Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V. Various
when swollen with rains, it overflows the meadows that line its banks, up the valley, and becomes wholly impassable near its mouth. In the summer the stream often becomes so low that the sea, incessantly rolling in from the offing, fills up the outlet entirely with sand, and then smoothing over the dyke which it has made, it forms a beach on the outer slope of it, and thus the sandy shore of the bay is carried continuously across the mouth of the river, and the water is shut back as by a dam.
The next rain, however, and perhaps even the ordinary flow of the river, causes the water to accumulate and rise behind this barrier until it surmounts it. A small stream then begins to flow over the beach – rapidly increasing in force and volume as the sand is washed away – and thus the river regains once more its accustomed channel. This alternate closing and opening of the outlet of a river is a phenomenon often witnessed in cases where the river, at its mouth, traverses a sandy beach on a coast exposed to winds and storms.[3]
The distance from Haïfa to Acre along the shore of the bay is about eight miles. Acre itself has always been a very celebrated fortress, having figured as the central point of almost all great military operations in Syria for nearly two thousand years. It has experienced every possible form and phase of the fortune of war, having been assaulted, defended, besieged, destroyed, and rebuilt again and again, in an endless succession of changes, and in the experience of every possible fortune and misfortune which twenty centuries of uninterrupted military vicissitude could bring. Within the knowledge of the present generation it has been the scene of two terrific conflicts. Perhaps the most important of these events, in a historical point of view, was the struggle for the possession of the place between Napoleon and its English defenders, and the consequent check which was placed upon Napoleon's career, on his advance from Egypt into Syria. On his arrival at Acre, the young general found the port in possession of an English force under the command of Sir Sydney Smith, and though he made the most desperate and determined efforts to dislodge them, he was unable to succeed. He planted his batteries on the declivities of the hills behind the town, and cannonaded the walls from that position; while the English supported the garrison in their defense of the place, by firing upon the batteries of the besiegers from ships which they had anchored in the bay.
PRODUCTIONS OF THE COUNTRY
The plains and valleys which border the Carmel chain of mountains, especially on the northern side, are extremely fertile. They yield grapes, olives, corn, and other similar productions, in the greatest abundance, while the grass that clothes the slopes of the surrounding mountains, and adorns with verdure and beauty a thousand secluded valleys that wind among them, furnishes an almost exhaustless supply of food for flocks and herds. A considerable quantity of wheat, barley, cotton, and other similar products is exported, being brought down to Haïfa and Acre from the interior, on the backs of mules and camels, led by drivers in long caravans and trains. One traveler speaks of having been detained at the gates of Acre, when going out to make an excursion into the surrounding country, by a train of one hundred camels, laden with corn, that were just then coming in.
MISGOVERNMENT
The commerce of the port, however, would be vastly greater than it is, were it not for the exactions of the government which restrict and burden it exceedingly. It is true that governments generally maintain themselves by taxing the commerce of the countries over which they rule, but the despotic authorities that have borne military sway in Syria and Palestine for the last five hundred years, have done this, as it would seem, in a peculiarly exorbitant and reckless manner. A practice is adopted in those countries of "farming out" the revenue, as it is called; that is, the government sells the privilege of collecting a certain tax to some wealthy capitalist, who pays, or secures payment, in advance, and then collects from the people what is due, on his own account. Of course he is invested with power and authority from the government to enforce the collection, and as it is a matter of personal interest to him to make the amount that he receives as great as possible, he has every conceivable inducement to be extortionate and oppressive. The sufferers, too, in such cases generally find it useless to complain; for the government know well that, if they wish to obtain high prices from the farmers of the revenue, from year to year, they must not obstruct them in any way in the claims which they make, or the measures which they adopt, in collecting the amounts due, from the people.
In the more highly civilized and commercial nations of the world, a very different system is adopted. The revenue is never farmed, but it is collected by officers appointed for the purpose, in the name and for the benefit of the government; and generally in such a way, that they who assess the tax, have no direct pecuniary interest – or, at most, a very inconsiderable one – in the amount whether larger or smaller, which they receive. The assessors and collectors thus occupy, in some respects, the position of impartial umpires between the government and the people, with very slight influences operating upon their minds, to produce a bias in favor of one side or the other. Even in this way, the evils and disadvantages of raising national revenues by taxing commercial transactions, are very great, while, in the form that has so long prevailed in Syria and Palestine, the result is utterly disastrous. The taxes are increased, under one pretext or another, until the poor peasant and laborer finds himself robbed of every thing but the bare means of subsistence. All hope and possibility of acquiring property by his industry and thrift, and of rising to a respectable position in society are taken away from him, and he spends his life in idleness, degradation, and despair.
AN INCIDENT
An incident strikingly illustrative of these truths, occurred to a traveler who was visiting Acre, about the year 1815. One morning, in rambling about the city, he chanced to come into the vicinity of the custom house, at the port, and there he overheard a violent dispute going on between some fishermen and a certain farmer of the revenue – probably a wealthy merchant of the town – who was standing near. It seems that a duty of about thirty-three per cent., that is, one-third part of the whole price, had been laid upon all fish that should be taken in the bay and brought into the port for sale; and the privilege of collecting the tax had been sold to the merchant, who was engaged in the dispute. It had been calculated that the remaining two-thirds of the value of the fish would be sufficient to induce the fishermen to continue their vocation. It proved, however, not to be so. The cost of boats and outfit, and the other expenses which were necessarily incurred in the prosecution of the business, were so great, that the poor fishermen found when they had returned to the shore and sold their fares, and paid the expenses of their trip, that the government tax took so large a portion of what remained, as to leave little or nothing over, to reimburse them for their labor. They accordingly became discouraged, and began to abandon the employment; so that the farmer who had bought the right to collect the tax, was alarmed at finding that the revenue was likely to fail altogether, inasmuch as for every five boats that had been accustomed to go out to fish before, only one went now. The dispute which attracted the attention of the traveler was occasioned by the anger of the farmer, who was assailing the fishermen with bitter invectives and criminations, and threatening to compel them to go out to fish, in order that he might receive his dues.
THE TYRANT DJEZZAR
For many years extending through the latter part of the last century, and the earlier portion of the present one, the narratives of travelers visiting Acre are filled with accounts of the tyranny and oppression exercised upon the people of the country by a certain despot named Djezzar, the history of whose government illustrates very forcibly the nature of the injuries to which the wretched inhabitants of those countries are compelled to submit. Djezzar, in his infancy was carried into Egypt a slave, and sold to Ali-Bey, a celebrated ruler of that country. In the service of Ali-Bey he rose to high civil stations, and at length, after passing through a great number of vicissitudes and romantic adventures, in the course of which he was transferred to the service of the Turkish government, he was placed by the Turks in command of the Pachalik of Acre, in 1775. Here he ruled with such despotic cruelty, that he made himself an object of universal execration to all mankind, excepting always those who had placed him in power; for they seemed to be pleased rather than otherwise with his remorseless and terrible energy. One of the first measures which he adopted when he entered upon his government, was to confiscate all the houses of the town of Acre, declaring them the property of the government, and requiring the inhabitants
A striking example of this occurs at Long Branch in New Jersey, where a stream crosses the beach in entering the sea, at a point about half a mile to the southward of the hotels resorted to on that coast in summer by bathers. The visitor who walks along the shore in that direction, sometimes at a certain point finds himself upon an elevated sandy ridge, with the surf of the sea rolling in upon one side of it, and what appears to be a large inland pond lying quietly on the other. A few days afterward, on visiting the spot, he observes, perhaps, that the pond has disappeared; and a wide chasm has been made across the ridge of sand that he walked over before in safety, through the centre of which a small stream is flowing quietly into the sea. Neither of these views are of a nature to awaken any very special interest, except when they are considered in connection with each other: but if the observer should chance to come upon the ground when the pond is nearly full, he may witness a very extraordinary spectacle in the rushing out of the torrent by which the barrier is carried away. The boys of the vicinity often find amusement in hastening the catastrophe, by digging a little channel in the sand with their hands, when the water has risen nearly to the proper level. The stream that flows through this opening is at first extremely small, but it grows wider, deeper, and more rapid every moment, as the opening enlarges, and soon becomes a roaring torrent, spreading to a great width, and tossing itself into surges and crests as it rushes down the slope into the sea, in the most wild and tumultuous manner.
The spectacle is almost equally imposing when, after the pond has emptied itself, and the tide begins to rise, the surf of the sea engages in its work of reconstructing the dam.