CHAPTER XIX
KUDES-SAFED-KEFR BUR'IAM.
March 6th (1857 CE).
...
It was just before sunset on a quiet Sabbath evening — January 1, 1837 — when the shock occurred. A pale, smoky haze obscured the sun,
and threw an air of sadness over the closing day, and a lifeless and oppressive calm had settled down upon the face of nature. These
phenomena are, however, not very uncommon in this country, and may have had no connection with the earthquake. Our native church at
Beirut were gathered round the communion-table, when suddenly the house began to shake fearfully, and the stone floor to heave and roll
like a ship in a storm. " Hezzy ! Hezzy ! "
1 burst from every trembling lip as all rushed out into the yard. The house was
cracked from top to bottom, but no further injury was sustained. The shock was comparatively slight in Beirut, but still many houses
were seriously shattered, and some on the river entirely thrown down. During the week succeeding this Sabbath, there came flying reports
from various quarters of towns and villages destroyed, and lives lost ; but so slow does information travel in this country, especially
in winter, that it was not until eight days had elapsed that any reliable accounts were received. Then letters arrived from Safed
with the startling intelligence that the whole town had been utterly overthrown, and that Tiberias, and many other places in this region,
had shared the same fate. Some of the letters stated that not more than one in a hundred of the inhabitants had escaped.
As soon as these awful facts hod been ascertained, collections were made at Beirut to relieve the survivors, and Mr. C - and myself selected
to visit this region, and distribute to the needy and the wounded. Passing by Sidon, we associated with ourselves Mr. A and two of his sons
to act as physicians. In Sidon the work of destruction became very noticeable, and in Tyre still more so. We rode into the latter at midnight
over her prostrate walls, and found some of the streets so choked up with fallen houses that we could not pass through them. I shall retain
a vivid recollection of that dismal night while life lasts. The wind had risen to a cold, cross gale, which howled through shattered walls
and broken windows its doleful wail over ruined Tyre. The people were sleeping in boats drawn up on shore, and in tents beside them, while
half-suspended shutters and doors unhinged were creaking and tinging in dreadful concert. On the 17th we reached Rumaish, where we met the
first real confirmation of the letters from Safed. The village seemed quite destroyed. Thirty people had been crushed to death under their
falling houses, and many more would have shared the same fate if they had not been at evening prayers in church. The building was low and
compact, so that it was not seriously injured. After distributing medicine to the wounded and charity to the destitute, we went on to Jish.
Of this village not one house remained ; all had been thrown down, and the church also, burying the entire congregation of one hundred and
thirty-five persons under the ruins. Not one escaped except the priest, who was saved by a projection of the arch over the altar. The
entire vaulted roof, with its enormous mass of superincumbent stone and earth, fell inward in a moment, and of course escape was impossible.
Fourteen dead bodies lay there still unburied.
On the morning of the 18th we reached Safed, and I then understood, for the first time what desolations God can work when he ariseth
to shake terribly the earth. Just before we began to ascend the hill, we met our consular agent of Sidon returning with his widowed,
childless sister. Her husband, a merchant of Safed, had been buried up to the neck by the ruins of his house, and in that state
remained several days, calling in vain for help, and at last perished before he could be reached and set free. As we ascended the hill,
we saw large rents and cracks in the earth and rocks, and, though not so large as a chasm at Jish which I examined in the morning,
still they gave fearful indications of what was to be expected. But all anticipation, every imagination was utterly confounded when the
reality burst upon our sight. I had all the while refused to give full credit to the reports, but one frightful glance convinced me
that it was not in the power of language to overdraw or exaggerate such a ruin. We came first to the Jewish half of the town,
which contained about four thousand inhabitants two years before when I was there, and seemed like a busy hive of Israelites ;
— now not a house remained standing. The town was built, as its successor is, upon the side of the mountain, which is so
steep that the roofs of the houses below formed the street for those above ; when, therefore, the shock dashed all to the ground,
the highest fell on the next below, that upon the third, and so on to the bottom, burying each successive row of houses deeper and
deeper under accumulated masses of rubbish. From this cause it happened that many who were not instantaneously killed perished before
they could be rescued, and others were rescued five, six, and even seven days after the earthquake, still alive. A friend of mine
told me that he found his wife dead, with one child under her arm, and the babe with the nipple in its mouth : it had died of
hunger, trying to draw life from its dead mother. Parents heard their little ones crying, Papa ! Mamma ! fainter and fainter, until
hushed in death, while they were struggling to free themselves, or labouring with desperate energy to throw off the fallen rocks and
timber from their dying children. 0 God of mercy ! my heart even now sickens at the thought of that long black winter's night,
which closed around the wretched remnants of Safed in half an hour after the overthrow — without a light or possibility of getting one,
four-fifths of the population under the ruins, dead or dying, with frightful groans, and shrieks of agony and despair, and the earth
trembling and shaking all the while, as if affrighted at the horrible desolation she had wrought.
Most hideous spectacle, may I never see its like ! Nothing met the eye but a vast chaos of stone and earth, timber and boards,
tables, chairs, beds, clothing, and every kind of household furniture, mingled in horrible confusion ; men
everywhere at work, worn out and woe-begone, uncovering their houses in search of the mangled bodies of lifeless friends,
while here and there were companies of two or three each, bearing away a dreadful load of corruption to the tomb.
I covered my face, and passed on through the wretched remnants of Safed. Some were weeping in despair, others laughing
in callousness still more distressing ; here an old man sat alone on the wreck of his once crowded house ; there a child
at play, too young to realize that it had neither father nor mother, nor relative of any name in the wide, wide world.
They crowded round us with loud lamentations, as if kindness unsealed the flood-gates of their sorrow — husbands without wives, wives without husbands ;
parents child-less, and children without parents, and not a few left the solitary remnants of large families. The people were scattered
abroad above and below the ruins, in tents of old boards, old carpets, mats, brush, and earth, while some poor creatures,
wounded and bruised, were left among the tottering walls, exposed to a horrible death from the loose and falling stones above them.
As soon as our tent was pitched and our medicines and stores opened, we set sight out to visit the sufferers. But I have no heart to
recall the sights and scenes of that morning : bodies crushed and swollen out of all human shape, and in every stage of mortification,
dying hourly without hope of relief ; they were crowded into old vaults, where the air was tainted beyond endurance. Very soon we returned,
and commenced arrangements to erect a temporary hospital, without which it was useless to attempt anything for the sufTerers.
On this we all laboured incessantly, and by the 19th it was ready for their reception. Having collected them in it, and distributed
medicines and clean bandages in abundance, we placed them under the care of a native doctor hired for the purpose, and then left for
Tiberias. It was most refreshing to breathe once more the pure air of the open country, free from the horrible sights and scents
of Safed. Nor shall I soon forget that pleasant ride to Tiberias, particularly in the evening, and along the shore of the lake.
Gennesaret lay like infancy asleep. The sun settled quietly down behind the hills of Nazareth, and the full moon shone kindly through
the hazy atmosphere on lake and land, faintly revealing the scenes where the Saviour of the world had wandered, and preached, and
healed all manner of disease.
The destruction of life in Tiberias had not been so great as at Safed, but the houses and walls of the city were fearfully shattered.
About six hundred perished under the ruins, and there were scenes of individual suffering not exceeded by any in Safed. Many of the
wounded had been carried down to the hot baths, where we visited them. They informed me that at the time of the earthquake the
quantity of water at these springs was immensely increased, and that it was so hot that people could not pass along the road across
which it flowed. This, I suppose, was fact ; but the reports that smoke and boiling water were seen to issue from many places,
and flames of fire from others, I believe were either fabrications or at least exaggerations. I could find no one who had actually
seen these phenomena, though all had heard of them.
On the 22d we left Tiberias, and reached Nazareth in the night, having distributed medicines and clothes at Lubich, Sejera, Kefr Kenna, and
Reineh. In all these villages, except Kefr Kenna, the earthquake had been very destructive, while in others on either side of us no
injury had been sustained. This erratic and apparently capricious course led one of my companions to remark that it was the exact
fulfilment of our Lord's words in Matthew xxiv. 7 : " There shall be earthquakes in divers places." There may be something in the
geological formation of these plains and mountains which occasioned these extraordinary exceptions ; but whether we can or cannot
explain the phenomenon, the fact is certain that some villages were entirely destroyed, and others close to them suffered no injury.
And though the present earthquake is in no way referred to in that prophecy of our Lord, yet similar occurrences in ancient times
may have suggested, or rather may have rendered the reference appropriate. At Nazareth our mission terminated, and we returned by
the ordinary route to Beirut, having been absent eighteen days in the middle of winter, with bright, clear weather, so that even
on the mountains we were able to sleep in the tent without inconvenience.
... And here is Kefr Bur'iam
* and it has taken us three hours and a quarter to come from Safed ; the distance,
however, is not more than nine miles.
We have still to examine the antiquities of this village. This edifice among the houses is tolerably perfect, and the style of
architecture is wholly peculiar. These sheaf-like carvings on the columns and cornices are neither Roman nor Greek. In its present
form it probably was a synagogue of the second or third century. An old villager tells me that he remembers when there
was a row of columns above those now seen, but the earthquake of 1837 threw them down, and all those along the north end of the edifice.
1 "Earthquake! earthquake!"
* ["Kefr Bur'iam was for many centuries a place of Jewish pilgrimage. It was said in the twelfth century to contain the tombs of
Barak the conqueror of Slsera, and Obadiah the prophet ; to these was added that of Queen Esther, In the sixteenth century.
Round these shrines the Jews of Safed were wont to assemble each year on the feast of Purlm, to eat, drink, and rejoice —
a few Individuals of special sanctity still make a passing visit to the spot, to pray over tombs so traditionally holy"
- [Handbook for Syria and Palestine, p. 440).— Ed.]
