 7 damsel give me to drink? The water is spent in my bot tle, and I am famished with thirst." The lover spoke in his every word and action ; for, except in the case of aged women, men are not expected to salute members of the opposite sex. " Thou art very welcome," she replied, and prepared to lower the jar, in which act he assisted her. It is considered almost inhuman to refuse any one a draught of water. Having stooped, and satisfied his thirst, he thanked her, repeating rapidly, in a single sweep, the courteous gesture of hand to breast, lips, and forehead.

Their eyes met. They were face to face. This was what he had looked forward to, these many days. And yet it came to him as a glad surprise. How it warmed and quickened his blood ! A soft, yet what might be considered a somewhat familiar smile, and an expression of great satisfaction, parted his full lips, revealing two dazzling rows of perfect, pearly teeth. To this, ever so slight a response was elicited on her part; and she prepared to replace the jar upon her shoulder. But in this he gently interrupted her. " I have somewhat to say to thee." " Say on," she replied. " Thou dost pass here very often." " Every day." " I have watched thee coming and going, and have wanted to speak to thee, and ask thee to give me of the water to quench my thirst ; but I did not make bold to detain thee." " I have seen thee tending thy sheep," was her simple response.

Her eyes were now cast down, very modestly; and she partly concealed her face with her white headdress. " Yes," he said, " I tend the sheep here. And — and," reverting to the former topic — the subject at heart — " I see thee coming for water to the ain — the fountain. And — and I should like to help thee." " It is not necessary or fitting my lord should trouble himself to do that." " Oh, it is no trouble ! I should not mind doing it for Hassan : a Fellah thee, and much more than that, even if it were a trouble." At this her great luminous eyes turned on him a questioning, penetrating glance ; but she said nothing. " I have been inquiring about thee," he resumed ; " and I have found that, like me, thou art an orphan — without father and mother." " It is true. I am an orphan." " We should be good friends, then," he said.

" We ought to be very kind to each other." A hesitating, somewhat startled look crossed her face. " I live at Malha," she simply answered. " I know it." " And thou at Bettir," she added, as though that settled the question. " Plenty of water at Bettir ; thou hast not to go far to draw it," was his diplomatic and significant remark, in tended to suggest certain possibilities, and divert her attention. How like a child she looked; and in mere years she was little better than a child. She was almost fifteen, so that there was about three years' difference in their ages ; but in Palestine, where men marry in their early teens, and women at a still earlier age, and where grand mothers of little more than twenty may be found, — to all intents and purposes, he was a man and she a woman. The Oriental is a precocious animal.

Meanwhile, she had replenished his porous water-bottle from her jar, restoring to the former the wisp of straw with which it was stopped — a convenient but poor sub stitute for cork. His various little devices for detaining her were at length exhausted. It was not well they should be seen together. She began to show her anxiety to depart; and as she had quite a distance to traverse, and most of it steep climbing, up the slopes of the rocky tell, he felt it best not to delay her longer. Yet, though he considered it hardly prudent, he could not resist walking beside her for a short distance on her return, after having restored her water-jar to her shoulder. Hassan : a Fellah 9 Though their hearts kindled within them as they talked by the way, their words were few. " Is it not well, Hilwe?" he asked proudly.

" I care not for the blood-feud. I have nothing to do with it. And though all the rest of the people in the two villages should be enemies, I am determined we shall be good friends. Shall we not always be friends? " Hilwe looked down, half afraid. " Yea, yea. Shall it not be so ? " he reiterated. " Shall it not be well? " To this her only reply was a smile lighting up every feature. But it was answer enough for him. They were now within the borders of the territory of Malha. He saw he must return. With a full heart he said courteously : " Khaterak — By thy leave or pleasure," the customary expression before taking departure. Indeed, it was time for him to attend to his sheep, and gather them together, for they had become widely scat tered, as is wont for sheep without the shepherd. " Thou hast a rough way to go, up the steep tell," he said, glancing up the heights.

" Yea. But thou hast made it smooth," she replied. As he turned away from her, softly fell from her lovely lips that most beautiful expression in the Arabic — the good-bye or farewell : " Ma'-es-salameh." This is liter ally " With peace," and means, " Go in peace," or " Peace abide with thee." He thought he had never heard it sound so sweetly, yet so sadly. " Allah yasellamak — May Allah give thee peace," he replied. " Rightly art thou named Hilwe. Thou art indeed sweet." This was in accordance with the Moslem custom, which enjoins that in returning a good wish you must heighten or increase it, or wish something better. He more than once turned to look after her, as she moved with even pace over the hilly way, steadily balanc ing her water-jar. " She is like a gazelle of the mountain," he murmured to himself.

" My soul yearns for her as the parched land Hassan : a Fellah 10 for the rain. Allah be merciful to her, and bless her." And now he had to turn his attention to his truant sheep. They sorely needed his care, and were scattered widely apart, in all directions, and where they ought not to be. But as soon as he gave his peculiar cry or call, every sheep raised its head, recognising his voice ; and, going before them, he led them into fresh and green pastures. It was an actual realisation of the old psalm. It was the putting into action the words of the Great Teacher in describing the Good Shepherd : " The sheep hear his voice : and he calleth his own sheep by name, and lead eth them out. . . . He goeth before them, and the sheep follow him : for they know his voice." And this beautiful sight is one which may be seen, to this hour, any day in Palestine.

A hundred memories and gentle impulses are stirred as one sees the great flocks of sheep, accompanied by their black and more briskly moving comrades, the goats, feeding up and down, among the huge out-cropping rocks of the hillside, with the alert, faithful shepherd caring for them, and leading them " in the way they should go." Hassan was wonderfully elated now, as he went before his flock, playing on his reed pipe or nay, calling to the sheep and guiding them. He soon had them all collected and feeding together ; and, in the fulness of his soul, he broke out into singing one of the weird minor-like strains of Palestine, set in one of those crude, primitive scales of indefinite tonality which we, long ago, have passed beyond, and have left far behind. It was an archaic lyric, without any beauty of melody to the unaccustomed ear, yet full of untold pathos and heart-stirring associations to the native.

Doos ya lei - lee, Doos ya le - 1 - lee. . . . Hassan : a Fellah 11 Doos ya lei - lee, Doos ya . . . le - - - 1- lee. 'Eshke mah - boo - bee fe - te - n - nee. 41 Leap, O my joy ! Leap, O my joy ! " (repeated) 44 Ardent desire of my beloved hath involved me in earnest." Everything seemed to stop to listen as he sang. " Doos ya lellee ! Doos ya lellee ! " How seductively the refrain rang out at the close of each stanza ! How far the clear air carried the sound ! It was startling. The hollows and rocky caverns echoed and re-echoed the rude barbaric notes, as though they were familiar accents, akin to them, to which they responded with friendly utterance. The sheep, too, sympathising with their master's happiness, which they well understood as expressed in those impassioned resonant tones, fed all the more contentedly; while Hassan walked like a king among them, singing in deeper and louder outbursts, and as if the music had stimulated him and exalted his spirit to the most exhilarated pitch.

And thus he sang: 41 By Allah, I am inflamed with intense love ! The lover, surely, is not to be blamed : How can he hold back his eager heart ? How can he stay himself from loving ? The black eyes have overthrown me. The lips red as pomegranate have betrayed me. From love of them I began to sing, And the song hath increased my madness. Unite me to my true love, one night, And if the beloved of my heart come to me, I will bring her to my mother's house, I will make the cashmere shawl her canopy. Hassan : a Fellah 12 The crew of reproachers leagued together To debar me from my beloved. By Allah, I will not relinquish my love, Though with swords they should cut me in pieces ! Up with me, O true love ! Let us delight ourselves Under the shade of the jasmine : We will pluck the peach from its mother, While the reproachers are unconscious.

O ye beautiful ones, fear God ! And have mercy on the lover for the sake of God. The love of the fair is ordained by Him : Allah hath decreed it against me." Then he changed to another and more plaintive native melody. This was more positively minor than the for mer, and abounded in that remarkable peculiarity of Eastern music — the division of tones into thirds — something unknown to European music, which has no finer division than semitones. These Orientals, spite of their archaic scales, have a nice discriminative ear. Hilwe still heard him in the distance, and thrilled to the sound, moving with gladdened step. She recognised the well-known air — the song of a bridegroom search ing for his missing bride. Perhaps it was the original, or, if not that, an echo of Solomon's ancient " Love-Song," in its simple unaffected declaration : In the night I arose and sought my beloved.

I sought her whom my soul loveth — I sought my bride, but I found her not. My life is wasted without her." The strains, the very notes, belonged to the people and the country. They were born of the environment, were its outcome, its creation. Besides those imperfect primitive scales of indefinite tonality, already referred to, and other as strange peculiarities of the music, there is no doubt that the language itself, differing in many respects from pure Arabic, has suggestive indications of similar import ; and has preserved and requires certain organs of vocalisation wanting in the European. It seems impossible for the latter to Hassan : a Fellah 13 produce exactly some of the more characteristic sounds of the Arabic, which seem a survival of prehistoric times, and originally to have been derived from the lower ani mals.

It is significant that examples of onomatopœia are most numerous in primitive tongues. Hassan had an unusually full deep voice for an Oriental. For, with all their pronounced virility, these people frequently have a high, weak voice, almost falsetto, and speak in a minor key. Close observers have said that even the cries of the animals in the East are all in this minor key. The natives themselves call the Arabic the language of the camel, from its peculiar guttural tones. It is curious to find fully-developed, stalwart men with querulous, high-keyed, whining voices, and totally lack ing the chest tones of the European, in whom they are quick to notice the opposite characteristics and depth of voice, which they sometimes, in ridicule, mimic, as gruff and overbearing. ' In this, and in a few other points, Hassan differed from the ordinary fellaheen.

But his greatest difference was in what they themselves would call his more civilized manners. Nor did they always intend this in a complimentary sense. Hassan, on the present occasion, had other auditors, unknown to him and out of sight — three members of that terrorising branch of the mounted police known as zaptiehs, who had stopped at the well to water their horses. One of the group, though the youngest, was evidently an officer, for he wore the undress or fatigue uniform of an aga or captain of zaptiehs, and his com panions addressed him as Kiamil Aga. He was a sol dierly, well-developed young man, with clean-cut limbs, and regular features. Alas, those regular features are too often a mask behind which hides much irregularity ! The plaintive strains of the music touched a sympathetic chord in the breast of the aga, absorbing his attention.

While his mind was thus diverted, the women who had drawn water and filled the stone trough for the horses, silently and rapidly disappeared. "Why, where are the women?" he cried, when he turned and missed them. Hassan : a Fellah 14 " They have departed." "How so?" " They know thee, Aga." At this familiar reply of one of the men, the aga, in stead of being offended, burst out laughing. " It is more likely they know thee," he presently retorted. The man, however, modestly declined the honour attributed to him. " But to whom are we indebted for the music ? " asked the captain. " Ah ! some fellah with his sheep, on the other side of the hill." " And is he sad or happy? " " Oh, happy ! Why, that is a love-song, Aga." " A love-song ! And does the man satisfy his love in that way ? " " Partly, Aga."

" Assad, thou knowest entirely too much for thine own good. But, come ; to saddle ! Let us mount. The horses have had all the water they want. We are due in Jerusalem early to-day, remember, and have no time to lose." As they turned into a bend in the road, Hassan caught sight of them. " There go the zaptiehs," he said, as he stopped sing ing. " I warrant they have been up to some mischief. To expect pity from them is like begging a husband from a widow."

Chapter II It

now may be necessary to state that, when little more than a mere boy, Hassan had once acted as a muleteer to a party of English and American tourists travelling through the Holy Land. One of these strangers, the wife of an American gentleman, on whom Hassan was especially deputed to wait, took so overweening a fancy to the bright, handsome lad, who Hassan : a Fellah 15 had been so polite, attentive and kind to her through out the journey, that, not satisfied with giving him a generous present over and above his pay, she persuaded her husband to make inquiries respecting him, with the object of having him educated. The result was that, for three or four years, Hassan was sent to one of the schools kept by the missionaries in Jerusalem. There was the less obstruction offered to this, from the fact that, though a Moslem, he was an orphan, and the pressure was not exerted which otherwise would have been brought to bear upon him through his parents, had he had such, by zealous and fanatic Mohammedans, who usually look upon such education as a species of proselytising; though it must be confessed that, as to the effect produced, there is little or nothing whatsoever to sustain any such opinion.