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1 Kings 10-16; 2Ch_2:10; 2Ch_2:15-18
We are more interested in inquiring into the system organized for the cutting and squaring the wood in the mountains, and the removal of it to Joppa.
Solomon allowed that some of his people were skilful to cut timber, “like the Zidonians;” and it was therefore arranged, that Hiram was to supply a certain number of workmen to direct the proceedings, and perform the more difficult parts of the work; for it is to be remembered, that all the timber was fully prepared and fitted for its final use, on the spot, not only to facilitate the work at Jerusalem, but that no labor might be wasted in the transport of the superfluous parts. So small and busy a state as that of Tyre, could not, however, supply all the numerous hands required for the ruder labor, such as trimming the wood, and dragging it down through the defiles of the mountains to the coast. For this Solomon undertook to find laborers. How were they to be found? David had, it seems, subdued all the remnants of the Canaanitish tribes, and at so late a period, when they were no longer dangerous, and national animosities had abated, considered himself exempted from the obligation of extirpating them. He had therefore spared them, on the condition, not of reducing them to personal slavery, but of their being liable to be called out for service on any public works that might need their aid. They were now therefore numbered, and the adult males were found to amount to 153,600. Of these 70,000 were made hewers of wood, 80,000 bearers of burdens, and 3,600 overseers of the others. A levy of 30,000 Israelites was also made for this service, and there were 550 Israelites as overseers of the whole work. They were not all employed at once, but in relays of one third at a time, so that every man spent four months at home and two in the mountains. This, and the great numbers employed, must have rendered the obligation less onerous than has been represented. These arrangements were continued for several years on a well organized plan. The wood prepared by these multitudes was taken down to the sea, there made up into large rafts, and floated down along the shore to Joppa, whereby the land-carriage was reduced to about twenty-five miles to Jerusalem. To support these laborers, and to remunerate Hiram for the aid of his people, Solomon agreed to supply the king, year by year, with 20,000 measures of wheat, 20,000 baths of wine, and 20,000 baths of oil.
It may not be known, that something of the same kind of operations were going on, upon a smaller scale indeed, in Lebanon, during the time Syria was in possession of the Pasha of Egypt, who had great need of timber for various uses, and whose proceedings in procuring it seem to us to illustrate, in many particulars, those of Hiram and Solomon for the same purpose—especially as to the manner in which laborers were obtained for the service, and the mode in which they were supplied with food.
Most of the wood destined for Egypt was embarked at Scanderoon, and was of course obtained as near as might be from the mountains by which the bay is bordered. The timber chiefly procured was yellow oak, green oak, whitish-yellow pines or fir, beech, and linden. The last is the largest, but it is scarce; next to that the yellow oak, then the beech. Note: The following are the sizes of the different kinds—Yellow Oak, 80 feet long by 18 to 20 inches square; Green Oak, 18 to 20 feet by 7 to 9 inches; Beech, 30 to 35 feet by 14 to 15 inches; Pine, 30 feet by 16 to 20 inches; Linden, 40 to 50 feet by 25 to 27 inches. The oak of both kinds is straight-grained, like the American; the pine is very knotty and full of turpentine; the beech is of a good, close-grained quality, but not nearly so plentiful as the other two. In the year 1887, about 750 men were employed in the mountains, of whom 250 were occupied in cutting down the trees, and the rest, twice that number, in trimming and dressing the same; and to bring down these to the sea, required the labor of 1,200 men, with practicable roads, and with buffaloes and bullocks. If obtained from parts of the mountains remote from the coast, with difficult roads, and without the help of animals, the number required for the transport would of course be proportionally greater. We thus see the comparatively small number of Phoenician fellers, whose work would suffice to supply labor to the large levies of Solomon. By the Pasha’s men, about 60,000 trees were cut down, trimmed, and brought down to the coast in one year, besides about 5,000 abandoned on the road from the difficulty of transport. Of these, 40,000 were fit for ship-building purposes, and the remainder far house-purposes. The wood was freighted for Alexandria in thirty-nine vessels, collectively of 14,120 tons burden, besides eight or nine small craft of eighty or ninety tons, which received cargoes of fire-wood.
From this statement, it is not difficult to discover one of the causes which has made the mountain forests of Syria a covetable possession to the rulers of Egypt, from the Pharaohs and Ptolemies down to the Moslem sultans and to Mehemet Ali. It also enables us to see the extent to which the nearer forests of Lebanon must have been denuded of their trees to meet the large wants of a country so void of timber as Egypt.
But let us turn to the laborers employed in these operations. They were, like the laborers of Solomon, and probably of Hiram, pressed into the service. In this case they are however, more oppressively, taken from the immediate neighborhood, all the effective men being forced into the service, leaving not a sufficient number to till the ground for their own maintenance. But grain was imported by the government (as by king Hiram from Palestine) from other parts of Syria and from Egypt, and issued to the men as a portion of their pay. This pay was nominally three piasters, or seven pence half-penny a-day; but which came short fully one third, by their being obliged to take a fixed portion in grain, without reference to their actual wants, and more than they required, at a fixed price, which is so enhanced in various ways, and under various pretences, as to be much higher than it could be procured for in the neighborhood. It is very likely, the system being an old one, that Hiram dealt thus with the corn he obtained from Solomon, unless the interests of the Hebrew subjects employed were protected by the presence of the king’s own officers.
The men employed in transporting the timber to the coast, receive each a pair and a half of bullocks, which are valued to them at from 700 to 1000 piasters a pair, which sum they are debited with, and must make good in case of loss, accident, or death. The effect of this is, that when a man meets with such a misfortune before he has the means of repairing it, which he can rarely hope to do, he has no resource but flight.
The season for working the timber is but eight months, from the middle of March till the middle of November. During the remaining four months, the people are left in a great measure to themselves; but being winter months, they cannot turn them to much account, unless to prepare and sow a little land for the most pressing exigencies of their families; but a few of them who have trades, find some employment in the neighboring villages. Independently of such resources, their yearly earnings may be thus—The cutters get two and a half piasters a-day, for 224 working days; which makes in all about four pounds eight shillings, after deducting about twelve shillings for contingencies. The trimmers get three piasters a-day, or six pounds for the whole term, which, after deducting about sixteen shillings for contingencies, leaves about five pounds four shillings. The transporters have three and a half piasters a-day, making in all about seven pounds; but from this must be deducted more than half for the keep of animals, leaving them less than four pounds—so that they remain in a worse condition than even the cutters, although their nominal wages are one third higher.
In regard to the last branch of employment, it seems to us likely that the arrangement was different in the time of Solomon; for, considering the great quantity of timber secured by the comparatively small number of men employed by the Egyptian government in 1837, it is difficult to account for the employment of such vast numbers in the earlier time, but by supposing that the labor of men was employed instead of that of cattle, in dragging the timber down from the mountains to the shore.