Northeast of the ruin is a little inclined path that leads underground, where there is a fine old olive-press. It is of the kind generally used, though recently some screw-presses have been introduced into Râm Allâh.
There are two sorry-looking fig-trees in the grounds, the fruit of which is said to be free to all comers. Here and there in the country these traditionally free fruit-trees are seen. I remember one on the valley road to Bayt ‛Ur et-Taḥtâ. The whole property, otherwise, is _ḥarâm_, that is, sacrosanct. The dwellers in Palestine have a very vivid sense of that ecclesiastical or religious quality that attaches to a place once acknowledged as devoted to religious purposes. Despite all encroachments, persecutions of hostile governments or religions, the mind of the people persists in returning again and again to the subject of the sacred nature of any such spot, and this obstinate tradition sooner or later gets that piece of property back under the care of the church. The Râm Allâh people tell a story which illustrates how the _powers_ assist in preserving devoted things. “One day a man was digging in the ground when his pickaxe (_fass_) struck against the lid of a copper vessel (ṭunjereh) containing treasure,[202] but as he began to clear away the soil so as to come at the find, his hands became, as it were, bound together with cords and his feet were likewise powerless.”
Out beyond the enclosing walls of the Greek property are fine olive-trees and many heaps of old building stone, with other evidences of a former habitation of men. The land and olives west of the Ṣalâ‛t eṭ-Ṭîreh are owned by a well-to-do Râm Allâh family, Dâr Abu Firmand. The view of Râm Allâh from this place is very good, impressing one with the fact that it is indeed situated on a rise of ground, which effect one does not get in coming to it from the higher ground to the south and east of the village. A vague story is told of a former prosperous settlement of Christians at eṭ-Ṭîreh and of their massacre.
The road from Râm Allâh toward the northwest runs just under one of the walls of the enclosure at Ṣalâ‛t eṭ-Ṭîreh, having that wall for its left-hand boundary. After passing the walled grounds thus on the left a little valley begins, branching off from the main path and running down to the right. It is called the Khullet el-‛Adas and in the late winter is well filled with varicolored anemones. On the right side of the valley, up in the terraces, are tombs, five or six of which I have seen and three of which I have measured. The first one is the farthest from the path that runs down into the Khulleh, but it is not more than two stones’-throw from the nearest corner of eṭ-Ṭîreh enclosure. About the entrance to the tomb the rock has been scarped to a width of eight feet two inches and to a height of five feet. There is the usual low entrance to the tomb-chamber. In this case the doorway is about two feet high. It is eighteen inches wide and is bordered with a cut facing five inches wide. The inner chamber, ten feet wide and eight feet eight inches deep, has five vaulted niches, one opposite the chamber entrance and two on each side. Just within the chamber, at the right of the entrance, in the corner, is a tiny niche, like those in a columbarium, probably for a lamp. The second of these tombs is nearer the path, a little way down the valley. Its door measurements are similar to those given for number one, except that the width is one inch more. The inner chamber has but three niches, each one with rounded top as before, but with a squared facing at the entrance. The third tomb is yet nearer the path. The facing, cut about the entrance to the chamber, is seven inches on each side. The width of the entrance is eighteen inches. In the chamber, as in those mentioned above, there are three vaulted niches, but they are very high and considerably deeper than in tombs numbers one and two. The remaining tombs mentioned are higher up the hillside and still farther away. Numbers two and three of those described are easily seen from the valley path.